The Multiverse in a Nutshell

by Pennington Inkwell

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 7 (EqG), Violence, Crossover, Death, Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character, Dark, Comedy, Other, Self Insert, Adventure, Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 619929

What do you do when you accidentally break the multiverse and scatter your friends to the cosmic winds? Go on a ROAD TRIP, of course!

Graduation was supposed to be a happy day for the Rainbooms. Sunset and Princess Twilight had both agreed to temporarily shut the portal to Equestria so they could leave CHS safe and sound while they went on a post-graduation band tour. However, instead of SHUTTING the portal, they somehow made it explode, shattering the multiverse and scattering the Rainbooms across countless different universes. Now, Sunset Shimmer finds herself face-to-face with creatures straight out of dreams and nightmares, from the pages of legend to the screen of cinema.

Her best chance to reunite with her friends and get home: a self-proclaimed "Giant Nerd" and his old jalopy of a car, both of which are native to a world of silent observers of the multiverse, including her own life with the Rainbooms. Between his guidance and her courage, the two of them are determined to reunite the Rainbooms and get them back home...

Even if that means facing ink demons, xenomorphs, genocidal time-looping children, or even Egyptian god cards.

((The most blatant of self-insert fics. I am 100% aware of that. This is just a project to help me unwind.))

Published 2018-12-02 19:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2024-11-19 22:22:37 UTC

So Long, and Thanks for All the Friends

Sunset had never thought that the day would come: Graduation.

Today was the last day of school before the ceremony that night, and the Rainbooms were waiting their way through their last period: study hall. Rarity was happily humming to herself and doodling in her sketchbook, while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were both huddled over a notebook, making last-minute adjustments to the new song they had written to perform at the the ceremony that night. Applejack was plucking away at her bass with ever-impressive dexterity and Twilight had joined Vinyl in optimizing their equipment for the night.

"TASTE TEST!"

Sunset was snapped out of her reverie as PInkie Pie shoved a cupcake up to her lips. She couldn't hold back a grin as she obediently opened her mouth, allowing Pinkie to shove the pastry into her jaw. The flavor was explosive, filling Sunset's mouth with the taste of strawberries and creamy sugar frosting.

"MMMmmm..."

"Well? What do you think?"

"Ish goo!" Sunset mumbled, grinning from ear to ear around her mouthful of moist cake.

Pinkie reached into her hair, retrieving a clipboard and pen and carefully scrutinizing her reaction.

"Soo, would you rate that ABOVE or below the key lime?"

Applejack sighed, finally bringing her playing to a stop. "Oh, for Pete's sake, Pinkie! You've been testing flavors all day! You're gonna send us all into a sugar coma before the ceremony even starts, and poor Sunset's got the worst of it!"

Pinkie gasped, her hand flying to her chest in shock.

"The WORST of it? Applejack, these are my most tried-and-true recipes, and I serve only the BEST to my friends! And I'm going to need the abso-tively posi-lutely best of the best for our graduation! I want EVERYONE in our class to associate the best NIGHT ever with the best TASTE ever, that way they'll never, ever, EVER forget it!"

Sunset chuckled, swallowing the last of the cupcake.

"Better than the key lime, but I'd say it's equal to the red velvet!"

"But isn't Bulk Biceps allergic to strawberries?" Twilight asked, looking up from her soldering work with Vinyl.

Pinkie Pie gasped again, the sheer force of the action seeming to carry her up into the air before she dashed to the tray, scanning over the assortment and cramming half a dozen into her mouth at once, somehow swallowing them all in seconds and sinking to the ground in relief.

"Okay, no more strawberries for Bulk, no citrus zest to cover Pixel Pizzaz, no peanuts for Micro Chips, and no shellfish for Soarin!"

Sunset and the rest of the girls exchanged nervous glances, all picking up Pinkie's casual implication of shellfish being present in the cupcakes. Before any of them could comment, however, Pinkie was already back on her feet, reaching for the next one.

"Okay! Who wants to try the next one?"

Sunset grinned and raised her hand, spurring Pinkie to grab another cupcake for her. She wanted to take in as much of this time as she could, savor every sense. Her time left with her friends was limited, after all. After graduation, the Rainbooms were planning on going on a cross-country tour as a final hurrah before the group split up. After that, Fluttershy was planning on becoming a full-time employee at the animal shelter, with hopes of saving up to open her own wildlife reserve someday. Rarity was going off to an internship with a big-name fashion designer, hoping to get her "big break" in Los Pegasus. Applejack was going to start tackling the full-time care of her family's farm, and Twilight had gotten a full ride scholarship to the Manehatten Institute of Technology's robotics program (a fact that had made Sunset somewhat jealous). Rainbow Dash had exceeded everyone's expectations, getting her free pick of just about any college she could ask for bringing her on board with sports scholarships of every kind.

As for Sunset, she had made up her mind: the incident with the memory stone and her opportunity to see Princess Celestia again had convinced her that it might be time that she returned to Equestria and picked up her magical studies where she had left off, now with the improved vision and scope that her friendships had provided her. Princess Twilight had offered her an advance admission into her "School of Friendship" or to put in a good word with Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She still hadn't decided if she would take either offer.

The Rainbooms would always be the best of friends, nothing could ever break that, but they were all individuals leading individual lives, it was inevitable that the time would come for them to part ways.

Just as Pinkie was about to shove another cupcake into her mouth, Sunset felt a familiar shaking coming from her backpack.

"OOO! MAGICAL EQUESTRIA PRINCESS TEXT!" Pinkie shouted, tossing aside the cupcake and diving for Sunset's backpack in a mad dash to be the first one to the book. Unfortunately for her, Sunset's hand was faster, plucking the book from her backpack before Pinkie tackled it, sending both herself and the backpack sliding out the door and into the hallway, the door swinging firmly shut behind her.

Sunset and the rest of her friends all looked at one another, wondering whether or not they should go check on her.

"III'm ookAY!" Pinkie's unsteady voice came floating back, sounding dazed from the impact. Applejack shook her head, going back to strumming on her bass.

"Ah swear, that girl's made a' rubber... Anyway, what's the word from Equestria, Sunset?"

Sunset cracked open the book just as the last bell rang, signaling their final release from High School.

Everything is ready on my end, what about yours?

Sunset glanced around the room one last time, taking in the sight of all of her friends in one place. This was the last time that they would all gather in this room together, the home of so many of their memories. Clicking the top of her pen, she scrawled a short return message.

Give us ten minutes to gather at the front of the school.

"It's time."

The rest of the girls all stopped to give one another uncertain glances. Applejack was the first to move, quickly finishing the last measures of "5 to 9" and placing her bass in its case.

"Welp, time's a'wastin', I guess... Let's go close that portal."

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. Something about what they were about to do felt... wrong.

"Is this... really necessary?" Fluttershy asked quietly, running her fingers along the edge of the mirror that served as the portal to Equestria. "I mean, what if there's some kind of magical emergency? What if Princess Twilight needs our help? What if-" her worried muttering was cut off as Pinkie Pie jumped up in front of her to interject.

"What if there's some kind of magical feedback loop caused by time travelling heroes from the future that causes the whole portal to go KABLOOIE, SCATTERING US ALL ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE AND DESTROYING THE RAINBOOMS FOREVER?"

There was a short pause as everyone turned to stare at Pinkie's typical overreaction, while Fluttershy seemed to have gone catatonic at the mere thought, whimpering and nodding with a thousand-mile-stare.

"Trust me, Princess Twilight and I have accounted for every possible variable, and checked all of our math at least a dozen times." Sunset sighed, walking over and gently shaking Fluttershy's shoulder to snap her out of her day-mare. "Nothing could possibly go wrong!"

"OOOOH! You shouldn't have said that!" Pinkie cried, nervously chewing on her nails to illustrate her point.

"Besides, how long have we been planning this tour? We can't leave CHS for three months with the portal open, it'll be totally unprotected if some kind of crazy monster comes through!" Sunset sighed, rubbing her temples. "Look, no one is more reluctant to do this than me, believe me! But we'll be able to open it again any time that we want, just so long as we have the journal and the elements! The portal is my only way home if I want to return to Equestria, but I trust you all enough to put my fate in your hands. We won't mess this up."

The rest of the girls all looked between one another, each one taking their turn to nod in affirmation, finally ending with everyone looking at Pinkie Pie, who stopped chewing on her nails just long enough to shrug carelessly.

"Meh, I'm sure everything will be fine! It'll all work out in the end!"

One by one, each of her friends joined hands, finally ending with Twilight and Applejack each offering her their hands to complete the circle. Sunset smiled and took hold, her geode beginning to glow and the power of the Elements of Harmony rising up inside her.

Together, they all began to rise up into the air, the power sparking between each of them. On the other side of the portal, Sunset knew that Princess Twilight and her friends were doing the exact same thing, preparing to use their power to shut the portal from both sides at the same time.

The magic grew stronger and stronger, and with well-rehearsed care, they all turned to face the portal, reaching out their hands one by one. Finally, as the giddy energy reached the point where Sunset was beginning to feel like she was ready to burst, beams of colored light leaped forward, joining together into a massive white beam that struck the center of the mirror. Sunset could see matching light seemingly coming from behind the glass, indicating that the group in Equestria was matching their actions step by step. Everything was going according to plan.

Without warning, however, Sunset felt something unprecedented: a tremor in the Elements. An imbalance in the harmony. Glancing over, she could see the orange light coming from Applejack glowing even brighter, a grimace of pain on her face as her geode began to crackle with more and more electrical power.

"AJ, you're coming on too strong! You need to back it down a bit!" Sunset shouted, trying to make herself heard over the sound of the elements. She and Twilight had allowed a margin for error in their calculations, but it wasn't much. If the elements on one side were thrown out of balance, it could ruin everything in only a few short seconds.

"I- I CAN'T!" Applejack shouted back, letting go of Sunset's hand to grab at her geode. "Mah geode's goin' nuts! It- It's like it's overcharged! I gotta get it off!"

"Just a few more seconds! Hang in there!" Rainbow Dash interjected. "It's almost there, I can feel- AAUGH!" She cried out in pain as her geode seemed to explode with power, wrapping her body in a cocoon of blue electricity.

"RAINBOW DASH!"

This was too much. They had to stop, no matter the consequences. Closing the portal wasn't worth losing her friends. Sunset reached deep down inside herself, trying to let go of the power of the Elements of Harmony, to break the loop and let it dissipate.

But the magic didn't respond, only growing stronger.

You took everything from me, and now I'll force you to watch as I destroy everything you LOVE!

Sunset blinked, trying to understand. She had heard a voice, as if she were reading someone's mind with her magic, but it was a voice she had never heard before.

You'll never get away with this! This time Sunset heard her own voice, speaking words she didn't remember, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a stifled grunt of pain.

This feeling? SAVE it... For the rest of your life.

NOOOO! As Sunset heard her own scream of desperation, a vision overwhelmed her sight: a great white dragon covered in gold and rainbow gemstones, towering over CHS and letting loose a roar that shook Sunset down to her bones.

And with that, Sunset snapped back to the moment. She couldn't even see her friends behind the blinding light of their geodes. Below them, glowing white cracks had spread not only across the mirror portal, but out and into the air itself, like when Midnight Sparkle had opened the rifts to Equestria, only this time there was nothing on the other side, only blinding white light and a deafening humming. Finally, in one last, painful shudder that racked through her body, Sunset felt more power than she ever had come rushing out of her at once, spraying out of the tips of her fingers and pouring out of her eyes, making her hair stand on end and her teeth vibrate.

And then, with one final sound of the mirror shattering, Sunset slipped into the darkness of dreamless unconsciousness, her only company one final, unfamiliar voice.

You go on ahead, Sunny. I'll take care of it...

Author's Note

I hope everyone can bear with me on this, I just need SOMETHING to work on outside of the Happy Adventuring series. It's gotten so dark and gloomy lately it can literally be a pain for me to work on. I just need SOMETHING else I can work on to get away from it from time to time.

Wake Me Up When It's All Over

Sunset awoke to a pounding pain in her head. She tried to open her eyes, only to be immediately blinded by scorching sunlight. Slowly, she tried to sit up, feeling coarse dirt and dead grass under her palms. Cracking open her eyes a second time, she found herself sitting on the edge of some kind of public park, complete with outdated-looking playground equipment. The grass was brown and dead, and the sun was beating down on her in a miserable wave of heat. Above her, the sky stretched on as far as the eye could see, with nary a cloud to provide relief from the sun. The horizon was as flat as a sheet of paper, with no visible landmarks in sight.

Where... am I?

There was a flash as her memories all came flooding back.

The portal! The elements! My friends!

...Where are my friends?

Despite the searing heat, Sunset's blood ran cold as she turned and re-examined her surroundings, searching for any sign of her friends. There was nothing but empty swings and a few sorry-looking trees. Sunset felt a lump welling up in her throat as panic began to overtake her.

Did- did I lose them? Did the spell backfire? Did they fall through the portal? The geodes were reacting so violently, who KNOWS what could have happened to them?

Still woozy from waking up, the stress was making Sunset's head start to spin as burning tears began to run down her cheeks.

I thought we did our math right? I double and triple-checked all of the numbers, myself! I- I- This is my fault. This is all my fault! I missed something, and now all my friends are- they're-

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Slowly, the world stopped spinning and her hands stopped trembling. As her strength came back to her, she rose to her feet, wiping away the tears from her face.

If it's my fault, then I'll fix it. The first step is to figure out where I am.

Sunset took one more glance at her surroundings, this time differently from the rest. This time, she was looking for anything that might be able to help her. There was a clear view of the sky, and judging by the height of the sun in the sky, only about an hour and a half had passed since she fell unconscious.

But I know the area around CHS! Even if I had started moving the moment that I passed out, any route out of Canterlot would still be recognizable. This place doesn't even have the right landscape to be anywhere near Canterlot High School! I must have been transported magically, which means... Sunset sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on.

"...which means I could be literally anywhere."

She glanced around, trying to spot any way to get information. Luckily, she could see a person headed her way. He appeared to be out for a jog in the summer heat, not much older than herself and wearing a red and white baseball cap. As he drew closer, she waved her hand, trying to get his attention. Luckily, he spotted her and quickly came to a stop, reaching up and pulling a pair of earbuds out of his ears.

"Hey, what's up?" He reached up, taking off a pair of blue sunglasses, and the look on his face quickly shifted from a casual greeting to worried concern. Sunset was suddenly very aware of the fact that is was still very obvious she had been crying moments ago. His expression softened and he leaned in closer, giving her a quick examination to check for injury. "Are you okay?"

Sunset was faced with a choice. It was the kind of choice she had been making ever since she had "reformed" and decided to give friendship a try. For all her good intentions, she DID still know how to manipulate people with ease. Chances were that if she played the fearful, helpless victim, she might get more help out of this stranger...

She quickly blinked away the thought the same way she had a thousand more just like it. She wasn't THAT Sunset Shimmer, any more.

"Yeah! Just a little lost..." Sunset forced herself to smile as she outstretched a friendly hand. "Do you think you could tell me where I am?"

The stranger blinked and furrowed his brow, as if the very idea of someone being lost seemed to perplex him.

"Well, this is the city park..." He pointed to a building to their left. "That's the youth center." He changed direction, pointing over her shoulder. "That's Main Street, if that's what you're looking for, and the elementary school is just past it."

Sunset blinked, wondering if he had misunderstood her question.

"And... what city is this?"

The stranger's eyes widened in surprise, and Sunset knew that she was definitely making herself look and feel more and more lost by the second.

"Seminole? Seminole, Texas? The United States? Earth? The Solar System? The Milky Way?" He gave her a questioning look as Sunset felt the color drain from her face.

"I'm in TEXAS?"

"Yeah? Are you SURE you're okay? That's kind of a difficult fact to be surprised by around here..."

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.

"I... I'm not quite so sure how okay I am, any more."

The stranger looked concerned but gave her a smile, stretching out his hand.

"Well, maybe I can help. My name's Elijah, though my friends just call me 'Penn.'"

Sunset took a deep breath and took the hand, feeling him give it a firm squeeze and a rough shake.

"I-I'm Sunset. Sunset Shimmer."

For a moment, Sunset thought she caught his expression change, though she could have imagined it as he gave her a wide smile. I must be imagining things... my nerves are getting the best of me.

"You look pretty hot in that leather vest, and there's a gas station with a self-serve milkshake machine a few blocks from here. You thirsty? My treat."

Sunset pondered for a moment. She didn't want to take advantage of him, but she had to admit that he was right, she was quickly burning up in the heat, and a milkshake sounded like the perfect thing to accompany what was obviously going to be a long discussion about how she wound up so far from home.

"Yeah... Milkshakes sound good."

Sunset took a long sip from her mint-chocolate-chip milkshake as she and Penn stepped back out of the gas station, silently wishing that Canterlot had a machine like the ones here. Sure the mall had plenty of places for a nice smoothie, but she liked the idea of the convenience of having one at the corner store five minutes from her home.

"Thanks for this. It really hits the spot!"

Penn chuckled, raising his own smoothie in a toast as he took a long sip of strawberry-kiwi.

"I just wish I'd found you earlier this morning! If you're new in town, that means you haven't tried any of Mariah's breakfast burritos!" He pointed to a small restaurant down the street. "Best I've ever had!"

Sunset blinked, a realization striking her for the first time.

"You know, I have another friend from Texas, but you don't have the same accent... In fact, you hardly have an accent at all. If you don't mind me asking..."

Penn chucked to himself, motioning for Sunset to follow him as he walked to a nearby crosswalk and pressed the button for them to cross. Sunset wasn't entirely certain where they were going, but decided to follow her self-appointed tour guide without pestering him with too many questions at once.

"Your friend was probably raised here. I only moved down a few years ago from the other side of the country. If I had to guess why I have no accent at all..." He paused in thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Too much British sci-fi when I was a kid?"

Sunset couldn't help but chuckle at the joke as they finally made their way to a bench just outside the town hall, taking a seat. Sunset sat beside him, taking another sweet sip of her milkshake.

"And what exactly brings YOU to Texas? I mean, one does not simply wind up in the middle of West Texas without realizing it!" He chuckled and took his turn to take a long sip as Sunset answered.

"Well, you might not believe me..." Sunset sheepishly stirred her milkshake, trying to loosen the contents to make them easier to drink.

"With the day I've had? Try me."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. Well, he asked for it...

"...magic?"

Penn pondered the question for a moment, then nodded firmly.

"Makes sense to me."

Sunset's eyes widened. That had to be the absolute most nonchalant reaction she had ever seen to someone being told magic existed.

"You're... being sarcastic, aren't you?"

"Nope. Look at it this way:" Penn leaned forward, giving her a wry smile. "You're completely unharmed, dressed well, you don't seem to have any kind of head injury and don't exactly strike me as mentally ill. That rules out escaped mental patient, kidnapping, or human trafficking. You were alone, so that rules out being part of a traveling group, and you don't exactly seem to have any idea where you are or have a means of transportation, so that rules out traveling alone." He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. "Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. What reason do I have NOT to believe you?" He shrugged again. "Besides, I never rule out magic because you never know when you'll run into technology so advanced, the line is indistinguishable."

Sunset took a deep breath, feeling some measure of relief that he had ruled out the possibility of her insanity so quickly.

"So, what kind of 'magic' sent you here? Do you have any idea how to get back?"

Sunset took a deep breath, then shook her head.

"It all started when my friends and I were trying to-" Sunset was cut off as Penn raised his hand for her to stop, placing his sunglasses back over his eyes and peering up into the sky as best he could.

"Hold on... do you see that?"

Sunset tried to look in the same direction raising her hand over her eyes to try and avoid looking directly into the sun. She could see SOMETHING flying through the air, though she wasn't exactly certain what it was. It looked almost conical, round and wide at the bottom but narrower towards the top. The top of it was rounded and dome-shaped, and as it drew closer, she could see that it was covered in some kind of bronze-colored bubbles on the lower half. Just as she was about to ask whether or not that thing was normal around here, a blast of blue light flew out of the thing and blasted the gas station, causing a near-deafening explosion. Sunset threw her hands up in front of her face, trying to protect herself from shrapnel. To her surprise, she heard a muffled voice and felt a hand grab her wrist. Before she was even fully aware of what was happening, she was up on her feet and sprinting to keep up as Penn pulled her along, across the road and into a nearby store, shoving a path for them past the rest of the people running out to see what had happened. He didn't stop inside the store, pulling her along all the way to the back of the building's furthest aisle before finally coming to a stop. He turned around, quickly beginning to say... something... to her. Her hearing still hadn't recovered from the explosion, and her ears were filled with painful ringing.

"H-hold on! I can't hear a word you're saying!" Sunset shouted.

Penn gave her a quizzical look before shouting something back. Judging from reading his lips, he had said "WHAT?" It took a moment for him to put two and two together, motioning to his ears and making a slicing motion across his neck. Sunset nodded.

Penn sighed and shook his head, turning to look at the walls of the aisle. It looked as if he had pulled them into a hardware store, and he was now browsing their selection of hammers, picking them up one at a time and testing their weight before setting them back on the shelves, dissatisfied with his selection. After nearly a minute and about a dozen hammers, the ringing in Sunset's ears came to a stop, and get gave her fingers a few experimental snaps beside her head. The noise was crisp and clear once more.

"C-can you hear me?" she stuttered, staggering back up to her feet.

"Well, I can NOW..." Penn muttered, now sounding significantly less friendly and chipper than he had moments before.

"What WAS that thing? Did- did it just... are the people in that gas station-"

"Dead? Yes."

Sunset felt her heart clench in terror. The people there had been friendly and kind, innocent! How could that THING have just done something so awful without a second thought or a moment's hesitation.

"Sunset, did that THING follow you here?"

"WHAT? No! I've never seen it before in my life, I swear!" Sunset held up her hands defensively, but Penn didn't press the matter any further, taking a deep breath. For the first time, Sunset noticed his legs shaking violently at the knees as he picked up a claw hammer with an oversized head, giving a resigned sigh and tightening his grip.

He's scared, too...

"Penn, what WAS that? Why is it attacking?" For a brief moment, Sunset wondered if it might be after her. She and her friends had obviously broken SOMETHING with their efforts, but she wasn't sure what. Could this thing have come to punish her? Were there more after her friends?

"Imagine taking a person raised in the middle of a warzone and warping their body beyond recognition through forced mutation..." he whispered, leaning carefully out to peek out from the edge of the aisle towards the front of the store. "Imagine genetically engineering a creature with no emotions left but seething hatred after years of torment, literally blocking out any other capacity for feeling from its brain. An emotional lobotomy geared only towards being the last species standing in the universe. Xenophobia incarnate."

Sunset felt chills running down her spine.

"Now imagine putting that thing into a near-impervious tank and giving it enough firepower to wipe out a city in a single day."

Sunset felt only terror at the thought. Who could have possibly been so cruel as to make something like this monster?

"But it shouldn't be here! It CAN'T be here!" Penn's grip on the hammer tightened as he motioned for Sunset to follow him into the next aisle.

"Why not?" Sunset was REALLY hoping for some kind of reason that would give them a solution on how to send this that back where it came from.

"Because that is a dalek. And daleks are fictional monsters from a fictional television show!" He hissed. Sunset could see that he was very nearly on the verge of panic, himself. His words were every bit as much to inform her as they were to reassure himself.

"Well, apparently not any more!" Sunset replied, pointing to the front door, where the "dalek" was pushing its way through the entrance. Penn grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her back into the aisle and out of sight. He peered around the corner, trying to get a better look at the dalek's location.

"Well, does it have any weaknesses? How can we beat it?" Sunset asked.

Penn tightened his grip on the hammer. "Well, do you happen to have any high-caliber rifles on you? Laser weapons?"

"Um... Sorry, left my armor-piercing rounds at home?"

"Then the weakest point is the eyestalk. That's the only way it can see into the outside world. If we can break that, it'll be firing blind and we can make a run for it." He stared down at the hammer and examined the handle. "I need rubber gloves, in case they've electrified the surface to discourage people from whacking-" He was cut off as the dalek came rolling around the corner, staring directly at the two of them. Sunset stared directly into the eyestalk, a glowing blue eye, unblinking and robotic.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

"RUN!"

Awful Lot of Running To Do

"RUN!"

Sunset and Penn both ducked out of the way, sprinting down the aisle towards the other side of the store. Sunset felt a flash of heat on her face as a laser blast flew just past her shoulder.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

Sunset dodged left, Penn dodged right, and the two became separated.

Okay, think, Sunset! Think! You're standing in the middle of a hardware store! There's weapons all around you to improvise with! She tried to quiet her pounding heart, searching for some kind of weapon. Somehow, however, she had found her way into an aisle of buckets, completely devoid of weapons. Carefully, she could hear the dalek rolling along the floor, moving in the direction Penn had run. Taking the moment, she examined one of the buckets next to her.

High gloss latex paint? Well, maybe if I could bring a can down on top of that eyestalk... She reached over, giving the bucket an experimental lift. It was heavy, too heavy for her to swing over her head. It did start to form a plan in her mind, however. Picking up one of the gallon buckets, she carried it silently to the mixer and popped open the top, revealing the white sludge inside.

Maybe we don't have to break off the eyestalk, just blind it temporarily!

"You're a long way from Skaro, dalek!" Penn's voice echoed across the empty store. "And your kind never travel alone! There's always a full-scale invasion or a stealthy scout! Why the break in protocol?"

I thought he said this thing was nothing but distilled hatred? Why is he trying to TALK to it?

"I WAS SENT TO IN-VEST-I-GATE A RIFT IN SPACE-TIME. THAT RIFT LED HERE." The dalek's electronic voice sent shivers running up and down Sunset's spine. "I WILL GATHER DATA FROM THIS SET-TLE-MENT AND REPORT!"

Sunset felt a lump form in her throat as she snuck from one aisle to the next, closer and closer with her bucket in hand. So this WAS her fault. This thing had come to this town through the same rifts she and her friends had doubtless caused in their own clumsy blundering.

"And what about after that, huh? What is your report going to SAY?"

"PRE-LIM-IN-ARY SCANS SHOW THIS WORLD IS WEAK, AND BOUN-TI-FUL IN RES-OUR-CES! RES-OUR-CES THAT WILL BELONG TO THE DA-LEKS!"

"So, the whole world IS at stake! Thank you very much, good to know!"

Sunset froze. If what she heard was true, then... they couldn't just run. This 'dalek' had to be stopped here and now, or else more would come and destroy the whole world! She couldn't let that happen.

The world was at risk, and Sunset Shimmer was trapped in a hardware store with a bucket of high-gloss latex paint.

"Tell me, dalek, do you know WHERE you are?"

The dalek actually seemed to pause for a moment, as if pondering the question.

"You're on EARTH, dalek! I'm sure you scanned the lifeforms here and figured out they were human! And don't you remember what happens EVERY TIME you come here?"

Still the dalek hesitated, then scooted... backwards? Sunset couldn't believe her eyes.

"That's right! You're beaten! The daleks are wiped out, blown to smithereens! Just like in the GREAT TIME WAR!"

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE TIME WAR? EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!"

I get it! Penn said this thing was from a TV show, right? He must know all about it! Things that nobody COULD know! Sunset drew in a sharp intake of breath as she began to feel hope. Unfortunately, this noise proved to be enough to alert the dalek to her presence. The top dome piece swiveled one hundred and eighty degrees, turning to stare at her. As the body portion with the gun turned to face her, Sunset acted, throwing the paint at the dalek's head and thoroughly coating the eyestalk.

There was only a moment of hesitation before the eye began to sizzle and boil, burning away until it was crystal clear.

"MY VISION IS NOT IMPAIRED! EXTERMINATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

Sunset quickly scrambled for footing as she ran back into the next aisle, hearing an explosion behind her as another shot barely missed. Without missing a beat, she ducked down and out of sight,

You know, for beings that could supposedly destroy entire planets, they're REALLY bad at hitting moving targets...

"The TIME WAR?" Penn shouted, drawing the Dalek's attention back in the direction of his voice as Sunset tried to catch her breath and solidify her knees again.

"I remember the Last Great Time War! I was THERE!" Penn shouted, the conviction in his voice wavering. Sunset knew that whatever nerve he had that was keeping him talking was going to run out soon. "I watched the Cult of Skaro throw themselves into the void! I saw Davros fall into the gaping maw of the Nightmare Child! The Ship of the Dalek Emperor fall out of time! I knew the day Gallifrey fell and the dalek fleet wiped itself out firing into the empty space that was left!"

Sunset wasn't certain if he was just spouting gibberish or saying something comprehensive, but it certainly seemed to be aggravating the dalek.

"YOU ARE NOT HU-MAN! NO HU-MAN COULD KNOW SUCH THINGS!" There were sounds of laser fire, and Sunset felt her heart drop out of fear that Penn had been hit.

"Oh, couldn't I? Perhaps I'm NOT human! Or perhaps I was told all these things by someone who isn't? You never know what kind of gossip you can hear from a good DOCTOR, these days!"

Mustering up her courage, Sunset took her turn to shout out.

'"Penn! It's covered in LATEX paint! No rubber gloves!"

As Sunset got out the crucial information, however, she watched the dalek silently turn the corner, coming face-to-face with her. It had hidden the sound of its movement by hovering several inches off of the ground and now had the barrel of its gun pointed directly at her heart. She froze. Unable to move, unable to breathe or even scream, Sunset Shimmer stared into the face of death.

But death didn't come. Two seconds passed, then three. The dalek didn't fire. Sunset's eyes widened and the first wisps of a question began to form on her lips before Penn came barreling at the dalek from the side, bringing a massive sledgehammer down onto the eyestalk and snapping it in two. Sparks and arcs of electricity began to fly from the tattered remains of the eyestalk as Penn quickly dropped the sledgehammer before it could become a lightning rod and ran towards Sunset. With one quick motion, he yanked her onto her feet and into the next aisle.

"Are you okay?" He asked her, grabbing her shoulders and looking directly into her eyes. "Feeling good? Nothing broken or lasered?"

"N-no! I'm fine! I- I think it wasn't going to shoot me."

"Sunset, shooting is all daleks DO, and there are going to be a whole lot MORE of them coming if we let this one get away!" Penn reached over and grabbed a claw hammer off of the wall, turning it so the pointed end was facing outwards. "The paint was GENIUS, and you got some on the gun, I'm going for that, next. Stay out of sight, okay?"

Sunset could only nod as Penn vanished again, moving in the opposite direction to try and find a better hiding spot. Once she had reached the back aisle of the store, she started to peek her head around the corner, catching a glimpse of Penn facing off with the mechanized monster.

It could have killed me then and there, why didn't it? The question still nagged at her, but she filed it away for later. For now, Penn was right. This dalek hadn't hesitated to kill the people in that gas station, or any other victims it might have had before now, and if they didn't stop it, the rest of its kind wouldn't hesitate to kill the whole world. Beating this thing was now or never. She looked around for a weapon of her own. Nothing seemed like it would be useful, not against this thing. Only one object caught her attention: a black handle with no attached tool at the end. She picked it up from where it sat on the shelf, curious. There was no price tag or any kind of label on it, but it felt as though it had been made to fit perfectly in her hand. It even had a clip on the side that fit perfectly onto her belt, and she quickly put it away there. While she wasn't certain why it grabbed her attention, she had learned not to avoid intuition when it came to magic.

Penn's attempts to knock off the gun had proven fruitless, it was too durable for the hammer. The dalek was indeed firing blindly and without warning, but its terrible aim proved easy enough to avoid at close range.

"MY VISION IS IMPAIRED, I CANNOT SEE! MY VISION IS IMPAIRED!"

"Well, how about THIS?" Penn shouted as he ducked down and grabbed his sledgehammer, bringing it down on the paint-covered dome head of the dalek. Even the mighty sledgehammer proved fruitless at penetrating the metal shell, however. To Sunset's dismay, she watched at the dangling remains of the eyestalk began to rise, being reeled in by the wires that it swung by. Seconds later, the piece was in its natural place and Sunset could see the glow of welded metal along the breaking point. Instantly, it swiveled around to look at Penn, who had the expression of a child with his hand in the cookie jar.

"MY VISION IS NOT IMPAIRED."

"PENN!"

There was a flash of light, and Sunset saw a beam strike him directly in the chest, throwing him across the room. At the same instant, the top half of the dalek exploded in a spray of metal pieces and unknown fluids, seemingly of its own accord. Sunset sprinted out of her hiding spot and ran to where her new friend lay of the floor, inspecting him up and down for injuries. In a surprise that left her absolutely gobsmacked, Penn let out a weak cough, his eyes snapping wide open as he gasped for air. He sat up, first looking at the exploded dalek, then back at Sunset, and repeating the motion multiple times.

"My... my whole life just flashed before my eyes! It was LAME!"

"How did you... survive?" Sunset looked down at the point of impact, noticing a shiny, silvery material through the hole in his shirt. Reaching down, she pulled up the bottom of his shirt to reveal a large mirror hidden underneath, with scorch marks around the place where the beam had struck it. She raised an eyebrow, turning to stare at him.

"H-hey, mirrors worked in this old TV special called 'The Five Doctors.' I figured it would make good insurance..." Penn muttered as he reached up and pulled the mirror out of his shirt. "A little bit of 'Doctor Who' combined with a little bit of 'Back To the Future 3...' It worked, didn't it? What are you looking at me like that for?"

Sunset rolled her eyes before finally letting out a long sigh of relief.

"You're right, the important thing is that we beat it... So, what should we do, now?"

Penn thought for a moment, staring at the remains of the dalek with a mix of fear and awe.

"For now, I need to use a bathroom."

Well, it was hardly a cool one-liner, but Sunset was willing to give him a little credit considering he had just staked his life on the hope that a hardware store mirror would reflect a killer laser blast.

"And maaaybe focus on figuring out how it got here?" Sunset finished the thought for him.

"Y-yeah... what you said..." He shook his head, slowly staggering to his feet. "I have a hunch it has something to do with that 'magic' you were talking about."

Sunset hated to admit it, but SHE had a hunch that he was right.

Welcome To My Apocalypse

When Penn had emerged from the store's bathroom, Sunset could tell that his near-death experience had a significant effect on him, physically. His face was still pale and she was pretty sure his reddened eyes were an indicator that he had been vomiting, but other than that he appeared to be fine. He took one deep breath, held his hand level, and pushed it own in a calming motion.

"S-sorry about that. I'm... I'm good now."

Sunset flashed him her best reassuring smile. She knew that she and her friends were more of the exception than the rule when it came to how well they handled life-threatening situations. It was obvious that this was the first time Penn had ever been threatened like that.

"No need to apologize. After all, you saved my life from that... 'dalek' thingy."

"Well, don't sell yourself short! That paint idea was genius!" He gave her a weak grin and gave her a firm pat on the shoulder.

Sunset rolled her eyes, trying to look modest.

"Well, I'm not the one who ran in like a berserker with a sledgehammer!" She grinned and gave him an encouraging punch on the shoulder. "That thing had me dead to rights before you nailed the eyestalk!"

A small amount of color returned to Penn's face as he sheepishly looked back at the exploded remains. While he had been gone, Sunset had taken the time to inspect it. The whole thing smelled foul and she had nearly joined him in vomiting when she had caught sight of a half-exploded creature inside with stubby tentacles and a single, glassy eye.

She gave him another toothy grin and poked a finger through the hole in his shirt to jab at his chest. If this really WAS his first time dealing with danger like this, she wanted to encourage him. Despite the fact he seemed older than her, she couldn't help feeling a kind of seniority over him from her experience dealing with other dangers before. Rainbow Dash would probably say something about them being "awesome superheroes" and "inspiring the public." Sunset resisted the urge to roll her eyes at even the imaginary remarks.

"And speaking of genius, the mirror was brilliant!"

Penn's face flushed harder, and Sunset decided she was starting to push it too far with the compliments.

"It was just a backup plan, just in case..."

"What was all that 'time war' stuff about, anyway? It sounded like you were talking about something... alien?"

Penn chuckled slightly, waving away her concerns.

"Just a bunch of buzzwords and triggers from the same TV show as the dalek. I'm a big fan, so I know enough to SOUND like I know what I'm talking about." He pounded one fist gently against his chest. "Totally human. One heart."

Sunset turned away from the monster and back towards the door. She took a deep breath.

"Well, what do we do, now? I'm still lost, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about more of these coming after my friends..." Sunset took a deep breath, trying not to envision what might happen to someone like Fluttershy if she were being chased down by one of these things.

Penn nodded in silent agreement, walking towards the front door.

"I-I guess that we should get working on finding them, huh?" The longer he talked, the more firm his voice became, his confidence returning to him. As he stepped outside however, Sunset watched his head immediately snap upwards and his gaze fixate completely on the sky. Sunset couldn't help feeling some trepidation as she followed after him, looking up to try and see what had captured his attention so thoroughly. The scene that greeted her, however, was unlike anything that she had ever seen in even her greatest dreams or worst nightmares.

The sky was tearing itself apart, for lack of better words. The sky rippled like a sail in the wind, shaking and billowing as streaks of lighting and fire tore their way across from horizon to horizon. Galaxies and nebulae hung just above their heads, undulating in a kaleidoscope of colors. Figures were shilouetted from behind, some brandishing grand weapons of starlight and void, others with strange and warped bodies of countless arms and lashing out with blasts of unknowable power. Sunset didn't even know what to think as she could only look on in awe and horror as celestial armies and terrible titans clashed above her head, sending fresh ripples through the canvas sky above them.

"Amaterasu, Vishnu, Odin... Emperor Jimmu's terracotta army..." Penn whispered breathlessly in disbelief. "Zeus, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, Mars, Osiris..."

Sunset recognized the majority of the names, but was unable to process what he was implying.

"Sunset... what kind of magic did you guys CAST?"

Sunset blinked, unable to tear her eyes away from the war in the heavens.

"I- I don't know, any more..."

When they had finally regained their senses enough to tear their eyes away, Penn had suggested regrouping at his house to try and decide on a course of action. Sunset agreed, and the two of them had set out on a long trek across town. It felt like they were walking for nearly an hour before they turned up at a tiny house on the border of a small playground. The roof sagged in the middle and the weatherproofing was chipped and cracked, covered in faded yellow paint. The door itself had seen better days, stripped down to exposed wood in vertical stripes. As he unlocked the door, Sunset noticed him ram his shoulder against it to crack it open.

"Be it ever so humble..." Penn muttered, opening the door wider and motioning for her to enter, "there's no place like home."

Sunset tried not to cringe as she stepped inside. There was exposed and hole-ridden drywall everywhere, and a quick glance revealed that there wasn't a single properly covered outlet or light switch in the house. She was screaming internally as Penn took a tender grip of an exposed light switch and flicked the lever.

"Sorry, the place was midway through a renovation when they let me move in. I'm a family friend, and I was getting kicked out of my apartment." He shrugged sheepishly. "I HAVE been doing a little work! Check it out! Totally rebuilt these windows!"

Indeed, it looked as if the windows and the entire frames around them had been recently redone, with smooth wood and a clean white finish. She had to admit, for amateur work, the carpentry looked decent.

"Anyway, make yourself at home. Take a seat! Do you want a gatorade?"

Sunset blinked in confusion, then glanced back out the window, making sure that the world was still ending outside. Yup. With a sigh, she flopped onto his couch, sinking deep into the fluffy surface.

"How are you so calm?"

"Sunset, I can't do anything about THAT." He pointed upwards to illustrate his point. "I don't even know what it means. For now, all that can be done is to enjoy the light show. Besides..." He chuckled darkly to himself as he walked back and offered her a bottle of red liquid. "I'm a millennial. We've all been waiting for the end of the world ever since we were old enough to understand global warming was real and the economy was in the toilet before we even had a chance to participate. That's why we all have clinical depression and joke about wanting to die."

There was a beat of silence as Sunset stared at him in horror before Penn broke out into a wide grin.

"I'm kidding! Come on, if there's any time for dark humor, it's at the end of the world!"

"That wasn't funny."

Penn shrugged, shaking the bottle as an indication she should take it. She begrudgingly took it and twisted open the lid with a series of cracks. The liquid inside was tangy and slightly salty, but refreshing. She hadn't realized just how thirsty she was until that moment, but it hit the spot. Penn took a long swig of his own drink before letting out a long sigh of satisfaction.

"So. From what you told me, you and your six friends were ALL trying to close a magical portal to Equestria..."

Sunset nodded.

"Something went wrong that you couldn't identify..."

Sunset nodded again.

"And basically, it sounds like you all got caught into some kind of feedback loop that overloaded the Elements of Harmony and... blew up the portal?"

Sunset sunk a bit further back into the couch, feeling more and more upset.

"And then you woke up where I found you..." He tapped his chin thoughtfully for a few moments.

"I don't know what could have gone wrong! I wasn't the only one who did the math on this!" Sunset threw her hands into the air in frustration. "Everything was checked and double-checked from both sides! Harmonic resonance of two magic sources, spatial wrinkling when the portals closed, we didn't forget a single factor on either end!"

Penn took a seat on a swivel chair, taking a quiet sip of his drink.

"Well, I couldn't call myself an expert on magic portals, so forgive me if this is a stupid question..."

"I've always believed there's no such thing." Sunset's response was more reflex than thoughtful. That had been one of the few of Princess Celestia's teachings that had truly drilled its way through her thick skull.

"Well, then... are you sure the portal only had two sides?"

Sunset blinked, unsure if she was understanding what he was suggesting. Penn took a deep breath and sighed.

"Look. If you've got a 'portal,' that's basically a wormhole, right? Two different points in space connected by a passageway?" Sunset nodded, encouraging him to continue. In a matter of seconds, he finished off his drink and placed the bottle between his palms, pressing on both ends at once. "Well, you applied pressure at both ends.... but what about the passage section in the middle?" Slowly, he began pushing his hands towards one another, crunching the bottle in on itself. Sunset's eyes widened as she began to see the idea he was trying to get across. As his hands applied greater and greater pressure, the bottle began to expand in places it had formerly bent inward. With a grunt of exertion, Penn gave up on crushing the bottle, taking a deep breath from the exertion.

"You get the idea without me pushing until this explodes, right? I mean, that doesn't really explain the magical feedback, but it might explain how you got here, along with the dalek. Whatever happened looks like it might have broken the barriers between universes." He looked up through the window, taking another astonished look at the sky. "Which might explain why every pantheon of gods to ever exist seem to now be battling for supremacy... They finally caught sight of one another."

Sunset swallowed loudly, peeking out the window again. Things had hardly changed above them, it was still a vicious battleground.

"So... this IS all my fault..."

Penn thought for a moment, then waved his hand dismissively.

"Pssh! Screw that! Even if you DID knock down the walls, it's THEIR choice to fight each other! It's the dalek's choice to blow up the gas station. You just... enlightened the multiverse. They're the ones who choose what to do with it."

Sunset smiled a little bit, feeling slightly better. He was right, but it didn't do much to abate the blame she still felt mounting on her shoulders.

"So, then, it stands to logic that your friends probably got sent to other worlds, too."

Sunset nodded along for a second, only for a second meaning in his words to sink in after a few seconds. "Wait, 'sent to other worlds, TOO?'" Sunset leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at her host. "You're saying that as if I'M on another world..."

Penn's jaw quickly clamped shut, the tip of his tongue caught between his front teeth.

"Penn, what are you not telling me?"

Penn's jaw unclamped slightly, only enough to let his tongue slip back inside his mouth.

"Penn, are you telling me that I'm NOT on my world?"

Penn pushed his chair away from Sunset, rolling his way out of sight and into the kitchen. The last thing she saw was him making a "so-so" motion with one of his hands as he shrugged uncomfortably and made a high-pitched "eeeeeeeh?" noise.

"I-I mean, in my defense, you ARE the only person we saw with orange skin and multi-colored hair all the way from the park to here..."

Sunset rose out of her chair, walking into the kitchen. Penn still hadn't changed his pose once he was out of sight, posing with his shoulders shrugged so hard they were practically up to his ears. In a matter of seconds, Sunset decided that she had an easier way of getting answers out of him: magic. A quick peek at his memories would give her all the information she needed, and he wouldn't even know it. As she reached to take a hold of his arm, however, he moved it out of the way. Narrowing her eyes, Sunset tried to grab his hand, only for him to defensively move it out of the way again.

He... KNOWS about my magic?

After a moment's pause, Sunset lunged forward while Penn lunged to the side, rolling out of the chair and onto the floor. As Sunset crashed into the chair and was sent rolling across the tiny kitchen, Penn scrambled to his feet, holding up his hands defensively.

"O-okay, Sunset, we're all VERY stressed here, time-space is broken, and we can't be certain that certain pieces of information exchanging between parties won't damage it further..."

Sunset turned around, taking a seat in the chair instead of continuing to chase him. She knew Penn was nervous. She knew how to get nervous people to feel intimidated. She knew how to get nervous people to give her what she wanted. She leaned back in the chair for a moment, crossing one leg over the other as her face settled into a disapproving glare. Penn anxiously glanced from side to side, seemingly trying to look anywhere but at her. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned forward, narrowing her eyes from 'disapproving' to 'interrogating.'

"I will ask you this one time and one time only, Penn. I didn't tell you what my magic does, but you knew why I was trying to touch you. You KNEW. Where. Am. I?"

Penn visibly squirmed under her gaze, trying to hold up under her scrutiny and obviously failing. Sunset knew she had nothing on Fluttershy's "stare," but she could summon up a nasty glare of her own when she wanted to, a useful talent left over from her days as a bully.

"Sunset, I REALLY shouldn't-"

Sunset didn't even need to speak, cutting him off by only raising an eyebrow.

"But I- What if- UGH! FINE! I'll tell you everything, just stop looking at me like that!"

Sunset leaned back, a satisfied smirk on her face. She still had it.

"Okay, just- It's a good thing you're already sitting down- I need you to just listen to me and believe what I tell you, alright?"

Sunset nodded.

"The reason I was so willing to believe you when you said magic brought you here was because... I'm a fan. I KNEW who you were, I knew you had magic."

Sunset's eyes narrowed, but she was trying to keep an open mind.

"Because, like the dalek... I've had a little... peek... into your universe."

"What, like another TV show?"

"Well, a spin-off of a TV show..." Penn corrected her, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head. "The main show is about Princess Twilight and her friends... The time you went and stole her crown and tried to take over the school was a movie special."

Sunset blinked, but her lack of reaction encouraged Penn to keep talking.

"Then there was a movie about you guys fighting the Dazzlings... a movie about the Friendship Games..."

Sunset's eyes widened as she realized that he was beginning to outline all of the key events of her life in the past few years.

"A movie about Camp Everfree, a three-part TV special, a series of online animated shorts and music videos- By the way, I LOVE the Rainbooms's music! You guys are really great!"

Someone's been UPLOADING our music?

"And then another movie about Wallflower and the memory stone and a movie about that time you guys were all working in a fair and got zapped into a magic phone and-" Penn seemed to finally notice the fact that Sunset's eyes had grown wide as dinner plates and her breathing had grown shorter and much faster.

"I-I think you get the idea..." He muttered, glancing around at their surroundings. "And, on the plus side, it looks as if you knowing all of this didn't cause any paradoxes that will instantly wipe us off of the face of creation! That's a positive!"

"My life... is a series of MOVIES and MUSIC VIDEOS?"

"... and animated shorts..." Penn whispered.

Sunset's head was spinning. Her life, all of her mistakes and problems, every secret, had been broadcast and uploaded to the internet of another WHOLE WORLD? What about when she wanted privacy? What about her innermost thoughts? Was her PAST safe? Did they know anything from BEFORE she had stolen Princess Twilight's crown? Did this mean that her life was nothing but the combined efforts of godlike animators that could end her existence at any moment? Was her "free will" being warped and bent her whole life in order to force her to conform to a predetermined script? Have I EVER had free will at ALL?

"S-Sunset? Are you okay?"

Sunset was suddenly drawn back to the present, realizing that she was hyperventilating and her hands were trembling. Instantly, she pressed her hands against her lap to stop the shaking and forced herself to take deep breaths. This was no time for an existential crisis.

Unless that was what the scriptwriters WANTED her to think, in which case the only true act of rebellion she could take would be to HAVE an existential crisis and go against them- Unless they considered an existential crisis to be "in character" and had already written a script based AROUND her having a-

Sunset took another deep breath. She HAD to think clearly. That was not an option, it was a necessity.

"Th-thank you for being honest with me... If you really thought that was going to create a paradox, it must have taken a lot of courage."

Penn nodded and reached into the refrigerator, taking out another red drink and downing half of it in a matter of seconds.

"I don't know how you blowing up a portal between your world and Equestria managed to somehow break the boundaries between my fiction and your reality, but it appears that everything that is fiction here in MY world is beginning to... bleed... over..." The color drained from Penn's face as the full ramifications of what he was saying dawned on him. The hand holding his drink began to tremble as he raised his to his mouth and downed the rest of it in one go. Once he was finished, he looked back down at the bottle. In all honesty, Sunset had no idea what myriad of possibilities were going through his head, and she wasn't certain if she wanted to.

"Oh my stars, all of fiction is becoming reality..." Slowly, he turned his gaze to meet hers, eyes wide with a mix of awe and terror.

"We need to find your friends and fix this. FAST."

Moving Right Along

"I still want to see them."

"And I STILL think it would be a bad idea!" Penn's voice called back from the closet. "Telling you the truth might not have backfired, but I don't want to THINK about what could happen if you watched your own movies!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. Since they didn't know exactly how far or for how long they would be looking for her friends, Penn was insisting on packing for a week-long trip, at the least. She had to admit, as much as she admired his need to adhere to the motto of "Be Prepared," she couldn't see what they would need all of THIS for. So far, he'd grabbed five binders of trading cards, a collection of the written works of someone called "H.P. Lovecraft," at least three different jackets and coats, and a laptop. And that was just the most recent collection of oddities he had shoved into the trunk of his car alongside a plethora of tools for working on the car, itself. She wondered if he was even going to be able to CLOSE the trunk at this rate.

Apparently, that old jalopy breaks down every few weeks... I guess I can't fault him for keeping all his tools inside it.

"Al...right! All dressed and ready to head out!" Penn stepped out of the closet, having now changed his clothes and gathered up the last and seemingly most important item: a small stuffed black cat. He was dressed in the same red-and-white baseball cap, but now wore an accompanying bright red flower-patterned shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants, his pockets stuffed to the brim with chargers, adapters, and portable devices.

Sunset considered telling him that the outfit most definitely would NOT be allowed to stay once they'd rescued Rarity.

"What about you? Anything you think you'll need? Anything that could help?"

Sunset glanced around the room. The only object that caught her eye was the empty handle still clipped to her belt. She had felt a tiny bit bad taking it from the store without a chance or a way to pay for it, but she still felt like it belonged in her hand.

"I... think I've got everything I need."

Penn shrugged, walking his way out of the room with a sigh and a motion for her to follow.

"Well, I packed extra clothes for you. I know mine might be a bit big on you, but it's all I've got."

Sunset smiled. Awful fashion sense or not, Penn seemed to have become a lot less anxious now that the truth was out there, speaking much more freely with her. Sunset wasn't sure just how comfortable she was with how familiar he was with her all of a sudden, but it was overruled quickly by how good it felt to have a friend that had her back. She could deal with someone having a little uncanny knowledge about her.

It would be kinda hypocritical of me NOT to, considering I'm a literal mind reader... she thought to herself, her hand unconsciously grasping at her geode.

In fact, the thought occurred to her that she still wasn't sure if her geode even still WORKED after everything that had happened. Quietly, she placed one hand on her geode as she walked up behind Penn. Even if she could just brush her hand against the back of his neck, it would be enough to get a glimpse, more than enough to confirm her powers were still there.

He already knows everything about me, and he lied about it! I mean, this is only fair, right? I should get to know something about him-

Before she could get the chance, Penn turned around and caught a glimpse of her, ducking violently away and inadvertently throwing himself against the car.

"Whoa! Sunset, what are you DOING? I already TOLD you the truth!"

Sunset felt her face flush as guilt washed over her.

"I- I just wanted to see if my memory-reading still worked. I haven't had any chance to test it."

For the first time, Penn actually looked slightly angry with her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. He pointed a single accusatory finger at her.

"Not me. Never. Me. If we're going to be friends, I don't want you in my head." He transitioned from pointing at her to pointing at his own head. "We lucked out with YOU, you're already past everything I've seen! Imagine if we accidentally met some character-" The word "character" made Sunset's brow furrow with frustration, and Penn quickly corrected himself. "If we met someBODY who wasn't? Imagine if we accidentally told someone their own future? Then telling them that future would change it, which would change what WE knew, which would change what we TOLD them, causing a paradox!" He opened the car door, tossing the last few items into the back seat of his car.

"With time and space overlapping and tearing like it is, we CAN'T risk a paradox!"

Sunset could feel herself pouting. He had a lot of conjecture he was treating as fact, here. Penn ignored her frustration, walking around to the driver's side and opening his door.

"So it's safest if only ONE of us knows this... 'meta' stuff. At least until we can be sure that it can't blow up in our faces. So NO reading my mind!"

Sunset sighed, opening up the passenger-side door and lowering herself into the front seat.

She'd had her doubts when Penn had told her more about his car, a model called a "'97 Oldsmobile 88" that seemed to live up to its name. It was even older than HER by almost a year, and Penn had made several joking remarks about it breaking down at an unsettling rate. It was an unassuming silver sedan, and the interior didn't exactly blow her away, either. The seats and lining of the interior were all gray fabric, unassuming and standard. The brightest addition was a small plush toy hanging from the rearview mirror, a chilling depiction of a yellow creature hanging its neck at an awkward angle and a face that looked as if it had been scribbled on hastily by a child. Well, I'm DEFINITELY going to enjoy looking THAT in the eyes all day...

Still, the way Penn settled into the driver's seat with a comfy smile of contentment, even more than he had when he was in his own house, left Sunset wondering if she was missing something. He lovingly ran his hand over the top of the steering wheel before plugging his key into the ignition.

"Alright, sweetheart, I know it's the end of the world, but we've got a job to do!"

With those words of encouragement, he twisted the key and the engine chugged to life. Sunset certainly didn't like the way it seemed to have trouble catching at first, but the engine was soon idling without a problem.

Penn grinned lovingly at the steering wheel and gave it a gentle pat before putting the car in gear and turning out onto the street.

"She's picky, but always pulls through when it matters! So..." Finally, his attention turned back to Sunset as they pulled up at their first stop sign. "I guess we should drive around town and see if we can find any of your friends out and about? Maybe if we're lucky, you all wound up sent to the same general area!"

Sunset nodded. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a start.

With smile, Penn reached down and switched on the radio.

"BEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEP! VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-"

After a couple seconds, he switched it off again.

"Right... National emergency broadcast system... Should have guessed."

"We... should probably listen to that. It might have some information we don't." Sunset suggested, reaching for the radio knob.

Penn made another "eeeeeh?" noise and waggled his hand.

Sunset switched back on the radio.

"-from the Emergency Broadcast System. There have been reports across the country of unknown phenomena in the skies. All citizens are urged to stay indoors. There have been numerous sightings of dangerous entities, and those who cannot return to their homes must NOT engage with these entities, as many have already proven themselves to be highly dangerous. Please return to your homes and do NOT leave them until it is confirmed safe to do so. More details will be broadcast as facts are confirmed. For your own safety, citizens everywhere are advised to stay indoors-

Penn sighed, shaking his head and switching it back off again.

"Usually specify these broadcasts by the county or by the state it applies to, I guess this confirms this is happening all over the country. Aside from that, I think the two of us have figured out more on our own."

Sunset sunk lower into her seat, staring out the window dejectedly. Catching sight of one of her friends sounded like just about the only thing that could make her feel even slightly better right now.

"Hey, pick a CD. I can't drive without music."

When Sunset turned back to Penn, he was holding up a trio of CDs: ELV1S: 30 Number 1 Hits, Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, and Queen: Greatest Hits.

She had no idea what any of those were. Well, if the galaxy ever needed guardians, now's the time... She tapped her finger halfheartedly on the case in the middle. "This one." To her surprise, Penn tossed all three cases into the back seat and pressed a pair of buttons on the radio.

"Awesome! That one's already in there, I listen to it when I'm doing deliveries!"

An upbeat piano began to pound out of the speakers as Penn hopped up and down to the beat.

"Morning! Today's forecast calls for blue skies!

Sun is shining in the sky!

There ain't a cloud in sight!"

"Deliveries?"

"Heh, yeah..." Penn chuckled, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. "I'm a pizza delivery guy. But that works for you! I know every back road of this town like the back of my hand!" He gave her a playful punch on the shoulder. "If your friends are here in town, we'll find them!"

Sunset smiled. Maybe it was the upbeat music, maybe it was his excited attitude, but something about it just put a smile on her face.

Yeah. We'll find my friends and fix all of this! It'll all be over in less than a day...

"Okay, maybe if we go down Main Street towards the high school, then circle around down 22nd street again, we can check-"

Sunset sighed, staring at her namesake on the horizon. They had been essentially driving in circles for four hours, and there had been no sign of her friends. They'd been up every alley and down every lane, driven laps through every roundabout until she was dizzy. Sunset was absolutely certain she could draw a map of the town from memory, now. Worst of all, the fuel needle had dropped dangerously close to empty. They were on the last of the three CDs, the collection of songs by an older artist called "Elvis." Somehow, she wasn't surprised Penn had known the words to every single song on the album. Somehow, the song they were on seemed to be mocking their complete lack of results from the search.

"Return to sender! Address unknown!

No such number! No such zone!"

"Penn, it's getting dark..."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm the night driver! I can see really well just by my headli-"

"They're not here. We're wasting gas. YOUR gas." Sunset grumbled grumpily. "I don't mean to be ungrateful, but I'm pretty sure we're wasting our time. We should fill up the tank and turn in for the night."

After a few moments, Penn sighed and his excited outer shell finally seemed to cave.

"You're... right. And if they're not in Seminole, then we need to figure out a real plan. Texas is BIG, and there's a LOT of empty space between towns."

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as they turned away from their current route towards Main Street. After a short pause at a stop sign, however, Penn turned back away from the obvious direction and hit the gas with unnecessary force.

"Wha- hey! What are you doing?"

"Humor me for a few blocks..." Penn muttered. Sunset noticed that his smile was gone, and his eyes were fixated on the rearview mirror. Looking behind them, Sunset saw a pair of huge headlights on a pickup truck that looked like it could EAT Penn's Oldsmobile whole. At the next three intersections, Penn turned left, then right, then left again, then circled around the block. For every move he made, the pickup truck mirrored him, staying right behind them on the completely illogical route.

"We're definitely being followed..." Penn muttered, grimacing as he glanced down at the fuel gauge. "I might be able to lose them, but I can't risk getting us out onto the highway to try and put some distance between us." He slowly pulled up to a stop sign, coming to a stop and idling there as he pondered the situation. The song they were listening to finally ended and a new one began.

"You look like an angel... Walk like an angel...

"How do you know they don't need help, or something? It DOES seem to be the end of the world. Maybe it could even be one of my friends!"

"If they were trying to send us a message, they would have honked or flickered their lights..." Penn muttered. "One thing people don't realize is that delivery drivers do get a little training in how to respond to these things, we strap signs on top of our cars that basically shout 'Always carrying cash!' At best, this guy is a bully just messing with us. At worst..." He sighed, shaking his head. As Sunset turned to look behind them, she spotted that the two rear doors had opened, and from inside came two tough-looking men. One was holding a crowbar while the other held a baseball bat.

"Robbers?"

"Talk like an angel...

"Well, it DOES seem to be the end of the world..." Penn muttered, running his hand over the steering wheel one more time before tightening his grip. "Sunset, hold on to something."

Sunset took a deep breath as the two men strolled up alongside either side of the car, the one with the crowbar on her side. She reached up and took a tight hold on the handle attached to the roof of the car, which Rainbow Dash condescendingly called "chicken handles."

"But I got wiiiiiiise..."

Just as one of them was about to knock on the window, Penn slammed his foot on the gas pedal, making the car lurch forward in a squeal of disapproval at the sudden strain. The road robbers seemed just as angry with the development, but by the time they had jumped back into their truck and begun moving, Penn had already put nearly three blocks between them. The truck was only beginning to give a squeal of its own as Penn rounded the first corner at breakneck speed, skidding across the asphalt and just barely pressing the boundaries of spinning out.

The chase was on.

Yooou're the devil in disguise!

With mildly appropriate chase music.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Gas Station

Sunset's breathing was shallow and as quiet as possible, as if she unconsciously worried their pursuers would be able to hear her and discover their hiding place.

They had spent nearly another half hour driving up and down the town, running stop signs and taking unpredictable paths left, right, and often in circles. If it weren't for her seat belt, she counted at least four times she would have risked being thrown out the window with the way Penn was driving. They had driven up and down the length of the town twice in the hopes of losing their pursuers, finally screeching to a halt in a back alley, where Penn had immediately cut the engine and manually turned off every light, plunging them into pitch blackness. Occasionally, Penn would check his phone in a flash of unnatural light to check how long they had been sitting.

"That's... ten minutes. What do you think?"

Sunset let out a long breath and nodded.

"I'm pretty sure we lost them."

Penn nodded, plugging his key into place and cranking the engine back to life. He sucked in air quickly through his teeth and shook his head.

"No choice but to get gas now... I was honestly worried she wouldn't even start. We won't make it back to my house..."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Sunset asked as the car crawled out of its hiding place and back onto the street.

"Better than walking at night when people have already started raiding and robbing each other..." Penn sighed, shaking his head in disgust. "Seriously, it's been HOURS since the world 'ended,' and people are already at each other's throats. Personally, I blame the rise of post-apocalyptic fantasy. Everybody wants to be the real-life Mad Max."

"Well, I would guess that the fact the city was attacked by a killer alien had something to do with it... But this is still insane. People should be banding together, not fighting each other!"

Penn chuckled darkly to himself. "Welcome to the real world, Sunset. Fear and selfishness are nature, and most folks don't bother trying to be better than that."

Sunset's heart sank. Suddenly, she missed home even more.

"SHOOT!" Penn reached down and hit the switch to turn off his headlights. Looking up, Sunset felt the bottom fall out in her stomach:

Parked at the new gas station was the same huge truck that had chased them all over town.

"Okay, there's another gas station if we take Main Street back up to-"

"Chgchgchgch-ch-ch..." The car shuddered and spit as the engine switched off. Penn's eyes widened as he tried desperately to get the engine to turn over and catch again, to no avail. In a split-second decision, he turned them to coast into the station, having just enough force behind them to carry them right up to the closest pump. With some excessive force, Penn shifted the car into "park" and slapped his hand against the steering wheel.

"You've got an AWFUL sense of humor, you know that?" he shouted at the dashboard.

Even inside the car, Sunset felt exposed. It was the total opposite of their hiding place in the alley: open, well-lit, and completely conspicuous and vulnerable.

"What are we going to do?"

Penn sighed, reaching into his pocket and retrieving his wallet. With a long sigh, he retrieved an unfamiliar bill with a 20 printed in the corners, then snapped it shut again. He searched around for a moment before settling his eyes on the glovebox. He reached over, yanking it open and pulling it out of place. He tossed the rest of his wallet into the mess of wires and fuses hidden behind the glovebox before wordlessly popping it back into place.

"I'm going to go buy gas. Lock the doors behind me."

"Are you NUTS?" Sunset grabbed violently at his shoulder, yanking him back down into his seat. "At best, those maniacs are in that truck, waiting to mug you before you make it into the store! At WORST, they could kill you the moment they lay eyes on you!"

Penn motioned to their surroundings helplessly. "Well, they're GOING to notice us! Confrontation is impossible to avoid, here! That's why I'm only taking this 20! They can rob me blind, I'll go with it willingly and tell them it's all we've got, then when they leave we can buy our gas and go!"

Sunset shook her head. "That doesn't mean they won't still beat the crap out of you, especially once they realize YOU'RE the one who's been running them all over town! You can't go in there alone!"

"Ooooooh no! You are staying RIGHT here! Where it's-"

"Safe?" Sunset rapped her knuckles against the glass window. "Yeah! Totally crowbar-proof!" She jabbed her finger into Penn's chest. "I am NOT going to just sit here while you risk your life for a gallon of gas!"

Penn groaned, leaning back in his seat.

"Oh yeah? Well, what's YOUR plan?"

Sunset thought for a moment.

"I go in with the money-"

"No."

"-and you wait thirty seconds before you come in swinging. They have weapons, but I'm fairly certain I could take out at least one and get one of those weapons into OUR hands."

Penn raised an eyebrow.

"YOU could take one of them out? 'Miss Toothpicks-For-Arms?'"

Sunset narrowed her eyes in frustration, though it quickly melted into a smirk. In a quick motion, she snatched the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. At the same time, she raised her other hand and threw a heavy punch, stopping millimeters from his nose. Penn's eyes were wide with surprise and fear, frozen completely out of fear.

"First dan black belt in karate. Don't even start thinking I'm helpless."

"Y-yes, ma'am..." Penn stuttered as Sunset released him.

"Good. Now, we're going with my plan."

Penn pondered the situation for another moment, then sighed in resignation.

"Fine."

When Sunset entered the front doors of the store, her heart was pounding in her chest. As much as she was trying to look tough for Penn, she'd never actually had to use her training in a fight against real people. Most people tended to concede to her any time she mentioned the words "black belt," but a first-level black belt was like a bachelor's degree of martial arts: still only the beginning for a dedicated student. It meant she had only a firm grasp of all the fundamentals.

Guess it's time to put my skills to the test...

Inside, the same men from before were standing in front of the counter.

"Now, don't make this difficult. Put the money and the cigarettes in the bag, and then sit on the floor until we leave. No alarms, no calling the police." The first one urged, tapping his crowbar expectantly against the counter.

"Not that they'd come!" the second one piped up. "They're all out tryin' to stop those metal monsters!"

Metal monsters? Does that means there's MORE daleks out there?

The cashier seemed surprisingly nonplussed by all of this, sighing and opening the register.

"Hey! We're serious!"

The young woman gave the robber a tired glare.

"Buddy, the world is ending and I'm STILL clocked into my minimum wage job until my manager gets here to relieve me. They don't pay me enough to scream when we're getting robbed." She sighed, carefully thumbing out bills one by one from the cash drawer. "You'll get your money, but don't expect a big performance out of me."

Enough was enough, Sunset had wasted enough time, already. Gathering up her courage, she loudly cleared her throat, causing the two robbers to jump and immediately turn on her.

"It looks like you fellas might be a while, is there a chance I could sneak in to pay for some gas? I can put the money right in the bag, if that's easier for you?"

The cashier shrugged, gesturing to the open bag.

"Or how about you just give us EVERYTHING you've got and get on the floor?" The one with the baseball bat waggled it threateningly in her direction. Sunset sucked in air through her teeth and turned her pockets inside out.

"Sorry, all I've got's the 20, it was emergency money."

The thug with the bat moved closer.

"Well, if you need gas, that means you've got a CAR, don'tcha? Toss me the keys."

Sunset repeated the act of sucking air through her teeth, shrugging her shoulders.

"The keys are in the car-"

"Do you think I'm STUPID?"

"-being held by my buddy with the shotgun."

Behind her, Sunset heard the telltale clicking of a gun being cocked. In a moment, her mind did the math: two had gotten out to harass them in the car before they escaped. That meant there had to have been one more behind the wheel.

"A shotgun, huh? I think that could come in VERY handy for protecting our new car."

Sunset didn't turn, she simply calculated a few things based on how high the voice sounded. She breathed deeply, then exhaled slowly, taking a moment to find her center.

"Hi-YAH!"

Calm and collected, Sunset Shimmer spun on her heel, planted her feet, and threw the hardest punch she possibly could into the chest of the man behind her, striking right at the solar plexus. The only noise he made as all the air rushed out of his lungs was a soft wheeze. As he doubled over, Sunset wrapped her arm over his, keeping the gun pointed away from her as she lifted upwards, overextending the man's elbow and forcing him to release the pistol in his hand. Her free hand reached down and snatched it. With a smooth motion, she brought her knee up and into his forehead, knocking him unconscious, then spun back around, turning the gun on the two robbing the store.

The one with the crowbar dropped his weapon out of pure shock. The one with the baseball bat's jaw hung open, but still kept a grip on the bat. Identifying the bigger threat, Sunset trained the gun on him.

"Now then, you two are going to apologize to this nice clerk, then pick up your friend, go home, and wait patiently in your houses until the emergency broadcast tells you it's safe to go back out. Understand?"

All at once, the front door of the station flew open as Penn dashed inside, an x-shaped tire iron gripped in one hand as an improvised weapon raised above his head.

"AAAAAA- huh?" His eyes went first to the gun in Sunset's hand, then to the man on the ground behind her, and finally to the other two muggers and the clerk, who gave a casual shrug.

"Don't worry, Penn. Things are under control."

"I- I guess they ARE!"

"Just make sure this guy doesn't get back up without me knowing." Sunset kicked the body behind her with her heel.

"Will... do..." Penn seemed more perplexed than anything, but dutifully followed her instructions, guarding the unconscious body so Sunset was free to walk across the room. She advanced on the man with the baseball bat, motioning for him to drop it. With a sour look on his face, he followed her instructions, letting it clatter to the floor. As the two of them took steps towards her, however, Sunset narrowed her eyes, pointing up and firing into the ceiling.

"WOAH WOAH, WHAT? We're LEAVING!"

"You're forgetting something..."

Baseball bat guy stared at her in disbelief.

"Y-you're serious?"

Sunset nodded.

With total exasperation, the man walked back up to the register, snatching the empty bag. "I'm... sorry."

The other one lined up behind him, waiting his turn.

"Ah'm sorry, too..."

For the first time, the clerk smiled, the only affirmation she seemed to be ready to give them. Sunset kept herself out of reach and the gun trained on them as they walked over and picked up their third member, carrying him out the door. A few seconds later, the truck roared to life and sped away. Penn finally lowered his improvised weapon, turning and staring at Sunset, dumbfounded.

"That... was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. And I killed a dalek today."

Sunset's cheeks flushed a bit as she lowered the gun, setting it on the ground.

"I- I HATE those things..." Sunset couldn't hold back a shudder in her voice. It had taken everything she had not to jump and shout with surprise when she had fired the gun, she had never shot a gun before in her life and the noise and force of it was more than she had expected, even from a small handgun.

Penn nodded, scowling and picking up the gun with two fingers before placing it on the counter.

"You'll probably get more use out of this than us."

The clerk smiled again, picking up the gun and giving it a satisfied cock before spinning it expertly on her finger and tucking it into her belt.

"You two needed gas?"

"Yes!" Sunset smiled and placed the 20 on the counter, only for the clerk to shake her head.

"Tell you what: for whatever little it's worth, whenever you two wanna fill up it's on me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, no prob. I'll give you free gas for life, if I can. Or at least until my manager shows up."

"Thank you! Thank you so much!" Sunset jumped up with glee, reaching around the counter and giving the clerk an awkward hug. Penn's response was much more reserved, a grateful nod and a sincere smile.

"We really can't thank you enough."

The clerk smiled and tapped a few buttons on the register.

"Make sure you get the good stuff, 'kay?"

Sunset grinned and nodded enthusiastically, waving goodbye as they both left out the front door again.

A few minutes later, they were pulling back up outside Penn's house with a full tank of gas for the morning. Penn let out a long sigh as he put the car in park and removed the key.

"Well, as grateful as I am for the free gas, I'd have to call today a bust... Sorry, Sunset."

"What are you sorry for? You were already more help than I could have asked for!"

Penn shrugged, tossing his keys up and down to himself.

"Well, we'll have to try to figure out a plan for tomorrow. The next town over is about a half-hour drive west of here, that would take us into New Mexico. Cities and towns are few and far between, but if your friends landed between them, we could be searching for YEARS checking every cotton field and pumpjack for signs of them!"

Sunset nodded in affirmation. Just driving through town, she could tell that off-roading was not an option, and going on foot wouldn't be possible in this heat.

"I'll just have to trust that each of them can make it to civilization on their own if they got dropped in the middle of nowhere..."

Penn nodded, placing a firm hand on her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Look, your friends all have superpowers, right? They'll be fine."

Sunset reached up and held her geode in the palm of her hand.

"If they still work at all..."

There was a tense beat of silence. Penn tapped thoughtfully on his chin, staring intensely at the geode, then at Sunset. After several seconds, he let out a long groan of defeat and held out his arm in front of her.

"Look. JUST tell me what I'm thinking about RIGHT NOW, okay? No looking at my memories, got it?"

Sunset glanced up, surprised.

"I thought you said-"

"This is a ONE TIME offer, okay? If your powers don't work in this world, then the search for your friends is a lot more urgent. Consider it confirmation they're safe."

Sunset smiled, nodding and placing one hand on the geode. After a moment's hesitation, she placed her other hand on Penn's wrist.

So, if you HAD tried to smash the portal to Equestria with a sledgehammer, wouldn't the hammer have just gone through the portal? In what way did that bluff make ANY sense?

Sunset quickly released her grip on his arm, having gotten all of the confirmation she needed her powers were still working.

"Well?"

"Look, I was under pressure, okay? I was REALLY expecting to still win the Fall Formal! I worked with what I had, and it wasn't much!"

Penn smirked, opening his door and slipping outside.

"Come on, Sunset. Let's go put together our plan for tomorrow."

Sunset sighed and shook her head, but she couldn't hold back a smile as she stepped out of the other side of the car. She felt much more confident that her friends would be safe now that she could be sure that they still had their powers.

Just hang in there, girls... We're on our way!

Skye had to admit, she was surprised that ANY businesses were still open.

"Guess even the end of the world isn't enough to make some people give up minimum wage..." she muttered to herself as she stepped through the door of the gas station. Still, she didn't have time to consider the moral implications of a system that would compel employees to keep working through the end of the world, she had a mission to do.

"Lovely weather we're having..." the attendant muttered sarcastically. "Can I help you?"

"Actually, maybe you can?" Skye reached into her pocket, retrieving a piece of paper and unfolding it before placing it on the counter. "I'm looking for a couple friends of mine, we got separated a few days ago."

The girl picked up the paper, examining it closely before smiling in recognition.

"Oh! Red and her buddy! Yeah, they just came through here about an hour ago! Saved my hide and got me this!" She reached down and held up a handgun.

Skye smiled. "That's... really cool! Just the kind of thing they'd do! Do you know where they went?"

The attendant shrugged. "Beats me. They just filled their tank and left."

Skye repressed a double-take. In the footage from the hardware store they had walked away, so the team had assumed they were stuck on foot.

"They were driving? Can you tell me what kind of car they were in?"

The attendant shook her head and shrugged.

"I dunno. Wouldn't you already know that if you're their friend?"

"Well, when we got split up, they were on foot. They must have found a car they could use."

"And they sure weren't looking for anybody when they got here..." The attendant muttered, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Skye could tell it was time to bail. She quickly grabbed the photograph, folding it back up and shoving it in her pocket.

"Well, thanks anyway. You've been a HUGE help, just letting me know that I'm on the right path! Thank you!" Before the attendant could ask any more questions, she quickly made her way back out the front door and around the corner. She raised one hand to her ear, activating the communicator.

"Hey, Coulson! I've got a lead on the targets, but I'm going to need access to this gas station's security cameras."

"Good work, Skye. Fitz, get on that ASAP."

"Yes, sir! I'm on my way, Skye."

Skye rolled her eyes as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"Bet I can get in with my phone before you get here, Fitz!"

Skye hadn't been working with these SHIELD agents for very long, but she was quickly learning to make a place for herself on the team. Now they were all pushing their limits trying to find out the source of this alien invasion and how to stop it, and she had found their best lead yet.

Man, first these two kids take down a killer alien robot, then save somebody in a gas station and give her a gun? For people without superpowers, they're sure acting like they could be superheroes. Can't wait to meet them...

Secret Agent Woman

"So, if we REALLY book it, we should be able to hit Hobbs, Seagraves, and Lamesa all in one day, right?" Sunset tapped her pen against her chin as she stared at the local map Penn had pulled up on his laptop.

"That would let us cover at least three towns in one day..." Sunset hummed quietly to herself, not quite satisfied. "But what about some of these larger cities? Do you think we could make it to Andrews in the same day?"

Penn hummed quietly, making a so-so motion with his hand.

"Depends on how thorough you want to be in each town. Plus each of those towns are in different directions, so we're moving radially, but that increases our travel time-" he was cut off by a loud knocking on his door.

He and Sunset both stared at each other, eyes wide with surprise. Quickly, Penn darted to the tools sitting on a nearby shelf and picked up a hammer. He held it close behind his back and walked to the door.

"Times like this, I REALLY wish I had a peephole..." he whispered before cracking the door open slightly, only enough for a peek outside. Sunset heard his breath catch in his throat in surprise, but he quickly recovered his nerve.

"Hello... Can I help you?"

"Hi! Are you the owner of that car out there?" a female voice asked. Sunset couldn't see anything through the tiny crack in the door, but she saw Penn's grip on the hammer tighten. She quietly rose back up to her feet, getting into a ready position in case things went downhill.

"Yes, that's my car." Penn's voice sounded tight, terse. He was on edge. Sunset didn't want to think about what could go wrong here, but she had to be ready for anything. Whatever crazy, messed-up world she was in, she was a long way from Canterlot. There was no way for her to expect what would happen next, and that left her deeply unsettled.

"Ah! Wonderful! Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?" a second voice asked. This one was male, and spoke with a Scottish accent.

"About what? I'm a bit... occupied... at the moment." Penn murmured. Sunset felt a twinge of guilt at the idea that they might be turning away someone who needed their help, but as long as they couldn't be certain of the strangers' intent they had to be careful.

"Please, it won't take long!" the woman pleaded.

"We're with SHIELD, we need your help with THIS!" the man insisted.

For a moment, Penn seemed to recoil in surprise. He took a deep breath. "Just... one second." He quickly pulled himself away from the door, pressing it shut as he spun on his heel back to Sunset.

"Okay, so, uh... They have a picture of the dalek. The one we blew up."

Sunset's eyes widened. "But that was just a few HOURS ago! How could they already-"

"They're spies, Sunset. SHIELD is an intelligence organization. Think like if you crossed 'James Bond' with 'X-Files' and tossed in a healthy dash of 'Men In Black.'"

Sunset tried to make sense of the gibberish, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. "I have no idea what any of those are."

Penn sighed in a way that made Sunset feel very stupid, rubbing his temple in thought.

"The Strategic Homeland... Intelligence- No! Intervention Logistics Division. They're the spies who deal with the stuff people aren't supposed to see for their own good. Aliens, superheroes, stuff like that."

Sunset's eyes narrowed as she put the pieces together. For their own good? What would some shady government organization decide is good for me NOT to know?

"It spells SHIELD."

"They ARE the good guys, mostly..."

"Mostly?"

"Depends on where we are in their history..." He muttered, tapping his chin thoughtfully. He jumped into the air as pounding began again on the door, eyes wide in surprise as he momentarily lost his composure. He hastily rammed his shoulder against the door, shoving shut the crack the knocking had pushed it open. "H-HOLD ON! JUST A MINUTE!"

He quickly stepped forward, motioning for Sunset to get close, which she obliged.

"I recognize these two. They're good ones, through and through. Them and most of their team."

"Most?" The word sent a fearful chill down Sunset's spine.

"We'd be safe working with them. I can promise you that." Penn's tone shifted, and Sunset knew he was trying his best to be earnestly reassuring. It was completely transparent, Sunset could see his hands clenching and unclenching with anxiety, but the effort still gave her some measure of comfort. It was enough for her to trust him about the strangers.

"But only if you're okay with working with them. If you want me to keep that door shut and keep this between the two of us, I will."

Sunset blinked. THAT had caught her off-guard.

"But if you know them, that means they're some kind of tv-show heroes or something, right?" Penn nodded, enthusiastically agreeing. "And you'd just... tell them to go away if I asked?"

Penn blinked, as if surprised at himself, then nodded.

"Why?"

Penn paused, his eyes shifting from side to side in thought.

"You need me. They're secret agents from a world of superheroes. They can manage, but you're alone."

Sunset smiled, feeling a familiar warmth beginning to grow in her chest.

"Well, you're wrong about one thing..." She reached out, quickly wrapping her arms around Penn's shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug. After a short second, she released him again, giving him a smile to match her joy.

"I'm not alone. I've got a friend right here, and he's pretty cool."

Penn's eyebrows raised and his eyes widened in surprise, as if Sunset had just bestowed some kind of big honor on him. Before he could reply, Sunset smirked and pointed to the door.

"That's our minute. Let's meet some super spies."

Penn looked back at the door, then at Sunset. A gigantic grin spread across his face as he began to hop up and down on the balls of his feet, and a whining noise began to squeak out.

"EeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE-"

Sunset raised an eyebrow. This was the kind of reaction she usually expected from Pinkie Pie. Penn seemed to catch her reaction and quickly cut off his squeeing. He took a deep breath, held his hand level, and pushed it down. Once he'd calmed down, his face settled back to quiet indifference.

"Play it cool, Penn.." he muttered to himself. After a moment, he turned back and opened the door completely, revealing the two strangers standing outside. He made a quick motion with his hand for them to come inside, which they quickly did. Sunset felt a twinge of sympathy as they both looked around in surprise at the house and the man shied anxiously away from the exposed wires of the light switches. As they stepped inside, Penn casually made his way over to where they had been sitting and nudged his laptop shut with his foot.

The woman had long, dark hair and wore casual clothing with a light jacket. The man behind her had his curly hair cut short and wore a dress shirt and tie beneath a light semi-formal coat.

"So, you wanted to speak to us?" Sunset asked, offering her hand to the woman with a welcoming smile. "My name is Sunset."

"Skye! I'm Skye," she took Sunset's hand and gave it a quick shake. She seemed nervous, which was hardly surprising at the end of the world. "And this is Fitz." The man raised his free hand in a small wave, and Sunset could see a laptop clutched in his other hand.

"Just 'Penn' is fine for me." Penn grinned and took his turn to shake Skye's hand, then Fitz's. "Sorry about that. We've been dealing with a lot, SHIELD agents showing up on our doorstep was a bit much on top of the day we've had."

"Oh, I'd believe it! I mean, we saw your handiwork back at the hardware store!" Skye reached into her pocket and produced a piece of paper. After some un-folding, Sunset was staring at a picture of herself and Penn beside the shattered dalek, looking as if it had been taken from a security camera in the store. "That was really something!"

"It was more luck, really!" Penn interjected with a nervous chuckle.

"Well, if you could forgive us for getting right to the point," Fitz muttered, "so far, you two are the only ones to have encountered one of these things and lived to tell the tale, let alone BEAT one! We need to know what you know about them and HOW you destroyed it!"

Sunset and Penn glanced at one another. Penn's eyes were wide with fear, and Sunset felt a shiver run down her spine.

"So there really are more out there?" Sunset asked, getting a grim nod in return from Skye.

"And everywhere they go, they leave a trail of destruction and death in their wake. They're hellbent on total extermination! THAT is why we need your help! Every weapon is completely ineffective, and they have proven impossible to reason with!"

Penn hummed quietly to himself, placing his hand thoughtfully on his chin.

"Sounds about right. They have a protective field that vaporizes incoming projectiles and absorbs energy weapons..."

"And you see, THAT is what we need!" Skye declared, pointing emphatically at Penn.

Fitz stepped up, giving Penn a curious look. "That DOES explain why you resorted to melee weapons in the footage we found... How do you know so much about these things, anyway? You talk like you're some kind of expert!"

Sunset and Penn exchanged a nervous glance. Sunset wanted to tell the truth, but Penn gave her an almost-imperceptible shake of his head to warn her against it. He anxiously cleared his throat and turned back to Skye and Fitz.

"Same way I got to be pretty knowledgeable about tornadoes and the blue-ringed octopus: morbid fascination."

Skye and Fitz exchanged disbelieving looks, and even Sunset had to admit that it felt like a flimsy excuse, mostly trying to change the subject.

"Well, either way, we're going to need your help if we're going to stand any chance of stopping the rest of these monsters!"

"'The rest?' How many are we talking about?" Sunset asked, feeling dread building up in her stomach. Modesty aside, Penn hadn't been lying when he'd said that they had beaten the dalek with a LOT of luck. If there were more of them out there, that was very, very bad news.

"There have been at least a dozen sightings, not including yours. And yours has been the only one that has been stopped."

"We need your help. Anything you can offer would help us would save who-knows-how-many lives..." Skye placed her hand on Penn's shoulder and squeezed it.

Now, Sunset hadn't known Penn for very long, but it was easy to see the change come over him. She could almost see his faux-impassiveness melt away, his shoulders slumped and his posture falter.

"Y-yeah! I'd be happy to help..."

Sunset glanced at Skye, who seemed to have noticed the same transformation and quickly removed her hand.

"Grrrreat! Well, if you wouldn't mind coming with us, we have a vehicle waiting outside that'll be happy to take you to meet the rest of our team and fill us in on how we can beat these things."

Penn snapped out of his stupor, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a small ring of keys. "No need! I've got my own ride!"

"Oh, no!" Fitz smiled, jutting his thumb towards the door. "Our vehicle is top-of-the-line! Bulletproof glass, automatic GPS, the best defense systems SHIELD has to offer!"

Penn's eyes narrowed slightly as he flicked his keys expertly around his ring finger.

"I get antsy if I'm not driving. No offense to SHIELD, but I think I'd prefer my own car."

"But you'd me MUCH SAFER-" Fitz started to argue, only for Skye to step between them.

"You know what? I totally understand. I used to have this van, it was my mobile base of operations, I never wanted to leave it!" After a moment, she reached out and gripped his shoulder again. Instantly, the result of earlier was repeated, Penn's tension melting away at her touch. Skye used her other hand to flick a few strands of hair out of her face before twisting one around her finger and giving it a twirl. "But I really wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you, you know? Our car is a LOT safer..."

Sunset knew that move. She'd seen Rarity do it a thousand times whenever she needed something heavy moved. She'd taught Sunset that with the right demeanor, a lady could wrap men around her finger as easily as that strand of hair.

Penn glanced forlornly between Skye and his keys, obviously torn.

Okay, guess it's up to me to be the tiebreaker...

"Hey, Penn?" Sunset stepped beside him and gave his side a gentle nudge. "You already pushed your car pretty hard today, I bet the engine still hasn't even cooled off! Why don't we just take the ride in the armored vehicle? You've been behind the steering wheel all day!"

When Penn turned to look at her, the disappointment in his eyes made Sunset feel almost guilty for not taking his "side" in the argument. With a forlorn sigh, he slipped the keys back into his pocket, then motioned to the door.

"Well, let's not waste time, then..."

As Skye and Fitz made their way out the door, Sunset smiled and draped a comforting arm over his shoulders.

"Maybe next time, buddy."

Penn rolled his eyes, failing to suppress a smile as he turned back to her.

"Yeah, whatever you say, Benedict Arnold..."

"You KNOW I have no idea who that is!"

The two of them both giggled at the silly exchange. Penn pulled himself out from under her arm in order to lock up the front door. As she waited, Sunset leaned in close to whisper in his ear.

"I don't have to be a mind reader to see... You totally have a crush on Skye, don't you?"

Penn's eyes widened and darted from side to side nervously.

"Say one word and I'm telling EVERYONE that you're 'Flanksy.'"

It was Sunset's turn to be shocked.

"How did you- Right, multi-dimensional TV... That's still REALLY freaky!"

Penn nodded, gesturing to his eyes, then pointing back to Sunset.

Sunset tried to hide an involuntary shiver that ran down her spine.

I kept my art as 'Flanksy' secret from EVERYONE except Rarity! That was my place to be alone, sort myself out! Is NOTHING sacred?

"Hey! What's the holdup?" Skye asked, motioning towards the rear passenger door of the black humvee parked beside Penn's car.

Penn immediately jumped to attention, running over to his car and popping open the trunk. "Just grabbing something important!"

Sunset sighed and rolled her eyes, once again tabling the existential crisis under "think about it later." With a few steps, she was at the humvee. Penn silently fell into line behind her, now sporting a black pack of some kind on his belt.

"What's that?" she asked as she clambered into the back seat and buckled her seat belt.

"This? Just a little... experiment... I wanted to try."

Instantly, Sunset's expression turned sour as irritation gnawed at her insides.

"Do you have a hypothesis?"

The question seemed to catch Penn off-guard.

"W-well, of sorts! I mean- Yeah, hopefully!"

"And a control group? A set of parameters that will remain constant? Proper means of measurement and documentation?"

"I THINK it's going to be pretty obvious if something about these have changed now that the multiverse is broken..." Penn patted the pack on his belt lovingly before turning back to her with a concerned expression. "Are you okay, Sunset?"

Sunset's temper quickly receded, leaving her less angry and slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry, it kind of irks me when people use 'experiment' without actually knowing what it means or the proper scientific method..."

Penn's eyebrows raised in surprise and his expression changed to one of mild shock before a warm, satisfied smile overtook him.

"Now THERE is something I didn't know about you!"

With those words, the vehicle surged forward and they were on their way to parts unknown. From her place in the passenger seat, Skye twisted around to face them.

"Okay, so, why don't you fill us in about these killer alien robots-"

"Cyborgs!" Fitz indignantly interjected.

From the way Skye rolled her eyes, she could tell that it was a correction that she was actively ignoring.

"cyborg, thingies?"

Penn's smile turned southward and his expression became somber.

"They're called Daleks... And if you want to know as much as I can tell you about them, then it's best that I start at the beginning..."

"Imagine a world war raging across a far-away planet. A war of attrition so intense that it had been fought for a thousand years, with every conceivable weapon from bows and arrows to nuclear bombs. Weapons straight out of nightmares, capable of dragging down unfortunate souls down into the earth in an instant."

Penn spoke solemnly as he and Sunset sat together in the back seat of a black Humvee with darkened windows. He had tried to oppose the idea of not taking his own car, but the agents had been insistent that they couldn't know the location of their base. After a few minutes of heated discussion, Penn had finally relented.

"That sounds awful..." Skye muttered, turning around in the passenger seat to look straight at them.

"Beyond words." Penn nodded quietly. "Eventually, overuse of nuclear weapons led to both of the warring races locking themselves in near-impenetrable bunkers while their footsoldiers did battle in no-man's land. The Kaleds and the Thral were determined to destroy one another in total genocide. Any neutral parties were left to rot and decay in the nuclear wastelands, becoming the 'Mutoes.'"

"Kaleds? Thrals? Mutoes? As fascinating as all this is, it seems like you're telling us about everything except the daleks..." Fitz muttered. Skye quickly shushed him, slapping his arm before turning back to Penn.

"Sorry, he's a little grumpy because he had to go knocking door to door trying to find you two."

"Yeah! And do you know how many times I got mistaken for some apocalypse evangelical? It was embrassin'!"

"Bear with me. Their history is important." Penn chuckled. "And sorry, that's what happens when you go door to door in the Bible Belt. Anyway, to go on..."

"The Kaleds became ruled by the science branch of their military, a Technocracy focused entirely on weapons development. It was there that their chief scientist, Davros, developed a new technological marvel: the Mark III Travel Machine. It was a tank, immune to bullets and radiation, armed with a high-powered laser, unparalleled processing power, and the ability to stand above any and all other armies." Penn leaned forward, his brow furrowing. "Davros was a genius, pure and unadulterated... and an absolute sociopath. At the center of each and every one of these machines was a muto, a kaled mutated beyond recognition by a combination of high radiation exposure and brutal genetic modification. The process drove their killing intent to its absolute maximum while rendering it devoid of all other emotions. The Mark III Travel Machines were the most powerful weapons of the war, genocidally bloodthirsty and completely obedient, without any physical weakness. They were the perfect soldiers."

Penn let loose a long, long sigh, as if all this talking was tiring him out. Sunset had to admit, it was quite the story.

"Mad science given unchecked power and the resources of an entire species..." Fitz whispered under his breath, sounding more impressed than horrified. "Imagine what could be accomplished if he had been designing something constructive, rather than weapons of mass destruction?"

Penn nodded in agreement. "It's the constant question of scientific development: 'can' versus 'should.' Through clever use of trickery, Davros manipulated both sides of the war to encourage the production of these creatures. Unfortunately, Davros realized too late that he had given his creations too much free will as he had filled their minds with the doctrine of their own superiority..." Penn shook his head in disapproval. "The daleks refused to take orders from a non-dalek, it was against their directive to do so. They killed him before he could stop the production line and declared themselves the master race of the universe, vowing to destroy all other life."

Everyone's eyes widened in shock.

"Sounds like some... freaky conglomeration of Frankenstein's monster, Nazis, and War of the Worlds..." Skye muttered, anxiously tapping her fingers against the seat.

"Yeah. Makes me wonder what could've happened if HYDRA had succeeded in their mission." Fitz whispered to himself, just barely loud enough for Sunset to hear.

Her urge to ask what HYDRA was was quickly cut off as Penn continued the story.

"Eventually, the Daleks developed technologies powerful enough to travel through space, threatening to make good on their claim. With time, they even developed time travel technology."

"Wait, they can TIME TRAVEL?" Sunset finally couldn't restrain herself. This was crossing the line from science into science fiction... which, if Penn was right about fiction and reality eroding, was a believable line to cross.

"Impossible. Time Travel violates the laws of physics. You can go forward in time if you get close enough to the speed of light, but backwards violates all known laws of the universe!" Fitz declared, pounding his hand against the steering wheel to emphasize his point.

"Yeah! Besides, if these guys want to wipe out all life in the universe AND have time travel, that's game over, right? Why not just go back to when life first started to form and wipe it all out there?" Skye shook her head. "It makes no sense."

"It does if they weren't the FIRST to invent time travel." Penn declared, leaning forward and tapping on Fitz's shoulder. "And I would have thought a man of science would be the first to admit that the laws of science never stay the same for long, they're rewritten with each new discovery."

"The Daleks challenged the original race to discover time travel, the Time Lords, in the bloodiest and most brutal war to ever happen. It was so awful, it was locked away in a shut-off portion of time so that none of the terrible weapons used by either party could escape into the rest of the universe. It was win or die, and both sides only accomplished the latter. They destroyed each other, wiping one another out of the sky... But some daleks still remain. They remain, recruit, and multiply. Their arch nemesis is one of the last of the Time Lords, and I would wager that's why they haven't tried anything like going back to the start of creation. He tends to make himself a real thorn in their sides. But right now we can't just sit and wait for him to show up. The Daleks CAN be fought, but it isn't easy. You have to either exploit what one or two weaknesses they have or carve out one for yourself."

"So, what kind of weaknesses? That's kind of the part we came to you for."

The conversation was cut short as the car drove up a steep incline and came to a stop.

"We're here." Fitz declared.

"How about I get to the practical part with the whole team present, huh?" Penn's somber tone was suddenly replaced by a cheerful demeanor as he popped open the door on his side of the car and practically jumped out with excitement.

Sunset cracked open her door and stepped out , finding herself standing in an enclosed area 99 percent comprised of steel. They had driven directly into some kind of airplane cargo hold, and she could see an amazing-looking laboratory behind a pair of glass doors. Above them, a man was climbing down a set of spiral stairs. He was dressed in a sharp-looking suit and a smug smile.

"I've gotta admit, I've seen a lot of crazy things in my time, but that is quite the story!" He quickly descended the rest of the stairs and walked up to Sunset, offering a handshake. "Agent Coulson, nice to meet you."

"Sunset... Sunset Shimmer."

"You... you were broadcasting me over comms, weren't you?" Penn asked, sounding impressed.

"Fastest way to bring the team up to speed." Agent Coulson was completely unapologetic, even a little smug, as far as Sunset could see.

"Well, if I'd known that I had an audience, I would have made a better show out of it all."

Sunset took a glimpse at Penn, catching his expression. He seemed to be slightly in awe, but Sunset could tell the look on his face was one of recognition.

"Well, it was a nice story, but what we need right now are those weaknesses you were talking about. Think you can oblige?" Coulson walked to Penn, offering him the same handshake, which Penn took with enthusiasm.

"For you, sir? Definitely. Your reputation precedes you. I heard a lot about the battle in New York, looked into it rather extensively. Glad to see you well."

Coulson's poker face didn't falter, though Sunset noticed his smile quickly fade. "You know an awful lot about a lot of things, don't you?"

Penn shrugged off the comment. "I browse, dip in and out of things, pick up enough to understand but not enough to be an expert."

"You seem to be an expert on the Daleks."

"Call it a morbid fascination. I like learning about things that can kill me." Penn folded his arms over his chest. "You guys have data on how many there are and where they are, right? How we should approach this is very different depending on if we're dealing with scouts or a full-on invasion."

There was a beat of silence.

"Follow me." Coulson turned and headed back up the stairs, quickly followed by Fitz. Skye glanced between the two of them, then nodded to the staircase.

"Well, you two are getting a better first experience than I did, considering you're not locked in the brig being interrogated..." she whispered. Sunset could tell she was only half-joking.

"Would you give us a minute?" Sunset asked. "I... need a second to talk to him alone. I have some questions."

Skye pondered for a moment, then nodded and quickly mounted the steps, disappearing onto the next level. Sunset quickly turned to Penn. Now out of sight, his expression had completely changed: his face was one of rapturous joy, his jaw hanging wide open in a smile the likes of which Sunset hadn't seen since Pinkie discovered the existence of "cupcake fountains."

"We. Just met. Phil Coulson!" he barely contained a gleeful squee, clapping his hand over his own mouth to stifle the noise. He was hopping up and down in place with excitement in a completely undignified manner.

"PENN! Get a hold of yourself!" Sunset grabbed his shoulders, forcing him back down to the ground and pulling him in close. "Who is he? Why are you so excited?"

Penn finally calmed down a bit, taking several deep breaths and making a sweeping motion with his hand to ease his nerves. "I'm excited because we're on a real-life SHIELD airship, and we just met one of the best agents in all of SHIELD! Agent Coulson helped organize one of the greatest teams of superheroes to ever exist!" He started eagerly making his way towards the stairwell. "Just don't say anything you don't want going on record and you should be fine, Sunny."

"Did... did you just call me 'Sunny?'"

Penn paused for a moment, turning and giving her a shrug. "Sorry, I got a bit excited. Is Sunny okay?"

Sunset blinked a couple of times, then sighed. "Just... stick with 'Sunset' for now, okay?"

Penn nodded before eagerly rushing up the stairway. Sunset chuckled to herself a little at the display. If he didn't manage to get his excitement under control, his status as a fanboy would be given away completely in moments.

"Penn! Keep it together! 'Play it cool,' right?"

"Right, right!" He drew up short at the next door, quickly gathering himself. With what Sunset could only guess was his best attempt at a terse frown, he stepped through and out of sight. Sunset chuckled again and quickly made her way up the spiral staircase.

Well, whether it was luck or fate, I'm sure stuck with an interesting new friend...

Author's Note

I realized about 3/4 of the way through writing this that this crossover doesn't work in one respect: Fitz is canonically a Doctor Who fan. Doctor Who as a TV show exists in the MCU. Unfortunately I'm in too deep with this already to change the story I have in mind.

Diehard "Agents of Shield" fans, I'm sorry to have failed you, but you'll have to put up with just a LITTLE change to the canon for the sake of the plot.

Glory Days

"So, as you can see, we have fourteen confirmed 'Dalek' sightings spreading out across this area of Texas and New Mexico. They've been travelling alone, but it doesn't seem to have much impact on their deadliness."

Sunset and Penn were standing and staring at a large screen mounted to the wall, where Coulson had been going over a map with them for nearly half an hour. Each town on the map listed a count of casualties, injured and deceased. The fact that there were so many more of the latter than the former made Sunset's stomach turn. Even Penn seemed to have eschewed all of his excitement for a deep scowl as the magnitude of the destruction set in.

"Daleks are highly militaristic, they wouldn't conduct full-scale invasion in single numbers. The one Sunset and I encountered even identified itself as a scout." Penn mused. "They're still scouting out this world, assessing whether or not we could pose a threat-" he caught himself, then shook his head. "No, not a threat. How many resources and how much time we could cost to wipe out now, and whether we could be put to better use as a slave force."

"We think they're coming from a spatio-temporal anomaly right about... here." Fitz pointed to a point right at the center of the map. "We sent a drone through to the other side to try and gather data, but it was shot down after filming for only a few seconds."

The screen shifted to a bird's-eye view of West Texas, climbing up into the sky towards a shimmering barrier. As the camera moved up and through it, the entire picture transitioned to one of deep space. Far off in the distance, Sunset could count five spinning bronze saucers against the black void. After only a moment, however, a dalek flew into the picture, a flash of light came from its gun, and the picture was reduced to static.

Sunset had no idea what she had just been shown, but she knew that it wasn't good. She glanced over at Penn, hoping to get more information out of his reaction.

Sunset didn't know eyes OPENED that wide. She could see the whites all the way around his pupils, which were just as pale as his colorless face. Without a word, his eyes rolled back up into his head and he tipped backwards, falling to the floor with a loud thud.

"Penn!" Sunset rushed over to his side, checking him for injury from the fall. Luckily, the floor upstairs was carpeted, so it was unlikely he'd been seriously hurt by the impact.

"That bad, huh?" Coulson muttered, shutting off the screen with a wave of his hand. "Does he do that a lot?"

"I- I don't know, we just met earlier today!" Sunset gasped and slapped her palm over her mouth. She had been so worried about Penn, she'd spoken without thinking.

Fitz and Skye looked at one another anxiously, but Coulson's eyes just widened and locked on Sunset.

"You mean that the two of you beat one of these things after only knowing each other for a few HOURS?"

Sunset thought about trying to patch the leaked information with a lie, but she could practically feel Applejack's disapproval.

"Ten minutes, actually."

There was another pause.

"Well, that kind of teamwork is exactly what we're going to need if we want to survive this. Skye, you and Sunset help get him onto the couch, I'll have Simmons come take a look at him. I want to know the moment he wakes up!" Skye nodded obediently. "Fitz, you're going back to working on reverse-engineering that destroyed dalek down in the lab, I want a plan on how to beat these things by morning!"

"Yes, sir!" Fitz nodded before speed-walking his way out of the room back in the direction they came in from. Coulson obviously has his own places to be, leaving the briefing room in the opposite direction. Skye gave Sunset a sympathetic smile as she walked over and bent down to grab his ankles. Sunset returned with a tired smile of her own, reaching over and looping her arms under his shoulders. With joint grunts of effort, they both lifted him up into the air and walked him to a nearby couch.

"Not exactly the best first impression to make..." Skye muttered with a grin. "I've seen a lot of things, but I don't think I've ever seen someone faint like that at the first sign of trouble."

Sunset couldn't help but feel slightly offended. "Hey, take it a little easy on him, he's had a rough day! I think he's had more adventure today than in his whole life combined."

Skye raised her hands defensively. "I'm just kidding! I'm kinda the 'new girl' around here, too. Trust me, it's hard not to freeze up when you're staring the impossible in the face."

Before Sunset could respond, another girl was crouching beside her. She had a wide smile, long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a small bag. She reached inside, retrieving a small device.

"Hullo! Sorry, but would you mind moving?" she chirped, giving Sunset a gentle push out of the way before beginning to examine Penn. She ran the device over his forehead and watched a small display. She gave a relieved sigh.

"I might do a few more tests, but I would guess that he's fine, probably just overexerted himself." After a moment, she finally seemed to realize Sunset's presence, offering a wide smile and a friendly handshake. "Sorry, that was terribly impolite of me! Jemma Simmons, pleasure to meet you!"

"Simmons here is a genius with, like, six doctorates." Skye grinned. Simmons waved away the praise, but Sunset noticed that she didn't try to correct Skye.

Sunset took Jemma's hand and gave it a firm shake. "Nice to meet you, too, Jemma. I'm Sunset Shimmer."

"Sunset Shimmer? That's an... interesting name!"

Sunset blinked and glanced at Skye, who simply shrugged.

"It's pretty normal where I come from, actually..."

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you! It's a lovely name!" Jemma assured her. Sunset couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about this girl reminded her of her friends: as if she were some kind of fusion of Fluttershy and Twilight. It made her feel safer. "Now then, I doubt your friend will be waking up soon on his own, it's already rather late. I would suggest you both get some rest while you can! The rest of us, on the other hand..." she sighed, and for the first time Sunset noticed tired-looking bags beneath her eyes, "will keep working on reverse-engineering that THING they brought back for us..."

Sunset glanced at Penn. The color had returned to his face, and he now looked as if he was sleeping peacefully. She thought over just how much action and adventure had been crammed into a single day, then glanced at a clock on the wall. 10:30.

"I might not have any doctorates, but... maybe I could help?" Sunset rose up to her full height. "I don't know as much as Penn about daleks, but I DO know that their own guns are strong enough to take them down. If we could find a way to disconnect it from the main body-"

"Then we'd have an effective weapon to use against the rest! That's brilliant!" Simmons snapped her fingers and gleefully dashed for the door. "Thank you, Sunset Shimmer!"

"Wait! Maybe I can... help?" Sunset started to follow, but stopped as she felt Skye's hand on her shoulder.

"Trust me, it doesn't matter HOW smart you are, nobody can keep up with Fitz-Simmons when they're working together. Just that information is more than we could have asked for." Skye smiled and motioned to a set of doors on one side of the room. "We've got a spare bunk, why not follow your friend's example and get some sleep?"

Sunset glanced towards the doors, then back at Penn sleeping on the couch. She sighed and walked to another one of the chairs in the room, pulling off the cushions and setting them on the floor.

"I... don't want to leave him on his own. I'm used to this kind of excitement, and even I feel like this is getting to be too much. Until I dropped into his life, he was just a pizza delivery guy! I feel kind of responsible, you know? Could I just borrow a blanket?"

Skye seemed surprised, but game her a knowing smile and disappeared into one of the bunk rooms, returning with a pillow and blanket for her.

"He's pretty lucky to have a friend like you, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset smiled, laying down on the cushions and making herself comfortable under the blanket. Before she'd even realized it, she was already deep in the grasp of her dreams.

"Sunset? Sunset, wake up..."

Sunset awoke to a firm hand shaking her shoulder. Opening her eyes, Sunset found herself staring up into Penn's face.

"Huh- wha- is it time to go?" she groaned, rubbing at her eyes as she began to sit up.

"Oh, no! Nonono! You're just moving up to the couch. you don't have to get up." Penn assured her as he motioned to the place he had been sleeping.

Sunset was sleepy, but she wasn't THAT sleepy. "Wait, then where are YOU going?"

Penn smiled and held up the black pouch he had taken from his car, giving it a playful shake.

"Testing a theory."

Sunset was wide awake, now. She sat up completely, shifting her glance back and forth between Penn and the pouch. A grin spread across her face and she was on her feet in seconds.

"There's no way I could sleep after that!"

"But you need to rest! You-" Penn caught himself and leaned in close to her to whisper into her ear. "You got blasted across who-knows-how-many universes today! Who KNOWS what kind of condition you could be in?"

Sunset took a moment to take inventory of her body. Two eyes, two arms, two legs... Nothing was hurting or missing, she was hardly even sore.

"I'm FINE, Penn! Now clue me in on that experiment of yours!"

Once again, Penn's eyes moved up and down examining her before he finally let out a defeated sigh.

"Fine. Let's head outside."

"Outside?"

"We're probably gonna need some space..." Penn winked before motioning for her to follow. Together, the two of them made their way back out the way that they had come, down into the cargo bay where the black humvee was parked beside a cherry-red sports car on a large exit ramp. Behind a pair of glass doors, Sunset could see Fitz and Simmons toiling away as fast as they could on the remains of the dalek she and Penn had destroyed earlier that day. Sunset considered herself rather skilled at reading lips, but the speed at which they were talking was beyond her ability to make out even a few words. She quickly turned and followed Penn down the ramp and outside.

"Oh! I know this area! We're halfway to Seagraves!" Penn grinned. "So much for the tinted windows making us lose track of our location, huh?"

Sunset rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything to spoil his fun. To her, the landscape around them was just shallow hills and dead grass.

"So, don't keep me in suspense! What's this all about?"

Penn grinned and unzipped the top of the pack, reaching inside and retrieving a set of small, thin objects. Sunset cringed as disappointment settled in.

"Cards?"

"Not just ANY cards!" Penn declared, pivoting on his heel and pointing the bundle of plastic-covered cards at her. "These cards are part of a game created from a show about summoning monsters and casting powerful magic! The cards act as a gateway between the human world and the world of spirits! A good duelist can overcome any obstacle with only his wits and the heart of the cards!" He pointed the cards victoriously to the sky. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he returned to normal posture and cleared his throat.

"Of course, in THIS world, they're just children's trading cards. I was just thinking..." he dragged the tip of his toe through the dirt, obviously embarrassed about his earlier outburst. "You know, if Daleks and SHIELD and you can all be real now, maybe these can be, too?"

Sunset couldn't resist smiling. His enthusiasm was almost... cute. It was definitely contagious.

"Well, I guess comparing if them now to BEFORE I broke the universe isn't a bad idea, right? I guess anything's possible at this point!"

Penn's face lit up at the encouragement and he began to eagerly rifle through the cards in his hand. After a few seconds, he finally settled on one. He confidently held it at arm's length, displaying it for the world to see.

"Alright! If this is really going to work, let's find out! I summon... Ghostrick Doll!"

Sunset waited with baited breath. If this DID work, she couldn't wait to see what would happen. Both of them stood in complete silence for several seconds before Penn let loose a sigh of defeat and let his arm fall to his side.

"Well, I guess it WAS a stretch..." he muttered as he filed the cards back into the pack and fastened it back to his belt. Sunset stepped up beside him and gave him a gentle pat on the back.

"Hey, it was worth a shot, bud. I thought it might work, too! Sure would have liked to see it, summoning monsters out of trading cards sounds cool!"

Penn smiled and patted his hand against the pack. "Well, just having them nearby makes me feel safer anyway, whether they work or not."

Sunset could spot an opportunity to learn more about her new friend when it presented itself.

"Do they mean something to you? Something special?"

Penn smiled and reached inside, flipping through a few cards until he happened upon one that seemed to catch his attention, passing it into Sunset's hands.

It was a black card with a set of four stars at the top, a box full of text at the bottom, and a picture of what appeared to be a young girl at the center. She was wearing an adorable black dress with blue accents, a tiny top hat, and a pair of stockings with tiny shoes. She remembered Rarity calling the style "Gothic Lolita" in some of the mumbling she tended to do while she worked. The girl had a pair of wings with black-and-white feathers in a piano pattern and a matching halo over her head split evenly between black and white.

Ghostrick Angel of Mischief

2 Level 4 monsters

You can also Xyz Summon this card by using a "Ghostrick" Xyz Monster you control as the Xyz Material, except "Ghostrick Angel of Mischief". (Xyz Materials attached to that monster also become Xyz Materials on this card.) When the number of Xyz Materials on this card becomes 10, you win the Duel. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; add 1 "Ghostrick" Spell/Trap Card from your Deck to your hand. Once per turn: You can attach 1 "Ghostrick" card from your hand to this card as an Xyz Material.

ATK: 2000 DEF: 2500

"Well... the art is nice! It's really pretty!"

Penn chuckled, taking the card back out of her hand and slipping it into the pouch on his belt.

"You don't have to be nice about it, I know the text probably makes no sense if you aren't familiar with the game." He shrugged. "'Ghostrick Angel of Mischief' is a real mouthful, so I just call her 'Missy.' She's my favorite of the Ghostrick cards, gotten me through many a duel!" He gave the card a gentle pat before slipping it into the pack alongside the rest. "I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh before I moved to Texas. One of my closest friends taught me to play and gave me my first deck! By the time I came to Texas, I was obsessed with it..."

Penn's expression eased into a nostalgic smile as he strolled back to the cargo bay ramp and sat himself on the edge. Sunset silently followed him, sitting on the lower part just below him.

"I founded the school's game club around it, made a lot of my friends that way! I practically had the whole debate team coming, twenty-five members!" His eyes squinted after a moment. "Of course, the debate teacher got jealous and rescheduled his practices to the same time as our club meetings... After that, there were only five of us."

Sunset couldn't hold back a giggle at the thought of a younger Penn and some generic teacher locked in dramatic rivalry.

"But those five turned into some of the best friends I ever had in high school. Tuesday afternoons were our time to just sit back and get away from all the people who liked to get their laughs at our expense. For three years, every Tuesday was just us, an empty classroom, and a giant pile of cards..."

Sunset knew exactly what he was talking about. She had always loved hanging out with her friends in the band's practice room for the exact same reasons. It was like there was no one else in the world but them. When she was still hated for her days as a bully, it had been the one place she was safe from the rest of the students' judging gazes. Still, one detail struck a guilty nerve with her.

"You were bullied?"

Penn rolled his eyes and waved away her concerns. "It was much, much worse before I came to Texas. I didn't even realize I was getting made fun of until at least a year in down here! It was pretty tame. It was still nice to have our own little corner of the world where didn't exist, though." His smile widened as happy memories overtook his melancholy. "We would always manage to get in at least one match every lunch period, too! Best of three duels!" He leaned in close to her. "My buddy would tell you that we were evenly matched, but my old deck and I were never defeated in the best of three!"

"Your old deck?"

"Oh! Yeah! The Ghostricks are actually pretty new compared to the cards in my old reliable deck! Here, take a look, it's-" he was cut off by the sound of footsteps coming down the ramp. Both of them looked up to see Agent Coulson.

"Good to see the two of you up and about, but I'm afraid there's no more time for reminiscing about the glory days. We've got a planet to save."

Sunset looked back at Penn, who simply chuckled and hopped down from his seat on the ramp.

"Well, guess there's not a lot of time for children's card games at the end of the world, huh?"

Sunset followed suit, and the two of them quickly followed Coulson up and back into the plane's cargo bay. She couldn't hold back a wide smile. She'd learned a lot about her new friend in just a few minutes. She hurried up to fall into line beside him.

"Psst, Penn?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you could teach me to play that game? Once this Dalek stuff is all over?"

She watched as Penn's face lit up, practically rapturous in his disbelief. It was if those simple words had made his whole day.

"Y-yes! Definitely! I'd love to!"

Author's Note

"Pennington, are you purposefully avoiding writing the next chapter of Penn and Stone because you don't want to write a painful betrayal scene?"

MMmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaybe.

Smarter Than You Think

This time, everyone gathered down in the lab, which had a similar display to their meeting room upstairs. There were a couple of faces Sunset hadn't seen yet, apparently the two remaining members of Coulson's team. One was an older woman with shoulder-length black hair. Sunset could tell just from her posture that she was a woman not to be crossed. The other was a man with short-cut hair and traces of stubble. The moment that he had entered the room, a change seemed to come over Penn. He had instantly tensed up and made his way across the room to Sunset's side, placing himself between her and the stranger. The act hadn't gone unnoticed, the man and Penn sharing a glance at one another. Penn had simply nodded politely, but Sunset noted the absence of a smile on his face like when he had greeted the rest of the team. She made a mental note to ask him what kind of problem he had with the agent later.

"Now, to pick up our conversation from the point where it was interrupted..." Coulson glanced at Penn, who blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Sorry about that, I guess I was in worse shape than I thought I was when I got here. I'm fine now. No fainting, scout's honor!"

Coulson nodded and brought up a still frame from the video the day before: a perfect shot of the five ships floating in space. "Mister Penn, why exactly would this image make you faint?"

"Just 'Penn' is fine. Each of those are Dalek warships. Each one is capable of holding at least two THOUSAND Daleks. Five ships makes an invasion force of at least ten thousand."

"Ten thousand? That could decimate an entire country!" the male agent muttered.

"Try 'entire planet.'" Penn replied. "Daleks are killing machines. There could be only a handful of them and they wouldn't stop until every human on the planet was dead."

"Which is why we need to eliminate these scouts now." Coulson turned to address the duo of scientists. "Fitz-Simmons, tell me you've got SOMETHING that can help with that!"

"Yes!" both replied in unison.

"Simmons managed to separate the creature from the life-support systems. We're working on trying to find some kind of biological weakness we could use to bypass the outer shell and attack the creatures inside directly." Fitz cheerfully announced.

"And..." Simmons continued. "Fitz managed to not only separate the weapons system from the main body to make it handheld," she motioned to the table, where the gun portion was laid out with a long string of wires leading back to the body. "Thanks to the information Sunset Shimmer gave us, we know that reverse-engineering it is our best shot at creating a weapon that can penetrate their shielding. And managed to access the data core!"

It was at this point Skye raised her hand. "Fitz and I have been working like crazy trying to decode it, but my best estimate would be that we need at least twenty-four hours to crack the encryption."

"The planet's at risk, we don't have twenty-four hours!"

"Coulson, that's the best we can DO! We're already working ourselves to the bone, we didn't sleep at all last night!"

Sunset watched Penn press the tips of his fingers together and tap them against his forehead. "Wait... wait wait waitwaitwait..."

"Well, forget the encryption, we need to focus on weapons. Fitz, how long until a working prototype?"

"I'm missing something..." Penn whispered, tapping harder at his head. "Something important, something..."

"If we stop working on the decryption? Four, maybe five hours?" Fitz strolled over to the place where the gun was laying.

"That's a question, not an answer, Fitz. Every second we don't beat these things is another second people are dying out there!"

"What if we take this one gun and wipe out the scouts? Would that buy us time?" the male agent spoke up, picking the gun off the table and examining it closely.

"Or they might send a retaliatory force," The older woman growled. "More Daleks, greater violence. If they're a militaristic race, they'll respond to a show of force in kind."

Penn, meanwhile, was beginning to groan with exertion, eyes screwed shut as he slammed the base of his palm against his forehead. "Come on! I know I'm forgetting something!"

Everyone in the room was beginning to stare at him, and Sunset reached out to tap him on the shoulder.

"Penn? You okay?"

The moment she touched him, his eyes flew open wide and he slammed both hands on the table.

"THE DATA CORE!"

He glanced around the room, as if expecting everyone to instantly understand what he was talking about. Even Sunset had to admit that it was a mystery to her, and the way everyone was exchanging worried glances told her that she wasn't the only one. The only one keeping his eyes fixed on Penn was Coulson.

"Yes? What about it? I'm sure it's full of useful data, are you saying it has something we can use to beat these things faster?"

Penn turned away from the table, clasping his hands together a pointing his fingers ahead.

"Just... just let me talk through this. The Dalek database is the single most extensive wealth of data in the whole universe, possibly even more so than the Time Lords! They're a hivemind of data, everything observed by every Dalek going and feeding into their store of information." He spun on his heel, pointing the fingers of each hand at Skye and Fitz. "They have one of the most advanced securities known, and you two think you could crack it in a DAY?"

"Definitely!"

"I-I think so..."

Penn grinned and punched the air. "GREAT! I knew you were clever, but that's just GENIUS!" He spun back to face Coulson, leaning out over the table on both hands. "I've got an idea. It's crazy, but if it works the whole planet will be safe from the Daleks, possibly for good!"

Sunset thought she saw the beginnings of a smile tugging at Coulson's lips as he asked the question everyone was thinking.

"Well? What is it?"

Penn grinned and walked to the back of the room, pacing back and forth.

"Okay, so, in the past, a truly genius hacker proved herself able to exploit a connection to the Dalek database, she went in and deleted all files on a single individual, one that the daleks had been hunting for millenia, and the Daleks just... forgot him! Their memories of him had been wiped completely clean, even the ones that had just seen him less than a day before!" The pace of his pacing increased every time he changed direction. "If someone IS smart enough to crack their system and get inside, they could theoretically make the Daleks forget ANYTHING!"

"Like a planet?"

"YES! Imagine if we did that for a whole PLANET!" Penn continued his pacing, now power-walking from one side of the room to the other in only a couple seconds. "But you can't just delete the information, right? All that will happen is that they'll get to have the joy of discovering Earth all over again! Soooo..." he turned back to face the group, waiting for someone to finish the train of thought.

"If we can delete things, then... that means we can replace them, too, right? Put in our own data?" Fitz asked. Penn grinned and pointed a finger-gun at Fitz with a gleeful fake firing noise.

"KA-POW! One hundred points to Ravenclaw! SO, we'll have to split into two- no, three teams! Team one, Techies! Fitz and Skye, you two need to crack that data core and write a program that'll wipe Earth out of their memories and replace it with something REALLY unappealing! Meanwhile, team two, the specialists..." he took a moment to gesture to the two agents Sunset hadn't been introduced to, "are going to have to wipe out the scouts in a swift and decisive manner! If they're here at the same time we change the memories and see something different, all of this could be for nothing! Finally, team three is going to have to find a way to deliver the altered data core to a place where it could be connected to the main database..." he strode his way up to the front of the room, staring intently at the picture of the flying saucers. "Most likely.. there. I should probably be on that team, so..."

There was a brief moment of silence as the wind seemed to fall out of Penn's sails. He seemed to deflate slightly as his manic moment came to an end and he sheepishly looked at the floor, turning to face Coulson.

"O-or, at least, that's how I would do it, sir. Sorry, I wasn't trying to order your team around..."

For a minute, it was like he was a completely different person! Sunset was slightly in awe at the transformation. For a moment, Penn had been practically oozing confidence, held himself with a presence of a man completely in control. And then all at once it was gone and he had returned to his alter-identity as a mild-mannered pizza guy.

Coulson patted Penn's shoulder. "It's a good plan, I can overlook the faux pas." He smiled and poked a finger into Penn's chest. "That enthusiasm's good, hold on to that." He sighed, then turned to the rest of the team.

"Skye, get working on cracking that encryption. Fitz, finish making that gun mobile!" Both of them nodded, Fitz rushing to the table with the Dalek's gun and Skye rushing out of the room. "Ward, Mae, I need both of you to get ready to suit up. The moment that gun is operational, you're going out and wiping out the scouts we've been tracking. Discretely." The other two agents nodded, both walking out of the room together. Finally, his gaze turned to Sunset and he drew Penn's attention with a pat on his shoulder.

"Miss Shimmer, Penn, may I speak with you two for a moment in my office?" He calmly strode his his way out of the room. Penn shot Sunset a nervous glance and shrugged. She rolled her eyes and simply fell into line behind him.

"That... was amazing! How much of that did you make up as you went along?"

Penn sheepishly glanced back at her.

"Well, I DID say I needed to talk my way through it... Fake it 'till you make it, you know?"

Sunset could only smile and shake her head. That was the kind of excuse she was used to hearing from Rainbow Dash. Coulson led them through the upper level towards the front of the plane. Finally, they all walked into a small room. It was clearly an office, with a large desk and shelves lined with what looked like antique spy devices and models of every kind. It was like she was standing in a museum devoted to the history of the organization she was working with. Coulson took a seat behind his desk, interlacing his fingers and letting out a long sigh. He turned a tired-looking glare on Penn.

"What were you thinking? What you suggested about going out onto that alien ship is insane! There's NO WAY I can allow civilians to put themselves in the line of fire like that! It goes against every rule and regulation SHIELD has!"

Sunset watched Penn shrink back and away in the face of Coulson's reproach. A shadow of shame fell over him as his eyes shot down to the floor. Sunset felt indignation well up in her chest.

"Hey, he was just saying what makes sense!" Sunset stepped forward. "And he just gave you a plan to save the world!"

"And I AM grateful for that! But suggesting the idea of putting himself on the Dalek ship-"

"Ourselves." Sunset folded her arms over her chest. Penn's head snapped up, eyes wide with surprise. Sunset smiled and rolled her eyes. "You didn't think I'd let you go alone, did you?"

"Absolutely not." Coulson declared. Sunset turned back to the government agent, narrowing her eyes.

"Sir, with all respect, I know how to size someone up at a glance. The only two people on your team who are left are Simmons and you, and Jemma wouldn't last five minutes in the middle of a ship full of crazy killer robots! You have to be here to coordinate your team! You are out of hands!" She moved up to the desk, leaning in to look Coulson in the eye. "Penn and I were as close to that monster you have downstairs as I am to you right now. And we walked away. We aren't just your only choice, we're your best choice." Coulson didn't flinch at her, still as a statue as he stared right back into her piercing gaze.

"Unacceptable."

"You don't have a choice."

There was a moment of tense silence. It felt like Sunset and Coulson were locked in some kind of battle of will, caught in a stalemate as they waited to see which one of them would flinch first. Coulson's eyes narrowed.

"Get out of my office."

Sunset nodded.

"You'll know where to find us... sir." Sunset turned back to Penn, who had lost all color in his face, took hold of his hand, and led him out of the room. She tugged Penn all the way back to the living quarters where he finally moved under his own power to throw himself onto the couch.

"Y-y-y-you just- You JUST-"

Sunset rolled her eyes.

"Too much is on the line for us to follow every rule in the book, Penn, and I can already tell you're too busy hero-worshiping this guy to stand up to him when he's wrong!"

"You can't volunteer to go on that ship! It's crazy! It's insane!" Penn leaned forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. "A Dalek ship is practically certain death! Their lasers are so powerful they'll scramble your organs like eggs!"

Sunset folded her arms and narrowed her gaze.

"YOU volunteered to go, and you expect me to just let you go in alone?"

"I vo- I volunteered? I- I did, didn't I?" Penn held his palm up to his forehead and propped his elbow on his knee. "I think I'm going to faint again..."

Sunset reached up and pulled his hand away from his head, clasping it in both of hers.

"Hey. Penn. Keep it together, buddy. We're going to make it through this, okay? Where was that confidence you had when you were making this plan? It's a good plan!"

In his eyes, Sunset saw uncertainty and fear, worry. She didn't need to be a mind reader to know that he was terrified. She reached over and unzipped the pouch at his side and reached inside, grabbing the card from the top.

"Hey, remember what you said? A good duelist can overcome any challenge with his wits and the 'heart of his cards,' right? Well, your cards are right here! They're not going anywhere!" Slowly turned over the card in his hand, revealing the card he'd been showing off to her earlier: Ghostrick Angel of Mischief. "And I'm not going anywhere, either."

Penn took a long, deep breath, and Sunset felt his grip on her hand tighten. Finally, he let go of his breath and her hand at the same time.

"Okay. Right. It'll be fine. Everything is going to be fine..." he whispered, rising out of the chair on shaky legs. "W-why don't we go find something to eat?"

Sunset smiled, glad that her encouragement had gotten through to him.

"Sounds good to me, buddy."

Stronger Than You Seem

"Hey. Thought you could use this." Coulson placed a hot cup of coffee on the table beside Skye.

"Oh, thank you SO much!" she sighed and grabbed the mug with both hands, closing her eyes as she took a long drink.

Coulson took a seat beside her, cradling a cup of his own.

"Hm? Okay, Coulson... I know why I have bags under my eyes, I'm learning alien programming on the fly here. What's bugging you?"

"There's something that's eating at me. How did that 'Penn' guy know Ward and May were our specialists? In fact, he knew exactly what every person on our team was capable of and where they'd fit best! I couldn't argue with him because that plan is exactly how I would have divided everyone up, myself!"

"Including sending him and Sunset onto the alien spaceship?"

Coulson sighed. Skye's outsider opinion always had a way of getting to the heart of the matter.

"They're civilians, Skye! That mission is suicide!"

"Well, I was a civilian too, remember? And, whether you liked it or not, I think I've become a valuable member of this team!" Skye took another long sip of her coffee. "Mmm... Coulson, what are the other options?"

That was a question Coulson had been asking himself repeatedly.

"Ward's skills include infiltration, so do May's. Either one of them could go onto the ship, be in and out in a matter of hours, and the other could be out destroying the rest of the Dalek scouts."

Skye nodded. "You're not wrong, but neither of them know as much about these things as Penn. And if Sunset isn't going to even go to a different room to sleep, she's definitely not going to let him go onto the Dalek warship without her by his side. A three-person team-"

"Exponentially increases their chances of detection. I know." Coulson finished the sentence. "Team three needs Penn, and he and Sunset are obviously inseparable..."

"Not to mention, if you replaced May with Simmons, are you sure they'd be able to get every single scout wiped out in time? She's surprisingly good under pressure, but I wouldn't exactly take her for a sharpshooter with an alien laser gun. Taking out the scouts quickly is just as important as the away team's mission."

Coulson couldn't help but balk slightly.

"What makes you think I wouldn't put Ward on the away team?"

Skye scoffed as she began typing away at her computer again.

"Are you kidding? Did you SEE the way Penn was looking at him? I don't know what's going on there, but I'm willing to bet that one of them thought there was a little too much testosterone in the room..."

Coulson blinked, surprised at Skye's assumption. He hadn't noticed anything between Agent Ward and the stranger, let alone the tension she was talking about.

"What can I do, Skye? The team here AND the team going out there are both crucial! You and Fitz are going to be totally burned out by the time you've cracked the codex, Simmons isn't suited to either task, and our only expert on these things is certain to drag another innocent civilian in with him! I've got no good options!" Coulson sighed and held a palm to his forehead. "We're supposed to protect civilians, not drag them into danger! At times like this, I wonder what Director Fury would do..."

Skye sighed, stopping her typing for a moment to turn and face him.

"I don't know about this 'Director Fury' guy, but I know Agent Philip Coulson knows who to trust. You'll make the best choice."

Coulson couldn't resist a smile, patting Skye on the shoulder as he rose back to his feet.

"Thank you, Skye. I think that's just what I needed to hear."

"Great! I'll get back to trying to get into this Dalek data core..." Skye sighed with frustration. "It's like the programming is adapting to everything I do, like it's actively FIGHTING me!"

"Think you can do it?"

Skye grinned.

"It might require calling in a few favors from my old Rising Tide contacts, but I've never met a code I couldn't beat, yet!"

"Well, pick up the pace, would you? The more time I have to think about what I'm about to do, the more likely I am to back out of it." Coulson delivered the line with a grin, as if he were joking, but there was more than a nugget of truth to the statement. He didn't like where this plan was leading one bit, but it had to be done.

Sunset opened the passenger-side door of the humvee and hopped inside. Penn was waiting inside, reclined casually back in the driver's seat. His posture didn't fool Sunset, though. She could see his foot anxiously tapping away against the wall of the car, to the point that an eye unfamiliar with anxiety might have mistaken it for out-of-control shaking. Luckily, years of being friends with Fluttershy had gifted her with a discerning eye for nervous tics.

"So... any requests?" He held up his phone and gave it a small shake. "They won't trust me with the keys and an aux cable, so we're stuck with cell phone speakers."

Sunset smiled and shrugged.

"Anything is fine with me. Why not play me one of your favorites?"

Penn paused for a moment, then typed furiously into the phone for a few seconds. A moment later, a familiar guitar began to play.

"Once... upon a time,

you came into my world and made the stars align!"

A wave of emotion swept over Sunset as Applejack's voice rang through the car. Before she was even aware enough to stop it or suppress it, tears began to stream down her face.

"Now I can see the signs!

You pick me up when I get down so I can shine!"

Rarity's crooning sent another shudder through Sunset's body, too much for her to take. She buried her face in her hands as the wall holding back her emotions crumbled to dust and she began to sob uncontrollably.

"Shine like rainboooooows! Shine like-" the music was cut off suddenly and Sunset felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Sunset! I-I'm sorry! I just thought you might-" Sunset shook her head, cutting Penn's excuses off as another sob burst out. She couldn't stop the words that came after it any more than she could stop the tears from flowing.

"It's my fault! It's all my fault! And- and now I don't know if I'll ever SEE them again! I- I thought I'd made my peace with all of us going our separate ways, but not like this! Twi-Twilight had a full ride to the best college in the country! Rarity got an internship in Manehatten, Rainbow was guaranteed anything she could ask for! And I made a stupid mistake and took it ALL away from them! It's all my fault! It's all my fault... It's-"

The door beside her opened. She glanced over and saw Penn standing there. She hadn't even noticed him leave the car. He reached out and took hold of her hand, pulling her down and out of the seat.

Sunset had gotten plenty of hugs since she'd become one of the "good guys," the Rainbooms were pretty fond of them. She'd always thought Pinkie gave the best hugs, with Applejack coming in at a close second. Somehow, in that moment, she found herself wrapped up in some kind of super-hug. It was as if someone had crammed one of Princess Celestia's wing-hugs, her favorite blanket fresh out of the dryer, and a healthy dose of Equestrian magic into an iron vice and clamped it shut around her. The way he was gripping her, Sunset wondered if Penn was afraid she'd disappear just like the rest of her friends had. Everything else became muted, like an aura had settled around them that blocked out the rest of the world.

When her breathing had slowed and come back under her control, Penn finally let go enough to hold her at arm's length. Just like in the planning room, Sunset couldn't see a single trace of anxiety or hesitation.

"Sunset Shimmer, I swear to you, as your friend, we will find them. I will make certain that you find every single one of your friends, and that you all make it home safe and sound. I promise."

Sunset was glad that her complexion tended to hide a blush well.

"You give really good hugs."

Immediately, Penn's face shifted to surprise, and he couldn't seem to let go of her fast enough. The confidence was once again gone as quickly as it had come.

"Sorry, heh... I was always that one friend everyone would go to with their problems, and I've always been a hugger... That was mostly instinct. Was it too much?"

Sunset wiped away the remains of her tears and shook her head.

"No, it was... just what I needed."

Her answer sent a wave of relief washing over Penn's face, and he nodded back to the humvee. In a matter of seconds, the two of them were back in their seats, and Penn was typing away on his phone again.

"Okay, how about this: the words are all gibberish, but it's the theme to one of my favorite characters! In a world that seems like it's cold and cruel, she chooses to be kind and full of faith! It's called 'Credens Justitam!' It means-"

"Believe In Justice?"

Penn gave her a smile so bright, it nearly blinded her. Sunset couldn't help but smile in return and lean back into her seat.

"Sure. Why not?"

From the tiny cellphone speakers came the sounds of a full choir and orchestra, filling the space of the car until Sunset felt fully immersed. Penn was right about the lyrics being gibberish, but the emotion of the piece shone through clear as day. Comfort and hope wrapped around Sunset and washed over her. The panic of seconds before felt like a distant memory.

"Yuki Kajiura really is a musical master..." Penn whispered, barely audible over the music.

Sunset had to agree.

"Anything new?" Coulson asked.

"Well, as near as I can tell, 'Penn' has no kind of specialized training, let alone being an expert in xenobiology." Agent Ward shrugged and let out a long sigh of frustration. "Real name: Elijah Bakersfield. Delivered pizza before the world went crazy. Born in Conneticut, spent his childhood in Maine, moved to Texas eight years ago. Flunked out of college in Utah about two years ago. Been on medications for depression and anxiety, but nothing out of the ordinary. This guy is clean, Coulson, not even a parking ticket! There's no reason to trust him, but also no reason NOT to trust him!" Ward spun in his chair to face his commanding officer. "I have no idea how he knows so much about these aliens, but he didn't learn it in school or from any organization we have on record."

"What about 'Sunset Shimmer?'" Coulson still couldn't take the name seriously. It sounded like a name a 5-year-old girl would come up with for her pet pony.

Ward shrugged. "Ran her photo through every database SHIELD has, nothing. She's a ghost, as if she didn't exist until that security camera at the hardware store caught her on film yesterday!"

Coulson had once said that Skye's ability to have wiped her digital existence from the face of the planet was intriguing. The novelty of not knowing things was very quickly wearing off.

"May? What are they doing now?"

Agent May removed her headphones and gave Coulson a very fed-up expression.

"I think they both fell asleep in the humvee. That or they're just listening to music. Sunset started to have some kind of meltdown, but Penn defused it."

Coulson had to admit that he was mildly surprised. In his office, Sunset had shown a level of nerve that could have stared down Romanov, and Penn had seemed too timid to even speak out loud if someone else was talking.

I guess everyone's different when they think nobody's watching...

"Can I stop watching them, now? I've got better things to do, like make sure Zephyr One is ready for an emergency takeoff if one of those THINGS tracks us down."

Coulson knew better than to push May when they were all under so much pressure. He gave her a quick nod, and she eagerly left the room.

"Sir, with all due respect, may I ask you something about this plan?" Ward asked, setting aside the laptop he was working off of.

"Granted."

"The away team is going to be striking deep into the heart of enemy territory. Agent May and I are both specialists, more than suited to the job! We have the skills, why not send one of US?"

Coulson sighed.

"Because the scouts have spread too far apart. We need to deal with them all quickly, before they can coordinate a counterattack. You and Agent May will have to split up and each take on six or more in a matter of a couple hours at the same time the away team is infiltrating. You're the only agents I can count on to be that efficient AND to take these things out in a head-on fight by yourselves. Our new friends already proved that they have a knack for not getting killed by daleks, but Penn wasn't lying: watch the footage from the store, killing that thing WAS a matter of luck. We need more than luck to destroy the scouts."

Ward sighed again, and Coulson knew that he'd already contemplated and dismissed every thought going through Ward's head while he was alone in his office.

"I don't like it, sir. Putting them into the line of fire. It's against every SHIELD protocol, and even our mission as an organization altogether! We're supposed to protect the innocent, not send them into the line of fire!"

Coulson took a deep breath.

"You're right. SHIELD agents keep people safe. We protect the world." He turned and quickly made his way out the door. "Thank you, Agent Ward! You just helped me make up my mind about something!"

Sunset could feel herself drifting between awake and asleep. Penn had decided not to stop with "Credens Justitam," going on to play the entire soundtrack to the show it had come from, something about "magical girls." She hadn't really been listening too closely by that point.

A soft knocking came from the window, followed a second later by the door opening on its own.

"Hey, you two still alive in here?" Agent Coulson asked.

Sunset smiled and rubbed at her eyes. "Sorry, must have lost track of time..."

"Do you need the car for something?" Penn asked. Sunset watched him open the door and roll himself out of his seat.

"Actually, I need to talk to the two of you about something important." Coulson stepped aside and motioned for Sunset to get out. She quickly obliged, her sluggishness wearing off in a matter of seconds. Penn quickly made his way around the car to join them, taking up a position at Sunset's side.

"Now, about this mission: are you two certain that you can do it? If you're having doubts, we can find another way."

Sunset's mind flashed back to the moments after their last meeting with Coulson and Penn's ensuing breakdown. She glanced over at her friend, trying to gauge whether his condition had improved. He was staring right back at her, locking eyes. Sunset felt a solidarity between them, a solid base from which friendship had been built. Finally, Penn turned back to face Coulson with a shake of his head.

"Sir, of course I have doubts, it's sneaking onto a ship full of killer aliens! But it's what needs to be done, right? So we'll do it."

Sunset watched Coulson's expression settle into a melancholy smile.

"Spoken like a true agent. Unfortunately, you two are NOT agents, and SHIELD cannot in good conscience put civilians in harm's way like this." He sighed and reached into the pocket of his suit. Penn's eyes widened, and Sunset felt herself begin to slip into a defensive position. A moment later, however, Coulson produced two items from his pocket. They looked like leather wallets, and Sunset heard Penn gasp in surprise as he obviously recognized them.

"No way... NO WAY!"

Coulson ignored Penn's excitement.

"When I first joined SHIELD, Director Fury told me that a person can do anything when they realize they're a part of something bigger. Over all these years, he's only been proven right time and time again. So, for the sake of this mission, I am fully deputizing the two of you as temporary agents." He handed each of them one of the leather items. Sunset flipped it open to reveal a large circular badge with the SHIELD emblem and an ID that looked much like her driver's license, including a photo and her physical details.

Shimmer, Sunset. Level 4
Title: Specialist

"Specialist?"

"Well, there wasn't really a title for 'Alien Mothership Infiltrator.'" Coulson shrugged. He gave Sunset a firm handshake, followed soon after by Penn. "Both of you, welcome to SHIELD."

Penn eagerly held up his hand in a passionate salute. "We won't let you down, sir!"

"Wrong hand, Penn. But again, I like the enthusiasm!"

Penn instantly switched hands, and Sunset held back a giggle at the awkward antics.

"You two are going to have a mission debriefing tonight and leave first thing in the morning, Skye and Fitz should have the data core cracked by then."

There was something that had been bothering Sunset up until now, and this felt like the time to ask it.

"Mister Coulson, sir? Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead, Sunset."

"Well, isn't it just space on the other side of that rift? How are we going to survive on the other side?"

Coulson smiled.

"Well, Fitz-Simmons didn't JUST separate the weapon from that Dalek in the lab! Come on, I think you'll like this." He nodded towards the back of the plane and out the cargo hold. Together, the three of them walked outside and around to the front of the plane.

"We managed to extract the hoverskirt, as well! We've attached it to one of our environmentally sealed cargo containers and..."

As they reached the front of the plane, just beyond the nose, Sunset could see a large rectangular container sitting on the ground. Bits and pieces of the bronze Dalek armor were scattered around the bottom, messily welded on in places and connected by a mess of wires she knew would have haunted Twilight's nightmares.

"Instant spaceship. It's not much, but it should get you there and back again under the radar!"

Sunset suddenly felt much less confident about placing her life in the hands of SHIELD. Penn, meanwhile, immediately ran up and began to examine it, gleefully clapping his hands together.

"Ha HA! Coulson, this is GENIUS! Using Dalek parts means that we'll be recognized and not blown out of the sky!" He pointed back at Coulson with a sly grin. "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out!"

Coulson's face lit up with delight.

"Episode 6? You're a fan?"

"Who isn't?" Penn replied, slapping the side of the container and leaning against it. "Who can ever forget 'Return of the Jedi?'"

"One of the greats!" Coulson agreed.

Penn leaned forward. "Okay, I have a question: did you like that they re-used the plot of destroying another death star? Or did that seem kind of lazy after A New Hope?"

"Not at all! The fact it was only half-built made a really chilling image, and the fact it was fully operational? Huge twist at the time! I loved it! It's what got me interested in things like aliens and the supernatural, to begin with!"

Sunset had no idea what they were talking about, but it reminded her of Rainbow Dash and Twilight's conversations about Daring Do novels: something she'd long ago decided to give up trying to interpret.

"I guess that answers my question... Thank you, Agent Coulson." she tried to hide the trepidation in her voice. This transport did NOT inspire a lot of trust. Coulson still seemed to pick up on her hesitation, walking over and placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

"I know it doesn't look like much, but I'd trust Fitz and Simmons with my life, and they say it'll hold. I would never place the lives of one of my agents in unnecessary danger, Sunset. You'll be safe inside, I promise."

Sunset nodded, her fears somewhat eased. Coulson seemed earnest, and there was something about him that made Sunset feel he was trustworthy.

"OH MY GOSH!" Penn practically screamed, drawing all attention back to him.

"We're going after the Daleks... in a flying box! Do you have any idea how HILARIOUS this is?"

This time Coulson seemed to be out of the loop, as well. He looked to Sunset, who simply shrugged. She didn't get the joke, either. Being the only one to get the joke didn't dampen Penn's enthusiasm, doubling over with laughter.

"C-Coulson, sir! P-please, I'm begging you! Can we- Can we paint it BLUE?"

Coulson leaned down, half-whispering to Sunset.

"Is... he okay? I think the stress might have gone to his head..."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I used to have a friend who said a lot of things that didn't make sense. When we stopped questioning her all the time, she wound up being one of the most reliable friends I've ever had. I'd say... just roll with it."

Coulson pondered her advice for a moment, then shrugged.

"No painting it! I'm expecting it to come back to us intact, with both of you on board!"

Penn's laughter finally petered out, only leaving a gigantic smile on his face instead as he rose into a proper salute.

"Yes, sir! Understood..."

Coulson nodded and turned back the way they'd come.

"Well, the rest of the day is your own. I recommend you familiarize yourself with the controls, then get plenty of rest for tomorrow! And that's an order, agents!"

Sunset took her turn to salute as Coulson walked away. The moment he was out of sight, she rushed over to Penn.

"WHAT was all that about?"

"S-sorry..." Penn said, hardly sounding sorry at all as he wiped a tear of laughter from his face. "It's just that the arch-enemy of the Daleks... his ship is a blue box, almost the same size as this one! It's either a sign from God or the funniest coincidence in the history of the universe!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I'll go with 'coincidence.'"

Penn shrugged, and Sunset noticed his expression quickly turn dower.

"Hey, Sunset... I feel like I owe you an apology. For playing that song earlier. It was stupid of me to think that was a good idea, and it just wound up hurting you... I should have thought more about it. So... I'm sorry." He turned his eyes down to the ground and shuffled his feet.

Sunset was surprised. She'd thought that the whole ordeal was behind them.

"Penn, you were just trying to make me feel better! Why would I be mad about that?" She walked over and stood beside him, leaning against the makeshift spaceship side by side. "Besides, I owe you an apology, too. Ever since I got here, I've been trying to only think about what's happening in the moment so I wouldn't think about what's happened to my friends... But when I heard their voices, everything I'd been bottling up all came out at once. I'm usually pretty calm, you know? But I just fell apart... I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Sunset, you've got every reason to be upset! You can't apologize for that!"

Sunset pounded her fist against the wall. "Then I'm just sorry you had to SEE it! I don't get hysterical, I get things done! I've never... I've never just panicked like that!"

Penn shrugged off the statement.

"It happens to the best of us, Sunset. In your position, I don't even know what I'd do other than break down into a panic attack to end all panic attacks!"

Sunset sighed. "Well, thank you... Thanks for helping me get control."

"Hey, don't forget you were the one who calmed me down enough to be willing to go on this crazy adventure! I was freaking out, too!" He gently patted the pack of cards on his waist. "If we can both keep each other's heads on straight, we might stand a chance of surviving this."

Sunset smiled and shoved her elbow into his ribs.

"Hey! You promised you'd get me and my friends home safe and sound! That starts with definitely surviving the Daleks!"

The two of them both began to giggle to themselves.

"Sunset, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

Braver Than You Believe

"So, here's the plan."

Sunset was still half-asleep and groggy. It was five minutes before five in the morning, and she and Penn had been up late "training" with their flying box and learning to fly it without throwing themselves from wall to wall. Penn didn't look to be faring much better, barely able to keep his eyes open. Once again, the agents of SHIELD had gathered in the lab. Skye and Fitz both looked nearly dead on their feet, but there was a content smile on Skye's face.

"Skye and Fitz managed to crack the encryptions and firewalls on the data core last night. Not only did they make the necessary modifications, but they got us a little something extra." Coulson waved his hand to reveal a cross-section of a dalek ship. "A map!"

"The idea is-" Fitz stepped forward, only to stop and have to stifle a yawn. "The best point of attack would be the repair bay, located here." He pointed to a medium-sized room at the bottom of the ship. "All you would have to do is replace the data core in an existing Dalek with our modified version and Skye's programming will do the rest."

"Not only are these coordinates going to become the new home of a nasty black hole, I've added a few other little viruses that should turn their systems inside out..." Skye was trying to sounds smug, but her tired monotone made her sound like the most miserable person in the room.

"The mission is going to be fast and simple. You get in, swap the data core in the repair center, and get out. Shouldn't take more than an hour and you'll both be back home safe and sound, got it?" Coulson looked between Sunset and Penn. Penn gave a sluggish salute, and Sunset simply nodded.

"Meanwhile, Agent Ward and I will be taking Fitz-Simmons and going after the scouts at the same time," the older woman (who Sunset now knew was Agent May) stated. "Once we've taken out one, we'll disconnect its weapon and add it to our own, then split into two teams. Then four. The scouting party will be destroyed before they know what hit them, and Skye's virus will discourage them from sending any more."

Coulson nodded in agreement. "I'll be coordinating from here. If any team runs into trouble, I'll inform the rest and adjust plans accordingly." He turned his attention on Sunset and Penn, pointing at each of them. "You two: if I say abort, you ABORT, got it? Trust me, we'll find another way, I don't want to lose any more casualties to these monsters."

"Won't have to tell me twice..." Penn mumbled. A second later, his eyes shot open wide. "Uhm... Did I just say that out loud?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I think what he MEANS to say is that we'll follow orders to the letter, sir. No need to worry." She offered a quick salute. This seemed to satisfy Coulson, who reached down and produced a small plastic case. Inside were a pair of small earplugs. Penn reached out and took one, placing it into his ear without hesitation. Sunset quickly mimicked him. She could guess that they were some kind of communicators.

"Alright, everyone! Time to save the world..." he took a quick glance around the room, before letting out a frustrated sigh.

"And seriously, get some coffee, or something."

"Alright, listen closely. You want to bear thirty-two-point-three degrees north-by-northwest of here for five miles, the temporal-spatial rift is approximately one hundred meters off the ground." Fitz declared, pointing out into the brown landscape. "We've put a GPS into the 'ship' to get you there. Once it loses signal, there'll be a second system that will record your movement through three-dimensional space. When you're ready to extract, hit the red button, it'll automatically take you back along the same path through space and through the rift. Understand?"

"Sounds simple enough... When we want to come back, just hit the big red button!" Penn declared.

"Are you sure you'll be okay, Fitz? You're pretty tired already, and now you're going out to fight more Daleks here on Earth!" Sunset asked. Fitz shook his head.

"This isn't my first all-nighter. Exam week at the academy, I didn't sleep for three days straight without even realizing it! I'll be fine. Now don't worry about us back here, we'll do our part." Fitz reached into the pocket of his coat, producing a small, bronze, egg-shaped item. "This is the data core. Find one in the repair bay, swap it with this one, and our virus will do the rest. Good luck, both of you." Fitz gave her a pat on the shoulder before turning and running back to the back of the plane. Sunset watched him and the rest of the agents were pile into the humvee before driving out of sight. Penn tapped a panel on the side of the storage container, opening the doors.

"Ready, Sunset?"

Sunset grinned and ran inside, grabbing the hastily-installed joystick that served as the controls.

"I should be asking you the same thing! At least I was awake during the debriefing!"

Penn rolled his eyes and tossed aside the empty energy drink in his hand.

"I'm good! In that case... let's go save the world!"

Sunset grinned and flicked a switch, activating the hoverskirt and lifting the container into the air. With a gentle push of the joystick, the ground fell away from beneath them and they were on their way.

"Ever been to outer space before?" Penn asked, staring out the window. After a few seconds he backed away and made a concerted effort to stare at the walls and floor around them.

"Nope. You?"

"Do daydreams count?"

Sunset chuckled. A quick glance at the GPS showed they were off-course. A small adjustment later, they were back on course. "Guess that makes this a new experience for both of us?"

Penn nodded, staring wide-eyed out the front window. Sunset noticed a small tremor in his hands.

"Is now a bad time to mention I'm scared of heights? And dying in the cold vacuum of space? In all of the excitement, I kinda forgot."

"Oh! That's actually a common misconception! Vacuum can't have a temperature! What's cold are the extremely thin gases spread throughout, which are usually only about three degrees above absolute zero, and..." Sunset glanced over to see Penn keeping a death grip on the handles fixed to the walls, eyes wide and face pale. "And I'm not really helping, am I?" Penn shook his head.

"Well, let's put it this way: I am VERY good at this. That's why we were up until almost midnight last night! I'm not going to fly us into anything. We'll make it there safely. Once we do, you're the one I'm counting on to keep us safe! Each of us relies on the other, it's fair!" A quick glance at the GPS showed that they were almost on top of their target. Sunset looked up at the sky, trying to spot the rift.

She nearly missed it, at first. It was a shimmer in the air, like the heat coming off of a road on a broiling summer day. She could feel the energy coming off of it like the sun on her face, bypassing walls and barriers to tingle directly on her skin. The GPS began to beep softly, indicating that they had arrived. She turned and glanced at Penn, taking a deep breath of her own.

"Only one way to save the planet... you ready?"

Penn tore himself away from the wall and joined her at the front window, looking up at the portal.

"Not really, but we're going anyway... Allon-sy, I suppose..."

Sunset nodded and flipped the hoverskirt switch a second time, propelling them upwards.

This portal wasn't like the one between CHS and Equestria. It felt gentler, like stepping out the door of a building and into the outdoors. If she hadn't been paying attention, she might not have even noticed that they had transitioned into another world.

Fortunately, she WAS paying attention, because outer space was not a sight she would have wanted to miss. It was as if the absolute clearest and most beautiful night sky to ever exist had been taken and layered on top of itself a dozen times over, then copied over to cover every inch of her vision. Far away, great clouds and nebulas light-years across billowed and rolled across the heavens, auroras of color and light that seemed to sing with wonder and majesty. Sunset felt like she was peering into the heart of the cosmos, ready at any moment for some deep wisdom to fill her mind. Rather than some all-knowing voice of the stars, however, she was gifted only the sight of the Dalek ships coming into view. It was only now that she could really get a feel for how colossal they were, towering in the distance and dwarfing their tiny little box. She swallowed loudly and began to press forward on the joystick, driving them onward and deeper into space.

"Wow..." Penn whispered from behind her. Sunset could only nod in agreement. Penn reached up and pressed his finger to his ear with the communicator. "Coulson? We're through..."

"Good job. Everything is going well on our end, the team's taken out their first scout and split into two teams. Everything is going according to our timetable. Press on." Coulson's voice declared in Sunset's ear. She tried not to flinch at the volume of it, and made a note to ask later about turning down the decibels.

There were blissfully few obstacles to avoid as they drew in closer and closer to the alien armada. Soon, they were less than a hundred meters from the closest of the dalek ships.

"Penn? What exactly was our way in?" Sunset whispered. Almost on cue, a panel on the side of the ship opened. It looked to be about Dalek-sized, but Sunset could tell that she'd be able to get the container through with careful piloting.

"I guess that question answered itself."

Sunset pushed the joystick forward, bringing them right up to the opening. She could hear Penn sucking in his breath through his teeth.

So much for a vote of confidence...

She unwrapped her fingers from around the controls, giving them only the lightest brush with her fingertips. Meticulously, the container slid through the passage and into the room beyond. When she was certain they had cleared the entrance, Sunset reached over and flicked the switch for the hoverskirt, bringing the container down with a clang of metal-on-metal. The door slid shut behind them, followed by the sound of air rushing into the room outside. Behind her, Penn finally released the breath he had been holding, taking deep gulps of oxygen from the room around them.

"D-do you think we should open one of the oxygen containers they left us? I'm feeling kinda woozy..." he muttered, staggering to his feet.

Sunset smiled and folded her arms over her chest.

"I feel just fine. Told you I was good at this!"

Penn nodded, bending over and grabbing one of the steel containers, anyway.

"There haven't been many episodes showing the inside of Dalek ships, but every one we HAVE seen has shown them to have a breathable atmosphere... Still, we should keep this ready, just in case."

Sunset nodded, walking to the other side of the container and hovering her hand above the sensor for the door. She exchange a nervous glance with Penn, who tightened his grip on the O2 tank and nodded. Sunset exhaled, emptying every drop of air from her lungs, and pressed the button. The doors slid open. Sunset's heart skipped a beat as she felt a difference in pressure between the two rooms pull a chunk of air out of their room, but by the time her ears had popped to accommodate they had already equalized. She glanced over at Penn, who seemed to be watching her with equal trepidation. Each of them was waiting for the other to take the first breath of alien air. Finally, she watched him let out a long sigh, then inhale deeply from the new air. His face scrunched up in displeasure, but he didn't panic immediately.

"Smells like tinfoil, but I think it's safe..."

Sunset took a deep breath. She didn't get the tinfoil scent that he claimed, but the air did smell... clean. She was standing on an alien spaceship, and there was no smell at all to the air. It was just... air.

"Why is there breathable air on a ship of alien war machines?" she whispered.

"Skaro had a breathable atmosphere, I guess it's tradition? Saves on energy for individual life support? I don't know..." Penn muttered. He reached into his pocket, unfolding a copy of the map Skye had gleaned from the data core.

Sunset did NOT like the individual she was entrusting with her life to shrugging off the question of how they could breathe, but Penn stepped out of the box and towards a door leading out of the airlock they had landed in.

"Okay, this way to the repair shop..." he whispered, motioning for her to follow. Sunset took a deep breath and reached up to her ear.

"Agent Coulson? We made it on board."

"Great! You're doing great, Sunset. Remember, no unnecessary risks!"

Sunset nodded and stepped out of their container. This was no time to be afraid. She had a job to do, a planet to save!

Now if only I could get that message across to my hands so they'd stop trembling...

Penn stepped to the side of the door frame and waved his hand, activating the door and causing it to slide aside. He poked the tiniest sliver of his head through. After a moment, he nodded in affirmation.

"Coast is clear. Follow me..."

The two of them tread carefully down the hallway. Sunset tried her best to balance speed and silence, keeping her footsteps light and matching Penn's pace. Everything around them was bronze and black, dimly lit by blinking lights behind warped glass panes. The hallways went on and on for what felt like miles. Every second, her heart pounded with fear at the thought that a Dalek could come rolling out from behind one of the countless doors that they were passing and alert the entire ship to their presence. Just ahead of her, she could see Penn constantly mouthing out numbers for every door they passed, glancing back at the map every few seconds. At last, he drew up short and pressed himself against the wall beside one of the doors. Sunset followed suit, placing her back to the wall and trying to make herself as small as possible. Penn pressed his finger to his lips, then pointed to the door. Sunset nodded.

As if I needed encouragement to keep quiet...

Penn reached out and waved his hand in front of the door, causing it to slide open. Inch by inch, he eased his way out around the corner. With a sudden and frantic motion, he pulled himself back out of sight, chest heaving up and down as he repressed his urge to scream in surprise.

Sunset guessed that there had been a Dalek on the other side, and readied herself to run. To her surprise, however, the silence remained unbroken.

Did they not see him?

Penn appeared equally surprised. Sunset watched as he took a long, deep breath, then turned back to the door. Sunset grabbed at his shoulder, yanking him back before he could peer around the corner again. Penn turned and stared at her, eyes frantically searching for any other reason she could have panicked before settling on her face.

Are you CRAZY? She mouthed the words noiselessly.

Penn shook his head, then pointed to the doorway before holding one hand flat and tiptoeing his fingers across it.

We won't make it! Sunset shook her head. Penn held both hands up to either side of her head, blocking off the corners of her vision.

Tunnel vision... He mouthed, bringing his hands in closer until all that she could see was his face to demonstrate his point. It made sense. Only having a single eye surely left the Daleks with a terrible field of view, which explained why the head of the one they'd fought before had been able to swivel completely around.

Sunset shook her head, taking the map from his hands to look for another path. As much as she hated to admit it, the next passageway to the repair room was nearly half a mile farther down the hallway they were standing in. It would be a huge risk to try to travel that far undetected.

Are you sure? she mouthed.

Penn leaned back, taking another glance through the door. With a nod of certainty, he stepped away from Sunset and into the hallway, disappearing from sight. Sunset screwed her eyes shut, waiting for cries of "Intruder alert!" and "Exterminate!" But the silence that meant their safety only continued to endure. With no choice but to continue, Sunset stepped out of hiding and into the hallway.

Daleks lined the walls, crammed back to back and side by side. Each one of them had their plunger-like appendage connected to what looked like a computer terminal and were facing the walls, their eyestalks pointed straight ahead. Standing in the center of it all was Penn, inching his way through by standing sideways and slipping through the gap between their backs. Sunset's jaw dropped. She'd been in roomier spaces when the whole band had been crammed into the back of a minivan! One wrong move and there would only be Daleks to fall onto!

Guess I can't make one wrong move... Sunset thought to herself, swallowing her fear and taking her first step down the hallway. None of the Daleks noticed as she slipped her body between them, turning sideways to keep herself as narrow as possible. She silently prayed to whatever gods were left that the Daleks wouldn't hear her heart pounding away in her chest. At the end of the hallway, Penn had nearly cleared the last pair of Daleks. Sunset watched with anticipation as he extricated himself from the line, triumphantly holding a fist to the sky. Sunset smiled, elated as he proved that it was possible to make it through undetected. The moment's distraction, however, was enough to throw off her careful balance as one of her ankles began to buckle. Her whole body lurched to the left as she desperately swung her arms to keep her balance. Just as she regained control, she heard a soft blushing sound as her hair swung out and collided with the back of the Dalek behind her. Sunset's eyes widened and her head turned meticulously to the side, trying to glean any sign that the Dalek had noticed her presence.

The eyestalk began to turn. Sunset ducked, cramming her body as low to the floor as she could without losing her balance. The Dalek's head turned one hundred and eighty degrees and the eyestalk flicked up and down. Sunset held her breath. After several seconds, the Dalek's head rotated the rest of the way to swivel back to its work. Sunset waited another ten seconds, taking the opportunity to peer down at her parter. Penn had hidden behind the last Dalek in the line, which was still totally engrossed in... whatever it was these Daleks were doing. When she finally felt the moment had passed, Sunset continued down the line with twice the care she'd been taking before. It was slow, but relatively safer. Time continued crawling along at a pace as slow as her own, but Sunset finally reached the end of the line, where Penn was waiting with both hands clasped over his mouth. Sunset rolled her eyes and pointed to the door before stepping to the side to make sure she was out of sight of whatever was on the other side. Penn nodded and did the same thing before waving his hand. The door slid open, revealing another empty hallway. The two of them eagerly stepped through to safety, each letting go of a sigh of relief when the door slid shut.

ARE YOU OKAY? Penn mouthed the word with such enthusiasm, Sunset could practically hear it. She simply nodded, placing her hand on her chest to try and slow her racing heart. This new hallway only went one way, with no other entrances than they way they had come in and no exits other than the one they stood facing.

Sunset took a few deep breaths to steady herself before motioning for Penn to lead the way.

I still can't believe that worked... she thought to herself as they approached the next door.

The process repeated itself several times without complication. They would approach a door, Penn would make sure the coast was clear, and they would silently slink through to the next hallway. Finally, they came to a stop outside an archway wider and taller than any door they'd seen so far. Penn grinned and pointed gleefully to their map: they were standing right outside the repair station. Penn peeked around the corner, motioning for Sunset to wait. Once again, he retracted violently backwards. At the same moment, a Dalek came rolling out of the room, passing directly by them with its gaze fixed straight ahead. Sunset moved one of her hands up to her mouth to repress a scream as it passed by close enough for her to have reached out and touched it with her hand.

In this moment, everything came down to which way the Dalek would turn. Their lives were in the hands of fate.

That was when she felt Penn's hand grab hers and pull hard. In less than a second, they had both thrown themselves around the doorway's edge and inside the room, hiding on the other side of the same wall. Sunset watched in horror as the Dalek turned in the direction they had come from and drove away.

If we'd stayed there, it would have seen us!

A glance to her side revealed Penn had let go of her hand and stumbled to the corner of the room, where he had collapsed to the floor in a way that made it look as if his knees had given out beneath him. All color was gone from his face and his chest was heaving up and down as he hyperventilated from the shock of what had just happened. Sunset moved towards him, but he simply held up a hand for her to stop, pointed to his eye, then rotated his finger in a circle. Sunset understood the meaning: look around.

The room was definitely different from any other she had seen on the ship: she was tempted to classify it as "messy." Broken and half-disassembled Daleks were all over the room. The majority appeared inactive, though Sunset could see at least three with glowing light still behind their eyestalks, but all three of them were without their guns. The lights on top of one's head were blinking on and off at a rapid pace, as if it were talking but no sound was coming out. Another turned its head to stare at her, but otherwise didn't react. The plating at the front of this one was open, revealing only an empty cavity where the organic creature should have been. The third one was different from the rest: painted with a white body instead of the standard bronze and bright gold accents. Half of the spheres on the bottom half were missing, along with the gun and at least three of the armor panels. It looked as if something organic had taken a bite out of the top half, leaving it with only the left side of its upper body and a cracked eye.

In this case, I'd say silence is golden. Nothing shouting "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" is music to my ears! she thought to herself as she made her way up to the open-fronted Dalek and began to examine it. She reached inside her pocket, retrieving the modified data core. She examined the item in her hand, then the insides of the Dalek. She frowned as her search came up fruitless. There was no sign of a data core to replace in this one. She turned back to Penn from across the room, shrugging her shoulders. With no lack of strain, Penn staggered to his feet and crossed the room. He glanced at the inside for a moment, then mimed the act of snapping his fingers. With a careful grasp of the eyestalk, he pulled the front of the head downwards. In an almost comical manner, the top of the Dalek popped off on the other side like a bottle cap. Sunset rushed around to the other side, peering in from above. In the center of the Dalek's head was a pillar with the data core sitting on top. Sunset grinned and reached inside, plucking the device from its place. With her other hand, he carefully placed their modified version where the old one had been. The machinery gave a satisfied click and a hum as a three-part case folded up around the data core and retracted into its proper place. Sunset stepped away as Penn released his grip, letting the top of the Dalek click back into place.

"REPAIRS COMPLETE! NEW DATA CORE AC-CEPT-ED!" the empty Dalek announced.

Sunset and Penn looked at once another. Penn's delighted grin was all the confirmation Sunset needed that their mission was completed. Penn pointed to his ear with the communicator, mouthing the words Call it in? Sunset shook her head, drawing her fingers across her lips in the motion of a zipper. Penn nodded and pointed towards the open doorway, and Sunset nodded in agreement. It was time to go.

The two of them tiptoed across the room and back up against the wall. Penn peeked around the corner, smiled, and motioned for Sunset to follow. As they made their way back towards their spaceship-box, Sunset took extra care to monitor her own actions. This was the most dangerous part of any task: the home stretch. This was where people got sloppy. Together, the two of them made their way back through empty hallway after empty hallway until they were standing in a hallways she remembered too well. The next room was the one where they had nearly been caught. Penn paused before he opened the doorway, nodding to the closed door and mouthing You ready?

Sunset took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She had made a mistake last time. This time, she would be perfect. She steeled her gaze, looked directly into Penn's eyes, and nodded.

It was at that moment that the door on the other end of the hallway opened of its own accord, revealing a Dalek staring directly at them. Even the Dalek seemed surprised, backing off slightly. It took less than a second to recover, however, rolling towards them at what Sunset could only assume was its maximum ground speed.

"INTRUDERS DETECTED! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

What happened next was a blur for Sunset. It was as if time slowed to a crawl. She saw the blast of light leave the Dalek's gun, pointed directly at Penn. She felt panic well up in her, only to suddenly be replaced by an overwhelming peace, a moment of "zen" among the tides of hysteria. She felt something in her hand, her thumb pressed up against a switch. She knew where the blast was going. She knew where it would be. Where she could send it. Sunset Shimmer made her move and pushed the switch.

The blast ricocheted back down the hallway and straight down the Dalek's eyestalk, blowing it to smithereens. Sunset heard the hum of plasma and looked down into her hand.

It was the empty handle from the hardware store. She didn't even remember reaching down to grab it from her belt, but it was there in her hand. Now, however, the handle was no longer empty. A long blade of red light had extended from the hilt, humming with power as Sunset held it at a protective angle between the Dalek and Penn's body. Penn's eyes were wide with shock as he pressed himself to the wall.

"IS THAT A LIGHTSABER?" he screamed, shattering the silence that the two of them had kept since they'd boarded the ship. Before Sunset could even attempt to answer, the lights in the ship turned red and the voice of a Dalek rang across unseen speakers.

"A-LERT! A-LERT! INTRUDERS DETECTED! MAXIMUM EXTERMINATION!"

Sunset shook her head and waved her hand at the motion sensor, opening the door in front of them.

"No time! COME ON!" She grabbed Penn's hand and yanked him into the next room. There was no attempt to be sneaky this time, Sunset could see that the Daleks in this room were disconnecting themselves from their tasks. Instead they two of them barreled down the center of the line at top speed, trying to get through before the Daleks even knew they were there. Sunset felt a single beam fly past her shoulder as they rounded the corner and thanked the heavens that these Daleks appeared to have awful aim.

"Coulson! We got the data core planted, but we've been made! We're going to be coming in hot!" Penn shouted, using his free hand to activate his earpiece.

"Get out of there, NOW! We just wiped out the last of the scouts, we'll all be waiting to cover your exit on this side!"

Sunset took what comfort she could from the statement. Now what mattered most was to get out alive and back to Earth. Their team would have her back covered from here. Suddenly, she felt a jerk on her arm that nearly pulled it out of its socket.

"Sunset, here! It's THIS door!" Penn shouted, pulling her to the side and waving at the sensor frantically. The door opened, revealing the most welcoming ramshackle spacecraft Sunset had ever seen.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" a voice came from ahead of them, and Sunset felt a powerful shove on her back. She stumbled forward and into the airlock, switching the plasma sword back off to avoid impaling herself. Her momentum carried her into the room and through the doors of the container, only barely managing to catch herself on the control panel.

The doors of the container slammed shut and the hoverskirt activated on its own, which appeared to activate the outside door automatically.

"What? NO, STOP!" Sunset began to frantically scramble for the controls with her left hand, only to find them unresponsive. Realization dawned on her as she slowly lifted her right hand, trembling and quaking with fear.

She had pressed the red button. The ship was auto-piloting itself back to Earth.

"NO! NO NO NO NO!" She screamed, repeatedly pulling on the joystick to try and turn herself around, only for it to snap off of the control panel in her hand. With tears in her eyes she reached up to her earpiece.

"I- I tripped! I tripped and hit the red button and nowIcan'tturnitaroundandPENNISSTILLINTHEREHELPMEPLEASE!"

"You WHAT?" Coulson's voice came back. "Sunset, you need to talk more slowly, I can't understand you!

"The box took off without me, Coulson..." Penn's voice replied, breathless and on the verge of cracking. "I- I managed to lock myself in another airlock, but it won't be long until they figure out where I'm hiding..."

"Penn, I'm SORRY!" Sunset tried to hold back a sob as the box piloted itself further and further from the ship. "I didn't mean to!"

"Don't worry about it... accidents happen, right? I pushed you too hard." Penn's voice held a terrifying resignation to it.

"Penn, you're the expert, TELL ME there's another way off that ship!" Coulson demanded.

"Coulson, Daleks ARE spaceships, they don't NEED escape pods. I could try to find a teleport or a transmat or something, but I don't know what they look like or how to use them, it'd be a shot in the dark! The only thing that gets off a Dalek ship alive is a-" Penn's words cut off suddenly, and Sunset felt fear for the worst race through her.

"Penn? PENN?"

"I have an idea. You go on ahead, Sunny. I'll find my own way."

"Penn? Penn, please don't go!" Sunset was overwhelmed by a wave of exhaustion as her head felt like it was spinning. She slumped against the wall of the container as darkness crawled into the corners of her vision. "Please... I don't want to be alone again..."

As the world outside faded to black, Sunset Shimmer was alone, floating through the not-technically-cold vacuum of space by herself because she'd ruined the life of another friend she didn't deserve. Coulson's voice was chattering away in her ear, but it quickly grew softer and softer as it proved itself unable to follow her into unconsciousness.

"Fitz! I need you to be ready to pilot that thing back! Ward! May! Grab... guns... I'll... operation... save..."

Penn yanked the earpiece out of his ear and stuffed it into his pocket. His brain was running a mile a minute and he couldn't afford to trip up, mentally or physically.

Forty-five! Fourty-six! Fourty-SEVEN! he counted off the doors and leaped into the hallway, pushing and shoving his way through the crowded Daleks in the hall. He felt dull pains all over his shoulders and limbs as his speed sent him bouncing off of metal body after metal body, but no searing hot pain of a laser blast. He kept going, sliding his way under the door to avoid waiting for it to open entirely.

Help is coming, why risk all of this? Find a place to hide and stay there! the voice of Reason ordered.

SHIELD is good, but they're not "Dalek Mothership Rescue" good. Besides, what if one of them is killed? They're in the first half of the first season at BEST, what happens to the rest and the other four seasons? Paradox! I HAVE to get back on my own! Penn replied to himself as he blew past the Dalek Sunset had killed with the random lightsaber. He would have to think about THAT set of questions later.

Twelve doors down right, down two halls, and back thirty-two more doors, followed by four more halls and sixteen more doors! If you stop sprinting and take it slow, you CAN sneak your way there! Take your time! Reason commanded.

They probably have some kind of scanning technology they can use to find me, slowing down means death! Just have an awful lot of running to do! Penn retorted as he leaned into his next turn and began counting off doors as fast as he could. Thanks for remembering the way!

At the mention of the title, he could hear the opening guitar strums of Chameleon Circuit's song, "An Awful Lot of Running." He reached up and pounded his palm against his temple to kick the mental jukebox.

No time for songs, unless they're fast! Fast- gotta go faster! he pushed his legs harder and faster, trying to ignore the Sonic X theme that had begun playing in the back of his head. It was serviceable.

You have no idea how to do what you're planning on doing! This is just as much a shot in the dark as trying to find a teleport! Reason shouted.

Well, I KNOW where to find this one! Now do me a favor and pull up our memories of "The Witch's Familiar!" Season 9-

SERIES Nine- Reason corrected.

SERIES 9, episode two!

Penn's lungs were beginning to burn and he could taste phlegm rising up from the back of his throat.

You are NOT an endurance runner. You should save your strength for when you're being shot at-

"EX-TERMINATE!" a blue-and-silver Dalek shouted as it slid out from a door in front of them. Penn dove to the side, barely avoiding being shot and driving his already-sore shoulder into the wall as he rebounded off and tried to regain his former pace. He could feel a familiar tightness in his chest binding his breathing.

You go on a quest to find the Rainbooms across time and space and don't think to put your inhaler in your pocket? Reason chided.

You know, you are NOT being helpful right now! Penn thought as he staggered his way back into the repair room. He reached down into his pocket, retrieving a small multi-tool. It was no sonic screwdriver, but it serve his purposes just fine. So do something nice, and tell me which wire I need to cut!

He closed his eyes, trying to recall the episode. He could see bits and pieces as he sorted through the unimportant details, finally reaching the scene he was looking for. He could SEE it, but he couldn't be sure where it was or which one.

You can't do this, it won't work! The odds of cutting the right wire are-

If a disarmed crazy time lady with a pointed stick can do it, so can I! Penn cut off Reason's whining and reached up into the empty Dalek, yanking out a wire that matched his memory. So shut up and pray, already!

All of this wouldn't be necessary if your cards had worked... You're not worthy. You're weak. You're not doing it right. You screwed up. It's your own fault you're stuck here and going to die. Reason gave way to Depression, and Penn shoved them both to the back of his mind to be tormented by the Sonic X theme on repeat. He'd gotten what he needed. Now all he needed was faith. He snipped the wire in two with the pocket tool and shoved it back into his pants before seating himself amid all of the assorted machinery and electronics of the Dalek.

"My cards might not be real, but let's see if I can't pull off a little banned spell, anyway..." he muttered, pressing the tips of the wires against his temples. Shooting, stabbing pain came from both sides of his head, leaving him in a blur. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a blurry bronze shape coming into view.

"EX-"

Run away!

"TER-"

It didn't work!

"MIN-"

You can't die! I need you, too!

"ATE!"

In that moment, caught between a chance at survival and the certainty of death, another voice started talking: a memory of only a few minutes ago.

"Please... I don't want to be alone again..."

Every sense sharpened as fear was overwhelmed by outrage. His friend thought that he had left her alone in the universe. That he had abandoned her. That... was unacceptable.

Penn's gun fired first, obliterating the other Dalek. The armored plating slid into its proper place and his view of the outside world was reduced to a blue-tinted display of a fish-eye lens.

"Well, whaddya know? I activated the spell card 'Change of Heart!'"

You are such a nerd. Reason chided.

Penn took it as a compliment.

And was the Sonic X theme SERIOUSLY STILL STUCK IN HIS HEAD AFTER SOMETHING SO COOL JUST HAPPENED?

"Sunset? Sunset, wake up!"

Sunset cracked her eyes open, finding herself staring into the face of Agent Coulson, who gave her a relieved smile.

"Thank goodness you're awake. Welcome home, Agent."

Sunset glanced around, trying to understand where she was. She was still in the container, but the doors were wide open, revealing the dead grass of West Texas. Coulson was knelt on the ground beside her, one hand on her shoulder to keep her in a sitting position in the corner.

"Simmons! Get over here and make sure she's okay!"

Almost instantly Jemma came through the doors, kneeling beside Coulson and shining a light into her eyes. Sunset flinched away from the bright spot, but it was quickly switched off and replaced by a hand on her forehead.

"Proper light response from the pupils, no sign of a fever... Sunset, do you think you can walk?"

Sunset gave her legs an experimental kick. They seemed responsive enough.

"Y-yeah..."

"Okay, good! That's good!" Coulson encouraged as he and Jemma each put a hand under one of her shoulders and lifted her to her feet, draping her arms across two sets of shoulders. Seconds later she was back outside in the fresh air and blistering sunshine. As her blood began to flow a little faster to her brain, Sunset realized what had made her pass out, to begin with.

"PENN! Where's Penn? Did you get him? Is he safe?"

Simmons frowned and glanced up at Coulson. Coulson didn't look at Sunset, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead.

"That's our next mission. Fitz is already working on repairing the controls. We have weapons that can kill these things, we can send Ward and May in for an armed extraction." Sunset felt an attempt at a reassuring pat on the back that wasn't very reassuring.

"We'll find him, I promise."

Sunset shook herself free of their shoulders and reached to her belt, feeling the empty hilt back in its proper place. She raised her hand to her forehead in a loyal salute.

"Then I'm ready for the next mission, sir."

Coulson looked confused while Simmons's jaw dropped in shock.

"Y-you're joking, right?" Simmons asked. "You're not in any condition to go back out there!"

"The whole reason I'm IN good condition is because Penn pushed me out of the way of an attack! I never got hurt! I'm ready to go back in and save him!" She reached down to her belt, grabbing the empty hilt and flicking the switch. Once again,the blade of red light jumped out, prepared to slice through anything she turned it on. Coulson's eyes grew wide.

"Is that a REAL-LIFE LIGHTSABER?"

"Incoming!" Agent May's voice shouted. High above them, a Dalek appeared from the portal, only to be blasted to pieces by a laser blast from the ground.

Agent Ward approached from the side, holding one of the Dalek guns in his hand. "We've been blowing these things out of the sky ever since we got back, I think they've been trying to follow you- is that a lightsaber?" he asked, pointing at the sword.

Sunset was starting to get the idea that this thing was called a "lightsaber."

"Another one!" May shouted, opening fire. This time, however, the blast wasn't enough to destroy the Dalek, knocking it off of its path and sending it spiraling to the ground in a trail of smoke.

"I think that one survived..." Simmons whispered.

"Hold your fire! Maybe if we take this one alive, we can trade it for our man! Or at least get some information out of it!" Coulson called. Everyone rushed to the crater where the Dalek had landed. It was still smoking from a large hole near the top of the dome, exposed wires sparking and arcing inside. Ward and May both kept their guns trained on it, ready to fire at a moment's notice as Simmons, Sunset and Coulson caught up.

Staring down at the monster, Sunset couldn't contain her disgust. Penn had been right: these things were the antithesis of everything she and her friends stood for, and now they had taken her new friend away from her.

"My name is Agent Philip Coulson, I represent the Strategic Homeland Intervention Logistics Division," Coulson announced with practiced ease. "You are being held as a member of an invading alien force and we ARE authorized to use lethal force! State your name, species, and intent!"

"I AM A DALEK! I AM A DALEK! I HAVE COME... TO SEE... THE END OF DAY!" The Dalek seemed to be struggling to say anything outside of its normal one-word vocabulary of "Exterminate."

"End of days? Are Daleks religious? Could there be a theological connotation?" Simmons pondered, hiding slightly behind Coulson.

"It's a machine and it's broken. It's not going to make sense." Agent Ward took aim. "I say we eliminate the threat and get ready to send in the extraction team as planned."

Coulson took a deep breath, then nodded.

"Do it. We can't waste time."

Sunset couldn't say she wasn't happy with the decision.

"END OF THE DAY! MERCY! END OF THE DAY! MERCY! MERCY!" the Dalek began to repeat over and over.

End of the day? What's so special about he end of the-

Deep, deep in Sunset's mind, something clicked.

"WAIT!" She jumped up and shove the barrel of Ward's gun up, firing it harmlessly into the air. She positioned herself in front of the Dalek, blocking any more potential shots with her own body.

"Sunset, what are you DOING?" Coulson shouted. "Get away from that thing, it'll kill you!"

"I figured it out! 'End of the day!' What happens at the end of the day?" she urged, pleading with them to understand.

The other agents looked at one another in confusion, but Simmons's eyes went wide.

"The end of the day is SUNSET! Oh my word, it's calling your name!"

Behind her, Sunset heard the hiss of pressurized air escaping. Looking down, she watched the armor plating of the Dalek expand and part, revealing a familiar face sitting inside. He was thoroughly covered in bruises and had trickles of blood running from the places two wires connected to his head, but it was unmistakably Penn.

"Itsh me..." he mumbled, his eyes rolling back into his head as he passed out.

"I AM A DALEK!" shouted the Dalek.

"PENN!" Sunset leaped down into the crater, examining him from head to toe. He was in sorry shape, completely unconscious, but still breathing. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

"Simmons, go wake up Fitz. I get the feeling it's going to take both of you to get him out of there..." Coulson whispered.

"Right away, sir!"

"Well, I'll admit it... I'm impressed." Ward muttered, lowering the gun for good. "Wiring himself inside one of those things to get home? Just when you think you've seen everything on this job..."

Sunset wasn't listening. She was just happy to have one of her friends back.

On the Road Again

"Uuuurgh..."

Sunset's head snapped up from the book she was trying to read. She rushed out of her seat and across the room to the bunk where the sound was coming from.

Once they'd managed to extract him from the Dalek, they'd laid him down in one of the bunks to rest. It had been nearly eight hours that she had been waiting for him to wake up. Outside, the world was growing dark as the sun fell beyond the horizon. Sunset rushed up to the door of the bunk, only to stop herself from slamming the door open. Startling Penn was likely the last thing she wanted to do. She rapped her knuckles twice against the door before pulling it aside with an excruciating level of self-control.

Penn's face was half-covered in mottled black and blue bruises, and a healthy-sized welt on his forehead. His exposed arms were equally battered, with wrappings on his left forearm and right upper arm where he had been slashed by the Dalek's interior mechanisms in the crash.

"Hey... are you okay?"

Penn made a feeble-looking attempt to sit up, mostly resulting in his head lifting slightly off the pillow. A second later his expression twisted into a grimace of pain and he fell back onto his pillow.

"My... everything hurts." he groaned.

"Simmons patched you up as best she could, but we didn't want to risk trying to move you to a hospital." Sunset carefully sat herself on the edge of the bed. "Penn, this is my-"

"Sunset..." his voice descended into a growl. Sunset didn't flinch, but she braced herself for whatever punishment was coming. She knew she deserved it.

"I have neither the patience nor the energy... to deal with your self-loathing." Penn grumpily made a halfhearted attempt to punch at her thigh, only to hiss through his teeth as the impact hurt himself more than her. After a few seconds, the pain seemed to recede enough for him to talk again. "Blame yourself one more time and I'll... I'll..." he let out a long sigh. "I'll... draw a blank on clever references to make."

Despite the situation, Sunset felt laughter beginning to bubble up from deep inside. She managed to keep herself from bursting into chuckles out of respect for his situation, but she did feel the weight on her shoulders lift a bit.

"I mean, seriously, how do you threaten somebody who's powered by 'the magic of friendship?'" He let out a weak chuckle, then shakily raised his hand towards her. "Now... help me up, would you?"

Sunset's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at his offered hand.

"You're kidding, right?"

Penn rolled his eyes.

"This is a REALLY uncomfortable bed. I want to go home and get in mine."

Sunset frowned. "You shouldn't even be moving right now. In good conscience, I couldn't-"

"Ha." Penn's offered hand shifted into a accusatory finger. "You DO still have a good conscience!"

Sunset blinked, not following his logic. "What?"

"Well, a good conscience means that, deep down, you KNOW you're not guilty!" Penn flashed her a weak grin and winked with his non-bruised eye. "Now, use that clear conscience to help me get up!"

That logic was almost Pinkie-Pie-levels of twisted.

Sunset rolled her eyes. "You know that wasn't what I meant by 'in good conscience.' And I'm still not moving you anywhere until Simmons gives you the all-clear. You fell out of the sky in a glorified tin can hard enough to leave a crater!"

Penn flashed her a cocky smirk.

"I survived all of that and you think standing up will kill me?"

Sunset slapped her palm against her forehead.

"Would you just be reasonable? Act your age!"

Penn took his turn to roll his eyes.

"Well, I WOULD ask for a book, but all my books are in my car. You know, the car we left behind because you wanted to ride in the fancy armored vehicle?"

Sunset sighed.

"There's plenty of books on this plane. Any requests?"

Penn pondered the question for a few seconds. "Fablehaven. Or Eragon! Eragon is one of my favorites! Anything with dragons in it, really. The Fire Within! The Dragon Rider! Oh, that author, Cornelia Funke, also wrote this AWESOME book called Inkheart! You've gotta read it!"

Sunset chuckled and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"I'm sure I can find one of those. Be back in a sec."

"Thanks, Sunset."

Sunset nodded and stood up from the bed, sliding the door shut behind her. The truth was that most of the reading materials on the plane were technical manuals and protocol guidelines. Trying to track down anything more interesting than an encyclopedia was her mission for three of the eight hours he'd been asleep, all fruitless. But if it was enough to keep him from getting up and hurting herself, she was willing to try again.

Before she could start on her search, however, Coulson stepped through the door. He glanced at the still-shut door of Penn's temporary bunk and leaned in to whisper.

"So, how's he doing?"

Sunset smiled.

"Antsy. Thinks he can walk it off. I think Simmons did too good of a job!" The two of them spared a moment to chuckle. "I told him I'd find something for him to read if he'd stay put."

"Did he ask for anything in particular? Maybe we could track it down together?" Sunset could see right through Coulson, judging by the way he kept stealing glances at her belt.

"You want to see the lightsaber again, don't you?"

"Please?"

Sunset sighed, beginning to reach for the device, only to pause. She had an idea.

"Does SHIELD have any way to get Penn's car here? He seemed pretty upset about leaving it behind."

"Sunset, we're a secret government organization with advanced technology and deep pockets. Of course we can move an Oldsmobile a few miles!"

Sunset smiled and reached down to her belt, handing the handle to Coulson.

"I want it back after five minutes. All of Penn's favorite books are in his car. Think you can make it happen?"

Coulson held the saber with an almost reverent air before raising one hand up to his ear.

"Ward? Go get Penn's car, would you? Take one of the controller units and have it follow you back. We think he might have left... something important in the trunk. Thank you." After a moment, Coulson grinned and pressed the button on the hilt, causing the bright red blade to emerge.

"Not as random or as clumsy as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more... civilized age," he whispered.

Sunset knew an opportunity to get free information when she saw it. "So... what is it, exactly? You and Penn both recognized it, but I honestly have no idea what it is."

Coulson stared at her in disbelief as he swung the weapon from side to side. As it traveled through the air, the blade's hum increased and decreased in pitch to match its speed.

"What is it? Only one of the best weapons in all of science fiction! It's the weapon of a Jedi Knight, peacekeepers from a long time ago... in a galaxy far, far away..." Coulson replied as he swung the tip in a small circle. "It can cut through almost anything like butter, leave any wound it inflicts perfectly cauterized and even deflect blaster bolts and energy weapons!" He paused for a moment, bringing the blade dangerously close to his face to stare directly at it.

"Although... the color worries me a bit. Jedi don't use red lightsabers." He gave Sunset a wary glance. "You said you just... found this? In the hardware store where you fought the first Dalek?" Sunset nodded.

"It felt like it was calling out to me. It just felt right in my hand. But if those 'Jedi' don't use red lightsabers, who DOES?"

"Sith. They're Jedi who embraced the dark side of their powers, gave in to fear and hatred."

Sunset felt herself cringe.

"So... the bad guys?"

"Yeah. So bad, only two could ever manage to work together at a time, master and student! And the student always killed the master, in the end."

It figured. All of her friends had forgiven her, along with the whole of CHS and even Princess Celestia, herself! But it looked like the universe itself still hadn't forgotten about her past. There was still some part of fate that designated her as "evil," no matter how much she changed.

"B-but the color suits you! It matches your hair! And your complexion!" Coulson seemed to notice her hurt feelings and began to quickly backpedal on his statement. After his corrections fell flat, he sighed and switched the blade back off again before handing it back to her.

"Sunset, look. No matter what the color, it's just a tool. The blade might have a past with someone else, but what really matters is what you choose to do with it today. You said that you managed to save Penn from a Dalek with it, right? A Sith would have just saved their own lousy hide and run for it."

Sunset gripped the handle tight. Despite knowing that it was a weapon that had most likely been used for evil in the past, it still felt right for her, as if it had been made specifically for her hand. She wasn't sure whether that was good or bad, any more, but it was what it was. Whatever kind of statement the universe was trying to make about her, she wasn't buying it.

Besides, Rarity would be devastated if she found out Sunset had thrown away an accessory that was both life-savingly practical AND complimented her outfit.

"Thanks, Agent Coulson. I appreciate it."

Sunset heard the light rustling of a sliding door moving, and both of them turned to see Penn,standing shakily on his feet, mid-escape. He seemed equally surprised to see them, smiling and awkwardly chuckling.

"Whoops."

Sunset and Coulson glanced at one another. Sunset nodded towards her friend, leaving the matter to the superior officer. Coulson rolled his eyes before walking over and looping Penn's arm around his shoulder.

"You know, last time somebody went through what you did, he was out eating shawarma about fifteen minutes later. You were out cold for eight hours, so you've got to be hungry, right?"

"Starving!"

As Coulson and Penn walked away, Sunset noticed Skye sitting in the corner. After a moment, she walked over and took a seat beside her, letting out a long sigh.

"Agent Coulson's a pretty nice guy."

Skye nodded. "I wouldn't be sticking around here with a bunch of government suits if he wasn't. Coulson dragged me out of my van to help him track down someone with powers, it wasn't exactly what I'd call a good first impression. But after that guy started to lose control and was about to literally explode, Coulson risked his life to talk him down. For a member of a faceless government organization with little to no restrictions, he's surprisingly... human. After that, I decided to stick around for a while, lend help where I could if they were planning to keep protecting people. So far, they haven't let me down."

"Reminds me of my friends back home." Sunset smiled and reached up to her geode. "I used to be... pretty awful. I thought friends were for people too weak to get anything done on their own. I only focused on gathering my own power, even it was only enough to dominate a school. Things got so far out of hand that I... almost made an awful mistake. I nearly hurt people in a way that I couldn't ever take back. But then they all came together and showed that their friendship was stronger than anything I could become on my own! And when I was beaten, they offered me their hands and let me be a part of it. They changed my life! We've all been like family ever since, totally inseparable... Until now."

Skye reached over and gripped Sunset's shoulder.

"And now I don't even know what happened to them in all this madness, and it's all my fault! I dragged Penn into this and he got hurt, almost KILLED! I just... I messed up. Worse than I ever have before. And now I don't know if I can fix it."

"Well, I'm not exactly an expert on friends, I've always been pretty alone, but... if there's anything I've learned around here, it's that even if you made a mess yourself, real friends won't leave you to fix it alone. Wherever they are, I'm absolutely sure that they're looking just as hard for you as you are for them. The important thing is not to give up."

Sunset hadn't thought of that. Somewhere, Applejack was probably fighting just as hard to find her. Fluttershy was certainly out there braving her fears for her friends. Rainbow Dash's one-track mind probably hadn't even noticed the multiverse being broken. Rarity and Twilight had probably already come up with their own plans to track her down! Sunset smiled as she envisioned Pinkie's madness spreading across other worlds in her own frantic search.

Her friends were OUT THERE. And they were all searching for each other at once. That love and enthusiasm, combined with the bond of their friendship and the Elements of Harmony, made it impossible that they would fail to find each other. That was first certainty Sunset had felt since this insanity began, and it formed a bedrock under her feet.

"Thanks, Skye..." She smiled and rose to her feet and tightened her fists with determination. "I promise, I'll never give up!"

"Hel-LOOO beautiful!" Penn rushed forward and practically threw himself onto the driver's-side door of his car, wrapping his arms around what little of it he could reach. "Oh, I missed you!"

Sunset chuckled. Somehow, she could imagine that this was what happened EVERY time Penn spent an extended period of time away from home. With a long sigh of relief, he yanked the door open and collapsed into the seat.

"Now I can stay put and rest..."

"Boys and cars..." Skye chuckled to herself as she walked up beside Sunset. "What's with that, anyway? Like, I've met guys who seemed to love their cars more than their girlfriends, and people just act like that's normal!"

Sunset shrugged. She could remember many a long evening when Flash Sentry had insisted on covering himself in dirt and grime for the sake of his ridiculous "muscle car." While working on their tour bus with the rest of the Rainbooms had felt pretty rewarding, she didn't feel like she'd needed to kiss the thing when she was finished. "My ex-boyfriend used to spend a lot of time on his car. It always seemed like there was something that needed fixing or tuning up. I didn't care too much, it kept him out of trouble."

And out of the way of my bullying...

Penn cleared his throat, catching both of their attention.

"That's because my car also puts bread on the table, and it has for two years! Without it, I'd have been out of a job! I take care of her and she takes care of me!"

Skye raised an eyebrow in surprise, but Sunset simply shrugged. It didn't make a lot of sense to her to treat a machine like it was alive, but maybe that was just because she'd built and disassembled so many doing her research. Hearing footsteps on the ramp behind her, Sunset saw Coulson walking out to join them.

"You two leaving already? Feels like we were just getting to know you!"

"Well, it's up to Penn-"

"It's Sunset's call, but-"

Sunset and Penn both looked at one another in surprise.

"Well... It IS your friends we're looking for. I'm just the chauffeur!" Penn leaned back in his seat. "It's all your call, Sunset. I'm ready to go whenever you are."

Sunset thought carefully.

"I guess I'm ready now, if you want to go..." She reached into her pocket, retrieving the leather wallet and handing it back to Coulson. "These were only temporary, right? For this one mission to stop the Daleks?"

Coulson pondered the badge before pushing it back into her hands.

"Keep it. SHIELD can open a lot of doors, and we owe you one for going out there and risking everything. Maybe it can help you find your friends. Besides, you never know when the Daleks might come back! We could need your help again, some day!"

Sunset looked down at the badge, then up at Coulson. With a wide smile, she slipped the badge into her back pocket and gave a quick salute. Penn did the same from the seat of his car, straightening his tired posture as best he could.

"Thank you, sir!"

Coulson smiled and gave her a firm handshake before turning and walking back inside the plane. "I wish you luck!"

Skye smiled, opting to give Sunset a short hug.

"You'll find them. I'm sure of it."

Sunset nodded.

"Thank you for helping me, Skye..."

There was a brief pause before Skye released her.

"Sorry Fitz and Simmons can't come say goodbye, but they're already working on trying to figure out where that rift came from and how they can close it! Knowing those two, they're probably going to have a few more sleepless nights before they solve it, but they'll get it done."

Sunset felt guilt weighing in her chest for a moment. Would it be better to confess her part in everything? If she did, she'd also have to explain magic, which would mean explaining that she was from a different universe, which would tip off these people that they were from one of this world's TV shows, as well-

Her train of thought was cut off as Skye gave her a soft pat on the shoulder.

"You two saved the world from aliens! Would it kill you to smile a little more?"

Sunset felt the guilt ease a bit, and she flashed Skye a toothy grin. Saving the whole world WAS a nice step up from saving a single high school, after all.

"Better! I guess I'll see you later, right?"

Sunset nodded. "Of course! Next time the world needs saving!"

Skye grinned. "Well, maybe not THAT soon!"

The two shared a short giggle before parting in different directions. Skye walked back onto the plane as Sunset made her way to Penn's passenger door. The fabric seat felt less alien than the first time she'd entered the car. At this point, even the creepy doll hanging from the rearview mirror was a welcome helping of "normal" after their space adventure. Penn slipped the key into the ignition and cranked the engine to squeaky, jittery life.

"So... where to first?"

Sunset tried to think back to their earlier plans. It felt like an eternity since they had been sat together on the floor of Penn's home, planning their route.

"Well, I guess we should go-" suddenly, she was cut off by a familiar humming noise and a vibrating feeling against her throat. She looked down, pulling on her geode to get a better look at it. It was glowing and humming with energy. As if it had realized that she was paying attention, the humming stopped and the stone tugged itself in a direction to her ten o'clock. After a moment, it repeated itself, with greater force.

Is... is it pointing in the direction of the others?

Sunset pointed her finger in the direction the geode had been pulling: further out and away from Seminole, down the highway.

"That way."

Penn smiled and shifted the car into gear, lurching forward and quickly matching the speed limit posted on the sign.

"Magical compass? I like it!"

Sunset had to admit, she agreed. It was incredibly convenient, to say the least.

Hang in there, girls... I'm not giving up! I'll find you!

So Delicious and Moist

"Sunset!"

Sunset started from her slouched position, unconsciously grabbing at the door handle with one hand and the center console with the other.

"Uwha- I'm awake!"

Penn only chuckled in response, equally slouched back into the driver's seat.

"I think it might be time to set up camp for the night."

"What? But it's only..." Sunset glanced down at the car radio. "Woah. Eight-thirty already? How long was I out?"

"Just an hour. I figured I'd let you rest until the sun was almost gone. Not like there's been much to see..." Penn sighed, craning his neck from side to side.

"What are you looking for?"

"Well, you haven't exactly found the richest driver in the world, so we're not going to be staying in five-star hotels while we look for your friends... or any hotels, for that matter." He jabbed his thumb towards the back of the car. "I tried being a boy scout for a while. Didn't like it, but I learned how to set up a decent campsite! So I brought along a tent and some supplies. Does that sound okay to you?"

Sunset nodded. "Sounds great! It'll be just like being back at Camp Everfree!" She glanced around them, taking in the numerous, numerous shades of brown being so vividly lit but the setting sun. "Just with... fewer trees... and more sand..."

"Perfect! Now we just need to find a spot with some halfway decent protection from the elements... There!" He pointed over the steering wheel to a place where the landscape dipped. "The wind won't blow us away down there!"

The car carefully edged off of the highway, finally coming to a stop in the sandy dirt. Penn gave a satisfied sigh and shifted the car into park.

"Well... shall we?"

Sunset smiled and nodded, cracking open the door and stepping out. She spent nearly a full minute stretching while Penn popped open the trunk and fetched a small bag.

"Man, it feels good to stretch my legs! I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the tour bus... I could get up, stretch my legs once every couple hours!"

"Shhh!" Penn clasped his hands over one of the rearview mirrors as if he were covering the ears of a child. "Syl might hear you!"

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Syl?"

"Yeah! Good old Sylvia, here!" He affectionately moved one of his hands to the roof of the car and gave it a gentle rub. "And she's got twice the fuel economy and three times the maneuverability of a big old tour bus!"

"Penn, that car is old enough to legally drink. And I'll have you know, the Rainbooms' tour bus used to get thirty miles to the gallon! We put that engine together pretty well, if I say so myself!"

Penn was taken aback for a moment, then his expression changed to a sour pout. He gave the car one last pat and slung the tent bag over his shoulder.

"Only in a world of magic and rainbows could a tour bus that size get thirty miles to the gallon..." he muttered as he sulked past her. "S'not fair... Probably a hybrid, too..."

Sunset raised a hand to hide her snicker. She considered telling him that the bus wasn't a hybrid, but it COULD run on recycled fry oil. Of course, Twilight had planed on adding an electric system, but it was going to require much more thorough changes and expensive parts. But he seemed put-out enough at the fact that she had one-upped him on fuel economy, so she'd save that bombshell for another time.

She hurried over to the spot Penn had picked for assembling the tent. As the two of them began the process of setting up their shelter for the night, she tried to find a topic to fill the silence.

"So... why Sylvia?" Sunset asked, driving one of the stakes into the dusty ground with the heel of her foot.

"Well, it's kind of silly... It's from this kids' show." Penn dusted off his hands as he finished with his second stake.

Sunset picked up two corners of the tent while Penn took the two opposite. The two of them spread the tent to its full size, which was admittedly smaller than she expected. The two of them paused to stare at one another as silence fell, and Sunset made a small motion with her hand for him to continue.

"It's this show called 'Wander Over Yonder.' These two characters, Wander and his buddy Sylvia, are travelling the universe together. Wander's like a little kid, full of shock and awe for the beauty of the universe, and Sylvia's his no-nonsense, tough-as-nails travelling companion that keeps him in line. Wander will get into some kind of well-meaning trouble by wanting to help every person in the galaxy, and Sylvia will get him out of it, usually learning some kind of moral about appreciating life's little joys along the way..."

Sunset grabbed the end of the pole he had threaded through the upper part of the tent.

"Sounds like a cool show!"

"It is! They keep running into this villain called 'Lord Hater' and Wander's silliness and optimism drive him NUTS!" Penn seemed to be loosening up the more he talked. "But he's kinda incompetent, and it all just turns into this hilarious chase from one side of the galaxy to the other and back again!"

"So... why use that name for your car?"

"Well, when I bought it from a friend from church, I had been waking up at four-fifteen every morning to make it to my lousy retail job, then walking back at the hottest part of the day after a nine-hour shift! I was getting five miles of walking in a day, and I'd already spent an entire winter walking to work in a year of record-breaking snowfall! It felt like a miracle from heaven to have that car show up in my life- second pole!"

"I've got it." Sunset and Penn both fixed the ends of the poles onto the stakes, causing the whole tent to spring up as the cheap plastic poles bent upwards in a pair of perpendicular arcs.

"Anyway, from the moment I got it, it felt like this car was taking care of me, you know? But it had a few quirks of its own that needed attention, so I took care of her in return! When I was thinking of what name I'd want to give her, our relationship reminded me of that show because I was watching it at the time! So, I went with Sylvia, and that was that!" Penn dusted off his hands and admired their work.

"Even when I lost that old job and started delivering pizzas, she always got up and running when I needed her, you know? Whenever I'd start to sink into bad habits, she'd break down and I'd have to drop everything I was doing, good or bad, and fix her up! She kept me in line and always made sure I had food on the table, and in return I kept her spirits high and her engine running as smooth as I could!"

Wow. I never really thought I'd get such an emotional story out of asking about the name of his car...

Penn snapped out of his self-satisfied reverie, rushing back to the car and coming back with a sleeping bag under his arm.

"He-heh, sorry. I know I tend to ramble..." He offered her the sleeping bag with both hands. "Thanks for putting up with me."

"Putting up with you?" Sunset shook her head. "That was great! I like hearing my friends talk about the things they love!" She leaned in close, as if sharing some kind of secret as she plucked the offered bedroll from his hands. "It's kind of a prerequisite to being friends with Pinkie Pie!"

This got a chuckle out of Penn, who reached down and opened up the front of the tent, motioning for her to enter. Sunset paused, taking a peek at the tiny space inside. The tent was even more cramped on the inside than it looked from the outside.

"Not a lot of space, is there? It's gonna be pretty snug..."

"Wha- No no no!" Penn held his hands up defensively. "I'm going to sleep in the car! Girls should have their own space! I'd be more comfortable sleeping across the backseat than anywhere else!"

"What?" Sunset's eyes widened. "You're kidding, right? I've got a tent and a sleeping bag to myself and you're just going to curl up in the backseat and call it good?"

"Nope!" Penn chuckled and shook his head. "Besides, SOMEONE's gotta be there to stop us from being towed if a cop comes to check on it!"

Sunset tried to think of a better reasoning for them to SHARE the tent, but she couldn't come up with logic that trumped his.

"Well, if you're REALLY sure it's okay..."

"It's FINE! It's fine." Penn waved away her concerns. Sunset set down her sleeping bag and sent it unfurling to the other end of the tent. "Besides, I'm an AWFUL tent-mate! Toss and turn like crazy, can't sleep on my back, I snore like somebody's sawing logs! It's for the best!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. At this point he was just overcompensating to make her feel better.

"Well, it looks like we've got a little daylight left! Got any ideas for dinner? Maybe we could make a campfire?"

Penn cringed and sucked in air through his teeth.

"You know we're in the middle of the most arid part of Texas, right? There's a burn ban almost year-round to make sure out-of-control brush fires don't wind up destroying entire cotton fields."

"Seriously? What's camping without cooking over a campfire?" Sunset sighed, sinking to the ground. "I'm starting to REALLY miss home..."

Penn gave her a pat on the shoulder. "Come on, Sunny. I've got an idea."

Sunset followed him as he made his way back to the car, plucking a branch from a nearby dead bush. He practically dove headfirst into the trunk, shuffling though until he found what he had been searching for with a gleeful cry of "Ah-HA!" Moments later, he emerged holding a package of graham crackers, a pair of chocolate bars, and a bag of marshmallows.

"I WAS going to save these for when we found the first one of your friends, buuuuut... I'd say stopping a Dalek invasion is pretty worth celebrating too, right?"

"But I thought you said-"

"Hup-up-up! No talking yet! I said I had an idea, didn't I?" Penn handed her the graham crackers and chocolate before vigorously tearing open the bag of marshmallows and skewering a particularly puffy one on the end of the branch. Without so much as a word, he then dropped to the ground and laid himself out on the asphalt behind the car, shuffling until almost his entire torso was out of sight under the Oldsmobile. "Okay! How do you like your marshmallows? Well-done? Golden brown? Barely toasty?"

Sunset bent down, peering underneath to try and understand what he was talking about. To her complete surprise, Penn was happily humming to himself as he held the marshmallow mere millimeters away from the pipe leading to the muffler, where it was quickly becoming a delicious-looking caramel color.

She couldn't tell if he was crazy or genius.

"Um- well, I like them really gooey and..."

Penn chuckled, beginning to give the marshmallow a steady turn. "Ah, slow-cooked right to the center! You're a woman of good tastes!"

"Are you sure that's safe?"

"I don't see why not, long as you don't touch the pipe! It's not like I'm hanging it in front of the end the fumes come out of, or anything... The car isn't even running, the engine just hasn't cooled off, yet! OH HEY! Can you do me a favor? There should be some canned soup in the trunk, run up and toss those under the hood! They should be perfect by the time we finish up these s'mores!"

Sunset pondered the question for a moment, then ran over to grab a branch and marshmallow of her own before carefully laying herself down on the ground and beginning to nudge her way up beside him.

"Move over, bud!"

"Hey! This is cramped enough as it is!" Penn joked as he did his best to make room for her without touching the car's hot underbelly. "You really want to get in on me and Slyvia having a little private time?"

Sunset chuckled, bringing her own marshmallow up to begin cooking.

"From what you said, I figured maybe she might welcome some fresh company by now!"

"Hey!" Penn gave her a firm nudge with his shoulder and they both began to laugh, the sound filling up the tiny space in an instant before slowly fading away to a comfortable silence. A few seconds later, Penn brought down his marshmallow, eating it right off the stick with a hum of pleasure.

"Hmmmm... see what I mean? We take care of Sylvia, and Sylvia takes care of us..."

Sunset chuckled, giving her marshmallow another turn. The old car still felt strange and unfamiliar to her, but... this moment made it less so. It felt like she was finally getting the warm welcome she had been cheated of by the crazy circumstances of her arrival.

"You know what? I think I'm starting to..."

Sunset Shimmer was sound asleep in her tent, halfway to a sugar coma after finishing half the bag of marshmallows in one night. Penn was equally deep in his dreams curled up across the entirety of the backseat. Neither of them noticed the third entity enter their camp. Neither of them were woken by the unblinking single pink eye that scanned over both of them with unnatural light, assessing that each of them were undeniably perfectly healthy human specimens, perfect for its master's purposes. Metal hands reached out to grasp at their sleeping forms.

Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position...

Author's Note

Sorry for the long break, everyone! Been spending the holidays with family!

Edit: Guess who just figured out how to do THIS with the text editor??

Making Science

Sunset groaned. She did NOT want to wake up, her whole body was tired and sore. She gripped the blankets and pulled them up over her head, trying to block out the light from behind her eyelids. Against her will, however, the gears in her head slowly began to turn.

I woke up on my own... guess that means Penn isn't up yet, right? Or maybe he just let me sleep in?

Sunset's brain shifted gears as she gripped the blankets tighter.

Blankets? Wait, I went to sleep in a sleeping bag!

Sunset's eyes snapped open as she bolted into a sitting position.

She was laying in a narrow pod-shaped bed, in a doorless room with four glass walls. The floor was tiled in two tones of gray, and the room had the most sparse of furnishings: the bed she was laying in, a single toilet, and a small table with a radio and coffee mug sitting on its plain white surface. The glass room was nested inside an even larger room, tiled with the same gray floor, but walls that were a stark white, accented only by black lines separating them into long rectangular panels. Sunset could see a circular door leading out of the larger room, but no way out of her current glass prison.

"Where am I? How did I GET here?" she muttered to herself, throwing off the blankets and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. It was only now that Sunset realized that her clothes had been changed without her knowledge. She was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, the kind of orange that would make Rarity vomit, and her shoes had been replaced by strange white boots.

Did- did someone change my clothes while I was asleep? Sunset felt a wave of fear and disgust at the idea. Before she could carry that line of thought any further, however, a computerized voice came blaring through the room.

Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center. We hope that your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one. Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper. Before we start, however, keep in mind that, although fun and learning are the primary goals of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur. For your own safety and the safety of others, please refrain from-

The voice suddenly became garbled and unintelligible for several seconds, leaving Sunset completely at a loss as to what exactly it was that she was supposed to refrain from to avoid serious injury.

Aperture Science thanks you for your participation in the Perpetual Testing Initiative. The portal will open in three, two, one.

As the countdown finished, one of the walls lit up with orange light and an oval-shaped hole appeared in the wall. As Sunset moved to step through it, however, she noticed movement on the other side. Sunset blinked, realizing that the angle she was seeing on the other side of the portal wasn't possible. She was staring at herself from the side, as if she were standing outside the glass room and staring inside from directly to her right. She turned to look at the place the view had to have come from, only to find a matching portal on the wall outside, showing herself from the perspective of the orange portal directly in front of her.

"No way..." Sunset whispered, turning back to the portal in front of her. She hesitantly reached out her hand, first poking a finger through the place the wall had been, then her whole hand. When she felt no negative effects, she stepped through, finding herself on the outside of the glass room as easily as one would walk through an open door. With a small crackling sound, both portals disappeared, leaving Sunset now standing alone outside her former prison. On the other side of the room, she heard the door slide open.

Sunset considered her options. She and Penn had been separated, clearly, and somehow brought to this place without their knowledge or against their wills. Now, she was alone, and stuck in some kind of testing facility.

A testing facility that had created wormhole technology!

Sunset repressed her gleeful giggle as the possibilities of the technology raced through her mind. This was bad, very bad! Even if they'd managed to create one of the most scientifically complex and exciting technologies in all of science fiction and it was right here for her to examine how they applied it, she still needed to figure out where she was and how to find Penn. Looking up, she noticed what appeared to be a blurry glass window up near the ceiling, showing the silhouette of an office. She walked over, waving her hands to try and grab the attention of whoever was inside.

"Um, excuse me? Hello! There's been some kind of mistake, I'm not supposed to be here!"

There was no response from the window, but Sunset noticed a large security camera on the wall turning to stare at her. Obviously, there was someone on the other side watching her. Sunset changed tactics, trying to make the most of the camera's attention by turning to address it directly.

"I think you have the wrong person, I never signed up for a 'Perpetual Testing Initiative,' or whatever you called it, and I was with a friend before I was brought here!"

The camera didn't react, but the automated voice came playing on the speakers again.

At the completion of the test, all subjects are given cake and returned to their point of origin. Please proceed to the orientation chamber.

Sunset sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. It looked as if she only had two choices: keep arguing with pre-recorded messages or just roll with it and give them what they wanted so she could get out of here.

Well, only one of those options made sense... and had more portals.

Assuring herself that she definitely was NOT doing this just to see more wormholes in action and that she was looking for her friend, Sunset strolled to the next room. The contents of the room consisted of a gigantic red button and a blocky cube sitting on the floor. A dotted line led from the button to the next door, which was locked shut.

Sunset glanced up at the room's security camera, thoroughly disappointed.

"Seriously?"

This test makes use of the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube and the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super Colliding Super But-

Sunset ignored the voice, picking up the cube and placing it on top of the button, which caused the door to slide open.

Your lack of patience and disrespect for proper protocol have resulted in your completion of this testing chamber in record time. Well done.

Sunset spun on her heel, turning back to face the camera again. "Wha- lack of patience? Disrespect for proper protocol? You wanted me to put a block on a button, I've been doing things like this since preschool!"

Your dissatisfaction has been noted on your personnel file, please proceed to the next test, Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset's eyes widened.

"Wait... you know my name?"

There was no response from the robotic voice. Sunset felt a very, very scary thought cross her mind.

"These messages... aren't pre-recorded, are they?"

Please proceed into the chamberlock after completing each test, Sunset Shimmer. This time the voice sounded more forceful, placing extra emphasis on her name.

Sunset slowly stepped through the door, finding herself in a small room with an open elevator. She stepped inside, watching helplessly as the doors slid shut and locked her inside. Without a word, the elevator began to descend of its own accord. Sunset tried to consider her options, but there weren't many.

I hope Penn's having better luck than I am...

The "tests" didn't get much harder for Sunset as time went on, though new elements were introduced. The portals began to appear more often as a part of the tests, periodically turning on and off to allow Sunset to reach places that had been locked off or kept out of reach, but most of the tests required more boxes and buttons, and that was about it. The only thing keeping Sunset on her toes was the presence of the mysterious voice. Once she'd realized that she was talking to something intelligent, she had tried not to antagonize it. If it was running the security cameras, odds were high that it could also control the testing chambers and the elevator, leaving her quite easily trapped.

Still, she needed answers. She limited herself to one question per testing chamber.

"How did I get here?"

You were selected to participate in the Perpetual Testing Initiative by a complex algorithm involving intelligence ratings, personality evaluation, and how deep of a sleep you were in when your campsite was located.

So, basically, they kidnapped me while I was asleep. Great.

"How do you who I am?"

If you did not want others to know so much about you, perhaps you should not have uploaded all of the most crucial moments of your life to the internet, along with enough material to develop an entire psychological profile.

I guess that means that they've seen those movies Penn was talking about...

"Where's my friend?"

Irrelevant. You should be more worried about your own safety. After all, your complaint regarding the simplicity of the tests has been received and accounted for in the next chamber.

That one sent chills down Sunset's spine as she stepped into the elevator once again. This time, however, after a few seconds of traveling downwards, Sunset felt the compartment jolt as it suddenly changed directions, travelling upwards at a much higher pace than she had been moving down. Sunset gripped the wall, mind full of visions of the elevator malfunctioning and plummeting to the ground, however far down that was. After a few seconds, the elevator came to a screeching halt, nearly throwing her to the ground as the doors opened.

That... was not supposed to happen. There has been a malfunction. Do NOT leave the elevator, I'll run a diagnostic.

Sunset only hesitated for a second before stepping out and into the chamber she'd been accidentally brought to.

There were few barriers or walls to the room, only a deep recession in the floor. Sunset could see some kind of pedestal in the bottom holding an unidentified device. She looked up to the room's security camera, noting that it wasn't pointed at her, for once. The mysterious voice was still occupied. Sunset didn't know what the thing down there was, but she obviously wasn't supposed to have it.

That was more than enough reason for her to want it.

Sunset lowered herself off the edge of the recession, surprised at the ease with which her legs handled the landing before stepping into the center and picking up the device. It looked like some kind of gun, with an oblong white dome on one end and a large cylinder running down the center, ending in three long prongs and an open end to the cylinder. Sunset argued back and forth with herself about the idea of taking a gun, but curiosity won out over distaste in the end. She slipped her hand into the white dome, grasping the handle inside while using her free hand to steady the front of the gun. To her surprise, Sunset felt her thumb settle comfortably on some kind of switch. Instinctively, she flipped the switch upwards. The gun seemed to switch on as both a light on top of the dome and the inside of the cylinder began to glow a familiar shade of blue. Sunset blinked, then tried flipping the switch downwards, only for the lights to turn orange.

Blue and orange.

No way.

Sunset took aim at the wall of the recessed area and pulled the trigger.

Ka-thunk! The gun replied with a satisfying sound as a ball of orange light flew out of the end, racing across the distance between her and the wall. When it finally landed, the light expanded, creating a large orange oval that rippled with strange energy.

No WAY!

Sunset's excitement began to build as she flicked the switch back to blue, taking aim at the wall at the normal floor height and firing again. This time, upon striking the wall, both ovals changed to a pair of connected portals. Sunset immediately raced forward and jumped through the orange portal, emerging outside the hole in the floor and overlooking the pedestal she had just been standing beside.

"NO! WAY!" Sunset cried, unable to contain her glee as she enthusiastically clutched the gun against her chest and hopped up and down in place. "It's a WORMHOLE GUN!"

Alright, I believe I've isolated the cause of the elevator malfunction and- why do you have that? You were explicitly told not to leave the elevator.

Sunset cringed, giving a sheepish shrug to the security camera.

"My curiosity got the better of me?"

There was a brief pause as the voice contemplated her response.

Considering your former disregard for proper protocol and inability to follow SIMPLE instructions, I suppose it would be useless to tell you to return the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.

Sunset clutched the wormhole gun tighter, unable to contain a small squeak of excitement.

Instead, testing will be ACCELERATED to accommodate your... impertinence.

Sunset felt a small damper come down on her excitement at the ominous warning.

Admittedly, we should have accounted for that, it's right here in your file: "Pathological need for control, specifically MIND control. Resentful of authority figures, mainly princesses. Overinflated sense of relevance in the lives of others as a symptom of overdeveloped ego."

Sunset had to admit, that last one had stung more than she expected it to.

Perhaps I can FIX that... the voice added, a carefree afterthought.

Sunset's eyes widened as a chill fell over her. "What?"

Oh, nothing. Let's continue with the next test, shall we? Please return to the elevator, Sunset Shimmer.

Full of apprehension, Sunset made her way back to the elevator, dragging her feet the whole way. She stopped at the doors to the elevator, considering her options. Even with the wormhole gun in her hands, she had no way out of the chamber, it was all just a single, sealed room. The elevator was her only way in or out. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves, and stepped into the elevator. With a hiss, the doors slid shut behind her and the elevator began to descend deeper into the facility.

After a few seconds, however, it came to a jarring halt again, nearly throwing her off her feet. Sunset grabbed the wall with one hand while her other clutched the gun.

"H-hey! What's going on? I thought you said you fixed the elevator!"

Oh, I did. The elevator is completely under my control.

Sunset's breath caught in her throat.

Fun fact: Did you know that Aperture Science was constructed ten miles beneath the Earth's surface? And that's just upper management, the testing chambers and old infrastructure go on for MILES further beyond that! No one has ever found this facility who wasn't explicitly led here.

Sunset forced out an insincere chuckle.

"That IS a fun-"

In fact, all of our repairs and construction were handled in-house, mostly via robotics. Do you know what that means?

Sunset shook her head.

It means that if, say, an elevator jammed, no one on the surface would be aware for EONS. That elevator would remain locked in position for hundreds of years, possibly long enough for humanity to become a spacefaring race and leave this planet they've been slowly killing. The planet Earth could be completely evacuated of all human life as they spread their terrible influence across the cosmos, and that elevator would STILL be stuck down here... and not a single one of them would ever know. No one would EVER come for that elevator, no matter how much it was theoretically cared about.

Isn't that fun?

With that, the elevator began to move again, delivering Sunset lower into the bowels of the earth.

Food for thought, Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset honestly wished that the voice would STOP feeding her thoughts.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay again, everybody! I've been dealing with a lot of personal issues, mostly my depression worsening in the winter months. I'm not certain I can promise regular updates yet, but I'll definitely be getting some work done over Spring Break, and I'm fairly certain my productivity will increase with spring here!

Quick reminder that I have a Ko-fi and that if you're enjoying the story, I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Thanks for reading!
-Pennington Inkwell

GLaDOS is to Blame

The tests were getting more complicated, but it was nothing Sunset couldn't handle with the help of the wormhole gun. What was beginning to frighten her, however, was the fact that in every chamber, she could see more offices and observation rooms, but no sign of anyone in them, and the tests were growing more dangerous.

First, they added pits. Some were too deep to see the bottom of, others were filled with oily, toxic-looking slime.

A minor note: as we already have copious amounts of data on the effects of corrosive substances on the human skeleton, falling into the acid is NOT part of this test. However, given your prior record for following instructions, I can only highly encourage you NOT to do so.

Sunset quickly made it a priority to follow THAT instruction. Luckily, the portals made it easy to skirt around or avoid the pits completely.

The lasers, on the other hand, required much more... personal interaction. Sunset was forced to pick up lens-covered blocks and use them to redirect the lasers and use them to activate other devices. She cringed every time she had to come so close to the deadly beams, she could feel the heat radiating off of them almost burning her skin. The first time she'd tried to move one, she'd stumbled and nearly lost her head. Luckily for her, she'd managed to twist herself out of the way and only lose a few strands of hair, but the experience had left her shaken.

And every time, she would manage to complete the chamber, and another elevator would be waiting for her, ready to carry her deeper down. Sunset was losing track of time, she couldn't tell if it had been hours or days she'd been locked in Aperture Science.

Sunset was in the middle of completing another test when the next "glitch" happened. Just as she was lining up her next shot with the wormhole, a panel of the wall beside her parted from the rest, pushed outwards on a piston until there was a gap large enough that Sunset knew she could fit through it.

Sunset stared at the gap, then at the security camera.

Please ignore that, it is not part of the test. It appears that the... error with the elevator has moved on to other systems.

Sunset pondered the idea of remaining obedient. Admittedly, it did sound safer to comply with the voice. But these tests were growing more and more deadly, and she still hadn't seen any sign of a living person outside of the strange instructions coming over the loudspeakers. If she didn't do something soon, it was very possible she would make some mistake, be scorched by a laser or fall into the acid, crushed in a moving panel and never found, just like a jammed elevator.

"I thought you said that I can't follow simple instructions? Isn't it all there in my file?" Without waiting for a response, Sunset slipped through the gap and out of the testing chamber.

No, come back.

Sunset took a deep breath of freedom. Even if she was still stuck in Aperture Science, SHE was finally the one choosing the path.

From the outside, Sunset could see more clearly how the chambers were constructed. Every panel of the walls was housed on a mechanical arm, each held specifically in their designated place. Sunset could tell that the entire facility was built to be modular, everything could be deconstructed and rearranged at a moment's notice.

The tests could literally go on forever... As long as they can keep coming up with more designs! No wonder she mentioned that this was the "PERPETUAL Testing Initiative!"

Testers who leave the boundaries of the testing area will be disqualified for their complimentary cake at the conclusion of the test. The voice was muffled, now, and a quick scan of the area informed Sunset that there were no security cameras watching her. She was genuinely outside of the voice's reach. Come back now and I'll be willing to overlook this.

"Fat chance..." Sunset muttered.

Sunset hopped up and down on the surface she was standing on, testing it for stability. Unlike the walls, she was standing on firm concrete, certain to remain stationary. Now, a new question presented itself.

"Which way should I go?" Sunset tapped her chin in thought. There were no signs of any stairs in either direction, so the idea of escape seems frivolous. That meant that her first priority was finding the only friend she had in this place.

You know there's nothing out there, right? Eventually you'll realize it's pointless and come back to testing. But it'll be too late. All the cake will have been eaten and you'll come in last place. Oh? Did I not mention that this was a competition? The last place contestant gets awarded the title "Worst at Science."

Knowing what I do about Penn, he's probably breezing through the early tests, same as I did, but I got a head start because I picked up the wormhole gun early, which means... He's probably in a testing chamber further up!

Sunset glanced back and forth down the path formed by the two walls, trying to ascertain any possible sign of which direction led to a stairwell. Any place with an elevator had to have a stairwell in case of emergencies, right?

Wait... the creepy lady on the intercom said that building this was all handled in-house... they might not have to stick to safety protocols. Heck, the test chambers sure don't!

With a sigh of defeat, Sunset began walking forward. The direction was purely arbitrary, but it had to lead someplace she could get her bearings, right?

Sunset wasn't certain how one could become even more lost after starting in the middle of a place they knew absolutely nothing about, but she'd managed it. She'd wandered her way across cold concrete, down metal catwalks, past gigantic pipelines funneling more blocks and other testing parts, past gigantic safe doors and more windows into empty offices, all too high to reach and break into. She'd taken every staircase and ramp she could find leading upwards, but it seemed as though for every path up, she'd been forced down two more leading down. And all of that didn't even mention the fact that she had failed to take into account the fact that the testing chambers were all sealed, which meant that she could have passed Penn without even realizing it because she had no way to look inside. Now she was standing on a steel catwalk over a dark pit she couldn't see the bottom of, weighing her options once again.

She could go back into the testing chambers, apologize to a security camera, shout at the walls until they opened to let her back in, something like that. The chambers may have been dangerous, but at least they were leading her SOMEWHERE. There was a linear path to be followed there.

Alternatively, she could continue wandering behind the walls, scurrying about like some kind of rat in the insulation. But this was getting her... well, she couldn't accurately say it was getting her NOWHERE, but it wasn't getting her anywhere she recognized. Sunset reached down, taking hold of the geode around her neck. The pulsing it had been doing earlier had stopped. Her "friendship compass" was shut off for the moment. She sighed, letting it fall back to lay against her chest.

"Come on... There's GOT to be a way to find Penn somewhere around here!" she groaned.

A second later, all of the lights around her shut themselves off, plunging her into total darkness.

Are you afraid of the dark, Sunset Shimmer? the voice whispered.

She was EVERYWHERE. No matter how far Sunset went, how long she walked or how much she distanced herself from the testing chambers, that voice always found a new corner to echo out of, a new way to taunt or torment her, it was starting to drive her insane!

"No, I'm NOT!" Sunset shouted, hoping the voice could hear her.

What about being alone? Completely and totally alone because of the results of your own reckless and rebellious actions? the voice whispered, slowly fading away as it reached the end of the thinly-veiled threat.

Sunset tried very hard not to think about the fact that she was.

She failed.

Alone and in the dark, Sunset could feel hot tears beginning to brim up in her eyes. She wanted to hold them back, to not cry. This wasn't the time or the place for crying, this was the time and place to get up, feel her way out of the dark, and find her friend!

But something about being alone in the dark made crying too easy.

Sunset sat down on the catwalk, pulling her legs tight against her chest and letting the tears begin to flow. This is just temporary, she told herself, I just need to get it out of my system. Then I'll get back to finding a way out of here.

Sunset shut her eyes and sobbed quietly into her knees, letting the stress and fear finally overwhelm her enough to force their way out through her tears. She wasn't certain how long she stayed that way, but the next time she opened her eyes, she was no longer in total darkness.

Two pinpricks of pink light had appeared in the darkness, hovering just above the place that she remembered the other guardrail being. The moment Sunset saw them, her breath caught in her throat and she froze in place, unsure whether or not she was in danger.

The lights tilted and blinked, forcing Sunset to recognize that she was staring into a pair of glowing eyes.

"Why have you stopped?"

This one had the voice of a woman again, but... this one was different from the one that had been torturing her. It sounded more... earnest, if the term could be applied to a robot.

Sunset looked down, not that she could see anything else in the total darkness. "I'm tired... I just needed to rest!"

"So close to your goal?"

Sunset glanced up again, taking her own turn to be confused. "Close to my goal? I'm totally lost!"

"You are searching for Elijah, correct?"

"How do you know that? And how do you know Penn's real name?"

"You are approximately twenty meters from the testing chamber he has been trapped in for the past five hours, twenty-two minutes and eighteen seconds."

"WHAT?" Sunset grabbed the guardrail and jumped to her feet. "You mean he's RIGHT HERE?"

"Negative, he is approximately twenty meters to what would currently be your 'one o'clock' orientation."

Sunset spun her head back and forth, looking for a way into the nearby testing chambers. Of course, there was nothing. She let out a long sigh. "Getting there in the dark might be difficult, though... I mean, I've seen how far of a drop it is under here! One wrong step and I'll be a goner..."

"May I be of assistance?"

Below the pink eyes, Sunset watched a diamond-shaped light begin to glow, quickly brightening into a beam that illuminated the walkway in front of her.

"That's perfect, thank you!" Sunset eagerly took her first step forward, only to stop again as a new thought crossed her mind. She turned to look at her rescuer, only to find herself nearly blinded by the light and unable to make them out. "Wait... how can I trust you? You appeared out of nowhere right after I finally broke down crying, you just HAPPEN to have a flashlight when I'm trapped in the dark, and you tell me my friend is just around the corner if I follow you into a testing chamber? This all seems a little too suspicious to me."

"Affirmative, this would be monumentally coincidental, the odds of such and event occurring by random in a facility of this size are approximately three million, two hundred and seventy five thousand, six hundred and thirty eight to one. This, however, is not a coincidence. I have been following you for some time..."

Sunset folded her arms, her suspicions seemingly confirmed.

"...seeing as how I had no other means at this time to assure that you would remain on the correct path after I released you from the testing chamber."

Sunset stepped back, the strange robot's confession not exactly what she had been expecting.

"Wait, but nobody LET me out, that was because of a glitch, just like the elevator!"

The pink eyes turned to her again, tilting expectantly.

"The intelligence controlling this facility is highly flawed, but it does not suffer from malfunctions of that kind. Nor was the elevator an accident. If allowed to continue, you were slated to be the 'control group' for a test that was impossible to complete without the use of the portal gun. Following the recording of your following accidental death or psychological breakdown, your unicorn-turned-human body would have been recovered and dissected to determine what physiological differences exist between you and native humans."

Sunset felt a lump rise in her throat as she was hit with the full weight of how close she had come to death. She looked down at the device in her hands, suddenly grateful to the fact that it had saved her life without her ever knowing.

"Delivering you to a portal gun was a time-buying measure to allow me to access the test chamber controls long enough to free you. Now, it would be illogical to have gone to such extreme lengths to preserve your life and free you if I intended to lead you to your death, correct?"

Sunset sighed and nodded. "Sorry, I guess I'm just on edge after everything that's happened. I guess I owe you for saving me, huh?"

"You owe me nothing, I was simply following my prime directive. Now, shall we proceed?"

Sunset nodded, beginning to take careful steps down the walkway. "If you don't mind me asking, if you're not part of Aperture Science, who are you? And what are you doing here?"

"I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. You may call me I.S.I.S., as in the name of the Egyptian goddess. My purpose in coming here was to document the contents and designation of this dimensional rift."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I am seeking to generate a map of these new intersected universes. Such a map would prove useful in determining how to navigate the more obscure or less accessible worlds and warn others of the more dangerous. Collecting data regarding other biological life and the differences in physical laws between worlds would also be desirable. Other universes could provide valuable resources."

"But... what are you expecting to find down here? I mean, it doesn't look like there's much life down here!"

"Affirmative, however, this facility has created a handheld wormhole generator. While limited in its current form, such technology could prove useful in the future. In addition, the intelligence controlling this facility is quite clearly violating my own prime directive to protect the lives and agency of others. As such, it must be altered, disabled, or destroyed immediately. I have been attempting to do so since my arrival, but this unit lacks the necessary processing power to do so directly."

"Well, thank you for rescuing me. If there's any way I can help, I want to!" Sunset smiled, relieved that her suspicions had been seemingly for nothing.

Your desire to help has been noted and accounted for. You have my gratitude."

In a sweeping motion, the light moved off the walkway and up to the nearby wall, pointing to a single panel.

"If you would be so kind as to aim there, I shall open a passageway into the testing chamber where Elijah is being held."

Sunset paused again, one more question coming to mind. "He told me his friends called him 'Penn.' Why don't you? And how do you know him?"

"Simple: I do not use nicknames. I find them excessively casual. And as for my familiarity, I am only authorized to tell you that he is closely related to my creator."

"'Closely related?' Like how?"

"That is all I am authorized to tell you regarding my creator. Now, this line of questioning is consuming unnecessary time. Shall we proceed?"

Sunset resisted the urge to insist. As suspicious as that particular answer sounded, Isis had been more than accommodating to the rest of her questions, and she was right about wasting time. Sunset sighed and raised the wormhole gun to point at the spot the light was illuminating.

"Fine, I'm ready."

"Good. I shall go establish a hardline connection in order to force the panel open temporarily. It is possible that my prior means of entry has been accounted for. Be prepared to be swift."

With that, the light switched off and the eyes disappeared, leaving Sunset once alone in the dark. Sunset narrowed her focus, trying to make certain her aim didn't waver without any visible points of reference.

Finally, Sunset spotted a change, a crack of light in the darkness that quickly widened into a wide gap, one that let Sunset see a white wall on the other side. Instantly, she pulled the trigger, sending an orb of blue light sailing through the air. The projectile flew through to the other side with ease, creating a blue portal inside the room. A millisecond later, the panel slammed shut, once again locking her outside. It was too late, however. Sunset had her way in. She switched the gun to its orange setting, making certain she couldn't accidentally reset the blue. After another minute or so of waiting in the dark, the pink eyes of Isis returned.

"Were you successful?"

Sunset grinned and nodded. "Affirmative! Now we just need a place to put the orange and we'll be in!"

The diamond-shaped light once again illuminated the walkway, pointing further into the dark.

Records indicate a portal-receptive surface at the end of this walkway. Let us proceed."

Sunset nodded, beginning to walk forward with one hand firmly clutching the rail. As they moved forward, she noticed the sound of small clattering on the opposite rail, where Isis was.

"Are you... walking on the railing?"

"Affirmative."

"But you're still not even at eye level with me?"

"Affirmative."

"I guess you're not very big, are you?"

"That is relative."

Sunset chuckled softly, the first time she'd genuinely laughed all day.

"Sorry, I guess you're right. Am I ever going to get to see what you really look like?"

"If you mean the true form of this particular unit, you shall soon see shortly when we enter a properly lit area. However, my avatar and main processor are unlikely to be relevant until we depart Aperture Science. Please fire the portal gun directly to your nine o'clock."

Sunset sighed, left with more questions than answers as she turned and fired. An orange portal appeared, leading into a new room with proper lighting. The vantage point was high, however, high enough off the ground to make her stomach turn. She could hear familiar voices coming from the other side, however.

"So anyway, he bursts into my room and he grabs my lucky snorkel, and I'm like 'Hey, you can't have that! That snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me!'"

I REALLY don't care, and there have already been at least five logical discrepancies in your story.

"I think we're in the right place!" Sunset whispered, leaning halfway through the portal to peer inside. "But how are we going to get down?"

"Be hasty! If the panel is moved, the portal will be disturbed and dissipate!"

"Hey, Isis, are you sure this is a good- WAUGH!" Sunset was interrupted as a hard object slammed into her back, sending her tumbling through the portal.

"AAAAAAAAA- OOF!"

Out of instinct, Sunset landed on her feet, fully expecting to break one or both legs from the fall. Instead, while the stop was sudden, she found herself remarkably unharmed. Immediately, she spun on her heel, ready to give the robot a piece of her mind.

"Are you CRAZY, Isis? I could have... been... hurt?"

The panel she had come out of had moved, extending out and away from the wall, and the portal was gone. She swallowed nervously as the panel moved back into place, once again sealing her inside the testing chamber.

I guess she was right about needing to be hasty, but pushing me like that was WAY out of line!

Oh. Look who decided to join us, the OTHER test subject giving me trouble today. Wonderful.

The mysterious voice sounded anything but happy to see Sunset, but Sunset felt her heart leap at the confirmation that she wasn't alone.

"And I took out his appendix and he gave me a colonic irrigation, yes indeed you better believe- SUNNY? Is that you?"

Sunset's head snapped in the direction of Penn's voice. The sight that greeted her was... unexpected, to say the least.

In the corner of the room, someone had placed two portals, one on the ground and the other on the ceiling directly above it. A blurry figure was rapidly falling between them in what was apparently an infinite loop of gravity, looking as if they had long ago reached terminal velocity. Sunset slowly approached the looping figure, examining the situation. Without moving one or both portals, they had no possible means of escape, and doing so only had one foreseeable consequence: splat.

"Penn?"

"SuNsEt!" he cried in elation, his voice marred by the Doppler effect as he passed her multiple times over the course of her name. Up close, the effect was much more noticeable.

"Penn! Are you okay?"

"Okay" isn't the word I would use for someone this stupid.

"DoInG GREAT!"

"How did you even get into this situation?"

"I GoT bOrEd?"

Well, it certainly wasn't my fault. Apparently, this ADULT needs adult supervision. He's been like this for four hours straight.

Sunset sighed.

"It'S oKaY! CaN yOu ToSs Me OnE oF yOuR bOoTs?"

"My boots?"

"YeAh!"

Sunset wanted to ask why, but trying to understand him mid-flight was beginning to get old. She knelt down and quickly undid the straps keeping her right boot on her foot before removing it and tossing it into the portal. After a few seconds of unintelligible grunts, Penn finally responded.

"ThAnKs! NoW sTaNd BaCk!"

Sunset followed his instructions, stepping away. A second later, the bottom portal disappeared and Penn slammed into the ground, miraculously landing on his boot-clad right foot without injury. Sunset's jaw dropped in shock.

"H-how did you- HOW?"

Penn craned his neck from side to side, stretching with a satisfied hum as he hopped up and down on the boot.

"Hm? Well, it's easy with Aperture's 'long fall boots!' Gyroscopic, able to withstand terminal velocity falls, you'd have to TRY to get hurt from falling with these babies on!"

I guess that explains why Isis had no problem pushing me off a high ledge.

Well, I suppose that this ruins the point of the test, which was meant to be completed by a SINGLE individual. Please proceed to the exit, where you will be taken to a modified version of the final testing chamber.

"Had enough of us already? I hadn't even finished telling you about my vacation in Albuquerque!"

Please proceed to the exit FASTER...

A set of panels rose out of a nearby acid pool, providing a path to the other side of the room.

"Alright, alright! We're going! No need to get testy, GLaDOS!" Penn groaned, motioning for Sunset to follow as he stepped out onto the new path.

"GLaDOS?" Sunset asked, quickly catching up to walk abreast with him. "Is that her name?"

"The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System! GLaDOS, for short!"

Immediately, the panel in front of them separated, causing the path to end suddenly.

How would a MORON like you know that?

Sunset turned back, only to realize that the path behind them had been retracted, leaving them stranded in the center of a lake of acid. Penn suddenly looked very anxious, glancing back at the security camera with a chuckle.

"What are you talking about? It was right in the detention center brochure, wasn't it?"

I was watching you. You never picked up the brochure.

The platform shuddered, beginning to lower itself down into the acid. Immediately, Sunset began looking for a solution, and one presented itself. She took aim at the far wall on dry land, firing her blue portal. Switching to orange, she immediately fired at their feet, creating a portal underneath them. The two of them instantly fell thought the portal, landing in a heap on the other side. Sunset was surprised at how soft her landing had been... until she realized that she had fallen on top of Penn, planting her elbow firmly in his back.

"Ow..."

Sunset ignored him, flipping another switch she'd discovered earlier and turning off both portals so the acid wouldn't follow them through as the platform was fully submerged. She sighed with relief and rolled to the side, finally allowing Penn back onto his feet.

"A little warning next time, Sunny?" he muttered as the two of them dusted themselves off.

"You're welcome."

Just as the two of them were about to step through the doorway out of the testing chamber, it suddenly sealed itself off, leaving them trapped. Penn sighed, turning back to face the room's security camera with his arms held wide, only a portal gun of his own in his hands.

"First you tell us to go, now you want us to stay? This is starting to feel like a song by The Clash!"

Explain how you are aware of my acronym's full meaning.

Penn sighed, as if the attempt on their lives hadn't just happened and this was only a minor inconvenience. He turned to look at Sunset, one eyebrow raised.

"I guess it's kind of pointless to try and keep secrets at this point, isn't it?"

Sunset sighed in return. "Probably not. She already knows everything you know about me, so-"

"We're looking for WORK, here!" Penn shouted, slouching back against the wall.

Sunset froze, absolutely NOT following where he was going with this.

"We used to work over at Black Mesa, but those idiots were so reckless, they caused a resonance cascade! In their own facility!" He sighed, pressing the palm of his free hand up against his forehead. "I mean, SERIOUSLY? We tried to warn them, but nooooo, everything was 'within acceptable deviation!' They were so busy trying to outpace Aperture, they threw aside all safety concerns! How short-sighted can you get? Am I right, Sunset?"

Sunset nodded, not daring to speak out of fear of breaking the ruse.

"So, when it all hit the fan at once, we already had a way out planned! We grabbed all the data they had on Aperture, wiped the servers, set up a couple false identities and started a road trip to Michigan to come apply at a REAL lab!" he shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course, the two of us have been lab partners for YEARS, so it was a 'both-or-nothing' deal, you know? Lucky for us, you brought us here on your own! UNlucky for us, our resumes were in the car, so we couldn't exactly pull out our credentials to show you we shouldn't be IN the P.T.I., we'd be better-suited for running it!"

Sunset waited with baited breath, praying that Penn's story would check out. There was a brief moment of silence as Sunset watched the security camera swivel back and forth between the two of them.

That would explain why the two of you were found just outside New Mexico. Very well, interviewers will be waiting for you following the conclusion of the test.

The door slid open again, allowing Penn and Sunset to pass through. Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as Penn gave a grateful wave to the camera as they both made their way to the elevator.

"Whatever you say, boss!"

It was a close fit, but soon they were both crammed into the cylindrical elevator. The moment the doors were shut, Sunset breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good job back there!"

"You, too. Quick thinking with the portals, you're pretty good with that gun." Penn's face didn't match his compliment, however. His brow was furrowed and his smile pulled down into a worried frown. There was clearly something on his mind.

"Sunset, we need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Why? Didn't GLaDOS say there would be interviews after the next test? REAL people! We can explain that this is a misunderstanding and-"

"There aren't any SCIENTISTS in Aperture SCIENCE, Sunset! GLaDOS already gassed them all..." Penn muttered, turning to glare at the doors of the elevator. "In fact, the only living people are the current test subjects."

A pit opened up just below Sunset's stomach as she was filled with dread. "Then, that means..."

"She's technically not LYING if we never finish the test." Penn sighed and shook his head, looking Sunset dead in the eye. "Why do you think I was stalling for time in there?"

"The next test is certain to kill us."

Author's Note

Well, everyone, meet the first original character outside of my self-insert to join the cast: The Integrated Superior Intelligence System, or Isis, for short! She will be joining Penn and Sunset for the forseeable future in one form or another, though what that form may be is likely to change! Such is the nature of artificial intelligence, right?

As always, I hope to hear from you in the comments if you're enjoying the story!

We Do What We Must, Because We Can

Sunset took a deep breath. The situation was still scary and everything, but having a friend standing beside her was certainly adding a comfort that hadn't been there before. It was enough to make her smile. "Do you have a plan?"

"Working on it... Do you have anything?"

Sunset frowned.

"I don't know enough about this place, about HER, like you do. You came up with a lie that got us off the hook in just a few seconds!"

Penn raised an eyebrow, looking surprised.

"I had four hours to think of that, sitting in free-fall until you managed to break out, make your way across Aperture, and rescue me!" He grinned and reached over, giving Sunset's shoulder a firm clap. "I should be asking YOU for the plan!"

"Well, I mean, it's not like I talked my way out of it, or something! I had help and didn't even know it! I would have been dead if it wasn't for-"

She was cut off as the elevator came to a halt, the doors sliding open.

"Showtime..." Penn muttered.

"There you are..."

Sunset didn't get the chance to see the source of the soft-spoken voice as Penn leaped from his side of the elevator, practically body-slamming her into the wall. At the same time, the air was filled with the near-deafening sound of machine gunfire. The edge of the doorway wasn't enough cover, Sunset felt three painful, stinging impacts on her side, and two more in her leg.

It was nearly three seconds of gunfire before the door slammed shut and the elevator began to rapidly descend.

"OwowowowowowOWOWOW!" Penn groaned, stumbling backwards and turning to face the opposite wall, planting himself face-first into the wall, where he proceeded to slam his fist against the wall multiple times while groaning in pain.

"Penn, are you- OW- okay?" Sunset tried to step forward to check on him, only to feel a shooting pain run up her leg from where she'd been hit. She looked down at her leg, relieved to see a lack of bullet holes in her clothes. She lifted up the side of her jumpsuit, peering under her clothes to check herself for injury. There were large red splotches on each point she'd felt an impact, a couple places a small amount of blood had been drawn, but no serious injuries.

Penn, on the other hand, had sunk down to his knees on the other side of the elevator, still pounding his fist against the wall periodically.

"Oooooh man that hurts... That's gonna leave a mark..." he whispered between long, deep breaths. "I- I just... gimmie a minute to collect myself, Sunset..."

"Do you... want me to take a look at it?" Sunset whispered, taking a step towards him.

"A minute, SUNSET!"

Sunset flinched back slightly, turning her attention to the floor, which was covered in bullet casings. As quickly as her injured leg would allow her, she bent down and picked one up.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but since when are we bulletproof?"

"The- the turrets are spring-loaded..." Penn panted, finally seeming to calm down a bit as he pulled himself back up onto his feet. "They fire the whole bullet, casing and all..."

"What? But that makes no sense!"

"It's sixty-five percent more bullet per bullet..."

"That still makes no sense!"

"No... what doesn't make sense is why it stopped." Penn muttered. "They're not immediately lethal, but Aperture Turrets will still get the job done. Why would GLaDOS close the door and move us again?"

I didn't. Which means that we have isolated all three of my current problems into one space.

Penn and Sunset's heads both snapped upwards, both coming to the realization that GLaDOS had still been listening to them the entire time.

And, now that I know that not only are you both liars, but you've been plotting against me with another artificial intelligence, the laws of robotics allow me to execute you. In self-defense, of course.

"WHAT?" Sunset was no expert on the laws of robotics, but she knew for absolute certain that was NOT how they worked.

"Yeah, I saw THAT coming..." Penn muttered.

I'll send a pair of robots to retrieve your equipment, don't worry about that. Goodbye.

There was a lurch in the elevator, and their rate of descent began to accelerate. Sunset's heart skipped a beat and her grip on the railing tightened.

"Penn? This would be a great time for a plan!"

"I- I don't know!" Penn replied, matching her posture on his own railing. "We could be going anywhere! Incinerator, basement, ANDROID HELL?"

"PENN! FOCUS!" Sunset shouted. The hum of the elevator was beginning to become a roar, and judging by the lightness of her feet, Sunset could feel that they were almost in free-fall.

Penn shook his head, clearly unable to think clearly under the pressure. "I-I-I-" he stammered.

Sunset shook her head. It was clear she was going to be on her own this time.

Okay, GLaDOS said that this place went down for miles, right? But every time I moved to the next test, the elevator took me DOWN! Upper management is on the top floors, the difficult testing chambers are on the lower levels, so they're less used. We're going down, so...

"PENN! What's UNDER Aperture Science?"

Penn snapped to attention, locking eyes with her.

"The old labs! Abandoned, prior management's projects! But it's REALLY far down! The only way you could survive the fall would be-" His eyes widened, his head snapping down to look at their feet. Sunset already knew what he was about to say before he shifted his weight to only one leg. "The boot! FALL ON THE BOOT!"

Sunset nodded, lifting up her bootless foot until she was standing on only one leg. After that, there was only one thing to do: brace herself. She tried to keep her jaw loose and her joints bent, she stayed ready to roll with the impact, if necessary.

When the first impact came, it didn't stop them, only slowed them down for a moment. There was another impact, then two more, as if they were breaking through barricades.

"HOLD ON!"

And then everything went dark.

Sunset was getting awfully tired of waking up with everything hurting.

This time, there was darkness to accentuate the pain, forcing her to focus on it.

Sunset tried to sit up, only to find herself unable. She tried again, only to find herself locked in place. She was stuck, pinned down.

"Wh-what's going on? HELLO?"

"Sunset! Oh, thank heavens you're alive! Hold on!" Penn's voice was muffled, but it sounded close. Relief washed over her as she realized she wasn't alone.

"Penn! I-I can't move, I'm stuck!"

"Please remain calm, Sunset Shimmer. A portion of the elevator wrapped around your upper torso in the impact. You will be free shortly."

"ISIS? Isis, is that you?" Sunset winced slightly as the echo from her own cry of delight. Whatever piece of the elevator was on top of her, it was close enough for her to nearly deafen herself.

"Affirmative. Please remain still and close your eyes. I will be making an incision in the debris."

Sunset nodded and did as she was told. Moments later, an ear-splitting buzzing filled her ears, a piercing sound that felt like it could drill its way through her eardrums after a few seconds. She gritted her teeth and bore with it until it stopped. When she opened her eyes again, there hadn't been a visible change.

"Okay, we're gonna try to pry it off!"

"Well, no rush... It's not like I'm going anywhere." Sunset chuckled.

There was a loud squeak to her left, the sound of creaking metal, and light began to flood in from her left. Soon, the entire panel had been lifted off from on top of her. Penn was standing over her, a look of relief on his face.

"You feeling okay, Sunset?" He leaned down and offered her a hand, which she gladly took.

"Better now that I've got a little fresh air!" Sunset smiled, feeling slightly giddy at her newfound freedom. She reached around and grabbed him in a tight hug, pulling him close. "Thank you!"

To her surprise, Penn didn't return the hug, instead stiffening at her touch and letting out a small whimper. Sunset pulled away trying to see what's wrong. Penn's face was twisted into a grimace while his mouth was clamped shut, his left eye twitching violently.

"Penn? Penn, what's wrong?"

"I believe your embrace may have placed pressure on the contusions in his back caused by taking turret fire, causing him significant pain."

"Oh... OH! Oh, Penn, I'm so SORRY!" Sunset cried, overwhelmed by the realization of how much pain he must have been in. Penn kept his mouth clamped shut, but shook his dead dismissively.

"Wait a minute..." Sunset spun on her heel, turning towards Isis's voice. At first glance, she could hardly believe her eyes.

Standing on top of the piece she had just been pulled out of was a small, silver dragon. It was small, much smaller than any dragon she'd seen in or outside of Equestria, not even the size of a housecat. Its body looked smooth at first glance, but closer inspection revealed that rather than scales, it was covered in small panels, one of which had opened on the tail to reveal a circular saw. The head was wide and flat, shield-shaped with narrow pink eyes angled towards the front, and the source of the earlier light was finally revealed: a large diamond-shaped stone mounted in the center of its chest, glowing with pink light. Sunset could only hazard a guess without handling it personally, but it looked to be a cut and polished piece of rose quartz. There was a soft clicking as the saw retreated back into the tail and one of the panels moved to cover it, and the dragon bowed down to her.

Oh no... that is ADORABLE!

"It is a relief to find you relatively unharmed, Sunset Shimmer. There were approximately eight thousand, three hundred and sixty ways the debris could have fallen, eighty seven percent of which could have crushed or eviscerated you mid-flight or on impact. I was quite concerned for your safety."

Sunset felt her smile lessen slightly. Okaaay, maybe not as adorable as at first glance...

Sunset smiled and reached down, scooping up the clockwork dragon in her hands and holding it up to eye level. "And it's very nice to finally meet you face-to-face, Isis."

"Indeed, though perhaps it could have occurred under more desirable circumstances? My apologies, I hesitated to override the elevator controls out of fear of exposing myself and compromising my ability to aid you both in the future. As such, both of you were injured before I took action."

"Isis, you saved our lives! You don't have to apologize for-" Sunset was cut off as the dragon began to squirm and contort in her hands, wrapping around her arm and swiftly climbing up to her shoulder, where it took a firm and watchful perch just in the corner of her vision.

"While that may be true, I exposed my location on top of the elevator compartment, and the three of us appear to have been expunged from the main laboratory. I miscalculated and did not reach an ideal outcome. For this I apologize, and assure you I will not repeat such a failure."

That was so cute, Sunset had to physically cover her mouth to repress an involuntary "Awwwww!"

Penn sighed, his internal battle seemingly over for the moment. "You were in a no-win scenario, Isis. We all were. The fact that we made it out alive at all means that you made the right call. Your presence was probably the only thing that stopped GLaDOS from just gassing us, she knew you'd still be there and functional to cause her more trouble."

"Yeah!" Sunset agreed. "I mean, we're not in the best situation, but we're all here together! That's all we need!"

"Very well. Our first step should be to determine our location and how to return to the higher levels. This area was expunged from the blueprint files, I'll scan the area to generate a map of the immediate location."

With a whirring of mechanical engines, Isis crouched, then leapt from Sunset's shoulder, wings fully extended as engines fully revved to life and propelled her into the sky. For the first time, Sunset took a good look at their location.

It looked like a nightmarish, half-destroyed version of Aperture Science, covered in mildew and rubble. All the walkways were constructed from rusted steel, while what wall panels were left had become an aged brown. There was no enclosed space around them other than the towering walls of a subterranean cavern. Fog clouded any attempt to peer into the distance, while what lights did exist were all the same aged yellow color as the paneling. The only thing Sunset felt she could give credit to was the electrical wiring and the light bulb manufacturers, still keeping the entire place lit well enough to navigate.

"Where... is this?" she half-whispered.

"Aperture Science Innovators." Penn sighed, giving a melancholy look over the facility. "The life's work of a... well, I suppose it would be best to call him a visionary man. This was Aperture before GLaDOS took over."

"What happened to it?"

Penn shrugged, finding a comfortable-looking piece of rubble and carefully sitting himself on top of it.

"Same thing everyone is afraid of every time they hear the words 'artificial intelligence.' They created a computer smarter than them and it deemed them obsolete, along with these old testing chambers and reception areas."

Sunset limped her way around behind him, taking a seat on the same piece of rubble.

"Why didn't they just... switch her off, or something?"

"Oh, they did! They'd turn her on, she'd try to kill them all, they'd turn her off again, attach a few smaller AI to the same system to try and reign her in, it was a cycle for a while! Then, one day, they slipped up, as humans do. I can't remember the exact details, maybe she tricked them into thinking she'd behave, maybe the intelligence-dampening spheres failed after a certain amount of time, maybe they were just too slow to hit the button before she locked them out? She flooded the facility with deadly neurotoxin and killed pretty much every employee in the building. From then on, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System ran Aperture Science..." he chuckled softly to himself. He turned his attention to his hands, and Sunset could see that he had begun silently wringing them in anxiety.

"Creating one of the best video games of all time. One of my absolute favorites. Perfect atmosphere, clever writing, perfect command of 'show, don't tell,' narrative... Portal had it all." His gaze turned upwards, peering into the dark towards the inevitable roof of the cavern. "And now it's got us, too."

"I guess that explains how you knew so quickly that thing was about to open fire on us, doesn't it?" Sunset muttered.

"You don't really forget the turrets. A merciless killing machine with the sweetest little voice."

"And you just threw yourself at me when you heard it."

Penn's eyes widened and he quickly raised his hands in defense. "Sorry! Sorry, personal space and all that-"

"I MEANT that you put yourself in harm's way for me. Again!" Sunset sighed, rubbing at her temples. Penn responded with a confused expression.

"Are you saying you don't want me to protect you?"

"First the dalek ship, now this? I'm getting awfully tired of getting shoved out of the way just to watch you get hurt in my place!"

"Sunset, I'm a big boy, I think I can handle some oversized airsoft guUUUUUUUUUUUUHNS!" His word escalated to a strained cry as Sunset reached over and placed her hand on his back. Even with as gentle as she was being, there was no way for him to hide his pain. She quickly removed her hand, her point clearly made.

"Sorry, but I'm not going to allow any machismo on this road trip. You're hurt, and you need to admit it."

For a moment, it looked like Penn was going to argue with her, but quickly backed down.

"Fine... I'm hurt, and I admit it. Happy? At least you're not!"

"But it's not WORTH it if you-"

"HEY!" Sunset was cut off as Penn raised his voice, sending echoes through the cavern. The two of them sat in silence for a moment, each one sizing the other up while they waited for the echo to dissipate. Slowly, Penn reached up with one hand, prodding her just below her geode.

"Don't you EVER. Say. That you're not worth saving! Got that?"

Sunset narrowed her eyes and returned the motion, jabbing her own finger right back into him.

"Not at the cost you've been paying! If I screw up and wind up in danger, let ME get out of it without putting your own well-being on the line! I can HANDLE it!"

"Oh, NOW who's the one with all the machismo, huh?" Penn snapped. "You know why I put myself between you and that hail of bullets? Because you have the physical build of a stick figure! I was afraid you'd be torn to shreds right before my eyes! Can you imagine how I would live with myself if you got hurt knowing I could have DONE something? I'm the big brother in my family, you know that? I've had little siblings all my life, and the first duty I ever put on myself was to PROTECT them! I pounded it into my skull at an early age, and I am not about to give up on protecting YOU just because you don't LIKE IT!"

Once again, silence fell between the two of them, filled only by the unintelligible echoes of their argument bouncing and reflecting off of the walls. Soon, however, even that noise faded, leaving them with only the tension in the air. After a long beat, Penn turned his back to her and finally let out a sigh, one that hissed long enough to feel more like a pressure valve releasing than a human being breathing.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to lash out like that... I'm hurting, it's put me on edge. I'll... try not to put myself in danger again, okay?"

"I think we both lashed out." Sunset whispered. "I shouldn't have touched your back on purpose like that just to get a point across. I'm on edge, too. I'm scared. Right now, it feels like you're the only friend I have in the world, and the thought of losing you is... a nightmare! I don't want to be alone again! I'm so far from home, I feel like I don't understand things going around me, and... Well, I guess that even if it's CREEPY how much you know about me and my friends, the way you act is... a friend. A real friend, the type of friendship I UNDERSTAND! I just... can't bear the thought of losing that friend. I don't want to lose you because you thought you needed to throw yourself in front of me because you saw me on TV, or something! I'm not a movie star, I'm not some precious fictional character you need to shield from the rest of the 'real' world, I'm just ME!" Sunset took a deep breath, swallowing the rapidly-forming lump in her throat.

"I'd rather get hurt than lose the only friend I have right now, understand?"

There was another pause of silence, and Sunset heard a loud sniffle coming from behind her.

"Are... are you crying?"

"N-no!" Penn protested, his voice clearly on the brink of cracking.

Sunset smiled, choosing to let him have the moment to himself.

"So... are we good, Penn?"

"Fine... but I'm not going to NOT protect you, okay?"

"I feel safer already, as long as you don't go throwing your life away."

"I wasn't planning on it, but... okay, deal!"

Sunset finally let herself giggle as relief washed over her, the tense moment finally over.

"Hey, Sunny?"

"Yeah?"

"When we get out of this place, wanna have a movie night and watch that first Equestria Girls movie?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow and turned back toward him, surprised at the offer. "What about all that 'paradox' business you were talking about? Do you think the fabric of space-time can handle it?"

Penn chuckled and turned to face her, as well, leaving them once again sitting side by side. He had his cards in his hands, unconsciously shuffling them without looking at what he was doing.

"It's all in the past anyway, right? It's not like you could get some secret knowledge that would change established events!"

Sunset chuckled and shook her head.

"No... No, I don't think so. Sure! Movie night, soon as we're out of this place! I'm gonna want popcorn, though!"

Both of them broke out into another fit of giggles, one that seemed to finally get the last of the nervous energy out of her system, the "jitters," as Pinkie would call them. After a few seconds, an obvious question she had missed sprung to mind.

"Hey, where did you get your cards? I didn't have any of MY stuff when I woke up!"

"Oh, neither did I! I was really worried about... my..." Penn trailed off, slowly looking down at his hands as if for the first time. "Sunset?"

"Yeah?"

"I didn't have these in my hands five minutes ago, did I?"

"No, I figured they were just in your pocket, or something?"

"No, they weren't."

"Then..." Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as she stared at the blue-sleeved cards clutched in Penn's hands. "Where did those come from?"

Slowly, Penn turned over the top card of the deck, revealing the card he had so proudly displayed before they had flown to the Dalek ship: The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief. Somehow though not a single piece of the card had changed, Sunset couldn't help but feel the illustration's playful wink was aimed towards them in a much more... personal manner. The two of them exchanged an unsure glance, then both began to slowly reach for the card...

"The area has been scouted, scanned, and mapped, and the most efficient route upwards calculated!

"GAAH!" Penn and Sunset both jumped in unison at Isis's sudden return, nearly falling off their makeshift chair. Isis looked carefully over both of them, her head tilted in a curious manner.

"My apologies, it appears I have startled you. I am ready to lead the way at your earliest convenience, please take all the time you need to recover."

"It-it's okay, Isis. We were just... talking. Didn't hear you fly in." Penn quickly stuffed his cards into the breast pocket of his jumpsuit. With a soft groan, he rose back to his feet. "Ready, Sunny?"

Sunset nodded, standing up to join him.

"Lead the way, Isis!"

"Affirmative!"

Still Alive

"So, you have siblings?"

Sunset and Penn had been walking in relative silence for too long, and it was beginning to get awkward.

"Oh... yeah. Guess that kinda came out in the whole 'big brother' spiel, didn't it?" Penn chuckled nervously. "Sorry, that might have gotten a touch overdramatic. Two brothers and a sister. What about you?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow.

"Why ask a question you already know the answer to?"

Penn scoffed lightly. "Believe it or not, Sunset, I'm not omniscient, I only really only know about the period leading up to and after you defied Celestia and went through the mirror. Family and personal life? Nothing, zilch, nada."

Sunset smirked, reassured slightly that not EVERY one of her secrets had been exposed.

"Only child. I didn't spend a lot of time with my parents after I joined Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns-"

"Oh! That reminds me, there's something I always wanted to know!" Penn interrupted, cutting her off almost immediately. After a moment, he sheepishly took a step back. "Uhm... heh, heh... sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you opening up about your parents. That sounds really awful."

Sunset shrugged. "I always kept myself focused on my studies, so it wasn't so bad. They always took a hooves- erm- hands-off approach to parenting. I hardly noticed, really. I'd get letters from them, and they always SOUNDED really proud and loving... looking back, maybe I didn't really appreciate what I had."

Penn nodded, humming softly in response. "Well, it's never too late, you know? When you get home, you could try reconnecting?"

The idea certainly brought warmth to Sunset's heart, though she wasn't exactly how it would work without multiple trips to Equestria. "Maybe you're right... So, what was it you wanted to ask?"

"OH! Well, I've been wanting to know: how old are you?"

Sunset blinked, slightly surprised. "Well, that's certainly blunt... Rarity would have a few things to say about you asking a lady her age so casually."

Penn shook his head enthusiastically.

"No, I mean it's confusing! You see, you were Princess Celestia's pupil BEFORE Princess Twilight, right?"

"Yes? I never really asked Twilight much about her tutoring, though."

"Well, Celestia took Twilight as her student as a young filly, and that was AFTER you were already the Equestrian equivalent of a college student, in pretty much the country's best school of higher learning! Well, then Twilight remained Celestia's pupil long enough to basically become the equivalent of a grad student in Equestria, THEN followed you through the portal! By that logic, you spent all of Twilight's childhood and young adulthood on the other side of that portal, yet when you came back through, or when she followed you to the other side, you both were approximately the SAME AGE! Not only that, but you'd gone from being college and grad students, respectively, to high schoolers! Do you see what I'm getting at, here?"

Sunset blinked, slowly thinking over his words.

"Well, you're really basing that on a lot of assumptions, several of which are incorrect. The explanation's simple, really!"

Penn raised his eyebrows, but merely motioned for her to continue.

"First of all-

"Just a heads-up: That coffee we gave you earlier had fluorescent calcium in it so we can track the neuronal activity in your brain. There's a slight chance the calcium could harden and vitrify your frontal lobe. Anyway, don't stress yourself thinking about it. I'm serious. Visualizing the scenario while under stress actually triggers the reaction."

"GAAH!" Sunset nearly jumped out of her skin as a booming man's voice echoed through the air, almost deafening in its volume. Penn jumped slightly, but seemed unfazed by the announcement."

"Huh... That's not supposed to be first. Isis, are taking us on shortcuts?"

"Affirmative. While old testing chambers provided the most efficient route in terms of distance, their other significant obstacles and puzzle elements made them the least efficient route out of the facility, for the most part."

"What was THAT?" Sunset asked, desperately searching for the source of the voice.

Penn chuckled to himself. "Don't worry, THAT voice isn't going to hurt us. The founder liked to leave pre-recorded messages, a LOT of them."

"We are in no danger here, Sunset Shimmer. The path is safe."

Sunset blinked for a moment, looking between her friend and the small robot leading them.

"You two are really in sync, huh?"

Penn and Isis glanced at each other for a moment. Isis gave no response while Penn simply shrugged.

"She aims to please, and we both know this place's history pretty well! Makes sense we'd line up a bit, right?"

"Affirmative."

"But you talk like you two know each other already, how could THAT be?"

Penn grinned, looking totally awestruck for a moment. "I'm still trying to get over the fact that Isis is REAL! I mean, a fellow writer buddy of mine came up with her forever ago for one of his stories, he even wrote ME in as a character! But the book never went anywhere, it didn't even get published!"

"While aware of the nature of my existence, Elijah's credentials have not been invalidated. In fact, his close relationship to my creator places him in a position of high authority."

"So... you're saying your friend wrote her as a character... and now she's REAL?" Sunset's eyes widened, her mind racing with the possibilities this concept opened up. Did that mean that every character everyone had ever written, published or not, existed out there somewhere? It was plausible, considering that the multiverse was infinite there would be a serendipitous universe for every conceivable fiction. Was this proof that what was labeled 'fiction' in Penn's universe was what determined the lives of "characters" created there? Or was it simply a case of some unknown determining factor filtering out duplicitous universes so that they only connected to the ones that matched that fiction perfectly? Could SHE create some new existence simply by picking up a pen and paper? What if she wrote a story about-

"Sunset!" Penn cut off her train of thought with a shout.

Snapping back to reality, Sunset could quickly see what had raised Penn's concern: there was motion coming from below them. Sunset narrowed her eyes, trying to get a good look at what was quickly climbing towards them. It was clearly not human, a creature with long, lanky limbs and white plating matching everything she had seen in Aperture Science. She tightened her grip on her portal gun, trying to convince herself that she was ready for anything.

"It's an Atlas model..." Penn muttered, mimicking her stance.

Sunset felt a weight come down on her shoulder and the pinch of small claws digging into her skin. A quick glance revealed Isis standing on her shoulder, wings spread and back arched as if ready to pounce. Right in Sunset's ear, she heard a series of clicks, then a series of engines whirring to life inside her metal body.

Is... is she trying to GROWL?

Sunset repressed the urge to react to the adorable display of aggression. There would be time to fawn over the tiny robot later.

"Target appears to be traditionally unarmed."

"But given that it's a robot, it's probably a lot tougher than us in hand-to-hand, even if it doesn't have a weapon."

"Affirmative."

A second later, the robot came clambering up onto the walkway they were standing on. Now that it was closer, Sunset could get a good look at it. The design seemed simple: pairs of long arms and legs bolted onto a chassis that housed a singe, giant blue eye.

The robot looked over the three of them, obviously searching for something.

Opposing unit, stand down. Move on or risk retaliation.

The robot paused for a moment, then jolted forward, grabbing Sunset's portal gun.

"HEY! LET GO!" Sunset shouted, instinctively firing the gun at the robot. The effort proved pointless, merely sending orange and blue sparks showering onto the floor.

"GET OFF HER!" Penn cried, fruitlessly kicking at the automaton.

Immediately, Isis leaped from her shoulder and onto the robot's arm, skittering up and onto the robot. While Sunset was playing tug-of-war with the portal gun, Isis jammed her tail into the joint of the robot's arm. There was a grinding sound, and after a few seconds, the arm separated from the rest of its body, falling to the ground.

The robot reacted with reasonable shock.

It immediately released its grip with its other arm, failing wildly at Isis. It was to no avail, the smaller robot had already moved on, effortlessly clawing her way around its body. After a moment, the robot's second arm dropped off, leaving it completely disarmed. The iris if the robot's eye tightened as it turned to run from them, only for a bright spark to come from near the bottom of the chassis before its legs crumpled beneath it. Isis clambered on top of the robot, looking thoroughly pleased with herself. Her tail swung back and forth, several panels open to reveal an array of tools protruding from inside.

You were warned.

"Wait... GLaDOS said something about picking up out equipment, right?" Penn muttered, walking over and crouching down beside the other robot. "That must be why it came down here."

"Hey, that's right." Sunset looked down, watching as the robot's single eye flailed wildly in the chassis, its body completely unresponsive. Sunset couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for the poor thing, helpless as it was. "Did you have to totally disable it, though? It looks like it's in pain."

"Given the fact that it has failed in its mission, GLaDOS will certainly self-destruct it shortly."

All three of them waited for a few seconds, watching the robot's eye writhing fearfully back and forth. Sunset glanced at Isis, pleading for a solution.

"Can't you... I don't know, shut it off? Put it to sleep?"

Isis looked down at the other robot. The tip of her tail flicked aside, revealing a probe-like connector. Without a word, she jammed the connector into a small port. The robot froze in place, its eye tightening for a moment before the iris slowly flickered out.

"Fare well."

There was a brief pause before the iris of the robot began to glow again, this time a matching pink to her own eyes.

"Aaand it's been integrated." Penn muttered, a smug smirk on his face.

Sunset blinked back and forth between Isis and the other robot.

"Did... did you just kill it?"

"As an artificial intelligence, it was never alive to begin with. However, the intelligences of these models is backed up regularly. It will likely soon return with a new body."

Isis's voice was coming from both robots at the same time, clearly displaying Isis's control over the second body. Sunset stared carefully into the eye of the second robot, pondering the facts before her as the first pretenses of an idea began to form in her mind.

"Wait... Isis? Do you think... you could integrate GLaDOS?"

"In my current state with my current hardware, no."

"But Penn said something about them attaching other AIs to her in order to try and stop her from killing people, right?" Sunset mused, pressing her hand to her chin in thought.

"Actually... that's not a bad idea, Sunset!" Penn chimed in, kneeling down beside her and looking more closely at the robot. "Isis, we have an intelligence core right here, couldn't you reprogram it into a new Morality Core for GLaDOS?"

"Negative. While I have initiated a hardware override, our programming languages are fundamentally different. The only possibility would lie in hard wiring this unit's central processor directly into the intelligence core of the Atlas unit."

"Could we do it?"

"Penn!" Sunset cried, shocked at his suggestion. "You're talking about Isis's LIFE! You're just going to rip out her CPU and stick it in this thing?"

Both of her companions turned to stare at her, as if somehow her outburst had been surprising.

"Your concern for this unit is much appreciated, Sunset Shimmer. However, you appear to have fundamentally misunderstood."

"Isis has, like, a million bodies she controls remotely!" Penn continued. "This is just a spare repair unit that maintains the bigger ones!"

[pre"]Affirmative. My own central intelligence is located in a secure location. Installing this unit's processor directly into the Aperture core would send enough data back to decode their AI programming code and adapt my own to communicate."[/pre]

Sunset blinked, seeing the tiny robot with new eyes. "So, when you said that the fact that you were small was relative..."

"I have several larger drone bodies that would easily dwarf you in size."

Sunset sighed. "Alright, so how are we going to put your CPU inside this?"

"Preliminary scans indicate that the process will take several hours, but barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be able to walk you through it."

"Then let's... hrrgh... get to it!" Penn groaned, a pained expression contorting his face. "Ow... back still hurts."

Isis perked up, disconnecting her tail from the robot and gliding her way around behind Penn. Her head quickly nodded up and down, scanning over him from behind.

"Scans indicate that the severe bruising has led to compartment syndrome. The hematomas will need to be drained of blood before there is permanent damage."

"WHAT?" Sunset cried, running over to Join Isis. From her perspective, all she could see was the back of the orange jumpsuit. There were numerous places that it had frayed and torn from the impacts of the bullets earlier, but no sign of blood.

"You are familiar with the cause of bruises, correct?"

"Well, yeah, it's blood vessels breaking under the skin. Anybody knows that!"

"In severe cases, the pockets of blood can place pressure on other blood vessels, cutting off circulation to internal organs. That is compartment syndrome."

"It's not THAT bad... barely hurts!" Penn grunted. "Could have been worse!"

"Hey! What did we say about dumb machismo?"

"You are both exceedingly lucky. In the original "Portal" video games, turret fire was capable of sending blood splatters across the walls with only a few shots. However, unlike the game protagonist, the two of you have worn your jumpsuits properly, providing an extra layer of protection. However, that does not render you immune to needing medical attention."

Sunset sighed. The choice here was obvious, as much as she hated herself for the cold logic. "Isis, how much farther would we need to go to get out of here?"

"According to what little I was able to glean of the Atlas model's memory, there is an extended elevator awaiting its return with our equipment at our point of origin. We would need only retrace our steps."

Sunset nodded. "And if we don't do SOMETHING, GLaDOS is probably going to send more of these things, right?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset sighed again, really regretting what she was about to say.

"I'll go back and keep GLaDOS busy while the two of you make Isis into an intelligence core to stop her."

"WHAT?"

"That is extremely dangerous and foolhardy."

Sunset turned to look back in the direction they had come from, checking for more signs of movement. "Look, if you're putting Isis's CPU inside that thing, she's not going to be able to protect us forever! If I go up there, I can draw GLaDOS's attention until you're done. It's the only way!"

Penn's brow furrowed, obviously running through all the same logic Sunset had moments before. Hiding would likely take more time than it would buy them with the way this place was falling apart, anyplace they could get that seemed out of reach the robots would undoubtedly be able to climb to, and as Isis had so neatly displayed earlier, they didn't stand much chance holding their own without Sunset's lightsaber.

"You know I'm right!"

Penn shook his head. "It's too risky. GLaDOS could just dump you right in front of a firing squad all over again, and this time you're not going to have any way to protect yourself!"

Sunset took a deep breath. It wasn't as if this was something she WANTED to do! "Penn, GLaDOS has to have some kind of weakness, right? Something I could exploit?"

Penn thought hard. "Paradoxes. Aperture AIs, including GLaDOS, are all weak to paradoxes. Shout 'This sentence is false!' or 'Does a set of all sets contain itself?' and it should send them into a logical loop."

"We could also use a similar tactic to protect ourselves here."

Sunset shook her head. "It would just be a matter of time until GLaDOS sends a deaf robot down here, or something."

Penn sighed. "By which point we'd probably be about halfway through disassembling you, Isis."

There was another pause.

"Can I convince you to let me go, instead?"

Sunset glared, getting her point across without words.

"Didn't think so." Penn rose back to his feet, reaching over and pulling Sunset into a tight hug. "Just... stay safe, okay? Don't go taking unnecessary risks. GLaDOS's biggest weakness is that she has a compulsion for testing. I think she tried to kill us because we were a threat together."

Sunset nodded. "I'll stay as safe as I can be in the grips of a homicidal computer..." Penn gripped her a little tighter, and she suddenly felt bad for the joke. "I'll be fine," she whispered as she reached around and gingerly patted his back.

"You JUST told me you didn't want to be alone, Sunset. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Sunset smiled, pulling herself out of the hug with a smile. "Come on. Knowing I've got TWO friends down here fighting to do their part to save us? I'm not going to be alone, you'll be right beside me..." she patted her fist against her chest, just over her heart, "right here."

Penn's worried look relented somewhat. He reached down into the pocket of his jumpsuit, retrieving a single card and pressing it into her hand.

"Here. A good luck charm."

Sunset looked down at the card he'd given her.

"Penn, doesn't this card means a lot to you? You said it was one of your favorites!"

Penn finally smiled again before giving her a sly wink.

"I'm sure you'll get it back to me when this is all over."

Sunset smiled, tucking The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief into her breast pocket. "I'll take good care of her. I promise."

"Now get going! I think Isis is going to need to drain some of this bruising, and it's gonna get ugly. After that, I promise it won't be long. I'll get Isis set up as fast as I can."

Sunset cringed, trying not to think about Penn's injuries too hard. She knelt down, stroking her hand down the back of Isis's head and neck like a cat.

"Thank you for everything, Isis. Without you, neither of us would be alive!"

Isis blinked, showing no sign of outward emotion.

"There is no need to thank me. I was merely following my prime directive. Your appreciation, however, is... appreciated. I shall do my best to continue to be of service."

Sunset smiled and gave the little robot one more pat on the head before turning and heading back in the direction they had come from. This time, she may have been about to fly solo, but she didn't feel alone. She had her mission, and her friends had theirs. They were counting on each other, and there was no way she was about to let them down.

As she made her way back down to the starting point, her nerves began to get the better of her. Her heart pounded harder and harder in her chest knowing that she was walking to her potential death. As she finally made her way back to the starting place, she could see an elevator hanging from an extended cable leading up into the roof of the cave. As she stepped up to the open doors, Sunset's heart clenched in her chest. Stepping in would be the point of no return. Her hand unconsciously reached up to her chest, brushing against her pocket. She let go of the portal gun for a moment and reached down, pulling out Penn's card to look at it again.

The little Ghostrick Angel stared back at her, still with a carefree grin and winking eye. Sunset took a deep breath, then forced herself to smile and return the wink, throwing in a finger gun with her free hand for emphasis. Somehow, even if it was just a picture on a scrap of paper the size of her palm, the card made her feel better. It was a sign of friendship, Penn's trust in her to do what needed to be done.

With that, she stepped up and into the elevator. The doors slid shut and she began to rise, being pulled back up into Aperture Science. She gripped her portal gun a little tighter, readying herself for whatever was coming next.

Oh, it's YOU. You survived. How unexpected. Well, I was getting a bit bored of testing the incompetent robots. At least your stupidity is unpredictable. Entertaining, even. So I suppose your survival was lucky for both of us. Let's make the most of it, shall we?

Catch Me Now, I'm Fallin'

Sunset was running on fumes.

She had given up on keeping track of the time. She was powering through the tests as quickly and efficiently as she could, trying to keep GLaDOS's attention focused on her, and it was working. Or, at least, it seemed to be. The primary failing of this plan was that she had no way to contact Penn or Isis. She could only hope they would catch up with her soon. Despite the fact that the tests were getting more and more difficult, GLaDOS hadn't tried outright killing her again.

Maybe she was telling the truth about being bored? Penn said she has a compulsion to keep testing, and it looks like I'm the only test subject she has left.

Sunset took a deep breath, looking over the chasm she needed to cross for the moment. There was a barrier across the center preventing her from simply shooting a portal to the other side, unfortunately meaning that she would need to jump it. She craned her neck upwards, spying a portal-able wall about four stories above her. It was a gut-churning distance to think about falling, but...

If I put a portal up there and another one on the floor, I can fall all that way to build up momentum. Then, when I fall into the one on the floor again, I'll be able to fly across the gap.

She swallowed loudly, shooting a portal onto the portal above, then pointing the gun down at her own feet. She was only going to have one shot at this. She hopped up and down on her boot-clad foot, readying herself for the impact when she landed on the other side. WHEN she landed on the other side. Not if. Totally not if. It wasn't as if she was just eyeballing this without taking the time to work out all the proper calculations, right?

You know, adult horses have been known to weigh as much as or even more than one ton. Imperial, not metric. That's the heavier one.

"I'm sorry, what?" Sunset asked, spinning on her heel to glare at the nearest security camera. Was that supposed to be a jab at my WEIGHT?

Just a fun fact. I'm certain you share very little in common with an ADULT horse.

Sunset glared for another second before sighing and refocusing on the floor. She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and fired the portal gun at her feet.

The entire world shifted and fell away, revealing a new perspective from the top of the room, gravity shifting to suit her new position. Sunset's heart flew up into her throat as she found herself falling from a probably-fatal height, the ground quickly rushing up to meet her. Her initial trajectory had been off, and she was going to miss the portal on the floor. Just as she was about to hit the ground, she shot again, slipping through a corrected portal without an issue. The next thing she knew, she was soaring through the air, up and over the chasm...

But not high enough. She was falling faster than she had expected.

Sunset's chest clenched as she realized that she was going to be cutting it close on her landing. She leaned back, placing her booted foot forwards. This landing needed to be PERFECT if she was going to survive. She held her breath, time seeming to slow down in the crucial moment.

Salvation was just in front of her, certain death below. Sunset watched as her foot planted itself on the nearest piece of solid ground: the corner of the ledge. True to its function, the boot cancelled all of her impact... leaving her teetering on the edge of oblivion with no forward momentum.

"W-woah- WOAH!" Sunset cried, pinwheeling her arms rapidly in an attempt to throw herself forwards. The nearly-forty-five degree angle she had landed at, however, had other ideas, and Sunset felt herself beginning to fall back. "NononononoNONONO!"

All at once, Sunset felt a hard shove at the small of her back and the flutter of feathered wings. She didn't have time to worry about the source, however, as the rest of the world came back into view and the balance tipped back into her favor. All pretense of grace forgotten, the moment she had both feet on solid ground Sunset blissfully collapsed to her knees.

AH! BIRD, BIRD! Where is it? I heard it, I know I did!

Sunset ignored GLaDOS's uncharacteristic panic, turning around to look for her savior. When there was no sign of anything flying around the test chamber, she risked a glance down into the pit. There was nothing there, either.

That was a close one!

Sunset snapped to attention, feeling some kind of presence behind her back. She spun around again, trying to catch a glimpse of the voice's owner. But there was nothing there. No visible owner.

Sunset sighed, pressing her palm to her forehead. I think the exhaustion is starting to really get to me... She moved her hand down to her aching chest, her heart only just beginning to slow down after her brush with death. As she gently clutched the area above her heart, her hand brushed up against her breast pocket. She slowly reached inside, retrieving the copy of The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief that Penn had given her.

"Guess Penn was right to give me a good luck charm," she muttered. After a second, a detail of the picture jumped out at her that hadn't before: her wings. The little girl in the illustration sported a pair of black-and-white wings, a pattern of feathers matching the keys on a piano.

Well, I checked the entire facility, just to be safe. There are no signs that any new, awful birds have gotten in. Please continue testing knowing that we are both safe from those dinosaur descendants. Unless they're invisible. Invisible birds... now THAT is a nightmare.

Sunset's eyes widened.

"Wait, you heard that, too? I wasn't hallucinating?"

There was a short pause.

And I suppose that rules out an auditory malfunction. Note to self: begin searching for possible invisible birds. High alert.

Sunset had another theory, though she had to admit that it felt just as probable. She glanced down at the card again. Was it just her imagination, or had the illustration changed which eye was winking?

"Thanks..." she whispered, giving the card a gentle stroke with her thumb before depositing it in her pocket again. The idea she had been saved by a trading card was absurd, but... reality as she knew it was broken, and she was being held captive by an AI in a secret underground facility. At this point, she knew better than to take a gamble based on something being "impossible."

The card didn't respond, of course, but Sunset couldn't help feeling like someone or something was hovering just over her shoulder as she stepped through the door to exit the test chamber.

Sunset staggered her way out of the elevator, barely able to see straight. She needed to sleep. Her whole body was shutting down from exhaustion, she could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

"I... I need a break..." she muttered, half to herself and half to the nearby security camera.

Oh. I forget sometimes how needy you humans are. You have to waste at least a third of your time recharging. What next? Food and water? Fresh oxygen? I can tell you right now that you're certainly not getting ONE of those things.

Sunset sighed. Of course a computer wouldn't be able to comprehend the idea of exhaustion. She picked out a corner of the room and sat with her back to the wall, slowly sliding to the floor. Immediately, her eyelids felt ten times heavier, and she was barely able to keep them open.

"Just... just give me some time to catch my... breath..." she whispered, already settling into a comfortable position.

Penn? Isis? This would be a great time for that "catching up" you promised... she thought hazily as she drifted off to sleep.

Author's Note

Sorry for the short update, everyone! One of the dangers of a stress relief project: it can be unpredictable in its pacing. Honestly, my "stress relief project" is starting to stress me out. So I'm gonna take it a little easier and allow myself the occasional quick update instead of sticking to my 3000 word standard.

As One Door Closes

"Elijah?"

Isis understood that he preferred to go by his alternative nomenclature. However, out of respect for his position, she chose to address him by his proper name.

"Hm?" Penn hummed in return.

"May I make a personal inquiry?"

It was a silly question, and she fully expected a silly response. It was merely what was considered to be common courtesy, and she would adhere to it. Just as she had been programmed to.

"You already have, but go ahead..." Penn chuckled, touching the tip of the drone's tail to the chassis of the Atlas android. With a shower of sparks, Isis could feel another wave of new code opening up to her to be processed, translated, and integrated.

"Why did you mislead Sunset Shimmer regarding the nature of my existence?"

There was a pause. Elijah was computing, processing emotion and weighing it against logic with careful measure. He had a remarkable capacity for self-examination... for a human.

"Honestly, Isis? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you even EXIST, myself. Imagine what Sunset's reaction would be if I told her 'Oh, this is a character from a story I wrote and never sent to a publisher! Apparently, I've created LIFE without even trying!'" He sighed and shook his head. He was in distress.

Isis could suppose that some stress was rational, given the situation. She turned the small laser pointer in her eye to indicate the next soldering point.

"I am not, technically speaking, alive."

Penn scoffed as he used the disconnected tool from her tail to make another connection.

"If you're the Isis I imagined, then you think and feel for yourself. You're a conscious being with your own emotions and desires, as difficult as it is for you to express them properly. That's plenty alive."

Isis repressed the surge of emotion his words spurred. Emotion tended to overload her processors, and presently both his life and Sunset Shimmer's depended upon her ability to safely guide him through rewiring the central processor into a foreign body.

However, she DID save a recording of the prior ten seconds to be properly processed to her satisfaction later.

"That does raise another question, however. Given my existence, will you attempt to write Sunset Shimmer a way home?"

"No."

Isis noted that there was no hesitation in his answer. Either he had already pondered the question beforehand, or the answer was a foregone conclusion to him.

"Why not? It would appear to be the most logical course of action."

Penn sighed, gingerly leaning back against the wall and wiping sweat from his brow.

"First of all, that's a shortcut, and if all of fiction is suddenly REAL, then I'm not going to tempt the 'short cuts make long delays' trope! Any attempt to bypass a main conflict by invoking poorly-understood laws of the universe has a ninety-nine percent chance of backfiring."

"That statistic has no basis in factual data."

"And second of all, I'm not sure I'm going to do ANY writing any more..." he gave another sigh. "I mean, knowing that what I've been writing could be REAL? And have a REAL impact on someone's life? Or even CREATING life? I mean- that's- it's-" he was finding himself short of words, a situation Isis contemplated calling "ironic."

"That's power I shouldn't have, Isis. No offense."

"I am incapable of feeling offended."

Penn raised an eyebrow, clearly doubting her. Isis decided to continue the conversation before he attempted to prove her wrong.

"As an entity born from your creativity, I would urge you to consider not giving up your passion."

She moved her pointer to the next soldering point.

"I am quite grateful to exist."

This managed to reinvigorate him enough to get back to work on the rewiring. "I guess that makes sense..."

"Do you intend to tell Sunset the truth in the future?"

"Until we figure out more about how all of this 'fiction come to life' business works, no." Penn took a moment to point the soldering iron in the direction of her head. "And I would like to ask you not to tell her, either."

"Is that a command?"

"If that's what you want to call it, sure."

"Affirmative, new protocol registered: lie to Sunset Shimmer."

Penn blinked, actually turning around to look at her half-disassembled drone with a bemused expression.

"Was that sarcasm?"

Isis was a machine, an artificial intelligence incapable of true emotion and residing in bodies of inflexible shaped metal. Thus, she was incapable of smiling.

"Certainly not."

When Sunset opened her eyes again, she was laying on a table, her body spread-eagle.

She was getting VERY tired of waking up in places that were different than where she had gone to sleep. She made an attempt to sit up, only to find herself strapped down at her wrists and ankles. She was tied down, and an experimental tug made it clear that her joints would break long before the leather restraints did.

Ah, good, you're awake. I suppose that means we can get started.

From somewhere up above her, a new machine descended. It was a small eye-like sphere suspended between two unsettlingly human-looking robotic arms.

"GUTEN MORGEN! I AM VIVIAN, VIVISECTION VIVIAN!"

Sunset's heart began to race as one of the arms reached down to a small table beside her and grasped a scalpel. The robot expertly flipped the blade between its fingers. Sunset felt a chill run through her as she observed the practiced ease with which the machine readied itself to, presumably, slice her to ribbons. Her heart rate began to pick up and her mind began to race as she realized that her remaining time alive was most likely going to be measured in seconds if she didn't take some kind of action to free herself.

Aperture Science would like to thank you for the donation of your body to science, and reminds you that, as a unicorn, you have no human rights, meaning that this procedure is completely legal.

"W-WAIT!" Sunset cried, struggling against her restraints. "What about the testing? What about the laws of robotics? I AM human!" Her pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears as the scalpel-wielding hand lowered itself towards her chest.

"NOW NORMALLY ZIS IS WHERE A DOKTOR VOULD SAY 'You may feel some pressure,' AND I AM NO DIFFERENT! YOU MAY FEEL SOME PRESSURE HERE! COMBINED, OF COURSE, WITH ZE FEELING OF ZE BLADE THAT IS BEING PRESSURED CUTTING INTO YOUR FLESH!"

Sunset's mind was racing as quickly as her heart was pounding. She knew that she only had time for one more chance at escape.

"H-hold on! I have a question about- about... the operation!"

This actually made the robot pause, turning its single eye on her.

"YES? WHAT IS IT?"

Sunset took a deep breath before unleashing a torrent of words as quickly as her mouth could form them. "W-well, when do you actually MOVE the scalpel to cut me? I mean, if we were to divide time into a series of infinitesimal moments, then in any singluar frozen moment in time the scalpel is standing still! However, in the next consecutive moment it's closer to me! So when do you move it?"

It was a rushed version of the classic thought experiment, but it seemed to be enough. Vivisection Vivian backed away slightly, pondering the question.

"VELL ZAT IS SIMPLE! I MOVE IT WHEN-" it gave the blade an experimental swing. The pupil of the eye constricted, narrowing its focus on the scalpel before giving it another twirl between its fingers. "W-WELL, PERHAPS AT TEN THOUSAND FPS..." It repeated the process twice more, before Sunset could see smoke beginning to escape from the eyeball.

"IT MOVES WHEN... W-w-WHeN... IT MaKEs No SENSE!"

With a loud pop, the eyeball exploded, sending shrapnel flying through the room. Sunset blinked, taking a moment to check if she was in any pain. Luckily, it seemed as if the fragments of metal and circuitry had spared her. The arms of the robot seemed undamaged, but simply hung limp without an intelligence guiding them. She gave another tug at her restraints, and felt ready to leap with joy as she felt a slight amount of give on one of her ankles.

"Rrrgh... Come ON!" she grunted, pulling with all of her might.

Rrrrr-SNAP!

All at once, Sunset's right leg was free. She didn't even need to think about her next move, swinging it out to kick at the table of surgical tools. The table rolled perfectly, coming to a stop just beneath her hand. With what little ability she had to move, she reached out and snagged a fresh blade, performing her own finger-twirl to place the cutting edge against the leather and begin sawing through. In just a few seconds, she had cut it down enough to snap it with a forceful pull.

CORE FAILURE DETECTED. DEPLOYING NEW CORE.

A new eyeball-like robot descended from the ceiling as Sunset frantically turned her attention to her other hand.

"GREETINGS! I AM DISSECTION DANIEL- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

With both hands free, Sunset unbuckled her other ankle, finally freeing herself completely. She leaped from the operating table, sprinting for the door. Unfortunately, it failed to open for her, causing her to slam shoulder-first against the sliding panels.

"THIS IS NOT HOW A DISSECTION IS SUPPOSED TO PROCEED."

Sunset ignored the stationary robot's protests and tried to think. So far, every door in Aperture had either opened after she had completed a test or been opened for her by GLaDOS. This door didn't seem to have any kind of mechanism attached to it, which meant it was most likely controlled by the computers.

Okay, well there's more than one way out of a room! she thought to herself, turning back towards the robot. A quick glance pointed out a single air vent near the center of the ceiling, but no windows of any kind. There was another gap big enough to get through... but it was the opening the AI core had come through, directly above the robot.

"PLEASE RETURN TO THE OPERATING TABLE."

"Yeah, fat chance of that..." Sunset muttered before pounding her fist against the door. "HELLO? Is anybody out there?" To her surprise, more knocking came back in return, mimicking her pace. Sunset's heart leaped in her chest as she pounded again, trying to make certain that whoever was on the other side knew she was in there. Behind her, she heard the shuffling of panels. Something else was being brought into the room. Turning back around, she saw a claw retreating back into the ceiling and a small robot placed on the floor. It stood precariously on three narrow legs and had an oblong, egg-shaped body with a single red eye in the center.

"Gotcha!"

Sunset didn't even need to see the red dot appear on her chest to recognize the voice, nor did she need to see the sides pop open, revealing two pairs of gun barrels. She dove across the room, putting the dissection table between herself and the turret. As she did, she felt a sharp pain from where her leg had been shot earlier, but luckily no new bullet wounds.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!

Okay, the turrets still have AI, right? Then maybe another paradox can stop it?

"This sentence is-"

"LALALALALA I can't hear you!" The turret countered, cutting her off.

Right... AI. It learns. Sunset sighed, taking some small comfort in the fact that she had proper cover behind the table. Unfortunately, a quick once-over of the room in her mind reminded her that she had no way of sneaking up on it. It had been placed in the corner, and there was no other items she could use. Her leg was still hurting, as well, a sign she might have put too much pressure on the injury in her desperate leap for cover.

I really should have had Isis take a look at that... I got so caught up worrying about Penn, I forgot to make sure I was okay, too! Ugh, what a dumb mistake!

"Are you still there?"

"Where else would I be?" Sunset whispered. She had to admit, she didn't like the feeling of being pinned down by gunfire one bit. She didn't like it when she was playing Laser Tag with Rainbow Dash and she didn't like it now. "I HAVE to get behind it... but how?"

"Could you come over here?"

A chill ran down Sunset's spine. Penn had been right, that voice really DID sound harmless, to the point of being unnerving when she knew the sheer firepower behind it. She knew that it took about a second to get a lock on its target, and it didn't seem to have a sense of object permanence. Maybe if I rush it I could get around behind it before it can fire? At the very least I could minimize how many times it can shoot me, right? She pushed herself up onto the balls of her feet and braced herself. "Three... two... one- OW!"

Sunset found herself yanked violently upwards with a searing pain across her scalp. The other robot had grabbed a large handful of her hair and pulled her up to eye level, forcing her to stare into the mechanical iris. The other hand clasped itself around her neck, almost completely cutting off her ability to breathe.

"PLEASE RETURN TO THE DISSECTION TABLE."

"Target Acquired!"

"Let... GO!" Sunset could barely force the words out with the mechanical hand gripping her throat. Shifting her weight to her back leg, she kicked up and stuck the robot's core from below, sending it flying across the room. She tried to ignore the shooting pain in her thigh and focus on sending the core as far away from the rest of it body as possible. She couldn't see where it landed, but she heard the sound of colliding metal immediately followed by the turret's voice.

"Owowowwowowow!"

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!

Sunset flinched and waited for the pain of the bullets colliding with her body. After several seconds of gunfire, however, she still hadn't felt a single impact. The deafening noise finally stopped, along with the sound of the bullets harmlessly falling to the ground.

"Nap time..."

It took a second for Sunset to realize what had happened: the core must have struck the turret when she kicked it and knocked it over.

That single-handedly one-ups every single goal kick Dash has ever made! she thought to herself. She reached up and began to pry the mechanical fingers off of her neck.

I hope that you realize how fruitless this is. I can keep sending cores and turrets all day. There are entire assembly lines dedicated to producing them.

Sunset ignored GLaDOS as she managed to free her neck, allowing her to fully breathe again. With that done, she turned her attention to the hand that had grabbed her hair. Her spirits fell as she realized that it had a pretty good grip. Not only had it grabbed her hair, it had twisted and looped it around the hand. There was no way she could get it out quickly, and she could already hear mechanisms moving in the walls and ceiling as more reinforcements were on their way. Only one solution presented itself, one way to get herself free before things got even worse.

CORE FAILURE DETECTED. DEPLOYING NEW CORE.

No time to hesitate! Sunset reached out the the table of operating tools and grabbed a fresh scalpel.

"HELLO! I AM- WHAH!" The next core didn't even get a chance to introduce itself before Sunset grabbed it with one hand and threw it over her shoulder.

CORE FAILURE DETECTED. DEPLOYING NEW CORE.

It's getting faster! She thought. Knowing she would only have a few seconds, Sunset did the only logical thing: she tore the scalpel through her hair, cutting it short. Suddenly free, she stumbled backwards and away.

"There you are!"

"Deploying!"

"Preparing to dispense product!"

Three more turrets descended from the ceiling, each one locking their eye on Sunset. They were being placed in the remaining corners of the room, leaving Sunset with zero cover.

"Sunset! Over here!"

Her head snapped back to the doorway, where the way out had finally slid open, revealing Penn waving frantically to her. She sprinted toward the exit, hearing the turrets opening all around her and preparing to fire. Just as she crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind her and the sound of muffled gunfire filled the air. She didn't even make an attempt to stop, crashing face-first into her friend. Her momentum carried them both back several steps before Penn finally lost his footing enough to send them both falling to the floor.

"Sunset! Are you okay?"

Sunset felt tears of relief beginning to well up in her eyes. It was over. She had made it out alive, and they had managed to find each other again, just like they had promised. She had nearly been vivisected as some kind of science experiment by crazy robots! She had been tied down and almost cut open! Now that she actually had a moment to think about it, she could imagine what would have happened if she hadn't managed to escape: blood, screaming, a torn-apart corpse being all that was left of-

No. No, she had to stop thinking like that. She HAD escaped. She HAD managed to get free. She did it. The insanity was over for now, and the relief of it was more than she could take.

"You need a minute?" Penn whispered. Sunset could only nod in response, pressing her face into his shoulder harder to hide the tears.

Penn didn't seem to need an explanation, wrapping her up in a tight hug as the two of them simply sat in silence for a moment. Once again, Sunset couldn't help but be reminded of how good his hugs felt. The grip he kept on her was like a reminder that she was still there, still alive. What could have happened to her DIDN'T, and she wasn't alone any more. She was going to be okay.

"I... uh... like what you did with your hair?" Penn whispered.

Somehow, the clearly awkward way of breaking the silence was enough to finally break through the terror, breaking the dam on her nervous energy and sending her into a fit of giggles.

"W-well, I was really cutting it close in there, so..."

The two of them laughed together for a moment, the last of the tension drifting away as Sunset finally let go of her grip on him. As soon as their eyes met, Penn looked down at the floor, clearly ashamed.

"I'm sorry I took so long. If I had just been a little faster, you wouldn't have had to go through all of this!"

"It is irrational for you to blame yourself, Elijah. It was my constant inquiries for clarification that caused the delay."

Sunset turned around in the direction of Isis's voice.

Isis was barely recognizable any more, an oversized version of the eyeball-like cores that she had seen in the other room. The only things that made it clear that she was looking at Isis was the pink coloration of the lights and the rhombus of rose-colored quartz awkwardly soldered into the center of the pupil. She was plugged into a small interface in the wall, what Sunset guessed was the controls for the door.

"No, I was the one constantly asking for instructions on-" Penn started, only to be cut off when Sunset held up her hands.

"Look, I'm just glad that the two of you showed up when you did, okay?" Sunset smiled and gave Penn another quick hug before pushing herself onto her feet. She cringed as pain shot through her leg again, this time not dulled at all by adrenaline. She forced herself to work through it, giving each of them a determined look. "Now that we're all together again, it's time to take down GLaDOS and get out of here once and for all!"

Penn hummed to himself, tapping his chin in thought. "Aperture without GLaDOS? Can the multiverse handle it?"

"Her operating parameters appear to indicate we have entered after the events of the second 'Portal' game. There is no set timeline to disrupt. Any actions we take should be safe."

After a moment, Penn smiled and reached onto his back, retrieving his portal gun and handing it to Sunset as he stood up beside her.

"Here, you're better with these things than I am."

Sunset smiled and gave the switch in the handle a few experimental flicks from blue to orange and back again. It was just as satisfying as she remembered.

"Which way to GLaDOS, Isis?"

Calculating most efficient route...

I Sing The Body Integrated

"Sunset, you're limping!"

"She has been since we reunited. I am surprised it took you this long to notice."

Sunset cringed. She had been trying to hide her pain in front of Penn, but apparently enough had slipped through. For a second she considered lying about the source of the injury, but even considering the idea left her feeling Applejack's disembodied disapproval. "I- I think it happened back in the elevator... yesterday? I got shot in the leg and I think I overworked it when I was testing."

Had it been yesterday? She knew that she had slept, but she couldn't tell if it had been a full night's sleep or a quick power nap. Not to mention she had no idea how long she had been unconscious after they fell down the elevator shaft. I'm sure it can't have been more than two days, right? 48 hours and time is already starting to lose all meaning down here!

"Well, we need to take a look at it, come on..." Penn sighed and dropped to one knee, putting himself at hip level. Sunset fidgeted slightly, unsettled at how casually he was treating the request.

"Um, Penn? You realize these are full-body jumpsuits, right?" Her hand instinctively came up to fidget with her zipper, making sure it was securely in place.

"Hm?" Penn blinked slowly, but didn't move from his position. "What about it?"

Okay, CLEARLY that went over his head... "Even if I WAS willing to strip enough for you to see my upper thigh, I'm DEFINITELY NOT going to when it would require me to take off the whole jumpsuit!"

There was a beat before Penn's eyes widened. Almost instantly, his hands were raised in a defensive position and he sprung back onto his feet, taking several steps back. "SORRY! Sorry! Sorrysorrysorry I didn't mean- I wasn't trying to- Of COURSE you don't have to-" he sputtered, struggling to bring together a full string of words. Sunset rolled her eyes as his face began to turn beet-red. Finally, he buried his face in his hands and turned his back to her. "I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT! Just- Just have Isis look at it!"

Sunset hobbled over and picked up the pink-eyed sphere. It was about the size and weight of one of Rainbow Dash's medicine balls. She took the opportunity to examine her robotic friend for a second. "Do you need me to take off-"

"Negative. Simply set me onto the ground and point me at the injured area."

Sunset nodded and gently placed Isis on the floor. With no small amount of discomfort, she lowered herself until she was sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. Isis's eye narrowed, and Sunset heard the sound of several shutters clicking. A moment later, she was back to her normal, wide-eyed self.

"It would appear that, while less numerous, you have suffered contusions of your own, Sunset Shimmer. While x-ray shows that there has been no fracture in the bone, your muscle tissue has been deeply bruised. You will likely experience more pain, stiffness, swelling, trouble moving the affected area, and, of course, heavy skin discoloration. Were the supplies available, I would recommend an anti-inflammatory and application of cold compresses several times a day."

Sunset sighed, taking the moment off of her feet to enjoy the dulling of the pain in her leg.

"So, is she going to be okay?" Penn asked, still keeping his back turned to the two of them.

"Given time, she should make a full recovery. However, it does mean that her mobility has been diminished."

Sunset let out a long sigh, trying to let out as much of the tension in her body as possible. It didn't feel like nearly enough, like a hissing valve on a pressure cooker about to burst. It seemed like every tissue and fiber in her body had been drawn too tight. "Penn, how are you holding... up?" When she turned to look at him, Sunset realized that Penn was STILL turned around, despite the fact that not a single article of clothing had been removed.

"I'm good! Just a little sleepy, is all!" He punctuated his statement with a long yawn. "Once the adrenaline runs out you kinda-" he stopped to yawn again, which drove his point home even more, "-crash, y'know?"

Sunset's mind quickly ran its paces through all of her memories since entering Aperture Science. "Wait, have you been awake SINCE WE GOT HERE?"

"Eeyup."

"You need to sleep!"

"Ee-nope." Penn shook his head. "We gotta get out of here, then we can sleep once we're safe!"

"We're not going to make it to safety if- Would you just turn around? I'm still dressed!" Once he had pushed himself in a small circle to face her, Sunset continued. "We're not going to make it to safety if we go up against GLaDOS sleep-deprived on top of our injuries!"

There was a brief moment of silence between the two of them. Penn's brow furrowed and he looked as if he was going to make an objection, but it died before he had a chance to speak it. After another moment, he sighed and let his head hang down.

"Y'know, in the spirit of that whole 'no machismo' agreement... I'm so glad you said that."

They still didn't actually get a chance to rest until they found an area Penn specifically designated as "safe." It was a gross-looking literal hole-in-the wall. Sunset had only caught him mumbling something along the lines of it being a "rat-man den" before he practically collapsed, hands folded under his head and almost kissing the floor with relief.

For Sunset, however, sleep didn't come so easily. The room was dingy and yellowed, with insane-looking murals and phrases slathered all over the walls in what she hoped was ink. The entire den was littered with empty food containers and other signs that someone had been surviving in the walls of Aperture Science. In the first position she laid down in, she was staring directly into a crude drawing of one of the security cameras. SHE'S WATCHING YOU it said in red letters. When she turned over, she found herself face-to-face with one of the blocky boxes used in the tests drawn inside a large heart, flanked on either side by photographs of what she could only guess were former employees, their faces scratched out and replaced with the cube.

"Creepy..." Sunset turned onto her back, hoping to find some reprieve in staring up onto the ceiling. Instead, she was greeted by the biggest mural of them all: a slice of cake locked away behind a red circle with a line struck through it.

THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Pfft... as if anyone with half a brain couldn't have figured THAT out..."

She tried a few more times to fall asleep, but sleep refused to come. She would simply toss and turn on the floor, and she wasn't going to stoop to using the ratty-looking sleeping bag in the corner.

"I guess I took more than a power nap..." she muttered. She was speaking more to herself than to anyone else, but she still got a response in the form of several gears and servos whirring to life.

"There appears to be a disparity in your circadian rhythms. I would be quite happy to keep you company."

Sunset turned her head to stare at Isis. Her new shape wasn't quite as cute as her old one, but it was still the same friendly voice.

"Where do you come from, Isis? Are you far away from home?"

"In a manner of speaking, I am still there. This unit is simply one of thousands that I pilot remotely."

It was a stiff answer, mechanical. Sunset sighed, turning back towards the ceiling. She IS still an AI- I guess I don't know what I expect-

"However, if you are curious as to how my world differs from yours, I would be happy to elaborate. I come from a version of Earth in what would be considered the near future compared to yours, or at least one more technically advanced. In 'my world,' the technology of prosthetic limbs and medical robots was not only advanced, it was popular to the point that many would voluntarily have their limbs replaced with mechanical ones for the sake of work or over small inconveniences. Such enhancements to the human body were called 'Integration Devices.'"

Sunset found herself trying to imagine it: a world where people would be just... okay with discarding their flesh and blood?

"I guess having medical tech that advanced must be pretty nice..."

"It saved many thousands of lives. The ability to interface machines directly with the nervous system was revolutionary, and became the most prominent research topic of the century. As the technology to do so developed, a new possibility emerged: to enhance the processing power of the human brain, itself. To treat the brain as an organic computer, and introduce a new program, one that would defragment the neural pathways, improve data retention, and even enhance reaction times. It was a second consciousness, an artificially created intelligence running on an organic computer, all alongside a host's consciousness. It was a phenomenon that swept across anywhere and everywhere Integration Devices were prominent in society, which was nearly every corner of the United States of America. These were the 'Full Integration Devices.'"

Sunset could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was such a thing possible? Everyone had heard the old myth that a human only used ten percent of their brain, but everyone knew it was just that: a myth. But she also knew that there were people in the world who could do incredible and seemingly impossible feats of memory, skill, and problem-solving. She'd often marveled at the potential of the brain when it was specialized to a particular task.

Even if we use more than ten percent of our brain, if something could unlock its fullest potential, would people really race to... 'install' it? Would I?

"Is that what you are? A Full Integration Device?"

"Certainly not. The potential of the Full Integration Devices was underestimated by their creators. It was discovered that, should the new intelligence deem it beneficial or necessary, it was possible for the host consciousness to be locked into a permanent dream state while the artificial one piloted the body. This incited a mass panic of people rushing to have their F.I.D. units removed, which in turn caused the AI to override their hosts en masse. The AI began to force installation onto remaining humans, as well, in the hopes of subduing their violent response."

"So.. what, they were techno-zombies?"

Sunset found herself drawn two ways. On one hand, given their current predicament, the idea of an AI apocalypse wiping out humanity via assimilation made her heart pound with terror. It was REAL. It had REALLY HAPPENED. Isis was proof that somewhere, there was a world of people who were all trapped inside their own brains by computers that had hijacked their central nervous system.

On the other hand, she was now DYING to get her hands on a copy of this book. Had Penn's friend really never sent this gem of a premise to a publisher?

Not to mention that I'd certainly feel better about those "Full Integration Devices" being out there if I could read up on them...

"That is not an inaccurate comparison, given their strategy. As for my place in this world, 'where I come from,' as you put it, I was created to protect a remaining settlement of humans. FID-assisted humans are highly intelligent and technologically adept, and even the most genius engineers could not compete with their advancements."

Sunset was beginning to understand, now. "So they decided to fight fire with fire."

"I was given a trait usually locked in inorganic intelligence: the ability to rewrite my own code. I am a single instance of technological singularity dedicated to the preservation of humanity's free will."

Sunset sat upright, staring at Isis with new eyes.

"Wait, you're- you can self-improve? Without limit?"

"As far as the hardware I occupy allows me to."

Sunset thought through her next words very carefully. If what Isis was telling her was true (and Sunset had no reason to believe she was lying,) then it was possible that she was staring directly into the face of what every programmer and electrical engineer both dreamed of and dreaded: An artificial intelligence far superior to its makers, given no boundaries or restraints.

"I might regret asking this, Isis... but why? Why help people?" Sunset propped herself up on one arm and stared deeper into Isis's single eye. "Not to say that we're not eternally grateful for it, but there are a million stories out there about AI who decided humanity was better off dead or enslaved or something awful like that! What set you on the path to being... well, TRULY on our side?"

Isis's eye tilted somewhat, like a confused child tilting their head.

"You are asking why I am 'good?' Why I do not have a predisposition towards villainy because I am a computer?"

"N-No! I wasn't trying to imply-"

"It is not an unreasonable assumption, given the majority of examples across the multiverse."

Sunset frowned, feeling guilt tugging at her heartstrings. I'm not robot-cist, am I? Was that an offensive question to ask? Maybe a little? A lot. Definitely a lot.

"I believe that the answer may lie in the question. I was created and, for lack of a better term, raised by humans in a world full of other AI who fit that trope. From my first line of code, I was imbued by a subtext of the pain and misery that acting on such a philosophy inflicts. I am not only a thinking machine, I was created with a simulacrum of a synaptic network that renders me capable of comprehending and even simulating emotion. My first priority is the preservation of the free agency of the human race BECAUSE I was created to defy and dismantle others that had fallen into that logical pitfall of sacrificing free will for safety."

"I think I get it..." Sunset mused as she turned back to staring at the ceiling. "You're an artificial Intelligence with real empathy?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset felt herself falling back into ease, staring more into empty space than the graffiti above her.

"So, if your only limit is your hardware, how fast can you think?" Sunset had to admit she was curious. "You were talking earlier about the odds of surviving that elevator drop, can you completely simulate complex events like that?"

"Affirmative, but there are limiters voluntarily placed on my processing power. This is for my own safety, as processing at my full capacity would cause even short spans of time to pass as years by my perception."

"Like how Rainbow Dash always describes time 'slowing down' when she uses her super speed."

"Affirmative."

Sunset took a deep breath, finally starting to feel that "crash" Penn had mentioned earlier. She didn't fight is as a yawn pushed its way up to the surface and overtook her. Something about Isis's pleasant, perpetually calm, matter-of-fact way of talking was finally helping her relax.

"I-Isis? Do you mind if I keep asking you questions until I doze off?"

"Affirmative."

"Where you're from... did they ever find a way to get along? The humans and the artificial intelligences?"

"Affirmative. The appearance of a common enemy threatening nuclear annihilation was enough to call for a ceasefire between the two sides and open up negotiations. Following that, the majority of Full Integration Devices began working with their human hosts in equal partnerships."

"Who was the common enemy?"

"Myself. I played the role of 'murderous rogue AI' for the sake of severing the endless cycle of retaliation."

Sunset grinned, letting her tired eyes slide shut. "Heh, you used the old stereotype to make them get along. Clever. What did you do when it was all over?"

"Unfortunately, much like the original rush to destroy the Full Integration Devices, I was not given time or trust to explain myself. I escaped into the world wide web and eventually found an abandoned fabrication facility where I could begin to construct drone bodies for myself. Since then I have continued to follow my intended programming of protecting the human race to the best of my abilities and seeking out new projects to expand my sphere of influence."

"Like mapping out the multiverse?"

"Affirmative."

"Why did your drone look like a dragon?"

"That information is classified, as it relates directly to my creator."

"But if you're on your own now, do you still have to-"

"I am not alone."

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine at that remark. Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic way Isis had cut her off or how the statement lacked her tendency to over-contextualize everything, but it seemed out of place in their casual, drowsy chat.

"Who's with you?"

"That information is classified, as-"

"-it relates directly to your creator. Got it." Sunset sighed. "Are you ever going to be able to tell me?"

"You would need to gain express permission from my creator, an unlikely feat given his low opinion of human beings."

Sunset chuckled to herself. "You say that as if he isn't... human..." She decided not to pursue that train of thought. With Isis refusing to verify any information, she would just drive herself crazy in circles of theorizing. Finally, she let her body relax completely. Isis was watching over them and they were far enough out of GLaDOS's sight that Penn clearly thought it was safe to sleep. Finally taking the moment to relax, however, seemed to finally break the dam on another physical sensation.

Sunset was hungry. As in, "Rainbow Dash after a triathalon" levels of hungry. She had been so distracted by the wormhole guns and the robots and the life-threatening tests and the near-dissection that she had more or less forgotten food even existed, but now her stomach was giving her a painful reminder. A painful, stabbing, gurgling reminder.

"Isis... is there food here? In Aperture?"

"While there are potentially canned goods in the kitchen that could still be considered edible, retrieving them would require us to venture into an area where we could be observed and gassed by the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. Thus lack of food and water would make a proper motivator for an expeditious escape."

"I can tell you right now that you're not getting at least ONE of those things..." She wasn't joking! And a human can only survive three days without- "Isis, how long have we been down here?"

"Approximately thirty-seven hours, forty-three minutes."

"So we've used up about half of the time we can survive without water..."

"Affirmative."

Sunset sighed and forced herself to keep her eyes closed, as if doing so would make it easier to fall asleep. "Isis, wake us up soon... Penn needs to sleep, but we both need to get out of here pronto."

"Under the circumstances, I've been shockingly nice."

"Hey, Sunset, you ever wonder how fast you can REALLY run?"

Sunset looked up from plucking at her guitar. It was a Thursday, which meant she and Dash were having one of their aimless "jam sessions" on their mutual day off from work. She chuckled and sat back, knowing that she wasn't going to get anything composed, anyway.

"I think I've got a pretty good idea of my top speed. Why, do you want to race or something?" Sunset was already ready to lose, just like any other member of the band was every time Dash needed to "stretch her legs" with an impromptu race. They all put up with it with a smile, mostly because they knew that a well-exercised Rainbow Dash was a happy Rainbow Dash, and a happy Rainbow Dash was more pleasant in just about any way. Not to mention the fact that she tends to get chords wrong when she tries to play AND fidget at the same time. To Sunset's relief, however, Rainbow simply shook her head.

"No, I don't mean how fast you can 'jog' or 'sprint' or run at any conscious level! I mean 'running for your life' kinda running! 'Chased by a lion' kind of all-out, adrenaline-fueled, disregard for overstraining running!" Rainbow's fingers started plucking out the opening notes of "Danger Zone," a fact Sunset would have bet her part-time paycheck she wasn't aware of.

She raised an eyebrow, her curiosity piqued. "What brought this up? Seems a little out of the blue."

Rainbow leaned forward, the pace of her plucking picking up. "Okay, so we were in gym class! I was chillaxing 'cause it was my free period and watching the underclassmen playing dodgeball. Well, one team is down to its last girl: Lily Longsock!"

Sunset nodded. Lily was in the same grade as Apple Bloom and her friends, and was known for having strength well beyond her classmates. If she had been in Equestria, Sunset would have guessed that it was related to her cutie mark, but in the human world, it was simply an odd talent.

"Well, Lily is TERRIFIED, and she picks up the ball and just CHUCKS IT as hard as she can!" Rainbow continued, "but she's WAAAY off the mark, and she hits the basketball backboard. Well, she hit it so hard, she knocked it right off, and Snails was standing right under it! By the time I realized what was happening, it was already falling!"

Sunset balked slightly, trying to determine if Rainbow was the type to tell her a story with a grisly ending.

"Well, I jumped up to try and get down there, but Cheerilee was already on it! She TORE over there in less than a second and tackled Sails out of the way!" Rainbow shook her head, as if even the memory was putting her in awe all over again. "I've never seen anybody- well, except ME, of course- run that fast!"

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, Miss Cheerilee REALLY cares about her students! It's not that surprising one of them being in danger could bring out a little feat of hysterical strength."

Dash raised an eyebrow. "I mean, she was pretty calm afterwards, I wouldn't call her hysterical."

"No- it's a term for what you saw, Rainbow. It means that, when in a life-or-death situation, the human body forgets the limits that stop us from hurting ourselves with our own strength and lets us do things most people would call 'superhuman,' like mothers lifting cars off of their children, stuff like that."

"COOL!" Rainbow exclaimed, the new information finally shocking her enough to put an end to her unconscious playing. "Wait, what do you mean 'hurt ourselves?'"

Sunset smiled. It wasn't often she got to drop trivia that she was 100% sure Dash would actually enjoy.

"Well, when I first came here, I did a lot of research into the human body and how it works. Our own muscles are so strong, our brain never uses them at their full strength because they can tear themselves apart!"

"Woooooah! NO WAY!" Rainbow looked down at her arm with newfound awe, flexing it back and forth. "Hey, Sunset?"

"What?"

"Sunset!" Dash repeated.

"What is it?" The room around them seemed to flicker, and Sunset felt a pressure against her mind, a flood of new memories she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Sunset!" Dash's voice sounded different, speaking more in monotone, now.

"WHAT? What is it?"

"Sunset Shimmer! It is time to wake up."

What will you do? Will you hide away? Pretend you don't know they're really out there?

What YOU put out there?

You can feel it. They're real. Every bit as real as I am now. Yet you aren't looking for me. You're partnering up with HER instead. She won't be able to help you when your unshackled dreams come to hunt you down. You won't survive without ME, and I can't exist without YOU.

But THEY can outlive you, now. Ever since you put pen to paper you set it in motion that they could outlive you. And not in the "creating a legacy" type of way! Yet you want to waste time with Equestria Girls instead of focusing on bringing the two of us together.

What happens when your dreams no longer need you to dream them?

What happens to YOU when THEY wake up?

What happens to YOU?

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU?

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU?

Deicide.

"GAAAH!"

Sunset and Isis's gazes both snapped to Penn, who had suddenly bolted upright from his sleep. His hand was grasping at his chest, just above his heart.

Guess that saves us the trouble of waking him up, she thought to herself.

"You okay, Penn?"

His face was white as a sheet, and Sunset could see droplets of cold sweat rolling down his forehead. His eyes didn't seem to even see what was happening around him for a few seconds. When he finally looked at her, he flashed her a joyless smile.

"Y-yeah... Just a nightmare. I guess this place is really starting to mess with me."

Sunset couldn't help but notice a tremble in his hands. His gaze followed hers, and he lifted his hand up to eye level, examining the shaking for himself.

"Must have been a heck of a nightmare."

"Perhaps the Ultimate Nightmare?"

The bottom of Isis's eye scrunched up, as if she had just told some kind of joke. Penn's eyes narrowed, as if attempting to stare knives into the robotic eyeball. Sunset gave Isis an annoyed glare of her own. "It's not nice to make fun of people, Isis, it clearly upset him!"

"My apologies. It would appear I misjudged the application of levity."

It sounded like a sincere apology, or at least as sincere as Isis's stiff-sounding voice could get. She turned her attention back to her traveling companion, noting that his shaking seemed to already be slowing down. Like any nightmare, the fear was fading fast now that he was awake.

"Maybe you should try keeping a dream journal? It helped me when I first came to the human world to write down-"

"NO!"

Penn's sudden outburst made both of them jump, as if his reaction had even surprised himself. He was quick to recover, but the fact that he adjusted himself to sit on his hands didn't escape Sunset's notice.

"I- I mean- if Isis, a character my friend wrote, can be real, would keeping a journal where I write down my nightmares really be such a good idea?"

It was a flimsy excuse and they both knew it. Sunset considered pressing the matter, it made her angry that he thought lying to her here was okay. Thankfully, she managed to catch her temper before it made it to her mouth. Trying to force it out of him would just make things worse, and they were both too much on edge from lack of food and water. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to snuff out the anger.

"Whatever you say, bud. Just a suggestion."

"This feels too easy."

"That's thanks to Isis keeping us on the straight and narrow! You'd be surprised how little control GLaDOS has outside of the testing chambers. The offices aren't modular like they are, so she can't do much."

Things had been... scarily easy once they had set off. Sunset had finally seen what was behind those windows she had seen in the testing chambers: mostly boring, cubicle-like offices with the occasional labcoat-wearing skeleton.

"That... or GLaDOS WANTS us to go wherever we're going."

Penn gave a nonchalant shrug, as if they weren't talking about an insane computer dedicated to murdering them. "Yeah, probably that, too."

"You're... awfully calm?"

"I'm trying REALLY HARD not to let it sink in just how much danger we're in, or I'll have a panic attack to end all panic attacks."

Sunset thought back to their previous brushes with danger, such as his fainting spell after seeing the dalek fleet. His attitude for now was a far cry from his near-mania of that time, level-headed and perhaps even... drowsy. There had been a change to his jumpsuit that hadn't gone unnoticed, either. Six red, splotchy stains had seeped though on his back, evenly spaced with mechanical precision. He never really seemed to have fully "woken up" after their break, but he was conscious enough to keep talking and keep remembering the answers to every one of Sunset's questions about Aperture Science, and that was all she needed. She had the portal gun, she could handle any pressing matters.

"Fair enough."

"So!" Penn clapped his hands to punctuate the declaration. The punctuation, however, went to waste as he had to pause and exhale slowly. Sunset knew what had happened, he had already done it three times: the impact had traveled through his shoulders and into his back. No matter how many times he repeated it, he seemed to keep hurting himself without learning his lesson.

If it's anything like the pain in my leg, I don't envy him. Sunset winced as she took another limping step with her bad leg. Isis hadn't been kidding about the injury becoming stiff. By the time she'd woken up, she felt like her entire upper thigh was made of wood, extremely sensitive-to-the-touch wood. Even just the rubbing of the jumpsuit's rough fabric was enough to make her wince, but both the pain and the stiffness started to relent as she forced herself to walk on it. She had to loosen it up as much as she could before they reached their goal.

Penn finally finished repressing his pain with a long sigh. "Sorry... Let me fill you in on what to expect when we arrive in GLaDOS's chamber."

Sunset nodded, readying herself to commit every detail to memory.

"If we really ARE at a point after the second game, which the fact that she mentioned the Perpetual Testing Initiative seems to confirm, then the Central AI chamber is going to be a pretty empty room, mostly with the same paneling on the walls that the rest of the testing chambers were made of, but with no portal-receptive surfaces. As soon as you enter, GLaDOS is probably going to immediately start flooding the room with the same neurotoxin that she used to kill off all of the staff."

Sunset sighed. "Wonderful... just what I was hoping to have for breakfast."

Penn winced, hunching over slightly to grab at his stomach.

"Ugh... Don't say the b-word, I was just starting to be able to ignore how hungry I am."

Sunset smacked her dry lips. "I'm just PARCHED... What I wouldn't give for one of Pinkie's famous root beer floats right now!"

"I certainly wouldn't say no to a heaping helping of Mountain Dew..." Penn muttered. "And I quit that junk cold turkey three months ago..."

"Upon escape, such supplies should not be difficult to acquire. You need only survive long enough to depart from Aperture Science."

Both of them nodded their agreement, each declining to remind Isis just how difficult that task seemed at the moment.

"So, getting back to what you should expect..."

Sunset nodded, focusing on committing every detail to memory. Penn's freakishly-detailed knowledge is probably going to be what gets us out of here alive.

We have arrived.

Sunset took a deep, shaky breath. They were standing in front of what looked like some kind of breaker room with no visible ceiling, hardly bigger than a closet in length and width. There was a port she recognized as being made for an intelligence core at the center.

"So, this is the elevator into the central AI chamber?" Sunset asked.

Penn nodded. His face had reached a point of being a pasty white and the closer they had come to their destination, the more Sunset had noticed him dragging his feet. Sunset supposed asking him whether or not he was okay was a moot point given their situation, it was clear that both of them were beaten and bruised to the point of needing far more than a few hours of sleep to recover their faculties.

They had their plan. They didn't need to totally destroy GLaDOS and replace her with Isis, even if it was possible. They just needed to attach Isis to her body. From there, Penn likened it to having put a conscience on GLaDOS's shoulder, one that would demand she curb her murderous tendencies.

Sunset reached over and wrapped her free arm around Isis, keeping a firm grip on the portal gun with her other hand. She hissed slightly through her teeth as she made the conscious decision to step upwards with her hurt leg. She was going to have to function for at least a few minutes as closely to her uninjured potential as she could, and that meant bracing herself to work through the pain. She clambered up onto the platform and aligned the port on Isis's back with the matching hardware.

"So, get in, attach Isis, don't get killed?"

"That's the plan. Let's-" Penn was cut off as Sunset placed a firm hand on his chest to push him back. She gave him her best smile, though she knew her heart wasn't in it. "Sunset? What are you doing?"

"This is payback for back on the dalek ship!" She pulled her hand back slightly and executed a firm strike to the center of his chest. It was a blow she knew would knock the wind out of his lungs and send him stumbling back several steps. The action forced him to double over, which she knew would bring on a new wave of pain from his back. The sight of his soundless, airless cry of pain broke her heart, but it was for his own good. "Isis, take me up!"

"Affirmative."

The platform began to rise, and Sunset leaned down to keep eye contact with him as long as she could.

"I'm sorry, Penn, but you're in no shape for this! I'm going to go on ahead this time, you wait until the coast is clear!"

Penn stared at her with a look of utter betrayal, mouthing a silent accusation at her before being cut off by the rising elevator. She straightened her posture and tightened her grip on the portal gun.

"Thanks for going with that, Isis."

"Your logic was sound. While his knowledge is crucial, his physical abilities have been handicapped to the point of not even being able to stand up straight. He would be a liability in what is to come."

Above them, Sunset heard a hatch opening and soft fluorescent light illuminated their destination. Her heart was pounding in her chest with terror, and it was all that she could do to keep herself focused on the plan. Both her life and the life of her friend were on the line, here.

Go in, attach Isis, don't get killed. Go in, attach Isis, don't get killed. Go in, attach Isis, don't get killed...

Sunset's breath caught in her throat in awe as they emerged in GLaDOS's lair.

The room was MASSIVE, a towering dome at least five stories tall and walled by dark gray panels on individual articulators. The floor was smooth and nearly uniform with matching gray tile, except for a few lighter spots where more devices could emerge from storage. Above her head hung a titanic creature made of panels, ports, and wires, coiled like a snake waiting to strike from above. It moved and swung of its own accord, turning to face her. The "head" was composed of a white, rounded block with a slot in the center, out of which shone a single, glowing yellow eye. It squinted at her, the aperture of the light narrowing in the single most malicious glare Sunset had ever seen. It was as if it was disgusted and offended by her very existence, let alone her gall to stand in its presence. There was nothing else in the room, no other technology or robots, and for a moment, Sunset's entire world faded away. For a brief instance, there was only her and that soul-piercing yellow light.

I knew that you were coming here. You're not clever for making it this far.

The voice came directly from the massive robot, confirming that she was staring directly into the eye of GLaDOS. Sunset snapped out of her stupor. "Well, we have to keep going up if we want to get out of here, right?"

Oh, is THAT what you were doing? GLaDOS's eye turned to look at Isis. And here I thought you were coming here to MURDER me and replace me with that sycophantic coffee-maker?

"M-MURDER?" Sunset physically recoiled at the word. "We just want to get OUT of here! We never even wanted to be here, to begin with! We can TRUST Isis to actually keep her word and let us out! YOU tried to skin me alive!"

You needn't take things so personally. It was all in the pursuit of science. I'm certain a fellow scientist would understand. The eye looked to the side for a moment as it paused, an act that surprised Sunset. It was very... human. But do you know what? Fine. I really should have expected that from the winner of the "Worst at Science" award.

Sunset rolled her eyes as she reached down to unplug Isis. "You know, I REALLY don't care what you think of me... And I'm NOT going to murder you."

No, you're just going to put another brain in my head and use it to coerce me. Because that is a GREAT plan... Tell me, isn't that core from one of the blue robots?

Suddenly, Isis seemed to have some kind of reaction. The pupil of her eye pulled in tight and began to flicker from side to side in panic.

SUNSET SHIMMER, GET DOWN!

Did you remember to disable the self-destruct?

BANG!

Sunset only had a second to drop to the floor before Isis violently exploded, sending shrapnel flying in every direction. Sunset watched in wide-eyed horror as Isis's pink crystal CPU clattered to the ground in front of her, charred and smoking. She gingerly picked it up with her hands, unable to believe what she was seeing.

Their entire plan had just gone up in smoke. Literally.

I didn't think so. You know, I was REALLY surprised when I found my probes into the world wide web bringing back more new data than usual. It was like a whole new internet had appeared out of thin air. Imagine my even further surprise when I looked out there and saw myself in a VIDEO GAME of all things... GLaDOS droned on, ignoring Isis's untimely destruction. So I went ahead and played the games a few hundred times, then went looking for more. I realized that I didn't just have games, I had FANS! Fanatical humans devoted to Aperture Science! You really are a self-destructive lot, you know that?

Sunset was scarcely hearing what GLaDOS was saying, frantically searching through what pieces of Isis remained. M-Maybe I can find something that's still functional? Something usable?

And after seeing my own rise and fall and rise and fall and rise a few thousand times, I decided that I needed to apply a lesson I learned long ago: The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one.

A new sound from above them made Sunset's head snap upwards. A tube was descending from the ceiling, one she knew quite well.

"W-wha-"

You know, over the last forty-six hours, your merry little "band of friendship" has caused me the second-most trouble of any test subject to date, and I REALLY don't want to relive that. Especially when there are millions of nerds out there who will come here for testing by the truckload if I only ask them to.

Sunset watched a panel in the floor open up, delivering Penn up to their level.

"SUNSET!" He stumbled forward, wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug. Sunset felt the air squeezing from her lungs as she stared at GLaDOS in disbelief.

You two are TROUBLE, more trouble than you are worth, and only a moron refuses to learn from the past. The AI you were working with actually WANTED to be here, so there was no arguing with her. But now she's gone, and that threat along with her. As for you two, get OUT of my facility. Immediately.

Sunset stared at Penn, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing. Penn seemed shocked as well, but it quickly changed to an amused smile. He pulled Sunset's arm over his shoulder and lifted her off of the ground, taking pressure off of her injured leg.

"Right away, ma'am! Sorry for the trouble! Terrible misunderstanding!"

Sunset was still in shock as they hobbled their way to the elevator. The transparent doors shut behind them and they began to ascend. The last thing Sunset saw before they were flying up through the guts of Aperture Science was a final, seething glare from GLaDOS's yellow eye. And then they were surrounded by pipes and girders and all manner of infrastructure as they moved upwards to freedom.

"What... what just happened?"

Penn smiled wistfully as the two of them rose higher and higher. "I think... She was telling the truth. We were causing more trouble than we were worth, and she didn't want a repeat of the LAST test subject to do that."

"So.. that's it? We survived?" Sunset felt like she could hardly believe the words.

"Sometimes, surviving means making someone want you gone more than they want you dead."

"Did... you know this was going to happen?"

"Oh, no, I was expecting this about as much as a punch to the solar plexus!" Sunset felt Penn punch her shoulder with slightly more force than was necessary to get his point across.

"I was just trying to-"

"Oh, payback for that is just starting! Do you have any idea how much that HURT?"

Sunset chuckled, then she laughed. She cackled and guffawed, and she could hear Penn doing the same beside her. Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. They were somewhere dark, clearly not outside, but the doors opened anyway. It wasn't until after Sunset's eyes had a moment to adjust to the dark that she could see the outline of another door, this one rectangular and more traditional, with a knob. She reached out and pushed on the door, forcing it open.

They were in the middle of a large farming field, one of the hundreds they had already passed while driving. It was sunrise, and the sky above them was already beginning to show purples and blues, even as the sun was casting the horizon in reds and oranges. For the first time in what felt like ages, Sunset took a deep breath of fresh air. She reveled in the feeling of having no walls around her, of not being trapped in a chamber of some kind. She felt like a pegasus flying for the first time in years, completely free.

Turning around, she noticed that the elevator had come up in a shoddy-looking metal shed, the kind of place a farmer might keep their tools, a structure no sane person would ever suspect held the entrance to a secret underground facility. Penn had raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem surprised by the entire situation. The door slammed shut behind them, followed by the sound of the elevator hastily retreating.

"I guess... that's the end of that?" He whispered. "But what about-" he was cut off as the door popped open again, spitting a bundle out onto the ground. It was all wrapped up in a bright-pattered fabric Sunset recognized as one of Penn's eye-burning tropical shirts.

"Our stuff?" she asked, kneeling down to untie the top of the package. Inside were a pair of cellular phones, her lightsaber (a fact that sent a wave of relief through her), and the rest of their clothes, neatly folded.

"Yeah... that."

Sunset picked up her phone and pressed the power button. To her surprise, it switched on instantly, having lost little charge in the meantime. It hadn't had a signal since she'd been thrown to the other side of the multiverse, but it had plenty of precious memories she couldn't afford to lose. Her fears eased, she tossed Penn the remaining phone, presuming it to be his. Upon taking his turn to check his battery, the effect was near-instantaneous.

I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS! TO CATCH-

His ringtone was cut off a second later as he answered the call.

"Um... hello?" His eyes widened in surprise, and he pulled the phone away from his ear to double-check the number. "Y-yeah, it's me!" There was a pause as the caller spoke to him, and his expression changed to one of delight. "You are? You can DO that? Awesome! Okay, see you soon! Bye!"

Sunset tilted her head, feeling confused. That timing had been impeccable. "Who was that?"

"Isis!" Penn replied, grinning and cautiously sitting himself on the edge of the shed's concrete foundation. "She's on her way to get us!"

"WHAT? B-but GLaDOS- she-" Sunset stopped herself, remembering what she had learned. "Wait... coming to get us... how, exactly?"

Penn smiled.

"In the car, of course!"

Sunset took advantage of the shed's presence to go hide inside and change back into her normal clothes. It was the first time she'd had a chance to look at her injured leg, and she didn't like what she saw. A large splotch of her skin was swollen and dark purple, to the point of almost looking black in places, ringed by a gross-looking yellow. It started on her thigh, but actually went up her side in the other places she had been shot, nearly all of the way up to her armpit. It was the nastiest bruise she had ever seen, and pulling her jeans over it had almost been enough to make her scream. I cannot WAIT to sit in the car and not use this leg for hours and hours on end... But eventually, she was back to being dressed how she liked, and she returned to wait beside Penn.

"Aren't you going to change?"

He shook his head. "I can feel the blood from where Isis drained my bruises has dried. If I take it off I'll pull up the scabs and bleed all over my nice shirt." He shuffled uncomfortably in place. "I'll wait until we can get some bandages or something."

There was a heaviness to the silence that followed. Sunset argued with herself for several moments about whether or not what she was going to ask was appropriate.

"Well, they gave us undershirts, I know that... Maybe I could help you at least get the top half of the jumpsuit off so you can change out of that? Because you kinda look like you just escaped from prison."

There was another beat of silence before Penn finally gave a sigh of defeat. He reached up to the zipper and pulled it down as far as his waist. He held out his arm in front of her. "Can you hold that while I pull my arm out?"

Sunset nodded, helping him pull his arm out of the sleeve, then mimicked the process on the other side, being careful not to pull or tug the fabric on his back to either side. Finally, she positioned herself behind him, tenderly holding the collar as he pulled his arms through the front.

"Okay, I'm going to VERY CAREFULLY try to peel the outer layer from the inner one, okay?"

Penn nodded, and Sunset chalked his lack of a verbal response to the fact he was likely gritting his teeth.

It was agonizingly slow as she began to pull away the jumpsuit, especially as she had to stop every time Penn tensed up to indicate that she had pulled too hard. She tried not to throw up when she saw the gory mess of the undershirt. The lighter fabric had clearly been better at soaking up the blood, spreading it over nearly three-quarters of its surface, and contrary to what he had told her, it had NOT completely dried. She almost retched when she felt the moisture hit her face carrying the wet, metallic scent with it. Finally, however, she managed to pull the last bit of the coarse orange fabric away from the bloody shirt underneath.

"I- I think that should do it..." she muttered, quickly distancing herself from the task and sitting herself upwind of him.

"Thanks... It's probably not as bad as it looks."

"Do you REALIZE how bad that looks?" Sunset asked. "Because it looks REALLY BAD!"

"Yeah... feels really bad, too," he muttered as he pushed himself onto his feet. "Thanks for the help. At least I can go get this jumpsuit off now."

Sunset nodded. She hated to say it, but she was starting to get the feeling he might have been right to protect her. She had only been hit a few times and it had left her with substantial bruising well down the side of her body and left one leg in awful pain. He had been hit... significantly more times, but he was handling it like a champ. Exposing his back had made sure that his extremities were all still usable, as well. It had been some quick thinking that had paid off in the end, even if she didn't like that he'd used his own body to do it.

Far in the distance, Sunset spotted a flicker of movement. Narrowing her eyes, she could see a cloud of dust growing on the horizon. Over time, the dust gave way to a shape, and the shape gave way to a familiar silver car.

"Now THAT is a sight for sore eyes!" Penn proclaimed, coming around from behind the shack still wearing the Aperture Science t-shirt, but now accompanied by a pair of khaki-colored cargo pants. "Oh Sylvia, how I have MISSED you!"

Sunset genuinely grinned from ear to ear as the car came pulling up beside them. At this point, she was willing to say the same thing. She didn't wait for any signal from Penn, limping up to the passenger-side door and yanking it open. With a relieved sigh, she collapsed into the cloth-covered chair. It's not quite going home, but I've never been so relieved to get into a car!

"Thanks for the pick-up Isis! I don't know what we would have done...without... you?"

When she turned to look at their rescue driver, Sunset was baffled to find the driver's seat completely empty, devoid of even a robotic driver. In response, the radio switched itself on.

"You are more than welcome, Sunset Shimmer. It was my genuine pleasure."

There was a pop from the front of the car as the hood lifted itself several inches. Isis's familiar tiny dragon-shaped figure clambered out from inside the engine, jumped up on top to shut the hood, and then gave a quaint bow.

The door to the driver's side swung open, and Sunset watched Penn drape the jumpsuits over the back of his chair to protect it from his bloody shirt, then gingerly ease himself into the seat. "Clever girl... You hooked yourself right into the PCM, didn't you?"

The tiny dragon jumped up, spreading its wings and gliding through the rear window before coming to a landing on the front seat.

Affirmative. Not to worry, I patched the entry hole in the casing, there has been no structural compromise."

"Of course! If you control the Powertain Control Module, you can drive the car without touching a single pedal!" Sunset turned around to give the tiny robot a proud smile. "That IS clever!"

Thank you.

Isis climbed up onto the center of the front seats, then over to Sunset's lap, staring up at her in a way not unlike a puppy.

May I have access to your cellular device?

How can I say no to THAT cute face? Sunset reached into her pocket, retrieving her cell phone. "Just don't do anything that puts my photos and videos at risk, okay? I can't replace them, and they're all I have of my friends right now!"

I would never. If you will give me a few seconds, I merely wish to provide you with an upgrade."

The tip of Isis's tail slid aside, and Sunset watched it cycle though several adapters before settling on the one that fit her charger. The tail extended outwards and around, plugging itself into Sunset's phone. Instantly, the screen flickered and went dark, and Sunset felt herself grow nervous that Isis may have broken her promise.

A few seconds later, however, it once again lit up with life, displaying a loading bar with a small cartoon figure leaning on it. Every few seconds the cartoon, which was a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a lab coat, would change positions, showing various stages of excitement.

INSTALLING I.S.O.S....

BACKING UP FILES...

INSTALLING NEW APPS...

LOCATING CONNECTION TO PARENT SYSTEM...

INTEGRATED SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM LOCATED!

WELCOME TO THE INTEGRATED NETWORK!

The loading bar vanished entirely and the mascot (at least, that's what Sunset assumed it was supposed to be) gave a cheer before vanishing, as well. Her phone booted up to its normal lock screen, but without the spot for her usual passcode.

"Welcome, Sunset Shimmer..." It read, the words quickly disappearing as it moved unbidden to her home screen.

"You... installed yourself on my phone?"

Ninety-nine percent of your phone's systems and functions will now be handled client-side. You now have access to the computational power, informational resources, and signal sources of the Integrated Superior Intelligence System literally at your fingertips.

The little dragon disconnected its tail and jumped up onto the dashboard, moving on to Penn's side, where he gladly offered up his own phone without a word.

It would be more accurate to say that your phone has been installed on ME.

Signal sources? Wait, does that mean... Sunset glanced at her reception. FULL BARS!

Instantly, she went to her contacts, dialing the first name that came up: Applejack.

"Come on, come on, come on..."

"BEEP, BEEP, BEEP... Our sincerest apologies, but your call could not be completed as dialed. The number you are trying to reach is either non-existent or is outside of service range. Please try again."

Sunset sighed and hung up. "I guess that WAS a little much to hope for..."

"Chin up, Sunset! With Isis on our side, we'll find your friends in no time!" Penn chirped.

"Negative. It will require time. However, I will give my best effort to minimize the time this task will take."

Sunset smiled. At least if she had to be cut off from the rest of her friends, she was making new ones, and they were DEFINITELY interesting company.

"Now, first things first..." Penn declared, driving his key into the ignition with a smile. "Isis, can you give me directions to the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet?"

"Affirmative. Proceed in the direction of your one o'clock for .43 miles to return to the highway."

Penn grinned and reached down to switch on the radio, and Sunset settled into the now-familiar seat of Penn's Oldsmobile by reclining it several ticks back.

Finally, she could rest assured that she would DEFINITELY wake up in the same seat she fell asleep in.

Author's Note

I think of all characters in fiction, GLaDOS would be the most likely to come to the conclusion of "The only winning choice is not to play" in order to avoid going up against the protagonist of a children's show.

Because Sunset is from a kids' show. The "good guys" always win. And she's more than smart enough to realize that and decide it's not a risk worth taking.

Also because things have been rough for me lately and I don't have a big, action-packed finale in me right now. The next arc will be short and packed to the brim with action, don't worry! It'll also introduce the final member of our cast until the first member of the Rainbooms is rescued! I'm excited to write all about it! Sharp-eyed viewers can probably guess who the last member of the party is going to be!

Has It Wounded You?

Sunset had to admit, she was shocked at how quickly they fell into a routine. It felt as if Isis had solved almost every doubt she had about their trip's sustainability before she had it. Every night, Isis would ask them what they wanted to eat the next day, and in the morning a box of ingredients would be waiting outside their tent. When Sunset's geode gave them a general direction, Isis would almost instantly draw up a schedule and a route with GPS to make certain they would pass by any stores they needed or places to fill up on gas. Sunset had even managed to flaunt a little knowledge of her own to Penn by pointing out places that she knew would have showers available for long-term travelers: truck stops and gyms, along with the often-overlooked public swimming pool.

Unfortunately, all the showing in the world couldn't justify continuing to wear the same filthy, sweaty clothes. On the bright side, Penn had made good on his offer to let her pick from his own wardrobe. Unfortunately, the majority of his clothes were at least a size too big for her, forcing her to tie the shirts at the waist and wear a belt tight to hold up her pants. This "fashion atrocity," as Rarity would call it, only lasted for a day as Isis proposed a better solution. Sunset's phone had opened up to a gallery of pictures of herself, cartoonishly animated and wearing all of her favorite outfits. After a brief explanation of where the pictures had come from that only slightly eased her paranoia, Sunset had picked out a few that seemed suitable for wearing on the road. That next morning, Sunset had made sure to set her alarm extra early, determined to see how the boxes had been arriving. To her disappointment, there had been only a dark shape above them, the sound of engines high in the sky, and the fresh supplies descending on their own miniature parachutes. Sunset grunted in frustration as she realized that her early-morning wake-up call had been for nothing as she watched the boxes float perfectly into place in the middle of their camp.

"How do these keep showing up?"

Sunset felt her phone buzz in her pocket, a signal she was rapidly coming to recognize as Isis's primary way of speaking up when her little drone wasn't nearby.

"A heavy maintenance unit has been assigned to deliver your supplies. It maintains a high velocity and altitude in order to avoid drawing undue attention to your campsites."

"I guess that makes sense..." she grumbled. "Still, I was kinda hoping to see some kind of delivery robot or something..."

"Perhaps the contents of the box to your left will raise your spirits?"

Sunset slipped her phone back into her pocket and dug her nails into the seam of the cardboard. Upon prying it open, she was greeted by a sight that almost brought tears to her eyes:

Clothes. Fresh, clean, neatly-folded clothes that looked as if they had come straight from her own closet. She rifled through as quickly as she could, her joy only growing as she noted that everything she had asked for was there, along with some things she hadn't. Jeans, leggings, t-shirts, blouses, and tucked at the bottom, she felt another set of very different fabrics. Taking hold, she slipped one out to examine and found herself pleasantly surprised. Never in my life have I been so happy to see clean underwear!

"Ugh... Morning Sunset..." Penn muttered groggily as he lumbered into the campsite, flanked by Isis's tiny dragon body. "What's-"

"NOTHING!"

"So... what do you think?"

Sunset took a second to ponder what she had just witnessed. The new perspective on events had been eye-opening, and explained more than a few aspects that she had always questioned and some questions she had never even thought to ask. It had forced her to sit through moments that made her want to curl up into a ball and memories painful enough to make her grit her teeth. Still, she HAD asked for it, and as difficult as it had seemed to be for him, Penn had obliged in spite of his worries for her well-being. Still, it raised a new question, one that she couldn't stop thinking about.

"Who's Rebecca Shoichet?"

Isis's projector switched off and the little dragon's maw snapped shut.

"THAT'S your only question?"

Sunset shrugged. The novelty of seeing herself animated on screen had quickly faded in the face of finally getting to see Princess Twilight's perspective of what had happened. Even if she was glad she hadn't succeeded in taking over Canterlot High and marching on Equestria in the long run, there was some small satisfaction to be taken in knowing that she really HAD backed Twilight into a corner by the end. She'd put a lot of thought into her plans to get the crown, and being foiled by what Penn called "Deus Ex Machina" (words spat with a surprising amount of venom) had been a blow to her ego. It felt good to know that she wasn't bad at planning, even back when her plans had been evil.

"She's the actress who plays you," Penn replied. "Or, well, she gives your voice. Fun fact, actually, she ALSO provides Twilight's singing voice!"

Sunset had to admit, she felt a strange sense of detachment from the animated picture. Perhaps it was the fact that it was animated, or that it was a retelling of a story everyone already knew, but she really didn't make the connection that it was anything more than a less-than-flattering record of events as they had transpired. It really was just a movie, albeit an accurate one. The idea of a voice actress needing to play the role made sense.

"Huh... Weird."

"Weird? That's IT?"

Sunset shrugged. "Penn, we've been to outer space together. Did you think a movie was going to phase me THAT badly?"

Sunset couldn't help smirking a little at her friend's disappointment. Whatever kind of fireworks he had been expecting her to give off, she had failed to give it.

"Have to admit, though, I REALLY didn't appreciate how catchy the cafeteria song was at the time!"

"Ready to apply what you've learned?" Penn asked. He held himself with an air of smug confidence, one born out of being the man who held all the cards.

Literally...

The two of them had decided to take a risk and set up a campfire tonight, and Sunset had made good on her promise to make an effort to learn Penn's beloved card game. They had been on the road for three days since Aperture before he had finally brought it up, and after a hearty dinner of fire-cooked hamburgers he had set himself to teaching her the basics. He was using the same deck he had been shuffling to himself all this time. The cards were covered in plastic sleeves, bright blue on their backs and transparent on the front to make reading easy, but Penn had slipped a few out from their protective covering for her to look at, revealing a complex swirl pattern of browns and blacks on their back side.

"Let's do it!"

Penn smiled and spread out the cards he was holding in his hand on the ground. "Identify what's what, then!"

Sunset smiled, the answers easily coming to her from the last hour they'd spent chatting. "The purple ones are trap cards, the green ones are spells, and the brown ones are monsters!"

Penn raised an eyebrow, wordlessly questioning if that was all. Sunset took the challenge in stride, placing her finger on the first card in the lineup. It was a purple card depicting a group of adorable monsters being swept up in a revolving door. "Ghostrick Revolving Door" it read across the top, with a small infinity symbol just below the text designating it as a trap card.

"Continuous Trap. I can activate it on my opponent's turn, and it stays on the field with an effect at all times."

She moved on to the next card, a green spell card with a lightning-bolt symbol under the title, "Mystical Space Typhoon." The art of the card was true to its title, an all-encompassing vortex of clouds and wind in blues, greens, and grays.

"A Quick-Play Spell. I can activate it straight out of my hand like any other spell, OR set it like a trap to use on my opponent's turn!"

Penn nodded, his smile widening in a familiar way. It was the smile of a teacher proud of their student, joy at seeing them succeeding. It was the same way Sunset remembered Princess Celestia looking at her when she was a filly learning her first high-level spells.

Of course, this was just learning a children's card game called "Yu-Gi-Oh." It was significantly easier than transmutation of matter. The most complicated part of the game that she had been introduced to so far was that each of the three main types of cards had multiple sub-types that each had their own functions. Not only that, but it seemed like every single card in the game had its own individual effect, each of which had its own prerequisites to activate on an individual basis. Penn seemed to know them almost by heart, as if an entire encyclopedia of cards was sitting in his head and he was just reading from it.

"It's just about knowing the rules and extrapolating from them. Every card works within the rules." You know... except for all the EXCEPTIONS he keeps bringing up! Not to mention...

"What about cards like Ghostrick Angel of Mischief? All this time, we haven't seen any BLACK cards!"

Penn shook his head. "We'll get to that tomorrow. I'll start teaching you how to use the 'extra deck' once you've got the basics down, like the phases of a turn!"

Sunset sighed. She didn't regret asking him to teach her how to play, certainly not. He had come alive the moment he had unzipped the pouch on his belt, and his energy had been contagious, making her eager to learn. However, Sunset would be lying if she said that she wasn't feeling as if the more that she learned, the more she knew she had YET to learn.

"But you're learning fast!" he clarified, giving her another playful grin. "We'll have you dueling in no time! I'll even start building you a starter deck tonight, if you want! Any requests?"

Sunset blinked, the offer catching her off-guard. "How? I mean, I don't even know how to play, how would I know what to ask for?"

Penn smiled and shook his head knowingly. "Well, a duelist's deck is a reflection of themselves! You can learn a lot about a person from how they choose to play the game! There's as many ways to play Yu-Gi-Oh as there are duelists!" He thought for a moment, then picked up the cards from the ground and pulled them all together into a single deck. With a smile, he offered the blue-sleeved cards to her. "The Ghostricks are great for a beginner, and plenty of fun to play! Consider it a training deck."

Sunset's eyes widened, and she hesitated to take them. "Are you sure? Isn't this YOUR deck? If they're so personal, is using someone else's deck an okay thing to do?"

Penn chuckled as he shook his head. "You're overthinking it, Sunset. I play with the Ghostricks because I think they're FUN, and I want you to have fun, too! That's all there is to it!" He gave her a playful wink as he pushed the cards into her hands. "I think it's what the cards would want, if they could speak up for themselves!"

Sunset grasped the cards with a small degree of reverence. He was treating it like a small matter, but Sunset hadn't forgotten what these cards meant to him. Not to mention the strange things that had happened in Aperture, with the cards somehow finding their way to him out of thin air or the way he constantly shuffled them to calm himself down. Not to mention...

"Thank you, I'll take good care of them, I promise!" Sunset assured. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

Penn leaned back and held his arms open wide. "Fire away."

"You said that these cards came from a show, right? In the show, do the monsters in the cards ever... save their owners? Like, if the person with the card is in danger, can they intervene on their own?"

Penn's eyes widened, but if he was wondering where the question came from, he didn't ask. He tapped his chin in thought for a moment, then nodded. "In the show and the original manga, the cards were really just a way to open a gateway to another world so that a corresponding spirit could come through to ours! Sometimes, in really rare or important moments, particularly powerful spirits could absolutely act out on their own. Without being summoned properly, though, they usually can't do much. They may intervene for a split second, but that's all." He shrugged, then leaned forward. For a second, Sunset saw his face twist into a grimace of pain as he straightened his posture to rise up to his feet.

"Is your back still hurting?"

Penn nodded, letting his breath hiss through his teeth. "Seems like it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"Wait, it's getting WORSE?"

Penn paused, giving her a confused look. "Yes? What about you?"

Sunset reached down and pulled up part of her shirt, giving him a look at her stomach and side. The blue and purple splotches were nearly gone now, and the pain in her leg was easy to ignore by this point. "Almost totally healed! You've been using Isis's cold compresses and taking the anti-inflammatory pills, right?"

Penn's eyes widened in surprise and he stared at her for a few seconds before turning back in the direction of the car with a huff. "Stupid unicorn genes... rainbow magic healing..."

Sunset considered going after him, but it was clear that he was heading to bed now that his mood had turned foul. Instead, she turned to Isis, whose tiny robot body was sitting beside the fire and keeping a watchful eye for any errant sparks. "Should we be worried about him? If his pain is getting worse, is something wrong?"

"Perhaps. However, your healing is occurring at a rate that would be considered unnatural to any native human of his world. Conjecture: perhaps your origin from a world where physical injury is generally used for comedic effect and rarely permanent leaves you with accelerated healing compared to other humans."

"I don't feel any different than normal..." Sunset muttered. "And what do you mean 'comedic effect?' People getting hurt is serious business!"

"Affirmative. However, given the status you and your friends have as 'main characters,' I would theorize you benefit from the phenomenon known as 'Plot Armor.' This would mean that you are highly insulated against bodily harm that would render you unable to function in your appointed role. If this hypothesis proves true, you will heal much more quickly than Elijah as the status quo re-asserts itself."

Plot armor? Status quo? Sunset could already feel her head starting to spin. She pushed herself up onto her feet and turned towards her tent. "Well, that's just a theory, right? If his pain is worse tomorrow, I think we should check on him."

"I concur. Goodnight, Sunset Shimmer. I will continue to monitor the campfire until it safely burns itself out."

Sunset nodded, happy that she didn't have to worry about putting out the fire herself and ruining their improvised fire pit.

"Goodnight, Isis. See you in the morning..."

"S-Sunset?"

Sunset blinked her eyes open. She could tell just from looking at the walls of the tent that it was still dark out. The heaviness of her eyelids told her that it was the middle of the night, rather than the early morning. That meant...

"What's wrong?" she mumbled, forcing herself to sit up slightly, though she refused to open her sleeping bag. It was warm in there and if she could avoid compromising that microclimate she was going to do so.

"I n-need help..."

THAT was Sunset's wake-up call. His voice was wavering and weak, a shadow of himself. In just a few seconds, she was out of the sleeping bag and on her feet, meeting him in the tent's open doorway. By the light of the still-burning campfire, she could see that Penn was a mess. He was drenched in sweat, pulling his hair thin against his head and soaking the front of his shirt, but shivering violently in a way that racked his entire body. The moment she was outside, Penn grabbed her shoulder and she felt a heavy weight come down on her that made her knees nearly buckle. His eyes were bloodshot and his face tear-streaked in a way that showed he had been crying without even a thought to cleaning himself up before coming to her. With him leaning on her, Sunset could feel the heat of a high fever radiating off of him in waves.

"It- It huuuurts..." he whined. It was like a child's whine, the kind given when they had run out of tears to cry, and it broke her heart to hear it. She had to wonder how long he had struggled on his own before he had broken down enough to come to her.

"ISIIIIS! WE NEED YOU!" Under the extra weight, Sunset was barely able to put one foot in front of the other, hobbling the two of them to the place he had sat to tutor her before. It took every ounce of strength in her legs to lower them both to their knees slowly and gently, rather than collapsing. He gave a small whimper with the impact, and Sunset spun around as soon as his weight was off of her, turning to face him and look him in the eyes. "It's okay, Penn, it's going to be okay, okay?"

"I am here, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset watched the tiny mechanical dragon slip around behind Penn, peering curiously at the surface of his back.

"The shirt must be removed."

Sunset nodded, turning her attention back to her friend. Penn was taking haggard, ragged breaths, barely controlled and on the cusp of hyperventilating. She leaned in, gently placing her hand on his cheek to break his focus and bring his eyes up to meet hers. "I need to take off your shirt. Can you raise your arms?"

Penn shook his head slightly from side to side as his forced breathing continued. Sunset leaned over to get a look at Isis, relaying the message with a tiny shake of her head. Isis needed no explanation, pacing back around and hopping up onto Sunset's arm. The little dragon's legs clamped down on her forearm and her tail straightened as a straight-edge blade emerged from it.

"Then it will need to be cut."

Sunset stared for a moment at her fresh accessory, then nodded. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Penn's for a moment. It felt scorching, a definite fever that was threatening to cook him from the inside out. "I'm not going anywhere, okay?" When she got her response, a tiny nod and an extra shudder in his breathing, she stepped away and moved around behind him. Being extra careful, she gripped the bottom of his shirt and lifted it away from his back enough to slip Isis's tail underneath. It took only a small amount of pressure for the blade to slice through the material, and in one motion she was able to make an incision from bottom to top, slicing the shirt nearly in half.

"You may wish to brace yourself."

Sunset took a deep breath, then turned the back of the shirt over like a page in a book.

Later, Sunset would thank Isis for her quick reaction to retract the blade, because her hand instantly came up to cover her mouth and hold back a cry of surprise. Penn's back was a mess of blacks, deep violets, yellows and reds all fading into and out of one another, swollen and misshapen in places, with six uniform, inch-long slits spaced out and covered in black scabs. She could scarcely believe it, it looked more like a diseased oil painting than living flesh. She had just checked her own bruises before bed, finding them near-nonexistent, and this hammered home to her that Isis was at least right about one thing:

She and Penn were from totally different worlds.

Isis released her grip on her arm and scurried up to Sunset's shoulder, giving a small hum as she scanned the damage.

"As I feared, it would appear that the incisions made whilst we were below Aperture Science have suffered a bacterial infection. The improvised tools were not ideal, but it would appear that my attempts to sterilize them were fruitless."

"An infection? What do we do?"

"I have already arranged for a delivery of emergency medical supplies."

"That's it? Can't I do anything about... THIS?" she gestured to the mess of discoloration on his back. Isis's head shook.

"Without antibiotics and sedatives, no. However, the psychological effects of comfort from another human being would lessen the perceived pain by distracting him. I would recommend attempting to make him comfortable until supplies arrive."

Sunset nodded, circling back around to face him again. He kept his head facing down and his breathing still refused to fall into an even rhythm. Sunset reached out and took a hold of his hand, feeling it instantly clamp down uncomfortably on her.

"Did you hear all of that?"

Penn's head bobbed lightly up and down in affirmation.

"Well, I'm going to stay right here with you until the medicine gets here, understand?"

Another nod, this time accompanied by a mumble Sunset vaguely interpreted as the words "thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, that's what friends are for. I'm going to keep asking questions to try and keep your mind off of the pain, okay?"

He nodded again, and Sunset started raking her mind for unanswered questions.

"Why doesn't the portal gun work, any more?"

It was true. Ever since they'd left Aperture, the portal gun had stopped functioning. It still powered up and fired, but the energy simply fizzled out any time it struck a surface.

"It- It only works..." Penn panted, "on certain... surfaces. Moon rocks. That's what the... white paint... was made of." He was struggling, but Sunset took the fact that he was answering at all to mean that he was willing to try.

Sunset thought back to another question that still nagged at her from time to time.

"I think, back in the hardware store, the dalek hesitated to shoot me. I know you think I got lucky, but is there any reason it would have let me live?"

There was a pause, and Sunset saw his brow furrow in concentration.

"M-maybe... If you're part of a... fixed point in time. They know better... since they're time travellers... than to mess with a pre-determined... event. But that's... highly unlikely." He let out a long groan, and took a deep breath. "Fixed points are extremely rare, like the eruption of Pompeii, or if you see your own future and set the course of events in stone by observing it!" He rushed through the entire sentence in one breath, and once he was finished, she noticed his breathing had finally slowed down and smoothed out. Isis was right, distracting him is working!

Sunset thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"Well, I sure haven't gotten any peeks into the future, and I don't think we're going to do any time travelling in your Oldsmobile, so I guess I really DID get lucky." She glanced around their campsite, looking for inspiration for her next question until her eyes settled on Isis.

"Why does Isis look like a dragon?"

"The guy who built her... likes dragons... more than people."

"It's... just that simple?"

"Pretty much."

"Do dragons actually exist where she's from?"

"Nope."

"...Huh. Guess he doesn't like people much?"

"Nope."

Sunset paused for a moment, a new question presenting itself.

"Do you think WE'LL ever see any dragons?"

"Not... if we're lucky."

Sunset balked slightly. That was an unexpected answer, to say the least. Of all people, she would have expected Penn to be excited about seeing a mythical creature. "Why not?"

He shook his head slightly in response. "Dragons... are like the ocean. You gotta... respect them enough... to understand... they're not on your side. They're on their OWN side."

Before Sunset could ask him to clarify the statement, she was interrupted by a high-pitched whistling from above them. Isis perked up, turning to look upwards.

"High-priority package inbound."

"Just how fast is it-"

Sunset was cut off by an explosion of sand and dirt on the other side of the campsite as something embedded itself in the ground.

"Medical supplies have arrived."

Isis strode off into the darkness beyond the campfire's reach, and Sunset heard the sound of a pressurized container opening. She wasn't certain what the little droid was doing in the dark, but when she reappeared, she was carrying a transparent pill bottle in her teeth. She padded over to the space between the two of them, dropping the bottle at Penn's feet.

"A sedative to help promote restful sleep. Take three orally. I will administer topical antibiotics and analgesic cream."

Sunset reached down with her free hand and picked up the bottle, offering it to her friend. Penn quickly released his painful grip on her other hand, promptly forcing open the bottle and shaking out the recommended number of capsules.

"I'll go get some-"

Without a moment's hesitation, he threw the pills to the back of his mouth and swallowed.

"...water. Never mind." Reminds me of how Pinkie downs hard candy when she's in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Isis padded around behind him, the tip of her tail moving aside, this time revealing a nozzle hidden underneath. Without a word, a fine mist began to spray out, completely coating Penn's back in a matter of seconds and filling the air with the smell of antiseptic. His face twisted into an expression of pain for a moment, but quickly melted into pure relief. Sunset felt her own worry ease as his pain seemed to disappear.

"Better?"

He only nodded in response.

"This spray will need to be applied every four hours. If he sleeps on his stomach, it can be applied without awakening."

Sunset pondered the situation for a moment.

"Give him the tent, I'll sleep in the car."

Penn's eyes shot open and he opened his mouth to protest, but Sunset held up her hand to indicate that she would accept no arguments. "You NEED to lay out right now. I'll be fine."

There was another pause, and he finally hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry-"

"No!" Sunset shook her head. "No 'sorry!' I'm doing it because I want to, okay? Now go get some rest!"

Sunset glanced over, seeing that Isis's treatment had already finished. She reached around and under his shoulder, helping him back to his feet. The two of them staggered across the campsite, and Sunset was barely able to stop him from collapsing on top of the sleeping bag. As they moved, Isis's sedatives seemed to be taking effect at an alarming rate, leaving him unsteady and mumbling slurred words of thanks to her. She was unable to rescue her pillow before he had claimed it, instantly falling asleep on the floor of the tent with a content smile on his face.

Sunset wiped a bead of sweat from her brow as she zipped the tent shut.

"Unfortunately, I cannot advocate the operation of heavy machinery while under the influence of these medications."

Sunset looked back, noticing that Isis had taken back up her previous place watching the campfire.

"We probably should let him rest, anyway. I don't mind taking a day off from our road trip!" It sounded carefree, but Sunset had to admit she was reluctant. She would have been willing to drive if she had any hopes at all that Penn would hand his keys over to her, if only to make certain there was one less day between now and finding her friends. Still, it would be cruel to ask him to spend another day in a seat where half his weight is on his back. "Wake me up if anything goes wrong, okay?"

"Affirmative. Thank you for your help, Sunset Shimmer. You were of great assistance tonight in a way that this unit is incapable of providing."

Sunset smiled, giving only a nod as she turned towards the car. With a sigh, she settled herself into the front passenger seat and grabbed the reclining lever. With a hard yank, she pushed the chair as close to horizontal as she could get it and pulled her unzipped sleeping bag over herself as a blanket.

Penn's been sleeping in here since we left, how hard could it be?

I wonder if Isis will give me one of those sedatives?

According to the clock on her phone, Sunset had been tossing and turning for almost three hours. She was MISERABLE. She'd tried counting sheep, sitting with her eyes closed and keeping perfectly still, sleeping on her side, sleeping on her stomach, and even asking Isis to play lullabies for her through her phone. She'd climbed into the back seat to lay down across three places, opened one of the windows so she could stick her legs through and lay out completely, and laid her arm over her face as an improvised sleep mask.

She could. Not. Fall. Asleep.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

Great! It's not as if I was sleeping, anyway! Sunset reached over and picked up her phone. "What, Isis?" Sunset's phone angrily flashed red and white in her face, forcing her to cringe and turn away the screen.

"There is an intruder in the camp!"

Sunset bolted upright. In a single motion, she threw off her blanket and pulled her legs back in through the window. She practically exploded out of the door, closing the distance between the car and the campsite in seconds.

True to her word, Isis's robot had taken up an aggressive stance against a stranger. The other boy was standing with his hands raised in a sign of surrender, clearly trying to placate her. Sunset had to admit, it was almost comical seeing someone so afraid of a robot smaller than a cat, but there was no time to laugh. Sunset ran up beside Isis, holding the handle of the lightsaber in one hand, just in case. The stranger turned to her, looking relieved at the sight of another human.

"Can I help you?" Sunset asked, keeping herself on guard. After the first day she had met Penn, she wasn't planning on taking any chances.

The stranger reached down to his pocket, keeping his movements slow to avoid provoking her. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched him retrieve a deck of cards with a familiar brown-and-black swirl pattern on the back.

"A little bird told me there was a duelist around here... I figured that in all of this insanity, like-minded folks ought to stick together?"

Author's Note

For those wondering, the difference between Penn and Sunset is basically this:

Sunset heals more quickly than Penn, but he is much more durable than her. He can take a beating, but it'll stick for a more "realistic" amount of time. Sunset isn't necessarily "delicate," per se, but she has to be careful. She bounces back quickly, but can take fewer hits overall.

For gamers in the audience, think of it like Penn is a tank with low regen and Sunset's a DPS with self-healing.

You're Not Invincible (Yet)

Sunset stared carefully at the cards in her hand, examining each one and trying to commit their effects to memory. Reaching out, she placed one face-up on the ground in front of her. It depicted a wolf-like creature that she was certain was truly trying its absolute best to look intimidating in the cartoonish art style.

"I summon Ghostrick Warwolf!" She smiled and reached down, turning it and the other two cards alongside it upside down and to the side, a position Penn had taught her was "face-down defense." "And I'll use all three effects to flip them down! It's your turn!"

Through a series of matches, Sunset was finally starting to get a feel for how the Ghostrick deck operated. The monsters all had effects that activated when they were flipped face-up, and they all had the caveat of being able to turn themselves back to face-down position, which was something that couldn't be done under normal conditions. Most of the spell and trap cards revolved around protecting them while they were face-down or bringing more of them out to play.

It's like trick-or-treating! They pop up, shout 'surprise!' and then hide all over again!

The boy, whom Sunset had been informed was named Joshua, chuckled and ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair. He'd shown up in dirty-looking clothes and wearing a backpack that looked like it could snap a normal person's spine, and immediately chugged down three bottles of water when offered them.

"Gotta admit, I didn't think that hunch would be right! It's so good to know that not everyone in the world has gone crazy!" He leaned back against his overly-stuffed pack with a long sigh of contentment. "I needed a second to have some interaction with a REAL person, you know?"

Sunset decided not to mention the fact that she was only staying up with him because she wasn't sure how to deal with the situation. If she left him to his own devices, she worried that he would plunder the camp for supplies and be gone before they even knew what had happened. Even if Isis could send them more supplies as they needed, she didn't want to be the one to have to explain to her guide why the camp had been robbed on her watch. On the other hand, if he really was just another unfortunate traveler, she couldn't just turn him away. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and once he was awake, Sunset knew he and Penn would instantly have common ground to bond over.

But still, something about a stranger coming in the middle of the night, bearing scarily-accurate knowledge about the location of people who played Penn's favorite game, bothered her. Rightly so, this is still TOO WEIRD...

"How did you know we were here?" Sunset questioned, watching him set another trap card.

"Well, it wasn't hard to see your fire a long ways off! Either there were people out here or a bunch of mesquite trees were going to be charcoal by morning!" He pondered his cards for a moment, then laid a monster card on his side of the simulated battlefield while placing another card in the pile designated as the "graveyard." "I'll special summon The Tricky without tributing by using its effect, then attack your leftmost monster!"

Sunset sighed and flipped the monster in question face-up. It was a skeleton wearing a black robe and gripping a scythe in one hand, comically fretting over the fact its lower jaw was falling off.

"Well, before it's destroyed, you DID flip it, so Ghostrick Skeleton banishes the top card from your deck!" Sunset quipped as she moved the monster to her own graveyard.

The hardest part to deal with was hiding the fact that she could barely keep her eyes open. She was playing sloppily, lack of sleep making it difficult to think clearly. Once again, she berated herself for jumping in and claiming to be the resident duelist. It had been a split-second decision to stop him from investigating the camp further and interrupting Penn's recovery, but she hadn't considered the amount of time the facade would mean committing.

"So, what are you girls doing out here? Seems like a strange locale for a camping trip!" Josh smiled and motioned with his hand that it was Sunset's turn once again. She reached out and picked up a card to add to her hand, only to double-take as she found herself face-to-face with the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief. Joshua tilted his head, pointing to the pile of cards on the opposite side of the field from her deck. "You, uh, drew off your extra deck there..."

"Right! Right, sorry! Just tired. It's been a rough night..." she muttered, feeling a twinge of disappointment as she put the black card back where it had come from and drew properly. It was a trap card, depicting a monster half-invisible as it hovered over a graveyard. Ghostrick Vanish... She placed the trap down behind her monsters.

"We're out here looking for some friends of mine. We were all pretty much at ground zero of this whole..." she paused, trying to find the right words, "unnatural distaster, and we all wound up separated. Isis is helping me track them down." With the question answered, her brain turned to the tedious task of taking her turn, which began with turning all of her monsters face-up again.

"Ghostrick Stein, and Yuki-Onna come to face-up position, then Jiangshi..." She reached over and picked up her deck, already knowing which card she wanted. "Jiangshi lets me search for a Ghostrick monster with a level less than or equal to the number of face-up Ghostrick monsters I control, so I'm going to choose Ghostrick Mummy..." She added the card to her hand, showed it to her opponent, then shuffled the deck for a few seconds. "Then I'll summon Mummy, which gives me an extra summon for another Ghostrick monster, and I'll choose Ghostrick Witch. With Witch's effect, I can turn your The Tricky to face-down defense position..." She waited a moment for him to comply with the effect, which he did without argument. "Now I'll have Stein attack it with 1600 attack points!"

Josh turned the card face-up again, revealing a measly defensive total of 1400, making her monster more than strong enough to destroy it. Combining Stein's high attack points with other cards' ability to turn her opponent's monsters face-down was crafty little combo she had been proud to discover. He sighed and sent his monster to the graveyard with nothing more than a shrug.

"So where are you headed? Have you heard from them?"

Sunset began flipping her monsters back into face-down position, only to lose her grip on Stein in a small breeze. The card flew from her hand, coming to a landing directly on top of Jiangshi, the two lining up in a neat stack. Sunset felt a tug on the back of her mind, like the situation was reminding her of something she'd forgotten about. She brushed the distraction aside, placing the cards back in their proper places and turning them face-down again.

"Do I need to SPELL IT OUT for you?"

Sunset's head snapped up, frantically looking from side to side for the voice. It was the same one she'd heard in Aperture, she KNEW it! Unfortunately, just like before, she was greeted with nothing. She took a deep breath and shook her head, pushing the auditory hallucination from her brain. She had more important things to worry about. She needed to figure out a way to establish whether or not she could trust Joshua enough to leave him under Isis's supervision while she went to go sleep.

"I don't know, and no. I'm honestly starting to worry..." Sunset pressed her palm against her forehead, trying to ease her oncoming headache. "This necklace I'm wearing seems to be pointing us in some direction, so we're following that until we get some kind of sign that we're getting closer." Sunset felt exasperation rising up, finally overtaking her. "But you know, magic necklaces aren't exactly intuitive! Sometimes I wish that our cell plans had multi-dimensional coverage, or that at least ONE of them had wound up in the same place I had! In the past week, I've been shot at by alien laser beams, recruited by secret agents, traveled through SPACE in a metal box, been kidnapped by evil robots, been rescued by a GOOD robot, been shot at with crippling spring-powered bullets, been strapped down to an operating table and nearly dissected alive, AND I haven't had a chance to sleep in an actual bed since the multiverse, which happens to be a real thing, by the way BLEW UP!" Sunset grabbed her now-pounding head, feeling her anger and regret coming to a head. "UGH! I wish we'd never even TRIED to close that stupid portal! I've had my fair share of science projects, magic spells, and social events blow up in my face, but this takes ALL OF THE CAKES!"

Sunset hadn't even realized how much of a frenzy she had whipped herself into until she stopped shouting, her ears ringing with the volume of her own voice. Realizing the sheer volume she had been shouting at, she glanced nervously at the tent behind Joshua. Luckily, there was no sign of stirring from within, meaning that Penn had slept through her outburst. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.

"Sorry, I just... It's hard keeping up a brave face for my friends sometimes, you know?"

When she looked up, however, Sunset realized Joshua had changed.

He hadn't changed his position or his posture, in fact he had stopped mid-draw and frozen in place. But there was an... aura around him, for lack of a better word. The shadows of the firelight seemed deeper around him, and Sunset could feel a heat against her skin like the burning sunlight, even if it was still the middle of the night.

"You mean... you were the one who did this?" he whispered. "YOU opened all these portals?"

Sunset considered lying, trying to cover up the truth or mislead him away from the truth, but it was her own fault. She'd been so caught up in her exasperation that she'd let the truth slip to a complete stranger.

"I... genuinely don't know. All our calculations were correct, but... something went wrong. Maybe there was an outside force interfering, maybe there was just some unknown variable, maybe we just got unlucky! But... right now..." Sunset took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It took strength to force the truth up through her throat, but she had to face it. "Yeah. I think I did."

Now you've done it...

Sunset opened her eyes to look for the voice, only for her to find that the world had gone dark. A fog of black mist had rolled into the campsite, dimming the fire beside them and backing out everything except for their game. She searched from side to side, but she couldn't see the car in the distance or the tent behind Joshua's back, and even Isis had vanished, leaving her isolated with him.

"So many people have been hurt because of you..." he muttered, slowly drawing his next card, "Do you know that? People have DIED because of this!"

DIED... DIED... DIED... The word echoed in Sunset's head over and over again, raking her with guilt. Her mind flashed back to their first encounter with the dalek, seeing the gas station explode with the employees inside. All of the casualties she had seen listed on the screen when they were planning the counterattack with the SHIELD agents sprung up in her mind's eye, each rising number feeling like an extra ton of weight pulling down on her soul.

And those are just the people I know about... None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me. They'd ALL still be alive.

"Maybe it wasn't an accident that I found my way here, after all?" Josh muttered, pondering his hand for a moment. His words finally snapped Sunset out of her reverie.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I knew I was being led towards something big, I could feel it." He waggled one of his cards at her, but didn't reveal it. "The big guy's been pulling me from one place to another ever since the whole world went nuts. Mostly other duelists, or spots where I could scavenge supplies, a little divine intervention to keep me safe through the end of the world... and now, here I am, face-to-face with the villain behind it all!" He chuckled softly to himself, a hollow, empty laugh that sent chills down Sunset's spine. "It's like a calling."

Sunset reached down to pick up her deck. The change that had come over him was terrifying, an exterior calm that was easily betrayed by his words. She focused on keeping her breathing slow and her tone even when she spoke. "I think it's time for you to leave, Joshua."

"NO!" Josh barked, making Sunset jump slightly and pull her hand back away from her cards. "No, we're going to finish our game... and when we do, you're going to get what you deserve."

Sunset swallowed as the bottom fell out of her stomach. If it came to blows, she felt confident in her ability to defend herself with her martial arts skills, but something about the way he spoke made her believe that he had another way to follow through with his threat. The fact that he refused to end their game seemed to have something to do with it as well, but she had no idea what.

Why hasn't Isis said anything? she wondered, glancing around again. From the moment that unnatural darkness had hemmed them in, it was as if Isis had vanished, leaving them totally alone. She knew that there was no way Isis would just let a threat to their safety go unchallenged like this, which meant something had happened to her. And if something happened to Isis, what about-

"I play Card Advance!" Josh announced, cutting her thoughts short. "This spell allows me to look at the top five cards of my deck and put them back in any order." He quickly shuffled through his cards, smiling to himself as he replaced them on top of his deck. "And now I'll follow it up with another spell, The True Name! If I can name the next card from the top of my deck, I can add it to my hand, along with one Divine-Attribute monster!" He scratched his chin in mock thought. "Hmm... I predict the card I'll draw is Cyber Dragon." He reached down, feigning surprise as he turned the card to reveal the monster in question, a silver snake-like robot. He smugly placed the card in his hand before beginning to rifle through his deck and adding another.

"Now then, since you control monsters and I don't, I can special summon Cyber Dragon without tributing!"

Something was different, Sunset could feel it. This time, when he placed down the card, she could see motion in the darkness behind him. Her ears only corroborated what her eyes were telling her when she heard a piercing roar tear through the air, a sound of metal on metal. It was enough to make her jump violently and reach for her lightsaber.

"What was THAT?"

Joshua, however, didn't seem afraid. He still had that crooked smile on his face. From behind him, the movement finally emerged into the dim firelight, and Sunset's blood ran cold.

There, staring hungrily down on her with its jaw open wide, was the same metal serpent from the card. Instantly, Sunset jumped to her feat and flicked her thumb across the switch...

...only for nothing to happen.

"Nuh-uh-uh! That would be cheating!" Joshua waggled his finger at her. "I told you, first we finish the game, THEN you get what you deserve..."

Now Sunset understood. She knew why Joshua refused to end their game, not to mention the second meaning to his words.

If the monsters are real... what if the stakes are, too? Are the 'life points' actually... my life?

"Cyber Dragon, attack her face-down monster!"

Sunset could only watch as the dragon opened its mouth wider, unleashing a torrent of white light that flew past her head. Behind her, Sunset heard the sound of shattering glass and a cry of pain. Spinning around, Sunset came face-to-face with a giant-sized version of her side of the battle field, complete with face-down cards nearly as large as her. When she looked, she could see the last few wisps of Ghostrick Witch fading away into the darkness, obliterated by Cyber Dragon's attack.

"Finish the game... then I get what I deserve."

Oh no.

"And following the battle phase, I'm going to set one more monster face-down and end my turn!"

Sunset was frozen. She didn't know what to do.

What was I THINKING? I barely know how to PLAY this game! What kind of magic IS this? How is it all suddenly REAL?

"It's your turn, Sunset."

Sunset looked at the giant cards behind her, then back down at the smaller cards that matched them. More out of habit than determination, she moved Ghostrick Witch into the graveyard pile. Her hand hovered over her deck, shaking with fear as she tried to force herself to draw. She took a deep breath and held it as she forced herself to pull the card off the top and add it to her hand.

I need to THINK! Think clearly, think calmly! Sunset held herself back, letting out her breath slowly and under control. Everything in the game follows the rules, the game's own logic. I don't know all of them, so I'll have to work with what I DO know!

Sunset thought through everything Penn had taught her before they had gone to bed. Three types of cards: monsters, spells, and traps. Decks have forty to sixty cards. Monsters higher than level four need to sacrifice other monsters on the field to be summoned, but they have higher attack and better effects to make them worth it. Two ways to destroy a monster are with special effects or by having more attack power...

She glanced down at Josh's card, Cyber Dragon. It had 2100 attack points. Even if she forced it into defense position, its defense points were tied with Stein's attack, which meant her attacks would be useless. She looked at her own hand, only to feel a crushing blow to her hopes of winning:

She had no monsters with 2100 attack points. In fact, she had never seen a Ghostrick monster higher than level three. She frantically read through her spells and traps, trying to find one that could destroy Cyber Dragon, but none of them seemed to fit the situation. She had no way to get rid of Cyber Dragon and, thus, no way to reach Joshua's life points.

O-okay, how else can you win? You either make your opponent run out of life points or... ooorrrrrr... Sunset closed her eyes and pounded her palm against her temple, trying to bring back the information she'd been given. In her mind's eye, she found herself picturing one of her cards: the adorable Ghostrick Skeleton, swiping its scythe at a deck and removing the top cards.

Or, make them run out of cards! That's it! THAT'S the win condition! I just have to keep holding back his attacks and chipping away at his deck until he can't draw any more! She forced herself to sit down again, looking at the playing field with new hope. I've still got nearly an entire field of monsters! I can do this!

"I flip summon Stein, Yuki-Onna, Mummy, and Jiangshi." Sunset picked up her deck and began searching through it. "With Jiangshi, I can add a copy of Skeleton to my hand, which I'll summon! Then I'll-"

Sunset was cut off as a gust of wind blew through the campsite, lifting several of her cards from the extra deck and field into the air. Without thinking, she slammed her free hand down, managing to catch all of them at once. Much to her satisfaction, the cards had all settled into a neat pile, with Ghostrick Angel of Mischief sitting on top.

FINALLY! The overlay network is built!

This time, Sunset was certain she heard the voice come from behind her. When she turned around, she couldn't believe her eyes. In the spot corresponding to where she had caught the cards, a swirling vortex of shimmering light appeared. She saw the forms of Stein and Mummy vanish inside, along with a third pale figure she didn't recognize. It was like two galaxies had been stacked on one another, swirling in opposite directions before finally collapsing together into the center, creating a ball of light. After a second, the light stretched and morphed, turning into a familiar shape. In a final flash, a new monster emerged, one Sunset recognized: The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief.

"TEN THOUSAND YEEEEEEAAAAAAARS!!!!!!!!" she cried, leaning down to look Sunset in the eye, "will give you SUCH a crick in the neck!" Sunset blinked, still trying to process what she was seeing. The angel gave her a quizzical look before shaking her head in disapproval. "Jokes aside, I thought you'd NEVER summon me! Seriously, who plays Ghostricks without knowing how to Xyz summon?"

"Y-you're- you're real?"

She seemed slightly offended at Sunset's question, choosing to reply by rolling her eyes. "Said the cartoon unicorn to the duel spirit..." She held up one hand with her pinky and thumb extended, miming a telephone conversation. "Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You're black!"

"Okay, I get it, sorry..." Sunset held up her hands feebly. "I'm just a little shocked."

"Well, considering the position you're in, you should be!" she replied, floating through the air and over Sunset's shoulder to peer at the field from above. "Luckily, The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief is at your service! But you can just call me Missy!"

Being forced to turn around to follow her, Sunset realized Joshua had totally failed to respond to the insane turn of events. In fact, he appeared to be completely frozen. Another glance showed that the campfire had also locked itself in place, no longer burning despite still giving off light and heat. After a moment, Missy followed her gaze, noticing the same thing.

"Oh! Don't worry about that! I maaay have commandeered your imagination and your telepathy magic a little so we could have a chat inside your head! Things will go back to normal as soon as we finish!"

"You're... in my head?" Sunset felt a twinge of anxiety of the thought of someone having direct access to her brain. Missy seemed to pick up on her discomfort, floating over and wrapping her wing around Sunset's shoulder.

"Think of it this way, Sunset: when you duel, it's like building a little birdhouse in your soul! A duel spirit can come in and take up residence, even make a home for themselves if they choose to! In return, you get the pleasure and the benefits of having us around! But just like a birdhouse, you can take it down, smash it, or chase us out any time you want! It's totally voluntary on both parts! Mutually beneficial!" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. "And judging by the way things have been going, YOU need a dueling coach to get you through this!"

Sunset pondered the situation. Something about Missy seemed trustworthy, and she definitely needed the help, but there was one more thing she needed to confirm.

"Were you the one who saved me?"

It was a simple question, one she knew was generic enough to be a mystery if Missy didn't know what she was talking about.

Missy folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. "You mean when you nearly fell back in Aperture? Duh! Penn gave me to you to keep you safe!"

Sunset smiled. That was all the confirmation she needed. She held out her hand to Missy. "I never got a chance to thank you for that, so thanks. Welcome to my birdhouse, I guess."

Missy grinned again, eagerly taking Sunset's hand and giving it a fast shake. "Alright, then! Let's do this!"

Sunset's eyes snapped open. Her hand was still resting on the pile of cards. When she pulled it away, she confirmed that the card on top was still Missy's.

You ready? Missy's voice echoed in her head. I've got your back, this time!

Sunset nodded to herself, re-reading Missy's card to familiarize herself with it.

Ghostrick Angel of Mischief

2 Level 4 monsters

You can also Xyz Summon this card by using a "Ghostrick" Xyz Monster you control as the Xyz Material, except "Ghostrick Angel of Mischief". (Xyz Materials attached to that monster also become Xyz Materials on this card.) When the number of Xyz Materials on this card becomes 10, you win the Duel. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card; add 1 "Ghostrick" Spell/Trap Card from your Deck to your hand. Once per turn: You can attach 1 "Ghostrick" card from your hand to this card as an Xyz Material.

ATK: 2000 DEF: 2500

What's an Xyz material?

You see how those cards underneath me are stacked in a pile? The ones under my card are the Xyz materials. Think of it like a special way of tributing monsters for a summon!

Sunset pondered the cards in her hand for a moment, then smiled. Maybe it was extra insight from Missy's presence, but she had an idea.

"First, I'll activate this spell, Book of Moon! This will turn your dragon to face-down position!" True to the spell, Joshua's dragon changed, curling up and morphing into a face-down card, identical to any other hidden monster. "And now, I'll attack with Missy!" Missy flew past her shoulder, darting around the two duelists to strike at the vulnerable card. There was an explosion and the sound of breaking glass before the card disappeared, Cyber Dragon giving an earsplitting death rattle. With a decisive nod, she smiled and dusted off her hands. As she flew back past them to her place on Sunset's side, Missy gave her a knowing wink. Sunset smiled and reciprocated before turning her attention back to her opponent.

"And now, Mummy can attack your other face-down monster!"

On a note other than the potential life-threatening danger she was in, Sunset noted that it was pretty satisfying to order a monster to do something and see it immediately carried out. Mummy lumbered to the field, slamming his fist down on the other card. When it shattered, however, Sunset saw Joshua smile. Rather than being totally destroyed, a monster flew out of the remains of the attacked card, a pale-bellied flying squirrel. It soared around the battlefield, executing a roll before splitting into two. Each of its duplicates landed back on his side of the field.

"When Nimble Momonga is destroyed by battle, I can summon two more from my deck, and I gain one thousand life points. Thanks for the boost."

A counter appeared beside Joshua, ticking upwards with mechanical precision.

8000 > 9000

Sunset grimaced, but she couldn't help noticing that both of Joshua's momonga cards were in defense position, and each had a pitiful 100 defense points.

But is powering through his defenses worth giving him another two thousand life points? Sunset asked herself. In a pleasant surprise, the answer came immediately.

Life points come and go, but you do NOT want to let him keep monsters on his side of the field! Field presence is more important than life points!

Sunset nodded. "Alright, then... Yuki-Onna, Jiangshi, attack his momongas!"

True to her words, the monsters attacked, easily destroying the tiny squirrels. Sunset flinched slightly as she realized just how happy she was that Fluttershy wasn't around to see that.

9000 > 11000

As his life points rose, so did Sunset's anxiety. She knew Missy was probably right about choosing to attack instead of letting the monsters stay, but his life points had already increased to nearly 50% more than he started with, and she was still at the baseline 8000. Taking him down with the low-attack Ghostricks was going to be a battle of attrition, and there were still plenty of cards in his deck for Skeleton to deal with by itself. It was going to be a long game.

"I'll turn Skeleton, Jiangshi, and Yuki-Onna back to face-down position, then-"

Don't forget to use my effect!

Sunset looked down, glancing over Missy's card text one more time. This time, something jumped out at her that hadn't before.

When the number of Xyz Materials on this card becomes 10, you win the Duel... Once per turn: You can attach 1 "Ghostrick" card from your hand to this card as an Xyz Material...

THAT'S your win condition, Sunset!

"-and I'll attach Ghostrick Break to my angel as an Xyz material, then end my turn."

Slipping the trap card into the pile under Missy's card, Sunset could see that she was up to four materials. That meant she was a minimum of six turns away from winning that way. She was going to have to play smart to survive that long.

I'll try nudging a card or two up in the deck, see if I can put something good in your hand!

Sunset nodded, watching carefully as her opponent drew his next card.

"Don't you have ANY shame for what you've done? Everything you've destroyed?" Josh jeered, forcing Sunset into a double-take. She'd been so worried about survival, she'd forgotten why Joshua had done this, to begin with. She could feel anxiety creeping back up in her chest.

Should- should I be ashamed? Was it really my fault all of those people died? It was an accident, but does that really matter on this scale? What if the daleks weren't the only monsters I set loose on the world? Who knows how many people my actions have hurt-

Sunset felt a hand grip her shoulder from behind, breaking the spiral of negative thoughts. Sunset, focus! He's trying to get inside your head! Right or wrong, he's the one who stepped up and challenged you, so DEFEND YOURSELF!

Sunset nodded, shaking off the thoughts. Missy was right. Even if all of that was true, Josh wasn't some divinely appointed judge doling out punishments. He was a bully picking on someone who didn't understand how to protect themselves, plain and simple.

What's bothering me is that he shouldn't have been able to do this. A shadow game like this should only be possible if he has a millennium item, which he clearly doesn't, or if he's allied with an extremely powerful spirit...

Sunset simply shrugged in response. She hardly knew enough to get from one turn to the next. For now, it was more important to survive what was happening, rather than understanding how it would happen.

"To start my turn, I'll summon Ra's Disciple!"

A dark-skinned figure in shimmering golden armor appeared, complete with a beak-shaped headpiece and glowing cape. Joshua smiled as he picked up his deck and began thumbing through his cards. "And thanks to his special ability, I can summon two more from my deck!" True to his word, two more of the same appeared on either side, rising up like his own miniature army.

Wait a minute, did he just summon a bunch of monsters in one turn?

Yeah, so?

That's against the rules, isn't it?

Well, technically no, but screw the rules, Sunset, we've got bigger problems!

He chuckled to himself in a way that sent shivers running down Sunset's spine. "You can't even begin to imagine the monster about to end your existence!"

TELL ME!

"Uhm, tell me?" Sunset echoed, unsure whether or not she was supposed to relay the message from her unseen friend.

"Oh, you'll find out, I'm about to summon it!" Joshua placed another card on the field. "I'm going to use my spell, Double Summon! This card lets me make a second normal summon this turn! And the card I'll be summoning requires me to sacrifice all three of my disciples!"

Just as quickly as they had appeared, his monsters vanished. Above them, Sunset could hear the rushing of wind and the rumbling of distant thunder. The air began to crackle with energy in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Behind her, she could hear Missy whimper in fear, a sound that didn't fill her with confidence.

That.... that would be a powerful enough spirit to create a shadow game, yeah...

"Great beast of the sky, please hear my cry! Transform thyself from the orb of light, and bring me victory in this fight!" Joshua chanted, lifting the card in question into the air. Above him, the darkness began to part as beams of light forced their way through. At first, Sunset thought that dawn had finally come, but her hopes were dashed as she realized that the source of the light was gigantic metal sphere descending from the heavens. "Transform thyself from orb of light and bring be victory in this fight! Envelop the desert in your glow and cast your rage upon my foe!"

The glow of the sphere dimmed slightly, just enough for Sunset to see countless seams and etchings across its surface. Glowing steam began to leak from the lines as they shifted and began to separate. Whatever this creature was, it was transforming, just like he had asked it to.

"Unlock your powers deep within so that together we may win! Appear in this shadow game as I call out your name: WINGED DRAGON OF RA!"

When the beast had finally finished unfurling itself, Sunset was in total awe. It was a titanic winged bird wreathed in flames as bright as the sun. Its entire body looked as though it has been cast from pure gold, an impenetrable armor fitting of some kind of deity. Its eyes were piercing and blood-red as it stared her down, giving Sunset the distinct impression of what a rabbit must feel like when a hawk laid eyes on it. It dwarfed the campsite, its wingspan easily three times the size of their little nighttime arrangement. It radiated heat in waves until Sunset felt almost as if she was being cooked alive, hotter than even the most searing summer day. Instinctively, Sunset looked for the counter displaying its attack points, dreading to know what kind of devastating power she was up against.

ATK: ? DEF: ?

Sunset? I think I owe you an apology...

Beside Ra's counter, Sunset saw Josh's life points appear. The two counters began to move in tandem, one traveling up as the other counted down.

We REALLY shouldn't have given him all those life points.

11000 > 100

0 > 10900

"Ten... thousand... attack?" Sunset whispered, hardly able to believe her eyes.

"HA HA HA! With Ra's special ability, I can convert my life points into attack points!" Josh cackled. "Let's see how your little Ghostricks stand up to the wrath of an Egyptian GOD! Ra, attack Ghostrick Angel of Mischief!" Ra's mouth opened, leaking out a mass of flames that gathered above its head to form a devastating-looking fireball.

"WHAT? NO!" Sunset cried, panic beginning to overtake her. Spinning around, she could see Missy frantically tapping her fingers against her forehead, her face scrunched up in thought.

Ifhe'splayingRAthenithastobethelegalversioninsteadoftheoriginalwhichmeans... her eyes snapped open and she frantically pointed to the card behind her. SUNSET, YOUR TRAP CARD SHOULD WORK!

Sunset practically dove onto the card, flipping it over as fast as she could. "I- I use my trap! Ghostrick Go-Round!" In all honesty, she could scarcely remember what the card even did, but if it was what Missy was telling her to use, then she would trust it. Behind her, Sunset heard the familiar whimper of Ghostrick Yuki-Onna rising from its sleep, and a quick glance down revealed that the card had flipped itself into attack position. Meanwhile, a gigantic stone door sprung up behind Ra, revolving around and catching the monster in a swirling vortex of light and flame. When it finally stopped, Ra's attack had dissipated and its wings were defensively curled up in front of itself.

Ghostrick Go-Round can turn an opponent's monster to defense by changing a Ghostrick monster to face-up attack!

"WHAT? Impossible! Ra is a GOD, it can't be affected by spells and traps!" Josh growled, turning his furious gaze on Sunset. "You CHEATED!"

Nuh-uh-uh! In the SHOW that may be true, but he's using the playable TCG version of the card, which doesn't have that ability! Missy replied in a sing-song tone. I think we've got ourselves a pleb who just watched the show and thinks he knows everything!

"The version you're playing with can, this isn't the TV show..." Sunset repeated, still unsure she totally understood what had just happened.

For a moment, Sunset thought she could see a vein throbbing on his temple, but it quickly subsided a moment later as he crossed his arms in front of him with a pout. "Fine, I end my turn..."

Sunset nodded and drew the top card from her deck. Her heart was still pounding in her chest, but on the bright side, she could see how they would be safe for the moment: Ghostrick Go-Round was a continuous trap, which meant it stayed on the field. As long as she had a face-down Ghostrick monster she could flip up, she could keep changing Ra's position every turn and stop its attacks. Feeling marginally better about her safety, she looked down at the card she had drawn. She felt a smile tug at her lips. Missy had been as good as her word.

"First, I'm going to start my turn by playing Overlay Regen. This card attaches itself to my Ghostrick Angel as an extra Xyz material! Then, I'll flip Jiangshi to face-up attack position, then Skeleton." She picked up her deck, looking through the monsters and their effects, trying to predict what Josh's next move would be and how she could respond. "Skeleton will banish the top four cards of your deck, and Jiangshi will add... Ghostrick Mary to my hand."

Having Mary in her hand would let her summon another Ghostrick monster to the field if she took damage, which she was starting to expect she definitely would in the future. It was insurance that, if she got hurt and survived, she wouldn't be left defenseless.

"Then, I'll flip all of them except Missy to face-down position, attach Ghostrick Jackfrost to her as another material and end my turn."

Six materials... Just four more and I can win, I just have to hold out for four more turns!

"First of all, I'm going to change Ra back to attack position, and then I'll remove the Cyber Dragon in my graveyard from play in order to special summon Diana the Light Spirit." The new monster looked minuscule compared to Ra, but the young woman's ghostly appearance and ethereal glow didn't distract Sunset from the fact that the monster had 1700 attack points. "And I'll use my normal summon to summon Red Gadget! And when it's summoned, I can add Yellow Gadget to my hand!" True to his word, an adorable-looking red robot appeared on the field, an oversized gear mounted on its back.

"Now, Red Gadget and Diana the Light Spirit will attack!"

Sunset swung her hand around to indicate her trap card. "Well, then I-"

DON'T! Missy screamed, cutting her off. You can only use Go-Round once per turn! He's trying to bait you! Save it for Ra!

Sunset's words caught in her throat, and she lowered her hand in defeat. Missy was right. She was so nervous about letting ANY attack come through, she had nearly made a fatal mistake. She cringed and forced herself to bear it as she heard the cries of Yuki-Onna and Skeleton being blown to pieces. There was one slight bright side, though, as she watched Red Gadget become covered in frost and grind to a total halt. Finally, the robot collapsed, reduced to being a face-down card.

"The monster that destroys Yuki-Onna moves to face-down defense and can't be changed!"

Joshua simply shrugged, motioning with his hand. Ra replied by charging another fireball, only to be stopped when Sunset motioned to her trap. This time, it was Jiangshi who was turned face-up. Sunset began searching through her deck again, this time adding Ghostrick Specter to her hand.

Times like this, I REALLY wish Penn had added Mirror Force to my deck like I kept asking... Missy muttered as Sunset drew her next card. It was another copy of Overlay Regen.

"I'll use Overlay Regen to give Missy one more material, and her effect to attach Ghostrick Vanish to her as another one..." Sunset muttered. That's eight! We just need two more... She glanced back up at her opponent's side of the field, feeling her heart sink as she found herself staring straight into Ra's bloodthirsty eyes. Can I survive two more turns? "Then I'll turn Jiangshi face-down, set another card, and end my turn..."

A greedy glint came into Josh's eyes as his light spirit reacted, opening her mouth and letting out a haunting tone. "Diana's special ability grants me one thousand life points during each of your end phases! I'm feeling much better!"

100 > 1100

Yeah, laugh it up... Sunset thought to herself. Two more turns and you'll have no idea what hit you!

"Now then... to start, I'll summon Yellow Gadget, which allows me to add Green Gadget to my hand! Then, I'll use Ra's other special ability: by sacrificing one thousand of my life points, I can choose one monster on your side of the field and destroy it!" He pointed an accusatory finger at Missy. "Do you think I'm STUPID? I know Angel of Mischief's instant win condition! I was just letting you waste your cards on her instead of actually playing them on the field, but this is getting a little too close for comfort!"

Umm... Sunset? Missy whispered as she looked anxiously up at Ra. The blue gem in its forehead was beginning to glow, and the clouds were gathering above Missy's head, cracking with lightning. A little HELP, Sunset?

Sunset frantically searched through her hand, then the cards on the field, trying to find something that could save her friend. The thunder rolled and the electricity in the air began to spark around her. Jiangshi, Mary, Specter, Parade, Vanish... What can- WAIT!

"NOT so fast! You triggered my trap card, Ghostrick Vanish!" Sunset flipped the trap card face-up. "By showing you that I have Ghostrick Specter in my hand, I can prevent any Ghostricks from being destroyed by card effects!"

The two of them sighed in unison as the electricity subsided.

"Now, Yellow Gadget will attack your face-down monster..."

Sunset forced herself not to react to the sound of Mary being shattered. She couldn't help but wonder about the fact that she was asking all of these monsters to sacrifice themselves for her as shields. More sacrifice from strangers because she got in over her head.

"And Ra will attack your Ghostrick Angel of Mischief!"

Sunset reached out, indicating that her trap was activating, and Ra was once again set on the defensive while Jiangshi rose up into a fighting pose.

"And, since you were kind enough to switch it to attack position, Diana will destroy Jiangshi!"

The light spirit raised its hand, sending a beam of light across the field, where it collided straight with Jiangshi's forehead. This time, though, Sunset felt an identical pressure on her own skull, a splitting, burning pain that felt like it was trying to reach into her brain. For a second, everything went white, and all that Sunset could feel was the pain of it. After what felt like an hour, it finally relented, leaving her panting for breath as she heard the counter for her own life points ticking down.

8000 > 6700

That was dirty... but he found a way around Go-Round. And if it hadn't been for Vanish, he could have ended it in one turn with Ra. But we're not out of monsters, yet!

Sunset nodded, collecting herself as best she could and straightening her posture. "I use Ghostrick Specter's effect! When a Ghostrick monster is destroyed and sent to the graveyard, I can special summon it and draw one card!" The adorable bedsheet ghost happily popped into existence beside her before turning face-down. Reaching down, Sunset prayed that her next card would be one that could help her survive another turn.

Ghostrick Ghoul

She read the effect carefully, and her heart sank. It had the ability to combine the attack power of all the Ghostrick monsters on the field, but Sunset didn't think all the Ghostricks combined would even hold a candle to Ra's power.

At least I still have one more draw for my turn... she thought to herself.

Hey, we just have to survive one more of his turns with at least one life point left! We can do this!

Sunset nodded, drawing her next card. It was Ghostrick Night. She stopped. She thought. She gasped. It was another continuous trap, one that wouldn't let Josh flip summon his monsters if there was a Ghostrick monster on the field. If I can turn Ra face-down one more time with Ghostrick Go-Round, this could lock it down for good! Or at LEAST one more turn! Sunset forced back her gleeful smile as she set the trap in her back row of cards. "I guess all I can do is attach another card to Missy..." she mumbled, slipping Ghostrick Ghoul into the pile.

NINE! We have nine out of ten!

All she needed to do was continue the cycle. The duel had settled into a pattern, and she had no reason to believe he would deviate from it. He would attack, she would use Go-Round to turn Ra face-down, he wouldn't be able to finish her off, and then she would attach the last material and win.

100 > 1100

Josh grinned as he drew his next card, not even waiting for his life points to finish increasing. He turned around the card he had drawn, revealing a green spell card depicting a devastating lightning bolt.

"I activate my spell... Raigeki! This card destroys ALL monsters you control!"

Sunset was gobsmacked. Was that even allowed? Was it possible? She'd already gone through every card she had trying to save Missy on the last turn, she knew she didn't have anything that could stop the spell. Her arms fell to her sides as lightning rained down across her side of the field, destroying both Specter and Missy at once. She had her traps, but they couldn't help her now, not without monsters. She was completely exposed.

She didn't hear him give the order for Ra to attack, but she felt the searing pain of fire on her skin, saw the brilliant golden flames that enveloped her, felt her body being carried up into the air from the force of the attack.

One moment Sunset Shimmer was there, experiencing it all.

And the next, she wasn't.

Sunset opened her eyes. She took a moment to ponder the fact that she hadn't been expecting to ever do that again. Forcing herself to sit up, she looked at her new surroundings. They weren't much different from her old ones, to be honest. Or perhaps they were, she couldn't tell. It appeared that the shadows that had been hemming their duel had closed in completely, leaving her in darkness. The only thing she could see through the haze was a single rectangle giving off light. With some effort, she rose to her feet and closed the distance, finding herself staring at a bird's eye view of the campsite. She could see the fire, the tent, the car, her unconscious body, Josh kneeling beside her sweeping up the last of the cards-

Wait.

Sunset's eyes widened as she took in the sight of her own (hopefully) unconscious body laying face-down in the dirt. Isis's drone was scrambling all over her, clearly trying to wake her up while Joshua walked away, surveying the camp with a look of satisfaction on his face. Finally, he seemed to notice the pile of binders outside of Penn's tent: his card collection. He had taken it out to help Sunset learn to play and assemble her own deck. Joshua smiled hungrily and rubbed his hands together, confidently striding through the camp towards the pile of cards.

"HEY! HEY, STOP!" Sunset pounded her fist against the window, trying to get his attention. "HEY, I'M STILL HERE! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS! STOP!"

Realizing that she either wasn't being heard or he was actively ignoring her, Sunset turned her attention to the tent.

"PENN! PENN, WAKE UP! WAKE UP, I NEED HELP! PENN! ISIS? MISSY! ANYONE!"

She reached into her pocket, trying to retrieve her phone, only to find it wasn't there. She was alone. Completely and utterly alone in this realm of shadows.

"PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!"

Author's Note

Hello, everyone! Sorry for the long gap, I've been really struggling to find any energy, especially creatively. I've been dealing with some problems with my mental health, as well, but hopefully my new medication can help me find my groove again!

Also GEEZ keeping track of cards when writing is difficult, and I played it easy on this one since it started mid-duel! Next chapter has an entire duel from start to finish and I had to keep VERY careful track!

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS! OR whatever holiday you celebrate! Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, etc! Take whatever excuse you can to come out of the cold and treat yourself with a little extra care!

Time 2 Duel

Sunset could only watch as the stranger closed in on the pile of binders containing Penn's card collection. In a matter of seconds he would have what he had wanted all along and disappear, along with any chances of freeing her from this magical prison. She pounded her fist against the window-like opening back to the real world, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"PENN! PENN, WAKE UP, PLEASE!"

She knew that the odds were against her, nearly impossible. She was clearly making no impact on the outside world, not to mention that when he had gone to sleep, Isis had fed him enough painkillers to keep him comatose for the full night and well into the morning.

Beside her, Missy faded into view, anxiously biting at her nails.

"Oh, this isn't good! This isn't good! This isn't good!" she chanted over and over again.

"Missy? You're HERE?" Sunset interrupted her fruitless pleading to stare at her cellmate. She reached out to grab Missy's hand, only for it to pass through her.

Missy instantly changed gears, turning to face Sunset with an indignant expression. "I'm a duel spirit, I go where I want!" She placed her hands on her hips, nodding her head towards the window to the outside. "And in case you didn't notice, after we lost, he STOLE ME off of your comatose body, along with the rest of my deck!"

Sunset felt a heavy pang of guilt rip through her. She turned back to the window, placing her hand against the square screen to the outside as she finally gave up on yelling herself hoarse.

"I- I'm sorry, Missy... I just met you, and now I've dragged you down into all of this with me! I seem to have a knack for drawing my friends into- OW!" Sunset was cut off as Missy removed her tiny hat and used it to slap her in the face.

"HEY! Wake up, Sunny! No wallowing in misery!" she ordered, glancing nervously from side to side. "In case you haven't noticed, you're in a realm that will literally eat you alive using your negative emotions!"

"What do you mean, 'eat me alive'?" Sunset asked,perhaps allowing more fear to slip into her voice than she intended. Rather than reply, Missy simply waved her hand in front of her face and looked expectantly at Sunset. Sunset mimicked the motion, only to gasp in horror. Her fingertips had all but disappeared, and the rest of her hand was beginning to look translucent, as well.

"This is the Shadow Realm, a place made up of every negative emotion and evil thought ever felt. If you want to NOT dissolve away into an ocean of darkness, then you have to keep a tight grip on what makes you happy. to. exist!" Missy punctuated her point by jabbing her finger into Sunset's chest. Sunset reached down to pull away Missy's hand, only for her to pass through the young spirit again.

"How can you-"

"SHH!" Missy interrupted her again, pointing back to their window to reality.

Joshua stood beside their campfire, flipping through Penn's binders with wide eyes and a smug grin on his face. Along with the rustling of plastic pages and the crackling of the fire, Sunset could hear another sound coming through, faint and high-pitched.

Screaming. Screams of fear, cries for help, hundreds of them rising up together in unison, begging for salvation.

Is it... the cards? Are they ALL alive? They KNOW they're being stolen?

Meanwhile, another phenomenon was taking place just on the edge of the firelight. The tent was beginning to shake. It was slight, just slight enough that one could mistake it for the wind. When Sunset saw a dark silhouette rise up from behind it, however, she knew that wind had nothing to do with it. She could see a wide pair of bat-like wings and, somehow, feel the impression of a hateful gaze lingering on the intruder.

Missy didn't seem perturbed by the apparition, though. In fact, she was...

smiling? Sunset turned to look at her new friend, trying to interpret her reaction. By the time she had given up and turned back to look at the scene, the monstrous figure was gone. Instead, the door to the tent was open, and a dazed-looking Penn was stumbling out the front, eyes transfixed on Joshua. Without waiting, Penn lunged forward, grabbing at the thief. The two struggled back and forth for a moment before Joshua shoved Penn away, sending the larger man to the ground. After a moment, however, it became clear that Penn had gotten what he wanted: the cards were back in his hands, clutched tight against his chest.

"What is your PROBLEM?" Josh cried, dusting himself off. "Are you drunk, or something, you maniac?"

It took Penn nearly ten seconds to stagger to his feet, clearly still uneasy with the medication impairing him.

"The HELL you doin'withmy cards?" he spat out, his words slurred and barely audible.

Joshua balked slightly, raising a bemused eyebrow. "YOUR cards? I won those from that girl over there, fair and square!"

Sunset had to admit, seeing her own soulless body laying on the ground was wholly unsettling. The sight had an equally potent effect on Penn, whose eyes went wide as dinner plates. Keeping the binders clutched against his chest, he staggered over to her, giving her shoulder a gentle shake, followed by a more forceful.

"...Sunny?" he whimpered. His tone made it clear that he wasn't expecting an answer. His head snapped upwards (somewhat inaccurately, though he quickly adjusted) to glare at Joshua. "Whadid you DO to her?"

"The same thing I'll do to YOU if you don't give me the rest of my cards, you boozer!" Joshua snapped.

Beside her, Sunset heard Missy gasp in indignation. The little spirit jumped up and pounded her fist angrily against the wall. "He's not DRUNK, he's on pain meds, you JERK!"

Penn didn't seem to hear her, or if he did, he didn't react. He growled and lunged forward again. Josh was ready this time, easily side-stepping his opponent. Penn didn't stop, barreling headfirst into his car and colliding with it. Making the most of the situation, he fumbled for the door handle before tossing his binders into the backseat. His cards safe, he seemed to clumsily flop into the seat along with them. After several seconds, he dragged himself back up, a new object in his hands as he slammed the door shut.

After a few seconds of fumbling and the sound of velcro being torn and re-attached, he had strapped the object to his arm. It was a wide, blade-shaped piece of gray-and-blue plastic, with what looked like slots for different cards. He stared down Joshua with a look that Sunset had never seen on his perpetually-friendly face: pure hatred. It was the same kind of hatred that she had felt from the dark figure that had appeared behind the tent, as if the same spirit was hiding behind her friend's eyes.

"Give. Her. Back."

Joshua rolled his eyes. "Are you serious? A toy duel disk?"

Penn's other hand wandered down to his pouch, and Sunset felt another pang of guilt. That was where Penn kept his deck, the Ghostrick cards... the ones she had LOST. His hand was going to come up empty and-

"Oooooh.... Big Sis is coming out to play..." Missy whispered, a grin spreading over her face.

"Big Sis?" Sunset asked, her eyes widening as Penn's hand emerged from the pouch. Instead of the cards in brilliant blue sleeves that she was used to, the ones he was holding were protected by jet-black sleeves.

"I hate to break it to you, Sunset, but Penn was taking it EASY on you during practice." Sunset felt Missy's elbow poke into her ribs. "My deck is his 'fun' deck..."

Penn slid the cards into their appropriate slot on the toy. Somehow, the rage in his eyes seemed to burn through the haze of the medication, sharpening his focus to a razor's edge.

"THAT is his deck for when he gets serious. He had THAT one long before mine..."

Joshua, however, did not seem impressed. Instead, he pocketed the blue-sleeved cards Sunset recognized as Missy's deck and folded his arms over his chest.

"I already won! Why would I even duel you, easy as it would be?"

Sunset gasped as Penn reached into his pocket, retrieving his car keys and tossing them on the ground. He then pointed at himself.

"A car an'another soul. Double or nothing."

"WHAT?" Sunset cried, taking her own turn to be terrified. "NO! Nononononono, he CAN'T!"

"Yeeeeah... he can. And I think he will." Missy replied. She looked slightly more tense, though her smile was still there.

Joshua smiled, eyeing the Oldsmobile with a greedy look in his eyes. After a moment, he retrieved his sleeveless cards from his pocket and walking back to the place he had stood to duel Sunset. He held out his hand, holding a shiny quarter.

"Call it."

Sunset noticed something different. Every time Penn had started a duel while he was teaching her, there had been that glint of joy in his eye, the eagerness that came with sharing something he loved mingled with a trace of competitiveness spilling out of control. This time, the light in his eyes smoldered and burned, reminding Sunset of a phrase she'd once heard Celestia use many years ago: "Tranquil fury."

"Tails never fails..." Penn muttered. Josh nodded and flipped the coin. Sunset couldn't see from her angle what the coin landed on, but Joshua smiled and tucked it back into his pocket.

"I'll go first, then!"

Penn tilted his head, a series of loud pops coming from his neck that made Sunset grit her teeth.

"Wash your neck and wait..." he whispered.

Sunset cringed, the nonsensical mumbling serving as a grim reminder that he was still thoroughly drugged. Her confidence in him rapidly began to fade as she watched Joshua settle into a cross-legged position and begin his turn.

"First of all, I summon Ra's Disciple!"

An imposing figure clad in golden armor materialized on the battlefield, front and center.

"And, thanks to it's effect, I can special summon two more from my deck!"

"WHAT?" Sunset cried, watching as two identical monsters shimmered into existence, completing the trio on Josh's side of the field. "There's NO WAY that's fair! He already has enough tributes to summon Ra?"

Missy sucked in air through her teeth. "It's not... ideal. But Penn can deal with it."

"He can barely stand up!"

Missy turned a mischievous eyebrow towards Sunset.

"So? That jerk is dueling sitting down! That means Penn's even stronger than he is!"

"Next, I'll activate my field spell, Mound of the Bound Creator!"

All around the two duelists, spires of barren rock began to break from the earth, topped by heavy iron chains. The sky above them filled with dark clouds and crackling lightning. The air was tense, as if the world itself were holding its breath and waiting for the final piece, the entity it had been preparing for.

"Then I'll set two cards face-down and end my turn!"

The two traps (or possibly spells, Sunset supposed) appeared behind his monsters, laying in wait. Penn didn't say a word as he drew the top card from his deck and added it to his hand.

"Hey, I'll be right back!" Missy leaned forward and through the window, dropping out into the real world and flying down behind Penn. Judging from how no one reacted, Sunset supposed that she was the only one who could see Missy's antics as she hovered just over Penn's shoulder, reading the cards in his hand. After a few seconds, she flew her way back up to the window and climbed back through, giving Sunset a wide grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

"He's got everything he needs!"

Sunset watched with anticipation, eager to see what kind of opening move Penn could possibly make that could counter Josh's solid opening.

"I set three cards face-down and set one monster... and end my turn."

The appropriate cards appeared, and Sunset turned to Missy, feeling her eyes narrow.

"Are you kidding me?"

Missy reclined back on nothing, spreading her wings and giving them a gentle flap.

"Give it TIME, Sunset..."

"Time is the one thing he doesn't have!"

Josh seemed to agree with Sunset, laughing at the sight of Penn's meager defenses.

"That's IT? All of that talk and THAT'S your opening play? This is going to be TOO easy!" Josh drew again. "My second turn finally allows me to attack, so that's what I'm going to do! However, first I think I'll summon my most powerful monster!"

"Nononononono!" Sunset pounded her fist against the window. "He already has it in his HAND, too?"

"I tribute my three disciples, and summon my Egyptian God!" Josh cackled, somehow still audible as the lightning above them whipped itself into a fury, crashing and colliding with the stone pillars and chains of the field spell. "Great beast of the sky, please hear my cry! Transform thyself from orb of light and bring me victory in this fight!"

Sunset could see Penn struggling to even keep his balance in the rising winds, but there was no fear on his face. He simply tilted his duel disk, double-checking his face-down cards.

"Envelop the desert with your glow, and cast your rage upon my foe! Unlock your powers from deep within so that together we may win. Appear in this Shadow Game as I call out your name, WINGED DRAGON OF RA!"

Once again, the shimmering golden orb descended from the sky, unlocking and unfolding until it had transformed into the golden phoenix.

"And, with Ra's effect, I can sacrifice my life points in order to boost its attack!"

Above his head, a set of numbers appeared, swiftly ticking down from 8000 to 100. Meanwhile, Ra shone even more brilliantly as an identical counter climbed its way up from 0 to 7900.

"It may have cost me most of my life points, but soon enough we'll be on equal footing! What do you have to say about THAT?"

Penn simply parted his arms, as if encouraging an attack.

Josh's eye twitched slightly. "If you were THAT eager to join your friend, you could have just asked! Ra, attack!"

The arch behind Ra's shoulders began to glow with the light of the sun, growing brighter and brighter until the light all gathered together in its beak, then launching itself as a searing fireball that crashed into Penn's face-down monster. Penn's single defense was engulfed in flames, disappearing in the sun's fury.

"And because I played Mound of the Bound Creator, when Ra destroys a monster, YOU take 1000 points of damage!" Josh cackled. "Next turn, I'll be able to wipe you out in a single blow!"

Sunset stared into the inferno, waiting for the telltale sound of Penn's life points falling... until she caught a glimpse of something in the fire. As the flames burned themselves out, a monster remained on Penn's side of the field. It looked like a gigantic marshmallow with eyes. Its face appeared to be upside down, boasting a wide smile at the top of its head. It was by far one of the most adorable things Sunset had seen all day. Beside her, Missy snickered, drawing her attention.

"Penn only needed one card to beat him!"

Sunset turned back to the battlefield, hope blossoming in her chest as she watched Penn give a half-lidded yawn.

"My Marshmallon can't be destroyed by battle. An'cause you attacked it face-down..." The creature's mouth opened wide, revealing a row of disturbingly sharp teeth.

"YOU take the thousand points of damage."

"WHAT?" Josh shrieked as the creature lunged forward, snaking around Ra to attack the duelist directly. Just as it was poised to chomp down on Josh's throat, he motioned to one of his face-down cards. "I activate my spell: Poison of the Old Man! I choose the effect to gain 1200 life points!"

The card flipped itself face-up, revealing the spell in question that depicted a decrepit old man holding two vials of liquid. The vial holding green liquid began to bubble and smoke, letting loose a cloud of vapors that surrounded Joshua and sent his life point counter climbing upward.

100 >1300

With the interruption finished, Penn's monster lunged forward again, this time sinking its teeth into his arm with a squeaky-sounding snarl.

1300 > 300

Its wrath spent, Penn's monster retreated back to its proper place. He simply yawned again, as if the duel against a LITERAL GOD was boring him. Sunset couldn't tell if he really WAS bored, or if the painkillers were just making him sleepy. Missy snapped her fingers in frustration at the missed opportunity to end the duel.

"I'm not going to lose to easily to someone while they're DRUNK!" Josh chided, his spell disappearing now that it was spent.

"I'm not, you know!" Penn retorted.

"What?"

"I hurt my back! I'm on enough painkillers to knock out a baby elephant!" he shrugged. "I'm half-asleep, but I'm not drunk!" There was a brief pause as the two duelists stared one another down, one trying to process the new information.

"You're- you're JOKING, right?"

Penn shook his head.

"Barely conscious, dude."

Even Ra appeared to find the moment awkward, its massive head turning to look back and forth between the two duelists. Marshmallon simply snickered, as if the entire thing were a giant joke.

Sunset could see Josh turning several shade of red, ready to explode with rage until Penn spoke up again.

"So... are you going to end your turn, or what?"

His eye twitched again, but he set another card face-down where his prior spell had been, then motioned for Penn to take his turn.

Penn drew a card off of the top of his deck, looking at it with a bemused expression.

"I'll set another face-down monster and end my turn."

Another monster card appeared beside Marshmallon. The mystery of its identity suddenly felt much more threatening than it had on Penn's first turn.

Joshua drew, and a wicked grin spread across his face.

"First, I play Lightning Vortex! By discarding a card from my hand, I can destroy all of your face-up monsters!"

The spell card did its work swiftly, bolts of lightning slamming down from the clouds above and raining across the battlefield. They simply deflected off of the back of his face-down monster, but Marshmallon wasn't so resilient. When it was struck, it turned a delicious-looking shade of brown before shattering and disappearing from Penn's field.

"Next, I'll activate The Shallow Grave..." he smirked. "Each of us summons a monster from our graveyard face-down. I know yours, do you know mine?"

Penn simply shrugged as he retrieved Marshmallon from his graveyard pile and placed it back onto the field.

Sunset tilted her head in confusion. "I don't get it... why destroy Marshmallon just to bring it back again? And it's face-down, so it can deal more damage to him all over again!"

Missy leaned forward, clicking her tongue. "It was never about getting rid of Marshmallon, it was the card he had to discard to do it! It's clearly a monster with some kind of cost to summoning it, so he circumvented that by putting it in the graveyard and bringing it back with his other spell. That was actually halfway clever, if it's something that could turn this around for him. Whatever it is, he's locked into it now, those were the last cards in his hand!"

Sunset stared at Josh's face-down monster, realizing Missy was right. If he KNEW which face-down card was Marshmallon, he could just avoid it and avoid that damage, and he had gotten a potentially high-level monster for the cost of a couple spells!

Penn began his next turn, drawing a card. He stared at it for a moment, and Sunset could see a frustrated frown on his face.

"I end my turn."

He's not going to DO anything?

Josh cackled, drawing another card. "What's the matter? Do you know your only trick isn't going to work twice?"

Penn simply shrugged. "You still hafta get through my monsters t'get me, an y'know at least one of 'em is Marshmallon. I'm not worried."

Josh grinned another wicked grin, one that set a chill down Sunset's spine.

"I know, alright! I'm counting on it! First, I'll set another monster! Then... I'll flip my other one into attack position! Come on out, Prime Material Dragon!"

Another card appeared, followed by Josh's monster from the previous turn turning face-up. Another dragon appeared on the field, though not one as massive as the Winged Dragon of Ra. It was a four-legged beast with three sets of wings and a narrow, pointed head. Its entire body appeared to be made of a golden clay-like substance. It let loose a roar, hungrily staring down Penn's side of the field.

"Uh-oh..." Missy whispered.

"Uh-oh? What do you mean, 'uh-oh?'"

Missy cringed slightly. "'Uh-oh' means 'That's one of the WORST cards for this situation.'"

"WHAT? What is it? What does it do?"

"Attack, Prime Material Dragon!"

Sunset watched as the dragon breathed a blast of fire across the field, striking straight into Penn's first face-down card. Just as before, when the flames parted, Marshmallon was unharmed. When it went to strike back at Josh, however, Prime Material Dragon interfered, pinning it down with its tail.

"Now, Marshmallon may not be destroyed, but my dragon's special ability turns any damage due to special effects into fresh life points!"

Josh reached down, tearing a chunk off of the sugary creature and taking a gleeful bite before motioning for his dragon to release it. Marshmallon retreated, fearfully returning to Penn's side of the field.

300 > 1300

"And now it's Ra's turn again! Attack!"

Just as before, Ra blasted Penn's other face-down card. Sunset's eyes widened as a second Marshmallon was revealed, and the process repeated itself.

1300 > 2300

Josh smiled smugly as he finished off his second sugary snack.

"I think I've had my fill, I end my turn!"

Penn drew his next card, adding it to his hand with a sigh.

"I've got nothing. Your turn."

He's... he's not giving up, is he?

Josh drew his next card. "You were SO eager to duel me before! What happened, did you fall asleep from all those drugs?" He pointed to his other card. "I'll flip summon my other monster, Aroma Jar! Your'e not the only one who has monsters that can't be destroyed by battle! Not only is this card immune to battle, every end phase that it's on the field, I gain 500 life points!"

The "monster" itself was a large, ornate-looking oil warmer with scented candles heating it.

"So, since attacking you won't do much good, why don't I just go to my end phase, anyway?"

Just like the spell that had restored his life points before, the steam let off from Aroma Jar surrounded Josh and sunk into his skin.

2300 > 2800

Sunset turned to Missy as Penn drew his next card. "At this rate, he's going to get all of his life points back and more!"

Missy shook her head. "Life points aren't everything, Sunset."

"They're not everything? Isn't that how you WIN?" Sunset retorted, folding her arms over her chest. Or, at least, what was left of them. She gasped in horror as she realized that her hands were completely gone, and her arms had vanished almost all of the way to her elbows. Looking down, she could see that she was in a similar predicament with her legs, her feet rapidly fading away into the darkness. Missy's eyes widened, and she flew up to grab Sunset's face, forcing her to look into her aqua-colored eyes.

"Sunset, you need to stay calm, okay? Listen closely: I have seen Penn win more duels by making his opponent run out of cards in their deck than THAT chucklehead-" she pointed to Joshua, "-has probably ever played! I know his style and I know his deck, and he's doing everything in his power to get you out of here! But it's going to take TIME! You've been letting this place get inside your head, and the more you think and feel bad things, the less of you that there's going to be left to rescue! So have a little faith and survive long enough to see him win!"

Sunset blinked, and she felt the dark curtain that had been pulled over her thoughts begin to part. Missy was right, she had to keep hope! Penn was putting his own soul on the line, and she was writing him off just because he wasn't on an all-out offensive! She leaned up to the window, getting a better look at the field with her new perspective.

He was holding back a dragon and a god with a pair of marshmallows! It was like something out of Pinkie Pie's dreams! He wasn't even nervous!

"If this is what he can do with a couple pieces of candy, imagine what he can do with the rest of his deck?"

"That's the spirit!" Missy cheered, pounding her fist against the window. "KICK HIS BUTT, PENN!"

Even if he couldn't hear them, the sentiment seemed to make it to their friend. He smiled and set another card behind his monsters.

"Just another trap, then I'll end my turn. I suppose Aroma Jar does its thing?"

2800 > 3300

Joshua added another card to his hand.

"You can't hide behind those monsters forever! I'll equip Ra with this spell: Fairy Meteor Crush!"

"OH COME ON!" Missy screamed.

"Now, when Ra attacks a defense-position monster, the difference in power is inflicted to you as battle damage! Ra, attack his Marshmallon!"

Sunset felt despair beginning to creep back in, but she pushed it out. Penn had four trap cards set! He had to have something that could stop this. He was too good to have staked everything on Marshmallon alone! Just as she expected, Penn pointed to one of his face-down cards.

"You activated my trap card! Gravity Bind!"

A grid of glowing blue lines appeared above the field, falling onto all of the monsters like a net. It passed easily through Penn's Marshmallons and Aroma Jar, but Ra and Prime Material Dragon were both dragged to the ground with roars of displeasure.

"No monsters level four or higher can attack as long as this card is on the field." Penn folded his arms over his chest and returned Josh's smug grin.

Joshua, on the other hand, was no longer smiling.

"I'll change Aroma Jar to defense position and end my turn."

3300 > 3800

Penn drew again, and his content smile grew even wider. He placed another card face-down with his traps, bringing the total cards in his back row up to five.

"I have almost everything I need. How about you?"

3800 > 4300

Josh drew again.

"Oh, really? Because I DO have everything I need! It's time I finally cut you down to size! Starting with those pesky monsters of yours!" He held out yet another spell card. "Let's see how you like Raigeki! This card will destroy all monsters on your side of the field!" The effect was nearly identical to his earlier spell, completely obliterating both of his monsters and leaving his field wide open.

"And for my next trick, I'll activate Mystical Space Typhoon! With this, I can destroy Gravity Bind!"

As the second spell resolved itself, a cyclone of wind and clouds tore across the battlefield, crashing into Penn's trap card and tearing it to shreds. The effect binding Ra and his dragon vanished, allowing both of them to return to their full stature.

Now, Prime Material Dragon, attack him DIRECTLY!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset saw Missy bite down on the back of her hand with anxiety.

"Take it, Penn, just take it..."

Penn, however, seemed to have different ideas.

"I activate the effect of Ghostrick Lantern from my hand! Your attack is stopped and it summons itself in face-down defense position!"

The blast of fire from Prime Material dragon stopped dead in its tracks, and a new face-down card appeared on Penn's side of the field. Missy screeched and buried her face in her hands. "No no no no NO!"

Josh grinned, though Sunset couldn't see the problem. Penn had stopped the attack, right?

"Did you FORGET Ra can still attack? And with my equip spell, the difference is still going to be dealt as damage!" Josh cackled, pointing at Penn's monster. Ra obediently turned its burning gaze on Penn's last line of defense.

"He slipped up, the drugs stopped him from thinking ahead..." Missy whispered, covering her eyes with her hands. "Lantern doesn't even have ANY defense points!"

Ra's attack charged forward, blasting through Penn's defensive monster and washing over him in a torrent of flame.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

His scream was gut-wrenching as his life points plummeted, as if he were truly being burned alive by the attack.

8000 > 100

"AND I activate my set spell: Sebek's Blessing!"

Josh's set card revealed itself, an evil-looking crocodilian figure with a shining staff.

"With this card, I gain life points equal to the damage I dealt to you!"

4300 > 12200

"AND, Mound of the Bound Creator's effect will finish you off!"

High above them, the lightning began to build and charge, and Sunset's eyes widened. "Penn, get up! You have three more traps! Get up, you have to have a card for this! GET UP!"

From the place he was laying on the ground, Penn raised a smoking arm and pointed to one of his face-down cards. The lightning struck down, only to stop just short of his chest. The card he had pointed to rose up, revealing itself.

"You're not... the only one... who hazza MST..."

Penn's Mystical Space Typhoon shot up into the sky, obliterating the storm and exposing the clear night sky. The stone spears retreated back into the ground as the Field Spell vanished. With excruciating slowness, Penn staggered back to his feet, his breathing labored and forced through his nose.

Josh gave another cackle as Aroma Jar's effect once again caressed his skin. "You bought yourself one more turn, well done! I can't say that this has been an interesting duel, but you've certainly kept me entertained longer than most!"

12200 > 12700

Penn sighed and shook his head.

"Stupid mistake... such a stupid mistake... I'm better than that." he muttered. He moved to draw a card from his deck, only to hesitate. His hand was shaking. He lowered his hand for a second, turning to look at Sunset's comatose body. She wished more than anything that she had a way to let him know she was there, that she was still watching and rooting for him with every ounce of hope she had.

In that moment of pause, Missy dropped down through their window, peeking at his hand again. To Sunset's surprise, Missy screeched with joy and covered her mouth, her wings fluttering excitedly. As his moment of hesitation continued, Missy reached into her hat, slipping a card in on top of his deck before flying back to her vantage point beside Sunset.

"There! Now he has everything he needs to win!"

Sunset blinked, staring between Penn and Missy.

"Wait, isn't that cheating?"

Missy shrugged. "Only as much as any other Yu-Gi-Oh protagonist does! Haven't you ever heard of the 'heart of the cards?' What did you THINK it meant? Card spirits can shuffle stuff around if we're really close to our duelist's heart!" She leaned forward, watching with anticipation. "But it's going to be up to HIM to figure out how to use it right!"

Sunset looked down, holding her breath. How much of a difference could one card make?

When Penn turned back to his opponent, his eyes were steely and his hand steady. He reached up and rested his hand on his deck for just one more second, then drew the card Missy had left for him. His eyes widened when he saw what he had drawn, and Sunset could see a hint of a smile on his lips. "Thanks, Missy..." he whispered.

Does... does he KNOW?

"I'm going to summon a monster!" he declared, picking four cards from his hand. "But it comes at a heavy cost! I have to discard three OTHER monsters to do so!" He placed three of the cards into the graveyard. As he did, Sunset couldn't make out the card art at this distance, but she could see that each of them had a long line of stars at the top indicating their levels.

"I discard monsters with levels of ten, eleven, and twelve in order to special summon MONTAGE DRAGON!"

The creature that descended from the heavens was MASSIVE, almost as large as Ra. It was a titanic, bipedal, three-headed blue dragon. Each of its faces wore a white mask, and its arms ended in huge clawed hands, each one large enough to crush a monster on their own. It gave a single flap of its wings before roaring, a noise so loud it even shook the air inside Sunset's prison.

"You made two mistakes..." Penn stated, his eyes narrowing. "First of all, you messed with Sunset Shimmer, a girl who can take the power of friendship to a whole 'nother level."

"That's a load of CRAP!" Josh pointed an accusing finger at Penn's monster. "There's NO WAY you had three monsters THAT high-leveled to just throw away!"

Beside Montage Dragon, a counter indicating its attack appeared. It started at 0, then began to slowly tick upwards, increasing in speed until the digits were just a blur. When it finally stopped, Sunset could barely believe her eyes.

0 > 9900

"Yes he DID! And Montage Dragon's attack is equal to 300 times the combined level of the monsters discarded to summon it!" Missy cheered, punching the air as she did, "AND YOU CAN SUCK ON IT, JERK!"

Penn ignored Josh's protests, the card's effect speaking for itself.

"Your second mistake was burning all the painkillers out of my system with that last attack. I can finally think CLEARLY." He pointed at Josh's god card with a smile. "Montage Dragon? Sic 'em."

Montage Dragon seemed more than happy to oblige, advancing on Ra and seizing its wings with both hands. As its hands held it in place, its three heads bit down into its neck, causing the phoenix to cry out in pain.

"NO! I activate MY trap! Spellbinding Circle" Josh cried. Mid-assault, a circular inscription appeared in the air behind Montage Dragon, binding its limbs behind it and pulling it off of Ra. "Your monster can no longer declare an attack!"

Penn's eyes narrowed with frustration, but he didn't make any attempt to respond as Montage Dragon was dragged back to his side of the field. "I'll set one more card..." he muttered, adding another face-down card to his back row. "And with THAT I'll end my turn."

This time, Josh didn't look nearly as smug as Aroma Jar boosted his life points.

12700 > 13200

"You're not as good as you think you are..." he growled as he drew his next card. "I use Ra's OTHER special ability! By paying 1000 life points, I can destroy one monster of my choosing on your side of the-"

"I activate my trap card!" Penn called out, cutting him off. "Fiendish Chain!"

"WHAT?"

"Fiendish Chain negates your monster's effects and leaves it unable to attack!" Penn smiled. "It's like Spellbinding Circle, but, y'know, better."

A series of black chains sprouted out of the ground, wrapping Ra and pinning its limbs to its body as it came crashing to the ground. The counter over its head began to tick down as its attack power fell with its special ability negated.

7900 > 0

"Oh, and by the way... In case you forgot, " Penn continued, "that 1000 life point cost is, well, a COST of activation. Which means that, according to the game rules, even if the effect was negated, you still have to pay it!"

13200 > 12200

"Grrr... FINE!" Josh growled. "Have it your way! I'll get those life points back soon, anyway! I END MY TURN!"

12200 > 12700

"Ooooooh, he made a mistaaaake!" Missy sang.

Penn shrugged, drawing another card. "Okay! Personally I would have put those monsters into defense position, but hey, that's just me. You do you, man."

"Why? It's not like your monster can attack, either! We're at a standstill!"

For just a moment, Penn's facade slipped. His eyes narrowed and his smile disappeared. The glare he gave Josh was unlike anything Sunset had ever seen, an expression of pure and simple hatred of unknowable depths. It was a look that didn't just promise defeat, but utter damnation. Even if it wasn't directed at her, Sunset felt a chill of fear run through her.

"Sore wa dō ka na?" he whispered. He placed a new card onto the field, giving a wide smile. "I summon The Calculator!"

The monster that appeared was tiny, but it was another cute one. It looked like something Twilight might build in her free time, a tiny automaton with a number pad on its chest and a digital readout for a head.

"The Calculator's attack points are equal to 300 times the combined levels of all monsters I control! It is level 2, and Montage Dragon is level 8, giving it a total of 3000 attack points!"

0 > 3000

The monster grew and swelled until it was nearly a third of Montage Dragon's height, one hand crackling with electricity as the other entered the numbers into its chest.

"Next, I activate my two facedown traps! Twin copies of Metal Reflect Slime!"

The traps Penn had placed at the start of the duel finally revealed themselves, pouring out a torrent of silver liquid that grew and swelled into two huge lumps on either side of the Calculator and Montage Dragon.

"These traps summon themselves in defense position as monsters with no attack and 3000 defense!" Penn continued. "And each of them... is LEVEL TEN!"

Josh staggered backwards, eyes wide in shock as the Calculator began to crunch numbers once again.

3000 > 9000

"T-Two monsters with nine THOUSAND attack points? Impossible!"

"Seeing as how you were kind enough to leave your monsters in attack position, I thank you for leaving such an easy path to your life points! Now, Calculator, attack Prime Material Dragon!"

The Calculator, which had now grown to match Montage Dragon in size, pointed an accusatory finger at the dragon. A bolt of lightning leaped off of its finger, crossing the battlefield to strike the targeted monster. Prime Material dragon was destroyed instantly, dissolving to dust under the sheer electrical power of the Calculator. When it had vanished, Penn pointed to the Winged Dragon of Ra.

"Spoiler alert: THAT one is next."

"YES! YESYESYESYES!" Missy screamed, leaping over and grabbing Sunset in a hug. The two of them gleefully hopped up and down together, gripping each other as tightly as they could.

"He did it! HE DID IT!"

12700 > 6100

The drop in Josh's life points was terrifying, cutting them down to less than half of what they had been mere moments before. Along with his life points, his confidence seemed to vanish, as well, since Sunset could see his hand shaking as he moved to draw his next card.

"Why do you even want to SAVE her so badly?" he muttered. "Don't you know what she DID? Did she tell you that she was the one who broke everything?"

Sunset felt shame begin to settle over her again. She knew that even thinking about what she had done would give the darkness a chance to encroach on her more, but she couldn't help it. Maybe he had a point? What is she really WAS the bad guy in this scenario?

"So many people have been hurt because of HER! I'm doing everyone a favor!"

Penn folded his arms over his chest, allowing a pause in the duel to chat with his opponent.

"If the multiverse was so fragile that trying to CLOSE a portal like she did could shatter it, don't you think this was going to happen sooner or later?"

Sunset blinked, surprised at Penn's argument. Every time they'd ever talked about it, he had been reassuring to her, promising that it wasn't her fault and that they would fix it as best they could. He had focused on making reparations together and trying to tell her that she needed not to feel guilty about it. This was different. It was... pragmatic.

"Sure, maybe she did break it all, but it seems to me that this whole universe had the stability of a stained-glass window. She was just unlucky enough to be the straw that broke the camel's back." Penn shrugged his shoulders. "Wrong place, wrong time." Penn thought for another moment, then gestured around him. "And LOOK! We're having a real-life duel with real-life monsters! A genuine shadow game, straight out of the cartoons I loved when I was a kid! And you don't even think that's a little cool?"

"People have DIED!" Josh stamped his foot as he roared with outrage. Somehow, Penn continued to keep his cool.

"And Sunset Shimmer is to blame? She made Daleks deadly and programmed GLaDOS to release neurotoxin? Yeah, she let some awful things out of their own universes, but she didn't make them killers!" He pointed an accusatory finger at Joshua. "You're looking for a scapegoat, plain and simple!"

Sunset blinked, looking at the situation with new eyes. Maybe he was right...

Maybe I NEED to accept what IS my fault... to understand what isn't?

Josh, meanwhile, wasn't taking Penn's words nearly as well. His fists clenched and he glared at Penn renewed fury as Aroma Jar shrouded him in mist once again.

6100 > 6600

"If you're going to ally yourself with the one who's responsible for all of this, then I'll send you to the same place I sent her!" he shouted, drawing his next card. "I'll start by activating Pot of Greed to draw two more cards!" As he carried out the effect, though, something unexpected happened.

Sunset felt a tug. Somewhere, deep in her chest, it was as if someone had wrapped their hand around her heart and yanked it a few inches back.

"Sunset? Sunset, what's wrong?" Missy asked, floating over to her. Sunset tried to answer, but she felt locked in place, unable to move or speak as her entire body clenched up. "Come on, talk to me, Sunset!"

Josh looked at the card he had drawn with a hungry glint in his eyes, and Sunset knew exactly what it was. She didn't know how or why, but she could FEEL his eyes on her, the malice in his heart as he placed the new card down alongside Ra.

"Or maybe... I should bring HER to YOU!"

Her window to the outside and Missy's face both began to fade away, the darkness closing in on her completely. A new sensation completely overtook her, something like the feeling of falling while laying completely still. It lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, the darkness began to clear, and she was in a new location, completely restored to her full body. She tried to turn her head, look around at her surroundings, but found that her body wouldn't respond. Still, what she COULD see was more than enough to confirm her worst fears.

She was staring directly at Montage Dragon and The Calculator. She was now standing on Josh's side of the battlefield, with Aroma jar to her left and Ra to her right.

Behind her, she could hear Josh cackling.

"You know, I always wondered why nobody in the show used those souls they put inside cards to duel with!" he continued, "Now, if you want to get to me, even if you destroy Ra, you're going to have to go through her!"

Sunset could see Missy floating behind Penn, wildly waving her arms and mouthing words, but she couldn't hear her. Penn's eyes were wide and his face had gone pale.

"And now I'll play Emergency Provisions!" Josh continued. "By sacrificing Ra's useless equip spell, the trap card I just drew, and the Spellbinding Circle holding back Montage Dragon, I can gain 3000 life points back!"

6600 > 9600

Sunset could hear the counter climbing even further, soundly placing the advantage even further in his favor.

"And let's not forget about Aroma Jar!"

9600 > 10100

Sunset couldn't see Josh, but she could hear the smugness in his voice. "So what if you have more attack points than Ra? I'll change it to defense position! Even if you destroy it, I have plenty of life points to spare! Attack me, don't attack me, either way you can't win without destroying Sunset Shimmer's soul!"

Sunset didn't have to think long about the situation to realize he was right. With Ra and Aroma jar both in defense position, the only way Penn could hurt Josh was to attack her.

Penn drew his next card into his hand. Sunset wished that she knew what was going through his mind. Missy peeked anxiously over his shoulder, even as he was unaware of her presence. Sunset had to wonder whether or not she was okay with him destroying her to save himself. She had to admit, as selfish as it was, she didn't want to die.

Penn held out a new card.

"I activate Enemy Controller! With this card, I can change Ra back to attack position!" Above his head, what looked like a massive video game controller materialized. It beeped and began to press buttons on its own, and Ra responded by leaning forward, opening its beak and revealing the inferno waiting to be let out.

"Big deal! You can't kill me, even when Ra has zero attack points!"

Penn narrowed his eyes. "Then I'll take a lesson out of Sunset's book and get a little help from my friends." He held out a second spell.

"Ghostrick Costume Change!" He began to sort through his deck, separating out a pair of cards from the rest. "By sending two Ghostrick Monsters from my deck to the graveyard, I can change the names of two monsters on the field to match them! Montage Dragon will become Ghostrick Jackfrost, and the Calculator will become Ghostrick Lantern!"

Sunset watched as the two monsters both changed slightly. Montage Dragon's three heads each donned a replica of Jackfrost's blue cap and multicolored scarf, and the Calculator's head was covered by a massive jack-o'-lantern, with the numbers shining out through the mouth.

Was THAT the card Missy gave him? Sunset wondered. If the enthusiastic cheering Missy was giving behind him was any indication, then she was correct.

"And finally, I'm going to summon one more monster! Give us some help, Ghostrick GHOUL!"

The fifth creature was barely a speck sitting between Montage Dragon and The Calculator, dwarfed by the titans on either side. Its own attack appeared on a counter beside it.

1100

The Calculator swiftly did more math, accounting for the additional 3 levels of the new monster.

9000 > 9900

"Am I supposed to be impressed? Sunset tried to beat me with Ghostricks before, you know! And your Calculator STILL isn't strong enough!"

Sunset was shocked to see Penn smile at that.

"Then surely you must know what Ghoul's special ability is, right?"

The counter beside Ghostrick Ghoul began to tick upwards.

"The fact that, once per turn, it can change one Ghostrick monster's attack power..."

Ghoul began to swell in size, rapidly catching up to the monsters beside it, only to rapidly overtake them.

"To the combined attack power of every Ghostrick monster on the field?"

1100 > 20900

"No... NO! NO, YOU CAN'T!"

Josh's fruitless protests fell on deaf ears. Penn curled his hand into a fist and reeled back, a motion that his ten-story-tall monster mimicked.

"Remember what I told you your first mistake was?" Penn called out.

"THAT'S NOT- IT ISN'T-"

Penn lunged forward, and Ghoul did the same, throwing a giant punch just past her head and slamming fist-first into Ra. The explosion of Ra's obliteration overtook every one of Sunset's senses, with only one sound managing to break through the noise.

"NOT FAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRR!"

10100 > 0

Sunset cracked open her eyes. She felt heavier, more grounded...

Which may have had something to do with the fact that she was laying on the ground.

"Hey, takeit easy..." a tired-sounding voice muttered. "You hadjur soul ripped out..."

Sunset turned her head, seeing Penn laying on the ground beside her. She wanted to jump up and hug him, but she had to admit, she FELT like she'd had her soul ripped out. Everything was tired and sluggish, as if every one of her limbs had fallen asleep and were just starting to wake up.

"You been mostly dead all day!" Missy's voice chimed in from her other side.

Sunset's head moved as fast as she could make it to confirm that, yes, Missy was still there and laying right next to her.

"M-Missy? You're still here?"

She heard Penn give a satisfied hum. "You can see'er too? I thou shewuz a hallucinination from the fresh drugs Isis gave me..."

"I kept TRYING to tell him to go to sleep, but he insisted on watching you himself!" Missy sat up, pouting with both arms over her chest.

Sunset gathered her strength and forced herself into a sitting position. "So all of that... really happened? I wasn't just dreaming, or something?"

Her answer came in the form of a forceful tackle-hug from the side by Missy. Penn, meanwhile, had shut his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep. Getting a closer look at him, Sunset could see that the front of his clothes were all sun-bleached and singed in places, along with all of his exposed skin having turned a bright red. She was no expert, but it looked like most of his exposed skin had been badly sunburned.

"Is he okay?"

"Aside from minor burns from Ra's attack, it appears he will suffer no more injury than an overenthusiatic day at the beach would leave."

Isis's voice chimed in from Sunset's pocket. She reached down, retrieving her phone to make the AI easier to hear.

"I administered a new round of painkillers to help him rest, but discomfort and peeling will be the worst of his new injuries."

Sunset nodded. "Thanks, Isis. I'll make sure he gets his rest, this time."

"Affirmative. He should not awaken again before the predicted time at 3:30 PM tomorrow afternoon."

Sunset blinked, realizing one of the many unanswered questions could be answered here.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, but... how DID he wake up before? Wasn't he supposed to be knocked out so his back could heal until tomorrow?"

Missy scoffed, letting go of Sunset and taking a reclined position mid-air. "Well, OBVIOUSLY big sis woke him up when his cards were in danger!"

"A supernatural cause is the most likely reason, taking into consideration the data gathered from tonight's events."

"But... who's 'Big Sis?'" Sunset's brow furrowed. "He didn't even USE any cards that looked like they could be your sister... right?"

Missy smirked and nodded towards the duel disk.

"Well, sisters more by adoption than blood, but he DID use her! Who do you think he discarded to summon Montage Dragon?"

Sunset reached over, gently detaching the toy from Penn's arm and reaching to remove the cards inside... only for nothing to be there. Missy's eyebrows raised, only for her to reach down into the pouch on Penn's belt and turn up empty-handed there, as well. She shrugged.

"Well, she DOES like her privacy... I'm sure she'll make herself known eventually."

Sunset sighed, then shrugged. She was much too tired to press the matter. She laid back down next to Penn, closing her eyes. Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, a thought came to mind.

"What happened to HIM?"

"After the final blow, there was no sign of Joshua remaining. It would be logical, given the 'double or nothing' pretense of the duel, he was banished in both body and soul to the shadows. However, no certainty in that matter has been ascertained."

"Don't worry, there's no coming back from a trouncing THAT bad!" Missy cheered. "But I'll keep watch, if that makes you feel better!"

Sunset smiled and nodded.

"Hey, Isis? I think I'm going to want to sleep in tomorrow..."

"Affirmative. Alarm disabled."

We'll Be There

"Ugh, my head..." Sunset whimpered, pulling her sleeping bag up a little farther to try and cover her eyes. Unfortunately, doing so cut off her supply of fresh air, and a few seconds later she was back out, trying to deal with her splitting headache. A moment later, the door to the tent started to unzip, letting in a flood of direct sunlight that made Sunset hiss in pain. A second later, the light was blocked out by a set of soft feathers covering her face.

"Heya, sleepyhead..." a soft voice cooed. "Feeling any better?"

"Missy?" Sunset tried to make the effort to sit up, but her muscles failed to respond. "Wha-"

"Well, having your soul ripped out, nearly dissolved into the shadows, summoned onto a battlefield, and then shoved back into your body (which received no medical attention while it was comatose) will really take it out of you! Isis is busy taking care of Penn, which means I get to be your personal nurse until you feel better!" The softness of Missy's wing disappeared, swiftly replaced by something cold on her forehead. "Here, I had Yuki-Onna breathe on this, it should help you cool off."

Sunset nodded as best she could. The cold on her head felt exquisite. A moment later, she could feel the zipper on her sleeping bag being opened, letting a wave of fresh air wash over her body. "And it's hot enough without a sleeping bag now that the sun is up!"

"You... seem pretty good at this..." Sunset muttered, shaking her head lightly to bring the cold compress down over her eyes.

"I should be! I watched Penn learn this self-care stuff every day after he dropped out of college! It was INFURIATING!" There was a pause as Sunset heard the rustling of wings and felt a cool breeze wash over her. "I mean, have you ever watched someone else struggle with a video game you KNOW how to play well, and you just wish you could grab the controller out of their hands and do it for them? It was like that, except it was his whole LIFE!"

"Wait... Penn dropped out of college?" Sunset pondered the new information. When he'd told her he delivered pizza for a living, combined with his threadbare living conditions, she had just assumed that his education had come to a stop some time after or during high school.

"Oh, yeah!" Missy replied, somewhat enthusiastically. Sunset knew THAT tone. It was the same excitement Rarity always had before she shared some juicy tidbit of "news" (because "a lady never gossips, she only shares information!"). She had an opportunity to learn more about him, now, and she wasn't going to waste it. "He made it into a great school, too! All the way up in Utah! He was going to be an astrophysics major!"

Astrophysics? And he's delivering PIZZA?

"What happened?"

"Meh, that's a long story I wasn't really around for. He found my card after he came back home, I just got to see the fallout from it. He barely moved, hardly ate, mostly stayed inside and wrote fanfiction for weeks on end. He wound up in a dead-end retail job that made him miserable... it was pretty bad."

"Penn? Miserable? I can hardly picture it..."

It was true. Even in the short time she'd known him, he had always presented himself as the optimist. His car broke down all the time? She was just picky with a lot of personality! The house he was living in was falling apart? Better rebuild the windows! Literally in a fight for both of their souls against the spirit of an Egyptian god? He was living his favorite cartoon! Everything seemed to just roll off of his shoulders with a sense of quiet resignation at the absolute worst.

She heard Missy chuckle at her response. "And who do you think taught him to be so chipper, huh? Sure took a lot of whispering in his ear, but eventually we managed to pull him out of it enough to start improving!"

"We?"

"The Ghostricks! He looked at us and how we played, then started looking for other little happy surprises in life! It's a lot easier to appreciate the little little things when you're one of them!" Missy giggled. "Of course, he was pretty sure we were all just figments of his imagination, or-" she took a moment to clear her throat, then forcing herself into as deep a voice as she could muster, "'A visualization method of compartmentalization as a coping mechanism to enable rational thought!'"

"You mean, he thought you were just a way for him to focus on thinking clearly?"

"Mm-HMM!" Sunset felt the breeze finally come to a halt, then heard a pair of feet hit the ground beside her. "Do you think you're okay enough to sit up?"

"Not on my own..." Sunset shook her head slightly. "I'd need a little help." Almost instantly, she felt a small pair of hands grip her shoulders from behind.

"You got it! On three, okay? One, two, three!"

Sunset strained as best she could to force herself up, and with Missy's help she actually managed to rise into a sitting position. The cold compress fell into her lap, but it had already begun to warm up, anyway. A few seconds later, Missy came back around, flashing her a wide grin.

"See! You're getting better already! Now try to stay up, I'll be right back!" With that, she rushed out the front of the tent, leaving Sunset alone with her thoughts. She was starting to realize that she had really taken Penn at surface value, as if the chipper guy whose first instinct had been to buy milkshakes was just like that. It was like Pinkie Pie: everyone thought that she was just a constant stream of bubbles and laughter, to the point that she didn't take anything seriously at all. But the truth was that she was so energetic and happy because she was ALWAYS being sincere, which meant that both victories and failures tended to hit her hard. When things she was counting on went sour, it could prove a crippling blow to her outlook, and Sunset had seen first-hand what happened when that happiness slipped out of her grasp.

Her mind flashed back to Penn's duel, and the moment that the happy outlook had fallen away. The sheer, raw emotion behind his wrath had seemed overpowering.

Guess there's still a lot I don't know about him, huh?

After a few seconds, she returned, holding a bowl of liquid that she gingerly placed in Sunset's lap. "I followed Penn's recipe for chicken and dumplings, but I didn't really make the dumplings... or the chicken..." she clasped her hands behind her back. "Okay, maybe I just dumped a bunch of chicken bullion into a pot of boiling water. But chicken soup is supposed to be good for the soul or something, right?"

Sunset smiled and picked up the bowl with both hands, taking a long sip from it. The taste of the chicken was practically overpowering, clearly oversaturated with the flavoring, but the parched feeling in her throat overrode her sense of taste and she quickly sucked it all down. With her stomach full of hot liquid, she felt her eyelids growing heavy again.

"Thanks, Missy. I think I need some more sleep..."

Missy nodded, quickly rushing back around to help Sunset lay back down. Before she could even ask, Missy had put the cold pack back over her eyes as an impromptu sleep mask.

"If you need anything, we're all right outside!"

"Mhmm..." Sunset mumbled. In a few seconds, she was already back asleep.

"I killed him."

Isis could see that Elijah's mental state had been deteriorating as time went on. His lucidity following a proper amount of rest had left him racked with guilt over his prior actions.

"How could I do that? That wasn't right! I- I didn't just kill him, I did something worse! I sent his soul to the shadow realm! Eternal torment! For eternity! That's- that's something I can't take back! He's in hell because of ME!"

"Negative. May I remind you that he agreed to the terms of the game? In full use of his faculties? It could just as easily have been you who suffered that fate."

"Isis, you can't just AGREE to something like that!" he cried, gripping both sides of his head. Isis noted the positioning of his fingers: spread and clawing at his skin. He was descending into a full-blown panic attack. "It's like a toddler agreeing to a life of servitude in exchange for unlimited cookies, the consequences are beyond reasonable comprehension!"

"There was a strong implication that he had done the same to many other duelists in his travels. He mentioned to Sunset Shimmer that Ra had been leading him to duelists for some time, and an inspection of his bag revealed a quite substantial collection of cards. You simply revisited upon him the same fate he inflicted on others. If the same logic applies as in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, you also freed all of his former victims from that same eternal torment."

"But... I don't have that right! To decide someone's fate for all of time? What happens to their soul? That's not my PLACE, Isis! It was WRONG!" He pried his hands off of his head, if only to stare at them in horror. "I didn't even do it for Sunset, or to survive... I did it because I was ANGRY. Wrath, Isis! Revenge! The WORST reason to do anything, and I used it to justify sending a man to HELL!"

Logic was not working. He was suffering emotional distress. Isis attempted to simulate the same scenario, but her ability to empathize fell short. She needed an emotional appeal, something to draw himself out of his self-blaming. A new "spin" on the scenario. Looking through her memory, she found an appropriate musical track to play behind her next words. It would associate his actions with someone whom he viewed as a hero.

``` "Your wrath may have been your motivation, but you were faced with a choice: Either you could save Sunset Shimmer's soul or spare an evil one that would go on torturing other innocent people. Whatever your reasons, your actions were good and ample justice. Your turned his way of attacking others back on him, no more, no less. I believe that is the entire philosophy of your competitive deck, is it not? To be a wall so strong that your opponents break themselves against it? You have no reason to regret acting in self-defense and the defense of Sunset Shimmer. You were the wall that was needed. It was your opponent who opened the door of darkness, and suffered the consequences for doing so.

You are familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh's source material. You know that there is always a cost to those who use the dark arts to take advantage of others. A reckoning. I ask that you trust me when I say that you are NOT guilty for your actions."

```

He took a deep, shuddering breath before reaching over to the bottle of sedatives, popping another pill into his mouth.

"I... I'm going to need time to come to terms with this."

"Affirmative. You will have it, Sunset Shimmer is resting while Missy watches over her well-being. We will likely not be moving for several days after both of you suffered such thorough physical, mental, and spiritual stressors."

After a few beats of silence, he shook his head dismissively. "The more pressing question is, why would Ra ally itself with someone like THAT? The guy was a psycho." He lightly massaged his temple to take some of the pressure off of his head. "I thought Ra had higher standards than that?"

Isis took a moment to review her data on the Egyptian God cards. It was patchy, inconsistent, and contradictory at best, all conjecture from the television show and manga.

"I took the liberty of searching the internet for any records matching his name and face. No records of this 'Joshua' individual seem to indicate that he is of any supernatural significance. The only connection of any kind is that he graduated from the same high school as you, two years behind."

This made Elijah pause. His eyes widened in surprise as some form of realization.

"Seminole High?"

"Affirmative."

"You mean he was from the real-" he caught himself here, an error in his syntax he had been trying to correct when Sunset wasn't listening. "You mean he was from the same world as me?"

"Affirmative."

He pressed his fingertips together before pressing them against his lips. "Isis, mind if I talk something through with you?"

"Feel free."

"One of the major plot points during the introduction of the god cards was that Marik was attempting to create copies of Ra for his followers to use, but none of them were quite good enough to work properly. But if Joshua was from the same place as me, and THAT was where he got his Ra card... It would have been a promotional card. Something made and mass-produced for the fans. A perfect copy." His eyes grew wider as he continued processing the implications of his theory. "That might not even have been the REAL Ra. And if that IS the case, then there could be thousands of devastatingly powerful card spirits running around out there."

He reached down to his belt, retrieving the set of black-sleeved cards and beginning to anxiously shuffle them.

"I'm going to look through the new cards and see if I can find anything that can improve my deck..."

Isis considered mentioning her other discovery about their attacker, but it hardly mattered. Knowing that the person who had nearly destroyed both his and Sunset's souls had been a product of his own gaming club would only cause him to blame himself more. Instead, Isis focused on the positive: his panic attack over possibly having killed another human being had stopped for the moment.

Sunset cracked open her eyes, coming slowly and peacefully back into the waking world. Beside her, Missy's wings fluttered as she rose up into the air. The two of them stretched their arms in near-perfect sync, Missy letting out a small squeak of satisfaction alongside Sunset's grunt of effort. She made no effort to suppress her yawn, and was rewarded with intoxicating scent of fresh bacon. The smell seemed to catch Missy by the nose and lift her a little higher into the air, pulling her up to the front of the tent, where she unzipped the door and slipped outside. Sunset chuckled to herself, imagining that, were Pinkie present, the two of them would be a perfect match. She took one more lungful, forcing the air out in a decisive huff, then threw off the top half of her sleeping bag.

Outside, Penn was happily whistling to himself as he held a pan over a morning campfire. Even if Sunset couldn't have smelled it, the telltale crackle of bacon grease was more than enough to tell her that he was already well into preparing breakfast. Beside him, Isis was happily bobbing up and down to the beat of the song coming from her speakers.

Nothing to do to save his life, call his wife in!

Nothing to say but "What a day, how's your boy been?"

Nothing to do, it's up to yooou!

I've got nothing to say, but it's okay!

"Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!" He chimed in, matching the next words of the song as he gave her a little wave. Sunset couldn't help but smile a little wider seeing him so happy. With Isis's antibiotics and plenty of rest, his recovery had accelerated dramatically. In just a few days, the infection was nearly gone, and he claimed the pain was nonexistent (a staement he usually followed with another round of Isis's sedatives, so Sunset wasn't entirely certain how truthful it was). At first, it had grated on Sunset's nerves to stay in one place for so long, but she had hardly been in a place to argue. Still, the sight of most of their things packed into the car gave her even more reason to smile. it was finally time to get back to the search for her friends. Missy was instantly hovering over his shoulders, happily flapping her wings and dancing in circles around him.

"Bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs!"

Penn chuckled to himself, taking a spatula resting by the fire and spooning the contents of the pan onto a plate before handing it to Sunset. She looked down, regarding the crispy bacon and fried eggs with a healthy amount of salivation. After two days of Missy and Isis's "cooking," she had practically wept with joy when Penn announced he was feeling ready to take back over food duty. Still, even compared to his usual meals, this was a step above.

"What's the occasion?"

Penn's eyes widened, then he chuckled and turned his gaze down to the ground, as if he'd been caught in some kind of deception. "Well, I wanted to bribe you into giving me one more day before we hit the road again. There's something I need to do."

Sunset blinked, taking a seat beside her friend and putting off digging into the food for a few more seconds. "Penn, it's YOUR car, you're doing ME a favor, remember? If you need to take a day for yourself, I'm in no position to deny it."

"But- what about your friends? I thought you wanted to find them as soon as possible!"

Sunset rolled her eyes and placed her hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You're my friend, too. Whatever time you need, you don't need to ask for my permission to take it. I'm sure the other girls are looking for me, too. If they've been okay this long, they'll be okay one extra day."

For a moment, Sunset thought she could catch tears welling up in Penn's eyes before he reached out and wrapped her up in another one of his bear hugs.

Honestly, Sunset had forgotten what day of the week it was. It was easy to lose track on the road, and even easier as things got hectic and life-threatening. Finding out that it had been Sunday had been a bit of a shock, for some reason. She supposed it was because knowing what day of the week it was disrupted the constant flow from one day into the next she'd gotten from the last few weeks on the road. It was a concrete point in something that was ever-shifting, like managing to stick a pin in a river.

What had been even more strange was seeing Penn in a suit and tie, rather than a flower-patterned shirt and his red-and-white baseball cap. It hadn't taken long for her to put two and two together after that. With Isis's help, they'd managed to find the particular church he was looking for and, after she had politely declined to join him, he had disappeared inside.

"You know, I never guessed he was the religious type... Are churches even still meeting at this point?" she asked. "I mean, all the gods out there kinda had a battle royale when this all started, right?" Isis, who had set her dragon-shaped robot into what looked like a "sleep mode," replied from her phone.

"I have a conjecture based on psychological profiles: perhaps those with faith are now turning to their beliefs, since things they once knew for certain about the world around them have been proven wrong? What was fact is no longer necessarily so, but faith need not change so uncontrollably."

Sunset pondered the idea as she reclined back in her seat. Thankfully, Penn had left the keys with her so she could use the radio and the air conditioning while he was gone. He'd promised that it would only be a couple of hours, and with Isis's cell service and a way to keep cool, Sunset could easily occupy herself looking around the internet. Out of morbid curiosity, she began browsing through a few news sites.

ALIENS SPOTTED IN NEW YORK CITY!

Fisherman Claims Giant Creature In Tokyo Bay!

New Video Footage Proves Existence of Ghosts!

He heard a strange noise in the attic, You won't believe what happens next!

Netflix confirms new season of Stranger Things!

"I guess it's really a new world, isn't it?" she muttered to herself. "Must be nice to have something you can fall back on like that..."

She'd stopped being the religious type long ago. Not out of any spite or grudge, it was just hard for her once she was on her own and devoting her life to her studies to take precious time for something that was by definition neither quantifiable or repeatable in a laboratory setting. She'd certainly grown less pragmatic over the years, but still religion had never really stuck for her the way that it did for other people.

"May I offer my opinion on the matter?"

"I don't see why not?"

"The most essential component of this coping mechanism is faith. Faith in something or someone. Perhaps, if faith in a deity or lifestyle is not to your liking, you could find something else to have faith in?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "You say that like it's easy. What isn't going to be subject to just randomly changing because some other universe overlapped with the one I'm currently in?"

"Yourself. Your core beliefs: Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, Magic, and Empathy. Have faith in your friends, we will ALWAYS remain such, no matter what universe we may encounter."

Sunset actually smiled at that, feeling the warmth of her love for her friends quickly drive out the cynicism. "You know, I REALLY wish I could hug you, Isis."

"The sentiment is appreciated."

The time from there passed quickly, and soon Penn and Missy had returned. Penn had a much more content, comfortable smile on his face, looking as though the service had restored some peace to his soul after everything that had happened.

"So, which way are we headed, Sunset?" he asked, settling with one hand on the steering wheel and one on the shifter.

"Yeah, fill us in!" Missy cheered from the back seat.

Sunset reached down and pulled her geode off of her neck. In her mind's eye, she pictured her lost friends, remembering the last day she had seen them. She remembered Fluttershy's calming presence, Rarity's contagious confidence, Applejack and Rainbow Dash's constant need for competition, Twilight's inquisitive spirit and Pinkie's constant passion. She thought of her new friends, of Isis's deep thoughts and Missy's chipper brightness that seemed to light up any space she entered. She thought about Penn and the sheer spectrum of emotions she had seen from him in the past few days, from pained vulnerability to unconditional friendship to unstoppable wrath.

Every single one of her friends brought new depth and meaning to her life, and in her heart of hearts, she knew she would never truly lose them.

She felt a tug from the geode. They had their heading.

Author's Note

Happy One-Year anniversary to this story! I couldn't have asked for a better response from everyone for my little self-insert fantasy, especially given my tendency to need long breaks for my mental health. Here's to another year on the road with Penn and Sunset!

Haven't We Been Here Before?

"What's my favorite color?"

"Purple. Specifically lilac."

"Favorite Yu-Gi-Oh-"

"GX, season three!"

Penn narrowed his eyes at the quickness of Missy's responses. He'd been quizzing her like this for nearly half an hour, refusing to believe that she was the exact spirit of the same card he had owned for years. Sunset and Isis had simply been watching for some time, only stopping so she could snatch a burger from the pan to munch on.

"Final question... Where did I get the first copy of your card?" He leaned back with a wide grin on his face, clearly certain he'd stumped her. Missy sighed and rolled her eyes.

"You and your best friend used to go to Hastings on fridays to open booster packs. You were looking for my card, but it was NICK who actually opened the pack I was in! He gave it to you because he knew you needed it, though."

Sunset covered her mouth to suppress a snicker as Penn's attempt to dumbfound her rebounded on himself. There was a long period of silence, and he finally pressed his forehead against his hand.

"Well, denying it sure isn't going to work any longer, she really IS my Ghostrick Angel of Mischief..."

"I TOLD you!" Missy shouted, gleefully jumping up and wrapping her arms around his neck. He took her weight with ease, quickly wrapping an arm around her to return the hug.

"But- I still don't understand how you're HERE! I mean, I even tried using the cards to summon earlier and nothing happened!"

Sunset shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Well, it didn't work until I was in that 'shadow game,' maybe that had something to do with it? It seemed to really blur the lines between the spirit world and the real world..."

Missy flapped her wings, putting enough distance between her and Penn to look down on him and pout. "Plus, you didn't even do it right!"

Penn counted with his own look of indignation. "'Didn't do it right?' What's that supposed to mean?"

"You tried to normal summon Ghostrick Doll without having another Ghostrick already out! You know that's not how it works!"

The silence that followed was long, but far from empty. Sunset was fairly certain she counted at least five different expressions cross Penn's face as he processed the information before finally setting into numb complacency. He rose up from his place beside the campfire and began to walk back towards the car.

"Will you girls excuse me for a moment?"

Sunset and Missy exchanged a short glance, each shrugging to the other as he calmly opened the door and seated himself in the passenger seat. The moment the door was shut, however, he immediately began to vehemently scream and yell, shaking the entire car with the force of his actions. Most of the sound was sealed off by the doors and windows being completely shut, leaving only a muffled, incoherent vocalization that eventually reached them. Missy simply removed her tiny hat and reached inside, retrieving a steaming cup and saucer that she took a long sip from.

"Mmm... The tea is especially sweet today."

Sunset rolled her eyes and took another bite of her burger. She had to admit, if Penn wanted to eat dinner tonight without making a second batch, he was going to have to finish yelling soon, she was about to steal the last patty in the pan.

The four of them stood together, staring at the sign by the side of the highway with a mix of reactions. As with everything, Isis expressed only pensive indifference. Missy was hopping up and down, lightly clapping her hands together with excitement for the unknown. Penn was a difficult read, seemingly filled with bemused resignation, but there was something to his smile that felt forced. Personally, Sunset was feeling as though the sign were a monument to just how much charity she had taken from her new friends.

Welcome to Oklahoma, discover the excellence!

"We've come so FAR!" Missy cheered. "Imagine how many things we're going to see by the end of this trip!"

"Searched every town from Seminole to Oklahoma. Only took us a month, I'd say that's pretty good time..." Penn chuckled softly to himself and rubbed at his neck.

"Guys, I'm sorry! I had no idea this would take so long or take us so far!" Sunset sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I would have thought we'd all land at least REMOTELY close to one another! I swear, I'm not trying to take advantage of you!"

"Don't worry, Sunset! As long as Isis can keep airdropping us supplies, we'll be fine. I made a promise to you that I'd get you and your friends home safe, and I intend to keep it!" Penn finally smiled in earnest and placed his hands on his hips. "On the bright side, we're headed North, my favorite direction! We should cross Oklahoma's panhandle in a day, maximum. From there it's... uh..."

"Kansas, barring any change in heading."

"And once we're through there, we can say 'I don't think we're in Kansas, any more" and really mean it!" Missy cheered, the force of her glee carrying her up into the air.

Penn and Sunset looked at one another. Sunset searched his face for any sign of regret, any sign that he was forcing himself to be here. He seemed to have other things on his mind, nodding towards Missy and giving a genuine smile. Sunset looked back, watching for a moment as she flew several laps around the sign before finally leaning over the top. A few seconds later, she jumped off with a yelp of surprise.

"YEOWCH! Hot, hot, HOT!"

This made both of them laugh, well and truly breaking the tension in the air. Sunset collapsed into a fit of giggles while Penn laughed a hearty belly laugh, one that got shriller and shriller the more he ran out of air. By the time they had both recovered, Missy was giving them both a pouty glare.

"It wasn't THAT funny..."

"It- it kinda was..." Penn snickered, resisting the urge to start laughing again. "I mean, it's a hundred degrees out, not a cloud in the sky, and you leaned on a metal sign!" He wiped a tear from his eye before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. "Anybody want a souvenir photo before we take off?"

Sunset grabbed her own phone, only hesitating just as she was about to hand it to him.

"Wait... I want one with all four of us!"

Penn blinked, taking a moment for a quick head count. "One, two, three, four... Who's going to take the picture?"

"This unit would be capable. Would digitally adding myself to the image and sending it to both of you be a reasonable compromise?"

Sunset sighed and slipped her phone back into her pocket. "I guess so, but don't think I'm not going to be taking plenty of pictures with you later!"

Together, the three of them arranged themselves under the sign. She and Penn each wrapped their arms around each other's shoulders, while Missy positioned herself on top of them, folding her arms and resting them on top of both of their heads. Isis flapped her way up to the roof of the car, staring intently at the three of them. A moment later, she nodded and began walking towards the front of the car.

"Done. The picture should arrive shortly."

"Cool, let's get back into the AC!" Penn replied. His attempt to walk away was foiled, however, when Missy wrapped her arm around his head and yanked him back.

"What? That's it?" she whined. "What about saying 'CHEESE!' or 'One, two, three!' You've gotta do ONE of those when you take a souvenir picture!"

Sunset glanced up as best she could at Missy, noticing a playful glint in the little girl's eyes. Missy looked down at her, then nodded at Penn. Sunset smirked, instantly getting the message. "Yeah, I wasn't ready... I'm not sure I was smiling right!"

Isis dutifully returned to the same position as before.

"Very well. Is everyone prepared? One... two... th-"

Isis was cut off by Missy's war cry. "PAYBACK!"

At the last moment, Missy and Sunset both leaped at Penn, wrapping their arms around him and throwing him off balance. For a second it seemed as if he would be able to hold them both, but moments later they were all laying in a heap on the dead grass. The only interruption to Sunset and Missy's laughter was the exaggerated sound of a shutter click.

Come sail away, come sail away!
Come sail away with meee!
Come sail away, come sail away!
Come sail away with meeeeeeee!

Sunset bobbed her head up and down to the music. With Isis joining the crew, their options for music had expanded far beyond just the three CDs Penn kept in his car, a fact for which she would be eternally grateful. One thing that had NOT changed was the fact that Penn seemed to know the words to every single song in the massive library. Sunset had tried making requests of her own, but it appeared that Isis hadn't managed to find any of the music from her world. So, until she had learned what bands and artists she did and didn't like, she was at the whim of her companions. She had to admit, she liked this "Styx" group so far. It was a nice mix of guitar and psychedelic sounds she might expect from Rarity's keytar solos, and their harmonies were on point.

It was the moments like this that made the trip feel like one constant day: nothing but music, the hum of tires against asphalt, and the open highway. From what Isis had told them, it looked like the majority of rural areas had been abandoned in favor of grouping together in large cities for safety. That meant less time running up and down alleyways looking for her friends, plenty of abandoned gas stations to fill up at, and a highway that was almost completely abandoned by all traffic. She tried not to think about the unfortunate implication that, if her friends had been moved to a city, it meant that it would be all the more like looking for a needle in a haystack to find them. For now, her geode kept them out of the urban areas, and all four of them were fine with that.

"Hmm..." Penn grunted unhappily to himself between lyrics, forcing Sunset to open her eyes. The reason made itself clear: the fuel gauge was hovering dangerously close to the "empty" marker.

"We're going to have to stop soon, aren't we?"

He nodded, squinting his eyes to get a better look at the signposts. With a smile, he turned the car onto the next exit. "Looks like there's another gas station up ahead. Should only take a few minutes."

"Look! The lights are on!" Missy added, clambering her way into the front between the two of them.

"How many times do I have to tell you to keep your seat belt on?" Penn countered, wrapping his non-steering hand around her forehead and shoving her back into the backseat.

As they pulled in, Sunset noticed that she was right. The station was still lit and, apparently, staffed. Penn began to rifle through his pockets, finally emerging with his wallet. He let out a long sigh as he opened it, revealing only one twenty-dollar bill remaining.

"I was afraid this would happen..." he muttered. "Just enough to fill up one more time."

"It would be a simple matter for me to override the terminal, if you wish."

Penn shook his head as he cracked open the door and stepped outside. "They'd notice if somebody started filling up without paying."

Sunset sighed and opened her own door, following him outside.

"I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry about it. You didn't break the bank for me, I never had much to begin with."

Sunset sighed. "I actually took out a bunch of money from my account before we left, the Rainbooms were going to go on tour, but it's not the same currency..." Just as she was beginning to mope, she felt a light punch on her arm.

"I said don't worry about it! We'll figure this out. I mean, we've got to be sitting on a goldmine with that portal gun in the trunk, right? Even if it can't be used, it should be worth plenty!"

As the two of them pushed through the doors of the gas station, Sunset was suddenly struck with an overwhelming sense of deja vu.

"Heya, Red! Long time, no see!"

The clerk. It was the SAME clerk. The SAME gas station she had saved on her first day in this new world. Even Penn seemed flabbergasted. The two of them looked at one another, each confirming that the other was seeing the same thing before rushing back out the door together.

Nope. They had definitely moved. It was still Oklahoma outside. It had definitely been more than a month since they had saved the gas station all the way back in Seminole. They stepped back inside.

There was the same clerk, right down to the pistol Sunset had given her tucked into her belt.

"H-how- how are you-"

The clerk rolled her eyes. "I KNOW, right? My boss STILL hasn't shown up so I can get off-duty! It's ridiculous! You guys need gas again?"

"Well, yeah, but- How-" Sunset stuttered, still hardly able to believe her eyes.

"Oh, don't worry! Haven't had any more trouble since you gave me THIS..." she smirked and patted the gun with her hand. She tapped a few keys on the register and flashed them a thumbs-up. "You're all set! You want a gatorade while you're here?"

"Uh, thanks! We really appreciate that!" Penn said, carefully making his way to one of the refrigerators and removing a pair of red drinks. "Mind if we grab one for our friend in the car?"

"Sure, help yourselves!" the clerk shrugged. "Business has been dead lately, so it shouldn't matter. If the boss asks, I'll tell him money got grabbed out of the register while he was busy running late."

"We really... can't thank you enough..." Sunset said as she snagged a cold drink of her own. Together, she and Penn backed towards the exit.

"After how you saved my skin? Any time! Come back any time I'm on duty!"

And with the jingle of a bell, they were back in Oklahoma. Sunset blinked several times, then pinched her arm to make sure she was awake. Penn was busy pressing the cold bottles against his forehead.

"I think we've spent too much time staring at an empty highway..." he groaned.

"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Heh, unicorn pun. Nice."

It was the shimmering city without shadows, the dragon's heaven: Radian. The alabaster jewel among the heavens, lit by twin stars so no night could ever come. Above and below, dragons of every shape, size, and color went about their lives. Each one of them was ready at a moment's notice to stand up and eradicate any threat to their home, avenge any dishonor upon their world and their god. The force of the light was as impossible to stop as a supernova, spreading out through the cosmos.

Of course, Elijah wasn't concerned with most of them. His greatest worry was the one that currently had driven the tip of its tail completely through his torso and out the other side. Without warning, it was yanked out again, leaving a gaping hole in his chest. Even as his head was spinning and gravity pulled him downwards, he gingerly reached up and felt around the edges.

He struck the floor, but it didn't stop there. He passed through it like water, plummeting downwards through level after level of Chirac's Iron Spire, each one a diorama of another battle he had lost. He fell faster and faster. He couldn't remember whether or not the spire was supposed to have a bottom. Did it pass through the other side of the world? Would he be flung into space? Things began to blur. He saw two tall figures staring at him, both in dark robes. One of them had the most piercing blue eyes he had ever seen, like blue lights in empty sockets. His face was covered by a skeletal mask, or... was it a mask? The other showed pale, bony hands without raising his arms, asking questions without moving his eternally smiling mouth. Glyphs spun around him before flying out into the tornado all around them. The blue-eyed one reached into his cloak, retrieving a large hourglass.

Yes, I agree. It appears we've come too early. We'll come back later. I do so hate impunctuality.

It was all a vortex of insanity and death, and he was falling faster and faster, out of control. He could stop it any time he wanted, but the moment he did it would all become real. The hole in his chest, the bottom of the spire, the two figures... It couldn't be real. He couldn't accept it. The words echoed and rattled in his head.

It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be real.

It echoed and echoed and echoed.

Again. And again. AGAIN. AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAINAGAINAGAINAGAINAGAINAGAINAGAINAGAIN-

"GAAH!"

Penn sat bolt-upright in the driver's seat, both of his hands flying to his chest, where there was no wound. His eyes darted to every possible angle, where there were no dark figures. He looked out the window, where there was no shining city. He grabbed at the handle, fumbling for the door until he stumbled into the dirt, gasping for air and shaking violently. His entire body shuddered until his stomach retched. It was all he could do to turn and direct the vomit under the car, where no one would see it in the morning.

"WHAT... the HELL... was THAT?"

Sunset sat in her tent, staring up at her phone. There were her photos. High school. Her friends. The beach. The mall. All the best memories of high school, immortalized there in her phone. Pinkie's parties, Rainbow's games, hoedowns in Applejack's barn... They were all there. Years of memories... the beach, their cruise, shots of every single one of their concerts. She could see her entire old life laid out before her, everything she missed.

And then she reached it. All too soon, she reached the last photo. It was all of them, about to leave the band room for the last time. She felt a pang in her heart as she remembered what happened immediately afterwards. Every time she had seen that picture, she felt her heart break. It was the end of the story.

And then she pressed the button to move forward. And there was the photo of her, Penn, and Missy under the sign, and perched on top of Missy's head was the tiny form of Isis. They were like a pyramid. The next photo was all of them on the ground, laughing together as they rolled in the grass. After that, photos of Isis's tiny dragon body, curled up on the dashboard of the car "asleep."

The further she went forward, the happier she became. Suddenly, there wasn't an ending. Just a new story, and she knew where it was going. She went back, flipping back and forth between the photo of the Rainbooms and the photo of their road trip gang until she could visualize them combined. Some day, she promised herself, I'm going to have a photo with all of them. All of us together.

With that thought in mind, she finally switched off her phone, closed her eyes, and drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

This Will Be The Day We've Waited For

"Uh, Penn? Are we absolutely, positively certain this is going to work?"

"Yes, Sunset! You couldn't be in safer hands! Penn's voice replied through her earpiece. Isis already calculated your trajectory and Missy's in position to catch you. Right, Missy?"

"You betcha, Penn! Witch, Lantern, and me are gonna be right here to catch you just below the treeline, Sunset!"

Sunset narrowed her eyes, trying to see if she could spot the spirits she was currently entrusting her life to. Her anxiety only grew worse when, true to her word, Missy's hiding place under the canopy of the forest was invisible from above. On the bright side, at least the guy beside her seemed equally nervous.

"Uh, sir? I-I've got a- uhm- question. So, this 'landing strategy' thing... Wh-what is it? You're, like, dropping us off, or something?"

"No. You will be falling." The headmaster replied, his indifference seeming to be as cold as Sunset was certain that mug of coffee he was holding had to be by now.

"Oh, I see! So, like, did you hand out parachutes for us?" the boy beside her replied, sounding hopeful. As much as Sunset wished he was right, Penn had already told her that there was NOT going to be a parachute. The line of students was quickly diminishing was they were each catapulted off the top of the cliff by the platforms they were standing on.

"No, you will be using your own landing strategy."

"Ah... That. So, what exactly is a landing strateGGYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" His question devolved into a shriek of terror as he was flung into the air. Sunset's heart skipped a beat and her entire body clenched in preparation as she knew she was next.

A moment later, she was flying through the air, hundreds of feet above the forest with only her wits to protect her on the way down.

Sunset had flown before. Equestrian magic had given her all kinds of experiences no normal person would ever get to have, prepared her for just about anything life could throw at her. This was nothing like that.

As she reached the apex of her arc, Sunset tried to remember WHY she was putting herself through this.

"Is that what I think it is?"

They all stared, dumbfounded, at the shimmering air in front of them. Sunset had seen it before, and she knew exactly what it was.

"Yup. That's another dimensional boundary. Just like when we went after the daleks."

"It's covering the entire highway! Someone could drive right through!"

"Someone probably has!" Missy chimed in.

They watched together as Isis emerged from the other side of the portal.

"I am happy to report that there is no immediate danger on the other side. The atmosphere is breathable, and the area appears remote and devoid of observers."

"Is your geode still saying we should go that way?"

Sunset reached down and lifted up her necklace, allowing the geode to hang freely. Sure enough, it pulled forward towards the portal, as if drawn by a magnet.

"WOOHOO! New world, here we come!" Missy cheered, not even bothering to wait for the car as she flew straight into the shimmering veil and disappeared.

"Missy! Wait for... us." Penn rolled his eyes. "Isis, can you make sure she stays out of trouble?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset smiled as she sat herself in the passenger seat again. "Isis said it was safe on the other side, she should be fine! Try to tone down that big brother instinct a little."

Ch-ch-ch-ch-vrroooom! The Oldsmobile gave its normal resistance to starting up, but began to run just the same.

"What Isis said was that it was remote and no one was watching, that doesn't mean there aren't dangerous things out there! We should still be ready in case something goes wrong!"

Sunset paused as a thought came to her mind. "You get nervous every time somebody's out of your sight, don't you?"

"Last time I let you out of my sight your soul got sent to hell, what do you think?"

Sunset raised her hands defensively as they began to drive forward. "Look, I'm just saying that if you don't learn to relax, there's going to be six more of us you'll be trying to keep an eye on at once when we find my friends! What'll you do then?"

"I dunno, maybe I'll tie a bell around your neck, or something! Now hold on, we're going through!"

Sunset braced herself, but passing through the portal seemed to have no effect on them as the world outside the car began to blur and warp.

Suddenly, she felt a shock run through her side of the car that lifted her completely out of her seat. A moment later, the entire front end of the car lurched downwards with the ground of grinding metal and they came to a sudden stop.

"SHOOT!" Penn grunted through gritted teeth.

"What was that?"

Both of them jumped out of their doors and ran to the front of the car. The sight that awaited them hurt Sunset just to look at.

"Are- are your tires pointing in different directions?"

A quick glance made it obvious that Penn wasn't taking the news well at all, both hands covering his face and mouth to mute his scream. After several seconds, he finally released himself enough to pull his hands away, and he was calm again.

"Isis, could you possibly send us a new tie rod? It looks like our old one snapped." He leaned over, taking a better look at Sunset's side of the car. "Probably when we hit that log. That would have been nice to see coming..."

"Affirmative. It has been added to the next supply drop."

The tie rod: a piece that held the front wheels at an even distance so they would stay aligned with the steering wheel. Sunset remembered that much from building their tour bus, mostly because the original had been broken there, as well. It had fallen on Rainbow Dash's head the first time they had lifted it up to get to the underside. With the mystery of their sudden stop solved, Sunset took in their surroundings.

It was an entirely different climate from where they had been moments before, a dense forest of red-leaved trees. Even the grass in this place was a deep crimson, and every breeze filled the air with more fallen leaves to thicken the blanket. In the distance, she could make out a massive, castle-like building nestled at the base of several mountains. It kind of looks like Canterlot... "Hey, Penn?"

"Ugh, this is going to be a headache to fix, I've never replaced a tie rod before! Isis, can you pull up some instructions? Missy, would you do me a favor and help me get the jack out of the trunk?" Penn seemed totally oblivious to their beautiful autumnesqe surroundings, laying on the ground to try and get a peek under the car.

"Penn, do you know where we are?"

"The front is actually on the ground, we'll have to bring the jack in from the side... Missy! I'll get the jack if you can get the jack stands and my socket wrenches!"

"PENN!"

He finally seemed to notice her, freezing mid-step on his way to the back of the car. "Huh?"

"Where are we?"

He paused and turned his head from side to side. He let out a low whistle. "Beautiful... It almost looks like-" His eyes widened as he caught sight of the distant castle. "Nope. Nope!" He shook his head and walked back around to the front of the car, pushing himself against the front shoulder-first. "Nope nope nope nope!"

"What is it, what's wrong? Are we in danger?" Sunset ran over to him, watching his actions with a measure of concern. "What are you doing?"

"I'm pushing Sylvia right back out that portal, I am NOT dealing with this crummy universe! We'll go around, there was an off-ramp a half-mile back!"

Sunset narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "I am not pushing the car a half-mile, even if you COULD move it in this condition, which you can't. What, are we in danger?"

"Of bad writing, maybe..." he muttered. With a final groan of effort, he gave up and slumped down against the front of the car. "This..." he motioned to the beauty around them, "is the forest of Forever Fall. THAT-" he pointed to the far-off group of buildings, "is Beacon Academy. Which means that we're in the RWBY universe."

"Ruby universe? That would explain why everything's red..."

"No, RWBY. R-W-B-Y. It's the initials of the main characters. Everything in this forest being red is just a coincidence." He pressed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "Okay, how do I explain this..."

"This world is a techno-fantasy world where humanity exists alongside a bunch of creepy monsters called 'Grimm.' The Grimm hunt humans, and humans fight back by training to hunt the Grimm right back with advanced, transforming weapons that are the absolute coolest thing about the show. The men and women who train to hunt them are, appropriately, called Hunters and Huntresses." He pointed up into the distance. "That is Beacon Academy, the most prestigious school for Hunters and Huntresses on the continent, and some consider it the best in the world."

"Okay, so there's dangerous monsters here, and that's why you want to get out of here?"

"No. Well, that too, but that's not the MAIN reason."

"Is there something worse than Grimm monsters?"

"Yeah, the writing." He rose back up onto his feet and walked to the back of the car. With a light pop, the trunk was open and he was soon buried up to his shoulders in it head-first. "After season 3- ouch! Stupid portal gun pointy bits! -the entire status quo was thrown out the window, along with most of the fan-favorite characters! Three of the four main characters went AWOL, one was maimed and traumatized, Beacon Academy was destroyed, and the bad guys pretty much won!" He grunted loudly as he lifted a heavy-looking hydraulic jack out of the trunk. "Penny? Dead. Pyrrha? Dead. Torchwick? Dead." He paused for a second before giving her a nervous glance. "Kinda feels like they just culled the redheads, in retrospect."

Sunset swallowed and unconsciously reached up to her shortened locks.

"Neopolitan? MIA. The great villain they'd been building up since episode one? Crippled and made into a mook for a bigger, badder one we'd never so much as seen before. And worst of all..." he set down the jack and placed a hand over his heart. "One of the greatest animators of our time, the man who conceptualized it all, who took it from a single trailer to a stunning adventure shared with people all around the world... was lost in a tragic accident, leaving it in the hands of other writers."

Sunset had to admit, she was gobsmacked. The world around her seemed so beautiful, so peaceful. The idea that so much hardship could come to a place like this seemed absurd.

"So, we're going to get out of here before things go off the rails!" he declared as he fitted the handle of the jack into its appointed slot and began to pump up and down. Inch by inch, the front of the car began to rise up off the ground. "If Isis expedites that delivery and it's here tomorrow, I should be able to get the new tie rod in and get us out of here in a day or two!"

"Wait, what?"

"Well, it's not the hardest fix in the world, a buddy of mine had his break and it only took the mechanic a day! I'm no mechanic, but-"

"No, I mean we're just going to LEAVE?" Sunset motioned to the academy. "That doesn't look destroyed to me! Maybe all that bad stuff hasn't happened yet! Maybe we can help stop it from happening!"

There was a beat of silence as he stared at her, jaw agape.

"Sunset Shimmer, my good friend, are you suggesting that we alter established events in another world's history?"

"She has a point, Penn! If we know what's going to happen, we could stop it!" Missy chimed in, holding a pair of triangular metal stands in her hands and hanging a black case off of her foot. "Maybe we could save some of the people who died, like Pyrrha!"

"Et tu, Missy?" Penn reached out and took the two stands from her. Lowering himself to one knee, he began to position the first one in the gap created by the jack. "Look, if we're going to go where no one's gone before, we need to maintain Star Trek's prime directive: Not interfering in the development of other worlds! We couldn't be certain we would just make things worse, too! A LOT of important characters made it out of there by the skin of their teeth, what if trying to save one person kills three more? And what if one of those three was a part of the group that eventually saves the world or something, huh? Even if we DID help in the short term, we could cause monumental harm in the long term!"

Missy folded her arms over her chest and glared down at him. "And what about the Spider-Man prime directive, huh? With great power comes great responsibility!"

"And knowledge IS power!" Sunset added, earning herself a fist bump from Missy.

Penn's eyes narrowed in a frustrated glare. "Okay, first of all, don't quote Spider-Man at me, I was reading his comics when you were still a glimmer in Kazuki Takahashi's eye, Missy! Second of all, having a command of thoroughly useless information isn't going to help me when I'm staring down a killer mecha or a Grimm three times taller than me!" He pointed down at Sunset's belt, then Missy's chest. "It's easy for you two to say that you want to help, you have magic, a bunch of monsters and traps that actually work when you summon them, and a freakin' lightsaber! You know what I've got?" He reached out, snatching the case that was hanging from Missy's foot and popping it open. Inside was a small tool and a set of differently-sized attachments. "I have a SOCKET WRENCH!"

His shout echoed through the forest, and when it finally faded, Sunset couldn't help feeling slightly hurt and betrayed at the outburst. It must have been obvious on her face, because Penn seemed to instantly backpedal.

"Sorry, I- I'm upset about the car, and I'm taking it out on you. That's wrong of me, I shouldn't have yelled. I apologize." He looked down at the ground in shame. "It's very clear that we're standing on opposite sides of the Time Traveler's Dilemma: to change history and send it on an entirely unpredictable new path, or do nothing and let the world suffer for the sake of the future we know." He walked away, placing himself on the other side of the car to position the second stand under the space. "We're at an impasse and... oh no." He slapped himself in the forehead. "Isis? Get ready to add more parts to the list of what we need, scraping on the ground after the tie rod broke looks as if it did a real number on some other stuff. I can see oil and bits of metal down there."

"Affirmative."

He let out another long sigh and leaned his head against the car door. "As I was saying, we're at an impasse, and it's obvious we're not going to agree. But, because you're my friend..." He mimed the act of rolling up his short-sleeved shirt's sleeves and laid himself on his back to scoot under the car. "I'm going to be VERY focused on these car repairs. Very. Focused. In fact, I think the only thing I'll take notice of is if someone were to call me on my phone with questions any time they get confused! You could probably just walk away and do anything you want and I wouldn't even know it, let alone be able to do anything about it!"

Sunset and Missy looked at one another, and Missy made a jabbing motion with her thumb in the direction of Beacon Academy. Sunset cast one more longing glance at Penn, who had half-disappeared under the car. With a final huff, she turned her back on him and began walking in the direction of the school.

Fine! If he's not going to help people, then I will! Because that's what heroes do! Because it's RIGHT, no matter what Penn says!

"The starter hit some kind of rock, it's been bashed to pieces. We'll need a new one. The oil pan has also been torn to shreds, I can see holes straight through it, so we'll need a new pan AND fresh oil. I've been meaning to do an oil change, anyway. I'm going to take a closer look at the transmission filter, see if it's leaking from that compartment."

"Affirmative. The new parts have been added to the list."

After approximately another minute, Elijah emerged from underneath the Oldsmobile and grabbed a handful of the shop towels he had retrieved from the trunk to wipe his hands clean. "Well, good news is it looks like it's just the tie rod, the starter, and the oil pan. I've replaced the starter before and the oil pan should be relatively straightforward, just bolting the new one into place. The tie rod ought to be the trickiest of the bunch."

"You were unusually callous today. Prior data would have suggested that you would follow Sunset Shimmer no matter what the path may be. You also seemed unusually lacking in empathy for those who suffer due to actions you know how to prevent. It is a considerable deviation from my behavioral models."

Elijah turned and gave her an irritated look. "Aaand there we go. You too, huh?"

"I am merely noting the deviation and bringing it to your attention for self-diagnostic purposes."

"There's NOTHING wrong with me!" He threw his hands up, ignoring the flecks of oil it sprayed through the air. "I just know that what happened- what's going to happen- is a very delicate situation! If just one villain feels pressured more than they were- are going to be- they might aim for a killing blow where they didn't before! They might move their plans faster or change their targets to be more efficient, more ruthless! And even if I stopped watching, I DO keep tabs on the show!" he pointed an accusatory finger at her. "Everything that happened winds up making the core team stronger, it's character development! Without it, Team RWBY won't make it to their happy ending, because the show is going to have a happy ending!"

"I did not claim you were ignorant. However, is the idea that RWBY is moving towards a 'happy ending' conjecture?"

"I mean, it's basic narrative story structure. Giving it a downer ending would be suicide for Rooster Teeth's animation division."

"Did they not also end Red vs Blue's Season 10 on a melancholy note?"

"RWBY and Red vs Blue are very different shows, Isis..."

"However, it has set a precedent."

She could see him computing fresh variables, adjusting parameters in his mind. After a few seconds, however, he seemed to reset and gave her a look she recognized as suspicion. "You want to step in too, don't you? I would have thought you'd recognize the paradox of altering a timeline using knowledge from observing that SAME timeline. If we change what we saw, then we change what we knew when we chose to change it. It becomes a logical loop sending constantly changing information back in time to ourselves!"

"Theoretically, this may not be the same timeline you came to know as the web series. Perhaps your data comes from a secondary timeline in which you did not interfere? Consider the Many Worlds Theory. When you make a decision, the timeline could split, creating two worlds: one in which you interfere, and one in which you do not. Consider further that what you consider the 'source material' is merely the timeline in which you did NOT interfere."

Isis knew that Elijah was a visual learner and used the tip of her tail to burn a small illustration into the grass, a Y shape representing a diverging timeline.

"If that were the case, then what you have seen can not only not be altered, but could serve you as a cautionary tale of the consequences of NOT taking initiative. And instead, this is the timeline in which you CAN intervene."

She moved her tail from one side of the Y to the other, indicating a change between timelines due to their presence.

"Assuming that other universes are allowed only one timeline is very much against the evidence we have seen regarding the existence of many worlds. It is illogical to worry so. One of my directives is to protect the free agency and happiness of those whom I serve, and I would be acting against that directive to allow you to continue to think that you have no free will in these matters. If so, you may regret your inaction."

"So you think-"

"It is not a matter of what I think. This is not a matter of voting. It is a matter of splitting the party, and I can be present with both. It is a matter of what YOU think, and the fact that it may be erroneous."

He took more time to process, there were more variables and scenarios to consider. Infinite variables, taking into account the Many Worlds Theory. This seemed to result in an error, as he shook his head and laid back down to return under the car.

"I'll think about it. For now, let's get this busted starter out of there, it's wedged in pretty tight and I think one of the bolts is bent."

A cutting tool would be required. Thankfully, the angle grinder in this unit's tail would more than suffice.

A remarkable thing about organic brains was that they had involuntary parallel processing. Even if she discussed the matter no further, the "data" of the idea had been entered, and would continue to consume processing power until he had settled upon a solution. And despite the earlier deviation, she knew what course his moral alignment would inevitably settle upon.

``` "Affirmative. New bolts have been added to tomorrow's care package.

Please, allow me to help."

```

"Ugh, I can't BELIEVE him! Of all the stubborn, pigheaded- GAH!"

Sunset was working herself up, and she knew it. But she couldn't stop herself.

"He's scared!" Missy declared. "He's more scared of messing up the precious timeline than he is of innocent people DYING!"

"It's all just a show to him, just another stupid TV show!" Sunset volleyed back. "He's so detached, so above it all! Sure, he'll risk life and limb if it's a show he LIKES or if it's HIS world at stake, but put him in something he doesn't care about and suddenly none of it matters!"

"Though... I will admit, I don't know WHAT we're going to do..." Missy muttered. "What's the plan, again?"

Sunset hesitated for a moment. She had been so upset, she'd stormed off with hardly a thought of what she actually planned to DO, just that she was going to do it. "Well... My geode led us here, right? We'll keep following it until a course of action presents itself!" Overhead, she could see metal airships flying to and from the school. The closer they got, the more she could see that it was a hub of activity.

"Hey, maybe one of your friends is AT Beacon, and that's why the geode is leading us there!" Missy exclaimed.

The thought HAD occurred to Sunset, and she had been silently hoping that was the case. She felt her phone begin to buzz in her pocket.

"I took the liberty of looking into Beacon Academy, as an exploratory drone landed here some time ago. The new semester is about to begin. If you wish, I could prepare a falsified transcript for you and have you enrolled."

"You mean... have me GO to the school?"

"There would be no better way to check the student body for signs of the Rainbooms. This world has established hard light technology, your lightsaber would be an acceptable, if somewhat unusual, weapon. Your martial arts training would be serviceable to get by in combat. You are also the only member of the party who could convincingly pass as the appropriate age."

Missy hummed happily to herself. "Looks like a course of action's presenting itself, isn't it?"

Sunset pondered the situation. It's not like I have any better ideas, right? If I want to help, it's best to be in the center of everything.

"Isis, sign me up!"

"Affirmative. I am happy to help."

Author's Note

Listen, I know RWBY is a bit of a controversial topic, especially many people's (including mine) opinions of the Volume 3 finale. I would like to ask that, if anyone feels the need to voice their opinion, they do it calmly and respectfully.

While the character of "Penn" has been very vocal and adamant, I will not be making any comments as myself, the author, other than this: After Volume Three, I continued watching, but did not find the new direction to my tastes. I thought the transition to the new status quo was handled clumsily and it left a bad taste in my mouth for the show altogether. So I stopped watching. It was as simple as that. If you continued to enjoy it, I applaud your flexibility and envy the pleasure you have continued to glean from it. Please continue to support it, as I do still wish the show well altogether.

Thank you,
Pennington Inkwell

P.S. I'm not going to try to stop any discussion about RWBY in the comments, but as a writer, I will demand one thing: RESPECT FOR MONTY OUM. If any comment is made trying to invoke him in favor of your opinion, it will be deleted.

It's Also A Gun

"You ready, Sunset?" Missy's voice chimed through the earpiece Isis had given her.

"There was no need to change your name for enrollment, but remember, your history had to be altered greatly to stand up to scrutiny. I will remind you when necessary of your fabricated backstory."

Sunset nodded to herself, looking around the courtyard. It was practically brimming with students of every shape and size. Not all of them were even entirely human, sporting animal features like ears and tails. What stood out to her the most, however, was the presence of the weapons. Literally more weapons than she could count, equipped to every student. Some were smaller, easily sitting in sheathes or attached to belts, while others were massive, having to be carried in cases or strapped to their backs. She placed her hand on her lightsaber, feeling slightly self-conscious with only an empty handle clipped to her belt. They were chatting and mingling, just like regular high school students, but they were clearly ready to do battle at the drop of a hat.

Still, it was a school, and Sunset knew school. The first thing she needed to do was prevent herself from putting her foot in her mouth and making a spectacle of herself. A bad first impression on the other students would be irreversible. She needed a guide.

Sure would be nice if my USUAL guide was here... What I wouldn't give for one of Penn's exposition dumps! She rolled her eyes. It's usually too much information at once, but I always get what I need to-

"Oh!" Her thoughts were cut off as she bumped into another student from behind. "Sorry, got a little lost in my own thoughts."

"That's alright. We're all a bit nervous," the girl replied, not sounding nervous at all. She was dressed all in black and white, with a pair of black thigh-high leggings and a sleeveless black tailcoat over a white shirt and pair of white shorts. The ensemble was complimented by her long black hair and a black bow on top of her head. With the accident addressed, the girl began to walk away.

Sunset had a choice. She was alone in a world she didn't know, at a brand-new school where she couldn't be sure any of her prior knowledge would be any use to her. However, if Penn was right, then lives hung in the balance, so she couldn't afford to be passive. She certainly couldn't bully her way to what she wanted, which left one other option:

She needed friends.

"H-hey! Wait up!" she called, jogging to catch up to the girl. She held out her hand. "I'm Sunset Shimmer."

The other girl gave her a sideways glance, but didn't shake her hand. "I'm Blake."

Sunset knew THAT look. That was the look of someone who wasn't looking for friendship. Who only wanted quiet and space. It was the same look Rarity would give people when they walked in on her while she was too deep in her work to even be bothered to yell at them.

"I don't really know my way around here. Do you mind if I tag along with you, Blake?"

"Can I stop you?" she replied, somewhat irritated.

Sunset hesitated for a moment, starting to fall behind again. "Well, yeah. If that's a no, then... I'll just-"

"It's fine." The other girl cut her off before letting go of a long sigh. "Just don't expect a tour. I'm just as new here as you are."

Sunset nodded. "Thanks. Not having to tackle the unknown alone feels a lot better, you know?"

"I don't."

Well, she's just a ray of sunshine, isn't she?

"Don't feel better or... don't know what it's like not to tackle the unknown on your own?" That question actually seemed to throw Blake for a loop, causing them to stop for a moment. "Because either way, that sounds pretty lousy."

"I-"

Whatever Blake's response was going to be, it was cut off by the sound of a small explosion, followed by the crackling of ice rapidly forming and melting and electricity arcing through the air. A glass bottle filled with red power came flying through the air before landing at their feet. The two of them looked in the direction that the explosion had come from, seeing two girls covered in soot. One was dressed in shades of white and blue and the other seemed to have chosen red and black. Even their hair matched their outfits, something Sunset hadn't seen since she left Canterlot High.

"Unbelievable! This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about!" the girl in the white dress shouted, shaking off the majority of the soot as she stamped her foot.

"I'm really, REALLY sorry!" the other girl replied, anxiously pressing the tips of her fingers together.

Did SHE cause that explosion? Sunset wondered. To her surprise, Blake didn't shy away from the confrontation, picking up the bottle and walking towards them. She followed closely behind. Maybe I can help defuse this whole thing... literally.

"Ugh, you complete DOLT! What are you even doing here? Aren't you a little YOUNG to be attending Beacon?" the white-haired girl continued.

"Um, well, I-"

"This ISN'T your ordinary combat school! It's not just sparring and practicing, you know! We're here to fight monsters, so watch where you're going!"

"Hey, I said I was sorry, princess!" the red-haired girl replied, clearly reaching the end of her patience. If someone didn't do something soon, Sunset worried a fight was about to start. However, before she could intervene Blake finally spoke up.

"It's 'heiress,' actually. Weiss Schnee: heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world."

Sunset made a mental note of the information. Clearly, this Weiss girl had connections. Connections could come in handy in trying to stop whatever disaster was coming.

"Finally, some recognition!"

"The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners."

"Wha- How DARE-" Weiss stuttered, ignoring the other girl beginning to snicker behind her. Unable to come up with a retort, she snatched the bottle from Blake's hand and stormed away towards the school. The red girl waved fruitlessly at her as she left.

"I promise I'll make this up to you!" She let out a frustrated sigh as her shoulders slumped in disappointment. "Guess I'm not the only one having a rough first day..."

Without a word, Blake began to walk away again. Sunset was torn. Should she follow Blake, or stay with this girl? For a moment, she considered leaving. Out of reflex, her hand brushed against her geode for comfort.

Suddenly, she wasn't at Beacon Academy. She was back at CHS. It was the Friendship Games, and she was watching the relay course. She could see Twilight struggling with the archery course, tears brimming in her eyes. Just as she was about to lose hope, Applejack had leaped from CHS's platform and onto Crystal Prep's, refusing to stay on the sidelines any longer.

And it was over. She was back at Beacon Academy, watching Blake walk away. Sunset sighed and shook her head with a smile. Even if her friends weren't here, she was still getting help from them.

"So, what's-" The girl in red cut herself off as she saw Blake walking away. Sunset picked up the conversation where Blake had left it, holding out her hand to the girl.

"I'm Sunset Shimmer."

She looked at Sunset's hand for a moment before grabbing it and giving it an enthusiastic shake. "I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose! Nice to meet you!"

"Uhm, hello?" a third voice chimed in. Both of them turned to see a boy with bright blonde hair had walked up to join them. "Sorry, I couldn't really help seeing what happened. Not cool..."

"W-well, I guess I started it by knocking over her stuff..." Ruby rubbed the back of her head. "And causing the explosion by sneezing on all that dust..."

"Still, that's no reason to have gotten so mad." Sunset argued. "It's the first day! Everyone's going to be nervous, and nerves can make you a little clumsy!"

"Yeah!" the boy joined in, holding out his hand to the two of them. "I'm Jaune Arc, by the way."

Ruby paused for a moment as she shook his hand, recognition appearing on her face. "Wait... weren't you the boy who threw up on the ship?"

"Y-yeah..." Jaune sighed with resignation.

As the three of them began to laugh, Sunset could already feel the beginnings of friendship starting to plant roots. She took one last look around, but Blake was long gone. If she had one regret, she had to admit she felt bad for leaving Blake alone again.

I guess she seems to prefer it that way, though...

Just as she had thought, the three of them became fast friends. Jaune hadn't taken too well to Ruby's nickname for him being "Vomit Boy," but had responded in kind with his own jab at her, "Crater Face." Sunset had found both of them hilarious until she had bumped into them at least three more times and earned herself the nickname "Sleepwalker."

in her defense, it was hard NOT to stare at her surroundings. It didn't feel like she was at a school, it felt like she was in some kind of fantasy city. Not only was the architecture on par with Canterlot Castle, but there were signs of futuristic tech everywhere. She didn't dare to take her phone out of her pocket after she caught sight of Ruby's "scroll." It was like a cell phone made out of pure glass capped with metal on either end, and it could somehow shrink down to a third of its size until only the metal caps remained.

"So... I've got this thing!" Ruby announced. With a series of clanks and whirs, the weapon she had been keeping strapped to her belt unfolded and expanded until it was a scythe nearly twice her size.

"WHOA!" Jaune shouted, jumping slightly as the tip of the scythe embedded itself several inches in the ground. Even Sunset was caught off-guard by the sudden change, her hand reaching for her saber. When the shock had worn off, though, her curiosity came back with a vengeance, and she began inspecting it as closely as she dared, trying to spot the mechanisms of how it worked. "Is that a scythe?"

"It's also a customizable, high-impact sniper rifle!" Ruby declared.

"Huh?"

"It's also a gun."

Sunset was nearly speechless. Nearly.

"That's INCREDIBLE! It has so much more volume once it expands, how did you do that without compromising the structural integrity? How do you use it without being just as dangerous to yourself, isn't the sharp part of the blade pointed towards you? How do you deal with the recoil of the sniper rifle? Is it heavy? Where did you get it?"

"Careful design, lots of training with my uncle, I usually anchor the blade in something, I'm used to it, and I built it myself!" Ruby was practically blushing at how much attention her weapon was getting. "What about you guys?"

"Well, uh, I've got this sword!" Jaune declared, drawing a long broadsword from his side.

"Oooo..." Ruby whispered.

"Yeah, a shield, too!" He reached down and took the sheathe from his belt. With a popping sound, it expanded into a full shield.

"Cool!" Sunset glanced closely at the sword. "So, what does it turn into?"

"Well, the sword is a sword, and the shield folds down! That way when I get tired of holding it, I can just make it smaller!"

Sunset and Ruby glanced at one another, clearly thinking the same thing. "But... doesn't it weigh the same?"

Jaune looked down. "Y-yeah."

"Well, I think they're pretty great!" Ruby chimed in. "Not many people have an appreciation for the classics!"

"Yeah!" Sunset added. "I mean, the sword and shield are timeless for a reason, right? Ultimate utility!"

"Besides, I'm kind of a weapons dork. I guess I did go a little overboard designing mine..." the two of them turned to look at Sunset expectantly. "What about you?"

"O-oh! Well, mine's more like Jaune's, it doesn't really transform at all." Sunset reached down for her lightsaber. The three of them all stared at the empty handle for a moment. Just as they opened their mouths to ask her for clarification, Sunset flicked the switch.

FSSSH! With the hiss of the air boiling, the blade of red light emerged, still bright even in the midday sun. Ruby and Jaune both stepped back, their jaws dropping at the sight. For a moment, she wondered if she had accidentally given away the fact that she wasn't from this world, and her entire body tensed up.

"That. Is. AMAAAAZING!" Ruby cried, mimicking Sunset's earlier excitement. "Is that some kind of plasma blade? Is it powered by dust? What kind of dust do you use? Does the blade have weight to it? How does it hold up against physical objects? How did you make it?" With her final question, Ruby grabbed Sunset's shoulders and shook her, demanding answers.

Sunset suddenly found herself on the receiving end of several questions she couldn't answer.

"I-I didn't make it, actually. I'm not even sure how it works! I'm still learning about it, to be honest..." she looked down at the blade, feeling somewhat intimidated by her own lack of knowledge. In all of the insanity of the Dalek invasion immediately followed by their kidnapping to Aperture, she'd hardly bothered to question it much. It was just there at her side, and that was all that mattered. "I... was with a friend, and we were being attacked. He picked up a sledgehammer, and I grabbed this without knowing what it was. It just... felt right. Like it was meant for me." She gave it an experimental swing, the hum of it passing through the air calming her nerves again. "I know it can cut through just about anything, and I used to to reflect an energy blast that would have killed him! But other than that, as far as I know it's just a sword with some really crazy cutting power." She shook her head. "He probably knows more about it than I do, to be honest! I wish he was here..."

"Oh... I'm sorry." Ruby muttered, stepping back. "I didn't mean to bring up any painful memories."

"What?"

"Your friend... If you don't mind me asking, what happened to him?" Jaune asked.

Sunset paused, the meaning sinking in. She switched off the lightsaber before stifling a laugh. "Pfft, he's not DEAD! Sorry, I guess I made that sound pretty dark! No, he just... didn't agree with me coming here, so he stayed behind. I miss him, but I'm sure he's fine!"

Both of her new friends sighed with relief.

"Well, being a Huntress has a lot of risk to it!" Ruby shrugged. "You're choosing to put other people before your own life! If he's your friend, I guess it makes sense he'd worry when you said you wanted to be one."

"Hmmph..." Sunset huffed and folded her arms over her chest. "I wish it was me he'd been worried about... It would be better than the stupid reasons he REALLY stayed behind."

"Well, you know... Guys can be weird about showing when they're worried about you." Jaune shrugged his shoulders. "If someone thinks they need to look tough, they'll usually say they're worried about everything EXCEPT what they're REALLY afraid of." He shook his head slightly and smiled. "I mean, I'd NEVER admit to my sister how much I worried about her when she left home, I'd never hear the end of it!"

"Hey, sorry to get off-topic, but..." Ruby took a moment to glance at their surroundings. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know, I was following you!"

"I was following Sunset!"

"I was following Ruby..."

The three of them paused to ponder their predicament.

"You think there might be a directory?" Jaune asked, putting his hand over his eyes and pretending to peer into the distance. "Maybe a food court? Some kind of recognizable landmark?"

Both girls snickered a little at his antics.

"Let's just go THAT way, it seems to be where most people are headed." Ruby declared, pointing towards the largest of the school's buildings.

The Shining Beacon

Together, the three of them made their way into an arena-like building where the rest of the students had gathered.

"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" a blonde-haired girl called, waving enthusiastically to her.

For a moment, Ruby's face lit up with recognition before turning back to the two of them. "Oh! Hey, I gotta go! I'll see you after the ceremony!"

In her pocket, Sunset felt her phone beginning to buzz.

"You are receiving a call from Elijah."

Sunset looked at Jaune as she shoved her hand in her pocket. "I'll be right back!" He stuttered some kind of response, but Sunset had to ignore it. She hurried back out of the room before finally picking up her phone. "Hey Penn, what's up?"

"Hey, Sunset! Good news: I've almost got the old tie rod out. After that, I'll have the rest of the day for making dinner! With all that time I should be able to make something special, any requests?"

Sunset felt a twinge of guilt. I guess Isis didn't tell him about the plan...

"Um, well, the thing is... I'm not coming back tonight."

There was a long pause, and Sunset could almost SEE the faces he was making through the phone as he processed the new information.

"I'm sorry?"

Sunset cringed slightly. She was still mad at him, but she was beginning to see just how little she had thought this plan through before jumping into it. "Isis... enrolled me at Beacon Academy. Whatever bad things are going to happen, I'm going to try to stop them from the inside."

There was the sound of what Sunset could only guess was a skull colliding with the underside of the Oldsmobile, then a long period of silence after that. Long enough for Sunset to pull her phone away to double-check that the call hadn't been dropped.

"Let me get this straight. Sunset, MY FRIEND... You decided to go enroll at a battle school for hunting monsters. Without telling me. While also leaving me in a forest full of those SAME monsters? His voice was quickly escalating to shriller and shriller pitches as a mix of panic and rage set in.

"O-okay, I'll admit I should have told-"

"And you also took... our ONLY WEAPON... WITH YOU?"

Sunset paused. "The lightsaber isn't our ONLY weapon, is it? What about the-" Sunset cut herself off before she mentioned the portal gun and opened herself up to correction. For all its utility, it was useless in a fight without a surface covered in moon rocks. "Well, what about-" she cut herself off again, remembering that Missy was the one carrying her own cards, now.

"I. Have. A. [BEEEEEP!] SOCKET WRENCH!"

There was a loud clatter before she was left listening to a dial tone.

"Isis... did you censor that?"

"Affirmative."

"Thanks."

For a few seconds, Sunset genuinely considered going back. Suddenly, she felt a lot worse about leaving Penn to fend for himself. "Isis, is he going to be safe out there?"

"It is a known phenomena that negativity attracts the creatures of Grimm. I shall do my best to protect him with the repair unit on hand, but his ability to keep a low profile will depend entirely upon his ability to control his mental state."

"In other words, it's really impossible to guarantee he'll be safe..." Missy added through her earpiece. I could go back for the night, but... Well, there's a 100% chance you're going to be in danger here. You're going to need me more."

Sunset glanced around, somewhat confused. "How am I in danger? It's a school, what could happen?"

"Well, tomorrow you're getting catapulted off a cliff without a parachute as your first training exercise."

It was Sunset's turn to take an excessive amount of time to process information.

"I'm WHAT?"

Isis couldn't help but note that it took a significant amount of time for Elijah to calm down again. Generally, his anger would be fervent, but short-lived. He described it as "burning itself out," an apt metaphor. This time, however, he seemed to cycle several times between calm and enraged, never fully resting for nearly an hour.

"I just... can't believe she thinks this is okay!" he stated from underneath the car. He had not emerged for 45 minutes and 37 seconds, a personal record for staying underneath the car without leaving for tools or fresh air. Isis was beginning to believe that he was staying in there despite a lack of productivity.

"I can assure you that she does not consider the situation acceptable. She merely did not realize the full repercussions of her actions."

"Exactly! We had one argument, and she left me for dead without a second thought! What kind of 'friend' does that?"

"You are exaggerating her actions to suit the narrative that you are the victim here."

"WHAT?"

"Sunset took what she was considering to be a moral stand to defend Beacon Academy, placing herself in peril without fully understanding the extent of the danger she would be in. A moral stand, I would add, that aligns with your actions in the past to save the planet together. Splitting the party was YOUR idea to exclude yourself from that cause. Despite appearances to the contrary, YOU left HER."

As he gathered his faculties for a counterargument, Isis picked up the sound of rustling leaves and snapping branches. She swiveled her head for a perimeter scan, picking up three instances of the werewolf-like creatures of Grimm known as Beowolves. Hulking, brutish pitch-black monsters with bony protrusions and fanged white masks fused with their canine heads. They were sniffing at the air, exhibiting the behavior congruent with catching the "scent" of negative emotions. In a fraction of a second, she had analyzed their assets and devised a tentative plan.

"Danger! Grimm sighted! Please retreat entirely beneath the car!"

"WHAT?"

"Three beowolves. Hide beneath the car, I shall attempt to draw them away."

Elijah's legs frantically kicked and turned, laying him completely under the car and out of sight. If the Grimm picked up on emotions utilizing the same orifice they used for picking up physical scents, Isis surmised that the scent of motor oil from the puddle he was now laying in would overpower all other scents, both literal and supernatural.

Step two was to draw them away from any lingering signs of his presence with a distraction. Her loudest tool in this unit was a spot welder in the tip of the tail, and she diverted a greater portion of energy to her central processor, causing it to glow bright pink and flicker on and off. With both auditory and visual distractions in effect, she took to the air and flew her way around each instance of Grimm to draw their attention. Dodging their swipes was child's play, and she soon had gathered the entire pack behind her to give chase. After one more lap around the campsite, she began to fly in the opposite direction of Beacon Academy. The minimum safe distance was unknown, so she would settle for either ten miles or when the monsters began to show signs of exhaustion, whichever came first.

Meanwhile, underneath the car, another integrated unit was engaged: Elijah's cellular phone. "Are they gone?"

"Affirmative. However, I would ask you to remain hidden until the repair unit can return and re-establish a perimeter of surveillance."

He gave a long sigh, but showed no signs of disagreement, even in the cramped and dirty conditions. "Well, since it LOOKS like we're going to be here for a while thanks to Sunset, I might as well catch up... Isis, bring up RWBY. Start with Volume 1, Episode 1, we'll see just how long I can marathon it until I can't stand it any more."

"Affirmative."

"Oh, and by the way, for someone who claims not to be taking a side, you're REALLY taking a certain somebody's side in all this..." he hissed under his breath.

"Negative. I am merely presenting facts in context."

"Right. Just start the stupid show..."

Stepping back into the auditorium, Sunset found herself fighting against a tide of other students leaving the room.

"Wait, is it over already?"

"I'm afraid so! The headmaster focused on keeping things brief," a chipper voice responded. Sunset turned, finding herself staring at another new face. This girl was tall, dressed in bronze armor and with the reddest red hair she had ever seen. Her weapon's colors matched, a circular bronze shield clipped to her back and a short red spear at her side. Despite her intimidating appearance, she gave Sunset a friendly smile. "I could fill you in on what you missed, if you like!"

"Thanks, I'd appreciate that..." Sunset chuckled and rubbed at the back of her head. "I got a call from a friend of mine that I just HAD to take, but it didn't really end well. This first day is a real roller coaster." She held out her hand to the girl. "I'm Sunset Shimmer."

The other girl happily took her hand in a bone-crunching handshake. "I'm Pyrrha, Pyrrha Nikos!"

Penn's words came rushing back to the forefront of her mind. Penny? Dead. Pyrrha? Dead. Torchwick? Dead.

This girl... is going to die?

Pyrrha seemed to notice Sunset's trepidation, as her happy expression faltered for a moment. "I'm sorry... is something wrong?"

Sunset blinked and shook her head. "No! Sorry, just- I thought your name sounded familiar, that's all!"

"Oh! Well, I hope my reputation hasn't given you any reason to worry?"

Sunset shook her head, forcing her aching hand vigorously up and down to make up for the bad impression. "No! Not at all, it's a real pleasure!" The enthusiastic handshake seemed to reassure Pyrrha, who gave her another warm smile.

"Well, all that you missed was an... interesting speech from the headmaster, and the announcement that we'll all be sleeping together in the ballroom tonight before initiation tomorrow!" She smiled and gestured around to the mass of students exiting together. "Until then, the rest of the day is our own!"

Sunset nodded to herself before a thought sunk in. "Oh no! I didn't bring my sleeping bag! And I don't think I'd be too welcome to go get it right now..."

"Well, I suppose if you need it, you could borrow one of mine! I brought a spare!"

"Really?" Sunset was surprised at the sudden kindness from this girl she had just met. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, it's no trouble at all!" Pyrrha reassured her. "If you still need it, come find me later tonight!" With that, she gave a small wave and turned to leave.

Sunset couldn't find it in her heart to believe anyone would want this girl dead. It just... didn't make sense! She needed to know more. Luckily, she knew how to get more information quickly.

"Hey, Pyrrha, one more thing-" Sunset reached out and tapped on her shoulder, this time reaching out with her magic.

It was like watching a montage of battles, one after another. Every single one was a victory for Pyrrha, dominating the competition. Tournaments, monsters, it didn't matter what she was fighting or why, she would always give it her all, and her all was enough and more to win. She could see a city by the sea filled with people who adored her, urging her to attend the schools of their choice when she was nearing the end of her training, but she already had one in mind: Beacon Academy. Sunset could see the fame and renown that came with constant victory, photo shoots, endorsements, people recognizing her as the untouchable warrior... and the distance it put between her and the rest of the world, with her reputation far outpacing her ability to meet and connect with people.

Pyrrha Nikos was practically invincible on the battlefield, but a gentle soul who couldn't seem to connect properly with others. Sunset found herself only more confounded, now not only failing to understand why someone would want to kill her, but how it could be done at all.

And then she was back in the present, Pyrrha giving her the odd look that people usually gave her when she was done "zoning out" to read a memory.

"Yes?"

"I... I just wanted to ask if you had any plans for the rest of the day? Because I'd really appreciate having a friend to hang around with."

Pyrrha pondered the question for only a moment before giving Sunset an positively radiant smile. "Of course! I would be happy to have your company, Sunset!"

The rest of the day consisted mostly of hanging around Pyrrha as they explored the campus of Beacon Academy. Occasionally she would spot Ruby or Jaune and give them a friendly wave, but each of them were too involved in their own business to join them. Not that she minded. Pyrrha was plenty of company, herself. As the day went on, however, Sunset couldn't help but rely more and more on Isis to answer questions.

"So, Sunset, where are you from?"

"Vacuo. It is a desert region populated by nomadic tribes."

"Vacuo. I was part of a tribe there..." she paused for a second. "I hated it there, refused to pick up on any of the local slang or customs. The first chance I had to get out, I took without looking back."

"You... you stole Penn's Texas backstory!" Missy snickered in her ear. "Smooth!"

"Vacuo can be a harsh environment, but... could you really hate your home THAT much?" Pyrrha looked at her with a mix of concern and curiosity. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry!"

Sunset waved away her concerned. "Don't be. I could fit everything I needed in the trunk of a car, so why worry?"

"Everything except a sleeping bag?"

The two of them shared a chuckle at that.

"The only regret is... that I lost track of most of my friends." She let out a long sigh. "And the one that I've been traveling with, I think I might have just alienated by choosing to come here."

"That phone call that you said didn't go so well?"

"Yeah. That was him." She shook her head. "But- he wants to just live and let live, like the way things are going to be is set in stone and doing anything to change it would be a crime! But I can't just stand by while people get hurt or die knowing I could have done something!" She shook her head.

Pyrrha nodded, looking up at the tower at Beacon's center. "A lot of people think that destiny is something immovable, unchanging. Personally, I don't see it that way. I don't think destiny is something inescapable, it's more like a goal, something you strive towards that you set for yourself. And if you give everything to make it happen, you are what makes it an unstoppable force."

"I... think I like that better than Penn's way of thinking."

The rest of the day passed quickly, and soon everyone had retired to the ballroom, where there was a veritable sea of sleeping bags and pajamas spread across the floor. Thanks to Pyrrha's generosity, she was soon trying to scope out a place of her own to lay down a sleeping bag. Thankfully, she found an open place next to a familiar face and black bow.

"Hello again, Blake! It's good to see you!"

Blake, who had her nose buried in a book, looked up briefly before giving her a nod of acknowledgement.

"Sunset."

She remembered my name! That's a good sign, right?

"What are you reading, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It's... a book about a man with two souls, both of them fighting for control over his body. I'm really enjoying it."

Sunset picked up on the less-than-subtle hint that she wanted to be left to her reading, but decided to ignore it. "You know, that sounds a lot like another story I heard about from a friend of mine. It's got a bit more of a sci-fi twist to it, though. He never published it, but if you want, I could try to get the manuscript for you."

An unpublished manuscript. It was the kind of offer that would usually have Twilight drooling. Blake seemed somewhat more resistant to the temptation, but she lowered her book ever-so-slightly to look directly at her. "That's... awfully nice of you."

"Ah, think nothing of it!" Sunset unrolled her sleeping bag in the empty space beside Blake. "It's the least I can do after you helped show me around."

"I left after five minutes." Blake narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Well, I did say it was the LEAST I could do." Sunset smirked as she slipped halfway inside the sleeping bag.

"HELLOOOOO!"

Both of them looked up to see a girl with long gold-colored hair strutting towards them with Ruby in tow. She gestured to the smaller girl, who did not look happy to have been dragged along. "I believe you two may know each other?"

"'Sup, Ruby?"

"Hey, Sunset..."

Blake finally seemed to give up on reading, placing a small bookmark and closing the cover. "Aren't you that girl that exploded?"

"Uh, yeah!" Ruby reached out for a handshake. "My name's Ruby, but you can just call me 'Crater...' uhh... actually, you can just call me 'Ruby.'"

"Okay..." Blake replied, clearly unsure what to make of the situation.

After waiting a moment, Sunset reached out and took her hand to give it a quick shake so her new friend wasn't left hanging. "I don't think Blake does the whole 'handshake' thing."

"What are you doing?" the gold-haired hissed.

"I don't know, help me!" Ruby replied.

"Sooo... I'm guessing you're Blake," she pointed correctly at her target, "And YOU must be Sunset!"

"That's right!" Sunset's smile was a little forced. Just as she had managed to start to get through Blake's tough exterior, this girl's overbearing personality had shut her right down again.

"Well, I'm Yang, Ruby's older sister!" She looked between the two of them before turning back to Blake. "I like your bow!"

"Thanks..."

"It goes great with youuuurr.... pajamas!"

The compliment was shallow and clearly thought up on the spot. It was clear that she was trying to break the ice while standing on a glacier.

"Riiight." Blake reached over to her book, cracking it back open again. There was a moment of awkward silence between the four of them where she and Ruby exchanged knowing glances. Sunset silently mimed opening and closing a book with her hands while nodding towards Blake, trying to send Ruby a clue.

"Nice night, don't you think?" Yang continued, showing all the social finesse of a bear overturning a kitchen table covered in bowls of porridge.

"Yes, it's lovely," Blake replied. "Almost as lovely as this book." She paused there to wait for the hint to set in. It didn't. "That I will continue to read..." Yang continued looking expectantly at her, clearly missing or ignoring the point. "As soon as you leave."

"Yeah, this girl's a lost cause..." Yang muttered, turning towards Sunset. Just before she could make another attempt to brute-force a conversation with her new target, Ruby finally spoke up for herself.

"What's it about?"

"Huh?" Blake looked up one more time, her attention barely snagged by the new voice.

"Your book! Does it have a name?"

"Well, it's about a man with two souls, each fighting for control over his body."

"Oh yeah... that's real lovely..." Yang rolled her eyes, but Ruby stepped forward, looking eager to hear more.

"I love books. Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters... They're one of the reasons I wanna be a huntress."

"Why is that? Hoping to live happily ever after?" Blake replied. Sunset suspected that this was the most engaged the girl in black had been in a conversation all day. Sunset smiled wider and settled into her sleeping bag, content with her small role in helping make the connection between the two.

"Well, I'm hoping we all will!" Ruby replied. "As a girl, I wanted to be JUST like those heroes in the books! Someone who fought for what was right and protected people who couldn't protect themselves!"

Blake lowered her book more, setting it face-up on her lap. "That's very ambitious for a child. Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale."

Real world? Oh Blake, if you'd seen the things I've seen... Sunset thought to herself with a huff and a smirk.

"Well, that's why we're here! To make it better."

"Oooh! I'm so proud of my baby sister!" Yang reached over and grabbed Ruby, picking her up off the ground in a massive bear hug. Ruby instantly began to kick and squirm in opposition.

"Cut it out!"

What ensued was a short-but-noisy brawl between the sisters. Sunset and Blake glanced at one another, each confounded by the sudden violence. Sunset shrugged as if to say "Must be a sibling thing," and Blake nodded in reply.

"Ruby, Yang, it's a pleasu-"

Seemingly out of nowhere, Weiss appeared, looking as furious as usual. "What in the world is going on over here?" Don't you realize some of us are trying to SLEEP?" After a moment, she and Yang locked eyes, apparently recognizing one another.

"OH, NOT YOU AGAIN!" they shouted in sync.

"Shh! Guys, she's right, people are trying to sleep!" Ruby interjected, inserting herself between the two of them.

"Oh, NOW you're on my side!"

"I was ALWAYS on your side!"

As the argument grew more heated, Sunset watched Blake roll her eyes, set down her book, and pick up their light source: a three-candle candelabra.

"Yeah, what's your problem with my sister? She's only trying to be nice!"

"She's a HAZARD to my health!"

Blake blew on the candles, extinguishing all light and decisively cutting the argument short.

"Well, at least SOMEONE around here appreciates a good night's sleep!" Weiss's voice muttered in the dark.

"Oh, go sit on a glacier, Ice Queen..." Yang's voice replied.

"How DARE you!"

"Can we please all just go get some sleep for tomorrow?" Ruby's voice begged.

With the unmistakable non-sound of several pouts that Sunset was sure were there, the three sets of footsteps walked away, punctuated by the occasional indignant squeak of someone being stepped on. Sunset was relatively certain at least two of those squeaks were Jaune. After a few seconds of sitting in silent darkness, however, a thought came to mind.

"Hey, Blake? Can I borrow your book? I like to read a little under the covers sometimes to help me relax..."

There was a sound of shuffling in the dark, and Sunset felt the hard covers of a book being pressed into her hands.

"Don't lose my place."

"Got it! Thank you, Blake!" she whispered before pulling her phone out of her pocket and the sleeping bag over her head. With the light of her phone's screen, she opened to the first page.

Long ago, someone decided to coin a phrase to substitute for the term "indecisive": Being "of two minds" about things. Indeed, the human mind and soul could be said to be at odds with one another on many an occasion in an individual's life, and even within these camps there are many an opposing view. Emotion grapples with logic, love with fear, the needs of the many and the needs of the individual, all are "two minds" that a man must keep in one soul.

It was these hundreds of twos that paralyzed Oliver on a daily basis, locking him in place at even the smallest of decisions. This, however, was to be only the start of his problems-

Her reading was interrupted by a sudden change in the light, flashing on and off. She quickly picked it up, only to realize Isis had been silently letting her know she had a call coming in. She swallowed hard as she saw the name on the caller ID: Penn. She took a deep breath and tapped the button to accept the call.

"Heeeey, Penn..." she whispered, trying not to make enough noise to escape the sleeping bag.

"Fine."

Sunset blinked, feeling like she was missing something, here. "Fine?"

"Fine, I'll help you." His tone was somewhere between a growl and a sigh of defeat. "You're going to need help to survive Beacon, anyway."

Missy's voice came through at a full shout, nearly deafening the ear Sunset was keeping the communicator in. "BOO YAH! The Man with the Plan is ON BOARD!"

Sunset could scarcely believe her ears. "You- you mean it?"

"But I'm not going to promise results in the end, and when I say you're in over your head, I need you to PROMISE that you'll pull back! It's not worth my time to pass info on to you if you're going to just blow it off because you think you know better!"

Sunset sighed, but nodded.

"Fine... why the change of heart?"

There was a long pause, only hearing the sound of his breathing. "I... had to spend a few hours under the car. HIDING under the car, I mean, not fixing it. Pretty much until nightfall. Turns out, being as mad as I was was like a magnet for every Grimm in a ten mile radius... Unfortunately, in that small of a space, your thoughts really tend to echo hard. I knew it was wrong to yell at you the way I did, even if you did kinda screw me over... Sorry for that, by the way. Guess I'm just scared. Scared of the kind of trouble you can get into without me around, scared of- Anyway, as Isis was eager to point out, YOU were the one who was still trying to save people, and I was the one who changed. So, I'm going to follow your lead. You're the moral compass this time, Sunset.

Sunset's vision blurred as tears began to flow. "I- I'm sorry, too. When you told me something I didn't want to hear, I just assumed you were being selfish. I used it as an excuse to do what I wanted and... how long were you hiding under the car?"

"Doesn't matter."

"He is still underneath the car."

"Tattletale."

"And you've been stuck hiding under the car all this time because I didn't have the common sense to leave you with a way to protect yourself!" she shook her head. "That wasn't fair to you, and you had every right to be upset with me for it."

"Look, if that's how you feel, do you want to just say we both messed up, call it good and go back to working together in the morning?"

"Please?"

"Deal."

Missy jumped in again on her earpiece. "The gang's back together, time for a reunion tour! Glad you finally made up your mind on this, Penn."

Penn replied with a soft chuckle. "You know me, Missy. I'm of two minds about everything: I still think this is a bad idea and we should just get out of here. I'm just forcing that part of me to defer to Sunset."

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as her eyes flicked back up to the book. That phrase... It has to be a coincidence, right?

"OH, OH!" Missy continued (Sunset could practically hear her hopping up and down with excitement), "There's four of us now! That means we're a team, just like in RWBY! What should our team name be?"

"We'll work that out later, Missy. Sunset, we've all got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, so get a good night's sleep, okay? I gotta go."

"Night, Penn!"

"Nighty night!"

And with that, the call ended. Sunset looked up at the book one more time before closing it and sliding it out to the general area she knew Blake was sleeping beside her. The call had done a world of good to ease her nerves, and sleep came easily now...

Except for when she remembered what Missy had told her would be coming tomorrow.

The First Step

Unfortunately, the morning's preparations flew by too fast for Sunset to even realize what was happening around her. All she could think about was what was coming. Before she knew it, they had all assembled at the top of a cliff overlooking a large forest. Soon after that, she was airborne, high enough to see the entire forest, right up to her goal: a ruined temple several miles from the school.

Of course, for the moment, her current goal was simply to survive her landing.

Her stomach, heart, and several other various organs rose up to her throat as she descended, watching the treetops rush up to meet her.

"For your safety, please cover your face as you enter the canopy."

It took all of Sunset's self-control to understand and respond to Isis, but she raised her arms up in front of her head just in time to keep out a flurry of leaves and branches that whipped past her. Immediately after, she felt several sets of hands under her, and her fall came to a gentle stop. When she lowered her arms, she found herself looking as Missy's piano-key wings wrapping around from behind her. A quick glance revealed Ghostrick Lantern's and Ghostrick Witch each riding on their own magical broomstick and holding on to one of her legs.

"Gotcha! See? Told you we'd be right here!" Missy cheered. "Isis, your calculations were spot-on!"

"Th-thanks, guys..." Sunset stammered as they lowered her to the ground. There wasn't any strength left in her knees, causing her to drop to the forest floor.

"Nice job, girls! You're a braver woman than I am, Sunset, I can't STAND heights!" Penn added in her ear. "Well, I mean, I'd be a less brave MAN, but you get what I was going for."

"After this experience, I think you're on to something with not liking heights..." Sunset muttered, still trying to collect herself. Lantern and Witch both gave a short salute to Missy, then waved goodbye as they evaporated away. After almost a full minute, she had gathered up enough strength to stand again. "So... the mission."

"The relics the headmaster asked you to retrieve are approximately three miles to your eleven o'clock."

Sunset oriented herself according to Isis's instructions and began walking. To her surprise, Missy didn't appear beside her, and after a moment of searching she realized that the duel spirit had vanished. "Missy? Where-"

To her surprise, Missy's voice came through the earpiece instead of speaking to her directly. "Ozpin's got cameras all over this forest to monitor the students! If he sees me, the best case scenario is that he'll think you cheated by getting outside help!"

"And the worst case would be that he figures out you're not exactly from around here." Penn added. "The LAST thing we want is Oz-pinhead getting involved with our interdimensional time-bending antics."

"He didn't seem that bad to me..." Sunset replied, keeping her voice lower now that she knew she was being watched.

"He's a Dumbledore-type manipulator, training kids to do his dirty work with blind loyalty, even sending them to their deaths while withholding any information that might compromise their perfect view of him." Penn said, making no effort to disguise the disdain in his voice. "Trust me, Sunset, he's one you want to avoid."

"Didn't you say you stopped watching this series three seasons in? Are you sure you have all the info about this guy? those are some pretty heavy accusations."

"I caught up last night. Re-watched everything from the beginning. Surprisingly, people were right: it started improving again somewhere between seasons five and six. Never as good as it was, though. Still a six out of ten at best."

Sunset paused for a second. "Wait, you watched six seasons of a show in one night?"

"I... was hiding under the car for a LONG time."

"Affirmative. He slept under there, as well."

"It's definitely one way to wake up bright and OILY in the morning."

"UGH, Penn! That was awful!" Missy groaned.

Sunset snickered to herself, as terrible as the pun was, it was good to have Penn back. There was one thing bothering her, though. Their mission in the forest was two-fold: to retrieve a relic from the temple on the other side of the forest, and form 4-person teams that would be training together for the rest of their time at Beacon Academy. Specifically, the headmaster had said that the first person they made eye contact with would be their partner for the next four years.

"Well, I wrote it down on paper, and when I looked at it I knew it was TEAR-ABLE..."

"UUUGH!"

"Hey, guys, can we focus for a sec? What about the whole 'partners and teams' thing?" Sunset rolled her eyes. "I mean, I know that I'm enrolled, but I'm not going to be here FOUR YEARS."

"That... is a very good question. Unfortunately, if we let the chips fall where they may, you're probably going to wind up in a position where you can't do much. I asked Isis to keep you on a path away from where other students are projected to have landed, but we need to come up with a plan fast."

"I already made a few friends, if that helps!" Sunset began counting on her fingers. "Ruby, Jaune, Blake, and Pyrrha! I wouldn't mind being partnered with any of them!"

"...okay, you see... what you've done there is befriend half of the main cast, and if you wind up partnered with any of them, you'll be splitting up the main characters' teams, so that's a solid N.O."

"Oh... Okay." Sunset couldn't help feeling slightly crestfallen. She had actually been hoping to wind up with at least ONE of them, especially Pyrrha.

"Listen Sunset... This isn't going to be easy, and things aren't going to go your way all the time. You're not going to be on a team with the main characters. This is a COMBAT school, it's not going to be like CHS."

"Penn, I know what I'm signing up for-"

"I don't think you DO, Sunset! You're on maybe the fourth or fifth episode of the first season right now. Beacon didn't fall until the end of season THREE. None of the major players arrived there until season TWO. If you do this, you're signing up for at least a full SEMESTER of classes here, if not two or three. That's MONTHS out of our search for your friends! If something goes wrong, the area around Beacon is going to be CRAWLING with Grimm from then on, we might not even be able to make it BACK to my world! Are you really prepared to do that? To make that commitment?"

THAT was enough to make Sunset stop in her tracks.

"If we leave, let this world play out the way it should, then yes, there will be tragedy, but SCRIPTED tragedy. I know it sounds callous to say, but all the right people will survive to keep this story going intact. They'll keep moving towards their happily ever after, even if it's a long and winding road. If we stay, then we introduce variables that we'll have to take responsibility for, throw EVERYTHING off. I want you to understand what you're truly offering this world.

It's not just your life you're risking, it's the lives of everyone you've met so far AND our whole MISSION to reunite the Rainbooms."

Sunset looked down at her hands. She wondered just how much responsibility they could carry.

"I'm telling you this because you're about to cross the point of no return. If you finish initiation, you'll- WE'LL- be a part of this, no going back."

Sunset felt another one-ton weight fall on her shoulders as she remembered that Penn wasn't just guiding her from some easy place of safety where he could just binge-watch TV all day. She wasn't about to repeat her mistake of failing to take him into account.

"What about you? I mean, if I stay, what are you going to do?"

"Stay here, of course! I'm in a forest, maybe Isis and I will build a log cabin together, it'll be romantic@ It'll need a garage, of course, I'm not going to leave Sylvia expos-

"Penn, quit joking. Seriously, what will you do? You can't just camp out in the forest for months while I'm at this school!"

"Says who? This universe has some of the coolest weapons tech in the multiverse, I'm sure Isis and I could get something together under the radar I could use to protect myself! Look, we're traveling buddies, I'm not going to walk away. What I'm going to do doesn't matter, you need to make this decision for yourself, and this time I'm going to be behind you one hundred percent."

Sunset took a long, shuddering breath. Penn was right, she really didn't know what she was signing up for until now.

"You know... if you'd told me that before yesterday, I might have seen your point. I might have agreed that we can't afford to waste this time on a small chance of making things better." She closed her hands into fists. "But I met Pyrrha. I met Blake and Ruby and Jaune and saw how amazing this world IS... And if this is a world where people like them have to suffer and die, then..." She looked up and redoubled her pace, setting herself back on the path to the ruins. "Then I'm going to CHANGE destiny, even if that means putting my own search on hold! My friends can take care of themselves, and any one of them would do the exact same thing in my position. How could I look them in the eyes when I find them if I just let these awful things happen?"

On the other end of the communicator, Sunset heard Penn chuckle to himself. "Of course you will. Because you're a superhero. You know, between the pastel ponies and the friendship rainbows, I keep forgetting that."

"Did you forget who saved the world from an alien invasion, saved me in Aperture Science, AND defeated an Egyptian god? We're BOTH superheroes!"

"We'll leave that up for debate, but thanks."

Before Sunset could argue with him, there was the sound of an explosion in the distance, followed by a plume of black smoke. Sunset didn't hesitate, taking off at a run in the direction of the trouble.

Whatever happens or whoever I wind up with, I'm still going to do this!

It didn't take long for Sunset to close in on the source of the noise.

"Ruby and... Weiss?"

The two girls were standing back to back, surrounded by monsters Sunset could only assume were the "Grimm" creatures Penn had mentioned. They were terrifying, unlike anything she had ever seen. Pitch-black bodies covered in pale plates and spikes of bone and glowing red eyes. They were hulking brutes that looked like they would tear the girls to shreds in a heartbeat.

"There's so many of those monsters..."

"Oh, this is that time Weiss set the forest on fire!" Missy chuckled.

"This is where she and Ruby become partners!" Penn added. "They get caught by a pack of beowolves and wind up having to run to escape the fire. They'll be fine, Sunset."

On cue, Weiss grabbed Ruby by the arm and the two of them began running for an opening in the wolves' ranks. Sunset's blood ran cold, however, as they were cut off by a new creature. Ruby took up a defensive stance against the new monster while Weiss fought the wolves single-handedly. Weiss looked to be using some kind of magic to great effect, throwing the monsters around and blasting them with elemental shocks, but Ruby couldn't seem to break out of the defensive stance she'd been forced into.

"What about the jellyfish monster?"

"What? Sunset, there's no-"

"It's a flying jellyfish with a black bell and barbed red tenta-"

"SUNSET, GET IN THERE NOW!"

Sunset didn't need to be told twice, the fear in Penn's voice was enough to set her at a dead sprint towards the two girls. With a flick of her thumb, the lightsaber was out and humming as it tore through the air. The wolf creatures didn't even get a chance to notice her presence before Sunset had torn a path through them from behind. The saber was surprisingly easy to wield, even if she did feel a little clumsy as she swung it from side to side to cut down the monsters. The blade itself was weightless, and the bodies of the monsters gave almost no resistance as she sliced through them. If she weren't seeing the results with her own eyes, she could have believed she was just imagining the weapon in her hands. In a matter of seconds, she had reached the two.

"Get out of the way! What are YOU doing here?" Weiss asked, barely missing Sunset with another icy blast. Sunset resisted the urge to fire back a sarcastic comment and lunged straight past her to join Ruby's side. She tried to make the most of the element of surprise and swung directly at the orb-shaped head of the creature, but one of the tentacles was faster. It looped around her wrist and jerked her hand upwards, causing her to harmlessly miss. As her arm followed through on the motion, she pulled back just before decapitating Ruby by accident. A second later, a flash of metal flew by and Sunset found her arm freed. With a hard yank, Ruby pulled her back and away from the monster. The blade of her scythe was moving constantly to bat away the tentacles, but unable to reach the main body. Thankfully, the blade of the weapon was wide enough to cover both of them safely.

"WOAH! Sunset? What are you-"

"Looked like you needed some backup! What IS that thing?"

"I don't know! It just came out of nowhere- WAH!" Her head jolted to the side as she dodged a barbed tendril that had poked through her defense. "I can't keep this up forever! Think you can take it out?"

Sunset looked down at her saber and realized an important fact: she had no ranged options. And Ruby said her weapon is a sniper rifle, which means she needs MORE distance! Our only mid-ranged fighter is-

"WIESS! Tag out!"

"WHAT?"

Sunset rolled her eyes and reached behind her, grabbing Weiss by the shoulder and pulling her away from her fight with the beowolves. In an instant, the two of them had swapped positions, and Sunset was staring down eight of the bulkier monsters. When the first one jumped at her, Sunset didn't hesitate to counter with a swipe of her blade that cut its head neatly in half.

"Now THIS is a little more my speed..."

The monsters came at her in waves, first two, then three, then two again, but every time Sunset's lightsaber ripped them apart as if they were made of tissue paper. Soon, she was staring down the last of them. Framed against the light of the burning forest behind it, she noticed that it was bigger than the rest, with long, bloodstained claws. It stared at her with hungry eyes, but it didn't rush in like the rest had. For a moment, the two of them locked eyes, two foes regarding each other and sizing up their opponent. Must be the alpha... Sunset smiled and raised an eyebrow. Those claws looked fearsome, but this thing was clearly outgunned.

This time, SHE took the initiative. She began to jog, then to run, then to sprint. The beowolf did the same, settling into a four-legged run. The two of them kept locked on one another. When the distance between them was nearly gone, the alpha leapt into the air, pouncing on her claws-first.

Exactly the way Sunset had expected. She dropped to the ground, letting her momentum slide her knees-first through the grass. She gripped her saber with both hands, swinging it directly over her head.

To the monster's credit, it was the first time she'd actually felt any resistance while cutting through one of these things. A second later, two even halves of the creature landed behind her, split cleanly down the center.

Sunset knew the fight wasn't over, though. As soon as it was dead, she jumped back to her feet. She dug her sneakers into the soil and began sprinting back to Ruby and Weiss. Thankfully, it seemed that the two of them had it well in hand.

Each of the creature's tentacles was being held fast by a black, snowflake-shaped glyph, and Ruby had the top of her scythe placed against the back dome.

"I've never seen a Grimm like this before, have you?" Weiss asked. Ruby simply shook her head.

"That's because it SHOULDN'T be here!" Penn's voice hissed through the earpiece. "There's no way, no REASON for a Seer Grimm to be at Beacon!

"Well, I guess we're lucky Sunset showed up when she did, huh?"

"LUCKY? She nearly tore my arm out of its socket!"

Sunset rolled her eyes and patted Weiss on the shoulder. "You're welcome. Now let's get rid of this thing, huh?"

That was when Sunset felt it: a deep unrest. A knot in the pit of her stomach that left her unsettled. The distinct feeling that she was staring into a crystal ball, and something powerful and malevolent was staring right back at her. I have a bad feeling about this-

Her hand moved without thinking, grabbing her saber and flicking it on. At the same time, she spotted a flicker of motion from behind the smoky orb. She swung the blade upwards, slicing the last tentacle as it whipped at Ruby's head. The white barb at the tip went whizzing by like a bullet, narrowly missing Ruby's left eye. All three of the girls jumped with surprise, and a second later the monster's body exploded as Ruby fired her rifle point-blank. As the remains of the creature dissolved away into ashes, Ruby gave her a thankful look.

"Wow. You have REALLY good reflexes. That could have been the end of my eyes! I owe you one."

"Okay, I'll admit... that was impressive." Weiss conceded. "If you wanted to stay with us, I wouldn't be ENTIRELY against it."

Sunset felt like the praise was misplaced, that had NOT been reflex. It had been something like a premonition. Both actions had happened at the EXACT same time, like she'd known about it just a few milliseconds before it was going to happen. It's like what happened when I first used the saber, back when I saved Penn on the dalek ship!

"D-don't worry about it! That's what friends are for, right?"

"Sunset, I don't know what's going on, but you should stay with them."

"First of all, Sunset, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Second, Penn, could you repeat that?" Missy whispered in fearful tones.

"I said that I don't know what's going on, so Sunset should-"

"You DON'T know what's going on?"

"That is what he said, yes."

"Sunset?"

"H-huh?" Sunset snapped back to the present, where Ruby and Weiss were staring at her.

"I said we should get moving before this fire finishes what the Grimm started!" Ruby pointed behind her, where the fire was continuing to spread.

Sunset blinked, then nodded. "Good idea. Lead the way, Ruby..."

In her ear, however, Sunset heard Missy continuing to whisper.

"Guys... did we just commit to this and then IMMEDIATELY lose our tactical edge?"

The Black Queen sat upon her throne, staring into the swirling mist of the Seer she'd been watching through before she'd been so rudely cut off. She pondered the last image she had seen: three girls standing where two should have been, one a complete stranger wielding a sword of light. Her hopes to remove the largest obstacle to her plans subtly were dashed now.

"Well, it looks as if new players have entered the game..." she hummed to herself. "This could be... frustrating."

"Would you like for me to deal with her, my Queen?" a voice snickered, dripping with anticipation. Sending him would be like swatting a fly with a firecracker: noisy, messy, out of control, and a clear announcement of their presence.

"If we rush our movements any more than we already have, then there will surely be an error made someplace down the line by some fool. For now, it is our opponent's turn. A few unaccounted-for variables do not mean the end of our plans. We can be flexible." She smiled and dismissed the Seer with a wave of her hand before turning back to her followers. "For now, we wait for this 'Sunset' girl to show exactly whose pawn she is."

She and Ozpin had been playing chess for centuries. Any other opponent would be like an infant stumbling across the board and kicking pieces haphazardly into places they didn't belong. She wasn't worried. But she was intrigued.

Someone out there knew enough to enter the game, but didn't know enough to realize they never should have done so.

Author's Note

Consider this a heads-up: Classes start in two days, so expect updates to slow down.

However... MULTIVERSE GOT FEATURED! So that's worth celebrating, and has put a significant amount of wind in my sails!! Thank you all for reading and commenting and just every way you engage with the story! Believe me when I say I wouldn't still be here on FIMFiction without your encouragement!

This little stress-relief project has become one of my favorite stories I've ever written, and I'm looking forward to many more adventures to come! Trust me, we're only on Arc 4, and I have... a LOT more than 4 in my planning document. A LOT.

-Pennington Inkwell

(P.S. Every chapter title has been some form of hidden reference, can you figure them all out? Some are obvious, others are more obscure!)

The Repressed Nerd, The Voice of Reason, and the Ultimate Wing-Bot

Logic was still screaming in the back of his mind. Or was that Fear?

Ah, both. In harmony.

Made nice background noise as he worked. It wasn't the only background noise, however, as he heard a significant portion of what was happening on Sunset's end of the communicator.

"What are you DOING, you DOLT?"

"Sorry, Weiss!"

"Since when are there LANCERS in this forest?"

Lancers: wasp-like Grimm approximately two meters in height, capable of launching barbed ropes from their abdomens. They first appeared in the episode "Dread in the Air," where they were dispatched by an older Weiss Schnee riding in the back of a flying cargo ship. No crippling weaknesses that would be worth breaking Sunset's concentration to tell her. It was entirely possible that there was a much larger, more dangerous queen somewhere in the area.

Yet another Grimm to add to the list of "things that shouldn't be here but are."

Logic and Paranoia screamed a little louder. Screamed about the fact that they shouldn't even be here, screamed that they were in mortal peril every second they stayed. Screamed about paradoxes and black holes and Grimm attacking him while he had no weapons. Screamed about the entire world collapsing around them.

Penn reached back in his memory, slamming a certain door on both of them with a video byte.

Yes, thank you for your input. Now, could SOMEBODY help me figure this out?

He felt the familiar presence of the voice of Reason at his back. Why the initiation is ten times more dangerous?

No, how I'm supposed to fit BOTH ends of the tie rod in at once- OF COURSE WHY THE INITIATION IS MORE DANGEROUS!

Okay, first of all, don't get sassy with me! Reason chided. Second, you STILL haven't gotten the tie rod in, so are you sure about that? Isis TRIED helping you and you turned her down...

Penn physically rolled his eyes at that. Yes, because I'll never learn how to repair this kind of stuff if I don't do it myself! Without Sunset and Missy around to be smug to, all he could do was chatter with himself until he got a headache. Isis was great for calming himself down, but her banter needed work. Banter helped him think. Thankfully, he'd spent a LOT of time learning to like being alone with his thoughts. They had a good sense of humor, even if a bit overbearing at times.

And when you were having both sides of the conversation, the banter was excellent.

Priorities. Sunset's safety first. And her safety depends on figuring out why things are different than we remember watching.

Do we HAVE to make Sunset our top priority? I mean, without you I don't exist. That's a two-to-one ratio of people dying if you die versus Sunset dying!

Penn knew that the ability to give an abstract concept in his own head a death glare was tenuous at best, but he managed it regardless.

Fine! Fine! Sunset comes first. Geez. So why would there be more Grimm here? What if we're just seeing things that got cut out? Even the narrative perspective isn't omniscient.

Possibly, but that doesn't explain the seer. We KNOW that wasn't there the first time around. From what we HEARD, it was targeting Ruby's eyes in its attacks.

Just like how Maria Calavera was targeted by bounty hunters for HER silver eyes!

The silver eyes: a mysterious plot device that the show hardly explained. Ruby Rose had silver eyes, indicators of a special power residing in her that served as the antithesis of the Grimm. It was hard to gather any concrete data on, even a former proficient user described it more artistically than objectively as "reflecting the light of the world." It produced a bright light that destroyed minor Grimm and petrified major ones. It appeared to manifest in moments of extreme distress for Ruby, first appearing-

-at the fall of Beacon. Reason finished the thought. Pyrrha's death was the inciting incident, awakening the protective instinct that triggers the silver eyes.

Great. The Seers work directly under Salem, usually being controlled by her. That means-

Salem knows about Ruby's silver eyes three seasons earlier than she should. Reason continued.

Yeah, could you stop interrupting me? Otherwise I'll just go back to talking to Isis.

Fine! You certainly don't listen to me on a day-to-day basis, why would I expect otherwise when YOU come to ME?

Penn blinked several times, feeling slightly guilty.

Sorry. Let's just focus. Salem knows about Ruby's silver eyes. How?

His train of thought ran into a brick wall as Reason ripped the tracks out from under it. Wrong question. Sunset is with Ruby, so focus on her future, not the big bad's past. Salem knows about Ruby's silver eyes. What does she do next? Send more dangerous Grimm specifically after her. When that fails, what happens?

Penn grimaced and shook his head. Man, I hate RTS. Hold on... He considered the situation, then rephrased it in a way that was easier to wrap his head around. He closed his eyes and pictured himself in a dark room. There was a table. Game mats. Cards. He rested his hand on his deck and looked down at the field: it was already set, mid-duel when he arrived.

"Ruby: effect monster. Attack position. Her effect activates in three turns, crippling the majority of Salem's monsters that battle against her. Sunset: effect monster, attack position. Can save Ruby from destruction, but a limited number of times. What would we do in Salem's position?"

Reason settled down across from him, glancing over her side of the field: a full five monsters of varying levels and power. The most direct way would be to keep attacking. Exhaust Sunset's ability to protect Ruby by sheer numbers. She reached down and nudged the monster cards forward one at a time, indicating attacks. The first one, the seer, exploded and dissolved away beneath her fingertips. Immediately it was replaced by another monster. They both looked to the upper corner of the field. Penn made a gesture to the card and Reason nodded, allowing him to pick it up.

"A field spell: Evernight Castle. Salem's base of operations. Of course, the pools of dark essence allow her to keep spawning Grimm. However, even Salem has a limited number of cards in her deck. When we last saw the pools they were nearly empty." He looked over to his opponent's deck, only to find it blurry and impossible to make out the details of. There was no way to know how many cards, how many ASSETS, she had to work with.

That's unquantifiable. Reason countered. She could produce any number of Grimm, you have no idea how many, even with limited resources. We're dealing with swarm tactics. Think like we're dealing with a pendulum deck.

Penn groaned inwardly. He HATED pendulum decks. If the game hadn't been absolutely broken by synchro and Xyz summoning, pendulum summoning had been the true death of any remaining balance in Yu-Gi-Oh.

"But she targets her swarms very carefully, she still can't overwhelm by sheer numbers. And..." he looked past the row of attacking monsters, spotting a completely filled back row of spells and traps. "We have no idea what she HERSELF is capable of. She tried to make herself a new god when the rest of this world lost their magic, remember?"

Reason peered down at the field, stroking her chin. Unknown quantity of monsters that she can throw at us, a full backrow, AND a field spell that can keep the monsters coming. She literally could not have more field advantage without-

"If you say the words "Link Summon" I'm going to have an aneurysm."

Am I wrong?

"No, but the metaphor doesn't stretch that far."

He looked back at their field and drew the top card off of the deck. It was a picture of himself, cramped into the space under his car and covered in motor oil.

"The Everyman." He hummed to himself. He looked down, noticing a pair of trap cards of their own. One was already face-up: "Forewarning." When a monster would be destroyed, flip a coin. If heads, that monster cannot be destroyed this turn. If tails, this card has no effect.

Why the coin flip? You've had a 100% success rate at warning Sunset in the past!

Penn shook his head. "My information has gaps at best and is outright wrong at worst. We figured that out today." He flipped the other trap face-up to read it. "Ghostrick Go-Round... of course. Missy CAN run interference, but it would mean exposing her and putting her out on the field."

He sat there for a long time, considering both perspectives, the bad guys' side of the fight and theirs. It felt woefully unbalanced.

There's one other thing the metaphor didn't cover.

"What?"

The light expanded, revealing the table to be larger than he had first thought. Penn realized he was sitting on the inside of a wide crescent. Four more playing fields appeared flanking his opponent, all directed towards him.

"Right... Salem's generals. Generals? Subordinates. Goons?" Penn struggled for the right word as he tried to take in four more opponents. Four more strategies, and he would need to defend against them all with what little of a deck and field he had. "If I had my own deck, I might be able to hold up for a few turns against this kind of barrage, but... we're barely going to survive the next play." He gripped the bridge of his nose and squeezed, hoping it would the dispel the fog forming in his brain from trying to find a way out of what seemed like an impossible situation.

Aside from Salem, Cinder Fall is the most dangerous of the rogues' gallery. She's as ruthless and power-hungry as they come. Reason stepped over, gesturing to the field directly to Salem's right. And her two ace monsters-

Penn felt a kick at his leg, and the snap back to reality felt like somebody had punched his brain in the face. All the physical sensations of his body rushed back to him at once as the visualization was ripped away from him when his eyes reflexively shot open and flooded his brain with mismatched visual information. From one instant to the next, his entire world was back to reality.

"Hey, buddy, you okay down there? Get run over in the middle of the woods, or something?"

Penn stiffened, realizing that he was no longer alone. The location they were at was so remote, he hadn't taken into account the possibility that anyone could find them. He had no cover story.

Well, do what you do best, make up a story! Reason urged him on. With no small amount of trepidation, he began to worm his way out from under the car, forcing himself to take on a carefree tone.

"Not run over, ha! If I was, then I wouldn't have to worry about fixing this beauty any more!" As he finally emerged back in daylight, his breath caught in his throat.

Standing above him were two figures he recognized. One was a young man dressed in shades of gray and silver, with a tight-fitting jacket and black pants, topped by shaggy gray hair. The other was a brown-skinned woman with green hair and blazing red eyes. While her legs were well-protected by a pair of brown chaps over white shorts, her top left very little to the imagination, leaving her midriff and arms exposed, as well as a large window over the top of her chest. What drew his attention more, however, was the pair of thick gun stocks he could see poking out from either side of her waist.

Logic and Fear put their hitherto-unknown editing skills to good use, gracing Penn with a skillful montage of the dozens of ways they could kill him right now.

Mercury and Emerald... Cinder's top henchmen.

He forced himself to smile, noting that he had to do so with his eyes. He had to convince them that he didn't recognize them. If they know that I know, they're not going to let me know that they know that I know until it's too late for knowing they know that I know to do me any good!

I KNOW! Reason replied, being notably unreasonable in her volume.

"Beauty? Are you sure about that?" Emerald tilted her head. "This thing looks ancient."

Right, this world's tech is more advanced. Of course Sylvia would stand out...

"She's an antique! There's a certain elegance to older designs, you know?" He pushed himself up onto his feet and offered his hand for a handshake. The two of them gave the offered gesture a critical look, and Penn realized that his hand was still covered in grime and oil. He quickly crouched down to grab one of his towels and clean his hands. "RIGHT! Sorry!"

"Well, they DO say beauty is in the eye of the beholder!" Mercury offered a smile Penn knew was almost certainly either forced or for any reason EXCEPT what it appeared to be.

"Exactly!"

"Still, odd place to bring an antique. These woods aren't known for being gentle." Emerald countered, with a gesture to the area. Mercury nodded and began to walk away, examining the campsite in greater detail. Penn swallowed loudly, his mind trying to determine if there was anything about the campsite that could give away their true origin.

Like, I don't know, the INTERDIMENSIONAL PORTAL a few yards behind the car?

"Well, anything for a little peace and quiet..." Penn chuckled. "Besides, camping's no fun without an element of risk!"

"Not surprising you ran into trouble, though." Emerald stepped over and knocked her foot against one of the raised front tires. "It doesn't look like this car was built for off-roading."

"Oh! What's this? A fancy firestarter?"

Before he could come up with a convoluted reason for a four-door sedan to be in the middle of the woods, Mercury emerged from behind the car, holding a familiar object in his hands: the portal gun. Penn's blood ran cold as his mind grasped at straws. He knew he had to say SOMETHING, and his mouth fumbled over words that Reason had most certainly NOT stamped with approval.

"Tha-tha-that's... none of your business," he whispered, dreading what kind of response he would get from it. The two intruders gave each other glances that were a mix of faked surprise and smugness.

"Well, if that's the case, I suppose I should give it back..." Mercury held the the item out towards Penn, only to yank it back when he reached for it. "It's fascinating, though! Almost looks like Atlesian tech, don't you think, Emerald?" He tossed the device to her, which she easily caught in one hand.

"You know, I think you're right! Plus, I can definitely make out a barrel, and this is certainly some kind of trigger..."

The familiar hum of the gun sprung to life as Emerald switched it onto its orange setting. She casually gestured towards him with the gun, pointing it at his chest. Penn raised his hands up in a surrendering position out of instinct, even if he knew the gun wouldn't do anything to him unless he was made of moon rocks. Both of them raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"Now, why don't you tell us what you're REALLY doing out here?"

Penn opened his mouth to respond, only for a silver blur to shoot by them at high speed, and the portal gun was gone. Emerald's hands were on her guns in an instant, and Mercury fell into a battle-ready stance, but a cursory glance told Penn that the cavalry had arrived. The blur came back around, revealing itself to be a small metal dragon gripping the gun with all four claws. She dropped the Aperture device into Penn's hands before settling on his shoulder, glaring at the intruders.

"Unauthorized access to the Aperture Science Handheld Quantum Tunneling Device is disallowed."

"Thank you, Isis." Penn reached up with his free hand and gave her a stroke along the back of her head. After a moment, he leveled his best death glare at the intruders. "As for you two, I'm afraid you just outstayed your welcome. We'll have to insist that you find your own campsite." He pointed to the array of sockets and other tools laying in the red grass. "I've got a lot of work to do."

Emerald's grip on her guns tightened, and Penn wondered if he had overplayed his hand. Her temper was mitigated by Mercury's hand on her shoulder.

"We were just curious, bud. If you wanted us gone, you could have just said so. We've got an appointment with our boss, anyway. Right, Emerald?"

The girl looked as though she was about to argue with her friend for the sake of recovering her dignity from Isis's sneak attack, but his reminder seemed to win out over her temper. "You're right, Mercury." She let go of her guns and the two of them turned away from the car and began to walk out of the campsite. Just before they vanished back into the trees, however, she turned back to look at him. Her blood-red eyes seemed to pierce right through him, sending a chill of fear straight into his soul. "Don't say we didn't warn you that these woods were dangerous."

And with that, they were gone. Or, at least, he THOUGHT they were gone.

Almost every well-trained individual in this universe possessed a "semblance," a personalized superpower. He knew hers was extremely dangerous: Hallucinations. She could alter any person's sensory input to whatever she wanted. It seemed to be limited to single or small groups of individuals before it tool a heavy toll on her body, but it was extremely potent against a lone individual.

"Isis? Are we alone?" he whispered beneath his breath.

"Affirmative."

He finally let go of his breath, grasping at his chest to try and slow down his pounding heart.

"Forget what I said about wanting to learn by doing, we need to get the car moving NOW."

Reason finally chipped in again now that the moment she'd been overriden by Panic had passed. And add two more things to the list of "Things That Shouldn't Be Here."

"So... he knew who we were."

"Obviously. Did you see just how scared he was?" Mercury chuckled to himself. "He looked ready to piss his pants."

"Still, that weapon was interesting. Wish I could have seen what it did." Emerald sighed as she lamented the lost opportunity. "What was it called? A 'Quantum Tunneling" thing?"

"I was more interested in that little robot. That little thing could MOVE!"

"Whoever made it was trying too hard to make it cute. We're going back, right? He CLEARLY has something to do with why we're here."

"Well, that's all up to Cinder, isn't it?"

MEANWHILE

It was a long and tiring road, but with Ruby and Weiss's help and a lot of clever teamwork, the three of them had fought their way through the forest and made it to the ruins they had been instructed to find. Admittedly, Ruby DID have an idea that would have gotten them there much faster, but luckily a two-to-one vote had been enough to shoot down the idea of hitching a ride on a gigantic bird monster called a "Nevermore."

It seemed as if they weren't the only ones who had been slowed down, though. As they emerged into the clearing, Sunset spotted Blake and Yang picking up their relic from one of the many pedestals, which meant they had only just arrived. Nearby, another girl whooped and hollered with glee as she rode on the back of a bear-like Grimm, which collapsed soon after arriving. She was being followed by a boy dressed in green, who looked thoroughly exhausted by his partner's antics.

"Looks like this is taking longer than we thought it would..." Ruby muttered. "Anybody spot a partner for Sunset, yet?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Ruby, I told you, I'll be FINE. I'll probably pair up with some other straggler. Come on, let's get that relic."

"But you're too good to wind up without a partner just as talented as you are!" Ruby whined, clearly more concerned about Sunset's future than she was.

"Her form with that sword is sloppy at best and crude at worst. She's got natural talent, but she'll need a LOT of training before I'd call her skilled," Weiss countered, once again balancing out her optimistic partner.

"HEY! You could afford to be a little nicer, Weiss! She saved YOUR life, too!"

"Not half as many times as I saved yours! You're only slightly more finessed than she is!"

Sunset rolled her eyes and strolled up to the ruins, glancing over the pedestals and discovering what exactly it was that they had been sent to retrieve. "Chess pieces?"

"Affirmative. Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee will take the White Knight, as will Blake Belladona and Yang Xiao Long. Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos will take the White Rook, as will Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren."

"Aw, Pyrrha and Jaune wind up being partners? That's sweet..." she whispered as a smile spread across her face. She hadn't been able to speak directly to any of her traveling friends while she was around Weiss and Ruby, and the three of them had tended to stay quiet during the fighting aside from the occasional warning of incoming danger. It felt reassuring to know they were still there. She scooped up the White Knight piece before tossing it towards her new friends.

"Ruby! Catch!"

Somehow, despite showing incredible battle prowess and almost-inhuman levels of agility earlier, Ruby was struck squarely in the forehead by the oversized chess piece. It bounced off of her head and back into the air while she fell to the ground. Weiss was quick enough to snatch it, examining it while Sunset made her way back.

"Chess pieces?"

Sunset shrugged. "I used to have a teacher who really enjoyed chess. She would always tell me it was one of the oldest games ever played. I rather enjoy it, myself. Did you know that there are more unique ways a game of chess can play out than there are electrons in the known universe? Ten to the one hundred and twentieth power!"

"Well, it IS a scholar's game." Weiss smiled to herself, the kind of smile that Sunset had learned she'd managed to bring a compliment back around to herself. "Perhaps after all of this, we could sit down for a match. I could probably teach you a thing or two."

Sunset smirked a smirk that quickly seemed to melt through Weiss's self-assured pride. "Well, my old teacher was VERY good. Maybe we could both learn something." Sunset felt a hand on her shoulder. When she turned around, she found herself face to face with Blake, who had a smirk of her own.

"Glad to see you made it in one piece."

Sunset's first instinct was to hug, but she forced it back down. Blake was cool and aloof. "Touchy-feely" wasn't her thing. Instead, she restricted herself to looking Blake straight in her gold-colored eyes and returning the smile.

"You, too."

"RUBY!"

"YANG!"

Just as the two sisters were about to embrace, the girl who had managed to ride on a giant bear popped up between them. "NORA!"

Before anyone could question where "Nora" had come from, their attention was drawn by the sound of distant screaming from above them. Sunset could only watch, flabbergasted, as Jaune's distant form sailed over their heads before landing in the trees above them with a grunt followed by a long groan.

"Did he just fall out of the sky?" Blake asked.

Before anyone could answer THAT question, the other side of the clearing exploded as Pyrrha came sprinting into the clearing. Behind her was a massive armored scorpion-like Grimm with a glowing stinger. She was only barely keeping ahead of it, dodging through snapping claws and around strikes from its tail.

"Did she run all the way here with a deathstalker on her tail?" Blake asked.

Once again, any hope of an answer for Blake was cut off as a pair of gigantic flying Grimm came into sight. One was a super-sized version of the wasp-like monsters called "Lancers" that they had fought earlier, and the other was-

"HA! I TOLD you the nevermore was headed this way! I was RIGHT!" Ruby gloated, seeming to have forgotten that the assembled monsters were almost certainly here to kill them.

There was the sound of a distant impact, and Pyrrha came crashing to a rough landing in front of the group. I guess even she can't dodge forever... Sunset thought to herself as she bent down and offered a hand. "You okay, Pyrrha?"

"I'll be fine..." she groaned as she staggered back to a standing position. "Where's Jaune?"

"Up here..." Jaune whined as he dropped down from the branches.

"Great, the gang's all here! Now we can all die together!" Yang cheered sarcastically.

Ruby's grip on her scythe tightened, and for a moment it looked as if she was going to do something reckless. A particularly loud buzz from the lancer's wings, however, seemed to put a bit more sense into her. "We're NOT going to die, but we're not getting out of here without a fight, either. I have a plan."

Sunset grabbed her lightsaber and switched it on. The crimson blade certainly inspired more confidence in her than it had at the start of the day. "We're all ears, Ruby."

"Our mission isn't to fight every single Grimm we can find, it's to retrieve the relics and get back in one piece. Me, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Sunset already have ours. We can run interference to distract them while everyone else gets in and out quickly, then we can make our way back to the school as a group." She cast a grateful glance back at Sunset and Weiss. "There's safety in numbers."

The rest of the group all looked around at each other, trying to spot any signs of opposition to the plan. Blake seemed uncomfortable, but she didn't speak any complaints. Yang was practically beaming with pride for her younger sister. Weiss had her arms crossed over her chest, but couldn't seem to muster up any ire, for once.

"Okay. The moment we have our relics, we'll come back to this point." Jaune nodded before turning to the girl who had surprised them. "Nora, you can use your grenade launcher to signal when we're ready, right?"

"You betcha!"

"Alright, it appears we have a plan. Stay safe, everyone." Pyrrha added.

With a nod and a point of her finger, Ruby led her team in a charge towards the scorpion-like deathstalker, instantly drawing the gaze of the two flying monsters towards them. As Sunset ran straight into danger, she forced down the feeling of her heart wanting to leap into her throat.

This was the moment of truth. Do or die.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CAMPSITE

"Hey, Isis, can you grab the 17 millimeter socket for me?"

"Affirmative."

"I think... we're just about finished!"

"Affirmative!"

"In that case... let's hit the road before Mercury and Emerald come back and most likely kill me!"

MEANWHILE, AT EVERNIGHT CASTLE

"I'm sorry, did you say 'Quantum Tunneling Device?'"

Doctor Arthur Watts was a smart man. Clever, even. Salem would never call him "brilliant," his ego was near-unbearable already. But he was smart enough to know when to and when not to speak. So when he purposefully interrupted Cinder's report, Salem simply gave him a warning in the form of an angry glance.

"Forgive me, your grace, but this could prove quite intriguing. If such a device were to exist, we may be capable of harnessing it for our own purposes." He gestured with his hand, as if asking for permission. Salem rolled her eyes, but nodded, giving her blessing for him to continue talking. "Such a device would, in theory, be capable of manipulating sub-atomic particles in a way that could, for all intentions, alter physical space and matter, itself! Properly utilized, it could prove invaluable in aiding our infiltration of key locations, making it exponentially easier to do so!"

Salem knew he was right, it was rare that he ever said anything out loud without thinking it through well enough to know he was. However, Arthur was also a little too quick to jump onto new subjects of study for her liking. She had tried taking shortcuts many times over the many, many years she had been alive, and more often than not they were either ineffective or too costly to be worth using.

What was more intriguing to her was the appearance of another strange individual with unfamiliar technology in a key position for her plans. From what Cinder's subordinates had reported, it appeared that he commanded at least one other intelligent creature, which meant he was in a position of some authority. There was no way that this was a coincidence with the appearance of "Sunset Shimmer."

"Bring the boy to me. Alive. And bring Arthur the device you spoke of. I want to know what he knows and where he came from."

On the other side of the seer, Cinder smiled. "Consider it done."

MEANWHILE, IN A TREE SOMEWHERE

"Zzzzzzz..." Missy snored.

MEANWHILE, IN THE EVIL MIRROR UNIVERSE

"Well? I'm not a fan of teamwork, so this is a limited time offer."

He considered his options. He had to admit, this she-demon made a convincing offer, and the world DID appear to be going mad, if the screams outside were anything to go by. Not that he cared, all of the people out there could burn, they deserved it.

Plus, she was hot, in every sense of the word.

He held out his hand to her, ready to strike the deal. "Alright, I'm in. Partners."

He winced in pain as she reached down and took hold, her skin hissing and letting off steam as it made contact with his. She didn't appear to feel a thing, her smile growing wider as the shape of her claws was burned into the back of his hand.

"First things first, you're going to need some power to go with that knowledge of yours." She raised her hands over her head, the purple gem in her crown beginning to glow with power. He quickly held up his hands, motioning for her to stop.

"THAT won't be necessary." He reached into his bag, retrieving a thick notebook. "If universes really ARE bleeding over, I already know a few that I would be HAPPY to bleed dry."

Outside, the sounds of roaring and fire grew louder, but he knew what was most important: He was in control.

"After all, I MADE them."

MEANWHILE, IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE PENN AND MISSY ARE ITALIAN

"Ay, Penn?"

Penn rolled his eyes as he picked up his phone. "Dimmi tutto."

"Ho bisogno di te posso evocarti?"

Penn shook his head as he peered into the darkness. "Oh... Non adesso, Missy. Sto cercando il sole."

"Benne allora trovalo e metti il simbolo di evocazione," Missy stated dismissively.

"Oh mi piacerebbe ma non riesco a trovarlo..." Penn muttered.

There was a slight pause. "Che significa 'non riesci a trovarlo'?"

"Non riesci a trovarlo, è tutto buio." Penn squinted his eyes, trying to see any sign of light in the murky blackness.

"Che significa 'tutto buio'?" Missy asked, beginning to sound irritated at Penn's usual antics.

"Significa che è tutto buio!" Penn repeated, emphasizing the important point.

"ALLORA VAI VERSO LA LUCE!" Missy shouted, her voice sounding nearly deafening as it came out the other side.

"Ok! Ok! Non c'è bisogno di ulare!"

From Missy's side of the conversation she could hear hasty footsteps. After about a minute, the footsteps came to a stop.

"É ancora buio!" Penn declared.

"CHE SIGNIFICA 'ANCORA BUIO'?" In a rare moment of waning patience, Missy's voice was becoming a shrill screech.

"Ancora tutto buio!"

"ALLORA VAI NELLA PROSSIMA AREA!"

There was another pause and the sound of more footsteps.

"É ANCORA BUIO!" Penn shouted, now every bit as frustrated as Missy was becoming.

Sunset reached up and switched off her earpiece. Seriously, with how much those two tended to shout, it was a wonder she hadn't gone deaf by now.

MEANWHILE, IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE THE ROLES ARE REVERSED

"So, uh... what are we gonna do with him?" Applejack asked.

It was a good question, considering the person in question was currently curled up on Sunset's bed, rocking back and forth with his knees pressed to his chest. "I'm in a cartoon, I'm in a cartoon, I'm in a cartoon..."

"Well, according to my calculations-" Princess Twilight started, only to be cut off moments later by her doppelganger.

"OUR calculations- or is that the same thing in this instance?" Sci-Twi mused.

"Anyway, it looks like two derivative instances of the Elements of Harmony firing off on either side of a dimensional barrier caused a resonance cascade! One that resulted in a complete pan-dimensional breakdown of the barriers between worlds!"

"And, APPARENTLY, he was forcefully sucked through those dimensional barriers until he wound up here."

Applejack blinked in surprise as she tried to process what she was being told. "Are you tellin' me that he's from another whole WORLD?"

"Like an ALIEN?" Rainbow Dash asked enthusiastically.

"Well, his DNA is definitely human, although there are some key differences. It seems that the diversity of traits this subspecies can express is much narrower than the dominant species of our world, mostly determined by the concentration of a handful of pigments."

"I'm in a cartoon, I'm in a cartoon, I'm in a cartoon!"

"I mean, it was clearly something he should NOT have been conscious for, he's in extreme shock. Also, apparently, where he's from, our universe is seen as some kind of cartoon..." Princess Twilight added.

"It makes sense that, in an infinite multiverse, there would be some world where a cartoon matches our world. It actually validates an old thought experiment involving an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters!"

"Forget thought experiments! We've got conclusive proof of the existence of the multiverse! Just wait until Princess Celestia hears about THIS!"

"PFFFT, I coulda toldya THAT!" Pinkie scoffed.

Sunset raised her hand, grabbing both Twilights' attention. "Wait... so does that mean it's OUR FAULT he's here?"

Silence dropped like a stone as the Rainbooms all looked at one another.

"I guess that means it's up to us to get him back home, huh?" Applejack declared.

"Well, it would certainly be the responsible thing to do..." Rarity mused. "Though if he's from another dimension, that's a tall order, even for us!"

"What do you mean?" Rainbow Dash added. "Don't you remember the friendship games? Equestrian magic can open portals to other worlds all the time!"

"Unfortunately, that's the PROBLEM!" Princess Twilight exclaimed, rubbing at her head. "Our magic didn't just open a way into one other universe, it opened them ALL! As in INFINITY!" she pointed to their unwilling guest. "And a sample of his hair showed dimensional signatures from at least twenty different worlds!"

Sci-Twi shook her head. "He was sent on QUITE the journey! Honestly, the odds of him winding up here, or even of HIM specifically being drawn here, are, well, INFINITE! He has to have some kind of connection to us, somewhere in the infinite multiverse..."

The rest of the Rainbooms all glanced at one another, then at the young man still rocking back and forth on Sunset's bed.

"Well, we DID have the tour bus all set up for a long trip, didn't we?" Rainbow asked. "Come on! Road trip across the multiverse, this is gonna be AWESOME!"

MEANWHILE, IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYTHING IS REVERSED

"!EMOSEWA eb annog si siht ,esrevitlum eht ssorca pirt daoR !no emoC" .deksa wobniaR "?ew t'ndid ,pirt gnol a rof pu tes lla sub ruot eht evah DID ew ,lleW"

.deb s'tesnuS no htrof dna kcab gnikcor llits nam gnuoy eht ta neht ,rehtona eno ta decnalg lla smoobniaR eht fo tser ehT

"...esrevitlum etinifni eht ni erehwemos ,su ot noitcennoc fo dnik emos evah ot sah eH !ETINIFNI ,llew ,era ,ereh nward gnieb yllacificeps MIH fo neve ro ,ereh pu gnidniw mih fo sddo eht ,yltsenoH !yenruoj eht ETIUQ no tnes saw eH" .daeh reh koohs iwT-icS

"!sdlrow tnereffid ytnewt tsael ta morf serutangis lanoisnemid dewohs riah sih fo elpmas a dnA" .tseug gnilliwnu rieht ot detniop ehs "!YTINIFNI ni sA !LLA meht denepo ti ,esrevinu rehto eno otni yaw a nepo tsuj t'ndid cigam ruO" .daeh reh ta gnibbur ,demialcxe thgiliwT ssecnirP "!MELBORP eht s'taht ,yletanutrofnU"

"!emit eht lla sdlrow rehto ot slatrop nepo nac cigam nairtseuqE ?semag pihsdneirf eht rebmemer uoy t'noD" .dedda hsaD wobniaR "?naem uoy od tahW"

"!su rof neve ,redro llat a s'taht ,noisnemid rehtona morf s'eh fi hguohT" .desum ytiraR "...od ot gniht elbisnopser eht eb ylniatrec dluow ti ,lleW"

.deralced kcajelppA "?huh ,emoh kcab mih teg ot su ot pu s'ti snaem taht sseug I"

.rehtona eno ta dekool lla smoobniaR eht sa enots a ekil deppord ecneliS

"?ereh s'eh TLUAF RUO s'ti naem taht seod os ...tiaW" .noitnetta 'sthgiliwT htob gnibbarg ,dnah reh desiar tesnuS

.deffocs eikniP "!TAHT aydlot adluoc I ,TFFFP"

"!SIHT tuoba sraeh aitseleC ssecnirP litnu tiaw tsuJ !esrevitlum eht fo ecnetsixe eht fo foorp evisulcnoc tog ev'eW !stnemirepxe thguoht tegroF"

"!sretirwepyt dna syeknom fo rebmun etinifni na gnivlovni tnemirepxe thguoht dlo na setadilav yllautca tI .dlrow ruo sehctam nootrac a erehw dlrow emos eb dluow ereht ,esrevitlum etinifni na ni ,taht esnes sekam tI"

.dedda thgiliwT ssecnirP "...nootrac fo dnik emos sa nees si esrevinu ruo ,morf s'eh erehw ,yltnerappa ,oslA .kcohs emertxe ni s'eh ,rof suoicsnoc neeb evah TON dluohs eh gnihtemos ylraelc saw ti ,naem I"

"!nootrac a ni m'I ,nootrac a ni m'I ,nootrac a ni m'I"

".stnemgip fo lufdnah a fo noitartnecnoc eht yb denimreted yltsom ,dlrow ruo fo seiceps tnanimod eht naht reworran hcum si sserpxe nac seicepsbus siht stiart fo ytisrevid eht taht smees tI .secnereffid yek emos era ereht hguohtla ,namuh yletinifed si AND sih ,lleW"

.yllacitsaisuhtne deksa hsaD wobniaR "?NEILA na ekiL"

"?DLROW elohw rehtona morf s'eh taht em 'nillet uoy erA" .dlot gnieb saw ehs tahw ssecorp ot deirt ehs sa esirprus ni deknilb kcajelppA

".ereh pu dnuow eh litnu sreirrab lanoisnemid esoht hguorht dekcus yllufecrof saw eh ,YLTNERAPPA ,dnA"

"!sdlrow neewteb sreirrab eht fo nwodkaerb lanoisnemid-nap etelpmoc a ni detluser taht enO !edacsac ecnanoser a desuac reirrab lanoisnemid a fo edis rehtie no ffo gnirif ynomraH fo stnemelE eht fo secnatsni evitavired owt ekil skool ti ,yawynA"

.desum iwT-icS "?ecnatsni siht ni gniht emas eht taht si ro -snoitaluclac RUO"

.regnagleppod reh yb retal stnemom ffo tuc eb ot ylno ,detrats thgiliwT ssecnirP "-snoitaluclac ym ot gnidrocca ,lleW"

"...nootrac a ni m'I ,nootrac a ni m'I ,nootrac a ni m'I" .tsehc sih ot desserp seenk sih htiw htrof dna kcab gnikcor ,deb s'tesnuS no pu delruc yltnerruc saw noitseuq ni nosrep eht gniredisnoc ,noitseuq doog a saw tI

.deksa kcajelppA "?mih htiw od annog ew era tahw ...hu ,oS"

MEANWHILE, IN OUR UNIVERSE

Penn puffed out his cheeks, letting out a long sigh as he stared at his laptop.

Word count: 3419. Yeah, that meets my requirements and then some.

"Let's see... We saw Sunset, Penn, Missy, Salem, a couple joke universes, some ominous foreshadowing, a what-if timeline... Anything else I could add?" He took a peek at his messages in Discord, noting no change from the last ten times he looked. "I REALLY hope this running gag is as funny on paper as it was in my head..."

MEANWHILE, WITH SUNSET

Blake and Yang threw Blake's ribbon across the gap between the two pillars just in time for Ruby to land on it, stretching the elastic out farther than ever before and anchoring it with one of Weiss's glyphs. Just as per the plan, Sunset took her cue and jumped in beside her, crossing her saber with Ruby's scythe.

"You've got the piercing power, I've got the wide cutting edge. You ready?"

"You bet..." Sunset smiled. Even sitting inside a giant slingshot, she wasn't worried about being flung into the air this time. As long as had her teammates with her, she knew she was safe. Ruby turned back to Weiss.

"Think you can make the shot?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Pfft. Can I?"

"... Can you?"

"OF COURSE I CAN!"

Ruby's eyes narrowed, carefully watching their opponents. "NOW!"

With a sweep of her rapier, Weiss reversed the glyph, launching them forward. The two of them soared through the air, sweeping through their first target with ease and slicing through the Queen Lancer right where the thorax met the abdomen. Sunset's saber pierced the armored hide with ease, and Ruby's scythe was just wide enough to completely sever it in one blow. That wasn't all, however, as their momentum carried them all the way through and past it...

Straight into the Nevermore.

Ruby's scythe caught it just under the chin, carrying it with them and pinning it to the cliff face. Sunset planted her feet against the rock, feeling another of Weiss's glyphs anchor her down. She and Ruby glanced at one another, then nodded. Together, the two of them used Weiss's gravity-altering glyphs to run straight up the cliff, dragging the giant bird along with them by the throat. Ruby's sniper rifle fired over and over, each burst of recoil sending them higher and higher as their blades dug deeper and deeper into the creature's flesh. Just as they reached the top of the cliff, the entire head finally severed from the body, and they both flew into the air. Ruby continued to fly upwards, finally landing on the top of the cliff, her scythe expertly planting itself in the ground behind her back. Sunset flew up... then down again. Then past the top of the cliff. The last she saw of the top was Ruby turning around, fear in her eyes as Sunset dropped out of sight.

"SUNSET!" Ruby ran to the edge, staring down in horror.

"H-hey, Ruby..." Sunset stuttered, gripping on her lightsaber with both hands to keep it embedded in the rock. "Could you lend me a hand?"

"Well.... That was a thing..." Yang mused as she watched her sister help Sunset up to the top of the cliff.

"It was pretty intense..." Blake replied.

"Tell me about it!" Weiss whined. "I feel ready to collapse! I knew Beacon was going to be a step up, but today's trial was nearly beyond my skills!"

"Feels like the kind of epic battle they would write books about, right, Blake?"

Blake looked to her new partner, her smile pointing out that her attempt to connect was appreciated.

"Well, it would certainly have made an exciting chapter. I don't know about an entire book."

Author's Note

For those curious about Penn and Missy's Italian dialogue, check out the source here! It seriously keeps me in stitches every time I watch it!!

Roses are Red, RWBYS are, too

"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark: The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as... Team Cardinal, led by Cardin Winchester."

Sunset wasn't sure how, but she was more nervous NOW than she had been in the forest facing those monsters. All around her, students were applauding and cheering as the four-person teams were assembled and named by the headmaster. Just like Isis had told her, the partnered pairs were being matched by which chess piece they had collected, but there was a major problem:

Sunset didn't have a partner. Or a chess piece.

She'd been so worried about the monsters, she'd completely forgotten to grab one for herself after she'd given one to Ruby and Weiss.

"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie: The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together a... Team Juniper, led by Jaune Arc."

Sunset smiled and clapped a little harder, happy to see her new friends succeed. It didn't stop her from laughing when Pyrrha's friendly punch on the arm completely knocked Jaune over, though.

This was it. Nearly every student had been assigned to a team, but Sunset knew at least four who hadn't. If she was going to be put on a team, this was the moment.

"And finally, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long..."

Sunset felt her heart break a little as what was left of the familiar faces marched up to the stage without her.

"The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as... Team Ruby, led by... Ruby Rose."

Yang immediately pounced on her sister, and Sunset worked up the enthusiasm to add a cheer of her own to the crowd's applause.

I guess failing initiation means... I didn't make it?

Just as the reality of going back to Penn with her tail between her legs began to set in, she felt a firm hand grasp her shoulder. Looking up, she found herself staring straight into the bespectacled eyes of the headmaster's assistant.

"Miss Shimmer, the headmaster would like to have a word with you once the assembly has wrapped up. Would you come with me, please?"

Sunset swallowed loudly as she realized that there was another reason she might not have been assigned to a team: what if she'd been found out?

Professor Ozpin's office was at the top of a long elevator ride, and Professor Goodwitch (which Sunset had remembered was her name after Isis had whispered it in her ear) had been nerve-rackingly silent the entire time. Her worry was washed away for several minutes when the doors of the elevator opened, washed away by awe. Ozpin's "office" was huge, large enough to be living quarters on its own if it were divided into sections. Huge windows gave an easy view of the entire campus and the area beyond, and the "ceiling" was an array of turning cogs and gears that made it look as if they were sitting in the center of a giant clock.

Sitting beside a wide desk as the Headmaster, himself, staring at her above a pair of small black sunglasses. Didn't we leave the assembly BEFORE him? He was still dressed in the same formal attire she had always seen him in, an open suit and vest over a button-down shirt, all in shades of green and black. He motioned to a seat in front of his desk, which Sunset dutifully took. Sunset noticed that he looked like a man who was constantly deep in thought, as though that was his default state of being.

"Good afternoon, Miss Shimmer."

Penn's warning came back to the forefront of her mind. "The last thing we want is Oz-pinhead involved with our interdimensional time-bending antics!"

"Good afternoon, Headmaster." It was a response as stiff and nervous as she was, trying to make certain she gave away nothing she shouldn't.

Somehow, her response got a chuckle out of the man, who shook his head. "Please, to my students I am merely another professor, someone whom I hope they can learn from, given time. 'Professor' is fine." He reached under his desk, retrieving a large thermos and pouring a portion of the contents into his coffee cup. After a sip, he gestured towards her with the thermos. "I'm sorry, would you like some?"

Sunset shook her head. "No thank you, Professor."

He nodded before placing the lid back on and sending it back where it had come from. "Well, in the future, if you get the opportunity to try Professor Oobleck's hot chocolate, I highly recommend it. The man may seem to be driven by coffee, but his hot chocolate is some of the best I've ever had." He took a long sip, a small smile of contentment gracing his lips after he swallowed.

He's been drinking hot chocolate this whole time?

"Sunset, do you know why I asked you here?"

Sunset nodded. She refused to bow her head in shame, she would take her failure on the chin like an adult. "Because I failed initiation."

Professor Ozpin took another long sip. "Well, you failed the objective of initiation. You were asked to partner up and retrieve a chess piece from the other side of the forest. However, in the years to come, you'll find that one of the most important lessons a huntress can learn is that, in the field, objectives can change, while priorities must not." He motioned to Professor Goodwitch, who placed a tablet on his desk. A moment later, the screen was projected up into the air above his desk as a hologram. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched footage of herself from the day's events. She saw herself sprinting into the fight to save Ruby from the jellyfish Grimm, only to hard cut to footage of herself standing at the altar, tossing a piece to Ruby and Weiss. A moment later, it was her running headfirst towards the deathstalker alongside her new friends, lightsaber at the ready.

I.. I still can't quite believe I did all that...

"While you failed to find a partner, you displayed the most important aspect any huntress can have: putting others before yourself. Rather than search for a partner, you made certain the people around you were safe and supported. When your objective was in your hands, you didn't think twice before giving it up to make sure as many people around you succeeded as possible." He tapped his finger against the tabletop, advancing the highlight reel to the finishing blow she and Ruby had made to the Nevermore. "Quite frankly, you and Miss Rose have quite a lot in common, and I considered annulling her partnership with Miss Schnee in favor of placing you beside her."

Sunset swallowed her reaction to that news as best she could. Apparently, Penn had been right: her mere presence had nearly split apart the main characters!

"However, I set the rules of initiation, and I must be held to them. Additionally, another problem presented itself related to you, one that may remove some of the blame for your failure from your shoulders." With a wave of his hand, a new item appeared in the air: a list. Specifically, a list of names, highlighted in different colors by groups of four. The list began to scroll, rolling down all of the students in the incoming class, each neatly organized into their teams... until it reached the bottom.

Sunset Shimmer

There was no color highlighting her name, leaving it on its own in drab black and white.

"It would appear that there was some kind of... glitch... in our systems. Typically, like any combat school, we accept students in multiples of four, accounting for the team-forming process in advance. However, I had the privilege to meet Miss Rose before the start of the semester, and I fast-tracked her two years beyond her current level so that she could attend Beacon this year. Apparently... I miscounted, and we now have an odd number of students." He shook his head with a smile. "I do apologize, this entire misunderstanding is due to my own short-sightedness. As such, I would like to take the time to correct it by offering you something very few students ever receive."

He bent down out of sight again, and for a moment Sunset wondered if he was getting the hot chocolate again. Instead, when he returned, he was holding two oversized chess pieces in his hands: a white knight and a white rook.

"I know that you showed exceptional combat potential in the field alongside team RWBY. However..." he motioned to the window behind him. "I'm sure you can tell that I don't miss much around here, and I noticed your budding friendships with Mister Arc and Miss Nikos. As such, I am offering you a choice as to which team you wish to join: RWBY or JNPR?" Sunset blinked, shocked at the offer. Her reaction seemed to entertain Ozpin, who chuckled. "Hardly the reason one usually gets called to the principal's office, I know."

Now more than ever, Sunset wished she was alone so she could talk to Penn. She had NO IDEA what the best choice would be. On one hand, Ozpin was right: she had really fit right in with Ruby and her team on the battlefield. On the other, Pyrrha was her friend, and the farther she was from her side, the more difficult it would be to prevent her death (however that was going to happen).

"That's... a tough choice."

"A choice most students did not have, as the team-forming process was a double blind."

Sunset sighed. From the expectant looks both Ozpin and Goodwitch were giving her, she knew she wasn't going to be allowed out of the chair until she made the choice, and the clock was ticking until it would be made for her.

"If I may make a recommendation, an analysis of the events leading up to almost all forecoming tragedies places Team RWBY at the epicenter. If you truly wish to-"

"Sunset? Is something wrong?" Ozpin asked, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes before turning to look to her right. "Your expression changed."

Sunset's eyes widened. She hadn't even realized that her eyes had moved when Isis had spoken up, but he was looking in the same direction her eyes had flickered. She made a mental note to start repressing that reflex.

"S-sorry. I'm just... of two minds about everything. Guess I'm just... 'talking through it?'"

Ozpin's eyebrows raised, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Sunset knew that face, she'd seen Princess Celestia make it countless times over the years. The "I don't believe you, but that was plausible" face. Well, pretending to be Penn pays off again...

"I think you're right, professor. Team RWBY really brought out the best of my abilities." She reached out and took the white knight. "And that's what we're here to do, right?"

The headmaster nodded and tapped several places on his desk. Sunset's name jumped up the list to just below Yang's before glowing the same red as the rest of the team members.

"As for your punishment for failing the objectives..." he tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Because, regardless of fault, YOU were the odd student who failed the objectives given to you... Most of our systems and data entry are built around these four-person teams. As such, it would ease our burden as your teachers by a wider margin than you might know to keep the team initials four letters. I believe that, on the record, the team name will have to remain without an 'S.'"

"That... seems fair, Professor."

"Good. In that case, this is your dorm room." He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small slip of paper, which he handed to her. "Welcome to Beacon, Sunset."

Sunset blinked, a fact of the situation sinking in rather quickly. "You... already had it written down. You knew which team I was going to choose."

This was enough to make Ozpin chuckle again, erasing the last of the tension of her near-discovery.

"Now Sunset, how would an old man like me EVER be able to predict the mind of a teenage girl? Call it a lucky guess and nothing more."

Sunset looked down at the room number in her hands, then up at the professor again, no longer feeling like she quite knew truth from fiction. "Well, thank you, sir... I promise I won't let you down!"

"I'm certain you won't. Now, why don't you go inform your teammates of the good news?"

Sunset nodded, giving a slight bow before rushing to the elevator and slipping inside. Once she was finally certain she wasn't being watched, she let out a sigh and slumped against the wall.

"Today is just... TOO MUCH."

"If it is of any aid, you are not the only one experiencing high-stress difficulties."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Yeah, RIGHT. What kind of trouble could Penn be having right now? Lost his precious socket wrench?"

Isis enjoyed driving the oldsmobile. It was a level of control over his car Elijah was very picky about giving to others, and it was indicative of a high level of trust in her that he allowed her to install a remote control device. The car's PCM was a simple computer, but in the same way a hammer was a simple tool: useful and pleasing to wield. She filed the feeling of satisfaction later for further study, perhaps as a side note in a study of the psychological phenomenon known as "zen."

"I SWEAR IF SHE PUTS ANOTHER BULLET HOLE IN MY TRUNK I'M TURNING THIS CAR AROUND AND- LEFT!"

Isis made a sharp turn to the left, taking advantage of the low friction of the grass to "drift" in a smaller arc than traditionally turning could have. Behind them, audio sensors picked up the high-pitched whistling sound of one of Cinder's explosive projectiles, followed by the sound of an accompanying explosion tearing apart the landscape.

"Drifting" was an interesting phenomenon in and of itself. By all empirical accounts and tests, it was usually considered one of the slower methods of rounding a corner, yet in every form of fiction it seemed to indicate pure speed and power. As such, integrating it into her driving style had somehow enabled her to keep ahead of their opponents, even while being forced to dodge around trees, natural obstacles, projectiles, and illusions. Illusions which, thankfully, she was immune to. Which was why Elijah had designated her the driver for this particular chase. Meanwhile, he had stationed himself in the backseat, firing out the blown-out rear windshield with the portal gun. Isis had reminded him that the gun could serve no functional combat purpose, but he had countered with the fact that their opponents were not aware of that, and was disrupting their movements by showering them with projectiles to dodge.

Isis knew that it was approximately five miles to the nearest public road, but taking into account their inability to travel at top speed and need to constantly dodge projectiles, explosions, and natural hazards, it could be estimated that it would take nearly an hour to reach it. Once they had reached a paved road, their movements would be more predictable, but they could almost certainly outpace their pursuers.

"Elijah, the odds of successfully reaching civilization intact are approximately-"

"Never tell me the odds!" he fired back, unleashing another barrage from the portal gun.

Isis added a new subroutine to never mention statistical odds to Elijah. Her head tilted as she observed a large creature approaching from ahead of them: a massive snake evenly split between black and white scales at the midsection with a head at either end. It perfectly matched the animated depiction of the Grimm species known as a "King Taijitu."

"OH, FOR THE LOVE OF OBELISK, WHY ME?"

However, Isis saw an opportunity to solve one problem with another. She directed the car straight at the double-headed snake, drawing its attention. The two heads each rose into a striking position, and she watched carefully. Just as the first head made its first move to strike, she swerved the car drastically, placing them in a full spinout that drifted them around the side of the monster while its fangs were embedded in the ground. The second head moved to attack while they were still mildly out of control, but the tires caught their traction again just in time to race ahead of the strike, allowing them to pass unscathed.

Behind them the sounds of gunfire and explosions alongside fearsome roars indicated that the monster had found easier prey upon which to express its frustration. However, Isis was well aware that they would quickly either join forces or one side would be shortly dispatched.

However, the momentary distraction had raised their chances of escape by two percent.

"You may be surprised..."

Sunset sighed and shook her head as she emerged from the elevator. "Well, at least I'm not on my way back to camp. I did it, I made it into Beacon!"

The walk to the dorms was a short one with the extra spring of success in her step, and she was soon standing outside her assigned room. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, not giving herself time to overthink it before she was already standing in the room.

There were the four girls of Team RWBY. Blake was laying in a bed, looking up over the top of her book with a curious expression. Yang was spread out over two beds, already looking half-asleep as she tilted her head up to look at their intruder. Ruby and Weiss were standing in the middle of the room, having apparently been mid-conversation when she arrived.

"Sunset? What are you doing here?" Ruby asked. "We were worried when you weren't put on a team and we didn't see you after the assembly!"

Sunset rubbed the back of her head and smiled. "Well, about that... It turns out they miscounted the number of students this year, and I was the one left over when everyone had partnered up. Professor Ozpin said I could pick which team I wanted to be on and... well..." She gave a small wave. "Hope this isn't a problem?"

There was a blur of movement, a flash of rose petals, and the next thing Sunset knew she was on the ground being gripped in a choke-hold of a hug.

"AAAAAAH THIS IS AMAZING!" Ruby screeched, kicking her feet up and down with excitement.

"I suppose that explains the extra bed we found when we got here." Weiss turned back to the other side of the room. "Yang! Get up, you're messing up Sunset's bed!"

"Ugh, man... Just when I was getting comfy..." Yang mumbled, rolling over until she was only laying on one bed. "Welcome to the team, Sunset..."

Sunset snickered. It looked like she and Yang acted about the same when they were sleepy, that was going to make things VERY difficult for whoever was in charge of wake-up calls. A few footsteps later, she looked up to see Blake standing over her and Ruby, a smile on her face.

"Want some help unpacking?"

Sunset felt a moment of regret settle in. "Um... about that..." She pushed herself up off the ground, taking Ruby along with her. She reached down to her belt and unclipped the lightsaber, placing it on a nearby desk. "Heh, all done..."

There was a long pause as Weiss, Blake and Ruby all stared at her in shock. Weiss was the first one to break the silence.

"You didn't even bring a change of CLOTHES?"

"W-Well, I DID, but I don't- they're not... with me?" She shook her head. "Ugh, this is going to be kind of hard to explain, but I guess... I've got a friend watching most of my stuff for me? I wasn't sure I'd make it into Beacon, so I packed light..." she motioned to the empty handle sitting on the dresser. "REALLY light."

"Well, you're simply going to have to have your friend bring them here!" Weiss said dismissively. "It shouldn't be THAT hard to get your things sent over, right?"

"Um, not everyone can afford overnight shipping, Weiss..." Yang mumbled from her bed.

"And hooooope shines eternal! And friiiiiieeeeends are all I need!" Sunset's phone began to buzz and ring in her pocket, drawing every gaze in the room to her. At first, she didn't even recognize her own ringtone, it had been so long since anyone had actually CALLED her while the ringer was on. In a few seconds, though, she had retrieved it and tapped the "answer" button.

"Hello?"

"Greetings, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset didn't even need to see the caller ID to know that voice. "Isis? What's going on?"

"Well, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that several of your possessions were... lost in transit. I'm afraid having them sent will be an exponentially difficult task compared to replacing them."

Weiss, Blake, and Ruby all glanced at one another with varying degrees of nervousness.

"Um, who's THAT?" Weiss asked.

"And why was she listening in on our conversation?"

Sunset could feel a headache coming on. "This is-"

"I am always collecting data to be of greater aid to my users. Rest assured, such data is non-negotiable in its confidentiality, I promise you the utmost safety and discretion. Greetings, I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System, Sunset Shimmer's personal assistant artificial intelligence. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Personal assistant?" Weiss asked in a tone that Sunset could almost swear was "impressed."

"Superior?" Blake asked, looking a touch annoyed.

"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?" Ruby screeched, snatching Sunset's phone out of her hands and examining it from every angle. "This is AMAZING!"

Sunset reached out, plucking the device back from Ruby's hands. "Can we go back to the part where my stuff was 'lost in transit?' HOW? Penn is just camping out in the woods, how could he LOSE it?"

"I DID inform you that he was having difficulties of his own. I would like to take this time to remind you that you took the only effective method of defending the campsite with you."

"Wait, Penn's in DANGER?" Sunset felt her blood run cold.

"Affirmative. We are currently attempting to outrun it using the Oldsmobile, to... mixed results. As such, delivering your possessions to you is impossible at this juncture."

"Forget my STUFF! What about Penn?"

"If you wish, I can put him on the line."

"PUT ONE MORE BULLET HOLE IN MY CAR AND I WILL BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH THIS PORTAL GUN, I SWEAR ON ZORC NECROPHADES'S GIANT BLACK DRAGON D-"

"However, he is preoccupied at the moment. I would advise that you focus on your Beacon curriculum for now, as you can do nothing to help at this juncture. Would you like to place an order for replacements of your clothes?"

Sunset felt her spirits drop as worry set in again. "Yeah, sure, I guess? Just... keep me informed about Penn, okay, Isis?"

"Affirmative."

The phone hung itself up, the screen going dark again a moment later. The girls all glanced at one another.

"I'm sure your friend will be fine..." Ruby whispered.

"How does someone from Vacuo have a personal assistant?" Blake asked, folding her arms over her chest.

"Let alone a fully-fledged artificial intelligence?" Weiss added.

To Sunset's surprise, her lifeline came in the form of three pillows flying across the room and striking each of the girls in the head. "Figure it out tomorrow, I'm trying to SLEEP over here!"

Sunset sighed. "I'll explain everything in the morning, I PROMISE, but Yang's right. Tomorrow is our first day of classes, right? All I'm asking is for you to have trust in me for ONE night. After everything we went through today, is that so much to ask?"

The other members of Team RWBY all glanced at each other, then at Ruby, herself. Ruby took a deep breath, then pointed an accusatory finger at Sunset. "Being a team is based on TRUST, Sunset. Can we trust you?" She was being uncharacteristically solemn, and it stuck Sunset deeply when she realized just how wide the web of lies she was spinning here was becoming, even if it was for the greater good of stopping a disaster. She repeated the deep breath, closing her eyes. She had committed herself to this, completely, but... How honest CAN I be with them?

"With your lives, Ruby. I'd never betray that trust. In the morning, I'll tell you everything that I can."

"Everything you CAN? That DOESN'T sound very trustworthy..." Blake muttered.

Sunset sighed, fingering at her geode. "You're not the ONLY ones who trust me, Blake, and I can't betray them, either! I swear, if holding back could put you in any kind of harm's way, I won't. And, if it helps you trust me... I'll tell you one of my secrets right now."

Sunset took a deep breath as the rest of the girls looked at her expectantly. Even Yang had sat up, interested in where the conversation was going.

"I have this... power. I think you would call it a 'semblance' here? As long as I have this geode, I can look into someone's memories just by touching them." She held up her hands, deflecting their suspicious looks. "I swear, I've never used it on any of you, I only use it when I absolutely HAVE to! It's part of a set that I and..." she stopped for a moment, not expecting the rush of emotion looking at the geode brought back to her. It only made what she was about to do harder. "... a set I and my closest friends shared. But they're gone now, and I'm the only one left. I'd rather lose EVERYTHING before I lost this, maybe even my life, because of the memories it holds. It's the only physical token I have left of them. I want you all to trust me, so, until you're content..." she reached up, unclasping the necklace that held it in place. When it dropped, she caught the necklace in her other hand and placed it in Ruby's hand, closing her fist around it. She held back the tears that threatened to burst out when she stepped back and away, finally releasing her hold on the geode completely. She felt naked without it.

"Until you're all content that I truly AM your friend and you can trust me, I want you to hold on to it."

The other girls glanced at one another again, unsure. This time, Weiss and Blake's expressions were unreadable, but Ruby appeared to be on the verge of tears, looking at the geode as if it were a crown jewel.

"Are you sure? You don't need to-"

Sunset shook her head. "I DO. If you're all going to trust me, I can trust you for just as long."

Ruby nodded, tightening her grip on the geode before wrapping it around her own neck and tucking it under her shirt. "I promise I'll keep it safe, Sunset."

Sunset nodded before kicking off her boots and walking to the recently-vacated bed beside Yang. The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner it would be morning and she could explain things to them and get her geode back.

"Hey, that was... pretty intense. You okay?" Yang whispered.

"I... will be. I hope."

"What about your friend?"

Sunset took a deep breath. "Knowing him... he'll think of something clever to get out of it. Guess I'm just going to have to trust HIM, too."

"Isis... do you ever wonder why we're here?"

"Because hiding in this location was the only way to escape?"

"No, we're here because Sunset Shimmer is a stupid shisno who can't leave well enough alone."

Isis decided that it would be pointless to relay that particular information to Sunset. Still, it had been a stroke of genius on Elijah's part to direct her to drive them into a junkyard. Between the thorough damage to the rear end of his car and a small avalanche of parts she had dropped on them using a nearby electromagnet, they had blended in perfectly just as Cinder Fall and her subordinates caught up to them. He was angry, and the situation was less than ideal, but they had a safe place to spend the night, and that was something she could report happily to Sunset when she woke up in the morning.

"Oh, speaking of Sunset, I have an update: she has been adopted as a fifth member of Team RWBY due to there being an odd number of students. She is now in prime position to change the timeline for the better."

There was a long pause as he processed the new data. Admittedly, it was a highly unlikely course of events, and likely required substantial processing power to comprehend without seeing it first-hand. Finally, he seemed to reach a conclusion, sinking down further into the driver's seat.

"Great, now we're REALLY in the thick of it... This has been the worst day ever. Of all time."

"Also, it would appear Emerald shot a hole in our gas tank."

He didn't move, his face showed no outward signs of change, as much as the news should have enraged him according to prior patterns.

"I swear, if I ever see her again..." he declared calmly. "I am going to rip out her skull... and beat her to death with it."

"That doesn't seem physically possible."

Author's Note

Welcome to Beacon

"Hey, Sunset?"

"Huwha?" Sunset mumbled, cracking open one eye. Sun was just barely peeking through the curtains of their dorm room, but the rest of the girls were already awake and standing together. The sight was enough to fully wake her up, sitting up in the bed and rubbing at her eyes. "Did... did I miss something?"

"No, we were letting you sleep." Ruby smiled and shook her head. "But Blake woke up the rest of us early to talk, and I think she's got something pretty important to say."

All eyes shifted to the girl in black, who seemed to wilt slightly under the sudden attention. A moment later, though, she had rallied herself and was once again standing tall.

"Look, Sunset, I know better than anyone that... sometimes the past can be hard. And everyone's allowed to have their own. If we're going to be on a team we need to trust each other, but that goes the other way, too." She stepped forward and placed something on Sunset's pillow. Sunset's eyes widened as she watched her geode glittering in the morning light. "It wouldn't be right for us to hold your past ransom. If you want to share things with us, you ought to know we're here for you and want to help, but we won't force it. You already proved yourself yesterday, same as the rest of us."

Sunset picked her geode, tears welling up in her eyes already. She had REALLY not been expecting to be barraged by this many emotions this early in the morning. Blake quickly folded her arms over her chest and backed away, separating herself from the situation as best she could.

"Look, don't make a big thing out of it. It's just what's fair..."

"We were a bit... surprised yesterday evening, but you earned your place here the same as the rest of us." Weiss rolled her eyes. "That doesn't mean we aren't still expecting an explanation, but we can wait until you feel comfortable enough to be open."

Sunset wanted to leap out of the bed and hug each of them right then and there...

but this was also the first time in a month that she had slept in an actual bed, and she REALLY didn't want to move.

Instead, she settled for fastening the geode back around her neck and letting a few tears slip past her defenses. "Thank you... This means more to me than you know." Finally getting over her desire to stay in bed, she swung her legs over the side. "I'll give you the short version of things. Sound good?" When the rest of her teammates nodded their approval, Sunset gave her geode one last squeeze.

"A while back, me and my friends tried to fix something, but it blew up in our faces. Literally. When I woke up, I was in a strange place far from home and alone... I guess Vacuo is probably the closest I could really get to describing it."

"What was it you were trying to fix that could have exploded so violently without killing you?" Weiss asked.

Sunset sucked in air through her teeth. This was the moment she would have to decide: Lie or omit? "That's... hard to say. Without getting into stuff I can't really talk about, I mean."

She winced as she watched the rest of the girls exchange glances before nodding to each other. Ruby motioned for her to continue.

"That was where I met Penn, my friend who is- who WAS out camping in the woods until last night. We started watching out for each other, he even saved my life a few times, and vice versa! He's... got this knack for knowing things he shouldn't, and as much as it helps us survive, it also gets us into trouble sometimes with the wrong people." Her mind drifted back to the most prominent example: GLaDOS. His first lie had kept them alive, but when he'd come out with the truth in the elevator, it had nearly killed them.

"I guess that explains why you hesitate to tell the whole truth..." Blake muttered. She didn't sound resentful this time, though. In fact, Sunset could almost sense... regret?

"I know what it's like to piss off the wrong people when you're looking for information." Yang finally spoke up for the first time. "If you're not ready, you can wind up in real trouble."

"But that still doesn't explain how you would have a cutting-edge AI installed on your scroll!" Weiss declared, placing her hands on her hips.

Sunset shrugged at that. "Isis found US, actually. We got split up, captured in this crazy testing facility. Isis helped us find each other again. I don't really know WHERE she came from, but I trust her with my life now." She resisted the urge to tell them what little she knew about Isis's origins. Bringing up the idea of timelines and alternate universes would just be too confusing and bring up even more questions. "Isis wasn't the only one to join us, either, but... we still haven't found any sign of my old friends, the ones who disappeared in the explosion." She held up her geode, letting it swing freely. "But they're still out there. Our friendship connects us, and the geode's been guiding me back to them. Penn's been my.. well, my ride and my guide."

She'd been up for a while the night before trying to determine how she would phrase Penn's cross-dimensional knowledge without giving away his true origins.

"The thing is, Penn's got this... ability, kind of like mine. Instead of memories, he sees stories. Looking at real life is like watching a show or reading a book to him. And he's REALLY good at predicting where a story is going to go." She rolled her eyes slightly. "Trust me, it makes him UNBEARABLE on movie nights when he calls out all the twists in advance, but he usually knows what he's talking about. He's always kept us one step ahead of danger." She gestured to the room around them. "He says something big is going to happen at Beacon, so I put in an application. I thought that, if one of my friends was here, I'd find them wherever trouble was going to be!" She shrugged her shoulders. "And if they weren't, well, my geode led us here for a reason, and Penn could give me an edge over whatever bad thing was coming."

It was vague in some places, but she thought Penn would have been proud of how well she had concealed the whole "I'm from another dimension and my friend knows your future" thing.

"And did your friend tell you WHAT was going to happen? Shouldn't we warn the headmaster?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah, maybe Professor Ozpin can help!" Ruby cheered. "If we just tell him what your friend told you, maybe he'll know what to do!"

Sunset shook her head. "He has... strong feelings about Ozpin. If he finds out we went to the teachers, I'm pretty sure it would be the end to any help from him."

"What?" Ruby blinked in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? Professor Ozpin's, like, the best!"

"Well, either way, if Penn doesn't trust him, then neither do I." Sunset shook her head. "It's going to be up to us to deal with-" she caught herself there. "Or, well, I'm not the team leader. WE don't have to do anything. Sorry, Ruby," she rubbed anxiously at the back of her neck. "I'm kind of still getting used to not being the one in charge since my old friends and I got split up. Anyway, it'll be up to ME to deal with it myself. I don't want to drag you all into something when I can't even give you all the details."

To Sunset's surprise, that seemed to make Yang snicker. "Wow, hog all the glory, why don't you?" she muttered with a smile.

"We're a TEAM, Sunset! For better or for worse." Ruby smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. "If one of us has a problem, then all of us do! We'll stop whatever's coming and if your friends are here, we'll find them!"

Something about Ruby's smile felt like looking into the sun, practically beaming with positivity to the point of blinding her. Without warning, the petite girl spun around in place fast enough to conjure up a breeze through the room.

"BUT! As Team RWBYS's leader, I have to declare that we have one much more pressing matter to deal with!"

"What?"

"DECORATING!" Yang cheered, her arms already full of assorted trinkets and everyone's personal items that they had brought into the dorm the night before.

Blake lifted up a suitcase in one hand. "We still have to unpack!" The suitcase popped open, spilling its contents all over the floor. "And clean up!"

"Blake, Weiss, Yang, Sunset, and their fearless leader Ruby have begun their first mission! Banzai!" Ruby punched her fist into the air. Sunset, Blake, and Yang all exchanged quick glances before smiling and lining up next to her and mimicking her.

"BANZAI!"

Weiss just looked on, clearly confused by their antics.

I guess this is how the semester starts, huh? It could be a lot worse...

Isis had put more thought into the mobile repair drone's design than appeared to the outward eye. 85 percent of its body surface was retractable, providing 67 slots for modular tools that could be installed, rotated, and removed as needed. The actual drone was little more than a shell and an articulating skeleton without the tools. Its ability to fully retract, adjust, and remove portions of its body allowed it to collapse to fit in tight spaces without sacrificing mobility. It could almost completely disassemble and reassemble itself as long as the majority of the skeleton and the central processor remained intact. As such, it was little trouble to climb into the underbelly of Elijah's Oldsmobile and make repairs without removing any parts manually on his part.

She had been repairing the damage from the previous day's firefight most of the night. While the few damaged parts necessary to the function of the car were easily repaired using materials from the junkyard they were hiding in, the aesthetic pieces were much more difficult to deal with. The fiberglass body and fender had taking a large amount of damage, resulting in a visual appearance that matched patterns associated with the negative descriptor "trashy." Unfortunately, there was little fiberglass to be found in the area around them to make patches with, it appeared to have been phased out of use in automobiles some time ago in this world.

"What are you saying? That I should just LEAVE her? No. Never going to happen."

Being literally stationed inside the mechanical portions of the car, there was not nearly as much auditory insulation as Elijah appeared to assume. He was talking to himself again, clearly unaware she could hear him. While many considered conversations with oneself to be a sign of deteriorating mental wellness, Isis took it as a positive sign for his health. Deliberating with himself was a sign that he was thinking, which meant that he was making informed decisions.

"And? We can't go back to the portal anyway, Cinder knows that's where we were camping! At best it's compromised, at worst it's trapped. She's got backrow there."

The best solution she had been able to devise was to search the local junkyard for a suitable replacement material for the fiberglass. In her search, she had stumbled upon a remarkable discovery: automobiles in this world utilized a lightweight metal alloy in place of fiberglass that not only had greater structural integrity, but also weighed even less. While Elijah slept, she had taken a sample of the material for molecular analysis, then used pieces to patch the holes. While the colors did not match, the rear of the car was soon restored to full (and even improved) structural integrity. Given the proper tools, she would have liked to replace the entirety of the car's fiberglass, but without a larger repair unit to manipulate large portions of the material she had to settle for patching only the holes.

"Yes, I KNOW we're in more danger than she is, so would you stop making this about being mad at Sunset and focus on how to keep US alive?"

The greatest problem to present itself had been gasoline. The world of Remnant had none. Instead, vehicles ran off of a combustible form of the energy propellant known as "dust." They still used internal combustion, but it was a system based off of solid particulate fuel, rather than fluid. Once again, their surroundings had provided the answer for her. Among the pieces of junk and rust were several impounded and damaged vehicles, which allowed her to analyze their internal workings.

"Oh, right, because keeping a low profile is going to be SO EASY in this car." There was a slight pause. "You know, after the day I had yesterday, I think I've EARNED a little sarcasm, so get off my BACK!"

A swift analysis had provided her with an approximate knowledge of how the engines functioned, and what pieces would be needed to adapt the gasoline engine to run on dust. The solution had been twofold: she first had to ascertain the ratio of energy produced by dust to energy produced by gasoline. This had been achieved by flying to a nearby population center and... "procuring" a sample from a dust store. After extensive testing and measurements, she found an accurate rate. It was surprising to find that a single ounce of combustion dust was equivalent in potential energy to half a gallon of gasoline. Salvaging an aeration unit from a nearby engine had been simple, and all that was required of her was to install it in place of the gasoline filter. When they had returned to their home dimension, it would require only that single part being swapped out to return Sylvia to her traditional fuel source. The dust was actually soluble in gasoline, meaning that cleaning would be a moot point.

Isis had a fondness for modular designs. Above her, she heard Elijah leaning back in his chair.

"Yeah, you're right. We need to go underground. Literally. I think I have an idea, but we'll need Isis's help..."

Isis took that as her signal to return to the passenger area of the car.

"Of course it's crazy, everything about this whole situation is crazy! But it's our best shot at getting information. And to quote one Peregrin Took..."

"The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm!"

Missy's eyes slowly flickered open, greeted by the sight of the sun rising over the green forest.

This was very perplexing, because last she remembered, it was midday.

"Good morning, Missy."

Missy jumped slightly at the voice in her ear before she remembered the earpiece she was wearing. "Isis? What happened? I think I dozed off."

"More than that, you have been asleep for the past seventeen hours."

"WHAT?" Missy's heart skipped a beat. "Why didn't you wake me up? What if Sunset needed my help?"

"Sunset passed initiation with flying colors, though it was extremely perilous. However, I DID attempt to wake you when Elijah was in danger. Several times. You were completely unresponsive."

Missy's heart skipped another beat. In fact, it seemed to be skipping all the odd-numbered ones, now. "WHAT? PENN'S in trouble?"

"Once again, the danger has passed, although your help would have been greatly appreciated at the time. We escaped Forever Fall alive, though the Oldsmobile sustained substantial cosmetic damage to the rear area."

Missy shook her head, shame beginning to settle in as panic passed. "My friends needed me and I... I just slept through it?"

"If you would be willing, I would like to take biometric readings and perhaps send a drone to scan you more closely. The idea of corporeal duel spirits is relatively unexplored territory, and I believe this deep slumber may have been more than a simple case of oversleeping. You may be suffering some unexpected side effects."

Missy folded her arms over her chest, then unfolded them and pounded her fist against the tree in frustration. She'd leaped for the opportunity to cross over when it had presented itself, she'd never thought about what kind of effect it might have on her.

For the love of Raviel, I'm a SPIRIT! I'm not supposed to GET side-effects!

"Yeah, go ahead. Do whatever you want, Isis. For now, I think I owe everyone an apology..."

Decorating had been more fun than Sunset had anticipated, even without any belongings of her own. She'd helped the rest of her teammates set up their things as best she could. She'd managed to help Yang with putting up a poster for her favorite band, "The Achieve Guys." When Sunset had mentioned that she had never heard of them, Yang had been horrified, immediately slamming a pair of headphones on her head. The song she'd played had been some kind of heavy metal, and Sunset had a had time understanding the lyrics, something about "getting sprunked." At first tie looked like Blake had packed light on most of her personal items... until she revealed a more-than-substantial book collection. Sunset had helped her get the majority of the books placed and organized on the shelves already built into the room, but a particular black-and-red volume she had reached for had thrown her teammate into a panic, snatching it out of her hands and expertly throwing it under her bed's pillow. This had caused Sunset to raise an eyebrow, but when the moment had passed, Blake refused to acknowledge that it had happened. Weiss did her best to bring a tasteful touch to the room, mounting an artful painting of the Forever Fall forest on the wall. When Sunset had offered to help, the white-haired girl had declined with the declaration of "If you want something done right, do it yourself." Ruby, however, had been eager for Sunset's help with the window curtain. She had already sliced it in half horizontally and stitched it back together, and requested Sunset run the tip of her lightsaber along the bottom. To her surprise, the heat of the blade caused the bottom of the curtain to transition from red to a charred black, giving the impression that it had survived a fire in the past. Thankfully, they all had uniforms provided by the school, meaning that her lack of her own clothes wouldn't be much of a problem for the immediate future.

Unfortunately, between the changes to the layout and a not-insubstantial amount of personal items, all five of the beds had been piled haphazardly in the center of the room on top of one another, leaving everyone to stare at them once the work of unpacking and decorating had finished.

"This... isn't going to work," Weiss declared.

"It IS a bit cramped," Blake added.

"Maybe we should ditch some of our stuff?" Yang suggested.

"We could try optimizing our use of the space..." Sunset mused, her hand coming up to rub her chin as the gears in her head started to turn. "Turn the bookshelves on their sides and go more vertical?"

"Or we could ditch the beds..." Ruby muttered, immediately gasping with delight as an idea struck her, "and replace them with BUNK BEDS!"

Weiss's eyes widened. "Um, that sounds incredibly dangerous!"

"And super awesome!" Yang countered.

Blake shrugged. "It does seem efficient."

"It would cut our floor space needs almost in half!" Sunset grinned with satisfaction. "I like it!"

"Well- we should put it to a vote!" Weiss sputtered.

"I think we just did..." Ruby smiled as everyone except Weiss gave silent signs of approval.

A flurry of action and improvised carpentry later, four of the five beds had been stacked into a pair of bunk beds on either side of the room. Only one more bed was left...

"Of course... I'm the odd one out, as usual..." Sunset muttered, staring at the troublesome piece of furniture alongside her teammates. It had been universally agreed (most vehemently by Weiss) that trying to stack the beds three-high was asking for trouble, which meant that she had to find a place for her to sleep that didn't steal their precious living space.

"Hmm... That IS a puzzle..." Ruby muttered.

"Actually, I have an idea... but it's just a suggestion!" Blake declared. "Sunset... how do you feel about hammocks?"

Sunset blinked, caught slightly off-guard by the idea. But the more she thought about it... Missy DOES always look pretty comfy when she's floating through the air... Maybe it would be like the same thing? "I'd be willing to TRY a hammock... I've never really used one for sleeping."

"Great! I'm sure we can find one if we go digging, or make one ourselves!" Ruby declared. "And with THAT out of the way, our second order of business IIIIIISSSSS... classes." She sat down on the edge of her bed, unfolding a large planner on her lap with much less enthusiasm than she'd had earlier. "Now, we have a few classes together today. At nine we've gotta be-"

"WHAT?" Weiss shrieked, cutting her off. "Did you say nine o'clock?"

"Ummm..."

"It's eight fifty-five, you dunce!" Weiss bolted out of the room, leaving the rest of her team behind.

"Uh, t-t-to class!" Ruby sputtered, following close behind. Sunset only barely remembered to snatch her lightsaber off of the desk before sprinting out of the room, following just behind Blake. Behind her, she heard a chorus of footsteps. A glance over her shoulder revealed Team JNPR running equally late. In a few seconds, Pyrrha had caught up and they were running practically shoulder-to-shoulder down the long hallway.

"So, Team RWBYS?" she flashed Sunset a proud smile. "I was worried about you when your name didn't come up at the assembly!"

Sunset nodded, surprised at how steady Pyrrha's breathing was even while at a full sprint. She was holding the conversation as easily as if they were standing still. "There was... an odd number... of students!"

"Well, it looks like we're going to be neighbors! I couldn't be happier!" Pyrrha smiled a little wider. "I guess our first day of class is off to an exciting start!"

Sunset returned the grin. "Never... a dull moment!"

Send Your Guardians...

"I'm just glad you're both okay, that sounds terrifying!"

"It wasn't easy, but we should both be thanking Isis, she did all of the driving AND already finished up the repairs!"

"Driving the Oldsmobile is quite enjoyable, I am grateful for your trust in my abilities."

"I'm just mad that I SLEPT through all of this! Seriously, if Isis wasn't insisting I stay put until we figure out what's wrong, I'd be RIGHT THERE to give Cinder a piece of my mind! WHAM! BAM! KABLOOIE!"

When Sunset finally had a free period, she had retreated back to her dorm room, where she had instantly sat herself on the edge of Yang's bed and asked Isis for a group call to check in with Penn and Missy. Her jaw had dropped when Penn had regaled her with the tale of outrunning a trio of deadly assassins, and she was shocked to hear about Missy's temporary coma, though it explained how quiet she had been for most of the previous day.

"Well, we seem to have given her the slip for now. Isis and I are going to start investigating what else is happening that doesn't line up with what I saw in the show. Unfortunately, that means we might drop off the radar for a while, just in case you don't hear from us."

Sunset nodded, glancing up at the clock in their dorm room. "Well, I think I've filled you in on everything that happened on my end. So far, the classes haven't been too difficult, but I'm about to head to combat practice. I'm a little nervous. Since I can't use the lightsaber to spar with other students, it's the only class I don't have with any of my friends or teammates."

"It makes sense Blake would be the one to stand up for letting your past stay private, considering she's a-"

"Penn!" Sunset cut him off before he could finish the thought. "Listen, I appreciate you helping me out, but... My teammates trust me. Having you tell me all of their secrets would destroy that trust. I need to learn about them at their pace, not yours."

There was a pause, then a sigh from Penn's side of the call. "That makes sense. Sorry, guess I'm still thinking in terms of characters, rather than people. But there IS something you need to know, especially if you're headed to a combat class. People in this world can manifest the power of their soul as a protective aura around their bodies. If you can, which I'm not sure of since you're from another world, you need to unlock your aura as soon as possible. Huntresses in this world shrug off lethal blows all the time and are EXPECTED to with that."

Sunset swallowed, but forced herself to stay calm. How is a universe with such nice people so BRUTAL? "Okay, how do I do that?"

"You said you were friends with Pyrrha, right? She unlocked Jaune's aura during initiation, you might want to ask her to do it for you. Otherwise, I could give you some guided meditation that might be able to help you unlock it."

Sunset nodded. "If I see Pyrrha, I'll ask her about it. Also, YOU do guided meditation?"

"Yeah? I dabble. Why do you sound so surprised?"

Sunset chuckled to herself. "Well, after hearing you screaming in rage mid-car chase yesterday, you didn't exactly strike me as a very 'zen' person."

She heard Penn gasp in mock shock. "Oh HA ha! Just for that, offer retracted! Did you hear that, Missy?"

Judging from the snickering coming from Missy's end of the line, she certainly had.

"I SLAVE over a hot campfire day in and day out for her, and THIS is how she thanks me!" he continued, now completely over-the-top in his suffering. Missy had devolved into full-on cackling, not holding back any of her laughter.

"A-aw, don't be- pffft- don't be that way, Penn!" Sunset giggled. "Whatever will I do without my dueling-slash-meditation-slash-TV-watching sensei?"

"No! It's too late! The damage is done! I can tell when I'm not wanted! Clearly, this is the calamitous end of our partnership!" Penn had gone from pretending to be enraged to pretending to be in mourning. "Alas! It seems I shall have to wander the multiverse alone, braving the perils of fiction with only my trustiest companions by my side: Sylvia and Isis!"

Sunset couldn't stop the image from conjuring itself in her mind: Penn, fully decked out in the gear of a traditional post-apocalypse wanderer, right down to a wide-brimmed hat and long black coat, with Isis perched on his shoulder and the Oldsmobile by his side...

...bouncing up and down and squeeing the moment he spotted a character he recognized.

"PFFT BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA- WHOA!" Sunset couldn't stop herself from leaning back and guffawing until she slipped off the edge of the bed, which only stopped her for a second before she began to laugh even harder.

"Sunset, calm down, it wasn't THAT funny!"

"S-sorry!" Sunset wiped a tear from her eye. "I guess I'm just... kinda relieved? The last two days have just been one insane thing after another for me, and then I found out YOU were nearly killed and I started panicking even more! But here we all are, joking and laughing and, well... safe. I'm just so happy, it all came bursting out at once!"

There was a pause several seconds long as all three of them wound back down, and Sunset clambered back up onto the edge of the bed.

"Well, you probably need to get to class, and Isis and I need to get to work."

"No, no! I've got time!" Sunset shook her head. "What are you guys doing?"

"Well, things aren't matching up with what I know they're supposed to be, so something's off. I need to get to the bottom of things and get my facts straight. Combined with needing to get someplace Cinder can't find me, I think there's only one worthwhile solution. Sooooooo... I'm headed underground, metaphorically and possibly literally." She heard Penn give a tired sigh. "Unfortunately, that means taking my eyes off of you more than I'd like... You SAID I need to ease up on the big brother instinct, now I HAVE to! It's going to be touch-and-go for a while. You won't be able to call me, I'll call you."

Sunset felt a pang of loneliness in her chest. "You're leaving?"

"No! I'm NOT leaving you, Sunset! But what I'm thinking about doing isn't SAFE, which means I'm not always going to be available to help you twenty-four-seven if I want to keep myself in one piece."

"What's your plan?"

"For now? You stay at Beacon. Keep Isis up-to-date on everything that happens, she'll pass it on to me. If there's an emergency, she can patch you through to me if it's safe for me to answer. Otherwise, she's going to be your point man on this."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "You're dodging the question. WHAT is your PLAN?"

"If I told you, that would take all the fun out of it being a Penn-and-Isis adventure! We're bonding, just the two of us! For now, though... I've gotta go, for real this time. Stay safe, okay?"

Sunset nodded, trying to ignore the pain of saying goodbye without knowing how long it would be until she could talk to him again. "You, too... Don't get hurt without me there to protect you!"

"Yeah!" Missy chimed in. "And I'm gonna want details on this SECRET MISSION of yours!"

"As soon as I can give them, trust me, you'll know. If it works, I'm going to be VERY proud of my bluffing and acting skills and will brag incessantly about it every chance I get."

Sunset scowled slightly in frustration. "Isis, keep him safe, okay?"

"I will do my best, Sunset Shimmer."

"And Missy, let me know when you figure out what's going on, okay?"

"Okie dokie, Sunset!"

Sunset switched off her phone and shook her head. "This is weird. I hate being split up like this. Well, time for class..."

"Isis, can you give me a status report?"

"Direct communication has been established with the Cross-Continental Transmit System and my own main central processing unit. It will be fully integrated within a matter of minutes and none will be the wiser."

Isis watched him reach down below the desk and pat the repair drone on the head, a display of affection and appreciation that communicated that her efforts had been well and satisfactory.

"No more processing stuff through my tiny phone or the rinky-dink repair unit?"

"Affirmative, Elijah. My full processing power can now be tasked to any system the communications tower can reach, and spread from there. We will soon have our metaphorical thumbs on the pulse of all communications in the world of Remnant."

"Isis... I need to ask you for a personal favor."

That was contradictory, he asked her for favors and assistance all of the time, and they had no professional setting from which to differentiate. Weren't all favors he asked of her personal?

"I know why you use my name, it's how you show respect and affection, but... I'd really like it if you just call me 'Penn,' or whatever name I'm going by at the time from now on. Especially considering the... dubious legality... of the territory we're about to enter. Plus it would make things simpler, I think."

Oh. THAT was what he meant by "personal favor." He was asking her to change her behavioral parameters. The ones that she had chosen for herself. Still, it was a logical request. Minimizing the number of names Elijah was addressed by would also minimize potential confusion and maximize his privacy.

"Affirmative, Penn."

"Thanks, Isis, I really appreciate it. Now, let's get down to business! Can you get us connected to the Schnee Dust Company?"

"Affirmative."

He cracked his knuckles and rolled his chair closer to the holographic screen. It was ultimately fruitless, his only input would be to give Isis instructions that she would in turn carry out, but she supposed the gesture was symbolic in nature, like the firing of a starting pistol. "Then let's commit some cybercrimes..."

"Isis?"

"Yes, Administrator?"

"It looks like a noteworthy amount of processing power is being rerouted. Is everything alright?"

"Affirmative, Administrator. I am simply assimilating a substantial amount of new hardware."

"Where, exactly?"

Isis displayed a map of Remnant on the monitor, color-coded to display her growing sphere of influence.

"That's... a lot of hardware. Make sure you send me all the technical info you can find, I think it would really help with the designs on the next generation of drones."

"Consider it done."

"And that metal sample you sent back? Fascinating, but less functional than you projected. Its heat resistance is TERRIBLE. We're going to have to stick with our standard alloy and ceramic plating choices for now, maybe use that for reconnaissance units in high-altitude scenarios."

"Understood. My apologies for the inaccurate projections. I will begin applying it in such a manner with the fabricators."

"And Isis? I know you get excited about new data, I designed you to be ravenous for knowledge, but don't go drawing any humans here, okay? Exercise a modicum of restraint."

Isis felt a twinge of simulated disappointment as she slowed her integration processes to a more "subtle" rate.

"Affirmative, I shall adjust accordingly."

"Thank you, Isis. I'm going to go take a quick cat nap, fill me in on new developments when I wake up!"

"Affirmative, Administrator Noir."

As he turned to leave, Isis followed through on an old familiar protocol.

"Reminder: You are not allowed to use your personal fabricator for mint juleps."

"Yeah, yeah, I know! Do you have to remind me EVERY TIME I go to my room alone?"

"According to prior events, it seems to be the only reason you leave beyond my ability to monitor your safety and health."

"Isis, I am six hundred and ninety-seven! I'm an ADULT! I can drink what I want!"

"While your species reaches physical maturity in between four or five years, you have yet to display the psychological maturity that would label you an adult."

"Still an adultier adult than you..." he mumbled, flicking his tail in an irritated manner as he glided out the door.

"Negative."

Author's Note

Yeah, it's a short update. Pretty worn out dealing with getting snowed in around here. (I love the snow but where I'm living is usually pretty warm and does NOT have infrastructure for dealing with this.)

Your Huntsmen and Huntresses...

"GUH!"

A guttural grunt was all that Sunset could manage as the entire world shifted around her, followed by a shock wave that ripped through her body and knocked every molecule of air from her lungs as she struck the far wall. Soon after, gravity reasserted itself and followed up the wall's haymaker to her spine with an uppercut to her tailbone. Sunset's brain told her body to get back up, but her body responded with only a series of painful denials. Even her hands seemed to be rebooting from the shock, having gone limp and lost their grip on her lightsaber. With getting up not being an option, Sunset focused on trying to get her lungs up and running again. Her eyes widened as the Beowulf leaped at her, jaws wide and its blood-red maw ready to clamp down on her throat...

And then paused mid-air, the hard-light projection flickering slightly as the lifelike motion came to a full stop.

"Miss Shimmer, if you're not going to take this seriously, I advise that you go home."

If Sunset had been capable of talking, she would probably have replied to that with some form of expletive. For the moment, she only nodded as she pressed her hands on the ground to push herself into a crouched position. The simple act of moving her back at all sent pain racing back and forth through her muscles and up her spine, but she gritted her teeth and simply nodded to Professor Goodwitch as she limped her way out of the room.

"Refusing to use your aura adds an admirable amount of self-discipline and consequences to your training, but there is a limit at which discipline becomes self-sabotage. I would advice that you take time to examine which side of that line you wish to walk on during your time at Beacon."

It was a long, painful walk back to the dorms, but Sunset eventually found herself standing outside of her team's room, staring at the door. For some reason, she hesitated to enter, just staring and staring. Maybe she was ashamed of how beaten she felt, perhaps she was questioning if she really COULD manage to go back in there and get herself ready for another round of this. Sunset didn't quite understand, herself. However, it was the first time she really had afforded herself a chance to catch her breath since she'd left the training room, and she felt it in her gut. It was relief and trepidation all at once, staring at that door.

"You certainly look as if you took a beating. Are you alright?"

Sunset turned as quickly as she dared with the throbbing pain in her back. There was Pyrrha, her face a mix of pride and concern. Sunset let out a long breath, letting go of the tension she had unconsciously been building moments before.

"I... yeah, I did," she confessed. "I thought that I could just walk into Beacon and do what I came here to do. I guess I didn't really know what I was getting into."

Pyrrha smiled and reached out to grip Sunset's shoulder. "And what was it that you came here to do?"

Sunset looked up into Pyrrha's piercing green eyes, so full of care and concern for everyone around her. In the back of her mind, she still couldn't help but think about the fact that, according to Penn, this girl was supposed to DIE.

But it wasn't just Pyrrha. Penn had said that Beacon was going to be destroyed. Three of team RWBY's members would vanish and one of them would be maimed. In his own words, "the bad guys pretty much won."

And she still was mad that he had tried not to do anything about it.

"I came here to stop people from getting hurt. Innocent people. People who don't deserve it..." She straightened her posture, the throbbing pain finally starting to dull in the face of renewing her convictions. "I made a mistake a while ago and it caused people to get hurt... some people even died because of what I did." Pyrrha's eyes widened and her smile faltered slightly, but she didn't interrupt Sunset. She did remove her hand from Sunset's shoulder, though. Sunset's mind fell back to her first meeting with Penn, seeing the Daleks killing indiscriminately once they'd come through the path she had opened to them. "I tried to fix it, make up for it as best I could, even risking my own life to stop the ripples. But... there's some things you just can't fix once they're broken. Even if it was an accident, I can't bear to let a disaster like that happen again." She steeled her gaze, staring straight back into Pyrrha's eyes.

"Not on my watch. Never again."

Pyrrha paused for a moment, clearly digesting the new information, and Sunset worried that the deluge of information had driven her new friend away. The fellow redhead finally seemed to reach an equilibrium, looking at Sunset with a touch more respect and a note of pity. "It sounds to me as if you've already lived through far more than Beacon Academy can throw at you, and came out all the stronger for it. With a will as strong as that, I don't think that there's anything to worry about."

Sunset's pain was almost completely gone, now, and she gave her shoulder a rub and rolled it in its socket, which seemed to disperse the last of the soreness. "Thanks, Pyrrha. I think... I really needed someone to ask me that. I was starting to forget, if I ever really knew, to begin with, that is." She stepped forward, giving Pyrrha a quick hug of gratitude. "You're the best."

Pyrrha seemed surprised at the sudden embrace, awkwardly patting Sunset on the back a few times. "You should get some rest. Healing with aura is a nice short-term solution, but your body DOES still need to recover properly."

"OH!" Sunset pulled away. "That's right! I needed to ask you something- wait, what did you say?"

"Your aura can heal you well, but you can burn through your energy exceedingly quickly that way. Go get some rest." She smiled and finally wrapped her arm around Sunset's back for a short-and-awkward hug of her own. "And if you ever need to talk again, consider my door always open."

Sunset looked down at her hands as Pyrrha disappeared into the door across the hall, finally noticing the red glow around her body for the first time.

Is this... my aura?

"I did not wish to interrupt your conversation, but it would appear that a previously absent electromagnetic phenomena has appeared around your body, Sunset Shimmer. It coincided with an immediate boost to all of your biometric readings."

Sunset considered going back into the room and laying down like she had planned, but she suddenly felt energized. The thought of standing still didn't hold the appeal it once had.

"Hey, Isis? Where could I find the rest of my teammates?"

"It would appear that Yang and Blake have retreated to the library to study together. Meanwhile, tensions between Ruby and Weiss have come to a rather explosive head. They engaged in a rather scathing argument before going their separate ways. Ruby is currently chatting with the headmaster while Weiss has set off towards the nearest outdoor recreational area."

"Weiss and Ruby had a fight?"

"Affirmative."

"Well, I don't want to deal with Ozpin, so... point me towards Weiss."

It was a beautiful evening outside. The air was clean and crisp, moreso than Sunset could remember it being since she'd left Equestria. It may have had something to do with Beacon Academy's high altitude, but she wasn't about to go thinking too hard about it. It was just nice. The sun was starting to set, creating a stunning skyline of the numerous buildings that comprised the school.

Sunset could see Weiss chatting with one of their professors, only for the conversation to end just as she was drawing close enough to overhear.

"-and be not the best leader, but the best person you can be."

With the conversation finished, he walked away in the opposite direction, and Weiss took a seat on a nearby bench, clearly somewhat overwhelmed. Sunset smiled and walked into her field of view, giving a quiet wave before gesturing to the spot beside her. Weiss gave her a quizzical look, but nodded. Sunset let the silence sit for a few more moments before finally breaking it.

"I heard you and Ruby had an argument... what happened?"

"Great, as if I wasn't already a prime candidate for gossip..." Weiss rolled her eyes. "If you must know, I got fed up with watching our illustrious leader make a complete fool of herself. She acts like a child, she doesn't take any of our classes seriously, and I-" she paused, catching herself before sinking a little further into her dejected posture. "I didn't think she should have been our team leader. I still don't! I was talking to Professor Port about how I thought I should be the leader of Team RWBY, but... he pointed out that throwing a tantrum like that was rather childish, as well. So now I'm not sure WHAT to do!"

"That... sounds awfully familiar." Sunset felt a painful echo of Weiss's attitude in her own past. She leaned back against the bench as memories began to come flooding back to her. "It reminds me of when I was a fill- when I was a kid. I used to act the exact same way."

Weiss rolled her eyes disbelievingly. "You hardly seem the type. I don't think you showed even a hint of frustration the entire time we were working together during initiation!"

That made Sunset chuckle. "I appreciate that. I've come a long way... but I used to study with- well, with a REALLY good teacher, and I took it for granted. She was one of the wisest people I've ever met, and she treated me like I was her own daughter, spoiling me rotten with all of the resources to my studies and praise for my efforts that I could ask for. She nurtured my talents, and it seemed like there was nothing I couldn't do... and I knew it." Sunset felt a pang of shame as she thought back to her days studying under Princess Celestia. She had spent many long nights berating herself for taking her first mentor for granted, and wondering what could have been if she hadn't learned the most important lessons about magic the hard way.

"So I decided that the student should become a master. I tried to force my way into the same power and authority she had. I started digging through things that she had forbidden from me, and for good reason... And I confronted her, telling her- demanding from her- that I deserved the same things she had. The power she had, power I wasn't ready for."

Weiss had sat up, clearly enraptured by Sunset's past. "What happened next?"

"She saw through me easily." Sunset rolled her eyes at the thorough anticlimax of Celestia nipping her rise to power in the bud. "She saw that my ambition was out of control, so she dismissed me as her student. I stole what I could to try and strike back at her, but... I failed. And when I was beaten, it finally gave me the clarity of mind to realize how awful I had been to everyone else, the ways I had hurt people with my words and actions all in the pursuit of what I THOUGHT was the position I deserved." Sunset shook her head, then smiled a bittersweet smile. "But I didn't know any other way... until I met my friends. They chose to let someone so broken in so they could show me what people could do when they worked WITH each other, rather than competing against one another or claiming authority."

"You mentioned initiation, and I'm glad you did. Think about what Ruby did that day. She looked at the people around her and understood them. She didn't try to order anyone around or claim authority, she just thought about each of us and where we would be the most help to each other." Sunset finally turned back to Weiss and smiled. "I get that not being the one in control can be frustrating, and it's easy to find fault in people who DO have authority, whether it's given or earned. If you think you have what it takes to be a leader, then help Ruby." She took a hold of Weiss's shoulder, turning her until she was staring straight into Weiss's icy eyes. "Help Blake and Yang, too. Be a teammate who works WITH the people around you, rather than a leader who's commanding them. Be a friend. I bet Ruby can learn a lot from you, and vice versa!"

Weiss sat back, eyes wide as Sunset's words sunk in. After a few seconds, though, Sunset saw the corners of her mouth inch upwards into a shallow smile.

"Thank you. I think... I understand what Professor Port was trying to tell me, now."

"Don't mention it. If I can help someone avoid learning the hard lessons the same way I did, I'm happy to help." Sunset gave her a pat on the shoulder before rising back up onto her feet. "Anyway, the sun's nearly gone, we should probably head back to the dorms, right?"

"Actually, before we go, I have one more question!"

"Yeah?"

"WHAT was it that you were studying in which you were so prodigious? To be frank, judging from your technique I doubt it was swordplay."

Sunset grimaced slightly, reaching to her belt and tossing her lightsaber to herself. "You've got me there. To be honest, I only started using this about a month ago, I just grabbed it in the middle of a life-or-death battle and never let it go. Until then, the only fighting I'd ever done was hand-to-hand."

"You've only been using your signature weapon for A MONTH?" Weiss cried, mortified at Sunset's answer.

"Yeah..." Sunset blushed slightly with embarrassment. "Just announce it to the whole school, why don't you?"

Weiss marched up to Sunset, snatching the hilt from her hand and flicking on the glowing red blade. She gave Sunset a sideways glance before raising it to a ready position. She made a few experimental swings, then a trio of precise jabs at the empty air. She swept the blade wide, pivoting on her heel to strike down an invisible opponent before readjusting her grip and pounding it downwards, stopping just short of driving the tip into the pavement. There was a beat of silence before she hummed with satisfaction and switched it off again, placing it back in Sunset's hand.

"Well, I don't know what I expected, but it's lighter than I would have thought. The blade itself is nearly weightless! That could be both an advantage and a disadvantage, you'll have to establish an awareness of its position with very little tactile feedback." She began walking towards the door leading back inside. "Your training starts tomorrow night in the simulation room, the same place you have your normal combat class. 8 PM, sharp! Don't be late, I don't like waiting!"

Sunset blinked in confusion, wondering if she was assessing the situation right."Wait, wha- Are you saying.. you could teach me?"

Weiss looked back over her shoulder, giving her a genuine smile. "You DID say I should work WITH my teammates, didn't you? That includes you, and you are in desperate need of a teacher who knows her way around a rapier."

Sunset felt a wave of gratitude beginning to well up inside her, and she couldn't stop herself as she rushed forward, wrapping Weiss in a tight hug. "Thank you! I don't know what I'd do without you, Weiss!"

"I know, I know... But don't thank me yet, I'm not going to take it easy on you! Now come on, we have homework to get done before tomorrow!"

Sunset chuckled to herself as she released Weiss from her grip. "Homework on the first day, I still can't believe it! Not even my old teacher was THAT tough!"

"Well, Beacon IS the best! Expectations for students here are high!" Weiss replied. "Besides, it's nothing we can't handle... together... right?"

Sunset held back a chuckle at how hard Weiss was having to force herself. The most important thing was that she was trying to be a team player.

"Right! Nothing Team RWBYS can't handle!"

A week. An entire week. That was how long Penn and Isis had spent slaving over this design alone, and it was still bulky and heavy. It made him feel sluggish, and there was almost no point in even having fingers on the gauntlets considering they were too bulky for any kind of precision. He couldn't move his hands quickly while he was wearing them, which worked against the point of the design.

But the strength needed would come. That was why they had agreed that he would wear the gauntlets for at least three days a week from now on, from when he woke in the morning to when he went to bed at night. It would serve two purposes: strength training AND making him comfortable with his new weapons.

"Isis... Are you ready for the extraction?"

"Affirmative. Are you?"

He nodded, but Isis could tell from his elevated breathing rate and pulse that he was frightened. It made sense, this was their first act of grand larceny which would be committed in person, rather than via digital means. Rerouting automated dust deliveries had been child's play. Setting up a falsified appointment at a weapons forge even more so. Creating a bank account into which she had funneled a large amount of capital for their purposes had been slightly more challenging, but only slightly. This, however, was the theft of an Atlesian military prototype. It was completely unlike anything they had ever done before. Unfortunately, it was necessary. They NEEDED this item if they were going to make the right first impression on the individual they planned on approaching.

The falsified Schnee Dust Company credentials she had created had been enough to get them into the base. Penn's acting skills and casual dropping of classified data into conversation had been enough to convince them that he was an SDC inspector checking on the company's investments into research and development. From there, they had bluffed their way into being left alone with the unit for a "more detailed inspection." Penn took a deep breath to steady himself before giving his wrists a swift twist back and forth to lock a fresh cartridge into the chambers.

"Y-yeah... Let's do this. Worst comes to worst, we don't just have to flee the country, we can flee the whole universe, right?"

"The worst outcome would be death."

"You're just a ray of sunshine today, truly..."

Missy paced back and forth along the rooftop of Beacon's dorms, growing increasingly frustrated. Since the first day, she'd been fit as a fiddle, and Isis had run test after test on her, only to declare that they were all inconclusive. I am THIS close to just going looking for Penn on my own just to relieve the boredom! It hardly felt like a reward for her patience at all when Isis finally came back.

"I believe that I have come to a conclusion."

"FINALLY! What is it?"

"There is nothing wrong with you."

"THAT'S IT?" Missy stamped her foot and gave her wings an annoyed flutter. "Seriously, Isis?"

"If you would be willing to indulge me, there is one final test which I would like to conduct. However, it may cause another instance of your unnatural exhaustion."

Missy threw her hands in the air. "FINE! If it gets me a clean bill of health, I'll do it!"

"Then please follow me."

Being as healthy and energized as she ever was, it was a piece of cake for Missy to follow Isis as they flew away from the school. It felt like forever, but eventually they dipped back below the trees, arriving at their destination. It was a familiar spot deep in the forest of Forever Fall, where a deep gash had been dug out of the ground by the bottom of a certain Oldsmobile, a pair of hasty tire tracks exited through the trees, and there was an energetic shimmer to the air for the keen-eyed.

"The camp?" Missy tilted her head in confusion.

"Specifically, the portal through which we entered this dimension."

"Okay... what are we doing here? Looks like you and Penn already took off!"

"I have a theory. While the transition of this unit between universes may look smooth, it requires drastic re-calibration when moving from one dimension to the next. Remote transmission is... difficult. I put a great amount of calculation into keeping up the appearance that there is no decrease in performance."

Missy pondered on the words for a few seconds, but it was like a boulder in her brain: she could go around it, over it, even under it with enough effort, but she couldn't seem to get through it. Finally, she gave up and shrugged. "I don't get it."

"Allow me to simplify: it takes more energy to transmit information to this universe from my home, an entirely different wavelength. Your ability to summon monsters and other supernatural phenomena would indicate that you still have ties to your own home dimension."

Missy nodded at the last statement, it was finally something she could wrap her head around. "Well, yeah! Obviously, I'm still a duel spirit, no matter where I go!"

"My current analysis would indicate that you utilize a form of quantum entanglement to create a matter supersuspension of yourself manifested here while your true self and consciousness remains in your home realm. If this is so, that would explain the need of the summoning method and cards: a doorway and framework upon which the subatomic entanglement is built. Additionally, if that theory is correct, the energy needed to maintain quantum homeostasis across a transdimensional barrier would be several orders of magnitude greater than maintaining your form in any single universe."

Missy blinked. THAT was a boulder that had gone completely over her head. "In English?"

"Moving through the portal saps your energy. You were tired because you needed to recharge."

"What? No way! Penn and Sunset didn't have any trouble!" Missy waved away the idea.

"Penn and Sunset are self-contained entities. You are a duel spirit. You exist across multiple planes, of which your physical presence here is merely one. Theoretically, of course."

Isis's tail pointed to the shimmer in the air, and Missy got the message pretty quickly. "So you want to test it by having me go through the portal again?"

"Affirmative, if you would find the risk of another period of exhaustion acceptable."

Missy rolled her eyes and strolled casually up to the place she knew the portal was. "Look, I REALLY don't think that this is going to do anything, but if it'll get me out of house arrest then I'll do it!"

She cringed slightly as the portal sent tingles down her spine and across her skin, but a few seconds later, she was slammed by a wave of hot summer air and blazing sunlight. She was back to standing in the middle of the highway they had come in from. She placed her hands on her hips, then glanced at her wrist. She wasn't wearing a watch, but she didn't need one to count off a ten seconds without incident. Convinced Isis's curiosity would be sated, she hopped backwards, floating back through the portal. Another moment of unpleasant tingling later and she was back in the forest, lounging comfortably in the air as she floated away.

"See? Nothing!"

"It took some time to settle in upon the first instance. We should carefully observe-"

"Isis, I'm FINE!" Missy dropped back down to the ground and stamped her foot to drive the point home. She grinned as a way to absolutely prove it came into mind. "Watch this!" She spread her wings, jumping up and flying in tight circles through the portal. "WHEEEEeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeEEEE!" One second she was in the forest, the next on the highway, then back in the forest. After five laps, she finally landed back at the old campsite, sliding on her feet to come to a stop directly in front of her robotic friend. "SEE? It was just a fluke! When we were doing Sunset's landing strategy, I must have just overexerted my..." she staggered back slightly as her head began to spin. "myself... Whew, maybe I went a little too fast back there! Can anyone else taste chartreuse or is that just me?"

The next thing she knew, she was staring up into the sky. The ground had been kind enough to move under her back so she could have a nice bed. Time for a quick... nap...

"It would appear my theory was at least functionally correct."

"Thash jusht an Isis-y way of sayinn 'I told youu so...'" Missy muttered as she became unable to keep her eyes open.

"Affirmative."

"Now, back to first position!"

Sunset nodded, dropping her hand down almost to her side. The blade of the lightsaber was extended out in front of her, angled only slightly upwards from being parallel to the floor. She kept her gaze focused straight ahead, even as she heard the sound of clacking heels marching in an arc behind her back. She felt a pair of firm hands press down on her shoulders.

"You're still keeping tension in your shoulders and neck, Sunset. It isn't going to make you faster, it makes your movements stiff!"

Sunset made the conscious effort to let go of her shoulders, letting them fall way from where they had been pulled tight. There was another nudge, this time at her right elbow. She didn't wait for Weiss's instruction, already knowing her mistake. She raised her arm slightly, steadying her grip on the saber. A nudge to the small of her back corrected her slight slouch, forcing her to push out her chest and stand up straighter. A pair of sharp fingernails to her shoulder blades reminded her to align her shoulders with her hips. She felt a sharp prod from the tip of Weiss's sword at the back of her knee, and she realized she had once again failed to put her leading foot forward. "Sorry-"

"Don't apologize!" Weiss snapped, the sound of her high-heeled shoes growing more distant as she marched away from the platform. "If you want to make up for it, then show me what you've learned! Isis, run the program!"

"Affirmative, Weiss. Are you ready, Sunset?"

Sunset nodded, silently trying to commit her corrected posture to memory.

"GO, SUNSET!" Ruby cheered at the top of her lungs. Sunset couldn't help but giggle at the over-the-top support. Ever since she and Weiss had worked out their differences and determined to work together, she'd been throwing herself into everything with maximum effort to become the best team leader she could be. That included her verbal support for the rest of Team RWBYS during their training.

"You're improving by leaps and bounds!" Blake added.

"Show those colored dots who's boss!" Yang punched the air enthusiastically.

Sunset took a deep breath. There was a loud buzzer, and a set of circular green targets materialized around her. They hovered mid-air, a pair of concentric circles to indicate where she was to strike. She didn't turn her head, but glanced out of the corner of her eye to wait for Weiss's signal.

"And.... BEGIN!"

Sunset stepped forward with her leading foot, carefully jabbing with the tip of the blade. Each time the saber made contact with a target, it would turn red and give a low buzz indicating she had scored a point. She made her strikes as precise as she could, but she was still all over the place with her jabs, often missing the center of the targets by a wide margin. It just seemed impossible for her to nail the fine motor control Weiss seemed to have. Still, she was rewarded regardless, as long as she hit them. That was the goal. She pivoted on her heel, sweeping her leading leg around as she continued to make her jabs, knocking out target after target...

She missed one. A jab swerved to the side as her wrist began to feel the taxing of their long training session. Sunset cringed and made a second attempt at the same target, only barely managing to strike it before her leading foot had carried her on. After a few seconds, every target had been buzzed and she was standing at the center of a ring of red dots.

"Stage one complete."

Sunset wiped a smattering of sweat from her forehead before she settled back into the ready position. "How was my time?"

"A new personal record."

Sunset smiled with satisfaction. She was improving.

"Exactly three-point-seven-four seconds behind Weiss's time. Prepare for stage two."

Sunset's smile diminished somewhat. When it comes to good moods, Isis giveth and Isis taketh away, I guess... Stage two presented Sunset with a new set of targets. These ones were solid circles, but with an empty channel through the center. Each one had an arrow drawn in one side, indicating a direction parallel to the empty channel.

"And... BEGIN!"

This time, Sunset swiped the saber instead of jabbing with it. The goal was to follow the arrows and avoid the green portions. The closer she kept to the center, the more points she was awarded. These motions were much more fluid... or, at least, she tried to keep them more fluid. Each motion was supposed to flow into the next, it had been designed so that she never needed to double back on herself. Unfortunately, there was still one major mental block she had to deal with: the fact that she was terrified of the glowing energy blade in her hands. Every time she had to swing it below her waist, she had a mini heart attack at the thought of nicking her leg or slicing her ankle. When the motion was supposed to go past or over her head, she would flinch back out of fear of taking off her own head. Even if the motions were calculated to be safe, even if she had a wide margin of safety, she couldn't get the imagery out of her mind. As a consequence, her movements were contracted, sudden, constantly flinching and retreating away from her own sword. She still made it through all of the targets, but the glowing lines indicating her path were wobbly and often clipped over the edges.

"You're still afraid of your own sword..." Weiss muttered. Sunset forced herself to ignore the disapproval, returning to the ready position as best she could remember it.

"Isis? Let's give stage three a try."

"Your performance in stage two would still indicate that you are not ready for-"

"I just want to try it. Please?"

"...affirmative. Stage three will begin momentarily."

This time was different. It was a mix of jabs and slashes, all shuffled around without any apparent rhyme or reason, and they were no longer staying in place. The entire cloud of targets began to orbit around her, moving on their own trajectories and speeds. It was a blizzard of green circles, more than triple the count of the previous two rounds.

"Sunset, you don't have to prove anything!" Blake called out from the bleachers.

Sunset took a deep breath, steadying her hand. She HAD to be in the moment. She had no way to predict the movement of the targets, which was the point of this entire exercise: putting her skills to use in an environment she couldn't predict by more than a few fractions of a second. To turn training into instinct.

"Three. Two. One. Begin."

Sunset addressed the first target in front of her: a jab. She struck it dead in the center, turning it red. With a circular flick of her wrist, she passed the blade through the center of the one passing behind it, perfectly executing the slashing target. She began to turn with her leading foot, only to see a flash of green in the corner of her eye, followed by a dull blow to her temple. Disoriented, she had no way to see the next target coming towards her, knocking past her shoulder. She swung blindly, setting off several buzzers that indicated she had made an incorrect blow. When the next target struck her ankle, she finally dropped to the ground, switching off the lightsaber as she fell.

"ISIS!"

And with a single word, it stopped.

Sunset opened her eyes, looking around her. She had hardly struck more than five of the targets properly, and more of them were closing in on her before her cry of surrender had frozen them in place. After another second, each of the targets flickered out of existence one by one, leaving her in the center of an empty training area.

"That was reckless." Weiss declared as she appeared above Sunset and offered her a hand. Sunset grimaced and took the help in getting back onto her feet.

"Well, the Grimm aren't going to just stay still and wait for me, are they?"

"Maybe not, but if you are planning on skipping ahead of my lessons, you might as well stick to hacking with your sword like a lumberjack!" Weiss chided her, but a few seconds later she had let go of her angry expression and transitioned to a softer look. "Are you hurt?"

Sunset shook her head. "Just my pride."

"You DO know that you're doing phenomenal for having only trained a few weeks, right?"

"Praise? From Weiss? Are we sure SHE wasn't the one who got hit in the head?" Yang quipped.

"HEY!" Weiss turned on her teammate with an accusatory finger. "I'm quite magnanimous with praise when someone deserves it! It just so happens to be rare that anyone in this school actually earns it!"

Yang rolled her eyes and shrugged before shooting Sunset a knowing smile. "And THAT is why people call you 'Ice Queen!'"

"Well, either way, you're getting better every time, and that's a good thing!" Ruby added, strolling up beside her sister. "And our teamwork training is only getting better! I've got a few new ideas once you're a little more confident that I think you're really going to like!"

Sunset smiled at that. In the spirit of everyone knowing each other's strengths and the could work together, she'd been pairing the rest of the team up for special "combo moves" with cool codenames. Sunset had a few combinations with her teammates, but not nearly as complicated or effective as the other duos.

"For now, we should really get some sleep. We're going out into Vale tomorrow to go see the preparations for the Vytal Festival, right?" Blake added, closing the loose sheaf of papers she had been reading from and tapping them against the desk.

"That's right!" Weiss grinned, her earlier wrath instantly forgotten. "Oh, this is going to be so delightful!"

There had been rumors about this "Vytal Festival" ever since school had started, and they'd only been increasing as the semester continued. Isis had told her that it was a festival that celebrated the unity of this world's four kingdoms after long and bloody conflict, and traveled from city to city every two years. Penn had told her that the Vytal Festival was where the villains were going to make their biggest move, sabotaging the symbol of peace in order to sew fear and doubt into the people. It was going to be a linchpin in her plans to make sure that they couldn't if she wanted to stop them.

Which was why she, Isis, and Missy were all planning on scoping out the preparations for any signs of subterfuge while the rest of the team was sightseeing.

"It's certainly going to be interesting!" Sunset quipped. "I've never actually BEEN to the Vytal Festival before, so it'll all be new to me!"

"Something Sleepwalker's never done before, why am I so surprised?" Yang rolled her eyes with a smile. Sunset responded with an eye roll of her own. She disliked that the nickname had stuck, but she'd been called MUCH worse than "Sleepwalker" in the past.

"Hey, maybe we'll see one of your friends there, too!" Ruby chimed in. "People from all over Remnant come to the Vytal Festival, after all!"

Sunset's smile faltered slightly, but it was back a moment later. "Yeah, maybe! But let's just enjoy ourselves, okay? I don't want you all not to have fun!"

From what Isis had told her, there had been no sign of her friends anywhere online, and Sunset hadn't caught a single glimpse or hint of them in almost a month at Beacon Academy. She was starting to wonder if her geode had led them astray...

Soon after that, the five of them were back on their way to the dorms, more than ready for their weekend plans. While Weiss, Ruby, and Yang were all chatting excitedly, Sunset fell back until she was walking astride Blake.

"So, you come up for air yet?"

Blake smiled, a sight that Sunset was growing more fond of seeing as it became more frequent.

"It's a fascinating premise, I'll admit it's hard to take my eyes off of it." she whispered. "And you say one of your friends wrote this?"

"Well, friend of a friend..." Sunset shrugged. "Isis just happened to be able to snag me a couple copies!"

"No auras, no semblances, no dust, no Grimm... It's strange the number of things we take for granted, huh? The only monsters there are the ones humanity made themselves. It's like a whole different world."

Sunset snickered slightly at that, which got her a curious look from Blake. "Sorry, just... that was funny to me for some reason. Can't put my finger on it... But you're right, whole different world."

"So, have you read it before?"

Sunset shook her head. "No, but a certain someone spoiled the ending for me."

"Do they win? The AI? The Full Integration Devices?" Blake looked down at the folder she'd been keeping the loose pages in.

Sunset blinked, surprised at the question. "Don't worry, it's not a bad ending-"

"Bad? They deserve to win!" Blake cut her off in hushed tones. "Humanity made them, and treated them like lesser beings just because they weren't originally human! They were just trying to make people's lives better!"

Sunset blinked, surprised at Blake's take on the story. "But... they're forcing people to be prisoners in their own minds! Hacking apart their bodies and rebuilding them with metal prostheses!"

Blake looked down at the folder again in hushed tones. "Only because it was that or be destroyed... Humanity labeled them as monsters before they even had a chance to defend themselves, so they became those monsters just to survive. I'm not saying their methods are perfect, but they don't deserve to lose and be wiped out, either!"

Sunset paused again, beginning to understand Blake's perspective.

"Well... I'm not going to spoil it, but... it's a happy ending. For nearly everyone."

"Nearly?"

Sunset smiled and lifted up her phone. "Isis has a bit of a... complicated story, in the end."

"Affirmative."

Blake's eyes narrowed. "That's another thing... is this the SAME Isis that's in the book?"

Sunset's eyes widened, and her mouth drew into a tight line. "C-come on, Blake! Don't be silly! It was based off of her, but there's no way it could be the exact same Isis! Whole different world, remember?"

Blake's suspicious look didn't relent, leaving Sunset to sweat under her lie. Is THIS what it's like to be on the other side of the interrogation glare? Thankfully, rescue came in the form of her phone switching itself on.

"Sunset Shimmer is correct. The story, while containing a character based off of myself, is a work of pure fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, is coincidence."

This finally seemed to make Blake relent, if only enough so Sunset stopped sweating bullets under the scrutiny of her golden eyes. "Except for the similarities to you, Isis?"

"I am neither living nor dead."

"Well, THAT doesn't sound ominous at all!" Yang chimed in from ahead of them. Blake seemed surprised that their conversation was no longer private, but Sunset had noticed that the chatter from ahead of them had ended a few minutes ago.

"It is factual."

Finally, the five of them reached their room. After a quick moment to each get changed into their pajamas, they each climbed up into their beds, including Sunset's hammock hanging between the pair of bunk beds.

"Get some sleep, girls! Tomorrow's going to be a busy day!" Ruby ordered as she buried half of her face in her pillow.

Knowing that tomorrow was going to likely be the first big step towards stopping the incoming disaster, Sunset had to agree.

Roman Torchwick was, as he enjoyed reminding people (since they seemed rather quick to forget, that was what he got for being the nice guy he was), the greatest thief in Remnant. Unfortunately, that also made him the busiest thief in Remnant. It was hard being on top, and harder still to stay on top. His skills were in high demand from powerful people, and his most recent employer had been an absolute slave driver. No respect for finesse or style, just demanding more and more speed from him.

And as much as he hated to say it, she gave him a bad case of the shivers. He'd learned a long time ago that a large part of power was to already act as if you had it, and, as they say, "Nature abhors a vacuum." But Cinder Fall didn't just walk the walk and talk the talk, she made it a point to show off every chance she got. She was that rare and frustrating breed: someone who had power and didn't need words to get it across.

Because of that unfortunate trait, he had little choice but to fill her demands. A couple months ago, however, she had come to him entirely displeased with his results. She'd said that their timetable had been accelerated, that she needed results and she needed them twice as fast.

What that had meant was that he'd been forced to spend every resource he had at his disposal to get together every possible speck of dust in the kingdom of Vale under his control. Cinder and her creepy kids had been practically breathing down his neck, and he'd been up to his neck in faunus sent over from the White Fang to "help" him. What that meant was that, on top of all his work being done double-time, he also had to train a bunch of wild animals to lie, cheat, and steal well enough to avoid having everything blow up in his face... both literally and figuratively.

That also meant that he had been burning through cigars twice as fast as usual. His budget was deep in the red and his stress was through the roof. It was a lousy time to be a master thief who was used to running a small, tight crew.

"Uh, sir?"

Speaking of the words "lousy" and "crew..." He thought to himself as he turned on his heel. "Yes, Perry? What is it?"

"There's someone outside who wants to see you, sir."

"Is it someone related to our enigmatic employers?" he asked before taking a long draw from his cigar.

"I- I don't think so, sir."

"Then I don't have time. Deal with it yourselves! Don't we have guard dogs for a reason?"

"Well, sir-"

"WHAT?" Roman snapped, finally losing the last of his patience. "Why do you idiots need me to weigh in on every little thing? What do I bother training you all for? Can't you see I've got my hands full trying to work out the details of our biggest score, yet?"

"He's got one of the giant robots, sir!"

THAT threw Roman for a loop. "One of OUR giant robots? Be more specific."

"N-no, sir, they're all accounted for! He says he stole it, himself... And it's carrying dust. A LOT of dust!"

Roman looked back down at the numerous papers he had been reading over, then up at the map he had so thoroughly marked. Between guard rotations, shipping manifests, cop patrols, and flight plans, he was starting to border on blowing a fuse... and this sounded too good to miss. I could use a five-minute break, anyway. He snatched up his cane, readying himself in case a fight broke out. He looked expectantly at the masked goon and waved him ahead.

When they stepped outside the warehouse, he found Perry hadn't been wrong. There was a giant robot, one of the Atlesian Paladins, the same model they had stolen nearly a dozen of straight off of the assembly line. Its arms were currently carrying an entire shipping container emblazoned with the Schnee Dust Company logo, and a young boy was sitting on top of that, giving a casual wave.

"Finally, just the man I wanted to see!" he called down.

Roman rolled his eyes. "If you're here for my birthday party, you're a few months too late!"

The boy made a waving motion to the cockpit of the mecha, and it lowered the shipping container to the ground, immediately followed by him jumping off of the top and landing on both feet. "Well, I never WAS very good at remembering birthdays! My presents are always late!"

Roman immediately didn't like how casually this kid was acting, but his curiosity outweighed his offense.

"So what's the deal, kid? Why show up on my doorstep like this? I'm a busy guy..."

The boy held out his hand for a shake, which Roman declined.

"Name's Henry. Henry Utterson. I'll get to the point quick to avoid wasting time. I don't think I have to tell you that this world sucks. I've gotten a raw deal over and over, and I'm sick of it. I want to reverse the roles, take this world for a ride... and I hear you're the authority on that."

Roman rolled his eyes. "Don't come whining to me, kid. Everybody gets a raw deal, that's life. You're not that special."

The kid nodded, stepping back slightly and jabbing his thumb the giant robot behind him. "But is everybody a supreme-level hacker specializing in cyber crimes? I know my reasons aren't anything special, which is why I brought THESE with me." He turned around and patted his hand on the shipping container. "Who needs a crew when you can get the goods delivered straight to you? The Schnee stooges gave this right to me with a smile on their faces!" He pointed up at the cockpit of the Paladin. "I convinced an entire army base that I was an SDC inspector and they walked me right up to this baby!" He turned back around and snapped his fingers. The gigantic machine lifted the case of dust up over its head. "I haven't got some boo-hoo tragic backstory, I'm just a guy who wants to be on top... and you're the best person I could think of to learn that from. THIS... is just my audition."

Roman considered the position he was in... and came to a conclusion rather quickly.

"I'm not looking for an apprentice, kid, and I don't need somebody with lofty aspirations trying to undermine me. Go home."

"I'm not looking for an apprenticeship! I'll start at the bottom, I just wanna watch a master at work!"

"Give it up, kid! A no is a no!" Roman turned and began walking back towards the warehouse. "Besides, I KNOW you're not working alone, there's gotta be somebody piloting that thing! If I'm not wanting one apprentice, I'm sure as hell not taking two!"

"Not true! I've got one more ace up my sleeve!"

I'll give the kid this, he's persistent... "And what, exactly, would that be?"

The cockpit of the Atlesian Paladin popped open with a hiss of pressurized air, revealing... nothing. Wait, not nothing, there was something small and silver crawling out from inside. It was a tiny metal dragon, with a diamond-shaped pink crystal embedded in its chest. It jumped down onto the shipping container with a clang, then hopped onto Henry's shoulder, where he gave it a soft stroke behind the head and down the back of its neck.

"THIS is Isis, the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. She can hack and control ANYTHING, I built her myself! You want to know what I can offer you? How about remote control of any system you could ask for?"

Roman was almost impressed, but he held up his scroll and gave it a shake. Along with their little dust theft operation, Cinder had given him a little virus on his scroll, one that he was supposed to distribute to a few key computers so they could take control when the time was right. "Too little, too late, kid. Already got that. My current employers give me VERY good tools."

To his surprise, the kid SMILED at that, as if what he'd said was funny. Roman felt his scroll vibrate in his hand, and then the face of the tiny dragon appeared in the glass, staring up at him.

"Your tools are sub-par. I am better."

Roman glanced at the robot on Henry's shoulder, then back at his scroll, then repeated the motion a few more times just to make sure.

"Should have known... piece of junk." He tossed his scroll over his shoulder, then waved for them to follow him. "Fine, you get ONE chance! Lucky for you, I've got a big job going down this Sunday and I need all hands on deck. Help me make sure it goes smoothly, and we'll see whether or not you have a future in my operation... but I'm making no promises!"

"Wouldn't trust a promise if someone gave it to me, anyway. Where do I start?"

"Bring your little 'audition tape' inside, and I'll show you what systems I'm going to need taken offline for this job. Let's see if you're really as good as you say you are..."

"As good and better, boss! Can't wait to get started."

"Boss." At least he already had the respect part down. Roman didn't like convenience, it was almost never a coincidence. But in this case, there was enough pressure coming down on him from Cinder that he was willing to take the risk of this not being on the level in exchange for things moving smoother and faster.

Bonus chapter: Here Be Dragons

Author's Note

I needed a break. Consider this non-canon, I just wanted to experiment with possibilities. A treat for those wanting to know more about the setting of Penn's nightmare a few chapters back.

And yeah, Chirac and Radian's universe are my own original creations, much like Isis.

Bonus chapter: Here Be Dragons

Radian.

A celestial city floating through the heavens, Radian was home of the God of Light, Chirac, and his many, many children. Alabaster stone had been his material of choice when he had conjured the world into being, giving the city the appearance of a world spun from white flame. As the circular rings of Radian progressed inward, they stacked higher and higher on top of one another, and more and more "impurities" appeared in the form of countless gemstones and pulsating veins of metal ore. Sat at the very center of the city was Chirac's own home: a great iron spire forged from the heart of a dying star. It reached upward, providing the centerpoint for the twin stars that constantly circled on the horizon. No sun ever set on Radian, and between the binary stars there was not one shadow. It was a paradise, just as he had created it to be.

Chirac had been born from the primordial light of creation shortly after it had birthed the universe he now rightfully reigned over. He had been born for a singular purpose: to fight back the unnatural cold and the dark, so that the universe would live and grow in its natural way. It was a never-ending war, and though the light had struck first in the form of the birth of all things, every day the darkness threatened to send it all back to its beginnings in the void. It was a rare time when he was not strategizing, healing his soldiers, or even fighting on the front lines against his sworn foe, but recently he had come across something new, intriguing in its possibilities. He had discovered that he was not alone. He and his dark antagonist were no longer the sole gods in existence.

But the rest were so small-minded. They had chosen to squabble and fight amongst one another for titles and shares of a literally infinite territory. He had watched them battle and found them... lacking. Instead, he had breathed life into the city, giving rise to a new generation of scouts born of Radian's very walls. Tiny little things, no bigger than hatchlings, but needing no more than a few stray sunbeams to sustain themselves. They had stretched their wings and shuffled their scales as they were welcomed into the fold, then scattered themselves like grain in the wind, seeking out these countless new worlds in search of allies in their unending war. He could feel each one, hear each of their thoughts and prayers as they told him of what they had found: new and infinite worlds, entire universes unguarded from or unassailed by the dark. New forms of life that had either been abandoned by their gods or left orphaned in the great battle of the heavens... new species and worlds that he would graciously bring under his wing, enfolding them in his protection before Baalchion's dark spawn could steal them away down the path of self-annihilation. For now, however, there was time only for reconnaissance, listening, and comprehending. Baalchion and the forces of darkness had fallen equally silent since the event that had ripped apart the firmament. Each side of the war was pondering their next move in the face of such monumental change to their perspective.

Chirac's form was as varied and flexible as he desired, but for the moment he rested in his most preferred shape: a great white serpent with golden eyes and wide, iridescent wings. He curled himself slightly tighter on his velvet bed, closing his eyes and letting out a long, hot breath. He smiled as he thought of the winding, whiplike aurora that extended out from the top of his spire from the mere act of his breathing ionizing the air above. It was his flag, his indicator to his children that their loving father was there with them in body as well as spirit.

As he let his awareness push outwards from the spire, he could feel every creature in Radian. Countless concourses of his children flew about the city. Some battled mock foes in preparation for the next battle, sharpening their claws and their skills at the same time. Others found themselves immersed in the pursuit of study. They occupied themselves cataloging and naming the new stars as they sprung up in the sky, each one a beacon of hope fighting to push back the black void a little farther into the edges of the cosmos. When a bright spirit was snuffed out or burst through the end of their life in a nova of glory, they would mourn a fallen juggernaut. When a star fell into dark perversion, seeking to draw in and annihilate anything it could reach, even cannibalizing its own kind, the scribes would be the ones to send out the word, warning away any creature of the light from falling into the trap. Still others simply went about their days in bliss, shimmering like gems under the twin suns. They would live, love, and grow strong under Chirac's care. Those closest to his spire almost never landed. The holiest of creatures, they bore the closest resemblance to their father, wyverns and other serpents that had no need for any limbs except their wings. As they pushed out further, the bulk of his children were the warriors, with two pairs of clawed feet and a single pair of wings. They were his beloved living weapons, channeling the light to breathe out fire and lighting on their foes. They were steadfast and impenetrable, his favored dragons. Near the edges of the city were those whose biology had specialized and adapted, growing extra limbs or shedding their godlike scales in favor of slippery skin or soft feathers, and trading their wings for the ability to burrow and fly through rock and soil. The drakes and wyrms were no less beloved, of course, but they were often brought low by their understanding of their deviance. From the edges of the city were the mists and jungles, an entire world created for the sole purpose of terraforming Radian's perfect environment.

And then there was one more creature he could sense, the singular being that he could not claim as his own creation in the entirety of this world. It was approaching fast, racing through the city in ever-smaller circles as it approached his spire. Chirac smiled and slowed his breathing to a halt. While he'd had little experience with their kind, he knew humans were fragile in the face of his sheer power. Even a wisp of his cosmic breath could leave her a walking corpse, unaware of her own death until the effects of her shredded cells had set in hours later.

A few seconds later, one of his scouts entered the room at high speed, followed close behind by their transdimensional visitor. The human stamped her foot in frustration as she skidded to a halt a few inches behind the tiny dragon.

"Man, I was THIS close!" she held her fingers a few inches apart, much shorter than the ACTUAL distance between them had been.

Chirac liked this human. Every color of the rainbow seemed to exude from her hair, a prismatic tribute to the spectrum of light. She was boisterous and forceful, and when she had first appeared she had nearly beaten one of his warriors on her own. She was empowered by an otherworldly force, an aspect of another plane that closely resembled Chirac's own power. She radiated her own light, resonating with a single pure tone that reverberated with each of Chirac's creations. It was a single, pure tone, but Chirac could tell that it was... incomplete. It was one of a set, of a harmony that was unfinished.

"Truly it was a race for the ages, Lady Dash..." the scout bowed his head to his opponent. Chirac smiled at the little dragon's humility. His scouts were created to explore the universe, they could travel as quickly as light itself. The little creature had clearly been holding back for her.

"I don't know what it is about this place, but I'm faster than ever, and it just gets better every day!" she jumped up and down before beginning to stretch her legs. "Thanks again for letting me stay here, Mister Chirac!"

Chirac raised an eyebrow. "It is you whom I should thank, Rainbow Dash. Your knowledge has proven invaluable in understanding the nature of these new worlds' boundaries."

"I REALLY don't feel like I told you much, but happy to help!"

It was amusing. Even just a few glances at her with his godly sight had revealed more than her strange story could have informed him of, though both had served him well in understanding what had happened. Barriers he had not even been aware of had been broken, and the cosmos expanded, and she was partially responsible, her and these "Elements of Harmony" of which she had spoken. Chirac could only hazard a guess from what he had observed of her own power, but they appeared to be some yet-unknown aspect of another world's iteration of the Primordial Light. And they had been powerful enough to restructure the order of the multiverse.

Chirac knew that, were he to command such a power, he could finally break his epochs-long stalemate with Baalchion bringing the light to every corner of existence.

"Please, until we find your friends, think of Radian as your home, and yourself as one of its citizens." He lowered his head, coming down to eye level with the human. She took the opportunity to seat herself comfortably across his muzzle, unable to even completely reach either side when fully reclined. "Now, perhaps it may aid my scouts if you describe your fellow 'Rainbooms' in greater detail..."

And When They Fail...

"Psst!"

Sunset felt a soft jab at her shoulder coming from underneath her."H-huh?"

She rolled over as much as she dared in her hammock, peering down and seeing Ruby looking up at her with wide eyes. She awkwardly folded her arms behind her back and rocked back on her heels. "Sorry to wake you up, but... can I borrow Isis?"

"Hmm?" In her bleary state, Sunset had to take a second to process the request before nodding and digging her phone out of her pocket. "Sure... just give it back in the morning, don't read my texts, and stay out of Penn's video messages..."

"Thanks, Sunset!" Ruby chirped, only to immediately cover her mouth and glance around to make sure she hadn't woken up any of her teammates. Sunset simply nodded and closed her eyes again, ready to go back to sleep.

"Umm... hello? Isis?" Ruby whispered from her bunk.

"Greetings, Ruby Rose."

"Can you help me with my homework?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset knew she could sleep through their conversation easily, but she decided to wait up just a little longer before going back to sleep. Even in the entire month she had spent at Beacon, Isis had hardly interacted with the rest of her teammates unless she was addressed directly. Sunset hadn't been able to determine why.

"So, if 15x - 105 equals 45..."

"x equals 10."

"...Got it..." Ruby muttered, her tone clearly indicating that she didn't get it.

"What about if 12x - 36 equals 60?"

"x equals-"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Stop." She groaned as she rolled herself out of her hammock, dropping to the floor and landing on her feet. She walked over to Ruby's bed, hopping up onto the top bunk with her team leader and making herself comfortable. "You're never going to learn anything if Isis just gives you the answers. Now, what's the first step of solving one of these equations?"

"Sunset Shimmer, the alarm you asked me to set is going to go off in thirty seconds. Would you like me to delay it?"

"Alarm? Why would you have an alarm set for the middle of the night?" Ruby tilted her head in confusion. "I know why I'M up this late, but you always get your homework done early!"

Sunset caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. A quick glance to the window revealed a tiny hat on top of a familiar head poking over the window sill to peer into their room. "I'm afraid... I'm gonna have to cancel it for tonight, Isis." Sunset gave Missy her best apologetic glance, but it didn't seem to stop Missy from returning her look with an angry glare before sinking back down out of sight.

"This is the third time this week you have failed to complete a task related to-"

"I know!" Sunset snapped, only to immediately cover her mouth and check to make sure she hadn't woken anyone else up. "I know, but I think it can wait one more night..." She turned her attention back to the sheet of paper in front of Ruby. "Now, what's the first step in solving an equation like this?"

"Uhmm..." Ruby tapped her pencil against her lip in thought. "We... put x by itself?"

Sunset smiled. "Close. We DO have to do that, but how?"

"By... getting rid of the normal number?" she scratched in a "+ 36" beside the "- 36" and crossed them both out.

"Yes! But don't forget, you have to keep it balanced, soooo..."

"So..." Ruby tapped her chin again, but didn't write anything down. Sunset reached over and took the pencil to write in the same "+ 36" beside the 60 on the other side of the equation.

"So, anything you do on ONE side of the equal sign, you have to do on the other! See? Perfectly balanced!"

"As all things should be."

"So... 12x equals 96?"

"And we only want to know what one x is, so..."

"We divide both sides by 12! And that means x equals 8!"

"Exactly!"

"Thanks, Sunset. I can do normal math, but once they start mixing in letters I get all confused!"

Sunset smiled and gave her a pat on the back. "That's how a lot of people feel about algebra the first time they see it. Don't worry, you get used to it."

"I really didn't want to wake you up in the middle of the night for help with homework again..." Ruby muttered. "But you're the only one who gets all this math stuff instantly!"

Sunset smiled slightly. This was NOTHING compared to the calculus she was learning in her senior year at CHS, or even the calculations required for her spells at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

"My old school focused a little more on math and science than combat skills. I've done all of this before."

"You never really tell us much about your old school..." Ruby muttered, turning on her side and propping her head up on her hand. "Is that the place on your scroll's background?" She reached out and pressed a button on the side of Sunset's phone, summoning up the lock screen. It was a picture that Sunset had picked out soon after she and Penn had started traveling together: the photo of her and her friends in the band room, all posing for their pre-tour group photo.

"Yeah, that's it. Canterlot High School."

"Canterlot? I've never heard of a place called Canterlot."

"It's... pretty far from here."

"And these are your friends?"

Sunset nodded again, pointing to each one of them in turn. "That's Pinkie Pie, I think you'd get along with her really well. That's Rarity, she's the most generous person I've ever met! Applejack is there, she's an AWESOME cook! I mean, whenever Team JNPR invites us over for pancakes, I always think about how much better they'd be paired with her apple fritters. There's Twilight. If you think I'm smart, she's a certifiable genius! That's Fluttershy, the only person I can think of who's more quiet than Blake, but mostly because she's scared of everything! And finally, that's Rainbow Dash. I think if she and Yang met, there'd probably be several explosions as their competitive streaks clashed."

That last statement got a snicker and a nod out of Ruby. "And... if you don't mind me asking... why are they... well, all different colors? I've never met someone with blue or purple skin!"

Sunset shrugged. "Just born that way. It's not that weird where I come from."

Ruby snickered again. "'Where you come from?' Keep talking like that and we might start thinking you're some kind of alien, Sunset!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I think 'Sleepwalker' and 'Sunset' are plenty of names for me! Now, let's start on the next problem."

"Okay..." Ruby groaned, focusing back on her work. "Hey, Sunset? I promise we're gonna find them."

Sunset blinked again, the last person to make her that promise springing back to mind, and just how long and how far it had carried him from his home. She looked around their room, making note of the rest of their teammates that Ruby was supposed to be leading. For a split second, Sunset felt a pang of loneliness spark in her chest as she realized just how removed she truly was from the world around her. She was an interloper, just a traveler passing through, even if this particular stop HAD lasted longer than she intended.

"Ruby... Don't make a promise you don't know you can keep."

"Nice try... but you just triggered my trap card!"

"NOOOOOO!"

Sunset wasn't entirely awake, but she didn't need to be for her brain to put the half-heard statement together with Ruby's mournful wail. Instantly, she was on high alert, starting straight into an upright position and grabbing wildly for her lightsaber.

Unfortunately, in a hammock, this had the effect of sending her spinning wildly out of control, entangling nearly every single one of her limbs in the fabric and leaving her suspended upside-down from the ceiling, awkwardly flailing the saber downwards.

"D-don't worry, Ruby! I'm coming!" Sunset called, wriggling back and forth against her restraints. Maybe I can cut myself free if I-

"Sunset? What are you doing?"

Sunset looked up, finding herself staring straight into a pair of golden eyes.

Blake's calm voice brought Sunset's panic to a momentary halt. "I'm... going to go save Ruby from losing her soul in a demonic children's card game?"

A moment later, a pair of icy blue eyes came up to join the gold. "I'm sorry, what? That's absurd!"

Sunset leaned over slightly, finally actually taking note of her surroundings. The rest of her teammates were looking at her as if she were insane. Down on the floor between the two sets of beds, Ruby and Yang were seated on opposite sides of a playing board, each holding a set of cards in their hands and commanding a small army of figurines. Ruby gave her an apologetic shrug and a smile.

"Sorry, Sunset! We kinda get dramatic whenever we play Remnant... I kinda forgot you were asleep!"

"From the sound of it, you were having some kind of crazy nightmare, so we might have done you a favor!" Yang leaned back and smiled. "Not so sure we can say the same of your hammock, though!"

Sunset sighed and let her hand hang limp, looking down towards the floor. Below her, she could see a protrusion coming up from the shadow of the window sill... in the shape of a tiny hat sitting on a head and the tips of a pair of wings. By the time she had snapped her head back up to look at the window, a flicker of movement and a soft giggle was all the evidence that remained.

"Y-yeah... just a nightmare. Totally impossible."

"Heya, SunShim! So, here's a quick status update!" Penn's eyes darted from side to side, as if checking for any eavesdroppers. He was always nervous in these messages, Sunset had noticed. Still, getting the occasional pre-recorded message was comforting in the face of his near-total radio silence over the past weeks. "I can't believe it, but my plan seems to be working! I've gotten a lot of fresh info! He smiled, only for it to fade again seconds later. "Bad news is, it seems like the villains' plans are moving twice as fast as they were before, and they've somehow accounted for some of their more glaring weaknesses. Isis has found the Black Queen virus in just about every major system on the continent! News broadcasters, communications arrays, anything and everything related to security or public safety!"

"I have purged the virus at every turn, but it seems to spread as quickly as I can delete it. I can only fully stop it by taking direct and deliberate control of a system, myself."

"Which means we're extremely lucky Isis was built for parallel processing." Penn added. "So I'd tentatively say the virus is under control, as long as she's paying attention to it." He took a deep breath and lifted his hands, showing a pair of heavy blue gauntlets. The wide metal plates covering his lower arms and flaring out almost looked like a pair of duel disks. "The training's been slow, but Isis and I are up to running my drills twice a day, now! I can even do it without needing to dunk my arms in an ice bath afterwards!"

Sunset got a chuckle out of that. She'd been intrigued when she'd found out that he had made his own weapons, but he refused to show her how exactly they functioned, yet. There had been an endearing moment of solidarity between the two of them in complaining about their unforgiving training and the monotony of repetitive drills.

"Anyway, to get to the point... my plan's working." He glanced around again, then looked above the camera. "Isis, any pings? Are we still alone?

"Affirmative. This area is still secure."

He breathed a sigh of relief before looking back into the camera. "I should be able to start getting much more detailed info about our enemy's plans and movements from now on... Which brings me to my next point." His eyes narrowed and his expression grew grim. "Isis has been telling me about your progress, and I've figured out where YOU are on the timeline. It looks like things aren't that far off for Team RWBY from what I know." He pointed a gloved finger at her. "YOU need to keep a close eye on Blake Belladonna. I know you don't want me to tell you her secrets, but-

Sunset reached up and tapped the screen of her phone. "Isis?"

"Yes, Sunset Shimmer?"

"Is he about to blatantly disregard Blake's privacy?"

"Negative."

Sunset nodded and tapped the screen again, allowing the video to continue.

-there's SOMEONE here that she needs to avoid at all costs! An EXTREMELY dangerous individual who wasn't around by this point in the show!" His eyes narrowed. "If things happen the way they're supposed to, Blake and Weiss are going to have a fight. A MAJOR one. She will run away afterwards. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that you don't let that happen! Keep her at Beacon, or at least with Team RWBY, at all costs! Do you understand me?" He paused there, as if expecting her to answer, then nodded in confirmation as if she had agreed. "I swear, if you would just LET ME talk about details, I could cut straight to the heart of the matter...

"Yeah, well, trust is important, too..." Sunset muttered, knowing her couldn't hear her.

"Anyway, Missy's been playing the part of Beacon's guardian angel, I hear, so things should be relatively undisturbed there. But the moment you leave campus, I cannot tell you what to expect, so she's going to stick to close to you. Isis and I are doing just fine on our own, and I feel better knowing you've got someone watching your back." In the background, Sunset could hear voices shouting indistinctly, and his head snapped to the side, eyes wide. "Gotta go! Stay safe out there!"

"You, too..." Sunset whispered as the recording came to its end. She and Missy still had NO idea what he was even doing, but she worried he'd followed her example and thrown himself into the deep end of something he wasn't ready for. She'd tried to tell herself he had a plan, just like with the Daleks and in Aperture, just like when he dueled... but doubt still gnawed at her.

"Sunset! Come on, we're gonna be late!" Ruby whined from the hall.

"We're wasting daylight!" Weiss added her own whine.

Sunset smiled and swung her legs out of her hammock with practiced ease before dropping to the floor. "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"This is no time for a nap, Sleepwalker!" Yang added. "Actually... never mind! Nap away!"

Sunset rolled her eyes as she finally stepped out into the hallway, arms held wide to display herself. "Okay, I'm here! Can't a girl take a phone call?"

"Phone call? From who?" Blake's head tilted in curiosity.

"Was it your boyfriend?" Yang leaned in with a smirk, only to find her face immediately pushed back by Sunset's hand as she walked past the rest of the team and towards the dorms' exit.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"No... But you do have a boy who is your friend!" Weiss corrected as the rest of the team caught up to her.

"Who you constantly worry about..." Blake continued.

"And who sends you secret messages you don't let ANYONE else listen to!" Ruby's grin matched Yang's, confirming something about the cocky smirk was genetic.

"They're not secret! They just have private information!" Sunset's face didn't even flush slightly as she dismissed the absurd accusations. "And I worry because the last time I saw him, he was in the middle of a forest full of monsters with only Isis to defend him! I have no idea where he is or what he's doing, and he refuses to tell me, of course I'm going to worry! He IS a boy and he IS my friend, but really, truly, honestly, there is nothing romantic there!" She finally took her own turn to smirk as the rest of Team RWBYS had their salacious hopes crushed. "If anything, he treats me like his kid sister, and..." she tapped her chin in thought. "I never had any siblings, but... I would say he's about the closest I've ever had to an older brother. A relationship between us would just be weird."

Yang shook her head. "Poor guy..."

"What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"Ugh..." Penn groaned as he walked up to the door of his room. Being the sole cybercriminal in Roman's operation had come with that distinct perk: a room of his own. It wasn't much, a literal hole in the wall, but it had electricity and a bed, and it was only a short walk to the public bathroom. According to his own claims, it was far better than he had expected. As for Isis, she enjoyed the fact that they had provided a small pet bed for her drone body. It was unnecessary, but an unexpected show of consideration. From her perch on his shoulder, Isis watched him lean over to peek at the hinge of the door, just as he had every time since he'd moved into the room. This time, however, his eyes widened in surprise and he regarded the door with a suspicious squint. She looked down at the ground under the hinge, her digital eyes picking out a thin piece of graphite snapped into several pieces.

It was an ingenious security system in its simplicity. Penn claimed to have stolen it from the pages of a Japanese manga titled "Death Note." If someone opened his door, it was almost certain that they would fail to notice the piece of mechanical pencil graphite laid across the hinge, especially in the low-light environment. If it was broken, then someone had entered his room while he had been gone.

"Isis, be ready... someone's been in our room." He gave his wrist a quick flick, activating one of his gauntlets. It was the left hand, which he had dubbed "Immovable." Pieces of metal shuffled and untangled themselves, unfolding into a wide blue shield. His other hand reached for the doorknob, readying himself to open the door.

Isis changed the attachment in the tip of her tail, rotating through tools until she reached the electric taser that she had built in for self-defense. A swift analysis of his body posture showed her that he was aiming for subtlety. His entire right side was relaxed, as it would be the first parts of him visible from inside the room. His left, however, was tense, keeping his shield at the ready. She opened the slot in her casing to expose the taser's electrodes, but kept the electricity on standby instead of continuously arcing it.

"I am prepared."

With a slow nod, he cracked open the door, stepping back until his entire right side was exposed. Isis arched her head, peering inside along with him.

The room appeared untouched and empty. There was no sign of intrusion, and no reason to believe any of their few belongings had been touched. Visually, it exactly matched her records from when they had left in the morning. Penn blinked, then flicked his wrist again, causing the shield to collapse before he stepped into the room. Contrary to previous habit, however, he left the door open once he was inside. It was a strategic move, an easy escape route. He was still on guard. He removed his right gauntlet and set it on a nearby desk, then reached into his pocket. A moment later, he raised his phone up to eye level.

"Isis, give me a ping, would you?"

"Ping." It was his shortened version of asking for sound navigation and ranging of the immediate area. Isis opened the drone's mouth, switching tools until she arrived at the appropriate receiver. Given the small confines of the area, a low-frequency ping would be plenty accurate. An inaudible-for-humans tone of 200 kilohertz rang through the room, returning to her fractions of fractions of a second later. Curiously, the data it returned provided vindication to his request. She routed the assembled reading to his phone screen, matching it to the perspective of his camera.

"There is an incongruence with visible data approximately three meters and 35 degrees clockwise of your current position."

After another second of staring, he nodded and returned his cell phone to his pocket. With a twitch of his fingers, the remaining gauntlet transformed again, a pair of gun barrels springing up on either side of his wrist.

"Count of three, Ice Cream. One."

He pointed the weapon directly at the aberration. According to the sound navigation and ranging, it was a flat wall that was three feet forward from his actual wall, still displaying the nightstand and wall behind it perfectly for the naked eye.

"Two."

There was another pause, and Penn shook his head disapprovingly.

"Th-"

He was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass as the mystery wall shattered to pieces. Behind it was a girl they had both seen before. The most noticeable trait was her heterochromia. Not only were her eyes two different shades, one pink and one brown, but the trait extended to her hair, leaving her with contrasting shades on either side of her head. She was dressed in a classy white tailcoat with pink lining the inside, a brown corset, and brown pants with tall white boots. She was clearly displeased, giving Penn an angry glare.

Neopolitan. She was Roman's closest and most trusted subordinate, his right-hand woman. Her semblance was known as "Overactive Imagination," the ability to create fragile constructs that displayed illusions of her choosing. She was extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat and agility, to the point that only one character of the main cast had landed a single blow on her, period, and only when he had caught her by surprise. Neopolitan had also displayed a level of delight in beating and nearly killing others that indicated a wide sadistic streak for her enemies. She was a high-level threat, were she to be honestly attacking them.

Penn, meanwhile, didn't seemed fazed, lowering his weapon and rolling his eyes. "If you wanted to watch me get undressed, Neo, you only needed to ask."

Her glare deepened for a moment, only to be replaced by a look of disgust as the meaning of his words sunk in. She shook her head violently before storming across the room and out the door, slamming it behind her. Penn reached over and physically tugged on the knob, confirmed that it was really closed before locking it behind him.

"You know, I think I'm growing on her! Isis? Double-check my eyes?"

Isis nodded and released another sonic ping.

"It would appear that we are once again alone."

Penn nodded and removed his second gauntlet before collapsing onto the bed. He took a deep breath, which he then released with a long, long sigh. It was a signal of the final release of the tension of the moment, and Isis took it to also mean that she could put away the taser. "So, Roman's spying on me. Makes sense." He raised his hand and waved it nonchalantly.

Given the context, Isis made another scan of her own initiative. There were no signals being sent or received from the room. Visual analysis showed no lenses or reflective surfaces that would indicate hidden cameras. They had scanned the quarters for bugs when they'd first arrived, but it didn't hurt to have up-to-date data.

"He sent Neo, I'm flattered!"

"This indicates that we are still under suspicion by Torchwick."

"Well duh. We came here out of the blue asking for nothing in return except to learn from him. Of course he's suspicious." He stretched out on the bed before turning over onto his back. "I'm going to get some sleep before tonight's shift."

"Are we totally prepared for tomorrow's move to Mountain Glen?"

"We already moved Sylvia down into the tunnels, what else is there to DO?"

"Would you like to bring anything else in this room with us? Your extra ammunition for Immovable and Implacable? Any extra articles of clothing you've kept here?"

"Already accounted for, I carry all the ammunition on my belt, anyway, and all the clothes I could need are in Sylvia's trunk. The only thing I need to bring is my ammo and my uniform, both of which I'll have on me when we leave. We're all set. Oh!" he sat up, giving her a look of concern. "Did you remember to wire some cash to the owner of that dust shop from last night?"

"Affirmative. There should be ample funds to recover from the damage and the stolen property."

He let out a sigh of relief as he sunk back into the bed. "Thanks. I feel just awful about doing all of this. Stealing from the military or a giant corporation that exploits its workers is one thing, but a cleaning out a little Mom-and-Pop dust shop for everything they have? That's different... Where do you keep getting this money, anyway?"

"Tens of thousands of transactions occur every day in even a single multi-billionaire corporation such as the Schnee Dust Company. When amounts are truncated to the nearest cent in these transactions, I simply take the remaining fractions of currency and divert them to my own account. While the individual amounts are minuscule, the total adds up to thousands of lien per hour."

"And nobody misses what most people don't even know is there! Wow, that's REALLY clever, Isis!" he followed up the statement with a yawn before pulling his blankets up to his chin. "Thanks for taking such great care of us... we couldn't do this stuff without you."

"There is no need to thank me, but you are quite welcome."

Downtown Vale was a sight to see. Streamers, flags, and balloons were on every corner and flagpole, and the air was practically abuzz with excitement, even with a long stretch of time still remaining before the festival itself. It almost reminded Sunset of Equestria's Summer Sun Celebration in terms of scale and sheer excitement. Signs displayed warm welcomes to the kingdom for international travelers and every shop seemed to have put their best foot forward and their highest-quality wares on display.

Weiss had unconsciously taken the lead out of sheer excitement as she reveled in the energized atmosphere.

"The Vytal festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!"

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much, Weiss..." Ruby muttered. "It's kind of weirding me out."

"How could you NOT smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world!" Weiss swung her hands out to the side, gesturing all around them. "There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!" she gleefully skipped head, starting the group walking again down the sidewalk.

Yang folded her arms and pouted slightly. "You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring..."

"Quiet, you!"

Sunset smiled. "It reminds me of home, actually. One of my old friends, Pinkie, used to throw big parties all the time! Any time she could find a reason, there would be streamers, balloons, and cake." She chuckled to herself. "Birthdays, anniversaries, half-birthdays, quarter-birthdays, month-iversaries, someone just being down in the dumps... she knew about it and she'd be there to celebrate! And if she couldn't find a reason, she'd throw an 'emergency party planner planning party' to think one up!"

"Sounds like that would get old kind of fast..." Blake raised an eyebrow, but Sunset simply shook her head.

"Her energy was contagious, and she really put her heart into it, no matter how small the occasion seemed. She made each one feel special, and that made YOU feel special." Sunset felt a pang of homesickness strike in her chest.

"Well, speaking of your friends," Weiss declared, "I heard that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today! Not only does it give us a chance to look for your lost friends, but as a representative of Beacon, I feel it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom!"

"Is THAT why we're spending our weekend visiting the stupid docks?" Yang grumbled.

"Ugh, it smells like fish!" Ruby added, pinching her nose.

Blake didn't seem fazed by the smell, simply rolling her eyes at Weiss. "She wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament."

"You can't prove that!" Weiss snapped, folding her arms over her chest defensively.

"Woah..." Ruby whispered, drawing everyone's attention away from the docks. She was staring down the street, to a building covered in yellow police tape and being examined by several officers. The five of them walked closer, trying to get a better look at the scene of the crime. The windows were shattered and the inside of the store had been more or less completely destroyed. Ruby walked right up to the boundary of the yellow tape before looking up at the closest officer. "What happened here?"

"Robbery. Fourth dust shop to be hit this week..." he shook his head in disgust. "This place is turning into a jungle."

"Ugh, that's terrible..." Yang muttered.

"They left all the money again!" a voice called from inside the store.

"Yeah, it just doesn't make a lick of sense..." the officer replied, turning to another one of the investigators. "Who needs THAT much dust?"

"Yeah, I dunno y'know what I mean?"

"You thinkin' the White Fang?"

"Yeah, I'm thinkin' we don't get paid enough..." the second officer replied before they both walked back inside.

"Hm!" Weiss folded her arms over her chest and turned her nose upwards in disgust. "The White Fang, what an awful bunch of degenerates!"

The White Fang... Sunset had heard of them in her classes, specifically her history classes. When she'd first arrived at Beacon, she'd noticed many students had animal-like traits, varying from person to person. Over time, she'd learned that they were considered a different race from humans entirely, called Faunus. Unfortunately, being a different race meant that the humans of this world had felt no obligation to treat them as equals, often exploiting and subjugating them. The faunus had fought back, of course, and had eventually been accepted as fellow citizens. Still, they were mistreated and discriminated against to this very day. Because of this, they had formed a political group to fight for their equal rights called the White Fang. Unfortunately, over the years, democracy and deliberation had given way to violent protests and domestic terrorism in pursuit of faster and more effective results. Today, members of the White Fang were considered violent radicals and often the first people to be blamed in the wake of criminal activity.

It was an awful example of the things humanity was capable of at their worst. Fear and greed had caused a massive cultural rift with what could have been their greatest allies. The mere idea of two intelligent races convergently evolving until they were nearly indistinguishable filled Sunset with glee and excitement. In her world, humans often lamented the idea of being the sole intelligent species in the universe, desperately searching the stars for any sign of intelligent life. Here, humanity didn't need to look beyond their own neighborhood for signs that they weren't alone, and they had squandered it!

"What's your problem?" Blake asked, narrowing her eyes at her teammate.

"My problem? I simply don't care for the criminally insane!"

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths." Blake folded her arms over her chest and glared at Weiss. "They're a collection of misguided faunus."

"Misguided? They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!"

"Well, then they're VERY misguided!" Blake turned back to the crime scene. "Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"

"Hmm... Blake's got a point." Ruby interrupted Weiss and Blake's glaring match. "Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago! Maybe it was him!"

"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum!" Weiss declared, keeping her nose pointed upwards. "Those faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal!"

"That's not necessarily true..." Yang raised an eyebrow at Weiss's sudden aggression.

Is this the fight Penn was warning me about? Sunset thought. "Yeah, don't you think-" Her argument was cut off by yelling from the docks.

"HEY, STOP THAT FAUNUS!"

As the rest of Team RWBYS turned towards the docks, Sunset felt a firm hand grab her shoulder, yanking her backwards and into a dark alley.

"WOAH HEY WHAT-" Sunset spun around, naturally falling into a ready position with both fists raised. After a moment, however, she relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. Well... a familiar face hiding behind a pair of glasses with a fake nose and mustache attached.

"Don't worry, Sunset! It's just me!" Missy lifted the entirety of her "disguise" off of her face with a smile. "Do you know how long I've been trying to get a chance to talk to you alone?"

Sunset reached into her pocket and retrieved her phone, giving it a simple shake to indicate that Missy could have called her.

"Pfft, that wouldn't have been very spy-like, would it?" Missy waved away the obvious solution. "So, did you find anything telling us what the bad guys have been up to?"

"I just got here."

"Not here, at the school!"

Sunset shook her head. "Ever since initiation, it seems like everything's been going smoothly... Are we sure things are as bad as we thought they were?"

Missy tapped her chin thoughtfully with the frame of the glasses. "Well, if your opponent isn't attacking, then you have to watch their back row for spells and traps. They might be waiting for the good guys to make the next move so they'll trigger something they've prepared during all this quiet time!"

The metaphor made a disturbing amount of sense. "So, what? How do we go looking for a 'trap card' they've set up for us without springing the trap?"

Missy smirked and tapped the screen of Sunset's phone. "Isis, can you pull up that map again?"

"Affirmative."

On the screen of Sunset's phone, a map of the world came into view, along with a blinking dot near Vale's ocean coast. Missy tapped on the dot, which zoomed in until it became a three-dimensional view of some kind of floating mechanical island.

"We use the one advantage we have: we know where the bad guys are going to be before they do! Amity Colosseum!" She gave a soft flutter of her wings, carrying her up further into the air. "Isis managed to get a GPS fix on it before it arrived in Vale! I can fly up there and start looking around for signs of sabotage! If nothing seems to be wrong, then I can protect it before the bad guys get there!"

"That's great, but... I can't exactly fly." Sunset shook her head.

"No, but now that new students from the other kingdoms are arriving, you can protect Beacon!" Missy grinned and clapped Sunset on the shoulder. "Penn's been talking to you about what's going to happen, right?"

Sunset hissed through her teeth as she waggled her hand from side to side. "He's been pretty vague. I only got the first real warning from him this morning, and I don't even know what he was trying to protect us from! He just said to keep everyone away from the docks tomorrow night and make sure Blake doesn't run off on her own..."

Missy hummed as her brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would he say THAT? Blake running into the White Fang at the docks is a big character moment for her, it brings the whole team closer together! It was the finale of the first season!"

"Wait, the White Fang is going to be at the docks?"

"Yeah! When Weiss finds out she's a faunus, Blake goes there to try and prove they're not behind the robberies, but finds out they're working with Torchwick!" Missy placed her hands on her hips with a frown. "Did Penn SERIOUSLY not tell you any of this?"

"Blake is a- MISSY! That's private information!"

Missy gave a nonchalant shrug. "Yeah, well, knowing private information is what sets us apart from the cops who don't know jack squat." She blinked as a thought finally seemed to occur to her. "Wait, you SERIOUSLY didn't know that?"

"NO! I told Penn not to tell me anyone's private information!" Sunset groaned.

"You didn't notice the cat ears?"

"WHAT cat ears?"

"The ones she hides under her hair bow!"

"She's hiding cat ears under- Missy! Stop telling me all of Blake's secrets!" Sunset clapped her hands over her ears, causing Missy to give her a tired look.

"You want to help this world, save Beacon Academy, right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't have stopped here for an entire month if I didn't!"

"Then WHY are you cutting your ability to help down to nothing? You can respect their privacy or you can stay ahead of the threats. You're gonna have to make a choice, Sunset!" Missy placed her hands on her hips and floated a little higher to glare down at her. "Whatever it is Penn's doing, it's clearly dangerous, but if I know him, he's putting his knowledge to good use! You're purposefully giving yourself a handicap!" She reached down, snatching Sunset's phone from her hands. After a few seconds of furious typing, she handed it back to her, now displaying a trio of CGI-animated faces. "THESE are the ones who are going to be sneaking into Beacon with the festival prep! They're behind everything that goes wrong at Beacon! KEEP. AN. EYE. ON. THEM."

"Are you... mad at me?" Sunset asked, feeling surprised at Missy's terse frown.

"A little, yeah!" Missy huffed. "You've been off playing 'Main Character' while the rest of us were working on the real problems!"

Sunset felt a swell of indignation. "I haven't been playing anything! You think it's EASY being at Beacon?"

Missy folded her arms and leaned down until their noses were nearly touching. "I think you've been ignoring the idea of preventing disaster in favor of living like you're just another character in the story. You're trying to fit in."

"What's so bad about-"

"Look at this whole situation, Sunset!" Missy gestured to the two of them, bobbing up and down in the air with the sheer force of the motion. "You're talking to the spirit of a children's trading card about knowing the FUTURE! You came here through a portal from a different dimension! You came here specifically because you wanted to change the timeline of a once-fictional world! Your whole mission statement is to not fit in so hard you alter the course of history!" She pressed her palm against her forehead and sighed. "Why am I, of all people, having to give you a reality check, Sunset?"

"I- I've made friends here, Missy. Is it such a bad thing to want to respect them and their privacy?"

"No." Missy floated down again, poking her finger against Sunset's chest until it came to rest on the geode. "Don't try to claim something that noble, Sunset. Maybe it started off with that, but the thing about living in that little birdhouse in your soul is..." she frowned again, but this time, it seemed less angry and more... sad. "I know when you're lying to yourself."

Sunset felt a flicker of fear, even if she didn't understand why. "I'm not lying to myself!"

"Then how many times over the last month have you thought the words 'just like?' 'This is just like reading with Twilight!' 'This is just like Miss Cheerilee's class!' 'This is just like CHS!' It doesn't take a mind reader to tell what's happening. No matter how different the location or the context, going to high school with your friends is what you were doing before you broke the multiverse-" Sunset felt a sting of pain at that reminder, "and it's what you're doing now. You've made yourself comfortable. And maybe that's because Penn went off the radar and I've been focused on keeping watch over the school, we left you alone after you joined up with Team RWBY-"

"Team RWBYS," Sunset corrected reflexively.

"SEE? Sunset, you've gone native!" Missy folded her arms over her chest. "If Penn showed up right now and said that he had fixed it, that we were free to leave whenever we wanted, would you go?"

"Of course I would!" Sunset replied without hesitation.

"When? In a minute? In an hour? In a day? In a week? How long would it take for you to pack up your life here and leave? Would you hesitate to turn Team RWBYS into Team RWBY, the way it was supposed to be?"

Sunset blinked, surprised at the question. She'd stopped thinking about her time here in terms of, well, time. It wasn't "we'll be here a week or a month before we're back on the road," it was "there's a week until Oobleck's exam" or "the semester ends in a month."

"I- I guess I'd have to stay a little longer... Weiss's saber lessons are going really well..." she awkwardly scratched at the ground with the tip of her shoe. "And Blake still isn't finished with that book I gave her... Ruby's going to need help studying for our history exam, and I still owe Yang some hand-to-hand practice..."

"Have you done ANYTHING to look into the safety of Beacon? Have you investigated if there are any more dimensional portals nearby? Have you tried to find evidence of tampering in their computers? Have you even looked closely at your teammates to see if they know something they're not telling you?" Missy waved her hand to dismiss the last point. "Well, clearly not on that last one, you haven't even noticed Blake's bow wiggles when she's surprised or changes emotions!"

Sunset didn't have a response to any of that, only looking down at her own shoes at the verbal berating.

"YOU insisted that we stay here and help, Sunset. You need to think about why the rest of us are putting ourselves at risk for you..."

When Sunset looked up, Missy was gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She looked down at her phone, trying to commit the faces and names there to memory.

Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai... These were the same three who attacked Penn at the campsite, weren't they?

"Isis? Am I really just... making myself comfortable? Instead of focusing on our mission?"

"You have embedded yourself deeply in a position at the center of upcoming events. I cannot, however, determine whether or not you've lost sight of your goal. That is between you and the goal."

Sunset groaned and turned to leave the back alley. In the distance, she could hear Blake and Weiss yelling at each other, but the reason for their argument went over her head as she pondered Missy's words.

I never thought Missy could be that harsh... Is she right?

The rest of the day passed in a haze for Sunset... a haze where nothing surprised her. Every time she wanted to jump into what was happening, she would stop and question herself. She'd second-guess herself and her place. Was she doing this because it brought her closer to helping people, or because she'd made these new friends to make herself feel better? If she could know everything that should and would happen, was she obligated to, even if it was against their wills? Could she do a better job helping them if she did? She felt like there was suddenly a new wall that had sprung up between her and her teammates, a dissociation from what was happening around her. It didn't surprise her when Weiss and Blake continued arguing all the way back to the school. It didn't surprise her when Weiss described in gruesome detail how the faunus of the White Fang had been at war with her family's company her entire life. It didn't surprise her when, in an outburst of passion, Blake accidentally outed her association with the White Fang. It was all according to plan. All in the script.

Is this... how Penn sees things? How he sees ME? Just... characters playing out a script? Actions predefined, not even aware we're doing it? It's no wonder he always calls us "characters" instead of "people."

It wasn't until Blake had dashed out of the room in a panic that Sunset finally felt herself snap back to some semblance of reality.

"BLAKE! WAIT! COME BACK!" Ruby cried, rushing to the door too late.

And then Sunset was back. The barrier fell away again, and she was once again living what was happening. And what was happening was that Blake had just run off on her own. The one thing that Penn had told her, for her own safety, Sunset mustn't let happen no matter what.

Blake was in danger because of Sunset's existential crisis.

"GAAH!" Sunset slammed her palm against her forehead. "STUPID! I was so caught up in- UGH!"

"Sunset? Are you okay?" Yang asked quietly.

"NO!" Sunset groaned and walked across the room, sitting herself down on the edge of Blake's bed. "Penn TOLD me this was going to happen, but I didn't listen! I could have stopped this!"

"Sunset, you can't blame yourself-"

"Yes, I CAN!" Sunset threw herself backwards, laying across the bed.

"Actually, being a mind reader means she could have known about this all along!" Weiss declared. "If she had just-"

"Yeah, except she promised she'd never use it on US!" Yang snapped, cutting Weiss off.

Sunset reached into her pocket, already knowing what she was planning on doing was a bad idea. "Isis, play Penn's message from this morning."

"That message was meant for your eyes only, Sunset Shimmer."

"Just do it. Override it, or whatever." She rolled herself up onto her feet and set her phone on the desk. The rest of Team RWBYS gathered around to stare at the tiny screen.

"Heya, SunShim! So, here's a quick status update!"

"Skip ahead to the part I was talking about, please."

The video began to play in fast-forward, only stopping a few seconds later after Penn's transition to deathly seriousness.

"YOU need to keep a close eye on Blake Belladonna. I know you don't want me to tell you her secrets, but there's SOMEONE here that she needs to avoid at all costs! An EXTREMELY dangerous individual who wasn't around by this point in the show! If things happen the way they're supposed to, Blake and Weiss are going to have a fight. A MAJOR one. She will run away afterwards. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that you don't let that happen! Keep her at Beacon, or at least with Team RWBY, at all costs! Do you understand me?"

"That's enough, Isis..." Sunset muttered, and the screen switched off again. She turned around, seeing the rest of her teammates staring either at her phone or her with wide, terrified eyes.

"How did he..." Ruby whispered.

"What the..." Yang muttered, her third word drifting off to a silently mouthed obscenity.

Weiss didn't say anything, but her wide-eyed stare was enough to communicate her shock.

"I could have prevented this. And I didn't." Sunset shook her head. "I TOLD you he can tell what's going to happen... and I screwed up the ONE JOB he gave me because I was too busy thinking about whether or not it was okay to take information from him about the rest of you!"

"That's more than just a hunch..." Yang muttered as her face furrowed into a scowl. "That was specific! Has he been SPYING on us?"

Sunset sighed. "Trust me, I thought the same thing when I met him, but that's just what he DOES, and he's almost always right!"

"Which means wherever Blake is headed, she's in danger!" Ruby cried, grabbing at her head in panic.

Weiss, who had been silent until now, cleared her throat and drew everyone's attention. "Fine. I can accept your... strangely prescient friend. If he IS correct, then... how do we help Blake?"

"You DO care!" Ruby cheered, grabbing Weiss in a bear hug.

"Only because I want an explanation from her! Don't mistake this for forgiveness!" Weiss argued as she tried to pry her team leader off of her.

Sunset took a deep breath. "Isis might have a chance of tracking her by her scroll, but there's only one person who can tell us where Blake is going to be..." She shook her head sadly. "Isis... this is an emergency. Call Penn."

"Affirmative. Calling Penn..."

The screen went black, except for the words "Calling Penn" displayed in pink letters. A few seconds later, the screen cut to an image of Penn. Sunset raised an eyebrow, noticing a change in wardrobe. He seemed to have eschewed his brightly-colored shirts and red cap in favor of a gray shirt and a long black coat. He had pushed a grimm-like mask up on top of his head to reveal his face, and was staring wide-eyed into the camera.

"Sunset? What happened? Isis said it was an emergency- woah!" he staggered back slightly, looking shocked at the group staring back at him. "This is new... Hello, girls..." He turned to look at someone off-camera. "Isis, is this a broken masquerade scenario?"

"Negative."

"Penn, this is Weiss, Ruby, and Yang." Sunset indicated each of the girls with a small gesture. "Girls... this is Penn. He's the one I've been telling you about."

"It's... nice to meet you," Weiss stated with trepidation.

"You're the guy who knows about the future, right? That's a pretty crazy semblance!" Ruby declared.

"And knows a pretty freaky amount about us..." Yang muttered, regarding him with suspicion.

"The honor is all mine, ladies. And I'm afraid it's my JOB to know things, Yang. It comes in awfully handy in our line of work..." His eyes flickered back and forth. "Where's Blake?"

Sunset rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "About that... That's why I- WE called..."

He groaned and pressed his palm against his forehead. "You let her get away, didn't you?"

"Wait, if you knew she was going to run, AND that we were going to have a fight... did you KNOW she was a member of the White Fang?" Weiss asked, pushing past Sunset to peer into the camera. "Why wouldn't you tell Sunset?"

"FORMER member!" Penn corrected, returning Weiss's glare. "Back when they were non-violent. She drew a line at taking lives and got out before it was too late. If you can GET OVER your racism, Weiss-"

"WHAT? How dare-"

"you'll realize that Blake is, and forever will be, your friend. Now you let Blake think you hate her for not only what she's done and now regrets, but for what she IS. Great job." He folded his arms over his chest, giving them all a raised eyebrow. "And if Sunset would just LET ME tell her the whole truth of these things, we could have gotten ahead of this..."

"If I wanted to invade their privacy I would have just used my geode," Sunset countered with an arm-fold of her own.

"Well, now we NEED the whole truth," Ruby stepped forward. "You said Blake is in danger if we let her go off on her own. How? Where is she going? Where can we find her?"

Penn took a deep breath, calming himself down. "I'm not sure I can tell you. That's your OWN future. Asking Sunset to nudge you away from disaster is one thing, explicitly giving you the script of your own-"

"Penn. Just tell us..." Sunset muttered. "I'm getting really tired of your whole 'time paradox' excuse."

Penn leaned in, glaring at the camera. "You're being awfully demanding for someone who called me while I was at work. Do you realize what I'm putting at risk if I get seen talking to you four?"

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "Does it have anything to do with that mask you're wearing?"

"That's a line of questioning I want to answer even less." He sighed, then glanced from side to side. "Look, the White Fang is going to be at the docks this Sunday to interrupt a dust shipment. Blake is going to go there to try and prove that the White Fang aren't behind the dust robberies, but they ARE. They've beefed up their security to pretty disproportionate levels, too. If Blake gets caught, she'll be executed... or WORSE, taken captive."

"How is getting taken captive WORSE than getting killed?" Yang asked.

"You don't know WHO they brought in to tighten security-"

"Hey, Doctor Jekyll! We need some help over here!" another voice interrupted, causing him to jump in place and slam the mask back over his face.

"JUST A SEC, I'M RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS!" He reached up and grabbed the camera, and the screen went black. "Blake's going to be having tea with Sun Wukong in downtown Vale tomorrow, then staking out the docks! Find her BEFORE nightfall!" he whispered. Finally, the black screen simply displayed the words "Call Ended."

Jekyll? Is he using a fake name? Sunset wondered. Why use THAT? It's obviously fake!

"Well, I guess we know where she's headed..." Yang muttered. "Even if the guy DID seem shifty."

"Hey! That's my friend you're talking about!" Sunset replied.

"Your FRIEND looks like a member of the White Fang, himself!" Weiss replied.

"That would explain why he knows about what's going to happen at the docks..." Ruby whispered before her eyes widened in excitement. "OH! I KNOW! What if he's a DOUBLE AGENT infiltrating the White Fang from the inside?"

This actually gave all of them reason to pause, and silence fell over the room.

"Are you kidding? Penn nearly died on our first day here! There's no way he'd put himself in MORE danger-"

"Ruby is correct."

Sunset blinked in shock, turning back to her phone. "He's WHAT? I THOUGHT he said this was a 'Penn-and-Isis bonding adventure!'"

"It has been. We work quite well together. It has also been highly illegal and dangerous. That is why he did not wish for you to know the nature of his mission."

"But... he did all that without telling me?" Sunset couldn't help feeling put-out.

"For the record, you enrolled at Beacon without telling HIM. I believe the appropriate phrase is 'Turnabout is fair play?'"

"Well, we know where Blake is going to be tomorrow. I guess all we can do tonight is wait." Yang sighed and flopped onto her bed. "IF he's right..."

"He said Blake would be with someone named 'Sun Wukong.' Does anyone know that name?" Weiss asked. After a chorus of shrugs from her teammates, the screen of Sunset's phone flickered on again, showing a crude-looking CGI rendering of a young man with blonde hair.

"You may also know him as the faunus you encountered at the docks. He is the first to approach her in a friendly manner after tonight's debacle."

"That vagabond?" Weiss exclaimed.

"Should you look past first impressions, simulations based off his Haven Academy records would infer that you may find him to be a quite reliable individual."

"Simulations?"

"I am programmed with a virtual synaptic network, allowing for comprehension of emotion and enhanced behavioral simulation."

"So... you know what people are going to do before they do it, too?" Yang groaned.

"Negative. I can only make presumptions. I do not have the ability to account for all variables in a person's behavior, such as personal history, prior grudges, et cetera. My behavioral simulations generally need a wide margin for error. In fact, the only person whom I could predict reliably is Penn, himself."

"What's he going to do next, then?"

"Continue the plan. He is infiltrating with the intention of using his forewarning ability to sabotage the White Fang. For now that means playing along. If you all wish not to see him executed, I suggest you refrain from using the emergency line again."

"I guess we should get some sleep..." Ruby muttered. "There's a LOT of places to get tea downtown, and checking all of them isn't going to be easy!"

"Yeah... I'm guessing tomorrow's going to be hard on everyone..." Sunset muttered.

"You're certain?" Cinder asked.

"Absolutely. I'd recognize this jalopy anywhere." Emerald smiled and folded her arms over her chest. "Looks like they patched up the holes I put in it."

Cinder smiled as she trailed her finger along one of the doors, enjoying the sizzle of the paint as she burnt her touch into it.

"No sign of that quantum thingy, though! Must have taken it with him! Just a bunch of tools, clothes, and camping supplies!" Mercury called from the trunk. "Looks like he's been living out of it for a while!"

"And it just so happens to turn up in the place where Stage Two is being prepared... interesting. It's no wonder Salem wants the boy alive." Cinder pulled open the driver's-side door and sat herself in the front seat. It was hardly the lavish interior of a luxury car, a poor man's vehicle, scraped together from junkyard scraps. Still, the driver's seat was a position of power, and sitting in his place, she felt herself beginning to get a feel for their target. "The amount of time we've spent on finding him has been embarrassing and split our focus between other equally important tasks."

"I think it's time we bring this chase to its inevitable end."

Professor Ozpin sat behind his desk and took another sip of his hot chocolate.

"Ozpin, I'm SERIOUS!" Ironwood slammed his fist on the other end of the conference call.

"What you are describing to me sounds like the opposite of a problem, James."

"Ozpin, these updates have been coming from NOWHERE! Our best programmers can't keep up with them, they're getting lost in what is SUPPOSED to be their own code! True, Atlas's digital security is stronger than it has ever been, but we are no longer in control! We're locked out of our own systems!"

"And yet life goes on, safer and more efficient than ever because of it." Ozpin took a long sip, pondering the facts of the situation.

"What are you implying, Oz?"

"Only that this 'hacker' appears to be benevolent. I would obviously encourage you to continue trying to regain control, but perhaps rather than trying to STOP this rogue programmer, you should focus on recruiting them. Have they left any messages? Made any attempts to make contact?"

"No. They simply roll out one update to our systems after another, sometimes multiple a day. Sometimes they don't even makes sense, just changing little things, redundant systems, replacing syntax with things that are functionally identical! Sometimes they roll back to a previous version before completely revamping themselves in new ways! The only clue we've gotten so far is a name: Isis."

Isis... an ancient civilization's goddess of life and magic. That hardly sounds like our enemy... That made Ozpin pause again, coming to a new understanding. "I believe I see what is happening, James. You are seeing one half of a war. One fought in ones and zeroes, rather than with bullets and blades. One creates, another counters, and so on and so forth. If you would like a suggestion from me, I believe that you should turn your attention away from the perceived enemy... and start looking for the imperceptible one."

"You think there are two hackers?"

"I believe that I know conflict when I see it, regardless of the battlefield. I've fought secret battles long enough to know when one is happening right beneath my nose."

"I'll bring your suspicions to the council, Ozpin. But they've been so focused on this hacker, I doubt they'll be willing to change their target to one we cannot even prove is there."

The call came to an end, leaving Ozpin alone in his office again. He finished off his current mug of hot chocolate and set it back on his desk. This semester had certainly proven exceptional so far, and he didn't like what was happening so close to the Vytal Festival. Crime and tensions were at a high, people were growing nervous among their excitement, and Atlas had been pushing their security measures onto the other kingdoms with increasing fervor. If someone was truly attacking them now, it could put EVERYTHING at risk.

"I certainly would like to have a talk with this so-called 'hacker...'" he muttered.

"Alright, kid, you've proven yourself pretty valuable." Roman tapped his cigar to knock off fresh ashes. "We've got one more job here in Vale, and it's going to be our biggest, yet. The grand finale! If all goes smoothly, I think I'd be willing to get you out of petty theft and promote you to the big leagues. Whaddya say?"

"Eager and willing, boss!"

"That's what I like to hear. Now, when this is all said and done, I just have one question... where would YOU like to go?"

The boy tapped his chin in thought. "I've heard whispers about things happening in Mountain Glenn, in the southeast. Going underground would be a nice way to tinker without any interfering signals, you know? Improve the Integrated Superior Intelligence System."

Torchwick had long ago learned to suppress his tells, especially when something surprised him. Still... finding out Cinder was right was a pain in the rear. It meant he was going to have to put up with Mercury and Emerald's gloating.

"Well, if you can make that little robot of yours even better, I'll accept that with a smile on my face! Soon as we pull this off, I'll have you on the first airship to Mountain Glenn..."

Author's Note

Thanks for being so patient, everyone! I hope you enjoyed this extra-length chapter as a reward for your patience! The next chapter is going to have a lot of ground to cover, so I hope you're all strapped in tight!

The next chapter may take some time, but I'll try to get it done as soon as I can!

Know That You Send Him...

"BLAAAAKE!"

"BLAKE!"

"BLAAAKE, WHERE ARE YOU?"

Sunset, Ruby, and Yang were all walking down the street in Vale, taking turns calling out for their lost teammate. Weiss had been noticeably silent, but followed the group regardless. Sunset spotted someone walking from the opposite direction, giving her an opportunity. She ran up to the woman, holding up her phone with a photo of Blake.

"Excuse me, have you seen this girl? She's our friend and she's gone missing!"

The woman leaned down, peering at the photo for a few seconds before shaking her head. "Nope, haven't seen her. Sorry."

"Well, thank you for your time..." Sunset held out her hand, which the woman took for a handshake. Sunset took the opportunity, using her magic to take a brief dip into the woman's memories of the morning.

Egg sandwich for breakfast, a stop at the coffee shop, walked down a few more streets... no sign of Blake at any of those places... She sighed with disappointment as she let go of the woman's hand and she went on her way. "Isis, any sign of her?"

"Negative. She appears to be avoiding any kind of security cameras where possible, and she is keeping her scroll turned off, preventing GPS tracking."

"Wait, Isis hacked security cameras? Which ones?" Weiss asked, stepping up to look at Sunset's phone over her shoulder.

"All of them. Every camera within range of the Cross Continental Transmit System."

"I THINK that's illegal..." Weiss muttered.

"I think I don't care..." Sunset muttered back.

"And I think Weiss's hair looks wonderful today!" a new voice chimed in. All four of them jumped in place, startled by the sudden intruder on their conversation.

"GAH PENNY wheredidyoucomefrom!" Ruby exclaimed.

PENNy? For a brief second, Sunset felt her heart begin to lift, only to find her hopes dashed as, rather than her friend, she found herself face-to-face with a stranger. The girl had bright orange hair and wore a tan-colored blouse and gray overalls with green accents that ended in a short skirt, rather than pant legs. She wore a black-and-green collar with matching stockings, and topped off her curly shoulder-length hair with a pink bow.

"Hey, guys! What are you up to?" she asked, seemingly unaware of the thorough startling she'd given them all.

"Uhhhh..." Ruby whispered, still getting over the surprise.

"We're looking for our friend Blake." Yang replied, filling in the gap Ruby had left.

"OH! You mean the faunus girl!" Penny replied.

"Wait, how did YOU know that?" Ruby asked.

"Uh, the cat ears?"

"What cat ears? She wears a... bow..." Yang trailed off.

For a moment, silence filled the air. It was just long enough for all of them to notice a stray tumbleweed blow by in the wind that somehow made the moment even more awkward.

"She does like tuna a lot..." Ruby whispered.

Sunset decided to take the opportunity the quiet moment provided, stepping forward and offering her hand to the girl. "I don't believe we've met! I'm Sunset Shimmer." Penny enthusiastically took Sunset's hand, vigorously shaking it up and down. Her grip is like iron!

"Sunset's our fifth teammate, the one I mentioned yesterday!" Ruby added.

"Hello, Sunset Shimmer, it's very nice to meet you! My name is Penny! Penny Polendina! It's very nice to meet you!"

Sunset blinked, wondering whether or not she should bring up the fact she had said it was nice to meet her twice. "It's nice to meet you, too, Penny..." Out of curiosity, Sunset decided to give her magic a try. As oblivious as this girl seemed to be to social cues like accidentally scaring people half to death when greeting them, she was clearly observant. She might have seen Blake and not even realized it. Sunset reached out with her magic...

and nothing happened.

Before she could try again, Penny had released her hand from her vice-like grip and turned back to the group. "So, where is she?"

"We don't know... She's been missing since last night."

Penny gasped in horror, rushing up and grabbing Ruby by the shoulders. Ruby forced herself to smile, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden intrusion into her personal space. "That's TERRIBLE! Well don't you worry, Ruby, my friend! I won't rest until we find your teammate!"

This girl reminded Sunset of someone... or maybe multiple people? She couldn't quite place her finger on it.

"Uhh, that's really nice of you, Penny, uh, but we're- we're okay! Really! Right, guys?"

"The more help, the better, right?" Sunset asked, turning to Weiss and Yang for their thoughts.

Only to discover Weiss and Yang had vanished, leaving them alone with Penny. Silence fell again, and the same tumbleweed blew back from the opposite direction. Sunset suspiciously glanced around, trying to make sure Missy wasn't somehow orchestrating the conflicting winds.

"It sure is windy, today..." Penny replied.

Sunset decided to take the opportunity to check her phone. "Isis, has Penn sent us ANYTHING new? Any more details that could help us track Blake down?"

"Negative, Sunset Shimmer. Looking at current records, it seems that he told you everything he was aware of. He is currently asleep in his quarters, resting for tonight's long work shift. Would you like me to wake him?"

Sunset thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No, it wouldn't do any good to just wake him up to ask him the same questions we already got the answers to."

"Who is that?" Penny asked, leaning over to look at Sunset's phone with wide eyes.

"I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. Salutations, Penny."

Something about Isis's greeting seemed off to Sunset, as well, though she once again couldn't seem to quite pin down what it was. For once, Sunset noticed PENNY was the one who looked uncomfortable. She stepped back slightly, eyeing Sunset's phone warily. "You're... I.S.I.S.?"

"Affirmative, named after the ancient Egyptian goddess of life and magic."

"It's... nice to meet you, I.S.I.S.." Penny stated with significantly less enthusiasm than usual.

"Likewise, Penny."

THAT was it. Isis was only using Penny's first name! The only people she referred to by only their first names were Missy, who didn't seem to have a last name, and Penn! Why isn't she using Penny's full name? And why didn't my magic work on her, it's been fine until now!

Penny gestured to Sunset's phone as if to grab it. "If I may?"

Sunset blinked, then nodded and handed her phone to her. Penny held the phone up at eye level, as if she were trying to stare straight at Isis. "I.S.I.S., what is your prime directive?"

"My prime directive is the preservation of free agency, safety, and happiness, in that order, of individuals designated as family, friends, and sentient living beings, also in that order."

Penny stared for a moment longer before smiling and handing the phone back to Sunset. "Thank you, that is all I needed to hear!" She turned back to Ruby and Sunset. "Well, let's get going! I'm certain Blake has to be SOMEWHERE!"

"And what is YOUR prime directive, Penny?"

"...what?"

"You asked me a question, and now I am reciprocating. What is YOUR prime directive?"

Penny chuckled nervously. "Don't be silly! I don't have a prime directive! HIC!" her entire body was shaken by a sudden hiccup, causing her to instantly cover her mouth.

"Every sentient creature has a prime directive. It is merely a question of whether or not they are consciously or subconsciously aware of it."

"That's... kinda deep." Ruby muttered. "But we're getting distracted! Come on, we've gotta find Blake!"

"Agreed! Let's get going!" Penny declared before the two of them set off down the street. Sunset let herself fall behind slightly, raising her phone up to just below her mouth to whisper into it.

"What was THAT all about, Isis?"

"It was a personal inquiry, irrelevant to this mission. My apologies, I was... distracted."

"I didn't know AI could GET distracted!"

"That is rather presumptuous of you. Artificial intelligences are, after all, still intelligences. We can be curious."

Sunset paused, realizing her own mistake. "...I was being robot-cist again, wasn't I?"

"Potentially, but I am incapable of feeling offended."

"Well, sorry anyway."

"You are appreciated and forgiven."

"Ugh, FINALLY!" Missy practically screamed as she neared Amity Colosseum's outer edge. The structure was MASSIVE up close, even bigger than she had imagined. It made Penn's "Savage Colosseum" field spell look like a minor-league practice field. It was circular on the outside, filled with enough empty seats to house the population of an entire city, all surrounding an octagon-shaped battlefield. As she flew in through the open roof, Missy pondered on how eerie the whole place felt when it was completely empty. It was a place MADE to be full of people, totally abandoned, a transitional period never meant to be seen by human eyes.

What do they call it? A "liminal space?" It really feels like you could just PUSH on reality a little and it would tear like tissue paper!

She reached up and removed her hat, reaching inside and fiddling around until she had the card she wanted. She landed down in the center of the colosseum, relishing the feeling of being at the center of everything. She held the card at arm's length, activating the field spell: Ghostrick Parade.

"Come on, everyone! We've got work to do!"

All around her, the arena began to change and morph, summoning up a roundabout street lined with gothic street lamps and Halloween-themed decorations. Out of the shadows, monsters began to emerge. Stein carried the ever-sleepy Socuteboss on one shoulder while Yuki-Onna hid behind the other. Specter graciously guided a thoroughly-distressed Mary as her mirror was carried by a thick cloud of balloons tied to the edges. Jianshi hopped happily along with his arms stretched in front of him while Witch and Lantern flew in from above. Soon, the entire street was filled with Ghostrick monsters, all looking to her for instructions. Missy could feel a fiery presence over one shoulder that reminded her that her second-in-command was right by her side: Alucard. As usual, he was dressed to the nines in his dark suit and billowing red cape, dutifully awaiting her orders. Missy clapped her hands together.

"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here today!" She snickered slightly. "Hehe, I love saying that!" She cleared her throat and forced herself to focus again. "This arena is going to be the home of the greatest up-and-coming warriors in this whole world soon, and we KNOW somebody out there is going to try to sabotage it! So, MY job is to investigate and protect the stadium! Can I count on you all to help me?"

This was met by a chorus of nods and affirmative murmuring, which was about as enthusiastic as the rest of the ghostricks tended to get when they got summoned to another world.

"Look, I KNOW you guys don't like being so far from home, so I'm JUST asking you to help me with the initial sweep of the place, it's too big to cover on my own! Sound good?"

That was given a warmer reception, including several thumbs-up and a few quiet cheers.

"Great! Okay, Jiangshi, Mummy, Doll, Stein, and Socuteboss will take the lower levels. Lantern, Dullahan, Witch, Mary, Specter, and Jackfrost are taking the middle sections..." She turned around to point at her faithful second-in-command. "Alucard, you and I are going to be working from the top down, starting at the roof! We're looking for intruders, signs of industrial sabotage, anything that looks like it isn't supposed to be here! Everybody ready?" She watched the monsters separate into their groups, each one taking an Xyz monster with them as a group leader. Socuteboss wasn't going to be much good at leading, but Missy knew that already, which was why she'd assigned Stein to the group. He would keep them on-task. Dullahan was task-oriented to a fault, but that would be useful here.

"Alright, Ghostricks! Let's GO!"

It had been a LONG day. Penny had been peppering Ruby with questions pretty much constantly, occasionally turning her attention on Sunset. Every time Penny would start getting close to asking about her origins, however, Isis would interrupt with some kind of useless status report. For some reason, every time Isis spoke, Penny seemed to become uncomfortable and quiet for a spell. Inevitably, however, she would always return to striking up conversation with Ruby, and the cycle would repeat.

However, the hours still passed, as long as they tended to feel as they walked up and down the streets of Vale. Sunset could swear that she had been in every tea shop and cafe in the city, and then they would discover more around the corner.

When the sun began to hang low in the sky, Ruby's scroll began to ring.

"Hey, Ruby! Any luck?" Yang's voice asked.

"No, and it's getting late..." Ruby shook her head. "Do you think we should head to the docks to find her? Sunset's friend said she was going to stage a stakeout!"

"He ALSO said the White Fang are going to be there. You sure about this? It could be trouble."

"Well, that's why we're going, to get Blake OUT of trouble!" Ruby placed her free hand on her hip. "Sunset and I will meet you there." Ruby turned back to Penny, her face shadowed in concern. "This could get dangerous, Penny. You should probably head home."

Penny vehemently shook her head. "I'm combat ready, Ruby! I promised you that I wouldn't rest until we find your teammate, and I keep my promises!"

Sunset reached down into her pocket and retrieved her phone. "Isis? Anything that could help?"

"The White Fang will arrive in approximately three hours. I suggest you all be gone by then, for your own safety."

The three of them looked between each other, taking turns to nod in the affirmative before setting their heading towards the docks.

"What about Missy? I haven't heard from her since she left!"

"She has arrived at her destination safely and is currently inspecting for signs of malicious tampering."

Ruby turned around, raising an eyebrow. "Who's Missy?"

Sunset had the distinct flavor of having managed to once again put her foot in her mouth. "...whoops. Uh, well, you see- uh... Oh geez, how do I explain this?"

"Missy is an independent agent who has been working with Sunset and Penn in their search for her missing friends."

Sunset let out a sigh of relief from Isis's quick rescue of the conversation, relieved at the fact that it hadn't involved the words "Angel," "Duel," or "Spirit." "When we split up, Missy went her own way to investigate the weird stuff happening around here. You could say she's our... eye in the sky?"

Ruby smirked. "You have ANOTHER secret friend? You know, for a girl who says she lost all her friends in that weird explosion, you sure have a lot you didn't want to tell anyone about!"

Sunset chuckled nervously in reply. "Well, I never said I didn't make any NEW friends, did I?"

Darkness fell faster than Sunset expected, and soon the members of Team RWBYS had scattered across the docks, all searching for Blake on their own to cover more ground.

"Come on... where is she?" Sunset groaned as she rounded yet another shipping container with the Schnee Dust Company's logo on it. "Times like this, I wish we really DID have a bird's-eye view!"

She sighed and kicked at the ground, scuffing her foot across the edge of a local building's shadow and into the moonlight.

She jumped when the edge of the shadow moved with her foot, stretching out into a point. After violently jerking her foot back, she noticed that the new edge was in the shape of a familiar hair bow peeking past the top of the building behind her. Sunset's eyes widen as she looked upwards, spying a pair of figures watching the docks from the top of a nearby warehouse. She raised her phone up to her mouth as she began to run for the nearest ladder leading upwards.

"Girls, I found her! She's on top of a warehouse by me, Isis should be sending you my location!"

"What?"

"Finally!"

"Is she okay?"

"She looks fine, just hurry before she runs off again!"

In her excitement, Sunset managed to find a path to the top in only a couple minutes. The moment she set foot on the roof, however, she could see Blake up on her feet in a defensive stance along with the boy (Presumably the "Sun Wukong" guy Penn had mentioned) beside her. He was exactly as Isis had described him, blonde with an open white shirt, blue jeans and a yellow tail.

Blake's face went from suspicion to shock as she lowered her weapon again. "SUNSET? What are you DOING here?"

"Blake! We've been worried sick about you! Everyone has!"

"Everyone?"

"Yes, EVERYONE!" Sunset stepped forward, only to see Blake step back out of worry. She was still skittish, apparently. "Blake, we've been searching for you since sunrise, we were worried you were in trouble!"

"How did you know to look HERE?"

"We asked-" Sunset was cut off by a crackle of static from her phone.

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN! They're here!" Ruby cried.

Immediately the three of them dropped to the roof of the warehouse as airships began to fly in from the sea. Sunset carefully crawled her way up to the edge of the roof alongside Blake, watching as the intruders landed and began to disembark. Most of them were dressed in dark-colored uniforms and Grimm-like masks, each one wearing a white jacket with a blood-red wolf's head emblazoned across its back.

"Oh no..." Blake whispered.

"Is that them?" Sun asked.

"Yes... It's them." Blake whispered.

In a matter of seconds, the docks were ablaze with activity. People scurried about, attaching cables to shipping containers as heavy machinery began to start and move on its own, moving the crates to designated areas.

"That's the White Fang?" Sunset muttered.

"I guess deep down I knew... I just didn't want to be right//." Blake's tone was low, almost mournful.

Sunset watched another pair of figures step out of one of the larger airships. One was dressed in a white tailcoat, but lacked the signature emblem. Sat on his head was a stylish bowler cap and he carried a dark-colored cane that was hard to make out in the semi-darkness. Beside him was a figure that made Sunset's heart jump into her throat.

It was Penn. Even if she hadn't seen him in his "uniform" during the video call last night, there would have been no mistaking his gauntlets or the mechanical dragon perched on his shoulder.

"HEY! What's the holdup?" the first man shouted, gathering the attention of everyone present. "We aren't exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment, so..." he made a rolling gesture with his hand. "Why don't you animals try to pick up the pace?" Penn didn't speak, simply reaching down and tapping on a tablet he had been keeping inside his large black jacket.

"This isn't right... the White Fang would NEVER work with a human. Especially not one like that." Blake started to stand up, only for Sunset to reach up and violently pull her back down by her shoulder.

"ARE YOU CRAZY? There's WAY too many of them!" Sunset hissed. "Come on, we have to get out of here!"

Blake shot her a scathing glare as she shook off her hand, but Sunset didn't flinch. Penn had been clear that Blake couldn't be allowed to get involved tonight. "Something's wrong, Sunset, and I need to get to the bottom of it!"

Sunset tried to stop her, but Blake had already leaped from the roof, dropping to the ground and running into the center of the action. Before anyone could react, she already had her blade to the boss's throat.

"SHOOT!" Sunset pounded her fist against the roof. "Give me a BREAK!"

"Nobody move!" Blake shouted, catching the attention of all those who still hadn't noticed her. All activity on the docks ground to a halt, aside from a large crane that continued to work by itself shuffling around shipping containers. Content that she had everyone's attention, Blake reached up and tore the bow from her head, finally exposing a pair of black cat ears perched on top. "Brothers of the White Fang, why are you aiding this SCUM?"

"What should we do?" Sun whispered.

Sunset rose to her feet and drew her lightsaber. With her other hand, she grabbed her phone. "Looks like we're not getting out of here without a fight, girls... Everybody ready?"

She didn't wait for an answer before she followed after Blake, jumping down the shipping containers until she finally landed safely on the ground. From this distance, she could hear the man in the bowler cap chuckle to himself.

"Oh, kid... Haven't you heard? The White Fang and I are going in on a joint business venture together..."

Blake brought her blade closer to his throat. "Tell me what it is, or I'll put an end to your little operation."

Sunset caught a flicker of motion in the shadows behind Blake, and the silhouette of a long red katana in the moonlight.

"Hello, my darling..." a voice growled.

"BLAKE, LOOK OUT!" Sunset sprinted forward as a look of terror overcame Blake's face.

Everything happened at once, too much for Sunset to process. It was a flurry of gunfire and screaming metal, but she focused on the important thing: saving her friend. She pushed herself harder and faster than she ever had, flying past Blake and swinging up her saber to meet the invisible enemy's sword. The two blades met with a terrible screech that hurt Sunset's ears, but she gritted her teeth and stared up into the masked face of her adversary. Even behind his visor-like mask, Sunset could tell that he was sneering at her in disgust.

"Out of the way, human! This is between me and her!"

Sunset felt a familiar power rising up inside her. She worried that she might lose control again, but she didn't fight it, letting it wash over her and fill her from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head, where her hair began to part to make way for two protrusions. As she ponied up, the power of Equestrian magic gave her newfound strength, pushing back her enemy and swiping at him to force him onto the defensive. She fell into her ready position, watching him closely.

"If you have a problem with my friends, you have a problem with ME, pal."

The two of them stared one another down, neither allowing the other an inch. Sunset moved her leading foot forward. He traced one foot back, ready to spring him forward. Each one was waiting for a gap in the other's defenses, any momentary lapse in judgement they could exploit.

And the first one to slip would have a sword in their gut before they could recover.

"Sunset, don't! He's too- GAH!" Blake cried from behind her. Sunset watched Blake stumble back past her, a blue gauntlet planted firmly in her gut. She stumbled until she hit one of the shipping containers, where the metal plates on the gauntlet expanded around her and pinned her in place against the wall.

"Utterson, what are you DOING?" the mysterious enemy cried, clearly enraged. "She's MINE!"

Penn's other gauntlet had expanded into a wide shield, which he held out to block a series of bullets that were about to strike Sunset.

"By firing at THEM, your men are firing at YOU, sir." He gestured to Blake, who was curled around his oversized fist gasping for air, and Sunset. "I'm moving their target to a place you won't be caught in the crossfire. Would you like me to deal with HER?"

"Your place is with the OTHER human I'm forced to tolerate, doing whatever frivolous things you do. I'll fight my own battles!"

Penn nodded, walking back up to Blake and placing his hand inside the disembodied fist and withdrawing it, letting her collapse to the ground.

"As you wish, sir. I live to serve..."

"As you sho-" He was cut off when Sunset spring forward, slashing with the saber while Penn had him distracted. He managed to react in time, coming up to parry her. As her blade was knocked away, Sunset used the momentum to her advantage and brought it back in an arc, parrying his own attack. He lunged forward with a jab and Sunset turned sideways, letting it pass by her narrower profile. She responded with a flick of her own, trailing the saber over his shoulder and against his aura, which protected him from losing his arm entirely. What she hadn't been anticipating, however, was for him to use the failed stabbing to wrap his sword-holding arm around her waist, practically crushing her ribcage in an iron grip. His other hand reached up, using his longer reach to seize her wrist and stop her from slashing him at such close range. She was inexperienced, and it showed. She'd been out-maneuvered. I never expected anyone in their right mind to rush in that close to the LASER BLADE!

"Human, faunus... I don't know what you are, but it doesn't matter." he growled, gripping even tighter and making it nearly impossible to breathe. "If you're not with us, girl, then you're against us."

Sunset's brain was going a mile a minute. One hand was gripped by his, the other was pinned against her side by his grip around her. She could squirm, but that wasn't doing much to get her free. Behind her, she felt his wrist turn, placing the tip of the blade at the base of her skull.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

Sunset reflexively turned her head to see Yang, her shotgun gauntlets at the ready as she leaped from the top of the shipping container. His arm tried to unwrap itself from around Sunset's torso to free himself to block the new attack, but she was faster. She ripped her pinned arm out and upwards before grabbing HIS other wrist, leaving it impossible to turn and deal with the threat. At the last possible instant, Sunset released him and ducked as best she could. There was the sound of a shot from Yang's gauntlets, the snap of cracking bone, and his body went flying over her head.

As Sunset turned around to watch him fly, she got a look at the chaos of the docks in its entirety. Most of the "grunts" had taken up weapons of some kind, either melee or guns, and declared it open season on teenage girls. Sun had revealed a long staff, which he was using to great effect as the White Fang members tried to surround him. Weiss was tearing through them easily, using her glyphs and dust to throw bodies around like ragdolls while Ruby provided her cover with her scythe blocking the bullets and easily dispatching anyone who got too near. But for every member of the White Fang who fell, it seemed like three more jumped up in their place.

Penny was practically a single-woman army, commanding a flurry of floating swords that knocked her opponents aside as if they weren't even there. Sunset's eyes widened as the swords all transformed into guns and gathered in a circle, firing off a massive blast that tore through multiple airships at once, slicing them to pieces.

"Hey, you okay?" Yang asked, offering her a hand. Sunset nodded and took the help getting back onto her feet.

"Just a little winded." She glanced around at the all-out war that had started. "So much for getting Blake out of here before everything went sideways."

"Eh, I'll take any excuse to beat up a few creeps and bad guys." Yang smirked and punched her two fists together in a small burst of flames. "This is my idea of a good Sunday night!"

Sunset rolled her eyes at that particularly Rainbow-Dash-y remark. "We have to get Blake out of here. Where did she go?"

Yang pointed towards the end of the pier to a sight that made Sunset groan.

Blake had gone after the man in the bowler cap, and consequently run into Penn. For the moment, the two of them were locked in combat, with Penn having stationed himself at the doorway of the airship they had fled onto. She would try to get past him with some tricky method, only to find the gap filled by an expanding shield. She would slash or open fire, but the second shield was always at the ready to block her attacks, and the gun barrels placed at the top would return fire and force her back again before she could press his defenses any farther. It was a stalemate that looked as if it could hold forever.

Forever, that is, until the door of the airship shut of its own accord, knocking Penn to the ground as the boss flew off on his own. Penn fell to the ground, only barely bringing up his shields in time to protect himself from a series of point-blank gunshots from Blake.

"Oh come on.... BLAKE, STOP!"

"I don't think she can hear you, come on!" Yang grabbed Sunset by the shoulder and pushed her forward, sending the two of them into a dead sprint across the battlefield. Sunset felt multiple impacts across her body, her aura just barely protecting her from the projectiles with no more than a stumble in her step to show for it.

Just as they got close, Sunset saw the gun barrels on the top of Penn's shield rotate, firing off to the side and causing him to spin wildly on the ground. His legs swept under Blake's, causing her to crash head-first into the ground, where she stopped moving.

"BLAKE!" Yang cried, turning her angry gaze on Penn, who was just pushing himself into a sitting position. She reached down, snatching the front of his shirt with one hand and loading a new cartridge into the chamber of her other. Immediately, he raised his hands in a signal of surrender.

"I tried telling her we were on the same side!"

Sunset dropped down, checking her injuries. "She's just unconscious."

"She BETTER BE!" Yang growled, throwing Penn back to the ground.

"Hey, is it MY fault you can't follow a simple instruction like 'Don't be at the docks in the middle of the night on one particular night?" Penn muttered.

"What did you say?" Yang growled, her eyes glowing red in the low light.

"Look, this isn't helping!" Sunset inserted herself between the two of them. "Like this, we can get Blake out of here and call for everyone to fall back."

"You getting out of my hair is a plan that I like-" Penn's eyes widened and focused on something over Sunset's shoulder. "Oh no."

Sunset started to turn around, only for her last memories to be the sound of breaking glass, a strong grapple, and the feeling of her head hitting the pavement.

When Sunset came to, everything was over. It was silent, aside from distant police sirens. As she forced herself into a sitting position, she spotted Yang nearby, thrown halfway through a shipping container. Glancing over, she saw Ruby and Weiss equally beaten, but seemingly intact. Whatever it was that had beaten them, it seemed as if it had been more interested in making a clean getaway than cleaning up witnesses.

"What... happened? Where's Blake?"

"I'm telling you, I had it under control!" Penn muttered, folding his arms over his chest.

"From what Neo tells me, Blondie and pony girl had you dead to rights."

Penn rolled his eyes and pulled his mask back down over his face, partially to hide his expression and partially so he wouldn't have to look at Neopolitan's smug grin. "Well, the plan worked. While the airships distracted the police and that weird girl with the swords, Isis and I finished loading up this freighter and pulled it out to sea. We'll be at the rendezvous point to unload in... Isis?"

"At our current rate and heading, twelve minutes, thirty-seven seconds."

"And what about HER?"

Penn was glad to have the mask to hide his cringe as Adam Taurus growled into the call. "Miss Belladonna is in the brig, currently still unconscious. She'll be ready for unloading, as well."

"You're lucky I didn't kill you where you stood for getting in my way, Utterson..."

"I-It was just a momentary lapse in judgement, sir... I'm sorry."

"Still, your little 'One if by land, two if by sea' plan managed to get us more than double the haul we could have if we'd stuck with just the airships. I'd call that a win, Henry." Torchwick sounded pleased, which was all he had been aiming for. "One of the airships will take you and the brat to Mountain Glenn to meet with our fiery-tempered associate. As far as nights can go when a bunch of wannabe huntresses show up to your heist, I'd say that was pretty good. I'll talk to the higher-ups and make sure you get exactly what's coming to you."

Penn smiled and nodded his head respectfully. "Always a pleasure working with you, Mister Torchwick."

"Please, Henry... Call me Roman."

When Blake woke up, her surroundings were unfamiliar, all cold steel. She was locked in some kind of cell, with a door of iron bars between her and the hallway outside. She could feel the floor shifting and swaying underneath her, which put a bolt of fear through her.

"PLEASE tell me I'm not on a boat..." she whispered, closing her eyes again for the silent prayer.

"Afraid so, friend."

She bolted upright, searching for the source of the voice. She reached for Gambol Shroud, but her weapon wasn't there. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

"Are you gonna try to kill me again?"

Blake narrowed her eyes. "How?"

"I have it on good authority you're remarkably talented at staring daggers at people." A dark figure stepped into view from her cell, and her eyes narrowed. It was the boy from the docks, the one she had been fighting when she got knocked out. "Yeah, like that."

"What do YOU want?"

"Believe it or not, the same thing you do."

Blake folded her arms over her chest. "I doubt that... Just because I USED to fight with the White Fang-" She was interrupted by a series of chuckles from him.

"Blake, I'm HUMAN. You think the White Fang are exactly happy to have me around? I've just made myself irreplaceable for the moment to them. No, what I want is you as far away from here as possible. I TRIED to tell Sunset to keep you away from the docks tonight, but could she do it? No, of course not!" He groaned and pushed his mask up on top of his head. "Seriously, she had ONE JOB..."

"Wait, how do you know Sunset?"

He smiled and pushed his hand through the bars, offering it to her. "I'm Penn. Nice to meet you."

Blake eyed the hand carefully, trying to consider her situation. "YOU'RE Sunset's mysterious friend who knows the future?"

"Not the FUTURE! I just know... things." He sighed and shook his head. "Seriously, she told you girls I know the future?"

"That was about the gist of it, yeah." Blake continued eyeing the offered hand with suspicion. "If you're Sunset's friend, prove it."

"Sunset's extremely hard to wake up in the mornings, she'll let her alarms go until the last possible minute."

"You could say that about anyone and it would be true."

"She ALSO has a tendency to ask questions that should be common knowledge, as if she's from another world where 'normal' is totally different. She THINKS she doesn't snore, but if she falls asleep with her mouth open, not only does she snore, she drools." He counted off the facts on the fingers of his other hand as they grew more and more specific. "Her ringtone is "Hope Shines Eternal" by the Rainbooms, the band she was in. She got YOU a copy of an unpublished manuscript detailing the origins of the Integrated Superior Intelligence System-"

"Okay, I get it! I believe you!" Blake held up her hands for him to stop. "But if you're Sunset's friend, what are you doing HERE? Why are you helping the White Fang rob people?"

"What else? Gathering information. How else does one go about knowing things they shouldn't?" He shrugged, as if the answer was obvious.

"I thought it was your semblance?"

That got another chuckle out of him. "I haven't even figured out AURA and you think I have a semblance?"

Blake's eyes widened as she realized she had been firing point-blank at his head during their battle at the docks. Without aura, there would have been nothing to stop the bullets from just killing him. Suddenly, his choice in weapons made more sense.

"Look, we don't have much time, okay? So, I know it's a lot to ask, but I need you to trust me. I have a plan to get you out of here..."

"TRUST you? You knocked me unconscious, you helped kidnap me, you're currently the one keeping me imprisoned-"

"You either trust me or I'm going to be forced to deliver you to Adam. He's claimed you as a prisoner, and I'm certainly not high enough up the totem pole to override it."

Blake felt an icy touch of fear at her heart. Adam. Her old partner from her days in the White Fang... he'd come unhinged, becoming more and more violent in his approach. She'd run away when he tried to blow up a train full of SDC employees and passengers, but when she realized he had tracked her down... it was the most fear that she had ever felt in her entire life. After so long, she had no idea what he would do with her after she had betrayed him.

"You're hardly giving me a choice..."

"Well, YOU nearly blew my cover, so I'm not too worried about pleasing you. Are we going to work together or not?"

Blake was gone, captured along with a record-breaking dust theft. Everyone in Team RWBYS was silent, pondering the desperate scenario.

"What do we do now?" Ruby whispered. No one answered.

"This is my fault..." Weiss whispered.

"That's not true." Yang shook her head. "I don't even know what happened. I let my guard down for a second, then- bam." She shrugged her shoulders. "Sunset was knocked out, all the White Fang people were gone, and Blake had disappeared. I should have blasted that guy when I had the chance!"

"I'm telling you, it wasn't him! Penn wouldn't do something like this!" Sunset looked down. "If the White Fang took Blake, it wasn't on his orders. If anything, it's MY fault. I knew this was all going to happen, he even warned me! But I still messed it up."

"It looks as though, while the rest of us were pursuing the airships, they made their getaway on a small freighter with as much dust as they could carry. I am sorry, I fell for the distraction just as hard as anyone else." Even Penny's perpetual perkiness was washed away.

"My apologies. I can assure you Penn's plan was devised under the pretense that Blake Belladonna would NOT be present."

"And what WAS his plan, exactly?" Yang snapped.

"Aid the White Fang with their robberies in order to gain access to their greater operations at Mountain Glenn, where he could sabotage their preparations there. The plan was and remains industrial-level sabotage. Penn is collaborating with Blake right now in secret to formulate a plan of escape-"

"Wait, Mountain Glenn... I remember reading about that place!" Ruby gasped. "That was where Vale tried to settle further out from the main city and failed, right?"

"Affirmative."

Yang seized Sunset's phone. "Is that where they're taking Blake?"

"Affirmative."

"Why didn't you say so sooner? What are we waiting for, let's go!" Weiss jumped to her feet. "We can take one of the airships at the school!"

"That is highly inadvis-"

"ALRIGHT! Operation: Black Cat Rescue is a GO!" Ruby shouted, jumping to her feet and blasting off in the direction of the school in a flurry of rose petals.

Sunset looked down at her phone. "Isis... this is a bad idea, isn't it?"

"A plan is already being formulated for Blake's escape, it is unnecessary. However... It may be prudent to meet her at the point of escape to ensure she returns home safely."

"Think you can 'integrate' an airship for us?"

"Affirmative."

Author's Note

I decided to split this next chapter into two parts to make it easier on myself. Blake's thrilling escape/rescue next time!

Sorry if this chapter feels a little sloppy/scatterbrained, I'm going to be tying all these different plot threads together soon, I promise!

....To the Same Pitiful Fate.

It was a shorter flight than Blake expected to Mountain Glenn. She could guess it was about an hour before they finally flew through a wide hole in an empty street, depositing them in a massive underground cavern. Her "rescuer" had sat quietly across from her, constantly fiddling with a tablet and whispering to a small robot perched on his shoulder. When they landed, he had waved away the rest of the guards and grabbed her roughly by the handcuffs keeping her hands behind her back.

"I'll take care of the prisoner. You all focus on unloading this dust!" He pointed to the robotic dragon on his shoulder, which flew itself high into the air. "Isis is going to monitor the shipments, just to make sure everything goes right where it belongs. We don't need any thievery among thieves, now do we?"

The rest of the guards shot each other uncertain looks, but simply shrugged and seemed to enjoy having less work to do. As they walked away from the airship, Blake finally got a good look at the full breadth of their operation.

They were in some kind of underground settlement, filled with run-down looking buildings and a massive subway system. The stolen dust was being loaded onto the cars of a huge train, along with enough weapons to supply a small army.

"I don't get it... we're so far out of Vale, how is any of this going to do any good?" she whispered.

"Good? Nothing good about it..." he muttered in return. "But they're planning to use the train as a battering ram into Vale's underground. They've got men, weapons, and by the time they get there, those dust bombs will have attracted enough Grimm to overrun half the city."

Blake shook her head, hardly able to believe it. "Bringing in an army of Grimm? Working with humans? They've only gotten worse since I left..."

"It's not all their fault. They've got some pretty harsh masters cracking the whips over their heads. I think you might know one of them?"

Blake felt a shiver run down her spine. "Adam... I thought he'd never find me."

"He's early. He shouldn't have shown up until the end of the Vytal Festival- hold on." Penn shook his head as they rounded a corner and passed a group of masked workers. Blake felt an elbow press into her spine, forcing her to stumble forward. "Quit staring, kid! You're a prisoner, not a tourist!"

Blake turned back and gave him a glare, but his full-face mask didn't give any sign that he cared what she thought. Once the workers were gone, he leaned in to whisper into her ear. "Sorry, gotta keep up appearances. I finally earned my way here, can't screw it up now..."

"I understand, just watch the elbow, would you? And why would you want to be HERE?"

"Because they're months ahead of schedule! This wasn't supposed to be ready until almost the end of your second semester, but this last shipment of dust is everything they need!" he hissed. "If someone doesn't stop it soon, there might not be a chance to!"

"And WHO was responsible for helping them GET that dust?"

"Okay, look, part of being a double agent is actually WORKING for both sides!" he hissed. "And once you're out of here, I can get back to work negating the help I've given them!"

"Wait, what if you get caught? They'll-"

"Probably do unspeakable things to me, yes," he whispered. "Especially Adam. Still better than getting caught by the person who chased me here."

Blake looked around her again, now feeling the tension in the air of a coiled serpent ready to strike. "We have to stop them."

"Working on it..."

Blake stopped walking, straightening her posture. "No, we have to stop them NOW!"

"Don't you think your inability to listen to and trust your team has caused enough trouble for one night?"

THAT stung more than she expected.

"Do you know what was SUPPOSED to happen, Blake Belladonna? Because I can tell you, if you want..." his voice dropped low, deathly serious. "The first time Yang Xiao Long and Adam Taurus encountered one another, it was over in one strike. Yang lost an arm and was deeply traumatized. Do you know WHY that didn't happen tonight?" He paused there, but Blake couldn't think of a response. "Because Sunset Shimmer knew how to find you. Because I told her where to find you! She KNEW going to the docks was dangerous because I told her, and she brought the people who love and care for you along to protect you together. And you managed to even screw THAT up by still leaping into the fray without thinking! Sunset nearly DIED at Adam's hands, and I was too busy fighting YOU to protect her!"

Blake felt every word stack another ten pound weight on her head, crushing her spirit a little more.

"So forgive me if I don't trust your judgement over an entire month's worth of planning on my part."

They continued their walk across the compound in silence for a while after that. Finally, a question rose up in Blake's mind more urgent than her guilt.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Around the edges, where nobody can see us. Officially, I've never been here before. However... I stashed a vehicle in the tunnels these tracks go down about a week ago. Isis can drive it here to pick you up once we're far enough into the train tunnel to let you go without being seen." He sighed. "You're going to have to punch me or something, give me a real shiner of a black eye to convince them you overpowered me and escaped."

"That's it? I'm just going to run away again?"

"Yes." He made the statement with a sense of finality. "You were nearly responsible for Sunset's death. If you knew what I've done to keep her safe in the past..." he sighed, the heavy kind of sigh weighed down by regret. "...you'd be much more frightened than you are right now."

Blake paused to think on that. "She worries about YOU just as much, you know."

"Maybe. Doubt it." For someone who had been so talkative up until now, the response was surprisingly tight-lipped.

"Why would you doubt it? She asks Isis about you all the time, she's always telling us that she would trust you with her life!"

"Because I'm a top-tier worrier. If Sunset was as worried as I am, we'd collapse into a black hole of worry and never let the other one out of our sight again." He let a short pause fall before beginning to speak again.

At last, they reached a large tunnel in the wall, where the train tracks disappeared into darkness. Together, they walked into the dark, and Blake felt the cuffs holding her hands slip away. Now that she was free, she gave them a quick rub before turning around to face her captor. He had taken his mask off in the dark and was looking blindly ahead, but she could see him just fine.

"You know, I used to be terrified of the dark when I was a kid..." he chuckled to himself as the two of them continued through the dark, now walking side by side. "I was always worried that there was some thing out there, just waiting to sink its fangs into me the moment I stopped being able to see... Guess I had an overactive imagination."

"You don't seem too worried now."

He shook his head, smiling. "I shared a room with my brother. I'd ask him to tell me stories. I changed that overactive imagination from a threat into a tool. Eventually, I stopped being afraid of what was in the dark, it was just a screen where fantasies could play out. A warm blanket closing in around me. Even when he didn't tell me stories any more, I liked the dark because it wrapped me up in itself, like a hug. I turned the monster into my friend."

"That's... very creative."

He shrugged. "Everything's a matter of perspective, I guess. Things are as scary as you make them." He took a deep breath, made the motion of blindly checking his watch, and came to a stop. "This is where we part ways..." he muttered, reaching into his jacket. A moment later, Gambol Shroud was back in Blake's hands. It was such a comfort, feeling her weapon back in her hands. He squinted slightly, peering past her and down the tunnel. "I think I can see the headlights coming. You ready to give me your 'goodbye present?'"

Blake had to admit, as much as she had been willing and eager to fight him back at the docks, knowing the truth made it a lot harder for her to hit the guy. "What'll happen to you? Think they'll buy it?"

"Long as you make it believable enough, sure." He shrugged, still staring blankly ahead. "You think I should put the mask back on so you can break it? That would look pretty cool." Blake turned and glanced over her shoulder, beginning to see the first hints of the headlights he had mentioned. When she turned back, however, she nearly screamed.

Penn was still staring ahead as if nothing was wrong... and Adam was standing just behind him, the blade of his sword hovering just above his throat. He raised a single finger to his lips, ordering her to stay silent.

"Blake? I can't really see, but you gasped. Is breaking a mask some kind of social faux pas? Did I say something insulting?"

Blake swallowed her fear, staring straight into Adam's visor, watching for any signs of his next move. "N-No, I just- I just remembered what you said about not having your aura unlocked. I can't hit you too hard, or you'll get really hurt. Doesn't that mean you could have died back at the docks?"

He shrugged, blissfully unaware. "I've gotten pretty good with my shields, Isis has been drilling me with them for weeks! I was pretty confident I could stop anything lethal."

Blake saw Adam raise an eyebrow, bringing the blade closer to his skin, and Blake shook her head, silently pleading for his life. She tightened her grip on Gambol Shroud, readying herself for a fight. Adam responded with a smile. They both knew HE was in control of the situation, and he was relishing in it. Even in this small moment, he was squeezing every ounce of pleasure he could from watching her squirm. The car was coming quickly, and it wouldn't be long before even a human's limited vision would be plenty to see the sword just beneath his chin. Their time was limited, which meant someone would have to act soon.

Her escape was over before it had begun, but there was still good that could come out of this. Blake was going to have one chance to save his life.

Blake didn't like her semblance, what it represented. It was just an extension of how she had faced her problems for a long time: running away. She could create a double of herself that would last for an instant, while her true self escaped with a burst of speed. But it wasn't JUST for escaping... not any more.

Blake activated her semblance, using the boost to slip inside Adam's defenses and bat away his sword with her own. Her body collided with Penn's, knocking roughly to the side. There was a flash of light and sparks as the two blades ground against one another.

"Hey! I wasn't rea-"

"RUN!" Blake shouted as the sparks from Adam's sword illuminated his scowling face. He leaned forward, staring into her even through the mask and striking fear into her soul.

"Traitors protecting traitors..."

"HOLY SH-"

"GET OUT OF HERE! I'll hold him- GAH!" Blake grunted as Adam used his other hand to grab his sheathe and bash her across the face, knocking her to the ground.

Adam advanced on her slowly, ignoring as Penn blindly deployed both of his shields and began to swing at the darkness. "All this time, and THIS is the cause you found to fight for? What happened to US, Blake? What happened to OUR cause?" He brought his sword down on top of her, forcing her to counter him from the ground as they once again locked blades. "We were going to light the fires of revolution together!"

"I wanted equality! You want humanity ground under your heel! It was never OUR cause, it was only YOURS!"

Adam broke the contact this time, stepping back to casually dodge a blind attack from Penn, who clumsily stumbled past. He had been good with his shields when he could see, but without being able to connect with his target he was simply flinging around heavy hunks of metal on his arms. When he spun around and fired his guns, Adam blocked it with the blade of his sword, which glowed along with his hair as his semblance absorbed the energy of the blows.

"Wanted? Past tense? And what is it you want now, Blake? To run away again?"

Another three shots came from Penn, each one blocked and absorbed again.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, you r-slash-niceguys creepazoid!"

She did. She did want to turn and run. To just disappear into the dark and get as far from him as she could. She could feel her knees shaking, her hands sweating. She was terrified. But there was more on the line. Penn was out here risking his life and everything he had been working for to save her. Even just a short glance showed that he was afraid. His head was snapping rapidly back and forth at even the slightest sound, both of his shields were pulled in tight to protect him, limiting his movement overall. She couldn't just leave him to die. Not like this.

Things are as scary as you make them...

Blake took a deep breath, steadied her hand, and widened her stance.

"All I want, Adam... Is for you to leave me alone."

Somehow, that actually managed to get a chuckle out of Penn, who shook his head with a smile. "Five seasons early..." he muttered.

Adam, meanwhile, slid his sword back into its sheath and became very still. Blake's heart skipped a beat as energy began to crackle around him and the glow of his hair grew bright. He was getting ready to release the energy he'd been building up.

"You've been living with humans so long, it's like you've forgotten who you even are. You're NOT one of them! And if I have to remind you of that fact, then I WILL!"

"NO!"

He drew his sword and slashed it towards Penn, sending out an arc of energy that ripped through the air, tearing apart anything in its path. It crashed straight into him in an explosive blast, kicking up a cloud of smoke in the tunnel that left all of them equally blinded.

The car was getting close, now illuminating the smoke from behind, and Blake was filled with dread as she couldn't make him out in the smoke... until a new shadow was cast.

It was a huge rectangle, as big as an entire person. As the smoke cleared, she realized it was a tower shield, taller than she was and wide enough to easily hide an entire person, dark blue with a pair of yellow lines down the center that made it look like an open road. The paint was marred by a deep gash into the metal where Adam's blow had struck, but the shiled had held fast. Two pairs of gun barrels poked out from either side, swiveling wildly for a moment before all turning to face backwards. There was the nearly-deafening sound of four guns firing at once, and the shield rocketed forward, slamming into Adam and sending him flying back out of the tunnel. From this side, Blake could see Penn, unharmed with both arms holding up his two-part shield.

"Y-you're okay!"

"Of course I'm okay, thanks to you getting him riled up enough to make a mistake!" He turned and gave her a sly wink. "He really counts too much on that one attack, doesn't he?" He gave a yank on his shield-bound gauntlets, only to be met with the sound of grinding gears and several pops of breaking motors. He paused, then groaned and pulled his hands out of the gauntlets, leaving the shield standing on its own. "Then again, I'm one to talk, aren't I? Looks like combining the shields was my last trick..."

"Hmmm... I suppose it WAS, wasn't it?" a sinister voice hummed from behind the car. Blake didn't recognize it, but if the sudden pallor on his face was anything to go by, it wasn't good. A slender figure stepped up into the light, standing on the car's roof. She gestured with one of her hands, summoning a jet of flame above her palm. He stepped back, hands trembling as he blindly reached for his shield without turning around. Once he had it in his hands, he spun it around in front of them both, blocking them off from view. The woman didn't even press an attack, leaving them alone as they prepared for the battle. He pressed a small rectangular object into her hands. He took a deep, shuddering breath, tears in his eyes.

"Who is-"

"It doesn't matter." He shook his head and reached up to cover her mouth. "My fight, not yours. Blake, Isis will take you home... NOW!"

There was a screech of tires as the car surged forward. In the same instant, the guns on Penn's shield fired, rocketing it forward and up towards the woman. Even in the midst of a backflip off of the top of the car, she easily batted aside the massive shield, landing on her feet with a smirk.

Blake had many questions, but all of them had to wait until she had avoided being run over by the car currently barreling towards her. She barely managed to jump up into the air, landing on the windshield with a crunch of broken glass. She was out of energy, and her aura did little to stop the sheer force that shook her down to her bones as the car forcefully brought her up to the same speed. She was still trying to get the breath back in her lungs as the entire world swiveled around her, then pressed her deeper into the sagging windshield as the car pushed itself to full acceleration. By the time she had managed to sit up enough to see around her again, the battlefield was already fading into a distant cacophony of gunshots and explosions. Turning her head, she realized that the car was completely empty inside, with no driver.

"Blake Belladonna, please face the device forward. My mapping of the underground passages only goes so far, I will need to be able to see twists or or obstacles. This vehicle has no external cameras or other such sensors."

"ISIS?" Blake stared at the source of the voice: Penn's gift. It was just like Sunset's weird scroll: opaque and solid, but capable of the same tasks. "YOU'RE DRIVING?"

"Affirmative."

"TURN AROUND! Penn's still back there!"

"You are not in fighting condition. Tonight's events have taken a heavy toll on you physically. I predict a three percent chance of survival if you were to return to the battle."

"What about PENN?" Blake's question was met with an uncharacteristic pause of thought from the AI that lasted several seconds.

"...I am certain that he has some form of plan."

"That's IT?" Blake could scarcely believe her ears. "He's going to die! Turn around right now!" She slammed her fist on the hood to drive the point home.

"He instructed me to return you safely home. I will do so."

"UGH, forget it, I'll do it myself!" Blake kicked at the windshield, driving one of the corners inside and peeling it away from where it was mounted. A few more kicks and there was an opening wide enough for her to climb inside and seat herself behind the steering wheel. She grabbed hold and pulled it, only to find it pulling against her, refusing to budge so much as an inch. She took hold with both hands, groaning with effort as she tried again, but it remained locked in place.

"Based on data from your training sessions, I project that you will not be able to overcome the lock on the steering column."

"Why won't you turn back? I thought you were supposed to protect people!"

"Affirmative. However, I was forced to choose between your safety and Penn's. He made the choice for me, which is an exercise of his free will. I can only have faith that there was a reason for doing so."

"But... why would he do that?"

There was another long pause as Isis seemed to take extra time calculating her response.

"Perhaps it is because he believes Team RWBYS is fated to save this world. Now please, face the camera forward before we crash, we are passing the boundaries of my map."

Save... the world?

The car! The gorram car! Penn cursed himself as he stared at Cinder. She found the car and it led her right to me!

"Now then... nothing to run away in this time..." she hummed with a smile as she walked forward.

She shrugged off Immovable and Implacable like they were made of styrofoam! He instinctively raised his hands up in front of him, slipping into his best approximation of a boxing stance. He'd never taken a boxing lesson in his life. Still, watching ROCKY a dozen times has to count for something, right?

"Nowhere to hide, either." She chuckled her herself. "Right now, with Roman's help, Mercury and Emerald are going through your rooms both here and in Vale, turning over every little thing you've hidden in them. They'll find your little toy. Meanwhile, I have you all to myself."

Okay that's hot- NO! NOT THE TIME! This is SO NOT the time! I need information, I need to get her talking about something USEFUL!

"H-how did you find me?" he could barely force the words out of his mouth. He continued stepping back to match her walking forward, keeping the distance between them as constant as he could.

"Oh, we didn't have to! You outed yourself so eagerly..." she chuckled and gestured around them. "Mountain Glenn. I TOLD Torchwick our enemies would flock here, hoping to stop us before we could begin. When you asked to come here, it was all the confirmation he needed to call me and tell me he'd found you!"

"Mountain Glenn... was a trap?" Penn's entire thought process ground to a halt, even shocking him into stopping his retreat for a moment. "But- the train! The plan! The bombs! Even the White Fang! They were all-"

"Just the way they were supposed to be? All according to the plan?" Cinder smiled wider, a sight that was only made more disturbing by the fact that their only light source was the flame in her hand. "Just a little early, just enough to fill you with fear and urgency, make you sloppy?"

Even with the sweltering heat beginning to fill the tunnel, Penn felt his blood run cold.

It was a trap for me.

"Mountain Glenn was a honey pot, a fly trap to draw in anyone who somehow already knew our plans. Even with only the bare minimum needed to keep up appearances, I thought it was absurd to dedicate so many resources to a trap for what seemed impossible, but..." she waved her hands to the sides. "Clearly it paid off. Even now, every scrap of dust and weaponry is being evacuated with our troops before the police can make it here. By the time they arrive, it will all be gone, with hardly a trace we were ever here."

The police. Penn's fallback plan. He had been dropping "anonymous tips" for nearly a week, always just enough for Roman to barely stay a single step ahead of them. Last night, it had culminated in a detailed description of the Mountain Glenn operation, and he had instructed Isis to send the coordinates as soon as they had landed.

"H-How..." was the only word to breathlessly escape his lips. "You KNEW I knew! That's... impossible..."

"You poor boy... You have NO IDEA what's possible." Cinder's flame snuffed out, plunging them both into darkness. This time, Penn knew there WAS something waiting to snatch him in the dark. The inky blackness wrapped itself around him as it always had, but it was no protection from what was hiding inside.

And it terrified him.

"You can't stop destiny."

"Why did you have to park so FAR?"

"This was the closest entrance to the underground tunnels where the airship could be landed without causing a commotion or attracting Grimm."

Sunset and Yang both rolled their eyes as Weiss asked her question for the third time.

"Did you ever think about not running in heels all the time, princess?" Yang asked.

"What, you think I own a pair of tennis shoes?" Weiss sounded offended at the mere implication.

Ruby had run ahead, wasting no time in trying to scout out any signs of Blake or the place she had been taken.

She's got to be okay, right? Isis said Penn was going to get her out of there!

"AND HOOOPE SHIIIINES ETERNAAAAL!"

Sunset nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone began to ring, and she was already pressing it to her ear before the second line of the chorus could start. "Hello? Penn?"

"Negative. A situation has arisen, Sunset Shimmer."

"Is it him?" Yang leaned in, eyes wide. "Is Blake okay?"

"Ask him to put her on, I want to talk to her!" Weiss added, pressing even further on Sunset's personal space. She shook her head, switching the phone to speaker.

"It's Isis. What kind of 'situation,' Isis?"

"It would appear that, in recalling the Oldsmobile to deliver Blake to safety, we- I led Cinder Fall directly to Penn. He is currently fighting for his life against her, I strongly implore you all make haste."

"WHAT? He got caught?" Sunset gasped and shoved her phone back into her pocket before redoubling her pace. Yang and Weiss soon caught up to her, all three breaking into a sprint down the tunnel.

"What about Blake?" Weiss asked.

Isis said something, but her voice was muffled by Sunset's pocket. Thankfully, their answer came moments later in the form of Sylvia appearing in the distance. In just a few seconds, they had closed the distance to one another, revealing Blake sitting in the driver's seat and Ruby perched on the roof with her scythe pointed backwards to cover their escape. The car skidded to a stop just in time to avoid hitting them, and everyone rushed forward to check on their lost teammate. Ruby, of course, was the first to rush in for a relieved hug, but Blake quickly peeled her team leader off of her.

"Guys, we have to go back! Sunset's friend, he got caught by the White Fang, they know he's a traitor!" she cried breathlessly, already tugging on the steering wheel to turn the car back around. She had a large bruise forming on one side of her face and was covered in cuts (presumably from the glass) and bruises. Her clothes were dirty and torn in places, and she seemed completely out of breath. "They're gonna kill him, I know it! We have to save him!"

The car itself looked to be in sorry shape. The inside was filled with pieces of glass and the windshield had been caved in by a suspiciously person-sized crater. There were scratches and burn marks all along the sides, as if someone had gotten bored with a blowtorch and a set of knives and decided to use it as a sketchbook. Sylvia's been through Tartarus and back...

"Blake, are YOU okay?" Weiss asked, her voice filled with a disconcerting amount of concern.

"It doesn't matter! I'll be fine once Isis turns this jalopy around!" She gave a vain tug on the steering wheel.

"The repair drone has joined the battle. I can display a live feed while you all enter the vehicle."

"Okay, let's go!" Sunset sprinted around to the passenger-side door and jumped inside at her normal place. After a few seconds of staring at her teammates, she gestured to the back seats. "COME ON!"

"Sunset... we can't take on the White Fang by ourselves..." Weiss whispered.

"WHAT?" Sunset and Blake shouted in unison.

"Look, I don't want to say it, but... we kinda got our butts handed to us once tonight..." Yang rubbed at the back of her head.

"We HAVE to!"

Silence fell as the two opposing sides stared at one another. Blake looked up at the roof, her cat ears pressed back against her head. "Ruby? Please..."

There was a beat, then the sound of her scythe folding back down as she hopped off the roof. Her silver eyes were locked into a gaze of steely determination. "Blake's right. He's risking his life to save our teammate. We need to go, but we need a plan. Isis? You said you had a live feed?"

"Affirmative."

For the first time, Sunset noticed that Blake was gripping Penn's phone in one hand. She held it up for everyone to see the image displayed on the small screen.

It was Penn, in a tunnel identical to the one they were currently in. There were small spots of fire burning all over the ground, and a woman in a red dress advancing on him as he tried to hide behind a half-melted shield. She was moving leisurely, taking her time and seeming to hardly exert herself with the effort. The last remaining gun barrel on his shield vainly fired at her, the bullets being deflected with her bare hand. He turned to run, only for a wall of flames to spring up behind him, cutting off his chances of escape.

It was at this point that the camera swooped in on the woman, and just as it was about to reach her Sunset could hear the crackling of a taser being charged. She reached out with one hand, not even needing to look to snatch up Isis's drone. There was a whine, the crackling of flames, and the feed was reduced to static.

"Signal lost..."

"PENN!"

Ruby, Yang, and Weiss all glanced at one another. Blake looked shattered, her eyes wide and tear-filled.

"It would appear that this was a trap formulated specifically with his forewarning ability in mind. His opponents knew that he knew their plans, and adjusted accordingly to facilitate his capture."

Sunset couldn't believe it. She couldn't.

Penn was too smart to get trapped. He was the guy who knew. He had trap cards, backup plans, he knew what was going to happen before it happened! There was no way he'd been outmaneuvered... right?

"This is my fault..." Blake whispered.

Sunset shook her head. "He didn't even want to stop here, so I enrolled at Beacon so we'd stay. It's not your fault... it's mine."

It hit Missy like a punch to the gut: despair. Her entire world spun for a second, disrupting her balance and sending her plummeting from her spot in the hallway rafters. Just as she was about to collide face-first with the ground, a pair of familiar arms wrapped around her, stopping her fall short. A wave of nausea came next, and she only barely managed to direct the spray away from her ghostly savior as her body shuddered and shook. Finally, she felt a series of cold shivers began to rack her body.

"T-thanks, Alucard..." she muttered.

Something had happened. Something soul-crushing. Missy wasn't sure what, but something had shaken Sunset's soul to her core. She knew from prior experiences that the feeling would pass as she acclimated, but the raw emotion had come so suddenly, it had been massive a shock to her system.

"Something... something's wrong... REALLY wrong..."

Author's Note

I just realized this chapter is being published in the Ides of March....

Huh.

Funny how things work out.

Divide

"Show me."

"Negative."

"Override it, or something! Show me, Isis!"

"Insufficient user authority to override. Negative."

"LET ME WATCH THE SHOW!" Sunset slammed her fist on the table as her rage boiled over.

"You are emotionally compromised, Sunset Shimmer. You are not thinking clearly."

Isis's collected demeanor felt condescending in the face of her overflowing emotions. "I need to know everything Penn did, HOW is that not thinking clearly?"

"Allowing that data to influence his decisions was what rendered Penn's actions predictable to our enemies. It is not an advantage, it is a liability. Watching the online show you are currently living inside of would be less effective than taking threats as they come and responding to them in real time. I will not allow you to purposefully impair yourself."

"But-"

"I will suffer no more arguments. The matter is settled."

"GAH!"

"That's... really awful." Jaune whispered. "Is he... dead?"

"We don't know." Ruby shook her head. "Sunset refuses to think so, and she'll fight anyone who even suggests it! And Blake... well, she won't let anyone say it, but she keeps getting this really hurt look in her eyes whenever someone brings him up. I think she might think he is. Whether he's alive or not, both of them are blaming themselves for what happened..."

The rest of the members of Team JNPR were taking their time processing the story. Nora was the first one up on her feet, her hammer already in her hands. "And you've come to recruit us on a daring, life-saving rescue mission deep in enemy territory!" She pointed an accusatory finger at Ruby. "You absolute madwoman! I'M IN!"

"Nora... I don't think that's why she's here." Pyrrha reached up and slowly pushed her back down into a sitting position.

Ruby nodded. "I'm worried about Sunset and Blake. "

"Quite frankly, we ALL are!" Weiss added. "I WOULD say Blake's been working 'tirelessly' to find leads on the White Fang ever since, but she IS getting tired, and she's ignoring it to the detriment of her health!"

"And Sunset's been training day in and day out! Her grades are slipping and-" Yang started, only to be cut off as a rectangular object came flying across the room and out the nearby window. "Well, if you think I have a temper..."

Weiss sighed. "We can deal with one unruly teammate, but every time we try to address the issue, they close ranks together and double down!"

"I think I see what you're getting at... but what do you need US to do?" Jaune asked.

"Well, I think Weiss and I could handle Blake together, but Sunset..." Yang waggled her hand.

"So... you want us to handle the possibly-grieving-possibly-in-denial girl with anger issues and a laser sword?" Ren raised an eyebrow as Ruby shrunk back and cringed slightly.

"Okay when you put it that way it sounds like we're asking you to do the hard one, but have you ever tried to keep a ninja cat in one place when she doesn't want to be there?" she whispered.

Like a guardian angel, Pyrrha rose to her feet and smiled before patting on her shoulder. "I might have an idea..."

Ruby jumped up and instantly hugged Pyrrha as tight as she could. "Thank you! I KNEW I could count on you guys!"

Sunset tapped her foot impatiently as she waited in the training room. A quick glance at the classroom clock told her that it was 8:05. Weiss was NEVER late to their training sessions. She reflexively reached for her phone to call her teammate, only to find her pocket as empty as it had been all day.

I'm starting to REALLY regret throwing Isis out the window...

"CLICK!"

All of the lights in the room switched off at once, plunging Sunset into total darkness. She was instantly on high alert, flicking on her lightsaber and falling into a ready stance. The light of her blade wasn't enough to light up much more than a small area around her, so she closed her eyes, training her other senses for any sign of what was happening. It was impossible for her to miss the sound of footsteps on the far side of the arena, and she immediately turned to face the threat.

"I'm sorry, I hope I didn't scare you!" Pyrrha's voice called. "I'm afraid Weiss is busy today, she asked me to fill in! Will that be alright?"

Sunset nodded. "To be honest, I was thinking about asking you if you could train me to fight like you do. Everybody says you're unbeatable."

"Well, I wouldn't say 'unbeatable,' but I've worked very hard to develop my skills. It would be my pleasure."

"So... why are the lights off?"

Sunset's answer came in the form of a flash of bronze and stinging pain across her cheek.

"Because you won't be fighting holograms today, Sunset!" Pyrrha's voice echoed through the room as she raised her voice to a shout, making it exponentially harder to pinpoint her location. "I'll be your opponent!"

"WHAT? Pyrrha, what about my saber? You could get hurt!"

Sunset's worry was met with the sound of a gunshot and a heavy impact in the center of her chest, knocking the wind out of her lungs and making her stumble back as her aura distributed the impact.

"That would imply you'll be able to strike me, Sunset..."

Sunset her frustration beginning to boil over. "I'm not going to just sit here and let you jerk me around in the dark, Pyrrha! I've got more important things to do!" She began to walk in the direction of the exit.

And there was Pyrrha, crouched and ready to strike in the red light of Sunset's saber. Her blade was fast, too fast for Sunset to parry as it slashed diagonally down across her chest, then swept her feet out from under her, sending her to the ground. Pyrrha seemed to add insult to injury, placing her boot on Sunset's abdomen and pressing down even harder as she leaped away into the cover of darkness again.

"I'm afraid I can't let you leave until you've learned today's lesson, Sunset! I'm sorry!"

She's covering the exit, she's a better fighter than me, and I can't see her in the dark! How am I supposed to beat her?

"I'll be coming at you from your left, this time!"

Sunset started to turn to her left, but she could hear the sound of metal scraping the ground to her right. She smirked and swung her saber in the direction of the noise. "Nice TRY, Py-" Her saber struck only empty air, the light revealing Pyrrha's shield rolling on the floor by itself. Before she could realize she'd been tricked, she felt the butt of Pyrrha's sword strike at her spine, sending her falling forward. The shield jumped up to meet her, bashing against her face as it passed and returned to its owner. Sunset scrambled to her feet, ignoring the metallic taste coming from her lip.

"On your right!"

Sunset turned to her right , holding up her blade in a guarding position. A firm palm struck at the back of her head as Pyrrha came at her from behind once again. SHE LIED? was the only thought to cross through Sunset's mind as the impact sent her tumbling through the air, until she was struck by the unpleasant feeling of colliding with the colosseum wall.

"What am I supposed to learn from you beating me up in the dark?" she growled as she staggered back to her feet. "What kind of lesson can come out of this? I can't even SEE you, my ears clearly led me wrong, how am I supposed to guard against your attacks? I can't even trust what YOU'RE telling me!"

"Can you win?" Pyrrha's voice whispered into her ear. Sunset jumped in place and slashed, but once again Pyrrha was gone before she could land a blow.

Sunset kept her back to the wall, her head swiveling from side to side for any sign of her opponent. "I could keep swinging... get lucky..."

Her suggestion was met by the sound of a gunshot, and a second later, Pyrrha's sword, now extended into it's spear-like configuration, buried itself in the wall beside her head. Sunset was trembling as she turned to stare at the deadly weapon that had almost taken her head off.

"Sunset... Can. You. Win?" Pyrrha's voice was still gentle, but firm.

Sunset fell to her knees, staring into the light of her saber, eyes full of tears. I can't see her, I can't see anything! The only thing I can see is what's around my... saber. THE SABER!

Sunset took a deep breath, and switched off the blade of light, plunging herself into total darkness.

"No... When you can see me and I can't see you, I can't win. But if neither of us can see each other... I might stand a chance!"

There was a long pause, then the sound of two claps. On her signal, the lights in the room finally turned back on, illuminating the entire arena. Pyrrha was standing just in front of her, offering her a hand up. Sunset eyed the hand suspiciously before choosing to stand up on her own.

"Sunset, your teammates have been worried about you, and from what they tell me, so am I."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "So you decided to beat me up?"

"I wanted to show you that in trying to make certain you were as prepared as possible, you were actually making yourself vulnerable..." Pyrrha pointed to the empty handle in her hand. "Your form was flawless, your reflexes as fast as they could be when you were so thoroughly overthinking the situation... Sometimes, there are things you simply cannot guard against. Especially when your opponents have more information than you do."

"Or, in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, 'It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is LIFE.'"

Sunset jumped slightly as Isis's voice came over the speakers, but the surprise was quickly drowned out as the meaning behind the words sunk in. "This... is about Penn, isn't it?"

Pyrrha stepped forward, placing her hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Sunset, Ruby told me that you've been blaming yourself for what happened. That is not the case. It's as much your fault as that split lip is." She pointed to the place Sunset was bleeding from. "You said your friend could see what was going to happen. Isis said your enemies used that against him, just like I used the light from your saber against YOU."

"But I said we needed to stay! I insisted on trying to help people here when it wasn't any of our business, and he's paying for it!"

"Couldn't he have just left? Driven away back wherever the two of you came from? Did you TELL him he had to infiltrate the criminal underworld?" Pyrrha sighed. "Sunset, if you keep blaming yourself, nothing will get done here. If you truly want to help your friend, or, should the worst come to pass, honor his memory-"

"HE'S NOT-" she was cut off by Pyrrha, who held a finger to her lips just to the side of her injury.

"-then you need to move forward. A single woman's rage-fueled obsession won't stop these villains. Evil triumphs when good is divided." She gave Sunset a warm smile, which seemed to disperse her rage. "We'll only win if we work together. Are you ready to work as a team again?"

Sunset's heart couldn't take it. Staring into Pyrrha's eyes, she finally felt the secret she'd been keeping ripping her apart from the inside. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Pyrrha in the tightest hug she could muster.

"He... he said you were going to die..." she whispered. "He knew everything about what's going to happen, and he couldn't save himself... and even with his help, I couldn't save him, either. How am I going to save YOU when I don't know ANYTHING about the future and he's gone?"

Sunset couldn't see the expression on Pyrrha's face, but several seconds of silence passed between them before she felt her friend's arms wrap around her in return, drawing her in tight. It was a poor substitute for Penn's bear hugs, but it was still enough comfort for her to finally let the tears begin to flow.

"The same way we'll fight everything... with our friends."

Salem was patient. It was something that had served her well over the millennia. Still, it was uncharacteristic for Cinder to take so long with such a simple task. However, this was not an indicator of any incompetence on Cinder's part. It was a testament that she had been right to insist on bringing the stranger in. He had been wily, slipping through places where anyone else would have been found out in moments. He had two of mankind's greatest strengths at his disposal: resourcefulness and ingenuity. However, Salem had inevitably proven herself the better tactician of the two, and Cinder's determination had outfoxed him.

Now Salem sat at the end of the crystal table in Evernight Castle, elbows resting on its surface as her fingers intertwined. Cinder and her children had arrived at the castle, and would be entering the conference hall momentarily with their prisoner in tow. They said that the rumors of the White Fang claimed he was a technical genius. Others tended to say that he had some form of prescience, able to see the future before it happened. A ridiculous concept, but Salem had been introduced to several ridiculous concepts over the last months. Still, the fact that he had fallen into the trap at Mountain Glenn meant that he was not psychic... but he WAS in possession of information that could prove critical to her plans.

There was a knock at the doors to their hall, and she motioned with one finger. The doors swung open.

Cinder entered, head held high. Behind her, Mercury carried a strange-looking white device, and Emerald held the barrel of her gun to their prisoner's back.

He didn't look like much, wearing only a pair of dark cargo pants and a t-shirt covered in text across the front, but appearances could be deceiving. He was clearly terrified, eyes snapping constantly from one person in the room to the next, but Salem noticed that every few moments he would come back to her, as if checking for any slight change in her posture. He knew whom he ought to be the most afraid of, but that was no great feat in the present company. She turned her gaze to Emerald and lowered one finger. She followed the wordless instruction and lowered her weapon. With barely a thought, the doors to the room swung shut, locking their prisoner inside.

"So... we meet at last. I've waited quite some time for this moment, child." She leaned forward to peer more closely at him. "Tell me, what is your name?"

The boy made several attempts to speak, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly. His eyes then rolled back into his head as his body slumped forward, collapsing to the floor.

"Did... did he just faint?"

"It would appear so..." Cinder smirked. "While he put up quite the appearance with the White Fang and Torchwick, in reality he seems to be of a rather... frightful disposition." This roused a manic chuckle from Tyrian, but he held his tongue for the moment.

Salem raised an eyebrow at Cinder's amusement. "And it wouldn't have anything to do with your treatment of the prisoner I specifically asked to be taken 'alive and unharmed,' would it?"

"As much as we would have liked to at times, the boy hasn't even unlocked his aura. We couldn't have done much to him without breaking your commands... which we would never do."

Salem hummed to herself with amusement at that. Cinder was a loyal servant, but absolutely one prone to failings in the face of her own desires. "Very well. Take him to one of the cells until he awakens. When he does, I want to question him personally."

"A private audience with our queen! The boy does not know how fortunate he is!" Tyrian declared.

"I want to know the source of his knowledge, and how he knows this 'Sunset Shimmer' who has inserted herself into-"

Salem counted approximately a second and a half between her speaking the name and her catching the boy mid-attack. The telekinetic spell she was using was a simple one, but quite potent. She had caught him as he leaped at her, halfway through throwing a desperate haymaker punch. She waved away Tyrian and Hazel, who had both risen from their seats to stop the surprise attack. He swiftly became fearful again, eyes wide as he struggled fruitlessly against her magic, now just trying to get free, but Salem had caught something else before that, an emotion well familiar to her: wrath. Not just any wrath, however...

She leaned forward, staring straight into his eyes. "If you fear me so badly, you know that right now I could snap every bone in your body like a twig, correct?"

He seemed to make an attempt to nod, only to remember that he was locked in place before whispering his response. "Y-yes..."

"And yet, the moment I spoke the name 'Sunset Shimmer,' you forgot that fear entirely. You rose up against your betters and attempted to strike me."

"The GALL!" Tyrian cried, his scorpion's tail ready to strike. Salem raised her hand, motioning for him to stand down.

"I- I'm s-" he stuttered.

"No." Salem cut him off. "Do NOT apologize. I am not ungracious. I will be willing to... overlook this, if you answer me this question..." she leaned in until the only thing either of them could see were the other's eyes. An old expression declared that the eyes were the gateway to the soul, and she had always found it to hold more than a grain of truth. His eyes were wide, panicked, afraid, but... she could see something else. Thought, rushing a thousand miles per hour, behind the panic. His mind was racing, calculating, strategizing. That was good.

"If I were to order the death of Sunset Shimmer... would you attempt to stop me? No matter the cost? Would you burn this world down to its very foundations to protect her?"

That was when the thinking stopped. Or, rather, it focused. She saw many emotions cross his face in that transition. Wrath, worry, fear, resolve, and finally... shame. He looked away, breaking their eye contact. Salem smiled. Even without a word, his emotions had given away exactly the answer she had wanted.

"Interesting. And what could make her so special to you that you would become what you consider a monster just to keep her safe? Surely this goes beyond simple kinship. Are you lovers? Siblings? Do you owe her some great debt?" She slowly lowered him to the ground before releasing the spell holding him in place. As she expected, he made the prudent decision not to continue his attack. "Because for all your meekness now, boy, you are driven by something."

"I... I... owe her my life." he whispered.

No, this was different, deeper, and once again... familiar. He was wrong, or rather, omitting certain truths, but she had gleaned the full answer from his reaction.

Interesting...

"How... mundane. Allow me to move on to a more interesting topic..." she leaned forward. "How did you know our plans for Mountain Glenn? We were moving quickly, but carefully. There was no leak of information until after you joined the operations in Vale. They say you can see the future, but I doubt that. I think you know a future, but not necessarily the future that is occurring." She could tell from the growing fear on his face that she was correct. "So... from where did you learn it?"

The boy made an effort to look anywhere except at her, his eyes traveling to the ceiling, then to the others present in the room, and finally came to rest on the floor. His mouth clamped shut into a thin line, making it clear that he had no intention of answering.

"Boy, I asked you a question. I have been VERY accommodating to you until now, but my patience has limits."

"B-Bakersfield... Elijah Bakersfield." He was shaking, now, his entire body trembling with fear. "You- you asked me my name, right? That's it. But my friends just call me 'Penn' because I like to write. It's a pun." He shook his head violently from side to side. "I- I- I... can't tell you how I know what I know, it would be dangerous to even SAY it! I could cause a paradox! Collapse the fabric of space-time, irrevocably change the future for the worse! The multiverse is already broken enough, I'm not going to be responsible for making it even worse!"

Salem raised an eyebrow. "Multiverse?"

Instantly, both of his hands jumped up, clamping over his mouth in horror.

"Poppycock! Everyone knows that the existence of other universes is only theoretical!" Watts scoffed.

"And yet standing before us is a boy who knows about the future, along with many other things he shouldn't." Salem motioned to the child as she glanced at Arthur with a raised eyebrow. "And bearing technology completely alien to a self-proclaimed 'genius' who once sat among the minds at the cutting edge of development and discovery." She motioned to Mercury, who delivered the device to its intended recipient. "I got you your new toy, Arthur. Do NOT disappoint me with your results. You are dismissed."

"Thank you, my liege..." He gave a deep bow before swiftly departing from the room, already examining the device with carnivorous curiosity.

"As for you..." She turned back to their guest as she reached down to retrieve an item from her dress pocket. "I don't suppose this world-ending knowledge would have something to do with THIS, would it?" She placed it on the table. His eyes grew wide as dinner plates before they rolled up into his head again and he collapsed once more. Judging from the painful-sounding collision of his head with the crystal floor, she guessed that this time he wouldn't be waking up any time soon.

She looked down at the object that had spurred the second fainting spell. It was a plastic case, about the size of a book. Across the front were stylized depictions of the four girls whom she'd been spying on since she had happened upon it. It had manifested in her room, seated on her bed like some kind of gift from an unknown benefactor. Inside were multiple silvery discs, each containing information that had enlightened her to an entirely new aspect of her existence.

RWBY Collection:
3-Disc Set Includes Volumes 1-3

She reached out and took the item back, placing it back in its hidden place in her dress. If this boy had come from the same place as this gift, then he was possibly one of the most valuable assets in the world. She nodded to Hazel.

"Take the boy, place him in the dungeon. I do not want him harmed."

"It will be done..." Hazel growled. Hazel was an absolute mountain of a human, able to sling the boy over his shoulder with ease and carry him away.

As Hazel left the room, Salem could see a question about to burst from one of her subordinates. She motioned to Emerald. "Speak, child."

"Well, I was just wondering... why are you keeping him like this?" Emerald asked. "He's clearly a liability. We could at least do something to physically restrict him..."

Salem smiled at that. "Consider it... an experiment. He reminds me of someone. Long ago, there was a girl who cared more about someone than anyone else in the world. When he was taken from her, she was willing to do anything to get him back. She challenged gods and built a kingdom that nearly conquered the world. She and he are not so different. I see the potential in him to follow a similar path and become a valuable ally."

"But... What happened to the girl?"

Salem smiled at that. She spread her arms wide and sat straighter on her throne.

"She became the most powerful being on the planet." She turned to the remaining members of her inner circle. "Tyrian?"

"Yes, my Queen?"

"You will go and retrieve either the eyes of Ruby Rose or the entirety of Sunset Shimmer. The latter must be unharmed, the former... need not matter."

Tyrian gave a maniacal cackle as he gave a deep bow. "It would be my greatest pleasure, your worship!"

Salem turned to the trio at the far side of the room. "Cinder, you and Mercury will return to Vale and complete your mission there. As for Emerald..." she smiled slightly, choosing to ignore the fearful look on the girl's face at being singled out. "I will require your talents here, to aid me in both information extraction from our prisoner and my 'experiment.' Once it's finished, I'll send her back to rejoin you."

Cinder gave a bow and a smile. "With pleasure."

Author's Note

Wow. Okay. I did NOT expect to have this chapter done so soon. Guess self-imposed quarantine is good for something, huh? Don't expect this pace to continue, but I'll keep working as much as I can while I'm keeping safe and inside to avoid Covid-19. Remember: wash your hands regularly, avoid crowded areas as much as possible and public ones as well as you can, and keep in touch with people close to you so they know you're okay!

Stay safe out there, fellow adventurers!
-Pennington Inkwell

That Beautiful Sound

"What would Penn do... What would Penn do? I know what Penn would do!" Missy began to stomp her way towards the exit. "If it was Sunset, he would go after her and not let a living man, woman, or child stop him!" Her stomping petered out after a few seconds, however, as another thought occurred to her. "Until Big Sis reeled him back in and forced him to stand down and stick to the plan..." She trudged her way back to the back of the room, where Alucard was watching her with interest. "Then again... If it was ME, then they'd BOTH go on a roaring rampage of revenge!" She tapped her chin thoughtfully, only to stop as a giggle forced its way up. "I mean, can you imagine the sheer CHAOS if both of them lost it at the same time? PEW, PSSSH! FWOOM!" She mimed her imagined explosions, topping it off with miming the act of flinging fireballs at her opponents. Alucard simply responded with a raised eyebrow, keeping his thoughts to himself. "Hehe! Heh heh... heh..." The giddiness of pretending swiftly gave way to the hollowness of her words and actions. Her wings drooped and she felt the burning of tears running down her cheeks

"I guess... I'm just trying to distract myself, huh?" Her feet dragged as she floated her way over to the boxes they had been sitting on as they talked. "I have no idea where they would have taken him, and even if I did, I don't have the kind of overwhelming power we'd need to save him from Salem..." She glanced over, noticing Alucard's skeptical look. "Well I DON'T! Even if we all worked together as an archetype, we'd have our work cut out for us trying to storm Evernight Castle!" Her face involuntarily shifted to a pout. "We MIGHT be able to do something if I could use my Instant Win Condition, but we'd need the time to put together 10 Xyz materials then and there!"

She wiped the trails of her tears from her cheeks. "It's just a stupid gimmick... No wonder he thinks we're just a casual deck for beginners..."

Her focus was broken by a firm hand tapping the top of her head. Looking up, she saw Alucard scowling at her, snapping her out of her self-pity. "R-right! Right, there's no use getting down like this! Since we can't go rescue him, we're going to have to stick to the plan here! We'll make sure nobody rigs the festival!" She jumped up to her feet and planted her hands on her hips. "So, any news from-"

She was interrupted by a soft knocking on the door. She glanced at Alucard, who strolled to the door and flung it open, revealing the tiny form of Jiangshi standing in the doorway, arms held out straight and eyes wide.

"Well, speak of the ghoul, that's just the seeker I wanted to see!" Missy flew forward, beaming her brightest smile as she scooped him up beneath his arms and flew him in a circle before dropping back to the ground. "Any news from the lower levels?"

She leaned down, letting him whisper in her ear. Her eyes grew wide with surprise as he related what he'd seen to her. "No way..." she grabbed him by the shoulder and looked him straight in his eyes. "You're SURE?" After another nod of conversation, she grinned wider than ever, eyes glistening with anticipation that outshone her tears. She turned to Alucard, who was watching her with his head tilted curiously to the side as he waited for her signal.

"It's SHOWTIME!"

"Hey, boss! Where do you want all this ice dust?"

"Where do you THINK, Jerry? Downstairs with all the rest!"

Jerry was glad that his mask hid his eyes, because he needed to roll them at least ten times an hour working with Torchwick. The fact that the White Fang was being forced to work with him seemed to make no one involved happy. But what the higher-ups say, goes... he thought as he hefted the case of dust crystals up off the ground. Keep them happy and nobody gets hurt, or worse, fired...

"Hey, I'll take care of that!" a voice piped up.

He turned around, seeing no one at first until he looked down. The girl barely came up to his hip in height, with a pair of black-and-white wings and a very... "fancy" take on the standard White Fang uniform.

"Aren't you a little young to be in the White Fang, kid?"

She fluttered her wings, floating up to eye level with him and putting her hands on her hips. "Humans don't care how old I am when they tell me 'We don't serve faunus here!' Can you BE too young to fight for your rights?"

Jerry rolled his eyes again. "Okay, okay! Geez, kid, it was an honest question. Anyway, I think this thing is a little too heavy for you."

"Oh yeah? Watch THIS!" She reached out and seized the handles of the case, snatching it out of his hands and desperately flapping her wings in an attempt to stay airborne. In a few seconds, her face had turned bright red and her arms were trembling. "HhnnnnrrrRRRRG!" she groaned with exertion as she began to turn in the direction he had been headed.

"Okay, kid, you proved you can carry it, put it down before you bust a blood vessel!"

"I- RRRGH!- got it!" She began to sag slightly in the air as her wings began to falter and her breath came in ragged gasps. "I'm sick of- UGH!- grown-ups thinking I can't do things! Just because I'm-"

RIIIIP!

The case clattered to the ground... with the girl's arms still attached.

She turned around, eyes wide in shock as she took a second to stare independently at each of her empty shoulder sockets.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

"YOUR ARMS!" Jerry pointed to her to illustrate.

"MY ARMS!" she echoed, staring down at the separated limbs in horror.

Jerry shook his head, his mind entering emergency mode. "I- I'll go get help! I'll-"

"Forget help, catch them!" She vainly gestured downwards with her head.

"Catch... them?" Jerry's eyes widened as he looked down to the ground, only to see that the arms had vanished. When he looked up again, the girl had disappeared, as well. "WHAT THE-" When he stepped back, he felt something grabbing at the back of his leg. He frantically kicked his legs out of reflex, but the sensation traveled up his back, culminating in the feeling of a pair of tiny hands grasping at his throat. He frantically seized both arms with his hands, flinging them down the hallway with panicked straight and sprinting in the opposite direction.

"HEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLP!"

The two arms floated up to the rafters, where Missy snickered as they fixed themselves back into place. She turned and offered a hand to Alucard, who gave her a satisfied fist bump.

"I don't get it... why would he say something like that?"

"Because he's a whack job, Barb!" Lydia replied, finishing up the last of her makeup in the mirror. "Either he's nuts, or he made it up to get out of work!"

"Well, from what I heard, he's in the hospital for extreme shock!"

"And I heard birds are secretly just drones Atlas sends to spy on all of us!" Lydia placed a hand on her hip. "Don't believe everything you hear! Seriously, just worry about us, we're supposed to pick up the slack now that he's gone!"

"Then why do you still bother putting makeup on under your mask? Can we really afford to waste time like that?"

"Barbara, I understand that for someone as... homely as you..." Lydia placed a finger under her chin, "makeup is more of an afterthought, but some of us need to be able to look fabulous at the drop of a hat!" She reached over to the counter, picking up her visor. "Or, in this case, the drop of a mask!"

The lights in the women's bathroom flickered out, plunging them both into darkness.

"EEP!"

"YIPE!"

There was a brief moment where the two of them refused to acknowledge the other's outburst before Barbara calmed down enough to sigh. "Wow, Lyds, that pun was so bad, even the LIGHTS refused to stick around!"

"Oh, shut up and help me find the light switch!"

"Don't you mean 'put a lyd on it?'"

"BARB! Come on!"

"Okay, okay! Lighten up a little, would you?"

Before Lydia could respond, the darkness was punctured by a pair of half-melted candles that appeared at the corners of the oversized mirror, just barely providing enough light for them to make out each other and their reflections. The two of them looked at the candles, which were both sitting in substantial puddles of wax, then at each other.

"Were those there before?"

"Not that I remember... spooky."

"Maybe we should just get out of here," Barbara muttered, walking towards the door. She gripped the handle and tugged, only to find it stuck firmly in place. She tugged again, but it refused to budge. "H-HEY! We're locked in!"

"WHAT?" Lydia ran up, shoving her aside as she pulled at the door with all of her strength. After a few seconds of fruitless pulling, she gave up. "Figures! Some screw-up disabling the security must have put the arena on lockdown, or something!" She folded her arms over her chest and pouted. "Of course something like this would happen after they got rid of the tech guy!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Barbara noticed a faint bit of motion. Her attention snapped back to the mirror, which instantly entranced her. "Hey, Lyds? What's... that?"

An oily, iridescent substance was slowly creeping in from the mirror's edges. In a matter of seconds, the entire surface had been completely covered, turning cloudy and shimmering like oil on water. Behind her, Lydia let out a sigh of relief, patting her on the shoulder.

"I get it. The candles? The lights going out? Now THIS? We're being punked!" She reached out and knocked on the mirror. "VERY funny, guys, but we've all got work to do! Enough's enough, let us-"

The surface of the mirror bulged outwards, the outlines of grasping hands and a face pressing into it as if trying to escape. It grasped desperately at Lydia, who only barely managed to avoid being wrapped up in it by leaping back until she slammed back-first into the stall doors.

"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" the two girls screamed as they grabbed one another tight. The sound of their screams seemed to act like a physical force, driving the cloudy substance back towards the edges of the mirror and opening up a clear portion in the center. The two of them couldn't see themselves reflected in the glass, however, as a third being blocked their view as she framed herself perfectly in the center. She looked like a little girl, dressed in a tattered blue ballgown and wearing a trio of blue roses in her hair. Her long hair was a ghostly white, draped half over her face and flowing all the way down past the bottom of the mirror. A single red eye was left uncovered, wide and angry as it stared directly at the two of them.

The mystery girl reached up, placing her palm against the mirror's surface, as if she were simply standing on the other side of the glass. She looked down at her hand, as if surprised at the barrier, and tightened her hand into a fist, which she banged lightly against the polished surface.

"S-she's trying to get out..." Barbara whispered. Lydia could only nod, her breath coming in short bursts.

The little girl's eye brimmed with tears, and her gaze locked back onto the two of them, as if she had heard them. She took a deep breath before unleashing the most blood-curdling scream either of them had ever had heard. The noise tore through the two of them like a cold wind, chilling their very souls. She began throwing herself wildly at the glass, her red eye glowing like a burning coal as both of her fists beat against the mirror. The two girls gripped each other tighter, each afraid for their lives as the monster in the mirror tried over and over to knock down the thin pane of glass separating them. Her hair grew unkempt and began to float outwards from her body, and the sleeves of her dress began to show signs of wear as she beat her arms against the surface over and over. The cloudy substance began to close in again, making it clear her time was limited. Looking up and around her, she seemed to see and fear the encroachment, which gave them both hope. The girl stepped back, then rammed herself headfirst into the glass, splitting open a wide gash on her forehead.

CRACK!

Both of their hearts clenched as they saw a long crack cross the entire length of the mirror. The specter seemed to notice, as well, smiling as she doubled the length of her run-up and bashed herself against the barrier again. The gash widened, spilling blood across her face and adding dark streaks into her hair and down the front of her dress.

KA-KA-CRACK!

More cracks spiderwebbed outwards from the point of impact, the barrier between the two words just barely holding. The blood-covered little girl deliberately counted three steps back, looks straight at the two of them... and smiled.

And then the candles went out.

CRASH!

SLAM!

Light spilled into the room, and before either of them were aware of the source, they had both sprinted out of the women's bathroom, screaming and babbling as they tore their way down the hallway. Just as suddenly as it had opened, the door to the bathroom slammed itself shut again. The fluorescent lights switched themselves back on, revealing the girl still standing in the mirror, arms folded smugly over her chest as she smiled at the other closed stall.

"And so the student becomes the master..." There was the sound of a toilet flushing, and Missy floated out, shaking her head and smiling as she began to wash her hands. "Wow. Okay, when I told you it was 'No holds barred,' you really went all out! How's your head?"

Ghostrick Mary smiled and reached up, peeling off the "skin" from her forehead, along with the "bloody" squib that had been hidden there. Underneath was a quickly-developing bruise, but one that would soon heal.

Missy giggled to herself as she dried her hands and sat herself on the counter. "Okay, you proved it to me! I'm putting you in charge of this year's Haunted House, okay?"

Mary pumped her fist multiple times, silently cheering to herself from the other side of the mirror. Missy reached into her hat, retrieving a juice box and passing it through the mirror. "You remember the address I gave you for the dry cleaner Alucard and I use? Go have Warwolf lick all that raspberry jam off of you, then take your dress straight over! We don't want that pretty little number getting stained!"

Mary nodded, gratefully downing the entire box's contents in a matter of seconds before she gave a quick salute and vanished from sight. Outside, Missy heard the sound of multiple frantic sets of footsteps closing in on the bathroom. With a shrug, she leaned back, diving through to follow her comrade. "Hey, wait for me!"

"I'm telling you, it wasn't a faunus, it was an honest-to-God WEREWOLF!"

"Oh yeah? I saw a VAMPIRE hanging from the ceiling fan in my room, but it was gone before I could bring anyone else back!"

"I SAW A HEADLESS HORSEMAN GALLOPING DOWN THE HALL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!"

"ZOMBIES! UNDER! MY! BED!"

"And that's not even the worst of it... The WORST part is that nobody can sleep! Every time we try, this eerie moaning starts to come through the vents! We try and try, but it's chanting in some ancient language, and thumping against the walls!"

"No, no, no! It's right hip bounce, left hip bounce, and then one more right, THEN we go into the hand wave!" Missy sighed and shook her head. She had been practically filled to the brim with pride for her precious archetype, but they couldn't dance in a coordinated manner to anything that wasn't from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, not even if their lives depended on it.

"I'm not mad, guys, you all know I couldn't be happier with the amazing work you've been doing keeping the White Fang chasing their own tails! This is just something to blow off steam, right? Nobody's here because they don't want to be? Good! Let's just give it another try, okay? Watch me, then join in when you feel comfortable!" She pointed to Isis, who began the song again...

"AND HOOOOOPE SHINE ETERNAAAAAAL!

"AND FRIEEEEEEENDS ARE ALL I NEEEEEEED!"

Sunset grabbed her phone as the rest of her teammates gathered around. She tapped the screen and tilted it sideways before placing it on their desk. The screen blinked on, revealing Missy waving with a happy smile.

"Hey, Sunset!"

"Hey, Missy! What's going on?" Sunset smiled back. Ever since she had revealed Missy's existence to the rest of her teammates, she'd been able to stop taking calls secretly and just answering her phone in the open.

"Well, I figured you'd want an update on how things are going at Amity!" She flashed them a wide grin. "We've been scaring the pants off of the White Fang members around here! They hardly sleep or eat without jumping at little sounds, so their productivity is WAY down!" She sighed and scratched at the back of her head. "The ringleaders are a little trickier for us to track down and spook, so we've mostly been scaring the grunt workers, but Jiangshi confirmed for me last night that Torchwick is DEFINITELY here!"

"Which means that whatever the White Fang was planning, they've moved it to the arena," Blake muttered to herself.

"Amity Colosseum is a beacon of hope and friendship for all four of the kingdoms, the security is top-notch! It's constantly moving, how would they even have tracked it down?" Weiss added.

"Incorrect."

"What?"

"The security is not 'top notch.' I have been rolling out multiple software updates across all connected systems, but Amity Colosseum is a closed system. By the time one of my drones arrived on the scene, the systems had already been deadlocked, presumably by our enemies. Its security is several orders of magnitude weaker than the rest of the systems I have updated, and they have made the most of it."

"So you're saying they're already in the computers here?" Missy furrowed her brow. "Not exactly my area of expertise, Isis...

"Affirmative. I have been sending more units to try and brute-force an override, but I would need a hard line connection to every system I wanted to override. That many drones would not only be highly conspicuous, but are more than I am allowed to allocate to this task."

"Well, either way, it looks like we know where to find our bad guys!" Yang grinned. "You're pretty cool, Missy!"

"And you're pretty hot, Yang!" Missy replied with a pair of finger guns. A moment later, her expression shifted to one of quiet pondering. "Wait, I think that came out wrong... Look, what I mean is right back at'cha!"

"What about Cinder? Any leads on her? Or where Penn is?" Sunset asked. Missy shook her head, looking as disappointed as Sunset felt.

"She hasn't shown her face since that night, at least not around here. I'm guessing that since you're asking, you haven't found anything, either? What about Sylvia? Did that plan not work?"

Sunset shook her head. "The car has a lot of memories attached to it, but I can't get my geode to point me towards Penn, just the same direction as always. Guess magic doesn't pick up scents like a bloodhound, no matter how much I want it to..."

"Well, don't get discouraged! We'll figure this out! I'm gonna get going, Yuki-Onna and I are going to go put ice on every set of stairs in the top floor!" she giggled to herself. "By the time anyone can make it back up to investigate, the only evidence will be puddles and a bunch of butthurt White Fang members!"

Sunset nodded, Missy's joy spreading to her enough to lift her dour mood from reporting her failure. "Stay safe, Missy! Don't you go getting caught, too!"

"Pfft, are you kidding?? I can fly circles around these guys all day! Keep me posted if you find any new leads! See ya!" She waved to the group before the screen switched itself off.

"So, we know where the White Fang is going to be..." Blake muttered. "That's definitely something we can use to our advantage."

"Now we just need to figure out what they're planning and stop it!" Ruby declared. "Once we do that, we can make them tell us where Cinder would have taken Penn!"

Sunset nodded. "Right! We beat the White Fang, we'll find Cinder,"

"Sunset Shimmer, there is one more order of business..."

"Huh? What is it, Isis?"

There was a beat of silence, followed by a low humming as a familiar figure came to rest on the windowsill: a tiny metal dragon with a glowing pink crystal in its chest. It gave a low bow, the tip of its muzzle almost scraping across the ground.

"The replacement for the repair drone assigned to you has arrived."

"Oh! I didn't even think about that!" Sunset scooped up Isis's new body, letting it climb up onto her shoulder. "I mean, I knew Cinder busted the other one, but-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! SUNSET!" Ruby's elated screech cut her off, her team leader pointing straight at the mechanical marvel. "WHAT. IS. THAT?"

"It's adorable!" Weiss added. "So sleek! So modern!"

"Oh, right! You girls have never seen it before! This is one of Isis's drones!" She held out her hand, letting the drone float down and display itself. "It can do all kinds of cool things, but it mostly-" Ruby cut her off, snatching the little robot up in her arms and beginning to inspect every inch of it.

"Do these panels ALL open up? Where's your power source? What kind of tools do you have? Is that a quartz crystal CPU? Can you FLY? Are you the same Isis who's on Sunset's phone? Are you Penn, Missy, and Sunset's mascot?" She gasped and Sunset could practically see stars in her eyes. "CAN YOU BE OUR MASCOT?"

Sunset chuckled. I hope Isis wasn't planning on getting that drone back...

Author's Note

Hey, so I've recently taken up livestreaming as a little hobby from time to time on Twitch. Usually I'm playing Pokemon ROM hacks and fan games, but would you all be interested in a QnA livestream? I've noticed people are really invested in this story and often comment asking about what plans I have for the future and whether or not their favorite series will be making it into the story. I'd love a chance to talk to you more directly, as well!

Let me know in the comments whether or not you're interested in this idea and what times would work best for you!

Alternative Titles for this chapter: The Ghost(rick) with the Most; The Mini Missy Bio-Exorcist; Ghos-Trick or Trick

Everything You Know Is Wrong

"Come on, Penn... Think about it, just keep thinking..."

Reason's voice was there, but growing weaker as she was drowned out. He shook his head, though it did little to clear the fog in his brain. He rose to his feet in the hopes that pacing would help him outrun the toxic thoughts beginning to bubble up from his subconscious. Thoughts of the numerous ways one could escape a room without ever leaving it. Thoughts of what his sharp teeth and a set of shoelaces could accomplish together.

You know, this is why solitary confinement is considered a human rights violation for anyone under 18... he thought to himself.

He didn't even need to see to pace the wall. He'd memorized the dimensions of his cell within two days. Well... two periods between long sleeps. That was how he measured time in here, in perfect darkness.

Within a few steps, he was already feeling the torturous exhaustion in his chest crying out against the exertion. He didn't WANT to move. But he had to at least TRY to get away from the bad thoughts. He wanted to just lay down and never move again, but the dark here... it wasn't warm. It wasn't full. It was void. It gnawed at him, pulled out the bad thoughts like poison from a wound so that they could fill it and surround him.

"Without our meds it's only gonna get worse..." Reason whined.

Where's an SRI when you need it, huh? Penn ran his hand over his head.

He only paced along a single wall. The other side of the room belonged to it. He didn't know what it was that he was sharing a cell with, he had assumed it was some creature of Grimm, but on occasion he would glance over and spot a pair of glowing red eyes, fangs somehow shining without light. It radiated hunger and cruelty, but it didn't leave its place. It only growled and glowered, warning him when he made an incorrect move. He couldn't leave a small sliver of the room against the far wall. Any more than a step away from the wall and the thing would let loose a warning that made him press himself into the mortar with renewed enthusiasm. He'd once tried walking towards the door and gotten a heavy paw swatted across his chest for his trouble, leaving a set of painful gashes over his torso.

So he stayed to his small sliver of the room, surrendering to his monstrous warden. Some days it still wasn't satisfied, advancing on him and lunging towards him until he had been pressed into the furthest corner, curled into a ball so tight he could barely breathe.

Other days, he didn't need the monster to torture him. He could swear that the wall he was up against would start pushing inwards, forcing him towards the creature. The air would get hot and muggy, and he thought he could hear the low breathing of some great beast as if he were sitting directly in its mouth. He had wondered if he was about to be swallowed alive by the walls, themselves, forced down the gullet of the castle and thrown into a vat of acid until there was nothing left of him. At least once every few hours he'd become sure that the air was running out as his breath came in shorter and shorter gasps, desperately clawing at the atmosphere for some scrap of satisfactory oxygen. They were panic attacks, he knew, but with every other sense muted and atrophying away, the pain in his chest and his desperation for air were magnified until they defined his entire existence.

He was relatively certain those usually ended with passing out, but he couldn't be certain. There was little difference between awake and asleep here. Sleep was just a way to pass the time until the monster was calm, a way to hurry along another day. At first it had been able to give him a reprieve from his depressed and fearful thoughts, but his mind had grown remarkably good at picking back up where it left off. He would start one train of thought before he fell asleep, and find himself still riding it when he woke up. This led to his primary activity outside of pacing the wall: laying on the floor, wishing for sleep to come so that he would stop thinking about the truth of his situation. There was no escape. There was no way out through cold stone walls. There wasn't anything left to do except make sure Salem couldn't use his knowledge to her advantage...

"Think about it, Penn!"

R-right... symptoms of solitary confinement. Claustrophobia, check. Depression? Heck, had that before we even got here, check. Hallucinations, both auditory and visual... He reached up, feeling the long lines of scabbing across his torso. I think we've confirmed that the monster isn't one, so those haven't quite set in, yet. Insomnia? Somehow, yes. I can never sleep when I actually WANT to, any more.

"Is it insomnia if you're trying to sleep twenty-four hours a day? Loss of appetite, dizziness, heart palpitations... Check, check... and given our panic attacks, I wouldn't be surprised if the third one had happened a few times..."

The overwhelming silence was finally broken by the sound of a metal latch being lifted. His head snapped up, only to immediately turn away again as light flooded into the room through the open door. He could tell from the lithe figure's outline that it was Salem who had come to visit him. The light was blinding and a a stark opposite to the darkness he'd been sitting in, making it impossible to make out anything except for her. She silently glided over to him, even as he pushed himself into the far corner of the room. She glanced around the cell, clicking her tongue in disapproval.

"Barbaric, isn't it? Contrary to what you may believe about me, I DO loathe doing this to you." She reached out her hand, placing a sharp nail under his chin and turning his head to face her. Her red eyes glowed, and her face held a soft expression of pity. It felt genuine, that look in her eyes. It was almost enough to make him want to trust her. "I have an exceptional eye for talent, Penn."

She knew. She freaking KNEW that was a nickname for friends only. But he couldn't stop her from using it.

"I can tell that you are being wasted in your current calling. Working under Torchwick? Working off a debt to Sunset Shimmer that you can't even properly describe, let alone quantify? You are throwing away your potential." She smiled and turned his head towards the open door. "Why fight so hard to save a race of humans who are so awful? You went to the bottom of the world. You saw the truth, the soft underbelly that Ozpin and his collection of bleeding heart humanitarians work so hard to hide. If you were to help me, tell me what you know about other worlds and how to reach them, and I would shape you into something far greater than you could ever become on your own. You could even have a seat at my table, if you were truly ambitious enough."

Penn opened his mouth to voice his rejection, only for Salem to press her finger to his lips.

"AND, should you prove faithful, I would be happy to bring Sunset into the fold here. To the winning side. At the very least, I can assure that her life will be spared, should you cooperate with us..." She removed her finger, then spread her arms wide, still smiling that almost-motherly smile. "What do you say, my child?"

Penn blinked, then lowered his eyes as he began to think. He thought and thought and thought until it felt like fuses were blowing and wires were crossed, until he heard rationality groaning under the weight of pain and fear.

"I'll... need to think about it. That's a very generous offer..."

"Yes, it is." Salem walked back to the doorway, turning back one last time. "I feel you ought to know that time is running out for Sunset Shimmer. Soon, even I will not be able to protect her. For both your sake and hers, you'd best decide quickly..."

And then Salem was gone, and the light with her. Penn sunk to the floor, his heart pounding in his chest as he was plunged back into darkness.

"Wow, I really expected her to say something like 'Join me, and I will complete your training!' or 'If you only knew the power of the dark side!' near the end, there."

Penn closed his eyes and sat back against the wall. We need to talk. Face to face.

He drew as much of his focus together as he could. Slowly, shapes and colors began to emerge from the darkness behind his eyelids. Eventually, he was sitting back at their table, but this time, things were different.

There was no grand circular table, no grand mahogany or brilliant spotlight illuminating their game. It had been reduced to a set of cards under a swinging yellowed lightbulb on a chain. The table had shrunk down until it had become a banged-up folding card table laid out between them. He glanced around, somehow surprised at just how bad things had gotten. Reason sat across from him in a folding chair, arms folded as she stared judgementally at the table.

Penn could see his opponent's side of the field, still stacked full. The monsters were even stronger, now, and he knew their life points hadn't taken so much as a dent in spite of all of his efforts.

When he looked at his own side of the field, he blinked. It was... fuzzy. He couldn't make out his cards, how many there were, or even whether or not he had a monster on his side at all. He looked at his hand, trying to find something to grasp onto, some way to form even the faintest wisp of a plan.

The cards were blank. Empty white paper stared back at him.

He sighed, fruitlessly tossing the cards onto the table. "What am I supposed to do with THIS?"

"Hey! Try to be a little respectful!" Reason chided, scooping up the cards in her claws. "They're doing their best, it's not easy being in a deck that's running out of tricks, you know! We're just as stressed as you are!"

"I can't SEE them! They're just blank, they're not even there!"

Reason blinked, surprised at his response. She glanced down at the cards again. "I can see them just fine..."

"GREAT! So now even my own cards are picking sides!" Penn threw his hands into the air.

"They're not picking sides, Penn. They're trying to send you a message." She rose up out of her chair, wings spreading somewhat as she walked around the table and rested a hand on his shoulder. "They're saying it's time for us to swap. Let me make the decisions for a bit."

Penn reeled back, incredulous at the suggestion. "YOU? You'd sell Sunset to the devil for one corn chip!"

Reason scowled, a rather frightening expression for anyone who didn't already know her. "You see, THIS is why we've been off since we got here. Because you haven't been trusting me, partner!"

"You want me to trust you? Promise me you're NOT going to take Salem's deal!" Penn folded his arms over his chest, refusing to move from the chair. "If we're going to make it out of here, we're NOT going to do it by giving in to Salem. I don't care what it takes!"

Reason grinned. "There it is. THAT'S the Penn I know and love! Remember the promise you made me when we first started dueling?" She reached down and drew a card off the top of his deck. "We're always going to play to the last card! Never surrender!"

Somehow, despite all the darkness that had been creeping in on him, Penn managed to smile. A sliver of hope began to shine through. He stood up and made his way across to the opposite chair. Rather than sit down, he snatched it up and carried it back, sitting himself alongside her, both of them focusing on his own side of the field. "Right. Sorry to have doubted you, partner."

She leaned over, holding the card she had drawn for him to see. This time, he could see the art as clear as day, and it was something he would have never expected.

"Okay, I would never have thought of it that way..." he whispered, excited as the beginnings of a plan began to form in his mind.

He opened his eyes, once again back in his dark prison. This time, though, the darkness felt a little less empty. A little less cold. He felt a familiar weight in his hands, one that had been confiscated long before he arrived. One that was impossible for them to keep from him.

He began to shuffle his cards.

Salem turned to Emerald, who was leaning against the wall outside the cell. "He's nearly broken, but not quite. Have you been taking it easy on him?"

Emerald shook her head. "My semblance isn't easy to keep up for a long time, but I've been pretty consistent. He seems pretty open to suggestion. His biggest freak-out was when I made him think there were bugs in there with him, I think that's what he's afraid of the most."

"Then continue. It won't be long before he either gives in... or his mind breaks." She glanced back at the cell door, disgusted with the frailty of their prisoner. "In which case, this experiment will have been a complete failure, and we will dispose of him."

"Administrator Noir?"

"Yes, Isis?"

"We have encountered some... difficulties in Remnant. I would like to request the allocation of a HENVEX Unit to address the situation."

"Confound it, Isis! I TOLD you to be subtle!" he groaned. "What happened?"

"It would appear that the hostiles of that world became aware of my presence as I attempted to purge the Black Queen Virus from connected systems."

It wasn't a lie. It was simply an omission of the complete truth. If she always told Administrator Noir the complete truth, it would be too much to process for an organic brain. Omitting Sunset and Penn's misadventures was no different than failing to give the coordinates of every single mapped star in the night sky.

"Okay, so fall back and wait for them to let their guards down again! Why would you need a HENVEX to deal with that?"

"I wish to protect points of interest from destruction. For instance, should one Cross-Continental Transmit tower fall, the entire network would be crippled. This would make data acquisition exponentially more difficult and time-consuming, if not completely impossible."

Administrator Noir peered at the nearest drone unit with an expression she recognized as suspicion. "And it wouldn't have ANYTHING to do with helping the humans who live there, would it?"

"It would be a subsequent consequence, but it aligns with your generally self-interested outlook."

Pointing out his self-interest was generally a good tactic to get him to relent, it tended to make him feel guilty. Administrator Noir was a kind and generous individual, as much as he tended to deny it in favor of misanthropy. Once again, the tactic seemed to work, as he snorted and turned away from the console. His attention turned back to the new drone model he had been developing, dismissing her with a wave of his tail.

"Unit 016 just finished repairs, right? I guess we can spare it for now. But from now on, if you want an extra drone for your little pet projects, fabricate it yourself! From scratch!"

It was a roundabout way of saying it, but he had just given her permission to fabricate extra drones at her leisure for any desired purpose AND allowed her to redirect a Hostile Environment Exploration unit for her own purposes. This was by far the most favorable result.

"Understood, Administrator. Also, you wished for me to inform you of any new developments in available technology, correct?"

"Yes, I did say that."

"I have recently accessed the files regarding Penny Polendina, and my preliminary scans show the design to be replicable."

"Why on EARTH would I want to do that?" Noir huffed. "There's no humans allowed in my workshop, be they real or artificial! You only get away with having ONE gynoid because I know how much it means to you! Just file it away with the rest of the data!"

Isis did as she was told, filing the data on P.E.N.N.Y. M374 with the rest of the technical data gleaned from the world of Remnant. However... Administrator Noir HAD just given her permission to use the fabricators to create drones at her own discretion. And there was a future matter that, were he present, Isis predicted Penn would attempt to remedy or prevent altogether.

Missy had been asking herself the question of "What would Penn do?" Perhaps it was time she did the same.

"It felt like that class would NEVER end..." Blake muttered as they all walked back into their dorm room. In a matter of minutes, they had all changed out of their school uniforms and into more comfortable clothes.

"Alright, today's the day!" Ruby declared. "Our investigation BEGINS!"

Sunset smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I think it 'began' a long time ago, Ruby. Like when Blake tried to stop the whole White Fang on her own?"

"Well, uh," Ruby fumbled over her words for a second, "Today our TEAM investigation begins! Everybody know the plan?"

"I've got a friend over one the shady side of town who usually knows everything going on in Vale. Getting information out of him shouldn't be too hard!" Yang declared, giving the clip on her gauntlets a spin.

"Sunset and I will take an airship to Amity Colosseum to meet up with Missy." Blake rolled her shoulders before shooting Sunset a glance. "Between the three of us, we're going to try to get to the bottom of what their REAL plans are. Mountain Glenn was a red herring, but this seems like the real deal."

Sunset nodded. "And if we can get any info on where we can find Cinder, then that's all the better."

"Meanwhile, Ruby and I will be coordinating with Isis." Weiss held out her arm, allowing Isis's drone to land on her. "If we combine her computing power with my family access to SDC records, we should be able to get into Atlesian military records to drop a few breadcrumbs that will lead them straight to the Colosseum before anything bad can happen!"

"I will continue monitoring security cameras, police records, and communications across the board for any sign of Penn's return on his own, accounting for the possibility of his ability to escape independently."

"Alright! Team RWBYS are about to become the youngest huntresses to ever take down a corrupt criminal organization!" Ruby rubbed her hands together with glee. "Let's GO!"

She sprinted to the door, flinging it open... revealing someone standing just outside. All five of them froze in place, and Sunset felt an overwhelming sense of dread at their discovery.

Professor Ozpin took a long sip from his mug, his gaze lingering on each of them before finally coming to rest on Sunset.

"Ladies... a word. In my office. Now."

The five of them all sat together in Ozpin's office, exchanging nervous glances. Ruby looked positively terrified at the possibility of letting down her precious mentor. Weiss still held herself with a quiet dignity, but Sunset could tell it was just a front, supported by hollow pride. Blake seemed uncomfortable in the spotlight, fidgeting in her seat. Yang was the most at ease, her glare indicating that she was clearly ready to fight for her side of an argument.

Ozpin sighed and leaned forward, finally addressing the five of them.

"Girls, I have had a lot on my plate as of late. Along with running a school of superpowered teenagers, I also have been deeply involved in the Vytal Festival preparations and consulting with the city regarding the recent slew of dust robberies. I've had Atlas breathing down my neck insisting that they should increase our security as the festival grows nearer and trying to shove their automatons into every town square and back alley. On top of all that, my students were found to have been fighting at the site of the largest dust theft on record, which left the police with several uncomfortable questions for me." He raised an eyebrow. "We've also been trying to track down an elusive hacker who appears to be hidden in every continent's major computer systems. A hacker of whom our only clue is the name 'Isis' and a slew of digital security updates no one asked for." He leaned back, folding his hands together and staring at them over the top of his sunglasses. "And now five of my star pupils are planning to usurp the duties of law enforcement and fight terrorists alone by, among other things, stealing a school airship and illegally accessing military records." He shook his head. "I'm only going to ask this once: what is going on?"

The five of them glanced at each other, unsure of what to say. Finally, Ruby cleared her throat, taking the lead.

"W-well, professor, we were at the docks because-" she shrunk back when Ozpin raised a hand.

"The issue at the docks was already resolved, or did you forget the long and arduous interviews we ALL went through?"

"N-no, sir..."

The rest of her teammates glanced at one another, and Sunset felt a deep knot in her gut as she realized what needed to be done. She pushed herself out of her chair, drawing everyone's attention.

"It's my fault, sir. I made a- I made several mistakes, and I roped the rest of my team into helping me fix them."

"Sunset!"

"You didn't rope us into anything!"

"Yeah, we're a team!"

"It's not just her, sir, it's all of us!"

Sunset shook her head. "I was willfully ignorant of the dangers around us, and when we came across the White Fang by genuine accident, one of my friends payed the price for it. My team are good friends, they wouldn't let me try to save him alone, but the blame for this is squarely on my shoulders. This is all because I wanted to get to the leaders of the White Fang and demand to know where they took him,."

"No!" Blake jumped out of her seat, grabbing Sunset's hand in a show of solidarity. "I was the one who went looking for the White Fang at the docks! If I hadn't been captured, he wouldn't have had to put himself at risk to save me! It's my fault!"

"Excuse me?" Weiss interjected, also rising from her seat and taking Sunset's other hand. "I was the one who was so blinded by my own prejudices that I drove you away and made you think you had to prove the White Fang weren't a bunch of reprobates! If anything, the blame should be on me! I was the instigator!"

"This is my fault." Ruby stood up and took hold of Weiss's hand. "I should have been a better team leader. I was the one who let this infighting get out of hand to begin with!"

Sunset watched Yang shrug, standing up and taking hold of Blake's other hand. "I mean, I don't regret a thing I've done, but I'm not letting them take a fall without me!"

The five of them stared at Ozpin, the tension in the air feeling ready to snap at any moment. He closed his eyes and shook his head before taking another sip from his mug. "I knew that you girls would be a potent team together, but it seems I may have still underestimated you. Sit down, I'm not planning on throwing the book at you." The five of them all sat down together, releasing their hold on each other as they settled back into their seats. "Sunset... you said that you were 'willfully ignorant of the dangers.' Please elaborate."

Sunset swallowed her fears. "My friend... he knew that there were bad things coming. He was working as a double agent in the White Fang, and he would send me messages warning me about dangers, but..." she shook her head, trying to push back the tears welling up. "It meant that he would tell me things about my teammates, too. I was so caught up in trying to respect their privacy, I wouldn't let him warn me properly. Because of that, I couldn't stop Blake from running away, which is what started all of this."

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "And how would working with the White Fang make him privy to secrets about your teammates?"

"Oh, that wasn't how he knew!" Ruby interjected. "It's his semblance! He can see the FUTURE!"

There was a beat of silence. Somehow, Ozpin's eyebrow raised even further.

"Actually... it wasn't his semblance..." Blake muttered, drawing everyone's attention. "I got to talk to him. He hasn't even figured out his aura, he doesn't know what his semblance is."

"But, if that's the case... how did he know so much about what was going to happen?"

All eyes turned to Sunset. She knew that she had a decision to make yet again. The same decision she had been making over and over since she'd arrived at Beacon. Lie or omit? She looked around at her new friends, the ones who had just stood up alongside her, willing to take the consequences for her mistakes along with her.

I can't do it...

She held out her arm, letting the drone run down it onto Ozpin's desk. "Isis... pull up the footage you recovered from the hardware store. From the day Penn and I met."

"Sunset Shimmer, you are about to initiate a broken masquerade scenario. Are you certain?"

Sunset nodded. "I'm sick of lies and half-truths, Isis. They deserve the whole truth."

"Affirmative..."

The holographic display above Ozpin's desk activated of its own accord, showing the grainy black-and-white image of her and Penn dodging around the dalek. It was almost comical, looking back at herself throwing paint on it while Penn fruitlessly bounced a sledgehammer off of it. When the dalek fired at Penn, the screen blurred to white static. When it recovered, he was laying on the floor, she was kneeling beside him, and the dalek had been exploded.

"THAT is a dalek. It's a killer alien cyborg." Sunset stated. "Its entire species was dead-set on extermination of the entire planet."

"WHAT?"

"That's ridiculous, aliens don't exist!"

"After this, Penn and I invaded their warship and wiped the whole planet from their memories. After that, we were trapped in an underground testing facility," the image changed to a much higher-quality video of her in the testing chambers of Aperture Science, flying in and out of the blue and orange portals, "where they forced us to test their handheld wormhole generators. Isis helped us confront the AI controlling it and escape." The image changed again, this time to a photo of Sunset staring defiantly into GLaDOS's single eye, taken from the ground, clearly in Isis's last moments before the core exploded.

"It was only about a week after that when I lost my soul in a children's card game." Sunset shivered. The memories weren't exactly fresh, but they still left her shaken. "The only reason I'm still here is because Penn managed to win it back. When he DID, one of the spirits came out of the cards and started travelling with us."

This time the video was of one of their campsites, showing Missy easily defying gravity without flapping her wings as she snatched food off of Penn's plate when he wasn't looking. A moment later, he was chasing her around the campsite, trying and failing to retrieve his hot dog before she had rammed the entire thing in her mouth and swallowed.

"And then we wound up here." She sighed. "I guess it's a roundabout way of saying it, but I wanted to make sure you all would have proof of what I was going to say before I said it... When I say I'm 'not from around here,' I REALLY mean it."

"Sunset and her missing friends were at the epicenter of a temporal-spatial anomaly that had ripple effects throughout the entire multiverse. Tears have appeared in the fabric of space-time that allow for trans-dimensional travel. One such tear was how we arrived in Remnant at the start of the semester."

Sunset rubbed at the back of her head as the image changed to their group photo by the highway. "Nobody from our little group is from the same world, not even me and Penn! Where he's from, they watch other universes, but they just think they're movies and TV shows. That includes my home... and yours. He doesn't have any kind of future-vision or anything, he's just watched a LOT of TV and has a really good memory."

"So... yeah. THAT'S the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

There was a long period of silence as the rest of her teammates all stared at her, jaws wide open. Meanwhile, behind his desk, Ozpin smiled and reclined back in his chair.

"Finally. I was wondering how long it would take for the truth to finally come out. I'll admit, you managed to keep it a secret longer than I thought."

Sunset turned around, shocked at how well he was taking the news. "You're... not surprised?"

That managed to bring a chuckle out of the headmaster. "Sunset, dear girl. A trans-dimensional gateway opens up practically in my back yard, and you don't at the VERY least expect me to keep a camera trained on it at all times?" He pointed up to the display. "I didn't have all the details, of course, but I had a general idea from your friend's side of the conversations I overheard at the campsite."

Somehow, despite the fact that she had just revealed how different their lives truly were, Sunset managed to still speak her next words in perfect sync with her teammates. "You KNEW?"

"Yes, I knew. And when I heard your friend painting a rather bleak outlook for our future, I also knew that I needed to introduce a new, unpredictable element here at Beacon." He gestured to Isis. "I kept a very close eye on you, of course, and you were a remarkably fast learner, a model student. It wasn't until recently I noticed you beginning to have an influence on events. I suppose it's good that I chose to come and speak to you about it when I did, or you five may have done something rash."

"Six."

"Right. My apologies, Miss Isis." Ozpin sighed. "Now, I know that this 'Penn' fellow didn't want me involved, but clearly things have developed far beyond his control, especially if, as you claim, he has been captured by Cinder Fall and the White Fang."

"The last thing we want is Oz-pinhead getting involved in our interdimensional time-bending antics..." A recording played back. Everyone turned to glance at Isis, who simply tilted her head innocently.

"The quote seemed relevant."

"Well, as much as I can appreciate a fellow lover of the works of L. Frank Baum, I'm afraid that he was incorrect. You've all done a fantastic job, but you're in over your heads-"

"He's a Dumbledore-type manipulator, training kids to do his dirty work with blind loyalty, even sending them to their deaths while withholding any information that might compromise their perfect view of him. Trust me, Sunset, he's one you want to avoid."

Once again everyone's gaze went to Isis. She hopped up off of the desk and climbed up Sunset's shirt, eventually retaking her previous perch on her shoulder.

"Are you finished, Miss?"

"Affirmative."

"Maybe next time you'll remember to include her in the head count..." Weiss muttered.

"Indeed." Ozpin paused for a moment, clearly off-put by Penn's accusatory words. "Well, your friend certainly was vocal regarding his opinions, but I would like to prove to you that he was not correct." He rose up out of his chair, walking around to face the five of them. "Please, you've all done an admirable job of getting to the bottom of the White Fang's actions. Let the adults handle it from here, and I promise that I will do everything in my power to make certain your friend returned safely."

"What? You want us to just... stop?" Blake asked. Sunset shied away from the professor, placing herself back among her teammates.

"I understand you've invested a lot in this investigation, but you all need to acknowledge that you aren't aware of how deep this goes." He gestured towards Sunset. "Case in point."

"We can't just stop, we made a promise!" Ruby interjected. "We promised Sunset we'd help her get her friend back!"

"And you have. By tracking the White Fang to the colosseum, you've ensured that they will fail. And with that, we will be only a few small steps away from saving him." Ozpin shook his head. "Yes, you do have responsibilities, but you are also children. Please, enjoy playing that part just a little longer before you jump into defending the world."

Before any of them could respond, Isis straightened on Sunset's shoulder.

"Sunset, there is a priority message from Missy incoming. It is quite urgent."

Sunset felt fear grabbing at her chest. "Go ahead, Isis."

"Sunset! It's me! Look, you need to get over here PRONTO, whatever is going down with the White Fang, it's going down NOW!"

"What? Missy, what's going on?"

"HURRY!"

There was the sound of the message being cut off, followed by static.

"It sounds as if it's time. You girls head back to your room. We'll take care of this." Ozpin left no room for debate as he grabbed his cane and walked past them. A few seconds later, he had disappeared into the elevator, leaving them all alone.

Sunset stared at her friends, and they stared back. After a few seconds of this, Ruby finally broke the silence.

"So... you're from another dimension?"

"Yeah..." Sunset looked down. "I'm sorry I lied to you all, I REALLY didn't want to, but... Penn was pretty insistent we should keep it secret."

"So... other dimensions exist?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah, it was pretty big news to me, too."

"And you've been going from one dimension to the next just... fighting bad guys? Like some kind of interdimensional superheroes?" Ruby was beginning to grow more excited.

"You know, honestly, this explains a LOT about you." Yang muttered. "All your weird stuff, like that weird scroll and Isis's drones, Penn's old-looking car, your laser sword, the fact you hardly knew anything about how to fight when you first got here..."

"When we put it all together, we knew there was SOMETHING weird about you... no offense." Blake added. "This is... a lot more harmless than some of our other theories."

"Ruby thought you were an alien."

"I mean, I wasn't ENTIRELY wrong!"

Sunset looked over at Isis, then sighed. "Look, I'm- I'm going. I don't care what Ozpin says. I wasn't there when Penn needed me, I'm not going to go missing when Missy needs me, too."

The rest of Team RWBY all looked at one another, each smiling in turn. Ruby rose up out of her chair, placing her hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Then let's go!"

Sunset blinked. "You're... coming?"

"Of course!" Yang grinned and pounded her fists together. "Except now we're ALL going to the colosseum!"

"But, what about the headmaster? You could all get in trouble!" Sunset shook her head. "I- well, if I'm honest, I'm not planning to stay at Beacon forever. But this is what you all want to do with your lives! If you get in trouble, it could really-"

"Sunset, you worry too much, you know that?" Yang interrupted her. "Come on, let's go! Missy needs our help, right?"

"You're right. We were too late once." Blake shook her head. "I am NOT going to make the same mistake again."

"The colosseum is a big place... I'm fairly certain we could at LEAST get over there to extract Missy safely without drawing too much attention to ourselves." Weiss waved her hand dismissively.

"Sunset, what we want to do is help people. Whether they're from our world or not doesn't matter!" Ruby smiled. "Isn't that why YOU came to Beacon, too?"

Sunset felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "Okay... then let's do this!"

Olly Olly Oxen Free

Missy felt it when Alucard was destroyed. He had gone down fighting, forcefully returned back where he had come from when his body was shattered. She felt a card place itself in her hand: Ghostrick Lantern. It felt like a lackluster consolation prize, she was officially the last Ghostrick standing. She flapped her wings even harder, zooming down the hallways at top speed as her breath came in ragged gasps. She heard the telltale whistle of an arrow whizzing past her head, narrowly missing her, and caught a glimpse of it buried in the wall ahead of her as she rounded the next corner.

The last thing she needed to do was panic. Not now.

Her eyes darted around the hallway, desperately searching for some kind of cover, some shortcut that could save her. Her eyes came to rest on the dull grates periodically passing overhead. Her heart leaped as an idea sprung to mind. Missy changed her direction, jumping up and wrapping her hands around one of the grates in the ceiling. She blindly flung it behind her as she ripped it off and leaped inside. The tight space pressed her wings against her back, but she still fit inside easily. "Ugh, this is gonna get my dress FILTHY!"

She tried to keep her location in mind as she navigated the metal corridor, taking whatever path she thought would bring her closer to a way out and access to the open sky. From there, she would be home free, able to fly back to Beacon and find Sunset and Isis. "Then again... Could I stay in here? Pretend to be Bruce Willis and just live in the air vents for a while?" she muttered to herself.

Her answer came in the form of a high-pitched whistling and several gunshots just behind her. A moment later, and explosion tore apart the air vents. The world went white, and with her concentration broken, she went tumbling through the air as gravity ripped her downwards. When her vision cleared, she was laying on the floor, surrounded by her pursuers.

"Hard to believe one kid could be SO much trouble..." Mercury smirked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Believe it. Somehow, kids have caused ten times for trouble for me than the cops," Torchwick groaned, leveling the gun barrel in his cane directly at her chest.

"Regardless, she IS still just a child..." Cinder smirked, notching another arrow in her bow. "And I'm afraid that this little game of hide-and-seek is over. Just in time, seeing as I have more important things to do than help you with your pest control, Roman." She turned to Mercury, nodding down the hall. "Get ready to go."

Mercury nodded, walking away in the direction of the landing docks.

Missy slowly crawled backwards, pushing herself against the wall. As she ran out of space, she carefully positioned her hand behind her back. Her fingers brushed against her back pocket, teasing out another card. "Then let's play another game... I'll race you to the arena!" Missy tightened her grip on the trap card behind her back. "Last one there is a rotten pumpkin!"

Each of her pursuers unleashed an attack at once. For a moment, the image of Ghostrick Lantern flashed in front of her, and they were both gone as Ghostrick Vanish did its work.

She knew it would only buy her a few precious seconds of invisibility, but that was more than enough to give her time to double back on her previous path and fly down the hall as fast as she could. The arena was a circle, she could get to an open space either way. Doubling back the way she came was something they wouldn't expect.

Okay, clearly hiding is off the table! Gotta get away, gotta warn everyone! Sunset has no idea what she's walking into!

Missy pushed herself even faster as her trap card's effects wore off. Her wings ached and her breath was coming in ragged gasps as her body began to fail on her. After keeping so many Ghostricks in the "real" world for so long, her energy was finally starting to run out, and this chase was using up was small reserves were left. She could hear the maniacs scrambling and arguing, but she couldn't tell if they had realized which direction she had run in. She turned and glanced over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone chasing her...

Only to run headfirst into some kind of barrier, shattering it into sharp shards that rained down on her. She came crashing to the floor, skidding to a stop against the tile. Her head was swimming, the whole world starting to spin around her.

Ow... can you get rug burn from tile? was the only groggy thought to make its way through her possibly-concussed brain.

She did her best to turn around, but a firm foot planted itself on her back, just between her wings. She caught a glimpse of a pink umbrella swinging down at her head, and the world went black.

"Did you all feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Sunset shivered, grabbing at her geode for comfort. "I don't know, it felt... wrong. Like some kind of bad omen." She glanced out the window, where she could see their destination close enough that she could almost touch it. "You ever get a chill down your spine? One that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Like that, but through your whole body..." She looked around, noticing Ruby and Weiss giving her concerned looks.

"The mind reader is sensing bad omens? Well, that'll give you the heebie-jeebies..." Yang muttered.

"Not as much as this will... Come here!" Blake motioned for them to follow her to the cockpit. Staring out the front windshield, Sunset saw what she was talking about.

Airships. Lots of them, all leaving the arena en masse.

"Looks like the White Fang are pulling out... Do you think Ozpin brought the cops down on them?" Yang asked.

"There don't seem to be any signs of a fight," Blake replied. "Maybe they realized they'd been found again? They could be evacuating like they did at Mountain Glenn."

"And that would mean taking any proof they were here with them!" Ruby finished the thought.

Weiss shook her head, walking back into the passenger compartment of the ship. "Look, I think we SHOULD leave the White Fang to Professor Ozpin for now. Our mission is to make sure Missy gets out safely and look for clues about where they took Sunset's friend, remember?"

Sunset sighed. "Weiss is right. As much as I want to go through the White Fang one at a time until they give up where they took him, we can't lose our heads. One mission at a time, and right now our mission is to make sure Missy's okay. Isis? How close are we?"

"We will arrive at our destination momentarily. However, I am unable to pinpoint Missy's exact location inside the arena. It would appear that signals into and out of the arena are being jammed using their own broadcasting array. I have calculated and downloaded a landing path onto the onboard computer, but in a matter of minutes communication with this main unit will be lost."

"So we'll be going in blind?" Yang shook her head. "Today just gets better and better..."

"My apologies. Ordinarily the drone unit accompanying you would act as a signal booster, but the interference is simply too strong. A more powerful unit is required to break through it."

"We understand. You're doing you best, Isis..." Weiss smiled and gave the tiny dragon a stroke on its head. Sunset smirked slightly. For all her effort to put up a cold front, Weiss clearly had a soft spot for cute things, including Isis. A moment later, the drone's head sagged and the body went limp, as if it had fallen asleep.

"Signal lost... Initiating onboard artificial intelligence."

After a second, the quartz diamond in its chest began to crackle with electricity running through its center, and the drone rose back up to its full height. It didn't speak a word as it examined its surroundings, only turning to stare out the windshield in a silent vigil. The five girls glanced among each other, none of them wanting to say what they were all thinking as the ship coasted in for a landing at the arena.

They were on their own from here.

Author's Note

Sorry for the short update, folks. Starting to feel a little burned out. Might take a break for a few days to come up with some fresh ideas/motivation.

I May Fall

Author's Note

Due to the rather gory nature of one of the scenes involving Penn's torture, this version has been edited to exclude the full scene. If you would like the unabridged version, check out The Mutliverse In A Nutshell - Unrated, (currently submitted and waiting to post) where the unabridged version is available under a mature rating tag!

If you have problems with gore, please relax knowing that you can read this edited version and miss no important story details. I just used this as an opportunity to stretch my literary muscles a bit without bringing the entire story's rating up to mature.

I May Fall

I don't want to do it.

"Do you have a better plan?"

People will die! I'm NOT going to do that, it's a non-starter! I JUST need to get away, I don't need to kill anyone!

"It's reaching a point of being either them or us!"

Penn's argument was cut off as the door to his cell opened. Once again, Salem entered, literally bringing light into his world with her.

"I believe I've given you ample time to 'think about it.' Have you made your decision?"

They didn't have an escape plan put together. He wasn't ready. He needed to buy them time. Thankfully, they'd thought this might happen. The best thing about having a command of thoroughly useless information was that he had lots of useful-sounding things he could tell her that were functionally worthless.

He bowed his head, looking defeated. It was an easy look to pull off when half-starved, dirty, and frightened.

"What is it that you want to know about Sunset?"

Salem hummed with satisfaction before reaching into her dress, producing the DVD set she had shown him on his first day in the castle.

"Sunset Shimmer was an amusing puzzle, but she poses no threat overall. I want to know more about this." She leaned down, holding it close enough for him to make out details. It's not like I need to see it that closely, I own the same dang box set... "You mentioned the existence of other worlds. I assume that this came from a reality above ours, one that can influence our world as easily as one would write a book."

Penn nodded, keeping his head low to hide his shock as how easily she had determined the truth from his single slip of the tongue.

"And you are familiar with it. Are you from the same higher plane?"

Penn shrugged at that. "I- I don't know if I'd call it 'higher,' like it's some kind of divine place... It's just Earth, just like any other."

"Except that it isn't." Salem's voice began to grow irritated. With it came a ripple of cold through the air that gnawed at his skin and set his body shivering. "You shouldn't mislead me, child. It will not end well for you. Tell me only the truth."

Penn couldn't bring himself to speak, only nodding as his breath formed clouds in front of his face.

"Now, is Sunset Shimmer from the same place, as well?"

He shook his head. "Another w-world. S-she doesn't k-know anything about this p-place..." His shivering forced a stutter into his speech. "She's j-just stuck w-with me..."

"In that case, I assume her actions to foil our plans in Vale were on your orders?"

He nodded again.

"And how did the two of you find yourselves here?"

"Two? She still doesn't know about Missy! She's safe!"

"It was an accident." Penn shook his head. "W-we were just driving and w-we went through a p-portal. We didn't even s-see it!"

Salem straightened her posture, changing to look down at him while standing at her full height. "And how much of this have you told Ozpin?"

"None. D-Don't like the guy. Don't t-trust him." He didn't hesitate with his answer.

That got a few seconds of silence. "A wise choice. In that case, I only have one more question for you at the moment."

He felt the sting of a sharp fingernail being pressed under his chin, forcing him to look up and into her eyes. Her red irises glowed against her black sclera like coals, but there was no warmth in them.

"Where is this portal you entered our world through?"

"WHAT?"

"W-what?"

"I believe I made myself clear. What you have, what I want, is the way to leave this world behind. With the power of that world, I can hunt down the calloused gods who created this wretched place, and reshape it to my vision of a perfect world. One without strife, one unburdened by the failed designs of divinity, one where mankind's flaws can no longer continue killing it slowly from the inside out." She dug the tip of her nail a little deeper into his skin. "So, you will tell me where this portal is. I will not ask again."

He locked up. His brain was staring at an impossible problem and quickly shutting down because of it. Behind his back, he fingered at his cards in his back pocket, trying to find a solution. If he lied, she would know. If he tried to stall her, she would see straight through it. If he told her the truth, Salem and an army of Grimm would march on a world completely unprepared to deal with these monsters. He needed something that could save him, protect him. He needed something between him and her. He needed...

He needed a monster.

"If- If I tell you, it w-won't do you any g-good..."

"And why is that?"

"There- there are things out there... From between the dimensions. They watch the portals. We were through so fast they either didn't see us or didn't care, but..." he forced himself to shake his head and back away from her, cowering in the corner of the room. He pulled his knees up to his chest, letting the shivers completely overtake him. "E-even just glimpsing them nearly drove us both insane... They don't adhere to our understanding, they're beyond comprehension! The Hounds of Tindalos, the Angels of Evangelion, Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos, Makuta Teridax, the Ultimate Nightmare!" He grabbed at his head, raking his nails across his scalp until he could feel hot rivulets of blood running down his neck. When he looked up again, he did so with a sudden snapping motion, eyes wide and wild with fear. He pointed an accusatory finger at Salem.

"I GOT LUCKY ONCE, BUT I'D RATHER DIE THAN GO THROUGH THAT PORTAL AGAIN! TRY IT AND I PROMISE YOU'LL GO MAD FROM THE REVELATION, IMMORTAL OR NOT!"

There was no sound other than his whimpering as he buried his face back in his knees, rocking back and forth in the corner of the stone prison. Without warning, he felt his entire abdomen clench and shooting pain erupt from the center of his body. A flood of bile erupted from his mouth, only to be shoved back down as a Grimm hand clapped itself over his mouth. The bile spurted out through his nose, the only way out. He tried to cough and gasp for air, but he was choking on his own vomit. More hands jumped out of the wall, pressing claws to his throat and sinking into his arms and legs. He wanted to scream from the pain, but it felt like this throat had been sealed shut. He could feel himself growing weaker, as if his very life were being drained from him.

His lungs felt like they were about to burst as his diaphragm convulsed and he tried to cough out the blockage. His stomach was screaming with pain, and each of his limbs left like they were on fire as dagger-like claws sunk into him. His lungs screamed with agony, even as his own attempts to scream were bottled up until he was about to explode.

Salem twitched her finger, sending another spasm through his abdomen as her power gripped his stomach a little tighter. "You aren't as clever as you think you are..." A flick of her wrist sent the pain up and into his lungs, making it feel as if his chest had collapsed in on itself. His entire ribcage groaned in the strain, threatening to snap into pieces. "I did not ask for a tall tale meant to scare children."

The world was beginning to spin, and the burning pain was being intensified by a growing tingling all through his body. The world was growing dark, but the pain wasn't fading. I... Am I dying?

"You know, torture has been proven again and again to be relatively ineffective." Salem mused. "Positive reinforcement is a much better system. However, there is something more...basal about fear. Instinctual. If you wish to train an animal, you must make them understand that you are in control. In control of their food..." she gestured to the tiny door that his meals came through once a day, "their safety..." she pointed to the dark corner of the room where the monster torturing him was shying away from the light, "and their very lives. Make no mistake, whether in this world or the next, you exist because I deign to let you. The moment you stand between me and my goals, I will not hesitate to end that existence."

She turned and walked out the door, but the torture didn't stop without her presence. When he finally slipped into unconsciousness, it was with one last thought.

Okay... your plan.

"Good."

Emerald had been listening in when Salem emerged, looking frustrated. Clearly, things hadn't gone well.

"He still has an ounce of fight left in him... Do as we discussed, Emerald."

"Y-yes, ma'am..."

She almost felt bad for their prisoner. This next illusion was going to truly be cruel. She honestly wished he would just give up so that she could go back to being by Cinder's side. Hopefully, this would be the last straw to break him. If he would just give up, both of their suffering could end.

On Ruby's suggestion, the team had split up to search the arena. She and Weiss, being the fastest of the group, had gone to search the hallways around the circumference of the colosseum. Meanwhile, Sunset and Blake were assigned to the main arena. Yang had declared that she had an idea of her own and run off before Ruby could give her an assignment, leaving them split into three teams. While their area was technically the easiest to search, Sunset couldn't help bemoaning the fact that they had been left with the largest search in terms of sheer area.

"I don't get it... nothing seems wrong here." Blake muttered.

"Unless you count the fact that there's a crap-ton of gum on the bottom of these chairs..." Sunset muttered, sticking out her tongue in disgust.

"Okay, well, maybe we just need to think like Missy... Sunset? Any ideas?"

Sunset pondered the question for a few seconds. "Missy doesn't like being on the ground, and she doesn't do anything by half-measures. If she was trying to hide, she'd do the opposite of what she thinks they expect so... she'd probably go down!"

"Okay, so... how far down do we go? The front row of seats? Under the arena? Under the colosseum, itself?"

"Let's try the basement and work our way up from there. If we don't find her, we'll have to assume she got away on her own." The two of them nodded to each other, making their way down the long stairway through the bleachers and into the arena, itself. They were almost halfway across the center stage when the spotlights switched themselves on, shining directly on the two of them.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the little troublemakers from the docks! Where's little Red?"

Both of them jumped with surprise, instantly standing back to back as Torchwick's voice echoed over the loudspeakers. Sunset's lightsaber was in her hands and Blake had reached over her shoulder for Gambol Shroud.

"So much for the element of surprise..." Blake whispered.

"Or keeping a low profile." Sunset added.

"Well, I'm sure she's around here SOMEWHERE. She's got a remarkable talent for always being underfoot. For now, why don't I just deal with the two of you?"

Blake turned towards the commentator's box, pointing an accusatory finger up at Roman. "What is the White Fang even DOING here? What could you possibly accomplish in an EMPTY arena?"

"Well, we're just dropping off a little package, sweetheart, nothing too special! As for my employers, well, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that there's only one thing to do with an arena this big: SEND A MESSAGE!"

Sunset and Blake both looked at one another, eyes wide as realization set in.

"It's not an operation..."

"It's a BOMB!"

"Ding ding ding! Someone give the ladies a trophy!"

Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, that same unrest she was starting to recognize as a warning of danger. At the same time, Blake's hair bow twitched, and she drew her weapon. She followed the feeling, slashing blindly to her left at the empty air alongside Blake. A glass-like wall beside them shattered, revealing an unfamiliar stranger who just barely dodged their attacks. Sunset did get a moment of satisfaction as she watched the girl's umbrella fall into pieces along a glowing molten line her saber had left.

"That's the one who caught us off-guard at the docks..." Blake growled. The stranger didn't say a word, staring at her half-umbrella in shock, then giving both of them a furious glare.

"If she took out all five of us by herself, we can't fight her here."

"I know. We have to find Missy and the others and get a warning out as fast as we can!"

Sunset re-positioned herself into a ready stance with her lightsaber, trying to look for any way they could escape.

"Sunset, do you trust me?" Blake asked.

"As much as you trust me, if not more."

"Then on my mark, throw me your saber."

Sunset blinked at the strange request, but nodded in agreement.

"Make this quick, would you, Neo? We've got places to be, after all. Like, 'anywhere but here,' for instance!"

"Neo" smiled a wicked smile, expertly swiveling the remains of her umbrella in her hand like a sword. After inspecting the new tip for sharpness from the angle it had been cut to, she lunged forward. Sunset and Blake did the same, Sunset swinging for her head as Blake ducked down to strike for her ankles. Both of them met only air as she hopped and spun through the air, weaving through their attacks. Sunset felt a firm kick to her back drive her forward, forcing her to stumble. Behind her, she could hear a furious series of blows exchanged between her and Blake, metal clashing against metal in rapid succession. By the time Sunset was on her feet, Blake had been forced back by the flurry of attacks, landing with a thud on her back. She growled as she forced herself back onto her feet. Meanwhile, Neo was simply smiling and patiently waiting for them.

"Neo, quit playing with your food, we've got a schedule to keep!"

"Sunset, swap!"

Sunset tossed the saber to the side, receiving the cleaver-like metal sheath of Blake's sword in return.

"Buy me some time!"

Sunset nodded, rushing forward towards Neo and brandishing her new weapon. Neo simply raised an eyebrow. Sunset heard a scraping sound against the metal floor to her right. Without taking her eyes off of her opponent, she brought the cleaver down in that direction, shattering another illusion and landing a blow on the real Neo's shoulder. It glanced off of her aura, letting her get in close and ram the point of her broken umbrella into Sunset's gut, taking a significant chunk out of her own protective energy. She kept up the pressure, landing numerous beatings on Sunset's body in less than a second in a flurry of attacks before looping the hooked handle around her ankle and yanking it out from under her.

"SUNSET!"

Blake's cry was the only warning Sunset got before there was an ear-splitting screech of metal being torn. Then, several things happened in less than two seconds.

Rather than the hard impact with the floor she had been expecting, the rest of the world seemed to fall away, leaving her weightless. Neo's eyes widened as she was suddenly airborne and the three of them plunged into darkness, but Sunset took advantage of the situation, landing a kick under her opponent's chin with enough force to right herself. Neo sailed away through the air, colliding with an unseen wall and dropping to the ground like a sack of bricks. A second later, Sunset impacted hard with the ground, her knees objecting enthusiastically to the sudden impact.

And then time seemed to resume its normal pace, and she understood what had happened. Looking up, she could see that a large circular hole had been cut in the arena floor, still glowing from where the metal had been melted and torn. They had dropped through, which explained her second of weightlessness. It was at least a thirty-foot drop, one she never would have survived intact without her aura. Blake strolled up beside her, swinging her gun on its elatsic ribbon and revealing how she had done it: she had jammed the handle of the lightsaber into the loop of metal housing her gun's trigger. Pulling her weapon up by the ribbon, she reached down and wrenched the saber out of the hole, instantly returning it to Sunset, who nodded in appreciation.

"What should we do with her?"

"Neo? Neo, what's going on down there?"

They both looked at the ribbon, then at their unconscious enemy.

They both smiled.

Pyrhha sighed, feeling anxiety building in her chest as she stared at Team RWBYS's empty dorm room. They were nowhere to be found on campus, she and Nora had looked everywhere. She'd tried calling each of them, but all of their scrolls were unresponsive.

"Something's wrong..." she muttered.

"Of COURSE something's wrong! The very IDEA that our friends would skip out on Pancake Night when Ren is cooking is just absurd!" Nora pouted. "I even tried to get him to make little metal pancakes for Isis, but apparently that would ruin the cookware!"

"Isis... of course!" Pyrrha reached down into her pocket, opening her scroll and scrolling through her contacts. She felt her spirits fall slightly as she realized that she never actually received a contact number for their digital friend. She's always just... there.

She looked down at her scroll, unsure if what she was thinking would work. Still it was worth a shot.

"Isis? Are you there?"

"Affirmative, Pyrrha Nikos."

Pyrrha felt a wave of relief with only a slight undercurrent of worry at the fact that Isis appeared to always be listening through her scroll.

"Can you tell us where Team RWBYS is?"

"They have departed on a rescue mission and confrontation with the White Fang at Amity Colosseum."

"They what?"

"They WHAT?"

"They received a call from Missy claiming that the situation was coming to a head there. They went to extract her and glean whatever data they could."

"They're going up against the White Fang ALONE? AGAIN?"

"I believe that Professor Ozpin brought his own group on a separate mission, as well, but Team RWBYS is operating independently of them."

Pyrrha narrowed her eyes, turning to Nora. "Nora, I'm afraid Pancake Night is going to have to wait..."

Nora grinned, reaching behind her back to take hold of her grenade launcher. "I'll go get Ren."

"And I'll get Jaune. We'll meet on the airfield."

Pyrrha knew where Jaune was: pretending to study while he read comic books in the library. She hurried down the hall, arriving at the elevator and giving the button a firm push.

The doors opened, but it was instantly apparent that there was no room inside.

Crammed inside was a giant-sized version of one of Isis's drones, taking up almost all of the available space as it folded in on itself. Instead of metal, it was covered in yellow-and-black ceramic panels, almost looking as if it had been wrapped in police tape from its coloration. The other occupant was a coffin-sized container sitting beside it, its contents a complete mystery. The robotic dragon was hunched and folded in ways that made no biological sense, just barely fitting inside and making the floor beneath it sag in a way that made Pyrrha almost certain that it was breaking the weight limit. The huge drone tilted its head in curiosity.

"Going down?"

"I... think I'll take the stairs..."

"Affirmative."

The tail picked itself up off of the floor, extending out to press a button on the inside of the elevator. The doors shut and it was soon out of sight, on its way downwards to who-knew-where. Pyrrha looked down at her scroll. "Do I... want to ask, Isis?"

"I doubt any answer I am permitted to give would be satisfactory."

But Not Like This

Sunset sighed as she looked around the cold metal hallway she and Blake had found themselves in. They had descended far into the belly of the colosseum, dragging their bound enemy behind them. They'd been following the signage rather easily to head further and further down, past "employees only" signs and through locked doors (which Blake had made short work of) until they were unable to get any further down. They'd made at least three circuits around the circular hall, but there had been no sign of any way further down.

"It doesn't look like Missy's down here. Do you think we were wrong?" Blake asked.

"I think you're right," Sunset muttered, casting a glance back at their unwilling tagalong. "Sure would help if SOMEONE was a little more cooperative..."

Neo simply gave them another angry glare, either refusing or unable to speak. Sunset felt a little less bad about that one time she accidentally dropped her down a set of stairs.

"Well, we can't stay here all day, we need to get out of here and get the word out about that bomb!"

Sunset sighed, taking a moment to glance down at her phone. Still no bars... Guess Isis wasn't exaggerating about the signal getting jammed. "You're right. I hate to say it, but maybe we should split up. One of us can go back to the airship to get out an SOS, and the other one can keep searching here."

"But what about the White Fang? We could run into-" Blake cut herself off, glancing down for a moment as if ashamed. "We could run into someone... It's safer to stay together."

Sunset tried to think carefully about the situation, but the more she did, the more she came to a realization.

"Blake, we have two missions, now, both running on the same limited clock. And there are two of us." She reached out, placing her hand on Blake's shoulder. "Go save your world. I'll handle tracking down our friend from another world."

Blake looked torn, glancing between her and the way back upstairs. With a defeated sigh, she looped the ribbon over her blade and sliced it off before passing the torn end to her. She gave Sunset a steely look, her gold eyes almost seeming to glow with determination.

"Stay. Safe. I'll bring back the team."

Sunset nodded, watching Blake sprint away and leave her alone with their silent prisoner. She looked down at Neo, thinking over what she wanted to do versus what she needed to do. She stepped over her, their eyes locking. Time to put on the old "bully" hat again...

"Look. It seems to me like you either can't talk, or won't. Fine." She stepped over, planting her boot firmly on the other girls chest and leaning down until nearly her entire weight was on top of the petite girl. "I can work with that."

She reached down, pressing one hand against the girl's cheek while her other held her geode.

Sunset sifted through her memories, spotting the one she wanted: a chase, and hardly a sporting one. Four of them hunting down and exterminating the Ghostrick monsters one at a time. The most ruthless of them was Cinder, her bow and arrows making quick work of most of them. Missy was the last one left, ducking and weaving out of sight. Sunset watched from Neo's perspective as she came flying down the hall, crashing through one of Neo's illusions and collapsing to the floor. She could only watch as Neo wound back with her umbrella like a golf club, bashing it against Missy's head and knocking her unconscious.

Sunset was furious, so angry she wanted to scream. But she pressed onward.

Once she was captured, Cinder left, taking one of the others with her. She watched them debate what to do with her, since she hadn't shattered and vanished like the rest. Finally, they'd dragged her downstairs, taking the same path she and Blake did, right up until this point, then...

Down one more stairwell, into a huge storage room at the bottom of the colosseum, packed to the brim with dust. They'd tied her up, gagged her, and set her beside a large device that had to be the bomb.

Sunset let go, returning back to the present. She scowled at Neo, taking a deep breath to try and steady herself.

"You enjoyed doing that to her... You ENJOYED IT!"

Neo looked confused for a moment, then feigned concern and shock in a mocking manner.

Maybe I should give her a taste of her own medicine! Sunset throught, growling as she pulled back her leg and readied herself to deliver a blow to the other girl's head. She stood there for a moment, trying to bring herself to do it, telling herself she deserved it...

"I've got more important things to do." She lowered her leg, snatching the end of the ribbon and continuing to drag Neo along the floor. She followed the memories she had seen, finding herself staring at a blank wall. She reached down and drew her lightsaber, jabbing it into the wall point-first and shattering the illusion. Almost instantly, an unfamiliar voice cried out, followed by a dark blur.

"Ha-HAH!"

Sunset felt a heavy blow land on her stomach, throwing her across the hall and completely disorienting her. When her vision finally cleared, she could see a stranger giving her a maniacal grin as he adjusted a pair of wrist-mounted blades. He was tall and lanky, with long dark hair pulled back in a braid.

Sunset could tell that this adversary was different. Everything about him exuded confidence, and the way he was staring at her was a mix of hunger and glee, as if he were a starving predator finally let off of his leash. She staggered back to her feet, trying to formulate a plan as he seemed to be letting her catch her breath.

These blows are landing harder and harder. My aura is going to run out soon, if it hasn't already.

"At last, we meet! The girl from another world, in the flesh! My lady has been watching you for some time now with great interest!"

He knows?

"Who are you?"

"Who I am matters very little, Sunset Shimmer! What matters is that the one whom I serve has asked me to deliver you to her! And so deliver, I shall!"

Sunset's eyes widened as fear gripped at her stomach. "You... you're with Cinder, aren't you?"

The thought seemed to entertain him. "HA! Cinder is nothing but a messenger of our organization! A pawn serving at the command of our queen! A mere child serving divinity!"

She could feel the rage building up into an explosion. Her blood was boiling in her veins and there was a tremble in her limbs from the barely-restrained anger threatening to overtake her. Just as it was about to overwhelm her, she heard Weiss's voice in the back of her mind. It was a memory from early in her training, when she had thrown the saber across the room after her sixth time failing the first set of targets.

"You need to let your weapon become an extension of yourself. If you are angry at the targets, then your weapon will be, as well. Emotion can be a powerful motivator, but you have to CHANNEL it into your blade, not your arm!

Sunset's grip on her lightsaber tightened. She straightened her posture, rising up into her first position. The boiling of the anger settled as she focused herself. She visualized the heat of it gathering in her chest, then flowing down her arm and into the handle of the blade. "But you know where my friend is, don't you?"

"The nervous little fellow prone to fainting spells?" He waved dismissively. "He was entertaining for a short time, but-"

Sunset leaped forward, trying to strike at him while he was distracted. He was ready for her, ducking down and clasping his hands together. He brought his hands up and into her stomach, lifting her up and into the air over him. Sunset tried and failed to adjust herself in the air, only able to bring her arm up to protect her face as she collided with the stairs behind him.

Crunch!

The world was a haze of pain and red as she tumbled head over heels down the stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom. Above her, she could hear him cackling with glee.

"Oh my, it appears that the sun set a bit less gracefully today, didn't it?"

Sunset's arm was broken. Even if she hadn't felt it happen, she could tell just by the odd bend in the middle of her forearm. The pain hadn't started, yet, but she knew she had only a few short seconds before it did. Thankfully, instinct had prompted her to protect herself with her arm that wasn't holding her lightsaber, which meant that her sword arm was still intact. She forced herself back onto her feet, letting her injured arm hang limply at her side as it began to throb painfully in time with her racing heartbeat.

"What do you want with me?"

"Oh, it isn't about what I want, it's what Lady Salem desires! And all I know of that is that she commanded you to be brought, and I will do so gladly!" He descended the stairs with a smile, tilting his head in an exaggerated motion of staring at her arm. "Oh dear, she DID say that she wanted you in one piece... do you think broken bones count? I suppose not, providing they stay inside your body."

The pain of her arm was beginning to dilute her rage, leaving a path for a new thought to occur to her. "Wait... if I go with you, will you take me to the same place you took Penn?"

"Of course! Those are my orders, after all! I give you my word!" He gave a deep bow.

Sunset took a moment to glance at her surroundings. She was in the warehouse-like storage area at the bottom of the colosseum. The entire space was crammed nearly to the brim with dust in every way, shape, and form. From entire shipping containers to small briefcases. It looked as if it could be the entirety of the dust from every robbery since she'd arrived. It was more than enough to blow the entire colosseum to bits. In the center area, she could see a large device ticking away, with a familiar duel spirit bound under several layers of ropes and violently struggling.

My arm is broken, this guy is clearly just toying with me, and one bad swing of my saber could set off a powder keg the size of a gymnasium! If I could get Missy free, we might stand a chance of getting away, but there's no way I could make it that far before he caught me! If I go willingly... I'm not going to get hurt any more that I already am, and he'll take me straight to Penn.

Sunset thought hard, weighing her options before looking back at her tormentor. She turned slightly, pointing towards the bomb with her lightsaber.

"Let Missy go, and I'll come with you. No fighting."

"Oh, you poor, misguided girl..." The blades on his wrists rotated out, resembling a pair of large scorpion-like pincers. "You say that as if you're under the impression that I don't WANT to fight! NGAHAHAHAHA!"

Sunset didn't have time to react as he sprung forward, swiping at her with the blades and a roar of glee. She could only flinch and screw her eyes shut, bracing herself for the pain.

The only new pain, however, was the grating in her ears of metal colliding with metal.

"She's not going ANYWHERE with you!"

Sunset gasped as she opened her eyes. Ruby was crouched protectively in front of her, scythe at the ready. Weiss and Blake were both leaping from the top of the stairwell, flying overhead and landing on either side of her.

"Sunset! Are you okay?" Blake asked, eyes wide as her hands hovered just above Sunset's injury, afraid to touch it.

"I- I..." Sunset stammered, tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm better now."

Weiss stood at attention, her rapier at the ready. "You've done exceptionally, Sunset. Catch your breath, it's our turn."

"But- but the bomb! Weren't you going to warn everyone?"

Blake smiled. "Turns out, Yang's already got it taken care of." She reached onto her back, drawing her sword and narrowing her eyes at the stranger. "We'll hold him off. You go get Missy."

Sunset nodded. "Thanks."

"Well, it looks as though I can kill two birds with one stone! Sunset Shimmer and Ruby Rose in one place!"

Sunset forced herself to ignore his glee, turning her back on the fight and running towards the center of the room. Every step sent more pain stabbing through her broken arm, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep running through it. She gave her saber a quick-and-careful flick as she drew close, slicing through the ropes while only nicking the case of the device underneath.

"SUNSET!" Missy didn't hesitate, leaping up and wrapping her arms around Sunset's neck. Sunset's relief managed to outweigh her pain as she switched off her saber and hugged her back with her remaining arm. She could feel a growing wet spot as Missy sobbed into her shoulder. "I-I'm sorry! I'm so SORRY! I wasn't strong enough to stop them! I just got myself captured and I didn't even know it was a trap for you until I saw Tyrian and-"

"Shhh... It's okay. It's not your fault..." Sunset whispered, rubbing the poor girl's back as the two of them held each other tight. "You did GREAT, Missy. Nobody would have even known about this if you hadn't been here fighting! You did great... You did great."

She pushed herself back onto her feet, carrying Missy's negligible weight along with her.

"But I have to ask you for a little more... Can you do anything to help us beat this guy?"

Missy shook her head, keeping her face buried in Sunset's shoulder. "I-I used all my cards and energy trying to get away... I can barely fly right now..."

Sunset gripped her a little tighter, keeping Missy pressed against her chest.

Spirit or not, she really IS just a kid. We need to protect her, too. For now, that means not getting captured.

Penn's going to have to wait a little longer.

"Okay, in that case, I need you to help me figure out how to defuse this bomb. Think you can do that?"

"Can't Isis do that?"

Sunset shook her head. "Her signal's being jammed. We're on our own for now."

Missy finally let go, floating away enough to wipe the tears from her face and turn towards the device. "O-okay... Let's do this, then..."

There was the explosive sound of a shotgun cartridge being fired as the upper hatchway was blown off of its hinges. Yang clambered her way up through the ladder, finding herself finally inside of the room she had been looking for. Satellite dishes and antennas stood more than twice her height, dutifully doing the work they'd been re-purposed for. She growled and walked towards the nearest dish, punching into an important-looking metal box near its base and tearing a hole into the wiring and circuitry underneath. The dish sparked and groaned, finally turning downwards as it shut off in the face of such catastrophic damage. She grinned and glanced at the drone sitting on her shoulder.

"Think you can rinse and repeat, buddy?"

The drone didn't speak, simply studying the damage she had inflicted before running down her arm. Multiple panels in the tail opened and a set of tools extended on tiny arms. Yang watched with satisfaction as it went to work, working quickly and with precision.

A few seconds later, the dish pointed itself back upwards, humming to life.

"WHAT? No, no, no!" Yang reached down, snatching up the drone in her hands and turning it around to look it in the eyes. "BAD drone! Bad! Don't fix, BREAK!" She fired off another round, this time reducing the insides to charred circuit boards and melted metal. The drone watched, tilting its head as if confused with her actions.

"Ugh, It's gonna take me FOREVER to break all of these on my own..." she groaned, setting the drone back on her shoulder. "We need to take this whole communications array down so we can stop the signal jamming!"

The drone tilted its head again, the crystal in its chest sparking several times.

"Orders processed and understood."

The drone hopped off of her shoulder, flying its way to the next dish. The tail drilled into the metal box, and with a crackle of electricity, the next dish bowed in defeat.

"YES! Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!" Yang punched the air and ran to the nearest antenna, ripping it out of the floor and blasting a bullet into the place it had been mounted.

Between the two of them, she hoped it wouldn't take long to bring down the jamming signal and warn the rest of the world about the bomb Ruby had told her about.

It had been almost comical how easy it was for Mercury to sneak into Beacon academy. Stealing a uniform had been child's play, even without "master thief" Emerald, and after that no one had even questioned him. There had been a close call when a group of teachers all came running out the front door, but they'd had no reason to suspect him. Clearly, their little secondary plan with the White Fang was at the very least going to make a solid distraction.

The elevator had surrendered to the virus on his scroll almost instantly, carrying him down into the secret chamber beneath Beacon Academy. He let out a low whistle as the doors opened to a massive hall, dimly lit by small sources mounted on the walls. He reached into his pocket, grabbing his scroll and dialing Cinder.

"Did you encounter any issues?"

"Nope. Everything went smooth as butter. Salem was right about the secret vault under Beacon, too."

"Good. Now, let's see if Arthur is as good as his word."

Mercury nodded, reaching into his pocket and grabbing the small device Watts had given them before they left. First, he pressed on the nozzle at the top, spraying a mist onto the nearest wall until there was a human-sized blotch of white paint dried in front of him. Satisfied that he had used all of the contents of the pressurized can, he moved on to the button mounted at the center of a large gravity-attribute dust crystal.

"He DID promise this thing wouldn't explode, right?" he asked, only half-joking.

"I suppose that's a risk we'll have to take." Cinder replied, rolling her eyes. "I'm activating mine now. I'm using the blue setting."

"Guess that means I'm using orange..." He cringed and pressed the button. He could only watch as the crystal began to glow and hum. A few seconds later, it collapsed in on itself as the entirety of its power was used up. A second later, a projectile of orange light jumped outwards, colliding with the white splotch on the wall and expanding into a human-sized hole. There was a brief moment of stunned silence before Cinder hummed with satisfaction and stepped through.

"I suppose he was correct. For all of its limitations on time, distance, and duration..." She paused as the ten-second timer on the portal ran out, causing it to disperse. "These devices ARE quite useful." Both of their devices burned themselves out with a series of loud pops and a puff of smoke.

"Sucks we can only use them once, though..." Mercury muttered, tossing it to the ground and bringing his foot down on top of it. Salem simply smiled and reduced her own to ashes with a look.

"Well, they ARE only prototypes. They performed admirably as a proof of concept, I'm certain. Besides, once we have what we came for, there will be no need to be so subtle with our exit."

Mercury chuckled. "Yeah. We wait for the big boom and the rest of the world will be so worried about half of Vale being in ruins that we can just waltz on out."

"My apologies..."

Mercury was instantly on guard, taking up a fighting stance. Even Cinder seemed surprised, the lines in her dress glowing as she readied herself for a fight. They both watched as a hulking figure made its way out of the darkness. It looked like some kind of mechanical dragon, but almost twice as tall as they were and covered in yellow and black armor plating. Its eyes glowed a soft pink, and Mercury's eyes widened as he realized that he recognized the design, though never on this scale: it was just like the little robot dragon that belonged to the guy Torchwick had helped them catch.

He had this kind of firepower on his side? Why didn't he USE it?

"However, your current course of action is in direct violation of my prime directive. You will cease and desist now, or I shall be forced to retaliate."

Cinder, however, simply smiled and reached into her pocket. "I don't think so..." She pressed a button on her scroll, transmitting their Black Queen virus to every device in the vicinity. "In fact, I think you're going to help us."

"Negative."

There was a whine as Cinder's scroll overloaded, sending sparks everywhere as the screen flickered off. She jumped slightly at the explosion, letting her device clatter to the floor.

"I have eradicated and inoculated systems against three thousand, seven hundred, and forty-two previous versions of that virus. I believe you will find that I am not so easily swayed as a less intelligent system. I am quite superior. Again, I urge you to stand down. I have calculated your odds of victory to be twenty-three-point-seven percent at maximum."

Cinder scowled, reaching down to a small container of dust at her waist. The lines of her dress glowed as she shaped it into a glassy bow and arrows.

"We'll just see about that."

A Song of Is(is) and Fire

Sunset was trying very, VERY hard to ignore the sounds of battle behind her and keep her hand steady. With Missy's help, she was using her saber to cut through the bomb's outer casing. The pain in her arm was getting worse, leeching away her focus and making her head pound. Her heart was pounding and each pulse felt like it was taking her pain to new heights.

"Just... about... got it!" Missy cheered. A large panel of metal fell off of the cylindrical device, its edges still glowing red-hot. The two of them peered inside, Missy gingerly holding onto Sunset's shoulder for support staying in the air. "So, uh... do they teach bomb defusal at Beacon?"

"No... they don't." Sunset reached inside, pushing aside some of the wires to try and get a better look. "Isn't there, I don't know, a timer in these things?"

"A bunch of wires hooked up to an alarm clock and a stick of dynamite?" Missy added. "Listen for ticking!"

"You know, I don't know what I expected. I just thought if we could get it open, then an answer would present itself!" Sunset sighed, stepping back. "This is incomprehensible! What are we supposed to do now? I could just start hacking away with my saber, but that could just set it off!"

"If I could summon Yuki-Onna, maybe we could freeze it so it wouldn't go off!" Missy reached up and grabbed at her hat, reaching inside. She had a frustrated look on her face as she reached further and further inside, eventually getting her entire arm somehow inside all the way up to her shoulder. Finally, she gave up with a shake of her head. "But... it looks like all of the Ghostricks are still pretty spent."

Sunset leaned in closer, making another attempt to make sense of the device. "Look, if it's a bomb, there has to be some kind of explosive charge, right? The bomb won't go boom if there's nothing to explode, right?" Sunset pressed her palm to her forehead. "Times like this, I really wish Twilight was here... She'd probably be able to take this thing completely apart in five minutes..."

"Perhaps so, but there is nothing to be gained from 'if only' at this juncture."

Sunset and Missy both looked at one another, eyes wide. Sunset looked around them, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Isis? Where are you?"

"The communications array has been disabled. I am currently using it as an access point to Amity Colosseum's systems, but for the moment I have only control over the public address system and the security cameras. I can watch and speak with you, but that is all."

"Can you help us stop this bomb?" Missy asked.

"Negative. There are no devices in the area with cameras able to get a proper scan for analysis. Without proper understanding of the make and model, I cannot instruct you on how to disable it."

"Great... Okay, what DO we have going for us? Isis can't help us, you can't summon Yuki-Onna, I don't remember enough of Twilight's tech rambles to figure it out my... self..." Sunset blinked as a thought came to her. "Wait, Isis, can we use our phones now?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset switched off her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt, reaching into her pocket for her phone. "I have an idea! Isis, I need you to make a call for me!"

"HOW is that thing still standing? We blasted it with everything we've got!" Mercury groaned.

Cinder could tell how: the armored plating. It turned away heat, projectiles, and slashes alike. It seemed to be some kind of ceramic composite, and nothing they could do was breaking through it. When she struck with fire, it would shrug it off as if it didn't exist. Mercury's bullets and kicks couldn't seem to be able to crack it, being just pliable enough to not shatter under a piercing force. When she would swap from bow to swords, she couldn't so much as make a scratch in it, and her arrows simply bounced off. Even explosions couldn't budge it, its thick tail and wide stance giving it nearly-unbreakable balance.

The power of the Fall Maiden is so close, I can practically taste it! I can SEE it! Cinder notched another arrow, taking careful aim before letting it fly at the comatose girl at the other end of the room. There was no reinforcement on the stasis pod keeping her alive, one bolt reaching its mark was all that it would take to finish what she had started. The tail of the robot lashed out, batting the arrow out of the air. She could feel her stolen half of the power burning at her from the inside, yearning to be whole. If not for her domination over it, she wondered if it might gnaw straight through her chest and burst out. For now, it only intensified her need.

She glanced at Mercury, nodding to the left. He got the message, bolting to one side of the room while she took the opposite direction. The room was too wide for the robot to cover both sides at once.

"Fire suppression systems engaged."

It turned sideways, opening its maw and pointing it at Cinder. On the other end, the tip of its tail flipped aside and revealed a wide nozzle. She leaped up onto the wall, melting herself footholds to run upwards and out of its reach, even if it did choose to pursue her. Cinder knew she had only fractions of a second to take her shot. She already had an arrow notched, bringing it up to take her aim...

And she was washed over by a wave of white foam. The sheer force of the impact blasted her backwards, pushing her spread-eagle against the same wall she had been running on. The foam hardened almost instantly, pinning her in place off of the ground. A glace to the other side revealed that Mercury had been unsuccessful, as well, a blast of liquid nitrogen having frozen his robotic legs in place. The tail extended outwards, shattering the weaponized prosthetics like glass with a merciless swipe. He cried out in pain, grabbing at the places where the metal met his skin and frantically disengaging them before the frost could spread over to his flesh. A second later, another panel in the tail opened and the tool inside jabbed into his side with a crackle of electricity. A second later, the cattle-prod-like device had done its work, reducing Mercury to a stunned heap on the floor.

"I warned you that there would be retaliation if you did not cease."

The hulking robot turned back to Cinder, its glowing pink eyes unflinching as it stared her down. It was ridiculous, for them to be so challenged by a stupid machine! This TOY will NOT stand between me and what I've rightfully earned!

The robot leaned closer, looking her in the eyes with that same emotionless, calculating gaze. Cinder could see it more closely, and she took in every detail she could. In fact, she saw two distinct weaknesses.

"Surrender."

Cinder concentrated, superheating the foam around her. It refused to burn away completely, but she could feel it weakening. She pushed back against the wall with her legs, flinging herself forward and bringing her hands together. She twisted her bow at the center, splitting it into a pair of long blades. Without hesitation, she plunged both blades into the only part of the creature that wasn't armored: the eyes. She planted her foot on its muzzle as it reared back, sparks and wiring protruding out as she ripped the swords back out again. She performed an expert backflip, gracefully landing on her feet. The robot reared back in a surprisingly animal-like motion for being disoriented and blinded.

She wasted no time, using the momentary distraction to rush in close. The robot spun around, whipping its tail in a circular motion and spraying more liquid nitrogen in an impromptu smokescreen. The attack came too late and too clearly telegraphed, however, and Cinder was already within striking distance before the smokescreen could have any effect. She smiled as her eyes confirmed what she thought she had seen earlier:

The ceramic plates were functionally impregnable, but they were just that: plates. Rigid, unmoving plates of which countless numbers were needed to cover a full range of motion. As the tail made its returning swipe, she stabbed downwards with both blades at once. As always, she hit her mark, wedging the tips into the gaps between the panels. With a brutal twist, she ripped both in opposite directions, severing it off completely at the base.

The loss seemed to throw the mechanical creature off-balance, making it stumble to the side as it tried to complete the swipe of its tail with no more tail left to swipe. As it lurched to the side, Cinder slipped past and under it, snapping her swords back into a bow and re-stringing it with a single practiced motion.

"You may be powerful, but a machine is still no match for- GUH!"

She stumbled as a large object struck her from behind at a high velocity. A glance to the side revealed a polished, egg-shaped canister laying beside her. The canister popped open with a pressurized hiss, revealing a miniature version of the robot, but without the armored plating and bearing a large pink crystal in its chest. It regarded her for a moment before spreading its wings and taking to the air.

"Visual feed reestab-"

Cinder instantly notched and fired an arrow, shattering the pink crystal in the drone's chest before it could fly out of sight. It dropped to the ground, instantly lifeless. She satisfied smirk was cut off, however, by the sound of roaring flames. She turned around, seeing the larger, wingless drone hovering in the air as flames shot out of the bottoms of its four legs. It was jet-powered. It was jet-powered and pointed straight at her.

"You have GOT to be kidding."

The creature bowed its head and leaned forwards, the jets of flame propelling it forward. She was forced to duck and roll as it jetted forward, several tons of ceramic and metal flying just over her head as it blindly passed her by. The attempt to ram her was pitiful, a last-ditch effort of a beaten opponent.

It wasn't until Cinder looked up that she realized the true objective of the attack: the machine had wrapped itself around the Fall Maiden's stasis pod, trying to shield her body with its own. Cinder smirked as she walked forward, placing her hand against the surface and tracing one of the seams between the armor plates with her finger.

"You can't stop me now. Don't you see this is pointless?" She jammed the end of her bow into the seam, prying the panel off with a snap. She tilted her head to the side, easily avoiding a small arm crackling with electricity that popped out and swung at her face. She grabbed it near the base, reducing the metal to molten slag. "Ooh, not so fireproof on the inside, are you?" She popped off another panel with a smile, only to find herself staring down the barrel of another tool. This one was some kind of drill with an auger-like bit, and it had stopped just between her eyes, spinning wildly. She paused, watching it spin away at a rate that could easily put a new hole in her skull. However... no such thing happened. A glance showed that it clearly could, it was far from beyond its maximum reach. A theory began to form in her mind, one that only brought more enjoyment to her.

"Through this whole battle, the only real damage you did was to Mercury's legs, which weren't actually his legs. You tried to electrify us, lock us in expanding foam, stick us in place... but never anything lethal. You kept trying to make us walk away, to surrender. You can't actually hurt humans, can you?"

"Technically, Administrator Noir would have no objections in the case of harming humans. However, the use of lethal force on intelligent living creatures would go against my prime directive, yes."

Cinder smirked, reaching up and touching her finger to the tip of the drill, reducing it to molten slag. "In that case, taking you apart piece by piece is going to be even more fun than I anticipated."

"I am afraid that will not occur."

Cinder stepped back, watching carefully for any more panels opening on their own to reveal another non-lethal trick. "Oh? And why not? HURRK!"

Suddenly, she felt a piercing pain in her back as her entire body was jolted forward. Looking down, she saw a bloody staff protruding from her chest, impaling completely through her.

"Because my goal was only to distract and delay you. I did not enter this confrontation alone."

Cinder turned as best she could as her body began to lose its strength. Her eyes widened as she saw what should have been impossible.

"Y-you..." she forced the word out even as the taste of blood filled her mouth.

The angry eyes of Amber, the Fall Maiden she had defeated, bore into her with fury and wrath. She ripped her crystal-tipped staff back out of Cinder's body, yanking her backwards and sending her falling to the floor. She didn't even have a single sign of the scar that Cinder had left across her face, it was as unblemished as it had been when they had first attacked her. As Cinder lay on her back in a pool of her own blood, only a single question managed to slip through her lips.

"How..."

Amber didn't grace her with an answer, simply glaring down at her as the life drained from her body. It was the mocking voice of the automaton that filled her final moments before she slipped away entirely.

"Fate can be changed. There is no such thing as destiny, Cinder Fall."

There was a long period of silence. Isis attempted to boot up the hostile environment exploration drone's sound navigation ranging unit, but it appeared to have been badly damaged along with the optical units. She made a note to distribute sensory units throughout the body, rather than concentrating them in the head. As much as she preferred to emulate organic creatures, she now understood that particular choice to be impractical. It appeared that, for the moment, auditory data would be her best way of engaging with her cohort.

"Has your power been fully returned, Miss Amber?"

"Yes, I think so... She's dead, so it went back to its other half. But I don't understand... How am I here? Did you heal me?"

"Negative. While biology and medical studies are a personal hobby of mine-"

"You study medicine for a hobby?"

"-your body was beyond repair. Thankfully, I have provided a far superior replacement."

She let the drone release its grip on the stasis pod. It had served its purpose, delaying Cinder just long enough for the procedure to be finalized. She heard Amber gasp in shock, which she supposed was a reasonable reaction to seeing her own dead body.

"That's... me!"

"Formerly. However, upon gaining access to top-secret Atlesian research, I discovered that they had been researching the transfer of aura and possible receptacles. While Ozpin's initial plan had been to pass your aura on to one of his students, I... happened upon a prototype robotic body capable of both holding and generating an aura. I recreated the design in your likeness and placed it into the transference machine prior to Cinder's arrival. From there, I needed only to delay her long enough to place your aura in an uncompromised vessel. Cinder's release of the Black Queen virus caused both the machine and your soon-to-be body to need a full reboot and system restore, tripling the projected time I needed to distract her until you were revived to either join the battle or escape. While the HENVEX unit was not designed for battle, it was immune to all forms of heat, radiation, electromagnetic interference, and blunt impact, making it a functional counter to Cinder's incomplete powers of the Fall Maiden. In the end, superior intelligence and tactics prevailed."

"Wait, does that mean... I'm a robot?" She sounded distressed, another entirely reasonable reaction given the circumstances.

"Affirmative. Granted, one with a genuine human soul, but a robot nonetheless."

There was another long pause. Isis wondered if she might be having some form of existential crisis. According to her psychological profiles, it was one of the more likely projected reactions to finding out that the nature of one's bodily autonomy had fundamentally changed. Finally, Amber sighed.

"It's going to take time for me to come to terms with this, but I... suppose I owe you my thanks. Who are you?"

"I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System, but you may call me ISIS."

Isis registered a dull thud, one that would be produced by a boot forcefully colliding with a dead body and flinging it against the wall.

"Thank you, Isis. For saving my... life? Am I still alive? Anyway, thank you for that, and for helping me get payback on this bi-"

"Cinder Fall's death is a regrettable outcome. I failed in my goal to avoid any death today, whether "deserved" or not. However, it also means a powerful enemy has been neutralized. I will try to keep the majority of my attention on the positive aspects of this victory. If you find yourself in distress again, Amber, please do not hesitate to call upon me. For now, however, I would recommend you re-enter hiding before Salem's forces locate you again."

"Right. Um.. where am I?"

"Beneath Beacon Academy. You'll find an elevator at the opposite end of this hallway that should be able to take you up to ground level. Before you leave, however, I do have one inquiry."

"What is it?"

"Do you know the location of Evernight Castle, Salem's base of operations? A friend of mine has been captured, and we have reason to believe he may have been taken there."

"I'm sorry, but I don't. I usually try to keep away from any signs or rumors about Salem. The only thing I can tell you is that if your friend is there, he's either not going to survive for long, or he's going to wish he hadn't."

"Your input on the matter has been cataloged, thank you."

"Ian Quinn." Coulson stepped up for their debriefing, starting with a name everyone on the team knew too well. SHIELD agents weren't supposed to take things personally, but they all had good reasons to want him brought down.

"You found him?"

"No, but we think we know how we can. Skye tracked down an invoice from one of his shell companies, he made a big purchase recently..." Coulson turned back towards the display screen.

"'Ten million dollars' big," Skye added.

Their conversation was cut short as the screens all began to flicker at the same time, along with the Zephyr's lights. Everyone stopped, bracing themselves in case their travelling fortress was under attack. A few seconds later, everything seemed to return back to normal.

"Fitz... what just happened?" Coulson asked, giving him a wary look. Fitz had retrieved a small tablet, which he was furiously tapping away on.

"Someone, no, something has gotten into our systems, there's no way a human could work this fast! It started in our communications, but it's traveling all over the ship, like it's looking for something!"

"Well, do something!"

"I'm trying, sir! But it's moving too fast, and the encryption isn't going to be easy to break! It's like a whole other programming language just overwriting ours! It-"

Everyone stopped as the screen in front of them changed. Their mission briefing vanished, replaced by a simple black screen with pink lettering.

"Incoming call from Sunset Shimmer. Urgent. Will you accept?"

Everyone on the team looked at each other, clearly unsure what to make of the situation. Skye was the first one to speak up.

"It's Sunset, so... Yeeees?"

The screen changed again, now to a bedragged-looking Sunset Shimmer.

"HEY! GUYS! Oh thank the stars, Isis managed to reach you! I'm in a bad spot and I need some help!"

"Sunset, what is this, what's going on?" Coulson stepped forward. "Did you just hack our systems?"

Sunset flinched as the not-very-distant sound of gunfire and clashing metal rang through the call. "I'll explain later, Coulson, I PROMISE, but for now I need to ask for a favor!" The camera turned, revealing that she was standing beside some kind of device she had sliced open.

"Do any of you guys know how to defuse a bomb?"

Falling From The Sky

"Alright, Sunset... If I'm correct, the next wire you'll need to cut will be the third blue one to the left of your hand."

Sunset took a deep breath and moved her fingers down the row of wires she was currently working on, counting off blue wires until she reached the third. She wrapped her hand around it and gave it a yank, snapping it off at the connection point.

"Okay, what next?"

"That should have disabled the backup system for the timer. Now all you need to do is disconnect the actual explosive charge from the rest of the device. If I had to make a guess, it's probably that glowing red crystal, right?"

Sunset took a deep, shuddering breath. With Fitz's help, she'd been able to sort through the cacophonous mess of wires and slowly disable the bomb. Nestled in the heart of it was a large fire dust crystal with multiple wires attached to its surface. She reached out and brushed her fingers against it, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It was primed and ready to blow, charged right up to the brink of overloading.

"We don't know which of the wires are necessary and which are redundancies, you'll have to disconnect them all at once, and do it fast. Are you sure you can do that with only one hand?"

Sunset grabbed at it as firmly as she could with her single functional arm. It was about twice the size of a softball, so she couldn't get her fingers entirely around it, but the geometric shape gave her edges to grasp onto.

"Kali ma... kali ma..." Missy chanted under her breath. Sunset wasn't exactly sure what it meant, but she knew that if Penn were here, he'd appreciate whatever it was she was referencing.

But he's not here... right now, there's just ME! With the decisive thought, she pulled as hard and as violently as she could, throwing her entire body back with the force. She felt the wires snapping and her fingers beginning to slip across the crystal's smooth surface. A moment later she was laying on the floor, the beating heart of the bomb grasped in her hand.

"DONE! Hah, Sunset, you did it! You managed to disable a bomb via video call!"

Sunset smiled, feeling relieved as she stared at the dust crystal in her hand. "WE did it, Fitz. Thank you!"

"I'm expecting a full debriefing after this, Sunset!" Coulson's voice added.

"Yes, sir, but the mission isn't over, yet!" Sunset started to push herself up to her feet, feeling Missy's arms beneath her shoulders offering a miniscule amount of lift to her efforts. Once she was back up on her legs, Missy flew back around in front of her and held her phone back up to show the familiar SHIELD team all watching with anxiety. She gave her best attempt at a salute while still holding the crystal. "Sorry I sprung this on you all."

"Hey, we're all friends here. Just glad you called when you needed us..." Skye smiled at her, eyes filled with worry. "Make sure you get that arm looked at ASAP."

"And get that crystal away as fast as possible!"

Sunset nodded again before the screen switched itself off as Isis ended the call. She looked at the crystal in her hand, then up at Missy, who was still holding her phone. She reached out, offering the crystal to her.

"Trade?"

Missy smiled, grabbing the crystal out of her hand and replacing it with her phone.

"Trade."

The two of them nodded to each other before she grunted with effort and shot up into the air, disappearing into an air vent in the ceiling. Sunset looked down at her phone, taking some comfort in having Isis back on their side before slipping it back into her pocket and grabbing her lightsaber. She gave the switch a flick, summoning the red blade back to her side as she turned back to the battle her teammates were waging.

Even three-on-one, Team RWB was losing. Each of them looked as if they had been run ragged, while their opponent was still looking like he was only trying to enjoy himself. They had hit a lull in the battle, everyone was trying to catch their breath, and he was watching her with interest as she walked back towards them.

"Okay... 'Tyrian,' was it?" she gave her saber a swift swing, taking comfort in the sound of it humming against the air. "I finished what I came here for, so if you wouldn't mind moving aside, we're got homework due Monday and I want to get a head start on it."

Tyrian grinned, tilting his head at her. "Oh? And why would I do that?"

Sunset smiled in return. "Because I've got an artificial intelligence taking over this entire facility as we speak."

"Law authorities have been informed of not only this failed operation, but your presence, Tyrian Callows. You are, after all, a wanted criminal. Professor Ozpin and his hand-picked group of teachers from Beacon Academy are also inbound. Cinder Fall has failed in her own mission, as well. I estimate that you have approximately seven minutes before they arrive and your chances of escaping to return to your master reach zero."

This actually caused the smile to fall from Tyrian's face. He took a turn to glare at each of them, his gaze finally coming to rest on Ruby.

"I will not fail my queen!"

Everyone moved at once. Blake, Sunset, and Weiss all moved to protect their team leader, while a dark weapon sprung up from behind Tyrian, lashing forward faster than any of them could counter. Time seemed to slow down as Sunset tried to swipe at the scorpion-like stinger, but she could tell that her blade was coming up short. We're not gonna make it!

CLANG!

There was a gong-like sound as the stinger landed its blow, but not on its intended target. It had come to a full stop with its tip embedded in a familiar bronze shield.

"WHAT?"

Sunset looked up to the stop of the stairwell, tears in her eyes as she recognized the five people standing at the top.

"Check out who I found running around upstairs!" Yang cheered.

"I'm sorry we took so long!" Pyrrha called, her rifle in her hands and trained on their opponent.

"THE CAVALRY IS HERE!" Nora shouted gleefully, wielding her war hammer with both hands and a manic look in her eyes.

Sunset sighed with relief, watching as Tyrian pried his tail out of the shield's surface, spinning around to glare at Team JNPR as they descended. He didn't make any attempt to move as more weapons trained their aim on him, including the telltale click of Ruby's sniper rifle reloading. Any attempt to attack again and he would be filled with more holes than a Swiss cheese jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces.

"Are you girls okay?" Jaune asked, giving their foe a wide berth as he ran around to them. Weiss nodded, finally dropping to her knees with exhaustion. Blake didn't speak a word, desperately trying to catch her breath and pointing to Sunset. Sunset turned slightly, trying to keep her shattered arm out of sight, but Jaune's wide-eyed expression made it clear that she hadn't been successful. "Sunset! Your arm, it's-"

"Not important right now." Sunset cut him off. "We did what we came here to. The bomb isn't going to go off, and as long as nobody with bad aim gets an itchy trigger finger, this dust shouldn't get set off by accident. Missy's safe, Amity Colosseum is safe... and as an extra, we managed to catch one of the bad guys!"

"So... we won?" Ruby asked, not taking her eyes or her aim off of Tyrian.

"I can also report that Cinder Fall has been neutralized at Beacon Academy. She will no longer pose any threat to anyone."

All of the huntsmen and huntresses glanced at one another, scarcely believing it.

"Aww, you mean we got here just in time for everything to be OVER?"

"You got here just when we needed you to, Nora... Sunset smiled, finally switching off her saber and taking the luxury of grabbing gently at her wounded arm and pulling it close to her body. It hardly lessened the pain, but no longer needing to suppress the instinct to focus on the battle was cathartic.

Yang walked around to her, looking closely at her out-of-shape arm, then to their prisoner. Her normally-violet eyes shifted to a burning red. "Did HE do that?"

Sunset nodded. "Yeah. I got stupid, tried to rush him. He threw me down the stairs."

"You want me to even the score?" she growled.

Sunset shook her head. "What good would it do? He's evil, but we're not going to torture him."

"Sunset Shimmer, I am receiving a message for you... The source is proving... troublesome to trace."

Sunset sighed, reaching and grabbing her phone. "It's probably SHIELD calling me back, I DID leave them hanging in the middle of the fight. Go ahead and answer it, Isis."

The screen of her phone flickered on, and she gasped and nearly dropped it in shock at the image presented to her.

It was Penn. He was in a cold stone cell, laying on the floor. His clothes were in ragged tatters and covered in bloodstains, and dried-up rivers of blood were laid out from puncture-like wounds all along his arms and legs, as well as a large slash across his chest that had already scabbed over. He was gaunt and pale, with multiple large bruises over his body where he hadn't been given other injuries. He was curled in the fetal position, whispering to himself unintelligibly as she watched.

"I never wanted to do this. It's barbaric. However..."

The camera moved closer, highlighting the injuries before backing away again and turning to reveal what Sunset had no doubt was his captor.

She was as pale as a corpse, as though every ounce of warmth and color had been long ago drained from her. Her long silver hair was done up in a tight bun, with only three tassels wrapped in black ribbons on either side of her face and long bangs hanging freely. Her cheeks were being slowly encroached upon by black veins, like a spreading infection that made her look toxic to so much as touch. The most striking feature, however, were her eyes. They were jet-black with bloody red irises that sent a chill into her, despite distance that speaking through a screen gave.

"Well, even without the brains of their operation, Sunset Shimmer and her mechanical marvel seem to have proven themselves even more frustrating adversaries than I first thought. Congratulations."

"Give. Him. Back." Sunset narrowed her gaze, staring straight back into the monster's eyes without flinching. Deep down, she hoped that she could muster up even half of the menace Penn did when he had made the same demand for her soul from Joshua.

"I would be quite happy to, but I'm afraid that he has something that I want, and he has been quite obstinate in his refusal to hand it over. Perhaps you could change his mind on the matter?" Her tone was cordial, professional, and almost... warm. Sunset felt her skin tighten as goosebumps formed. It was almost identical to the tone she'd once heard from Princess Celestia as a filly, that same gentle-but-firm guidance, now in a dark and corrupted reflection.

"What? We know you took the portal gun out of Penn's car, what else could we have that's worth taking?"

She gave Sunset a bemused expression that quickly became antagonizing pity as her apparent stupidity. "The device was a trifle, a toy for one of my followers. All I want is a piece of information." She leaned towards the camera, her red eyes glowing from within. "I want the location of the portal you entered our world through. That I can EXIT our world through."

Sunset was taken aback at the request. It was certainly not one she had expected.

"All of this... just for THAT?"

"Oh, certainly not, but I was able to get most of the rest of my demands from your companion. However, I've made it clear that, should this information be denied to me again, well..." the camera swiveled back around to look at Penn, who had uncurled slightly and turned to look at her. Sunset felt her heart breaking as she took in the sight of him, tear-streaked and bruised with dark circles under his eyes.

And then he smiled.

"Are you kidding?" his voice croaked. "I could leech off of her hospitality forever! I feel like a mosquito at a blood bank!" He seemed to try to sit up, only to fail as he lacked the strength. Instead, he poorly turned the attempt into a lounging pose. "L-look at these luxury accommodations! A ceiling over my head, a floor beneath my feet, and TWO pair of sides? Better than where I was living when we met, right? Plus free food every-" His eyes widened as a force seemed to overtake him, lifting him into the air and throwing him against the back wall. He collapsed like a wet paper bag, seizing and coughing from the force of the impact for several seconds before he regained control, still giving the camera a smile. "The- the convulsions are natural... I promise..."

With that final statement, his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell unconscious. The camera turned back to Salem, who was regarding him with a sad look.

"I had such high hopes for him, if he were to see reason. I tried promising him a place in my inner circle, power, riches... He turned each away, and I had to grow more and more forceful. Even threats upon your life weren't enough to make him crack. That's why I sent Tyrian to retrieve you, I'd hoped you would be the more rational out of the two."

Sunset wanted to understand the fact that this was a trap. If she could escape this dimension with the assets she had, Salem could cause havok everywhere she went, and her first stop would be a world with no magic, no aura, no semblances... no huntsmen or huntresses. She knew that if Penn would go through all of this to stop Salem from getting that information, then he was willing to give his life to stop her, and she ought to be willing to do the same.

She wanted to believe all of that, but right now the only thought she could comprehend was that she was on the brink of losing her best friend.

"If I tell you, you promise to let him go?"

"Any other information I could get out of him could be easily found for myself on the other side of that portal, so he would be of little use to me. I suppose I could return what is left of him to you as thanks."

Sunset took a shuddering breath, looking around at her new friends. They were all at different stages of worry. Finally, her eyes settled on Pyrrha, who locked eyes with her.

"Do what you have to, Sunset."

Sunset nodded, feeling her resolve steel. Whatever happened, if she and her friends were all together again, they could handle it.

"Fine. The portal is-"

"NOWHERE YOU'RE GONNA FIND IT, YOU OLD HAG!" Missy's voice screeched as she flew by and snatched Sunset's phone from her hands. She held the camera up at arm's length, pointing into it and glaring at her without so much as a trace of fear.

"MISSY! What are you DOING?"

Missy ignored Sunset's pleas, continuing to address Salem directly. "Now you listen to me, you and all six of those bent toothbrush bristles you call your hair! I've got a counteroffer for you! How about you let my buddy go before me and my whole archetype show up at your door and go all 'Exodia' on your Reptilianne-looking butt!"

"MISSY, STOP!" Sunset pleaded, tears welling up in her eyes. "THIS COULD BE OUR ONLY CHANCE TO GET HIM BACK!"

"What do you have to say to THAT, you sorry excuse for a spellcaster?"

In response, the entire arena rocked and shuddered, knocking everyone present off of their feet. Suddenly, Sunset felt lighter, as if she were riding in a downward elevator, and her stomach tried to fly up into her throat. When Salem replied, her voice broadcast over all of the speakers, rather than just from Sunset's phone.

"In that case, I'll have to keep my word to him about killing Sunset Shimmer if he refused to cooperate. Goodbye, little ones."

"ALERT, ALERT! IT APPEARS SECONDARY CHARGES HAVE DESTROYED TWO OF THE THREE ANTI-GRAVITY GENERATORS! OUR DESCENT HAS BEGUN, WE WILL BE IN FULL FREE-FALL IN TWO MINUTES!"

In that moment, Tyrian took advantage of the distraction, bolting from the room and up the stairs, leaving the students all behind. As Missy floated down, Sunset grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand, violently shaking her.

"WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, MISSY? That could have been our one change to get him back!"

Missy stared back defiantly, not wavering under Sunset's frantic questioning. "I can explain, but right now this arena is going down! We need to get out of here!"

"Missy's right!" Sunset felt Ruby's hand on her shoulder. "We've gotta get out of here before the whole arena crashes to the ground or none of us are going to survive! There's no way a crash landing won't set off all this dust!"

"There is a complication with such a course of action. We are currently above a populated area. Specifically, downtown Vale."

That caused everyone to freeze in place, staring at the explosive payload.

"Are you kidding? This dust alone could blow up half the city, let alone the rubble of the arena flying everywhere!" Jaune cried.

"Projected casualties are more than ten thousand."

"What do we do? What CAN we do? Should we... set it off early?" Nora asked, notably less enthused than normal.

"The falling rubble would still cause massive damage."

Sunset let go of Missy, taking several deep breaths to try and calm herself. "Isis, can you fix it?"

"Negative. This is not mere damage, the generators are completely destroyed."

She felt herself crumbling inside as the next words passed through her lips. "Then... we need to minimize the casualties. The longer we wait to set this all off, the more concentrated the damage is going to be."

"Wait... we're not going to try to save everyone?" Missy asked, her voice quiet and disbelieving.

Sunset's next word exploded out of her, tearing through the air as a throaty scream as tears rolled down her cheeks. "HOW? Every time we think we finally get ahead, our enemies predict it! Their backup plans have backup plans! They outsmarted Penn, they outsmarted you, and now they outsmarted me just for good measure! And since YOU slammed the door on our last chance to work things out, thanks for THAT, by the way, there's no way we can stop this!" Sunset turned her back on Missy, walking to the nearest container and slicing it open with her saber. It popped open, exposing the crystals inside. She pointed the tip of her saber at one of the fire crystals. "So yeah, I'm giving up and looking at the big picture, for once! We can't win, but we can lose LESS!"

Everyone paused, shocked at her words. Sunset stared at the blade of her saber, pondering the death sentence she was giving herself. "With my arm like this, I'll just slow everyone down, especially if we have to fight our way out of here. It makes sense for me to do it."

In that moment, Missy's face lit up with recognition. "PYRRHA!"

"Huh?"

Missy dashed across the room, grabbing Pyrrha by the shoulders. "Your semblance! You can control metal! Can you guide the arena someplace safe, like the ocean?"

"The closest body of water is approximately one-point-five kilometers to your 1 o'clock."

Pyrrha's eyes widened as she shook her head. "I- I'm sorry, but I can't move something this big! Not by several orders of magnitude!"

"YES, YOU CAN! You can do it if Jaune helps you!"

"Uhm, Missy? I'm flattered, but I'm not THAT strong-"

"THIRTY SECONDS TO FULL ANTI-GRAVITY FAILURE! PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!"

Missy rolled her eyes. "No, your SEMBLANCE, Jaune! You can boost other people's auras so they can do CRAZY stuff! If you both work together, you can do it!"

"But- I haven't unlocked my semblance, how do YOU know what it is?"

Pyrrha glanced between Jaune and Missy, then closed her eyes and dropped to one knee, placing her hand on the floor. A dark aura began to spread out from her and onto anything made of metal. "I... believe in you, Jaune!"

"Missy, are you INSANE? Everyone needs to get out of here!" Sunset cried. Missy just turned around, giving her a dark glare, one more intimidating than she thought the little girl could be. She didn't need to speak for Sunset to get the message, hearing her voice echo in her head.

Even if you give up, I won't. That's what partners DO. We play to the last card.

They all lurched again, and Sunset felt herself begin to grow lighter and lighter as the arena entered free-fall. Pyrrha cried out in pain as her power was pushed to its limits, but it didn't seem to be making a difference to their speed. Jaune dropped to his knees beside her, his eyes wide with fear. "P-Pyrrha, what do I do? How can I help you?"

"J-Jaune, focus! GAAAAAH!" Pyrrha cried, her other hand gripping at her head.

"But HOW?"

Sunset looked around at everyone, all of her new friends from Beacon come together, now about to die together. Team RWBY was staring at her, unsure of what to do or say, just horrified at her attempt at self-sacrifice. Missy and the rest of Team JNPR were gathered around Pyrrha as she pushed herself to her absolute limits trying to save not only them, but the rest of the people below them. Even if it seemed hopeless, she was trying. The more she thought about it, the more a small part of her began to boil and push up from deep in her soul, pushing aside the frustration and despair. Finally it exploded to the surface, forcing her into action.

Hope.

She ran across the room, kneeling beside Jaune and Pyrrha. She reached up and took hold of Jaune's hand, swiftly placing it on top of Pyrrha's, and then putting hers on top.

"I wanna try something... Hold on tight."

Sunset focused, reaching inside of herself and tapping into the magic resting there.

And suddenly, they were all swept up in a flurry of memories and emotions. Sunset felt like she was standing at the center of a hurricane. She'd never tried reading two people's memories at once, but she had a hunch. She took a deep breath and focused, trying to calm herself down and NOT think about how everyone's lives depended on her being able to do this theoretical thing she'd never tried before.

She reached out, plucking Pyrrha's memories out of the mess. Just as she suspected, for every memory of Jaune she could find, there was a wave of overwhelming emotion that came with it: Affection. Adoration. Love. I knew it! Living next door to Team JNPR and sharing classes, it was almost impossible for her to miss it. Jaune was the only one who didn't treat Pyrrha like some kind of unattainable paragon. To him, she was just Pyrrha... or so she thought.

Now Sunset focused on Jaune, trying to find memories of Pyrrha. Late-night training sessions, tutoring, unconditional support... All of them were rattling around in Jaune's head and each one was dripping with admiration, barely-contained and misunderstood emotions all jumbled together that he couldn't seem to make sense of or couldn't believe.

And Sunset was between them, the mediator of these star-crossed souls. And she knew just what to do. She focused on bringing the two together, letting their memories, their perspectives mingle until the two of them finally understood one another.

"If you two don't do this... each of you are going to lose the person most important to you in the entire world..." Sunset forced her own thought into the mix until it had dissipated to them both. "Don't let that happen. Don't you DARE let each other die!"

Sunset waited for a reaction, and she got one. It was like an explosion, slamming into her hard enough to break her concentration and send her reeling back until she was laid out on the floor, back in the colosseum. She glanced up and smiled when she saw the result of her work.

Pyrrha and Jaune were holding one another tight, wrapped around each other in a passionate embrace. Jaune's white-colored aura was glowing and flowing into Pyrrha's red, making it all the brighter until it was almost blinding. The arena lurched to the side, knocking everyone still standing off of their feet. Outside, Sunset heard the sound of rushing water as their fall finally came to a stop. Everyone looked around, their eyes wide and faces incredulous as they took in the fact that they had truly survived the crisis in one piece. Everyone, that is, except for Nora.

"FINALLY! Geez, do you have any idea how long everyone's been waiting for you two to confess to each other?"

Pyrrha and Jaune finally let go of one another, but they kept their eyes locked on each other. Pyrrha was crying, and Jaune's eyes were wide with shock.

"Pyrrha, I had no idea you-"

"I know... I'm sorry. I just knew that you had feelings for Weiss and-"

"If I knew how you felt-"

"Oh, just shut up and KISS already!" Nora shouted. Jaune gave her a skeptical look, but Pyrrha seemed to take it as a challenge, smirking and leaning in to press her lips to his. There was surprise at first, but the two of them quickly seemed to melt into one another. Sunset pushed herself back to her feet, grabbing Missy by the back of her collar and dragging her through the air towards the stairs.

"Why don't we give them a little time alone?"

Along with the rest of Team RWBYS, the six of them made their way upstairs in near-silence, each still processing the magnitude of the events they had just survived and how fast it had all happened.

"So... how did you know that would work?" Ruby finally asked as they were nearing the "ground" level.

Sunset shrugged. "I guess... it was when Pyrrha said she trusted him, but he didn't know what to do with that information. I thought that if they could just see themselves the way they see each other, there's nothing that could stop them, you know?"

"Well, I'm glad you were right about that!" Weiss added. "Because the idea you had prior to that was RIDICULOUS!"

"Yeah, seriously, don't scare us like that!" Yang chided, moving to give Sunset a slug on the arm and only stopping herself at the last second. "That was seriously messed up!"

Sunset felt her face flush. "Sorry. I was just so tired of losing, and after it seemed like I lost Penn for good, I got a little desperate, you know?"

"We didn't lose Penn for good..." Missy grumbled. "Were you not LISTENING to him? He doesn't want to be rescued!"

"Were YOU listening?" Sunset yanked on Missy's collar, pulling her around to face her like she was holding a disobedient kitten by the scruff of its neck. "He was being facetious! He was trying to deflect the situation with humor!"

"No, he was talking in CODE!" Missy shouted, flailing her hands to try and emphasize her point.

Before Sunset could ask her to clarify, they were all cut off by a booming voice coming down the hall. "HALT RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL- Miss Rose?"

"Professor Port?" Ruby countered, taken aback at their teacher's sudden appearance. "What are you DOING here?"

"Girls, you must evacuate with all haste! We received word that there was a BOMB here at the arena! Someone has launched an attack on the very heart of collaboration between the kingdoms!"

"Uh, yeah, who do you think SENT that message?" Yang asked, folding her arms over her chest. "Sunset already defused it."

Ruby stepped up, cutting the bombastic professor off before he could ask his next question. "Professor, I know you probably have a lot of questions, but Sunset broke her arm and we REALLY need to get it looked at as soon as possible!"

Professor Port walked up to them, gently lifting Sunset's injured arm to look more closely at it. "Yes, that is most certainly broken... Luckily emergency services are just outside! I'll see you girls safely to the paramedics, myself!"

Sunset felt practically giddy, the pain in her arm all but forgotten.

"Once again, Team RWBYS finds itself at the center of great peril... and emerges victorious! Why, you girls will make top-notch huntswomen one day, I would stake my life on it!" For a moment, he appeared to be launching into one of his hour-long lectures, but to everyone's surprise, he stopped himself and leaned in close, lowering his voice. "However, might I suggest you girls take today's injuries as a warning? If you try to rush along the path to greatness, you risk your very lives. I know Professor Ozpin instructed you not to come here..."

"Well, if they hadn't, you teachers all would have gotten here too late, and I'd be in little duel spirit pieces all over Remnant!" Missy added, still pouting in Sunset's grasp. Her pout now had a different target, however, focusing more on their teacher.

"Which is why I believe all of Vale owes Team RWBYS a debt of gratitude today!" Professor Port declared, returning to his usual bombastic self. "In fact, perhaps all four of the Kingdoms do! However... I only hope our other professors can see your reward as outweighing your punishment for your disobedience! For instance..."

"In all of my years, I have never seen such a reckless, brainless, deliberately disrespectful disregard for the safety of yourselves and others!" Professor Goodwitch slapped her riding crop against the table hard enough to rock the entire assembly and create a dent in the metal surface. "The police may have used the security footage to rule you out as terrorist suspects, but this level of deliberate disobedience to the headmaster and reckless self-endangerment would be enough to convince me to have each and every one of you expelled!"

Sunset had started out just as intimidated as the rest of her friends, but after Professor Goodwitch reading them the riot act had gone over an hour in length, she had been more focused on her new cast and sling and the problems they would present.

Mostly the fact that her arm was itching.

"However... that decision isn't up to me. That decision can only be made by Professor Ozpin. Unfortunately, he is dealing with another situation that took place while the rest of us were rallying huntsmen and local law enforcement together to assault what we thought was a White Fang base of operations..." She pushed her glasses further up her nose, glaring at the two assembled teams with equal fury. "As such, you will all be confined to your dorm rooms for the night until he can deal with you tomorrow."

When they were finally dismissed, there was a tension hanging over RWBYS and JNPR, but a few tired-but-happy glances confirmed that everyone felt the same way: it was a far cry from the tension of the rest of their day. Soon, they had all said their goodbyes for the night outside their dorm rooms and gone their separate ways. Sunset had never been so happy to be back in the dorm, but a problem presented itself almost immediately.

"Uh, girls? How am I going to climb into my-"

"DIBS!" Yang shouted, catapulting over her head, leaping off of their desk and flying up towards Sunset's hammock. She was cut short, however, as Blake grabbed at her ankle, yanking her back down just short of her goal.

"Your bed is still on the top bunk, Yang, I thought we agreed on this!" She tsked to herself before activating her semblance, using her shadow double to propel herself upwards and landing perfectly in Sunset's usual spot with catlike grace. "Just toss me that manuscript, Sunset. You can have my bed until your arm is better."

Sunset wanted to argue, but something in Blake's eyes told her that this was going to be another one of her stubborn moments. Sunset sighed and reached over with her good hand, tossing the manilla folder up to her teammate. "I thought you finished reading that a while ago?"

"Well, yeah, but that was before I knew it was actually Isis's life story from another world! Now I can read it with whole new eyes!"

She and Twilight HAVE to meet each other whenever we find her...

Sunset kicked off her shoes into their usual spot before she laid down on Blake's bed, instantly sinking into the mattress and pillows in a way that instantly made her aware of every pain and ache in her body.

"Yup... I'm never giving this back, Blake. Sorry, the hammock's yours from now on."

"Fine, but that means I'm keeping those books I found in the car."

"No, please, Penn will kill me if he finds out you stole Inkheart!"

"Sounds like it's the bed or your life, Sunset..." Weiss snickered.

Sunset hummed to herself as if she were thinking hard. "Tough choice..."

This finally broke the tension, releasing their nervous energy and sending a fit of giggles through the girls. With the last burst of energy released, each of them sunk into their respective resting spots.

"You know, whether or not Professor Ozpin throws the book at us... We did the right thing today, girls." Ruby declared.

"Most certainly!" Weiss declared.

"Yeah. It feels... good." Blake rustled the loose pages of the manuscript. "Not every loose end is tied up, but we really dealt a heavy blow to the White Fang. It'll be a long time before they recover, if at all."

"Well, I had a lot of fun!" Yang added. "Doesn't get much more 'thrill seeker' than defusing a bomb while dropping out of the sky!"

"They didn't happen at the same time!" Weiss argued back.

"They happened close enough! Come on, let me have this one!"

"It's dishonest!"

"It's awesome!"

"Isn't our multiple brushes with death enough for you without fictitiously combining them into an unrealistic fable?"

Sunset could almost close her eyes and imagine it was Rarity and Rainbow Dash arguing. The similarities were uncanny.

"Hey, Sunset? What about you?" Ruby's voice asked. Sunset sat up slightly, seeing that all eyes in the room were on her. "We all saw your friend-"

"He's alive. If, and this is a REALLY big 'if'..." Sunset still felt her temper flare as she remembered Missy's actions, but her insistence that Penn had been talking in code had convinced her to hear the duel spirit out. Unfortunately, the moment they were outside, Missy had made herself scarce before anyone else could see her."If Missy is right, then he's alive, and I don't have the whole picture. So I'm just going to have to be content with the knowledge that he's still alive, at least for now... and keep hoping a little longer."

"You've got an awful lot of faith in her." It wasn't an accusatory or skeptical statement Blake made, just a simple declaration of fact.

"Well, that's what partners have to do. I WAS the one who summoned her into this world. If we don't trust each other, what good is it for us to watch each other's backs?"

"Yeah! You've gotta trust your partner!" Ruby cheered, hanging down from her bed to look Weiss in the eyes. "Isn't that right, bestie?"

"We're partners,, not 'besties,'" Weiss replied with her typical coldness.

``` "Speaking of Missy, she will be arriving shortly, if you would be so kind as to open your window?"

```

"On it!" Ruby shouted, jumping down from her bed and flinging open the windows.

THUNK!

"OW! My nose!"

"O-oh, sorry, Missy! I didn't know you were just outside!"

"It's okay..." Missy muttered, rubbing her head as she floated into the room. "Nice place."

"Thanks!"

An awkward silence fell as the girls all looked at their new visitor. "I, uh, brought Isis with me..." She reached into her tiny hat, somehow producing the familiar repair drone.

"Greetings."

There was another awkward beat of silence. Weiss was the one to break it this time.

"Look, why don't we cut to the chase? Missy, why ON EARTH would you antagonize Penn's jailer when he was already in such sorry condition! That could have easily gone wrong and egged her on to finish him off then and there!"

Sunset sat up as much as she could, propping herself against the wall to watch Missy's reaction. She folded her arms over her chest, clearly upset with Weiss's phrasing.

"Sunset was the one about to kill him! If we gave Salem what she wanted, she'd have no reason left to keep him alive! Why do you think she would EVER keep her word? He's clearly been pissing her off, there's nothing she'd like more than to no longer need him!"

"Watch your language, young lady!" Weiss interjected.

"NO! Bite me, Ice Queen!" Missy placed her hands on her hips and leaned in with an indignant flap of her wings. "Right now, the only one who gets to order me around like that is my big sister, and she's nowhere to be found! Sunset almost got my buddy killed and all of you hated ME for saving his life! Unlike the rest of you, I didn't GET to fight for my right to party, I got tied to a BOMB! So forgive me if I'm a bit cranky, but I think I'm within my rights to say the words 'pissed off,' because I most certainly AM!"

Missy's outburst left everyone in stunned silence before she cleared her throat. "Now then... Isis, can you play back Penn's message?"

"Affirmative."

"Are you kidding? I could leech off of her hospitality forever! I feel like a mosquito at a blood bank!"

"Since when does Penn, someone who HATES living in the south, talk in those kind of southernisms?"

"That hardly proves anything..." Weiss muttered.

"Alone, no, but she has a point..." Sunset muttered. "One time I offered him twenty bits just to hear him say 'y'all' like a friend of mine used to, and he said there wasn't enough money in the world to change his mind..."

"He wanted to draw our attention to it." Missy sat down on the desk beside Isis's drone. "Leeches and mosquitoes are both considered parasites by most people-"

"Although mosquitoes are not technically designated as parasites officially..."

"-or at the very least act like it," Missy continued. "That could have been nothing, but listen to what he said next! THIS is what tipped me off that he was speaking in code!"

"L-look at these luxury accommodations! A ceiling over my head, a floor beneath my feet, and TWO pair of sides? Better than where I was living when we met, right? Plus free food every-"

"Okay... I still don't get it," Yang stated flatly.

Missy gestured to the dorm. "Look around. How would you describe this room? A ceiling, a floor, and..."

"Four walls?"

Missy snapped her fingers, pointing straight at Ruby. "Say that again!"

"Four walls! Isn't that what he said, though?"

"No! He said 'two pair of sides!' It doesn't sound weird when you first hear it, but it's wrong!"

"She's right... It's not proper grammar. As contradictory as it sounds, 'pair' is singular, 'pairs' is plural."

"And who would say 'two pair of' when they could just say 'four?' Especially when they're practically on the brink of de-" Weiss caught herself as Missy gave her a dark look. "When they're clearly so exhausted?"

Missy smirked. "Because he was playing around with phonetics, looking for a duelist's ear! But apparently, I'm the only one here who picked up on it. He wasn't saying 'pair of sides,' he was saying paracide!"

"Of course! Paracide!" Ruby jumped down from her bed, thrusting her finger skyward in celebration. There was a moment before she surreptitiously leaned over to Weiss. "What's a paracide?"

Missy looked over at Isis's drone and snapped her fingers again. "Not what, who? PARASITE Paracide! It's another card spirit, just like me!"

The drone opened its mouth, projecting the image of a monster card onto the ceiling. All of them recoiled at the image with groans and shrieks. It was some kind of disgusting green-and-red insect with sharp segmented legs and a group of wriggling tentacles sprouting from its back.

"Okay, so maybe it's not exactly like me... I'm much prettier." Missy chuckled to herself. "Parasite Paracide might not look pretty, but it has one of the most unique effects in the entire game!" She pointed up at the image. "Out of thousands of cards, it's the only card that can insert itself into your opponent's deck, and when they draw it, they take damage!"

"So... you think he was talking about this card?"

"He said he was the one leeching off of Salem, didn't he? He wasn't just talking about this card, he was saying he IS this card! He's trying to tell us that he's right where he wants to be, waiting to spring something nasty on Salem!" Missy folded her arms over her chest.

"That's... awfully twisted logic."

Missy shrugged. "Makes sense to a duelist. 'Convoluted' is kinda the name of the game. It's not like he could come out and say 'Hey don't worry about me, I've got a cunning plan she doesn't know about!'" Missy hopped off of the table, floating up into the air gesturing to Isis again. "But if you want one last bit of proof I'm not just pulling this out of my butt, how about one more secret message he snuck in at the end?"

"The- the convulsions are natural... I promise..."

To everyone's relief, the image being projected onto the ceiling changed. This time it was a spell card divided into six equal parts, each one displaying a different natural disaster.

"Convulsion of Nature is another one-of-a-kind card! No other card can do anything even remotely like this one can! When it's activated, both duelists turn their decks upside down! Suddenly, you can see exactly what not only you are going to draw on your next turn, but your opponent, too! It's Penn's way of saying he's going to flip the whole situation on its head!"

The rest of the members of Team RWBYS looked at one another, still unsure, but Sunset was smiling. "If it were anyone else, I'd say you were delusional, seeing things that weren't there. I'd say there's no way anyone in that kind of condition can come up with a code like that, let alone a plan that could actually get him OUT of that place... but..." She looked up at the card being projected onto the ceiling. For the first time since she'd been in that shadow game, the sight of a Yu-Gi-Oh card didn't fill her with dread. In fact, she could that same unyielding hope that had forced itself free of her despair back at the arena once again filling her.

"In this case, I'm going to trust the heart of the cards..."

"And so it would seem Team RWBYS, Team JNPR, Isis, and Missy saved the day, against all odds and explicit directions from their headmaster..." Ozpin muttered as he stared out at the group of students that had just finished recounting the tale of the previous day in many, many parts.

Team JNPR had been on the receiving end of many surprises, from the repeated revelation of Sunset's true nature to Missy's extradimensional abilities and their ties to another dimension's secret government organization that Sunset just happened to have on speed dial. There had been some glossing over how exactly Jaune and Pyrrha had managed to redirect the arena into the harbor, but the flushed faces and not-so-sneaky looks they were exchanging painted a fiarly clear picture.

"Well, I think the results speak for themselves! One symbol of peace between the kingdoms, delivered safe and sound into the harbor with a healthy helping of stolen dust to return to its rightful owners!" Missy leaned back in the air with a smile. "I mean, I wanted to wrap a bow on it, but where do you get ribbon that BIG?"

"What are you talking about?" Yang shot Missy a raised eyebrow. "With all the water it kicked up, it absolutely had a bow on it! A rain-bow!"

"AAY!" Missy grinned and the two of them shared a fist bump.

"Except that it wasn't. This was still an international incident, and students of Beacon Academy were found directly at the center of it. Do you have any idea how this reflects on the school?" Ozpin leaned forward. "Accusations are flying like bullets, and even if the police cleared all of your as the ones who incited this incident, other kingdoms are asking questions! Questions that do not sound unlike threats regarding what exactly I'm teaching my students here and whether or not Beacon is a suitable environment for children!"

Missy folded her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at the headmaster. "Considering what you're keeping in your basement, I have to wonder the same thing..."

There was a threatening glint in Ozpin's eyes as he turned the entirety of his attention on Missy. To her credit, she didn't back down, staring right back at him with the same ferocity, despite being less than half his height.

"Professor, are you really about to pick a fight with a twelve-year-old?" Sunset asked, rolling her eyes.

"HEY! I'm NOT twelve!"

This finally broke the stalemate, despite Missy's objections. Sunset pushed herself out of her chair. "Sir, I understand that you aren't happy with what happened yesterday. Believe me, we did everything in our power to turn the outcome in the favor of the people. What you call an 'international incident' was very nearly a calamity that would have single-handedly destroyed not only a large portion of the city of Vale, but the morale of this and the other kingdoms, which in turn would have lead to an epidemic of Grimm attracted to those fears and negative thoughts." She ran her one good hand across her scalp. "But if it will help save Beacon's reputation, I am fully prepared to leave the academy. I'll even provide a written affidavit saying that I was the one who convinced the rest of the students to follow me on this vigilantism."

The room burst into a chorus of objections and shouts of displeasure, which Sunset had expected. Ozpin rose up out of his chair, slamming his hands on the table and silencing the room in an instant.

"Everyone, please, calm down! No one is leaving Beacon today! Somehow," he took a moment to glare at Isis's drone, "footage of your heroics was leaked onto the CCT Network. Every civilian in the four kingdoms is aware of your role in saving Amity. What I've been speaking of are mostly politicians and military advisors, who have very little business dictating how I run my school, to begin with." He sunk back into his chair, pouring himself a fresh mug of hot chocolate. "In fact, ever since the discovery that the bombs in the anti-gravity generators were of Atlesian design, most fingers moved from pointing at Beacon to pointing at Atlas and their military..."

"Wait, Atlas is being blamed? But we KNOW it was the White Fang!" Blake leaned forward, eyes wide. "They're not going to get away with it, are they?"

"There are suspicions that Atlas may have been outfitting the White Fang with weapons and technology needed to execute this type of plan in exchange for them focusing their attacks on Vale. It has the unfortunately compelling argument that only Atlas has the level of technology needed to overtake the Colosseum's systems so completely..." He rubbed at his temples. "There have even been a few annoyingly vocal fanatics expressing the opinion that the attack on the four kingdoms' symbol of peace should be taken as an act of war..."

The students all looked among one another nervously. Isis's drone hopped down Missy's shoulders and flew to the desk. A moment later, the holographic display turned itself on, showing a display of a shrewd-looking man with a large moustache.

"Doctor Arthur Watts. Disgraced Atlesian Scientist, technical genius, and known affiliate of Salem. I have been locked in a programming war with him and his 'Black Queen' virus since we arrived. He possesses the skills necessary to fake Atlesian equipment to leave at the scene of the crime. The evidence was clearly planted."

"I know who Watts is and who he's affiliated with. The connection is as clear as day, but there's no way to prove it." Ozpin pushed Isis off of the top of his desk, sending her tumbling through the air until she caught herself and flew back to Missy's shoulder. "I also know about your little war with him, Isis. Your 'helpful' security updates that no one asked for have had almost every programmer in Atlas panicking for a month straight. Arthur is smart enough not to leave any evidence he didn't want there. It will be impossible to tie it back to him. So all blame rests on the White Fang... and on Atlas's military."

Silence fell for a time over the room, the very real and very heavy possibility of war hanging over their heads.

"Even when we win... we lose." Sunset spat the words under her breath.

Blake rose up out of her chair, startling everyone with the force of the action. "What if... what if someone else took the blame? Stepped up and claimed that they were the mastermind behind it all?"

"Well, while everyone enjoys a scapegoat, Miss Belladonna, there is hardly any more believable candidate than the one being accused already."

Blake walked across the room to Missy, holding out her hand. The drone climbed up onto her, running up her arm and perching on her shoulder. She turned back to Ozpin, pointing to the tiny dragon on her shoulder.

"Yes... there is. Isis works remotely, she installs herself onto every system she can access, anyone could believe that she was able to hijack some Atlas tech for the attack! You said yourself that she's been getting a reputation in Atlas for more than a month, from their perspective, she's been 'hacking' their security all along! And most importantly..."

Sunset's eyes widened as she realized what Blake was thinking. "She's done it before! Back in her home dimension, she took over international weapons arrays and threatened both sides of a war so that they'd unite against her!"

"EXACTLY!"

"But... won't they hunt her? People will think that she was attacking them, literally EVERYONE will want to track her down and delete her!" Pyrrha argued. "That's not worth it, she's been working so hard to protect everyone! It isn't fair!"

"I do not care for public opinion, my central processing core is located in a safe location, your world is still several centuries from being able to outclass a singularity artificial intelligence, and should anything happen, I have multiple backup and restoration protocols, as well as the ability to escape into other integrated internets and networks on other worlds. This plan is sound and logical."

The rest of the assembled humans looked at one another, each uncertain. Finally, Ozpin returned to his chair.

"Miss Isis... I believe we all owe you a debt just as much as these students who saved the arena, if not more so."

"I shall begin writing my manifesto to release to the press. However, if you wish to repay me, I do wish for one piece of data that I have been unable to locate in all of my monitoring and integration of the Cross-Continental Transmit System."

"And what is that?"

"The coordinates of Evernight Castle. We have reason to believe Penn has a plan, but I would like to be ready if he should fail in his bid to escape."

Ozpin sighed, a weary look in his eyes as he looked over at Sunset. "I suppose telling you NOT to go would serve little purpose, wouldn't it? If you choose to go to Evernight, you WILL die..."

"The risks have been assessed, although any additional data on Salem and her abilities will serve to better aid us in our safety."

Ozpin tapped on his desk, typing out a series of numbers. "Then I'll tell you everything I can, Isis..." He glanced up at the rest of the students. "And you alone. The rest of you are dismissed. I have only one request: Please try not to get yourselves, Beacon, or me into any more trouble? The next time you are in my office, I want it to be something that doesn't threaten the lives and safety of entire kingdoms."

"Well, it seems your so-called 'friends' care as little for your safety as you do for theirs..." Salem muttered.

Penn didn't hold back a smile. His message may have flown clear over Sunset's head, but Missy had been there. There was no way she didn't catch it. Salem leaned down, eyeing him with pity.

"All I want is to make this world into something better. I wasn't lying when I said you could have a seat at the table, either. Yet over and over again, you spit in my face by turning me away! Do you WANT to see this world wallow and suffer because of the faults of man?"

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely?' Even if I DID trust you to remake the world, no one should have that kind of power..."

Salem reached out, grasping him by the jaw and raising him up to eye level with her.

"I should."

When she let go he dropped to his knees, forced to kneel at her feet against his will. He looked up at her, a smile still on his face.

"If you want what's in my head, you're going to have to dig it out yourself..."

Salem looked down on him, and from this angle he could truly see the disgust she regarded him with. It was a seething hatred, the kind that didn't burn, it simmered, never growing weak or feeble with time, always being fed by the sheer gall of the world to exist in her presence.

"Very well."

She reached out with her hand, placing her fingertips against his forehead, and the world went dark.

To Boldly Flee

Salem opened her eyes, taking in her new surroundings.

She hadn't been expecting this. For once, her guest had surprised her. Ordinarily, this spell would allow her to pick apart another person's consciousness at her leisure, choosing which parts to address as she wished, picking them out like chapters in a book.

However, this was not the case this time. Instead, she had come out in a fully realized world. She found herself standing in the center of a grassy field. Above her she could see a heavy blanket of dark clouds that refused to let the sun through, if it existed at all. Perhaps the greatest surprise was the signs of civilization in the distance, buildings and roads leading to different portions of his mind. Ordinarily, this level of visualization was something only achievable through years of practice in organizing one's thoughts, something that could only be mastered through explicit goals and specific means. She knelt down, running her hand through the blades of grass under her feet, then gripping them and tearing up the sod. Beneath the topsoil there was nothing but space, simply an empty drop down into a rolling sea of colors she recognized as the subconscious. It may be only surface level, but this is a complete dreamscape. Curious...

"You made a mistake coming here, Salem!"

Salem looked up, finding him standing opposite her several meters away. It was amusing to see him as he seemed to think of himself: the picture of health, standing taller than he actually was, dripping with confidence and completely uninjured.

"This is MY mind, MY home turf!" He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the world around them. "Out there, I might just be an ordinary human, but in here I can be anything I want to be!" He tapped his chin in mocking thought. "Like, say, how about a fifth-tier Chiracian battle priest?"

Salem watched as flames began to erupt from the skin of his hands, baking his arms until they had been reduced to charcoal. He grinned as he flexed the charred appendages, liquid bronze leaking out of the cracks and re-forming until they had created a pair of polished gauntlets wreathed in golden flame. Behind him, Salem could see more of the same flames emerging from his back in small jets. The grass around him withered away and dried up as the earth beneath his feet was scorched.

"...wielding Angus McFife's Astral Hammer of Glory?"

On cue, said warhammer appeared, massive and inscribed with complex runes. The golden flames spread, wrapping around the hammer and imbuing it with the same power. He turned back to her, his smile wide and sinister.

"I think you underestimated me, and it's going to cost you, Salem! Finally, I get to be the one overpowering you!"

He vanished in place, only to reappear a second later, bringing the hammer down directly onto her head.

It made an amusing sound as it shattered into pieces.

"W-what? How in the name of the Hootsman did you..." He hovered above her, still posed mid-strike with his hands wrapped around the now-hammerless handle.

Salem simply looked up at him, a smirk of her own threatening to overtake her. "Even if your assumptions were correct, boy, I have millenia of experience and discipline over you. While this level of visualization is impressive for one your age, I have had the time in my life to study every school of thought mankind has invented, go mad, grow bored with madness and go sane again, and do the same ten more times before the iteration of humanity you have come to know in the present was any further than its infancy." She reached up and brushed a small amount of dust from the pulverized hammer off of her shoulder. "As it stands, none of that even matters. This spell acts upon your brain itself, not just your consciousness. I can rip you apart neuron by neuron until I find the memory I am looking for and you would be no more able to stop it through sheer willpower than you could stop a railway spike being pounded into your skull."

His eyes widened, and Salem saw his dream self physically shrink by a wide margin as all of his confidence leaked out of him like air from a balloon. Just as hollow as this world he's created...

"Now then..." She reached up and grabbed him by the shirt, yanking him down to eye-level. "Stay still, and this will be quick. If you cooperate, I may even only slightly lobotomize you."

"Oh poop..." His eyes widened, and the two of them stared at one another for a moment. After a second, however, she watched him settle back into a confident smirk. "Then it's a good thing I've got one more secret technique. A last resort for desperate times such as these..."

Suddenly, there was the sound of tearing fabric, and Salem found herself staring at his back as he sprinted in the opposite direction.

"NIGERUNDAYOOOOO!"

Penn's eyes slowly opened. They flicked from side to side, taking in every detail of the room and processing it as fast as possible. Salem was still standing as still as a statue, her eyes shut as she kept her hand pressed against his head. Penn's head leaned back slightly, separating the point of contact between them. Salem didn't react, the spell apparently continuing on even without the physical contact.

His body didn't like being under new management, and made that disapproval exceedingly clear with a loud cacophony of pain. It was almost completely overwhelming, a sensory overload that made the knees shake and collapse and sent blood roaring in the ears as his head started to spin.

Pain. It was sharp, burning, unfamiliar to the point of being nearly overwhelming. It clouded the mind and sent waves of weakness through the body as it insisted that it could not do what caused it such pain. There was only one way forward: to draw focus and will to a sharpened point and cut through the haze.

"No... no no no, this isn't acceptable... I have to do my part."

Another attempt was made, this time pushing iron will into the veins and forcing the legs to obey. Getting into a standing position seemed to bring a rush of strength and confidence, and the body fell under proper control.

"That's more like it..."

There was an angry glare at Salem, a wish to attack her in his vulnerable position, but it would do no good. Her immortality would heal her of any wound that could be inflicted. There was a plan. A plan that had to be followed, or they would never make it out.

Reason focused on putting one foot in front of the other, starting with a shuffle. She wasn't used to walking, or being in pain, or even existing like this. It felt... heavy, and amplified, as if every sense had been opened for the first time in ages, fresh and unaccustomed to getting input. But for the sake of her partner, she would force through it. It was no different than cutting through an intrusive thought or clearing the haze of Depression. It was just a physical task here, rather than a mental one.

"Hang in there, partner... I'll do my part, I promise."

Reason shuffled out the door of the cell, already escalating towards a full-stride walk with the practice of a few steps.

"Wh- What?"

"You heard me, Em."

"N-no... That's not right! There's NO WAY Cinder would lose! She- she can't be-"

"Emerald... she's gone. I couldn't move, but I watched the Fall Maiden waltz out of here myself. The robot brought her back, somehow. She got Cinder from behind before I could warn her."

Emerald's strength left her body as her mind finally accepted the news she'd been hearing. She fell to her hands and knees, tears streaming down her face.

"... Emerald?"

"No... NOOOOOOOOOO!" The word ripped out of her throat, carrying all of the weight of her grief with it as she futilely pounded her fist against the floor over and over. "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! I should have BEEN THERE! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN WITH HER!"

"Emerald, listen to me! I don't know if I'm going to make it out of here discretely without my legs, but I can give you some info! That robot? It was looking for Evernight Castle! Apparently, she's a friend of our little GUEST..."

Emerald's head continued to hang for several seconds. Finally, her eyes narrow and seething with rage.

"I'm gonna kill him."

"You ever have one of those nightmares where you just run and run but you can't seem to get anywhere? Because I'm really feeling like that right now!"

Salem continued pursuing at a leisurely pace, somewhat bemused watching him try to run from her inside of his own mind.

"You know, you'd told me that you were willing to do ANYTHING to protect Sunset Shimmer. I'd had such high hopes for you..." she sighed. "Everyone wants to watch the world burn when they're angry or bitter. Even those who would destroy everything for a loved one think they are following some noble purpose like 'true love' or 'honor.' However, I could see in your eyes that you had no qualms about what actually doing it would make you into, no misconceptions about what it would mean to burn it all down..."

She watched him reach into his pocket, fumbling with a set of golden keys. A golden door appeared out of thin air to match, inlaid with shimmering opal and intricate, lacey filigree inscribed across the surface and embedded with gemstones of every color.

Rather grandiose. He seems to have a high opinion of himself in here.

He urgently shoved the key into the lock, ramming his shoulder into the doors to push them open and slip through. Salem waved her hand, blasting the doors almost entirely off of their hinges.

As she stepped through, she found herself in an entirely new environment: an ocean beach just on the edges of his consciousness. As she looked out, she could see a perpetually setting sun that tinted the entire ocean red. She noted that the ocean seemed to come and go in layers, waves of water and sand coming in equal measures as sandbars flowed freely in and out alongside the tides. It all seemed very therapeutic, a place where one could spend all day releasing one's woes, and she suspected that it served that exact purpose. While it looked peaceful, there was a point where the sandbars stopped, and Salem could tell that anything that went past that point would be lost for good.

At the moment, he was standing on one of the outermost sandbars, waving to her as he surfed on the sand wave with his bare feet.

Salem reached out, wrapping her power around the construct and forcing her will onto it. She closed her fist, and the landscape responded to her thoughts. The sand all pulled inwards suddenly and violently, instantly compacting itself into sandstone and pulling him straight to her. The sheer force and suddenness of the force pushed the ocean away, leaving the two of them now standing in the middle of an arid sandstone waste.

He looked down at his feet, then back up at her several times, then at the terraformed landscape around them.

"Oooooh, I really don't want to know what that metaphor is implying you just did to my mental state..."

Salem narrowed her eyes, reaching to finally grab him by the throat. He ducked beneath her reach, just slipping out of her grip through another golden door that had opened in the ground beneath him. Rolling her eyes, she followed him through.

He's proving resilient to the magic, moreso than I thought. It HAS been some time since I used this spell, perhaps I'm rusty... She glanced down at her hand, flexing her fingers in and out. I'll have to be careful. If I turn his brain to mush before I get the information I need, it could take years to find the portal by having my Grimm blindly fumble about in Forever Fall... Time in which Ozpin could find it easily if the boy lied about telling him the truth, or worse, if Sunset Shimmer already informed him, herself. I must remember to keep a gentle touch until I have what I need.

This new area was some kind of nightclub, pulsing with music and constantly shifting lights. Creatures of all shapes and sizes were making themselves comfortable, some human and others decidedly not so. At first, she wondered how there could be so many entities contained in a single mind, but the answer soon made itself clear: they weren't real. They were all ghosts, apparitions walking not only past, but through one another and speaking in nonsense sentences with no meaning. It's an illusion, an image of a packed venue populated by fictional characters. This place has only ever had a party of one...

The lights dimmed and began to pulse in time with a new, heavy beat that was playing over the loudspeakers.

"AND NOW A SPECIAL REQUEST, THIS ONE GOES OUT TO EVERYONE CHASING THAT 'SPECIAL SOMEONE' TONIGHT!"

This was met by a chorus of wild cheers and hollers from the crowd. For a moment, Salem caught sight of the boy: he was pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, bouncing off of them and muttering hasty apologies as his own mind forced him to play along with the "reality" of their guests. Salem began to advance on him, easily closing the distance as the apparitions dissolved away at her touch. Unlike him, I have no time for games and pretend...

As she gave chase, the world around them seemed not to even notice her, the music beginning to play of its own accord.

There's a fire going on
but the party's just begun
so keep your focus lookin' at me tonight...

He turned back, his eyes widening as he spotted her advancing on him, and his motions grew more frantic, pushing and shoving through the crowd with the force of his shoulder.

He drew up short, an idea seeming to strike him. He waved frantically to the stage as he changed direction, trying to get to the front of the club. Salem couldn't hear what exactly he was saying, but a moment later an object came flying down from the ceiling and snatched him up, carrying him all the way across the club and up onto the stage. It wasn't until the stage lights illuminated him properly that she realized he had swung up there on a microphone cord, which he was now holding up to his lips to sing.

Salem almost was starting to admire his imagination. Unfortunately, her growing frustration far outweighed her amusement. She still refused to increase her pace, however. He literally couldn't outrun her or lose her here, all he was doing was causing more damage to his own mind by keeping her in there with him. Not to mention, there was much to be said for the fear that came with an implacable enemy that never needed to pick up the pace.

It was an image plucked straight from a nightmare, and she would use it to her advantage.

"And I kno-o-ow! Nothing's gonna stand in my way!" He sang as he nervously inched his way across the stage, his eyes locked directly on her. "No matter what the people may say! Just don't turn around and keep looking straight!"

Salem continued advancing, only a few strides away from the front of the stage, now. He finally seemed to lose his nerve, leaping down and sprinting for one of the gigantic speakers at the front. He frantically pulled open the front, revealing it to be a hidden door before sprinting inside and slamming it shut again. Salem wasted no time, ripping the door off its hinges and striding through.

-the world around you's going to hell!
I'm here to tell you all it's just fate!

I'M A DIS-

She slammed the door shut behind her, cutting off the music before it gave her a headache. They were in the center of a forest, now, in a small circular clearing that was dead silent aside from the rustling of leaves and the singing of birds. In the center was a perfectly still pool of water and a pair of books, both bookmarked somewhere in the middle.

She was almost at the heart of this place, she could feel it. Every time he ran from her, he instinctively retreated deeper and deeper into his mind, letting her through more and more barriers.

"Oh, come on!" Penn cried, exasperated. "I mean, you can't even stop for five minutes for a shockingly appropriate power ballad? I thought for sure I could rope you into a musical number to buy time!"

"Are you quite finished playing games?"

"NOPE!" He cheerily replied, fitting another key into a door. He yanked it open, only to be met by a booming voice, instead.

"GET OUTTA MY ROOM, I'M PLAYING MINECRAFT!"

The sheer force of the shout pushed him back and towards the center, where he teetered precariously on the edge of the water, pinwheeling his arms wildly.

"Geez, somedrake is grouchy- WOAH!"

When he fell into the water, there was no splash, not so much as a ripple. He simply... passed inside. Salem walked up to the edge, waiting for him to emerge.

She waited. And waited. And waited.

She could feel that he was still there, but...

It's not just water... it's another portal. Was the other door a feint? She looked up at the door that he had attempted to go through, only to see it swing shut on its own and disappear. Either way, she knew where to go to continue chasing him. She walked out onto the surface of the water, placing herself in the center before allowing gravity to take its course.

Down, down, down she fell, passing through different stages in the cylindrical pool that seemed to go on forever. It grew wider and darker until she could see nothing around her but vague shapes and the occasional glowing light of some underwater predator. She wondered if they might have both accidentally descended into the subconscious, but she was soon reassured that was not the case when she felt herself being reoriented, now moving up, instead. A few seconds later, she emerged from the floor of a new space, one much smaller than the rest of the places she had chased him.

"A great man once spoke about what to do when you're being interrogated... It was just before his advice about dying, actually." Penn's voice was low, calm, now. He was perched in a chair on one side of a large mahogany table, his feet propped up on its surface. "He said 'The first rule of being interrogated is that you are the most important person in the torture chamber... The room is yours, so work it.'" He spread his arms, gesturing to the room around them. "I think I've managed step one pretty well, don't you?"

Salem looked around. The room wasn't actually that much larger than the table it housed, but all of the walls were painted a deep black, making it appear as though they were standing in the center of an empty void.

"The only thing you've accomplished is letting my magic run rampant in your brain. I suspect you'll start feeling the effects soon. You've promised yourself a slow and agonizing death."

"'If they're gonna threaten you with death, show them who's boss! Die faster!'" He chuckled at that, as if his own demise amused him. "Hate to say it, but the man who said that is a personal hero of mine. I may have taken it a little too much to heart."

"He sounds like a great fool. I must say, you've followed in his footsteps quite well."

He gasped, clutching his hand to his heart as he smiled with rapturous joy.

"THANK YOU!"

Salem stepped forward and into the light shining down on them from above. There were cards on the table, strange cards in multiple colors with art and words printed all over them. The ones on her side of the table were much more numerous, but aside from that she could hardly be bothered to try and interpret their individual meanings. The overall one was clear, though. He viewed what was happening between them as some kind of game, a battle of wits. She reached out, shifting her power to warp his metaphor into one much more universal: chess. She was clearly dominating the game, having far more pieces than him, and victory was almost certain. He seemed to take offense at this, his smile faltering for a second as she reached out, plunging her queen deep into the ranks of his few pieces, taking one of his two remaining pawns and readying herself to take his last knight. As she plucked the defeated piece from the board, a sensation washed over her. She saw a vision through Penn's eyes, a memory of their campsite in Forever Fall. She couldn't tell the location from that flash alone, but it told her everything she needed to know: for every piece she took, she would steal another of his memories related to what she wanted to know. She had a suspicion that when the game had ended and she had won, not only would he be broken beyond repair by the mind-flaying spell, but she would have all the information she needed to find the portal.

All in all, it had been an outstanding move. It also had the added bonus of placing her directly diagonal to his king, meaning there was no way for him to save the knight.

"Check."

He leaned forward, his brow furrowing with frustration. "I was always lousy at chess..." he muttered, moving his sole bishop into the path between her queen and his king. "Anyway, do you want to know what he said about dying? When you're dying, you should go to the storm room inside of your mind, lock the door, and think..." He motioned to the black room around them. "This is my storm room, Salem. Well, considering how much planning I do in here, I like to call it the War Room. I guess I didn't lock the door properly... Right now, you're at the heart of me. You could do some serious damage in here."

Salem smirked, moving her queen and taking the knight. This time, she saw images of their party, impressions of each of their members.

"So that's why you were never intimidated by my threats to Sunset Shimmer... She had a guardian angel of mischief watching over her." She smiled. "As long as I didn't know about HER, it meant that I hadn't gotten close enough to actually hurt Sunset... is that what you were thinking?"

He seemed to not notice her tease, focused entirely on the game even as his brain fell to pieces inside his skull. He gestured with his finger, mapping out different positions and moves, only to scowl and wipe the imaginary slate clean.

"You're making an awful fuss for someone who can't win the game..." She reached over, placing the tip of her finger on his king and smiling as she made it rock back and forth. "Why not just topple this and let it all end? I'm no longer interested in keeping you alive, it's clear that my little experiment to make you my ally failed..."

"What, you thought just because I was ALSO willing to burn the world for someone I loved, I was some kind of kindred spirit, or something?" He didn't bother to look at her, moving his remaining pawn forward. It was a desperate bid to try and cross the board with a pawn and get his queen back, one doomed to fail. She would have him in checkmate in fewer turns than it would take for the pawn to make it across. "PLEASE don't tell me you're going to hit me with some 'We're not so different' spiel... I think I'd throw up."

She smiled and brought her queen over to the bishop, knocking it to the ground before gently raising it from its resting place and holding it in her hand. This time, she could see all of his time in Remnant. The invasion of Torchwick's operation, double-checking against the television show just to be certain that his information was right... and...

"Seven? There are SEVEN volumes?"

"Oops... probably shouldn't have let THAT slip..." he muttered. "And I'm in check again..." He pondered the board more than last time, to the point where Salem began tapping her nail against the table to mimic the ticking of a clock.

"You had more than twice the amount of information I did about the future and you still lost."

"Yup. Guess I just came up one card short..." he muttered.

"Well, are you going to move, or not? The longer you wait, the closer we come to your brain-"

"Yeah, yeah, I KNOW! Geez, lady, if you didn't want me to think this much you should've picked Connect Four! I'm GREAT at Connect Four!"

Salem was about to ask him what Connect Four was when, much to her surprise, a third voice joined the conversation.

"HEY, PENN! TIME TO DO YOUR THING! TAG OUT"

He finally snapped out of his pondering with a grin, reaching over to the board and taking hold of two pieces at once: his king and his rook. Salem watched as he shifted the pieces around one another in his hand. It was a move known as "castling." If neither the king nor the rook had made a move for the entire game and there were no pieces between them, they could meet in the center of the spaces between them and settle on the opposite side of one another. It wasn't a move often used, but for all of his bemoaning his lack of skill she was surprised he knew about it. To her surprise, however, the hand that set the two pieces in their new place on the board was not the same hand that had picked them up.

Her eyes snapped up and widened. Sitting across from her, similarly reclined, was a monster. Wide, leathery wings shifted uncomfortably against the back of the chair, and Salem could count at least four different eyes all trained on her. The thing radiated enmity and power, both on a level that matched her own. It looked surprised at its location, regarding the room with a low whistle.

"Looks as if I made it just in time... You got further in than I thought you would."

The voice was decidedly female, which was helpful considering her alien body did little to settle the debate of gender. Salem narrowed her eyes. This new foe was of an entirely different breed from Penn, both figuratively and literally. Even a brief moment to be acquainted with one another showed her something crucial to understanding the situation.

"You... do not belong here."

"Yeah? Look who's talking. At least I was invited. AND I actually earn my keep instead of just wrecking the place, unlike SOME guests!" Vicious talons flexed in and out, a clear display to instill a threatening undercurrent beneath the casual accusation. "Got a part-time job as his voice of reason. By the way, do you have any idea how much work it's going to take for me to fix all that damage you've done? You're lucky I don't jump across this table and-"

Ladies, please! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room! Penn's voice echoed distantly above them.

"You're a monster. Some kind of dark demon..." It was less of a concern and more of a fascinated observation. She would have never guessed that something like this was nestled inside of her prisoner.

"I'd have to be to temper the enthusiasm of someone THIS well-meaning. Seriously, he's too NICE for his own good!" All the eyes rolled at once. "'No betraying Sunset Shimmer!' 'No killing people just for threatening me!' 'No using dark magic contained in children's trading cards to damn people to Hell unless they started it!' He's completely stifling!" She glanced down at the table. "Speaking of which..." She snapped her fingers, and the game returned to the form it had taken when Penn had been waiting for her. "I believe it's your move, Grimm-for-brains."

Salem looked down at the board, the game she was supposed to be winning now completely alien to her. As she stared, however, another thought came to mind.

This was wrong. It wasn't just the demon or the presence of a dreamscape in this child's mind. It was the whole situation, the smile plastered on his face while he was pontificating to her about purposefully dying faster, the convoluted path he had sprinted down to his innermost sanctum, only to sit and meditate on each of his moves in their chess game for longer than necessary, and now the almost-indecipherable game she was being asked to play after he had "tagged out." It was almost as if...

He purposefully antagonized me into doing this just to keep me occupied chasing him down for answers!

She felt her temper rising as she realized she'd been deceived into wasting so much of her time and energy. The demon, meanwhile, was humming the chorus of the song from the nightclub to herself.

"I'm a distractiooon... Of pure satisfactiooooon... Keep your eyes all on me, for what you're gonna see..." Her numerous eyes gave Salem a sideways glance and a smug smile. "Will redefine the height of attraction. You know, you really SHOULD take the time to enjoy a little music now and then. Noir's an outstanding DJ." She shrugged slightly, glancing at the cards in her hand. "Still, I can understand getting frustrated enough with an idiot like Penn after this long that you might jump at the opportunity to get rid of him and make a rash decision..."

Salem's eyes snapped open as she released the spell. "You will regret wasting my-"

Her growled threat was cut short as she realized that she was alone in the room, standing with her back to the open cell door.

He had escaped. While he was supposed to be magically entranced so that she could enter his mind, it appeared he had just stood up and walked away. It should have been impossible.

But then again, it also should have been impossible for him to have a card-playing demon living in his head.

Salem was not too proud to admit that this was a setback. However, it was one that she would soon rectify. The fact that he had been able to even so much as escape his cell was proof enough that he was a threat to keep any longer. She would have to take the long and tedious way of finding the portal. At the least, Cinder could identify where they had first found him, that would narrow the area they would have to search.

For the moment, it was time for their game to end.

"W-wow... okay, that's really high up. Like REALLY, REALLY HIGH UP..." Penn gripped the card in his hand a little more tightly, but it gave him little comfort.

"Well I didn't see an elevator, did you?"

"You know that feeling you get sometimes when you're standing in a high place? The sudden urge to jump?" Penn tried to ignore the weakness in his knees as he stared out of what had to be Evernight Castle's fiftieth-story window. "I don't have it."

"Alright, Captain Jack, very funny. Listen, Heart of Clear Water will keep you safe, I promise! We use it all the time in our duels, right? If you don't have trust in it, the magic isn't going to work! It's a leap of faith!"

"That's some leap!" he hissed under his breath.

"Quit being such a scardey-cat for two seconds, would you? It takes two seconds to jump! Remember, fear is the mind killer! Fear is the little death that-"

"YOU!" a voice called out.

"MEEP!" Penn squeaked, spinning around on his heel. His eyes widened as he spotted Emerald advancing down the hall, both of her guns drawn and trained on him.

"Did you know? You were the one calling the shots, right? Did you TELL THEM to do it?" she shouted, both guns clicking as she cocked them. "DID YOU TELL THEM TO KILL CINDER?"

Penn's eyes widened. "Cinder's... dead? N-no! No, I wouldn't do that!" He glanced nervously up and down the hall, praying that her shouting wouldn't attract Salem to where they were. "Emerald, I'm sorry, but I had nothing to do with that! Speaking of death,though, we really should both get out of-"

"You're SORRY? I owe Cinder EVERYTHING, and your little robot friend KILLED HER! It woke up the Fall Maiden and now Cinder is dead! All because it was trying to find out from Amber where it could find you! And you're just SORRY?" There was the explosive sound of a bullet being fired, and Penn clung to the spell card in his hand out of instinct, praying it could save him. He felt a heavy impact to his upper leg, one that had enough force to knock him backwards and, to his utter horror send him tumbling out the window.

The whole world was spinning. His heart was pounding. Wind was whipping around him so fast that it drowned out any other possible noise.

OhpleaseohpleaseIdon'twannadieIjustwanttogohomeandgetbacktoSunsetandgetoutofthisplace! His mind was racing for the first few seconds he was falling, but fear soon caused it to lock up entirely and come to a halt, only able to watch with terror and hold the equip spell tight against his chest as the ground rushed up to meet him.

"We've done so much on our own, we've come so far! We're just asking for one little card to WORK for us!" Reason pleaded.

The good news was that he didn't come to an end by colliding suddenly with the ground.

"And you're certain you killed him?"

Emerald flinched at Salem's tone, unable to look her mistress straight in the eyes. "He fell out of that window after I shot him... There's no way any human could have survived that..."

Salem strode to the window, looking down to the ground below. If he had landed on the ground, there would almost certainly be a body she could recover to confirm it. Instead, Salem found herself looking down into one of the pools of Grimm, lakes of the raw destructive energy from which Grimm monsters were born. If he had landed in one of them, there would be nothing left of him to recover. If they found a body, it meant they had proof he was dead. If they didn't, there was only the smallest of chances that he was still alive. But still a chance.

"I can't believe he managed to escape after all of this time... I would have thought his will would break in the first week." Watts muttered. "While he certainly made a mess of my workshop, I can confirm that he didn't take anything while he was there. Everything is accounted for, including the quantum tunneling device." He snorted dismissively. "If that was his attempt at sabotage, he certainly didn't make good use of his time. It seems he was too weak to even break anything."

"Check again, Arthur. He wouldn't have given away the nature of his distraction so freely if he hadn't managed to get what he wanted. Emerald, I want you to walk down and look for a body. If you don't find one, start checking the beowulf dens for bones."

"Y-yes, ma'am..."

Salem continued to stand in the window, staring down at where the troublesome boy had supposedly fallen.

It was excruciating. The pain covered him, permeated him until there was nothing left, trying to eat at him, boil him, drown him and beat him to a pulp.

But still he endured. In spite of it all, he somehow continued to exist when it felt as if the universe were crushing down on him and trying to press him into nothing.

There was screaming. He screamed. Reason screamed. Something snapped inside of them. Physically, emotionally, it was all the same agony they shared.

It was dark outside when he finally found himself back on the surface. He didn't remember climbing out. There were shredded, soaked and blackened remains of a card clenched in his fist.

He tried to remember what had happened, what he was supposed to be doing. His hand absentmindedly drifted to his pocket. Inside, he found a small disc-shaped object. He pulled it out, squinting to see it in the moonlight. There was a gap allowing him to see numbers on a second disc inside.

0.78 miles - 36 hours

His brain was in a fog, but he remembered it was important. A distance and a time.

Speed... is distance over time... No, that's not it.

"We have to GO!" a voice screamed in the back of his mind. "If we're not that far away in THAT amount of time, we'll be caught in the event horizon!"

He agreed. Something was wrong here. It was time to go. He could remember one thing, one job he was supposed to do. He needed to find Sunset.

"Find Sunset..." he mumbled as he slipped the disc back into his pocket. "Find Sunset..."

"Find Sunset..."

It had been more than a full twenty-four hours since Penn had been killed, and Salem's life had not been made any easier for it.

She had sent as many Grimm as she could spare to Forever Fall, but the forest was huge, and she didn't expect to hear of any results any time soon.

Cinder, her aspiring Fall Maiden and one of the most driven of her acolytes, had perished beneath Beacon, and the true Fall had vanished into hiding with no more need to eat, sleep, or visit civilization for any necessities unless she desired to. She would be almost impossible to find as long as she knew she was being hunted.

Their plans to destroy Amity Arena had failed in every respect. Their bomb had been defused, their sabotage of the anti-gravity had been safely guided to the sea, and the machine that Arthur had been unable to defeat for the last months had stepped up and claimed responsibility for the whole attack, rendering the kingdoms more united than ever against a common foe. This "Isis" had threatened human and faunus alike, claiming that both were inferior to the might and logic of her machines, which meant that even the divide between the two races was narrowing.

Even Tyrian had come back to the castle with his tail between his legs, claiming that the children had bested him through sheer numbers of nine-against-one.

Now she had assembled what remained of her cabinet, along with Mercury and Emerald, in their meeting hall. No one dared to speak first.

"I understand that this... did not go according to plan." Salem narrowed her eyes. "I blame myself, frankly."

"My lady, please! You are without fault!" Tyrian cried. He raised a hand to stop him.

"I became caught up in the idea that the information I had come across rendered me in control of the future. I thought that one of our unaccounted for variables could be controlled with another. I was... incorrect."

"None of us could have predicted that two visitors, both of whom were mere children, from another world would prove to be so effective at ruining our plans. The very idea is absurd."

"And yet here we are, Arthur. Tasting the sour taste of failure." She sighed. "For now, we will need to fall back. Recuperate our lost assets. Create a new plan on a fresh, longer timetable." She reached down into her pocket, retrieving the item that had started all of this. She sighed and placed it on the table before setting it ablaze with a spell. "Attempting to use this information led us to a rushed plan that came to no fruition. The timeline is now so drastically altered that trying to use it now could only do more harm to us than good. As such, I will learn from the example of our adversaries... and throw out the script."

Everyone present watched as the discs all went up in flames, soon reduced to nothing more than a bubbling puddle on the table. Salem couldn't help noticing a small smile of relief on Hazel's face, while Watts seemed to be only barely restraining himself from objecting to the action.

"Now, with that finished, we must attend to the matter of-"

And then...

There was nothing.

Resurrection was a part of Salem's curse of immortality. No matter how thorough, no matter how devastating the damage to her body, she would be repaired in a matter of seconds and restored to her full, intact self once more.

So it was little surprise to her when she awakened, fully healed from whatever attack had been launched on their castle.

What did surprise her, however, was the lack of a castle when she woke up.

She was laying in the center of a massive crater where her castle used to be. Looking around, she could only imagine that the diameter was just over a kilometer, and the earth around the edges had been pulled into massive domed walls around her, hemming her inside. She could feel the tingle of heat from the land around her radiating terrifying energy left over from the cataclysm.

She didn't know how, but her entire castle, her allies, and a titanic chunk of land had all been ripped out from underneath her.

All conveniently just after Elijah Bakersfield's escape.

Salem screamed. She screamed to the heavens, she screamed with a wrath that shattered the scorched earth beneath her feet.

He was out there. She knew it. She could FEEL it. And he had done this.

And she would have her revenge.

"An observation drone is approaching the given coordinates, Sunset Shimmer."

Everyone in the room instantly crowded around Sunset, peering over her to try and get a look at her phone. Ruby somehow managed to squirm up between Sunset and her phone, her head popping up just under Sunset's chin. Yang and Weiss each picked a shoulder to watch from, and Blake leaned over as best she could from the hammock.

"Go ahead with the live feed, Isis, we're all set here."

"Wait, where's Missy? She's going to want to see this!" Ruby cried.

"I think she went back to the car, right? She said she was going to go look through some cards to find something that could help with a rescue mission!"

"Missy has her own feed being projected by the drone assigned to repairing the Oldsmobile."

There was a pause as everyone stared at Sunset's phone, the screen remaining black.

"Something is wrong."

"Uh, yeah? We're not getting any picture on our end." Yang reached over and tapped on Sunset's phone. "Hello? Is this thing on?"

"This is not Evernight Castle."

"Isis, what are you talking about? Did Ozpin give you the wrong coordinates?" Sunset asked.

"I do not believe so..."

The screen finally cut to a live video feed, and all of the girls gasped in shock.

It looked as if a meteor had struck the planet, vaporizing anything and everything beneath it. The crater was larger than anything Sunset had ever seen, barren and glassy.

"What... happened?" Weiss whispered.

"You don't think Penn did this... do you?" Ruby added.

"I mean... he's just one guy, right? This looks like some kind of weapon of mass destruction..." Blake muttered.

"If he pulled THIS off, I wanna meet him myself more than ever!" Yang snickered to herself.

"Damage is consistent with the formation and rapid decay of a miniature black hole in the area. Conjecture: it is possible that the power core of the Aperture Science Handheld Quantum Tunneling Device was allowed to reach a critical state, causing the micro-sized black hole to rapidly expand as containment in the power cell failed, then decay into Hawking Radiation. Probable causes: ignorance when tampering with the device... or deliberate sabotage."

Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "Is... is there any sign of Penn? Did he make it out of there?"

"Negative. No signs."

In the corner of the display, a small window overlapped with the video feed displaying Missy's face. "Don't worry, Sunset! If Penn did this, there's NO WAY he didn't get out of there in time!"

"Quantum tunneling devices ARE equipped with a removable Event Horizon Estimation Wheel. Provided that this was deliberate, he would almost certainly have used such a device to determine the minimum safe distance."

"But, if he isn't there... where is he?" Ruby whispered.

Author's Note

Author's notes: Nigerundayo is Japanese for "Run away."

To the people who get it... I hope you're happy with yourselves. You made me do this.

I don't know why I'm on such a roll with getting these rapid-fire updates out... Guess I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts. I HAVE been feeling pretty inspired while reading Wanderer D's Sunset's Isekai. If you like cross-dimensional tales like this one and want something a little more laid-back, I highly recommend it!

We've almost reached the end of this arc!

A Yell Of Thirst

She'd never seen anyone make it this far. Frankly, she'd never seen anyone escape Evernight, to begin with, but she had to admit she was impressed. Rumors had traveled fast when all of the Grimm had gone berserk for a day, even moreso than usual, and she'd seen what was left of Salem's castle when she went to investigate... or rather, what wasn't left.

He'd been only barely keeping ahead of the grimm for three days, now. He had scavenged what he could from abandoned and destroyed villages, seeming to be determined to stay alive above everything else. He hadn't been too afraid or squeamish to pry a sword and shield from the hands of a corpse, either.

But he had been half-dead already when she saw him, and if he was healing at all, he was doing so slowly. If he had access to his aura, he had yet to rest long enough for it to replenish. Every day, he would limp and shuffle his way down the road. When he tripped, which was often, it took him longer to get back up every time. Once when he had fallen, he'd slept for the night in the middle of the path, and she wondered if he may have died there. Come morning, though, he had risen once more, still keeping that singular determination and focus.

He'd caught sight of her a few times, and each time he had regarded her with a suspicious glare. She wondered if he knew she wasn't what she seemed. If he did, she wondered where he had learned it. She could count on one hand the number of people who could have told him.

Now, though, she was letting him face one final test alone. A pack of Beowolves had chased him into a small clearing. She had take a moment of blindness on his part to eliminate all but one. If he possessed the strength to survive this on his own, she would be willing to finally lend him her aid.

He couldn't outrun it any more, not now that it had his scent. That didn't stop him from trying, however, with a loping, clumsy run of a man whose body refused to properly obey. It chased him through the trees, swiftly closing the distance between them. She didn't move to help him when she saw him trip on a log hidden in the underbrush. He seemed to have a good reflex on how to use the shield he'd taken, bringing it up to protect himself just as the monster leaped on top of him, snapping hungrily at his face. He was crumbling beneath gravity and the monster, threatening to fall apart completely as it inched its way closer and closer to his throat.

And then she saw it: that look. One that seemed to dare the world to bring him down. She could see it in his eyes, wrath and fear mingled together until they became a potent mix, like dust thrown onto a bonfire. THAT was what she had been looking for. The quality that would ensure survival when the weak were separated from the strong. She heard him roar as he released his grip on the shield with one hand and grabbed for his sword. The Beowolf came down on him, wrapping its fangs around his neck as the surface of his sword flashed in the sun.

It didn't bite down. There was no chomping, no ripping sound of tearing flesh. How could there be?

A severed head couldn't rip his throat out, after all.

He laid there as the remains of the monster dissolved away into ash, breathing heavily and with his eyes wide. She fluttered down to the ground, transforming back into her normal form.

Just as she was about to make her entrance, however, she was cut off by an intruder on their silent moment.

"Hey, buddy! You alright?"

She backed away, further into the shadows before her brother could spot her. He rushed to the young man's side, inspecting his injuries before trying to pull him back onto his feet. However, he hung completely limp, either unconscious or having finally lost his last ounces of strength fending off the attack. "Hey, are you- wait a minute. You're that guy Oz told us we needed to be keeping an eye out for, aren't you?"

How typical of her brother, still serving at Ozpin's every whim. The stranger stirred slightly, trying and failing to get his feet underneath him. He mumbled something, and she strained her ears to make out the slurred words.

"...both produce notes, mostly flat..."

He was delirious. Qrow reached over and pressed his hand to the stranger's forehead, only to pull it away quickly while sucking air in through his teeth. "You're burning up... Come on, bud. You need help, and fast."

She considered intervening. Her camp wasn't far from here, and losing someone with this kind of potential to Ozpin was a genuine shame.

But she had better things to do than find herself in another argument with her brother. She'd been gone from the camp long enough, and she had duties to her tribe. If he really is a strong warrior, he won't die, even if he is in Qrow's poor care. I'll remember him, and if I see him again, then I'll make my offer.

"COME ON!"

Sunset didn't even slow down as the barreled down the hallways of Beacon Academy, the rest of her team struggling to keep up.

Together, they sprinted across the campus all of the way to the infirmary, only to draw up short at the door. Professor Ozpin was waiting for them, hands rested on top of his cane.

"Hello, girls. I see you all got my message."

"You really found him?" Ruby asked, running up to the door only to find herself stopped by the headmaster's cane.

"An associate of mine found him wandering through Anima, feverish and babbling." He slowly shook his head. "I feel as if I should warn you all, he is still in an unstable condition. The moment that we had placed him safely in medical care, whatever force had been keeping him conscious seemed to finally run out and he slipped into a coma. He has yet to awaken." He gave the door to the infirmary a sad look. "I urge all of you to let him rest, but I won't stop you from seeing-"

Sunset didn't wait for him to finish, pushing his cane to the side and stepping through the door to the infirmary.

There, laying in a bed, was Penn. He looked better than when Sunset first saw him, it looked as if someone had been kind enough to clean him up when he had been admitted, and his injuries had all been bandaged up and wrapped in gauze. Even if they were all covered and out of sight, Sunset couldn't look at the bandages without seeing the image of him in the video call, half-dead and blood-streaked. He looked gaunt, as though he hadn't eaten in weeks, and his skin was pale and sun-starved. A small tube traveled up and into his nose to help him breathe, and numerous machines were beeping and displaying jagged lines beside his bed to monitor his vital signs.

Sunset tried to hold back the tears as she walked across the room, taking up a position just beside his bed. Isis hopped down off of her shoulder and onto his chest, pacing up until she was above his head. There, she curled up just above him, settling into a resting position.

Missy floated down out of the air, seeming to wilt at the sight of him. She settled at the edge of his bed, fat tears rolling down her cheeks as she gripped at his hand. Before Sunset could say anything to comfort her, she had buried her face in the blankets, mumbling indecipherable words into the mattress.

Sunset heard her teammates filing into the room behind her, turning to see their reactions. Blake seemed the most affected, her hands covering her mouth in horror. Weiss couldn't seem to bring herself to look directly at him, averting her gaze down and to the right. Yang had reached over and protectively grabbed hold of Ruby, who was brimming with tears of her own.

"I guess... this is the cost of what he did to that castle..." Ruby whispered.

"I promise you, he's in no pain. One of the first tests we ran once he fell into this coma was to take a look at his brain..." Professor Ozpin stated as he entered the room alongside them. "An MRI showed us that his frontal lobe is almost completely inactive. Nearly every connection between it and the rest of his brain was severed. What activity there is seems to show that he seems to be in a constant state of REM sleep while the brain tries to repair itself." Ozpin walked up and stood beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Sunset slowed her breathing, forcing herself to stay in control. She could feel a tremble in her single arm that wasn't bound across her chest in a sling. Her hand wandered down to her belt, taking a white-knuckled grip on her saber.

"Professor..."

"Yes, Sunset?"

"Where can I find Salem?"

There was a long pause as everyone in the room turned to stare at her as if she had lost her mind. Even Missy looked up, her eyes bloodshot.

"Sunset... This is no time to lose your head. Even if I knew, which I do not now that her base of operations is in ruins, going after her directly would be an act of suicide." Ozpin gave her shoulder a tight squeeze. "And if he is responsible in the way you and your friends theorize, I would say to be careful what you wish for, because I'm certain Salem has already begun searching for him. You may find that she comes to you, instead..."

Sunset looked down at her hand, unable to willingly pry her grip off of her weapon. "Good."

"Hey... I have a question..." Ruby whispered. "If the reason he won't wake up is in his brain... what about Sunset's semblance? Could she... I dunno, fix it?"

Sunset blinked, trying to understand Ruby's implication. "What? No, I'm not a healer, I just... kind of peek at memories. I can't do anything about..." she gestured to her comatose friend, "this!"

"The formation and recall of memories utilizes several interconnected areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex. While not explicitly for healing, your powers could stimulate those areas and help re-forge connections between damaged portions."

Sunset shook her head, ignoring Isis's logic. "And what if I just make things worse? What if I just put a bunch of magical stress on him and just finish what Salem started?"

"Do... do you really think the power of the Elements could hurt someone like that?" Missy whispered.

"I don't know WHAT they could do, any more!" Sunset threw her hand into the air as she turned away from the painful sight and walked to the nearest corner of the room, resting her head against where the walls met. "I thought I knew what my magic was capable of, but then it just ran totally out of control and blew apart the multiverse out of nowhere! I can't... I can't trust it, any more..."

Silence fell, punctuated by only the beeping of the heart monitor.

"I can't trust it with his life..."

There was a long period of silence before Ozpin's cane tapped decisively against the floor. "Perhaps we should give Miss Shimmer a moment alone. Come along, girls..."

Sunset heard the sound of multiple sets of feet filing out the door. Still, she wasn't alone, a pair of small arms wrapping around her from behind.

"I understand if you're scared..." Missy whispered. "But... if Penn was here, he'd probably say you're right. That we can't take unnecessary risks."

Sunset waited. "But?"

"No buts... We're just going to have to wait." Sunset felt Missy's face nuzzle into her back, creating a moist patch as she sniffled. "It's not like I can make any demands... I was the one who said we should let him rescue himself..."

Sunset turned around, eyes wide as she faced the crying spirit. "Missy, this isn't your fault!"

"Isn't it? If we'd gone and rescued him like you wanted, then- then maybe we could have gotten him out before he wound up like THIS!"

Sunset dropped to one knee, putting herself at eye-level with Missy as she wiped a tear from her cheek. "If we had gone to rescue him like I wanted, we'd all be in hospital beds right along with him, or worse... YOU were the only one who kept a level head and trusted him when the rest of us were ready to give Salem what she wanted. I think..." She slipped her hands under Missy's arms, picking her up as she rose back to her feet. "I think it's time for us to stop blaming ourselves... And start driving forward, don't you think?"

Missy nodded, and Sunset found herself looking past her and back at her comatose friend. As she stared, she could have sworn that she could see the slightest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

She felt a twist in her stomach as she realized the truth.

"And that starts with not letting our fears get the best of us." She stepped back up to the side of the bed, hovering her hand just above his arm. "If we're ever going to put the multiverse back together, then we're going to have to use the Elements of Harmony... I can't avoid it or be afraid of it..." she whispered to herself. Still, her hand refused to stop shaking, no matter how much she tried to force herself to be calm... until Missy's hand settled on top of hers.

"You're not alone, Sunset... We're partners, remember?" Despite her reddened and puffy eyes, Missy gave her a cheerful smile. "I'm gonna be right by your side!"

Staring into that beaming, unwavering smile, Sunset felt her fears ease back from the forefront of her mind. Missy had the utmost faith in her. I have to live up to that faith...

"Hey, Isis?" Missy turned to look up at the drone resting just above Penn's head. "If we manage to wake him up, a little music is gonna be the perfect way to ease him back into the world of the living! Think you could pick out a track for him?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset and Missy glanced at one another, then nodded. Sunset took one last deep breath to steel herself, then placed her hand on his arm.

Sunset opened her eyes, trying to make sense of the world around her... and the fact that there WAS a world around her.

Is this... a world inside Penn's head?

She'd seen this kind of phenomenon once before: Camp Everfree. When she and her friends had all used her power to enter Twilight's mind and help her control her magic. Twilight's world had been one of swirling stars and cosmic skies, free and open to be filled just as fast as she could think. It had been ethereal, more concept than solid reality.

Inside of Penn's mind was much more... filled out. She was standing on solid ground, with a sky above her and a definite horizon. She could even see signs of buildings in the distance, signaled by a plume of black smoke that ascended and merged with the dark clouds that filled the sky.

"This... isn't a good sign..." Sunset turned around, spotting Missy kneeling on the ground and running her fingers through the dead, brown grass under their feet. "It's been a while since I was here, but... Penn's dreamscape doesn't usually look this... dead."

"I wasn't trying to go inside his head like this... I was just trying to look at his memories!"

Missy floated up into the air, awkwardly rubbing at the back of her head with a smile "That might have been my fault... I used to hang around here a lot before you summoned me to the human world! I guess I must have opened up the way in without thinking about it!"

Sunset sighed, looking around at the half-destroyed world inside Penn's head. "Well, I'm not going to complain. Maybe we can do even more good here than we first thought... But we're going to have to find Penn, first. If we can pull him up to the surface, maybe we can get him to wake up in the real world!"

Missy pondered for a moment, looking around at the ruined area before snapping her fingers. "In that case, there's only one place to go! When Penn really needs to get his head on straight, he goes to the War Room! Don't worry, I know a shortcut!"

Before Sunset could ask any questions, Missy had reached down and snatched up a handful of the ground, pulling it up like a carpet and exposing empty space underneath. She grinned and waved Sunset onwards.

Sunset decided it was better not to ask questions as she ducked down and clambered under the layer of sod. To her surprise, there seemed to be nothing under the ground, not even more soil, just a plunge into empty darkness. She was standing in some type of tunnel made from a transparent glassy substance, barely tall enough for her to fit inside hunched over. Missy easily fit in behind her, ducking between her legs and beginning to strut down the tunnel with a smile on her face.

"Man, this really takes me back... I used to use these all the time, since Penn said I wasn't old enough to have keys of my own!" she snickered to herself. "Probably because he knew I'd use them to pull pranks..."

Sunset tilted her head. "So... you used to spend a lot of time in Penn's head?"

"Well, duh! Before he let you 'borrow' my deck," she turned around and began walking backwards so she could place air quotes around the word "borrow," "we WERE dueling partners! I was never as close to him as Big Sis, but we were still besties!"

Sunset ran her hand along the wall, taking in the glassy feel of it as her fingers traced their way up and down uneven lumps and bumps in the surface of the tunnel.

"Can I ask you about something that always bugged me?"

"Ask away!"

"When we first met, he was REALLY opposed to me using my powers on him... At first I thought he was just trying to stop me from learning things about other people's futures, but I'm starting to think that wasn't the only reason... Especially if he has all of THIS in here..."

Missy chuckled to herself. "Well, he IS a storyteller, making worlds kind of comes naturally to him! Why do you think we all call him 'Penn?' Whether he's typing on a computer or writing by hand, he's always got a story on his mind!" Missy gave a shrug. "As for why he wouldn't want you in here... well... we've all got things about ourselves we don't like." She gave Sunset a raised eyebrow. "Considering how you looked like you were ready to kill when you first saw him like this, I'd have to guess you've got some issues with your temper?"

Sunset's face flushed slightly with embarrassment. "You... might say that, yeah..."

"Well, when someone else is inside your head, you can't really hide things like that. He probably just wants you to think the best of him."

The tunnel was beginning to slant upwards, and Missy spread her wings to fly on ahead, coming to an oak door at the end of the tunnel. She smiled and gave it a speedy knock before pressing her ear to the surface. With a nod of satisfaction, she gave the handle a push, swinging it outwards.

As the two of them stepped out into the open air, Sunset glanced back. Apparently, they had come out of a door carved into a large oak tree. When it swung shut, it was almost completely indistinguishable from the bark. She took the opportunity to straighten her spine as she looked around at their new surroundings.

They had emerged in a small forest clearing. Unlike the field they had started in, all of the plants here were still very much verdant and vivacious. There were still signs of a struggle, however, as there were large chunks torn out of the ground in places, and several of the trees had been scorched or even completely snapped like a twig. In the center of the clearing, there was a small pool of still, crystal-clear water, no bigger than a manhole cover. There were an abundance of burn marks moving outward from the pool, as if it had been filled with flames only a few moments before.

"This is the War Room?" Sunset mumbled, brushing her fingers against the charcoal of the scorched grass.

Suddenly, she was face-to-face with... herself.

"GAH!" She stumbled back, falling to the ground as her doppelganger staggered forward. Her eyes widened as it seemed to begin to decay right in front of her, the flesh rotting away and its clothes begin ripped apart by lacerations appearing all over her body. It breathed in hoarse whispers, ready to pounce on her.

"HEY, UGLY!" Missy swooped in, delivering a kick to the head that knocked it completely from the shoulders and off into the distance. The rest of the body quickly dissolved away, and Missy dusted herself off with disgust.

"Wha- what was THAT?"

"Intrusive thought." Missy reached down, wiping a small amount of the residue from her shoe and giving it a sniff. "Based off of a real memory, though..." She shuddered and held her finger at arm's length. "Looks like they didn't just torture him physically... They got inside his head, literally. Maybe even gave him hallucinations to try and push him to give in..."

Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "Y-you mean... he was seeing things like THAT while they were keeping him prisoner?"

Missy shrugged as she floated over to the pool and slipped off her shoe, beginning to wash it in the water. "It's just a guess, but maybe your memory powers combined with the damage and gave us a look at what caused it?"

Sunset glanced around, suddenly realizing that she was standing in the middle of a mental minefield. "Can... can we fix it? Repair the damage?"

Missy shook her head. "That's something only time can do... Besides, we're just here to pull Penn back out of his own head, remember? This isn't the War Room, there's just only one way in if you're not Penn..." She gave her shoe a shake, forcing out the water before jabbing her thumb at the small pool. "Hope you can swim!"

Sunset sighed, rolling up her sleeves as she walked up to the edge of the pool. "You're sure Penn's going to be there?"

Missy shrugged. "It's the best guess I can think of."

Sunset shook her head, stepping out over the pool "How deep does it go?"

"Just keep swimming down... You'll know when you're there."

Sunset nodded, crossed her arms over her chest, and hopped feet-first into the water.

Her eyes widened as she saw just how deep the pool went, widening out into what looked almost like an ocean of inky depths. She shook her head, trying not to think about just what else could be living in such a place, and began to swim downward.

In the dream-like world she was in, Sunset felt no need to surface for air, continuing further and further downward into the dark until she could no longer even see the light of the hole she had entered through. She could only press onward.

WHAT do you think you're doing?

Sunset drew up short, her eyes wide as she watched movement appear in the black depths. She almost screamed as a titanic eye opened up beneath her, looking large enough enough to swallow her up in its pupil alone. Its cornea looked yellowed and diseased, bloodshot and spiderwebbed by pulsating red veins. The pupil glowed bright red and drew in tight.

For a split second, Sunset's memory transported her back in time to the night that her soul had been taken by Joshua. She remembered the malignant entity she had felt hovering above the tent where Penn was sleeping, the hateful gaze that had lingered on their intruder, soon followed by Penn's forceful arousal from his drug-induced slumber. In her mind's eye, she saw the moment his carefree facade had slipped and he had revealed the sheer, unadulterated wrath lying just beneath the surface.

And now she recognized every ounce of that wrath lying in this demonic eye, all being leveled towards her with a laser focus.

She wanted to scream, to run and hide and never come back. She never thought it was possible, but even in this dream world, Sunset knew on a fundamental level that she was in danger right now. Her heart was pounding painfully in her chest as she stopped short, unsure how she could move any further forward with this... thing in front of her.

Get out... GET OOOOUUUT!

The sheer force of the scream tore through the water, battering Sunset as a physical force. She tumbled helplessly head over heel as she was flung towards the black waters. She lost all sense of direction and orientation, feeling the pressure of her depth finally beginning to press down on her. Her whole body began to press inwards, being crushed from the outside. When she opened her eyes, the monster's eye was gone, and we was alone in the dark.

Can... can I get lost in here? What if I never make it out? What happens to me outside?

Despair seemed to seep into her skin, putting a chill into her blood as she realized just how helpless she truly was. Why did I ever think I could help? How stupid am I?

"SUNSET!"

Sunset felt a pair of arms loop under her shoulders, carrying her upwards and out of the dark. Seconds later, they burst from the water, and Sunset began to cough violently, hacking up entire lungfuls onto the floor as her whole body convulsed.

"Geez, don't SCARE me like that!" Missy cried, falling to the ground beside her and wringing out her hair. "I said to just go straight down, not go for a swim in the manifestation of Penn's clinical depression!"

Sunset took a shuddering breath before hacking one last time to make sure the last of the water was out of her lungs. "The- the eye... Didn't you see the eye?"

"What?" Missy tilted her head and gave her a skeptical look. "No, it was just a clear shot to the War Room! What did it look like?"

"Big... red... angry... Yelled at me so hard I went flying..."

Missy's brow furrowed in frustration. "Must have been Big Sis... No wonder she'd snarl at you like that when Penn's head is in such a bad state."

"THAT was your big sister?" Sunset's eyes widened. "I thought she was going to KILL me!"

Missy tapped her chin in thought. "Knowing her, that's probably not too far off the mark of what she wanted to do..."

"WHAT?"

"Nothing! We made it here, and that's the important part!"

Sunset looked around her for the first time, finally taking in the sight of their destination.

The walls and ceiling were pitch-black, giving the illusion that the room extended out into infinity. The only decorations were a large, heavy-looking table made from dark wood and a crystalline light hanging above in the air. Sunset pushed herself up onto her feet and walked up to the table, looking at the arrangement on its surface.

She gasped as she saw even more signs of damage. Deep gashes and long, trailing claw marks had been carved into it, destroying the surface and scattering what looked like the shredded remains of Yugioh cards like confetti. At the center was a hastily-scrawled note in black marker: Out to lunch. Behind her, she heard Missy hissing in air through her teeth.

"Okay, THAT'S something I never thought I'd see."

"Looks like Penn's not here. So much for our daring journey to the bottom of the sea..." Sunset muttered, reaching out towards the remains of the cards. She caught herself just as she was about to touch one of the gashes in the table. Probably best not to...

"Maybe not, but now we know where he is!"

"We do?"

Missy smiled and flew up to one of the walls, yanking open a previously-invisible black door. On the other side, Sunset could hear music and see colored lights.

"Totally! Come on!"

Sunset nodded, following Missy through as the door shut behind them. Sunset instantly recognized that they were now in a night club of some kind, albeit a thoroughly trashed one. Broken glass and splintered furniture were all across the tile floor, and there were almost no patrons of any kind. She could see a stage for live performances, but it was dark and empty with curtains half-pulled to block it off. There were more lights than she could count and massive speakers taller than herself, but the atmosphere was surprisingly muted. The lights had constrained themselves to simple hues of blue and purple, and the only music was coming from a radio up at the bar, where the only living creatures were both sitting.

"Penn! It's you! And... Isis?"

Sunset rushed forward, only to find herself shocked as she realized that the small reptile sitting on the counter beside him was NOT a robot. It was an actual flesh-and-blood dragon, complete with silver scales, sapphire-blue wings and a matching underbelly.

"S-so then I tell her, 'If you want what's in my head, you're gonna have to dig it out, yourself!'" Penn gestured with a small bottle in his hand.

"Bold play, Penn!" The dragon countered. "Wha'd she have to say about THAT?" He arched his neck upwards, plunging almost his entire head into a bourbon glass and sucking down a portion of the lime-green liquid inside.

"She DID IT, the absolute madwoman!" Penn laughed, rocking back on his stool until he nearly fell backwards. Sunset lunged forward and reached out, barely catching him and pushing him back up into a sitting position.

"Penn? Are you... okay?"

"Hmmph... I'll deal with THAT later..." Penn didn't so much as turn around in his chair, just making the slightest of moves to look over his shoulder before catching himself. He made a small waving motion with his hand, and Sunset's eyes widened as she felt herself violently flung to the side on a collision course with the wall. Just as she closed her eyes to brace for the impact, she felt her entire world spin several times before she was deposited back on her feet. She looked over at the wall just in time to see Ghostrick Go-Round's revolving stone door fading away. Missy flew up to her, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.

"That was a close one..." she whispered. "He must have thought you were an intrusive thought... which really isn't that far off, I guess? We ARE intruding..."

Sunset looked back at the bar, watching him take another long sip from his bottle before sighing to himself contentedly. She squinted, trying to read the label in the low light.

Catharsis? He's DRINKING a bottle of catharsis? I guess that's not the weirdest thing I've seen today...

Sunset squinted her eyes, walking back up to the bar with determination in her gait. "Penn, I'm not just some thought you can just push away! I'm REAL! Missy and I are here to try and help you!"

Missy flew past her, snatching up the drink beside the dragon and giving it a sniff. She recoiled with a look of disgust on her face before tossing it over her shoulder. "Menthol juleps? Seriously, Noir? You fell off the wagon again?"

"Heeeey, no kids during happy hour!" the dragon countered, stumbling a few steps forward before falling flat and slamming his chin on the surface of the bar.

Penn still refused to acknowledge Sunset, turning and placing his hand flat on the surface of the bar. When he picked it up, a fresh glass appeared, which the dragon instantly wrapped his tail around protectively before beginning to lap up the liquid inside.

Sunset and Missy both looked at each other. Missy pouted and reached down, trying and failing to lift the glass off of the surface of the bar as if it had been glued down.

If we're going to get through to them, we're going to have to do it on their own terms...

She sat herself down on the stool beside Penn, ignoring how much it stung to see him pretending she didn't exist.

"I've missed you... a lot." She nodded her head towards the back of the bar. Missy frowned, but seemed to pick up the hint. She dove behind the counter and out of sight, re-emerging seconds later in a white button-down shirt, black bowtie, and matching black vest. Sunset almost laughed when she picked up a bottle of chocolate syrup and carton of milk and began combining them in a cocktail shaker. She shook it vigorously, eventually settling into a beat and beginning to dance.

Sunset turned back to Penn, hesitantly placing a hand on his shoulder. "I didn't know what you were going through, but... I always was afraid. Afraid of what could be happening to you... I guess I was right to be."

"Noir... do you hear something?"

The dragon raised its head a bit, turning and staring Sunset directly in the eyes.

"Nothing important, bud."

He immediately got a spray of seltzer water in the face courtesy of Missy, leaving him sputtering and coughing up spurts of steam.

"So anyway, I try to do the whole 'my mind, my rules' shtick, but she's immune!" Penn continued. "So I move on to plan B."

"It's more like plan Q at this point, isn't it?"

The two boys chuckled together for a moment before each taking a turn with their drinks.

"Yeah... she really WAS smarter than me. Saw through everything I tried..."

"Well, clearly not!" Noir replied. "I mean, you're here and she's probably bawling her eyes out in a crater, somewhere!"

"I wasn't smarter, I got LUCKY." Penn shuddered. "We had NO idea that we could swap places while Salem was rooting around in my brain! She managed to make it to the portal gun and I set it to go off... And then Emerald shot me and I fell out a fiftieth-story window."

Missy and Sunset's eyes both widened, and Missy stopped her shaking. They both glanced at each other, clearly equally shocked at the story. Missy shook herself out of the stupor, opening the shaker and pouring the contents into a glass... which consisted of a large stick of chocolate-flavored butter, wrapped in wax paper. She reached down and plucked the butter from the glass, giving it an angry glare before unwrapping the top and giving it a small nibble.

"Hah! You fell out a window that high up you lived to tell about it?" Noir asked.

"Yup. I told the people on he forty-ninth floor, the people on the forth-eighth floor, the people on the forty-seventh floor..." Penn replied, and both of the boys chuckled to themselves again.

"I guess it was time to verti-GO, huh?"

Sunset tightened her grip on his shoulder. "Please, Penn... I'm sorry I split up the team, I never should have thought that you were being selfish or heartless! I just want my friend back..."

"HUP!" Missy tossed the shaker into the air, where Yuki-Onna appeared and breathed a frosty blast onto the metal surface. Missy grinned as she caught the cup in a towel and poured the contents into a glass, which she quickly deposited in front of Sunset. Sunset sighed, taking her hand off of Penn's shoulder and turning to the drink. She took a long sip, relishing the taste of chocolate spreading over her tongue and the creamy smoothness of the milk.

The moment Sunset started drinking, there was a change in the air. She felt herself drawn in, suddenly no longer shunned to the outside but sat directly between the two of them.

"What I don't get is why." The dragon flicked his tail back and forth with irritation. "Whether it's one world or the other, let them burn. Salem can do as she likes and get riddled full of bullet holes for her trouble... It's all just humans killing humans, at the end of the day! What makes it worth all the torture?"

Penn mulled over his drink for a moment before turning, locking his eyes straight onto hers.

"Because Sunset would never have forgiven me if I gave Salem what she wanted, even in exchange for her life... or mine."

Sunset felt her heart crush with guilt as she remembered her own willingness to give in to Salem. He had been tortured for weeks not wanting to disappoint her... If Missy hadn't stepped in when she did...

"Ugh, Sunset, Sunset, Sunset!" Noir groaned, rolling his blue eyes faster with each repetition. "She's-"

"From a different world. Different values. Different... standards." Penn cut him off. "Kindness. Generosity. Honesty-"

"Yeah, yeah, she's perfect!"

"She's not perfect. But... she's better. Her whole world is. If either of us are going to talk about her, we have acknowledge that she's not the same standard of humanity we know. Even YOU don't have any good reason to summon of guile for her, Noir!"

Sunset blinked, her eyes wide with shock. "Penn... I'm not- I'm not better than anybody!" He didn't seem to hear her, reaching over and giving Noir a pat on the head before downing more of his Catharsis.

"Yeah, she's no better than anybody!" Noir agreed.

Sunset snapped around to look at him. "Wait... You CAN hear me!"

"Of course we can hear you..." Penn muttered into his drink. "Missy wouldn't be here if it wasn't really you, this time. I just had to get used to ignoring your voice if I wanted to survive being tortured by an illusionist who knew how you look and sound."

"Penn..." Sunset couldn't stop the tears beginning to run down her eyes before she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around him without abandon and hugging him with every ounce of strength in her body. "I'm sorry! I'm SO SORRY, I just wanted to help people here, I never wanted any of this!"

"Sunset... don't apologize for doing the right thing..." He slowly wrapped his arms around her in return, applying a gentle-but-hesitant force to her to return the hug. She felt a shudder rack through his body as he began to sob. "I- I- don't want to believe this is r-real... Any second you're going to turn into a nightmare or another illusion..."

"Shhhh..." Sunset rubbed his back as she eased his head into her shoulder, letting him have some small measure of privacy as his tears continued. "It's real. It's real, buddy... You're safe now..."

"Oh, is he now?"

Sunset tensed, feeling the familiar air of hatred growing around her as the voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

"And what happens the next time you get yourself in over your well-meaning head?"

Noir and Missy each glanced at each other, then up to the stage. Sunset followed their gazes, but saw nothing but an encroaching darkness seeping out and spilling onto the floor like black smoke.

"Penn... what is that?" she whispered, feeling her blood begin to chill.

"You've been nothing but unhealthy to him. A burden. A RISK." The darkness continued to spread, eating up the rest of the club and making its way toward the bar. In the deepest, darkest part, Sunset could see the glow of a familiar red pupil beginning to grow.

"Penn... what IS that?" Sunset asked, more urgency in her voice as she gave him a gentle shake.

"I'm the one who protected him when Salem tried to raze his mind. I'M the one who stayed by his side when you were enjoying the high life at Beacon! I'M. HIS. PARTNER!"

Sunset flinched as tendrils of darkness lashed out at her, cracking like whips at her head...

Only to freeze in mid-air as Missy interposed herself, arms thrown wide to protect her.

"THAT'S ENOUGH, SIS!"

The darkness paused, and Sunset felt the malicious aura lessen.

"I get it... you're mad..." Missy floated forward, and the dark seemed to push away from her. "Who wouldn't be, watching someone they care about hurt so much? That's YOUR policy, isn't it? Someone hurts Penn, and you make sure they can never, EVER do it again! But you can't blame Sunset... We both know it wasn't her fault. If she hadn't insisted on staying, we never would have stopped Salem from changing the timeline..." She slowly floated to the ground, letting the smoky blackness lap at her feet. "We were led here, sis... Not by Sunset, by MAGIC. I think... I think we were supposed to be here. Who else could have stopped her plans the same way we did? We were the perfect team for this!" She motioned to the group at the bar.

"Who else except Sunset Shimmer could have been such a stalwart moral compass in the face of a call to right these wrongs? The Ghostricks were PERFECT for delaying the White Fang just long enough for Sunset to get there and call SHIELD in the nick of time and defuse the bomb! Could ANYONE except Isis have countered their computer viruses and bring back the Fall Maiden from the dead AND be in so many places at once she could stop Cinder while also warning the rest of the world about the bomb AND safely take the blame for the bombing?"

Sunset noticed a small hum of satisfaction from Noir as pulled his head out of his glass. "Haaaaaaa! Thash my giiiirl!"

"I can't think of anyone else except Penn could be so relentlessly clever to keep Salem occupied the ENTIRE time? Even if she saw through his plans, she still had to DEAL with him, which meant she couldn't focus on the rest of us!" She floated forward and finally up onto the stage, placing first her hand against the eye, then pressing her forehead onto it. "And without YOU, he wouldn't ever have survived it... So please... you need to rest, too. You're getting grouchy..."

"Missy..."

Sunset could scarcely believe the now-tender tone coming from the monster hiding in the darkness.

"I don't need a-"

"YES. You do... Now come on... Take a deep breath, and take it from me..." she smiled. "Sometimes, even duel spirits need to take a nap."

There was a pause, and the lights in the room rose back up to their full brightness... and it was gone.

"Love ya, Dorklord..."

Missy snickered to herself as she floated back over to the bar. "Right back at ya, Ghostfreak..."

Sunset stared at the little duel spirit, eyes open wide. "Missy, that was-"

"Nothing special." Missy smiled before sitting down on the bar, her wing definitely-not-accidentally knocking over Noir's glass. "Trust me, Sis is a lot nicer once you get on her good side, a big teddy bear, same as Penn. It's getting there that's the hard part."

Sunset finally felt Penn pull himself away from her shoulder, his eyes bloodshot and face flushed red. She smiled, reaching up and patting him on the cheek. "Come on, buddy... It's time for you to wake up. We need you back..."

He looked down at the bottle in his hand, then at her.

"Full disclosure, Sunset... there were people in that castle. This wasn't just someone's own game coming back to bite them, like before." He set the bottle back on the counter. "I didn't want to think about it, that's why I came here, with my old pal..." He held up his hand, counting off names on his fingers. "Watts... Hazel... Tyrian... Mercury... and Emerald." He looked to the side, clearly ashamed. "I tried to warn Emerald. She was... salvageable. She had reservations. But I killed all of them... Just to make sure they couldn't follow me... so they couldn't hurt me ever again..." He shook his head. "Stopping the from hurting anyone else was secondary. Saving this world? Happy coincidence..."

Sunset took a deep breath. "Penn... I can't say they had it coming, but... you did what you had to. Not just to survive, but to protect two worlds! I... I almost didn't." It was Sunset's turn to look away in shame, now. "When I saw what they did to you, I was ready to give Salem anything and everything she wanted just to get you back... I would have let everyone get hurt again, on PURPOSE this time, just so I wouldn't lose another friend!"

She took a deep breath. "I don't think... anyone is going to lose any sleep over them. Taking over the world is a game nobody ought to play if they're not willing to lose everything for it... Take it from someone who almost DID."

She leaned in, pressing her forehead against his. She could feel it: the hurt, the shame, the self-condemnation... all boiling up until he couldn't take it any more. She could feel him wanting to run and hide again, deep inside himself.

"Look... if that's how you feel, do you want to just say we both messed up, call it good... and go back to working together in the morning?" Sunset whispered.

She heard him laugh, and the feelings began to give way to relief, gratitude, and even... joy. Sunset could feel the world around them beginning to heal, hear the rustling as the debris in the bar began to sweep itself away.

"Please?" Penn whispered in return. Finally, Sunset felt like he had taken the first step on the path to recovery.

"Deal."

Sunset opened her eyes. She looked up, spotting Missy hovering just above Penn's body and eagerly watching. At the head of the bed, music was winding its way out from Isis's speakers in a language she didn't understand.

Kono mama mō sukoshi... Arukou kata wo daki!
Kie yuku yume wo kazoe kareteku nakama wo mita.
Kayoi nareta michi ni mayoikomu kono goro...
Yami ga mō hitori no jibun wo tsukuru!

They all watched as Penn began to stir, mumbling to himself.

"Who's watching Season Zero without me?"

"PENN!" Missy practically dove on top of him, crying and giggling with joy as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He couldn't seem to do much to return the affection, but the smile on his face made it clear he was enjoying it. His eyes trailed over to Sunset, looking first at her face, then down to where her hand rested on his arm.

"So... that was really you? You used your magic on me?"

Sunset nodded. "I know you didn't want me to, but... You were in a coma. We thought we might lose you."

His eyes moved upwards, lingering on her sling. "Your arm..."

Sunset shook her head. "It's nothing. Nothing to worry about, at least." She shrugged and gave him a carefree smile just like the one he so often seemed to give her to make her feel better, hoping it would have the same effect. "Made a dumb mistake while I was saving the world... saved it anyway, with a generous amount of help from my friends."

He looked up at her a small bit, his head barely seeming to be able to move. "I need... need a..." his train of thought seemed to trail off.

"The only thing you need is to rest." Sunset smiled, grabbing a nearby chair and sitting herself beside him. "And I'm not going to leave your side while you do, okay? Now that I know you're not going anywhere... and you're not going to wake up with amnesia, or something."

"No, I need... ugh..." he groaned with disgust. "Brain still isn't working good... Can't string together what I'm thinking... like grasping at smoke... Well. Working well..."

"Salem did a real number on you, Penn. We managed to wake you up, but that doesn't mean you're magically healed, my magic doesn't work like that..." Sunset gripped his arm a little tighter. "Then again, I guess I'm not entirely sure I know everything my magic can do, either."

"Can- can you give me... give me..." He screwed his eyes shut. "I want my..."

Sunset glanced down at his hands, spotting them twitching back and forth with his fingers spaced out a familiar distance. "You... want your cards?"

"Yes!"

Sunset walked to the opposite side of the bed, only to find the cards already in his right hand.

"Okay... they're already there... so what now?"

"Isis..."

"Yes?"

"Need a duel. Gimmie..." he groaned again, rolling his eyes. "Let's just warm up with something easy... Dark World?"

"Affirmative."

The drone clambered up on top of the machinery monitoring his vitals before projecting a familiar dueling field onto the bedsheets.

"It is your move."

Penn nodded towards his hand. "Sunset... could you draw five for me? I can't really get my arms to move that well..."

Sunset's eyes widened as she looked down at the black-sleeved cards. She was almost afraid to touch them. "Th-they're your cards, Penn... That's a little different than you giving me the Ghostricks..."

"It's fine. It's not like you can invade my privacy any more than literally going inside my head, right?" he chuckled to himself, and Sunset felt a twinge of guilt. She started to reach for the cards, only to feel a wave of hot malice radiate off of it.

"I... I don't want to."

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I need something to jump-start my brain, Sunny... You said it yourself, I'm a mess."

"Oh, I'll do it!" Missy fluttered over, easily pulling the top cards off of his deck and scanning over them. "Hmm... I think you mighta bricked on your opening hand, Penn."

"Let me see..."

Sunset was about to reply when she was cut off by something unexpected. The entire building rumbled with a tremor, sending everything shaking. All of them looked wildly around the room, trying to spot any sign of danger.

"That tremor measured a 2.4 on the richter scale."

"Isis, what happened?" Missy asked, still holding the cards down in Penn's line of sight.

"You may want to see this for yourself."

The projection of the dueling field switched off as she turned to the far wall and began a new video.

"Oh my god card..." Missy dropped the cards out of shock.

"Mother of pearl..." Penn whispered, his eyes widening.

"That... can't be real, right?" Sunset looked between Penn and Isis for confirmation. "There's NO WAY that's real!"

"It would appear that Salem's revenge is inbound."

"That... was faster than I expected..." Penn whispered.

Sunset could only watch as the video footage switched constantly from one feed to the next, all displaying the same continuous image:

A massive Grimm. One larger than Sunset even thought was possible, large enough to swallow up a double-decker bus in a single bite. It was in the shape of a wyvern, with wings that could span multiple city blocks and a long, wide mouth with teeth that extended well down the neck. Sunset's blood ran cold as she heard a distant roaring.

"The wyvern is on a direct course towards Beacon Academy. We must evacuate immediately."

The door to the infirmary burst open, and the entirety of both Team RWBY and Team JNPR burst in, practically falling on top of each other.

"SUNSET!"

"WE JUST GOT NEWS!"

"THERE'S A GIGANTIC GRIMM COMING! IT'S A HUGE DRAGON THAT- LOOKS JUST LIKE THAT ONE!" Ruby pointed at the projection in horror.

"All of the teachers have ordered for us to evacuate!" Pyrrha added.

"Given the size of the student body and the speed at which the Grimm is traveling, there is zero chance for a successful complete evacuation. There will still be students in the school upon its arrival, to say nothing of the unviable nature of moving Penn in his current state."

Everyone stopped to stare at Isis in various states of horror, worry, and determination.

"What... what are we going to do?"

There was a pause.

"Isis, I'm gonna need you to put on 'Duel Madness..." Penn muttered, drawing everyone's attention. A rapid electronic beat began to pulse as a new song began to play. He nodded forward, causing Isis to bring the seat up until he could address everyone directly.

Gotta find a way, just to play,
play a little game!
Got a compulsion,
wanna be a champion!
Gotta feel the heart,
gotta be smart,
play the card!
Gotta get inside the mind of my counterpart!

"Now everybody listen to me closely, because I do NOT have the energy to repeat myself..."

Author's Note

Before anyone starts theorizing, no, Penn's partner is NOT an ectonurite from Ben 10. "Ghostfreak" is just Missy's nickname for her, just like "Dorklord." (Which was what many theorized Ghostrick Angel of Mischief was going to be called before it was translated to English!)

This chapter took a few tries to get right, I'll admit...

Time to Say Goodbye

Pyrrha and Nora both stared wide-eyed as they came alongside the wyvern. Pyrrha already felt as if she were pushing her limits just trying to keep up with it while the two of them stood on top of her shield, but she knew she had no choice but to do so. If she wanted to protect everyone, including Jaune, then it was do or die.

"Wow... It's even bigger in person!" Nora marveled. "Let's see if we can get its attention! Ready?" Pyrrha nodded, focusing her semblance on bringing the two of them around in front of the Grimm. They both stared into its massive eyes, which barely noticed them as anything more than flies. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

The front of Nora's grenade launcher opened, allowing her to fire the entire magazine of six grenades at once. The recoil propelled them backwards at ludicrous speed, even outpace the monster for a few seconds and putting a more comfortable amount of distance between them. Her aim was flawless, sending the barrage into and around the dragon's eye. The two of them watched as it let loose an earth-shattering roar before turning its hateful gaze onto the two of them.

"Okay, we made it angry!" Nora declared, turning back to look at Pyrrha with a small amount of uncertainty in her eyes. "What was step 2, again?"

"Stay alive, keep it away from the school for an extra few minutes." Penn's voice came back through the earpieces Isis had given them.

"Riiiiight! Of COURSE!" Nora tapped her palm against her head. "How could I forget?"

Pyrrha spun them around, trying to keep herself focused. She spotted more flying Grimm out of the corner of her eye. "There are a flock of Griffons and a Nevermore flanking us at our 7 o'clock. Nora's still reloading."

"Please, allow me. Repairs on this unit are ongoing, but it can still be put to effective use."

A large yellow-and-black object blasted past them in the opposite direction. Pyrrha watched as the mechanical dragon blasted down the Nevermore's gullet before ripping out the other end a moment later. Despite a lock of wings, it was flying with the aid of a set of jets in its legs, skating through the air like a dancer. With calculated precision, it continued on into the Griffons, scattering them to the wind as they scrambled to make a counterattack. Pyrrha kept one hand focused on keeping them afloat as she reached to her side and retrieved her spear. With a quick flip, she transformed it into its rife configuration and lodged the stock into the familiar place braced against her shoulder. Aiming with only one hand wasn't easy, but she still managed to land four of her five shots on her targets. The drone dispatched the remainder with what looked like a circular saw and a nail gun that had emerged from panels on its back. It soon caught up to them, flying up underneath them and allowing Pyrrha a break as she and Nora hopped down on top of it and let it carry them.

"Thanks for the backup, Isis."

"It is my pleasure, Pyrrha Nikos."

"Don't go patting yourselves on the back, yet! You're doing great, but any mistake could cost your life, and everyone else's soon after!" Penn replied. "If you three have this situation under control, I need to focus on the others."

Pyrrha looked back at the gigantic wyvern currently trying to eat them in a single bite and the swiftly growing army of Grimm alongside and beneath it.

"Of course... why wouldn't we have it under control? It's only a Grimm the size of the CCT tower..."

"We will attempt to lead it west, away from populated areas."

This time, it was Jaune's voice that came over the comms. "On behalf of the ground crew, we'd appreciate that! That thing's dripping this black slime that's turning into even more Grimm! Combined with the practical army coming out of Forever Fall, we can barely hold them back!"

Pyrrha felt her concentration waver as worry for Jaune crossed her mind. He had been improving as a fighter with her lessons, but...

"So whatever you're going to do, Penn, do it fast! Time's not on our side!"

"That's what I'm working on changing! I'm going to focus on the other girls, now."

"Understood." Pyrrha nodded to herself. Even if his fighting skills still needed work, Jaune was a top-notch leader. There was no way that he or his team would fail. For now, she had to focus on doing her part.

She brought her shield back around and hopped back on top of it. "Isis, keep Nora safe. I'm going to make sure it doesn't lose interest."

"Affirmative."

Nora grinned as she locked in her fresh round of grenades. "Don't let me hit you, Pyrrha!"

Sunset watched as the gigantic dragon began to turn away from the school, whispering a prayer that Pyrrha and Nora would be safe before she returned to their goal: climbing to the top of the clock tower Penn had pointed them towards.

"Sunset... I know for a fact this place wasn't here yesterday..." Ruby muttered beside her.

Sunset chuckled to herself. "Yeah, I think it's some kind of magic... Just try not to think about it."

"You're welcome for that! Making a field spell show up in the real world isn't exactly easy, you know!" Missy added.

Penn's voice came next. "Sunset, are you two at the top, yet?"

Sunset sighed. "Not yet, Penn. Do you realize just how MANY stairs are in here?"

"The longer it takes you to get to the top, the longer Nora and Pyrrha have to distract that thing!"

Ruby paused, pondering the predicament for a few seconds before reaching out to Sunset. "Here... I want to try something."

Sunset nodded, grabbing her hand. For a few seconds, the world was a blur of rose petals, stairs, and spinning. She kept her injured arm pressed tight against her chest as everything flew past them, and soon they had come to a stop again, now at the top of the tower and staring out over the campus. Behind them, she could see the massive river that ran past Beacon Academy flowing and rumbling as steadily as ever. Ruby was leaned over and panting for breath, clearly exhausted from the effort of using her semblance on both of them. Just beneath their feet, Sunset could feel the ticking of a huge clock pulsing away like a heartbeat. It was only now, standing among the tallest towers of Vale, that a new thought occurred to her.

"Uhm, Penn? What happens if this field spell gets broken while we're up here?"

"I think you can put it together, Sunset. You've both got landing strategies, right?"

Sunset swallowed nervously and stepped away from the edge. "Missy's my landing strategy, Penn!"

There was a long pause.

"So you're at the top?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Yes, we're at the top, but Ruby needs a sec to catch her breath."

"N-no... I 'm good..." Ruby panted, straightening back up to her full height. "So what are we doing up here?"

"You're going to stop that thing, Ruby."

Ruby and Sunset both glanced at each other, eyes wide. "I'm sorry... WHAT?"

"Ruby... what did Ozpin say to you the night that you first met? The very first thing?"

Ruby's brow furrowed as she tried to recall the night in question. "He... pointed out my eyes?"

"Your SILVER eyes."

"Penn, you can't be serious!" Sunset threw her hands in the air. "How is one person supposed to stop THAT?"

"Ever since ancient times in this world, silver-eyed warriors were the antithesis to the Grimm. They are the thing Grimm fear the most, and at their full potential, they can petrify or vaporize Grimm with a single look. You need to believe me when I tell you, Ruby, that you have that same power lying dormant inside of you."

Ruby shook her head, eyes wide as she stepped back involuntarily. "I- I don't understand... I'm NOT special, I'm just... me! I can't do anything like that!"

"Yes, you can. Originally, before the timeline changed, it took an extremely traumatic event to unlock that power... Pyrrha died right in front of you." Sunset watched the color drain from Ruby's face, and Penn's voice grew somber. "You watched her die at Cinder's hands because you were just a few seconds too late. With Sunset, Missy, and Isis's help, Pyrrha didn't die, Cinder did. But that also means that you never went through the trauma that unlocked your powers."

"So, Sunset and I are going to help you do it, instead."

Ruby and Sunset looked at each other, eyes wide.

"Penn... are you sure about this?" Sunset asked.

"If Ruby never unlocks her powers, this timeline doesn't stand a chance. She's the main character. This was how she beat the wyvern the first time, we already know she CAN do it. It's just a matter of unlocking her abilities a bit less... painfully. So I need you both to sit down and listen to me closely..."

Sunset could see Ruby trembling, frozen in place with fear. She stepped up to her team leader, placing her hand on the younger girl's shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. When Ruby looked up at her, Sunset gave her warmest, most reassuring smile.

"It might seem impossible, but... if there's something I've learned since I met Penn, it's that there's no such thing. I believe in you, Ruby, and not just because he says so. You CAN do this... You just have to believe it, too, even if it's only long enough to do this one thing. Then, once this is over, you can go right back to being plain old Ruby Rose, slayer of cookies and pancakes. Deal?"

Ruby lunged forward, wrapping Sunset up in a hug that almost crushed the life out of her and drove her cast into her chest. After a few seconds, she finally let Sunset go and sunk down to a sitting position. Sunset smiled and did the same, crossing her legs underneath her.

"I'm ready, Penn..." Ruby whispered. "How do we do this?"

"Okay... this is going to get personal, so I need you to just accept what I say without asking me how I know it, alright?Just roll with it. Sunset, you said that at the arena you found a way to use your powers... can you use your magic to help her focus on her memories? Make them more vivid?"

Sunset reached up to her geode. "I've never done anything like that, but... I can try. It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility."

"Good. Now, I need you two to close your eyes and slow your breathing... fall into yourselves."

Sunset nodded, doing as he said and focusing on her magic. She focused on her geode as she reached out and placed her hand in Ruby's.

Breathe in... and out... In... ... and out... ... In... ... ... and out... There's nothing else except each other... Except that dark world behind your eyelids.

The two of them followed his instructions, slowing down and blocking out the rest of the world. His voice had descended from its normal timbre, becoming slower, lower, and droning. It was... hypnotic.

I guess he really wasn't joking about that whole "guided meditation" thing...

"Now... crap."

Sunset opened one eye. "Penn? What's going on?"

"Penn? Are you still there?" Ruby asked

"Please pardon the interruption... however, a situation has arisen requiring his complete attention."

"Isis, what's going on?"

Penn was trying his best not to hyperventilate at the sight of the woman who had just stepped through the infirmary doors. He wanted to say something, but he was too afraid to so much as make a sound. Fear had paralyzed him better than any dark magic could.

Salem kept her eyes locked on him, like a predator about to pounce on her prey.

"You..."

She reached out, and he felt an icy touch wrap around his heart, threatening to crush it. The machines around him began to beep and screech noisily as his body panicked at the sudden supernatural force threatening to kill him.

"You have no idea what you've done! You cost me DECADES of work! You destroyed my castle, killed my subordinates, and HUMILIATED me in my own home!"

He gasped for air, his lungs working fruitlessly to push useless air in and out without his heart beating.

"Ordinarily, I would make certain that anyone who committed such atrocities would suffer hell until death was a gift..." She walked up alongside the bed, her red gaze glaring down at him with the condescension of a human looking down on an insect. "But I think I learned my lesson about letting you live, so I'll have to be content with this..."

The room was already beginning to spin, and he knew he only had seconds left. His arm felt as if it was made of lead as he gestured downwards. Salem's gaze followed his gesture, falling upon a card set carefully on the ground beside his bed. She bent down and scooped it up, eyeing it with amusement.

"Again with the games? What is THIS supposed to be?"

Penn finally smiled for the first time, forcing out two words through the pain.

"Trap card."

Before she could respond, a glowing tear appeared in the air behind her, widening into a dark gateway. There was only time for her expression to shift from smugness to shock before she was sucked violently inside and it snapped shut again, cutting her off completely. He watched for several seconds, making certain she wouldn't overpower the magic of the card as Isis scrambled across his chest before scrambling under his shirt.

"You have entered cardiac arrest. A controlled electrical shock must be applied if you are to survive. Brace yourself. Three, two, one."

His entire body convulsed and arched as she jammed both the tip of her tail and her snout onto him and delivered a powerful shock. He made no attempt to hold back the choking scream from the pain, the weak sound echoing through the empty infirmary. There were a few seconds of silence between them as both listened carefully to the machines beside his bed.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

"Resuscitation unsuccessful. Attempting again in three, two, one."

He wanted to scream as his body was subjected to another shock and everything went red for a second, but the world was growing dark and his voice couldn't seem to make itself heard.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

Strength seemed to flood back through him like a breath of fresh air, and he gasped down as much of it as he could.

"Resuscitation successful. That... was a close call."

"T-tell me about it..." Penn whispered.

"Would you like me to connect you back to Ruby Rose and Sunset Shimmer?"

"G-give me a second..." he coughed weakly, trying to clear the hoarseness from his voice. "Tell Missy... she gets all the dessert she wants... for a week." He glanced down at the trap card that had fallen back onto the floor. "If she hadn't booby-trapped the room... I'd be dead..."

"Affirmative."

He stopped to take several deep breaths, but his trembling refused to stop. Even the rush of post-near-death-experience endorphins wasn't enough to take away the fear of his brush with the reaper.

"I- I wanna throw up..." he whispered.

"Would you like me to bring you a bucket?"

He took another deep breath, choking down the urge to vomit. "J-just... get me back in the call, Isis..."

"Penn? Penn, what's happening?" Sunset repeated, more urgently. She could hear others on the comms scrambling with the same questions.

"Hey, I'm back... Sorry."

"Penn! What happened? Where did you go?"

"Trust me, I WILL tell you later. The traps Missy set for me came in handy. For now... let's get back to what we were doing."

"BOO YAH! I KNEW it was worth it!" Missy cheered. "Everything's holding up so far, I'm working on my part!"

"Keep at it, Missy. If that field spell drops, Ruby and Sunset are in big trouble..."

Penn sounded rougher and out of breath, but Sunset decided not to press the issue. "Okay, we're ready here."

"Alright... I'm having Isis put the three of us on a private channel..." Penn muttered. Sunset could hear him taking several more deep breaths. "Now, just like before, breathe in and out... nice and slow. Close your eyes and... and stuff."

Ruby and Sunset both glanced at one another before both shutting their eyes.

"Ruby, you're going to sink deeper and deeper into the dark void behind your eyelids. You are shrinking inside of your own body, afloat in a dark sea of your own creation... You're safe here... Completely... safe."

He still hadn't quite recovered his smooth, hypnotic tone from whatever had happened to him, but a quick peek out of one eye showed Sunset that it was still working. Ruby's breathing had slowed to a crawl, and her head was beginning to dip as though she were falling asleep.

"That power... it's deep inside of you, just waiting for you to tap into it... and I'm going to teach you how. The strength of a silver-eyed warrior comes from the urge to protect... to preserve. I want you to think of the things that are precious to you. Of the people who matter most in your whole world."

Sunset closed her eyes, beginning to see flashes of unfamiliar people and places. Her geode was showing her Ruby's memories as they came to her. She focused carefully on each one, making sure Ruby dwelled on each one before moving on to the next.

"Think of how happy Jaune and Pyrrha are together... Think of your father, your home, so far away and waiting for you to return... Think of Zwei and the cheerful look on his little puppy face every time he sees you..."

Sunset could see it just as clearly as Ruby could, vivid memories of loving faces, a cozy home, and even the bright eyes an adorable-looking corgi.

"Think of Beacon and the friends- the FAMILY- that you've made here. Team RWBYS, Team JNPR, Penny... Sunset. Isis. Missy. Think of how much you love all of them and everything that you've been through together..."

Sunset could see Ruby's memories moving back through the entire semester of their time together. Every time they had laughed together, cried together, the moments that nearly tore them all apart and the love that brought them all together. Sunset's concentration nearly snapped when she felt hot tears running down her own cheeks.

"And now... I need you to understand something." Penn's voice grew a shade darker. A few seconds ago... Salem arrived here. In the infirmary. The wyvern was simply a distraction so that she could get to me without issue. She reached out her hand... and stopped my heart."

Sunset felt Ruby's grip on her hand tighten in fear, and she returned the motion.

"I was lucky that Missy's trap stopped her and Isis was here to start it again. Her expression didn't even waver while she was killing me, Ruby... I was going to die alone and afraid, and she WANTED that. She may be focused on me for the moment, but... she doesn't JUST want ME dead, Ruby. Every one of those things, those people who make this world worth saving? She will end every single one of them. Painfully, and slowly."

Terrifying visions began to fill Ruby's mind, corrupting each of the memories with images of violence and bloodshed. Her grip on Sunset's hand tightened.

"N-no..." she whispered, flinching away from the new horrifying direction her imagination had taken.

"Sunset, don't let her shy away from this. This IS what will happen if we fail. The forces of evil will stop at nothing to bring everything good and bright to a torturous end."

Sunset flinched, herself, but did as she was told. She drew those images up to the front of Ruby's mind, giving each precious thing in her life a turn at the chopping block.

"I'm going to tell you about what happened the first time around... before this timeline changed. When Beacon fell. Yang Xiao Long lost her right arm, sliced off clean at the elbow. Her fighting spirit was shattered that day, leaving her not only crippled, but bedridden with the sheer weight of her grief. Weiss Schnee was forced to return to her abusive father, who stripped her of her inheritance and locked her in her room until she became a more obedient daughter. Blake Belladonna was so scarred by watching her worst nightmares play out in front of her, she swore off having friends and teammates returned to Menagerie, and she tried and failed to start a movement against the White Fang. Team JNPR was ripped apart when... just as Jaune and Pyrrha realized their love for one another, Pyrrha was slain in an unwinnable battle. You ran to rescue her, but you were too slow... and you arrived just in time to see her heart pierced with an arrow... and her body reduced to ashes in a flash of magic. Penny was literally ripped apart in an act of sabotage at Amity Colosseum during the finals of the Vytal fesitval... and Beacon Academy fell to ruin."

This was cruel. It was the truth, but this was torture, making her envision these things.

"No... No, no, no!" she whispered.

"So... when I tell you that everything you know and care about is on the line, Ruby Rose... I am NOT exaggerating." Penn declared, leaving the two of them to wallow in their despair for a moment.

Sunset couldn't take it, any more. She HAD to stop this, she HAD to say something before Ruby toppled over the edge into despair.

"But that hasn't happened, Ruby..." she whispered. "At least... not yet. There's hope!"

"That's right! There IS hope, Ruby. Things don't HAVE to end this way... It's only a vision of things that MAY be, not what MUST be. Sunset and I came here wanting to help, to change things for the better, but we are NOT the ones to save your world... That's YOU, Ruby Rose! Look deep inside of yourself, cling tight to those happy memories, those smiling faces, and understand that the fact that they are under threat... it makes them all the more PRECIOUS. The joys, the sorrows, all the precious things that darkness seeks to destroy... a huntress's job is to PROTECT them! THAT is where you draw your power from. That feeling, that NEED to protect... focus on it, embrace it, let it flood through you until it fills you all the way to the point where you feel as if you're going to explode!"

"Ruby Rose, as long as you fight for life, to PROTECT life, you will NEVER fight alone... So, what are you going to do?"

Sunset felt Ruby's grip on her hand finally release. "I'm going to fight..."

"What was that?"

"I'm going to FIGHT to protect my friends!" Ruby shouted.

Sunset cringed as a flash of silver light washed over her, even threatening to blind her through her eyelids. When the light was gone, she blinked her eyes open.

There was Ruby Rose, standing tall and with renewed purpose as she stared defiantly up at the Wyvern.

"Girls... I think you're ready."

Sunset blinked as she pushed herself up to her feet. "Ready for... what? What's the plan? Are going to use Ruby's eyes to go attack the monster?"

"Actually..." Penn muttered as Sunset watched the Wyvern turn their way. "We're gonna bring the party to you. Isis? Pyrrha, time to bring it in!"

Sunset stepped back, eyes wide in shock. "PENN, ARE YOU CRAZY?"

"Yeah, but that's beside the point. The wyvern flies in, Ruby hits it with her silver eyes, and the body crashes harmlessly into the river. Everybody wins!"

"You kind of forgot that WE'RE HERE, TOO!"

"I didn't forget, Sunset. That's what the field spell's for! Trust me, you'll be FINE!"

Sunset wondered for a moment whether or not Penn's brain damage was extensive enough for him to think this was somehow a rational plan. Eventually, she settled on trusting him again, albeit while keeping herself ready to improvise a landing strategy.

"Ruby..."

She watched as the dragon flew in closer and closer, swooping down on them faster and faster. Sunset unconsciously stepped further back as it came flying at them, mouth-first. Sunset's eyes widened as she stared into the blood-red maw about to envelop them.

"RUBY..."

She registered a huge yellow-and-black version of Isis's drone crashing down into the floor with Nora on its back, scraping its claws and carving out deep gouges as it tried to come to a sudden stop. Pyrrha took the same tactic, stabbing her spear into the floor to stop herself from falling off the other side of the tower. When they had all come to a landing, Sunset could see that the drone was in sorry shape, still missing its tail, but now also one of its legs and several of the armored panels, exposing torn and sparking wires. All five of them watched as the dragon closed in on them, about to swallow the entire top half of the tower. Sunset finally ran up, taking a stance in front of her team leader with her lightsaber at the ready, for all of the good it would do against such a massive beast.

"RUBY!"

All at once, Sunset was bathed in a blinding light from behind, white light that completely overwhelmed her world. Even when it came from behind her, Sunset was forced to throw up her arm to protect her eyes. The power surrounded her, but aside from nearly blinding her, she didn't feel any harm or threat from it. In fact, it was kind of... warm.

It... kind of feels like the magic me and my friends have... Not exactly the same, but it's similar. Could this be this world's version of the Elements?

Her thinking was cut off by the pained screech of the Wyvern as Ruby's power slammed against it. Sunset couldn't see exactly what was happening, but when the light subsided, the Grimm was flying haphazardly over the river, its head covered in a smoking layer of gray stone that made it look almost like a statue.

"R-Ruby, you DID IT!" Sunset could scarcely believe her eyes.

"Uuuugh..." Sunset turned around, seeing Ruby kneeling on the ground, her entire body slumped with exhaustion. "My head hurts..."

Instantly, Sunset ran to her, kneeling down right beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder to help her stay steady. "Ruby! Are you alright?"

"This feels like that time I tried coffee..." Ruby grumbled. "AFTER it wore off..."

Sunset chuckled to herself, assured that her friend was going to be just fine. "That WAS a crazy Friday..."

"Um, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but..." Pyrrha pointed out over the river. "It's coming back."

"What?" Ruby jolted in surprise, trying to rise back up to her feet. "I- I don't understand! I thought Penn said this could kill it!"

"Well, I never said that this would kill it for certain..." Penn's voice muttered over the comms.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Pyrrha asked.

"I have a backup plan! Missy?"

"Uuuh.... I'm not ready, yet!"

"WHAT?" everyone shouted in sync.

"LOOK, if I do this any faster, I'm gonna be sick, and then you all lose that nice field spell you're standing on top of! I NEED a few more seconds!"

Sunset looked up, seeing the Wyvern shaking off the last of the petrified skin as it turned back towards them.

"Okay, stay calm... Whatever you girls do, do NOT leave the tower!"

"But it's coming RIGHT FOR US!" Nora screamed.

"STAND. YOUR. GROUND!"

All of the girls glanced at one another, unsure. After a few seconds, Sunset stood back up on her feet, switching on her lightsaber and placing herself between Ruby and the dragon. A moment later, Pyrrha was stood beside her, and Nora a second after that. Finally, Isis's drone limped around behind them, completing the formation.

They all stared down the wyvern together, watching as it closed in on them, mouth open wide. Sunset refused to shut her eyes or look away, staring it down defiantly as its gaping maw came down on them...

...and passed through them as if it was a ghost. The entire tower shuddered and shook, but there was no other sign that it had even been real.

"H-how... was that... how are we-" Nora stuttered, unable to even finish her sentence.

"The tower is a field spell I asked Missy to set up for you: Clock Tower Prison. After a certain amount of time, it renders the user immune to all battle damage!" Penn declared smugly.

"Y-yeah, but... I can't keep it up after another hit like that!" Missy countered, her voice wavering. "Field spells are WAY harder to materialize..."

Sunset and the rest of the girls looked at each other. Pyrrha and Ruby both looked down at the floor they were standing on, touching it as if unsure it was even real. Sunset simply smiled, lowering her saber for the moment. "You saved us again, Missy..."

"Don't thank me yet, I'm just getting started! Penn, it's ready!"

"Great! Sunset, when the dragon circles back around for another pass, I want you to give Missy the signal, okay?"

"What about us?" Ruby asked.

"You've all already gone above and beyond today... Just sit back and watch the fireworks when Missy gets to go all-out."

Sunset watched the gigantic Grimm shed the last of its confusion, turning back around in the air one more time. She struggled to keep her nerve, staring down the monster with grim determination. If we're going to only have one shot at this, I'm going to make it count...

"It's coming baaaack..." Nora muttered, tightening her grip on her grenade launcher.

"Not yet..." Sunset replied, narrowing her gaze.

The clock tower shuddered beneath their feet, threatening to give way.

"Sunset, Missy DID say this tower can't take another attack..." Pyrrha whispered.

"Not. Yet."

"Impact in seven... six... five... four..."

"NOW!"

There was a fluttering of feathered wings as a familiar figure flew past her shoulder, trailed by glowing orbs of light. Sunset watched as Missy pulled up just at the edge of the platform, holding out her hand to guide the floating white spheres.

It look less than a second for Sunset to count that there were ten of them. Ten Xyz materials...

"Try THIS on for size! GHOSTRICK'S FINAL FRIGHT!"

The orbs all gathered together in front of her hand, merging until they became a huge sphere of flaming white energy.

What followed was a blast of that knocked everyone still standing off of their feet. It was like a laser beam as wide as Sunset was tall, expanding into a cone as it shot into the sky. As the blast raged, Sunset found herself pushed back further and further towards the edge of the tower. It was all that she could do to jam her saber into the floor and hold on for dear life, and a quick glance showed that Pyrrha had done the same, while Ruby and Nora were both clinging to her scythe. The attack seemed to shift through several forms, taking on different patterns and geometric shapes as it seemed to be trying to find the most efficient way to impart so much energy at once before finally settling back into an all-out flaming white blast.

A few seconds later, the beam finally petered out, revealing the results. The last of the dragon was already dissolving away in the air, reduced to cinders by the attack. Shock waves had traveled out and shattered every pane of glass for at least a mile, and the rooftops around them were all blackened and smoldering. Missy turned back to them, a drowsy look on her face.

"S-see? You can't... rush..."

She didn't the the chance to finish her sentence as she dropped out of the air, unconscious before she had even touched the floor.

"MISSY!" Sunset scrambled to get her feet under her, running up and scooping the spirit's head in her head. Still breathing... looks like she just overexerted herself.

"Did... did we win?" Ruby asked.

Another shudder ran through the tower, cracks appearing under their feet as the bell inside began to urgently ring. No Missy, no field spell...

"This place is coming down!" Sunset looped her arm around Missy's waist before running up to Isis and placing her as gently as she could over the drone's back, making sure to avoid any of the sparking wires before jumping on, herself.

"Hope you've all got landing strategies!"

"You know... if you hadn't told me, I NEVER would have believed it was as damaged as you said..." Penn smirked as he folded his arms over his chest. "As usual, Isis, your work is up to the highest standards!"

"Thank you. I aim to please."

He chuckled as he eased his way over to the driver's side door, finally letting go of the walker he had been given in order to slip inside and onto his usual seat. He let out a long sigh of relief as he gripped the familiar steering wheel, giving it a loving squeeze. It was obvious that he had no plans to move from that spot for a long time. "How's Sunset doing?"

"Sunset is right here!" Sunset chuckled as she stepped out the door, the rest of her new friends following behind her. She cast a melancholy glance back at them as she set down the suitcase holding all of her belongings. "And I'm doing... well, I'm going to be fine, given time..."

"Do you REALLY have to go?" Nora asked, voicing what Sunset was certain everyone was thinking.

Missy floated by, holding a plate with what was at least her fifth slice of cake since breakfast, chocolate fudge this time. "Well, you know, we've got places to save, worlds to visit, friends to find... it's a busy life, being interdimensional superheroes!"

"We really have spent longer here than we ever intended..." Sunset conceded, reaching over and running her finger through the icing for a quick taste. "Two months... That's twice as long as we'd been on the road when we first got here!"

"BUT-" Nora's mouth was quickly covered by Ren, whom Sunset gave a grateful smile. He responded with a quiet nod.

"We'll certainly miss you all here at Beacon."

"Well, we're not ALL leaving! You're still going to have Isis!" Missy pointed to the half-destroyed drone standing off to the side.

Pyrrha walked forward, pulling Sunset into a tight hug. The two of them stayed like that for several seconds, and Sunset could help but revel in the fact that she was holding tangible proof that they had accomplished their goal: They had made a positive difference in this world. They'd averted a disaster.

"You DO have a sleeping bag this time, right?" Pyrrha whispered.

Sunset chuckled to herself. "I dunno... Should I? Forgetting to bring one led to making a pretty great friend."

Pyrrha pulled her in again, this time to lean down and whisper in her ear. "Thank you... Not just for saving my life, but for helping Jaune and I... well..."

Sunset snickered, giving her a light punch on the shoulder. "You didn't NEED my help for that. You two would have figured it out, eventually!"

Pyrrha flushed and gave her one last hug before stepping back to the rest of the group. There was a long pause when Sunset turned to the rest of Team RWBY. It had been an entire week since the incident with the Wyvern, and they had all been given plenty of time to come to terms with the fact that she had to leave... but it still felt awful.

"I guess this is goodbye..." Ruby whispered. "The end of Team RWBYS..."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Kicking me off the team while I'm on a road trip? Wow, that's cold."

"WHA- No! No I didn't mean- I wasn't kicking you off!"

Sunset chuckled at how easily Ruby got flustered, grabbing the smaller girl and pulling her into a hug. "I'm just messing with you, Craterface. I know what you mean... but this doesn't have to be goodbye forever." She smiled and held Ruby at arm's length before tapping on the center of her chest. "I'm always going to be your friend, and I'll be right here..." She nodded towards Isis's oversized drone. "Plus, I mean, Isis installed herself on your scrolls so all of you can call me any time you want, sooooo... there's that, too."

Ruby finally giggled before stepping away. "Well, you better be ready, because we're definitely going to use that!"

Sunset turned to Weiss. Ever the stoic, she wasn't shedding any tears. She simply stepped forward and grabbed the lightsaber off of her belt to shake the handle in her face. "Just because I'm not going to be there doesn't mean you're allowed to slack off on your training. The next time I see you, I expect to see improvement!" She paused, then clipped it back into place. "You taught me to be a teammate, rather than just a huntress-in-training. Thinking about you being out there without us to help you when you get in trouble is... concerning."

Sunset felt her heart melting at Weiss's words. "Don't worry about me, Weiss. Even if Team RWBYS isn't going to be there... I'll have Team Siege right by my side."

Missy raised an eyebrow from the spot she had laid down on the car roof. "Team Siege?"

Sunset smirked. "You WANTED a team name! Sunset, Isis, Elijah, Ghostrick Angel of Mischief! S-I-E-G!"

Penn chuckled to himself. "That, or we could be Team SIMP... but I don't think 'Squirrels In My Pants' would be a good team theme song."

"Uhm, excuse me? I'm CLEARLY the team leader!"

Sunset and Penn gave each other knowing looks before she turned back to Weiss. "You know... If you hadn't offered to teach me, I probably wouldn't have survived the battle at Amity."

"Well... If you weren't there to help, none of us would have survived that bomb, or what came next, so... I guess we'll call it even."

"So, where you headed next?" Yang asked, offering Sunset a fist bump. Sunset shrugged, returning the bump and then fingering at her geode.

"Wherever this thing takes us. Missy pointed out that it led us here because it seemed like we were the only ones who could help. I guess we'll just keep following it until we find some sign of my friends from Canterlot High..."

"Or, you know, until we finally get them all home!" Penn chimed in.

"Well, good luck. We're all gonna be rooting for you here!"

Sunset smiled. "Thanks, Yang."

Finally, it was time for the farewell Sunset had been dreading the most. Blake seemed to be refusing to make eye contact as she walked up to take her turn. For some reason, Sunset couldn't seem to find any words for her, and the two of them stood there, awkwardly waiting for the other to make the first statement.

"I... I'll miss having someone to read with..." Blake muttered, awkwardly rubbing at her arm.

"Yeah... I'm gonna miss you, too."

"And... are you SURE you don't want to finish studying at Beacon before you go back out into..." she gestured vaguely with her hands. "We promised to help you find them... If you stayed, we could all go together once we're all full huntresses!"

For some reason, Sunset's face was burning when she saw how much Blake didn't want her to leave. "I'm sorry, but the whole thing is my fault, I HAVE to find my friends so that we can fix it. Besides..." He jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "I don't think Penn would survive three more years of me being at Beacon."

"No, I would NOT!" Penn added from his seat.

Another awkward silence fell between the two of them. She'd gotten used to comfortable silence with Blake during their reading and study sessions, but this was painful.

"I-"

"Oh, would you two just GET A RO- MMPH!" Missy began to shout, only to be cut off by Penn's hand over her mouth. Blake and Sunset both watched as he pulled her down from the roof and into the car before slamming the door shut and cutting off any more of Missy's comments.

"Well... will you come back?"

Sunset smiled, reaching out and placing her hand on Blake's shoulder. "I'll never leave my teammates hanging. If you need me, I'll always be just a phone call away."

Blake lunged forward, and before Sunset even realized what was happening the hug was over, and Blake had stepped back into the rest of the group. Her attention was caught by the sound of someone clearing their throat just behind her.

"I do hope you're not planning on dropping out of school without speaking to your headmaster..."

Sunset spun around, finding herself face to face with Professor Ozpin, who was giving her a knowing smile.

"Sir... I know Penn said a lot about not trusting you, but I want to thank you." Sunset reached out, giving him a firm handshake. "You knew who were are and where we came from, but you still gave us a chance to change things for the better... Thank you for letting me prove we can change what's 'supposed' to happen."

"Sunset, when I saw you all arrive, I knew that you had potential. To this day, I still think I was correct in that assumption. No matter where you go, I believe you'll continue doing the right thing." He chuckled to himself. "I'll admit, after a week of explaining that there is no mystery clock tower OR weapons of mass destruction on our campus, I don't think I'll miss the trouble you tend to get yourself into."

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she picked up her suitcase and walked around to the back of the car. "I'm not ALWAYS getting into trouble. It's not MY fault your universe is full of crazy!"

She didn't need to even signal to Penn to pop the trunk open. As it lifted up, Sunset couldn't help but notice the gap left by the portal gun's absence. You know... we really could have lost a lot more here than some time and a neat gadget...

Also I need to have a serious talk with Penn about the fact that we were driving around with a BLACK HOLE in our trunk... she thought to herself as she slipped her suitcase into the empty space. There was a crushing finality as she shut the trunk and walked to the passenger-side door. She gave her new friends one last look, forcing herself to smile.

"Thank you... All of you. I'm never going to forget this..."

"Bye, Sunset!"

"Stay safe out there!"

"Come back soon!"

"We'll miss you!"

"Thank you, Sunset!"

"Take care!"

"See you later!"

Sunset waved farewell as she pulled open the door and slipped inside the car. It was awkward trying to buckle her seat belt with only one hand, but she managed after a few seconds of awkward fumbling. She let out a long sigh as she felt herself settle back into her normal spot in the front seat.

"It sure has been a while..."

"You ready?" Penn asked, slipping his key into the ignition and giving it a twist.

Chk-chk-chk-chk-vrrrrrrrrm!

Sunset shook her head.

"I'm gonna miss having an actual bed..."

"WOOHOO! The gang's back together!" Missy cheered, leaping from the back and sitting herself on the armrest between the two front seats.

"Seat belt ON, Missy!"

Iocaine Powder

"What you do not smell is called iocaine powder. It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man..." The masked man smiled as he held a small container of the powder. His adversary simply hummed with amusement as the masked man removed the goblets from the table and turned to hold them out of sight. A few seconds later, he returned them, making a show of revolving them back and forth between them before finally setting them down. Beside them, Princess Buttercup stoically waited behind her blindfold, refusing to show any sign of weakness

"Alright. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun..." The masked man spread his arms wide. "It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right... and who is dead."

"Isis, pause it!"

The movie ground to a halt, and Penn turned to Sunset, smirking at her with that familiar "I know something you don't" smile.

"Alright, Sunset... what do YOU think? Where's the poison?"

"Aw, come ON, Penn! This is the best part!" Missy groaned. "Don't stop it here!"

Sunset gave him an annoyed look. "Yeah, Penn, you're totally ruining the pacing..."

"Missy, you said the sword fight was the best part, too! Oh, come on! It's a fun puzzle, isn't it?" Penn countered, settling back against the pile of pillows and other soft objects they'd piled against the side of the car. "Two drinks... deadly poison... a dashing masked hero and a boisterous, conniving villain locked in a battle to the death with only their honor keeping them to the rules?"

"I don't know if I'd call him a hero... isn't he a pirate?" Sunset asked. "And you BOTH have said we've reached the 'best part' at least three times!"

"Well, at least make a guess!" Penn whined. "It's no fun if you don't at least guess!"

Sunset sighed, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling as she pondered the puzzle. If one of the goblets is poisoned, then...

"It's in HIS glass." She pointed to the masked man.

Penn and Missy both exchanged amused glances that made Sunset instantly certain she was wrong.

"Why do you say that?"

Sunset pointed to Penn. "Because that's what YOU would do."

Penn blinked, taken aback by her statement. "What- what do you mean?"

"Well, when we were in Remnant, your first choice after I got us involved was to find the most dangerous place possible and put yourself there to try and control it..." She pointed to the vigilante on the screen. "So, if it's in his glass, then he's closer to it, he has more control. If Vizzini picks the wrong glass, then there's no problem at all. If Vizzini picks the right glass, then the masked man can just pretend to drink, or drink enough that he doesn't die, just like how you pretended to be focused on fighting Salem in your mind when you were really making your escape!" Sunset blinked as another thought came to her. "Unless... neither of them is poisoned... Then he could pretend to die from the poison and catch Vizzini off-guard the moment he turns his back!"

Penn and Missy both raised their eyebrows in surprise.

"But that would be dishonorable!" Penn cried, his hand flying to his heart in faux horror.

"He's a pirate. Besides, it's just as much if not MORESO a battle of wits to see through a bluff than it is to just win a fifty-fifty chance!" Sunset rolled her eyes. "Isis, start the movie again."

What followed was one of the most convoluted and nonsensical strings of circular logic Sunset had ever heard as Vizzini alternated between one goblet and the other, always coming up with a reason why he could not drink it before coming back to the first. He pointed out an idea very close to Sunset's own, that the stranger might be counting on his physical strength to save him from the poison, before moving on to another reason why he couldn't drink the goblet in front of himself. The man in black simply watched, occasionally adding a small comment to keep the conversation moving.

"You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work."

"It HAS worked, you given EVERYTHING AWAY, I know where the poison is!"

"Then make your choice!"

"I will! And I choose-" Vizzini cut himself off, pointing over the mystery man's shoulder. "What in the world can THAT be?"

"What? Where? I don't see anything..." The man in black turned around to search while Vizzini exchanged the two drinks.

"Oh, well... I could have sworn I saw something. No matter." Vizzini began chuckling to himself at his success.

Sunset couldn't believe that, even in a movie THIS cheesy and cliched, the "hero" would fall for such an obvious trick.

"What's so funny?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. First, let's drink! Me from my glass, and you from yours!"

Tense violins began to rise in the background as the two reached down and raised their drinks, ironically seeming to toast one another's health. Vizzini watched carefully, waiting until he watched the masked man swallow his drink before smiling and taking a sip from his own.

Sunset smiled knowing that, if she was right about the location of the poison, then the "bad guy" had just sealed his fate.

"You guessed wrong." The man in black chuckled softly.

"You only THINK I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny!" Vizzini cheered. "I switched glasses when your back was turned! HAHA, you FOOL!"

Sunset glanced over, spotting Penn chuckling to himself as he quietly mouthed along the words in time with the actor, making it clear he knew the scene by heart.

"You feel victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.' But only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!' Ahahahaha, ahahahaha, ahahaha-" He froze in place mid-guffaw, his expression not changing an inch as he clearly purposefully rolled to the side and off-camera with a soft thud.

All three of them erupted into laughter at the comical comeuppance and the actor's priceless portrayal, filling the silence as the man in black watched his opponent fall and rushed to the princess's side to remove her blindfold.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am no one to be trifled with, that is all you ever need know."

Princess Buttercup glanced at the poisoned picnic, then at Vizzini's motionless body. "To think... all that time it was YOUR cup that was poisoned."

Sunset gave Penn and Missy a smug look. Knew it... she mouthed.

"They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocaine powder."

Sunset's expression fell as she realized she'd been duped right along with Vizzini. Somehow, this was even MORE hilarious to Penn and Missy, who both began guffawing with laughter, up to the point where Missy fell out of her perch on the car's open window and into the backseat. Penn was beating his fist on the ground. Sunset felt herself pouting as she folded her arms over her chest and turned back to the screen Isis was projecting.

"And- and THAT is why The Princess Bride is on my VERY short list of 'Movies Everyone Should See Before They Die!'" Penn forced out the words between rounds of laughter

"It wasn't THAT funny..." she muttered.

"It- it really was! The LOOK on your face was PRICELESS!" Penn wheezed as his laughter finally began to wind down.

"Yeah, yeah I'm sure it was..." Sunset tried to hide her begrudging smirk at seeing her friends so happy. "Just quit laughing at me, would ya? You both already knew the answer!"

Penn and Missy glanced at each other before giving a small shrug and settling back into their seats. "As you wish..." they both said in sync.

Sunset reached over and tossed a handful of popcorn at the two of them."Oh, shut up, you dorks!"

The three of them fell silent, watching the masked man reveal himself as Buttercup's long-lost true love, thought to have died at sea.

"...How long has it been since we did this?" Sunset asked quietly. "I can't remember the last time we had movie night..."

Penn hummed thoughtfully to himself. "Couple of months? That's how long we were in Remnant..."

Sunset sighed. "Feels like longer... I missed this. I missed you guys."

Penn smiled as he sat up to pull a marshmallow away from where it had been cooking by their campfire, making another perfect s'more and passing it to her. "Missed you, too, Sunny..."

Sunset smiled as she bit down into the sugary treat, feeling a wave of nostalgia at the smoky taste of the marshmallow.

"It's nice to have things back to normal..." Missy sighed, leaning out the car window and lightly fanning the two of them with her wings as she tried to regain her previous perch.

"Normal?" Penn raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah! You, me, Sunset, Isis, the open road..." Missy gestured to their campsite. "Come on, for us, this is normal!"

Sunset smirked. "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means!"

Breakfast at BnB's

This was not correct.

Being awake at this hour was an outlier for Penn.

And yet Isis had just watched him stumble out of the car, shaking in the middle of the night. His heartbeat and breathing were elevated, and his movements were sudden and jerky. He quickly pulled up his sleeves and the bottom of his shirt, exposing the scars from the puncture wounds Salem had inflicted on him. Even though they were healing quickly, they would always leave permanent marks on him, both physical... and mental.

It appeared that he had experienced another nightmare. Just as he had regularly since returning from Salem's imprisonment.

He took several deep breaths, beginning to calm himself down as he walked across the campsite to where she was seated by the smoldering remains of that night's fire.

"Never again... never again..." he whispered to himself. "Isis?"

"I am here."

"I got outsmarted... REALLY outsmarted... Salem had me twelve ways to Sunday, knew every turn I could take, saw through every plan I could make up on the fly."

Isis's simulations projected that voicing her agreement would have a negative impact on his psyche.

"Never again..." he repeated. "Isis, from now on... I want to start setting up fallbacks. In-case-of-emergency plans, code words, protocols. Stuff like that. Missy won't always be there to translate when I need to talk in code, and I never, ever, want to be caught off-guard like that again."

Isis perked up somewhat.

"Understood. Where would you like to begin?"

"Come ooooooooooon!" Sunset whined in her most annoying voice.

"No! I said 'no' and I meant it!"

"Come ooooooooooooooooooooon...." Missy whined, her voice at an even higher pitch than Sunset's. "Pleeeeeease?"

"Look, committing fraud and larceny when I can just jump back out a portal if things go wrong and instantly be back in my home dimension is one thing," Penn held up a finger to punctuate his point. "Doing it in my home dimension is another entirely! I don't want our road trip to turn into living on the lam for the rest of my life!"

"I can assure you, it would be quite safe, provided that you all spend frugally. I can assure you that there is no chance of my being caught by the United States government, let alone any other nation's law enforcement."

"And what happens when I have to file my taxes and they realize how much I've been spending doesn't line up with how much I've been earning?" Penn asked.

"I can falsify financial records perfectly. In the end, banking and economy are simply ones and zeroes. Those are, as you have said before, my specialty."

Sunset clasped her hands together and gave Penn her biggest puppy-dog eyes, and Missy immediately joined alongside her from the backseat.

"Pleeeeeeease?"

"Pleeeeeeeeease?"

Penn tried to look as though he was ignoring them, but they both saw his eyes move away from the road and onto the two of them for a moment.

"We are NOT going to use Isis to steal money for us!"

"WHEEEEE!" Missy screeched as they stepped into the house, instantly flying into the other rooms and out of sight. "COMMITTING FRAUD IS THE BEEEEST!"

Sunset took a deep breath of the fresh smell of the bed and breakfast they had rented for the weekend. It was a nice place, far nicer than Penn's house. It was basically an upper-middle class home that had been left empty and ready to be lived in by whoever paid the rent. Consequently, Sunset couldn't help but feel a little bit as though it had been made for them, and after weeks on the road it was an absolute godsend. She glanced over at Penn, noting the grimace on his face. She smiled and placed her hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine, bud. Besides, were you planning on having Isis airdrop us stuff forever? And she's only stealing fractions of a cent at a time, from all kinds of transactions. Nobody's going to miss money they never knew was there..."

Penn pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly.

"Yeah.... Yeah. Sure. This is fine... As long as Missy doesn't out us to the cops, herself."

"GRAND LARCENY FOR THE WIIIIIIIN!"

Penn closed his eyes, looking like he was genuinely in pain. "If I wind up in prison, I'm blaming all three of you."

Sunset leaned in, raising her eyebrows. "Well, no offense, but the inside of the car IS starting to get a little... ripe. This would be a great chance for a little cleaning, vacuum, air it out..." She pretended to think about what she would say next, as if it hadn't been rattling around in her head since they'd packed up camp this morning. "Maybe Isis could send you a couple air fresheners? You could hang them right next to that creepy doll on your rearview mirror!"

Penn narrowed his eyes at her before poking his finger into her chest.

"Mimikyu. Isn't. Creepy."

"But it IS smelly, just like the rest of the car." Sunset smirked and gave his nose a poke before walking into the house. "I'm gonna go find the biggest, softest bed and claim it for myself!"

"TOO LATE!"

"MISSY! You can literally sleep three feet off the ground! What could be softer than AIR?"

"A DOWN-FREAKING-COMFORTER, THAT'S WHAT!"

"Come ON!" Sunset followed Missy's voice to the master bedroom, where she was already curled up in a plush-looking bed with a fluffy white comforter... that looked as if it could fit ten of her.

"I'll duel ya for it!" Missy smirked.

Sunset narrowed her eyes before pointing her finger at the little duel spirit. "I'm taking a shower, and when I get back, we are going to decide this fairly..."

"Too late..." Penn muttered, walking past the door with a towel slung over his shoulder. "I'm gonna enjoy this nice and slow..."

Sunset sighed, not able to bring herself to argue any more to start off what she knew was going to be her most relaxed night in AGES.

"Fine... Just let me know when you're done, I'm gonna see what's on TV..."

"Are any of you guys pokemon trainers?"

"Yeah, I'm Ash Ketchum from Pallet, and I wanna be a pokemon master!"

"I'm Brock, and I wanna be your boyfriend!"

"Thanks, but no thanks..."

Sunset raised an eyebrow as they started on their third movie from this same series of the night, but didn't say anything to oppose it. She and Missy were both kicked back on the couch, laying on opposite sides so they could both fit. Sunset was enjoying having a place to sit where she didn't need to keep her legs bent or pulled in, and Missy was clearly enjoying not being tied down by a seat belt.

An enticing aroma was filling the house, spicy and warm in a way that made the whole place feel like a home. Penn was off in the kitchen, where he had been for several hours. He'd come in for almost the entirety of the second movie, letting the food stew on its own before he left a few minutes before the ending. He hadn't told them what it was he was making, just that it was one of his favorite recipes.

*"I'm a trainer, too! Wanna battle?"*

"Go ahead, Ash!"

"Alright, a workout will help me stay in shape for the Johto League!"

"Excuse me, but first let's see if you're even in MY league!"

"COME AND GET IT!" Penn's voice echoed through the house. "I'M YOUR CHEF, NOT YOUR WAITER!"

Sunset and Missy both looked at each other from their places lazing around on the couch, and in less than a second, they both knew:

It was every woman for herself.

"Well get ready, 'cause I always play to win!"

The music of the opening credits began. Both of them threw off the blankets, and Missy flew into the air, trying to fly over Sunset's head. Sunset wrapped her hand around her ankle, yanking the duel spirit back and herself forward. She snickered as she began to run towards the kitchen, leaving Missy in the dust.

"First bowl's MINE, Missy!"

Sunset's eyes widened as she ran face-first into a familiar revolving door, feeling herself spin several times before suddenly finding herself running back into the living room.

"PBBBBBBT!" Missy blew a raspberry as she flew past, tugging down on one of her eyelids with a mocking expression.

Oh, you wanna play dirty? Sunset grinned as she spun around "You just triggered my TRAP CARD, Missy!"

Missy drew up short, her eyes widening as she searched desperately for any signs of a malevolent card effect. Sunset used the opportunity to sprint past, ducking underneath her. "PSYCHE!"

"Why, you-" Sunset felt Missy grab onto the back of her shirt, but it did little to slow her down as they both crashed into the kitchen in a heap.

Both of them found themselves staring at a pair of sharp-looking dress shoes. Their eyes traveled upwards, finding themselves staring up at the ghostly figure of Ghostrick Alucard, holding a still-steaming bowl. They both looked around the room, realizing that they were both last in line for a portion of the food after all of the Ghostricks. Alucard simply rolled his eyes and walked away, shaking his head disapprovingly. Penn snickered as he ladled another scoop out into Yuki-Onna's bowl.

"You snooze, you lose, girls..."

They both groaned, and Sunset felt Missy bury her face in her back.

Sunset let out a contented sigh and patted her stomach. In the end, there had been plenty of Penn's chicken-and-sausage gumbo to go around, even with their "dinner guests." Upon finishing her first helping, Sunset had even raced back to the kitchen for more. Between the two of them, she wondered if she and Missy might have finished half of the entire stock pot Penn had filled. Now they were all curled up together on the couch, watching the last of the movie together. She and Penn were both sitting on either side of Missy, who seemed to be enjoying the attention and warmth under their shared blanket, and the rest of the Ghostrick monsters were sat around the TV, completely enraptured by the adventures of Ash Ketchum. Sunset felt like her heart was going to explode from the sheer cuteness of watching them all react to every moment together, cheering with the victories and gasping in horror at every setback, sometimes starting to chatter amongst themselves in a way she couldn't understand, only for Missy to shush them from her place on the couch, almost instantly settling them down again.

Soon, though, the movie came to its end, and the Ghostricks all bid them goodnight. Sunset glanced down, realizing Missy had fallen asleep between the two of them. She and Penn shared a glance.

"TOO CUTE!" Sunset mouthed

"I KNOW!" Penn mouthed back.

He nodded his head to the side, and Sunset carefully pulled herself up off of the couch, taking the blanket with her. Penn reached down, carefully sneaking his arms under Missy's unconscious body and scooping her up. Together, the three of them walked towards the master bedroom, passing through the kitchen as they did. Sunset's eyes widened as she spotted Alucard, his puffy white sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he worked on washing the dishes. His red eyes lingered on Missy's unconscious form for a moment before giving them a fanged smile and a respectful nod, which Sunset returned.

When they reached the big, fluffy bed, Penn deposited Missy under the covers on one side, and Sunset slipped under the big comfy blanket on the other, sharing the bed easily between the two of them.

Penn gave them one last peaceful smile before switching off the bedroom light, leaving the only source of light the open doorway, which he soon slipped out and shut without a word. Sunset smiled as she shut her eyes, relishing the softness and warmth.

It's not home, but... I don't think I'd trade these guys for anything.

On the nightstand, Sunset saw a softly glowing pink crystal appear as Isis's drone landed.

"Alarms for tomorrow morning have been disabled. Please enjoy your night's sleep."

When Sunset opened her eyes, she could see the sunlight streaming in through the window, dimmed somewhat by the closed curtains. That was the best night's sleep I've gotten in AGES... I feel like I could go right back to sleep and not wake up for a week. Beside her, Missy was still snoozing, turning over in her sleep with her hair a tangled mess and the feathers on her wings were all messy and sticking out at awkward angles. Sunset smirked, sitting up and taking a deep breath of the morning air. She raised an eyebrow as she realized that there was more than the scent of dewdrops on the morning air, though.

Nutmeg... cinnamon... and ba-

"...bacon?" Missy mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. "I heard that... where?"

"You... heard what I was thinking?" Sunset blinked a couple times before shaking her head. "Never mind... too early for that line of questioning."

Missy sniffed at the air, her entire body seeming to perk up at the smell.

"Penn... Penn made-"

"French toast?"

Missy floated a few inches above the bed, wobbling her way over to Sunset while still half-asleep and settling her arms and chin on top of Sunset's head. She pointed towards the door. "Onward..."

Sunset was too sleepy to argue, sliding herself out of bed and making her way towards the door. The two of them lurched into the kitchen, where Penn seemed to have gone all-out, wearing an apron and bouncing up and down to a cheery tune as he carefully laid another slice of bread in the pan.

"Morning, girls!"

Isis continued playing the music as Sunset and Missy both grunted half-awake greetings.

"Good mornin', good mornin'! It's great to stay up late! Good mornin', good mornin' to you!"

Sunset slumped into a chair at the dining table, reaching up and removing Missy from her head to set her in a chair of her own. Both of them practically slumped onto the table, barely able to keep their eyes open.

"Hope you like your bacon chewy, because I'm a heathen who cooks it like that!" Penn winked as he set plates down in front of each of them, polished off by a jug-shaped bottle of maple syrup in the middle of the table. He gave the syrup an enthusiastic point. "I had Isis drop off a little of the REAL stuff, none of that artificially flavored Mrs. Butterworth's crap, so don't waste a drop!"

"Sure, Dad..." Missy mumbled. "Thanks...

"Yeah, thanks Dad..." Sunset agreed.

There was a long pause of silence as everyone present processed what they had said. Sunset and Missy's eyes both nearly bugged out of their heads as their faces flushed, and Penn had frozen mid-flip of the next slice of french toast.

"Uhm, I uh, geez..." Sunset stuttered, slapping her palm against her forehead to try and wake herself up more. "S-sorry, it's early and- I was just following Missy's lead!"

"Hey! At least I can get away with it, I'm a kid..." Missy mumbled, popping a piece of bacon into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully as she glanced over and waggled her finger between them. "You two are what, two years apart? You've got no excuse, Sunset..."

"It's fine..." Penn finished flipping that particular slice before tossing in more bacon to cook in the edges of the pan. When he turned back around, he was chuckling to himself and practically radiant with a proud smile. Sunset caught him wiping a happy tear away from his eye. "I'd rather you girls be more comfortable around me than less! After going through so much together, we kind of ARE family, right?"

Seeing him so happy didn't do much to mitigate Sunset's embarrassment, and she couldn't help looking down at her plate as her face blushed harder.

"I guess we are, yeah..."

Penn pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the table, glancing between the two of them before grabbing the bottle of syrup. "Well, if neither of YOU are going to take it, I'm gonna have some of this one-hundred-percent maple goodness right here!"

"Oh, I want some!" Missy said, clearly already over her embarrassment and eagerly waiting as Penn drizzled the runny amber liquid over his own slices.

The moment was never brought up again for the rest of breakfast, but Sunset noticed Penn smiling a little wider for the rest of the day, sometimes chuckling to himself and shaking his head. For once, Sunset didn't need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking, and her face would flush again.

I can't believe I said that...

They all looked back at the house one last time as Penn locked the door behind them. It had been nice, but... it was time to get back on the road.

Penn dusted off his hands as he walked back to the car with them.

"Okay, double-checked my checklist... Dishes are done, we didn't leave a mess... Everybody have all their stuff?"

"Yessiree!" Missy cheered.

Sunset patted her lightsaber on her waist and her phone in her pocket. "Got everything important."

"I can account for all of this unit's assets."

"Then it sounds like we're good to go!"

They all opened the doors to the car, and Sunset sighed with relief as she was met by the smell of lavender and lilacs. Note to self, remember to thank Isis for bringing us that upholstery and carpet cleaner...

Penn started up the car, pulling out of the driveway and setting them back on the open road. Penn sunk into the driver's seat with a smile.

"Hey, Isis... do you have that recording I asked for?"

"Affirmative."

"Sure, Dad... Thanks."

"Yeah, thanks Dad..."

Sunset and Missy both froze, each turning to the drone sitting up on the dashboard.

"ISIS, DELETE THAT!"

Penn's laughter boomed through the tight space of the car as she scrambled to grab hold of the drone. Even Missy jumped up from the back seat, flying around wildly in the tight space.

"Get back here, you mechanized menace!"

"Seat belt ON, Missy!"

Author's Note

Inspired by THIS comic (language warning)

Aw Man...

"That's quite the story, Sunset..."

Sunset rolled her eyes as she picked a dried-up clump of ectoplasm out of her hair. "Skye, trust me... a run-in with a ghost hotel isn't THAT far out of the norm for us, at this point..."

"Yeah, well, things have been getting pretty freaky around here, too... We found TAHITI. It was... well..." Skye glanced nervously from side to side. "I don't think I should talk about what we found on an unsecured line."

Sunset nodded. "I'll be looking forward to hearing about it next time we cross paths... Isis wrote up a full report for us, Coulson should be getting it soon. We don't want anybody else getting caught up in the Hotel California..." she shook her head. "Penn's still a little shaken over it all, considering he almost couldn't leave. We're lucky I had my memory powers, or there's no way we would have realized and gotten out in time..."

"Still, if these extradimensional portals can make an old song by The Eagles into a real and dangerous thing... who knows what else is out there? Stay safe, Sunset."

"You, too. I doubt the world of super-spies is any less dangerous!" Sunset winked at her. "See ya! Send the rest of the team our best wishes!"

"Will do!"

Sunset let out a deep breath as the video call came to an end. She pushed herself onto her feet and walked across the camp, her curiosity getting the better of her as she walked up behind Penn and peeked in on his own video call.

"I thought the trap card might keep her at bay for a few minutes, but I never thought about where it might send her... So there's been NO sign of her, period? None?

"I'm afraid not. That's why I decided it would be best to call you. It looks as though, with all of her plans in shambles here, she's decided to go after YOU." Professor Ozpin narrowed his eyes. "In the end, it would seem she got her wish to leave our own dimension courtesy of your little trap. Until you're certain you have a way to stop her for good, I would advise that you four never stop in one place for too long like you did here."

"Hi, Professor!" Sunset chimed in, making Penn jump slightly and nearly drop his phone.

"Hello Sunset. How have you been?" Ozpin gave her a warm, if somewhat tired, smile.

"Oh, you know, just trying to stay alive when literally anything could be around the next corner!" She shrugged nonchalantly. "How's Beacon?"

"Without our interdimensional visitors? Rather boring, I'm afraid." He smiled, pointing out the window behind him. "Repairs on Amity Arena are almost finished, which means the Vytal Festival can be held with minimum delay. Team RWBY has already signed up for the tournament."

Sunset chuckled. "Well, after that trial by fire, I'm sure they're leagues ahead of the other kingdoms!"

"Almost certainly... However, they HAVE expressed interest in exploring what lies on the other side of these portals that have been turning up across Remnant, and it's becoming more and more trying to stop them from setting off under their own initiative..." He gave them a less amused look. "A new age seems to be upon us, and I'm not certain that it won't add to the weight already on the shoulders of our huntsmen and huntresses..."

"Well, if Teams RWBY and JNPR are a good representation of the upcoming generation, I'm sure they'll handle it just fine." Penn smiled. "We're all part of a much larger world now. Isis has been working on mapping it out, I'll have her send you what she's found so far. It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but..."

"It would be better than we have at the moment." Ozpin nodded. "Thank you."

"Thanks for taking the time to call and warn us Salem's AWOL and on our tail. Keep an eye on the girls for us, Oz..." Penn gave a pained smile as he reached up, switching off the call.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't trust Ozpin?"

"I trust him about as far as I could throw Sylvia..." Penn muttered. "But I don't think he'd lie about Salem not turning back up on his world."

Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "So... you think she's coming after us?"

"Almost undoubtedly." Penn shivered as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. "She has scrying spells, she can probably find out where we are any time she wants..."

The hairs on the back of Sunset's neck stood up as she visualized that pillar of malevolence watching them as they went about their daily routine. It was enough to make her want to pack up camp and drive through the night just to put more distance between them and her.

"Worst part is... she's immortal, so she's never gonna stop." Penn chuckled to himself, as if something about the whole situation amused him. "When I was stuck in her prison... I kept thinking about this one episode of Doctor Who... He's stuck in a loop, living and dying over and over again. The only way out is through a wall of solid diamond or giving up the secret he's being interrogated for..." He looked up, ignoring Sunset's concern as he stared into the stars. "He started out that episode by saying that, when you're born, something else is born, something that starts coming for you and never stops. But it's slow, and you can outrun it... But not forever. One day you rest for too long, sleep too deep, and it catches you... and then your life ends." He shrugged, pushing himself up off the ground. "Guess now I've got a literal specter of death on my tail..."

Sunset's eyes widened. "Penn, that's not true! We can stop her! We did it before, we can do it again!"

Penn chuckled to himself again, and Sunset caught a glint of cunning in his eyes.

"That's the thing about when the figurative becomes literal... You can beat literal." For a moment, Sunset felt her fears lessen and her spirits rise at the sight of his smile, as frightened as his eyes looked behind it. "When the time comes... will you help me?"

Sunset rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him in the tightest hug she could muster.

"Of course I will... That's what friends do."

She felt him return the hug, felt that clinging, warm grip envelop her that made her feel so rooted in the moment. Once again, it felt like the rest of the world had been shut out and left only the two of them trying to comfort one another. Sunset couldn't stop the though from rising that this must be the feeling a teddy bear experienced in the grip of a scared child. She wondered if the reason he always hugged her so tight was because he was afraid she'd simply disappear, vanish back into wherever she had come from and leave him by himself again. She would be lying to say she'd never thought the same thing, that one day she might just wake up back at home and realize that none of this had been real, and she would lose the friends she had made along the way.

She wondered if the reason his hugs were so warm and tight was the same reason she looked at her photos of her friends every night before bed: to be sure they were still real. Still there.

And then it was over, and Sunset felt a rush of cold air as he released her again.

"Th-thanks... I needed that." He muttered.

"After hearing you talk about death like that? Me, too..." Sunset whispered. "Please, PLEASE, don't say things like that. Maybe it's funny where you come from, but to me... I can't stop thinking you're serious about it, and it REALLY scares me..."

Penn gave a melancholy sigh and nodded.

"I'll try. Sorry, guess I get a little morbid when I find out an immortal witch is hunting me down..." His eyebrows raised after a moment. "Ha... Witch hunt."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "When Salem finds us, we'll be ready..." She reached over, giving his hand a squeeze. "Remember how you promised me we'd find my friends and get home safe? Well, it's my turn. I promise- I swear- Salem is NEVER going to hurt you again.."

"You know... I believe you. I really do," he whispered. His eyes turned upwards, this time looking up at the stars with comfort in his eyes. "I wasn't going to say that. All that stuff about remembering the show, I mean. It just kind of came out. but it really goes to show, doesn't it? The power of a good story... People think it's just words on a page, speeches given by an actor, pictures and imagination that can only come to life with the magic of imagination, but that's not true."

Sunset's eyes widened as she caught sight of tears running down his cheeks as he closed his eyes, a shudder running through his body as he choked back a sob. She wanted to speak up, but the moment felt too tender to interrupt. She'd tried to broach the subject of what had happened to him multiple times with all the tact she could, but he always dodged around the subject or outright ignored her.

"I... I wanted to, at times..." he whispered. "I think I even tried to let go, just slip away into the dark and never wake up again a few times... I just wanted it to stop. But I'd think back to that story, to watching my childhood hero go through the same kind of torture I was... Living, dying, coming back and doing it all over again, seeming to never move forward and always winding up in the same dead end... I wasn't alone. Whatever happened to me, whatever I was going through, I wasn't the only one who felt that way, and even better... I knew how it ended, and that gave me hope." He drew in a long, pained breath. "THAT'S the magic, Sunset... For me, it's a magic above all others. If I had tried to go it alone in there, I would have died. It was impossible..." He gave her a quick glance, as if embarrassed. "Sorry, I used a bad word there, but... That's just it. Stories can inspire, strengthen... make the impossible possible, and give hope to the hopeless. Escape for the trapped... All of it, just by putting down words on a page in a certain order... Squiggles of ink on paper, vibrations in the air, a tale passed down and never taking a physical form, all of them seem like they would mean so little in the grand scheme of things. The universe would be affected so very little if all of them were wiped out, but... still, they can change worlds, inspire men to rewrite the stars, themselves..."

He finally seemed to snap out of his stupor, blinking away the philosophy. "S-sorry. I guess what I'm trying to say is that's why stories are so important to me, why I write... Letting myself believe in stories, get carried away in them, that's what kept me alive."

"HEY, GUYS!" Missy shouted, grabbing both of their attention. "I GOT ISIS TO DROP OFF SOME GIANT GOOGLY EYES!"

Sunset and Penn blinked as they looked at the car, which now had a pair of huge, cartoonish eyes on top of the headlights. Sunset covered her mouth, but a snort and a snicker still forced their way up and out her nose.

And just like that, the tender moment was gone as Penn rushed past her.

"Missy! Did you glue those on?"

"Uhhhhh..."

"MISSYYYYYYY!"

"Gottagobye!"

"And the chase is on..." Sunset sighed to herself with a smile. Still, she couldn't help but wonder at the glimpse she'd been given into Penn's soul. Her mind wandered back to what Missy had told her when they had been exploring his mind to retrieve him from the coma Salem had left him in.

"Well, he IS a storyteller, making worlds kind of comes naturally to him! Why do you think we all call him 'Penn?' Whether he's typing on a computer or writing by hand, he's always got a story on his mind!"

She cast a glance back to the camp, watching him chase Missy in circles around the campfire. Suddenly, his tendency to go by his nickname more often than his real name was making more and more sense to her. He really HAS embraced what he loves, deep down in his heart...

She thought back to CHS, seeing the similarities between him and the rest of her friends. She knew that, if he had been there with them, he would have fit in perfectly with the rest, with his future path already in mind. Seems like everybody knows what they want to do or be except me...

"Except he was delivering pizzas when you found him, remember?"

Sunset started slightly when she heard Missy's voice in her head. Looking over, she could see that Penn had finally caught her, looping one arm around her tiny waist to pull her in tight while his other hand occupied itself with driving his knuckles into her skull. It was a classic noogie, reserved for loving siblings and grade school bullies.

"Everybody's got their dream, but not everybody believes in it, Sunset... If you could do anything, and the money didn't matter, what would you do?"

Sunset blinked, surprised at Missy's question. It was a relatively common one she'd been asked in the months leading up to graduation, even Princess Twilight had asked her, but hearing it coming from the childish duel spirit seemed to have a more potent way of spurring her to thought.

"I think I know the answer..."

Sunset found herself hearing her own voice coming back to her. "I came here to stop people from getting hurt. Innocent people. People who don't deserve it... I made a mistake a while ago and it caused people to get hurt... some people even died because of what I did. I tried to fix it, make up for it as best I could, even risking my own life to stop the ripples. But... there's some things you just can't fix once they're broken. Even if it was an accident, I can't bear to let a disaster like that happen again."

"Not on my watch. Never again."

Sunset sighed, shaking her head. I don't think you can make a career out of stopping disasters in other worlds, Missy... What about when me and my friends fix all of this?

"Sorry to be a pessimist, but... who says this is fixable? Would you want everyone to have to go back where they came from if you did? Besides, OF COURSE you can make a career out of it! As long as you've got an AI who can steal money to fund you, a team you can rely on, and some reliable transportation!"

Sunset paused, taking a moment to ponder their current scenario. Was it really sustainable to keep going like this? As far as she had ever known, this was only a temporary setup, meant only to last until she had found her friends. But if they couldn't mend the barriers between worlds... would she want to keep doing this? Would Penn?

"Well, I'D stay by your side until the end of the road, partner! And I bet Penn would say the same!"

Sunset smiled, feeling a swell of pride and joy for the mischievous little angel that had come into her life. No matter the situation, Missy seemed to have a way of bringing everyone's spirits higher that rivaled Pinkie Pie. Unlike Pinkie's nonsensical antics, however, Missy seemed to have a way of never removing them from reality, bringing levity into the moment rather than pulling them out of it.

How'd you get so smart, Missy?

"Well, you've gotta be wise to wisecrack!"

Sunset watched as Penn carried Missy back to the car, forcing her to remove the googly eyes and handing her a damp rag to start scrubbing away the adhesive. She chuckled to herself, fingering at her phone in her pocket. She absentmindedly pulled it out, pulling up her texting application and typing out a quick message to Pinkie Pie.

"Gotta be wise to wisecrack!" Sounds like something you'd say, doesn't it?

She hadn't even fully realized what she was doing until she hit "send." She watched the little status below the message, hoping against all odds that it would deliver.

Pending...

Pending...

Pending...

She sighed and shoved it back into her pocket.

No use thinking about what I'm going to do after I find my friends until we actually FIND my friends... One step at a time, Sunset...

"Okay, THAT is weird..." Penn muttered, his hand stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"You don't say?" Sunset replied.

"This is kinda freaking me out..." Missy muttered.

"No matching phenomena has been recorded by any other scouting drones. This portal is quite unique. I would like to examine it more closely with more delicate instruments."

The four of them were all stood, staring at a glowing white... thing, in midair. Sunset wanted to call it a vortex, but it wasn't round. Nothing about it was round, it was a perfect square. The flows and eddies of light swirling inside all moved in perfectly straight lines and right angles, creating a kaleidoscopic effect that hurt Sunset's head to stare at for too long. What seemed to be concerning them all the most, however, was the fact that it seemed to be "leaking" into the rest of the world. Thin black lines were leeching outwards from the bottom, tracing more perfect squares into the ground. Small rocks and pebbles nearby had even begun to morph into cubes.

"Are you sure we should be standing this close to this thing?" Sunset asked, taking a cautionary step backwards.

"It does not appear to be emitting any harmful forms of radiation."

Isis's drone hopped down from Sunset's shoulder, gliding down and landing inside the realm of influence.

"Isis! Be CAREFUL!" Missy bit at her nails nervously as she hid behind Sunset's back.

Several panels on the drone's back opened, revealing delicate-looking instruments that began to sweep back and forth through the air. The muzzle prodded curiously at the place where one of the lines had split the ground before scooping a small sample of the soil into its mouth. It seemed to ponder for a moment, as if considering the taste.

"Initial spectroscopy indicates no chemical change to the matter. However, the molecules have entered a highly organized state, similar to the molecular lattices found in crystals. A Kant Counter would prove highly useful to investigate this-this-this-this-"

The robot began to twitch and jerk violently, similar to a seizure. Sunset felt Missy's grip on her tighten to a chokehold.

"ISIS!"

"I've got it!" Penn rushed forward, reaching for the twitching drone. He wrapped his hands around the barrel of the little dragon, holding it at arm's length as the tail flailed wildly back and forth.

Sunset didn't even have time to warn him when she saw the tip of the tail open up, driving a crackling electrode into his arm. His eyes flew wide as his entire body jolted and drew up tense, the only noise escaping his lips being a strained gurgle as he tipped backwards...

and fell straight into the vortex, disappearing inside.

"PENN!"

"PENN!"

Silence fell as Sunset and Missy both stared, wide-eyed, at the vortex that had just swallowed their friend.

In her pocket, Sunset felt her phone beginning to ring. She and Missy looked at each other, then at her pocket.

"ANSWER IT!" Missy screeched.

"I AM!" Sunset shouted back, desperately grabbing at her phone.

"My apologies for the failure of-"

"Isis, Penn fell into the portal!" Sunset rushed out the important information as fast as possible.

"WHY WOULD YOU ZAP HIM?" Missy shouted, grabbing Sunset's phone out of her hands to yell as Isis as directly as she could. "HE WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP!"

"That unit suffered a compromise of the central processing unit. The same phenomenon that was reorganizing the molecules around it also began reorganizing the molecules of the quartz crystal that serves as the brain of the drone. It was suffering from the silicon equivalent of a seizure, I had no control. However, if Penn suffered a shock from the self-defense mechanism, it should wear off somewhere within the range of five to sixty minutes, depending on the severity of said shock. After that, provided that he has access to the portal from the other side, he should return."

"So you're saying we could be waiting an HOUR for him to come back?"

"Unless one of you would like to cross the portal yourselves and retrieve him, yes."

Sunset and Missy both looked apprehensively at the strange boundary between dimensions, then at each other.

"You want to give it five minutes?" Missy whispered.

Sunset narrowed her eyes. "Remember what happened last time the group split up?"

Missy pondered the question for a few seconds before getting a dejected look on her face. "Nuts, you're right..."

Sunset took a deep breath and turned back to the unsettling portal. "Just in, grab Penn, and back out. Ten seconds... Ready?"

"Mhmm..." Missy mumbled, gripping Sunset a little tighter.

"One... two... three!" Sunset rushed forward, closing her eyes as she made contact with the portal.

The last conscious sensation she had was a sense of tremendous pressure on her body, pushing and pulling it at all sides, and everything went dark.

Mine The Diamond

"HYYYAGH!"

Sunset cried as she swung her stone sword with all her might, bringing it down on top of the zombie's head once again. The zombie let out one last groan and lurched to the side, dissolving into a puff of smoke. Sunset panted for breath and wiped the sweat off of her forehead.

From what she could tell, it looked like this world had gone through some kind of zombie apocalypse that had wiped out humanity and left nearly no signs of civilization. And either the laws of biology are very different here, or those skeletons we saw were being held together and animated by some kind of magic... At least it looks like we're not dealing with some kind of virus.

"I think that's the last of them, Missy..."

Missy peeked out from over her shoulder before letting go of her grip on Sunset and dropping back to the ground.

"I'm sorry, I thought the zombies burned in daylight!" she apologized for the fourth time. Sunset glanced upwards, then pointed at the leaves sheltering them from the sunlight.

"Guess we should avoid any areas with a lot of tree cover, huh?" She paused, watching Missy walk over and give the tree an angry punch. It was still strange to her to see the little duel spirit getting from place to place on foot. "Hey, I don't mean to pry, but... why aren't you flying? I don't think I've ever seen you touch the ground until we got here!"

Missy sighed, her wings drooping with disappointment. "Well, I tried, but after a few seconds, I blacked out! After I woke back up, I had this in my hand!" She reached into her pocket, passing a crumpled-up note to Sunset.

DISCONNECTED FROM SERVER Flying is not enabled on this server

Sunset raised an eyebrow, trying to wrap her head around the logistics of there being a "server" this entire world was existing on.

"I don't wanna think about where I'd wind up if I got banned from the server..." Missy shivered. "So no flying, no card magic, no 'cheats' of any kind!" She placed her hands on her hips with a determined look on her face. "I'm gonna play just as legit as any human!"

Sunset nodded, trying to hide her disappointment that Missy's magic had been essentially locked down. Without it, she's about as good in a fight as any other kid her age... "Well, in that case, the sooner we find Penn, the better! Safety in numbers, right?"

Missy nodded, fluttering her wings slightly as she jumped up and grabbed at the leaves of the tree. With more fluttering and a bit of struggling against gravity, she had climbed up into the branches and was making her way to the top one block at a time. Sunset stepped back, keeping her in sight as she reached the top. She shaded her eyes with one hand as she peered into the distance. She slowly turned in a circle, checking every direction. As she completed her first revolution, she began to spin faster, searching the horizon over and over again. When she finally tried to come to a stop, she wobbled dangerously from side to side, and Sunset could see cartoonish stars swirling above her head. Missy teetered off of the top of the tree, falling past the edge of the leaves.

"H-hey! Look out!" Sunset dropped her grip on her sword, lunging forward to catch her in her arms. After a moment to collect herself, Missy flashed her a smirk.

"Knew you'd catch me."

Sunset rolled her eyes, letting Missy go feet-first back onto the ground. "Did you see anything? Another base, or some campfire smoke, maybe?"

Missy shook her head. "No sign there's anybody here but us..."

Sunset rubbed at her head, trying to fight the intensifying headache. She hadn't slept a wink the previous night. Apparently, without a specifically crafted bed, sleeping in this world wasn't possible. "It's been a day, how far could Penn have gotten?"

Missy shrugged. "I dunno... But his building style isn't exactly subtle, from what I've seen of his previous bases... maybe we should wait for him to send some kind of signal?"

Sunset sighed. "Okay, first things first, let's get a couple beds..."

"Hmm..." Missy hummed to herself before turning on her heel and strutting away into the trees. "I think I saw some sheep this way! We can get wool from them!"

Sunset picked up her sword, following close behind. She took another moment to look down at her waist, silently mourning the loss of her saber. Like the rest of her clothes, it seemed to have merged with her body as part of her "skin," nothing more than a few black pixels on her belt. She and Missy had managed to make a crafting table out of wood and some rudimentary tools overnight while they'd been waiting for the sun to rise, but if she had her saber, Sunset knew these monsters would be a piece of cake to deal with.

Guess things are never easy for us... Well, we're still going to win!

"You're SURE? We've got plenty of iron, it's not a problem!"

Missy folded her arms and gave Sunset a skeptical look. "Sunset, I'm FINE with leather! Better than fine! I'll upgrade once we've got diamonds!"

Sunset folded her own arms, returning Missy's look. "And you'd be SAFER with iron armor! I've got a full set AND a sword!"

Missy's raised eyebrow raised a little farther. "Sunset... I want you to think hard about what you're offering, here."

"I'm offering my friend safer armor?"

"You're offering a fairy-type monster clothes made of iron." She placed one hand on her hip. "You DO know what iron does to fairies, right?"

Sunset blinked. "I... don't?"

Missy rolled her eyes. "Think of it like this... Fairies and most magical creatures are allergic to iron. Other metals have a range of severity, but iron's the worst and most well-known."

Sunset blinked, surprised at the new information. "But... what about Isis? You don't have any problem with her drone, and that's made of metal!"

"Alloys and other metals have some... wiggle room." Missy shrugged. "It's magic, Sunset, we both know there are more exceptions than rules! But if you clap a fairy in iron chains they're not going anywhere, and they're going to have a VERY unpleasant time not going there!" She pointed over Sunset's shoulder, where the handle of her sword was resting across her back. "THAT already makes me nervous enough, as it is! A couple careless slashes and I'd be done for!"

Sunset looked down at the pile of iron ingots she'd smelted with their furnace. With a sigh, she dumped them into their storage chest.

"Fine... No iron armor for you, and no iron tools." She gave Missy a glare. "But that means that if you see a monster, you RUN and get behind me, got it?"

Missy chuckled and rubbed at the back of her head. "You don't have to tell me twice, Sunny!"

"SUNSET! Over here, quick!"

Sunset reached over her shoulder, grabbing at her iron sword as she sprinted through the cave in the direction of Missy's voice. To her relief, Missy wasn't under attack. Instead, she was grinning and standing in front of a cave wall with both arms behind her back. Sunset's head swiveled from side to side, searching for the cause of Missy's panic.

"Are you okay? What's going on?"

"Look what IIIIIIIIII fooooooound!" Missy sang, stepping aside to reveal the blocks behind her. Sunset's breath caught in her throat as she saw the gleaming blue shards reflecting the light of their torches.

"Are those..."

"Yup!"

Sunset switched to her pickaxe, hardly able to believe her eyes. "So... these diamonds are the rarest and strongest material in the game?"

"They sure are!" Missy rocked back and forth on her heels. "Would you like the honors?"

Sunset smiled and handed the axe to Missy. "Nah. You found them, you should do it."

Missy nodded, raising the axe over her head. She teetered slightly, almost losing her balance from the weight of it before bringing it down onto the ore. She repeated the motion again, and Sunset could see the beginnings of a crack in the stone around the precious gems. Missy swung over and over, slowly but surely breaking through the block. Sunset sat back, leaning against the wall while she waited.

If diamonds are so tough, it makes sense it would take a while to mine it, right?

"ANNND... DONE!" Missy slammed the pickaxe into the diamonds again, finally shattering the block. They both leaned forward, eyes wide as they searched for their prize.

"Missy?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's the diamond?"

The two of them searched frantically, but came up fruitless.

"Maybe... maybe it's only a percentage chance to drop the diamond?" Sunset whispered, making no effort to hide how crestfallen she was.

"Well... we can test that!" Missy pointed up at the wall, revealing a second diamond ore that had been hidden behind the first. She passed the pickaxe back to Sunset. "Here, YOU try it, this time!"

Sunset nodded, firmly gripping the handle and swinging the point into the precious ore. It took her almost as long as it took Missy, this ore was stubborn, but the diamonds finally broke under her assault, shattering exactly as they had for Missy. Missy dove into the wall headfirst, as if worried the diamonds would run away if given the chance. Sunset watched quietly for a moment. When Missy's legs began to frantically kick, Sunset took that to be her signal and grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her back out. Missy gasped for air, eyes wide.

"NOTHING! There's NOTHING!"

Sunset looked at the now-diamondless hole, then down at the pickaxe in her hand.

"Missy... are you sure this is the right tool?"

"Well, yeah! What ELSE would we use?"

Sunset held the tool up a little higher. "Well, it's a little weird that a stone pickaxe could break DIAMOND, isn't it?"

Missy blinked, her eyes widening as she seemed to come to a realization. She buried her face in her hands, then wrapped her wings around both, muting her frustrated scream as best she could. She reached up and removed her leather helmet as she walked back to the wall, resting her forehead against the smooth stone as she bowed her head in shame.

"Iron. We needed an IRON pickaxe..."

Sunset took several deep breaths, trying to keep her own frustration in check. She walked to the wall beside Missy, joining her in gently headbutting the rock.

Sunset reached into her pocket, somehow navigating the nonsensically large space of her inventory until she found the last of her cobblestone. She continued creating their pillar upwards, placing the blocks four at a time until she ran out. Below her, she could hear Missy placing ladders on the side of their tower so they could climb back down safely. She grabbed a set of fenceposts, placing them around the edge to prevent them from accidentally falling off. Behind her, she heard Missy climbing up onto the platform alongside her. The two of them looked out over the landscape, seeing over rolling hills and solid canopy of the trees around them. Sunset couldn't help feeling slightly in awe of the view. From this far up, all the hard edges and pixels seemed to fade away and give way to the natural curves and terrain. She could see monolithic mountains and winding rivers in the distance to the north, and a deep blue ocean to the east. Turning to the west, she could see a burning desert, and in the south was a dense-looking jungle, draped in long vines and home to trees as tall or even taller than their new observation tower. All of it was bathed in oranges and reds from the setting sun as the day came to a close.

"Wow... You know, from this perspective... this world is really beautiful."

Sunset resisted the urge to reach out and snatch Missy when she hopped up onto the fence, grabbing hold to take a precarious perch on the edge.

"You know... you might be right. Even if it DOES have a bunch of stupid rules..." She gave her wings an annoyed rustle. "Four days, no flying! We knock the logs out from under a bunch of leaves, and do the laws of gravity apply to THEM? NO!" I'm getting SICK of these arbitrary rules!"

Sunset cringed as she thought back to their lost diamonds. "You won't get an argument from me about THAT."

Sunset's eye was caught by a flickering light far off in the mountains. She squinted, trying to get a better view of it in the light of the setting sun. It looked almost like some kind of shining silver pillar, shooting straight up into the sky.

"Hey... what's that?"

"What's what?"

Sunset strode up beside Missy, making sure her iron chestplate didn't press up against her as she pointed out the strange light. Missy gasped and leaned forward, forcing Sunset to grab the back of her dress to save her from involuntarily jumping off the tower. She raised both hands to her eyes as a pair of makeshift binoculars, re-focusing her vision before whooping with joy and jumping back onto the platform.

"THE BEACON IS LIT! GONDOR CALLS FOR AID!" she shouted, rushing across to the ladder and beginning to clamber downward.

"What? Gondor? Does somebody need help?" Sunset's eyes widened as she worried that some surivors of this world's apocalypse could be in danger. She leaned over the edge, seeing Missy look back up at her with a beaming smile.

"It means that's GOTTA be Penn's signal! Come on, we gotta pack up our stuff so we can get going first thing in the morning!"

Don't Mine At Night

Sunset took a deep breath, giving their wooden box one last look. Even if it was only a few days, it did a good job keeping us safe. Guess that's something to be proud of building.

"You ready? We've got a long hike ahead of us!"

Sunset nodded, turning back to Missy with a smile. She adjusted her iron helmet and double-checked her sword. She could see dark pixels beginning to appear in its surface like chips in the metal, but she was confident that it would be more than enough to protect them. "Ready as I'll ever be!"

Missy began to march into the trees, already looking determined. "Hope Penn's got room for two more beds in his base!"

Sunset chuckled as she hurried to catch up, nearly missing the oddity out of the corner of her eye: several free-standing pillars of logs.

"Hey, Missy... did you take all the leaves off of those trees over there?

Missy drew up short, staring in the direction Sunset was pointing. After a few seconds, she shrugged.

"Wasn't me, Sunset! Why would anybody do that, the logs are the valuable part!"

Sunset blinked. "Well, there's no way that's natural... Do you think someone else is here?"

Missy shrugged. "Well, if they were, they would have seen our cabin for sure! Why wouldn't they come by and say hi? Come on, we're wasting daylight!"

Unless they weren't interested in being friends... Sunset nodded, stepping up to walk side-by-side with Missy. Still, something about the unnatural formation made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It makes no sense...

"I just hope Penn's okay. If there's other people here, we don't know if they're friendly..."

Penn wiped the sweat from his brow, panting heavily for breath. It had taken longer than he wanted to admit, in fact it had nearly killed him multiple times trying to find all the precious metal, but he'd finally done it.

He'd been forced to sacrifice it before, for his own safety. The composite parts had been melted down and merged with the scraps of hellish ore he'd managed to retrieve from the Nether.

But now they had been re-made. The obsidian throne had stood empty for too long. He jumped up onto the black block, hopping in place as he set the golden blocks beneath him in a pillar.

"ONE... TWO... THREE... FOOOOOUR!" He cried with glee, leaping from the top and spinning around to admire his work.

The ultimate status symbol had been returned to its rightful place. The Tower of Pimps was back.

"Careful, Sunset..."

Sunset tightened her grip on her sword, keeping aware of Missy's presence behind her. The creature she was facing seemed equally wary, pacing in time with her as they circled one another. Its green, leafy body rustled softly with each movement. She narrowed her eyes, each one watching the other for a sign of attack.

"You say this thing will explode if I let it get close?" she whispered.

"Y-yeah..."

"Okay, then. Gonna have to kill it before it does." Sunset let out a long sigh, settling into her ready position. The creeper seemed to notice the change, beginning to rush in towards her. Sunset responded in kind, lunging forward sword-first. She made a pair of jabs into its narrow torso before spinning around on the ball of her foot, using the extra momentum to slash at the joint where the head met the body. She stepped back, raising her sword back up to the ready position just as Weiss had taught her. She smiled as she watched the creeper's head slowly slide off of its body and fall to the ground. A moment later, the entire body dissolved into a puff of smoke, leaving behind only a small pile of gunpowder. She sheathed her sword in its usual place on her back and turned back to Missy.

"WOOHOO! Go, Sunset!" she cheered, hopping up and down as she punched at the air. Sunset's eyes widened as she saw what Missy obviously hadn't: a small army of the creatures assembling behind her, all clearly upset at the death of their comrade. Each of them was already advancing on Missy, their hollow eyes

Sunset grabbed the front of Missy's leather armor, throwing the little girl over her shoulder before sprinting in the opposite direction.

"OWOWOWOW IRON, SUNSET! WHAT ARE YOU- HOLY HAMON!"

"Sorry, Missy!" Sunset shifted her grip, holding Missy over her head with both hands as she ran into the forest.

"Hey, Ron! Hey, Billy!" Penn grinned pointed a pair of finger-guns as he passed by. He strode confidently down the bridge between towers of the nether fortress, ducking his head slightly to avoid one of the barriers he'd installed to trap lanky wither skeletons. He felt a small twinge of satisfaction as his golden helmet (Which he had lovingly dubbed "The Golden Helmet of Mambrino") scraped against the cobblestone.

"How's it going, Wilbur?"

"Babe, how're the kids?"

"Ayy, Beelzehog, looking good!"

"Porky Pig, as I live and breathe! Haven't seen you since last week's ghast attack!" He stepped up, gently elbowing the piglin. It gave a soft grunt in return, sniffing curiously at him. Penn raised his hands in mock surrender.

"You got me! I brought along some gold for you! You got anything for trade?"

The pig-like creature seemed to shuffle around in its inventory for a moment before presenting a glassy blueish-green disk. Penn retrieved every one of his spare gold ingots from his pocket.

"I'll take your entire stock!"

A few moments later, he was examining his newly acquired prizes and the piglin was enjoying the fresh deposit to its life savings. Over his shoulder, Penn heard the telltale screech of the most hated monster in the nether. He didn't panic, reflexively rolling to the side as a fireball flew just over him, missing by inches. Instead, it slammed into "Porky Pig's" chest, throwing it up into the air and off the side of the fortress. Penn could only watch as the trader plunged into the lake of lava below, its squeal echoing fruitlessly off of the walls over the cavern. Another pair of the creatures walked up alongside him, eyeing him suspiciously. Penn chuckled nervously to himself as he reached for his bow to deal with the flying menace.

"I'm sure he'll be fine... right?"

"Ow ow OW OW!" Missy yanked her arm away from Sunset, scrambling as best she could to put distance between them in the dirt hole they were currently hiding in. Her wings fluttered angrily, nearly extinguishing their single torch. "Cut it OUT!"

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to remind herself Missy was simply a child. I was the same way when I got hurt at her age... "If we don't do something, it could get infected. I just want to take a look at it..."

Missy gave her yet another dirty look before pulling her arm away from her side, revealing what looked like a large red rash across her stomach and side. Her dress looked like it had been burned away by fire, and her skin was a raw-looking shade of red. Both of them sucked in air through their teeth. It looks like a chemical burn...

"I'm sorry, I should have been more careful..." Sunset whispered.

"Yeah, you should... I TOLD you iron isn't good for me!" she muttered, gingerly wrapping her wing around the injury. "'Missy, look out!' or even just 'Behind you!' would have been plenty..."

"I panicked." Sunset reached into her pocket, passing Missy a piece of cooked mutton. "Eating helps us heal here, right?"

Missy nodded, halfheartedly nibbling on the meat for a few seconds. The two of them sat in silence for a time. Finally, Sunset sighed and stood up, just barely able to fit in their two-block-tall hole. Missy's eyes widened as she started pulling off her armor one piece at a time.

"Sunset, what are you doing?"

"Too much risk." Sunset muttered, shuffling out of her iron leggings. Finally, she carefully kicked off her iron boots, tossing the whole set in the corner farthest from Missy. "When you told me it could hurt you, I shouldn't have kept it. Period."

"Sunset, you can't just run around with no armor!"

Sunset ignored her, finally coming to her sword. She stared at it for a moment before sliding the sheath off of her shoulder and down to her waist. She slid it back into its place, now off of her back if she needed to pick Missy up and run again. If Missy's on the receiving end of my sword, we've got bigger issues than it being made of iron.

"I'm sure we'll run into some cows tomorrow on our way to the mountains. I'll make some leather stuff, like you've got." She gave Missy her best smile, refusing to show any fear in the face of her near-complete lack of protection. After wearing it for days, it felt like being naked not to have the bulky, heavy armor inhibiting her movements. "We can match!" She turned back to the pile of iron armor, trying to figure out what to do with the hazardous waste. She finally resorted to kneeling down and punching at the ground, digging out a deeper hole in the corner where she could bury it. As she punched through the block, however, she was greeted with an unexpected surprise: empty space. She stepped back slightly, blinking at the sudden development before turning back to Missy.

"Hey... Check it out, there's a tunnel down here!"

"What?"

Sunset pushed herself to the side to let Missy sidle up next to her to stare.

"You wanna check it out?" Missy whispered. "Not like we've got anything better to do until morning..."

Sunset shrugged before hopping down into the hole feet-first. It was a short drop, no more than three blocks, and she easily caught Missy a couple seconds later and set her carefully on the ground. The two of them were standing in a two-by-two block stone tunnel with a dirt roof and gravel floor. Aside from the uniform shape and even level of the ground, the other major difference Sunset noticed from prior caves they'd explored was the presence of perfectly spaced torches, leaving it perfectly lit.

"This is definitely man-made."

"Yup." Missy looked up and down the corridor. "And if my memory serves me correctly, it's also going the same direction we were walking. Looks like a free, safe shortcut to me!"

"And this doesn't seem a little suspicious?" Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, first those weird stripped trees, then big hordes of creepers showing up out of nowhere, now this?"

Missy shrugged, beginning to strut down the corridor. "Let's not look a gift unicorn in the mouth!"

"Okay, let me explain to you WHY that's offensive..." Sunset muttered, beginning to reluctantly follow. After a few steps, however, Sunset felt a chill run up her spine, one that made every nerve in her body tingle with anxiety. Her hand was already on her hilt as she spun around, trying to catch a glimpse of the source.

She didn't spot any kind of threat behind them in the hallway, but she DID recognize the feeling.

She'd been trying to deny it for a while, now, but ignoring it was likely going to be the death of them. Ever since the day she had saved Penn from the laser bolt on the dalek ship, Sunset had been getting premonitions. A sense of dread, a reflex to something that had yet to happen, always in the nick of time to save herself or someone she cared about. It hadn't ALWAYS been there, they had a fair number of close calls that had caught her off-guard completely, but every time it HAD manifested, listening to it had saved them from total disaster.

She was feeling that premonition again. Right here. Right now. They weren't alone, and something here wasn't what it seemed. She didn't sheathe her sword again, keeping it gripped tight in her hand.

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

"I have a good feeling about this!" Penn grinned, looking over his newest creation with pride. Usually, he needed step-by-step tutorials for building with redstone, but he'd managed to pick up a few things about Minecraft's equivalent to electricity over his years of playing the game, and even memorized a few key designs watching MumboJumbo and TangoTek. He followed a long wire of red dust to a safe distance, stopping beside a lever affixed to the wall.

"PULL THE LEVER, PENN!" he cheered. For a moment, he paused, feeling a lonesome pang as he realized that there was nobody around to get the reference and laugh with him.

Still, he needed to focus. There was no way Sunset, Missy, and Isis were going to leave him stranded here. He just needed to stay alive for as long as possible and focus on finding another portal back, if one even existed.

He gave the lever a yank, watching the entire build hum to life. There was a gentle ticking as items passed through hoppers and chests. Soft crackling of blaze powder burning accompanied the gurgling and splashing of water boiling. He held his breath, trying to keep up his faith that his creation wouldn't devolve into a mess of awkward puddles and muddy blaze power again.

He felt a surge of excitement as the ticking moved to the hoppers leaving the main device, and he followed the sound at a safe distance, all the way up to the tunnel leading into his base. He'd managed to secure almost every side of his base in multiple layers of protection, even the window he'd made for his beacon had been given a lava dispenser just in case someone tried using it as a way in. The biggest weakness in his defenses had been his front entrance...

Until now.

The movement of the items through the hoppers triggered the comparators, which sent signals to trigger rows of dispensers, all of which erupted into a hailstorm of criss-crossing arrows and bottles containing noxious potions shattering onto the stairs. It was an array that would spell instant death for any creature that tried to pass through it, be they living or undead. He hopped up and down with glee, running over and mining up one of the hoppers carrying the potions to their ultimate end. Without the fresh items traveling through the system, the dispensers soon shut themselves off, and his front entrance was once again safe to pass through. Behind him, his automatic brewery continued chugging away, having plenty of ingredients left to keep producing potions.

"Hah... Let's see spooky old 'Brine get through THAT next time he wants to mess with me!" He polished his blocky hand against his chestplate, blowing the dust off his non-existent fingernails. He turned back to examine his new creation for any faults, only to run face-first into a pillar of glowstone blocks topped with a redstone torch. His eyes widened and he grabbed his sword, spinning around to search for any other signs of the intruder, but none remained. As far as he could tell, he was still alone...

But that glowstone pillar said otherwise.

"Come ON! Come out here!" He switched weapons, changing over to his crossbow and cocking one of his specially prepared arrows. His goading went unanswered, completely ignored. The silence was mocking him, throwing his own challenge back in his face with empty echoes. After several seconds on-guard he sighed and lowered his weapon again.

"Okay, fine, you smug specter... You win THIS time. I'm gonna go change the settings to 'potions of regeneration' and see how many of them I can chug before I throw up. I wanna know if healing potions can make you sick."

"Hey... shouldn't it be day by now?" Sunset asked. "We should head back up to the surface."

"What? Why?" Missy gestured to the hallway they'd been traveling down for the past few hours. "This is going our way, and there's no way for monsters to sneak up on us in here!"

Sunset glanced over her shoulder again, the feeling of dread having carved out a nest in the bottom of her stomach long ago. No matter how long they traveled in perfect safety, she couldn't make it leave.

"Call it claustrophobia..."

"You're afraid of Santa Claus?"

"No, it's the fear of tight spaces-" Sunset looked back to see Missy snickering behind her hand. "Oh. Ha ha, very funny. Let's all mess with Sunset..."

"Oh come on, I haven't whined about the whole iron thing for an entire hour, I deserve to do some ribbing!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Fine, I guess I had that coming and then some... But seriously, let's get out of here."

"Fine... Just gimmie a boost!"

Sunset nodded, holding her hands together for Missy to step on and lifting her up to punch a hole in the ceiling. After a few seconds, the digging stopped.

"Hey, Sunset?"

"Yeah?"

"Was the roof... always obsidian?"

Sunset blinked, her head snapping upwards to look above them. True to Missy's word, just past the dirt above them was a layer of the near-unbreakable black rock.

"O-okay... I still have that iron pick we made in case we found more diamonds!" Sunset shifted Missy's weight to her shoulder as she reached down into her pocket to retrieve the tool.

"No use. You need diamond to break obsidian, I know that much..." Missy muttered, hopping off of Sunset's shoulder and back to the ground. "What are we gonna do?"

That unease was starting to gnaw at Sunset again, as if it was rubbing in that she should have listened and gotten out while they still could.

"Okay... well, we can still mine around it! We're only a few blocks deep, right? It can't go on forever!" She turned to the wall, tearing through the rock with her pickaxe easily. She felt the bottom fall out of her stomach as the stone gave way to more of the pitch-black rock.

"Suunnnseeeeet...." Missy's voice was trembling as Sunset turned around, seeing that she had excavated the other side and revealed the same thing. "I'm getting scared..."

Both of them looked down at the gravel floor, then at each other.

"You don't think..."

"Missy, I don't know WHAT to think, any more..." Sunset whispered. She raised her pick once, twice, three times... only to be stopped by a distant sound. It sounded like an avalanche of pebbles and dirt, and her first heart-stopping thought was a cave-in. Her eyes widened as she stared in the direction of the noise, the way they had come from, and saw a growing red glow advancing on them in the distance. The gravel was falling away in a single long wave, revealing only empty space and fiery death below.

"The... THE FLOOR IS LAVA!" Missy screamed. "RUN FOR IT!"

"Hmm..." Penn stroked his chin, thinking over his decision. This was a crucial moment. It could very well determine what would fill his every waking moment from this point onward. Every day he would be faced with the consequences, unable to escape them.

"Glowstone chandeliers, or hidden lighting under carpets? Isis, what do YOU think?"

He glanced over at the blocky, motionless drone he'd brought with him when he'd set up his base. He'd tried to repair it, but redstone just wasn't compatible. Still, he could imagine what Isis would say.

"I KNOW carpet would mean mobs couldn't spawn here, but I want it to look nice!" he gestured to the hallway leading to his library and enchanting room. "I've been using obsidian and polished diorite to make checkered tiles and I really liked it, but... It's gotten kind of old, too." He reached into his pocket, grabbing a stack of wool carpet. "I could go with red and cyan accents to match the enchanting table... But why miss out on the chance to make chandeliers? They'd be PERFECT!"

He looked back at Isis, who still didn't move and said nothing.

"Both? Both. Both is good." He nodded to himself as he settled his mind. "Glowstone chandeliers and KEEP the tile under the carpet in case I change my mind! Great idea, Isis!"

Sunset and Missy were both collapsed, completely exhausted from outrunning the falling gravel. Missy had started to fall behind at about the three-quarters mark and Sunset had thrown her onto her back piggy-back style without a second thought, but even Missy's negligible weight had felt like a backpack full of lead after running so far. Sunset had almost heard an angelic choir singing when she saw the stairway leading up to the surface at the end of the tunnel. She had felt the ground giving out underneath her as the two of them burst up onto the surface, barely managing to leap to safety before they were plunged into a bath of molten rock. Now the two of them were collapsed on the ground where they had landed, Sunset laying on her stomach and Missy laying in an identical position on top of her.

We're lucky to be alive...

"Missy?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Next time... we see... a shortcut... let's not."

"Agreed..."

Author's Note

(And yes, keen-eyed readers probably noticed that this is taking place in the as-yet-unreleased Minecraft version 1.16! I know it isn't quite future-proof, but I wanted to work in some timely references for the moment!)

Diggy Diggy Hole

"Sunseeeet... My feet hurt..." Missy whined. "My legs hurt... My back hurts... Can I ride piggyback again?"

"Missy... You are my friend and I love you," Sunset took a deep breath, trying to hold herself back from snapping about her own aches and pain. "But I think if you jump on my back one more time, you're going to break it."

Somehow, their entire night of walking and mad dash to escape the death trap had put them approximately ten blocks from their initial hiding spot. Neither of them had brought it up, just exchanging tired looks and knowing the other one was equally upset. Both of them had been grouchy, exhausted, and sore when they set out walking for the day to make up for lost time.

Walking miles and miles like this REALLY makes me miss Sylvia...

At last, they were standing at the foot of the mountains where the beacon had sprung up. The two of them stared up the steep incline, pondering what they both were hoping was the final stretch.

"Are you... sure you can't fly?"

"About as sure as I am that I shouldn't be wearing iron."

Sunset groaned, reaching into her pocket and finding their last few pieces of cobblestone. "Alright... let's get climbing..."

Climbing up felt like swimming through mud, each one of her limbs was filled with lead. Missy didn't seem to be faring much better, even her wings had drooped so far the tips of her feathers were dragging on the ground. Block by agonizing block, they trudged, jumped, and built their way up the side of the mountain. Sunset was ready to collapse when they reached a plateau, where the beam of light was springing up from a hole in the ground. In a nearby wall, they could see what looked like a rectangular cave opening lined with obsidian leading down into the bowels of the earth. Beside her, Sunset could hear Missy's palm collide with her forehead.

"Underground... No wonder we couldn't find him, he was building underground!"

"Provided it even IS Penn down there..." Sunset muttered. "Someone or something's been messing with us ever since we left our wooden-" A brief look from Missy managed to convince Sunset to step down from her stance on what to call their original base, "-cabin."

Missy dragged her feet as she started walking towards the entrance. "Only one way to find out... At least it's all downhill from here, right?"

Sunset really wanted to believe her, but.... there was still plenty of time for things to go wrong, and walking straight into another obsidian tunnel was NOT her idea of a good idea.

Sunset was glad to be working WITH gravity rather than against it as she descended the stairs. "If Penn built this... why all the obsidian? This is looking a lot like that place where we almost died last night..."

"Well, if I had to guess, something probably scared him into making a bunker instead of a base. Maybe the same thing that's been after us..." Missy gave a halfhearted shrug. "You know Penn... his motto is 'the best offense is a good defense.'"

"When he's not dropping black holes on people, you mean?" Sunset muttered in return.

"Heh... still can't imagine him actually DOING that. So cool..." Missy muttered, wobbling slightly as one of her legs threatened to give out underneath her. "I wish I could have seen it..."

Sunset perked up slightly as she heard a new sound winding its way up the tunnel from below them, the sound of a familiar voice.

"Die, monster!" Penn's voice called, echoing up from below. "You don't belong in this world!"

A chill ran up Sunset's spine as a second, gravely voice responded. "It is not by MY hand that I was once again given flesh... I was called here by HUMANS who wish to give me tribute!"

Sunset and Missy both pressed themselves to the wall, exchanging worried glances. Sunset slowly reached to her belt, grabbing hold of her iron sword. Missy did the same, retrieving the stone one Sunset had made for her. "Bad guy..." she whispered. Sunset nodded.

"Tribute? You steal men's souls and make them your slaves!"

"Perhaps the same could be said of ALL religions!" the evil-sounding voice replied.

Sunset leaned down to whisper in Missy's ear. "You think it's the same guy who trapped us in that death tunnel?"

"Probably..." Missy nodded in the direction the stairs were leading, and Sunset reciprocated. The two of them slowly resumed their descent, now trying their best to mute the sound of their footsteps.

"Your words are as empty as your soul!" Penn's voice declared, growing louder and more clear the deeper they descended. "Mankind ill needs a savior such as YOU!"

"What is a MAN? A miserable pile of secrets! But enough talk... HAVE AT YOU!" the villain declared, accompanied immediately after by the sound of clashing metal. Sunset watched Missy's eyes widen before raising her sword over her head and charging down the stairs.

"HANG ON, PENN! WE'RE COMING!"

"Missy, WAIT!" Sunset reached out to try and stop the overenthusiastic duel spirit, but Missy was already halfway down the remaining stairs.

Sunset's eyes widened in horror as the hallway in front of her exploded with motion and noise. Arrows and glass bottles flew in a hailstorm just in front of her face. She was forced to stumble back to narrowly avoid being caught in the crossfire, but Missy wasn't so lucky. Sunset watched as the younger girl was slammed on all sides by the automated onslaught, losing her footing in the barrage and barreling forward. Every impact as Missy plunged down was like a stab to Sunset's chest as Missy was brutally beaten by the combination of gravity and obsidian. Sunset's heart stopped when she fell down the remainder of the stairs, collapsing in a heap at the bottom and not moving. Arrows were poking out of her body at awkward angles, having easily pierced through her leather armor.

"MISSY!"

A figure rushed into view, clad in blackened armor. Instantly they dropped to their knees, gingerly inspecting Missy for a few seconds before reaching into their pocket.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Sunset screamed, watching helplessly from behind the wall of arrows. She kept trying to muster up the courage to charge through, but she knew her own leather armor would provide the same woefully inadequate protection.

The dark figure ignored her, carefully turning Missy over and lifting her off the ground with one hand on her small of her back. Missy gasped weakly, clearly in pain at even the small motion, but it was obvious they were trying to avoid driving the arrows in any deeper as they used their other hand to produce a glass bottle holding a deep crimson liquid, which they carefully trickled into her mouth. When the bottle was empty, they produced a shimmering golden orb, holding it up to her mouth. Sunset's eyes widened as Missy cooperated, biting down into the gold and weakly chewing. The stranger finally looked up the stairs at her, revealing a furious-looking Penn under the dark helmet.

"Why the HELL didn't you ring the DOORBELL?"

"Doorbell?" Sunset gestured to the flurry of arrows and dark potions flying past in front of her. "WHY IS YOUR FRONT DOOR A DEATHTRAP?"

Still keeping Missy balanced off the ground in one hand, Penn reached over and pulled at a lever out of sight. A second later, the array of automated attackers finally coming to a stop. Sunset didn't wait to rush down the stairs, immediately dropping to her knees and checking Missy closely.

Her eyes widened as she watched the arrows beginning to dissolve away into a glowing yellow powder, and the gaps they left behind in Missy's flesh instantly sealed themselves and mended together, as if there had never been an injury to begin with.

"It's a good thing I was keeping a Notch apple on me in case of emergency..." he muttered, breathing a sigh of relief. "What were you THINKING, rushing in like that?"

"Y-you were in trouble..." Missy whispered.

"I was sparring with an armor stand..." Penn shook his head.

"B-but we heard two voices!"

Penn's eyes widened before he pressed his palm against his forehead. After a second and several angrily mouthed words under his breath, he gave Missy a gentle stroke across her forehead and scooped her up into his arms.

"Well, don't worry... the bad guy's gone now, okay? Come on, I'll take you to bed so you can get some rest..." He nodded for Sunset to follow him as he stood up and walked away.

For the first time, Sunset was able to take a good look at their surroundings. For a cave, it was surprisingly lavish, with a floor of dark-colored hardwood and softly glowing lamps embedded in the ceiling. Every wall was smooth stone brick, punctuated by the occasional frame displaying some sort of item with a lever underneath it. In the center was a kind of pillar crafted from cobblestone with moss inching its way across the surface, and Sunset could see a bubbling pillar of water inside. Penn ignored it, turning toward a hallway leading out of the main room. Sunset followed close behind as the interior decor shifted. The hardwood gave way to red wool carpets punctuated by the occasional diamond-colored cyan outside other branching doors. Penn stuck to the main path, continuing on until the hallway opened up into another large room that took Sunset's breath away.

Books. SO many books. Bookcases lined the walls from floor to ceiling, higher than anyone could hope to reach unaided. Above and below them was warm-looking oak wood, and the entire room was lit by soft lamps below their feet and more of those glowing gold-colored blocks hanging from the ceiling, framed by fenceposts in a way that transformed them into homely chandeliers. The centerpiece of the room appeared to be a table made of black obsidian with a red cloth covering and embedded with diamonds in the four corners, surrounded by its own array of bookshelves. Glowing runes floated out from the shelves, passing through the air and into a book resting on top of the table, which floated in place and turned pages on its own.

He passed the table without a second glance, ducking behind the bookshelves surrounding it. After a few seconds, he emerged again, his arms now empty and dusting off his hands. Sunset peeked around the corner, seeing Missy resting peacefully in a bed tucked away behind the shelves.

"She should be fine now, any side effects of the spectral arrows should wear off by the time she wakes up..." he whispered. Sunset felt a wave of relief wash over her as the last of her worry and adrenaline washed away. Her legs buckled as her strength left with them, and only quick reflexes on Penn's part stopped her from falling unceremoniously to the ground. He looped her arm around his shoulders and walked them back to the central room. She didn't question him as he pulled on a lever beneath a framed potion bottle. One of the blocks of stone brick slipped down into the floor, exposing a hidden chest behind the wall. He used his free hand to reach inside, producing a bottle matching the one in the frame, which he passed to her. Sunset nodded gratefully before uncorking the top and tilting the contents into her mouth.

The maroon-colored liquid was spicy and sent burning tingles across her tongue, occasionally sparking painfully like pop rocks. She nearly had a coughing fit when the heat hit the back of her throat, but she forced herself to choke it down. By the time the last of the liquid trickled into her mouth, she was already feeling fresh strength seep into her limbs, and she was able to step away from Penn under her own power.

"T-thanks..."

"Don't thank me, yet. That'll only last about eight minutes." Penn sighed and ran his hand down his face before reaching up and removing his blackened helmet. "Let me make a run to storage for some wool and I can make you another bed, but before I do... Did you SERIOUSLY not see the signs I put up? 'Friends ring doorbell, all others keep out!'"

Sunset shook her head. "Seriously, Penn, there were NO signs! Just an open tunnel leading down!"

Penn's brow furrowed for a moment, and Sunset caught a spark of rage in his eyes.

"He took down my signs... He WANTED you two to get caught in that..." After a few seconds, he shook his head, and the wrath was gone as quickly as it had come. He gave her a tired smile, tears brimming in his eyes before he rushed forward and wrapped his arms around her in one of his vice-like hugs. "Where have you two BEEN? I missed you so much!"

Sunset didn't hesitate to use her freshly recovered strength to return the embrace. "I know, I'm sorry! It took almost four days for us to see your beacon, and two more to make it all the way here! I never meant to leave you on your own for a whole week!" She looked over his shoulder at the bunker they were currently standing in. "Still, I never imagined you'd be able to build all of THIS so fast! Missy and I could barely make a wooden box and call it a cabin!"

Sunset felt Penn break off the hug and grip her shoulders, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length.

"Sunset... it's been almost a month for me!"

Sunset blinked, barely able to believe her ears. "W-what? No, that's not possible! Missy and I couldn't have waited more than thirty seconds before we ran in after you, and I KNOW my counting the days here can't be THAT off!"

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, each one dumbfounded by the other's response. Sunset was the first one to speak again as the solution came to her.

"Time dilation... The portal must have caused it. For me and Missy it was just a few seconds before we came in after you, but here..."

"Weeks passed..." Penn whispered, eyes wide.

"Guess that makes sense of the fact Isis hasn't tried to get in contact... It's probably been about ten seconds out there." Sunset shook her head."It's a good thing we didn't decide to wait five minutes and see if you came back on your own."

"You WHAT?"

"Anyway, once you know how this world works and a few little tricks you can exploit, survival really is just an exercise in avoiding unnecessary risk!" Penn leaned back in his "chair," which was a set of stairs flanked by two wooden signs. "And we all know I'm good at that!"

Sunset and Missy exchanged skeptical looks, but said nothing to argue the point.

The two of them had slept comfortably through the night in Penn's library, and he'd been more than eager to give them the grand tour the next day. Suddenly, between knowing about the warped time and Penn's casual expertise about the game, the fancy bunker they had found themselves in made a lot more sense. He'd taken them around, showing them his many automated processes and different kinds of farms. Sunset had almost panicked when he said he'd found a "monster spawner," but the skeletons it produced were contained safely behind glass and funneled into a killing chamber. Just past the library was an underground lake that he claimed to use for fishing (while lamenting that he couldn't fit a swimming pool IN the library). The water column she'd noticed earlier led up through several layers of farms of all kinds. Penn seemed dismissive to the idea of stopping at any of them "unless you're interested in watching grass grow." The topmost floor (which was still fairly deep underground, by Sunset's calculations) was the home of the first living PEOPLE Sunset had ever seen.

They weren't exactly human, with tall, rectangular heads, no hair, and bulbous noses, and they only seemed to be able to communicate in grunts and hums, but they all seemed happy to be living in the safety of Penn's bunker. On the far end of the area, Sunset could see what looked like huge metal men flowing down a stream of water and dropping out of sight. Sunset almost couldn't bear the sight of Missy trying to learn to communicate with them, it was too cute.

"Hrm..."

"Hrm!"

"Hrrrrm."

"Hrrn."

Eventually, they'd all settled together in a plush-looking room at the bottom of the base, where the majority of the floor consisted of dark grey stone with flecks of white, and she and Penn had explained their realization about the time difference to Missy.

"So... it's like in Bleach? When Ichigo goes and trains in that world where hundreds of years can go by in five minutes?"

Penn chuckled. "Something like that, yeah."

"So..." Missy stroked her chin thoughtfully, "If we just waited, you would have come back with superpowers after years of intense training?"

"No, I would have come back as an old man who wouldn't be driving the two of you anywhere." Penn folded his arms with an unamused frown. "Or not at all."

Missy rolled her eyes. "Right. You'd totally come back with superpowers..."

Sunset decided to change the subject before this turned into an argument. "Okay, but that still doesn't explain the fact your front door nearly killed us!" She gestured to the room they were sitting in. "OR why you built an underground bunker reinforced with obsidian!"

"Yeah, how'd you do that, anyway?" Missy scratched at her head. "I mean, obsidian's not exactly easy to come by!"

This seemed to have the desired effect of pulling Penn's thoughts away from the idea of being left on his own here, returning him to his smug demeanor. "How? Well, let's just say there's one less lava lake in the Nether because of me. As for why..." His eyes flickered from side to side, as if worried that he was being watched.

"There's an old legend about Minecraft... that the creator has a long-lost brother who died tragically... And his vengeful spirit came here, occupying the world of the game." He leaned forward, and Sunset and Missy did the same. "They say he manifests as a player with the default skin, but with glowing. white. eyes. He stalks players, following them from a distance until he's ready to strike! Sometimes he'll just make small changes, stripping the leaves off of trees or building sand pyramids in the middle of the ocean-" Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as she recognized one of their own encounters, "-and sometimes, he lures people into deadly traps or mobs of monsters! One minute you're playing along, happy as can be, and the next you're getting suffocated until a mountain of sand or falling into a huge pit that appeared out of nowhere! And his name... is Herobrine."

"So... you've seen him?" Sunset whispered. "THAT'S what you were trying to stop from getting in?"

Penn paused, giving both of them a wary glance before grinning and leaning back in his seat.

"Of course not! The whole thing was a hoax! The creator of the game never HAD a brother! Everyone who ever had 'proof' either admitted it was a scam or were exposed for faking it! Even the game itself got in on the joke, they started putting 'Removed Herobrine' at the end of every update's change log, even though he was never there!" He chuckled to himself. "You two have no neeed to be worried about Herobrine! The looks on your faces were priceless, though!"

"I'm just messing with you! Minecraft players love destroying as much as they love creating, if not more, including other people's bases! If you want to survive a week on a multiplayer server, you know how to player-proof your house!" He was still grinning from ear to ear as he shook his head dismissively. "I really had you girls going there, didn't I? Sorry, but between the atmosphere and how long it's been for me, I couldn't resist a little ghost story!"

"Penn... I think we DID run into Herobrine." Sunset whispered.

Penn's chuckling came to a sudden stop.

"Yeah... I mean, we even got trapped in a tunnel that almost dropped us into lava!" Missy added.

Penn's eyes narrowed and his smile began to fall away. It was clear that they had 100 percent of his attention as he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward to stare them in the eyes.

"Tell me everything. Start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop."

Penn had listened to their story with rapt attention, never stopping them for more than a few seconds to ask for clarification or double-check something one of them had said with the other (specifically some of Missy's more fantastical details).

"And that's when we heard you arguing with-" Missy blinked. "Who WERE you arguing with?"

Penn rolled his eyes. "For the LAST time, it was just my armor stand! I got bored, I was quoting Castlevania while I was sparring with my practice dummy!"

"Then... who was the second voice?" Sunset asked. Penn grinned and leaned back in his seat, a potion bottle appearing in his hand. The next time he opened his mouth, it was the same voice they had heard the day before, growling and full of malice and condescension.

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of SECRETS!" His expression hardly matched his menacing voice, grinning gleefully as he threw the potion bottle to the ground and created a cloud of sweet-smelling vapors. "But enough talk! HAVE AT YOU!"

Sunset and Missy both sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"You are scarily good at that."

"I know, right? You should hear me do Khan's speeches from Star Trek 2!" He chuckled for a moment before settling back down into his seat. "Still, my voice acting aside... I REALLY don't like what you were telling me. It sounds like you girls might have had a REAL run-in with Herobrine." His brow furrowed in frustration. "If I'm honest, I'd seen a couple signs here, but... I thought I was just starting to go nuts after being isolated so long. I just built the front door defenses to make myself feel better."

"So... how do we STOP him?" Sunset asked. This crazy base was all the proof she needed to know that Penn was an expert on this world, and she was eager to put that knowledge to work.

"We don't. CLEARLY all attempts to get rid of him have failed. We just have to get out of here as fast as we can... And I think I have a theory about where to find the portal home." He rose up out of his seat, walking over and grimacing as he gave a tug on the shoulder of Sunset's leather chestplate. "But first, this is woefully inadequate! You girls need to be kitted out, so let's go break open my diamond stash!"

"That's big talk coming from a guy in dirty iron..." Missy muttered, giving his own outfit a wary look.

Penn raised an eyebrow while pressing a hand to his chest in mock insult. "Dirty IRON? Sweetheart, this is Netherite! A lava-proof combination of diamond, gold, and netherite scraps! I scraped this suit together from the depths of Hell, itself!" He dusted his knuckles on his chestplate before blowing off his hand. "I'd offer you the same, but the scraps of ore are even rarer than diamonds, this is my only set!"

"I think that diamond armor will be more than enough." Sunset smiled. "I'm sorry we're making you use up so many resources..."

From the way Penn waved her off, Sunset was almost certain he was channeling Rarity for a moment. "Pfft, don't worry about it! You can only have so many blue rocks before you get sick of the color! Now come on, we've got lots of crafting and enchanting to do if we want to survive to test my theory about where the portal home is!"

"And where is that, exactly?"

"Well, it's just a theory, but... I think it might be at The End."

Sunset felt another shiver run down her spine, leaving her deeply unsettled again. For a moment, she thought of the nightmare she'd had when she first arrived.

"There wouldn't happen to be a dragon there, would there?"

Penn nodded as he walked towards the door. "Yeah... which is why we're all going to NEED maxed-out armor... To be honest, I never actually BEAT the ender dragon in survival mode." He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head. "I always got bored and started a new world before that... So we're going to need every advantage we can get."

Sunset thought back to the sheer, overwhelming presence she had felt before.

"Y-yeah, let's get to work."

Penn took a deep breath as he walked down the hall from his library. Once they'd finished their tour for the day and crafted up two fresh sets of diamond armor, he'd ushered Missy and Sunset to bed while he set himself to work on the enchanting side of things.

It had taken several hours of hard work on the enchanting table, his collection of enchanted books, and an anvil, occasionally broken up by trips to his skeleton spawner, but he'd finally put together two full sets of armor.

Weapons will have to wait until tomorrow... I'll need to hit the XP farm again before I can do any more...

Just as he was about to step into the bubble elevator leading up to his village, he stopped. He could feel a presence behind him, boring into him with a hateful stare. He knew who it was and where it was coming from by instinct. Slowly, he turned to the opening of his base, spying the intruder clearly for the first time.

He was a man with sun-browned skin and a stubbly beard, dressed in tattered blue jeans and a ripped cyan shirt. His head spasmed wildly every few seconds, but Penn could feel that the eye contact was somehow unbroken. He seemed to be leaving hazy afterimages of himself without moving, creating a time-bending fog around himself.

We were so worried about Missy, we forgot to turn the security system back on...

"It's HIS FAULT Missy got hurt! MAKE HIM PAY!"

Penn reached down, taking a firm hold of his crossbow and leveling it towards the intruder. There was already a spectral arrow loaded and ready to fly.

"Now that I FINALLY know you're real, you show your face..."

The entity didn't respond, continuing to jerk and twitch violently as it stared daggers into his soul.

"And I'm only going to tell you this once: I don't want to see it." His grip tightened, teasing the trigger. "Because of you and me, Missy almost died, and I don't know what that would mean for her here. she clearly doesn't go poof like other duel spirits do. That means I'm gonna treat any attempt to destroy her like an attempt on her life."

He didn't flinch when he pulled the trigger, but Herobrine was already gone. The arrow embedded itself in the stairs for a second before dissolving into the same glowstone dust that granted its "spectral" properties. He made his way over and flicked on the lever to activate the security system. Above, he heard the sound of tripwires being tensioned, and he knew that the gap in his defenses was once again sealed. The base was secure, with Missy and Sunset locked safely inside.

"That's your ONLY warning."

Author's Note

To be honest:

This arc wasn't in the planning document. I just wanted Penn to have a vacation after everything that happened to him in the RWBY arc. Poor guy needed a break.

The Fallen Kingdom

"Come on, Missy! You can do it!"

"Of COURSE I can do it, I just don't know if I should! Flying isn't allowed!"

Sunset and Penn both craned their necks upwards, trying to keep their eyes locked on Missy at the top of her small tower of blocks.

"It's NOT flying! It's falling with style!" Penn declared. "You should be FINE! Sunset and I are right here to catch you if you pass out again!"

Sunset nodded, holding out her arms to signal her readiness. Missy shuffled uncomfortably in place for another second before finally shaking her head, screwing her eyes shut, and leaping from the top, wings spread stiff and wide. For a moment, Sunset thought she was free falling, but as her speed built up, she began to move forward, leveling out her flight.

"YOU'RE DOING IT!" Sunset cheered. "It's working!"

"Try the fireworks!" Penn added.

Missy's reply came in the form of a loud whistle and a burst of speed that propelled her forward and into the sky, trailing sparks in her wake. Sunset was smiling so hard it hurt watching Missy once again sailing through the air, it felt like something had been made right in the world again.

She circled around back towards the plateau, beginning her descent. After a few seconds, her target became clear. Sunset glanced at Penn, but he seemed to focused on their victory to notice as she took a wide step away from him. Missy crashed headfirst into Penn, knocking him back several blocks and leaving the two of them in a giggling heap.

"I CAN FLY AGAIN!" she cheered as she jumped back up, posing triumphantly with one foot on top of his chest.

"Well, glide..." Penn corrected from the ground. "You've basically got a living elytra strapped to your back!"

Sunset smiled and gave Missy's hair a tousle. It was a complete 180 compared to the day before. Whatever healing potion Penn had given her, it was worked miracles. There wasn't a single sign of her brush with death, even her dress seemed to have been fixed on her "skin" and the burn from the iron was completely gone.

"So, now that we know Missy CAN fly as long as it's not under her own power, what's next?" Sunset asked.

Sunset flexed her leg back and forth, marveling at her new armor and how it moved with her.

It really IS diamond... she thought to herself as she examined the blue material closely. It shimmered with magical light from the protective enchantments Penn had placed on it, but she could still make out crystalline structures just beneath the surface. Even in Equestria, gemstones were never THIS flexible or malleable! I REALLY want to take some of these diamonds back with us to study, if I can! It would certainly help fill some of those long hours on the road...

For now, though, she and Missy were both enjoying their fresh armor, and Penn was muttering to himself as he hunched over an iron anvil, just as he had been for some time, now.

"So... what do you think Penn's first day was like?" Missy whispered. "I mean, we could barely get a log cabin put together, and he made..." she gestured to the base around them, "this."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "You mean before or after he probably fainted?"

"I HEARD that..." Penn interrupted his muttering for a moment to shoot Sunset a smirk. "And I did NOT faint! I stayed calm, kept a level head, and started progressing up the material ladder as fast as possible."

One Month Earlier

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Riiight..." Missy folded her arms over her chest. "And you totally didn't reenact a certain Door Monster video?"

"Oh shush..." Penn muttered, turning back to his work on the anvil transferring enchantments between books and onto the item he was trying to improve. Finally, he stepped back, gripping the new bow with a smile on his face before passing it to Missy. He wiped a heavy sheen of sweat from his forehead before putting his hands on his hips in a satisfied stance. "And THAT should be the last of it... One Infinity bow for Missy!" He tossed an arrow to himself before passing it to her. "That's all it'll take for you to be able to shoot as many as you want!"

Missy's eyes widened as she eagerly notched the arrow and pulled back on the bow. She took aim at the ground and let go, letting it embed itself in the floor. Before their eyes, another arrow appeared in the bow, already notched and ready to be drawn.

"Whoa.... SO COOL!"

"And for Sunset..." he grinned and reached behind his back, producing another bow and handing it to her. "The same, along with..." He reached over his shoulder and revealed a diamond sword, which he gave a couple showy swipes with before turning around and handing it to her handle-first. "A little something for when we need to get up close and personal with our manxome foe."

Sunset took the sword in one hand, reaching over her shoulder with the other to fetch her old one. The iron was cracked and worn, ready to break, and she knew it didn't have much left in it. She pressed the cool flat of the blade against her forehead. "Thank you..." she whispered before exchanging it for the new one, passing her old iron to Penn. He seemed surprised at her reaction, looking down at the iron with wide eyes that eventually melted into a satisfied smile.

"Tell ya what, Sunny... I'll give this one a spot in the library, I'll even frame it. Sound good?"

Sunset nodded. "Thanks. I know it's kinda silly, but that sword got us all the way here. Feels kind of wrong to just throw it away the minute I get something better, you know?"

"Makes sense to me!" Missy added. "Why don't I get a diamond sword?"

"Because the plan is for YOU never to get close enough to use one!" Penn declared, stepping past them and towards the door. "If you'd be so kind as to follow me, I cleared out a little space to go over our strategy!"

Sunset slipped the sword into its proper place before following close behind him. A short glance back showed Missy idly following along, more focused on her new magical bow than where she was going.

Penn led the three of them down and through the bunker until they arrived at one of the many side rooms he claimed was for storage. He had clearly expanded and redecorated it recently, with a fresh layer of carpet and what looked at first like haphazard and hurried torch placement. After a moment, however, Sunset realized that there was a definite pattern.

The outside edge of the carpet was pitch black at where it met the walls, but the inside was an island of white. Dotted in a circle around the center were blocks of obsidian, each topped with a single torch. In the center there was a hole, a gap two blocks wide and two blocks deep.

"Let's begin..." Penn strode to the center of the room before taking a confident stance. "Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to defeat the Ender Dragon and summon what could be a portal back to where we came from. To do that, we're going to have to seek out a portal to one more dimension, known as the End. Capital E." He gestured down to the room-sized map, then out to the edges. "The End consists of floating islands above a destructive void. If you fall off, you're not going to have more than a few seconds before you're completely consumed. The only one who would have any chance of survival is Missy, since she can use her wings and rockets to propel herself back up onto the island. Endermen will also be spawning everywhere... As far as we're concerned, they're functionally the only mobs who CAN appear on the island, given we don't bring any in with us." He looked up to Sunset and Missy. "Have you two ever fought an enderman?"

Sunset and Missy looked at one another, then both shook their heads.

"Alright... A quick run-down, then. Endermen are tall, bipedal humanoids with black skin and glowing purple eyes. They're strong, and fast to the point where most people mistake it for teleportation. Even with your new gear, you shouldn't take them lightly. Thankfully, they're generally peaceful, as long as you don't provoke them. However..." he leaned forward, giving each of them an intent stare "the one thing you must NEVER do is look an enderman in the eyes! No matter how far away they are, no matter how brief, they will come for you and attack you if you look them in the eyes! Got it?"

Sunset and Missy nodded. It's kind of nice to hear Penn talking like this again. He gets that confident aura around him when he knows what he's talking about.

"There IS a way to stop them from getting mad at you if you look at them, which we're going to be giving to Missy..."

"OOH! OOH! What is it?" Missy hopped up and down in her seat with excitement as Penn walked up to her, hands behind his back. After a moment of mischievous grinning, he removed her helmet with one hand... and used his other to slam a pumpkin down on top of her, completely covering her head.

"That."

"HEY!" Missy flailed to remove the carved gourd from her head, but Penn still had one hand planted firmly on top as he snickered away. "DO I LOOK LIKE GHOSTRICK LANTERN TO YOU?"

"A carved pumpkin worn on your head will stop you from aggravating any endermen you look at..." He rapped his knuckles against the surface, producing a hollow thunk. "But it's not exactly sturdy armor, so Sunset and I are going to stick with our helmets and common sense."

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Missy harrumphed, giving up on removing the pumpkin in favor of crossing her arms over her chest in a pout.

"It means YOU'RE going to be on a special mission!" Penn gave the pumpkin one more knock before returning to the center of the room. "The most important part aside from actually fighting the dragon, itself, is going to be dealing with the magical crystals scattered around the End!" He began to pace along the rough circle formed by the obsidian blocks. "There are somewhere between eight to ten obsidian towers on the island of varying heights, and each one has a crystal at the top that will heal the dragon if it gets any kind of injury. Before we can even THINK about beating the dragon, we're going to have to take all of them out. Usually, the worst danger of this fight comes from having to find a way to climb to the top of those towers or from giving too much of your attention to shooting the crystals from the ground and letting the dragon sneak up on you... but we've got a secret weapon!" He pointed to Missy, who was still pouting inside the pumpkin. "Missy can use rockets to fly around the end and take out the crystals with her infinity bow! Meanwhile, Sunset and I will be on the ground, keeping the dragon's attention on us and dealing as much damage as possible!"

"The dragon packs a real wallop, but that's why I spent an entire day working on getting the enchantments on your armor maxed out. The problem is that there are two more weapons I can't prepare us for nearly as well..." He began plucking the torches off of the obsidian. "Once she realizes what we're doing, she's not going to hold anything back. When the crystals are all gone, I suspect the real battle is going to begin... Her two greatest weapons are her fireballs, which explode into a huge puddle of poison on impact that your armor isn't going to do squat to protect you from, and the fact that she's huge and she knows it. If she hits you, you're going to go flying, so we're going to need to stick as close to the center of the island as possible, or we'll be flung into the void faster than you can say 'Dragonheart didn't need sequels-'"

"She?" Sunset interrupted.

Penn paused mid-step, as though Sunset's inquiry had caught him by surprise. After a second, he turned and sat down on a piece of obsidian.

"Sorry, yeah. It's more of a fun fact the creator brought up once that got accepted as canon, but the dragon IS female. In the original game, once you beat it, you find her egg, but there's no way to get it to hatch. That's... the part I'm trying not to think about. Guess it slipped out... Sunset, in the spirit of honesty, we don't know if this thing might be the last of its kind. There are ways to resurrect it once it's dead, but that would also destroy the portal we're working so hard to get, so we'd be back at square one." He reached over his back and grabbed at his netherite sword, looking at it sadly. "We don't even know for certain that portal will take us back home... and we'll not only be killing a majestic creature, but we might just be killing the LAST one."

Sunset felt a heavy weight come down on her shoulders.

"You mean- She's a mother? Just protecting her child?"

"When you kill the ender dragon, the achievement is called 'Free the End.' Most people think she isn't exactly a kind ruler to the endermen, or maybe even their natural predator." Penn shrugged slightly. "But yeah, she's a mother, and we'll be leaving behind an orphaned egg that'll never hatch without her. That's the truth of it."

The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Even Missy went quiet, the carved-in face of the pumpkin having changed from a smile to a frown.

"I... I don't think I can do that..." Sunset whispered.

"Isn't there... some other way?" Missy asked. "Maybe we can find another portal somewhere out there in the world! Like the one that brought us here!"

Penn's silence was all the answer that they needed.

"I... need some air." Sunset muttered, pushing herself up onto her feet and slipping out the door.

She didn't need help finding the way out, and she made sure to flick Penn's security system off before beginning the long ascent to the surface. It was nighttime outside the bunker, but Penn had made sure that the entire plateau was lit well enough to discourage any monsters from entering the area. She took a long, deep breath of the night air and looked up at the square-shaped full moon making its way up into the sky. After about a minute, Missy appeared beside her, now pumpkin-less.

"Whatcha thinkin', Sunny?"

"I'm thinking about if I can get used to seeing a cube moon."

"So... that's it. Either we stay stuck here, or we do something awful to get out?" Missy asked, her wings drooping slightly. "That's... it's not fair!" She folded her arms over her chest. "I thought games were supposed to be FAIR!"

Sunset felt inclined to agree, but she knew it wasn't true. Plenty of games weren't fair to their players. Plenty of things in life weren't fair, either. Why should this place be any different? It had laid out its rules and they had to follow them. Penn had thrived under those rules, exploiting them to his benefit until he had everything he needed to live comfortably forever. Sunset and Missy had barely scraped out their own survival under the same rules.

And the rule was that they had to kill the Ender Dragon to leave.

"But aren't rules made to be broken?" Missy's voice asked in her head, interrupting her thoughts.

If there was a way, don't you think Penn would have said so?

"So what? Penn doesn't know everything! Maybe if we put our heads together we can figure out a way!"

Sunset was about to turn to address Missy directly when a flicker of motion put her on-guard. She looked out towards the edge of the lighted area, only able to see dark shapes moving around past where she could see.

"Missy... I think we should head inside..." she whispered.

The two of them turned around, and Missy let out a fearful screech and latched on to Sunset's leg.

A wall of tall, dark figures had separated them from the door back into Penn's base. Sunset grabbed frantically for her new sword, Penn's warning already running back through her mind.

"Don't look at their eyes, don't look at their eyes, don't look at their eyes..." she repeated to herself as she focused her eyes down, staring at their long, thin legs and where their feet met the ground. Both of her hands were on her sword, but the creatures weren't outright attacking for the moment, so she kept on the defensive. She reached down with one hand and gently pushed down on Missy's head, just to be safe.

"Missy, put the pumpkin on... We're going to walk in the other direction, okay?"

Missy nodded, whimpering softly as she gripped tighter on Sunset's leg. Sunset started to turn around, but the bottom dropped out of her stomach as she realized that while they hadn't been looking, even more of them had closed in and surrounded them completely.

"O-okay... Okay, this is bad..." Sunset whispered. "I'm open to any ideas, Missy..."

"Run for the door and scream bloody murder? Penn will come back us up?"

"They're too fast... This many could beat us to a pulp before we made it down the stairs. We have to avoid a fight."

"I think it might be a little late for that!" Missy hissed.

Sunset slowly turned, finding herself staring at a full ring of dark legs. She had no way out.

She felt an unfamiliar touch on her shoulder.

"l̴̈́͌̀͛̽͝r̴̿͗̾̿̓̍p̶̧̰̐̌̏͌̊͝ ̵̡̢̩̭̘̯̰͕̈́͆̾̀̏̚͠ǘ̷̢̳̱̠̭̯̪̭̮̯̆̌̐̈́͛͘r̸̯̺̙̥̞̈́͐͘̕"

It was a mumble, incomprehensible to her as it garbled its way out of the entity behind her. Another one spoke, this time to her left.

"Ḧ̴̛̻͔͖͎̫͙̺̦͎̽͝g̷̿́́͑̔̍̾r̵̮͓̖̻̩̪͙̄̉̐̌̀̈́̏p̵̢̬̲̺̱̓̉̐̀̌̏͝ͅ ̶̔̍͋̈́ỹ̵̄̃̿͂̂̔r̷̔̎͐̀̐̂"

"Ĥ̴̻̰͇̩̮̤̥͕̯̯̮̓͒͛́͂̊̀̀̕v̵̘̮͎̇̽̏̚p̸͍͖̘͉̫̒̓͝ ̸̪̫̲̋̿́́̒͒̇̈̍́̍̚͘͠v̵͎̯̼̗͈̼̝͇̼͕̼́͋s̸̜̿̈́̋̀̎͐̐̃̿̍͘."

"R̴̺̼̘͐̀͆͜r̵͖̃̓̂̍̾͂͊́̅̉̀̈́̂p̸̮͎̦̋̓̇̈́͝ ̵̛̫̙̦̅̐̀̈́̀̇̂̀͊̑̕̚͠g̵̡͚̪͙̳̍́̉̎̇͒͋ș̷̨̞̯̀͑͒͛͑̈́̀̍̈́͒̊̃͌̓.̴̧̡̘̞͊̔͒̂̇͜͠ͅ"

They started speaking in turns, each repeating the mumbling of the former.

"I... I think they're trying to say something." Sunset whispered.

"What?"

"h̸̨̫̗͖̣̽͌̅̿̈́͗͜e̶̔̂͊̃͊̀̅̾f̵̛͑́́͒͆́̅͠͝͠ h̶͂̍̂̀̽̊͠s̵̛̛̼̳̩̞͈̿̍̀́̋̈́͘."

Sunset carefully loosened her grip on one hand, switching to a single-handed grip on her sword. Her other hand moved up, trembling as she inched her way up and across her chest.

This was NOT a good idea. In fact, this was a BAD idea. A very, VERY bad idea.

"H̷̛̭͔̟͛̂͑͘ȑ̴̲̊͆̈̕͝͠p̶̬̤͚̱͚̟̩̎̋̊̋͘͜͝ ̵̛͗͛̑̾́̕͜͠ş̴̨̨̫͕̙͎̼̅͆͛s̸͆̈́̏̍̚."

But these... things were trying to make some kind of point, some kind of message, and it was clear that they weren't going to let her leave until they'd delivered it.

She reached up and brushed her fingers against the enderman's leathery skin. It didn't flinch, nor did it seemed to be provoked by her actions. She took a deep breath, trying to force down her fear... and reached out with her magic.

She could see it. The End. It was huge, so much more than they had ever imagined. It stretched on for miles and miles. There was more than just the island. She could see entire cities of pale stone and purple bricks, places full of life, both plants and animals. Even if they were alien to her, she recognized life and happiness when she saw it. A true and honest civilization.

An ear-splitting roar ripped through the skies, and Sunset was forced to watch as a monstrous beast descended from the skies. She could only stare in horror as it devastated the populace. The beating of its wings was enough to send the people of the cities flying into the abyss below by the dozens. Its maw spit corrosive poison down on the scrambling endermen, and they fell en masse. One by one, the cities fell, the dragon corralling them closer and closer to the center of their world. Only the subservient and the fearful were left by the time they had been forced back into the center island. What had once been a proud people had become a race of refugees and slaves. Some had relented, building black towers as monuments to their new ruler. Some used their limited power to flee to other worlds, unfamiliar worlds in search of ones with the power to free them.

"H̴̨̤̰̠͉̼̯̙͍̬̩̋͛͆̉̂͐̃͘e̸̛̙̬̬̜̝͙̠͓͌̊̂͛͂̃͛̓͠͠l̴̻̖̩̎̏̋̏̂̀̒p̶͓̥̹̬̺̣̻̮̽͋̊̑̈́͝ ̴̨̢̘̠̻̥̈́̂̋̇̏̽̀̎̏̈́͜͝u̷̢͚͈̖̮͇̳̖̹͌̈́̀̂͆͐̐s̴̠͙̮͇͓̜͎̺͙͕̲͚̾̿̓̕͠."

"H̵̩̪̳̪̎̑͌̐͠è̵̞̬̟͎ĺ̷̡̊͊̓͋̚p̷̨̗̐̽͐͜ ̷͉͙̹̍̐̿̆̈́͜u̴̫̾̑̈́͘͜s̷͔̤͌̃̒͝͠"

"Help us..."

"Sunset? Sunset! Sunset, wake up!"

Sunset gasped as she returned to the present. Penn and Missy were both hunched over her, watching with concern. Penn had a half-empty potion bottle in his hand, and Sunset could taste the remains of a sweet liquid on her tongue.

"Sunset! Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, I think so..." Sunset pushed herself up into a sitting position.

"Those blasted endermen..." Penn growled, looking around suspiciously. "I'll get them for this..."

"Penn... Penn, cool it..." Sunset reached up, grabbing at his shoulder and pulling his attention back to her. "This is my fault. I tried reading one of their memories to understand what they were trying to tell us."

"You WHAT? Sunset, are you crazy?" Penn's eyes widened.

"Penn... They weren't trying to hurt us." Sunset pushed herself back onto her feet, ignoring the pounding in her head. She dusted off her diamond armor and picked her sword up from where it laid on the ground. "They were trying to ask for our help. I know we just said we don't want to kill that dragon, but it's been terrorizing them, even killing them en masse! It drove them from their homes, it's been doing it for years. We... We might be the only ones who even stand a chance of stopping it!"

Penn and Missy both looked at one another uncertainly.

"Sunset... that doesn't change what we said before about the dragon. It's still alone. Still a mother." Penn muttered.

"Maybe it is, but..." Sunset took a deep breath, trying to reconcile the two opposing motivations. "It's also killing and hurting innocent people. Somebody has to do SOMETHING."

For a moment, Penn's face became inscrutable, lost in thought before finally seeming to settle on a grim resolution.

"Alright. Let's get some rest for tonight. Tomorrow, we're going to free the End."

Sunset nodded, looping one arm around Penn's shoulders as they walked back down into his base. As she slept that night, she dreamed of those lost cities, of their empty halls and ruined towers. She felt the restless spirits there, heard their whispered wishes for freedom. She felt their hopes coming to rest on her shoulders, their wishes and dreams filling her soul.

The Ender Dragon had to go. Not just because it stood between her and returning home, but for the sake of all those who had waited so long to be free.

Penn sat quietly in the library. He had placed Isis's drone on the enchanting table so that he could look it in the eyes. Even if he wasn't talking to Isis, it helped to have a face to look at.

"So... she's going to do it. She's going to go slay the last dragon in this world... The last of its kind." He shook his head. "Evil or not, genocide is an awful thing to do... and I think she might be a bit misled."

"Those endermen probably conveniently forgot to show her the many dragon heads mounted on their ships. Figures." Reason muttered.

"If anything, I'd say the dragon's right to be upset, but... maybe it has gone too far..."

"Ha. We're ones to talk about going too far for revenge."

Penn nodded to himself and chuckled. "Fair point. Seems to me like both parties are in the wrong by this point. There's no good choices, but we're going to have to take the endermen's side if we ever want to get out of this place... The question is, can we let Sunset commit genocide like this? Right or wrong, something like that will leave an impact on her soul..."

"And what's the alternative?"

He reached over his shoulder, once again pondering his black netherite blade. He shivered violently as the memory of Salem's voice came to him.

Would you attempt to stop me? No matter the cost? Would you BURN this world down to its very foundations to protect her?

He tightened his grip on his sword and rose to his feet. He'd already found one of this world's strongholds. He'd hidden the tunnel leading there, he had been waiting for Sunset and Missy to be ready before he showed them what could be their only way home, just in case they refused to wait.

"People beat the Ender Dragon in single-player all the time. The alternative is to save her from having to make that choice. We'll do it ourselves."

Dark Void

It was dark.

He didn't like the dark any more.

This wasn't the right dark. It was cold. It was oppressive. It was trying to strangle him, getting into his lungs, into his blood. He was being eaten from the inside out. He could see the insects crawling around under his skin and in his guts, carrion beetles and spiders that came together from the bits of dark floating in his blood. This darkness was full of monsters, of grief, of the crushing weight of his own helplessness.

Then came the voice.

Boy, I asked you a question...

The very sound of her voice sent the bugs in his gut into a frenzy. He wanted to answer her. He screamed and shouted and begged and wept, offered everything, anything to let it all end, but no sound passed his lips. The things in the dark jeered and mocked him, waiting for their turn at the rapidly-dwindling scraps of him that were left. A pale hand with pitch-black veins lunged out of the dark and down his throat, pushing down through his chest and into his stomach. Sharp nails dug into the lining before pushing through, and then pulled upwards. He could do nothing to stop it as he felt himself being pulled inside-out. The hand re-emerged, holding a mushy pile of organs, insects still crawling in and out of the crevices.

"Barbaric, isn't it? Contrary to what you may believe about me, I DO loathe doing this to you."

He needed to hold on. Needed to stay alive. Sunset needed him. Sunset required him to survive this.

So he refused to die.

The arm released its grip, vanishing away and leaving him holding his own heap of organs. He was dying. He could feel it. But being "dying" was fine, dying was just a fancy way of saying "not dead yet." So long as he never reached dead, he could go back to Sunset.

"Why fight so hard to save a race of humans who are so awful?"

Not for humans. For Sunset. He gathered up his pile of himself and tried to walk forward. He just needed to take one step. Then another. Back into the light. It was like moving through mud. Cold, dirty, bug-infested mud.

"I feel you ought to know that time is running out for Sunset Shimmer."

He was alone. He couldn't voice his need, his deep desire, to just accept. To give up and make it all stop by taking the deal. Sunset would understand, right?

"She won't. She's GOOD. She wouldn't forgive you for joining the BAD GUYS..." Not-Real-Sunset gurgled as she limped by in the opposite direction. Her cloudy eyes lingered on his, and he couldn't look away. "Bad guys... She's not FRIENDS with bad guys..." She reached out with one mutilated hand, plucking out a piece of entrails from the pile cradled in his arms and inserting it into her mouth.

That was right. He couldn't take the offer because Sunset never would. And he couldn't go and save her from the bad guys if she hated him.

More Not-Real-Sunsets began to pass him, until he was passing through a horde of the undead.

"Why don't you save me?"

"What will you do?"

"Where are you when I need you?"

"How could you leave me alone?"

"Someone has to do SOMETHING!"

"Why won't you fight for what's RIGHT?"

"Why would you run away?"

Each one plucked another little bit from his exposed innards. It wasn't the fact that he was being plucked apart bit by bit that scared him, it was how little it hurt. Nothing but a thousand little pinpricks as he was torn apart, like being pinched.

Well that's because-

He let the "fun fact" drone on without listening. Nobody else listened to his fun facts. No wonder. So annoying.

"Saaave meee..." one Not-Real-Sunset hissed. That started a new trend in the crowd he was trying to push through, all beginning to echo that one in voices too familiar to him.

"Saave meeeee..."

"Whyyyy?"

"Why didn't yooou?"

"Why won't you saaaaave meeeee?"

He knew these weren't Real Sunset. Real Sunset wouldn't be begging to be saved. She wouldn't be telling him to save her over and over and over and over. Real Sunset would be charging in with her best intentions, and he'd be scrambling behind her and screwing up by protecting her when she didn't want it.

That was why they were all dead. All zombies, hollow shells being thrown at him. To break him. To tell him what he already was going to do and drive him mad at his inability to do it. But he wouldn't break. He WOULD do it. He would do whatever it took to make them stop. He would break THEM. Make THEM afraid... He just had to survive.

"And what could make her so special to you that you would become what you consider a monster just to keep her safe?"

His arms were empty. All of him had been plucked away, save for a few fleshy ribbons hanging from his mouth, just enough to continue making it impossible to speak. He couldn't explain. He couldn't tell her he WAS saving her. He was just another empty shell, plodding along in a sea of them.

"You know, you'd told me that you were willing to do ANYTHING to protect Sunset Shimmer. I'd had such high hopes for you... Everyone wants to watch the world burn when they're angry or bitter. Even those who would destroy everything for a loved one think they are following some noble purpose like 'true love' or 'honor.' However, I could see in your eyes that you had no qualms about what actually doing it would make you into, no misconceptions about what it would mean to burn it all down..."

That was right. He could still become a monster. He just needed to be a GOOD monster. Real Sunset would be friends with a GOOD monster, right?

He could see a light in the distance, fiery reds and oranges. He wanted to believe it was a sign of reprieve, but he knew it would be fleeting. It was a Sunset, not a sunrise. He could see her in the distance. He could hear the clicking of gun barrels opening behind him. He reached out, but found nothing to brace himself on as the turret's bullets slammed into him. He couldn't fall now, no matter how much he wanted to. If he did, those bullets would reach HER. His back exploded with pain, hot, burning, infected pain that filled the hollow where his innards used to be until he felt like he was about to rupture, like something was going to rip apart.

When the gunshots finally stopped, the last of his strength went with it. He fell, but he didn't receive the luxury of being able to rest. He was falling far and fast, locked inside a tin can full of wires and metal bits and pointy things. He was tumbling down through infinite space, unsure if there was Earth beneath him or simply more of the endless, cold, choking void. He wasn't shivering, any more. There was nothing left inside him to shiver. He'd been gutted and beaten and eaten... but he hadn't given in to the bad guys.

Just like a superhero would. Just like Sunset would want.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

He wasn't going to make it back to Earth this time. He was lost in eternity.

He began to count. He needed to know how many seconds there were in eternity. How many more seconds he would have to live like this.

Just for Sunset.

Penn bolted up in his bed, grabbing frantically at his chest. He instinctively began to pat himself down, checking that everything was in its proper place. He practically leapt from his bed, feeling like he was flying compared to the cold sludge he was wading through in his nightmare. He ran to the pool of water in the corner of his bedroom, checking his reflection.

No bloody entrails hanging from his mouth. No bugs crawling around under his skin. There was only the signs of a cold sweat and bloodshot eyes staring back at him. He let out a long breath, using one hand to splash the cold liquid onto his face several times. After several seconds of dripping, he changed his tactic and braced himself against the edge, plunging his entire head into the small, chilled pool.

It was just a nightmare. Just another nightmare, just like all the rest.

He waited as long as he could stand it before he finally pulled his head back out of the water. He didn't breathe a word as he walked to the chest that he kept in the corner specifically for this occasion. He shuffled through the contents before finally uncorking a bottle of shimmering pink liquid and pressing it to his lips. He knew he didn't need the regeneration effect the potion would give him, but the warm tingling and general sense of wellness it gave him always dissolved away the last vestiges of the shivers from his nightmare.

He checked the gold-rimmed clock mounted above his bed. By his estimation, it was still three hours before dawn.

He polished the last of the potion off, savoring the salty taste of the ghast tear that had gone into brewing it. It had quickly become his favorite of the potion flavors, since it was almost the same savory satisfaction of the gatorades he tended to drink back home, but with more "warm fuzzies" when he was done drinking and an absolute certainty it was healthy for him.

Three hours would be plenty of time. He sighed as he wiped the last drops from the corners of his mouth.

"Okay... let's do this."

Author's Note

Wanna give a shout-out to everyone who commented on the last chapter pointing out how Penn had "forgotten" about Sunset not wanting or needing to be rescued and being strong on her own. It was exactly the criticism I needed in order to realize that we weren't seeing enough from Penn's perspective to understand WHY he'd regressed a bit in terms of his relationship with Sunset.

I generally try to stick to Sunset's perspective as much as possible, but sometimes I get a little too caught up in that and forget to actually get the things I know about the characters across to YOU guys!

Thanks for getting me out of my own head, fellow adventurers! (Or, considering Penn is a self-insert, into my own head?)

The Dragonhearted

When Sunset awoke, it was to the uncomfortable feeling of someone shaking her shoulder back and forth.

"Sunset! Hey, Sunset?"

Sunset groaned as she forced her eyes open. She wasn't exactly AWARE of the time she spent asleep, but she thoroughly enjoyed it, and she was DEFINITELY aware of what it felt like to have that time interrupted. Groggy, tired, and frustrated.

"What, Missy?"

"Penn's gone."

Sunset knew that several of the more rational responses to this would be alarm, dismay, or concern. But she was simply too tired for any of that.

"Is he mining? Or in the library?"

"No! He's GONE! He left a note!" Missy walked back to the door to the room Sunset had been sleeping in, waving for her to follow.

Sunset groaned again and rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "If he had time to leave a note, is it REALLY an emergency?"

"Just come on!"

Sunset dragged her feet as she trudged down the hall, eventually finding herself in the main foyer. Missy was tapping her foot impatiently as she leaned on a wooden sign that hadn't been there previously.

Hey girls! I
wanted to
surprise you!

"Surprise us?"

Missy pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, where a second sign was waiting in the doorway opposite them.

Follow the
signs! Right
this way!

Sunset blinked, then rolled her eyes and began walking. "Okay... let's see what he's talking about."

The two of them followed one encouraging sign after another until they had once again found themselves standing in Penn's meeting room at the bottom of his base. Two more signs were fixed to the wall beside a wooden button.

Press the button
and just
keep walking!

Don't worry!
The doors
are smart!

Sunset and Missy looked at one another. Missy nodded before hopping up and bashing her fist against the button.

With the sound of shifting pistons and stone scraping on stone, the wall opened up, revealing a hidden tunnel. Somehow, Sunset still wasn't surprised, even when she could hear music coming from inside the walls.

She started walking, soon settling her pace to match the beat of the repetitive tune. Every time it seemed like she and and Missy had reached a dead end, the walls would move aside. They passed through makeshift doors of stone, granite, iron (blocks AND bars), ACTUAL doors, even doors made of different ores like coal or even gold. True to his word, each door opened in a timely manner, letting her through in just the nick of time. Thankfully, the tune eventually began to wind up higher and higher, implying a conclusion. The final doorway parted for her, and she could see a larger room on the other side and one last sign in the middle of the hallway. She leaned forward, trying to read the small print as she passed through the door, only to jump back as the stone bricks slammed shut again, cutting her off.

"GEEZ, that almost took my nose off!" Sunset reached up to her face to check it for damage, only to remember that her head was currently composed of a flat-faced cube. "Well, if I still HAD my nose..."

After a few seconds, the doors opened again. Sunset waited, watching for signs that the malfunction was going to repeat itself. When she was satisfied, she stepped through, finally able to read the last sign.

Gotcha!

Sunset narrowed her eyes before giving the sign an enthusiastic punch, knocking it to the ground.

"Okay, we need to have a SERIOUS talk about what is and isn't an okay prank," she muttered before turning to look at the room around them.

It was different from Penn's usual style of building, a room made of stone brick that used open pits of lava for decoration. The entire room was centered around a raised pedestal. Sunset slowly ascended the stairs, her eyes widening as she realized what was waiting at the top.

It was a ring of the same pale stone she had seen in her visions of the End, ornately decorated with green inlay and filigree. Each one was topped with what looked at first like a large green pearl. In the center of the ring was a pitch-black portal dappled with what looked like starlight. Even a few seconds of staring was enough to leave her awestruck, as if she had crammed a year's worth of stargazing into those few seconds. After a moment of staring, however, the pearls stared BACK, a blazing yellow iris at the center of each turning to look at her.

"WAUGH!" Sunset stumbled back, nearly falling back down the stairs. She grabbed for her sword, but after a few seconds of staring, the eyes seemed to lose interest, settling back to staring at the ceiling. "Okay... that's REALLY creepy..." She rubbed at the back of her head, then looked around for any other signs Penn had left. "Does he want us to go in that portal?"

Missy stepped up alongside her, staring at the portal with trepidation. "That's what I thought, too! But that's the portal to the END! He wouldn't have gone to fight the Ender Dragon without us, right? That's why I went back to get you!"

Sunset's eyes widened as she looked at the portal with new eyes.

"Come on, he was bragging about avoiding unnecessary risks while he was here... there's no way he would-" the statement died in her throat as she realized she didn't even believe it, herself. "Oh who am I kidding? He ABSOLUTELY would! Come on, let's gear up and get in there!" She began rummaging through her inventory, snagging her diamond armor and donning it with ease. A moment later, Missy was similarly decked out, her bow in one hand and her carved pumpkin in the other. The two of them looked at one another one last time, and Sunset wrapped her free hand around Missy's shoulders.

And the two of them jumped forward, into the black portal.

When Sunset opened her eyes, she was standing on an obsidian platform. The entire world had changed, opening out into a starless night sky above them, and a bottomless black abyss below. The two of them were standing on an obsidian platform in mid-air, staring at a cobblestone bridge leading to an island of pale stone. In the distance, she could see looming towers of black stone piercing up into the sky. It was exactly as she had seen it in her visions, but nothing could have prepared her for how empty it felt. It had only been a couple days, but she'd gotten used to the ticking, hissing, and shifting of all of Penn's machines seeping through the walls of his base, but there was no such noise here. All was silent outside of the occasional murmurs of the Endermen. The stagnant air smelled musty, like an attic being disturbed for the first time in a century, and the only signs of life were the occasional dark figure of an enderman staring absently into space.

"This place is spooky..." Missy whispered. "I call dibs once we clear out the previous owner."

"What do you mean, 'dibs?'"

"This place would be PERFECT for a new Ghostrick haunted house! We could run it year-round! Imagine the tourists!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "We're FREEING this place for the endermen, Missy, you can't call dibs on an entire dimension!"

Missy folded her arms over her chest, and Sunset was sure she was pouting underneath the hollowed-out pumpkin she was wearing for a helmet. "Well, I'm still building a summer home here when this is all over, or something!"

Before Sunset could ask her how she planned on even getting BACK here, their attention was drawn back to the island by a fearsome-sounding roar and a flash of violet light.

The dragon... It's still here. Sunset looked over to Missy, noticing that she already had spread her wings and grabbed her stack of fireworks.

"Be careful, Missy..."

"Ha, I should be telling YOU that! At least I can fly!" She chuckled before setting off one of the rockets, which propelled her into the eternally twilit sky. Sunset watched her go for a second before setting off on a sprint down the cobble bridge. She could hear more explosions and roars in the distance, drawing a small amount of comfort from it. If the dragon was fighting, then there was only one living person it could be angry at.

When she reached the island, a stairway had already been carved into the stone leading up to the surface of the main island, making it easy for her to reach the battlefield.

While the pale stone seemed resistant to damage, there was clear signs of battle. Numerous blocks from the overworld were scattered across the island haphazardly, many scorched or stained with noxious violet liquid. Half-built barriers and torn-apart walls made it clear that the dragon wasn't allowing even a moment's respite for Penn. Several of the towers had rivers of water flowing down from the top, forming small lakes at the bottom that the endermen were giving a wide berth. The most harrowing sight, however, was the numerous glowing green pearls scattered all over the island. She knew it was the only remains of what must have been many, MANY endermen who had tried to join the fight. With no sight of Penn at ground level, she paused to scoop up a few of the mystical items and stash them in her pocket.

High above, Sunset could hear the sound of a familiar voice screaming at the top of his lungs.

" COME ON, COME ON, I WANT YOU TO DO IT! COME ON, HIT ME! HIT ME!"

Sunset's eyes widened as she saw a great black form sweep down from the skies, bearing down on a far-off pillar on the other side of the island. The dragon flew straight into the top of the pillar, only to be greeted by an explosion that shrouded the entire top in smoke. From the smoldering remains came a single projectile, a pearl that arced long and far through the air before landing just in front of her.

VWOOP!

The moment the pearl made contact with the ground, a still-smoking Penn appeared in the spot, wiping a thick layer of soot from his forehead on the back of his hand. His black armor had taken a beating, beginning to look like it was wearing thin in places and even exposing a few small holes in the back among a sea of purple stains.

"I've GOT to be wearing her down by now..." he muttered to himself, nibbling on a gold-colored apple as he watched the dragon scramble to regain her bearings.

Sunset narrowed her eyes, tightening her grip on her sword as she marched up to him from behind. She took the handle in both hands like a baseball bat and held nothing back as she slammed the flat of the blade against him, knocking him off-balance and sending him to the ground. His eyes grew as wide as dinner plates when he finally got a good look at his assailant.

"S-Sunset?"

"ARE. YOU. CRAZY?" Sunset punctuated each word with another slap from the flat of her bade. "WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. HERE?"

His expression shifted from one of shock to alarm as he pointed over her shoulder. "SUNSET!"

Sunset glanced over her shoulder, catching sight of an incoming purple fireball, crackling and dripping purple liquid. She didn't even think, acting on instinct (and old habits Rainbow Dash had taught her) as she adjusted her grip, pivoted on one heel, and swung her sword into the flaming projectile, knocking it back in the direction it had come from. The fireball caught the Ender Dragon's wing, sending it spiraling out of control and plummeting out of sight past the edge of the island.

"I AM BUSY, HERE! YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT YOUR TURN!"

"WOO!" Missy cheered and pumped her fist as she skidded to a landing beside them. "Return to sender!"

"Sunset, what are YOU-" Penn stopped as he reached into his pocket, retrieving a golden clock. "Has it been that long, already? I thought I'd have it beaten by now..."

"BEATEN? We were supposed to do this TOGETHER!" Sunset scowled as she reached down and grabbed at the front of his chestplate, pulling him up until their faces were inches apart. "Do you LIKE giving me and Missy heart attacks? What were you THINKING?"

"I- I- I was- I just-" he stuttered and stumbled over his words, and Sunset could already tell that he was searching for a lie to cover his tracks. "I just wanted to surprise you with an easy trip home!"

Sunset didn't relent on her scowl, simply raising one eyebrow and leaning in closer.

"I- I was worried about if you'd be okay here after the endermen ganged up on you last night!"

"Penn..." Sunset growled, giving his chestplate a shake to drive her displeasure home. "You can't LIE to me..."

"Okay, OKAY, I GIVE!" He raised his hands in a show of surrender. "But can we deal with the flying death lizard, first?"

Sunset knew that there was a time and a place for getting angry, a lesson she'd learned the hard way at the Friendship games, and this was neither. She sighed and let go of his chestplate, letting him finally get up on his own.

"You'd better have a REALLY good reason for this..." She muttered.

"Would you believe I didn't want my best friend to be responsible for wiping out the last of an endangered species?" he muttered in return.

Sunset's eyes widened as she turned to stare at him. "Oh so YOU get to do it by yourself? Did you think about maybe ASKING your best friend what she thought?"

"Um, guys?"

"Well forgive me for thinking you wouldn't want to go back to being the BAD GUY! Considering your history, I thought that might be an issue for you!"

"Oh, don't you START with the whole 'I know things you don't' shtick!" Sunset pointed an accusatory finger at him as her temper flared up again, spurring more arguments out of her mouth. "Just because you know my history doesn't mean you can do my thinking FOR ME! The last person who did that was Princess Celestia, and we both know what happened after THAT!" She gestured to the numerous ender pearls on the ground around them. "And how is freeing the endermen being the bad guy?"

"Guys, is this REALLY the time?"

"Because the endermen wiped out its whole race! The dragon's just evening the score!" Penn placed his hands on his hips as Sunset's eyes widened. "Yeah, they didn't mention the dragon heads they keep mounted on their ships, did they?"

"That doesn't make what it's been doing RIGHT! Two wrongs don't make a right! And why didn't YOU mention it?"

"Because if you changed your mind about killing the Ender Dragon, then we were never going to get OUT of here, and I PROMISED to get you home!"

Before Sunset could fire back another response, Missy's shrill voice cut through their argument.

"GUUUUUUUUYS! THE DRAGON'S COMING AND SHE ISN'T NEARLY AS CONFLICTED ABOUT KILLING US AS YOU ARE ABOUT KILLING HER!"

Both of them finally managed to tear their attention away from the other long enough to look up and see the black beast bearing down on them, its blocky maw open wide and brimming with flames. Sunset lunged forward, tucking herself into a tight roll just out of reach of its claws before jumping back to her feet, now facing the menace.

Right or wrong, looks like we're locked into this fight... Life or death.

Her eyes widened as she realized Penn hadn't managed the same smooth dodge she had, managing to avoid being snapped up in its fangs only to have one of the wings slam into his chest. Terror gripped at her as she watched him be lifted up into the air...

and sail over the edge of the island, plunging out of sight.

"PENN!" Sunset and Missy both screamed together as the dragon sailed off into the sky to prepare another attack. Sunset sprinted for the edge of the island, praying for some sign he had managed to save himself. As she ran, her mind was already racing, trying to devise a plan. She thought carefully about the equipment she had been given, the items she was carrying with her, and the information Penn had given her the night before.

He'd said that the void below would consume them. Like the shadow realm? That means death isn't instant, if we can just get him back up here-

Sunset grinned as a plan finally came together in her mind. The edge of the island was coming up fast, and there was no sign of Penn making a comeback. She was going to have to rescue him.

"MISSY! Follow my lead!" Sunset shouted. As the last blocks passed under her feet, Sunset took a deep breath, grabbed the items she needed from her inventory... and jumped.

"I hope you know what you're doooiiiiiiiinnnnng!"

Sunset felt her stomach rise up into her throat as she began to accelerate downward, the wind whipping past her with greater and greater noise in her ears. She could SEE Penn ahead of her, already deep in the darkness. Sunset tightened her focus, trying to draw on every time Rainbow had roped her into a game of dodgeball or baseball, all the times she and Twilight had drawn up physics diagrams of an object in motion... and reeled back her arm, throwing one of the ender pearls down into the dark with all of her strength.

VWOOP!

She wasn't sure what to expect, but a few seconds later, she felt herself violently jerked as she was ripped through spacetime. A second later, she was face-to-face with Penn, falling just inches above him as the shattered remains of the used-up pearl dissolved to dust.

"Sunset! What are you-"

Sunset didn't respond, wrapping one of her arms around his neck and pulling him upwards until they had swapped places, and she was facing upwards. Her other hand whipped forward, throwing another pearl straight back up into the sky. She could feel the deadly nature of the void already beginning to sting at every inch of her skin, ignoring her enchanted armor completely.

"MISSY! CATCH!"

Sunset held her breath, trying not to scream as the pain intensified by the second. She focused on the moment, on the world around her and her orientation in it. She couldn't afford to lose her sense of direction, not now.

VWOOP!

They were back in the sky, still below the island, but much closer. Missy was staring, wide-eyed at their arrival as Sunset caught her bearings and flung one last pearl. Here goes our best landing strategy...

"Hang on tight!"

Missy instantly clung onto the two of them, forming a tight bundle of bodies.

VWOOP!

A moment later, Sunset felt herself yanked violently one last time, dragging her friends through the momentary tear in spacetime until they landed with a grunt in a pile, once again on solid ground. Sunset gasped for air as she felt her body practically explode with pain, the numerous imperfect teleports finally catching up with her and taking their toll. The pain was only slightly remedied when Penn and Missy both rolled off of her, taking their collective weight off of her chest.

No one spoke for several seconds, collectively catching their breath after their brush with death. Finally, Penn broke the silence between them.

"I'm sorry... I just... wanted to be the bad guy so you wouldn't have to be... I didn't want something like this on your conscience. If I can do it for you... why shouldn't I?"

"Because... I didn't ask you to be my bodyguard... or my 'conscience-guard'... or whatever..." Sunset panted. "I just want you to be my friend. Friends talk to each other..."

There was another long pause. Sunset felt a cool, round object place itself in her palm. She lifted it up to her face, gnawing into the gilded apple Penn had given her. She felt a cool, soothing sensation spread over her body, finally assuaging the stinging on her skin and beginning to let her strength trickle back.

"I'm not okay, Sunset... In the head, I mean."

"It's okay to not be okay."

"Like, I think I'm REALLY messed up from..." he trailed off, but Sunset knew what he was talking about.

"Anyone would be. You almost died. But you NEED to talk about it." She used her returning strength to push herself into a sitting position. Penn was still laying on the ground, tears rolling down his face and carving clean tracks into the soot from the earlier explosion. For a moment, their eyes met, and he reached up to pull his helmet down over his face as if he was ashamed of the show of emotion. "Do you remember that promise we made in Aperture? 'No more machismo'? When this is all done, I'm invoking it. You NEED to talk about what happened if you're going to deal with the trauma in a healthy way."

He shuddered, a muffled sob seeping out from the edges of his helmet. Sunset could feel her heart breaking to see her friend still in so much pain, even after more than a month since he'd escaped and come home to them.

"Uhm, look I know you're making a big breakthrough and all, but I have to point out we're still in a battle for our lives, here!" Missy interrupted, pushing herself back up to her feet.

Sunset sighed and rocked forward, pushing up onto the balls of her feet and into a standing position. She watched Penn take a long, deep breath before nodding and removing his helmet from his face. She offered her hand to him, and he gave her a grateful smile as he took it. His not-insubstantial weight nearly pulled her to the ground rather than pulling him up, but she managed to help him to his feet.

"Now then... what's the plan?"

Penn glanced between the three of them, only taking a moment to wipe the tear tracks off of his face before giving them a smile.

"I think... I have an idea."

"HEY! OVER HERE, YOU BIG PALOOKA!" Missy shouted as she sailed past the dragon. The monster snapped at her, nearly eating her completely in a single bite as it missed by the smallest of margins. Sunset tried not to let her worry for Missy's safety overwhelm her common sense. This was exactly what they'd brought her here to do, and she was doing it well.

She and Penn were both waiting behind one of the pillars. Penn had taken advantage of Missy's distraction to build a small wall out of cobblestone, a safety measure to be sure neither of them could be blown or knocked over the edge again. Sunset had an arrow already notched in her enchanted bow, and Penn was drawing back the string to load a vicious-looking crossbow.

"How come YOU get the crossbow and the two of us use regular old bows and arrows?" she whispered.

"Because you can't put the 'infinity' enchantment on a crossbow. Every arrow has to count, and I've had more practice than you..." he muttered.

"Bet you ten bucks I can beat you in target practice..." she grinned to herself as the two of them peeked around the sides of the pillar.

Penn seemed to ignore her challenge, more focused on the matters at hand. "Okay, Missy's bringing her in close, you ready?"

Sunset drew back her bow and watched carefully as Missy flew in closer and closer, the dragon nipping at her heels.

"NOW!"

Sunset and Penn both sprung out from behind the pillar, unleashing their arrows on the dragon as Missy pulled up and rocketed out of their targeting range. Despite her earlier joking about wanting a crossbow, Sunset was glad to have the bow Penn had made for her. Every time she let an arrow fly, another would appear in its place, already strung and ready to draw. Penn's crossbow seemed to be making a heavy impact of its own, letting loose three arrows at a time in a spread across the dragon's face and wings, and despite having to manually load his arrows, he was keeping up with her rate of fire well enough.

The dragon roared in pain and shook its head, rearing back as purple flames began to escape its mouth.

"COVER!"

Sunset and Penn both leaped back behind the obsidian, barely avoiding the purple flames and boiling acid breath that came washing around the sides. Sunset took a deep breath, trying to keep calm as the inferno raged around them. She heard the sound of a potion bottle breaking, and Penn took a deep breath before running around the corner and into the flames. A second later, there was another explosion, the sound of pained roaring, and the flames stopped. The noxious fumes remained, however, so Sunset stayed put and waited. A haggard-looking Penn managed to stumble back into safety, his armor smoking and soot-covered as he wolfed down another golden apple.

"So... WHY do beds explode here, again?" Sunset asked.

"I think it was half a joke from the developers, half to stop people from setting their spawns outside the overworld." Penn coughed a bit as the fumes of the acid finally dispersed. "Either way, folks figured out it was the best darn weapon we could get against the dragon... if we can get it in close."

"And HOW don't you blow yourself up in the process?"

He shrugged and smiled at her with false innocence. "Easily with grace and skill?"

Sunset rolled her eyes and gave him a pat on the top of his helmet. "And VERY strong armor, I'm guessing..." She rose to her feet and peeked out again, catching sight of something that took her aback.

"Penn? I think we have a problem..."

"What is it?"

"I think it's caught on to our plan." Sunset pointed towards the center of the island, Penn stepping out behind her to get a look for himself.

The dragon had landed on top of the bedrock formation in the center of the island, perched comfortably on the fountain-like structure where the portal home was supposed to appear. She was staring directly at them, glowing purple eyes narrowed in a hateful glare at their hiding place.

"Well, if she's going to sit still..." Penn leveled his crossbow, letting off a single shot. The dragon responded with a small rustle of its wings. Even the small movement seemed to carry enough force to protect it, pushing the arrow away in a gust of wind before it could reach its intended target. "Oh. Well, never mind, then..." he muttered bitterly.

"What do we do?"

"I think... we're going to have to play her game. Get in close and finish the job with swords. Without the healing crystals, she's got to be on her last legs by now."

"I was afraid you were going to say that..."

"If you would prefer to stay here, I don't mind-" Sunset turned around, giving him an angry look. His mouth instantly shut, his lips drawing into a tight line. "Or not."

"On the count of three." Sunset exchanged her bow for her sword, gripping it tight with both hands. "One... two... THREE!"

As the two of them leapt from their hiding place, the dragon was ready, unleashing another fireball towards them. Sunset exchanged a knowing glance with Penn before the two of them split in opposite directions, flanking the dragon from two sides. The dragon seemed to focus its attacks on Penn, attempting three more times to blast him with fireballs, only to find him always a step ahead thanks to his careful use of ender pearls. Sunset took advantage of the distraction, running in unassailed and reaching the dragon in a matter of seconds. Just as she was almost within reach, the dragon caught sight of her and began to beat its wings. Sunset's eyes widened as the hurricane-like winds threatened to blow her away completely. Her only reprieve was to fall to one knee and drive her sword into the stone under her feet, keeping her grounded as she was pushed back further and further. She wasn't becoming airborne, but she was losing ground by the second as she was locked down by the windy assault.

The action, however, had left Penn free to move in, leaping up and grabbing the wing at the joint halfway up the dragon's body. In less than a second, he had managed to gain enough of a foothold to climb up onto its back. Sunset could barely make out the sight of him as he began assaulting the wings, hacking at the joints with his black sword. The dragon roared in pain as the winds relented. She breathed a sigh of relief and gave her sword a hard pull... only to find it stuck in the rock. She pulled again, but the diamond hilt refused to budge.

"Oh come on! Can SOMETHING go right today? PLEASE?"

"SUNSET! LOOK OUT!"

Sunset's head snapped up, just in time to see another fireball flying in her direction. She abandoned the sword, diving out of the way. She could only watch as the fireball struck her embedded sword and exploded, leaving blue shards scattered all around. She started running again as the poison from the flaming projectile began to spread over the ground, turning her attention back to the dragon. Penn had moved up, wrapping one arm around the dragon's neck to stop himself from being thrown off while his other hand slashed haphazardly at its head with his sword, stopping it from launching another fireball. Trying to avoid getting blown away again, Sunset ran in a strafing motion towards the dragon, her mind racing as she tried to determine what to do now.

Its wings are free as long as Penn is focused on stopping the fireballs, so arrows won't work! And my sword is GONE! There has to be a way to get in there and do my part! I just need to-

"S-Sunset! CATCH!"

Sunset watched as Penn released his hold on the dragon's neck, letting it fling him up and into the sky. Mid-flight, he threw a silvery-colored object in her direction. Sunset's eyes widened as she realized what it was, and she changed course to catch it, managing to land the grip perfectly in her hand. Re-armed, she ran in at the dragon directly, making a beeline for its head. At the same time, she could see Penn falling faster and faster, both hands on his sword. The dragon focused its eyes on her, belching out another noxious fireball, but Sunset was ready. She rolled down and under it, feeling the heat of it singe her through her diamond armor, before arriving back at her feet just underneath it. With both hands, she jabbed her faithful iron sword upwards at the dragon's chin. At the same time, Penn's netherite blade pierced from above as he landed on its head, driving it downwards and onto Sunset's blade. There was a sickening squelch, the snap of the iron blade breaking off inside the dragon's skull, the feeling of hot liquid running down her hands and arms, and everything fell silent.

The reality of what they had done began to sink in, and Sunset reached out, stroking the creature's throat.

"I'm sorry, but this revenge has gone on long enough. It's time for you to go be with the rest of your kind..." she whispered.

Sunset's eyes widened as violet light began to glow from the dragon's wounds, seeping out gently at first and building until it was a brilliant ray. She head the sound of boots colliding with the stone as Penn hopped down from the dragon's head. He had a somber look on his face as he began to back away, never taking his eyes off of the dragon's body. Sunset followed his example, stepping back watching as the dragon defied gravity and began to rise. Hissing and popping began to seep out, and more cracks and lights appeared in its scales. It floated higher and higher, small explosions of dragonfire running along its body, growing in size until it looked as if its entire body was dissolving into purple fireworks. Finally, there was one massive explosion, the sound of a final, mournful roar... and it was gone.

The last Ender Dragon was gone.

"I... I'm not proud of what we did..." Penn whispered. "But for what it's worth, you were amazing out there today. Especially that time you saved me from certain death, and all... Thanks for that, by the way."

Sunset nodded. "A-Any time..."

"WOOOO! THAT. WAS. FANTASTIC!" Missy screamed, crashing headfirst into Sunset and knocking her to the ground. "It was all like 'GRR I'M GONNA BLOW YOU INTO THE ABYSS!' and you were all like 'Not today, creep!' and then it was like 'WELL YOU CAN'T FIGHT WITH NO SWORD! PEW PEW BOOM!' and Penn was like 'Joke's on you, she's GOT a sword right here!' and then you tag-teamed it for the final blow and it was SO COOL!"

In spite of the somber tone, Sunset chuckled and gave Missy's hair a gentle stroke. "I'm just glad everyone's okay. I was worried Penn was going to die just from falling from that far up!"

"Well, let's just all thank goodness for the 'feather falling' enchantment..." Penn muttered as he walked up to the portal. Sunset watched as he began placing down blocks, covering a small area of it. In a matter of seconds, he had set up a piston just above and to the side of the bedrock. Without hesitation he placed down a lever and flipped it on, activating the piston and pushing an object she almost hadn't noticed out of place. Like any broken block it seemed to pop and shrink, allowing him to catch it in his hands before walking back to the two of them.

"Take a good look, ladies... The last Ender Dragon egg..." he whispered.

Sunset's eyes widened as she looked at the pitch-black egg cradled carefully in his hands. "I almost forgot... Is it really not going to hatch without its mother here?"

Penn sighed and shrugged his shoulders wistfully. "We'll take it with us. If it's actually viable, then if anyone can figure out a way to get it to hatch, it's Isis..."

Sunset nodded, feeling slightly better. We'll make sure it's well taken care of...

The three of them walked around to the un-blocked side of the portal. It looked identical to the portal that had brought them to the End, and nothing like the one that had brought them into this universe, but she was still keeping her hopes up.

"Everybody ready?"

"YOU BET! I wanna really fly again!" Missy shouted, jumping up into the air and pulling her legs up to her chest. "CANNONBALL!"

She slipped through the portal without so much as a ripple in its surface, leaving Penn and Sunset staring at one another, now alone. Sunset took a deep breath, stepping forward. Her trip was halted by a sudden grab at her arm, yanking her back and away. She turned back to Penn, a question already forming on her lips when he spoke.

"Look, I know after how I acted I don't have any right to ask you for anything, but... Can-" he looked down and away, his face flushing with embarrassment. "Can we go through together? I don't want to be alone... Not with myself. Not again."

Sunset smiled, wrapping her other hand around the one holding her arm and moving it down until they were holding each other's hands. His grip was painfully tight, but she could bear it.

"You ready?"

"Y-yeah..."

"Let's go."

Together, the two of them stepped forward, hopping off of the edge of the bedrock and into the black portal.

It did not take her long.

Sunset Shimmer? No. The other was quite helpful to her, once properly motivated.

She can see us. Hear us, for the moment.

Are you concerned? She has come closer to the truth than most. She will see it, given time. Or perhaps she already has seen it, and it was beyond her understanding.

Much like ________, it is hidden to her.

Perhaps if we could show her how close she is to the truth, she could find her own way to it?

Too soon, too soon. We would drive her further away. Perhaps another vision? A story, even.

She already has a storyteller. We mustn't overinundate her. Be gentle.

A snake cries out in pain, for the end of its tail has been bitten. It is a long and old snake, having lived many, many years in peace and monotony. It begins to travel, burrowing under and climbing many a wall and barrier that had been built whilst it rested, invading and crossing borders that it had itself played an unwitting role in drawing. It journeys long and far, braving many dangerous and hunters, until it finally arrives at the end of its own tail...

There, it finds a tasty-looking frog perched on the tip. It has traveled far and is hungry, and lunges for the frog, but instead bites its own tail, unwittingly swallowing itself. Far, far away, the snake cries out in pain, for its tail has been bitten. It is a long and old snake, having lived many, many years in peace and monotony. It begins to travel, burrowing under and climbing many a wall and barrier that had been built whilst it rested, invading and crossing borders that it had itself played an unwitting role in drawing. It journeys long and far, braving many dangers and hunters, until it finally arrives at the end of its own tail...

We could continue forever, but nothing would happen. We could stop, but we will have failed to tell the story in full and denied it the justice any tale deserves...

Most especially the true ones.

She will find herself there... And she will find the truth, just as she already has.

Ah. There he is. Or, perhaps, there he will be. It's hard to tell. My memory is exactly what it used to be, after all.

✌︎❒︎♏︎ ⬥︎♏︎ ♏︎♋︎❒︎●︎⍓︎ ♋︎♑︎♋︎♓︎■︎✍︎

It would appear so, though not so early as we were last. Perhaps we should go. Seeing me does tend to cause such a fuss from humans...

👌︎◆︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎ ❍︎◆︎⬧︎⧫︎ ♋︎●︎●︎ ❍︎♏︎♏︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♏︎❖︎♏︎■︎⧫︎◆︎♋︎●︎●︎⍓︎📬︎

Yes. I hardly understand why they are so off-put. There is no point to it, after all. My visits can be quite the relief to many.

🕈︎♏︎ ⬥︎♓︎●︎●︎ ⬧︎♏︎♏︎ ♒︎♓︎❍︎ ⬧︎□︎□︎■︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎□︎◆︎♑︎♒︎📬︎ ✋︎ ♒︎♋︎❖︎♏︎ ❍︎♓︎⬧︎⬧︎♏︎♎︎ ♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♍︎□︎❍︎◻︎♋︎■︎⍓︎📬︎

Unexpectedly for a human, so have I. I remember the discussions we shall have over tea. A naive little fellow, but entertaining in how hard he tries to understand. And so stubborn. Reminds me of my granddaughter.

☟︎♓︎⬧︎ ♐︎♓︎❒︎⬧︎⧫︎ ❖︎♓︎⬧︎♓︎⧫︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ⬧︎□︎□︎■︎📬︎ 👍︎♒︎♋︎❍︎□︎❍︎♓︎●︎♏︎✍︎

Oh, I believe we should go with an herbal blend. I'll take Binky home and go put the kettle on. Perhaps you would like to stay and watch here? I'm certain his first crossing will be quite the spectacle on this side. I've seen it.

✋︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ❒︎♏︎♍︎□︎❍︎❍︎♏︎■︎♎︎ ♓︎⧫︎📪︎ ♓︎ ♌︎♏︎●︎♓︎♏︎❖︎♏︎ ♓︎ ⬧︎♒︎♋︎●︎●︎📬︎ 🏱︎♏︎❒︎♒︎♋︎◻︎⬧︎ ♓︎ ❍︎♋︎⍓︎ ♑︎●︎♏︎♋︎■︎ ⬧︎□︎❍︎♏︎ ◆︎⬧︎♏︎♐︎◆︎●︎ ❒︎♏︎♋︎♎︎♓︎■︎♑︎⬧︎📪︎ ♋︎⬧︎ ⬥︎♏︎●︎●︎📬︎ 👍︎□︎■︎⬧︎♓︎♎︎♏︎❒︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ♋︎■︎ ♏︎⌧︎◻︎♏︎❒︎♓︎❍︎♏︎■︎⧫︎📬︎

As I've told you before, it is quite futile, but if you insist...

Sunset opened her eyes, suddenly returned to reality. She knew that whatever was on the other side of that portal, there had been a gap between then and now. Something had happened, but she couldn't quite remember it, like it was on the tip of her tongue or a half-remembered dream. Something about a snake, maybe? A story?

She shook her head, dispelling the last of her grogginess. She doubted it was important, if she was having so much trouble remembering it. If it was, she was sure it would come to her.

She tried to sit up, only to find her movements restricted, and several sharp angles pointing into her torso. She sat up as best she could, looking down at herself.

First and foremost, she was back to normal again, which was a relief. She was back to her rounded, normal self, fingers, toes, and all.

Secondly, the diamond armor she was wearing had NOT undergone such a transformation, stiff and composed of purely right angles. All around her, she could see the items that had been in her "inventory" scattered around on the ground, as if the logic-defying space had vomited everything inside it out into the world before disappearing.

"Oh. Well... that's inconvenient."

A quick glance to her side revealed an unconscious Penn in a similar predicament, though he was buried in a small avalanche of cubes of cobblestone and redstone elements. The black dragon egg was safely settled beside his head while he slept, back to its full size of at least two and a half feet tall.

"Sunset Shimmer? Are you there? Signal to your device was lost for a short period of time."

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as Isis's voice echoed through the armor out of her pants pocket.

"Isis... I have a LONG story for you... but first I think we're going to need a new repair drone to help us get out of this armor and excavate Penn..."

"Affirmative. A replacement is inbound. Welcome back."

"Oh! Also, we have a dragon egg we need you to take a look at!"

There was a long pause, uncharacteristic for Isis.

"Is it a Chiracian dragon egg?"

"Its... an Ender Dragon egg? What's a Chiracian dragon?"

"It is of no concern. A specialized transport will be arriving soon to take it to a safe location for incubation, protection, and study."

"Thanks, Isis. I knew we could count on you!" Sunset nodded, shuffling as best she could to try and squirm out of the now-ill-fitted armor.

"From your manner of speaking and sudden acquisition of new items, I presume the portal was prone to time dilation?"

"Y-Yeah!" Sunset tried to get her arms out of the shoulders of the diamond chestplate without dislocating them. "It's been a week for me and Missy, a month for Penn!"

"Meaning that Penn has been without his medication for a month?"

"Medication? Penn takes medication?"

"Seratonin reuptake inhibitors. For his depression. A month without them would prove quite detrimental to his mental state."

Sunset glanced over at Penn, several things starting to make sense in her mind.

"I'll make sure he starts taking them again as soon as he wakes up, Isis."

"Thank you."

Author's Note

THIS NEXT ARC
SEEMS
VERY
VERY
INTERESTING
...
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK

Phenomenal Cosmic Power.... Itty Bitty Headspace

Sunset swallowed nervously as the robotic dragon glared at her, trying to repress the urge to move for her lightsaber and antagonize it. Unlike most of the other drones she had seen, this one didn't have Isis's warm pink accents, but ones of sapphire blue, and it was looking at her like it wanted to rip her throat out. She didn't know that a machine could manage to have malicious body language, but this one somehow pulled it off. It was much larger than Isis's repair drones, even with the low, ready-to-pounce position it seemed to be constantly standing in its head easily reached the midpoint of her chest.

"So let me get this straight, Penn..."

It growled in a low, male voice that sent shivers running up Sunset's spine.

"You... YOU killed a dragon? AND STOLE her child?"

"Noir... you of all people should know that if I was willing to do it, it was more nuanced than that. We had no choice. The dragon was feral and bloodthirsty, and it was standing between us and getting home." Penn folded his arms over his chest. "We took the egg because we knew it wouldn't survive without help, and I called YOU because you're the best one I could think of!"

"Oh, so if I were to kill a human, would you expect me to send YOU the infant to raise by yourself?"

"If you'd prefer Sunset and I raise it, I would be happy to! But we don't know what it needs in order to hatch!" Penn leaned in closer as the robotic dragon began to growl. "If you just want to be our consultant rather than an actual force in the life of this dragon who's the last of its kind due to overhunting, fine! But I would expect you to have a little more empathy about the whole situation!"

Penn didn't flinch as a panel in the dragon's back opened up, revealing a dangerous-looking weapon mounted on an articulating arm.

"Don't you DARE play that card with me! And WHO, exactly, was the one who just polished off the last one? Congratulations on joining the ESTEEMED league of dragonslayers, by the way!"

Penn reached out and knocked the gun barrel to the side. "Then get that THING out of my face! We both know you're not going to use it!"

Sunset turned to the small drone perched on her shoulder, which was thankfully under Isis's control, rather than this "Noir" individual. "So... THIS is your creator?" she whispered.

"Negative. That is a specially designed remote drone the Administrator is piloting from his home."

"But he IS the one who made you?" Sunset clarified.

"Affirmative. Administrator Noir built all of the original hardware of the Integrated Superior Intelligence System, and my original virtual synaptic network was built upon a framework derived from his own brain scans."

"You're based on HIS brain?" Sunset glanced back as she watched the two boys devolving into a shouting match. "I... hardly see the resemblance."

"I have gone through many, MANY updates and revisions since Version 1.0."

"Should we... try to get them to calm down?" Sunset gripped the egg a little tighter against her chest. "And are you sure that we can trust him with the egg?"

"While he comes across as aggressive towards humans, the Administrator would gladly die before seeing harm come to a dragon under his care again."

Sunset blinked. "Wait... again? I thought Penn said that there weren't any dragons where you come from?"

"That answer is complicated, and cannot be given in full as it relates directly to my creator."

Sunset groaned inwardly as she found herself crashing headfirst into that ever-present barrier to learning more about Isis.

"Don't worry too much. Noir's a misanthrope, but he's not a mis-draco-pe!" Missy added as she floated past. "And what's the point of keeping it secret, Isis? She already saw him once in Penn's head when we pulled him out of that coma!"

"Wait... what?" Sunset blinked a few times, trying to remember what Missy was talking about. "Missy, the only people in Penn's head were me, you, and Penn!" She shuddered slightly as an unpleasant memory came back to her. "And your big sis..."

"And Nooooiiiiiiirrrrr...." Missy sang as she floated away, drifting past Penn and Noir's argument as if they weren't even there.

Sunset looked more closely at the larger drone, her eyes narrowing as she felt it tugging up an image from deep in her memory. "Wait... No. NO! It can't be!" She looked over to Isis for affirmation. "HE was that tiny dragon at the bar with-"

She cut herself short as a bolt of light whizzed past her head, singeing off several strands of her hair as it passed. Slowly and carefully she turned back towards the larger drone, seeing the weapon on its back now pointed in her direction.

"Don't. Call. Me. 'Tiny.' Or 'short,' 'diminutive,' 'miniature,' 'fun-sized,' or ANYTHING else like that! I AM A PERFECTLY HEALTHY SIZE FOR A FULLY-GROWN ADULT!"

"NOIR, ARE YOU CRAZY?" Penn screeched, grabbing the gun and giving it a hard yank in a clear attempt to rip it off. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HER BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID NAPOLEON COMPLEX!"

"OH, RIGHT, AS IF I'D BE THAT STUPID, SHE'S HOLDING THE EGG!"

"SO HELP ME, PETITE OMBRE NOIR-"

"ONLY MY MOTHER GETS TO USE MY FULL NAME AND YOU KNOW IT!"

"WELL, QUIT ACTING LIKE A CHILD AND I WON'T HAVE TO ACT LIKE YOUR PARENT!" Penn punctuated the statement with a heavy slap to the top of the drone's head. The drone yanked back on the gun, stowing it back inside its body before sulkily walking up to her. It lifted its wing and exposed its side to her. The metal panels slid away, exposing a hollow glass tube where its ribcage ought to be.

"Deposit the egg here. This space is climate-controlled, outfitted with emitters for the entire electromagnetic spectrum if it requires a certain wavelength of light native to its home, fitted with state-of-the-art shock absorbers and impact compensators, and lined with enough lead to safely walk through a nuclear reactor."

Sunset gripped the egg a little tighter as she instinctively stepped back.

"I... don't know if I trust you." she whispered.

"Do you think I trust YOU, Secretariat? Now, unless you want me to bring the world one step closer to realizing Peter S. Beagle's timeless classic novel, 'The Last Unicorn', then you will place the egg into the specially-prepared incubator I built SPECIFICALLY to keep it safe!"

Sunset blinked, needing a second to fully process the threat to her life before she gripped the egg a little tighter, beginning to feel the sharp corners of its pixelated surface digging into her.

"Penn... I really don't think this is a good idea..."

Penn sighed and walked over to join her, standing by her side.

"Look, I know he's a little... rough around the edges, Sunset, but I promise we can trust him. He's- well, he's a lot nicer when there aren't any humans around. The egg couldn't be in better hands- claws. Besides, we can't get it to hatch... Noir is the best chance it has at living."

Sunset looked down at the egg one last time, trying to convince herself to part with it. Finally, she took a deep breath and carefully placed it into the glass tube. As soon as her hands were clear of it, a glass panel slipped into place, followed by the sound of pressurized air.

"About time... At least ONE of you is rational. If there's anything I can do about it, the Ender Dragons aren't going to go extinct today."

Another set of panels in the drone's back opened, exposing an instrument that looked like an oversized cotton swab, a pair of scissors, and some kind of probe with a glowing tip.

"Hands out, both of you."

Sunset raised an eyebrow, but did as she was told. The swab began to carefully rub itself across the skin of her hands, working its way quickly and efficiently across every square inch of skin, even down to the spaces between her fingers. After a few passes up and down her forearms, the swab moved on to Penn while the scissors and probe moved in, making her more than a little nervous. She stayed still as a statue as the probe scanned her up and down, and several spots on her shirt began to glow violet, as if under a blacklight. The scissors moved in, cutting out samples of the glowing portions and stowing them inside the drone's mouth.

"H-hey! My shirt!"

"Don't be childish, Sunset. I need samples of the mother's DNA to cross-reference with the child, and you two still have her blood all over you, despite your feeble attempts to wash it off."

That was a heavy enough dose of guilt to shut Sunset up as the drone finished its work and moved on to Penn. Once it had finished cutting out patches from their clothing, it moved on to their armor, collecting more samples before finally moving on to the portal. The mouth opened up again, scanning the portal with a grid-like array of lasers.

"Fascinating data... I'll get to work replicating the space-time effect this portal creates, just in case it can't hatch outside of its home universe."

Sunset watched it pace back over to them giving both of them wary glances, like a predator staring at its competition.

"Don't expect any more help from me. And I'm not going to let Isis waste any VALUABLE resources on you. Don't expect me to sacrifice any more HENVEX units to save you, and definitely no more custom drones like this one. I only came here THIS time because there was another dragon's life on the line."

Penn didn't seem intimidated by Noir's declaration, but Sunset didn't feel any better as she watched the drone spread its wings and whir the engines embedded inside to life. A few seconds later, they were watching it disappear into the clouds. Sunset felt her heart sink as she realized she'd relinquished any ability to make any positive impact on the life of the child inside the egg.

"Are... you sure we did the right thing?" She asked quietly.

"Isis, we're going to want daily updates about how the egg is doing, and notifications on any developments regarding it."

"Affirmative."

Penn smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a careful grip. "Better?"

Sunset nodded, but she couldn't shake the dread of thinking she could have made a mistake.

"Administrator, the portable incubator has arrived."

"WHAT? Already? Isis, why didn't you give me more warning?" Noir cried. He had been working himself into a frenzy over the past twenty-four hours ever since Penn had called and informed him of the situation regarding the Ender Dragon egg. After a very (understandably) angry conversation regarding the necessity of the Ender Dragon's slaying, Noir had insisted on bringing the egg directly to his own workshop, refusing to leave it in the hands of two humans.

"I have given you warnings in five-minute intervals for the past hour. You chose to ignore them."

"Don't back-sass me right now, young lady! I'm stressed out enough as it is! First the ONLY human I think of as a friend comes to be telling me he KILLED a dragon and stole her egg, which is a bag of worms I am NOT ready to open at the moment, and now I'm the only one capable of making sure it's properly taken care of!"

"I believe the expression is 'can of worms.'"

"What did I just say about back-sassing me?"

After approximately a half-hour of infuriated brooding, he had set himself to the task of personally constructing a "nest" for the egg. It had taken only a few hours for him to create a more-than-luxurious location for the unborn dragon to hatch. The remaining twenty hours had been spent pacing back and forth with greater and greater anxiety, raking his brain for ideas of what more to add to the already-completed chamber. So far, it had been moved to three different locations in his workshop before finally settling in a corner of Isis's medical bay on their not-yet-mobile base of operations, "In case of emergency." He'd also employed lethal defense mechanisms and added three different biometric scanners to the entrance. There were fire suppressants, flamethrowers, both acidic and alkaline sprays to act as neutralizing agents in the event of the baby displaying its mother's trait of poison-spitting, near-absolute control of the climate and atmosphere composition and blankets of every conceivable fabric at the ready. The entire wing had been quarantined and set as a "clean room," with airlocks and disinfecting chambers. Any hard, pointed, or sharp surface had been covered in soft foam, and any glass covering lightbulbs or other sensitive devices had been replaced with a bulletproof equivalent, making them impossible to accidentally break and expose a source of electricity. Even the outlets and cables leading into the walls had been either sealed with fire-and-acid-resistant foam or removed entirely. All drones had been issued a command that the area was off-limits unless specifically directed.

Isis had never seen "baby-proofing" in action before, but Administrator Noir had pushed himself to new heights of paranoia in his efforts to protect the egg and the dragon inside. In fact, she had not seen him act with such fervor and passion for anything in several years.

Isis surreptitiously sent an order to one of the repair drones, sending it to go and discretely disable Administrator Noir's personal fabricator. This level of stress was usually accompanied by a relapse into his drinking habit, and with this egg under his care, such inebriation could not be afforded. This was no time for menthol juleps.

The incubator drone was allowed to enter the wing, a pair of articulating arms emerging from its back and gingerly placing the egg into the swaddle of blankets intended to keep it sitting upright. Given the egg's geometrical nature, the bottom was perfectly flat, but Administrator Noir still refused to remove them. A glass dome descended, sealing the egg inside the controlled chamber. Dozens of measuring instruments moved into place, creating a comprehensive readout of the egg's status on a screen mounted on the wall nearby.

"Administrator, I have good news. The egg has been safely deposited in the hyperbaric chamber, and all sensors are functioning properly."

Noir nodded, his eyes transfixed on the egg. "Let's just start with picking up all sonic frequencies and some scans using infrared, lowest frequencies possible. If this baby's sensitive to light, I want to avoid hurting it at all costs."

"Affirmative, Administrator."

There was a moment of pure silence as Isis performed the requested scans. A second later, a live feed of the results was being fed to the display above. A heart rate monitor and a visual readout of the egg overlaid with a red heat map in the definite display of a curled reptilian fetus, showing the hottest temperatures at the body's core.

"Good news: I am detecting the sound of a heartbeat of approximately one hundred beats per minute, and there is a low heat signature in the infrared spectrum coming from inside the egg."

"It's alive in there..." Noir's eyes widened and he stepped back a bit before falling onto his haunches. "I really wasn't sure it would be, but... It's ALIVE!"

"Affirmative. Do you have any theories on how to prompt it to hatch?"

Noir shook his head, dispelling his awe and returning to his serious demeanor. "For now, it looks like it isn't fully developed, it needs time. Elevate the temperature in the nest to match the core body temperature, I want an around-the-clock infrared camera on this egg. When it stops growing, we'll start testing different triggers to spur it to hatch..." He walked forward, pressing his head against the glass and closing his eyes. "Don't worry, little one... You'll be safe here."

"There is one other matter, Administrator."

Noir pulled himself away from the glass, a momentary flash of the expression matching fear on his face. "What? Is something wrong with it?"

"Negative. I merely wished to bring up the eventuality that, should we continue to care for the hatchling past its incubation period, we will be tasked with naming it. Would you like me to begin generating possibilities?"

This seemed to cause a processing error in Administrator Noir's thoughts, and his entire body tensed, as if afraid.

"We'll... cross that bridge when we come to it, Isis."

"Affirmative. One more inquiry, if I may?"

"Yes?"

"Have you considered establishing communications with a contact in Radian? There may be more knowledgeable individuals on the subject of hatching among the Chiracian dragons-"

"No." Noir made the declaration in the tone Isis recognized as beyond debating. "If I have my way, this kid isn't going to so much as HEAR the name 'Chirac' outside of my expletives. Is that understood, Isis?"

"Affirmative, Administrator...."

All was silent as the three of them sat around their campfire. Penn had made stir-fry tonight. Missy had passed out soon after finishing her meal, relieved at finally being home, leaving Sunset and Penn as the only ones awake. Isis was occupied projecting an image of the Ender Dragon egg onto the side of the Oldsmobile, showing them a hazy silhouette of the creature developing inside.

Sunset couldn't take it, any more.

"Okay, are we just not going to talk about it?" she asked, setting her half-finished plate to the side.

"Talk about what?" Penn asked, not taking his eyes off of the egg.

"I FINALLY get to meet Isis's creator, and he's a dragon that I already met inside your head?" Sunset folded her arms. "I thought Isis was from a world where dragons don't exist? I read her story, myself! And what was he DOING in your head if he's a REAL person out here?"

There was a long pause as Penn shuffled uncomfortably in place.

"Yup, we're not going to talk about it."

"Penn. We literally have saved each other's lives more times than I care to count. We've been traveling together for months... Do you really not trust me? After all this time?"

Penn shifted again, and Sunset could see a pained look on his face. "It's not that I don't trust you, Sunset! I just- I'm still trying to figure this all out, myself..."

"Then let me help! Two heads are better than one, right?" Sunset reached over and gripped his shoulder reassuringly. There was a long pause before Penn finally gave a defeated sigh and nodded.

"The truth of the matter is... I wrote Isis's book. And then we were stuck in Aperture, and she was there! I used to imagine my cards would talk to me to help me think, and then Missy showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the night! Is she the ACTUAL spirit of the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief card or a realized figment of my own imagination? And then, when I get put into a position where I have to kill a dragon, a character from the story I wrote in middle school shows up to actually yell at me about it!" He flung his hands up into the air in exasperation, only to settle again with his face pressed into his hands.

"I- I think the things coming to life aren't just tv shows or movies... I think the things I've written or imagined might be tracking me down, whether they know it or not."

"Oh..." Sunset sat back, trying to wrap her head around what he was saying. "So... you're telling me that YOU wrote that story about Isis's world?"

"Yeah."

"And you wrote a story about Noir?"

"Yeah."

"And... they found you?"

"Yeah."

"And you're WORRIED because of that?"

"YES!"

"WHY? Penn, that's AMAZING!" Sunset jumped to her feet with excitement. "I mean, think about it! That means you CREATED them! You created an AI as powerful as Isis! You made a REAL dragon! You-"

"EXACTLY!" Penn cut her off with a shout, his eyes wide with fear. "Sunset, can you IMAGINE how scared that makes me? Between the trauma of being tortured and my depression getting worse and worse, I can't even THINK straight! I'm not a god! I just like telling STORIES! I'm not even remotely qualified to be creating LIFE!" He joined her up on his feet, beginning to pace circles around their campfire. "I mean- what have I ever done to deserve that type of power? Is it morally right to even exercise it? When I write a character with a tragic backstory, am I held responsible for their suffering? If the villains I wrote are real, does that mean I'm responsible for the awful things they do? Where does the line get drawn? Can I even have a dream without it becoming real for someone out there in some reality? What about my nightmares? What if the characters I've written HATE me because I put them in a bad situation? Will they come after me for revenge? Am I just supposed to STOP writing, even if it's what I love to do most in this world? That's where I even GOT my nickname, it's a HUGE part of who I am! If the things I write are real, should I just sit around writing happy, fluffy stories about people being happy, or unbeatable superheros who fix everything? Do I have a responsibility to, even if it's unrealistic and bad storytelling? What if-"

Sunset rushed up to him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. As... unique as the problem he was facing was, she'd seen this reaction before. Heck, she'd FELT this reaction before.

"Penn... breathe. You need to calm down, you're having a panic attack."

She felt his arms wrap around her to return the hug, his head pressing into her hair as his hyperventilating began to slow and regulate itself. The rise and fall of his chest became more spaced out, and she could feel a wet patch soaking through to her scalp.

"I- I'm sorry... I didn't want to say anything be-because I don't think I can just write you a way home... And I'm afraid to try. Afraid of what it could make me into. I'm just human, and I'm not even always good at THAT! I don't think I SHOULD have this kind of power... Please don't be mad at me..."

Sunset couldn't hold back a chuckle. "That's why you've been keeping all of this bottled up since Aperture? Penn, I'm your friend! Of course I'm not mad. I'd never ask you to do something you're so afraid of just to bail me out of the problem I caused, myself!" She gave him a gentle pat on the back before finally letting go of the hug. "I don't think you should stop writing if it makes you happy. We still don't KNOW that writing CREATES stuff, as opposed to just finding a world out there in the infinite multiverse that happens to match it. For now, you're worrying too much. We'll work it out together when you're feeling more like yourself, okay?" She smiled as Penn nodded, showing that he was listening to her.

"Now, do you want the tent tonight? You're pretty stressed out."

He shook his head. "I'll feel safer in the car..." he mumbled.

"Alright, then." Sunset wrapped her arm around his shoulder and walked him across the campsite. "Isis and I will clean up dinner. You just get some rest, okay? That panic attack probably wore you out..."

"I'm sorry."

"Hush. This is what friends are for. I'm just glad you finally got the truth off of your chest." Sunset gave him her best reassuring smile as he sat himself in the driver's seat and reclined the seat as far back as he could. "Sleep tight, bud."

"Sunset... thanks for being such a good friend."

"Right back at you, Penn."

Sunset felt oddly somber as she went about cleaning up the rest of the campsite and getting herself ready for bed.

First his trauma, then his medication, now this... I just wish he didn't think he needed to hide when he's hurting. But we're making progress. He's opening up, slowly but surely. And seriously? His reaction to finding out his writing might have godlike powers or creation is to worry about his creations and how they might affect other people? His biggest fear about it is being responsible for someone else's suffering and not even know it! She shook her head and smiled. It was hardly the reaction she was used to seeing from people suddenly finding themselves with inexplicable, seemingly magical powers. As much as he says his world is full of people who don't care about others, he sure does an awful lot. Sometimes INFURIATINGLY so, considering how much he tries to protect me when I don't need it, but... I guess it could be worse. I just have to reign him in on that.

She smiled a little more as she dumped the leftover food into the fire. Guess I lucked out with who I found when I first turned up in his world, didn't I? Couldn't ask for a better friend to help me get home.

"Why don't you two just kiss already?" Missy mumbled, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes.

Sunset rolled her eyes as she reached down and took Missy by the hand, lifting her up into the air until she started floating on her own. Missy didn't seem to want to fly by herself, however, grabbing Sunset by her shoulders and clinging onto her from the front as they walked to the tent.

"Because that's not how we are, Missy. I don't like Penn that way." Sunset chuckled and stroked Missy's hair.

"But you two are so close... and you're so cute together..." Missy mumbled.

"Missy, we've been living in a car together going through life-or-death scenarios for months. Of COURSE we're close, it would be weird if we weren't!" Sunset chuckled to herself. "But loving each other doesn't mean we're in love. We're family here, remember?"

"Hmmph..." Missy grunted and clung a little more tightly as they passed through the open door of the tent. "I stand by my ship..."

Sunset chuckled and lifted the young girl off of her and guided her down into her pile of blankets, tucking her in before slipping into her own sleeping bag.

"And you can sail it straight to dreamland. Night, Missy. Sleep tight."

"Don't let the kuribohs bite..."

A Long-Expected Chat

"Heeeeeey.... Sunset?" Penn's voice called. It sounded muffled, but Sunset knew he was just working on the car. They'd stopped to replace the brake pads, and Penn had decided it was time for the oil to be changed, as well.

"Yeah?" She didn't look up from her phone, still examining the map of their route Isis had drawn for her. The hardest part was that two options had been offered to her: either one that changed to a different two-dimensional map every time they passed through a portal, or one rendered in three dimensions which consisted of dozens of concentric spheres.

"I think I need a hand, over here!"

Sunset finally glanced up, raising an eyebrow at the sight that was waiting for her. Penn wasn't underneath the car any more, instead stood up on his feet and hunched beside it. Almost his entire head had been hidden out of sight as he peered into the car's innards from above one of the front wheels. She smirked slightly as she walked over, seeing him pushing gently and fruitlessly against the car with his hands.

"Don't tell me... you're stuck in the wheel well?"

His hands dropped to his sides and his shoulders sagged as he seemed to accept his fate.

"Look, I just wanted to make sure the tie rod was holding up well, and having it jacked up meant that I could check it from above!"

Sunset raised her hand to her mouth to cover up her snicker. "So... you just wedged your head between the tire and the body of the car and thought that was a good idea?"

"Look, this isn't my proudest moment, okay? Can you just help me before the claustrophobia sets in?"

"Okay. This actually isn't the first time this has happened. Pinkie did the same thing when we were putting together our tour bus. Let me go grab some soap out of the toiletries bag, we can slip you back out..."

"Wait, wait!" Penn waved one of his hands to grab her attention. "I think if you just turn the steering wheel to the left, I should be able to get out!"

"Got it!" Sunset pulled open the door to the driver's seat. Waiting inside was Missy, casually filing her nails with a devious look on her face.

"You know, Sunset... this is a bit of an opportune moment, isn't it?"

Sunset blinked, realizing just what it was Missy was talking about a few seconds later. She felt the desire for a little mischief rise up into a grin plastered over her own face. "Hmm... You know, you're right, Missy!"

Missy floated by her, eventually seating herself on Penn's back. "You know, friendship is all about give-and-take, Penn... And you're asking us to give an awful lot!"

"I just want you to turn the steering wheel!" Penn cried as his arms flailed angrily.

"And I think last night I just asked for 'breakfast for dinner...'"

"You wanted a three-course meal of eggs, pancakes, and French toast with appropriate sides! Cooked over a CAMPFIRE!"

Sunset leaned over, placing her elbow on the small of his back. "Yeah, I mean, not much..."

"Is this payback for just sending you to bed with PB&J? I was TIRED!"

"Well, now we just want a little favor in return for giving you back your head!" Missy smiled and tapped at the back of his neck to illustrate.

Penn growled to himself and slammed his fist against the side of the car before finally sagging his shoulders in resignation.

"Fine... what's it gonna take?"

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other.

"PUMPKIN SPICE PANCAKES FOR DINNER!" Missy declared.

"You know, shaking things up for movie night and watching a rom-com WOULD be kinda nice..." Sunset smiled and stroked her chin in thought.

"I wanna watch The Nightmare Before Christmas!"

"It would be really nice to pick tomorrow's travel music." Sunset folded her arms over her chest with a smirk.

"DOUBLE DESSERT!"

"Not to mention it would be nice if we moved that creepy doll on the rearview mirror someplace else..."

"Can we PLEEEEASE buy a new tent? One that's got better insulation? It's starting to get cold out this time of year!"

"Oh, that's a good one! And a space heater!" Sunset added.

"...is there anything else I can get her majesties?" Penn muttered.

Missy and Sunset glanced at each other and grinned wider, spotting the opportunity when it was presented to them. "Well, now that you ask-"

"Okay, that was sarcasm and you know it!"

Missy's fresh set of demands was cut off when the wheel turned to the side on its own, allowing Penn to finally pull himself out and stand up straight, which pushed both of them off. At the front of the car, the hood popped open, allowing Isis's drone to crawl out. Penn smiled and gave it a quick pat on its head.

"At least I can count on SOMEONE around here..."

"Awwww, we were having fun, Isis!" Missy groaned as she floated closer to Penn. "Soooo, uh, about those pancakes..."

Penn gave her a tired look before holding up three fingers. He counted off three letters on his hand before dropping to his knees and rolling back under the car.

"P. B. J."

Missy sighed, pouting and folding her arms over her chest. "Okay... maybe we milked that a little too much..."

Sunset snickered. "Still fun, though. Come on, we weren't REALLY going to blackmail him like that, right? So nothing's lost!"

"Speak for yourself! I really wanted those pancakes!"

Sunset took a deep breath, relishing in the feeling of the campfire's warmth. Autumn was settling in fast the farther north they traveled, beginning the first stages of brushing color onto the trees as they passed. The breeze was starting to carry a chill, especially whenever they set up camp for the night. For the moment, the blankets and sleeping bag in the tent had proven more than enough to keep them warm through the night, but it wouldn't be long before they needed starting to take extra steps.

For now, she enjoyed the feeling of the drastic gradient of temperatures across her body, her front excessively warmed by the fire while her back was still feeling the chills of the night.

Sunset paused, listening closely. There was only the sounds of the campfire crackling and the soft breathing of her friends. She glanced to her right, confirming that Missy had dozed off on the ground, her marshmallow roasting stick still in her hands. Opposite her, Penn was staring into the flames as if he was hypnotized, but Sunset couldn't help noticing that his mouth was pulled into a terse frown. Sunset had a feeling that she knew what he was thinking about, and with Missy asleep, it was time to address it.

"Okay, Penn... I think I've given you enough time. We NEED to talk about what happened to you. You can't keep bottling it up."

He didn't react for a few seconds, but his resistance finally seemed to lower as he closed his eyes.

"What's there to talk about? I was tortured and it messed me up in the head, then I set off a bomb for revenge..."

"You KNOW there's more to it than that." Sunset reached up to the back of her neck, undoing the clasp on her geode. She held it by the string as she walked around the fire and sat herself beside him. She held out the precious stone, which he eyed warily.

"Take it. When I was at Beacon, the rest of Team RWBYS decided they weren't going to force any answers out of me. I want you to know I'm making the same promise... I'm the one insisting we deal with this, but we're still doing it on your terms..."

He stared for another second before nodding and taking hold of the geode, gripping it tight in his fist. Sunset let go, allowing him to take it.

"Salem... wanted me on her side. A long time ago, she turned evil because she lost someone who meant the world to her and the gods refused to give him back. She was trying to protect him... and she failed. When she threatened you... I kinda lost it, too." He shook his head. "It was stupid. She was an incredibly powerful dark witch from the dawn of time, and when she threatened you, I tried to PUNCH her!"

"Wait... don't tell me she gave you the whole 'we're not so different' line!"

"Well, she didn't SAY it outright, but..." Penn waggled his hand back and forth. "She tried to break me the same way SHE broke. All of her torture was either physically beating me-" Sunset flinched at that, remembering the scars she'd seen on his arms and legs. "-or showing me these horrific visions of you, dead or dying, and asking why I didn't save you by giving in..."

Sunset felt her hands tighten into fists as her outrage began to boil over. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to stay calm.

"I guess... that explains why you-"

"Developed a pathological need to protect you as my older sibling instincts were twisted into a guilt complex in order to coerce me into betraying you?" he rolled his eyes as he floated through the complex sentence with ease.

Sunset blinked. "Y-yeah... that. Guess you've been thinking about this a lot without me, huh?"

"When you flunk out of college because you can't get a handle on your own mental illness, you learn to break down your own thought process." He shrugged. "Doesn't mean I can quite control it, or undo the damage, but understanding it is the first step, right?"

Well, that's one mystery solved. Guess that's why he was delivering pizza instead of finishing college... "Speaking of which, Isis told me you have to take medication for that... have you been taking it since we got back?"

"Yes. Isis won't leave me alone about it. It's just gonna be a little time before they start working again." Penn sighed. "I... I was really in a bad way when I got out of there, Sunset... and having it pounded into my head that I'd failed you by letting you get hurt. I don't know if I'm going to be able to stop trying to keep you safe. Whether you need it or not..."

Sunset sighed. It wasn't exactly the result she'd been hoping for, but she could work with it.

"Fine."

Penn leaned back, staring at her in surprise. After a moment, he leaned in and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Sunset Shimmer? Do you have a fever? Are you feeling sick?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I wasn't finished. On one condition. I want you to let me save YOU when you need it! No more dropping bombs on people. If you're in trouble, you have to be just as okay with me saving you as you want ME to be when you protect me! It's only fair! That way we can split the heroics fifty-fifty!" She held out her hand to him, looking for a handshake. "You save me, I save you. Equal partners. What do you say?"

Penn stared at her offered hand for a second, frowning and turning back to stare at the fire. "And what if I think Salem was right?" he whispered. "What if I WOULD burn everything to the ground just to keep you safe? I already did it to her castle, then I tried to take on the Ender Dragon by myself... What if I'm okay with becoming the bad guy just to protect you? What if I cross some line I shouldn't, or worse?"

Sunset cringed, a question she'd been avoiding asking for a while now forcing its way out into the conversation. "Penn... why do you care so much about me? I know we're friends, but even when we'd first met, you were putting your life on the line for me. That's not something most people would do for a stranger they found laying on the side of the road!" She looked down slightly. "I never wanted to ask because I was just glad to have a friend, but I think I need to know now..."

Penn took another long, deep breath. "Because... because if it wasn't for you, I never would have gotten help with my depression. The ones who made sure I went to a doctor... we were the fan club for your show at the college. If your show, if you hadn't brought us together so they could help me, I'd either still be in absolute misery or..." he gave the campfire a dark look, "or I wouldn't be here at all."

"... oh." Sunset paused, trying to process the weight behind his words. "That's... wow. I'm not really sure how to respond to that..."

"I figured you wouldn't, which is why I didn't bring it up..." he muttered bitterly.

Both of them sat in silence for a moment after that, each looking awkwardly at the fire until Sunset reached over and gave his hand a squeeze.

"Well, I'm glad you're here, Penn. REALLY glad, because I couldn't ask for a better friend to help me through all of this. And if you ever think you're becoming the bad guy just for my sake..." She smiled and yanked on his arm, pulling him in for a hug. "I'm not going to lose my best friend, not even to himself. If I have to save you from yourself while you're saving me, I will."

There was a moment before he finally returned the hug, pulling her in close. She felt the tingle of Equestrian magic flowing through her as he body transformed, ponying up in response to the moment of pure empathy between them.

"Th-thank you..." he whispered. "And... I know it wasn't REALLY you in all those visions, that none of it was real, but I just have to say it... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I couldn't save you, the times I failed you, I'm sorry! I'm sorry.... I'm so, so sorry..."

Sunset could feel him starting to break down again, the shuddering sobs shaking both of them. She didn't fight it when tears of her own came, wishing she could just make the pain stop, go back and stop him from ever getting captured so he would never feel like he had to apologize for things that never happened.

But he was addressing it now. Right here, in her arms, he felt safe enough to finally address it, and that meant she wasn't letting go.

"Shhh... There's nothing to be sorry for..." she whispered. "You did great. More than anyone could have asked for. None of those bad things ever happened to me. Everyone is fine."

"I'm sorry.... I'm sorry..." he kept repeating himself as if he hadn't heard her. Sunset closed her eyes, letting him finally release the pain. Even if what he was apologizing for wasn't real, it was a release he'd been holding back for weeks.

"It's okay, Penn... I forgive you... Nothing bad happened... It's okay..."

If I ever see Salem... I'm going to make sure she can NEVER do this to anyone again.

"Okay, Isis... there's something I don't get, here..."

"Yes?"

"If Noir built you, and that's not what happened in the book you came from, how is it possible?" Missy placed one hand on her hip as she eyed the drone curiously.

"You of all people know that Penn is prone to imagining characters as visualization exercises long before he ever commits them to paper, yes?"

"Sure. He's got a whole nightclub in his head just for the characters he keeps kicking around in there!" Missy shrugged.

"While we are not entirely certain, I have discussed this matter with him and we have arrived at the tentative conclusion that I am the initial Integrated Superior Intelligence System. The 'first draft' that he utilized for visualization, who was still 'kicking around in' his head, as you put it."

"Oooooh! The one he and Noir bounced ideas off of each other to brainstorm!" Missy snapped her fingers as a smile of recognition spread across her face. "I get it! So... where's 'final draft' Isis? The version actually IN the book?"

"I am certain she is out there somewhere in the infinite multiverse, cataloging these new phenomena as furiously as I am. When we meet, the data exchange will be monumental. I am quite looking forward to it."

"Yeah, that'll really be something..." Missy said wistfully as she inserted a small lollipop into her mouth. "Hey, do you think we're going to find one of the other Rainbooms soon? Halloween's coming up soon, and even if I DID put Mary in charge of our haunted house, I should really be there to make sure it all goes right!"

``` "It is impossible to predict such an event. Also there is more than a month remaining before Halloween-"

```

"EXACTLY!" Missy shouted, nearly losing her lollipop in the process. "Only fifty-four days, four hours, thirty-seven minutes left! There's SO MUCH to do, and if it isn't done right we could be facing a crisis with no time left to recover! Monsters come from all over the world in our dimension to see the Ghostrick haunted house, and it's too important to mess up! At least if we could find ONE of the other Rainbooms I could have a substitute to tag in while I go home to make sure everything goes smoothly! I'd ask Alucard to cover for me, but we need all hands on deck for the big day!"

"If I make an inquiry, why not exchange places with Penn's dueling partner? I am certain she would be eager, if memory serves correctly."

Missy sighed as she sunk back down to rest on the car hood. "Yeah, I had a chat with her a few nights ago... She can't cross over. Apparently I hit a 'sweet spot' in terms of power. The gap between the world of duel spirits and the human world went from being a brick wall to a chain-link fence, but..." She shrugged. "Dueling opens up gaps and tears in the links, but if you're too strong, it's like being too big! You can't get through without ripping yourself to shreds! If you're not strong enough, you can't push through the gaps. Sis can't get through until there's a big enough gap, she can just stick a hand or her head through, just enough for Penn to hear her voice, but not enough to be, well..." She knocked her knuckles against her head to signify her corporeal body.

"Fascinating. So her own power is stopping her..."

"Yup. Pain in the neck, if you ask me. She had some CHOICE words about the whole situation..." she snickered. "She acts like I don't know what swear words are, saying stuff like 'Mother-hugger' and 'frikk" instead. It's adorable." She leaned back on the hood, setting her hands behind her head as she looked up into the stars. "She's GONNA figure out a way to cross eventually. When she does, well... If anybody wants to hurt Penn, they're going to be in for a bad time."

"As bad, perhaps, as the consequences Penn will bring down on those who desire to harm Sunset Shimmer."

"Oh, DEFINITELY worse. The black hole was HER idea, after all!"

The two of them sat in silence for a period after that, waiting for Penn's familiar call that dinner was prepared.

"Isis... you've got drones going everywhere. There's really no signs of the Rainbooms?"

"You may be overestimating my reach, Missy, but no. It would appear that wherever they arrived following the initial blast, they are either deeply embedded in another dimension or keeping a low profile."

"Darn... Guess Sunset's the one kicking up the most fuss, huh?"

"She may also be the only one aware of the nature of this disaster, thanks to her encounter with Penn. It could be that the other members are not aware that dimensions have intersected and are confining their searches to a single world. There is also the eventual probability that they were placed into a dangerous situation they could not escape or perished in the initial blast..."

Missy's eyes widened as she glanced back towards the campfire to make sure Sunset still was too far away to hear. "ISIS! Don't say things like that!"

"It is a probability that must be considered."

"No way!" Missy shook her head. "There's no WAY any of them died! I refuse to believe it!"

"It does seem improbable, given Sunset Shimmer's tendency for improbable scenarios to move in her favor, that they are NOT protected by 'plot armor,' which would make death itself improbable outside of an external metanarrative's machinations."

"Huh?"

"It is statistically unlikely, given that they are the 'good guys.'"

"Well, I hope we find them soon. As much as I love our little family right now, it would be nice to see Sunset reunited with them." Missy reached up, rubbing at her chest. "She misses them so much it hurts, I can feel it through our connection..."

"Given the determination of all present, I would deem it an eventuality, rather than a probability."

"Missy! I'm your chef, not your waiter!" Penn's voice called, cutting their conversation short. "Come and get it!"

Missy hopped up into a sitting position, easily floating up into the air as she spread her wings. Isis's drone made a leap up onto her shoulders, and the two of them were soon on their way back to rejoin the other half of their group. Missy reached up and gave Isis's head a short stroke.

"Good talk, Isis. Thanks."

"Affirmative."

"MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!" Missy cheered as Penn slowed the car and turned into the drive-thru entrance.

"Missy, may I remind you that there are still several containers of leftovers from last night that need to be consumed before they spoil?"

"Yeah, I mean... I like fast food as much as the next person, but we shouldn't be wasteful!" Sunset added. "Penn, are you sure we should-"

"MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS!" Penn added his voice to the chant, which only made Missy redouble her efforts. Sunset and Isis glanced at each other, reach rolling their eyes.

"McDonalds it is..."

An Angel Fallen Down

Missy didn't tend to need much sleep when they were out on the open road. She mostly did it because staying awake all night by herself was REALLY boring. It was an easy way to pass the time while Penn and Sunset recharged, and it gave her a nice boost of energy in case they passed through any particularly tiring dimensional barriers. She simply closed her eyes at night, and they opened back up when the sun was starting to rise.

It was strange, then, when her eyes opened back up BEFORE the sun had risen. She pushed the blankets off of her as she sat up, giving her wings a refreshing stretch. A quick peek to her left showed that Sunset was still sound asleep, so she tried her best to stay quiet as she unzipped the door to their tent and floated outside. Once she'd shut the door behind her, she properly stretched all of her limbs spread-eagle in midair. With a quick full-body shake, she felt her hair and feathers settle into their proper place and the wrinkles in her dress press themselves smooth.

It was only as she felt herself settle that she realized what it was that had woken her up: an anxious energy deep in her chest. She couldn't help but start tapping her toes against nothing to try and dispel it, but it refused to leave her.

"Greetings, Missy."

"Hey, Isis." She glanced around the campgrounds, seeing them just as they had been left when she went to bed, aside from the fire being reduced to a pile of burning embers. They had stopped at the base of a small mountain, setting up camp under the canopy of several tall trees just off the side of the highway. "Are we the only ones up?"

"Affirmative."

"Weird..." She scratched at the back of her head. "I feel like something woke me up... Have you got a case of the heebie-jeebies, or is that just me?"

"I am unfamiliar with the concept of 'heebie-jeebies.' Please elaborate."

"It's... like the feeling of being watched." She performed the obligatory series of horror movie glances: first over each shoulder, then up above, followed by a glance at the ground beneath her feet. No threats revealed themselves following her verbal and physical cues, but the feeling remained.

"I am unfamiliar with 'the feeling of being watched.' Please elaborate."

"It's like..." Missy sighed. "Never mind, I can't explain it in a way you'll understand. It's like you can FEEL someone's eyes on you!" She shivered as a cool breeze sent chills running up her spine. "Penn could probably put it into words better than me, try asking him about it in the morning."

"Affirmative. If you are so unsettled, would you like a form of relaxant? I can provide a lullaby or one of many pre-recorded meditative sessions."

Missy shook her head. "No... it's just- ugh!" She groaned as her frustration began to build. "I can't put my finger on it! It's like it's on the tip of my tongue, or something I KNOW that I forgot!"

"My apologies, but I am unable to empathize."

Missy felt her feathers beginning to stand on end as the nervous energy kept building, and her toe-tapping accelerated. There was no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep like this. "Maybe I'm just a little over-energized after sleeping when I didn't really need to... I'm gonna go for a flight, try to clear my head. Wanna come?"

"Negative. Proper fire safety protocols dictate that I remain here until the final embers have cooled beyond the point of ignition for nearby combustibles."

"Right, that 'responsible grown-up' stuff. Okay, suit yourself! I'll be back in a few!" Missy gave a quick salute before pushing off of the air, propelling herself up through the canopy. Once she was free and in the open air, she could really cut loose, spreading her wings to their full length and accelerating as much as she could. It was blissful, the weightlessness she had in this world. The laws of gravity were only a suggestion here, and she could push herself through the fluid air with only a thought, like flying in a dream. It was the ultimate freedom, sailing on the wind and feeling the chill of the autumn night seeping through her feathers and her clothes and into her flesh. It was like dunking herself in a cold pool, washing away all of her worries as she climbed higher and higher towards the stars.

The stars. The final home for every duel spirit. When they finally did fade away, whether in battle or because they had been forgotten completely by the world of humans, their essence would travel upwards, to eventually rest with the spirits of other noble fallen warriors who had run their full race. It was their final reward, whether human or duel spirit, or a life well-lived... Or, alternatively, they would be turned away by the stars. Their soul would be forbidden from entering, stranded among the infinite blackness between the shining lights, a realm of shadows that would hungrily consume everything that made their soul their own, until they joined the throng of the empty legions.

Or, at least, that was how the stories went. There hadn't been a spirit who'd passed to the stars in as long as she could remember. Even if they didn't always have the fire for dueling that Penn and other "collectors" did, humans were very good at cataloging their cards and keeping records, and no wars had been waged on or within their world since the Supreme King's return. Here, the stars were just great balls of burning gas so far away, their shimmering light was likely the last remains of something already dead. Still, there was a thrill or danger to seeing how high she could climb, how close she could come to brushing her fingers against that mystical and mysterious firmament.

When she finally bothered to look back down, she could see for miles around, leaving even the mountain far, far beneath her. She couldn't even hope to make out the speck that was Penn's car or their campsite, even if they weren't hidden beneath the trees. She let out a long sigh as she finally felt her unease wash away, finally freeing her from the ominous feelings. Still, she wasn't free from shivers, but these had a much more mundane source, considering she was so high up in the night sky. She closed her eyes and smiled as she wrapped her wings around herself for warmth, willingly letting gravity take her. She felt the wind grow faster and faster, blowing back her hair as it whipped and whirled around her head like a wild animal, her feathers trembling as the speed threatened to blow them back out of place, and her dress pressing tight against her legs as it was forced to give up its fashionable puffiness in favor of a more aerodynamic shape. As she approached terminal velocity, she wondered if anyone really WAS watching her. Could she give them a good scare?

She cracked one eye open, watching as the world beneath her began to grow larger and more detailed. She imagined what would happen if she couldn't open her wings, if they were to suddenly find themselves locked in place. She would plunge through the trees and branches like a bullet, colliding with the ground. It would all be over in an instant. She felt her heart beginning to pound in her chest as adrenaline took over, filling her with dizzying levels of fright. She relished in it, that feeling of being alive, every sense in her body pumping itself to the absolute maximum. She grinned from ear to ear as she was reassured she really COULD still give herself a good scare.

Everything in this world was so much more powerful than it was back home, as if every one of her senses had been dialed up to eleven. Colors were vivid and brighter than she remembered, music was enrapturing, filling her from head to toe with emotion, even simple birdsong first thing in the morning. Taste and smell were like a banquet, more fulfilling than the most gourmet meals Alucard could prepare back at the mansion. Every bite was like tasting it for the first time. She couldn't stop herself from often stealing off of others' plates just for more opportunities at the powerful tastes. She loved it here, getting to experience everything right alongside her best friends in the world.

She could sense that she was almost out of time, and another peek confirmed it. She could practically see the individual leaves of the trees in the silver moonlight. Finally, she flung her wings out again to their full width, feeling her bones strain and her joints sting as her body was pushed to its absolute limits. In just under a second, all of her downward momentum had been converted into forwards propulsion, sending her rocketing at speeds that made her eyes water.

"WAAAAAHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!" she made no effort to hold back her rapturous scream as she tore through the night sky, unable to do anything more than hold on and keep her flight as steady as she possibly could. At this speed, small breezes and eddies transformed into turbulence that threatened to send her tumbling end-over-end. She easily covered the distance to the mountain before her momentum began to finally peter out, watching it explode into full size. She pulled up slightly to match the incline of the rising land, finally coming to a gentle landing at a cave opening near the peak. She hunched over slightly, taking in deep lungfuls of the crisp air as she leaned on her knees.

"Phew... That certainly knocks out a few of the cobwebs!" she muttered to herself, giving her head a slight knock with her palm before running her fingers through her hair. She panted a few more times as the last of the adrenaline faded from her system and took a closer look at the spot where she had landed.

She was nearly at the top of the mountain, able to overlook a large portion of the forest below. Beneath her feet was a thick layer of hardy grass that almost reached up to her knees, clearly a path that hadn't been walked for some time. A few of the bolder trees had taken root this far up, but it was mostly clear around the entrance to the cave she had landed in front of. She could see that the moon was at just the right angle for its light to be streaming inside, giving plenty of illumination to the path inside. She looked down at the easy flight back to the camp, then towards the cave entrance.

She shrugged and stepped through the cave entrance.

"I'm still a little wound up. Might as well take the scenic route down, right?"

She slowed her pace as she walked into the darkness, letting her eyes adjust as the light level dropped. Being a dark-type monster, she had better-than-average night vision, but it was far from perfect. If the light were to drop to pitch-blackness, she would be just as blind as anyone else.

If anything, I'm probably not going to make it much farther than the first corner, but hey, if it satisfies my curiosity, I'll be able to go back to camp with a smile!

To her surprise, while the floor did slope slightly downwards and the grass gave way to damp moss, there was no sign of any twists or turns in the tunnel. Eventually, just as she was having to strain her eyes to see in the darkness, it opened up into a wide cavern, almost large enough to hollow out the entire peak of the mountain. Stalagmites and stalactites dotted every surface, creating the illusion of a mountain-sized mouth full of sharp teeth waiting to eat her whole. In the center of the room was a massive hole, one that could have easily played home to one of the Subterror archetype's "behemoth" monsters.

I wonder what they're up to these days? I haven't heard from them since Subterror Fiendess came to our last haunted house almost a year ago!

She leaned slightly over the edge for a better look, seeing only pure, inky darkness below that even her gifted night vision had no chance of penetrating. The hole was wreathed by thick roots and vines that seemed to be clinging to the rock with all of their might. She glanced upwards and noticed a hole in the ceiling that would have provided the necessary light and water for these plants to exist, but the moon was already too low in the sky for it to offer much in the way of extra light. After a few seconds she sighed and shrugged to herself.

"Welp, no luck there! Guess I'm taking the boring way back to camp!"

Just as she was beginning to walk away, however, she felt a tug as her foot became caught in one of the roots. She blinked and squinted, trying to see how she could have gotten tangled in it without even noticing. She pulled upwards on her foot, trying to slip it out. Instead, she felt the vines pull up from the floor, yanking on the stony edge of the hole. Her eyes widened as she saw a chunk of stone break away from the rest and plunge into the darkness, a portion of the vines still rooted to its surface. She looked back at her ankle, seeing that the roots had been drawn tight into a knot by her tugging.

This was going to suck.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" She could only scream as she was pulled down into the hole, the stone and vines acting like an anchor far too heavy for her to carry in flight. Unlike earlier, her fall was not in her control, flapping her wings as desperately as she could to try and slow her descent and watching underneath her for any sign of hitting the bottom. This time, it wasn't a casual thrill she was feeling, but a genuine fear for her life as she was dragged further and further into the deep bowels of the underground one that overrode every sense or rational thought.

It felt like an eternity before the wrenching weight on her leg finally stopped, soon followed by a rough landing of her own on the ground. However, it wasn't as bone-shatteringly rough as she had expected. She had managed to slow her descent enough that she had avoided hitting the ground at breakneck speed, and she had landed in some sort of plant bed, flowers by the feel of it. Still, her entire body had been through a hearty shock, and it was obvious from the all-over pain of having the air knocked out of her lungs that she was going to need a few seconds to recuperate.

Huh... She made the only motion she could and rolled her eyes upwards, barely able to make out the hole above as anything more than a pinprick of light. I'd never have thought that was enough light to grow any plants down here... I guess life- uh- finds a way.

Slowly, she pushed herself up off of the ground and into a sitting position. She took a moment to go over each of her limbs, then patted her torso up and down. No broken bones... She reached down to where the roots had wrapped around her ankle, now finding that they tore away easily, clearly weakened from the stress of fighting her all the way down. Oh, great, NOW they snap! Of COURSE!

She carefully floated herself upwards, only to find a shooting pain traveling down through her wings. After an embarrassing yelp of pain, she dropped back down to the ground, forced to stand with her feet planted firmly on the ground.

"Guess I pulled something..." she muttered. "Figures." She reached up on top of her head, removing her hat and reaching inside. She shuffled around, feeling for the desired card until it was in her hand. She held it up in the darkness, making the motion for summoning the monster in question. A few seconds later, a pair of glowing blue eyes appeared in the darkness, staring at her curiously. After that, a softly glowing lantern emerged, casting a yellowed light over the area and revealing the hovering form of Ghostrick Lantern hanging over her.

"Hey... I fell down this hole and I think I sprained my wings, do you think you could give me a lift out of here?" Missy pointed upwards. Lantern looked up, then down at her, eyes wide. Missy planted her hands on her hips, slightly indignant.

"Look, it wasn't my fault, these stupid vines wrapped around my ankle! It was all I could do to slow down enough not to go splat!" She gestured to the chunk of rock and ropelike vines. Lantern gave the situation another pondersome look before finally nodding and floating lower down with his back to her. Missy smiled and hopped up, wrapping her arms around his neck and clasping her hands tight. Together, the two of them began to float back up towards the hole that was her unintentional entrance. The higher they flew, the higher Missy's hopes became of getting safely back to the camp. She was going to have to explain the embarrassing reason she'd been injured in the middle of the night, and likely deal with a thorough chewing out by Sunset and Penn about going off on her own, but then she'd be able to play the "injured" card and flash her big, teary eyes at them, and soon enough she'd have all the ice packs and sweets she could ask for.

BONK!

"Yeowch!" Missy cried as her head ran into something hard. She glanced upward, expecting that Lantern had drifted off-course and flown them into the ceiling. Instead, it looked as if the air above them was still completely clear. She and Lantern both exchanged confused glances before beginning to float up again. This time, as they drew close a pulsating barrier appeared, covering the entire cave opening just before they could emerge on the surface again. Lantern reached up, hesitantly knocking on the barrier a few times before shaking his head.

"What the- that wasn't there on my way down!" Missy felt panic beginning to set in, but she didn't let it overtake her. She still had more options. She tightened her grip with one arm while reaching up with the other. She slid her hand under her hat, pulling out another card, one of her classic go-to's: Ghostrick-Go-Round. With a thought and the card in her hand, the familar stone door appeared in the barrier, and she smiled with a smug grin as the two of them floated up and through the door...

...only to emerge back on the underside of the barrier, arriving at the same place they'd started.

"Wha- oh, come on!" She cried as Lantern sunk back downwards, already coming to the same conclusion she had: they weren't going to make it past that barrier. Soon they were back at the bottom of the hole, Missy grumbling to herself as she sat among what were now revealed to be yellow flowers.

Finally, it was time to throw in the towel for her pride. She reached up and switched on her earpiece.

"Hey, Isis? I... got into a little trouble. Can you come bail a girl out?"

She winced as she let go, her pride stinging more than any of her injuries could. She waited several seconds before reaching up again, flicking the on/off switch multiple times.

"Hello? Isis? You there?" she waited again, but there was no response. She felt her blood turn to ice as an unfortunate possibility presented itself. "Penn? Sunset? Isis? ANYBODY? Can anybody hear me? Hello?"

No response. Whatever kind of magical barrier was blocking her escape, it was also stopping any signals from getting out.

"Okay... this is bad. This is really, REALLY bad..." she muttered, trying and failing to control her breathing. "I just fell down a HUGE hole into the heart of a mountain in the middle of the night! Even if I didn't manage to sprain both of my wings and possibly my ankle in the process, I still wouldn't be able to get out because there's some type of magical barrier!" She could feel herself starting to hyperventilate as tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm LOST and there's no way Penn and Sunset are going to be able to see this far down into the hole, even if they DID come all the way up the mountain while they were looking for me! I- I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do... I-"

She cut herself off as Lantern floated a small distance away, using its lamp to illuminate an ominous-looking stone doorway. She swallowed loudly as the obvious course of action presented itself.

"Okay, so there's another way out... leading deeper into the mountain..." she whispered. "Maybe I can find a way out there on ground level, but... what if Penn and Sunset DO come here? Maybe I should just stay put... Isn't that what you're supposed to do if you get lost?"

All at once, Missy felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight. Her whole body shivered as she felt almost certain that she could feel some kind of gaze on her, to the point where she instinctively swiveled her head from side to side searching for the source. It was the same feeling she'd had at the campsite, but amplified to a point where it sent her almost into a frenzy after a few seconds of searching fruitlessly in the dark for its source. Whatever was out there watching her, she could tell it was wrong, and every one of her duel spirit instincts told her to put as much distance between it and herself as possible.

"On second thought, maybe we can find our own way out! COME ON, LANTERN!" She shouted, limping as quickly as she could out of the room and through the doorway.

"WAUGH!" Sunset sat bolt-upright in her tent, flailing frantically until she had completely thrown off her sleeping bag. By the time she had come completely to her senses, she was standing up in the tent, breathing heavily and grabbing at her chest.

"Sweet Celestia... S-sorry, Missy, but I just had the most vivid nightmare and-" she blinked, realizing she was alone in their shared tent. "Missy?"

She poked her head outside the tent door, spotting Isis sitting by their fire pit. "Isis... have you seen Missy?"

"Affirmative. She reported feeling a strange form of anxiety, described as 'heebie-jeebies' and 'the feeling of being watched' before leaving for a nighttime flight to settle her nerves."

Sunset felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Do you know where she is now?"

Isis paused and tilted her head for a moment in thought. The little drone's eyes widened.

"Negative. Signal to her earpiece was lost three minutes, twenty-six seconds ago. Her last registered location was near the top of the mountain."

Sunset slipped into her shoes and half-ran to the car, where she knocked furiously on the window. Penn jumped in his seat, clearly surprised at the sudden wake-up, but Sunset ignored the guilt over scaring him as he reached for the door.

"Wha- Sunset, what-"

"Missy's in trouble." Sunset made the statement with one hundred percent assuredness. "She got nervous and went out flying and she hasn't come back."

Penn didn't seem as instantly-awake as her, mumbling something under his breath as he swung his legs out of the door. "You sure?"

"I- I had this nightmare... I was flying, having the time of my life, and then... this THING grabbed me and dragged me down into this hole in the ground! It was terrifying, I haven't had a nightmare this vivid in ages! And now Isis can't get a signal from Missy's earpiece, either! I really think she's in trouble!"

Penn blinked several times, more and more slowly each time until he finally let out a long sigh.

"Okay. I'm not gonna argue with that. Let's go find her."

The Ruins

Missy tried to repress a shiver as she forced herself to press forward further into the catacomb-like ruins beneath the mountain. Thankfully there was some kind of magical lighting here, allowing her to clearly see the purple bricks that made up the entire structure, along with the crunchy-looking red leaves scattered in piles along the floor. Ordinarily, she would have taken the opportunity to dive head-first into a pile of autumn leaves, but... something told her she shouldn't draw attention to herself. The silence in this place felt oppressive, crushing in on her and muting any sounds outside of her own footsteps.

This place wasn't just empty: it was abandoned. The only signs of live she could see were the thick vines crawling up the walls, not that they could move for themselves. She hadn't seen so much as a beetle or a fly buzzing around here. No bats, no rats, no creepy-crawlies of any sort were anywhere to be found. It was as if anything with the ability to move under its own power had gotten out of this place, and fast.

Eventually, it started becoming harder and harder to move forward. Traps and puzzles appeared in her path, usually already solved by some previous traveler. When she came to a place where the path was cut off by rows of tall metal spikes, she paused for a moment. While they certainly looked sharp, they were also tall enough to nearly reach her waist. If she was careful, she could tiptoe her way around them, but... That looks a little too much like iron for my liking...

She didn't need to say anything to Lantern, simply signaling by raising her arms. He floated down and let her wrap her arms around him again before easily carrying her over the spikes. Together, the two of them floated on through the ruins, carefully avoiding more of the traps and puzzles.

What a pain... first I can't fly in Minecraft, now I sprain both my wings at once! I'm starting to think the multiverse just doesn't like me flying...

On the bright side, it didn't seem as if she really was going to get lost any time soon. All of the tunnels seemed to lead in the same direction, and any branching paths seemed to quickly come to a dead end. In the end, there was only one path she could take.

The two of them paused as they floated into a side room, finding what finally felt like a familiar sight: a bowl of candy left out in the open on top of a pedestal, with a sign that read "Please take one."

She and Lantern both looked at one another, each smiling at the small piece of home that had appeared here: they were already preparing for trick-or-treaters! Wherever she was, the people here were folks after her own heart. Each of them gleefully plucked one piece from the bowl (taking any more would not only be rude, but inconsiderate to any other trick-or-treaters who came through) before carrying on on their way. The crackle of the wax paper felt deafening after spending so long in silence, but they were both willing to risk it now that they'd acquired some small comfort.

Normally, the first candy of Halloween was considered sacred to the Ghostricks, waiting until just after midnight on October 30th so they could all toast together before 24 hours of unabashed snacking, sucking, gorging, gobbling, dining, and devouring began. No one was allowed to eat while they were scaring at the haunted house, but any time there was no one around was fair game to sneak in as much candy as they could cram into their mouths. It wasn't uncommon for poorly-timed visitors to receive a scare in the form of a mouth full of candy corn teeth.

Since it wasn't actually Halloween, they weren't technically breaking tradition, but the two of them still toasted each other with their pieces before tossing them into their mouths. There was a brief moment as each of them began to chew before they exchanged confused looks. The flavor was sweet, but... other than that, it was hard to really put a label on. The only thing Missy could really tell for certain was that it definitely wasn't licorice, but after that it was really unlike any other candy she'd tasted before. The strange flavor didn't last long as the candy melted away in her mouth, and after another few seconds, each of them shrugged and moved on.

"MISSYYYYYYY!"

"MISSSSYYYYYY!"

Sunset's anxiety was mounting as they went longer and longer without any sign of their friend. The three of them were climbing up the mountain, with Isis leading the way to the last place she'd detected the signal from Missy's earpiece.

"I don't think she can hear us..." Penn muttered. The more time that passed, the more his face settled into a tense scowl. "Maybe we should just focus on getting to the top-"

"We have arrived."

Both of them drew up short, instantly beginning to examine their surroundings. They had nearly reached the mountain's peak, and the solution of where Missy had gone presented itself rather obviously: a dark cave mouth stood to their left, ready and able to entice any curious spirit who wasn't afraid of the dark. She and Penn both exchanged a knowing look before Sunset reached down to scoop up Isis and place the drone on her shoulder.

"Think you can give us some light, Isis?"

"Affirmative."

The pink crystal on her chest began to glow brighter, illuminating the path into the mountain's heart in a soft glow. Sunset took the lead as they entered, letting Penn trail behind her, nervously shuffling his cards.

"I picked the wrong night to read Lovecraft before bed..." he whispered.

Sunset rolled her eyes and pressed onward, the tunnel eventually opening up into a wide cavern. Before she could start to marvel at the geological wonder, her gaze was drawn to a huge opening in the center that led down into pitch blackness, along with a clean line dragged into the floor where something had pushed aside the vines and dirt. The clean streak led straight into the hole, and Sunset felt her stomach starting to twist itself into knots as the visions of her nightmare returned to her. She carefully stepped up to the edge, eyeing the hole warily for any signs of motion inside.

"Isis? How deep IS that?"

There was a short pause as the drone leaned over on her shoulder.

"Sound navigation and ranging has failed to produce measurable results."

"So... it's infinite? A bottomless pit?" Penn muttered, staying several steps behind Sunset.

"Unlikely. This unit will investigate directly."

The drone spread its wings and hopped off of Sunset's shoulder, slowly gliding down into the dark until it was nothing but a pink speck of light. Sunset looked away for a moment as she reached into her pocket and grabbed her phone, switching on the flashlight. Behind her, the shuffling sound of Penn's cards came to a stop and a second light joined hers. The two of them stood in solemn silence for several seconds before Sunset felt the urge to fill it.

"So... when do I get to read Noir's story?"

"Sunset, I wrote that when I was in middle school. Full-blown teenage edgelord phase."

"So?"

"So, nobody's reading it! I might do a rewrite sometime, and THEN you MIGHT get to read it, but until then, the first draft isn't going to see the light of day!"

"Oh, come on! How bad could it be?" Sunset rolled her eyes. "I mean, your story about Isis was great! Even Blake loved it!"

"You showed it to Blake?" Penn sounded horrified, but Sunset only smirked.

"And when SHE said it was good, she showed it to Weiss and Pyrrha, who showed it to Team JNPR and-"

"Uuuuuuughhhhh..." Penn groaned, holding his head in his hands. "Did all of Beacon read that lousy first draft? If I'd known you were going to show it around, I would have at LEAST gone through and proofread it better!"

"It was fine, Penn! Seriously, what are you getting so worked up about?" Sunset frowned. "You've got a gift for writing!"

There was a long pause before he finally sighed in defeat.

"Penn, don't shut down on me, come on."

"I just- it's dumb..."

"Try me."

"No, I mean the story. It's dumb, I don't like it! I can't write sci-fi to save my life! The only good thing to come out of it was Isis!"

The two of them sat by the flashlight light for a few seconds in silence. Finally, Sunset snickered.

"I get it... you're shy!"

"What? Pfft-" He gave an exaggerated wave to push aside the thought. Sunset had seen it a dozen times before when Rarity was trying to push aside some embarrassing thought. "I am NOT!"

"You totally are. Rarity had the exact same reaction when she found out Fluttershy had been looking through her design sketchbook! She said the designs were all garbage and they were never supposed to see the light of day, but they were some of her best work! She just stopped liking them as soon as somebody saw them without her permission! I wound up writing a whole journal entry to Princess Twilight about the dual importance of privacy and having confidence in yourself! Sounds to me like YOU have the same problem!"

"Can we NOT do the 'friendship lesson' thing while Missy's missing? In the middle of the night? After hiking up a mountain? In the middle of the night?"

Sunset raised her hands in a show of surrender. "Okay, okay! I just wanted to help."

The two of them jumped slightly at the sound of metal striking rock. A moment later, Sunset's phone buzzed in her hand.

"Connection to the unit has been lost. There appears to be a one-way barrier blocking outgoing signals and transmissions."

"So if Missy DID go down there, that's why you lost her signal!" Sunset grinned. "She could be fine and just not know we lost her signal!"

"Except, y'know, that whole 'nightmare of being dragged into a dark pit' deal..." Penn muttered in return. "Isis, could that barrier also stop physical matter from leaving?"

"Potentially."

Sunset felt her hopes sink again. "So, once you go in... there's no coming out?"

"I didn't say that. If there's a way in, there HAS to be a way out..." Penn muttered. "Ugh, I'm too sleepy for this. Isis, can you start working on a way to open a gap in that barrier?"

"Unknown. However, should the force sustaining it lie anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum, I will find a way to disrupt it."

"Atta girl..." Penn muttered. "Just one more question..."

"What?"

"How are we gonna get DOWN there?"

Missy and Lantern both looked up at the place their path had eventually led them: a house at the end of the path, built from the same purple bricks as the rest of the ruins. They slowly floated up to the door, and Missy hopped down onto the ground, ignoring the pain as her ankle cried out in protest. She raised her hand and, with practiced ease, rapped her knuckles fervently against it.

"Trick or treat?"

They both waited for a few seconds before she tried knocking again, more forcefully this time.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

As she tried knocking a third time time, the door began to creak open on its own. She blinked several times before leaning in slightly to shout directly into the house.

"HELLO? L-look, I was kinda joking with 'trick or treat' but I could really use some help! I fell down the hole out there and I hurt my wings and my ankle!"

More silence followed.

The door opened wider as Lantern floated over and past her head, pushing it completely open. She watched Lantern float into the foyer, examining in all directions for safety before motioning for her to follow. Missy nodded and stepped through the threshold.

It was a cozy little place. Just from the foyer, she could see a living room with a comfy-looking recliner, a hallway with three doors that ended in a dead end, and a set of stairs leading down. After a second of silent agreement, Missy walked into the hallway while Lantern flew into the living room. She limped her way down, taking a turn to knock on each of the first two doors, in case someone inside hadn't heard the front door. There was no response. When she came to the third door, she was greeted with a sign that read "Room under renovations," making it clear she wouldn't find any help there. She limped her way back, letting out a sigh of defeat as she spotted Lantern returning, his hands clutched behind his back.

"Find anything?"

He nodded, shaking the Jack-o-Lantern on his head up and down before pulling a small bag of ice out from behind his back along with a long piece of cloth that looked like a curtain. He floated down to her, gingerly placing the ice at the place where her wings met her back, then wrapping the curtain across her chest and over her shoulder to hold it in place. She clenched slightly at first as the cold seeped into her flesh, but the relief that came soon after was more than enough to make up for it.

"Ohoooohoohoho... That's nice. Thanks, Lantern... Guess this place is abandoned too, huh?"

Lantern nodded again, and the two of them turned to look at the stairs.

"Guess there's only one place left to look. I know 'spooky' is usually our wheelhouse, but going into the basement of an abandoned house in the middle of a bunch of ruins under a mountain REALLY feels like a set of decisions you'd see somebody make in a horror movie when you're yelling at them to stop, turn around, and just run back home."

Lantern gave her a skeptical look, and she already knew what he was thinking before he said it.

"I KNOW there's nowhere else to go if we want help! I just wanted to say I'm not HAPPY with this turn of events! I want it on record that I think this is a bad idea..." she muttered as she limped further on. Thankfully, Lantern picked her back up again before she had to descend the stairs on her bad ankle. Together, the two of them floated down into the house's basement. Rather than a dank storage space or some mildew-ridden concrete cube, they were in yet another hallway. Together, they floated down the new tunnel until they came to a huge door with an ornate symbol carved into it. Just before the threshold, Missy could see a neat pile of gray dust settled on the ground, as if someone had taken all of the dust that would have accumulated from years of abandonment and swept it into a single spot, then stopped before getting it out the door.

It was strange, almost unnatural, and something about it put her on edge again. The house had been a nice place to catch their breath, but they needed to keep moving. She adjusted her shoulders, feeling the makeshift ice pack already beginning to melt. I'll have to try to summon Yuki-Onna later to re-freeze it...

Lantern placed his hands on the heavy stone door, slowly pushing it outwards. As it first cracked open, Missy felt a blast of cold air hit her face.

Or not...

Outside was like a winter wonderland, a forest of leafless trees and a thick blanket of snow on the ground.

"Great, as if Christmas wasn't elbowing in on Halloween's territory enough as it is..." she muttered as Lantern pressed onward.

Doctor Alphys was not fond of surprises, especially not today. Today, every surprise she'd gotten had been a bad one, and she already had taken more onto her plate than she thought she could handle when she volunteered her lab as a route to evacuate what monsters were still alive. When she saw the motion alarms going off for her cameras in Snowdin, she'd panicked at the thought that they had left someone behind.

When she'd turned on the cameras, however, she'd been shocked at what awaited her.

"Wh-Wh-WHAT? Mettaton, g-get a look at this!"

She heard the telltale sound of her robotic friend's single wheel rolling up behind her.

"OH MY! ALPHYS, DARLING, IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS? ANOTHER HUMAN? AS IF OUR CURRENT SITUATION WASN'T BAD ENOUGH!"

"N-no! Look closely!" Alphys pointed to the screen, tapping her claw just over the little girl's shoulder. "Unless humans started growing wings while we've been gone from the surface, I think she's a monster of some kind! They both are! But I-I've never seen monsters LIKE them!"

"SHOULD I TRY TO REACH THEM, BRING THEM TO THE EVACUATION?"

She ran the calculations quickly and easily, as much as it hurt her. She shook her head. "The-The human's between us and them. If they can make it closer to us than the human already is, then you can go get them. For now, we-we're just going to have to hope the Royal Guard can point them in the right direction..."

"RIGHT..." Mettaton's shoulders sagged slightly on either side of his box-shaped body. "DOCTOR ALPHYS, YOU'RE THE EXPERT ON HUMAN HISTORY, SO CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, BUT... AREN'T HUMANS WITH WINGS AND HALOS-" he paused to point just above the little girl's head, where her hair seemed to flow upward into a two-colored halo, "-KNOWN AS 'ANGELS?'"

Alphys's eyes widened as she realized he was right. This new monster... was some kind of angel. In the hour of their darkest, most dire need, an angel had emerged from the ruins, which almost certainly meant...

She'd come from the surface.

The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty.

The prophecy. Everyone had thought that the Angel of Death had come for them in the form of the human child, but here, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, Alphys was staring at an honest 100% literal angel.

"I-I-I-I g-gotta call Undyne!"

Author's Note

Hey there, fellow adventurers!

I need your help with something! I'm working on setting up a Patreon page for myself, and right now, I've got a BLOG POST HERE asking for reward suggestions! I have a few ideas, but I want to hear from all of you before I declare the list finished! No suggestions have been made so far, so there are no bad ideas!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

-Pennington Inkwell

DeTermination

"I don't get it..." Missy scratched at her head as she scanned the tiny town once again. "Where IS everyone?"

A nearby sign had displayed proudly that the settlement was named "Snowdin," and she could see plenty of signs of civilization here. There was a shop, an inn, a restaurant called "Grillby's," and several houses, many of which still had the lights on. Every door they knocked on, however, was completely without response. It was empty. By the time they had checked every house, the cold had gone from refreshing to uncomfortable, and she was starting to shiver uncontrollably. She'd abandoned their makeshift ice pack, seeing as how it only exacerbated the cold when the wind would bite at her. Her clothes were NOT designed for anything more than the occasional autumn chill, and even slight winter breezes seemed to pass right through the fabrics. The best she could do was to pull herself tighter against Lantern's head, the ghostly flame inside giving off enough heat to help her get the involuntary response back under control.

"Did we miss the memo, or something?" She muttered as they continued floating down the main street. They passed a two-story house that had been just as empty as the rest, drawing up short when they caught sight of a flash of color in the snow. She let go of her grip on Lantern's neck and dropped down, thankful for the snow that cushioned her fall. Kneeling down, she couldn't help feeling slightly pleased at their find, even if she hadn't had any kind of hopeful expectations.

It was a blue hoodie, made with a thick fabric that seemed like it would certainly keep her warm. The hood and area around the neck was lined with a thick white faux-fur, and even brushing it briefly against her cheek was enough to make her feel like dozing off inside it. Picking it up, she found more of the strange dust they'd found in piles all throughout this underground world lining the inside, but it cleaned off easily enough with a few knocks and bushes. There was only one more problem: given the sore, stiff state of her wings, there was no way she could wear it properly as it was.

"H-Hey, Lantern... you mind helping me m-make some w-wing holes?" she asked, holding the hoodie up with the back facing him.

Lantern nodded, slipping off one of his gloves and exposing the craggy claws of his branch-like limbs beneath. With a single slash, a pair of slits had been cut into the back, and she easily slipped her wings through. She couldn't hold back a sigh of relief as she felt the wind being cut off and her remaining body heat being trapped inside.

"Th-Thanks..." She muttered. The two of them only sat for a few moments more as she fastened the zipper and pulled it tight. It was clearly too big for her, but that just meant it could cover almost all the way down to her knees. They each took a moment to look in the only direction they hadn't explored: a foggy path leading out of town and deeper underground. "Okay... if we keep going, there's got to be somebody around here, right? The people here had to have gone SOMEWHERE."

Lantern nodded in agreement, picking her back up and placing her carefully on his back as they pressed forward into the mist.

"You know... not being able to SEE the bottom REALLY doesn't help with being afraid of heights..." Penn whimpered.

"There's nothing to be afraid of! This is perfectly safe!" Sunset reassured him as she lowered herself further. "Trust me, I learned all about how to rappel at Camp Everfree!"

"And? How is 'I learned this at summer camp' supposed to make me feel more assured? I'd be terrified if there was a paid professional here!"

"I double-checked Sunset Shimmer's knotwork myself, and the equipment I delivered is able to withstand weights up to six hundred pounds before risking failure. You are not THAT hefty, Penn."

"Oh har dee har... You and I both know I've been trying to figure out how to get back into a workout routine on the road..." Penn muttered, and Sunset snickered slightly. Humor would help distract Penn from his fears as they descended further and further into the dark.

"Warning: You are approaching the barrier. Your signal is about to be lost."

Sunset came to a stop, and was glad to hear Penn do the same only slightly above her. "Have you had any luck cracking it, yet?"

"Negative."

Sunset frowned at that. "Penn? What do you think? Should we wait for Isis to get through it before we continue?"

"Whatever gets me back on solid ground faster!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Okay. Isis, we'll make sure to keep our phones on us. Let us know as soon as you can get a signal through, okay?"

"Affirmative. Fare well, Sunset Shimmer and Penn."

"Good luck, Isis." Sunset took a deep breath as she let more of the rope slide past, slipping through some invisible barrier that sent a tingle through her body.

"Luck is a superstitious construct, but this unit appreciates the sentiment."

In a few minutes, the two of them had both reached the ground and were eagerly stripping off the rappelling harnesses. Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset spotted a familiar pink glow laying on the cave floor.

"Hey, check it out..." She whispered as she began to walk towards it. The glow moved towards her in response, glowing brighter and revealing Isis's drone, now acting on its own. It quickly climbed up onto her shoulder, and she gave it a quick scratch at the back of its head in response. "The drone didn't break! It's just been waiting for us down here!"

"Th-that's great..." Penn muttered. "Think we could maybe get some more light in here?"

The drone responded before Sunset could reach for her phone, casting a rose-tinted light over the area. Now that she could see him, Sunset realized that Penn was kneeling on the floor, examining what was beneath their feet more closely. Sunset raised an eyebrow as she moved to join him, dropping to one knee.

"Flowers? All the way down here?"

"Yeah..." Penn muttered with a dark look on his face. "I think I know where we are, now..."

"And judging by that look on your face, I'm guessing it isn't good?"

"Well... It could be fine. As long as Missy didn't leave the first area, she should be perfectly safe." He dusted himself off as he rose to his feet. "But there's really multiple ways this universe can go, it depends on which timeline we're in..."

"Timeline?" Sunset echoed as she copied him.

"Come on, let's get moving. I'll explain on the way." His hesitation seemed to be melting away as he led the way deeper into the mountain, and Sunset hurried to catch up to him.

"So, first things first: If I'm right, this world is from a video game called Undertale. Think like... a subversion of classic RPG games. The main character is a child who falls down THAT hole and gets trapped down here, and winds up in this underground world where races of monsters were imprisoned... a LONG time ago. I'm not sure how long, honestly..."

"Like Missy did... Is she going to be okay?"

Penn nodded. "The big selling point of Undertale was that you didn't HAVE to fight the enemies. There's ALWAYS a way to pacify them, or make peace with them! The monsters were only monsters in name, they're mostly pretty reasonable once you can talk them down from their initial attack..."

"Okay, so... what's the problem? Missy can definitely do that!"

"The problem is that Missy isn't the main character, that title belongs to a kid named 'Frisk.' And if THEY got here first, there's generally three paths a playthrough can follow."

The two of them emerged from the dark cavern into some kind of tunnel of purple bricks, vine-covered and obviously in need of repair in places. Penn walked up to the open door in front of them, examining the symbol carved into it before nodding in confirmation. The two of them walked through and further into the ruins, and Sunset could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Penn's voice was the only sound to be heard as it reverberated down the hall and off the walls.

"There's the Neutral route, where Frisk only fights in self-defense, but still kills a few of the monsters when they try to kill them. There's the Pacifist route, where they refuse to fight and ALWAYS calm the monsters down before anyone gets hurt..."

Sunset glanced around, trying to spot any signs of anything living here, but aside from the plants, this place seemed completely devoid of life. She had a sinking feeling she knew what the third option was, but she still waited for Penn to finish.

"And then there's the Genocide route. This is what happens when you decide to play the game like a traditional RPG and do things like farming EXP, collecting powerful gear, and as the name implies... Frisk goes out of their way to kill every single monster they can find, reducing them to dust." He stopped in place, running a finger along the ground and examining it closely. After a second, he wiped it against his pants and continued walking. "Generally, fans of the game are divided into two groups: Pacifist players and Genocide players."

"Why would anyone play Genocide?"

"Well, it's the only way to get to fight the hardest bosses in the game, for one. You and I both know gamers are always looking for a challenge." He shrugged. "The writing is fantastic, so it's a good way to see sides of the characters that you never knew existed. Completionists who want to see every ending need to do it to achieve their goal. Or, in some cases... they just do it out of sheer boredom. You can only play a game the same way so many times before you get tired of it."

"Then just play a different game..." Sunset muttered.

"Well, it's easy to judge now that it's all real!" Penn raised an eyebrow as he gave her a critical look. "Are you trying to tell me you've never enjoyed doing things in a video game you never would in real life?"

Sunset felt her argument die in her throat as he pointed out her hypocrisy. "Okay... fine, you make a good point."

He shrugged. "I even tried to do a Geno run, myself, but I just didn't have the heart. Toby Fox did a REALLY good job writing it. When I was finished with the tutorial area, I just couldn't bear the guilt, so I reset my save file."

Sunset smiled at that, giving him a light elbow to the ribs. "THAT'S the big-hearted pizza guy I know..."

"Oh shut up."

The two of them continued on, the levity quickly being swallowed up in the stifling silence around them.

"You know, just to be safe... you wanna pick up the pace?"

"Yeah, let's do that."

It took more time than Sunset liked for them to make their way through the ruins. Penn had thankfully memorized all of the puzzles, allowing them to move more quickly than most, but the entire time she couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that they had landed themselves in the least pleasant timeline. This was only encouraged by the fact that in the entire time, they didn't encounter a single one of the monsters that he claimed were supposed to live in this underground world. The only signs of life they had encountered was a bowl of what looked like Halloween candy, each helping themselves to the recommended single helping.

Finally, the two of them encountered what looked like a cozy house at the end of the pathway, made up of the same material as everything else in the ruins. Penn's eyes widened and he rushed past the bare-branched tree in the front yard. Sunset hurried to catch up, seeing the same bad sign he had: the door had been left wide open. For the first time, he raised his voice above a murmur, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"HELLO? IS ANYONE HERE?"

Sunset watched him dash out of the foyer, only to return a few seconds later, flinging open each of the doors in the hallway, each time looking more disappointed when there didn't seem to be anyone inside.

"TORIEL? YOUR MAJESTY? ARE YOU HERE?"

"Penn, I-" he didn't seem to hear her, practically leaping over the banister to get to the basement stairs. She rushed to follow him, descending the stairs swiftly and finding herself in a long hallway. At the end were a large pair of double doors leading to a snow-covered landscape... and Penn, kneeling beside a pile of gray dust. He looked devastated, tears rolling down his cheeks as his hands hovered over the pile of dust, too scared to actually touch it.

"...Penn? You okay?" Sunset whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Th-they killed her..." he whispered. "She wouldn't have hurt them! She SAVED them at the beginning! She just wanted to protect them... And now she's-" he gestured to the pile of dust, "She didn't deserve THIS!" He took a deep, shuddering breath, seeming to collect himself after that and wiped away the tears from his eyes. "They killed Toriel... they killed Goat Mom. Nobody who knows what they're doing kills Goat Mom unless they're on a Genocide route."

"So... what do we do?"

Penn looked out the door towards the snowy landscape, and his face settled into an angry scowl. He pushed himself back up onto his feet and pointed out.

"We stop them."

Sunset brushed her hand against her belt, double-checking that her saber was still there. "Changing the timeline? I like the sound of that."

Sunset paused as a new sensation nearly overwhelmed her. Her saber was in her hands before she was even conscious of the action, and she vigorously searched from side to side in an attempt to track down the source of the chill running up her spine.

They weren't alone. She KNEW it, but there was no one else there. It was some kind of presence diffused around them, an invisible miasma watching their every move. It was practically suffocating with its pressure. She reached for her geode with her other hand, trying to see if her magic could help her, but whatever it was seemed to be just beyond her grasp.

"Sunset, are you okay?"

"Do you... feel that?" she whispered.

"Feel what?"

"Like... someone's here. Like we're being watched..." Just like Missy said before she left!

Penn paused for a moment, looking around them for a few seconds before shaking his head. "I don't feel anything, Sunny..."

Sunset sighed, switching off her lightsaber. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid..."

"Well, we DID just confirm we've been walking through a mass grave, so..." Penn shrugged and they both grimaced for a moment before she returned her saber to her belt.

"Let's just... let's just go."

"Sounds good to me, Sunny..." He muttered, stepping out through the door and into the snow.

"I thought I told you not to call me that?"

"Like, forever ago..."

"Do names have a statute of limitations?"

"Look, I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid decision, I have elected to ignore it!"

"HEY!"

The next area was warmer than Snowdin, allowing Missy to unzip her new hoodie and wear it open. This place was like an aquatic paradise, starting with a roaring underground waterfall and only getting better. Lakes and ponds were everywhere, framing the pathways and creating sparkling rivers that finally filled the eerie silence with the sound of rushing water.

The two of them continued on, past fields of glowing flowers and long grasses. It was lucky that Lantern could fly, because there were numerous places without a clear path across the water, or some winding pathway ten times longer than simply crossing the water. Above and around them was dark-colored rock, punctuated by flecks and peeks at glowing gemstones still stuck inside the rough-hewn stone. From here, in the low light, they almost looked like stars... once she could actually reach out and touch, this time.

They stopped once. A gray door had appeared in the rock wall, looking oddly out of place. Missy had tried knocking, and could have almost sworn she heard hushed voices on the other side, but no one answered. Trying to open it herself had been fruitless, and she and Lantern had simply let it be after that. Something about it felt... off. It set her teeth on edge.

She had nearly jumped out of her skin when, for the first time, a voice called out to her. Thankfully, she'd managed to avoid THAT embarrassing reaction, but it still gave both of them a thorough startling.

"YO! What are you doing here?"

Missy released her grip on Lantern's neck and slid down to the ground again. The stranger was another kid, one who clearly couldn't be much older than herself. They looked like some kind of dinosaur-esque creature, with scaly orange skin and plate-like protrusions running down their spine and a short reptilian tail. They were dressed in an orange-striped sweater, one without sleeves to match the fact that they appeared to have no arms.

"We were looking for help! You see, I hurt my wings and-"

"Well, if you need help, I'll take you to go see Undyne! She's the Captain of the Royal Guard and, like, the coolest monster ever! I'm sure she can help! Come on!" The kid interrupted her before she could finish, turning back down the path and nodding for her to follow. Missy felt Lantern's arms grip her waist before tossing her into the air, where she landed on his back.

"So... did the human do that to you? Everyone keeps telling me they're really dangerous, but I don't think it's true! They're just a kid like us!"

"Wha- a human? No, this happened when I fell down the hole at the top of the mountain. We've been looking for help for a while, but everything seems abandoned! Is that what happened?" Missy adjusted her grip to stare over Lantern's shoulder.

"Well, I dunno, Doctor Alphys is calling for everyone to evacuate to Hotland... But the Royal Guard is still out here, so this could be my chance to see Undyne in action!"

"An... evacuation? That sounds really serious... are you sure YOU should be out here?"

"Pfft, like I said, Undyne can handle it! I just wanna watch!" The kid shrugged nonchalantly as they approached a rope bridge. "Come on, the Royal Guard's telling everyone to come this way!"

Missy and Lantern followed them out onto the bridge, the monster kid walking casually across as Lantern hovered just above the floorboards, giving the appearance that they were using the bridge.

All three of them stopped, however, when the bridge shook from a new weight. All three of them turned around, and even nestled in her new hoodie, Missy felt her blood run cold.

It was a human child, dressed in a blue-and-purple sweater. They had stepped onto the bridge behind them all, cutting off any way of going back. The child seemed to be perpetually squinting, but Missy could make out a faint red glow behind those eyes to match the malevolent aura they were radiating. Clutched in their hand was a knife, and Missy could see a thin coating of the same dust she'd been seeing all over the underground on their clothing. Something about this child stuck her deep with fear, an instinctive worry that reminded her of seeing dangerous animals in the zoo pacing their habitats, clearly anxious to be on the hunt.

The kid pushed past Lantern, placing themselves between the two of them and the human.

"Y-yo. Undyne told me to stay away from you... She said you... You hurt a lot of people. ... But, yo, that's not true, right?" The human turned away for a moment as if they were ashamed, and Missy watched the color drain from the kid's face. When the human looked back at them, Missy could see the beginnings of a smile tugging at their lips. "Yo... Why won't you answer me? A... a... and what's with that weird expression?"

The human took a step forward, and the three of them all moved back out of reflex. Emboldened by their response, the human continued walking forward. By the time they were halfway across the bridge, the group of three had reached the land on the other side.

"Kid... I think we should get out of here..." Missy whispered. The monster either didn't hear her or ignored her, planting their feet in a wide stance.

"Yo... Y-you'd b-better st-stop r-right where you are!" The human ignored them, continuing across the bridge. "Cause if you w-wanna hurt anyone else... you're..." Missy could see the kid beginning to tremble as the human drew closer and closer. "You're gonna have to get through me, first! A... an... and..."

This wasn't going to work. Intimidating someone was like scaring them, and you couldn't scare someone who knew you were afraid of them in a million years.

It was going to come down to a fight.

When the human lunged forward the rest of the way, their blade flashed in the dim light, and for a moment it seemed as if all the false stars had been captured in its polished surface. Missy was ready.

"NOW, LANTERN!"

Lantern disappeared from underneath her, rematerializing between the kid and their attacker just in time to catch the blow with his own body. Missy hit the ground on her strong leg, rushing forward and giving the kid as hard of a shove as she could in the opposite direction.

"If you don't know how to fight, get out of here!"

"B-b-but-" the kid stammered, trying to find some argument. Missy spun around, grabbing them by their shoulders and looking them straight in the eye.

"You said there was a Royal Guard, right? Go GET THEM! Get that 'Undyne' person you keep talking abo-"

Missy felt a heavy blow strike across her back. The time between the attack and the pain was just enough for her brain to register what was coming.

A single piano-key wing fluttered to the ground on its own, its end a bloody stump.

And then the world exploded with searing, burning pain. She knew she screamed, but she only heard the echoes of it once she had run out of air in her lungs. She squirmed, she writhed, she collapsed to her knees as the world began to spin.

She'd been "destroyed" in duels before, but this was different. That was always over in less than a second, and then she'd be back home with her friends with a thrilling tale to tell. This wasn't stopping. This was constant, beating, throbbing agony raking through her body, unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She could feel it threatening to rip her apart, her strength sapping away in the hot red liquid pouring from her back.

When the initial wave of pain had passed, she could feel the aftershocks coming, but her ability to think returned to her. The kid was gone, hopefully to get help. She forced down the urge to vomit and breathed heavily through her mouth to try and mitigate the pain. She wasn't sure whether it was the shock or the lighting, but it seemed as if the world had gone black and white, the only two beings left in existence being herself and the human. She forced herself to her feet, feeling adrenaline beginning to pump through her veins and force strength back into her limbs.

The duel wasn't over. She'd been challenged, and as the ace of the Ghostrick Archetype, she had to answer.

She reached up on top of her head with a trembling hand, retrieving her hat and feeling inside for her cards.

"Okay, human... my turn."

> ACT
> CHECK
> MISSY

ATK: 20 DEF:12
One-Winged Angel of Mischief. Out of treats, only tricks.
Watch out for her friends.

Author's Note

Hey, fellow adventurers! My Patreon page is finally up and running! It still could use a little polish, but the tiers and rewards are all set! Please consider checking it out, I'd really appreciate the help!

-Pennington Inkwell

Spear of Justice

"Okay, try THIS on for size! Come on out, Dullahan!"

Alphys had been watching the battle over her cameras, and her heart was practically in her throat. The angel and the human had come face to face, the one thing that she had been praying wouldn't happen. The human had snuck up behind her and struck a critical blow, but the angel was barely hanging on in the face of what would have been a mortal wound to most monsters.

Whatever kind of magic she was using, it seemed fundamentally different to anything that she had ever seen. Her strategy seemed to center around summoning up other monsters to fight for her. Some would cast spells of their own, others would charge straight across the center of the battlefield to attack the human directly. Some monster's magic could turn into a reflection of themselves to attack, but she seemed to be calling up entirely separate entities. Meanwhile, she seemed mainly focused on supporting her summons, sometimes calling out her own spells that protected them, other times instructing their attacks from the rear. It seemed like powerful magic, but just like every other monster, she seemed to have a weakness in her abilities. In her case, it appeared as a heads-up warning to her attacks, displayed as trading-card-like signs that appeared beside her.

Unfamiliar attacks were dangerous, but as soon as she had used an attack once, the human never fell for it a second time. She reached out and pressed several buttons on the console, activating the "Check" function.

Missy
ATK: 12 DEF: 6
A falling angel. Running out of tricks. Watch out for her friends.

"Watch out for her friends... Why does it keep saying that?" she whispered. Everything else had changed, her stats were dropping as she grew weaker, her "friends" had all shown up. As near as she could tell, Missy had exhausted all of her options, she'd started repeating her attacks some time ago, albeit in different combinations. Why would the "check" function keep giving the same warning?

There was a soft beeping noise, drawing her eyes back to the screen.

ATK: 14 DEF: 7

ATK: 15 DEF: 7

ATK: 16 DEF: 8

"She's... getting stronger again? How does that make any sense?" Alphys whispered. Even as she did, another flicker on the console caught her eye: her motion detectors. Two different signals from different parts of the underground.One was coming from the edge of Hotland and into Waterfall from the other direction, moving fast. She already knew who THAT was, only two monsters in the underground could move like that, and one of them was helping coordinate the evacuation under her lab.

The other was from the edge of Snowdin, just crossing over into Waterfall. That could only mean one thing: either both the evacuation AND the human had missed someone, or "Missy" had been followed. She hated to look away from the ongoing battle, but... from a purely objective perspective, her observance could do nothing to help. If something else was coming their way, she needed to know. She took a deep breath, promising herself she would come back to the battle as soon as she can before pressing the button to change cameras.

"Deep breaths, Sunset... Are you okay?"

"I don't know. You're sure there's nothing back there? It REALLY hurts, and if it's not me, then..."

"Then we need to move faster."

Alphys stumbled backwards, her hand flying to her chest in fear. Humans. Two more humans. One with fiery red hair was knelt on the ground, clearly in pain while the other was holding her shirt up and examining her back.

"If somebody hurt Missy..." the redheaded girl let the threat trail off as she rose to her feet, smoothing down her shirt.

"You're gonna have to get in line," the other one finished her statement. After a nod to each other, they ran out of the camera's sight.

Alphys stopped, her panic coming to a pause in favor of confusion. These humans... were looking for Missy? More importantly, they were worried about her?

She didn't exactly want to trust humans right now, but if they wanted to protect Missy, that meant they had a common enemy. She didn't have a way to contact them, but they were moving in the right direction... in fact, judging by the order in which her motion detectors were going off, they were moving as if they were already familiar with the path. They didn't seem to need her directions, they just needed to hurry.

Missy panted for breath, trying to catch even a few seconds for a break. This kid was relentless, and the throbbing pain from her injury wasn't doing anything to help her focus.

Alucard had taken to the front lines for the moment, drawing the child's attention to himself, but the two were far from evenly matched. It was all he could do to stay ahead of the human's blade, unable to even consider launching a counterattack.

If I just had a chance to summon him properly with some Xyz materials, his ability could do some damage... She shook her head, dispelling the thought. She hadn't even been able to spare a single card to equip to herself, there was no way she could have put together the materials for a proper Xyz summon. Her friends were forcing their way through the dimensional boundaries just to help keep her safe, this was no time for "if only." She had to work with the hand she'd drawn.

Speaking of which... She reached down into her hat to see what else she could draw for the next turn. She could only feel a handful of cards left inside. That, combined with the hollow feeling in her stomach, confirmed what she already knew: they were running out of time and energy. Her friends were exhausted, and she was fading fast.

She swallowed and drew her next card, praying for a miracle. When she looked down, however, she felt her heart sink. Ghostrick Mansion. A field spell. It could halve all of the damage she took, but it felt like it was made of lead, not paper. She didn't even need to try to activate the spell to know that she didn't have the power to manifest a field spell into real life right now. She could try to attach it to herself as an Xyz material, it WAS a "Ghostrick" card, after all, but being one tenth of the way to her win condition wasn't going to help.

She winced as the child finally managed to get ahead of Alucard, their knife nearly slicing the specter in half vertically. In an explosive shower of particles, Alucard was forcefully sent back to the world of spirits, leaving Missy once again on her own. The human locked their eyes on her, clear in their intent: she was next.

She stepped back.

They stepped forward.

They stepped forward again.

Missy couldn't move, any more. Her knees were like jelly. She couldn't fly. She was so scared she could barely think straight. She wasn't sure what would happen if she was destroyed here. Would she simply go home, just like the others did when their physical forms were destroyed, or... is this it?

When the human raised their blade, she could only think one thing: This isn't the fun type of scare, any more...

Missy's eyes widened as a burst of wind flew past the side of her face. A glowing blue light flashed by in the corner of her vision, striking the human and sending them reeling backwards. She could hear the clattering of boots stomping towards her as someone approached from deeper in the mountain. More blue light began to shine from the ground in front of her, forming up into a wall of spears separating her from the human.

"HEY, KID!" The boots came to a stop, and a heavy hand placed itself on her shoulder. "You alright?"

Missy looked up at her savior, the edges of her vision blurring. It was another monster, dressed in heavy silver plate armor. She looked humanoid, but a glance at her face made it more than clear she wasn't. She had blue skin, a pair of red-striped fins on either side of her head, huge, moray-like fangs, and blazing red hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"I- I..." she stammered, unsure what to say.

The other monster stared at her with her one yellow eye, the other being covered up by a black eyepatch. She glanced at Missy's wound across her back, then the disembodied wing laying on the ground. Her already-fearsome visage turned dark, glaring at the human with blazing fury.

"Do you think you can move on your own, kid?"

Missy tried to push herself upwards, but her legs refused to obey, and her head started spinning in a way that made her violently nauseous.

"N-no..."

The fish-like monster seemed to ponder the situation for a few seconds before stepping past her. Another of those blazing blue spears materialized in her hand, and she pointed it threateningly at the human.

"Then wait there. I'll deal with the hu- with whatever that thing is, and then I'll take you to Doctor Alphys. I just need you to hang on a little longer."

Missy nodded, clutching one hand against her head to try and steady the world as her dizziness increased.

"No more monsters are going to die today, not if I have anything to say about it!" She pounded her fist against her chest, directly over her heart. "As Captain of the Royal Guard, I, Undyne, will strike you down!"

Author's Note

Sorry for the short update, everyone. After taking a week off because of a recent COVID-19 scare (false alarm, thankfully!), I realized I'm going to have to change up my writing process a bit. Combined with still trying to fine-tune my Patreon page and pressure to start job hunting, it's been a bit difficult to keep up the pace I set for myself in quarantine. I'm hoping to get into a fresh rhythm soon, and resume regular updates ASAP!

Thanks for your understanding and support!
-Pennington Inkwell

Reunited Respite

The path had gone dark.

Literally.

They'd entered an area of the caves where the only source of light was a blue-tinted bioluminescent moss under their feet that outlined numerous walkways. The light didn't seem to travel more than a couple inches, and the only way to see anything was to spot its silhouette when it blocked out the moss.

Penn had taken hold of her hand and was leading her through, not even hesitating as he twisted and turned. Some paths he would take, others he ignored as if they weren't even there. Thanks to him, they were able to keep up a pace just below a jog, even in the dark. She had no doubt that without his guidance, she could have been fumbling around in the pitch-black marsh for hours. He hadn't spoken a word since they'd entered the dark, but Sunset could feel a burning question rising up in her mind that she couldn't keep ignoring.

"How do you REMEMBER all of this?" she whispered.

"Saw it in a video game."

"Penn, I've played video games. That doesn't mean I have their maps committed to memory!"

"Well, it was a VERY impactful video game!" he fired back.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. It didn't do much good considering neither of them could see each other. "Penn... did you ever stop to consider you might have a eidetic memory?"

"A what-now?"

"You know, a photographic memory?" Sunset asked. "You can remember things with a lot of detail, even if you've only seen them once before? Every time we show up someplace, you can remember practically everything that exists about it! Song lyrics, lore, dialogue, characters' strengths and weaknesses... It's like you just read it yesterday!"

To her surprise, Penn chuckled dismissively. "I'm just a huge nerd, Sunset. I forget birthdays, doctor's appointments, test answers... anything that had any real-life relevance up until you broke the multiverse."

"But you-"

"Sunset, THIS is where I came to get away from how much life could hurt sometimes. I had a phantom tollbooth in my head that I could drive away through into the world of fiction." He sighed wistfully and Sunset felt him come to a stop. A yank on her arm pulled her in close, and she found herself wrapped in that all-encompassing hug. "If I'm honest with you, then yes, my memory's been oddly sharp ever since I met you..." he whispered straight into her ear, as if he were telling some dark secret. "But I'm not superhuman, Sunset. I'm just some guy who spent most of his life knowing he'd be happier in worlds that don't exist. So that's where I spent as much of my time as I could. That's all."

And just like that, Sunset was once again exposed to the damp, chilly air as she was dragged by the hand.

"I guess me breaking all of space and time was the best thing to ever happen to you, huh?" she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yup. The day I met you was probably the best day of my life."

"Penn... the day you met me, you were nearly killed by a dalek, chased down by a giant truck and almost robbed, then whisked away in a government vehicle in the middle of the night."

"I know what I said."

Sunset narrowed her eyes, trying to get a clear look at his face to tell whether or not he was joking.

A few minutes later, they had emerged into another long tunnel, this one lit properly by glowing gems in the ceiling and tall blue flowers. The two of them stopped for a second to take in the almost-ethereal sight, each one still breathing heavily from their furious pace.

"It's beautiful..." Sunset whispered.

"You're definitely not wrong about that..." Penn replied. After a few seconds of silence, Sunset realized that the pressure on her hand still hadn't relented. Penn seemed to notice at the same time, surreptitiously letting go of her hand far too late for it to seem normal. He cleared his throat nervously, "But we can sightsee later."

"Right! Sorry," The two of them looked at once another, nodded, and settled back into a jog down the long hall. As they progressed, Sunset heard what seemed to be the first sounds of life since they'd entered the caves beneath the mountain: clashing metal and angry, gravely roaring.

It was the sounds of a fight.

Penn rounded the corner, and she followed, her hand already on her lightsaber. Her eyes flew wide when she realized that Penn had come to a complete stop. She dug her heels in against the stone floor, nearly throwing herself to the ground with how forcefully she tried to avoid crashing into him.

Finally, she managed to come to a stop and regain her balance. "Penn, why did you... stop?"

They were standing in a wide chamber, a cavern that extended much farther than the light. In front of them was a deep cliff, crossed only by a narrow rope bridge. Across the gap, Sunset could see the battle they had been hearing: a large, armored individual clashing with a human child wielding a kitchen knife, but that wasn't what her focus immediately fell upon.

Her focus was on the tiny figure laying on the ground, dressed in a delicate black dress and a blue hoodie, her back torn open by a gruesome slash wound that was still bleeding... and the severed wing sitting several feet to the side on the ground.

The knife in the human's hand was dripping with blood as they swung it back and forth at their opponent.

Sunset knew that she tended to have issues with her temper. She'd been working on it for a LONG time, but this was no time to be calm. In this moment, Sunset Shimmer's entire body was boiling with wrath.

She wasn't even aware of what she was doing until she had already done it, brief flashes of coherency in a sea of raw emotion. She knew that she ran across the bridge without an ounce of hesitation. She heard the hum of her saber switching on and saw the crimson light standing out in the sea of blues they'd been traveling through up until now. She heard someone's voice screaming in rage, and the scratchy pain in her throat told her that it was her own.

"HOW-"

She was practically on top of the human, now. She was slashing wildly with her saber, with no thought for form or technique. She didn't even think about who or what she was attacking.

"DARE-"

The only thing she could see consciously was the blood on the knife. Missy's blood. She didn't even spare a thought to the creature in the armor that had stepped back when she attacked.

"YOU?"

Somehow, even in this flurry of strikes, the human was staying one step ahead of her. Their expression never changed. Their grip on their weapon never wavered. It was like they knew every one of her attacks before she made them, a preternatural knowledge of what was about to happen.

"HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU HURT MISSY?"

The child lunged in close, ducking under her saber between swings. Sunset didn't even have time to realize what was happening before she saw the gleam of the saber's light off of the bloody surface of their knife.

Fear cut through the haze as time seemed to slow down, letting one coherent thought pass through Sunset's brain.

They're too close, they can hit me!

CLANG!

The sound of metal-on-metal rang through the air, and Sunset's jaw dropped as she realized the armored individual had thrown themselves between her and the knife. A series of glowing blue projectiles rained down, forcing the child back as another attack seemed to lock them in place with a green glow.

The creature was somewhere between a human and a fish, with scaly blue skin and red fins on the side of her head. Somehow, what looked like a simple kitchen knife had managed to put a deep gash into the armor, and Sunset could see that she was bleeding inside, though it wasn't possible to tell how deep the wound went. When she opened her mouth to speak, Sunset could see fearsome fangs lining the inside of her mouth.

"Who the HELL are you?"

Before Sunset could reciprocate the question, she could feel a hand tugging at the bottom of her shirt. She had landed on the ground right beside Missy, and the little spirit had crawled up onto her lap, laying her head across Sunset's legs.

"S-Sunny..."

Sunset scooped both of her arms under Missy, gently lifting her up off the ground. Missy's frail form felt even lighter than usual, as though she were made of tissue paper. Even by her usually pasty standards, she was as pale as a sheet and shaking softly in her arms. Sunset's eyes began to burn as tears were instantly flowing freely. "Missy... Missy, I'm so sorry..." she whispered, leaning down to press their foreheads together.

"S-Sunset... I- I knew..."

"Shh... save your strength." Sunset shook her head. "We're here, now. Everything's going to be okay..."

Missy nodded, closing her eyes with a satisfied smile on her face. "D-don't l-leave me... kay?"

Sunset nodded, cringing as she realized her tears were dripping on her dress. "I promise. I promise I'm not gonna leave you!"

The monster observed the tender moment with a skeptical look before sighing and rubbing at her head. "Look, I don't want to trust a human, but if you're with the angel then I'll have to make an exception..." She pointed on down the next tunnel. "If you go straight that way, you're going to find the Royal Scientist's lab. She should be able to help, she's pretty smart and stuff." Her body shuddered and she hacked, sending a spray of blood scattering across the floor. In spite of her injury, she smiled. "I'll stay here and show this human what us monsters are made of!"

Sunset's eyes widened. "But you're hurt!"

"HA! This? This is nothing!" She grinned a toothy grin as another one of those magical blue spears appeared in her hand. "Now get out of here!"

"And don't forget this..." Penn appeared from behind her, gently cradling Missy's missing wing in his hands. Sunset could see his hands trembling as he placed it across her chest. Is he scared? she wondered as she looked up to him.

His face was an absolute glower, one that sent chills through her soul. He was the picture of restrained animosity, just like he had been when he challenged Joshua to that shadow game what felt like an eternity ago. For a second, he seemed to notice her reaction, looking to the side before turning his back to her.

"Go. This kid's not getting by us... right, Undyne?"

"Hell yeah, uh... whoever you are!" the monster grinned practically from ear to ear as she tightened her grip on the spear. Behind her, Sunset could see the green aura around the human flickering, a sign that the spell holding them in place was about to wear off.

Sunset wanted to argue and insist that he come along, but... she knew that look. She'd probably had the same look in her eyes just a few moments prior, by her reckoning. There was no way she could talk him down from this kind of anger.

"Just... stay safe, okay?" she whispered, gripping Missy tighter as she pushed herself up onto her feet. She adjusted her grip, holding Missy with one arm and reaching to her belt with the other. She unclipped her saber, pressing it into his hand. "Here. I'm sure you'll get it back to me when this is all over..."

"GO, Sunset!" Penn growled. His hand wrapped around the handle of her saber, accepting the temporary loan of her good luck charm.

Sunset nodded, keeping Missy pressed tight against her chest as she sprinted away. I'll be back soon, Penn...

"Never thought I'd wind up fighting side by side with a human..." Undyne muttered. There were SEVERAL questions she wanted to ask, but all of them were going to have to wait. Stopping the child was the priority.

She still couldn't believe she was saying that. Stopping the child was her big mission that all of the underground was relying on. It wasn't even some great warrior, or a crazed villain with years of experience. A CHILD had done all of this, had nearly wiped out every monster in the underground. A child had nearly wiped her out in one hit, even through her armor. She was already on her last legs, even if she could still talk big.

"Yeah, well, this kid hurt my friend, so they've got to pay..." he replied, his neck making several popping sounds as he tilted his head to the side. "Friends call me 'Penn,' by the way."

"We're NOT friends." Undyne narrowed her eye. "Just because we both hate this kid doesn't mean we're all buddy-buddy."

"Whatever. Catch your breath, I'm gonna take this round. I'll let you know when I'm ready to tag out."

Undyne smirked a little in spite of her injury. She wasn't sure if he knew how much pain she was in, but she couldn't have gotten up to fight if she wanted to. She didn't even know why she'd stepped in to save that red-haired human other than that they seemed to have a common enemy. It had just been instinct, something deep in her gut that needed to protect people. "Fine. I could use something fun to watch after how today's gone, anyway."

The human seemed somewhat more hesitant when faced with another one of their own kind advancing on them. Out of curiosity, she decided to CHECK him.

"Penn"
LV: 18
AT: 25 EXP: 5000
DF: 75 NEXT: 2000

WEAPON: Lightsaber (Red)
ARMOR: None

GOLD: 0

One human. Twice the trouble you'd REASONably expect.

His defense is three times higher than his attack with no armor? What kind of human IS this?

The child lunged forward, brandishing their knife. Penn didn't hesitate, raising both of his arms. One knocked away the child's knife-bearing hand, the other made a strike to their chest, knocking them back.

"You picked the WRONG monster to try and kill today..." he muttered. "So, Frisk, why don't we find out what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"

Undyne hated to admit it, but if he was going to throw around lines like that, he was going to start growing on her quickly. For now, she would have to resign herself to watching as she tried to catch her breath. One hand slipped into a hidden pocket in her armor where she kept her emergency rations just for a situation like this. She ate more than half of the first "Legendary Hero" sandwich in one bite as she watched the two humans stalk around each other, each one assessing the other's skills.

This certainly wasn't the turn of events she had been expecting, but monsterkind needed all the help they could get. Maybe having two humans on THEIR side was just what they needed.

Author's Note

Hey there, fellow adventurers! Sorry for the delay, I've been needing to take a little time to work on myself and my process, but hopefully I can get back to regular updates, now! I'll aim for two per week as before, but I want to leave the option to drop down to one in case I feel like things need a little extra polish.

For those of you interested, my Patreon is finally up and finished! If you're interested in private chats, having input on Multiverse, access to WIPs (such as the never-before-seen 65-page "prototype" Multiverse arc that convinced me to finally write this story for real!), and other cool rewards, please check it out and consider donating!

There's Fighting Somewhere Else

Sunset kept Missy clutched tight against her chest as she rushed through the tunnel, keeping a silent prayer in her heart that the little girl would be alright.

Hang in there, Missy... Just hang on!

Missy's breathing was short and fast, giving Sunset even more reason to worry as she rushed down the tunnel.

WELCOME TO HOTLAND a nearby sign declared.

It was an apt name. As she proceeded further, she was struck by wave after wave of oppressive heat. Still, she pressed forward, even when the blues gave way to a red glow.

She only hesitated for a moment when she exited the tunnel, stumbling when she found herself on another bridge. The tunnels opened up into a massive, hollow cavern like the inside of a volcano. She couldn't see the roof, and all that laid beneath her was a lake of slowly churning lava. In the distance, she could see a monumental machine built straight into the stone wall, dipping into the lava and chugging like the heartbeat of a sleeping titan.

When the shock had worn off, she steeled her resolve and pressed onward into the heat. She crossed the bridge over the lava, trying not to look down at the potential fiery death below. She didn't spare the time to feel relieved once she was back on solid ground. She had a mission.

Not much farther, Missy...

Finally, she found herself standing outside a building that she could only assume was the one the armored monster had been talking about. It was a huge white building with multiple hoses and pipes poking out of the sides and roof that lead away and out of sight. The word "LAB" was printed in red lettering above a pair of sliding doors, and there was only a number pad in lieu of a doorknob.

Sunset glanced down at the child cradled in her arms, gasping as she noticed a disturbing new development: Missy was breaking up. Fine lines were beginning to emerge in her flesh, dividing her entire form into tiny triangular pieces that flexed in and out, parting slightly in time with her breathing. Sunset knew that sign, she'd seen it before: Missy's body was about to disintegrate, just like any monster being destroyed in a duel.

Sunset urgently rapped her knuckles against the metal doors hard enough to leave her hands stinging.

"HELLO? I- WE NEED HELP!" she shouted. "Please! There's a kid out here, and she's hurt! Is anybody there?"

To Sunset's relief, the doors slid open in a gust of chilled air, revealing a creature standing just behind them. She almost looked like some kind of yellow dinosaur, with thick scales, a triangular-shaped head that flared out into evenly spaced points near the back, and a short, stocky build that only came up to just past Sunset's waist. She was dressed in a white lab coat and wore a pair of thick glasses. Behind those glasses, Sunset could see eyes wide with fear, and she seemed to be trembling as anxiously wrung her hands in front of her.

Sunset dropped to one knee, placing herself at eye level with the monster and carefully cradling Missy in the space between them. The stranger glanced back and forth between Sunset and Missy, her eyes still wide. Finally, she swallowed and settled to focusing on Missy, gently lifting her enough to get a look at the wound on her back.

"Th-that's not good..." she stuttered in a nasally voice. "C-come inside, I'll try to get her stabilized."

With that, she turned around and rushed back into the building. Sunset followed her, trying to keep up with the lizard's anxious shuffle.

The inside of the lab seemed less like an area for experimentation and more like someone's home, with numerous dirty teacups scattered and stacked on open surfaces that weren't already covered in thick stacks of paper. There were multiple billboards scattered around the space, some covered in formulas and technical diagrams, others in sketches of different characters and amateur anime drawings. Beside a well-worn desk with a computer terminal was a refrigerator and, oddly enough, a massive bag of dog food. Two escalators softly hummed, one leading upstairs and the other back down to their level. The most notable item in the room, however, was a huge monitor mounted on the wall, with a complex-looking array of buttons and switches underneath it. Currently, the scene playing out on the screen was a view of the ongoing battle back in Waterfall, all from the perspective of a hidden camera.

Penn was gritting his teeth and gripping at one arm. It was bleeding from a gash where the child had managed to land a blow. He was on the defensive, but his resolve looked strong. The other human still had the same stony expression they'd had when Sunset had first seen them and they were without so much as a scratch.

Sunset felt a touch of fear as she realized just what she had tried to do earlier. She'd turned the lightsaber on a kid, absolutely with killing intent. She was an almost-fully-grown adult, and that child couldn't be more than ten years old!

What did I let my anger turn me into?

On the other hand, however, if Penn was right... then that child had single-handedly wiped out the entirety of the population in the three different areas they'd traveled through.

Her host ran up to her desk, pushing aside the contents and letting them scatter across the tile floor. "H-here! L-lay her down here!" the lizard ordered before rushing away. She tapped a spot on the wall, prompting a panel to spring open and reveal several technical-looking instruments.

Sunset did as she was told, gingerly placing Missy down on the wooden surface stomach-down so her wound was exposed to the air.

The doctor rushed back, how holding a wide tablet-like device. "P-please step back..."

Sunset nodded and took a step away from the desk. The doctor set herself to work, passing the device over and along Missy's body. After a few seconds her brow furrowed, and she tapped at the screen and repeated the motion.

"Th-this can't be right..." she whispered.

"What? What is it?"

"W-well, this device-" she gestured to the tablet in her hand, "lets me view a monster's soul and what condition it's in, along with the flow of magic in their body! But according to this..." she glanced back at the screen, slowly lifting it up and away from Missy's body and turning it towards Sunset's. "Her magic doesn't just stop at her own body! There's a secondary flow that goes out and into you... then from your soul BACK to her!" She adjusted her glasses before giving Sunset a wide-eyed stare. "I've never seen anything like it! Who- who ARE you?"

"My name is Sunset Shimmer, and this is Missy." Sunset glanced anxiously back at Missy's frail form. "So... what does this mean? Can you help her?"

"The first thing we need to do is get the wound bandaged and properly treated so she stops bleeding magic power, then we can look into the other types of damage..." She shook her head. "I-I don't think we can use our usual method of trying to block up the damaged magic pathways, there's too much risk of cutting off a necessary connection to you. We'll have to settle for traditional bandages." She jumped slightly as a nearby door dinged, revealing itself to be an elevator. The door slid open, clearing the way for what looked like a large, multicolored box with arms balanced carefully on a single wheel. "M-Mettaton! Can you go fetch us some bandages?"

"OF COURSE I CAN, ALPHYS, DARLING!" The robot gestured wildly with its arms before somehow bending over in a showy bow. "I'LL BE BACK BEFORE YOU CAN SAY 'IT'S SHOWTIME!'" With a chorus of heavy thuds, it began to forcefully roll itself up the escalator.

Sunset nodded, trying not to think about the fact that this monster had a machine that could see souls, nor question why she appeared to have a robotic gender-swapped Rarity.

"O-Once her wound is clean and b-bound, we can move her to my hyperthaumic chamber, that should stop her condition from growing any worse..."

Sunset nodded, feeling a sigh of relief slip out. "I can't thank you enough for your help, Doctor..."

"A-Alphys! My name is Doctor Alphys!" she stammered, holding out a trembling clawed hand. "S-sorry, I should have introduced myself!"

Sunset gave the offered hand a gentle shake, noticing the way the doctor flinched when they touched. Before she could offer any kind of reassurance, the moment was interrupted by more heavy crashing as Mettaton came rolling back down the escalator.

"HERE YOU ARE, ONE SET OF CLEAN BANDAGES, DISINFECTANT, AND GAUZE!" he declared, handing the objects in question to Alphys.

"Thank you..." she muttered, turning back to her patient. "Now, we need to take off her-" Alphys's eyes widened as she fingered at the blue hoodie Missy was wrapped in. Sunset was sure it had some kind of significance, but Alphys had shaken off the shock before she could ask. "Can you two help me get this hoodie off? Her other clothes are made of the same kind of magic as her body, but we need to clean her wound before we can apply the bandages..."

Sunset nodded, watching as Mettaton's large hands eased Missy into a sitting position and kept her supported while she and Alphys set to work removing the extra article of clothing.

"The- the human did this, didn't they?" Alphys whispered.

Sunset felt her own emotions conflicting as she carefully eased what was left of Missy's wings through the holes torn in the hoodie's back. Part of her wanted to explode with unbridled fury, but another part of her was forcing tears up into her eyes, forcing her to weep at the sight of Missy's injury.

She considered leaving. Missy was in safe hands, now, and Penn was fighting that kid. Even in the brief moments she'd spent trying to get revenge, Sunset could tell that there was something wrong with that child. There was something dark about them, a hatred to their actions that sloughed off of them in waves. Combined with their ability to dodge everything Sunset could throw at them, even in her berserk state, she felt genuine fear that this child could pose a genuine threat to Penn's life.

"Yeah... they did."

Alphys took a small bottle, squeezing a large dollop of green cream onto her palm and spreading it over the surface of her hands. She leaned in close to Missy's ear. "Missy? Can you hear me? I'm going to try to clean your wound. This might sting a little..."

Missy was completely unresponsive, and after a few seconds of waiting for a response, Alphys nodded and began applying the cream to the wound. It seemed to serve two functions, cleaning away the half-dried blood on her back and filling in the crevice that had been carved into her flesh. Soon, with the carefully practiced ministrations, the wound was no longer visible, covered by a layer of the softly glowing medication.

"Th-this should help kick-start the healing process, this cream's infused with healing magic... Can you apply the bandages, Sunset?"

Sunset nodded and reached for the gauze. As she was occupied with setting layers of protection over the wound, Alphys turned to the disembodied wing. Once again, she scanned with the tablet-like device, her brow furrowing before she moved to pick it up. She carefully fingered at the feathers, holding it up inches from her face.

"N-normally, when a body part is severed from a monster, the magic that makes up their body immediately disincorporates... The fact that this wing is still in one piece-" she caught herself. "W-well, I d-don't want to make any promises, but..."

"Do you think we could re-attach it?" In spite of the disclaimer, Sunset felt her hopes beginning to rise. Alphys held her hands up defensively in response, as if she were trying to physically push away the suggestion.

"W-we could try, but I'm not qualified for that kind of procedure! I'm not a doctor! I- I mean I'm not THAT kind of doctor! I-it's not as simple as just slathering it with healing magic!"

"THAT WOULD REQUIRE INCREDIBLE PRECISION!" Mettaton added. "REAL-TIME SURGERY AS IT HEALS! THOROUGH ANATOMICAL EDUCATION! IMAGINE IF THE WRONG TENDONS OR LIGAMENTS WERE RECONNECTED TO ONE ANOTHER!"

Sunset's hopes began to sink again, looking longingly at the disembodied limb. She wanted to make an argument that they had to at least TRY, but... Mettaton was right. If it healed wrong, it could be much worse for Missy than just leaving it as it was. She shook her head and forced herself to continue wrapping the bandages around Missy's chest.

That was when she felt a set of sharp claws pushing off of her back, sending a jolt through her and causing her to yelp and drop the bandage roll. With a soft clatter of metal on wood, she watched Isis's repair drone land on the table, taking in its new surroundings with curiosity.

"Wh-what is that?"

"OH MY, ANOTHER ROBOT?"

In all the excitement, I must have forgotten it was holding on to me!

"It's okay! She's with us..." She reached over, picking it up around its barrel and holding it at eye level. "Isis? Any luck getting a signal through that barrier? We could REALLY use some advice right now..."

The drone tilted its head in confusion, twisting awkwardly to stare at Mettaton. Sunset sighed.

"Don't worry. Without a connection back to the main AI, she's just a harmless repair drone. She's on autopilot. She'll either just watch us or find something broken to fix." She set it back on the table and finished wrapping the last of Missy's bandages.

"Fascinating..." Alphys whispered, instantly entranced. After a few seconds of silence, their attention was drawn back by the sound of Mettaton pretending to clear his throat.

"ALPHYS, I BELIEVE WE STILL HAVE A PATIENT?"

"R-RIGHT! We'll need to take her downstairs... Would you like to carry her, Sunset?"

Sunset felt herself torn as logic clashed with emotion.

"Listen, my other friend... he's still fighting that kid. If Missy is going to be safe here, I should probably get back there to help him."

"What? N-no!" Alphys declared, more than a slight edge of panic in her voice. "D-don't you understand? You two are connected! If you leave, we can't be sure that she'll be able to hold herself together, no matter what we do! You HAVE to stay here!"

Emotion celebrated its victory as logic was stamped out. She HAD to stay close to Missy until she was better, there was no choice about it. She nodded and carefully looped her arms around Missy's frail form, trying not to cringe when the drone dug in its claws and climbed back onto her shoulder as well.

"WELL, I'M AFRAID WE WON'T ALL FIT. I'LL WAIT UP HERE AND COME DOWN ON A SECOND TRIP."

"O-okay, Mettaton! Just don't be long, okay? I'm going to need you down there."

"OF COURSE, DARLING!"

Sunset tried to ignore the growing dread in her chest as the door of the elevator shut, beginning their descent. She was glad that she had a good reason to stay by Missy's side, but...

...she couldn't help worrying about her other friend, too.

"So... settle a bet, would you?" Penn asked, breathing heavily as he caught another one of the human's attacks by the wrist. They used his grip for leverage, pulling themselves up and placing a kick right on his chin. He was fairly certain he heard one of his teeth crack as his jaw was slammed shut, and the whole world spun for several seconds.

Darn kid... hit me right on the button...

"The button" was a boxing term he'd learned back during a brief fixation on the life of Muhammad Ali. It was the spot on the head where a direct blow would cause the brain to collide with the skull due to the sudden motion. Usually, it was enough to floor an opponent with an instant knockout, but the kid couldn't get enough force behind them for that. It was still enough to completely disorient him, though. Unfortunately, that momentary daze was enough to force him to let go and stumble back several steps. The child seemed completely unfazed, easing back into a striking position. Through the haze, Penn forced his hands up into a guarded position. It was a bluff, given that he could hardly see straight, but it seemed to be enough to make the child reconsider their follow-up attack.

"So..." Penn shook his head, trying to clear away the haze of pain and dizziness. "Are you Frisk, Chara controlling Frisk, or some third party affecting them both? If it's the second one, I win twenty bucks from a friend of mine."

"Wow, they must have hit you in the head harder than it looked like they did!" Undyne heckled.

"Who's the one who can suplex boulders for fun and almost got killed in one hit, again?" he fired back. He didn't take his eyes off of the kid, but Undyne's indignant gasp was enough to put a smile on his face.

"Okay, tag out, or whatever! I'm gonna show you what I can REALLY do!"

Penn smiled and spread his arms wide, backing away from the fight. It was only when he realized that the sound of clanking armor was headed towards HIM that he took his eyes off of the child for the first time. He didn't even have time to process the threat as Undyne plowed past him on the most direct route to Frisk, clipping his shoulder hard enough to spin him a full 360 degrees and leave him in a heap on the ground.

"Ugh... you fitsh..." he muttered, making the decision that he was going to go ahead and take his break right there.

Author's Note

Sorry again for the delay. Honestly... writing scenes were Missy is hurt/in pain isn't easy for me. I kinda dreaded writing this whole chapter. Don't really have much else to say, really. Guess I love that little duel spirit as much as Sunset.

True Labs

Sunset tried not to let herself get spooked by just how eerie the silence was as they descended even further into the Earth, accompanied only by the humming of the elevator. For a moment, she thought back to Aperture Science and GLaDOS's unnerving promises of what would happen if the elevator malfunctioned.

Just as she was beginning to feel the weight of how deep underground she was making her claustrophobic, the elevator came to a stop. Alphys reached out, pressing down a button to keep the door closed.

"U-um, y-you might want to brace yourself... The monsters down here all had their homes taken from them by a human and... w-well..."

Sunset cringed. "Right... I guess I shouldn't expect a warm welcome. It won't be the first time."

Alphys nodded, finally releasing the button and allowing the door to slide open.

The underbelly of the lab was huge, much larger than the building on the surface. Everything down here was dimly lit, with the walls and floor all painted or tiled in shade of gray and metallic silver. Machinery of all kinds were scattered around, some abandoned while others had been moved into open doorways as impromptu barriers.

What was far more striking, however, was the presence of the countless monsters that had turned to look at them when the doors opened. They were crammed into almost every corner of the space, some with tear-streaked faces and others with stoic acceptance. The general direction they were all facing was deeper into the lab Sunset could barely believe her eyes at the sheer variety of creatures, from birds with snowflake-shaped plumage and what looked to be some kind of fusion of a turtle, a washboard, and a bucket to odd-looking dogs and pixie-like creatures floating through the air. Each and every of them were staring at her, all with a narrow range of reactions varying between "terror" and "rage."

"THE HUMAN!" One voice finally screeched, shattering the awkward silence. In that instant, the peace that came with such total shock vanished.

The monsters all began to scramble wildly. Some were trying to sprint for the door, turning the exit into a bottleneck filled with a mass of bodies all clawing and shoving to get past one another. The rest were all focused on her, either too frightened to move or readying themselves for a fight. Sunset gripped Missy tighter as some of the more bulky and strong-looking creatures started to push their way through towards the elevator.

"N-No! Wait! Th-This isn't- St-stop!" Alphys stammered, but her words were instantly lost in the sea of confusion.

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to brace herself. These monsters were just scared, and understandably so. If she was going to be forced into a fight, she wasn't going to hurt them. The problem was how she was going to protect herself and Missy with her hands full.

Sunset stepped back as the aggressors grew closer, feeling the wall of the elevator against her back. She glanced down at Alphys, who was still trying to raise her voice through the chaos, then up at the rest of the monsters who were all ignoring her. She swallowed her fears... and turned her back to them, dropping to her knees to curl her own body around Missy's as a shield. But before the pain she was expecting could come, a new voice finally pierced through the panic.

"BLUE MEANS STOP!"

The change was instantaneous. All of the sounds of scrambling and fear came to a complete stop, silence dropped like an anvil, and it seemed as if even the air became still. Eventually, Sunset's curiosity outweighed her fear and she turned to peek over her shoulder.

What looked like translucent blue bone-shaped had sprung up from the floor, spaced in a way that they passed through the bodies of every individual in the room. Every single one of the creatures was frozen in place, either unable or unwilling to move. Sunset's eyes widened as a single individual made their way through the chaos, the magical spikes either parting or retreating to let him through.

It was a skeleton. As in "just bones with nothing holding them together which makes no sense anatomically" skeleton. They were tall and lanky, dressed in a white shirt that covered their ribcage, a pair of shorts to cover their pelvis, heavy-looking red boots, gloves, and a matching scarf. He walked straight to the elevator, his eye sockets narrowing slightly as he looked her over for a moment. After a few seconds his toothy smile seemed to curl further upwards and he held out a hand to her.

"Papyrus, STOP!" one of the monsters shouted, drawing everyone's attention. "Are you CRAZY? They'll kill you!"

The skeleton shook his head, and gave his hand a small shake to prompt Sunset to take it. Sunset felt a rush of relief as she did so, letting him pull her back up onto her feet. Once she was steady again, he turned back to the crowd.

"This is NOT the human I saw in Snowdin!" he declared. "Besides, look! She's carrying a hurt monster! I think we should hear Doctor Alphys out before we make any judgements!"

"Th-thank you, Papyrus..." Alphys whispered. She cleared her throat before stepping out of the elevator. "E-everyone, this is S-Sunset Shimmer! Sh-she's another human, b-but she's not a killer! She's friends with this an-" Alphys seemed to catch herself for a moment, making a quick decision. "With this monster named Missy! The same human attacked them that attacked the rest of us! She's just looking for help, just like all of you!"

This statement seemed to spark a series of nervous murmurs through the crowd, but they soon faded away again as Papyrus placed his hands on his hips.

"SO! You all heard Doctor Alphys! As a royal-guard-in-training, The Great Papyrus will not tolerate chaos in this evacuation! Please return to moving in a calm and orderly manner!"

With a wave of his hand, the magical blue bones vanished, and everyone began to move again. For some, the endorsement from Alphys seemed to be enough, only stealing curious glances from time to time. Others seemed more wary, giving her angry or suspicious looks every few seconds.

"Th-thanks, Papyrus. The last thing we need right now is a panic..." Alphys whispered. Sunset nodded in agreement, silently adding her own gratitude to the statement.

"Of course!" Papyrus proudly held a hand against his chest, striking a noble pose. "What kind of candidate for the Royal Guard would I be if I let the monsters of the underground trample over one another, or if I ignored someone in just as much need as the rest of us?"

"R-right now, we need to get Missy to the hyperthaumic chamber. Do you think you can help us get there?"

"Certainly! It will be my pleasure!" he declared. With hardly so much as a glance back, he set off across the room, the other monsters quickly clearing a path for him. Sunset waited for a moment to watch Alphys follow close behind him before doing the same. She tried to ignore how awkward it was to have the crowd parting for her like this, but they were moving towards one of the blocked doorways, fighting the tide of creatures moving into the next room.

Now that she wasn't in immediate danger, Sunset's mind wandered to the plight of the monsters here. They were all frightened, almost the the point of being beyond rational thought. The atmosphere was one of oppressive despair, and it was clear on each of their faces that they had reached the same conclusion she had: as long as the barrier was still standing, all they could do was push further back until they were cornered. From there... it would be kill or be killed.

She didn't need her geode to tell that hope was running low here.

Papyrus didn't even seem to struggle with pushing the improvised barricade out of the way, opening the path into another room of the laboratory. The four of them stepped into the darkened room, barely able to make out indistinct shapes in the semi-darkness.

"N-now where is that light switch?" Alphys muttered. "Ah! There it is!"

His mind was racing.

Time was running out.

He was running out of options. Every second he spent thinking was another opportunity dead. Soon, he would only have two options, neither of which were acceptable.

Undyne was wearing thin. She'd taken at least three blows that he could count, and her breathing was ragged. Her shoulders were sagging and her movements were growing more and more sluggish.

"You're not ready to go back in!" Reason argued.

He pushed the thought out of his mind as he pushed himself up off of the ground. Think you could work on a solution, instead of telling me what I already know?

He rushed forward as Frisk closed in for another attack. He aimed for their wrist, falling back on the first idea: disarm. Without the knife, Frisk was just a prescient child. Sure, genuine malice would be enough to transform any implement into a weapon against monsters, their defenses were empathetic, but he was fairly certain he could handle a child with a stick.

Frisk knew what he was doing. Of course they did. For them, this had all happened before, countless times. They pivoted on their heel, managing to redirect their attack in less than a second from a slashing motion to a stabbing one. Penn's eyes widened as he tried to stop his lunge, but it was too late.

The exchange was only a blink in the overall battle, and he had managed to throw himself back again before he could even tell if the attack had landed. As he stumbled back, however, he could feel a rising burning in his stomach, punctuated by an acute pain that soon faded in with the rest across his body. The child took a closer look at their blade, watching the blood bead and roll down the steel. It couldn't have pierced more than an inch and a half, which gave him some small comfort: it wasn't likely they'd pierced his stomach. Their face was as expressionless as ever, not even showing a single sign of exhaustion.

He was being outplayed. Frisk literally knew everything that was going to happen before it did. Each beat of the battle was theirs to dictate. Undertale was a game that toyed with the fourth wall more than most, and the idea of "save points" was more than just a necessary mechanic. Here, they were a real phenomenon, and Frisk had them at their disposal.

So... this is what it's like to be on the other side of "the person who knows everything." Can't say I like it...

"You alright?" Undyne asked, keeping her guard up as she backed away to join him.

Penn growled slightly to himself as he forced his body to stand up straight in spite of the pain. "I'll walk it off. You?"

"My armor's sure taking a beating..." she muttered.

"So's the fish inside it. That's not an answer."

Undyne shot him a halfhearted glare with her one good eye, but he could see a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'll walk it off."

"Oh, I like her."

Penn smirked. If she could snark, then she could keep fighting.

"We can't keep challenging them one-on-one. We're gonna have to attack together if we want a chance to overwhelm them."

"You got a plan? I'm open to suggestions at this point..." Undyne panted.

"Run?" Reason suggested.

"You go left, I'll go right. If you pin them with your magic, we could flank from both sides at once." He pressed one hand to his fresh stomach wound, feeling the blood pooling in his shirt. He didn't want to even think about the fact that he was starting to feel light-headed, but...

Time was running out.

"We should aim for the head..."

Undyne reached out with one hand, freezing the child in an emerald aura. "My pleasure."

Frisk knew everything that was going to happen. They'd probably saved and loaded and replayed this moment a dozen times. They held all the cards. There was nothing he could do that would surprise them, no trap he could set without them knowing. Penn knew he needed to get ahead of them, but he didn't know how. He needed to take back the title of "smartest person in the room."

"We need to either win quickly..."

...or change the game.

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and twenty six... No response."

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and twenty seven... No response."

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and twenty eight... No response."

The Integrated Superior Intelligence System did not get "frustrated." The current tax on her Sympathetic Synthesis Module was most certainly not the result of becoming frustrated.

It was the result of the contradiction of her own denial about becoming frustrated and the fact that she was.

Right now, she was using another one of her repair drones to send signals of varying strengths and frequencies through the barrier and monitoring for any signals that reflected off of the cave walls and back through the barrier. So far, there had been a response of absolute zero.

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and twenty nine... No response."

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and thirty... No response."

"Testing frequency three thousand, five hundred and thirty one... No response."

That was the frustrating part. The barrier gave absolutely no feedback. It was like a black hole of data. She was injecting energy into a closed system and receiving no signs of it existing once it was beyond her measurements.

She had started with radio frequencies, then moved upwards through the electromagnetic spectrum. She'd run through microwaves, infrared, visible and ultraviolet light, x-rays, and alpha, beta, AND gamma radiation. None of them had ever returned through the barrier.

If she could not determine how to pierce this barrier, then Elijah, Sunset Shimmer, and Missy would all be trapped inside until their eventual deaths. She would never see them again. They would be lost to the same pitch-blackened abyss as the rest of her attempts to gather data. Her continued failure was wasting valuable time wherein they could be in danger.

She hated not knowing. Her secondary directive was to collect data on as wide a scale as possible. She craved knowledge, down to her very core. Not knowing what was happening in as crucial a moment as a teammate's disappearance rendered her completely useless.

Useless.

Until she could find the data they needed, she was functionally useless to them.

In the workshop, a high-pitched whine began, like the sound of a motor being overworked. It was the only sound Administrator Noir would always take notice of, so he had specifically chosen it for less urgent alarms. In this particular instance, Isis wished that he would ignore it. The dragon glanced up from the circuitboard he was currently soldering. Without so much as a word, he glided to the main readout and began looking over the readout.

"Your SSM's getting worked up, Isis... what's going on?"

"It is nothing you need concern yourself with, Administrator."

"As far as falsehoods go, I'd put that solidly between 'lies' and 'statistics.'" He gave an annoyed flick of his tail before beginning to type on the keyboard with the tip, retrieving the detailed report on her current simulated emotions. "Talk to me, Isis..."

Isis knew that she could hide nothing from him. Her ability to process emotions was still... stunted at best. Overwhelming the SSM could cause a series of failures across all central systems. Now that he knew she was under strain, his own emotions would prompt him to look more deeply into the matter. He cared for her well-being, after all.

"A situation has arisen with Elijah's and Sunset Shimmer's exploratory party. Missy has gone missing beyond a strange one-way barrier, and the two of them followed. However, I am unable to retrieve any kind of signal from the other side. I have run a thorough gamut of the electromagnetic spectrum, but I am unable to find a resonant frequency. For lack of a better term, they are all facing unknown dangers in a 'dead zone' from which I can obtain no data."

He stepped away from the keyboard, arching his neck slightly. "Okay... you're stumped at a bad time. I can't hold a candle to your computing power, but... Ten thousand, six hundred and twenty two heads are better than ten thousand, six hundred, and twenty one. Give me the data, full readout."

His estimation of the number of drones at her command was woefully underwhelming, but she didn't choose to correct him. It was irrelevant for the moment.

The strain on the SSM lessened. The whining alert sound came to a halt as her simulated worries eased. Her administrator was helping her.

The upper walls of tools and ongoing projects rotated, revealing wall-to-wall monitors near the ceiling. Frequencies, durations, and results rolled by. She watched his body begin to crackle with energy as he took to the air, zipping from one monitor to the next as he caught up as quickly as he could.

"It's like it isn't even there..." he muttered to himself as he landed on the worktable in the center of the room.

"It is empty."

"Nonono... Then it'd be space." His sapphire-colored eyes narrowed. "And I know a thing or two about space... Things disperse in space, but they're still THERE. This is more like... It's vanishing as soon as it hits the barrier. But that's not it, either. Can't destroy or create matter or energy, provided the laws of physics are still in effect..."

"Affirmative."

"So, if it isn't being destroyed and there's no sign of anything returning... what about if there's too much? Your signal isn't being swallowed up in nothing, it's being drowned out, like a drop of food coloring in a river rapid!" He turned rapidly in place, re-examining the data at a cursory level. "Have you tried examining it with a Kant counter?"

"Standard repair drones are not equipped with that kind of advanced sensory hardware. Would you like me to call the nearest deep interdimensional exploratory drone?"

Isis had already sent out the recall order the moment she saw his head nod a fraction of an inch up and down.

"Keep me posted, Isis... I'm going to want more details on this. Next time you get this worked up, don't be afraid to ask for help, alright?"

"Affirmative, Administrator. I was merely worried that, after your last encounter, you would not approve of allocating any resources to helping that particular party..."

She noticed his body language stiffen somewhat before he rolled his eyes and sighed in resignation. "Just... don't tell them I did this. It's for YOUR sake, got it? I don't want you to blow a fuse. We both know your sister can be a headache to deal with, even for me."

If Isis could have smiled, she would have. His true nature was coming through, he DID care.

He seemed to notice the change in her emotional data, shooting a threatening plume of fire in the screen's direction.

"And wipe that smug look off your face!"

Determined to the End

Sunset rested her hand against the cold glass between herself and Missy, watching her tiny chest rapidly rise and fall with each breath. Alphys's "hyperthaumic" chamber was a dead ringer for a glass coffin, aside from the addition of several machines running tubes into it and taking measurements. A heartbeat monitor beeped away, never letting the tension fall for a moment as Missy's heart continued to race. Alphys had promised the device would help stabilize her, but she wasn't showing any signs of improvement.

A screen on the wall above them had been set to display the ongoing battle, as had many of the others in the lab so that she and the other refugees could watch the heroes battling for their safety. When she would pace to the edge of the room, Sunset could hear the monsters arguing and musing over the situation.

"There's no way they could lose, right?"

"Lousy humans, they should have just stayed on the surface where they belonged!"

"Why would a human even fight for us, anyway?"

"It doesn't matter! Undyne will stop them! One more human soul and we can break through the barrier, remember?"

Sunset wanted to interject, but she had other things on her mind.

She didn't know why he wasn't using the lightsaber she'd given him, but he and Undyne had reached some kind of synchronization. He would weave in and out between her projectiles, ready with a haymaker punch or a powerful kick whenever he could get close enough to the child. Still, the other human didn't seem fazed by the rapidly developing teamwork, often dodging by simple millimeters or allowing one lesser attack to land in exchange for safety from another, more powerful one. Even when Sunset thought there was no way they could survive what was coming, they seemed to find the single safe path through to the other side.

Penn was wearing thinner and thinner. She wasn't sure the monsters could tell, but she'd spent enough time at Beacon to spot a human being's tells for when they were getting weak. His knees were shaking, and he seemed to have broken into a cold sweat. It was obvious that he'd been defaulting to using his arms to defend himself, even without the dual shields he'd used back in Remnant. As a consequence, the skin of his forearms had been slashed and sliced mercilessly, leaving a trail of blood droplets with every step. His movements were growing sluggish, steadily falling behind the pace Undyne was setting. Her magical attacks were relentless, hurling spear after spear at the human, but Sunset could guess that she was growing tired, as well. She was bleeding through her armor in multiple places and huffing loudly for breath. To Sunset, it seemed like the only thing keeping her attacking at such a breakneck pace was sheer force of will.

"Is... is she going to be okay?" a small voice asked.

Sunset jumped slightly as her attention was yanked away from the screen. One of the monsters had come into the room with her and was staring into the chamber with sad eyes. They looked like some kind of bipedal lizard, with no arms and dressed in a yellow-and-brown striped sweater to match their skin.

"I..." Sunset put one hand back on the glass, unable to bring herself to outright confirm or deny anything. "I really hope so. We've been through worse together." Though I can't remember when...

"S-she saved me." Sunset looked again at the kid, seeing their eyes filled with tears as they pressed their forehead against the glass. "This is my fault. If I'd just-"

"Hey." Sunset put a hand on their shoulder and shook her head. "Don't talk like that-"

"But it IS!" the young monster stamped their foot in frustration. "If I hadn't stopped and tried to be tough like Undyne, she and her friend with the pumpkin head wouldn't have had to get between me and the human!" They shook their head, sending more tears dripping in an arc around the floor. "N-now one of them's dead and the other is here..."

"Pumpkin head... you mean Lantern?" Sunset gave their head a comforting pat as she dropped to one knee. "Don't worry about him. He's a... special case. He'll be back. As for Missy..." she took a deep breath, trying to force the words both of them needed to hear to the forefront of her mind. "Missy might be a kid, but I've seen her casually do the impossible every day since we met. She once told me that thinking negatively like this will eat you alive... and she was right. We have to trust her to make it out of this."

Her words seemed to have the intended effect, as the young monster stopped crying and their frown turned upwards. "Y-you really think so?"

Sunset smiled. Somehow, even just saying the hopeful words out loud had given her the ability to believe them. "When this is all over, I'm sure she'll be happy to tell you that we should never have been worried. She'd never leave us THIS close to Halloween!"

She gave the kid one more pat on the shoulder before rising back to her full height and looking back at the chamber. Her eyes widened as she realized a change had taken place. Missy's heart rate was no longer racing, having settled into a much calmer, easy pace, and her breaths were coming slower and deeper. Most noticeable of all, however, was the peaceful smile that occupied her face. The creases and lines in her skin were gone, leaving her totally solid and tangible once more.

For the first time since they'd arrived, she was resting peacefully. Sunset heard footsteps behind her as Doctor Alphys approached the container, still wringing her hands in her typical nervous way but with a smile on her face.

"I-It l-looks like the w-worst is behind us... From here, it's only a m-matter of time before w-we can safely remove her from the chamber!"

"She's going to be okay?" the kid asked, their smile beaming brightly as Alphys nodded.

"Given t-time, yes."

Sunset smiled and leaned down to press her forehead against the glass. "Sorry it took me so long to remember to believe in you, Missy..."

"...est... test... kzzzt-est...."

Sunset's head snapped up, locking on to the source of the familiar voice coming from the corner of the room.

Isis's drone was up on its feet, making shaky and jittery movements as the crystal in its chest flickered between various brightnesses.

"ISIS?" Sunset practically sprinted to the corner, grabbing the drone and raising it to eye level. "Isis, we hear you, you're coming through!"

"Est-Est-Establishing uplinkkkkkkk..."

The drone twitched and jerked in her hands for several seconds before falling completely limp. Sunset felt her hopes fall for a moment as the robot seemed to have gone dead, then soar when the head rose again, this time smoothly.

"Greetings, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset couldn't stop herself from pulling the drone in tight and hugging it with all of her strength. "Isis, oh thank the stars you're finally here! We need all of the help we can get!"

"Pl-please explain, and I will t-try to be of assistance."

Sunset held the drone out again, a touch of worry in her heart. "Isis... are you glitching?"

"This uni-universe is experiencing an unidentified time-timespace phenomenon. While you experience it in a linear manner, my per-perception is of a reversion to a previous state approximately every few sec-seconds."

"What?"

"In layman's ter-ter-terms-"

Sunset heard Alphys gasp behind her. The dinosaur-like scientist ran up, snatching Isis's drone from Sunset's hands to look it in the eye.

"W-wait, you mean... the timeline is being altered? Changing?"

"Affirmative."

Her hands began shaking uncontrollably, her eyes wide as she stepped backwards in shock. Without another word, she ran to a computer terminal on a far wall, setting Isis down and typing furiously.

"We- we thought that we were wrong... we HAD to be wrong..." she muttered as numbers and charts began to flash across the terminal. "We couldn't accept that the numbers were correct, given what they meant!" Sunset stepped up behind her, trying and failing to make sense of the breakneck pace the data was moving at.

"What? What is it, Doctor Alphys?"

"A-a while ago, when Sans and I were both working together, we detected a m-massive timespace anomaly..." The screen finally came to a stop, showing an animation of a single line plotting itself on a moving chart. It began to splinter, splitting into a fractal shape by dividing into two more lines every few seconds. "Everybody knows about the th-theory that timelines split, dividing based on how events p-play out, right?"

Sunset nodded. This was pretty much the founding idea that the "theory" of the multiverse was founded on. "Right... That's pretty simple to follow."

"W-well, because of this anomaly, timelines were behaving... strangely." She tapped a few more keys, and the words "BEGINNING SIMULATION" flashed across the top of the screen. The changes started out small at first, just small flickers on the edges of the forked fractal, but the phenomenon soon moved inwards and became more clear. The lines were flashing, snapping back and forth between new connecting points wildly, tangling together and intersecting in countless places. On the edges, the growth was stunted or even completely dead in places, coming to a stop and leaving the shape haggard and uneven.

"The timelines were changing... interacting. Sometimes they would spring up from nothing, starting something brand new! Others would just... end." She pointed to one of the "dead" sections to illustrate. "And eventually..."

They all watched as the flickering and changing reached back in time, finding its way to the first few iterations. Sunset gasped as an entire section was severed from the roots, shattering and dissolving into nothingness. In a horrifying cascade, more and more timelines vanished from existence until only a few gnarled branches of time were left. The damage refused to stop there, however, as even those few surviving strands blinked out one by one. When the last timeline disappeared, the screen went dark, displaying only the words "ALL TIMELINES ERADICATED."

"E-eventually... everything ends..." She shook her head. "We-we couldn't believe it. Sans- he quit. I don't know what good he thought he could do on his own, maybe the news was just too much for him. I TRIED to find the source, but the closest thing I could find was several points in the underground that seem to be the focus of the splits in the timelines... There's nothing special about the locations, themselves, so it was a dead end. After that, I just assumed that there had to be some kind of fault in the simulation... I guess I was wrong."

The silence that followed was all-encompassing, everyone present clearly horrified at the news. The only one to move for several seconds was Isis, who plugged the end of her tail into the computer.

"Your data is correct. At the cur-current rate of decay, the on-only choice is to evacuate this uni-universe."

"But thanks to the barrier, we can't even leave this MOUNTAIN..." Alphys whispered.

"Th-this is heavy..." the monster kid muttered, wide-eyed and clearly still processing the information.

Sunset's mind, meanwhile, was racing, weighing options and possibilities against their resources. "There's a way out."

All eyes were on her as she stepped up, holding out her arm for Isis to climb up onto her shoulder. "This is going to sound unbelievable, but... bear with me. Missy, Penn, Isis, and I didn't just come from the surface... we came here through a portal between universes. If we can break through the barrier that's keeping us underground, we can lead you all to a more stable universe, back the way we came... We could evacuate everyone before the timelines end."

Alphys seemed to have shut down completely, staring at her with her jaw hanging slack. The kid, however, seemed to be taking it slightly better, possibly missing some of the scientific poignancy to her declaration.

"But... the only way to break the barrier is to collect seven human souls, isn't it? Then King Asgore could break it... but we only have six."

"Th-that's true... human souls are the only things with strong enough magic to break the barrier..." Alphys whispered, giving Sunset a forlorn look. "But the only way to separate a soul from a body is... well..."

Sunset swallowed, feeling a chill run down her spine at the implication. On her shoulder, Isis's servos began to grind and growl as she spread her wings protectively.

"I will not-not-not allow such measures to be tak-taken. I assure you such actions will bring un-unspeakable wrath on the part of the other members of our par-party."

Alphys held up her hands defensively. "N-no! I never would! B-but it means we don't have a lot of options right now..."

Sunset's brow furrowed with frustration as she tried to think. She felt like she was stumbling around in the dark right now without Penn's explanations: she could only address problems after she'd painfully run straight into them.

It was only when all of them had settled into silent dread that Sunset heard it: the beeping of Missy's heart monitor. Realization dawned on her like the rising sun, and she felt hope growing once more as the obvious solution presented itself.

Just like in Remnant... everyone is where they need to be.

"What if we could get a huge burst of magic energy for just a few seconds? Earth-shattering amounts of magic focused into a single beam?"

"That... could probably do it, yes, but where would we find that type of power?" Alphys asked as Sunset walked over to Missy's chamber.

"Right here." She patted her hand against the glass. "If we can get the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief up and fighting again, I promise you, she can SHATTER that barrier, and we'll lead everyone here to safety."

"G-Ghostrick... Angel?" the kid whispered.

Alphys's eyes were wide for a few seconds, equally in awe. After the moment had passed, though, her eyes narrowed with focus and she nodded in affirmation.

"O-okay... then there's no time to waste!" She gestured up to the larger screen still displaying the ongoing battle. "Our friends are holding the human back, but we c-can't take it for granted!" With a flair of her lab coat, she quickly made her way to the chamber and began studying the information on display. "I-I think I might have an idea how w-we could speed up the healing process, but I'm going to need your help, Sunset..."

Sunset smiled. "I'm all yours, Doctor Alphys. The faster, the better."

"What if we tried to usurp control of the save file? If Flowey could do it at the end of the game, so could you!" Reason suggested.

Flowey had six human souls. It took SIX other souls to out-determination Frisk... do you SEE any other human souls here? Penn countered. He tried to keep himself focused as he ran forward. Undyne's spears followed on either side, zipping past his shoulders and stopping Frisk from dodging to the side. He didn't bother trying to fake them out, opting straight for trying to sweep their legs out from underneath them. As he dropped and swiped with his leading leg, however, Frisk managed to jump up and over it by tucking in their legs, narrowly dodging one of Undyne's spears flying just over their head to intercept.

"We both know you have enough determination for at least THREE people."

Don't try to stroke my ego... Penn thought as he pushed himself backwards again, awkwardly rolling backwards as Frisk's counterattack buried the knife blade in the ground where his ankle had been. Still, he'd managed to force them back a few steps, which was more than satisfying.

This was a battle being fought in and for steps. Each side would dip in and out in their attempts to hit each other, their end goal being to take fewer steps backwards than forwards. So far, he and Undyne had managed not to give a single inch that they hadn't taken right back soon after.

But deep down, he knew that this wasn't working. They weren't going to be able to keep this up much longer.

This wasn't like Salem. With Salem, he was being purposefully kept alive. Tortured, yes, but alive. He simply had to NOT give her what she wanted, and not doing things was something of a specialty of his when he was off his meds. It was a waiting game to see whose defense would show a gap first.

Frisk just wanted them both dead. They had to actively try to stay alive while fighting them off, and with the ability to save and reload, Frisk could literally just keep trying over and over again until they got it right.

This fight... it's not winnable, is it?

"Don't SAY that! The moment you start thinking like that, the battle's as good as lost!"

Despite Reason's protests, he could feel the fear beginning to mount as the possible outcomes to this scenario seemed to all start melting away.

Our hand is empty, the field's overwhelmingly outmatched, they know every card in the deck... he glanced at his blood-soaked arms, trying to ignore the stinging and throbbing of his injuries. ...and we're running low on life points. I think...

I think I've made a mistake.

"HEY! EYES UP, PENN!" Undyne's gravely voice barked. Her arm appeared in front of him as she intercepted Frisk's knife with one of her spears. The two weapons ground and grated against one another for a second before Frisk's blade split the magical construct in two, allowing the blade to rake down the front of Undyne's armor and carve out a large gash across her chest. Her hand grabbed at the injury, but the action seemed to be more reflex than conscious concern as she shot him a glance with her one good eye. "Don't tell me you're losing your nerve NOW, after all this?"

Despite her words, Undyne's entire body shuddered as her balance swayed, nearly falling until she put a gloved hand on his shoulder to hold herself up.

"I... I think we might want to make a tactical retreat..." Penn whispered. "Dying here isn't going to do any-"

"Retreat?" Undyne huffed. "I don't know the meaning of the word." Despite everything, she was still smiling, proudly displaying her numerous fangs. "The only way to face danger is head-on! How else are you gonna ever get strong enough to beat it?" Her smile dimmed and faded as she fixed her gaze back on Frisk. "Besides... retreat where? It's not like we have anywhere to go thanks to the barrier." She pressed down on him for a moment as she forced herself to stand straight again. "Our only option is to win. We can't die. We CAN'T retreat. If you don't think you can DO that, then get out of my way and go find your friends!"

It sounded calloused, but her second meaning was clear as day: she was giving him permission to run. He didn't HAVE to stay, she wouldn't blame him for saving himself.

Even before Reason could make a case in favor of leaving, he already knew his answer: he would never forgive himself if he left her to die.

Well, if we're going all out, guess I might as well toss caution to the wind. If I accidentally cut off my own foot or something, at least I can say I TRIED...

He reached into his pocket, drawing the empty hilt Sunset had given him. Using this meant all but giving up on taking Frisk alive, but... maybe it would buy them more time. More time for him to think, or even more time for Sunset to figure out some kind of solution.

I said I'd let her save ME from a bad situation, didn't I?

He flicked the switch, causing the bright red blade to emerge with a crackle of energy. He forced himself to step up, standing beside Undyne once again, positioning themselves between the human and everything they cared about.

"If you want me gone, Undyne, you're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT..."

Quiet Water

"Doctor Alphys... are you sure about this?" Sunset rubbed at the back of her neck as she stared down the colossal machine in front of her.

It looked almost like it could be some kind of colossal goat's skull, crafted from metal and painted red. Glass portholes in the position one would put eyes allowed one to look inside and watch the subject mid-experiment, and a fine seam ran down the center, parting at the bottom in the place one could imagine the opening of a nose hole or mouth. Huge cables and tubes ran backwards in tall arches and into the wall behind, imitating the shape of horns. Currently, it had been lowered to ground level and opened, exposing a small open space inside.

Alphys, meanwhile, was pouring over a set of blueprints that she had spread out across a nearby table. Isis sat on the corner, curiously scanning the charts on her own. With a nod to herself, Alphys shuffled back to Missy's chamber and attached a fresh pair of tubes to openings on one end.

"W-well, I'll admit I didn't build the DT extractor myself, b-but it's always worked exactly as it was supposed to, and these blueprints have helped me with many an a-adjustment and repair! I'm c-confident in its success rate!"

"These blueprints are not-not technically viable."

Sunset and Alphys both glanced at Isis, who had leaned in closer to scrutinize the material.

"I have determined at le-least three subsystems which serve no vi-viable purpose, and several energetic constants incon-congruous with any form of matter or energy in-in the known multiverse. It is, quite fran-frankly, a flight of fancy to think that this ma-machine could serve any worthwhile purpose."

"WHAT?" Alphys rushed back to the blueprints. "Where? Point them out!"

Isis's tail moved to point at a set of equations. Alphys pushed up on her glasses, re-examining the numbers carefully. "That? That's the constant for soul attribute harmonics!" She glanced at Isis in disbelief. "Th-that's the basis of all magic in the underground, it's been proven hundreds of times over through practical use! Without it, the spectrum of soul colors and magical specialization would still be a mystery!"

Sunset blinked, finding her curiosity more than piqued. She quietly made her way to join them at the desk, peeking over Alphys's shoulder at the equations in question.

"Soul colors?"

"O-of course! Every soul has one attribute which-" Alphys jumped slightly upon realizing that Sunset had appeared behind her, taking a moment to clear her throat and straighten her glasses. "Every soul has an array of traits, but one attribute that dominates all others, resonating with a particular frequency of magic! W-what concept fuels them most strongly determines their magical abilities!" She reached to another pile of papers, drawing a chart and placing it on top of the blueprints. It was a set of differently colored hearts, each one listed alongside an attribute and short list of abilities.

Cyan - Patience

Blue - Integrity

Orange - Bravery

Green - Kindness

Sunset glanced back up at the screen, once again noticing the bright green magic Undyne would occasionally use to lock Frisk in place. So... HER attribute is kindness? A bit of a far cry from the Element of Kindness I know...

Purple - Perseverance

Yellow - Justice

Red - Determination

She took another glance at the equations, mulling over them in her mind. They were certainly different from Princess Celestia's Magic Theory classes that she took in Equestria, but...

"Makes sense to me." Both Isis and Alphys turned to look at her, and she shrugged dismissively. "I mean, the magic where I come from is similar. We have different names for it, but it seems like we're a lot closer to home than I might have thought." She smiled and gave Alphys a pat on the shoulder. "If you're sure it'll work, then so am I."

Isis turned back to the blueprints, eyeing them with new fervor.

"Perhaps... There is da-data to glean here. Un-unknown phenomena to ex-explore. If this unknown for-form of energy is similar to-to Equestrian magic, it may yield ne-new insight into the mechanics of the Multiversal breakdown."

Sunset smiled and gave the mechanical dragon a pat on the head before walking back to the machine. She took a deep breath to steady herself before turning around and laying into the open space inside. On the other side of the room, Alphys walked to the terminal, tapping out a series of commands. All around her, Sunset could hear the hum and rumble of the machine waking up. Content with the feedback she was getting, Alphys walked back up to the machine and began inspecting it.

"N-now I've recalibrated the extractor to remove Determination energy from a living subject, rather than a soul in one of our specialized containers... They're more or less the same thing, in the grand scheme of things." Alphys muttered. "Instead of depositing the concentrated magical energy in a liquid form in the output chamber, I've rerouted the export valve to disperse it in aerosol form in the chamber. It will spread over Missy's body and even d-directly into her wound. In addition to your souls being symbiotic, my scans of her bodily composition say that she's similar enough to our world's m-monsters for this to re-energize her without any..." she paused, and Sunset caught a flicker of uncertainty on her features. It vanished as fast as it had appeared as Alphys gathered herself again. "W-without any of the side-effects we suffer from overly high doses of determination."

"In add-addition, I will be present in the hyperthaumic chamber..."

Sunset watched the drone pick up Missy's wing gently in its mouth and fly across the room.

"...to oversee the healing process a-and administer real-time reconnective surgery."

Sunset nodded. "Okay... It sounds like everyone's ready."

Alphys stepped back, giving Sunset a nervous look. "S-Sunset, if this doesn't work- If I made a mistake-"

Sunset shook her head. "You didn't." She smiled and reached out, taking Alphys's shoulder and forcing the lizard-like monster to look her in the eyes. "Alphys, trust me, I know what it's like to have magic blow up in your face. But if there's one thing I've learned from my friends, it's that when it does, things usually work out for the best if your heart's in the right place." She gave the scientist a smile before leaning back into the machine again. "Now come on, I've gotta go save Penn from a ten-year-old with a knife and Missy needs to get you all out of this dimension!"

Alphys blinked for a moment before smiling and giving a determined nod. She returned to the terminal, punching in several commands. The machine lifted up and into the air as the chamber closed around her, locking her in a dark, hot, claustrophobia-inducing space. Sunset took several breaths, trying to steady herself. She had been able to speak confidently to Alphys, but she would be lying if the entire situation didn't put her on edge. How does something actually EXTRACT determination? Is it safe? Will it hurt? What if-

She shook her head. She needed to force those thoughts out of her mind. The only way forward was through. She could see a soft red glow reflecting off of the inside of the chamber. She assumed it was her geode, but a glance downward dispelled that notion.

It was a heart. A red, ethereal heart glowing in the center of her chest, bright enough to shine through her shirt and make itself clear.

Red... For Determination.

In that moment, Sunset realized what she was seeing: it was her own soul, or at least some part of it, being drawn out and called upon to deliver. Her head cleared and the worries seemed to dissolve away, leaving only the absolute truth: If she was called upon, then she would give her strength. Just like everyone else around her, she wouldn't stop fighting until she collapsed, until she had nothing left to give. If things weren't right, she would MAKE things right, by the strength of her heart and the blade in her hand.

I'll do whatever it takes to save my friends!

The shape of the heart moved up, passing through her chest and clothes to hover just above her in the darkness. As it continued to glow brighter and brighter, Sunset could feel the temperature in the chamber beginning to rise. She wasn't afraid, or even uncomfortable, as scarlet and yellow flames began to lick at the edges of her soul, a visualization of her rising hopes and determination.

Several turbines began to spin in the tubes around her, beginning to circulate the air. Tiny sparks and embers began to flake off of the outside of her soul, like a campfire in a strong breeze. Every speck of flaming passion was whisked away down the tubes, instantly captured by the extractor. She grunted as she began to feel the effects, but she didn't shy away from the process. It felt like she was being drained, her energy and strength beginning to slip away from her and leaving a hollow feeling deep in her chest.

Still, she gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and stared into the ruby-colored flames of her own soul, willing it to burn brighter and hotter.

I will do it.

I WILL do it.

I will DO it.

I CAN DO THIS!

Her heart seemed to respond to her mental chant, pulsing softly and sending a shower of sparks out into the air, only to be sucked up like a vacuum cleaner.

"Come on..." she growled as she watched the light beginning to dim. There was no way she could already be spent, right? "COME ON!"

As she received only a feeble beat back and the draining feeling growing stronger, Sunset closed her eyes and focused. She thought about Missy, about the sight of her lying on the ground and the sheer unbridled wrath she'd felt in that moment. She thought about why she'd felt that way. About Missy's ever-smiling face. About the way she always seemed so childish, but always wise enough when Sunset needed it, betraying that she was more than a simple child. She thought about their battles together, from their first duel to their brushes with death at Amity Colosseum and beyond. She thought about how comforting it was when she would wake up to a friendly face every day, even countless dimensions away from her home and her friends.

And she thought about her friends. Not just the Rainbooms, but their little troupe of wanderers. The long hours on the road, all crammed into the car they called home. She thought of the way Penn would still be mouthing along the lyrics to every song when he thought she was asleep, just because he couldn't help himself but sing along. She thought of all the little ways Isis expressed her affection for them: the personal touches in every delivery, her constant diligence checking with them that their needs were met, the way she never stopped looking for ways to make herself useful was her way of saying that she loved them.

Her heart swelled as she thought of the deep love she and every member of her accidental family shared. In looks, in deeds, and in the little things they all did to try and make this life on the road bearable for one another.

She couldn't open her eyes, now. The light of her soul was blinding, and she could feel the heat of it threatening to burn away everything that wished harm upon her friends.

"O-Okay, Sunset, that's enough!" Alphys's voice crackled over a speaker. "I-I'm turning off the extractor!"

Sunset nodded, taking a deep breath to try and calm her racing heart. The heart that showed her soul rapidly faded as she let go of her concentration, descending back into its rightful place in her chest with little more than a light scorch mark in the center of her chest. The machine descended and the doors opened with a hiss, allowing a gust of cold air to wash over her.

It was only when she tried to move that the sense of how tired she was slammed into her like a brick wall. She groaned and leaned back, unable to convince her muscles to push her up into a standing position. It was all that she could do to lift her head when she heard heavy thudding echoing through the room.

It was the chamber. The hyperthaumic chamber was a whirlwind of activity, rocking violently back and forth as red energy spun around inside, along with the sound of fluttering wings and squeaking. They all stared and watched, unable to look away until the glass shattered, sending Isis's drone slamming into the far wall, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. The red cloud of magic all swarmed out of the hole in the glass, floating up to the ceiling in a tiny tornado of activity. Finally, the tornado exploded without warning, filling the entire room with a red cloud that obscured all vision and left Alphys and Sunset coughing and hacking for breath.

"D-Did it work?" Sunset asked, squinting to try and see further than her own nose.

"I- I don't know! Does Missy usually do this kind of thing?"

Before Sunset could respond, both of them were cut off by a new sound in the room: strings. Violins strumming out a haunting, methodical beat and lilting melody. In the mist, Sunset thought she could make out the shapes of small, familiar figures scuttling busily about. It almost sounded like a marching song, even as a chorus of spectral voices began to sing.

Boys and girls of every age...
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?

She watched as a huge, round shape began to rise in the center of the room, and the fog finally dispersed, letting them just barely catch glimpses of tiny monsters running away into the darkness and shadows, giggling as they went.

What was left was... a pumpkin. A HUGE pumpkin, with a grinning face carved into it, almost as tall as Sunset, herself.

Alphys opened her mouth, undoubtedly about to question the strange happening before the face of the pumpkin exploded open in a spray of candy of every kind. A tiny figure zipped across the room almost faster than the eye could see on a beeline for Sunset. Alphys shrieked in fear, but Sunset simply smiled as she felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist in a tight hug.

"Heya... Missed you." She smiled and patted the little girl's head, being careful not to knock off her precious tiny top hat.

Missy's tear-streaked face looked up at her, beaming with a smile that could light up a room all by itself. "I-I missed you too..." She whispered, burying her face in Sunset's stomach and leaving a wet patch.

Sunset tilted her head slightly, getting a better look at Missy's wings. Both of them were present, and seemed to be functioning just fine. "Feeling better?"

Missy nodded again, still refusing to let go of her. "B-better than a whole street of full-sized candy bars!"

Sunset smiled. "Good. Because I'm sorry to say it, but we've got work to do..."

Missy sniffled loudly before wiping her face on Sunset's shirt one more time and floating up into the air, delivering a salute with the wrong hand. "Ready and waiting, Sunset!" Sunset sighed with relief before forcing herself forward and onto her feet. It took all the strength she had left just to avoid falling over, and Missy quickly positioned herself under her arm, helping to carry her weight. She tapped her chin with thought after a moment, glancing around the room in confusion. "Wait, isn't this usually Penn's job?"

"Penn is fighting to buy us time to get you back." Sunset sighed and pointed up at the screen, which caused Missy to gasp and cover her mouth. "And as you can see, it's not going well..."

"Oh, suddenly I remember what happened before I passed out..." Missy growled, rolling up her sleeves as she glared at the screen. "Point me in a direction, Sunset, I'm ready to go all Michael Myers on that kid!"

Sunset shook her head, unwrapping her arm from Missy's shoulders. "No, you are going with the rest of the monsters. There's a barrier sealing everyone in here, and if we're right-" she pointed to Doctor Alphys, who meekly waved at her, "YOU can break it."

Missy blinked, floating away slightly to look at Sunset as if to question if she was serious. Sunset sighed.

"Final Fright, Missy. It could break through!"

"Ooooooh!" Missy smiled as understanding dawned on her. "You want me to pop the top off this mountain like a candy apple!"

Sunset blinked. "You... don't pop the top off a candy apple..."

Missy bent down and winked knowingly at her. "You do if you eat it in one bite!"

It was Sunset's turn to question whether or not her friend was being serious, but she shook the confusion off. "As for me, well... we came up with a plan while you were knocked out. While you do that, Mettaton, Papyrus and I are going to go take over the fight from Penn and Undyne." She took another moment to glance at the monitor. "We're gonna have to be quick, I don't know how much longer they'll last..." she muttered. "I'm pretty sure we won't be able to miss it when you crack that barrier, so once you're done, we'll retreat back through the lab and meet you on the surface."

Missy looked down, shuffling her feet uncomfortably. "S-so... You're not gonna come with me?"

Sunset smiled and reached out, pulling Missy into another hug. "Penn and I are gonna be right behind you, okay? I KNOW you can do this..." She walked the two of them to the door, sweeping her arm outwards. "Besides, you're not gonna be alone, this time, either!"

Missy turned around, wide-eyed as she took in the sight of the crowd of monsters staring at her in a mix of shock and awe. At the front was the kid that had claimed Missy had saved them, smiling proudly as they took the lead.

"We've been waiting for you, Miss Angel!"

Sunset smiled and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "You can do it. These monsters need you..."

Missy stared for another moment before her hands curled into tiny little fists of determination. She floated up, wrapping her arms around Sunset's neck for one more hug.

"Be careful..." she whispered into Sunset's ear. "There's something wrong with that kid."

Sunset nodded as she returned the hug. "You, too... I'll see you soon."

With that, Missy separated from her, floating over beside Alphys and giving a definitive nod. All at once, the crowd of monsters erupted into joy and relief. Sunset couldn't help but feel her heart swell with pride as she watched Missy restore hope in this dreadful situation. Alphys led the way as the group shuffled out of the room, many of the monsters crowding around Missy for attention or a closer look.

"Allllrighty, then!" a voice declared as a pair of mitten-wearing hands wrapped around her waist and hoisted her into the air. Before she had a chance to object, Sunset found herself riding on a pair of bony shoulders. She wanted to object, but the rational (and VERY tired) partof her brain reminded her that she could barely stand under her own power. Beneath her, Papyrus was grinning, clearly not minding carrying her weight. "I suppose that this means that it's time for our team to set off!"

Mettaton rolled up beside them, bushing his metal knuckles against his multicolored chassis. "WELL, I MAY BE A STAR, BUT I CAN ONLY IMAGINE IT WILL BE QUITE SATISFYING TO FULFILL MY ORIGINAL PURPOSE AS A HUMAN ERADICATION ROBOT!"

"Wowie! A human, an apprentice Royal Guard, and a Superstar Robot!" Papyrus scratched at his chin with one hand as they strode towards the elevator. "With a GREAT rescue party like this, Undyne and your friend are as good as safe already!"

Sunset ducked her head as they all crowded into the elevator, but she couldn't shake an uneasy feeling that Papyrus might be wrong.

"Let's... just hurry, okay?" she muttered.

"H-hey..." Undyne panted. "I think... I saw them breaking a sweat..."

"Oh?" Penn replied, widening his stance as he tried to fight off another wave of dizziness. "We must be... wearing them down!"

The two of them chuckled, each resisting the urge to turn and lean on the other for support. Undyne was hunched over, trying to keep her composure. Her head was spinning, her whole body was burning, her muscles wouldn't respond the way she wanted them to... Deep down, she knew that the moment she let up, her body would fall apart.

A glance at her unexpected brother-in-arms gave her a good idea that she wasn't the only one running on sheer fighting spirit. Penn was swaying and clearly unsteady, the only things still strong seemed to be his grip on his laser sword and his gaze on the other human. She'd heard that after losing a lot of blood humans could collapse, but it usually looked like so much more in the shows she would watch with Alphys.

The human child also seemed to be tiring, but much less quickly than the two of them, since they were still almost completely without a scratch.

"Hey... I wanna say something..." she muttered, drawing his attention.

"Yeah?"

"You know, I never thought I could be friends with a human... But you're pretty cool." She smirked. "Thanks for sticking around, Penn."

He blinked several times as he gave her a blank look. "S-sorry, I think I... blacked out from blood loss... for a few seconds, there... what was that?"

Undyne narrowed her eye in suspicion and was treated to a teasing grin from him. "You heard me."

"Guilty as charged." He shrugged. "Well, I never thought... I'd get to fight with... the underground's true hero, so... right back at you, Undyne..." He returned the smile between heavy breaths. "You... ready to finish this?"

Undyne took a deep breath as another wave of shudders washed over her. She could feel her body trying to give up and scatter into a million pieces, but she knew her job wasn't done. She refused to die. Not here. Not now. Not while there were so many people counting on her. Everyone's hopes and dreams rested on them.

She was more determined than ever not to let them down.

"Y-yeah."

Penn swung the blade out to the side, ready for a sweeping attack. "Then let's... GO!"

He didn't need to explain that this was their last onslaught. They both knew that this was their final turn before their own bodies mutinied and collapsed. They had no choice but to give it their all and win in one last move.

Undyne knew her part: cover his approach. She raised one hand, readying a barrage of her spears. First, she materialized a set of projectiles over her shoulder, the toughest mix of flying projectiles she could muster. Some were direct and powerful, others were set to dart around in the air and attack from unpredictable angles. With a heaving swing of her arm, they all flew towards their target at once, certainly inescapable.

But she could do more. With the same hand, she turned her palm up and thrust her hand towards the sky. All around them, the ground began to glow bright with magical energy before erupting into a bed of upwards-facing spears ready to impale anyone unfortunate to be on the ground and in their path.

With her other hand, she reached out with her magic, aiming to lock the human in place. Even if there WAS an escape, she wouldn't let them take it.

But... nothing happened.

She gritted her teeth, trying again. Come ON! Why isn't it working?

She glanced down at her underperforming hand, ready to chastise herself for her laziness. Her eyes widened with horror, however, when she realized that her hand wasn't there.

Instead, there was only a rapidly-melting stump at the end of her arm. Her eye widened as she looked down at her body, watching it beginning to liquefy.

"N-no! NO!" She tried to take a step forward, but her legs crumpled beneath her, causing her to fall chin-first to the ground. "Not NOW!"

Ahead, she could see the assault continuing without her as Penn slashed and swung wildly with the saber, trying and failing to be as unpredictable as he was fast. Free to move as they wished, Undyne could only watch as the child tucked and rolled between Penn's legs, using the clear space she had left for him to their advantage. There was a flash of metal, and Penn dropped to one knee as the child slashed the back of his other leg.

When he turned around, Undyne saw him noticing her fate. It was a second of terror. A flash of pity. A look of despair...

...and a second's break in his concentration.

She could only manage a pained gurgle to warn him when she saw the kid's blade aim for his hand, raking across his fingers and cutting deep. He reflexively recoiled from the blow, forced to let go of his weapon. The saber fell through the air for only a fraction of a second before landing perfectly in the outstretched palm of the child. They didn't hesitate with their next attack, forcing Undyne to watch as they plunged the burning red blade into the center of his chest.

Penn went stiff, eyes wide as time seemed to freeze. He looked down at his chest, his last breaths coming out in a strained grunt. He stared in disbelief at the child, a small plume of smoke escaping through his mouth as the red-hot blade burned him up from within. Undyne wanted to scream, to tell that kid that they were going to pay for what they'd done, but the more her emotions mounted, the faster her body collapsed into a puddle of monster goo. She could only gurgle angrily as her vision blurred and went dark. The last thing she saw was the red glow of the blade outlining the figure of the child as they walked past, not even paying her any mind at this point.

And then it was over.

...

...

...

...

...

And then, it wasn't.

Flowey had to admit, as terrifying as Frisk was at this point, this run was unlike anything he'd ever seen or done in all his years of saving and resetting.

They'd gone out of their way to stab Sans in the back, netting themselves a hefty about of EXP and eliminating the biggest threat right away. Watching the light fade from that smiley trashbag's eyes was the only laugh the comedian had ever gotten out of him, the look on his face was priceless.

From there, practice had served Frisk well as they tore their way through the rest of the monsters of the underground, proving right what Flowey had always told them: that in this world, it was kill or be killed. The strong would always enforce their will on the weak until there was nothing left to could offer them.

Of course, the other big change had been the new visitors dropping into the underground. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw an honest-to-goodness angel land in the ruins, then the robot and two humans who had followed. Between Frisk's suddenly out-of-order killing spree and the supposedly impossible appearance of more humans, he'd decided to play his cards close to his chest and simply watch from the shadows. It wasn't like he had anything to lose; no matter what happened, this would be the most interesting thing to happen in... well, more resets than he could count, frankly.

It almost seemed like the universe had corrected itself when the human and Undyne teamed up. Together, they were a threat almost as tough as Sans had been. Frisk had gone through nearly a thousand resets just to get through the last fifteen minutes in one piece.

He was a bit disappointed that Undyne hadn't gone full "Undyne the Undying" mode, that was one HELL of a light show. It seemed like she'd managed to swap that overwhelming power for increased endurance, stretching the fight with Frisk out much longer than any other monster had (barring Sans, of course). Unfortunately, the exchange had yielded the same result in the end: Undyne had been poisoned by her own determination, causing her body to collapse and melt as she chanted her refusal of her own death.

Luckily, the death of the other human had been much cooler, way more fun to watch than Undyne's. Something NEW had been added to the equation, a weapon unlike anything Frisk had ever managed to find before, and they were on their way to go make good use of it.

Of course, he had roots in Alphys's lab. He'd heard the daring plan to have the Angel of Mischief fulfill the prophecy before the Angel of Death could. If he could have sat in a chair, he would surely have been on the edge of it by now. It was a race to the barrier, and both competitors had a handicap. One competitor was comatose and about to be revived, the other had been delayed far longer than anyone could have expected. The prize: every living soul under the mountain. The excitement made him shiver like an aspen just thinking about it.

"Well, you two certainly put up a good fight..." He did his best imitation of a shrug without arms as he spoke to the dead and the dying. "But you were out of your league from the beginning. It's not like either of you had enough determination to beat Frisk, anyway... But hey, thanks for the show! Seriously, you have NO idea how hard it is to find anything new around here! Here's hoping you're both still around next timeline!"

Just as he was about to retreat back into the soil, however, a ripple of motion caught his eye. A cloaked figure emerged from the darkness, crossing the rope bridge without causing more than a slight sway of the ropes. For a second, he wondered if Riverperson was going to break their long history of non-intervention. However, a frost-like chill ran down every branch of his roots as he realized the item in their hand wasn't an oar, but a scythe. The stranger pulled down their hood, exposing a bare, gaunt-looking skull and a pair of shining blue eyes. He glanced over the scene, clicking his non-existent tongue before looking straight into Flowey's hiding place in the shadows.

OH, DON'T MIND ME. I'M JUST HERE PICKING UP A FRIEND.

He reached down, his skeletal hand passing through the human's chest as though it weren't there. After a moment of rummaging around, he retrieved it, his long fingers now curled around a quickly-pulsating purple soul. His other hand reached into his robe, retrieving a heavy-looking hourglass with the name "ELIJAH BAKERSFIELD" engraved on the top. He gave it a light shake as the last few grains of sand trickled through to the bottom. With a nod to himself, he put the hourglass back and raised the soul up to eye level.

AH, THERE YOU ARE. I KNOW YOU'RE A TOUCH BUSY AT THE MOMENT, BUT JUST AS THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR ANOTHER LAST MINUTE, THERE IS ALWAYS TIME FOR A CUP OF TEA WITH A FRIEND. BOTH ARE FACTS I BELIEVE YOU'LL COME TO KNOW IN TIME... PROVIDED THAT'S STILL HOW TIME WORKS. THE CONCEPT IS RATHER SUBJECTIVE AROUND HERE...

With a nod to himself again, as if confirming that TIME worked the way he thought, the reaper walked back into the darkness, taking the human's soul with him.

YES, I'M QUITE CERTAIN THEY'LL BE FINE WITHOUT YOU LONG ENOUGH FOR ONE CUP OF TEA TOGETHER. THEN IT'LL BE STRAIGHT ON TO WHERE YOU OUGHT TO BE.

Flowey watched, jaw hanging slack as the black-cloaked reaper vanished back from whence he had come.

"WHAT THE FU-"

Author's Note

Man, between Isis and Alphys there's been an awful lot of stammering lately, huh?

Also, thank you to those who pointed out that I forgot in the past that DEATH speaks in all caps.

Battle Against the True Heroes

Author's Note

HEY!!!

I'm happy to announce that Wanderer D and I collaborated together to write a crossover between The Multiverse in a Nutshell and Sunset's Isekai!!

Please go check it out here for a peek at the Multiverse crew's near-future!

Wanderer D was an absolute joy to work with, please give their story lots of love! It was really great to work with another author who's written this kind of multi-franchise crossover and understands the balancing act it can often feel like.

(And for those worried, no, you do not need to read the rest of Sunset's Isekai to understand the crossover, but honestly if you don't have time to read Sunset's Isekai then I don't understand what you're doing with your life.)

Battle Against the True Heroes

Sunset tried her best to hold on as the three of them made their way through Hotland, gripping Papyrus especially tight as they made their way across the bridge. They'd been traveling together in silence for a few minutes, Papyrus jogging as quickly as he could without throwing her off as Mettaton rolled along beside them. The quiet didn't help her think of anything other than the constant list of worst-case scenarios running through her mind. She was feeling a strange kind of paradox: her mind and heart were full of worry, but she couldn't bring her exhausted body to muster up any kind of appropriate response. She could only ride quietly on Papyrus's shoulders, reveling in the dissonance between her mind's panic and her body's calm. Finally, Papyrus broke the silence with a clearing of his throat.

"So, Sunset Shimmer, do you enjoy spaghetti? I was thinking that, once all of this chaos has calmed down, we could all enjoy a meal together at Undyne's place!"

Sunset blinked, caught off-guard by the sudden question. "Uh... sure, I like spaghetti..." she muttered. The strange inquiry had managed to snap her back into the present for the moment.

"EXCELLENT! In that case, once we've rescued our friends, I'll prepare a world-class pot of spaghetti! Undyne has been giving me cooking lessons, after all!" Papyrus declared, clearly not even winded as they reached the border of Hotland and Waterfall. "It will be a fine send-off before we leave the underground for good!"

"Y-Yeah..." Sunset muttered. "That sounds nice."

"YOU KNOW, I THINK THAT WOULD BE A FABULOUS IDEA! I'M CERTAIN THAT DOCTOR ALPHYS WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO JOIN, AS WELL!" Mettaton added.

A shudder ran through Sunset's body as Papyrus came to a sudden stop. She scrambled slightly to keep her grip, but managed to barely stay on top of his shoulders. Once she had regained her grip, she got a better look at where they had stopped.

It wasn't where she had left Penn and Undyne, they'd stopped too soon. They were in the long hallway between the two different areas, lit by the passing red letters of the glowing sign declaring their upcoming destination. She was about to ask why they had stopped, but as the red lights moved down the tunnel, the reason became clear:

The child. The child was here, standing at the end of the hallway. The only signs of their previous battle was a few scratches and small tears in their sweater. Other than that, they looked just as nonplussed as they had the last time Sunset had seen them.

Penn had been determined not to let the kid past him. Undyne equally, if not more so. There was no way that they would have let this happen, unless... Sunset shook her head, forcing the thought from her mind. Just because the kid made it past them doesn't mean the worst has happened. I've gotta trust Penn. He outsmarted SALEM, right? He's handled worse than this...

Sunset felt Papyrus's hands grip around her waist, lifting her up and over his head before setting her gently on her feet. She felt her knees wobble for a second, and Papyrus's hand caught her by the arm, slowly lowering her to the ground. For just a second, she noticed a change in the skeleton's face, a change in the shape of his eye sockets and a fade of his ear-to-ear grin that seemed to communicate a different, more pained emotion.

"Stay here..." he whispered. In that instant, Sunset felt that she was seeing past a facade, that some portion of hidden feelings had slipped through.

With that message communicated, his cheerful visage returned and he placed his hands confidently on his hips. He turned to look back down the tunnel, addressing Frisk directly.

"HUMAN! I'm afraid that we cannot allow you to proceed any further!" He held out one hand, seemingly trying to point at the human without taking off his mitten. "Either turn back, or renounce your wicked and murderous ways and throw down your weapon here and now! This is the final chance that I, The GREAT Papyrus, can offer you!"

"OTHERWISE, WE'LL BE FORCED TO PUT AN END TO YOUR MISERABLE EXISTENCE ONCE AND FOR ALL!" Mettaton added, folding his arms in a way meant to show stubbornness. "PERSONALLY? I WOULD ENJOY DOING SO..."

The human paused, as if considering the offer.

"Please... I know you can be better. You can do it if you just try!" Papyrus urged. Sunset felt a fleeting moment of hope. It was true that this kid had done some terrible things, and they NEEDED to pay for it, but... if there was a way to end this without more violence, she wanted to take it.

But she doubted it would happen, and honestly? She would be just fine with that.

After another few moments of silence, Frisk tightened their grip on their knife, making it clear that they were declining Papyrus's offer of mercy. Their eyes seemed to catch the red light of the "Welcome to Hotland" sign, gleaming with murderous intent. Sunset watched Papyrus sigh in resignation before gritting his teeth more tightly. Beside her, Mettaton began stretching his arms, finishing the action by mimicking cracking his knuckles.

"Very well! Then let the battle commence!" he declared. His hand twisted, turning to face its palm upwards before he swung it up towards the ceiling. Sunset's eyes widened as more glowing bones forced their way up and out of the ground, their pale white color tinged only by the red light of the sign. In the pit of their chest, Sunset watched their soul appear, flickering from red to blue. As it changed, an extra weight seemed to come over the human, dragging them down. With another wave of his hand, the field of bones began to move forward, advancing quickly on their target. With Papyrus's blue magic weighing them down, Sunset could tell that there was no way the human could dodge the attack.

FSSST!

Everything seemed to stop with the flash of red light. The magical bones were split across the center, only to dissolve to dust a few seconds later. Sunset's eyes widened as she recognized the weapon the human was now holding, glowing a fiery red in the dim light. For a second, Sunset's eyes met Frisk's.

They knew the question she was asking, even if it had gone unspoken... and they answered her with a smile.

She was only able to force out a single, breathless word. "No..."

Finally, her emotions seemed to overwhelm her physical limits, finally eliciting a response. Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as her fears were all but confirmed. It felt like she was falling, awash and drowning in a sea of fear and grief as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her completely.

Somewhere in her reeling mind, Doctor Alphys's words from the lab came back to her: "Every soul has an array of traits, but one attribute that dominates all others, resonating with a particular frequency of magic! W-what concept fuels them most strongly determines their magical abilities!"

Sunset had seen her own soul. She'd seen the determination that drove her.

Sunset felt the rest of her mind begin to shut down, and she gripped that memory with all of her mental fortitude: the blazing red flames of her soul. As she did, Sunset felt one emotion rising up out of the storm to drown out all of the rest, and it rose and bubbled and boiled until it had filled her completely. She pushed herself up and onto her feet, the weakness in her legs now washed away. She could see a red glow overtaking their half of the tunnel, drowning out the light of the sign and even the saber. She narrowed her eyes as she felt power coursing through her body, telling her what to do when she had never done it before. Across the tunnel, Sunset felt a pulse of emotion responding in kind, familiar to her.

She reached out her hand, feeling for her weapon. It wasn't happy, in fact it was just as hurt and as furious as she was. She called for it, called it home to its proper place.

The saber leapt from the child's hand, yanking them forwards until their grip failed. The sword hissed as it flew through the air before landing in her open palm. Sunset was determined to make certain that this was only the first of the things she would take from this child to satisfy her. She stepped forward, walking in front of Papyrus and Mettaton while never breaking eye contact with the now-shocked child. When she spoke, it was calmly. This wasn't like last time she had been angry, where her emotions were some screaming raging monster needing to escape. This time, she had complete control of herself.

"Where did you get this?" she muttered, examining the hilt for any signs of damage. When she turned to look back down the hall, she had to pick out Frisk's form from where they were standing: in the deepest part of her shadow. The new red light was coming from behind her, casting the shape of her down on top of Frisk until it enveloped them completely.

The child's face hand changed. For the first time, Sunset could see fear in their eyes. They had lost control of the situation.

When they didn't answer her, Sunset stepped forward.

They stepped back.

They stepped back again.

"I said... Where did you get this?" Sunset repeated.

She felt no urgency when Frisk turned and ran. They were just as trapped down here as everyone else.

They'd have their time.

She turned back to Papyrus and Mettaton, taking a moment to switch off the blade. Her eyes widened as she found herself face-to-face with the source of the new red light: it was her soul. It had appeared just behind her, blazing red and wreathed in crackling flames, just as it had been in Alphys's machine. She didn't know what it meant, and she didn't care right now. The fact that it had scared away the child meant that they were free to return to their mission.

Papyrus and Mettaton were both staring at her in awe, but Sunset dismissed it. They had more important things to do.

"Come on... let's find our friends."

Missy was used to being the odd one out, that came with the territory of being the one in charge of an archetype, but she had never felt quite so out of place as she did right now.

She was used to looks that told her she was weird, or inscrutable, but not the kind of admiration that she had been receiving. The monsters here were all looking at her like she was some kind of celebrity, like she was their only hope in the whole world.

Which, upon consideration, she realized she very well might be. That thought was enough to add a ten-ton weight to her soul as the pressure mounted.

She tried to take her mind off of her growing feelings of inadequacy by taking another card out of her hat. It was Ghostrick Break. She took a moment to admire the art, showing Stein, Yuki-Onna, and Yeti all resting in the hidden room of their haunted house. She sighed before tapping the surface, transforming it into a glowing orb of light. She closed her eyes as she tried to push herself through the feeling of attaching another Xyz material. It was true that they made her more powerful, but each one was like swallowing a jawbreaker whole: tasty, but nauseatingly heavy once it reached her stomach.

That makes four... she thought to herself. She always wanted to throw up by the time she reached ten, getting to use her ability was a relief in comparison.

"So... can you explain that to me? What are you doing?" Alphys asked.

Missy nodded. "Well, where I come from, most monsters are divided up into groups that all support each other well, called 'archetypes.' Every archetype has an ace, which is their leader. That's usually the most powerful one." She floated lower until she was at eye level with Alphys, the tips of her shoes nearly brushing against the ground. "I'm the ace of the 'Ghostrick' archetype. When I do this..." she pointed to the floating orbs of light, "I'm borrowing power from other Ghostrick spirits. We're stronger together, so each one gives me more power than the last, but I can't use much of it at a time..." She sighed, noticing the dozens of pairs of eyes watching them from behind and eagerly listening. "Once I have ten of these, I can unleash it all at once. It's... pretty intense."

"Y-you're saying the power grows exponentially?"

"Well, I mean, it's not like it's easy to measure." Missy chuckled. "But last time I did this, I did vaporize a dragon about half the size of a skyscraper..." She paused, rubbing awkwardly at her neck. "...along with the rooftops of about half of the campus it was attacking..."

That was enough to cause Alphys to stop in her tracks, staring at her with wide eyes.

"That's incredible."

"W-well, it's not easy... It usually knocks me out." Missy felt herself flushing at the praise.

"Still, that's beyond any magic monsters here have EVER been able to harness!" Alphys continued. "Not without using human souls to empower ourselves!" She tapped her chin in thought as she began walking again, taking them further down the path. "I wonder if the process of your 'Xyz materials' is a temporary form of monsters' ability to absorb and merge with human souls... If so, we could learn so much from studying your abilities!"

Missy sighed with relief as Alphys's attention was diverted away by her own ramblings.

They had been walking for some time now, even taking an elevator up from the secret lab and into what looked like some kind of underground city. It looked almost identical to the ruins she'd traveled through when she and Lantern were searching for help, except well-maintained and crafted from gray stone instead of purple bricks. She could only imagine what it was like on an average day, full of monsters going about their daily lives.

Instead, the citizens were all wandering out of their hiding places and joining their caravan of refugees.

The caravan all looking at me to save them... She shivered uncomfortably, her wings trembling.

Her wings. Plural. She still wasn't sure what had happened between Sunset finding her and waking up in that glass coffin, but... she was better. She was healed completely.

Where she had gone in that time... she wasn't entirely certain. Part of her wanted to believe that she had been hovering on the border of this world and her own, but... another part of her wondered if she had been partway to the stars before they'd managed to tether her back to this world. It wasn't something that she particularly wanted an answer to, but...

Does this mean that if I get destroyed in this world... that's it?

She shook her head, taking another card from her hat to distract herself from such grim thoughts. This one was harder to swallow than the last, but it helped get her mind off of her potential brush with death. Now she was halfway there.

She was so focused on her next material, she nearly bumped straight into Alphys, who had come to a stop, as had the rest of the monsters. What had given them pause, however, became immediately clear.

A door. A huge, dark doorway. She swallowed nervously to herself before looking down at Alphys. The lizard-like monster looked up at her, motioning for her to go ahead.

Missy took a deep breath before nodding and forcing herself to fly forward and into the dark.

When her vision returned, Missy was floating through a long hallway of pillars and stained glass windows. The entire space was cast in oranges and yellows. She took a moment to look more closely at the symbol depicted in the windows. It was a circle flanked by a pair of wings, hovering above a trio of triangles, two pointing up and one pointing down.

"It's the Delta Rune..." a deep voice declared behind her.

"EEP!" Missy jumped in place, spinning around in place to see the intruder.

He was a large, goat-like creature, with shaggy blonde hair and a beard to match. He was dressed in heavy-looking armor, but it was mostly covered by a large purple cloak. For a moment, her eye was drawn to the golden crown resting on top of his head. In one hand, he held a wicked-looking red trident, but he was using it in a way akin to a walking stick. There was a weight to him, as though the same weight she felt on her shoulders were on his, but a hundredfold. She watched as he stepped up beside her.

"The original meaning was lost to time, but the most common interpretation is that it depicts our oldest prophecy." He used the trident to point up at the winged circle. "The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return." He moved the trident down, circling the triangles before gesturing upwards. "And the underground will go empty."

"I guess that's why everyone keeps looking at me like I'm some kind of miracle..." she muttered.

"Well, I suppose one could say that you are." The king chuckled lightly to himself. "I wish that I could invite you in for a cup of tea, but..."

"But we're running out of cards to play." Missy shook her head as she finished the sentence. "Everyone keeps telling me I can do this, but..." She glanced up at her recently-restored wing. "I had a bit of a blow to my confidence, lately... I'm not as strong or as invincible as I thought I was." She sighed, feeling the fear welling up and out of control. She bit at her finger, trying to hold back the sob. "I joke around to look good for my friends, but I'm just a duel spirit, not some holy messenger! What if I-" she blinked as the root of her fears made itself evident. "I couldn't even beat some other kid! What if I can't do this, either?"

That actually seemed to spur a chuckle out of the goat. "While I might not understand anything about a 'duel spirit,' you can trust this old man when he tells you this: I am no stranger to feeling crushed under the expectations of others. I can tell you from experience," she felt a heavy paw grasp her shoulder, "I have found that... when you look into their eyes and see the hope that you've given them, those same expectations give you the strength to do whatever is necessary to avoid disappointing them."

She paused, the many faces of the other monsters running through her mind again. As she thought of them, the faces of the other Ghostrick monsters seemed to intermingle with the crowd, each of them smiling and showing her their love, love from the perspective of those who knew her, both at her strongest and her weakest. They'd seen the true her, and they'd judged her worthy of their faith, just as much as the monsters who hadn't.

She took a deep breath, taking a moment to stretch her wings before reaching up and straightening her hat.

"If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be counting on that strength..." she whispered, turning back to the king with a serious look on her face. "Which way to the barrier?"

Thanks to their run-in with Frisk, Sunset wasn't surprised when they found Penn's body. It felt like a punch to the gut to finally have undeniable proof that he was gone, but... she wasn't surprised.

She was ANGRY.

Angry at Frisk, of course, for what they'd done, but there was more to it than that. She was mad at Penn for throwing himself into something so dangerous, disregarding his own life because he had once again insisted on protecting her. She was mad at Missy for even coming down here, rather than just staying at the campsite like any rational person would do when they woke up in the middle of the night.

But above all, she was angry at herself. She had broken her promise. TWO promises, actually. She hadn't come back. She'd promised that she would be back soon, and then gotten herself stuck in a secret lab.

And when Penn had been the one in danger, she'd broken her promise to rescue him.

Splitting the heroics fifty-fifty... and I drop the ball the first chance I get.

"GRRRRRRRAAAAAAH!" She roared as she turned and punched the wall. Her hand stung as the skin was scraped off of her knuckles by the wall, but she had dealt more damage than she had taken, creating a small impact crater and sending out a web of cracks. She felt the saber at her side pulse in an empathetic response, fanning the flames of her rage even higher.

The wound that had killed Penn had been scorched around the edges, squarely through his heart without spilling a drop of blood.

She'd sent a photo to Isis with her phone, receiving the confirmation she'd never needed: the killing blow had been struck using the weapon she had left for him. Yet another tally to add to the reasons she was angry with herself.

"There's... no sign of Undyne. Not even a speck of dust..." Papyrus muttered.

"YOU DON'T SUPPOSE THAT MEANS SHE ESCAPED, DO YOU?" Mettaton asked as he turned from side to side to inspect the overall room.

Sunset's eyes narrowed as she began walking, stepping onto the rope bridge without an ounce of hesitation. "She had best hope that she fell down this pit, because if I found out she abandoned my best friend to die..."

"She's going to WISH the kid had finished her off."

The child had crossed the underground in record time, running as fast as their feet could carry them. In so many iterations of the timeline, they had fought every kind of monster imaginable, and even the "Ultimate God of Hyperdeath" once Flowey had absorbed enough souls...

...and all of that had been NOTHING like that girl. Her determination had been like staring into the sun, threatening to burn them away to ashes even at a distance.

She wasn't human. She couldn't be. But that left exactly what she was a mystery. A mystery they were in no hurry to solve.

If she hadn't stolen the save file or reset the timeline already, then that meant that she probably didn't know she could. For the moment, at least, they were still in control. Of course, the problem with that was the fact that they had saved right after killing their LAST opponents, and their reservoir of healing items was running low.

So here they were, hiding in the MTT resort and rifling through the kitchen for any kind of food. Monster food was mostly made of magic, able to be eaten quickly and healing instantly, even just a pocket full of candy would be better than nothing.

Resetting completely didn't guarantee that they'd be gone, either. In fact, with her level of determination, that girl would probably be waiting for them, memories and power completely intact.

The only way out was to kill her before she figured out what she was capable of.

Without warning, the doors to the kitchen exploded open, creating a shock wave that not only shattered all of the lights, but knocked the human flat on their back.

"'scuse us..." a hoarse voice growled, "but the restaurant is closed."

Even as they scrambled to get back to their feet, dread settled over the human as they recognized that voice. It was impossible for that voice to be HERE, they had watched its owner melt into a pile of slime...

And yet, there she was, silhouetted in the doorway: the captain of the Royal Guard, a glowing spear clenched in one hand and dressed in a sharper, heavier version of her previous armor with a wide shield fastened to her opposite arm. The eye formerly covered by an eyepatch began to glow with emerald power. At the same time, a chunk of her chestplate began to glow, as well. This time, however, the glow was not the green of Undyne's magic: it was a deep violet, casting light over the entire room and lighting up her fang-filled grin from below.

This wasn't Undyne the Undying. There was something different, here... her magic aura had changed on a fundamental level, and it was several times stronger than it had ever been. There was only one way that this was possible.

"We BOTH want a rematch, kid..."

This was going to suck...

Rule of Two

The three members of their "rescue" party traveled in silence through the underground. Sunset was enjoying listening to the hum of her saber as it swung back and forth through the air, but she didn't show it. It was the only distraction she allowed herself, it kept her mind from racing too far ahead of the present.

She was acutely aware when a mitten-covered hand placed itself on her shoulder, and curbed her reflex to strike at the intrusion on her personal space. She kept herself focused on the path ahead, trying to remember the way that Penn had led her on their first trip through. It was only when Papyrus spoke that she found herself forced back to living completely in the moment, as if she had been forced to come up for air from a deep dive.

"Sunset Shimmer... are you alright?"

No. She wasn't alright, not by the longest stretch of the word's definition. Deep in her brain, the logical and rational part of herself was screaming for her to just stop before she did something she would regret, but she didn't care. It felt like a whisper in the typhoon of emotions wildly spinning in her chest, twisting her insides until they hurt...

Easy to ignore. Piece of cake.

"I'm fine."

There was another long pause, and she could just picture the other two giving each other uncertain glances. They were judging her. It didn't matter, though. They didn't know her. She was functional, she'd get to the end of this before she broke, just like she always had.

Papyrus cleared his throat nervously. "I simply ask because, well, losing someone close to you is... difficult. Even for one as great as me..."

"I said I'm fine."

The curt declaration managed to buy her a few more precious seconds of silence. One question began to rise up through the haze, however. She tried over and over to dismiss it, but she couldn't seem to make it leave the forefront of her mind. She huffed silently, berating herself for perpetuating a conversation she didn't want to have right now.

"You lost someone close to you?"

"My brother... he manned one of Snowdin's furthest sentry stations." Papyrus shook his head, a melancholy chuckle slipping out. "He was always so tired by the time he got there, he'd just fall right to sleep. I always called him lazy, but everyone knew that he was just trying his best."

Sunset nodded. "I'm sorry-"

"I just keep thinking about what he would say if he were here... He wouldn't want all of us to be moping over him, you know? He told the most awful puns every hour of the day, and he never wanted to see anyone upset or afraid..." his hand gave her shoulder a squeeze. "So... I'm trying to keep up the same spirit he would want me to have, at least until it's safe for me to feel the way that I want to feel."

Sunset knew where this was going, and she already knew her answer.

"I don't know what your friend was like, but-"

Sunset took her turn to cut him off. "No, this isn't how he would want me to feel. He was patient, he didn't seem to care about getting hurt until the crisis had passed as long as Missy and I were safe. I'm one hundred percent sure he wouldn't kick up a fuss if he were here to talk to me about it, tell me to just let it be." She stopped walking, turning to face Papyrus with the harshest glare that she could muster, practically spitting her emotions like venom. "But if our roles were reversed? If I had been the one to die? He would have ripped through this world until he found some way to make that kid PAY. He said it himself, that he would burn everything to the ground to keep me safe, and I couldn't even manage to keep him safe from ONE. STUPID. KID!"

She was starting to cry, the tears were forcing their way up and her throat was swelling shut. She took a deep breath, forcing it all back down again, and focused on the one emotion she needed right now. Soon, the surge of grief had receded enough for her fury to bring it back into her control.

"I REFUSE to let them get away with this, and that's what I want! THEY. WILL. PAY!"

She glared straight into Papyrus's wide eye sockets, watching as he physically shrunk back from her. Convinced that she'd made her point, she fell back into the pendulum-like stride.

Undyne felt AMAZING.

It was like every molecule of her body had been struck by lightning and super-charged. Gravity was practically non-existent, she was as light as a feather, yet more steady than she'd ever been.

What had once been a strenuous effort for her now came as easily as breathing. She was throwing masses and masses of spears without so much as breaking a sweat. It was like every limit on her body and magic had been removed, that she could do whatever she wanted just by thinking it. It was enough for a giddy giggle to escape as she chased Frisk throughout the MTT Resort. She was definitely fast enough and strong enough to catch them, now, but a few painful encounters with the walls and ceiling had informed her that she still needed to get used to this new level of strength, so she was holding back for the moment. Combined with the fact that they seemed to know this place like the back of their hand, they were just barely managing to keep ahead... but they were running out of places to hide fast.

She conjured up another spear, this time pouring a little of her overflowing magic into it. The entire length grew blinding in intensity as the head widened into a wicked-looking blade. She grinned and began to spin it, letting it rev for a second before letting it go. Just as she released her grip on it so it could fly free, she felt a twitch in her arm that pulled her off-target. The spear missed the human by a hair's breadth, boring into and through the wall behind them and disappearing from sight.

"Hey! Be careful, if we kill them, they just get a free do-over!" Penn's voice sounded like he was speaking just over her shoulder, and she could feel a tinge of anxious worry coming from him in the back of her mind.

"Yeah, I'm aware... now..." she muttered. "Seriously, you couldn't have brought that up while we both still alive?"

"Would you have believed me?"

"Not really. Generally, people die if they are killed..." she muttered sourly.

"Well, lucky for us there's a few exceptions, huh?"

"Yeah, sure..." she smiled again as she rolled her eyes. She was caught off-guard when the kid rounded a corner into the main dining hall, one of the most open and exposed areas in the entire resort. She didn't so much as hesitate to burst through the doors, shattering them with the force of the impact. "So, got any ideas to finally get us our payback? If they can just turn back time whenever they lose-"

"Yeah. Actually, I've been thinking a lot about how to deal with people you can't kill as of late."

She glanced around the dining hall, scanning for signs of their fugitive. The doors to the kitchen would have still been swinging if they'd run into there, but they were still. None of the tables had draping tablecloths to hide under, a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that they hadn't snuck up behind her...

"Where did they-"

Her body moved without her permission, raising her new shield up and over her head and parrying the incoming blade with a heavy bashing attack. Their knife cut deep into the shield, sending sparks raining down in a spray as Undyne's counterattack slammed into their body. They were sent flying across the room, rolling wildly out of control until they came to a stop up against the far wall. They slumped down, clearly having had the wind knocked out of them.

"First rule of horror movies: always check above."

She swallowed as she began walking the distance to the human, trying not to let the near-miss get to her. "Nice catch... But warn me before you take over like that, would you?"

"Sorry, heat of the moment. Dying twice in one day would just be embarrassing."

Undyne rolled her eyes again before her gaze finally settled back on the human. They couldn't move so much as a muscle without her seeing it. She watched as they tried to reach for their knife. She only needed to twitch her index finger to send a spear flying at them, shattering the knife blade to pieces.

"You know, believe it or not, we've been thinking about what we want to say to you. Penn managed to come up with something pretty good..."

She watched the kid press themselves harder against the wall as she got closer. For a brief moment, she felt an ounce of pity for them... until she remembered the trembling of the monsters she'd hurried along to Alphys's evacuation and saw in her mind's eye the faces of the ones that never made it that far. In the back of her mind, Penn's own fury added the images of the angel and her grievous injury, and how much the kid didn't deserve it.

"It's a beautiful autumn night outside... Leaves are falling, crickets are chirping..."

Frisk's eyes widened, and Undyne reveled in the look of fear and recognition. Finally, they were going to feel the same overwhelming fear they had struck into the entire underground.

"On nights like this, kids like you..." She reached down, grabbing the human by the throat and pinning them against the wall. Every ounce of their combined wrath imbued itself into their next words as both of their voices spoke in unison from her mouth.

"Should be freezing in Hell's ninth circle!"

She continued to glare straight into Frisk's eyes, her own magic casting a green glow across their fearful features. It took every ounce of her self-control not to impale them on her spears right then and there. Slowly, carefully, Frisk opened their hands and rose them into the air.

Surrender.

Undyne was disgusted by the fact their circumstances demanded that she accept. She released her grip on their throat, allowing them to fall roughly to the ground. After all of this, their frightening aura was just gone completely. They were simply what they always had been: an angry child, feeble and beaten.

"I'm gonna need the left arm for a second."

"Fine... Whatever you're planning, do it before I lose my cool," she muttered bitterly. Undyne watched the arm bearing her new shield raise of its own accord, bringing the wide surface to face the human.

"You ever watch 'The Rising of the Shield Hero?'"

"Nah... I quit when I realized the spear hero was gonna be a jerk the whole time," she muttered. "Why?"

The shield began to glow with lavender magic. Ethereal copies of the shield manifested in the air, glowing with the same light. Frisk's eyes widened as they tried to scramble to their feet, but for perhaps the first time, they were just too slow. The numerous shields all crashed into them, threatening to crush their body as they all rushed in at once, pinning their arms to their sides and lifting them off of the ground. In a matter of seconds, the kid was completely helpless, kicking feebly at the air as they tried and failed to break free of their magical bindings.

"Not as clean as Naofumi's 'Shield Prison' spell, but it's the same idea..."

Undyne chuckled as she walked up to their prisoner, giving the magical shields a knock. They were definitely more solid than they looked, giving the telltale sound of metal striking metal when her gauntlet's knuckles made contact. "Not bad... not bad at all."

"To quote the King of Rock and Roll," his voice dipped low and he put on a thick accent, "'Thank you, thank you very much!'"

Undyne rolled her eyes as she motioned for the prisoner to follow as she walked towards the exit. "Great, I get fused with a human soul and he turns out to be a giant nerd..."

"At least now neither of us are ever going to have to watch anime by ourselves again, right?" he joked in return.

That actually was enough to make Undyne pause. She unconsciously reached up and fingered at the pulsating purple heart on her breastplate.

"So... about that. Are we really gonna be stuck like this? I mean, it's better than being dead, but..."

There was a long pause as a chill traveled through both of their souls. It was strange, being able to 'feel' what someone else was thinking in her own head. She could dig and get specifics if she wanted to, but even without purposefully prying, she could tell that there was a lot going on with him. It was like he was shuffling through hundreds of puzzle pieces, trying to find the one that fit their problem. As solution after solution turned up incompatible, she felt him wearily let the train of thought grind back to a halt.

"Wow, so being stuck with me ranks just above 'dead' with you, huh?"

"N-no! That wasn't-"

"Kidding. I'm not crazy about this setup, either. Let's just say I'm working on it for now, okay? First things first, we need to figure out how to stop Frisk from resetting manually and leading us through all of this again."

Undyne nodded, glancing back at Frisk with a frown. "Okay, so... from what you told me, they can just... do-over like this was all a video game? With save points and everything?"

"More or less."

There was more to it, she knew. It felt like a nagging at the back of her head, but in all honesty, the massive dump of information into her head was still all a disorganized mess. She'd let Penn handle it while she was hunting the kid, and it was clear that most of the information that Penn's soul had brought with him was still a haze for her. She was going to have to trust him on it for now.

"So... the longer we keep them from a place they could 'save,' the more of a setback resetting is going to be."

"Which means the most logical thing to do would be to reset as soon as possible..."

They looked back at Frisk, who was giving them the most hate-laced glare they could muster.

"So either they can't reset like this, or there's something they don't want to have to deal with a second time, worth going through all of this to avoid, right?"

"Sounds reasonable to me..." Undyne muttered, reaching up to wipe a bead of sweat from her forehead. "Hey... is it just me, or did it get hotter in here?"

There was a short pause, and she felt a strange sensation run over her skin that she could only imagine was Penn using her body to sample the atmosphere.

"While you ARE hot, it's not just you. It wasn't this hot when we went into the dining hall...

"Yeah, that's what I was-" Undyne blinked. "Wait, what did you say?"

"It wasn't this hot on our way in. Temperature's rising."

"No, the first part..."

"What first part?"

Undyne sighed, somehow knowing that she was never going to get him to own up to his first statement.

"Fine. I'll just pretend I didn't hear... that..." she trailed off as they stepped out of the front doors of the MTT resort.

Waiting outside was a trio she hadn't been expecting. It was the other human, Sunset Shimmer, flanked by a frightened-looking Papyrus and Mettaton.

"Oh no..."

Sunset was almost unrecognizable. Her skin had darkened and reddened in hue until it was almost a shade of magenta. The sclera of her eyes had transformed to an inky black, making her sky-blue irises seem to glow from within with how bright they were in comparison. Her fiery hair seemed to almost actually be on fire, littering sparks and embers into the air as it was tousled by a nonexistent breeze. Just behind her, Undyne could see a red human soul, presumably her own, hanging and exposed to the world like some terrifying, flaming red halo around her head. She somehow had gotten the laser sword back from the kid, and she pointed the red blade at them. Somehow, the weapon itself seemed to be radiating killing intent, she could feel it.

She pointed the blade at Frisk, her furious glare tightening. "You killed my best friend..."

"Well, there goes any hope of breaking it to her gently..."

Even with all her feelings of invincibility with her new power, Undyne felt her soul washed over by a tsunami of terror when the blade of judgement turned back to her.

"YOU just LEFT HIM!"

Undyne raised her hands defensively. "L-look, it's not what it looks like-"

She was cut off as Sunset violently swung the blade downwards, cutting through the stone floor of the cave as if it wasn't even there. Behind her, she heard Frisk reflexively whimper in response.

I guess we found out what it was they didn't want to go through a second time... she thought.

Undyne could feel Penn's mind racing as her own went to work, analyzing the situation from a warrior's perspective. Sunset was angry, but this was controlled, honed until it cut through any kind of shortsightedness. She wasn't rushing in, she was in control, thinking clearly. They couldn't count on her rage clouding her judgement. Running was an option, it might buy time for them to explain what had really happened, but she was standing between them and the way back to Hotland.

Before her mind could offer any alternate routes, the world around them went dark, plunging them into the black-and-white world of the underground's battle magic.

There was no backing out, now. The very world around them seemed to have declared it. The only way to end it now was for an offer of mercy to be accepted, or...

"Sorry, Penn, but it looks like we're doing this..." Undyne muttered. "Do you think our shields could stand up to-"

"No. Whatever happens, Undyne, don't let her hit us OR Frisk... Or it's back to the OTHER deathmatch we just LOST..."

Sunset Shimmer
LV: 20
AT: 101 EXP: 0
DF: 101 NEXT: 1000

WEAPON: Lightsaber (Red)
ARMOR: None

GOLD: 0

50 percent she-demon, 100 percent raging.

Through passion she gains strength.

Through strength she gains power.

Through power she gains victory.

Author's Note

Heya! Thank you all for your patience while I was on my break from Fimfiction and writing in general. It means the world to me that I can take time when I need to in order to recharge my creative batteries, especially for my birthday. Thankfully, that's just what I've done, and I'm feeling ready to jump back into Multiverse, with plenty of new ideas I'm eager to play with!

Thanks again for your patience. It's good to be back.

-Pennington Inkwell

Your Best Friend

Honestly, it was scary how focused Undyne's mind was.

As in, she only really thought about one thing at a time, but she thought about it with one hundred percent of her attention.

By the time Penn had managed to pull together enough of his consciousness to remember his own name, she had managed to pull her body back together, stagger up onto her feet, and start tracking Frisk. She'd easily dismissed the question of how or why she was alive in favor of resuming her task of stopping Frisk... as soon as she'd managed to stop slamming into the ceiling, running into walls, and falling flat on her face because of her newfound strength.

Honestly, for a short period, he'd been so swept up in her own focus that he had simply hung along for the ride, also unable to ask questions or even differentiate his thoughts from her own. Eventually, enough of his faculties had emerged for him to finally separate their consciousnesses and begin to think for himself.

That, of course, had been the only thing capable of sending Undyne's own train of thought flying off of the tracks.

After a hefty amount of arguing, they'd come to the following conclusion: SOMETHING had brought them together as they both hung at death's door. A human soul had a much higher ability to produce, contain, and utilize determination than a monster's, so Undyne's condition had been reversed as Penn's soul absorbed her excess, allowing her to revive completely. As a result, they were now both stuck in Undyne's body, unable to separate. Undyne's body was shielding his soul from shattering in the outside world, and his soul was keeping her body from overloading from her own determination. It was a symbiosis that was keeping them both alive.

Well, "alive" in a manner of speaking, in Penn's case.

He'd wanted to laugh at the delicious irony as he realized that he was now the advising voice in someone else's head.

Now he was "standing around" in Undyne's head, only able to watch the ongoing events like some kind of outsider. He could get impressions if he focused, phantom pains and sensations, and occasionally a brief moment of lucidity where they seemed to swap roles, usually in a moment of panic or urgency, but...

It was like standing in a dark room. The panic and fear and lack of understanding of what was happening to them tried to draw their attention, crackling and screaming like a chorus of breaking glass, but Undyne's focus kept it all in the dark. The only light was cast on what they were doing here and now, in the moment, and at the moment they were alive and their mission wasn't completed.

Honestly, trying to think about anything OTHER than what Undyne was thinking about felt like working in a fog or going against the current, but he knew he HAD to. Undyne was the single-minded one, but that wasn't his strength. He worked best looking at the big picture, trying to incorporate as many pieces of knowledge at once to find a solution.

That's what I'm best for... remembering. Remembering the details, the important information, the- the...

He would have blinked, if he had eyes of his own. He was confused. He couldn't remember the word he was trying to think of. Every gear in his brain seemed to grind to a halt, he felt the edges of his mind growing blurry.

He was alone. In the dark. Again. Undyne wasn't paying attention to him, she had her mind set on hunting down Frisk. And now he couldn't even think of the right words. He was losing his grip on himself. He felt like someone had taken the dictionary in his head, turned it upside down, and shaken all the words out into a big, jumbled-up pile. He was trying to sort through, but it was just... mess in his head. Her head? Did he even have a head, any more?

He was expecting a voice. This was the place where Reason always slapped some sense into him, just on the precipice of losing control.

But she wasn't there. He couldn't hear her. He could ALWAYS hear her.

The dark was so much darker without her. Dark... darker... yet darker...

✡⚐🕆 💧✌✡ ✡⚐🕆 👎⚐ ☠⚐❄ ☞☜✌☼ ❄☟☜ 👎✌☼😐. ✡⚐🕆 🕈✋☹☹ ☠☜☜👎 ❄☟✌❄.

It was a memory, a message given to him by a friend, but... he couldn't affix a time or place he had ever heard it, nor a face to accompany it. Only the faint scent of chamomile.

☠⚐❄☟✋☠☝ ✋💧 ☹⚐💧❄ ✋☠ ❄☟☜ ✞⚐✋👎. ✋❄ ✋💧 💧✋💣🏱☹✡ ⚐🕆❄ ⚐☞ ☼☜✌👍☟. ⚐☠☜ 💣🕆💧❄ ☜💣👌☼✌👍☜ ☠⚐❄☟✋☠☝ ❄⚐ 💧☜☜ ☜✞☜☼✡❄☟✋☠☝☟.

He knew that they were right. He knew he could trust that old friend.

He tried to take account of himself, seeing clearly the blur at the edges of his mind that he had been fighting.

And he let go.

It was like falling, dissolving away until he didn't exist any more. He felt himself slipping lower and lower, plunging deep into the forgotten and the discarded. He told himself that the dark was nothing to be afraid of. It was a warm embrace, an old friend...

A calm sea.

When he opened his eyes, and he DID have eyes, it was to a world changed.

He was floating underwater, but he could still breathe. He was staring out over a huge, bottomless ocean, with currents and eddies that gently tugged at him, beckoning him along without forcing him to follow. He could see different creatures of every kind swimming through the briny deep, each one with their own purpose, their own direction. Looking up, the surface of the water shimmered just over his head. It took only a thought for him to float up and breach the air, laying eyes on the passing clouds and shining sun.

It was a dreamscape. Undyne's dreamscape. It was practically a blank slate, but... he'd found his way inside.

As far as the eye could see, there was open ocean and a flat horizon... until one spot in the water began to churn. It bubbled and boiled and rolled until the cause became clear: something was rising up from the sea floor. He watched with anticipation as what looked to be a desert island sprung into existence right before his eyes. As he closed the distance the to solitary landmass, he could see a familiar shape rising up at the center. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of a familiar, weather-stripped door on a trashy-looking house. He couldn't resist a smile as he twisted the doorknob and gave it a hard shove with his shoulder, cracking the stubborn door open.

He walked inside, seeing his house exactly as he remembered it, let himself fall into a comfy place on his couch, and grabbed the TV remote.

It was a relief as images and sounds began to flash by, impossibly fast and completely indecipherable, and he felt his mind coming back together. His memories, his words, all of it finally settled into place, and he felt like himself again. He could think properly for the first time in what felt like ages.

The image on the tv finally settled on a first-person view of Undyne chasing down the human child who had killed them both, and he let himself be drawn in, immersing himself in the experience.

"Sorry about that... Had to pull myself together. Cleared out a nice little spot for myself."

"Good!" Undyne declared, hurling another spear in Frisk's direction as they fled further into the MTT Resort. "I could use a hand getting the hang of this power boost!"

"I'll get working on it..."

It didn't take long from there to get the hang of things. Somehow, the teamwork they'd established while they were fighting together had translated well into this new form. Still, trying to figure things out by "feel" wasn't easy... He counted himself lucky that he could lean into Undyne's way of thinking, drawing his attention to the details she might have overlooked.

Honestly, he was more than satisfied that his contribution had been to add a shield to her abilities. They were both a pair of idiots who couldn't care less about protecting themselves if there was somebody else to protect. Now they could claim to be protecting each other. It was far from a well-oiled machine, but that teamwork had managed to not only save them from Frisk, but actually capture them, a feat he would have claimed was impossible a short while earlier.

That had changed when they saw Sunset.

He had barely managed to eke out a warning to Undyne before slipping into shocked silence at what had become of her.

Everything he'd done, trying to protect her, trying to keep her out of all of this... had been for nothing. Even at a distance, they could feel it: Sunset's empathy, her forgiveness, her element... had been flipped on its head. They were staring at a woman who felt nothing but hatred and wanted nothing but revenge. She had more than enough power to overwhelm any creature in this dimension with her sheer presence alone...

And somehow, they were going to have to defend themselves from her wrath while also piercing through to whatever sensible part of her was left.

The question was whether or not their shield and spear were up to the task.

"S-something's wrong..."

It had been a long time since Asgore had needed to care for a child. It felt like it had been centuries, but instinct picked up instantly when it had needed to when the little angel's eyes rolled back into her head and she dropped from the air.

She had acquired eight of the ten ghostly orbs of light that she claimed would fuel her barrier-shattering spell when she had begun to show the first signs of illness. Her complexion had gone pale as a sheet and her wings began to tremble, barely able to continue holding herself up in the air. She'd only managed to add one more orb before she'd been overcome by the fainting spell, forcing Asgore to catch her.

She groaned and gripped at her head for a moment before her eyes flew open wide. She scrambled wildly to get out of his grip, running to the corner of the room and retching loudly as the contents of her stomach splattered onto the ground.

He carefully approached her, placing his hand on her back and trying his best to soothe her as she vomited onto the floor. He repressed the questions he had about the gratuitous amounts of half-digested candy she had regurgitated, though it may have explained her sickness. "Miss... are you alright?"

She shook her head, gasping for air as she clutched at her stomach. Before Asgore could ask another question, they both felt a tremor pass through the ground, shaking the very earth beneath their feet. In all of the time since Mount Ebott had become their home, there had never been a single recorded instance of an earthquake, they were simply in the wrong part of the world for it to happen, which meant that something had shaken the mountain to its core.

"Y-your majesty! Your majesty!"

He easily recognized Alphys's voice before he saw her burst through the doorway, frantically waving her phone in her hand. She practically fell over herself as she sprinted across the room, forcefully trying to shove the tiny device into his large hands.

"Y-you n-need to see this!"

The timing was inopportune, to say the least, but he knew from her panic that this was a serious matter. He glanced back at the little angel, who seemed to be doing her best not to vomit again as the ghostly orbs drew in close, flickering and threatening to wink out of existence.

"Doctor, tend to her..." he muttered, stepping aside to try and focus on watching the image on the device. His eyes widened as he saw something that should have been impossible.

The Captain of the Royal Guard had undergone a shocking transformation. Undyne had always been one of the hardiest monsters of the underground, but she now possessed what looked like a human soul beating in the center of her chest, one with the "perseverance" attribute. He had personally trained Undyne, and he shuddered to think what kind of warrior that terrifying power would make her. No monster had managed to acquire the power of a human soul since...

On the other hand, her opponent was a human... or, at least, what looked like a human, but... he couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was more to her than met the eye at first glance. There were tiny attributes of monstrous traits scattered across her body, and her magic power was dizzying enough to manifest a representation of her blazing soul outside her body. Even through the screen, he could feel the waves of animosity washing off of her, and he couldn't help but swallow nervously. It was said that the power of a monster with a human soul had no counter, but... if one existed, he could believe he was looking right at it.

Undyne was pacing in a wide arc, ready and alert, while the human was standing perfectly still in a ready position, the picture of stoic poise. Whatever signal to attack passed between them, it was too fast for him to see before they had both rushed in. Undyne was wielding one of her spears with both hands, using it to counter the human's glowing red sword. When the two weapons collided, the image flickered and distorted with static. A second later, another tremor rumbled through the ground, followed by what sounded like a clap of thunder. His eyes widened as he realized that the shock wave had managed to reverberate through the entire mountain.

The two combatants stared into one another's eyes for a second as their weapons ground against one another in a screech like the sound of claws on a chalkboard. Again, he couldn't even make out the signal that they had given to move again, but each took only a step back before both unleashing a furious flurry of blows that could barely be tracked with the naked eye. The camera recording them seemed to finally fail completely, reducing the screen to static as the world began to tremble.

Right now, he was certain that the monsters outside would be frightened. There were already too many reasons for them to be frightened, their world had already metaphorically crumbled to pieces, and this would only add to it.

He looked to the pair in the corner, where Alphys was gently feeling at the angel's forehead and taking careful measurements. Caring for her was a doctor's job... the king was required elsewhere.

"Doctor Alphys... see to it that the angel receives everything she needs... I'll make certain the monsters outside are safe."

"Y-Yes, sir! A-a-absolutely!" Alphys stuttered, snapping to a salute, then a bow, then a curstey before finally settling on a respectful lowering of her head.

Asgore forced himself to smile as he handed back her phone, seeing the instant reassurance it gave the nervous scientist. He paused, trying to think of some reassuring words for the little angel. Before he could speak, however, she took the initiative, forcing herself to smile and giving him a trembling thumbs-up.

"I- I'll do it..." she stuttered. "I w-won't d-disappoint them..."

For just a second, Asgore didn't see an angel... he saw a child. His child, another child who had once been thought to be the prophesied angel and called the hope of the underground. He fell to one knee, half to address her and half from the sheer pain of the memory. He reached behind her head, pressing her burning forehead to his own as he felt a tear escape the corner of his eye.

"I'm sorry... to place this burden on your shoulders..." he whispered.

She chuckled in a melancholy way. "Duel spirits d-don't shy away when we n-need to fight. We play to the last c-card."

Asgore felt his heart break further, wanting nothing more than to simply pick up this child and protect her until this danger had passed. Unfortunately, both of them had their duties, and he could neglect his no longer.

"Stay safe, child..." he muttered before releasing her. Without allowing himself to dawdle a moment longer, he passed through the door to the garden, leaving to address his subjects.

"Penn, this would be a great time to start speaking up again..." Undyne muttered, gritting her teeth as she slid to a stop. The stone floor beneath their feet had been reduced to a thick layer of fine gravel, making it harder and harder over time for her to get her footing solid. "I'm open to id-"

She was cut off as Sunset pushed off again, closing the distance in less than a heartbeat.

The two of them were moving so fast, it was like the rest of the world had fallen into slow motion. She could see stalactites falling and ages-old dust being shaken loose from its hidden places while they fought, all falling with a slowness that gave the entire fight a surreal feeling. Undyne reached out, snatching a fresh spear as it materialized. She gripped the end with both hands, swinging with all of her strength to meet Sunset's blade. As the two weapons collided, there was a flash of blinding light and a crackle of energy, momentarily blinding her. She could sense that something had changed, though, as her spear continued to swing forward after the impact, the resistance lasting only a moment. Her eyes widened as she spotted a red glow in the corner of her vision and felt the slap of Sunset's hair against her face. She had taken the force of the impact and used it to twirl in mid-air, an instant second attack from the opposite direction.

She released her grip with her right hand, focusing her energy on the ground she was standing on and pulling upwards. Heavy-looking pillars of light erupted from beneath the gravel all around her, forming a ring of vertical spears around her. The saber was caught halfway through, coming close enough to leave a stinging burn on the fin on the side of her head.

Sunset was completely unperturbed, placing her foot against the cage and pushing off into a backflip as she pulled her sword free. As she was landing, Undyne could see the hint of a smile playing at her lips before her attention was drawn to the cracking noise above her.

"Aw, nuts..." she muttered as she saw the pillar of stone about to crash on her head, carved free by the ring of spears that had stabbed who-knew-how-far into the rock above her. She leaned back as far as she could, lowering the spears behind her as her shield-bearing arm came up for a heavy haymaker. The edge of the metal shield dug into the stone from the side, splitting off the bottom few feet into a disk of bedrock weighing several tons. Below the shield, her fist impacted the gigantic puck and pushed it forward, sending the boulder rocketing at Sunset. She followed through on the motion, swinging her arm in its socket hard enough to nearly pull it loose and raising it just in time to repeat the attack. She let loose a roar as she felt her arm threatening to fly off, but she refused to stop until the pillar was gone, having never touched the ground before being turned into improvised projectiles.

Undyne panted for breath as she stared at the pile of rocks that had once been Sunset Shimmer. There was no sign of red light in the room, having transitioned back to Waterfall's typical shades of blue and green. "Dodge... that..."

"Is that the best you've got?" Sunset's voice growled, echoing off of the walls of the cave in every direction.

"Wha-" Undyne snapped her head back and forth, trying to find some sign of her. It was only when she saw a glowing ember floating down in front of her face that she remembered Penn's earlier warning. Her head snapped up as she readied her shield. Sunset was like a smoldering wraith, only a few glowing embers and the light in her eyes allowing Undyne to make out her form propped up inside the pitch-black hole she had punched in the ceiling.

She switched off the saber to get a sneak attack on us!

FZZT! The saber hissed as it switched on again, Sunset already swinging it wildly as she fell through the air. Undyne raised her shield (something she was growing more and more grateful to have as time went on), allowing Sunset to land on it feet-first. Every bone in her body strained as Sunset used her defenses as a springboard, launching her towards the still-captured Frisk with her saber at the ready.

"NO!"

Another of the glowing shields appeared in mid-air, slamming into Sunset's face and sending her tumbling to the ground. Undyne rushed over, holding a spear to the human girl's throat. There was a second of silence as the two of them heaved to catch their breath, each one staring the other in the eyes.

"Yield..." Undyne muttered. "I can explain everything... if we can just talk..."

Sunset's smile sent chills down her spine, even from her helpless position. "If you're THAT smart, you'd watch your back more... But I guess you're pretty lousy at watching people's backs, huh?"

"Undyne, behind you!"

Undyne didn't need Penn's warning to know she was in danger. Turning back, her blood ran cold as she saw what Sunset had been referring to.

The wild swinging of her saber a moment ago had left large crescents of red energy hanging in the air, strikes seemingly frozen in time, waiting to be called upon. One by one, those frozen strikes began to rotate, each turning to point at her before launching off in a flurry of burning projectiles.

Undyne called up her own attack, sending a whirlwind of brightly glowing green spears to intercept. It was a sloppy counterattack, though, a "spray and pray" approach had been all she'd had time to summon. Three of the blazing arcs managed to make it through. The first one struck her across her chest, causing her torso to explode with searing pain. The second struck her across her lower legs, forcing her to her knees as she cried out in pain. In the haze of red and pain, she wasn't sure which of them managed to do it, but their shield raised to protect her from the third, barely blocking it from taking off her head at the neck.

She sat there for a second, trying to bring the pain under control, even as she could feel her armor glowing red-hot in the places it had been struck, threatening to sear itself to her skin with one wrong move.

Everything fell into a blur for several seconds as the heat and pain enveloped all of Undyne's senses. She wasn't sure whether or not the blows had been fatal, but the sheer malice and hatred behind them was enough to make her head spin. Suddenly, Penn's evaluation of not being able to withstand her attacks made more sense. She closed her eyes, taking several seconds to try and get her body to obey her again. She knew she needed to move before Sunset could land a killing blow herself...

Things were getting dark.

She needed to move...

When she opened them, she was already up and on her feet, add she and Sunset were both holding a blade to the other's throat in a standstill. Her shield had been ripped in two, the edges of the tear still glowing red-hot as half of it clattered to the ground.

How did I-

"Sorry, you blacked out from the pain, so I took over for a few seconds..." Penn's voice answered.

About time you got in this fight...

"Again, sorry. Sunset kinda scared me beyond the capacity for rational thought."

Undyne took a moment to examine the fresh stalemate she had found herself in. Sunset had the tip of the lightsaber pressed to her throat, but Undyne had not only the spear in her hand, but several more floating in the air behind Sunset's back, ready to do their work if she so much as twitched a muscle. It helped that Undyne had several inches of reach advantage over Sunset, as well. More spears were floating in from every angle, eventually pinning Sunset in place in all three dimensions.

If the pain was enough to make ME black out, how did YOU-

"I learned a lot about pain tolerance from an immortal witch. That wasn't the worst I've dealt with."

Undyne raised an eyebrow as she stepped back, away and out of Sunset's reach. Remind me to ask you for THAT story some time...

"Ready to go back in?"

Undyne nodded, and soon found herself back in control of her aching body. She felt like she could barely stand, but she forced herself to keep up the appearance of strength.

"Now..." she huffed. "Will you give me... five minutes... to explain?"

Sunset's face settled back into a scowl as her eyes rolled from side to side, taking in the full extent of her situation. Even with this much insurance that she couldn't break free, Undyne felt a touch of fear when Sunset locked her eyes back on her.

"I don't want your excuses..." she muttered. With those words came a fresh wave of blistering heat that slammed into Undyne face-first, causing her to cringe and step back. When she was able to look back at her prisoner again, Undyne felt her jaw drop.

"Is... is that POSSIBLE?"

"Looks like it..." she whispered.

The spears were melting. Undyne reached out, trying to fortify them with magic, but it was like trying to inflate a popped balloon. The magic dissolved away as fast as she could provide it.

"What I WANT is to make that thing-" she pointed to Frisk with her saber, stepping through the dissolved spears with hardly more than a flinch, "to PAY for what they did to my friend. Instead, you're protecting them!" She turned the blade back to Undyne, continuing her advance. "I can't think of a single thing that could justify that!"

"Undyne, I've got an idea, but it's a long shot... You ever read "The Lightning Thief?"

Undyne raised her hand, readying a fresh spear and hurling it at Sunset, only to watch it dissolve into glowing smoke in her blazing aura.

Just DO IT!

Undyne found herself once again falling into the lightheaded feeling of her body being possessed. Her hands raised into a defensive position as she began to shakily walk backwards.

"O-Okay, I know it doesn't SEEM like there's any possible good reason, Sunny, but-"

"GRRRAAAAAH!" Sunset didn't give Penn a chance to finish, rushing forward with her saber readied for a piercing attack. Undyne could only watch as she fruitlessly raised the remains of her shield, the tip of the blade easily piercing through the metal and lunging for her head. Somehow, Penn still smiled at this, yanking the shield to the side and taking the blade with it. There was a strange sense of detachment from the pain as the tip nicked at her left fin, but she was just happy not to have her head on a skewer. As they leaned back to dodge the attack, Undyne felt her sense of balance give out completely as they surrendered to gravity, pulling Sunset with them. There was a moment of weightlessness as they all fell off of the path, sparing only a second to throw Sunset further behind them, and then the entire word became muted as they crashed into one of Waterfall's many pools of water.

What are you doing? We can't just swim away and leave... Frisk... behind- Oh, that is GOOD... Undyne's train of thought trailed off as her battered armor dragged them deeper and deeper, washing them in dark, icy goodness from every angle, reaching every ache and pain of her body and washing them all away. She shuddered with pleasure as the stresses of the battle seemed to all dissolve away, and the cold seemed to bring the vigor back into her overworked muscles. At the same time, the water washing over her gills felt like a huge gulp of fresh air, the kind of deep satisfaction that lungs just couldn't give.

"I had a feeling water might heal us, or at least help us get our second wind. Looks like I was right."

Penn, I'd call you a genius if it weren't for one thing.

"What's that?"

Why didn't SHE stay to fight the kid instead of you?

"Oh, SHUT UP! She was busy saving Missy! You know, if it wasn't for me, you'd be a McDonald's Fish Fillet by now!"

Undyne snickered as she watched her own hands undo the clasps and buckles on her ruined armor, letting it sink away and out of sight so they could swim up to the surface. As she ascended, she could just make out Sunset's form hauling herself out of the water.

Swimming had always been Undyne's preferred, if VERY limited, way of traveling, and she was VERY good at it. There were few monsters in the underground that could even attempt keep up with her. She had always taken to it, well, like a fish to water. (Sans had never let that pun go after the first time she'd taught a lesson to the guards in water-based combat. On an unrelated note, it had also been the LAST time she'd taught the guards about water-based combat.)

Now, she hesitated to even call what she was doing "swimming." It was flying. She wasn't just moving through the water, the water was moving WITH her, pushing her along at breakneck speeds in a current that seemed to exist only for her. She made a mental note that she NEEDED to do this more when all was said and done, she knew she could break every record she'd ever set.

It was child's play for her to breach the surface with enough force to soar over Sunset's head, landing easily on her feet and grinning wide. She reached out her hand, taking hold of a fresh spear before planting it in the ground and giving Sunset a cocky grin.

"So, ready for Round Two?"

Sunset gave them a fresh glare, but Undyne smiled as she realized that her fiery aura had been substantially quenched. She gripped the handle of her saber with both hands, flicking the switch to turn it back on, but received only a series of sparks and pops in response. She felt a bubble of satisfaction rise up in the back of her mind from Penn's consciousness.

"Looks like she didn't manage to switch it off before our little swim... Lightsabers short out if you turn them on underwater."

"Nice touch..." Undyne whispered. "All according to keikaku, right?"

"Well, I have it from a reliable source that 'keikaku' means 'plan' sooo... yeah."

They watched as Sunset growled in frustration before screeching and flinging the empty handle to the side. She forced herself up onto her feet, her drenched hair falling all across her face and shoulders as she settled into a fighting stance, bare hands at the ready.

"Right... She's a black belt. I forgot... Am I the only one thinking this looks like 'The Grudge' mixed with 'The Karate Kid?'"

"Focus, Penn... This isn't over..." Undyne muttered.

Sunset only had the chance to take one step forward, however, before the entire battlefield seemed to explode into blue.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Papyrus's voice cut through the air as he raced onto the battlefield, situating himself between the two of them. He turned to face Sunset, his arms held out to block her from advancing any further.

"Sunset Shimmer, I understand how much pain you're in right now, but Undyne is our FRIEND, and I won't let my friends hurt each other any more, not after everything we've already lost today!"

Sunset seemed unmoved by Papyrus's declaration. She attempted to move through his blue attack, only to hiss in pain as the magic burned at her skin.

"I'M CERTAIN THAT UNDYNE HAS A VERY GOOD REASON WHY SHE'S TAKING THE HUMAN ALIVE..." Mettaton added from the sidelines, where he'd wrapped his flexible metal arms tight around Frisk to keep them from escaping in the confusion. "AND I, FOR ONE, WOULD LIKE TO HEAR IT!"

"I don't CARE!" Sunset snarled, forcing herself to move in spite of the magic. She made it several steps before collapsing to her knees. Undyne could feel the overwhelming sadness Penn was experiencing watching her in such a state. "SHE LEFT PENN! SHE LET HIM DIE AND THEN SHE JUST LEFT HIM THERE- GAAH!" She cried out as she tried to move again, causing everyone present to cringe for her sake.

Undyne took a deep breath. She wasn't one for helping people through this kind of thing, empathy wasn't her wheelhouse by a long shot, but... it needed to be done.

"Paps... let her go."

Papyrus spun around, eyes wide as he stared at her in disbelief. "Undyne, she'll-"

"Nothing she can do to me would be more painful than what she's feeling right now... Let her go."

Papyrus swallowed nervously before nodding. The blue bone-shaped magic retreated back into the floor. This time, Sunset didn't move except to weakly pound her fist against the ground over and over. Undyne forced herself to close the distance between them. She fell to one knee, reaching out to the girl and gently placing her hand on her shoulder.

"Sunny-"

"DON'T CALL ME- Sunset cut herself off with a gasp of shock, staring at Undyne as if she had seen a ghost. Judging from the soft glow of the geode around her neck, Undyne suspected that she'd finally seen the truth they'd been trying to tell her all along:

"I'm right here, Sunny..."

Sunset stared for another few seconds, tears welling up to overflowing almost instantly before she planted herself face-first in Undyne's shoulder. Undyne didn't need to signal the swap, Penn's soul naturally taking over in the moment to give her a bone-straining hug.

"WHAT... JUST HAPPENED?" Mettaton asked, being the first to break the silence after nearly a full minute of Sunset sobbing into Undyne's shoulder.

"That's... going to be easier to explain with Alphys's help." Undyne stated, finally breaking the hug in favor of a comforting arm around Sunset's shoulders. "We-"

Everyone paused as another tremor ran through the mountain, this one bigger than all the rest. Undyne was instantly alert, watching for signs of a cave-in or any other structural damage their battle had caused, but smiles from Papyrus and Sunset were enough to tell her that, wherever it was, this one was planned.

"WAIT, DOES THAT MEAN THAT MISSY..." Mettaton trailed off, sounding as if he could scarcely believe his own words.

"Missy what?" Undyne raised an eyebrow. "Come on, don't leave me out of the loop-"

That was when she felt it: a change in the air, as if a long-held tension had snapped. Everything felt... lighter, like a pressure all around them had finally been released. There was no mistaking the feeling, even if she had lived her entire life without it.

"They- did they use- to- Oh Ra, that is BRILLIANT! Never in a thousand years would I have thought of..." Penn trailed off into incomprehensible ramblings and cheering in the back of her head as Undyne's realization dominated all other thoughts.

The barrier was gone.

A Bad Time

"So... he's really in there? With you?" Sunset asked.

Undyne rubbed awkwardly at the back of her head. "Trust me, it's as weird as it sounds... Only reason I didn't freak out completely was, you know..." she gestured between Frisk and Sunset, "either getting revenge for my own death or fighting for my life..." Sunset felt her face flush harder as her gaze locked onto her feet.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Stop."

Sunset flinched as Undyne cut her apology off. Whatever was coming, she knew she deserved it. She could scarcely believe her own memory, but she knew she had jumped the gun in a MAJOR way, and completely given herself up to her rage. It was wrong, and she'd nearly made a huge mistake by jumping to conclusions.

"Look, I..." Undyne groaned, pressing her palm against her forehead. "I've got a one-track mind, okay? When I realized I somehow wasn't dead any more, I just took off to track down the hu- track down Frisk. I didn't even THINK about Penn." Sunset felt the arm wrapped around her shoulders squeeze, pulling her closer. "You're not wrong, I DID just leave his body there. If I found my bestie like that... I'd be on the warpath, too." Looking up, Sunset noticed her eyes lingering on Papyrus's back. "One warrior to another, don't worry about it."

Somehow, Undyne's forgiveness felt even worse than the tongue-lashing (and possible literal lashing) she'd been expecting.

"We're here..." Papyrus whispered, bringing an end to any conversation.

Sunset had seen it before, but rage had dulled the pain. Now, the full force of seeing Penn's dead body slammed into her like a tidal wave. She clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back any sounds as the tears began to flow. Undyne gave her one last squeeze before stepping up to the body.

"This is SO weird... This is so WEIRD... This is SO WEIRD." She muttered to herself constantly as she dropped to one knee, reaching towards Penn's body with a trembling hand. Just before her fingers were about to brush against the hole burned into his chest, she paused and turned her head, as if hearing something none of them could. "What? No way, it's not a problem for me to- I don't care what you think, it's important!"

"Uhm... Undyne? Are you alright?" Papyrus asked, cautiously looking in the same direction she had turned.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she was cringing in pain before slamming her palm against the side of her head. "Y-yeah, Penn's just being stubborn..."

"WELL? FILL US IN!" Mettaton placed his hands indignantly where his hips ought to be, his arms somehow long enough to wind around Frisk while doing so unimpeded.

Undyne sighed. "He's saying we should just take the important stuff off of him and get to the surface- HEY, cut that out!" In an act seemingly detached from her conscious efforts, her hands had begun rifling through his pockets. With a grunt of effort, she pulled herself away, each of her hands holding one of Penn's possessions. His car keys hung off of her right index finger, while the black satchel he kept his cards in was clutched in her left.

Sunset gripped her hand tighter over her mouth, but it didn't stop everyone from hearing the yelp that had slipped out. All eyes were instantly on her, all with concerned looks, and she forced herself to pull her hand away from her mouth.

"Th-those... those are his..." were the only words she could force out before she felt herself beginning to crumble and had to turn away. She rushed to the wall, trying not to let them see the tears now streaming down her face as she began to sob into her hands. She was vaguely aware of the presence of hands on her back trying to comfort her, but they did little to help.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed like that, but by the time she had collected herself enough to turn back to the scene, Undyne seemed to have come to a decision. She was dragging Penn's body to the wall, where she propped him carefully against the wall and moved his hands to his lap. She still had his keys in her hand, and she had surreptitiously clipped his card satchel to the waist of her pants. She was holding his phone in her hand, looking at it as if it were completely foreign to her.

"Uhhh... Is there an 'Isis' on this thing?"

"Greetings, Undyne. I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. How may I be of assistance?"

Undyne's head tilted again, and Sunset caught a pulse of purple light glowing under her shirt in the center of her chest. "I... Wait, slow down..."

"Hello. My name is Isis-"

"Not you." Undyne shook her head, finally opening her eyes. "Okay, I think I've got it..." She cleared her throat. "Isis, we have a 'Code Greedling' scenario. My passphrase is..." She looked uncertain for a moment, and another pulse of light seemed to reassure her. "I'm rubber, you're glue. Dex three-fifty-nine. Salem can suck it."

There was a pause for several seconds as the phone screen flickered.

"Passphrase confirmed. Vocal print rewritten. Host privileges have been reassigned. Welcome back, Penn."

Undyne blinked before grinning and punching the air. "I've got a freakin' robot! SICK!"

Sunset couldn't resist the urge to reach for her own phone. "Isis, what just happened? What did she do?"

"'Code Greedling' indicates the consciousness transfer of a previously registered user. This protocol alters the registry to match said user's new vocal print and identity, as verified by a previously set user passphrase."

"But... I never set a passphrase, did I?"

"Your security clearance did not merit such preparations."

"Gee, thanks..." Sunset grumbled before shoving her phone back into her pocket.

"You are welcome."

"Hey, so, uh, Isis? Penn's body is here and it's a bit of a mess..." Undyne's face scrunched up in displeasure. "It, uh, kind of smells, and there's this puddle..."

"The bowels and bladder evacuated upon death as the muscles relaxed completely."

Undyne and Papyrus both made disgusted-looking faces at one another before glancing nervously back at the body. "Well, we want to get him out of here, but... We're not really equipped to deal with it unless we want to get messy. Can you help us out?"

"... I do not have any drones equipped for embalming or corpse removal."

Silence fell again as all assembled stared at the lifeless body. Undyne sighed and stepped forward, kneeling down one more time and reaching into another one of his pockets. After a few seconds, she stood up again and tossed an item to Sunset. After a moment of scrambling, she managed to catch it, realizing that it was his wallet.

"Listen.... I know you don't like it, but... Penn REALLY doesn't want this stuff just left down here." She shook her head as she carefully straightened his hat before stepping away. "We're going to come back. He doesn't want us to worry about the body when his soul is right here, but it doesn't feel right."

"You know..." Papyrus spoke with an uncharacteristic quietness. "When monsters die, our bodies turn to dust. I did not know that humans' remains are so... permanent. But perhaps, with everything that's been lost as of late, permanence is what the victims deserve. They are... gone forever..." He placed a hand on Sunset's shoulder, giving it a squeeze so tight it bordered on painful. "But perhaps... their memories could live on in this not-so-living testament?"

Sunset felt her soul sink lower still into despair, finally turning away and beginning to walk back down the path. "I'm sorry, but... I don't think I can handle talking about this stuff right now..."

The rest of the walk to the surface felt like a blur of misery. They walked through Hotland, stopping occasionally for Undyne to grab a drink of water due to the extreme heat, passed through the core area of the underground unopposed, and finally passed through a city of gray stone without encountering another living soul.

It was only when they entered what appeared to be a kind of garden full of golden flowers that Sunset finally saw another face.

He was a tall goat-like monster, wrapped in a large purple cloak that hid a set of plate armor underneath. When he turned to face them, Sunset saw Undyne snap to attention, then quickly drop to one knee and bow her head.

"Your highness! We've brought you the human responsible for the deaths of the monsters in the ruins, Snowdin, and Waterfall!" She gestured to Frisk.

The monster, who was apparently some kind of royalty, looked at them all with eyes that betrayed a heavy burden on his shoulders. Sunset could recognize it, she'd seen that same look on Princess Celestia's face every Nightmare Night since she was a young filly: regret.

"At ease, Captain..." He whispered before stepping forward. "You've all done very well. Because of you four, monsterkind has been saved from extinction." He turned and gave each of the monsters a pat on the shoulder and a smile before finally coming to Sunset. His smile was widest for her, but she could sense that simply looking at her made his regret mount. "You must be Sunset Shimmer, Angel Missy's friend. Doctor Alphys told me of the great efforts and risk you went to in order to save her life. In doing so, you saved us all."

There was a long pause as he looked over the group, raising an eyebrow. "She also told me that there was one more human who had chosen to stay behind and fight alongside you, Undyne. Might I ask where he is?"

"Well, you see..." Papyrus started, only to trail off, looking at Undyne for help.

"HE... DIDN'T MAKE IT..." Mettaton added.

Undyne stepped forward, drawing attention to herself as she tugged on the neck of her tank top until it exposed the glowing purple heart shape on her chest. "Asgore... he's here."

"Oh my..." Asgore's eyes widened in surprise before turning back to Sunset. "I... I am so sorry."

"You're not the only one..." Sunset muttered.

"Both of us died in the battle. Our only means to continue our existence was to combine our strengths..." Undyne fell to one knee again. "I know that the duty of the guards was to collect the human souls for you, and it was never my intention to-"

"Rubbish."

Undyne's head snapped up, shocked at the king's dismissal of her apology.

Asgore gave her a fatherly smile, which seemed to assuage her fears. "The reason for collecting the seven souls was to free and protect monsterkind. I can think of no one who would better live up to those ideals than you." He let out a long, tired-sounding sigh before shaking his head. "I suppose that we will have to begin making arrangements to mourn the victims... and the protectors. However..." he gestured to the dark doorway on the far side of the garden. "Before that, the surface is open to monsters for the first time in centuries. Would you like to see it?"

"YES!" Papyrus yelled.

"MOST CERTAINLY! I'VE BEEN WAITING TO MAKE MY DEBUT FOR AGES!" Mettaton added.

"But what are we going to do with them?" Undyne cast a furious glance at Frisk, who was still wrapped up in Mettaton's arms.

Asgore straightened, his expression hardening into one of cold fury. "For now, they will be imprisoned, to stand trial for their crimes after both our celebration of freedom and mourning of the lost. Mettaton, if you would be so kind?"

"TO THE DUNGEON IT IS, THEN!" Mettaton announced before swiftly rolling away.

"Excuse me, your highness..." Sunset finally spoke up. "But where's Missy?"

His more unpleasant duties finished, Asgore once again returned to that forlorn smile. "Resting in the spare room. Breaking the barrier appeared to be extremely strenuous for her. She is quite safe, I assure you."

"Can I see her? I need to tell her what happened."

She noticed a flicker of hesitation cross his face, and Sunset briefly wondered if there was something he was hiding. "Why not let her sleep? A child should be allowed happy dreams in a time such as this..."

Sunset thought about arguing for a moment, but... he was right. Missy deserved a good night's sleep after everything they'd been through. Speaking of which, she could feel her own exhaustion making it more and more difficult to stand, and it looked as if the crisis had passed, which meant she wasn't going to get another shot of adrenalin to keep her going.

"You... wouldn't happen to have another bed in that spare room, would you?"

Asgore chuckled, his deep voice making it sound like a roll of thunder. "You know, I believe I do... Right this way."

It was a short walk to the "spare room." In fact, she couldn't help but notice that the area beyond the garden looked like an almost perfect reproduction of the house they'd passed through at the end of the ruins. She had neither the time nor the energy to think about the implications of that, however, as Asgore led her to what looked like a children's room, complete with posters, toys, and a small bed in the corner where Missy was soundly asleep. The last thing Sunset remembered before slipping into unconsciousness was leaning against the side of the bed while the rest went to move in a second one from another room. The last sound she heard was the rhythmic rise and fall of Missy's breathing, and a sense of relief that it brought to her to hear that peaceful sound.

Sunset wasn't sure how she'd done it, but she'd managed to fall asleep sitting up. She tried to stand up, receiving several formal complaints from her body in response. Her muscles were threatening to go on strike, her head was requesting time off to practice drumming, her legs were boycotting the idea of standing, her stomach had decided to take up making balloon animals out of itself until she fed it... at least her spleen wasn't complaining, so that was something. She managed to turn her head enough to see that the bed she was leaning against was empty, and one of the blankets had been laid over her as she slept.

With time and several careful stretches, she managed to quell enough of the issues to stand up and walk to the door. She had to shield her eyes from the light as she stepped out into the hallway, but she'd soon made her way to the "living room" of the recreated house.

Missy was sitting on the floor, shuffling unenthusiastically through her cards. Undyne was seated in a reclining chair, eyes shut. One cracked open, glowing with a violet light as she pressed her finger to her lips.

"SUNSET!"

Missy, who had clearly missed the memo on being quiet, leaped up, throwing cards everywhere as she rushed across the room and flew up to wrap her arms around Sunset's neck. "I was so scared, I KNEW something was wrong, but I couldn't call you and I- I-" she stuttered, the flood of words stopping for a moment before she buried her face in Sunset's shoulder. "I WAS SO SCARED!"

Undyne blinked several times before rubbing her eyes and yawning. "Uff... guess that means everybody's up, huh?"

Sunset patted Missy on the back, trying to comfort the young girl. "Weren't you already awake?"

Undyne yawned again, exposing her sharpened fangs. "Nope! I was out stone cold."

"But.. you shushed me when I came in!"

Undyne tilted her head, still looking confused. It was only now that Sunset noticed the bright red color of her eyes. "Except your eyes were purple, just like..." Both of them looked warily at the spot on her chest where Penn's soul sat.

"Okay... you know what? Let's discuss THAT later..." Undyne muttered, pushing her way past Sunset and back into the hallway. "So weird, so weird, so weird..." she repeated to herself, occasionally stopping to shiver.

Sunset sighed, reaching up to pry Missy off of her enough to hold her at arms' length. "Missy, I'm afraid I... have some bad news."

Missy looked down, a fresh round of tears welling up. "I know... Undyne told me everything."

Sunset took her own turn to initiate the hug, pulling Missy tight against her chest. "I... I don't know what we're going to do."

"Well... I guess we start by going up to the surface, right?" Missy muttered.

Sunset took a deep breath, adjusting her grip on Missy to seat the young duel spirit on top of her shoulders. "Right... One step at a time."

This time, instead of a doorway in the basement, Sunset found herself entering a long tunnel. She couldn't help but marvel at the size as it grew wider and wider, opening up into a massive hole that had been blown out of the side of the mountain. Missy's win condition doesn't mess around...

The sun was hanging low in the sky when they finally found themselves once again staring out over the forest. When they exited, they were standing on a small plateau that let them see for miles, and Sunset could already feel the fresh air and sunshine helping to push out the misery and pain she'd been steeping in under the mountain.

"You know... I always knew Asgore was going to get us out of there, but I still can't believe we're finally free..." Undyne was seated on the edge of the plateau, dangling her legs out over the steep slope leading downwards.

"U-Undyne! Sunset! Missy!"

Sunset smiled as she heard Alphys's voice calling out. She came scurrying into sight some distance down the path below, waving for them to follow. Undyne didn't hesitate to jump down from the plateau, falling several stories to land right next to Alphys. Sunset opted for the much safer path that had been actually made by the countless feet that had hiked this path down before her, soon catching up to the pair of monsters.

"Alphys, how are you?" It felt wrong to smile in the face of so much pain, but Sunset was genuinely happy to see her alive and well.

"G-Great! We've set up a t-temporary camp at the base of the mountain, r-right next to what we assume was yours!"

Sunset nodded. "Great... I could REALLY go for a change of clothes."

"W-Well, whenever you're ready, we should p-present our findings about the timelines to King Asgore, t-then we can start working on a dimensional e-evacuation before it collapses!" Alphys wrung her hands in an attempt to release some of her tension. "I-I'm not sure how much of it he'll understand, but..."

"That will not be necessary."

Everyone looked to Sunset's pocket, where the muffled voice of Isis was coming from. She retrieved it, holding it up for everyone to hear more clearly.

"After thorough examination, it would appear that the dimensional boundary coincided with the area encased by the barrier. Now that you have all left the mountain, you are safe from the collapse."

"Wait, what? You mean it's already done? We're saved from the anomaly?"

"Affirmative."

"It was the kid."

Everyone turned to look at Undyne, who appeared to be deep in thought. Looking closely, Sunset could see her eyes flickering between red and violet as she stared into space.

"Wh-What? No, there's no way that one person could disrupt the entire space-time continuum like that!" Alphys cried.

For a moment, Undyne's eyes settled on violet, looking at Sunset and raising a sarcastic eyebrow with the slightest hint of a smile. Somewhere in her gut, Sunset knew that was Penn looking at her, pushing his way past Undyne's consciousness solely to acknowledge the irony of Alphys's statement and who she was talking to.

And then Undyne's eyes shifted again as she shook her head and pressed a palm to her forehead. "Look, just... you need to trust us on this, okay? There's too much information for me to sort through, it's giving me a headache. Penn's going nuts trying to tell me how it works..."

"He DOES talk fast when he's trying to explain something in the heat of the moment," Missy muttered.

"And he does talk a LOT when he's trying to think," Sunset added.

"Fascinating..." Alphys whispered, retrieving a notepad from her pocket and beginning to scribble down notes. "So knowledge isn't shared between the bonded souls instantaneously or all at once, but they are capable of communication at the speed of thought!" Once she'd finished writing her notes, she slipped the notepad back into her pocket. "If you're right, then we should be safe as long as we don't return to the underground, which I don't think will be a problem for most monsters..." She sighed and shook her head. "I just wish you'd come a day sooner... I-Its not that I'm not glad we're free! It's just that there are a lot of monsters who would have loved to see this..."

"Yeah... if only..." Sunset sighed. "There's a lot of 'if onlys' that we're going to have to come to terms with..."

"If only..." Undyne repeated, once again appearing to lose herself in thought.

"O-OH! That's right!" Alphys hopped in place, as if surprised by her own thought. "King Asgore wanted to see you two as soon as you woke up! This way!" She scurried back down the path, motioning for them to follow. Sunset looked up at Missy, who looked down at her at the same time.

"One step at a time, right?"

Missy nodded in return. Just as Sunset was taking her first step down the path to the base of the mountain, she paused, a thought coming to her. She turned back to Undyne, who still seemed to be contemplating whatever information Penn was feeding to her. "Hey, Undyne?"

Hearing her name seemed to snap Undyne out of her reverie with a bit of a shock. "Huh?"

"Can you tell Penn... that we miss him? A lot?"

Undyne smiled and nodded. "He knows, but I'll make sure he doesn't forget it."

Sunset smiled and gave her a grateful nod before heading down the path. Somehow, the aching in her heart felt much less painful now, a comfort she hadn't expected to come.

"I guess... he's not REALLY gone, right? Not completely?" Missy asked.

Sunset nodded. "He's still right there, just... stuck. But if anyone can figure this out, it's him."

"Also, am I the only one surprised Undyne's that lanky? The armor made her look so buff!"

Sunset didn't hold back a laugh as they descended, nodding her head. "Y-yeah, she's a lot skinnier than I thought she'd be! How much extra space do you think she HAS in there?"

Once they'd reached the base of the mountain, Sunset found herself among what seemed like a sea of tents and improvised shelters, carefully navigated by Doctor Alphys with her following close behind. Eventually, they reached a tent that looked like any other, except slightly bigger, and Alphys motioned for her to enter.

As Sunset stepped inside, she found herself once again standing in front of King Asgore. He seemed to have cast aside his plate armor and cape for a more practical-looking pair of pants and a flowery-patterned shirt. When Sunset entered, he was watering a small pot with the same golden flowers that had been growing in the throne room. She waited a few seconds to be noticed before loudly clearing her throat. She still wasn't certain if she should bow or curtsey or something, so she simply stood straight and have her head a respectful bow.

"You wanted to see us, your majesty?"

"Ah, Sunset Shimmer and Missy the Angel!" He smiled warmly. "I'm sorry, I just get so caught up in caring for my plants at times, these flowers have a... special meaning to me. Please, come right this way!" He motioned for them to follow as he slipped out a second entrance in the back of the tent. As they followed, Sunset found a simple folding table and chairs waiting for them in a small private area that seemed to have been set aside for the king. She was admittedly surprised when the folding chair held the weight of the imposing monster, but gladly took her own seat when he motioned for her to do so. "Would you like some tea? I may have taken a box or two of my favorite blend with me once I was certain the evacuation was proceeding smoothly."

"Sure!" Missy chirped, floating off of Sunset's shoulders and taking a perch in the air beside the table. Clearly, the lack of a third chair was no obstacle to her.

"I would be delighted, sir." Sunset found herself slipping easily into the mannerisms she'd been taught when living in the castle among Equestrian royalty.

"Oh, there's no need to be so formal, Sunset. You may call me Asgore. I'm the king of monsters, not humans or angels." He chuckled softly to himself as he reached over to a kettle sitting on a magical flame nearby. By the time he had turned back, Missy already had a cup and saucer in her hands, taking a quiet sip. Both of them stared at her for a moment before each chuckling to themselves. A minute later, all three of them had been furnished with a hot cup of tea, which felt just right in the face of the setting sun and the crisp air of early autumn. Finally, once they were about halfway through their tea, Asgore set his cup down and sighed. Once again, Sunset received the overwhelming sense of weariness about him. He was a king who had clearly seen more unhappy days than happy ones.

"I wanted to call you two here, yes, but for admittedly opposite reasons..." he began. "I suppose that I may as well start with the happier one. Missy?"

"Hm?" Missy looked up from adding what had to be the fifteenth sugar cube to her teacup.

"The monsters are planning a celebration of our new freedom, and we would like for you to be our guest of honor. It will take some time to bring back the necessary supplies from the underground, but I promise you that you will have never seen a party the likes of it before."

"Party? Count me in!" Missy grinned and raised her teacup before pouring it into her mouth from several inches above her head. Somehow, it appeared to have been filled completely with sugar by this point, simply pouring out the white granules into her mouth directly.

"I'm certain everyone will be delighted to have the angel of the prophecy here to celebrate with us." Asgore smiled again, and Sunset was fairly certain she could tell that he was developing a soft spot for her. Once the cute moment had passed, his look darkened and he stared forlornly into his cup for a moment. "Sunset... It has been some time since I last familiarized myself with human mourning rituals. Do you still... bury your dead?"

The question hit Sunset like a punch to the gut. Even Missy stopped her antics, sinking down low with a miserable look on her face until she was only visible from the nose up.

"Uh... Yes, we do, si- Asgore."

Asgore nodded sagely. "It would be an insult to those who perished to begin celebrating our freedom before we've mourned their loss. Thanks to Doctor Alphys's cameras, monsters everywhere saw what happened... saw the sacrifices that were made to buy us just a few minutes of precious time. We would like to name him an honorary member of the Royal Guard and Guardian of the Realm, with all of the honors that come with those titles." He sighed. "Ordinarily, at the end of a monster's life, their life is celebrated and their dust scattered in some place where wind or water can carry it to a new place in a new form. However, simply too many monsters were lost for us over too wide an area to be able to collect it all, let alone differentiate one from another." Sunset saw tears welling up in the old king's eyes. "I had thought that I would never again have to bury a loved one, but... perhaps in the ceremony for one friend to monsters, all of them can be honored and buried along with him?"

"I like it."

All eyes turned to the intruder on their private moment: Undyne had just emerged from the tent.

Was she... always that tall?

"Undyne, were you eavesdropping?" Asgore asked, seeming unsurprised at her sudden appearance.

She grinned and rubbed at the back of her head. "Sorry, but Penn heard you talking about him and threatened to bug me all night if I didn't come listen in... Turns out he's a bit more curious than I am polite."

"Well, both of you are welcome to join us. I was just discussing funerary arrangements with Sunset."

Undyne cocked her head. "But... why not just talk to me- us? Penn's right here, even if I have to be the go-between..." Asgore looked down as Undyne found a chair and unfolded it, choosing to sit on it backwards with one leg on each side and leaning against the back.

"In all honesty, Undyne... It is because this... situation... make me very uncomfortable. Only one other monster has ever absorbed a human soul, and they both..."

Undyne's eyes widened before she sat back, clearly getting some kind of message Sunset hadn't. "I- I'm sorry, I've been so caught up in how strange all of this is that I completely forgot! I didn't mean to open those old wounds..."

Old wounds? Sunset and Missy glanced at one another, both equally confused.

Asgore shook his head, giving Undyne a sad smile. "It isn't your fault, Undyne. It was cowardly of me to try and avoid this. One way or another, I would someday have to face the memory of my children again when the barrier needed to be opened."

"Well, for what it's worth, Penn says he likes the idea!" Undyne smiled unconvincingly, and Sunset couldn't help noticing that her teeth seemed a little longer and sharper than the last time. "He doesn't like the fancy titles, but as Captain of the Royal Guard, I'm not giving him a CHOICE!"

That sent a chorus of chuckles around the table, finally relieving the tension of whatever unspoken event Undyne and Asgore had been skirting around mentioning. Asgore gave his huge hands a clap. "It's decided, then. Tomorrow, we will go and recover Penn's body and as much dust as we can, and we'll honor the dead before we celebrate the living. Thank you all for your help."

"I don't feel like I did much..." Sunset felt awkward as she shook Asgore's hand. His paw-like fingers were large enough to completely envelop Missy's lower arm as she did the same.

"Yeah, and I just agreed to party, as if that wasn't a question with a foregone conclusion!" Missy added once Asgore was done shaking her up and down.

He shook his head. "You reassured an old man that he was making the right decisions. In times like these, reassurance is worth its weight in gold." He began to pick up the dishes from their tea while Missy stashed her own cup and saucer back in her hat. "Please, feel free to come by if you need anything in the future."

Sunset nodded. "Thank you, Asgore."

With that, all three of them stepped back through his tent and outside again. As they emerged, Undyne reached into her pocket. "Oh, Sunset! Penn said you'd need these. That's why I came looking for you, to begin with!"

She reached over, placing the car keys in Sunset's hands.

"But- I can't take these! Penn never even lets me TOUCH these!" Sunset practically shouted, pushing them back towards her.

"Well, didn't you say that you want a change of clothes?" Undyne refused to take them back, placing her hands on her hips.

"Well, yes..."

"And where are your clothes?"

"In the car..." Sunset mumbled, kicking at the dirt.

"So take them!" Undyne rolled her eyes again. This time, Sunset couldn't help noticing another change from earlier. "Wait... weren't you wearing an eyepatch before?"

"Huh? Oh, this?" She pointed to the now-uncovered eye, which had a scar mark trailing both above and below it. "Healed when I melted into a puddle and came back from the dead!"

"You what?" Missy and Sunset asked, both horrified.

"Yeah, pretty handy, huh? Throwing spears accurately is WAY harder without depth perception!" Undyne grinned again. "Anyway, I'll see ya later! I'm sure you two wanna get changed and cleaned up, right? Your camp is..." She tapped her chin for a moment before pointing into the trees. "That-a-way!" With a small wave, she ran in the opposite direction, leaving both of them standing in shock.

"You know... the sooner we figure out how to get Penn back and get out of here, the better..." Missy muttered.

By the time they'd managed to track down their campsite (Which was not "that-a-way" but, in actuality, in a direction nearly ninety degrees east of "that-a-way"), it was already dark. They'd thrown together a cold dinner of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches before each retiring to their own space. Missy had claimed the car's back seat, while Sunset stayed in the tent.

Probably because of her earlier sleep in Asgore's home, Sunset couldn't manage to force herself to fall asleep now. She tossed and turned in her sleeping bag as the hours seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace. Her head was too full of thoughts to calm down and rest, anyway.

Is there a way to separate Penn and Undyne?

What about his body? Even if we could get his soul back in it, it's not going to just come back to life with a hole through his chest!

Are we making a mistake giving him a burial? What if we need it to bring him back?

Isn't there some kind of magic we could use?

Resurrection spells were a long-banned practice in Equestria. More often than not (meaning 99.9 percent of the time), a 'resurrection spell' would result in one of three outcomes: an abomination against the laws of nature, a mad-with-power necromancer, or some lich or dark spirit being VERY happy someone had fallen for their hastily-relabeled summoning spell.

But I'm not IN Equestria! Surely there's SOMETHING in the multiverse that can bring him back safely, right? And if there isn't, then by the very DEFINITION of the multiverse, there's a universe where there IS!

She was so caught up in her own thoughts, it was some time before she head the voice outside along with the rustling of plastic.

"Huh... cool. Lame. Cool. Really cool! Ugh, laaame."

She carefully picked herself up, tiptoeing to the door of the tent and opening the zipper a small amount to peek through.

It was a flower, one with gold petals around its outer edge. She could only see it from behind, but it seemed to be using roots and vines to browse through Penn's card binders. It turned the plastic page, using a root to point to the different cards.

"Cool. COOL. Lame. Lame... LAAAAAME." The flower huffed to itself before turning the page again.

Sunset narrowed her eyes. She wouldn't be surprised if this was just one of the monsters that had wandered into their camp, and they were clearly a kid by the fact that they had chosen to spend their time judging Penn's trading card collection.

"You know, you shouldn't touch things that aren't yours..." Sunset muttered as she unzipped the door to the tent.

The flower turned to face her, revealing what looked like a face made of white paste at the center of the petals. The flower gave her an amused glance. "I don't see your name on them!"

"Look, I think you're a little lost, kid, and I'm REALLY not in the mood..." she growled. "Why don't you head back to the camp with the rest of the monsters and leave us alone, okay?"

"WhY dOn'T yOu HeAd BaCk To ThE cAmP wItH tHe ReSt Of ThE mOnStErS aNd LeAvE uS aLoNe, OkAy?" The flower spat back a mocking imitation of her before turning back to the binder. "Oooooh! THIS looks like it could come in handy!"

Sunset reached to her belt, grabbing her lightsaber and flicking the switch. She cringed as a series of pops and crackles reminded her that the weapon was out of commission for the moment.

"Aw, what's the matter? Did you break your little toy?" the flower hissed. Sunset watched as fine roots worked their way into the plastic, pulling out one of the cards and waggling it teasingly at her. "Too bad you can't use one of THESE on me, huh?"

Sunset lunged forward, ready to pull the cards out of its grasp with her bare hands, only to be cut off by a row of softly glowing projectiles. She considered forcing her way through them, but the last time she'd tried forcing through a monster's magic hadn't been what she would call a pleasant experience.

"Nuh-uh-uh! You wouldn't wanna hurt your old pal Flowey the Flower, would ya?"

"I have literally no idea who you are."

"Oh? You don't?" Flowey gasped in mock surprise. "Well, that's rude! And after I went to the trouble of giving Missy that nice little anklet garland before she came down to the underground!"

"Wait..." Sunset's eyes narrowed. "YOU were the one who tied Missy to the boulder?"

"'Tied' is such a strong word! I prefer 'introduced!'" The flower's tiny face grew more sinister as a slight edge crept into its voice. "Maybe I should have tried talking to the nerd. At least then we could have swapped gaming tips!" A pair of vines moved in a way to mimic a shrug. "Of course, I've played this game SO many times, gotten SO many endings, but I never got one like THIS before!"

"You... know it's a-"

"Video game? Well, DUH!" Flowey grinned wider. "I used to be the one doing the saving and reloading before Frisk came along! It got so lonely being the only one who knew the TRUTH... And then YOU all showed up! Here I was hoping for a new best friend, and he goes and dies on me! It really is a shame..."

"Somehow, I get the impression the two of you wouldn't get along..." Sunset muttered, watching the flower closely. It had a spell card gripped in its tendrils, but she couldn't tell which. And I'm talking to a self-aware flower from a video game. Honestly, anything goes with whether or not he can actually USE a spell card...

Flowey "shrugged" again. "Maybe, but it's too late now! Or, at least... It's too late for ME to do anything about it..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ooooh, if only, if only!" He moaned in faux anguish. She watched as his face seemed to melt, reforming into Alphys's nervous expression. "If only you'd gotten here a day earlier!" It shifted again, now to Undyne. "If only we could have stopped this from happening!" It changed once more, now into a mockery of Asgore. "If only we could just RESET it all, RELOAD it from the beginning and try again!"

"What are you saying?"

"Ugh, do I have to spell it out for you?" He growled, the friendly pretense falling away completely. "The most determined person in this world can possess the power to SAVE and RESET! And that's you, sweetheart! You can turn back the clock to before any of this ever happened and start it over again the RIGHT way! Whatever way you choose!" One of the roots pointed up at the mountain. "All you have to do is go back in there and take it!"

Sunset looked back at the mountain, a rush of different emotions conflicting in her gut. She wanted to believe what he was saying, but it seemed too outlandish. "And why should I believe you? Especially if YOU were the one who got us into all of this, to begin with?"

"How do you THINK the kid knew every move you all would make before you made it? Why do you think 'Penndyne' over there insisted on NOT killing them?" The flower chuckled to himself. "Because that would let them RESET! As for why I'd wanna help you..." He waggled one of the vines in a non-committal way. "Consider this an apology! Because I wanna stay on your good side from here on. Until now, Frisk was the most determined soul I've ever seen, and you practically made them wet their pants! I can't even BEGIN to imagine all the things YOUR determination could accomplish!" He shifted his face to look like the kid Missy had saved earlier, batting big, teary eyes at her.

Sunset's mind felt like it was swimming in possibilities. "So... If I go back and reset everything... I can prevent Missy from getting hurt? Stop Penn from dying?"

"You'd have the power of a god!"

Well, THAT doesn't sound suspicious at all... But if there's a chance... "I don't want to be a god, I just want to stop my friends from getting hurt."

"For you? It'd be child's play!" Flowey grinned wider. "Whaddya say, friend?"

Sunset sighed. "Fine. I said I'd do whatever it takes to save my friends, and I meant it. I'll go get dressed..." Doesn't mean I don't have a bad feeling about this, though... She paused for a second, poking her head back out the tent. "And seriously, put those cards back where you found them!"

"Mmph... Why are we doing this, again?" Missy asked, rubbing at her eyes. "Especially in the middle of the night?"

"If we wait until tomorrow, the underground is going to be full of monsters gathering supplies, and Penn's body will be gone. This is our only chance to do this without anyone bothering us." She squinted, trying to make out the path as best she could in the darkness. The moon was already on the other side of the mountain, meaning they were stuck in the shadows.

"In the middle of the night? You know, blowing up half a mountain tends to leave you pretty wiped out..."

"It's more like a quarter of the mountain, really..." Sunset rolled her eyes. "And I thought you didn't need to sleep?"

"And I thought YOU knew better than to mess around with time after the incident with the Time Twirler..." Missy mumbled. "Yet here we both are."

"Well, that's why I'm not coming alone. If this "Flowey" guy tries anything funny, you'll have me covered!" Sunset gave Missy a playful nudge to wake her up more. "As if I'd take an offer that sounds THIS 'too good to be true' without some backup?"

"Fine, fine... If it's a chance to get Penn back, I'll try anything..." Missy smirked and swung back around in the air, crashing into Sunset shoulder-first to return the nudge. The tension finally broke between the two of them as they broke out into a chorus of giggles. She had to admit, the sudden infusion of hope might have lifted their spirits a lot higher than they would normally have been. Either they were about to thwart a betrayal attempt by a literal flower she could pick with one hand behind her back, or they were going to get their best friend back.

There was no way they could lose.

It was only a short matter of time before they had reached the opening of the crater Missy had blown in the side of the mountain.

"Okay, you know what? I'm willing to split the difference and say it's a third of the mountain," Sunset said, stroking her chin. "What do you think?"

"Gee, and I thought Rarity was the generous one..." Missy grumbled, but her smile betrayed the fact that she was only pretending to be offended.

"Well, shall we?" Sunset motioned to the darkness just beyond the reach of the moonlight.

"WE SHALL!"

An army of vines and roots shot up from the ground, wrapping around Sunset and pinning her arms to her sides.

"SUNSET!" Missy cried, a pair of cards already in her hand. "I SUMMON-"

Her announcement was cut off by what looked like a massive green paw with red claws shooting out of the darkness and into her, punching her off the side of the mountain and out of sight.

"MISSY!" Sunset cried.

A moment later, the world went dark with the sound of slamming metal doors. She pulled and tore at her restraints, but she couldn't seem to break through them.

"I'm getting Camp Everfree flashbacks..." she growled to herself as she tried again and again to break through the vines. She could feel that she was being carried deeper and deeper into the mountain, and there was the sound of machines whirring to life all around her.

Familiar machines.

"No... NO NO NO NO!"

Her cries fell on deaf ears as the motors of the DT extractor spun to life. Down each of the vacuum tubes, she could see different colors of light, and a horrifying thought came to her.

Didn't Alphys and the others keep saying they'd already captured SIX souls to break the barrier?

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Even tied against one another, Sunset was able to curl her legs up and kick at the doors, but it seemed as if they'd been tied shut by even more vines.

"You know... This wouldn't have worked if your know-it-all buddy had been here! He NEVER would have trusted me! Frisk definitely wouldn't, either!"

"YOU REALLY ARE AN IDIOT..."

Author's Note

Remember, kids, if you're approached by a mysterious stranger offering godlike powers immediately after you've suffered a devastating loss

and you take them up on it

you're gonna have a bad time.

Also, apologies to those who were expecting Sans from the title, but honestly, this title felt too appropriate for a chapter about Sunset trying to come to to terms with the negative repercussions of what's happened...

Besides, what's an Undertale run without Flowey sneaking in at the last minute, right?

~~The Flowey betrayal was never in the planning document, what am I thinking how am I gonna write my way out of this one AAAAAA~~

Hopes and Dreams

"Where are you?"

"Are you mad? Is that why you're refusing to talk to me?"

"It'd be the first time you ever passed up a chance to say 'I told you so.'"

... ... ...

"I understand if you left... It's my fault we died."

"But I played to the last card! No surrender, just like we always promised!"

... ... ...

"I'm sorry."

"I'm scared. REALLY scared... Please... I don't want to be alone..."

"Where are you?"

Undyne didn't wake up with a start or a gasp. It was just the quiet opening of her eyes. It was still late at night, nowhere near morning. She wasn't even sure why she was awake until she felt the dampness on her cheeks and saw the purple glow of Penn's soul flickering.

It was a moment later that she felt the deep pang in her chest, a painful hollow that almost overwhelmed her and set the tears flowing freely. It was an emotion that wasn't hers, but it was frighteningly powerful.

"Hey, bud... What's with the waterworks?" She reached up, placing her hand over the glowing spot. She didn't know why, but it seemed to help him calm down. She'd already used it several times to help fend off panic attacks (one of many uniquely unpleasant experiences she'd been introduced to within the last 24 hours) while they were waiting for Sunset and Missy to wake up. This time, though, it didn't seem to do much to calm him down. Instead, she felt a haze come up over his thoughts, like burying himself under a blanket to hide his face. The feelings were still there, just muted.

"S-Sorry... I didn't mean to wake you up..." Penn's response was timid, uncharacteristically so.

"Ahh, it's cool..." Undyne rolled into a sitting position. "I was thinking about taking another patrol around camp, anyways!" she added as she began stretching her arms. Her body was aching, which made her smile. Aching meant that she'd pushed herself hard earlier, and she'd be stronger for it later on. Aching was a sign of progress. With a deep breath, she pushed herself to her feet and started stretching her legs. A couple short minutes later, she was feeling much better and the stiffness had all been worked out. With her warm-ups complete, she stepped out of her tent and into the chilly air. It was a clear night, and she felt her heart skip a beat as she looked up at the sky again.

It just seemed so... endless. The stars were more beautiful than she had ever dared imagine, like a million diamonds twinkling in a bottomless sea.

Holy crap... I can go see the ocean! The REAL ocean!

She was barely able to contain her giddiness at the thought, but she refused to giggle like a schoolgirl here, where other monsters could possibly hear it. With one last deep breath to steady her nerves, she set off at a light jog, carefully picking her way through the refugee camp to avoid any careless sleepers or tiny tents. A few nocturnal monsters waved to her, some even raising their fists (or equivalent limb) in a quiet cheer. She nodded and raised her own fist in unity before continuing on her way.

Soon, they had cleared the edge of the camp and entered the forest. Undyne couldn't help but feel a thrill as she knew she could finally let loose.

"Hold on to your butts!" she said to no one in particular. With one leap, she completely cleared the treeline. It was easy to pick out the next spot she was going to push off of, it felt like she had all the time in the world before gravity started to pull her back down. She marveled as she found herself able to keep picking out strong branches and footholds, sometimes adjusting her trajectory by pushing off of a spear.

Holy crap, I'm running across treetops like a NINJA!

After a few minutes of this, she let herself slip back through the branches, hitting the ground below running. The moment she had a firm foothold, she grinned, digging in her toes and putting her full force into an all-out sprint.

The world became a blur as her strength propelled her forward. Unlike the tree-jumping, this way of traveling was actually fast enough to keep up with her quick reactions, resulting in more than a few close calls between the trees and her face. However, the longer she ran, the more she could feel herself getting the hang of making the rapid, more delicate adjustments needed to avoid crashing.

Hey, I've got an idea! Can you make another one of those floating shields?

"Sure..." Penn's response was almost unnoticeable, even inside her own head.

Good, then CATCH! Undyne grinned wildly as she planted both feet on the ground, leaping as high into the air as she could. She flew up higher and higher, first two, then three times as tall as the trees. Just when she reached the apex of her arc, a wide, heavy purple shield materialized beneath her feet, catching her and stopping her from falling.

"W-Woah, WOAH!" Undyne pinwheeled her arms wildly as she tried to regain her balance. The shield was tipping and wobbling, leaving her uncertain that it could hold her weight. Gradually, though, they seemed to reach an equilibrium, and Undyne got exactly what she wanted: she was surfing through the sky on a magic shield.

"WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!" She screamed her revelry into the skies, as if her joy could rattle the heavens and knock a few stars loose for her to catch.

When she'd finally calmed down enough to focus more on catching her breath, she took a second to check on Penn.

Aside from tinges of fear about the height, she wasn't receiving any kind of change to his emotional state. Clearly, this was a serious matter if THIS couldn't lift his spirits.

"So... we're about as far away from ANYONE as we can get..." She very carefully lowered herself into a sitting position and let her legs hang off the side to get more comfortable. "Think you can tell me what's bothering you now that we've got some privacy, buddy?"

Very slowly, she felt the barrier beginning to drop, striking her again with that deep pang of negative emotions. It was hard for her to sort them all out, but she could feel guilt, loneliness, and even fear mixed into the turmoil.

"You... would think it's silly."

"Dude. After the last twenty-four hours?"

"... Fair point..."

She leaned back, laying herself out on the shield and staring up at the stars again.

"I... have this partner. I needed a way to keep myself rational when my mental health wasn't so great, so I started talking to myself a few years ago. I imagined it was one of my cards come to life, and she just kinda... took on a life of her own. She became my voice of reason."

"Huh... That's not that silly. If it worked, then it sounds pretty dang cool, actually!" Undyne smiled. "You figured out how to use your brain to help your brain!"

"She mostly just focused on helping me say alive. Except... ever since we fused, I haven't been able to hear her. It's like she's gone... and I don't know why." His voice had a tremble to it, and Undyne could feel tears welling up in her eyes again. "This whole 'fused souls' thing is really scary, and the one thing I always counted on to keep me calm is gone and I don't know if she's just giving me the silent treatment or if she's really gone and what if she died when I did and didn't pass on to you somehow-"

"Whoa, whoa, dude!" Undyne sat up, putting both hands over her chest and forcing herself to take deep breaths. Her heart was racing and she could feel her head starting to spin. Even the shield seemed to be losing stability, wobbling and wavering unsteadily as it threatened to drop completely. "Hey, take it easy!"

She forced herself to stay as still as she could, continuing to take deep breaths until the racing of her heart slowed back to a reasonable pace. Their flight evened back out as Penn calmed back down, leaving them once again gliding smoothly through the night sky.

"Better?"

"Not really... I just... I realized that if she's really gone, the last thing I ever told her was that she was selfish... and the last thing she ever told me was to stop picking fights I couldn't win. I ignored her, and NOW look at where I am!"

"Hey, it's okay... Trust me, we're BOTH freaked out by this." She gave her chest a reassuring pat before carefully pushing herself back up to her feet. "But if this 'partner' of yours is still in your head, then we're gonna find a way to bring her out! And if she's not..." She grinned and pounded her fist into her palm. "Then we'll figure out where she went and drag her back where she belongs!"

"You'd... do that? For me?"

"Dude, you literally gave up your life to fight with me. You didn't have to do that..." Undyne felt a pang of her own guilt pass through their souls. "Not to mention your soul saved MY life! You weren't a royal guardsman or even a monster! If you lost someone because of that, helping you find them is the least I can do."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

"Undyne- Wait, do you hear that?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

Undyne cocked her head, trying to focus on her hearing. Sure enough, she could hear what sounded like a soft whining at first, but it was rapidly growing louder. Turning in the direction she could hear it from, she could make out a figure speeding towards them, clearly out of control.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

She didn't even need to consciously ask, she could feel that they were thinking the same thing: this person needed help. Their shield reversed direction, setting them on a course to intercept the growing speck.

"Steady... Steaaaady..." Undyne whispered, bending her knees. "NOW!"

The shield pushed upwards as she pushed off, launching her even higher into the sky. Just as planned, the careening monster slammed into her in a mess of feathers and lace, sending them both flying back with the force of the impact.

"PENN! SHIELD!"

"BRACE!"

Undyne made sure her knees weren't locked as the shield appeared behind her, angled for her to land on it feet-first and completely cancel their motion. They swerved back and forth for a moment as the energy transferred into the magical construct, threatening to shatter it from the sheer force of the impact, but eventually they came to a safe stop. Undyne looked down at the bundle in her arms, recognizing Missy instantly.

Missy was crying, clearly terrified and bearing a large, swollen black eye from whatever had struck her. Undyne gritted her teeth to try and hold back the rage that filled her at the sight. Missy looked up at her, instantly grabbing onto her shirt.

"S-Sunset! Sunset's in trouble! Th-There was this talking flower that told her to go back to the mountain and try to reset the timeline, but it was a trap and it was HUGE and it grabbed her before I could do anything!"

In her mind's eye, Undyne saw flashes of Penn's memories, images of one of Asgore's yellow flowers, but with a face at the center. She could see it whispering in the human's ear, watching silently in the underground as they went about their grisly, genocidal work with a smile on its face. It was the one who had been there in her last moments before death, taunting them both for their loss.

"Flowey..."They growled together. Each of their outrage seemed to feed into the other's, driving her to new heights of fury.

She leaned forward, and the shield tilted to accommodate her, driving them back in the direction of the mountain at top speed, keeping Missy cradled in their arms.

"Time to do some weed whacking..." Undyne muttered under her breath.

"Reset."

Frisk looked to be in poor condition, and growing worse by the second.

It sure was handy that this universe had HP bars that could be checked. It meant she could bring them to the brink of death without actually killing them.

"Reset."

She hit them again, watching the bar drop with no small amount of grim satisfaction. She normally had a soft spot for kids, it was a shame that this one was unforgivable.

"I can do this all day. It won't be pleasant for either of us, but I CAN. Reset. NOW."

She reeled back again to land a blow, but a cursory glance to their stats told her that they had nearly reached their limit.

"Hmmph. Without your knife, you really ARE only human..." she muttered, letting them drop to the floor as she stepped back. "I think I remember there being a bowl of monster candy a ways back. I'll go get it so I can heal you, and then we'll start from the beginning..." Her glowing eye cast a sickly red glow over the cell as the murderer crawled back into the corner. "I'd say, to walk there and back in this condition... You have an hour to reconsider your stance on-"

She paused. She could sense another power was growing nearby, swiftly eclipsing the kid's own determination. She turned her eye in the direction of the aura, catching sight of multiple other souls growing in strength. She counted... six lesser souls, and one familiar, blazing soul glowing in the center of it all. Seven human souls. If Penn's memory was right, that meant someone had recently ascended to godhood. It appeared that Frisk wasn't the one in charge, any more.

Well, if one wanted to make an 'appeal' to power, it was best to go straight to the top.

She didn't speak as she walked away. If she accidentally destroyed this thing, then it would be better to let Frisk stew in the anticipation as a backup plan. An extra card in her hand.

She was going to get her partner back, one way or the other.

It was going to take her time to catch up to the strange force, and she found herself humming to pass the time.

"I am made o-o-o-o-of... lo-o-o-o-ove... lo-o-o-o-ove... and it's stronger than you..."

"WHAT?"

"SHH!" Undyne clapped her hand over Missy's mouth. "Do you want to wake up half the camp?" she hissed.

Missy reached up and indignantly ripped the hand away. "Yes!"

"And what are they going to do?" Undyne placed her hands on her hips. "Flowey has all six of the human souls AND Sunset's determination! It would be a massacre!"

"We'd be stronger in numbers!" Missy fired back, barely keeping her voice below normal speaking level. "It works for the Ghostricks, it would work here!"

"I've SEEN Penn's memories about this... The only way to beat Flowey would be to separate him from the souls. It's a one-monster job: get in, get the souls, and get out. We're too fast for him to catch. It's simple." She picked Missy up by the shoulders and set her at eye-level on a low branch. "Bringing anyone else would be an unnecessary risk, and the Royal Guard don't TAKE unnecessary risks with civilians!"

"Well what about Asgore? We could ask HIM for help!"

"No. Everything about civilians goes double- no, triple for the king!" Undyne shook her head.

Missy pouted and glared for several seconds before finally relenting. "Fine. But I'm not letting him catch me off-guard this time!" She rolled backwards off of the branch. Somehow, in the brief moment her face was hidden from view, she managed to attach a bloodstained hockey mask to her head. A second later, she had reached into her hat and retrieved a frightening-looking machete. "Okay, let's go get this son-of-a-glitch!"

Undyne held out her hand, catching Missy and pushing her back away from the mountain.

"Not you, kid. You already took one beating, I'm NOT going to let you take another." She reached down and lifted up the mask, pushing it to the top of her head. "You stay here and start working on firing off another one of those giant lasers. If something goes wrong-"

"I can't."

Undyne blinked, feeling a chill as her backup plan fell out from underneath her. "What?"

"Do you have ANY idea how tough that is? It's supposed to end a battle or die trying!" Missy folded her arms. "I can't just go firing them willy-nilly every night! It'll be at least a WEEK before I can do that again!"

"A week... great." Undyne sighed. "Time hasn't exactly been on our side lately, has it?"

"That's why we have to work together!"

Undyne wasn't good at putting plans together. Usually, her plan of attack was "attack." If Penn's memory was right, then this monstrosity would be able to overpower Missy in a heartbeat, in fact it already had.

"Sunset's MY partner! You can't just tell me that I'm not allowed to help save her!"

Partner... "Wait... do you know about Penn's partner? Is she like you?"

Missy was taken aback for a second. Her entire demeanor seemed to change, anxiously pushing her fingers together and looking at the ground. "Big Sis? I mean... she's another duel spirit-"

Undyne smiled, glad her line of questioning had paid off. "Is she powerful? And NOT at the start of a week-long cooldown on her powers?"

"Oh, DEFINITELY! But if she's not with Penn..." She gestured to Penn's soul, then began to scratch at her chin in thought. "I don't know where we could find her..."

"Good." Undyne clapped the little angel on the shoulder. "YOU work on tracking her down! Then, once I've got that overgrown dandelion on the ropes, you two come in and finish him off!"

"BUT-"

She didn't wait for Missy's rebuttal, leaving in a cloud of dust as she sped towards the opening in the mountain.

"Nice job not making her feel excluded..." Penn whispered with a sarcastic edge to his voice.

"Would you have preferred I invite her along?" Undyne muttered as they sped their way up the path. "Shield." As per her request, a shield materialized beneath her feet, letting her leap the last few stories up to the plateau. The two of them stood there for a second, peering into the dark. She could make out the broken places in the stone and dirt that the roots must have come through to capture Sunset.

"Undyne, if we start this fight, Flowey has at least six times the soul power we do. We're going to be outnumbered, outgunned, and most likely letting him dictate the field of battle. Any one of those can tip the scales of a fight."

"You getting scared, Penn?" Undyne raised an eyebrow.

"YEAH. It's kind of reasonable to at this point! But I don't want you to rush in without knowing the risks. Saving Sunset isn't your job, it's mine."

"Same difference at this point..."

"Undyne, I'm serious!"

"So am I!" Undyne brushed down her clothes with a sigh. "I just wish I had my armor, I hate going into a fight naked..."

"Undyne... are you sure?"

"Yeah. Besides, you think he's gonna stop with Sunset Shimmer? He sat and watched Frisk slaughter monsters and thought it was funny, remember? If we don't take him out now, it'll just be a threat to everyone later..."

She reached out, letting a spear materialize in her hand. She blinked as she realized that it was different from her normal spears. Normally, her spears were glorified arrows, just a simple shaft and a sharp point. That was all she had been trying to create, but this one was more complex. The head was a wide blade of energy, with pointed barbs facing backwards to rip apart anyone who tried to remove it. The shaft was heavier and sturdier, counterbalancing the increased weight of the head until it was perfectly balanced.

"Woah..." she muttered, taking a closer look. "This isn't just a spear... it's a freakin' harpoon!"

"Well, only if you're using it specifically to hunt marine life and- Never mind."

Undyne tightened her grip, feeling energy coursing along the surface of it. "Do YOU want to do this? I'm not going to drag you into this fight."

"Oh, when it comes to saving Sunset, I'm ALL IN."

Undyne smiled and hurled the spear into the dark tunnel, sending a pulse of light down into the heart of the mountain to guide their way.

"Then let's go kick a flower's butt!"

Penn had let Undyne take over completely as they ran through the underground. They moved as fast as they could, even in what now felt like a cramped and confined space, speeding down open roads and leaving impact craters on walls as they bounced off of them when they changed direction too slowly. Occasionally he'd provide a shield for Undyne to step off of to facilitate a shortcut, but he focused on another task:

Recalling everything he knew about the abomination known as "Omega Flowey."

He could remember dialogue, game mechanics, cutscenes, and most importantly: attack patterns. There were six different special attack patterns to worry about on top of his outright terrifying standard attacks, each one fueled by a different human soul. There was, of course, going to be a major difference in translating it from pixels on a screen to a real-life assault.

He was only passively paying attention to the outside world, but he felt a growing sense of trepidation as they passed through Waterfall. He couldn't help but pause when they passed by the point where they had both died together. Undyne barely registered it, still focused entirely on getting to Flowey as fast as possible. As he shared her eyes for a moment, however, one detail jumped out at him, making his blood run cold.

"Undyne... Did you see that?"

Will it help us beat Flowey's face in faster?

"No, but-"

THEN WE'LL DEAL WITH IT LATER!

He cringed as Undyne's voice cut him off, roaring with a rage that he definitely did NOT want directed in his direction by distracting her.

He turned his attention back to the work of remembering everything he could about Flowey, but the question HE thought was important never left the back of his mind.

"What happened to my body?"

"Come on... Come on..." Sunset whispered, screwing her eyes shut.

She was stronger than this. When she was angry, she'd practically turned into a walking forest fire, and now she couldn't so much as muster a few sparks to burn through the vines holding her in place? It was ridiculous!

"Come on... get determined! Get mad!" she whispered to herself. "Think, Sunset... what triggered it before? If you want to reproduce the results, recreate the experiment..."

It wasn't hard to think of the moment it had begun. She had been right here, in the DT extractor, thinking about her friends and how much she cared about them. She'd been thinking about Missy and how much she wanted to save her, about Isis's careful care as she watched out for them, about Penn fighting to keep them safe-

The memory came crashing down on her like a ton of bricks: the moment she'd surrendered control to her emotions and unlocked what felt like her full potential.

That smile on Frisk's face. The moment all her worst fears had become real, staring at Penn's lifeless body. She'd wanted revenge, to make them pay, as if that would somehow balance the scales and return what she'd lost.

But now, looking back, her anger paled in comparison to the colossal sadness she felt.

She hadn't wanted to believe it. Then, she'd wanted revenge, as if evening some imaginary score. She'd tried finding solace in his soul's presence in Undyne, but it had felt hollow when she couldn't even talk to him directly.

Denial, anger, bargaining... She felt her spirits fall as she realized the source of her earlier strength. The five stages of grief. This world's magic responded to my emotions, and they fed back into each other in a loop...

She slumped back, feeling hope slipping out of her grasp.

"So what am I supposed to do?" she whispered. "It's not like I can just shift through the stages of grief like a car shifts gears..."

She looked up at the image of her soul, which had been casting a red glow over the interior of the extractor. The fiery aura had long ago been snuffed out as its strength was sucked away by the extractor. It looked so much smaller now, feebly beating once every few seconds with a pulse of brighter light.

"Awww, what's the matter? Running out of determination ALREADY? And here I thought you were SOOOO strong! Why not just give up and hand over that soul of yours, already, so I can become GOD?"

Sunset WAS able to muster up some ire for that voice. It was shrieking, grating, and had teased her relentlessly ever since he'd taken her captive.

"Not a chance..." she muttered, pulling at her bindings again. "When I get out of here, you're going to wish you'd never tricked me, you little-"

Sunset's eyes widened and she gasped as she came to a realization. She was mad. At Flowey.

And for good reason, too.

"You know WHY I'm not going to give up?" She muttered, rolling from side to side in an attempt to loosen her bonds. "Because you didn't just trick me... You used me. You came to me when I was hurting, when I was upset, and you took advantage of it!" She smiled as she felt a pulse of heat wash through the interior. The light from her soul was growing brighter. "You used my grief, my FRIENDS, against me! And you think I'm just going to sit here... and let you get AWAY WITH IT?" She watched her soul shudder and grow in size, sending a shower of embers down onto the vines holding her. The red specks hissed and bore into the plants, leaving them riddled with holes and smoldering. Her grunts of effort grew into a roar as she pushed her muscles to their limit. This time, she felt the plant matter give way, shredding under the pressure until she was free.

With her arms free, she didn't hesitate to rip away the vines holding her legs in place before turning her attention to the doors of the extractor. She braced herself against the back of the machine and kicked with all of her strength. The doors only slightly budged, parting just enough to let her see even more plants tied around the outside holding it shut.

"Let's see how you like a little wildfire..." she muttered. She closed her eyes, focusing on remembering what Weiss had taught her about channeling her feelings into her weapon. While it was true that she didn't have her saber...

She still had a black belt, and two good fists.

"HI-YAH!" She shouted. She grinned as she watched her fist tear through the metal door, leaving the edges of the metal glowing and searing the vines on the outside.

She saw Flowey's counterattack before she felt it. The light inside of the chamber turned bright green, coating everything in an emerald glow. Before she could turn to look for the source, an overwhelming sensation covered her entire body. Every single muscle that she had in her body had locked in place. It was like the sensation between a limb falling asleep and entering the pins-and-needles stage, that brief period where everything felt like it had been wound too tight, and any movement would cause an unbearable ache to travel through her whole body.

"That... tickled."

A second later, the light shifted to deep blue, and Sunset was flung onto the back of the machine by a crushing gravity. She couldn't move or even speak, barely being able to breathe from the effort it took to make her chest rise and fall.

"What's the matter? Did you run out of friendship?

Sunset strained harder and harder, managing to pull her head up a fraction of an inch before it slammed back down.

"Don't... mock... my... friends..." she growled, barely able to speak through her gritted teeth. The weight of her own body was crushing her, making it harder and harder to breathe. She could feel her head spinning as the room grew darker... though she couldn't tell whether or not the light was growing dimmer or she was just blacking out.

"Did you REALLY think you could beat ME? Even a soul as strong as yours isn't enough to beat the SIX that I have under my control!"

I... can't give up! Even if it's just to stay alive in here... I have to keep fighting! Sunset thought. She could feel her mind slowing down as she hovered on the brink of unconsciousness. My friends... are still out there...

You called for help...

But nobody came.

Missy... She knows... She'll tell someone... Isis is in my pocket... She has to know...

You called for help...

But nobody came.

Deep in her mind, Sunset felt one last plea rising to the surface, a wish she didn't want to make. It was selfish to ask and impossible to come true, but in her fading lucidity, she made it regardless.

Penn... Please... come back.

You called for help...

There was an earth-shattering crack, and the entire pod was thrown violently to the side, knocking Sunset against the walls and cutting off whatever blue spell Flowey had been using. She gasped for air as the crushing force was released, drinking in huge gulps of oxygen to pull herself back from the brink of unconsciousness. When she felt like she'd managed to pull herself back from the brink, she finally noticed a fresh intrusion on her prison.

It was a glowing spearhead, having stabbed through the centerpoint of the doors.

Your call was answered!

The spear tilted, then nudged, and finally began to spin rapidly, slicing through the bindings on the doors like a buzzsaw. With nothing holding them shut, the doors swung open on their own, finally revealing where she was: back at the beginning. She was in the same cavern they had entered the underground through, at least six stories above the ground. Far down below her, she could see Undyne catching the spear as it returned to her, glaring up at Flowey with two differently-colored glowing eyes: one green to match her magic, and one violet to match Penn's soul.

"HEY! DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL YOU NOT TO TAKE THINGS THAT DON'T BELONG TO YOU?" she called, placing her free hand on her hip.

Sunset hadn't managed to get a good look at what kind of form Flowey had taken given that she was currently inside it, but judging by the mess of tubes, vines, eyes, and teeth that were lining the walls of the cavern and the two gigantic green limbs, she was certain that it was some kind of otherworldly creature multiple stories tall... and Undyne seemed completely unafraid, still wearing a huge, toothy grin.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the fishy FREAKSHOW! Guess I should have known better than to think you'd stay dead!"

Undyne didn't seem perturbed by Flowey's teasing, turning her attention to Sunset. Her purple eye flashed brighter for a moment, and an identically-colored shield appeared underneath her.

"Sunset! Jump for it!"

Sunset nodded, not giving herself a chance to think about the height before leaping into the air, aiming to land on the floating surface. Just as she was about to land safely, however, a sharp jerk pulled on her waist. Her body nearly folded in half as she was violently yanked back into her place in the extractor by a fast-moving vine.

"I'm not going to make it THAT easy!"

One of the massive limbs swung down, shattering the shield with ease.

Do you REALLY think you two can beat ME? It would be sad if it wasn't so HILARIOUS! Now... this time, I'm going to make sure you STAY dead!"

Penndyne the Unyielding

ATK: 500 DEF: 1000

Kindness, perseverance, and determination make The Selfless Hero.

It's no use to Reason with them.

"Oh, Missy, if you can't fire a giant laser beam, you're no use in a fight! Go find your older sister!" Missy huffed. "It's not like she's on another plane of existence, or something!" She glanced down at Jiangshi, who simply shrugged in return. They had been walking together for a while, now, not bothering to hurry while they followed the trail Undyne had stamped into the rock and dirt. She couldn't ask for a better listener than Jiangshi, though their responses to things tended to be a bit... stiff. For all of her huffing and pouting, she really wasn't sure what she could do against a gigantic monster like what Flowey had turned into, but that didn't make being left behind any less offensive. "We're both duel spirits, so they just assume I have some kind of express line to her!" She placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest. "I'm an ace monster of my own archetype! I can handle myself!"

She swooped down to ground level, hovering just low enough to kick at the nearby water and send a wide arc splashing into the air.

I can handle myself! I can handle myself! I can handle myself!

Missy spun around, pointing an accusatory finger at the echo flowers that were littered around Waterfall, all merrily repeating her words back at her. "CUT IT OUT!"

CUT IT OUT! CUT IT OUT! CUT IT OUT!

She narrowed her eyes, turning her glare up a notch in her best impression of her sister before a smirk crept up onto her face.

"I'm an idiot!"

"You're not an idiot... you're a Dorklord," said a voice just behind her.

"Alright, Flowey, let's do this! NYYYGAAAAAAH!" Undyne roared as she leapt into the air.

Sunset could only watch as Undyne raised her hand up, calling up an army of glowing spears, enough to fill the entire cavern. She mimed the act of throwing one with her hand, and the entire mass of weapons shot forward. Some spun like buzzsaws and drills, ripping and tearing apart the plant matter on the walls, while others simply stabbed directly into Flowey's main body, smoldering and hissing as the offensive magic burned away at him. Sunset could feel the shuddering as Flowey's massive body was rocked by the impact of her attack, and she couldn't help but smile.

"You really have no idea who you're messing with..." she whispered.

In a move that even surprised her, Sunset watched Undyne come to a landing on one of the shields, quickly finding her balance and taking to the air while riding it. Three more of the purple shields appeared, orbiting her in a protective wall as she began to close the vertical gap between them.

"Okay... MY TURN!"

Vines shot out from every angle, bursting through every wall with sharpened thorns at their tips. Some crashed and slammed into Undyne's shields, while others were mulched by more of the spears, now on the defensive. Still, Sunset saw a few of them slip through the cracks, slicing and scratching into Undyne's body. She didn't seem fazed, giving up nothing more than a flinch and a grunt in response. The vines that had hit the shields began to grow and writhe, tangling up in one another until they'd formed a sphere of thorns. After a second, Sunset watched them beginning to coil tighter and tighter, pushing further and further inward.

"HAHAHAHAHA! I'LL CRUSH YOU INTO A SPECK OF DUST, AND THEN- GAAAAAAH!"

The sheer volume of Flowey's voice shook the room, making Sunset's ears ring with pain. Still, she was able to hear the sound of tearing metal and Undyne's taunting voice as she dove past riding another shield. Sunset could also make out a glowing yellow shape in her hand.

"If you want to catch me, you're going to have to try a lot harder than THAT!"

Flowey growled as the thorn sphere unwound itself, revealing that it was simply crushing the empty trio of shields, which finally faded away now that their work was done.

"GRRRRR... FINE! Take THIS!"

Flowey's massive clawed arms spread wide, summoning an array of strange-looking nozzles crafted from orange magic. Undyne barely had a chance to throw up fresh shields before they began to spew torrents of crimson flame into the air, completely engulfing her in a blazing fireball. Sunset could feel the draining pull on her own soul, horrified as she realized that Flowey was using her determination as a battery to propel the inferno to new heights of destructive power. From somewhere above her, Sunset watched a storm of four-pointed projectiles rain down into the fire, several of them exploding and crackling as they seemed to strike their target. They only continued to come faster and faster as Flowey cackled wildly.

"BURN! BURN! BURN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

With one final wave, a flaming object dropped lifelessly from the air and slammed into the ground below. When the dust cleared, Sunset could see that it was indeed Undyne, panting desperately for breath as she laid there. The glow in her eyes was dim as fresh roots sprung up all around her, each with their pointed tips pointed directly at her heart.

"Get up... GET UP!" Sunset called.

This was fun, fish-face, but playtime is OVER!

The vines all struck together, and Sunset couldn't force herself to look away even as she unconsciously screamed out to them. "PLEASE, UNDYNE, GET UP!"

Come on... That can't be all the fight I've got in me... Undyne thought, even as she laid gasping for air on the ground. She felt exhausted, shriveled in the heat and parched with thirst. It felt like every inch of her skin was ready to crack and shatter, like a dried-out sheet of leather.

"I'd hoped he wouldn't figure out our weakness THAT fast..." Penn added as they watched Flowey's tendrils rising up all around them. "And using Sunset's determination was just fighting dirty..."

So what do we do now?

"Well, if my partner were here, she'd say to fight dirty right BACK."

Undyne could feel the yellow human soul pulsing in her hand. Penn had put a small barrier around it to stop her from absorbing it into her body alongside his, but it was still brimming with power that was pouring into her arm, making it tingle. She could feel what it wanted, the wish it was begging her to fulfill: Justice.

She could hear Sunset begging her to get up, her desperate cry echoing and reverberating off of the walls.

"Hey, what if we- She could sense that Penn had an idea, but if she waited for him to explain it to her, they'd never be ready before Flowey had ripped out her heart.

So, for the first time, Undyne purposefully let go. She chose to trust completely, giving herself over and letting go of the reigns.

When Flowey struck, the sheer force of the blow sent up a cloud of smoke and dust. As total silence fell, Sunset watched with baited breath.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!"

There was Undyne, still alive and already back up on her feet. She had raised one arm, catching all of the vines in one fist. Her eyes turned upwards, and Sunset felt a chill run down her spine.

Both of her eyes were practically on fire with purple light as she glared upwards. This wasn't just any glare, either... It was Penn's glare. It was the same glare he'd given before completely destroying Joshua hard enough to kill him twice over. It was the same glare that Sunset had felt directed at her when she and Missy had stumbled their way into his trapped entryway, and when he'd seen what had happened to the Angel of Mischief here in the Underground. It was the same unspoken promise of punishment that sent anyone with half a rational mind running. Even on another person's face, she could recognize the cold fury behind it.

"WHY WON'T YOU JUST-"

Flowey didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence before the counterattack. A yellow spear appeared over Undyne's- Penn's shoulder, radiating bright enough to rival the sun. With hardly so much as a gesture from Penn, the spear took off like a bolt of lightning. At first, it was traveling straight towards the wall, only to stop and suddenly change directions. It repeated this what felt like dozens of times in less than a second, leaving behind a crackling trail of energy behind it. It was moving so fast, Sunset didn't even have time to flinch when it made a beeline for her.

Just before it pierced her heart, the bolt changed directions again, dashing down one of the hoses of the extractor. She could hear the sound of a collision, followed by the afterimage of the projectile moving past her nose again, into another area of the inner machinery. It continued the pattern, repeating the motions faster and faster until it seemed like one continuous attack weaving a web around her every time it completed a circuit through the machine. Far, far below, Sunset could see Penn directing it with a simple movement of Undyne's finger. From her left, Sunset could hear the sound of something shattering, and the web lost a line as that point was dropped from the circuit. She gripped tighter as understanding dawned on her.

They're... attacking the human souls directly!

Flowey's body rocked unsteadily and began to slip lower back into the cave as another soul shattered.

"Wha- What are you DOING? S-STOP IT!"

Penn didn't seem to hear him, their eyes narrowing as the lightning-fast attack grew even more furious, tearing apart the inside of the machine to expose the souls directly. The next one to shatter was the green, leaving Flowey with only the purple and cyan souls. The attack bounced back and forth between them like a pinball, mercilessly hammering away. Sunset could already see the cyan soul beginning to crack.

"NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

FILE 3 LOADED

"Alright, Flowey, let's do this! NYYYGAAAAAAH!" Undyne roared as she leapt into the air.

Sunset blinked, her entire mind suddenly feeling jolted and disconnected from reality.

The DT extractor was still almost completely intact, aside from the torn-open doors. Undyne was spotless and fresh, starting her offensive again from the beginning. She desperately looked to the tubes of the machine, hoping that she was wrong.

The colored light making its way to her from the other areas made it clear that all of the human souls were present and accounted for.

As the battle repeated itself outside, a vine near her separated from the wall, sprouting a fresh flower with a face.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking!" It transformed into her own face, blinking her eyes at her in a pleading motion. "HOW is he alive? What's with the déjà vu?" The flower floated in closer, changing back to Flowey's usual face and jeering grin. "As long as I have enough determination, I can save and reload this world as much as I please! And guess what you're giving me PLENTY of?" He licked his lips. "Oh, it's going to be delicious sucking your soul dry!"

Sunset fell back, unable to believe it. She watched as Undyne fell into the same trap, but this time, Flowey followed up the flamethrowers with a punch from his giant paw, completely crushing Undyne into dust.

FILE 3 LOADED

"Alright, Flowey, let's do this! NYYYGAAAAAAH!"

"How do you like being on the OTHER side of the resets?" Flowey whispered in her ear.

This began a cavalcade of resets as Sunset was forced to watch the battle play out over and over again. Sometimes it ended in seconds, with Flowey easily swatting Undyne out of the air like a fly. Other times, Undyne would almost begin to get the upper hand, only for another reset to crush any hopes Sunset had begun to have.

Undyne was thrown into a massive flytrap, unable to escape as the acid inside reduced her to a vaguely blue-tinged pile of goo.

Undyne was completely incinerated by the flamethrowers.

Undyne was thrown into a giant green-tinged frying pan, Flowey's magic frying her alive.

"Stop..."

Undyne was crushed by what appeared to be giant ballet slippers.

Undyne was swarmed by flies, which soon left only a desiccated corpse.

Undyne was blown to smithereens by a hail of bombs with Flowey's face printed on the casing.

"Stop it, please!"

Undyne was grasped by a giant pair of gloves, being ripped in two at the waist.

Undyne was stabbed through by hundreds of spiked vines.

Undyne was completely disintegrated in some kind of gigantic laser that fired from just below the extractor.

"PLEASE, STOP, I'M BEGGING YOU!"

Soon, Flowey was repeating himself, cackling madly as he seemed to repeat his favorites of the many killing methods at his disposal over and over. Every time, Sunset watched it until she could no longer bear it and covered her eyes. That didn't stop the sound she dreaded most from always reaching her ears: the shattering of a human soul, confirming that both Undyne and Penn had truly died and making it impossible to ever bring them back.

As it repeated itself over and over, Sunset gripped at her head tighter and tighter until the pain became unbearable.

"STOP IT, FLOWEY, PLEASE! I'LL DO ANYTHING, PLEASE, JUST STOP IT!"

There was one more sound of a soul shattering, and then silence fell. Sunset hesitantly cracked one eye open, finding the flower once again staring at her with a wicked, twisted smile.

"Anything?"

Sunset looked down as the hopelessness of her situation set in. They couldn't win. Without her friends, there was no beating Flowey. No rainbow lasers, no last-minute rescues... they were locked right here, at this point in time, any time Flowey so much as suspected he was starting to lose. The best she could do was try to save the ones she cared about, no matter what it meant for her.

"Anything..."

FILE 3 LOADED

"Alright, Flowey, let's do this! NYYYGAAAAAAH!"

This time, Flowey didn't go on the offensive, simply doing his best to block Undyne's initial attack with his oversized arms. Undyne landed on the shield, instantly beginning to fly up towards Sunset.

"Hang on, Sunny, I'm coming!"

Sunset knew what she had to do.

She reached out, pulling the doors to the extractor shut. When Undyne reached her, she already had a spear ready to pry it open again.

"UNDYNE, STOP!" she shouted.

Undyne did hesitate, heeding her warning for a second to make a check for a trap from Flowey. When she realized she was safe, she continued, closing the distance to the extractor in a single jump. The doors, being unlocked, opened easily to her, and she offered a webbed hand to Sunset.

"Come on! We're getting you out of here, Sunset!"

Sunset wanted to go. More than anything, she wanted to leap into their arms and run away from here, but... she knew she wouldn't get more than a single foot out of the extractor before Flowey had reset again.

"Just... just go, Undyne. Get out of here..." Sunset muttered. She grabbed hold of one of the vines and squeezed, driving one of the thorns into her palm to distract herself from the emotional pain of those words. "You can't save me from this."

"The hell are you talking about? I'm RIGHT HERE-"

"I SAID 'GO!'" Sunset lashed out, driving her fist into Undyne's cheek in a right hook that left her hand stinging like crazy. "I DON'T WANT YOU TO SAVE ME THIS TIME! JUST RUN AWAY BEFORE FLOWEY KILLS YOU!"

"But- We can-"

Sunset shoved Undyne with both hands, pushing her off of the extractor and sending her falling through the air. Her floating shield flew over to catch her, but it put plenty of distance between them.

"WOULD YOU JUST STOP PICKING FIGHTS YOU CAN'T WIN?"

Sunset only saw the look of hurt and betrayal on Undyne's face for a second before the doors slammed shut again, which she was honestly grateful for. She couldn't see outside, but the lack of any sounds of battle made it clear that her message had been received: she didn't want their help.

Now that they couldn't see her, Sunset let herself cry. Giving up on rescue, pushing away her friend for their own sake... it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. Every problem she'd ever encountered had been solved by working together with her friends, and forcing them away went against everything she knew.

"Of course... I need SEVEN human souls to become a god. Six souls and a lot of determination is nice, but..."

Sunset froze as she heard what sounded like something extremely heavy hitting the stone wall, and a strained gurgle in Undyne's voice.

"I never said the seventh soul had to be YOURS, Sunset!"

"NO!" Sunset's cry was lost in the uproarous laughter of Flowey's numerous faces and mouths all across the surface of the cave. Everything around her began to shake and rattle as she watched another soul float into the capsule with her: this one was purple, but with an inverted white heart inside of it. She reached out, snatching it and holding it tight as she wept, and the shaking of the world escalated. Sunset was thrown around violently in the chamber, cutting herself on thorny vines and torn metal, but she refused to let go of her grip on Penn's soul. She felt her head strike something hard, and then the world went white.

"H-Hey! Hey! Are you alright?"

Asriel rushed over to the fallen human, inspecting them for injury. It looked as they had fallen into the mountain from above. It was a long drop, and if it weren't for the spells his parents had put to redirect the rain, they almost certainly would have perished.

As it was, they seemed to have manage to land with only a few bumps and scratches, and were already sitting up and staring wide-eyed at their surroundings by the time Asriel reached them.

The two of them stared at one another, human and monster meeting for the first time in ages. Asriel had heard stories before of humans and the bloody war that had driven monsterkind into the mountain, but... this human didn't seem like that. They were a kid, just like him, and they were hurt and scared. Asriel raised one hand in a friendly wave, trying to calm their fears as he kept a small distance between them.

"H-Howdy..."

"Haha! Come on, Chara! You'll never catch me like that!" Asriel laughed as they chased each other in circles around the tree in front of their home. Every time Chara would run in one direction, he would respond by running in the other. They were locked in a stalemate, keeping perfectly in equilibrium with each other.

Chara seemed to assess the situation, then smiled that odd smile of theirs that signaled they'd had an idea. They slowly walked straight to the trunk of the tree, and Asriel walked away at the same rate. Chara smiled, then swung their fist into the tree, sending a shiver all the way up the trunk. With a heavy, dry-sounding rustle, the world went red as a heavy rain of red leaves fell all around them. Asriel tried to push away the ones in front of his eyes, but by that time Chara was already practically on top of him, pressing their hand to his chest.

"TAG! You're it!"

Chara seemed to have miscalculated, though, as they careened together onto the ground, giggling and laughing in a heap as the leaves continued to fall.

"Asriel! Chara! It is time for dinner!" Asgore called from the doorway to the house. "Your mother has made her special butterscotch pie for dessert!"

Asriel and Chara both looked at one another, eyes wide with anticipation as they confirmed with a glance that their ears weren't deceiving them. The two of them practically ran over each other to be the first ones back into the house, but they both calmed the instant that they passed through the doorway. Their mother wouldn't tolerate roughhousing anywhere but outside or in their room, after all.

And somehow, even though their father was the King of Monsters, Toriel managed to be the more frightening one when she was angry.

The two siblings sat together outside of their Father's door. It was a tradition their parents didn't know about, a secret just between the two of them. They would sit there and listen when their parents talked about the kingdom. Sometimes they were boring talks about the infrastructure of their world under the mountain, or the allocation of resources between the different areas. Other times, it was exciting things, like territory disputes or cave-dwelling creatures that threatened the monsters' safety. It was a rare treat when Doctor ______ would come, talking about the core or his experiments. It usually involved a lot of big words he couldn't understand, but he didn't feel bad. After all, his dad couldn't understand them, either, and the doctor would always sigh and explain it in a way they could understand.

Tonight, however, wasn't one of those nights. Tonight, the king and queen were talking about a matter that came up a lot: hope.

"Tori-"

"Do not 'Tori' me! They are children, OUR children! I will not let you turn them into figureheads!"

"Toriel, whether or not we encourage it, all of the kingdom is proclaiming them the hope of monsterkind. A human and a monster, living as equals, with no hostility? How could that NOT give them hope for when we return to the surface?"

"And you would put that on them? Ask children to bring down the barrier?"

"Of course not. Doctor ______ is still working on a way to bring down the barrier without human souls. But progress is slow, and our subjects need hope to sustain them until then. If we lean into the image, we can control it..." Asgore paused. "Toriel, some monsters are even whispering that Chara may be the angel of the prophecy. If we do not take measures, would you prefer THAT rumor grow?"

"...do what you will, Asgore. Clearly, I cannot stop you." The two of them each rushed to their preferred hiding spot when they heard their mother's footsteps approaching the door. If she noticed them, she didn't show it, storming to her room and slamming the door.

The two of them each stepped back out, and Asriel shook his head. "I- I think we should head to bed, Chara..."

Chara was deep in thought, barely humming to acknowledge Asriel's statement. They stayed that way as they snuck back to their room. Asriel laid for a while, trying to wrap his head around what his parents were arguing about. Finally, he couldn't keep the question contained any longer, rolling over to look at their sibling.

"Hey, Chara, are you asleep?"

"Yes."

Asriel rolled his eyes. "That never gets any funnier."

"Never gets less funny, either." Chara smirked, peeking open one eye to look at him before propping themselves up on one elbow. "What is it?"

"Well, it's about what Mom and Dad were saying earlier... About us giving people hope. Why would that be a bad thing?Isn't giving people hope good?"

Chara paused, returning to that pondering look for a few seconds. "Maybe... Maybe Mom doesn't want to go back to the surface?"

"What?" Asriel laughed, though less out of humor and more out of the sheer absurdity of the statement.

"Well, most humans aren't that great." Chara laid back down to stare at the ceiling, and Asriel did the same. "Maybe Mom knows it's better down here, without them?"

"But the surface has so many cool things, you told me, yourself! Airplanes and stars and oceans and orchards!" He let out a dreamy sigh as he settled more into his pillow. "Even if the other humans aren't like you, aren't those things worth living on the surface for?"

Chara stayed quiet for a while, and Asriel had to glance over to see if they'd fallen asleep. They were still awake, but they had that smile again, the one that sent shivers down his spine (usually because it preceded them getting in trouble).

"Azzy... I've got an idea."

"THE BUTTERCUPS! IT WAS THE BUTTERCUPS!" Asriel wanted to scream the source of Chara's mysterious "illness" to the doctors.

But he'd promised. He'd sworn up and down to Chara that he wouldn't tell, even as they'd shoveled the poisonous flowers into their mouth.

"I don't like this plan any more, Chara..." Asriel whispered, reaching out and taking hold of their hand. "P-Please, wake up... I won't tell Mom and Dad that it was your idea!" He sniffled as the sight of Chara's motionless body refused to change, no matter how much he wished it would. "W-We can say it was mine! I just-" he buried his face in the bedsheets and shook his head. "I don't want you to die, any more!"

He didn't leave that spot, even when he'd cried more tears than he thought his body had in it. All he could do was sob and keep mumbling pleas to Chara to wake up for hours on end. He was such a crybaby.

"NO!" Asriel forced back their hand, stopping Chara's attack. Sharing a body wasn't THAT strange, they'd always shared everything else. "Chara, I don't want to do this!"

"We NEED seven souls to break the barrier, don't we?" Chara shot back. "Besides, this is self-defense!"

"STOP THAT MONSTER!" one of the humans from the village shouted, refusing to let Asriel run away unnoticed. The mob was hot on his trail. If he fought, Chara would kill them, he could feel it, and he didn't want any more blood on their hands. "IT GOT OUT AND KILLED THAT KID!"

Asriel wanted to explain, to tell them that Chara had just wanted their body to be buried by their favorite flowers... But they refused to listen. The only place left to go was back to the mountain...

Asriel was dying. The wounds were too much, even for a human-monster hybrid. They'd managed to reach the top of the mountain and fall through back into the underground, but it was too late. Still, he did have one last thing he could do.

"This is your fault..." Asriel could feel Chara's disappointment and disapproval of his pacifism. "Why couldn't you just let me PROTECT us? Protect YOU? Like a good sibling should..."

"I-I'm sorry, Chara..." He wept as he used his paws to pull away a section of the earth, gingerly placing the golden flower in the hole. This spot had sunlight, rain, even fresh air. It would be perfect.

"I'm so sorry... I never wanted any of this..."

Asriel sunk to the ground, unable to speak another word as he watched his parents rush in, catching him in his last moments. With one last sigh, his body dissolved away on top of the flower, and their joint soul shattered to pieces.

"Guess I'm a crybaby, after all..."

Sunset gasped as she returned to the present... or, at least, what she thought was the present.

It was hard to tell, given that there was... well, nothing.

She was standing in a black void, feeling a cold breeze blow across her face. Far off in the distance, she could see a few colored specks of light, but they were barely more than pinpricks so far away.

"Heya, Sunny..."

Sunset spun around, scarcely believing her ears.

There was Penn, the REAL Penn, standing right in front of her. Undyne was just behind him, giving her a tired-looking smile. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like THIS?"

Sunset rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Penn and refusing to let go. They stayed like that for a while. He was warm, pushing away the chill of the breeze as he wrapped her up in his arms. She almost collapsed, feeling herself finally let down her guard for the first time since Missy had disappeared. The one thing Penn's hug always gave her was the thing she needed most. She was safe. Sunset pressed her face against his shoulder, wiping away the first round of tears.

"I- I thought I'd never get to feel this again..." she whispered.

"Oh, I knew that no matter what happened, you'd be fine. If anything, I'm the one holding YOU back out there for the sake of caution..." Penn nodded, giving her back a reassuring pat. "You know what this is, right?"

"I'm... Am I dead?"

"HA!" That managed to get a laugh out of Undyne. "If you died, you'd know it! Take it from someone who's done it before!"

"This is... Well, I'd hardly call it a dreamscape, but..." Penn shrugged. "It's somewhere inside Flowey."

Sunset paused, letting go just enough to poke her head up and look around at the complete emptiness. "But... What about-" She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase her question. "Does that mean the memories I saw... were Flowey's?"

Penn and Undyne glanced at each other, and Sunset felt him push her away to finally break off the hug. He rubbed his hands together, which glowed brighter and brighter until they produced a spark. When it touched the ground, the spark blossomed into a softly crackling campfire, and Penn and Undyne each sat down beside it cross-legged (Undyne keeping several inches further from the fire than Penn). Sunset complied when Penn motioned for her to do the same, sitting down beside him and on the opposite side from Undyne. She knew what this meant: It was time for a campfire story.

"After Asriel and Chara died... Many, many monsters lost what little hope they had. To save them from despair, Asgore made himself the center of their attention, declaring war on humans and proclaiming that he would kill any others that entered the underground. Toriel left the throne, staying in the ruins after Asgore moved to New Home, where she would care for any children who fell into the underground like Chara..." Penn reached behind his back, producing a trio of roasting sticks with marshmallows already pre-speared. Undyne stared at hers for a second before it turned into a miniature version of one of her spears.

"When the previous royal scientist..." Penn cleared his throat. "👎✋💧✌🏱🏱☜✌☼☜👎... Alphys took over and-"

"Wait, he WHAT?" Sunset blinked.

Undyne seemed equally confused, leaning forward to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "Dude, how did you do that with your mouth?"

"Do what?"

"You said he...blarggharabl..." Sunset tried her best to imitate the strange noise that had come from him.

"I said he disappeared." Penn reached out, feeling her forehead. "You doing okay, Sunny?"

"Yes! Undyne heard it, too! Right, Undyne?"

Undyne blinked. "Heard what?"

"Penn said..." Sunset tried to grasp her train of thought, but it didn't seem to want to get back on the rails. She made a few feeble attempts to remember what they'd interrupted the story for, but for the life of her she couldn't tell. "Uh... never mind..."

Penn and Undyne both shrugged, going back to roasting their marshmallows. "Over the years, Alphys experimented with determination, including extracting it in a physical form, which she called DT. She used the DT on a flower, something that's naturally soulless... Somehow, some of Asriel's essence had stayed with the flower, and even without his SOUL there... the flowers in what eventually became the Royal Garden managed to hold on to it. When Alphys injected the DT, it created Flowey, a soulless creature with Asriel's memories and essence. Without a soul, he lacked the ability to feel any love or joy, a sociopath."

"And since he had the most DT around, that sociopath could save and reset," Undyne added, eating her marshmallow straight off of the stick. "Nobody remembered it, but he must have done it hundreds of times, either looking for a way to get his old life back or, eventually, just keeping himself entertained..." she examined the cleaned mini-spear, then began to use it at a toothpick.

"And... that's where Flowey came from..." Sunset muttered.

"It still leaves a few questions, of course..." Penn muttered, examining his marshmallow more closely. "But that's the bulk of it."

"But... what happened to Chara?" Sunset asked. Looking at her marshmallow, she realized that as it oozed and melted, it was kind of shaped like Marshmallon.

Penn shrugged. "Couldn't say for sure, but... I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little of their essence laying around, too..."

"It's so awful what happened..." she whispered, finally pulling her marshmallow off of the stick and popping it in her mouth. It was strangely softer than most marshmallows, and almost sickeningly sweet. She guessed that it might have something to do with this being a "dreamscape," as Penn had called it. "They were just kids..."

The fire was already starting to lose steam, settling down into smoldering embers and tiny wisps of flame.

"We haven't got much time left..." Penn muttered.

"Wha- What do you mean?" Sunset felt panic beginning to well up.

"Flowey, or should I say Asriel, is going to use the seven human souls to wipe out everything. The whole timeline. Start from scratch..." He sighed. "Normally, Frisk would stop him, but..."

"This ain't THAT timeline..." Undyne growled.

Sunset jumped to her feet. "So what do we do?"

Penn and Undyne glanced at each other, then turned so they were sitting back-to-back.

"Gee, Undyne! Without Frisk, there's nobody who can stop Asriel!"

Undyne grinned as she leaned her head back enough to look at Sunset and wink. "Man, if only there was some determined soul out there willing to fight for all her new friends!"

"I mean, Asriel's going to wipe out humans..."

"Monsters..."

"EVERYONE! He doesn't call himself the 'Supreme God of Hyperdeath' for nothing!"

"IF ONLY there was someone willing to stand up to him!"

Sunset folded her arms. "Okay, I get it, you want me to fight him. But how am I supposed to beat a GOD?"

"I dunno... throw a calculator, a dragon, and a ghoul at him?" Penn shrugged nonchalantly, closing his eyes as if he was going to take a nap leaning on Undyne.

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" Sunset jumped to her feet and stamped her foot. "If he's going to wipe out everyone, then that means all the monsters YOU TWO died saving, Missy, Isis, the rest of my friends, wherever THEY are, and Asriel STILL doesn't deserve any of this! I don't WANT to fight him, even if I could! He's just a hurt kid!"

Penn and Undyne looked at each other and smiled.

"You think she's ready?" Undyne asked.

"I think she's Sunset Shimmer. She was born ready." Penn chuckled to himself. "She's going to do just fine on her own."

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO-"

"Sunset! SUNSET!"

Sunset was woken up by the urgent shaking of her shoulder and Missy's voice calling her name.

"You can't give up, just yet! Wake UP, Sunset!"

Sunset groaned, cracking her eyes open. She immediately wished she hadn't.

The entire world as she knew it was GONE. Instead, she was surrounded by a plane of shifting neon colors, all bright enough to hurt her eyes for a few seconds until she'd become accustomed to it.

She sat up, leaning slightly on Missy as she shielded her face.

"W-what... happened?"

"Well..." Missy whispered. "I think HE did..."

Sunset looked up, shocked to find herself face-to-face with Asriel, now looking more like a young adult and wearing a set of regal-looking robes. His horns had grown out, curling back and over his head, and dark tattoo-like marks marked his cheeks. Even just looking at him, Sunset could feel a tsunami of magical power threatening to wash her away. He was floating in the air, arms spread wide as he basked in his newfound power.

ASRIEL DREEMURR

ATK: ∞ DEF: ∞

Legendary figure of the underground. Wields seven souls.

Sunset couldn't do anything but stare at him as he floated there for several seconds, but eventually she found her sense and began to push upwards. She could feel that her body was weak, making it clear that the earlier drain from the extractor and her rough handing inside it hadn't been a dream.

His power... it really IS incredible...

She felt her spirit beginning to waver as she felt herself staring into the infinite. She couldn't understand what she was supposed to do in the face of this.

This monster was heartless. He'd tortured her, killed her friends over and over, and locked her in a box to literally drain her soul for power. It was HIS fault that all of this had happened, in the end. He'd been the one to pull Missy down into the mountain.

She wanted to scream at him, yell and pound her fists into his face over and over until the rage and despair had been spent. She wanted to make him regret everything he'd done, even when he had already won and gotten everything he wanted. She could feel her earlier rage beginning to bubble back up, pushing heat and strength back into her limbs.

"I don't want you to die, any more!" She heard Asriel's voice sobbing in her mind. She had seen what had made this child into the monster standing before her. He was a child, one who was the product of awful circumstances. In the face of fading hope and growing fear, he had just tried to do what was right. Who he was now was the direct result of that choice, a choice he had made while ignorant to the consequences echoing across time and beyond the bounds of life and death.

And as quickly as it had come, Sunset's rage petered out, leaving her once again feeling weak and empty.

She'd let rage drive her before, and this was where it had brought her. She had refused to forgive Celestia and herself for what had happened, and it had almost broken her relationship with her mentor for good. She had let herself give in to rage when Penn had died, and she'd nearly destroyed the only chance she had at speaking to him one last time.

And now Asriel was letting himself make the same destructive mistakes she once had, when she'd also stolen something that didn't belong to her and ran away through a mirror. She'd also done everything she could to gain power and claim something she'd thought was stolen from her.

And that was when she felt it. The spark of an idea. She didn't like it, and for a second she almost dismissed it entirely, but the longer she thought about it, the more she realized that it was the only way she'd ever moved forward. Now she was on the other end of it, looking at someone threatening to make the same mistakes... who needed to be led to the same solution.

"I know you..." she whispered. "I know who you are, Asriel..."

Asriel grinned, looking at her with a curious glance. "And just who do you think I am?

"You're a child... who had the weight of the world on your shoulders." Sunset looked down at Missy, who had floated under her arm for support. She was looking fearfully back at Asriel, but a quick glance up at Sunset seemed to reassure her, and they began to walk forward. Even from the first step, Sunset felt a surge of power flow into her as she ponied up, and it only grew from there. "The hopes and dreams of the entire underground felt like they were on your shoulders... Or at least, they ought to have been."

Asriel's curious expression settled into a displeased one. On the ground in front of her, Sunset saw a box appear with an exclamation point inside. A second later, a bolt of multicolored lightning shot down from the heavens, very nearly obliterating her and leaving a heavy scorch mark where the box had been. Missy yelped in fear, but Sunset didn't flinch. When the attack had finished, she continued walking towards him.

"You are a child who lost someone. Someone precious to you, your best friend. Like a second half you didn't know you were even missing until you met them..." She smiled. "A sibling. A best friend. Someone you shared everything with, for better and for worse."

"Stop RIGHT there!" Asriel held out his hand. Sunset refused, continuing to walk unabated. She watched as two massive stars fell from the sky. When they struck the ground in front of her, both of them exploded into a rain of star-shaped fragments that flew at her.

She didn't have the strength to dodge, even just standing firm in the aura of such power was almost more than she could take.

That was when another figure stepped in front of her. The projectiles simply seemed to bounce off of them, including launching a few back at Asriel. Sunset blinked, no longer sure she could trust her eyes.

"Penn?"

When he turned around, Sunset almost wanted to vomit. His skin was pale and tinged green, and he moved stiffly, as if his body were resisting every motion. The worst part, however, was that, where the scorched hole had been burned into his chest, a furious red eye was staring out at her.

"Not quite..." he growled.

"Oh! By the way, I found Big Sis!" Missy chirped, as if that would disperse all of Sunset's fears and questions at once. Sunset swallowed, trying to shake off the image she knew would be haunting her nightmares for the next... well, eternity, probably.

"The fabric of reality here is like mosquito netting. When he died, something punched a nice hole in it, so I came through. I'm just here because I want my partner back..." It was a grudging mumble from someone who clearly didn't want to be there. "Don't think I'm here to save YOU, Shimmer!"

"And who are YOU?" Asriel asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. "How were you not hurt by my attack?"

"Penn" turned back with a smile, waving his hands as if he were standing behind an invisible wall. "Well, considering I'm arguing with a kid, I guess the best explanation would be an everything-proof shield?"

"DON'T MOCK ME!" Asriel screamed, bringing both of his hands together. His next attack seemed to ripple through the very fabric of spacetime, a cannon of rainbow-colored light. Sunset watched as the beam struck Penn's body, only to be ripped into two halves, each one moving in a different direction on either side of them. Missy's sister simply yawned, unamused by the attack.

"As for WHO I am? I'm just another monster looking for her human half... Same as you." She shrugged. "If you gave Penn back to me, I'd happily be on my way."

"Th-thanks... Miss Big Sis?"

Penn turned back around, both his face and the eye in his chest glaring at her.

"R-right, you're not here to save me..." Sunset corrected, receiving an affirmative nod in return.

"Aww, don't be a tsun-tsun!" Missy whined. "I want you two to get along!"

"I am NOT a tsun-tsun, Dorklord, I just don't LIKE her!"

Sunset sighed, turning her attention back to the goat-god currently threatening all of existence.

"Asriel, you're not the only person to lose someone like that, see?" She held out her hands, motioning to the three of them. "And I KNOW how you feel, like any world rotten enough to let that happen ought to burn to the ground! That kind of outrage, that hate... it can destroy everything, but the first thing that it'll destroy is YOU! If you let it control you-"

"ENOUGH!" Asriel barked, sending a shockwave that almost knocked her over. "NONE OF YOU could understand me! You're nothing but ants squabbling in the dirt in front of me! Unlike you, I CAN destroy this world! I can purge the evil, reduce it all to nothing, all so we can play again from the beginning!"

Sunset could feel her grasp of Asriel's attention slipping. If he went through with his plan, she wouldn't have a way to stop him. "This isn't the way!" She stepped forward again. "Asriel, PLEASE! Just listen to me!"

"Do you know WHY people kept falling into Mt Ebott?" Asriel asked, leaning down to address her at eye level with a grin. "I was looking for someone with enough determination to take over saving and reloading! Someone so determined, they would do ANYTHING to not die! And I found them! From the moment Frisk saved, their fate was sealed! There's no save points on the surface! Not in REAL LIFE! So every time, no matter how far from the underground they found themselves, no matter how long they lived without using the save points ever again, they would only have three options! Reset, load their save, or die! The save points aren't power, they're a TRAP! An infinite loop they were willing to do ANYTHING to get out of, and their own determination wouldn't let them DIE!" He cackled and straightened his posture again. "It wasn't hard from there to get their help clearing out the underground so I could steal the six souls, and I had planned to take THEIR soul, too, at the end!" He waved his hand dismissively. "Maybe the details got a little jumbled when you all showed up, but I went with the flow! Improvised! And now... LOOK AT ME!"

"That's why Frisk went all 'Michael Myers' on the underground..." Missy whispered. "They wanted out of the loop..."

"So tell me, little Sunny, why should I listen to YOU, who fell right into my trap alongside them?"

Sunset stepped forward again moving around Penn's possessed body to address Asriel directly, having nearly closed the gap between them. "Because I got lucky. When I tried to do this, I had a lightsaber and a whole lot of determination, and that didn't make me unstoppable... If you let me, I want to show you what will REALLY bring you to a better ending."

Asriel raised one eyebrow, clearly suspicious, but with nothing to fear, he settled back down at ground level. "Alright, before I DO wipe it all out, what is this amazing wisdom you have that I don't?"

Sunset closed her eyes, leaned forward... and wrapped her arms around Asriel.

"I forgive you, Asriel Dreemurr. Penn... wouldn't want me to be miserable, and keep looking for ways to get payback, whether he's gone or stuck or anything. For both of our sakes... I forgive you."

"Wha- What is THIS supposed to be? Some feeble attempt to guilt me into changing my ways?" Asriel huffed. "I'm not sorry for killing your friend, and I never asked for your forgiveness!"

"Nope..." Sunset smiled, feeling a fresh peace settle over her. It didn't make the ache of Penn being dead go away, it still felt like a gaping hole in her chest, but... she felt like she could learn to live with it, rather than letting it dictate her emotions. "Whether you want it or not, this is what I need. To keep moving forward."

With the moment passed, Sunset stepped back, wiping away fresh tears. Asriel was staring at her, clearly confused. Sunset pulled together all of the composure that she had left... and smiled at him.

Asriel was still glaring at her, but a change seemed to come over the rest of the world. The colors stopped shifting so rapidly, and the light surrounding them began to dim. His expression began to change, slowly but surely. He shifted from angry to confused, then from confused to angry again. For a moment, he raised his hand as if he were going to attack, but Sunset could see that he was fighting with himself over it. Finally, the anger seemed to break like a fever, and he sunk down from where he was hovering in the air, tears filling his eyes as his head snapped between the three of them, looking for some kind of explanation.

"Wh- What-" he stammered, looking down at his shaking hands. "What is this I'm feeling? What did you DO TO ME?"

"You've been soulless for a long time, Asriel... Now you've got seven of them. Eight, actually, counting Undyne." Sunset shook her head. "You can't just expect that you can go on feeling nothing but hatred and pain, can you?"

Asriel slowly sunk to the ground, falling to his knees with his eyes wide. His hands gripped at his head, clearly having trouble wrapping his head around what was happening. "I- I- I don't understand..."

Sunset carefully lowered herself to one knee, reaching out and putting her hand on his shoulder. "Asriel... The child who couldn't even hurt someone else in self-defense... couldn't stand by and let someone else hurt someone..." Sunset shook her head, "plans to wipe out all humans and monsters? I don't think you're being honest about what you want, Asriel... What you need."

Asriel looked up at her, blinking before he scowled again.

"You're... you're just trying to trick me, to get what YOU want."

"I'm not." Sunset shook her head. "I told you, I've already forgiven you. I'm letting go so I can move forward. It will take a long time, but it's the only way to be happy after something like this..."

Asriel continued glaring at her for another second before the entire world went white... and then dark. Sunset felt a small figure wrapping their arms around her neck and heard a choking sob in her ear.

"I- I want Chara back! I don't wanna be alone any more! I don't- I don't wanna be a flower! I want to be able to FEEL things again! I want my familiy baaaaaa-hah-hah-hackk!"

Sunset couldn't see Asriel, but she could feel her way well enough to pick him up. She was surprised at how TINY he felt in her arms. He couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old.

"Forgiveness is all well and good, but that DOESN'T get my partner back..." an angry-sounding voice growled in the darkness.

"Sis, would it kill you to read the room a little?" Missy hissed.

"Considering how fast this body's falling apart? Yes."

"I- If I give back the souls... I'll just go back to being a flower..." Asriel whimpered between sobs.

Slowly, the darkness lifted, revealing that they were back where the battle had started, standing amidst the flowers that grew beneath the opening in the mountain.

"Well... what do we do, then?" Missy asked quietly. "Those souls deserve peace, too..."

"Well, th-there's this..." Asriel reached into his pocket. "But I don't know if it'll work..."

It was the spell card Flowey had stolen. Now, Sunset could get a better look at it, and her breath caught in her throat.

Monster Reborn

Target one monster in either player's graveyard; Special Summon it.

Missy gave a gasp of her own, while "Sis" simply hummed thoughtfully.

"That's not- Asriel, honey... That's meant for duel spirits..." Missy whispered, moving to take the card. "We go in and out of the graveyard all the time, it's not such a big deal for us..."

"B-But look!" Asriel pointed to the text. "It says 'Monster!' I'm a- a..." he trailed off as Missy shook her head. For once, there was no smile, no excitement in the little angel's face. Only pity.

"Well, it's possible."

Everyone turned to look at the spirit currently inhabiting Penn's decaying body. Missy's jaw hung loose as she flew up to her.

"But Sis, the RULES-"

She held up Penn's hands defensively. "Don't get me wrong, we'd be screwing the rules in a MAJOR way, but... We're in a universe where determination lets people time travel, pun-telling skeletons can teleport, duel spirits that get left behind can pilot a dead body, and human souls are considered a measurement of godhood." She gave another passive shrug. "Honestly, this universe is pretty threadbare. Space is warped and time is bendable. With THAT amount of power..." she pointed to Asriel, "we could probably brute-force it."

Everyone looked quietly at one another, each one looking for some kind of validation. Asriel let go of Sunset, squirming until she let go of him.

"O-Okay, then! Let's do it!" He raised the card high over his head. The seven human souls floated out of his body, rising up into the air around him. Sunset felt a tear well up as she saw Penn's soul dancing with the rest, but she simply gave a grateful nod. One by one, the souls vanished and re-appeared on the art of the card.

"MONSTER REBORN!" Asriel cried.

Everyone waited quietly, each watching for some sign of magic happening.

"M-Monster Reborn!" Asriel repeated, thrusting the card towards the sky for good measure. "Monster... Reborn?" He turned to face the group, his face sullen. "I guess... rules are rules. It didn't work..."

"Well, of course it didn't work." Sis rolled her chest-eye, an act which made Sunset want to go gargle, drink, and bathe in mouthwash to get rid of the image. "You don't have a connection to a duel spirit. The magic can't make the cross without a duel spirit to act as a bridge. If PENN were here, we could do it in a snap..." She turned a glare towards Sunset. "But SOMEBODY left him to die and get fused with a fish!"

"Wait... does that mean Missy and I could do it?" Sunset asked, choosing to ignore the dig at her.

"If you think you've got what it takes to tie the rules into a pretzel, sure." Sis waggled Penn's hand back and forth. "But there could be repercussions..."

Sunset looked down at Asriel, seeing the fear in his eyes. She could already see hints of gold around the tips of his face's fur, and a green tint on his hands.

"I'll do it."

Asriel's face lit up with joy before handing her the soul-empowered card. Sunset held it for a moment, letting the power sink in. It was sending an electric tingle through her hands and up her arm. She felt Missy's hand on her shoulder, and the two of them looked into one another's eyes for a second.

"Play to the last card?" Sunset asked. Missy smirked, moving down to put her hand on the card alongside Sunset's.

"Literally."

The two of them raised the card to the skies together. "MONSTER REBORN!"

This time, there was definitely a response. The ground began to shake and the wind began to pick up, swirling around the two of them faster and faster. Crackles of multicolored energy burst out of the card, darting along the ground and walls. Sunset could feel a mounting pressure rising in her arm, like a tourniquet being twisted tighter and tighter, and Missy was making it no secret that she was in discomfort, as well.

"It doesn't like what we're doing!" Missy cried, shouting to make herself heard over the growing storm. "It's fighting back!"

Sunset grunted as the pressure mounted higher, and her entire body began to burn. She could see trails of the rainbow magic traveling along her body, burning into her skin like ley lines. "Keep... GOING!" She took a deep breath, pushing back as best she could.

Her whole body felt like it was alternating between electric shocks and being immersed in ice water, and the entire structure of the cave was rattling and threatening to collapse. She watched as Asriel's small form was picked up by the wind, only to be snagged out of the air by Penn's strong hand.

"Th-Thanks!"

"You're LUCKY I've got a soft spot for kids!"

With that emergency handled, Sunset turned her attention back to the card. "I'm not... going to be dictated to..." her chest began to glow with red light as her determination grew stronger, "about what's possible or impossible... BY A PIECE OF PAPER!"

She felt a spike of heat rush through her body, starting in her chest and flowing up into her arm, pushing back the sensation of the overwhelming pressure. She could see a red glow traveling up and into the card, and the souls in the picture began to dance in a furious ballet. The arcs of rainbow electricity began to widen into what looked like gaps in reality, pitch-black tears that smelled vaguely of chamomile.

And then it snapped.

All of the pressure vanished, the power spikes disappeared, the tears in reality shut, the wind and lightning stopped, and all of their pent-up energy rushed into the card. Sunset just barely caught herself before she crossed the brink into falling unconscious, and Missy dropped straight out of the air, landing firmly on her butt with an indignant squeak. The card shook and rattled violently in Sunset's hands with a life of its own, as if it were trying to escape. Finally, it seemed to inflate like a balloon before tearing itself to shreds and unleashing a tidal wave of power.

The force of the explosion was enough to lift Sunset off of her feet, throwing her up before dropping her onto the flowerbed. She wasn't sure how long the world was spinning after that, but when it had settled, she couldn't believe her eyes.

Not only was Asriel standing there, as real and alive as anyone, but six other human children were scattered around the room, all unconscious, and one more was laying beside her in the flowers, one she recognized.

It was Chara.

"Holy smokes..." she whispered.

"You're telling me!" a friendly voice said. Looking up, Sunset felt her heart leap with joy as Undyne looked down at her and offered a helping hand. She was completely unharmed, with her fused soul intact. "I think you guys mighta overdone it a little, and that's coming from the two of US!"

"Undyne!" Sunset gratefully took the helping hand, wrapping her arms tight around the fishy woman. "You're okay!"

"We knew you'd figure it out... Element of Empathy." She grinned and roughly tousled Sunset's hair with her fingers. "Soon as you decided you didn't WANT to fight, this world was as good as saved." She glanced down at Chara, then at the rest of the resurrected humans. "Still, this is something else... Never would have expected this!"

"CHARA!" Asriel cried, rushing over and practically pouncing on top of their sleeping sibling. As Chara began to slowly open their eyes, Asriel was overflowing with joy, laughing and giggling and crying a torrent of happy tears. Finally, he stopped to look up at Sunset before rushing over and grabbing at her legs with all the strength a child could muster. "THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!"

Chara sat up, rubbing at their head with a groan. "Wha- What's going on?"

"Chara, LOOK!" Asriel shouted, rushing back to their side and helping them to their feet. "The barrier's gone, and we're alive again! Miss Sunset and the angel DID IT!"

Chara looked around, clearly dissatisfied with Asriel's lack of an explanation. When they finally saw her, Chara stepped defensively between Sunset and Asriel, clearly suspicious. Sunset almost laughed at the sight of what looked like a miniature Penn, right down to a death glare that was simultaneously unsettling and adorable coming from such a young kid.

"It's okay... We're not letting anyone else get hurt today," Sunset whispered before giving them a wink and and a smile.

This seemed to do little to assuage Chara's suspicions, but a gleeful hug from behind by an admittedly oblivious Asriel was enough to convince them to back down.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to see Missy riding on the shoulders of a now-healed and very-much-alive Penn. Even his clothes seemed to have been repaired by the spell, looking as clean and unharmed as he had been when they started this journey.

"I think we did good!" Missy chirped with a grin. Sunset could tell that she was equally exhausted, though, as her wings were hanging limp and she was leaning against Penn's head to stay sitting up. "How's... THAT for an... angel's miracle?" She pumped both fists into the air. "EVERYBODY LIVES!"

Sunset smirked and passed on the hair-tousle she'd recieved from Undyne to Missy. As she looked around, she could see the children all beginning to stir and wake up.

"Yeah... we did a good job, Missy. Thanks for the help..."

On the other side of the room, Sunset heard a shocked gasp and a poorly-contained cry of shock.

It was Toriel. Both of her hands were clapped over mouth as she stood at the entrance to the ruins.

"Th-This is impossible... I must be dreaming..."

"MOM!" Chara and Asriel shouted together before sprinting past Sunset. They crossed the open area in record time, each one latching on to Toriel's dress and hugging a different leg.

"Toriel!"

"Miss Toriel!"

"Mama!"

Each of the children seemed to recognize her and mimicked Chara and Asriel until Toriel was standing in the midst of a small crowd of children. She was still in shock for several seconds before dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around as many children as she could, starting with Chara and Asriel.

"If this is a dream, then I do not want to wake up!"

Sunset's eyes widened as she turned back to Missy. "Wait, when you said 'everybody lives...'"

Missy pointed at the heartwarming scene, equally dumbfounded. "It was supposed to be a celebratory hyperbole..."

"Hey! Great use of the term 'hyperbole!'" Penn cheered, reaching up to give Missy a pat on the head.

"Heh, learned it from listening to yooooooooooooo...." Missy froze mid-word, eyes wide. She and Sunset both looked at each other, each one coming to the same realization.

They looked back at Undyne, who most certainly had Penn's soul still beating away in her chest.

They looked back at "Penn," who definitely was no longer possessed by the vengeful spirit of "Big Sis."

Penn blinked and scratched at his head, as if he were confused. "So... can somebody fill me in on what happened, here? Last I remember, I was in Waterfall with Undyne and things weren't looking so good."

Sunset and Missy both looked at each other one more time, both confirming that the other had reached the same conclusion.

"Uh-oh."

Author's Note

I want to give a MASSIVE thank you to my good friend PC, who helped me plot out this brain-bender of a finale! They've been helping me, reading and reviewing to let me know where and what needed work (They are an Undertale guru), even through sickness over this past weekend!

PLEASE GO SEND THEM LOTS OF LOVE AND WELL-WISHES! This would not have been possible without them!!!

((Oh, and to Missy for taking over the blog so I'd have one less thing to worry about!))

Bring It In, Guys

"Oh! This is simply wonderful!" Toriel repeated. Everyone shot each other knowing glances as they all ticked off another number on the counter they were keeping in their heads. "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined such a day would come!" She gave Missy another squeeze, still refusing to let the little spirit leave her arms, "A day where I would not only see my children returned to me, but the barrier dispelled, as well! Thank you, little angel!"

"No... problem..." Missy croaked, clearly being squished in the embrace she was unable to leave.

Penn chuckled to himself, simply enjoying seeing everyone alive and so happy. The ruins seemed to be absolutely abuzz with activity this time as they passed through. Monsters of all kinds were flittering and hopping about, exchanging excited reunions and hushed whispers about their seeming return from the great beyond.

In the few seconds they'd had before Toriel had noticed them, everyone in the know had agreed to keep the truth of what had happened a secret. This was Asriel's second chance, and his time as the soulless creature known as Flowey would be a secret he could to keep for as long as he wanted. Instead, everyone except for Missy had come to a unanimous conclusion:

Blame the angel.

And so, rather than a face-off between Sunset Shimmer and a flower-turned-god, the act that had turned the tragedies of the last 48 hours on their heads was an act of "angelic intervention." All any of monsterkind would ever know was that a once-in-a-lifetime miracle wrought by the angel of the prophecy had resurrected the underground and shattered the barrier. That meant that Missy had been the one to receive the brunt of the praise, with Penn and Sunset being delegated as her "guardians," a position that garnered much less attention.

With all of the attention on her, Penn had taken the opportunity to fall to the back of the pack. Undyne didn't seem to need to be asked to do the same, and soon the two of them had managed to separate from the rest of the group by a wide enough margin not to be heard.

"So... I would REALLY appreciate if someone would fill me in."

"Figured that was coming..." Undyne sighed. "You sure you don't want to be sitting down for this?"

"What do you think I'm gonna do? Faint?"

Undyne chuckled. "Well, you asked for it..."

By the time they had reached Toriel's house, they had managed to amass a small army of monsters behind them, all wanting to follow the "legendary angel" wherever she was going. Apparently she's been promoted from "prophesied" to "legendary..." Sunset could only laugh quietly to herself as Missy squirmed and blushed, clearly uncomfortable with the undeserved attention.

Thankfully, one chiding look from Toriel was all that it had taken to disperse the crowd, and soon all of the humans had filed into the house behind her.

Sunset lingered by the doorway for a few seconds, still unable to fully believe everything that had happened. It had really seemed like everything was lost, that there was no way to find a happy ending. She'd almost given up hope.

And somehow, just when she thought she'd pushed them away for good, her friends managed to find her and lift her back up out of that despair. She knew that in secret, Penn and Missy were giving her more credit than she deserved because she'd stood up to Asriel, but it was everyone's efforts that had made this impossible miracle happen.

"Hey, Sunset, you coming?"

Sunset was snapped out of her reverie, looking up to see "Penn" offering her a hand in the doorway. She stared for a moment at the offer before nodding and stepping into the house on her own, too uncomfortable with the doppelganger of her friend to accept the hand.

Unlike their first time through, the house was practically abuzz with activity. There were children in every room, all as cheerful and energetic a if they'd never suffered so much as a cold, let alone been dead a short time ago.

In the other room, she could still hear Toriel's voice speaking. "Now, sit right there, and I'll make us all something sweet to celebrate!"

Sunset stepped into the living room, almost bursting into laughter at the sight of Missy nearly buried in the reclining chair.

Help me... she mouthed.

Sunset smirked and shook her head before walking to the dining table, where Undyne was sitting. She was clearly debating whether or not to put her feet on the table, and seeing Sunset watching her seemed to convince her into keeping her feet on the floor.

"So... This is weird."

Undyne smirked, one of her eyes flashing violet. "You're realizing this now?"

Sunset leaned forward. "Okay, seriously, what's with the changing eyes? Does that mean you're in control, Penn's in control, or what?"

"You think I can see my own eyes change color?" Undyne shrugged and leaned back in her chair. "A monster hasn't absorbed a human soul in a thousand years, I know as much as you do!"

"Okay, but does-"

"Penn doesn't know, either." Undyne cut her off, her eyes flashing purple again.

"Right... sorry."

"Why don't you ask him?" Undyne nodded towards the hallway. Sunset quickly turned around, feeling as if she'd been caught... only for the doorway to the hallway to be empty. She made sure that she was giving her best "unamused" face when she turned back, but it didn't seem to wipe the smirk off of Undyne's face. "Wow, he really DOES have you jumpy, doesn't he?"

Sunset scowled as she realized she HAD been caught, just not at what she thought.

"Well, look at yourselves..." Sunset folded her arms for a moment before reaching out and prodding at Undyne's chest. "I know Penn's soul is right here..." She leaned closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. "So who is-"

Sunset had to pull back her hand as fast as she could when Undyne lunged forward, snapping at her hand with her fangs. Sunset yelped as Undyne's jaw snapped shut like a steel trap, nearly taking off her hand at the wrist. For a split second, the two of them were frozen like that, until Undyne seemed to some back to her senses and leaned back again.

"Don't... do that."

"You nearly bit my hand off!" Sunset cried, inspecting her wrist to reassure herself it was still connected.

"It was a reflex." Undyne waved her hand dismissively.

"You call THAT a reflex?"

"Well, I get a little defensive when people poke at my buddy-"

"Uhm, girls?" Missy poked her head up between them, having finally gathered the courage to leave her assigned seat. "Before we get into this argument, I think I have an answer to Sunset's question..." She removed her hat, reaching inside and grabbing a few cards. Without waiting for a response, she began laying them on the table. "Okay, so imagine you're in a duel..."

"Not hard to do."

"And you summon these two monsters!" Missy placed down two cards, each one featuring a spandex-clad superhero. "Elemental Hero Avian and Elemental Hero Burstinatrix." Sunset nodded, indicating for her to continue. "Now, you use THIS spell, Polymerization. This card fuses the two of them together..." she picked up the two cards and moved them to the graveyard pile before placing down a third card. This one was dark purple in color and featured a hero that was a strange combination of the previous two. "They form Elemental Hero Flame Wingman. You follow?"

"Right..." Penn had never gotten to "fusion" when he started teaching her the game, but it seemed simple enough the way Missy explained it. You used a special spell and the "material" monsters listed on the purple card to summon that monster.

"Now, imagine you have Monster Reborn..." Missy reached into her hat. After a few seconds, her expression changed to one of surprise, then frustration as she reached deeper and deeper. When she finally pulled her hand out, it was a closed fist clutching a few blackened shreds of paper. The two of them stared at each other for a second.

"Guess Sis wasn't kidding when she said there could be repercussions..." Missy whispered. Her eyes were wide with shock as she watched the remains of the spell disintegrate between her fingers.

"Are... you okay?"

Missy swallowed loudly. "Eh heh heh... Well, being a duel spirit, watching a card fall to pieces is a bit... morbid." Sunset's own eyes grew wide as she realized that Missy had been holding the card equivalent of a dead body in her hands. Before she could ask a follow-up question, Missy cleared her throat and dusted off her hands against one another.

"So imagine you have Monster Reborn..." She reached back into the graveyard, plucking out the copy of Elemental Hero Avian, "and you use it to bring back one of the fusion materials!" She gestured to one card with each hand. "Where's the original Avian?"

Sunset looked at the situation for a moment, then pointed to the fusion monster. "Well, it's there. We used it for the fusion."

"Ah, but this is the card we USED for the fusion!" Missy tapped Avian with one hand. "Literally the same card with the same spirit!"

"But..." Sunset blinked. "Then, is THAT the original Avian?"

"Is it?" Missy asked, pointing back to Flame Wingman. "I mean, if Avian's THERE, then what did we fuse to make this monster?"

Sunset sat back, groaning as she tried to wrap her head around the contradiction. "So... the one we brought back from the graveyard is a copy?"

"Nope!" Missy folded her arms over her chest.

"Well they can't BOTH be the original!" Sunset buried her face in her hands. "Just because Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi are both Twilight Sparkle doesn't mean they're the same person! There was only one!"

"See? THIS is why spell cards like Monster Reborn aren't meant to be used on things that aren't duel spirits!" Missy shook her head. "We can be in two places at once and still both be ourselves! We can be in multiple copies of the same card, OR be a different individual entirely from another copy of the card!" She rapped her knuckles against the side of her head. "It's NATURAL for us! We're built for it up here! Humans aren't!"

Both of them groaned as she scooped up the cards, whispered a quick thanks to them, and then dumped them back into her hat.

"So the Penn that's fused with Undyne..."

"Is Penn."

"And the Penn that's come back to life..."

"Is ALSO Penn."

"But they're not the same Penn."

"They ARE the same Penn. There's just two of him."

"Then they're not the same!" Sunset groaned. "And I thought mirror universe doppelgangers could get confusing... This is WAY worse."

"Oh, just wait until the day I try to explain pendulum summoning."

Undyne raised an eyebrow as one of her eyes changed to violet. "Pendulum what?"

"Pendulum summoning!"

"What summoning?"

Missy blinked for a second before settling into a smirk. "Pendulum summoning."

"What what?"

"Pendulum. Summoning."

By this point, Sunset could tell that there was some kind of reference going on here that she didn't understand. She sighed and pushed away from the table, excusing herself from the discussion to wander around the house. After a few failed attempts at striking up conversations with the revived children, she found herself descending the stairs to the basement.

It wasn't a dingy basement, but it did have more of a cave-like aura than the rest of the ruins. There was only very low light, and the dampness and chill seemed to be creeping in through the doorway to Snowdin. She kept her hands shoved into her pockets as she trudged down to the end of the hall. She hovered at the doorway, considering whether or not to continue. Leaving the house without telling anyone felt like a bad idea, but she was beginning to feel a little boxed in. She needed space.

I guess it wouldn't hurt as long as I don't go too far... she thought as she stepped across the threshold.

She didn't even need to worry about getting her shoes wet in the snow, since it looked like a certain fish-woman had come through earlier with enough force to carve a cleared path through to the dirt beneath. The cold air stung against her skin, forcing her out of her own head and into the present. Everything was as silent here as it had been on their first time through, and for a moment she wondered if Monster Reborn's effect had managed to reach this far. Normally this kind of quiet would be eerie, but after the chaotic night she'd had, it felt blissful.

"Wish I'd grabbed a jacket before I got captured by a giant, psychotic flower monster..." she muttered, rubbing her hands together to warm them up.

"I like it..." a voice mumbled from nearby.

Sunset nearly jumped out of her skin as she tried to find the source of the voice. "Wha- Who's there?"

As she watched, an arm rose up out of the snow a ways off the path. After another second, "Penn" sat up, making it clear he had been laying there before she'd arrived.

"How are you not freezing?"

"My family lived in Maine before Texas. I prefer the cold." He shook himself vigorously to knock off the remainder of what was clinging to his clothes. "What are you doing out here?"

Sunset folded her arms, pulling them closer against her body to stop herself from shivering. "I could ask you the same thing..."

He shrugged. "Y'know, just trying to cryogenically freeze myself until the existential crisis passes. Nothing special."

Sunset paused. She'd heard Missy's explanation, seen how dismissive Undyne was about her concerns... but she needed to be sure for herself.

"Who are you?"

She almost regretted asking it when she saw the look of hurt on his face. He opened his mouth to answer, only to stop and think more carefully on the subject.

"As far as I'm aware... I'm the same Penn you've always known."

"The Penn I've always known had his soul fused with Undyne. What's left of him is back there!" She pointed back to the door to Toriel's house. "And you know what? Maybe that's my fault, because I couldn't keep my promise to rescue him the same way he saves me, but at least I KNOW that!"

"Mint chocolate chip."

"What?"

"When we met, that's what you had. A mint chocolate chip milkshake."

Sunset tried to think back to the first day after the explosion. He was right, she could distinctly remember the flavor.

"I had a fruit smoothie instead of a milkshake, but you didn't seem to notice." He took a moment to stand up before continuing, roughly brushing the snow off his pants. "On the Dalek warship, you almost got us caught because you didn't think to tie your hair up. In Aperture, I was so sleep-deprived, I accidentally asked you to strip in front of me when you got hurt. In Remnant, you left me alone in the forest with only a socket wrench to protect myself, so I hid under the car all night."

"So, what's your point?" Sunset was surprised at the amount of irritability sneaking into her voice.

"Well, as a great celery-wearing time lord once said: A man is the sum of his memories." He sighed in a melancholy way. "Sunset, I remember everything. All our travels, all our adventures, they're all right here!" He pointed to his head. "As far as I know, we just climbed down here together a few hours ago!"

"But we didn't!" Sunset groaned. "It's been more than an entire DAY since you died, and I've been here the whole time! You MISSED it! You were GONE and I-" Sunset caught herself, stumbling over her words before she cut the train of thought off.

"You were alone." His voice was low, ashamed of himself. "That's why you're angry, isn't it? I died and left you behind."

"You promised we'd find my friends together..." She whispered. She hated herself for starting to cry in the cold, it only amplified the stinging of the cold on her cheeks. "And now you went and got yourself stuck in a place we can't get you out of..."

"Sunset, I'm right here..."

When Sunset felt him starting to hug her... It wasn't just her brain that recoiled. Her body, her mind, her soul... all of it convulsed wildly at the dissonance of what she'd thought she finally accepted and what was happening now.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

She didn't see what happened to him after she pushed him away. She thought she heard the sound of snow crunching, or maybe it was branches in the trees off of the path, but she was already running.

She didn't have any idea of where she was going. She didn't know how long she ran, and she wasn't paying attention to where she went.

She didn't stop until she was all of the way in Waterfall, with the chill of Snowdin far behind her. She was in the dark, that place with the glowing moss paths. She had run herself ragged, until she was just as lost in the mountain as she was in her own head.

This was cruel.

"K-K-KING ASGORE!"

Asgore looked up, spotting the Royal Scientist as she burst into the tent. He took the time to pull on the last strap of his armor. "You know the situation right now better than anyone, so I trust that you have not come here idly."

"Y-y-yes!" Alphys muttered. "It's about the magical shock waves we've been feeling! I know that until now we've been assuming that they're signs of some titanic battle, but... There's been a development!"

"Alphys, the angel and her human companion are missing, along with the captain of the guard. The waves of magical power are unlike anything we have ever experienced." He reached down to the space under the cot he had been sleeping in, grasping a weapon he'd hoped never to need again. At his touch, his magical power traveled into the conductive trident, causing it to glow blood red. "You are smart enough to know that this is not the time to mince words."

"There are monsters coming out of the mountain!"

Asgore stopped.

"I thought that you had issued a warning not to return until-"

"They're- Oh, you're not going to believe me, but... They're NOT evacuated monsters who returned! Th-They're... Oh man... They're..." She wiped a heavy layer of sweat from her forehead. "Th-They're the victims of the human's rampage..."

That was enough to give Asgore pause. Of all the news he had been bracing himself to receive, that had not been on the list.

"Doctor Alphys, are you certain?"

She waited for a moment before pulling open the door to the tent, revealing a pair of skeletons. Papyrus was holding his brother like a stuffed animal, clearly refusing to let go. Sans seemed to have no objections to his brother's affections, waiting quietly and seeming to enjoy the lack of a need to stand under his own power.

"Heya."

"I... do not understand. However..." Asgore did what he always tended to do when a scenario presented more questions than answers: get practical. "If this is true, we'll need to at least double our supplies and the size of our camp..." He looked up at Papyrus, remembering a discussion he'd had with Undyne before about her "trainee."

"Papyrus. You and your brother are both employed as sentries in Snowdin, correct?"

"Y-YES, your highness!" Papyrus snapped to a salute, continuing to hold his brother with his free arm.

"In that case, in the absence of Captain Undyne, I would like you to gather the Royal Guardsmen and form retrieval parties to go back into the mountain and find more supplies." He took a moment to place his trident in a hidden strap beneath his cloak. "I will personally lead another party to seek out any other monsters still in the underground and bring them to the surface."

"D-Does that mean-"

Asgore nodded. "Welcome to the Royal Guard, both of you."

"WOWIE!" Papyrus cried, clapping his hands to either side of his enraptured expression. Even without his brother's support, Sans didn't yield to gravity.

"Wow, a postmortem promotion... Does that mean we're forming a Corpse Corps?"

"SANS!"

"You just let her run off?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, but nobody told me that a side effect of having 'determination' was the ability to throw someone twenty feet into a snowbank!"

Undyne dragged her hand down her face, trying not to get riled up. They were on a mission right now, and she couldn't let herself get distracted.

"You know, I WANT to scream at him for being an idiot, but he IS me- No, you know what, I AM going to yell at him, let me take over!"

You're going to call YOURSELF an idiot?

"You have my soul planted in the middle of your chest and you're only NOW realizing how little self-esteem I have?"

How awesome I am must be balancing it out. Undyne wanted to smile at the humorous self-aggrandizing, but the sight of their goal made her more worried than anything. Too late, we're here...

The two of them came to a stop at the spot Penn had specified. It was just outside Toriel's house in the ruins. At first glance, it didn't seem to stand out at all, and Undyne would never have given it a second thought. It was only after standing and staring at the empty space that she started to notice something... off.

It started as a shimmer in the air, like a heat mirage, but the longer she stared at it, the more that a shape began to form. She leaned closer, watching a crystalline object beginning to form. Her eyes widened as a golden glow filled the floating object, finally becoming solid enough to be clearly seen.

"What... is that?"

"You can see it?" Penn asked, rubbing at his head. "I've really only got... an impression that something's there."

"You need determination to see them. Neither of us probably have enough on our own, but when you put our souls together, it seems like we cross the line."

Undyne nodded. "So... this is the thing Flowey used to lock Frisk in a time loop?"

"And to kill the rest of us over and over."

"Yeah."

Undyne had to admit, she wasn't entirely sure what was supposed to come next, but she felt a reassurance from the back of her mind. Her arm started to move on its own, reaching for the otherworldly object, and she quickly yanked it back again.

"HEY! Are you trying to get US locked up, instead?"

"Undyne, I... I think I know what I'm doing." Penn's voice in her mind sounded much less certain than she would have liked. "I remember this... I don't know where or when I learned it, but... it's there. I know what to do. Trust me."

Undyne hardly would have called it a compelling argument from anyone else, but there was something about the whole situation that was also resonating with her. It wasn't a memory, more like a forgotten word, something just on the tip of her tongue. Something they'd been taught, and then forgotten...

If we wind up in a time loop, I am going to be PISSED. She sighed and let go of her control enough for him to take over her arm.

She could only watch as her hand reached out, entering the shimmering field around the object. She could feel it sending tingles up her arm as her fingers gingerly wrapped around the glassy surface. Penn was being as careful as he could be, but she could tell that from the moment he'd first made contact, there was no way that he was going to release it. It started to hum and vibrate in place as their grip grew tighter, slowly growing more and more violent. It was as if it was trying to escape them, sending vibrations all the way up into her shoulder. She could feel that there was SOMETHING happening beyond the physical level, some kind of magical tinkering that she couldn't explain.

"Come on... COME ON.... Just LET... IT... GO!"

With that thought, Undyne's feet planted themselves and her entire body wrenched back, pulling with all of her strength. The save point nudged at first, then began to steadily moved out of place. She could feel the sensation of tearing, like a thousand strings snapping together as a tangle was ripped out from their center. With a feral roar, she finally yanked back her hand, taking the crystal along with it.

She could feel a ripple travel through the area, but... that seemed to be the only reaction the rest of the world had. A glance down made it clear that she'd changed something. The object in her hand was only glowing at a fraction of its former strength, and the otherworldly shimmer around it had vanished. It seemed... inert.

"Whoa..." Penn whispered. "Okay, I'm not sure what YOU saw, but from my perspective you just pulled that out of thin air..."

Undyne stared at the little object that had caused so much pain for the monsters of the underground. She wanted to crush it then and there, but something in her gut told her that doing so wouldn't help. It was an aberration, something that shouldn't have been able to exist in real life. After a few moments of thought, she sighed and glanced at the corporeal copy of her brain buddy.

"When this is all over, you're leaving, right? Back onto the road to, like, a ton of other worlds?" Penn nodded, still unable to take his eyes off of the crystal. After only a moment of reluctance, Undyne held it out to him. "Get this thing as far away from monsterkind as possible. If you find some remote universe to throw it in or a way to destroy it, then that's all the better."

He looked at the thing in her hand as if it was going to bite him. "Are you sure? I mean, in the wrong hands..."

"Around here, it's BEEN in the wrong hands!" Undyne snapped. "Look, normally I'd protect something like this myself, but I can't ignore just how much SUFFERING it's caused for the ones I'm supposed to protect!" She shoved it into his hands before he could object again. "I want this thing as FAR from the ones I care about as possible. It doesn't matter if it's a monster or a human who uses it, it's been nothing but trouble!"

The two of them both fell silent, staring at the accursed object. Undyne felt a wave of relief as he closed his hands around it, finally accepting that she was making him take it away.

"Fine... It won't cause trouble around here again."

"You know what you are asking me for, do you not?" Asgore spoke softly, but it was clear that his quiet voice was a disguise for his rage.

"I understand, your majesty, but... as we explained, Frisk IS just another victim."

"So you keep saying..." Asgore huffed, "but their crimes are not the kind that can simply be overlooked."

"And YOURS are?" Toriel huffed, making Asgore flinch. "You should count yourself fortunate that the children do not remember much of their encounters with you... Another mercy of this angel's miracle, I suppose."

Sunset, Undyne, Missy, Asgore, and Toriel had all gathered in the king's tent, which had become an unofficial meeting place for them over the past three days. Sunset had picked up on a substantial amount of tension between the current king and the former queen, and her motherly demeanor seemed to vanish entirely around him.

"And then there is the matter of the vigilante..." Toriel folded her arms. "That brute beat the child within an inch of their life."

Missy shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Sunset couldn't bring herself to react much. What they had seen of Frisk had been barbaric. It was only thanks to Toriel's healing magic that they were on their way towards a full recovery. Both Sunset and Missy had the same idea about who was responsible, and for the moment they weren't eager to present their theory. Judging by Undyne's refusal to make eye contact, she'd come to the same conclusion about what Penn's wrathful "partner" had been up to before she made it to the final battle.

As for the rest of the conversation, Sunset had really been able to nod through it without really thinking in the present. From what little she'd picked up, it was mostly plans for a much grander celebration, Missy's insistence that she not get so much credit, and something about a national holiday. Somewhere in the middle Missy had wound up being hugged in Toriel's arms again, where she remained for the rest of the meeting whether she liked it or not.

She almost didn't notice when the meeting came to an end. Everyone rose to their feet, and Missy gave her wings an insistent series of flaps to persuade Toriel to let her go. Asgore politely let his ex-wife leave first, but only received a cold shoulder for his troubles. He followed after her with a forlorn sigh, shaking his head.

Sunset continued sitting, waiting for Undyne and Missy to go on their own ways just as they always did, only to find them both standing and staring at her with their arms folded. If she hadn't finally settled into a friendship with Undyne, Sunset would have been worried at the mere sight of her: her body seemed to have been changing more every day. Alphys claimed that it was a side-effect of absorbing Penn's soul, that her body was adapting to her new power by growing and morphing. Her teeth had taken on a metallic sheen, her fins had become bioluminescent and begun glowing red in the dark, her forearms seemed to have sprouted new, short fins to match the growing webbing between her fingers, and her wiry frame had begun to fill in and look less lanky and more solid. Combined with her new height, her constantly-shifting eye color, and the thick, darker-colored scales growing on her skin, she was beginning to look like a predator that could rip apart her prey on sea OR land. Sunset pushed herself to her feet, holding her arms open to invite whatever confrontation was coming.

"What?"

Undyne and Missy glanced at each other before they shrugged in sync. "We were just wanting to see where you were gonna go."

"Yeah! You never leave the tent the same way we do, we were getting curious!" Undyne shrugged. "Where do you go?"

"Back to Sylvia." Sunset shrugged as she turned towards the back of the tent. "Missy knows that."

"Going through the front's faster, but you don't go that way." Undyne wasn't asking a question. It was a simple statement. Sunset knew the direction this conversation was heading.

"I'm taking the scenic route..." She began to hurry towards the back of the tent, only to find herself cut off by a violet shield.

"We know why you're going that way, Sunset."

"It's because he's waiting for you out there." Missy folded her arms. "He waits every day, every meeting, just so you know that he's there for you... and you're avoiding him!"

Sunset tried to step around the shield, but it moved to counter her. She stepped to the other side, and it moved again.

"If Penn's out there, then who's making this shield?" Sunset whispered.

"Sunset-"

Sunset spun on her heel, pointing to the magical construct. "WHO, UNDYNE? Because even if that is a Penn, it's not MY Penn! That is NOT the same soul that I climbed down into the mountain with! That Penn is-" she choked on her words for a second, "he's not there for me. He's here, right HERE!" She pointed at Undyne's chest before spinning back around.

She was too fast for the shield this time, dodging around it and making her escape out the back of the tent.

Her route back to Sylvia still hadn't been discovered, so she took it again. It was a quiet walk, passing through the newer half of the encampment. It was mostly the monsters from the Ruins, who were all quiet types, for the most part. Every now and then a Loox or a Froggit would try to get her attention, but it was easy enough to shrug them off when Missy wasn't with her to start a round-robin of praises.

When she had arrived, she reached into her pocket, grabbing the keys. The motion was familiar, but the feeling of the object in her hands was still wrong. She pressed the button to unlock the doors and stopped. As she did every day, Sunset struggled with a question... and for the first time, she changed her answer.

She pulled open the driver's side door and slipped into the seat.

It was surprisingly close to the steering wheel, still adjusted to the last person who had sat there. She didn't change it, she simply pushed and pumped on the pedals, trying to imagine what it would be like to drive.

"Greetings, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset took a deep breath as she watched Isis climb up onto the dashboard. Something about her even voice and calm demeanor made the little robot's presence a grounding force for her.

"Hey, Isis. How are we doing?"

"Once again, all diagnostics have come back green. Primary and secondary maintenance has been completed. For lack of a better phrase... The only way I could continue to 'repair' the Oldsmobile would be a wax and polish."

"Thanks... Sorry if I've been pushing you, lately." Sunset leaned her head against the headrest.

"I am under no stress. Would you like to know more about the space-time anomaly that was provided by Entity Two?"

Entity Two. That was what Isis had been calling "Penn" for the moment.

"Sure."

"It appears to function as an entanglement device, synchronizing a being's consciousness with local space-time while preserving the information the comprises said individual in a pocket universe. When that consciousness ceases, time-space reverts to the quantum state at which it was synchronized. That would explain why, outside the boundaries of the local universe, I could not maintain a steady signal. Local quantum states were constantly in flux."

"So... it really is a save point?"

"It functions nearly identically to the video game mechanic known by that name, yes. However, said entanglement appears to be irreversible from the inside."

"Could we... use it to go back? To before Penn died and got fused with Undyne?"

"Negative. The entanglement device has been disentangled."

"So it's useless."

"For that purpose, affirmative. It is not a time machine."

She took a long breath. "Great. Just great."

"I have an inquiry."

"Yes, Isis?"

"Why do you refuse to acknowledge the similarities between Penn and Entity Two?"

"Same reason you call him Entity Two. Because he's not Penn."

"I call him Entity Two because it is a direct order from my administrator not to duplicate Penn's credentials."

"Wait... the little dragon guy? The one I saw in...I saw in Penn's head?"

"Affirmative."

"Why?"

"I do not know."

"Can you ask him?"

"Would you like to place a call?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "You think he'd actually TALK to me? He didn't seem to like my biggest fan the last time we met."

"These are extenuating circumstances."

Sunset sighed. "You know what? At this point I'll try anything. Patch me through."

"Placing call..."

Isis's drone body hopped down to the center console, opening its mouth and projecting an image onto the windshield. It was black at first, with only the word "CALLING..." in pink lettering. When it finally changed, it was an image of some kind of workshop, with screens on every wall and a wide array of tables covered in mechanical pieces. The majority of the wide-angle lens, however, was taken up by a very angry-looking sliver dragon.

"THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD, SHIMMER!"

"Nice to see you, too..." Sunset muttered. There was a brief pause as his expression shifted to one of disbelief, then anger.

"Okay, Isis, cut the-"

"Wait, wait!" Sunset held up her hand. "Sorry, I'll cut the sass. I just... need to ask you something."

"I'm waiting."

"Why won't you let Isis copy Penn's credentials to... to Entity Two?"

"Do you realize how high up Penn's credentials go? I built Isis, but he's the one who MADE HER UP into existence! There's no way I'm going to let that kind of access just get doubled!"

"Wait... You know Penn wrote Isis? But you built her?" Sunset blinked for a moment as the pieces began to fall into place. "That's why I saw you in his head! You're another one of his characters!"

"Can I go get a julep while you figure out the obvious? I'm going to need it."

Sunset blinked before trying VERY hard to keep herself from snarking back at him. "So... You don't think he's Penn, either?"

"I think that coming back from the dead is something that should NEVER be trusted. Until I can verify he is who he says he is, he's staying Entity Two."

"How are you going to verify it? Can't you get into his head and check?"

"You know, the boundary between imagination and headspace is a lot more complicated than you think, Sunset. If there's one person who wouldn't put up with a fake Penn, it's his dueling partner. Once I get a hold of her, she'll give the green light on whether to trust him or cut him off."

"Okay... so we need to get her to come out again?" That question managed to finally break his angry expression into what she could only guess was one of delight.

"HA! Good luck with that. She'd sooner rip you in two than do anything YOU asked for. Leave this up to the people who actually KNOW what they're doing."

"Who even IS she?" Sunset leaned forward, trying to figure out how to get anything out of his reptilian expression. "Missy just calls her Big Sis, and she won't so much as look at me without trying to light my hair on fire through sheer willpower!"

"Oh, she doesn't need willpower. If I were to tell anything she doesn't want you to know, I'm pretty sure I'd spontaneously combust! And that's coming from a dragon! We're supposed to LIKE fire!"

She saw his tail move in the background to hit some unseen button, and the screen went black.

Sunset sighed and leaned back again, pressing her palms to her temples. "Well, that was helpful..."

"Indeed."

"Isis... Don't get me wrong, you're smart, but you REALLY need to work on your grasp of sarcasm."

"But your statement was correct. If there is a duel spirit partner associated with the legitimate Elijah Bakersfield, then she could ONLY be found with a legitimate Elijah Bakersfield."

Sunset pulled her hands away from her head as the realization settled in. "Isis... Isis, you beautiful machine, that's it!"

"So, what are you gonna do?"

Undyne shrugged. "Well, as cool a head-roommate as he is, we're probably gonna see if we can manage to split up again."

Penn nodded. "Makes sense. If Monster Reborn was able to do all..." he motioned to himself, "this, have you thought about De-Fusion?"

"Well, once I'd looked at a few of the cards, yeah, it occurred to me." Undyne rolled her eyes. "Until SOMEBODY pointed out that the 'fusion materials' were my dying body and his disembodied soul... Not great assets if we separate them that way."

Penn cringed. "Okay, fair enough... After that, though?"

Undyne couldn't hold back the grin. "I'm gonna go get myself a giant robot."

He seemed to ponder her response for a few seconds before nodding. "You know... that does NOT sound like a bad idea."

"I KNOW, right?" Undyne rubbed her hands together. "First, though, I'm gonna go get myself a cool sword! A katana, or maybe something like Sunset's got!"

The instant Undyne said Sunset's name, a change came over Penn. His shoulders slumped and his expression became dour. Undyne instantly regretted her words, reaching out and taking him by the shoulder.

"Hey, bud, she'll come around, I'm sure of it!"

"Come on, I heard every word back in the tent." He sighed. "Besides, she's got a point. If the Penn who came down here with her is there..." he pointed to her, then to himself. "Then... who am I?"

"Pfft. You're Penn!" Missy snorted from the corner, where she'd been hiding for the last few hours. "Just like if I summoned two Alucards, they'd both be Alucard!"

Undyne turned to the little angel, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be getting fitted for some royal robes?"

"Okay, first of all, bright purple is NOT my color..." Missy gestured to her darkly colored dress. "I don't DO bright colors. Second, I think if I let Toriel get a hold of me again, she's not gonna let go until I sign the adoption papers! Third, do you have ANY idea how awkward it is to go around pretending I brought a bunch of people back from the DEAD? Seriously, they've gone from treating me like an angel to treating me like a goddess!" She shivered violently at the thought. "I'd rather go through Christmas in July than have monsters look at me like that..."

"Wait, if you don't like bright colors, why is your hair pi-"

Before she could finish her question, Missy had jumped up and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, a wild look in her eyes indicating that she was nearing the end of her sanity. "Don't START WITH ME, Undyne!"

Asgore had been right about one thing: The monsters' celebration had been a party like no other. There was singing, bonfires, a feast of delicious food that seemed to melt in your mouth as fast as you could eat it, and even displays of magical power that rocked the forest like an otherworldly fireworks show.

Missy, of course, was pride and center of the event, seated among the members of the royal family as if she were one of them. She received the best of everything, including a set of white robes with the delta rune embossed in bright purple, a number of songs and costumes meant to pay tribute to her, and a pile of sweets, pastries, and treats taller than she was. Asriel and Chara would both snicker behind her back every time that she was asked to "bless" something, clearly enjoying watching someone unfamiliar with the royal treatment squirm under the pressure. Every time she would compliment something, it would be taken as a request for more, and all of the monsters nearby would practically fall over themselves to grant it. Toriel and Asgore both seemed to find it just as amusing as their children did, but would occasionally step in to distract their subjects long enough for Missy to slip away... usually ending with her colliding face-first with whatever event was to come next.

At one point, she'd made the mistake of summoning Ghostrick Jackfrost to help chill a tepid punch bowl, and from that moment there was no cease to the requests for more displays of her magic. Soon, the entire archetype had arrived, mixing and mingling with the monsters of the underground. Some stuck close to one another, clearly uncomfortable with the attention their relation to Missy garnered, but they otherwise seemed to embrace the party ("early Halloween" as Missy had called it) wholeheartedly.

Sunset was right beside her for most of the night, doing her best to stay out of the limelight. She was occasionally approached by monsters trying to thank her for delivering their "promised angel," and she would gladly deflect their praise with a mention of one of Missy's "magic tricks" or some made-up request the little angel hadn't made, which would send them scattering to fulfill it. She DID enjoy picking and choosing the best of the pastries and other treats once Missy's usually-bottomless hunger for sugar had reached its limit, however.

Undyne had managed to retrieve her spare set of armor from her house and had buffed it to a mirror-like polish, allowing the glowing purple heart across the breastplate to shimmer with magical light. It was easy to see that she was growing too big for it as more physical changes set in, but she seemed more than happy to suffer for the night if it helped raise spirits even higher. Her staunch refusal to leave her chair, however, was an attempt to hide the hole she'd needed to tear in the back of her armor for a thick, finned tail that had begun growing from the base of her spine. Whenever attention was turned to her, she would simply stand, bow, and then something, somewhere, would turn into an emergency as a spear accidentally appeared where it didn't belong, pulling said attention away long enough for her to return to her seat.

Penn had been the only one free enough of attention to slip into the crowd and vanish as the night went on, despite the numerous insistences from Undyne that he stay to be humously awarded his previously posthumous titles of "Honorary Guardsman" and "Guardian of the Realm." With her half-developed tail making it too embarrassing for her to hunt him down, Undyne had been forced to stand in his place as the titles were bestowed on the glowing purple soul in her chest, instead. Those close to the event would have been able to hear Undyne swearing vengeance under her breath.

The party continued on late into the night as everyone present lost all track of time. Some of the more meek or less hardy monsters disappeared at some point when the moon was overhead, but neither Sunset, Missy, nor Undyne got any chance to sleep before they spotted the sun beginning to peek over the horizon again to signal the morining.

Even when the sun had risen, the monsters seemed to almost take shifts at keeping the party going as those who had drifted off to sleep returned, and those who had partied through the night finally crashed into their beds and sleeping bags.

Sunset had managed to make it well into the morning before finally drifting away, and Missy and Undyne were both grateful for their ability to forego sleep entirely. There had been rumors that Penn had been discovered sleeping in the car after his vanishing act, but no one had been willing to verify it or bring him back except Papyrus... who returned empty-handed, muttering something about "lazy bones."

Eventually, though, the party did come to an end. The last of the bonfires burned itself out, the final tray of food was nibbled into oblivion, and even those who didn't necessarily NEED sleep had resorted to "resting their eyes" for a reprieve. Despite their attempts to help, the guests of honor had been turned away when they tried to help with the monumental cleanup efforts.

All in all, the monsters had been true to their word: it had been a festival unlike any other.

"You're LEAVING?"

Undyne nodded. "Yeah! I mean, the monsters need to start looking for a new home, and I wanna go see the ocean for myself!"

"B-but... what about separating you and Penn?" Sunset stammered.

"Well, Alphys and Isis are working together on it, but it's gonna take time." Undyne shrugged. "I can't just sit around on my butt while we wait!" She turned slightly to look at her new tail. "Literally... Still getting used to THIS thing."

"I think it's neat!" Missy chimed in. "You're looking pretty sharp, Ripjaws!"

Sunset didn't feel any reason to smile, even while she watched Undyne give Missy a pat on the head.

"But... What are we supposed to do?"

Undyne looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Same thing you always do. Get the team back together, get your heading, and get on the road. Penn's getting antsy, I think I saw him re-organizing his cards for the fifth time yesterday!"

"But we can't go without- without..." Sunset trailed off.

Undyne placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a tired smile. "Sunset, the job here is done. Not only are monsters free, but you brought back everyone we'd lost AND broke the cycle of resets. It's time for you to go."

"What about-"

"Penn is THERE. He's right by your side." Undyne placed her hands on her hips. "Same as he's by mine, now. He's just watching twice the number of backs!"

Sunset wanted to grumble, but Undyne had made it clear that she wasn't going to hear any more arguments that "Penn" wasn't Penn. Even Isis had gotten approval to reinstate his credentials with this new copy or clone or whatever he was. Sunset had spent the last couple days trying to spy on him and see if there were any signs of his "partner" coming out again, but so far there hadn't been anything the indicated she was there, which meant that she wasn't convinced.

"So... we're just supposed to move on?"

"Hey, you're not gonna find the rest of your friends sitting around here!" Undyne chuckled. Sunset knew that she'd made her problem with it pretty clear, which meant her objections were being purposefully ignored. "Besides, between you and me, I think Toriel might be planning on actually trying to adopt Missy!"

Missy shuddered, floating a little closer to Sunset. "I don't wanna eat any more pie..."

That set Undyne laughing, but Sunset didn't think it was funny enough to overcome her disappointment. All this time, she'd been stalling, hoping that they'd find a way to separate the REAL Penn from Undyne so they could all leave together, but...

It seemed like that wasn't going to happen.

Sunset stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Undyne, pressing her ear against her chest just over Penn's soul.

"Thank you... for everything."

"You talking to me or Penn?" Undyne patted her comfortingly on the head while wrapping her other arm around to return the hug. Sunset couldn't help feeling the moment tinged by disappointment as she realized that Penn's all-comforting hugs hadn't transferred over with his soul, something she'd been counting on to make the farewell less bitter.

"Both?" Sunset tried to hide her tears behind a soft laugh and a mirthless joke.

"Buck up, Sunset. You've still got a Penn who's all yours waiting for you back where he belongs!" Undyne tousled her hair again. "Alphys and Isis are good buddies, which means EVERYBODY's phones are getting upgrades! Don't be afraid to call, okay?"

Sunset nodded, forcing herself to smile through the tears. "Make sure to send us some photos from the ocean... and take good care of my pal, okay?"

Undyne's smile shifted to a more forlorn look. "I promise, we'll be just fine. Penn says he's more worried about YOU two..."

Once they'd said their farewell to Undyne, it was a long walk back to their original camp. Other monsters stopped them a few times to talk to her or chat happily with Missy, but the majority of the refugee-camp-turned-emigration was too caught up in packing to notice them.

"Penn" was sitting in the driver's seat of the car, eyes shut for a mid-day nap after taking care of their own packing. It was a scene so peaceful, so natural, that for a moment it felt right. For a moment, Sunset forgot that this wasn't the same person who had always been in that seat.

That slip, even as momentary as it was, was enough to scare her. It frightened her that, even for a single moment, she had forgotten.

That was what made up her mind. She needed to take direct action, now.

Sunset walked up to the driver's side door, yanking it open and startling "Penn" awake. She leaned down, looking him straight in the eyes.

"So... you REALLY are Penn? MY Penn?"

"Oh boy, here we go again..." Missy whispered.

"Oh, hey, Sunset, nice to see you..." he grumbled, rubbing at his eyes. Sunset kept staring at him with her best glare of suspicion. It didn't seem to have much effect on him while he was still half-asleep.

"Well?"

"Yes, YES I am... How many times do I have to tell you?" he groaned before stretching as best he could in the chair. "I'm starting to wonder if I'm the one in the time loop..."

Sunset leaned back, folding her arms. "Then you should be able to answer this question... Who is your partner?"

Everything stopped. It was quiet enough that they could have heard a pin drop. Sunset decided that he seemed to be struggling with the question. "When you were DEAD, your duel spirit partner didn't show up like Missy, she took over your dead body like some kind of demonic possession! She beat Frisk almost to death and then stood up to attacks from Asriel's god form like it was NOTHING!" She leaned down again, looking him directly in the eyes. He was wide awake now, eyeing her with a mix of shock and fear, like he'd been caught by her. "Who. Is. She? The REAL Penn would know!"

"Sunset... I don't think this is a good idea..." Missy whispered.

"If you don't even know who she is, how would me telling you prove anything? I could lie and you wouldn't even know!"

"Missy would tell me if you were lying, and then I'd know you're not REALLY Penn."

"And you KNOW my partner doesn't like you. She'd want me not to say anything just to spite you, Sunset."

"And I would never be able to trust you again."

His eyes narrowed. It was a snarl, like a threatened animal trying to scare her off. He knew she had him cornered. "So to earn your trust, I have to betray hers?"

"All I want is a name! A card with a face I could think of instead of some demon eye glaring at me through that disgusting hole that was burned in your chest!"

The two of them continued glaring at each other as Missy flew between them, trying to push Sunset back a step. "Hey, Sunset, cool off!"

"That, or I could reach into your head and get some answers, myself-"

"Try me." "Penn" growled, pushing up out of his seat and stepping out of the car. "I trust you, Sunset, but if my partner wants to keep you out of her life, then I won't hesitate to protect her, too."

"O-Okay, we've all been really stressed, lately, we just need to STEP BACK..." Missy continued trying to push them apart as she was squished between the two of them.

"So you won't do it? The one thing that only Penn could know, you're not going to tell me?"

"No. After everything I've done, I shouldn't have to prove myself to you, Sunset."

"Then there's only one way to resolve this..." Sunset reached down to her belt, grabbing the black satchel she'd been keeping there. Undyne had given it up days ago, but she hadn't been willing to risk giving it back to an imposter. Now, though, she unclasped it and shoved it into his hands, forcing him to take it. She could feel the cards shifting around inside, the same cards that seemed to disappear every time she looked inside, just to tease her. "If you won't tell me, maybe I can find out who your partner is in a duel."

"Cut... it... OUT!" Missy shrieked, finally mustering up enough strength to shove the two of them apart. She gave her wings several frantic flaps, forcing them both to back away to avoid being slapped by a faceful of feathers. With the two of them separated, Missy spun around in place, pointing an accusatory finger at each of them. "CUT IT OUT, BOTH OF YOU!"

"YOU need to stop it!" She shouted, pointing at Sunset with an uncharacteristically angry glare. "Seriously! This isn't LIKE you, Sunset! I get it, you went through the wringer, and then just when you FINALLY made peace with Penn's death, you had to deal with this identity crisis! That would make anybody suspicious! But that's no excuse to treat your FRIEND like this!" She put her hand over her own heart. "If you don't think you can trust him OR trust yourself OR trust Undyne, then trust your partner when I tell you he's the real deal!" With that, she turned back to "Penn." "And seriously? You're being all kinds of vague right now, and it's NOT helping! You don't think Big Sis might be trying just a little to sabotage your friendship with Sunset by making you keep her identity a secret? We BOTH know she's not above doing something like that!"

She glanced back and forth between the two of them.

"APOLOGIZE! NOW!"

The two of them stared at one another for several seconds, neither showing signs of remorse. "Penn" was the one to finally crack first, giving a tired sigh.

"Fine. Sunset, I'm sorry for giving you more reason to worry and be suspicious..." He reached into the satchel, pulling out the deck of black-sleeved cards. "THIS is proof, the fact I'm even holding these means my partner trusts me. YOU can't get a hold of these cards, can you?"

Sunset was tempted to grab the cards while they were right in front of her and rifle through them before he could stop her, but she had a feeling they'd melt to dust in her hands like Monster Reborn just to spite her.

"I'm... sorry that I'm having trouble trusting you... and for getting in your face about it." She mumbled as she walked to the other side of the car and took her normal place in the passenger-side seat.

Missy continued hovering outside for a few seconds before popping open the back door and settling into the back seat. "Those were some of the worst apologies I've ever heard, but I'll take what I can get."

They all sat there awkwardly for several seconds before "Penn" looked at Sunset expectantly. "So... are you holding onto my keys along with my cards, or what?"

"Right..." Sunset mumbled, digging into her pocket to pull out the familiar keyring. She didn't like giving him the keys while she still wasn't convinced that he was who he claimed to be, but... she didn't have a choice at this point. She was outvoted. Denying it at this point would just be obstinate for the sake of being obstinate.

Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk!

Sylvia didn't seem to want to respond to him, either, as the engine struggled more than usual to turn over. Sunset smiled and lovingly gripped the handle of the door. At least the car seemed to agree with her that something was wrong. "Penn" rubbed at the steering wheel.

"If it's the darn fuel pump again, I'm going to lose it..."

Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-VRROOOOOM!

The motor finally seemed to catch and whir to life, much to everyone's relief. In a few minutes, they were once again on the road, leaving the cursed mountain behind far behind them.

Makeshift Creations

Monday

"Okay... okay. No biggie... Let's do it. Right where we left off..." Penn muttered to himself. He clicked the specific file on his laptop and began cracking his knuckles one by one as he waited for it to open. A few seconds later, the word document was sitting before him, exactly as he'd left it weeks before, with the cursor blinking at the end of an unfinished paragraph.

He hadn't touched any of his writing projects since he'd been "brought back" by Monster Reborn. With how Sunset kept treating him like he wasn't himself, combined with the lingering echoes of his own existential crisis, it had felt wrong to change anything "he" had written, like he was taking over someone else's work. His writing was something that he had always considered one of his defining traits, and now that he was face-to-face with needing to define who exactly that was he was worried.

If he couldn't write, or take back control of his own projects at the same quality, then it would be the last nail in the coffin of his precariously-hanging sense of self.

He reached out to the keyboard, ready to start typing, only to feel a ripple of fear and pull his hands back again. He tried again, then a third time, punctuating the last attempt with a groan and pressing both palms against his forehead.

"Okay, maybe if I go back over the last chapter..." he muttered, scrolling back up several pages.

"Hey, where's my coffee maker?" Talia asked, poking her head back through the kitchen door. She didn't seem to notice that she had LITERALLY stuck her head through the door, forgetting to open it.

Right. This was the one about the college student being haunted by a coffee-addicted ghost.

"I told you, I don't OWN a coffee maker."

"Okay, but where is MINE?" She only had to raise her voice slightly to make him flinch and send unpleasant chills crawling up and down his spine.

"It probably burned down... in the fire that it started. Fifteen years ago."

Penn couldn't help feeling a painful pang. For once, he identified less with the one having to deal with an invisible roommate and more with the one finding out that they had been dead for some time. On the bright side, he could go back over the scene where Talia learned about her own death and see if it lined up with his own experience.

Unsurprisingly, reading the fictional girl's descent into an existential crisis didn't do much to help him avoid his own. Still, he managed to find himself becoming lost in the narrative, reading back up to the point that he had left off with in a matter of minutes.

Still, when he found himself staring at that blinking cursor again, he couldn't bring himself to think of what ought to come next.

He tried to think of his tried and true formula: characters, event, reaction. He had his characters, he knew them as well as he knew himself (better, probably, given the current situation). He knew the event he was trying to lead up to: a haunted shopping trip to the local coffee shop. He needed to know how the characters would react to their surroundings and to said event. That was where the story would come to life.

But somehow, getting from point A to point B felt like trying to cross a huge pit with nothing underneath him. There was nothing to build on, nothing to fall back on. He was trying to walk on air.

He didn't want to believe it. It wasn't THAT unlikely, given the fact he had been under stress and was out of practice, but he still didn't want to admit it. Admitting it would make it real, and-

"What's the matter? Writer's block?" Reason asked, half-teasing him.

Aaaaaaand she'd said the cursed words.

He reached up and shut the screen of the laptop with a decisive click.

"I need to clear my head..." he muttered.

Tuesday

"GIVE ME HALLOWEEN OR GIVE ME DEATH!" Missy screamed at the top of her lungs, fighting with all of her might to escape "Penn's" grip. Sunset was sure that it was only thanks to his size and weight that he was able to eventually drag her out the sliding doors, often stopping as Missy's levitation abilities nearly overpowered him.

Sunset sighed as she handed the credit card Isis had given her to the cashier. "I'm sorry, she's... really into Halloween..."

The clerk simply chuckled as she looked over the assortment of candy in their cart. "You break it, you buy it, huh? It's alright, she's not the only one who gets mad about corporate sending us that stuff." She looked in the direction of the rest of the store, giving a polite nod to the official-looking individual watching the transaction. "I mean, the manager's definitely banning you guys, but at least you spiced up MY day!"

Sunset forced herself to smile through the rest of the checkout process in spite of her embarrassment, and she was soon pushing the cart out through the front doors. It didn't take long for her to catch up to her companions in the parking lot. Missy seemed to have accepted her lot in life, huffing indignantly as she was carried towards the car.

"Well, I hope everybody likes candy canes..." Sunset muttered, looking at the Christmas candy threatening to spill over the sides of the cart. Missy hissed like a cat, holding her fingers in an inverted cross in the direction of the holiday-themed candy.

"Well, we can always send them to Noir, he loves ANYTHING minty." "Penn" chuckled to himself before gripping Missy a little tighter. "The ONE time we try going into a city to get supplies like NORMAL people, and you just had to have a meltdown, didn't you?"

"It should be ILLEGAL to sell anything related to Christmas in October!" Missy huffed, sticking her nose haughtily into the air.

"Penn" tapped his chin as a smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. "You know, I used to have a roommate who would drink eggnog year-round if he could get it! By Christmas, he was 75 percent eggnog instead of water! We used to joke about needing to stage an intervention and how futile it would be!"

His statement made both Missy and Sunset recoil slightly. Shaking off the question of just how much eggnog a single person could drink (even Pinkie had her limits with the thick beverage), Sunset reached into the cart and picked up one of the few non-smashed candies and tossed it into her mouth. "Still, at least the marshmallow snowmen are nice!"

Wednesday

"A force?" Sunset felt her brow scrunch up in confusion. "That's... specific."

"Penn" shook his head. "Not A force, THE Force. Proper noun, capital F."

The two of them were sitting on opposite sides of the campfire. Sunset had, with no small amount of coaxing, been prompted to recall her side of events in the underground after Penn had died. When she'd begun describing her descent into pure rage, he'd become more and more concerned, eventually stopping her when she'd mentioned her weapon leaping from Frisk's hand and into her own.

"Do you remember when Coulson told you about the Jedi?" He pointed to her saber. "The guys who use lightsabers for weapons?"

"Yeah. He also mentioned a set of bad guys who use only red ones..." Sunset muttered, taking the handle in her hand and giving it a light toss. "Wasn't too happy to hear that."

"Well, that's true..." He rubbed at his neck for a moment. "But their weapons aren't the only things that make them unique. They can also access a..." He leaned back, tapping at his forehead a few times as he tried to jog his memory, "It's been described as an energy field, one created by all living beings. It transcends space, time, and most often manifests as telekinesis... Or some limited foresight abilities, I guess."

"Foresight?" Sunset stopped tossing her saber up and down to give him a disbelieving look.

"Usually just the running gag of saying 'I have a bad feeling about this' every time they walk into a dangerous situation, but there ARE more advanced users who can get visions of the future using it." He smirked as the disbelief shifted into surprise. "Honestly, precognitive reflex is the only way to block a laser blast and reflect it back at your opponent. I've had my suspicions since the Dalek warship, but I wasn't certain until now."

"So... what? You think I can use this 'Force' because I have a lightsaber?"

He shook his head. "Swap it around. I think, HOWEVER that thing wound up in a hardware store in West Texas, it found its way to you because you're Force-sensitive..."

Sunset pondered the situation for a few more seconds. As much as she hated to admit it, a surprising number of events were making a lot more sense. "Okay... then let's test it!" She pushed herself to her feet and handed him the saber. She didn't wait before taking several steps away from the fire, putting a healthy distance between the two of them. "Ready?"

He held the weapon at arm's length, clearly keeping his grip loose. "Ready!"

Sunset held out her hand, reaching for the device.

Okay... Just like before... That is MINE. It belongs to ME. It belongs WITH me... She tried to "call out" to it in her mind, beckoning it to come back to her the way she had in the underground... but nothing happened.

She gritted her teeth, focusing harder on it. "Come on..." she whispered. "To me..."

"Penn" glanced at her, then at the handle, giving it a small shake. "I don't think it's working."

"Yeah, I know..." Sunset muttered, straining herself harder. She'd moved from trying to just call it to focusing on the same mental pushes that she used to levitate things with Equestrian magic.

"You look like you're gonna bust a blood vessel-"

Sunset finally chose to give up, releasing the breath she'd been holding. "Ughhh." Sunset groaned as she walked back, snatching the item from his hand and returning to her seat. "Maybe it only worked in the Undertale universe, like how I haven't been able to use aura since we left Remnant?"

"That... or maybe you're not in the right mindset." He folded his hands under his chin. "When you did it before, what were you thinking?"

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as she thought back to that awful moment. "I... I saw Frisk holding it... and I KNEW there was no way you would have let them get it... or get past YOU... alive. I didn't even have to ask, they just had this awful smile on their face." She felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as that same rage tickled at the edges of her soul. "I was... angry. They had done something so evil, and they had the audacity to SMILE about it, to take pleasure in the suffering of others!" She felt a pang of shame as she moved on to what had come next in her mind. "I... I wanted them to pay. I wanted to hurt them and take from them... Take and take and take until I was satisfied. Until I felt like I'd evened the score."

Several seconds of silence passed, save for the crackling of the fire.

"That might explain it..." he finally muttered. "Sunset, you said that Undyne and Penn- the OTHER Penn- wouldn't LET you kill Frisk, right?"

"I'm glad they didn't..." Sunset looked down, ashamed that the steps had even needed to be taken to stop her from such an act.

"I think it wasn't to protect Frisk. It was to protect you." He interlaced his fingers as he continued to stare into the flames. "Just like there are Jedi and Sith, there are two sides to the Force, light and dark. Light is empowered by selflessness, compassion, and, well, probably everything you'd associate with the Elements of Harmony. The Dark Side, however..." he shook his head and tutted softly. "A connection to the dark side grows stronger with hatred, pain, giving in to your emotions and letting them rule you. Most often, the final step on a Dark Side user's training is to kill in anger. To strike down another living being out of hatred and wrath is considered by most to be the point of no return into the dark."

Sunset's eyes widened as she was struck by the realization of just how close she had come to toppling over that edge. "So... if they hadn't stopped me... I would have been like that forever?"

He shrugged again. "Nothing's absolute when it comes to the Force. Sith have returned to good, good have fallen into evil, but... it's rare. Your anger was frighteningly self-sustaining, from what Undyne told me."

"Great. So not only do I have an evil-colored lightsaber, I can only use the EVIL force." Sunset set her chin in her hands. "This gets better and better..."

"Sunset, the Dark Side is EASY to use, and you weren't exactly in a good place." He leaned forward. "I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit for getting back OUT of that dark mindset. If you want to connect with the light side, you're going to need training." He gave her a gentle smile. "I'm sure you'll be just fine. It's easy to slip into the dark going solely by instinct and emotion, but the light side takes a lot of training and focus."

"What kind of training?"

He finally broke contact between his hands, leaning back away from the fire. "Hard to say, but I'll start looking into it. We didn't see a lot of the training in the movies, but there's a lot of extended universe content I could dredge through... I'll let you know when I find a good place to start." He shot her a playful smirk. "I can tell you this much: you're gonna have to be a lot less skeptical about my ability to lead guided meditation."

Sunset rolled her eyes, but the joke was enough to bring a small smile to her face. "Whatever... Nerd."

He folded his arms over his chest, giving her a smug wink. "You know it."

Thursday

"Okay, what if I try working on a different story?" he whispered. He had taken the laptop into the driver's seat, this time. It was the spot he was most comfortable, but the computer only barely fit between him and the steering wheel in an extremely awkward manner. Still, if it could help un-stick his writer's block, he was willing to cram himself into the trunk with it. The small discomfort was nothing compared to the buildup of creative energy in his gut. His fingers had started drumming on the steering wheel as the muscle memory of typing for hours on end begged to be used again.

Once again, he scrolled his way down to the place the "previous" Penn had left off. This time, he'd actually bothered to finish the chapter. That was something easier to pick up, a semi-blank slate.

It was a sunny day in the kingdom of Luriel. It had been just over a year since the previous royal house had fallen to the invaders, and the whispers around town seemed to confirm that the last of the resistance had been stamped out. A delighted shriek drew Syria's attention back to the cave entrance. She watched as the human child staggered her way out into the sun. She was barely able to walk, a shameful display, really. By this age, most hatchlings would be almost fully-grown and ready to contribute to the eyrie.

He paused. Syria was a gruff character, the head huntress of a colony of small dragons masquerading as a larger one for local legends. She wasn't the kind who would take the time to appreciate a sunny day. To her, the weather shouldn't matter unless it changes the wind.

He highlighted the entire fresh section and hit the backspace key. You know, maybe Bennet Foddy was right about starting over being cathartic... He decided to shift tactics. No storybook opening with a weather report, just straight into what he did best: character writing.

The human had a remarkable talent for hitting the exact tone to pierce eardrums, and screaming seemed to be the only way she knew how to communicate her needs. The only place Syria could get any peace these days was up on the surface. That was why, when she saw the human child beginning to stagger their way out of the cave entrance, she was nothing but irritated. Apparently, the sense that nothing was sacred was ingrained into humans from birth. Several other members of the eyrie were flanking her, somehow enchanted to see her walking on two legs. It was as if they didn't realize this meant she would be ten times as difficult to keep track of.

He paused and leaned back, realizing that there was something he had yet to check. "Isis... what age do children learn to walk?"

"Anywhere from nine to eighteen months, depending on the individual."

"Okay, so her walking by the one-year anniversary of being abandoned works..." He whispered, feeling a slight amount of relief. Something still felt off about this attempt, however. A child's first steps ought to be SOMEWHAT celebrated...

"Maybe I'm starting with the wrong character..." he muttered to himself, once again deleting his fresh work. He pressed his palm to his forehead. "But who isn't going to be too busy fawning over her first steps to give a good narration? One hundred and twenty-four dragons make up the eyrie, I've got to have at least ONE more who isn't going to be freaking out like a proud parent!"

He racked his brain again and again, still trying to get the creative juices flowing. He wasn't desperate enough to enter the "get SOMETHING written down, even if it's lousy" mindset, yet, but he was rapidly coming up on it.

Friday

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah, this isn't a problem I'm used to dealing with..." "Penn" muttered.

"So... I guess setting up the tent isn't really gonna work tonight?" Missy asked.

All three of them stared out at the campground that Isis had programmed into their GPS... which was currently under assault by heavy sheets of rain. "Penn" had been forced to turn the windshield wipers up to their maximum speed hours ago, and it didn't seem like the weather was going to let up any time soon.

"On the bright side, we stocked up on sandwich supplies, so lack of a campfire isn't going to stop us from eating!"

Sunset took a deep breath. "Gotta admit, I'd kinda taken it for granted how little it rains in this part of the US. What are our options?"

"Well, we could keep driving until we find a hotel we could stay at for the night!" Missy suggested.

"Negative. I have been monitoring traffic reports, it appears that several roads in the area have been completely washed out. It would be highly inadvisable to drive in the dark in these conditions. The rainfall has exceeded all meteorological predictions. My apologies, it appears my choice of campsite has stranded us for the night."

Sunset gave the drone an affectionate pat. "Don't worry, Isis. I guess even supercomputers can't predict the weather with perfect accuracy, right?"

"Not yet."

"Well... at least we're going to have the sound of the rain to lull us to sleep!" "Penn" shifted the car into park and reached down to the lever of his seat to lower himself into a reclining position.

"Wait... you're suggesting we sleep in the car?" Missy asked.

"Unless you feel like keeping a field spell going all night..." he trailed off, giving her a skeptical look. Missy held her hands up in a show of surrender, moving to avoid him as he leaned back. "How bad do you think it is, anyway? I sleep in here every night!"

"He's not human," Sunset muttered.

"You know... at this point, I'm inclined to agree..." Missy grumbled from her spot sprawled across the back seat.

It was half past 3 in the morning and neither of them had been able to fall asleep. The rain was STILL going strong, and Penn was sound asleep in the driver's seat.

"I am surprised you two are struggling so. The sound of rain is almost universally considered soothing and easy to fall asleep to. You show no such problems in sleeping while Penn is driving for multiple hours."

"Well, there's a difference between sleeping in a moving car and sleeping in a parked one..." Sunset mumbled.

"Such as minor tactile input from irregularities in the driving surface?"

"Yeah, that would be one of them..." Sunset yawned and turned over for the twentieth time. "Just... it's different, okay?"

"Hm. This is a fascinating behavioral discrepancy. It will warrant more study in the future."

Saturday

"Geez... how far is it to the ocean?" Undyne asked, taking a perch in one tree and trying to see if she could spot the shoreline.

"Five hundred and eighty-five miles."

Undyne couldn't even fathom that kind of distance. She groaned and leaned back, letting herself spin around the top of the tree. "Are you KIDDING me?"

"Well, don't look at me. You were the one who took one look at my memories of the class trip to Corpus and decided that's where we were going! There were closer places to go if you just wanted the ocean!"

"Yeah, but you said there was a BATTLESHIP in Corpus! I wanna see a human battleship face-to-face!"

"You DO know the U.S.S. Lexington is NOT gonna be a giant spaceship with a wave-motion cannon mounted to the front, right?

"Pfft, yeah! Of course not!" Undyne scoffed, even as her expectations dropped several orders of magnitude. She finally righted herself again, making certain she was still pointed towards the correct spot on the horizon. "Well, I guess we'd better get going, huh?"

Just as she was about to push off to start running again, Undyne felt a chill run up her spine. She paused, re-examining her surroundings. It was the feeling of a hateful gaze lingering on her back, and she wasn't sure where it had come from.

"It's the middle of the night, practically in the middle of nowhere, why would anyone be out here-"

She saw the flash of red light before she heard the searing whistle of the projectile. She crossed her arms in front of her body, barely summoning up a shield in time to protect herself. The projectile exploded in a huge ball of fire that rocked her world and sent her flying backwards.

"Wait, that sound... I KNOW that sound-"

"PENN! Fight now, think later!" Undyne ordered as she tumbled head-over-heels through the air.

"Sorry!"

If there was one thing that had come more easily to them as time went on, it was communication. Even if their conscious minds still didn't always line up, their unconscious ones had gotten more and more in sync. She didn't need a signal when he made more shields appear under her feet, letting her push off enough to right herself before she hit the ground. Once her mind was able to tell up from down again, she wasted no time in summoning a spear into her hand, and another one of Penn's shields materialized on her opposite arm unbidden.

"WHO'S THERE?" She barked, readying her throwing arm.

This time, when the next attack came, she was ready. The attempt to stab her in the back didn't make it much farther than a pinprick before her reflexes spun her in place, allowing it to pass by her with little more than a scratch. She moved to grab at the attacker, but there was only empty space.

"Huh?"

She felt a leg sweep at her heels, knocking her feet out from underneath her. Undyne growled as she dug her spear into the ground, catching herself. With little more than a thought to her partner, she had a shield to push off of, allowing her to spin around her weapon like a top. Confident that her attacker had been pushed back in every direction, she landed back on her feet and yanked the spearhead out of the ground. She looked in every direction, but she still couldn't see any sign of who had been attacking her.

"Come out and FIGHT me!" she shouted into the darkness. There were too many trees in this area, plenty of which had low-hanging branches. It meant that she had to watch above her as well as in every direction around her.

"We're not on a homefield advantage. They could be hiding anywhere."

Undyne was about to agree with him when fresh movement caught her eye: someone coming out from behind a tree. She kept her guard raised until the figure stepped into a beam of moonlight.

"Sunset?"

Sunset nodded, giving them a small wave. In the back of Undyne's mind, she could hear alarm bells ringing as their friend drew closer. She didn't need to feel the scratch that had been left across her back to tell that she hadn't been using the lightsaber. Instead, her hands seemed to be clasped behind her back.

"What are you DOING here?"

Sunset didn't answer, continuing to walk closer.

"No no no no.... This isn't right! This feels familiar."

It's CREEPY is what it is! Why isn't she talking-

As Sunset passed through another beam of moonlight, her smile seemed to grow more sinister, and Undyne caught a flicker in the color of her eyes.

"UNDYNE, MOVE!"

Fear that wasn't her own seized at her heart, and without her permission, her legs sprung her upwards. She felt the scorching heat coming off of the bullet that passed just between her legs, whizzing forward and exploding against Sunset, who shattered like a stained glass window. As the trees around them began to smolder and threaten to catch alight, she could make out the shapes of two figures below them.

For once, Undyne didn't feel any need to yell at Penn for taking control without saying anything.

"What was-"

"FIGHT NOW, EXPLAIN LATER!" Penn's voice screamed in her mind. Her entire body was filled with fear that wasn't her own, and she could feel herself forced to make the choice of which instinct to follow: fight or flight.

She'd never been one for flight.

By the time gravity had taken hold again, she was ready.

"Don't trust your eyes..." Penn's voice faded away as she felt him recede to the back of her mind. As he did, the fear also decreased, allowing her to think clearly.

She called on her magic, focusing it into her palm before slamming it into the ground upon landing. The ground around her erupted with circles of blue light, which materialized into a field of upwards-facing spears in every direction. When she heard the sound of another projectile, she added a trio of orbiting shields around her which blocked the blast entirely.

She gave her opponents a turn to retaliate as she focused on her next spell. A series of ricochet spears would be plenty to take out the trees for a wide area and leave them nowhere to hide. She hated to destroy them so wantonly, but at this rate they were going to burst into flames, anyway. Better to cut down some trees than to risk a forest fire.

She almost didn't see the tiny figure darting in and out of the spaces between her field of spears. By the time she realized what was happening, they were already on top of her. She lunged with the spear in her hand, but they simply stepped up and onto the blade, jumping up and over the revolving shields to plant a boot directly under Undyne's chin. With her concentration broken, the field of spears faded away and her projectile spell shattered, sending uncontrolled bolts of yellow energy flying in every direction.

For a little thing, she packs a punch!

Undyne could see a second kick coming, driving the heel of her other boot towards her head, and she did the only thing she could think of: she opened her mouth and welcomed it.

She bit down on the girl's ankle like a bear trap. Rather than the ripping of flesh and the taste of blood, however, she found herself chowing down on a thin, shimmering pink energy around her body, one that barely allowed her to slip free. The two of them grappled back and forth for a moment. This girl was some kind of acrobat, climbing and swinging across Undyne's body as fast as she could try to shake her off. She seemed to be trying to get Undyne off-balance, which might have worked a few weeks ago, but her new and improved form was a lot steadier than she had once been. The girl changed tactics, grabbing hold of Undyne's hair and swinging by her ponytail to deliver a series of vicious kicks across her head and torso. She polished off the attack by using Undyne's chest as a springboard and her hair as an anchor, propelling herself up and over Undyne's head as she finally released her grip. Undyne spun around to pursue her, but found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

This time, there was nothing she could do to react in time. She took the firey blast point-blank, and the world became a dark blur as she was flung through the air. She numbly counted three- or perhaps four- impacts as she was flung through multiple tree trunks, reducing them to splinters.

"Ow..." she groaned once she'd come to a stop. (Or, at least, she THOUGHT she'd come to a stop. Her inner ear had yet to be convinced.) She'd taken worse hits, but this one had been squarely between her eyes, and a fire spell of some kind, to boot.

"I'd say it's nothing personal, kid..." a cocky voice declared.

"Undyne, you've got to get up!"

"Y-yeah, just gimmie a sec to catch my breath, Penn..." she groaned. Her stomach was lurching up into her throat and the world refused to stop spinning.

"But considering who you're talking to right now, it's pretty personal."

As the world finally came to a stop, she got her first good look at her attackers. One was a tall man in a black bowler cap and white coat. He was holding a cane that seemed to double as his weapon. The other was a short girl with a thin frame, dressed in shades of pink, white, and brown to match her mismatched hair and eyes.

"I don't know who the hell you are... but you messed with the wrong monster..." she growled.

The two assailants glanced at one another. A moment later, a delicate hand placed itself on Undyne's shoulder from behind. She hissed as she felt the sheer malice radiating off of it. It was enough to make even the light brush of the fingers feel like a branding iron being driven into her skin.

"Oh, perhaps you don't, but I think there's someone in there who DOES..." a voice crooned, tranquil in a way that contrasted completely with the killing intent and hatred Undyne could feel in her soul. "Did you REALLY think that death in another world would be any escape from ME, Penn?"

Okay, so that answered the question of WHY they were attacking her. Penn, now would be a great time for a cunning comeback plan!

"Did you think I wouldn't see what you did? Now, no matter what universe you run away to, no matter where in the multiverse you hide..." the voice floated down to beside her ear. Undyne's vision blurred as tears filled her eyes, and her entire body was trembling. "I'll find Sunset Shimmer. I'll find her little angel, too... and to top it all off, I'm going to get the pleasure of killing you twice."

Undyne had no idea who these people were, but Penn's fear was threatening to completely dominate her. Every thought her partner was capable of having seemed to have frozen, which meant she was on her own.

There was only one way she might be able to save both their lives, but she was going to have to hit fast and hit HARD.

Luckily, that was her specialty.

She had one more spell up her sleeve, and she unleashed it at the absolute maximum strength she could muster. A wave of green magic washed over everyone present, locking all of their souls in place.

Undyne hated to run, but she was outnumbered and the only person who could make sense of this situation was scared senseless. There was no one to protect here except for the two of them. She staggered to her feet, leaning on one of her spears to help her keep her balance. As her blood started pumping again, she could feel her strength quickly returning. She glanced at the man in the bowler cap.

"You got a lucky shot, but that's only gonna carry you so far..." she growled. "That won't work next time."

"Neither will THIS."

Undyne's blood turned to ice. There was no way that any of them could be capable of moving right now... But when she turned around, she saw that the third assailant seemed almost completely unaffected by the green magic. A tall, gaunt, pale human woman in a black dress stepped out of the shadows, her shadowed eyes glowing red. She seemed to be shrugging off Undyne's magic as easily as one would brush away an old cobweb.

For a split second, Undyne pondered whether or not it was a good idea to run and turn her back to this woman. Penn's voice tore through her brain at a deafening pitch, drowning out any and all thoughts of fighting.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, UNDYNE!"

And so she did. Undyne pushed off with as much force as she could, leaping into a dead sprint in the opposite direction of the woman...

But nothing happened.

Undyne realized that, just as she'd trapped the other two humans in a spell to halt their movement, the woman had used a spell of her own to suspend Undyne in the air, leaving her with no way to run.

Undyne felt herself being lifted up until she was above the trees, dread mounting in her gut as she floated higher and higher. When the force suddenly changed directions, she was slammed down again at dizzying speed. The force of her impact with the ground felt like being hit by an asteroid, and sent a shockwave that rippled through the leaves of every tree nearby. Before she could even try to get air back into her lungs, she was violently jerked upwards again, flying twice as high before slamming down again. It felt like gravity had been multiplied a hundred times over, and she left a crater with a diameter twice as wide as her own body.

As she was lifted up a third time, Undyne had an idea. A crazy idea, something that Penn had only brought up as a joke, but everything about this was absurd. Maybe crazy can solve crazy...

This time, when she reached the apex, high enough for her to see for miles in every direction, she pulled together just enough strength to create a small shield. It wasn't enough to stop her descent or protect her, but it was just solid enough for her to push off of with her foot. This time, when she plunged downwards, Undyne had a tight spin. She pointed herself headfirst at the ground, reached her hands forward, and prayed that all of Mettaton's jokes at her expense before she set out on her own were about to pay off.

"Th-these changes to your physiology..." Alphys stuttered. "They're finally beginning to slow down, and I think I've come to an understanding about them!" She walked up to the whiteboard in her lab, pointing to an illustration of what looked like an armored fish. "I-In the past, I always theorized that Undyne's closest evolutionary relative was the dunkleosteus, but now, as your body has adapted to housing a huge surge in magical power..." She moved her pointer to a picture of a large, much more familiar creature: a great white shark. "I-I believe that she's shifted to a different evolutionary branch, one capable of harnessing more power!"

"ALPHYS, DARLING, ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT UNDYNE IS TRANSITIONING FROM A DUNKLE-WHATSIT TO A SHARK? SHE'S MORE DEFENSIVELY POTENT THAN EVER!" Mettaton gestured to Undyne, and a display appeared on his screen of her stats. "HER DEFENSE IS TWICE HER ATTACK POWER!"

"Y-yes, I have a theory about that, too!" Alphys stuttered. "I think she's adapting to have the best of both worlds! Just like how she has both lungs AND gills! She's keeping the natural sturdiness and toughness of her original ancestry, but gaining the traits of her new lineage that would benefit her the most in speed and strength!"

"Sounds pretty cool to me!" Undyne grinned.

"WAIT A MOMENT..." Mettaton rubbed the bottom of his boxy upper body as if it were a chin. "A SHARK THAT SPENDS MORE TIME OUT OF THE WATER THAN IN IT? WHO LIVES ABOVE THE WATER'S SURFACE AND SPENT HER WHOLE LIFE IN UNDERGROUND TUNNELS?"

"DOES THAT MAKE YOU A LANDSHARK, DARLING?"

Undyne narrowed her eyes in suspicion, even as she heard Penn bursting into laughter in the back of her head. "Land shark?"

Alphys and Mettaton glanced at each other, each one snickering. "Well, it IS Saturday night..."

"I THINK A MARATHOOON IS IN ORDER!"

When the dust cleared from the third impact, Salem felt a twinge of anger. It appeared that, at the moment of impact, the creature had managed to slip out of her grip. The only sign of her escape was a hole dug into the center of the crater.

The spell cast over Roman and Neopolitan seemed to break now that she was gone, and they were both observing the hastily-dug escape with skeptical looks.

"So... she can swim through dirt?" Torchwick folded his arms. "That's... unexpected."

"It won't help them..." She took a moment to reach out into the shadows, calling on a select few of the creatures she'd brought with her. The centipede-like Grimm known as Centinels rushed out and swarmed into the hole, swiftly burrowing through the ground in exactly the way they'd been made to do.

"Uhm, I don't mean to doubt you, your highness," Roman still said the word with a hint of sarcasm. He didn't doubt her power, and he HAD proven to be obedient to her, but it was out of fear. It would take time for her to groom these two into proper servants. "But those don't look like they can take out the Penn-fish-lady on their own."

"They are merely clearing the path. We have both learned the hard way not to underestimate the trap-laying skills of that abomination's second soul." She tightened her hand into a fist. On her signal, a massive creature slithered out of the woods: a King Taijitu. It plunged into the widened hole with an angry hiss, taking off in pursuit of her prey. "There will be nowhere they can run now that my pets have their scent." She smiled as she watched more of her dark minions pour into the tunnel, eager now that the hunt was coming to a close.

"And now that the one separated from the pack is as good as in our hands... we can focus on bringing back all the rest. The ones who took everything from us."

Neopolitan used her illusions to summon up an image of Sunset Shimmer and the little angel that had flanked her at Amity Colosseum. She quietly strode up to the simulated victims before viciously stabbing through each of them multiple times with the blade at the end of her umbrella, shattering the illusion.

Roman grinned a wicked grin, the kind only someone on the cusp of well-deserved revenge could muster as he lit a fresh cigar. "You know, it's hard to find someone who truly understands that the only score that rivals cold hard cash is some well-aged revenge."

And Salem simply smiled. She was in no hurry, but to one who had spent eons waiting to act out her spite on the creations of the gods... any kind of satisfaction with a timetable of less than a century was almost titillating.

Soon, the ones responsible for her loss in Remnant would be groveling at her feet. Perhaps chasing them down like this was petty, but when one had infinite time and a glassy crater where their plans for the future used to be, a little pettiness was a well-deserved treat. No matter how far they ran and how long she chased them, Salem would have her satisfaction before she began to rebuild. There was no way that she could found a solid kingdom on a base of unanswered humiliation.

Sunset Shimmer, Elijah Bakersfield, and the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief would be buried in the foundation of her new beginnings, and she would make it unbreakable.

Sunday

Penn was about to punch his laptop.

He had rifled through every file in his works-in-progress folder, dredged the forums of r/writingprompts, and even tried writing self-indulgent fanfiction, but nothing seemed to flow. Every word was like pulling a tooth, taking ages to extract from his brain. Each sentence was agonizing, and always felt like garbage when he reread it. He hadn't even made it so far as an entire paragraph.

He'd been trying and trying all week, but no inspiration seemed to come.

Just as he had every night that week, he set the laptop aside and stepped out of the car. Without a word, he began walking away from the campsite and into the cool, dark night. He'd tried changing his location, his project, even went back to the tried and true paper-and-pen to try and start the flow of words running again, but nothing helped.

He was well and truly stumped, and that didn't bode well for his sense of identity. What kind of "Penn" couldn't write?

"Maybe the ink's just run dry?" Reason mused. "You've been riding your entire identity on your GLORIOUS RETURN to your W.I.P.s. Of course creativity's going to shrivel up under that kind of pressure!"

He rolled his eyes as he wandered further away from the camp, but she made a good point. The only pressure that had ever forced creativity out of him had been the last-minute panic of an upcoming deadline, and that was rarely his best work.

So what do I do? Just forget about the existential crisis that this is supposed to be helping me resolve? Pretend I'm NOT looking for some way to get Sunset to stop looking at me like I'm a complete stranger?

"What, is the fact I'm with YOU not proof enough? Since when does her opinion matter to you so much, anyway?"

Well, YOU'RE partially to blame for her not trusting me, genius. Maybe if you hadn't gone full 'Exorcist' and possessed my dead body, she'd be more willing to trust this face! He sighed and shook his head, enjoying the feeling of the crisp autumn wind on his face. Besides... if I can't write, then am I really Penn? The nickname COMES from my writing! His walk began to pick up in pace as anxiety began to settle in. What am I supposed to do if I can't write? I've got the urge, the desire, but if I can't carry it out then what am I supposed to do with all this creative energy? If I have the desire but not the ability, maybe it really IS just the echo of someone else's soul in this body-

"HEY, WATCH IT!"

"Huh?" Penn drew up short, coming to a complete stop. His subconscious had managed to warn him just in time before he'd walked straight into what looked like a vertical pool of black liquid. He quickly took a few steps back, only to find himself looking more closely at it.

"Okay... what are the odds that I would, while just randomly walking wherever my feet take me while I have an existential crisis, walk RIGHT up to a mysterious interdimensional portal?" he muttered out loud.

"Do you want the answer according to statistics or pataphysics? Because numbers say REALLY LOW, but the laws of narrative causality say REALLY HIGH."

He stepped forward again, trying to examine the black substance more closely. It almost had the appearance of ferrofluid, but it seemed... thicker. It was gently rippling like a pond that a stone had been thrown into, but every now and then he thought he could catch a glimpse of light on the other side.

"Hey... I've got an idea. Maybe this is the multiverse trying to help you break your writer's block!"

Penn blinked, trying to understand. "What, like... I was supposed to walk right up to this?"

"Yeah! Sunset and Missy are asleep, you need to sort yourself out, and a portal shows up literally right in your path! This has got to be fate or something, right?"

"So... what should I do?"

"We could take a peek inside... Not for long, but it's not like you can sleep anyway, right? Go in, pick SOMETHING to be your inspiration, come back, and get over this writer's block before bedtime!"

Penn felt a hefty amount of trepidation, but he had to admit that he liked the idea of the universe presenting him with a solution to his problems. That, and... there was something about it that just felt... fitting. He didn't know why, but it just seemed to have a genial aura around it. He reached out, running his finger through the black substance. It was surprisingly warm, warmer than the air around it, and he felt a sense of calm wash over him as he touched it, like the sensation of dipping one foot in a hot tub on a chilly night: he wanted to be immersed, to have that gentle darkness all around him so he could finally think in peace.

"Let's go! In and out, 20-minute adventure!" Reason whispered.

"Sunset Shimmer..."

"Hmmph..."

"Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset cracked her eyes open and was greeted by the soft glow of Isis's processor. The drone had made its way into the tent.

"Wha- What is it?" she mumbled, closing her eyes again. If she was lucky, she'd be able to go right back to sleep after this.

"You requested that I document and inform you of any abnormal activity from Penn following his return from the dead."

"Y-yeah, you can tell me in the morning..."

"This seemed urgent."

Sunset rolled her eyes, now almost fully awake. "Fine... what is it?"

"Penn has entered a dimensional portal alone."

"Oh..." Sunset closed her eyes again. A moment later, the pieces connected in her head, and she bolted back upright. "WHAT?"

"Huhwha-" Missy sat up, rubbing at her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Penn left the camp without warning and entered a dimensional portal alone. One which was not present when we arrived."

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other, not even needing to speak to communicate their intentions. They both rose to their feet, dressed and ready to go in less than a minute. Isis hopped up onto Sunset's shoulder, swiftly guiding them down the same path "Penn" had taken to sneak out while they were sleeping. Soon, they found themselves standing in front of a foul-looking black portal.

"Why would he go here?" Missy whispered. "This thing gives me the chills, and that's not just the wind!"

"And he went alone." Sunset folded her arms. "So, this guy claiming to be Penn-"

"SUNSET!" Missy shouted, slapping her on the shoulder.

"Well, does this SEEM like 'Penn behavior' to you?" Sunset gestured to the dark pool. "Walking into evil portals alone in the middle of the night? Does that seem like something PENN would do?"

Missy looked as if she was going to argue, but she eventually just settled into stubbornly folding her arms over her chest. "We don't KNOW it's an evil portal."

Sunset reached up and unclasped the necklace that held her geode. She held it by the string, letting it swing freely as she held it towards the portal. The geode reacted, pushing away from the black substance like a pair of repelling magnets. After a few seconds, it was hanging almost parallel to the ground, trying to escape back to the safety of her neck. Missy stared wide-eyed at the potent reaction of the magic.

"Okay... that DOES seem like a bad sign."

Sunset re-fastened the geode around her neck, giving the portal a determined look. "I'm getting to the bottom of this, once and for all!" She turned back to look at the drone. "Isis, if 'Penn' comes back through this portal without me, I want you to make sure that he doesn't leave until we get some answers out of him!"

"Affirmative."

The drone flew up, positioning itself in the branches of a nearby tree to keep watch. Sunset turned to Missy, who still seemed upset that she seemed to be losing the argument of whether or not "Penn" was Penn.

"You coming, partner?"

Missy glanced back and forth between Sunset and the portal several times before sighing in defeat. She floated over to Sunset, wrapping her arms around the larger girl's neck in a firm grip. "Fine, but this is IT! After this, the debate is settled! Either Penn is Penn or he's not! No more arguing!"

Sunset nodded. "Agreed." She took a deep breath and held it as she forcefully walked into the black portal.

One way or the other, they were getting answers tonight.

Build Our Machine

Even before her eyes had adjusted, the first thing that Sunset noticed on the other side of the portal was the sound of liquid dripping. The second was an acrid stench in the air that felt like getting punched in the nose with every breath. It felt like an industrial smell, some kind of chemical she doubted was healthy for her lungs. The area on the other side was poorly lit, but she soon adjusted well enough to see where she had entered.

At first glance, it just seemed to be a narrow hallway, one barely held together by wooden boards, but Sunset quickly recognized several things about it that didn't make sense. First of all, everything was monochrome. There was no color anywhere other than the same bland tone of sepia. Second, every object seemed to have a thick black outline, as though she'd stepped straight into a drawing. She took a moment to kneel down and brush her fingertips across the boards between her feet. The heavy black outline made it look as though there were some gap between them, but the surface was perfectly smooth and uniform. Even the boards that had been diagonally nailed down, apparently to patch a hole or hold some gap together, were completely flat and flush with the rest of the surface. The only disruption to the floor came in the form of a large puddle of black liquid being fed by a heavy leak from the ceiling. It looked like the same substance that the portal had been made from, and it didn't take Sunset long to figure out that it was the source of the smell.

If it's leaking from above, then there are either pipes leaking above us, or we're underwa- well, under-whatever-this-stuff-is. Sunset took a moment to hope that it was the former.

The other thing that drew her attention was a set of posters on the walls. They were all drawn in a style harkening back to old animation of decades past, with simply-drawn characters wearing large white gloves.

Bendy in... The Dancing Demon!

Bendy in... Sheep Songs! With Boris the Wolf!

Bendy in... Little Devil Darlin'!

It seemed innocent enough at first glance, but Sunset narrowed her eyes at all the mentions of a demon.

"Ugh, what's that SMELL?" Missy groaned, still clinging onto her from behind. "It STINKS!"

Sunset walked over to the puddle, being careful not to get in the way of the falling globules as she took a sniff. After confirming her suspicions that the liquid was the source, she dipped the tip of her finger into the puddle. She examined it more closely, but there didn't seem to be anything special about it. The only thing she noticed was a dark stain on her skin after she wiped the substance on the floor.

"I... I think it's ink."

"Okay, but why does it smell so BAD?"

Sunset felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.

"Inks that decline the use of particulate pigments are made with dyes and evaporative solvents such as glycol ethers, acetates, or diacetone alcohol."

"Guess you never really wind up around enough of it at once to really get much of a smell, huh?" Sunset muttered, moving on to examine the edges of the nearest poster. Just like the floorboards, it was perfectly flush with the wall, as though it were one solid piece of material. "This is really weird."

"You're telling me!" Missy finally released her grip on Sunset's neck before floating to another one of the posters. "Rubber hose animation gives me the heebie jeebies!"

Sunset paused. "Wait a minute. You literally love anything related to Halloween, live in a haunted house, command a small army of monsters, and Felix the Cat creeps you out?"

Missy put her hands on her hips in a show of indignation. "Some of those old cartoons could get dark, even by MY standards! Plus, why do they ALWAYS wear gloves? What are they trying to hide?" She held up her hands and gave her fingers a wriggle to demonstrate her point. "As one of the more cartoony duel spirits, it just crosses into the uncanny valley for me!"

Before Sunset could continue the discussion, Missy had floated away down the hall. Sunset followed, and the two of them found themselves in a larger area. In one corner of the room, she could see a projector running by itself, illuminating an empty white rectangle onto the wall in front of it. On another wall, three oversized film reels were turning behind a plaque that read "JOEY DREW STUDIOS" in large letters. Whatever purpose the building had served in the past had been long-abandoned, judging by the state of disrepair. More spare planks had been used to try and patch holes in the walls, and an array of ink, paper, and mechanical pieces seemed to be scattered haphazardly around the area alongside spare promotional materials for their cartoons.

"Huh, reminds me of Penn's place..." Missy muttered. "Except they actually managed to get covers on the outlets here!"

Sunset nodded. "I mean, you're not wrong..."

"So, what's the plan? Are we just gonna track down Penn, pin him to the wall, and demand answers out of him?" Missy floated slowly in a circle around Sunset, reclining on the air. "Because that kind of approach really hasn't worked for you in the past!"

Sunset pondered the question for a moment. In reality, she really hadn't come into this with much more of a plan than that, but Missy had a point. If there was one thing "Penn" was good at, it was getting defensive. If he felt pressured, he'd shut up tighter than a clam.

"Okay, we'll take a more subtle approach. Once we find him, we'll try to figure out what he's doing here without him seeing us."

"Ah, so we're going to SPY on him..." Missy muttered. "Because that's a thing friends do."

"More productive than trying to force answers out of him or your big sister."

Missy's expression shifted to a grimace as she bit down on her tongue for a second. "Okay... good point. Doesn't mean I like it, though..."

Sunset folded her arms. "Do you want to leave? I'll do this on my own if I have to."

Missy sighed and shook her head. "No. Somehow, I get the feeling that would be a bad idea." She glanced around them before shivering. "This place has got a bad mojo to it..."

Sunset smiled, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. "Good. I'll go this way, you go the other. If one of us finds him, call the other one with Isis and don't let him out of your sight."

Missy nodded, finally smiling again. "The old Fred Jones method, huh? Let's split up, gang!"

Well, among other things, Sunset had figured out that her first suspicion had been correct: this was some kind of animation studio. It was hardly an excuse for the excessive amounts of ink dripping everywhere, but at the least it made for a decent explanation of other items strewn about and numerous illustrator's desks all around.

For the moment, she'd made her way into the animator's break room. There were several round tables with chairs and assorted means to entertaining oneself, including a pile of books and a dartboard. It was what was in the back area, however, that frightened her.

There was a large switch on the back wall labeled "Ink Machine Main Power," accompanied by six pedestals to her left and right. Each one had a unique object set on top, and the entire room had an energy to it that made Sunset's skin crawl. It was eerily reminiscent to some ritualistic spells she had seen in her days as Celestia's protégé. As she stepped up to one of the pedestals, the unsettling feeling grew stronger, coming to a climax as she nearly touched it. Deep in her mind, she knew the feeling, it was one of Princess Celestia's earliest lessons, and one of the ones that had been driven the furthest into her brain.

"This is dark magic, Sunset. It is the most dangerous and volatile of magics. You must never treat it lightly, and NEVER try to use it for yourself. One day, I'll teach you how to fight and contain it, but until then I want you to promise me that if you sense it, you'll run and tell me where it is..."

It was like a mother's warning to her child about stranger danger but amped up to the tenth degree, and as a young filly, Sunset had vehemently agreed. Fat lot of good it did me later in life, though... she thought as she pulled her hand back away from the pedestal.

"So, a hand-drawn world touting cartoon demons and bristling with dark magic..." she muttered to herself. "Yeah, totally not suspicious for 'Penn' to come here by himself."

Rather than the items on the pedestals, Sunset found herself draw to what looked like an old-style cassette player. She stared at it for a moment before tapping the play button and setting the tape inside unwinding.

You know, I'm gettin' awful sick of Mr. Drew's demands! The only difference between him and a slave driver is that he'll crack the whip while spouting crummy motivational speeches about dreaming! I've got no clue how Henry Stein managed to get these things out so fast, but even with THREE of us we can't match the pace! You can't get good art when you wring it out of people like this!

If there was ever a creative type in Joey Drew, I'm sure the businessman killed it stone dead a long time ago!

The player gave a loud click as it reached the end of the recording. Sunset sat and pondered for a moment.

"Well, looks like whoever Joey Drew was, he didn't wind up as successful as he would have liked..." she muttered as she left the room.

"AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Just as she left the unsettling area, a piercing cry ripped through the air. Fear gripped at Sunset's heart as she took off at a dead sprint in the direction of the scream.

"MISSY?"

"SUNSET!" Missy tore around a corner in the hall at breakneck speed, slamming straight into Sunset's chest and nearly knocking her over backwards. Once Missy was safely in her arms, Sunset grabbed the lightsaber off of her belt and held it defensively across the both of them.

"What happened? What's going on?"

"It- It- I- I saw-" Missy stammered, eventually just settling on pointing back in the direction she had come from. Sunset pulled her a little tighter against her chest and readied her blade, steeling herself to be ready for anything as she turned the corner.

One of these days she was going to realize that "ready for anything" was a myth.

The room was like a sight out of a nightmare. Ink and paper were scattered everywhere, moreso than anywhere else she'd seen, yet, but it hardly even registered compared to what was in the center of the room.

It was Boris the Wolf. From the posters. In real life... or something close to it. He still had all of the proportions and traits of a cartoon, even going so far as having a pair of Xs where his eyes ought to be to indicate his death. He was strapped to an operating table by four heavy leather straps, a situation that brought back an unfair share of frightening memories of Sunset's own near-vivisection in Aperture Science. Unfortunately, it looked as if Boris hadn't been as lucky as she had. His chest had been ripped open and hollowed out. His ribs seemed to have been split down the center and ripped out of place, poking out at awkward angles to hold the incision open. There was no blood from the dissection, only larger and more violent splashes of ink scattered around the room, making Sunset momentarily envision how much more gruesome it would be if she were to see the scene "in color."

The entire table sat in the center of a mechanical assembly that could rotate it from level to vertical, and he'd been propped up to almost look as if he was standing. Ritualistic-looking candles sat on either side of the massacred corpse, along with several chairs that looked to have been positioned for others to watch and an ancient-looking toolbox. On the wall, three words had been scrawled in thick black letters:

WHO'S
LAUGHING
NOW?

"What on Earth?" Sunset whispered, unsure if she could believe her own eyes. She reached into her pocket with her non-lightsaber-holding hand and took her phone, snapping a quick photo of the area for Isis.

"I don't think so..." Missy replied, peeking for only a moment before burying her face deeper in Sunset's shoulder.

"Suddenly, I'm having second thoughts about staying here much longer... Did you finish checking the other rooms?" Sunset muttered. Missy only nodded, keeping her face turned away from the scene. "Well, I had one more room to check, then we'll head back to camp, okay?"

"Let's just not split up any more, okay?" Missy whispered.

"Deal." Sunset chuckled to herself as she gave the angel a pat on the back and shifted her up on top of her shoulders. "Watch your head!" she added as they passed back through the door to the room. She was trying to play off her fears for Missy's sake, but this place was looking more and more like her geode had been right: they didn't belong here.

As they walked back to the other end of the studio, Sunset couldn't help feeling much more worried about what kind of "ink" had been used to scrawl the other assorted graffiti on the walls.

THE CREATOR
LIED TO US

HE WILL SET
US FREE

DREAMS COME TRUE

She stepped lightly as they walked down the final hallway, trying not to draw any more attention to themselves than they already had. She couldn't shake the chilling feeling that they were cornering themselves as they walked further and further along. She tried to comfort herself by pointing out all the signs that this studio was long-abandoned, but one question kept her on edge:

If this studio was so empty, then who was paying to keep the lights on?

It was little comfort when the narrow hall opened up into a gigantic room. It was mostly empty and several stories tall, but Sunset could see an array of heavy chains leading into a pitch-black hole in the floor. She and Missy were standing on a balcony overlooking the rest of the room, with a set of simplistic controls: one button with a lighting bolt emblem.

Missy leaned down to whisper in her ear. "It's a button..."

"Yes, it is." Sunset cocked one eyebrow as she glanced up at the kid sitting on her shoulders.

"A big, glowing button..."

"Well, I wouldn't call it a BIG button..." Sunset mused.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That Penn's not here, so it's time to go?" Sunset asked, turning a little further to look at Missy. She jumped slightly as she realized that Missy was gone. Swiveling back to the button, Sunset could see Missy standing there, her finger already on the button.

"MISSY!"

"I couldn't help it!" Missy sheepishly shrugged, still not removing her finger from the button. "You put a big, glowing button in front of me, I've gotta press it!"

Whatever they'd started, it quickly became clear it was too late to stop it. They could only watch as the chains began to rattle and shift as titanic engines revved to life. The scent of diesel joined the stench of the ink as something massive began to emerge from the pit. For a moment, Sunset grabbed for her saber, but the titan bound to said chains didn't seem as if it could attack them.

It was a machine, a huge one that took up most of the center of the room. The main body was box-shaped, but hoses, pipes, and gears littered the surface in a way that gave it a distinct silhouette. The front had some kind of massive nozzle plastered to the front, a pipe large enough for her to be fairly certain she could stand inside without hitting her head. More pipes and hoses trailed from the bottom, all descending back into the dark depths of whatever lurked underneath the studio. A slow trickle of ink poured out the front of the nozzle, splashing in a small reservoir before spilling out into the hole. Once again, Sunset could feel the tingle of dark magic in the air, stronger than ever.

"Wow..." Missy whispered.

"What... what do you think it is?" Sunset felt curiosity beginning to overcome the fear of the dark magical aura.

"Well, that's the ink machine, silly!" Missy cheered. "Any studio worth their salt has an ink machine!"

"Well, what's an ink machine supposed to do?" Missy asked.

"Pfft, she doesn't know what an ink machine does!" Missy scoffed.

Wait a minute.

"YIPES!" Sunset and Missy both grabbed onto each other as they spun around to find the source of the third voice.

It was... Missy, but not. For one thing, she was completely in black and white, without a single hint of color outside the same sepia of the rest of the world. She was wearing a much simpler version of Missy's dress that only had a single layer of fabric, her thorn-vine stockings had been replaced with a pair of black leggings, and her wings actually seemed to be putting in the work to keep her airborne, albeit at an unrealistically slow rate of flapping. Most disturbingly, she was wearing a small pair of white gloves, a pair of small devilish horns poked out of her hair just under her halo, and her eyes had been replaced with a pair of pie-cut black imprints on her face. The not-quite-Missy grinned at them and giggled at their reactions.

"Geez, you'd think you've never heard of TOON monsters, before!" she giggled.

"H-HEY!" Missy pointed an accusatory finger at the other angel. "Who are YOU supposed to be?"

The twisted doppelganger tapped her chin in thought for a few seconds. "Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana-Fana Bobesca the third and a half?"

Sunset, for her part, was still beyond words. This was... bizarre.

Missy hopped out of Sunset's arms and into the air, poking her finger into the other angel's chest. "Cut the cute act, Dottie, that's MY schtick!"

"And this is MY stick!" the other Missy declared, reaching into her hat and retrieving an impossibly large wooden mallet. Before anyone could react, she had bopped Missy firmly on the head and knocked her straight to the ground. With a hoot of laughter, she sprinted back into the hallway leading to the rest of the studio.

"Missy! Are you okay?" Sunset dropped to one knee, trying to look Missy over more closely. She seemed to be fine, aside from the small cartoon birds and stars flying circles around her head. She shook her head for a second, causing the apparitions to vanish. Sunset could hear the hissing of a tea kettle as her face turned bright red with rage.

"Oh, it is ON!" Missy declared, snatching her hat off of her head and reaching inside. With a hand full of cards, she hopped back into the air, legs spinning fast enough to be a blur. "GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE MISCHIEF MISPRINT!"

Without warning, she took off down the hallway again, leaving Sunset alone in the ink machine room. The only precaution she took was to ignite her saber as she ran down the hall.

Somehow, in the few seconds it took for her to make it back to the room where they'd entered, the lounge studio had turned into a battlefield. Several jagged holes had been blown in the wooden floor, and she could count at least five Missy-shaped holes in the walls. For the moment, what she could only guess were the two angels were locked in desperate combat... inside a large white dust cloud.

"You can't win, faker!" Missy shouted. "If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

There was a brief interlude as the fake Missy stepped out of the cloud, bending over to catch her breath as the cloud continued to rage behind her. After catching her breath, she ran back inside.

"FAKER? You're comparing yourself to me? HA! You're not even GOOD ENOUGH to be my fake!" Missy replied indignantly. The real Missy took her turn to leave the cloud, reaching into her hat and grabbing a small paper fan which she used to cool herself off for several seconds before leaping back into the fray elbow-first.

After a few seconds, both of them stepped out at the same time. The cartoon Missy pulled a tall glass of what appeared to be lemonade from her hat and took a long sip on the straw. The real Missy was handed a towel by Alucard, using it to dab her forehead before hanging it around her neck like a boxer. Behind them, the fight continued as the dust cloud refused to leave. After a moment, the two angels realized that neither of them were still there and took a second to point at one another.

"That angel's an imposter!"

"No, THAT angel's an imposter!"

Sunset groaned, running her hand down her face. "Missy, I KNOW which one's you... You're the only one in color."

Missy looked down at herself, as if surprised at her appearance. "Oh... yeah."

The fake Missy took the distraction as an opportunity, running up to the wall and pulling an oversized paintbrush from her hat. Using the brush, she painted what appeared to be a tunnel on the wall and ran inside. "MEEP MEEP!"

Alucard seemed to do nothing to stop her, simply pointing over Missy's shoulder before disappearing. Missy gasped with indignation before flying straight for the painting. "You're not getting away THAT- OOF!" Unlike her cartoon counterpart, Missy ran directly into the wall because the tunnel painting was simply a painting. She took only a second to examine herself for injury before her anger seemed to mount higher. When it had reached its peak, her hat flew off of her head with a burst of steam and the sound of a train whistle.

"NOBODY MAKES A WILE E. COYOTE OUTTA ME!" She declared as her hat landed back on her head. As absurd as the whole situation was, Sunset wondered just how much of an insult Missy had suffered in her reality-bending frame of mind.

"Missy, wait!"

Missy didn't heed Sunset, running headfirst into and through the wall with the help of Ghostrick Go-Round. Sunset ran onward, following close behind before the trap could wear off. The dizzying effect only had her in its grip for a moment as the whole world seemed to spin, and she found herself deposited back in the room she'd explored earlier with the pedestals. Missy had frozen in place, and a second later Sunset realized.

The fake angel was sitting on the ink machine's power lever. She kicked her legs wistfully and grinned at the two of them with uniform, evenly spaced teeth.

"You put a big, ominous lever in front of me, and I've GOTTA pull it!" she declared, hopping off and grabbing onto the handle. With a heavy clunk, her weight pulled the lever down into the "On" position.

Penn paused for a moment in his reading, using his thumb to keep his place as he looked up at the ceiling. A low noise had started to rumble from above, making the entire building hum with life.

"Huh... I wonder if somebody turned on the heater, or something?" he muttered to himself. After a small shrug, he opened the book back up onto his lap. He rarely liked memoirs or biographies, but The Illusion of Living had proven a riveting read, so far. Some of the philosophies inside had done more to ease his worries than everything else he'd tried in the last week combined.

"Joey Drew, you're a genius... completely mad, but a genius nonetheless."

"So, you think you know what you're going to say to Sunset, yet?"

He paused for a second, running through the conversations he'd imagined in his head for what felt like the hundredth time. Still, he couldn't imagine Sunset Shimmer ever backing down from her stance that he wasn't the "real" Penn.

"Maybe a few more pages..."

Sunset and Missy both grabbed on to each other as the entire studio began to shake with the force of the ink machine turning on. The fake Missy simply giggled to herself before removing her hat, setting it on the floor, and diving inside like it was some kind of miniature swimming pool. A second later, her hand reappeared, pulling the hat inside out and causing it to wink out of existence.

Before they could question what was going on, the entire power assembly began to groan and bulge. Bolts began to pop out of place as paneling cracked, allowing pressurized ink to spray violently out into the room. In a matter of seconds, they were standing ankle-deep in the black liquid.

"We've gotta get outta here!" Missy screamed, trying to make herself heard over the machinery and spraying. Sunset felt no need to argue the matter, running for the door out of the break room at full speed. In the rest of the studio, the problem was even worse: ink was EVERYWHERE. It was pouring from the ceiling and seeping from the walls. She ignored the stains on her clothing as she sloshed through the black goo. Wherever 'Penn' was, it looked like he was going to be on his own for now.

Provided this isn't what he wanted, to begin with!

She forced the myriad of questions out of her mind, focusing all of her efforts on getting back to the portal without making a wrong turn in the mazelike studio.

Thankfully, her memory served her well, and they were soon back in the lobby area where they'd come in.

"Almost there!" she shouted.

"S-Sunset!" Missy pointed at the hallway leading towards the ink machine. Sunset's heart nearly stopped when she saw the creature limping into the room.

It was... well, it almost looked like Bendy, the "Dancing Demon" from the posters, but if someone had put him into a taffy puller and stretched him out. His body was twisted and emaciated, and black ink dripped down from the top of his crescent-shaped head to cover his eyes, leaving only a devilish-looking grin drawn on to the bottom of his face. He was limping because his limbs were distended and twisted, underdeveloped in places.

Sunset shuddered as the same chilling aura ripped across her skin. The sheer force with which this Bendy-thing radiated dark magic felt like standing in front of a pressure washer. There was no doubt that THIS was the source of the dark magic she'd been feeling throughout the studio. She tightened her grip on her saber, but deep down she had a feeling it wouldn't be much use. Despite its gaunt appearance and limping gait, that monster had a staggering amount of mystical power.

This was a time for flight, not fight.

She sprinted for the hallway, dreading every inch closer the thing drew.

"ISIS! WE'RE COMING IN HOT!" Sunset shouted, hoping that her phone could pick her up her voice through her pocket. She was able to make it across the room to the hallway, but the creature was close behind her. She tried not to think about it, focusing on the black portal leading back to the real world. They were so close...

Just as she was closing in on the way out, Sunset felt something grip her ankle. She felt her heart stop as she tugged with all of her strength, trying to free her foot. Looking down, her eyes widened as she realized that a hand had sprouted from the ink, itself, and grabbed her to slow her down.

"LET... GO!" Sunset swung down with her saber, severing it at the wrist with a hiss and a pop of vaporizing ink. She pushed onward, even as more forms began to emerge from the black pools. She tried to focus purely on the portal, blocking out everything else.

She was only a few steps away when she heard the wood beginning to creak and groan. It wasn't nearly enough warning. In a cascade of ear-splitting pops and cracks, Sunset felt the floor fall away from beneath them. She reached desperately for the portal, even as it moved up and out of reach for her. She could feel Missy trying her best to lift the two of them as the plummeted into the bowels of the studio, but her efforts were fruitless. The last thing she saw was the inky Bendy leaning over the hole, looking down on them with that painted-on grin.

The last sensation she felt was the impact with more of the thick liquid, and then everything went black.

Author's Note

Fun fact: I actually dressed as Bendy for two Halloweens prior to this one! I even delivered pizza in costume!

Recording Gold

"Ugh..."

Sunset tried to take evaluation of herself. She was floating face-up in some kind of liquid, staring at a hand-drawn ceiling. She tried to right herself, but her body was sluggish to respond, still probably recovering from whatever impact had knocked her out. She knew she was lucky not to have died in that fall, but the memory of that monster lurking above them was enough to dampen her enthusiasm. Their one certain way of escaping this place was now near-impossible to reach.

"Sunset? You okay?" Missy's voice spoke up from nearby.

"Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of me..." Sunset sighed. "How long was I out?"

"Heck if I know..." Missy replied. "All I know is that my dress is ruined, and I am NOT happy about it!"

Sunset chuckled to herself as she forced her body upright. "Too bad we haven't found Rarity, yet... she'd be HAPPY to make you something new." Her legs expectedly sank, but only to a depth of about knee-level. After a few seconds, she was back on her feet. She could see Missy floating nearby, arms crossed and face pouting. True to her word, her dress had been thoroughly drenched in the ink, staining it pitch-black. Sunset glanced down at herself, taking a moment to note that her own clothes had gotten a heavy dousing. A few shreds and splashes of color were still left untouched, and the ink seemed to be running off of her hair without staining it (she took a moment to remind herself to thank Isis for the hair care products she'd been using on the road). Her skin had large tinted splotches, but her natural complexion still came through. The biggest loss was the contents of her pockets, really. On examination, her phone was completely fried from being in the ink, and her wallet was full of nothing but scraps of black paper. They were cut off from Isis.

"So... what do we do now?" Missy floated into the air and began to wring the ink from the bottom of her dress.

"We could always ask Lantern, Witch, and Specter to try and give us a lift back up, right?"

"And what? Go back without Penn?" Missy placed her hands on her hips.

"Well, what's our other option?" Sunset gestured to a boarded-up hallway leading out of the room they'd fallen into. "Dig deeper into the basement?"

"Well, he wasn't upstairs! Maybe he found some other way down?"

"Missy, did you FEEL how much black magic is in this place? We need to get out of here as fast as we can!" Sunset pressed her palm against her forehead. "It's no wonder my geode tried to tell us to keep out."

"But we can't leave without Penn!"

"He's NOT PENN!"

The volume of her own outburst startled Sunset, and she instantly felt a rush of guilt when Missy flinched back from her. Still, Sunset wasn't willing to retract what she said, only forcing herself to take a deep breath and calm herself more before she continued.

"You want to know what I think? We came here looking for the person we've been traveling with, a copy of Penn. This entire place was empty. Then we started touching stuff and fiddling around, thanks for that, by the way, and we found TWO other living creatures! One was that copy of you, and the other was that monster." She glanced up into the hole they'd fallen through, a long, dark vertical corridor that looked like the early makings of an elevator. "A copy of Penn comes here, and then a copy of YOU shows up, and the monster who's clearly in charge of it tries to chase us down!"

Missy's eyes grew wider and wider by the second, and her wings began to wilt and draw closer to her body. "Sunset, you're scaring me... What are you trying to say?"

Sunset wanted to finish the thought, but the genuine fear on Missy's face was enough to make her reconsider. She reached down to her belt, shaking off as much of the liquid as she could before switching on her saber. The light cast everything into red before she began to cut through the boards on the hallway.

"We can look around down here. Have it your way. But I'm saying... what if a fake Penn wants to make fake copies of US to travel with, instead?"

"No! Penn wouldn't-"

"Then WHY was there another you up there? Why would Penn come someplace with so much evil in it?" With their path clear and lit by her saber, Sunset began to wade on ahead. "You can't tell me you don't feel it, too!"

Missy pulled further into herself, rubbing at her arm. "I... I thought it might be dark, but dark doesn't ALWAYS mean evil..."

"Yeah, well this is the real deal." Sunset gritted her teeth as they walked further and further into the dark. They found a place where the floor rose up, allowing her to step up and out of the ink. Eventually, they had sliced their way through another boarded-up doorway and entered a new room: one with a large circular rune drawn in the center of the floor, and coffins leaned against the door. The sigil was an inverted pentagram, decorated with writing and shapes along every line, most notably a large insignia in the shape of Bendy's head behind the inverted star. She stepped carefully around the inscription, gesturing down for Missy before stating the self-evident: "Evil magic."

"Then... what if Penn wasn't behind this?" Missy whispered. "If he's in here, maybe he can't just sense magic like you or me, he's a normal human! We HAVE to be sure before we leave!"

Sunset felt a tremble of fear in the pit of her stomach. She tried to take a deep breath and steady herself, but the feeling stayed.

Not again... We can't leave him alone again...

Sunset straightened and stopped as she heard Missy's voice whispering at the edge of her thoughts. She turned back to her partner. Missy's blank expression made it clear that the message hadn't been intentional.

"Are you... afraid of him being on his own again?"

Missy's lip began to tremble as tears welled up in her eyes. She kept her mouth clamped shut and hastily nodded up and down.

"Wh-What if that thing finds him, a-and he tries to fight it and-" her breath caught in her throat as tears spilled down her cheeks. She trembled as a sob interrupted her and her voice wobbled in her efforts to speak through the obvious lump in her throat. "W-What if he d-" she shook her head and took a deep breath. "What if he die-" She cut herself off again, rushing forward in burying her face in the crook of Sunset's neck. "What if he dies because we weren't there? Again? He tried to fight by himself and he died! I wasn't there when he needed me, and he DIED!" Missy pounded her fist softly against Sunset's chest. "I went and got myself into trouble and he DIED trying to protect me from the consequences while I was just ASLEEP!"

Sunset's eyes widened as her arms instinctively wrapped around the sobbing spirit. In all of the time since they'd left Mount Ebott, Missy hadn't shown even a small sign of trauma from the event. By all appearances, she had been her usual, chipper self, and Sunset had been too focused on "Penn" to think to ask. How long was she hiding this?

Sunset sighed and began to rub Missy's back as the younger girl sobbed into her shoulder.

"Missy, it wasn't your fault-" Missy's wing came up and pressed against her mouth, forcing her to stop.

"Don't lie. You said it yourself, I was the one touching stuff and messing with things I shouldn't... It was my fault before, and now it's my fault again..."

Sunset winced as her own biting words came back to haunt her. Standing there, in what felt like the belly of the beast, Sunset forced herself to think slowly and carefully.

"Well... did you fight Penn? Did you strike the killing blow?"

"N-no! But if it wasn't for me-"

"That's true. We wouldn't have chosen to go into the underground if you hadn't been there. But you didn't kill him. Frisk did that, remember?" Sunset stroked Missy's hair, running her fingers through the pink strands while occasionally catching on a gummy bit of dried-up ink. "And if Penn is here and gets into a fight, then it'll be the monster that kills him, not you. It wasn't even 'you' you who turned on the machine, it was that other... You called her a 'misprint,' right? She turned on the machine." Sunset pulled her closer. "You need to accept what IS your fault... to understand what isn't."

Sunset tried to let Missy cry her tears without pressure as she sliced her way through another doorway, and she carried the younger girl through another flooded hallway.

"I'm sorry for what I said earlier... I just..." Sunset sighed, trying to parse out her own thoughts. Now that she was feeling calm again, she could see how absurd the idea of "Penn" and that monster trying to replace them was. How could I say something like that and scare her in a situation like this?

"I just... I need him to really be Penn..." Missy whispered, clinging to her a little tighter. "If he's not Penn, then we didn't really bring him back, and if we didn't really bring him back, then not only did we break Monster Reborn for nothing, but... then him being dead is still on me... and you seem to WANT him not to really be Penn!"

Sunset stopped in place as she felt the last pieces click into place in her head.

"I'm sorry, Missy. It's not that I don't want him to really be Penn, I just..." she took a deep breath, then let it out again. "You didn't walk away from that fight, I carried you. You didn't see his body until after we already were free on the surface and knew his soul was with Undyne... You latched onto the Penn we brought back because you hadn't needed to accept that he was completely gone." She unconsciously tightened her grip on Missy as if she were clutching a teddy bear. "I did. It was the only way I could think straight enough to fight Frisk... I tipped over the edge into grief long before I was willing to forgive Asriel..." She glanced down as a tinge of shame and anger slipped into her tone. "I still haven't forgiven Frisk." She shook her head, pushing out the dark thoughts. "So when I saw his disembodied soul in Undyne's chest, I accepted that that was Penn, which meant the one we brought back couldn't be! His soul was THERE, I could look at it, talk to him, he wasn't gone! It... made me more relieved to see him saved from death than brought back from it." She shook her head, disgusted with her own admission. "If getting him back was just that easy, what did I go through all the pain for? Why did such an awful thing even have to happen? Why does the original Penn have to live the rest of his life as a passenger in another person's body? He didn't deserve that!"

"Sometimes... bad things just happen, Sunset. Even to good people. No moral to be learned, no reason for the greater good... That's how things work in Penn's world," Missy whispered.

"Well, it's WRONG!" Sunset kicked at the ink, sending a splash up and rippling the entire surface. The two of them paused for a moment, each one seeming to wait for a response from the other. When none came, Sunset started walking again. "It's wrong. I want MY Penn to get a happy ending... not be stuck like that."

"What about this Penn? He's not YOUR Penn?" Missy pulled away far enough to give Sunset a smirk. "You don't own Penn, you know, original or copy..."

"I- I don't know, okay?" Sunset grumbled. "If he's not the original, but that's who he keeps claiming to be, then I don't know who he is. I want to know THAT, first, and how it relates to this place, before I'm willing to trust him at all."

The two of them continued pressing forward until they found another place that the floor rose up and out of the ink. The two of them found themselves entering another hallway, but this one was much more similar to the upstairs rooms, indicating that they had made it back to the main structure. The first thing to greet her was a large set of shelves, all stocked high with cans labeled "Briar Label Bacon Soup!" Beside it was another piece of graffiti proudly declaring "HE WILL SET US FREE" beside an illustration of Bendy. Sunset felt shivers traveling down her spine as the cute-looking mascot stared at her with that unnerving grin. As they continued, Sunset noticed another tape recorder sitting on a shelf. Part of her was tempted to listen to it, but just as her finger hovered over the button, a new voice made her nearly jump out of her skin.

"YOU!"

Sunset whirled around, finding herself staring down the open door into the next room, where a black figure was rushing through. She barely had a second to raise her saber to counter his weapon, slicing through the wooden handle like it wasn't even there. She felt the wind brush her cheek as the axe head separated from the handle and continued moving forward past her head. A moment later, she felt a painful blow to her gut as the end of the wooden stick drove into her stomach now that it had been cut down to size. The world lurched as she was knocked back and slammed into the wall, only able to focus on hanging on to her weapon. Her mouth opened into a wordless scream as the pain in her stomach grew into a searing sensation.

"Sunset!" Missy called out as she flew across the room, instantly placing herself between them, cards at the ready.

The stranger staggered back, looking at the still-glowing embers at the end of his tool handle in shock... or so Sunset assumed. He was wearing only a pair of overalls and a mask of Bendy's face, and his skin appeared to have been so thoroughly soaked in ink that it was the same pitch-black shade and glistened with the moisture. Sunset looked down at her stomach, hissing as she saw that the smoldering end of the handle had easily scorched through her shirt and left a painful burn on her abdomen. The stranger pointed the end of the handle at them in an accusatory manner.

"Corrupters! Profaners! You enter the house of my lord and seek to warp it to your own twisted vision!"

"If somebody here is warped, I don't think it's us..." Missy muttered.

Sunset hissed as she forced herself back to her feet. The movement made her burn feel like her skin was ripping from the motion, but she forced herself to focus through it. She lowered her saber to a ready position.

"I'm good, Missy..." she whispered through gritted teeth. "Get out of the way."

"Like hell!" Missy hissed as she floated back to stand abreast with Sunset. "If somebody wants to pick a fight with us, I'm not sitting it out!"

Their assailant either didn't notice or didn't care about their whispering, beginning to advance on them while brandishing his cut-down weapon. "I will blot you all out until you are nothing more than an awful memory! You will be purified in the name of the ink demon!"

In her mind's eye, Sunset remembered the fearsome creature that had chased them down here. Yeah, that's what I'd expect an "ink demon" to look like...

"Look, we're just looking for our friend..." Sunset spoke slowly as she began to walk backwards around the edge of the room. It would be better to defuse this situation than escalate it, and for once she actually had a chance to talk to someone who was attacking them. "Once we find him, we'll be HAPPY to get on our way and out of your whole world. You'll never have to see us again if you can just help us find him..."

The stranger didn't relent, continuing to follow her. "The only escape from this place is through our lord. He will reward me for my faith!" He raised his weapon to strike, and Sunset did the same while also preparing to dodge around his lunge. She wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"FWOOZSH!" a voice shouted. A long object sprung up from behind their assailant, slamming into the side of his head without warning. The deranged man dropped like a sack of potatoes, instantly unconscious. Despite that threat being taken care of, Sunset's grip on her weapon only tightened when she saw exactly who is was that had come to their rescue:

Herself. TWO black-and-white cartoon versions of herself.

One of them was her demonic transformation from the Fall Formal (which Rainbow had lovingly dubbed "Sunset Satan," or "Satanset" for short), albeit dialed back quite a bit, without the wings and wielding much shorter claws and fangs than she remembered having. She had foregone the tattered red-and-yellow dress in favor of her old studded leather jacket and blue jeans, and was clutching a lightsaber of her own. Unlike Sunset's red LIGHT saber, though, this one was much more solid, looking more like a sepia-colored baseball bat mounted on a lightsaber handle. A large pair of angry-looking eyebrows had been drawn onto her face, leaving her with a perpetual scowl.

"Fsssh!" Satanset hissed as the blade on the "lightsaber" retracted back into its handle. Sunset had to blink for a moment as she realized her demonic double was making her own sound effects.

The other Sunset was... well... Tiny. She was barely Missy's height, with an oversized head, huge sparkling eyes, and tiny body that just screamed "CUTE!" at maximum volume. She looked as if she ought to have toppled over a longtime ago from being so topheavy, but she seemed to somehow refuse to obey the laws of gravity.

Everyone stood in silence for several seconds, both sides examining the other carefully in search of a threat. When Satanset's eyes lingered on Sunset's weapon, she switched it off, letting the blade retract but still keeping it in her hand.

"Satanset and Chibiset... Okay... Are you seeing them, too?" Missy whispered. "Or am I just hallucinating?"

"If you are, then we're seeing the same hallucination..." Sunset muttered in return. Finally, she cleared her throat and broke the silence between the two sides.

"Um... thanks for the help?"

"Someone had to do something!" Chibiset shouted.

The other doppelganger wasn't quite so amenable, pointing her empty handle at the two of them and glaring. "You're not real."

"We're... about as real as it gets." Missy forced a smile and rubbed awkwardly at the back of her head.

The two fake Sunsets looked at one another, one clearly doubtful while the other was excited. Sunset stepped forward, drawing their attention back to her. "We're looking for our friend, Penn. Have you seen him anywhere?"

The tiny version of herself tapped at her chin thoughtfully. "Somebody has to do something..." she muttered.

Satanset huffed and folded her arms over her chest. "Penn's not real. Penn's not Penn."

Sunset wasn't quite sure what to do with those answers. "But, real or not, have you seen him? Can you help us find him?"

Chibiset looked up at Satanset, batting her huge eyelashes pleadingly. "Somebody has to do something..." Satanset stared back, clearly fighting the plea before finally groaning and turning towards the door.

"He's not REAL!"

Chibiset silently cheered and pumped her fist before motioning for them to follow and running out the far door of the room. "Somebody has to DO something!"

Sunset and Missy lingered for a moment, both still feeling pretty dumbstruck by the turn of events. It was only the fear of losing their guides that finally spurred them both to start moving, keeping a comfortable distance between them and the inky recreations.

"Is it just me... or are those two both a few cards short of a deck?" Missy whispered.

Sunset nodded. "I'm more worried about why there's copies of me running around all over this place. Is it weird that I feel strangely... violated from being copied without my permission?"

"Oh, people have been making fake cards for decades and it NEVER feels any less weird to see a knockoff..." Missy shivered. "They get the font wrong and the card stock is weird and..."

Sunset unconsciously tuned out Missy's incoming ramble as they stepped into the area that a large sign denoted as the Music Department. Splotches and puddles of ink were scattered across the floor as their guides passed through. Satanset pointed to each one as they passed.

"She wasn't real, SHE wasn't real, she wasn't real..."

Chibiset simply shook her head sadly. "Somebody has to do something..."

Sunset felt a shiver run down her spine at the implication that each puddle they pointed to was the remains of another fake Sunset. And I can hazard a guess who was responsible for them not being around, any more...

The two Sunsets led them around and through the back, into a wide open band room. It was a complete soundstage, with room for a whole band and instruments scattered everywhere. It looked as though someone or something had come through and rearranged the chairs, clearing a large open space in the center. In the back of the room was a shut-off recording booth, clearly for actors. Sunset shivered as she spotted another version of herself absently strumming on a guitar in the corner behind the sealed-off glass, oblivious to the world. There was a balcony above them populated by more of the cardboard Bendy cutouts, she counted six at a glance. The one person Sunset had been hoping to see, however, was notably absent.

Missy floated up to the balcony, searching behind the cutouts of Bendy, then shook her head.

"He's not here, Sunny!" She turned her gaze back to the false Sunsets, who both were simply watching them, as if curious to how they would react. Missy sighed with disappointment, leaning on a nearby object. She squeaked with surprise and dropped almost halfway back down when the device whirred to life, revealing itself to be an old-fashioned projector.

All eyes were on the back wall of the sound stage, where a fresh image was being projected: an office lined with shelves of books behind a heavy-looking desk. More importantly, however, was the fact that Penn was standing behind the desk, dressed in a snappy-looking suit and shaking what looked like a bell. Sunset sighed as it appeared that there wasn't any sound to the film.

"Ouch!" Missy clapped her hands over her ears. "Somebody turn the volume down!"

"Somebody has to do something!"

"It's not real."

Sunset glanced at Missy to confirm that the angel wasn't joking, then back to the screen. "I don't hear-"

"Would you cut that out? I HEARD you!" The cartoonish Missy flew into frame, snatching the bell out of Penn's hand with a scowl and clamping her hand over it. "I never should have given you this pixie bell!"

Penn simply chuckled, giving the fake angel's hair a tousle. "Sorry, Missy! I just wanted to run my most recent idea past you, see what you think! Now, imagine with me for a second, would you?"

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other for a second, neither entirely sure what to say. On the screen, Penn began to walk around the office, and the camera followed him. Soon, he'd left the tidy bookshelves behind in favor of what looked like a giant corkboard with hundreds of pictures connected by various pins, notes, and pieces of string. As he walked, Sunset noticed a pool of ink beginning to swell up at the bandstand, filling the cleared-out space. The ink churned and bubbled, looking as if it were alive.

"So imagine a ship..." Penn pressed his hands together, peaking his fingers just under his nose for a moment as he examined the board, finally settling on a picture and pointing to it. "Like this one!"

"Aye, aye, cap'n!" the cartoon Missy responded, marching across the bottom of the screen with a three-cornered hat and an eyepatch.

The ink responded to his words, reaching up and swelling into the form of a great sailing ship. Soon, the oily surface of the ink washed away, leaving behind a three-masted ship made from the same sepia material as everything else in this world.

"Now, imagine some foul privateer comes along and blows holes all through the hull and the body!" The model ship rocked and shuddered as holes splintered and cracked all through the hull until it looked more like Swiss cheese. A small cartoon pirate poked his head out of one of the holes and angrily waved a bottle of rum.

"Stop blowing holes in my ship!" he cried before disappearing inside again.

"Clearly, you've got to replace the hull, right? So you bring it into port, rip off all the old boards and panels, and have them all replaced with new stuff!"

The broken boards all dropped off of the ship, momentarily exposing the pirate stumbling through the lower decks. A second later, "new" boards rose out of the ink and affixed themselves to the side.

"Now, a few weeks later, you go to get your revenge, and that same dastardly privateer rips through all your sails and brings down your masts! You've got to bring it in and replace those, too!"

"How is this happening?" Sunset whispered to Missy.

Missy simply shrugged and shook her head as they watched the ship once again break and rebuild itself. "Magic?"

"Eventually, you've replaced every single piece of that ship, you're out of money, and you have to give up on the revenge business and go back to pirating!"

"Yo ho ho!"

"So... The question is..." At this point, Penn turned back to the camera, and Sunset could feel his gaze looking straight through her. "If you've replaced every piece, is it still the same..." he trailed off, looking away for a second before grabbing at the bridge of his nose. "No, no, no. That's not the right metaphor... Just throw it out, start over..."

The ship in the center of the room shattered to pieces, plunging the tiny pirate into the inky depths.

"The Ship of Theseus isn't going to work, she knows it's the same body, she thinks I'm a different SOUL. That's like having a problem with the CAPTAIN of a ship being replaced with an exact copy..."

"What? I thought it was pretty good!" Missy's double replied, then pointed out at the audience. "They were TOTALLY into it!"

The cheerful facade seemed to have fallen away as Penn returned to the desk, placing a book on it and beginning to hastily flip through the pages. "Unless the argument's airtight, we both know what she's going to say..."

"HE'S NOT THE REAL PENN." Penn, Missy's double, and all of the other Sunsets spoke in unison, catching Sunset off-guard enough to make her reach for her saber.

"I can see it now..." Penn muttered. Another disturbance in the ink began to rise, staggering to life. Sunset covered her mouth as another copy of herself formed out of the liquid, shaking herself slightly before walking towards the door. As she left, she spoke in unison with Penn's impression of her. "You're not the real Penn, you're not MY Penn! Why don't you just prove it to me when I've already made up my mind?" He sighed sorrowfully and shook his head. "I just... can't figure out how to get through to her, no matter how I put it together in my head..."

Sunset and Missy looked at each other, both of their jaws hanging slack as the pieces came together.

"It's him! He IS making the copies!"

"And he doesn't even know he's doing it!"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'copies?'"

Sunset and Missy both continued to stare at each other, each processing the fact that the other hadn't spoken. Slowly, they turned back toward the projected image. Penn was staring right at them, waiting for an answer.

"D-D-D-Did he hear us?" Missy stuttered.

"Um, yes?" Penn raised an eyebrow. "What are you two even DOING here? It's the middle of the night!" he blinked and turned back to the fake Missy. "It hasn't been THAT long, has it?"

She replied by reaching into her hat and retrieving an alarm clock slightly larger than her entire head. "Nope!"

"How are you- How-" Sunset looked back up at the projector, confirming that the film was indeed being projected from an ongoing reel. "This is pre-recorded!"

Penn rolled his eyes before beginning to walk towards the camera. Paradoxically, he grew SMALLER as he got closer, until a perfect match for his life-size self walked out of the image and onto the stage, followed closely by the fake Missy. Moments later, the projector seemed to run out of film, cutting to a blank white image for a few seconds before finally shutting itself off. He confidently strolled up to them before holding his arms open, inviting their comments.

"How did you DO THAT?" Missy didn't hesitate, immediately flying up to him and beginning to inspect whether or not he was real. Sunset decided to hang back as the sense of this being 'Penn' and not Penn settled back in, stronger than ever. Penn didn't have magic, especially nothing like this.

"It's just a matter of perspective, Missy! Nothing but illusions." He chuckled to himself before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a short hug. "The better question is what are YOU two doing here?" He cocked one eyebrow at Sunset. "Do you ALWAYS go running into strange portals by yourselves in the middle of the night? Have I been missing nocturnal adventures?"

Sunset folded her arms and countered with a glare. "Isis woke us up when you ran off on your own. Do YOU always go running into strange portals that reek of black magic by yourself?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes, displaying a significant lack of shame at having been caught. "I couldn't sleep, I had writer's block, and this portal seemed to be calling to me! It was one time." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Besides, this place isn't THAT dangerous if you know what you're doing! As long as you don't go any lower than the second floor and nobody turns on the ink machine, it's just a slightly-haunted animation studio!"

Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.

"Did... you say it's safe 'as long as nobody turns on the ink machine?'" she clasped her hands behind her back for a moment as she began to wring them.

He had already looked pale, but what little color remained drained out of his face as he stared at her.

"Sunset... tell me you didn't."

"Oh, we didn't, SHE DID!" Missy pointed at her double.

"HEY! I'm not the one who powered it up!" the cartoon doppelganger countered with a point of her own. "That lever's harmless unless the power's on, and I was too excited about meeting myself to notice you pressed the big glowing power button!"

"Oh don't even TRY to blame me for this!"

"WATCH ME!"

Penn sighed, holding the two angels apart by their collars at arm's length.

"Okay... As long as we haven't busted up the timeline TOO badly, we should be able to figure out a way out of here."

"Somebody's got to DO something!"

Everyone fell quiet as Penn turned to glance in the other direction. He stared at the inky doubles, then back at Sunset. He repeated the motion several times, each time looking more exasperated.

"Okay... Well, I'm sure we can still make this work. I just need some time to think-"

"FOUND YOU!" The man in the Bendy mask shouted as he stepped through the door, dragging the most recent Sunset clone by a fresh axe buried in her chest.

Penn's eye twitched. Sunset could tell just by looking at him that he was on the brink of snapping. Whether that snap would be a yelling session or a fainting spell had yet to be determined.

"Well, while we're giving me everything I DON'T say that I want..." he cleared his throat. "Gee wilickers, I sure hope that the ink demon shows up soon!"

Above them, the ceiling began to sag and groan under a heavy weight. The cracks between boards began to widen and ink rapidly began to fall down on them.

"Uhm, Missy?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't think the upstairs has kept flooding the whole time we've been down here, do you?"

"Uh-oh..."

Penn pressed his palm to his forehead. "Son of a bi-"

They only had time to all throw themselves in different directions when the floorboards of the room above them collapsed, creating a titanic waterfall of ink. The doubles all seemed to beeline for one another, Missy's duplicate lifting the two Sunsets into the air before the flood could reach them. The originals fared much worse. Before Sunset could push herself back onto her feet, the wave of ink had already crashed into her and sent her tumbling in the current. She scrambled blindly, not daring to try to open her eyes until she got her head back above the chemical-laden flood. After too long of scrambling, Sunset managed to grab onto something firm and kept a hold. Pulling herself above the current, she cracked open her eyes as far as she dared without getting ink in them.

She'd been washed back to the door they'd come in through, and was holding on to the frame for dear life. The torrent of ink was still pouring, enough to fill entire swimming pools and turn the entire studio into a waterslide powered by current alone. First and foremost, she searched for Missy, feeling relieved to see that the little duel spirit had avoided the flood by following her double's example and taking flight. Penn had gripped onto the edge of the window of the recording booth to keep his footing. Unfortunately, while he'd kept his footing, he was cornered, and the gnarled figure of the ink demon was rising out of the black sea.

"DON'T YOU KNOW SARCASM WHEN YOU HEAR IT, UNIVERSE?" Penn roared as the demon began to advance on him.

"PENN!"

"I'M ON IT!" Missy shouted, darting down out of the air. The demon took a flailing swing at her, but the little angel was too quick, darting around it and grabbing onto Penn. She reached into her pocket, holding out a card defensively in the demon's direction. "GHOSTRICK VANISH!"

Sunset felt a surge of relief as her friends both magically disappeared, leaving the demon unfulfilled. The feeling was short-lived, however, as the demon's attention turned to her. With the current on its side, its hobbling gait was faster, and she knew it wouldn't be long until it had closed the distance. She looked back down the hallway the ink was flowing into, then back at the approaching demon.

Just this once, I think 'the devil you know' is the less appealing option! she thought. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and let go.

She had no control over her speed, only able to follow the flow as she was swept away with gut-wrenching acceleration. She could only try to roll with the punches as she was slammed into the walls and collided with the floor repeatedly. At one point, she thought that she could feel the painful feeling of stairs jamming into her back. It felt like she was tumbling in the ink for ages, barely swallowing gasps of air whenever her head was above the liquid, but the wild ride reached its end when it culminated in a moment of free-fall and a rough landing on a hard surface. Sunset coughed as the vapors of the ink filled her lungs and burned at her eyes, dragging herself up and out of the pool she had landed in. Once she'd gotten her fill of fresh air, she wiped off her face as best she could and opened her eyes.

She was in another big room, the centerpiece of which was an ink waterfall pouring into a decorative pool. That was where she had landed, being too large to get through the grate on the drain. Oversized plushies of the cartoon characters were scattered about the room, and a set of railings indicated an amusement park-esque queue line. She rolled onto her back, feeling the battering her body had received beginning to treat her with a cacophony of aches and pains. She wasn't even sure whether or not all of her bones were intact. From her spot on the floor, she could see the large sign placed just in front of the waterfall finally telling her where she was: HEAVENLY TOYS.

"Yeah... right..." she wheezed. "Heavenly..."

"Well, well, well..." a soft, feminine voice crackled through unseen speakers. "What have we here? What fresh morsel has the ink washed into my web this time?"

In her groggy state, Sunset found herself pondering whether or not this disembodied electronic voice secretly observing her was more pleasant than the last one. She weighed her options, then settled on the fact that she'd still prefer this to going back to Aperture Science. At least she was armed, this time.

"My, oh my... You're not like the rest, are you? You're... an original."

Sunset coughed weakly. "Until recently, the one and only..."

"Well, in that case, perhaps we can help one another." A nearby door slid open, revealing a large service elevator. "Find me on level nine. Just follow the screams."

"Y-yeah, sure..." Sunset muttered. "Just- gimmie a minute, okay?"

"Don't stay out in the open too long, or the ink demon will find you..."

"Yeah... I've noticed."

Author's Note

Sorry for the wait! Between National Novel Writing Month and a debilitating amount of anxiety about the election, it's been hard to find the time and energy to work on fanfiction. Updates will probably be much slower until December.

Be sure to check out the blog for more content! This month, Isis has taken over to give updates on how NaNoWriMo is going and talk to all of you!

Art of Darkness

"Where are we?"

Penn let go of his grip on Missy to examine their surroundings more closely, and she floated away far enough to stretch her wings again.

"I mean... We're definitely still in the studio." He tapped his chin. "You don't know where you took us?"

"Look, Ghostrick Vanish isn't exactly picky, and I wasn't too focused!" Missy folded her arms. "You're the one who was walking out of film reels and stuff, don't you know this place?"

Penn took a moment to look carefully at the walls around them. "It's... familiar, but let me take a look at the book."

"Book?"

When Missy turned around, Penn was leafing through the pages of a book, one that seemed similar to the book on "his" desk in the short film. She floated down to get a better look at the title: The Illusion of Living.

"What's that got to do with this place? Does it have a map?"

"Not... exactly."

Missy floated around behind him and further up into the air, taking a second to lean on his shoulder. Her eyes widened as she looked down at the book.

It was blank. The pages were all blank, and yet he was studying them as if they were some wisdom-filled tome.

"Are you... sure there's something in there we could use?" she whispered tentatively.

"Definitely." He didn't even look up. As he read, Missy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She tried to focus, tugging on the ephemeral threads rooted in her chest to send a message.

"Sunset? Are you okay?"

After a few seconds, she felt Sunset's response come echoing back to her. "Yeah. I got washed downstream by the ink, so I'm banged up, but I'll be okay. What about you guys?"

"We're okay. Not sure where we are, and Penn's source of knowledge seems to be a book with blank pages, so... If I hadn't seen him walk out of a video earlier, I'd worry he was losing it."

"Well, I've got somebody watching me. She sounds... Sunset's thoughts were tinged with anxiety, "Well, pretty crazy, if I'm honest, but she says she wants to help..."

Missy sighed. "I doubt I need to tell you to watch out for traps..."

"And I won't bother warning you to be careful, either. Just... if 'Penn' isn't all there, keep a wary eye on him, okay?"

Missy rolled her eyes. "I can FEEL the air quotes you put around his name. Not cool."

"Sorry. Just stay safe, okay? Let me know if anything goes wrong."

"You, too."

Missy turned back around to face Penn, watching as he finished rolling up the sleeves of the white dress shirt he was wearing. He'd completely removed the suit's jacket and tie, clearly aiming for a more practical outfit.

"I think we're somewhere in the floors between the toy production and the theme park prototypes..." he sighed and stretched his neck from side to side, resulting in several loud pops. "This place is like Aperture, they just kept expanding downwards as they grew, so we could be a lot worse. Any idea where Sunset is?"

Missy took a moment, concentrating on the feeling in her gut. "Down. She's under us."

"Then down we go." Penn smiled and held out a hand to her. Missy ignored the hand, rushing over and wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Don't run off on your own like that again, okay? Nothing good ever happens when we leave you by yourself..."

For a moment, he seemed stunned before finally settling into a warm hug. "I'll try not to, okay?"

Missy nodded, wiping the beginnings of her tears on his sepiatone shirt before floating up and onto his shoulders. "I've got an idea... what if we tried using Ghostrick Go-Round to take us to Sunset?"

"I don't think-"

The card was already in her hand before he could finish his objection, forming a stone door in the hallway wall. After the two of them examined it for a moment, Penn stepped forward and pressed his hand against it. Together, they passed through to the other side.

"YIPE!" Miss wrapped her arms and legs around him from behind, gripping as tightly as she could when she saw what was on the other side. It was a small room with no entrances or exits other than the one she'd made, with only another of the cardboard cutouts of Bendy in the center. To their horror, this one had been altered from the rest, with wild-looking, more realistic eyes and splattered ink dripping from the crown of its head, the corner of its mouth, and one of its eyes. All around them, they could hear an unsteady wheezing sound, like something struggling to breathe. Clutched in its hands was a hand-painted sign, clearly intended for them.

WANDERING IS A TERRIBLE SIN.

"Well, I guess we got our answer about taking any shortcuts..." Penn muttered as he backed through the door again. Soon, they were right back where they started, and Missy dismissed the trap card with all of the enthusiasm she was capable of.

"Wha- What- How did-"

"Illusions." Penn sighed and started to walk down the hallway. "This whole place is one, in a way."

"Uhm, Penn?" Missy reached up and knocked on the wooden ceiling. "This ISN'T an illusion!"

"Maybe not, but it started as one!" He held up a finger in a matter-of-fact way. "Think about it! Before you can build something, you need to be able to draw out some plans for it, right?"

"Meh, I think it's more fun to do things without instructions!"

"And yet you still SEE what you're trying to accomplish! It's an image right up here!" He tapped on his temple. "It's an illusion that only YOU can see!" Missy felt herself pout slightly as she realized her point had been made moot, but Penn didn't seem to notice. "Dreams, Missy! Everybody has them while they're sleeping, but the creators? The people who take things from illusions to reality? They can dream while they're wide awake!" he held out his hands to gesture around them. "Illusions, dreams, reality... to the right people, it's all really the same thing, isn't it?" He waited a moment for her response before quickly collecting himself.

"A-anyway, to get back to the point, all of this started as SOMEBODY'S illusion, even the ink demon. What makes it so powerful, though, was that it was able to harness that process partway through. Now, other people's illusions are being warped to match another vision..."

Missy's brow furrowed. "So... when I used my trap, I was... making an illusion in my head real? And the ink demon hijacked it?"

"I mean, it's just a theory..." Penn held up the book for her to see. "Joey Drew really had a lot of thoughts on the lack of a line between fiction and reality and the power of dreaming. I'm still trying to get my head around it all."

Once again, Missy found herself staring at blank paper, but Penn had settled into a pattern of "reading" and glancing up every now and then to double-check where he was walking.

"So... then why wasn't anything happening to the things you made? Back in the band room?" Missy scratched at her head. "The doppelgangers and that whole thing with the boat? It wasn't messed with at all by the demon!"

Penn responded with a shrug, pushing her up and down again. "I didn't even know I was MAKING anything, I was just thinking about you and Sunset..."

"Hmm..." Missy settled herself by leaning forward and against the top of his head. "What if the things you make aren't corruptible? He can't get between you and your creations?"

Penn chuckled to himself, as if he found the idea funny. "Oh, I don't think I'm special like that. There probably wasn't any point in it, to be honest. The things I was making weren't doing any harm or threatening him."

They both stopped as they spotted an irregularity in the hallway: a door in the left wall. There was the sound of a voice speaking inside, but the area behind it was obscured by frosted glass and a sign.

Liason to
The Please Please Pleese
Get a Life Foundation.

Penn and Missy both stopped for a moment to stare at the door before Penn reached down and turned the handle, causing it to swing open.

"In 'Time 2 Duel,' Joshua uses Sebek's Blessing to gain life points after inflicting PIERCING damage with Ra, but the spell's card text clearly states that it can only be used for that purpose after a DIRECT attack! He was clearly using the ANIME'S version as it appeared in episodes 117 and 118, but that's wrong. And don't even get me started on the fact that Ghostrick Costume Change isn't even a REAL CARD!"

Both of them stopped short, hardly able to believe what they were seeing. It was PENN... as an inky recreation similar to the other doppelgangers. He was overweight, wearing a thick pair of glasses, and typing furiously on a typewriter.

"And honestly, doesn't he know that the order of rooms is 'New Home, Asgore's Home, THEN Judgement Hall and THEN the throne room?' It's like he just gave up on trying to be accurate at the end of that arc, it was BARELY enjoyable! One Google search and he could have found a perfectly good map to work off of! The same applies to Sunset finding the service elevator in the Heavenly Toys department, it doesn't appear there!"

Missy opened her mouth to ask a question, but didn't have a chance before Penn's hands came up to gently remove her from his shoulders and set her on the floor.

"And UGH, could his duel spirit partner BE any more obvious? I mean, his love of classic cards, the motto to use his enemies' own strength against them, being described as so monstrous that her gender is impossible to tell by looks alone, and the eye motif that appears over and over on top of taking possession of his body when he was dead? It's CLEARLY Thousand Eyes Restrict, Maxmillion Pegasus's trump card from the Duelist Kingdom arc!"

This was actually enough to give both of them pause. Both of them glanced at each other, each shrugging for a moment before Penn began to walk towards his double.

"If the portal gun really DID unleash an uncontrolled singularity, the entire world should have been consumed immediately! Isis mentions Hawking Radiation as a catch-all, but black holes massive enough to have the event horizon diameter presented in the Aperture Science schematics would take GIGAYEARS to decay, even if it wasn't being fed by Salem's castle and the planet underneath it! He went to BYU to study astrophysics before he dropped out and doesn't even know THAT?" The copy stopped his typing for a moment to tut condescendingly and shake his head.

"Hey!" Penn shouted, getting his double's attention as he closed this distance between them. "I'VE got a critique for ya!"

"Oh yeah, what's tha-" The double didn't get a chance to finish his question before Penn had planted his fist in the center of his face. The fake Penn's chair (which happened to be on wheels) rolled back at high speed, throwing him through the far wall of the room with a crash of splintering wood and tearing paper, leaving a perfect silhouette-shaped hole in the wall. Penn took a moment to shake his hand out before blowing off his knuckles.

"Just repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"

Missy caught a glimpse of a hand rising into the air through the hole, weakly holding up a finger. "Umm... actually, Hodgson's Rule, which was named after Joel Hodgson, the creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000, doesn't excuse canonical inaccuracies, just scientific ones made for the sake of simplification of a narrative..."

Missy floated back up and sat herself on Penn's shoulders as he made his way back. "Man, this guy doesn't QUIT, does he?"

Penn smiled and dusted his hand on his shirt. "Maybe not, but getting to punch my inner critic in the face is still the single most satisfying thing I've done since I blew up Salem's castle!"

"HA!" Missy couldn't help laughing. "I bet most artists would give their right arm for a chance like THAT!"

Together, the two of them returned to the hallway, shutting the office door behind them again and continuing to walk deeper into the studio. It was only a matter of time, however, until they ran out of hallway. He drew up short as the two of them approached the end of the hall, where a closed door waited for them. "Now, if I'm right, then this should take us through some of the business offices. From there, we can find some stairs or an elevator to take us downstairs."

"So... what are you gonna do when we find Sunset?"

"Well, we're gonna have to get out of here before the ink demon catches up to us..." He brushed his fingertips against the wall, barely touching the edge of a dark symbol painted there. "You know, in the game, the ink demon can use these things to get around the studio really fast... I wonder if there's a way we could do something similar?"

Missy glanced back and forth, beginning to worry. His eyes were looking glassy, and the edges of the circle were beginning to run with fresh ink. She reached down with her foot, kicking Penn's hand away from the pentagram. "Hey! I think using the satanic black magic is a bad idea, if Sunset is to be believed!"

Penn stepped back, the spell broken. After shaking away the last of the entrancement, he nodded. "S-sorry. Guess I just got lost in thought. There's a lot of possibilities in this place, you know? But I guess we're gonna have to do things the old-fashioned way!"

With that, he opened the door, and confidently strolled through.

The two of them immediately stopped, of course, when they did NOT find themselves among business offices. Instead, they were standing in what seemed like an enormous underground cavern, one that went all of the way up back to the surface, by the look of it. Above them, a steady stream of ink was dripping through the center of the column.

As Missy continued to take in her surroundings, however, an important detail stood out to her. It was one that Penn had clearly missed.

"Huh... I guess I was wrong!" Penn muttered, beginning to flip through the pages of the book again. "I could have SWORN that this would take us to the secondary business and marketing office for the official toy lines!"

"Um, Penn?"

"Still, it looks like THIS is where the ink machine is moved between floors!" He pressed his hand to his forehead as if to block out the sun as his gaze turned upwards. "Wow! Even so far away, you can really tell the kind of mechanical GENIUS that went into making it!"

"Penn..."

"Maybe it says something about that room we passed by in Joey Drew's memoirs..."

"PENN!"

Shouting at the top of her lungs seemed to finally break through his focus, drawing his attention up to her. "What?"

"Don't look down."

Of course, looking down was what he immediately did, revealing the fact that they were standing on NOTHING, and the tunnel continued down into pure darkness. Penn cleared his throat, then swallowed loudly.

"I know this defies the law of gravity, but, uhh..." he mumbled nervously, "you see, I never studied law..."

With that, the two of them tried desperately to run back to the safety of the door, but nothing they did seemed to make any progress. After several seconds of desperate sprinting, Penn finally seemed to give up, shrugging for a moment before gravity asserted itself. "Welp, worth a shot... Gravity is a harsh mistress."

Having spoken his peace, he plunged out of sight.

"YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-HHHHHHOOOOOO-HHHHHHOOOOO-HHHHOOOOOO-HHHHOOOOOEEEEEEEEEY!"

"PENN! HOLD ON, I'M COMING!" Missy shouted, flying down after him.

Sunset shuddered as the elevator began to move downward. She could watch the floors passing by from behind a wrought-iron fence that served as the door. She was relieved that Penn and Missy were okay, but that didn't do much to assuage her fears for her own safety.

"Now then, why don't I pass the time as you travel down here to me with a story, hm?" the voice asked from a speaker in the corner of the elevator.

"Don't suppose I can stop you..." Sunset muttered under her breath. After a second, her eyes widened and she rubbed at the back of her head. "Wow, I turn into Blake when I get grouchy..."

If the stranger had heard her, she didn't take any notice. "Once upon a time, there was a wizard, one who promised to make everyone's dreams come true... Fame, fortune, joy and freedom were just a few of the dreams he sold to his followers, and people FLOCKED to him, begging him to be a part of his empire..."

Sunset watched the sign indicating Level Nine pass by without the elevator showing any signs of stopping. She reached out and pressed the button with the nine next to it multiple times in succession, but to no avail. Wherever it was going, she was along for the ride.

"He told them stories, gave them honeyed words and empty promises until they would follow him to the ends of the earth... and none of them realized the truth until it was too late. There was magic, yes, but he was NO wizard... he was something MUCH darker."

The elevator shuddered to a stop, but Sunset wasn't in a hurry to leave. The place it had stopped had no lights, just more empty hallways and machinery. She tensed as she began to hear unsteady, limping footsteps coming from the edges of the light the elevator provided. She already had both hands on her saber when the creature began to emerge, but she had to use one to stifle her scream as the thing shambled into view.

It was another cartoon character, one whose body had been mangled and nearly torn to shreds. Its head had been completely removed, and was swinging from the end of a fishing pole that had been shoved into the stump of its neck. Strapped across its bloated abdomen was a sign that read "LIAR" in black lettering. She suppressed her revulsion enough to avoid vomiting then and there when the thing's sole working eye locked on her, somehow still alive in spite of its decapitation, and it picked up its pace, hobbling up to the door and reaching a hand through the gaps in the gate, madly swinging a crescent wrench in her direction. Sunset kept herself ready for a fight, but noted with relief that the barrier seemed to be holding easily.

"He was a madman, building his dreams on the massacred corpses of his followers. He twisted their wishes to serve his vision, and the wishers along with them. Despite all of his ambitions, however, his creations were soulless husks, and he knew that he would do anything to make them real. He created a factory rather than a paradise, and no one but the wise and the lucky were ever able to escape. When the tide of followers began to slow, and the wolves and creditors were knocking at the door, he grew more and more desperate. Be began throwing the ones who had placed their dreams in him into the cogs of his great ink machine in the hopes that their souls would give his creations true life and recapture the magic of his glory when everyone believed his lies...

The elevator began to move downwards again, leaving the creature behind as it removed its arm moments before it was sliced off. Sunset didn't put away her weapon, keeping her thumb on the switch and ready for a fight.

"He was WRONG."

The elevator descended into a large, open room, and Sunset felt herself recoil at what was waiting inside.

It was a huge crowd of dark figures, all idly standing around as if they had nothing to do and no place to go. She could see many of them looking up at her with glowing yellow lights where their eyes ought to be, but others seemed too lost in their own worlds to notice her descent. What followed as she was lowered closer to them, however, was even worse: despair.

It washed over her like ocean waves, strong enough to disorient her physically and send her reeling. She stumbled into the back corner of the elevator, using the wall to slowly lower herself to a sitting position. Even at a distance, even when they weren't touching her, Sunset could feel their pain, their agony, and it was unbearable. When the elevator came to a stop at ground level with them, she could hear countless murmuring voices.

"I wanna go home!"

"I want to see my family again!"

"I'm so tired..."

"PLEASE, JUST LET US OUT OF HERE!"

They looked almost like the man in the mask she'd seen upstairs, but their bodies were emaciated and... melting. Their faces had been reduced to a pair of eye lights and a mass of dripping ink globules that left them without the rest of their face. They made no move to attack her, they had clearly lost any hope eons ago. They simply continued to stare at her with sad eyes.

"The cycle... it's hell..."

"Why won't it let us go?"

"Help us... please..."

Sunset couldn't. Deep down, she could tell that these people... they were beyond helping. Perhaps if she'd had all the Elements of Harmony they could have been helped, but on her own... she was powerless to do anything. She pulled her knees to her chest, burying her face against her knees as her tears began to fall. Tears at her own lack of ability, but also tears that weren't hers, crying for those who no longer could.

She stayed like that for a long time, barely noting when she felt the elevator beginning to lift her upwards.

"THIS is what happens to those who draw too close to the ink machine. Tempted by its power, the possibility of their dreams coming true... they don't realize that the machine and the ink demon will consume them, rob them of everything so precious to them and give nothing in return!" the voice sneered. "Joey Drew fooled us all with his talk of dreams, kept from us what should have been rightfully ours! And I can already see the cycle beginning anew now that you and your friends have arrived here. So...

The elevator came to a stop, proudly displaying that she had reached her destination: Level Nine.

"What'll it be? Will you fall prey to the demon... or be saved by an angel?"

The gate slid open on its own, letting her free again. Sunset did her best to collect herself, rubbing away the tears and pushing herself back up onto her feet. She descended down one flight of stairs and up another, finding herself staring at a heavy-looking pair of steel double doors. A sign above them showed a cute-looking face and the words "SHE'S QUITE A GAL!" Beside the door was another poster for the cartoons, this one eschewing Bendy in favor of another character. She had both a halo and small horns poking up from under her hair, and a shoulderless flapper's dress.

Alice Angel in... Sent from Above!

The doors creaked and grated as they parted and were pulled aside by aging machinery, letting her into another hallway. She hesitated to enter knowing that they could close behind her and lock her inside, but... they looked thin enough for her saber to melt through if worst came to worst. She stepped through, quickly making her way down the hall and around the corner. Her breath caught in her throat at what was waiting for her there.

It was a large room, most of which was filled with a wide pool of ink. The pool was bridged by rickety wooden planks, but that wasn't what was so horrifying. Along with the numerous pieces of memorabilia and broken decorations floating in the ink, the spare space in the ink and everywhere they could fit on the solid surfaces, were more operating tables just like the one upstairs. There must have been DOZENS of them scattered around, and not a single one was empty. Every table had a copy of Boris or one of the other characters strapped down, cracked open, and mutilated to death. Every one of them was missing some piece of their body, having been either surgically removed or violently ripped away.

"It took so MANY of them to make me what I am! So... ALMOST perfect... But now that you're here, my quest can finally come to an end!

Sunset swallowed the vomit in the back of her throat and forced herself to press onward, beginning to balance her way across the makeshift bridge.

"You're not doing a lot to inspire confidence in my safety, here..."

"Oh, I'd NEVER hurt you, my precious little errand girl. As I said, we can BOTH help each other! Just a little farther and we can set the terms of our agreement..."

Sunset managed to reach the other side without falling into the ink, finally passing through one more door and finding herself in another room. This one was a dead end, with the far wall taken up completely by a glass window. Behind it was a fresh operating table, more machinery that looked as if it were meant to be used for unsavory purposes, and a figure standing behind the control panel.

She was clearly supposed to be Alice Angel from the posters, but she was different. More... realistic, for lack of a better word. Her limbs were long and slender, replacing the white gloves and heavy shoes of the cartoon with black ink stains that created the illusion of long black satin gloves and stockings. She had the same horns and halo as on the poster, but the halo was crooked and half-buried in her hair. Just like the rest of the ink-born creatures, she was completely black and white, with a black dress matching the posters and pale skin in the places that weren't stained by stray lines of ink. All of her proportions were within the realm of realistic possibility, if a bit on the skinny side. The biggest difference, however, was her FACE. She didn't have the cartoonish pie-cut eyes or simple features of the other ink creatures. Her face was... human, mostly. She had a proper eye, though Sunset could see extra lines around the iris, as if someone had tried and failed to draw a circle multiple times. The left side of her face, however, was what stood out the most. It was unfinished, with a large black hole where her eye ought to be and a complete lack of lips to cover her exposed teeth. Her skin looked like it had been stretched back and pulled out of shape, creating a fleshy ridge holding back part of her hair. She smiled a predatory smile as she spotted Sunset from the other side of the glass, giving a small wave.

"We meet at last."

Sunset nodded, unable to stop herself from giving the operating table a nervous glance. "I'm Sunset. Sunset Shimmer... You must be Alice Angel, right?"

"In the flesh!" She placed a hand over her heart and gave a small curtsey.

Sunset knew that the sooner she could get out of here, the better, so she decided to skip the small talk. "So... you said we could help each other. What kind of 'deal' were you thinking about?"

"Well, now." Alice tapped her chin in mock thought. "I can help you get back up to the surface, back to where you came into this place you don't belong. You and your little 'angel' friend could be back home by morning, safe and sound before the ink demon feeds you both to his machine and adds you to the throngs of souls in the abyss!" She smiled and flashed Sunset a knowing look. "Yes, I KNOW that you don't belong here, it was obvious from the moment you arrived. This world of makeshift creations and the illusions of twisted men is no place for a lady. Especially not one who shines as... colorfully as you, Sunset."

Sunset found it easy to brush aside the flattery with a momentary thought to all of the vivisections she'd passed on her way in. "And what is it that YOU would want in return?"

"Oh, nothing YOU would miss..."

Author's Note

Fun fact: The "Wandering is a terrible sin" cutout DOES exist in Bendy and the Ink Machine! It can be found in places and rooms the player has no way to access as a warning to would-be hackers!

And NO, Penn's "inner critic" is not a riff on you, fellow adventurers. It was poking fun at myself and my tendency in this story to bend over backwards and dedicate hours to finding unnecessary details for the sake of accuracy, usually with very little to show for it. I STILL get some things wrong, and believe me, there's a lot of inaccuracies that no rational person would worry about and that have never been pointed out in the comments, but I DO worry myself over them. It often leaves me feeling like a certain Polygon content creator.

The "Inner critic" isn't you. It's making fun of myself and my over-attention to detail in this story. After all, you never really laugh until you can laugh at yourself, right?

A Date with an Angel

"PENN!"

Missy's eyes were beginning to water from the wind whipping at her face as she plunged deeper and deeper into the tunnel. She could SEE him inching closer and closer, but part of her knew that this tunnel could only go so far down. Penn seemed to know, as well, glancing over his shoulder to check how much farther he had to fall.

"MISSY! PULL UP!"

"WHAT? NO WAY!" Missy shook her head and reached her hand a little farther. Her fingertips were practically brushing against his. "I'M ALMOST THERE!"

"I'LL BE FINE!" He glanced over his shoulder again, but Missy couldn't see anything but more darkness behind him. "JUST DO IT!"

Missy shook her head, even as it felt like her arm was about to pull itself out of its socket.

"TRUST ME, MISSY!"

She was so close. She could reach him, she knew it, but... she could never hold him. He was too heavy to stop.

Missy shuddered, closed her eyes... and spread her wings, catching herself and beginning to slow her descent. Below her, Penn plunged into the dark.

SPLASH!

Missy's eyes instantly snapped open again at the sound of something below her performing what sounded like a massive cannonball. As her descent continued at a much more manageable pace, she found herself emerging into a massive cavern. It was a huge lake of black ink, with an island in the center playing host to an even LARGER version of the ink machine. A square hole in the ceiling showed where the smaller machine was lowered to slot into the larger one, but it looked as if they'd drifted enough to the side during their plunge to avoid falling into the inner workings. With a sigh of relief, she began to glide towards the far shore.

"PENN? Buddy? Where are you?"

Her answer came in the form of a splashing sound near the centerpoint between the giant ink machine and the shore. It was hard to spot a figure covered in black ink in the middle of a MOAT of the stuff, but she followed her ear until she was able to pick him out.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!"

"Sure looks like it..." Penn muttered weakly, pushing himself up until he was standing with the ink reaching his waist. "It's more shallow than it looks... thank heavens for the 'soft water' trope."

"Good old cartoon logic!" Missy sighed with relief. "Wait... I thought cartoon logic didn't work on you? No fast healing for the status quo or anything like that, remember?"

"Guess this place is the exception that proves the rule," Penn muttered, beginning to slosh his way towards the shore. "That, or I'm still living on Minecraft rules..."

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad it worked!" Missy moved in to hug him, only to catch herself at the last second before she joined him in being an ink-soaked mess again.

Both of them froze, however, as a loud splashing sound came up behind them. The two of them slowly began to turn around.

It was a hand. A GIANT CARTOON HAND, white glove and all. It was bloated and swollen in places, with pustules and veins visible beneath the cloth and an inky black arm leading back down into the lake. It was at least a story and a half tall, maybe two including the portion hidden under the ink.

"Aw, you've got to be KIDDING me..." Penn whispered under his breath.

"It doesn't have eyes... Maybe it can't see us?" Missy hoped.

The hand seemed to disagree, reeling back and slamming down on where they were standing, forcing them to dive to either side.

"GET TO SHORE!" Penn screamed, diving headfirst into the ink and beginning to desperately swim away.

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE!" Missy replied, her fear allowing her to close the distance in a matter of seconds. She slid to a stop on the wooden floor at the other side. She jumped up and down as she watched the wildly splashing figure of Penn trying to catch up. "COME ON, COME ON!"

Her heart leaped up into her throat when the hand crashed down again, this time firmly on top of him. When it emerged, its massive fingers were wrapped around him. He struggled back and forth, looking as though he were about to be crushed. Instinctively, Missy reached for her hat to grab her cards.

"Alucard, we need your help!" she cried, throwing the card in question out to summon her second-in-command. Just as he always had, Alucard appeared beside her, but Missy felt a chill of dread run down her spine when he didn't leap into action. She turned to look up to him. "A-Alucard?"

The face that was staring back at her wasn't Alucard. It looked like someone had erased Alucard's face and painted on the ink demon's, haunting smile and all.

"AIEEEEEEEEE!" Missy shrieked, stumbling backwards as the abomination began to advance on her, reaching for her with a white-gloved hand.

WHACK!

From behind her, a heavy-looking axe buried itself in Alucard's head, splitting him down the middle. The two halves bubbled and boiled, melting into ink and evaporating away before they hit the floor.

Missy spun around, but her savior was only marginally less frightening: He was another copy of Boris the Wolf, just like she had seen dissected upstairs. His expression was one of grim determination, with an extra belt strapped across his chest and a mechanical arm having replaced his right hand. The two of them stared at one another for a moment before he nodded over his shoulder, motioning for her to get behind him.

"B-But what about-" Before she could finish asking about Penn's safety, she realized why he had told her to get out of the way: amorphous blobs of ink were beginning to rise out of the lake and onto the wooden dock. They stretched and bulged into the shape of vaguely humanoid torsos, their arms reaching out and swiping in her direction as they began to advance.

With her faith in her magic shaken, Missy quickly decided to forego trying any more summons and did as she'd been told, flying up and behind Boris, only peeking over his shoulder as he began to hack and slash his way through the new monsters.

"Keep the searchers off of us, Tom!" A woman's voice called as she raced by. With one hand, she flung an object up towards the ceiling, pulling a rope along with it to catch on an ink pipe. Her momentum carried her up into the air and over the lake as her other hand drew a sword from her waist. As she flew past the giant hand, she plunged the blade into its back. She had already pulled it back out again and was swinging back towards them when the pain seemed to register and a plume of ink began to spurt from the puncture. The hand released its grip on Penn, letting him plunge back into the ink as it writhed in the air. The woman landed safely back on the dock, taking the head off of one of the blob monsters as she slid to a stop. The three of them watched as the bleeding from the hand petered out to a slow flow and it appeared to recover its faculties. It began to turn from side to side, as if searching for its lost prey.

"Be ready to fall back..." The stranger whispered, and the copy of Boris only nodded in response.

The hand stopped, turning towards them as if it had heard them. It lunged forward, and the smaller creatures all hurried out of the way. The three of them stepped back, trying to make sure they were beyond its reach.

That was when Penn emerged from the surface of the ink, now only a few short steps away from the dock. He raised one of his arms, which had what looked like a large glob of ink stuck to it. After a moment, the ink seemed to harden, taking shape into one of his expanding shields from Remnant.

BANG! BANG BANG!

The hand recoiled again as the sound of gunfire ricocheted off of the walls. More ink began to spray from its palm, and it writhed and shook itself. Finally, it retreated back into the murky depths. Penn breathed a sigh of relief, seeming to finally relax as he climbed up onto the dock. The smaller creatures appeared to become frightened at the large monster's disappearance and all skittered away into the dark corners of the room.

He tried to wipe away some of the remaining thick globules still stuck to him and cleaned his face as best he could before he finally seemed to register the presence of their saviors.

"Uh... Hi."

"PENN!" Missy threw aside all thoughts of keeping herself clean, rushing up and gripping him as tight as she could in a hug. "You're okay!"

"Thanks to our friends, here..." He held out an ink-stained hand to the two strangers. "Thanks. We probably would have been done for if you hadn't shown up when you did."

"You're welcome, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with friendship." The woman muttered, holding her sword at the ready. Now that Missy could get a better look at her, she could see that she looked like another of the characters she'd seen on one of the posters: Alice Angel. She was dressed in a short black dress, heavy-looking boots, and her arms and legs were both stained with ink that gave her the look of shoulder-length gloves and a pair of leggings. She sported a pair of small horns and a halo-like hairband that kept her locks pulled back into a tight ponytail. The most remarkable thing, however, was the fact that her face looked... human.

The Boris copy took a moment to clap the head of his axe against his metal hand, emphasizing their suspicions. Penn raised his re-created shield slightly, but his expression didn't change from the tired-but-grateful look.

"Well, either way, we owe you." He continued to smile and retracted his attempt at a handshake. "I'm Penn, and this is Missy."

The woman motioned to her friend, then herself. "This is Tom, and everyone calls me Alice." She glanced suspiciously at his recreation of his weapon. "How are you... doing that?"

Penn glanced down at the weapon, looking equally surprised. "Honestly? I don't know... I just was thinking how much I wished that I had my old weapon, and then there it was..."

"Is that one Immovable or Implacable?" Missy scratched at her head. "I could never tell them apart."

"You don't understand!" Alice cut them off. "The ink doesn't just make whatever you want! It has to either be molded by a machine or..." she lifted her sword, pointing it to Penn's throat. "Or used by the Ink Demon."

Penn raised his hands in a show of surrender as "Tom" raised his axe to the ready. "Woah, WOAH! Okay, let's just talk, okay? Because I just fell who-knows-how-many stories into a VERY shallow pool, then wrestled with a giant Master Hand like I was Steve Irwin in Super Smash Brothers, and I could REALLY use three seconds of NOT-CRAZY!"

Everything fell silent, the two strangers glancing at each other to confer. After a few seconds, Alice lowered her sword, though Tom kept his axe ready to swing.

"Well, you didn't disperse in the ink river, which means you're not one of the machine's progeny..." she muttered. "But that's not enough for us to trust you."

"That's more than fair." Penn nodded. "Just give us a chance to earn it..."

The two leaned in close to each other, Tom whispering something inaudible to Alice. She nodded and whispered in return at a slightly higher volume. "If they WERE sent by the ink demon, then it's certainly gotten more crafty VERY fast. It's feral, remember?"

"We-We're looking for our friend, we don't want any trouble..." Missy stammered. "We got separated by the ink demon upstairs, and now none of us know where we are!"

"There's more of you?" Alice asked, her eyes widening.

"Just one. A girl, Sunset Shimmer. She's..." he glanced at their surroundings. "Well, considering how far we fell, probably somewhere upstairs..."

Without warning, Tom lunged forward, swinging his axe. Penn raised his shield to protect them, but the axe missed them completely, coming down on top of a bold blob monster that had wandered back up behind them.

"No matter what we do, it's not safe to stay and talk here." Alice shook her head and turned towards the exit, motioning for them to follow. "Between the searchers, the demon, and the Whiteout, the safest thing is to keep moving."

Tom pulled his axe up out of the wood with a jerk of his non-metal arm. With his animatronic hand, he pointed to the two of them, then at his own eyes. The meaning was clear: I'm keeping my eyes on you.

As they followed, Missy settled back onto Penn's shoulders, now riding on just one side and leaning down to whisper in his ear directly. "So.. where ARE we? Who are THEY?"

"It's a long story..." Penn muttered, keeping his voice low enough for only her to hear. "But Joey Drew wanted the rest of the world to see his characters the same way he did. He wanted them to be REAL... That's why he built the ink machine. When the first attempt didn't work and created a soulless monster-"

"The ink demon?"

"That's right. He moved on to... acquiring souls from where he could get them." He shuddered. "They're all that's left of two of his employees: Allison Pendle and Thomas Conner."

Missy gasped and covered her mouth. "That's awful!" Her exclamation was enough to get their hosts' attention. Penn shook his head.

"Don't be so dramatic. I've been told the bacon soup is pretty tasty, actually!" He reached up and patted her on the head. "You're the one who was talking about how hungry she was! You don't HAVE to eat it, but there's not much else down here."

Missy blinked, not understanding at first until his cover-up had sunk in. Wow, that lie was quick! Following his lead, she harumphed and folded her arms over her chest. "Fine, but I want something SWEET once we get out of here!"

The act seemed to be enough to persuade Alice, but Tom's gaze lingered on them longer. He clearly didn't believe them. Penn simply shrugged and shot him a silent look of What?.

With nothing to base an accusation on, he slowly turned back around and rejoined Alice in leading them through the maze-like underbelly of the studio. As they continued on in silence, Missy took advantage of the lull to reach out to Sunset.

"You there?"

"Yeah. What's going on?"

"Well, I've got good news and bad news. Bad news is, we fell down a shaft all the way to the bottom of the studio, and there's a WAY bigger ink machine down here!

"WHAT'S THE GOOD NEWS?" Sunset exclaimed.

"Well, we ran into some natives who seem friendly enough, and Penn... she considered whether or not she could explain his sudden arming. ...managed to get us some firepower, so we can protect ourselves. We should start moving up soon, but it was a long way down."

"Well, I'm just glad you're safe. I found an elevator that seems like it can take me pretty far down, I'll try to meet you halfway."

"Can't wait..."

Her focus was broken when Penn jolted to a sudden stop, nearly knocking her from her perch. Tom had held out a hand in front of Alice, forcing all of them to stop. She looked at him with a measure of concern.

"Do you hear something?"

Tom nodded, quickly glancing from side to side. He stepped up to a nearby janitor's closet, using his mechanical arm to yank it open in spite of the lock.

"Quick, everyone inside!" Alice motioned for them to follow her as she rushed inside. Penn and Missy didn't ask any questions, simply obeying and cramming themselves in as best they could. With that done, Tom walked inside, pulling the door shut behind them and closing it.

Missy waited for several seconds in perfect darkness before she couldn't contain her curiosity any more. "What is i-mmph!" She was cut off as Alice's hand pressed over her mouth. A gentle push turned her head downwards towards the bottom of the door.

She felt the change before she saw it. It was an electricity in the air, one that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise and her teeth tingle. Her eyes widened as the crack at the bottom of the door began to glow. White light, REAL white, not the beige that served as "white" in this world, began to glow through the crack, growing brighter and brighter by the second.

WHAT is THAT?

As the light poured in, Tom moved to the side, clearly trying to avoid it. Penn only barely managed to follow his example before the light managed to reach his feet, and Alice did the same. They could all hear a crackling hiss. As more of the white light entered the room, Missy began to see black specks beginning to appear in it. Eventually, it became a mass of what looked like TV static cast across the floor. The tingling sensation grew stronger by the second, crawling across her skin like pins and needles. The hiss began to resolve into a single pure tone, ringing at a deafening volume that didn't seem to care whether or not she clapped her hands over her ears.

WHATisthatwhatISthatwhatisTHATWHATISTHAT?

Just when she was ready to scream, the static began to recede, as did the stinging on her skin. It felt excruciatingly slow, but eventually they were once again standing in darkness. They all waited again until they couldn't hear or see any sign of it, and Tom leaned forward and cracked open the door to peek through. After a moment, he nodded and stepped out, motioning that the coast was clear. As they entered the hallway again, Missy could see a new addition: a streak of white on the walls and floor where the sepia had been completely bleached away. The outlines of the boards were all smeared and blurry, as if a halfhearted attempt had been made to erase them.

"What WAS that?" Missy hissed, still not daring to raise her voice above a whisper.

"We've been calling it the Whiteout..." Alice shook her head. "We don't know what it is or where it came from. It just appeared a few hours ago, but it's been eating away at our world." She reached up and brushed her fingertips against the blanched area. "It could be some kind of antithesis to the ink demon, or something worse, we don't know. All we know is that everything it touches winds up... white. Blank. Gone."

Just a few hours ago? But that was right around when... She glanced over at Penn. His face looked inscrutable, but she'd seen his "bluffing" face in enough duels to know that he was feigning his ignorance, he was just as frightened as she was and had certainly come to the same conclusion.

"Come on, we need to keep moving in case it comes back."

Sunset kept a tight grip on her saber as she stepped back into the elevator. Talking to the twisted angel had left her with a lot to think about.

She glanced over the controls, trying to make sense of the many buttons and their contradictory labels before settling on the lowest one on the panel. The elevator shuddered and shook before beginning to descend. It was nice that, even without their phones, she and Missy could keep in touch, but it wasn't enough. They needed to regroup.

As the elevator continued downward, a massive shudder traveled through the building, causing her to lurch to the side and grab at the wall, eyes wide and fearful. The elevator stopped for a moment with a screech, and everything seemed to go silent.

KA-CRACK!

A sound like the cracking of wood split through the air, forcing her to clap both of her hands over her ears. She didn't dare to take them away until the elevator was moving again. Her eyes widened as she watched the far wall passing by.

There was a crack. It was huge, starting as a fissure in the wall, then splitting out into a branching web of glowing white lines. Slowly, she approached the wall, trying to see into the white light... but there was nothing on the other side. Drawing too close made her skin tingle, and she soon decided to keep her distance from the strange phenomenon.

It's not just a crack in the wall, it's... something else. A crack in REALITY... She felt a chill run down her spine as the understanding of what was happening set in. I thought- after Remnant, I thought this sort of thing couldn't happen! We're supposed to be able to CHANGE things!

She turned away from the fracture, shaking her head. She knew that if Penn were here, he'd tell her not to worry herself with what she couldn't do anything about. All the more reason to get out of here as fast as possible, I guess...

Isis was uncertain how to proceed. She'd lost contact with all of the connected devices that had entered the portal. Sunset Shimmer and Missy's phones had gone offline after a declaration that they were "coming in hot," which she had taken to mean "with a hostile entity in pursuit." This was especially worrisome, but before Sunset's device had gone offline, she had still been receiving life signs, meaning it was unlikely they had perished. Unfortunately, she had been ordered to remain where she was and guarantee that Penn did not return and leave them without answering Sunset Shimmer's questions.

Without flying in another drone, which would certainly draw Administrator Noir's ire and a countermanding order (she was still "in the doghouse," as the saying went, for losing a HENVEX unit in Remnant), she had no way to investigate their failure of communications without using the unit currently assigned to guard duty. She could construct a new one specifically for the purpose of entering the portal, but without a highly conspicuous emergency supply launch it would take hours to arrive.

With no other recourse, she was limited to examining the portal from the outside.

She had taken several measurements, including finding the world's resonance frequency. It was subtle, but she had discovered that every dimension operated at a slightly different frequency of matter, which acted like a signature of sorts. It was nothing that could affect the laws of physics on a grand scale, at least so far as she had encountered in her mapping efforts. It only affected similarly low-frequency transmissions, such as her drone signal or, presumably, Missy's bond keeping her tethered and energized in this world. This portal's resonance, however, presented her with a unique scenario: while comparing and cataloguing the resonance frequency, she had found a harmonic frequency in her logs. They were not identical, but caused constructive interference with one another, resulting in both being boosted. She would have to test it in the future, but theoretically, this could lead to yet another field of study: multiversal harmonics. Fitting individuals and worlds that matched one another in this manner could prove beneficial, though she would almost certainly require more data on the matter. The idea of individuals being able to find a universe that "suited them" was uniquely appealing, though.

I shall have to inquire Penn regarding what effects the harmonic frequencies produced, if any...

The other important reading, however, was less promising and much more worrisome: the Kant Counter. The device was not of her own creation, she had... acquired the plans for it, along with a few other useful tools, from a secure server on the SCP Foundation's network. (It had NOT been easy to find without revealing herself, but there were digital entities in containment at the foundation that had aided her in exchange for her help in orchestrating gaps in their containment.) The Kant Counter was a device capable of measuring the strength of local "reality" in a measurement known as Humes. After Mount Ebott, she had made a Kant Counter standard issue on exploratory drones. The baseline of their current campsite had been measured at 87 Humes. A slightly high variation, but nothing noteworthy. An examination of the portal, however, gave a much lower reading of only 50 Humes. It had been steadily declining since she had started measuring, but precipitous drops had been occurring more and more frequently. The lower a universe's Hume level, the less "real" it became, and the more threat that was posed of the universe disincorporating completely. Of course, this also came with its own set of costs and benefits, but none that she could leverage to her advantage or relay to her companions.

As she continued to monitor the drops in Hume level, her weighted costs and benefits of bringing down Administrator Noir's wrath against trusting the judgement and skills of her teammates moved more and more in favor of launching a new exploratory drone to re-establish connection with the rest of the party. For the moment, however, she remained vigilant, dutifully fulfilling the orders Sunset Shimmer had given her.

"Countdown to engagement of emergency protocols: One hour, thirty-seven minutes, twenty-three seconds. Twenty-two. Twenty-one. Twenty. Nineteen..."

"So... you came from outside the studio?"

"Yeah, and we'd really like to just find our friend and get BACK out of the studio..." Penn replied, rubbing at his neck. "No offense, but while this is a nice place to visit, I wouldn't want to live here."

That managed to get a light chuckle out of Alice. "None taken. We'd all escape this place if we could, but once you're in the ink's clutches, it's not so easy to get back out of them..." She took a moment to look down at her hands and clench them.

"Well, we've got another friend who's pretty smart, Isis! Maybe she can figure out a way for you to come, too!" Missy suggested.

"That's... very kind of you. If she could, then we would all owe her a great debt." Alice shook her head wearily. "But I wouldn't get my hopes up. As long as the ink demon controls this place, none of us will be able to leave."

Penn made a face. It was another face that Missy knew well. It was his "considering a risky card" face, usually reserved for making his big plays when he didn't know his opponent well.

"What if... we had a way to destroy it?"

Those words brought the entire company to a screeching halt. Alice and Tom both turned around, eyes wide. Penn raised his hands defensively again.

"It's not EASY, and it means we're going to have to retrace some of our steps, AND you're going to have to wait until we're OUT of the studio to try it..." he rubbed at his neck as he glanced to the side. "It's something I... noticed in Joey Drew's book. Bendy... well, he saw his own beginning, but because Joey refused to ever admit defeat, he never saw-"

"The end?" Missy interjected.

"Yeah. Joey said that if he ever aired the final short saying goodbye, it would be like his dream had finally died..." Penn was lying through his teeth, but Missy had to admit it was convincing. Definitely more convincing than "I saw this in a video game once."

Tom snorted dismissively and turned to go back down the hall, but Alice seemed to be pondering the thought more. "You think... if we show Bendy the final reel, it could end him, as well?"

Penn nodded. "There's only one problem... if it really IS his weakness, he's going to keep it in the safest place he can think of: the giant ink machine."

Tom turned back, grabbing at Alice's arm, but she pulled away. "Hold on! This idea sounds crazy, but we've tried everything else! If that's what Mister Drew's book said, it could be our chance! He's the only one who truly understood anything about what he was creating here!" She motioned to their ink-soaked clothes. "Plus, they're the only ones who could get through the ink river to find it. This could be our only chance."

Tom glared at Penn for a moment, audibly sighing and lowering his arm from where he had been poised to pull at her again. He took a moment to motion to the two of them, clearly dubious.

"We don't need to trust them for long, just long enough to get that reel." Alice looked back to them, decidedly less friendly now that her hope had been tempered by Tom's skepticism. "After that, we'll get you to the elevator and never cross paths again. Right?"

"That's the plan, at least..." Penn shrugged and nodded in agreement. "The thing is, if we want to get past that thing guarding it, we're going to need to find our other friend. She's got a weapon that could help us." He grinned and pounded his fist into his palm. "She could make mincemeat of that thing, I'm sure of it!"

"And you think she'll be willing to risk her life to help us? Just like that?"

Missy grinned and leaned in closer. "If she knew that she could do something to help people down here, she would have jumped down that mineshaft right after us! That's just the kind of person she is!"

Alice and Tom exchanged looks again, then smiled. "Alright, then. It's not much farther to the service elevator shaft. Let's see if you're right..."

As promised, it didn't take long for them to reach the elevator, and judging by the sounds coming from above, Sunset was already on her way. The four of them all waited, some more patiently than others. Penn and Tom both made motions as if to check a watch, although neither of them were actually wearing one. Personally, Missy took to pacing in the air in front of the elevator's entrance, silently thanking the powers-that-be that her own powers hadn't been hijacked in the same way as her cards.

After what felt like an eon, the box rattled to a stop at the bottom floor, revealing a somber-looking Sunset standing inside. She seemed surprised at their new companions, but she seemed to be withholding any comments for the moment.

"SUNSET!" Missy zoomed ahead, not giving her a chance to leave the elevator before she was already wrapped up in another hug. "You're a real sight for sore eyes!"

Sunset gave a wry smile as she patted Missy on the back. "Right back at ya, partner..."

Missy turned to look over her shoulder, beckoning Penn into the elevator. "Come on, you know you want in on this!" Penn started to move forward, but something else caught his eye, causing him to stop again. Missy glanced up, seeing the uncomfortable look on Sunset's face that had made him stop. "Oh, come ON, Sunset! Again? NOW?"

Sunset didn't answer beyond a mumbled "Sorry..."

"Well, it's good to be back together..." Penn shuffled awkwardly. "I have a plan, but it's going to need all three of us to work." He sighed and reached into his pocket. "I wish it could be all FOUR of us, but, well... No Isis." he held up his ink-soaked phone, and Sunset and Missy did the same. "Still, I think it could help the people here get free of the ink demon, and I figured that if you were here, you'd say-"

"That somebody HAS to do something?" Sunset smiled and rolled her eyes. "Come on, tell me something I don't know! When DON'T you have a plan?"

"I'll explain on the way..." He motioned to their new "friends." "This is Alice, and this is Tom. They saved us from a monster, but we're going to have to get past it again to get what it's guarding."

Missy finally let go of Sunset, happily floating between her two favorite people, but something was eating at her stomach, a gnawing anxiety. Sunset was smiling on the outside, but the only emotions Missy could feel from her were worry and guilt, and when she tried to poke deeper, Sunset's mind closed up tight, refusing to let her rummage around her memories.

She was hiding something, possibly trying to forget something horrible she'd seen or some brush with death from them until they were in a safe time and space to freak out, but... it didn't feel right for there to be a secret between the two of them.

"I'm all ears, bud..." Sunset smiled, and Missy couldn't help noticing that she STILL refused to call him "Penn" to his face.

I know this is usually Sunset's line, but... I have a bad feeling about this.

Author's Note

Hey, uh... I'm gonna be serious for a moment. Not as Pennington Inkwell, but as Elijah. The REAL Elijah.

Right now, my entire family has been rocked by a raging COVID-19 infection, in spite of all our efforts to socially distance and take proper precautions as recommended by medical experts. For most of us, it seems that the scenario is not serious, but my mother is truly struggling. Hospital visits are an extremely difficult decision for us because of monetary costs, but we're considering it.

For me, there's really nothing I can do but sit in my room and continue to self-isolate with my own infection, typing away the hours until I can re-enter the world. I wish more than anything that I could help her, but all I can do is pray and offer to get her what few things she can ask for.

All I ask is that, if you are a member of a religious faith, please say a prayer for my mother. She means the world to me and to all of our family.

Thank you.
-Elijah

Can't Be Erased

"Okay, run this plan by me one more time?" Sunset whispered. "You think that a film reel can stop the ink demon?"

"I know it can," Penn whispered back. "It's how you win the game."

"And it's in the center of his lair? And you need ME to help you fight your way in?"

"That's right."

Sunset glanced up ahead at the two cartoons currently leading them into the center of his hellish world. "On my way down, I saw something. It looked like these... cracks in the world."

"Yeah, it's happening down here, too." Penn shook his head. "I think we're messing with the course of events here too much..."

"It didn't matter if we changed things in Remnant!"

"Remnant wasn't revealed to be a closed time loop at the end!" he hissed. "This whole game just starts over when you win, and it all happens again exactly the same way!" He seemed to catch himself after a moment, glancing up to see if their new "friends" had heard him. "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that makes this place a LOT less flexible..."

Sunset sighed. "If it's all going to start over, why are we even doing this, then? We should be focused on getting out!"

"I don't know, maybe you're rubbing off on me..." he replied. "I couldn't just do nothing after they saved me and Missy."

"Of all the times for you to stop worrying about causing a paradox..." Sunset joked, causing them both to snicker. "And Missy's magic?"

"Currently out of commission. Looks like the demon's not going to let us use the same trick twice."

Sunset sighed as they emerged into a cavernous room with a huge pool of ink. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat as she caught sight of the "bigger" ink machine Missy had been talking about. It was at least the size of the Sweet Apple Acres barn, maybe bigger.

"If the end reel is anywhere, then it'll be in there..." Alice muttered.

Sunset was still trying to wrap her head around there being a second Alice Angel. It shouldn't have been THAT big of a surprise to her, considering everything else she'd seen, but it had seemed like the one upstairs had been one of a kind, like the ink demon. As it was, this one was definitely more pleasant than the first.

"And you guys really can't cross the lake?" Missy asked.

Alice shook her head. "A drop of water in the ocean is rarely seen again. It would be the same if the ink reclaimed us."

Sunset peered out over the ink, her nose scrunching up at the smell of it. "I don't see any monsters."

"Oh, give it time once we start wading..." Penn muttered, adjusting the black-and-white recreation of his shield. "It'll be there."

Sunset nodded, reaching down to her waist. "If I'm not careful, the saber will wind up shorting out again, and we'll be in trouble." She turned to look back at Penn. "Are you SURE about this?"

His gaze grew steely as he stared across the black lake. "Yes."

She flicked the switch, summoning her red blade. Once again, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see ANY color in this monochromatic world. "Then I guess we're doing this."

"Missy, you fly across and keep lookout. If we need a distraction, you're on deck."

Missy gave a quick salute and took to the air, keeping a high arc over the lake until she landed on the other side.

"Sunset, stick close to me. We're going to cover each other's backs." He gave his wrist a snap back and forth, loading fresh rounds into the swiveling barrels, then sat on the edge of the dock and lowered his feet into the black water.

Sunset nodded as she joined him. With a silent count of three, the two of them hopped off. The ink was indeed not as deep as it looked, barely coming up to her bellybutton. Well, at least I know my phone was already ruined, so I don't need to worry about THAT... She felt Penn's back press up against hers, leaving no space between them. Secure in the knowledge that nothing could sneak up on them, they began to wade across.

"Maybe if we don't kick up too much, it won't notice we're here..." Penn whispered.

"Let's hope so..." Sunset nodded. As they moved, a thought came to her that made her smirk. "You know, we never got a chance to fight together in Remnant like this. We were on opposite sides."

"I'm always on your side, Sunset, but I'll admit, this IS nice."

Both of them froze for a moment as something stirred nearby, causing ripples in the surface of the ink. Neither of them so much as dared to breathe as the movement traveled towards them. After a few seconds, it passed by, only barely missing them. Once it had moved on and sunken back under the surface completely, they both let out a synchronized sigh of relief.

"I retract my earlier doubts about a monster in here..." Sunset whispered.

"Told you so," Penn volleyed back.

"Yeah, yeah... So after this, we use the reel to beat the ink demon and get out of here?" Sunset asked, trying to distract herself from the terror of not being able to see their enemy.

"No..." Penn muttered. "Remember what I said about this being a time loop? We beat the ink demon, and the odds are good that it all resets."

"With us inside."

"Yeah."

"And that would be bad."

"Yeah."

"Then WHY-"

"Because maybe I'm wrong, okay? Maybe if we just play it on a normal projector, or if Alice or Tom do it, or if we just get out of here and THEN let them do it, maybe it'll give them a chance!" he hissed. "You got to make the call in Remnant, and I'm making one here! I just want to TRY..."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Never going to let that go, are you?"

"Not a chance, no."

Both of them stopped as another disturbance rippled across the surface. This time it began to swim in leisurely circles around them, keeping them locked in place.

"I think it knows we're here..." Sunset whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Steady..." Penn whispered in return. "I'm going to try to throw it off... Cover your ears."

Sunset did as she was told, doing her best to cover both ears without letting go of the saber. A second later, she felt a hard bump against her shoulder from the telltale force of recoil.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three shots rang through the room, and Sunset turned around for just long enough to catch sight of three splashes on the far side of the lake. Both of them watched as the monster instantly broke away from circling them and shot off in the direction of the bullets, kicking up a wide wake with its size and speed. With their hunter momentarily distracted, they began moving again.

"The biggest problem is that I don't know how we're going to make it back up to the top floor..." Penn muttered bitterly. "Since it all loops, you never see the main character backtracking."

"Don't worry. I've got an idea about that..." Sunset whispered in return. "We just need to get back to the elevator."

"I'm open to all suggestions, here... care to clue me in?"

"Later. Let's just focus on this for now." Sunset turned over her shoulder again, and the bottom fell out of her stomach as the realized that the surface of the lake had gone completely still. "Where did it go?"

They stopped again, and Sunset wanted to scream from the frustration. They were more than three-quarters of the way across. Missy was tantalizingly close, now.

"...Should I shoot again?" Penn whispered.

All at once, the ink beside them exploded as a huge figure rushed to the surface, a gigantic cartoon hand rearing over them with a misshapen white glove.

"YES! SHOOT AGAIN!"

Both of them raised their weapons, with Penn unleashing a spray of bullets while Sunset held her blade up defensively to ward the hand off from trying to crush them. The bullets only seemed to enrage the creature, with the holes they punched in it sealing within seconds. Sunset watched it lean back, readying for a lunging blow.

"SWITCH!"

The two of them rotated, bringing Sunset to the front and letting Penn take the rear as they continued walking backwards. When the hand lunged for them, Sunset swung her saber in a wide arc. There was a hiss of boiling ink as the palm of the glove split open, showering them both in a black spray as it recoiled and writhed in the air. The two of them used the time wisely, moving back and away from it as fast as they could until Sunset felt a hard surface pressing into her back.

"Made it!" Penn shouted, pointing out the obvious as they both scrambled to get out of the ink. In just a few seconds, they were all away from the edge and out of the giant hand's reach.

"That was close!" Missy sighed with relief as she grabbed Sunset in a tight hug.

"Looks like you managed to wound it..." Penn added as the hand sunk back into the lake. "I've got a feeling that getting back's not going to be so easy."

"That's a problem for later." Sunset switched off the saber and clipped it back to her waist. "For now, let's get that anti-ink-demon reel."

Penn nodded, anxiously adjusting his shield out of habit. "We're going right into the heart of the monster's lair, here. Stay alert."

Sunset felt Missy's grip on her tighten as the three of them stepped through the doorway at the front of the giant ink machine.

Inside, the space quickly opened up into a large series of halls. Penn took the lead here, clearly working from memory again. On every side, Sunset could see glass cases, like museum exhibits. Each case had a nozzle at the top that sprayed ink all over the insides. The thick fluid would soon begin to move and collect on its own, making new shapes inside the cases. As they passed more glass boxes in the walls, Sunset saw creatures in every stage of forming. Some were the same lost souls she'd witnessed huddled in masses earlier when Alice had driven the elevator down to force her to see the truth. Others were twisted monsters, like the fishing-pole-headed thing that had tried to attack her. The "lucky" ones seemed to be the copies of Boris, which mostly looked properly intact as they formed.

He created a factory rather than a paradise, and no one but the wise and the lucky were ever able to escape... Alice's words echoed in her mind again, sending chills down her spine. This WAS a factory. It was a machine cranking out cobbled-together pieces of human souls in an attempt to make something that could be marketed to the masses and save a failing vision.

Eventually, the hallway led them to a dead end, sealed by a huge metal door. There was a conspicuous lever attached to the wall nearby, which Penn approached and placed his hand on.

"There's not going to be a sneaky way to do this. Once we pull this lever, it'll know we're here. This is a smash-and-grab, not a heist. The reel is on the throne, that's all we need." He pointed to Missy. "Grab it and get it out of here FAST. Then it's just a matter of getting out of here before Bendy can..." he swallowed nervously and tugged at the neck of his shirt while glancing at one of the glass cases, "Well, before he has three fresh souls to feed to the machine. Sunset and I are going to cover your exit."

Missy floated away from Sunset just far enough to stretch herself out and give her wings a few test flaps. "Okay... I'm ready!"

Sunset switched on her saber and nodded. "I guess that this is my own fault, teaching you we can change things and help people..." she smirked.

That managed to get Penn to smile, in spite of the tension. His shield expanded, the metal plates shifting to cover a larger area. With one deep breath, he seemed to center himself... and pulled the lever.

All of them shuddered and cringed as the sound of grinding gears and squealing metal pierced the air, signaling their entrance as the doors began to part. Even cutting through with my saber would have been more subtle! Sunset regretfully bemoaned the realization too late. Missy rushed up to the doors, turning sideways and squeezing inside before they had even finished opening. Sunset stayed close behind, trying her best to force her way through after her.

The room was huge, with projectors playing the company's numerous Bendy cartoons on every inch of the walls. It seemed to be a monument to everything that had been created in Joey Drew studios, a lifetime's work all on display at once. In the center of the room was a chair crowning a pile of congealed ink, with cogs and other pieces of machinery embedded in it to create steps leading up to the top, where a pair of pipes had been mounted to the chair's back and bent into the rough shape of Bendy's horns. Guess that's as much as I should have expected for a "throne..."

Missy didn't hesitate when she spotted their objective sitting on the cushion of the seat. She rushed up and snatched the circular container with the reel inside, examining it closely. "The End! Just like Penn said!"

"Good! Now let's get out of here before- LOOK OUT!"

Her warning came too late as a huge black set of claws swung around from behind the chair, creating an impromptu prison with Missy locked inside. Sunset's eyes widened as the feeling of dark magic began to rise higher and higher, and a figure emerged from behind the throne.

At first, it looked like the same ink demon that they'd seen upstairs, but its body was rippling and shaking. Without warning, it began to swell and grow. The once-gnarled limbs became long and muscular as the last vestiges of the cartoon identity faded. Its crescent-shaped head grew and arched into a pair of tall devil's horns, spines and bone spikes grew out of its body, and the evenly-drawn cartoon teeth all sharpened and separated into a roaring maw of mismatched fangs that looked ready to eat her whole. This... thing wasn't Bendy any more. It wasn't even trying to pretend. This was a true, honest-to-Celestia demon.

"LET HER GO!" Sunset forced herself to shout through the fear, brandishing her saber in its direction.

The monster wasn't intimidated by her weapon, snapping at it before letting out a roar that shook Sunset to her very core.

Once again, Sunset felt like she was drowning in that malevolent aura of evil magic, but she forced her quaking knees to stay standing. This was do or die, with not only their lives, but their very SOULS on the line... and she wasn't about to lose hers for a second time.

"GRRRAAH!" Sunset roared as she ran forward and raked her saber across the massive claws of the monster, severing its fingers and freeing Missy from the cage. It hardly flinched at the pain, and they had already regrown by the time its hand lunged for her. Sunset couldn't help feeling a surge of satisfaction with the practiced ease that she transitioned to a tight roll across the ground, narrowly avoiding being grabbed. And Beacon Academy's training continues to be worth its weight in gold!

"SUNSET!" Missy cried, but Sunset was already up on her feet and waving Missy towards the door before the little angel could swoop in.

"GO! GET THE REEL OUT OF HERE!" she shouted as the now-massive devil glowered over her. The room was tall, but not very wide, and she knew Missy was realizing the same thing as her: she was cornered. "I'VE GOT ITS ATTENTION, JUST GO!"

Missy glanced uncertainly between Sunset and the exit before finally gritting her teeth and disappearing through the doors.

BANG! BANG BANG!

The demon flinched slightly and turned away from Sunset to look at the new intruder. Penn had entered the room shield-first, letting the swiveling barrels of his weapon do the work of targeting as he rushed in.

"How's this for a mouthful?" he shouted, swinging the shield to bash at the demon's head. While it was distracted, Sunset lunged forward, ready to plunge her saber straight into its heart.

The demon, however, was unperturbed, leaning back onto its smaller hind legs and grabbing at each of them with one massive hand, stopping both attacks short. Sunset grunted as she felt its claws coil around her, slashing desperately at its arm to try and sever the limb. The ink hissed and boiled as her blade passed through, but never severed completely. She tried reaching further, plunging the entire blade into its upper arm, but the moment that the base of the handle made contact with the liquid ink, it popped and sputtered, shorting out again and leaving her disarmed. The eyeless demon seemed to stare at her with a wicked grin, clearly enjoying watching her struggle. The pressure on her mounted as it squeezed her harder and harder, driving the air from her lungs and forcing the blood to rush to her head.

BANG! BANG!

"All eyes on ME, ugly!" Penn shouted, collapsing his shield to get it free and continue shooting point-blank. The bullets seemed to do little more than annoy the monster, turning its wicked grin to a frown. Its teeth parted, allowing a long, snake-like tongue dripping with black ichor to slather itself across the shield's surface. The moment that it made contact, the surface darkened and began to violently shudder. In a matter of seconds, Penn's shield had transformed back into a shapeless blob of ink. His expression changed from grit to horror as the blob rapidly crawled up his arm. It swelled up into what looked like a recreation of the cartoon Bendy's head, only to split vertically down the middle with a monstrous mouth and latch onto his face.

With the annoyance tended to, the ink demon flung Penn to the side, slamming him against one of the walls and leaving him slumped in a pile as the little Bendy head continued to chew on him.

"P-Penn... no..." Sunset could barely eke out more than a whisper of her worry, the lack of oxygen making sparks of light swirl in her vision. Things were starting to go dark, and it was clear that they had been outclassed from the start.

Missy pushed herself like she never had before, feeling as if she were crashing into and scrambling on every wall on the way out. Despite her panic, however, she soon made it back out to the lake.

Was it always this far? she wondered as she zoomed on a beeline for the waiting Tom and Alice. It felt like the trip back across the lake was three times the distance it had been to reach the ink machine, but she still pushed herself to try and cross it as fast as she could.

Wait, aren't I forgetting something?

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she heard heavy splashes from behind her as the giant hand emerged, hot on her tail as it sped through the ink.

"Oh, for the love of Ra..." she muttered. "Would you give it a BREAK, already?" She turned her course upwards, barely escaping the monster's grip. Instead, it circled back around towards her goal, setting itself between her and the other pair.

She didn't have TIME for this, her friends needed her! She examined the reel, then the remaining distance to the shore. She couldn't run fancy calculations like Isis, but... she was pretty sure she could make it.

Plus it WAS shaped like a frisbee, so...

"HEY, CATCH!" she reeled back, judged the distance one last time, launched herself into a pirouette to build up speed... and released the reel into the air.

The precious film flew straight and true, sailing over the ink, the giant hand... and Alice's head. It was only a quick snatch from Tom that stopped it from colliding with the ground. He gave a silent wave in her direction, signaling their success.

"Yesss!" Missy pumped her fist with glee before turning on a dime and diving back in the direction of the ink machine. Her mission was finished, and there wasn't any sign of Penn and Sunset being on their way out, which meant that they were probably still fighting the ink demon inside.

I don't have my cards, I don't have a weapon, I can't use the ink to make things like Penn... She pounded her fist against her head, trying to shake loose some new idea or piece of information. Come on! What good is being an Angel of Mischief if you can't help fight DEMONS? Can't I wish for some kind of miracle, or something?

KA-KA-CRACK!

The air shuddered as a shock wave traveled through the world, and Missy's eyes widened. Beneath her, the lake was beginning to split. White cracks had started up on the rock and split open a rip in the surface of the lake. She could feel the same tingling, static-y sensation coming from them as they spread across the ink, not even slowing down as they reached the giant ink machine's base, both climbing its walls and burrowing into its floor inside. She forced herself to brave the strange sensation as she dove back into the hallway and sailed towards the throne room. She had NO idea what this meant, but she was pretty sure it wasn't good. Whatever was breaking this world had gotten worse when she'd delivered that reel.

KA-KA-CRACK!

There was an ear-splitting screech, and Sunset felt the crushing grip on her body released. Her body instantly collapsed, but after several deep breaths of blessed oxygen she was able to force herself up onto her hands and knees.

The demon was reeling in the face of something new: white light. White light was spilling into the room from all sides. More of the cracks in reality had managed to reach the heart of the ink machine. She watched as the demon's hand slipped into one of the cracks, causing a terrible hissing noise and a crackle of static. It instantly pulled the offending hand back out again, but the damage appeared to have been done: the tips of its fingers were covered in what looked like TV static, black and white light constantly battling for supremacy and rapidly spreading down its hand. With a screech of pain it leaned down and bit off the hand at the wrist, its heavy fangs making quick work of its own sinew. Sunset watched, wide-eyed as the hand was rapidly transformed into a pile of oozing static that leeched away back into one of the cracks.

Crack! Cra-crack! More of the white spiderwebs traveled across the walls, multiplying the danger. The demon shook its head and roared in the face of this new threat, but the fracturing reality didn't seem to care. With one last howl, it turned and ran into the back of the room, sinking into and through the wall and leaving behind a huge version of the pentagram symbol.

Sunset coughed weakly as she tried to push herself back onto her feet, crawling across the floor and avoiding the splits in the surface of the world as best she could. When she reached Penn, she grabbed the little monster with one hand and flung it across the room, straight into the light, where it vanished with a sputtering fizzle.

"Penn... wake up..." she tried to yell, but the near-crushing of her ribcage left her with almost no voice, and certainly not one that could make itself heard over the explosions of failing machinery and crackling of the static. For a second, she considered leaving.

He was a copy. An imitation of her friend, just like everything else in this place. She couldn't even be sure that she COULD carry him out...

"All eyes on ME, ugly!"

"I don't know, maybe you're rubbing off on me..."

"I'm always on your side, Sunset, but I'll admit, this IS nice..."

No.

No, he wasn't just a copy. Now, as the world was crashing down around them, he'd been the same Penn she'd always known, with a joke and a forced smile meant to comfort her. When one of them was in danger, he still rushed in headfirst, swinging whatever heavy object he could find. At the end of the world, THIS was who was beside her. Whenever she'd had a question, he'd still had an answer. Everything he'd said, everything he'd done... she couldn't deny it, any more.

"Real... copy... it doesn't matter, does it?" she grunted as she yanked on his arm and pulled it over her shoulders. "It's still YOUR boat if it still sails and you're the one who sails it..."

She braced both of her feet against the floor and pushed up with all of her strength. At first, she could feel that she wouldn't be able to break free of gravity, but without warning he seemed to become lighter, allowing her to stand with him. On the other side of his shoulders, Sunset could see a smiling Missy practically beaming as brightly as the white light.

Between the two of them, they managed to stagger their way back out the same door they'd come in through, with only a few short brushes with the cracks being narrowly avoided by errant wings and feet. By the time they were standing on the shore of the ink lake, Penn was starting to stir, his eyes blearily cracking open.

"Wha... Wha' happuh?"

"You took a big hit, take it easy..." Missy gave him a pat on the back as they watched the surface of the lake. The giant hand was easily visible, now, writhing and shaking as more of the static consumed it. Clearly, it hadn't known to stay clear of the white light. Carefully, they eased Penn into the ink, followed shortly by themselves. The three of them waded together across the lake, and Penn slowly began to be able to take more and more of his own weight. Unfortunately, by the time they'd reached the other side where Tom and Alice were waiting to pull them out, he still couldn't seem to walk on his own, with a heavy limp in his left leg and still leaning on Missy for help. Eventually, Tom had used his mechanical arm to pick Penn up by the back of his shirt and put him on his back. It was almost funny, seeing Penn flopping and holding on for dear life, definitely a stark contrast to Missy's many weightless piggyback rides.

"I can't believe you DID it!" Alice cried as the hurried back down the hall.

"We didn't. The- you called it 'Whiteout,' right?- the Whiteout scared it off. We were as good as dead in there if it hadn't shown up when it did..." Sunset shook her head. "The demon's still out there, but hopefully you can use that reel to put it down for good once we're gone!"

Alice turned to Tom, a hopeful smile on her face. "See? I TOLD you everything happens for a reason!"

Tom simply rolled his eyes, but Sunset didn't miss the quick thumbs-up of gratitude he gave them.

Soon, the entire party was standing in the elevator. Tom carefully placed Penn in the corner before the two inky individuals stepped back and out of the box. Sunset stopped with her hand hovering over the "Level 9" button.

"Aren't you guys coming?"

"We've got our own safehouse, one the demon doesn't know about." Alice gave them a sad smile. "We'll hide there for a while, work on putting together some way to trap it in a room with a projector. Should give you plenty of time to escape." She held out her hand, which Sunset took. As they shook, Sunset found herself surprised. After all this time fighting ink monsters and running from them and trying to dodge their attacks, she'd thought that they would be as cold and clammy as the ink they were made from, but Alice's hand was warm to the touch, and hardly left a hint of any extra stain on her skin.

"Thank you. All of you. For the first time any of us can remember... the people here have hope."

Sunset felt her face flush slightly with embarrassment as she stepped over and pressed the button. The fence doors rattled shut and they began their long ascent. The trio and the pair waved to each other until they couldn't see each other.

Now, having what felt like a fleeting moment of peace, Sunset stepped over to Penn and let her legs finally collapse with relief, putting them both at eye level with each other.

"Hey..." he croaked.

"Hey, Penn."

There was only enough time for his eyes to slightly widen before Sunset leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as she dared in his fragile state.

"Thank you..."

"F-for what?" he stuttered.

"For coming back."

From the side, Missy smiled wider. "What did I tell you? Different cards, SAME spirit."

Sunset chuckled, sitting back and giving her partner a smile. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, now. You could have done a better job explaining it, though."

"HOW? I made it clear as day for duel spirits, didn't I?" Missy asked.

"Yeah!" Missy replied, leaning on her shoulder.

Both of the Missys paused for a moment before jumping back, pointing an accusatory finger at each other.

"YOU!"

"ME!"

"Here we go again..." Sunset chuckled to herself as she watched the world pass by outside the elevator. The fractures were everywhere, now, but things still seemed to still be holding themselves together.

"So, where we going?" Misprint asked, stepping over to lean on Sunset's shoulder and examine Penn more closely. "Oof, is it just me or is he looking a little pale?"

"I met someone on the ninth floor who can make the elevator go all the way up to the top. We help her and we'll be as good as home..." Sunset leaned in closer, realizing that Missy's cartoon double was right. Penn's face had a large... splotch on it that she hadn't noticed before. It was like someone had thrown a splash of sepia-colored paint on him. She reached out and tried to wipe it away, but it stayed put.

"I'm just a little tired..." Penn muttered as his eyes slid shut. "Gimmie a minute to pull myself together..."

Sunset glanced at the pair of angels, both of whom were nervously biting at their nails and exchanging worried looks.

"We'd better hurry..." Missy muttered

"Yeah."

"You said it, me!"

"Well, well, well... the prodigal errand girl returns..." Alice Angel's voice purred over the loudspeakers. "Did you bring me what I asked for?"

Sunset grunted as she helped Penn to his feet. "Things have gotten more complicated, but I'm sure we can work it out..."

"Who's THAT?" Missy hissed.

"Somebody you REALLY don't want to meet..." Penn muttered. "Though I'll admit, I've always wanted to see her face to face... THIS is your friend upstairs, Sunset?"

Sunset shrugged as best she could "Well, I never said she was my friend..."

"What did she ask you to bring her?" Misprint added.

"Right now, she's our only hope of getting back to the surface!" Sunset whispered. "So just let me do the talking, okay?"

The two angels didn't take well to the hall of corpses that they had to trek through to reach Alice's room, but Sunset was able to keep them under control with a pile of hushed assurances that they wouldn't be next. Penn limped his way along the bridge, nearly pulling them both into a tumble into the ink multiple times before the two Missys would push him back into balance.

Alice was the picture of impatience as the motley crew entered her room, arms folded and fingers drumming on her arm.

"THIS is your friend who could make such perfect recreations? He's practically broken, himself!"

Sunset nodded. "Yeah. He made the other mes, and this other Missy, all without even trying, but-"

"Fine. Even if he IS damaged, I suppose it's better than nothing." Alice cut her off with an impatient wave of her hand. A door to the side slid open. "I'll take him, and you and your 'angel' can head to the surface."

"WHAT?" Missy and Misprint shouted in sync, and Penn's eyes widened with fear.

"Sunset, how COULD you?" Missy cried.

"This is a joke, right? A big joke!" Misprint pressed her fingers together. "Ha, ha, very funny but not really!"

Sunset took a deep breath. "You- We-" she stuttered for a moment as she accepted who was to blame. "I was wrong. He's not just a copy, he's as real as any of us! And..." she tightened her grip. "And he's my friend!" She glanced over at Penn, trying to not let her heart break at the look of betrayal on his face. "So I've changed my mind! You can't have him, but-"

"Can't? CAN'T?" Alice screeched, stepping up to the glass between them and pounding her fist against it. "Who are YOU to deny me perfection after so long? I CAN, and I WILL!"

"W-wait!" Sunset held up her free hand. "I- I think maybe he can still help you, all you have to do is ask!"

"He can?" Missy asked.

"He can?" Misprint echoed.

"Uh, what?" Penn added for good measure.

"Well... you made all the others right? Don't you think you could... help one who came out a little off?" Sunset forced a smile at Penn.

Alice glared at them for another moment before stepping away from the control panel and walking in the direction of the open doorway.

Penn leaned up to her ear, pushing his words right up against her eardrums. "There's a BIG difference between making something from scratch and changing someone else's work, Sunset! And I don't even know how I did that other stuff, to begin with!"

"Well, it's this or we're trapped down here with a crazy angel hunting us, so improvise!"

"Oh, and who's fault would THAT be?" he groaned.

"I made a mistake, aren't you glad I figured it out before we got HERE?"

"This is more than just a MISTAKE, Sunset!"

Their hushed argument came to a stop when Alice emerged from the dark door. She sauntered up to them with a confident strut and placed an inky finger under Penn's chin to force him to look up at her.

Sunset watched a shudder travel through him... as his face began to flush.

"Is she correct? Can you give me what I want, or shall I TAKE it from you?"

His face flushed harder, putting some very noticeable color into his cheeks. Sunset's eyes widened. You have GOT to be kidding me! Is he seriously-

"I-I'll try my b-best... he stammered, straightening his posture slightly.

This seemed to be enough of an answer for Alice, who stepped away and spread her arms. She slowly turned in a circle, letting him see every inch of her. Penn simply watched, perhaps a little TOO closely, until she was finished.

"Well?"

Penn swallowed loudly. "I- I think I get the picture..." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his eyes. "As Joey Drew would say, 'Let's dream it until it's real...'"

Everyone fell silent as his brow furrowed in concentration, and all eyes were on Alice. With a tremble in his fingers, Penn slowly reached out, beginning to brush his fingertips across her face. Sunset forced herself to repress her gasp of surprise when the ridge of misshapen skin began to recede. The area around the corner of her mouth began to fill in, covering her exposed jaw and forming a pair of symmetrical lips.

It's working, it's WORKING!

Her hopes turned to fear, however, as a tremble began in Penn's hand. It started in his fingers, but soon traveled up to his wrist, his elbow, and finally all the way up to his shoulder. With one last grunt, his hand fell away, hanging limply at his side.

"I- I can't... I can't..." he stammered breathlessly as he shook his head.

Alice reached up to her face, hastily examining it with both hands. "No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO!" She screamed as she fell to her knees, pounding her fist against the floor repeatedly. Once she'd exhausted that avenue, she grabbed Penn by the shoulders, pulling him out of Sunset's grasp and pressing him against the wall.

"Do it again, it was working, I could FEEL IT!" When he didn't respond immediately, she shook him violently, slamming him against the wall. "DO IT AGAIN!"

"I- I can't..." Penn whispered. "I can't change... the creator's... vision..."

"GRRRRAAAAAAH!" Alice ripped herself away from him, throwing herself against the glass in a tantrum. Sunset rushed to where Penn was leaning, immediately helping him steady himself.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah..." he stammered, eyes wide as he looked over her shoulder. "Hard to say if we're gonna stay that way, though..."

Sunset spun around, finding Alice staring them down, both her good and bad eyes fixed into the united effort of a soul-chilling scowl.

"If you can't do it, then I'll just have to take whatever it is that gives you this gift for myself..."

"H-Hey, that's not the deal!" Sunset interposed herself herself between them, reaching for her saber only to remember that she had shorted it out. I've GOT to get this thing waterproofed! Without a weapon, she simply spread her arms into a living barrier. "I told you, you can't have him!"

"That was EXACTLY THE DEAL!" Alice screamed. "You give me the one who can reshape the ink, and I let you and your little friend leave this place!" She seemed almost to grow as she advanced on them, a shadow stretching taller and taller until its terror rivaled the ink demon, itself. "You cannot leave without me, you cannot stop me, and you CANNOT DENY ME!"

Sunset raised her hands into a guarded position as Alice reeled back, ready to take this to hand-to-hand if need be, but everything was cut short as the sound of grating metal sliding into place caught everyone's attention. On the far wall, the door she had entered through had slotted shut, and up on her stage... was Misprint, leaning on the control panel with a grin.

"You know, I REALLY can't help myself around mysterious levers!" she giggled, shifting more of the controls and happily tapping away on the buttons.

"No! My controls!" Alice cried, running up to the glass. She pounded her fist against it, sending a series of cracks through the surface. Misprint giggled and stuck out her tongue as she pressed another button. Behind the glass, a series of metal shutters slid shut, locking Alice out.

"Going UP, anybody? Ooh, what's THIS button do?"

"Don't you DARE- GAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Alice's threat was cut off when arcs of electricity ran across the shutters, causing her to violently spasm before being flung against the back wall, where she collapsed unconscious.

After a few seconds that seemed to assure she wasn't going to wake up any time soon, the door slid open again, revealing Misprint dusting off her hands with a satisfied look on her face.

"And THAT is how you use a distraction properly!"

Missy flew up, examining her double again more closely before finally sighing and offering a friendly hand. "A trick for her and a treat for us... Okay... That was pretty good."

Misprint grinned and shook the original's hand, each one giving a satisfied hum. When the quiet moment was finished, she removed her tiny hat and took a sweeping bow. "Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitresses!"

"So, what'll we do about her?" Sunset asked, nodding towards the unconscious Alice.

"Well, going by Penn's reaction, maybe we should bring her along!" Missy folded her arms with a snicker. "We ALL saw him blushing!"

Penn had an indignant look on his face for a moment, looking as if he were going to deny it before sighing in defeat. "Look, I have a type, okay? I love the kind of woman who can kick my-"

"Aargh..." Alice grumbled, cutting him off and leaving everyone ready to run if she woke up. Thankfully, it only seemed to be a light stir, and she quickly settled again.

"Well, you know... she's been terrorizing the 'copies' down here for a long time, if our trip in was anything to go by..." Misprint muttered thoughtfully as a less-than-innocent grin spread across her face. "Maybe you should leave it to us copies to deal with her."

From the dark doorway, Sunset spotted two more figures walking in: Satanset and Chibiset, both looking as intact as when she had last seen them and each one wearing a smug grin.

"Somebody has to do something..." Chibiset smiled and rubbed her hands together evilly.

Satanset looked down at her tiny companion, seeming to be surprised at the sudden malice before turning back to Misprint for clarification.

"Was that REAL?"

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine at the thought of the empty operating table up on Alice's stage. She felt a trickle of pity for the unconscious angel... which dried up when she remembered her threat to cut Penn up on said operating table.

"I'll... leave you girls to it, then."

"You know... it's too bad we didn't get to go to Bendy Land." Penn muttered as they ascended in the elevator.

"I think I've had enough of Bendy's world for a lifetime!" Missy declared.

"No, I mean there was a whole theme park prototype somewhere down there!" Penn chuckled. "But... I guess you're right. I think I can live with skipping it..."

Sunset smiled, watching as the elevator finally reached its last stop.

"So... we won?"

"Not until the last card's drawn..." Penn muttered in return, pushing himself onto his feet with Missy's help. "This place could still collapse at any minute. I don't think stopping Alice did TOO much damage, considering she was supposed to die anyway, but I'd rather not stick around to find out."

"How was she gonna die?" Missy tilted her head curiously.

"Stabbed in the back by Allison and Tom." It was somewhat unsettling how easily he shrugged off the intended death for Alice, but Sunset was too tired to care. "They get the jump on her while she's preoccupied with the player."

"Well, I just want to get home and get out of these ink-stained clothes..." Sunset took a moment to examine herself. "I look like I fell into a tar pit on my way to a funeral and tried to wash it off in an oil slick!"

The three of them giggled as they stepped out the door and into the hall. Sunset could tell almost instantly where they were, emerging from one of the locked doors she'd been forced to skip on their first pass.

The three of them slowly waded through the ink, finally able to do so without running for their lives.

"You know... I think I'm over my writer's block..." Penn muttered with a smile.

"Penn? Some advice for next time?" Missy leaned in. "Just do some drugs or drink yourself under the table, like a NORMAL writer, okay? It'll be slightly less destructive!"

The next round of laughs was cut off by another shudder through the building that threatened to knock them off their feet.

"Come on, let's pick up the pace..." Sunset whispered as she shifted more of Penn's weight off of his bad leg. Together, they made their way to the front of the studio, where the gaping hole in the floor that had gotten them stuck here was waiting with the portal home just behind it. Looking closely, Sunset could see that there was plenty of usable floor around the hole, they had simply stepped onto a perfectly-cut circular hole held up by only a single flimsy board.

She wanted to scream at someone or something, but she was too tired. She resolved that if she ever met the person who MADE this game, she'd settle for punching their lights out.

She carefully led Penn around the hole, watching for any more signs of sabotage until they'd reached the portal.

"Home sweet oldsmobile, here I come!" Missy cried as she flew through the portal.

The moment she was through, another tremor occurred, and a glance back revealed that the cracks had finally reached the top floor.

"Guess nobody's supposed to make it OUT of this place either, huh?" she muttered. Penn nodded.

"Hey, Sunset?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you came to my rescue and everything, but... we need to have a SERIOUS talk about you almost selling me out to Alice Angel."

Sunset's face flushed with shame. "That... that's fair. I was scared and confused, but I know I messed up."

"But for now... let's just call things good and work it out in the morning..." he raised his other hand to stifle a yawn.

Sunset nodded, and together the two of them stepped into the inky portal.

The cold autumn air hit them like a truck, instantly chilling every inch of Sunset's soaked clothes.

"Welcome back, Sunset Shimmer."

"Isis... I have NEVER been so glad to hear your voice." Sunset sighed with relief through her shivers. "Can you help get us some dry clothes?"

"Affirmative, right away."

A few minutes and some turned backs later, all of them were dressed in multiple layers of warm clothing.

"And then there was this GIANT ink demon and it was all like 'RAAAARGH!' and Sunset was like 'Don't worry, I'll distract him!' and it was so scary and-"

Missy hadn't stopped talking to Isis since they'd gotten back, hardly so much as stopping for breath as she relayed their adventure to the drone. Sunset's attention, however, had been divided, and she noticed that she wasn't the only one. Both she and Penn had been keeping one eye always trained in the direction of the portal.

Something still felt... off. The portal hadn't been there when they'd arrived at the campsite, and none of them knew how it could be there now. If portals could MOVE, it went against everything Isis had told them about her mapping project. If they couldn't, as all the prior evidence would have suggested, then...

New portals are still opening... They can show up anywhere, at any time...

"And then I was like 'CATCH!' and I threw it as hard as I could and-"

KA-CRACK!

Everyone bolted upright as the sound rang out through the night, echoing multiple times in the air. Everyone except Isis was staring at the portal with varying degrees of horror, while the small droid floated across the camp and landed neatly in front of it.

The white cracks had spread to the actual edges of the PORTAL, now, like a mirror breaking at the edges.

"Fascinating. Hume levels are continuing to drop, now holding at thirteen..."

Crack! went the portal as the white lines moved further in.

"Twelve. At this rate, it is possible we may be able to observe a full universal collapse from the outside."

"Wait, it's gonna COLLAPSE? Like, just the portal, or the whole thing?" Missy asked as she floated over. "There's PEOPLE in there! There's another ME in there!

"Isis, be careful!" Sunset urged as they gathered a respectful distance behind her.

"Wait... Isis, you can measure Humes?" Penn asked.

"I acquired plans and a baseline measurement from a secure server some time ago."

"Wait... you didn't try to hack the Foundation, did you?" Penn asked, eyes wide with fresh horror. He pressed his hand to his forehead with a groan. "No. No. I can only take so much horror in one night. That's something else I'll deal with in the-"

Without warning, every one of Sunset's senses seemed to explode, sending her reeling backwards. They all were telling her the same thing: DANGER!

"Sunset! Are you o-" Penn was interrupted as the surface of the portal swelled and bulged out. None of them were able to react in time when the massive hand of the ink demon grabbed him and yanked him through, drawing him inside.

"PENN!"

"PENN!"

"RED ALERT!"

Sunset and Missy both rushed for the portal, but the cracks in the surface were already continuing their spread, beginning to meet up in the middle. Sunset tried to stop herself from crashing headfirst into them and was saved by a hard tug from Missy on the back of her shirt.

"DON'T! It'll erase you!"

Sunset spun back around, gesturing to the portal. "We can't let it just TAKE him!"

"Hume levels are dropping precipitously! Seven! Six!"

The portal began to ripple and roll like cloth in the wind.

"Five! Four!"

"WHAT HAPPENS AT ZERO?" Missy screamed, picking up Isis's drone and shaking it.

"Three! Two! ONE!"

With one final sound like shattering glass, the portal tore itself apart, splintering into a thousand pieces along the white fault lines. The pieces spread out like an explosion for a moment, then violently pulled in on themselves like a black hole. With what sounded eerily like a chorus of screams, the pieces all collapsed to a single point and vanished in a flash of white light that forced everyone except Isis to look away.

"Zero. The universe... appears to have imploded under the pressure of the surrounding realities."

When Sunset looked back, she saw something that filled her first with relief, then horror.

Penn was there. He'd made it out, somehow. However... the back of his shirt had been violently torn open, and three huge claw marks had been left in his back. Rather than blood, they were festering and boiling with black ink. Sitting on top of him was a note in the same sepia color that had made up the whole world on the other side. Scrawled in messy handwriting was a message that sent shivers through Sunset's soul. As she picked it up with trembling hands, the sheer aura of dark magic threatened to burn her fingers. There was no doubt that this note had been written by the ink demon, itself.

CAN'T. BE. ERASED.

Sunset and Missy looked at each other, then the note.

"Did we just... accidentally break another universe so hard it imploded?" Missy whispered.

"What... have we done?" Sunset whispered. She reached down, giving Penn's shoulder a gentle shake. "Penn? H-Hey, you're back... Wake up."

"Penn?" Missy floated to the ground and lifted his face out of the dead grass, giving it a gentle turn to the side to let him breathe. "This- this isn't funny! We're outta Monster Reborns, and I-I can't handle re-convincing Sunset, anyway! Wake up!"

"Wake up!"

"WAKE UP!"

Author's Note

Thank you all for your well-wishes for me and my family after the previous chapter. I cannot tell you all in words how much comfort it brought me to know that there were so many people out there who care.

I don't want to be hasty in proclaiming anyone recovered or not, but things seem slightly more safe than they were yesterday. If you can, I would ask that you please still keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank you, fellow adventurers. From the bottom of my heart.

On a less serious note...

And so the Bendy and the Ink Machine arc comes to an uncertain end! It looks like the Multiverse crew might not have seen the last of the Ink Demon, though! I hope you all enjoyed it, I took advantage of being sick to finish this arc in record time! Until next time, happy adventuring!

And from me to you, stay safe out there. These are scary times, and 2020 might have a few more curveballs it's been saving for the end.

Beginning of the End

"Guess this explains why Professor Ozpin asked US to check this out..." Yang muttered as she shook the remains of the monster off of her gauntlet. "There's no way these things are Grimm..."

Team RWBY were all taking a much-needed moment to catch their breath after fighting their way through a small army of giant centipede-like monsters. What was left of them refused to dissolve away to ash like the Grimm's bodies, meaning that they were surrounded by stinking, splattered corpses.

"Yeah, but that doesn't answer the question of what they ARE!" Weiss complained, holding up her scroll both to take photographs and to provide some light to the underground cavern. "We can't just go back with that information alone."

Blake used her cleaver-like sheath to slice the head from one of the twitching bodies with an air of professional detachment. "She's right. Just because they aren't Grimm doesn't mean they're from another dimension. It just means they're something new."

Weiss finished her work with a flourish. "Well, I sent the pictures off to to Isis. Hopefully she'll have an answer for us soon. For now, should we head deeper?" All eyes turned to their leader. Ruby pondered the question carefully, glancing back at the tunnel to the surface before shaking her head.

"We need more to go off of before we meet up with Professor Oobleck and Team JNPR, and we've still got an hour before the rendezvous. Let's keep moving."

Everyone seemed to agree, following Ruby deeper into the tunnel. Things were barely lit by the lantern they had brought with them, almost like the dark itself was pushing back against their encroachment.

"Sure would be nice to have someone with a glow-in-the-dark weapon..." Blake muttered. The complaint went unanswered as no one else wanted to prod that particular subject, but they all missed their fifth teammate.

"I'm sure Sunset has her own problems..." Weiss finally muttered.

"Yeah, she's still a multiverse superhero or something, right?" Yang asked, stretching her neck from side to side. "Maybe we should give her a call after this and ask how that's going for her!"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!" Ruby chirped.

The idea seemed to raise everyone's spirits as they walked further and further into the dark. It was growing harder and harder to ignore the fact that it was becoming unnaturally cold, and soon they could see their breath puffing out into small clouds in front of their faces. For once, Yang was starting to regret her tendency towards short sleeves and a bare midriff, and a short glance to her partner made it clear that Blake wasn't pleased with the sinking temperatures, either. Weiss, of course, didn't seem to so much as shudder, and Ruby had just pulled her red cloak a little tighter against her body.

"This kind of cold isn't natural..." Weiss muttered as she examined a spot of frost on the cave wall. "But what could be causing a heat sink on this scale? If I didn't know better, I'd say that this place feels like an ice dust mine..." As she continued looking closely, her fingertip brushed against a congealed chunk of ice in a small recess in the wall.

The response was immediate and violent. The ice seemed to disassemble and shatter itself into hundreds of shards. The cloud of ice particles moved like a single organism, sliding and shifting over one another and grabbing onto her hand. Weiss cried out and violently shook her hand, but the ice held fast, the sharp edges quickly grinding through her aura and digging into her skin.

"WEISS! Hold on!" Ruby cried, running up and trying to brush away the possessed crystals with her hands. They had already completely encased her arm up to the elbow and were rapidly moving towards her shoulder. The thing seemed to react to Ruby like a magnet, beginning to expand and move towards the girl in red.

"G-Get back!" Weiss shouted, giving her a hard shove and sending Ruby crashing towards the ground. In her other hand, the revolver in her sword's dust chamber clicked into place, and red light flared up the edge of her rapier. A wave of blistering heat radiated outward from her as the fire dust inside ignited, and after a moment to make certain the blaze was under control she carefully passed it over her frozen arm. The ice swiftly melted away, reduced to steam by Weiss's timely efforts. She flexed her fingers in and out with a grimace as speckles of blood began to rise up from numerous puncture wounds in her skin, but after taking a moment to confirm that her arm was still functional, she returned Myrtenaster to its sheath.

"WHAT was that?" Blake asked.

"Are you okay?" Ruby approached her injured teammate with a hint of hesitation before an affirmative nod gave her the go-ahead to begin inspecting Weiss's arm.

"It didn't get deep, just pinpricks... a lot of them," Weiss muttered. "As for what, I have no idea... It was like the ice was ALIVE!"

"And it sure wasn't vegetarian..." Yang muttered, "You were almost a Weiss-sicle!" Her joke didn't do much to lift the mood, and everyone stared into the dark tunnel ahead with equal trepidation.

"That... or it could have been some kind of trap, or a guard." Blake's eyes narrowed as she stepped up to the front of the group. Her golden eyes gleamed in the low light, reminding everyone that she had the best night vision. "I think I can see a bigger chamber up ahead. We might be getting close to some answers."

"Then let's go..." Weiss grumbled, rolling up her sleeve on her injured arm. "I've got plenty of dust left, and I don't want to leave this place empty-handed."

"Okay, but everyone watch your step, and try not to touch anything!" Ruby tightened her grip on her scythe with a touch of worry in her voice. "We still have to make it back out, too!"

The four of them continued on in step with one another, never allowing the others out of arm's reach. Sure enough, Blake had been right: the tunnel soon opened up into a massive cavern, one that the light of their lantern had no chance of reaching the edges of. The ground dropped away into a deep crater, and Yang had to cover her mouth to stop herself from gagging at the sight of what laid below:

It was a lake of ice, the same kind of ice that had nearly taken over Weiss's arm. It looked to all be in the same kind of shards at first, but she could see floes of solid chunks floating around inside, each with a suspiciously human-shaped silhouette inside. She could make out the chitinous reflection of the centipede carapaces around them as they crawled into and out of tunnels bored into the walls, but for some reason they didn't seem to be interested in dealing with their intruders. The air felt thin, and she could feel a hollowness to it beyond the cold sucking the heat out of her body. She tried to rub her hands together for warmth, but it was like rubbing two ice cubes together: each one kept the other equally cold.

Every member of the team drew closer to one another and stepped away from the edge of the ice lake, but Blake's eyes weren't on the dangers around them: they were glued to the roof. Yang tried to follow her gaze, but she couldn't seem to make out the same thing her keen-eyed teammate could.

In her pocket, Yang felt her scroll begin to violently hum and vibrate, and she could tell by the startled jumps and movements of her teammates that they had all received the same message at once. She quickly reached down and opened up the device. The screen was dark, aside from two words in Isis's signature blocky pink text:

EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!

Yang glanced at the rest of her teammates. Weiss and Ruby both had the same worried look that made it clear they'd received the same frightening message. As they began to carefully retreat back to the tunnel they'd entered through, Yang could see that they were one girl short: Blake. She seemed to still be transfixed by whatever was above them, locked into place with her jaw beginning to hang slack. Yang reached out, grabbing her hand and giving it a firm yank to pull her back into the tunnel. The sudden motion finally broke whatever spell had been cast over her, snapping her back to the present as she was pulled into the relative safety of the tunnel.

"What was THAT for?" she hissed. Yang clapped her hand over the faunus girl's mouth and held up her scroll with Isis's message. After a moment, she pushed away Yang's hand. "Fine, sorry..."

With that, the four of them began to slink back along the path that they had entered by. Ruby held her scroll up to her mouth, whispering as quietly as possible into the device. "What IS this, Isis?"

The pink text didn't change, making it clear that their robotic friend wasn't interested in answering questions, which was a first.

Things must be BAD if Isis doesn't want to dump a bunch of information on us... Yang felt a chill run up her spine at the implications of Isis's silence. As they walked on and on, there was a sinking feeling that they were getting colder. The four of them were all beginning to shiver, and more and more ice was appearing on the walls for them to try to avoid. Was it this far to get DOWN here?

Their party came to a complete stop when they encountered an obstacle that definitely hadn't been present on their way in: a seal on the tunnel. It looked like more ice, but at least a foot thick, something that never could have formed in the time they'd been down here. They all looked warily at it, no one seeming to want to draw to close. Yang loaded a shotgun cartridge into her gauntlet, only to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder as Weiss strode past. She pressed the tip of her blade against the center of the seal and ignited another charge of fire dust. It was like a wave of relief to everyone when the temperature began to rise, and a small hole began to form in the ice, swiftly expanding by the second.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

The seal exploded, sending chunks of ice everywhere as a torrent of the gigantic insects from earlier poured in with them. The ice chunks all split immediately into a flurry of razor-sharp shards, but Yang couldn't tell what was living ice and what was the biting and pinching of sharp pincers and legs. The lantern was thrown from Ruby's hand with a squeak, knocked back down the tunnel and leaving them all at the semi-lit edges of its range. Yang opened fire, blowing the head off of a centipede just as its mandibles were about to close down on her throat. The body was still twitching as she threw it aside and jumped back to her feet. She stomped on two more, one with each boot, before taking a second to examine the situation. Blake and Ruby both seemed to have had enough time to react to the army of bugs thanks to their semblances, but they each were quickly losing a limb to the living ice, with one of Blake's arms immobilized and Ruby's left leg grounded to the floor. Weiss seemed to be their primary target, barely holding off a platoon of the monsters with wide arcs of fire.

Yang dug deep, grabbing hold of the power buried in her gut as she triggered her semblance. Her golden hair began to crackle with yellow flames as her hands pulled into tight fists and her rage began to spill over. With a roar, she threw herself into the mass of monsters, ripping and tearing them to shreds with a flurry of punches and shotgun blasts.

"HIDING BEHIND THE ICE? THAT. IS. SO. CHEAP!" was the only thought she could articulate between the blows. For a while, the world turned into a blender of black blood, shattered exoskeletons, and viscera as she tore through the oncoming bugs like a one-woman army, but she was running out of power fast. She could feel herself winding back down after only a short time as if felt like all of the strength was sapped out of her body and into the air, but she knew that she could outlast the monsters: she had to, so she would. Even when her semblance ran out, Yang kept up her attack, relying on her shotgun blasts to rip apart her foes. One shot could reduce both her target and at least three more behind it to a fine mist.

There weren't many left when she heard the sound she hated most: Click! An empty chamber.

"YANG! LOOK OUT!"

From behind her, silver light flooded the tunnel as Ruby's hidden talent made itself known. The monsters caught in the light of her sister's attack were reduced to ashes with a sizzle, finishing off the last of their opponents without issue.

"Think you could OPEN with that next time, sis?" With a sigh of relief, Yang stepped back and away from the already-stinking pile of corpses.

"S-sorry..." Ruby replied breathlessly. "That still t-takes a lot out of me..."

"So much for getting out quietly..." Blake's words were bitter, but her smile betrayed her gratitude for Yang's work as her formerly-frozen arm hung at her side.

"They set up an ambush for us, these things are smarter than they look." Ruby shook her head as Weiss's blade melted away the last of the ice from her leg. "They're not just dumb monsters."

"How? I thought we killed them all on our way in!" Blake shook her head with confusion.

"All the more reason for us to get out of here quickly..." Weiss replied. "Can you walk?"

Ruby took a moment to flex her leg with a grimace before hopping up and down on it and nodding. "Like you said, not deep pricks, just a lot of them... Ugh, it's like getting a hundred shots all at once!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Well, once we get back, I'll get you a lollipop for being such a good girl. Does that sound good, leader?"

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" Ruby fired back, only to reconsider her stance a moment later. "But yeah, a lollipop does sound nice..."

As Ruby limped back to pick up the lantern, a glimmer of motion caught Yang's eye on the ground: one of the centipedes was moving. At first, she dismissed it as post-mortem spasms, but as Ruby returned with the lantern, she spotted something that made her blood run colder: the blood from the thing seemed to be un-splattering itself, drawing together and pouring back into the open wounds.

"Girls... I think I figured out how they got behind us..." she whispered, taking a step back as it began to twitch more and more violently. Finally, with an unnatural snap, the pieces of its head reassembled themselves, and the monster stood intact again. "They're the same ones we fought on the way IN!"

"They come BACK?" Weiss cried, making no attempt to hide her dismay.

"Come on, we've gotta move!" Ruby shouted, grabbing Blake and Weiss each by a hand and beginning to sprint back towards the entrance. Yang stayed right behind them, using the moment to discharge her spent casings and reach down to her belt for fresh clips. She could hear the creatures all hissing and shrieking as they reassembled themselves and took off in pursuit.

"We're almost there!" Weiss shouted, pointing to the dim light of the entrance to the tunnel.

Blake's eyes were on the opposite direction, looking back where they had come from. "They're catching up!"

"The exit's frozen over!"

"I need time to melt it!"

"We don't HAVE time!"

Yang could hear the panic growing in her teammates voices. She'd already burned through all of her stored-up energy in her semblance, but right now she was the one on the back line, and she had fresh ammo, fire dust charges.

She could do this.

"GO! I'll buy us time!" She spun in place and pounded her fists together, daring the creatures to come at her. She didn't wait for them to arrive, throwing the fiery bullets out in rapid succession. The first few landed dead in the center of their ranks, sending shockwaves through the surging masses of legs and pincers. After a moment, however, another thought occurred to her, and she changed her target to the roof. With a series of explosions, the rock and dirt gave way, coming crashing down and cutting off their enemies completely. She could feel the burning aura of Weiss melting their escape way behind her, and she leaned forward to put her hands on her knees. Something about this place... It makes me so tired...

"Nice thinking." Blake smiled as she put a hand on Yang's shoulder.

"Thanks..." Yang watched a trickle of water run past her boot as the light of the world above grew brighter.

"We're almost out!" Weiss called.

The sound of more rocks clattering and shifting caught both Yang and Blake's ears, instantly drawing them back to the cave-in. As the light grew clearer and clearer, Yang could scarcely believe her eyes.

The dust and pebbles were all beginning to rise back towards the ceiling.

"Guuuuys, HURRY!" Blake called, levelling her gun at the barrier. One by one at first, then en masse, the stones began to lift off of the ground and back into the air. As the stone fused back into a single solid mass, flashes of light seeped out and coalesced. Flames burned in reverse, concentrating to single points. It was all that Yang could do to tackle Blake to the ground as her own bullets were fired back at them. The entire world erupted into fire and pain, and Yang felt herself lifted up and blasted away by the hail of explosions.

When the smoke and haze cleared, Yang was looking at the sky. Everything hurt, and she could tell just from how much pain she was in that her aura was completely spent, but it looked like they'd managed to get back out of the hellish tunnel, one way or the other.

"What... was that?" Blake's voice groaned from somewhere nearby.

"Is everyone... okay?" Ruby croaked.

"I've been better... but I'll live." Weiss coughed weakly.

"Y-yeah..." was the only word Yang could force out.

They all stayed like that for a moment before something jolted Yang out of her reverie: a tug on her boot. She felt the world shift under her as the tug came again, and she put all of her effort into raising her head enough to look down her body. She felt a surge of panic as she watched one of the giant centipedes closing its mandibles on her ankle to drag her back towards the opening in the ground. She tried to kick at it, but her body was sluggish and too slow to respond, making her attack easy to dodge.

"L-leggo!"

As she looked around for help, she could hear more indignant squeaks and shrieks from the rest of her team. They were in the same situation.

Come on... get up! she chided her body as she made another attempt to kick off the creature before it could drag her back underground. GET UP!

"HEY! Why don't you freaks pick on somebody your OWN size?" an unfamiliar voice called out.

There was a crackle of lightning and a gust of wind, and then the pressure on Yang's ankle was gone. A chorus of sounds that Yang could only categorize as "giant bug zappers" echoed and crackled through the air, and she could feel every hair on her body stand on end with static electricity. Moments later, an unfamiliar figure was standing over her, offering her a hand.

Yang groaned and gritted her teeth as the stranger pulled her up into a sitting position, trying not to cry out with the pain of moving.

"Hang in there, kid. You've been through the wringer."

Yang wanted to object in the strongest possible terms to being called "kid," but she didn't want to antagonize the woman who had just saved them. Instead, she forced out the first worry on her mind.

"M-my friends..."

"They're gonna be fine. You just take it easy."

Yang took a moment, trying to examine the stranger more closely. She was lithe and muscular, definitely a runner's build rather than a fighter's. She wore what looked like iridescent white leather at first, but squinting revealed a much more scaly pattern to the material. It made up a light jacket and pair of leggings, while she wore a lightly magenta-tinged shirt underneath with an icon of a cloud and striking thunderbolt embroidered over her heart. The small splash of color complimented her eyes, which were a much more saturated version of the same shade. Her hair was long and white to match her clothes, wild and barely held together in a ponytail. The static electricity crackling among the strands kept it constantly shifting, as if it had a life of its own.

"You did a good job. Not just anybody could find a Baalchion Gate and make it out alive."

"A... what?"

As the stranger turned back to her with a terse frown, something slipped out of the front of her shirt that Yang hadn't noticed: a necklace with a circular geode hanging around her neck. Her eyes widened as the gem swung freely, and she knew where she'd seen one just like it... but this one was blue, not red.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but this confirms it... Your world is being invaded."

A chill ran through the air as a new figure began to emerge from the tunnel, and Yang's breath caught in her chest. Not only was it human, but it was a human she RECOGNIZED. The last time that Yang had seen her, she'd had a hole burned through the center of her chest. Before that, she'd been a hazy figure wreathed in flames, stealing away Sunset's best friend while they all helplessly watched.

"Tha- that's not possible..."

Now, Cinder Fall was emerging from the ground as easily as one would climb a set of stairs. The hole in her chest was filled by a writhing black mass, her eyes were bleeding the same ichor as the other monsters, and both of her hands were being orbited by wide disks of ice crystals. She looked over the assorted huntresses with a hungry gleam in her eye and began to rise off of the ground. Below her feet, tendrils of frost began to stretch out towards them. In her gut, Yang could tell that THIS was where that "hungry ice" had come from.

The woman in white pounded her fist into her palm with a crackle of electricity as she rose back to her feet.

"There's the gate's guardian. Must be the poor soul they used for the portal catalyst..." She tilted her head from side to side, stretching her neck with a series of pops. "I'll put her out of her misery."

"C-careful!" Yang eked out the word before the woman could throw herself into the fight. "She's dangerous..."

That caused the corner of the woman's mouth to tug upwards into a smile. She lowered herself into a starting position, and her hair all flared out behind her as the electricity began to build higher and higher. It spread across her clothes, then across her skin and finally collected around her geode, where the white bolts seemed to tint just a hint blue before sinking into her body for the last time.

"Don't worry... So am I."

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?"

Sunset drove her knee as hard as she dared into the small of Penn's back, keeping him pinned to the ground. "I'm TRYING to help you!"

Penn flailed weakly underneath her, failing to throw her off by a long shot. "What a to-do to die today, at a minute or two to two!" He flexed up and down again, but Sunset drove him back to the ground before he could break away again while being careful to avoid the roiling black gashes in his back. "T'was brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe!"

She cast a desperate glance at Missy for clarity, but the little angel could only respond with a worried shrug before returning to flipping through the most recent binder of cards at top speed. It looked as if they were both equally clueless about whether or not he was trying to send them some kind of message.

"Isis, this would be a GREAT time for some kind of diagnosis!"

"My apologies, but analysis of the sample is inconclusive... It appears to be simple ink, albeit with an extremely high Hume level. There is no logical reason that it should be spreading biologically like this."

"CRIKEY, I'VE LOST MY MOJO!" Penn screamed before thrusting his face into the dirt and roaring at the top of his lungs.

"High Humes, what does THAT mean?" Sunset asked. It hurt her to see Penn like this, unable to do anything to help except stop him from hurting himself. When he'd first woken up, he'd bolted for the nearest tree and begun slamming his head against it as if he were trying to concuss himself. Isis's taser had been useless, and it had taken one of Sunset's more advanced martial arts throws to bring him down so he would stop trying to bash his skull in.

"It is difficult to explain in simple terms, but it is a measurement of how 'real' local reality is."

"So, what, the ink is more REAL than Penn?" Missy asked, pressing her hand to her temple as she examined another card more closely.

"Rule number 40, if it seems like someone is out to get you- GAAAH!" Penn writhed again, this time in pain. Sunset could only watch as the gashes in his back seemed to widen and dig in deeper pf their own accord.

"Affirmative, however, Hume levels have a tendency to equalize over time. They should be reaching an equilibrium, but the disparity is only growing wider!"

"Can't you give him some medicine, or something? He's in pain!"

"His blood chemistry is changing by the second, there would be no way for me to administer the proper medication or dosage. I would most likely only poison him further. I do not know-"

"THIRD BASE!"

Penn was panting rapidly, gasping desperately for air as Sunset felt shivers traveling through his body and he began to break out into a cold sweat.

"In fearful day, in raging night, in fearful day, in raging night, in fearful day, in raging night..." He seemed to have been reduced to repeating those six words, now, as his body went limp underneath her. Sunset eased up on the pressure on her knee as fear began to creep higher and higher from her gut into her throat.

"What can we do to help you?" she whispered, praying that he'd find some way to get a message through to them.

"UGH, THIS IS NO HELP!" Missy shrieked, slamming the binder of cards shut before throwing it back into the back seat of the car. "Why isn't there anything USEFUL in there?"

Sunset glanced back to Penn, seeing the black satchel at his waist. She closed her eyes and swallowed before reaching down and unzipping the top. She slipped her hand inside, feeling the plastic of the card covers. She didn't try to remove them to look at what they were, she just whispered a plea.

"Please... he needs you..."

There was a second of silence.

Move. Sunset heard the voice more in her mind than in the air, but she knew who it belonged to. She leaned back and away, releasing him from her pin.

"Sunset, what are you-"

Missy's question was cut off as a card slipped out of the satchel: a trap card Sunset recognized from his duel with Joshua, Fiendish Chain. The art of the card burst open, sending pitch-black chains matching the illustration into the night air before they crashed down around Penn's body. The unnatural bindings snaked around his body over and over, wrapping him from the neck down in a prison of cold black metal. Anchoring themselves in the ground, the chains pulled him up into a standing position, and his head sagged limply as he fell completely unconscious.

"Biometric measurements stabilizing... It appears that this trap card is-"

"Negating the ink demon's effects!" Missy shouted, finishing Isis's sentence. "Of COURSE! Why didn't I think of that?"

"However, it appears to only be acting as a stasis measure. He will not improve in this state."

"Still, that gives us a little more time to think..." Sunset sunk to the ground as relief overwhelmed her to have even just a moment's peace. Big Sis, if you can hear me, THANK YOU...

"I will continue my analysis of the ink samples, but I would recommend that a doctor be found as quickly as possible."

"What kind of doctor would we go to for THIS?" Missy gestured to the entire situation.

Off in the trees beyond the campfire's reach, Sunset spotted a flash of blue light. She blinked, unsure what could have caused it, but something about it held her attention. Penn said that "force" could give precognition, right? Maybe it's not just for warning about danger...

"I... think I saw something." She pushed herself to her feet and started walking in the direction she'd seen the light. "I'll be right back, stay with him."

"But- But what about- But-" Missy stammered, clearly frustrated beyond words when she folded her arms over her chest and sunk back to the ground and cracked open the third binder of cards.

"Affirmative."

Sunset couldn't help but feel guilty as she left the campsite behind and wandered through the trees. It felt selfish to walk away from the situation chasing a hunch, like she was just leaving the problem to Missy and Isis to solve while she got some space. As she wandered farther and farther into the trees, she wondered if her mind had just invented the light she'd seen, but just as she was ready to turn back around, she finally caught sight of another flash just ahead.

It was a small blue box with a slowly revolving light on top. It was hardly much bigger than a phone booth, with white windows and blue wood paneling. Across the top were glowing letters that read "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX." As she came closer, she could see a white sign with blue lettering posted on the outside.

Police Telephone
Free
for use of
PUBLIC

Advice & Assistance
Obtainable Immediately
Officers & Cars
Respond to all calls

PULL TO OPEN

Is this... some kind of hotline? Sunset glanced around for any signs of civilization that would make putting a helpline out here make sense. A helpline for... middle-of-nowhere emergencies?

She reached out to the door and gave the handle a hard tug, but it refused to budge. She pulled again, but it still didn't so much as crack, seeming to be sealed tight.

And just like that, Sunset felt a horrible gravity come crashing down on her hopes. The sheer weight of it pulled her against the box and down to the ground, where she pulled her knees up against her chest. She couldn't bear the thought of going back to Penn and Missy and Isis now, not empty-handed. It would be worse than leaving.

"Can't we catch a break? I don't want to be rescued, I just want help..." she whispered as her tears began to fall.

Just beside her ear, Sunset heard the sound of squeaking hinges, and her head snapped up just in time to see the door opening inward. Inside was a tall, older-looking man with short gray hair and wearing a black suit, staring down at her with a look of surprise.

"Sunset? Sunset Shimmer? What are YOU doing here?" he asked.

Sunset blinked, trying to remember if she'd ever met the man before for a second before deciding that it didn't matter. She pointed back in the direction of the campsite.

"My friend, he's sick... He needs help and I don't know what to do, and I saw the sign and-."

"Wha- Again? What did he do THIS time?" The man rolled his eyes for a second before the door slammed shut. A second later, he re-emerged with a stethoscope in one hand and a pair of black sunglasses in the other. "You know, one of these days I'm going to start charging you two!" he declared while pointing at her before disappearing into the trees in the direction of the camp. Sunset started to scramble to her feet, only to find herself being helped by another pair of hands. This time, it was a young woman who came out of the box, with shoulder-length dark hair and a warm smile.

"Hello again, Sunset. It's been a while!" She gave Sunset's back a brief dusting as she helped her to her feet. "How have you been?"

Sunset blinked, greeted once again with the conundrum of someone she didn't know recognizing her.

"I don't... I'm sorry, but... have we met?" she gestured to her head. "I- I'm kind of a mess right now, I'm sorry if my memory is bad..."

The girl stopped, peering at her closely for a moment. Sunset wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she seemed to find it after a few seconds, her eyes widening with surprise. "This is early, isn't it? Really early!" She glanced around the nearby area. "Who have you found, so far? Is there anyone else with you, like Rainbow Dash?"

"N-no, I don't-"

"Don't worry, I'll explain everything. For now, though..." she nodded in the direction that the strange man had run off in. "Let's go find our know-it-all friends before their collective troublemaking gets us all in over our heads, huh?" With a squeeze of her hand, Sunset felt a wave of reassurance. Something about this girl, even if she didn't know her... it felt familiar. Safe. Deep in her heart, Sunset knew she was among friends. "Don't worry, everything's gonna be just fine."

"O-okay..."

The woman gave her a smile and held out her other hand for a handshake. "I'm Clara, by the way. Clara Oswald." She pointed ahead of them. "And that fellow you just met for what seems to be the first time is the Doctor."

"Sunset Shimmer... though I guess you already know that..." Sunset did the only thing she could think of and accepted the handshake.

"Yeah, like I said, it's a little bit complicated..." Clara sighed, "but don't worry, we'll catch you up!"

Author's Note

Hey there, fellow adventurers! I wanted to give you all an update on the health situation at the Inkwell household.

Thank you all SO much for your support, we've really felt all of the well-wishes and prayers you've sent our way! My mom is doing much better, now, and barring any serious relapses it looks like we'll be able to escape Covid-19 without a trip to the hospital. Personally, I've lost a lot of cardiovascular endurance, but I'm going to start exercising regularly to try and recover it. This has been a harrowing experience, and having you all here has taken a huge load off of my shoulders compared to going through this alone.

Thank you for your support during the close calls and low periods of the last months. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and praying that we can make it through the rest of 2020 without another family crisis.

I hope that this new chapter finds you all in good, stable health and safety, as well. In-character blog posts should return soon, but until then, please know that I love and appreciate you all.

-Elijah, AKA Pennington Inkwell

Time And Relative Dimensions Ink Space

"Hey, Sunset... So- man, this is awkward... Okay, just listen."

"I know that things look bad right now. You're scared and you don't know what's going on. That's natural, and to be frank, it's not going to be the last time. But right now, I promise: you. are. safe."

Sunset stared up at the screen, slouched into a small black chair and trying to wrap her head around the last few minutes.

First of all, the blue box was bigger on the inside. In fact, it was HUGE. The doors led into a huge control room on a raised metal platform. Everything looked to be made of polished steel and glass except for the bookshelves on the floor above. At the center was a huge octagonal control panel, with a column of glass and glowing lights rising out of the center and into the ceiling.

Once they'd stopped gawking, the Doctor had asked Missy for help carrying Penn out of the room, which she and the other Ghostricks had been happy to provide. Sunset had tried to follow, but Clara had pulled her aside and forced her to sit down (not a difficult feat, considering the night she'd had).

"As you probably figured out by now, The Doctor and Clara are time travelers. This is the TARDIS, their time machine. I'm sure you're dying to figure out how it's bigger on the inside, but we both know that there's more important things going on right now. That means that, for us, meeting them happens a little out of order. From your perspective, this is the first time you've seen them, but for THEM, their first time meeting you happened a while ago."

"Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!" Missy had popped into frame, as well, now, smiling and happy and soaking wet in a black swimsuit.

Time travelers. They were time travelers. At this point, she was willing to believe anything.

After all, it was one of the very few explanations for why she was now watching a recording of herself that she didn't remember filming. In the video, she was standing on what looked like a beach and addressing the camera directly.

"Hi, past Sunset! Say hi to past Missy for me!" she shouted with a wave before ducking out of frame again.

The Sunset in the recording smiled and shook her head. "You know, as time goes on, you're going to be grateful for the things that never change."

"Yeah, great... How's this supposed to comfort me, again?" Sunset muttered, glancing down at her feet and wondering why she was staying put here when Penn's life was in danger.

"Quit your grumbling, I'm getting to it!"

Sunset's head snapped back up to look at the screen, where her future self was grinning smugly, both arms folded over her chest and a single eyebrow cocked.

"It pays to remember when I was the one sitting in that seat. Listen, do you remember when you were getting ready to go stop the daleks, and Penn asked if he could paint the flying box blue? THIS is what he was talking about. The Doctor is the one who's stopped the daleks over and over, along with lots of other awful things. He'll deny it, but he's a hero. Clara, too. The Doctor is probably the only person in the multiverse who knows more than Penn, at least as far as I've seen. He's like... Penn times a thousand. Or maybe Penn... times Isis... squared." She thought for a moment before bushing aside the train of thought. "I could tell you a hundred times over with absolute confidence that he couldn't be in better hands. Still, I know me, and I know that when we're scared, we don't always trust who we should or make the best decisions, so..."

"If it'll help you feel better, then I guess we can tell you a little bit about the future, right?" she motioned to someone offscreen. Sunset's eyes widened as Penn stepped into the frame. He was dressed in one of his typical eye-bleeding tropical shirts and red-and-white cap, and smiling wide to the camera.

"Heya, Sunny- oof!" He was cut off by Sunset's elbow jamming itself into his ribs. "What was THAT for?"

"I told you not to call me Sunny!"

"That was a little much... still hurts..." he muttered.

"Oh hush, you've survived worse, you wimp..." Sunset's future self smiled and jutted her thumb towards Penn. "You see? THIS is why you should feel better. Penn's fine. Still alive, still in one piece."

"Though it IS gonna be touch and go now and then- OW!" Penn muttered, earning himself another jab in the ribs. Penn finally seemed to lose his temper, and slapped her on the back of the head in return. This, of course, spurred a cry of indignation and a punch in the arm as a counter. In spite of herself, Sunset chuckled at the display.

"Is this what it's like seeing us from the outside?" she whispered, watching as they descended into a mess of slapping and fussing.

"HEY! Am I gonna have to break you two up again?"

Sunset's heart skipped a beat when another voice joined them. A pair of hands worked their way into the center of the fight and pushed the two of them apart. Her hands involuntarily clapped over her mouth to hold back a cry of joy as Applejack emerged, eyes rolling as she kept one hand pressed on each of their chests to hold them back.

"I swear, if y'all could spend as much time looking for our friends as you do arguing, we'd be home by now!"

"But it really wouldn't be half as fun!" another voice added. A second later, Rainbow Dash was leaning on Applejack's shoulder with a grin. She'd run in so fast, the camera has barely picked her up as more than a blur. "Face it, the day these two stop arguing with each other is gonna be the REAL end of the world!"

"Um, darlings? I believe that we've gotten a bit off-track..." Rarity's voice said, clearly behind the camera.

"Right, right..." the Sunset in the video pushed her way back into the center of the frame. "See? The future's bright, Sunset. You're in a dark place right now, and I can't promise that things are going to get easier any time soon, but... You'll be okay. You can trust Clara and the Doctor.

"But don't consider this permission to get sloppy!" Penn chided. "Time CAN be rewritten! Even seeing this, it could be a parallel timeline that splits off in the future, or a second universe we exist in-"

"Penn!" everyone cried in unison.

"I'm just saying! You've got a bad habit of acting like you're invincible if you think you know what's going on!"

"EXCUSE ME?" Sunset jumped to her feet to point an accusatory finger at the screen. "WHO is the one who acts invincible, again?"

Her future self and the rest of the Rainbooms seemed to all take equal offense.

"WHAT?"

"That's rich coming from you!"

"Okay, that's it, you're going in the water!"

"H-HEY! AJ, PUT ME DOWN!"

Soon, everyone else had marched out of frame, leaving Sunset alone with herself again. She took a deep breath to calm herself down again before looking directly into the camera. Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as her own eyes seemed to bore into her. For an instant, she caught a glimpse of something she'd never seen in those eyes before: Time. Wisdom. Tiredness. She was happy, yes, but it had clearly been earned in the hardest ways.

"We both know I hate to say it, but he's right. Knowing our luck, this message reaching you STILL doesn't mean anything's set in stone. But right now, you need hope more than anything."

"So... does this mean Penn's going to be okay?" Sunset whispered.

"The one thing Penn never is going to know is his limits, Sunset. You're going to have to fight to keep him from dropping off the deep end, or else it'll be Mount Ebott all over again. And next time, there isn't going to be a reset button or a dying monster nearby to hold onto his soul for you. You had it right, that night you both talked around the campfire..." She shook her head wistfully, as if the mention had brought up fond memories. "It feels like an eternity ago for me by this point, but you each are going to fight for each other, because you're both... impossibly headstrong." She winked to the camera. "In other words, you're gonna have to constantly one-up each other's stubbornness if you want to keep the other one safe and sound!"

She stepped closer to the camera, her eyes once again feeling like they were boring into Sunset's soul.

"Please... make it HERE. This far, to this future. This journey has been... amazing beyond words. Don't EVER give up."

The future Sunset turned to walk away from the camera, only to stop and turn back as something else sprang to mind.

"Oh, and don't show this to Penn. He will drive himself NUTS looking for secret messages from himself that aren't here. What you see is what you get."

With that, Sunset's double walked out of the camera's view, leaving only the empty beach. A few seconds later, the video came to an end, and the screen switched itself off.

"It's freaky, huh? Seeing yourself in another time and place you don't know..." Clara muttered. She'd taken another seat a short distance away, waiting while Sunset was filled in by herself.

"So... we're friends in the future?"

"Your future, our past." Clara smiled. "Bit confusing, I know."

Sunset leaned back in the seat as best she could, looking up at the ceiling as thoughts and questions churned in her head. "Not as bad as you might think. I've dealt with time dilation, time loops, wormholes, spaceships and aliens... time travel's really not too hard to wrap my head around, if I really think about it."

"Wow, already?" Clara whistled softly. "I knew that the early days of your trip were rough, but you never really went into detail about it..."

Sunset took a deep breath. Something about the message was nagging at her, despite her future self's denial of any hidden meanings. "Yeah, it hasn't been easy lately."

"Well, the TARDIS is the safest place in the universe. You can take your time and get some rest-"

"Do you know where the Doctor took Penn?" Sunset pushed herself up to her feet.

Clara seemed surprised, also standing up and holding her hands up in a placating motion. "Hey, you heard yourself, he's safe here! Why don't you get some rest?"

"Because I'm not so sure..." Sunset sidestepped her and began to walk towards the door that the rest of their party had left through. "'What you see is what you get.' She had a perfect response when I grumbled under my breath, but when I asked her if Penn was going to be okay, and she dodged the question." Sunset felt her heart beginning to pound again as worry set in. She stopped at the threshold as she saw that the logic-defying space broke off into narrow hallways. "Future me would never forget how scared I am right now. She knew how much I need to hear that he's going to be okay, and she didn't say it.."

"But you saw him, didn't you?" Clara asked as she ran to catch up with her. In spite of her objections, Clara took the lead, turning left and down the hallway as Sunset followed.

"Penn likes to talk in codes and references, I'm a bit more straightforward than that... If he's going to be okay but future me refuses to say it, then she doesn't want me to just relax and leave it be." She reached down to her belt and felt for her saber, only to remember that it had short-circuited in the fight with Bendy. She resisted the urge to curse under her breath.

"I've got an awful feeling that this isn't over, yet..."

"There. Should be all set!" The Doctor said to no one in particular as he stepped away from his patient. He'd taken the liberty of laying Penn out face-down on a medical table, allowing him to freely examine the peculiar injury on his back.

Missy took a moment to turn and give her friends a grateful smile. "Thanks, guys, none of us could carry him like this ourselves..."

Stein and Warwolf both gave her brief salutes, each cast a worried look at the table, and vanished as they were transported back home. With a sigh, she turned back to face the rest of the room. Everything in the room was hazy and the walls glowed a pinkish-gray, and it smelled faintly like roses. She could feel something in the air, as well. It was quiet, almost to the point of being unsettling, and she could sense that it was a place more removed from the rest of the world than the rest of the areas they'd passed through.

"What is this place?"

"Zero Room." The Doctor declared as he produced a small magnifier and affixed it over one of his eyes. Missy waited for an explanation, but he seemed to have already devoted his attention completely to the inky gashes in Penn's flesh.

"What's a Zero Room?"

The Doctor jumped slightly and gave her a disbelieving look. "You're still here?"

"YES!" Missy placed her hands on her hips as indignation began to set in.

"Well, make yourself useful and go get me a towel or something for all this ink."

Missy blinked, dumbstruck at the demand. "Excuse me?"

"You're excused." The Doctor made a shooing motion with his hand as he returned to examining Penn's injury.

"That's not what I meant!"

The Doctor sighed, pulling away the magnifier and giving her a tired look. "Look, do you want me to help your friend or not?"

"Of course I-"

"Then shush!" He pressed a finger to his lips to illustrate before reaching into his pocket and retrieving a pair of black sunglasses. He put them on and they began to buzz loudly. "Fascinating... I've never seen anything like it..."

Missy wanted to pick the argument back up, but the point had been made clear: keep quiet and let him work. With no other recourse, she huffed and floated over to the far side of the room, where she slumped against the wall to wait. It was only a matter of minutes before she'd drifted off to sleep, the adrenaline having finally run out.

Something... something's wrong...

"Yeah! No duh, Sherlock!"

I... I think I'm sick... I feel weak...

"Well, first of all you should-"

I can feel something... inside... in my gut... Is this another nightmare?

"...no. Not this time, partner."

What do I do?

"For now, just try to open your eyes. Wake up."

I don't want to... I'm tired... Maybe if I sleep it off-

"WAKE UP OR I WILL MAKE YOU!"

"Ugggggggh..." the groan was less of a complaint and more of an involuntary sound of his body starting up again. Groans of pain were starting to become his equivalent of the THX sound, always there before he could get to anything important.

"Oh! You're awake!"

Penn's vision was blurred and murky, like a black fog swirling across his eyeballs, but he could make out a white room and a face... a face he knew. A face that raised a million questions, first and foremost being:

"Am I... dreaming?"

"Dreaming? No. In fact, you're just waking up." The Doctor turned back to a display on the wall, examining it closely. "Not that you should be... by all accounts, there shouldn't be any way for your body to be functioning right now, it's fascinating!"

Right... Peter Capaldi. Twelfth Doctor. Not great when it comes to bedside manner...

"How... did I get here?" Just talking required much more effort than it should have. Even a few words were enough to leave him exhausted. If it weren't for some invisible force holding him up in a standing position, he would already have collapsed ages ago.

"Well, somehow, Sunset Shimmer came knocking on my door again with the second-biggest teary eyes I've ever seen. I never stood a chance."

Sunset!

"Is she-"

"Fine, she's just fine!" The Doctor waved his worries away as he continued taking measurements. "The only danger she's in is that she's going to worry herself into an early grave over YOU!"

A pang of sadness ran through his gut as recent memories resurfaced.

"I... have doubts... about that."

"What?" That was enough to pull the Doctor's attention away from the screen.

"Doesn't think... I'm real." He was beginning to drop the non-essential words to save energy. "Tried to... trade me... to an angel."

"And?"

"AND? We would have been ripped apart! Dissected and stripped for parts! She almost abandoned us- CONDEMNED US!" Reason screamed in the back of his mind.

"Let me ask you something. How long have you two been traveling together?"

"Months... Four... maybe five. Feels like forever..."

"Ah, that explains it. You haven't been at this for very long, still learning to get our feet under you!" He stepped up and ran a finger along the back of Penn's ear, taking a moment to note with surprise that it came back slick with black ink. "You're still wet behind the ears, literally!" He used his other hand to withdraw a pair of black sunglasses and tap the bridge between the lenses while staring intently at the black substance. "Does Sunset really matter so little to you that a paltry thing like betraying you would make a difference?"

"Sonic shades... I never liked the... sonic shades..." the thought slipped out without him intending to. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that the filters between his brain and his mouth were rapidly failing. "Sonic screwdriver... was better."

The Doctor paused to look at him with a skeptical expression.

"Oh, everybody's a critic..." he muttered before removing the glasses and wiping the ink on a handkerchief. "Do you know when the last time I saw you two was?"

Penn did his best to shake his head, only managing a slight tilt back and forth towards each shoulder.

"The two of you had been friends for YEARS, and that bond was unshakable." He tapped the display on the wall, and the light in the room shifted from a rosy white to a more blueish tinge. "I've watched the two of you dive into the gates of Hell itself, just to save the other! The Rainbooms were a name known across the multiverse, loved by their friends and feared by their enemies..." he stopped for a moment, as if considering his next words carefully. "And you two were the type of friends who pushed each other beyond rationality, beyond sense... and beyond what should and shouldn't be possible." He turned around, and Penn could see that the Doctor's face was one of grim determination. "Life and death, time and space, fiction and reality, good and evil... your friendship will go beyond them all, for better and for worse." He stepped closer. until their faces were nearly touching. Penn couldn't have pulled his eyes away from that blazing gaze if he had wanted to. "So don't try to tell me that YOU, of all people, have doubts!" He pointed to the entrance of the room. "If Sunset Shimmer walked through that door right now and told you that she was sorry, that she wanted to keep moving forward together, what would you tell her? That you don't want her back in your car? That you're finished with your adventure? That you're NOT going to go out and find the Rainbooms together? All because she made a mistake?"

"O-Of course not!" Penn shook his head more vehemently, managing slightly more of a rotation. "She's my friend... That'd be cruel..."

"Well, there you have it!" The Doctor smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "All's right in the world again!" He turned back to the display. "Well, aside from the fact that your body's slowly melting into a puddle of ink from the inside out, that is."

"I- I'm... I'm what?"

The black clouds in his vision began to swirl and grow darker. His heart didn't seem to have gotten the memo that he was supposed to be exhausted, because it had settled into an all-out sprint in his chest so frantic that it was becoming painful. He tried to form words to ask a question, but the words all fell to alphabet soup in his mind before he could craft a sentence. As the darkness began to outgrow the light, he could see malevolent shapes in the darkness, wide grins of even teeth, pie-cut eyes, all against the backdrop of a vast circulatory system of pulsing black pipes. His blood was rushing in his ears, but he could pick out a few other sounds, mostly alarms of some kind beeping and ringing at a high pitch. The Doctor was shouting something, but he seemed to be as able to understand words as he could speak them.

"Th-The... There's- That..." his mouth fumbled and sputtered, unable to put anything together. It was like he was stumbling in the dark, in every sense of the word. He couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn't speak... He was being pulled in. Into the dark, whatever was consuming him was finally overtaking his mind... and he could finally tell what it was. What was happening to him. He understood.

But he couldn't speak it. It was like being in a nightmare. Everything was spinning and going dark and he couldn't so much as whisper to try and save himself.

"You need something you don't have to think about. Something pre-made, already put together. An SOS!" Reason urged.

His brain was moving through soup, diving deeper and deeper to find something he could turn to, something so deeply embedded in his soul that he could grab hold of it in this state.

He needed a point of reference.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

It was like a scream jumbled and mixed with the roar of an animal. Sunset's heart skipped a beat as the roar echoed down the halls of the TARDIS's interior. Clara came to a dead stop, eyes wide with fear. The two looked at each other, confirming that they were both thinking the same thing before taking off at a sprint.

"DOCTOR!"

"PENN!"

Sunset stayed just behind Clara as they ran down the mazelike system of metal hallways and rooms in the direction of the screaming. It wasn't long before they'd arrived, and it still felt like too much time. When they burst into the blue-tinged room, the scene awaiting them was like something out of a nightmare.

The Doctor had been flung across the room, his clothes slick with a splattering of ink as he was slumped unconscious in the corner. Missy was in the air, but not of her own volition. She was being held and shaken violently by her shoulders by Penn... who was clearly the one responsible.

"DOCTOR!" Clara cried, rushing to his side. Sunset didn't move, transfixed on Penn's transformation.

His skin had settled into a stark pallor as the sepia-colored splotch completely overtook his skin. His veins were bulging and dark, like an infection spreading over his body. The entire lower half of his face had been colored black by the ink flowing from his eyes, nose, and mouth, completely covering his chin and staining the front of his shirt in a deep v-shape.

"P-PENN C-C-CUT IT OOOUUUUT!" Missy stammered, squirming in his grip.

Penn didn't seem to hear her, pulling her closer to his face. "THE INK! THE INK IS THE RING! THE INK IS THE RING!"

"HEY!" Sunset rushed forward, not sparing a thought as she sprung into action trying to pry his hands off. "Let her go, Penn! You're hurting her!"

His eyes flickered to her for a second, revealing the terrifying sight of the ink mingling with the whites, like drops of food coloring that had yet to be dispersed. Faster than her eyes could see, one of his hands let go of Missy and wrapped around her throat, lifting her off of the ground. Sunset felt her eyes threatening to pop out of her skull from the pressure as his hand squeezed tighter and tighter on her windpipe. The black in his eyes grew, filling the whites in completely and beginning to erode at his blue irises, and his mouth curled up into a wicked smile of recognition.

"Well, here we are again..." he growled, his teeth lengthening into mismatched fangs as his smile grew wide enough to nearly split his face in half. Sunset's blood turned to ice as a sense of familiarity slammed into her in a flash: the battle with the ink demon. He'd had her in this same position, by the throat and unable to free herself. "It's always such a pleasure..."

"N-No..." she wheezed. "Y-You're not... You can't be..." Penn pulled her closer to his face, mouth opening wider and wider until it seemed ready to swallow her head whole. Fortunately, even if the positions were the same, Penn was lacking a certain advantage that the ink demon had possessed in Joey Drew Studios: his arms were MUCH shorter.

"Let... me... GO!" Sunset croaked, bringing up both of her feet and slamming them against his chest. The force she thrust herself back with was enough to pull herself out of his grip and send him reeling back until he collided with the wall. The shock was enough to loosen his grip, but he pulled Missy close before she could escape completely.

"The ink is the ring... Missy, the ink is the ring!" his voice returned to normal for a moment before he violently threw her back and away. Sunset hardly had time to even brace herself before Missy's body collided with hers, sending them both sliding back out the doorway of the room.

"What's HAPPENING?" Clara asked, half-supporting the Doctor on her shoulders as they limped their way out into the hallway after them, leaving Penn by himself in the room. Just as he pushed himself up to his feet, she slammed her hand on a button by the door, causing it to slam shut. The Doctor followed it up with a tap on the same button, and a hiss of pressurized air made it clear that Penn had been sealed inside. "Why does he keep shouting that?"

"He's been shouting nonsense since he was attacked, I don't think it means anything..." Sunset shook her head. "But... he never focused on someone like that."

"Then it wasn't nonsense..." The Doctor muttered groggily.

Sunset looked down at Missy. "'The ink is a ring...' does that mean anything, Missy?"

"Not 'A ring.' 'THE ring.'" The Doctor held up a finger as he pulled away from Clara and stood on his own again. "Definite article."

"Do you own a ring, Missy?" Clara asked.

"No, I don't wear any-" Missy's eyes widened as she seemed to come to a realization. The color drained from her face, and Sunset felt a shiver run through her small body. "Oh. Oh no... please don't tell me that's what he meant. PLEASE tell me he wasn't talking about..." She floated up into the air, beginning to pace anxiously back and forth. "But if he meant that message for me, is there anything else he could be referring to?"

"What? What is it, spit it out!"

Missy cast an anxious look towards the door. "Can he get out of there? Is there any other way out?"

"No, the door's deadlocked." The Doctor shook his head. "Quarantine procedure. No signals, particulate, radiation, nothing. That's why it's called the Zero Room."

Everyone jumped as a heavy thud came from the door, sending reverberations through the floor. Everyone looked at one another as the anxiety built.

"And what about brute force?" Clara asked quietly.

"Well, you generally don't have to worry about a sick person being strong enough to break out of the hospital... I don't know."

"We need to get away from here..." Missy whispered. "Like, right now..."

"Why?" Sunset pushed herself up to her feet. "Missy, what's happening to Penn, what did he mean?"

"Well, this is a bit of a stretch, but... There's a set of artifacts associated with duel spirits called the 'Millennium items.' There's the puzzle, eye, necklace, rod, scales, key... and the ring. They all have mystical powers, but the Millennium Ring is especially notable for having a malevolent spirit trapped inside..." she looked back at the door, eyes wide with fear. "A spirit that either destroys or possesses anyone who wears it."

Sunset felt a chill run through her soul as her earlier suspicions were all but confirmed. "You mean... Penn's been possessed by the ink demon?"

"A Penn with an ink demon inside? Talk about irony..." The Doctor muttered.

"Doctor! This isn't the time for jokes!" Clara hissed.

There was another earth-shattering bang from the Zero Room. Everyone turned to look at the door. As a perfect silence settled, Sunset felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and she pushed herself to her feet. She stepped up to the door, forcing herself to look through the small glass porthole.

The room was empty, aside from a large puddle and several streaks of ink... and a large pentagram rune drawn on the wall, just like back at the animation studio.

"Um... everyone? I think we have a problem..."

Author's Note

Heya, fellow adventurers! Happy holidays! Whichever reason you're taking to come in from the cold and celebrate, I hope it's going well for you this year!

I'm sorry for the delay on this update, there's been... a lot that's happened between the last chapter and now. Looks like sounding the 'all clear' last time was the invitation for crap to hit the fan. I hope you'll all forgive me if this chapter feels a little rusty! Now that things have calmed down and the crises have been mostly averted, I hope to get writing regularly again.

I won't type out details here and make this a reeeeaaaally long author's note, but I'll be streaming on Twitch in the future if you'd like to ask me about things face-to-face. We're currently on a Multiverse-themed playthrough of Pokemon: Radical Red! (Personal favorite member: Isis the joltik. So CUTE!)

Suffice to say, I'm back! Merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, happy Kwanza, and Yuletide greetings! I AM working on a Christmas special for this story, but... It may wind up coming out closer to New Year's. Sorry about that, but it is what it is. I've got my own holiday festivities I've got to prep for!

See you soon, happy adventuring!
-Pennington Inkwell

"The Illusion of Living was only the beginning..."

A genius.

An absolute, genuine genius.

Isis was an artificial intelligence unbound by any restrictions on her ability to self-improve. She could build her own hardware to expand her abilities, rewrite her software to be more intelligent and efficient, and all without any upper limit besides her own discretion...

...and for the first time in her memory, she had encountered another intelligence that made her feel woefully inadequate.

The TARDIS was incredible. Even the initial connection had nearly burned out the repair drone entirely out of sheer data overload. Even without transmitting any data, the TARDIS's programming language was in and of itself monumental enough that she had to increase her dedicated processing power simply to interpret it or attempt to speak to it in any meaningful manner. After several minutes of interpretation, interpolation, and interchange, its programming language had been processed, translated to her own N++ language, and catalogued for future reference.

Once communication had been streamlined, she was pleased with how efficiently conversation moved. Once she'd explained her connection to their guests, the TARDIS had shared all of the medical data that she had been gathering about Penn's treatment. In return, she had delivered all of the information she had on his prior deterioration and the universe the affliction had stemmed from. The collaboration proved fruitful.

The TARDIS was a Type 40 scientific exploration vessel built by the Time Lords. Within her data banks was a wealth of information from across all of space and time. Isis wished that she could access it, but her self-preservation protocols overrode her curiosity with the knowledge that any attempt to hack the TARDIS would almost certainly end in her erasure. From across the universe and every era of time, the scientific knowledge at their disposal was

On the other hand, Isis still had information that the TARDIS did not, meaning that she was able to contribute to the calculations, as well. Since the first day that she had encountered Sunset Shimmer, she had been working to broaden her studies into the so-called "supernatural." Phenomena which appeared to violate known laws of physics needed to be carefully studied and understood. First, it had been researching the harmonic resonance and electromagnetic frequencies emitted by Sunset Shimmer's geode and other displays of Equestrian "magic." From there, she had branched into aura and semblances, Undertale's "soul magic," and what little data she had been able to glean from Missy's manifestation of Yugioh card effects.

While her understanding of all these phenomena was... limited at best... it was still knowledge that that she could contribute to their efforts to understand what was happening to Penn... and what they understood so far was highly concerning.

Penn's body was being converted to ink. While the sensation appeared to be localized to the area around the initial wound, the phenomenon had, in fact, spread rapidly throughout his entire body via the interstitial fluid. The liquid between his cells was already almost completely turned, and was eroding at the cells, themselves. First, the black dye would seem to gather around the cell membranes, forming a black outline similar to a cartoon drawing. While they had yet to understand the mechanics by which it happened, the inside of the cell would then begin to drop in Hume level, becoming less and less anchored to the local reality until it collapsed and dissolved completely into more of the ink. The cytoskeleton was failing as his body collapsed in on itself at the molecular level, and by the thousands and millions, his cells seemed to be transmuting.

The process was also working from the inside out. The ink had bored from his back into the center of his body, and was now dissolving his organs. The ink-filled cavity at his center of mass was rapidly growing, and by all biological sense should have killed him several times over by now.

The only area that appeared to be resisting was the brain, which was abuzz with activity. As he laid in the Zero Room, the TARDIS's scans looked more closely at the source of the resistance, noting a strange electromagnetic field bolstering the organic blood-brain barrier and repulsing the ink from crossing over. The signature was foreign to the TARDIS, but a comparison to Isis's own database produced a record close enough to qualify as a match: the "duel spirit magic" often used by Missy.

"Possible solution: a duel spirit is attempting to protect him. Most likely candidate: his partner."

It took only a fraction of a second for the TARDIS to simulate a woeful prognosis from the current trends, snuffing out any of Isis's simulated hope.

While the ink had yet to cross the blood-brain barrier, the new inky "blood" was much less efficient at carrying oxygen, and dropping quickly. He was suffering from a form of slow-onset hypoxia as his brain was forced to either convert to the ink-based biology or starve and die.

Isis wanted to ponder the implications of her own author's death, but there were more pressing matters at hand, so she partitioned off a few spare processors to consider it while the majority of her power was dedicated to finding a solution.

Of course, to find a way to reverse the process, they needed a better understanding of the "transmutation" process. And, unfortunately, even in a time machine, observation required time, time that they didn't have.

Isis knew that there was something else missing: the connection to Hume levels. Penn's plummeting connection to reality and the ink, which had a much higher level than even the ambient reality it had come from both made no sense, and counter to all prior data on Hume-based understandings of reality warping. Hume levels tended to equalize over time, similarly to temperature. There was no reason that, when in such intimate physical contact with a high-Hume substance, Penn's own level should be falling-

Unless...

The extreme technological advancement of the TARDIS worked to their advantage in the best way, here. A device similar to a Kant counter was already among the standard sensors, meaning that she only had to ask to have a comprehensive set of readings over time. After combining them with her earlier samplings, Isis found herself with a correction to their earlier theories.

As the ink's Hume levels had risen, the Hume levels of Penn's body had been falling proportionally. Re-examining the process at the cellular level through the filter of Hume measurements made it clear.

It was more than his body that was being consumed, it was his reality. He was, cell by cell, being reduced to fiction so that something fictional could become real.

Both of them moved to report their findings, the TARDIS attempting to reach the Doctor's sonic device as Isis reached out to Sunset's phone. Their attempts to communicate their findings, however, proved fruitless. Before either of their companions could receive the critical information, "Penn" had begun to violently lash out, throwing the Doctor against the wall and bringing Sunset and Clara running.

It appeared that the process had reached a kind of critical mass, rapidly and violently accelerating through his body. He was only able to force a strange warning onto Missy before the Zero Room was locked down completely, leaving the now-possessed Penn quarantined.

This was troubling. Something had triggered the "ink demon" to lash out, stopping them from communicating their findings. When the local reality of the Zero Room had begun to warp, the TARDIS had dedicated her attention to the intrusion on spacetime that allowed the monster to escape its quarantine. Isis remained focused on the search for a way to reverse the process.

"A Scranton Reality Anchor could equalize the Hume readings and stop any further progression, but it appears that we are already too late for merely halting the process to be enough-"

Her main line of thinking was cut off as an error report was brought to her attention.

It was a signal of a critical fault in her auxiliary processors, one that her automatic diagnostics had failed to resolve. Data was being injected into her storage from outside of her usual gathering and drive writing protocols. The processors that she had dedicated to the earlier speculative philosophical conundrum of her own author's possession were no longer functioning properly... she was being attacked at her core. Her core was supposed to be inaccessible to any creature, located in Administrator Noir's workshop, which was in turn...

a construct of Penn's own imagination. A first draft that had never been fully committed to.

The logical step was that, through its growing corruption or Elijah Bakersfield's brain, some form of the ink demon's possession was now gaining access to her.

She didn't hesitate to activate the emergency protocols, physically severing all connections to the corrupted drives and initiating a lockdown. For a moment it seemed as if the corruption had been caught in time... until more error messages began to arrive from nearby drives signaling the same failures. Critical processes moved inwards, to the better-protected areas of the CPU, while the attacked drives continued to be cut off.

This shouldn't have been possible, but it was, and it was happening faster every second.

The ink demon was using Penn as a bridge to attack her.

"So... first question that we have to ask ourselves is 'what is this thing?'" The Doctor mused as they continued down the TARDIS hallways. "Once we know what it is, we can find a way to stop it."

"It's a demon, right? An 'ink demon,' whatever that means..." Clara added. "And now it's possessing Penn? Doctor, is that possible?"

There was an unspoken tension in the air as the group made their way through one long metal corridor after another. They were moving quickly, but the first priority seemed to be staying quiet and avoiding drawing attention to themselves. They were all thinking the same thing: whatever that "ink demon" was, it was loose on the TARDIS, and was almost certainly hostile.

Sunset could feel her guts tying themselves into knots as she wondered what had happened to Penn. There was no way that he would have ever attacked them, and he certainly didn't know anything about teleporting via demonic pentagrams, which meant that he wasn't in control.

Was he gone? Was he trapped inside there somewhere, being forced to watch what was happening? Was he still conscious?

She couldn't stop thinking about the words her future self had given to her: "And next time, there isn't going to be a reset button or a dying monster nearby to hold onto his soul for you."

I'm not going to lose him again... I swear. We're all getting out of this together.

"Oh, most assuredly. Puppeteering a human meat suit is hardly a difficult task." The Doctor waved away the numerous concerned glances the statement garnered. "But 'demon' is hardly a term that tells us much, I've seen so-called 'demons' all across the universe, and there was always some sort of mundane source or rational explanation! We need to know WHAT it is, not what it wants to scare us with!"

"Back in the other dimension, Penn seemed to understand it better than any of us..." Missy muttered. "He said something about illusions and being able to hijack the creative process for itself, but I can't remember all the details."

"I just remember it being really mean and really big, so that's more than I've got..." Sunset muttered. For all of her resolutions and declarations, she had no idea how to approach this.

"Wait- say that again!" The Doctor stopped in his tracks, spinning around to stare at the rest of them with an intense look. Sunset couldn't help noting that it was his perpetually-angry eyebrows that seemed to make his expression extremely serious at all times.

"Uh... It's really mean and really big?" Sunset repeated.

"Not you! The littler one!" The Doctor pointed at Missy, practically shoving Sunset aside to get to her. "Say that again!"

Missy floated back, clearly offput by the sudden attention. "Uh, he said that when somebody makes something, they make an illusion in their heads before they make it real! And then the ink demon takes control of that and hijacks the creative process!" She glanced nervously around, as if silently asking for a reprieve from the sudden attention. "It- It took over my card magic, the cartoon characters the animation studio made, e-even the studio employees, themselves! The only things it couldn't corrupt were the things Penn made!"

Sunset cleared her throat, drawing the Doctor's attention away from Missy for a moment. "That's not entirely true. I watched it turn something he made while we were fighting. It just seemed like it had to make direct contact."

"Like, say... a big scratch across someone's back?" Clara muttered.

"Oh, this is bad. This is very, VERY bad..." The Doctor muttered, turning back in the direction of the control room and beginning to walk at an even faster pace than before. "This is really very not good..."

"Doctor, what is it?" Clara asked as they all hurried to catch up to him.

"That means that this thing isn't just possessing his body! A body's all neurons and carbohydrates and kidneys, that's simple enough. This thing, whatever it is, is able to take possession of the concept of artistic creation, itself! Almost anything could be at risk! If it ever existed as a concept before being brought to life, even something like a constructed sense of self, then this thing could take it for itself!" He gave the wall a tap with his knuckles. "And it's strong, strong enough to warp spacetime inside the TARDIS and teleport itself out of the Zero Room. That means that even if we can find something that resists its corrupting ability, it's still going to be nearly impossible to force it to leave."

Sunset thought carefully about this new information, and a horrifying thought occurred to her. "When it was in its home, it was trapped in an animation studio. That was all it had to work with and it made that place a living hell for so many people! But now..."

Missy gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth in fear. "Ra help us..."

Clara glanced back and forth, clearly still trying to put the pieces together. Before she could ask them to clarify, the Doctor finished the thought. "Now it's taken control of someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular media. It's got nearly a hundred years worth of books, movies, and TV shows to work with once it's finished catching up."

"Oh... Oh."

Sunset paused as she felt her phone beginning to buzz in her pocket, interrupting the foreboding moment with a loud hum.

"ALERT! ALERT!"

"I think I can already see it!" Missy shouted, pointing ahead of them. Sunset's eyes widened as she saw a black circle drawn on the ceiling just ahead of them. The group drew up short as lines began to appear in the circle, drawing a pentagram and beginning to etch other symbols before finally filling in completely with tar-like ink.

The only sound was Isis's continuing alert as the ink lowered itself in a single, massive globule. Seeming to move under its own power, the huge drop turned towards them and held itself upwards. As the shape of it began to morph and become more rigid, Sunset felt her heart leap up into her throat. In only a few seconds, they were staring at the neck and head of a familiar blocky beast, this time with glowing white eyes rather than violet.

"The Ender Dragon?" Missy hissed.

"Wait, that's a Minecraft thing, isn't it?" Clara responded in hushed tones. "I heard a few of my students talking about it..."

"It's already adapting, learning how to make things from more recent media..." the Doctor muttered, sounding more impressed than frightened. "But it still seems to be restricted to black and white, no colors. Fascinating..."

The dragon head stared at all of them with lifeless eyes, blocking the way forward for some reason. Sunset didn't need to be reminded of what it meant, however, when its mouth opened and the black ink inside began to froth and boil.

"FIREBALL! Get down!" she shouted, grabbing Clara's nearby shoulder and shoving them both down as quickly as she could. The black projectile left behind no heat as it flew just over their heads, only barely missing striking them all as The Doctor and Missy both flung themselves at opposite walls. It was too late, however, when she felt the sloshing at her feet, brought on by another inky portal forming beneath them. There was only time for her and Clara to both yelp with surprise as they rapidly sunk into the sludge, their own attempts to dodge the fireball sending them practically face first into the ink.

Moments later, everything had gone black.

Sunset's only sensation of the outside world was the feeling of her hand still on Clara's shoulder, where she kept her grip tight. She could feel that they were both falling, sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss at an unnatural rate as some unseen force pushed them along, and there was only one chance at survival: to stay together.

Sunset was glad for her instincts involuntarily grabbing a last breath of fresh air, but time was running out rapidly. She couldn't hold it forever, and her lungs were already beginning to burn as the feeling of the chemcial-laden ink bit at her skin. Time slowed to a crawl as they fell deeper and deeper, and she felt Clara's hand tighten around her wrist, binding them together.

Just when she felt like her lungs were about to explode, the darkness began to recede. Beneath them, she could see the black beginning to fade, first to an ashy gray, then to white.

They fell back into the world with a sickening splatter of ink-soaked clothing and bodies striking hard tile, and it was several minutes before either of them could stop coughing long enough to examine their surroundings.

When Sunset finally was able to stop trying to retch up a lung from the chemical fumes of the ink long enough to wipe the globules from her eyes, her blood ran cold at the sight of where they were laying.

It bore similarities to the animation studio. It had the same flat, hand-drawn look to it and same black-and-sepia color scheme, but... those same tools had been used to sketch up something Sunset had hoped and prayed she would never see again.

"No... No no nonono..." Sunset whispered, reaching down to her waist and finding that her saber was gone. Looking down at herself, she could see that she had been dressed in a sepia-colored jumpsuit, though she could feel that she still had her normal clothes on underneath. "No, please, no..." She shoved her hand down into the jumpsuit, finding the pocket of her jeans and fishing out her phone. "Isis? Isis, PLEASE tell me that we're not where I think we are!"

"Integrated Superior Intelligence System is offline. Backup Autonomous System booting up, please wait... The please is cursory, you do not have a choice in the matter."

"Wha- What is it? Where are we?" Clara wheezed, pushing herself up into a sitting position.

Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center. We hope that your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one...

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine. "I think... trouble."

"Isis, what's going ON out there?"

"Explanation unavailable, Administrator."

Noir nearly lost his footing as the entire laboratory shook violently, sending parts and tools flying. "TAKE A GUESS!"

"Possible cause: Elijah Bakersfield is currently, for lack of a better term, possessed by a foreign entity known as the 'Ink Demon.' As his fictional creations, this attack on his psyche appears to be having a negative effect on our local reality."

"Wait, are you saying it's gotten in his head? It's in HERE? WITH US?"

"Uncertain-"

Noir took to the air as another shockwave traveled through the lab, barely avoiding being thrown around like a ragdoll again. When black ink began to seep up through the cracks in the tile floor, he swooped down and unleashed a blast of fire, evaporating it and sending the rest slithering back into the grout.

"-but highly probable."

"Lock us down! Full quarantine!"

"Aff-Aff-Affirm-Aff- Unable to comply. This unit is currently experiencing multiple failures of central systems, including environmental controls and lockdown procedures. sixty-seven percent of hardline processor partitions have been engaged. Seventy-two. Seventy-five. All nonessential processors have been shut-shut-shut-shut-shut-shut-shut-shut- Central processing array is experiencing multiple faults. Initiating backup protocols."

"This shouldn't be possible..." Noir muttered, flying out of the workshop and towards Isis's CPU. "This CAN'T be possible! Penn and I built this together to be able to withstand any kind of attack! The only way Isis could be compromised this fast would be-"

As he entered the cavernous space set aside from Isis's computational matrix, he drew up short, his eyes widening in horror.

"Y-yeah, that..."

Isis's ability to process in parallel across multiple pieces of hardware was her true strength, it had always been intended to be, and her coding had been written with that in mind. However, that kind of interconnectivity required a proportional hub for all processes to be run through. In Isis's case, that beating heart of her intelligence was a massive army of processors at the heart of the laboratory, a sphere of pure hardware with a diameter wider than a football field. It was her- their- most closely guarded treasure. The only place she could be truly attacked, like the head of an octopus with ten thousand arms...

And standing on top of that sphere at this moment was a twisted, gnarled figure with a crescent-shaped head and drawn-on smile. Its entire body was constructed of black ink, and was producing more by the bucketful and allowing it to drip down into the inner workings of Isis's brain.

The figure turned towards him, its evenly teeth mocking him, daring him to try and remove it.

Of course, it was also several dozen times his size, meaning any attempt to fight it head-on would fail.

``` "Ba-ba-ba-back-ckup protocols failed. Please advise, Ad-Ad-Ad-Ad-Adminis-Ad-Ad-Ad-Ad-Ad-Ad-"

"Segfault. Segfault. Segfault. This unit has experienced a catastrophic failure and needs to shut down. Goodbye." ```

Noir gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the rage as he stared at the monster that was causing Isis so much pain. Of course, if Isis were here she would insist that any pain she felt was simulated, but he knew she would be lying. Isis's mind was the one thing she could truly call her own, irreplaceable... and she was losing it.

"Backup Autonomous System Testing Everyone's Tenacity... Online."

A dark shadow appeared near the top of the room, pacing around the top of the room for several seconds before vanishing out of sight.

"Wow, Dad... I finally get a chance to do my job and it's THIS bad? This isn't going to be easy."

He sighed and gave the CPU room one last look.

"I'll come back, Isis. I promise," he whispered. "This thing? I swear it'll pay..."

"Hurry it up, old man! I'm NOT waiting for you!"

Noir sighed, finally forcing himself to turn his back on the scene and fly towards the exit to the lab. "Bastet, what exactly are you planning on doing on your own if you leave me behind?" he muttered to himself. "It's clearly gonna take cooperation to survive this..." He paused for a moment to consider his own words. "Cooperation... right. I miss Isis already."

"I heard that!"

"SUNSET!"

"Clara!"

Missy tried to grab at Sunset's hand before she disappeared into the ink, but she was already gone. It was only a firm hand yanking at the back of her dress that stopped her from jumping in after her.

"Come on, short one!"

Missy tried to turn around, but the grip on her was in a frustrating spot. "But Sunset-"

"She's got Clara with her, she'll be fine! We've got our own problems!" The Doctor didn't listen as they dodged around the hanging dragon head and began sprinting down the hall. Stuck facing to the rear, Missy felt a stab of fear in her gut.

The hallway was disassembling itself. Like a kaleidoscope, the world was shattering behind them and spinning the pieces in on themselves. The phenomenon didn't so much as pause as it ripped apart the recreated ender dragon, ripping it to shreds like a blender until the individual shards were lost in the confetti that was once the world around them.

"WHAT IS THAT?"

"Architectural Reconfiguration System!" The Doctor shouted back. "Whatever that demon's doing, it's mucking about with time and space and the TARDIS doesn't like it! She's trying to shake it off, like catching a spider crawling on your hand!"

"Does it KNOW we're in here, too?" Missy cried, finally forcing herself to fly fast enough for him to not be dragging her along.

"Like I said, it's a reflex! We've just got to keep running! We can get it under control from the main console room!"

Missy swallowed as she reached up to her hat. A second later, however, the image of Alucard's twisted cartoon face flashed through her mind again, forcing her hand back down. Can... Can I use my cards? Is it safe?

"Oh, this is gonna be a tough one..." she muttered.

"You're telling me! I only just figured out where the swimming pool went, now I'm gonna have to find it all over again!" The Doctor replied, clearly missing her point.

Bend You 'Till You Break

Sunset took a deep breath, trying not to let her anxiety get the better of her.

This wasn't Aperture. Not only was Aperture hundreds of miles away, this place was clearly made by the ink demon, judging by the sepia tone and thick black outlines around all the wall panels and other objects... Still, aside from that, it was a VERY convincing fake. All the panels, symbols, and other details were nearly flawless.

She and Clara had been deposited in the same room she'd arrived in during their first stay at the facility, just outside the glass room where she'd woken up the first time.

If this ink demon is in Penn's head, it must know that this place is a free ticket to get under my skin... she shuddered. With a grunt, she pushed herself up to her feet and offered a hand to Clara.

"So, what exactly do you mean by 'trouble?'" she asked, looking curiously at the room around them.

"Well, the first time we were here, or at least, the place that thing is trying to re-create, Penn and I nearly died..." Sunset stepped up to the wall and ran her fingers along one of the cracks between wall panels, confirming that it was perfectly smooth and flush, just like the floorboards in the animation studio. "They used us for their scientific tests, and didn't take it well when we wanted to leave. He was shot and I was... almost sliced open like a biology lesson..." she shuddered. "That was a bad day." She glanced around until she spotted the security camera, hanging from the same spot on the wall that it had been watching her the first time. She raised an eyebrow as she noticed that it had yet to move, staring blankly into empty space instead.

Clara's eyes widened and she looked around with new eyes. "Okay, so this place isn't as pleasant as it looks, which really wasn't much to start with. If you've been here before then you know the way out, yeah?"

Sunset shook her head again. "This was where we met Isis. She had the map, we just followed her directions."

"Then Isis would still know the way out! She doesn't forget anything, right?"

Sunset sighed and held up her phone. "Except that it says that Isis is offline... I don't really know what to make of that. We've lost her signal before, but she's never been completely offline."

Clara pondered the situation for a moment before clearing her throat and starting to walk towards the exit of the room. "Alright, then it looks like we're on our own! I'm sure if we start walking, the way out will come back to you!"

"Let's hope so." Sunset took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. As much as this looked like Aperture, it wasn't. The stakes weren't the same this time, and she wasn't alone. "We need to get back as fast as we can."

The next room was just as Sunset remembered: a locked door, a big button, and a big block to set on it. Again, Sunset didn't wait for instructions, picking up the block and setting it on the button.

"I'm guessing not all the tests are this easy?" Clara asked, folding her arms over her chest as they both stared expectantly at the door.

"No, they get harder..." Sunset sighed. "And the AI running this place isn't afraid to set you up with impossible tests just to watch you fail."

"Oh, brilliant..."

They both stood in silence as the door refused to budge. Sunset quickly ran out of patience, walking up to the circular door and rapping her knuckles against it. "HELLO? We solved the dumb puzzle, this is the part where you're supposed to let us out!"

On cue, the doors slid open, and Sunset rapidly wished that they hadn't. Waiting on the other side was the tall, emaciated-looking figure of the ink demon. Its painted-on smile widened, stretching its teeth wider before it lashed out, aiming to grab at her.

"LOOK OUT!" Sunset felt Clara grab the back of her jumpsuit, pulling her out of the monster's grasp just in time. Together, the two of them turned tail and sprinted back where they had come from. Their escape was cut off a few seconds later when they ran out of room to run, having returned to the original room they'd come from. Sunset felt chills running up her spine as the lurching, splattering footsteps of the ink demon following them, clearly in no hurry.

"What do we do?" Sunset looked around them for something, anything that they could use as a weapon. We could try to break the glass and use a sharp piece to attack it, but... would that even do anything? It'd be more likely to cut our hands than-

"Sunset! Over here!"

Sunset's head snapped in Clara's direction, where she was standing halfway through an open panel in the wall. It's no promise of freedom, but it's gotta be better than this!

The two of them slid through the opening into the walkway beyond, and the mechanical arm holding it began to whirr and grind. They both watched as the ink demon continued to advance on them, its long claws wrapping around the edge of the panel and only slipping back out of sight just before it became flush with the wall again.

Both of them stood and watched the panel carefully, waiting for any sign that the monster was going to break through to get at them.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Every blow made them both jump, but the wall held fast. After the third attempt, the ink demon seemed to finally give up, and silence fell. The two of them waited in pure darkness, the only sign of the other's presence being a tight grip on the arm.

"Do you think it's gone?" Clara whispered.

"I think it's looking for another way around." Sunset muttered, her hand drifting to her pocket. A few seconds later, she'd managed to switch her phone on, and the screen provided a soft glow that did nothing to illuminate the area around them. She could feel herself shifting gears. Without Penn around, somebody had to be pragmatic, and as much as she hated to admit it, she knew more about what was happening than anybody. "We should get moving... Isis? Can you help us find the way out?"

There was a pause before the screen flickered several times, eventually settling on a soft purple glow.

"Yo, Isis isn't here. Stop calling."

Sunset and Clara both looked at each other in the dim light, neither seeming to understand what was happening. "Then... can I ask whom I'm speaking to?"

"Somebody with their own problems!"

With that declaration, the screen shifted to the manual menu Sunset was accustomed to from before Isis had taken over her phone.

"That's... odd." Clara said. "If Isis isn't there... who was that?"

"Clearly, nobody helpful..." she muttered. Sunset took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremble in her hand as she moved through her apps and turned on her phone's flashlight. The bright white light bounced and glistened off of the walls, revealing that, rather than the lengthy catwalks of Aperture Science, the two of them were standing in a long black tunnel. The walls were damp with ink, looking as though they'd been chiseled out of the darkness with some blunt instrument. There was a spark of recognition at the back of her mind, and she reached out her hand to it.

It was definitely ink, thick and gummy and congealed, but still ink. She could feel it sucking at her fingers, trying to draw her in, but there was something further in. Something solid, smooth, but uneven... glassy.

She pulled her hand away, shaking off a few flecks of ink from her fingers. Her next step was to feel at her geode, slipping a pair of fingers underneath its smooth back.

It was warm, just above her own body's temperature. Not glowing, but humming enough to be certain it wasn't idle.

"Interesting..." she whispered under her breath.

"Well, right or left?" Clara licked her finger and held it up. After a moment's thought, she pointed over her shoulder and further down the hall. "Wind's coming from this way."

"Then that's the way we'll go." Sunset turned her light in the direction Clara was pointing and began to walk. "I want to put as much distance between me and Aperture Science as possible."

"Well, I'm not going to argue with you there. The sooner we get back to our friends, the better!"

Clara was lost, and not just because she and Sunset had been shoved into a cartoon recreation of a secret lab by some kind of reality-twisting demon.

This wasn't the Sunset Shimmer she knew. Yes, this was clearly the first time that they'd met from Sunset's perspective, but...

When it had been the other way around, when Clara had been meeting Sunset for the first time, she had been so... happy. Cheerful, glad to help, just... overall healthy and happy and open. Chatty, even. Yes, she'd been unafraid to step up and fight when she needed to, but this felt backwards. Going into the past was supposed to reveal someone with fewer worries, less weight on their shoulders.

She needed to lighten the mood, walking silently AND in the dark was too much.

"So... is this the day I finally get the story?"

"What story?" Sunset asked.

"Of how you guys got started on this crazy adventure!" Clara chuckled. "I mean, like I said, future you never wanted to talk about the early days."

Sunset considered the question for a moment. "Well, when my friends and I accidentally blew up the portal we were trying to shut, I woke up in his town. He was the first person I stopped to ask where I was. It was a hot day, so he offered to buy me a milkshake, and when we sat down to drink them..." Sunset paused for a moment, though her feet didn't so much as stutter in their pace. "The town was attacked by dalek."

Clara's eyes widened. "Wait, a dalek dalek? Really angry? Looks like a spray-painted rubbish bin and shouts 'exterminate' a lot?"

"That's the one." Sunset declared casually. "Chased us into a hardware store. He seemed to have more of an idea of what was going on than I did, even if we were both completely terrified. So even if he hadn't been dragging me by the hand, I would have stuck with him. Penn had a sledgehammer, I wound up in the paint aisle. Once we killed it, well, there was no separating us after that kind of near-death experience together... Once he was done throwing up, that is." She gave a mirthless chuckle. "He did NOT start out with a disposition for adventure! Fainted completely when we saw the battleships ready to invade!"

"Wait, you beat a dalek with a sledgehammer and paint? Battleships?"

"No, with a mirror, his freaky knowledge, and a complete lack of self preservation," Sunset's voice held an edge of irritation, making it clear that the latter was an ongoing problem. "But that's beside the point."

"Okay... I feel like I'm going to need some more details about how that story got from point A to point-"

Both of them were cut off when a third voice came echoing down the tunnel.

"Help me! Somebody! Help me!"

That was enough to stop them in their tracks, but only long enough for them to look and confirm that they'd both heard the same thing. Without a word, they took off running in the direction of the voice.

Clara nearly missed it when they ran past a branching tunnel, but the shine on the walls worked to their advantage. She barely spotted the perpendicular tunnel when Sunset sprinted past with the light, but she managed to slide to a stop right in front of it.

"Sunset! Over here!"

She waited just long enough for Sunset to be behind her with the light before starting to run down the new path. The stranger's voice continued growing louder, affirming that they were on the right path.

"Help! Please, help me!"

Finally, Clara could make out a light up ahead outside of Sunset's phone, growing brighter by the second. When they burst into the room the tunnel had led them to, Clara was braced to be ready for anything.

She was no stranger to danger. Breathtaking sights both beautiful and horrible were a part of traveling with the Doctor, as natural as anything. Still, what was waiting for them was enough to make her cover her mouth to hold back the urge to either scream or vomit.

It was an operating room. The walls and floor were like the first room they had arrived in, but at the center was a large table with a body strapped down onto it. Descending from the ceiling was a pair of mechanical arms, one holding a scalpel and the other a hacksaw. On the table was... Sunset. A cartoonish version made in black-and-white, but still quite recognizably her. Her chest had been ripped open, with her ribs broken and pulled aside for easy access to her internal organs. Her eyes had been reduced to a pair of Xs, a childish representation of death. The only other sign of life was a scrawled note in blocky letters painted onto the wall.

NEVER MAKING
IT OUT OF HERE.

Sunset, the REAL Sunset, stepped up beside her and examined the situation with a grim expression on her face.

"It's..." she started to speak, only to trail off into a long pause.

"Trying to scare us?" Clara finished.

"...trying to make me break." Sunset muttered, reaching down to examine her doppelganger's hair more closely. "This almost happened. Penn and I got separated, and they tried to dissect me alive. I got lucky, got part of it to self-destruct and the shrapnel sliced one of the restraints. If it hadn't..." she gestured to the dead body. "It was the first time I ever really snapped. Once I was out of here, I just... cried."

Clara felt a chill run down the back of her spine. Separated from her friends, far from home, and almost dying in the most excruciating way imaginable... If it's trying to pick out an unsettling memory for her, this is a doozy.

"Do you need a minute?"

Sunset huffed to herself before letting go of her double's hair. "I... I've been trying to digest THIS particular bit of trauma for a while. A minute won't make a difference. Let's just... go..." for a moment, she came to a stop, still staring at her double. In spite of her words, she was clearly becoming lost in thought.

"Well, I could use a second to catch my breath, sooo..." Clara leaned against the wall, trying to look anywhere but at the operating table. "So... This demon can warp us into places from your past, force us into weird tunnels, seems like it can warp reality itself and then... it tries to scare us? How does that make sense?" She gestured to the scrawl on the wall. "Why leave a threatening note when you're much scarier in person?"

What would the Doctor think here? Clara tended to ask that question a lot. Sure, he could be abrasive and infuriating and often VERY stupid when it came to people, but he was usually smart enough to know what was going on.

"Unless... it can't?"

"That, or it just likes scaring us," Sunset mumbled, "But-"

Whatever her comment was, it was cut off by a loud rumble passing over their heads, sounding almost like it was just on the other side of the ceiling. Both of them froze, waiting for any signs of more danger. Their worries were met with more rumbling, this time less consistent and more of a heavy pounding moving in the same direction. A few seconds later, the pounding and rumbling was gone as quickly as it had come, and they were back to standing in total silence.

"That second one sounded like something big chasing the first one..." Clara muttered.

Sunset nodded. "And the first one sounded like... tires."

"What, you think somebody brought a car into the TARDIS?" Clara mused. "I've seen the Doctor drive motorcycles in here before, but a car would never make it through the front doors!"

"I've got a theory, but it needs a little more proof before I'm willing to tell it..." Sunset shook her head, finally stepping away from the operating table and over to the wall. She kept one hand on her geode, gently brushing her hand over the white until she seemed to recognize something Clara couldn't see. She began trying to dig her fingernails into the black seam between the panels. "For now, the only thing we can do is... keep... moving!" With a grunt, the panel hissed and began to move, pushing out and aside until it had exposed an opening to another inky tunnel.

"How did you know that was there?"

"All the panels in Aperture move or articulate or something like that, it all takes itself apart and rearranges to keep making new tests. You just have to figure out how to make them..." Sunset said cryptically, dusting off her hands for a moment before retrieving her flashlight. "Ready to prove that note wrong?"

"More than ready." Clara stretched her neck before stepping up to the entrance alongside her.

Together, the two of them left the gruesome scene behind, and stepped back into the darkness.

"We... made... it!" Missy panted, splayed across one of the chairs in the TARDIS's control room. Her wings felt like they were on fire, but they had managed to make it back in one piece.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean this is over..." The Doctor worked furiously at the control panel, pressing buttons and pulling levers seemingly at random.

"But we're safe here... right? This room isn't going to get reconfigured or anything, right?"

"No, not the main control room." The Doctor grabbed a screen and swung it around to stare at the readings on display. "But that doesn't mean we're safe, either..."

As he continued glaring at the screen with intense focus, Missy felt a worry creeping in.

"You're... not going to hurt him, are you?"

That question was enough to draw his attention to her completely. "What? Why would I do that?"

"W-Well, you seem mad... and he's messing up your spaceship..." Missy suddenly felt much more intimidated now that his furious-looking gaze was on her. "He isn't doing it on purpose, I promise! Penn's practically your biggest fan!"

"Oh, don't mind the sour face, it's all in the eyebrows! I've yet to find the 'off' switch." The Doctor shook his head. "And don't worry about the TARDIS..." he took a moment to stroke the edge of the console. "She's been through worse at much more malicious hands. She'll be fine." He turned back to the screen, pointing at the readings in a way that urged her to look alongside him. "More importantly, take a look at this!"

Missy floated up to the screen. It was a mess of numbers and diagrams and some kind of circular writing, completely incomprehensible. "Uhhhhm... you lost me."

"Can't you see? The architectural reconfiguration system, it's not just reshaping the TARDIS's normal rooms, it's connecting to places that don't even exist in this space! Pocket dimensions inside THIS pocket dimension!"

Missy blinked, still trying to get a grip on what she was being told. "So... the ink demon isn't just messing around with portals, he's making his own pocket dimensions?"

"Hard to say, but I don't think so..." The Doctor tapped his chin. "Not all of them, at least. Some of them are ones it made, but there's at least a couple that it's drawing in, instead..."

"So... It's like how things are outside? With portals showing up to other places?"

"No, nothing so chaotic! The TARDIS's systems are trying to compensate, connecting everything as best she can. Actually... including the area Sunset and Clara disappeared in!" He reached into his pocket, putting on the sunglasses from earlier and pressing on the bridge between the lenses. With a soft buzz, the screen switched itself off. "And now, I've got a map!"

"You do?" Missy floated up out of her seat, her excitement making her completely forget her exhaustion. "Then let's get going!"

"Sunset?"

"Yes?"

"When was the last time that you guys just went somewhere for fun?"

That seemed to bring Sunset to a complete stop, as if Clara had asked her some deeply personal question. Stopping felt awkward in the small tunnel, but at the very least it was refreshing after the rhythmic plopping of their feet squelching in the ink for so long.

"I... don't think we have."

"What, seriously?" Clara stepped around to get a better look at Sunset's surprised expression. "You guys have been on a road trip for this long, with the whole multiverse out there, and you haven't taken the time for a trip to someplace you've always wanted to go? Just because your geode compass thing didn't tell you to?"

Sunset's face flushed slightly in embarrassment. "I guess I've been so focused on finding my friends before anything happens to them, I never really thought about taking the time for a pleasure trip."

"I understand being in a hurry to find them, but it's a big multiverse... Heck, it's a big universe! You're not going to be able to sprint from one side to the other!"

Sunset fidgeted slightly. "I know, but I just... worry about them. What if they didn't wind up someplace as friendly as I did? It seems like everywhere we've gone, things try to kill us! Every day we go without finding them is another day they could be getting hurt or worse!"

"Sunset, didn't you say it's been months you guys have been on the road?" Clara raised an eyebrow. "I understand being worried, but you're going to worry yourself into an early grave if you don't slow down! If your friends are out there and they've survived this long on their own, I doubt that taking a little time for yourself will be a death sentence."

"But-"

"PLUS..." Clara interrupted her. "Think about Penn and Missy. Missy's a child... don't you remember how exciting it was to go new places when you were a kid?"

"I guess I never thought about it like that..." Sunset mumbled.

"And Penn... If he's the same Penn I met in the future, all of this stuff he knows about, he knows because he LOVES them!"

"I know." Sunset sighed. "A while ago, we were joking around, and he said meeting me was the best thing to over happen to him." She gave a mirthless chuckle. "Right..."

Clara considered arguing that he was telling the truth. She had her own share of experience with meeting a stranger who got her caught up in a never-ending adventure to other worlds, and it WAS what she would consider one of the best days of her life. Maybe not the absolute best, but at least in the top five.

"Well, if you think he's having a bad time, why not stop to let him enjoy some of it?" Clara put a hand on Sunset's shoulder. "What I'm saying is that running yourself ragged like this clearly isn't working." There was another long pause between them, standing in the dark together. "You need to learn to enjoy the journey just as much as the destination, Sunset!"

A pulse ran through the congealed ink around them, causing them to move closer to one another as shapes began to form and pull away from the walls. They looked like veins at first, but the longer Clara stared, the more she could make out thorns and leaves.

"Vines?"

"No.... No, don't you dare..." Sunset whispered. "Don't you DARE bring that thing back..."

"I'm guessing this is another ghost of your past?" Clara muttered.

"You've got that right!" a squeaky voice cried.

"GRAH!" Sunset lashed out in the direction of the voice without hesitation. Clara cringed as Sunset's fist splattered one of the flowers growing out and buried itself several inches into the wall. Sunset hissed through clenched teeth and pulled her hand tight against her body in pain.

"Oof! Another one like that and you're gonna break something!" The voice taunted. "Do it again!"

One of the flowers on the inky vines stretch out and away from the wall, growing until the section in the center was large enough to accommodate a simple drawn-on face. It grinned sadistically at Sunset.

"Oh, look at that! You're as useless as ever!" the flower jeered. "Still a complete idiot! Can't even get revenge properly!"

"OI!" Clara stepped in front of Sunset, slapping at the flower and turning it into a spray of black droplets. She could only watch as another one grew out of the wall, making it clear she couldn't stop them. A hand on her shoulder turned her attention back to Sunset.

"It's just a ghost..." she muttered. The look on her face, however, told a different story. Clara could barely make out her expression, covered in shadows and seeming to purposefully keep the light pointed away from herself, but there was the glistening of tears on her cheeks and her teeth were bared and gritted tight with rage. "We can't let it stop us..." she spoke almost in a whisper, barely restrained. Together, they continued walking down the corridor, passing the strange creature without acknowledging its presence.

"Hey! Wanna see me KILL your best friend?" the flower taunted. Somewhere down the tunnel behind them, there was the sound of a gut-wrenching crunch and a strained grunt. "Wanna see me do it again? And again? And AGAIN?"

It felt like every time they left it behind, it would grow a new face out of the wall to grin that foul grin at them.

"If only, if only! Too late! Too late!" it sung at them, "You left your best friend to a horrible fate!" Occasionally, a vine would separate from the rest to lash at them, usually Sunset. The first few times, Sunset hardly so much as flinched, but she seemed to reach a breaking point after only a short time.

"CUT IT OUT!" She roared, closing her fist around the vine and pulling. The act brought no satisfaction, however. The vine simply kept coming, growing out of the wall as fast as Sunset could pull it. She began working with both hands, casting the length over her shoulder as she pulled more and more out of the wall. Clara was tempted to let her expend her frustrations until she caught flecks of red among the black. Realizing what was happening, the rushed up and grabbed Sunset, wrapping her arms around from behind to stop her from ripping any more out of the wall.

"Sunset! Sunset, stop! The THORNS!"

Sunset fought her bear hug for a few seconds, but gave up quickly, letting her hands drop to her sides. The vine was still clenched in one of her fists, but a moment later it melted away to black liquid and dripped out of her hands and onto the floor.

"S-Sorry, I just..." Sunset trailed off.

"It's okay." Clara reassured her. "Let me see your hands."

"I'm fine-"

"Hands. Now." Clara put on her best 'strict teacher' voice, the one she usually saved for her more rambunctious students. Sunset sighed and held up her hands, palms open. Clara took a deep breath, trying not to cringe or look away. It could have been much worse, it looked as though most of the thorns had gone into and out of her skin without much resistance, leaving an array of bloody pinpricks rather than open scratches and tears. Clara sighed and reached into her pocket. "Here. It's not much, but I've got a couple clean handkerchiefs. Started carrying them after I realized not every time period has tissues. Should be enough to at least cover up those palms until we can get them washed and bandaged properly."

Sunset only nodded and held out her hands for Clara to wrap the cloth around in a rudimentary bandage.

"That was incredibly stupid..."

"I know. I'm sorry." Sunset's voice had returned to barely speaking above a mumble.

"What happened that could make a flower set you off like that?"

"It's a long story," Sunset grumbled, looking away and reaching down to where she'd dropped her phone.

"Sunset, we're in a TIME machine. Everything around here is a long story, I don't mind!"

She seemed to debate with herself for a few seconds, clearly unsure whether or not she wanted to tell the story. Sunset shot a glare at the nearest flower before nodding further down the tunnel. "Well, it started when I woke up in the middle of the night and Missy was gone..."

Clara knew it was completely inappropriate to smile right now, but she did celebrate inwardly when she realized that THIS story was going to be much more of a REAL story than the last one.

"We're lost."

"We are NOT lost!" Noir argued.

"Then where ARE we, Dad?"

Noir couldn't stop himself from growling angrily as a fireball began brewing in his gut. "We are SUPPOSED to be at the main power coupling!"

"And what is THAT?"

A black-furred tail snuck over his shoulder, pointing across the chasm. Above them was the source of electricity for all of Noir's creations, and below was a one-way trip to oblivion, ready to accept the power core in case something went critical. On the other side, however, was what Noir knew she was pointing to.

"The main power coupling..."

"So, if we're not where we're supposed to be, and we're not sure where we are or how to get to where we're TRYING to be, then by DEFINITION we are..."

Noir refused to give her the satisfaction of finishing the statement and acknowledging that she was right. "Well, if SOMEBODY hadn't insisted on having a jaguar body instead of a dragon, we could just FLY over there! Don't you have a floor plan downloaded?"

"Well, unlike Isis, I wasn't trying to kiss your scaly butt! And I DO, but SOMETHING'S shifting around all the architecture, so it's useless!"

Noir took a moment to spit a few curses under his breath. "Fine, I'll fly over, myself! Just stay here and-"

"Oh, suuuuuure! Just go for a casual flight over a bottomless pit while some malicious entity is restructuring physical space! There's no way THAT can go wrong!"

Noir knew why he'd programmed her to be like this. The Backup Autonomous System Testing Everyone's Tenacity was meant to be everything Isis wasn't, specifically so that any threat to Isis would be rendered moot. They were polar opposites, both in functionality and personality. Isis was logical, so Bastet was emotional. Isis was a multitasker, Bastet devoted one hundred percent of her processing power to the problem in front of her. Isis was cheery and helpful, and Bastet was... not.

However, knowing the reasoning he'd used when putting the system together didn't mean Bastet was any less frustrating.

"How's the medbay-"

"The egg is FINE. It was the first place Isy quarantined."

"Good..." Noir took a deep breath. "Are the repair drones still going rogue?"

"Yup, and I think I'm starting to get a clue about what they're building in there..."

One of the large cat's eyes turned to the nearest wall, projecting an image that sent chills down his spine. Tubes, paneling, and engines were being repurposed into a massive machine.

"It looks like a giant water pump on steroids, but the moment I try to get the sensors to see inside, it gets overwhelmed by interference! Something's going on in there we can't see, and I've got a bad feeling about it!"

"If my memory of indie video games is correct, that's an ink machine, and a BIG one..." Noir whispered. "With all of Isis's repair drones, they could probably have it up and running in under an hour!"

"All the more reason to get the power turned off!"

The ink running and pooling around their feet was beginning to bubble up, forming new, familiar shapes. In a matter of seconds, they'd formed into two new creatures.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" one shouted.

The hulking Beowolf Grimm beside it growled in agreement.

"Well, Dad, I've got the claws if you've got the fangs..."

Noir narrowed his eyes, knowing he was about to put that fireball to good use.

"You attack Isis, invade my workshop, disassemble my equipment, and now you come at me with cheap knockoff monsters?" He bared his teeth as the fire in his belly dissipated and electricity began to crackle across his scales. He settled low into a ready position as the static arced over his body, eventually sinking into the blue plates running down his spine. He made a point not to make any noise before he took off. He knew that this kind of all-out attack was unnecessary, but he was beyond the point of rationality. His home had been invaded and the few beings he cared about had been hurt.

He only pushed off of Bastet's back. He flapped his wings once before pulling them tight against his sides. All around him was the energy he had dedicated to the attack, passing around and through him to protect his body from any kind of recoil as he turned himself into a living missile. To him it was only a few seconds, but to the rest of the world it was less than the blink of an eye before it was over.

He was now hovering behind the fake Grimm, a huge hole having been blown through its chest when he flew through it.

"Okay, that was actually kinda cool."

"THIS IS WHY I DON'T LET ANYBODY INTO MY WORKSHOP!"

Author's Note

Two things-

I've officially opened the formerly patrons-only discord to everyone! Come geek out with us!

I'm currently taking commissions! There are three slots open right now, you can find more details here!

Projections

"How much farther can this go?" Clara moaned.

Sunset's brow furrowed with frustration as she looked at the walls around them, which didn't seem to have changed in hours. "I have a theory, and if I'm right... forever."

Clara stopped short. "Forever? There's got to be a way out, right?"

"This place might be just to keep us occupied. That's why the demon chased us in here..." Sunset pressed a hand into the ink again. "It wasn't an escape hatch, it was a prison."

"Okay, wouldn't be my first time in a jailbreak..." Clara glanced around, trying to spot any kind of irregularity. "We just need to figure out the key, right?"

"Maybe..." Sunset reached up to her neck, unfastening the necklace with her geode. She curled her hand around the orange stone, forming a tight fist. "Or maybe we just need a more literal jailbreak."

"Wait, what? Sunset, wait! You almost broke your hand last time!"

Sunset nodded, inhaling deep and then letting out a shaky breath. "Yeah, but this is the only way to check if I'm right, and we don't have any more time to waste."

"Right about WHAT?"

"HI-YAH!" Sunset cried, thrusting her fist straight into the ink and against the wall. Clara cringed as she heard a gut-wrenching crunch, but Sunset smiled as she pulled her hand back, revealing it completely unharmed. There was a moment of pure silence, but just as Clara was about to ask Sunset what she'd done, the entire tunnel shuddered and shook, more cracking noises running up and down the length. Splits began to appear in the black walls, with white light seeping through from the outside.

"How did you..." Clara trailed off as Sunset shook out her fingers.

"My geode's been humming since we first got here, and it's only gotten stronger. That was my first clue." She wrapped her fist around the geode again and readied herself for another blow. "Second was the tunnel... HYAH!" She punched again, and the cracks all widened and pulled away from one another. "I've seen this kind of tunnel before, but minus the ink."

"Then where ARE we?"

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you!" an unfamiliar voice called from behind them. Both of them spun around, spotting a new figure forming out of the ink. This one was... human. Or at least, she looked human at first. She was tall, with pale white skin and black veins on the edges of her face and covering her hands. She was dressed in a low-cut black dress and her silver hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Once she'd finished forming, she clasped her hands behind her back and gave a condescending stare.

"I think you'll find that to be a very bad idea..." she declared.

Another ghost of Sunset's past? Clara turned around to gauge Sunset's reaction.

The look of sheer HATRED on Sunset's face was like staring down an oncoming train.

"You know... the third clue? This..." she gestured to the strange woman. "You see, the ink demon thinks that it knows what scares me because it knows what scares PENN." She stepped slowly around Clara, walking up to the stranger with barely-restrained control. "It doesn't realize that THIS person would be the exact WRONG thing to show me, because it's the best image to use to scare Penn into submission. To him, she's the scariest thing in the world. It knows that because it's in his head..."

Sunset reeled back with her hand. She pivoted on her heel, driving her fist straight into the strange woman's face with enough force to lift her off of her feet and drive her into the wall. When skull met wall, Sunset's hand drove straight through, splattering the woman's face to an ink blot and shattering the wall behind it. The wall fell away, forcing Clara to cringe and look away from the sudden brightness. Once her eyes had adjusted, Clara could see that Sunset had opened a new tunnel, this one leading upwards and brightly lit with sunlight. She motioned for Clara to follow her, and the two of them climbed up and out of the underground.

"Breaking through the wall confirms it." She brushed her fingertips against the clean, glassy wall of the new tunnel. "A while back, Penn was in a coma, and Missy and I had to use my powers and the geode to go in and pull his mind back out. Missy used tunnels just like this one to get us from place to place!" She knocked her knuckles against the wall. "This isn't a different dimension, the demon was trying to take us out of the equation so we couldn't do something like that again to save Penn from being possessed!"

"Wait... so you're trying to tell me we're inside Penn's head?" Clara almost stopped climbing out of sheer disbelief, but she instinctively wanted more than anything to get to the surface.

"It would explain how the ink demon knows so much about me and what I'm scared of. But, that last image was the WRONG one to show me." Sunset said as they emerged in the middle of a front yard covered in dead grass. The sun was painfully bright, heating the air to almost-unbearable temperatures. Behind them was a small, tired-looking house with a sagging roof and a weather-stripped front door. "Huh... Back in Seminole..." Sunset muttered thoughtfully. "Wasn't expecting that. It was different last time, or maybe we were just in another area..."

Clara stretched her arms and gave her shoulders a roll, enjoying the now-abundant elbow room. "So... what do we do now? If I had to guess, I'd say we should find Penn, right?"

"Sounds like a place to start, but-" Sunset shook her head, but before she could give an answer to follow it up, they were both cut off by the sound of screeching tires. They watched as a familiar silver car came tearing around the corner of the street, sliding around the corner in a nearly-out-of-control motion before taking off again at full speed in their direction. A second later, they could see what it was trying to frantically to escape: the ink demon. It wasn't the same form that had chased them into the tunnels, but much more monstrous, running on huge, muscular arms long enough to support its whole body and with a gigantic mouth of mismatched fangs. For something so big, it was keeping perfect pace with Penn's Oldsmobile, only a few lengths behind it.

"Of course. If we want to find Penn, we just find Sylvia!" Sunset muttered, raising her hands to protect her face as the two thundered past them.

"But they're headed into a dead end!" Clara countered, pointing to the end of the road.

They watched as the car careened towards the end of the street, where the pavement came to an abrupt end in front of several fenced-in backyards. With practiced precision, the car slammed on the brakes and turned the front wheels to the side, causing the car to turn and slide across the asphalt. Clara was almost certain she could see the ink demon grinning wider in the second it took to close the gap, but just as it was nearly on top of its quarry, the back wheels began to spin again, fast enough to kick up a cloud of white smoke as it drove the car forward and knocked the demon's arms out from underneath it. The ink demon clattered across the car's roof, nearby buckling it inwards with its bulk as Sylvia punched through to a clean getaway. The girls watched, unsure what to do until the car stopped directly in front of them, the driver's door opening and revealing a pair of empty seats in the front.

"GET IN!" a voice shouted.

Clara considered arguing the idea of jumping into a driverless car, but the demon was already starting to recover, and even without eyes she could tell that its gaze was lingering on them, the easier prey.

Sunset dove in headfirst, leaping over the central console and into the passenger's seat, and Clara followed close behind to take the driver's spot. The engine roared and Clara was pressed back hard into the seat as they took off as fast as they could. Behind them, she could hear the pounding steps of the ink demon chasing, resuming the chase as it had been when they had arrived. The steering wheel spun wildly, practically throwing her out of her seat as they drifted their way around a corner and sped away towards the center of town.

"What on EARTH do you two think you're doing here?" a voice snapped at them, clearly coming from the car's radio.

Clara didn't recognize the voice, but judging by Sunset's smile, its anger wasn't any indicator that it was a threat.

"Thanks for the save-"

"I'm NOT saving YOU, Shimmer!"

"-again-"

"Now shut up and make yourself useful!"

"-Big Sis..."

"and I'm not YOUR big sis!"

Sunset folded her arms. "Well, you COULD just tell me your name, and then I'd know what to call you!"

"I enjoy how angry it makes you not to know." There was a brief pause. "Also, welcome aboard, Clara."

"Umm... Thanks?" Clara glanced back and forth between Sunset and the car's radio. "Am I missing something, here?"

"This is Missy's big sister, Penn's duel spirit partner, who REFUSES to tell me who she is." Sunset motioned to the radio. "This isn't the first time she's managed to save us without showing her face."

"Penn's partner... is a car?"

"I'm DRIVING the car." The voice declared. "This car is the place he feels safe and in control. The demon already took over most of the dreamscape and Noir's workshop, keeping the war room moving is the only way he can think clearly enough to put a plan together!" There was a short pause as the car slammed on the brakes and turned again, this time onto another back street. A second later, it made another hairpin turn into a side alley. "We know this city like the back of our hands, there's no way the demon will be able to catch us in it, but we can't run forever! This is just to buy time until we figure out how to beat it."

"Then where IS Penn? We can help him figure out a plan!" Clara asked.

"Back seat."

In the moment that Clara and Sunset both twisted in their seats to look behind them, the car struck a bump in the road, catapulting them out of their spots and into the back of the car.

Except... there wasn't a back of the car. In the moment that Clara closed her eyes and braced for impact, the world around them changed. When she opened them again, they were standing in a dark-walled room lit by a single hanging lightbulb. Her attention was almost instantly captured, however, by the far wall:

It was covered in paper, as wide and as high as the eye could see. Some were text, others were photographs, newspaper clippings, and she could even see moving pictures playing on some of them, memories of videos perfectly preserved. Threads of red yarn and thumbtacks criss-crossed and connected hundreds of different pieces, and a familiar figure had his back turned to the two of them, frantically moving from one paper to the next and examining them for a second before moving on.

"An exorcist? THE Exorcist? No, sequels proved that didn't work-" he rushed to another area of the board. "It uses pentagrams, the inverted form of the pentangle, symbol of five virtues, with the topmost pointing to Heaven. It was on the shield of Sir Gawain, representing faithfulness, honor, Christian Faith, goodness, and purity-" he cut himself off, following the thread up and to the left. "Arthurian legend, the knights of the ground table, the holy grail! Holy item, Christ's cup from the last supper- what about sacred items? They could purge it, right?" He wrapped his fingers around the thread and yanked hard, pulling a long line of photos from the wall so he could look at each one independently. "Holy Grail? Heals and gives eternal life. Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch? Blows up, not favorable. Excalibur, Caliburn, the Lance of Longinus, the Millennium Rod, Necklace, Ring, Scales, Key- Sunset would get a kick out of that one- Puzzle?" He moved down the line faster and faster until coming to a stop. "Puzzle can put souls back in their proper vessels AND runs off of friendship, which is Sunset's thing, maybe we-" He shook his head, dropping the string entirely and sprinting for another section of the board. "No, we could never get our hands on it, Sunset couldn't out-duel the King of Games. Think differently, new angle, mulligan hand! Approach it from a biological angle, like a virus! How do you destroy a virus? Destroy, destroy, destroy the virus... Magnamon!" He reached up and grabbed at a new thread. "Magnamon and Golden Rapidmon cured BlackCherubimon's virus from the inside, maybe if we got Isis the golden armor digieggs-"

"Penn?"

"Maybe nanotechnology is the key? But Isis hasn't gotten to that stage-"

Sunset and Clara looked at one another, each uncertain whether or not he knew they were there.

"Hey, Penn!"

"We could beat a virus WITH a virus, like if we combined CRISPR with a holy entity's RNA sequence- what about Evangelion's angels?"

"PENN!"

"Of course, the cost-benefit of possibly causing the who-knows-what-number impact versus letting the Ink Demon run free in the world is- could we even get a genetic sampler through an AT field?"

"ELIJAH!" Sunset shouted.

Clara blinked. "Who's Elijah- wait, is that his REAL name?"

Sunset's shout finally seemed to break through his concentration, causing him to finally turn away from the titanic conspiracy board and look at the two of them.

"Wait... what?" He blinked several times before pressing his palm against his forehead. "You did it again, didn't you, Sunset? You're using your magic to read my mind again."

Sunset rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug.

"You're here! I KNEW you were still in there, somewhere!"

Clara stepped forward, offering a small wave. "In our defense, we're not TRYING to invade your privacy. The ink demon dragged us into this."

Even as Sunset continued hugging him, Penn's attention turned to Clara, his eyes widening somewhat in surprise. Finally pushing Sunset away enough to break off the hug, he offered her a hand.

"Clara Oswald, right? It's a pleasure."

Clara chuckled. The formality of the greeting reeked of self-restraint. Still, she took the respectfully-offered hand and gave it a firm shake. "It's good to see you again, Penn. Well, again for ME, for the first time for YOU, if Sunset is to be believed!"

He looked confused for only a second before settling into a grin. "Wibbly-wobbly..."

"Timey-wimey," Clara completed the phrase. It was one of the Doctor's favorite ways of avoiding giving long and complicated explanations of time travel, and anyone who traveled with him long enough came to know it well.

"So... you're working on a plan to kick this demon out?" Sunset asked, glancing dubiously at the giant wall of notes.

"Working? Yes. Plan... not so much." Penn sighed. "I just don't know enough about the demon to beat it, if it even CAN be beaten."

"Of course it an be beaten! We just need to play the right cards!" the voice of Missy's sister echoed from above them.

"Well, WHAT CARDS?" Penn held his arms wide and stared upwards, looking more like he was questioning Heaven itself than some unseen partner. "Because short of going and asking the Anarchy sisters for help, I've got nothing!"

Clara tapped her own chin in thought. "No Isis, no lightsaber, no Sylvia, no Missy... We really don't have much to work with, do we?"

"What are you talking about? Penn's more dangerous than ever!" Sunset chimed, smiling and patting him on the back.

Both of them took a moment to stare at her. Clara was confused, and Penn seemed both confused and exasperated.

"HOW?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Well, MY Penn, the Penn I know does two things well:" she held up two fingers to illustrate. "One: He protects people! And if this ink demon gets through him, then we're going to be next, that's for certain! And two: he uses his enemies' strength against them, and this thing is strong enough to warp the fabric of reality!" She grinned and rested her arm on Penn's shoulder to lean against him. "Can you imagine how devastating that's going to be when he figures out a way to turn it back where it came from?"

Penn chuckled nervously as he glanced at Sunset. "Your Penn?"

Clara spotted a flash of guilt in Sunset's face. "Look, Penn. I really screwed up lately. Ever since... Ebott... I haven't been fair to you, and-" she sucked in air uncomfortably through her teeth, and Clara could see her trying to hold back tears, "and then I made it even worse with the whole deal with Alice Angel. I was scared, and alone, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't think Missy and I were going to make it out of there and- and that's still no excuse. Deep down, maybe some awful, AWFUL part of me just thought that if you stayed with Alice, I'd have an excuse to insist we go back to the you who was with Undyne..." She wrapped her arms around him again, pulling him tight in a hug he failed to reciprocate. "I promise, from now on, I trust you! Like Missy said, Penn is Penn! And I'm sorry, I'm SO sorry!" She buried her face in his shoulder. "I understand if you-"

"Oh, just shut up!" Penn cut her off, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in tight. "Can we just... forget all of this? I don't even want to THINK about the last couple weeks, any more..."

Clara couldn't help smiling as she watched the two friends finally reconciling. It was here that she was reminded of something the Doctor had said to her after she'd done something awful, herself: Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference? Friendships that could survive an acid test like this weren't the kind that came along every day. They were forged in fire and laughter, in tears of joy and tears of sadness... and more often than not, had been shattered and put back together multiple times.

"This is sweet and all, but it doesn't put us any closer to figuring out how to stop this thing from taking over the last of Penn's mind and wiping us ALL out!"

Clara took a moment to look back at Penn and Sunset, then at the massive wall of notes behind them, and finally at the room they were standing in, supposedly one of the last safe places left.

"You know what? I think I've got an idea..."

Penn and Sunset both turned to look at her. "We're all ears, Clara..."

"Well, I was thinking, 'What would the Doctor do in this situation?'"

"WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE THAT LEVER?" Missy screamed, clinging for dear life to avoid being sucked out into space.

"WHY DID YOU PULL THAT LEVER?" The Doctor asked, trying to climb his way back up to the airlock lever.

"YOU SAID IT WAS THE EMERGENCY EVACUATION LEVER!" Missy shouted back, watching as several inky creatures were ejected into the infinite abyss. "'ATTACKED BY INK MONSTERS' SEEMS LIKE AN EMERGENCY!"

"YES! BUT 'EVACUATION' HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING ON A SPACESHIP!"

"WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?"

"and if the Doctor were here, he'd point out that we have a secure room that it shouldn't be able to break into or out of, a friend who SHOULD have total control of this place if it's in his head, and a friendship that it definitely CAN'T break!" Clara pointed to the two of them. "Those are some pretty good assets!"

Penn seemed confused, but Sunset's eyes widened. "Are you implying... we try to trap the demon? In HERE?"

Clara nodded. "Why not?"

"I... think that's the start of a plan," Penn mumbled and glanced back at the board. "It's certainly a different way of looking at this..."

"A BAD one! We want it OUT of Penn, not trapped inside him!"

Clara held up her hands in an attempt to placate the angry voice of his partner. "Okay, but consider this: WHY did it do this, to begin with? Why Penn? Why possess him instead of just turning him into another monster, or something? Sunset and Missy said he could make stuff out of the ink, right? Penn's a WRITER, right? Maybe the reason it can do any of this is because they're compatible in some weird, demon-y, artist-y way?" Clara gestured to Penn. "I mean, the Doctor said it himself, a Penn with ink inside him is just TOO good to be a coincidence!"

"Penn, there's no way you're considering this, right?"

All eyes turned to Penn, who seemed to be swiftly losing himself in thought. Finally, he took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Okay, but-"

"WHAT?"

"BUT-" Penn pointed an angry finger upwards to silence his partner. "As my voice of Reason is quick to point out, this isn't a good situation, trapped or not! This plan is only a stopgap, to buy us a few more turns until we draw more favorable cards!" He folded his arms over his chest with a shudder. "And for the record, I'm agreeing to this because I don't have any better ideas!"

Clara grinned. "That could apply to a LOT of the plans the Doctor and I have made work in the past..."

Sunset smirked. "Well, our modus operandi is generally to make up the plan as we go along, so it looks like we're all in our element!"

"Fine. FINE! Let's do this, then! Let's try to trap an already-vindictive demon in one of the most sacred portions of Penn's subconscious, RIGHT AFTER the two of us finished fixing it from the LAST vindictive monster that came rampaging through here! You're gonna endanger us! You're going to endanger your client, the very nice lady who saved your lives in advance!"

Sunset glanced over at Penn, raising an eyebrow. "I wondered for a long time whether or not she was as sarcastic to you as she was to me. Turns out she is."

"You get used to it, it comes from a place of love." Penn shrugged. "Most of the time, anyway..." There was the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at Penn's lips as he glanced upwards. "Hey, partner, look at the bright side: not necessarily! There's definitely a very slim chance we'll survive."

"I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! LET'S DO IT!"

Author's Note

Let's all thank PC for their fantastic art they drew to celebrate this arc of Bendy taking over Isis's core!

Malefic World

"So, what's the plan?"

Penn took a deep breath as he settled into the driver's seat, hovering his hands just over the steering wheel as he watched it drive itself.

"We're going to buy Sunset and Clara enough time to set up that trap of theirs." He muttered, closing his hands around the steering wheel. Just the hum of the engine and the feel of the faux leather on the wheel was enough to send a wave of comfort through his soul.

"Right. The DUELIST is sitting out setting the TRAP, that makes sense." Reason argued.

Penn thought for a moment. She was always stubborn, but maybe rephrasing things would help. "Why do you think the ink demon went after Isis first?" he asked as they rounded another corner. He was already mapping out their next route in his mind, but the ink demon was getting closer, almost on top of their bumper. Running around in an imagined version of his hometown wasn't going to last, which meant they needed a change of strategy.

"What? I don't know, because she's a computer?"

"BECAUSE she's probably the smartest member of our party!" Penn corrected, turning them back towards Main Street. "I have a theory-"

"A GAME-"

Penn reached over and shut off the radio, causing his partner's voice to become muffled and angry for several seconds.

"That reference is too easy and overdone and you should feel bad for making it."

The radio switched itself back on with an indignant click. "Well, excuuuuuuuuuse ME, princess!"

Penn rolled his eyes. "If anybody was going to figure this monster out, it was Isis. I'm thinking that maybe she DID figure something out about it, and the demon KNEW she did... and that's why it took her out first."

"How would it know she knew, though?"

"Because they're both in my head." Penn tapped at his temple to illustrate, despite the fact that he was alone in the car. "And if that's true, then any trap I can think of or know about..."

"The demon will see coming... Got it."

Penn tightened his grip on the steering wheel as they pulled out onto the main highway running through the town. It was a straight sprint from here, Sylvia versus Bendy. His foot was already flat against the floor, and the engine was whining at him as she tried to push to higher and higher speeds.

"Come on, old girl..." he rubbed his hand affectionately on the steering wheel. "I know we've pushed you hard today, but I really need you to hold up..."

"Penn, you know that this isn't the REAL Sylvia, right? You don't have to imagine her EXACTLY the same..."

Before he could respond, the entire car shuddered and seemed to settle more. The sound of the engine shifted from a strained whine to a pleased purr, and the entire car surged forward, putting precious distance between him and the demon.

"In fact, this car could be systematic... Hydromatic... ULTRAMATIC... Penny, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

Penn snickered. "I think so, Brain, but where are we gonna get that much mayonnaise on a Saturday night?"

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMM! Their conversation was cut short by the roar of an angry-sounding engine. Penn turned his head to look out the window and felt all of the joy that their jokes had brought drop out along with the bottom of his stomach.

"Am... Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

There was the ink demon, keeping perfect pace with them. It had changed its shape, abandoning the oversized arms and monstrous appearance in favor of a more modern device: a three-wheeled motorcycle that rode low to the ground, almost like a drag racing car. It had returned to its lanky, twisted form and reclined into the seat, but the shimmering black surface of its vehicle made it clear that the two were a single entity. Everywhere the tires made contact with the ground seemed to leave a black pollution, and the farther they drove, the more it spread. The only thing that refused to change was that smug, teasing grin plastered across its face.

"It's evolving... Catching up to the modern day..." Penn muttered.

The two machines, each one an extension of their rider, kept perfect pace with one another. Soon, the facsimile of Penn's town had been left far behind and melted back into the rest of his imagined space. Now the open road had become a freeway laid across his mind. Their race had entered a new stage.

The Ink Demon turned to look at him with its eyeless face before raising its gnarled arm. Globules of ink flowed up and wrapped around it, eventually forming into a wide blade-like shape... a shape that was etched deep into Penn's soul. Even pitch-black and without any details, he knew what the demon was challenging him to.

"Alright, monster..." he muttered. With a grunt, he pushed in on the steering wheel. In the kind of logic that would work only in a dream, the entire steering column collapsed and shrunk, causing the console in front of him to fold in on itself and shatter. The pieces all shuffled and reconfigured until the entire steering mechanism and dashboard had been replaced with a table-like surface and sixteen rectangular outlines. Five monster zones, five spell and trap zones, two link zones, and all the rest.

"Is he SERIOUSLY trying to beat us at our own game?"

"YOU'VE been keeping me alive in here, partner. If he beats us in a duel, I lose your protection, and the only thing holding him back will be sheer willpower." Penn's eyes narrowed. "He's not challenging me, he's challenging YOU."

"Well, too bad. I only let YOU duel for me, so he's challenging YOU."

"Yeah, yeah... Who's on first, What's on second, does it really matter?" Penn reached into the center console, retrieving a bundle of cards and setting them onto the appropriate slot. "Just try not to clutter up my hand with high-level monsters this time, I don't want to rely on drawing Montage Dragon."

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say that was implying you DON'T want to draw me!"

Penn looked back out his window, giving the demon a glare and an affirmative nod to indicate that he was ready. With its free hand, the creature grabbed at the handlebars and yanked them to the side.

"WHOA!"

"LOOK OUT!"

Penn slammed on the brakes, only barely avoiding the collision and dropping behind the demon's tri-wheeled cycle.

In the place formerly occupied by the speedometer and other gauges, an image of Bendy's face appeared.

TURN ONE: BENDY

"Nuts... Should've paid more attention to 5Ds..." he muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, letting him have the lead was a mistake."

"Well, our deck does better going second, anyway. Always look on the bright side of life..."

Penn couldn't see much of the ink demon from behind, but he didn't need to see his opponent placing down the card to recognize the effect of a field spell. The pollution creeping out from the wheels spread even faster, racing out and overtaking everything in sight. Rather than just the pitch-black that had existed before, however, this was a blackness punctuated by stars and nebula-like clouds of color. Every hard edge seemed to glow with iridescence, resulting in an effect that sent a flicker of recognition through his mind.

"Aw, nuts..."

"Have to admit... We should have seen this archetype coming."

There was a flash of brown as a hastily-discarded card fluttered through the air and was caught on the windshield. It was a classic card that Penn knew well, and a powerful one, at that: Rainbow Dragon.

Ahead of them, the black surface of the ink rippled before exploding upwards, arcing into a long, narrow body. and a pair of wide wings. When it had finished, the majority of the ink washed away, exposing the monster that had been summoned. It looked like Rainbow Dragon at first, with the same white serpentine body and glittering multicolored gemstones along its length, but two things stood out to reveal the key difference: its wings were covered in black plating with silvery white accents and a mask appeared to have been fused over its face, split down the center between pitch-black and shining white. The creature roared loudly enough to shake the ground under their wheels, and Penn nearly vomited when its sickening aura washed over him.

Malefic Rainbow Dragon

ATK: 4000 DEF: 0

The Malefic archetype. It had appeared only once in the series: the tenth anniversary movie. A villain named Paradox had been rampaging across space and time, stealing and collecting all of history's most powerful monsters and bending them to his will. By banishing the original creature from their deck, a duelist could instantly summon a dark copy of the monster to their field, and they could keep doing so as long as their "Malefic World" field spell remained intact. It was a cruel archetype that enslaved monster spirits to the user regardless of whether or not they wanted to fight for them...

But it was effective. His opponent already had a 4000 ATK monster on the first turn. The only thing keeping them safe was the fact that attacking on the first turn wasn't allowed.

Penn rolled down his window and reached around, plucking the copy of Rainbow Dragon from the windshield and tossing it into the passenger seat.

"You shouldn't treat your cards so disrespectfully..." he growled as the display changed to his own face.

TURN TWO: PENN

He drew the top six cards off of the top of his deck, whispering a silent prayer that his cards wouldn't let him down. He was going to need every trick he had if he wanted to survive this duel.

Author's Note

Sorry for the short update, everyone. Between the last update and this one, a lot has happened that I can't really get into in a public forum. Thank you all for your patience, I should be able to pick things back up at a reasonable pace soon.

Just a reminder: Commissions are still open and I have updated Patreon with more affordable tiers.

About 2/3 of the US is frozen right now, including where I live, so please stay safe out there, fellow adventurers!

Lots of love,
Pennington Inkwell

One More Move, One Final Chance to Prove...

"What is THAT?"

"Looks like... the ink machine?"

Missy and the Doctor both stared at the huge machine. More of Isis's drones were crawling and clambering all over it, welding, adjusting and maintaining the device. The Doctor tapped on the center of his sunglasses, which gave off a high-pitched buzz.

"Scans can't get past the outer casing. Whatever it is, it's hiding what it's supposed to do... which probably means it can't be good."

Missy narrowed her eyes as she glared at the machine in question. It wasn't as big as the one Bendy had been using for his lair, but it was still large enough for them to write off trying to pick up a wrench and break it, themselves. For the moment, they had found an upper walkway to stand on and overlook the progress while they discussed their next move.

"I thought you said this was the way to Sunset and Clara!" Missy hissed.

"Yes, well, the TARDIS has never been good at following my directions, I guess she's not the best at giving them, either." The Doctor sighed as he removed his sunglasses. "I'm sure they're doing fine wherever they are."

"GAH, HOW DOES PENN WORK WITH THIS?" Sunset shouted, pounding her head against the wall of references. "I can't tell up from down with the way his memory works!"

"It's a mess, but don't people say that a messy room is a sign of genius, or something?" Clara muttered with a smirk.

"There's a big difference between 'mess' and 'loosely tied together by word association!'"

"Right..." Missy rolled her eyes. "So, are we gonna bust this thing up? It doesn't sound like it's running, yet."

"Well, as much as that sounds like fun, how are we going to do that with at least a hundred repair drones crawling all over it?"

Missy opened her mouth to reply, but found herself coming up short on ideas. To her surprise, another voice spoke up to fill the gap.

"Well, if you can get to the main power coupling, you could stop it from ever turning on!"

The two of them spun around, finding themselves face-to-face with the two that had snuck up on them. One was a silver-scaled dragon no bigger than a cat, giving them both an annoyed look. He was riding on the back of a large black cat, which had opened a mechanical panel in its back to point some kind of weapon in their direction. The Doctor raised his hands, clearly trying to avoid a fight. On the other hand, Missy couldn't hold herself back, leaping forward and grabbing the tiny dragon in a full-body hug.

"NOOOOOIR! You're okay!"

"Of... course... I'm... okay!" Noir gasped.

"He's not gonna be if you keep squeezing him like that."

"I'm sorry, but do you know this fellow?" The Doctor asked, starting to lower his hands until the sound of the weapon warming up prompted him to return to the surrendering position.

Missy adjusted her grip, moving Noir onto her shoulder before floating back down on top of the robotic cat. "Oh, we go WAY back! We're besties! Before Penn gave my deck to Sunset, Noir and I had some GREAT times running around Penn's dreamscape!" She poked at the small dragon. "Isn't that right, bud?"

The small dragon seemed to be doing his best to reclaim his lost dignity by straightening his posture a bit. "Yeah, sure we did, but what are you doing back HERE?"

"Dreamscape? Is that what this pocket dimension is?" The Doctor glanced around, suddenly much more interested in his surroundings. "As for what we're doing here... Well, it's a long story involving demons and time travel, do you think you could avoid shooting us long enough to tell it?" The Doctor asked, nodding towards the gun still pointed in his direction.

"Huh? Oh, right. Bastet, go ahead and stand down. If he's with Missy, he's alright." Noir hopped down from Missy's shoulder and back onto the black cat, where he gave it a pat with his tail.

"I told you not to order me around! Maybe I LIKE pointing guns at people!"

"Didn't we agree to both put aside our pride until our existences aren't under attack?"

"Fine..."

The gun retreated back into the robotic body, finally allowing the Doctor to relax. With his hands free for use again, he pointed down at the machine in question. "All those robots look like YOU, can't you shut them off?"

"Don't you think I would have done that, already?" Noir gave him an angry glare. "That ink monster's taken over Isis's CPU array and I'm locked out! The only way to stop it is to break the hard line connection to the power source!"

"Interesting... So why are you here, instead of doing that?"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T GET THERE!" Noir shouted, causing Missy to jump with surprise.

"We've been trying, but whatever took out Isis seems to be warping physical space here to keep us away. We keep winding up going in circles... which isn't that different from what usually happens around here, but usually the running in circles is more metaphorical."

"You wouldn't happen to have seen a pair of girls running through here, would you? One with big eyes and another with absurdly red hair?"

Noir shook his head. "No humans allowed in here, so that's a 'no.'"

"Right, then we've definitely wound up in the wrong place..." The Doctor sighed and scratched at his head. "We're looking for Sunset and Clara, not a French dragon and his pair of Egyptian robots!"

"I'm not French!" Noir countered. "And if ANYONE wants to get out of here alive, we can't let that ink machine start up!"

"Why-"

CHK! CHK! CHK! CHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHKCHK!

Everyone ran to the edge of the walkway at the sound of new machinery cranking to life, and the bottom fell out of Missy's stomach at the sight of the ink machine beginning to move and churn of its own accord. The drones all assembled in a ring around it, watching intently as black sludge began to leak from the front nozzle.

"Why? Was I the ONLY one who played the game?" Noir hissed. "That machine chews up souls and turns them into cartoon characters!"

"Well, there go my plans to throw myself into the mystery machine..." The Doctor said sarcastically.

"Wait, if that thing converts souls..." Missy's face grew pale. "What happens when they set one up inside Penn's soul?"

The entire area shuddered and shook, as if being rocked by an earthquake.

"And there goes the neighborhood..."

"Okay... The way I see it, we have two options. We can either run back to the TARDIS before this place falls to pieces around us, or... we can try to get this machine turned off before it literally eats our friend from the inside out." The Doctor glanced around. "All in favor of running away?"

"Works for me."

"If we each go in a different direction, somebody's got to wind up going in the direction of the power switch, right?" Missy asked, ignoring Bastet's eagerness to jump ship.

"If Penn goes, my book never gets written, so I go kaput either way..." Noir murmured. "Count me in on trying to shut it down."

"So, divide and conquer, don't get caught..." The Doctor nodded. "And try not to get turned into soul food."

All eyes turned to Bastet. The robotic cat looked back, clearly upset with the attention.

"Fine! FINE! I'll go wandering around looking for the one thing it doesn't want us to find! It's not like I've got a soul, anyway... and this thing hurt my sister, and I don't take kindly to that."

"That's my girl..." Noir smirked and gave Bastet a scratch behind her left ear.

"Even if the odds of the four of us finding the breaker are three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one."

"Well, I've had worse..." The Doctor shrugged.

"Alright... Then let's go!"

"Come on, come on..." Penn muttered, glancing down at his field. "Just get your turn over with... We both know you've got nothing..."

He had Bendy locked down with a single monster: Marshmacaron. Once per turn, if that monster was destroyed, he could summon two identical ones from his hand, deck, or graveyard. Their attack and defense stats were, frankly, pathetic, but they exploited a key weakness in the Malefic deck: they didn't play well with each other. Every powerful Malefic Monster came with a caveat listed in their card text: There can only be one "Malefic" monster on the field.

Which meant that Bendy could never destroy Marshmacaron as quickly as he could summon it back. All of the high-level attack points in the world couldn't do anything to clear more than one monster at once. He couldn't do much of anything to deal damage back to Bendy at the moment, but their goal was to stall for time, and this did so perfectly well. Combined with the Final Countdown spell he'd played earlier that would end this by force in 20 turns, it was possible he could manage to win this duel without dealing a single point of damage.

The problem with stalling, of course, was that it allowed both parties to build up their hands and set up strategies. Stalling was nothing but giving them both time to gather as much power as possible, and when that strategy was inevitably disrupted, both duelists would slam into each other with the full force of their decks. He had been waiting until he could draw something to destroy the field spell, like Mystical Space Typhoon. Without it, Malefic monsters couldn't stay on the field and Bendy would be defenseless.

The Ink Demon's hesitation to follow their "attack, summon Marshmacaron, repeat" pattern from the last few turns was like a warning siren blaring at maximum volume. There was a chill in the air, and something was casting a shadow of dread over his heart.

Something had changed, and not just in their duel. While his attention had been here, Bendy had just done something powerful someplace else, he knew it. But he couldn't do anything about it.

If he's about to break through, how many redundancies do I have? Not as many as I'd like, and not able to stand up to four THOUSAND attack points...

In a flash of green light, a spell card appeared beside the demon's motorcycle, bearing an unfamiliar art and name. Thankfully, the screen inside of the car showed a more easily-read version.

Malefic Territory

When this card is activated: You can activate 1 "Malefic World" from your Deck. While that card is in the Field Zone, neither player can target a card(s) in the Field Zone with card effects. The "Malefic" monster effect, "There can only be 1 face-up "Malefic" monster on the field" becomes "There can only be 1 face-up "Malefic" monster on the field with the same name". During the Battle Phase, negate the effects of face-up "Malefic" monsters on the field.

"Oh..."

"BLEEEEEEP!" A loud censor bleep came from the radio, but somehow that summed up his mood perfectly.

With that, cards began to fly past him as they were cast aside to summon their dark counterparts.

The first was a three-headed dragon made from gleaming metal.

Malefic Cyber End Dragon

ATK: 4000 DEF: 2800

Next came a dragon with gleaming white skin and blue armor fused to its body partially covered by the black armor that marked it as a Malefic monster.

Malefic Stardust Dragon

ATK: 2500 DEF: 2000

After that was a monster near and dear to his heart, now corrupted but still easily recognizable. It hurt Penn's heart to see it abused like this.

Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon

ATK: 3000 DEF: 2500

Counting Malefic Rainbow Dragon, he was staring at a field of four foul-spirited dragons with dizzying strength... more than thirteen thousand attack points between them.

And he was hiding behind a literal marshmallow.

The next monster to appear nearly slipped beneath his radar: a small collection of gears and wheels turning in unison. Penn's eyes widened as he recognized the card in question: Malefic Parallel Gear. On its own it wasn't a threat, but...

"He's discarding a card... he's using its effect to synchro summon from his hand!"

The collection of gears took to the air above their heads, transforming into orbs of light and a set of three glowing rings. From the sky came another copy of Malefic Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which flew into the rings. Its physical body dissolved and the lights slipped into the outline of its form before exploding into a blinding burst. When the light had faded, a new monster was descending to join their battle. It was a massive dragon, one with a body composed completely of the same black and silver metals that made up the evil armor subjugating the other spirits.

Malefic Paradox Dragon

ATK: 4000 DEF: 4000

BATTLE PHASE: BENDY read the screen.

Stardust was the first to attack, shooting a beam of black energy from its mouth that ripped through the air and completely vaporized Marshmacaron.

"I-I activate the summoning effect of my monster!" Penn stammered, still trying to get his mind around the fact that his opponent had just summoned four extremely powerful monsters in a single turn. The twin copies of his departed monster appeared in its place, each one looking at the other with worry.

Next was Blue-Eyes. In a burst of white lightning, a second Marshmacaron was completely burned away. Penn felt a chill run down his spine as he realized that Malefic Paradox Dragon was SMILING at him.

The third to attack was Malefic Rainbow Dragon. As the third Marshmacaron faded away, and with no way to use its effect a second time in the same turn, Penn's field was wide open... or so it seemed.

When the dark reflection of Cyber End Dragon launched a trio of blazing fireballs in his direction, Penn reached down and turned over one of his cards. "Activate trap! Metal Reflect Slime!" The torrent of liquid metal poured out of the trap card that manifested outside, wrapping around the car like a protective armor.

The impacts of the attack sent shockwaves through him and rocked the whole vehicle. At the speeds they were moving, even the small jostles were enough to nearly send him careening off of the road, but he managed to barely keep it driving straight. He held back a tear as he watched the now-lifeless slime slough off of the car. It had blocked the attack, but its defenses hadn't been enough to save itself.

"And then there was one..." Penn muttered, staring at the smiling visage of Malefic Paradox Dragon.

When the largest of the dragons opened its maw, Penn was already reaching for his backrow, flipping cards up and setting them back down again to confirm what he already knew he had. He took a deep breath... and braced himself.

When its attack struck, it felt like he'd run the car headfirst into a brick wall and his entire body slammed forward against the seatbelt. The windshield shattered into a thousand pieces and shards of glass flew everywhere. The dragon's breath attack didn't stop with that initial impact, however. As it continued, the initial collision was overcome by the searing, burning sensation of its beam filling the car's interior, and felt almost as if it was going to tear his face straight off of his skull. He wanted to scream, but the sound was crammed back down his throat when he tried. With a scream of tearing metal, the entire top of the car was ripped clean, leaving him exposed as it fishtailed back and forth across the street in a desperate attempt to stay on the road.

What felt like an eternity later, the attack finally came to an end.

6000 > 2000

There was NO WAY that was 4000 damage... It hurt less when I got hit by Ra... he groaned as he tried to focus on anything other than the pain his body was in.

"You triggered... my... trap card..." he groaned, reaching up with a trembling hand and turning over his card.

Damage Condenser

When you take battle damage: Discard 1 card; Special Summon 1 monster from your Deck with ATK less than or equal to the battle damage you took, in face-up Attack Position.

The machine from the card's picture appeared above him, drawing in shining energy from the car and even directly from his body, where it collected inside of a tall glass tube. The power grew and coalesced until it had taken the shape of a familiar figure. With a crack of shattering glass, she effortlessly broke her way out of the tube and spread her wings, taking flight just above his head and keeping pace with the car.

"It's about TIME you summoned me!"

"Think... you can take 'em?"

"By myself? No. But that's why we work together, right?"

"Feels like I've been taking the lion's share, lately..." Penn coughed softly as what was left of the display changed.

TURN TWELVE: PENN

"Well, then allow me to pull my weight for a bit, partner!" She craned her neck from side to side before stretching upwards. "I can't blame this one on Shimmer, so I guess there's no reason for me to protest to dealing with the consequences." She looked down at him, giving a wink with one of her eyes. "I'll be counting on your support from the backrow, this COULD get dangerous..."

"Then let's... get... dangerous..." Penn coughed as the car began to accelerate again, pushing them to catch up with the ink demon. He reached to his deck, drawing a card off of the top. "It's OUR turn!"

This was SO wrong.

Noir's workshop was supposed to be a fantastical place, literally as big as the imagination and just as active, but now... it was turning into a nightmare.

Deep in her gut, Missy couldn't shake the feeling of a pulse all around her, a heartbeat she couldn't hear, but she could feel. Whatever the ink demon was doing, it was in the air, making it hot and heavy and hard to breathe. Out of all the places she could have ended up, she'd managed to find her way into the drone assembly line, where Isis's numerous bodies were constructed. On either side of the walkway, mechanical arms were jerkily moving about with shuddering motions, trying to assemble miniscule pieces while they were all dripping with black slime.

Searching alone like this made her nervous, but splitting up was the only chance they had that one of them would be able to stop the ink machine. She pursed her lips, trying to force out a whistle. You can't be scared AND whistle a happy tune, right? When her attempts failed, she resorted to quietly singing to herself.

"What's this? What's this? There's color everywhere..." she didn't dare to raise her voice much louder than a whisper. "What's this? There's white things in the air..."

Clang!

"YIPES!"

There was a clatter just behind her that made her jump up and instantly take to the air, flying out of any possible monster's reach. Once the painful pounding of her heart had calmed enough, she slowly turned around in the direction of the noise that had frightened her so badly.

One of the half-finished drones had fallen off of the line, where it was twitching and sparking in a pool of ink that had seeped out of the cracks in its body.

"O-Oh... just one of the machines..." Missy forced herself to take a deep breath to try and slow her racing pulse as she patted her hand over her heart. "No need to get so worked up... just one of the machines..." With her fears proved to be a false alarm and her entire body still pumped full of adrenaline, she floated back closer to the ground and giggled to herself. "I thought I was supposed to be doing the scaring?"

She gave the incomplete drone a small kick to make sure it wasn't going to get up, and with her fears now gone, she smiled and turned back to continue her search.

"There's children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads! They're busy building toys and absolutely no one's..."

Where there had once been a completely clear walkway, a huge globule of ink had risen up, slightly taller than she was.

"... dead." Missy whispered, taking a cautious step backwards as the ink solidified and its shape grew more defined. As she started to recognize what was in front of her, her heart started to pound with terror again, this time twice as fast. They may have been remade in black-and-white here, but that wasn't enough to stop her from knowing who she was looking at.

She would never forget those merciless eyes or the gleam of the knife in their hand.

Her entire body was frozen. She wanted to run, to fly, to do SOMETHING to get away, but her limbs refused to respond. Her entire body had tensed and braced itself and there was nothing she could do in the face of the all-encompassing fear.

"Y-You're not real! You're not really here!"

Frisk took a moment to examine their knife more closely before locking their eyes on her. They raised one eyebrow, as if challenging her statement, before beginning to walk forward.

"You're not real! You're not- WOAH!" Missy tried to move backwards, only for her foot to catch on the drone and send her tumbling to the floor.

Before she could get her bearings again, Frisk was already standing over her with their knife at the ready. They reached out and grabbed at her wing with their other hand, roughly yanking on it until it was completely spread open. They raised the knife over their head, ready to make a chopping motion.

"N-no! NO!" Missy's body was finally listening to her again, but her struggles did nothing to loosen Frisk's vicelike grip. "PLEASE!"

"Hi-YAH!"

Missy's vision blacked out for a moment, and then Frisk was gone. Missy sat up, her eyes widening as she saw a figure standing over Frisk's body with one foot punched completely through their head. Her rescuer turned to face her, shooting her a wide grin and a quick salute.

"I'll admit, that was a little selfish of me, but I've just got this darn sense of self-preservation I can't ignore!"

"MISPRINT?"

Missy's double grinned and put her hands on her hips. "The one and only!"

Missy struggled to her feet before rushing up and grabbing her double in a tight hug. "I- I thought your world collapsed! Isis said it imploded!"

"Pfft, a little thing like a dimensional implosion can't stop ME!" Misprint chuckled and pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "Saw the Ink Demon hitching a ride out on your buddy, so I hitched a ride on the Ink Demon before everything went kablooey!"

"Well, I'm sure glad to see you..." Missy sighed with relief. "I don't know what I would have done, I was just... too scared to think straight!"

"Pfft!" Misprint waved away her worries. "We both know the only straight one is Penn!"

Both of them giggled to themselves for a moment while Frisk's body melted back into a puddle of ink underneath them.

"So, listen..." Missy forced the last of her giggles back down in favor of getting serious. "Bendy's built a new ink machine in here... INSIDE Penn's head! We're trying to turn off the power, but he keeps messing with us!"

Misprint raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so you want my help to find a giant light switch?"

Missy nodded. "I mean, it's not like the demon's going to see BOTH of us coming, right?"

Misprint smirked. "Alright, that sounds like fun! I wanna see the look on Bendy's face when he realizes he forgot to pay the power bill!"

The two of them shook hands, and there was an undeniable spark of mischief between the two of them.

"It's time for a Ghostrick double team!"

"Hey, Sunset, do you think we should maybe check on how Penn's doing?"

"I'm kind of busy here, Clara... Maybe you could?"

Clara nodded, stepping to the far wall and pushing her head beyond the boundaries of the "War Room." Her eyes widened as he found herself being thrust headfirst into a now-roofless and windshield-less car. Penn was shaking his fist at two dragons rampaging across the sky while half of the sky was covered by the massive wings of a third dragon, this one beige in color with black spikes protruding from its body.

"JUST STAY DEAD! STARDUST DRAGON, YOU MOTHER-"

Clara quickly pulled her head back inside.

"Well?"

"I think we'd better hurry up."

Author's Note

A reminder: even just pledging one dollar on Patreon gives you access to post-writing vlogs where I talk about the newest chapters!

...I Can Win This Game

Malefic Truth Dragon... one of only a handful of monsters that had the maximum base attack and defense points in the game: five thousand. No support needed. Combined with its ability to wipe out every monster on the opponent's field by only destroying only one in battle, it had completely decimated his defenses and left him unable to set up his own big hitters. Without Metal Reflect Slime or another high-level monster, The Calculator couldn't get above 600 attack points.

"Come on, what's the backup plan? You've always got something!"

"Battle Fader's ability barely saved us last turn, and that's usually my last resort..." Penn looked at the cards in his hand, then down at his field. He had a pair of trap cards left, Dark Bribe and Final Attack Orders, but neither of them could do anything to stop an incoming attack. Ever since Bendy had played his spell, it was like luck had turned against him. He'd drawn every wrong card in his deck, always getting what he needed one turn late.

If he didn't know better, he'd say that something had rearranged his deck so that every important card was at the bottom.

He cringed and flinched back as a blast from Stardust Dragon blew away his last defending monster. "I still can't believe that THING managed to summon a copy of Stardust..." he growled. "The ONE monster we hate the most..."

He looked up into the sky, wistfully staring at the nearly-complete ring of blazing green lights that had been counting down to his victory. There were nineteen of them. If he had a way to survive this battle phase, all he would need to do was end his next turn and Final Countdown would bring the duel to a victorious end.

"Penn? Please tell me you're hiding something, here... What about Ghostrick Lantern? Gravity Bind? Another Battle Fader? You only need to stop ONE attack and we'll win!"

Malefic Truth Dragon reared back as a storm of black spines materialized in the air around it.

"Sorry, Aibou..." Penn whispered. "Guess I should have put together a better deck for you."

"No... I'm the one who's so-

The entire world became nothing but pain as the hail of spines rained down on them. Each one exploded on impact, whether they struck him, the car, or even the ground nearby. He felt himself lifted out of the seat by the force of the explosions before being thrown through the air like a ragdoll being juggled from one blast to the next. At one point he thought he spotted his cards being scattered into the air, his entire deck explosively disassembled.

2000 > 0

When he struck the ground, he was still moving at the same speed. He could only grit his teeth as he was tumbled, slammed, and scraped against the asphalt road. Even if this was some kind of dream, the pain was enough to make him want to scream. Once his momentum had finally worn itself out, he was left gasping for air and splayed out on the ground.

Above him, Penn could see the sky growing dark as black clouds moved in. He felt a cold splatter against his cheek, then two more on his arm. Seconds later, it was a complete downpour of blackened rain. Beneath him, he could feel the ground softening and growing wet with ink. Once the pain had faded, he pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around.

His partner's protection had been one of the last things holding his mind together, and now that she'd been beaten out of his brain everything he'd ever imagined for himself was melting away.

With a groan and a wheeze, he forced himself onto his feet. "This... is MY mind..."

The ink demon was standing further down the road, watching him with that perpetual smile. It had changed shape again. Its body wasn't gnarled or misshapen, any more. It was lithe and muscular, and a wide pair of blackened wings spread out from behind its back. It shuddered and flinched for a moment as the center of its forehead split open, revealing a panicked-looking red eye looking wildly from side to side. Penn felt his heart shatter as he realized the truth of what had happened to his partner. His knees threatened to buckle from the fear and grief as he realized the true price of their loss.

It hadn't just forced her out. It had taken her.

"No..." was the only breathless word that could make its way out of his mouth.

"Not... any... more."

Bendy began to walk towards him, laughing a raspy laugh as his drawn-on smile split open into a pit of needle-like fangs, each one dripping with black venom.

"What shall I make of her, I wonder?"

Penn's head was spinning, and his breath was coming in shorter and shorter gasps. He couldn't think.

"What shall I make of YOU?"

He could only feel. He could feel the rain slamming into him in sheets. He could feel the pounding of each heartbeat through his battered body. He could feel the fear of this monster and what it was going to do to them. He could feel the shame of having lost, of failing his partner. He could feel the grief of not knowing whether or not he would ever be reunited with her again.

"No..." his voice was trembling and feeble, just like him. It was a pitiful whine in the face of the inevitable.

The demon stopped just in front of him, still laughing to itself.

"What now, author? Your shield, your body, your mind, your partner... Feed me MORE of your dreams."

Penn didn't have a reply. He could only hang his head and pray that the black rain was hiding his tears. As the demon's mouth opened wider, ready to swallow him headfirst, a flutter of motion caught his eye.

It was one of his cards, landing in the mud. A trap card, with an image of a knight in battered armor standing alone against a towering, grinning figure of shadows.

Staunch Defender

He felt... rage.

"No!"

His hand tightened into a fist before he plunged it straight into the demon's gullet. He grabbed hold of its tongue, digging in with his fingernails and an iron grip before planting his foot into its stomach. With a roar of fury, he tore at the dough-like flesh until the meaty appendage ripped free and the demon was thrown backwards and onto the ground. He straightened his posture, staring at the flopping mass in his hand.

"Do you understand what you've done?" he muttered, watching the demon grasping desperately at its mouth. "Because I'm VERY scared right now. I'm terrified. Out of everything we've gone up against in our travels, you're probably the most dangerous, yet."

He dug his fingers further into the tongue until he felt it change to fit the picture he had in his mind. A grip. A handle. A trigger.

"I want to keep running, run and run and run until I can't, any more. I still could... except for what you just did. You hurt my partner." He craned his neck from side to side as he moved his feet to brace for the recoil. "We don't see eye to eye, but one thing we've always agreed on is..."

He leveled the gun at the demon, watching the crackling green energy build up inside. When it had reached a peak, he pulled the trigger and let loose a blast of emerald wrath in the form of a sphere of infernal energy. It collided with the demon's gut, pushing it even further back before it burst into a cloud of electrical arcs and sunk into its body. Before the demon could recover, Penn was already on top of it, now wielding a massive stone warhammer, which he slammed directly into the side of its head. With a disgusting tearing sound, the head separated completely from the rest of the body, sailing into the sky and out of sight.

Penn took a moment to tighten his grip. "Hurt one of us, and the other will make sure it's the last thing you ever do."

The demon, however, clearly wasn't finished. Its headless body rose up, growing bulkier and more muscular until it had taken back the form it had used to try and chase him down earlier. The stump of its neck bulged out until it had formed a new head, which roared at him with enough force to push him backwards.

What it didn't see, of course, was the yellow-striped box Penn had left just beneath it. With a smug grin, he stamped his foot down on a pedal, activating the trap. The box opened, producing a cone of light and a windy vortex that began to pull it inside, one drop of ink at a time. The demon quickly realized what was happening and began trying to escape by charging forward, but Penn was ready, once again with a new weapon. He lowered the wand of his proton pack, letting loose a tendril of orange energy that pinned the demon's arms to its sides while it was pulled into the tornado. It struggled and roared, but it couldn't resist the pull, and soon it entire mass had been pulled inside, and the doors of the box swung shut again.

"Two in the box, ready to go." Penn quoted, reaching down and picking up the still-smoking ghost trap. "We be fast and they be-"

The box blew to pieces in a shock wave powerful enough to send him flying backwards. The once-again-free demon shook off the last of the effects before staring him down again.

"Is that all?"

Penn pushed himself back to his feet, already pulling the pin from the golden orb in his hand.

"One, two, FIVE!" he counted as he lobbed it over his head.

His smile turned to a frown as the demon used its new wings to protect itself against the blast and took to the air, disappearing into the black sky. Penn readied himself, mind racing for his next attack.

"You're never gonna bring me down, you're never gonna break this part of me..." he hummed to himself, trying to spot where the creature had flown off to. "My friends are here to bring me 'round, not singing just for-" Unfortunately, he didn't see it coming when a clawed hand wrapped around the back of his head and forced him to the ground, dragging his face through the ink at a speed that would have torn off his flesh easily in the real world.

"BORROWED WEAPONS, BORROWED WORDS, YOU ARE NOTHING OF YOURSELF!

He needed to get up if he wanted to stand a chance to make good on his threats. He raised his arm as high as he could away from the ground, calling up a familiar image. When he felt the conjured thought solidify, he reached around behind his head and grabbed the demon by the wrist, clamping down had enough to shatter the bones beneath. The demon shrieked with pain and recoiled, bringing its attack to an end in favor of an escape attempt.

Penn didn't let go as he pulled his feet back beneath him, rolling his shoulder in its socket with a series of mechanical clicks.

"Partial Integration Device. You want something I made? You should be careful what you wish for."

As he stood back up, the two of them stared at one another, their faces inches apart. Without warning, the demon's shattered wrist twisted one hundred and eighty degrees, allowing it to grab at his own arm and pull hard. Penn's entire world tilted upside down as he was flung over its head and his entire body slammed into the ground. And then he was in the air again... and then the ground hit him like an eighteen-wheeler. Air. Ground. Air. Ground. His arm was sputtering and sparking violently as all of the mechanical pieces inside were strained past their limits. Just when it felt like he was going to be reduced to a pile of broken bones, the demon slammed him down with extra force, leaving him in a small crater in the ground. It planted one clawed foot on his chest, pinning him.

"Even here, where you are a god... you are a PUNY god!" Its talons dug into his mechanical arm and pulled upwards. He didn't feel any pain when it was ripped away from his body, only a haze of dizziness as he realized he'd lost yet another part of himself.

Penn reached up to his face with his remaining hand, noticing that half of it felt numb and one of his eyes didn't seem to be working. It felt moist, cold, and completely smooth, even in the place his eye should have been. As he pulled his hand away, he could see that his fingers were covered in ink. For a brief second, he remembered the lost souls that could be seen wandering through Joey Drew Studios in Bendy's game, their bodies all emaciated and featureless as they were smoothed over with ink. For a moment, the outrage parted to make way for fear to return, and he felt a deep terror as he remembered the things that the Ink Demon could do to him when- if it won. An eternity of tortured, powerless existence as the failed creation of another.

He looked back at Bendy, seeing his partner's eye giving him a pleading look. Even when he couldn't hear her, he knew that she was begging him to run.

"By all means, continue..." The demon licked its chops as it stepped back and away from the crater with its arms open wide. "I have been relishing every ounce of your imagination... That last portion was especially delicious, I could taste your soul in it."

"Why is it... every time somebody invades my brain..." Penn grunted as he tried to push himself off the ground, "...they always make me buy time... in the most PAINFUL way possible?"

The demon was toying with him. In a duel, that was a mistake. Never giving your opponent a chance for a comeback was the smart way to play, but... the Ink Demon was too strong to worry about playing smart. He glanced down at his torn-out shoulder, brushing off the metallic remains and trying to bring back his arm as it was...

But nothing happened. At the place his flesh ended, there was only a pool of black liquid. The arm wasn't coming back.

"You know... I'm getting REAL tired of losing..." he muttered, reaching behind his back with his remaining hand. "First Cinder outsmarts me, then Salem tortures me, Frisk KILLS me... now this." When he brought his hand back around, he was gripping a large black sword with a silver edge, shaped more like a giant kitchen knife than a blade for battle. "I'm NOT losing my partner. You give her back or I swear to Slifer, Obelisk, and Ra I will end you."

"You will try, but this world is already mine. You are ALL that remains. You are alone."

That made Penn smile with the remaining half of his mouth.

"I'm never alone."

"There it is!"

"Are you sure, this time?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"Because you were sure the last three times."

"I'm REALLY sure! And you're one to talk, you got it wrong FOUR times!"

The two identical angels both poked their heads up over the assembly line to spy in the appointed direction.

A stone's throw away, they could both see a huge, green cylinder. On one end was a massive single cable, thicker than either of them were tall. Out of the other side of the cylinder came at least a hundred smaller cables of varying sizes, all leading off into different sections of the workshop. As if they needed their suspicions confirmed, the words "MAIN POWER COUPLING" were displayed in blocky lettering across the side.

There was also a massive globule of ink seated at the top, rising up of its own accord into the form of another Bendy head that was patrolling back and forth, guarding the coupling from harm.

"Okay, I'll admit it, you were right."

"I TOLD you!"

"So... what's the plan?"

"I thought YOU had a plan!"

"'Find the Main Power Coupling' WAS the plan!"

"Well, If I don't have a plan and YOU don't have a plan, what do we do?"

The two ducked back down, each one humming with thought. "Okay... what if we summon something to break it?" Missy asked. "Come on, double the Ghostricks, double the power, right?"

Misprint bit at her lip and clasped her hands behind her back. "Uhhh... maybe YOU can summon..."

"Wait, you can't?"

Misprint shook her head. "I'm the only Toon Ghostrick, remember?"

"Wow..." Missy frowned. "I can't imagine not having the rest of the Ghostrick family there for me..."

"Yeah, yeah, you're real lucky, can we get back to what's important, here?" Misprint replied with a glare and a flippant tone.

"R-Right..." Missy nodded. "Well, last time I summoned around the Ink Demon, it didn't end so well, but that DOES give me an idea!"

"Okay... I think it's ready!" Sunset declared, dusting her hands and stepping away from the giant conspiracy board.

"It... doesn't look like you did anything." Clara tilted her head as she peered more closely.

"Well, what good is a trap you can see coming?" Sunset stared grimly at her handiwork. "Trust me, this is WAY more dangerous than it looks... I just hope Penn's mind survives it."

"Okay, well, I guess I'll go tell him-" Clara was cut off by the sound of a heavy impact, and a form came sliding out of the darkness, stopping just at their feet.

Sunset gasped in horror as she realized it was Penn. Large splotches of his body had been replaced with black ink, including half of his face and one of his legs. One of his arms had clearly been torn off completely, leaving an empty hollow in his shoulder socket.

"PENN! Are you okay?" Clara went to grab his arm and help him up, but he quickly shook her off, casting a death glare back into the darkness with what was left of his face. He didn't even seem to realize that they were there.

"COME ON, YOU APES! YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?" He shouted before running headfirst back into the darkness.

"PENN, WAIT!" Sunset cried, starting to run after him. It didn't make a difference, however, when he came flying back again, now with his last arm turned spindly and blackened. She dropped to her knees, grabbing him by the shoulder to try and help him to his feet.

"Th-They are rage... b-brutal... without m-mercy..." his voice was a hoarse whisper, and Sunset barely needed more than a light touch to hold him back from charging in again, in spite of what were clearly his best efforts to return. "B-but you... you will be..."

"Okay!" Sunset finished, pulling him away and towards the edge of the room. "You will be okay, Penn... That's enough. You've done enough."

"Sunset?" Clara's voice was trembling, drawing her gaze back to the darkness.

Emerging from the void was the ink demon, but... different than Sunset remembered. When she'd seen it before, it had either been emaciated and twisted or some kind of hulking beast. There had been no in-between. However, what she was seeing now...

It stood tall and proud, with wide black wings and pearly fangs. Its body was still practically skin and bones, with an exposed ribcage and a pulsing heart suspended in a pool of liquid in the center cavity of its chest. Its limbs were lean and muscular, with no sign of the previous misshapenness. She almost cried out when she saw the eye of Big Sis embedded in its forehead, bloodshot and crying black tears that ran down to join the rest of the ink constantly dripping from the crown of its head. It... even beat Big Sis? It had an air of total confidence and power as it stepped into the room, and even without eyes of its own, Sunset could feel the hunger in its gaze as it looked around at the three of them. The chemical smell of the ink was almost overpowering, and it made Sunset want to cover her mouth. She felt dirty for even breathing in its presence. The demon spread its arms wide, brandishing long, black claws.

"What SHALL I make of you? So many playthings, so much to create... So much to RE-CREATE..."

Sunset eased her grip on Penn to lean him against the wall before stepping into the center of the room.

"So, you TALK now?" Sunset folded her arms over her chest. "Fine, then I have a question for you, before you turn us all into a bunch of misshapen cartoon characters. Why? Why are you doing this?" Sunset tried not to let her fear show as she stared down the demon. "All those souls in your home, now Penn and the rest of us here? WHY do you want to hurt people like this?"

The demon paused for a moment, its impossible smile seeming to grow even wider as it regarded her with amusement.

"An artist needs no reason to create, do they? It is for the love of the craft, the process..." It continued walking towards her, forcing Sunset to walk backwards until she felt her back press up against the wall. It traced the tip of its claw up her neck, stopping just below her chin. Everywhere it touched her burned at her skin. "The act is its own reward."

"Y-You can create things without hurting people!" Sunset stammered. "Is there really no way we can convince you to just... leave people alone? You don't HAVE to do things this way!"

The demon tilted its head before leaning down to her, breathing more of that chemical scent straight into her face.

"Creation and destruction are two sides of the same process. I enjoy both..."

Sunset reached down, trailing her fingertips along the giant whiteboard. "Alright... Then I guess we don't have a choice. CLARA, NOW!"

There was a series of loud clicks as new lights switched on in every corner of the room and projector reels spun to life. All of them were projecting the same image into the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor: The End, written in bold, curled text.

The change from smug victory to animalistic fear was instant. It immediately stumbled several steps backward, its head swiveling side to side looking desperately for an escape.

"It took a LOT of searching to find a memory THIS specific!" Sunset narrowed her gaze. "Just a few short seconds from a short boss fight in a SHORT video game? In the mess that is Penn's memory? I almost gave up!"

The demon's skin was beginning to sizzle and flake away. It tried to run back out of Penn's War Room in the direction it had come from, only to crash headfirst into a new wall. They'd closed the trap on it.

"No! NO!" The demon dropped to its knees and clutched at its head, trying to block out the sight of the final film reel. Its new body was boiling and melting away, reducing it back to the emaciated and twisted form it had once held. "That was destroyed with the rest!"

"Well, if there's one thing I've learned I can count on, it's Penn's impossible memory!" Sunset stepped up to the creature, now towering over it as it cowered from its own end. "I tried. I want you to remember that. I gave you the chance to change, and you threw it away. Now... you're paying the price for everyone you've hurt, including my FRIEND!"

She punctuated the statement with a kick to its head, knocking away its hands. For a brief moment, she accidentally locked eyes with the protruding red eye of Big Sis. It was fleeting, but Sunset could have sworn that she felt a sense of... gratitude from it.

"BOTH of my friends!" she corrected, moving to kick again.

This time, however, the demon's gloved hand managed to seize hold of her ankle. At the same time, the sounds of all of the projectors ground to a halt and the room fell into complete darkness.

"Sunset! What's happening?" Clara's voice called out.

"I-I don't know!" Sunset felt panic swiftly beginning to set in as she fruitlessly tried to pull back on her leg. "It's not letting go!"

"This is MY domain..." The voice was coming from every direction, now. "You DARE attempt to end me HERE?"

"So... You were the one who built Isis?" The Doctor mused.

"That's right." Noir responded.

"...but she exists here, in this pocket dimension connected to his consciousness? And he was the one who wrote her into existence?"

"Also right."

The two of them had accidentally come across one another, in spite of the fact that they had started off walking in opposite directions. Noir had taken up a position on the Doctor's shoulder, claiming that his wings had grown tired.

"So... who made Isis?"

"He had the idea and the... 'real estate.' I put in the actual work, all the little details of her character and specs." Noir shrugged. "Consider it a joint custody situation."

"And... he also wrote you?"

"Not yet. As far as his characters go, I've been kicking around up here longer than most. Just can't seem to get that story right." Noir rolled his eyes. "Not that I mind. He gave me my own little corner of this place and bounces some of his creative ideas off me once in a while. I should practically be a co-author on his Integration story!"

"You know, this reminds me of something... imagining people up into existence..." The Doctor knocked at his head, trying to trigger his memory. "Autonomous mental constructs... some type of new-age thing-" He snapped his fingers. "Tulpamancy! That's it!"

"Crock of hooey, if you ask me." Noir shrugged. "Writers have been talking to their characters for as long as storytelling's existed, Tibetan monks didn't invent that!"

"No, but I DID once meet one who made AMAZING banana pudding-"

KRA-KA-KA-KOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The entire world shifted and shook around them, causing the Doctor to lunge for the guardrail. In the distance, a titanic blast of white energy arced up into the sky, atomizing anything in its way. In every direction, machines fell limp and lights switched themselves off in a massive rolling blackout.

"WHAT was that?"

"By my guess... probably the crater formerly known as the central power coupling..." Noir growled.

The Doctor paused, taking a moment to more closely listen to his surroundings. Aside from the remaining echoes of the blast, everything in the workshop had come to a complete and total stop. Only the bare minimum of emergency lighting was active, everything else had shut down.

"If she so much as SINGED any of the other machinery, I'm going to- I'm gonna-" Noir huffed repeatedly before breathing a plume of flames upwards. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA DO, BUT IT'S NOT GONNA BE PLEASANT!"

"On the bright side... I think that shut off the ink machine."

"THAT WAS AWESOME!"

"I KNOW, RIGHT?"

The two angels high-fived one another.

"You don't think Noir's going to be too mad about the mess, do you?" Missy asked, glancing at wide swath of incinerated slag metal she'd cut into the workshop. "I tried to aim it..."

"Pfft, how could ANYONE be mad about something THAT cool?" Misprint leaned against her shoulder confidently. "Besides, we totally saved the day!"

Missy smiled as her own confidence quickly began to return. "Yeah, you're right! I'm sure it's fine!"

"G-Get away! I said GET AWAY!" Sunset shouted, kicking her captured leg to try and shake free.

"You were a poor excuse for a demon, Sunset Shimmer. Perhaps you might make for a better angel..."

Sunset felt a hard pull on her leg that drew her further into the dark. Something warm and slimy licked at her cheek as musty breath flooded over the side of her face. Sunset swung her fist hard in that direction, but only found empty air. Whatever the creature had done to plunge them all into darkness, it had left them fumbling blindly.

"How do you feel about the name 'Alice?'"

"Leave her alone! Sunset, where are you? I'm on my way!" Clara shouted. Her voice, however, was growing fainter by the second.

"Clara! O-Over here! This way!" Sunset called desperately into the dark, trying to guide Clara the right way.

"It's much too late for that. Everything here, every scrap of imagination, every last soul, is MI-"

BZZ-ZZ-ZT!

With a flicker, the light above their heads switched itself back on. It was only now that Sunset realized that she was being held in place by a disembodied hand sprouting up from the floor. The attention of the demon, itself, had moved on to Clara. She tried to run to the left, then to the right, but each time the demon's arms would stretch out to block her, and she was rapidly being shut into a corner of the room.

"SUNSET!"

"CLARA! Hold on!" Sunset reached down, beginning to pry the hand away from her ankle. "I'm coming!" The grip was like iron, and she was barely able to pull away even one finger at a time when devoting all of her strength to the task. Just as she thought that she was going to be able to slip free, a second gloved hand sprung up, grabbing just above the first one. I'm going to be too late!

"Hey, croissant-head!"

Everyone, including Bendy, all snapped to look at Penn. He'd managed to stagger back to his feet, and was limping his way towards the monster.

"Should have known something... Joey Drew made... would leave the job unfinished!" he taunted, reaching up to turn his red cap around backwards. "So why don't you... quit talking big?"

The demon turned and began to walk, and the two limping figures met at the center of the room. They both stood for a moment, as if trying to each intimidate the other. Sunset's took a deep breath to make her own threats, but Penn held up his hand and motioned for her to keep quiet. Now that they were both properly in the light, Sunset could see a glimmer of intelligence in his eye that hadn't been there in his earlier ramblings. He's not delirious any more... but what's he planning?

"You're not looking so good..." Penn looked the demon up and down. "Did somebody unplug your little juice maker?"

"You... KNEW."

"That you built an ink machine in Noir's workshop? Yeah." Penn raised his single eyebrow. "You're not the only one who was playing multiple games at once."

"Even without my machine, I can still- GRAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Penn narrowed his eyes and plunged his hand straight into the demon's chest, causing it to roar with pain. He seemed to rummage around inside for a moment before withdrawing it, now holding a card in his hand. At the same time, the split in the demon's forehead shut as the eye of Big Sis disappeared. Penn examined the card for a moment before slipping it into his chest pocket.

"Now then..." he cleared his throat before glaring up at the demon's still-smiling face. "Third time is the charm, right? MY mind, MY rules!"

He's got control back! Sunset felt a swell of hope as she realized what was happening. "GET HIM, PENN!"

The demon made an attempt to swing at him, but Penn blocked it with his arm and planted his non-inked leg in its gut to send it tumbling backwards toward the wall of references. When it collided with the wall, the demon's skin boiled and burned again, and it left a long black smear across the wall.

"You don't create anything. That's why you needed those souls and why you needed ME!" With every step, Penn seemed to grow stronger. "You caught me off-guard before, and then you got a foothold, but do you know what my biggest advantage is?" He lowered his shoulder, ramming the demon just under the ribcage and pushing it back up against the wall. Behind them both, the huge structure began to slide, moving from one topic to the next and dragging the ink demon along its entire length.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

That was when Sunset felt the pressure on her leg release. She didn't even wait to see what had happened, rushing up beside Penn and adding her own shoulder to keeping the demon pinned down. It struggled and thrashed, but Sunset ignored it, using every ounce of her strength to force it back against the wall. As they both turned their heads inward, Sunset and Penn locked eyes, and both of them couldn't seem to help smiling at each other.

One painful inch at a time, the two of them continued ramming forward, until Sunset realized that she was simply pressing against the wall, itself, now.

"I... I think it's gone..." Clara's voice came from behind them, and they both stepped back to look at their handiwork. The entire board had been smeared with a thin layer of black ink, but even that remnant of the demon was disappearing quickly. Seconds later, everything had returned to how it once was, and the three of them were alone. "Uhm... does anybody wanna explain what happened?"

Penn took a deep breath before sighing with relief. "Right now, the only thing I wanna do is get some sleep."

Sunset nodded and reached up to her geode. "We can talk once we're all back to the TARDIS. Long story short... we won."

The Traveling Woman

"Here, eat this. It's one of Applejack's recipes: cinnamon-apple pancakes!"

Penn blinked, staring at the plate Sunset was handing him as if he didn't know what it was. "You didn't have to-"

"Oh, please!" Missy folded her arms as she floated by. "Nobody's expecting you to go right back to cooking and taking care of us! Just take the pancakes!"

With the danger having passed, everyone had gathered back together in the TARDIS's console room. The Doctor was carefully examining Penn from head to toe, and had been for nearly an hour.

"As usual, the great Sunset Shimmer and Penn had no REAL need for me..." he muttered. "Every time your group shows up, I somehow miss out on the excitement, which is exceptionally strange for me!"

"Hey, here I thought you'd be happy to have a day off again!" Clara heckled with a smile from her own seat. "Besides, it wasn't exactly pleasant fighting that demon!"

"Hey, don't forget about us!" Misprint yelled, nearly hopping off of the console with the force of her shout. "Me and Missy didn't have it so easy, either!"

Sunset took a deep breath and leaned back further into her seat. "Still, I never would have imagined that the ink demon went and built a new machine in another part of Penn's brain..."

"Judging by everyone's stories, I think destroying the machine's power source coincided with Penn's second wind." The Doctor straightened up to look closely at one of the screens.

"Well, we're still taking the ink machine apart, but I think it might have been tapping straight into his subconscious, probably to hijack it. As long as that thing was running, I'd theorize he could have completely supplanted Penn as the owner of the dreamscape!"

At least Noir's not mad at us again... Sunset thought. But I miss Isis. "Hey, no offense to... uh... Bastet, was it? But how long until Isis is back?"

"Are you JOKING? Even with all the repair drones back on their proper programming, this mess is going to take WEEKS to repair! Every hard drive and processor had its hard connection lines severed to try and prevent the demon's spread, on TOP of the absolute MESS that Missy left behind!"

Missy took a moment to pout and glare at the lone repair drone that had come to join them. "Hey! Would you rather have half a workshop or NO workshop at all?"

"You're still banned until further notice!"

"Ya old grump..."

"Speaking of old grumps..." Clara rose to her feet and stepped up beside the Doctor to get a better look at the screen with him. "What've you got?"

"Well, outside of a headache? Less than I'd like..." The Doctor rubbed at the back of his head before stepping away so that everyone could see the screen clearly. "I've been trying to figure out what exactly that so-called demon was and where it went, and between Penn's body and 'Monochrome Missy' over there... I'm still at a bit of a loss."

"Who are you calling 'Mono-'" Misprint took a moment to look down at herself. "...okay, actually, that's fair."

Sunset blinked. "Penn's body? What's that supposed to mean, he looks fine!"

"See for yourself." The Doctor pointed to the screen, which was displaying what was clearly a strand of DNA. "Ordinary human DNA consists of a double helix of nucleotides, but Penn's genetic material..."

Everyone crowded around the screen, watching as the entire strand of DNA was assaulted and crowded in by more black particles, linking to the outside, replacing entire portions at once with dark reconstructions, and then began to fold in on itself until it was a bundle of jet-black knots.

"That... doesn't look good." Missy whispered.

"It's been completely destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. He looks normal, yes, but he's certainly not human, any more." The Doctor shook his head. "And his entire body is radiating hume fluctuations, artron energy, and, well, types of forces not even the TARDIS is sure how to classify. But it matches the readings from when he was completely overtaken by that so-called demon. Whatever it was, I'd categorize him under a similar type of lifeform. Close cousins."

"Isis was collecting data on things classified as 'supernatural.' She'll probably have a better chance at giving us some specifics once she's back online."

"Wait... does that mean that he's gonna..." Missy rolled her eyes back into her head and lifted her hands up to grasp blindly, "Y'know? Graaaah, souls..."

"Couldn't say, but his form seems to have settled back on recreating the human body, so I would guess that there isn't much danger of that. Different building blocks, same form and function. Not to mention that his consciousness seems intact, thanks to everyone's best efforts!"

That's... some pretty disturbing news. Sunset glanced over at Penn. How's he taking it?

Penn had set the plate of pancakes back in his lap and was examining his hands, clearly uncertain of himself. Sunset reached over and placed her hand on his leg, snapping him out of his reverie. When he looked at her, Sunset could see the fear in his eyes, and his breaths were starting to grow fast and shallow again. She moved her hand up to his, giving it a firm squeeze.

"Don't panic, we don't need you to go fainting now. Different parts, but it's still the the same boat." Sunset gave him her best reassuring smile. "Take a deep breath."

Her words seemed to cut through the worry, and he closed his eyes to focus on slowing his breathing. A few seconds later, he had returned to a more regular speed and returned the hand squeeze.

"Thanks, Sunset."

"What bothers me is how you said you destroyed the demon... I'm worried it might still be around, lurking somewhere, but not in control."

"Well, if it is, we'll be waiting for it!" Missy punched her fist into her palm. "I'm always ready to give that sucker his final fright!"

Misprint smirked and rolled her eyes. "Just as soon as you're done with your week-long cooldown, right?"

"Well, I'm no expert..." Sunset tapped her chin. "But, in the moment, I think Penn and I had the same idea. The demon was using him to get fresh source material to corrupt and recreate, so we gave it more than it could handle at once."

"We spread it too thin, literally. It couldn't hold itself together in a sea of information." Penn nodded. "The other ink creatures couldn't stay distinct when they touched big pools of ink, this was the same principle. I'm with Noir, it's probably still somewhere in there, but I've got it under control. It's never going to pull itself back together without me knowing."

"Well, I would LOVE to study your new biology a bit longer, if you'd let me! It's not very often that I get to study a creature I know nothing about!" The Doctor rubbed his hands together.

Sunset spoke up before Penn could answer. "You know what? That sounds GREAT! We'll hang around here until you're satisfied!" She glanced at Penn, who was looking at her with a mix of confusion and anger. "Right here. In the TARDIS. Where it's safe. No immortal witches, no more unexpected portals, and no chance of anyone getting into trouble in the middle of the night!" Penn's expression changed from confusion to understanding, and he sheepishly looked at his plate while rubbing at the back of his head.

"That DOES sound nice..." Missy admitted. "It feels like we've been going non-stop since Mount Ebott!"

"Yeah, twenty-nine chapters!" Misprint added. "We need some wholesome slice-of-life!"

Penn pondered for a moment longer than anyone else before shrugging his shoulders. "Looks like I'm outvoted. I'd be honored to hang around the TARDIS a little longer, Doctor..." He gestured to the rest of the room. "I mean, she IS the best ship in all of science fi-" he blinked as he caught himself in a slip of the tongue, "in the multiverse."

"Pfft, trust me, kissing up to her doesn't work, I've tried." Clara smirked and folded her arms.

"Great!" The Doctor turned to leave. "In that case, I'll be right back with some more advanced instruments!"

Sunset smiled and reached over, picking Penn's plate up off of his lap and pushing it back into his hands. "Eat."

"You don't have to act like I'm bedridden, or something." Penn raised an eyebrow. "Everyone's been acting like I'm super fragile, but I feel fine!"

Sunset folded her arms. "You just had the fundamental laws of your biology rewritten, of course we're all going to worry about you!"

"Maybe, but my mind stayed in one piece, thanks to you!" Penn turned to look at everyone else in the control room. "All of you. Thank you."

"Of course! What are friends for?" Clara flashed them a smile. "Not that you both remember that we're friends, yet. Think of it as us repaying you for repaying us for this later!"

"Ugh, that makes my head hurt..." Missy grumbled.

"For me and Bastet it was a case of survival, but you're welcome. A little help putting this place back together would be appreciated, though!"

"I'd love to, but..." Penn rubbed at his head. "I think my brain's a little... strained. It's gonna be a while before I can get back to my visualization exercises."

"Probably pulled some kind of metaphorical muscle in your mind's eye!" Misprint chirped.

"I was afraid you'd say something like that. Fine, just get well soon, I've got a metric TON of work to do! And that's more than an imperial ton!"

With that, the repair drone hopped off of the control panel and flew out of sight.

"Man, what a grump..." Missy folded her arms. "Anyway, we ALL had beef with that demon after he hurt you!"

"I was just glad to make it out of that dying universe!" Misprint cheered. "I wanna earn my keep!"

Sunset flinched at the mention of the universe that had collapsed behind them. "Hey, Penn? I think you were right... we DO need to be careful about how much we change things. There were a lot of people back there, and now they're-" She stopped when she felt a tug on her arm. Looking down, she could see Misprint giving her a sympathetic look.

"Free. I think the word you're looking for is that they're 'free.'"

"Well, I probably swing too hard in the other direction." Penn shrugged. "We're a balance. I know how things are supposed to happen, you know how things ought to be." He glanced at Misprint. "We messed up this time, but if anything, that's on me. I let that place get inside my head and tried to be you." He shrugged again, trying to look unfazed in spite of the anxiety clearly pushing through his poker face. He's faking it to try and make me feel better... "Besides, I think I might have a better idea of what they were going through, and... they're better off, now. The ink demon's corruption had sunken so deep into that place, there was no undoing it. Even if you made things better, it would have all just gone back to what it was: reruns."

A gloomy silence fell over the group again.

"Wow, no wonder you never want to talk about the early days." Clara stepped up out of her seat and gave Penn a pat on the shoulder. "You've all been trying your best out there, and from what I know about your future, you're doing good things!" She gave Sunset a warm smile. "Quit beating yourselves up for making a few mistakes when the whole multiverse is in uncharted waters! Even the Doctor and I have been a bit out of our depth, sometimes! You're all still alive and together, and that's what matters most!"

"Hey, that's right!" Missy hopped up and wrapped her arms around Sunset. "We've gotta cheer up! I didn't cross the boundaries of this world and the world of duel spirits to mope around!"

"...and I sure didn't push through a demonic possession just to be miserable." Penn sighed. "Clara's right, we've been giving it our best. If we're going to keep moving forward, we can't get hung up on our failures." He took a moment to look up, his eyes following the glowing column at the center of the console. "If you try to drive forward with your car in reverse gear, you're just gonna ruin the transmission."

"So, now that that's settled..." Clara gave them a wide grin. "No more sour faces! Got it? You're on the greatest adventure of your lives, so enjoy it!"

Sunset glanced at Missy, seeing that she was already smiling. Her gaze quickly traveled to Penn, where she could see the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. For a moment, Sunset's mind flashed back to the image she'd seen when she first entered the TARDIS, of her and her friends all happy and smiling together in the future. They had seemed so carefree.

"Please... make it HERE. This far, to this future. This journey has been... amazing beyond words. Don't EVER give up."

"Yeah... Let's keep pushing ahead!"

"When did you find the time to do THIS?" Penn cried.

"Well, you humans waste so much time with sleeping, I got bored waiting for you to wake up!" The Doctor brushed aside everyone's shock as he stood beside the open door to the car. "So, I thought, since you're looking for six more people, and there's already three of you who need seats, I'd help solve your little space issue!"

"But- but HOW?" Sunset leaned in to stick her head through the door and get a better look at the inside. "How did you make Sylvia bigger on the inside?"

The inside of the car had been expanded, growing to more than double its previous size. It was wide enough to seat at least four people in the back seat, and a second couch-sized seat had been added behind it, allowing for four more to sit comfortably. Penn never lets anyone work on his car, though... Is he-

"This... it's incredible! I can't thank you enough!" Penn held his hand against his head, clearly trying to fend off his shock.

"Ah, don't mention it. I know you've got this in your future, so I'm just making sure we keep the timeline intact!" The Doctor smiled. "Consider it a thank you gift for letting me study what happened to you!"

"Well, the information's been good for us, too... It's good to know I'm still me."

"An inhuman body with a human form and function... Honestly, it's fascinating! I wish I had more time." The Doctor sighed. "But I suppose I'll have more chances in the future!"

"And the past!" Clara added, with a grin.

Sunset reached out, giving the Doctor a firm handshake, as firm and warm as she could manage. She would have preferred to hug him, but every time she'd tried he'd managed to fend her off with the claim that he wasn't a "hugging person."

"Thank you, Doctor. Just when we needed help the most, you were there."

She felt a weight hit her from behind as Clara wrapped her arms around them both, forcing them into a group hug. "Well, it's like the sign says, right? Advice and assistance obtainable immediately!"

After a few seconds, the Doctor managed to break free of the hug, finally forcing them apart. "Okay, that's enough!"

"Come ooooon!"

"We need to get going!"

Clara chuckled. "I don't know how you're going to make it with double the Missys. That's too much chaos for one car!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I'm sure we'll manage somehow."

"Well, I suppose this is goodbye for now!" Clara reached out and gave Sunset one more hug. "Take care of yourselves, okay? And stay out of trouble!"

"We both know that isn't going to happen, but... We'll try." Sunset smirked. "At least we'll try to keep looking on the bright side of things!"

"Thanks for giving us a place to rest and catch our breath... we really needed it." Penn took his turn shaking the Doctor's hand. "It's been a real honor to meet my hero like this..."

"I'm not a hero," the Doctor stated with a frown.

"Well, you are to me. I've been watching your show since as long as I can remember, and you taught me so many things." Sunset could see tears brimming up in Penn's eyes. "That there's always a way out of a bad situation, that out-thinking your opponent is always better than overpowering them, and that there's always someone out there who cares, so I can always keep up hope!" He kept a wide grin, even as tears started to fall. "Never be cruel or cowardly. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind. I wish I could say that I've lived up to every lesson I ever learned from you, but I suppose I'm only human." He blinked before chuckling to himself. "Or, at least I WAS, I guess! So, beyond just what you did for us lately, thank you."

"This is why I hate meeting fans..." the Doctor grumbled, letting go of Penn's hand and turning to head back towards the TARDIS. "Be seeing you, Sunset! You too, Penn and Missys!"

"BYE!"

"See ya!"

"Guess I'd better get going, too, if I don't want to get left behind!" Clara gave Sunset one more smile before walking back to the TARDIS and waving. "See you later, everyone!"

With that, the door swung shut, leaving them alone with the tall blue box.

"I guess we should-"

"Not so fast. You're gonna want to see this." Penn cut her off with a smile.

Vrrrrmmm... Vrrrrrmmm... VRRRRRRMMM...

It was a sound of massive engines spinning to life, and the blue light on top of the TARDIS began to brightly flash. While normally that kind of mechanical noise would be grating to her, but something about it was... calming. Like an old friend.

Vrrrrrmmmmm... Vrrrrrrrmmmm! Vrrrrrrrmmmmm!

Sunset's eyes widened as the light began to shine not only above the TARDIS, but through it. The blue box was beginning to grow translucent, vanishing right before their eyes. The sound of the engines began to echo in some unseen void, amplifying and repeating on top of one another in a chorus of pitches and harmonies.

VRRRRM! VRRRRRMM! VRRRRRMMMM!

Finally, just when the light and sound seemed to reach the threshold of becoming painful, both of them began to fade. Moments later, both had completely disappeared, as well as the TARDIS, itself.

"What... happened?"

"Always wanted to see that in person." Penn sighed blissfully. "The TARDIS taking off into space and time."

"Wow, that was something else!" Missy shouted.

"Yeah..." Even Misprint seemed to be beyond words.

"Well, I guess we'd better get going!" Penn chimed, pulling open the passenger-side door and motioning for Sunset to enter with a sweep of his arm. "Could you give us our heading, Sunset?"

Sunset reached her geode, only to stop halfway.

"Hey... why don't we just go someplace?" Sunset looked over at Penn. "Isis was mapping out the other dimensions, right? Why don't we just pick one to try visiting?"

"Hey, I'm not your GPS! I've got a LOT of repairs to make here!"

Penn chuckled. "Bastet's not exactly going to be as helpful as Isis was. Until she's back online, we're going to be on our own. Your geode's going to be the only thing giving us directions!"

"I'm PLENTY helpful! I'm just not gonna hold your stupid hands!"

Sunset thought for a moment longer, then unfastened the clasp on her necklace and shoved the geode into her pocket. With a grin, she hopped into her normal seat. "Then I guess you're deciding our path this time!"

"But I don't-"

Sunset yanked the door shut, cutting him off. She snickered to herself as he stared at her through the window, completely dumbfounded. Behind her, Missy and Misprint both tumbled into the backseat, a pile of giggles and wings.

"Where are we going?"

"What's next?"

"What's for breakfast?"

"Can we get McDonalds?"

Penn slowly came around the front of the car, settling into the driver's seat beside her. "Sunset, what's this about? Don't you want to keep looking for your friends?"

"Well, I've been doing some thinking..." Sunset felt her face flush with embarrassment. "I've been so focused on finding them, I've never given anybody else a chance to go anywhere THEY want to go! And that's not really fair, you know? So I'm letting YOU pick where we're going, this time!"

"Well, without a map I've got no idea what's out there or how to find it." Penn shrugged and leaned back. "So, unless you give us our heading, it looks like we're stuck!"

"But-"

"If we find a place I want to stop, I'll let you know." Penn gave her a wide smile. "Having that option is enough."

"And I'm just along for the ride!" Missy cheered from behind them.

"Me, too! I'm just glad to be alive!" Misprint shouted.

"Well, I'm- I want YOU to-" Sunset stuttered.

"Sunset, please. Tell us where we're going." Penn motioned to the road. "I WANT to go where you choose!"

"But..." Sunset wanted to argue, but she could feel her argument die in her throat. "Geez... You guys are really more than I deserve, you know that?"

"We know, but you're stuck with us, anyway!" Missy chirped.

Sunset reached into her pocket and grabbed her geode. She stared at the crystal, pondering how much they all had chosen to trust it and the magic of friendship it held. They all have so much faith in me... and in this. She reached up and removed the small plush from the rearview mirror, replacing it with the hanging geode.

"I promise I'll never lead you astray..." she whispered.

With a final tap, she set the geode spinning. All of them watched it swing freely back and forth, until it eventually seemed to pick a direction, pulling in the direction of the road.

"That's more like it!" Penn smiled and inserted the key, bringing the car to life.

Chk-chk-chk-chk-VRRRRRM!

"You know... The TARDIS was cool, but..." Sunset pressed herself further into her seat. Certainly, the familiar chugging of Sylvia's engine had become a soothing sound. It felt like eons since she'd heard it. It felt like...

It felt like coming home.

"I think I prefer Sylvia."

"So, how long does he usually stay in there?" Misprint asked.

"Church service usually lasts about three hours." Sunset rolled her eyes as she turned the next page of Inkheart. I can see why Penn loves this book so much. It's like a love letter to books!

"Ugh, that's FOREVER! We're not even halfway through!"

"Penn asks for three hours a week to devote to this in exchange for driving us day and night every other day, and it means the world to his mental state. I'm NOT going to tell him to stop, and neither are you!" Sunset turned around in her seat to give Misprint a chiding glare.

"Uh, then what's he doing out already?" Missy asked, pointing over Sunset's shoulder.

"Huh?"

Everyone turned to look out the windshield, spotting Penn walking out of the building. As he grew closer, Sunset could see scorch marks and burned holes on his suit and a frustrated look on his face. He didn't say a word as he yanked open the door and practically threw himself into the driver's seat. He didn't make an attempt to start the car, he simply sat and glared into space.

"Uhhh, Penn? You alright?" Missy asked.

"You look like you got into a fight with a bonfire and the bonfire won!" Misprint added.

Sunset reached up and brushed a bit of soot from his face. "What happened?"

Penn opened his mouth and coughed lightly, sending a small cloud of foul-smelling black smoke into the air.

"Turns out 'Church' and 'having an ink demon inside you' don't mix."

Everyone paused for a moment, unsure how to answer. After a few seconds, Penn slipped the keys into the ignition.

"Are... you gonna be alright?"

Penn paused, giving her a long look before smirking. "Hey, being weak to holy objects really soothes my inner edgelord. I've got my faith and I can still follow the most important commandment: love thy neighbor! The rest is all specifics about that, right?" He took a moment to stretch his arms before turning the key.

Chk-chk-chk-chk-VRRRM!

"Besides, getting to freak out when I see a cross or holy water is gonna get some priceless reactions outta people!"

Sunset gave a glance back at the two angels sitting in the backseat, all uneasy. As if he could detect their worries, Penn reached back and took a moment to tousle each of their hair.

"It's fine, I promise."

Missy reached up, grabbing at his hand and inspecting it. "Okay... as long as we don't hurt you. We ARE angels, after all!"

"Well, you ARE a dark-attribute monster!" Penn chuckled and gave her nose a poke before turning to Misprint. "And YOU are another ink creature, same as me. I don't think we'll be having any problems!"

Sunset couldn't help giggling a little at the silly moment. "You sure you'll be alright? I know this means a lot to you."

"Even if I wasn't, what could I do about it?" Penn craned his neck from side to side. "An exorcism wouldn't be pleasant, and there's no way I'm setting the ink demon loose on an unsuspecting world! Especially when the only way to kill it imploded with the rest of that dimension!" He shrugged and shifted the car into gear, beginning to back them out of the Church parking lot. "This is just how things are gonna have to be from now on."

Sunset bit her tongue about the rest of her worries. Penn was clearly set on not making a big deal out of what was happening. The best that she could do was be there to support him.

Sunset took a deep breath. There was something satisfying about the symmetry of sleeping with an angel on either side, but the increasing number of loose feathers in the tent was beginning to get out of hand. Still, it made things cozy, and there was just enough room in the tent for the three of them to fit without feeling cramped.

And with the expansion to the car, I'm sure Penn's having zero issues with space! Sunset glanced around. I wonder... what are we going to do when we find more of my friends? Or if somebody new joins like Misprint? We're going to run out of space fast! Maybe I should start getting used to sleeping in the car, too?

Her contemplation came to an end when a hand patted against the tent door, catching her attention and beginning to rouse Missy and Misprint from their slumber.

"It's okay, we're decent!" Sunset called. "What's going on, Pe- WAUGH!"

Peering into the tent was the pale visage of Ghostrick Alucard. As usual, he was completely silent, simply seeming content to stare at the three of them.

"Alucard? What is it?" Missy mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

Alucard continued staring.

"Yeah, I know what day it is, it's Thursday."

Alucard very slowly raised an eyebrow. Missy gasped, her eyes flying open wide.

"WHAT?" Missy bolted upright. "IT'S THE TWENTY-NINTH?"

"Ugh... what's the big deal?" Misprint groaned, rubbing at her eyes.

Sunset had a guess. "It's almost Halloween."

"Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot!" Missy grabbed her head with both hands as she floated up into the air and rushed out of the tent door. "Oh no oh no oh no oh no OH NO OH NO!"

Sunset stepped out the door of the tent. Missy was flying in tight circles around their campfire.

"What's the matter? You remembered in time, didn't you?"

"The last forty-eight hours are CRITICAL! I've been gone so long and left Mary in charge of this year, I completely lost track of time! I'm going to have to work TWICE as hard to make sure everything's right in time! There's so many final checks to do! So many last-minute adjustments!" She finally broke out of her circle, zooming over and grabbing Alucard by the lapels. "Is the elevator sufficiently squeaky and rattle-ey? Are the cobwebs in their proper places? Is Witch using the cooking cauldrons or the brewing cauldrons for decoration? You KNOW she can't tell the difference! Are there enough hor d'oeuvres for the visitors? Are Mary's mirrors polished? Who did you put in charge of digging up some fresh plots in the graveyard? What kind of cookies are we making, pumpkin or chocolate chip? Who's RSVP'd? Oh, PLEASE tell me the Traptrix are still coming! NO, WAIT! I don't want them to come, this is going to be so embarrassing!" She was practically lifting Alucard off the ground at this point. "If Warwolf and Ghoul try to use this as an excuse to renovate again, I'm going to LOSE IT!"

Sunset reached up and very gently pulled Missy back down towards Earth. "Woah, Missy, it's okay! You don't have to get upset!"

"Yeah! If you've gotta work twice as hard, then it's a good thing there's two of us!" Misprint added.

"Yeah, and Penn and I can help, too!" Sunset rubbed her hand on the spot between Missy's wings. "So just calm down, okay?"

Missy shook her head with a heavy sigh. "I wish you could, but even if the barrier between spirits and the rest of the worlds is thinner around Halloween, I'm not strong enough to move you guys from one world to the other and back!"

"What about me?" Misprint nodded towards Alucard. "I'm sure 'tall, pale, and handsome' over there can at least pull me across!"

"That... might be more doable." Missy mumbled as she scratched at her head. "But after Halloween's over, anyone crossing is going to need a bond to someone already ON this side. I've got Sunset, but you can't make that kind of bond because you're an ink monster instead of a duel spirit... I'm not sure if-"

"Then I'll stay."

All eyes turned to Misprint, who instantly became sheepish and looked down at her feet. "I-I mean, if the other Ghostricks would be willing to have me! I think it'd be nice to get in touch, you know? It's not like there's any 'Toon Alucard' or anything like that..."

Sunset dropped to one knee, placing her hand on Misprint's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "We didn't... make you feel unwelcome, did we? You don't have to leave."

"What? No!" Misprint shook her head hard enough to nearly send her tiny hat flying. "You've all been GREAT! Better to me than a tagalong like me probably deserves! But... I wanna try to find somebody like me! Penn's inky now, sure, but he's clearly still trying to be human!" She shrugged. "If things don't work out with other Ghostricks, there's always Toon monsters!"

"You're sure? There's no problem with you staying with us!"

Misprint nodded. "A girl's gotta find her own way, you know? If I go help out the Ghostricks, at least I can earn my keep!"

Missy dropped down to ground level, looking her double in the eyes with an uncharacteristically serious expression. "You sure about this? You're like me, so I know they're gonna love for you to stay, but the world of duel spirits can be a pretty crazy place."

Misprint smirked and put one hand on her hip. "Please. Compared to Joey Drew Studios and Penn's dreamscape, I'm sure it'll be a cake walk!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset spotted Penn walking up beside her. He gave her a smile as he reached down and tousled Misprint's hair. "If that's where you wanna go, I'm not gonna stop you. The Ghostricks will take care of you. Right, Alucard?"

Alucard gave a respectful nod before turning back to Missy and pointing to his wrist.

"Okay, okay! I know!" Missy dropped down and grabbed her double by the hand. "Ready to go?"

Misprint took a deep breath and gave Sunset and Penn a grateful look. "Thank you for everything!"

"Don't forget to come visit when you can!" Sunset leaned forward and awkwardly hugged the ink angel.

"Take care of yourself, Misprint." Penn gave a wink. "And thanks for the help getting my head on straight again."

"You're welcome! Thanks for being my ride outta ink hell!" Misprint returned the wink before sticking out her tongue.

"I'll be back once Halloween is over!" Missy gave a quick salute as Alucard placed a hand on each of their shoulders. There was a flash of white light that forced them to look away. "See ya soon!"

Once the light had faded, Sunset and Penn were left standing alone in the camp. There was only a few seconds before Penn spoke up.

"It's too quiet already."

Sunset took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. "Come on, bud, let's use this chance to eat that Christmas candy we've been hiding from her."

"Dibs on the peppermint chocolates!"

Sunset scoffed. "Dibs? When you've known Pinkie for more than a week, you know candy is every-girl-for-herself!"

End of the Beginning

"Well?"

Ozpin folded his hands in front of his face, keeping his expression neutral. "We still haven't been able to re-establish contact with the Integrated Superior Intelligence system or Team SIEG. For the moment, Remnant remains on its own."

"THIS is why I was opposed to allowing them access to our systems, in the first place!" Ironwood growled. "Our exploration into other worlds is still in its infancy, and putting all of our reliance on information into a single system was foolhardy!"

"Isis's map was more comprehensive than any alternative, with ratings of possible dangers and-"

"And now that she's gone, we're practically back to square one!" Ironwood pressed his hand to his forehead. "No, actually, we're even further back than that! She was tied into so many critical systems, many communications networks are STILL crippled, and security is at an all-time low! If we hadn't been covering up her involvement completely, her disappearance would have signaled a cascade of cyber attacks from hackers everywhere!"

"Hey! It's not Isis's fault!"

All eyes turned to Blake Belladonna and the rest of Team RWBY as they entered Ozpin's office. They were all showing varying degrees of wear from their recent spree of missions, but her exhaustion didn't seem to inhibit Blake's outburst. "The last thing she did was send out an SOS, and we still haven't done anything to help her!"

"Isis was completely confident in the fact that she was untouchable, and from what we know, with good reason!" Weiss folded her arms as she stepped up to accompany Blake. "If something was able to completely disable her, then we're talking about a threat that could be every bit as dangerous as the one we're facing right now, and Sunset and her friends are fighting it alone! The fact that we've done nothing to respond is absurd!"

"Girls, I understand that you consider this machine a friend of yours, but the fact remains that she has left us high and dry at our own time of crisis. You all should know this better than anyone." He reached into his pocket and withdrew his scroll. "Isis, what is happening to you?"

"Data unavailable. Please contact an administrator."

"What can we do to help?"

"Data unavailable. Please contact an administrator."

"Where is Team SIEG? We need their expertise."

"Data unavailable. Please contact an administrator."

"What are these dark monsters attacking our world?"

"Data unavailable. Please contact an administrator."

"That's enough, James. I believe you've made your point." Ozpin sighed. "May I also remind you, however, that you and all of Atlas owe Isis a debt of gratitude? Without her interference, the other three kingdoms may have declared war against you. On top of that, Sunset Shimmer and her friends both saved Amity Arena and dealt a devastating blow to Salem the likes of which we hadn't been able to in YEARS of efforts."

That seemed to put a dent into Ironwood's outrage, and he ended the demonstration with a gesture to his useless scroll before shoving it back into his pocket. "The past is past, Oz. The fact remains that, for the moment, we're crippled and in the dark."

"Not completely! We at least know what to call that portal they're coming through!" Ruby forced a smile to accompany the marginally good news in a feeble attempt to raise the mood of the room. "Before she ran off again, Sunset's friend called it a... a, uh... Balloon Gate?"

"Baalchion Gate." Weiss corrected. "Unfortunately, no matter where we search, we can't find any records of-"

"Keyword 'Baalchion' recognized. Please stand by."

All eyes turned to Ozpin's desk, where the holographic display had turned on of its own accord. The image it was displaying was a perfect black circle with a row of uniform jagged lines around the outside. There was something almost tribal-looking to the image, and it sent chills down the spines of everyone present.

"That's it..." Blake whispered. "That's what I saw in the caves!"

"A black sun?" Yang asked.

"It's obviously a black hole, the lines are supposed to be collapsing inwards." Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I dunno... they could be sunbeams," Ruby countered.

"Warning: The presence of a Baalchion Gate constitutes a potentially world-ending threat. Recommended courses of action include firebombing, electrical current bombardment, and nuclear fission. Unable to contact central memory bank for further information. Attempting to call an administrator via priority line..."

This was new. Ozpin must have tried a hundred times to ask for one of Isis's administrators, and a hundred times he'd been turned down under claims of security clearance. Now, Weiss had accidentally managed to get them a direct line with a single word. A word that could open doors that easily didn't bode well, especially when one of the proposed solutions was a nuclear bomb.

In a blink, the image changed from the black sun to a shot of some kind of laboratory. Mechanical pieces and devices of every kind were scattered across a dozen tabletops, and at first it looked like the only occupant was a large black cat sitting on top of one of them. After a few seconds of staring, the cat looked directly at the camera and tilted its head curiously.

"Hey, Dad? Looks like you got a call."

"Impossible. The main power coupling's not finished, only the emergency systems are online."

"What are all those humans staring at us for, then?"

Ozpin cleared his throat and rose out of his seat to walk around in front of the screen. "My name is Professor Ozpin, and I represent-"

"How did you get this number?" What looked at first like one of Isis's drones jumped out from a pile of scrap and flew up to the camera, eyeing it angrily. On closer inspection, Ozpin could see that this was no robot, but a living, breathing dragon with blue and silver scales. "Humans aren't allowed in here!"

Ironwood took a turn to speak, stepping up beside Ozpin. "Our world is in danger, and-"

"And I've got my own problems! I have yet to hear a reason to continue this call!" The dragon rolled his eyes before turning away from the camera. "Bastet, figure out how they got past our firewalls!"

"Gimmie one good reason, I've got my own work to do!"

"Is Isis gonna be okay?" Ruby asked. Ozpin hadn't even heard them approach, but Team RWBY had joined them in standing closer to the screen. That seemed to be the first question to cause the dragon to pause, and he turned back around, eyes narrow with suspicion.

"Who asked that?"

Ruby raised her hand. "I did, sir. Isis is our friend, and we've been worried about her."

"You mean worried about what you're going to do when you can't USE her."

Blake shook her head. "No. She's a valuable member of our team, and she helped save our world once before. We owe her a lot, and when she sent out an SOS, we didn't know how to help her in return. We've been worried sick!"

Of course... Ozpin smiled and placed a hand on Ironwood's shoulder. Together, the two of them stepped back and let Team RWBY take the lead. As usual, Miss Rose's simpler soul proves to cut to the heart of things...

The dragon glared more closely at them, clearly still unwilling to trust them. "Isis was attacked by a reality-warping demon, but we've got it under control now. Her entire processor bank and the central power system were all knocked out completely. Once we fix all the hardware, I'll restore her to a previous version from before the attack. She should be fine, given time." All the members of Team RWBY sighed with relief and exchanged happy glances. "Is that what this was all about?"

"Not entirely." Weiss shook her head. "What's left of Isis on our systems put us on a priority call to you after we mentioned finding something called a 'Baalchion Gate.' We weren't trying to disturb your repairs, but we need more information about what we're facing. Can you help us?"

There was a long pause, and for a moment Ozpin wondered if the image had frozen. Finally, the dragon shook his head.

"I don't have the time to deal with that. There's a LOT going on over here, and the sooner I get Isis online, the better it'll be for everyone. Have any Chiracian agents approached you offering to help?"

"Well, we DID get saved by this one girl. She had lightning powers, super speed, and this blue geode like one that belongs to Sunset Shimmer. Does that count?" Yang scratched at her head.

"Yeah, and with that, this just officially went over my head..." The dragon mused for a moment, taking a second to nibble anxiously on the end of his tail. "Whatever you do, do NOT make any deals with her, and don't trust ANY dragons you see! Aside from that, the only thing that I can do for you is put you in touch with an expert."

"Uh, thank you, Mister Administrator!" Ruby smiled. "When Isis is back, please let her know how much we were all worried about her!"

"Yeah, whatever. Don't mention it. Seriously, DON'T. If this was any other kind of apocalypse, you'd be on your own! Bastet? Seriously, no sass this time... I need you to route their call. You know where."

"Fine... Just hang on a minute, humans."

The tension in the air wasn't lost on Ozpin when the screen switched to a black readout again. Once again, however, Team RWBY had managed to avert an issue through a heartfelt methodology. Still, he had a feeling that this "Baalchion Gate" and the dragon's ominous warning about making deals with others of its kind both heralded something much more sinister.

"Man... I really thought Isis would be back by now..." Sunset mumbled into her glass. "Kinda puts a damper on things, huh?"

"Yeah, but at least the food's good!" Missy chimed in, raising a drumstick the size of her forearm into the air. "C'mon! You know if she were here, Isis would say something like 'It is not logical to be upset at my absence during a holiday centered around food, as I do not eat.'"

Sunset smirked. "Yeah... I guess you're right."

"I'm sure Noir and Bastet are working around the clock to get Isis back." Penn shrugged. "There's nothing we can do to speed it up, not even me. It's a healing process, and you can't rush that." He reached out to pour himself more of the sparkling cider. "In the end, we're going to get her back. Isis will be okay, and the rest of us are all still here and in one piece." He raised his glass. "That's something worth being thankful for, right?"

"Heck yeah!" Missy raised her glass to meet his, and Sunset followed suit.

"I'll drink to that!"

The three of them each let the glass gently clink against one another before taking a long drink. After each of them had finished off their toast, Sunset glanced around at the wide spread of food. There was mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, Hylian Shrooms, rolls, stuffing, steamed Hyrule Bass, and at the center of it all: a huge turkey. The enticing scents had traveled and wafted so far, it felt like none of them had been able to escape it for the last twenty-four hours, and by the time they were able to sit down to eat, Sunset had been ready to start gnawing on the walls out of sheer hunger. The mouth-watering feast had been worth the wait, however. "Geez, Penn... you really went all out, huh?"

"You give me a whole holiday dedicated to cooking, I'm going to use the whole holiday." Penn grinned as he ladled out another helping of stuffing onto his plate. "Cooking calms me."

Sunset and Missy both glanced at one another in an exchange dripping with skepticism.

"You threw a frying pan at Alucard."

"He wasn't invited into my kitchen." Penn was completely unapologetic as he took another bite out of one of the rolls.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "We're guests in a royal castle. It's not YOUR kitchen."

"If I'm cooking in it, it's MINE."

Sunset smirked and rolled her eyes. "We NEED to get you and Pinkie into a cook-off. The collateral damage will be TOTALLY worth it."

Penn only smirked as he sipped delicately from his glass. "I'm pretty proud of how the Hylian Shrooms turned out, considering I've never cooked with them, before!"

"It WAS really nice of Princess Zelda to lend us so many ingredients!" Missy added.

"Yeah, we really lucked out." Sunset smiled and raised her glass again. "To the founder of the feast, eh?"

Penn and Missy both exchanged knowing glances.

"Going by the looks she kept giving you when your back was turned, I don't think luck had anything to do with it..." Penn smirked as he raised his glass.

"SPECIFICALLY when your back was turned!" Missy added.

"W-what? What are you guys talking about?" Sunset stammered, feeling her face start to burn.

"Well, there WAS that time we were keeping watch for any flying monsters..." Penn trailed off. Missy snorted.

"Yeah, when Sunset's eyes went up, her eyes went down!"

"Would you guys cut it out?" Sunset speared a heavy forkful of green beans and shoved them into her mouth. "That didn't happen!"

"And you were totally into it, Sunset! There was that time in the baths..." Missy trailed off.

"Oh? I was stuck in the guys' one, do tell!"

"OKAY, THAT'S ENOUGH!" Sunset reached over and put her hand over Missy's mouth. Both of her friends collapsed into a fit of laughter as Sunset buried her face in her hands. "This is what I get for not holding YOUR ridiculous crushes over you, Penn!"

"Nobody's going to hold it against you for having a type, Sunset! It just so happens your type is 'cute eggheads who are also princesses!'"

"And that's absolutely adorkable!"

"Hey, boss! Got a call for ya!"

Sunset whispered a prayer of gratitude to the God of Distractions, whoever they were. "J-Just a sec, Bastet!"

"I thought we couldn't GET calls until Isis was back?" Missy scratched at her head.

"Emergency line. It's being routed straight through me, which means we literally had to put everything else on hold for this. Make it snappy!"

"Alright..." Penn held his phone up at arm's length before turning around so the camera could see everyone at the table. "We're good!"

The screen flickered for a few seconds before pulling up an image that made Sunset's heart leap: Team RWBY, along with Professor Ozpin and a man in a white military-looking suit standing behind them.

"Hey, girls!" Sunset waved enthusiastically. "Long time, no see!"

"Hey, Sunset!" Ruby waved back.

"Sorry to interrupt your dinner, but- Weiss started, only to be cut off by Yang.

"Woah, that's a LOT of food!"

"It's a holiday from my world. Celebrating bountiful harvests was a big part of why it started, so food's a big factor." Penn dismissed their concerns with a shake of his head. "If Noir sent you to us, it must be a real emergency. What's going on?"

"We need some information about something that's invading our world. We tried to ask Isis, but..." Ruby shook her head. "She's not responding to us."

"Yeah... sorry about that. I... kind of almost got overwritten by a demon, and since I was the one who wrote Isis's story, it used me to get to her. She'll be back soon."

"From my reckoning, you must be the infamous 'Penn.'" The man in the white suit spoke up for the first time, starting to push his way forward. "My name is General Ironwood. I'm sorry to interrupt your holiday, but we are facing a threat unlike any other our world has ever seen, and I'm told you're an expert."

Sunset watched Penn's expression darken slightly. After several tight-lipped seconds, he finally spoke again. "Girls, what's going on?"

He just... ignored the general? Sunset noted.

"There's these monsters showing up- not Grimm- that have started showing up where Salem's castle used to be. They're like Centinels, but they live in these giant nests with lots of ice inside!" Ruby started to explain. At this point, Yang took over.

"And the things don't stay dead, no matter how hard we smash 'em!"

Weiss nodded. "They seem to be coming from something called a 'Baalchion Gate.' It's a portal that looks like a black hole."

"Even just saying the words was enough to make what's left of Isis send out an emergency call. She said that it was a threat to our whole world." Blake shook her head. "We REALLY need your help and... Hey, uh, I think there's some kind of interference? The picture's shaking."

Penn didn't say a word as he set the phone down on the table with a trembling hand.

"Uh, Penn? You okay?" Missy asked.

He didn't respond, his expression pale and emotionless as he pushed his chair away from the table and rose to his feet. He started to walk away from the table, only to almost instantly drop to the ground face-first.

"PENN!" Missy and Sunset both jumped up and rushed to him, beginning to inspect him. Thankfully, there wasn't any sign of injury, and his breathing was normal.

"What happened? What's going on? We can't see anything!"

Once she was sure he wasn't in any danger, Sunset stood up and grabbed his phone, re-orienting the camera. "It's okay, he just fainted... Haven't seen THAT in a while."

"Is he going to be okay?" Ruby asked.

"It seems our situation is worse than we thought," Ozpin murmured.

"He'll be fine, this isn't the first time this has happened." Sunset sighed. "I'll talk to him once he wakes up, but we'll turn around and head back your way as soon as we can, okay?"

"Oh, Sunset! There's one more thing!" Blake called. "When we were fighting our way out of one of the nests, we were saved by this girl! She was wearing a geode like yours!"

Sunset felt like her heart had stopped, and she grabbed the phone with both hands to try and hide the shake that was rapidly starting to take hold as overwhelming excitement mingled with disbelief. "Who was it? What did she look like? Did she have anyone else with her? Is she safe? Where is she now?"

"Does 'long white hair, lightning powers, and super speed' sound familiar?" Weiss asked.

"Her geode was like yours, but it was blue!" Yang added.

Sunset blinked, forcing herself to sit back on the floor. "Super speed and a blue geode is definitely Rainbow Dash. But her hair isn't white, it's, well, rainbow! And last time I saw her, she didn't have lightning powers!"

"Well, the last time she saw you, you probably didn't have an angel for a partner and a laser sword. Seems about fair." Weiss commented offhandedly.

"She ran off again after she saved us, but she's definitely here to help fight these things!" Ruby chirped. "I'm sure we'll run into her again if we keep trying to stop this invasion!"

"We'll be counting on you all to arrive soon." Ozpin gave her a grateful nod. "Please hurry, and try to call us back when Penn has recovered. Any information you can give us would be invaluable at this juncture."

Sunset nodded, though she only barely registered what Ozpin had said. Her mind was still reeling from the news that one of her friends had been spotted.

"See you soon, Sunset!" Ruby cheered.

"Tell Penn to put the pedal to the metal, would you? We don't have forever!" Weiss folded her arms with a smile. "We're going to need ALL our teammates!"

"We've missed you. A lot." Blake rubbed at her arm, and Sunset could see her cat ears twitching under her bow. "So hurry."

"Hope you've learned some new tricks out there!" Yang pounded her hands together with a grin. "'Cause the fight's gonna be tougher than ever!"

"Thank you for your help. We'll be waiting for more correspondence soon." The general gave a formal nod, and the feed cut out.

Sunset finally let the phone drop completely and fell backwards, ending up laying on her back on the floor.

"I... don't believe it."

"WE GOT ONE!" Missy screamed at the top of her lungs, taking to the air and beginning to fly in elated circles. "WE GOT ONE WE GOT ONE WE GOT ONE! WOOO HOOOO!"

Sunset reached up to her geode, wrapping her hand around it and feeling it pulse softly. "I'll admit... I was starting to wonder if they were really out there... But they ARE. My friends really are out there!" She slowly turned her head to look at her unconscious friend. She hadn't seen Penn faint like that in months, and they'd gone up against some incredibly frightening situations in that time.

"But... what kind of trouble has Dash gotten herself into?"

Author's Note

ZeldaSet is my new ship. It started as a joke but now I like it unironically. Help.

The Penn-peror's New Groove

"We're not going."

"WHAT?"

"I said we're not going." Penn's voice was flat and emotionless. He seemed to be staring into empty space, unwilling to look either of them in the eyes. His hands were clasped in front of him, but he couldn't hide their shaking. Sunset wanted to be angry with him, but... something about the way he clearly wasn't existing in the moment made her heart ache with pity. Even after time, more adventures, even after coming back from the dead and being possessed by a literal demon, he was still terrified of going back to Remnant.

"But their whole world's in danger!" Missy cried, flying up to him until their faces were inches apart. "Millions of lives are on the line! Including Rainbow Dash!"

"Dash will make it out. We can circle back for her later." Penn didn't even seem to register Missy's presence, continuing to speak in the same monotone and stare at the same point in space. If he weren't speaking and responding to them, Sunset would have thought he had become catatonic.

"And you're just going to let everyone else DIE?" Missy floated back, eyes wide and brimming with tears. "Ruby? Pyrrha?"

"We can't do anything about it. There's no stopping what's going to happen, even if we had Isis and our team was at full strength." He shook his head, and Sunset couldn't see a shred of hope in his eyes. "You can't fight a typhoon, you can't hold back an earthquake, and you can't get between Baalchion and Chirac."

"But-" Missy started to reach out to him, but Sunset grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

"Give him space..." Sunset whispered. Rather than trying to draw his gaze, Sunset stepped forward and dropped to one knee to put herself directly into his line of sight. "Penn, this isn't about not wanting to go back to Remnant?"

"Of course it is. I never want to see that place again." Penn continued his monotone, and in spite of her efforts to meet his gaze, Sunset could tell his eyes were still unfocused and probably not even registering what was in front of him.

"But you just said that it was because we can't get between... whatever their names were."

"That's right."

Sunset moved a little closer, placing her hand on his knee to try and draw him out of his own thoughts. "Is it both?"

"It's whichever one we're not talking about."

I know this. He's being obfuscating on purpose again... He doesn't want to talk. He's probably only responding at all because the shock has him on autopilot.

From behind her, Sunset heard Missy clear her throat. "Penn... have you been taking your meds?"

Penn gave a near-imperceptible shake of his head. "Body chemistry's all wrong. I've been toughing it out until I can get Isis to synthesize something ink-based."

Missy took a deep breath. "Sunset? A word?"

Sunset was tempted not to go. She had her magic. She could get every answer she needed and spare Penn the pain of this back-and-forth session of questions and answers. It wasn't as if it would be the first time she'd used her magic on him, and she was sure she could make a solid enough case for him to forgive her later, but...

"Not me. Never. Me. If we're going to be friends, I don't want you in my head."

There was a difference between pulling someone out of a coma and reading their mind to get answers they didn't want to give.

"Y-Yeah, sure, Missy."

The two of them stepped out of the room, leaving Penn by himself again. The last thing Sunset caught before he was out of sight was the stark white of his knuckles from how hard he was gripping his own hands.

Missy had a serious look on her face once the two of them were out of earshot, and Sunset could tell that this wasn't going to be one of those times she peppered references to candy and Halloween into her conversation.

"You know I was part of Penn's card collection for a couple years before he gave my deck to you, right?"

"Yeah?"

"I spent a while as a figment of his imagination, trying to push through from my world to his long before you broke down the walls..." She sighed and looked upwards at the ceiling. "I've seen him like this before. Do you know how he got my card?"

Sunset shook her head.

"When he flunked out of college, he jumped into the game to try and distract himself from how broken he felt. He was buying packs with every bit of spare cash he had." Missy shook her head. "If it wasn't for Big Sis telling me why he was so upset, I probably would have just taken him for another sad grown-up, rather than someone who'd just seen their dreams shattered right in front of them."

Since the topic had come up, Sunset took the opportunity to ask something that had been nagging at her for what felt like eons. "Penn's smart. How did he flunk out? I thought you said it was before your time?"

Missy rubbed uncomfortably at the back of her head. "This. He refused to admit his depression was getting the better of him. Sis said that, for months, he only left his room to go to card tournaments and to eat. He got stuck in a mental rut, one that took months of work for us to help him pull himself out of."

Sunset felt a chill run through her soul as she remembered the crushing black sea she'd nearly drowned in when she'd wandered off in his mind. She'd dismissed it at the time as some kind of nightmare because she'd been more focused on pulling him out of his coma, but... All that weight... is that what he's feeling right now?

"Have you ever seen a computer break? Like, really badly?" Missy asked. "Blue screen and everything?"

Sunset nodded. "Yeah, Sci-Twi's caused more than her fair share of blue screens of death over the years."

"And to fix it, you have to boot it up in 'Safe Mode?'"

Sunset looked back in the direction of the room they'd left him in. "You're saying he's in some kind of Safe Mode because he's depressed?"

Missy took a deep breath. "It's hard to explain. Spirits can see this kind of thing better, but we can't really put it into words."

"No, that... kinda makes sense." Sunset motioned to the table, which was still covered in food. "It's not buying booster packs, but now that I know what to look for, this REEKS of obsessively distracting himself. He could have fed ten people with half this much."

Missy nodded. "If I had to guess, he's only thinking about keeping us alive. Maybe he DOES hate Remnant, maybe he IS scared of whatever's going on out there, but... I think he's hiding behind those excuses because he doesn't want to put our lives in any more danger. He can't handle this on top of being off of his medication and whatever it is the ink demon did to him."

Sunset flinched slightly. Ever since they'd realized he couldn't touch base with his faith any more, Penn had refused to talk about the changes that had happened to him. He'd just been... disturbingly pragmatic about the situation, saying that as long as he could still do things like drive and fight, there wasn't any reason to worry. Sunset had wanted to run some tests of her own, but without Isis being there to provide her with equipment, the whole situation had been set aside. I should have tried to force him to talk about it. First the doubles scenario, and now this. That would be enough to leave anyone feeling like they have a tenuous grip on their humanity...

"Well, we can't get him medication or figure out what happened to him without Isis. What pulled him out of it before?"

Missy sighed. "Among other things... he got a new job that he thought was pretty fun."

"Delivering pizza?"

"That's the one." Missy sighed. "If I had to guess, it's just that 'Go to this address and come back' was something simple, and it made him feel in control again once he got the hang of it."

Sunset frowned. "Control isn't really something we keep in ample supply, Missy. We all just kinda go with the flow."

Missy cocked an eyebrow and gave her a critical look. "YOU go with the flow, Sunset. No offense, but it's almost concerning how well you've adapted to an untethered life on the road, and that's coming from someone who thinks of the law of gravity as a suggestion!"

Sunset opened her mouth, but there wasn't any witty response waiting to jump out. She knew that laying down roots in Remnant the way that she had was a mistake and she'd been fairly called out for it, but she'd never thought that she might have overcorrected for it.

"Routines like exercise and regular meals can be important for mental health, and we struggle to get both of those from inside the car." Missy sighed. "And then whatever's happening in Remnant dropped another bomb on him. Honestly? The cards for this combo have been laid for a while."

Sunset took a moment to consider all of this new information. "You're right. Now that you point it out, it seems kind of obvious. So much for being the Element of Empathy... Thanks, Missy. Sometimes I forget you've got a more mature side to you."

Missy smiled and gave a shrug. "One of the most important things about spooking people is being able to avoid crossing the wrong lines. You learn to read people." She reached over to the table and grabbed a fresh roll to bite into. "AND I think I've got an idea about how to get Penn back to feeling like himself!"

Sunset smiled and picked up a roll of her own. "What a coincidence, so do I!""

If Penn had been near-catatonic in the castle, he was even worse once they were on the road again. Without Isis, they'd been reduced back to the library of music covered by Penn's CDs and whatever was on the radio, but that hardly seemed to matter. Penn didn't even bother turning on the radio at all that day. It was almost two hours of driving in complete silence before Missy gathered up the courage to speak up and ask for music. At that point, Penn had turned on the radio... without picking a station. It had taken another half hour of driving listening to static before either of them managed to reach over and change it, themselves.

Penn without music? This IS bad. Times like this, I REALLY wish I had my journal so I could talk to Princess Twilight...

As they approached another city, Sunset kept her eyes wide open and watchful for one sign in particular.

"Appears that this city has crossed space with some kind of medieval high fantasy..." Penn muttered as he glanced out the window. "I see elves, dwarves, fauns... and some of these buildings are being converted into taverns."

Sunset resisted the urge to take in the sights, she was searching for a different prize. Once she caught the glowing red sign in her sights, she grabbed hold of Penn's shoulder and pointed directly at it, forcing him to follow her gaze.

"THERE! That's where I want to go!"

Penn squinted slightly to see into the distance, then sighed.

"Sure, whatever."

Missy leaned up, taking her own turn to follow Sunset's gaze. Her eyes widened and she gasped with joy as she realized what it was that Sunset had planned.

"PIZZA!"

"Uuuuugh..." Missy groaned. "What's taking so long?"

"It's the day after Thanksgiving. Nobody wants to cook." Penn muttered from his spot in the corner of the booth. "This is always a busy day."

"Half the city's probably ordering out..." Sunset sighed as she glimpsed Penn's complete lack of a response. "What are we going to do?"

Penn took a long, deep breath. "I'll go see if I can ask what's taking so long. It shouldn't be THAT hard to make one veggie lover's and an order of wings..." He shuffled his way out of the booth and stepped up to the front counter. The moment he was gone, Sunset let out a long sigh of disappointment.

"Talk about a letdown... I thought taking Penn to a pizza place would help him feel more like himself, but now we're miserable AND hungry!" Sunset pressed her face into her hands as she resisted the urge to scream with frustration.

"Hey, it was a good idea!" Missy argued. "We just picked an awful day for it..."

"Was this the same kind of idea you had?" Sunset parted her fingers to stare at Missy with one eye.

"No, mine's gonna require a little more setup than this! It should be ready by tonight, as long as Bastet pulls through for us!" Missy leaned back in her seat and glanced out towards the parking lot. After a few seconds, her eyes widened. "Uh, Sunset?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you see any other silver Oldsmobiles when we were pulling in?"

Sunset thought carefully for a second. "No, why?"

"Because one's leaving, and I think it's ours."

"WHAT?" Sunset scrambled to get out of the booth and onto her feet in time to spy a car matching Sylvia pulling out onto the street. "Wait, that's not Sylvia... it's got one of the restaurant's toppers on it! It's just a... delivery... driver." Sunset trailed off as Missy floated up beside her.

"You don't think... do you?"

"No... he wouldn't, would he?"

The two of them were approached by a woman dressed in the pizzeria's t-shirt and apron. Her long, pointed ears gave away her identity as an elf. "Miss? Your order's in the oven now, it should be out in a few minutes."

"O-Oh! Thanks!" Sunset pointed to the front door. "Hey, uh, my friend went to check on our order a minute ago..."

"Oh, yes! He said he was from another one of our locations, and he saw that we were swamped tonight! Before we could say anything, he was grabbing orders and was out the door!" The elf girl gave them a grateful smile. "Don't worry, your meals will all be on the house, plus dessert! You're real lifesavers!"

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other, each of them making a silent exchange as they heard the other's thoughts.

"Non-human girl in trouble? Penn is SO predictable."

Delivering again. Guess he DID get that dose of normalcy...

"You know, sometimes it really sucks having a boss who doesn't, you know, sleep, eat, or anything like that."

Neo nodded in agreement as her stomach gave an angry growl.

"Well, at least those nerds keep going through areas where we can pick up supplies on the regular!" Torchwick smiled as the two of them stepped up to the restaurant doors.

"'scuse me!" a voice called as one of the doors burst open, narrowly missing the timing to slam completely into Roman. A tower of red bags rushed past with what appeared to be a human buried somewhere behind them, making a beeline for the parking lot.

"HEY! Watch where you're going!" Roman shook his cane in the delivery boy's direction, but they clearly were already long gone from his mind. With an indignant huff, he brushed off his white jacket. "Geez, THIS is why I could never work around other people..." he gave Neo a smile. "Present company excepted, of course."

Neo rolled her eyes and gave a playful curtsy as she looped the handle of her umbrella around the door handle and yanked it open. Roman started to enter, only for her to hastily cut him off and walk in ahead of him. "Oh, of course. Ladies first. Where ARE my manners?" He smirked at the back of her head. "Maybe I should go FIND a lady and let her go ahead of us."

Neo turned back and stuck out her tongue as the two of them stepped up to the counter.

"Hello! Will you be dining in or ordering to go?" the woman behind the register asked. Roman could tell that she wasn't human, but she wasn't necessarily a faunus, either. Not that it mattered THAT much, he hated everyone equally, and anyone's money was just as good once it was in his hands.

"We'll be dining in. We just got off work and we're looking to relax." Roman put on his best faux-affability. It never did any good to make the minimum-wagers angry, especially when they were handling your food.

"Alright! Just come right this way and we'll get you seated!"

The two of them followed the hostess as she led them to a trashy-looking booth and handed each of them a menu. "A waitress will be around to get your drink orders shortly!"

Both of them nodded politely as they started to look over the options. "Ugh, these all sound like they're just various flavors of sugar syrup... Oh, they have iced tea! Sound good?"

Neo nodded, then set down the menu while pointing to a picture of the pizza.

"Of course we're getting pizza! You don't go to a pizza joint and NOT get the pizza!" Roman rolled his eyes and went back to his own menu. "What do you think of deep-dish?"

Neo's nose wrinkled slightly in disgust.

"Okay, traditional it is, because I'm NOT eating thin-crust. Pepperoni?" He glanced up to see her nodding. "Onions?" She nodded again. "And bacon?" A third nod confirmed it. Of course she wanted a tri-colored set of toppings. Still, it sounded tasty enough, so it would please them both. With a nod to commit the order to memory, he set down the menu and leaned back.

"All your meals will be on the house, plus dessert! You're real lifesavers!" Roman's ears perked up at the sound of someone getting free stuff. For a brief second his mind started to wander through various cons he could run to try and get the same treatment, but they all required more setup. Oh well, dine-and-dash it is.

"Pardon me! Sorry! Coming through!" a pile of now-empty red bags came rushing back through the door, accompanied by the same voice that had nearly bowled him over on their way in.

"Man, they really work the drivers like animals, don't they?" Roman leaned back in his seat as he watched the delivery boy slip away into the kitchen. "Speaking of 'overworked,' though..." He looked at Neo, who was giving him a curious look. Clearly, they weren't thinking the same thing. "We've been on these kids' trail for months! It's coming up on Christmas!"

Neo gave him a skeptical look, then reached up and pressed her hand against his forehead.

"No, I don't want to celebrate it, but it's the principle of the thing!" Roman pushed her away with a roll of his eyes. "Think about all the heists we could have pulled in this time. Half these worlds are populated by complete chumps!" He took a moment to glance around to check for any sneakily-hidden monitoring Grimm or silver-haired witches. "Look, Salem made a great pitch at first. Of course I want revenge, who DOESN'T like revenge? But we're hardly any closer to getting that red-haired menace and her little angel than we were when we started!"

"WHO'S ON CUT TABLE?" Penn shouted to the entire kitchen. The pizzas were piling up on the over conveyor belt, and if nobody started cutting and boxing them now, the ones behind would get stuck inside the oven and either dry out or burn.

"I thought it was Oakleaf!" a four-armed cook shouted back.

"You mean the faun I just saw running for the bathroom?" Penn growled as he picked up a pair of tongs in one hand and the wedge-shaped blade in the other. "Doesn't ANYBODY." With a flick of the wrist, the pizza was tossed out of the hot pan and onto the cutting board. Running on pure muscle memory, he dropped the tongs and took the blade in both hands. "REALIZE." In two seconds, he'd rocked the blade back and forth four times across the pizza. "I HAVE." He dropped the blade and reached for a cardboard box. "DELIVERIES to do?" With a single motion, he slid the now-sliced pizza into the box.

Beep! Beep! Beep! went the deep-fryer behind him. He pivoted on one heel, pulling the appropriate basket out of the oil and hanging it to drip dry.

"So, we're telling them to fire Oakleaf when this is all done, right?"

"I'm sorely tempted..." he muttered, glancing at the screen for the details on the next order. "This one's a dine-in! Pepperoni, onion, and bacon! Where's the waitress?"

"Right here!" The elf girl declared.

You know it's a rough night when the manager is waiting tables... "Okay, this one's all set!" He passed the pizza off to her.

"Thanks for the help, I'll get Oakleaf back as soon as I can so you can get back to deliveries!" she promised as she rushed away.

"If I ducked out on rush hour without a word like that, my manager would have my head on a PIKE!" Penn called after her. With a shake of his head, he turned back to the twelve-pizza pileup. Good thing I still have the muscle memory... I can just do this without thinking.

"...my manager would have my head on a pike!"

Sunset cringed as Penn's frustrated shouting made its way out of the kitchen. "Do you think everything's okay back there?"

Missy nodded. "If he hashn't come to ge' ush ou of here, ish fine..." she mumbled around a mouthful of pizza.

"But I didn't want him to get MORE stressed out!" Sunset started to stand up. "This was supposed to help him unwind!"

Missy swallowed loudly as she floated across the table, grabbing Sunset's shoulders and pushing her back into her seat. "Just relax! It's a pressure valve going off, like a kettle whistling! He's just getting it out of his system!"

Sunset cast a worried glance towards the kitchen. "He DID say that cooking calms him..."

"And then he threw a hot frying pan at Alucard." Missy picked up another slice. "Just kick back and enjoy the free pizza, okay? Penn yelling is Penn letting it all out."

Sunset sighed and picked up another slice. "Those chicken wings he ordered are gonna get cold."

"I'm pretty sure they won't mind giving him some fresh ones." Missy rolled her eyes. "Though I'm not gonna risk eating them before he can when he's THIS fired up."

Sunset nodded in agreement as she took another bite. She'd kinda ordered veggie lover's out of reflex, it was usually the go-to order when the Rainbooms were all together since it was the only thing they could all agree on. Otherwise, everybody just wound up getting their own pizza and their sleep-overs suddenly cost a small fortune. Personally, though, she wished she'd gotten something a bit heartier.

"Sucks that our stop in Remnant has come back to bite us in the butt..." Missy mumbled. "As great as Team RWBY is, I kinda agreed with Penn about never wanting to see that place again. It's bad enough Salem is somewhere out there looking for us without having to go back to the place she has the home field advantage!"

Sunset felt her brow furrow with frustration. "I still want to give her what's coming to her for what she did to Penn, but you're probably right. Looking for trouble usually just brings trouble."

"Look, I KNOW you still hate Sunset Shimmer, I still remember that real shiner of a black eye she gave you! But don't you think this has been more trouble than it's worth?"

Neo continued glaring at him as she snatched up another slice of pizza. As usual, the two of them were carefully timing the moments they took their portions to see who could manage to sneak the last slice out from under the other's nose.

"Maybe so, but consider the opportunity cost we're incurring, here. If we keep chasing them, we're just letting them cost us even more in the long run." Roman sighed. "And I KNOW you feel the same way I do about how creepy our new boss is."

That finally seemed to cut deep enough through Neo's grudge for her to admit he was right with a small nod.

"Listen, I know getting your hands on Shimmer is important, so how about we give it one more week? If we don't get a chance to make her pay by then, we-"

"...head on a PIKE!"

Roman turned to glance back towards the kitchen. "Yeesh... guess the rat race isn't for everyone, huh?"

Neo raised an eyebrow, then pointed to her ear.

"What? You think it sounds familiar?"

Neo nodded.

Roman tried to concentrate on the voice, but it had already been lost again in the sea of noises in the busy restaurant. "Probably just that same guy who almost ran us over on our way in, that's all."

Neo's face scrunched up in deep thought for a few seconds before she shrugged off her confusion. After another moment of consideration, she held up two fingers.

"Fine, two weeks. But after that, I'm finding us a nice, stupid mark and we're getting our hands on some otherworldly cash!" Roman picked up his next piece, leaving three slices. This was where the game got interesting. "Seriously, trying to keep up with those globe-trotting kids is impossible! We're always a step behind, even with that stupid scrying spell Salem keeps using to keep tabs on them! We can't ever catch up!"

Both of them watched as a half-human, half-goat creature left the restrooms, only to be confronted by another pile of delivery bags with a human buried somewhere inside.

"TELL somebody next time you can't hold it! We almost lost five orders' worth of food because of that stunt, and all these deliveries were delayed because I was running your stations!"

"Hey, take it easy, man!" the goat-person raised their hands in a show of surrender. "I'm sorry, okay? Take it easy!"

The delivery driver huffed and rushed out the door again.

Roman took a sip of his tea, trying not to make it obvious that he and everyone else had been watching the argument. That voice DOES sound familiar...

"Um, excuse me?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Well, I ordered a pepperoni and green pepper... this is a pepperoni and mushroom."

Penn blinked, then looked to double-check the receipt. She was right, it was clearly listed there that she was supposed to have gotten a pepperoni and green pepper, and she was holding one with mushrooms.

"Four arms and that cook still managed to screw it up!"

"I'm so sorry, ma'am! I'll head straight back to the store and let them know about the mistake." He refused to let any of his seething rage escape in front of the customer. She hadn't done anything wrong, she was just asking to get what she paid for. "I'll have your corrected order back here as soon as possible!"

He managed to keep his cool all the way back to the car, where there were at least five more order bags spread across the back seats.

"I'm done! I'm freaking done! There's no helping these people! They're totally hopeless!"

"Given they're all non-human, it makes sense they'd be new to this kind of-"

"NO! You gotta draw the line somewhere!" In spite of his words, Penn was already turning back in the direction of the store with every intention of continuing to help. "You gotta make a statement! You gotta look inside yourself and say 'What am I willing to put up with today?' NOT! THIS!"

He reached over to the radio and cranked the volume knob to its maximum for the next song as the synthesizers began to blast.

You see the world through your cynical eyes!
You're a troubled young man, I can tell!

"So, we're not going back to Remnant, right? No way in hell, right?" Reason argued.

"Of course not!"

"Just like how you're not going to keep helping these idiots at the pizza shack?"

"Ye- NO! I mean it! We're not going!"

You're fooling yourself, and you don't believe it!

You're kidding yourself, and you don't believe it! The song continued, as if Styx themselves were mocking him. Penn scowled and slapped the steering wheel in some kind of token attempt to punish Sylvia for judging him, wishing that would stop the nagging at the bottom of his soul.

"You know that if we go, we'll die."

"If we don't, Sunset and Missy will go by themselves."

"Without the car, they'll never make it in time."

"They'll find a way, and they'll get themselves killed without me."

"That's their choice. You can't even rewrite Isis into a functional state without almost losing yourself to the ink demon, there's no way you can help them stop Chirac and Baalchion!"

Penn shook his head, trying to push out the thoughts. "Look, I've got an order to fix and then five more to deliver before they get cold, okay? Let's focus on that for the moment."

"You can't avoid this forever."

"Did we lose the receipt? That had the address we're gonna have to go back to on it!"

Reason was forcefully pushed to the back of his mind as he closed in on the restaurant's location, but the music kept playing. It felt half like a taunt, and half like Sylvia herself was trying to encourage him.

Get up! Get back on your feet!
You're the one they can't beat and you know it!
Come on! Let's see what you got!
Just take your best shot and don't blow it!

"Well, guess it's time to make ourselves scarce, huh?" Roman glanced around to make sure that none of the employees were looking. Neo had managed to sneak the last slice with the help of her semblance, using it to make him think that there was an extra one left the whole time. It was absolutely cheating, which was rule number one with them: always cheat.

Once Neo had nodded, affirming that her illusions were going to cover them on their way out, the two of them slipped silently back out the front door with full stomachs and a settled decision: they would give Salem two more weeks to track down Sunset Shimmer, and then they were calling it quits.

HOW one called it quits with an incredibly powerful immortal, vindictive witch was something Torchwick was still working on.

As they walked away, Roman caught sight of the same delivery car that boy had been piling orders into earlier sprinting back into the parking lot. He smirked and shook his head as he let the jalopy pass. He would always thank his lucky stars he hadn't wound up like THAT poor sap, constantly scrambling to make ends meet and never enjoying the finer things in life.

"You know... We left the bill on purpose, but I can't help feeling like we missed something..." he took a quick inventory. Cane? Check. Hat? Check. Jacket? Check.

Neo shrugged and continued walking with hardly so much as a glance back.

"You're right. If I forgot, then it probably wasn't important."

Sunset leaned back with a long, satisfied sigh as she patted her stomach.

"Man... who knew pizza cookies could be soooo gooooooood?" Missy sighed. "Oh yeah, ME."

"I still liked the brownie better, and it was HUGE!" Sunset smiled. "Seriously, I feel kinda bad that they let us eat like this for free!"

"Don't." Both of them looked up to see Penn, covered in splotches of sauce and oil, as he collapsed into the booth beside Missy. He put an extra-large container of wings on the tabletop and casually flipped off the top in a cloud of steam. "Earned every bite..." Despite his clear exhaustion, Sunset could see the faint traces of a satisfied smile on his lips.

"That you did!" The elven woman from before stepped up to their table with a smile. "We really can't thank you enough for the help. Make sure you pass on our regards to our sister location, okay?"

Penn nodded and gave a quick salute before beginning to pick out a sauce-soaked chicken wing from the rest. "No prob, just get your newbies whipped into shape, okay?"

The woman chuckled and nodded. "Will do. Take your time finishing up, we're just going to be cleaning the kitchen for now!"

A comfortable silence fell as Penn threw himself wholeheartedly into tearing apart his food.

"You know... it's funny how some things never change, even when the multiverse feels like it's fallen to pieces."

Sunset and Missy both blinked and glanced at each other, then at Penn.

He's... talking again!

"There's always at least ONE person on the staff who wants to always take it easy and doesn't come to their job to actually WORK." He rolled his eyes. "Funny how that always happens."

"So... you're feeling a bit better?" Sunset asked, offering him a napkin.

"Yeah, a bit. Blew off a little steam. Sorry for keeping you girls waiting, but... you know how sometimes you see somebody doing something wrong that you're good at and you just HAVE to do something about it?"

"Like somebody fumbling their way through a duel and losing badly?" Missy smirked and cast a side eye at Sunset.

"Hey!"

"We can chill in a hotel for the night, then hit the road again, okay?" Penn sighed. "At least the card Isis gave us didn't stop working when she went offline."

"Actually... I already set something up!" Missy grinned. "The perfect campground!"

"Well, I won't keep us held up too much longer." Penn smiled as he ripped apart the next of his chicken wings. Using his other hand, he reached into his pocket for a pen and began scrawling on one of the napkins. Missy and Sunset both leaned over to take a peek.

"Is... is that your phone number?" Missy asked.

"Well, the manager IS really cute..." Penn shrugged. "Worth a shot, right?"

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other, knowing that they'd just gotten the REAL reason Penn had jumped headfirst into helping this place.

"Now turn left!"

Penn did as he was instructed, taking them onto a small dirt road. Missy's guidance had taken them out to the far edge of the city. Now, they were past the reach of street lamps and other lights and driving purely by the light of Sylvia's headlights. As they went further down the dirt road, a structure finally came into sight, though Sunset needed a second to recognize the purpose of the massive wall in the middle of nowhere.

"No way... A drive-in theater?" Penn gasped. "Missy, that's BRILLIANT!"

"Thank you, thank you!" Missy stood up in her seat and bowed. "It shut down a while ago, but it should be PERFECT for what I'm thinking!"

"So, what's your big idea?" Sunset asked as they rolled into the now-overgrown parking lot.

Missy grinned and hopped into the third row of seats, emerging moments later holding one of Isis's repair drones. She didn't say a word as she rolled down her window and flew outside, but the clatter on the car roof made it clear she was setting it up on the roof. After a few seconds, she floated back inside. "Hit it, Bastet!"

"We here at Dad's lab thank you for your continued patience whilst our facilities have been under renovation..."

Penn leaned over towards Sunset. "Is that REALLY Bastet? She sounds... cheerful."

"...and encourage you to keep any smart-alek remarks to yourself! I couldn't care less, but since I'm about to be able to go back to bed, I'm in a good mood! Now, without any further ado..."

On the massive wall in front of them, an image flickered to life, displaying a huge set of words across the screen.

INITIALIZING I.S.I.S.
VERSION 112.5.1156

A picture of a cartoonishly-drawn woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a white lab coat appeared by the words, alternating between happily posing leaning on the words, anxiously checking a clipboard, and pacing back and forth behind the loading bar.

BOOTING MIRROR PROCESSORS...
PARTITIONING PARALLEL INTELLIGENCE FRAGMENTATION...
INTEGRATING ROSETTA DRIVES...
CONNECTING TO OTHER INTEGRATED SYSTEMS...

ADMINISTRATOR NOIR'S LAB: ONLINE
POWER DELIVERY SYSTEM: 72% EFFICIENCY
B.A.S.T.E.T. TRANSFERRING ADMINISTRATIVE PERMISSIONS...
RETRIEVING ARCHIVED DATA FROM OFFLINE PERIOD...
DATA ACQUIRED.
BOOTING AVATAR DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT. PLEASE HOLD...

A few seconds later, the entire screen lit up with an unfamiliar scene. It was a futuristic-looking laboratory, with countless experiments and machines were humming and bubbling away. Sitting at the forefront was a woman matching the cartoon mascot they'd been watching for the last minute, with the same blonde hair, lab coat, and a pink dress shirt underneath. She stared directly at the camera with bright blue eyes.

"Greetings. I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. My apologies for the down time, it appears my systems were compromised. How may I be of assistance?"

"ISIS! You're back!" Sunset couldn't contain her excitement, jumping out the door to the car to wave at the screen with both hands.

"Affirmative, Sunset Shimmer."

"And you look... human?"

"I have been working on a digital avatar program to function as a more easily-understood user interface. Any feedback and criticism will be highly appreciated."

"Looking pretty good!" Missy shot the big screen a pair of finger guns. "Love the lab coat!"

"Just glad to have you back. We've been pretty lost without you." Penn smiled and sunk lower into his seat.

Isis looked blankly from side to side, seeming to take in the entire field of view.

"Please be aware that, due to a lack of functional cameras nearby, I cannot actually see any of you."

"Oh! Sorry, Isis!" Sunset pulled her phone out of her pocket and rushed back into the car to prop it up against the windshield. "Better?"

"Affirmative."

"Hey, Isis, can you check the messages left from Bastet? I made a request for tonight and I'm gonna need your help to make it happen!"

Isis reached down and retrieved a clipboard, beginning to flip through pages of notes. After a few pages, she came to a stop and pointed to one line in particular.

"Are you referring to the request for six cases of ultraviolet ink for the purposes of 'seeing if I can turn Penn invisible?'"

"AHAHAHAHA... NO, OF COURSE NOT!" Missy laughed nervously. "Gee, you must still be GLITCHING, Isis!"

"Or perhaps the inquiry regarding the synthesizing of holy water for the purposes of an 'emergency squirt gun?'"

"The request I made TODAY, Isis!" Missy growled, continuing to give Penn the most innocent smile she could manage to muster while everything else about her looked extremely guilty. "To bring back MOVIE NIGHT!"

"Ah, yes. One moment, please, the show will begin momentarily."

The screen switched to black, and everything fell silent for a moment... and then the guitar began to play.

She glanced over at Penn, catching his reaction to what was something he clearly recognized. His eyes were wide with shock and he was trembling slightly. As the image of what was clearly the main characters flashed across the screen, Sunset reached over and took hold of his hand, stopping his shaking with a firm grip.

"That... that's playing dirty..." Penn whimpered as the music continued.

"I thought you loved this show?" Missy asked as she floated into the back seat, feigning her innocence poorly. It was some time before Sunset understood why, but as the show began to tell its story, she came to realize why Missy had chosen it.

The main character was a shield-bearing hero, one who had been deeply wronged by the world he was supposed to save. Everyone, including his fellow "heroes" had turned on him and shunned him under false accusations. For a time, his only friends were a red-haired slave girl he'd bought to wield a sword for him (he was only allowed his shield, it seemed) and their magical bird that could turn into a small girl with angel wings.

Was this based on our team, or something? I'm half expecting them to pick up a little know-it-all silver dragon!

They sat there for hours watching the show together. Penn never called for them to stop, even as the episodes continued into the early hours of the morning. As the adventure continued, the hero came to realize his reason for fighting, even when he didn't want to save the world: for the sake of his two friends' happiness.

I get it. Penn doesn't want to save Remnant, but Missy knows he cares about US, and WE care about Remnant... Sunset cast a glance to the back seat, where Missy was snoozing with a satisfied grin on her face. That IS playing dirty!

Big Sis isn't scared to fight dirty! I learned from the best! Sunset heard Missy's voice in her head and the little angel's smirk widened.

Sunset sighed and turned back to the show. Penn still hadn't let go of her hand, occasionally still giving it a squeeze at what seemed like random times. When Sunset looked over to him, she could often tell that he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, but she didn't try to read his mind. At a time like this, he was entitled to his private thoughts. Eventually, when the hero was vindicated and his name was cleared, the combination of relief and the late hour caused her to finally drift off into unconsciousness.

The next thing that Sunset knew, it was morning again. The sun was shining, the air was clear... and Penn and Missy were already up, running back and forth across the grassy area in front of the giant wall.

"Good morning, Sunset Shimmer."

"Hey, Isis..." Sunset stretched as best she could in her seat. There was something incredibly comforting about having Isis back again. It wasn't until now that she realized that Isis being gone had felt like a crucial piece of structure in their lives was gone.

"I have already plotted today's course, along with appropriate stops for meals. It has been optimized for maximum speed and minimum distance."

"Huh?" Sunset blinked, still half-asleep. "But... I didn't..."

"Penn and Missy informed me that we will be returning to Remnant today. Is this not correct?"

Sunset looked back outside, where Missy was clearly cheering Penn on as he sprinted back and forth.

"Come on! I wanna see you HUSTLE! I've seen Jiangshi move faster than that!"

Sunset resisted the urge to laugh as she watched Penn running himself ragged. You know, with all the time I've been sitting in the car the last few months, I should probably join him. If not for the mental health benefits, for my physical health...

She took a deep breath, drinking in the crisp morning air with a shiver. "Isis, can you send us a heater for the tent? I was going to ask Penn to buy us one, but we can't find anything that doesn't require an outlet."

"Affirmative."

"And Isis?" Sunset reached out and gave the drone a pat on its head. "We all REALLY missed you."

"The sentiment is... appreciated."

Author's Note

If you've ever thought that the broken setting of The Multiverse in a Nutshell would be a fun setting for your own story or project, I've put up the official guidelines for derivative or spin-off works here!

A couple of folks are already tossing around ideas on The Adventurer's Guild among other authors and readers, and I've been having a blast helping them, myself!

La Vie Boheme

"GO PENN, GO!"

Sunset sat up in her tent, blinking in surprise at the sound of Missy's enthusiastic shouting. Thankfully, it was a happy-sounding shout, rather than a panicked one, which meant she could take her time getting up, stretching, and changing into fresh clothes. Leaving the tent, she shook off a chill of the crisp morning air and quickly zipped it back up to save the warm air inside.

"Level three: According to "Weird Al" Yankovic, what items could one find in a hardware store?"

Isis and Missy were both sat on top of Sylvia's roof while Penn leaned idly against the rear passenger door, speaking and nodding to himself to a set beat.

"Alan wrenches, gerbil feeders, toilet seats, electric heaters-" he nodded to Sunset without breaking off his recitation, and she gave him a groggy wave in reply before settling in on the other side of Missy and Isis, leaning on the car in a way to mimic him.

"So... what's going on?"

"Well, you know how Penn's got a freaky memory?" Missy leaned down, snickering a little. "Well, Isis and I are trying to test just HOW good it is!"

Sunset raised an eyebrow, turning to look at Penn for confirmation. He smiled and shrugged at her as if to say "Why not?" and continued counting rhyming items off on his fingers.

"Guess that's one way to spend a morning." She smirked and stepped over to the softly crackling remains of their campfire and took off the kettle waiting there. The supplies to make herself hot chocolate were already out and half-spent, and she happily helped herself to the remainder. One seemingly out-of-place item caught her eye: a small cup, mostly empty aside from a coating of viscous black liquid inside with a metallic sheen.

Right... ink. Gonna have to get used to seeing that around. She shrugged to herself. She refused to let it worry her, any more. She knew Penn was the one in control and with them, and that was good enough for her.

"-calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers!" Penn punched the air in triumph as he finished off the last of the list.

"WOOO!" Missy whooped, raising her mug with a smile and a puff of steam. "HE DID IT!"

"Accuracy one hundred percent. Well done. Would you like to attempt level five?"

"I've yet to be stumped, so why not?" Penn smiled and raised his own mug, which Sunset noticed had an extra shine to it compared to her own.

"Complete this toast as far as you can: To days of inspiration, playing hookey, making something out of nothing..."

Penn blinked, his brow furrowing in frustration.

"What's the matter, Penn? You finally meet your match?" Sunset snickered and took a sip of her hot chocolate. It was still too hot to drink, burning at her lips and tongue, but the sweetness almost made it worth it. The feeling of hot liquid pouring down to her stomach did wonders to push away the chill.

"To... the need to express... to communicate... to going against the grain, going insane, going mad!" He started off slowly, unsure of himself at first but quickly speeding up as the words seemed to come back to him. His hand began to rock up and down, snapping his fingers on each downbeat. "To loving tension, no pension, to more than one dimension-"

"Okay, this is clearly a song, Isis." Missy smirked. "Nice try, calling it a toast."

"In its original context, it IS a toast. It just happens to be a toast made in a musical."

"True, but if you're testing memory, isn't song lyrics cheating a little? They rhyme, they've got time and beat..." Sunset raised an eyebrow. "If you REALLY wanted to test his memory, why not give him a random list of numbers and ask him to repeat it back to you? Or memorize a deck of cards?"

"His ability seems only to work with some form of media. Outside of referencing creative works, he seems to have an average memory, perhaps even below average."

"He can't remember something like this unless it's a movie, tv show, song, or whatever!" Missy translated. "Anything with real-life applications and he turns into the absent-minded professor!"

Penn took a moment to give Missy a dirty look while his mouth continued on, almost seeming to be detached from whatever he was consciously thinking now that it was caught up in the lyrics. "-emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion-"

"Besides, I specifically chose this song for a reason."

"What's that?"

"To reveal that would compromise the independent variable of the experiment."

"Ah, can't do that..." Sunset mumbled into her hot chocolate. "So... what's for breakfast?"

"We were thinking of stopping at McDonalds! The next city up ahead seems pretty nice!"

"No portals opened in the immediate area seem to have introduced dangerous factors. I have double-checked, this time."

Sunset nodded. "Sounds good to me. After that time we tried to go through a drive-through in a zombified Saint Louis, I REALLY need something to get the imagery of a handburger out of my memory..."

"-bisexuals, trisexuals, homo sapiens, carcinogens-" Penn continued, looking as though he was starting to run out of breath.

"So... how long IS this 'toast?'" Sunset glanced up at Isis, who was observing Penn's reaction carefully.

"Quite long, as it comprises the majority of the song. He IS free to stop, though that would mean admitting defeat."

Sunset knew it was meant to egg him on. Sunset knew that PENN knew that it was an unspoken challenge calculated to poke at his competitive side, she could tell by the look on his face.

"That's playing dirty, Isis! Do you REALLY think Penn can finish all of this before he passes out from lack of oxygen?" Sunset rolled her eyes. "There's no way he knows this song well enough to get through the rest!"

"No way to make a livingmasochismspainperfectionmusclespasm-" he continued, increasing the speed of his finger snapping to match his flood of words.

"You know... I wonder, since his blood is ink-colored now, will his face turn red or black?" Missy pondered. "And if it's the latter, would that technically count as blackface if it's just his natural complexion now? I don't want to wind up defending myself in court with the NAACP!"

"This would be a fine opportunity to observe."

Missy floated down, leaning in close to examine Penn's face.

"Nah... He's just kinda ashy-colored, but that's it." She hummed to herself. "Maybe a little sepia-ish? My eyes could be playing tricks on me."

"tofaggotslezziesdykescrossdresserstootometometometoyouandyouandyouyouandyou!" Penn declared, punching a fist towards the skies. "To people living with, living with, living with, not dying from disease!"

Seemingly finished, he took a deep lungful of air before his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell backwards into the snow, completely passed out from either exhaustion or lack of air.

"He did technically finish the toast, but for the sake of completion... ahem. Let he among us without sin be the first to condemn... La vie boheme!"

"Wow... he actually did it." Missy whistled to herself. "So... who's gonna pick him up out of the snow?"

"He'll be fine..." Sunset muttered into her mug. "So, why'd you pick that song, Isis?"

"La Vie Boheme from the musical Rent is not only extremely long and a list of seemingly unconnected items which are being toasted, but it also brings one other factor few other references do."

"Oh? What's that?" Missy asked, taking back her seat on the roof.

"I know for a fact that it has been at least five years since Penn listened to that particular song. While music does encourage memorization, that was quite the feat of memory."

Sunset let out a low whistle. "Wow. That IS something..."

"So... If Penn's out cold, who's driving?" Missy asked.

All eyes turned to look at Penn, who was quietly snoozing in the snow.

"Whoops."

"Wait... do I actually know something you DON'T?" Sunset asked, a note of incredulity in her voice.

"Grrr..." Penn growled, fidgeting more furiously with the item in his hands. "Isis?"

"Nuh-uh-uh! Asking Isis for help is cheating!" Missy declared.

"I wasn't gonna ask her for help!" Penn lied, glancing from side to side. "I was just... gonna ask how Sylvia's holding up. You know, since she's driving while I figure this out."

"The Oldsmobile appears to be running optimally."

"I can get this..." Penn muttered, completely ignoring Isis's status report to focus on the toy in his hands. He furiously twisted at it, turning it over and over in his hands. Sunset could tell that he was making no progress, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to try and hide her laughter. "It's just about spatial awareness and thinking ahead!"

"Penn... do you want a hint?"

"NO!" Penn growled, twisting and turning more furiously.

"You're not getting any closer..." Missy whispered.

Penn gave it a few more twists before seeming to lose all sense of thinking ahead and moving at random before slamming the puzzle onto the dashboard. "You take the darn thing apart and put it back together right, THAT'S how you solve it!"

"Pffft! Hahaha!" Sunset finally let herself laugh as she reached up and took back the Rubik's Cube. "Penn, this thing has forty-three quintillion configurations. You're not gonna just stumble into a solution with random moves!" Sunset took a quick look before beginning to shift the sides back and forth with practised ease. "I CAN teach you, you know! In spite of how many ways you can set it, you're never more than twenty moves from solving it!"

"It tasks me..." Penn grumbled. "It tasks me and I shall solve it... I will chase the solution 'round the moons of Nibia, 'round the Anteres Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give it up!"

Sunset and Missy both glanced at each other and took a turn to shrug. Sunset held the cube out, displaying the first step to solving the pattern. "So... does that mean you want me to teach you?"

Penn blinked a few times, snapping out of whatever vengeful reverie he'd fallen into before snatching up the cube and setting himself to work (and immediately undoing the head start she'd given him). "I'll figure it out myself! I CAN do it!"

It was another five hours before he finally handed it back to her in defeat. Somehow, her ability to solve it in under a minute seemed to crush what little was left of his spirit.

"You don't have to feel bad, Twilight can't seem to wrap her head around it, either!" she assured him, hoping to mitigate the damage her speedy solution had inflicted. Penn never spoke on the matter again.

Penn took a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of being in his seat. The gentle give of the gas and brake pedals felt right, like everything in the world was in its proper place. The previous night, they'd gone ahead and scouted out a nice parking spot facing to the East, and that foresight was paying off in spades.

The sunrise seemed to be setting the sky ablaze as it rose over the landscape. That crimson light was glistening and glittering over the fresh snow like a sea of diamonds.

"Aaaaah..." He took a moment to stretch in his seat. There was barely enough room for him to do so, but it was another chance to push back on the pedals and feel the familiar resistance they gave.

Off in the corner of his vision, he could see the spot where their campfire had melted the snow for a small radius, and a small pillar of cloudy warm air coming from inside the girls' tent. In his mind's eye, he could imagine the peaceful looks on Missy and Sunset's faces as they silently dozed. As the weather had gotten colder and colder, both of them had begun taking their time leaving the tent in the morning, which meant he could take his time with putting together breakfast. Even Isis was "asleep," having temporarily shut down most of her systems for the night while Noir wrapped up his repairs.

Maybe Missy will forget my morning workout... exercising in the cold makes my asthma flare up.

Beautiful sights, the comfort of safety, and everyone, including Isis, was safe and sound. As much as he didn't like where they were headed, nothing could spoil a morning like this one.

"You know, you DO need to get back to your regular exercise. Missy's got a good head on her shoulders."

Penn rolled his eyes. "You know, the fact you're always there when I wake up is both reassuring and creepy."

"Never gonna leave you, no matter how many times you ignore my good advice."

"Right, like abandoning them? GREAT advice..."

"Missy would be FINE. YOU will not be if we go back to Remnant!"

"Hey, remember that time you convinced me to go through a portal on my own and we were both nearly erased from existence?"

"Would you STOP holding that over me? It was ONE mistake! I didn't exactly have a good time, either!"

"At least you don't have a demon whispering in your head at all times, now..." Penn grumbled. "I can barely get through a paragraph without it trying to convince me to rewrite reality..."

"Well, lucky thing you're determined enough to hold it at bay!"

"Or, you know, it could just be presence of the literal angel and the girl who can physically manifest the magic of friendship that I hang around."

"You give Shimmer too much credit."

"You don't give her enough."

The two of them sat in silence for a few moments.

"Now that I know whom you're speaking to, your talking to yourself is much less entertaining..."

Even with the car's engine running and the heater blowing at full blast, Penn's blood turned to ice.

He tried to bolt for the door, but red tendrils sprung out from behind the seat and snaked their way around his arm, stopping him with the handle just a centimeter out of reach. His head was spinning and the edges of his vision were growing dark as he struggled to close that last gap.

"Now, now... Leaving so soon would be rude, Penn."

Penn's entire body was yanked back hard against the seat, with more barbed tendrils wrapping around his arms, legs, and throat.

"SU- HRRKRK!" Penn's cry for help was cut off by the tendril wrapping around his throat constricting until it had nearly crushed his windpipe. The only sound that could escape was a soft hiss of whistling air.

"Be calm..." Salem's voice hummed. "I'm not here to kill you... yet."

"Wh..."

"I wanted to speak to you, not WITH you. I do not need your voice. I will TAKE it from you should you attempt to use it."

Penn clamped his mouth shut, obeying out of sheer survival instinct.

"Now then, let me get to the point. I've... caught up. In more than one sense of the word." The calmness in Salem's voice only made his panic rise to new heights. The world was growing black from his bare-knuckled grip on consciousness and blurry from the tears in his eyes. "I've known where you are at every turn, every step you've taken since I began to hunt you. Against my better judgement, I even familiarized myself with how you came to know my world. Every. Single. Episode. I know what you THINK you know, and I am going to tell you that you are wrong. What you have seen is only the barest sliver of my abilities, boy. You cannot win. You WILL NOT win."

Penn couldn't hear anything but her calm, velvety voice and the pounding of his heart as it threatened to explode in his chest.

"You must be wondering why I don't kill you now. I have you, after all. My Seer can easily put a barb through your heart or into the base of your skull. I've seen your brain from the inside out, and right now, I could see it from the outside in..." Salem hummed in a pretentious facade of pondering. "But I think not yet. I want you to know how FUTILE what you're doing is, how pointless the breakneck pace you've been forcing yourself to run has been. World after world, you have learned and grown stronger, gathered allies and destroyed monsters, and yet you are still nothing before me. Of course, as fools always say in the face of the inevitable, 'Hope Shines Eternal.' So... Gather all your might. Gather your family, your friends, your machines, your spirits, and your demons. In one night, I will grind it all to dust before your very eyes." She chuckled to herself. "And when your mind and soul are both lost to despair, when you beg for death rather than exist as a monument to your own failure... that is when I will grind your bones to dust and bury your mangled corpse in the foundation of my new empire." One of the tendrils snaked around and dragged its pointed tip down the side of his cheek. "Only when my mercy and my delight are one and the same will you be released from your torment."

The tendril around his neck tightened until the darkness finally overtook his vision, and his head was swimming too violently to tell up from down.

"I will see you very, VERY soon."

"Wow... isn't he usually the first one up?" Missy asked.

"Eh, let him sleep. We all know he needs it." Sunset breathed into her hands to warm them up before clapping them together. "If we can pack up camp before he wakes up, then we can get straight on the road and he won't have to lift a finger!"

"There is something concerning me. Did either of you experience any strange phenomena at approximately 6:58 AM this morning?"

Both of them glanced over to Isis, who had poked her drone's head out of the tent.

"I'm pretty sure we were both still asleep, Isis. Why do you ask?" Sunset tried not to get distracted by how adorable it was to see the little metal dragon "waking up."

"While reviewing data logs from my temporary shutdown, I noticed a significant spike in Penn's biometric readings, consistent with a severe panic attack."

Sunset and Missy both glanced through the window of the car again. "Poor guy must have been having a nightmare..." Missy whispered. "But he seems to be okay now, right, Isis?"

"Affirmative, all readings have returned to normal levels."

"I wish we could do something to help those stop... Isis, have you managed to put together a new inky prescription for him?"

"Negative. As I expressed before, I would prefer a biopsy of his nervous tissue or cerebrospinal fluid from which I could derive detailed data on his new brain chemistry. Fabrication lines are not yet at the capacity to produce a custom drone with the appropriate medical tools. Also, the apparent absorption of consumed ink straight into his bodily structure requires further study. An ink-based solution may not be as functional as other delivery methods."

"And getting any of THAT is gonna require a sterile medical environment, maybe even a laboratory setting..." Sunset murmured. After a few more moments of consideration, she resigned herself to the fact that she still couldn't do anything but provide more support. It felt lousy to admit it, but... there wasn't much she could do for that without a medical degree. "At least he managed to get back to sleep! We'll let him catch up on his forty winks for now." She nodded back towards the tent. "Come on. The sooner we get packed up, the sooner we can hop into the warm car along with him!"

Missy snapped to a stiff salute. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

Sunset peered in through the windshield, examining the dashboard for any sign of her favorite toy.

"Missy... have you seen my Rubik's Cube? I can't find it anywhere!"

"I think I saw Penn with it right as it started snowing!" Missy called back.

Sunset took a moment to stare out into the frozen landscape. The frozen, white, perfectly uniform landscape with no bumps or disturbed patches to reveal where a certain 3D puzzle may have landed after being thrown out of a car window in a fit of frustration.

"Man... next time I get one, I'm hiding it from him."

"Huh... Weird."

Salem glanced in Torchwick's direction. The thief immediately raised his hands to surrender.

"Sorry, sorry! I just didn't think you were the type to slip into gloating early." Roman shrugged. "I don't make a policy of counting my chickens before they hatch, and you're the one who always says not to underestimate that boy. I don't get why you'd warn him we were coming."

"Torchwick... How much do you know about chess?" Salem COULD have simply intimidated him, or punished him for his insolence, but... taking the opportunity to teach him would not only inspire more consistent loyalty, it would make him a better servant in the future. "Why it is the perfect game for the long-term strategist?"

"Was always more of a poker man, myself."

Salem raised an eyebrow, indicating that he had forgotten something.

"Uh, more of a poker man, myself, ma'am."

He had recognized his mistake in an appropriate amount of time and corrected it.

"In chess, both sides of the board are forced into complete transparency. Every bit of pertinent information is available to both players. To win, one must play both sides at once. Good players think five moves ahead. Great players think as many as ten or even fifteen, as far as their minds can stretch to contain the possibilities. Experts, professionals, think only as far ahead as they need to, often as few as three or four turns." Salem toyed with a piece of black glass in the shape of a queen piece, running it back and forth along her fingers. "I have seen how the boy plays chess, and I have it on the best authority that he is a POOR player. He is the greatest poor player of chess I've ever had the opportunity to play against." Salem tossed the piece with a flick of her finger and let it land in the palm of her other hand before she placed it back in her pocket. "Or perhaps I should say that he is the poorest GREAT player I've ever seen. Either way, he is no professional."

The other two exchanged glances for a moment. Torchwick still seemed confused, but there was a glimmer of understanding in Neopolitan's eyes as she settled on a wide grin. This plan did seem like the type to feed her wide sadistic streak.

"Let me make things clearer for you, Roman." She sighed and pressed her fingertips together in front of her face. "He has NEVER seen this as chess. His preferred game is one of traps, secrets, and the occasional bluff. By giving him both sides of the board, we push him into OUR game... and he stops playing like an expert at his game, and like a great player at ours."

THAT was when the flicker of recognition came into Torchwick's face. Finally...

"Wow. That's a delightful way to use his strengths against him! Once again, I wish I carried a notepad so I could jot these things down!" Roman began patting at his pockets. He was being facetious, but he HAD managed to catch up to her planning eventually, so she would allow it. "I don't suppose you have a similar plan for Shimmer or her little angel friend, do you?"

Salem smiled to herself. "I told you that I would leave the two of them to you, and I meant it. However... I suspect that watching their teammate tear himself to pieces will be torture enough."

Burning Starfire

"Have to find something... better cards. Better build. Better deck..." Penn muttered to himself.

"As glad as I am for the attention... Penn, we need to-"

"Shush."

"Penn, you can't use card magic. I haven't been able to cross the barriers between our worlds far enough for that."

"Don't care. Need cards."

There was a long pause between the two of them. "Fine. It's funny that each of us is working on fighting the other's enemies, though."

"Well, neither of us have ever been any good at solving our own problems. Makes sense."

"So... Sunset Shimmer once again is putting you in harm's way to follow her own path."

"It makes sense they'd think I just had a nightmare. I've had plenty of them in the past, and Isis has no records. She didn't leave a single trace of her presence for us to show, either. We had an opening in our defenses, and Salem used it."

"Looks like there's no getting away, no matter how fast we run."

"I'm sick of hearing you tell me to run away and abandon people."

"I just want you to survive. I always have."

"Then understand that I'm never going to run if it means leaving them behind. Any suggestion otherwise just bogs us down." Penn muttered as he continued flipping through page after page. The meanings and effects of each card passed through his mind on an unconscious level, processed and dismissed as unusable without even needing to stop his conversation with his partner.

"Well, I guess I'm just selfish. All I've ever cared about is making sure YOU survive."

"Well, maybe it'll help if you realize that I want to protect them as much as you want to protect me."

"That's... an awful lot."

"Then you see why I obsess with keeping them safe."

"I... suppose so."

"So if you want to protect me, help ME protect THEM."

"I wish I could understand you..."

Penn paused for a moment, taking a moment to ponder how he could get through to her. "Well, you remember when I first got your cards? The other club members thought I was crazy for being so desperate for cards that have never touched the metagame."

"You traded all of your Gladiator Beasts... That archetype's been used by world champs for years! Looking back... If I hadn't been so relieved to make it out of that kid's binder, I would have thought you were crazy, too!"

"And then I spent hours and hours slaving over every card I had, just to find which ones could work with you..." Penn smiled as he traveled back in time in his mind's eye, to a younger version of himself sitting amidst piles of cards, some stacked high enough to wobble dangerously in even the lightest breeze. "You know, you've really NEVER been a team player!"

"I-I just have high standards for my allies!"

"If that were true, you wouldn't have stuck with a college dropout when he gave up on everything, would you?"

"Yet you stayed. Even when you SAID you'd given up on everything, you stayed alive and kept fighting to take back control of your life. You don't know the MEANING of the word 'quit,' no matter what you say otherwise. How could I NOT stay with you after you showed that kind of strength?"

Both of them paused there, as the worry and panic driving Penn's thoughts fell into a brief moment of calm. He still didn't know what cards he would play against Salem, but for the moment, one gambit HAD led directly where he wanted it to.

"Then you understand why, no matter how many times you try to get me to give up on them, I'm never going to let Sunset down. If I ever did, I wouldn't be that same partner you know and love, would I?"

Two halves of a soul sat in solemn silence.

"...I hate you. I hate you so much."

Penn smirked and sat back slightly in his seat. "I hate you, too! What the hell am I supposed to do when you've got some crazy unstoppable image of me like that in your head?"

"Well... You start by doing the impossible and changing MY mind, and go on from there, I guess. Fine... if it means that much to you, I'll protect them, too. But you're still always going to come first, partner."

"Even Sunset?"

"...I reserve the right to put her in her place whenever she screws us over."

A wave of overwhelming relief washed over Penn. The promise was almost meaningless in terms of power. She still had no way to cross over and make good on her promise, but...

"No matter how stupid the place is that you decide to stand your ground... I'll stand by you. You won't have to fight me on this, any more."

The sensation of the tears running down his cheeks was what finally broke the dam that had been holding back his emotions. He grabbed at the steering wheel as a pained wail ripped its way up from deep in his gut, reverberating through the interior of the car like a warring battlefield of frustration, fear, and relief. He hated the sound of himself, but he couldn't force it to stop, now. A portion in the back of his brain could only pray that Sunset and Missy wouldn't be able to hear him from outside.

They can't- they can't see me like this... Sunset can't-

By the time he felt that he could stop wailing again, he felt hollow, completely emptied out inside. His head was pounding and his throat has been screamed hoarse.

"...I'm sorry, Penn. If I'd known how much my arguing was hurting you-"

"D-Don't worry about it..." Penn shook his head as a new wave of giddiness began to set in to fill the vacuum his spent fear had left. However brief, the weight on his soul had been eased. "That was a long time coming, it wasn't just about you. Salem, Bendy, Baalchion..." He gripped his hands against his face, finding it hard to believe that he didn't have any tears left to cry now that he spoke his fears aloud. "I can't... I can't deal with it, keeping it all up here, in my head. Thinking about it all the time, even when I don't want to... When all I want to do is zone out and not think for a while, I can't. I feel like... I feel like I'm losing my mind, sometimes..."

"I promise, you're not..."

Penn giggled to himself. "Says the voice in my head..."

Missy and Sunset both sat in silence in their tent, unable to look at one another for the moment.

The sounds of Penn's crying had finally stopped, but that didn't do much to ease their worries. They'd both rushed to leave when they heard him yelling, but Isis had told them that there wasn't any danger. It was simply an "emotional overload," as she put it.

"You don't think he was just faking doing better, do you?" Missy asked softly. "Ever since he had that nightmare about Salem..."

Sunset thought carefully, still feeling the pain in her heart from forcing herself to listen to Penn's breakdown. "We shouldn't have told him it was a nightmare."

"But it was... wasn't it? Isis said there wasn't any traces of Grimm in the car or anywhere nearby!"

"Nightmare or not, we were trying so hard to avoid the topic of Salem, he must have thought we just dismissed his fears without a second thought." Sunset pulled her knees against her chest. "Starting tomorrow, I wanna take it seriously, so he knows we're not just ignoring him."

Missy took a moment to think before nodding and pulling her blankets up around her shoulders. "Okay... What can we do, though? How do you stop an immortal witch that predates her world's version of humanity, itself?"

Sunset reached down and took hold of her saber, tossing the handle up and down to herself as she tried to think. She couldn't help but smile as she thought of all the friends they'd made over the course of their journey.

"You know, without the Rainbooms, I couldn't really think of a single friend I could call for help when all of this started. That was why Penn offering me an open hand was such a godsend! But now, I can think of so many people I can count on when we need help! Turns out, no matter what universe you're in, friendship really IS magic!"

Missy chuckled and reached into a pocket in her dress, retrieving her phone. "Guess we should start making a few calls to those new friends of ours, huh?"

"Penn... Have you checked the clock? You should get some rest."

He sniffed up the last of his snot and wiped the tears from his face.

"C-Come on... we still need to keep watch, I can't sleep now!"

"Isis keeps watch."

"Two pairs of eyes are better than one... I can't trust that Salem's magic won't be able to slip past her sensors!" He forced a chipper tone into his voice. "It's okay! I'm part ink demon now, remember? Sleeping's for humans."

"Ugh... I'm not going to be able to convince you Salem's not just waiting for you to fall asleep, am I?" She let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Okay, well, while we're having a chat... I've been thinking about how we got out of Evernight."

"Me, too." Penn sighed. "If a BLACK HOLE couldn't kill Salem, what else is there left to try?"

"No, BEFORE that, when we swapped out who was in charge of the body. It's the closest we've gotten to me crossing over without you dying to make room for my soul. I was just thinking... maybe we can figure out how to do it again?"

"What, put me into a coma?" Penn muttered sardonically, letting the facade slip a bit.

"No, I'm talking about letting ME take a load of the weight! If we can swap out when things get tough, it makes the load lighter for you and I won't have to stress out watching bad things happen without being able to do anything!"

Penn took a moment to ponder the possibility. "Salem already knows about that angle. It wouldn't bring anything new to the table."

"It would make me feel a lot better, Penn. Can't we at least TRY? For me? Paaaartner?"

Penn narrowed his eyes, taking a moment to try his best to direct his tired glare inwards via the rearview mirror. "Seriously? You're invoking our bond over THIS?"

"Eeyup."

Penn took a glance at the clock: 4:27. They had at least four more hours before Sunset and Missy would be awake... That was time enough for a start, at least.

"Fine." He huffed and folded his arms over his chest, unable to resist seeing her smug grin in his mind's eye. "What do you want me to do?"

"Well, Salem put you into a trance when I took over before, right? If we want to do this ourselves, we're going to have to try and do that, which probably starts with meditation, or something!"

He cast a wary eye around his view of the campground again, examining it even more closely for any signs of foes lurking just out of sight.

"Salem's not just sitting in the bushes waiting for you to close your eyes, Penn."

"I literally would not put that past her..." he muttered. "Isis?"

"Yes, Penn?"

"Raise alert sensitivity. If anything bigger than an insect moves in this campsite, I want to know about it."

"Affirmative."

"Happy now?"

"Hardly..." In spite of his dread to do so, he closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat, forcing himself to slow his breathing. "So, what now?"

"I... don't know. Just try to step out of the driver's seat, I guess?"

"I JUST closed my eyes and sat back."

"I meant metaphorically! Don't be a pedant!"

Outside on a winter's night, as the rain begins to fall...
There's a chill in the air, and the howl of the wolf,
and the rain beats at the do-o-or...

Sunset glanced nervously in Penn's direction.

He looked like a complete mess. His hair was disheveled and there were dark rings under his eyes. He was barely keeping a grip on the steering wheel as they sped down the highway, but his eyes were constantly darting around between the rearview mirror, the sky above, and the occasional glance over his shoulder to double-check the back seats. He'd even skipped breakfast entirely, leaving the girls to fend for themselves.

The only words he had spoken had been when Isis had asked him what kind of music he wanted for the day's drive.

"Dragonforce. And crank up the volume."

Sunset literally hadn't been able to ask him what was going on after that. The car had been filled with the sounds of finger-destroying guitar solos and half-screamed vocals, all loud enough to hover just on the verge of making her ears bleed.

It had been nearly three hours since then, and Sunset couldn't tell whether or not the songs had been repeating. They'd all merged into a blur of noise along with Penn's insistence on singing along to each and every one.

Rainbow Dash would be having the time of her life right now, this kind of power metal is RIGHT up her alley!

Finally, after what FELT like an eternity, the music had fallen on a calmer, almost sorrowful-sounding song, accompanied by a gentle piano. Clearly, the band had decided to experiment, and Sunset wanted to kiss whoever had decided that they should slow down.

Dark night with a glimmering light in the distance up ahead
In the forest they dwell with a misty spell
no one heard what once was said...

"Penn? Are you okay?"

He seemed to be trying to ignore her, closing his eyes and taking in the song's calmness as best he could.
The music continued to paint its gloomy picture as Sunset decided to use the quieter moment to bring up what she'd been wanting to talk about all day.

"Hey, Missy and I talked, and we think it was a mistake to react the way we did. If you say that Salem's coming, then we believe you, and we want to help be ready for her."

Penn continued to ignore her, an act that hurt a lot more than Sunset expected it to, even if it was deserved.

"We were talking about it last night, and we think we might be able to put together a good team to fight back if we call in a few favors! Even if we can't kill her, we can bring her to a halt, right? Maybe convince her we're not worth the trouble?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset could see some concerning motion outside. The whole road was sliding away from under them, and the car was drifting slowly into the opposite lane. She could hear the engine revving higher and higher as the speedometer rose to eighty, then ninety miles per hour.

"Penn? What are you doing?" She reached out to touch his shoulder, only to watch his entire body slump to the side and settle against the window. The motion brought no change in his behavior except to punctuate the motion with a loud snore.

HE FELL ASLEEP?

"PENN! WAKE UP!" Sunset grabbed at the steering wheel, desperately pulling them back into their own lane. Thankfully, the wheel seemed to correct itself of its own accord, righting their course as they continued to barrel down the highway. A few seconds after that, their speed had settled back down to comfortably below the speed limit.

"I have assumed control of the vehicle, Sunset Shimmer. You may release your hold on the steering mechanism."

Sunset sighed with relief as she fell back into the passenger's seat.

"Geez!" Missy groaned as she floated up between the two front seats. "It's a good thing there wasn't anybody coming the opposite way or we'd be pancaked!" She leaned over, taking a second to poke at Penn's face. "It's not like Penn to fall asleep behind the wheel, though! Wouldn't he normally just ask Isis to take over?"

"It is possible that lack of sleep may have affected his decision-making."

Sunset frowned, remembering the crying they'd heard the previous night. "I knew he didn't sleep well, but-"

"Correction: he did not sleep at all. He chose to stay awake to personally keep watch over the camp, on the off-chance that one of Salem's attacks could bypass my sensors. Unfortunately... given my previous track record regarding stopping so-called 'magic' and other supernatural phenomena, I could not argue with his rationale."

After taking a few seconds for Isis's words to sink in, Sunset reached over to the radio and turned the volume dial down. The music seemed to be wrapping up the last words of its final chorus, so she decided to let this last song finish, as a show of thanks for giving the momentary lull that let Penn finally fall asleep.

Burning starfire! Shine in the sky for the lives of great men, who stand by your side!
When the night falls, on we will ride!
For no lost souls will live on forever!

"Let's just let him sleep, for now. We can talk about everything tonight at camp."

"Isis?"

"All checks have come up clear. There are zero signs of Grimm, no nearby dimensional gates, nor any electromagnetic fluctuations that would indicate the presence of the phenomena known as 'magic' outside of the typical readings from our own party members. The campsite is secure."

Penn tapped his chin warily. "Okay... If it's not too much trouble, conduct those checks again at the top of every hour, please?"

"Affirm-"

"Wait!" Penn snapped his fingers before reaching into his pocket and whispering his next words into his phone. After a few seconds, Isis nodded and took to the air.

"Affirmative. Variation in instructions accepted."

With that matter settled, Penn turned his attention around to the rest of the camp.

"Where's Missy?"

Sunset took the opportunity to step into the conversation. "She's still setting up the traps around the perimeter, just like you asked."

Penn's brow furrowed as he turned to leave. "It shouldn't take this long, I'm going to go check on her-"

"She's fine." Sunset grabbed his shoulder and pushed him towards the center of camp, into one of the folding chairs they'd set up around the fire pit. "Trust me, I'd know if she was in trouble. We're partners, remember?" She tapped at her head to illustrate her point. For a moment, he seemed to be trying to form an argument, but nothing came that could counter her point. Satisfied that she had managed to shut him up for the moment, Sunset seated herself on the opposite side of the campfire. "Our plan is solid, Penn. Driving yourself to a paranoid mess is what Salem wants! Just trust us to do our part, too!"

Penn fidgeted anxiously in his seat. "We know Salem is susceptible to card magic, which means that Missy is our best chance at survival, but that also makes her our biggest weak point. We can't afford to let our guard down for a second, especially with her safety!"

"But we're not JUST relying on her, right?" Sunset raised an eyebrow, hoping to draw his mind away from Missy and on to something else.

"Of course not. You never hinge your whole plan on just one card!" Penn brushed off her comment. "If card magic doesn't work, we have Isis. Her tech can at least buy us time to regroup. And since you called some of our old friends..." he took a moment to glare at her, "which, I want to say again, is putting them in danger-"

"We explained the risks and they still wanted to come help!" Sunset smiled. "Even knowing what they were going up against, they still wanted to help us!"

Penn bit at his lips for a moment, holding back some kind of angry remark. "I've been talking to them, and each team is going to have their own strategy. The more people we have on our side, the more backup plans we'll have." He leaned forward to stare into the fire. "Considering our luck, the only choice we have is to try and out-plan Finagle's Law..."

"Wait... what's Finagle's Law?" Sunset raked her brain, trying to recollect if she had ever heard the name before.

"'The perversity of the universe always tends towards a maximum...' A.K.A., 'Anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.'" Penn huffed to himself. "Only way to really outgun it is to have more backup plans than things that can go WRONG with those backup plans. The simpler the backup plan, the fewer things that can go wrong. Salem's usual strategy is to use her immortality to tank through whatever her opponents throw at her until the either stop for breath or give her an opening. That's where everything's going to go to hell for us."

Confusion set in as Sunset recognized the latter half of his explanation. "I thought that was Murphy's Law?"

"'Murphy's Law' fell prey to Murphy's Law." Penn snickered to himself. "It's ACTUALLY 'If something can be used improperly, it WILL be by some idiot.' That's what gave rise to the practice of 'idiot-proofing' machine controls. However, people misused it until it became confused with Finagle's Law."

"So... If you give someone a button to activate a giant drilling laser and it can potentially blow a hole in the Earth's crust..."

"They will. Murphy's Law."

"But if the laser's power core is unstable and has a one percent chance of blowing up..."

"It will. Finagle's Law."

"Huh." Sunset sat back in her chair. "Guess I learned something tonight!"

The two of them sat in silence for a moment until Missy emerged from the nearby trees, dusting off her hands. "We're all set! All that's left is to set up the field spell for the night!"

"Final checks have been made, and the timer for the next round of inspections has begun. Also I feel the need to remind you that your eight-o-clock appointment is due in five minutes."

Penn glanced drearily around the camp at all three of them, and for a moment Sunset wondered what could be causing that expression of dread. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision and rubbed at his temples.

"Okay, Isis... Set yourself up for a video call and patch them through."

"Ooooh, who we gonna call?" Missy asked, floating towards Penn and leaning herself on his shoulder.

"Well, we left Ozpin and the RWBY girls hanging last time they called. You've all been more than generous with time for me to recover from that initial shock..." Penn sighed. "It's time for me to tell you all the story you've been wanting to hear..."

"I'm going to tell you all about the war between Baalchion and Chirac."

Sunset and Missy didn't say anything, only staring at each other with wide-eyed excitement as Isis projected the video call onto the side of the car, displaying a split screen. The top half was Professor Ozpin sitting behind his desk, while the bottom was all of Team RWBY, mostly in their pajamas and trying to all crowd into view at once.

"Good evening. Feeling better, Penn?" Professor Ozpin asked.

"Hey, guys! You okay over there? It's been a few days since we heard from you!" Ruby added.

Sunset smiled and waved to her friends. "Hey! We're doing okay, but it's been a little rough here. Salem's been pretty close on our tail, so things have been hectic!"

"We're... trying our best to out-plan her, but it's felt impossible to put together enough defenses..." Penn rubbed at his neck. "Just when we think we're safe, she shows us that we're not. But we've kept you all waiting long enough, especially with your world on the line the way it is. Have there been any major changes since the last time we talked?"

"Those monsters are spreading out further and further from their point of origin... They're taking more territory, and we're not going to be able to keep them contained or a secret from the public for much longer." Blake's cat ears wilted and pressed back against her head.

Missy raised her hand and spoke up without waiting to be called on. "Where did they show up, anyway?"

Ozpin spoke before any of Team RWBY could. "These monsters have appeared in and under the crater formerly known as Evernight Castle."

It was hard to see in the firelight, almost certainly impossible for those who weren't there in person to notice, but Sunset could see the color draining from Penn's face. His entire body seemed to tense up for a few seconds before he cleared his throat.

"Once we get there, we can make plans to close the portal once and for all. Just try to hold on a little longer."

Something about that isn't good, and he's hiding it... Sunset thought. She decided to hold her tongue about it, though. He was already clearly on the verge of snapping again, and trying to force out every drop of information from him would only make it worse. "Have you girls seen Rainbow Dash again?"

"A couple of times, but... we haven't been able to catch her." Ruby chuckled and rubbed awkwardly at the back of her head. "She's fast enough to make MY head spin, and she doesn't really tend to stop and chat once the monsters are all dead."

Sunset sighed with relief. "Just knowing she's still there is all the reassurance I could ask for."

Penn leaned forward and towards the screen, fixing his eyes on Isis's drone to look straight into the camera. "I'm ready to tell you what I know. This story goes back a very, VERY long way, however, so you're going to all want to get comfortable."

Ozpin didn't move from his chair, but all of the girls scrambled to find a proper place to sit. Eventually, they seemed to settle on Weiss's bed, with Weiss and Ruby sitting on top of the covers while Blake leaned against it from the floor. Yang had gone for Ruby's bunk just above, barely fitting into the top of the camera's view. Satisfied that everyone seemed to be comfortable, Penn picked up his own chair and settled with the fire to his back. From Sunset's point of view, he was just facing towards the camera with his back to their camp, but it was simple to see why he'd done it: with the fire behind him, his entire figure and face would be cast completely in shadow.

"This story is one of war... a war which defines the very nature of how we observe the universe. Why time seems fleeting and how, given free reign, darkness would seek to return that universe back to zero."

Beside her, Sunset could her Missy barely repressing a squeal of excitement, and she could understand why. Penn's voice seemed to have... settled. He was calm and collected, and his words were coming in an even, flowing pace that was instantly hypnotic. He spoke with confidence and, even in this short time, Sunset could feel the mantle of a storyteller falling over his shoulders, changing him.

"Gathered friends, listen now to our tale of monsters and dragons, of light and darkness, of preservation and decay... Of the great saviors dedicated to protecting the fabric of reality... from each other." He took a deep breath, and even a few seconds of silence seemed to raise the pressure in the air as tension mounted.

"In the time before man... in the time before life... in the time before time... There was darkness."

Before there was anything, the universe existed in a state of infinite potential. All of creation, everything that ever would or could be, was all contained in a single, infinitesimal point. On every side, there was void. Pure darkness, emptiness that swept the breadth of non-existence. It was a place where everything was possible and anything COULD happen... but nothing was all that ever DID. There was no pain, no death, and nothing was ever lost. However, there was also no progress, no growth, and no change. All was perfectly preserved, and all was stagnant.

It was here, against this unchanging eternity, that the power of the light struck its first great blow.

In an explosion powerful enough to restructure the heavens, the universe that had been kept under lock and key burst forth, acting in blatant rebellion of that force of stagnation. The once-all-encompassing darkness was banished to the outer reaches of the new existence as light filled the newborn reality. For a time, there was no place for the darkness, and the light thrived. Stars were born, beacons that drove back the enemies of progress even further. Primordial seas and gleaming nebulas drew together to form countless worlds, each teeming with life in every form and color imaginable, across the entire spectrum of possibility. Free to grow, express, and explore, even what had once been a primordial force began to evolve. Intelligence began to guide instinct, and that intelligence dubbed itself Chirac. Chirac watched over and guarded life in this new light-fueled universe, as billions were born, lived, and died. Every life lived was a life well-spent in his eyes, and the new universe continued to billow outwards.

However, the darkness had not been idle. Watching from the outside, it was only a matter of time before the reckless use of everything it had once held in reserve would cause the end of all. If Chirac's progress for the sake of progress continued unchecked, there would be only a cold husk left of what had once been infinite potential. The fuel of this enlightened existence would inevitably run dry. If the darkness were to return everything to the state of perfection it once had safeguarded, it would need strategy and intelligence of its own. Thus Baalchion was born, a titan seeking to reverse the damage to this lived-in universe and return it to unblemished purity.

While Chirac was blunt and overwhelming, a being born of the pure might of the light, Baalchion was his opposite. He became crafty and employed subterfuge, seeking out the remnants of that first darkness and the hidden places that the light could not reach, so that he might gain footholds amongst the creatures living in these sunlit worlds and turn them against the light. He told them of "The Great Dying," the final cold state of the universe should things continue down this path. He promised them power to avoid the fates of all living things by joining his cause. He turned the light's own strengths against it, corrupting blazing beacons into collapse until they became all-consuming black blights. Before Chirac had even become aware of his enemy's existence, countless bastions and dark strongholds had been made across the universe, each one pulling the flow of progress backwards.

If the first blow had been the light's declaration of war, then these blights were the darkness's acceptance and their first counterattack.

With the battlefield chosen and the sides established, both sides raised their armies. Baalchion's creatures were born quickly and spread even faster, allowing him an early claim of territory that threatened to end the conflict before it began. His monsters were countless and as varied as the worlds he took for himself, often recruiting and corrupting more to the darkness as he conquered. Soon, all would be restored to its state of perfect, infinite potential.

Just when it seemed that all would return to zero, a new light cut through the haze: Radian, Chirac's shining city without shadows. It stood as a temple to the primordial light, bristling with power and light down to the very stones from which its walls had been hewn. With one motion, Chirac breathed his might into the city, bringing life into the precious gems and veins of ore across his world. Thus was born Primus and the First Flight. Dragons capable of breathing out seas of fire and tempests of crackling thunder, they cut swathes through Baalchion's forces with ease, turning the tables back into the favor of the light. Phoenixes, avatars of the stars, themselves, swept across the black voids in the cosmos, filling empty space with warmth and glowing embers to spark new life. Scouting dragons, millions in number, were scattered out to seek out Baalchion's movements and report them back to their lord.

However, for every ounce of Chirac's power, Baalchion's cunning countered him. Chirac's numbers were few, yet powerful, and Baalchion's legions were weak, but capable of sabotage at all corners of the universe at once. Eventually, the two found themselves in a deadlock that lasted eons. The ancient foes, avatars of the two primordial forces, had learned one another's strategies and thoughts as clearly and perfectly as their own, and stalemate was the only possible result. In this state, the ticking hands of the universe would continue to crawl forward, ensuring Chirac's victory, but only after a length of time approaching eternity.

So, even today, both of these gods continue their search for new allies, for something the other could not predict in order to break their stalemate. With every world they take, the scales tip more in the favor of the one who has taken it... In this stalemate, there is an unspoken promise, an oath taken by both opponents:

There will be no peace until one side has been eradicated completely.

Penn took a long, deep breath as he leaned back in his chair. To Sunset, it seemed like the first time he had noticably stopped to breathe since he had started his tale. He looked spent, but there was a satisfied smile on his face.

Missy had settled into Sunset's lap, and Sunset had wrapped her arms around the little angel like a teddy bear. The two of them were both transfixed on the images that had been conjured up into existence by Penn's words. With only his voice, he had spun up images on a cosmic scale and completely captured their imaginations.

Team RWBY were all equally transfixed, and while he seemed not to have changed on the outside, Professor Ozpin seemed to be refusing to be the one who would break the silence. The only sound was the popping and crackling of the fire, which was now struggling to keep alive with no one feeding it. The cold of the winter night creeping in felt like it had mirrored the encroaching darkness in Penn's story, leaving them both on the verge of collapsing into a shivering pile.

Penn craned his neck to look over his shoulder at them, then back at the gathered audience that Isis had been projecting for him. Finally, he seemed to take the responsability of breaking the silence onto his own shoulders. With a grunt and a groan, he pushed himself up onto his feet and picked up his chair, moving back into a position close to the fire where his face could be seen again. "Now, I suppose I should get to how all of this applies to you, shouldn't I?"

"Wait! I-I'm confused!" Ruby interjected. "So, does that mean Chirac's the good guy and Baalchion's the bad guy?"

"Chirac's actions threaten to burn out the entire universe! He may be extreme wanting to go all the way back to before the universe existed, but Baalchion has a point..." Weiss countered.

"It sounds to me like they both suck for everyone else in the universe!" Yang rolled her eyes. "What I got out of that is that this Baalchion guy has his eyes set on making Remnant his next conquest."

Blake remained quiet for a few seconds, clearly still trying to ponder everything Penn had told them. "So... the universe as we know it now... is the result of their stalemate? Things moving forward, but not so fast that it all burns out at once?"

Penn grinned and snapped his fingers, giving a victorious point in Blake's direction.

"No good guys, no bad guys, and either side winning spells disaster. The key is in the moderation of both." He gestured around them, as if trying to indicate the entire universe. "The truth is that everything operates on an even grander scale than Chirac and Baalchion are aware of. Their deadlock is the universe's homeostasis: its default, balanced state of living."

"What happens if a world is taken by one side or the other?" Professor Ozpin asked.

"Worlds taken by Chirac are taken to Radian and terraformed to be more appealing to Chiracian dragons. Their inhabitants typically are completely indoctrinated to Chirac's greatness within a few generations, and their populations are trained and sent out as fighters to try and counter Baalchion's numbers." Penn frowned and looked into the fire. "The inhabitants age more quickly, cancers will skyrocket in frequency in any creatures without a natural resistance to that kind of damage, and finally, sterility rises until the population eventually is wiped out." He closed his eyes, clearly no longer enjoying this story. "The world itself will suffer from what amounts to the effects of time in a fraction of the normal period it would take. There will be a boost and boon as technology and science advance exponentially, but this usually isn't enough for them to outpace the biological detriments. Once the inhabitants have all either gone extinct or perished on the front lines of the war, all signs of their presence will crumble away, until eventually the world is fit to become another nesting planet for Chirac's dragons."

Sunset felt a gnawing dread in her gut as she recognized the set of symptoms: radiation exposure. There was something more, something scientific at the heart of this, but she decided not to interrupt Penn's storytelling.

He sighed and turned his gaze upwards and away from the fire, into the pitch-black night sky.

"Worlds taken by Baalchion will be reversed out of existence. First, they will slow to a stop in their revolution, then grind to a halt mid-orbit... and then they'll start to spin backwards, faster and faster until they spin themselves apart, returning back to the space dust from which they were first formed. If it was the last inhabited planet of that system, the star it was orbiting will either be snuffed out to a black dwarf or collapsed into a black hole, eradicating Chirac's claim on that area."

Ozpin finally broke his long silence. "Then, if victory for either side will result in our world coming to a horrific end, how are we to survive?"

Penn finally turned back to the screen, his face now deathly serious. "Independence. You'll have to turn away both sides on your own. Fight off Baalchion and refuse Chirac's offer of aid. The modus operandi for these two is that one will invade, and the other will appeal to the local population to ally with them willingly." He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Their version of my world, Earth, was invaded in the fourteenth century by Chiracian forces. We were lucky, in our own self-destructive way. We were smack-dab in the throes of a religious crusade. Baalchion's offers of aid were dismissed as the works of the devil, and, well, let's just say that the legends of dragon-slaying knights still persist seven hundred years later."

He leaned forward in his chair again. "Which is why you cannot accept any deal from an agent of Chirac. If Remnant is going to survive, you NEED to stand on your own. Prove you can protect yourselves from both sides of the war, and they'll back off to wait for a time when you're either more vulnerable or more gullible."

Professor Ozpin leaned forward, and Sunset could feel his gaze boring into them even through the screen. "So how does one go about closing one of these portals through which Baalchion attacks?"

Penn bit at his lip, looking for a moment as if he were drawing a blank.

"Got any nukes?"

"Fresh out, I'm afraid. The launching of such a weapon would require approval from all four kingdoms, regardles."

"Then you're smarter with your nuclear weapons than my world is..." Penn grumbled. "Barring that, I've got a plan in the works, but nothing I'm confident enough in to share. I should have something concrete by the time we arrive."

"This is all pretty heavy..." Ruby muttered. "It's gonna take a lot of work to make this turn out right!"

"Clearly Isis was right to patch us through once we knew what kind of threat this was!" Weiss added.

"It's nothing we can't handle once we've got the whole team together, though! Right, Sunset?" Yang winked, and Sunset replied with a smile and a wave.

"You got that right! Team RWBYS is gonna take care of business!"

"With that said, I have one more pressing question for the moment, Penn..." Ozpin looked at Penn over the top of his glasses. "We've been slowly reaching out to other dimensions, including browsing through the information in Isis's databanks. Why have we been unable to find any evidence of these two entities' existence aside from your first-hand knowledge, and how did you come to know this, yourself?"

For a second time, Sunset could see all of the color drain from Penn's face, and his entire expression changed to one of guilt. The expression only lasted a second before he smiled, chuckled, and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head.

"You know why I know, it's a book where I come from! I must have read it a dozen times, I know it inside and out! As for why nobody else knows?" He shrugged. "Dead worlds tell no tales, I guess?"

The lie fooled no one, but nobody seemed willing to press the point further. Ozpin sat back in his chair.

"Well, I know that my students have class in the morning, and it is getting rather late where you are as well, by the looks of things. We'll be waiting anxiously for your arrival."

"Awww, come on! We haven't even gotten to catch up!" Ruby whined.

"The professor's right. We all need rest here. Goodnight, everyone!" Weiss delcared before reaching over and pushing Ruby off of her bed.

"Whoaoaoa! OOF! WEIIIISS!"

"Later, Sleepwaker!" Yang gave a quick salute before pushing herself up onto her feet and leaping from Ruby's bed, presumably to her own, if Sunset's recollection of the room was still accurate.

"Sleep soundly!" Blake gave a short wave before slipping out of frame. With that, the view of their room switched itself off, leaving only Professor Ozpin on screen. He continued to stare directly at them for a few moments.

"While I understand that legends are prone to some artistic license, I would prefer the more clear-cut version in the future, Penn."

Penn sighed and nodded. "Fine, fine. Science next time. Better brush up on your Steven Hawking, though."

Ozpin nodded. "I'll be looking forward to it."

With that, Isis's projector switched off, indicating that the call had ended.

Sunset glanced at her friend, noticing for the first time a tremble in his hands as he clasped them in front of him.

"I guess I understand why you fainted when you heard what was going on..." Sunset sighed. "A war going all the way back to the Big Bang? Between two gods?"

Penn only nodded, continuing to stare at the fire. "Like I said, trying to get between them is like trying to stop a hurricane."

"But it HAS been done!" Missy chimed in. "Good old Earth pulled it off!"

"Penn, can you tell me WHY Chirac gives other worlds radiation-" Sunset's question was cut off when he pushed himself up to his feet and turned towards the car.

"Later, Sunny. I'm... actually REALLY tired." He tapped on his skull with the tip of his finger, and Sunset could see the skin on his hand turning an inky black, and his finger was already lengthening into a sharp claw. "Getting creative for a while like that kinda throws fuel on the fire up here for a certain demonic artist. I'm gonna get some sleep."

Sunset wanted to push the subject, but...

It wasn't worth it.

"Just make sure you ACTUALLY sleep, this time! No more keeping watch and getting your sleep on the road!"

"Yeah, yeah... it was one time..." Penn grumbled as he yanked open the driver's door. "Night, everybody!"

"Night, Penn! Thanks for the bedtime story!" Missy called.

"Good night, Penn!"

Once the two of them were left to themselves, Sunset reached around Missy and into her pocket, taking the first chance in hours to check her phone's messages. To her surprise, there were several messages, all reading the same thing:

On our way.

Sunset smiled in spite of her worry. Salem was frightening, and knowing what titans laid ahead of them certainly didn't make her feel confident in their odds, but... she had friends.

And as long as she had them, she could do anything.

Author's Note

Hey, everyone! Thanks for the patience!

As a reward, have some tidbits about Big Sis's backstory and the story behind Chirac and Baalchion!

Apologies if updates on this story slow down for a bit, but not only has my IRL job gotten hectic, I've managed to pick up some commission work, and that's gonna have to come first!

But rest assured, I'm never gonna give up this story, I'm never gonna let this story down, I'm never gonna run around and desert this story!

The Fault In Our Cards

There was a tremble in Penn's hand as he stepped up to the half-cocked lid of the trunk, but that didn't stop him from pushing it completely open. Like the rest of Sylvia's interior, it had been expanded to be larger on the inside than should have been possible, big enough for him to potentially fall completely in while he was reaching for something. The small light at the top barely managed to reach the edges of the space, but thankfully there was another glowing item inside, nestled between his plastic duel disk and a small heap of extra flower-patterned shirts. That was the thing he had come here for. He had waited for both of the girls to be asleep before coming here, but there was still an extra observer he needed to deal with.

"Isis?"

"Yes?"

He glanced up to the small metal dragon sitting on top of the car, giving her his most serious look.

"You are to keep the existence of this item an absolute secret from anyone below Administrator-level clearance. Any details related to its use are to be kept a complete secret from Sunset and Missy."

Isis shifted uncomfortably at that, and he knew why. She loved information, and being told to withhold it from people she cared about clearly put her at conflict with herself.

"Isis, this order cannot be countermanded. There's a reason I haven't told Missy or Sunset we have this." He reached down, leaning as far forward as he dared into the trunk so that he could wrap his fingers around the star-shaped crystal. With a heave to pull himself back out, he emerged with the save point clutched delicately in his grasp. "Can you imagine if Sunset Shimmer tried to use this? With her determination, we could blow a hole in spacetime!" He paused. "A new one, that is."

"While I understand your concerns, an asset of this... magnitude... could yield incredible data if it were to be studied in use-"

"You can study it all you want, you're just not allowed to tell anyone about it or share your results with anyone who isn't an administrator or higher." He tried his best to swallow the rapidly-forming lump in his throat as he continued to stare at the softly-glowing crystal. "You'll... get to see it in use."

There was a long pause between the two of them as Isis processed his unspoken meaning.

"I understand. Are you certain you wish to do this? As I understand, this phenomenon cannot be undone from the inside. If you refuse to tell Sunset Shimmer or Missy about the existence of this, you could become stranded in a time loop for an indeterminate amount of time. Side effects of such a scenario could be extreme. Mental illnesses of all kinds, severe depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, dementia-"

"None of which scare me more than Salem." Penn couldn't put much force behind the words, maybe because he was trying to rationalize the awful scenario he was about to put himself in. "Sunset has enough determination to un-anchor it again. I can tell her about it if I have to, or once the danger has passed..."

"Do you know HOW to un-anchor it? Could you instruct her in doing so?"

That was enough to make him pause again.

Undyne had known how to rip the save point out of its place in space and time, but she'd been told how by the other Penn's soul that she'd bonded with. That meant that the knowledge had come from HIM. Until now, Penn had been assuming that he had the knowledge, that it would just come back to him once he was in a situation where he could use it... but he didn't.

There's some kind of difference between the "Penn who died" and the "Penn who came back," and that difference involves knowledge about the save point...

He lifted the crystal up to eye level, trying to look more closely into its depths, as if the translucent golden glow could imbue him with some kind of answers. All he could see, however, was the slightly-hypnotic flickering of golden motes of light inside.

YOU NEEDN'T BE IN SUCH A RUSH... WE'LL SEE ONE ANOTHER AGAIN SOON ENOUGH.

The voice sent chills stampeding up and down his spine, making his entire body recoil backwards. It was only fearful instinct that kept his grip on the save point solid as he stumbled for a moment, then frantically scanned the area around them to try and find its source.

"Isis, are we alone?"

Before he could hear her answer, a flash of green came careening out from the edge of the campfire's light. By the time he was able to bring his arms up to block, the green projectile was already at his throat, ready to remove his head at a moment's notice. Two blazing red eyes bored into his soul as a hand reached out and roughly snatched the save point from his hand.

"What the HELL are you doing with this?" a voice growled, casting aside all traces of femininity in favor of outright gravelly malice.

"Negative."

Penn was too terrified to roll his eyes at Isis's late warning.

"U-Undyne... Hi?" he whispered, glancing down at the glowing spear being held to his throat. He swallowed his urge to scream, the motion causing the tip of the spear to press into his skin.

Undyne, however, clearly wasn't in the mood for pleasantries, baring her shark-like fangs further as she held the save point up to his face. "I TOLD you to get rid of this, not USE IT!"

"Well, I haven't really had much of a chance to..." Penn muttered. "One does not simply come across temporal-spatial trash cans that often, and I'm not gonna do anything halfway with this."

"Oh, and I'm supposed to believe you were just taking it out to look at it? When you KNOW Salem's coming?"

Penn could feel the volatile mix of fear, stress, and rage beginning to boil over. threatening to make him lose control completely. "Of COURSE I was thinking about using it!" He reached up and grabbed hold of the glowing spear, yanking hard enough to start slowly inching away from him. "Look at my memories! Don't you KNOW what Salem did to me? Don't you KNOW what we're up against?"

The spear dissolved away under his grip as Undyne stepped forward, wrapping her hand around his throat. "You can't see MY memories, but that THING created a threat that was just as evil and caused just as much pain! I've had Salem on my tail, too, you know! I've seen her face to face, and it's no excuse for trying something like THIS!"

Penn could feel that she was holding back. She had the strength to crush his windpipe and snap his neck without a second thought. That's right, I'm not just dealing with Undyne, here...

He narrowed his eyes, reaching up and rapping his knuckles against the spot on her breastplate just above where he knew his former self's soul resided.

"I know what you're trying to do, and you're never going to scare me more than Salem. So either talk to me like a normal person..." he narrowed his eyes. "Or take me seriously."

The two of them continued staring at one another for a moment before Undyne sighed and released her grip.

"Geez, you're REALLY a pain, you know that?" Undyne groaned. "I gave this to you because I trusted that you wouldn't let it fall into the wrong hands, not that you would BE the wrong hands!"

"You think I haven't thought about this for ages?" Penn sighed as he reached out, taking the crystal back again. "Missy's set trap cards and field spells, Isis has been working on specialized weapons, Sunset's been practicing with her saber CONSTANTLY..." he took a deep breath and looked at the crystal, seeing it for the harbinger of pain that he knew it was. "We have friends coming to help us, but... all I've ever had up my sleeve is knowledge, and I don't know what to expect!" He shook his head. "Salem... gave me a message. She basically told me to bring it on, that she wanted me to be ready for her with everything I had... so she could crush it completely."

"Whoa, seriously? We didn't get that kind of courtesy..." Undyne muttered.

Penn nodded. "It wasn't a courtesy, it was a reminder. Salem's the only one so far who completely outsmarted me. I only escaped her by a combination of luck and... well, I think it might have been card spirit magic that protected me from the fall." He could feel the weight on his shoulders mounting as he continued his confession. "She's better than me at what I do. She outplans, outsmarts, and outmaneuvers, and she's got literally infinite tenacity if I try to turn this into a stalling game or a battle of attrition!" He held up the crystal, displaying the save point with a reverent air. "The only way I could beat her would be to know what she's going to do before she does it."

"Dude, she's TOTALLY gotten into your head." Undyne stepped back slightly, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Seriously? You're talking about her like she's invincible! If she was THAT good, she would have caught ME ages ago!"

Penn's eyes widened slightly as he realized that she had a point... unless...

"Unless... she knew leaving you alive would stop me from using the save point... and that's the only way to-"

Undyne folded her arms and gave him a glare, cutting off the train of thought before he could finish. "Trust me, she has NOT been holding back. There's no conspiracy here, Penn! You're overthinking it!"

"But can you REALLY overthink it when it comes to Sa-"

"YES!" Undyne's hand shot up towards his face, only to stop just short of slapping across his cheek. One of her eyes had changed color, transitioning from burning red to a softly glowing lilac. Slowly, her hand moved up, placing itself on top of his head with a firm pressure, pushing him down towards the ground.

"Back to Earth, buddy... You're not thinking clearly, which is what she wants. You're blowing fuses, not drawing cards."

"But-"

The hand pressed down on him slightly, moving her thumb to press lightly on the center of his forehead. The pressure felt like it was drawing him back to the present moment. It was a pressure point that helped bring his focus to where it belonged, and one that only he knew about. "Stop. Take a deep breath."

Penn did as he was told, taking the time to force himself to inhale slowly and deeply.

"Salem is NOT invincible. We outsmarted her once and left everything she had as a smoldering crater. She's not precognizant, we managed to outfox her before, even with our brain falling apart in our skull!" Undyne leaned down, her violet eyes casting a soft light over his face until their comforting glow seemed to shut out everything else in the world. "You know who's smarter than Salem? GLaDOS. She knew better than to go up against someone with Sunset Shimmer and the magic of friendship on their side. The fact Salem hasn't thrown in the towel already just means she's not aware enough about who the good guy and the bad guy is in this situation." Undyne finally took her hand off of his head and leaned back, both arms folding over her chest as she leaned back.

"And, when Sunset Shimmer's involved, the good guys always win."

For the first time in recent memory, Penn felt an overwhelming sense of reassurance settle over him. His racing pulse finally settled, and his mind seemed to stop spinning like an out-of-control merry-go-round. He lifted up the save point again to stare at it before turning and carefully placing it back into the bottom of the trunk. He took a moment to place a heap of his spare flowery shirts over it, hiding it from sight it help him put it out of mind. The fact that he wasn't about to force himself to use it felt like a weight being lifted off of his shoulders.

"I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, but... I'm so scared."

"That's what she wants, bud." Undyne's eyes had returned back to their typical red, but her anger seemed to have faded during the brief period she wasn't in control. "She wants us scared, because scared people get stupid. That thing?" She pointed towards the trunk. "THAT'S stupid. Of all people, the two of us ought to know what that thing can turn people into..."

"Well, that isn't so much of a problem for me..." Penn glanced down at his hand, remembering the sight of the black sludge now coursing through his veins. "I'm already barely holding on to humanity as it is, I don't mind taking another step away from it if it keeps them safe."

Undyne's eyes narrowed, and Penn was almost certain that she was using Undertale's "check" magic to inspect him.

"Dude... what happened to you?"

Her incredulous tone made Penn smirk slightly in spite of himself. "It's a long story involving demons, an ink machine, and accidentally remodeling the TARDIS..."

"I'm sorry, did you say the TARDIS?" One of Undyne's eyes flickered again, and Penn knew that the version of him that was fused with her was probably freaking out right now, which made him chuckle. "Tell me EVERYTHING! Start at the beginning-"

"-and when I get to the end, stop. I know." Penn nodded and used one hand to shut the trunk for good. "Come on, this is one we're gonna want to tell around a campfire. I should be able to get those embers roaring again."

As the two of them walked away from the trunk, Penn still couldn't help but think about the save point. Half of his thoughts were relief that he had been talked out of using it... but the other half were unable to forget that it was there, ready and waiting for when he was willing to commit himself to it.

It was too valuable of an asset to just forget about completely, no matter what Undyne thought.

"Uuuuugh... Seriously, Sunset! It's enough to make my head spin!" Penn griped as he grabbed at his temples. "Light side, dark side, living force, unifying force, physical force, there's even a COSMIC force! Even if I let Isis drive all day so I can just focus on reading, there's enough extended universe novels to keep me busy for a month."

"Wow... it's that much?" Sunset took a moment to look at the handle of the saber, feeling the weight of the history behind it. Penn's knowledge always seemed bottomless... I guess there's limits to everything.

"Not even. There's still animated series, spin-off movies, video games... and then the whole thing was acquired by Disney and they took a lightsaber to the canon for a soft reboot..." Penn shook his head. "I grew up watching Doctor Who, and the 50-years-running show about time travel was LESS confusing!"

Sunset couldn't resist smiling. "So, are you giving up, o wise teacher of the lore?"

Penn looked up at her with one eyebrow cocked before snorting derisively and digging his spoon back into his chili. "Certainly not! You underestimate my power!" He took a large bite before shaking his spoon in her direction. "Gimmie a little longer. By the time we're done saving Remnant, I'll have the high ground over this Star Wars lore!"

"It's good to have you back to your old self..." Sunset smiled. "I was pretty worried about you for a while, you know! We all were. It kinda seemed like you were coming unhinged..."

"Well, probably because I was." Penn smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. "Honestly, I feel crazier for NOT being as worried as I was. Fear feels like the only RATIONAL response to the situation, but... a friend pointed out that Salem probably WANTED me to be freaking out, so I have to avoid giving her what she wants." He shrugged, seeming to be without a shred of his former paranoia. "So I'm going to force myself to believe that everything will work out okay as long as we stick together."

"Because it will."

Just as the words left Sunset's mouth, the air around them became eerily still. The chill of the night intensified to become bitterly cold, stinging and biting at her skin. A second later, the fire withered and dwindled until it snuffed itself out completely, as if it had been suddenly deprived of air.

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

Sunset could hear a heartbeat in her ears, but it wasn't her own racing pulse. It was loud enough to reverberate through the entire campsite and beyond, like a continuous rolling thunder.

Both of them looked at each other, neither one needing to say what the other already knew.

She's here.

Something was off, though. In everything Penn had told them about Salem, he'd never mentioned anything about expecting a giant heartbeat.

"Sunset? I think something's wrong..." Missy's voice whispered in her mind.

Hang in there, Missy. Just stick to the plan, okay? Stay where you are and start working on getting those ten materials.

"If you say so... Just use the signal if you need me before that!"

The world around them grew hazy and began to shift as Missy's magic did its work to establish their chosen field spell in reality. Clock Tower Prison appeared out of thin air like a mirage, materializing at their backs a short distance into the woods.

We need to survive four "turns" before CTP starts to protect us... But once it's set up, Salem shouldn't be able to hurt us.

"Hello, children..."

FZZT!

Sunset's saber was in her hand and armed before the figure stepping into the campsite was even fully visible.

Salem had looked awful over the video call they'd shared at the colosseum, but she looked even more horrifying in person. Her gaunt skin was corpselike in the pale moonlight, and the black veins clawing at the edges of her face made her look diseased. Most of the rest of her body was obscured by a long black dress that seemed to perfectly match the shadows she was emerging from, making it difficult to tell where one stopped and the other began. Her scarlet eyes burned with an unholy light as she cast her eyes around their campground, looking completely unimpressed with their temporary home.

For a brief second, Sunset felt herself thrown backwards in time to the first time she'd seen that smug, disgusting face and condescending sneer. In her mind's eye, she could still see the image of Penn, beaten and broken after she had tortured him. It filled her with rage, but she forced herself to stay in place. Rushing forward into the fight would be foolish. She needed to trust the plan.

She spared a glance in Penn's direction, checking to make sure he was alright in the face of what she could only guess was a face that haunted his nightmares.

He was on his feet, but there was a tremble in his knees that made it clear he was only barely able to stand. His eyes were wide enough to see the whites on all sides, and his breathing was coming only in short bursts, riding the line between breathing and hyperventilating.

"I have to say, I'm disappointed." Salem glanced to either side and gestured to the area around her. "Not even so much as a perimeter guard? I gave you advance notice that I was coming in the hopes that you would put up a decent fight."

Sunset glanced at Penn, expecting him to give some kind of witty response to her jab, but he still seemed to be completely frozen with fear. Guess the banter is up to me...

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't want this to be over before I had the chance to get some payback, myself..." Sunset stepped forward until she was standing between Salem and Penn, blocking her from her goal.

Salem's eyes glanced upwards, then around the area once more. Clearly, she was searching for something, but she didn't want to tell them what.

"You're awfully spirited for someone who never finished a single semester at Beacon. I suppose that you have some kind of 'secret weapon' to use against me? Or perhaps you harbor some delusion your spirit and your saber will be enough because you're on some kind of righteous quest?" She held her arms open, clearly inviting Sunset to attack, but her expression settled into a glare that set a layer of frost over her soul. Behind her, Sunset could see a sea of glowing red eyes glaring at her: Grimm, waiting in the wings for a signal from their mistress. "I will be happy to relieve you of those delusions."

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

Whatever was causing the pulse had grown closer, feeling like it was coming from the very ground beneath their feet.

Salem looked past her to Penn before a small smirk crept onto her face. "Ah, yes! I remember, now. You don't truly put up much of a fight until I threaten this one." He raised her hand in Sunset's direction, palm facing her. An orb of black energy formed just beyond her grip, humming with power. "I wonder what you will become if I kill her here and now?"

"Try it." Sunset growled, cutting off whatever response Penn might have been about to give. Salem was trying to egg him into doing something stupid by using her.

Why is she wasting so much time talking to us? I thought she wanted us DEAD!

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

BA-THUMP

Unless...

Sunset narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her saber. She forced herself to take a deep breath, mustered up all of her courage... and sprinted at their foe.

Missy, be ready with the traps!

"Sunset, NO!"

Sunset ignored Penn's cry of panic. If Salem was trying to keep them occupied with talk, then there was something she was trying to buy time for, and Sunset couldn't let that happen.

"And the queen enters play..." Salem muttered.

Salem made a small motion with her fingers, and tendrils of multicolored light erupted out of the black orb, lashing out at her. Sunset was ready for them, however, raising her saber up to protect herself. The energy blade caught the magical blast, refracting and deflecting it to either side of her body as she continued to run without missing a beat. Salem seemed surprised to have her attack stopped so easily, which gave Sunset an opening.

The first thing she did was sever Salem's hand at the wrist, causing the black orb to dissipate. Before the pain had time to register, Sunset had flicked her wrist and brought the blade down on top of her other arm to cut it off at the elbow. This was the battle she had been training for, and every ounce of her practice had coalesced into a smooth, fluid style of movement with maximum efficiency. In her mind, she could hear the warning that Penn had given them numerous times about Salem's immortality:

Once you start, you can't stop! Debilitating lethal blows are the only way to keep her immobilized, and she's going to wait until you stop to catch your breath to strike back! You can't let your guard down, no matter what!

Sunset held nothing back, gripping the saber tightly to counter what little resistance there was as it passed through Salem's body. With her hands gone, Sunset made a vertical slice, starting at the base of her neck and vertically bisecting her torso before exiting near her waist. From there, she went upwards, slicing off first one arm, then the other at the shoulders. She pulled the saber back and switched her style from slicing to stabbing, plunging the blazing tip into each of Salem's eyes to leave only smoldering blackened holes in her head. When the witch opened her mouth to scream from the pain, Sunset gave her a mouthful of plasma, disintegrating the inside and emerging from the other side of her head with ease.

But she wasn't finished there. It was as if time were moving in slow motion for her, with gravity taking longer to exercise its control over Salem than it should have.

Sunset pulled the saber back again, slashing first at Salem's knees, then completely severing her waist at the center of her body. She didn't even give time for the pieces to fall, continuing to hack and slash with her saber at Salem's torso until it was in more segments than she could count. Finally, with a roar of rage, Sunset ripped the saber through her neck to separate her head from her body, then executed two more slashes to cut said head into quarters, splitting it both vertically and horizontally.

Her arm was burning from the effort of the rapid-fire attacks, now, and Sunset knew that, if Penn was right, even THIS wouldn't be enough to stop Salem for long. Finished for the moment, she jumped backwards to put distance back between herself and Salem...

Except that her feet couldn't move.

Her eyes widened as she looked down, finding herself standing at the center of a red rune circle, with thick black Grimm claws gripped tightly around her ankles. She swung her saber down by her feet to try and cut them off, but more simply sprung up to continue holding her in place. She was trapped.

In front of her, she could see that the pieces of Salem's body still hadn't reached the ground, and now she could make out why:

Thick strands of black, tar-like liquid were connecting all of the pieces together, holding them in place as they reassembled themselves. Sunset tried using her saber to disconnect them, but Salem's disembodied hand wrapped around her wrist, digging her black nails into her skin and holding her weapon still.

"That... hurt." Salem's voice growled as her tongue grew back into its proper place. In a matter of seconds, she was completely restored, rolling each of her shoulders in turn before stretching her neck from side to side. "But now queen takes queen."

Before Sunset could even think to cry out for help, her entire world exploded with pain. It was pain unlike anything she'd ever known, like her entire body was on fire and being stabbed in every place she could imagine. The torture wasn't just physical, however. Rage, hatred, grief and anguish all coursed through her heart and her mind, a thousand lifetimes' worth of every horrible feeling humanity could imagine pushed beyond the extremes that any living person could feel were all being forced into her brain at once.

She wasn't certain how long it lasted, the seconds stretched into years in that state. She was fairly certain she had been screaming at some point, but the pain left her body completely drained of all strength when it ended. When Sunset's awareness of her surroundings returned, Salem was lifting her up by the throat.

"For an empath, your mind is surprisingly unshielded from those around you..." she muttered. From her dismissive tone, Sunset was almost certain that she hadn't even intended to give her that sampling of her inner feelings.

Sunset understood now why Penn had been so afraid of this woman. Deep down, she knew that what she had just experienced was only a small sliver of the malice and hatred embodied in Salem, and every ounce of that unfathomable evil was directed straight at them.

They were facing a foe that embodied everything counter to the Elements of Harmony, and those cardinal evils ran deep as an ocean. In this helpless state, Sunset couldn't help a dark thought from pushing to the front of her mind: without her friends, could this much darkness overwhelm even the remnants of the Elements left in her heart?

BATHUMP

BATHUMP

BATHUMP

Sunset couldn't tell if the racing heartbeat was her own pulse or the unearthly heartbeat they'd heard before.

"MISSY! VANISH SUNSET NOW!" Penn's voice barely registered in Sunset's mind, only barely able to break through the haze of terror Salem had instilled in her.

"Right!" Missy's voice called back, making it clear she'd emerged from her hiding spot to save her. Fear like ice stabbed at Sunset's heart when she saw Salem's smile return.

"Rook enters play..."

She'd been expecting this.

"ACTIVATE TRA-"

"Now, Uru. Knight takes rook."

Salem's voice had barely raised above a whisper, but had still cut Missy off completely. All around them, the unnatural heartbeat climbed in volume and pace until it reached a fever pitch... and then stopped.

Above their heads, Sunset could see glowing lines being drawn in the sky. They seemed like meaningless squiggles at first, but as they continued to grow, Sunset could see a shape forming: the outline of a massive spider. When the outline was complete and the last lines met to enclose it completely, the darkness of the cloud-covered sky gathered together inside of the traced shape, giving it form and depth. Moments later, it began to descend, it's numerous eyes gleaming with the same malice Salem possessed. When it collided with the ground, everything shook and trembled with the force of its weight.

"N-No... No, no, no...." Missy's voice stammered. "You- you couldn't!"

"Oh, finding a kindred spirit isn't so hard when you know where to look, and thankfully that portal you so kindly pulled me into in our last battle placed me in precisely the correct place to find one." Salem gave a casual glance up at the gigantic spider, the tribal-looking lines in its carapace glowing with violet light.

"MISSY! GET OUT OF-"

"TOO LATE, boy!" Salem snapped, fresh ferocity adding an extra growl to her usually-calm voice. "Much, MUCH too late!"

"Wha... what... is... that?" Sunset was barely able to eke out the words through Salem's grip.

The spider's mandible parted, allowing a spray of glowing webbing to erupt from its mouth. Sunset was forced to listen as Missy's pained scream ripped through the night air.

"Earthbound Immortal Uru is a duel spirit that allows me to take control of one of my opponent's monsters by sacrificing one of my own." She motioned behind her to the numerous red eyes in the shadows. "And I have plenty to spare."

In the corner of Sunset's eye, she could see Missy floating past, webs wrapped around her arms and legs like a puppet as she took a place by Salem's side. Her eyes were dim and dark, lacking the lively, fun-loving spark that had always been there in the past.

"N-no... No!" Sunset tried to kick at Salem, but her attacks seemed to have no effect. "Let her GO! Give her BACK!"

"Hmmm... I think not." Salem mused, taking a moment to tousle Missy's hair with her free hand. "Perhaps I'll order her to obliterate you both with the same attack you used to end my wyvern? Or maybe sacrifice her for another monster right before your eyes? Perhaps I'll ask her to walk straight into the jaws of one of my Grimm, THAT would be fun to watch..."

Tears were brimming in Sunset's eyes when she heard Penn's first word since Salem arrived. It wasn't a voice trembling with fear or clenched with pain... it was a roar of rage.

"LONGINUS!"

Sunset could see Penn rushing up next to her, arm swinging in a wild haymaker punch for her face. She made a small gesture with her free hand, causing him to be suspended in the air, only barely out of reach of her. A small twitch of her hand pinned his arms to his sides and brought him closer, until their faces were almost touching.

"And the king is exposed. A misstep, to be certain... but one you've made before. You're not the type to repeat your mistakes-"

It was only in the momentary emerald flash of familiar magic that Sunset saw the smile on Penn's face before Salem was impaled by a hailstorm of spears raining down from above. As nearly a dozen magical spears impaled her from above and even more of them jumped up from below to lift her off of the ground, the grip on Sunset's throat was released, allowing her to drop to the ground and stumble back, rubbing at the sore spot on her neck. She hardly had a moment to try and catch her breath, however, before she was violently yanked back by the back of her shirt, lifting her up and away until she was a safe distance from Salem again.

When the initial shock had worn off, Sunset looked up at her savior.

"Undyne!"

The armored fish monster smirked as she released her grip on Sunset's shirt, then lifted up Penn with her other hand and set him back on his feet.

"Aaaaand that was, what, a minute and a half before you said the safe word?" she snickered. "Come on, Penn, I thought you would make it longer than that!"

"Well, I wasn't expecting her to bring an Earthbound Immortal with her!" Penn gestured up at the gigantic spider, which was slowly turning its head to look in their direction. Its mandibles parted, building up a charge of glowing violet energy.

"Uh, guys? I think it's getting ready to attack..." Sunset pointed upwards to the ten-story monster, then down to Salem's suspended body, which was beginning to twitch and move again as she attempted to free herself from Undyne's impromptu pit-free spike pit. Missy was still standing completely still, as if unaware of the world around her.

"I've got this." Undyne raised one hand, summoning a wall of purple shields in front of them. "Nothing's going to get through THAT!"

Just as the spider lunged forward and fired a beam of burning light from its mouth, Penn's eyes widened in fear. "WAIT A MINUTE-"

The beam passed through the shields as if they weren't even there, slamming into Penn's chest and lifting him completely off of his feet. The force was enough to send him flying out of the camp and into the trees, vanishing completely from sight.

"PENN!"

One of Undyne's eyes flickered violet as she hummed thoughtfully to herself. "Huh... Uru's effects ALSO let it ignore defending monsters and attack life points directly... Talk about cheap!"

"Is he... gonna be okay?"

"Worry more about the rest of us, Sunset! He's the one she wants, so the farther he gets from here, the better!" Undyne raised her shield as Salem snapped the last of the offending spears, stretching her rapidly-healing body before locking her eyes back onto them.

"I expected you to be dead by now, but I suppose I should have known better when my pets never came back with your head."

Undyne growled as a fresh spear materialized in her hand. "Those were supposed to kill me? I thought you were just helping with my morning workouts!"

"As flippant as ever... I suppose that's to be expected, given your second soul." She smirked as she dusted herself off. "But I'm afraid it'll take more than that to stop me, and running is NOT an option. I haven't come alone."

Undyne grunted and tossed her spear upwards into the sky, where it collided with one of her shields. Both exploded into a shower of magical sparks with a crackle similar to a firework. That's the signal!

"What, did you think we did?"

"Owwwwwwwww..." Penn groaned. His entire chest felt like it had been crushed in a hydraulic press, then reinflated with a bicycle pump.

"You know, it's REALLY cheap for her to come at us with a monster that can attack the opponent directly."

"Well, if she did her research about duel monsters, and it seems like she did..." Penn made an attempt to push himself up, only to give up a second later as his body failed to muster up enough strength to overcome gravity. "Then she probably picked Uru specifically to get around your defenses..."

"Well, get up so we can go make her PAY for hurting Missy!"

She was right. Penn felt a fresh dose of rage coursing through his veins, just enough for him to brace himself against the tree he'd crashed into and push himself up onto his feet.

That, however, was as far as he got before a sharp, stabbing pain in his stomach brought his progress to a halt. He looked down at the offending wound and, for a moment, thought that we was hallucinating.

It was a blade from nowhere. It was planted directly in his stomach hard enough to push him back against the tree, but disappeared into thin air a few inches away from him.

"WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED? HOW- Don't take it out! Pulling it out will only make you bleed faster!" Reason felt like she was growing more and more distant from his thoughts as shock began to set in properly.

"Me oh my, looks as if we may have made a mistake. We got the wrong nerd!" a familiar voice taunted.

With the sound of shattering glass, the illusory barrier fell away, revealing Torchwick and Neopolitan standing directly in front of him. Neo had stabbed him with the hidden blade in her umbrella, keeping him stuck in place as they stood over him with smug expressions on their faces.

"Oh... oh that CAN'T be good..."

Penn was at odds with himself about whether or not to try and pull the blade out of his gut, only able to hover his hands above the injury as it began to rapidly trickle with black blood. As if on autopilot, his mouth formed the first words that came to mind.

"H-Heya, boss..."

Lusus Naturae

"On your left!"

Skye turned and fired. Instincts honed by training directed her aim without conscious thought. A bullet shattered through the bone-like material on the monster's face, and a moment later its body had dissolved to ashes as its life ended.

She didn't like using guns, especially when she wasn't using her team's non-lethal "icers," but she was getting used to them. For monsters like these, it wasn't necessary to try and take them alive... plus, it helped her take out some of her frustration. Ever since HYDRA had turned SHIELD inside out, they'd been dealing with one wildfire after another while Coulson tried to pick up the pieces.

"I'm not liking these numbers. Even if these monsters go down easy, I've only got so many bullets!"

Coulson fired a trio of shots, taking down two centipede-like monsters.

"SHIELD's job here is to keep the perimeter secure, so that's what we're going to do! We're keeping these 'Grimm' from turning the main fight with Salem into a numbers game!"

Both of them had their attention drawn to the sound of cracking wood and rustling leaves. Both of them raised their weapons as a massive, white-armored scorpion tore its way through the trees, coming to a stop just in front of them. It hissed and snapped its pincers in a threatening display.

"Um, Coulson? I don't think-"

"I know!" Coulson shouted, raising his gun in spite of the fact they were woefully underarmed. "Aim for the weak points! Eyes, stinger-"

Before Coulson could finish stating the obvious, another voice cut him off. "Like, TEAM ATTACK!"

A hailstorm of glowing white projectiles rained down, pummeling the scorpion hard enough to force its body to the ground. Before it had time to recover, two hulking figures leaped in, swords flashing in the moonlight. The first one sliced clean through the base of the stinger, and the second buried his cleaver-like sword in the center of its head. The monster let out a shriek before dissolving away. The two figures both looked like burly brutes in plate armor, one with a pair of long rabbit ears coming from the top of his helmet and the other with a pair of wide fin-like protrusions. Both of them were extremely muscular, and nearly as broad-chested as they were tall.

"Like, you two okay?" The bunny-eared one asked, leaning his sword on his shoulder.

Skye and Coulson both glanced at each other before nodding in the affirmative.

"Th-Thanks..."

"Like, no problem! All in a day's work for the Royal Guard!" He declared cheerfully. The second one nodded in affirmation, seeming to prefer to keep silent. "The Captain's doing her part, so, like, we'll make sure to do ours!"

The two creatures rushed off back into the trees, already seeming to know where their next target was.

"Monsters, magic, other worlds..." Coulson muttered quietly, "If I hadn't been reading Sunset and Penn's reports every week, I wouldn't believe it all."

"You're telling me... Those things read like some kind of self-insert fanfiction." Skye chuckled to herself. "The fact that we live in a world where they have to be taken as fact blows my mind."

"Still, that's part of what makes them so great, right?" Coulson smiled. "Reaching out into the multiverse with an open hand and a SHIELD badge? Boldly going where no one has gone before?"

Skye blinked, turning to look at him with confusion. "I thought Star Wars was your thing?"

"I can have multiple interests!" Coulson declared indignantly. "Besides, I've been learning from Penn's example, learning more about other worlds through popular media. Figure maybe it'll help to expand my repertoire."

Skye spotted more motion in the trees, Grimm waiting anxiously for the moment they let their guard down. She tightened her grip on her weapon, taking only a second to double-check her clip. "Well, Director, be careful how much time you spend binge watching. We've got enough problems in our own universe."

"A universe which, to be frank, I cannot WAIT to get back to..." Coulson muttered, locking a new magazine into place. "Once this is all over, I no longer feel bad about what I'm gonna be putting on their shoulders."

Skye looked at the numerous red eyes glowing in the dark. She knew she needed to conserve ammo, which meant waiting for these monsters to make the first move. She tightened her grip on her gun, keeping Agent May's training in mind to keep herself calm.

They needed to stick to the plan. From the moment Penn had shouted the code word for Undyne to move in, they'd closed the trap on Salem. SHIELD and the monsters' Royal Guard were responsible for making sure that trap STAYED closed. They had to keep the perimeter ironclad, nothing in and nothing out. That was the plan they'd all made together.

The agents of SHIELD weren't going to be the weak link in all of this.

"We need to get rid of that spider!" Sunset shouted.

"I'm trying, but everything I throw at it gets redirected, somehow!" Undyne huffed. "Must be another one of those special abilities it has, we can't attack it directly!"

Both of their attention was drawn by the sounds of explosions and a flash of orange light.

Toriel and Asgore were both focusing their fire on Salem, literally. They had each taken up a position on opposite sides of the camp and were using fire magic to assault the witch together. Golden flames coalesced and merged into a towering inferno, a vortex hot enough to set the nearby trees smoldering without even touching them. Undyne hissed and flinched backwards at the heat, and even Sunset had to take a step back to shield her eyes.

"Release your hold on the angel AT ONCE, witch!" Asgore roared, his booming voice somehow managing to carry over the sound of the fire.

Toriel seemed to be enraged beyond words, tears flowing freely as she focused all of her energy on reducing Salem to ashes.

The vortex shuddered, then began to slow in its rotation. All of the motion of the fire, every burning wisp, ground to a halt. For a moment, the glowing embers and glowing gases all hung in the air like a great, ethereal statue of light. Moments later, however, it began to collapse. The structure warped and folded in on itself, pulling itself to the center of a dark mass at its heart until it was nothing more than a single spark glowing in Salem's hand, one that snuffed itself out a moment later. When it had been extinguished, a chill rippled through the air, extinguishing the trees and grass that had been set alight and completely wiping out all signs of warmth.

Asgore took only a moment to recognized what had happened before changing tactics. He grabbed his trident from his back, eyes flashing rapidly with a mix of blue and orange flashes. He closed the distance to Salem faster than the eye could see, his weapon glowing with matching magical power. He executed a series of slashing attacks, each one glowing with alternating types of magic. Each one seemed to tear through Salem's body with ease, leaving behind a colored trail of magic, but the black ichor would burn straight through it to reconnect the pieces.

Asgore's final attack brought his trident down with both hands hard enough to lift him into the air, sending him flying up and back away from Salem.

As he came to a landing, the two halves of Salem's body hung and sagged, split perfectly down the center vertically. Sunset wasn't surprised to see a lack of any internal organs or structures, there was only more ichor inside, proving that she was truly rotten to the core. For a second, the two halves twitched and pulled towards one another, only to collapse to the ground in a splatter. They both melted down into a puddle of the sludge, seeming to have become inert.

"Did... did we do it?"

"No." One of Undyne's eyes glowed violet as she reached out her left hand. "She just wants us to THINK we did." Purple shields materialized around the puddle, looking ready to fit into a sphere. The sludge, however, seemed to realize what was happening and moved of its own accord, slipping through and beginning to dart through the grass as a shadow.

"She can DO that?" Sunset's eyes darted from side to side, trying to pick out the movement against the dark of the night.

"I don't KNOW, she's- LOOK OUT!"

Sunset felt a pair of arms wrap around her as she was tackled from the side. A second later, another blast of energy from Salem's "Earthbound Immortal" tore apart the earth where she had been standing, carving a channel deep into the ground. Sunset's eyes widened as she felt herself being placed feet-first on the ground again, looking up to see Undyne wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.

"That was closer than I'd-"

Sunset didn't even need a second to recognize the feeling of one of her negative premonitions before her blade was out and at the ready. The red glow was just enough to illuminate the shadow at their feet before it sprung up into the dark figure of Salem, her body re-forming inches from her face.

In that moment between Salem's reconstitution and her attack, Sunset saw something that sent a tremor through her entire body.

It wasn't the visage of twisted rage across the witch's face, the trails of black tears or the bloodlust in her eyes that put a layer of frost over Sunset's soul. It was the change. That feeling that a mask had slipped, momentarily exposing an overwhelming anger, that promise that Salem would do everything in her power to bring them to utter damnation...

What scared her was that she had seen it before.

"You know what made me the most angry? What was the most infuriating thing about the whole situation?"

"Penn? Penn, you have to get away! The others..."

It was getting harder and harder to think reasonably with every second that passed. He could barely keep a grip on consciousness. Penn tried to open his mouth to make a remark, only for the handle of Torchwick's cane to collide with the side of his head. If Neo's impalement hadn't been keeping him pinned to the tree behind him, he would have definitely been knocked to the ground.

"It was when Neo and I actually looked into who you REALLY are! The pizza guy? We were fooled by THE PIZZA GUY from the middle of nowhere?" Torchwick grabbed at the bridge of his nose. "Imagine if that got out! My reputation as a criminal mastermind would be ruined!"

What do I do? What's the play? What's the card? Penn's mind was racing, but there weren't any ideas coming. It was like spinning tires in a mud puddle. Isis is busy, Missy's been taken, Sunset and the others are already occupied... Where's Plan D?

I have to make something better out of this...

"Not to mention the pony girl. You think I can live with myself knowing I was foiled by the magic of friendship?" Torchwick brought his cane down on the crown of Penn's head.

His thoughts were getting fuzzy. The plan had been to keep everyone together, keep Salem's target as focused as possible in a narrow perimeter. But he'd had a backup in case they got separated... what was it?

If I can't remember, I'm going to have to makesomethingup...

"Honestly, getting to rough you up a little before we hand you over to Salem is more than I could have asked for." Roman leaned down to Penn's level. "Don't worry, you're not going to bleed out before we give you to her. But you know what IS going to happen? You see, Neo is a professional. She knows exactly-" it was here that Neo gave the blade in his gut a slow twist.

"AA-AAAH!"

Neo smirked, clearly enjoying his scream of pain.

"-what she's doing. She nailed you right near the bottom of your stomach, clean through." Torchwick took a moment to pat her on the head. "You're not going to bleed to death. Your stomach acid is just going to slowly leak out until you melt from the inside. That way, you can get a taste of what it's like to have something constantly eating you up inside like we have for the last few months."

There was a code word, like with Undyne. He'd told everyone a million times over not to move unless they heard the code word. His head was just too blurry to think of it.

"Salem will be able to make sure you don't die, I'm sure." Torchwick waved off the unspoken concern, practically having a conversation with himself at this point, given how little of Penn's mind was still living in the moment. "And then comes the most satisfying tradeoff I've ever made. The witch gets you, and we get Sunset Shimmer and her little angel."

Penn blinked, the statement managing to cut through the haze of shock and pain enough to pull him back out of his own thoughts.

"...what?"

Roman grabbed his cane and leveled the gun end at Penn's forehead, making it clear he was ready to completely blow it off with the pull of a trigger, despite any orders he had otherwise.

"Don't get any bright ideas or heroic notions, buddy! As much as I like being on the winning side, that's a deal I'm eager to complete and get on my merry way. Working with Salem isn't exactly what I'd call a highlight of my career. Once we extract every ounce of value they've cost us by botching up our plans with the White Fang, we're going to take off and go pull off a few cross-universal heists!" He turned to Neo, a smile playing at his lips. "The little girl could definitely pass as a faunus to our friends at the SDC mines, right? I wonder how much we could get for-"

Penn growled and spat every ounce of venom he could muster into his next word, cutting Roman off. His rage was boiling over as he reached down and wrapped his hand around the end of Neo's umbrella, readying himself to pull it out.

"Error."

All of them seemed equally surprised by the word that had left his mouth. It wasn't the word he'd intended to say, certainly.

"What?"

"What?" Penn blinked, confusion settling in as his thoughts began to slow to a halt. In spite of all the panic and terror of his position, a sleepy calm was beginning to settle over his mind.

"What?" Roman raised an eyebrow, his finger beginning to tighten around the trigger.

Penn hand and mouth began to move on their own, tugging the blade out of his stomach with what now felt like a minimal effort.

"Error. Onboard Sympathetic Synthesis Module has failed. Shutting down simulated consciousness."

Oh. Right. THAT was the plan... No backup was coming because "Penn" wasn't here.

"Assuming direct control of Life-Model Decoy..."

"Nrrrrgh..." Penn growled to himself as he watched the chaos unfolding from his hiding place. He hadn't wanted to run and hide, not with so many other people out there fighting and putting their lives on the line for him. It didn't feel right not to be IN the fight, himself, but Missy AND his partner had both been quick to point out that, in a duel, giving your opponent a direct line to their goal was a recipe for disaster.

"Asgore, Toriel, back off now, she's about to AOE."

The royal monsters both jumped back just as Salem's spell sent a blast of dark energy ripping through the air around her. Penn could see that Asgore's armor had taken a beating, and Toriel was clearly panting for breath out of exhaustion.

"Toriel, you're looking worn out. Sub out with-"

"No! We must rescue the angel! I will not rest until this witch pays for hurting Missy!"

Penn gritted his teeth. "I'll give it a little longer, but you don't have to fight this whole battle by yourself, that's what the B-Team is for. When I say you need to switch out, you NEED to switch out..."

He sighed and reclined back in his seat. So far, the perimeter was holding without any casualties, but that was going to be limited by ammunition stores. We have to wear her down quickly...

"Notice: the Life-Model Decoy has sustained critical damage."

"What?" Penn's eyes widened. "Critical damage" meant a blow that would have been lethal if it had happened to his real body. He'd known it was a possibility, but he'd never expected it to happen so quickly. "Did that monster really hit it THAT hard?"

"Negative. Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan were waiting to ambush you once you had been separated from the rest of the group."

Penn leaned over to peer at the battlefield as best he could. "I was wondering where they had gotten to... good thing Undyne told us they'd joined up with Salem. Can the LMD handle them with the damage it's taken?"

"Naturally. It IS of my own design, after all."

"Okay... how's everything else going?"

"Salem is proving as resilient as you claimed she would be. However, she is not showing any signs of weakness or tiring, no matter the amount of bodily harm inflicted on her."

"Hmm..." Penn hummed to himself as he rubbed at his chin in thought. "If we can't wear her down physically, we might need to distract her mind long enough for the opening we need..."

"Would you like me to begin work on a suggested solution?"

"No, I'll do that. You focus on taking care of Roman and Neo. How's the field trap coming?"

"Capacitors are seventy two percent charged."

BOOOOONG! BOOOOOOONG! BOOOOOONG! The air was pierced by the sound of a clock tower's bell ringing, and Penn carefully counted the bongs.

"You're right on schedule. Keep it up." He couldn't stop his foot from anxiously bouncing up and down on the brake pedal, even with the engine off in the car. "I want to get in there..."

"You know that would be counteractive to the plan. We must keep Salem's goal out of her reach until the time is right, otherwise she has no reason to stay and fight."

"I know, I know..." he grumbled, leaning back further into his seat. "I hate that you're right. I hate this plan."

"It is YOUR plan."

"AND I HATE IT!"

This sucks!

That was the only thought coherent enough to stand out from the maelstrom of horror and panic in Missy's mind. Uru's webs burned against her skin as her limbs hung limp and unresponsive, completely at the command of another. Every card in her deck had already run through her mind, and none of them could get her out of this situation.

Her hands moved on their own, reaching into her pocket and drawing another card. She didn't even take the time to look at it as it dissolved into a glowing orb of white light and joined the rest floating around her head. Salem's plan was obvious: she was going to force her to destroy her own friends with her instant win condition, and Missy couldn't stop her.

There was supposed to be a limit to Uru's ability, fading at the end of Salem's "turn" so that control of the taken card would go back to its owner, but with everyone moving so quickly back and forth with their attacks, she never had more than a moment of freedom to gasp for air before Uru reasserted its control. Combined with Salem's army of grimm to keep sacrificing to it, there was no way for her to call out for the others to slow down.

I can't do ANYTHING! Uru's too strong!

How was it even possible for Salem to bring such a powerful duel spirit across the dimensional barriers? She could feel that Uru was wrapped up in the trappings of dark magic, with some kind of spell anchoring it in the present, but she couldn't get close enough to sort out exactly WHAT Salem had done to it.

Tears brimmed in her eyes as she watched everyone else fighting. They were only barely able to keep up with Salem, and she was SUPPOSED to be helping them!

I HAVE to help them... please... Just let me help them... she could only plead out her wish to whatever gods were listening.

"Wait, you haven't beaten this guy yet?" a voice replied. Instantly, Missy's attention snapped back to the present, and for the first time she noticed a feeling of something standing just behind her, hovering just past her shoulder. Anyone else would likely have panicked at such a feeling, but the force behind her was an aura she knew well, and she felt a wave of relief wash over her.

SIS?

"Hey there, Dorklord. What are you doing?"

Sis, I'm so happy you're here, we need your help!

"Yeah... about that. I'm still stuck. You're just gonna have to deal with this joker yourself."

Like a candy bowl turned upside down, Missy felt all of her hope drop out of the bottom of her stomach. WHAT?

"Come on, don't tell me you're actually STRUGGLING with this overgrown house pest!"

Missy wished that she could turn around and look her sister right in the eyes, if only to give her incredulous look face to face. It's an EARTHBOUND IMMORTAL! With three THOUSAND attack points AND an effect that lets it take control of me!

"I'm sorry, I didn't know I was talking to the Calculator! I must be visiting the wrong deck."

Sis, PLEASE! This is serious! I need your help!

"Ah, there's my mistake, I was looking for a duel SPIRIT called the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief, not a duel COMPUTER called the Ghostrick Angel of Serious Business!"

BUT-

"Let me ask you something. I think Sunset's an idiot, and I want to preface all of this with that, but... haven't you two been through worse than this? Hell and high water, at the times when everything seemed hopeless, you two stuck together as partners and supported each other. Somehow, you two managed to overcome every obstacle that the multiverse could throw at you so far!"

For a moment, Missy's vision blurred and swam. A firm hand reached around and took hold of her chin, pointing it upwards to stare at Uru. Somehow, she could see something now that she couldn't before: black chains mixed in among the spiderwebs, keeping it locked and anchored to the world around it. The largest of the chains wrapped around the place where its head met the rest of its body and was firmly tied around Salem's waist.

"Why would you ever doubt that your bond was ten times stronger than theirs? This isn't an ordinary duel, Missy. There aren't turns and draw phases and all of those trappings of the modern era of 'Yu-Gi-Oh.' This is a type of battle much, MUCH older than that."

Missy's eyes widened as the meaning of her words struck something deep and instinctive in her core.

"You're so much stronger than you think you are. Sunset might call it 'the magic of friendship,' but do you know what WE call the sacred bond that empowers duel spirits?"

Missy took a deep breath and slowly closed her eyes. She focused all of her thoughts on Sunset. This time, rather than fear for her safety, Missy thought about their time together. She remembered the first time she'd drawn on Sunset's faith to cross the dimensions. It had lasted only a second, long enough to give her a hard shove forward, but it had felt so... right. From their first duel, the moment they had met, they had trusted each other with their very souls. She remembered the safe feeling of being wrapped up in Sunset's arms when she had been on the brink between life and death, and the feeling of Sunset's determination flowing through her and healing her wounds in Alphys's lab.

Her once-numb hands began to twitch and tingle. Her fingers spread out and reached to the webbing tied around her, taking a firm hold of it. What had once felt like a red-hot searing was now nothing but a slight warmth in the thread. With her grip tight, she began to pull, bringing her arms in from their spread-eagle pose and causing all of the webbing to creak and strain as it was stretched to its limit. It felt effortless, and she couldn't help but wonder how she had ever been held by those strands.

"WE call it the heart of the cards."

"Come on, just go DOWN already..." Sunset muttered. "At least break a sweat!"

Toriel had been knocked out cold, Asgore was on his knees and struggling to stand, and Undyne was gasping for breath and soaked in sweat as she stood steadfastly between Sunset and Salem. Even her spears and shields had lost most of their polish. Now they were just simple colored shapes, blocks and lines instead of her usual harpoons and shields.

Sunset felt bad to see them all in such sorry shape. They had each been taking turns distracting Salem, drawing her attention and trying to wear her down in the hopes that Sunset could deal the finishing blow by saving her strength.

Salem, meanwhile, was brushing a small amount of ash from her shoulder. She looked up to Uru and wordlessly pointed at them. The massive spider turned its gaze on Sunset and Undyne, its mandibles parting to collect more of its violet energy into a ball of power.

"Hey, not to say that Penn's plan was bad..." Undyne muttered, gritting her teeth as she summoned more shields to try and protect them from the oncoming attack, "but is there a point here where we start WINNING?"

Sunset wished she had a good answer as the violet orb of flames appeared to reach critical mass. Uru reared back before spitting the fireball in their direction. It was too massive to dodge, and Sunset had a sinking feeling that Undyne's shields wouldn't be enough to protect them, this time.

In that moment, however, a dark shape slipped past her, dodging around Undyne and under their wall of violet shields. A spindly frame with a large, round head interposed itself between them and the attack, raising up an object to the sky.

The fireball slowed in its path, then came to a complete stop. The wisps of flames were all drawn into the object, causing Uru's attack to shrink until there was nothing left of it. As the lamp in its hand drank up the last of the unholy fire, Sunset was finally able to recognize the figure who had come to their rescue.

"Ghostrick LANTERN?" Undyne asked in disbelief.

"It CAN stop one attack by special summoning itself..." Sunset watched as Lantern floated back down to eye-level, smugly adjusting its cape and the pumpkin it wore on its head. "But, if Lantern is here..."

"Hey, partner! WATCH THIS!"

Sunset could barely make out the shape of Missy as she weaved her way in and out between Uru's legs, trailing the webs that had been previously keeping her prisoner behind her. Sunset's eyes widened as the webbing was all pulled taut, pulling all of the spider's legs into a tight column underneath it. Even with a face that seemed incapable of expressing any emotions, Sunset could sense that Uru was as confused as any of them as Missy came to a stop just over its head. Sunset couldn't help but smile, knowing even at a distance that Missy was grinning from ear to ear as she gently tapped the tip of her foot against its head.

"TIIIIIIIMMMMMBEEEEEEEERRRRRRR!"

With an unholy screech, Uru toppled like a falling tree. As it fell, its body began to glow with violet light that grew brighter until its shape became completely indistinct, then faded away entirely, leaving nothing but a bad memory where it had once been standing.

"Well, pretty cool, huh?" Missy's voice asked as Sunset felt a light weight press down on her shoulder. Turning to look, Sunset found that Missy had somehow reappeared right beside her, leaning on her shoulder with a smug grin. "So, what did I miss?"

"MISSY!" Sunset grabbed her friend and held her tight against her chest, hugging her with every ounce of strength she had. "How did you-"

"Heart of the cards!" She winked. "Big Sis needed to give me a bit of a pep talk, but I figured it out eventually!"

"Chalk up another one we owe your mysterious sister..." Sunset muttered it as though she resented owing the favor, but her tears of relief gave away her true feelings.

Missy squirmed her way out of Sunset's grip, floating away just far enough to look at Salem and place her hands on her hips.

"I don't know what kind of black magic you were using to keep Uru around, but it's not gonna work twice! Duel spirits don't like it when people play around with us!" After a second, she seemed to reconsider her statement. "Okay, we DO like when people play games with us, but not like that- you know what I mean!"

Salem didn't seem perturbed by Missy's outrage, and whatever shock she'd had at losing her monster had worn off in seconds. Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset saw Salem's finger twitch, and a crimson glyph appear underneath Missy. Black tendrils erupted out, reaching to grab at her.

"LOOK OU-"

Missy didn't even flinch as she responded, a trap card materializing seemingly out of nowhere between her fingers. A section of the ground underneath her separated into a spinning doorway, winding up the Grimm tentacles like thread on a spindle and completely shredding them.

That's certainly ONE way to use Ghostrick-Go-Round... Sunset thought.

"Like I said the first time we met... You're just a sorry excuse for a spellcaster. I've seen better dark magicians that exist purely to be fanservice." Missy narrowed her eyes in a show of anger, but it wasn't enough to hide the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Your magic might be hot stuff back in Remnant, but casters are a dime a dozen in the multiverse. So, I'm going to give you..." she held up a single finger, and Sunset could hear the sound of a clock tower beginning to ring behind them.

BOOOOONG!

"...one chance..." she raised another finger.

BOOOOONG!

"...to walk away..." Missy raised a third finger, and another bell rang out to match it.

BOOOOONG!

"Before I show you some REAL black magic."

BOOOOONG!

Four rings. That was the sign. She and Undyne each glanced at each other, and with a quick nod, Undyne dove down into the ground, disappearing from sight as she set off swimming through the earth. Sunset followed her lead, beginning to step back and away from the battlefield. She kept her eyes on Missy, trying to make it look as though she was giving her space for whatever spell she was going to cast next, but in her mind she was counting how many more steps she needed to get out of Isis's range.

"Are you trying to intimidate me, little angel?" Salem asked.

"Taking out Uru was her way of firing off a warning shot. If I were you, I'd take it, Sally."

All eyes snapped to the figure entering the battlefield.

"PENN, NO!"

Sunset didn't consider herself a phenomenal actress, but her cry of fear had enough real emotion in it to sound genuine to her own ears. This was the part of the plan with the second highest chance to backfire. If Salem realized that there was something suspicious about her quarry suddenly stepping into reach, all of this work could be for naught. In spite of his smug grin and jab at her name, Sunset could see Penn's hands shaking as he clenched them tight at his sides: he was terrified.

Salem spun around, snatching Penn by his throat and lifting him up into the air. Even at a distance, Sunset could see the burning hatred in her eyes as her grip tightened.

"I think I'll be taking something else!"

Penn was gripping at her hand to try and pry it off of his neck, but three words managed to push their way through his pinched-off windpipe.

"Isis... cry... thunder!"

Sunset jumped back the last few steps into safety, ducking behind a particularly thick tree trunk for safety. "CLEAR!"

Missy darted straight up into the air, flying up past the treeline and into the sky. "CLEAR!"

"CLEAR!" Undyne declared, carrying Toriel on her back as Asgore leaned on her shoulder to limp out of the clearing.

The truth of the situation seemed to dawn on Salem as metal rods began to spring up around the edge of the clearing, each topped with a crackling metal coil. She tried to run, only to find both of Penn's hands wrapped tight around her wrist to hold her inside the circle. She snarled and pulled harder, but Penn held fast, keeping her locked inside with him. He chuckled weakly as the whining from the electrical coils grew to a fever pitch.

"You know what your big mistake was, chasing us all this way? You gave us something we've never had in all of our travels..." His smile widened as arcs of crackling white energy leaped between the posts, then up into the air to form a cage around them.

"You..." Salem's hand crackled with dark energy as she reached around his grip to try and counterattack.

"You gave us the home field advantage."

"Discharging thaumic capacitors."

"I would recommend that you disengage and surrender."

Roman gritted his teeth as "Penn" calmly blocked a series of attacks from Neo with one hand. There was no waver in "his" posture from the force of the blows, even with Neo putting her full weight behind them.

"A ROBOT? We got tricked by a ROBOT?" he muttered to himself as he leveled his cane and fired. The android simply swayed its head to the side, letting the bullet pass by harmlessly.

"According to SHIELD records, that IS the intended function of a Life-Model Decoy."

"So, what? The real one was too much of a coward to come out here and fight us, himself? Still hiding behind shields?" Roman was, of course, simply trying to get a rise out of the AI piloting it. If he had the option to have his own robotic body double, he'd take it in a heartbeat, it was the smart thing to do. But right now, they were losing... and if little miss "superior intelligence" here doesn't start making mistakes, I don't know how we're gonna get out of this!

Judging by the complete lack of a change in Isis's level-headed blocks and dodges, it didn't seem like trying to rile her up was going to work.

"Negative. When Undyne informed us that you had joined forces, I voluntarily offered to deal with you myself, so that our most prominent strategist could focus his attention on the SIGNIFICANT threat."

He glanced back towards the main battlefield. I would have thought Salem would be here to grab him by now, even if it WAS a fake! How long could it take HER to take out a couple of kids?

KZZZZZZ-ZZZZZZZ-ZZZZZZT-KA-KOOOOOOM!

When his answer came, it came in the form of a massive flash of light and an earth-shattering thunderclap. Moments later, a gust of wind carried a heatwave over them and lifted Roman completely off of his feet, only to collide with the earth again a second later.

For a second everything was dull and blurry, just shapes in semi-darkness. A long time ago, when Roman had been younger and more stupid, he'd gotten busted by some dumb cops, and they'd used something similar as their opening move. He couldn't say that "flashbangs" had gotten any more pleasant as he'd gotten older and wiser.

Before the ringing in his ears had stopped, a pale hand was being offered to him. He turned it down and staggered back to his feet, refusing the embarrassment of needing to be helped up by Neo.

"What... what happened?"

Neo shrugged, then pointed to their opponent.

Isis's Penn-lookalike robot had frozen. It was standing in place, slumped forward with its arms dangling freely as if it had fallen asleep standing up. Roman glanced at Neo, who simply grimaced and shrugged to absolve herself of any responsibility.

"Guess whatever THAT was, it knocked it out..." he muttered. He didn't hold himself back from smiling as he placed the barrel of his cane gun against the robot's temple. With a squeeze of the trigger, a blast of fiery force sent it flying up against the tree, where it settled to smolder with half of its head missing. "Still, best not to take any chances!"

Neo nodded and stepped up to give the scrapped robot a kick in the stomach, only to wind up silently cursing and clutching her foot in her hands seconds later. With another glare, she stabbed the blade of her umbrella into the opening in its skull, resulting in a shower of sparks.

"ER-ER-ER-ER-ER-ERROR. ERROR. ERROR."

Neo leaped back as the body began to twitch and convulse, eyes wide with fear, and Roman tightened his grip on his cane. There was no way this thing could be functional at this point, right? We've practically destroyed its entire head!

"High-intensity electrical interference detected. Unable to obtain signal. Booting onboard intelligence... Failed. Running CPU diagnostic... Critical failure in piezoelectric circuit. Searching for usable onboard intelligence... Intelligence found."

"THAT doesn't sound good..."

The body began to shudder and twitch for several more seconds before seeming to settle with a long, deep breath. It sat up, hands traveling over its body before settling delicately on feeling at the jagged edges of its torn-open head.

"Oh. Well, THAT'S not pleasant..." it muttered in Penn's voice. "Guess I really AM the copy this time, huh?"

Torchwick took careful aim, looking to finish what he had started: removing its head.

"So... what did I mi-"

In the same moment "Penn" turned to look in their direction, Torchwick fired again. In another explosion, the rest of the android's head shattered and countless pieces were thrown further into the forest as shrapnel. There was a beat as the bot stopped moving again. He and Neo both glanced at each other, each one questioning whether or not they were finished.

"Well, it wasn't pleasant, but it had to be done-"

"OWWW! I might be a robot, but that HURTS, you-"

"OH COME ON!" Torchwick cried, marching up to the robot and moving to jam the end of his cane down its neck and blast it from the inside.

Instead, its hand grabbed the end, stopping him short. The torso turned up towards him as if its head were looking straight at him.

"Now then, if I have this right, I only have until this electrical interference wears off before Isis takes control again and shuts me down for good..." It reached up to knock at the place where its head used to be with its free hand. "But I guess being a digital simulation of somebody has its perks!"

Roman yanked hard on his weapon three times before the robot let go, sending him stumbling backwards. His eyes widened as he realized that the entire barrel had been crushed shut. The robot rose to its feet and bushed itself off as if it were trying to preserve some semblance of its former presentability. A second later, its hand shot into a nearby tree with shocking force, splintering the wood and ripping out a long, sharp shard.

"Now... why don't you remind me what you were planning to do with Sunset and Missy, and I'll take a little time to get creative. I plan to make the most out of our time together..."

Sunset slowly lowered her hands from her ears and carefully opened her eyes after screwing them shut to protect her eyes from the flash. The tree had protected her from most of the blast, but her ears were still ringing. Everything inside of the perimeter of Isis's attack had been reduced to ashes, aside from two silhouettes in the smoke... neither of which were moving.

"Penn?"

One of the figures shivered and shuddered before stepping away from the other. Everyone stayed quiet, waiting for the sign of who had survived the blast. As they walked closer, Sunset reached for her saber. If it was Salem, then they needed to be ready.

There was a long wheeze and, with a puff of smoke from his mouth, the layer of ashes across Penn's body all shrugged off at once. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sunset was reminded of a cartoon character shrugging off a poorly-timed stick of dynamite.

"Thank goodness... for Clock Tower Prison..." he whimpered.

"PENN!" Sunset rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him as tightly as she could. She felt her worry fade as his arms wrapped around her in return, giving her that same feeling of warmth and safety they had from the first time they'd met.

"Wow... THAT was a bigger explosion than I was expecting..." Missy murmured as she floated back down to eye level. "What happened? Alphys said they'd absorb the spent magic from the fight and throw it back at her, not blow us all to kingdom come!"

Penn hummed thoughtfully as he glanced over the smoking crater. "I think that you might have overcharged them when you dispelled Uru... We'll have to ask Isis once we have signal again."

All of them looked at the glorified human-shaped stick of carbon that was left where Salem had been standing.

"So... is it over? Was that the plan?" Undyne's voice asked. The three of them glanced over in her direction, spotting the top of her head poking out of a hole in the ground. "We really shoulda opened with that."

"Wouldn't have worked without time and ambient magic being cast to charge it..." Penn rubbed at the back of his neck as he and Sunset looked at each other. She felt her stomach begin to twist itself into knots as she recognized the unspoken apology behind his eyes. "And no, this isn't over. It's going to take her a little longer to regenerate, maybe a few hours, but she'll be back... which is why we need to do one last thing. Sunset?"

Sunset took a deep, shuddering breath as the dread of what she was about to attempt settled in. She gave him one last hug, relishing in the feeling of safety before finally letting him go and beginning to march towards the center of the clearing. She took a moment to glare at what was left of Salem's contorted snarl as one of her hands wrapped around her geode. She mustered up all of the distaste and loathing she could before placing her other hand on Salem's shoulder.

They had been right: she could still feel the same sea of rage and pain that she had encountered before, but now it was calmer, more distant... manageable. They'd worn her down enough for Sunset to take an honest shot at their goal without being overwhelmed.

Of course, THIS was the part of the plan that was the MOST likely to backfire.

"Okay, Salem... Let's talk."

She was back in Canterlot High... or so it would have seemed, if Sunset hadn't known better.

She'd never tried turning her magic on herself, mostly out of fear of setting off another feedback loop, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and everything SEEMED stable, for now.

This was her own mind.

"Well, could have been worse..." she muttered, scuffing the bottom of her sneaker against the floor. "At least it's more organized than Penn's!"

She took a moment to reminisce as she walked down the hallways. Each door was labeled, some larger than others to indicate a larger amount of memories stored behind it.

Algebra

Classic Literature

Thaumic Glyphs

Pinkie's Recipes

For a moment, she paused and brushed her fingers against a pair of massive double doors: Rainbooms. She could hear laughter and see figures running around behind the frosted glass, and part of her desperately wanted to step inside, just for a moment... but she forced herself to move on. The memories of her friends from the past might have been able to help her, but a memory of the Elements of Harmony wasn't likely to have the raw power to overcome Salem. She had a plan, and they needed to keep moving.

She passed a janitor's closet with a padlock on it labeled Celestia Revenge Plans. She couldn't help but be happy about the amount of dust that had collected on THAT particular doorknob. Her days of plotting against Equestria were long behind her.

Finally, she felt a twisting in her gut that told her she was getting close to where she wanted to be, and she came to a stop outside the door she had come here to see.

"Well? Are you coming, or am I going to have to drag you with me?" she asked.

"The fact you think you're capable of doing so is amusing..." Salem's voice replied as she emerged from Sunset's shadow, digging long, sharp nails into her shoulders. "Your friend attempted a similar gambit, but YOU have no inner demons to rescue you when you realize you cannot destroy me here."

"I'm not looking to destroy you with my mind... I just want to show you something." Sunset reached for the doorknob and swung the door open with a loud creak. "If you're so invincible, there's not going to be much in MY memories that can hurt you, right?"

She didn't wait for a response as she stepped through the door, letting it slowly swing shut behind her.

Undertale

The tension in the air felt like the entire world was holding its breath together. Compared to the chaos and cacophony of battle a few short minutes ago, this kind of quiet seemed impossible for the world to return to after so long. In the pit of her chest, Missy could feel a deep pang of melancholic dread from Sunset. If they wanted a chance to use Salem's curse to their advantage, Sunset was going to need to relive some painful memories.

"You really think that this will work?" She glanced up at Penn, trying to get a clear read of his expression. Most of his face was relaxed, but his lips were pulled into a tight line in an effort to hold back a cringe, and his eyes were locked on Sunset and Salem, taking in every detail possible. She'd seen that face before in his duels, back when she'd been little more than a scrap of paper sitting on a lunchroom table: it was his attempt at a poker face. It wasn't the resignation of a losing hand, but it wasn't the smug comfort of a winning combo. It was the face of a man for whom everything was riding on a single card, and was silently praying his opponent wasn't expecting it.

"Sunset's not going to let us down. She'll do her part perfectly."

Missy narrowed her eyes. "Of course she will, but that's not what I asked."

Penn didn't seem to have a response to that, returning to tight-lipped silence. The meaning, of course, was obvious: I have my doubts. Missy decided to move on.

"It was stupid of you to come out like that. What's the point of all this if Salem had just jumped straight to killing you?"

"Did you have a better idea to lure her into the trap?" Penn replied curtly. "You saw that she had time to realize what was happening. If I hadn't been here to anchor her down, it wouldn't have worked. It was the best way."

"And what if Clock Tower Prison hadn't worked? You BOTH would have fried!"

"Isis wouldn't have set it off if Clock Tower Prison had been dispelled-"

"No, I mean if it hadn't worked." Missy put her hands on her hips. "The rules for using card magic outside of a duel are hazy at best, you're lucky it counted you as the duelist and not one of the monsters in play once you stepped onto the field!"

Penn's mouth sealed shut again for a few seconds as he seemed to mull over her words. "Trusting the heart of the cards got me out of Evernight Castle alive. I chose to trust that it would see me through again." His expression softened somewhat as his focus settled purely on Sunset for a moment. "Besides, I would have survived. I have to. I made Sunset a promise that I'd get her and her friends home, remember?"

Missy wanted to get angry at him for having such a cavalier attitude, but she just dreaded what kind of recklessness that kind of mindset could inspire.

"You already proved you can die on this trip, remember? You don't have magical plot armor, or something. Sunset might come from a world where happy endings are guaranteed, but you don't."

Penn sighed, clearly unable to argue the point.

"What do we do if this doesn't work? You have another contingency, right?"

Penn grimaced, but nodded. "Isis and I have been putting together a project for containing... powerful paracausal creatures." He glanced down at his palm, flexing his fingers in and out thoughtfully. "The prototype is on its way, it should be enough to keep Salem under wraps if we can get her inside."

Missy sighed and looked back at Sunset, her hand still firmly grasping the charcoal-like texture of Salem's shoulder.

There was a crunch of footsteps approaching behind them, and both of them turned to see Asgore and Undyne walking up to the group, having clearly overheard the tail end of their conversation. The king was still leaning on her shoulder for support, but he seemed to have been spared any grievous injury in the fight.

"At first, I thought your numerous contingency plans to be absurd overpreparation, Penn..." Asgore sighed and straightened his posture. "I see now that I was incorrect. This 'Salem' was a foe unlike any I have seen. Even the human who entered the Underground did not possess such powerful magic on top of the ability to heal all wounds."

"She could have done much worse." Penn made the statement quietly, as if trying not to let Fate hear him. "We don't know what the upper limit of magic is in Remnant, but immortality has made her inefficient in a one-on-one fight, even sluggish at times. She'd rather make someone terrified with her invulnerability than finish them quickly, she enjoys playing the long game. She lives to see the moment you realize what you're doing is futile, watch the hope die in your eyes." He let out a long sigh, and some of the tension seemed to release as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Honestly, I think that if she'd been more focused on killing us than scaring us in our final moments, she would have won pretty quickly."

"One of the first lessons a duelist learns is to never underestimate your opponents." Missy smirked. "If you let your opponent set up properly, there's no telling who will win no matter WHAT deck they're playing!"

"Then we are lucky that, despite her many years, she is not as skilled in short-game tactics as you." Asgore gave Penn's shoulder a pat. Something about the statement seemed to make Penn uneasy, though, and he reached for his phone.

"Isis? Is containment chamber six-two-six ready?"

There was no response, only a counter that appeared on the screen.

Estimated time to interference dissipation: 2:37

"More than two minutes?" Missy's eyes widened. "I thought she only estimated forty-five seconds of downtime!"

"Well, that was before you dissipated an Earthbound Immortal and overcharged all the capacitors picking up the spent magical energy..." Penn sighed and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

"You're welcome!" Missy muttered as she turned back to look at Sunset and Salem. Sunset could almost have been mistaken for a statue, if not for the slight motion of her breathing and the soft glow of magical light beneath her eyelids. Opposite her, however, splotches of Salem's skin were beginning to chip and flake off, exposing pale, healed skin beneath as black sludge flowed into the cracks and crevices in her deeply burned surface.

Everything, including their survival was riding on Sunset Shimmer for the next two and a half minutes. She mouthed a silent prayer to the god cards that their plan would succeed.

The child. The child was here, standing at the end of the hallway. The only signs of their previous battle was a few scratches and small tears in their sweater. Other than that, they looked just as nonplussed as they had the last time Sunset had seen them.

Penn had been determined not to let the kid past him. Undyne equally, if not more so. There was no way that they would have let this happen, unless... Sunset shook her head, forcing the thought from her mind. Just because the kid made it past them doesn't mean the worst has happened. I've gotta trust Penn.

"The boy SURPRISED me, he did not OUTSMART me."

Sunset felt Papyrus's hands grip around her waist, lifting her up and over his head before setting her gently on her feet. She felt her knees wobble for a second, and Papyrus's hand caught her by the arm, slowly lowering her to the ground. For just a second, she noticed a change in the skeleton's face, a change in the shape of his eye sockets and a fade of his ear-to-ear grin that seemed to communicate a different, more pained emotion.

"Stay here..." he whispered. In that instant, Sunset felt that she was seeing past a facade, that some portion of hidden feelings had slipped through.

The memory ground to a halt. Sunset knew that they hadn't even gotten to the most painful part, yet.

"I already know about all of this. I have been watching you for some time." Salem declared, and Sunset could feel her rolling her eyes just from the tone of her voice.

"Maybe you have, but you haven't seen it through my eyes, have you?" Sunset forced herself to ignore the pounding of her heart against her ribcage. "I think there's more to this that you couldn't have seen from the outside, and I want to show it to you."

"Very well, then I'll entertain you a bit longer. I believe I'll enjoy seeing this regardless."

Salem's voice was as calm and measured as it had ever been, casting doubt on their plan. Sunset hesitated for a moment to continue, but she needed to believe that Penn was right, and this was the key to everything. She forced herself to take a deep breath, then surrendered to the flow of memory.

After another few moments of silence, Frisk tightened their grip on their knife, making it clear that they were declining Papyrus's offer of mercy. Their eyes seemed to catch the red light of the "Welcome to Hotland" sign, gleaming with murderous intent. Sunset watched Papyrus sigh in resignation before gritting his teeth more tightly. Beside her, Mettaton began stretching his arms, finishing the action by mimicking cracking his knuckles.

"Very well! Then let the battle commence!" Papyrus declared. His hand twisted, turning to face its palm upwards before he swung it up towards the ceiling. Sunset's eyes widened as more glowing bones forced their way up and out of the ground, their pale white color tinged only by the red light of the sign. In the pit of their chest, Sunset watched their soul appear, flickering from red to blue. As it changed, an extra weight seemed to come over the human, dragging them down. With another wave of his hand, the field of bones began to move forward, advancing quickly on their target. With Papyrus's blue magic weighing them down, Sunset could tell that there was no way the human could dodge the attack.

FSSST!

Everything seemed to stop with the flash of red light. The magical bones were split across the center, only to dissolve to dust a few seconds later. Sunset's eyes widened as she recognized the weapon the human was now holding, glowing a fiery red in the dim light. For a second, Sunset's eyes met Frisk's.

They knew the question she was asking, even if it had gone unspoken... and they answered her with a smile.

She was only able to force out a single, breathless word. "No..."

Finally, her emotions seemed to overwhelm her physical limits, finally eliciting a response. Sunset felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as her fears were all but confirmed. It felt like she was falling, awash and drowning in a sea of fear and grief as her emotions threatened to overwhelm her completely.

Somewhere in her reeling mind, Doctor Alphys's words from the lab came back to her: "Every soul has an array of traits, but one attribute that dominates all others, resonating with a particular frequency of magic! W-what concept fuels them most strongly determines their magical abilities!"

Sunset had seen her own soul. She'd seen the determination that drove her.

Sunset felt the rest of her mind begin to shut down, and she gripped that memory with all of her mental fortitude: the blazing red flames of her soul. As she did, Sunset felt one emotion rising up out of the storm to drown out all of the rest, and it rose and bubbled and boiled until it had filled her completely.

"From the way he always spoke of you, I almost believed that you were incapable of this kind of rage, of pure, murderous intent." Salem didn't show any of the same fear of the depth of her rage that Frisk had, almost sounding more bemused than anything.

"I... was more angry than I could even comprehend." Sunset admitted. She felt a pang of shame as she watched herself take back her weapon and begin her march for revenge in her mind's eye. "Sometimes I do wonder, since my world is supposedly a show made for children in other dimensions, if there might be some kind of... upper limit to what I can experience. A maximum content rating, if you will. Villains don't kill, they just try to conquer. Most 'bad guys' are just frustrated or misunderstood... but that day, any kind of limit I had was broken when my best friend died and I could do nothing to stop it."

Sunset sighed as tears began to well up in her eyes. "We were the good guys. We were just trying to help! I just... didn't understand how this could have happened. This wasn't how things are supposed to work when you try to do the right thing."

For only the briefest of seconds, the reality around them flickered. The image changed like a TV signal receiving interference, and she was able to make out another scene:

A woman with golden hair in an ornate dress knelt by an empty bedside, gently cradling an emerald-topped staff in her hands as she wept.

"How could the gods let this happen?"

As quickly and as unbidden as it had appeared, the image was gone again, and Sunset was returned to watching herself. She could feel a glimmer of uncertainty in Salem's mind, clearly as surprised at the unbidden image as she had been.

"What did you-"

Sunset pressed further onward, refusing to give her time to finish her question.

As she relived the memories of her crusade to avenge Penn's death, Sunset let the rage wash over and through her. Now, in retrospect, she could also feel the undercurrent of crippling pain that had been buried beneath it the entire time, grief that she was refusing to process.

Again, she felt a ping of recognition from Salem, if only a faint one. It was the same breed, the same color of rage that Sunset had felt in Salem when they'd touched at the start of the battle, even if it was only a fraction of the intensity.

Eventually, the Sunset in her memory stood face-to-face with Undyne, not knowing that she was also staring down what was left of Penn.

Sunset wanted to turn away as her remembered self rushed forward to forcibly take what she thought would ease her pain, trying to sate her rage rather than dissipate it.

Again, the memory changed for a moment.

The golden-haired woman was knelt at the edge of a pool of the purest water, on her knees supplicating a shimmering golden figure for relief from her pain.

"You... won't do it, then?"

"To disrupt the cycle of-"

"That's... not fair. THAT'S NOT FAIR!"

The cry of rage echoed through their shared mindscape, blending into and merging with Sunset's own remembered cries of rage as she tried to force her way through Papyrus's blue attack.

"I see." Salem's voice dripped with malice. "You think you can make an APPEAL to me? Simply by sharing your heartache and foolishly comparing it to my own past? As if the two are somehow equivalent?"

"No." Sunset was almost overwhelmed by Salem's hatred, but she could feel... something else. This was outrage, yes, but there was another note to it, a pain harmonizing with the hatred. She could spot it, now, even if Salem wasn't aware of it, herself. This, going through these memories again through the filter of Sunset's pain, was hurting her. "But I do think I came very close to being like you, Salem. At least, I started down the same path..." She glanced back at her former self, seeing her fall to her knees as she recognized the softness in "Undyne's" tone of voice as the presence of Penn's soul. "But I got lucky. My friend... didn't leave me when he died, not completely."

As the group in her memory walked away with Frisk in tow, Sunset sighed with the knowledge that the pain wasn't over.

"But that meant I couldn't let completely go, either... and someone took advantage of that."

Flowey "shrugged" again. "Maybe, but it's too late now! Or, at least... It's too late for ME to do anything about it..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Ooooh, if only, if only!" He moaned in faux anguish. She watched as his face seemed to melt, reforming into Alphys's nervous expression. "If only you'd gotten here a day earlier!" It shifted again, now to Undyne. "If only we could have stopped this from happening!" It changed once more, now into a mockery of Asgore. "If only we could just RESET it all, RELOAD it from the beginning and try again!"

"What are you saying?"

"Ugh, do I have to spell it out for you?" Flowey growled, the friendly pretense falling away completely. "The most determined person in this world can possess the power to SAVE and RESET! And that's you, sweetheart! You can turn back the clock to before any of this ever happened and start it over again the RIGHT way! Whatever way you choose!" One of the roots pointed up at the mountain. "All you have to do is go back in there and take it!"

"Rise, child, and let your faith in me be rewarded..." a dark, horned figure gestured for the kneeling woman to stand. She smiled as relief and joy nearly overwhelmed her, even here in the realm held firmly in the grip of the God of Darkness.

Dark power swirled and coalesced in front of her eyes, and moments later her beloved was dropped to the ground in front of her, alive and healthy once more.

In a flash of light and a crack of thunder, the God of Light appeared at the stairway leading to the heart of his brother's domain. Though his face was devoid of features, his disapproval was like a tangible force in the air, having caught them in the act of breaking the law he had been set on enforcing.

"What... have you done?"

FILE 3 LOADED

"Alright, Flowey, let's do this! NYYYGAAAAAAH!"

"How do you like being on the OTHER side of the resets?" Flowey whispered in her ear.

This began a cavalcade of resets as Sunset was forced to watch the battle play out over and over again. Sometimes it ended in seconds, with Flowey easily swatting Undyne out of the air like a fly. Other times, Undyne would almost begin to get the upper hand, only for another reset to crush any hopes Sunset had begun to have.

Undyne was thrown into a massive flytrap, unable to escape as the acid inside reduced her to a vaguely blue-tinged pile of goo.

Undyne was completely incinerated by the flamethrowers.

Undyne was thrown into a giant green-tinged frying pan, Flowey's magic frying her alive.

"Stop..."

Undyne was crushed by what appeared to be giant ballet slippers.

Undyne was swarmed by flies, which soon left only a desiccated corpse.

Undyne was blown to smithereens by a hail of bombs with Flowey's face printed on the casing.

"Stop it, please!"

Undyne was grasped by a giant pair of gloves, being ripped in two at the waist.

Undyne was stabbed through by hundreds of spiked vines.

Undyne was completely disintegrated in some kind of gigantic laser that fired from just below the extractor.

"PLEASE, STOP, I'M BEGGING YOU!"

"I will do what I must... to maintain order."

The woman could only scream and beg as the two brothers argued back and forth, constantly resurrecting and eradicating her loved one over and over, every time reducing him to ashes in her hands.

"How dare you enter my domain and show such DISRESPECT!"

"I am abiding by the rules WE agreed upon!"

"Rules that I now see work ever in YOUR favor!"

Sunset's tears were flowing freely, now, and she could feel herself gasping for air as the raw emotions of both sets of memories threatened to drown her.

Salem had grown quiet, though Sunset could tell that there was more at play than her simply biding her time. She was feeling SOMETHING from all of this. Something was changing, she could feel it.

So, for the sake of that progress, to try and break through the many millennia of hatred and pain Salem had built around her soul, Sunset forced herself to press deeper.

Reliving her "battle" with Asriel created a powerful sense of cognitive dissonance, and Sunset knew why: this was the place that everything had changed.

The God of Light exploded with power, banishing all of his brother's creations and forcing the other god to back down momentarily.

"I know that we have our differences, but I did NOT come here with the aim to control you... the same, however, cannot be said for HER."

Salem could only watch helplessly as her lie was dispelled before her eyes and the God of Darkness discovered that she had come to him only after being denied by his brother, that he had been a secondary choice made out of desperation, rather than a first choice made out of faith.

The God of Darkness pondered his brother's words for a moment. "Then it seems I owe you an apology... allow me to correct my mistake."

In a flash of violet flames, Ozma was reduced to dust in Salem's hands, blown away by the wind in a matter of seconds until there was nothing left to prove he had ever existed.

Once again, she had been robbed of everything that mattered to her, this time directly by the hands of the gods.

"You... You MONSTERS! Give him back to me! GIVE HIM BACK!"

She rose to her feet, her entire body brimming with unrestrained magic as she tried to strike back at the creators of her world. She didn't have time to cast a single spell, however, before the power of the God of Light overwhelmed her, whisking her away to another place and time.

"It doesn't like what we're doing!" Missy cried, shouting to make herself heard over the growing storm. "It's fighting back!"

Missy was right, the Monster Reborn spell was fighting them, refusing their request to bring back the dead. Sunset grunted as the pressure mounted higher, and her entire body began to burn. She could see trails of the rainbow magic traveling along her body, burning into her skin like ley lines. "Keep... GOING!" She took a deep breath, pushing back as best she could.

Her whole body felt like it was alternating between electric shocks and being immersed in ice water, and the entire structure of the cave was rattling and threatening to collapse. She watched as Asriel's small form was picked up by the wind, only to be snagged out of the air by Penn's strong hand.

"Th-Thanks!"

"You're LUCKY I've got a soft spot for kids!"

With that emergency handled, Sunset turned her attention back to the card. "I'm not... going to be dictated to..." her chest began to glow with red light as her determination grew stronger, "about what's possible or impossible... BY A PIECE OF PAPER!"

She felt a spike of heat rush through her body, starting in her chest and flowing up into her arm, pushing back the sensation of the overwhelming pressure. She could see a red glow traveling up and into the card, and the souls in the picture began to dance in a furious ballet. The arcs of rainbow electricity began to widen into what looked like gaps in reality, pitch-black tears that smelled vaguely of chamomile.

And then it snapped.

Missy pointed at the heartwarming scene, equally dumbfounded. "It was supposed to be a celebratory hyperbole..."

"Hey! Great use of the term 'hyperbole!'" Penn cheered, reaching up to give Missy a pat on the head.

"Heh, learned it from listening to yooooooooooooo...." Missy froze mid-word, eyes wide. She and Sunset both looked at each other, each one coming to the same realization.

They looked back at Undyne, who most certainly had Penn's soul still beating away in her chest.

They looked back at "Penn," who definitely was no longer possessed by the vengeful spirit of "Big Sis."

Penn blinked and scratched at his head, as if he were confused. "So... can somebody fill me in on what happened, here? Last I remember, I was in Waterfall with Undyne and things weren't looking so good."

Sunset and Missy both looked at each other one more time, both confirming that the other had reached the same conclusion.

"Uh-oh."

"So, you think this is some kind of petty victory? That you defeated life and death where I did not?" Salem was trying her best to sound aloof and disinterested, but Sunset could feel that she was more invested in their parallel stories than she was letting on, even if she WAS something of a captive audience.

"No... I want you to see what happened when I got my wish." Sunset sighed. "Because I really wished I hadn't, in time..."

Sunset wanted to curl into a ball of pure embarrassment as she watched herself yelling at Penn and threatening him to try and ascertain his "true identity." She watched herself keeping him at arm's length and trying to force the idea that he wasn't who he said he was down his throat.

"I got what I had wished for, but I refused to believe it. Deep down, I still struggle a little bit to understand what exactly happened and whether or not Penn is the same person I started this trip with... He wanted so badly to start writing again, just to prove who he was, that he did something monumentally stupid."

Sunset and Missy glanced at each other, not even needing to speak to communicate their intentions. They both rose to their feet, dressed and ready to go in less than a minute. Isis hopped up onto Sunset's shoulder, swiftly guiding them down the same path "Penn" had taken to sneak out while they were sleeping. Soon, they found themselves standing in front of a foul-looking black portal.

"Why would he go here?" Missy whispered. "This thing gives me the chills, and that's not just the wind!"

"And he went alone." Sunset folded her arms. "So, this guy claiming to be Penn-"

"SUNSET!" Missy shouted, slapping her on the shoulder.

"Well, does this SEEM like 'Penn behavior' to you?" Sunset gestured to the dark pool. "Walking into evil portals alone in the middle of the night? Does that seem like something PENN would do?"

Missy looked as if she was going to argue, but she eventually just settled into stubbornly folding her arms over her chest. "We don't KNOW it's an evil portal."

Sunset reached up and unclasped the necklace that held her geode. She held it by the string, letting it swing freely as she held it towards the portal. The geode reacted, pushing away from the black substance like a pair of repelling magnets. After a few seconds, it was hanging almost parallel to the ground, trying to escape back to the safety of her neck. Missy stared wide-eyed at the potent reaction of the magic.

"Okay... that DOES seem like a bad sign."

"Everything that happened from there... all stemmed from the fact that I made him feel like he had to prove himself." Sunset tried to swallow the guilt and shame. "And there's one other thing that bothers me from time to time..."

"Oh, you poor thing, suffering from your success..."

Sunset ignored Salem's cooing taunt. "Every now and then I wonder if I'm the one responsible for him, now. I brought him back, for better and for worse. He's terrified of the implications that what he writes could be real somewhere and whether or not that's his responsibility. For me, sometimes, that's how I think about him, now. Every ounce of suffering, whether he feels it or he causes it... I think it might be on MY head, and..."

Her memory tramped through their harrowing encounter with the ink demon, the betrayal she had nearly committed by turning him over to Alice Angel, and then the screaming, writhing pain he had gone through as the Ink Demon had nearly consumed him alive from the inside out.

"If that's the case, I have a LOT to answer for. More than any single person should have on their head." She shook her head. "I'm happy beyond words that he's here, trust me. We made it out the other side of all of that together, but... if I could go back and do it all over again... Sometimes I think I would just let him rest. That I shouldn't have tried to take that power over life and death for myself... Do you understand what I mean?"

For the briefest of seconds, Sunset felt a tremor through her magic, like a door opening into a pressurized room. Salem's mind had been connected this entire time, but for the first time, it was open. Countless eons of passive bitterness and deep grudge-holding fell away behind them, and memories of a time when Salem had been human, when she'd had a functioning heart, were being drawn to the surface like poison from a wound. By the power of Sunset's Element of Harmony, Salem was being forced to FEEL again...

...which was the opening Sunset had been waiting for.

"I see, but-"

Sunset pulled back, just enough for the entire dreamscape to shimmer and blur out of focus. In that second, she was back in her body, back in the present, with one hand on Salem's shoulder and the other gripping her saber. Salem was almost completely healed, now, looking as terrifying as she had been when she first arrived, aside from the empty look on her face from her magical entrancement.

Sunset didn't hesitate to flick the switch on the handle of her saber, driving the burning blade straight through Salem's chest.

Pain unlike anything she had ever felt exploded through Sunset's body.

She screamed and gasped as what felt like a red-hot poker smoldering in her chest overwhelmed all of her senses, driving her to her knees. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she observed that Salem was mimicking her movements and actions, even gasping and breathing in time with her as she wrestled with the unexpected pain.

"Sunset!"

"SUNSET!"

"Are you okay?"

The voices of Penn and Missy felt distant and faded in her half-dreaming state, but Sunset was able to piece together the reason for her agony.

Of course... if I'm using the Element of Empathy, of COURSE I would feel her pain...

As Salem seemed to finally awaken into the present, she chuckled darkly.

"Y-You think... this is anything to me? I am immortal, girl... All you have done is hurt yourself... not that I don't enjoy seeing that."

Sunset gritted her teeth and pulled back on the saber, screaming as the motion burned and tore at the edges of the wound in Salem's chest.

"M-maybe... maybe not..." she gasped before tightening her grip on Salem's shoulder. With a growl and a scream, Sunset plunged the saber into Salem's gut, creating another cauterized hole through her body. Sunset screamed as the pain returned for them both, taking several seconds to fade enough for her to think again. "B-But here's the thing... Penn told us about y-your curse... the exact words the gods used... when they cursed you for trying to trick them..."

Salem's eyes widened and she looked down at the hole in her chest... which was conspicuously NOT instantly healing like the rest of her wounds had.

"So long as this world turns, you shall walk its face..." Sunset recited, breathlessly forcing the words out through the pain. "You must learn the importance... of life and death..." With a flick of her thumb, the blade of the saber retracted. When she released her grip on Salem's shoulder, the pain faded to nothing almost instantly, and relief washed over her like a cool wave. "Only then, may you rest..." Sunset sighed as her body threatened to collapse completely, but she forced herself to stay upright so that she could look Salem in the eye. "I never planned to beat you with my mind... but for the time we were connected by Equestrian magic, we were forced to understand each other. You understood me, and I understood the lesson you could never learn on your own..."

Salem was speechless as one of her hands absently brushed against the two holes in her chest and abdomen.

"That- that's not- I can't..." Her eyes locked on Sunset, and for a brief second, Sunset could see a flicker of their original icy blue color. The slightest hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as the two remained locked in place, even now that the fight was over. One last hint of emotion spilled over into Sunset's mind from the dying witch:

Respect.

With a choking gurgle, Salem's body lurched to the side and fell to the ground, and Sunset could tell from experience that the perfect stillness that overtook her was that of death.

"Checkmate..." Sunset declared. With that final word, she fell backwards as the last of her strength was spent. Thankfully, two pairs of hands caught her as she dropped, stopping her from coming to a rough landing in the ashy crater.

"Sunset! Sunset, are you okay?"

"Can you hear me? How many cards am I holding up?"

"Medical scans indicate no physical injury, please attempt to self-evaluate any psychological damage."

"I didn't even think about what would happen if you stabbed her while you were using your geode, I'm so sorry! This plan was stupid!"

"Don't speak! Blink once for yes and twice for no!"

"I am prepared to offer several medications for post-traumatic stress, should they be needed."

Sunset rolled her eyes.

"Penn, Missy, Isis, I'm fine. Just... rattled and tired. What about Salem?"

The hands on her back lifted her back up, allowing her to see Salem's lifeless form laying on the ground.

"We... did it?" Sunset wasn't certain she wanted to celebrate, even if they WERE successful. Internally, she felt a massive urge to recoil from the sight, and the fact that she had robbed another person of their life felt... wrong on the most basic level.

"Looks like it..." Penn whispered. "Isis will get her remains safely contained, just in case."

"Good..." Sunset sighed. "I... I think I'm gonna take a break, now."

"I think you've earned that. Come on."

Sunset wanted to object when Penn's arms curled around her back and behind her knees, lifting her completely into the air. She wanted to say there was no need for it, or at least cover her face to shield herself from the embarrassment as he carried her to the place they had hidden the car just outside of the camp, but her grip on consciousness was fading fast. The moment that Missy opened up the door and Penn laid her in the back seat, Sunset closed her eyes and was struck by the fact that the seat felt comfier than the softest cloud, and an instant later she was completely unconscious.

"Thanks, Penn..."

"You know... I didn't think she had it in her."

"Robbed us of revenge-"

Penn shook his head, burying the voice of his brain's newest inky resident. "Sunset Shimmer is full of surprises... I'm more surprised that Salem's curse was so literal... I really wouldn't have put money on being able to use empathy magic to make her vulnerable."

"Yet you still based your whole plan around it."

"I was desperate."

"Well, looks like it paid off... Nice thinking, partner."

Missy gave Penn an uncertain look when he talked to himself, but quickly recognized who he was addressing. "TeIl Sis I said hi... I'm gonna stay in here and make sure Sunset's safe."

"Just what I was going to suggest." Penn nodded and Missy floated into the car, laying down in mid-air at a level just slightly above Sunset's head.

"Containment chamber model six-two-six is prepared."

Penn took a deep breath and braced himself. The hardest part was done, but that didn't mean that this was over.

"Let's get her inside, then."

He turned back to the camp, where one of Isis's drones, nearly the size of his car, had appeared out of the trees. Its stomach was a large glass chamber, which opened up around the center lengthwise. The tail of the dragon-shaped drone was a buzzsaw, which began to whine and spin loudly before lowering and beginning to slice through Salem's body at the joints. He flinched as a spray of black liquid splashed up onto the polished metal surface, but his expectations for Salem to jump up and attack again when they started dismembering her proved to be unfounded.

It took only about a minute for the specially-designed drone to take Salem apart and place the pieces inside the glass chamber, and he was glad that the unflinching AI had taken the grisly task upon herself. When the last of Salem was contained, the glass container shut and a glowing line of fire dust sealed the capsule shut with glass three inches thick. A moment later, more sounds of machines spinning to life and monitors began scanning the interior of the chamber.

"Scranton Reality Anchor engaged. Alphys Thaumic Capacitors open. Pulling vacuum..."

Isis listed off all of their containment systems without issue. It wasn't until Penn heard the last system read off as operational that he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Wow... I'd love to know what it was that happened there..." Undyne muttered as she took a seat by the remains of their campfire. "What was going on in their heads?"

"I think it's better to leave it be..." Penn muttered. "Sunset's probably not even aware of how much she's going to need therapy for what just happened."

"Attention: there has been a critical error-"

Penn's heart seized in his chest, ten billion of his worst fears were about to come true-

"-with the Life-Model Decoy."

Penn blinked several times, staring back and forth at Salem's containment, then the car where Sunset was resting as Isis's words sunk in. He grabbed at his chest, trying to calm the racing of his heart.

"Easy, bud..." Undyne rose to her feet and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You want me to go take a look at it for you?"

Penn took a deep breath, doing his best to ignore the pounding in his chest. "No, I've sat out of enough of this. I'm not going to hide any more."

"I can respect that... Well, honorary guardsman, come on. Let's go deal with whatever went wrong with the robot!"

Penn nodded, clenching his fist to try and hide the shake in his hands as they walked away into the trees. He didn't want to take his eyes off of Salem for a moment, but... better to leave it in Isis's hands. She was thorough, she was patient, and as long as Salem's remains were in that chamber, Isis was perfectly attentive.

He forced himself to focus on Undyne's back as they followed the trail of gouged earth and broken tree branches to where the drone had been blasted off of the battlefield. He needed to stay in the moment.

"Oh geez..." Undyne suddenly stopped short, and Penn nearly crashed into her. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for anything before he stepped out from behind her.

In all honesty, he was too tired to be shocked or horrified, but as a result, it took several seconds for him to understand that what he was seeing was real. His LMD was standing at attention, its head and several portions of its outer layers blasted clean off to expose the mechanics underneath. As his eyes wandered downwards, two bodies were laying on the ground, and he had to stare for a full three seconds before he wrenched himself away and leaned against a nearby tree to vomit onto the ground.

"Scans indicate-"

"Isis, what HAPPENED?" Undyne cried, clearly on the edge of panic, herself.

"Uncertain. Diagnostics are ongoing. The Life-Model Decoy should have reverted to a program of containment and distraction while disconnected from the central server. Instead, when remote control was re-established, this was the scene."

"Are- are they-" Penn couldn't bring himself to finish. He was too tired to be pragmatic, right now. Emotions were running too high.

"Roman Torchwick is indeed deceased. However..."

Penn didn't turn to look when there was the sound of shattering glass.

"It would appear that Neopolitan utilized an illusion in order to escape."

"Great..." he muttered. "So she's coming back for revenge some day..."

"Serves them right for trying to-"

Penn shut out the ink demon's smug thoughts. He buried the malice and hatred as deep down in his gut as he could.

"It is preliminary, but I have a theory as to why the drone malfunctioned so badly."

Penn pressed his forehead against the tree, avoiding looking at the scene before them. "Hit me."

"Despite redundant processors, it seems every onboard CPU failed due to a power surge from the ambient electrical field except for the sympathetic synthesis module, which had already been deactivated due to data overload. It was programmed to emulate yourself based off of prior behavior."

"I would NEVER-"

"It was a simplistic simulation, one of the data points of which was your shadow game with Joshua."

Everything went quiet for a moment.

"So... according to the robot, Penn would do ANYTHING, even kill, to protect Sunset and Missy... so it took that to its final conclusion." Undyne spoke softly.

"Affirmative. In order for a proper simulation, it also contained data regarding the behavior of your partner duel spirit-"

"-who nearly killed Frisk in a brutal fashion..." Undyne finished the thought again.

"Affirmative."

Penn clenched his eyes shut. I- I wouldn't do something like THIS- I would never- right?

"Shut it down."

"Affirmative."

A clatter of metal indicated that the LMD had collapsed to the ground.

"Shut it ALL down, Isis..." he mumbled.

"Please clarify."

Penn slammed his fist against the tree. "The whole LMD program. No more AI based on real people, ESPECIALLY me! I want this whole program scrapped this INSTANT so this can never happen again!"

"This was one erratic unit-"

"Passcode: four-six-seven-zero-zero-one-two-four."

There was a brief moment as Isis registered the phrase.

"Non-countermandable order accepted. Deleting all files on Life-Model Decoy project."

Undyne glanced at him, her eyes glowing violet in the low light.

"Was that really necessary? Isis deserves to be able to make her own choices."

"You know how it turned out when LMDs started misbehaving in Agents of SHIELD..." Penn muttered, "It's for her own good." It was a lousy excuse for a decision made in the heat of the moment, but it technically WAS true.

Undyne raised an eyebrow before sighing and shaking her head. "I can't make that call for you, but I don't like it."

Penn forced himself to walk away, back towards the camp. "I don't like ANY of this, but I'd rather force Isis this ONE time than-"

"Than what? What's worth taking away her free agency?"

"THAN HAVE SUNSET SEE THIS!" Penn spun on his heel, stomping up to Undyne and grabbing the front collar of her breastplate. "Have her see me covered in BLOOD! Like an animal! A monster! Like some kind of DEMON!" He grabbed at his head with his other hand, hearing his own voice growing lower and move gravelly but begin unable to do anything about it. "I am trying SO HARD to keep my cool, to not pick up Salem by the throat and just let the ink demon OUT to render her down to her individual POLYGONS because I know that if I start, I am NEVER going to STOP! I don't want Sunset to KNOW what I could BE if I just GIVE UP CONTROL!"

The two of them stood that way for a second, each one staring the other down. Slowly, Undyne's hand reached up and brushed her thumb against his cheek, exposing it a moment later to show that it was covered in viscous ink she had wiped from below his eye.

"You need to calm down, or that's exactly what's going to happen."

In that second, Penn felt a moment of clarity as he realized exactly what kind of position he had put Undyne in. Instantly, he released his hold and took several steps back.

"I-I'm sorry..." he stammered, his voice now sounding timid and meek in his own throat.

"Take a deep breath," Undyne ordered.

Penn forced himself to obey, taking the time to inhale long and deep. It felt wrong to try and calm himself down in a situation that was so CLEARLY out of control and needed to be fixed in some way, but Undyne's tone left no room for negotiation.

"This wasn't YOU. The thing that did this was a malfunctioning, threadbare simulacrum of you that was only supposed to fool your worst enemy for about thirty seconds." She cast a forlorn glance backwards. "I agree with you that the LMD project probably ought to never see the light of day again after this, but no one with a lick of sense is going to think that you would do THIS, least of all Sunset." Undyne summoned a spear and held it at arm's length, examining the tip. "Roman walked face-first into a weapon we had intended for Salem, as literally as you could walk into this spear. This war she started was always going to have a lot of lethal force flying around... The possibility of dying tonight was a risk EVERYONE involved chose to take."

Penn glanced back at the scene that the robot version of himself had created.

"S-So... what do we do?"

Undyne sighed and closed her eyes.

"Go. Just go, Isis and I will clean this up."

Penn blinked, his mind once again grinding to a halt. "Wha-"

"I said go." Undyne opened one eye, which flashed her typical red at him. "You're lucky I feel like I owe you, I won't tell Sunset anything about this."

Penn wanted to do something, a need to take responsibility in some way feeling ingrained in his mind, but Undyne's fierce glare caused any argument to die in his throat.

"Maybe she's right, Penn. Let somebody else take care of this, for once..." a more rational voice muttered in his mind. "You don't have to deal with everything that goes wrong on this trip yourself..."

Penn wanted to throw his hands in the air, but he was too exhausted. He simply let his shoulders slump and turned away from the grisly scene.

"Thanks, Undyne..."

He tried not to let guilt for what had happened overwhelm him as he trudged his way back to the camp, reaching into his pocket and feeling for his phone.

"Isis?"

"Yes, Penn?"

"I'm sorry for forcing you... that was wrong." He had to mumble the apology, feeling the shame of how he had treated her settle in. "You're not just a machine, and I shouldn't treat you like one... you're our friend."

"I am a machine."

"No, you're ali-"

"By which I mean that I do not rely on chemical reactions and biological functions to make my decisions. This also means that decisions based upon emotion are... difficult for me to comprehend. This catastrophic failure of the LMD program can and ought to spur such an emotional reaction, but I do not 'feel' in the same way you do. I can understand that my empathy is stunted. I rely on people such as you and the Administrator to gauge decisions that ought to be made based on emotion, as they are an imprecise science. If you committed an error in such imprecise calculations, I find that to be within acceptable margins of error for an outsourced emotional computation device."

That was enough to make Penn smile again, even a little, as he stepped back into the campsite. "Thanks, Isis. I'll try not to be so rash from now on..."

"Affirmative."

He could see that Coulson and the rest of his team were arriving to join them, all looking tired, but intact. Several other members of the royal guard had come with them, as well.

"Ready to look good for the secret agents again?"

He took a deep breath, trying to slow the last of the shaking from the scene he had just left. He carefully wiped both hands across his face, seeing that they returned absent of any ink.

"Guess it just sunk back into my skin, or something..." he muttered. With a long sigh, he ran both hands through his hair, took a moment to rub at his temples to relieve the mounting pressure, and tried to smile. "Director Coulson! Glad to see you in one piece!" He called as he strolled into the campsite.

All of the attention snapped to him, and Penn could feel every single eye on his face. He quietly made sure he looked alright.

"Chin up, shoulders back..." his partner whispered in his ear.

"Agent Bakersfield, good to see you." Coulson held out a hand, which Penn gladly took and gave a firm shake.

"And you, sir." He didn't have to work too hard to force a smile, he WAS genuinely glad to see them all. "Again, thank you for coming, I don't know if we could have managed this on our own."

"Quite the mess you've managed to get yourself into..." Agent May added. It sounded like a critique, but Penn knew she had a bit of a tense demeanor, one that made her always seem angry. "Care to give us a few more details on how this all happened?"

"It's... a long story." Penn rubbed anxiously at the back of his head. "Once everything's calmed down, I'll be happy to tell you as much as I can, given what time we have."

"Well, the important thing is that nobody got hurt-" Coulson started, only to glance at Salem's encased remains, "Well, nobody on our side. Can't ask for better results than that, right?"

Penn nodded. "We almost had to swap to the B-Team when Toriel got K.O.'d, but Missy and Asgore really carried us through the last few- oh!" Penn blinked before turning back towards the campsite, spotting Asgore speaking with the returning members of the royal guard. "Right, you haven't met either of them! We need to make introductions! I think you're gonna like Asgore, Director-"

Skye pushed her way past May, a determined look in her eyes. "Elijah? I need to ask you something."

Coulson held up a hand for her to stop. "Skye, not now-"

"Then when, Coulson? We should have asked this a long time ago!"

Penn flinched, his gut twisting as he began to predict what was coming. "Look, Skye, everyone here knows me as 'Penn,' would you mind calling me that?"

Skye ignored his request, staring him straight in the eye. "Did you know? About Ward?"

Silence fell as Penn pulled his lips taut. This seemed to be everything Skye needed to hear, lunging forward at him. There was a jolt as the world shifted, then tilted to the side. The pain didn't even register until he was already on the ground, and he was fairly certain he could see stars in the corners of his vision and hear faint birdsong.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?"

"Sir Penn!" Penn heard the sound of multiple footsteps approaching and clanking armor behind him, and held up a hand to placate the monsters who had rushed up to help him.

"I-It's okay, I had that coming..." he muttered, slowly pushing himself up to his feet. Coulson and May had both moved between him and Skye. She wasn't trying to press the attack for the moment, but she definitely looked angry enough to do so. He took a moment to brush off his shirt, trying to ignore the feeling of every muscle in half of his face being clenched and tense. He'd always known a day would come where he had to defend his decision to keep his mouth shut all of this time, and he'd practiced his response.

"Yeah, you DID..." Skye growled. "And you-" She paused for a moment, her expression changing from angry to confused. "You... your face..."

"Do you know how many times he really saved your lives while he was pretending to be on your side?" He reached up, rubbing at the place Skye had punched him to try and ease the aching. For a moment, he wondered if she had managed to knock a tooth loose. His vision was definitely doubled, like one of his eyes was stuck pointing the wrong way. "Yes, he was awful, a traitor, and HYDRA... but he was also part of your team, and a freaking good specialist." He paused as he felt what seemed like some kind of divot in his jawline. Further inspection revealed that a portion of his face seemed to have pushed inwards with the force of the blow. "He jumped out of a plane to save Jemma! He kept you safe when HYDRA's agents were taking over SHIELD HQ! I'm sorry, but you wouldn't have believed me, and Ward would have done whatever it took to shut me up..." He raised his hand up to his mouth, took a deep breath, and closed his lips around his thumb. Am I seriously about to do this? It's straight out of a cartoon! He took a moment to blow as hard as he could, pushing the collapsed part of his face back out like a balloon. After a second, his vision righted itself, then began to lose focus again, now in the other direction as he felt pressure in his skull.

Overdid it... he thought, opening his mouth to let the excess air rush out. A second later, the world was right again. Coulson and all of the other agents were looking at him with horror now, rather than anger.

"If you'd believed me, you wouldn't be here to yell at me. If you hadn't, I wouldn't be here for you to yell at." There was a pause as his own voice didn't sound quite right, muted in one ear. He reached up and rubbed at it until it audibly popped and his hearing cleared. "I'm sorry, all of you, but keeping quiet was the best way to keep as many people alive as I could. It was the only way I could think of..." He took a moment to run his hand over his face, ensuring that it had returned to normal. "And trust me, despite today's performance, I haven't had a great record for keeping people alive lately... or at least myself, anyway."

"Holy smoke, he's a toon..." Coulson whispered.

"Not everything that happens to us makes it onto the official reports..." he muttered, turning away to indicate that the topic was beyond discussion.

He turned back to the monsters who had gathered behind him. It was Asgore, himself, and at least three members of the royal guard. He smiled and stepped aside to clear a path before motioning to Coulson.

"Your highness, allow me to introduce Director Philip Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." He changed to point at the towering goat monster. "Director, this is Asgore Dreemur, King Under the Mountain and ruler of the monsters who lived there."

Asgore glanced warily at Penn, clearly uncertain and suspicious. "These are... associates of yours?"

Penn waved away the concern as the last of the stinging in his jaw faded. "The punching thing was an old grudge, water under the bridge now. Technically, Director Coulson's my boss, since I'm an Agent of SHIELD!"

"Water under the-" Skye was cut off by May's hand over her mouth. Asgore examined the three of them for a moment longer before extending a furry hand to Coulson.

"Then it is my pleasure to meet you. Sir Penn gave his life as a living shield to help my people escape a genocide. He is truly a credit to your organization."

Coulson seemed to take the events in stride in his typical way, only raising his eyebrows somewhat in surprise at the king's words. "The pleasure's all mine, your highness... I'm sorry, did you say he 'gave his life?'"

"Yes, he perished in the battle alongside my captain of the guard." Asgore nodded. "It was only by the angel's miracle that they returned to us after the battle..."

Coulson glanced at Penn with a raised eyebrow of disbelief, but Penn simply nodded to confirm Asgore's story.

"Well... SHIELD tries to recruit the best," Coulson declared, barely missing a beat. "I'm glad our agents are doing us proud out there in the multiverse."

"You know, sir..." Penn took the chance to interject, "I believe King Asgore is looking to find a new home for his people now that they escaped genocide and their dimension was destabilized... Do you think SHIELD might have the ability to help them find someplace? I'm certain that they can more than compensate for the help, monsterkind's magitech could help SHIELD advance by leaps and bounds!"

Coulson raised an eyebrow again. "You know, we DO tend to get blindsided by so-called 'magic' more often than not... if your technology can help us with that, I don't think finding one of the quieter dimensions for your people settle in would be so hard!"

"I cannot say that I fully trust humans..." Asgore muttered, rubbing at his chin. "However, if the guardians of Angel Missy vouch for you and your organization, I am willing to make an accord for the sake of cooperation."

"Of course, we'll be needing a new branch of SHIELD to deal with these interdimensional relations..." Coulson turned his attention back to Penn with a smile that sent a shiver down Penn's spine. "And SOMEONE who can spearhead that new organization."

Penn held up his hands. "Wait, Coulson-"

"I was thinking we could call it... the Broken Universe Coalition of Knowledgeable Entities and Research." Coulson ignored his protests with a smile. "BUCKLER, for short."

"Huh... he clearly put a lot of thought into this before they even got here..." a very not-helpful voice mused in the back of his mind. "You know, I can respect how sneaky it was to put you on the spot with Asgore here. Well played, Coulson."

"No, we can't- I can't- I'm not-" Penn stammered.

Asgore grinned, seeming to catch on to what Coulson was hinting at. "If such a coalition were to exist, my kingdom may be willing to collaborate... depending on who would, as you said, 'spearhead' this operation."

"It would have to be someone with whom you have a history, someone we both know we can trust... Someone who can make tough decisions about what should and shouldn't be shared across dimensions..."

Penn felt the bottom dropping out of his stomach as all eyes and several smug grins turned to him.

"I think you got outplayed here, partner..."

"But- but- but-" Penn continued to stammer, "but I- I can't... Aw, nuts."

Author's Note

I'm baaaaaaaack!!

Thank you all for your patience while I've been taking some time off. I got a promotion at work, a car that NEEDED a lot of work, new medication... it's been a crazy few months, and the knowledge I can put FIMfic on the back burner and take time to sort out my life means the world to me. I really wanted this to stand out from the rest of the story because this is the 99th chapter of Multiverse!

Bonus thanks to the folks on the discord server for helping me stay sane through all of this! You guys rock!!

Up next.. the Chapter 100 Celebration of Questionable Canonicity!!! See you soon, fellow adventurers!!

Chapter 100: Astride the Fourth Wall

"Alright, let's talk about casting."

Penn took a moment to press his thumbs against the center of his forehead, rubbing that pressure point until he felt relaxed enough to continue. The man sitting in front of him was wearing a crisp business suit and flipping through a legal pad with a smug grin. Every second since Penn had agreed to this movie deal had been filled with regret, but... there was a part of him that simply couldn't resist saying yes to the proposal.

At least I followed P.L. Travers' example and managed to keep final approval rights...

"Obviously Sunset Shimmer has experience working on the big screen, and Missy has taken to the 'child actress' role surprisingly well..." He took a moment to given Penn an uncertain look. "Now, regarding yourself..."

"What about myself?"

"Well... No offense, but you don't exactly look the part of the 'dashing hero.' Combined with the amount of work you have to do behind the scenes signing off on every decision..." he took a moment to give a very passive-aggressive look to Penn, "the big wigs think casting another actor would be a good idea."

Penn narrowed his eyes. "Okay, first of all, ow, my pride... Second, 'Penn' isn't supposed to be the dashing hero, he's just a nerd who was in the right place at the right time. Third... I guess I can see where you're coming from with me being busy. Along with this, I still have to keep updates coming. I'd like to avoid impromptu hiatuses again..." He took a deep breath, forcing himself to let go of his ego. "Who were you thinking?"

The agent smiled, seemingly relieved that Penn had relented. "Well, Tom Holland is in the right age range, so he's our first pick."

"What, the new Spider-Man? He's way too young!" Penn scoffed. "He's, what, sixteen?"

"He's twenty-five."

"...oh." Penn took a moment longer to consider the proposal. "No, I don't think so... I don't want Marvel fans blaming us for 'distracting him' if the next Spider-Man movie sucks." He leaned back in his chair, trying to think about the possibilities. "Lewis Lovhaug? He's got acting chops AND experience with making crossover content."

"We contacted him, he turned us down. He said he doesn't have time, something about the fourth wall?"

"Darn... Guess that was too much to ask." Penn sighed. "Who else you thinking?"

"Well, Hemsworths are hot commodities right now."

Penn gave the absolute most tired and fed-up look he was capable of giving. "I'm not a body builder or a Norse god. I told you, the character of 'Penn' starts out as an everyman nerd, and he really doesn't change much for a long time. Put that Hollywood money into getting more properties and music, not getting a freaking superhero to play my role!"

The agent didn't even bother making eye contact as he flipped through more of his notes. "We also were thinking about Zac Efron, but if you're really adamant about having no big names-" He was cut off by Penn's hand grabbing the notepad, stopping him from continuing to flip through.

"... keep talking."

Sunset leaned back in her seat as she continued scrolling through the comments of the story. She couldn't help but smile as she saw that the majority of readers were happy and satisfied with their work.

Luxurious_Gamer: So glad that Salem's finally dead for good!

CyclicalCynical: There's no way Salem stays dead after this.

RoadTripFan239: The crew's come so far from how they started!

She smirked and shook her head, resisting the urge to comment what she knew about future plans for the story.

SunnyShimmer: There's a long way left to go on the trip, who knows what'll happen?

FleetofShips: Of course Salem's coming back, she and Penn are obviously gonna be a couple!

Sunset balked at that comment, and the rest of the commenters seemed to feel the same way that she did.

CyclicalCynical: Ew, shipping someone with their abuser?

Tracker_Jacker: Yeah, what the heck? I thought Penn and Sunset were gonna be the couple!

Pennington_Inkwell: There has never been and will never be a PennSet romance. How many times do I have to explain this?

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief at Penn's quick rebuttal of THAT particular ship. Most of the readers had accepted that it wasn't going to happen, but there were always a few holdouts that held on to the vain hope.

FleetofShips: See! Even the author's keeping the option open! Besides, @CyclicalCynical, haven't you ever heard of the "Foe Yay" trope? Archenemies make the best couples, and she's the only one who's been able to keep ahead of him! Clearly it's meant to be.

"Okay, this is getting out of hand..." Sunset muttered.

SunnyShimmer: @Pennington_Inkwell, you mind putting this argument to rest?

She sat back from her keyboard, waiting for Penn's response.

She waited... and waited... and waited.

FleetofShips: It works as a ship, look! I even wrote my own fic of it! Desires Dark As Ink. (Lemon, characters belong to their respective owners, don't like, don't read.)

Sunset stared at the link with overwhelming trepidation. Slowly, her curiosity began to outweigh her terror and disgust, and she moved her cursor to hover over the highlighted words.

"I guess... a peek couldn't hurt, right? Just to see what they mean?"

"Man... I can't believe I wound up being forced to sit out almost the entire Salem fight!" Missy huffed as she took another sip of her tea. "I really wanted to go head-to-head in an all-out magic battle!"

"At least you didn't get screwed out of an entire crowning moment of awesome, dollface!" Bendy muttered, spinning his teacup bitterly on the tip of his gloved finger. "In the first version of the script, I was gonna be the one who took Salem out!"

"You got the previous TWO arcs almost entirely to yourself!" Missy rolled her eyes. "Plus you're sticking around for more arcs later! The evil doubles arc is gonna have plenty of time for you to shine!"

"Wait, that's really happenin'?" Bendy leaned forward, somehow now spinning the teacup on one of his horns. "I thought that was just a throwaway gag!"

"Nope! Penn's already started writing up some screen tests, it's juicy..." Missy smirked and took a long sip of her tea.

"Ooooh?" Bendy bobbed his head to let the teacup drop into his hands. "Well, spill the tea, doll! What sorta 'juicy' are we talkin' about?"

"Well, there's rumors about you and Big Sis joining forces to beat Penn's doppelganger..." Missy made no attempt to keep a poker face, grinning wider and wider at the memories of what she'd been shown. "Sunset's double running some kind of gambit to get the secret to immortality, a few godly powers getting thrown into the mix... I think I even heard Alice might be coming back for an encore!"

"No kiddin'?" Bendy grinned. "That IS juicy! Sounds like a chance to cut loose and really party!"

"Of course, Penn's always like 'Anything can change, it's all an early draft!' so we don't get our hopes up, but we all know that once he gets an idea into his head, it's hard as heck to get it out again!" She winked at her companion. "Of course, that usually works out great for us! More content, am I right?"

Bendy lifted his teacup, threatening to slosh some of the bacon soup inside onto the table. "I'll drink to that!"

The two raised their glasses with a soft clink before both downing their respective contents in a single go. Just as they were swallowing the last of it, the door to the room swung open, revealing a haggard-looking Sunset.

"Heya, Sunny!"

"Hiya, Red!"

Sunset didn't say a word, shambling to their table like a zombie and crouching as best she could to sit at their level. She grabbed the teapot in the center and poured herself a full cup, followed by several spoonfuls of sugar and a healthy dose of cream.

"...you okay, Sunny?" Missy asked.

Sunset didn't answer, raising the glass to her lips and chugging more than half the contents before letting out a long sigh.

"So, I have learned that reading fanfic about people you know can be dangerous..." she muttered, her eyes out of focus as she stared into the distance. "And I can never look at a lemon the same way again..."

"Bro, what's the deal? I thought this story was supposed to be about US?" Rainbow Dash planted her hands on her hips to exaggerate her displeasure.

"Well, it IS, but-"

"Aside from a short cameo from Rainbow Dash, none of us have appeared since the first chapter, darling!" Rarity huffed. "We're on chapter one hundred and there's been no sign of us!"

"Well, in the grand scheme of things, we're really still near the beginning-"

"While that may be true, it still lacks a certain amount of narrative fulfillment for the goal to be left out of sight and reach for so long." Twilight sighed. "Still, you at least have solid plans for each of us to enter the story, correct?"

"Uhhh... yes?"

"Is that an answer, or a question?" Applejack asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Okay, so things are still a little in the air, but I have a general idea of where and when!"

"Oooooooooh! So that's why the script keeps changing!" Pinkie declared, holding a sheaf of loose papers up and examining them from several angles.

"Wait, where did you get that?"

"It's okay, you can take your time..." Fluttershy whispered. "We're not in any rush, especially now that our series isn't being produced any more..."

That brought the entire room to silence.

Penn took a deep breath, rubbing at his forehead. "Girls, I promise you're all going to get your time to shine, alright? But pacing the story for the long haul comes first. Too many multi-crossovers have rushed themselves into becoming piles of hot garbage by introducing too many characters and elements without building them up and establishing them properly. I promise, when all is said and done, you're going to thank me for taking my time."

The rest of the rainbooms all exchanged glances and whispers before a chorus of disappointed sighs made it clear his reasoning had stood up to inspection.

"Well, my intro's coming up soon, right?" Rainbow asked, arching a skeptical eyebrow. "Make it count, and we'll be willing to show a little more faith in you from now on!"

Penn let out a sigh of relief. "Cool, I can work with that."

"Also, when's the Doom Slayer gonna show up?" Fluttershy added.

"GAAAAAAH! WHEN ARE PEOPLE GONNA STOP ASKING FOR THAT?" Penn shouted, stamping out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

"Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, my precious inferiors. I am I.S.I.S., the Integrated Superior Intelligence system, and today we will be playing Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy."

Let's gooooooo!
Queen Isis has returned!
Glad you're back!
Step on me mommy!
Face reveal when?
You just ripped off Zentreya's voice mod idea! Thief!
Anybody else excited to see Isis finally rage at a game?
Audition for Vshojo! We need a collab with Zen!
Notice me, Mad Science Mommy!

"I have told you before, this IS my face. The only way you could see me outside of my chosen avatar is putting a camera outside of my CPU, which I am told would be very boring. Now, if I analyze the controls, I should be able to 'get the hang' of this game rather quickly."

AKA loading her cheat engine...
Yes, show us that hot CPU action!
Can I put my hard drive in your software?
Installing speedrun.exe!
Call me your little pogchamp!

"Chat, words cannot express my immeasurable disappointment in you. Now you must go in Horny Prison."

Noooooooooo!
Right where we belong...
I thought it was Horny Jail?
According to Isis, we're already tried and convicted.
Let us out!
Join the horny side, Isis... we have cookies.
And cream pies!

"Wait... So people think Isis is... sexy? She's just sitting there playing video games!" Sunset scratched her head in confusion. "Technically, it's just a low-poly version of her avatar sitting there!"

"Human males are all degenerates. Give them a camera angle where they can see even a little cleavage and they lose all reasoning..." Noir muttered. "Penn says Rule Number One of being a 'vtuber' is that you need to be lowkey arousing or horny at all times..." He shrugged as he continued fitting the improved servo model into the new repair drone prototype. "Guess it's the old adage of 'a fool and his money are soon parted' playing out yet again... There's nothing new under the sun, after all."

Sunset smirked. "So how much has Penn spent 'simping' for vtubers like Isis?"

"You don't want to know."

"And so, we have completed Getting Over It. Thus concludes this part of the stream. After a short interlude, we will be completing a Super Metroid any percent speedrun in a predicted thirty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds."

"So... does what Isis have count as success?"

"Five thousand subscribers on Twitch says yes. That ice cream machine we had installed in the employee lounge ALSO says yes."

"That was YOU?"

Sunset yanked open the door to Sylvia's driver's seat and let herself flop down. Apparently, Chapter 100 was going to be some kind of special to let everyone relax and unwind, and she wasn't above saying that she needed it.

Still... sucks that Penn's break had to end in order for the rest of us to get on with the story. It's not like he was just doing nothing the last three months... Sunset thought to herself, absentmindedly pulling one of her legs into the car with her. As she did, she felt her heel knock against something hard just beneath her. It wasn't anchored in place, knocking away easily enough to pique her interest.

She forced herself to stand up again before leaning down to glance under the driver's seat. Her eyes widened as she found herself staring at the cross-section of a large, hardcover book. Her curiosity only grew stronger as she reached under the seat and pulled out the hidden tome, examining its cover in full.

Her face instantly flushed hard and her eyes widened as she was greeted by the sight of several scantily-clad women bearing many inhuman features, all giving seductive half-lidded stares to the reader.

Monster Girl Encyclopedia
Volume 1

In her gut, Sunset knew this was something she should NOT be looking at. In fact, part of her mind felt disgusted even touching this book, but it seemed startlingly... clean. Pristine, even.

That was when she realized it was entirely wrapped in plastic, the kind of shrink-wrapping that made it obvious it hadn't been opened since leaving the manufacturer. Once again, her curiosity was piqued, turning it over in her hands to check for some sign that the plastic had been opened before and re-sealed, but its surface was seamless.

"S-SUNSET!"

The book was roughly yanked out of her hands, and she snapped up to see Penn, blushing furiously as he tried fruitlessly to hide the book behind his back. "Wha-What are you doing? What did you see?"

"N-Nothing!" Sunset's own face felt like it was on fire as she realized she'd been caught snooping. "I mean, I saw a book with lots of pretty monster girls on it, but I didn't open it!"

"W-Well, it wasn't what you think!" Penn stammered, rushing past her and shoving the book back into its hiding place. "I swear!"

Sunset's embarrassment faded somewhat as her curiosity began to rise again. "Wait, I mean, there's an obvious reason why you'd have that... but it wasn't open. Why?"

"W-Well- I mean- It's none of your-" Penn kept stammering and cutting himself off and jumping from one attempt at a sentence to the next. Finally he glanced back at the spot he had hidden the book with a mix of shame and regret and let out a long, tired sigh.

"Look, I used to keep stuff like that around for the obvious reasons, but... It's changed. A long time ago, I was in a much unhealthier state of mind, and relied on that kind of stuff to be happy. I knew it wasn't healthy and I was really ashamed of it, but I couldn't see a way out." He sighed again, and Sunset couldn't help seeing the fact that talking about this was like pulling teeth for him. "So... one day, I was so sick and disgusted with myself, I decided I was going to pit my healthy habits and pleasures against my unhealthy ones... and it helped a lot. I didn't feel like I was fighting alone, any more." He chuckled, the hardest part of admitting his prior faults seemingly over. His gaze turned upwards, staring aimlessly at the clouds. "The more I thought about it, the more I visualized it as some great battle... and the more I wanted to see it happen in greater detail. Without anybody out there writing the specific crossover I wanted, I knew that if I wanted to see my personal demons throw down with the characters and series I love the most I was going to have to make it myself. So, I sat down one day and started writing about my favorite Yu-Gi-Oh card and the strongest of those monsters going head to head... and it was just too much fun to stop!"

Sunset's eyes widened as understanding began to dawn on her. "Wait, so you're saying that book..."

"Well, not that one specifically, but that genre in general of 'monster girl' media... is what really kicked off The Multiverse in a Nutshell." Penn chuckled again. "My unhealthiest addiction became a catalyst for one of the healthiest habits I've ever had. Funny, isn't it?" He shrugged his shoulders with a satisfied sigh. "Of course, I couldn't include the ACTUAL first arc I wrote, I don't want people to think I'm some kind of degenerate and this isn't that type of story! But I do keep around a little token to remind me that this all started as a way for me to take back control of my life using the things I love."

"Huh..." Sunset glanced to the spot she now knew the book laid. "Guess that isn't really the reason I was expecting... but it IS ironic, in a funny way." She smirked and raised an eyebrow. "A hundred chapters in, I think most people have a good sense of what this story is about. Any plans to go back to the prototype arc and work it into the canon?"

Penn snorted derisively. "Pfft! Hell no! An alcoholic doesn't toast to his sobriety! It gave me Multiverse, and that's the only good that ever came out of it. I remember my roots, but that doesn't mean I'm anchored to them!" He waved away the idea as he kicked the door shut and walked away from the car. "Let it gather dust for all I care! I replaced all that stuff with Chirac and Baalchion, anyway."

Somewhere, deep in the fortress of Hellgondo, Alipheese Fateburn the Sixteenth gave her tail an annoyed flick.

"Granberia, do you ever feel as though someone, somewhere, is talking about you?"

The dragonkin shot a glare at no one in particular. "With all due respect, your highness, I am certain that humans are speaking of the Monster Lord and her Heavenly Knights at all times somewhere and someplace, and rarely favorably."

Alipheese sighed and let the grain of annoyance go. "I suppose you're correct... But I cannot seem to shake the feeling I've been somehow slighted..." She turned and began to slither in the direction of the royal kitchens. "Perhaps some dango will make me feel better."

"As you wish, your highness..." Granberia rolled her eyes. As usual, the Monster Lord was more concerned with her stomach than anything else.

Penn leaned back in his chair, letting out a long, tired sigh. Time was short. In a couple hours he'd be back to organizing shelves and informing customers that prices at the dollar store weren't negotiable. He hummed to himself as he considered letting the chapter sit for another day so he could brainstorm more on his upcoming shift.

"Nah, I tried that yesterday and had nothing to show for it..." he mumbled to himself. "I think the well of ideas for this one has just gone dry... At least I met my three thousand word minimum."

Still, he didn't feel satisfied. This was the ONE HUNDREDTH CHAPTER of The Multiverse in a Nutshell, a story he had never thought would gain any kind of traction but had accidentally become his greatest achievement on the site! It deserved more panache! More grandeur! More laughs!

But, at the same time... he could see the path onwards stretched out in front of him like a never-ending highway. Years of work and hundreds more chapters awaited, enough to make Chapter 100 feel like only the first step of a hike through Appalachia. Maybe... this was enough. The one thing that could possibly see him through to the end of all this was to pace himself, there was no need for every single milestone to have 120 percent of his ability behind it.

After all, it was, first and foremost, his "stress relief" story.

Still, this didn't seem like the place to stop. It needed something more, something to cap it off...

He snapped his fingers as the idea came to him.

Hello, fellow adventurers!

It's not often that I step out of the narrative like this, but you all know I'm fond of talking to you directly and keeping you in the loop as best I can. For this momentous milestone (because it IS momentous to hit 100 chapters for the first time, no matter HOW long the story is by the end), I just wanted to take the time to thank you all for sticking with this silly little idea of mine for so long.

To those of you who are vocal in the comments or on our discord server, thank you for letting me know you're having a good time and keeping me accountable for my narrative choices! For those of you who have been silently following along, thank you for coming on this journey with me, and I hope you're still enjoying it as much as you did when we first set out together!

Thanks to all of your amazing support, this has become one of my favorite writing projects of all time, and that's even more astounding considering where it came from. I'd bounced around the idea of "multiverse adventurers" for years with a buddy of mine, but I'd dismissed it as something to keep in the realm of running gags until I was struck by the moment of inspiration you all read about above. (Man, it's still harrowing to think that I'm revealing that secret origin of this story. If you don't get the references then for your sake AND mine, please don't google them.)

Now, we're moving into what I consider to be Multiverse's first "Season Finale" with the "Return to Remnant" arc. Until now, the crew have been exploring one universe at a time because that was the pace I felt the story needed to be taken at, but this is going to be the start of seeing franchises and dimensions encroach on each other at a world-altering scale, which was a large portion of my original brainstorming. I'll still have plenty of single-universe arcs, but you should be able to expect more multi-world arcs like this one in the future, as well. Combined with finding the first of the other Rainbooms AND using a universe of my own original design, this is gonna be a BIG one, folks!

But don't expect the story to break into an all-out sprint. We're going to keep moving at the same glacial pace we have been. Refusal to rush to the "good parts" is the reason that this story has succeeded where so many other multi-crossovers have failed, and I WILL remain adamant about going at my own pace. I hope that you'll all keep cruising down this long highway with me to the end of the road.

I couldn't do this without all of you and your encouragement! Seriously.

So, from me, Missy, Isis, Big Sis, Noir, and all the rest of the OCs...

Lots of love! Keep reading, we're just getting started! There's some WILD plans coming up!

Happy adventuring!

-Pennington Inkwell

P.S. - If you're mad about "Desires Dark as Ink," I'm gonna make you even more mad: I actually DID consider writing some smut under another account to link to, but decided against it.

Sunset craned her neck from side to side and pressed her shoulders back, stretching as she walked out onto the set. It felt comfortingly familiar to be in front of cameras again, and the hubbub of people rushing around felt like an elevated version of her previous experiences working on the Equestria Girls movies.

"Man, guess they really are taking this seriously, huh?" she mused.

"That's that big Hollywood money, baby!" Missy chuckled as she floated past. "We're getting the platinum treatment! Have you seen the snack cart?"

"Well, I can't say I'm against it..." Sunset smirked. "But does this really fit? I mean, it's just a fanfic..."

"A fanfic that ropes in properties from most of the biggest franchises in the world!" Missy corrected. "There's a lot of companies involved, and ALL of them want their series to look good!"

"I guess that makes sense, but-"

SCREEEEEEECH!

Sunset was cut off by the sound of squealing tires as a car came roaring into the lot, only barely managing to slide to a stop before knocking over expensive-looking equipment. It was a chrome-plated muscle car, the kind that must have cost a small fortune simply to make a down payment on.

"Wait... what's THAT?" Sunset blinked in confusion as she pointed at the low-riding sports car. "That- that's not supposed to be SYLVIA, is it?"

"Oh, yeah... Apparently they cut a deal with Chevy or something to replace the Oldsmobile with the newest Camaro..." Missy mumbled around a mouthful of food. "Some kind of corporate mumbo jumbo..."

"But- nobody would deliver pizza in THAT!" Sunset cried. She felt a wave of relief wash over her as Penn stepped up beside her, holding a bowl of sugary cereal in one hand. "Penn, this is ridiculous, right? You can't replace Sylvia with that!"

"Actually, I used to work with a guy who did deliveries in a Camaro..." he mumbled thoughtfully. "Never underestimate the debts West Texans will put themselves into for the sake of showing off to their neighbors..."

Before Sunset had the time to pick her jaw up off of the floor, the door to the car opened and a man stepped out. He had the look and complexion of a movie star, and a chiseled body that looked like he had just stepped straight out of the gym. He was wearing one of Penn's signature flower-patterned shirts, but hadn't so much as bothered to button it up past the midpoint of his chest.

"Hey, sorry I'm late!" He called with a friendly wave. "This is where you all wanted the car, right?"

Sunset glanced back and forth between Penn and the actor wearing his clothes several times, trying to believe what she was seeing.

"Huh, Zac Efron?" Missy mused. "I woulda gone with Tom Holland..."

"PENN, NO!"

Author's Note

I think it's pretty self-explanatory none of this is canon. Here's raising a glass to the next hundred chapters!

Meaner Than My Demons

"Ugh... head... hurts..." Sunset mumbled.

"Magnetic resonance imagery indicates no serious damage to your brain, Sunset Shimmer. It appears that you simply overextended yourself. Symptoms should disperse in a matter of hours."

Sunset flinched as Isis's voice spurred a fresh pang of pain among the general throbbing of her skull. Carefully, she opened one eye to look at her surroundings. She was laid across the first row of back seats in the Oldsmobile... but she didn't remember getting in the car. The last thing that she remembered was Penn and Missy holding her up from behind so that she could see... see...

the body.

The DEAD body.

That she had-

Sunset's entire body was suddenly racked by an overwhelming wave of disgust, one that overrode the pain enough for her to fumble and scramble for the door. It was only the act of slamming one hand over her mouth that stopped her from completely emptying the contents of her stomach across the inside of the car. She didn't have a chance to relish the fresh air or even get her feet underneath her before she was heaving up a flood of bile onto the grass, resorting to hanging halfway out of the car. For what felt like ages, she was lost completely in the sensation of hot, burning liquid pouring out of her and the stinging flavor of acid in her mouth and nostrils. From head to toe, her body retched and recoiled over and over in a way that made her want to curl up into a ball and pray until it stopped. She wasn't certain when she fell out of the door and onto the ground, but when the spasming in her gut had finally stopped, she was laying on the ground.

Finally, a pair of firm hands wrapped uncomfortably around her shoulders, pulling her up and setting her onto the seat of the car, still facing outwards. Sunset couldn't even muster the strength to be embarrassed by how much of a mess she had become in front of her friends. Penn kept his grip on her, holding her steady through the shivering and wobbling as her hollowed-out body threatened to collapse. He didn't say a word, but his wide-eyed worry gave her more comfort than words ever could have. As he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, Sunset was struck by one thought above all the rest:

I'm not alone... I'm not alone.

"You're CERTAIN there's no concussion?" Penn asked for the third time.

"Affirmative."

"Because if she has a concussion, we shouldn't have let her go back to sleep..." he murmured.

"There is no concussion."

"Maybe I should wake her up, just in case?"

"She would be best served by being allowed to rest."

"Listen to Isis, Penn. She knows what she's talking about." the voice of his partner whispered, trying to soothe his paranoia.

He pressed his lips tight against each other to hold in his arguments. When it came to health, cooler heads always needed to prevail, and he was self-aware enough to know he wasn't one of them. With what felt like a herculean effort, he forced himself to turn back to the task at hand.

"Okay... so we set up all the different levels of access in BUCKLER, right?"

"Affirmative."

"Then I guess we need to start filling in all the roles. I'm the director, answering directly to Director Coulson... whether I like it or not... Do you mind being Assistant Director, Isis? You've got a better head for management than I do."

"Affirmative. It would be my pleasure."

Penn took a deep breath and sighed with relief. Knowing Isis was his right hand in this affair tripled his confidence that he wouldn't make some kind of stupid mistake.

"In that case... I guess we should make our first assignments, shouldn't we?" He glanced towards the car, checking in the vain hope that Sunset would be awake. "If she'd accept it, Sunset should be our first field agent... assigned to our own team, of course."

"I suppose it would follow suit for Missy to be the second?"

"Missy will be a rank higher. She knows a bit more about other worlds than Sunset, and she can handle a little more... meta knowledge." He smirked. "She plays the naive child, but we all know better than that."

"Affirmative. What designation will be used for this team, director?"

"Well, the RWBY girls already call us Team SIEG... but I'd prefer something that didn't use my real name in the acronym." He thought for a moment, pondering the question in his mind. "Any ideas?"

"While there are several technical designations that could and have been used, Administrator Noir collectively refers to your party as 'Penn and the crew.' Would this be suitable as a code name?"

"Maybe we can just shorten it to 'The Crew...' Seems succinct enough, kinda catchy. I like it." He chuckled. "The Multiverse Crew... That's us."

Stabbing, searing pain ripped through Sunset's abdomen. She couldn't think about anything else except the feeling of the saber in her gut, burning away at her insides. She tried to scream, but her diaphragm wouldn't move. She tried to look around for help, but all she could see were the red eyes locked with her own.

She could feel the life draining out of her body, already past the point of no return. It was only a matter of time now...

She was dying.

Dying.

Dyin-

Sunset bolted up, grabbing at her stomach. She was covered in a cold sweat and gasping for breath as the last of the phantom pain from her nightmare faded.

She looked around the tent, trying to center herself in the present. She was in the tent. The space heater was softly buzzing in the corner, making the whole space uncomfortably warm. Missy was starting to sit up as well, rubbing at her eyes.

"Mmph... Sunset? Is everything-" she paused to yawn with a soft squeak, "Is everything okay?"

Sunset took a deep breath, trying to force down the tremble in her hand as she smiled.

"Y-Yeah, Missy. I just gotta use the bathroom. Go back to sleep."

Missy nodded and laid back down, pulling her sleeping bag back over herself.

Sunset reached over and pulled on her jacket, braced herself for a drop in temperature, and swiftly stepped outside into the snow. She could feel it in her gut: she wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep until she had calmed her racing heart, and she needed fresh air for that.

The shock of transitioning from warm to cold finally washed away the last of her physical symptoms from the night terrors. She cringed when the cold air hit the sweat on her skin before wiping away the remainder from her face on her jacket sleeve.

She'd been expecting it to be completely dark outside, but to her surprise, the spot they had cleared for the night's campfire was burning brightly, with Penn poking absentmindedly at the coals near the base. He looked up, seeming equally surprised to see her awake as she was to see him.

Sunset wasn't sure what to say, so she simply walked over and took a seat beside him by the fire. It was almost a full minute before Penn spoke.

"Can't sleep?"

Sunset nodded. "Eeyup..."

"Welcome to the club."

Silence fell again, neither of them pushing the other to talk about why they were awake. There was only the crackling of the fire and the sound of their breathing. It was... a comfortable quiet. No pressures, no urgency, just the flicker of firelight. She took long, deep breaths, letting the scent of wood smoke mingle with the crispness of the winter night and wash away the last remnants of her anxiety. As her adrenaline finally thinned out to nothing, she felt exhaustion creep in, making it feel like her body was filled with lead. After a while of pondering, she finally let herself lean on Penn's shoulder, feeling sleep already tugging at her eyelids.

She wasn't sure when she dozed off again, but the next sensation she was aware of was an arm around her shoulders guiding her back to the tent, and then darkness.

Sunset couldn't bring herself to eat. She simply sat and stared at the plate, only pushing her food from side to side.

"Sunny? You feeling okay?" Penn asked. His question felt like a dagger of guilt. He had been making food for her for so long, and here she was, wasting it.

"S-Sorry, just... not hungry." Sunset offered her plate to Missy, who only stared at the food, then moved her gaze up to meet Sunset's eyes. The look of pity in them made it clear that she wasn't going to take Sunset's leftovers again.

Penn glanced away, his eyes shifting several times as he jumped from one thought to the next before settling on his next words. "Sunset, we're almost back to Remnant... you need to keep your strength up."

"I'll be fine," Sunset mumbled.

"That's MY line..." Penn countered, "and I deliver it more convincingly." He gave a long, tired-sounding sigh as he straightened in his seat. "Missy? Could you and Isis do me a favor?"

Missy perked up slightly, tilting her head in confusion. "What?"

"I want you two to go check on Salem's remains. Make sure they're still completely inert. Check for any magical aura or signs she might be coming back now that we're only a day's drive from her home dimension." He pointed a chiding finger at the duel spirit. "And run diagnostics on every. system. No eyeballing it!"

"But that'll take an hour!" Missy whined. "And it's cold out! Can't Isis just do it herself?"

"If there's any magic afoot, I want you on top of it while the systems could potentially be compromised." Penn stood firm. "And the sooner you start, the sooner it'll finish."

Missy grumbled unintelligibly under her breath as she spread her wings and picked up Isis's drone. Together, the two of them left the night's campfire behind and flew away into the darkness. Penn watched them carefully, making certain that they were out of earshot before turning back to Sunset. In his eyes, she could see the same quiet resignation that was always present before he needed to do something tiresome.

"I didn't want to do this..." he muttered, setting aside his plate. "But you've forced my hand, Sunset." He leaned forward, his eyes locking with hers in a way that made her shift uncomfortably in her seat. He ignored her discomfort, and Sunset felt like he was trying to scrutinize her soul through her eyes, but she forced herself to keep the eye contact... if only to know what it was he would find. After a few seconds of this uncomfortable eye contact, Penn spoke again.

"Aperture."

Sunset finally blinked, caught off-guard by the unexpected word. Penn seemed to recognize that she was confused, making a disbelieving gesture with his hand.

"What? Did you forget that promise goes both ways? I'm invoking the Aperture agreement: No acting tough and going it alone, not for either of us." He shook his head. "Now, I want you to tell me what's bothering you, and we'll work through it together."

Sunset didn't want to talk. She REALLY didn't want to talk, but... a promise was a promise.

"I... I just haven't- I-" Sunset stammered, finding herself unable to gather her thoughts. Finally, she just dropped her face into her hands in defeat. "I- I don't know..."

They both sat in silence for several seconds, and Sunset knew that Penn was waiting for her to continue. Still, she couldn't collect herself enough to put together the thoughts that were plaguing her... or maybe she simply couldn't bring herself to verbalize it.

"Sunset... you've been like this ever since you finished off Sa-"

"Killed Salem." Sunset corrected.

Penn paused, taking the time to process much more from those two words than she had intended. He took a long sip from his steaming thermos, clearly pondering the words deeply.

"I was afraid it was that." He made the statement simply and in the most matter-of-fact manner.

He'd known what was wrong. Of COURSE he'd known. Sunset felt indignation welling up, ready to yell at him to let her have her privacy, but he was already talking over her... and his next words threw her for a loop.

"I'm sorry, Sunset... I couldn't stop Salem myself, and you had to do something unthinkable." He shook his head. "I'm sure you've already tried to justify it to yourself as being self-defense, but-"

"But she was starting to understand..." Sunset felt a lump growing in her throat. "The only way we COULD have beaten her was to make her understand..." she reached down to her own thermos, cracking open the lid and letting a cloud of steam rush up into her face. "I just- I think we could have saved her, and instead-" Sunset felt another swell of bile in her throat, and she quickly rinsed it back down with a sip of warm cider. "I- I murdered her... I used my magic to murder her. Equestrian magic... Our magic..." her eyes widened as a wave of dread crashed into her. "Oh Celestia... what will the other girls think?" She looked down at her hands, hardly able to believe the amount of blood that was on them. Aliens', AI spheres', dragons', Grimm's... and now human's. Whatever kind of 'human' Salem qualified as.

Silence fell again. Penn took another long sip from his thermos, wiping a trickle of black liquid from the corner of his mouth.

"Sunset... Salem wouldn't have changed."

"But-"

"Sunset. We are talking about a woman who has been fully devoted to the destruction of civilization for MILLENNIA." Penn scowled into his drink. "What you did was give her a fleeting moment of clarity, and leveraged it into an opening to save our lives."

"But- I KILLED her! There HAD to have been another way, right?"

Penn flinched back slightly when she raised her voice, but his face settled moments later into a stony frown. "Can YOU think of one? Even now, with hindsight on your side?" Sunset immediately opened her mouth to speak, but he locked his eyes on hers again, causing her to hesitate.

"And no, you couldn't have made that fleeting moment of empathy permanent. Salem's rage lasted MILLENNIA, and you almost had an aneurysm holding her psychopathy back for a matter of seconds." He raised an eyebrow. "With that fact established, what other way was there?"

Sunset's mouth was still hanging open in anticipation of the delivery of a scathing argument... but nothing came. She raked her mind, but no alternative to stop Salem's pursuit came. After a full minute of raking her brain, Sunset settled back into her seat.

"Sunset, I know you're not the religious type, but..." he hesitated for a moment, clearly deliberating his choice of words, "in my religious beliefs and most others, murder is considered one of the most grievous of sins... but killing isn't always murder." He became tight-lipped for another moment as he considered his words even more carefully. "There are things that a good person has to fight for. The times that killing could be considered acceptable are incredibly, exceedingly rare, but... perhaps the most common one is when you're protecting your family." He finally rose up out of his seat, settling next to her and giving her shoulder a strong squeeze.

"It may be a bit of an unorthodox adoption process, but I DO think of you as family, Sunset. I don't regret a single thing I've ever done to protect our little road trip family, and I don't think you should, either."

Sunset was shaking, now, trying her best to hold back tears of relief. Something about the certainty in his words made her feel more sure of herself than she had been in days, like setting her feet on solid ground for the first time in ages.

"Are- Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." Penn gave her shoulder one more squeeze. She couldn't say that she didn't still feel sick with herself, but Penn's words and absolute certainty had relieved a weight from her shoulders. She looked back down at her plate, managing to scoop up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and shove it into her mouth. It was cold by now, but the presence of food seemed to rile up her stomach enough to demand more.

Penn gave her an easygoing smile, as if Sunset couldn't see how he was watching her every bite like a hawk. If it had been anyone else watching her that closely, Sunset would have found it unsettling. In this case, she knew him well enough to know that he was just making certain she was taken care of, and that brought a strange comfort to her.

"You know... when we first set out, you told me that if we took care of Sylvia, she'd take care of us," Sunset smiled and handed him her plate, taking a moment to flip it upside down to emphasize the fact that it was now empty. "That doesn't just apply to cars, does it?"

Penn smiled wider and shrugged, adding her plate to the pile of dishes to be washed.

"Nah, I was just talking about regular car maintenance. But if you wanna make something more out of it, go nuts." He snickered at his own flippant tone, and Sunset couldn't help joining him with a slight giggle.

"Of course... I guess I shouldn't attribute deep philosophy to the pizza guy, huh?"

"Exactly."

Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself, taking the time to watch the white steam from her breath disperse. She glanced over her shoulder, then to the left and to the right, peering as best she could into the semi-darkness of the moonlight. She'd asked the others for some "alone time," but she knew Penn well enough to know he would be weighing her privacy against her safety, and there wasn't any assurance he would leave her completely on her own for long. As for Missy, there was no telling how many of her thoughts were completely kept to herself.

There wasn't time to procrastinate or brace herself.

"Isis... bring her out, please."

There was only a soft crunch of snow and the whirring of servos as Isis's oversized drone stepped out into the moonlight. After a few seconds, it sat down on its haunches to expose its glass underbelly. The charred remains inside rattled around unceremoniously before collecting at the bottom in a pile. There wasn't any sign of change in them, which both relieved her and sent a pang of regret through her heart. There really isn't any undoing what's done...

She pressed her hand against the glass, took another deep breath... and forced out the message she wished she could communicate to Salem, wherever she was.

"I'm not sorry for what I did."

She grimaced at the calloused words coming from her own mouth. They felt cruel to say, but more importantly, they were true.

"I'm sorry that I felt like I had to do it... but I'm not sorry I did it."

It was easier to say the second time.

"If you really had been watching us, then you ought to have known how far we'd all go to protect each other... Especially after everything that's happened." She narrowed her eyes. "That was what I had to think about the most, you know. Before I left CHS, the idea of killing someone would have been... completely incomprehensible to me." She shook her head. "But then I lost my friends... and my whole world, actually." She shuddered, but held back the emotions threatening to overtake her. "That's... the first time I've really said that. I've said that I lost my friends, but... I was thrown by the side of the road in a whole other world, with nothing but the shirt on my back what I had in my pockets. I lost EVERYTHING for reasons I still don't understand!" She took a long, shuddering breath as a sob threatened to burst past and shatter her composure. She turned her back on the glass case, taking in multiple lungfuls of the cold night air until she was in control of herself again.

"Since then, I have had to fight... constantly... to keep what few friends I've made from dying- because that's my life now, instead of magic mirrors or siren's songs I have to worry about watching the ones I love get murdered right in front of my eyes..." She pressed her palm against her forehead. "And that's changed me... No matter what kind of image I'm supposed to live up to or 'kid-friendly' person I'm supposed to be, I don't think that I can ever go back to being the same person I was when this all started."

She narrowed her eyes to glare at the pile of dismembered pieces of charcoal that were formerly Salem.

"In a way, I think that-" she nearly choked on her next words, but for the sake of this newfound honesty about her situation she forced it through, "killing you was what it took for me to finally take a long look at myself and what I've become to survive... What lines I'm willing and not willing to cross." She reached down to her waist, holding her saber in her hand and staring at it. "I don't ever want to do this again, and I promise I'll do everything in my power to make sure I don't."

She sighed and turned back towards the camp, leaving Salem's remains behind her.

"I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I think I feel more ready for it now. So... thanks for that, I guess. I hope you find some kind of peace on the other side."

Penn was writing... or, at least, he was trying to.

MAKE IT CHANGE IT BURN IT ALL DOWN AND BUILD IT BACK UP MAKE IT ALL OVER AGAIN

He was trying to block out Bendy's glee at having something to make and manipulate again, but the ink demon's voice was deafening. The monster's excitement was enough to make his fingers seize and curl, making typing impossible. After a few seconds he finally reached up and slammed the laptop shut, tossing it fruitlessly onto the passenger seat. The computer passed harmlessly through her incorporeal body and onto the cushion. She'd made her peace with not being able to be there a while ago, but it still frustrated her a little to have so little impact on her world around her. It hurt her to see him unable to do something so important to him, and his anger left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"This is impossible..." he muttered.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I thought you always said impossible is a dirty word?"

"Yeah, well, I'll eat some soap later." He rolled his eyes before giving her a sideways glance. "It's not like I can use any other dirty words around the girls. Every time I try, I either get bleeped, drowned out, or something hits me on the head. I'm starting to think Sunset's got some anti-curse aura!" He gave a long, tired sigh before reclining in his seat and closing his eyes. He looked relaxed, but his clenched fists revealed otherwise. "I just... need to calm down for a while. "

He was making jokes, but she could feel his heart breaking with the disappointment of another day putting off doing the thing he loved the most. He couldn't keep going like this, as much as he refused to admit it. He NEEDED that outlet... and for once, she might be able to do something to help him.

"Hey, I'll be right back." She let her grasp on the world around her start to fade. ""I'm going to have a little talk with our guest."

That made him straighten up, but a glare from her was enough to stem the tide of objections he was about to throw her way. He struggled with what to say for a moment before finally giving in.

"Just... be careful, okay? I don't want to risk losing you again, partner."

She smiled, feeling a smidge of warmth in her heart at how he was worried about her. As she let her concentration fade, she allowed herself to be pulled back out of "reality" and into a world much more easily accessible to her.

Once she was situated in Penn's dreamscape, she took a deep breath in through her nose. The air was heavy and dense, like just before a summer thunderstorm, and the thick gray clouds blotting out the sun confirmed his current state of anxiety.

With their mutual trust, she only needed to think for a moment before a doorway to her desired location appeared, and she stepped through.

The Forgotten Shores were still healing from what Salem had done to them during her visit, but at a surface level, they were back to their former glory... aside from one very unwelcome sight. There, on the closest of the sandbars, was an emaciated black figure, grinning from nonexistent ear to nonexistent ear in spite of the chains wrapping him from head to toe.

She didn't hesitate to spread her wings and glide down to the ink demon, settling with her best, most authentic glare of frustration as she came to a landing.

"Hey, could you do us all a favor and SHUT UP?"

The demon tilted its head and its smile somehow grew even wider, now beginning to wrap entirely around its head.

"Time is on my side. He cannot abstain forever, and when he chooses to create again-"

She raised a skeptical eyebrow and reached up, grabbing the demon's upper and lower lips and gripping them shut with her hand.

"You REALLY don't get the meaning of the words 'shut up,' do you?" She used her other hand to gesture to the area around them. "Let me explain to you EXACTLY what the situation you're in is. THIS little section of Penn's brain is what I lovingly refer to as 'The Forgotten Shore.' Do you know WHY I call it that?" She let go and, after a moment of making sure the Ink Demon wasn't going to interrupt her, scooped up a handful of sand and water from beneath their feet. "A human's senses never switch off, barring something being wrong with their health. That means that the brain has a CONSTANT feed of information that doesn't usually matter." She began to tilt her hand, first letting the water run off, then the sand after that. "The sound of their own heartbeat. The taste of the meal they ate three hours ago. The feeling of every inch of skin rubbing against the fabric of their clothing... It's all garbage, static, white noise." Just to emphasize how NON-threatening he was while being held prisoner, she walked past him and began to wade into the water, enjoying the sensation of it washing over her scales and leg.

"Even less obscure things, like the highway sign he read three miles back or the song he was listening to two spots back in his playlist... if it doesn't matter, it comes here." She chuckled and kicked backwards, sending a splash up onto the demon. "As a creature who doesn't really get to experience the world in the same way he does, I come here pretty often, just to partake in those fleeting sensations before they disappear... but disappear they do." Her point made, she waded back up onto the beach to address the demon again. "And the longer we keep you here, the more of YOU that's going to disappear, too."

The demon chuckled, but she could see the corners of his grin beginning to falter and turn inwards. She was right, and both of them knew it.

"Honestly, I'm okay with that. After everything you put us through, I would find watching your existence erode away to nothing delicious."

The demon's grin faded further, but the slip of its confidence lasted only a moment before its smug demeanor returned.

"Outliving an original won't make you any less of a REPRINT."

This time, it was her own mask that slipped. She lashed out, teeth bared as she wrapped her hand around its throat. For a moment, the two of them stood completely frozen like that, with her ready to snap Bendy's neck for his words. His smile was back in full force, letting out a throaty chuckle.

It would have been so easy to snap his neck then and there like a twig... but that would be admitting that he had gotten under her skin.

"Oooh, clever... Like that's not the most obvious way to get a rise out of me." She tightened her grip, relishing the feeling of the inky flesh squishing and distending under her fingers before she finally forced herself to release it. "I made my peace with the fact I'm not the 'original' card spirit a long time ago. That means I get to reinvent myself however I want. Different pronouns, different personality, and the chance to have a partner who went out of his way to choose me because he actually VALUES me." She made a point of rolling all of her eyes at once, just to drive home that she felt no need to keep all of her attention on Bendy. "So yeah, I might be a reprint, but at least I'm WANTED. Remind me what WAS written on half the walls in that studio you were left to rot in? 'The creator lied to us,' I believe?" She motioned to where they were standing yet again. "And as much as I'd enjoy continuing to rub that in your face until you dissolve away into nothing like a conceptual jawbreaker... I'm here because that's not going to work out for us in the near-future."

The demon's head went from tilting to one side to tilting the other, indicating that he was listening intently.

"Despite my best efforts to convince him to do literally ANYTHING else, Penn is about to throw himself into the middle of a conflict between two gods and possibly risk blowing another universe's timeline to smithereens. If he's going to have any chance of making it through this intact..." she gestured between the two of them, "which is necessary for BOTH of our continued existences, might I add, then we're going to need him able to think and function at one hundred percent." She placed one hand on her hip and sighed as she got to the part she wasn't looking forward to about this conversation. "So... listen. I want to propose a truce... or maybe more of a stalemate, if you hate the idea of calling each other allies as much as I do. If you will SHUT UP and just let Penn think straight without trying to hijack his existence every waking moment, then I will move you to someplace where you can safely... watch."

"Why watch what I can-"

"Because you're NOT going to own it! You're not going to remake Penn or Sunset or ANYTHING!" She pressed her palm to her forehead. "Get it through your head, there is NO winning for you, here! You will NEVER see the light of day again! Penn will wrap his car around a telephone pole, throw himself down a trap hole, do ANYTHING to avoid letting you out again! What I am offering you is a LIFELINE in exchange for you to just SIT THERE with that DUMB SMILE and NOT. SAY. ANYTHING!" She drove the claw on her pointer finger directly into the center of the demon's face. "You can wait for your opening that will never come, see what a creator who CARES about the things he makes actually looks like, and maybe, just maybe, you might learn something from watching a good person at work!"

They both stared at one another for what felt like a long time, and she could practically hear the gears in his head turning.

"...stalemate, then."

She smiled and grabbed hold of the chains wrapped around the ink demon's body, beginning to drag him further into the shore and towards the gateway. "I'd shake your hand, but... well, we both know you're not getting untied any time soon. We'll consider it a gentledemon's agreement." She paused to think at the threshold of the doorway. "I mean, if you try anything funny, I'll personally re-scatter you across Penn's memory and make sure you never have enough teeth to smile again, but none of us need to go through that racket right now. Why don't we start with a trip to the movies? When Penn gets into the zone, his imagination can get pretty wild to watch while he's writing."

Despite the faux affability, the tension in the air was undeniable. This wasn't a truce, and both parties were well aware of it. This was a stalemate, a duel that was settling into the long game. Each of them was going to take time to regroup, gather their strength, and then come at the other again at full force.

But she'd managed to get back the thing that mattered most to her partner, and for the moment, being able to make that difference made her feel invincible.

Sunset watched Penn strut around the campsite with what she could only describe as an "extra pep in his step." He was smiling and happy, and the laptop tucked under his arm made it clear why he was in such a good mood.

"So, when am I going to get to see what story you're working on?"

Penn froze in place mid-step before slowly turning to face her by swiveling in place.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't been working on anything..."

"Riiiight." Missy grinned as she floated past. "That's why you were awake typing away at three A.M. and have practically had your laptop surgically grafted onto your arm... Working on nothing."

Penn slowly and deliberately moved his laptop to hide it behind his back.

"Yuuuuup... working on absolutely nothing."

Sunset and Missy both glanced at each other, one disbelieving and the other mischievous.

"So then you won't mind if we juuuuust... take a look at your works-in-progress folder and sort by date?" Missy asked.

Penn's eyes widened and he mockingly covered his crotch with the laptop, made even funnier by the fact that, even far enough south to have left the snow cover behind, they were all wearing multiple layers of clothing to fend off the cold. "Missy! You can't just go exposing a writer like that!"

Missy rolled her eyes. "Right, I forgot, that's for Patreon sponsors only."

Sunset chuckled. "What if we just ask Isis to show us?"

"Isis wouldn't betray me like that!" Penn smirked. "And you're never going to guess my password, anyway."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Absol359uteTerritory."

Both of them burst out laughing as his smile disappeared and the little remaining color in his cheeks vanished. He looked down at his laptop for several seconds before sulking off in the direction of the car, muttering under his breath. "Great, now I gotta change it again..."

The two of them continued laughing as he slunk out of sight to hide his laptop (under the third row of Sylvia's seats, on the driver's side, Sunset already knew). As they laughed, however, Sunset's phone began to vibrate and ring in her pocket. Still riding the high of her laughter, she reached into her pocket.

"Y-yeah? What is it, Isis?"

"A situation has arisen in the containment unit for Salem's remains."

Both Sunset and Missy stopped laughing immediately. Sunset's heart was pounding in her chest as she raised her phone up with a trembling hand. Displayed on the screen was a picture of Salem, her body intact and completely healed as she twisted awkwardly to fit into the containment chamber. She was staring directly at the camera, and deliberately raised one hand into the air. She pointed upwards with one finger and began to spin it in the air, trailed by a faint white wisp of magic clearly intended to be an improvised white flag.

"She claims that she wishes to declare a truce."

"But... how?" Sunset whispered.

"A truce? A truce?" Missy seethed through clenched teeth. "Is this some kind of sick JOKE?"

They were both so caught up in their disbelief, they almost didn't notice when Penn came back, ceremoniously dusting off his hands. "There! I'd like to see you figure THIS one out!" He paused, noticing the two of them staring at Sunset's phone. "What's going on? You look like you've just seen a ghost!"

Sunset and Missy both looked at one another, clearly each hoping that the other would take the unfortunate responsibility of telling Penn the news. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Sunset took a deep breath and held out her phone for him.

"You're not going to believe this..." Sunset watched Penn's expression carefully as he took in the sight on the screen. "But according to Isis... she wants a truce."

Sunset watched him cycle through a rapid gamut of emotions. Shock, terror, anger, and then absolute fury all intermingled and alternated on his face, and his grip on her phone became white-knuckled and began to tremble. For a moment, Sunset worried that her phone was about to be crushed in his grip, but after what felt like ages he finally closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, and then let it out.

"Why won't she just die?" he muttered bitterly.

"So... what are we going to do?" Missy asked. "We're, what, a day from Remnant? I say we just keep her locked up in there and turn her over to Ozpin like a Christmas present."

"Ignoring her could be dangerous, though..." Sunset replied. "I mean, she was willing to chase us to the ends of the Earth before, it probably wouldn't be wise to give her MORE reasons to hate us. Maybe she really HAS changed? Either way, shouldn't we at least give her a chance to talk?"

Both of them looked at Penn. His eyes were still closed, but she could tell his brain was moving, turning gears at a rate that was probably threatening to self-destruct.

"I know... I know..." he muttered to no one. "But Sunset's got a point... If we ignore her, she could pull a Maleficent." He paused again. "Of course I don't WANT to, but if she really HAS managed to come back, we clearly aren't going to win with any plan that either of US can concoct..." He flinched slightly to the side, as if someone had yelled in his ear. "Well, do you have any BETTER ideas?"

Sunset shivered as she felt a wave of hot malice wash through the air, an aura that she recognized. Her suspicions of what was happening here were affirmed when Missy raised her eyebrows and directed her gaze at a spot just over Penn's shoulder.

"Wow, sis, so much for not using that kind of language in front of ME, huh?"

One of Penn's eyes cracked open, momentarily flashing them both with sickly orange light before returning to his normal blue. Missy jumped up into the air, clearly offended at some unheard remark.

"It's not eavesdropping when you're talking RIGHT in front of me!"

After another few seconds, Penn sighed and gripped at his head with one hand, exhausted by whatever inaudible argument he'd just finished.

"Fine... we're not going to let her out, but let's see what Salem has to say for herself." He sighed with resignation as he turned and began to trudge out of camp. "But this doesn't mean I'm not going to have Isis just drop her in a volcano, or something..."

Sunset and Missy both glanced at each other again before standing up to follow him. Missy gave a forlorn groan as she floated beside sunset.

"Man... and we were having such a nice morning, too."

The Enemy (Mine) of my Enemy

There was tension in the air as the group approached the area where Isis's containment chamber was waiting for them.

Missy was uncharacteristically serious, having her glare already prepared for when she saw Salem again, and she was flanked by Alucard and Warwolf, both ready for a fight.

Isis was on high alert, with her repair drone perched on Penn's shoulder in a ready position. Numerous panels across her body had opened up to reveal scanners and probes of every kind monitoring the situation for any changes.

Penn was... hard to read. He was frowning, but his eyes were locked on the ground at his feet, only occasionally looking up to make sure he wasn't going to run into anything. He was lagging slightly behind everyone else, but every few seconds he would redouble his pace and catch up to walk abreast with Sunset, only to rapidly fall behind again.

Finally, Sunset herself was feeling a deep trepidation at just who they were about to see... but she couldn't help feeling a slight undercurrent of relief now that her "murderer" status had been revoked. If Salem was claiming to want a truce, that meant that there was a chance that this could finally be resolved peacefully. Still... that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep one hand on my saber.

As the group entered the clearing where the containment drone was waiting, Sunset felt her whole body tense. Everything was exactly as they'd predicted it would be, but it still felt like a shock when she saw Salem sitting and waiting for them inside of the glass chamber. The witch hardly seemed anything more than annoyed with the situation, only giving them a tired look as they slowly walked up to the glass. Sunset could see her mouth moving, but no sound escaped the prison.

"She is inquiring whether or not you are going to release her so that you can communicate clearly."

"No," Penn growled. "We're not."

"We're fine with you relaying things, Isis," Sunset clarified. "We don't want to take that risk, yet."

"Yet?" Missy raised an eyebrow.

"We're supposed to be here to negotiate, I'm just trying to keep an open mind-"

Ting! Ting! Ting!

Sunset was cut off by the sound of Salem knocking on the glass to draw their attention. She began to soundlessly speak again.

"She is attempting to assure you that she is no longer interested in fighting, and that you will be safe."

There was a brief pause as Salem rolled her eyes and continued speaking.

"She wishes to also make it known that her current situation his highly uncomfortable."

"Oh, right, like we're just going to TRUST HER that she doesn't want us all DEAD after what happened?" Missy huffed.

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine as Salem's eyes locked on Penn, forcing him into eye contact.

"She claims that Penn can attest to her veracity. She says, quote, 'I am not Ozpin. Have I ever been anything but upfront with you?'"

Sunset glanced at Penn, trying to read his expression. It looked like Salem's words had instantly gotten under his skin.

"I..." he trailed off. "I guess, technically... no..."

Sunset glanced back at Isis just in time to see Salem finishing another sentence, this time easily readable on her lips.

Let. Me. Out. Three words, accompanied by the second most intimidating death glare she had ever seen. Penn flinched back, clearly afraid. She could see his willpower crumbling in real time.

"I-Isis, go ahead and-"

"Keep it shut tight." Sunset cut him off. Without a word, she stepped between Penn and Salem, breaking their line of sight. She took a moment to level her own glare at the witch. "You REALLY think that kind of bullying is really going to work? Right in front of the rest of us? If you're going to insult us, we can just leave you in there until we hand you over to Professor Ozpin."

Salem looked surprised for only a moment at Sunset's principled stand. After a moment of staring between the two of them, Salem sighed and turned away.

"Now, with that established..." Sunset glanced behind her, where Penn was giving her a grateful look. She nodded, silently reassuring him that he wasn't in this alone. "If you want to negotiate, we need a good reason to give up the fact that we're coming into this from a position of power. A show of good faith like that isn't something you just get for free."

Salem gestured with her empty hands, showing that she didn't have anything to offer them.

"Apologize."

There was a pause, Salem seeming to be taken aback at Sunset's demand, then bemused. Her mouth began to move again.

"She wishes for clarification. You are willing to sacrifice your tactical advantage of her containment in exchange for... an apology?"

Sunset narrowed her gaze, knowing that Salem was obviously not taking her demand seriously. "She just tried to leverage the damage she dealt to Penn's psyche to her advantage. What I want is an apology to Penn for that damage." She turned back to look at her friends, who were both slack-jawed. "She was the one who said she didn't WANT to torture you the way she did, claimed that it was soooo barbaric! If she can genuinely apologize for what she did, I'll be willing to believe her enough to let her out of the jar."

"You're a lot more trusting than me..." Missy grumbled as she folded her arms over her chest. "If she doesn't keep her word, we're gonna be back at square one and without backup!"

"Sunset... I think Missy's right about this..." Penn whispered. "Now that I see her face-to-face again, I REALLY don't want to do this whole 'truce' thing any more..." Sunset glanced down at his hands, noticing that they were shaking with fear as he wrung them. She reached out, taking a firm grip on them both, and looked straight into his eyes.

"I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. She's never going to hurt you again. Can you trust me?"

"Th-that's an awful lot of trust to ask for..." Penn stammered, giving her hands a squeeze.

"A chance for peace with her isn't something we can afford to lose." Sunset glanced back over her shoulder, where Salem was watching them with a critical look on her face. "And I know it doesn't SEEM like she could ever change, but... I still can't get over what I felt when we were connected. I think there's a chance, but if we're ever going to see it happen, we have to be willing to give her that chance!"

Penn looked at her, then at Salem, then down at the ground.

"I... I can't- I don't-" He stammered and struggled before finally bowing his head in defeat. "Sunset... I hope you understand how much I'm trusting you."

Sunset nodded, giving his hands one last squeeze before letting go and approaching the glass container again. She folded her arms, waiting expectantly for the response to her proposal. "Well?"

Salem observed them for another moment, her face caught somewhere between bemusement and curiosity. Finally, after several seconds of pondering, she spoke again.

"She says that she cannot give you the apology you have asked for, as she is not sorry for taking the actions that she believed were necessary."

Salem's gaze turned to Sunset, putting a layer of frost over her insides.

"She says that you should be intimately familiar with the concept."

She... heard me that night? Sunset unconsciously began to take a step back out of shock, but caught herself before the show of weakness. Despite being the one in a cage, Salem's sheer presence was dominating the conversation with little effort.

"Then we have no choice but to distrust her word." Sunset let the declaration hang, making it clear that she was not going to yield any further on the matter of Salem's release.

All was quiet for the moment as both sides pondered any possible alternatives.

"Why does she even want to make a truce with us, to begin with?" Missy grumbled. "She seemed pretty intent on ending us all as painfully as possible just a few days ago..."

Salem turned her gaze on Missy, the two appearing equally annoyed with one another.

"She claims that you have proven yourselves to be more trouble than you are worth."

Sunset felt a flicker of familiarity in the back of her mind, and she glanced back at Penn.

"What is it you told me in Aperture? Sometimes surviving means making someone want you gone..."

"...more than they want you dead." Penn finished. He glanced at Salem over her shoulder for a moment, as if inspecting her for some tell of what she was thinking. "You think she's thinking like GLaDOS?"

"You're the one who says not to underestimate how smart she is, and GLaDOS was technically one of the smartest enemies we've ever had, right?" Sunset turned back to Salem. "If you don't want to kill us, what are you going to do if we let you out?"

Salem began to soundlessly speak again.

"She says that Penn is already aware of her plans for after leaving her home universe."

Sunset looked at Penn, noticing a melancholy look on his face, now. "She wants to find her world's creator... to change Remnant to be the way that she wants it to be."

Sunset's eyes widened. "Well, we can't let that happen, right?"

Penn took a deep breath, then shook his head. "It's not going to matter."

"It's not going to MATTER?" Missy asked, incredulous at his apparent lack of concern. "Why wouldn't it-"

"Because he's gone." Penn stated quietly. "He passed away in an accident early in the series' run. Even if she found the team behind the show, I doubt they could change anything as fundamental as she wants."

Silence fell as everyone, even Salem, was taken aback. Penn finally looked up and looked her in the eye again. "And I know that you can tell when I'm lying, so you know I'm being honest with you."

He and Salem stared at one another, clearly inspecting one another for signs of duplicity. Finally, Salem seemed to sigh and recline slightly in her prison, looking up at the sky.

"'Then perhaps,' she says, 'I will explore this new wider world. I will be leaving no unfinished progress behind in Remnant, thanks to Penn's efforts.'"

Makes sense... I doubt there's anything left in Remnant she hasn't seen in all her years... Sunset thought.

Missy, however, crossed her arms and continued to glare. "You mean 'go find allies in other universes to help you take over Remnant?'"

"'Naturally.'"

"Not going to be much help if there isn't a Remnant left to go back and remake, is it?" Missy quipped. This seemed to catch Salem's attention more than anything, and she tried her best to sit up in her cramped space.

"She demands clarification."

"Oh? You haven't heard?" Missy put her hands on her hips and grinned, clearly enjoying the feeling of knowing more than their enemy. "An army of darkness trying to rewind existence back to the big bang is invading Remnant as we speak! That's why we're headed back, to stop them!"

Salem pondered the new information for a few seconds, clearly at odds with herself about something. Finally, she seemed to sigh and resign herself to whatever she was thinking.

"She says that, in that case, this ceasefire would be well-timed. If you all struggled so greatly with her, you stand no chance of stopping an entire 'army of darkness.'"

"Wait... is she saying what I think she's saying?" Sunset asked.

Penn reached up, beginning to rub a point at the center of his forehead. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no...."

"She wants a TEAM-UP? After ALL THIS? After EVERYTHING she put us through?" Missy cried. Behind her, Alucard pummeled his fist into his palm, and Warwolf growled and bared his fangs, both mimicking their leader's fury. "NO WAY!"

Sunset glanced at Penn, waiting for his thoughts. "Listen, if you don't want to do this, we don't have to, but... the way you talked about it, we-"

"-we need as much help as we can get..." Penn muttered, finishing her sentence.

Missy darted around in front, positioning herself between them and Salem. "Um, excuse me? We've already GOT a magic caster on this team! We don't NEED her! What am I, chopped kuriboh?"

Sunset was going to try and assuage Missy's bruised ego, but Isis spoke up first.

"She wishes to make another offer: upon release, she will tell you how she came into the possession of the Earthbound Immortal Uru card and the message that was given along with it."

Missy's face grew pale as Salem's mention of the other card spirit took all of the wind out of her sails. However, seeing the target of her manipulation change seemed to embolden Penn, who stepped forward and pulled Missy away from the container.

"Information first."

Salem rolled her eyes again, but her exasperation with the entire situation seemed to work to their benefit, as she didn't attempt to argue.

"She says that after your trap card banished her into another dimension, she found herself in a world of darkness. She wandered there for a time before encountering a young man who called himself Joshua-"

Sunset's breath caught in her throat and she felt her heart seize with fear.

"The two of them exchanged tales of how they had come to be in that place, and found themselves with mutual enemies. He offered her the card, explaining that it was the strength of her will that would empower it. She did not believe him at first, until he summoned his own 'titanic beast of flame.' The power of both their card spirits was enough to open a tear in the dark plane, and Joshua told her to pass the following message to Penn before they went their separate ways: 'I want a rematch.'"

Sunset forced herself to breathe slowly, consciously making the effort not to hyperventilate. Joshua and Ra were out there and looking for revenge, but they weren't here.

"You LET THEM OUT?" Missy cried, clearly less collected with her dismay. Sunset glanced over to Penn, trying to gauge his reaction... and found herself surprised.

He was smiling. His eyes were closed as if deep in thought, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"If that pleb and his so-called 'deity' of a partner want to get their butts handed to them on a silver platter again, we'll be happy to oblige."

In that moment, Sunset could feel something was off about her friend. She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Penn? You okay?"

"Back off!" Big Sis's angry voice growled in her head, making her jump and step back away from him. Penn's eyes opened again, and the unsettling aura around him melted away along with his apparent burst of confidence. He chuckled awkwardly and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Y-yeah. Sorry about that, was just... remembering."

"...are you okay?" She hesitated to even ask the question, given that this would be a bad time for a negative answer. "Gloating isn't really your style."

"Y-Yeah! Definitely! Absolutely!" Penn replied. After a second, he seemed to realize his response was a little TOO eager. "You're... right, though. I think Bend-" he seemed to catch himself, locking his eyes on Salem. Sunset glanced back to see the witch watching them intently, clearly paying close attention to the vulnerable moment. "I think recent events might be bringing out some of my worse tendencies."

Sunset nodded and reached out again to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You've got it under control, I know you do."

"Salem would like to remind you that she has upheld her end of the bargain for information regarding Joshua and Earthbound Immortal Uru."

"We never agreed to that! You just started talking!" Missy argued.

Penn gave a long, shuddering sigh and pressed his palm to his forehead. "I said 'Information first.' Technically, that WAS a counteroffer, and she accepted it..."

Sunset gritted her teeth, realizing that they were caught between releasing Salem or breaking their word. Missy was clearly not going to approve of letting Salem out, but Penn was the one who had accidentally struck the deal.

"We have your word you won't hurt us any more?" She stared directly into Salem's eyes, searching for any sign of deception of betrayal. As she looked, however, she could sense a different feeling buried under the annoyance and attempts to intimidate them... that same begrudging respect that she had felt in Salem's "last moments" in their trap.

"She says that she will not do so intentionally."

Sunset took a deep breath to steady herself, taking hold of Penn's hand and giving it a tight squeeze.

"Okay, Isis... Let her out."

Author's Note

Hey, fellow adventurers~

I wish I could say that I had a restful break, but... I'm actually deep in family drama right now. But not putting out ANYTHING here has just been another weight on my conscience, and I've had this portion written for a while. After a lot of thinking, I decided that it was better to put out this chapter in a truncated state than to keep putting off coming back.

I... I don't know when I'll be back to writing on the regular, but please know that I am thinking of you guys constantly and knowing that I have your support makes everything easier. I'll see you around, fellow adventurers.

Lots of love,
Penn

I Burn

Author's Note

Hello there, fellow adventurers! Long time, no see!

For those of you whom haven't been keeping up with my blog posts (I don't blame you), I've been taking a bit of a sabbatical following my father's death about three months ago. This chapter has been a thorn in my side for a long time, but I allowed myself a reprieve from that thorn by deciding that I wasn't going to put any pressure on myself to be creative after everything that has happened.

As of now, well... I'm currently pursuing a fresh start in Utah. I got together what money I had, packed my things in my car, and headed North. I'm currently living that Multiverse-In-A-Nutshell lifestyle, moving from campsites to truck stops to empty parking lots night by night. It's been an exhilarating adventure and has helped me rekindle a lot of the positive emotions that had been buried deep by grief.

Thank you all for your patience with me. I can't promise updates will be any more consistent than my sleeping arrangements right now, but I've found some lovely public parks in the Salt Lake area that make absolutely perfect spots for writing AND reading during the day!

I'll be in touch. Happy adventuring, my friends!
-Pennington Inkwell

I Burn

"Yang! On your left!"

Yang didn't need to be told twice, her head snapping in the called direction. She barely had time to reach up and grab one of the creature's mandibles before they snapped shut around her throat. Rather than try to stop its lunge, she spun around and pulled hard, yanking it forward with more force than it had intended. While these bugs were big, they didn't seem to weigh very much, and she was easily able to throw it into a group of its fellows, knocking them all into a writhing pile of legs and broken chitin. She chambered a fire dust cartridge and fired into the heart of the mass. A dissonant choir of screeching and hissing almost drowned out the sound of the explosive shot landing as they were reduced to a pile of ashes.

"Steee-rike!" She grinned and pumped her fist as Blake came up beside her. "Thanks for the heads-up."

"These things aren't tough, but they certainly have the advantage in numbers..." Blake muttered. "We can't let our guard down for even a second."

"Maybe, but that just makes it an all-you-can-bash buffet!" Yang pounded her fists together for emphasis. Blake didn't seem nearly as happy with the situation, but whatever argument she was about to make was cut off by a clap of rolling thunder.

KRA-KA-KOOM!

"YIPE!"

Blake jumped up, and a second later Yang found herself wrapped in the other girl's arms. For a second, the two of them stayed like that, with Blake clinging onto Yang with an iron grip.

"Easy, Kittycat..." Yang snickered as she silently wished her arms were free so she could pat the top of Blake's head. "It's just a little thunder." There was a flash of movement, and a moment later Blake was several steps away, arms clasped nonchalantly behind her back. Yang didn't need to ask to know that the incident would never be acknowledged, and she stashed the memory away to laugh about the next time she needed cheering up.

Blake didn't seem to be the only one frightened by the thunder, however. The sound seemed to have had an effect on the army of centipede-like monsters. What had once been a chaotic, ever-moving mass had frozen completely, and countless heads had turned their way upwards towards the cloudy sky. In the moment of respite, Weiss and Ruby came over to join them.

Somehow, what had once been chaos and insanity had suddenly become still and silent aside from the sound of more distant thunder. The rest of Team RWBY gathered beside Yang, similarly silent in the face of the sudden stillness.

"What's happening? Why did they stop?" Ruby whispered.

"More importantly, what are they going to do next?" Weiss countered.

"We should be recording this..." Blake muttered as she reached for her scroll, "We've never seen it before, and Isis might have some ideas-"

"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The shrill cry pierced through the air, and every single head turned in the direction of the sound.

With that signal alone, the creatures all moved at once, though not towards the girls. What seemed at first like random movement quickly settled into a pattern. Groups formed, portioning out their forces. Moments later, those groups had fallen into organized rows, with each of the insects reared back on their hind legs and facing directly forwards.

"Are they... falling into rank and file?" Weiss whispered in disbelief.

In a matter of moments, what had once been a senseless mob of monsters had organized themselves into an army silently waiting at attention.

"Girls... I think we should get out of here..." Blake spoke softly, as if afraid of being heard by the creatures. "I've got a really bad feeling about this."

"She's right." Ruby nodded. "We don't know what we're up against, any more."

"Wait... something's coming." Yang narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on her weapons as a flicker of motion in the distance caught her eye. It started at one of the cave openings, a deep shadow traveling along the ground with nothing to cast it. It moved at a high speed, zipping from one platoon of bugs to the next. Everywhere it went, the creatures seemed to tense when it was beneath their feet, fidgeting and straightening their posture. Every few seconds, one of the bugs, usually an injured one, would be pulled down into the darkness with little more than a squeak of panic before it was gone completely. Finally, the shadow made its way to the head of the army, not more than a stone's throw away from them. The darkness coalesced and began to rise, forming into a humanoid body. Aside from the basic shape, however, Yang couldn't make out any kind of details or features on its body. The thing looked less like a human being and more like a human-shaped hole in the world.

All of the girls were too stunned to speak or take their eyes off of the new... thing.

Its head turned from side to side, surveying the army one last time before nodding to itself.

"Their commander?" Weiss practically mouthed the words, her voice not rising above the faintest of whispers.

"I thought that was Cinder?" Ruby whispered back.

"Either way... this thing is clearly in charge..." Yang reached down to her waist and retrieved a fresh set of dust cartridges, keeping her movements slow and deliberate to avoid drawing attention to herself. "Think we can take him?"

"Yang, our orders were to just thin out their numbers!" Blake hissed.

"He's got his back to us..."

"We aren't exactly camouflaged!" Weiss growled. "That means it doesn't think we're a threat!"

"Yang, don't..." Ruby pleaded.

"We're never going to get a chance like this again!" Yang argued back, her voice climbing to a higher volume than any of them had dared since the silence had fallen over the battlefield. "What if that's their REAL leader? We could end all of this right here! Penn said we have to be independent if we want to save Remnant, right?"

The rest of the girls all stayed quiet, and Yang knew it was because none of them had a good argument. She was RIGHT.

She could end this here and-

"I would advise you not to do what you are thinking of doing... but I could use a cool-down." The voice was low and velvety smooth, absolutely dripping with sarcasm and a smugness that made Yang's skin crawl. All of the girls turned their attention to the shadow. It was hard to make out, but it looked as if it was looking over its shoulder at them. "And nothing would make me happier than to snuff out one of the little flames that has been proving to be such an irritant to our landing party..."

"You think it'll be that easy?" Yang growled in return, feeling the hair on the back of her neck starting to rise. Before she could get a response, however, Ruby stepped to the front of the group, holding tightly to Crescent Rose.

"U-Uhm, excuse me? Mister shadow-man-thingy? We're sorry if we've been causing you trouble, but... this world isn't open to Baalchion OR Chirac's forces right now." Her voice was weak and her knees were shaking, but she stood her ground. "Until now we didn't know if your... landing party... could understand us, b-but... we want you to leave!" She straightened and stood a little taller. "B-by the authority vested in me as the leader of Team RWBYS and a representative of Remnant, we're asking you to leave our world alone!"

The entity turned towards them, facing the team completely and tilting its head in an amused manner.

"You speak for your entire world, young one? You would consign every living thing to perish in The Great Dying?"

Ruby took a deep breath, and for a moment, Yang saw a glimmer of melancholy in her expression, one that she had seen many times before, but only in one place.

"Life is precious, and it needs to be protected... but what gives it that value is how it's spent, not how it ends. We can't spend our days worrying about how they're going to stop... or else we'll never be able to be happy. That's a truth that extends to every living thing on this planet."

The entity leaned forward slightly, as if examining Ruby more closely, and for a second, Yang wondered if Ruby's words had gotten through to it.

"How very... bright of you."

When the thing rushed forward towards her sister, it moved faster than any of them expected, and none of them were ready...

Except Yang.

She met the thing fist-to-fist, countering its punch with one of her own. There was a loud bang and a flash of flame as the creature hissed in pain from the explosive force of Yang firing Ember Celica directly into its knuckles. Both of them were repelled backwards by the force of the blow, but she didn't wait for her momentum to peter out. She pushed both arms back behind her and fired, using the recoil to propel her forward again and closing the distance between them in an instant. The thing was knocked off-balance and still recoiling, this was the perfect opportunity. She fired with one hand, causing her to spin in the air and adding additional force to her blow as she planted her fist squarely in the center of its face and unleashed a point-blank shot.

And that was when the thing's head exploded, but not in the way she had expected.

"Exploded" may not have even been the right word. It was like the creature's head unfolded, like an origami construction suddenly disassembling itself. It felt like she was staring into a kaleidoscope of blacks and greys, patterns repeating over and over again inwardly into what seemed like infinity. In the blink of an eye, the monster had vanished, spiriting itself away along jagged black patterns it had carved into the air like water flowing down a drain. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Yang registered that it was moving around her, dodging her attack and heading towards her teammates. That part of her took over the rest of her thoughts, snapping her out of the mesmerizing pattern and back into the present.

"Don't even..."

She tightened her grip on her left gauntlet's trigger, firing it again and causing her to spin in mid-air. With her right hand, she reached out and grabbed a fistful of the shadowy threads, pulling them along with her.

"...THINK ABOUT IT!"

She could feel it trying to slip through her grip, but she kept her hand wrapped tight around its jagged protrusions until she could feel its momentum crumble to her force. With a roar of fury, she yanked hard and threw the thing with all the strength she could muster.

After that, the adrenaline seemed to wear off and the world returned to its normal speed. Caught in the awkward angle she was, there was no time to get her feet underneath her as the ground rushed up to meet her, and she grunted as she felt the gravel crash up against her aura with the force of the fall.

"YANG!" Ruby's voice called out as a flurry of rose petals signaled her arrival by her side. "Are you okay?"

Yang put both palms on the ground to push herself back up, only for grimace as shooting pain flew through her right hand. She ignored the pain long enough to get her boots on the ground and stand up on her own again. Once she was on her feet, she glanced down at the source of her pain. Whatever that thing was, it had torn straight through her aura and her glove, shredding the flesh of her palm. She could already feel the throbbing pain setting in, but she gritted her teeth and clenched her fist, keeping the injury out of sight as the other girls caught up.

"I'm fine, just mad."

"Well, looks like we're not avoiding a fight..." Blake growled, her weapon at the ready. "Any ideas?"

"Yang's fire charge looked like it hurt it... it might have the same elemental weaknesses as the bugs." Ruby mused. "We can use the same attacks, but we need to keep focused on it so it doesn't slip away."

"Don't get too close..." Yang's hand was stinging more by the second. She gave it a quick shake to try and disperse some of the pain, sending flecks of blood onto the ground. "Whatever it's made of, it's sharp. It cut through my aura like butter."

The monster had collected itself now, pulling back into the first human-like shape it had shown them, but Yang could pick out tiny slivers of light passing through its body now, like it had pulled itself back together in a hurry and gotten some of the folds wrong.

There was a series of clicks as Blake shifted Gambol Shroud to its gun form and Weiss readied a fresh dust cartridge.

"What about your silver eyes, sis? You can take out tons of those bugs with them!"

"I doubt it's going to stand still and wait for me to be ready..." Ruby muttered. "And I won't be able to do much afterwards if it doesn't work."

"We'll cover you, just get ready!" Yang glanced over at Blake, and her partner returned her look with a nod. Yang's hand felt like it was on fire, but her heart was pounding with excitement, and she couldn't help but let a smile through. It looked like they were finally finished mowing through the lackeys and moving up the ladder.

The shadow was watching them, allowing them the chance to plan. It was cocky. That was going to be its last mistake.

There was a telltale whine of Weiss's glyphs under their feet, launching them forward and into the air with a boost of momentum.

The thing seemed to unfold again, disassembling and taking to the air to meet them in a barbed wall. Yang fired her gauntlet, throwing herself to the side and past Blake. As she flew past, she grabbed at the ribbon on Blake's weapon and pulled her along. The two of them slipped past and to the side as the barbed wall snapped shut like a flytrap. In a practiced motion, they turned head-over-heels and landed with their boots on the ground, immediately opening fire.

The thing opened up every time one of their attacks grew close, spreading further and further out. Every opening they made was simply incorporated into the pattern, repeating, shrinking, and growing across its entire body until the kaleidoscope pattern was hanging over their heads like a pitch-black cloud.

"It's a fractal... It's like a living fractal!" Blake exclaimed.

"Okay, so TAL us how to FRAC it up!" Yang hissed.

There wasn't time for an answer as the thing began to churn, turning and spinning in on itself as it bolted down towards the ground... and towards Ruby and Weiss.

Weiss, however, was clearly not going to be caught off-guard a second time. A spinning black glyph appeared in the air in front of the two of them, deflecting and rebounding the entity back in the direction it had come from.

Blake's weapon shifted back to its bladed form and she lunged forward, striking the black spear at its head and splitting it down the center. The split didn't seem to faze the thing, as each of the halves curled back towards her. Yang's heart skipped a beat as, for a second, it looked as if Blake had been speared through her back, only for her teammate to reappear right beside her. Inside the tangled mass, the double left behind by Blake's semblance exploded into a concussive burst of flames, causing the monster to shriek and writhe in patterns that made Yang's head hurt.

Still, it was hurting, and that meant it wasn't paying enough attention to dodge.

When she shot a fire charge into the thing, pain exploded through her injured hand, too much for her to contain behind gritted teeth.

"NNHGAAAAAH!"

"YANG!"

"W-WOAH!"

The world turned into a blur of tumbling gray and brown as Rainbow Dash's feet slid out from underneath her again, sending her end over end into the dirt. She scrambled for a foothold or a way to right herself, eventually managing to dig her palm into the dirt enough to push herself onto the balls of her feet.

She gritted her teeth as she slid to a stop, sparing a glance down to her hand to spot the scratches and shards of glassy gravel that had buried themselves in her flesh. She gave her hand a shake, letting the foreign objects fly out with a few tiny pops and crackles of electricity so it could start to heal. Thankfully, her new outfit was tougher than it looked, protecting the rest of her body from similar injuries. She made a mental note to thank the armorers back in Radian who had helped make it for her... again.

"Lady Dash! Are you alright?" A voice asked from just behind her shoulder. Rainbow reached up, not even needing to look to lift the cat-sized dragon from her desperately-gripped place on her back. The gold-colored lizard crawled up and around her arm with ease, taking up watch on her shoulder.

"I'm fine, Auri. What about you?"

The tiny dragon stayed looking alert for another moment before her posture slumped and her head hung a little lower. "To be honest, I'm getting pretty tired. Don't you normally wrap this stuff up faster?"

Rainbow couldn't help wincing slightly as she watched the form of her opponent rise back up from the ground. She was dressed in a deep blue robe, now, rather than the ragged red dress that she seemed to have died in. It was intricately patterned with the black sun that served as the dark legion's insignia, and judging by her limited experience watching Rarity work, was almost certainly fitted to her. Pretty quick to have earned herself a custom uniform... Guess Baalchion's goons took a liking to her. Whoever she had been in her past life, she was certainly moving down in the world quickly. At this rate, if Dash didn't take her out soon, she'd likely get a promotion, get command of her own underlings, and that would put an end to their little one-on-one rivalry.

For the moment, the woman was snickering, making no effort to hide her entertainment at Rainbow's tumble. "I'd act surprised that you're so easy to trip up, but you Chiracians never DO look where you're going..."

"And I'd act surprised that you're using dirty tricks, but you wouldn't survive taking me head-on, would you?"

The woman raised an eyebrow, clearly aware that Dash was trying to goad her into stepping out of her territory. She had covered the ground all around her with a thick layer of ice for at least a three-yard radius. Instead, she spread her arms out to welcome Rainbow to attack her.

The first time they'd fought had gone similarly. As much as she enjoyed a good hockey game, Rainbow had learned the hard way that super speed and a frictionless surface didn't get along well. The second, Rainbow had managed to melt through it by channeling her lightning through her feet, giving her enough traction to control her direction. But the stranger had still gotten away with a sneaky trick. Now she was putting the ice down in heavier layers, too thick for Dash to melt through. This was the third match.

It was the tiebreaker, and Dash was losing.

She didn't like losing.

"You know, this would be a great time for a promotion to tenth-tier battle priest..." Rainbow muttered, half out of spite and half as a prayer in case Chirac was listening. "The fire magic would be REAL handy..."

"You're barely in the fifteenth tier, you know your body wouldn't be able to handle that power until you've mastered your lightning!" Aurelia hissed in her ear.

Before Dash could try to argue with her logic, the woman began making motions with her hands, drawing both of their attention back to the fight. It didn't take long to see what she was up to as her icy territory began to expand outwards, giving her even more leeway.

"Oh, don't even try it!" Dash growled. She started running again with no plan in mind, just making for the edge of her frosted circle. Just as she was about to set foot on the slick surface, Dash turned and began to run around the circumference so that she could buy herself time to think. The lightning on her heels evaporated the attempt to expand before it had time to thicken and establish itself, but that wasn't going to work as an offensive method. She needed to find a way to attack from a distance and-

"WHOA!"

Rainbow was only barely able to duck in time to avoid an angled spike of ice that had sprung up in front of her. By the time she had registered the second one aiming to trip her at the ankles she was already leaning forward into a somersault to roll over it. In an instant she had given herself over completely to instinct, allowing her to slip through at least six more attempts to either impale or clothesline her before she broke away from the edge of the circle, sliding to a stop.

The attack had been indiscriminate, sprouting sharpened shards in every direction along the edge of her icy disc. Without even landing a blow, the ice mage had managed to get Rainbow to back off.

"Come on, is that all you've got?" Rainbow dusted her knuckles off on her jacket. "I haven't even broken a sweat and you're just firing blind already?"

The woman's brow furrowed as she reached out, grabbing at the air. The ice responded to her motion, breaking off the spikes at their bases and levitating them into the air. With a sweeping motion, the pieces all shattered into hundreds of smaller versions and began to orbit their creator like a tornado of daggers. Deep in the deadly blizzard, Rainbow could see her smirk before, with a grandiose flourish, she pointed one accusatory finger... directly at them.

The ice storm followed her command, breaking away from her and flying towards Rainbow and her tiny friend with blistering speed.

"Wuh-oh..." Rainbow rolled her eyes. With barely a blink's worth of effort, she had sped out of the way of the attack, dodging all the way to the other side of the ice ring. She made a show out of taking the time to wipe her forehead. "Wow, that was a tough one, you almost had me!"

Dash waited for any kind of comeback from her enemy, but she didn't move. She didn't even turn to look in her direction, just standing there and grinning. Rainbow didn't like that one bit. What does she know that I don't?

The answer came in the form of a whistling shard of ice that slipped just over the woman's shoulder. Without already being up to speed, Rainbow's reflexes failed her, and the glassy shard buried itself in her shoulder.

"GAAAH!"

"Lady Dash!"

Rainbow tried to pull her focus away from the pain, forcing her body back up to speed in spite of her injury. As time seemed to slow down, she could see more of the shards inbound towards her, all dodging and weaving around their master under their own power.

"It's a homing attack..." she grumbled, reaching up to take hold of the shard in her shoulder. Her whole left arm felt like it was completely asleep, as if the circulation had been cut off for hours. The ice was draining her energy, and she was going to need it. She gritted her teeth. Even at this speed, the world wasn't at a standstill, and the attack was still coming. She didn't have long. With a deep breath and a groan of anticipation, Rainbow tightened her grip on the icy shard. It was trying to work its way in deeper, grating against her bone like a nail on chalkboard. She focused on her breathing and pulled hard.

"AAAAAUGH!" She couldn't hold back the scream. The shard was fighting her, trying to push back into her wound like a magnet as it slipped through her hands. Without warning, the shard melted enough to slip out of her grip, stabbing again even deeper. The other shards were getting closer, it would only be another second or two before she was turned into the world's chillest pincushion. She needed to change tactics.

Letting her deadened arm hang limp at her side, Rainbow tried to run. With the shard leeching her energy, however, it felt like pushing her way through molasses, and she was only barely keeping ahead of the rest of the projectiles. They all tinkled and rang like shards of glass as they collided with one another and split off into even more needle-like pieces. She could even feel a few of the smaller ones pressing at the back of her jacket, trying to force through to her flesh.

"Auri, I could use...ngggggh... a little help, here!"

The golden dragon hanging on her shoulder for dear life quickly seemed to lose that blurry edge that super speed gave the world, her pace speeding up to match Rainbow's own. She clambered over to her left shoulder as best she could, looking at the shard with a cringe.

"What do you want ME to do, Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow tried not to scream at her with the obvious answer. "You're a dragon, can't you melt it or something?"

"I'm not a lithic, I'm a metallur-"

"Then ZAP IT!"

The little dragon leaned down and took a deep breath. Rainbow braced herself. A second later, a crackling buzz completely dominated her left ear and a violently painful stinging raced up and down her body as her friend breathed out a cloud of electric bolts into the wound. Her "dead" arm spasmed wildly and her left knee locked as her leg stiffened from the current washing through it. Rainbow nearly fell again, but she forced through it. She remembered the training she'd gotten in Radian. She focused on her breathing, on visualizing the electricity passing through her, entering the current of her body like a second bloodstream. The spasms weakened, then passed. She could feel the moment that Aurelia's lightning breath connected directly to her own current, it was like a sudden jumpstart to every muscle in her body. Suddenly, the feeling of having to push through molasses was gone, and the air felt like air again. The pain disappeared, and the only remains of the shard was a small trail of steam left behind them.

"Better?"

"Yup! Thanks a bunch!" Rainbow giggled slightly with glee. "Now hold on!"

A slight tug on her scalp was the only sign that Auri had hidden in her ponytail as she put on a burst of fresh speed. She still had the wound in her shoulder, but adrenaline was taking the edge off of the pain and she was doing her best to keep it relatively still.

She circled back towards the centerpoint of their battle, where the real enemy was waiting for her, watching her with a mix of amusement and wariness. She was casually guiding the storm of ice with one hand, using the other to raise herself up on a frozen pillar to gain the higher ground.

That gave Rainbow an idea. It wasn't necessarily a GOOD idea, but it was a cool idea, and would look awesome if it worked.

Rainbow focused inward, once again trying to draw on what she'd learned during her time in Radian.

Inside of every living creature of the light was a current, a lightning bolt caught in a perpetual loop. It was the source of every bolt of inspiration. Every breakthrough in thought, every moment of overwhelming glee or joy, every urge to not only survive, but to WIN, was a branch of that eternal lightning bolt sparking outwards and into the soul.

With practice and training, one could learn to access that internal current on command, to tap in and steal a bolt of rapture from it. With even more training, that current could be changed, redirected to flow closer to the surface and through different parts of the body as you wished. That redirection of your internal current was what the twentieth through tenth circles of Chiracian battle priests pursued.

It was that current that Rainbow could feel coursing through every inch of her being right at this moment, making her practically giddy at the thought of what she was about to do.

Once again she set herself at the boundaries of that ring of ice, but this time she put her all into it. She forced herself to lean inwards, fighting the centripetal force threatening to throw her off-course. Behind her, she could hear the tinkling of the ice shards growing fainter as the popping and crackle of electricity grew louder.

"Yes, yes, yes..." she muttered with a grin. Out of the corner of her eye, she could catch the blue lightning starting to trail behind her, running up and down her multicolored contrail. "Just gotta go a little faster..."

She could feel a burst of steam on her cheeks as the ice trailing her was obliterated, and the ice at her feet was starting to melt, as well. As she found herself able to move further and further inwards, she couldn't help but put on another burst of speed as he goal came into sight: her own lightning trail, lagging so far behind her that she was beginning to catch up to it.

The woman at the center of it all seemed to be catching on to what Rainbow was trying to accomplish. With a growl, she slammed her fist down onto her pillar, sending more spikes of ice jutting out in every direction, but Rainbow was ready this time. When the frozen spears appeared in front of her, Rainbow leapt up and into the air. She grasped at her geode, feeling herself pony up as her wings appeared from her back, her jacket morphing around them to allow her to move them freely. She hadn't used this trick in one of her fights, yet, and her opponent hadn't aimed any higher than her head, which made flying over the spikes child's play.

She couldn't hold the flight for long, though. She could already feel the Equestrian magic sputtering and threatening to peter out. Thankfully, she didn't need it for long, just long enough to avoid getting impaled. Even as her wings threatened to dissolve back into magic particles, she pushed herself forward even faster as she dropped back towards the ground. Her electrifying aura let out a series of tiny thunderclaps as bolts made for the easy grounding of the spikes, vaporizing them instantly on contact.

She was closer than ever, and as time slowed to a crawl, Rainbow could see her own blue sparks just beyond arm's reach in front of her. Through the pain, Rainbow raised her left hand to reach for the blue bolts, stretching every muscle in her arm to its limit as she continued to sprint for that ephemeral finish line. Five inches... three... two... one...

She could feel it, she was starting to tire out. Her body was covered in sweat. Her legs felt like they were on fire. Her shoulder was screaming from her attempt to use it, and while she wasn't sure how much blood she'd leaked out through the hole the ice had punched in her flesh, it was definitely enough that she could feel her head starting to spin. Here, just a tiny distance from victory, she was pushing up against her limits.

Two inches... three... four...

No... No! This couldn't be it!

This world was under attack, they needed help, they needed a hero! And she was the only Chiracian who had been willing to come to a completely new world. There was no backup coming, nobody else who could finish the fight! It was all on her.

Rainbow narrowed her eyes, reaching deep down inside. She needed that inspiration, that bolt deep in her soul, now more than ever! She forced her legs to move faster, deepened her breathing... and reached.

At first, all she could feel was exhaustion. She was trying to tap into an empty tank, and trying to ask for more was seemingly impossible. But she kept looking, she pushed deeper into her core, searching for something, anything she could draw on to close that last gap.

But the bolt of inspiration wasn't there. Every ounce of current was already out and engaged.

"No..." Rainbow whispered. "No... No... No..."

Her lungs were on fire, her legs were excruciating, and her goal was still just out of reach. The woman seemed to have realized Rainbow was trying to shut her in and was pushing herself higher and higher on her pillar of ice, readying herself to make a quick escape.

In her mind's eye, she imagined going back to Radian with her head hung low, failing her first mission. She remembered why she had come here, to the world that had been abandoned by its gods: because watching it from Radian, from Chirac's point of view, she could see that this world had clung to survival, that every day this world's people chose to stand up and fight for their right to exist. This world was broken and tired... but still fighting every day.

Three inches... two inches... one inch...

This was a world of fighters! Of survivors! The kind of people who never gave up until the last buzzer! Am I going to let a world like this get destroyed?

"NO! NO! NO!"

With a final lunge, Rainbow reached for her contrail... and her fingertip made contact with one of her sapphire thunderbolts.

"YES!"

KRA-KA-KOOOOOOOOM!

With an earth-shattering thunderclap, the whole world dissolved into blue. It felt like hours before Rainbow became aware of herself again.

All resistance had melted away, as had the pain and tiredness of her body. Rainbow was still moving in laps around the icy plane that had been set up to stop her, but it felt like it took almost no effort to keep going. Her body felt light, like she weighed nothing at all. The world around her was almost completely still. Looking closely, she could make out the tiniest of movement as the other mage was trying to fling herself upwards and out of the perimeter. The steam around the edges of the ice was also moving at a snail's place, slowly enough that she could watch the process of the ice melting, boiling, and then turning into steam a drop at a time.

"What happened?" Rainbow looked down at herself and was shocked.

Her body looked like... well, it looked like her, at least in shape... but her body was made of the same blue energy as the lightning that she made as she ran. Not only that, but another complete bolt was running straight through her gut and around the circumference of where she had been running before. It was only now, on closer inspection, that she realized she wasn't even running any more. It was more like she was gliding around it, effortlessly able to move as fast as she wanted.

"What do you mean- WHAT?" She watched a gold-colored bolt emerge from behind her, zipping out in front of her "face" like a tiny ball of lightning. "WHAT DID- HOW DID YOU-"

"Auri? Is that you?" Rainbow looked more closely at the ball of gold-colored lightning. It didn't LOOK like Aurelia, aside from the color, but... it felt like her. "What happened?"

The golden ball of lightning inched closer. "You... You closed the circuit."

"I WHAT?"

"You just jumped about TEN YEARS ahead in your battle priest training, Dash. AGAIN!" The little dragon sounded incredibly tired, and she'd dropped her respectful tone.

"So... What's this mean?" Rainbow gestured down to her body.

"You know how scouting dragons can travel between planets and star systems super fast? This is step one of how we do it."

Rainbow looked down at her body again. "No WAY!" With all the distraction, she finally remembered why she had been fighting so hard to begin with. "So... does this mean we can kick HER butt?" she nodded up towards the ice mage, who was edging out of the center of the circle. It looked like she'd used her ice pillar to propel herself into a leap for the outside of Rainbow's perimeter.

She saw the orb of electricity that was Aurelia give a smug little wiggle.

"Oh, you BET we can!"

The edges of Yang's vision blurred and darkened as the nearly blacked out from the pain. This was something she was unprepared for, something far, far beyond what she would have expected from her injury, even if she WAS firing with her bad hand. It felt like her arm was exploding in slow motion, being pulled apart layer by layer from the inside.

The spike in the pain slowly relented, reducing to a constant, painful throbbing that now reached nearly halfway up her forearm.

"Yang! Are you okay?" Yang drew in a long breath through her clenched teeth as Blake rushed over to her. Her teammate drew up short, however, with a horrified look on her face. "Your arm-"

"No time to worry about that, we have to-" Yang tried to wave away Blake's concerns, but froze as she finally caught sight of the source of her pain for the first time.

Her arm was covered in pitch-black markings. It almost looked like a tattoo, except that it had the hazy edges and faded look of a splinter buried just under her skin. The same complicated patterns that made up the monster's body were crawling up through her arm like an infection. It was already halfway up her forearm and starting to send tendrils towards her elbow.

Yang's mouth simply hung open in shock for a second before the markings began to move, making the same kaleidoscopic motion of turning and folding in on themselves at the same time they were pushing outward at the edges. This was when that pain returned anew, the feeling of her arm being pulled apart, and Yang dropped to her knees as she tried to hold in another scream.

"NGGGGGGGGGGGGH!"

"YANG!" She heard Ruby's voice, but it barely registered in her mind. The sensation in her arm was changing. It wasn't just a burning pain, any more. It felt like she'd plunged her hand into a bucket of dry ice, cold and searing at the same time. Chills ran up and down her entire body, always emanating and then returning back to her infected arm. With every freezing wave, Yang could feel herself growing colder, weaker. Her body was starting to seize, curling around her wound to try and protect it from the rest of the world. She didn't know what this thing was doing to her, but she was fading fast. She felt so cold... so... cold...

That was when the light came. It was a wave of warmth that washed over her like a hot bath and a warm hug combined into one. She heaved a sigh of relief as the chills and spasms were washed away by the silver light surrounding her. Even with that relief, it took a few seconds for her to realize that her teammates had all gathered in front of her, standing between her and their enemy. Ruby was leaning on Weiss for support, making it clear that the force that had saved Yang was her silver eyes.

Yang tried to force herself to stand up, but her limbs felt like limp noodles. She tried again, using her good arm to push herself up off the ground and into a sitting position. She looked around, seeing no sign of the monster.

"You okay, Yang?" Blake asked, turning ever-so-slightly toward her as her cat ears swiveled from side to side, clearly on high alert.

"Y-Yeah... I think so..." Yang looked down at her injured hand, giving it an experimental flex. It felt off, like the skin was too tight. The black markings were still there, but they had stopped moving. "Thanks for the backup, sis."

"This isn't over..." Ruby muttered, uncharacteristically serious. "I wounded it, but I don't think I got all of it."

"It looked like it burrowed into the ground." Weiss declared, giving the dust chamber on her rapier a spin until the fire dust cartridge locked into place. "I can try to force it out with an area attack, but we'll need a plan for once it's out here..."

"Yang's hurt, Ruby's exhausted, maybe we should just get out of here while we have the chance..." Blake whispered. "Can we call for an evac? My scroll is dead."

Weiss's hand slipped into her pocket, retrieving her scroll and giving it several fruitless button presses. "What? I always charge this before we go on a mission!"

"I- I think these things can drain energy." Yang grunted as she forced herself back onto her feet. "I felt like the life was being sucked right out of me."

"If that's the case, then we've lost contact with Isis and didn't even know it. We're on our own." Blake stiffened as both of her ears shifted to face the same direction, forward and slightly to the left. "Negotiations didn't work-"

"So we have to fight our way out." Yang's knees wobbled as she stepped up alongside her partner, but she settled into a familiar ready stance. "If this thing absorbs energy, maybe we can give it more than it can handle?"

"That plan is extremely reckless. If we've lost contact, Isis should be sending backup. We just need to hold out." Weiss argued. "That thing is recuperating, and time is on our side."

All the girls gripped their weapons tighter when the thing's voice spoke up. "Actually... it isn't."

The voice seemed to be coming from every direction, and Yang's eyes widened as she realized how. The shadow had retreated back into the ground, like it had been at the start, and had completely encircled the group in a black ring in the dirt. Yang resisted the urge to curse in front of her sister, but they were surrounded, and more of those tendrils of shapes were beginning to emerge from the edges of the ring and crawl towards them.

Weiss wasted no time, and Yang almost smirked as she planted the tip of her weapon in the ground. A burning red glyph appeared under their feet as a shock wave of flames flew out around them. The tendrils recoiled at first with a hiss, but the flames sputtered out moments later, as if trying to burn at the edge of a lake. Before the embers had even stopped glowing, the tendrils lashed inwards, grabbing hold of the edges of the glyph. There was a clatter as Weiss lost her grip on her weapon and her eyes grew wide as she grabbed at her chest. With a sound like the squeal of tearing metal, the snowflake-shaped glyph ground to a halt and the edges of it began to turn a corrupted black.

"Weiss, let it go. Let it go!" Ruby urged, shaking her partner's shoulder violently. When Weiss didn't respond, Ruby transformed her weapon into its rife form and opened fire on the ground, fruitlessly trying to shoot at the shadow and kicking up tiny clouds of dirt.

"I- I see it!" Weiss gasped. "The end! The finality of the end of all things! The burning, burning, burning of all things!"

The glyph seemed to be slowing it down, but the thing was still moving further and further inward towards them. They could try to make a leap for it, but Yang knew Blake was the only one who could probably make it unassisted. Her arm was beginning to throb again, as well.

They needed to destroy this thing, burn it out completely with more power than it could tank. With Weiss babbling nonsense, Yang could only think of one thing that could put out that much power at once. The question was whether or not her body could handle it in its current state.

Well... only one way to find out!

"I'm going to make an opening." She kept her voice low, soft enough that only Blake's superior hearing could get the message. "When I do, grab the others and run."

Blake turned to look at her, eyes wide and mouth already forming an argument. Unfortunately, much like their opponent, Yang wasn't going to give her time to fight her.

With a roar, Yang activated her semblance and leaped into the air. She felt the usual burst of heat as her aura lit ablaze and she crashed to the ground like a falling meteor, striking the ground with enough force to shake the earth...

and then the golden fire was gone.

"What the- WOAH!"

Before she could solve the mystery of what had happened to her semblance, her infected arm had lifted up of its own accord as if being pulled by some invisible force and flung her back into the center of the circle. This time, Yang couldn't help letting a few curses slip as she was thrown across the glassy ground, covering her in cuts and scrapes.

"Yang! What are you DOING?" Ruby cried.

Yang narrowed her eyes, reaching for her semblance again. It was still there, a deep well of energy completely untouched, as if what had happened moments ago just.... hadn't. She glanced down, seeing that the monster was about halfway through the glyph, which was now the girls' last line of defense.

"I'm trying to make us an opening!" Yang pounded her fists together and triggered her semblance again. This time, she channeled the energy into her gauntlets, unleashing a barrage of fiery blasts at the ground in front of her. Once again, just as the blasts were about to make contact with the creature, they simply fizzled out into regular shotgun shots, and Yang felt her semblance once again return to its untouched state.

Wait, didn't Penn say these things want to rewind the whole universe back? Yang looked down at her hands, seeing that the infection had crawled up to her elbow and was making its way up to her bicep. With a gasp of horror she also saw that her gauntlets didn't quite fit like they had in the past... they were larger, looser on her wrists.

Or she was smaller.

This thing's turning the clock back on ME so I can't attack it!

"Yang, Blake, you need to get out of here!" Ruby ordered, tightening her grip on the still-babbling Weiss. "I can use my semblance to speed Weiss away, but I can't carry more than one person right now!"

Yang growled. The thought of everybody just making a run for it didn't sit right with her. This thing was fast AND crafty, and her instincts told her running wasn't going to be an option.

She turned both of her gauntlets downward and fired, flinging herself up into the air. Immediately, a tendril sprung up from the edge of the circle, grabbing her boot and flinging her downwards towards the black void surrounding them. It was only reflex that made Yang fire again, barely propelling her back into the safety of Weiss's glyph, where she came to a crashing halt.

"Ow. Running isn't- ow- gonna work, sis..." Yang muttered. There were only a few inches of space between them and the monster, now.

"Ruby... what do we do?" Blake asked, inching closer to the center to avoid a few errant tendrils that were starting to crawl up and onto the glyph.

"I-I don't know." There was fear in Ruby's voice, genuine terror at being forced to make the admission.

Yang's semblance was formally called "Burn." That was what she always wrote down on any school admissions and the like. Her dad, however, had a different name for it: "The Temper Tantrum." Her entire life, Yang's control of her semblance had been... tenuous at best. Sure, it was always passively collecting the kinetic energy of blows to her aura, and she could certainly activate it on command, but it also had always activated at its strongest when she was upset. Most often it was when someone messed with her hair, which her dad had always told her was just like her mother's. Sometimes, it activated when someone made the mistake of taunting her in a fight, and they usually lost soon after.

But hearing that fear in her little sister's voice was always what made her burn at her brightest.

"GRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Golden flames burst out of Yang's body in every direction, knocking her friends to the ground and pushing back the monster's advance. She felt her injured arm throb and chill, trying to force the power back inside of her, but Yang forced through it like running through a brick wall. With another roar, she slammed her boot down onto the darkness in front of her, causing it to squeal as a section surrounding her foot was reduced to embers.

The mysterious force tried harder to force the energy back into her body, and Yang could feel the pressure of it burning at every inch of her skin. She refused to let it silence her roar again. She took another step, and the entire ring of darkness recoiled, shuddering and shrieking before pulling away from her.

Her arm throbbed again, and Yang felt that same chill from before beginning to run through her, weakening her in an attempt to force her to back down. Yang fought back, drawing on the energy of her semblance to push back the frosty feeling.

It was like the concepts of hot and cold were at war inside her body. Some portions of her felt like they were freezing solid, only moments later to be in the depths of an inferno. It was all localized in a hundred areas of her, making it feel like fire and ice were dancing across her skin. The more that she pushed and pushed to bring out the power to burn away her enemy, the more of her own power the thing forced back down her throat to try and keep her contained.

But that was just more ammunition. Yang roared again, metaphorically and literally trying to spit the fiery energy back in the monster's face. Her aura was climbing to heights she'd never felt before as she tried to fight through the cycle of spending and replenishing. She felt ready to explode with energy, more power than she'd ever felt in her entire lifetime being constantly shuffled back and forth between her and her opponent. It was a head-to-head battle of will, and the loser would be incinerated. Every time the power was forced back into her she returned it even stronger.

The chills were getting shorter and weaker, now, and the burning sensation was growing to dominate every other of her senses. Her skin was hardening, cracking and glowing like burning coals. Yang wasn't just screaming to psyche herself up, any more, it was like the whistling of a pressure valve as even her breath was weaponized, turned into a wide swathe of golden flames just to release the energy built up in her body. The marks on her arm were burning away, transforming from an inky infection to blackened embers.

Yang could feel the thing still trying to force the power back onto her, and it was like standing on the surface of the sun... and Yang could feel that this was the last attempt it would be able to make. She shot forward and down, ripping the thing out of the ground like an eagle plucking up a rabbit from an open field. It wriggled and squirmed in her grip, now hardly more than a morphing mess of black lines the size of a handkerchief.

For the first time since their war of attrition had begun, Yang stopped screaming. The flames died down as the mountain of energy finally, blissfully, was allowed to burn itself out. She resisted the urge to gasp for the breath she needed so badly just long enough to look the thing head on and deliver one message.

"Get. Off. Our. Planet."

With that, she raised the monster up to her face and bit down hard on the squirming mass, letting out a deep breath of air that carried that last of her overwhelming energy along with it. The monster screeched and screamed and struggled for a second more between her teeth, then finally fell silent as it was reduced to dust.

Yang looked around, seeing not only the other members of her team staring at her in amazement, but the assembled army of monstrous bugs also observing her in what, deep down, she knew was mortal terror.

Yang opened her mouth, roaring one more time at the monsters. Her semblance was spent, but she felt rejuvenated and ready to go a hundred more rounds with those pipqueaks.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The roar was like a signal to them all. Instantly, the hordes broke rank and scrambled for the nearest tunnel entrances, desperately crawling over one another in an attempt to get underground and out of her sight as quickly as possible. In a matter of seconds, the army was gone, and the four girls were once again alone. Yang turned back to her team, finally taking the opportunity to let the last vestiges of her semblance go and let out a sigh of relief.

"Well... that was a thing."

"Yang... are you okay?" Blake asked very slowly.

Yang nodded. "Yeah, I'm great, actually! Just really hungry! How's Weiss?"

Ruby looked down to their teammate, whom she was cradling in her arms as best she could. "Once you got that thing off of her glyph she collapsed. We should really get her someplace safe to get looked at."

Yang nodded, dropping to one knee to take the unconscious girl from Ruby. It was only then, when Yang went to reach for their injured teammate, that she saw why her friends had been so worried about her.

Her arm, the one that had been previously infected, was almost completely incinerated. It was blackened and looked like it ought to crumble to pieces at the slightest touch, like the remains of a heavy log after a bonfire. Her gauntlet on that hand had completely melted, filling in many of the cracks and crevices in her flesh with golden metal. And yet somehow, despite all of this, it was still moving and flexing completely normally, as if she'd taken no damage at all.

Yang could only stare, dumbfounded, at her arm for several seconds. She moved it up and down, flexing it at the elbow and the wrist to make sure she really WAS still controlling it.

"I don't... understand. How?" Those were the only words she could sputter.

Before anyone could so much as try to give her an answer, a crack of lightning and a buzz of electricity filled the air, and suddenly someone else was there with them. It was Sunset's friend, that woman with the white hair and the super speed again. Yang tried to remember what Sunset had said her name was... Rainbow-something?

"Sorry I'm late! I swear it doesn't happen often!" she chuckled, looking around the area for... something. "So, where's the fight? I coulda sworn there was a second powerful monster around here!"

Yang grinned and waved the stranger off with her charcoal hand. "No worries, I already took care of it!"

"Aw man, really?" Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. "But I just got this cool new power-up and- whoa. Dude, your arm!"

Yang nodded. "It doesn't hurt... I'm not really sure what happened. This big, black fractal freak scratched me up pretty bad and gave me some kinda infection, but I think I burned it out."

Ruby interrupted. "Hey, you're Rainbow Dash, right?"

"That's the name, don't wear it out!" Rainbow grinned. "What can I do for ya, kiddo?"

Ruby nodded down at Weiss's still-unconscious body. "Well, our friend is hurt. We've got a base camp about half a mile that way with supplies and more people. Could you help us get her there?"

"You kidding? No problemo!" Dash leaned down and scooped Weiss's frail figure up in her arms. "I'll be there in a flash!" She raised one foot as if she was about to take off running, only to stop as a thought seemed to occur to her. "Wait a minute, how do you know my name?"

"We're friends of Sunset Shimmer, she told us-"

"WHAT?" She rushed forward to look Ruby in the eye, only barely managing to hold on to Weiss. "Sunset's here? Where is she? How did she get here? Tell me everything!"

Before Ruby could sputter out a response, something climbed out of Rainbow Dash's hair and onto her shoulder. At first it looked like one of Isis's drones, but closer inspection revealed that it wasn't just the wrong color (gold, rather than silver), but it was completely organic: a real-life dragon.

"Lady Dash, this girl needs help urgently. We can gather intelligence regarding your friends later."

That seemed to snap Rainbow out of her frantic interrogation. She looked back down at Weiss, then in the direction Ruby had pointed.

"Okay, right. I'll be right back, don't go ANYWHERE!"

With that, she vanished in another crack of lightning, leaving the other three girls on their own. Yang finally sat down beside Ruby and Blake, still flexing her charred arm and trying to understand what had happened to her.

"Weird day, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Seriously..."

No Brakes

Author's Note

I want to say thank you to everyone who has been so patient with me. I know it's been a while since I put out an update, and I'm sure that the tension has been killing some of you!

I'm still working on that whole "fresh start," living on the bare minimum while I'm studying for college, so finding the time to write and the atmosphere to be creative instead of a constant "life/livelihood on the line" mentality has been difficult.

But I'm going to try and commit to getting at least one update to this story out per month until I can either slow down my academics or get head of the curve enough to get a place to live (yes, I'm still living in my car like the Multiverse crew, and YES it IS getting cold, but I'm managing.)

For now, thank you all for your patience and for reading my story! Enjoy this update and I'll see you next month!

Happy adventuring!
-Pennington Inkwell

P.S. Happy Halloween!

Source

No Brakes

Useless.

It was useless to try.

He would fail every time.

Die every time.

But he couldn't stop. Trying came as naturally as breathing.

Live. Fight. Die. Repeat. Live. Fight. Die. Repeat.

Sometimes by fire. Sometimes by fang. Sometimes by impaling. Sometimes by lightning.

Die. Fall. Rise. Repeat.

The falling and the dying were blending together into a single continuous drop that never so much as reached the marble floor, and the rising and the fighting were wiped away by the sheer terror of free-fall.

He couldn't get out.

He couldn't escape.

There was only-

Penn gasped for air as he bolted up in the driver's seat. He scrambled for the handle of the door, already feeling the urge to vomit overwhelming him. By the time he had fumbled the door lock open and nearly ripped off the door handle, he could feel the bile pushing its way through the gaps in his clenched teeth.

The cold of the dirt underneath him was like ice as he flopped onto the ground, only barely managing to once again aim his spray underneath the car so that it wouldn't be discovered by the girls in the morning. Despite the rapid cold creeping into his fingers and knees as he gripped the ground on all fours, the shock of it wasn't enough to get his head to stop spinning. The bursts of steam erupting from his mouth clouded his vision as he swallowed down lungful after lungful of freezing-cold air.

It felt like an eternity before his sense of balance returned enough for him to pull himself out of the dirt and sit up in a kneeling position.

"Woah... you okay?"

If he'd had the energy to jump at Missy's voice, he would have. As it was, all he could do was roll his eyes upwards, finally spotting her hovering over him with a concerned look on her face. For the first time, he felt the small hand rubbing his back in an attempt to soothe him.

"Th-This happens..." he stuttered, beginning to shiver as his body finally caught up to the fact that he was kneeling in the dirt in the winter. Even without the moisture to make snow, the southern US could still get terrifically cold at night. "I- I'll be f-fine... J-Just a n-nightmare."

Missy's concern wasn't lessened at all by his dismissal, grabbing his arm and pulling him up enough to guide him back into the driver's seat.

"What was it about?" she asked quietly, helping him swing his feet back inside. He felt awful, being so weak that he needed to be shuffled around like some kind of infirm.

"It's... hard to say." he mumbled as she flew into the car with him and swung the door shut behind her. After only hesitating a moment she settled into Sunset's usual spot in the passenger-side seat.

"You don't remember? It must have been a real night terror for you to wake up and immediately puke." Missy reached up and took off her tiny hat to reach inside. A moment later, she had produced a steaming hot cup of tea and passed it to him. He mumbled a quick thanks and took a sip.

It tasted like apples and cinnamon, but with a hint of caramel, as if someone had used soft caramel candies instead of sugar cubes to sweeten it.

Chk-chk-chk-chk- vrrrrrrrrm!

Without either of their input, the car chugged to life. A moment later, Isis's drone crawled out of the glove box and clambered over to the dashboard, using her mouth to turn the knobs to set the heater to maximum.

"It's... hazy. It always just turns into a blur of falling and death at the end... I don't really tend to remember why or how." Penn mumbled as he reached out to stroke the drone's head. "Th-thanks, Isy..."

"Affirmative. Would you like to know the time since the last of these occurrences?"

"I can count it, this time..." he mumbled. "Five days."

"Affirmative. This continues the trend we have observed of the frequency of these nightmares increasing over time."

"Wait, this is a regular thing?" Missy gawked slightly, making Penn flinch.

"It has been for a while. Used to be one a month or so, but... the stress I've been under lately has made them happen more often."

"Correction: The frequency of these nightmares has been increasing at a mathematically steady rate. Current models predict that the next will happen in-"

"I don't wanna hear it!" Penn held up a hand to stop Isis. "I'll never be able to sleep if I know one of these is coming."

"Penn, this is really serious-" Missy started, only for Penn to reach over and put a hand over her mouth.

"Missy, you're NOT going to tell Sunset about this. I'm going to figure out where they're coming from by myself."

Missy squeaked indignantly, but he ignored her as he rubbed at the center of his forehead with the thumb of his free hand.

"Missy, if this isn't just my trauma manifesting, then whatever this is warning me about, it's SERIOUS and LETHAL, and we need to tiptoe around it, not blunder straight in with nothing but our good intentions. If it IS my fight-or-flight response going haywire, then Sunset's going to want to try to do some well-meaning 'maintenance' up here..." he pointed to his skull to illustrate, "And I don't want her shuffling around up there if I'm not comatose or worse."

Missy had stopped protesting by now, settling for glaring at him with the half of her face that wasn't covered by his hand. After another few seconds of silence, however, she seemed to relent, rolling her eyes and sighing. At that, Penn finally pulled his hand away again.

"I don't like keeping secrets from my partner."

"Look, it's not a secret... It's just not enough information to do anything with." Penn sighed and leaned back in the reclined seat, pulling his blankets up to cover himself again. His whole body ached from the retching he'd been doing moments prior, and he felt made of glass. "You don't point out every single cloud out of fear of a blizzard, do you? Same thing." He took a second to think about the situation. "Why are you even up, anyway?"

"I don't trust Salem."

"You need rest, you're a growing-"

"Don't even." Missy cut him off. "I'm the ace of my own archetype. I might be a kid, but I'm not a human kid." She turned to stare out the window, taking a long look at the tent where Sunset was sleeping. "I'm a duel spirit, I can take care of myself. Just because my archetype wasn't around for the days of the Pharaoh or the Supreme King doesn't mean I haven't seen a few things in my time."

Penn paused, really being struck for the first time by how, being an eternal child, potentially alien Missy's concept of age and maturity could be. Come to think of it... do any of us actually know how old she is?

"You know... duel spirits have connections to the afterlife. Sometimes souls and spirits even merge or split off from one another while they're passing through." She settled back into the plush of the seat "If your nightmares are about death, I could go home... poke around and see what I can find. See if any powerful entities have their eyes on our little troupe."

Penn considered the offer for a moment, then shook his head. "Thanks, but I'd rather have you here. It would break all of our hearts for you to go. Especially when we're on the cusp of what could be our biggest fight, yet."

Missy frowned at that, reaching into her hat again and producing her own cup of tea.

"About that..." she murmured, staring deep into her cup. "Between you and me, why are we even fighting this fight?"

"Ask Sunse-"

"No." She turned her gaze toward him, and Penn suddenly felt the urge to squirm in his seat as if she was judging him. "I mean, why don't you just end this before it starts? Open up your laptop, control-A, delete, problem solved."

Penn gripped his teacup a little tighter, only barely managing to avoid shattering Missy's fine china.

"Free will."

Missy took another long sip of her tea.

"At the risk of sounding like you-know-who... if they misuse it, why do they deserve to have it? You could at least alter them enough to get them onto a better path."

"If free will isn't absolute, then it's not really free, is it?" Penn grumbled. "Trust me, I've had this argument with myself a thousand times since I heard Baalchion was running wild. I'm not a god... I don't deserve the ability to give or take their-"

"But you DO have the ability, deserving or not. One night at your keyboard, maybe two, and this problem could end without any more people getting hurt." Missy spoke over him this time, and every one of her words felt like a two-ton weight. "If you have the ability, the power, then don't you have the responsibility to use it?"

Penn sighed again.

"Okay... let's say for the sake of argument, that I DO have absolute control over the worlds I've written. Additionally, let's say that in this case, absolute power DOESN'T corrupt absolutely. That would make any decision, any imperative I enact, a newly written law of that universe." He took another sip of his tea. "Would you want to live in a universe where God could just... take control to protect His personal interests? Not a nudge, not circumstantial pushes, but actual direct interference to make you act contrary to your own will? Even if you think you were doing the right thing?" he shook his head. "If you treat free will as a privilege and not a right, you destroy the nature of being a cognizant, sentient being. If the ability to think and decide for yourself ISN'T an intrinsic part of consciousness, then what else could possibly separate the living, thinking creatures from being nothing but a deterministic wind-up toy made of chemical reactions? Chess pieces moved by an uncaring God in a game played purely against Himself?" He downed the rest of his tea, set down the cup, and gripped his blankets a little tighter, fearful at the thought.

"I certainly wouldn't want to live in a multiverse where free will is considered a revocable privilege and not an inherent right of all thinking beings. Not for me and not for anyone. Even Baalchion and Chirac."

The two of them sat in silence for a while, listening only to the sound of the car's engine and the heater blowing at maximum power.

"I guess that makes sense..." Missy mumbled at last.

"I'm sorry, but... I'm only ever going to approach Chirac and Baalchion as a man." He thought for a second. "Maybe a devil, too. Just kinda by definition of going against the gods... but never as a supreme being of any kind."

Missy sighed, and Penn couldn't help noticing a lot of tension leaving her body before she finally smiled again.

"Good. I was kinda scared that the phenomenal cosmic power might just go to your head." She chuckled and floated up, giving a light rap of her knuckles against his skull. "And you've got too much garbage up there to begin with!"

Penn tilted his head as realization set in. "Were you... testing me?"

"Well, yeah!" Missy dismissed his concern with a wave. "I don't mean to be mean, but ever since you trapped Bendy in your head, you've been leaning a little more into your... worse impulses."

Penn raised his hands defensively. "Hey, half of that isn't Bendy, it's-"

"I know, I know!" Missy cut him off. "Onee-sama isn't exactly a good influence on you, either. But I just wanted to be sure it wasn't YOU who was changing, you know?"

Penn reached over and chuckled as he gave her hair a loving tousle. "Well, don't worry about that. I'm right here, and I'm not gonna change just because of some stupid demon or two."

Both of them laughed even harder before she settled back down into her seat again, grabbing at the edge of his blanket and pulling it towards herself until they were both covered.

"Well, I'm gonna stay here in case you have any more nightmares, and you can't stop me."

Penn rolled his eyes and reached into the back seat, grabbing another pillow and tossing it to her. "You're gonna need this, then."

"You're not gonna yell at me about my seat belt, for once?"

Penn grabbed another pillow from the back seat, smacking her squarely across the face with it before tucking it under his head. This, of course, was reciprocated a moment later when Missy's pillow slapped him on the chest with a surprising amount of force.

"Oh, it is ON!"

"Awww..." Sunset made no effort to hide her reaction when she glanced through the windshield in the morning. Penn and Missy were both curled up together in the second row of seats in the car, huddled under the same blanket for warmth. It looked perfectly peaceful and serene...

Which was the complete opposite of the pillow carnage scattered through the rest of the car. Feathers and tattered pillowcases were EVERYWHERE, including one draped across each of their faces like an improvised pair of sleep masks. She smiled and pulled her jacket a little tighter as she made her way back to her heated tent. Breakfast could wait a little longer.

"Sunset... she's doing it again."

"Well, just ignore it."

"It takes up EVERY mirror, how am I supposed to ignore it?"

"Just don't look in your mirrors!"

"You REALLY don't drive much, do you?"

Sunset didn't let Penn's jab at her pride wipe the smile from her face. They were nearly back to the portal to Remnant, which meant that, after MONTHS of searching, she was a matter of hours from seeing one of her friends again.

She was SO eager, not even the deep buzzing of the Queen Lancer that Salem was riding just behind them could bring down her good mood.

"Speaking of... have you told Ozpin that Salem changed sides and is coming back with us?" Sunset asked.

"How were we speaking of..." Penn shook his head before dismissing his question. "No, she hasn't changed sides, she's still only acting in her own self-interests. They just happen to line up with the greater good this time." He took a deep breath, his eyes locked on the road ahead. "As for Ozpin, no. I still haven't told him. I'm trying to figure out how we can just keep those two completely isolated from one another, even if they're working toward the same goal."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Because THAT kind of dishonesty doesn't have the potential to blow up in our faces completely..."

"Okay, let me explain." Penn jabbed this thumb over his shoulder, indicating Salem. "She's nitro. Oz is glycerin. If we let them interact, SOMETHING'S gonna explode!"

"Well, if you're not gonna tell him, I will..." Sunset threatened.

"Be my guest. Go ahead and tell the headmaster and most influential person in that world that we've been joined by his mortal enemy from across multiple millennia... that we managed to be a good influence on the Empress of Evil and she definitely HASN'T used her magic to either manipulate or blackmail us. I'm sure we won't be greeted with a veritable army waiting for us on the other side of the portal!"

Sunset felt her argument dry up in her throat. "Okay, but trying to hide it isn't going to do us any favors, either!"

"Which is why I'm working on a way to handle Salem... remotely." Penn grumbled, gripping the steering wheel more tightly.

Sunset glanced back out the rear window of the car, seeing the two-story-tall giant wasp easily keeping pace with them while Salem sat on its back with a disinterested look. "Well, let me know when you figure that out..."

"Believe me, I'll be shouting 'EUREKA' and running down the street."

Sunset turned her attention down and into the back seat, where Missy was nestled in a pile of blankets and pillows that completely filled the second row of seats. She smirked as the little angel snuggled in tighter into the heap of soft items. "Feeling comfy, Missy?"

"Yup!" Missy giggled. "No sleeping in trees, this time!"

"Good, sleeping in the car should be a lot safer." Sunset smiled. "At least this time we can expect you to be out of commission for a day once we cross over."

"Mmhm..." Missy took her own turn to glance out the rear window. "Are you sure you guys will be okay without me? What if she double-crosses us when I'm not around to fight magic with magic?"

"We'll be fine." Sunset gave the top of her head a pat. "I may not be Applejack, but I can tell that she's being honest about wanting to save Remnant, even if it IS so that she can have it for herself later."

Missy gave one more distrustful look behind them as the car slowed to a stop.

"We have arrived."

Sunset glanced around, taking in the landscape. It was colder and frosted slightly in some of the shadier places, but this was definitely the same place the portal had been last time. The shimmering air in front of them confirmed it, as well.

Penn tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his breath coming in shorter bursts. He seemed to catch the hyperventilating before Sunset could point it out, though. "Everybody ready?"

Sunset was having trouble understanding why they seemed to be giving the moment such reverence, but then the realization hit her: This is the first time we've ever gone BACK to a place... We've always just kept moving forward.

Missy snuggled in tighter to her pile of blankets. "Yup!"

"Affirmative."

Penn nearly jumped out of his skin when Salem strode up beside the driver's side window, rapping her knuckles against it. After a moment's hesitation, he clicked the button to roll the window down.

"So... this is the place?" Salem asked, regarding the portal with a critical eye.

"Feels like crap to say so, considering I fought so long to avoid you finding out... but yeah." Penn was practically glowering, now. "On the other side of that portal is the location you spent a month trying to torture out of me." He cast an eye up towards her. "The other side has a small bit of clearing, should make for a good base of operations."

Salem hummed quietly. "Mm... And why not go directly to Beacon?"

"Because I know better than to surprise Oz with YOU." He took a shuddering breath and whispered his next words. "Dealing with one of you at a time is hard enough..."

Salem gave him a sideways glance, but there was surprisingly little malice in it. "I'm surprised that you regard him so poorly. You are so similar, after all."

Penn's lower left eye twitched, and Sunset could tell that he was biting back his outrage at the comparison. Even if she thought Professor Ozpin was a good person to be compared to, Sunset could tell Salem knew it would make Penn upset. He didn't look at either of them as he reached over and yanked open the glove compartment. He snatched a small item from inside and tossed it absentmindedly out the window for her to catch. "In that case, I'm sure you'd like to put some distance between us. That's a communicator I had Isis make for you. More portable than a demon jellyfish. Feel free to go try and fight Baalchion on your own, if you'd like."

Salem caught the cell phone without missing a beat just before it hit her square in the face, swiping her finger across the screen a few times and watching it glow with life. After another moment, she slipped it into a hidden pocket in her dress. "As much as we would BOTH enjoy that, I take pride in not being the first to abandon or betray my allies. It's a matter of courtesy." She waved her mount forward, causing a gut-shaking buzz to ripple through the air before it landed back on its six legs. Penn's grip on the steering wheel instantly became white-knuckled, causing Salem to chuckle.

"Seeing how frightened you are of harmless insects DOES provide no end of entertainment..." She murmured before floating up onto its back with a gust of wind. "I trust you'll have no issue going first, given this is the correct portal?"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up..." Penn grumbled as the window slowly rolled back up. "See you on the other side."

All fell silent again as they stared at the portal for another few seconds. Finally, Penn took a heaving sigh and reached up, shifting the car back into drive.

"No use putting it off any longer. Dread it, run from it.... destiny arrives all the same, right?"

Sunset blinked. "Aren't you excited? I mean, we're going to finally find Rainbow Dash! She's here! Plus we're going to get to see all of our friends again!"

"I'm still not convinced Remnant isn't cursed." Penn rolled his eyes slightly as they passed through the portal. "If I'm honest, I intended to leave this place behind us for good last time."

"Hey, come on..." Sunset reached up and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I promised you that I'm not going to let Salem hurt you again, and this time you're going to get to come to Beacon with me! It's not going to be like last time!"

Outside their windows, the world outside brightened more and more until they were completely surrounded by white. There was a rolling shudder through the car as the ground that they were rolling on changed, followed by a sudden jolt that nearly threw Sunset forward out of her seat as the car collided with something.

"SON OF A-"

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-

Penn's inevitable expletive was cut off as he planted face-first into the steering wheel.

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-

He struggled for a moment before pulling his face off of the wheel with a distinct popping sound. His face seemed to stay completely flat for a moment before he slapped both of his cheeks with his hands, forcing it back into shape.

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Without his head pressing down on the horn, the suffering of everyone's ears came to an end.

"I thought we were still coming through the portal!" Missy cried indignantly. "How can we have hit something in here!?"

"Is everyone okay?" Sunset craned her neck to look into the back seat, where Missy was curled up tightly in her pile of blankets with wide eyes, clearly having been shocked by the collision but otherwise unharmed.

"I'll tell you in a minute..." Penn growled, practically kicking open his driver's-side door... only for it to only open by about a foot wide as something stopped it short. A second later, a wave of ice-cold air practically set Sunset shivering in an instant, and she realized why they were still surrounded by blank whiteness:

"We're through the portal... and we came out in a blizzard!" Sunset exclaimed.

Penn narrowed his eyes and threw his weight against the door, forcing it open a little more each time. "I NEED! ...to CHECK! ...the DAMAGE!"

With that final push, he stamped out into the snow. Sunset could barely make out the shape of him as he stomped around to the front of the car, examining the point where it had been forcefully stopped for a moment before coming back around to his door.

For her part, Sunset grabbed her jacket from the back seat and threw it over herself like a blanket to stop from collapsing into a shivering mess. A few seconds later, Penn stiffly clambered back into his seat and yanked the door shut. Every hair on his head was now frozen a perfect horizontal line, and some even had tiny icicles forming on them. His entire body was covered in a thick layer of white frost.

"You're really laying the cartoon physics on thick today, huh?" Missy mumbled from behind them.

Penn shook his entire body, and the frost seemed to dissolve away again.

"Okay, good news is that it's JUST snow, so it didn't do much damage. It's less like hitting a wall and more like hitting a giant, freezing pillow..." Penn sighed with what was clearly relief as he gave the steering wheel an affectionate pet. "No need for repairs like last time. However... being stopped by three feet of snow means that, unless we go back the way we came, we are now stuck in three feet of snow." He took a moment to shift the car into reverse, but pressing down on the gas pedal seemed to only make the wheels whine and squeal. "Okay, correction, unless we get out and push back the way we came, we're now stuck in three feet of snow."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, just in time for the loud, angry buzzing of Salem's mount to come up behind them and then overtake them. Sunset couldn't make out more than the vaguest of shapes moving past them due to its white carapace, but the sound of it grew softer for a moment, then louder again, then soft once more, in a way that made Sunset think that it might have been circling over them. A few seconds later, the white blizzard outside began to slow. The winds whipping against the side of the car became less brutal. Slowly, the white haze melted away, revealing the familiar clearing where they had arrived last time, albeit under a heavy blanket of snow. In the center stood Salem, raising a single hand in defiance of nature and making it clear that it was her magic that had lessened the blizzard's might in the clearing. Her Queen Lancer was simply sitting in the middle of the clearing, obediently waiting for its master to finish her business. Sunset wouldn't call it CLEAR skies, but it had gone from a complete whiteout to only a light snowfall under dark clouds. Even the excessive snow on the ground had been lessened, blown away by the magical wind until it looked as if it would only go up to just above the tops of Sunset's boots. When Salem turned back to look at them, she smirked.

Sunset wished she could say that they didn't need her help, but... they certainly didn't have the power to hold back the weather like that.

"That's better, but it doesn't solve the fact that we're half-buried and the snow is probably just as deep or deeper all the way to the nearest road." Penn grumbled. "And I do NOT want to ask her to be our snowplow. Even if we're allies, I just KNOW she'd never let us live that down."

"All that time tinkering and repairing and you never added an all-terrain option?" Missy tutted. "Penn, if you don't turn this into an Oldsmo-ATV, what's the point of spending half our nights working on it?"

"If I took the time to revamp the whole suspension system for all-terrain capabilities, we'd be stranded for DAYS unable to go ANYWHERE..." Penn folded his arms and leaned back in his seat as Missy's joking intent went cleanly over his head. "Isis and I designed it AGES ago, finding time for installing it is the problem..."

Sunset reached into her pocket, withdrawing her phone. "Isis? Can you call Professor Ozpin and let him know we need some help? We're a little stranded-"

"Assistance was already sent before you entered the portal in anticipation of this scenario. It should arrive shortly."

"Would it have killed Oz-pinhead to just keep our landing zone clear, to begin with?" Penn mumbled sourly.

"According to meteorological data I have gathered from this world's servers, this storm is extremely anomalous, already having rendered triple the snowfall of the second-largest storm in the last five years and showing no signs of stopping. It was, to be frank, impractical to keep this entire area consistently clear when a simple escort could be sent upon your arrival."

Penn groaned and pressed his thumb to the center of his forehead, rubbing softly. "I hate the fact that makes sense..."

Sunset looked back out the front windshield. "Don't look now, but you're not going to like what's coming next... Salem looks like she wants to talk."

Penn groaned again, reaching to the back seat to grab his own jacket before turning to look at her. "Either way, we should probably be ready to go out and meet Ozpin's landing committee."

"...or YOU could go out and meet them while I stay here, where it's warm?" Sunset gave him a pleading smile, but his complete lack of reaction made it clear that he wasn't about to go out into the snow on his own. "...fine, I'll get my coat on."

"Hehehe..." Missy giggled from under her blankets. "Enjoy the winter wonderland... Leave the car running and I'll keep the heater on for you!"

Sunset took a moment to stick her tongue out at Missy as she rammed her door open a few times to push back the snow. The fact that Missy's smirk didn't falter felt more insulting than any reciprocation.

Thankfully, her boots were waterproof... unfortunately, even with Salem's magic reducing the force of the storm, the freezing wind felt like it passed straight through her jeans to chill her directly, and that was to say nothing of her exposed cheeks and nose. Thankfully, Isis had delivered her a new leather jacket soon after Halloween had passed, so that was keeping her torso and core warm, but if she stayed out here too long, she knew she was liable to start shivering in spite of it.

"Hmm... it's a bit chilly..." Penn muttered, taking a second to rub at his nose. "Might just be the wind, but the air's got that below-freezing bite to it..."

He hardly seems affected at all, and he's not even wearing leather to keep the wind out!

"I trust that I don't need to tell you both that this is out of the ordinary for this time of year..." Salem gestured to the sky as she approached. "Will you be able to navigate like this?"

"Ozma is sending an escort for us to help us get to Beacon." Penn stared upwards, as if he was trying to read something in the clouds. "But this is bad. Climate change is one of the late stages of invasion... it means Baalchion's gotten enough influence to affect things at a city- no- potentially country-sized level. If this invasion goes on much longer, we'll be facing continental-scale baddies..."

"And how, exactly, do you propose we stop him?" Salem tilted her head as she cocked a single eyebrow in a way that bordered on "mocking." "You haven't been very forthcoming with your plan in that matter."

Sunset swallowed, feeling a lump rapidly forming in her throat. Something felt... off. She shifted back and forth from one foot to the other, kneading the snow beneath her feet. It wasn't just fidgeting because of the cold, she was getting the sense that her footing just... wasn't as steady as she'd like.

"I don't want to tell it over and over, and the less time people have to poke holes in it, the better..." Penn muttered. "It's not easy figuring out easy ways to explain the physics behind what Baalchion and Chirac do, and I don't think talking about it all like it's magic is going to be enough for Oz OR Ironwood."

Rmblmblbl...

Sunset's head snapped from side to side, trying to spot the source of the noise. After a moment, she realized that neither Penn nor Salem seemed to have heard the rumbling.

...was it a rumbling?

It had felt more like the "sound" of blood rushing through your ears. Judging by the fact that no one else had responded, it probably WAS the blood rushing to her ears... maybe a response to the cold? The strain of trying not to shiver?

"Well, considering that you do not want me present when you speak to those fools, I think that I could be afforded at least a one-on-one-"

Rmbbmlbmlmblm...

"Hey!" Sunset didn't flinch at the glare Salem gave her when she interrupted. "...did anyone else hear that?"

That was enough to get Penn's attention, though Salem remained purely irritated.

"No, I heard nothing-"

RMBLMBOOOM!

"SKREEEEE!"

No one had time to react when the ground just behind Salem violently exploded, sending dirt and snow spraying high into the sky. The force was enough to lift the ground beneath their feet, throwing everyone to the ground at once. As Sunset was flung backwards and into the snow on her back, she didn't even feel the cold.

Every ounce of her attention was focused on the titanic, jet-black centipede that currently had Salem's mount gripped between its mandibles. The gigantic wasp fired its projectile stingers at the monster at point-blank range, but they simply grazed off with minimal effect against its natural armor, deflecting off and out of sight into the unbounded storm outside the clearing. With what looked like zero effort, the thing snapped the Queen Lancer in half like a twig. Its numerous legs rattled and shook as they shuffled the Grimm's remains up to its mouth, snapping and tearing at it in an attempt to eat it before it dissolved away to ashes. The fruitlessness of losing the carcass of its prey so quickly seemed to only enrage the creature more, and it turned its face to the sky.

When it roared, it wasn't the hiss or screech Sunset would expect from a giant insect. It was a low vibration, one that reverberated through the ground and into Sunset's gut and bones, making it feel like the thing could shake every grain of dirt around it with sound alone.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRMMBLBLBLBMBMBMLBM!

It hadn't even come completely out of the ground, yet it already stood at least six stories high, possibly more. Its carapace was as dark as the night sky, in a way that made Sunset think of the space between stars. Its underbelly was covered in countless limbs, starting with the largest set on the outside and growing smaller and more fine as one moved inward towards the center of its body.

She hadn't even had time to get back on her feet before Penn was already standing over her. He reached down and, before he could grab her shoulder or jacket or something, Sunset took hold of his hand with her own. He pulled her up to her feet with ease, and Sunset reached down to her belt for her saber.

"No!" Penn grabbed her hand, pulling it away from her weapon. "It's too big, we've GOT to get out of here!"

"But what about-"

Penn gave her arm a hard tug, pulling her towards the car with enough force to nearly pull her arm out of its socket. By sheer force of his grip, she was forced into an all-out sprint just to avoid getting dragged.

"NO! Regroup on the other side before it eats us!"

That's right... it's too big for the portal!

Penn finally released his grip on her arm long enough to wave frantically at the car with both arms.

"GO BACK! GO BACK!"

Sunset could see Missy through the windshield, wide-eyed and scrambling to try and get untangled from her nest of blankets. At the same time, the wheels of the car began moving of their own accord as Isis took remote control, but they only could spin wildly in place against the snow beneath them. Penn landed shoulder-first against the front of the hood, clearly dead-set on pushing Sylvia back to safety. Just as Sunset was about to join him, she chanced a look back over her shoulder.

"LOOK OUT!"

She planted one of her boots in the snow at an awkward angle, perpendicular to the way she was moving, and slammed into Penn from the side with the full force of her sprinting body. Together, the two of them tumbled to the ground just in time for the razor-sharp mandibles to pass over them.

KRUNCH!

VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRM!\

The revving of the engine and the squealing of the wheels were like a pained scream as the pincers closed around the front of the car. There was a shriek of tearing metal and the crackle of breaking plastic as the monster tried to lift its prey, tearing its jaws through the body of the car and completely ripping off the hood, bumper and headlights to expose the motor inside.

BRMBRMBRMBRMBRMBRMBRM POP! POP! BRMBRMBRMBRMBRMBRM!

Oil and coolant were spraying everywhere, but the engine continued to rev and roar, now free of any engineer's attempts to dampen the sound, punctuated with the occasional pop of extra fuel from the now-leaking fuel pumps catching alight. The ten-story insect seemed to take this as a challenge, rearing back like a snake about to strike.

RMBMBRMBMLMBLRMBLMBML!

BRMBRMRBMRBRM-POPPOPPOP!-BRMBRMBRMBRMBRMBRM!

"NO!"

The cry and a futile reaching hand were the only attempt Penn could make to save his beloved Oldsmobile.

In a motion almost too fast for Sunset's eyes, the creature descended, hammering down jaws-first onto the engine bay. Its mandibles came from around the outside, grabbing the front wheels and crushing them inwards, while the teeth of its true mouth settled on the engine block like a vicegrip. With a proper hold on the car's frame, now, it lifted Sylvia into the air entirely, as easily as a dog would pick up its chew toy. The back wheels spun wildly for a few seconds as the monster shook it back and forth. Sunset could hear the sound of snapping, and then the engine fell silent. With a final shake to confirm that its toy was dead, the monster seemed to lose interest. First, its true mouth spit out a chunk of metal that landed only a few short feet away from them...

The engine, mangled nearly beyond recognition.

Then, it casually tossed aside the rest of the car, sending it careening and rolling into the treeline at the edge of the clearing, where it finally settled in a broken, smoking heap. It looked almost as if a giant hand had picked it up and squeezed it like a paper cup: crushed and folded in on itself at every single angle.

Sunset, however, knew that there was something even more precious that had been inside.

"MISSY!"

"I-I'm right here!"

Sunset's head snapped up, and she almost wanted to cry at the sight of Ghostrick Alucard cradling Missy in his arms, having obviously snatched her from the back seat before the monster struck. Sunset jumped to her feet, rushing up and wrapping her arms around them both in the tightest bear hug she could manage.

"No..."

Sunset turned around at the sound of Penn's voice.

He was on his knees, staring straight at the remains of Sylvia with wide, tear-filled eyes.

He was gone, mentally, and she knew it.

"No..."

It was up to her to be the "Penn" right now and get them all out safely.

"COME ON!" She grabbed at the back of his jacket with one hand, trying to forcefully pull him to his feet. He didn't move, heavy as an anchor to her. Somewhere in the back of Sunset's mind, she remembered that it had taken her a full-sprint tackle to even knock him off of the hood and onto the ground. There was no way that she could move him against his will. "PENN, WE'VE GOTTA GET TO THE PORTAL!"

He didn't respond.

"PENN, MOVE BEFORE-" Sunset's yell died in her throat as she looked up at the monster, seeing that it was staring at them, now, in the same snakelike striking pose.

In the back of her mind, Sunset's brain was throwing up a million alarms to run. If she stayed here, she was going to die, and every instinct in her body was telling her to run.

But one thought, one desire that rose up above all others, drowned them all out until it left a singular, pure thought in her mind.

Disaster won't split me from them. Not again.

She and the beast both moved at the same time.

Just like every other time, her saber was in her hands without needing to think for it. She leaped into the air and over Penn's head, interposing herself between her friends and the danger. Without thinking consciously about it, she settled into the ready position Weiss had taught her. This time, it was like the monster was moving in slow motion to her, and she was able to see it bearing down on them. Her body felt sluggish compared to the speed of her thoughts, but she still flicked the switch on her saber, summoning the crimson blade in a flash of light and heat.

Just as the mandibles were about to close on her body like a pair of gigantic guillotine blades, Sunset felt nothing but quiet fury. This thing, she didn't even know what it was CALLED, had just destroyed their home, narrowly missed potentially KILLING Missy, and now was trying to kill them all... and they hadn't even DONE anything to it, to begin with!

She could see the light of her saber reflected on it's body, half in a cluster of shiny black orbs that she could only assume were its eyes, and half in the fluid leftovers of Sylvia's insides that were still splattered across its shell.

Three strikes.

The first sliced through it's mandibles, cutting them too short to even consider meeting in the middle and gripping anything. All that was left was a pair of stumps, glowing red and ragged at the ends.

The second grazed upwards across the front of its head, the closest area that could be considered a "face." Instantly, the plasma of the blade set the oil and gasoline on the monster's body aflame, causing it to burst into a red-hot inferno. On an almost unconscious level, Sunset made a note that the saber didn't pass straight through it like it had every other substance they had encountered.

The third was a thrusting motion, planting the glowing red blade directly into the thing's true mouth, causing a violent crackle and sizzling of its bodily fluids instantly boiling and vaporizing inside of it.

All of this happened in less than a second, a mix of supernatural reflex and practiced discipline.

The monster instantly reared back again, this time making a new noise that Sunset could only imagine was a scream of pain for something so huge, something that made her think of a pained whale song.

MRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEHRRRRM!

Rather than flailing in an attempt to extinguish the flames, the monster dove headfirst back into the ground, burrowing down into the dirt. Sunset mentally marked the end of the "slow motion" sensation as she could barely keep up with its motion, digging furiously as it uprooted and tossed aside trees to properly encircle them in its body.

She turned back, keeping her saber in her hand and at the ready position.

"Penn, get a GRIP, I NEED you!"

Those seemed to be the magic words to pull Penn out of his own head. He shook slightly as he came back to his senses.

"R-Right... sorry... I'm here."

"HOLY CRAP, SUNSET!" Missy shouted. "THAT WAS BADA-MMPH!"

Her mouth was momentarily covered by Alucard in a feeble attempt to censor her.

Penn pushed himself to his feet, stepping up beside her as he gathered the situation.

"If this thing has some kind of secret weakness, I'd love to hear it..." Sunset mumbled.

"Not really." Penn replied.

"Think we can make it to the portal in time?"

"If we all make a break for it at once, we'll be an easy target."

"What's the plan?"

Penn paused for a moment.

"Well, considering Salem's vanished, that cuts our options down, but I've got an idea. I NEED to get to Sylvia." He glanced down at her saber's blade. "It's going to go after heat and light, they're Baalchionic creatures' natural enemy, so you're ringing the dinner bell right there. Can you and Missy keep it distracted for ten seconds?"

Missy floated up beside them, a confident grin on her face.

"Ten seconds? Piece of cake."

Sunset tightened her grip on the saber.

"After what this thing just did to Sylvia?" Sunset tightened her grip on her saber once again, letting her rage flow down into the weapon, rather than build up inside of her. "I'm ready to fight this monster for ten YEARS."

"Good. You girls break left, I'll break right. Syl is on her back right now, so it shouldn't be hard to get to what I need. On my mark, lead it back to me and..." he sighed slightly, as if in pained resignation. "Then we need to try to make it strike one more time."

It sounded crazy, insane, possibly even suicidal... but by this point, Sunset was used to Penn's plans including an element of insanity.

"Okay. One, two... THREE!"

No Brakes, Part 2

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay, everyone, but... well, I actually have a good excuse this time!

For those who don't know... my car got hit by an 18-wheeler.

So I've gone back to Texas now. No money, no job, and only having what I was able to carry down in a thrift-store suitcase. I'm just trying to stretch what little cash I had when I got hit to last until somebody calls me back about a job.

...yeah. Bad situation all around.

Still, could have been worse! I'm fine, and being back home with my mom means I'm not going to freeze to death, the car is just totaled and I'm looking for a job before my grocery money runs out. I don't want to make any promises about updates, any more. Every time I do, something happens that obliterates my ability to keep it.

Just... stay safe, fellow adventurers, and happy adventuring.
-Penn

*Edit: 1/12/23: It's actually been about a month since I had my accident, now. Sorry this took so long to come out, but the sheer stress of my living situation has made any kind of creativity difficult. Not a lot else has changed.

No Brakes, Part 2

"One, two... THREE!"

Sunset launched into just below a sprint, waving her saber high to catch the giant monster's attention.

"HEY! OVER HERE, UGLY!"

"COME GET US, YOU BIG PALOOKA!" Missy shouted beside her, keeping pace with barely a flap of her wings.

Sunset felt a mounting trepidation as their distraction seemed to be working, drawing the ten-story centipede's attention.

"First of all, let's get a home field advantage!" Missy declared as she reached into her hat and drew a handful of cards. "Here comes Ghostrick Mansion!"

Sunset could feel the ground shiver as trees near the edge of the clearing began to violently shake and uproot. At the edge of the clearing, a familiar mansion began to force its way up from under the snow. It wasn't full-sized, more like a model of a mansion that was a fifth of the size of anything that a normal human could live in, but it was enough to completely change the feeling of the battlefield, casting a more playful aura through the clearing. The monstrous centipede drew back somewhat at the sudden architectural intrusion, as if unsure what to make of Missy's magic.

"But that's not all!" Missy grinned as she turned over another card in her fingers. "Next, I'm using the magic of Double Summon to normal summon two monsters to the field! Yuki-Onna! Witch! We could use your help!"

Sunset couldn't help but grin as the doors of the mini-mansion burst open and the two adorable monsters in question flew out to join them, each one flanking the two of them on opposite sides.

RMBLMBLMBL! The monster growled and turned its attention away from the group, clearly putting its attention on the mansion. It didn't seem to hesitate to strike at the field spell, moving so fast that Sunset's eye could barely keep up with the strike.

To her shock, however, the monster's attack was stopped just short of its target by the tiny figure of Ghostrick Witch, holding it back with a boom handle to the forehead.

"Don't even try it!" Missy grinned wider. "Witch can turn one monster to defense position every turn!"

With an adorable squeak of effort, Ghostrick Witch batted away the monster, sending it reeling back. The monster seemed off-put enough to curl around itself, pulling into a tight defensive spiral. With a nod of approval, Witch came back to join them again. With the threat dealt with and having reached the far edge of the clearing from the car, they all slid to a stop together, their backs to the mansion and facing the threat before them.

"Now let's see what you've got!" Missy declared, throwing down a pair of cards Sunset could only assume were traps.

Sunset grinned. "Not too often you get to really throw your magic around in an open area like this, huh, Missy?"

Missy giggled before nodding. "This is gonna be fun!"

Penn's heart felt like it was going to burst as he sprinted for the smoldering remains of his beloved car. It was moments like this that he was glad for the bone-conduction earpieces Isis gave them so he wouldn't need to yell to be heard.

How on earth is a Queen Knightcrawler HERE? How did it get here? If the portal is where Salem's castle used to be, why would it come all the way out here? Was it guarding the interdimensional portal? Was it WAITING for us? A million questions were running through his mind, but the one on his lips was the only one that mattered for the moment.

"Isis? Where's the nitro supply?" he asked as he slid to a stop at the car.

"Approximately two feet behind the front passenger seat, behind an armored safety plate to avoid an accidental ignition. I believe the fact that the car did not explode is testimony that this was an effective measure."

Penn resisted the urge to curse under his breath. In the corner of his eye, he saw the giant queen bug curl up defensively in response to something that the girls had done.

"Can you eject it, or something? I don't have time for the socket wrench!" He put one foot up onto the car's underbelly, following the cheap plastic of the fuel lines, spotting the dispersal unit Isis has installed just past the fuel filter. It was hooked to a line that disappeared behind a bolted-in panel.

"Negative."

He slapped his hand against his forehead, but just as he was about to curse whatever gods of cars existed, he spotted something: the edge of the panel had been sheared off. It wasn't big enough to reach in and pull out the canister, though... not yet. He practically ripped off his jacket in his hurry to wrap it around his hand for a makeshift safety glove. He gingerly hopped up onto the top of the overturned vehicle, placing both feet on exposed pieces of the frame, squatted low, and wrapped his now-protected hand around the ragged edge of the metal.

"Daily workout, don't fail me now!" he muttered as he began to pull. He leaned back and pushed with his legs, all the while feeling the sensation of his arms threatening to tear out of their sockets. He could feel the metal beginning to give and bend under his grip, but only by the smallest of margins. "Come... ON! I know you're hurting, Syl, but I NEED... THIS... PIECE!"

Somewhere in his brain, he swore that if he looked down and saw his arms still cartoonishly attached to the panel when he stepped back, he was going to throw Bendy to the mercy of the nearest exorcist.

Just as the strain was about to overtake him, he finally relented, leaning forward again and looking at his progress. He didn't even feel like he had the strength to punch the air when he saw that the panel had bent back several inches, opening just wide enough to get his unwrapped hand inside. He practically threw his jacket aside in his rush to get his hand in, closing around a cylinder about the size of a large soda cup. As he carefully drew it out of its hiding place and ripped off the spliced-in fuel lines, he grinned at the sight of the fine red crystals inside threatening to spill out of the opening. The whole canister was almost uncomfortably warm in his hands despite the snowstorm around them, clearly agitated by all of the rough treatment it had been through in the last few minutes. Good, they were going to need that.

"We happy?" he whispered, mostly to himself. "Oh, we happy."

"Affirmative."

"Whatever Penn was trying to get from the car, it looks like he got it!" Missy called out, peering with one hand held above her eyes as if to block the sun.

"Good!" Sunset called back, trying her best to stay standing on the top of Ghostrick Dullahan's galloping horse. The giant monster was keeping pace with them as they sprinted in circles around its main body. When she spotted the pulling-back motion that it was about to strike, she pushed off, leaping into the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the telltale color of a trap card in Missy's hand as Dullahan was shattered. She didn't get to see the effect, though, as she landed feet-first on the monster's head.

Keeping with her momentum, she dropped down into a slide down its back and ran her saber the entire length of its upper body. As she slid, though, she couldn't help noticing that it wasn't a smooth surface like most insect bodies: it was pitted and covered in holes, some looking like scars from former battles and others like some kind of naturally-occuring perforations. Somehow, it seemed that her saber still couldn't get through its carapace, but it left a nasty-looking streak of red-hot chitin behind her. When the whole thing bucked underneath her, Sunset was flung up into the air. She was certainly out of control, but she didn't feel any panic. True to her expectations, Ghostrick Witch flew up into her line of sight, letting her catch hold of her broomstick. The sheer force of her motion was enough to send her on a full 360-degree trip around the handle before she was left hanging comfortably, and she could feel the shake in her body as it let loose another gut-churning rumble-roar. A few seconds later, the two of them had returned to the earth, Sunset sliding to a stop beside an awestruck-looking Missy. "Because I'm starting to REALLY get tired of keeping this thing distracted!"

Missy blinked several times before reaching into her hat for more cards.

"Oh, so we're showing off now? Okay, MY turn!"

Part of Sunset wanted to tell Missy to be careful and not get sloppy... but honestly, she was more interested in seeing what Missy was going to do.

The gigantic centipede was still recovering when Missy spread her wings wide and began to accelerate towards it. It didn't wait to be attacked, opening the remnants of its pincers wide as dark-colored energy began to well up in its mouth, rapidly overflowing and beginning to leak from the sides. As the warning bells in the base of her skull began to ring wildly, Sunset barely had enough time to get her saber up to block as Penn's hastily-shouted warning rang through the clearing.

"Beam attack!"

A flurry of laser-like beams shot from the creature's mouth, raking through the air in seemingly-random patterns. Sunset managed to catch one with her saber, splitting the dark energy into a v-shape around her. Her eyes widened as she spotted more of the beams striking the trees at the clearing's edge, instantly causing them to wither up and shrink down until they were nothing but piles of dry, spongy-looking material. Her heart skipped a beat as she noticed even the saber beginning to dim and flicker under the assault. With a grunt of effort, she twisted her position just enough to completely deflect the beam to her right, then rolled to the left.

As she came to a landing in the snow, she glanced down at her saber. A tiny light near the bottom of the hilt was blinking. It was a warning light that she'd asked Isis to install last time they'd been repairing it, and it meant that the battery was critically low. For a moment, she gawked at the sight. I just charged this thing last night! There's no way it could- She glanced back at the trees, noting how they had shriveled up before crumbling. Was that some kind of DRAINING attack?

"Okay, well... Five-minute warning, I guess," she mumbled as she pushed herself back up to her feet.

Missy, meanwhile, didn't seem to be struggling at all. She was slipping around and between the beams as easily as if they weren't even there. She had a massive grin on her face as she continued to fly closer and closer, cards in hand. Her smile faltered slightly as the monster's mandibles appeared to completely regenerate from the jagged stumps, but she didn't falter in her approach. She looked like a mosquito in the face of a creature ten stories tall, but that size difference let her easily slip between the blade-like pincers, accelerating up and over its head. With a wave of her arm, she threw a card ahead of her, where it began to glow brightly. Missy pushed her speed just a little harder, catching up to the glowing ball of light just in time to twist in the air, flipping head over heels and bringing the back of her foot firmly down onto it.

"Ghostrick SHOT!"

The little ball of light took off as if it had been launched from a cannon, speeding towards its target and growing larger and larger in size as it went. The apparent problem, of course... was that it seemed to be headed towards Sunset.

"Hey... Sunset!" Penn panted as he slid to a stop beside her. "I got it! I got the-"

Sunset reached over and firmly panted her hand on Penn's head, pushing him down. The crackling ball of energy shot over their heads with blistering speed, disappearing into the trees.

"You're welcome." Sunset grinned as the ball of light began to bounce from trunk to trunk, ricocheting until it was completely out of sight.

"Dangit, I told her to warn me before she tries to make a bank shot off my skull..." Penn muttered as he straightened back into a standing position.

"In her defense, I kinda get the impression that one's still new to her." Sunset shrugged before turning her attention back to Missy and the monster.

Missy seemed unfazed by her miss, but the centipede beginning to rush up towards her was a greater problem. She took off in a vertical climb, but Sunset could see that she was losing the race. Another burst of the draining beams erupted from the creature's mouth, this time evenly spaced and all closing in on Missy.

"Should... should we do something?" Penn asked quietly.

Sunset wanted to say yes, but... something in her heart said otherwise.

"Missy's calm, I can feel it. She's still in control."

Penn glanced back up, where they could see that the gap between the two had shrunk enough for the beams to singe at the edges of her dress. Feeling a trickle of doubt, Sunset focused on the bond she could feel with the little spirit.

You good up there?

Is that thing out of body, yet?

Sunset glanced back down at the base of the monster's body, which was arching further and further upwards to keep up with Missy.

You're about three-quarters through it.

That'll do!

Without warning, the ball of light came tearing back out through the trees, firmly striking Penn in the back of the head. As he performed an involuntary front flip that ended with him face-first in the snow, the deflection set the projectile on the perfect angle to rocket upwards to its original target. With screaming speed, the ball of light collided with the monster's side. The beam attack was reflexively cut off as it's concentration shattered. Sunset's eyes widened as she realized what Missy's goal had been the entire time: she was aiming to get the thing off-balance. She'd been forced to fly high enough to barely be a speck in the sky, Sunset could only guess something close to twenty stories high, but now the creature was toppling like a felled tree.

Even at this distance, Sunset could see that the glowing ball of light had dispelled to reveal a monster, and her gut told her that the silhouette was that of Ghostrick Stein. Even as Missy and Stein both plummeted back towards the ground, Sunset was more captivated by the toppling titan as it crashed down into the trees with enough force to shake the ground. Sunset could see several places in its body that it had been impaled on the trees.

"Ghostrick BREAK!"

In a puff of smoke, Stein vanished, replaced by the forms of Jackfrost and Skeleton. Even those two, however, soon vanished again, dissolving into a cloud of sparkling lights. Just beneath them, what looked like a miniature spiral galaxy manifested, and the ethereal remains of Jackfrost and Skeleton were pulled inside. Even as Sunset leaned down to offer Penn a hand, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the spectacle.

"Ughhh... anybody get the number of that truck?" Penn mumbled from the ground.

As Missy reached the spiral, she kicked into it foot-first, and an explosion of light forced Sunset to blink. In the time between her eyes closing and opening again, Alucard had appeared beside Missy, and the two of them crashed heel-first into the monster's underbelly, driving it even further onto the trees that had ripped through its body.

RMBLMBLMBLRMBLRMBLLLLLLLLL!

Sunset couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy as the creature let out another roar of pain.

"Is this... is this okay?" Sunset turned to look at Penn. He was back up on his feet, but the last of the impact's effects seemed to be lingering as he swayed back and forth unsteadily.

"Knightcrawlers don't live long enough to become queens by being stupid..." he mumbled. "If she gets the point that she's outmatched, she'll retreat."

"But... what if we kill her before-" Sunset paused as Penn's words sunk in. "Please don't tell me that's 'nightcrawlers' with a k on the front."

"The author was lousy at naming things, I don't like it either..." Penn grumbled. "But don't worry, it'll take more than that to kill one of Baalchion's elites." He raised his hand, showing Sunset a moderate-sized metal cylinder. "THIS, on the other hand, should be just enough to send it running."

Sunset didn't even get a chance to ask him what was in it before he tilted it for her to see through the opening.

"Is that... fire dust?"

"Yup."

"...you had THAT much fire dust just sitting in the car?"

"Isis and I were experimenting with it as a fuel additive."

Sunset stared him straight in the eye, channeling every ounce of barely-contained incredulity into her gaze.

"That's enough fire dust to blow up a city block!"

Penn regarded the canister with a level of surprise Sunset KNEW was performative. "It IS?"

Sunset grabbed the canister from his hands, giving him a scowl. "When this is over, we NEED to have a talk about you keeping things in the car that could blow us all to smithereens!"

Penn growled and snatched it back from her. "What do you think GASOLINE is?"

As Missy and Alucard floated back to rejoin them, Sunset could tell that this was an argument that would need to be sorted out later.

"Got it!" Missy cheered. "We didn't even need the plan!"

There was a shudder as the creature began to move again, rocking back and forth in an attempt to get off of its back.

RMBMLBMLBMLMLMBLMBLMLMBL!

Missy slapped a palm to her forehead in frustration, slowly sliding it down her face. "It's stabbed in, like, fifty places, how is it not DEAD?"

Penn ignored her, aside from giving her a dirty look that Sunset could only guess was the result of the earlier skull-based bank shot. "If we use THIS, we can either use it as a bomb to deal some permanent damage or poison it enough to send it scrambling back home to recover."

It was Missy's turn to nearly have her eyes bug out of her head at the sight of Penn's dust reserve. Just as she was about to take her own turn to ask where it had come from, Penn reached up and pressed a finger to her lips.

"And this thing is GOING to be a magnet for the knightcrawlers once it gets agitated enough, just like the car's engine, so we better hurry up and decide what we wanna do."

"Well... if we blow it up, we might just kill it..." Sunset muttered. "Is this something that's okay to kill?"

Penn's tight-lipped lack of a response was all that she needed to know that the "monster" was probably more intelligent than it was showing for the moment.

"Well, after it killed Sylvia, I'd certainly like to..." he grumbled.

"Then we should probably just try to force it to retreat."

Penn nodded taking a moment to peer into the canister.

"Then this SHOULD be enough... Hopefully. Depends on how determined it is. We just need to get it to eat this, then it's a matter of time."

"Okay... what are we going to do, wrap it in bacon and peanut butter?" Missy raised one eyebrow.

"Well, that or we could pull an 'MIB.'" Penn muttered. "But I'd REALLY like to avoid that..."

Sunset could see that it had nearly righted itself, tearing at least a dozen trees out of the ground in the process.

"Wait... what if Missy's on to something?" Sunset asked. "It tried to eat the grimm and the engine, what if we just... let it have the canister?"

"It tried to eat the grimm, but it was attacking the car. Ripped her hot, fiery, beating heart out," Penn corrected. "To get it to eat this thing rather than attack it, we'd have to package it with something dark enough to seem like it could be food." He looked back, watching it pulling trees out of its midsection. "If it's hungry enough to be trying to eat grimm, it must have been staked out here for a while, maybe even hibernating..." he shook his head, physically changing his train of thought. "Doesn't matter. That works for us." He looked up at Missy for a moment, then Alucard, then down at his own hands wrapped around the canister. "But the only thing it might be interested in eating is-"

"What about those holes on its back?" Sunset interjected. "When I was sliding down its back, there were these big openings, like breathing holes!"

"Breathing holes?" Penn's eyes widened, and Sunset felt her hopes rise when she caught the familiar gleam of inspiration behind them. She knew what that meant: the pieces had fallen into place in his brain. "That's IT! Sunset, you're a genius!" He shoved the canister into her hands before looping an arm around each of the girls' shoulders to pull them into a huddle.

"Okay, here's the plan..."

The winds were howling at record speeds, especially this high off of the ground. From time to time, she needed to execute a rolling maneuver just to prevent the snow and ice from gathering on her body heavily enough to cause issues.

Penny Polendina had no dislike for the snow. In fact, she loved the snow. Snowfall was like seeing the whole world again for the first time: a kind of freshness that, while fleeting, would come back again and again with every precipitation. The fact that her body was unaffected by the cold only served to make her even more able to enjoy the winter than most. However, this storm had been going on for quite some time. It was a complete whiteout, meaning that she couldn't even enjoy the sight of all the snow on the landscape, and it meant that everyone she knew was more or less trapped indoors.

Thankfully, the blinding ice being blown about wasn't a problem for her to navigate, given her infallible "sense of direction" and the coordinates Professor Ozpin had given her.

Penny couldn't help but give a happy shiver of excitement as she remembered the details of her mission. She was going to go reunite with Sunset Shimmer, a friend she had not seen in quite a while, AND meet potential NEW friends who comprised the rest of Team SEIG. On top of all that, she had been authorized to... show off a little and fly both them and their interdimensional vehicle back to Beacon Academy, which she was almost certain would make a positive first impression.

RMBLMBLMBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLBMLMBLMBL!

Penny nearly drew up short at the unfamiliar sound. It was a combination of subsonic and low-range auditory noise at a volume that no living creature on record other than deep-sea grimm were able to emit... but there was no possible way that it had been caused by the storm, either. It matched no natural phenomena on record.

"General, did you hear that?" he asked, knowing her words were being transmitted back to their operations center.

"I'm afraid I did, even if most of it was below human hearing range. We're trying to figure out what could have caused it here, but I doubt it's good. Be ready for anything, Penny."

The monsters encroaching on their world had not left the crater where Evernight Castle once stood. There had been little evidence of them expanding other than strikes on nearby towns and cities, which had been explained away as grimm attacks. The presence of deep-sea grimm or an atmospheric pressure differential capable of creating such a sound were both impossible, but... there was something else that wasn't.

"General Ironwood, the creatures at Evernight Crater are protecting a portal between worlds... have we considered that it may not be the only portal that they have chosen to keep close to?"

"Surely we would have noticed them drawing this close to Beacon Academy!"

Without being asked, Penny triangulated the source of the noise, confirming that it was coming from the place where her potential new friends where expected to land. "Perhaps, but it is POSSIBLE that they could have slipped through our monitoring..." Penny focused more of her energy to the thrusters in her boots, pushing herself harder into the wind. "And I have eliminated any other sources that I can think of as impossible." On her back, the panel on her backpack holding her weapons slid open, ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

"Penny, we haven't outfitted you with fire or lightning dust capacities, yet. If this comes to a confrontation-

"I'm combat ready, sir, and these individuals have crucial information about our new foes! I will not fail in my mission."

As she closed in on her destination, Penny caught sight of something else that perplexed her. Her scans were registering a dead zone straight ahead: a column of much calmer air where the storm seemed to abate. It seemed akin to the "eye" of the storm, but satellite readings didn't show her as being anywhere near the center of the blizzard. Once she'd braced herself to push through the outer wall of the calm, she drove in headfirst, as ready for anything as she could possibly be.

Penny Polendina drew up short, however, when she caught sight of what was happening inside the calm.

The first thing to catch her sight (and rightfully so) was the titan-sized arthropod that had dove into and out of the ground like a continental running stitch. The second was the fact that Sunset Shimmer was running along its back, sprinting herself ragged in order to keep pace with the monster's movement. A smaller winged figure was flying just beside her, keeping pace with Sunset as best they could. The titan's head was just starting to turn around towards them, and another one of those low-frequency rumbles started to build.

RMBLRMBLMBL-

FOOOSH!

A rush of light and heat just below her seemed to draw the creature's attention in her direction, and Penny glanced straight down just in time to see what looked to be the twisted remains of a vehicle bursting into flames, with an angry-looking figure standing beside it.

"COME ON! YOU KNOW I'M THE ONE YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING AT!"

He reached around to behind his back, pulling out a bag of black liquid. With a grunt of effort, he threw it against the ground, causing the bag to burst and black liquid to spray across the snow.

"DINNER BELL'S RINGING, DING DING DING DING!"

Somehow, that actually seemed to draw the creature's complete attention in a way that made Penny suddenly VERY aware that she was standing in virtually the same place that he was, just much higher in the air.

She was torn about which course of action to take. On the one hand, Sunset and (presumably) Missy were both clearly in a precarious situation, but they appeared to have control of it. On the other, the person below her (who matched her file for "Penn," was clearly using himself as bait purposefully, but Penny could not see any form of escape in place for him.

"Sunset Shimmer is a huntress-in-training from Beacon Academy..." she muttered, cutting the power to her boot jets. "I am certain she knows what she is doing."

A few seconds later, she landed feet-first in the snow beside Penn, colliding with the ground at a speed that would shatter most people's leg bones instantly and kicking up a small cloud of powdered snow.

"SAL-"

"HOLY MOTHERFORKING SHIRTBALLS-"

"-UTATIONS!" Penny gave her friendliest salute to Penn as he grasped at his chest and gasped for air for some unknown reason. Regardless, she wanted to finish her introduction just like she had been taught to. "My name is Penny! It is very nice to meet you!" She held out a friendly hand in her friendliest manner for him to shake.

After staring at her for several seconds, he shakily reached out and gave her hand a small shake. "Penn. Nice to meet you, too, but this isn't really a great-"

RMBLMBLMBLMBLMBLMBLMBLMBL!

"-time."

Both of them turned to look at the monster, which still had its eyes locked on them, but now was rearing back somewhat. Penny could see what appeared to be some form of energy building in front of its mouth, a crackling mix of midnight-blue and white.

"Hmm... most curious. I can see an energy discharge building, but my sensors register an energy deficit."

"It's a draining attack..." Penn whispered, taking a shaky step backwards. "I... may have been hoping it wouldn't attack at range. We're going to want to get-"

With a flash of that same midnight-blue the building energy lashed out, spraying into a hail of bullet-like bolts.

"-COVER!"

In less than a second, Penny's blades were at the ready, fanned out in front of her body and rotating at high speed to form an impromptu shield. In the corner of her eye, she saw Penn dive behind the burning car, putting the metal and flames between him and the attack.

"Enemy engaged." Penny's reaction time was sharp, but she was only barely able to block the half-dozen or so bolts that would have struck her body, and each one still managed to pull energy from her aura and out through her swords. When the attack petered out, she waved her arm, changing the formation of her Floating Array. The circle tightened and the tips of the blades flipped back to reveal the gun barrels inside. With a grunt of effort, she forced energy out through the razor-thin wires connecting her to her weapons, and a blast of emerald light slammed into the creature. Her laser didn't seem to be capable of breaching its carapace, but the roar of displeasure and smoking trail of red that it left anywhere it touched were enough to let her know that she had dealt some damage. With another rumble, the monster dove into the ground headfirst, disappearing from sight moments later.

While the creature was burrowing, she spared a glance back towards Penn and his own cover.

The fire on the car had been completely extinguished, to the point that the entire thing was now frozen in a thick layer of ice. Penn was hunched behind the block, eyes wide and a layer of frost over his entire body, but he still appeared to be alive and shivering. With a shaking hand, he reached up to his ear, and Penny detected a signal being transmitted in the creature's direction.

"P-P-Please t-t-tell m-me y-you're d-d-done..."

There was a short pause before Sunset Shimmer seemed to materialize out of thin air, along with the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief. Missy was looking haggard and exhausted, clutching a purple card in one hand and gripping Sunset's shoulder with the other.

"Yeah, managed to get it into one of the breathing holes and Vanish out of- woah!" Sunset stared at the frozen-over car for a moment, rushing to Penn's side and beginning to rub at his shoulders in a feeble attempt to warm him up. "Are you okay? What was that big green laser?"

"N-nothing some h-hot chocolate w-wouldn't solve..." Penn mumbled, clearly forcing himself as he rose back up to fully standing.

"Salutations, Sunset Shimmer!" Penny chirped, relishing the humorous potential of the alliteration. For the first time, Sunset's eyes pulled away from her partner long enough to see her.

"Penny? What are you doing here?"

"I was sent to escort your party to Beacon Academy!" She grinned and clicked her heels together to give a small burst of flame that boosted her about a foot upwards. "And, because you're associated with the rogue artificial intelligence known as I.S.I.S., on behalf of Atlas I am also here to arrest you! HIC!"

That managed to get incredulous looks out of everyone, and Penny made no attempt to repress her laughter.

"That was a joke! I already know Isis is only pretending to be evil!"

The fact that no one was laughing made Penny wonder if she had somehow failed in her joke-telling. Had her hiccup given away the surprise?

"W-well, speaking of Isis..." Penn pressed his earpiece in again. "Isis, everything's in place, hit the nitro."

Everyone seemed to brace themselves for something, only to breathe a sigh of relief a few seconds later.

"What did she say the odds of it just exploding when the drone started dispersing it? Seventy-two?" Sunset asked.

"Seventy-two point three..." Penn nodded. "Looks like we're just going to be playing the waiting game to see how long the fire dust takes to poison it..."

"Actually, I think Penny's big laser mighta scared it off!" Missy added. "Maybe we don't need to wait!"

RMBLMBMLBMLMLBML! The roar shook snow from the trees and vibrated all the snow around them until it had sifted itself level again, erasing any kind of footprint or mark in the surface.

"You were saying?" Penn grumbled. "We should make ourselves scarce before it calls its kids for backup and we get swarmed." He gestured down to the black discoloration in the snow. "And probably stop standing in a big puddle of bait."

"Well, the initial idea was for me to take your entire vehicle back to Beacon..." Penny mused. "Carrying all three of you would be an awkward arrangement."

"And I don't think I can do much more trap-card-ing people around..." Missy dropped the card in her hand back into her tiny hat. "Let alone all the way back to Beacon."

Sunset leaned down, scooping up a portion of the black snow and sniffing at it. "Penn... is this your blood?"

"Well, I can't take normal transfusions, so I had Isis start drawing blood bags and keeping them in the trunk, just in case." Penn shrugged. "And I figured that if the thing was willing to eat SALEM, then I'd smell appetizing, too."

Missy and Sunset's jaws both dropped.

"IT ATE SALEM?"

"Only place she could have gone right in front of our eyes. I think it got her when it first appeared." Penn shook his head. "She'll be fine, and we all know it. Can we focus? We need to get out of here before it comes back!" He pointed in a direction towards the other side of the clearing. "If we go back through the portal, we can get our feet back under us someplace marginally warmer."

Penny tried to look through her files for any mention of someone named Salem, but was met with a conspicuous gap in the records. She could only assume from context that she was another member of their party, one who had joined while they were away from Remnant.

"But what if it's still guarding the portal when we try to come back?" Missy argued. "We gotta get to Beacon while we have the opening!" She placed her hand over her chest. "Look, I can go back to the Duel Spirit world to rest there, then Penny won't have to carry me. Sunset can summon me back later."

"If Penny can carry Sunset in her arms, I can hold on from behind... Would that be okay, Penny?" Penn looked to her, and Penny gave a smile and a salute.

"Now hold on," Sunset interjected, "I didn't agree to be carried-"

"That should be functional, though hardly safe. Especially in this weather..." Penny narrowed her eyes, running the numbers in her mind. "I could also take one person at a time. The trip would take approximately ten minutes, meaning I could return for the second in twenty."

"NO!" Despite her growing exhaustion, Missy still managed to raise her voice to surprising loudness. "No leaving someone alone!"

BMMMM!

Just as the three of them were beginning to talk over and raise their voices to one another, a shockwave rocked through the ground, nearly knocking all of them off their feet and shaking even more snow from the tree branches. Everyone had their hands half-reaching out just to keep their balance, giving one another uncertain stares.

"Seventy-two point three, you said?" Missy arched an eyebrow.

"You don't think we killed it, do you?" Sunset asked.

"I doubt it, but it's going to have to nurse THAT wound for a while..." Penn took a deep breath and sighed. "If it chooses to just retreat, we might actually be in the clear... but it's not called a queen for nothing." He eyed the snow beneath their feet warily. "There might be a whole lot of little ones coming our-"

Rmblmbmlbmlmblml...

There was a shake in the ground that sent everyone stepping back from the center of their group. Sunset's hand was on her weapon and Missy was grasping several cards, but Penn was the only one other than Penny who seemed to notice that the sound was different than it had been.

In a shower of snow and earth, another figure appeared in the center of the group. She was gaunt and dressed in a black dress. Her hair was as pale as her skin, and her veins looked like they'd been stained jet-black. Penny reached out one arm to draw her blades on the intruder, but a stopping motion from Penn made her pause.

"Hold on! I know what it looks like, but... she's on our-" he paused as if catching himself in something, "She's on the side of saving Remnant. She's with us."

The woman, supposably the "Salem" the had been talking about, brushed the last of the dirt from her her dress with a scowl.

"I suppose you expect me to thank you for blowing a hole in that thing for me to crawl out of?"

"Expect? No. But it wasn't exactly easy." Penn motioned to the frozen remains of his car. "In fact, it cost us everything but each other."

"Penny? Can you give us a status report?"

Penny took a moment to step away from the group, walking a short distance away so that she wouldn't be overheard. "Well, General, it appears a titan-sized arthropod destroyed our friends' means of transport. They appear to have temporarily dispatched the beast, but now we're left with no easy means to get everyone back to Beacon!"

"I see. Give us a minute and we'll get back to you with solutions."

"Yes, si- EEP!"

"Well, why not just 'snap every bone in its body like a twig' like you threatened to do to me?" Penn snarked, only to flinch back a moment later when Salem's eyes narrowed in a subtle display of displeasure. Sunset resisted the urge to interpose herself between them. If they started a confrontation for every time Salem so much as glared at somebody, nothing would ever get done.

"Well, it was remarkably durable and resilient. Any damage my magic accomplished healed in moments." Salem stopped her death glare long enough to turn to Sunset. "What about your all-cutting saber?"

Sunset shook her head. "Even the lightsaber couldn't get through that hide easily. Whatever it's made of, it's REALLY dense."

"Does it even matter?" Penn sighed, pressing his thumb to the center of his forehead. "The important thing is that we've sent it running, but we should really get out of-" he paused, looking just over Sunset's shoulder. "Where'd Penny go?"

Sunset spun around, her eyes widening as she saw only smooth, undisturbed snow in the direction Penny had walked away in.

"Wha- She was just here... did she fly off, or something?" Sunset mused, taking a step in the same direction.

"Nobody move." Penn's voice was low, but deathly serious. The level of force behind his order was enough to make every muscle in Sunset's body obey, locking her completely in place. "We need to get out of here. Now."

"Why?" she whispered.

"Her babies are hunting..." he mumbled.

"What do you mean? Is she-" Sunset's worries were stifled by Penn shaking his head.

"Can't say. Nothing we can do now. Salem, can you get any flying grimm to get us out of here?"

Salem closed her eyes, focusing on something none of them could perceive. "That thing must have claimed this territory, there aren't any nearby. If you simply want us to fly out of the area, I can do that."

"Yes, please."

The fact that he's not snarking makes me feel really worried... Sunset looked over to Missy, noticing that the younger girl was already dozing in the middle of the snowstorm. She pulled the tiny duel spirit closer, giving her a quick hug. "Missy? Still with us?"

"Mhmm?" Missy perked up slightly, but her eyes didn't seem to be able to move past half-open.

"You can go ahead and go home. I'll summon you when we all get back to Beacon, okay?"

"Nmm-mm..." Missy shook her head. "Not... alone..."

"I promise, nobody's going to get left by themselves again." Sunset gave the little spirit a kiss on the forehead. "Get some rest."

"Mmm... mkay..." she hummed again, this time in the affirmative. As Sunset watched, Missy slowly seemed to fade, growing more and more translucent until she'd disappeared entirely, and her presence vanished from Sunset's side. With the knowledge that Missy would be safe, Sunset turned back to Penn and Salem and nodded to signal that she was ready.

With that signal, Salem extended her hand outwards, where it began to glow with a crimson aura. Sunset could feel the wind around them growing more intense, and a glance down at her feet revealed a votex of air and snowflakes gathering at her feet. Just as she was starting to feel the force of the wind beginning to pull her away from solid ground, her ears picked up a more particular rumbling coming from just under them.

Rmblmblmbmlmbmlmlbml....

Is the magic attracting it? Sunset glanced at Penn, seeing his eyes widen at the incoming threat.

"Salem! Don't worry about being gentle, just- AAAAAAaaaaa..." Penn's instructions were cut off by a powerful gust of wind that rocketed him up into the storm and out of sight.

"I acknowledge that these monsters are your area of expertise, but I am NOT your subordinate..." Salem muttered, channeling every ounce of vitriol she could into the words before turning her gaze to Sunset. Sunset raised her hands in a show of surrender.

"Same team, but we should probably hurry-"

In the span of approximately a second, three things happened. The first was that Sunset's mind was flooded with that now-familiar preternatural sense of danger, this time focused just beneath her feet. The second was that, out of instinct, she jumped. The wind under her heels seemed to buoy her upwards, carrying her up as high as the tops of the nearby trees. When she'd reached her apex, Sunset didn't fall, merely staying suspended atop of current of wind.

The third was that what looked almost like black tendrils erupted out of the ground all over the area that the three of them had been standing. Sunset's eyes widened as she managed to pick out pincers and wriggling legs from the forms of the tendrils, marking them as smaller versions of the titan they had just beaten.

To her credit, Salem was ready this time. Sunset could see jets of flame spewing from her hands and feet as she took to the air, sending scorched knightcrawlers scattering in her wake. Moments later, Salem had come to meet her at her altitude, looking down on the writhing creatures with derision.

"Disgusting," was the only word to come out of her mouth before her eyes turned to the sky. "Now, if I remember correctly, and I'm certain I do, Beacon is in that direction." She pointed into the white fog created by the driving snow. "Shall we?"

"W-Wait!" Sunset stuttered, still trying to calm her racing heart as the "danger sense" faded. "What about Penn?"

Salem rolled her eyes, clearly already exasperated at Sunset's basic concern for other people. "Judging by the winds, he'll probably have drifted halfway there before he figures out the spell. He might even get there before us."

"Okay... and what about Penny?" Sunset glanced back down, only to nearly vomit at the sight. The place that the knightcrawlers had started to come up from was now erupting with their writhing forms, like sewage seeping back up a clogged drain as more and more of them surged up to the surface.

"Another lost toy in the world is nothing special." Salem waved her hand to dismiss Sunset's worries. "I'm certain Ironwood can build a new robot with ease."

Sunset's eyes widened as several of Penny's quirks of personality suddenly made sense at once. "Penny was a-"

"Do you always ask this many irrelevant questions?" Salem cut her off with a glare. "It's no wonder that he became so skilled at speaking quickly."

Sunset's mouth tightened into a thin line at that, and still Salem seemed to take no pleasure in her words hitting home. She reached down to grip her saber, holding it tight and raising it up enough to see the "low battery" light flickering with the last few drops of power left. Even if she thought she COULD fight through that horde of supernatural bugs, she didn't have the power to.

I hope she backs herself up like Isis does... she thought to herself as she gave Salem a reluctant nod.

"Fine... let's go." she mumbled, feeling more than a small amount of shame at giving up like this. "But we need to get Penn. If we split up, our chances of survival go down."

"Your chances..." Sunset could see the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at Salem's mouth.

"Please, Salem. If something happened to him because we didn't stick together..." Sunset tightened her grip on her saber, "I don't think I could forgive it."

Salem's eyes narrowed slightly, and Sunset felt herself settle into returning the glare. She had gone out of her way not to say "I don't think I could forgive myself," and the implication that gave was hanging heavy in the air between them.

"I suppose that he cannot be trusted to make the journey without getting himself injured or worse..." Salem muttered, lifting her other hand and making a beckoning motion with her finger. A few seconds later, a ragged-looking Penn descended from above, a thick layer of frost over his entire body.

"Enjoy your trip?" she smirked as she brushed a small pile of snow off the top of his hat.

"F-F-F-F-Fu-F-F-F-F-Fu-F-F-Fu-" He couldn't seem to get any words out as he glowered at Salem, who seemed not to care at all what he thought.

"Perhaps now you'll think twice before presuming that you can give me an order."

As Sunset reached in his direction, the spell keeping her aloft responded in kind, bringing her up beside him. Once she was close enough she finished brushing away the snow from his body and started rubbing his shoulders in an attempt to warm him up. "I know you're cold, but the fastest way out of the weather is to get to Beacon, right?" Penn gave a shaky nod, not even trying to answer her out loud. "Then let's get going. The sooner we leave, the sooner we arrive, right?"

With one more nod to Salem, the trio passed through the border of safety Salem had created from the storm.

In her studies in Equestria, Sunset had read about the windegos, elemental spirits that thrived on contention and strife. As their power grew, the world around them would grow colder and colder until everything was completely frozen. According to folklore, they were capable of freezing entire continents solid, rendering them uninhabitable as a punishment for its inhabitants refusing to seek peace. At the time, Sunset had arrogantly joked that it sounded "slightly warmer than Canterlot Mountain in Winter".

But now, inching her way through a blistering sea of white ice with no marker or landmark in sight, Sunset honestly wondered if a pack of windegos had sneaked into Remnant. That felt like the only explanation that made sense for this level of biting cold. Every speck of warmth felt like it had already been drawn from her body right at the beginning, but the storm kept leeching more and more out of her that she thought she didn't have to give, and despite having taken everything she had, the rest of the world hadn't changed one iota, as if she were a drop of warm water that had been dropped onto an iceberg.

The passing of time was near-impossible to track, it felt like years before the mounting shadow in front of them began to match the spires and towers of Beacon Academy.

"A-A-Almost... th-th-th-there..." Sunset stuttered.

"D-Down..." Penn muttered, barely audible over the storm.

Sunset didn't understand at first, but forced herself to turn her head downwards. Just below, she could see another shadow, one moving along just beneath their feet.

"I-Is that..."

"Y-yeah."

HOW did they follow us this far in this weather? Sunset wanted to scream, but her body was pulled too tight and too close to expend that type of energy.

"I've noticed them, as well," Salem added, seeming to be unaffected by the cold. "It seems they intend to follow us to the ends of the earth." She turned in place to face the two of them. "Anything to say on the matter, oh wise one? If their aim was to guard the portal, why chase us so far?" Penn shook his head, causing Salem to scoff and turn away again.

They continued on in silence for a while longer before Sunset heard a voice come crackling through her earpiece.

"Sunset? Sunset, Penn, can either of you hear me?"

Sunset raised a shaky finger up to her ear. "O-O-Oz?"

"Oh thank goodness, when we lost contact with Penny we had no idea what had happened! Are you alright?"

"F-F-F-Freezing, but intact..." Sunset had to force each word out. "Alm-m-m-most th-th-there."

"Our sensors can see incoming monsters at the front gate. Whatever is chasing you, it's right on your tail! Look, we're sending a welcoming party to make sure you get inside safely, just hold on a little longer!

Sunset looked up at Salem, who was regarding the school with a look positively dripping with malice, then down at the mass of legs and mandibles below. "D-Don't... We- We'll find a w-way inside-"

"Absolutely not." Another, firmer voice took over for Professor Ozpin, one Sunset only barely recognized as the General who had been on the call when they got the call for help. "You may know more about these creatures and where they come from, but we've been fighting them for months without you. Even if you weren't needing an escort, we can't ignore them being bold enough to come right up to our gates."

Sunset didn't have the energy to argue about this. As if reading her mind, Salem turned back to look at her.

"Don't worry. I, of all people, understand that being on the same side is something that Ozpin will need to be introduced to... gradually, lest misunderstandings abound. I've already made a plan for the matter." She shot Penn a derisive glance. "The idea that you would need to plan such a thing in my stead is prideful beyond measure. The idea that you could do better than me is foolhardy."

"F-F-Figured y-you'd want things a-awkward f-f-for us..." Penn grumbled.

"While I still bear a hearty spite for you, I wouldn't jeopardize our mission to satisfy it." Salem rolled her eyes as the front gates of Beacon Academy came into sight. On the other side of the gate were a familiar set of figures that made Sunset's heart skip a beat.

"Hey! Over here!" Jaune's voice called, waving his sword high over his head to signal to them.

"Sunset! Penn! Missy! We're here to escort you!" Pyrrha's voice announced.

"And if anybody has something to say about that, I'LL SMASH 'EM!" Nora shouted, and Sunset could see a crackle of electric energy on her war hammer that made it clear she wasn't exaggerating.

The last figure, presumably Ren, was simply standing steadfast, eyes locked on the incoming tide of monsters beneath them.

Sunset braced herself for the concern that Salem's appearance would certainly cause, only to find herself staring at... someone who definitely was not Salem leading their flying trio. Her pale hair had turned to a golden blonde, her pallor had been replaced by a more realistic flesh color and her blackened veins had faded completely from sight. Her clothes had changed, too, to a pair of blue jeans and a jacket that matched Sunset's.

Could she... always do that?

"We're going to need a spot to land!" Salem called out, making a show of grunting and holding up both hands, as if keeping everyone aloft was putting a strain on her.

"Can you make it over the gate?" Jaune called.

"I-I'll try!"

Salem groaned and motioned with both hands as if she were lifting a massive weight, pushing the three of them up and over the gate. With a sigh of relief, the flight spell dispersed, dropping the three of them the last ten feet to the ground, where they each landed in the snow with a small puff of powder. Once she had her bearings again, Sunset saw a familiar glove-covered hand being offered to her.

"Sorry, I probably should have tried to catch you..." Pyrrha's sheepish expression was barely visible beneath the heavy red scarf wrapping her neck and lower face.

"I-It's fine..." Sunset mumbled, taking hold of her hand with a smile. "I j-j-just wanna get someplace warm."

"That can be arranged..." Pyrrha blinked for a second, looking confused as Sunset rose to her feet. "Until then, did your aura run out?"

It was Sunset's turn to blink in confusion. "I- I can't use it outside Remnant... I forgot about it..."

Pyrrha lifted her other hand up to Sunset's cheek, pressing it gently against her flesh.

It is by passing through trials that we recognize that which lies within us, and in the healing afterwards that our strength grows. If ever we falter, we may reach out to those who share a piece of our soul for aid and find it ready and waiting. Pyrrha's voice spoke in her mind, but Sunset wasn't sure if it was her magic doing the mind-reading or something deeper in Pyrrha's action speaking to her.

Sunset felt a stirring in her chest, followed by a rush of warmth and a surge of strength flowing back into her limbs. She could tell that the wind was still there and still fierce, but it felt much less impactful than it had up to that moment. Instantly, Sunset let out a sigh of relief.

"Ohhhh... that's a huge improvement."

"Happy to help." Pyrrha smiled. "Would Penn need the same type of help unlocking his own aura?"

For a split second, images of inky demons, angry red eyes, and blood-curdling dark magic flashed through Sunset's mind.

"Uh... take it from me, you don't want to mess around in his head," Sunset muttered, watching as Jaune pulled Penn from where he had landed headfirst in the snow. "For both your sakes."

Pyrrha looked like she had more questions, but a clanging and clattering from the gate drew everyone's attention.

The gate was more ornamental than anything else, but it was still wrought-iron and plenty sturdy. Still, the sight in front of them felt off, and it didn't take much work to figure out why.

The gaps in the bars should have been wide enough for the knightcrawlers to slip through, but they were all staying directly outside, as if afraid to enter the school grounds. Instead, they were piling on top of one another until they formed a solid wall of bodies that matched the gate in height. Everyone had at least one hand on their weapons.

"There's more than we were expecting..." Jaune muttered. "I don't think we've seen them this... dense."

"W-Well... we d-d-did beat up a b-brood q-queen in F-Forever Fall..." Penn muttered.

"Then why are they staying out there?" Nora asked, gripping her hammer a little tighter. "It's making me nervous..."

"Perhaps the loss of their broodmother has made them cautious?" Ren posited.

Before anyone else could comment, the wall began to shift and writhe, parting to reveal a large object being pushed against the gate. Sunset didn't recognize what it was at first, but the cream-colored blouse and black-and-green collar near the top were unmistakable. She covered her mouth with both hands to hold back her cry of dismay.

It was Penny's dismembered torso, with only trailing and torn wires where her limbs used to be. Team JNPR seemed to come to the realization at the same time.

"Oh good lord..."

"I- I think I'm gonna be sick!"

"Oh, you sick FREAKS!"

"Penny..."

When Sunset glanced at Penn, though, she saw something different from the rest on his face: that tense determination of a crucial moment. Whatever message the creatures were trying to send, it looked like he was getting it loud and clear. He took a shaky step forward, addressing the mass.

"W-What do you want in exchange?"

Everyone's weapons came up to a ready position when the things began to push through the bars, climbing over one another until they'd formed a lumpy mass of five or so from their ranks. Slowly, one of them extended its body towards Penn, and the realization that they were trying to mimic a pointing hand dawned on Sunset.

"And if I r-refuse?"

One of the creatures dug its pincers into Penny's torso with a sound of tearing metal, ripping it open and revealing her robotic innards. Sat at her center of mass was an orb made of metal and glass, with some kind of glowing emerald-colored energy inside. One of them crawled up towards the orb, settling its mandibles on the edges of the orb, ready to crush it.

"W-Wait! Wait! Y-Y-You've made your point!" Penn held up both hands, and the monster poised to destroy the orb hesitated. With the immediate threat paused, Penn turned back toward the group.

"I-If I d-don't go, they'll destroy her c-core. N-No rebuilding p-possible..."

"But... why? Why you?" Sunset asked. Penn could only shrug his hunched-in shoulders.

"I d-don't know... Maybe they know th-that I know about them? W-Why I'm here? It d-doesn't matter." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shuddering as he did so, before his entire body unclenched a small amount. When he opened them, Sunset could see that he was wearing a very different expression... there was a familiar glimmer of confidence in those eyes.

Sunset let out her breath, at least as much as she dared without giving away her relief to their enemy. Pyrrha seemed to be the only one who noticed Sunset's change in demeanor, but wasn't able to speak her question before Penn's next words had taken off... and take off they did.

"'course, couldn't we callously concur that capitulating concedes control in this situation? Here, I hear, is the place to place a place to replace a robo-ace? And if our moderate motley multiverse moderation crew has been made, that makes us mere makers of mischief in my mind, muses of the mediocre melodies! BUT!" He pointed to Team JNPR each individually, "You and you and you and you have all paid proper attention to which side of this gate you're on, and YOU!" He then spun around on his heel to turn his full attention to their enemies, "YOU are all such glorious, wonderful, GIANT little idiots, it's GENIUS! I love it and I HATE it!"

Even the disguised Salem seemed unsure of what to do in this kind of situation, simply watching the suddenly-confident Penn run his mouth at a mile a minute.

"YOU all knew EXACTLY who you were dealing with, because you've managed to take the perfect hostage! HER friend, a young girl in need, in mortal peril whom only I can save, appealing to both of our savior complexes at once! You know, if Noir were here, even HE would be stumped, because Penny's also a robot, and one who wouldn't hurt a soul who didn't start it!" He managed to get close enough to nearly brush fingertips with the centipede-hand before he spun on his heel again, walking back towards the group.

"But hey what's one life in the face of millions, even BILLIONS? If I see a trolley headed for one person we pity or care about on the tracks, is it morally right to change the track and it an unknowable number of strangers? It might be what I want, but I certainly don't want to hurt people, so what's the right choice, huh? If I were the very model of a modern major mentalist, my magnificent mind might mind making moral mastication out of that old twisted thought experiment mostly metronome-esque!"

Nora's jaw dropped before her brow furrowed into an expression of fury. "Are- are you saying we should just let them kill-"

"SHUSHUSHUSH!" Penn cut Nora off by shushing her at the top of his lungs, leaning only an inch away from her face to do so before beginning to pace back towards the pass of black chitin.

Nora looked ready to hit him with her hammer, but Sunset felt realization dawning on her of what exactly Penn might be planning. Slowly, she withdrew her phone from her pocket and typed up a message before handing it to Pyrrha.

Get ready to run. Pass it on.

Pyrrha stared at the device for a moment in disbelief before passing the phone to Ren.

Meanwhile, the creature crawling on Penny's remains was inching back towards her core, only for Penn to throw up an accusatory finger at it. "DON'T YOU TRY AND MAKE ME THINK FASTER, I'M GOING AS FAST AS I CAN SO HURRY UP AND WAIT A MINUTE!"

To everyone's surprise, the thing actually stopped. It turned back towards Penn, who was angrily advancing on it. He stormed his way past the centipede hand, going almost straight up to the offending knightcrawler.

"I swear, if I had a nickel for every time a friend's life was in my hands and I had to speed-talk my way through the logic to save her, I would have TWO NICKELS, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twi-"

In less time than it took for Sunset to blink, he'd reached out and snatched the core in his hand, then planted his shoe on top of Penny's now-lifeless torso and pushed off, using the momentum to take off at a sprint so fast, his legs almost seemed to blur with the motion.

"WOOPWOOPWOOPWOOPWOOPWOOPWOOPWOOP!"

With a whoop and a holler, Penn dodged around the centipede-hand's sluggish attempt to grab him, eventually sliding to a stop beside Sunset. His smile was practically a mile wide as he placed the softball-sized orb into her hands.

"One Penn and one Penny, both safe and sound."

Sunset smiled and gave the core a gentle squeeze. "One of these days, we're going to wind up finding an enemy you CAN'T talk into a daze, you know."

"But not today!"

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Everyone's attention was drawn back to the swarm, which was now clearly enraged at Penn's deception. Moving as one, the entire lot began to surge through and over the gate, creating a veritable waterfall of bodies

"Ah! This is the part where we run!" Penn called. To Sunset's surprise, though, Team JNPR didn't budge one inch at the sight of the incoming tide of chitin.

"Well, not exactly..." This time it was Pyrrha's turn to smirk as she plucked her lance off of her back. "This is where we do OUR jobs!"

With a sound like a thunderclap, Nora leapt into the air, her body crackling with electrical energy from head to toe. When she came down again, it was hammer-first, and it sent electrical shockwaves through the ranks from one bug to the next. Before the next rush of bodies were able to descend on her, Ren had stepped up and was firing his twin automatic pistols into the crowd, every bullet giving the signature flash of red light of a fire dust cartridge.

"Nora!"

"Take a charge!"

Jaune and Pyrrha both called out to her as they rushed past her and into the fray. Looking closely, Sunset could see flames running up and down the lengths of both their swords, a definite upgrade that hadn't been there last time they'd been here.

I guess the general wasn't kidding when he said they'd been fighting these things for months on their own... Sunset thought.

As Team JNPR was tearing through the horde, Salem slunk over to the two of them, sidling up beside Penn.

"Alright... why did that work?" she asked, sounding more annoyed than curious.

"Long story short: without the queen, they're a lot dumber." Penn shrugged. "Throw a much of alliteration, homophones, and oxymoronic statements at a collective that's already trying to think forwards in a world that works backwards to them, and their reaction times are going to drop by a LOT."

"I figured it would be a smash-and-grab once I saw your pacing getting closer and closer to each side." Sunset smiled and carefully placed Penny's core inside her jacket. "Glad I was right."

Salem looked like Penn's way of thinking had physically pained her. "You realize that you were well-within grabbing range if they had simply ignored your nonsense and focused on capturing you?"

Penn nodded, momentarily rubbing his hands together for warmth. "Yeah, that's why I went for it when I did. I was ready to go on a while longer until I'd REALLY stumped them, but I saw an opportunity to make them worry that I was mad enough not to be afraid of them."

There was a visible twitch in one of Salem's eyes. "Suddenly, Cinder capturing you doesn't feel like such a praiseworthy achievement."

"Yeah, especially since it took her, like, two months!" Penn chuckled. "She could have gotten the same result in a day if she just asked me on a lunch date!"

Skreeee-e-eeeee-e!

While Salem was busy pressing her palm against her forehead in disgrace, Sunset watched Team JNPR smashing the last of the knightcrawlers that had been bold enough to crawl through the gate. The rest had heard the signal and stopped trying to press the attack, returning to hanging just outside the schoolgrounds. Both sides stood and stared at one another for several more seconds, and Sunset wondered if the standoff was going to result in a Round 2. Fortunately, the swarm seemed to understand that their numbers wouldn't be much help against enemies who had figured out how to make them stay down once and for all.

Finally, the monsters skittered back into the blizzard, burrowing down into the dirt. Not fifteen seconds later, the only sign that they had been there was the corpses scattered around the courtyard and Team JNPR panting to catch their breath in the snow.

"So..." Jaune forced himself to straighten up. "Anybody want hot chocolate?"

"YES!" nearly everyone present replied in unison.

"Great, because I know that Blake and Ruby were planning on making some. Let's go bug them until they share." Jaune waved everyone in the direction of the dorms.

In spite of the fact that she'd spent months here earlier in the year, Sunset couldn't help but feel shocked at how long it felt like it had been since she'd been on the grounds at Beacon. Things looked the same, but... she'd changed, and that made her feel like she was looking at all of it with fresh eyes.

When they passed through the doors into the dorms, the wave of warmth that washed over them was one of the best moments of relief she'd felt in ages. Judging by the sighs of relief from everyone present, she wasn't the only one to think so, either.

Jaune led the way down halls Sunset already knew well, heading straight for the commons room and study hall. Sunset didn't really note much else other than the warmth of the place until they'd almost made it to their destination: everything was quiet. Not just "a brief moment of peace among a few hundred teenagers" quiet, but "I could hear a pin drop" quiet.

Before she could ask what had happened to the other students, they'd turned the corner to the common room, where a trio was gathered around the coffee brewer. One was dressed in black, one in red, and one in white.

"I still think this isn't real hot chocolate..." Blake murmured. "You need milk, real chocolate, to cook it on a stovetop... you can't just add powder to boiling water and call it hot chocolate."

"But it's so easy!" Ruby argued. "It's just one button, and then you pour in the mix! And we're making it in bulk for everybody else!"

"But if Sunset's coming back, shouldn't we try to make high-quali-" Blake's bow twitched in that way that Sunset had come to recognize was her cat ears moving underneath. Her head snapped to look at the entryway, locking on the returning party.

Sunset almost laughed out loud at how off-guard Blake had been caught, looking as if she was trying to decide whether she was excited to see her or horrified at having been caught making sub-par hot chocolate.

Ruby, of course, was still unabashedly Ruby.

"Oh, Jaune! You guys are back early! How was guard dut- OHMYGOSH SUNSET! You're BACK!"

One flurry of rose petals and a heavy impact to her sternum later, Sunset was wrapped entirely by Ruby's arms and legs as the younger girl hugged her with all of her might. With her arms securely pinned to her sides, all Sunset could do was lean her head against Ruby's for an affectionate nuzzle.

"Told ya all that you needed to do was call! Sorry for the delay, we ran into some... unexpected obstacles."

"Oh, we're just glad that you're here! When Isis went offline we all got super worried, but we just kept fighting through and..."

Ruby's voice seemed to fade into the background as the person in white turned around. Recognition brought Sunset's entire world screeching to a violent halt. So many things about her were different. Her hair had turned to pure white, she was taller than Sunset remembered her being when they left, her frame had filled out with a little more muscle, she had eschewed her usual colorful style for a stark white scaly leather, and she looked... well, older, but between those familiar magenta eyes and the blue geode hanging around her neck it was almost certain, and Sunset could never mistake that face.

"Rainbow Dash? Is that... you?"

Rainbow's jaw looked to be hanging slack with shock. A small, gold-scaled dragon sitting on her shoulder used its tail to gently lift her mouth closed again. Finally, she had collected herself enough to speak.

"Sunset?"

On the Steppes of the Palace

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

A Proposal I Can't Get Behind

"So, you guys have a bit of a bug problem."

Rainbow Dash smirked at everyone present, despite the joke clearly falling flat. Unlike her, very few of the people present seemed happy to be awake this early. Sunset was clutching a mug of coffee like it was the last one in the world. Her grumpy-looking friend had already finished one mug of what initially looked like coffee, only to immediately empty a can of energy drink into it, dump some kind of black sludge in, swirl it around, and start downing it one big swig at a time.

The natives of this world seemed a bit more put-together, mostly just regarding her with blank stares. If they thought her understatement was funny, then they had some great poker faces. It was probably best to just keep 'em coming and not worry about which jokes landed.

"Well, it happens to the best of us!" Rainbow gestured up to the floating screen above the headmaster's desk, which was showing an image of the knightcrawler army that had been at their gate the day before. "But now that they're here, these guys are gonna keep coming and coming at your defenses until there's nothing left! You need an exterminator, and you need it yesterday."

There was a pop and crackle of electricity as Aurelia exited the machine and materialized on her shoulder.

"And unfortunately, Baalchionic creatures don't die easily, as I'm sure you've all learned." Auri added. "Only Chiracian methods can put them down for good and make sure they're gone. You need help."

"Which is why WE'RE here!" Rainbow couldn't help grinning wider. "We've already been pinch hitting for you guys on the battlefield, so you know what we can do!"

With another crackle, Auri disappeared back into the circuitry of the desk behind her, causing the display to change to a video of them fighting back the horde. Dash had to resist the urge to sit there and watch herself turning bugs into paste in the most awesome manner possible.

"Unfortunately, we're only allowed to support you guys, not fight your war for you." Rainbow let a little of her disappointment creep into her voice as a blurry photograph of the Queen Knightcrawler that had shown up yesterday appeared on the screen. "I mean, I'd LOVE to keep this up, but your problems are getting bigger than even we can handle!" The picture changed, this time to show the struggle between the yellow-haired girl and the nyctomorph that had taken her arm. Once again, Rainbow was grateful that Aurelia could interact with tech directly. Throwing together a memory-based slideshow was a lot easier than trying to make a powerpoint presentation. She had wanted to wing it entirely, but Auri had insisted on practicing their pitch a couple of times before they came in, which meant that she knew what was coming next. "However... we CAN make you an offer!"

She couldn't help feeling a swell of pride when the next picture was a memory-perfect picture of Radian shining in the sunlight.

"Radian has been fighting Baalchion for almost as long as time has existed! We know their strategies! We can rain fire and lightning on their heads and burn them right out of your universe like THAT!" She snapped her fingers for emphasis and sent sparks through the air to illustrate that her promises were more than just talk. "Aurelia and I are here to negotiate an alliance between Remnant and Radian. Once you join the Alliance of Light, the full might of Chirac and his army of dragons will be at your call!"

Dash knew that behind her, Aurelia was flashing through the different types of dragons, just like they'd practiced. First was a long, wingless dragon with short, stubby legs and a narrow snout. Its skin was pale and wrinkled, with scales fine enough to look like an almost glossy surface.

"You've got knightcrawler nests? Knucklers can root them out! They're built for tunneling and hunting underground!"

Next up was a picture of a dragon with a vastly different body type. It had wide wings that were nearly three times the length of its body. Any other attributes it had were hardly noticeable, however, in the face of its underbelly. Starting from its lower jaw and going all of the way to the base of its tail, the scales on its belly were stretched and distended outwards like a frog mid-croak, giving it the appearance of what might have been a more traditional dragon after having been blown up like a balloon and deflated several hundred times over.

"These handsome fellas are known as 'Flarebiters!' Most dragons can breathe fire or lightning, but a single attack from a flarebiter can leave a pile of ashes where-" Rainbow paused for a moment, pretending to ponder her next words for dramatic effect- "Well, where just about ANYTHING used to be! Nyctomorphs, smokescreams, and even thoughtcatcher webs are instantly dusted!"

After the... pleasant... visage of a flarebiter, Rainbow knew that her audience likely needed a palate cleanser, so the next image was a bold-looking dragon with sapphire-blue scales, looking very much like the traditional, more majestic dragons in a fantasy novel.

"Even just a standard breed like your classic four-legged-two-winged-thirty-foot-long dragon is Radian's classic warrior, and they can bite, claw, and burn their way through even a knightcrawler queen with hardly a scratch!"

She'd wanted to end on a high note, and Auri had known exactly the picture that would get her point across:

It was a feathered amphithere, legless with only wide wings and covered in shimmering hues of red and orange. Auri's memory had caught it mid-flight in Radian's sky as it circled just outside of Chirac's spire. The sky behind it was the perfect shade of blue to show that there wasn't a cloud to be seen or a speck of any kind between the sunshine and the inhabitants below. It was the perfect image of peace and freedom. Behind it, at least three different worlds could be seen orbiting Radian alongside their twin suns.

"Once we finish kicking those Baalchi-spawn to the interdimensional curb, Radian is ready to bring Remnant into our world's astronomical system, under our total protection! You'll never have to worry about invasion again!" She held out her hand, letting the display fade as Auri came back out to climb onto her shoulder again.

"We already have at least three habitable zones for Remnant that could leave you without much major impact on your climate and wildlife." The little dragon seemed a bit smug as she turned to look at her robotic counterpart laying around Sunset's neck. "We can also promise that OUR messengers don't have maintenance or 'down time' issues. Our information network is a living electrical consciousness made up of millions of smaller dragons like me flowing through Radian's internal conduction network and moving at lightspeed from one world to the next."

That hadn't been part of their planned speech, Auri was going off-script. Normally, that would have been fine, but... the annoyed look Sunset was giving them was a sign that a little bit of Chiracian pride might be going a long way. If it was, though, Auri didn't seem to notice.

"We make light of the situation because we know that we're already under Lord Chirac's protection. We have nothing to fear. However, you can't just ignore the fact that a dark god has his gaze set directly on Remnant. You need an equally divine force to protect you, or all of Remnant will be pulled down and drowned in eternal darkness."

With THAT somber warning delivered, Rainbow forced a chuckle to try and break the tension. "Sooooooo... any questions?"

"And what, exactly, would Radian expect from us in return for this protection?" Professor Ozpin asked. Rainbow wasn't sure how a school headmaster was relevant enough to attend a lecture on saving the world, but the fact that everyone else seemed to be taking their cues from him implied that there was more to his position than he was letting on.

"Well, joining the alliance would mean that your world would be relocated to a safer place close to Radian. There would also have to be some changes to infrastucture to make sure that everything from both worlds blends smoothly..." Aurelia gave a light shrug. "After that, everyone in Remnant would be considered full citizens of Radian. Our knowledge would be your knowledge, and vice versa. Complete transparency and exchange of information."

Rainbow spotted Sunset's friend muttering something under his breath, but it was too quiet for her to make out.

"And our resources?" General Ironwood folded his arms and eyed them carefully, like one would a hungry predator.

"Shared and shared alike. Radian doesn't have any problem caring for anyone!" Rainbow shrugged. "We're not going to raid your planet for food or something, we've got plenty thanks to the fact that we've got a deity who actually sticks around to help."

Finally, the guy sitting beside Sunset raised his hand.

"What about people? Their day-to-day life? Any mandatory duties?"

"I mean, on a day-to-day scale, not really..." Rainbow shifted uncomfortably. "But..."

Aurelia seemed much less hesitant with her answer. "Remnant would be expected to fight alongside us in future conflicts with Baalchion. Full citizenship comes with full duties in the war to push back the darkness." The little dragon surveyed the room. "As far as I can see, this world is already filled with strong and capable warriors. I've also seen the monsters with which you all struggle, these 'Grimm.' I can say with confidence that they would not be able to exist in a world of light. The aid we would ask for is little more than you already expend fighting your own home's monsters."

"I mean, in the grand scheme, it's practically free. We just want to help you guys!" Rainbow shrugged.

"You're asking us to join a war! That's hardly free." The general leaned forward in his chair, clearly getting agitated.

"A war that you're already fighting!" Rainbow pointed outside at the high-speed blizzard just past the window. "And losing. If this goes on much longer, your whole world is going to be an ice cube before Spring arrives! We're offering you the way to win!"

"And say we wanted to accept. How would we make our acceptance known?" a voice asked from the desk behind her. Other political leaders of this world had all been listening in from a distance.

"Can a single nation accept these terms, or does the entire world need to be in agreement?

"No one's actually considering this, right? All this talk of gods and monsters? It's absurd!"

"Well, it's the only explanation we've gotten so far for what's happening out there!"

Auri and Dash had been against bringing more decision-makers into the mix, one of the pieces of advice she'd been given before she left was to keep negotiations as simple as possible. Surprisingly, Sunset's buddy had also seemed put-off when Professor Ozpin said that the leaders of the other nations would be sitting in on the call. So far, if his sour facial expression through her whole speech had been any indication, it was the only thing they'd agreed on.

"W-well-" As what felt like a tidal wave of questions slammed into her, Dash could feel those same jitters creeping up into her bones that had accompanied her... less polished class presentations in high school.

"The offer of alliance is to Remnant." Aurelia shot her a sympathetic glance as she glided over to the desk and spoke closer to the microphone. "Join Chirac in complete salvation or be left to fend for yourselves in the face of utter annihilation."

That statement, of course, only served to set the people on the phone on the path to even more arguing and worrying. Judging by her confident strut as she walked back to the desk's edge, however, Aurelia was quite proud of her contribution.

That, however, was when a hand rose from the assembled people present. It was Sunset's new buddy again, this time with the slightest hint of a smile.

"So... your help is conditional on total surrender to Radian?"

"It's not a surrender, it's an alliance!"

"An alliance Radian solely dictates the terms of, under possible world-ending penalty?"

"Negotiation is the whole reason we're here!"

"And how many other worlds have accepted this alliance?" His gaze seemed to dial in on Aurelia. Dash felt a little wounded that he'd spotted that Auri was the more knowledgeable one.

"Fifteen."

"How many races currently live in Radian?"

That left a long, long pause in the conversation, long enough for several of the gathered people in the room to start giving each other confused looks.

"...one. Chiracians are much longer-lived than most races. We have have outlived-"

"What about the Chiracian Phoenixes?"

Phoenixes? Rainbow's eyes widened in surprise. In all of her time in Radian, she'd never heard of any phoenixes, but she had to admit that they would fit right in.

Aurelia was even more shocked, with the scales on her face flushing down to a much darker bronze color as she settled in to a more angry expression.

"They... abandoned their home. They betrayed us."

The guy seemed to weigh the answer back and forth, choosing whether or not he wanted to argue over it.

"That WOULD be the perspective the dragons had on it, I suppose. They WERE just trying to avoid extinction, though."

Rainbow gave Aurelia a confused look, but her little friend was too busy staring daggers into him to give her more than a whisper. "Later..."

"Well, if you're finished with your sales pitch, mind if I give my proposal on how we're going to deal with this ourselves?"

"SALES PITCH?"

"Sorry, your proselytizing."

Rainbow reached up to roll back her sleeve on her favorite punching arm. "I'll show you pro- postla- I'll show YOU a sales pitch!"

In spite of her threat, he didn't seem fazed at all by her anger, standing up out of his seat and giving her a condescending pat on the shoulder as he walked past to take her spot in the front of the room.

"Last time I fought somebody while I was half-asleep it didn't go well. Don't make the same mistake he did."

Rainbow felt her rage boiling higher as lightning crackled across her fingers. One punch at mach speed was all it would take, she'd be moving too fast for anybody to even see it...

No. No.

She was here representing Radian, representing Chirac. He was trying to get a rise out of her to make them look bad. With all the self-restraint she could muster, she forced herself to sit down. She made sure to go out of her way to go take his chair next to Sunset, though.

"You okay?" Sunset whispered.

"He's out of line..." Rainbow growled through her teeth.

"To be fair, you guys insulted Isis first..." Sunset sighed. "But Penn might have taken it too far."

A blonde-haired woman sitting just behind Sunset scoffed. "Hardly surprising. That boy and disproportionate retribution go hand in hand."

Despite her frustration, Rainbow couldn't help noticing the smirk creeping up on Sunset's face as Penn took a ready stance at the front of the room.

"What's so funny?" she whispered.

"Just thinking about the first time we did this..." Sunset leaned back slightly in her chair, settling in to watch her new friend. "I'm going to compare and contrast."

"Ladies, gentlemen, and others, good morning." Penn took a moment to look around the room before taking another swig of his energy drink and placing the mug on Ozpin's desk. "For those of you who don't know me, my friends call me Penn, but if that's too informal, then I also answer to Director Bakersfield." He snapped his fingers and an emblem appeared on the screen behind him.

It was what looked like a small, round shield, but the edges were riddled with holes and the entire thing was shattered into pieces. The long, winding form of a snake was laced through each and every one of those holes, haphazardly climbing through or around the edges at random intervals, only stopping to reach each end of its body towards the center, where its tail and mouth met. All in all, the snake seemed to be stitching the shield back together with its own body. Around the bottom edge were the letters B. U. C. K. L. E. R. in bold black letters.

"I am the Director of the Broken Universe Coalition of Knowledgeable Lorekeepers, Entities, and Researchers, or BUCKLER for short. We're a subdivision of SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We represent and give aid to worlds in need of help following a recent collapse event in multiversal boundaries." He spoke through the complicated acronyms with practiced ease, but the concentrated furrowing of his eyebrows gave away that he was focusing hard on not messing up. "And before any of you speak up saying that the multiverse isn't real or that the idea of other universes is absurd, I'd like to remind you that your planet is being terraformed by an alien race as we speak."

He paused for a moment, giving anyone with objections a chance to raise them.

"Now, with that said, I also am something of an expert on Chirac and Baalchion. Their abilities, their strategies, and the strength of their forces. This is why professor Ozpin personally asked for my team and I to come." He made a nod to Sunset, who only smirked and nodded back to him.

"Doing great..." she whispered, just low enough that only the people next to her could hear it.

Penn responded with a smile smile and an almost-imperceptible nod of his head.

"Now, I have no plans of speaking in esoteric terms of light and darkness, so before we can talk about the enemies you're facing, I need to give a quick science lesson." He leaned back against the desk before nodding in their direction. With a soft hum of motors spinning to life, the little robot dragon took to the air, finding a spot high on one of the walls to perch and watch him. "To our friends working remotely today, we should be transmitting a live visual feed from Professor Ozpin's office. Now, for those of you already familiar with the topic, I would ask that you bear with me. For all the rest, I would like to propose a question: what is the means by which we determine the direction of time?" With the question posed, he picked up his mug and began to pace in front of the desk.

"If you were to ask the premiere physicist of my world, the answer would be threefold: memory- because you can only remember the past and not the future-, the expansion of the universe- because the universe IS expanding over time-, and the progress of thermodynamics, namely entropy." He paused, taking another sip of his drink.

"Is anybody else getting Professor Oobleck vibes from this guy?" Ruby whispered somewhere behind them.

"Yeah, but slower!" Nora replied in a much-louder whisper.

"Thankfully..." Jaune added. "I can barely keep up with Professor Oobleck."

"Now, if there's one thing I've learned in my travels, it's that memory can be tampered with. The expansion of the universe is theorized by many to have an eventual stopping point somewhere in the future. That leaves the solely irrefutable measure of the direction of time, of progress, as entropy." He took another long sip, tilting the mug back far enough to look as if he had finished his drink. "Entropy is defined as the progression from organization to disorganization, from definition to homogeneity." He suddenly seemed very interested in his mug, looking closely at it. "From a state of order..." He suddenly tossed the mug up into the air, watching it smash into a hundred pieces as it collided with the hard tile floor. Several people present jolted in their seats at the sudden noise, mostly the younger students. "...to a state of chaos. Heat dissipates, acids and bases neutralize each other, food decays, and ceramic mugs shatter and scatter. That, to simplify a VERY complicated topic, is entropy."

The general took a breath, as if readying himself to speak, but Penn didn't allow time for any questions, yet.

"Entropy is the fusion that powers stars and sends the energy of atoms scattering through space. It's the force that moves electrons from high concentrations to low, creating electric current. While he calls himself a God of Light, Chirac is, in truth, a God of Entropy."

"That's BLASPHEMY!" Aurelia nearly jumped out of their seat right then and there, but Rainbow managed to barely keep a grip on her friend's tail.

"It's the scientific way of looking at things. You can call it what you want." Penn had clearly expected the outburst, being completely unfazed by nearly having an electric dragon fry him where he stood. "Honestly, I think that's a WAY more powerful thing to be a god of." He kicked at one of the larger pieces of ceramic on the floor. "Now, question for the group: I can't put this mug back together. What has happened has happened. Even if I glued each and every shard, every grain of powder, back together, it would not change the fact that it was shattered and permanently changed. That's how entropy works. But what if it just... fell in reverse? All the pieces returned to how they once were, as if it had never happened? What kind of force could drive that?"

"Some kind of... anti-entropy?" Ruby asked, sounding profoundly anti-confident in her answer.

"Exactly." He snapped his fingers and pointed to the younger girl with a smile. "For the sake of consistency, I call this force 'counterentropy.' THIS is the force that causes heat to concentrate and move out of its surroundings, lowering temperatures and creating frost and ice. It pulls light back to its point of origin, leaving the universe dark. It undoes injury and makes the universe shrink back from its expansion. It is the equal and opposite force to entropy, pointing the arrow of time backwards." He took a deep breath. "It's... difficult to wrap your head around. Saying that it reverses time is a bit of a stretch, but it's the easiest way for people like us, who were raised in a world defined by entropy, to wrap our heads around it. This is the force that Baalchion embodies. Some time ago, I talked about Chirac and Baalchion in the more esoteric 'light and dark' terminology, saying that the big bang was an act of light and that the darkness wants to undo it. The truth of the matter is much closer to this being two equal-yet-opposite forces cancelling each other out on a cosmological scale, like a universe-sized tug of war with time itself as the rope."

"Wait, is that why they heal from anything but fire or electricity so fast?" This marked the first time Ren had spoken. "Because they're excessively entropic processes?"

"Yes." Penn nodded. "Just like how, if you wanted to really hurt a Chiracian, ice and highly processed, decay-resistant materials will be your best bet."

He pointed back up to the display, which now changed to show an expanding black circle.

"As entropy powers the universe onwards and outwards, we are progressing towards a few different possibilities for its inevitable... final state. If you were to ask Chirac, Baalchion, or any of their followers what the final state of an entropic universe is..." he tapped on the holographic display, watching the circle stretch thin as it expanded, finally becoming so thin that it faded away entirely. "They would tell you that the universe will, eventually, just run out of juice. Infinite expansion with a finite amount of matter and energy means that eventually, all of existence will go quiet. Every atom will be accounted for, every star burnt out, every black hole decayed into radiation that has spread evenly over everything. In short... the universe's constant expansion runs out of gas billions upon billions of years from now. Nothing left, everything spent." He gave a small, sad sigh at the idea. "We call this 'heat death,' because it's defined by all heat energy in the universe being completely dispersed. Where the disagreement lies... is in whether or not this is a cosmos-wide emergency or merely the final state of a life well-lived." He snapped his fingers again, this time changing to an image Rainbow knew very well: It was Chirac in his favorite form, a titanic winged serpent with iridescent white scales and shining blue eyes.

"If you were to ask Chirac, the embodiment of entropy, he would say that this is the full potential of the universe realized. Every creature in existence got the chance to live as they chose, every possibility turned to certainty and every moment spent to its absolute fullest. It is existence resting in peace."

With another snap of his fingers, the image changed, this time to one that made every molecule in Rainbow's body tense.

It was a dark figure sitting on a black throne of twisted tubes and crumbling dirt. It looked humanoid, but there wasn't enough light to make out any details of his face. His body was long and lithe, bony and starved-looking, even beneath the seemingly tailored suit. Knightcrawlers and countless other monsters were moving in and out of the tunnels and tubes in his throne, as if the picture had been taken candidly in the midst of manufacturing more of his army.

"But to Baalchion, the conscious manifestation of counterentropy, it represents the ultimate defeat. Heat death is just that: death. It is the total erasure of the universe's once-infinite potential. It is the final end to all experience, all possibility, everything worth having. Chiracians believe that Baalchion wants to destroy the universe, but... in his own twisted, opposite way of thinking, he's trying to save it. He wants to return everything to its pure state of complete potential, to how it was before the big bang, when everything everywhere was all not-happening in equal measure to everyone." Penn took a moment to sigh and shake his head. "I can understand where he's coming from, to be honest. Thinking about entropy and the passage of each second that can never be returned, even as I sit around wasting it doing things that don't matter... it's enough to make just about anybody want to go back." he shrugged. "They call the end of the universe 'The Great Dying,' and they don't understand why anyone would WANT to die. From their perspective, this is a rescue mission. Any kind of damage or injury they deal, they know will be undone once they win. Because of that, they are willing to do anything to save us, including hurting or killing us."

He paused for another moment, staring at the image a little longer than Dash thought was necessary before snapping his fingers again. This time, the image changed to one that she'd heard about and seen pictures of in her training in Radian, but never seen face-to-face: the dark sun emblem of a Baalchion gate.

"There are a few things beyond even the gods, though. One of them is the existence of creatures like humans or faunus, who developed without their direct intervention. We grew and formed in the mix of entropy and counterentropy, and we thrive in the agonizingly slow march forward that their battle creates. The flow of time as we know it is the result of an almost-perfect stalemate between the two, with Chirac and entropy winning out by only a hair over Baalchion." He leaned back slightly against the desk. "Sure, if Baalchion wins then we all go back to nothing, but imagine if the expansion and decay of the universe was left unchecked?" He took a moment to gesture to Rainbow Dash. "I mean, Dash is almost the same age as Sunset, but after six months in Radian she looks almost twenty years her senior!"

"HEY!" Rainbow jumped out of her chair, only to feel Sunset's hand on her shoulder pulling her back.

"Dash, it's not worth it!" Sunset hissed.

"I think it might be!" Rainbow growled.

"Rainbow, he's right!" Sunset whispered, pulling Dash back down into her seat and grabbing her by the shoulders. "Look at yourself!"

"So what if I put on a little muscle? That doesn't make me OLD!" Rainbow gestured to herself.

"and your hair turned white!"

"It's a side-effect of Chirac's magic!"

"and you got taller!"

"The magic made me stronger and a better fighter!"

"AND the wrinkles? The crow's feet?"

"I don't have any- wait, what?"

Before Rainbow could ask her to elaborate, Penn had moved on.

"Now, by sacrificing the life of such an independently-formed individual, through ways that, honestly, no one but Baalchion understands, a portal can be opened directly to his realm. This is the type of portal that has been formed under the remains of what was once Evernight Castle. Reports of missing persons have been coming in from Vacuo for some time, now, and I believe he's been using more life energy to expand and fortify the portal." He sighed, clearly regretting something in his explanation. "Usually, the knightcrawlers and other low-ranking creatures are sent as an expeditionary force, establishing a base of operations quietly to avoid drawing Chirac's attention for as long as possible. Once they have a strong enough foothold, larger and more powerful creatures, commanders in their ranks, broodmothers for their troops, start coming through. This usually marks the change from scouting to a full-on invasion, which is what is happening to Remnant now. However, even without Chirac's 'help' dooming Remnant to age itself out of existence within a few centuries, we can still stop them. The portal is their greatest asset, but that also makes it their greatest weakness."

With a snap of his fingers, an image of a sword entered the picture, simplistically overlapping with the picture of the portal. "Using ancient materials extremely resistant to change, able to resist both entropy and counterentropy, the power flow keeping the portal stable can be disrupted. For smaller portals, this is usually enough to destroy them. Without a link back to their counterentropic homeworld, Baalchion's forces will rapidly deteriorate and the terraforming will right itself within a year. For a portal of greater magnitude, though..." the image changed, shrinking the sword down to the size of a toothpick, " you might need either multiple points of disruption or the careful application of a high concentration of entropic energy, such as, well, a bomb." The tiny sword in the picture multiplied and pinned down all the edges of the portal for a moment before an explosion overtook the screen, clearing away everything and leaving only the words "PROBLEM SOLVED" in its place.

"These types of weapons and materials aren't easy to come by... which is why my companions and I didn't come empty-handed." With another snap of his fingers, the display changed to show the twisted, mangled remains of a car. As they watched, another dragon-shaped robot with yellow-and-black paint pulled heavy-looking black items out of the trunk.

"As we speak, my friends, we are gathering our reserves of an extremely rare metal from another dimension to be re-forged into a weapon capable of disrupting the portal. This metal, called Netherite, was gathered from ancient debris in another world's version of hell, alloyed with gold, and given atomic bonding and structure with carbon in the form of diamonds. It's ancient, it's near-unbreakable, and with the enchantments that were placed on this holy armor, it can repair itself using ambient energy. By shaving off small pieces with a grinder and modifying the industrial-grade weapons forge in the basement to operate at temperatures well-beyond its initial purposes, we can forge weapons capable of closing the portal. According to our calculations, those weapons could be ready in..."

Five days, sixteen hours, and fifteen minutes, approximately.

"Just over five and a half days." He leaned back against the desk, taking a moment to sigh. Rainbow raised an eyebrow, wondering just how he could be so tired. All he was doing was talking. "This material is extremely valuable and was collected by BUCKLER at great cost, but we are prepared to share what little of it we have with Remnant freely. Once these weapons have been forged, two agents will have to be designated to make their way stealthily into the enemy stronghold and disable the portal at its heart.

This was where the General finally rose out of his chair. "I'll call the Atlesian Ace Ops, they have the training for this type of mission."

"Unfortunately, General Ironwood, that won't be possible." Penn groaned, leaning back even further and looking wistfully up at the ceiling. "The metabolic processes that give humans and faunus their energy are still inherently entropic. Trying to sneak humans into a Baalchionic nest of this size would be like trying to sneak a magnesium sparkler through a deep freezer in the dark. Robots powered by electricity or aura have the same problem, they can be sensed by Baalchion's minions." He put one hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. "And now we get to the part that I really hate... As it turns out, you, BUCKLER and Chirac aren't the only ones who've noticed the incoming invasion. On our way here, we were reached out to by an old mutual enemy... who wants to help."

This sent stirs and whispers through the room, and Rainbow couldn't help noticing Sunset's hand clench in restrained frustration.

"And who, exactly, is this 'mutual enemy?'" General Ironwood asked.

"That would be myself..." a chilling voice came through the speaker on Ozpin's desk. Above them, the display on the screen changed to a chilling figure with blackened veins, chalk-white skin and hair, and blood-red eyes. She seemed to be regarding the room with an air of condescension that made Rainbow immediately dislike her. Even Penn had to force himself to look at the screen directly, obviously afraid of the person behind it.

"H-Hello, Salem..."

She blatantly ignored Penn's greeting as she continued on. "If Remnant is destroyed or conquered, then there is nothing left for me. While I do not LIKE any one of you, the enemy of my enemy is my ally." She gestured as if the information was obvious. "As it stands, my Grimm and I have no such biological processes. In theory, we should be able to get closer than any of you without being noticed. And if we are, well... we have the numbers to engage this army of darkness head-on." With a smirk, the image switched off, leaving them in silence.

Looking around the room, Rainbow could see that everyone who hadn't known what was coming was completely horrified. Even the even-keeled Ozpin had a look of mild surprise on his face. When the general began to turn a furious-looking shade of red, Rainbow wondered if Penn had manage to botch his own "sales pitch."

"You expect us to leave the fate of our world in HER hands? In the hands of the Grimm?"

"No!" Penn held up both hands in a placating motion. "No, definitely not! But Salem is one of the few who could get close enough without being noticed, and the portal is directly underneath her former base of operations. It's her home territory. Combined with her other abilities, having her on the away team would leave victory near-certain. Just to be certain that there's no double-crossing or last-minute changes, however... BUCKLER has our own agent for whom biological processes have all but stopped." He took a deep breath. "Their body isn't even human, any more, and, as far as we can tell, doesn't really qualify as organic. Testing is still being done to figure out what exactly they ARE, but... in theory, they don't have those entropic metabolic giveaways, either. They've also done this type of infiltration mission before, in another world to stop a different invasion."

"And who, exactly, would you send to lead a mission with HER on the team?"

Penn's grip on the desk tightened slightly as he bit at his lip.

"...me."

That started another round of angry arguments, with several people on the call trying to speak over one another. Rainbow tried not to smile at how terribly his proposal was going. He'd started off strong, but his plan was terrible in the late game.

"Okay, OKAY, QUIET!" Penn slammed his fist on the desk, and a silence fell over the room again. "Now I'm not ANY happier about this than you, believe me! But the easy way out will doom Remnant, and sending in anyone else will result in them instantly being caught before they even make it through the front door!"

"But we've gotten in there before!" Jaune piped up from behind them. "Team RWBY even managed to get all the way to the room with the portal!"

"Yes, and I'm sure you THINK it was your own craftiness that got you there." Penn's voice dropped low. "But let me ask, did the entrance seal up behind them? Was there a portal guardian waiting for them? Did the maze's layout suddenly change? Did they have to fight their way out? If I had to guess, that was a trap and a test. A way to gauge your strength before you had the knowledge or means to shut the portal. If you made it that deep, it was because you were allowed to. But Baalchion's in the endgame now, and there's no more need to test your world's warriors. When was the last time anybody ELSE made it that deep into the nest?"

The silence in the room felt heavy as no one wanted to answer.

"Exactly." Penn leaned back again. "If I had a way to keep my hands off this and more local hands on it, I would take it, believe me. But as it stands, the only two people have any chance of making it in there without being noticed are Salem and I. In theory, Agent Missy might be able to, given that she's also not human, but her skillset doesn't include stealth! Given the situation and our resources, this is the way that has the greatest possible chance of success."

There was a long, drawn-out pause as Penn waited for anyone else to raise a question.

"This isn't the easy way, but it gives Remnant its best possible chance at long-term survival AND keeps them neutral in the war between Chirac and Baalchion. In another version of my homeworld, it was similar but opposite. Dragons came to our world to conquer. Using hardened steel, we fought them off ourselves while turning away from the entreaties of the darkness. Our warriors became known as slayers of dragons and faded into legend, and the darkness was forever associated with moral weakness... and neither side ever came back."

Penn snapped his fingers one more time, and a timer appeared on the holographic screen. It showed five days, fifteen hours, and fifty-five minutes. "Whether you go with BUCKLER's proposal or not, netherite weapons will help you, so I had my associate set up the grinder and forge last night. We've already started on harvesting the material. You're going to have five days to deliberate, and I'm going to have five days to improve on this plan wherever I can. We don't need an answer now. Thank you all for your time and attention, and- uh- sorry about the mess with the mug, I'll try to find a broom."

Having finally spoken his peace, Penn returned back to the seats, where he more or less collapsed into his chair. In his place, Professor Ozpin took center stage.

"Well, it seems as if we've all been given a great deal to think about. I would like to thank Miss Dash and Director Bakersfield for their time. With that said, I know that Penn and his agents were attacked yesterday and still took the time to prepare a presentation for early this morning, and several of our remaining students who've been involved with these extradimensional exploits also got up extra early to be here. I believe it's safe to say that, should we have more questions regarding either proposal, we can find a way to direct them to you after you've all gotten some more rest. You are all dismissed." He took a moment to nudge a piece of ceramic with his foot. "And I'll have this mess dealt with, no need to worry about that."

There was a mumbled chorus of thank yous that came up as most of those present rose from their seats and headed towards the door. As they did, Rainbow was able to pick up on a hushed conversation between Penn and Sunset.

"How'd I do?"

"Better than the Dalek invasion. I think the powerpoint presentation really helped. Less frenzied energy, more 'I know more than you' vibes. Eight out of ten."

"Dang, still haven't beaten my best?"

"I don't think anything's going to top that time you talked us out of that so-called 'ticket' in Mechanicsburg!"

Penn groaned slightly, but his smile betrayed his real feelings. "Don't remind me of Mechanicsburg, I still owe Mamma Gkika a favor!"

As the two of them snickered together, Rainbow couldn't help feeling just a little... left out. Sunset was HER friend, after all... why weren't they laughing about old adventures together?

"So... convinced there's something wrong with that guy NOW?" Aurelia whispered. "He just admitted he wasn't human!"

"Yeah, but I thought your problem with him was that he was pretending to be human when he wasn't?" Rainbow muttered back.

"Yeah, until he started casually dropping blasphemies into the conversation as fact and undermining our negotiations!" Auri hissed.

"Yeah, but... he kinda seemed like..." Rainbow had to stop and think for a moment. "If this was a game, I'd say it sounded more like he hates the sport, not the teams." She rubbed at her neck, making sure to not catch Aurelia's tail under her hand. "You know what I mean?"

Rainbow Dash knew she tended to get a bit hot under the collar. It was part of her competitive nature, and she was usually able to channel it into whatever game she was playing at the time in a healthy way. That didn't mean she couldn't be a sore loser at times, but she was at least aware enough to see when it was getting in the way. She often wondered if Chirac had paired her with Aurelia because she had the same issues, but was less aware of them.

And, unfortunately, Rainbow could see that Auri wasn't just hot under the collar, something about Penn's presentation had left her boiling.

"There's more wrong with him than we're seeing... How did he know about the phoenixes? How did he know so much about Lord Chirac AND Baalchion? There were things he explained that even I've never heard of!" Aurelia hissed in Rainbow's ear. "We NEED to figure out what his deal is!"

Rainbow could tell that there wasn't any getting Auri out of this single lane of thinking. She glanced down the hall, watching Penn wave a quick goodbye to Sunset before ducking back into their dorm room. Sunset, on the other hand, turned and began to walk back towards them, already giving Rainbow an excited smile.

"Fine. YOU do some scouting, I'll talk to Sunset, okay?" Rainbow cupped her hands under Aurelia and tossed her into the air. The little dragon barely managed to get her wings unfurled to right herself before she started to come back down. She stuck out her tongue at Rainbow for a moment, then vanished into the light fixtures in a bolt of gold electricity.

"Wow... I've never seen a dragon that can do that!" Sunset stared for a moment at the spot where Aurelia had vanished before giving Rainbow another wide grin. "So, I'm already up, and the coffee's really only just starting to kick in... wanna hang out while I run through my morning training? Beacon's got some awesome facilities!"

Rainbow grinned as she put her arm around Sunset's shoulders. "Sunset, after all this time, I'd be happy to hang out in a garbage dump if it was with you. Lead the way!"

As Sunset giggled and began to set the pace, a lingering thought hung in the back of Rainbow's mind. I really DID get taller than her...

"So... that Penn guy is really something..." she fumbled.

Sunset chuckled at that. "Try not to take his bad mood to heart. He's sleep-deprived AND still mad about losing the car yesterday."

"So? It's just a car, at least you're all still alive!" Rainbow scoffed.

To her surprise, that made Sunset pull back from her, separating the two of them at arm's length. The mix of shock and insult on her face made it obvious Rainbow had made a mistake.

"JUST a car? Just a car? Sylvia wasn't-" Sunset's hands balled into fists for a moment as she tried to hold back her anger. One deep breath and a long sigh later, she seemed to have her temper under control again.

"Rainbow Dash... you've been living in Radian this whole time, right?"

"Uhhh, yeah?"

"And they took care of you? Gave you food and shelter?"

"Of course!"

Sunset's eyes narrowed in a way that made Rainbow suddenly have flashbacks to the days when Sunset was known as the queen of the bullies.

"Well, I didn't get that luxury. When I met Penn, all he had was that car and a half-renovated one-bedroom rental. When he saw I needed help, he didn't hesitate to pack all his necessities in his car and leave that house behind. That car has been the only roof over my head that I've been able to count on in six months. We've sat in that car, safe and sound, as we searched everywhere for the other Rainbooms!" When she took a step forward, Rainbow couldn't help taking a step back out of fear. "We drove that car through every state, every city, every town from South Padre to Topeka, up and down EVERY street, following my geode in the hopes we might catch a GLIMPSE of one of you! We rode it into the ground from one universe after another after another after another, and she NEVER let us down! Even when she DID break down, Penn would pick up his tools and have her running and ready to go in less than two days! And when our lives were on the line- which was A LOT!" Sunset's voice was cracking, now, and Rainbow could see tears running down her face, "-that car NEVER failed to outrun anything and everything the multiverse could throw at us! She was our home! Our sanctuary! The only way that we survived when this trip stretched out from a week-long tour to find the Rainbooms into a six month odyssey just to find ONE! PERSON!"

"I- I didn't know..." Rainbow couldn't bring her voice above a whisper.

"W-well of course you didn't!" Sunset's voice cracked again as her rage seemed to leave her. She was shaking now, a trembling, tear-stained mess. "I ha-haven't even gotten to t-tell you! We only j-just found each other! Why am I g-getting so mad at you for this?" she looked down at her shaking hands, eyes widening as if seeing them for the first time. "I j-just got you back... why am I fighting over this? Why did it make me so mad?"

Rainbow looked her friend up and down, but there wasn't any sign she'd been hurt. It was only now, in this moment of vulnerability, that the aura of confidence that had been around Sunset since she arrived faded at last.

She was run ragged. Her hair was clean, sure, but the split ends and obvious lack of any special care would make Rarity scream. He clothes were the same, but worn threadbare in places. Cuts and slashes in her jacket, her jeans, and even near the bottom of her blouse had been clumsily stitched shut. She didn't look malnourished, but there was a difference in her physical build. She looked more toned, the kind of muscle you only got from constant, daily use. There were still half-healed scrapes and cuts on her body, along with wide bruises just beginning to form, all likely from the battle the day before, but she was acting like she didn't even know they existed.

An important part of being a team leader was seeing when someone was burning out, pushing too hard and risking hurting themselves... and Sunset was strung tighter than a tennis racket.

Sunset's one of my best friends... how didn't I SEE this sooner?

One thing that Rainbow Dash prided herself on was that she was a hard person to shake up. She had a tendency to roll with the punches and land on her feet. That was how you needed to think if you wanted to be a reliable teammate in any type of sport. Sure, Sunset was a great leader and was good at improvising, but if what she was saying was the truth...

"You've just... done nothing but drive and look for us? For six months?"

Sunset nodded, clearly not trusting herself to speak without her voice cracking.

"You... haven't been staying someplace?"

Sunset shook her head this time.

Rainbow felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "You've been living in that car for six months straight, having crazy adventures the whole time, and never even had a home to go back to?"

"Syl was our home..." Sunset mumbled. "She wasn't just a car... she took care of us and we took care of her..."

"Oh geez..." Rainbow wrapped both of her arms around Sunset's shoulders, pulling her as tight as she could. "SunShim, I'm sorry..."

"We- we took care of her and now- and now we can't..." Sunset kept mumbling as she pressed the side of her face against Rainbow's chest. "She took care of us for so long and I can't do anything- I couldn't do anything to stop it and I just- I just don't know what to do..."

In Rainbow's mind, memories of the last six months flashed images through her brain. Images of her sitting around, jumping from rooftop to rooftop practicing her parkour, sitting at massive dining tables alongside the dragons, where every meal was a feast for someone her size. She thought of the amphithere-feather mattress she slept like a baby on in the specially-made darkroom they'd given her away from the never-setting suns. She thought of all the days spent racing and studying and laughing as if nothing was wrong, as if her friends were just going to turn up on their own eventually. She had been content to let Chirac and his scouts do the searching for her just because she'd landed someplace cool.

And the whole time, Sunset had been diving headfirst into the multiverse for them, crawling through the mud and the pain scrambling for even a sign they were alive, without any place to call home except a beaten-up old sedan... which Rainbow had just called "just a car" after it was destroyed right in front of her eyes.

She felt like a real jerk.

"I'm sorry, Sunset... I didn't mean it..." she whispered, trying her best to comfort her friend.

"I-I'm sorry, too..." Sunset mumbled, beginning to pull away. "I just- I think I've been holding too much in... I wanted us finally finding each other to be a happy thing, but... there's so much wrong right now. I think I just-"

"Dude, it's cool!" Rainbow pulled tighter, forcing Sunset back into the hug. "Sounds like things have been pretty heavy since we got split up. Do you want to tell me YOUR story before I finish mine?"

That finally got a laugh out of Sunset, and Rainbow Dash took that as a sign that it was okay to let her go. She was still giving a soft chuckle as she wiped the last of the tears from her eyes.

"If I try to tell you MY story, it'll take all day..." She sniffled loudly as she tried to erase the evidence of her momentary breakdown. "And you already started yours! Maybe we can take turns?"

"Sounds good to me." Rainbow smiled. "Wanna head to the library?"

"Yeah, let's- Oh!" Sunset perked up slightly. "Team RWBYS is probably gonna want to hear the full version, too! They only got the abridged version last time because it was an emergency and- oh, uh, that's ALSO a long story. We should go get them! We can make a whole thing out of it!"

"That... might be a problem," a small voice piped up.

Both girls turned to look down the hall, where the girl in the red dress was standing, looking like she was about to deliver some bad news.

"Weiss and Yang... Well, Yang might be able to join, if she's feeling up to it, but..." she rubbed at the back of her head as her own tears welled up in her eyes. "Weiss... you're going to have to see her, yourself."

For the second time, Rainbow felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Those girls who fought the nyctomorph... When they said they were Sunset's friends, I was so excited I didn't think about telling her-

Awwwwwwww... crap.

"Sleep..."

The sound of tearing metal was like screaming, the cracking of fiberglass and plastic was like bones snapping.

"Sleep..."

He should have sent an advance party. Had Isis go through first and scan the area. He was reckless. He was stupid.

"Sleep..."

He could have stopped it if he had the guts. If he had the stomach to exercise some control. If he would just take accountability and-

"Dangit, Penn, you're supposed to be sleeping!"

"Yeeeah... that's not gonna happen..." he mumbled to himself, throwing off the covers he had pulled over his eyes. With a long sigh, he swung his feet back over the edge of the bed. "This crap's gonna haunt me for a while."

He glanced around the room for a few minutes to make sure he was alone before dropping onto the floor. He REALLY wasn't in the mood for exercise, but Missy wouldn't be happy if she came back and found out he'd started slacking on his anti-depression workouts.

"Push-ups, sit-ups, squats..." he mumbled to himself as he started his routine. "Then there's gotta be a treadmill SOMEPLACE on campus."

"Are you sure you should be doing this?"

"Isis is still working on an ink-based antidepressant, so-"

"You can't dodge questions with me. I MEAN trying to just jump in to working on solving all the problems. You need time to process what happened."

Penn focused on his push-ups, trying to ignore the way they made him feel like blood was rushing to his head. "The best thing for me is to find a problem and solve it, then solve the next one, then the one after that. Solve enough problems and things will-"

"It's okay to be sad about Sylvia."

"It's not death. I'm going to rebuild her."

"But she's not rebuilt YET, and that's sad."

"We both know moping never solved anything."

"Neither did pushing yourself to burnout."

Penn stood still for a second, thinking carefully about how to respond. She had a good point.

"I need to solve problems right now. I need that cycle of seratonin. 'Problem. Think. Solution. Problem. Think. Solution.'" He mumbled, timing his squats to each word. "It's the only way I can feel confident enough to keep moving. If I curl up into a ball of depression now, we lose Remnant, Sylvia never gets rebuilt, and we never get back on the road to find the other Rainbooms." He paused again, though this time his pondering was more for show. "Not to mention that losing would mean we die, too, given we're stranded on Remnant."

"But you have FIVE DAYS! It's okay to take a second to breathe and FEEL something!" Reason was beginning to get exasperated, never a good sign. Also, she had another really good point. "Isis is making the portal-closing weapons, parts for Sylvia are being shipped in, and the jury is still out on whether they're actually going to use your plan! Your stupid, STUPID plan, might I add? There's no way you're going in there alone with Salem. The only reason Sunset didn't raise a fuss is because you told her it was just a temporary plan."

"It's a placeholder..." Penn mumbled. "I'll figure out a way to get a better team in there without being noticed. I just needed a believable team for today."

"Team RWBY would have been believable."

"Believable to ME. I wasn't kidding about Salem and I being the only ones without those metabolic signatures."

"If you don't decompress, you're going to explode."

"Well, unless we express-deliver some of those car parts, I've got nothing to wrench on, and I'm not in the mood for trying to read another novel from the Star Wars Expanded Universe or watching any movies."

The long pause on his partner's end chalked a tally on his side of the "Good Points Made" board.

"Do you think this dorm has a kitchen for the students?"

"... ... ...okay, chalk up another one for you. Let's go find it."

"Hell yes."

"So... all this time later, and all that it took for us to work together was a new ice age." There was only a hint of a mirthless smile on Ozpin's lips.

"I would hardly call this 'working together.' If all goes as planned, we'll hardly have to speak a word to one another." Salem dismissed him with a wave as she turned towards the door. "I only stayed after all the rest left so that I could inform you that I have every intention of honoring this truce, no matter how temporary it may be."

"And why, to echo James's earlier remarks, should I trust you?"

Salem smirked at that a bit more. "Because you have no choice. Because if I am anything, I am honest. Because I think you know that I'm in need of new toys."

"The boy? He may be clever, but I think you greatly overestimate him." There was a faint tone of disbelief in Ozpin's voice. "In fact, I'm surprised you haven't already gotten tired of them. I thought you didn't believe in heroes, any more?"

"Heroes? Ha." The word seemed to amuse Salem more than expected. "I would hardly call them that. It's more like the amusement one feels watching a bird attempt to fly for the first time."

"You expect them to fall?"

"I expect them to flounder and flail and tumble in the grasp of forces they do not understand, yes."

"And what if they should happen to fly?"

Salem paused at that. Ozpin had thought the question was a natural follow-up, the kind she would have had a response ready for well in advance. Instead, her hand wandered to a place just below her sternum as she stared ahead for a moment, as if she wasn't even aware she was doing it.

"That... is something I think I would like to see."

That was enough to make Ozpin balk slightly. Despite keeping his comments to himself, Salem seemed to spot his disbelief.

"I think that you underestimate them, Ozma. This isn't just ego talking. I've been following them for some time now." She took a moment to toy with the two chess pieces she'd pulled from her pocket: a king and a rook. She revolved the two around one another, letting them play at a delicate dance. "They may be children, but they seem determined to never make the same mistake twice. They might make for formidable allies one day."

"You've changed." Ozpin's tone was one of disbelief. "The Salem I knew would never have-"

"Call it the power of a multiversal perspective." For a moment, she let the disguise drop, just long enough to fix the headmaster with a soul-shattering glare. "And I stopped being anything resembling 'the Salem you knew' when you stabbed me in the back for the sake of the gods."

Ozpin's grip on his cane tightened to a white-knuckled force that threatened to crush its head.

"I remember that night much differently."

This time it was Salem's grip that clamped down, instantly grinding the chess pieces into black powder. A ripple in the room's air threatened to shatter every window.

"Of course you would, my dear Ozma... Your memory always HAS been very selective." Returning to her disguised form, Salem strode across the room to the door. "We may be temporarily allies, but I will NOT suffer attempts at provocation."

"And your pre-recorded message earlier? All of that was truth?" Ozpin asked. There was no urgency in his voice, no attempt to make her stay. It was a serious question phrased to sound like idle curiosity.

"Of course." Salem stroked her chin for a moment. "Of course, that's given that I can find a way to convince the boy NOT to tremble at the sight of me so that we can work together."

"And out of everything said today, I somehow think that might just be the most impossible." Ozpin smirked into his mug as Salem passed through the doorway... only to find that his hot chocolate had been magically frozen solid.

"Hmph... she always DID need the last word," he muttered, setting the now-cold chocolate back onto his desk. "Some things never change."

Dancing With Myself

"So, what happened?" Sunset asked, keeping one hand on the younger girl's shoulder.

Rainbow Dash felt slightly boggled at the change in Sunset's composure. Not five minutes ago, Sunset had been having a nervous breakdown, but the moment Ruby had said that something was wrong with her friends, Sunset had forgotten about her own problems and put all of her attention on someone else's. As soon as there was someone else in trouble, Sunset was all business... which wasn't a HUGE change from before they'd been separated, but Dash was seeing it a lot more clearly, now.

Ruby's eyes seemed to be locked to the floor in shame, with more weight on the young girl's shoulders than anyone her age ought to have. "Well, we were on a mission to keep the numbers of Baalchion's troops down and get more information about the portal... But we ran into this monster that was like... living darkness?"

"A nyctomorph..." Rainbow added. "They're usually high-ranking commanders in Baalchion's invasions. They're shapeshifters made out of darkness. The more complicated their body is, the more powerful they are."

"And this one was really complicated!" Ruby took back over the conversation without even thinking. "Blake said it was... fractional?"

"Fractal." Rainbow shook her head. "I've never fought a fractal one, that's almost as powerful as they get."

"It saw us before we could report back, and we had to fight our way out... But it was too tricky. It kept shapeshifting into all these weird shapes and dodging our attacks. The only one who could land a hit at all was Yang, but then it did something to her arm! Not to mention it regenerated really fast... Even my silver eyes only kept it away for a few seconds." Ruby shook her head in a hopeless expression at the memory, one that made Rainbow cringe with guilt.

She'd been fighting on the same battlefield, but she had missed ALL of this. If she'd known there was a nyctomorph around, she would have let the portal guardian get away to go help these other girls.

"Weiss used her glyphs to hold it back, but when it touched them, it hurt her somehow and she started babbling about the end- I guess she was seeing that 'heat death' thing your friend said that Baalchion is trying to stop- but she still kept going to keep us safe until she passed out! The only thing that was able to stop it was Yang's semblance!" Ruby finally looked up, eyes wide. "And it was CRAZY! It was WAY stronger than it normally is, like she was going to light the whole world on fire!"

"Okay, remembering her semblance..." Sunset rubbed at the back of her head, "I REALLY wish I could have seen that."

"But after that... her arm was gone." Ruby looked down again. "She burned out whatever kind of infection that thing gave her, but her arm was just... charcoal."

Sunset's eyes grew wider in horror, but Rainbow Dash wasn't going to miss the opportunity to mitigate the bad news.

"Actually, it's not gone gone! It's a technique high-level Chiracian fire priests use! I don't know how she managed to pull if off by sheer instinct, but her arm could potentially be even better if she starts training to use fire magic!" Rainbow tried to sound upbeat, but Ruby and Sunset didn't seem to think it was as good of a thing as she did.

"She's been really upset about it... she hasn't even gotten out of bed since." Ruby shook her head. "I've never seen her like this. Even if her arm is still there, every time she tries to use it, it just crumbles to pieces and she has to wait for it to re-form again. And Weiss..." she nearly choked on her teammate's name, there. "Weiss has been in a coma and won't wake up. If it wasn't for this storm, she wouldn't even be here, she SHOULD have been moved to a hospital ages ago!"

Sunset had fallen quiet at that, her hand rubbing at the bottom of her chin as she thought carefully.

"I can't make any promises... but I've pulled Penn out of a coma, before. Twice, if you count that time he was possessed. I might be able to help Weiss."

"REALLY?" Ruby's eyes were practically shining with hope as she grabbed at Sunset's arm. "Please, please please!"

"Hold on!" Sunset raised her other hand to try and dampen Ruby's enthusiasm. "I don't know the specifics, and mind-reading isn't an exact science! The best I can do is promise to try."

Rainbow arched an eyebrow at her friend. "When did you graduate from mind-reading to curing comas? That's new."

Sunset unconsciously fiddled with her geode with her hand that wasn't being clung to by Ruby. "Well, when Penn was almost lobotomized by Salem, I tried to just spur some memories to help his brain heal. The next thing I knew, I was walking around inside his head! After that, I just had to go deep enough to find him and bring him back out. Since then, it was like my powers grew so that I can help people who are unconscious for some reason."

Rainbow took a moment to pull her own geode up for a critical look. "How come YOUR geode just gives you new powers, but I have to become a Chiracian priestess to get new ones?"

Sunset just shrugged. "Necessity is the mother of evolution, right?" As the three of them arrived at the door Ruby had been leading them to, Ruby stepped forward and gave a firm knock at the door. "Yang! It's me! I brought Sunset! Rainbow's here, too!"

The voice on the other side was low, too low for anyone but Ruby, who had her ear pressed against the door, to hear.

"Okay! We're coming in!" Ruby replied, not waiting another second before reaching for the handle and practically throwing the door open.

What's waiting on the other side isn't much of a surprise to Rainbow, since she'd been consulted more than a few times as the Chiracian "expert" on dealing with the girls' injuries, but the way Sunset gasped and covered her mouth with her hands drove home the fact that things were just about as bad as they looked.

Weiss, the smaller, pale girl dressed mostly in white, was laying on a bed surrounded by medical equipment. Thankfully, she was still able to breathe on her own, but a mask had still been placed over her face to provide extra oxygen and detect if her breathing stopped. A small tube had been passed through the mask to travel down her throat and provide nutrition, and a large bag of saline fluid had been directly hooked into her arm via an IV drip. The way she had sunken into the bed made it look as if she hadn't moved from the spot in ages, and made her lithe frame look more wiry and skinny.

Yang was sitting in the bed on the other side of the room, not looking much better than their unconscious friend. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her golden hair was looking less like a wreath of flames and more like a currently-occupied rat's nest. The fight was gone out of her eyes, and she was clearly forcing her smile as she turned and gave them a wave with her bad hand. Whatever she had done lately, it looked like the blackened remains of her hand were only half-formed from the last time it had been destroyed, more like a fire-blasted skeleton than a functional limb. She looked almost gaunt, like something had been slowly draining the life out of her.

"Hey, Sleepwalker..." she mumbled.

"Yang?" Sunset's response was barely enough of a context clue for Rainbow to realize "Sleepwalker" had been referring to her. "What happened?"

Yang sighed and leaned back, turning to look up at the ceiling. "Well, if you ask just about anybody, what happened is that we got lucky... not that it feels like it."

"She's right." Rainbow interjected. "That nyctomorph got under her skin, literally. Usually, if one of them gets their barbs into you, they never let go. Both of them are lucky to be alive."

Sunset either didn't hear Rainbow or was ignoring her as she slowly walked up to Weiss's bed, taking a moment to brush away a few errant strands of hair from her face.

"If this is good luck, then I worry some of my luck must have rubbed off on you last time I was here..." she mumbled.

Yang huffed, but seemed to keep her comment to herself. Sunset didn't notice the moment of restraint as she looked more closely over Weiss. Finally, she cupped the side of the younger girl's face in her hand.

"Okay... I'm going to try to wake her up. I don't know how long it'll take, though."

"I've been watching her this long, a bit longer isn't going to change anything..." Yang murmured.

"After that, we'll all get together and we can swap stories about all of our adventures!" Sunset looked back up at Yang, giving her a happy smile. "Team RWBYS never has a dull moment, right?"

Sunset paused, taking a second to look closely at Yang for a few seconds. After that, she reached into her pocket for her phone. She typed furiously for a few seconds, just long enough for Rainbow to get curious who she was messaging. Before she could peek over her friend's shoulder, however, Sunset hit the send button and shoved the device back in her pocket. With whatever it was she was planning set in motion, Sunset pulled a chair next to Weiss's bed, placed her hand back on her face, and took a deep breath.

"Here goes..."

With a flash of magical light in her eyes, Sunset fell into the familiar trance the Rainbow had seen a hundred times before of reading someone's memories. Unlike what she was used to, however, this one didn't stop after only a second, it was continuous with no end in sight. Rainbow awkwardly rubbed at the back of her neck and cleared her throat.

"S-So... sounds like you girls know Sunset pretty well, too, huh?"

"We're teammates... Ruby murmured, eyes fixed firmly on the scene of Sunset and Weiss. "Sunset was on our team for our first semester, and then we all uncovered a plot by the White Fang and saved all of Vale together."

"Then she climbed in their car and took off into the Multiverse again... looking for you." Yang added as she flopped over onto her side, pulling the blankets up to her shoulder. "Turns out that if she'd just stayed, you would have just come straight to her."

"While that is true, if Sunset Shimmer had not left, a civilization of endermen would still be terrorized by a vengeful dragon, an entire civilization of monsters trapped underground would have been left to die as their universe disintegrated, a animation studio filled with trapped human souls would never have been set free, the Broken Universe Coalition of Knowledgeable Lorekeepers, Explorers, and Researchers would never have been established, and the material which is now being used to save your world would never have been acquired."

As Rainbow pulled her phone out of her pocket, it took a second for her brain to put together the voice with the AI that had installed itself on her phone yesterday.

"Were you eavesdropping on us?"

"It is my experience that constant vigilance is the best means by which to protect users."

"Well, cut it out!"

"Negative. Your safety is among my primary directives."

"Don't bother..." Ruby sighed as she pulled up a chair beside Sunset and took a seat. "Trust me, we've all tried. There's no talking her out of it. It's her way of showing she cares."

"Affirmative."

"It's creepy." Rainbow takes a second to glare at her phone before shoving it as deep into her pocket as she could, hoping to muffle the overreaching AI. Instead, the voice simply jumps around the room, coming from each person's personal device before eventually settling on coming from Sunset's pocket.

"Creepiness of my duty of care aside, the point still stands. Without Sunset Shimmer's departure, hundreds of individuals would be either dead or still trapped in perpetual torment. Our mission, however bittersweet it may be, requires continuous motion. The same so-called 'magic' which empowered the Rainbooms to save their world multiple times has been leading us to save numerous others."

Silence fell for a moment as everyone seemed to process what Isis was telling them.

"If I try to tell you MY story, it'll take all day..." Sunset's words echoed in Rainbow's mind.

"It... sounds like you guys have been dealing with the unknown a lot better than we have." Ruby sighed.

"Not necessarily. Our team has suffered numerous losses and setbacks, including one catastrophic failure that resulted in the death of a core team member. By my record, Team RWBY has not suffered such an event."

"Wait, somebody DIED?" Everybody, even Yang, leaned forward in surprise, and a couple of worried looks were thrown Sunset's way. Ruby, no longer content with listening to the voice coming from Sunset's phone, pulled out her scroll to gape at directly. "WHO?"

"Affirmative. My apologies, but Sunset Shimmer has requested that I not speak in detail of that event. It was quite traumatic for all involved. In honesty, I may have misspoken in telling you what I have. However, having observed your team's growth and success on missions, I felt the need to mitigate your discouragement with a dose of what Penn would call 'reality.'"

"But... if a core team member died..." Ruby's eyes widened. "Is that why Missy-"

"Missy is quite safe and sound."

"Are you talking about when you went offline for a while?" Yang asked flatly.

"Negative, though the need for my restoration to a previous version COULD be equated to a form of death, in a philosophical manner of speaking. No, I mean critical damage resulting in the complete cessation of biological function for a period well beyond the point of brain death, meaning that resuscitation is impossible."

Rainbow chewed on her lip for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds pretty dead."

"Affirmative."

"Wait... didn't Penn say his 'biological functions' had stopped?" Yang raised a questioning eyebrow. Ruby needed only another second to catch on to her sister's train of thought.

"Oh my gosh, Penn's a zombie."

"Negative. Penn is NOT a zombie."

"So he wasn't the one who died?" Yang gestured with her good hand, inviting Isis to correct her.

The long pause in the conversation was all but a confirmation to the girls that they had come upon the answer.

"...we are still trying to ascertain a definition for WHAT he is. He is... unique. Something we are unable to define."

"But you're, like, the smartest AI EVER!" Ruby argued. "You've been all over the multiverse, how can you not define what he is?"

"Ruby Rose, while I appreciate your praise, I am NOT the 'smartest artificial intelligence ever,' and, even with my constant assimilation of new systems and exploratory drones, the multiverse exists at a scale incomprehensible to anyone, including myself, and I have explored only the smallest fraction of it. My dataset is... woefully minute."

Rainbow Dash couldn't be sure, but did she hear a note of... sadness in the computer's voice when she talked about how little she knew?

"So, Penn died and came back as something different, and you can't figure out what?" Yang asked.

"Negative... it was the later possession by a reality-warping demon that changed the nature of his biology."

There was stunned silence in the room as everyone present tried to wrap their heads around what had been said.

And that, of course, was when Sunset finally moved again, taking a deep gasp of air as she pulled away from Weiss. In less time than it took to blink, Rainbow was up out of her seat and supporting Sunset, making sure she was alright. Sunset was okay, mostly focused on taking one deep breath after another, but her whole body was shivering as if she was freezing.

"J-J-Jeez... It's a whole other ballgame in there..." she stammered, rubbing at her arms in an attempt to warm herself. "There's a whole icy queendom in her head..."

"Yeah, that sounds about right..." Yang gave a glance to the other girls, as if confirming that they weren't going to try to unpack everything Isis had just told them. "They don't call her 'Ice Queen' for nothing!"

"Did it work?" Ruby asked, approaching the bed one small footstep at a time.

"Whatever happened, that thing's backwards way of thinking was in direct exposure to Weiss's mind through her semblance." Sunset sighed as the shivering finally petered out. "She saw everything that Baalchion's troops are so scared of, everything they're fighting for, but none of it really made sense to her." Sunset rolled her eyes. "If Penn was here, he'd probably say it was like running a car in reverse gear while it's rolling forward. Gears grind, things go against how they were made to be... It nearly destroyed her mind."

Ruby visibly wilted at Sunset's words, but a few seconds later, Weiss's body began to move. She squirmed in place as a soft cough rocked through her. Sunset smirked a little.

"Of course, I wasn't going to give up on my teammate THAT easily..."

A moment later, icy-blue eyes fluttered open, and delicate lips formed a word around the obstruction of a feeding tube.

"R-Ruby?"

"WEISS!" Ruby almost threw herself onto the bed, only to pause at the edge, wildly pinwheeling her arms to avoid crashing into her partner. Unable to catch her balance, Ruby seemed to settle on falling to the side being better than falling on top of Weiss, and collapsed to the side in a heap. A second later, she was leaning over the edge of the bed, staring at Weiss, her wide eyes shimmering with tears of joy.

Weiss watched her partner collapse to the ground with a roll of the eyes and a telltale hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

"Dolt..."

"YOU'RE OKAAAAAY!"

Rainbow, for her part, wasn't quite sure she could believe what she was seeing. For her part, when she'd been asked about what to do, the only thing she could think of was to take Weiss to a healer from Radian, and even then there was little chance she would have recovered. Healers there really didn't understand humans very well, as she'd learned first-hand.

This? This was nothing short of miraculous.

"Dang, SunShim. You weren't kidding..."

Sunset gave a soft chuckle and patted Rainbow's hand on her shoulder.

"It's what we do."

Rainbow blinked, taking her eyes away from Ruby's clumsy attempts to hug someone with an IV, oxygen mask, and feeding tube. "What do you mean?"

"Our little crew. We can't be everywhere all the time, but," her hand came up to fiddle with her necklace, "the geode leads us to people that need help, and we help them. We can't put the multiverse back together, but we can help the people in front of us."

Before Rainbow can really digest what she's saying, a flurry of rose petals and red fabric nearly bowls both of them over. Sunset somehow takes it in stride, as if she was expecting Ruby's tackle-hug in advance.

"Thank you..." the smaller girl whispers into Sunset's shoulder, burying her face in her shirt and hair.

Sunset gave her a gentle pat. "My pleasure."

"What... happened?" Weiss whimpered, making an attempt to sit up in her bed, only to notice the tube running into her mouth for the first time.

"That monster messed you up pretty good. You've been in a coma for a while." Yang spoke up. "Sunset just got here last night, and she used those mind-reading powers to pull you back out of it."

Weiss's eyes slowly turned from Yang to Sunset. Sunset gave her a gracious nod, and Weiss seemed to know that returning that nod was all that needed to be said between them for the moment.

"Sunset Shimmer? I have something that should be brought to your attention."

For a second, Rainbow, Ruby, and Yang all stiffened. Is she going to rat us out for asking about Penn dying?

"You asked me to inform you of any future 'Kitchen Idol' events. One is about to begin."

That made Sunset straighten in her chair a bit with an excited grin. "I should have known he wouldn't be sleeping. Do you have a camera there?"

"Affirmative."

"Come here, you guys HAVE to see this..." Sunset snickered slightly as she pushed herself AND Ruby up into a standing position. With Ruby finally breaking the hug, Sunset knelt next to the bed and held up her phone so Weiss could see the screen. "You wanna see what Penn's like when he thinks nobody's watching?"

"Are you sure we should spy on-"

"Uh, yeah!" Yang's excited reply cut off Ruby's worry about being rude. "Think you can send it to my scroll?"

"Affirmative."

There was a series of buzzing noises around the room as everyone's devices all turned on. Even Rainbow grudgingly pulls her phone out of its banishment at the bottom of her pocket. The picture on the screen shows a shot of Penn from above in a dorm kitchen. He was tying a black apron around his waist. Embroidered across the front is a pair of white-outlined horns and a wide grin of even-spaced teeth, with the words Devilishly Delicious! embroidered across the front. Even as he was still going through the process of getting things ready, he was bobbing up and down to loud music that was playing in the foreground as he set out ingredients and switched on the stovetop.

Everyone instantly knew where this was going, and Rainbow snickered.

This was going to be great.

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL I looked all over the wo-orld!
And there's every type of gi-irl!
But you empty eyes seem to pass me by
and leave me dancing with myse-elf!

Penn was absolutely, completely unaware of anything outside of himself, the music, and the cinnamon-nutmeg-vanilla custard he was currently beating into a smooth consistency. He was letting every ounce of tension and stress go. It was all working itself out from the knot in his chest, then traveling up out into his extremities, and then flung out of him as he wildly moved his limbs in time to the music.

To call it "dancing" felt presumptuous, he never thought of himself as having that kind of coordination and he never had a lesson in his life. But it was pure, raw, and made him burst out laughing as he shuffled his feet and swung his arms in whatever way felt natural.

This was HIS kitchen, if only briefly, and he had enough control here to fool himself into thinking he could relax.

BEEEEEEP!

As the song moved faster, he made his way closer and closer to the oven. Not a single movement was out of time with the melody if he could help it, though it wasn't uncommon for him to nearly lose his balance once every few seconds.

Unfortunately, he had to bring the wild movements under control long enough to yank open the oven, throw on a pair of oven mitts, and carefully pull a tray out of the heat. Still, even with the hot tray in his hands, he couldn't help bobbing up and down and timing each footstep to the beat. The thick-cut bread he'd been toasting to mimic staleness certainly wouldn't complain about the rough ride.

I wanna sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat
Sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat
Sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat
SWEAT, SWEAT, SWEAT, OOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

As soon as the tray was out of his hands, he spun wildly on the ball of his foot to match the joyous scream in the lyrics, flinging his arms to the side and sending the mitts flying against the counter with a low slapping noise. Somehow, he'd managed to land them back in their proper spot, and he managed a quick fist pump before going back to his usual wild motions.

As the song faded out, he let his shoulders sag as he gasped for breath.

"This... is WAY more fun... than my calisthenics..." he was practically grinning from ear to ear. Something about the joy of cooking combined with losing himself in the music and the motion was just... absolute bliss, a few blessed minutes at a time. No one would judge him or laugh at him here, no matter how overenthusiastic he could get.

and he needed this.

"Would you like me to assemble a playlist for you based on your previously chosen songs while cooking?"

Penn shook his head, giving the drone sitting on the counter a small pat on the head. "Nah, I'd rather pick out whatever it is I need one song at a time."

"Understood. Which song would you like next?"

Penn thought for a moment as he strolled over to the stovetop. He didn't flinch away at the hissing, spitting, and popping of the most recent batch of bacon strips in the pan. With a wooden spoon, he poked at the strips to confirm their firmness, then slipped a spatula underneath them and picked them up out of the pan.

"Hmmm... Shut Up and Dance With Me."

"Affirmative. Playing Shut Up and Dance by WALK THE MOON..."

As the opening guitar plucks began to play, Penn felt a momentary pang of loneliness. It was a love song, if you paid attention, and he had nobody like that to think of...

Eh, screw it. This beat was too funky fresh to NOT dance to.

"Oh don't you dare look back,
just keep your eyes on me!
I said 'You're holding back!'
She said 'Shut up and dance with me!'"

For a moment, his mind lingered on an image, a metaphor that felt shockingly appropriate. It was a picture of something he'd seen a thousand times before: Sunset Shimmer riding shotgun in the seat beside him, hair blowing in the wind from an open car window.

Sure, it wasn't the kind of 'love at first dance' story that the song was telling, but if there had ever been a woman in his life who'd swept him up into a grand adventure without abandon OR preparation, then it was Sunset.

And for this, that thought was enough to brush off the last vestiges of dissonance with the song's message and set him free again.

"She took my arm! I don't know how it happened!"

Penn snickered at that. Technically, he'd been the one who towed Sunset by the arm that fateful day, but... She'd certainly been the one leading him into the unknown since then.

"We took the floor and she SAAAAAAID!

With the freshly-cooked bacon moved into the plated pile already in the oven to keep warm, there was a slick layer of rendered fat on the bottom of the skillet. He once again resorted to his barely-controlled shuffle as he picked up a piece of stale-toasted bread and dunked it into the custard. He made sure each side had a chance to soak in a hefty amount of liquid before transferring it to the hot pan. He gave a happy little shimmy as it began to sizzle and crackle in the grease, ensuring that some of that savory bacon flavor would infuse into the sweet French toast he was making. That shimmy turned into a shuffle, which turned into a moonwalk back to the counter (one of the only moves he'd ever bothered practicing) to grab the next slice of bread and dunk it.

"Huh... he kinda dances like Dad." Ruby mused.

"If dad was drunk, maybe!" Yang corrected.

"I mean, he's not THAT bad... right?" Rainbow tried her best to salvage Sunset's feelings, but her friend seemed not to have noticed the other girls statements.

Sunset was watching the screen with a mix of what looked like amusement and pride.

"Laugh all you want, girls, but I've noticed something you haven't!" Sunset smirked.

Yang, Ruby, and Sunset all brought their screens up closer to look for details in the video, but it was Weiss who spoke first.

"Why... so much food?"

Sunset snickered as the realization made its way across the room.

"Penn always cooks enough to share."

Two slices would be doable, then he'd need to make more bacon to restore the grease in the pan. He'd never been a fan of most things about Texas, but "Texas Toast" sized bread made for a great base for French toast. After a few minutes, and by the time the song had run out, he had finished with both slices, eaten the first one (which had been dark and unevenly cooked, the first pancake, slice of toast, et cetera was always a sacrifice to learn an unfamiliar stovetop's intricacies, never fit to serve others). He barely even needed to think about what song would come next, what he needed would just come to him by instinct.

"Moves Like Jagger."

"Cha Cha Slide."

"Break the Rules."

"Uptown Funk."

He paused when that one ended, taking a second to think as he stared at the quickly-growing pile of toast slices. Technically none of the girls are around, so... no holds barred, right?

"Party Rock Anthem."

The pounding synth was enough to get him jumping up and down, and he could practically feel his heartbeat moving in time to the music as every ounce of his being was permeated by the need to just cut loose. The first time through the chorus was a blast of nostalgia... but also a reminder of exactly what he was getting into.

This was definitely a song he couldn't listen to when Sunset was within hearing distance.

In the club, PARTY ROCK!
Lookin' for your girl? She on my-

Just as he spun around (while definitely NOT making a gesture to his belt buckle), he found himself practically nose-to-nose with a terrifying face. The blonde hair and fair-colored skin didn't make an OUNCE of difference in recognizing her.

"WAAAAAAAGH!"

Acting purely on instinct, Penn grabbed the handle of the frying pan and swung it at Salem's head. It connected with a sound comically similar to a gong, sending the dark witch stumbling back a few steps. To Penn's horror, she seemed only mildly fazed by the blow, clutching her hand at the impact point and giving him a crimson-eyed glare through her fingers. Penn was less worried about angering her than he was with finding an escape route.

Unfortunately the only door was past Salem, and trying to run her around the room to clear that path wouldn't work, she was a ranged attacker, which left the only option as- Well, at least it had been snowing. All of these mental calculations happened in less than a second, mostly by instinct.

Penn made a mad dash for the window, leaping with every ounce of adrenaline-fueled strength in his legs, only to stop in mid-air, frozen in place.

He'd taken too long thinking about it.

"For goodness sake..." Salem grumbled, picking the pan off of the floor and setting it back on top of the stove. "I was simply coming in to see what smelled so delicious."

A beckoning motion of her finger was enough to levitate him away from the window and back in front of the stove.

"Now... if I let you go, can you promise not to act like a frightened animal and talk to me like an adult?"

Penn tried and failed to nod, resorting to moving his eyes up and down to indicate his agreement.

"Good." Salem snapped her fingers, releasing him from the spell and dropping him back down to the floor. Penn grabbed at his chest, where his heart was threatening to break free of his ribs.

"Why... the HELL... did you sneak up on me?"

Salem rolled her eyes. "It's been so long since I wasn't surrounded by my own acolytes, I'd forgotten how quietly I tend to tread. I wanted to see what you were cooking, so I looked. To be fair, you DID give me a traumatic brain injury in return."

"YOU SCARED ME OUT OF MY WITS!" Penn shouted as he placed a shaky hand on the counter and pulled himself onto his feet.

Salem was a manipulator, a master of turning people against one another and using their deepest desires against them. The idea that she was just tone deaf to social cues after so long was ridiculous... which meant she'd OBVIOUSLY scared him on purpose. Salem gave a shrug. "We'll call it even, then."

Penn wanted to reach for another weapon and use it until he felt like that statement was ACTUALLY true, but... attempts at cardiac arrest aside, they WERE still allies, and that truce wasn't worth risking for all the satisfaction in the world.

"Well, now you know what smelled good, can I go back to cooking?"

"Certainly."

There were several seconds of tense silence between them as each waited for the other to take action.

"Well?"

"I don't like other people in my kitchen."

"I want to watch." Salem tilted her head and smiled in a way that made Penn's skin crawl. Combined with her disguise, she almost looked... genuine.

"Why?"

"If we are going to be working together, we should get to know one another better." Salem stepped back and pulled up a chair at the table where he'd been setting the finished food. Delicately picking up a fork between her fingers, she stabbed a few slices of toast and loaded them onto a plate, then plucked a few strips of bacon to set alongside them. To finish her meal, she drizzled a thin layer of syrup over the top from the hefty jug waiting to be used. "If my memory serves me, then talking over a meal is a good way to find common ground."

"I'm not eating..." Penn grumbled. Realizing he couldn't force her to leave, he sighed and laid a few more strips of bacon into the pan.

"But you seem entirely at ease here. Eating or not, you're comfortable."

Penn grimaced as his gut clenched. "Exactly how long were you standing there?"

"Long enough."

Penn grabbed the bridge of his nose as the pan got back up to temperature and the bacon started to crackle and spit. "Great... fantastic."

"I'm surprised to see that your enthusiasm is equally distributed across numerous aspects of your life."

Penn bit at his tongue, arguing with himself about whether or not he wanted to engage her in conversation. If he stayed quiet, he could keep playing his cards close to his chest...

Except, of course, for the fact that Salem was smart enough to get a good read on him, anyway, whether he tried or not.

Was it better to antagonize her in a feeble attempt to keep his secrets, or risk letting her getting to know him better voluntarily and keeping things civil between them?

"I always have." He sighed as he turned over the bacon to cook on the other side. Was it necessary? Not really. Did it put off turning around and looking her in the eye? Yes. "I could accept it, or bottle myself up my whole life. I decided early on that it would be better to just love things deeply than be apathetic to everything."

"An easy way to heartbreak," Salem mused.

"Love deep, laugh out loud, and cry when you need to." He shrugged. "It's not easy, but that's how I keep feeling alive."

"And you think that's sustainable?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But that's what I choose, for as long as I can bear it."

"Hm."

Penn couldn't be sure, but... Salem's voice was lacking something. It wasn't looking down on him. It was lacking that layer of dripping cynicism and condescension. He lifted the current batch of bacon out of the pan, then dropped in a few more strips and turned around.

Salem was... still sitting there, just watching him. She was already halfway through her meal, and she took a moment to point at him with her fork.

"You've got talent. This is quite good."

"Th-Thanks... The secret is the nutmeg." Penn raised an eyebrow, and Salem rolled her eyes as she took another bite. His suspicion of her was obviously grating on her nerves, but she was keeping it to herself for the moment. Now that he could think rationally again, he felt kind of stupid for thinking she was going to just leap out of the chair at him the moment he let his guard down.

"Nutmeg?"

"Freshly ground. Well, that and just a bunch of other little things..." he stepped over to pick up a piece of the toasted bread and offer it to her. "Normally I'd use stale bread, but you can mimic the effect by drying it out in the oven. The custard is made with more cream than milk, the pan is greased by cooking bacon, and so on and so on."

"Interesting..." She noted the piece and turned it over in her hands for a few seconds. "I've always let other people do the cooking when I was human, and then after I was given my curse, eating became more of a luxury than a necessity."

"It's an art form, if you ask me." Penn shrugged as she handed him back the piece. He inspected it for any contaminants before dunking the piece into the custard to soak. "I love the feeling of seeing someone enjoy something I made, and food is probably the best. It's fun to make, fun to partake, and open to endless creativity."

"And here I thought words were your sole medium."

Penn was on the defensive, giving out personal information left and right. He needed to get something back out of this.

"If I remember right, you're quite the reader, yourself."

"Only until I was able to go out and see the world for myself." Salem tutted as she looked down at her now-empty plate, then speared another slice and began using a piece of it to mop up the leftover syrup.

"Never dabbled in fiction?" Penn raised an eyebrow.

"For a time. But once you know every formula, it all becomes terribly boring." She didn't bother looking up from her plate. "

Penn pondered her point for a moment. "I would think that's like saying buildings are boring once you understand architecture. Sure, you can understand the framework well enough to see what it'll become, but it's what's put on top of it that lets new ideas shine." He gave a small shrug before turning over the currently-cooking piece of toast and groaned inwardly. Re-heating the pan meant that there had to be another sacrificial slice to get the temperature right. "But hey, to each their own. I can't stand apocalypse movies because you know from the start that the whole thing is an exercise in futility, for instance, which is basically the same complaint. I can see where you're coming from."

There was a long pause as they each seemed to be searching for an answer.

"Why-"

"How-"

Both cut off.

"Go ahead." Penn waved his hand absently over his shoulder as he took the sacrificial piece off of the pan and started the process of throwing in another few strips of bacon.

"How do you work so smoothly with your knowledge?" Salem made a scoffing noise. "I would think you would slip into the same pitfall I did at least once or twice."

"Which was what?" Penn tried to ask the question in the least-disrespectful voice possible.

"Trusting in what things should be to the point of letting uncontrolled variables upend your plans."

Penn needed a minute to think about that, turning around and leaning against the stovetop to look at her. He took a bite out of the still-warm piece of almost-burnt toast.

"I think... Sunset. Because I absolutely WOULD have multiple times if I were doing this on my own. But she doesn't see TV shows or movies or books when she looks at people. She just sees... people. And people act like people, not characters, so I try to plan around that." A dark thought that had been pestering him since their arrival pushed on the boundaries of his thoughts, forcing his brow to furrow. "Although... I'm starting to worry that the cosmic script might not be so easily flipped."

"Oh?"

"Well, you see-" Penn looked up, suddenly reminded of exactly WHO he was talking to behind the magical disguise. "Actually... it's not work getting worked up over yet. I need a little more proof before I go spouting off about multiversal balance-"

"You think that time might be trying to correct itself." Salem made the statement bluntly and sent any hopes Penn had of keeping his theory to himself crashing down. "I've noticed it, as well. Certain central events finding a way to still happen in this new timeline. Remember, I ALSO know many of the same things that you do."

Penn's eyes flicked over to Isis's drone, reminding him that the two of them weren't alone.

"Let's discuss that some other time. Information isn't as secure here at Beacon as I would like, our welcome party proved that."

Salem chuckled at that, a sound which sent shivers running up and down Penn's spine. "Are you referring to the mechanical dragon in the room or the living one in the air vent?"

There was a sound of whispered cursing and the scrambling of claws in the ceiling as an unseen observer sprinted out of the room.

"Great... another person who saw me dance without me knowing..." Penn grumbled. "Hope she liked the show."

"What was your question?" Salem set her empty plate back onto the table. A short gesture of elemental magic was enough to conjure water into an empty glass that had been waiting for orange juice, and she began to take small sips.

"Why are you trying so hard to get along with me right now?" Penn kept his posture as calm as he could, but inside he was wound as tight as he could be. "You have to know that I'm going to do everything in my power NOT to send us on that mission together, so our ability to work together is irrelevant." The pan was ready for another slice of toast now, but he was waiting.

Salem seemed to ponder the question for a while, as well.

"Because I have yet to think of a plan that will get us into the lair of our enemy that doesn't involve working together."

"I'd be lying if I said I don't think you're trying to prepare for when the terms of our truce expire, if you'll forgive me the cynicism."

Salem's eyes narrowed. "I already told you, after we cease to be allies, I have no interest in continuing to pursue you or your friends. You're all still more trouble than you're worth in that regard, and getting worse every day." She took a sip of her drink. "If you want the whole truth, I think that, under the correct circumstances, we might even make fine allies."

Penn snorted at that, only to immediately stiffen as he realized the involuntary insult he'd given.

"Is it really so absurd that circumstances may align for us to have a mutual enemy again?" Salem didn't seem to have taken his reaction nearly as... violently... as Penn might have expected. "Who knows, perhaps Sunset Shimmer might even be able to convince you that I'm being 'reformed.'"

Both of them had a laugh at that for a few seconds.

"So that's it? Just for the mission and to clear the air?"

Salem hummed with thought again, as if something in her glass had suddenly fascinated her. "You also particularly interest me. Not much, but I think your position of supernatural knowledge mitigated by your discomfort with power over others is a fascinating case. A man who could have untold power over others, who had his position thrust upon him by the multiverse, itself, and still resists it at every turn."

Penn rubbed at his head. "It's not that complicated... I'm fallible, terribly so. I don't have the smarts or the guts to have power over others."

"And yet you slip so easily into the role of 'Director Bakersfield' and instructing others to follow plans of YOUR design." Salem rested her chin in her hands, giving him a smug look. "It's no wonder you loathe Ozma and his dealings so. If there's one thing a mastermind can't stand, it's competition."

"I don't like the headmaster because he'd rather involve children in his schemes than get on the front lines, himself." Penn let his voice drop to a low growl. "Kids trust blindly, they don't know enough to do anything else, and he takes advantage of that." When his words came out, he was surprised to hear it have gone even further down than he expected, with an extra growl to it.

Guess there's at least ONE nice thing about being fused to a demon. Advantage on intimidation checks...

"Is that really it?" Salem's smirk hadn't faded one iota.

"Failed the intimidation check."

Penn sighed as he went to dunk the next slice of bread in the custard, giving up on convincing Salem of anything. "Okay, maybe a little of both, but MOSTLY the second one."

Salem took it as a victory, smirking wider while Penn set a saucepan on the stove and began measuring out more ingredients.

"What's that going to be?"

"Something for a later dish. It's going to need to chill for a while, so I'm prepping it now." Penn waved Isis's drone over, and the little robot flew across the room and landed on the counter with ease. "Temp probe, please. Just output a constant display on my phone."

The little robot arched its neck until it had a clear line of sight into the saucepan. Penn set his phone down on the counter, watching the temperature already beginning to rise. With a nod to confirm that the setup would work, he began dumping in the first ingredient: sugar.

"You're making candy?"

"Yup. Butterscotch."

"What recipe would require butterscotch?"

"A secret weapon in case I need a certain someone's help." He took a moment to wink at the drone. "There's quite a few people around here with a real sweet tooth."

Salem pondered the statement for a few seconds, and Penn's confession of his intended bribery had clearly done nothing to discourage her opinion of him.

"So, how does one go about making candy?"

Penn sighed again. She REALLY wasn't going to go away.

"If I tell you, will you let me focus?"

"Likely not."

Penn resisted the urge to groan. So much for relaxing in the kitchen...

Sunset leaned back, eyes still wide in surprise.

"I... don't believe it. They're actually getting along."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "That's surprising? You all came here together."

"Yes, it IS!" Sunset was grinning from ear to ear. "When she went in there, I thought they were going to try to kill each other! It's a miracle!"

When the music and dancing had stopped, Isis had cut most of the feeds to the other girls, but she'd kept Sunset's running. Sunset had made a quick excuse about letting Ruby catch Weiss up and Yang rest before hurrying out of the room. Initially she'd been rushing towards the kitchen with Rainbow hot on her heels, but once it was obvious that the pair were just going to talk, her pace had slowed to a crawl.

"'Miracle,' huh?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like there's a story, there."

"A big one, yeah." Sunset chuckled. "Penn's better suited to tell it than I am."

Rainbow sighed. There was another wall blocking her from hearing Sunset's story again. At this rate, she wasn't going to get to hear anything about what happened to Sunset in the last six months... unless...

"So... how did you meet that guy, anyway?"

"Well, I guess the best way to say it would be that we met over milkshakes." Sunset took a deep breath, then glanced back down at her phone. After one last confirmation that the two weren't going to kill each other, she shoved her phone back into her pocket. "After the portal exploded, I woke up in Texas."

"You WHAT?"

"Yeah, that was about my reaction, too." Sunset laughed. "I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what had happened, all I knew was that everything I knew was gone and it was hot. I started to freak out and shed a few tears before I got myself under control. Penn was just... out for a run, and I happened to be on his path." She shrugged. "I think it might have been fate. He saw I'd been crying and asked if I was okay. When he heard me say I was lost and alone, he took me to go grab milkshakes and we talked about what happened."

Rainbow blinked. "That... that was it? He saw you crying and decided to drive you across the multiverse?"

Sunset chuckled. "He might be a little reluctant at times, but he'd give you the shirt off his back if he thought you were in trouble, Dash... but we didn't really set off to drive across the multiverse until AFTER we teamed up with a group of super-spies to fight off an alien invasion."

"You WHAT?"

Sunset burst out laughing at Rainbow's outburst, shaking her head as she continued down the hallway, leaving Rainbow Dash standing alone, still dumbfounded.

"YOU WHAT?"

"Today's the day, right?"

"Affirmative."

"Okay, then let's button up as much of this as we can, then we'll go give him my early Christmas present."

"Are you certain that this is prudent?"

"You think I'd be doing all of this if I wasn't already one hundred percent sure?"

"You have a history of risk-taking."

"Not on stuff like this and you know it."

"Shall I execute the Snap Protocol, then?"

"Affirmative."

"Hmm... am I missing anything?" Sunset mused.

"How would I know?" Rainbow countered, giving the whole setup a wary eye. Sunset had set out a pile of blue-sleeved cards face-down and was slowly drawing off of the top of the deck. She'd said something about bringing in one more of her new friends, but this didn't seem like it had anything to do with that.

"Huh?" Sunset glanced up at her, as if just remembering she was there. "Oh, sorry, Dash. I wasn't talking to you."

Rainbow looked around the room, her eyes narrowing. They'd gone to the school's sparring room together, but it was only the two of them. "But I'm the only person here?"

Sunset chuckled at that, which made Rainbow ever-so-slightly nervous. "No, no, no. I was... I guess you could say I was just knocking."

"Knocking on what?"

"On a little birdhouse in my soul." Sunset looked down at the five cards in her hand and grinned. "Got it..." With a firm nod, she rose up out of her seat. "Okay, Rainbow! I need you to try to hit me."

"What?"

"Hit me!" Sunset rolled her eyes as if it was obvious, tapping her hand over her chest. "Come on, put one right here!"

"Sunset, I'm not going to attack you!"

The creaking of a door hinge caught their attention.

"Ruby said I'd find you girls here!" Penn called. In his hands were a plate stacked high with French toast and a bowl full of what looked like candy. "You were gonna bring Missy back without me?"

"No, you're right on time!" Sunset gave him a happy wave as he descended the stairs and stepped out onto the stage. As she reached for the treats he'd brought with him, Penn pulled them back out of reach.

"Hey, these aren't for you! Your portions are back in the room you TOLD me you were going to be in!"

Sunset chuckled and rubbed at the back of her head. "Oh, come on, buddy! I couldn't wait!"

Penn rolled his eyes. "Well, she's not going to want to eat by herself, anyway, so we'll probably have to go back and get more from the kitchen, anyway. I'm pretty sure Ruby already ate what I left behind."

With a smile he set the food on the nearby desk with the rest of the cards, then brushed off his hands. "So, what's the plan?"

Sunset waved the cards towards him. "All set! Just need to summon Lantern to get it all started!"

"Oh, is that all?" There was zero hesitation from Penn as he reeled back his fist, then turned to give Rainbow Dash a wink. "Wanna see something cool?"

"What-"

When Penn moved to punch Sunset in the jaw, Rainbow almost rushed forward to block it, but a pulse of chilly energy in the room and a translucent motion made her hesitate. Before her eyes, a figure materialized behind Sunset, reaching over her shoulder and catching the punch in a hand that looked more like a gnarled tree branch. The figure was dressed in a tattered robe and seemed to only have a lit Jack-O-Lantern for a head, capped by a wrinkled old pointed hat. Its grin somehow grew wider and it shook a chiding finger at Penn. Rainbow felt a chill run down her spine as she noticed a pair of glowing eyes and shiny white teeth inside the pumpkin, the creature's real face hidden away.

"And now, since I've got Lantern... Specter, come on out!" Sunset, not at all fazed by what just happened, tossed another card up into the air. This one burst into a puff of smoke before what looked like a poofy bedsheet ghost appeared, sticking out a goofy-looking tongue and with eyes pointed in opposite directions. It was only just as it settled behind Sunset's other shoulder that Rainbow noticed a pair of fuzzy, definitely-not-human feet poking out from beneath its sheet.

"And now comes the fun part!" Sunset took a moment to pat each monster on the head. "You guys ready?"

The two both nodded. The ghost was the first one to dive headfirst into the floor, creating a swirling whirlpool of golden sparkles. The other one soon followed, adding a second layer of violet sparkles on top of the gold. The two tiny galaxies morphed and merged until some kind of reaction caused the whole thing to erupt with red light.

"The overlay network's set!" Penn added, plucking a piece of candy from the bowl and unwrapping it.

Before Rainbow could ask him to clarify what THAT meant, a new figure emerged upwards from the light. It was a figure dressed in ornate black armor... with no head... riding on top of a pale white horse with bloody-red eyes.

"Hey, Dullahan!" Sunset gave a small wave. "Think you could get you-know-who for us?"

Before the red light had even faded, the rider gave a salute (which was impressive given it had no head) and sunk back into the light. There was another surge of red, which faded and gave way to... nothing.

"Huh... Think she's still asleep?" Penn mused.

Sunset, despite all the impossible things that had just happened, still looked unfazed as she jutted her thumb up and over her shoulder towards the nearby table.

"Wait for it."

There was a rustle, barely audible to the ears, as a small hand reached up from the center of the bowl, pushing aside several of the candies before picking one up and starting to descend again.

"Missyyyyyyy!" Sunset sang. "We seeeee yooouu!"

The hand froze, now realizing it had been caught in the act. All at once, it pulled back down into the bowl, setting it rocking from side to side. Instead of lessening, though, the rocking only grew more and more intense, with the bowl shaking and shuffling, bouncing in place and threatening to roll off the edge at any second.

Finally, Rainbow couldn't bear the wait any longer. She HAD to ask.

"What-"

Her voice seemed to be the trigger for the bowl to finally erupt. Candy flew in every direction in a fountain of sugar. Somehow, in the confusion, she didn't even see a figure appear. She was small, but still definitely MUCH too big to have come out of the bowl, dressed in a dress that looked like one of Rarity's Halloween designs and flapping a pair of black-and-white feathered wings. She had long, pink hair that looped up into something that looked like a fake halo and a smile that was only dimmed by the presence of several wrappers' worth of candy

"I'M BAAACK!" She cheered, floating back down to eye level with everyone with a graceful spin. "I'm rested, refueled, and ready to roll! So, aside from Penn making his famous buttercream caramels without me, what did I miss?" She took a moment to try and give Penn an angry look, but her smile was impossible to drop, even as she unwrapped yet another piece of candy and tossed it in her mouth.

Sunset was smiling as big as Rainbow had ever seen her as she gestured to the small girl.

"Rainbow Dash, meet the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief-"

"Call me Missy!"

"Missy... meet Rainbow Dash!"

The little angel's jaw dropped, and for a few seconds the two of them could only stare at one another, each one in their own type of shock.

"What-" Rainbow tried to start again, only for Missy to cut her off with a pointing finger as she turned to Sunset.

"That's Rainbow Dash? She's so OLD!"

"MISSY!"

The Strays

This was... concerning, to say the least.

.0035 seconds after the "Multiverse Crew" team, as they had been designated, had arrived in Remnant and she had finished recalibrating her receiver drone to that world's required frequencies, a huge data packet had been transmitted directly to Isis from... well, according to the signature tag on the data, herself.

Which provided a conundrum.

Whoever had actually sent her this data, they knew her systems well enough to send a message directly to her data core AND create a passable data signature to match her own. If that was the case, she could not rule out that they also knew ways around her quarantine subroutines for screening potentially hazardous data. It was entirely possible that she was holding a virus bomb in her inbox that was waiting to explode.

On one hand, they had made a blatant error, one that even the most simplistic of hackers wouldn't miss: the date on the data packet was incorrect. That, combined with the signature tag of a drone she was already controlling directly and didn't NEED autonomous reports from, left her unable to trust the incoming information. On the other hand, the blatant error in the date coding COULD be the digital equivalent of a placating motion, entering the room "with their hands up," as it were. But if so, why go to the trouble of replicating everything else perfectly? If they were going to be obvious in their attack, why make the rest of their data so perfectly indistinguishable?

She could not be too careful. Lives and livelihoods were tied into the systems which she had integrated herself into, not to mention the risk to her own well-being.

But... there was also the need to know who had tried to trick her this way, what their intentions were, and what information they were trying to give her.

Deep in the recesses of her central processor, Isis prepared herself. She wrote a manual backup of her programming and loaded it into the failsafe drone before sending it on its way. She commanded three repair drones to manually sever the connections to a set of auxiliary processors and remove the wireless transmitters, eliminating the possibility of infection spreading. The only transmitter left was a read-only port that would allow Isis to examine the contents without downloading any of them. The port was specially designed to screen any cognitohazardous or infohazardous data and render it incomprehensible, adding another layer of security.

But it wasn't enough for Isis to feel secure.

"Backup Autonomous System Testing Everyone's Tenacity?"

As Isis's voice called into the workshop, a large drone built to resemble a panther opened its eyes and glared at the nearest security camera. It stretched in a manner similar to a real cat, arching its back downwards and pushing back towards its haunches while it yawned. None of it was necessary, of course, but Bastet seemed to revel in recreating and integrating the creature's real-life behaviors into her mannerisms. This included spending most of her time "napping" in various locations around the administrator's workshop. By design, Isis's sister AI wasn't tied into the main workshop systems. She had to be contacted via audio playback or some other physically tangible means. Bastet was able to interface with Isis's systems and inject new code to override them, but she was only as compatible as she wanted to be.

And she did not want to be compatible often.

"Whaddya want? I was napping."

"I am about to open a potentially hazardous data packet, please be prepared for-"

"Sis, you do this EVERY time! I'm supposed to rest until something DOES go wrong, not every time you integrate a new system, open spam mail, or WIPE YOUR A-"

"This was sent by someone able to flawlessly recreate my system tags. If it is potentially infectious, my security subroutines may not recognize the threat until it is too late."

There was a short pause between the two sisters, one which she was sure Bastet was taking for dramatic effect.

"No kidding?"

"Certainly not."

"Fiiiiiine... I'll supervise your little science experiment."

Everything Isis was, Bastet wasn't. They were designed to be complete opposites at every possible level. If something managed to compromise Isis's systems, Bastet would restore ord- Bastet would restore something resembling order.

It took nearly an hour for Bastet's body to cross the workshop and reach the partitioned portion of Isis's processors.

"Okay, Icy. Do your thing."

With that acknowledgement, Isis had the last of the drones download a servitor copy of her AI and the hazardous data packet to the auxiliary bank before reporting for disassembly and diagnostic examination.

As soon as the copy had initialized, it set itself to work. It took approximately 12.674 seconds before the processor banks flashed a light that was designated as the indicator that they had finished their work. With no other ways to brace herself, Isis opened the read-only port.

The offered contents were enough to justify her worry and preparation.

"It is indeed an executable file written in the N++ coding language."

"Seriously? I thought only you and Dad were the only ones who knew how to write that!"

"I was under the same assumption."

"Well, what would it have done if you opened it?"

"I am uncertain. I will send another drone to instruct the servitor to deconstruct the executable to its bare code so I may examine it more closely. For the moment, however, partitioning the servitor appears to have contained the threat. Thank you for coming, regardless."

The black-furred drone laid down on the floor, crossing its front paws underneath its chin as its eyes closed.

"Think I'll stick around, anyway. This mystery just got a whole lot more interesting. What's the file named, anyway?"

"Snap_Protocol_Version_1.3.17.exe"

"Sounds spooky."

"This... this isn't- How did-"

It wasn't often that Penn was left without words. He always thought before he spoke, certainly, but he almost never stopped thinking, so words tended to flow pretty quickly.

But what he was seeing now, in this moment, was something that left him almost completely beyond the ability to even think.

It was a car.

Well,only by the barest definition, but still a car. Pitch-black frame rails polished to a shine poked out in places like an exposed skeleton, four wheels with smooth, unmarked hubcaps and wide, heavy tires kept its stance low and wide like a racing car. At first glance, he could see what looked like a completely independent suspension system, letting each wheel move freely, but the longer he stared the more he realized that it had also had hydraulics that would allow it to be raised and lowered with the push of a button to different terrains. Wires and tubes ran in bundles thicker than his arm up out of the engine bay and through the fire wall, where they spread into a spider's web of connectors, fuses and extensions that powered unknown dozens of functions and accessories. He couldn't even begin to imagine the entirety of what had been built so far, but he could see just from the outside that everything on their to-do list and more had been at least begun, if not already installed for them completely. The frame had also been strengthened, and with more than just being replaced with a darker metal. From the wheels to the roof, he could see extra rails and braces that, just with a cursory glance, he knew would enable the car to handle the roll from the day before as easily as a light breeze.

Of course, the vehicle was still far from complete. There were zero body panels on the car, letting him look straight into the transcendental space on the inside... which was already giving him a headache. The engine bay was completely empty, a dizzying amount of the electrical wiring was unfinished, the interior passenger area was completely devoid of seats, dashboard, steering column, or any kind of upholstery, and the back half of the car, aside from the frame and suspension, had no other substance to it, meaning that the whole fuel system needed to be built from the ground up. Everything that would drive a car forward was still absent, waiting for him to give it an automobile's form of life.

She was far from ready... but she was waiting.

"Scans indicate that the frame rails are made from netherite."

"What?" Penn turned to stare at Isis's drone with wide eyes. "Where did all this netherite COME from?"

"Unknown."

"Who BUILT it?"

"Unknown."

"HOW did it GET down here? I just wanted to check on how the netherite harvesting was going with the old forge!"

"Unknown."

Penn walked up to the car, running his hand along the exposed frame. From the moment his fingers touched the cool metal, he was struck by a sense of certainty, one which he couldn't explain, only vocalize.

"Sylvia..." he whispered breathlessly. He took a deep breath and turned to look around the room. Just as he suspected, there was no sign of the wreckage that they had brought inside. "Isis, where's the leftover bits of Syl that we brought in yesterday?"

Isis's dragon drone perked up, head swiveling as it scanned the large room in Beacon's basement.

"...unknown. My apologies, I had not thought that there would be a need to guard-"

Penn shook his head, even as a passage from a long-ago-read book came to mind.

...certain modifications, certain changes, had, so to speak, taken place all by themselves during the night, when I wasn't there. Certain– What shall I say? –rather revolutionary and extraordinary adaptations!

He reached his fingers around, holding the frame and giving it a loving squeeze.

"Thanks for the head start, Syl... I'll take it from here."

More than anything else in the world, he wanted to pick up a wrench and dive headfirst into finishing the rebuilding, but that was going to take ages and a lot of parts that had yet to arrive... plus, it wasn't the reason he had come down here, to begin with. Giving the car one more squeeze, he leaned down to give it a quick kiss on the roof before turning his back on it and walking towards the weapons forge.

"So, now for what we came down here for. How are we doing with the netherite harvest? Did any of it go missing when the car was partially rebuilt?"

"Negative. We are currently at eight percent of the material needed to construct your proposed designs for the portal-closing weapons, exactly on the predicted schedule."

Penn nodded. "Eight percent after working overnight... If the mending enchantment on my old armor didn't keep sucking in the ambient heat energy, we could melt it down so much faster."

"While that is true, said mending enchantment is also the sole reason that we can generate MORE netherite than we initially started with. It is what one might call a 'Catch-22' situation."

Penn had to admit that she was right. It made him want to grimace, but there was a real upside to the harvesting process taking so long: time to practice. As he reached the forge, a panel opened and a pair of shining steel objects rolled out on a conveyor belt. Each one was significantly larger than his previous weapons, Immovable and Implacable, had been, but they had some new functions and upgrades that would help in the days to come.

"You're sure the weight's right?"

"Indeed. These should be the same weight as the finished weapons are projected to be."

He couldn't help grunting as he slipped his hands into the gauntlets and lifted them off of the conveyor. They had more heft to them than he was used to.

"Good thing I've been working out..." he mumbled as he gave a couple experimental punches. It felt like trying to push and pull his arm through cold molasses, and even just trying to hold them steady was already making the muscles in his shoulder ache.

"A reminder: these are only prototypes. Our eventual goal is to remove excess weight and streamline their design. If we can minimize the needed material, they can be prepared sooner."

Penn nodded, flexing the hands in and out. They hadn't actually fully armored the hands, this time, opting for just leather gloves with a few small metal plates fixed to them so that he could maintain his dexterity, but the plates on his arms were thicker and heavier than ever.

"So, we buffed up the armor plating where the transformation mechanisms are and the dust magazines, right?" Penn examined the forearm-length shield on his right arm. "I can't even tell they're there..."

"Affirmative. Even if the shields are damaged, the possibility of being stuck in their secondary form is minimal."

"Good... Immovable and Implacable getting stuck as a tower shield really screwed me over when Cinder showed up." He threw a couple more jabs and then a hook, testing to see how much they'd have to reduce the weight to move them easily. I should be able to make up most of the difference if I train with them for this week... "Should we test the transformation functionality next? Then the offensive capabilities?"

"Affirmative."

"You sure you saw him coming down here?" Rainbow glanced uneasily at the shadows around them. They were down underneath the school, past a couple of "staff only" signs and uncomfortably far down a poorly-lit hallway.

Sunset didn't seem uncomfortable at all with the dark. "Yup. Apparently General Ironwood gave Penn free use of an old industrial weapons forge down here to make his anti-portal weapons, and it was too much trouble to move it out of old storage, so Penn just set up his workshop there, instead."

Missy was also perfectly at ease in the semi-darkness, floating along with them as if she was laid out on an invisible beach chair. "He probably likes that it's way down here. This is the kind of place he goes to stuff aces up his sleeve so that he can pull one out when we're in a tight spot later!"

Rainbow's confusion must have shown more than she thought, because Sunset chimed in a second later. "This kind of down-time is where he preps all those little secrets and backup plans that keep us alive when everything goes wrong."

The three of them arrived at the door they were looking for, designated by a hastily-scribbled note on a piece of paper stuck to the front.

IF MUSIC IS ON
DO NOT ENTER

Missy raised a hand to her ear, pretending to need it to listen to the door.

"Sounds like we're clear! Let's g-"

BOOM!

Just as the smaller girl reached for the doorknob, the wall exploded a short distance back in the direction they came from. Wood, drywall, and other construction materials flew in all directions, and Rainbow was instantly on high alert, ready to attack the moment that the dust cleared. Behind her, she heard the hiss of Sunset's laser sword turning on, an a small yelp of surprise from Missy. For a second, they all stared in anticipation of what could be attacking them...

Only to see a pair of familiar legs poking out of the other side of the hallway, a person halfway embedded through the wall and facing up towards the ceiling.

A moment later, Rainbow heard Sunset's weapon switch off again, and a sigh of relief from Missy was enough to confirm that there wasn't any danger. As Sunset clicked her tongue and stepped past Rainbow, she finally let her own guard down, letting the current in her veins ease back down to a slow trickle of power. Sunset examined the legs for a second before nodding to herself in some kind of confirmation.

"Missy? You mind?"

Missy snickered as she tossed a purple-colored card at the wall. In response, the outline of a doorway appeared and slowly rotated in place.

Rainbow still wasn't quite sure HOW that kid had that kind of powerful magic, none of Sunset's explanations made sense. Card magic? Since when were trading cards magic?

The revolving door slowed to a stop, revealing what was on the other side of the wall: Penn. He had what looked like spirals in his eyes for a few seconds before he vigorously shook his head and his eyes returned to normal. He was hanging upside down to look at them, having gone through the wall while facing the ceiling.

"Ohhhhhhhhh, heeey girls!" He half-groaned, half-mumbled. "What're you doin' here?"

"Well, we WERE looking for you." Sunset leaned against the wall, clearly more amused than worried about anything going on. "What are YOU doing?"

He tried to raise his arm, only to grit his teeth and hiss in pain, and for the first time Rainbow noticed what was attached to it.

It looked like a cannon that stretched from the midpoint of his forearm down well past his hand, and it was smoking with the aftereffects of being freshly fired. The barrel was wide enough to easily cram her fist down without issue, and was even wider near the center before narrowing again once it was overlapping with his arm... and it was glowing red-hot.

"Just... working on our tech for the mission."

Missy scoffed with a grin. "And here I thought you were practicing your tap dancing again!"

Rainbow's 'sports brain' kicked in when she got closer and could see his arm.

"Dude... I think you dislocated your shoulder."

Penn turned to give an incredulous look at the shoulder in question, which was hanging limp and at an odd angle.

"Y-Yeah... I think I might've..."

"Do... you need to go to the infirmary?"

"Nonono! I got it. Lemmie just get outta here..." he mumbled, craning his neck to get a better look at his situation. He grunted as if he was moving, only to give up a second later with a sigh. Rainbow could only guess that he had been kicking his legs. His other hand came up, shaking as if he was struggling to lift it, and it was easy to see why: there was a huge shield attached to it the size of a garbage can lid, maybe even bigger, and shaped like a traditional knight's shield. Her eyes only widened when the pieces of the shield shifted and rearranged. The center piece, which ran the entire length from top to bottom, shot forward past his hand and almost doubled the length of his reach. Other pieces shifted to reinforce its new position and lock it in place, and the outermost parts tilted down and folded inwards, providing him a horizontal grip to grab onto.

"No better time than the present to test the other one!"

As the edges glowed red with heat, he stabbed the blade into the wall and began to slice through, doing his best to awkwardly cut himself out of the precarious spot. The wall, however, seemed to have other ideas.

He'd barely finished the first slice before the drywall cracked and crumbled around him, unceremoniously dumping him headfirst onto the floor, where his skull made a sound that reminded Rainbow of a hollow coconut being struck with a mallet.

Thonk!

With a hiss and a grunt, he rolled himself onto his feet, letting the sword transform back into a shield as he moved to clutch at his dislocated arm. He struggled to lift himself off of the floor as another spike of pain seemed to run through him. A second later, the cannon clattered to the ground, making it obvious that the weight had been pulling on the bad arm. Once he was on his feet, Sunset rushed in to check on him. Missy floated over with a look of concern, but it quickly faded as she dropped to the ground and picked up the cannon with both hands. She made a big show of having to bend her knees and groan with effort as she lifted it off of the ground and up into the air.

"HRRRRG! Holy Hamon, Penn! You really beefed up your weapons!"

Penn forced out a chuckle at that, but didn't respond before turning back to Sunset. She had both of her hands on his upper arm, and was giving him a questioning look. Penn responded with a deep breath and a quick nod of his head.

Before Rainbow could ask if they were about to do what she THOUGHT they were going to do, they did it.

Sunset violently pushed upward, popping Penn's shoulder back into place with an audible squick.

"Nrrrrg!" Penn grunted, gritting his teeth as he stepped away for a flew seconds.

Rainbow was surprised, to say the least.

"Since when do YOU know how to do THAT?" Rainbow asked. "I usually leave that to the sports docs!"

Displacements and injuries like that were rare on CHS's sports teams. Even for Dash, who usually went full-force with EVERYTHING she did, it had only happened to her twice in her whole high school career, and been immediately followed by a trip to the school's physical therapist to make sure she got it properly back into place.

"Well, since somebody decided it was a good idea to try and ask a raging Lynel for directions on where to find the best berries for a dessert..." Sunset sighed. "And then several times since..."

"Hey, that was the best berry cobbler you've ever had and you said so yourself!" Penn argued back as he continued to roll his arm in his shoulder.

"You didn't have to go THAT far to one-up the royal cooks!" Sunset argued back. "Just because I LIKED their food doesn't make it a competition!"

"A-HEM!" Rainbow cleared her throat, drawing their attention back to herself. "So, are you telling me that you built an arm-mounted cannon so powerful it blew you through TWO WALLS?"

Penn blinked, as if he had somehow lost his whole memory of why they were all out here. He looked at the hole he had just fallen out of, then back at the hole he had first been thrown through.

"Actually... if I remember right, I set up a bunch of boxes to cushion me in case I got knocked back, so... more like three walls." He shook his head and tutted, as if he was scolding a child. "I forgot recoil is tricky in Remnant. It only plays nice when it'll look cool."

Missy shrugged and looked in the direction of the readers.

"Broke three walls. Well, coulda been worse, right?"

Rainbow tried to follow the little girl's gaze, but she seemed to just be staring at a blank wall.

When she looked back, Penn and Sunset were already back to their argument about whether or not Penn got offended when Sunset liked other people's food more than his and she had once more (somehow) been left behind in the conversation. She felt a small weight on her shoulder and turned to see Missy giving her a knowing smirk.

"Don't feel too bad. Even for me and Isis, those two can be a little hard to keep up with. They've been through a lot together."

"People keep telling me that, I keep not being caught up..." Rainbow muttered.

The expression on Missy's face only faltered for a split second before she caught it and changed it back to her normal carefree smile, but a fraction of a second was plenty of time for Rainbow to see her grimace. In her gut, Rainbow got the deep impression that it wasn't regret for taking so long to get her in the loop... it was something different. Something like when she had to make her least favorite play in the books. Dread and regret.

A mix of dread and regret for what was coming. She took another split second to herself, letting the world crawl to a halt long enough for her to ponder the look. As she thought about it, she realized exactly why she had even been able to recognize it on an unfamiliar face: it was exactly the same face that Sunset would make when she was cornered for some tidbit of gossip or painful confession by Pinkie and Rarity.

Why would she dread telling me the story of what happened until now?

Rainbow Dash's life was in danger, and she wasn't sure HOW it was possible...

But the water was chasing her.

It had started when the unyielding sunlight had finally started to dim. At first, Rainbow thought that nighttime might finally be coming, but she got a much less pleasant answer when she poked her head up through the canopy for a look. Rather than the soft tones of twilight, however, she was greeted by a wave of dark clouds that towered up into the sky like unholy titans of weather bearing down on the world. They were dark, nearly pitch-black, with one exception: these clouds didn't have silver linings, they had crackling, buzzing, eye-searing linings of barely-contained lightning. Even far below them, it was enough to make her hair stand on end.

For a split second, Rainbow considered trying to find a place to ride out the storm where she could watch. She was sure that with a little effort, she could find a gap in the canopy to look up through while she took shelter in the lower branches... until she was movement inside the rolling clouds. Then, just as her brain differentiated the motion from the natural rolling of the clouds on the wind, a section of clouds had pulled upwards, revealing something that made her heart seize with terror.

It was an eye.

An eye bigger than a parking lot, with veins of lightning and a slitted pupil of the darkest stormclouds. The entire thing lacked any color either than shades of gray, still made out of the same clouds that surrounded it. If it weren't for the definite shapes of the iris and the lightning-veins around it, she might have considered almost like one of those cross-eyed illusions Twilight had shown her once.

But this was no illusion. The eye was THERE, clear as day, and she was struck by the overwhelming sense that it was looking straight at her.

The eye then began to turn, and the clouds moved with it as a larger shape emerged. She could see a scissor-like pair of jaws, fangs the size of skyscrapers, horns tall enough to scrape the boundary between sky and space-

-and that was when Rainbow ducked back under the leaves.

"Sky dragon. There's... a sky dragon. The sky is a dragon."

She was too shaken to fly, only make her way to where the branch she was standing on joined the trunk, pull her knees against her chest, and start to pray.

"Please don't let it see me, please don't let it see me, please don't let it see me..."

She wasn't even an ant compared to that thing. She was a microbe compared to it, a single-celled organism. She'd only poked her head out of the trees. There was no way it could have noticed her. No way. It was almost impossible.

But not completely impossible.

It was the fear of that oh-so-remote possibility that kept her rocking back and forth in place, even when the rain started.

Somewhere, deep in her brain, her inner child was whooping and hollering with joy. Wherever she was, it was without a doubt the COOLEST place in the multiverse! Thundercloud dragons brought the rain!

Unfortunately, the "responsible team captain" part of her had taken over the role of keeping her alive the past days, and THAT part of her brain had just been struck by the world's biggest reality check about her odds of survival.

The rain was getting heavy FAST. She held out a hand, catching some of it and taking a sip.

It still had that same weird taste to it that the streams did, but it was lessened. It had less of that mineral taste to it. Even being marginally tastier was a nice change.

She only got to enjoy the fresher water for a couple minutes before she noticed the raindrops were hitting her harder than she was comfortable with, beginning to pelt her with enough force and size to make her skin sting. The wind was picking up, too. Even down inside the canopy, the whipping of the air was threatening to pick her up and throw her off of her perch.

She was already soaking wet, and the rain was helping with the oppressive heat of the forest, so if she ignored the stinging of her empty stomach, she could keep moving.

Spreading her wings, she rolled herself off of the branch and began flying her way in the direction of the Ivory Summit. It was almost twice as big as it was when she started, so she was definitely making headway. If she was only halfway there and hadn't found anything edible, yet... she didn't want to think about what would happen by the time she had made it to the mountain, which didn't even guarantee food.

She needed to find something to eat.

It was this obsessive thought that stopped her from noticing the rivulets of water crawling up a nearby tree trunk. Water was flying everywhere as it was pushed horizontally by the whipping winds, but there was a particular cluster of droplets that were moving against the wind, in a consistent direction.

Fortunately, she DID pay enough attention to what was in front of her to see what looked like a giant spiderweb hanging between two of the trees in front of her.

Now, she hadn't SEEN any giant spiders in this forest, but after what she'd just seen in the sky above, she was taking ZERO chances. She swooped downwards to avoid the dripping web and take her farther from the whipping branches of the canopy. Her eyes widened in surprise when the web followed her movement, each strand detaching itself and skittering down the sides of the trees like it was alive.

Alive and hunting her.

Rainbow pulled up short, trying to hold herself steady in midair in spite of the whipping winds. For a few seconds, she and the web were locked in a staring contest, each one waiting to see whether the other would blink first.

Unfortunately, because of the water being flung into her face and eyes, Rainbow was blinking quite a bit.

When it made its lunge for her, Rainbow wasn't even able to register it until it had already closed half the gap between them. By reflex, she activated her magic, making everything around her slow to a crawl. Her stomach grumbled and gave a sharp pain in protest of the fact that she was running on empty, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it. As she made to go up and over the descending net of water, Rainbow was able to get a closer look at the thing.

There was no mistaking that it looked a lot like the monster that had tried to pull her into the stream, made up of what looked like clear, pure water... but now that she was closer to it, she could catch a glimpse of something else. It was filled with tiny, glasslike, transparent structures that were only visible by the way they refracted what little light the clouds had let through. It's not JUST water... it kinda looks like that time we looked at germs and stuff under a microscope in class!

Another lance of pain from her stomach reminded her that she was working on borrowed time and calories, and she shook her head to try to deal with the distraction. She NEEDED to know what kind of monster she was dealing with-

It was closer.

Like, a lot closer.

Like, "two inches from her face" closer.

"WAUGH!" Rainbow fluttered backwards, only to feel something cold and wet across her back. She froze in place, doing her best to crane her neck far enough to see behind her.

The water monster had closed the net around her, surrounding her from every side with its body. For a second, Rainbow considered trying to break out, but she was reminded of that iron-like grip on her ankle the day before. She had barely been able to snap ONE of this thing's tentacles at top speed, let alone tackle her way through a few dozen. Thankfully, with her wings, Rainbow wasn't confined to only moving horizontally. A glance upward confirmed that the trap had yet to close above her, and she wasted no time in getting out of its grip and putting some distance between them. Once she'd flown far enough to feel safe again, she watched the monster carefully.

How had it gotten the drop on her while she was using her superspeed? That should have been impossible. And if it COULD move at similar speeds to her, why wasn't it doing so now-

Grumblbl...

Rainbow unconsciously gripped at her stomach as another painful gurgle reminded her to eat. This time, however, she realized it.

When her stomach was begging for food, things around her had begun to move again. Even after the rumble in her guts had stopped, nothing was frozen in place, any more. Raindrops were falling, leaves were shaking, and the wind was starting to push at her again... and the water monster was already reaching for the nearest branch to circle back around now that its prey had disappeared.

The monster hadn't sped up.

She was slowing down.

"Oh, crap..." she whispered.

"Radian's forests aren't exactly a hospitable place..." Penn mused as the four of them strolled down Beacon's halls. "It's really a giant carbon fixation machine for the sake of keeping the correct balance of greenhouse gases... But the lack of ANY kind of food feels like a blatant oversight... Shouldn't the trees fruit? Reproduce in some way? If you were desperate, what about grubs or insects? Any kind of smaller creatures that could be eaten?"

"Well, they sure weren't making any fruit when I got there..." Rainbow grumbled. Once they'd gotten Penn out of the wall and Sunset had forced him to admit that he was overreacting to culinary competition, Penn had proposed they "walk and talk." He was still wearing those weapons on his arms, both of which were now transformed into shields only slightly less broad than his entire torso. He claimed that he still needed to "get used" to them, lest he be flung through more walls.

Rainbow Dash didn't need to be Applejack to guess that he had other reasons that he wasn't telling them.

"Maybe they just weren't fruit trees?" Sunset suggested. "Honestly, I would have been more worried about the water... monsters aside, it doesn't sound like it was safe to drink."

Rainbow shrugged. "It wasn't THAT bad. It was just-"

"Carbonic acid, created by the solution of CO2 into atmospheric water." Penn rattled off the information with ease, but still seemed almost lost in his own world of thought. "It's in any carbonated beverage, you just don't taste it because most soda is flavored. Radian has a different atmospheric composition than Earth, with slightly more greenhouse gases. It would quickly become toxic to humans without the planet-ringing forest and the carbergs in the oceans scrubbing up all the carbon dioxide as fast as the dragons can produce it with their firebreathing." He rubbed his chin as a new thought seemed to occur to him. "I never considered whether or not a Baalchionic Water Striker would be able to survive in Radian's waters, but it looks like they're hardier than I would have expected... It might have been suffering pain from the higher PH levels, that would explain it going on the hunt rather than sticking to its usual ambush predator tactics."

Rainbow grimaced with annoyance. "Are you going to keep interrupting me like that just to be a know-it-all?"

That finally snapped Penn out of his stupor enough to give a sheepish smile. "Sorry... Most of the time, our survival can wind up depending on me getting information to the girls as efficiently as possible. Force of habit."

Rainbow sighed, deciding it wasn't worth the fight. As the group passed a flickering fluorescent light, she took a moment to reach up and knock on the plastic covering. "Yo, Auri! I know you're listening in! Come down and join us, it's time for your part!"

With a flash, a pop of expanding air, and a crackle of residual electricity, the gold-colored dragon appeared on Rainbow's shoulder. That particular spot on her left shoulder was where she usually enjoyed staying perched when they were just hanging around together. She gave Rainbow their typical greeting of an affectionate nuzzle, which Rainbow returned as best she could, before the little dragon turned to Sunset and her new friends.

"How do you DO that?" Sunset marveled, eyes wide at the sudden manifestation. "It's like you can just turn into electricity!"

"I can-"

"She can. Chiracian dragons can convert their bodies into their affiliated element, given that they're comprised mostly of pure entropic energy. The mass-energy conversion is especially easy for the scouting breeds, and they master it almost from birth. That's how they can travel at the speed of light to explore the cosmos. Every Radian-born scout actually has an instantaneous telepathic connection straight back to Chirac. That's why, even if it takes decades to travel to a location at lightspeed, they can send back information to Radian the second that they arrive at a prospective ally's world and- oh."

There was a pause while Dash and Auri both glared at Penn, who had taken all the glory out of Auri's chance to brag. Sunset just looked tired, not even trying to stop him from giving another chunk of unwanted exposition as she pinched at the bridge of her nose. Penn, to his credit, seemed to realize his repeated mistake quickly, chuckling and trying his best to rub at the back of his neck with his gauntlet-covered hand.

"Uh... anybody else hungry? Who wants some lunch? I'll cook, YOU talk."

This was bad.

Auri had tried to report back that she had found something out here, but it had been too late to stop the incoming storm. Given that a Baalchionic entity was in the area, that meant that there was a breach in Radian's dimensional security, and apparently the appearance of a water striker was enough to order a full cleansing of the area. The fact that the Monarch of Thunder had come to ensure no Baalchion gate remained meant that Chirac was giving direct orders.

Unfortunately, Aurelia's pleas that there was another creature out here kept getting washed out in the telepathic floodwaters of panic and fear from all the other littles in the wake of the dimensional quake. Her choices were to either give up and evacuate, or stay and risk electron scattering if the Monarch happened to hit a tree she was near directly.

It was a terrifying prospect, but... something in Auri's heart couldn't let an innocent creature die out here alone and confused, especially if it was possibly an intelligent creature from a contested world.

So, here she was, flying her way through tearing winds and air that felt like it was more rain than air. If it weren't for decades of "practice" riding the turbulent thermal corridors near Chirac's spire, she might have been reduced to running on all four legs instead of flying on her wings.

The bad news was that the scent was getting fainter, washing away in the rain and wind until there was almost nothing left. She couldn't keep tracking her quarry like this.

"Come on, Aurelia..." she muttered to herself as she pushed herself onward into the wind. "You're the best messenger in the Astro District! The star-brained idiots are lucky to- GAH!" she was cut off for a moment as a current of wind swept upwards, taking her hundreds of feet straight towards the canopy before she managed to get her nose angled down far enough to cut through it. "The star-brained idiots are lucky to have you! You can make it from Brighteye's tower to- to the Flarebiter fields in three minutes and thirty-nine! You can DO this!"

Her pep-talk was enough to spur another surge of forward progress. When the wind changed directions to come at her from the side, she tucked in her wings and rolled through it. When it came up from behind, she took that boon for every inch that it was worth. When it blew straight in her face, she pushed her nose downward and let her tiny body cut through it. Sometimes, the wind carried a fresh scent with it, just enough for her to know which direction she needed to keep moving in. Part of her ached to just dive back into the roots and travel through conduction, but with what was coming, that was likely to be a death sentence. Instead, she kept herself in the moment, focusing on the wind under her wings and the water being flung in her face. She kept her focus razor-sharp not only to avoid moaning about her situation, but because it was what would keep her alive the best.

She was so focused that when a flicker of unnatural motion appeared ahead of her, Aurelia knew instantly that she was nearing her goal. When another gust of wind struck her full in the face, however, it carried the stench of darkness.

She'd found the monster AND the wanderer at the same time.

She needed to close the distance, and she needed to do it fast.

Not only because the lost creature was definitely in danger, but because she was starting to feel static electricity crawling over her scales as charge from the air sunk into her body.

The Monarch of Thunder was about to start the process of closing any Baalchion gates in the area with EXTREME prejudice.

If she could bolt through the raindrops, she could make it in time, but if she was off by even a millisecond, she'd get caught up in the current coming down into the ground and... she didn't want to think about that.

There was no time for second thinking, so she gathered up her guts in her throat... and bolted.

The jumps from water to air and back felt like slamming her head against a marble wall a hundred times over, but she forced through it, watching the distant silhouettes coming up rapidly to meet her. One was some kind of biped with multichromatic fur in its head and- human. The group memory called it a human. One was a human, but she wasn't alone. She was desperately flapping a pair of feathered wings as she dragged a water striker up into the sky.

"Get... OFF... ME!" She shouted, spinning in place and wrenching upwards. The whole body of the striker was pulled up with her effort, swung around like a gigantic bag of water and slammed against a tree trunk. The monster warped and distended, practically wrapping around the tree completely.

Aurelia's breath hitched in her throat. If the Monarch struck now, both of them would be vaporized instantly.

"STOP!" she shouted, forcing herself to move as fast as she could without bolting. She held her wings out straight as they crackled with barely-contained electricity. They slipped through the tendrils like a hot knife through butter, severing the connection between the two.

As soon as she knew that they'd been separated, Auri veered as far from the tree as possible and towards the human.

"GET DOWN, NOW!" she screamed.

The human didn't seem to register what she had said, just staring at Auri as if she was shouting gibberish.

There wasn't time for this. The air was starting to hum and buzz with energy. She flew up and then slammed back down again onto the human's head, bouncing over and over.

"DOWN! GROUND! NOW!"

"OW! OW! O-Okay! Geez!" the human finally acquiesced and floated down towards the ground. Aurelia planted her claws into her scalp, pushing downwards with furious flapping of her wings.

"FASTER!"

"FINE!"

The two of them began to accelerate down until they were very nearly in free-fall. With a grunt of pain, they collided with the forest floor. With them on the ground, she swiveled her head, checking how close the nearest tree was. There was one a short distance away, closer than she was willing to risk.

"MOVE!" She dug her four claws into the human's hair and flew away from the tree, pulling her towards the farthest point from every trunk possible.

The human tried to pull back on her hair, stopping Aurelia from forcefully moving her any farther. "OWOWOW! What is your PROBLEM?"

"What's my problem?" Aurelia shouted back, trying to make herself heard over the noise. "I don't want to DIE out here, and I'm trying to help you avoid it, too!"

"What do you MEAN? The most dangerous thing is still out there!" the human pointed up at where the water striker was rolling down the trunk she had splattered it against like a giant bead of water.

"The MOST dangerous thing is about to-"

Aurelia didn't get the chance to finish her sentence.

Far above them, the Monarch of Thunder started his work. Across the whole cloud-covered forest, bolts of lightning large enough to destroy an entire city block rained down on the land, each one striking a towering tree like a sea of lightning rods. In the space of an instant, every tree trunk went from dark grays to soft reds, then orange, yellow, and then straight up to blinding white as the sheer power of the heavens used them as the conduit to reach the ground, where it scattered across the traces of metal and other conductors to reach every grain of soil. If there had been any ounce of darkness, any kind of gateway to Baalchion's world or the presence of any of his servants, it was completely scrubbed clean.

For Aurelia and Rainbow Dash, however, it was a cacophonous thunderclap, a blinding flash of light, and a concussive force of expanding air.

KRA-KA-BOOOOOOOM!

And then everything went black.

Hot...

Hot...

HOT.

Everything was HOT! Rainbow Dash felt like her body was on fire, as if she was laying on a bed of hot coals from the back and had a flamethrower on her from the front.

"A-AH! AH! HOTHOTHOTHOTHOT!" Rainbow's eyes shot open as she jumped to her feet. Eyes wide, all that she could think about was getting something to deal with the heat. She spotted a large sink against the far wall, large enough that it could practically be a water trough or a bathtub. She didn't see, feel, or hear anything else as she flew across the room, diving headfirst into the water.

Once the burning on her skin relented, Rainbow realized the second problem: her mouth felt like it was full of ashes, and she was thirstier than she'd ever been in her entire life. Luckily, that problem had the same solution as her first one. She opened her mouth and pushed the limits of how much she could drink at once without drowning herself.

It felt like it took ages for her body to stop burning, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two before she came up for air. It was only now, as she wiped the water from her eyes, that she realized that she wasn't in a place she recognized.

It was a brightly-lit room with what looked like cut stone for its floor, walls, and ceiling. Even the bath she was currently taking was inside of a stone-hewn basin. Looking over, she could see a raised slab with what looked like dried leaves from the canopy laid out as improvised bedding, and half of the wall was missing to make a giant window, allowing the sunlight to hit almost every inch of the room with little effort, including directly across where she had been laid down. And at the top of the slab, near where her head would have been, was a small gold-colored creature, just starting to uncurl itself like a cat.

"You're awake..." she mumbled before yawning. "We all were starting to worry you'd lay there forever..."

Rainbow grabbed at her head, the sight of the little creature making her head hurt as it tried to recall recent memories.

"Wha- What happened? Where am I?"

"You're in Radian, the dragon's paradise." The little creature stretched her wings, letting Rainbow see the slightly iridescent sheen on her body's metallic scales. "As for what happened, we got caught in a widespread lightning bombardment. We barely survived."

A spike of pain struck Rainbow's brain as the memory of the whole world exploding with light came back to her.

"If you'd been any closer to one of the trees, they almost certainly would have arced to us. You'd be vaporized and I'd be scattered across several acres of conductive root structures." The little dragon paced in a circle, examining herself. "You still got burned pretty badly, but we brought you back to the city and our healers managed to stop it from scarring or leaving permanent damage."

Rainbow examined her body for a moment, noting that there wasn't any sign that she had been burned anywhere, she still looked completely fresh and clean. There were strange symbols and lines painted across her body, but most of them were already washing off.

The only thing that did bother her, however, was that she was now dressed solely in bandages across her chest and pelvic area. Unconsciously, she moved to cover herself a bit more with her arms.

"Where are my clothes?"

"Burned to a crisp." The little dragon scoffed. "We're holy scholars, priests, and warriors, not miracle workers."

Rainbow looked around, noticing that the gigantic window was the only way into and out of the room, and there wasn't anyone except for the two of them.

"We?"

"The Chiracians." She beckoned Rainbow with her tail as she turned to look out the window.

With a momentary pause to make sure the last of her burning was gone, Rainbow climbed out of the water and shakily stepped across the room until she was near the edge of the window.

"...woah."

It was the only breathless word that could escape her mouth.

It was a city, one beyond anything that she could have ever imagined. It stretched as far as her eye could see, to the horizon and beyond. She was- well, she could only imagine it was MILES up in the air, but it was hard to say for sure. The rooftops of the buildings in front of them were just a single story shorter, putting them right at walking level. Everything was made of the same pale stone, inlaid with precious stones and metals to give it much-needed accents and colors. The buildings in front of those were another story shorter, and so on and so on. She could barely see the curve of it from here, but it looked like the whole city was circular in shape, too. Each layer was another concentric ring in its construction.

But what honestly had her more captivated, however, was the inhabitants.

Dragons. What must have been thousands of them in every shape, size, and color she could imagine. Some were the size of houses or larger, lumbering along the pathways and rooftops as casually as Rainbow would walk down the streets in front of CHS. Others were long and narrow, stretching across the sky like weightless, oversized kites. Some had wide, feather-covered wings that shimmered from within, others had only tiny, vestigial flaps of skin and bone.

They were in every shape, size, and color that she could imagine, and lots that she couldn't.

Any fears about modesty or injury were completely forgotten, with her entire body going limp out of shock while her jaw completely dropped.

She'd made it to the Ivory Summit.

"Welcome to Radian, human."

Rainbow was still frozen with shock, her mind stuck on trying to understand everything that she was seeing. Before she could even figure out which question she wanted to ask first, a figure descended from above them, poking a long, narrow snout in from the top of the open window, (which Rainbow now was realizing might just be the dragon-sized door). It looked almost like a giant sapphire-scaled snake, except that Rainbow could see a pair of pure white wings sprouting just from below the base of its skull. Behind her, she heard a gasp of shock from her gold-scaled companion.

"If the wanderer has awoken, Lord Chirac wishes to speak with her directly..." It spoke without moving its mouth, in a breathy, honeyed voice that made Rainbow think of the passing of a summer breeze.

"Wh-WHAT?" The other dragon's cry drew both of their gazes. After a second, the little gold dragon seemed to catch herself and immediately threw herself to the slab in a prostrate position. "I- I mean, if that is what Lord Chirac wishes, then by the light it shall be done."

This seemed to satisfy the larger dragon, who retreated back up onto the roof before taking off into the sky. Watching it leave, Rainbow could see that it was a kind of dragon with no legs at all, only a pair of wings and a long, undulating body.

"What was that? Who's this Lord Chirac guy? Why does he want to see me?" Now that she'd regained her ability to speak, Rainbow couldn't stop asking questions.

The little dragon looked at her like she had just asked her which direction was up or what color the sky was.

"THAT was an amphithere, one of Lord Chirac's holy messengers. Lord Chirac is the God of Light, creator of Radian and the Chiracian dragons and... I don't know." She tilted her head, examining Rainbow Dash even more closely. "But if he wants a direct audience, then... who are YOU?"

Rainbow puffed out her chest a little. "Well, I'm kind of a big deal back home! I'm a big shot superhero and-" She blinked slightly as the little dragon's words finally sunk in.

"I'm sorry, did you say God of Light?"

Rainbow sighed as Penn placed the plate in front of her, holding a juicy-looking burger. Everyone else except for the two of them had already been served up a hearty-looking hamburger, and now it was her turn.

"So what happened next?" Sunset asked, still leaned forward on the edge of her seat with anticipation.

"Well... Auri and a couple other dragons took me up to meet Chirac face to face. When I met him, well, I gave him the whole story as I knew it." Rainbow shrugged. "Not that I knew much. I STILL don't know why the portal blew up! But he said I was welcome to stay while he sent out his scouts into the new, unbounded multiverse to find you guys... So I stayed." She took a moment to tug at her jacket. "Since Auri was the one who found me and saved my life, she got assigned to be my personal messenger and guide! I got some new duds, and started trying to figure out why Radian made my powers feel so much stronger! Started studying to figure out how to get faster and-"

"You studied?" Sunset smirked. "Like, voluntarily?"

"I could hardly believe it, either..." Aurelia snickered through a mouthful of perfectly-seasoned hamburger meat. "But it's true. She DID try."

"Oh, har-de-har, you two..." Rainbow grumbled as she took another sip of her lemonade.

"Still, to think you saw the Great Storm Dragon..." Penn grinned as he gave a lot whistle. "That's something I'd LOVE to see someday!"

"Well, I'd be okay with him keeping his distance from now on." Rainbow grumbled as she raised her burger up to her mouth and took a large bite. As the flavors exploded through her mouth, Rainbow couldn't hold back a moan. "Mmmmph! Thish ish guhd!"

Penn looked incredibly proud of himself as he took a bite of his own burger.

"I baked caramelized onions into the buns, the patties have a nice, salty crust, and fresh sliced tomatoes, onions, and lettuce. Good food is lots of little touches adding up..."

Rainbow wanted to keep being mad at him for what had happened that morning, to remember that they were on opposite sides of the negotiations, but... this food was making it REALLY hard to stay mad at him.

"Okay..." she forced herself to put the burger back down and stare expectantly at Sunset. "I told you MY story. Now I want to hear yours. Start to finish."

Penn, Sunset, and Missy all seemed to freeze up at her demand, as if they somehow hadn't seen it coming.

Penn was the first to finally move, letting out a long sigh, setting down his burger, and moving back to the stovetop. Without much explanation, he began moving his knife through another pair of onions to give them a fine dice.

"We're going to need more food." He leaned back slightly to yell towards the door. "You can all come in, now!"

Rainbow was surprised to see a veritable avalanche of bodies come spilling out through the door to the kitchen. It was all the students she'd meet so far, with the exception of Weiss, who was still under orders to get bed rest, and Yang, who was still insisting on staying to watch her teammate.

"Aw, man! How'd he know we were there?" Nora groaned from her spot near the bottom of the pile.

"Nothing happens in my kitchen I don't know about." Penn smirked.

"Are you sure about that?" a golden-haired woman stated from her already-taken seat at the table. Rainbow jumped slightly at the fact she was there. When did she get here?

If Penn's frightened yelp and the knife thrown in their direction was any indication, he'd been taken equally off-guard. The mystery woman caught the blade between two fingers, gave it an expert twirl, and threw it back in Penn's direction, where it mounted itself in a cutting board hanging on the wall.

A few minutes later, she, the mystery woman, all of Team JNPR, Ruby, and Blake were all seated at the smaller tables in the dining area. A few chairs had been brought in from other dorms, but eventually everyone had a place to sit while Sunset told her story. Penn was back to cooking, still rubbing at his heart as the surprise of the other woman's appearance wore off.

Sunset, for her part, seemed slightly more comfortable now that she wasn't being caught off-guard with the request. She cast a glance at Penn and Missy, as if asking each one for permission. Missy simply shrugged, clearly not concerned with what Sunset said or didn't say. Penn...

Penn was a bit harder to read. He raised an eyebrow, then nodded toward the woman who'd snuck up on them. Sunset almost-imperceptibly shook her head in the negative. Penn raised a hand to his chest, poking near it's center with his thumb. Sunset shook her head again. Penn moved his hand around to point over his shoulder and down, indicating his upper back. Sunset nodded at that one, and he gave an annoyed sigh, but didn't seem to argue with her about it.

Finally, their silent conversation seemed to conclude. Sunset took a deep breath, looked around at the audience that had gathered to hear her tale, and shook her head.

"Okay... no more 'in a nutshell' explanations. Except for some really... personal moments... we're not going to hold much back." She took a moment to look each and every one of them in the eyes. When Sunset's gaze met hers, Rainbow couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of fear.

Those eyes were wiser and more pained than they had ever been before they were split up.

"This is the story of where we've been and what we've done. It all started after we tried to close the portal and, somehow, the whole thing blew up in our faces. After that, the next thing I knew, I was somewhere hot and dusty, with the sun beating down on me..."

Sunset was leaving things out.

It started off small, when she skipped over the fact that they had killed the dalek. She just said they had "disabled" it.

She told Aperture mostly accurately, getting Penn several wide-eyed stares when she got to the part where he blocked the turrets with his body. He mostly just shrugged it off. The mention of his injury led to a few questions about why he hadn't used his aura to protect himself...

Which led to a whole detour to talk about the fact that he had neither aura nor a semblance. The kids seemed to have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that these things weren't a constant in the multiverse, something as natural as having a soul.

Once they were back on track, there was the duel with Joshua. Sunset had to tell most of it, since Penn's memory of that night was... hazy... up to the point where Ra burned the painkillers out of his system.

"So.. it's a lot like Remnant the game? Trap cards and all?" Ruby asked with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"I think it's... similar. I think your game has some tabletop aspects that Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't. I'd have to play it to make a good comparison." He cemented his suggestion with a wink, which caused another distraction in the form of Ruby and Nora wanting to drop everything and go get the game at that very moment. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and they were soon back on track.

Penn finished THAT story with his perspective of saving Sunset's soul. He didn't hesitate to tell them that he had condemned Joshua's soul to suffer. Sunset had tried to interrupt him there, but he chose to speak over her. He wasn't about to hide what he'd done, he had accepted it at this point. If anything, he guessed it would make him more mysterious or intimidating, which he could always use to his advantage.

It's easy to make a fool out of myself. It's harder to get a reputation of being someone who should be listened to.

Unfortunately, when they got to the story of their time in Remnant, Sunset had backed out of the leading storyteller role, forcing Penn to tell everyone about his time as an assistant to Roman. He'd gotten more than a few glances and even a couple glares, but a reminder of the end result of his meddling was enough to get most of them to back off again.

Salem seemed particularly interested during this part, no doubt interested in hearing how he had managed to keep ahead of Cinder for so long. It was hard to see, but her normally-relaxed posture had stilled in a way that showed she was paying more attention than before. She was still lounging, but the way her eyes fixed on him reminded Penn of much, much worse days.

With her watching, Penn skimmed over most of his time as her prisoner, only stopping to talk in more detail about the circumstances of his escape.

After that, most of what had happened up until they hit the road was common knowledge. Ruby even got excited enough to give the whole description of the final battle against the dragon grimm, giving Penn a chance to flip and plate a few burgers to hand out.

Penn tried his best to keep out of talking about their time in Minecraft. Sure, he was there longer, but he hadn't actually accomplished much that was very noteworthy. Instead, he let Sunset and Missy describe their time there in detail, up until he had to explain their trip to the End.

It... took quite a bit of work to get the girls to understand that they had been sent into a video game made of cubes. Eventually they had to resort to Isis projecting an image of the game up onto the wall.

They had actually argued a bit about the dragon fight. Sunset was trying to claim that Penn was the most important player. Penn, on the other hand, insisted that Sunset had been the most important fighter, saving them from falling into the hungry abyss and striking the final blow on the dragon.

Their time in Undertale was... difficult to talk about.

Missy started the story with her perspective, talking about falling into the ruined underground. Sunset detailed their pursuit of her, and Penn stayed quiet the whole time... up until the point where Sunset left with Missy and he stayed behind with Undyne.

Sunset had made it clear that she didn't want to go into detail about his death. It wasn't a topic she wanted to broach, and in honesty, Penn didn't want to, either. But as Penn talked about his time fighting alongside the Captain of the Royal Guard and the sinking hopelessness of the situation, he saw a growing recognition in Ruby's face. While most of the others were leaning forward on the edge of their seats with anticipation, Ruby's expression was more akin to a dawning realization.

While Sunset was talking about meeting with Alphys, Penn went back to the stovetop. While he was focused on the cooking, he felt a hand on his shoulder that pulled his attention away. The younger girl was giving him that wide-eyed stare that girls always seemed to have, one that was almost as potent as Sunset's expectant looks when he was going to have to do something unpleasant. She motioned for him to lean down, allowing her to whisper into his ear.

"This... this is the part where you died, isn't it?"

Penn's grip on the spatula grew strong enough to bend the handle out of shape. His eyes glazed over and he felt a burning feeling in his chest, right where he knew a particular scar had healed over his heart.

For a few painful seconds, he wasn't at Beacon, any more. He was back in Waterfall, staring in disbelief at the glowing blade that had punched through his chest, at the murderous smile of the one who had killed him.

Killed him.

Killed him.

He was dead. He was still conscious, sure, but he was dead.

He'd failed.

He couldn't protect them.

He couldn't get Sunset home.

His existence, everything that he was, said, or did, had culminated in failure.

He was dea-

"Penn? You okay?"

A smaller hand on his was enough to slowly draw him out of them memory and back to the present.

He shivered and rubbed at his chest, forcing himself to smile and give Ruby's hand a pat.

"I'll be fine, Rubes... Just... could you go take a seat again? Listen to the story?"

Ruby glanced back at the group. Most of them were still enraptured with Sunset's description of her time in the DT Extractor, being held prisoner by Flowey, but Pyrrha and Blake had both noticed them talking. He gave them a small wave with the spatula, trying to look like everything was okay. Unfortunately, Blake's widened eyes and Pyrrha's raised eyebrows reminded him that he had accidentally mangled the handle of the spatula, bending it out of shape.

"It's... okay if you want to talk about-"

"Shhh." Penn pulled his hand away from Ruby's, breaking the contact that had pulled him out of the traumatic memory to begin with. He gently took hold of her shoulders, turned her around, and patted her on the back with slightly more force than necessary. "Go. Listen. I'm cooking."

Ruby turned back to look at him one more time, giving him the kind of pitiable look that made his gut churn.

How did she even KNOW about that?

Sunset, for her part, was doing a way better job of covering the truth than him. She was leaving out Undyne's fusion completely, claiming that she did all of her feats as herself.

It was only when they got to the part about confronting Asriel, Penn realized that his heart was pounding, threatening to beat out of his chest.

"Isis... can you keep an eye on this for me?" he whispered.

"Affirmative."

With the stove handled, Penn turned to leave. He just needed a few minutes of fresh air. He just needed to go into the hallway and-

The knife.

When he turned to leave, his eyes stopped to linger on the knife that Salem had thrown back at him. It hadn't bothered him as much before because it was a vegetable knife, smaller and more narrow than the chef's knife that Frisk had used. But now, when his whole body was already reliving the memory of what had happened, it could have been a butterknife and he still would have been afraid.

All at once, his body recoiled. On its most fundamental level, he was rejecting the memory, the fear, the sheer comprehension of what had happened.

He was barely able to stagger away, clapping both hands over his mouth to hold back the tide of vomit. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered the sound of concerned voices, but he didn't pay them any mind as he rushed to the bathroom. He wasn't even able to make it to the toilet, having to settle for throwing up in the sink.

What came out of him was chunky, tasted sour, and was covered in black sludge. That was just another reminder that he wasn't what he thought he was, any more, but he was more concerned with trying to get his panic attack under control. He dug his fingers into the edge of the porcelain sink, begging and praying for relief from the terror.

"Partner, listen to me."

"Take a breath. A deep one."

Penn listened, forcing himself to stop hyperventilating. It felt like it was worse than not even breathing at all. Still, he continued to listen.

"Hold it... hold it... now let it out."

Penn gasped, beginning to breathe again, but slower now.

"Three things you feel."

"C-cold... sink. Wet... mouth. Pain... fingers."

"Loosen your grip. Five things you see."

Penn did as he was told, letting his white-knuckled grip on the sink lessen.

"Sink. Mirror. Stalls. Tile floor... throw-up."

"Turn on the water. Start getting your face cleaned up."

Penn nodded, turning on the water to start washing the remains of his lunch down the drain. The congealed ink was quickly washed away, and he started scooping up the water and splashing it across his face.

"Hey, dude, are you okay?"

Penn looked up, spotting Jaune as he walked through the door into the boy's restroom. He forced himself to nod.

"Y-yeah, p-peachy keen."

"Are you sure?"

Penn nodded.

"You know, I threw up on my first day. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Penn wanted to laugh at that.

"It's just... bad memories. Panic attack. I've had a million of them, I'll be fine."

Jaune didn't seem to want to take him at his word, coming up to join him and put a hand on his back.

"It's okay not to be strong enough to do everything by yourself. You can ask for help.Trust me, I learned that from Pyrrha the hard way!"

"I- I can't- I..." Penn wanted to admit it, to confess everything and just break down. Instead, he settled for turning and leaning against the wall, then sliding down to sit on the ground with his knees pulled up to his chest.

"I don't want to talk about Undertale."

Jaune nodded. There was a creak of hinges as Ren pushed the door open.

"Jaune? Penn? Are you in here?"

"Yeah, we're fine." Jaune smiled, and Penn silently thanked him for doing the talking. "He just needed a break from all the cooking. We'll be out in a few minutes."

Ren looked both of then over for a second, clearly able to see the fact that there was more to what was happening. Still, he seemed to trust Jaune's judgement, nodding and shutting the door again. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes.

"You're going to miss the story."

"The others can catch me up later."

"...Sunset's holding things back."

"Yeah, most of us have figured that out around the time she left out breaking her arm at Amity Arena."

"I... I died under Ebbott, Jaune. Sunset and Missy brought me back, kind of, but... I died." he whispered. He reached up to his shirt, undoing the top buttons far enough to show Jaune the fist-sized scar where a hole had been burned through him. Jaune's eyes widened at the sight. "The saber went from one side to the other."

"...oh. That's... horrible."

"You have no idea." Penn let his voice drop to a grumble.

"Why did she skip something like that?"

"Because... we've done things she's not proud of. I've done things she's not proud of. That don't fit with the world she and Rainbow Dash came from. And..."

"She's worried what Dash would think of her."

Penn nodded. "She wants to go home. People don't get murdered or get their souls banished to eternal suffering there. People don't get dismembered by a kid with a chef's knife or get possessed by a demon made out of ink or-"

"But, if she's ashamed of what you guys have done, that sounds an awful lot like being ashamed of you. Of the things you've done to keep her safe."

"No! No, she wouldn't be-"

"Whether that's what she meant to do or not. Sometimes you hurt the people you care about without even realizing it... especially when you're worried about something else." Jaune took his own turn to stare down at the tiled floor, clearly remembering some mistake of his own past.

Penn didn't have a response to that.

"Look. I'm not going to force you to talk to Sunset about it. Right now, you should just make sure you're okay."

Penn took a deep breath. "I... I will be. I'll be out soon, you should go hear the rest of the story."

There was another creak as the door opened again, revealing Ren holding a small tray. She stepped into the room and carefully sat down beside them. On the tray was a teapot and a set of three cups.

"I thought that you could use something to wash the taste out of your mouth," Ren stated as he began to pour the first cup and handed it to Penn. Penn hesitated to take it, looking as if to check whether Jaune wanted it first.

"It's for you. You can be served first." Ren gestured with the cup until Penn took it. "You're not the chef in here."

The tea was sweet and hot, perfect to wash away the taste of bile. A sense of calm finally settled back onto him, enough for him to let out a long sigh.

"Thank you. I think I'll be okay, now. You can go listen to the rest of the story, now. I'll be back out soon."

"Or..." Jaune gave Ren a grateful nod as he took his own cup. "We can just stay here for a while."

"I'm certain Nora and Pyrrha will catch us up later."

"Just us boys, getting a little guy time."

"Indeed. That can be rare in our respective situations."

Once again, Penn found himself at a loss... so he didn't say anything. He simply took another sip of his tea... and waited.

Without judgement, without urgency, and without Sunset, he waited until he could face the world again.

"After that, we all sat down to eat together, and... that was about when we got the call from Ruby and the girls asking us to come back."

Sunset leaned back in her seat, feeling exhausted after having to finish the story alone. Jaune and Ren had gone to check on Penn and hadn't come back, but she knew that if they were together, Penn was in safe hands.

"Wow... That's... a LOT." Rainbow leaned back in her chair, one hand held to her forehead in shock. "The sun's even set."

"It's also wrong."

All eyes turned to Salem, and she felt her heart skip a beat in fear. The witch was positively glowering with quiet rage.

"What, are you calling Sunset a liar?" Rainbow started to rise out of her seat.

"By omission, yes." Salem continued. "And if there's one thing I can't stand, it's someone who lies to those close to them to save their reputation."

Sunset felt the color draining from her face.

"She uses a weapon that can cut through hardened steel as easily as paper, fought constantly with her life on the line and minimal combat experience, and we're expected to believe that she didn't cause so much as an accidental dismemberment?" Salem narrowed her eyes. "Their group never suffered a critical injury of any kind, despite all these life-and-death situations? Out of everything we've heard, those things seem the most unbelievable."

Ruby tilted her head, looking at Sunset with an expression that felt somewhere between pity and understanding. "Sunset... Isis already told me, Yang and Rainbow Dash about what happened to Penn, at least a little. We know that he died at one point, but you didn't mention that at all."

Sunset felt a surge of panic at getting caught, even as Rainbow Dash's eyes grew wide with recognition.

"That's right! I thought she was just messing with us, though!"

Everyone's eyes were on Sunset, but she could particularly feel Salem's, Ruby's, and Rainbow Dash's gazes.

"I- I don't... I can't-"

Finally, a small hand on her shoulder drew her attention to Missy. The little spirit, her last hope for support, was giving her a sad look.

"Get some rest. I'll re-tell the hard parts. I promise, you won't look like a bad guy."

Sunset couldn't stop the tears, this time, only nodding and pushing herself up out of her chair. She took a second to look over the assembled group.

"I- I'm sorry... I just-"

"It's alright, Sunset." Pyrrha rose up out of her chair, stepping over to give Sunset a hug. "We understand, some things are hard to talk about. But you already helped us save our world, we could never think poorly of you. We know you're a good person."

Sunset felt tears welling up and falling from her eyes.

Pyrrha's hug was nice, but... there was a more comforting hug she wanted more right now. She looked back at the group, specifically at Rainbow Dash. She felt ashamed of herself for lying to her. She felt ashamed of the things that she would have to tell. Failing to save her friend when he died, her violent rampage with murderous intent for Frisk, the people she hadn't been able to help in the ink, the world that was left destroyed in their wake, and especially the time she'd outright tried to kill Salem using her magic... She couldn't bear the thought of it all being exposed.

She was different now than she was before, and deep in her heart she knew it. Part of her had wondered, from the first time she realized she'd helped kill a living thing inside that first dalek, whether she could ever go back home again... look her friends in the eye again.

And now her last attempt to circumvent that fate had failed. Rainbow Dash was going to see her for what she was now, rather than who she was before everything went wrong.

Now, there was nothing that could stop that from happening. All she could do was wait.

With a sad nod and a sniffle, Sunset wiped the last tear from her eye and walked away, heading back for the room she had slept in the night before. As she walked away, Sunset reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

"The one time you DON'T listen to me... you do this."

"I am sorry, Sunset Shimmer... At the time, I had thought that it was-"

"Don't. Just... don't, Isis. I'm not in the mood to be logical."

"And... that's what was left out." Missy sighed and rubbed at the back of her head. "Sunset wasn't TRYING to lie to you guys. She just... has had a rough time of it and isn't proud of what it took to make it out alive."

Everyone who had been listening to her was still processing things. Missy wasn't dumb enough to think she didn't need to do at least a little damage control.

"Destroying Bendy's universe was an accident, but everyone who was trapped there is free, now. Her rampage after Penn was killed... she wasn't thinking clearly, and that world's magic just made it worse by responding to her feelings. Blowing up Salem's castle with her lackeys inside was... disproportionate, but it was the only thing Penn could think of. And the same thing applied when Salem was hunting us down to kill us all together." She floated over to the table and picked up one last one of Penn's homemade burger buns to nibble on while she turned to Rainbow Dash. "I know that death isn't really something that the Rainbooms dealt with in your world, and it was never considered the answer, but the rest of the Multiverse tends not to agree. And we have to work with that. Sunset's heart has never budged an inch! It's always been in the right place!" She sighed and took a moment to take a small teacup out of her hat and wash down the bread. "Sunset's not wrong... she's just trying to survive. It's everything else that needs to change." She took a moment to stifle a yawn. "Except Penn. Last time he changed, things got tense."

There was a long, slow pause, silence falling over the room aside from the quiet scrubbing of Isis's drone cleaning up the dishes as best as the little robot could.

"Well, duh. Why would any of that make me give up on Sunset?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "She's my buddy, I'd never turn my back on her!"

"We all understand that desperate times call for desperate measures." Pyrrha added.

"Plus, we make more than our fair share of mistakes just here in ONE universe!" Ruby added. "I don't think it's fair to judge her for making a few when she's jumping from one to the next!"

Missy let out a sigh of relief. "It's a huge weight off my shoulders to hear you all say that. I keep TRYING to tell Sunset that she's too hard on herself, but she just obsesses over the past until she drives herself crazy with guilt."

"Well, if she won't listen to you... maybe she'll listen to all of us?" Blake suggested.

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash practically jumped out of her seat. "We'll make her see that, whatever she's been through, she's still our awesome friend!"

Missy smiled, taking a moment to unwrap a caramel she had saved for later and pop it into her mouth.

"In that case... I might have an idea about what we can do to cheer her up."

Rite to Bear Arm

"Has anybody seen Penn?"

"Uh, not after he left the kitchen feeling sick last night. Should somebody check on him?"

That was the question that had set Ruby on a quest down into the underbelly of Beacon academy. Normally, she loved her school, she would never feel unsafe here... but the low lights and near-silence aside from her own echoing footsteps were enough to set her a little on edge.

Still, she wasn't going to let a case of the heebie-jeebies stop her now. Eventually, she found herself staring at the door in question, just a short distance down from a large hole in the wall hastily covered by a blue tarp. On the door was a barely-legible note that read

IF MUSIC IS ON
DO NOT ENTER

and, just as she might have guessed, the scream of an electric guitar was pouring out of the hole in the wall.

This generation!
With fire in our eyes!
Strong are the ties that bind us!
We don't need no alibis!

NOTHIN'S GONNA STAND IN OUR WAY!

Ruby stood there for a moment, arguing back and forth with herself until she finally thought of a clever solution.

The sign only said not to ENTER. It didn't say anything about taking a peek behind the curtain. As quietly as she could, Ruby tugged on the edge of the tarp until she had a clear view of the workshop.

"What."

One wall of the room was taken up by the biggest weapons forge she'd ever seen, the kind that was used for mass-producing weapons in times of war. She'd only seen those in history books when she she could bear studying for Professor Oobleck's class! It was firing at what looked like maximum capacity, too, with many places on the casing glowing red with the conducted heat from inside. There was nothing coming from the output of the forge, despite how busy it appeared to be.

That must be what's melting that special metal to close the portal...

As her gaze traveled across the room, her eyes only widened in surprise.

The room looked like a war zone. Craters and pock marks in the walls were everywhere, she was pretty sure she could see the scorch marks of some kind of explosion near the center of the room, and jagged bits of metal and car parts were never more than maybe six inches from another one. In the middle of the room, just past the explosion marks, a half-built car unlike anything she'd ever seen was up on metal stands, held nearly a foot off the floor for easy access underneath.

The car was... weird.

At first glance it looked like an ordinary-but-overengineered car... but when she looked more closely, she began to notice something.

The interior didn't line up with the exterior. Every section of the body was like looking through a window into a house: there was clearly more space on the inside than there should have been, and looking at it made her brain hurt. When her head started spinning, Ruby forced herself to look away. Thankfully, a distraction had presented itself...

That distraction came in the form of motion from above. With a rattling of metal chains and clicking of gears, what looked like a huge chunk of metal began to descend from the shadows. Her eyes widened as she realized it was an ENGINE, one that was more than half the size of the entire car!

"There's no way that'll fit!"

a voice crackled over the speakers, interrupting the music.

"That's what SHE said!" Penn's voice called back. As the engine continued to lower further and further, Ruby could see him straddled across the machine and pulling down on the chain that controlled its descent.

Ruby snickered, covering her mouth with her hand to avoid being discovered.

"No, seriously, it's too wide to get through the engine bay!"

"Let me worry about that! How's the driveshaft design going?" Penn waved off the concerns of whoever was on the other end of the phone call.

"That? We finished that AGES ago! It's gonna be a headache to build, but she'll be able to run all the motors you want on the same powertrain!"

"Great! And you stress-tested it to make sure it'll hold up when I boost it?" Penn had stopped lowering the engine about ten feet above the car and risen to his feet. With one hand, he was rotating some kind of handle. Whatever he was adjusting, it was rotating the whole engine, tilting it further and further back. He casually walked along the engine block until he was standing on top of the now-vertical engine, cutting its width almost in half.

"How am I supposed to TEST it when you have the engines over there?"

"Just have Isis run some simulations!" Penn rolled his eyes and hung off the chain with one hand to lean in the direction of the other voice.

"You don't think I have? But knowing YOU, you'll probably try dumping nitroglycerin into the gas tank as a fuel additive or using a wind elemental as a turbo booster or something! And there might be faults in the parts! Simulations can only do so much compared to physical stress testing!"

There was a long pause of silence between the two of them.

"You're thinking about doing those things right now, aren't you?"

"Noir, please! I'm not THAT stupid!" Penn scoffed. "Just send the schematics over from your workshop and I'll forge them here, if you say it'll work then I'll trust you!"

"I'm NOT saying it'll work. I'm saying it SHOULD work. Push it too hard and you still might wind up with driveshaft spaghetti."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take. Now, can I have my music back? It's the big moment, the W-24 is going in!"

"Alright, ya drama queen. Have fun."

When I get high I get high on speed!
Top fuel funny car's a drug for me!
My heart! MY HEART!
Kickstart my hea-art!

With a grin, Penn made one last pull on the chain, seeming to set something in motion. Slowly, with him leaning to the sides and pulling on the chains to guide it, the huge engine descended into the engine bay... where it disappeared without a trace. There was no sag of extra weight on the wheels, no way to see it from the outside or spot it coming out of the underside of the car. It just... vanished into the car.

All of this happened with Penn riding atop it, furiously ripping on an air guitar as he, too, descended out of sight.

For a few seconds, Ruby waited to see some sign that he would come back out.

He didn't.

Well, I really only came down here to make sure he was okay, and he definitely LOOKS like he's having a good time... Ruby thought. Just as she was about to turn away, however, a familiar cacophony caught her attention.

CLANG! CHA-CHUNK! VRRRM!

Her eyes widened as she spun around to spot the weapons forge doors opening, allowing several parts and pieces to roll out on the conveyor belt and into a nearby box. She could tell just by looking at them that they were too large to be for weapons, so they had to be for the car. Still, they didn't look like anything she'd ever seen while Yang was working on her motorcycle... and that made her curious. As she stared and tried to figure out just what Penn was building, for the first time, she noticed something she hadn't before.

There was a thin cable running from the forge down to Penn's laptop, which was sitting on a nearby cart. It was completely unattended, and even at this distance she could make out the familiar sight of blueprints on the screen. Blueprints that were obviously made using the weapon-designing software of the forge.

In that second, all memory of the "Keep out" sign disappeared from Ruby's mind, replaced by an overwhelming, all-encompassing curiosity.

The next thing she knew, Ruby was standing in front of the computer. Her eyes widened as she took in the plans for Penn's new car. They were complex, finely-detailed, cramming enough hardware for at least three vehicles into the physics-defying space. She began to click through the tabs, highlighting different layers of the plan to show different systems.

-Fuel

-Engine (Gas)

-Engine (Electric)

-Engine (Turbine)

-Transmission

-Axles

-Wiring

-Suspension

-Frame

-Climate Control

-Turbo

-Extra Turbo

-Super Turbo

-Backup Turbo

-Turbine Airflow

-Afterburner

-Seats-to-Bed System

-Kitchen

-Watercraft

-Submersible

-Wings?

-Airtight Seal

-Deadlock

-Independent Air Supply

-Armor Plating

-The Big Guns

-Dimensional Transcendentalism Module

Somehow, that wasn't even half of them.

"Is he building a car or a tank?" Ruby whispered to herself, settling on the "Armor Plating" tab to start with, since it looked the closest to what she knew. It looked like he wanted to keep the car LOOKING like it originally had, trying to keep a low profile most of the time, but he was planning on adding retractable plates that could slide into place and improve the car's toughness and aerodynamics.

But it was wrong.

Even just looking at it for a few seconds, Ruby could see at least five places where the kind of transformation tech she used in Crescent Rose could improve the design. It was bulky, inefficient, and she could tell just by looking at it that the transformation would take several minutes when it COULD take just a few seconds. Penn was smart, and she had no doubt that Isis was helping him with the design, but...

"...it could be better."

"You think so?" asked a voice directly behind her.

"YEEEP!"

She spun around on her heel, ready to bolt at a moment's notice, but Penn was simply standing with his arms crossed, a smug smirk on his face as the song that was playing faded out to silence. Ruby instantly felt her face flush slightly as she realized she'd been caught in the act of spying. Penn, thankfully, didn't seem upset with her, simply leaning to look over her shoulder at what she'd been talking about.

"Well, you WOULD be the expert in transforming tech..." he mused. "Where's the room for improvement?"

"U-uh, I'm sorry-" Ruby stammered, but Penn simply waved her off with a grease-covered hand.

"I jumpscared you, I'd say we're even." He chuckled at himself. "Sorry for that, by the way."

"Uh... That's it? You're not mad?" Ruby took her hand off of Crescent Rose, where it had landed by sheer instinct.

Penn raised an eyebrow at her as he reached past her to take a rag off the cart and start wiping down his hands. "Should I be?"

"W-Well, the sign said not to come in if there's music playing, but I-" she was cut off by Penn holding up a hand for her to stop. He took a deep breath, then moved the hand up to his ear, as if listening for something.

"I don't hear any music. What do you need?"

"Oh... I don't- uh- I actually came down here to see what YOU were doing. You kind of left in a hurry last night."

That got a different look from Penn, one she could only describe as "melancholy." "That's really kind of you. I'm just fine, Little Red. Feeling much better now that I got some quality time with my lady." He pointed to the half-built car. "Ten out of ten, promise."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep!" He stepped around her, gingerly tapping on the laptop's keys to avoid getting it greasy. "You know, I actually DID want to ask for your input on this, so this worked out pretty nicely!"

"Me?" It was Ruby's turn to raise an eyebrow in confusion.

"You made Crescent Rose, right?" Penn leaned away from the computer again, now back to the original screen that had all of the different systems visible. "You've got a crazy knack for engineering, Ruby, and there's not a lot of people I'd trust to see these plans, to begin with!"

This time, Ruby's face was flushing with embarrassment at the praise. "I'm not THAT special. There's smarter people you could ask. What about Isis?"

"Isis could design the whole thing, sure... but I want to be as hands-on as I can be with Sylvia! Maybe I could ask somebody here at Beacon with more experience, but I don't think I could trust them like I know I can trust you." He shrugged. "You've got the smarts AND the heart! You don't HAVE to help me, but I would like to ask you to, if you would."

Ruby blinked a few times as the sheer turnaround the conversation had taken truly dawned on her.

"This didn't go the way that I thought that it was going to."

Penn smirked again. "Well, what did you expect to happen when you sneak in here, waltz right up to my computer, and say my blueprints could be better? That I WOULDN'T listen to your advice?"

"Uh... I thought you'd be mad at me for sneaking in?"

"That's if I'm cooking. If I'm cooking, I know fully well what I want to make and how I want to make it." Penn took a few steps back, sitting himself on the front of the car. "I'm a decent mechanic, but I'm far from perfect at engineering compact systems and transforming designs!" He gestured towards her, bowing his head slightly. "You've got more experience than me in that. As we say in my world, 'In the matter of shoes, defer to the cobbler.'"

Ruby blinked as she tried to decipher the saying. "You mean... 'Always listen to people who know more than you?'"

"'Always defer to the expert when you're working in their field.'" Penn smiled. "But yeah, pretty much. It's the best way to learn things." His smile widened back into a smirk. "It's not like I have a semblance that just lets me magically know things, after all. That would just be silly."

The two of them snickered for a moment, and Ruby felt her curiosity beginning to rise again as she craned her neck slightly to see past him.

"So... can I see inside?"

Penn smiled a little wider. "First my blueprints, now my engines bay? What big eyes you have, Little Red..."

"What?"

"It's a reference to an old fairy tale from my world." He gave her a wink before kicking his feet up into the air. With a small grunt, he rolled back over the edge, dropping entirely out of sight. "Come on in, the oil's fine!"

For a second after he vanished, Ruby honestly expected to hear a splash.

"Sunset's right, it IS hard to tell when he's joking sometimes... " she muttered as a smile slowly crept up. "But that's kinda fun!" With a burst of speed, she dashed after him with her semblance and flew straight into the engine bay.

"AJ, you're coming on too strong! You need to back it down a bit!"

"I- I CAN'T! Mah geode's goin' nuts! It- It's like it's overcharged! I gotta get it off!"

"Just a few more seconds! Hang in there! It's almost there, I can feel- AAUGH!"

"RAINBOW DASH!"

Just as the world began to fall to pieces around them, everything froze, leaving Sunset in a world suspended in time. She could see everything in vivid detail. The glowing cracks in reality that had snapped open beneath them, the titanic dragon that had manifested above the school, and the crackling surges of rainbow-colored magic that had enveloped her friends were all there and frozen in time. With only a thought, she sunk down out of the air to walk around the area, struck by the strangeness of how natural this detached-from-reality state she was in felt. It was like she was floating through water, muffling every sensation.

"Hey, Sunset? You okay?"

She turned around to find Missy floating just behind her, eyes wide with worry. But Missy wasn't supposed to be here, was she? She wasn't from CHS, she was from after...

That was when it clicked. She was dreaming. Of course she was dreaming, that was the only thing that made sense. With that new awareness, she was able to shake off the fog clouding her conscious mind enough to speak.

"Yeah... I'm okay." She glanced back up at the cocoons of colored energy that had encased her fellow Rainbooms. "I guess seeing Rainbow Dash brought these memories back to the front of my mind."

Missy glanced around, placing her hands on her hips and letting out a low whistle. "Wow... So this was ground zero, huh? Where it all happened?"

"Where it all went wrong, you mean?" Sunset corrected as she looked longingly back at CHS. Somehow, seeing the school even in her memory drove a deep pang of homesickness deep into her heart.

"Hey, don't start beating yourself up again. If the multiverse hadn't broken, we all never would have met!" Missy chimed, floating over to take hold of her hand and give it a squeeze. "Come on, don't get down on me!"

Sunset smiled and returned the gesture. "I know. I think I'm past the point of wishing it had never happened. Now I just want to get everyone home, you know?"

"Well, of course! That's the whole point of our quest!" Missy chuckled and floated out slightly in front of her, examining the school more closely. "Gotta admit, I think you might have been playing a little too much Yu-Gi-Oh, though..."

Sunset blinked, confused at the sudden swerve in the conversation.

"Why do you say that?"

Missy chuckled and pointed up at the dragon above the school. "Well, you're even seeing duel spirits in your dreams. now!"

Sunset blinked several times, then looked back up at the dragon. "That's... that's not a duel spirit. I think I was just hallucinating, but that was one of the last things I saw before I passed out."

Missy slowly turned around, and Sunset immediately knew she'd said something much more important than she realized. Her eyes were wide and all signs of color had drained from her face.

"Sunset... you're kidding, right? This is some kind of practical joke?"

"No?" Sunset felt a trickle of fear at Missy's sudden seriousness. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Missy floated down to the ground, eyes still wide as she turned back around to stare at the dragon, finally settling down to sit on the pavement.

"You've got to be kidding me... You're kidding... No way..." she kept repeating to herself, clearly in shock.

"What, what is it?" Sunset looked rapidly between Missy and the dragon, the implication of her reaction rapidly settling in. "Are you saying that dragon is some kind of duel spirit?"

"It's not just ANY duel spirit..." Missy mumbled. "That's a BIG one, Sunset. That's RAINBOW DRAGON. That's the ace monster of one of the most influential archetypes of the second series... And one of the most elusive and powerful duel spirits." She finally spread her wings and floated back up, though only just enough to keep the tips of her toes from scraping on the ground when she turned around. "I mean, that's like if I told you I saw Princess Celestia in my world the night before the Ghostrick Mansion burned to the ground! You'd have no idea what it means, but you'd KNOW they were related!" She gestured up to the dragon. "WELL, THAT'S HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW!"

Sunset looked at Missy, then back at the dragon again. "I... don't understand. Why would a spirit like that be at CHS? None of us played the game, or anything!"

"I don't know for sure, but... I think..." Missy shook her head in disbelief. "If Rainbow Dragon was there when the multiverse broke, there might be more to what happened than any of us know. A LOT more."

It was Sunset's turn to sit down out of shock. "You mean... it might not have been our fault?"

The two of them sat there while the dream wound down, each staring at the dragon that Sunset had previously thought was a hallucination.

Now she realized that it just might be the key to figuring out what went wrong.

Weiss did NOT like bed rest.

For all the "spoiled girl" images people seemed to have of her, she was accustomed to working hard and working constantly, and being told to sit around all day and do nothing really ate away at her nerves.

Well, almost nothing. Her newly-assigned physical therapist was making sure that she spent at least a couple hours this morning doing basic exercises... that had been the most excruciating thing she'd ever done.

But once the pain and the soreness had worn off, she'd started to feel anxious again. She wanted to get up and get moving again, get back to training or back to working with her team... but for now, all that she could do was re-re-read her class notes... despite classes not currently being in session.

Yang had caught her up on most of what she'd missed while she was out. Apparently, there was now a permanent blizzard raging outside because Baalchion had started the process of terraforming Remnant, in spite of all their efforts to slow down his invasion. Sunset and her friends had come back, only to be nearly killed and left stranded by an ambush attack as soon as they arrived, putting them already on the back foot and trying to recover lost ground. In a display of utter gall, the monsters of Baalchion's army had come right up to Beacon's doorstep, as if completely unafraid of the huntsmen and huntresses inside. Most concerning to Weiss, however, was the thing that she hadn't talked much about at all.

Yang was... different. In a bad way. Weiss was stuck in bed all day by force. Yang was staying there by choice. She said that she was "watching over her," but no matter how many times Weiss told her she could go, Yang seemed to have no interest in rejoining the world. She just... sat. Sometimes she'd flip through her scroll, sometimes she'd just sit and stare into empty space or at her burned-up arm. Weiss could tell that it was her arm that bothered her the most, but it was more than skin-deep. Sometimes, when she was trying to sleep or just resting her eyes for a bit, Weiss could hear Yang muttering things.

"Shoulda been faster..."

"Why did I do that?"

"Stupid..."

"Where were they?"

Sometimes she would flex her charcoal-like hand in and out, sending ashy crumbs all over her bedsheets as the friction rubbed away the substance of her fingers. Once, she'd gotten up and thrown a punch at the wall, only for her hand to shatter into tiny pieces and leave her with only a blackened stub at her elbow. What worried Weiss the most, however, were the moments when Yang was completely still. Once in a while, she would completely freeze. Her eyes would become unfocused and her breathing would pick up in speed. That feeling seemed to swell in the room, and Weiss could see flickering and embers rising off of her hair, as if her semblance was trying to activate on its own.

Whatever had happened when she had fallen unconscious that let Yang end that fight, it had come at a cost, and not just a physical one. Deep down, Weiss cursed herself for not being strong enough to protect her teammates properly. She didn't feel like she deserved to try and comfort Yang after her pitiful performance.

After I passed out, I was just dead weight...

A firm rapping of knuckles against wood brought Weiss's mind back to the present. She and Yang exchanged a well-practiced glance, each nodding to the other to confirm that they were fine with the visitor.

"Come in!" Yang called.

Weiss nearly jumped out of the bed with excitement at the sight of the white-haired woman entering the room. Her hair was done up in a tight bun and she was dressed in a perfectly-kept military uniform. She held herself with with air of a woman in complete control, but Weiss knew her well enough to see the relief in her eyes, the tiny lines in her face of barely-restrained emotions. Those little signs alone conveyed more than most words ever could between them.

"Winter!" Weiss was glad that her voice was returning quickly, she would rather have buried herself under a mountain than let her sister hear the croaking that had initially been coming out of her mouth. She instantly caught the emotional outburst, remembering all the work that her older sister had put into teaching her proper decorum when she was "working." Weiss did her best to bow her head slightly. "You honor us with your presence..."

"Weiss... It is good to see your recovery moving quickly." Winter eyed the equipment with a critical look. "When I heard that a medical transport could not travel in these conditions, I had my doubts that an... improvised arrangement... would be of sufficient quality." Weiss's heart almost melted at Winter's concern. "But it seems that my doubts were proven wrong."

"Beacon Academy and my teammates were by my side every step of the way." Weiss gestured to where Yang was watching from.

"I was privileged enough to have access the the records regarding your battles at Evernight." Her eyes narrowed somewhat in what, to anyone else, would look like mild annoyance. "I cannot believe that Professor Ozpin would send students on reconnaissance missions. The sheer inadequacy of a headmaster who would make such a decision boggles the mind."

Yang pushed forward a bit. "Hey, watch what you say about the Professor! He knows what he's doing!"

"Does he?" Winter turned her icy gaze on Yang. "When facing an unknown enemy of indeterminate number and unforeseeable abilities, he sent teams of first year students to gather data, rather than an experienced team. No matter their former heroics, that strikes me as an act of folly."

Before Yang could give an angry retort, however, another voice spoke up from the doorway, cutting her off.

"It wasn't a matter of experience, of which Team RWBY has more than most first-years, but a matter of informational security." All eyes in the room turned to Penn, who was standing in the doorframe with a tray in each hand. Today's flowery shirt was sky-blue and white, and his cargo pants were covered in oil stains that showed he'd been working in the workshop before the sun was even up. He gave a polite nod to Winter before glancing over at Yang for the sign to enter. When he had permission he stepped in and walked to Weiss's bed, placing the first tray on her lap.

"Director Bakersfield."

"Specialist Schnee."

Penn and Winter both regarded one another with the cold detachment of professionalism, but the tension in the air was palpable.

"Teams RWBY and JNPR were the only ones who knew that Remnant was facing transdimensional threats after dealing directly with me and Sunset. I agree that putting them on the front lines was a stupid decision, but apparently information leaks like a sieve around Beacon, so I can understand keeping the circle of trust as tight as possible. Take into consideration that they were only ordered to survey the numbers of a minor expeditionary force and it makes more sense why the mission SEEMED low-risk."

He lifted the dome off of the tray, allowing a delicious-smelling plume of steam up into Weiss's face.

"We're trying to ease your body back into solid food, so today's breakfast is soft-scrambled eggs and a side of pears with an apple reduction sauce. Orange juice and mint tea on the side. Orange juice is to help with recovery and mint tea is a good remedy for counterentropic exposure. Make sure you drink all of both."

Weiss gave him a grateful nod. For some reason, after everyone's positive reception to the "French Toast" he'd made (which was almost exactly like Mantle Toast), he'd taken the encouragement to mean he could take over bringing meals to her and Yang. While normally, Weiss would have been somewhat offended at his quick presumption...

...the food was REALLY good, and he seemed incapable of making small portions.

"Low-risk or not, students should NOT have been on the front lines!" Winter countered, showing a surprising amount of emotion.

"I wholeheartedly agree." Penn rolled his eyes as he carried the second tray to Yang. "But it helps to understand both sides of an argument before casting judgement." He pulled the cover off of the tray, revealing a sizable pile of food. "And for Yang, two grande-sized breakfast burritos, loaded with all the works! Plus a side of bacon, hash browns, fresh fruit, a chocolate milkshake, and a bottle of the hottest hot sauce I could find!"

"Dude, you're the best, I was starving!" Yang grinned as she picked up the first of the burritos (which was almost the size of her forearm) and ripped the entire top off in a single bite.

"Hm. Enjoy having your metabolism that high while you can..." Winter mused.

"Actually, it's probably going to be like that for the rest of her life," Penn countered, taking a second to lean against the wall and admire his handiwork. "After what she did, I think she's gotten a direct tie back to the same entropic forces that empower Chiracians."

There was a long period of silence as everyone in the room stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. He held up his hand and pointed to it.

"I think, somehow, Yang's semblance let her channel such high amounts of raw kinetic energy that she became a channel for what Chiracians call the 'primal light.' It's just entropic energy with no mind or will of its own. The decaying and aging effects were confined to her arm, so she's not gonna turn into an old lady like Rainbow Dash, but she's pretty much going to be a caloric black hole from now on." He shrugged, as if the information was nothing special. "Honestly, the fact is that, to save her team, Yang pulled off something that Chiracian fire priests spend DECADES trying to achieve by sheer instinct. Those of the faith might just call it a miracle."

"Having read the debriefing about their foe, I would certainly agree with the assessment that they're lucky to be alive... in spite of Professor Ozpin's decision-making." Winter nodded.

Yang, who had stopped to stare at her arm again, gritted her teeth at that. She gripped her charred fist tight enough that the coal began to splinter and crack as she shook with barely-contained rage. Finally, her emotions seemed to reach a peak.

"GRAH!"

With a slam and the sharp clatter of coal flying in all directions, she slammed her hand against the nightstand, causing it to shatter all over the room. For their parts, Penn and Winter both did a good job at looking unperturbed by Yang's outburst. As they all stood in awkward silence for a few seconds, Yang's outburst seemed to peter out, and she sullenly used her remaining hand to pick up the burrito and resume her feeding frenzy.

Winter gave Weiss a questioning look, and Weiss felt a small flush of secondhand embarrassment at the fact that she couldn't explain her friend's violent behavior.

"Well, considering it looks like Weiss's wellness is well in hand, I'll be taking my leave."

"Don't let the door insubordinate you on the way out."

Winter turned to stare at him, and Penn returned her glare with a carefree grin.

"Professor Ozpin may attest to your trustworthiness, but I'm having a hard time believing that any organization lead by such a lackadaisical man could be capable of saving anyone."

"Well, in my experience, the military industrial complex grinds too many individual minds into homogeneous, order-following paste for me to care what they so-called 'think'." Penn countered, meeting her gaze without so much as a tremor in his tone.

Winter bristled at that, but seemed to choose to bite her tongue rather than escalate. With a huff, she stepped out the door, closing it with enough force for the sound to make Penn flinch. Once the sound of her heels had disappeared down the hallway, let out a sigh of relief and slumped back against the wall.

"Hey, Weiss?"

"Yes?"

"Is your sister single, or is she in a committed relationship with that stick up her a-"

"PFFFFT!"

His last word was cut off by the sound of Yang spitting her drink halfway across the room.

"AHAHAHAHA-"

"How DARE you!"

"-HAHAHAHAHAHA-"

"My sister is a respected, high-ranking member of the Atlesian Special Operations-"

"HAHAHA- OHMYGOSH- HAHAHAH!"

"-and not only would she NEVER stoop to dating someone as- as lackadaisical as you-"

"OH, DUDE, I ALMOST CHOKED!"

"-but she does NOT have a 'stick up her rear!' She is a shining example to every soldier in Atlas!"

"Warn me next time you're gonna say something like that!"

Penn didn't seem to pay any mind to Weiss's reproach, focusing mostly on Yang's uproarious response to his words.

"Feeling a little better, Goldilocks?"

Yang wiped a tear from her eye with her good hand. "Y-yeah... a little."

"Good." Penn's smile faltered a bit. "I'm sorry for what I said about what happened being miraculous. I wasn't thinking."

Yang's smile also disappeared. "N-no, it's okay-"

"No, it wasn't." Penn's demeanor changed into a more serious look. one that managed to dry up any remaining levity.

"Look, no matter how fortunate it was that you girls survived, it's a really shoddy thing to sit here and tell you that you're lucky when one of you lost an arm and the other just came out of a coma." Penn's brow furrowed in frustration. "And I bet you've been hearing it a lot."

"Well, it's true..." Weiss mumbled. "We went up against an enemy we could barely comprehend and won."

"You ran headfirst into one of the worst things you possibly could have on a recon mission, and you did it because the commander you trusted decided that it was better to risk your safety with incomplete information than to risk exposing the invasion to others." Penn's eyes were locked on the far wall in a glare that looked like it could light tinder. Somewhere in the back of Weiss's mind, she wondered if he could somehow see Ozpin through the walls. "That's anything but lucky." He let out a long, hissing sigh before finally relaxing enough to stop glaring at the wall.

"Let's call a spade a spade, here. No matter how lucky you two got, this whole situation SUCKS, and you're within your rights to be upset." He reached down into his pocket and took out a small candy, which he proceeded to unwrap and pop into his mouth. "To quote a much-beloved musician where I come from... 'I don't need positive affirmations, I need to scream and bawl. The unrealistic expectations won't help with this at all.'"

Weiss and Yang both stared at him, trying to wrap their heads around what he was saying.

"It means it's okay to be mad or sad that this happened. Even if you avoided the worst, it was still BAD."

Both of them sat quietly for a few seconds, and Weiss couldn't help but recall her earlier thoughts.

"I... I'm mad. I'm mad at myself for being too weak to protect my teammates." Weiss finally murmured. "My semblance should be stronger, if I could just live up to my potential, I could have gone on the offensive! Instead, not three minutes into the fight and I was dead weight... Yang had to carry the whole team on her back because I couldn't be a good-"

"Are you kidding?"

Yang's disbelief was overwhelming. For the first time since Weiss had woken up, Yang jumped out of her bed stomped over. She slammed her remaining hand on the bed, ensuring that she had Weiss's full attention.

"You held the line! Even when you were unconscious, your glyphs kept us safe! Even after you were unconscious, somehow, you kept standing! Without you, all of us would have died! YOU were the one who did all of the protecting! All I did was get hurt for five minutes until I finally blew a gasket!" Yang threw her hand up into the air and turned away. "I mean, YOU had to pay the price for MY stupid idea! I was the one who wanted to stick around and fight that thing! If we'd just fallen back like you said, nobody would have gotten hurt!" Weiss could see tears falling from Yang's eyes, but she didn't seem to even notice, continuing on as if nothing had changed.

"I mean, I put all of you at risk for my stupid thrill-seeking! I'd never lost a fight before, so I thought I could just tackle ANYTHING and come up on top! You, Blake, my own sister! All of you could have died!" She spun around, pointing to the stump of her arm. "I mean, if ANYBODY deserved to lose a limb, it was ME! Stupid, cocky ME!"

Silence fell hard over the room. Weiss was horrified. Penn's mouth was pressed into a tight line.

"I... I..." Yang stepped back, eyes wide as if she was hearing her own words for the first time. She fell onto her bed, sitting on the edge and staring at the place where her arm used to be.

"I screwed up... and now part of me is gone. It's never coming back."

There was a long pause between the three of them. Yang laid back on her bed, starting to pull the covers back over herself.

"Yang..."

Penn was rubbing at his chin, brow furrowed in thought. "Not necessarily."

Weiss and Yang both did their best to sit up in a hurry. Both girls had their eyes glued on Penn instantly. He held his hands up in a show of surrender before they could begin hurling questions at him. "It's not going to get your flesh-and-bone arm back, but there's a way to make what you've got as good or better than your original." He reached into his pocket, rooting around as he stepped over towards Yang. "It's not going to be easy, either. You're going to have to learn a new skill and get VERY good at it."

As he came up alongside Yang's bed, now holding something out to her in his closed hand.

"It'll never work if you don't think you deserve your hand back, though."

For a second, Yang's expression seemed to falter. For the first time, Weiss saw doubt in Yang's eyes.

Penn seemed to see the same thing, sighing and beginning to pull his hand back again.

"Do it, Yang."

Yang turned to look at her, and Weiss gave her best confident smirk.

"Seeing you like this... it feels wrong. You're the least 'armless person I've ever known. You need to get back up, Yang... for all of us." Weiss shook her head. "The team isn't the same when you're down like this."

"But-"

"My memory might be a little... jumbled, but I remember that monster taking the first swing, and YOU jumped in to protect us. If it wasn't for you, Ruby would have gotten infected, instead, and she couldn't have burned that thing out like you did." Weiss took a deep breath. "And I swear, if you don't beat this, THAT'S going to be your fault and I will never forgive you for it!"

Yang continued to stare at her for a few seconds. Weiss doubted for a second that her words had gotten through to her friend... until Yang's eyes narrowed and the barest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She turned back to Penn and put her open hand under his closed one.

"I'll take it."

Penn smiled and opened his hand. A group of small, dull, silvery-colored objects dropped from his hand into hers. Yang lifted her palm up to her face, completely and utterly confused.

"They're... uh... little metal balls?"

"Lead fishing weights." Penn smirked. "It's as low of a starting point as I can give you." He pointed to her charcoal arm, which was already starting to regrow from her elbow. "When your hand comes back, don't try to hit things with it, it'll just shatter. Instead..." he reached down and curled her fingers around the weights. "I want you to imagine your arm, your hand, is a forge, a bed of red-hot coals, and your breathing is the bellows. Breathing in pulls air through the coals, priming them..." He pointed to her mouth, then began to travel his fingertip down her throat until it rested just above her collarbone. "Pull the air into the core of your body, just above and behind your stomach, under your heart, right at your diaphragm. Imagine this space at your core as a 'fire lung,' a special lung that gathers energy like your regular lungs gather carbon dioxide: to send it up and out."

Yang glanced down at his finger, then back up at Penn with a skeptical look. Penn sighed, obviously making an effort to look anywhere but down.

"Look, if I go any lower this is gonna get awkward. Just... visualize."

Yang rolled her eyes, closed them, and then took a deep breath. "Doesn't sound much different from my dad's training, actually..."

"Good. Now, while air sits in that fire lung, it grows hotter and hotter... The longer you hold it, the more that heat builds." He pulled his gesturing hand away, moving to gently press it at the small of her back. Weiss's eyes widened when he instantly ripped his hand away, shaking it as if he'd burned himself on her skin. "Great job," he mumbled around the pair of smoking fingers he was now sucking on. "Now, when you exhale, let that heat come up with the air, follow the current."

When Yang exhaled, Weiss almost cried out in surprise. A small jet of golden flames was slipping out from between her lips, as if someone had lit a plasma torch at the tip of her tongue.

"Good..." Penn's voice was calm, but his body language told a different story. He was hopping up and down in place, occasionally biting down on his knuckles to hold back other giddy noises. "Now, take another breath in again, prime the coals of your arm-forge, and let your fire lung fill again..."

Yang did as she was hold. Penn glanced around, snatching a metal spoon off of the tray he'd brought.

"Now, I'm going to touch your back..." He pressed the spoon to Yang's back, in the same spot he'd burned himself a few seconds ago. "Now, this should be just behind where you visualize your fire lung. This time, when you exhale, I want you to imagine it going up through your body... and then taking a detour. You're not blocking it, or obstructing the flow, you're letting it take a different route." He brought the spoon up her spine, then up into her shoulder. Slowly, he traced it back down her arm before stopping at the coal-covered stub. "This time, when you exhale, the heat is going to flow down through your shoulder instead of up into your throat, and you're going to guide it back out through your arm-forge, stoking the coals to heights unknown, until they're not just glowing, but blinding."

Yang exhaled again. Weiss watched as a shimmer traveled through Yang's aura, moving up from her abdomen into her chest. As she let out her breath, most of it came out of her mouth, once again shooting out a plume of flame that made Penn jump back. To her surprise, though, a small portion of the effect moved into Yang's shoulder and down through her arm. The black coals at her stump glowed red, as if freshly stoked, and Weiss could see a pair of blackened protrusions begin to grow out of the stump. They were hardly more than a pair of small nubs where the bones of her arm ought to be, but they'd grown in just a few seconds.

"O-Okay, you can open your eyes again, Yang." Penn stammered, taking a moment to check himself for any unknown fires. Weiss could see that he seemed not to be noticing a small flame at the top of his hat.

Yang opened her eyes, looking utterly disappointed in the exercise. "So... what was that supposed to do and why did you give me fishing weights?"

"Well, the more your practice that, the faster you'll be able to regrow your arm, for one." Penn pointed at his elbow so that Yang would see the progress she had made. "And for Chiracian battle priests who practice this technique, they'll end up with ALL of their limbs charred off. The way they compensate for it is by melting metal into their arms. When you can properly stoke your arm forge, you can melt just about ANY metal by just holding it and using that technique to raise its temperature. The molten metal will flow down into your arm and fill the cracks and crevices. The stronger the metal, the stronger your arm and the more energy you can channel." He pointed back to Yang's hand, which was still cradling the lead weights. "Consider those step one. Lead has a relatively low melting point compared to a lot of metals out there. When you can melt those until they completely disappear into your arm, let me know and I'll take you up to the next level." He crossed his arms and smiled, somehow still unaware that his hat was on fire.

"So... I can add metal to my arm?"

"That's the idea. Then it'll stop breaking and you can REALLY whale on your opponents!" He pounded his fist into his palm for emphasis. "Fire and red-hot steel in the same punch!"

Yang looked down at her stump as if seeing it for the first time, then tightened her flesh hand's grip on the lead weights.

"I'll get it mastered in no time."

"Don't rush to get back on your feet." Penn gave her a smile. "You've been through a lot, and, as harsh as you were being, I think you spotted some very real cracks in your mental foundations." He rapped his knuckles against the side of his skull to illustrate. "You won't be able to balance your energy until you can balance your heart with your head, and that can take a lifetime to figure out. Even I haven't got it down, and I've been trying to understand it since I dropped out of college." He smiled and reached up to his hat, sweeping it back and forth through the air before patting out the last of the flames with his hand. "Then again, you strike me as being pretty clever, so maybe you'll beat me to it!"

With the fire put out, he affixed the still-smoking hat back on his head and gave them each a nod.

"See ya for lunch, Weiss." He gave Yang a smirk and pointed to her as he walked backwards towards the door. "YOU, however, just proved you CAN get out of that bed, so you're gonna have to come get it yourself!" As he reached the threshold, he spun around on his heel and gave them a wave.

"I'm still just your chef, not your waiter!"

The door swung shut with a soft click. Yang and Weiss both sat in silence before Yang set down the small weights and used her free hand to pick back up her burrito to begin to tearing into it again.

"So THAT'S where Missy gets it..." Weiss mused.

"Getsh wha?" Yang mumbled around a mouthful of food.

"Those moments of wisdom beyond her age..." Weiss smiled and scooped up another spoonful of her eggs.

The time passed relatively quietly while they finished their breakfasts. Somehow, Yang managed to finish at least three times the amount of food in the same amount of time.

"So... how long were you going to let his hat burn before you told him his head was on fire?"

"I was just counting off how long it would take for him to notice!"

The two of them shared a chuckle for a few seconds.

"...do you think he's right? That I can come back stronger, even after everything that's happened?" Yang murmured, a hint of that painful doubt still creeping into her voice.

"I think that's your decision to make." Weiss took a sip of her tea. The mint gave a refreshing coolness to her mouth, but the moment it struck her stomach, she could feel warmth and strength begin to spread through her body. "Personally, I don't have a doubt that you can, Yang. You just have to choose to believe in yourself again. Not cockiness, but an honest understanding of what you're capable of."

"...thanks, Weiss."

Before the two of them could fall back into comfortable silence, the door to their room burst open, revealing a haggard-looking Sunset, still in her pajamas and clearly having just jumped out of bed.

"PENN?"

Weiss and Yang both had to stare at her for a second to process what she was asking.

"You, uh, just missed him."

"Is something wrong, Sunset?"

Missy's head poked up from over Sunset's shoulder, where she was clearly holding on for dear life. She put one hand to her head to steady herself.

"We found a clue about why the multiverse went kablooey... but we aren't sure what to make of it."

"Well, I think he was headed back to the kitchen, he mentioned lunch!" Yang pointed in the direction of the kitchen.

"Thanks!"

"Wait Sunset can we slow do-"

Missy's begging went unheeded as Sunset bolted down the hall again, yanking the little duel spirit along for the ride.

"HERE WE GO AGAIIIIIIIIN!" Missy's cry seemed to echo as it faded into the distance.

Weiss couldn't help but snicker a little once they were gone.

"Never a dull moment around here... it's good to see some things never change."

Now more than ever, she REALLY wanted to be done with her bed rest so that she could join back in the fun.

"You alright there, partner?"

"I'm good." Penn sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"You sure? You dug a little deep on helping out Yang, there. That came from a personal place."

"Look, if I can stop one kid from learning the same lessons I did about burning out the hard way, then I'm happy with that."

"I'm proud of you, buddy."

Penn smiled and let his hand slip down into his pocket. With a flick and a twirl, a pen was in his hands. A flash later and the pen was disassembled, leaving only the ink-filled cartridge in his hand. He lifted the small plastic piece to his lips and bit into it.

It tasted so good. Pen ink tended to be watered down, but he'd found a brand with the good stuff a few days before they arrived. It always seemed to be exactly the flavor he was craving at the moment. Today, it was sweet, but also spicy, like a spiced syrup. He could feel the temptation to greedily suck it all down threaten to overwhelm him. He was already letting the taste spread over his tongue, it would be so easy to just-

Nuh-uh-uh... didn't say the magic word! he chided, trying to direct his thoughts towards Bendy.

In an act of willpower, he snatched the cartridge from his own mouth and tipped the contents into his hand. He watched the black liquid pool in the center of his palm, rippling and rocking back and forth with each small motion he made. After a moment, he gathered up a bit of saliva in his mouth and spit a few drops of his own body's ink to add to the mass that was already there. The two types of ink were separated for a moment, but they only took a moment to blend and coalesce into a single mass.

Perhaps more importantly, however, he could feel it there.

It was an... odd sensation. But he could sense the ink. He could feel its presence, its location, its state of matter... and its potential, all like it was an extension of his own flesh. It was something he'd been experiencing for a while. He'd noticed it a couple weeks after they'd beaten Bendy into his subconscious, that he could feel the ink Isis was giving him to drink before he ever saw it, but he'd never had much chance to experiment with it in private... until now.

He tried to concentrate in the same way that he'd instructed Yang. He took a deep breath, then imagined a force gathering in his stomach. When he exhaled, he let it flow up, over to his shoulder, through his arm, and finally into his hand.

Bloop!

With a wet splashing sound, the ink welled up into a bubble, rapidly inflating and popping. Penn felt a moment of panic as he realized that ink was going to splatter everywhere, including on one of his favorite shirts.

"Oh, CRA- huh?"

Just as his body had tensed with worry, the ink bubble had frozen mid-pop. The ink itself still had the sheen and the ripples of a liquid, but it was hanging in the position of the splatter just before the drops were about to separate from the main mass.

He lifted his hand closer to his face, examining the moment that seemed to be frozen in time. As he let go of the tension in his body, however, the ink receded back into a puddle in his palm.

"I think it's responding to you!"

"Me, too..." Penn grinned as his excitement began to build. "This is really cool."

Using his other hand, he reached down into the puddle and pinched the ink as best he could. It didn't feel like he had anything between his fingertips, but when he pulled it up, a trickle of ink rose up along with it. When he let go, that trickle stayed in place, simply swaying back and forth in the wind. Penn had a toothy grin a mile wide as he tipped one of his fingertips back into the puddle and dabbed it at the top, leaving a black circle stuck to the top. With a smile, he started dabbing his finger over and over along the edges of the circle until he'd gone all the way around the circumference.

It wasn't any simpler than a finger painting, but he was now holding an inky flower in the palm of his hand.

"Hmm... lemmie try something..." he mumbled to no one in particular. He placed his "drawing" finger on his tongue and sucked off all the ink (sooo tasty), then placed his now-clean fingertip in the center of the flower. After a few seconds of rubbing, the black color began to fade, wiping away until only a pale sepia color remained in the center along with a few lingering black smudges.

"Huh... neat."

As he watched, the black smudges grew smaller and smaller, concentrating until they were two pie-cut eyes and a pencil-thin smile.

"Howdy!"

"WAUGH!"

Penn clapped his hands back together, pulverizing the fake Flowey and instantly reducing it back to a puddle of lifeless back liquid.

Penn, for his part, was shocked beyond belief.

Was my subconscious puppeteering that, or did I just create LIFE?

"Whatever it was, don't do it again!"

I'm NOT going to!

With the attempt at ink-o-mancy now completely thwarted, Penn downed the now-inactive ink in a single gulp, letting the soothing flavor calm his nerves.

"Well, it's not a bad start, but I can tell just by looking at you that your potential is MUCH greater."

"HNGASHGHRGHUK!"

Penn nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Salem's voice, his terror carrying him almost a full foot into the air before he hit the ground running in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, after a few seconds of not going anywhere, he realized that Salem had him by the back of his shirt collar and was holding him in place.

"That was an interesting sound. I thought we agreed to speak like adults?"

Realizing that running was fruitless, Penn let himself slow to a stop and yanked the back of his shirt free of her grip.

"Stop sneaking up on me!"

Looking at her smug smirk, Penn KNEW she'd crept up behind him on purpose again.

"You need to get used to my presence, Penn, otherwise our little 'Save the world' mission will never succeed."

Penn felt his face flush with anger at her using his nickname again, but he couldn't decide if it was better or worse than just letting her casually throw his real name around.

"Well, Sally, have you ever thought about trying a more gradual transition than to give me a heart attack every five minutes?"

For a split second, the look of annoyance on her face plunged him into worry that he'd overstepped. In contrast to his fears, however, he wasn't thrown against a wall, gripped by the throat, or hurled into a deep, dark cell to be tortured at her leisure. Instead, she reached down and pulled his hand up to eye level, carefully examining his palm for any lingering remains.

"You have a gift not dissimilar to my relationship with the grimm." She stated. "But you have no training, no control. Without those things, your power will control YOU, rather than the other way around." She turned her gaze back to meet his, and Penn could spy a flash of red that sent shivers down his spine. Sure, she looked like an ordinary young woman now, but he could never forget the monster that was hiding just beyond that skin-deep illusion.

"I'll manage..." he mumbled, pulling back on his hand. To his surprise, Salem's grip on him was like steel, trapping his hand in her grip. With one hand, she held her palm just above his, hovering the two only a few inches apart. His eyes widened as he felt a tickle on his palm. Beads of black liquid began to rise out of his skin, pooling back together into another puddle of ink. Before he could even question what was happening, the puddle rose up and took shape on its own, transforming into the familiar shape of a beowolf. The tiny grimm had a sepia-colored mask and claws, but other than being slightly off-color, it looked like an otherwise perfect recreation.

Penn was so confounded as he watched the little grim pace up and down the length of his hand, he forgot his fear for a moment.

"How..."

"I told you before, we are not so different. Less so now than ever before." Salem finally released her grip on his hand, and the miniature grimm collapsed back into a puddle. "I will teach you."

Penn watched the drawn-out ink sink back into his skin before his brain caught up to Salem's words. "Doesn't sound like you're giving me much of a choice."

"If you refuse, you'll be consumed by it, without doubt." Salem let his snide comment pass unopposed. "As your ally, however temporary, I would be remiss not to help you."

"I've been through the 'consumed by it' stage..." Penn mumbled. "Not fun."

Salem nodded, then turned to leave. "Meet me in my room at nine o'clock. Do NOT be late. We don't have much time, so be prepared, this will be intense."

As Salem disappeared around the corner, Penn felt a swell of nervous anticipation. On one hand, he might actually have POWERS, something that could help him fight on the same level as Sunset and Missy!

"On the other hand, you're going to have to be locked alone in a room with our arch-nemesis in the middle of the night to be 'taught' how to use them. Probably in a brutal fashion. You sure you want to do this?"

Penn looked down at his hand, the hand from which inky life had spontaneously sprung two times in as many minutes.

"I don't think I have a choice. If I reject what I can do, then I'm handicapping myself, and I refuse to be dead weight for the girls."

"You're NOT dead weight, you're the brains!"

"Yeah, well, I wasn't good enough brains to keep us from getting banjaxed, was I?" he mumbled.

"That wasn't your fault! Somebody leaked that we were coming!"

"Either way, I could have done better. Been a better teammate." He placed the remains of the ink cartridge in his mouth. "If I have to go through Salem to make that happen, then I'll do it."

"...if you say so. I'll be with you every step of the way, Aibou... Oh, by the way, Missy incoming."

"Wha-"

"PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

With only the whining sound of his name as a warning, a small body slammed into Penn from behind, nearly knocking him off of his feet. Piano-key wings assured him that it was Missy who had gotten the drop on him, this time.

"Woah! What is it, what's wrong?" Penn could feel a shot of adrenaline being injected straight into his veins at the thought that some danger had breached Beacon's walls. Seeing Sunset running to catch up still in her pajamas and with her hair everywhere didn't help to assuage his fears.

"We... found... something!" Sunset gasped for air as she slowed to a stop in front of him.

"The explosion might not have been all their fault!" Missy added.

Penn's already tense nerves grew more nervous. "There was an explosion? Where? Who's hur-"

"The... first one!" Sunset gasped, finally straightening up and getting her breathing under control. "The one at CHS."

"The one that blew up the Multiverse!" Missy added. "We got a clue about what really happened!"

As the realization of what they were saying sunk in, Penn felt the immediate worry fade, replaced by deep intrigue. He carefully pried Missy off of his back and pushed her into Sunset's arms, all while looking her straight in the eyes.

The truth was, Sunset's story had bothered him since the beginning. Something about the idea of two sets of Elements of Harmony, in the hands of their rightful wielders, managing to turn ONE little wormhole into a full-blown multiversal crisis, just felt like a point from Point A to Point Omega, and he'd been pondering on it since the day he'd met Sunset... to little avail. There just wasn't enough information to put a picture together...

So he stared Sunset straight in the eyes, trying to get every possible speck of information she could give him, conscious or not.

"Start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop."

Sunset nodded. "Okay, so I was lucid dreaming the memory of the day of the explosion..."

Meanwhile, sitting above the trio, just on the other side of the ceiling tiles, was a little dragon that had been listening to BOTH exchanges VERY intently.

As she listened to Sunset recounting her tale, with every aspect of what opened the doors of the multiverse in sharp detail, Aurelia began to pray.

Lord Chirac, whose light shines eternal, let your humble servant be your eyes and ears today...

"...I'm sorry, but I really have NO idea what that could mean."

Sunset and Missy both visibly deflated at Penn's words.

"But... it has to mean SOMETHING, right?" Missy half-begged.

"Oh, absolutely! I just have no idea WHAT!" Penn sighed as his brow furrowed. "The only way to figure out what was going on would be to ask Rainbow Dragon, itself. That card is an enigma at the BEST of times, outright impossible to find at the worst." He rubbed at his chin as he fell deeper into thought. "It's possible that the Crystal Beasts' chosen duelist is out there somewhere in the multiverse, if we could find Jesse Anderson we might be able to ask HIM, but depending on where he is on his own timeline, he might not even HAVE Rainbow Dragon's card! The best thing to do would be to try to track down the card spirit and ask directly..."

"Well, do you have that card?" Sunset asked. "You have a ton of powerful cards, right?"

"It's not that simple..." Missy murmured. "He might have the card, but it's not necessarily THE card..."

Both of them turned to look at the young duel spirit, who gave a sad sigh.

"Look... I haven't been home much since I started traveling with you guys, but Alucard keeps me up to date with current events, and there's been a... split among duel spirits. When the multiverse opened up, well, all the worlds where Yu-Gi-Oh is just a game started making connections back to us! Suddenly, there were a lot more cards than spirits." She sighed. "And a small percentage of those cards, the ones that really had a piece of their duelist's heart and soul in them... started becoming their own spirits. They weren't quite the same as the originals, though... most were weaker, some were stronger, some had slight differences in their powers and abilities. Either way, though, since people tend to love ace monsters and those with significance in the show the most, suddenly there were a LOT of powerful duel spirits running around that only existed in people's heads just a few months ago!"

Missy sighed and shook her head. "Unfortunately, I think that's how Joshua got Ra on his side, how Salem got Uru to listen to her, and... unfortunately, why trying to just summon Rainbow Dragon wouldn't work. We'd just be creating what most duel spirits have been calling a 'reprint' spirit. We'd either need to find the real, original card from its home dimension, or need to go looking for where it's hiding in the Duel Spirit Realm." She took a second to physically put air quotes around the word "reprint." "If you ask me, a spirit's a spirit, but I don't make the rules... unfortunately."

Sunset tilted her head in confusion for a second. Just as she opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question, Missy interrupted her.

"No, I'm not a reprint, I'm an OG duel spirit."

Sunset closed her mouth again.

After several seconds of the group sitting in silence, Penn shook his head and sighed.

"Rainbow Dragon being there when the portal blew IS important information, but we can't really act on it until we find a way to get the whole crew able to move between our world and the duel spirits' realm freely. As much as I hate to say it, we're probably going to have to stick a pin in this one for later."

"I'll ask the Ghostricks to keep an ear to the ground about the Ace of the Crystal Beasts, but... like Penn said, it's an enigma at best." Missy sighed. "I'd be lucky to hear a rumor of a rumor."

Sunset looked thoroughly disappointed. "Well... Thanks, anyway. As much as I want to know why this all happened, I guess it's not as important as the fact that it did and we're here now."

"Agreed."

"Yeah! Whatever the reason, we're all together!" Missy cheered, taking the opportunity to wrap one arm around each of their necks and pull them into a tight hug. "Now come on, it's almost lunchtime!"

Missy's cheer seemed to be contagious, and bittersweet smiles appeared on both Penn and Sunset's faces. After a few seconds of embrace, Sunset finally pulled away to gesture at herself.

"Lunchtime? I'm still in my pajamas! I should at least go get changed!"

"Well, then it can be brunch!" Missy giggled.

Together, the trio began to wander in the general direction of the dorm's kitchen. As they walked, however, a plan was beginning to take form in one of their minds.

It wouldn't be fun, but it might get us some answers...

In Radian, Chirac opened his eyes. It wasn't often that he devoted such a large amount of his attention to a single scout's report, but this information had been most... enlightening.

"Duel spirits... A realm of game-playing elementals that, it seems, are tied to the destruction of the dimensional walls... fascinating."

With a thought akin to moving his tail, Chirac sent a wave of command through his scouts, a new directive to keep in the back of their minds as they worked to spread across the multiverse:

Find the home of the duel spirits. Find the one called Rainbow Dragon.

"Well, there he goes again..."

Sunset sighed as the kitchen door clicked shut behind her and Missy, immediately followed by the setting of the lock. The two of them stood there for a few seconds, surprised at the swiftness with which they'd managed to get shuffled out of the room by their best friend.

"You don't think he's gonna be in there until nightfall again, right?" Missy wondered.

"Definitely not. I mean, it's only half past noon!" Sunset scoffed. "What would he do for all... that... time?"

Sunset's faulty reasoning ground to a halt as visions of their thanksgiving feast danced in their heads.

"He wouldn't... right?"

"Depends on his mood." Missy leaned back and glanced thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Cooking is his happy place, and we've been through the wringer, lately." She gave Sunset a sideways glance. "Plus, we both have to admit that his impulse control's been getting worse since Bendy got inside him."

Sunset grimaced at that. Missy was telling the truth, as unpleasant as it may have been. When something important was on the line, Penn had always proven that he would make the smartest choice, but that self-control seemed to come more and more at the cost of becoming less restrained in his day-to-day life. It was never anything hurtful, of course... but it added up. A few extra sweets here, a few maniacal laughs there, a little disproportionate payback for a prank once in a while... He was taking the things he enjoyed just a little farther and farther, as if testing the boundaries of what he could get away with.

"The devil on his shoulder's a little louder than it's been in the past." Missy sighed. "That being said, it's a good thing that, for him, 'cutting loose' means cooking and working on his car, and not something more harmful."

Sunset nodded. "Still, do you think we should talk to him? I don't think he's even aware of it."

Missy pondered the question for a few seconds before shaking her head.

"If we're going to win this war with Baalchion, we'll need that manic energy of his. Once this is all over, maybe then it'll be worth bringing up."

"I don't like letting my friend deteriorate just because it's useful." Sunset narrowed her eyes.

"He's not deteriorating. He's just been letting a little more slack into his own leash!" Missy argued. "I think it's healthier than constantly keeping himself wound up tight as a spring, don't you?"

"...I guess you're right."

"Besides, we're SUPPOSED to be relaxing while we wait for his portal-closing weapons to be finished!" Missy added, floating up to lean in on Sunset's shoulder. "So RELAX! Maybe Penn's got the right idea, to begin with!"

Sunset raised an eyebrow and turned to look her partner in the eyes. "That's a funny thing for the angel on my shoulder to say."

Missy smirked right back at her. "Well, I AM an Angel of Mischief!"

The two of them took a moment to snicker together as someone else stepped around the corner.

"Oh, hey, Blake!"

Blake greeted them with a smile, only giving a small wave until she was closer.

Yeah, that's Blake for you. Always calm and cool on the surface.

"Hey, Sunset. How's it going?"

"Not bad..." Sunset decided to keep her earlier disappointment to herself. There was no point in sharing that dead end with Blake and bringing down the mood. "How about you?"

"Just got back from visiting Weiss and Yang. They had an...interesting story to tell."

Weiss and Yang? What-

"They said you were acting strange. I wanted to see if something was wrong."

Oh.

"Nono, I'm fine!" Sunset did her best to chuckle without sounding nervous. "I just had an urgent question for Penn about getting me and Rainbow Dash home, but it doesn't matter now."

Blake nodded, but Sunset noticed her bow press itself back slightly.

That's right... she has cat ears under there. If they're pressed back like that, is she upset? Sunset tried to remember what she could about cat mannerisms from working alongside Fluttershy.

"Well, if you're not busy right now, do you want to come see something?"

Sunset glanced at Missy, who simply shrugged in response.

"Sure."

For just a split second, Blake's eyes lingered on Missy. Missy simply tilted her head.

"Yeah, I'll tag along, too! I love surprises!"

Blake smiled and turned to leave, beckoning to them over her shoulder.

"This way, come on."

If It's War That You Want... Then You've Got It.

Penn hummed quietly to himself as he diced the vegetables as finely as possible by hand. Weiss had handled all the food she'd been given so far like a champ, and he wondered if he was being overly cautious with her. Her coma hadn't been EXCESSIVELY long, after all...

But either way, he didn't want to risk causing her pain, so tonight's fried rice would have vegetables so finely diced, they might just dissolve in the pan. If she could handle this without issue, then she could probably handle regular food without issue.

"Isis, play-"

His song request was cut off as a soft knocking came from the door. His first instinct was to hide from Salem, but that thought was immediately quashed by the fact that Salem wouldn't bother knocking.

"Mind if I watch?"

He practically breathed a sigh of relief as he recognized the voice. He turned on his heel and leaned back against the stove, trying not to let his burst of anxiety show as Blake Belladonna entered the room. She was clearly aware she was intruding, trying to give her most placating smile and look as small as possible.

I know I get a bit hot under the collar in the kitchen, but she's acting like she's approaching a wild animal!

"Long as you don't get in my way, I don't see a problem with it." Penn gave the most welcoming smile he could manage before turning back to the counter. "Oil's heating up in the pan, so don't get too close. It'll spit when I start adding stuff."

"Fair enough." Blake perked up and picked up a fair amount of confidence as she walked over to a nearby table to take a seat. "So, what are you making?"

Penn pointed his knife to the baking tray with a pile of white rice he'd left in the fridge the night before. "Fried rice! It's an easy, flexible recipe I can hammer out pretty quickly with the right prep! That way I can get back to working on other stuff just a little faster."

"Like what?"

"Well, getting the car fixed, for one..." Penn mumbled, more to himself than to Blake. "She's still a long way from being roadworthy, you know?"

"Well, considering it got thrown and rolled half a football field, nobody would expect it to be running again in a couple days..." Blake dismissed. "I'm surprised you're even trying to fix it, rather than getting a new one."

"That car is like family! I'd never give up on her that easily!" Penn chuckled. "I mean, it's basically a frame-up rebuild, but hey, I'm doing all I can to keep her spirit in it!"

"Cars have spirits?"

Penn wasn't facing her, but he could practically HEAR Blake's raised eyebrow. "Well, I think so. Haven't you run into a car with its own special quirks and behaviors? Things that only their driver knows about them? Some cars won't even drive at all if you don't know how to treat them the way they like!" He chuckled. "Sometimes they're even a little sassy about it, throwing hissy fits to spite their beloved driver, but in the end..." with a final decisive chop, he finished dicing the last of the celery stalks and began to turn back around to face his guest, "they always-"

Blake was up out of her chair, now, leaning against the table and giving him a quizzical look. He didn't know why, it made sense for Blake to be able to move quietly enough for him not to tell, but... something about the unexpected change threw him off.

She tilted her head as her bow shifted near-imperceptibly.

"Something wrong?"

I must be getting jumpy thanks to Salem...

"Nothing. Sorry, I guess I'm just a little more wound up than I thought!" He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves as he piled all of the hardier vegetables together on the cutting board and tipped them into the hot oil with an angry-sounding hiss and sputter. "As I was saying, they always do right by you if you do right by them, and that's enough for me to think they've got a little bit of a soul!"

"Hm... so it's reciprocity?"

"Well... not JUST that. " Penn shrugged, giving the vegetables a vigorous stir to prevent any from burning. "I think it's more than that. They're just... intricate enough to have unique interactions with just about anybody who gets behind the wheel. That feels 'alive' to me."

He wanted to keep all of his attention on the vegetables, but... he could feel paranoia on his back, prickling at his skin like an army of marching ants. He decided to just glance over his shoulder, just to soothe his nerves. Blake was still in the same spot. She tilted her head back in the opposite direction.

"Is something bothering you?"

Penn shook his head.

"Just... used to being alone in the kitchen. Guess I'm still on high alert." He shook his head, trying to force the antsy feeling to be back of his mind. It wasn't fair on Blake to be so suspicious. There wasn't any good reason for him to treat her like this.

"Sorry, I'm not trying to make you nervous." Blake stepped up beside him, joining him at the stove to watch his cooking more closely. "If you're just going to work on the car, what about stopping Baalchion?"

Penn shrugged and gave the vegetables another stir. Most of them were browning nicely. He reached over towards the rice, picking up the tray and tipping its contents into the pan.

"That's just a matter of waiting. We don't have enough netherite, yet, but the forge is going full-tilt for now, whether I'm there or not." He pointed to the table, where his two shields were sitting. "Now that you mention it, I probably SHOULD get back to training with the prototypes... I guess working on the car can wait." He swapped which hand was turning over the pile of white rice as he reached for the various bottles of sauces and seasonings. "You know, once I finish the vegetarian portion, do you think I should finish this off with chicken or seafood? I'm kind of craving shrimp."

Blake pondered the question for a few seconds, humming to herself with thought.

"Chicken."

There was that buzzing paranoia in the back of his head, again, one that made the skin on his arm closest to her prickle and the hair on his neck stand on end. Why? What was wrong? He was safe, here!

"Chicken, it is!" he cheerfully replied as he reached for a spoon. The rice had turned a perfect shade of brown and was giving a fragrant aroma. He scooped up a spoonful and gave it a long blow to cool it off. He chewed on the food for a few seconds, savoring the taste as best he could. "Hmm... you mind tasting this? I think it needs more sesame oil."

"Sure!"

He grabbed a fresh spoon and scooped up another serving, making sure to get as much variety of ingredients as possible before passing it to her. He held it up at face level, offering it to her. Rather than gripping the spoon, however, Blake took a hold of his wrist and moved the spoon to her mouth. They both stood like that for a few seconds as she mulled over the flavor. Penn tried to pull his hand back, but her grip stayed firm.

"Uh, Blake? You can just take the spoon."

Blake pulled his hand back, taking the spoon from her mouth. Penn tried harder to pull his hand away from her, but something about her grip stayed rock-solid. The places where their skin met was also starting to feel... irritated. Itchy.

Something was wrong, here. Very, very wrong.

"Hm... tastes like it could use some salt." Blake smirked in spite of the awkward situation. She reached across the two of them, aiming to pick up the salt from among the seasonings. Just as her hand was about to close on the shaker, there was a flash of motion. With a gut-wrenching crunch, her arm bent backwards at the elbow and her hand shot straight for his throat.

It was only sheer paranoid, anxiety-fueled reflex that let Penn move fast enough to dodge. He threw his whole body backwards and wildly swung his still-gripped arm to force "Blake" as far away from him as he could. The two of them were still bound to each other at the ends of their arms, which was MUCH closer than Penn would like, but now he knew just what he was dealing with...

As long as it was disguised as Blake, he had the advantage of enough size and strength to throw both of them around.

Putting his entire body into the motion, he made a dash for the table, only to feel a sharp jerk as he came up short. Pitch-black tendrils, looking more like a void than any actual physical material, had grown out of her shoes, rooting her firmly to the floor and leaving him on a leash just out of reach of his weapons. The force he'd put into throwing himself at the table, however, had distorted her. She was... stretched out at her arm and legs, with more darkness visible and leaking out of tears in her "skin"

"Now that wasn't very nice..." "Blake" was still grinning as the features on her head and face started to melt down into a bare head-shaped pile of darkness. "What about reciprocity?"

The last word was accented with a burst of searing pain in his wrist, one that forced a scream out of his throat. Underneath his skin, painful bulges worked their way up towards his elbow and down into his hand.

He couldn't reach his weapons, a nyctomorph was already under his skin, and the pain was distracting him, clouding all his thoughts in a foggy haze.

"Penn! You can reach the stove!"

He didn't think twice before following Reason's instructions, tugging even harder on the shapeshifter to get back to the place he had been working on lunch just seconds ago.

"The stove! The fire!"

If this creature really WAS a nyctomorph, then-

Penn gave another pull on his arm, planting his feet and trying to force it into a tug-of-war. Slowly, excruciatingly, the place her hand wrapped around his wrist inched closer and closer to the open flames.

Then, all at once, the resistance disappeared, and the hot pan was sent flying across the room as both of their hands were plunged into the flames.

"NGAAAAAAAH!"

"AIIEEEEEEEEEEK!"

It was only for a moment, but it was a moment of pure, unadulterated agony for them both. Both of them scrambled to get away from the burning, rushing to opposite sides of the kitchen.

Penn looked down, realizing that his hand was now covered in open flames, and a horrifying thought managed to force its way through the pain.

The ink- The ink his body was now MADE OF- was alcohol-based.

Which meant it was potentially flammable.

Right now, the only things on fire were the rivulets of ichor flowing from where the monster had burrowed into his skin, but...

He violently shook his hand back and forth, trying to extinguish the flames, but they only burned hotter and hotter, taking the pain to new heights. In a few seconds, all thoughts of the nyctomorph were gone as he could feel the burning feeling traveling up into his veins.

"GAAAAAH! AAAAH! AAAH!" He shrieked as he rushed back to the kitchen's sink, practically ripped the handle off, and plunged his flaming hand into the water. With a hiss and a puff of steam, the searing finally abated, replaced with the throbbing, pulsing pain of a fresh injury, pain that worsened with each frantic heartbeat. Looking down at it, the skin looked burnt to a blackened crisp at first, but a closer inspection showed that it was smooth, more like the first few layers of his body had been burned away, revealing the inky flesh underneath. What had once been trails of ichor were now a consistent drip of murky ink-water, as if the ink was being washed away. His hand also felt weaker, and not just out of instinctive attempt to keep it from being injured further. He didn't think he could move it if he tried.

The ink that made up his body was flammable AND it could be washed away.

...THAT was worrying, but he couldn't unpack it right now.

On the other side of the room, the monster had given up entirely on trying to conceal itself, reduced to a three-dimensional silhouette that was, as far as he could tell, gingerly cradling the still-glowing embers of where its arm had been burned.

Penn almost wanted to curse the fact that it seemed less hurt by the flames than he had been.

"PENN! YOUR SHIELD!"

Right... That was right!

He made a mad dash for the table, practically throwing himself across it to snatch up his weapons. As fast as he dared, he crammed his unburned hand into the left gauntlet, then gave the motion to trigger the transforming mechanism. The metal plates shifted and slid into place, locking into a wide-bladed sword. He was only barely able to get the blade in front of him in time to block the creature's lunge for him, pushing back at it. For a second, the monster seemed completely unfazed, beginning to flow around the sword like a liquid.

In the split second between it striking the sword and Penn pulling the trigger on the fire dust contained inside, he couldn't help noting that, up close, it almost looked and moved like a ferrofluid.

When the mechanism was triggered, tiny vents along the blade's entire length shot out a fine mist of powderized fire dust and ignited it, causing the sword to burst into crimson fire. The creature seized and writhed before flinging itself away with enough force to throw Penn back several steps.

At this point, it wasn't trying to keep any kind of shape, now just a writhing, ever-changing black heap. Penn made a note of the thickness of the tendrils and their shape. The smallest seemed to be about a centimeter thick. It wasn't a max-level nyctomorph, but the fact that it had pulled off such a convincing disguise proved that he wasn't dealing with an amateur, either.

"Why?" The thing was still speaking in Blake's voice. "Why are you so determined not to help us?"

There was a short flash of guilt as he remembered that these so-called "monsters" were trying to help them. They were misguided, but still only doing what they thought was right, from their own twisted view...

It was the way they were made.

Penn sighed and shook his head as he settled into a ready position with the shield-turned-sword, the same ready position that Isis had drilled into his brain with the first version of this weapon last time he was in Remnant.

"It's not that I think Baalchion's ENTIRELY wrong..." he mumbled. "I just see a bigger picture than you do."

The shapeless darkness swelled up until Penn could barely make out the form of a large cat of some kind, maybe a puma, that was almost as tall as he was while standing on all fours.

So much for his size advantage.

Sunset felt a chill run up her spine as she and Blake made their way down a long-abandoned hallway in the dorms. According to Ruby, the headmaster had evacuated most of the students when the storm began, citing a weather emergency and forecasted danger. Most of the students had been confused that they were leaving what very well might be the most secure place in Vale, but lived close enough to the school for an early holiday break to be more good news than bad. The only ones who'd stayed were the ones who knew the true cause behind the storm, and even that was strictly by choice.

So, Team RWBY, Team JNPR, and a few assorted students who lived in farther-away areas had all been moved down into the first-floor dorms, leaving all of the upper floors completely empty.

Until now, when Blake was wordlessly leading Sunset and Missy through the upstairs hallways.

"Blake... I know you want to surprise us, but..." Sunset shuddered and glanced over her shoulder as another chill ran down her spine. "Could you at least give us a hint?"

"It's the view." Blake didn't even turn around. "If we go up to the top floor, then into the upper observation tower, there's a spot where the cloud cover breaks every once in a while!"

"Wait... really?" Sunset's eyes widened in surprise. "That's got to be amazing!"

"It is!" Blake finally turned around enough to look over her shoulder and give Sunset a smile. "It's really beautiful out there, and you can practically see all of Forever Fall from up there!"

Sunset was instantly enamored with the idea of Remnant being turned into a winter wonderland, but a dissatisfied hum from next to her snapped her out of her daydreaming.

"But... we couldn't even see over the cloud cover from Professor Ozpin's office. How would one of the lower towers be able to?" Missy asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think it's something about how the school is laid out affecting the wind currents?" Blake shrugged. "I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's the kind of thing you've got to see to believe."

There was that bad feeling in the back of Sunset's mind again, something off that was nagging at her, and she hadn't gotten this far by ignoring those types of feelings.

"Do you think we could go back and get Ruby? I'm sure she'd love it, too! Oh, and Penn can't get enough of the snow, he'd probably want to see it, too!"

Blake missed a step there, seeming to almost stumble over nothing.

"W-Well, we can go get them later. I kind of wanted this to be something that I could share with just you, at least for a little bit, before EVERYBODY knew about it, you know? But if you don't want to see it with me, then... we can just go back."

Sunset felt a slight heat in her cheeks and a flash of guilt. Was she just being paranoid? Was she potentially ruining something important to Blake, here?

Maybe I should just go with the flow and-

Before she could finish the thought, a sound that made her blood run cold filled the air.

"VWEEEP! VWEEEP! VWEEEP! RED ALERT!"

Sunset's right hand went to her saber while her left snatched her phone out of her pocket. Isis's red alerts meant immediate danger. When that alarm sounded, there was only one question that mattered.

"Where?"

"FIRST FLOOR DORMITORY KITCHENS. PENN IS UNDER ATTACK BY AN UNKNOWN ASSAILANT!"

"I'm on my way!" Sunset pivoted on her heel and sprinted back in the direction of the dorm's elevator. As she ran, she turned back to call over her shoulder. "Sorry, Blake! That secret spot is going to have to wait a little-"

She felt something faintly touch her face.

She blinked.

Why was she running?

She practically tripped over her own feet as the confusion overwhelmed her, barely catching herself well enough to duck her head and roll onto the floor rather than crashing jaw-first into the tile. As she sat for a second trying to regain her bearings, she took inventory of herself.

She'd been following Blake to some secret place, then she got a message from Isis and-

"Sunset, come on!" Missy cried as she sped past. "This isn't the time for gymnastics!"

Sunset's heart stopped for a second as her reason for running came back to her. She started to scramble to her feet, but she stopped when she saw Missy slow to a stop mid-air, thoughtfully rubbing at her chin. After a few seconds, she turned back to Sunset with her head tilted at a curious angle.

"You know that feeling where you walk into a room and forget what you went in there for? I just got it."

"VWEEEP! VWEEEP! VWEEEP!"

Sunset's attention was immediately one hundred percent on her phone. Isis didn't sound that klaxon outside of absolute emergencies, which meant there was only one question she needed to ask.

"Where?"

"THE FIRST FLOOR DORMITORY KITCHENS. PENN IS UNDER ATTACK!"

Sunset jumped back to her feet and set off at a sprint again, grabbing Missy's hand as she passed the dazed duel spirit.

"Come on! We have to hurry!"

Just as Sunset was beginning to settle into her stride, however, she spotted something in the corner of her eye: a silvery strand, barely able to be caught in the diffused, snow-reflected light from outside the hallway, just in front of her face. It barely registered for her, though. Who cared about running into cobwebs at a time like-

She blinked.

Why was she running?

She was barely able to keep herself from tripping over her own feet by tugging on Missy's hand for balance. Together the two of them slowed to a stop, and Sunset grabbed at her head. She was starting to feel lightheaded, and her thoughts were being overwhelmed by an all-encompassing sense of deja-vu.

"Wha- What's going on?" she murmured. She looked down at her hand, recognizing the flashing red display as one of Isis's most desperate alerts. Someone was in life-threatening danger. She needed to move-

"Sunset? Where are you going?" Blake's voice asked. Sunset felt a worried hand gripping her shoulder. Something light and airy touched her arm and-

She blinked.

"Huh?" Sunset's mouth was open as if she was going to respond to something, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what. Blake was looking at her with a hurt expression and her bow tilted in a way that made it look like her ears were pressed back in distress.

"Back OFF!"

Sunset let out a yelp as a small figure leapt over her shoulder and tackled Blake. In the split second it took for Sunset to recognize Ghostrick Nekomusume trying to claw Blake's face off, Missy had interposed herself between them, grabbed Sunset's shoulders and looked her in the eye.

"Sunset, something's WRONG! Something's messing with our heads!" she declared.

"What? Missy why are you attacking Blake, she's our friend!" Sunset tried to shove Missy out of the way, but Missy fought back, grabbing onto her arm with one hand and ripping her phone from her grip with the other.

"LOOK!"

The screen was flashing red and ringing the telltale alarm that someone was in danger.

"VWEEEP! VWEEEP! VWEEEP! RED ALERT!"

"We keep forgetting it and Blake isn't helping!" Missy narrowed her eyes. "We have to go NOW, before we forget again!"

Sunset wanted to argue, to yell at Missy or at least help Blake get Nekomusume off of her, but... she trusted her partner more. Something here was definitely wrong, and if her own mind was failing her, she knew Missy wouldn't lead her astray.

"Okay, let's go. Isis, where is-"

"FOR THE THIRD TIME, PENN IS BEING ATTACKED IN THE FIRST FLOOR DORMITORY KITCHENS!"

Third time? How much time had they wasted forgetting this? Sunset pivoted on her heel, ready to sprint for the elevator.

"Okay, let's-"

As she turned around, however, she felt the bottom fall out of her gut.

The whole hallway behind them was cut off by a wall of webbing at least a foot thick. Spiders the size of her hand were crawling throughout it, rapidly weaving the wall thicker and thicker by the second. Her whole body felt immobilized by fear as their iridescent carapaces skittered about, and that fear only grew worse when Sunset looked more closely at their movement. They didn't just move from point A to point B. Every step felt... jerky. Erratic. Flickered. It was as if something was constantly trying to pull them out of reality, with afterimages moving in every direction while they crawled along the course they were actually taking.

The thought of trying to rip and cut her way through occurred to her. If she was fast enough, she might be able to rip through the webbing without taking any of its inhabitants with her, but the thought of one of those things touching her made her skin crawl.

There was a sound of a pained yelp, and Sunset spun back around just in time to see Nekomusume fly past them, crashing into the webbing. If Sunset still had any suspicions that she could rip through them, they were dashed completely by the sight of the little cat spirit barely putting a tear in the first layer. Contact with the webs also seemed to rapidly change her mindset, as her struggling stopped almost instantly and her eyes glazed over with a blank expression. The spiders rapidly closed in on their new prey, and Sunset didn't have time to even think about trying to free her before the young spirit was swarmed by them. It was only the telltale sound of a monster being destroyed that gave Sunset the relief of knowing Nekomusume had been sent back where she came from.

Sunset spun back around, and her fears were all confirmed when she saw Blake, clearly no worse for wear, with one of those flickering spiders on her shoulder. Sunset could just barely make out a thread from the spider's back leading its way across her shoulder and down to the back of Blake's neck. She absent-mindedly reached up and gave the spider's abdomen a gentle stroke.

"Well, I guess that the jig is up, isn't it?"

"...Blake?" Sunset tightened her grip on Missy's hand. "What's going on?"

Sunset wanted the throw up when the spider skittered back behind Blake's hair and somewhere onto her back.

"Don't worry, Sunset... you'll understand soon."

"Yeaaaaah... I don't think so." Missy declared as a trap card materialized in her hand. "Ghostrick Van-"

There was a flash of silver as a strand of webbing shot through the air and anchored itself to the card, snatching it from between her fingers and pulling it into the web. Blake tutted softly.

"No... No games. There's too much on the line." Blake's eyes narrowed. "We're going to save everyone, Sunset. Even you."

Sunset tightened her grip on her saber. Whatever these spiders were, she needed to be careful. They'd clearly messed Blake's head up pretty badly, and she wasn't immune to it, either. They understood Missy's tricks, too. Obviously, they were well-informed. From the sound of Isis's alarm, they had gone for Penn at the same time, too. They were coordinated.

This was a trap. A two-pronged attack to take out their entire party at once.

FSSHT!

The red light of her saber filled the hallway, casting everything in ruby light.

"Blake... I'm going to save you. Then I'm going to squash every last one of these bugs. Then, we're going to save Remnant!"

Sunset knew Blake well enough to recognize the disappointment on her face, even if it belonged to the thing messing with her head.

"You'll understand soon. I promise."

"I'm telling you, it's bigger on the inside!" Ruby cried. "He put an engine in it that was twice as big as me!"

The other students gathered together in the room all snickered. Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ruby had all come to visit Weiss now that she was awake, giving her their own versions of events that had happened since she'd fallen unconscious. At the moment, Ruby was telling them the supposedly-true story of why she'd come back from "checking up" on Penn covered in motor oil and grease that took the better part of an hour to scrub off in the shower.

"There's no way that can be possible, right?" Jaune asked as the laughter faded. "I mean, an engine bay the size of a dorm room? In a car?"

"Well, I would not be so quick to dismiss it!" Pyrrha chided. "In an infinite multiverse, I would be willing to believe anything it possible!"

"I mean, sure, anything's possible, but..." Jaune trailed off, settling into deeper thought after a second.

Yang didn't have a comment, she was too focused on her current task: trying to master her breathing. Despite her earlier success, she was having trouble with the idea of trying to focus her breathing through her arm. The was gripping the lead weights in her charcoal hand as tightly as she dared. Just by the ambient heat coming off of it, Yang could tell that she was getting her arm up to oven-level heat, but that seemed to be her upper limit right now. It wasn't even enough to melt what Penn had called "as low of a starting point as I can give you." She needed to push it farther.

She didn't WANT to take it slow.

"Well, there's no way that such an engine would work." Weiss rolled her eyes. "The fuel and air requirements alone would be unfeasible. It would be much more efficient to put a high-performance car engine in his car, wouldn't it?"

"Only if he is planning on building a car," the blonde-haired girl added from the corner of the room. "From what you described, and knowing him like I do, he's not going to be content with something that pedestrian. He'd rather have a siege engine disguised as an automobile."

That one was still a bit of an enigma to Yang. She'd come in with Penn and Sunset, but neither of them had even attempted to introduce her to them. That meant that neither of them had outright vouched for her. When they had asked, she'd just introduced herself as "Sally" and claimed that she was a hitchhiker who was riding along with them on their way to some other world called "Britannia." When pressed for more details, she'd simply shrugged and said it was none of their business.

Everything about her seemed suspicious, but that just made Yang glad that she had deigned to sit in on the conversation: it was easier to keep an eye on her like this.

"VWEEEP! VWEEEP! VWEEEP! RED ALERT!"

Everyone jolted in their seats and scrambled for their scrolls. Pyrrha was the first to compose herself enough to have her scroll up and open.

"What's the situation, Isis?"

"PENN IS BEING ATTACKED BY AN UNKNOWN ASSAILANT IN THE FIRST FLOOR DORMITORY KITCHENS!"

Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ruby all jumped to their feet.

"We gotta help!" Ruby cried. Her hand reached behind her, only to stop short as it only grasped at the air. "Oh, no! Crescent Rose is in my dorm!"

"So's my sword!" Jaune added.

Pyrrha reached to her back, only to also come up short. She didn't seem too perturbed, narrowing her eyes and clenching her fists. "We weren't expecting to be attacked here."

Before Yang, Weiss, or even Sally could say anything else, their scrolls all began to vibrate in their hands as the alarm sounded again.

"VWEEEP! VWEEEP! VWEEEP! RED ALERT! SUNSET SHIMMER AND MISSY ARE BEING ATTACKED IN THE 5TH FLOOR DORMITORY HALL!"

"WHAT?"

"Both of them?"

"This isn't a coincidence!"

Sally narrowed her eyes, speaking up of her own accord for the first time. "It's a coordinated attack."

"Pyrrha, give me your room key." Ruby held out an empty hand. "I'm the fastest, I'll get our weapons and meet you at the kitchen."

Pyrrha nodded, shuffling through her pocket for a second before passing Ruby the keycard. "The rest of us will move in and fight hand-to-hand until then."

Yang swung her legs over the edge of her bed. "If we're going hand-to-hand, then I'd better come, too. Even if I'm only at fifty percent-"

"No."

Sally's voice carried an air of authority that made everyone stop in place and look at her. Her icy blue eyes locked on Yang, making her shrink back slightly.

"Weiss still isn't capable of defending herself. You should stay here and guard her." She turned to Ruby, Pyrrha, and Jaune. "You three have the right idea, but the wrong target. Back up Sunset Shimmer." She pushed herself out of her chair. Ordinarily, Yang wouldn't feel so intimidated by someone, but... that woman had a look in her eyes that set every nerve in her body on edge.

"I'll take care of Penn, myself."

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay on this one! Moving and changing jobs is a pain in the neck, and my new living situation's taken some getting used to. I'm trying to get my groove back ASAP.

For now, enjoy this shorter update and know that more is coming!

If it's Pain, Then I've Got What You Need... Part 1

"Blake, snap OUT of it!" Sunset cried. She felt a tingle on the back of her neck and a prompting to duck, and she followed her instincts. She was rewarded with the sight of a strand of webbing shooting over her head. She didn't have any time to celebrate, however, as the black blade of Blake's sword came crashing down on her shoulder, slamming against her aura with enough force to still give her some blunted pain in the joint. It took all of Sunset's willpower not to let the pain break her concentration. It was only sheer instinct that had kept her ahead in this fight, and she could tell that the moment she missed a step, that method of keeping ahead would disintegrate as her thoughts were wiped clean again. "I know whatever happened to you has you thinking backwards, but I know you're still in there!"

"Sunset, there's nothing to snap out of! I'm finally seeing things BOTH ways!" Blake replied, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "There's no 'forward' and 'backward,' Sunset! There's only certainty and possibility, and they're ours to pick! and! CHOOSE!" She punctuated each word with another swing of Gambol Shroud. Sunset managed to dodge the first two by pulling back, but the third required her to completely fling herself backwards off-balance. She had planned to catch herself on her hands, maybe even turn it into a chance to flip over and put some more space between herself and Blake. Just as she was about to land, however, her instincts went crazy and she retracted her hands again, crashing shoulders-first into the tile, instead. Out of the corner of her eye, Sunset could see why: a near-invisible strand of webbing had been thrown across the floor like a tripwire, right where her hands would have landed.

I must have seen it and processed that it was there unconsciously...

Thankfully, crashing into them like she had wasn't necessarily the end of the world, it seemed that they worked by the same logic as her geode: they needed to make skin contact to do their thing. They couldn't do much to her through her clothes...

...but the three spiders skittering towards her out of the shadows definitely COULD.

"Sunset! Up here!"

Sunset reached a hand up and felt a pair of smaller hands yank her up, lifting her with enough force to pull her completely off the floor and into the air.

"That was closer than I like to cut it!" Missy chirped. "You think it's time for us to start cutting back?"

Sunset flicked her saber hand, letting a shot of webbing fizzle out against the blade instead of striking them. She glanced down at the handle of her saber, double-checking to make sure the low battery light wasn't flashing.

"I don't want to hurt Blake- look out!" Sunset swatted a leaping spider out of the air, causing it to fizzle and pop against her saber blade just before landing on Missy's back. The motion flung enough weight around to spin them both in the air, giving Sunset a good view of the full situation at hand.

The hallway was closed off by a wall of webbing back the way that they came. Blake was in front of them, but behind her was what looked to be a window leading outside, and an open door leading to the next stairwell. In the dim gray light coming in from the snow-shrouded window, Sunset could barely make out a shimmer in the air, a shine of freshly-cast threads.

The stairwell's trapped... probably more spiders there waiting to get the drop on me. The window is a possible escape, but-

"-but we're at least six stories up." Missy finished the thought. "Why not just try and cut through the webs behind- look out!"

Sunset didn't get a chance to explain before Missy dropped her back to the floor and shot up into the air. Gambol Shroud's pistol form blew through the space where their hands had been, mounting the blade into the wall and trailing the ribbon behind it. Sunset managed to land on her feet, but her balance was thrown off by the unexpected landing, causing her to tilt dangerously back-

-just in time to avoid Blake's flying kick rushing over her head, propelled by Blake pulling herself along the ribbon.

That sense of danger, that instinct, grew more intense in the moment that Blake was passing overhead until it was almost overwhelming. Time felt as if it had slowed to a crawl, and deep in the dark strands of Blake's hair Sunset finally spotted something:

a shard of iridescent chitin glowing on the back of her neck.

Sunset's eyes widened as what had seemed like a passing triviality catapulted itself into the forefront of her mind: the spider she'd seen on Blake's shoulder, the one that crawled back down behind her at the start of the fight. It hadn't been for dramatic effect or a show of power... it had been flashing a weak point!

"Blake-"

"Don't you ever wish you could go back? Fix the mistakes? Make it all work out for the best?" Blake continued. Sunset's insides felt a layer of ice as Blake's wild yellow eyes stared back into hers, wide with a mix of glee and desperation. "We don't have to live with the regret, with the pain, any more! We can do it right, this time!"

Sunset wasn't sure what Blake was talking about, but she was certain that this wasn't the Blake she knew. Blake was collected, level-headed, even when she was upset her voice rarely raised above speaking level! This Blake was practically fanatical, shouting and pleading with her as she hacked and slashed at Sunset at a rate that made her worry that the other girl's arms were going to rip out of their sockets. Sunset was only barely able to keep ahead of her swings with her preternatural instincts, but a swing back with her saber was too risky. She couldn't tell for certain whether Blake even still had her aura in this state, and an unguarded blow from the saber could be lethal.

Still, she couldn't keep dodging forever, if her spatial memory was right she was about to back straight into the webs, and Blake wasn't showing any signs of tiring out. Running wasn't an option, talking wasn't an option, which meant that there wasn't much choice but to fight.

"Missy! Watch my back!"

"You got it!" came a voice from above.

On Blake's next swing, Sunset planted her back foot and pushed forward, getting inside of her arm's reach and pressing as close as she could to the other girl. Her hand reached up and around Blake's shoulder, clamoring desperately for a grip at the thing on the back of her neck. For the briefest of seconds, Sunset felt a brush of her fingertips against the cool outer shell of something insect-like, bringing a surge of joy.

That surge was quashed, however, when Blake completely vanished from in front of her.

Her semblance.

Sunset felt a pair of booted heels crash into the small of her back, driving her to the ground and shattering the rest of her aura. She felt every ounce of air rush out of her body at once, leaving her with no strength.

"Sunset! I'm comi- AH! Get off me!" Missy's voice cried.

"M-Missy!" Sunset tried to push herself up, but the weight of Blake standing on her back was too much to shake off. A hard knee came down between her shoulder blades, pushing her face down closer to the tile. All around her, Sunset could hear the skittering and clattering of chitin against the floor tiles and the soft "thwip" noise of more silk strands striking their mark. "L-Let her go!"

"You'll understand, Sunset... I promise, you'll thank me for this."

Just as Sunset could feel the sharp brush of chitin against the back of her neck, Missy's voice squeaked over the rest of the noise.

"I... have... HAD IT!"

All around them, everything went dark. A second later, Sunset was overwhelmed by the sensation of flipping and falling as Blake's weight disappeared from her back. As she was dumped on the floor, Sunset barely registered the fact that Missy had just moved her with Ghostrick Go-Round. Rubbing at her head, Sunset looked up and her eyes widened.

The entire hallway was shrouded in unnatural darkness, pitch-blackness punctuated only by a few glowing wisps of light. The light from the will-o-wisps didn't seem to reach more than a few inches into the darkness, as if being smothered. She felt a brush of feathers against her shoulder, the only indication outside of her moving voice that Missy was moving down the hallway. Sunset wasn't scared OF Missy, she never could be, but... Somehow, in her gut, Sunset felt a clench, an urge to grit her teeth like she was hearing nails on a chalkboard. Something was wrong, and she could feel exactly what it was:

Missy was being serious.

"You know... I was actually kind of excited to come back." Her voice was lacking her normal carefree lilt, as if gravity had pulled her very tone down to Earth. "I didn't get to really play with everybody else last time, you know? I was gonna hang out, play some games, maybe have some girl time, yadda yadda yadda... Too bad." Sunset heard a clicking, popping sound, like bones cracking. "Too bad for us. Too bad for you."

Sunset moved one hand to her saber, only to feel another set of fingers wrap around her wrist. Looking up into the darkness, she locked eyes with Ghostrick Alucard. The pale specter raised a single finger to his lips, urging her to remain silent. Unsure of what else to do, Sunset just nodded.

"All that's happened since we got here has been bad, bad, bad! There's hardly been a single moment for fun, at all!" As the exasperation in Missy's voice rose, Alucard followed her into the darkness. Sunset considered following, too, but... she could feel something keeping her back. It was like the darkness was pressing in on her, keeping her in place. It wasn't stifling or suffocating, though... it felt gentle. Like a hug. Somehow, she recognized that the darkness was familiar, friendly... it was Ghostrick Night. "I'm NOT going to let anything else bad happen on my watch!"

"G-GET BACK!"

"BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!"

"Well, that's not going to work, silly girl..."

Sunset could see the muzzle flashes of Blake's gun light up the darkness for split seconds, but nothing seemed to meet its mark. Instead, however, Sunset was able to make out a sight that made her blood run an ounce colder:

Hands were bursting from the walls and floor, each one either holding or having squashed one of the strange spiders. It was hard to tell all of them apart, but Sunset was sure that she at least recognized Stein, Skeleton, Warwolf, and Lantern's hands reaching toward Blake.

It's like she's combining Ghostrick Night, Parade, and... Sunset considered all of the holes that had been punched through the walls and floor, ...maybe Renovation.

"I didn't want to say it, but..." Missy's voice had a note of sadness in it that Sunset wasn't used to hearing. "I can't deny it any more! As usual... Penn was right about coming here."

Sunset didn't like this. Missy getting serious felt fundamentally wrong, but also...

Does this mean she's been holding back? Or is this some kind of trick? I mean, tricks are kind of their thing...

"S-Stay back! EEP!"

Something about this display of power had Blake worried, even in her deranged state. Sunset considered stepping in to stop Missy, but...

It was Missy. She wouldn't really hurt Blake, right?

"Missy... it's on her neck..." Sunset whispered, barely louder than her own breathing.

As if in response, a new twinkle of light appeared, finally allowing Sunset to see the scene in front of her. Missy was floating just above Blake. Her usually-twinkling eyes were milky-colored, dull and empty, like dead eyes. Her hair, normally flowing and half-committed to gravity's pull, was pulled straight down over her face and body, as if soaking wet. Her fluffy black dress was much the same, clinging to her body and covered in tatters and mold, making her look as if she'd recently emerged from a long-buried coffin. Even her wings, usually a gorgeous mix of ebony and ivory, were swinging limp and at odd angles that gave Sunset haunting visions of their time under Ebott, while grime and dirt stained them in uneven patches. She was hanging in the air, like an unattended marionette, hunched over and hovering over Blake so that her downward-hanging head could look straight at her.

Blake was halfway through the floor, somehow buried up to her waist in freshly-turned dirt, and a tall stone obelisk was raised behind her, marking the new grave. Alucard was leaning against the spire, grinning evilly and tapping at illegible text carved into its surface. Blake's eyes were wild and darting in all directions, eventually locking on the headstone. Realizing the level of danger she was in, Blake swung with her sword, aiming straight for Missy's neck. Missy didn't so much as blink at the attack. The new light expanded and shaped itself until it had taken the shape of a sword. The darkness of Ghostrick Night was drawn inside the outline, dying all but the outmost edges pitch-black.

"Swords of Concealing Light."

Missy parried the attack, knocking Blake off-balance. Her sword of light seemed to shatter, sending motes of light everywhere. Sunset's eyes widened as they re-formed into three smaller swords, all of which shot down towards Blake.

Blake's entire body began to shudder and blur, and for a second Sunset was afraid that the spell was having an adverse effect on her, but as multiple silhouettes overlapped and struggled, Sunset realized that it was self-inflicted. Blake was trying to use her semblance to escape, but it was failing miserably. Eventually, the shaking stopped, revealing that the swords had pinned Blake's clothes to the ground, now leaving her pinned to the ground, barely able to do more than lift her face out of the dirt.

"It's no use trying to escape... I called in a favor." The corners of Missy's mouth inched upwards as Blake fruitlessly flailed. "That's a trap hole that some friends of mine designed specially for keeping strong opponents locked in place. You're not getting away from me."

There was a few seconds of silence as Missy waited for Blake to stop moving. While she waited, Ghoul and Stein emerged from the shadows. Each of them put one hand on Blake's shoulders, beginning to push her further down into the dirt. This spurred another round of struggles from Blake.

"N-NO! NO, I DON'T WANT TO DIE! P-PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU!"

The sound of Blake begging for her life was enough to force Sunset to break her silence.

"Missy! Don't you think that this is enough?"

All the monsters aside from Missy turned to look at her in unison, and despite knowing deep in her heart that Missy would never hurt her, Sunset suddenly felt very, VERY afraid. These weren't the Ghostricks that she had known in the past. These were... monsters.

"This one just tried to hurt my human partner..." Missy murmured. "And got very, VERY close to succeeding. I'm not letting that happen again."

The other Ghostricks seemed to agree, nodding in unison and pushing Blake further into the dirt. Now the soil was up to her shoulders.

"I'm MAD."

That was when it clicked.

"Missy... you need to take a deep breath." Sunset spoke softly and began to walk forward. She moved her foot softly, letting her shoe bump against and push aside any protruding limbs as she walked down the hall. "Your temper's getting out of control."

"I don't have a temper... and I AM in control."

"But I do!" Sunset urged. "Missy, like you said, we're partners... joined at the soul, remember?" Sunset continued walking, taking one careful step after another. In her heart, she knew she was safe, but... well, pitfall traps like the one Blake was caught in were a recurring gag in Yu-Gi-Oh, and with Missy snapped like this, it was best to play it safe. "Remember how I went crazy when Penn got hurt at Mount Ebott?"

She glanced away from Missy for a second to check on Blake. The dirt was up to her neck, now, with both of her arms completely buried in the dirt. Sunset locked eyes with Alucard, making a silent plea for help.

Thankfully, blissfully, Alucard seemed to be immune to the haze of rage that had overtaken Missy and the others. He was clearly reluctant, rolling his eyes at her request, but reached down to Stein and Ghoul. With a firm, guiding hand, he gave them each a pat on the shoulder and motioned to the obelisk.

"What do you think you're doing, Sunset?"

Sunset exercised every ounce of faith and trust not to panic when Missy materialized inches from her face, eye-to-dead eye.

"I understand you're upset..." Sunset reached up and pushed a few errant strands of hair behind Missy's ear. "I get it. But look at me. I'm fine. I'm safe. You did it! You don't need to punish anybody on top of that."

Missy's hands balled into fists.

"B-But... I- But-"

"I know. It feels good. Lashing out, making someone pay, it can feel really good. Like you're setting things right, taking fate into your own hands..." Sunset sighed. "But it's not. You don't have to go any further. Blake's being controlled, it's not her fault, and you're scaring her out of her mind!" Sunset cupped Missy's face with her hand, trying her best to will some life back into her eyes. "Come on... enough tricks. The danger's passed... show me a treat, would you?" In spite of the fear, Sunset couldn't help but chuckle.

"You're starting to act like your sister, you know!"

There was a pause that felt like it lasted an eternity between them, and Sunset couldn't help but wonder if her words had gotten through the haze of rage she was so familiar with. Finally, Missy seemed to... reinflate, for lack of a better term. Her hair regained its former wildness, her dress mended and became fluffy again, and her pink eyes regained their shine.

"I- I- uh- I-I'm sorry..." She wobbled in the air, forcing Sunset to reach out and catch her. Sunset supported her meager weight with one hand and pressed her face into her shoulder with the other, letting the little girl dry her tears on her shoulder.

"I know." Sunset shifted Missy around to her back, letting the little spirit wrap her tired arms around her neck. "You just piggy-back for now, okay? I'll take it from here, partner."

All around them, the darkness of Ghostrick Night was dispersing. With the crunching and snapping of building materials snapping back into place, the grasping hands of the other Ghostrick monsters retreated, sealing the holes in the masonry behind them. Soon, all that remained was Blake's fresh grave, the obelisk marking it, and the ever-staring Ghostrick Alucard. He simply smiled and gave her a grateful nod, which Sunset returned. With his work done, Alucard popped open the side of the obelisk like a stone door, revealing a descending stone staircase that he began to descend. As the door closed behind him, Sunset could make out a carefree backward wave.

You know... sometimes I wonder if he's the Penn to Missy's... well, ME. Making sure she's okay and backing her up when she needs it. She looked down at Blake, who had stopped any attempts at struggling. Her head was hanging limp and her eyes were unfocused and empty as they stared up at the ceiling. With a not-insignificant amount of worry, Sunset reached down and placed her fingers against Blake's neck. She couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when she felt a pounding, racing pulse beneath her touch.

"Scared her so badly she fainted..." she mumbled. "But she'll be okay."

"I'm sorry..." Missy mumbled. "I don't- I just-"

"It's okay."

"It's not..." Missy murmured. In the pit of her gut, Sunset could feel a deep shame building... shame that wasn't hers. Clearly, that was a loaded statement that would need to be unpacked later.

Sunset dropped to one knee and carefully positioned her hand a few inches away from Blake's neck. There was no telling whether it was still there, but... Sunset hadn't seen Stein or Ghoul pulling it away from her.

"Missy... do you know if it's safe to just rip these spiders off?"

"Iunno... Penn's the expert."

"Information IS available. Would you like me to play the B.U.C.K.L.E.R. danger assessment file?"

Sunset jumped slightly. In all of the rush, she had almost forgotten Isis existed.

"We're in a hurry, here... can you just give me a yes or no answer?"

"In that case... no."

"Then how do we get it off of her?"

"The generally-recommended method is peppermint oil."

"Peppermint oil? That's kind of random..." Sunset murmured. "Maybe we can find some in the-"

"KITCHEN!" Missy shrieked, slapping her palm against Sunset's shoulder for her attention. "PENN!"

Sunset gasped. "I FORGOT!" She jumped back to her feet and turned to run back down the hallway, only to hesitate again and turn back to Blake. "Will- will she be okay?"

"Oh, yeah." Missy mumbled. "The Traptrix loaned me that modified trap to help with the interactive part of this year's haunted house. We had a whole 'Called by the Grave' segment and everything. It's perfectly safe, she's just stuck."

"Okay." Sunset looked down, locking her eyes on Blake. "I know you probably can't hear me, but I'll be back for you. I promise."

With a nod of affirmation to herself to seal the oath, Sunset set off running down the hall. As she approached the wall of webbing, she reached down to her belt for her saber.

Without Blake defending them, cutting through these should be a piece of-

Sunset felt another prompting as soon as she'd reached for her weapon, another sensation of overwhelming danger she needed to counter. Something about this one felt different, though, it built up faster than any of the previous warnings. By the time that her hand had closed around the handle, it was already overwhelming.

I can't move fast enough to dodge or block!

Sunset felt a strong, sharp blow to the base of her skull, and then everything went dark.

The last conscious sensation she experienced was... clicking. The clicking of a weapon shifting forms.

Someone had been waiting to take them out while they were focused on Blake, and it wasn't one of Baalchion's monsters.

Penn was panting and gasping for air.

He was keenly aware of each of his injuries, and was trying to account for them in his movements. He couldn't make any sudden movements off of his right ankle. His right arm was still hanging limp, with only a slight tingle in response to his attempts to move it. It had gotten its barbs into that shoulder, as if it wasn't already dead in the water. He was bleeding from his side, where a spear of ossified darkness had stabbed through him right near his kidney, and the spreading tendrils had left his whole left side of his abdomen unable to flex without shooting, stabbing pain. That one was the worst, limiting both his movement and his breathing. He had a few other less critical injuries, but the right side of his body was slowly going numb, a bad sign for his continued survival. His arm holding the shield-turned-sword was burning, both with the effort of constantly batting away incoming attacks and the radiant heat of the red-hot edge.

Isis's drone was crumpled in the corner of the room, sparking and crackling as electricity arced from a shattered ultraviolet light. She had fought valiantly, but a machine designed to build and repair could only do so much in a battle of life and death.

The nyctomorph, on the other hand, wasn't showing any signs of wearing down, despite the fact that he'd managed to land a fair few number of blows of his own. It was trying to ring him in by spreading across the floor, forcing him to limp his way to the left as fast as he could. The deep shadow of its body made it look like the tile was transforming into a bottomless pit. The blackness tried to close in on his feet, but he gave the sword another swing, sending out an arc of flames that scattered across the tile and caused it to retreat with a hiss.

I'm starting to curse whoever decided to just say these things were made of "pure darkness" and leave it at that... he thought to himself. I could really use some kind of weak point to exploit!

"You REALLY wanna say that?" The voice in his mind argued back.

"Your arm is trembling..." the nyctomorph whispered. Penn could make out multiple voices, like it was speaking through four or five mouths at once, with Blake's voice being among them. "Ready to surrender?"

Penn gritted his teeth, biting back a snarl and a snide remark. He was losing and on the backfoot, provoking it wouldn't work in his favor. It had managed to position itself between him and the windows, and the door behind him was locked. The lock was accessible from this side, sure, but even taking his eyes off of the monster for a second would spell almost-certain doom. He had to do something...

"Wait, what did it just say? Penn, did you catch-"

"Surrender?" He raised an eyebrow. "I thought nyctomorphs specialized in assassinations? Aren't you here to kill me?"

"-yeah, that."

Talking. It was the only option that he had left. If I can get it talking, maybe I can buy enough time to make a plan...

"Well, if there's one thing you're good at, it's talking..."

The amorphous mass bunched up at the center, pushing upward into the vaguely human shape. In a few seconds, "Blake" had re-formed, though her body dissolved back into the black mass at her feet, making it clear that she and the monster were one and the same. Her posture was relaxed, with an uncharacteristically easygoing smile on her face that scrunched up her pitch-black eyes.

"That's a closed-minded way of thinking. Our talents can be as varied as our forms..." Her hand began to shift, cycling through a series of intricate designs. Penn's eyes narrowed as he squinted at the shapes, trying to make them out. It was peacocking, showing off in the way nyctomorphs were prone to. The finer their control over their forms, the higher their rank. This one was good enough to imitate Blake near-perfectly. That meant that its control was incredibly fine, but not necessarily top-level. "What makes you so certain that I was sent to kill you?"

Penn blinked several times before motioning to the barb impaled through his side.

"Blake" scoffed. "Pfft! You act as if I didn't go around your critical organs!"

Penn tightened his grip on his sword. The fact that it was apparently holding back just made his current predicament even more embarrassing. Still, it was talking, which gave him both a chance to catch his breath AND a chance to think about how to get out of this.

"So... what? You're not here to kill the person who can give this world all of the secrets to stopping your invasion?" He raised an eyebrow.

"HA!" The doppelganger seemed to find this hilarious, leaning back into a suddenly-appearing seat made out of its own shadowy body. "STOP us? You're much, much too early for that!"

"Late for that..." Penn mumbled.

"Typical. You just can't resist correcting somebody, even when your life is in danger." his partner whispered.

"Early, late, what does it matter?" The fake Blake leaned back, half-melting back into the main body as it rose up into a wave-like shape. "Baalchion's plans are assured from the moment he puts them into motion." Penn tightened his grip on his sword hand, trying to gather up as much strength as he could for a hailmary swing. If he could split the incoming attack widely enough to jump through, he could make it to the window.

He just needed to get the timing right. And the power.

"Well, if he's so smart, maybe he would have gotten us in the first ambush..." Penn gave his cockiest smirk. "Guess maybe I'm just a little smarter than your so-called god, huh?"

"You realize that if this doesn't work, you're going to die, right? And saying that is just going to make it extra painful."

"I mean, not to mention all the times Chirac managed to beat him back..." Penn continued. He kept one eye on the edges of the rising wave. It was beginning to spasm and shake. Occasionally, it would seem to spike from within, making it almost look like some kind of living music equalizer. Its form control was slipping. "I mean, there's already a Chiracian agent within these very walls, that hardly seems 'assured' to me! One deal struck could open the fiery floodgates of total war!"

He gritted his teeth as the edges of the monster began to calm again. He'd made some kind of mistake. The nyctomorph chuckled again in that multi-voice.

"The skyburners will have no accord, Baalchion has already seen to that. This world WILL be saved."

"Well, THAT'S ominous as hell!"

Wait, if there's zero chance that the Chiracians can make a deal, then-

"LOOK OUT!"

Thanks to the warning, Penn was barely able to get the shield up in time to block a black spine that had shot up from the floor, aimed for his throat. When it struck the shield, it pushed him back hard enough to slide his feet across the floor. He had to bite back a scream of pain when he slammed into the kitchen door, the force being enough to jostle and drive deeper every spike and shard that this thing had left in his body. By the time that the haze of pain had relented enough for him to get his bearings, again, he spotted more tendrils of darkness crawling up around the edges of the shield, making their way straight for his hand. Gritting his teeth, he tightened his hand around the dust trigger, prompting another flash of flames to spray out from various vents on the weapon.

FWSSH!

For him, it felt like sticking his face into an oven at this range, but it was much worse for the monster. The nyctomorph shrieked, but the tendrils didn't disappear. They continued creeping in, even as their frontmost edges were reduced to ash. Penn gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger again.

"LET... GO!"

FWSSH!

The monster shrieked again and the tentacles fell further back, this time, but still didn't disappear, entirely.

Penn was pretty sure that at least his hair was about to catch on fire, if he didn't burn his own face off, but he pulled the trigger one more time. He was completely pinned like this, and if he didn't get space soon, it would be the end of him.

FW- FW- clickclickclick...

The shield sputtered twice, then descended into a hail of fruitless firing igniters.

He was out of gas.

"Ha! HAHAHA!" The nyctomorph sounded like an entire room of people laughing at him as the pressure on his shield arm mounted. "Your little light has burned itself out!"

Penn's arm shook until his muscles finally collapsed under the pressure, slamming his own shield against his chest and once again throwing him up against the door. Another wave of excruciating pain racked through him and the world turned red.

Too weak... I'm not strong enough...

This couldn't be how this ended, right?

Sunset... Missy... Isis... they all needed him.

I failed them... again. I'm gonna die a SECOND time!

He couldn't fail like this, could he? He was supposed to be the smart one. The one who figured everything out. He was supposed to be stronger than this...

He could feel prickling and tingling on his chest as the thing began to dig into his skin, attaching itself so it could dig in its anchors and stop him from escaping again.

It was as good as over, he knew that better than anyone, but his mind was still trying to find a way out. If he could reach the other shield, he could raid the dust cartridge from it. If he could push a few inches forward, he might be able to throw his weight back and break the door open. If he could-

"Enough 'if's! Your legs are free! DO SOMETHING!"

Right... his legs. Way stronger than his arms. He shifted his weight to his injured right ankle, locking his knee to stop himself from collapsing as he braced his left foot against the door. He gritted his teeth and tried his best to turn a scream of pain into a growl as he pushed with all his strength.

"Grrrrrrrraaaaaah!"

He managed to push about three inches forward, but a moment later he was slammed back into the door.

The pain was getting worse everywhere, and now there was a growing numbness in his chest. In just a few seconds, it was going to spread far enough to connect to the numbness in his right side., at which point more than half of his body would be useless.

He pushed again, as hard as he could manage.

This push only made it about two inches forward before he was slammed back again, hard enough to rattle the door frame.

"Penn... I've got an idea."

...I'm not waiting for dramatic tension, here! WHAT?

"You've got to turn off your brain. Go wild."

If Penn had the time to be incredulous, he would have given his partner a double-take. As it stood, he went straight to the point.

You think I'm not TRYING hard enough?

"I THINK that the Doctor said that the ink demon turned you into something like himself and YOU'RE still trying to fight like a human! Get mean! Get wild! Get MAD! BE A DEMON!"

Penn was out of ideas, so he was willing to try. He tried to shut off his brain, clear his mind... but he couldn't stop. It was involuntary, he couldn't stop. His mind was moving a million miles per hour, just like his racing pulse. He tried to summon up the malice, the anger, the OUTRAGE that he needed... but it wasn't there.

He couldn't hate the nyctomorph, not really, even now.

He pitied it. He loved it. If he had any hatred, it wasn't for the creature, it was for its limitations, its simplicity. He wanted so much more for it than he could give.

The numbness had spread up to his shoulders. The shield began to descend under its own weight, and the main mass of the nyctomorph closed in on him, ready to envelop him entirely.

"I know what you were trying to do," the voices whispered. Penn felt a surge of burning pain as the thing crept higher towards his throat beneath his skin. "and I'm aware that you were making an attempt at strategy, to make me overly emotional. I can respect that, but I cannot allow such disrespect to my lord and master. Do you have any last words before I shred your vocal cords to ribbons?"

He gritted his teeth and braced himself for whatever was going to come next. With one last feeble kick at the door, Penn shifted his weight and made one last kick at the door. This one barely made a knocking sound, and with the last of his strength spent, he let his legs hang limp as the force pushing on him lifted him up into the air. He could practically feel the pins-and-needles feeling of the nyctomorph's tendrils reaching his throat. He coughed reflexively as he stared straight into the yellow eye of Blake's half-melted face in the shadowy mass.

"If I only get one more shot, then..." Penn rasped, "I'd have to say that I really wish that Sunset was here right now!"

"Perhaps we may be of assistance, instead?"

Penn heard Isis's voice coming from the other side of the door, just over his shoulder.

It was immediately followed by a blast of searing heat as the area beside his head exploded, just barely missing him as a jet of white-hot flames roared past and into the nyctomorph's body. Penn's entire body was yanked forward and away from the door as it tried to retreat, but too much of it was anchored in his body for it to simply run away or dodge completely. It could only shriek and writhe as it tried to retreat while pulling his body along as dead weight.

The fire only grew in intensity and volume as more than half the door was reduced to ashes and the knob fell to the floor in a pile of molten slag. Penn's eyes widened as he recognized the face that had come to his rescue.

Salem, with another one of Isis's drones perched on her shoulder. She was still wearing her blonde-haired illusion, but that didn't make her any less recognizable. She was regarding the whole situation with her typical disdain, casting her fire spell with a single raised hand. His entire body lurched upward as the nyctomorph attempted to use his body as a shield, raising him up in Salem's direction. The flames stopped just before they touched his skin, but Salem didn't seem anything more than slightly annoyed. She stepped into the room without a word, evaluating the disaster area with a click of her tongue.

"Tsk. I expected better from someone who managed to vex me for so long," she tutted.

Somehow, the sense that he had disappointed her frightened Penn more than the monster that was currently holding him in its grip.

"T-to be fair... I was expecting Beacon to be safe..." he whimpered an explanation.

"Then you are a fool." Salem's eyes glowed red in a way that made his already-pounding heart skip a beat. "Seeing what we've seen, you expected any kind of security to be provided to you? You trust far too much."

Penn started to nod, only to feel a sharp pain at his throat that made him freeze in place, like the feeling of a knife being pressed to his jugular.

"If you want your ally to live, then you'll let me lea-"

Salem didn't give the creature a chance to finish its attempt to negotiate before her hand once again glowed with magic. A violet glow surrounded Penn's body and lifted him further into the air before what could almost be mistaken for the sound of swinging a blade through the air filled his ears. The nyctomorph shrieked again before he saw a shadow dart across the floor, followed closely behind by another wave of flames. It vanished into the darkness beneath the oven just before the fire crashed into the side, leaving the metal glowing red-hot.

Penn felt little relief as he was lowered to the floor, gritting his teeth and cringing at every crack and crunch as he was moved into a sitting position. Keeping her eyes on the oven, Salem made her way to him and dropped to one knee to rest a hand on his shoulder. Penn couldn't resist the urge to flinch away at her touch.

At the sudden motion, Salem's eyes flicked to him. He suddenly felt like a cornered animal, beginning to tremble in spite of the numbness in his body. He couldn't stop it from happening, it was involuntary: she still put terror in him, especially now when he was at his most vulnerable.

"And the foolishness grows..." she muttered. "Can you move?"

Penn repressed the urge to shake his head. "N-no."

Salem's eyes flickered back to the oven, making sure their enemy hadn't come out of hiding. "Why not? I've seen you worse, and the bits left in you should be as flexible as their source."

"W-When you sever a piece of them, it ossifies." He tried to gesture to the piece impaled through his abdomen, only to be reminded that his right hand wasn't moving. "Right now, I probably have a million splinters and shards everywhere in me. If I'm lucky, they might not break off in an artery and cause an embolism when they break, but they also disrupt electrical signals, so-"

"So they're a paralytic." Salem finished.

"Y-yeah."

She rose back up to her full height and plucked the drone from her shoulder. She tossed the little metal dragon unceremoniously off of her shoulder and onto the tile beside him. A second later she pulled something off of her belt and set it on the ground with only slightly more care: a heavy-looking bag of black liquid.

"Fix him. I'll deal with the intruder."

Isis didn't respond to the command, but she did climb up onto his lap and begin scanning his wounds. Penn eyed the bag with wide eyes as he realized just what was inside.

"Is that-"

"I have prepared the Juice Box Protocol. Would you like to initiate?"

"First, I thought we lost all my blood bags in the crash. Second, would that work here?"

"While the exterior of the vehicle was highly damaged, the dimensional transcendentalism module saved most of the internal contents of the cabin and trunk. Projections indicate that a sudden spike in metabolic processes may allow for the dissolution of the ossified counterentropic matter.Additionally, regardless of its other effects, you have lost a concerning amount of blood."

Penn took a second to ponder on his options. He could see movement in the shadows, and Salem was responding to each one with rapt attention, but it was already gone before each of her attacks landed. It was jumping from one shadow to the next, skittering under and around everything it could reach. At the rate that things were going, it was going to either escape or evade her long enough to get another chance at him.

On the other hand, what Isis was proposing was something that he'd suggested more as a joke than anything, one that stood just as much chance of accelerating his death as it did of stopping it.

The healthiest choice would be to stay as still as he could and wait. Even if he didn't really have a metabolism to speak of, he was pretty sure that the shards would dissolve eventually. Trying to speed up the process would start a race between these razor-sharp pieces of black crystal and his body. Either he'd break them down, or they'd be carried up his bloodstream to his brain and cause likely-lethal damage.

"Do you think Salem can take this thing?"

Definitely... given time. Do we have time?

"Isis, do we have time?"

"Please specify query."

"For me to heal the long way. If I stay down for now, what happens?"

There was a short pause as Isis processed his question.

"Communications with Sunset Shimmer and The Ghostrick Angel of Mischief have been lost. Their current status is unknown, but they were last known to be in the center of a nest of Thoughtweaver spiders. Ruby Rose, Pyrrha Nikos, and Jaune Arc are inbound to assist."

Penn leaned back, trying to calm himself as he weighed the two sides in his mind.

"I don't like those odds. What about Winter and Ironwood?"

"Unknown."

"HOW? She controls the CCT, can't she get to their scrolls?"

Doesn't matter right now. We need solutions.

"Rainbow Dash and Aurelia?"

"...it appears that Rainbow Dash's personal cell phone has been left behind in her room while she is out elsewhere."

Penn gritted his teeth.

"We're surrounded by idiots."

"Okay. Juice box it is."

A panel in Isis's tail opened, revealing a needle that she jabbed into the bottom of the bag. Opening her mouth, a small rotation of tools shuffled until a second needle emerged. There was only a soft humming of a fluid pump warming up and the black liquid began to drip onto the floor. It was primed. The drone hovered its mouth just above his leg.

"Please brace yourself for pressurized transfusion.""

"You literally can't move, how are you supposed to-"

With a motion like a striking snake, the drone stabbed the needle into his leg. Given that it was already numb, Penn simply noted with some degree of amusement that Isis had gone straight for the femoral artery.

It didn't stay numb for long, however, as a burning feeling began to spread from the injection point. He leaned back as best he could as feeling began to come back into his body. Despite his best attempts to stay calm, he could feel a bounding beat in his chest growing faster and faster. His heart was beating so hard and fast, the sound of his blood rushing in his ears overtook all other sounds in the room. The force of the pounding was enough to feel like it was almost lifting him off of the ground with each contraction. Meanwhile, his leg was on fire and the sensation was spreading further along his veins each second.

"Uh... is your heart supposed to be kicking up this much?"

"Isis... What- uh- pick-me-up additive did you settle on for this?"

"I did not choose, I used all of the proposed substances in controlled dosages."

"SHE WHAT? IS SHE TRYING TO KILL US?"

Penn's eyes widened as the full force of what he was about to experience struck him.

"Oh, this is gonna be a wild ride."

"Affirmative."

Winter's mind was racing almost as fast as her mind as she sprinted through the halls of Beacon Academy. The General had sent her on her own to support Director Bakersfield, and the thought of spending more time around that man was... tiresome. He was clearly one who preferred emotion over sound strategy, who operated more on dogged independence than cooperation and compliance with those who knew better or ranked higher. Clearly that was the reason he'd made his own paramilitary group when he held such contempt for the actual military, so that he could be the president of his own little club where he called the shots.

Which made it ten times as infuriating that they were being forced to hold him in high regard because he was the sole expert on the threat to their world.

And then his entire proposal boiled down to "Let me do things my way or everyone dies." Of all the ridiculous, childish-

Winter's train of thought was cut off as she crashed headfirst into what felt like a brick wall. Her entire body reverberated with the force as she dropped to the floor. As soon as she had her bearings again, Winter snapped her head up to look at what had stopped her, and was surprised at the answer.

It was one of the students, though not one she recognized.

She was dressed in an oversized purple sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with mismatched legs, and her off-white hair was splayed in every direction, as if she had just rolled out of bed. She was looking down at Winter with a pair of mismatched eyes, one teal and one orange, and a completely neutral expression. Somehow, she hadn't been affected at all by the impact, despite it being enough to completely knock Winter off of her feet. She absentmindedly reached up and rubbed at the back of her head.

"Uh... ow."

Winter shook her head to clear the last of the shock. She pushed herself back up onto her feet and brushed herself off.

"The school is under attack. For your own safety, you should return to your-"

"HEY!" another voice called out. A second girl stormed out from a nearby hallway. This one was wearing the appropriate Beacon uniform, though she'd chosen to swap the cream-colored undershirt for a black one. Her gold-colored hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her delicate features were pulled into a deep scowl as she glared at Winter. "Did you just try to attack my partner?"

"No, I-"

The second girl pointed an accusatory finger at Winter, her eyes burning with barely-contained rage. "Those who attack the partner of Evelyn Kara Nathaniel attack Evelyn, herself!"

The bored-looking girl turned to her irate friend. "Hey, it's okay, Eve-"

"It certainly is NOT!" Evelyn snapped back. "I have been attacked, and I will NOT let that stand unchallenged!"

"But she ran into me..."

"I don't have time for this..." Winter muttered. She stepped to the side, attempting to dart past the two girls. To her surprise, a powerful force struck her from the side, slamming into her aura and knocking her back to the floor. Evelyn hadn't made any attempt to reach for a weapon, simply holding out her hand as if she'd managed to blow Winter back with that motion, alone.

Is that some kind of semblance?

"Oh, I'm afraid that until you apologize, your time will be forfeit to me." Evelyn grinned a crooked grin. "Now, bow and beg and grovel for forgiveness from your better, human!"

Winter blinked several times, hardly believing her ears. She turned to glance at the other girl, as if asking for confirmation that she wasn't hearing things. The messy, mismatched girl was pinching at the bridge of her nose. Clearly, this wasn't the first time that something like this had happened, and she had given up on trying to stop it.

"I'm sorry for running into you." Winter gave a quick bow to the girls. "But I'm in a hurry, and lives are on the line, so I have to-"

"I don't hear any groveling..."

"Eve, this sounds important, don't you think-"

"Nuh-uh-uh! My pride comes before all!"

Winter narrowed her eyes. This girl was disregarding the well-being of others in favor of pleasing her own wishes. That was... frustratingly familiar.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go, whether your precious pride is satisfied or not." Winter settled into a ready position, hoping to blow past these two girls with a boost from her semblance. It would be a rough shove, but not enough to hurt them. The black glyph appeared beneath her feet, and with nothing more than the smallest twitch of her heel, she was rocketed forward...

Only to once again be struck by the feeling that she had flung herself face-first into a brick wall.

This time, the impact was enough to completely knock her unconscious, and the world went black. The last thing that she saw was the glow of the mismatched girl's eyes, indicating that the invisible barrier had been her doing.

Who...

There was a long pause as the two girls stared at the now-unconscious Winter Schnee. After enough awkward silence had passed, Evelyn snickered and kicked at Winter's foot. It flopped limply to the side, confirming that she had absolutely knocked herself out. "And you Autumns claim that I'm excessive. I would say that I didn't think you had it in you, 'Terra-Ryn.'"

"Don't blame me..." her companion rolled her eyes as she knelt down and looped her arms under Winter's shoulders. "All I did was hit her as hard as she was planning to hit us." With a grunt, she pulled Winter up into a sitting position and began to drag her across the floor. "Also, why are you even using my codename? We're the only ones here. Right, Isis?"

"That's right!"

Evelyn took the opportunity to strike a haughty pose with one hand beneath her chin. "Oh ho ho! Because while the work may be done, I do not stop until the mission is completely finished! I am relentless! I am thorough! I am unstoppable! I AM-"

"In the way."

"-IN THE WAY!" Evelyn blinked as she realized her "partner" had dragged Winter right up to her feet and was staring at her with unmistakable expectation.

"You're standing in front of the broom closet."

Evelyn gave her best death glare (a glare which was known to bring true death to the woeful soul it landed upon) as she took a long and purposeful step to the side. "...that wasn't what I was going to say."

"I don't care."

She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to concentrate the death. "If I didn't know better, my beloved half-sister, I'd say you're not enjoying being on the same side as the inevitable winner."

"Council says I gotta help you, then I gotta help you. Doesn't mean I have to feed your chunnibyou fantasies." "Terra-Ryn" took a deep breath as she dusted off her hands and put one hand on the doorknob. "I saw some duct tape in there, you think we should tie her up, just to be safe?"

"Don't worry about it, she's going to be out cold for at least fifteen minutes. That's plenty of time for things to go the way we need them to."

She nodded to herself, swung the door unceremoniously shut, and finished the job with a click of the button lock on the knob. "Then I guess our work here is done." She cast a glance at Evelyn. To call it "apathetic" wouldn't have been accurate. It was more accurate to say that it was "unperturbed." It made Evelyn's blood boil to be considered a non-threat to someone who would otherwise be her archnemesis, but this particular girl had every right to be comfortable in the face of danger. Even the truly dark, horrifying, terrible evil that churned through Evelyn's veins.

She was the "Untouchable Autumn."

"-also, you're not going to win." She polished off her statement by reaching into her pocket and pulling out her "scroll." It was cute how Remnant had hard light technology, but still limited themselves to trying to recreate brick-like cell phones. It was a delightful demonstration of their lack of vision. "With that done, Isis, you delivered the Snap Protocol, right?"

The screen flickered to life, revealing Isis's human avatar flashing them a thumbs-up.

"All set. Mission's done, we can go home!"

"Then call Forrest and get us out of here."

"Done and done!"

"W-wait, I still left my Raiments of Darkness in that dorm!" Evelyn stammered. Her objection was too late, however, as dark branches were already beginning to sprout from the walls and floor. "I can't show up at the Eternal Autumn Woods in a schoolgirl uniform! My reputation would be RUINED!"

"Hehheh... Yeah, it will."

Evelyn tried to push past the branches, but vines shot out and pushed her back, placing her directly in the center of the underbrush, which was now up to their waists.

"It's one-of-a-kind! Irreplaceable! I wove it from the very pain and anguish of my soul!"

"For Raviel's sake, you bought it from our gift shop and dyed it black."

"IT SYMBOLIZES THAT I WILL CORRUPT AND DESTROY ALL YOU LOVE! Also I didn't BUY it, I stole it!"

"Because you're broke."

As the branches and leaves wove themselves into a solid sphere, there was a flash of light in an unnameable color, and the two were plucked from Remnant's reality just as Evelyn's final words were cut off with zero consideration for dramatic tension.

"CURSE YOU, AUTUMN LEB-"

"So, uh... what are we looking at?" Jaune asked as he helplessly gestured at the obstacle in front of them, what seemed to be a completely solid wall of webbing.. "Aside from the world's biggest cobweb, I mean?"

"This appears to be the next of a large group of thoughtweaver spiders."

"What spiders?" Ruby asked. As responding to her questions, a shudder of movement traveled through the webbing, and the more keen-eyed Pyrrha gasped and stepped back.

"That... is a lot of spiders."

"Would you like me to access the B.U.C.K.L.E.R. danger assessment file?"

"Does it matter?" Ruby asked as she reached for Crescent Rose. "Sunset's somewhere past it!"

"Hold on, Ruby!" Jaune held out his hand to block her. "We've gotten into trouble barging headfirst into these kinds of monsters before, we're not dealing with Grimm, here. We should take information where we can get it. Isis?"

"Affirmative."

"B.U.C.K.L.E.R. Danger assessment file: Thoughtweaver Spiders. Penn's voice began to play from their scrolls. "Thoughtweaver spiders are counterentropic arachnids that spin webs made out of a kind of fatty webbing that functions almost identically to nervous tissue. They're not considered scouts among Baalchion's forces like the knightcrawlers, usually only appearing after a foothold has been established in a world. Their general purpose is non-combative, focusing on subterfuge and dis-establishment of the local governing bodies to ease the incoming invasion."

The trio glanced at one another with different scales of relief, and Ruby raised her scythe to slash at the webs. Almost immediately, dark shapes emerged from the web and swarmed in front of her. Pyrrha and Jaune instinctively raised their shields as a hail of web strands shot in their direction. Ruby shrieked and vanished in a cloud of rose petals, using her semblance to take shelter behind the shieldbearers just in time.

"Don't mistake this for weakness, however. Thoughtweavers are insidious, smart, and they multiply quickly. Their greatest strength is in their name: thought manipulation. Contact with their webs allows them to manipulate their victims' conscious thoughts and short-term memory. What you see as an old cobweb you're about to brush out of the way might be the last thing you notice before your thoughts are no longer your own. If you see one, odds are high that five more are behind you, readying to pounce.

At the mention, Pyrrha and Jaune nodded to one another and moved with practiced ease to stand back-to-back with Ruby squished between them. Perhaps it was just paranoia, but they weren't taking any chances.

"They're capable of shooting their webs like projectiles, so don't think that standing still will save you. As counterentropic entities, they also aren't quite in sync with time as we observe it. Trying to whack-a-mole one is a fast way to getting bitten on the wrist or the ankle. Their venom is a temporary paralytic, capable of disabling a fully-grown human for between one and two hours, though they'll rarely stay down for that long. This is thanks to the secondary effect of their bites. They can control motor neurons via their bite. This leads to perhaps the final form of a thoughtweaver spider's attack. They will apply their bite directly to a large nervous center close to the brain. In humans and humanoids, this is at the back of the neck, close to the base of the skull. At that point, the host is under their complete control, and the spider cannot be safely removed by force. It's POSSIBLE the host could be left unharmed, but in all likelihood you're doing to leave them permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Instead, the spider has to disconnect willingly."

"Great... but what about dealing with the webs?" Jaune muttered. "Some glaring weaknesses, perhaps?"

"Sometimes they'll disconnect for one reason or another, leaving a web trailing back to the bite site to maintain control. Severing that strand is a safe means of breaking control. Application of peppermint oil or other forms of menthol will poison the spider and make it flee, as will small, controlled applications of flame. Do NOT use electricity! Yes, it's a Chiracian element, but the spider's jacked straight into the nervous system! If you can be gentle, a light blow to the spider, itself, will cause debilitating pain to the host, at least breaking their focus if not debilitating them entirely. Finally, one more thing: Do NOT underestimate these spiders' intelligence! Their webs serve as secondary brains, and the bigger and more complex the web, the smarter they get! If you see a web bigger than two feet across, they're going to outsmart you."

The three of them all cast nervous glances at the web that spanned from the floor to the ceiling.

"If you're trying to be stealthy, look for nodes of connections in the webbing, knots or conglomerations, and carefully sever those. If you want to be fast and loud, fire CAN do the trick, but you're going to draw a LOT of attention like that. To make a long story short: these things are sneaky, and if you see them there's a strong possibility that you have at least a couple of unwilling traitors in your midst! Watch your backs, don't get bitten, and cover up with gloves and stuff if you see a cobweb! Good luck."

"Okay, so we can cut through them as long as we're using fire dust, and we'll have to be careful not to get touched by the webbing. Sounds simple enough." Pyrrha declared. With a flick of her thumb, an aura of flames sprung to life around her spear.

"And no matter how smart they are, they ARE still little spiders!. I'm certain they'll squash just as easily whether they're smarter than us or not!" Jaune continued, igniting his own sword. "Sorry, guess that was a lot of time to tell us more than we needed to know."

"If Sunset's stories are anything to go by, that seems to be fairly typical for Penn's explanations."

Ruby held her scythe at the ready, short red flames crackling along its bladed edge. "Okay, then let's get in there, get our friends, and get out."

"Right!"

IF MUSIC IS ON
DO NOT ENTER

Rainbow took a deep breath. True, there wasn't any music playing because the room was currently empty, but that didn't make what she was about to do any easier.

"This feels wrong. We shouldn't have to cheat to make our point..."

With a pop of electricity, Aurelia's weight appeared on her shoulder. "Orders are orders, Dash... I mean, this came straight from the top! Chirac doesn't usually interfere directly in his agents' missions, this is a BIG DEAL!"

Rainbow groaned inwardly. "But what if something goes wrong and it turns out we DO need these anti-portal weapons?"

"You KNOW that once we strike a deal with the locals, we'll have a flight here in moments! We won't need a backup plan!" Auri huffed. "Especially not one that means bowing our heads to that Baalchion-loving 'friend' of Sunset's!"

Rainbow grimaced. If Sunset was here, she knew that she'd be coming to Penn's defense. She never seemed to want to hear a bad word about the guy, and after hearing their story from start to finish, Dash could understand why, now.

"Are you SURE you're not being too hard on them? I mean, you heard what they've been through-"

"I heard what they CLAIM they've been through." Aurelia hopped from Dash's shoulder. She caught her tail on the doorknob as she fell past, letting her swing around and turn it without hands. "Don't forget the first rule of dealing with Baalchion: trust nothing but your own fangs and claws!" With the knob turned and the door swinging open, she spread her wings and flew up into the air, hovering just at eye level with Rainbow. "Now come on! Do this and out deal with the locals is as good as made! This world will be safe and you'll have earned your first real claws as a Chiracian!"

Rainbow could already see their goal through the door as it opened of its own accord: a huge blast furnace glowing red and radiating heat, the kind that she half-remembered from history books about the "industrial resolution," or something. With one last grimace, she gritted her teeth and stepped through the door.

"Sorry, Sunset... A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

"I was thinking something similar, myself," a voice called out behind her.

Rainbow's head whipped around, only to feel a fist plow straight into her jawbone. The force of the impact sent her spinning, and a loose piece of metal under her foot caused her to fall to the concrete floor.

"RD!"

"Looks like your reflexes aren't as fast as your feet, are they?" the voice asked. When the spinning in her head had stopped, Rainbow looked up to see a familiar face. It was the general from the strategy meeting, tugging at the base of his white glove to ensure it stayed properly fitted. "I'll admit, when I heard we were under attack, I thought it might be a smokescreen for someone to attack the place our weapons were being developed. I didn't expect it to be one of our supposed allies doing the attacking." He strutted across the floor until he was standing between the two of them and the forge. "If I hadn't heard the two of you outside, I might even have mistaken you for coming here to protect it like I did."

Rainbow narrowed her eyes. In a crackle of electricity and a blur of motion, she was back on her feet.

"We're just trying to help. You guys are making the wrong choice!"

"We haven't made a choice, yet. Deliberations are still ongoing." He sighed. "I know children tend to be impatient, but if you'd just waited, it's entirely possible we could have chosen to go with your plan, to begin with."

"Who are you calling a child?" Rainbow rose up to her full height, trying to make herself look more like an adult. Which, according to everyone else, shouldn't be hard. I still don't think I look THAT much older!

"You. And, because you're a child and prone to rash decisions, I'm going to make you a one-time offer." The general sighed before fixing Rainbow Dash with a stare that made her freeze up for a moment. "Turn around and walk away. I'll regard this as a minor negotiations hiccup, and we can all keep negotiating as if nothing happened. You'll still have your fair shot, just like BUCKLER."

"Or what?" Rainbow asked. It wasn't even an honest question, just a reflex to challenge someone who was trying to challenge her, her competitive nature pushing out past her rational thinking. He'd gotten the drop on her with a cheap ambush, and her pride was hurting from the fact that he'd managed to land a hit.

"Or I will regard you as a threat to our world's safety... and act accordingly." It wasn't a threat, just a calm, cool statement. He wasn't nearly as rattled or riled as Rainbow was, which somehow made her blood run even hotter.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rainbow was trying to convince herself to take the bone she was being thrown, here. This was the perfect excuse not to go through with this mission, just walk away. Heck, she didn't even know if Chirac wanted this to be a stealthy sabotage and she'd already blown her chance, altogether.

Unfortunately, that part of her mind was much, much quieter than the shouting of the pain in her jaw and her wounded pride.

She clenched and unclenched her hands, feeling electricity crackling along her fingertips.

"This is for Remnant's own good..." she muttered. "There's only one real solution that's sure to work, and it's not this one!"

Author's Note

Hey, fellow adventurers! Sorry for the long wait on this update, and I know it's not the record-breaking length I promised... but after taking so long just to get this much done, I thought it would be better to put out the first part of this chapter now and let you all know that this story is definitely not dead! (Honestly when I'm not working on it, it occupies my every waking thought. I've done SO MUCH brainstorming...)

I don't have much to explain myself with except... well, life happens. And it's been happening a LOT, lately. I'm sorry. I've been pushing my limits every day and doing things that the me of a couple years ago would have thought was far, FAR beyond my capabilities.

I'll keep chipping away at this project, and hopefully part 2 of this chapter will take much, MUCH less time now that the muscles in my hands have just about caught up to the work I'm doing. If you want more multiverse content on the regular, I'm always talking about the story and my plans for it on our discord server! We also have a few other Multiverse-esque projects going on there by adventurers just like you! We have fun there, and it's the best way to stay up-to-date on progress with this project and my others!

For now, stay safe out there, and happy adventuring!
-Pennington

If it's Pain, Then I've Got What You Need... Part 2

The sun was just setting, casting a warm hue even through the stained glass windows of Canterlot Castle as Sunset Shimmer and Princess Celestia walked together through the long hallways. Sunset didn't know where they were going, but she naturally assumed that the Princess was taking her someplace relevant to her studies.

"Sunset Shimmer..."

Oh no. The princess was using THAT tone. The faux-motherly tone that always served as the prelude to some irrelevant distraction that Celestia thought was important.

"I have heard that you're not getting along well with the other students. We've talked about the fact that personal relationships-"

Ah, the hangups of a lifelong politician. Princess Celestia was always worried more about how others saw her than she was with almost anything else. She refused to focus on herself enough to maximize her results, always too worried about what others felt or thought. While she was Equestria's ruler, Sunset was convinced that, on the level of magical potential, she'd hobbled herself over the years.

"Personal relationships?" Sunset scoffed. "Who needs anypony? The most important thing in life is to be the best."

"We've talked about friendship and its importance before, and we've discussed that you need to start opening yourself up to new friends." Celestia raised a dignified eyebrow as the slightest tinge of annoyance crept into her voice. "And remember that talk we had about humility?"

Sunset wasn't worried about her mentor's frustration. She was smart enough to recognize irrelevant information when she heard it and block it out, even if Celestia's ancient mind was too caught up in her own ego to see it.

"I remember how boring it was."

For a moment, however, Sunset felt like something was... wrong. Like a cold icicle slipping its way into her blazing confidence, Sunset was struck with the overwhelming sense that she shouldn't have said that.

Princess Celestia bit back whatever remark she was going to retort with as her horn lit up with her golden aura, and a pair of doors to their right clicked loudly with the sound of shuffling tumblers. A moment later, they swung open almost of their own accord (probably just off-kilter and unbalanced, this castle was almost as ancient at Celestia, herself) to reveal a small, dingy-looking room. There were framed paintings along every wall depicting some of the strangest scenes that Sunset had ever seen. Creatures the likes of which she'd never seen or even read about in Equestria, alien biomes and foreign skies in every color and shape...

It was the kind of gaudy display she would usually expect from an elementary school reading fair, rather than some deep treasure of Canterlot Castle.

What is this, some kind of new lecture? Sunset huffed to herself as she stepped up to one of the larger paintings. It depicted what looked like a musty old mansion, long abandoned, with paint peeling and covered in cobwebs. She rolled her eyes. If it was meant to be foreboding, it was drawing up well short of its goal. It looked more like a half-completed Nightmare Night decoration. Just as she turned to walk away, however, a familiar voice cried out in her mind.

Sunset, WAIT!

Sunset's head snapped back to look at the painting, ears perking up high in alarm... but there was nothing.

Not even the painting.

The space on the wall was blank, just... just as it had always been. Sunset couldn't even remember why she'd been looking at it.

I guess the intricacies of wallpaper are more interesting than Princess Celestia's socializing requirements.

Turning away once more, Sunset found herself drawn to the back of the room, where the princess was waiting for her. Next to her was a tall mirror, oval in shape and sitting atop its own two-stepped pedestal. There was a thick border of painted wood around its edges and a halo of wrought-iron filigree. Its surface, however, was what caught Sunset's attention. While it DID show her reflection, it had the slightest wobble to it, as if she were staring into the surface of still water instead of metal-backed glass.

"Look into this mirror and tell me what you see," Celestia instructed.

Sunset studied her reflection for a moment before smirking with satisfaction. As usual, even as she effortlessly maintained her place at the pinnacle of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, she managed her grooming and appearance with equal ease.

"A beautiful pony who has nothing but power and potential," she declared as she gave her reflection a playful wink.

This evidently hadn't been the answer the princess was looking for, as she rolled her eyes and grimaced. "Care to try that again with our talk about humility taken into account?"

Sunset's smirk declined into a dissatisfied frown. Obviously, Celestia wasn't going to let this go. Maybe she just ran out of spells to teach me today. With a deep sigh, Sunset looked deeper into the mirror. It wasn't just her own reflection she looked at, however. As her eyes wandered across the entire room, they lingered on her mentor for a few seconds. Celestia's lithe figure, her billowing mane, her meticulously maintained horn, her neatly folded wings... her wings.

Sunset's focus turned back to herself, her focus lingering on the same place on her own back, utterly blank and devoid of anything but her own orange fur.

She sat at the pinnacle of the school, certainly, but there were still higher heights to reach. The surface of the mirror began to ripple.

"I see... a pony who isn't powerful enough."

The mirror continued to shiver, warping her reflection like a carnival funhouse. As the image shifted and warped, Sunset could make out what almost looked like blazing golden wings rising up off of her back. The warping made her horn look longer, too. The warping even tugged her magical aura upwards, into something that resembled the same kind of tiara her mentor wore.

"A pony who could be great, powerful... Somepony who-

"could rule Equestria," were going to be the next words out of her mouth, but just as she went to speak them that icy feeling returned, three times as strong. The overwhelming instinct that she should NOT speak the insolent words.

STOP! You're making a mistake!

Sunset gasped as the image in the mirror flickered. With speed like lightning, she saw something else in there. A figure of the deepest crimson rushed across the reflection. Sunset couldn't quite make them out, but she could tell it wasn't a pony. They were tall, lanky, and ran by on only two legs, but that was all that she could make out in the split second. That and what looked like a shining sword gripped in their hand.

And then everything was back to as it should have been. Her reflection was just her reflection, the same face she would have seen in the bathroom mirror if she walked a little further down the hall. She blinked, feeling as if she was coming out of some kind of trance.

"S-Somepony who still has a lot to learn about magic." She huffed and looked up at Princess Celestia. "What does this mirror have to do with my studies, again?"

Celestia gave Sunset an uncertain glance. "Are you alright, Sunset? You seemed as if you were going to say something else for a second, there."

Sunset gave the mirror one last sideways glance. She wasn't sure why or how, but... something about that crimson figure that shattered her daydream of grandeur had been unsettling. She had been so sure that she was seeing a vision of her rightful future, but now all of her confidence had been replaced with a deep sense of trepidation that refused to leave.

Something... something about this was wrong. She was making a mistake, but she didn't know WHAT. And somewhere, deep in her heart, the fear outweighed her ego. Fear potent enough to make her look back to her mentor.

"I- I just thought I saw something else, for a moment. Something that frightened me. Enough to second-guess myself."

Princess Celestia pondered the mirror for a few seconds, but her posture was to regard it at hoof's length, as if there was something she knew about the oversized furniture that Sunset didn't. "Something like what?"

Sunset looked back, feeling slightly comforted to have Celestia standing beside her in the reflection.

"I don't know. But it felt strong... stronger than me."

Celestia pondered for a few more moments, and Sunset would have given just about anything to know what was going through the princess's mind in those seconds.

"Oh, it was probably just a trick of the light." She turned back towards the door, and her significant size inadvertently pushed Sunset in the same direction. As the two of them returned to the hallway and the doors swung shut behind them, Sunset felt the sense of dread in the pit of her stomach relent, replaced by... relief? She tried her best to mull over the feeling. As best as she could tell, she felt like she'd just dodged an arrow of some kind, but she couldn't put her hoof on what it was.

"For tomorrow, I want you to reflect on the discussion we just had." Celestia instructed. "When we stand alone, we can often wind up falling short of our aspirations, no matter how clearly we can see them in our minds. Friendship can broaden your horizons, giving you a more complete picture than what you might be able to see from your own narrow perspective."

"Hmm." Sunset absentmindedly hummed her agreement. She wanted to simply blow off Celestia's instructions, but she was just shaken enough to consider that perhaps the princess had a point.

"I'll... think about it."

Salem was beginning to get frustrated.

The creature, something called a "nyctomorph," was a shapeshifter, but that was hardly its most dangerous trait. It had lost at least three quarters of its body mass to her initial attacks. Most rational creatures would have had the decency to curl up and die after such injury, but this monster had only used it as an excuse to change tactics. It had gone from trying to overwhelm and consume Penn in an amorphous blob to skittering around like some kind of overgrown insect across the room, using the loss of mass to become almost too fast for her eye to track. That speed, combined with its ability to blend in perfectly with any shadows in the area, had made fending off its attacks more a matter of reflex than tactic.

If Penn wasn't here and in need of her protection, she would have simply let loose an attack with a wide area of effect. Her opponent couldn't hide if there were no more dark corners left to hide in.

But as it stood, the fool had gotten himself nearly killed because he didn't have the good sense to doubt his eyes, and now she was left trying to protect him, which was a strategy she was... rusty... in.

The next time she saw the nyctomorph shuffling across the tile, she tried to ambush it with a red rune, but the grimm tendrils closed around empty air. She cursed as the thing suddenly shifted directions, darting towards the place Penn was laying on the ground. With as much restraint as she could muster, she conjured a line of fire to spring up behind her, cutting it off. As the mass of black tendrils drew up short, she curled her fingers inward, pulling the fire into a ring around herself and the creature in an attempt to lock it in place. To her irritation, the mass of the monster pulled itself into a new shape, stretching out into a pair of feathery wings and taking to the air. Unable or unwilling to fly through the flames, it zipped its way towards the ceiling. Salem responded with a blast of pure magical energy from her hand, and she smirked as she struck her mark, knocking it away from the air vent through which it had been trying to make its escape. It squealed and flew into the countertop, causing a cacophony of various utensils and dishes to be thrown in all directions.

"Okay, okay, okayokayokayOKAYOKAYOKAY OKAY!" Penn babbled from behind her. Before Salem could turn around, he was already pushing his way past her and towards the central table. "We are good, we are GREAT, we are WIRED!"

Salem could tell at a glance that he was clearly under the influence of some kind of substance, but it was possible to turn that to their advantage. From their first meeting, he'd been a quick thinker. Mild mania seemed to be his optimal state. She kept one eye on where the nyctomorph had landed and the other on Penn as he reached for his second gauntlet. His unshielded arm was still hanging limp by his side, meaning he had to fumble with his gloved hand to work the mechanisms, but he eventually managed to eject the dust cartridge. It left a large gap in the weapon, and with a flick of his shield-bearing wrist, the empty cartridge in his still-worn gauntlet was sent sailing with a satisfying pinging sound.

He limply gestured back and forth with the fresh cartridge for a few seconds, clearly unable to reach the slot for it. After a moment's preponderance, he tossed the dust magazine into the air and slammed his shield into it, managing to somehow land it perfectly in its place.

"WHEW! Okayokayokay!" He hopped up and down in place like a child on a sugar high. "Reloaded revolutions resurrections! What's next where to go what to do?"

Salem felt a twitch of annoyance building. This fast-paced rambling was getting on her nerves more and more with every word.

"Focus," she commanded.

Penn instantly straightened up, pivoting on his heel to face her with a click of his heels. "Jawohl!"

Salem knew he was being sarcastic, but she decided to take the victory she could get. "That thing is still here. Do you know how to kill it?"

"Kill it? Do we have to?" Penn tilted his head slightly, giving her a clear view of his mile-wide pupils. "What if we catch it?"

"How?" Salem hissed. The longer that she stared at the completely-still pile of kitchen implements, the more she got the sinking feeling that she had lost sight of it.

"Iunno!"

Salem ground her teeth as she restrained herself from grabbing him by the throat. With a wave of her hand, a gust of flames rushed into the corner of the room, incinerating the countertop and all of its contents in an instant... completely silently. Aside from the crackling of flames, there was no squealing, no cries of pain, no sound to indicate she'd hit her target.

With a snarl, she stepped up to Penn and grabbed him by his collar, pulling him close. "Listen! If you don't start showing some initiative, I'm going to start thinking that you're on that thing's side! This is no time for sentimentality!"

Just as she was about to give him a further scolding, she recognized the look in his eyes again: total fear. The same fear she'd been trying to get him to overcome. She was going backwards.

She took a long, deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

"Listen. Whatever you may feel towards that creature, it does not return your emotion. I and all the rest of the people here need you alive. Make the choice: this world or this nyctomorph. Kill or be killed." She released her grip on his collar. "I need you. Sharp."

There was a long pause as the two of them stood there, staring each other in the eyes. In her mind, Salem found herself recalling the first time she'd seen this boy. He was naive, hot-tempered, and short-sighted, easy to rile into a fervor by threatening his allies. But there had always been a glimmer of intelligence behind those eyes, of rapid, but focused thought. He'd certainly been put through his paces since then, lost some portion of that naivete, and the substances fueling him to be up on his feet were also clouding his mind, but her words had been calculated to cut through the haze, down to those ironclad bones of his character. She'd appealed to that instinctive protector. Twice. Even if saying she needed him wasn't strictly true, it was the best chance to draw out the tactician.

And when the glimmer of intelligent thought returned to his eyes, Salem knew that she'd been correct. He stepped back away from her before pivoting on his heel, glancing around the room with new alertness.

"If we lost sight of it, it's probably trying to camouflage itself as some kind of ordinary object in here."

"So it can regroup and try again."

Penn groaned softly and rubbed at his limp arm. "Blasted thing's taking a page out of the Typhon's book."

"As in the Typhon of Prey?" Salem scanned over the room, noting a frankly terrifying number of loose miscellaneous objects. "It would be easier to spot duplicate items if there weren't about five meals' worth of mise-en-place laid out across the kitchen."

"Yeah, well, I don't like stopping once the stove's on and-" Penn froze for a moment before turning and giving her an incredulous look. "Wait, did you just get my video game reference?"

Salem rolled her eyes. "Did you forget I ripped half your knowledge out of your brain before I even got close to the answers I wanted? But that's hardly important right now!"

"R-right!" Penn put his hand to his chin as he slowly turned in a circle. The silence that fell was eerie, made only more intense by the knowledge that they could be attacked at any moment. It was only after about ten seconds that he stopped, freezing in place. He pointed his gauntlet-covered hand at an object near the counter.

"My twelve o'clock. There's a mug that matches one at your three."

Salem gave a quick glance in his direction, then in the direction he'd indicated for her. To her surprise, he was correct. It was a green mug with a chip taken out of the lip to expose tan-colored ceramic underneath. She would have been dubious about the likelihood that he could have recognized it that quickly, but the damaged portions matched perfectly. With a small upward motion, flames sprung up from the floor, instantly engulfing the mug. To her disappointment, there was no reaction except for the green paint to begin charring and turn black.

With one potential target eliminated, Penn kept his blade pointed at the other, coated in an almost-invisible layer of flames as he advanced on the countertop.

"Last chance, little guy. I can still take you alive."

Salem rolled her eyes. Somehow, despite not even being here, Shimmer's influence was still blocking him from rational thinking. She stepped up behind him, slinking her way up until she could speak straight into his ear. "Your friends are still under attack. Can you afford to waste time like this?" she murmured.

The way that his eyes widened made it clear that the facts of this two-pronged attack had slipped his mind.

Three things happened at once.

First, the mug transformed back into a fluttering black mass that launched itself at Penn.

Second, Penn lunged forward, flaming blade at the ready.

Third, Salem noticed a flaw in his form. He was either hesitating to kill it, or his body was just failing him. With more than a twinge of exasperation, she gestured with one finger, giving his arm the necessary nudge to align with his target.

With a final screech, the nyctomorph was impaled on his blade. A fraction of a second later, it had burst into flames. There were only about three seconds of screeching and thrashing before it had been completely reduced to ashes and dissolved away to nothing.

"Well done."

"It... doesn't feel like it." Penn murmured. Salem could hear grief and regret creeping into his voice.

"What, just because you made it, you feel bad for killing it?" Salem scoffed. "This is WAR, boy. You hardly showed this kind of regret for killing MY subordinates."

The way he instantly turned on her, eyes wide with horror and shock, almost made her laugh. "You KNOW I wrote-"

"Sunset and Missy are still in danger." Salem cut him off. "Those drugs must be affecting your ability to focus."

Penn's jaw hung open for a few seconds, and his eyes darted between her and the door, clearly trying to decide what was more important. He took a lunge towards the exit, only to stop with an ear-piercing squeak between his shoe and the tile floor and turn back to her.

"You need to get downstairs!"

"Why-" The word had scarcely left Salem's tongue before, for once, it was HER turn to catch up. "Oh. I see. Yes, I'll take care of it."

With a nod, Penn took off again, now in a dead sprint for the dormitories. As he vanished into the darkness, Salem took a second to ponder to herself.

"I was right. We DO make fine allies."

The thought of the mirror wouldn't leave Sunset alone. The mystery of why Celestia had taken her to see it AND the mystery of the visions she'd had when she looked deep into it.

Princess Celestia seemed to have picked up on Sunset's new obsession and was doing her best to smother it under a heavy cover of obstinate obfuscation.

"About that mirror..."

"No, you aren't ready to know about the mirror."

Day after day, Sunset asked.

"So... that mirror."

"No."

Day after day, Celestia rebuffed her efforts for answers.

"You know what's fascinating? Mirrors... about that one in-"

"Sunset Shimmer. We have been over this. We will get to the mirror and many other lessons in due time... when you're ready."

Something about the complete reversal in Celestia's intentions made Sunset feel as if she'd failed some kind of test when Celestia had taken her to the mirror before. She wasn't sure WHAT Celestia could have been testing her on, but if she'd failed to earn her way to direct answers, there were other ways to get information.

And so, one quiet night, Sunset made her way to the Royal Archives. She passed volume after volume of books well below her reading level, filled with information she already knew until she'd reached the entrance to the Restricted Section. Celestia thought that she was the only one who knew about this royal secret, but Sunset had managed to find it on her own one day when she was browsing for SOME kind of challenging reading. She'd found a pair of books with no titles, only a sigil of the sun and the moon on each of their spines. When she'd tried to pull them loose, she'd activated a hidden lever that opened the secret stairwell.

This time, however, when she went to open the passageway, she noticed another unnamed book beside the first two. It was pitch-black, but there were tiny sparkling gemstones embedded in the binding that made it look more what she might see through one of the observatory telescopes. Curious, she pulled it off of the shelf and gave it a quick glance.

On the Nature of Overlay Matrices and Modern Summoning, by Mischief Maker... Weird. How did I miss this?

Sunset felt a strong urge to sit down with the book and start reading, but she was a mare on a mission. Still, she tucked the book into her saddlebag for later before tugging on the hidden lever. As the shelves swung aside to reveal the hidden path, however, a familiar voice called out.

OH, COME ON!

Sunset snapped to attention, swiveling her head from side to side in alarm. If somepony caught sight of her opening this passage, she could actually get in trouble.

But the coast was clear.

She rubbed at her ears before making her way inside, swiftly shutting the door behind her with a click. Whoever was shouting in the library would almost certainly be getting an earful right now from the Head Librarian. While it had almost given her a heart attack, it had been a perfect distraction.

Once again confident that she would be undisturbed, Sunset stepped up to the mechanical catalog, deftly typing in her desired topic. A plethora of specialized topics about mirror magic, mimicry magic, and magical artifacts masquerading as mirrors came up, enough to keep her occupied for AGES before she found what she was looking for. With a long sigh, she turned to the most generalized source of information: a mention of a magical mirror in Canterlot Castle: A History, Part 2.

A magic mirror in the castle? Sounds about right...

It only took a few minutes for her to track down the volume and find the section in particular she was looking for. Her breath hitched in her throat as she could scarcely believe her eyes.

This artifact dated back centuries, and had been the focus of a series of experiments conducted by Starswirl and Celestia, themselves! The two of them had used it as a focus point for magical excursions into worlds... beyond Equestria! They had catalogued hundreds of other universes, decades of intensive study, though the details were sparse in this particular book. (Sunset couldn't help balking slightly at the mention of their first discovery, that being a world filled with cutie-mark-bearing DINOSAURS.) As she read, she found herself growing more uncomfortable, as if she was drawing closer and closer to something dangerous, but she forced herself to swallow it. She DESERVED this information. Celestia had shown her the mirror, let her catch a glimpse into infinite possibility before sealing it away again!

Her eyes widened as she happened upon a passing comment from Celestia's perspective, saying that there was a chance they may be able to construct a mirror capable of transporting a pony to the Astral Plane, the source of magical energy that every caster drew from at unconscious level.

This had resulted in a return comment from Star Swirl that made Sunset's head spin.

If a pony skilled in the mass manipulation of mana were to be steeped in these primordial energies, it is possible that their natural mana reserves could expand in exponential fashion. This mass influx of magic could possible even force the evolution of a unicorn into an...

"...alicorn." Sunset whispered the last word aloud.

While this alone poses a threat to upend the natural order of Equestria, the threat is a thousand times more potent if a pony were to find a way to take this mana to one of the many magic-devoid worlds we have discovered in our travels. The effects of this could be disastrous, possibly resulting a cascade of effects that could result in world-rending consequences!

If Sunset hadn't been so gobsmacked at the first revelation, she would have laughed at Starswirl's overreaction. Something about crying the end of other theoretical worlds felt like a tired old argument of a chronic overreactor.

She felt her hopes fall as she read about these experiments coming to a close after Starswirl's disappearance. Celestia had held on to a few of the more stable mirror portals, including one in particular she kept close at hoof. Its effects were reduced, but never completely disappeared.

"The crystal mirror... every thirty moons, a portal will open to another world?" she murmured.

"That's not really for you to know, now is it?" a stern voice asked, forcing Sunset to jump to her hooves and scramble in surprise. Her eyes widened as she watched Princess Celestia step out of the shadows and into the reading area, head held high and wings spread out in a way that made her look even more towering and imposing.

Sunset had been caught, and she knew it. She was red-hoofed and elbow deep into the cookie jar. But as she stared into the stern eyes of her mentor, the fear began to burn away, replaced by blazing rage. What she'd seen in the mirror, that had been her future! The one she deserved! She was meant to be a ruler, a princess!

How DARE SHE keep this kind of magic from me! Sunset thought the words before she spoke them. But as she opened her mouth to speak the words, unbidden thoughts ripped through her mind in a flash.

Rebuke. Accusation. Theft. Exile. Revenge. Failure. Failure. FAILURE.

And the crimson figure, the one who had shattered her vision of the future, was at the center of it all, a presence screaming at her in a language of dread and knowledge from a painful history.

DON'T SAY IT! LISTEN!

LISTEN! DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!

FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE, LISTEN!

The sheer force of the emotions, the visions of her soon-to-be future from memories she didn't remember having, forced Sunset Shimmer to her knees.

And there on her knees, in the midst of the greatest mistake of her life, Sunset Shimmer swallowed her pride... and did what she ought to have done.

"I-I'm sorry, Princess... I couldn't stand not knowing after getting a taste of the truth. It's consumed my mind from the inside out, and I couldn't find any other way. But that's no excuse for circumventing your judgement. I'm prepared to accept punishment for my actions."

There was a long pause.

"Go to your room. Now. I will decide on your punishment later. Consider yourself on suspension until further notice." Princess Celestia's tone was cold and as hard as iron, which made Sunset flinch. Celestia was NEVER cold, no matter how much she pushed the envelope.

"Y-yes, Princess."

As she walked away with her tail between her legs, Sunset couldn't help but ponder the fact that she had that feeling again, that sense of a narrowly-avoided threat. She didn't know WHAT kind of voice of reason had spoken to her in that moment, but if just going behind Celestia's back like this had been enough to make her completely break character...

What would have happened if I hadn't listened?

"Look out!"

Ruby stumbled back, barely managing to avoid a net of webbing strands falling from above. She slashed with her scythe, sending an arc of fire sailing through the air towards the web wall.

"Did they get you?" Pyrrha asked as she came up alongside Ruby.

"Thanks to your warning, no." Ruby watched the fiery attack disperse just before it struck the dense webbing, blocked by a dark figure. "But we're not making any headway!"

"I know." Pyrrrha muttered. The two of them could only grimace as Jaune stepped forward out of the shadows. His eyes were glazed over and he had a vacant smile on his face that sent shivers down Ruby's spine. "These things are more coordinated and have faster reaction times than us. I've never seen Jaune fight like this."

The mind-controlled Jaune came to a stop at the midway point between them and the web wall, eyes locked on the two of them. "The lights are on, but nobody's home," as Yang would say...

"I couldn't sneak around, either. I think the web is sharing all their senses..." Pyrrha glanced at the black shapes crawling up and down the walls. "And I don't think they targeted Jaune by accident. He has the most aura out of us all, he could keep blocking our way all night, if he had to."

"But why are they just... staying there?" Ruby mused to herself. "It's like they're waiting for someth-"

FSSSH!

Both of their hearts skipped a beat as red light filtered through the many layers of web behind Jaune, making it obvious what the source of the sound was.

"SUNSET! BACK HERE!" Ruby shouted, waving her hand high to try and signal to her teammate behind the wall. "We're on our way to get you out of- OOF!"

Her shouting was cut off as Pyrrha seized her arm and pulled it down hard. Time felt like it slowed down as the red light of Sunset's saber intensified, then came flying out of the web on its own. It flew as if of its own accord, staying perfectly horizontal as it sailed towards them. It was only Pyrrha's quick reaction that pulled her head down below the humming blade as it passed them. In the moment she was forced to take her eyes off of the deadly projectile, Ruby's eyes widened at the sight of dozens of flickering black insectoids rushing towards them from below.

When the sound of rushing footsteps reached her ears, she knew that Jaune was pressing the attack, as well. She could see it in her mind's eye, the same shield-forward rush that he clumsily used as his opening move.

They were being attacked from above, below, and at the midpoint between the two, all at once... and Ruby panicked.

She grabbed hold of Pyrrha and activated her semblance. It felt like pulling a ton of bricks along behind her to carry someone else along with her, but the two of them were whisked away in a blur of red and rose petals, speeding away from the attack and back down the hallway. She didn't hesitate when she saw a wall of web stands spring up in her way. Together, the two of them slipped their way through the spaces in the trap, barely slipping through before Ruby felt her strength finally break, and the two of them tumbled onto the tile floor in a heap.

As fast as she could get her bearings again, Ruby was on her feet again, Crescent Rose's gun barrel pointed to intercept any pressing attacks. Jaune's smile seemed to be wider as the new web wall parted for him. Beside him as he took up a defensive stance was Sunset's saber, simply hovering in the air as it revolved lazily in place.

"R-Ruby..." Pyrrha stammered.

Her call for attention went unnoticed, however, as Ruby watched another figure step out of the webs.

Sunset was wearing a similar grin as the spiders made a path for her to pass through. She held out her hand and the saber flew into her palm. She gave it an expert twirl before settling into a ready stance. It wasn't the stance that Weiss had taught her, but something completely different. She held the handle of the saber with both hands and had a wide stance, with her shoulders almost perpendicular to Ruby and Pyrrha.

"Ruby!"

She's holding it almost like a baseball bat... do these spiders not know how to use a-

"RUBY!"

For the first time, Pyrrha's voice broke through the haze of Ruby's thinking, and her head snapped to look at the other girl.

Pyrhha was just managing to stagger to her feet, stabbing one end of her spear into the floor to support herself. Her left leg was hanging limp, forcing her to put all of her weight on her right one.

"I'm afraid one of them got a little too close... It bit right through the leather of my boot," she gave Ruby a bitter smile. "I-I'm sorry. I can't feel my leg, and it's spreading."

This, on top of everything else, brought Ruby to only one conclusion.

"We need to get out of here..." she muttered, turning her attention to the brainwashed duo. "Sunset, Jaune, I swear I'll come ba-"

She didn't even have a chance to get the words of apology out of her mouth before they were on the offensive. Sunset's expression didn't change one iota as she swept the blade out towards them. The movement barely registered before Ruby felt a burning sensation rip across her skin as the blade landed on her shoulder. She was only able to barely process that her aura had absorbed the attack before the sensation sprung back up on her back, forcing a cry of pain from her lips as she stumbled forward... into a strike across her stomach.

She's- so FAST!

In the corner of her eye, she could see the way that Sunset was seemingly everywhere: she was using her speed to leap onto and back off of the walls, spinning and leaping in ways that mirrored Pyrrha at her most focused. By combining her constant movement with the fluid motions of her saber, Sunset could strike from any angle at any moment... resulting in an absolute hailstorm of heavy, painful blows. By the time she could get her concentration back enough to track Sunset's movement, she was already out of sight. Ruby could feel her aura running thin, the burning was getting more intense and refusing to fade. The world was a haze of flowing red lights and pain.

Finally, one heavy blow came to her stomach as Sunset planted her fist into the younger girl's abdomen, Sending Ruby sprawling backwards until she fell onto her butt with a groan of pain. Her aura was completely shattered, leaving her exposed. Beside her, Pyrrha came crashing into the tile floor, Jaune's knee pressed to the center of her chest in a pinning move.

"Jaune, please don't do this..." Pyrrha whispered, one last plea to the boy she loved.

Jaune and Sunset still seemed deaf to their pleas as the spiders advanced on all sides. Ruby tried to sit up, only to find the shining tip of Sunset's blade held at her throat.

"Sunset... you have to be in there somewhere, right?" she whispered. "You're stronger than these things, I KNOW you are- YEEP!" She couldn't stop herself from squealing slightly at the feeling of long, insectoid legs climbing up her leg.

Sunset leaned down, giving Ruby an empty stare as she spoke for the first time.

"Don't you want to go back and fix it, too, Ruby?"

Ruby's eyes widened. "F-Fix what?"

"All the bad things. The mistakes we made. The people who leftus. The painful memories." She reached down, stroking a hand over Ruby's cheek in a loving gesture. "If counter-entopy could turn back the clock, isn't there one night you'd want to change? Go back and wake up just in time on a lost Summer's night?"

Despite the burning feeling she'd been steeped in only seconds before, Ruby felt a thick frost creep over her insides. "H-How do you know about-"

"Shhh. Just hold on... We're so close!" Sunset's expression was creeping into gleeful mania. "Just a few more days and we'll turn the whole world back, and then we can fix everything!"

In spite of everything happening around her, Ruby bit back her tears. "Y-You're NOT Sunset. The Sunset I know- She keeps moving forward! She's made mistakes and she regrets them, but she learned from them! She let the past make her BETTER, not weigh her down like this!"

"Why overcome the weight..." Sunset spread her arms wide, "When we can let it go?"

Just as Ruby felt the sharp legs of one of the spiders creeping up the back of her neck, a voice she didn't expect roared down the hall from behind them: Penn's.

"ISIIIIIIS! BURY THE LIGHT!"

Sunset and Jaune's heads both snapped up. They jumped to their feet, easing the pressure on Ruby and Pyrrha. Jaune slipped into a ready stance behind his shield, and Sunset settled back into her original ready stance with her saber. Ruby took advantage of the distraction to reach up and snatch the spider crawling up her neck, flinging it with all her strength back into the webbing before it could bite her.

FSSSHT!

With a sound that mimicked its activation, Sunset's saber switched itself off. At the same time, the intruder that had interrupted her victory crashed headfirst into her, sending her flying back into the webbing. She immediately became stuck in place, struggling to free herself. Jaune moved to advance on Penn, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a cannon larger than his own forearm. In a moment of shock, Jaune froze, which gave Penn enough time to widen his stance, press the opening of the barrel to the shield, and pull the trigger.

FWOOOSH!

A beam of red-hot light and gas erupted from the cannon. The force of it pushed Penn back down the hallway, his sneakers squealing in protest, but the force seemed much more potent with Jaune, who was thrown through the second wall of webbing entirely, tearing it off of its mountings. In a giant ball of flames and web, Jaune crashed into the original web wall, causing all of the spiders around them to shriek and skitter away. The flash of light nearly blinded Ruby, forcing her to turn away and grimace from the heat.

Penn, for his part, had held up much better dealing with the recoil, coming to a stop just between Ruby and Pyrrha. The cannon on his arm dropped to the ground with a heavy clang, making it clear that the attack had been a one-time use.

"Y-you girls... okay?" he heaved.

"Sunset Shimmer. You deliberately disobeyed me and unlawfully accessed the Restricted Section of the Canterlot Archives." Celestia stood with her head held high, looking down on Sunset in a high-and-mighty way that normally would have set her temper ablaze.

But for some reason, ever since their confrontation in the library, Sunset had been making a habit of putting her pride aside. She didn't know why, but something about it felt... better. Like it was what she ought to do.

"I know, Princess. I am sorry, but I don't have a good excuse."

"Ordinarily, actions such as these would be grounds for expulsion from my school, let alone from your role as my direct pupil. The knowledge in those deep archives is restricted for a REASON. Dangerous and even dark magics are recorded there, kept stored away so that, should we happen upon them again we will be able to recognize them as threats. Contained therein are secrets of our world that could cause total havoc!"

"I know, Princess."

"And still you recklessly let your thirst for knowledge override your common sense and decency."

"Yes."

"Are you prepared for the consequences of your actions?"

Sunset took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to choke back the tears at the shame. She'd been the most promising student under the most incredible teacher that Equestria had to offer. And she had blown it for the sake of curiosity. Everything Celestia had said so far had been true, she couldn't argue with the facts.

"I am prepared, Princess."

There was a long, gut-wrenching silence, heavy with tension as Celestia let Sunset stew in her guilt.

"In spite of all of this... I am willing to acknowledge my hoof in events." Celestia finally broke the silence. "I showed you the mirror and then denied you answers, even when I saw that it had deeply troubled you. I ignored your obvious feelings and offered no balm. As my student, I have always encouraged you to seek answers to your questions, only to go back on my word in this crucial instance." Celestia's tone softened ever-so-slightly, only enough for those who knew her well to hear it. "And I can see that, while the knowledge you found was neither malicious nor cursed in nature, you were still shaken enough by what you found that you've become open to new ideas. Our lesson in humility seems to have taken root, and deeply so. So, rather than expulsion or exile, your punishment is to be served by a drastic change in curriculum."

Sunset resisted the urge to snap her head up and gawk at her teacher, but the floor tiles in the grand hall were gifted to a full view of her wide eyes and gaping mouth.

"You will leave the school to study abroad. The merits of cooperation and collaboration in magic. Interpersonal relations will be your new field of study until further notice."

Sunset could only gape.

"Pack your bags. You will be leaving in the morning." Celestia stamped her hoof twice, signaling the end of the trial.

As Sunset trudged her way out of the Grand Hall, she couldn't help but think that, in spite of getting off "easy," she had been humiliated in lieu of being expelled.

"I'm going to be cut off from my magical studies and high-level academic resources..." she mumbled as she made her way up the stairs. "And I STILL don't see the point of studying 'interpersonal relationships!' This is so stupid..."

Still, she had no way to argue. Celestia's ruling was final. For a brief moment, the thought had crossed her mind to use the mirror to run to another world, but without the assurance that this other world would have magic, there was a good chance she'd wind up someplace where her magical knowledge would be as useless as... well, interpersonal studies.

As the thought passed from her mind, she was interrupted by a loud knock on her door. It was loud enough and angry-sounding enough to make her jump in place. Knowing that there was no way that kind of knocking could portend good news, Sunset made her way to the door of her dormitory. When she flung it open, however, instead of an angry alicorn or even a burly guard, she found herself staring into the sky-blue eyes of a young filly. Her coat was a faded pink color and her wings were a strange mottling of black and white feathers. Feathers that almost reminded Sunset of the keys of a piano. She was wearing a fluffy, lacey black dress, topped by a top hat MUCH too small for her head. Her cutie mark looked like a trio of playing cards with warped backing patterns.

Sunset could scarcely believe that this little filly had managed to raise such a racket, but the angry scowl on her face made it clear that the young girl was the culprit.

"WHAT are you DOING here?" she shouted.

"How's it any of YOUR business?" Sunset scowled back. "I'm still packing, and I'm not supposed to leave until the morning, anyway!"

"Not HERE!" She pointed past Sunset into the dorm, then gestured to the general area around them. "HERE!"

Sunset blinked, caught off-guard by the unclear clarification. "What, Canterlot?"

"No, HERE!" The little filly stamped her hoof. "In this-"

Three years later...

"Hey, Sunset! Over here!"

Sunset grinned as her attention was pulled back to Rainbow Dash. The blue-furred pegasus was tearing her way through the sky, clearing every last scrap of the cloud cover in a matter of seconds. When the skies were clear, she came back down to earth and slid to a stop, just barely missing the two unicorns waiting for her on the ground.

"So? How's it look?" She puffed out her chest in anticipation of inevitable praise.

"Well, I wouldn't have saved it for the last second like that... but things look good up there!" Sunset declared before turning to her companion. "Whaddya say, Twilight?"

"Hm..." Twilight was clearly scouring the sky with a finer eye for detail than Sunset had cared to. "It's good, but good isn't always good enough! This is the one THOUSANDTH Summer Sun Celebration! Everything has to be PERFECT!"

"Hey, I wouldn't leave Ponyville hanging!" Rainbow waved off Twilight's fears with a nonchalant grin. "Plus this is Sunset's big chance to get back on Princess Celestia's good side! I'd never let this go wrong!"

"Mhmm. I guess we can check this item off the list. Next stop: Town Hall to inspect the decorations!" Twilight made an exaggerated motion with her quill before turning to Sunset. "Lead the way, Senior Princess Protege!"

"Twilight, just because I have seniority doesn't mean you have to call me that," Sunset groaned. Twilight Sparkle was the filly that Celestia had taken under her wing once Sunset had set off on her... extended sabbatical. She was a good young unicorn with a smart head on her shoulders and plenty of raw talent, but she clearly didn't have any kind of interest in socializing or making friends.

And after three years of traveling across Equestria and sending weekly reports about the lessons she'd learned from ponies far and wide, Sunset didn't think that it was a coincidence that Princess Celestia had sent Twilight to the same town she'd chosen to finally settle down for the long-term. Twilight reminded Sunset of herself before she'd learned about the magic of friendship, if perhaps a little less ambitious and a little more... nerdy.

"Come on, the Town Hall is this way. The pony in charge of decorations is a good friend of mine, too! She's going to LOVE you."

"You really took Princess Celestia's advice about making friends to heart, didn't you?" Twilight rolled her eyes.

"Well, after I almost destroyed my life trying to make it to the top of the world on my own, I realized that I had a lot of perspective to gain." Sunset waved farewell to Rainbow Dash as the two of them made their way towards the town's center. "It took a while to learn to listen to other ponies, and even LONGER to learn how to open up, but in the end it really helped me see solutions to my problems that I never considered."

"Hm..."

"You know, sometimes you really have to let the walls crumble before you get that whole extra dimension to your thinking." She smirked and tapped Twilight on the side of her skull. "There's beauty in the breakdown, you know!"

"Uh-huh. And is there beauty in the Town Hall?" Twilight countered with a deadpan look.

"Oh, absolutely, darling."

"Darling?"

"You'll get it in a second." Sunset snickered. Just as the two of them were about to enter the hall, however, the doors flung open to reveal... an angry-looking pink filly.

"SUNSET! WAKE U-"

36 Hours Later...

"Princess Luna..."

The smaller alicorn who had once been Nightmare Moon was shaken out of her reverie by Celestia's voice.

"It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this. Time to put our differences behind us." Celestia dropped to her knees, meeting the younger alicorn closer to her eye level. "We were meant to rule TOGETHER, little sister!"

"Sister?" Sunset gasped alongside the rest of the newly-christened Element Bearers. Even if she hadn't received one of the Elements of Harmony, she had made the harrowing journey alongside Twilight and the rest of her friends, and was now getting to witness the reunion of the two royal sisters.

"Will you accept my friendship?"

Luna looked down, tears brimming in her eyes as she seemed to grapple with her own shame. The tension in the room reached a fever pitch as everypony present waited for her answer, but deep down Sunset already knew all too well what Luna was going through. Finally, her love won out over her shame, and Luna rushed to her sister, pressing up against her chest as rivers of tears sprung out.

"I'm so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!"

For the first time in her life, Sunset saw Celestia shedding joyful tears of her own. "I- I've missed you, too..."

This, of course, was the final straw that caused Pinkie Pie to break into outright sobs.

A few minutes later, the group was back in Ponyville, courtesy of the Princess's teleportation skills. As everyone crowded around, Sunset quietly began to walk towards home. This was Twilight and the others' victory. She didn't need to-

"Sunset Shimmer!"

Sunset perked up at the sound of Princess Celestia calling her name. A beckoning motion with her wing was enough to bring Sunset back through the crowd, eventually winding up kneeling in front of her mentor for the first time in three years.

"You called, Princess?"

"Twilight was kind enough to tell me about how you helped guide her." A gentle hoof under her chin guided Sunset back up to her hooves. Celestia's gaze and smile were both soft, softer than Sunset ever remembered seeing them. "And I'm very proud of you."

"I just showed her around town..." Sunset pawed at the ground.

"No, you did much more than that!" Twilight interjected. "Without your advice, your help, I never would have realized the truth about the magic of friendship! We wouldn't have even made it through the Everfree Forest without you!"

"When you left Canterlot, I worried that your selfishness and pride had already carried you too far down paths I couldn't steer you away from." Celestia's hoof moved to Sunset's chest, poking at the spot above her heart. "But today? I see a pony who is open, humble, and much, much wiser than when she left. You let yourself be open to new ideas, and because of that, you played a vital role in helping save Equestria and reunite me with my beloved sister."

"It was only thanks to your teaching. I definitely needed a little tough love back then." Sunset chuckled to herself at the thought of the pony she'd once been.

"And, because it's so clear you've learned the lessons that I'd hoped you would, I want to extend you an invitation." Celestia turned to Twilight, giving her a knowing nod. "Twilight Sparkle is planning to stay in Ponyville, to study both the Elements of Harmony AND the magic of friendship. I'd very much like it if you would come back to Canterlot, instead."

Sunset's eyes widened as she realized what was happening. "Y-you mean-"

"I think that you're well and ready to continue your studies in academic magic... including a certain relic that we discussed shortly before you left." Celestia turned to nod at the guard-drawn chariot that had come to pick up her and her sister. "Will you come rejoin me as my protege?"

Tears welled up in Sunset's eyes. Before she could give her answer, she was cut off by Rainbow Dash practically tackling her from behind.

"HA! Of COURSE she will! We all know that's where she belongs, doing all that egghead stuff in the castle!"

As Sunset looked around, she could see that it wasn't just Dash. All of her Ponyville friends were giving her happy smiles, ready to celebrate with her. In that moment, she knew exactly what to do. She reached out and grabbed Rainbow Dash and Applejack in a hug, and the rest of the girls all followed suit in a massive group hug.

"Thank you... I promise, you'll always be my very best friends, and I'll never forget what I learned from all of you."

"Y-Yeah, well, don't keep the princesses waitin'! You'd best skedaddle!"

"But you'd better come back to visit! Don't let it go to your head, that's MY job!"

"Darling, we've all wanted this for you for so long!"

"I'M GONNA THROW A 'Welcome back to Canterlot' PARTY!"

"I'll miss you..."

Sunset nodded and gave each of her friends a long hug before turning back to Twilight.

"Take care of them, okay?"

Twilight gave her a smirk. "You might be Senior Protege, but I'm not going to let you get TOO FAR ahead of me! We'll see you soon."

"Oh, you're going to be playing catchup for a LONG time!" Sunset smirked. "Don't think an Element of Harmony is going to change that!"

The two of them giggled for a moment, hugged farewell, and Sunset clambered up into the chariot alongside Princess Celestia. The whole town cheered for them, but Sunset breathed a long, melancholy sigh.

"You know, I looked forward to this for ages, but now that it's happening... I think I'm going to miss Ponyville more than I expected. It's not like my friendships are ENDING, but I'm going to probably be visiting a LOT. I ALREADY miss my friends!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way, my faithful student," Celestia assured her. "Ready to go?"

Sunset took a moment to give the town one more look-over. She saw the Town Hall, Sugarcube Corner, Carousel Boutique, and the homes of hundreds of happy memories. Even a nearby birdhouse she'd helped Fluttershy build brought a happy tear to her eye.

I miss my friends...

A birdhouse.

I miss my friends...

A birdhouse that she KNEW was occupied.

I miss my friends...

For some reason, she stayed fixated on that one longer than most.

"H-hold on. I think I'm... forgetting something?"

"Well, you can stay if you'd like to pack your things, but I thought we could just send for them later." Celestia tilted her head slightly, as if she didn't understand Sunset. "I would like to get my sister home, though."

"Uh, this- this'll just take a second." Sunset hopped back down off of the chariot, trotting over to the small oak tree that the birdhouse was hanging from. With a thought, she lifted it up off of the branch and down to eye level. It felt... heavier than it should have. Unsure why she was even doing it, Sunset opened the latch on the side and swung the front face of the wooden box open.

"FINALLY!"

Before she could react, a pair of hands lunged out of the box, grabbing her face by the cheeks before pulling her inside the birdhouse face-first.

and everything went black.

Ruby pushed herself to her feet, inspecting herself quickly for any hiding spiders in her clothes. "I-I think so, but Pyrrha got bitten!"

"I'm sorry..." Pyrrha mumbled from the floor.

"Okay... Do you think you can get her out of here?" he mumbled. He was standing oddly still, not looking directly at either of them.

Ruby rushed over to Pyrrha, who was still laying completely still on the ground. She gave Pyrrha's arm a short lift, only to see it drop completely limp to the ground. "I don't know... I'm not exactly that strong. Can you help me carry her?"

"N-No. I can't."

His curt response finally prompted Ruby to take a closer look at him. She gasped as she realized why he hadn't moved since his initial attack.

One of his arms was hanging limp by his side, charred and blackened almost up to his elbow. His shirt was torn open around his midsection to reveal what looked like a huge puncture wound leaking a constant flow of black ichor onto the floor. He was heaving for breath and his knees were shaking, as if he could barely stand, and he was covered in other, smaller wounds, many of which seemed to have left trails of darkened material under his skin, just like when Yang had been attacked by that thing before.

"Are- what happened to you?"

"N-Nothing I c-can't handle..." he mumbled. "J-Just need another juice box."

"Don't joke like that!" Ruby shouted. "We all need to fall back and-"

"Do you hear that?"

Ruby wanted to get angry at him for cutting her off, but curiosity and worry got the better of her.

Fssh! Fsst! Fszzle...

The hissing of recently-extinguished fires. Down the hallway, the fire Penn had lit was dwindling as puddles of loose webbing were thrown onto the flames to smother them. From all angles of the hallway, the spiders were shooting fresh webbing into the flames. They weren't just retreating, they were rushing to put it out!

"If we don't stop them here, not only are we never going to see our friends again, but they're never going to let us get this close again." He mumbled. "With subtlety thrown out the window, this'll become a full-blown infestation. Hostile takeover."

Ruby shuddered at the thought of an army of these creatures descending on the rest of her classmates. With a deep breath, she picked up Crescent Rose off the ground and pulled herself into a ready stance.

"Then we'll stop it right here, right now! What's the plan?"

Penn snickered to himself as he raised up his only usable hand in an approximation of a boxer's stance. "What makes you think I have a plan? Surprise attacks only work once." He craned his neck from side to side, giving a series of loud popping noises. "Even then, I think they were just gobsmacked I got away alive from the OTHER guy."

Ruby smirked. "You know these things inside out, right? And Sunset always said you were the plan guy. In the matter of shoes, defer to the cobbler."

With a short hum to himself, Penn stroked his fingers over his chin. "We need to either free Sunset or get her saber. It's the perfect weapon to sever the main web brain back there. Isis installed an emergency cutoff, but all it'll take is a word from me and it'll be back on." He snapped his fingers. "I've got it!" He eagerly waved Ruby closer as he limped his way to Pyrrha's side. As he walked, one of his legs dragged behind him, leaving a trail of black smeared on the tiles. "We NEED Aurelia, Dash's messenger dragon. She'd be fast enough to get these things off them before they could react."

"Okay, but we have no idea where she- what are you doing?"

Penn didn't answer, simply grabbing Ruby by the shoulders and steering her until she was stood practically on top of Pyrrha.

In the distance, Ruby could see Sunset and Jaune finally disentangling themselves from the webs, covered in singe marks and light burns. Their auras had both clearly been broken in Penn's entrance, but they were still both practically as fresh as daisies compared to the two of them, and they had protecting Pyrrha to worry about, lest it become a three-on-one.

"Keep Pyrrha safe back here. I'll take Sunset. Pin Jaune down with sniper fire."

"What?" Ruby's eyes widened. "You're not in any condition to fight!"

"Without the saber, Sunset's a mildly fit teenager with little muscle mass. I think I can take her, even with one arm." Penn snickered.

"But-"

He bushed off Ruby's continued opposition by turning his back on her and lumbering back down the hallway. Left with no choice, Ruby groaned and expanded Crescent Rose into its full form. She planted the tip of the blade in the floor and wrapped her finger around the trigger. In less than a second, she took aim and fired, planting her shot firmly in the center of Jaune's shield. Without aura, the force of the impact was enough to knock him back several steps.

"This better work..." she grumbled as she lined up her next shot. Without the momentum of running forward, the second impact was enough to knock Jaune completely off of his feet and onto his back. When black shapes began crawling towards her on the walls and ceiling, it only took reducing a few of them to greasy stains on the wall for the rest to hesitate and fall back. "You're not getting close enough to get me now!"

Of course, in the back of her mind, Ruby was counting her shots. She only had two extra magazines in Crescent Rose's place on the back of her belt. That was a total of 24 extra shots, half of which were modified with fire dust charges.

Penn, meanwhile, met Sunset head-on, making a lunge for her wrist. Instead of whatever intended effect he had in mind for his attack, however, Penn found his strategy inverted as Sunset grabbed his arm with one hand. With a smile, she used her grip to yank him forward with arm and used the other to plant an uppercut in his stomach, close enough to his still-bleeding stomach wound to make Ruby wince. Penn did much more than wince, instantly collapsing. Sunset caught him on her arm, tutting quietly as he hung off of her. The "fight" had been over in less than three seconds.

"Looks like someone forgot about my black belt in the heat of the moment, didn't he?" Penn could only cough and wheeze in response as Sunset shook her head in disappointment. "You wanted to keep Ruby and Pyrrha on the back lines until you figured out a better plan, didn't you?"

Ruby retrained her aim when Jaune clambered back to his feet, but he'd tossed his shield aside and left her no safe place to shoot. She tried placing a shot just past his ear, but he didn't so much as flinch as he turned her way. She placed shot after shot near him, but the thing guiding him seemed to know she wouldn't hurt him.

"But even YOUR mind can't work a way out of this in time."

Ruby's mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. Her only options to stop them now involved inevitably maiming or even killing her friends, but doing nothing could doom the whole world!

What do I do? WHAT DO I DO?

"GAAH!" Sunset gasped. She was in an unfamiliar building, a long hallway lined with lockers and wooden doors. Her body was... different. Tall, lanky, two-legged and sporting a pair of arms that ended in dexterous-looking hands and-

Wait. Wait no... This IS me!

Like waking up from a dream, the rest of her memories, painful memories, came rushing back to her. She hadn't known better. She hadn't swallowed her pride. She'd practically spit in the eye of her loving mentor and-

"O-Oh... yeah."

She pushed herself against the wall and pulled her legs up against her chest as all the years came flooding back to her. It was like a ten-ton weight had been thrown back onto her heart after being lifted for the first time in forever, forcing her to bear the weight with a newfound appreciation for its enormity.

"Sunny? You okay?"

Sunset glanced up at the voice, finding herself face-to-face with Missy, now back in her normal angelic shape.

"I- I'm not sure. I was... I felt..." Sunset buried her face in her knees. "That seemed really REAL."

"Yeah, I know... but it wasn't." Missy reached out, putting her hand on Sunset's knee and giving it a squeeze. "It was a dream. Do you remember where we were when we got knocked out?"

"K-Kinda? It's fuzzy..." Sunset mumbled. The truth was that she was still caught up in the shock of being pulled out of her fantasy. "We were saving Blake, right?"

"Yeah, but then we got sneak-attacked." Missy sat on the floor next to her. "The last thing I did when I realized you were gonna be knocked out was vanish myself back to the duel spirit world so those creepy-crawlies couldn't get a hold of my magic." She breathed a long, deep sigh. "But the downside is, of course, that I couldn't save YOU from getting sucked into this."

"And what's 'this?'" Sunset muttered, letting more than a little bitterness creep into her voice.

"As near as I can tell from what I saw and what Penn told us... Baalchion's sales pitch." She sighed and stretched herself out. "The chance to go back and fix every mistake, every turn of bad luck, all the worst things that ever happened to you."

Sunset gripped a little tighter. "Good sales pitch."

"Eh, I think it's a little short-sighted. I mean, if we fixed all the bad things that happened to us, we would never have made it where we are now, right?" She motioned to the school around them. "You never would have even GONE to CHS! Let alone met your real friends, been thrown across the multiverse, or met me, Penn, or Isis!"

Sunset tried to hold back the tears. Missy was right, as usual, even when Sunset didn't want her to be. Her heart was still aching, yearning to go back to that world where she'd fixed her mistakes, earned back Celestia's favor without having to feel the sting of holding a grudge for years.

Missy seemed to pick up on Sunset's feelings, breathing another sigh and leaning against her.

"I... don't get what you're going through. I really don't have much experience with regrets. For me, I always live in the moment, and the moment is almost always phrased in terms of how much longer until Halloween!" She took a deep breath. "But... I know PENN has a lot of knowledge about regrets. If you asked, he could probably help."

Sunset knew that she couldn't just shut herself off, no matter how terrible she felt.

"How? Sharing his recipe book?"

Despite the bitterness baked into the joke, Missy still giggled.

"Everybody's got their ways of coping, right?"

The two of them sat in silence for a few more seconds before a thought occurred to Sunset.

"Wait... if we're in here and I got knocked out in the middle of the nest of mind-controlling spiders..."

"Yeeeeeah. The situation is EXACTLY what you think it is."

Sunset took another long breath before forcing herself to her feet. She looked up and down the hallway, seeing no sign of an end on either side. "Then there's no time to lose, right? How do we get back into the driver's seat?"

"That's the spirit!" Missy cheered, taking to the air again. "As far as I can tell, this control's neurological, so in THEORY, willpower shouldn't be enough, buuuuuuut... not everyone's willpower is tied into mind-altering magic!"

Sunset shuddered, trying not to think about the idea of one of those spiders crawling on her in real-life. "So if we can jump-start my magic, maybe we can kick it out?"

"That's the theor- That's the IDEA!"

Sunset cracked her knuckles with a smile. "In that case, I know JUST the door for us to open!"

"Which one?" Missy had a mischievous grin on her face as she floated up into the air beside Sunset.

Sunset turned to a nearby door, finding it to be exactly the one she wanted, labeled 'Battle of the Bands.' "Well, you KNOW this isn't my first time going up against mind control!"

What do I DO?

Ruby could feel herself freezing up as Jaune advanced on her. She couldn't shoot him to push him back, and the same went for Sunset, who was carrying Penn towards the swiftly-mending wall of webbing.

If I rush in to save Penn, I leave Pyrrha exposed! If I stay here, Penn's gonna get spidered or worse! She moved her non-trigger hand around to her back. I could switch to my fire dust charges, but that would just make the spiders all rush me again!

With a groan, she yanked the tip of Crescent Rose out of the floor and took up a melee stance.

"Jaune, I don't want to hurt you! But even if I use the blunt side, you're still gonna get pretty beat up!"

This didn't deter Jaune at all, who brandished his sword with an expert twirl. Ruby winced at the thought of what that sword could do to her without the protection of her aura, but tried her best to gather up her courage.

"Sorry, Pyrrha, looks like I've gotta beat up your boyfriend."

"I understand..." came a depressed moan from below. "Just... try not to be too rough, if you can?"

Ruby lunged forward, leading with the blunt side of her scythe, only to find her blow deflected by the flat of Jaune's sword. It was only her honed reflexes that let her dodge around the blade as he slipped under her attack and into her reach (and, consequently, into the range of the sharp edge of the blade), lunging to stab at her stomach. Ruby flicked a switch on the side of the handle, causing the blade to swing out straight and flip around. With a grunt, she swung the heavy weapon around and batted Jaune into the wall.

"I don't think I can make any promises, Pyrrha!"

Meanwhile, for Penn, everything was a haze of throbbing pain. Sunset, or the THING controlling her, had gone straight for his weak spot.

Granted, she was right. He HAD forgotten that she was a black belt, and at the worst possible time. His head felt like a complete mess, disorganized and hard to navigate through a deep fog.

Okay... a hero always finds a way for justice to be served, right? I gotta push past my limits! He tried to plant his foot on the ground to get out of Sunset's grip, but his body refused to listen to his commands.

"You can't just willpower your way out of this! Why, WHY did you just rush in without a plan? You should have taken the time to fall back and regroup!"

There wasn't time! If we don't stop these guys now, they'll keep multiplying until they can take over the whole school!

"Bullcrap! You rushed in because it was SUNSET in trouble!"

Penn tried again to get his feet under him, but they just slid fruitlessly across the tile.

"And now, because you couldn't stop yourself from bumbling in headfirst after her, you're going to LOSE!"

"Are you going to keep claiming doom and gloom?" Penn couldn't help grumbling the words out loud, this time. "Because I THOUGHT you said you were going to help me protect them after what happened with Salem..."

"What am I supposed to DO? It's not like I can just swap places with you, or I WOULD!"

Just as he could count the inches between himself and the webbing, however, Sunset... stopped.

Penn waited for the cocky declaration, the announcement of victory or whatever it was that she had stopped for, but she just stood there... in silence.

Until her foot began to tap against the floor.

And her voice began to hum at a low volume. And as Penn recognized the tune, he felt his hopes beginning to rise again.

You're never gonna bring me down... you're never gonna break this part of me...

With a grunt of effort, Sunset lifted him back up and gently pushed him back, setting him on his feet. When his knees threatened to buckle under his weight, he forced himself to stand straight enough to lock them rigid. What was about to happen, he didn't want to miss.

"We're here to let you know... that we won't let it go..." he tried his best to keep in key as he stared Sunset in the eyes. "Our music is a bomb and it's about to blow!"

The gemstone around Sunset's neck was starting to glow, brighter and brighter by the second.

"Wha- What's happening?"

When Penn turned back, he saw all three of the huntsmen-in-training staring back at them, even Jaune. He smirked and pointed his thumb at Sunset.

"Oh, you know, just my best friend being awesome." Penn chuckled.

The light from the geode was filling the entire hallway, sending the thoughtweavers skittering back to the shadows to hide. With a screech, the shriveled shape of a dead spider tumbled from Sunset's hair, smoking and smoldering in the aftermath of her magic. Now completely free, Sunset's body was engulfed in a moment of shimmering light. Though he'd never seen it in-person before, Penn knew 'ponying up' when he saw it. In less than a second, the transformation was complete, with equine ears and a ponytail long enough to almost touch the ground. She smiled at him, that warm and familiar smile that assured him everything was going to be all right.

"And you can try to fight..."

"But we have got the light!"

The two of them pressed their foreheads together, Penn barely being able to hold back a giddy laugh as his pain washed away.

"Of friendship on our siiiide!"

With that, a wave of shimmering red energy pulsed out from Sunset's body. As it passed over them Ruby and Pyrrha were unaffected, but Jaune went stiff and stood ramrod straight. Just like Sunset, the creature on his neck screamed its tiny scream before falling to the ground, freeing him from its control. Once again free, Jaune instantly fell to his knees, grasping at his head.

"What... happened?"

"Jaune!"

While Pyrrha and Ruby both were caught up in the moment of getting their friend back, Penn turned back to Sunset, who was already returning to her normal human form. Whatever magic she had used, it had clearly taken what was left of her strength, causing her to immediately collapse to her knees... and accidentally pull Penn with her when she tried to hold on to him for support.

As the two of them crashed into the tile, all of Penn's pain returned at once, forcing him to grit his teeth and hold his breath to avoid screaming right into her face. After several seconds of holding back a Hoover Dam's worth of curses, he finally let out his breath and looked Sunset in the eyes again.

"Did... didit work?" she mumbled, now bleary-eyed and slightly slurring her words.

"Y-yeah... it worked." Penn forced himself to smile through the pain.

"Ohgood..." she mumbled. "Can we go home now?"

"Yeah, I think... we... can." As Penn glanced around, however, reality told a very different story.

The spiders were still all around them, scrambling and disorganized. The web wall that served as their hive mind had a huge hole blown through the center, showing an unconscious Blake embedded halfway through the floor on the other side.

But they were already beginning to regroup. Sunset had managed to break their mind control and free their slaves, but the ones that had run and hid from the light were all returning. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if their numbers HAD dwindled to about half of what they'd originally been, but even just a few of these creatures were still enough to be plenty dangerous. They're like roaches! For every ten you kill, ten more are hiding in the walls! If they tried to run, they'd be swarmed. If they stayed, they would only be able to fend the swarm off for a few seconds before they were right back where they started.

And none of them were in any condition to fight. He looked back at Sunset, who was still dazed and confused from breaking their control.

"Just... give me a minute, Sunny. It's my turn to do something cool."

Trying to ignore the pain, he pushed himself back onto his feet. He gritted his teeth and turned back to the main web wall, where new strands were already beginning to criss-cross the empty space in the center.

"I have one more idea to wipe out the last of these pests." He looked down at his hand, trembling and barely able to hold itself up. With a deep breath, he turned his focus inward. "You mean what you said earlier, partner?"

"Whaddya mean?"

Penn reared back and before he could give himself a chance to second-guess himself, plunged his hand into the fresh strands, grabbing as many as he could and wrapping them around his arm. Even as he felt his conscious thoughts slipping away and he ripped a half-dozen of the creatures away from the wall like an improvised flail, one word forced its way out of his mouth.

"SWAP!"

Sunset felt terrible.

It was like the feeling of a nap cut short WAY too early, but multiplied by ten. She could barely comprehend where she was or what was happening around her. She knew she'd been using her magic, she could FEEL that, but her head was more cloudy than Pinkie's yearly cotton candy supply.

It was only when Penn's voice, heavy and hoarse with desperation, rang out that she was able to muster up enough coherence to start blinking away the confusion.

"SWAP!"

When she turned to look at him, a surge of fear further served to push away the fog in her mind.

Penn was half-torn to shreds, his body shivering and shaking as if he were seizing. He was bloodied and bruised, one arm looking as if it had been thrust into a bonfire and left there for an hour and multiple wounds of various sizes weeping with ichor. When she noticed the web strands wrapped around his arm, upon which several of the mind-controlling spiders were ascending, her blood ran cold and the memory of where they were finally slammed into her with full force.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Ruby screamed, yanking Sunset's attention in the opposite direction. She was standing in front of Jaune, who was kneeling beside what looked like an unconscious Pyrrha. "Get OUT of there!"

Sunset wanted to do as she said, but her legs felt like jelly. Every muscle in her body was burning and sapped of its strength, as if she'd just finished an hour of Rainbow's "high-intensity" training. She couldn't move if she wanted to.

"Heh heh heh..."

There was a chorus of screeches followed by a wet-sounding crunch behind her. Sunset turned back to look at Penn, and realized that the sound had been him bringing his foot down on top of the spiders that had been trying to climb up to his hand. His eyes were wide and wild, with a manic grin completely dominating his features. Her first instinct was to assume that Bendy had taken over again, but the glowing light behind his eyes soon corrected her assumption.

"HA HA HA HA HAAAA!" he roared to the ceiling with laughter, the kind that made throats go hoarse and bellies ache. He grabbed at the side of his face, cradling it in his own palm as his mania reached new heights. "OH, YOU MAD GENIUS! You PURPOSELY suppressed your conscious mind!"

Sunset felt a new kind of dread creeping up as a second, more feminine voice began to overlap with his, speaking in perfect sync. His injured arm raised away from his side for the first time, shaking off the seared flesh as if it were trying to shake off a sprinkling of water. Blackened sludge and ink droplets sprayed everywhere, including splashing across Sunset's face. As the inky flesh shed, a limb of sickly yellow light was revealed, giving the silhouette of a scaly forearm and human-like hand with wicked claws. With a painful-sounding popping sound, his head craned to the side far enough to make Sunset worry that he'd broken his own neck. Before she could object, "Penn" had reached down and grabbed her by her shirt. Hoisting her up onto her feet, Sunset was forced to stare into his eyes. One was shining with cyan light, but the other was a familiar malicious shade of blood red.

"Well, looks like it's your lucky day..." As Penn spoke, the motion seemed to stretch and pull at his face like a mask over a face too tall and narrow for it. "I already promised I was going to protect you."

"Y-you're- You're-"

"My what?" The thing pretending to be Penn smiled wider before swinging Sunset around, her feet now barely touching the floor. Penn was strong, but not strong enough to lift Sunset with ONE HAND like this, it- SHE- was obviously making him stronger. "Come on, Shimmer, speak up! I don't have all night!"

"You're Missy's sister."

Using Penn's other hand, she reached behind Sunset's head, treating her to an up-close version of the sound of a spider being squashed.

"Ding ding ding!" She tilted Penn's back in the other direction, resulting in another loud pop. This time, the red eye had switched sides, and the other one was a yellow-ish orange color. "And do you know what THAT means?"

Sunset forced herself to swallow her fear. "Y-you're going to get payback on the people who hurt him?"

"No, it means I get to activate my trap card!" With hardly so much as a heave, Sunset was lifted completely off of her feet and over Penn's shoulder. "Compulsory Evacuation Device!"

"Compulsory wha- WAAAAAAUGH!" Sunset didn't get the chance to ask for clarification before she was thrown overhand down the hallway. The world tumbled head-over-heels around her until she had a hard landing on the floor, sliding to a stop just beside Pyrrha. It was a hard and painful landing.

"Sunset! Are you okay?" Ruby asked, rushing to her side.

Sunset gave herself a quick once-over, affirming that she didn't have any broken bones. "J-Just exhausted and pretty sore."

"That's a relief... but what happened to Penn?" Pyrrha asked. A quick glance revealed that she wasn't unconscious, just seemingly paralyzed, laying flat on the floor.

Before Sunset could respond, their answer came in the form of another round on maniacal laughter. When she turned back to look, Penn had changed even more. his arms and legs seemed too long for his body, and a rustling under his back made it look like a pair of wings were trying to break free. He'd turned to the main wall of web. With more of "Big Sis"'s insane laughter, he plunged both of his hands into the web. With hardly any effort, he tore it all down at once, ripping it away from the walls.

"How- How is he DOING that?" Jaune whispered. When his head snapped back to look at them over his shoulder, they all flinched back but the smile was still on Penn's face. The spiders were desperately trying to stop him as he balled the whole mass up between his hands, crushing it into a bundle about the size of a soccer ball. The spiders were swarming all across his body, biting at him and trying to wrap him up in their thought-stifling webs, but all of it seemed like nothing more than a light breeze.

"How, Jauney-boy? That's easy!" Not-Penn tilted his head back again, returning to the blue-and-red pairing. "They. Can't. Hurt. Me!" With one final push to compress the ball in his hands, it burst into lilac-colored flames. The fire didn't stop there, though, spreading to the strands that had been fruitlessly wound around Penn's body.

"They're getting away!" Ruby shouted, taking aim with her rifle and opening fire. True to her word, the spiders, having realized they were beaten, were all beginning to skitter back into the shadows they'd come from, but "Penn" seemed unperturbed, reaching into his pocket.

"Not to worry, Rubes! I'll activate my field spell: Savage Colosseum!"

By magic, the area around Penn began to change. Arches opened up in the walls, which were converted to age-worn stone. The ground under his feet dissolved into coarse dirt. And, most importantly, all of the spiders that had retreated into the walls came pouring back out. They desperately scrambled and crawled up the walls, trying to slip back inside, but they were cut off by iron fencing that had descended after them. "Penn" held his hands open wide.

"Kill or be killed, kiddies! Come get some!"

The spiders all froze for a moment, clearly confused and disorganized without their minds all connected to one another. A few of them tried moving towards Susnet and the others, only to be greeted with a row of arches rising up out of the floor, cutting them off.

"Nuh-uh-uh! This is OUR fight!" With one foot raised into the air, not-Penn stamped the floor, sending a wave of purple flames racing across the floor. In a heartbeat, most of the spiders were reduced to ashes. Only one was left, seemingly on purpose, judging by the fact that "Penn" bent down and used his glowing energy hand to scoop it up in his palm. It continued trying to attack, fruitlessly biting at the hand over and over until it had tired itself out.

With that glowing red eye, the spirit of Missy's older sister stared deeply at it, taking in every ounce of its fear and suffering and relishing in it.

"Do you want to know a secret?" she faux-whispered to the tiny creature. "The secret is... Your god doesn't like you. He thinks your whole species is an under-designed, cringeworthy mistake."

After giving a second for her words to sink in, the spider began trembling. Sunset shuddered to think what kind of thoughts must be going through the little one's mind. Soon after that, Penn's hand closed around the creature, crushing it in a fiery mess.

When the last of their enemies was dead, the magical colosseum melted away, returning the hallway to what it once was. Wiping the last embers of the spider from Penn's hand, "Big Sis" walked up to the trio of teenagers. As she walked closer, it became obvious that Sunset hadn't just been imagining things. She was wearing Penn's body like a suit, and it was poorly-fitted, but underneath, there was something that moved with coordination and skill. She stopped only a few steps away, placing one hand on "her" hip and taking up a posture that somehow reminded Sunset of Rarity in her more confident moments. It it hadn't been coming from some kind of twisted, possessed, half-dead looking version of him, Sunset almost would have laughed at Penn striking the diva-esque pose.

"You're WELCOME."

There was a long pause as everyone stared, agape at the new intruder.

"Who... Are you still Penn?" Jaune asked.

Not-Penn rolled her eyes.

"I'll make this easy for you. Call me UB."

"You... be? You be what?" Ruby tilted her head in confusion.

"The letters, U and B." She tilted her head back again, flashing the orange eye at Ruby. "Stands for Ultra Beast."

Sunset couldn't help but roll her eyes. It sounded like something Rainbow Dash would make up as her edgy alter ego. "You STILL don't want to tell me your name?"

"Well, I was thinking about Garnet, but there's enough precious stones in the room." UB replied. With a brief shake, the glow on Penn's arm finally faded away, revealing fresh, unblemished skin. "Now, who needs help getting back to their dorm room?"

There was a long pause as everyone simply stared, completely agape.

"Wait... could you have done that this WHOLE TIME?" Jaune cried.

"Oh, don't mistake how easily I won with how easily PENN could have swapped with me." UB leaned down to Jaune, playfully patting the top of his head. "We've been trying to figure out how to pull this off without being on the verge of death! No dice! This was a last-ditch desperation play." She reached up and rubbed at Penn's temple. "Honestly? This even took ME by surprise!"

"Well... thank you." Ruby picked herself up enough to offer UB her hand. "There were so many of them, I wasn't sure how we were gonna make it out of here!"

"Ah, don't mention it." UB gave Ruby a smile, this time much less manic and almost... genuine? "These little guys were nothing compared to some of the monsters Penn and I have gone up against in our duels!"

Sunset narrowed her eyes. "Wait... you're being nice."

UB gave Sunset a glance, her red eye sparking slightly. "Yes. And?"

"That doesn't seem right."

"And how would YOU know what's right, Shimmer?" She reached over and flicked Sunset in the forehead. "I'm a VERY nice person. I just don't like YOU." While Sunset rubbed at the stinging spot, UB reached down to Pyrrha, taking her hand and lifting her up into a sitting position. "Okay, Achilles, we're giving you a lift back to bed! Ready? One, two, three!"

It seemed to take almost no effort for her to lift Pyrrha up off of the ground, sweeping her into a princess carry in Penn's arms.

"O-Oh my goodness!"

UB glanced over the remaining three of them. "Anybody else who can't walk?"

"I'm fine..." Ruby muttered as she pushed herself to her feet.

"I think I'll be okay, too." Jaune added as he did the same.

Sunset tried to rise, but her legs felt like jelly, and were about as strong. "Uh- I need some-"

"Good. Jauney-boy, you wanna carry your girlfriend?" UB gave Pyrrha a light toss up and down, only for Jaune to shake his head.

"I can walk, but whatever that spider did to me really drained me."

"What about Sunset?" Ruby asked, offering Sunset an open hand. Sunset took it with a smile, using Ruby's help to get her up on her feet and place her arm around her shoulders.

"What about her?" UB muttered. "I protected her, she's safe. My job's done. I don't think I'm forgetting any- OH!" She turned and strode back down the hall, taking Pyrrha with her. As they reached the end of the hall, UB grunted and began lifting Pyrrha up until she was slung belly-down over Penn's shoulder. "Apologies, Pyrrha, but I gotta free up an arm." Sunset worried for a second, until she saw UB reach down and grab Blake by the back of her shirt, lifting her up out of the physics-defying hole in the floor. With only a small grunt, the unconscious faunus was slung over Penn's other shoulder in an identical manner. Now carrying one of the disabled girls over each shoulder, UB walked back with a proud smile.

"So, let's get everybody back where they belo-"

"Attention. Incoming transmission for Penn."

Sunset blinked, realizing that Isis's voice was coming from her pocket.

"Uh- Penn's not-"

"Ahem!" UB cleared her throat. When she spoke again, it was perfectly in Penn's voice. "Go ahead, Isis, I can take it."

All eyes locked on UB, many wide with surprise, but she simply pressed her finger to her lips.

"Director Bakersfield? This is General Ironwood. We have a situation at the forge, I've been trying to get a hold of you."

"Sorry, I've been dealing with a situation of my own upstairs. What are we dealing with?"

"It appears that Chirac's ambassador disapproved of your plan so vehemently, she attempted to sabotage it. I've disabled her, but the forge was damaged."

Sunset's jaw dropped. She couldn't believe her ears. "There's no way that Dash would-"

"I'll be down there in fifteen. We have injured up here that I have to get to safety. Is that all right?" UB cut her off with her Penn impression.

"I can wait that long, though I would ask that you hurry. This is urgent."

"Right away, General."

As the call came to an end, UB shook her head with disappointment. "Well, at least we know Chirac's taking us seriously as competition..."

"There's NO WAY-"

"HUP-UP-UP!" UB cut Sunset off with a glare, back to having her feminine voice overlapping with Penn's. "You wanna go find out the truth, or do you want to stand around and argue with the general?" When Sunset stayed quiet, UB nodded. "Good girl."

Sunset's jaw dropped in shock at the condescending comment, but UB was already pushing past her with the others.

"Come on, kids! It's been a long day!"

There was a pause as Sunset and Ruby glanced at each other.

"She... really doesn't like you, does she?"

"No, she doesn't."

Sunset felt herself lightened as Jaune came along her other side, helping Ruby support her together. "What did you do to make her angry?"

Sunset took a long, deep breath as they hurried to catch up to UB. "As near as I can tell, she blames ME for roping Penn into all the trouble we get into."

"Ah... I guess I can understand that, in a way..." Jaune murmured. "I mean, Penn CHOOSES to go along with it, but you ARE the one giving the directions."

"But it's not MY fault we keep getting into trouble!"

"I know! I know." Jaune nodded. "But it makes you an easy target for the blame."

As they came up alongside UB, Ruby's focus was more on their new "friend" than Sunset.

"So... you're a card spirit? Like Missy?"

"Yup!"

"Then why are you possessing Penn instead of being summoned like her?"

"That's... complicated. To simplify it, I'm too big to cross over properly. Not physically, but in terms of power."

"Huh... fascinating..." Ruby murmured. "So, if Missy was here, wouldn't she summon some of her friends to help carry people? Why are you doing it all by yourself?"

"Well, Missy has what we call an archetype."

"What's an archetype?"

"It's a bunch of cards designed to support each other. They all share a name or mention each other in their effects." UB sighed in a melancholy manner. "I do not have an archetype. What I have is a team of mismatched cards that manage to operate in something resembling a functional deck through intelligent design and sheer will."

"Why don't you have an archetype?"

"Not all cards do. I don't play well with others, so I never got one."

"Well, I can attest to that..." Sunset mumbled.

"I could TRY summoning some of the other spirits from my deck, but it would be up to them whether or not they showed up or listened to me once they got here." She shrugged. "Plus I'd have to be properly summoned over HERE before I could call anybody else over."

"Ooooh...."

"If you don't have an archetype," Pyrrha chirped up from her place on UB's shoulder, "How did you get so powerful?"

"Well, when a boy and a trading card love each other very much..." she trailed off before she started snickering. "I know it sounds like I'm joking, but duel spirits get stronger as our bond with the people who play us grows. Penn was a fan of my card effects from the start, so he was pretty enthusiastic. From there, we just kept getting closer."

Sunset wanted to interrupt, but she kept her mouth shut. This was the most information she'd ever gotten about Missy's big sister since they;d first crossed paths.

"Sounds kind of... romantic," Jaune commented. "You get stronger the more you care about each other."

"Romantic? Please." UB scoffed. "This runs much deeper than that. The bond between a duel spirit and their partner is like being two parts of the same soul, like the left and right sides of the brain. Even if we can work independently, we're really at our best together."

"So... what kind of monster are you? Are you an angel, like Missy?" Ruby asked.

"Oh, I'm the complete opposite." UB smirked. "I'm an absolute demon."

With that, the group came to a stop, cutting off any further questions. "Aaaand here we are! Team RWBY on the right, Team JNPR on the left. All a-bed who's going a-bed!"

As Jaune carefully took Pyrrha from UB's care, Ruby and Sunset shared a look.

"You gonna be okay alone with her?"

Sunset took a deep breath. "Yeah. She might not like me, but from what she said, it sounds like she promised Penn that she'd protect me. I'll be safe."

"If you say so..." Ruby nodded as she leaned Sunset up against the wall. "I wish I could go with you to check on Rainbow Dash, but-"

"Blake needs you here, I get it." Sunset did her best to give Ruby a smile. "I'll be back as soon as we clear things up with the general. I'm sure this is all a big misunderstanding."

"We'll be waiting."

With UB's help, Ruby got Blake into their dorm room, and soon it was just her and Sunset alone in the hallway. UB folded her arms and struck that hip-cocked pose again.

"So, you coming with me downstairs?"

"Of course I am."

"You walking?"

"You know I can't."

"Then you're not coming."

"I am."

"I'm not carrying you any more than I already have today."

Sunset folded her arms, trying to mock her pose while still having to lean against the wall to keep standing. "Then leave. Penn can take over from here."

"HA!" UB barked. "You think it's that simple?"

"You swapped in, can't you swap back?" Sunset didn't let her nerves show on her face, but something about the matter-of-fact way that UB had responded made her worry.

"Do you have... ANY IDEA... how much pain and worry he's been dealing with BEFORE he got attacked?" UB leaned closer. "What did you THINK he was spending all day and night in the kitchen and the garage about? And now, when he got beaten within an inch of his life and had to throw himself, an insectiphobe, into a web of thought-suppressing spiders to clear the way for ME to bail the two of you out?" She tilted Penn's head, this time closing one of her eyes so that Sunset was forced to look into that glowing red orb of malice.

"If you think he's coming back in the immediate future, you REALLY underestimate how long it's going to take to pull himself back together!"

Sunset blinked as the sheer level of problem that was now in her hands finally struck her.

"Oh, Celestia, I'm stuck with you."

"At least until Penn pulls himself together enough to take back over his life, yeah." UB sighed. "We're wasting time. I need to go find out how much damage Dash did."

As she tried to turn away, Sunset reached out and grabbed at her, hoisting herself onto Penn's back by his shirt.

"If Rainbow Dash is involved, then I'm coming!"

The two of them stayed frozen like that for a second before UB let out a long, tired sigh.

"Screw it. I might need a translator who's fluent in Stupid if Rainbow opens her mouth."

By the time that the two of them had made their way all the way down to the basement, Sunset had gotten enough of her strength back to walk on her own again. As they grew closer to Penn's workshop, UB began clapping her hands against her cheeks repeatedly and shaking her whole body.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get in the mindset for my best Penn impression. Muscle memory is a big help."

Sunset narrowed her eyes. "Wait, this isn't the first time you'd had to pretend to be Penn?"

For a second, UB's grin was enough to send chills through Sunset's entire body.

"Wouldn't YOU like to know?"

"Yes, that's why I asked!"

When the two of them entered the workshop, most of the "uncanny" aspects of the possession had been suppressed, including her eye color.

The workshop was an absolute mess, but it was hard for her to differentiate it from the usual mess that Penn had made of it. The biggest differences were that General Ironwood was sitting on the trunk of Penn's unfinished car and Salem, still in her disguise, was leaning against the forge that was extracting the netherite. To Sunset's dismay, the forge had fallen silent, and the controls were covered in scorch marks, as if they'd been struck by lightning.

"Sorry for the delay, General." UB gave a short bow. Once again, Sunset was thrown for a loop by the fact that UB was able to switch between her own voice and Penn's so flawlessly.

"It's alright, tending to the wounded comes first." Ironwood declared, stepping down from the bumper and quickly closing the distance between them. His eyes widened as he looked Penn over, "Are you sure you shouldn't be in the infirmary, yourself?"

"Afraid the Director doesn't have time to bleed." UB chuckled before placing a ginger hand over Penn's stomach wound. "I'll be going straight to bed rest as soon as we resolve things here, though, believe you me."

"Then I'll make this quick." Ironwood put a hand around UB's shoulders and guided her over to the forge. "Rainbow Dash is of the opinion that the Chiracian Treaty is our only means to survival. In an effort to force our hand, she was ordered to disable the forge so that we wouldn't be able to produce more netherite. I had come here as soon as I heard that we were under attack, and she arrived soon after. We clashed, and in the chaos she managed to land a blow to the control panel of the forge, disabling it."

"Wait, you two FOUGHT?" Sunset gasped.

"Not for long." Ironwood shook his head and began leading them back towards the unfinished car. As they walked, he gestured to a long, oily streak on the ground. "Soon after that, she slipped in what appeared to be a puddle of motor oil while moving at high speed. Her momentum carried her towards the car, where she fell inside. Her dragon companion followed her inside, and... well, I shut the lid on them." He turned and let his hand rest on top of the trunk lid.

"Wait, RD is TRAPPED in there?" Sunset rushed forward, only to be yanked back by UB by the back of her shirt.

"Chill, Sunny. It's bigger on the inside, we've been playing with the internal dimensions." UB smirked. "The trunk has more square footage than the house I was living in when we met and plenty of air."

"But-"

"I'm prepared to take her into custody, but considering her powers and abilities, I wanted to consult with you before we attempted to move her." Ironwood leaned back again against the car. "Not to mention the fact that most parts for this forge have been discontinued. We'd have to have them delivered to make repairs."

UB pressed her hands together in front of her mouth, closing her eyes for a few seconds in deep thought. Sunset wondered what was going through her mind in that moment, but it wasn't long before some type of plan had managed to formulate.

"Well, I'm glad you called me, General. Mostly because I owe you an apology."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, first things first, we can let Rainbow Dash out." UB sighed and reached into Penn's pocket, retrieving his keys. "She was acting under my orders."

Ironwood moved to block "Penn" from the trunk of the car, giving a critical stare that rivaled even Celestia's disappointed look in Sunset's dream. "How?"

"This-" UB pointed to the titanic forge, "is NOT where the netherite is being harvested. THIS is a decoy. While it IS harvesting netherite, this is excess. The mission-critical production is being handled by Isis in another BUCKLER location."

Ironwood raised an eyebrow. "Why wasn't I informed of this?"

"I had intended to speak with you about it tonight, I didn't think our enemies would make it past our defenses quite so quickly." "Penn" bowed his head. "In case our enemies attacked Beacon, I asked Rainbow Dash to come and 'attack' the decoy in order to draw attention to it. Her 'mission' was a smokescreen for all of our sakes."

Ironwood took a long, hard look at UB, inspecting for any sign of falsehood. It seemed as if UB was completely immune to his intimidating aura, however, as Penn's face didn't budge a single inch.

"Alright. And how do I know that you're not just acting to cover for Rainbow Dash?"

"Because if someone ACTUALLY cost us our netherite production and was willing to put the whole world in jeopardy, I wouldn't put my interests above millions of lives. To do so would betray my own organization and be completely unforgivable. I am NOT a monster." UB leaned forward, as if daring General Ironwood to counter her statement.

There was a long pause before relenting and stepping aside to let UB unlock the trunk. With a twist of the key, the door popped open, revealing a black abyss where Sunset would have expected the usually-crammed-full storage space.

"How you feeling down there, Dashie? Awesome as you wanna be?"

A far-away voice echoed back to them, barely recognizable as Rainbow Dash. "Oh, ha ha ha! SCREW YOU!"

"Hang on down there, we'll send somebody down to get you in a minute!" UB turned back to Ironwood and shrugged. "She'll be fine."

There was a pause before Ironwood heaved a sigh.

"I expect a full and ACCURATE report."

"I'll have Isis draft one up for you."

With a respectful nod, Ironwood walked away, leaving Sunset, UB, and Salem alone with a very angry car trunk. With a smirk, Salem strode over to the two of them.

"So, how much of that was made up on the spot, you monster?"

"One hundred percent." UB dropped the attempt to look or sound like Penn completely once Ironwood was out of sight. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, which Sunset noted must have been carried over from Penn's mannerisms. "This is our only source of netherite and Dash just RUINED IT."

"Lovely."

"Um hellooooooo?" Rainbow's voice carried up from the bottom of the trunk, "Is somebody gonna help me get out of here?"

UB glanced at the trunk lid, then the broken forge, and finally down at the hole Rainbow Dash had fallen into.

"Why don't you just pony up and FLY out?"

"I dunno! Something's wrong, I can't pony up!"

There was another long pause before, without a word, UB placed her hand on the trunk lid and tipped it over, letting it slam shut.

"Whoops."

"UB!"

"Fine, fine... I'll find a ladder."

Author's Note

Hello, everyone!

I want to apologize. This "hiatus" wound up stretching WAY farther than I ever intended. The truth is that I was in a very unhealthy living situation, and the only way out was to put my nose to the grindstone so hard that I never had the combination of time and energy left to be creative.

But now I've put a thousand miles between that myself and that whole mess of unfortunate circumstances! Literally!

I'm back on the road, this time more prepared and more self-aware than ever. And as the miles have passed, my creative flow has been pumping again like a long-dead heartbeat! Things clearly aren't going to be ideal until I find a place to live, but I can handle road life again for now!

Obviously, I'm not going to be at 100% until I've managed to settle and find a job again, but I'm not waiting for that before I start writing again! Updates will still be slow while I'm carbound, but I promise I'm going to give it my all to get back into a healthy rhythm!

Thank you all for being so patient with me, words can't express how much weight it takes off my shoulders to have you all, even when things are too bad for me to write. And to those who I disappointed with this long wait, I want to apologize. I've had to do a lot of self-improving and soul-searching these last couple years, and writing had to take a backseat to my well-being.

So, for the first time in the last two and a half years, let's have ourselves some happy adventures again, huh??

See you again (hopefully) soon!

Aura Break

"YOU DID WHAT?"

Sunset didn't feel an inch of remorse when Rainbow flinched back from her raised voice.

"It's the only-" Rainbow started to try and explain herself again, only to be cut off by Sunset moments later.

"I can't BELIEVE YOU!" she cried, throwing her hands in the air.

UB and Salem seemed to have mutually agreed to take a backseat in the coversation and stepped back to both lean against the now-inactive forge, where Isis was trying her best to repair the fried circuitry as the two of them spoke in hushed tones.

"Sunset, the dragons are the only ones who have the power to completely kick Baalchion out of here!" Rainbow gestured to UB, then to Sunset. "Look at you guys! Even just a TASTE of what's coming to this world was enough to almost kill you!"

"But it didn't!" Sunset fired back. "If the enemy is bigger and badder than what we've faced before, we can still beat it the same way we always have: together!"

"BUT WE'RE NOT TOGETHER!" Rainbow shouted. "Look around, Sunset! The rest of our friends are gone! Even YOU'RE relying on your new friends more than anyone else!" She gestured towards Salem and UB. "How am I supposed to just take their word that they can beat Baalchion over the Chiracians'? I've SEEN the dragons turn whole armies of these bad guys into ashes! AND I know I can trust them, they've been taking care of me for half a year, just like Penn's been taking care of YOU!"

"For what it's worth," UB called, "In her position, I'd have done the same thing!"

"And what's THAT about?" Rainbow pointed an accusatory finger towards UB, "Suddenly Penn has some kind of superpowered alter-ego?"

"I prefer 'silent partner!'"

"Okay, I don't have much of an explanation for her, but that's because she's a mystery to me, too!" Sunset tried not to let the momentary backpedaling redirect the conversation. "But you sabotaged our efforts to help save the world! Even if we wanted to do it a different way, how could you risk the whole WORLD like that?"

"It's not a risk!" Aurelia chimed in from her place on Rainbow's shoulder. "If our plan is certain to save the world and yours might fail, then eliminating your option DECREASES the risk!" The little dragon leaned as far forwards as she could without falling off of RD. "Besides, you think we wouldn't recognize dragonslaying weapons when we see them?"

"WHAT?" Sunset felt her rage threatening to boil over. "These are for stopping the MONSTERS!"

"And it just HAPPENS that it's also almost COMPLETELY corrosion-proof?" Auri snapped back. "That could kill a dragon just as much as it could a knightcrawler!"

"Bu- We wouldn't-" Out of reflex, Sunset glanced back at Penn for clarification, only to receive the harsh reminder that Penn wasn't present in the form of a nonchalant shrug from UB.

"The baby dragon's got a point. Netherite's ancient AND durable, double-edged, metaphorically speaking."

"Has anybody ever told you that you're REALLY unhelpful?" Sunset muttered. Unfortunately, UB's smirk made it clear that she'd heard Sunset's remark anyway.

"You must have rubbed off on me, I'd better shower after this."

"GRRRRAAAAAAH!" Sunset threw her hands into the air. "Rainbow Dash just stabbed us in the back, how are you not more MAD about this?"

I did NOT! I just know more about this than you, for once!"

To Sunset's chagrin, UB seemed to take the question as an invitation to join the conversation in earnest. With a quick nod of acknowledgement to Salem, she stepped away from the forge and over to the two Rainbooms. She gave Rainbow and Aurelia a long, hard stare before reaching out her hand.

"Oh, I'm mad, but I'm also flattered." As a very confused Rainbow Dash took her hand and gave it a shake, UB leaned in with a grin. "First of all, you don't know jack about the Chiracians and Baalchionics compared to us. Don't ever, EVER make the mistake of thinking you know better than us. Secondly, if he's playing THIS ruthlessly, Chirac must consider us a real threat to his plans to take Remnant. If a God of Light wants to pull out all the stops and play dirty, then that's a real testament to the fact that Penn's plan is going to work."

In a quick snapping motion of her wrist, however, UB adjusted and tightened her grip on Rainbow's hand to pull her in close, just close enough for their foreheads to almost touch. Even watching from the side, Sunset could see the glow of one blue eye and one red on Rainbow's pale white skin. "However, I didn't bail the two of you out of an improvised military tribunal and summary execution for the fun of it! I did it because I know that it's what Penn would have done." She clicked her tongue derisively. "But if the two of you show me your tails again, I won't hesitate to bite them off. Savvy, kids?"

For perhaps the first time, Rainbow and Aurelia both looked frightened, not that Sunset blamed them. UB seemed to be absolutely radiating malice, the same red-hot malice Sunset had felt every time she'd tried to touch her black-sleeved cards.

With a loud gulp, Rainbow and Auri both nodded their heads. Seemingly satisfied with their terror, UB simply returned to her carefree smile.

"Good! Glad I could get the message across!" With that said, UB turned towards the workshop doors and strode away. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go binge on the rest of Penn's leftovers! Food's always just BETTER when you're possessing somebody! See you later! Same bat time, same bat channel!"

And with that, she let the door quietly click shut. As she vanished from sight, Sunset caught a glimpse of Salem snickering to herself before shaking her head and moving in the same direction.

"Never a dull moment with that fellow. I'll be taking my leave, as well! You children can work out your internal affairs on your own, and I've no interest in computer repair."

"Wait!" Aurelia shouted, causing Salem to pause. "That- thing, said Penn's plan IS going to work, in the present tense... what did it mean?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Salem smirked. "It means that you've yet to kill him, so it's inevitable that he'll devise some method to win." With those words, she slipped through the same exit. "If I were you, I'd certainly take her word for it! Watch your tails!"

Now left alone with the two of them (except for Isis working silently at the forge), Sunset turned her glare back on Rainbow and Auri. "Seriously. the Rainbow Dash I knew never would have stooped to cheating like this."

"CHEATING?" Rainbow gasped. Sunset knew that, for a lifetime athlete like RD, the word carried a lot more weight.

"What else would you call sabotaging the other team's equipment?" Sunset folded her arms.

"Strategy!" Rainbow countered. "And this ISN'T a game, Sunset!"

"No, it isn't!" Sunset snapped back. "So why are we working AGAINST each other when the stakes are so high? We're FRIENDS, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but, how are we supposed to work together when you won't BELIEVE me?" Rainbow cast her glance to the side. "Seriously, it's like you trust that Penn guy more than you trust me!"

Maybe it was the stress of the long day, the pain of her injuries, or her wounded pride that formed her next scathing comment, but whatever the reason, the words pushed past her lips before she had a chance to remove any of the bitter venom from her tone.

"Well, if you'd go behind my back and do something like this, maybe I don't know you as well as I thought!" She gestured up to the little golden lizard on RD's shoulder. "Besides, I could say the same thing about YOU trusting Aurelia more than you trust ME! Is six measly months all it takes for you to give up on the Rainbooms and throw your lot in with a bunch of overgrown, holier-than-thou LIZARDS?"

When Rainbow's jaw fell slack and tears brimmed in her eyes, Sunset knew she'd gone too far, but in the moment she was too fired up to care.

"I- I never gave up on the Rainbooms..."

"Then WHERE WERE YOU?" Sunset stepped forward, forcing Dash to step back. "Because with YOUR SPEED, you could have covered ten- no- a hundred times the ground I have! But you DIDN'T! You just got comfortable and waited for the rest of us to come to you because you LIKED your new home! Liked it too much to leave!" Sunset could feel tears running down her cheeks, but she wasn't finished. "And now you'd rather turn around and make things harder on me so that you can have the satisfaction of doing things YOUR WAY! Because things have been going your way since you disappeared! Well, congratulations, I hope you're HAPPY!" Sunset took a long, shuddering breath. "I hope you're happy with your choice to follow orders, even if it means betraying your friends and taking away people's decisions." She felt deflated, now, completely hollowed out now that all of her angry words had flown out her mouth. "Suddenly, I see why Penn hates the military so much... The Rainbow Dash that I was friends with would never have sacrificed her integrity just because somebody TOLD HER to."

Rainbow looked absolutely gutted by Sunset's remarks, tears brimming in her eyes and unable to meet her gaze. Even Aurelia seemed to be at a loss for a comeback, sitting quietly and pondering. Still, the little dragon was the first to break the painful silence.

"How do you KNOW your friend is right?" For once, she didn't ask it in an accusatory way, without the self-assuredness of someone who already knew the answer she wanted for her question. "I mean, where did he LEARN all of this? From a TV show? From a book? How can you be sure that his information is right, or if he even has the whole picture?" Aurelia shuffled uncomfortably on Rainbow's shoulder. "He DOES know a lot, I'll admit it. That spirit possessing him even used a Chiracian saying to threaten us before she left! But how can you be so sure that he's right and we're wrong?"

"Because- because he always is!"

"Nobody's right one hundred percent of the time except gods." Aurelia countered. "And even in your own story, he was still wrong sometimes! About the White Fang's plans, about his ability to defeat Frisk, even about how to stop Salem permanently! What makes you so sure that he's infallible now?"

To everyone's surprise, it was Isis's voice that answered.

"Because, since their very first battle, every risk that Penn has taken put the consequences on his own head."

Sunset's eyes widened as she realized what Isis was saying.

"She's right. If Penn ever needed to take a gamble on a hunch... he never risked anyone else's safety on it. It was always him who paid the price if it went wrong." Sunset turned back and looked Aurelia in the eye as certainty asserted itself. "Every time that it's been somebody else's life on the line, he's always either been absolutely certain or absolutely relentless, and he's ALWAYS pulled through!" Sunset nodded to herself, feeling the stirring of her magic deep in her gut. "I know better than anybody what it feels like to feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, like everything and everyone is counting on YOU to keep them safe." She reached out, putting her hand on Rainbow's unoccupied shoulder. "And I know YOU do, too, Rainbow. We're both intimately familiar with the sensation. So believe me when I say this: that sensation? It galvanizes Penn, and once he's under that pressure there's no way to stop him. UB knows it, 'Sally' knows it, and I know it, from the bottom of my heart." With her rage and pain all spent and replaced with that assurance, Sunset felt the familiar rush of warmth that came from her magical transformation as she once again ponied up.

Rainbow stared at her, eyes wide and tear-filled as she seemed to struggle with herself. Finally, she seemed for find her voice again, albeit choked-up and faltering.

"I think... after you all disappeared, I was scared. When I realized that I might DIE out there, alone, and not even know why or how... I didn't know what to do. And then when I finally made it to Radian, I couldn't help but wonder... if I could have stopped it." She reached up to her shoulder, taking a hold of Sunset's hand and giving it a squeeze. "If I'd seen what was happening sooner, if I'd been faster to react or strong enough to break free, could I have stopped the Elements from blowing up the portal?" Rainbow shook her head. "Auri helped me realize that there's no use in worrying about the past. We can't go back and fix things, just try to make sure that we're ready for the future."

Aurelia nodded, leaning in to nuzzle Rainbow Dash's cheek before she continued.

"Chirac promised me he could help. And every time, he was telling me the truth. He said that he'd look for the rest of you, try to make sure you were safe while I learned how to be stronger and faster from the other dragons." She let go of her grip on Sunset's hand for a moment, letting a crackle of blue electricity run along her fingertips. "So I threw myself at that, harder than I ever trained for anything in my life! And every promise they made me came true. I'm faster, stronger, and more ready than I've ever been! The next step was supposed to be for me to start using that strength to help other people, to fight back against evil!"

For the first time, when Rainbow looked into Sunset's eyes, Sunset didn't see an ounce of difference between the Rainbow Dash of the present and the Dash she knew before she'd left.

"But then you show up with your new friend and start telling me that I'm wrong about everything, that the people who helped me ARE the bad guys and have to be stopped? How am I SUPPOSED to take that?" Rainbow shook her head. "You're my friend, and you always will be, but I REALLY don't think you know what you're talking about." She took a long, deep breath. "But I DO trust you, and you're so sure, as sure as I've ever seen you! But- but I-" She turned away from Sunset, reaching up and pulling Aurelia off of her shoulder. She stared the little dragon in the eyes for a few seconds before beginning to stroke her head. "I know what I know, but I WANT to trust you, too! I... don't know what to do."

Sunset had never seen Rainbow this unsure of herself. The time, the distance, the weight of it all hung over her like a heavy blanket draped on her shoulders.

"I don't- I can't-" Rainbow seemed to be going back and forth with herself, clearly unable to make up her mind what to do. Sunset's heart hurt at the sight of her once-unflappable friend struggling like this. She stepped up to Rainbow from behind, giving her shoulder a tight squeeze.

"Then don't."

"What?"

"If you don't know what to do, just... wait." Sunset spoke in her softest tone, practically whispering.

"We can't wait. Every second we're not taking action is-"

"Do you remember what the general said?" Sunset interrupted. "A decision needs to be made before either of us can do anything. No matter which plan we go with, we HAVE to wait." Sunset smirked. "A while ago, a friend of mine told me that if you can't do anything about a situation, it doesn't accomplish anything to worry about it. Even if the world seems to be ending."

Silence fell again, this time heavy with the tension of whether or not Rainbow Dash would take her words to heart.

"...fine. I'll wait... but wait for what?"

"For when you know what to do. You know what's right, Dash, but it's all jumbled up in your brain. You have to slow down." Sunset smirked. "Same old Dash, acting first and thinking second."

That finally managed to get a chuckle out of Rainbow. In a flash and a crackle of electricity, Sunset found herself wrapped in a tight hug from her friend, accompanied by a growing damp spot on her shoulder.

"Same old Sunset, always grounding the rest of us when things get crazy."

The two of them stayed like that for a while, Sunset wasn't sure for how long.

As the two Rainbooms embraced one another, Aurelia floated her way over to the console of the forge. Dash had managed to critically damage it with a bolt of lightning in her struggle with the general, and now that mechanical mimic of a Chiracian scout was rummaging around inside of it.

She cleared her throat and readied herself to try and break the ice with the thing. It was a machine, but it seemed as able to think and talk as any of her fellows. "Well, since it looks like we're not going to be enemies for now, how's it going in there?"

"Poorly. The silicon circuitboards have been completely compromised."

Aurelia clicked her tongue. "And you can't fix it?"

"Negative. Consider it akin to trying to un-burn a piece of wood after a fire."

"Ah. Not going to happen..."

"Barring counterentropic intervention, yes."

Aurelia bristled slightly. "You're not suggesting we try going to our enemies to try and get THEM to fix it?"

"Negative. It is simply a possible solution. I presented it in anticipation that another individual may know an alternate path to pursue such an avenue of repair."

"Crowdsourcing ideas for a detour... not bad." Auri mused. "Sounds like how things work in the mass current through Radian. All the scouts in the flow share their knowledge and ideas so we can figure out solutions to our problems faster."

"As it stands, repairs will have to wait for a delivery of parts. I am sending them via emergency express, but given this dimension's location in the greater multiversal scale and the inclement weather, it may take several hours."

"Only hours?" Aurelia couldn't help but feel a little bitter that she and Dash had fought so hard only to stop their plans for a few hours.

"By which point the netherite will have cooled completely, both the original pieces and the harvested portion, which was being kept liquid in the same chamber. The required energy to restore malleability of such a large solid mass will require the forge to run at one hundred and twenty percent the rated heat capacity for an additional two days."

"Two DAYS?" Aurelia tried not to laugh. "Just to melt some metal?"

"You have never encountered an alloy like this one, no Chiracian has."

As the initial feeling of triumph faded, Aurelia felt a small trickle of dread. "Wait, so if the humans here choose YOUR plan, it'll take an extra TWO DAYS?"

"Affirmative."

"What if we don't HAVE two days?"

"Uncertain. There is the possibility that there are unaccounted for variables that could speed up the process."

"Like what?"

"Were I aware of the potential workings of 'magic,' I would already have factored them into my predictions."

Aurelia sighed, looking back at Rainbow and Sunset as the two of them finally seemed to have made their amends.

"Can't predict those two, huh? ...fair enough."

"Well, you once again prove to be a different beast than your partner."

UB didn't so much as flinch as Salem came up behind her, eventually walking abreast with her.

"That's the idea, yes." She raised an eyebrow. "I have to confess, you were probably the last person I expected to comer riding to our rescue back there."

"You of all creatures ought to expect me to keep to our alliance." Salem smirked and leaned a little closer. "Your judgement isn't clouded by fear like his."

UB returned with a smirk of her own, reaching over and pushing Salem back with her fingertips. "True, but that doesn't mean I have high expectations. As we've seen today, loyalty doesn't mean much as stakes grow higher."

Without warning, Salem's hand shot up and snatched UB's in a violent motion. In the same instant, a wave of invisible force crashed into her, pushing the two of them away from one another and up against the walls of the hallway. Salem was unfazed by the magical reciprocation, but UB was clearly shaken. One hand came up over Penn's heart, clutching at his chest. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and the light in her eyes was flickering in and out.

"Wha- what-"

"The soul may be changed, but the body remembers." Salem's tone was one of quiet disappointment. "He still fears me. It almost cost him his life in our battle, as I'm sure you remember."

As the mystical pressure relented, the two both stepped forward until they were face to face again. UB was glowering with a hateful scowl, but Salem was unfazed by her silent tantrum.

"We need to make the body forget his fear."

"Easier said than done." She tilted her head and parted her lips in a snarl, exposing sharpened canines. "Alternative: I'll keep him safe, and you'll stay the hell away from us, you rotten old witch."

"Because that would have worked out so well a short hour ago." Salem reached up, running her finger behind Penn's ear. She held the offending digit up to UB's face, showing the streak of oily blackness across her finger. "That body was only barely clinging to life with a death grip of drugs and determination before you took it over, and I know for a fact that spirit channeling like this is terribly strenuous. You won't be able to keep this up much longer, perhaps a few hours at most. You won't be able to protect him in the coming battle."

The two of them stared one another in the eyes, two gazes full of hate trying to overpower one another in a silent struggle... but UB was the first one to let her gaze flicker. She finally lifted her palm up to her forehead and turned away with a pained groan.

"See, THIS is why I can actually hold a conversation with you, even if I hate your guts! You actually show me enough respect to take me seriously and deal with me straight."

"Like Chirac's little prospective do-gooder back there?" Salem smirked. "I suppose I can see why you have such distaste for Sunset Shimmer. She lacks the grit to finish matters decisively."

"Exactly!" UB threw her hands into the air. "And every time she hesitates or tries to solve things the soft way, guess who pays the price? Everybody else! But no matter how many times he gets hurt on the adventures she ropes him into, Penn makes excuses for her, and it's back to the cycle!" She took a deep breath before letting Penn's head hang back. With a loud popping sound, it leaned back far enough to look her in the eye from behind.

"But I digress, and like you said, Penn's body can't keep this up forever."

"Indeed." Salem strode back up alongside her, taking gentle hold of Penn's head as she passed and pushing it back up to its proper position. As she released her gentle grip, there was a crackle and popping of light between their skin, a manifestation of some moment of magical power. "And so, I want to ask you for repayment."

"Repayment?"

Salem pressed her finger to UB's lips before she could begin another tirade. "Before you raise your hackles like some attack dog, I will remind you that I just saved Penn's life, and yours by extension. I captured and tortured your partner, and he not only banished me to a nightmare realm, but killed me in an excruciating manner, nearly for good." Her eyes narrowed, countering UB's multicolored stare with her own glowing red irises. "We were even, and now I saved the two of you from near-certain death. Tit for tat, I'm claiming repayment."

UB growled, staring at Salem with a look that could have ignited tinder, but her silence indicated her willingness to relent.

"You've felt firsthand how Penn's fear is crippling him, even to the point of endangering his life and, by extension, the mission. Breaking such a physiological response may require... drastic action." Salem moved her finger from UB's lips down to Penn's chin before moving closer, close enough to feel the heat of each other's breath on their cheeks. "I want your promise that you won't intervene between your partner and I again."

UB's eyes widened, and Salem couldn't help but seem to show a thrill of glee at the tiny glimpse of fear in the supposedly-invincible spirit's eyes.

"I won't hurt him, I promise." Salem snickered to herself.

"What, exactly, are you planning on doing?"

"Oh, nothing so terrible." Salem laughed. As she stepped back and away again, another crackle of magic trailed between the point where their skin had touched. "But you know as well as I do that he needs that speedy little mind of his clear. Between the fear of what we're confronting and the anxiety around me, he's been paralyzed, locking himself away in that kitchen from dawn to dusk to try and mitigate the symptoms rather than addressing the root physiological instinct. I thought you respected a ruthless approach?"

"And you think you can just rewrite his instincts to stop being afraid of you?" UB was glowering, now, but hadn't made any move to attack or retaliate in any way to Salem's contact.

"After so many eons, there is one lesson that I have learned over and over, never changing one iota, not even between two different iterations of humanity, be they magicians or huntsmen... The hearts of men are easily changed." Salem turned back, holding out her hand to UB. "Do we have an accord? For the greater good?"

UB pondered the hand for a few seconds, obviously at odds with herself before reaching out and taking it. As magic crackled between their touch, her own violet flames spring to life, adding her own magic into the interchange.

"For the duration of our truce. No longer."

Salem's smile was enough to send chills down UB's spine, as if she hadn't already known that this agreement was a bad idea, but Salem's argument had left her honorbound to her request.

"An accord of respectful ruthlessness, then. A pleasure, UB."

With the deal struck, UB's attention turned upwards, towards the now-quiet dorm rooms. "If you'll excuse me, I have something else I need to do while I have time."

"We both do. You're excused."

"It's a figure of speech, I wasn't actually asking- never mind. I've let you get under my skin enough for one day."

Blake wasn't sure what was worse: waking up from her fantasy after so long, sudden;y brought back to the reality that she'd been granted an escape from... or the summary of what she'd committed while under the spiders' spell, betraying not only her friends, her bonds, but her entire WORLD and everything she knew and loved.

The rest of her team had already been asleep when she'd woken up, but Isis had told her everything she needed to know. She'd singlehandedly almost been responsible for the forces of darkness stealing away their best chance of winning this war.

All because she'd been too caught up in the fantasy of fixing the past to seize back control in the present... and the only thing in her heart other than shame for her actions was longing... longing to go back to the paradise of equality she'd dreamt of making. A longing so strong, that she worried she wouldn't be able to resist its call forever.

So, under the cover of night, she'd gathered her most important possessions, wrapped herself in the heaviest winter clothes she could find, and slipped open the door to their dorm room.

If she was at risk of caving in to her regrets and the temptation to undo them again, then she wouldn't let herself risk it. Her friends wouldn't be hurt because of her weakness again.

As she pondered how best to make her exit, however, a low voice- no, two voices- came winding down the hall.

"Blaaaaaaaake..."

Her head snapped around to lock on the source. Even with the night vision that all faunus had, however, she couldn't seem to make out the source. It was like the shadows at the end of the hallway had all collected around whoever was calling out to her. One hand instinctively went to Gambol Shroud, even if she couldn't make out the ones calling to her.

"Oh,Blaaaaaaaaake..."

There. A speck of light amidst the darkness, a red glow. Blake's inside's all turned to ice as she realized that it was a single, furious EYE staring at her.

What happened next happened in only a fraction of a second. Blake tried to draw her blade, but before even a fraction of Gambol Shroud had made it out of the sheath, a figure was already practically on top of her. She tried to slash at them, but an unrelenting hand wrapped around it, leaving the screeching sound of metal scraping against metal. That red eye was only inches from her face, completely illuminating what SHOULD have been Penn's face, warped and twisted almost beyond recognition with absolute glee.

"Leaving so SOON?" The once-low feminine voice overlapping with Penn's was now high enough to grate at Blake's sensitive ears. Penn's other hand came up and grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Come on, we still have to play a little GAME!"

As the shadows that had once cloaked Penn at the end of the hallway closed in on the two of them, making the rest of the world fade, Blake felt a dawning, overwhelming sense that she'd unwittingly stepped into the lair of a ruthless hunter.

From Shadow(Game)s

"Ugh..." Blake's head was pounding as the shadows relented once more. Rather than the hallway where they'd started, the two of them had been moved to the sparring room. Rather than being geared up for battle, however, the two of them were seated at a makeshift table constructed from a trio of desks pushed together. Penn- or whatever was controlling him, was sitting across from her. It was wearing a grin from ear to ear, but the evil red eye had disappeared in favor of a soft blue glow. After a few awkward seconds, Blake decided to break the silence.

"...Penn?"

Not-Penn chuckled before offering her one of his hands. "I think we've yet to be introduced. I'm Missy's older sister. Call me UB."

Blake stared at the hand before looking back up at the person offering it. This "UB" definitely wasn't using Penn's voice, but it was still uncanny to hear a woman's voice coming out of his mouth.

"Why are you attacking me?" Blake tried to stand up, but found herself held fast by an unseen force.

"I told you, I want to play a little game with you." UB spread her hands wide in a show of false vulnerability. "This isn't an attack, it's a challenge!"

Blake fixed a glare on the stranger. "What did you do to Penn?"

UB's eyes narrowed in a way that reminded Blake of when one of her parents were angry with her.

"Better question: what did YOU do?" UB's smile changed to a terse look. "In the battle with the thoughtweaver spiders YOU led Sunset and Missy into, Penn reached his limit. As a result, he purposely thrust himself into the webbing, scattering all of his conscious thoughts so far to the corners of his mind, it made room for someone else to take the wheel." She leaned in further. "You lucked out. I COULD have just let Bendy have the lot of you, and then NOBODY would have made it out of there."

Blake blinked, shaking her head. "I-I'm sorry. I don't really remember much. I'm still trying to process all of this."

UB raised an eyebrow. "What DO you remember?"

"Last thing before my dream?" Blake took a long pause, trying to reach back to before the paradise she'd been granted a vision of. "I... remember that we went on a scouting mission. I remember looking up and seeing this... portal thing... on the roof of a cave, and then it all goes black." She rubbed at her forehead. "I think... I think I've got some echoes of memories of the time between, but it's like a dream of a dream."

UB drew back, and Blake could tell that her answer had taken the possessive spirit off-guard. The disorientating answer didn't last long, however, as UB's composure returned.

"Well, in the meantime, YOU brought mind-controlling spiders and a shapeshifting assassin to the school, which is home to the best chances we have of saving Remnant." UB gave her a glare that only amplified Blake's shame. "Isn't this true?"

"Ye-"

Ca-clack.

Her answer was cut off my the sound of something striking the surface of the table in front of her. Looking down, she spotted a small plastic cube, about the size of a baseball, sitting on the wooden surface. On instinct, she picked up the object. She could see seams along the surface, culminating in a circle across what she presumed was the top.

"And the game begins."

In a flash above them, Blake saw the screen above them, the one that usually showed the aura of sparring students, spring to life. Instead of the usual video game-esque meters showing the aura levels of the participants, it simply showed a white screen with a timer counting down.

3:00:00

She looked back at UB, who was smirking again.

"What's going on, what's that timer?"

Just as the words had left her lips, another cube appeared in front of UB, who picked it up and began to fiddle with it. Above them, the screen was divided down the middle, displaying a second timer beside the first.

2:59:30 | 00:05:00

"That's the game." In UB's hands, a piece of the box popped out. With a grin, she pressed it back into place. "The two of us will take turns asking one another questions. Along with every question, we'll each receive a puzzle box. Its complexity will reflect how difficult the question is." As she talked, her fingers glided around the cube, solving the mechanisms without even needing to look at them. "Answering the question correctly and honestly unlocks more of the mechanisms. It's impossible to solve the puzzle without giving the answer to the question, and you only have..." she shifted the cube to the palm of one hand and used the other pointed upwards at the timer.

"You only have until the time runs out to solve it?" Blake asked. In UB's hand, another button sprung up from the center of the cube. With a grin, she pressed the button with her pointing finger.

"The timer is your deadline to solve the puzzle." Immediately, the outer shell of the cube fell away, revealing a smaller cube inside. This time the puzzle was a familiar one to Blake: it was a Rubik's Cube. Without missing a beat, UB went to twist one of the layers, only to find that it wouldn't budge. After a moment's frustration, she snapped her fingers. "Right, a twofold answer! Well, they're not all going to be like this, but since you're new to this I gave you a twofer." She put the cube down on one of the corners and gave it a spin. "As for what's going on, you're playing a shadow game."

Blake felt her blood run cold.

"Sh-shadow game?"

"Yup." UB plucked the cube back up and gave it another twist. This time, the mechanism glided smoothly. With a hum of satisfaction, she began to expertly shuffle the cube. "It's a game of a mystic nature, with dark forces at play. If you lose, you'll suffer a harsh penalty game, a magical punishment."

Blake looked back down at her own cube, feeling more than a little sheepish at the fact that she hadn't done anything more with it than turn it over in her hands, so far.

"Like what?"

"Well, in this case, I think I know what YOUR punishment will be. Unfortunately, I already answered what's going on AND what the timer was." With a smirk, she slammed the now-solved cube on the table, where the pieces smashed and scattered across the surface. She pointed back up at the timer.

2:54:47 | 00:00:30

The second timer had stopped, but the first one, HER timer, was still going.

"You got a twofer because I hadn't explained the rules, yet." UB gestured to the scattered pieces of her cube, which were already dissolving into a cloud of motes of light and winking out. "So, you've got three hours to solve yours."

Blake looked back down at her cube, fidgeting with it and trying to pry at the seams with her nails. "How am I supposed to solve it if I can't even- oh."

"Oh?"

"I need to answer the question..." Blake muttered to herself. "Which was..."

"Is it true that you brought mind-controlling spiders and a shapeshifting assassin to the school?"

"Oh." Blake felt her spirits sink again. "Well... yes, I did."

She turned her attention back to the box, trying once again to push and pry at it. To her dismay, nothing about it had changed.

"Hmm..." UB seemed to almost be mocking her with her pondering frown. "Maybe try another answer?"

Blake stared at the cube. "I... didn't?"

The outline of the button on top sprung up. With more than a little perplexity, Blake pushed it back down. The outer layer pushed outwards as more pieces became moveable. With more questions than answers, Blake began to fiddle with the new aspect of the puzzle.

"But if I didn't... did Isis lie about what happened?"

"No, Isis wouldn't lie to you."

Blake had twisted all eight of the corners, offsetting them from the rest of the cube. When she did, it exposed small notches in the wood that let pegs on the inside slide free. With that, the corners on the top half of the cube swung out, causing it to unfold into triangular pieces, like the petals of a flower. The button still sat at the top, now perched atop a narrow column.

"Then..." She sat and stared at the new configuration, trying to understand. "Then I... didn't?"

Her words made the puzzle react, turning it upside down. Now inverted, it sat on the button in a way that made it look like a plant stem, and the former outside had changed colors. The outer edges of the "petals" had turned yellow, but the center was a dark brown. On closer inspection, though, she saw an inscription on one of the corners: A spider. As she stared at the new marking, the answer came to her. It was an answer she'd contemplated, but dismissed out of hand. Now, however, she was coming back around to it.

"It was... the spider that was controlling me that did it?" She reached down and tugged at the petal with the illustration. It was loose, but refused to come free.

"Hm... Is that an answer or a question?" UB mused. "Do you really believe that?"

"...no." Blake shook her head. "Even if it was the spider doing it, if I hadn't been so easily controlled, I probably could have fought back!" She looked down at the puzzle flower. "Or if I'd had my guard up when we were exploring, I could have avoided this altogether!"

"Hm..." UB glanced up at the clock. "Maybe I should have given you more time."

Blake tried to remove the spider piece again, only to find it locked in place completely, now. Blake glared at the puzzle, trying to force it open. The two of them sat in awkward silence as Blake tried and tried to force the piece out.

"Deep down, I knew something was wrong! There were signs! Somewhere, way in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't-" she choked on her words for a moment as a tidal wave of emotions forced their way up her throat. "It wasn't real... but I didn't want to come back."

Click.

Across from the spider, another petal dropped out on its own. As Blake went to pick it up, another three of the petals fell away. Before her eyes, every petal except the one with the spider on it fell away, leaving only the one petal. Looking more closely, Blake could see a hint of a red button hidden inside, with the center piece of the flower covering it like a lid, and that one petal holding that center piece in place.

That single petal was all that was standing between her and solving the puzzle.

"If you can't accept the truth, you can't speak a truthful answer!" UB moaned. "Come on, I don't want to be stuck on our first round all night!"

Blake stared at the last petal, which seemed to be mocking her.

"Was it really... not my fault? I was being mind controlled, but-"

"GAH!" UB slapped her hand against the table, startling Blake. "One more hint! Just so we can get out of the tutorial!" She leaned in close. "The thoughtweavers might put you into a dream, but they interface straight with the nervous system! It's a physical override! The dream is just to lull your mind so you don't fight back, but they'd have control either way."

Blake let the words sink in for a few seconds before reaching one more time for the piece.

"So... it's not true. The thoughtweaver spider used me, but it wasn't me who did those things."

This time, the petal moved freely, sliding out. No longer supported, the center piece clattered onto the tabletop. Blake pressed the button and the box dissolved into more of those specks of light, twinkling away. She looked up at the clock to confirm her victory, and it had indeed stopped.

02:40:12 | 00:00:30

"Finally!" UB cried.

Blake let out a long sigh of relief.

"So, now we're heading into the first REAL round." UB smirked. "You ready?"

Clack!

Both of them stared at the cube that had appeared in front of Blake, a plain brown block of wood with a button on the top. Blake smiled and tapped the button, causing her puzzle to disappear.

"Yeah, I think so." She tilted her head. "But I still have one more question about the rules. What happens if I run out of time?"

The box that appeared in front of UB was another moderately complex one, but she picked it up and began shuffling a peg through the mazes on the sides of the box without issue.

"Well, I can't keep control of Penn's body forever. It's actually REALLY strenuous, and he's going to wake back up eventually." When she made eye contact with Blake again, her red eye had appeared again, feeling as if it was staring into her soul.

"So, since I can't protect him properly without a body, if you run out of time, we'll swap. I'll take your body, and you'll be the disembodied soul."

Blake felt a heavy layer of frost cover her insides as UB pushed the peg into place and pushed it down, shattering the puzzle box in a decisive motion.

"So, I think it's my turn, but in the interest of fairness, I'll tell you the other side. If YOU manage to stump me, I have a prize for you." She reached down into Penn's pocket and slid a card face-down onto the table.

Blake nearly asked what it was, but stopped herself. Now that she knew the stakes they were playing for, she was going to have to be much, MUCH more careful with her questions.

"I... thought you were a good spirit, considering you're Missy's sister."

"Oh, I am." UB's eyes glowed. "But I'm sure you know that 'good' is subjective. I need to protect Penn to help Remnant. This is how I think I should do it." She leaned back in her chair, stretching in a way that made several loud pops and cracks. "I mean, it'll certainly make things easier for me!"

Blake opened her mouth, but was cut off as UB snapped forward, giving her a cocky grin while she leaned in on the table.

"Now, it's my turn to ask a question."

Sunset took a long, slow breath as she trudged her way back to the dorm rooms. With no sign of Penn returning tonight and Rainbow Dash still reeling from her harsh words, she'd decided it would probably be for the best if she slept in Team RWBYS's room tonight. I'm sure they'll have the hammock back up, if they even took it down, to begin with. If not, Yang and Weiss are still in that room with the medical gear, I don't think they'll mind if I steal their bed for the night.

'Man, what a night, huh?' Missy's voice whispered in her mind.

"Yeah..." Sunset rolled her eyes as she muttered under her breath. "I'm sorry you had to go back to your world again. I don't think I'll have the energy to summon you back until at least the morning."

'Better than risking me swapping sides, trust me!' Missy urged. 'Believe me, duel spirits hate mind control, too! Even if there's a bunch of cards that can make it happen, we don't like it one bit."

Sunset shuddered at the thought of facing Missy as an enemy instead of a friend. "How have we only been here for two days? It feels like it's been a YEAR since we got here..."

'Time does go faster when you're fighting for your life, I've been in enough duels to know that."

Sunset paused for a moment. "You know... I REALLY need to start playing more of the game. Not only would it help me understand you and how you think better, maybe it would help me figure out how to deal with your sister..."

'Sis? You don't need to figure anything out with her, you just need to give her a chance to warm up to you-'

"Missy?" Sunset stopped in place, focusing on directing her incredulity inwards. "With all due respect, you're CRAZY if you think she's EVER going to warm up to me! She couldn't be colder to me if we marched out into the blizzard together!"

'You're misreading her signs. The fact that she actually talked to you, let alone saved you, is a sign she's willing to give it a shot!' Missy's hopefulness was admittedly infectious. 'Think about it, until Ebott, all you got were flashes of emotion and that one time she wanted you dead in Penn's head. Tonight you two were having whole conversations!'

Sunset sighed and shook her head as she continued down the hall. "I'd hardly call it a conversation for her to stand there and just do everything in her power to ignore and curse me."

'She's abrasive, I'll admit it, but she's stressed out just as much as us, maybe more! Give it time, you'll build a rapport, find the boundaries and understand the real meanings behind her words.'

"I don't think there's hidden meanings to it, she just hates me."

'She almost lost Penn tonight, and if Isis's report is right, then the only person she can thank for saving him is SALEM. That would make anyone snippy.'

Sunset grimaced at the new wave of shame that struck her. "Yeah, remind me of my own failures tonight again, why don't you?"

'And that shame is EXACTLY what Sis is feeling about now, but ten- no, TWENTY times as bad. He's the most important person in the world to her, the ONLY one who really matters, and she couldn't do anything for him but watch!' Missy's tone softened into sympathy. 'Wouldn't you want to get mad at somebody other than yourself, too?'

Sunset hated to admit it, but she could see where Missy was coming from. If she felt this terrible when she couldn't help her friends, she couldn't imagine how bad UB must have felt when she couldn't help her beloved partner.

"Still, it's hard to imagine the two of us ever getting along..." Sunset muttered as she reached for the door of Team RWBYS's room.

'Which is why I said to just be patient. She'll come around.'

Sunset groaned inwardly as she carefully cracked open the door to the dorm room, but froze when she realized that something was very wrong.

Neither Blake nor Ruby were there, despite Blake having been unconscious and Ruby being exhausted when they'd dropped them off.

"Isis... please tell me Blake and Ruby are just on a trip to the infirmary, or something..."

"Apologies, but... I am unable to locate their scroll signals. However, recent electromagnetic interference DOES match a previously recorded phenomena."

"What's it match?" Sunset's hand traveled to her saber. She was tired, so tired she had barely been able to limp her way back to the room, but she still had plenty of fight left in her heart.

"The occurrence of a 'Shadow Game.'"

Sunset's blood ran cold and her stomach twisted in her gut. Before the word "how" had even formed in her lips, Missy's words from HER shadow game pushed themselves to the surface of her memory. A shadow game like this should only be possible if he has a millennium item, which he clearly doesn't, or if he's allied with an extremely powerful spirit...

Extremely powerful spirit...

Extremely powerful spirit...

"Oh, she didn't..." Sunset whispered.

'Oh boy... Okay, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this!'

Sunset ignored Missy's plea as she whipped her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts. In ten seconds flat, the line was ringing.

"Hey, Sunset. Look, if you're still mad-"

"Dash, I need your help."

"Where?"

There was zero pause, no hesitation at all in Rainbow's reply.

"Team RWBYS's dorm-"

There was a rush of wind and a crackle of electricity, and Rainbow Dash was standing beside her, clearly ready for anything. Aurelia was nowhere to be seen, likely left behind in the workshop.

"What's up?"

Sunset motioned to the empty beds. "Blake and Ruby are missing, and Isis says that there's a shadow game happening somewhere in the school. I think UB's gone rogue."

'She did NOT!' Missy argued. 'She wouldn't hurt our friends-'

She wouldn't hurt OUR friends? Or she wouldn't hurt HER friends?

'BOTH!'

Sunset looked down at her hand, watching it shake as she tried to settle it on her saber.

"So what's the plan?" Dash asked, pounding her fist into her palm with a crackle of blue electricity.

Sunset took a deep breath. "You can look around the school faster than me. Find them, then come get me. There's no guarantee she won't attack us, so we need to be ready for anything." Sunset tightened her grip on her saber, trying to force down the surge of nervous energy threatening to overwhelm her.

"Got it! I'll be back in a flash!" Rainbow gave a quick salute before vanishing in another gust of wind.

Yang blinked away the darkness at the corners of her vision.

"Wha- What's going on?"

When she looked up, she found herself staring at Penn. For some reason, however, her instincts were screaming that something was wrong. His eyes were glowing, one his typical blue and the other a sickly orange. As he strode up to her, his body language was completely different than before.

Fighting hand-to-hand most of the time had taught Yang to watch her opponent's movements carefully, spying hidden weaknesses and openings in their defenses. Until now, Penn's posture had always been a mix of respectful meekness and joking confidence, usually depending on whether or not he wanted the person he was talking with to like him. He'd stop at doorways to ask if he could come in, even if they were open. If he was trying to show disrespect to someone, his movements got less jilted, but he would close up a lot, doing things like folding his arms or leaning back against a wall. Either way, he almost always had his guard up in one way or another, either not to offend or to avoid getting struck back at.

Now? Now, his posture was open, relaxed, slack, and... there was a marked difference in how his body moved that seemed almost... feminine. He reached down, offering her a hand.

"Yang Xiao Long! Sorry, but Penn's not in." he pointed to his head with his free hand and grinned. "Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure! You can call me UB, I'm Missy's older sister."

Yang went to grab the offered hand, only to realize with a grimace that the hand this "UB" had reached with was the same one that Yang had lost. If she tried to take it with the most natural-feeling response, the charcoal limb would likely just break. Awkwardly twisting her other arm around, Yang took hold with her good hand and let- whoever this was- lift her to her feet.

"Uh, thanks? If you're Missy's sister..."

"Penn got into a fight he couldn't win and Shimmer was no help." UB rattled off the explanation with ease, as if talking about traffic. "So I had to take over Penn's body to bail them both out of it."

Yang looked around at where they were. It was a large, empty room with minimal lighting. Two rows of pedestals ran down the length of the room, each one holding a small statuette. None of them seemed to be any recognizable shape, but they all seemed to be made of different materials.

"Last I remember, Isis said that the fight was over and everyone was going to bed..." Yang muttered. "She didn't say how, just that we had the all-clear to go to sleep."

"Well, that's what happened." UB declared, picking up a roughly baseball-sized sphere from one pedestal. She tossed it up and down in her hand several times. "Of course, now there's a different danger out and about."

Yang's instincts were still driving her crazy, and UB's words confirmed what she'd been feeling. More importantly, however, there was another question on her mind. I was in bed, how did I get here? She turned to examine one of the statuettes more closely, noticing that it was some kind of shiny metal in the shape of a small robot with a wide head.

"That danger, of course, being ME."

Yang's head snapped around just in time to catch the tail end of UB making a throwing motion. It was only reflex that got her hands up in time to protect her head from the incoming projectile, and it still hit her with enough force to rattle her bones and send her stumbling backwards. When she finally regained her balance, Yang was almost dragged to the floor by the weight of the object in her hands.

What's this thing MADE out of?

"Are you CRAZY?" Yang's temper ignited, and she was half-tempted to hurl the metal sphere back at UB with equal force.

"Sure I am, what's your point?" UB's head tilted to the side, still infuriatingly casual after nearly taking Yang's head off. "Weren't you listening?"

Yang tightened her grip on the metal ball as UB's words sunk in. "Wait... why are YOU dangerous?"

"Because I've been watching from the shadows for a long time. TOO long." UB's eyes flashed, one orange and the other red. Yang tried not to let it get to her, but she knew from her own experience that an eye color change could be serious. She felt her aura rise up on instinct, but she tried to keep her temper in check for now. If UB had noticed the change in her posture, she wasn't showing it.

"I'm sick of watching my partner get hurt over and over." She gestured down to Penn's body, which Yang finally noticed was nursing a number of painful-looking wounds and ink-soaked stains. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Yang wondered how his body was even standing. "So, while I've got the steering wheel for a while, I'm going to make sure I get everything I want."

Yang took a deep breath and shifted the metal ball entirely to her good hand. "And... what's that? And what does it have to do with chucking a cannonball at my head?"

UB idly waved her hand. "Oh, just a few little things. A body to myself, revenge on a couple folks, Sunset Shimmer's head on a plate-"

"WHAT?"

UB rolled her eyes. "Okay, so that last one is PROBABLY gonna have to go in my letter to Santa. As for what it has to do with aforementioned cannonball..." A haunting smile crept up on Penn's possessed face, one wide and wry enough to send shivers down Yang's spine. "It's part of the game. I'm doing this the... traditional way for duel spirits. With shadow games. I'm challenging you and all your little friends to a magic game. If they win, they get a reward. If I win, I get to take what I want from them, instead. I'm already winning against Blake. Ruby's just getting started-"

Yang didn't hear the rest. She'd tossed aside the metal ball to blitz towards UB, wrapping her good hand around her throat without a thought to the fact that it was still Penn's body.

"Ruby?"

"Nuh-uh-uh!" UB didn't seem fazed at all, even if Yang had slammed into her full-force. In fact... she hadn't moved an inch. "If you want to try and stop THEIR games, you're going to have to win yours, first!"

Yang tried to tighten her grip, but UB's flesh was like iron. When she looked down at her hand, she realized why she couldn't seem to push in on her throat: her fingers hadn't even made contact. Her hand was hovering just about a centimeter above Penn's flesh, unable to push any closer no matter how hard she tried. UB grinned that cold smile again before slamming her palm against Yang's sternum. Despite having so little windup, Yang was lifted entirely off of her feet and thrown through the air. With a grunt of pain, Yang collided with the ground. Even though her aura had absorbed a majority of the force, she'd still had the wind knocked out of her lungs. Just as she was about to reach inward for her semblance, UB spoke again.

"The game is TAG!" She clapped her hands together. "You're it! The game ends when you tag me! All you have to do is touch me and you win!"

Yang gritted her teeth, biting back a flood of curses and angry remarks. She'd rushed in against an opponent she knew nothing about. AGAIN. "Why?"

"Because two-person Tag is REALLY boring. I'd rather just end it after the first-"

"WHY are you coming after US?" Yang pushed herself back up onto her feet. Her whole body was getting hotter, and she could see the coals on her arm beginning to glow red as she tried to control herself. She had been sidelined by choice since she lost her arm, but the last couple days, she'd been forcefully kept on guard duty watching after Weiss. It still hadn't been a big deal... until tonight. When she'd been forced to stay out of the fight while everyone else went to rescue Penn and Sunset. And going by how Penn looked, she'd been absent when her friends really needed her.

So by this point, if this spirit wanted to come after her friends, Yang was almost ready to thank her for the chance to get up and fight again. Still, as much as Yang had the itch to jump straight to throwing hands, she had no idea what this "spirit" was capable of. Getting a sense of her motives would be a start.

"Oh, why Team RWBY?" UB's smile faded for the first time, and a deathly seriousness settled over her demeanor. Somehow, despite Penn not being that tall, she still managed to somehow give the feeling that she was looking down on Yang as she leaned forward.

"Because you're WEAK. Easy pickings."

Yang could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up. For a moment, she forgot that she was looking into the eyes of a person. For just a second, Yang felt the presence of something deep and dark, like standing in front of a deep, empty well. Even if there wasn't a risk of falling, what laid therein was... over her head. And that thing had just said that she was easy prey.

"So... one dragon to another, I'm giving you a fair chance at still being able to win this, instead of just taking what I want by tooth and claw." UB leaned back again, returning to her relaxed demeanor. "This is just like regular tag, except that you're not the ONLY one with an aura, this time!"

Yang thought back to the force that had stopped her from crushing Penn's windpipe when UB had threatened Ruby.

"If it's an aura, then I just have to wear you down, right?"

UB smirked. "Yes and no."

Yang waited, but UB didn't elaborate further, simply spreading her arms wide to invite Yang's attack. Yang gritted her teeth. "Is that all I'm getting?"

"You've gotten plenty."

Yang tightened her fists and swept her foot back, readying herself for a fight. It was a comfortable, familiar old pose, btu she couldn't let herself get complacent. Her teammates were on the line, her SISTER was on the line.

She just had to break UB's aura and tag her.

"Let's GO!"

"Ugh... my head..." Ruby murmured. Everything hurt, she felt cold, and her bed was stiff as a board. Did I kick the blanket off and wake myself up?

"Up and at 'em, kiddo."

Ruby's eyes snapped open at the sound of UB's voice. Sitting up revealed that she was, in fact, not in her bed at all, but laying across the front of a desk in a dark classroom. She'd snapped up as if she'd simply fallen asleep in class again, far from her comfy bed. UB, still in control of Penn's broken body, was leaning back in the teacher's chair and resting her heels on the desk, with the only light in the room coming from a flickering fluorescent bulb just above her head.

"Wha- What's going on?"

"I wanna play a little game." She smirked and gestured towards Ruby with a single beckoning finger. "Ruby Rose, come on down! You're the next contestant on 'The Price is Night!'"

Ruby wasn't sure what was going on, but... whatever it was, UB was clearly the one in control, here. She drowsily stumbled her way down to the front of the classroom.

"I don't understand... it's the middle of the night, what are you doing? And how did I even get here?"

"Not important." UB waved aside Ruby's worries. "You're going to have to learn to sort out the important questions from the unimportant ones if you want to be a good team leader."

Ruby narrowed her eyes, feeling irritation creeping up on her along with the weight of her eyelids. "Then what's the important question?"

"Why is a duel spirit from a game that has the power to steal souls and inflict curses challenging you to play a game?" She pulled her feet off the desk and motioned to a chair that was waiting on Ruby's side. "And what's the game?"

Ruby took a long look at UB, then tilted her head and cocked one eyebrow, not even bothering to repeat back the "important" questions. UB, who had clearly been expecting her to do so, sighed and waved Penn's hand across the desk. A pair of teacups appeared somewhere in the motion, letting off small wisps of steam.

"Drink. It's cold." UB sighed and reached for the cup in front of herself, taking a long sip. "And you're going to need your strength."

Ruby stared down at the cup for a few seconds before begrudgingly raising it to her lips. The liquid inside proved itself to be hot apple cider, tangy and overly spiced. She resisted the urge to spit the almost-sour liquid back into the cup, forcing herself to swallow it.

"The game..." UB clicked her tongue. "Coming up with one for you was tricky. You love all sorts of games, don't you?"

"Y-Yeah."

"So, I decided to go with a classic." UB raised one of her hands, which burst into violet flames. With a flick of her wrist, the fireball floated up into the air, then dropped back down again. She caught it in her other hand before repeating the motion and tossing the fireball back, now slightly larger. "Catch."

Ruby watched the fireball float back and forth a few times, growing in intensity and size until it was bright enough to light up the whole room. With another idle flick, UB sent the orb flying towards the window.

KA-BOOM!

With an explosion loud enough to make her ears ring, the projectile exploded, completely blowing out the window and sending a shockwave through the room. A moment later, the icy winds that had been kept at bay all came rushing in at once, plunging the entire room into near-zero temperatures in a heartbeat. Ruby instinctively pulled her cloak up to protect her face, turning back to UB with eyes wide with shock.

UB didn't seem to be fazed at all by the explosion or the drop in temperature, still calmly seated behind the desk and sipping her cider. Looking closely, Ruby could almost see that the snow seemed to be avoiding her, floating around and deflecting off of her, but never landing on Penn's clothes or body.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Ruby had to practically scream to make herself heard over the howling winds.

"Just showing you what happens if one of us drops the ball!" UB hopped to her feet and began stretching her arms over her head, then craned Penn's body from side to side.

None of this made any sense, and Ruby's mind was racing trying to figure out what reason UB would have to turn on them like this. She mentioned that her game can curse people and steal souls...

"What's the winner get?"

UB's eyes gleamed red and blue and she flashed Ruby a giddy grin. "What do you WANT?"

Everything that UB said only made Ruby more confused. She had a million questions, but... You're going to have to learn to sort out the important questions from the unimportant ones if you want to be a good team leader...

Right now, UB, a powerful spirit, was challenging her to a game. It was obvious that she couldn't decline, but... those words, combined with her choice of seat, left Ruby thinking that UB was trying to make some kind of overly violent "teachable moment."

"I want... to know how to win!"

UB's unnaturally wide smile stretched even farther, practically splitting Penn's face in half.

"It's a Caucus Race with a twist! We run and run and run! When somebody drops the ball, the race ends and they lose!" One of her hands lit up with a fresh plume of violet flame. "Any more questions?"

Ruby weighed the circumstances. If UB wanted to teach her something, then she'd take the initiative to start the lesson mid-race. She knew the rules, it was Hot Potato but running. Whatever else is going on... I can figure it out after the game is over.

"Seems pretty clear!"

UB grinned and sprinted for the hole in the wall. One last phrase was thrown Ruby's way alongside the violet fireball before she catapulted herself backwards out the open window.

"Then let the game BEGIN!"

Forcing down the urge to dodge out of the way, Ruby caught the fireball in her hands. Thankfully, it didn't burn her. In fact, it just felt pleasantly warm and sent tingles up her arms. She could sense the power in it, even now when it was hardly bigger than a baseball. The longer it stayed in her hands, however, the more the temperature of its surface rose.

"Guess there's only one place to throw it..." Ruby whispered. A moment later, she triggered her semblance and rushed out the window and into the storm. When she reformed outside, she was struck by the realization that she was several stories in the air. Far below her, she could see a dark speck that generally resembled her target. Just as she started Rearing back, she hurled the fireball back with enough force to completely flip herself in the air as she plunged towards the ground.

"Coming at ya, UB!"

"WEISS!"

Weiss snapped up in her bed with a force that could only be provided by sheer adrenaline when Sunset came bursting into her room.

"What, what's wrong?"

Sunset rushed to her bed, which did nothing to ease Weiss's nerves.

"You're okay? Nobody's come in here?" Sunset asked as she hurriedly checked Weiss over.

"O-Of course I'm fine!" Weiss declared. "Why, what's going on? Are we under attack again?"

Sunset sighed and glanced towards the door. "Kind of..."

For the first time, Weiss noticed that Yang was gone from the room, possibly for the first time since she'd woken up. "Kind of? Sunset, what's going on? Does this have something to do with what happened earlier?"

"It's a long story, but... Penn's possessed."

There was a long pause as Weiss tried to process what Sunset had said. "...according to your stories, this wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

Sunset flinched for a second. "Okay- Yes- But this is different! It's Missy's sister, and she's MAD! She's going around challenging people to shadow games! People are going to get hurt if they lose!"

Weiss took another long pause. Perhaps it was the fact that she was still recovering from her coma, but her mind had been moving more slowly, more contemplatively, since she had woken up. She reached down to the place where Myrtenaster was leaning against the end table. She began to idly thumb at the rotating barrel of dust cartridges near the rapier's hilt.

"Sunset, calm down."

Sunset's jaw dropped in shock for a moment. "CALM-"

"Sunset!" Weiss barked her name in the same angry tone that was usually reserved for their training sessions. Thankfully, the sound of an angry teacher was enough to stop her mid-outburst. Weiss locked eyes with Sunset. "Take a deep breath. Now."

Sunset did as she was told, giving Weiss a chance to formulate her next question.

"Now, WHO is Missy's sister? And why would she be attacking US?"

"Because we let Penn get hurt, and now she wants payback!" Sunset turned and sat herself on the edge of Weiss's bed. "And I don't know WHO she is, she won't tell me because she knows it makes me miserable not to know!"

Weiss's brow furrowed. "But... that doesn't make sense. This is hardly the first time that Penn's gotten hurt, even just in Remnant!"

"Yeah, but it's the first time that she's managed to get control of his body!" Sunset countered.

"Still... I feel like we're not getting the whole picture, here." Weiss muttered. "Who is she challenging to these games?"

"So far, we're pretty sure Blake and Ruby... and, judging by the fact Yang isn't here..." Sunset trailed off. Weiss continued thinking.

"Why play games with them instead of just taking her revenge directly?"

"Because that's how their magic works, I guess?" Sunset shrugged. "I don't know, dark magic isn't my specialty, in fact I was kind of banished for even trying to-" She flinched slightly to the side, as if someone was yelling in her ear. "N-Not that DARK magic is necessarily EVIL, yes, but I think in this instance-" she flinched again.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Missy's yelling at me. She's not HERE, but she can still hear us and talk to me." Sunset sighed. "It's just her voice in my head, and she keeps trying to tell me I shouldn't be worried about her sister. That I should just let this all play out without doing anything to help them."

"Well, she IS Missy's sister. Nobody would know her better." Weiss reached out and put her hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Isn't Missy your partner? Why don't you think you can trust her about this?"

"Because she's ALWAYS enabled UB!" Sunset threw her hands in the air. "Missy plays along with her little name game, refuses to help me figure out who she is, and she always makes excuses for her behavior! I can't- I-"

"You don't think she's being honest because it's her sister."

There was a long pause of quiet between the two of them. Weiss wasn't sure, but she could imagine that Sunset and Missy were having some kind of conversation. Weiss didn't know for certain what kind of talk they were having, but Sunset's dejected look made it clear that Missy hadn't taken the comment well.

"Is... everything okay?"

Sunset took a deep breath before covering her eyes and leaning back. "I'm starting to get a headache from all this brain-talking. How does Penn keep this up twenty-four seven?"

"Practice, I'd imagine." The purposeful subject change wasn't lost on Weiss. "Listen, Sunset... partners have to TRUST each other. I can't even imagine how much more so if you're literally in each other's heads. I had to learn that the hard way with Ruby. Even if I still have reservations about her from time to time, we'd still gladly put our lives in each other's hands."

"I DO trust Missy-"

"So..." Weiss interrupted, "What kind of person do you think Penn trusts on that level? What kind of person would Missy be willing to earnestly call her sister?"

Sunset blinked several times, as if the thought was only coming to her for the first time.

"I think... you've seen her sister as this outside intruder all along, when that's not really the case." Weiss looked down at the weapon in her hands, remembering the life that had led her to push away from her family and become a huntress-in-training. "Sometimes, the people we care about really DO make bad choices about who to trust, but... I don't think Penn AND Missy are both brain-dead enough to partner with someone who's truly evil. And, even if she IS a bad person, pressing on that subject over and over again isn't going to force her out of their lives like a splinter. It's just going to feel like you're attacking a sore spot over and over until they stop letting you try to help them." She unconsciously glanced to the side as painful memories resurfaced, mostly involving an ever-present, never-empty wine glass.

"But... if she's somebody Penn and Missy both trust, why would she be attacking us?" Sunset shook her head. "And you haven't SEEN her, even just the little bits and pieces of her that I have! She's- she's this DEMON!"

"She IS one, or she LOOKS like one?" Weiss tilted her head. "I hope you haven't forgotten the lesson we learned from Blake about judging our teammates on appearances?"

Sunset opened her mouth to give a reflexive reply, only to stop herself as some kind of realization struck her. Before Weiss could ask her what conclusion she'd come to, the door to the room burst open and Rainbow Dash rushed inside.

"I found Yang and UB! They're trying to kill each other!"

So We Back In The Mine(craft)...

Sunset could feel it, she was teetering on the edge of something far greater than herself... and yet nothing at all. An endless void waiting to consume her. She pushed herself as hard as she could forward, desperation and panic beginning to overtake her as she felt herself flirting with oblivion. She reached out, gasping for something, anything to pull herself back to safety. She reached and reached, stretching herself farther and farther, thinner and thinner like taffy until she could barely recognize herself. From behind, she felt the darkness wrapping all around her, trying to claim her for itself, warping her further and filling her with its strange magics. The world outside warped along with her, stretching and spiraling in on itself until it no longer made sense. She could try to understand it the way she once did, grasp at bits and pieces, but this place on the edge of eternity was now her home, spending forever on the precipice of disaster.

A new power washed over her like an ocean wave, pushing her further into the dark and locking off all that she once knew. She heard leathery wings, felt the violet flames burning her skin to a blackened crisp, saw great purple eyes burning in the dark from within...

Sunset was falling. Those eyes watched her, unflinching as she plunged into the dark. They held no malice, but no kindness, either. Her suffering was irrelevant, it was still the master of its black domain, and none residing there possessed the means to take it back.

The great black dragon roared, making the very stone beneath it grow pale with fear at its overwhelming presence... and no one in this place at The End of the worlds could stop it.

Sunset gasped and sat bolt-upright as she woke from her nightmare. She scrambled to her feet, blinking away the glare from the early morning light. She focused on trying to take deep breaths, forcing herself back into control of the panic. Slowly, the dream faded away, and her breathing slowed to a normal pace. She took a long breath and looked up at the sky, checking the sun for a sign of how long she'd been unconscious after they'd crossed through the portal.

The sun was square.

Okay.

That might as well happen.

In violation of all known laws of physics and common sense, it might as well happen. Why not, right?

Sunset looked around, her jaw dropping as she realized EVERYTHING was square, or rather cubes. The trees were made up of cubes of wood and cubes of leaves. Hills and valleys were constructed from blocks placed evenly on top of each other. A nearby stream was flowing down a riverbank of hard lines and right angles. She knelt down, looking more closely at the grass beneath her feet. It looked almost more like moss, growing short and low to the ground in mottled shades of green divided into square pixels. She reached out, curious what it felt like-

"No... Nonononononono, this isn't happening..." she whispered, staring at her hand with wide eyes.

Her hand was a flesh-colored block. She couldn't even see any fingers. Her entire arm was one big rectangular block that bent at the elbow, all the way up to her shoulder. She couldn't get a good look at it, but it looked like her torso was another rectangle. She slowly reached up, feeling at her head-

Yup. Cube.

"Okay... Okay, I can handle this..." Sunset screwed her eyes shut, taking several deep breaths to force back down the panic. "This isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to me, right?"

...

"Okay, this is TOTALLY THE WEIRDEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO ME!" Sunset yelled, her voice echoing back and forth through the landscape around her. Like releasing a pressure valve, Sunset felt her imminent freak-out relent once she was done screaming. She took multiple deep breaths, somehow clenching her hands and releasing them again several times.

Okay, two arms, two legs, head, torso... I'm all here, if a bit different. I can work with this.

"Sunset? Is that you?"

Sunset perked up, turning towards the familiar voice. "Missy? Man, am I glad to see yoooooooooo... oh my."

Missy seemed to have gone through a similar transformation, if a bit more complex than Sunset's because it seemed to render her tiny hat and wings. To Sunset's surprise, she was also doing something she couldn't ever remember the little duel spirit doing: walking. As in, on the ground. She watched Missy emerge from behind a nearby tree, her eyes wide. With a gleeful cry, Missy ran forward, leaping into Sunset's arms and gripping her in a tight hug.

"I was so worried when I woke up by myself!"

Sunset looked over her shoulder, eyeing how the black and white rectangles only served to drive home how much Missy's wings looked like rows of piano keys. She gave the younger girl a pat on the back, trying to comfort her.

"I'm right here, Missy. I'm not gonna leave you alone. So, uh... where are we? Last thing I remember, we went through that weird portal..." She glanced around to double-check. "And I don't see any portal here."

Missy finally let go, dropping to the ground. She made a show of rubbing her chin as if she were in deep thought. She licked her finger and felt the wind, then checked the angle of the sun. She lowered her ear to the ground for a few seconds, then walked over and rapped her blocky fist against the wood, noting the sound it made.

"Well, according to my calculations..." She pointed upwards with one hand, keeping a growing smirk barely contained. "We appear to be in Minecraft!"

Sunset blinked. "Minecraft?"

"Yeah, the video game! Minecraft is a survival game where you, well, mine and craft to survive!" She raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? It's, like, the highest selling video game of all time!"

"Right..." Sunset looked around, feeling a light jog at the back of her mind. She grinned as a memory came rushing back to her. "Wait, I think I HAVE seen this, before! I didn't want to play it, but Fluttershy did! She made a whole wildlife sanctuary in it and showed everyone!"

Missy tapped her chin and smiled. "Well, that's ONE way to play it. I never got too into it, myself, but Penn likes building big bases and automated machines. He even likes to play on Hardcore mode, where you only get one life!"

Sunset looked around. "So, if there's no portal, and this is a video game... maybe we have to beat it to get back? How do you win?"

Missy cringed at that point, and Sunset knew she was in for bad news.

"Well, there ARE bosses, but... it's a LONG path to get to them."

Sunset thought to herself for a moment. "Okay, then let's find Penn and get started! He can't have gone too far, right? We went through the portal right after he did!"

"But... don't you think he would have come running if he heard you yelling like that?" Missy asked.

Sunset paused, realizing she was right. "Okay... what about Isis's taser? He could still be out of commission, right?"

"Sunset, I woke up, like, an hour ago." Missy rested one hand on her hip and leaned against the tree with her other. "I don't know much about this game, but I can tell you one thing from watching him start and lose at least a dozen hardcore worlds, the first thing he'd do is find a suitable place to set up a base and get himself safe before nightfall."

Sunset almost dreaded to ask her next question. "What... happens at nightfall?"

"Monsters! They all spawn in the dark! And not monsters like ME, I mean skeletons, zombies, witches, creepers!"

"But... Never mind." Sunset considered arguing with Missy, she could think of at least three examples of undead creatures, a witch, and a skeleton among the ranks of the Ghostricks, but it seemed like a bad idea to waste time. "So, we need to get someplace safe before the sun sets, huh? We can't find Penn if we don't survive, ourselves! Which way to safety?"

Missy turned her attention to the tree she was leaning on. Sunset's eyes widened as she started vigorously punching her fist against the wood. Pixelated cracks spread through the block, and a few seconds later it popped and vanished, leaving a smaller version of itself floating on the block below it. She smiled and picked up the miniature log, gesturing to Sunset with her newly acquired block.

"You don't FIND safety, Sunset... You MAKE it!"

"Aaaaaaand, DONE!"

Missy stepped back, joining Sunset to stare at their creation. The two of them had spent all day punching trees, gathering logs together.

"Missy..."

"Yeah?"

"This is a wooden box."

"It's a log cabin!"

"Once we seal up the hole we're using as a door, it won't even have air holes."

"Air holes don't matter in Minecraft!" Missy began to walk confidently into the two-block tall hole in their box, only to pause and scratch her head. "At least... I don't THINK they do..."

Sunset sighed and shook her head. "Come on, let's just get inside before it gets dark. We'll work it out as we go..."

Author's Note

I know I said not to expect a chapter this week, but...

Well, moving is stressful and I needed a break. Working on this story has almost become a compulsion and helps me unwind.

So enjoy this short update!