Chester's eyes shoot open as noises draw him back into the present. Quiet rattling. A distinct thunk.

Crap. He fell asleep.

It takes him a moment to re-orient. He's lying on his side on the yoga mat of Chryssy's meditation room, facing her giant mural, which is perpetually lit by a hidden row of blue-white LEDs framing the art. Those lights, always on, keep the room in a state of perpetual dimness, although it does feel fractionally dimmer than when he closed his eyes. Ah: There's no light coming in through the hopper windows. It's night, though he can't immediately tell when.

There's the whisper of a door opening behind him. He hurriedly sits up, twisting around—and winces as his stomach starts protesting again.

It's Celestia! He can tell even before she turns around; she's wearing a borrowed robe from the ashram, but nobody else has an aura that impossibly intense, or hair in that distinctive pastel rainbow. Chester's heart soars for a moment—and then plummets again as he catches an undertone of simmering red to the calm compassion of her blue. How did she get here? And why is she angry?

There's another thunk as she remains facing the door. She re-locked it?

Chester's trying to piece together an explanation for his observations when Celestia turns around. Seeing him awake, she touches a pale, lengthy finger to her lips, then walks over and kneels on the yoga mat near him. "Chester!" she stage-whispers. "I'm glad you're okay."

Not entirely glad, but Chester doesn't want to question that. "Celestia! How's Sunset?" he whispers back.

Some hints of gray bubble up before the blue returns, shading toward a darker protectiveness (though still with that red visible at its core). "She's fine," Celestia says. "The Holy Mother is treating us with far more mercy than I would in her shoes. But what about you? What's happened since I saw you last?"

Chester hesitates for a moment. Just like when he first met her, Celestia's reactions feel off—but this time, he's reading too much, not too little. She's got to be entirely rattled from the big fight. And apparently nursing a grudge he didn't think her capable of. It adds up to make him deeply uncomfortable, but he's not sure what to make of it.

"We did manage to find Holds-the-Fire"—Chester remembers that Celestia would have no context for her name—"I mean, this world's version of Ember. Or, well, she found us. It didn't go well. But at least nobody got shot." He sits up, wincing. "Speaking of which. What's this about Sunset turning into a demon or something?"

Celestia hesitates. No—she stalls, running a hand through her hair to cover up a momentary pause, as she tries to suppress little bursts of peach and maroon. It's a technique Chester recognizes because it's one he had to specifically learn to do himself. (He blew a spy mission or two, early on, by getting nervous and freezing up as he thought.)

He did just ask what might well be an uncomfortable question, and with virtually anyone else, he'd be willing to spot them that reaction… but with Celestia the unflappable, something is definitely up.

"It's an advanced technique, but you're very nearly ready for it," Celestia says, shading back into guarded gray, with only that subtle red still visible beneath. "If you still plan to join me and take down the Holy Mother, soon you'll have all the power you could want."

Chester twists his expression into an exaggerated "thinking face" to stifle any outward sign of confusion. Now this just isn't making any sense. Celestia had never displayed any red toward Chryssy, and they had never discussed anything remotely like an attack. Is she testing him, for some reason?

Or… wait. (Chester struggles slowly to his feet, giving himself a similar delay to formulate his response.) Esau had thought Chester sent assassins after the Holy Mother, presumably because that's how the Holy Mother had framed it to him. Chryssy certainly is committed to that assassin narrative. So if Celestia is asking whether Chester is willing to become one… did she get mind-controlled?

An icy pressure grips Chester's gut. Celestia did get captured by Chryssy, and the Holy Mother somehow got a big enough power boost to use her mind-control siddhi multiple times in a row. The idea is uncomfortably plausible. Maybe he is being tested—by proxy.

It might be too late for the unicorns. He's got to figure out what he can still salvage out of this.

"Before I make any decisions, I need to know that all the others are still on board," he fishes. Time to see what she volunteers about Ember—or whether she thinks Holds-the-Fire is involved.

Celestia remains gray, though with some caramel around the edges. "I think you know how Sunset feels," she says. "As for Twilight—you saw her last. Where is she?"

Chester has to turn and pace to conceal his shock. That was the one name he wasn't prepared to hear.

It's entirely reasonable for Celestia to name-drop her—there's a Princess Twilight in the other world; there was a Twilight* in her phone—but definitely not in the context of Chester interacting with her. There's only one possibility for that: she's talking about Ember, and she made Chester's mistake. How is it possible that Celestia could screw up something so elementary?

Is this somehow not Celestia at all?

No, that's stupid—the ridiculous intensity of that aura is impossible to fake. The only other person he's ever met who could even possibly match it is…

… the Holy Mother.

Who is also uniquely awful at hiding her emotions. And who Chester specifically told about a talking wolf named Twilight during that regrettable phone call.

"It's funny you should mention her," Chester says, deflecting the conversation as he sorts this revelation out.

He looks at her, really looks. The woman in front of him is a perfect physical match for Celestia. It's absolutely insane to think he's talking to Chryssa-swamini—except that all the clues perfectly align.

Is this some sort of super mind control, where she takes over bodies remotely and pilots them?… No, that seems unlikely. If she had possessed that level of control, she would have piloted Esau earlier. Given the Holy Mother's need to be at the center of everything, there's no way she would have been able to resist beating up Chester herself.

That leaves… a shapeshifting siddhi? Yeah. Chester dimly remembers her claim to have learned the secrets of kama rupam in Elytra, once upon a time, back before their marketing focus shifted completely over to the love angle and she abandoned the assertion. (Not to mention, Ember had mentioned two different types of shapeshifting love-eating changeling bugs, and the ravenous ones definitely sounded like villains. Chester wonders in passing if that's who the other Chryssy is in the other world.)

If that's the case, Chryssy's powers are growing scarier by the minute. Bodily alteration is a technique thought to be beyond any modern swami, and Chester is staring it in the face.

And that also means Chester needs to not fall to temptation here. He's desperate to fish information out of Chryssy, not the least of which is the real Celestia's location. But the only rational plan is to escape ASAP. Chester's information advantage is fragile, and even just the siddhis he knows about means his situation is like being locked in a room with a ticking bomb.

Wait. He's not locked in. And that gives him an idea.

The fake Celestia—who has been waiting for quite a while for Chester to follow up on his statement—crosses her arms, pink slowly building. "Why?" she prompts.

Chester refocuses on the conversation, keeping his gaze on her eyes and his attention on the edges of her form. "Because she said that you were holding out on me," he says, adding a touch of aggression to his voice. "All your powers, and the only one you taught me is how to resist vashitva." (That's taking a chance, but not a big one: Chryssy probably wouldn't need to interrogate Chester if she had been able to dominate Celestia.) "She said I was already capable of learning half a dozen more. In fact, she taught me another."

After a brief burst of peach, her aura ignites into shimmering gold, giving Chester all the confirmation he needs.

"I'm pleasantly surprised," the shapeshifted Chryssy says. "Of course, I can't just give away the magical secrets of the royal family to just anyone, but I always knew you were capable." She seems to belatedly remember that she's supposed to be emoting like Celestia, too, and papers over the gold with the faded blue-brown of pride in him. "What sorts of powers did Twilight teach you, then?"

"Here, I'll show you." Chester doesn't challenge the blatant fishing; let her believe he's still duped. "But it's easier to do with something made of metal. Hand me the room key."

That definitely ignites a layer of maroon. She glances back at the door. Then she starts relaxing as she does the mental math. (Chester can do it too: How's he going to escape even with the key? She's right there. Even the most efficient escape would require several seconds of blatant fiddling with the deadbolt.) She reaches into her pocket—not leaving her spot by the door—and tosses him the door key, light violet curiosity stirring up.

"Stand back," Chester says, retreating to the corner by the mural wall and placing the key on his open palm. "My control's not great yet."

She crosses her arms, light violet and gold. Chester braces himself, fighting adrenaline. He mentally maps out his move before committing—then goes for broke before his second thoughts overwhelm him.

With a single fluid motion, he pivots and lobs the key at the hopper window.

He's already in motion as it leaves his hand—he's just going to have to hope that the toss clears the sill and bounces outside. Peach blossoms around Chryssy in the corner of his vision, but his entire focus is on the side door two steps away. He grabs and wrenches the knob sideways as he barrels into the door shoulder-first, exploding through into her bathroom.

Dark—lit only by the doorway behind him and a nightlight by the sink, reflected in a massive mirror. He staggers past the door—holding onto the knob for dear life as his momentum pivots him around—as Chryssy finally reacts, screeching something like "traitor" from around the corner. Chester windmills with his free arm, recovering his balance, then reverses direction and slams the bathroom door back shut.

The room immediately goes near-black. He scrabbles by touch to see if there's a lever on this side of the deadbolt—no luck. Adrenaline graduates to terror. Too dark to fix that. He shifts to sweeping his hand up the wall by the door. Hits a switch, and lights spring to life. There—wood shelves to one side. He grabs a corner and yanks them roughly under the door, sending toiletries clattering loudly to the tile. Wedges the shelf underneath the knob right as weight slams into the door from the far side.

The shelves' feet catch on the stone tiles underfoot and dig in. The door slams against the obstruction, jammed shut.

He can't believe that worked.

This whole idea was crazy. At least his Plan B is foolproof: just claim he was fooled by her Celestia disguise. Speaking of which.

"You're the traitor, Celestia!" he shouts back as Chryssy screeches incoherently at him from the meditation room. "I'm getting Swamini-ji!"

That established, he spins back into motion, using his tenuous lead to book it between the enormous marble bath and the… gold-plated toilet? Really? No, focus! The door to the Holy Mother's bedroom is a wood sliding door, finely carved, an oversized steel handle like the grip on a coffee mug. He slams it open in a single motion—needs every moment he can get.

The bedroom's lit. He's already rounded the corner toward her balcony when he realizes why. Anton's in the enormous Alaska king bed, bare-chested under thin pink sheets, blinking sleep from his eyes, one hand on the switch of the bedside table lamp. Sleep-muddled creamsicle immediately erupts into peach and red as he locks eyes with Chester, who sidesteps him and grabs the handle of the balcony glass door. It slides a fraction of an inch and slams to a jarring halt.

Anton takes a swipe at Chester, who yelps and flattens himself against the wall as he fumbles for the lock. He loses precious seconds getting it disengaged, and is jerking the balcony door open again when Anton erupts from the bed, a wall of muscle closing in.

Chester frantically backpedals, narrowly ducking under a meaty hand-swipe. Anton stumbles past him, catching himself on the wall, but now he's between Chester and freedom.

New plan! Bedroom door. Chester wheels and sprints toward it. The main hall can't be worse than Anton. Same as last time—lunge in hand-first, slam handle down into the open position, shoulder-check—shit! He bounces hard. Picks himself up—hinges on this side, grab and pull—as Anton pivots and charges. He's flinging the door open when a hand clamps around the back of his neck.

Chester yelps as his sight jerks upward and his body suddenly dangles in open air. Then the room leaps sideways, and the wall rushes in at his face—

Stars explode in his vision. He can't see. Everything goes floaty.

Chester thrashes for dear life—the pressure on his neck eases off, and gravity takes him roughly to the ground—but as he's scrambling on blind instinct away from giant meaty doom, something catches and spins his shoulder, and this time the hand grabs him by the throat.

Anton's grip is a manacle this time. Chester squirms—no luck. The world goes weightless again. Then there's an enormous impact along his back, and all his injuries start screaming at once.

Chester goes limp, wheezing for a breath that won't come, the fight knocked out of him.

Anton shifts his grip slightly. Chester's windpipe opens. He gasps, filling his lungs, and clamps his fingers uselessly around Anton's arm. Anton slams him to the wall again—pinning him there this time, like a butterfly in a specimen box.

"Can't stop looking for trouble, eh?" Anton puce-says. "Well, son, you done found it."

Chester's vision slowly clears. He's dangling from one of Anton's hands, back to the wall. The rancher—wearing only a pair of boxers decorated with little cartoon bull heads, an image Chester didn't need—is raising a fist, nice and slow, magenta-savoring Chester's reaction to impending grievous bodily harm.

How absurdly, stupidly ironic. With Anton, now, negotiation is flatly impossible. Chester successfully escaped from Chryssa-swamini into the only possible situation which her presence might have improved.

Anton's fist levels out. Chester braces for impact. And then an explosive roar shakes the entire ashram, felt more than heard.

Debris cartwheels from the bathroom doorway, little bits of shelving and fragments of wood paneling riding a gust of superheated air. The building sways, dust showering from the rafters. Anton and Chester both freeze, simultaneously turning their heads toward the destruction.

A demon hovers out.

She bears a superficial resemblance to Chryssa-swamini. The same piercing green eyes, though now against a black-hole backdrop, and an all-too-familiar overwhelming red aura—oh stars that's not his color-sight, the red is illuminating nearby objects and casting shadows, she's literally glowing with unearthly power. Her long black hair splays out into a halo around her head, with red tips that dance like flame in some celestial crossbreeze. Leathery black wings unfurl from her shoulders, daggerlike, spotted with rows of holes that further deepen their resemblance to tactical knives. Her normally pale skin looks ink-washed, almost armored, dully gleaming in her own reflected light. Oversized, swept-back ears and a jagged smile frame a leering face. And she's looking straight at Chester.

Anton's red vanishes entirely into peach, though he quickly recovers into the chocolate brown of bravado. "Another assassin demon? You'll have to wait for your beating." He jerks his chin toward Chester. "There's a line."

"By all means, Longhorn, don't let me stop you," the demon says in the Holy Mother's voice, except deeper and throatier and with a built-in unearthly echo.

Anton recoils back into peach, lowering his fist. "Chryssy?"

She floats a little higher, lifting her upraised palms, emitting an ominously melodic laugh. "I had been hoping the little traitor would give me an excuse to try this out. But you saved me a chase. Seeing as how you keep repeatedly proving yourself useful, it's only fair you get first shot."

Chester lunges for the vanishing hope of Plan B. "Swamini-ji! Wait! I thought you were Celestia!"

She eyes him. Chester can't tell her emotions, and he's not certain whether that's because she's the red of her magical emanations or because the raw intensity of that power is washing out his sight. "Yes, Chester, you did," she agrees. "And because of that incompetence I'm going to have to rebuild my favorite bathroom."

Chester's heart sinks. She's doing it again. There's not going to be any squirming out of this one.

He pushes back anyway, in a desperate stall. "Wait. I have another way to make up for my betrayal. One I know you'll like."

Ugh, what a hopeless bluff. Where can he even go with that? What could he possibly offer to someone with an entire cult at her command, and now all the magical powers of a demon—

—hold on. Going demonic was Sunset's thing, and if Chryssy could have done that all along, there's no way she would have kept it secret.

Did she steal Sunset's magic?

That puzzle piece suddenly assembles half a dozen others. Chryssy didn't try to suppress his color-sight once upon a time—she tried to take it. And that's why she kept pushing him and Esau to recruit people with unusually bright auras, and why they had a habit of vanishing soon after arrival. (Like Sister Mandy. That was when Chryssy debuted the power to turn people cyan.) Her recent victims also explain Chryssy's sudden power boost.

Plus, she had claimed the siddhi of prakamya all along: the ability to obtain whatever one desires. Apparently she took that more literally than Chester ever dared think.

Anton clenches Chester's throat fractionally tighter, interrupting his thoughts. "He's stalling," Anton maroon-says as Chester wheezes for breath.

Chryssy floats over, and this close, standing inside her aura is like being in an oven. "Probably," she says, mouth split open in a fangy leer. "But sometimes I humor him and he surprises me."

Chester opens his mouth to get a word in edgewise, and—wait. Something outside, on the balcony. Motion in his peripheral vision.

"Bad idea," Anton says, raising his arm again and re-clenching his fist. "The kid's fooled me twice now, which is twice too many. Breaking his face will fix that."

Chester flings his arms up and cringes—using the motion as a distraction to sneak a direct glance. He can't catch much detail but there's definitely someone out there. Small, pale form, caught in the illumination of Chryssy's red aura through the open door, frozen in a crouch. Now that both Chryssy and Anton have their backs to the balcony, the figure is slowly creeping back toward the railing.

Then he sees who it is, and has to rigidly grimace to keep his shock concealed.

The Chryssy-demon's face contorts as her attention shifts from Chester to Anton. "No," she hisses. "That's not your call. I'm in charge, and the fact he's fooled you twice is why."

It's nearly impossible for Chester to gather his thoughts, and even though he's got direct line of sight, Chryssy's oppressive physical aura smothers everything in turbulent red. Holds-the-Fire? he thinks toward the balcony, blunt and urgent, feeling like he's shouting through a scouring desert sandstorm.

In the corner of his eye, Chester can see a stirring of peach out there, almost completely washed out by the weight of the red.

Ches-ter? The thought comes back garbled and choppy, like a call with bad reception. What __? You __ __ cow-man __ distress __ (pack?)—

Anton stiffens—and this close in, even through Chryssy's storm, Chester can see his aura shift, muddy red foundering against that artificial cyan and receding. "Of course, Chryssy. I'm just saying, you said we were partners."

—power __ (from?) fire? Holds-the-Fire continues. Why __ (no?) (say?) me—

Chester cuts her off. Listen! You're in danger! Find Celestia. Find Sunset. The prisoners. Free them and run away!

Holds-the-Fire goes silent for a moment, then says: What?

The demon reaches out, brushing Anton's chin lightly with razor fingers. "Oh, Anton. Of course we are, as long as you keep me happy. If I'm happy you'll have the world at your feet. I'll even share some of this with you." (Amber ignites and joins his cyan.) "But you're not here to make decisions. You're a marvelous piece of muscle. Stick with your strengths." She leans into him, and her fingers tighten around his chin. "Say it with me, Longhorn. 'Yes, Chryssy.'"

Anton stiffens as smoke curls up amid the scent of burnt hair, though a fresh surge of artificial blue dislodges anything else he might have been feeling. His face softens into a silly smile, and he lowers his arm. "Yes, Chryssy."

Chester, meanwhile, is mentally repeating himself into a wall of intensifying red. With Chryssy close enough to touch, it feels like turbulence is blasting all his thoughts apart before he can focus them to send. There's no hint of a response to anything he tries, not even calling Holds-the-Fire's name directly.

But on the balcony, after long moments of fidgeting back and forth, Holds-the-Fire seems to come to a decision. She reaches sideways under the railing, and her hand comes back out clutched around Anton's rifle.

The only thought in Chester's mind is: Thank the heavens.

That's an appalling thing to admit. The rifle is still an instrument of death—and its current use case is murder. But right now, the Holy Mother has turned into something which should not be, and he's more afraid of her than he is of permanently staining his soul by contributing to her end. She can steal people's faces, control their minds and eat their powers—unless she's stopped now there's nothing to keep her from taking over the entire world. And he doesn't need to see her embrace of damnation to know the reign of terror that would result.

Chryssy lets go of Anton with one final caress, and floats several steps backward. Then her jaws gape into an even pointier leer. "Longhorn," she says in an ethereal, otherworldly melody, "I have decided Brother Chester is stalling and that I want you to break his face."

Chester startles. "No! Wait!" What was he bluffing earlier—oh, right. "I got them to tell me about all the other enlightened beings they were keeping hidden from you! Sacrifices for your greatness!"

YES! SHOOT! he mentally screams at Holds-the-Fire—hoping that he's getting through again, hoping that she doesn't miss, hoping that a bullet will be enough. SHOOT! NOW! SHOOT NOW!

Anton raises his fist again. Chryssy makes a sharp noise, holding one hand up, and he freezes—but her face curls into a frown that he guesses is closer to suspicious than intrigued. Chester has only bought a second or two.

Holds-the-Fire urgently fiddles with the safety. Then she raises the rifle, pointing it squarely at Anton's back.

HER! SHOOT THE DEMON! Chester mind-screams, and then abandons all subtlety, turning his head to stare at Chryssy while frantically gesticulating at her.

Anton and Chryssy both go wide-eyed at Chester's sudden motion, Anton going peach and maroon. Holds-the-Fire, thankfully, swivels her aim to the crucial target and pulls the trigger.

There's an anticlimactic click.

At the sound, Anton and Chryssy swivel their heads toward the balcony. Chryssy makes a surprised-sounding hiss. Anton immediately goes bright red.

Holds-the-Fire flares an orange Chester can see even through Chryssy's haze. She tilts her head fractionally downward to check the safety, then pulls the trigger again.

Click.

Everything explodes into motion, the only part of which Chester catches is Anton turning back to him and driving a very red fist into his face.

At some point Chester is dropped to the ground. The bottom half of his face is wet and warm, there's a salty metallic taste in his mouth, and the center of his face is a jagged roar of pain. All he can see through tear-blurred, hazy vision is a big pale shape and a small ice-blue shape dancing around each other, to a soundtrack of Anton bellowing in rage and Chryssy shouting.

The room heats—then without warning, overheats, desiccating air blasting from all directions. There's a mighty roar which sucks up all the rest of the sound. With his last burst of adrenaline, Chester crawl-scrambles underneath Chryssy's bed.

Then relative silence, long enough for Chester to catch his breath and wipe his face. His vision clears a bit. The pain doesn't recede. His sleeve comes away bloody.

Something clamps around his ankle. There's a sharp yank, and he pops out from under the bed like a cork from a bottle.

Chester goes limp, hoping that playing dead saves him another round of beatings. He's not certain he could move even if he wanted to. And after that final punch, his head is swimming—even thinking hurts.

The room looks no better. More accurately, it looks freshly bombed. Ashes are floating in the air, every surface he can see is singed, and a couple of spots are still smoldering.

A once-again-human Chryssy is crouching over Holds-the-Fire's form. At the sight of her, something stirs urgently to life in Chester's chest. No! He tries to sit up—and, nope, he can't move even though the only thing that matters is her. He loses himself in a wracking cough, then tries to at least collapse at an angle allowing him to see her.

She's breathing. Colorless and motionless, but at least her bare stomach—heat-charred and ugly with bruises—is slowly rising and falling. Thank the heavens.

Chryssy stands. A black jewel now dangles from a gold chain around her neck, still a bit shimmery around the edges. She is several shades of red, dominated by the rose pink of disappointment.

"Does she even have any powers?" Chryssy red-says. "I didn't even get back what I just spent."

Anton snorts—pausing his collection of his singed clothing—and clamps his hand around Chester's leg again. "Ask your traitor kid."

The room spins as he hucks Chester in Chryssy's direction. Chester bounces off the ground and tumbles to rest in a crumpled heap not far from Holds-the-Fire.

"Least she brought my gun back," the rancher pink-adds, walking over and picking the rifle up. He rotates it in his hands, inspecting the weapon. "Broke it though, I bet."

Chryssy's red shifts. "Long-horn. I nearly just got shot and that's your concern?"

Anton swings the rifle tip out toward the night in a casual one-handed grip—the glass has entirely vanished from the balcony door, now, with a few shards scattered out on the balcony—and pulls the trigger. Click. Then he grabs the big lever Chester had initially been so mystified by. In a single fluid motion, he flips it up, yanks it back toward the butt of the gun—ejecting a bullet casing onto the bedroom floor—and shoves it forward and down again, back to its resting spot.

He squeezes the trigger again. This time, a flash from the muzzle and a thunderous crack.

"Naw, actually, we're good," he says with mild purple satisfaction, then turns to Chryssy, shading into creamsicle. "Should I have worried? All that magic and you ain't bulletproof?"

Chryssy freezes, muddy orange rising for a moment before muddy brown pride overtakes it. "Of course I am. But your first thought should be to protect me whether I need it or not." A flash of caramel, and she gives him a pouty look. "I thought you cared, Anton."

He can't stop that artificial cyan from rising up. "I… of course, Chryssy. I'm right sorry. We're partners an' I got your back."

She bats her eyes and gives him a smile, though the color behind it is tawny resentment. And then, the instant he smiles back, she lunges for Chester, redly changing the subject.

"Who's that girl?" Chryssy screams, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. "What's she…"

Then she trails off and her face goes slack, as her aura goes a shimmery mirrored silver and her eyes fade out.

Chester stares dully at his own colors in her reflection, the yellow of his battered body overwhelming even the orange-white despair at what he realizes just happened. He turns his head and looks at Chryssy's hand clamped around his arm—her bare skin touching his through a huge rip in the sleeve.

The power Sunset couldn't turn off. Right. And this time, the maelstrom of artificial love that Chryssy filled him with isn't acting as an unintentional shield by overwhelming his brain.

He averts his eyes and waits for the inevitable.

A few seconds later, Chryssy takes a sharp gasp of breath, as if remembering to work her lungs. The mirror immediately fragments away into a swirling mess of colors. She drops Chester like a hot potato and scrambles backward against the wall, balling up. All the while she shrieks, colors bleeding away until only orange-red is left.

Anton pauses his renewed inspection of the rifle and turns around, that artificial cyan quickly choking out his natural pink and peach and pushing blue-and-yellow concern to prominence.

"You, uh," he edges in between shrieks, "you okay there, Chrys?"

His voice seems to jolt her back into focus, a blast of peach rippling through her disgust. She blinks rapidly, eyes wandering around the room, and shifts to loud and labored breathing. "Memories," she peach-mumbles between gasps. "They're just… memories."

Then her gaze locks in on Anton, who is still openly staring at her. Muddy orange shame rises—quickly transitioning into muddy red outrage, and then into a focused, blazing fury.

"How dare you," she hisses.

Anton blinks, creamsicle. "What?"

(Chester knows this one, even if Anton doesn't. He committed the ashram's most unforgivable sin: bearing witness to the Holy Mother's imperfection. Whatever excuse she comes up with to punish him is just that, an excuse.)

Chryssy staggers to her feet, gesturing at Chester. "I nearly died because of you! This little traitor got you to call his gun-toting girlfriend for him."

Anton's confusion spikes into peach, then blossoms into guilty cream. "What?" he says. "H-how'd you—"

"Because I can read minds, you idiot!" she screams, venting her red. "I've always been able to, but I've never had to before, until your unforgivable incompetence nearly got me shot!"

Without waiting for a response, she wheels and stalks toward the door. "At least now I can find out everything my enemies know."

Author's Note

Oh. Well, that could have gone better...

Heads up that for the next two weeks, I will speed this up to three chapters a week -- that will reduce the reading delays a bit as we get into the heart of the second act, where Chester needs to start turning things around. This also means we'll get to wrap the story up within a month.

The next chapter, "Down and Out in the Magic Ashram," posts Sunday, Sept. 15! Watch for more chapters Tuesday and Thursday, as well.