Vivi clutched Chloe's mane, burying her face in sweaty unicorn hide for a few precious seconds of sanity-gathering. Lewis banged around in her ribcage like a panicked hummingbird, trying to remember how they'd worked together last time. Chloe was blessedly silent, hooking her neck back around Vivi and whickering concern but not asking questions yet.

Lewis rushed through her arms and pooled into her hands, but Vivi yanked him back, compressing him up by her collarbone. "No!" she shouted. "We are not rushing into this! Last time I did that it set us way back and I don't care if things have to happen right now, we are going to think this through. Especially because I can barely think! So help me process this and don't push past me!"

"You said Mystery's going after hostages?" Chloe prodded. "Who?"

"Dulcie!" cried Lewis, through Vivi's lips. "We have to get Dulcie and Lance, then grab Kay. We have to go now!"

Vivi jerked her head from side to side. "Just because Arthur came up with that plan doesn't mean it's the right one!" she seethed. "He's doing his best but he's panicked too! Lewis, stop fighting me and see if we have any other solutions!"

Chloe laid her ears back. "I could fight Mystery. He wouldn't dare touch me."

"So he wouldn't bother with a fight, he'd change forms into something much faster than you and run off," Lewis countered.

"Not if I injure him enough," Chloe replied, grim.

"Again! He would just have to be faster than you! And you don't have total control over that shockwave you send out. You don't even know if that would work on him. Even if you stun him, there's nothing to keep him from turning into something that can sneak off under the radar. I'm sure he has a thousand forms he hasn't even begun to use in front of us."

A flicker of an idea lit up in Vivi's mind. "Then… then we have to stop him from shapeshifting." Her hand went up to her throat. "We have to steal his Hoshi no Tama. That way, he'll have to obey us. We can keep him from attacking anyone, maybe even get information. I know where he hides it, I can grab it. Then we can…" she took in a ragged breath.

Lewis broke in. "But Vee, if Mystery turns on us, or if this plan goes really badly, like bite-your-hand-off-badly, there's no one to protect Dulcie and Lance. Please. If we're not going for subtlety, it won't take more than two minutes to pick them up through the mansion. Please. Then we can try for more information from Mystery if you really need that."

Exhaling slowly, Vivi nodded. It made sense. "I'm sorry. I just… I don't want to butcher this and right now I'm not totally sure what's reasonable." She stepped back from Chloe and spread her hands out, swiveling them at the wrists. A pink glow lit her fingertips.

"Chloe, when the door appears, rush it." Vivi's voice deepened as Lewis muttered, "It's still hard to sustain doorways by themselves."

The body's senses sifted through a heavy veil before reaching Artie. Wherever Arcturus had crammed him, it was nowhere near enough to the surface to affect anything.

If he didn't break through, Arcturus would burn both ends of the candle to get away from whatever he was scared of. Apparently "Mother" was bad enough that Arcturus was blatantly ignoring his job as their survival mechanism, which meant Artie had to step in.

He'd been deeper than this, once. When trying to escape Arcturus and fade away for good, Artie had tried to lose himself in these depths. For now, though, Arcturus didn't want him gone. Just silent.

Last time there had been an active search for him, something of a rope he could use to pull himself back into concrete consciousness. He didn't have time to wait for that to happen again. Kay had no way of knowing he was being suppressed, though she'd figure it out whenever she next talked to Arcturus. By that time Arcturus might have burned through their whole lifespan.

Fear. It saturated their mind, cracking like glass windowpanes eternally shattering. Artie doubted Arcturus was bothering to distinguish various causes for the fear at this point and was just running out of instinct.

Could he break through via base instinctive reactions? He stretched down deeper, sifting through to the moment-to-moment impulses. The contact overran him oh gods oh gods we are going to be unmade and there is nothing I can do about it and he pulled out, his thoughts scrambled. These impulses would scatter him all over the mind if he tried to influence them, he wasn't strong enough.

The thought occurred to Artie that he was still capable of shifting, and that perhaps this ability extended to his own brain. He strained to recall scans of his and Dib's brains that the doctor had laid out for him. Dib had wanted him, Teles, and Kay to get a better handle on the different parts of the human brain so they could help with further analysis on the effects of the Siren voice. He'd also assigned reading, which Arthur hadn't completed yet.

He groped through what reading he'd done for any useful fragments.

Parietel lobes recognize and interpret sensory information and spatial relations.

Thalamus receives senses and processes them.

Amygdala… Amygdala is where fight or flight takes place! It manages emotions that have to do with survival!

Where was the amygdala? Could he take himself there? No, he didn't want to go there, he'd be swept up in the terror, like Arcturus. Could he shift it just enough so that it was calmer?

It was a workable plan and he didn't have time to find a better one. Arcturus would burn through their lifespan running like this. Whatever damage he did, Artie was confident Arcturus would be able to help him fix it once everything was calmer.

Source of the torrential fear. That's where the Amygdala would be. He didn't plunge into the current, skimming along the top instead, following it down. Down. Down. There. There it was.

Artie wrapped around the Amygdala and squeezed. Calm, he thought. Calm.

The flood stopped, slowing by degrees. Adrenaline began to drop out of their bloodstream and the pain tore through their body. The body began to shrink and the legs collapsed, sending them flying head over heels.

….

Vivi stood in the mansion foyer, drenched with sweat. She hadn't had to maneuver this interdimensional monstrosity in months and it was like juggling barbells to hold the mansion together while popping its front door in and out of existence where she wanted it to appear.

"Girl, you've gotta be daft openin' a door mid-shop and havin' a unicorn drag me through it," Lance barked. "D'ye have any idea the kind of upside-downedness ye've thrown my team into? Done my best to keep all this magical crap under wraps, 'specially with Artie workin' there, and you go hurl a bowlin' ball at my house'a cards! What am I s'posed ta tell the guys now?"

"I'm sure there's a good reason?" Dulcie asked, sidling up to Chloe.

Chloe nuzzled Dulcie, whickering, "A very good reason, but not enough time to tell you. Onegaishimasu, you must stay here. If you see Mystery or…" she paused for a moment, then jerked her head, "Or if you see Arthur-sama, run and hide yourselves deep in the mansion. Right now they are danger, or in danger, and we're not sure which is which."

Lance's anger gave way to dismay. "You can't just say somethin' like that an' bench me! What kinda trouble—"

"Can't, Lance!" Vivi gasped. "I'm sorry. Promise, explain later. Chloe!" Vivi barreled through the front door, followed closely by Chloe. The door vanished, leaving them back in the desert by Duet's grave. Vivi collapsed to her hands and knees. "Can. We. Not. Ever. Again."

Warmth surged through her limbs and she found herself back on her feet, unsteady but standing.

"Now what, Vivi-chan?" Chloe bent her forelegs, putting her back in reach. "We go after Mystery?"

Huffing, Vivi nodded, swinging her leg up and over Chloe's withers.

"Which way?"

For a moment, Vivi forgot to breathe. Now that she'd left the scene and come back, she had no idea what direction Mystery had gone. Wind had swept any tracks away. As she scanned the ground, a green spot on the horizon caught her eye. It was far from the road and rolled ever so slightly back and forth.

"There!" She crouched over Chloe's neck. "That green speck! Looks like Arthur had to pull out the big guns. We can still back him up!"

Chloe lunged forward. The jolt of her gait nearly knocked Vivi free and jammed her stomach up into her lungs. Vivi curled over Chloe's neck, clinging in senseless desperation. Chloe's legs were a blur. Sand pelted Vivi's cheeks. A screech like endlessly tearing sheets of metal rose above the roaring of the wind in her ears.

"Tondemonai!" Chloe gasped. "Vivi-chan!"

Lifting her head, Vivi caught an eyefull of brilliant green billowing out and lifted her arm to shield her face. The green vanished a moment later, leaving her vision swimming with huge blotches.

"Did you see that?" Chloe demanded.

"Green was all I saw. Was there more?" Vivi mumbled, lifting her glasses to rub her eyes. She squinted into the slithery visual distortions. A darker blotch lay on the ground and it wasn't moving. "Hold that thought, what's over there?"

"Over where?"

Vivi slid off Chloe's back and pointed.

"That's your baka dog."

Vivi was halfway to Mystery's side before Lewis stopped her feet, sending her facefirst to the ground. "Vivi, no!"

"Let go, you cold bowl of conscripted soup! That's my dog!"

"Right now, that's the enemy!"

"That's my dog!" Vivi roared, flooding Lewis with months of stored worry, grief, and anxiety. "Let me get my dog!" Wrenching forward, she crawled to Mystery's side one jerked limb at a time.

It was freshman year all over again, kneeling over a half-dead dog that wasn't aware enough to acknowledge her. Mystery's fur had been largely singed off and his hide was scored with three-line slashes from haunch to snout. His six tails lay limp in the sand. There was no sign of Arthur, only a prairie hawk wheeling overhead.

"We've got it!" Chloe trumpted in excitement. "The soul gem!"

Vaguely, Vivi felt the mental tug that signaled Lewis sending out a Deadbeat. A moment later, a little pink ghost tucked a small, glassy orb into Vivi's hands. "It was already out, a few feet off," Lewis muttered. "What happened here?"

The scorch marks were worst on his muzzle and his lips had been cut to ribbons. Vivi tightened her grip on the soul gem, whispering, "Mystery. Smaller."

One eyelid cracked, the eye sliding around to fix on Vivi before the lid closed again. Mystery's body folded in on itself, shrinking down until he was, once again, a simple dog.

Vivi tucked the gem in her pocket and scooped Mystery into her arms. "Chloe, take us back to Tome Tomb."

…..

Note: Hey, just wanted to apologize for the 2-month writing gap for this story. The emotional roller coaster + drying up of the writing muse struck again. I'm also a lot closer to the wedding date and I'm still working on furnishing/decorating the house we moved to. If things go dead quiet around Mid-October through late November, it's because I'm in the middle of wedding whirlwind. Fun side note, I got to meet up with Ffnet user EndlessMemories, old high school friend I hadn't talked to for ten years, the person who first explained to me what fanfiction even was. I got to point at her and yell, "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT," as she laughed her head off. Good times. Chapter title excerpted from Unstable by Chaotica.