A/N: And 5 looked up, screaming, just as the elevator hit them with a resounding crash and all of them died.

Several weeks later, 8 and 6 were still desperately trying to find the other stitchpunks. Lost in the Wastes, they slowly died of starvation.

And alone in its Factory, the Great Machine laughed and laughed and laughed.

Jokes! They survive, somehow, so you're all treated to some more angsty 0. If you were in his place, you'd be self-hating too.

Without further ado: the nearly 6,000-word conclusion to the Winged Beast arc – Inferno.


Chapter Nine – Inferno

A small, thin-bladed knife is the first thing to land, clattering down the elevator shaft to impale the ground at 5's feet, but he barely notices, so intent is he on the enormous, flapping mass in the shaft.

It finally dawns on him that the flapping thing in question is falling towards him and he manages a single scream before the entire...thing...explodes on the ground in front of him in a shrieking heap.

Several things happen very quickly.

First, there is the screech of tearing metal, and chunks of what were once the elevator clatter out of the enormous ensuing cloud of dust.

Second, the leader of the Coven and the strange metal stitchpunk are catapulted out of the debris, yelling, and land in a very undignified heap.

And finally, from inside the small cloud of dust an enormous winged monster shakes its head, hisses, and begins to stalk towards 5.

"Oh, shit," gulps 5, backing away towards the stirring heaps of 0 and 1. "Um...7...what do we do?"

"Kill it," states 7, whipping a blade from a holster on her back. The monster rears up and hisses, and the two begin an elaborate dance as 5 runs to the two fallen stitchpunks.

"1?" 5 asks, gently shaking the old stitchpunk. "Are you all right?"

"...ell..." murmurs the leader of the Coven. 5 tries to pry open one of his shuttered eyes.

With a shudder, 1 throws 5 away. "Get off me, you imbecile! I'm fine!"

0 stirs as well, crawling towards them with both 9's lantern and the dropped knife. "I'm fine, too," he rasps.

As one, they turn to where 7 and the beast are still circling each other. The former suddenly lunges at the latter, knife held high, flipping down the skullmet she always keeps on her back. The other stitchpunks wait for the beast's demise.

And then suddenly, impossibly, the monster's harpoon tail swings around, fires, and hits the blade out of 7's hand.

7 stares dumbly at her empty hand.

The harpoon embeds itself in the opposite wall with a heavy thud.

The blade clatters to the floor at the other end of the hallway.

7 reaches for another blade and comes up with only her metal shield.

"Well, crap," says 7.

The monster fires its harpoon again and 7 barely manages to deflect it with her shield, the bolt impaling the ceiling and leaving a long ragged scar on the shield's surface. Rolling back, the female stitchpunk tries to dart past the creature to retrieve her knife, but the monster rears up, hissing. 7 huffs in annoyance. Then she leaps at the creature, driving her shield into its mouth as she grapples up the monster's underbelly, forcing its teeth wide apart. The warrior swings her fist into one of its eyes, and there is the sound of shattering glass as the bird-creature screams in pain. 7 seems to finally notice the other stitchpunks hanging back in the passage, watching the battle with awe. "What are you waiting around for?" she yells. Already the creature is rising, growling, sparks raining from its ruined eye. "Run!"

1 grabs 5 and 0 and begins to yank them away, but the stitchpunks are watching 7 as she backs away slowly from the monster with nothing but her fists as it spits out the warrior's shield. Clacking its blades, it gives a slightly dented screech, like a monstrous, living teakettle in your worst nightmare. "Go!" yells 7, and the leader of the Coven drags the two younger stitchpunks away, the strange metal one clutching at his left arm...

• • • •

We all scream as the elevator, torn from its rope, plunges towards the unforgiving ground too far away to treat with anything but pure terror. The winged creature snaps blindly and flails its enormous wings, screeching, unable to fly in the cramped shaft. The ground comes rushing up to meet us. I turn away and close my eyes, unable to conjure up any profound last thoughts. Is that all there –

Curtain.

I am sitting on a desk in a beautiful house, bathed in warm autumn light from the window behind me. My skin feels soft and vulnerable against the cold wood of the desk. I bring my hands up to my face, examining their alien palms of wood and fingers of gleaming copper. My eyes feel larger, and the world around me looks more vibrant. Softer, but colorful and teeming with life.

"What is it that you've built, child?" An enormous figure swishes its way into view, silhouetted in the light from the window. "Let me see." Though towering, the figure does not inspire terror like the monster of my other dreams. This is that thing's antithesis, radiating compassion.

Proudly I hold up my creation to the caring being. It is childishly simple – a length of piping with a wooden block hammered onto the end, and some springs attached at odd intervals – but I feel inordinately proud of it. The being takes it in enormous, nimble fingers and examines it, making noises of approval. "It's beautiful. What's it for?"

I accept the hammer back from the being and push papers aside to show it clippings, messily torn from a newspaper, of the Chancellor and the Great Machine. Deliberately, I smash my hammer down on the faces of the latter, then the former.

The being gives a little gasp, then sighs. "No, no, child. We don't do things like that. We're better than that..." It starts again. "You know, child, there was a time when I thought the same thing. That all our enemies were bad, and that we had to get rid of them to live in a peaceful world. He thought the same thing, too." With one trembling finger, the being points to the image of the Chancellor. "But he was just...misguided. And...he turned those who should have been our friends into our greatest enemies." The being moves its finger to point at the image of the Great Machine. "Your family. Don't forget his story, child. There might come a day when you will have to fight, or kill. I pray that day never comes. Just remember: the path to peace never leads through war. The path to peace leads through peace."

I am grabbed from the table and dragged back into my metal skin by the dream Machine, green eye pulsing with concern. "Remember what he said, 0, but some fights you still have to fight. Wake up! The stitchpunks need you. Your family needs you!"

My family?

With a start, I open my shuttered eyes. I am lying sprawled on the dirt floor of a hallway, arms and legs twisted into an uncomfortable position. Unlike my other dreams, this one echoes vividly through my head. The path to peace leads through peace, but some fights you still have to fight...I am still too confused as to how I survived the fall from the elevator shaft to worry about incomprehensible dream messages. I try to move and collapse again, convulsing in pain as white-hot shards of pain from my left shoulder course through my body. I see 5 in the distance shaking 1, and the old stitchpunk pushing him away. The leader of the Coven probably landed on me when the elevator slammed into the ground. He is undamaged, but...

I tentatively probe the area around my left shoulder with my fingers and clench my metal teeth to prevent myself from screaming as new waves of agony assail me. The arm is most likely dislocated, possibly partly shattered. It will not be easy to heal.

5 looks over at me, worried, and I manage an "I'm fine, too." If I allow the stitchpunks to heal me, I am sure my inner workings will betray me as a creature of the Machine.

As if on cue, the bird-creature stalks out of the rubble, seeming no worse for wear. 7 leaps at it with a knife, and its tail swivels around and shoots the weapon from her hand. The creature has a harpoon?! "That's not fair," I mumble, delirious from pain. The creature lunges towards her, stabbing with its beak, and she shoves her shield between its fangs, forcing them apart, and punches in one of its eyes. The creature's scream of pain falls harsh on my ears, and I try to dig myself further into the ground to escape from the noise, the pain, to go somewhere where it is quiet and dark and there are no monsters or broken arms to disturb me.

I am almost succeeding when a withered old arm grabs my unbroken arm and drags me upright. "We have to go!" urges 1, seizing the scruff of 5's neck with his other hand. "Run!" yells 7, backing slowly away from the monster. It has disarmed her of her shield and is now slowly stalking towards her, readying for the kill. "Go!" she yells again, balling her fists in the shadow of the nightmare looming over her.

"No!" I yell as 1 pulls me back. I raise the knife I still hold in my right hand, but the old leader of the stitchpunks wrests it from me. "Sometimes," he rasps, "one must be sacrificed for the good of many."

"No!" I yell again, struggling weakly. My arm is burning with pain, but I have to save 7. I have to kill the monster. Some fights I still have to fight. My family needs me.

The monster looms over 7, teeth clacking, gloating over its cornered prey. "Move, 0!" snaps 1, trying to drag me along. "We don't have any weapons. There isn't a hope of us defeating that thing. Run! Don't let her sacrifice be in vain!"

The internal systems of my brain are not functioning fully, overloaded from the pain, but one part catches in my mind and loops there until I understand it. "Weapons," I mumble. "Wrong. We have weapons."

I hyperventilate, trying to stop the pain from taking over. "We do have weapons. 1, cut my cuffs off."

1 stares at the thin knife in his hand and then back to me, comprehension dawning. "What? No!"

7 runs towards the monster, yelling, and it sweeps her up in its clawed wing and hurls her into the wall, where she lies slumped. The monster lurches towards her, its three remaining eyes glowing in satisfaction.

The pain is eating away at the fringes of my mind, tearing away my rationality like the waves of the sea, but I build myself walls against it and go on. "You're going to let it," I shudder involuntarily, "you're going to let it kill 7? When I can stop it?"

"You'll kill us all!" spits 1.

"Cut him free, 1," growls 5 from behind us. "Or I'll tell everyone how you were such a coward that you let 7 die."

1 stares, bug-eyed, at 5 and me, then whips up the knife and bitterly slices through the cuffs. I wince as he cuts the right one. The entire arm seems broken, throbbing with pain. "Do us a favor and don't prove me right, guest," says 1, backing away. Over 7, the monster hisses.

"Alright," I mutter to myself, turning to the bird-creature, "let's do this." I flip my wrists clockwise.

Ratchets grind and springs pop unwillingly, seeming tired after their long unuse. And then-

I let out an involuntary moan of pain as the swords shoot out of my arms, sending fresh jolts of pain through me. I compress it and store it in a tiny ball somewhere deep inside of me, wobbling slightly as I walk forwards. The creature looks up at me, confused. Shrieking a warning, it turns back to the weakly struggling 7. Beady eyes glinting, it raises a claw-encrusted wing and swings it at her. Gritting my teeth, I lunge forwards, swinging my right sword-arm.

There is the sound of ripping cloth.

The beast looks down, confused, at where one of its wings flaps limply. Its severed end lies next to my feet. The winged creature blinks at me, uncomprehending, then raises its head and screeches in pain. It begins to drag itself towards 7 and I with the claws of its good wing, three remaining eyes glowing with malice.

A yell distracts it as 5, having grabbed the knife from 1, jumps on the monster's back and begins plunging the dagger into gaps between the rows of spines. The monster screams and throws 5 off its back, turning to face the pair of us. Behind it, 7 slowly climbs to her feet. I feint at it with my sword-arms, distracting the creature, while 5 moves to one side, slowly enough for the beast not to notice. It lumbers forwards, hissing.

And 5 tosses the dagger to 7, who leaps onto the monster's back and drives it into the side of its head. The creature screams, clawing at its face with its ruined wing. 7 slides off its head and lands in front of it, 5 and I flanking her. The creature growls in desperation.

And then the ceiling collapses, burning, on us, and we scream as we dive out of the way.

My arm is exuding fresh waves of pain, and I feel sick and unsteady as I struggle to escape the debris. A burning piece of timber strikes my back, and I am knocked to the ground, arm screaming in pain. Dizzy, blinking spots from my vision, I expend nearly all my energy standing back up as another burning beam hits my head. I collapse, vision pulsing, flames licking around me.

"Brother! Get up!" Speculum shakes me where I lay on the floor of the dream Machine's cathedral. "It doesn't end here! 0!"

"0, get up!" It is 7, seizing my right arm and pulling me free of the burning wood. "We have to go!" A tortured screech comes from behind the burning rubble and the winged monster bursts into the air, soaring up into the empty space that was once the floor above us. I lean heavily on 7 for support, and together we flee the landscape of burning beams. 1 and 5 cower on the edge of the fire, apprehensively glancing upwards. "We've got to get out of here," states 1, backing away and holding his staff protectively in front of him. "That thing could be-" A hellish scream interrupts him as the nightmare creature swoops from the smoke-shrouded heights and dives into the old leader, knocking his crook away. 1 screams and flails under the weight of the beast, which scrapes its blades together with a shriek, firelight reflected in its three eyes. 7 scoops up 1's staff and leaps at the creature, driving the hooked end of the crook into the beast's rib cage and tearing apart its inner fan. Screeching, the monster snaps its bladed jaws closed on the stitchpunk's head. The warrior screams, thrown backwards, as bits of her crushed skullmet pierce her leather head.

5 and I back up, weapons held high, as the creature hisses. The pain is returning in monstrous waves, carrying me away from the burning floors of Sanctuary, lifting me up and away.

I stagger, and the monster lunges forwards. It raises its needle-sharp harpoon to gut us.

A metal pole swings out of the flames and smashes into the harpoon with an audible crunch, bits of the mechanism buckling and hanging limp. The bird-creature roars in pain, swinging around to meet the new threat.

9 staggers out of the flames, holding his lightbulb staff upside down. "Don't," he growls, "touch my family."

• • • •

9 barely has time to scream as the rope swings wildly and he is thrown from the elevator. Scrabbling desperately for purchase, his fingers find the edge of a balcony and hang there for dear life.

A single screech hangs in the air, then all grows quiet. Hanging by his fingertips from the edge of the elevator shaft, 9 sees an infinitesimally small elevator bucket, dwindling away to nothing, the nightmare creature flapping above it. With an audible grunt, he drags himself onto the balcony, then starts as he turns around and sees the snapped elevator cord hanging limply in the centre of the shaft. "0! 1!" he yells as he runs to the edge of the shaft. His heart sinks as he stares into the depths below. The two stitchpunks couldn't have possibly survived the fall.

A crackle suddenly brings him to awareness of his own predicament. The upper stories of the church are bathed in a warm glow; far above him, the hallway leading to 1's throne room has flames leaping from it. Sanctuary is burning down. The stitchpunk wheels as he searches for a way out. Nothing but an empty window, a dizzying height off the ground. Without the elevator, he's trapped up here.

A roaring crash echoes through Sanctuary as the floor of 1's throne room burns through, dumping flaming debris onto the floor below. 9 suddenly thinks of 7, oblivious to the fire, hauling bricks with 5 on Sanctuary's bottom floor. He has to warn her.

Burning wood is falling around him, now. There is no way out. He's trapped here.

9 turns again, and as he does his optics fall on the broken elevator rope, hanging invitingly in the centre of the passage.

Burning wood crashes down all around him. Closing his eyes, the young stitchpunk steels himself and jumps.

• • •

Fire roars all around him. Tentatively, 9 opens his eyes.

He is suspended in the elevator shaft with a death grip on the bottom of the rope, fire billowing out of every balcony surrounding him. The elevator shaft disappears into darkness far, far below him, and he hugs the rope a little tighter. The tower winds its way into the sky high above him, too. He tugs on the rope, and a great wheel obligingly creaks somewhere high up in the tower and spews out a few more yards of rope, causing 9 to frantically readjust his grip on the cord as he drops a little lower in the shaft. The flames are above him now; he is level with the hallway leading to the stitchpunk's rooms. A roar, distorted as it echoed up the passage, falls on his ears, and he shivers. The fall down the elevator shaft didn't kill the creature after all. 9 begins to experimentally swing the rope back and forth. That thing will not stop hunting them until they kill it. Grimly, the stitchpunk adjusts his own lightbulb staff, safely tied to his back. They're going to need weapons. A lot of weapons.

With one final swing, 9 jumps into the hallway leading to the rooms and ties the rope fast to a redundant door handle. 7's room has no weapons, but he tears a map of the world from her wall. Just in case. 1 has a room in the hallway, too, though he never uses it for sleeping, littered with spare capes and staffs. 9 grabs a handful of the latter and searches for 8's room. Already he can hear the flames crackling above and feel the air growing warmer.

An entire wall of 8's room is covered in an array of various kinds of magnets. Stifling a chuckle, 9 slots a few blades – a small sword and the twin of the half-scissor blade 8 wields – into the growing armory tied to his back. The ceiling is beginning to waver above him. The air is becoming unbearably hot. Holding his breath, 9 runs to the edge of the hallway. The ceiling will give soon. Untying the rope with too-clumsy fingers, the young stitchpunk swings back into the centre of the passage. Yanking on the elevator cord a few times puts three more floors between 9 and the spreading fire, but there isn't any more rope to save him. Swinging again, he tumbles into a large passage as the floor holding the stitchpunk's rooms loudly collapses. Sadness washes over him as he imagines his room, 7's room, collapsing in the inferno, everything they placed there to make the room inviting blackening and charring. He shakes his head to clear it of the images. The same thing will happen to him soon if he doesn't find a way out of the cathedral.

Throwing open a door in the side of the corridor, 9 is nearly swept away by a flood of enormous white robes. That has to have used up all my luck, he thinks as he sweeps out the scissor blade and begins to cut the robes into strips, ever-mindful of the crackling flames above him. There can't be any left after that.

• • •

With a ringing crash, the floor buckles and collapses and the fire spills into the hallway in a blizzard of sparks.

The fire begins to lap at the sides of the walls and the open cupboard door, searching for more material to burn. A few scraps of white fabric lie discarded on the floor.

And tied to the windowsill, a rope of the same material stretches somewhere far below. The fire billows up as if in rage, cheated of its rightful prey. The flame's tongues begin to lick up the walls of the corridor, blindly reaching towards the rope...

• •

9 murmurs uneasily as the ground swings crazily, far, far below, and he slowly inches his way down his handmade rope to safety. A face leers at him, hideous features contorted beyond any recognizable expression, and the stitchpunk yelps in fright and almost loses his grip on the rope before recognizing it as one of Sanctuary's innumerable gargoyles.

He is dangling from a rope, once again, but his position seems far higher and more precarious than his vantage point inside the church. Gargoyles litter the flanks of Sanctuary all around him, and the tower rises still higher above him to the moody clouds above – though now the bricks up there are blackening, and flames lap at the air from some of the tower's windows. The Coven's home is doomed.

Lightning flickers from some of the distant clouds to touch down on the plains of the Wastes, the enormous Shards nearly visible from this high up. In the other direction are the Wastes proper, stretching off for hundreds of miles. And directly below 9 is the Dead City.

The ruined place sprawls for miles below him, and the stitchpunk can almost envision smoke rising from the innumerable chimneys, the city restored to its pristine state. Almost. Tanks and Steel Behemoths litter the street, and the trees in the park to the east that the stitchpunks call Rossum's Forest are so destroyed that they are unimaginable as green and fertile.

In the north of the city rises the Factory, three smokestacks pointing like mocking fingers. 9 directs all his hatred towards the place. The thing living in there is the reason Sanctuary is burning and 2 is dead. If that monster had never been built, none of this would have had to happen.

But some part of his mind still knows he's lying to himself, and with a heavy heart he dispels the illusion. The Fabrication Machine isa monster, and it sent the winged beast to hunt them down and kill them. But he's the one who woke it in the first place. If you trace the problem back to its roots, 9 is the one who is destroying the world. He was the one who killed 2. Any stitchpunks who dies, dies at his hands. Better to say that he should have never been built. If it hadn't been for his damned curiosity...

As he hangs from the side of the cathedral, wallowing in self-hatred, a crash echoes above him as another floor of Sanctuary collapses in fiery ruin. Throwing caution to the winds now, 9 begins to frantically scramble down the rope, the Dead City swaying below him. As soon as the fire reaches the level his rope's attached to, it will burn through and send him falling to his death unless he can make it to the ground fast enough. 9 climbs down, hand-over-hand, as fast as he dares, then gives a sudden yelp of pain as the rope slips and he shoots down the homemade cord, rope flying painfully through his wooden fingers. With a final, painful jolt, he grabs the bottom of the rope tightly, then releases it as his fingers give way and he drops the last few inches to the ground. Flopping over from exhaustion, he watches the tower of Sanctuary spiral away into nothingness above him.

The rope suddenly flies from the window and falls, end smoking, in neat coils on top of the stitchpunk. Dizzy from overexertion, 9 lies there for a long minute as floors crash and burn faster and faster above him.

From somewhere far behind him comes a tortured shriek, shocking him back to reality. Groaning, the young stitchpunk pushes himself to his feet and jogs towards the destroyed wall of the church.

A horrible plateau greets his eyes. 7 lies slumped against one of the walls, barely moving, as 0 lunges, sword-arms at the ready, at the enormous winged monster looming over them all. In the hallway behind them 1 tries to flee, as 5 struggles with him for the knife. He watches from the doorway as 0 slices off the end of the creature's wing and 5 runs forwards with the knife and stabs it in the back. 7 slowly begins to struggle up from the floor. The three stitchpunks encircle the monster, weapons held high. 9 feels a surge of hope. They're going to defeat the Machine's creature after all.

And then a horrible creaking noise comes from above them, and the raging fire bursts through the ceiling in an eddy of sparks and burning wood.

From where he stands at the doorway, 9 cries out and runs towards the centre of the room, stopped by the furious heat of the flames. Why had he just stood there? He should have run forwards and helped them fight the beast. Coward, 9 thinks angrily at himself, and now look where it's got you! "7!" he yells desperately into the blaze. "0! 5! 1!"

Deep within the blaze, a furious scream reaches him and the nightmare creature bursts into the air, flapping heavily as it struggles away from the fire with its ruined wing. The stitchpunk's heart plummets. "7!" he screams. "7!"

As if in a mirage, the figures of 1 and 5 appear out of the smoke and flames, with an injured 0 being helped towards them by 7. His 7. 9 breathes an enormous sigh of relief and rushes towards them.

And then the winged monster dives from the murk overhead and pins 1 to the ground, screaming its hatred at the other stitchpunks. 9 reaches out, but a burning timber crashes into his path, and he scrambles backwards.

Wavering through the smoke, 7 grabs 1's staff and guts the creature's fan, but it raises its monstrous, blade-covered head and bites into her face, splintering her skullmet. The female stitchpunk screams in pain and falls backwards.

9 recoils in fear and anguish and...anger. No more. It is as if everything in his mind telling him to run away from the creature has been suddenly switched off. He doesn't care how big it is, or how dangerous, or how many weapons it has. It's burned his home and hurt his family. Nothing can do that.

Clacking its blades in final triumph, the creature raises its harpoon to kill the three cowering stitchpunks. 9 feels something as hot as the flames around him roar to life in his chest. Whipping out his lightbulb staff, heedless of the fire, he crashes through the burning beams. The creature turns at the last second, shocked, and 9 howls as he swings the end of his staff as hard as he can into the monstrosity's tail with a satisfying crunch. Screaming, the creature tries to fire the weapon, but the broken pieces dangle uselessly.

"Don't," growls 9, "touch my family."

Shrieking its hatred, the monster leaps at 9, but he's ready for it. Spreading its fangs wide to decapitate him, it leaps, and the stitchpunk holds the metal end of his lightbulb staff out as the creature drives itself forward onto it. There is the sound of breaking metal as the thing's voicebox is smashed flat by the end of the staff. Screaming in a broken two-tone voice now, the beast rears back, flapping its enormous wings, and 9 spots his lantern lying on the ground a few feet away, flames licking around it.

The glass panels are broken, and the top is twisted beyond repair, but the oil in the bottom is still all contained. 9 tries to run towards it, but the monster rises up and blocks his way, hissing painfully.

The metal stitchpunk sees the lantern too, though. Out of the corner of his eye 9 sees him fold his blades back into his arms and stagger towards it. If he can only keep the monster distracted for a minute more...

Then the creature lunges at him, and he swings his staff up to block it. He hits the side of its fang-studded head, but it dives past his staff and rakes his shoulder open with its long claws. Yelling, 9 flails his lightbulb staff at it, but it swings its wing again and sweeps his feet out from under him.

Grabbing the scissor blade tied to his back, 9 draws it out and flings it into the monster's face in one smooth motion. It embeds itself in another of the monster's eyes in a cacophony of shattering glass, but the creature keeps going. Its two remaining eyes flare in hatred and triumph as it raises its head over him for the kill.

9 chuckles painfully, wounded shoulder aching. "Shouldn't have set that fire," is all he manages to get out.

The creature pauses, confused.

And 0, who has been creeping up behind the monster with the broken lantern and a length of burning wood, ignites the oil in the lantern and smashes it on the nightmare creature's back.

"Sorry, 7," 9 mutters, and then the flames blaze up in earnest as the beast's thin cloth wings ignite in a monstrous conflagration. The creature gives one last, ear-piercing scream of hatred as the flames reach its head and begin to eat away at the inner workings of its brain.

Every inch of its body blazing, two remaining eyes blinking on and off sporadically, the creature takes one last step towards 9 and swings its fangs down murderously. Shoulder blazing with pain, 9 grapples at his back for his last remaining sword. The blades swing down above him, flames licking around their edges.

Swinging out the sword, 9 pushes himself up and slices off the nightmare beast's head.

The entire creature seems to hang in the air for a second, flames carpeting it like a bizarre coat of fur, two red eyes staring in shock. Then the monster's head slides off its neck with a sickening rattle of metal and slams into the floor, smoke pouring from its burning brain.

The decapitated body stands still for a moment longer, then it collapses in on itself in a gout of flame.

"Tell that to the Great Machine," mutters 9 as he kicks the smoking head of the monster, then yelps in pain and hops backwards, holding his foot. A few more beams crack and fall down, blazing merrily. One crushes the mangled body of the beast, half-burying it from view.

9 turns and runs to the other stitchpunks, clutching his shoulder. 5 is crouched over a limp 7, trying to pry slivers of bird bone from her face. "Is – will she be alright?" he gasps. The female stitchpunk tosses her head fitfully, and hope returns to him.

5 barely looks up. "She'll be fine, I think. Unconscious now, and a few more scars to show. But she'll recover." He pauses in his work. "You did good."

9 looks back at the decapitated creature and nearly stumbles back, suddenly realizing how huge and deadly the monster was. "I – I did that?.."

Then he notices 1 limping out of the fires near the beast's corpse, carrying the inert body of 0. "1! What happened to him?"

The old stitchpunk looks up, arms shaking from carrying the metal stitchpunk. "I can't quite – would you –"

9 rushes forwards and helps to carry 0 to safety, his arguments with the leader of the Coven forgotten for the moment. 1 nods, offering no thanks. "He collapsed as soon as he killed the beast with the lantern."

The metal stitchpunk is breathing fitfully, shutters behind his mismatched glass eyes firmly closed. "Will 5 be able to fix him?"

"Unless we get out of this place," 1 snarls, "it doesn't matter. We'll all burn."

A few more timbers, falling with a crash behind them, emphasized 1's point. All of Sanctuary was burning now, and the building, weakened by the fire, was beginning to fall. They couldn't stay here any longer. With a pang of regret 9 thought of 1's throne room sparking and burning, the stitchpunk's bedrooms collapsing into ashes. The room with the telescope on the top of the tower blazing, flames soaring into the empty sky.

"5!" snaps 1 as they stagger past him. "We need to leave. Carry 7 if you have to."

5, wordless, picks up the fallen warrior and runs after them.

• • •

It is a strange procession that winds its way over the dusty hill, cathedral blazing in the background. In the lead is a small leather figure in a cape and bishop's hat, triangular eyes softening every now and then as he looks back at his burning home. He and a cloth creature, a light bulb staff tied to their back, are supporting a ragged metal figure, hanging limp and lifeless between them. Behind them walks a cloth man with a leather eyepatch, supporting a gently stirring pale being.

The three that are still conscious plod on tiredly, mindlessly, not entirely sure where they are going, but having no better place to go. Two of their kind are still missing, sent out to scout in the dead city around them and still not returned. As one, they turn back to their burning tower, strange, saddening feelings swirling around in their mechanical hearts.

The burning tower of Sanctuary begins to collapse, the castle in the sky tilting slightly as a weakened section at the bottom of the tower gives out. Then the entire pillar to the heavens begins to fall slowly, silently, a portrait of stately grace even in its demise. Not a wisp of cloud seems to be touched as the tower falls, flames crowning its falling top, as it finally collapses into the rest of the cathedral the stitchpunks knew as Sanctuary with a final crash.

As if freed from a spell, the stitchpunks watching on the dry hill turn back and hurry on. "Where can we go, 1?" asks 5, bits of the burning church reflected in his one remaining eye.

"To the Library," rasps the old stitchpunk, hefting the dead weight of 0. "Nowhere else is safe for us. Not anymore. Our Sanctuary is gone."


A/N: Two letters: Open parentheses and colon.

Thanks for the advice! Anything like that – suggestions about characters, plot devices, etc. – is more than welcome. Feel free to drop me a PM (as mine isn't working and I can't find people. D: ) I may not answer immediately, however, because of the below points.

I'm on vacation and virtually wifi-less for the next..four weeks or so, so not every chapter will be updated exactly on time for the forseeable future. Sorry. I'll still try to aim for one update a week, but I might not always make that.

P.S. When 9 chops off the Winged Beast's head, I hear a voice saying "Finish him!" But that's just, like, my opinion.