The Witch melted away with a last, pained laugh, its Labyrinth of dominoes and mathematical equations giving way to an abandoned subway tunnel. Catherine leaned against a support pillar, ignoring the skittering rats and unidentified liquid noises. She shivered and pulled her hand away from her side, revealing a dark red stain in her red and white gown. "Must've gotten careless," she mumbled to herself as she pulled out a red Soul Gem, hoping its dim light would be enough to help her find the dropped Grief Seed in the darkness.

"Come on, come on. Where is it. I need it…" She'd used up too much magic already, and she knew it. Months of looking over her shoulder expecting the worst had poisoned her Gem with paranoia and fear, and it darkened entirely too quickly for comfort nowadays. Even if it meant going out late at night, venturing to places she knew would be too dangerous for anyone but a magician, she had to keep hunting.

There it was. Glittering in the faint red light, the black Soul Gem had landed near a pile of debris, and there were rats sniffing at it. She waved a hand to shoo off the rats, holding back a scream. It didn't matter how many Witches and horrors she's faced, she'd always hate rats.

Most of them scattered at her approach, but one remained, looking right up at her with red eyes. The whole creature was bright scarlet, in fact, and much cleaner than the normal rats. Catherine knew in a moment who it was, and staggered back. "No, no, no, not you, please…"

Scarlet light filled the room for a second as the rat changed shape back into a tall girl with curly red hair, spinning a chakram on one finger as the other hand held up the Soul Gem. "Are you looking for this, Catherine?"

"Penelope." Catherine clutched her Gem to her chest until it transformed back into a brooch, slowly raising her silver crossbow. "Stop. I need that. You know-youknow what will happen if…"

"So, the hunter gets his orders from the Queen." Penelope was casually walking in a circle, as if daring Catherine to fire and waste more precious magic. "He goes to find Snow White, but takes pity on her and lets her go, and he goes to bring the Queen a cow's heart instead. Or I guess in this case it was a Grief Seed, right? The Grief Seed of any damn Witch."

They knew. Of course they knew. It was only a matter of time. Catherine's hand was starting to feel a bit numb, and the sensation was spreading to her arm. "I swear, I thought it was him! I thought it was him! And then…I didn't sign up for this to kill anyone! I wanted to save people!"

"Killing him would have saved a lot of people, trust me. But you backed out, didn't you? The moment you realized you'd been tricked, you decided to just let it go instead of owning up to your mistakes. The Queen would have understood, you know! Glados knows everyone makes mistakes." The tone in Penelope's voice suggested she knew this was false just as Catherine did, and simply didn't care.

The Grief Seed was tantalizingly close. One good shot could knock it from her hand. But Catherine had fought Penelope before, and had no desire to repeat the experience of facing a storm of claws, teeth, feathers, and talons. "I don't want to kill anyone! We're not supposed to be killing each other! Not for any reason! You're-you go to school with me, Penelope! How can you do this to me?!" One good shot. Just one good shot.

"Let's just say I like her style. Besides, it's all about survival of the fittest around here. You know that." Penelope clutched the Seed tightly in her hand. "I'm sick and tired of weaklings like you getting by and stealing prey from the strong ones! Who do you think is going to survive when the big Witches come along, huh? Who do we want on the front lines? People like you who get soft-hearted the moment they have to act for the good of the city?" Penelope grinned, showing off fangs. "Or predators like me?"

"He didn't do anything wrong! He's just an oracle!" Catherine's voice was starting to crack, and her vision was distorting. She knew the colors swimming around Penelope couldn't be real, that the little voice whispering to her to just let go, give up, this is the end of the line was either a hallucination or proof that Alex was here, too. Was this what it felt like?

"You really believe an illusionist? You think you can trust him?!" Penelope's eyes seemed to glow for a moment as her notorious temper flared. "Glados saved you when you were a helpless nobody! You would have been a smear on the sidewalk in a matter of days without her! And you have the nerve to—"

One red energy arrow fired off, briefly filling the tunnels with even more scarlet light. It was the last shot Catherine had enough magic for, one more, desperate attack. It missed by half an inch.

Penelope stared, and then burst out laughing as Catherine fell to her knees, trembling. "You can't even shoot me from here? Well! I told her she should have sent me in the first place. But no, she wanted to test your loyalty. You broke her heart when she found out you lied, you know. You broke her heart."

Catherine's vision blurred with tears as she opened her hands, her Soul Gem manifesting in her hands. She'd gone too far, and her fear and hopelessness were only magnifying the effect. The Gem was almost black. She stared up at Penelope with an empty gaze, holding up the Gem in one last, desperate attempt to appeal to Glados's assassin.

Penelope, however, merely glared and laughed again. "Oh man, am I ever lucky! Here I thought I'd have to finish you off myself. Instead…" She pocketed the Soul Gem and summoned a second chakram, staring at something forming above Catherine. "Guess I'll have a Grief Seed to keep for myself, too…"

We are going to become Witches. It will happen to Craig, and Rita, and myself, and it will even happen to Chell. I will see her become a Witch someday, and there is nothing I can do about it.

These were the thoughts occupying Wheatley's mind as he roused himself for school, showered, dressed in his itchy school uniform, and gathered his books. Really, going to school felt a bit pointless. What was he going to use all this algebra and geometry for? His future? The one where he died fighting a Witch, or lost himself to whatever was growing in his Soul Gem? The one where he never aged and just went on fighting Witch after Witch forever, altering his body to match his mind so it didn't drive him mad? It wasn't as if he felt like he got much out of school. All the information he was forced to digest never seemed to last. It drifted right back out of his mind the moment he didn't need to repeat it like a parrot in order to pass a test.

And yet there he was, scowling at a note explaining that yes, of course Cave had left early and wouldn't be back until late. There he was fixing himself a cheese sandwich to bring for lunch, wolfing down two bagels as his breakfast, and checking his watch to make sure he'd make it on time if he walked. There he was, walking to school through a gentle snow fall, wondering if the weather would net them a half day.

The little things that shouldn't have mattered at all still mattered, somehow. Other, less dire thoughts started to invade his mind, drowning out the sense of doom. I wonder if Chell is mad at me about that wish. I'd be mad at me. We're still going to the mall after school, right? We'll probably have to wait for Craig. He said he was going to skip Student Government, but I'm sure he won't. I hope the snow doesn't mess with the bus routes.

And somehow, on the walk to school, when those dire memories of his own nature returned, he managed to soften them willfully. Surely not everyone became a Witch, right? If Kyubey was correct, he could live a very long time if he played his cards right. So could his friends, at that. And Glados did have a cruel habit of lying and exaggerating in order to demoralize those she disliked. Maybe there was more to the story. If Rita was to be believed, Alice had been doing some stupid things for a while before she transformed. Surely there had to be a way out of the system. Everything had an escape somewhere.

And as he went over it and justified it, smoothing the edges with denial, the sharpness of the terrible idea grew dull. I will become a Witch became I might become a Witch if I'm not careful, and then devolved into I will not become a Witch because I don't deserve it, and neither do my friends. And even though he knew in the pit of his stomach that it was a lie, it was one he clung to fiercely, one that gave him the guts to enter the school gate that day and pretend everything was just fine.

"And I don't think the lines are even that bad, comparatively speaking! Could be worse, you know. Could be a lot worse. I mean, we missed that 'Black Friday' or whatever you call it, that probably helps. Anyway, I don't have a lot of shopping to do anyway. We don't do a lot for Christmas, I mean Uncle and I. Or Hanukkah, for that matter. At least, we didn't do much last year. I forget, which way is the food court? That's near where she wanted to meet us, right?"

Chell could tell Wheatley was talking to keep everyone's mind off of what they were all thinking about anyway, and she appreciated the effort, even if it probably wasn't working. She had half expected him to collapse into a heap emotionally, leaving her and Craig to drag him out of it, but he at least seemed to be trying to keep it together. Craig, for his part, was concentrating on his smartphone, and Chell wondered if that was something he did when he was nervous.

Everyone had their coping strategies. Wheatley talked about nonsense. Craig searched Amazon for wishlists and overthought Christmas presents. Chell, who simply could not turn off her combat mentality anymore, scanned the crowd for a certain familiar face.

Rita had agreed to meet them on her own, and she wasn't a very good liar. But Rita also worked for Glados, and it would not have surprised Chell if she'd been followed. Still, there was no sign of her former friend amid the busy shoppers flooding the Galleria, crowding around an overpriced candy shop or waiting in line at electronics stores.

"I wonder if she's coming," Chell heard herself say aloud, and Wheatley's rambling stopped. He was apparently learning to listen instead of talking over others, which she appreciated as someone who didn't like having to compete for a chance to speak.

"Uh, well," he stammered, "she said she would, right? I mean, she's awfully blunt. I'd think if she didn't want to talk to you, she'd have sent you a rude message or something."

"She might think I'm trying to trap her." Chell thought she spotted a girl with short black hair, but it wasn't Rita. Rita wouldn't be caught dead in a sweater, anyway. "Especially since I asked her to show up alone, and you two are here."

"Oh come on now, what are we, your enforcers or something?" Wheatley laughed nervously. "She has nothing to worry about from me, that's for sure. And Craig-Craig? You there, mate?"

The shorter young man startled and looked up from his phone, having the good grace to sound embarrassed. "Sorry. Trying to find out which shops will stock the telescope I want to get Kevin. I looked up the best model for what I can afford to spend online, but I want to see if one of the stores here might have it."

Wheatley stared. "Why are you looking that up on the internet? We're at the mall."

"It's more precise this way." Craig pocketed his phone, and then looked straight ahead, blinking. "Isn't that Rita up there?"

Chell followed his gaze and spotted her leaning next to the elevator doors, her face partially covered by a Dallas Cowboys cap. Rita always did like that stupid hat, perhaps out of some sense of Texas pride. She was wearing a heavy jacket, and looked up when they got close enough. She looked exhausted.

Remembering what Wheatley had seen in Alice's Labyrinth, Chell frowned.

"Yo." Rita waved one hand unenthusiastically. "I'm here, okay? I don't really want to be, but you're just gonna persist if I say no, ain't you?"

"She'll probably ask me to find you," Wheatley said cheerfully. "I'd annoy you until you gave up and came to meet her."

That seemed to make Rita crack half a smile, at least, although her expression reverted after a few seconds. "I only want to talk to Chell, though. We got old business. You boys buzz off for a while, okay? Do whatever it is guys do together when they hang out in groups, I don't care."

Rita, Chell reflected, was as polite as ever. Chell gave the two boys an apologetic look over her shoulder.

"Uh, it's fine, don't worry about us!" Wheatley waved a hand dismissively. "I'll help Craig find his microscope or whatever."

"Telescope. But yeah, Chell, it's alright." Craig seemed a little surprised, but not hurt. "You have things to talk about. We'll get something to eat on our own and meet up with you later. Just text us when you're done."

'Or if there's any trouble,' Chell added mentally, and gave the boys a grateful nod. "Thanks. I'll catch up with you. Good luck shopping."

As Rita started walking and wordlessly gestured for Chell to follow, Chell thought she overheard Wheatley ask, "what DO guys do together when they hang out in groups…?"

Rita hadn't said a word in line, had only spoken up to give her order, and there had been a strange edge to her voice when she did. Only when the two were seated and Rita peeled foil from her chicken burrito did she start to sound a little like the girl Chell had once known.

"Authentic Tex-Mex my ass. Look at this shit! White rice. And their 'hot' salsa's pathetic. And who even offers to put ranch sauce on a burrito? Yankees, man, I tell ya." She bit into the burrito nonetheless, not waiting to swallow before she spoke up again. "Okay, you called me out here, so what's the deal? You think I'm gonna squeal on Glados or something?" She stopped to take a swig of Mountain Dew. "I'm not thrilled with her right now, but that ain't enough to turn me traitor."

If it had been anyone else but Rita, Chell would have figured she wanted a one-on-one conversation to put Chell on the spot. Chell had always been good at sports and academics alike, but interpersonal communication was not a strong point of hers. Still, this had been her own idea, and she had to follow through with it. "Wheatley told me what you said in the Labyrinth."

Rita stopped for a second, mouth full of tortilla and rice.

"You know," Chell continued, "the whole bit about how you couldn't protect people and you just wanted to…I don't even like to think about it. I mean, we know what happens to us if we break down, now." She briefly fingered the ring form of her Soul Gem, her pasta salad largely untouched. "I know we're not exactly friends anymore, but I guess I still want to make sure you're okay."

Rita swallowed a too-large mouthful, coughing and chugging down some soda to ease herself. "Yeah! Uh, I mean, yeah, I'm fine. Look, I got stressed out because of what happened to Alice. Which wasn't Glados's fault, by the way, before ya go pointing fingers. Alice was a nice girl, but she did a lot of dumb shit even by my own standards. If that hadn't happened to her, she would have gotten her ass killed one way or another." She didn't sound very convinced herself. "Besides, what can I do? It doesn't matter if I'm alright or not. I'm useful to Glados, so she'll make sure nothing happens to me even if I want it to, trust me. You should know, she made you drag me through your damn rabbit hole portal, didn't she?"

Chell took a deep breath. "…No, she didn't' say anything, I'm sorry. We just stared since we couldn't get up there, and you were moving too fast for my portals to keep up. Then when I realized what you were going to do, I just…I didn't want to see anyone else die that day, Rita. I don't want to see anyone else die." She felt her throat catching and she forced herself not to cry. She would not cry when she was trying to help someone else. "I mean, I'm tired of it too, you know? It isn't as if I haven't been tempted to give up and join the Court again, so I didn't have two unbeatable enemies…"

Rita's eyes narrowed. "What, so sticking with the Court's the cowardly thing now? Not all of us can run around charming everyone we meet." When Chell winced, Rita's expression tone relaxed just a little bit. "Okay, that was mean. I get it, you can't help that power of yours. But I mean, you're…you're significant. People meet you and think that, right? I'm pretty sure even Glados is under it, which is why she keeps bothering you instead of just letting you die." She left the burrito half-eaten in the foil.

"Me, though? I've seen what happens when we don't have leaders. Before I came to this town, I kind of bounced from city to city, hunting Witches wherever I could. Solo magical girls and boys staked out territories, and if there were too many, they'd feud for Grief Seeds. It was goddamn anarchy in some places." Rita pointed at Chell with a foil burrito. "I'm telling you, that's what's gonna happen if you keep on trying to undermine the Court. We're all scared and desperate, and we'll turn on one another and fight for scraps of Witch. The Court's awful, I know, but the alternative's worse."

Chell had been trying to catch glances at Rita's Soul Gem in the meantime, to no avail. If she was able to walk around and talk coherently, it couldn't be too far gone, at any rate. "Why does that have to be our choices, though? A tyrant 'queen' or a self-interested free-for-all? I mean, I know she keeps the assholes in line, but it's at the expense of people who don't deserve it. People like Alice." She took a deep breath. "People like Caroline."

As soon as Chell said it, she knew she'd made a mistake. Rita's hand slammed against the table, and the Texan stood right up. "Shut the hell up about Caroline! Don't try to pin her on Glados! She stepped aside to make you leader of our stupid little trio because in her glamour-addled eyes, she thought you knew what the hell you were doing. I would have kicked anyone's ass for her, I would have done anything for her, but…"

The anger died in Rita's eyes, replaced by something distant and tired. "It turned out like it always does when I try to protect someone. So I'm protecting someone who can't die on me. A hero protects a princess. I'm a failure as a hero, but at the least I can be a proper knight."

"Rita, wait-"

She turned around, the burrito forgotten. "Look, I understand you think you can save me, but you can't. I've made my choices, alright? It's not that I don't think you could pose a threat to the Court. It's that I don't think you're ready to fill her shoes. You think it's bad now, just wait until she's gone…"

With that, the other girl marched off, leaving Chell sitting at a table, staring awkwardly down at uneaten food while passerby wondered if they'd just witnessed a breakup.

No, don't get angry again. Don't get frustrated. If you're going to be a leader, you need to learn how to communicate properly. Learn from this. What set her off. Caroline? It was Caroline, right? She was jealous of Caroline's attention. Which meant…

"Oh, Rita," Chell whispered, her hands starting to shake. Rita's loyalty to the Queen would kill her unless Chell proved herself to be a better alternative, not just a 'nicer' one. She suspected some of the more honorable Court Magi would feel the same way. How could she even do that? Surely there had to be more to her than just a glamour. Surely Wheatley and Caroline had seen something else in her, even if she couldn't see it herself. Right?

*Rita! There's trouble down at the parking garage!*

Chell's head snapped up. She hadn't gotten around to teaching either of the rookie Magi in her tiny "court" how to use the telepathy Magi shared yet. How had Craig learned it?

*No time to explain. Please hurry!*

She stood up, hurriedly dumped out the contents of her tray, and prepared to run with drink in hand until she realized just how difficult and dangerous that might be in a mall packed to the brim with holiday shoppers.

"Oh, hell…"

0 results for "Puer Magi."

0 results for "Puella Magi." Did you mean 'paella?'

771,000,000 results for "magic."

Craig was quickly losing patience with the normally-reliable Google. Considering how many things one could find on the internet that didn't exist, how was it possible something existed and yet had no presence on the internet?

"…Which is what we usually did during the holidays, you know, I'd celebrate Christmas with my parents but before then I'd visit my gran on Mum's side and we'd celebrate Hannukah. I used to figure everyone did that when I was very young, so I got confused when-you listening , mate?"

Craig's head snapped up, and guilt tied his stomach into some lovely knots. He'd been assuming Wheatley had been filling up the silence with his usual motor mouth chatter, and here the other boy had actually been sharing personal information. "Uh, sorry, Wheatley. I was just getting caught up in looking for gift ideas." He pocketed his phone, once again glad that his Soul Gem didn't detect his own lies.

"You're tied to that thing, mate! Not good for you, I bet it melts your brain after a while. Read about that on the internet." Wheatley reached up to his face as if to adjust glasses he no longer wore, right before his big hand dropped back to his side. His flushed cheeks suggested that he had indeed taken some offense, but to Craig's guilty relief, Wheatley covered it with a cheerful grin a second later. "Well, it's fine, I mean here we haven't had much time to get to know one another and instead I'm just nattering on about this and that other thing you probably don't care about. I figured this would be good to liven the mood, though, right? You know, all this."

"It's a little crowded," Craig admitted. They'd stopped to grab food and had somehow managed to commandeer a bench, but Craig felt like he had to shout in order to be heard at all. "Also, not to nitpick here, but I'm not sure caramel popcorn is a lunch."

Wheatley scowled. "It's made from corn, it's food! Besides, a smoothie isn't a meal, either! It's a beverage. You get a smoothie with something, not by itself with…protein powder. Ugh."

Craig set aside the urge to curse all tall people with speedy metabolism. "At least it has actual nutritional-nevermind. Sorry, I'm just kind of tense." His shoulders slumped. "I wish I could be like you, just bounce right back from everything and shed it away. Uh, that's not to say you're being insensitive. Just, I sort of envy that optimism of yours." One could also call it foolhardy in the face of what they'd learned the other day, but Craig was trying to be a friend to the awkward foreigner.

When he looked at Wheatley, though, he thought he saw something fracture in the other boy's hapless grin. "Oh, well, you know, what can you do about it? If we dwell on it, it's not going to make things better, is it? Focus on what we've got. I'm not letting it bother me, that's all." That smile didn't match his eyes.

"…I mean, it's okay if it does bother you. Especially since you made a wish for someone else." Craig found something inside of him opening up before he realized what he was saying. "I'm sure it's normal to feel a little resentful if you give your life for somebody else with nothing in return, right?"

The smile vanished. "I'm fine with the wish. I'm fine with it." Craig winced at the edge Wheatley's voice had taken, and at the way his own Soul Gem flickered to indicate a lie. Still, after a second the scowl melted away, replaced with that same not-quite-happy smile. "It's not her fault. I was just kind of dazzled by her, that's all. I mean, I still find her dazzling to be honest, and I really don't think it's because of her magic like she claims. She's talented and confident and pretty, and even if she might not like me back, I still like being around her. Surely you've felt that for a girl before?"

Craig took a deep breath, preparing the same carefully-rehearsed answer he gave whenever anyone asked him about 'girls,' but then let it go. No need to keep lying to someone when they needed to trust him in a fight, after all. "I wouldn't know. Not really into girls." This was not something he was particularly open about in a Catholic school.

Wheatley's eyes widened a bit, but to Craig's relief, he waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, my mistake! Uh, how embarrassing, eh? For me, I mean, making assumptions, making an ass of me and…umption." He cleared his throat. "Boys, then? Or you know. You know what I mean. Well, either way, I'm getting off topic. I don't blame her for it, I mean. I'm…to be honest, I'm pretty sure I would have wished for some damned stupid thing or another sooner or later anyway. Say, mate, can we not talk about my wish? No offense, but I sort of came here to forget about my imminent death."

The guilt-web in Craig's stomach tightened, and his peach smoothie started to taste sickeningly sweet.

"Is it alright if I talk about mine?"

"I mean it's not that I'm scared or anything, well no, I am, but if I spend too much time dwelling on it I'm sure I'll turn into a Witch faster because if I think about the fact that—" Wheatley paused, eyes widening. "Uh…sure. Go on, mate. I really don't know much of anything about you, to be honest."

"Ah, that's probably because I don't talk much about myself even to the Student Government," Craig admitted. "I have an image to maintain. I'm the perfect student who never makes mistakes and would certainly never regret a selfless act for selfish reasons. I know that sounds egotistical and I guess it kind of is, but that's the kind of image I try to project. I figure that's the kind of leader our class wants to follow, the inspiring kind." Student Government was, of course, of the utmost importance in a young student's life. Craig was certain of that much. "Um, more importantly, my parents worked really hard to get me into St. Aperture's, since they went to a rough public school, and for a long time it looked like Kevin might not make it to adulthood. So I wanted to make sure they had a son who would reward all their hard work."

A son who would then disappear without a trace one day, either dying to a Witch or becoming one. Craig tried to ignore the tightness in his chest and the lump in his throat. Bad enough he was admitting weakness, his sense of pride would crumble if he actually cried in front of Wheatley. Again.

Wheatley himself suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable, rubbing his elbows. "Right! Of course you want to succeed when people have worked hard to get you where you are, especially when you have role models who you look up to. Who have expectations of you. Very important, yes." Craig raised an eyebrow, but didn't push the point.

"So see, someone like that? He'd never feel regret over giving his life for another, especially someone he loves. And I love my little brother, I love him so much. Hell, I bet if Kyubey had approached Mom or Dad, they would have wished for the same thing. But now that I have it…" Craig resisted the urge to reach for the phone. No retreating back to the phone when it got bad. He'd say it aloud, and it would seem so ridiculous to him that he'd know it was untrue.

"I'm jealous. Of Kevin. He's coming home tomorrow, and I know it's going to be awkward, because everyone will be talking about how he must have a guardian angel or something like that. And I'm going to know in the back of my head that it came at the price of my life, and I won't be able to tell anyone in my family, ever. He'll go on living whatever future he wants because that's the Wish I made for him, and I'll…"

Craig felt a large hand on his shoulder, and stopped staring at his own lap to turn to Wheatley who had finally let the forced smile drop. Instead, he was just looking over at Craig with those huge eyes of his, tone a bit nervous. "Um, look. I'm just saying, you don't have to be perfect. I mean, I don't think I can expect anyone to be perfect! I'm far from it. I'm sort of trying not to spend all my time dwelling on my own problems because I'm sure other people have them too, even if I'm bad at noticing them. So I mean, it's okay to have problems, I guess, and express them when I'm too thick to notice…I think that's what I'm getting at. I don't know what I'm getting at. Sorry."

Maybe that's why Craig felt so comfortable admitting his weakness around Wheatley. As much as the guy talked, he was just so earnest, and even if that optimism of his wasn't entirely factual, it wasn't bad to cling to that kind of lie. Wheatley didn't quite get it, but it was a start. "Um, thanks, Wheatley. I'm fine, really. Like I said, I'm probably worried about nothing, and…oh, wait."

He knew that feeling, and holding up his flashing Soul Gem ring confirmed it. "That's odd, I thought Witches liked gathering in places with a lot of unhappy people, not crowded shopping malls."

"Not so hasty there," Wheatley said, "lots of reasons to be unhappy during the holidays! Lines, frustration, maybe you don't have a lot of money, maybe your parents died in December and winter just makes you depressed and your uncle probably finds it just as depressing but you don't talk about it because you're supposed to be happy at Christmas, that's why they call it Happy Christmas." Before Craig could ask about that last bit, Wheatley was up on his feet. "Well, what do we do? Should we interrupt Chell? It seems like talking to Rita was important to her, be a shame to cut that short…"

Wheatley was deferring the decision to Craig, which, Craig supposed, made him second-in-command of their tiny little 'Court.' "I think we can handle it. It's just one Witch, right? Besides, there'll be times when we can't all fight together, and we need to learn to work with one another. Our powers are complimentary enough. I'll take close-range offense and you use those barriers to protect me and that crystal thing to, uh…"

"I don't think I should use the crystal bit thing," Wheatley mumbled as Craig started weaving through the crowd.

The Witch had settled in a murky area of the parking garage. "Huh," Craig muttered, "so it really did find a gloomy place in a crowded mall. Fact: with all the people around here, it could feast." He shuddered, transforming in a flash of red light and looking over his shoulder to make sure Wheatley was following.

"Come on," he added, "we just can't think about what it is, that's all. We can't let ourselves die, and more importantly, it'll kill a lot of people if we leave it alone." As he stepped into the labyrinth, Craig found himself wondering if he was comforting himself more than Wheatley. "It's just a ghost…"

The labyrinth was a snow-covered forest of enormously tall trees, branches heavy with apples red as fresh blood, and glowing eyes peered out from the distant shadows. Craig heard Wheatley nattering on nervously behind him. "Right, just a snow witch, then? Apple witch? Snow, apples, I feel like there's a connection there but I'm not sure what it is…uh, say, who's that up ahead? I know I just heard a voice…"

Craig snapped to attention, forming his crystal hammer in his hands. "Someone beat us to it," he hissed back at Wheatley, who looked like he was trying his best not to run and hide. He heard the whisper too, and the crunch of footprints against snow, backing up towards Wheatley. "Back to back," he ordered the other boy, "get your shield up around us." Wheatley fumbled for a moment, but within seconds the world shimmered with a faint blue tint.

One moment there were just footsteps; the next, a boy was walking up to them. Craig recognized the purple-clad "prince" from Glados's last demonstration. "Here's a fact for you." The prince's voice was unsettlingly flat and cold. "If you overcharge a Grief Seed, the Witch emerges again."

"It's a helpful trick," a cheerful female voice added, though when Craig snapped his head towards her direction, he just saw a scarlet-furred wolf. "She told us about it! She's really very generous if you don't try to do anything stupid, like defy her."

"…Oh. Court people! Stay calm, stay calm, we've done nothing wrong, we're just on our way out because we don't really want to fight IN a labyrinth, that'd be bloody madness, absolute bloody madness and no you're going to attack us in a labyrinth, aren't you." Wheatley's attempts at placating the two Courtiers didn't seem to be working, and his voice cracked.

The red wolf's mouth pulled back in a mockery of a grin. "Hello, Craig Wilson! My name's Penelope. I'm sure we'll get along just fine!"