Yoto heard the commotion from outside of the room and grinned an enormous grin. "THAT'S a diversion if I ever heard one! HERE I COME!" He kicked open the door and ran into the room, sword held high.

Both Mistress Mayhem and Professor Pester were far too distracted to even notice Yoto's entrance, but everyone else certainly did and jumped at the sound of the door hitting the wall. After spending one mere second taking in the scene before him, Yoto sprinted up to the tube that contained Hearos and crashed right through it with his sword. Hearos actually yelped with surprise; mainly since Yoto barely missed cutting him in half and sliced off a good chunk of his cape.

"Hey, Ginger!" Dastardos flew over to Yoto and grabbed his arm before he could go sprinting to another tube. "It won't do you anyone any good if you slice these people to bits! Why don't you go untie those poor fools over there?" He pointed his thumb at Beth, Yoko, Patrice, and Seedos. "Vilos and I will take care of the tubes."

"Urgh, fine," Yoto tore his arm from Dastardos grasp and gave him a quick salute. He ran over to Seedos and began to saw through the ropes that bound him.

"Never thought I'd say this, but thanks for coming, Yoto," Seedos' voice was shaky despite the fact that he might be rescued. He still had no clue what would happen…or what on Earth came over Mistress Mayhem!

"No probs!" Yoto grinned as he tugged the ropes away from Seedos. "Make sure you tell your sister what an awesome hero I am!"

Dastardos completely shattered the tube that Gavin was trapped in with one quick hit from the Whacking Stick. Gavin barely flinched as the tube broke around him.

"Why on Earth would they make tubes that were only indestructible from the inside?" He said, his brow furrowed ever-so-slightly in his confusion. "That's idiotic."

"Villains are weird like that, I would know," Dastardos folded his arms. "And you shouldn't be complaining, buddy." Gavin was lucky that Mistress Mayhem was far too busy attempting to do God-knows-what to Pester to hear his little "suggestion."

"Good point!" Gavin actually let a chuckle slip despite the situation before he ran to be reunited with his wife.

Vilos flew over to the other set of tubes, and Patch's eyes grew wide and glimmered with hope.

"Vilos, I KNEW you cared about me! You're a-actually c-c-coming to save me! Wow…" Patch sighed dreamily and rested his gloved hands against his cheeks.

Vilos completely ignored him and instead smashed the tube surrounding Arthur.

"O-oh…" Patch slumped down, his eyes brimming with tears. He knew it was too good to be true…

Arthur just looked at Vilos doubtfully with his mouth stretched into a thin line.

"…you're free, don't just stand there like a stupid Sarsgorilla!" Vilos gestured next to her like she was displaying some kind of game show prize.

"Oh, so you're saving me now?" Arthur pointedly looked away from Vilos. "I didn't think yew cared."

"…is now really the time or the place?" Vilos slammed a palm into her forehead. "You can reprimand me later. We have to put an end to this once and for all."

"…I agree," Arthur mumbled and carefully stepped out of the broken tube.

Yoto ran to Eddie's side once he had everyone untied. Eddie was still lying in a heap on the ground; he had suffered quite a few bruises and had the wind knocked out of him.

"You okay? I heard what that lady wanted to do to you…" Yoto rested his sword against the wall and offered Eddie his hand.

"It wasn't just one thing…" Eddie grasped Yoto's hand and groaned as he was pulled to his feet. "Thank God you came when you did…I don't know what came over her, but if it didn't happen, who knows where I would be…" Eddie shuddered, not even looking over at Mistress Mayhem.

Yoto did look, and when he saw that she practically had Pester cornered, he gagged and promptly looked away.

"How did you get roped into that, anyway?" Yoto cocked a brow at Eddie and leaned over to pick up his sword. "Do I want to know?"

"I don't want you to know," Eddie shuddered yet again.

That was the wrong thing to say. Yoto gasped, smirked, and was about to start canoodling Eddie to spill the beans when Patrice approached them.

"O-oh my G-G-God, Eddie!" Patrice sobbed and swept Eddie into a hug. He winced from the contact with his bruised body, but he was grateful to be in the arms of someone who wasn't an oversized supervillainess. "I'm so happy you don't have to spend your life with that awful, awful woman!"

"Me too, Patrice…" Eddie sobbed a bit himself at what could have been and buried his face in Patrice's shoulder.

"Ooh…" Yoto backed up. "I'll leave you two alone, then." He scampered over in the general direction of Hearos and Yoko, but changed his mind when he saw that they were keenly making out. Yoto chose to rush to Seedos' side instead.

Dastardos floated over to the machine and leaned against it, his eyes on Patch and an unnervingly friendly smile on his face.

"Y-you're going to let me out, a-a-aren't you…?" Patch didn't like how Dastardos was looking at him…

"Hmm…" Dastardos stroked his chin with one hand and barely rested the tip of his index finger onto a large red button on the machine.

"DASTARDOS!" Patch exclaimed, his voice frantic. He pressed himself up against the glass and glared at Dastardos intently.

Dastardos was unaffected; he simply stuck out his lower lip in thought and looked back and forth between the button and Doc Patch several times. Patch's expression grew more and more desperate every time Dastardos' eyes swept over him.

"…okay," Dastardos drew his hand away from the button, flew over to Patch's tube, and smashed a great big hole in it.

Patch sobbed and lunged forward. He tore up his shirt and cut his stomach on the broken glass of the tube in the process, but he ignored his pain to pull Dastardos into a hug. "I th-thought you were r-really going to do it! You must have some good in you after all, then!"

Dastardos batted Patch away with The Whacking Stick. "DON'T touch me. I hate you, but I don't want to kill you."

In response to Patch's hopeful expression, Dastardos added: "Not right now, anyway," and hit the tube once more. It broke fully and Patch stepped out as carefully as possible. The cuts on his stomach were already dribbling a fair amount of blood; the last thing he wanted to do was hurt his feet, too.

"Wh-what now? D-d-do we make a run for it?" Patch asked, hoping that was the answer.

"No," Dastardos shook his head. "I need to learn if Pester has a way back home." Dastardos cracked his knuckles. "I'm sure Vilos has a plan."

"I'll gladly listen to any plan she has…" Patch's eyes glazed over and a lovesick smile overtook his face.

"I'll gladly pound you into cake-batter consistency if you so much as mention that you like her around me ever again," Dastardos glared at Patch. "I'm her, you know."

"Psh," Patch rolled his eyes. "You c-can't hold a c-c-candle to her looks."

Patch nursed a black eye as he walked with Dastardos towards the female reaper.

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

"Get over here!" Vilos shouted to everyone at once and beckoned them over with a sweep of her arm. "We need to figure something out!"

Hearos and Yoko looked at each other as everyone else headed over to Vilos. That woman was their kidnapper's underling…could they really trust her?

"Hey, you two!" Vilos cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the uncertain couple. "That includes you!"

Hearos looked at Yoko quizzically and she shrugged. Guess there was only one way to find out whose side Vilos was on…

The two of them joined the misshapen circle that had formed around Vilos.

Meanwhile, Mistress Mayhem continued to chase Pester around the room, both of the villains too preoccupied to notice that their machine was broken and all of their prisoners were on the loose.

"What do you mean you don't have a plan!" Dastardos hissed at her. Vilos sighed and flipped a hunk of her ridiculously long hair over her shoulder.

"Honestly, I didn't think we'd get this far…" she confessed and narrowed her eyes at Dastardos. "Why don't you come up with something for once, smarty pants?"

"I just want to kick Pester's ass until he tells me where the way home is," Dastardos growled. "I've had enough of this universe and everyone in it." That little remark earned him quite a few glares, but Dastardos didn't care.

"Sounds good to me," Seedos nodded sagely.

"Ooh, can I help?" Yoto held up his sword and grinned like a maniac at Dastardos.

"I think stabbing him would be a little…counterproductive," Vilos remarked. "It'd be hard for him to tell you how to get home if he was dead."

"Aww, that's right…damn it…" Yoto slumped. He had this amazingly cool sword and no one to stab with it!

Meanwhile, Pester's focus finally broke away from Mistress Mayhem's chase when he noticed that all of their hostages had escaped. He gasped hugely and skidded to a stop, and Mistress Mayhem tackled him.

"STOP!" Pester exclaimed as he tried to escape Mistress Mayhem's grasp to no avail. "You have more important things to worry about than copulating with your clone!"

"Oh, really?" Mistress Mayhem smirked as she settled herself on Pester's thighs. "Like what?"

"Our hostages got out!" Pester practically shrieked. "They're just standing around over there! Quit chasing me and do something!"

"WHAT?" Mistress Mayhem rose to her feet, much to Pester's immense relief. "Which one of you bastards broke our marvelous machine?" She began walking slowly towards the group, her expression menacing. The sound of her high heels clicking against the floor was like a ticking time bomb.

Pester smirked to himself. This would be fun to watch…

All of the former hostages gave each other nervous glances, apart from Dastardos, who piped up: "It was kind of a joint effort."

Mistress Mayhem ignored Dastardos, but her stride increased to a brisk stomp. She walked right up to Arthur and stabbed a finger into his chest. Everyone else took a few steps back to get away from the intimidating woman, but Arthur stood his ground, his expression blank.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Mistress Mayhem hissed through clenched teeth. "I could see you trying to play the hero, trying to win the hearts of all these pretty little girls…" Mistress Mayhem looked over at Vilos and wrinkled her nose. "…and maybe even that old biddy!" She gave Beth a brief glance of disgust.

Beth growled, clenched her fists, and took two angry steps forward, but Gavin placed a firm hand on her shoulder to stop her.

Mistress Mayhem was starting to get a bit aggravated with Arthur's silence, so she grabbed him by his shoulders, shook him, leaned in awfully close to his unchanging face, and whispered: "We could use someone with your insolence…we should Sour you! You'd be one hell of a-GAAAAH!"

Mistress Mayhem staggered backwards and fell to the floor, her hand cupped over her left breast and her mask twisted with pain. Disgustingly-colored, viscous blood dripped between her fingers and splattered onto the floor.

"What did you do?" Pester shrieked and crushed his graduation cap in his hands. Sure, this woman had been chasing him with ill intentions mere moments before, but seeing someone with so powerful a presence reduced to her knees…? That was SCARY!

Arthur said nothing, he just smiled over his shoulder at Yoko and mouthed "thank yew."

Dastardos noticed Pester's current state of shock, and whipped to face Gavin and barked: "HEY, BIG GUY! Restrain him!" with a wild gesture towards Pester.

Gavin's reaction was instantaneous and he was practically a blur as he streaked across the room and hiked his arms under Pester's armpits. Pester's brain didn't even process what was going on until Dastardos floated right up to his face.

"Where the hell is it, Pester?" Dastardos spat his boss's name and Pester flinched when flecks of saliva landed on his nose.

"Say it, don't spray it, Dastardos," Pester spat right back. "Where the hell is what?"

"The way back home! I know you made one!" Dastardos clenched his free fist and his weapon of choice appeared in his other hand.

"Who says I did?" Pester sounded cocky despite his helpless position. "And why should I tell you, after you ruined my plan?"

"I won't break your face," Dastardos said nonchalantly as he examined The Whacking Stick.

"You wouldn't dare," Pester tried to wrench himself out of Gavin's grip, but Gavin held fast. Damn, he was strong!

There was a loud CRACK! as Dastardos smacked Pester right in the forehead of his mask. The crack that Mistress Mayhem had made earlier grew bigger and spread almost all the way across both sides of Pester's mask.

"How about now?" Dastardos asked with mock innocence and Pester's face heated up.

"God damn it, Dastardos, you will pay for your insubordination!" Professor Pester growled.

"Can I pay when we're home?" Dastardos was starting to get frustrated.

"I'm not leaving here without a proper clone!" Pester protested and began to struggle again. "You are to stay here with me until the machine is completed again, and then we'll-"

Dastardos' staff connected with Pester's mask again, and this time the mask split like an egg and fell to the ground.

"AGH!" Pester exclaimed and he instantly stopped jerking around. This was the first time in ages his mask had come off his face…he felt completely naked, even more violated than when Mistress Mayhem was sitting on him.

"Ugh…" Gavin's brow crinkled in disgust.

"Oh…!" Dastardos' crooked eyes widened and he brought The Whacking Stick back down to his side. Angry as he was, this was the first time he had ever seen Pester's face, so his one-track mind had screeched to a halt to take in the revolting sight before him.

The first thing Dastardos noticed was that Pester's nose was enormous. It was large, wide, hooked, and bleeding from the flared nostrils from Dastardos' barrage of beatings. Pester had the textbook 'villain' nose. Somewhere in his subconscious, Dastardos felt like he expected that one. Pester's lips were dry, chapped, and fishlike, and his eyes were the same pupilless acid green that they appeared to be through the mask. He had extremely thin, dark hair that was barely even an inch thick.

What a stupid face. That face was ten times more detestable than the mask. Dastardos wanted to smash it into an unrecognizable bloody pulp, but he couldn't do that. Not until he knew where the way home was.

Dastardos raised The Whacking Stick threateningly and Pester shouted "NO! WAIT!" Pester bowed his uncovered head. "If I tell you where it is, you'll let me go, right?"

"Finally, some results," Dastardos didn't lower the stick a single inch, though. "Where is it?"

"It's another gun," Pester licked his dry lips, his voice actually shaking. Like Dastardos, he wasn't the biggest fan of pain. "It's in one of the drawers under Mistress Mayhem's computer desk! Now let me go!"

"Hmm," Dastardos couldn't help grinning his twisted grin. "You like guns, huh? You have some deeply hidden desire to shoot yourself?" Dastardos wouldn't mind that at all.

"NO!" Pester exclaimed. "Guns are illegal on Piñata Island…and they're cool." He admitted the last part quietly.

"Of course they are…" Dastardos clicked his tongue and turned to face Seedos. "Hey, kiddo, check those drawers!" Dastardos pointed where Pester had directed him and Seedos gave him a firm salute before rushing over to check.

After riffling around for a moment, Seedos retrieved the gun and waved it in the air. "He wasn't lying for once!" Seedos laughed triumphantly.

"Good, you actually had some sense, Pester," Dastardos smirked at his boss. "I guess I can let-"

"HOLD UP!" Hearos boomed as he flew over to Dastardos' side. "You are not letting him go! Not yet!"

Dastardos moved over to give Hearos some room and Hearos leaned in obnoxiously close to Pester's uncovered face.

"I'm not letting you stay conscious until we're all out of here. I don't know the first thing about you, but if you were conspiring with Mistress Mayhem, you can't be good! Besides…" Hearos cracked his knuckles and his scowl intensified. "No one ties up my girlfriend and gets away with it! Hold 'em steady, Gavin!"

Pester's scream as Hearos landed the first punch could have been heard all the way on the other side of the Island.

Meanwhile, Mistress Mayhem had dragged herself over to the wall and had her back against it as she moaned, wallowing in her own pain.

Vilos finally noticed the handle sticking out of Mistress Mayhem's chest and she turned to gawk at Arthur.

"You stabbed her? You actually stabbed my boss?" Vilos sounded shocked, but there was a hint of delight in her tone. Arthur's ego would have swelled up like a gloating Lickatoad if he wasn't cross with her.

"It was in self-defense," Arthur asserted and folded his arms.

"I knew you were no good!" Mistress Mayhem groaned from the ground. "VILOS! Punish him!"

Arthur took a step back, a look of surprise on his mask. He wasn't too big on the idea of being on the receiving end of one of Vilos' infamous beatings. He was "lucky" enough to witness Vilos thrashing Patrice right in the middle of his garden. After all was said and done, Patrice was fully unconscious and that angelic face of hers…didn't look too angelic for a while. Vilos had actually pulled out a good chunk of the poor woman's hair, to boot. Arthur found himself placing a hand around his ponytail protectively.

"I…" Vilos started floating off towards a corner of the room, her maid skirt swirling around her slender legs as she floated along. "I have a better idea."

"Urgh…where are you going?" Mistress Mayhem rolled her woozy head around her neck once before she managed to make it face Vilos. She set her eyes on her just in time to see her bend to pick up the Vilos Shovel.

"Good, that should do some damage…" Mistress Mayhem brought her hand to the knife handle again, even if she was far too scared to pull it out. "That's my girl. Momma's proud…" Arthur felt his stomach turn when Mistress Mayhem burst into a sickening smile. Only someone as warped as her could smirk like that when she was covered in her own blood.

"Yes, it should do some damage…" Vilos chuckled to herself as she floated back over. Arthur was tempted to make a run for it; he wasn't in the mood to have his head bashed in, but he couldn't help drawing in a gasp of surprise when Vilos stopped in front of Mistress Mayhem. Vilos actually floated down so her feet touched the floor, looming over her collapsed boss despite her diminutive stature.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Mistress Mayhem screeched, her acid green eyes blazing with fear and anger.

"Something I've wanted to do for a long, long time," Vilos stated as the corners of her mouth lifted into a smirk.

Arthur couldn't help smiling when Vilos brought the shovel down over Mistress Mayhem's head.

He heard a drawn-out sigh next to him as Vilos continued to beat Mistress Mayhem down. Arthur turned to see Doc Patch with his one visible eye sparkling as much as a black eye could.

"Wh-what a woman! S-standing up to her b-b-boss like that!" Patch's voice was filled with admiration.

"Yeah," Arthur would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying the show. "Wot a woman."

After a good few minutes, both Professor Pester and Mistress Mayhem were lying in heaps on the ground, completely unconscious. Mistress Mayhem was quite a sight to behold; Vilos hadn't held back at all and had practically destroyed her mask and the face beneath it.

"When she wakes up, there's going to be hell to pay…" Vilos gripped the shovel in her hands much tighter. "I got caught up in the moment…ugh, I should have thought of what she's going to do when she wakes up! She's going to kill me. This is it…"

"Y-you can come back to my universe with me!" Patch offered much too eagerly.

"Um, no…" Vilos didn't even dignify Patch with a glance. "That's all right."

"I have a much better idea…" Dastardos floated over to Vilos and held out his hands. "Give me that shovel. I'm going to get rid of it. Something tells me your boss wouldn't want to spend a fortune on another shovel, especially since she wasted all of her money on that machine." Dastardos thumbed in the machine's direction.

"Only the tubes are broken," Vilos griped and slouched over. "That's not wasted money; she might try this shit again."

Dastardos quickly flew over to the machine, pulled out the Whacking Stick, and went to town on it. Once it was practically a pile of dented scrap metal, he returned to Vilos and offered her his hands again.

"That's a good amount of Chocolate Coins down the drain, I think," Dastardos smirked.

"You're the best," Vilos admitted with a smirk as she handed Dastardos the shovel. Patch felt a twinge of jealousy spark in his stomach.

"I'll throw it into the volcano…when I get home," Dastardos smirked and rested the shovel over his shoulder. "Speaking of home, who wants to get out of here? I know I do!" Dastardos retrieved the transportation gun from where Seedos had left it lying on a table.

"I do! I do!" Seedos and Yoto chorused as they ran over to Dastardos. Dastardos had never seen two people more eager to be shot in his life.

"Have a safe trip!" Yoko waved at them as they ran off. "Well, as safe as a villainous device can give, anyway!"

"Thanks for showing up when you did…Yoto, was it?" Hearos grinned at him. "If you hadn't shown up, who knows what could have happened!"

Yoto blushed profusely. If Hearos approved of his heroic actions…than Storkos certainly would! "Thanks, guys! And thanks for telling me I could make this sword, Yoko!" Yoto looked his sword up and down like it was a beautiful woman, his eyes lingering on the image of Storkos on the hilt for a good few seconds. "It was awesome meeting y'all! Hey, do you think-"

Yoto was cut off by Dastardos firing the portal gun at him and he promptly disappeared in a bright flash of light, sword and all.

"Sorry, he never knows when to shut up," Dastardos waved Yoko, Beth, Gavin, and Hearos off. "You guys can go home now. Sorry about the kidnapping shit. You know how villains are."

They all nodded and Yoko laughed goobaaishly before they all headed for the exit.

"So…you're leaving, then, Eddie?" Patrice sighed and rested her cheek against her hand. "J-just my luck…"

"You knew that from the beginning, Patrice…" Eddie's tone was delicate. He really, really didn't want to make her cry. Sure, he did his best not to get too attached to her, but he really should have considered the fact that she probably would get attached to him… "I have an important career at home, something I can't abandon. I have a garden that I'm proud of, too." Also a young lady he's crazy about and a wardrobe full of fantastic clothing, but Eddie figured it would be better not to tell Patrice about those.

"I…I can't leave either," Patrice's voice caught and Eddie's stomach tightened.

Oh, God, Patrice, please don't cry.

"Lots of people here…they count on me to help them. I'm sure a lot of people…um, rely on you as well," Patrice offered Eddie a wan smile. "We only knew each other for a couple days…and you're much younger than me, but…no man was ever so kind to me."

"Patrice, you're beautiful," Eddie gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "I'm sure you'll find someone, maybe someone even kinder than I am. You're quite the catch!"

Sure, Patrice would need to build up her confidence, but Eddie felt like his brief time with her might have helped her, even a little bit. Even with her eyes obscured by her bangs, Eddie could tell that she was beaming.

Patrice briefly removed her monkey helmet, threw her arms around Eddie, and gave him a sweet, lingering kiss.

"It…it…was v-v-very nice knowing you…" Patrice's entire face had erupted into a blush which Eddie could plainly see as she fixed her pink mask back into place. "Consider that a…um…a p-parting gift."

"Wow…um…" Eddie wasn't sure what to say, but his cheeks pinkened and he found himself saying: "Thank you, Patrice. I hope you have a happy life." He gave her one last lingering look before turning and heading towards his way home.

Patrice briefly brushed her fingers over her lips, smiling to herself.

She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but that had been her first kiss.

Eddie felt eyes on him and turned to see that they belonged to Patch, who was crossing his arms and pursing his lips as he tried to figure out what sense to make of what he just saw.

"Oh, shush," Eddie walked over to Patch and tugged onto his shirt sleeve. "She's a completely separate person than you are. Let's go home."

"W-wait! I need to…" Patch looked around the room frantically for Vilos, but both she and Arthur had disappeared. Patch slumped in mournful disappointment and dragged his feet as he let Eddie lead him over to Dastardos, who had already sent both Yoto and Seedos home.

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Vilos had dragged Arthur by the hem of his pants into the kitchen, saying absolutely nothing while she did it.

"Wot do yew want?" Arthur gritted his teeth as Vilos kicked the door shut behind them.

"I need to talk to you, you moron," Vilos huffed and finally released her grip on Arthur. "What the hell was with you earlier? I saved your ass and you were acting all pissy about it!"

"Pfft!" Arthur couldn't believe her. "I know very well that yew only saved me so yew can keep on using me to feed that little vampire of yours. Yew didn't even look the slightest bit upset when yew 'eard that I might die. All yew care about is stupid little Maggie." Arthur spat the piñata's name. "Yew don't give a single care about me. Just my money. Wot was I thinking, falling for a villainess? I'm so stu-wot are yew doing?"

When Arthur was in the midst of his soliloquy, Vilos had lifted up his mask and was looking at his face intently. She had expected Arthur to be handsome, but she never had a clear picture. His features were chiseled and attractive, but his nose was a little too big to be considered "perfect." Vilos didn't care; she felt something stir inside of her when she looked at Arthur's uncovered features. She never expected to unmask any men in her lifetime…

"I can't talk to you about this mask-to-mask," Vilos lifted up her own mask and left it resting askew on her forehead. "It has to be face-to-face…and also, you need to shut up for a minute."

The sight of Vilos' uncovered face was more than enough to make Arthur shut up. Showing one's face was intimate, private, something that someone who hated him would never do…he felt his stomach tie up into knots. Vilos was a twisted kind of beautiful; the scars and distortions from her Souring process gave her features a unique appearance. She was lucky to have kept her former looks; from what Arthur managed to see of Mistress Mayhem's face beneath the layer of blood, Vilos' boss hadn't been quite as fortunate.

Arthur's shock shot through the roof when Vilos floated closer to him, draped her arms across his shoulders, and kissed him.

Vilos had never kissed anyone before, not even back when she was Stellos. She wasn't quite sure what to do and she wound up biting Arthur's lip too hard. She tasted a bit of blood, but Arthur didn't seem to care. He dipped Vilos down and deepened the kiss.

As Vilos' long hair began to dance around Arthur , a red-masked head stuck through the kitchen door and a distinctly creepy voice called into the room:

"Hey, Vee, before I go, I'm going to go get Mag-" Dastardos started to explain, but once he took in the sight before him, he made a face and retreated right back through the door. Guess he'd be disappearing from this universe without a trace…no big deal.

Neither Arthur nor Vilos noticed him. They finally broke apart and Arthur gazed into Vilos' glowing eyes, his mouth agape.

"W-wot was th-that for?" Arthur spluttered.

"Don't stutter, you sound like Patrice, and she's the last person I want to make out with," Vilos smoothed her blood-stained maid dress. She was quite a sight to behold in it; if Arthur didn't know her better, he'd mistake her for a psychopath who got her kicks from some really twisted misadventures. "I was worried, you moron. I didn't want Mistress Mayhem to find out. When I thought that you were going to die, I just…" Vilos actually sounded choked up for a moment, but she quickly regained her cool. "No one ever wanted to help me, Arthur…I don't know too much about this stuff, but…" Vilos offered him the most honest smile she had ever given anyone in a while.

"I think I'm starting to see you as much more than my Life Candy slave," she confessed. "I wouldn't want to lose you. You're the only person in town who actually talks to me without running for the hills and screaming at the top of their lungs."

"Vilos…" Arthur raised his hand and cupped Vilos' bare cheek with it. "Don't worry. No matter wot 'appens, I'll make sure you're safe."

Vilos rested her own hand over Arthur's. "You're…going to have your work cut out for you, what with Mistress Mayhem and all of those gardeners that want my head…" She let a smirk slip through. "I think I'll owe you one…or twelve."

"I'm still not sure how yew did, but…yew saved my life, Vi," Arthur bent down to Vilos' level and gave her another quick kiss. "I think we're perfectly even."