Torrent and Cogs stood side-by-side in the throne room of a magnificent castle, which sat in the centre of a small city. The throne was made of gold-painted wood and red velvet, and sat solitary on its raised platform. The two Jacks' attention was focused on a woman standing in front of the throne, glaring twin holes through Cogs with deep brown eyes. Torrent's face was angled towards the floor, betraying hints of dread and fear, while Cogs looked down and away from the woman, an awkward feeling in his gut. The woman had black hair, styled into a single braid running down her back. She wore a red dress, running down to her ankles, and a small red crystal - similar to Cogs' - on a pendant around her neck. She walked up to Cogs, never taking her eyes off of him.

"I never knew you had the audacity to come back here after trying to kill me," she said.

"We both know that it wasn't me, Laura! We're practically the last Dragonhearts left here, considering that Joe Bob hasn't been seen for the last seven hundred years, and he doesn't really count!" Cogs rebutted.

"That's not what the Elves think," Laura said, "Their previous ruler appointed me as their queen, and as far as they know, an outsider waltzed in and tried to kill me, with no reason whatsoever. Granted, that's what happened, but they still think that you tried to kill me. They think you're just trying to shuttle the blame to Quintus."

Cogs closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. "You're right," he said, "but Torrent, my crew, and I need our weapons and tank back and access to the Temple of Asclepius. After that, we'll be gone. Okay?"

"I'll give you a pardon and a free pass, but after this, it's not my fault if you get lynched."

"Thank you," Cogs said. "You're a lifesaver, in more ways than one. We'll be off as soon as possible."

"Don't do this again."

"I won't."

Laura signalled to the guards at the throne room doors to escort Cogs and Torrent out, and ascended back to the throne.

Later, on the castle grounds, Cogs, Torrent, Andy, James, Jove, and Helen boarded the tank. The Royal Guard watched the Dragonheart and his friends go, and the tank chugged into the city, making its way to the strip of road in front of the Temple of Asclepius.

After a bit of complex maneuvering through the city streets to get the precise orientation the tank needed, Cogs surveyed the space the wormhole occupied. To anyone going fast enough, the wormhole would open, leading to a complex bit of terminal space that could be used to traverse dimensions. Cogs ducked into the tank, and addressed his crew.

"Torrent and I continue alone from here," he said, "You'll have to either wait here or walk back to the Garage."

The crew was miffed by this, and begrudgingly climbed out of the tank. Cogs climbed out of the commander's hatch and into the driver's seat, while Torrent took up the space he usually occupied while in the Starclimber's Sherman mode, manning the main gun. Cogs placed both hands on the tank's control levers, flexing his fingers.

"You ready, Torrent?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Closing all of the hatches on the tank, Cogs pushed both control levers as far forward as they would go. Gradually, the tank started to chug down the street. Gaining speed, Cogs had Torrent check the Dimension Drive, and make sure everything was in order. The tank raced down the city streets. Cogs felt a nervous feeling build up in his gut. What if the Dimension Drive was broken? What if the wormhole wasn't working? Cogs swallowed nervously. He'd come this far, and he wasn't going to chicken out. The tank reached the stretch of road in front of the Temple of Asclepius, and the tank started to shake and shudder as it raced through the wormhole and across time and space. The stretch of terminal space was reassuringly purple to Cogs, and he was about to let go of the controls when he remembered that Jack's whereabouts weren't in the Dark World.

"Hey, I just realized... This thing can't steer while in terminal space like this. Can your version of the Starclimber?"

"Yeah. One sec..."

Torrent pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. Clutching it securely, he opened the tank's hatch. The purple vortex snapped wind at his jacket, but Torrent refused to be sucked off of the tank. Pointing his screwdriver above his head, he activated it and kept it on for ten seconds. Surely enough, a few seconds after the sonic switched off, the Starclimber came to their location in the Time Vortex.

Torrent ducked into the tank and notified Cogs before leaping off of the tank, riding the winds to the Starclimber's rear hatch. Cogs followed him, and closed the hatch once both Jacks were in.

"My friends will be stranded without the XV-1," Cogs said.

"XV-1?"

"The tank's name. I don't think I mentioned it before, because it was just THE tank. XV-1 is short for Expeditionary Vehicle, Mark 1."

"Nice name. How do we get it back?"

"Can you tow it back?"

Torrent ran up to the pilot's chair, sat down, and started pushing buttons at an incredibly fast pace. Cogs watched as he linked a plasma cable to the XV-1, and set a course for Alflon. The Starclimber's Time Drive vworrped, and the previous departure point faded into view. The XV-1 swung underneath the Starclimber as gravity took effect, and Torrent used this to lightly drop the tank in front of the Elven city's gates.

"We'll probably be leaving after this," he said. "You'll have to make your goodbyes now."

Cogs nodded, then opened up the back hatch as the Starclimber landed. He proceeded down the boarding ramp, meeting his crew at the bottom.

"Well," he said, "James... Jove... Andy... Helen... It's been fun adventuring with you guys. My quest is taking me outside of this dimension, though, and I'm leaving you here to defend Steelvale. Take the tank back to Malinovka, and use whatever you need to in my Garage. Good luck."

With that, Cogs turned and reboarded the Starclimber. He nodded to Torrent, who detached the plasma cable, fired up the engines, and took the black spaceship into the space between universes, a confident grin on his face. Cogs watched as Torrent piloted the ship with expertise, and looked around.

"This is just as I remember writing it," he said. "Nice job keeping it in shape."

"That's just the beginning," Torrent said, "with something like this, you don't need to-"

The sentence was cut off as both Jacks were thrown to one side. The ship strained as it fought against the turbulence, but it was helpless against the aileron-roll that nearly catapulted the Starclimber out of the Time Vortex, and into whatever lay beyond.

-\|/-

Bound, gagged and bruised, Jack was dragged into the alien palace. Its blue stone walls rose into the starry sky, with circle-and-connector designs etched into the stone glowing a rich blue. The atmosphere had the appearance of midnight, but Jack wasn't cold. Quintus held Jack's bindings, dragging him across the throne-room design to... a throne. A strange, blue, transparent man with a galaxy shining from inside his chest sat on the throne, wearing a strange insectoid helm. He held a staff which was decorated with the same roundel design as the walls. A small portal could be seen inside the head of the staff. His eyes glowed white, watching Quintus drag Jack up to the throne. A prison area sat on the relative right of the room, which held a giant shipshape mech, a boy with styled black hair a little older than Jack dressed in red and yellow, a girl with long brown hair dressed in a blue-and-white checkered shirt and overalls, and a small, humanoid creature with frizzy brown hair, dressed in a brown coat, red vest, and black cloak. On the other side of the room was piled a vast array of weaponry, and between them sat a small square area, lowered from the floor and sealed off with a forcefield. Trinkets sat on top of their respective images, the group of which was a glowing green crystal, a small gold ring, a wooden chest, a pair of sparkly red shoes, a glowing green rod, and a steel-cased, flashing yellow triad. Quintus dragged Jack to the foot of the throne, where Jack looked around, groaning. He saw the man on the throne - would Galaxian be a good name for him? - and stared, silent. The Galaxian stared back, waiting. He turned to Quintus, and asked him a question.

"Where is the Foundation Element? Keeping prisoners around is only good if you get something for it."

"The Foundation Element is on his person, Lord Vortech. His necklace is the key."

The Galaxian - Jack supposed his name was Vortech - leaned forward, inspecting Jack. He sat back, and instructed Quintus on what to do.

"Take it from him."

Quintus walked up to Jack, raised him by the collar, tore off Jack's pendant, and dropped Jack to the floor mercilessly. He tossed the crystal to Vortech, who caught it with the portal on his staff. The crystal warped to the forcefield, descended beneath it, and came to rest on top of an image of it. Jack suddenly felt an immense pain, like his heart was being torn out. He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, and curled up into a ball. He had never known any pain like this before, even in all of his wandering across Steelvale. The world went dark around him, leaving nothing but Jack, the pain, and an empty blackness.

-/_\-

Me: Well, that's one more universe to cross off of the list!

Cogs: Now, let's not forget who the star was in this whole thing...

Torrent: ME!

Cogs: Well, I was going to say ME, but considering we're the same person, I'll let that slide.

Me: Oh-kayyy... ANYway, welcome Cogs to the Starclimber's crew!

Cogs: Aww... You don't have to do that!

Me: It's actually policy...

Cogs: ...

Me: Not!

Cogs: (Sarcastic) You totally had me there...

Torrent: While these two sort out what's what, I'll take the liberty to say please leave a vote if you liked this! Also, if you have a question for any of the characters, please say so in the comments. Same goes for universe requests! Until next time!