*Denotes Thoraxian*

The literal and metaphorical dust had begun to settle as Gnalmij's body was hauled away while K'ciuq and Giarc slowly came too finding themselves arrested. In a perfect world, this would be where their raid would end and the two prisoners would go on to be tried for crimes against the galaxy….

…But Admiral Enel-R'ahma U'thrmdugyl had not set foot on a perfect world.

One by one, her commandos began to bring up their human prisoners of the insurrectionists; all of whom thus far were rendered unconscious by the sleeping agent. It isn't until they inspect K'ciuq's vessel that the ramifications of this half-baked plan are fully realized. They find one more earthling still very wide awake, and rightfully mad. Not helping was one of one unfortunate soldier's error in trying to get her to calm herself.

"Earthling. I must advise you to heed-"

Rightfully, Helga was having none of it. She grabbed the soldier by the collar and gave him a front row seat to an outburst one can only describe as volcanic.

"You my friend are in no position to advise me about squat. Why? Let's review; I woke up pretty stoked to find out that my husband and I would be bringing another life into this world. That is until I learned he had his brain fried to the point of a drastic and out of character personality change. As if that weren't enough my kids were kidnapped, my in-laws were murdered, and me being whisked to space while my family dies. Now, I know it's usually your job to say this in situations like this, but take me to your leader. Otherwise, I have a feeling that Ol' Betsy here is going to take one giant leap for all mankind."

"I see the commander's journal was far from exaggerated."

Both Helga and the sentinel turned around slowly. Between her bearing and uniform there was no mistaking her for anything other than someone of rank. She stood at least six feet even without her boots and her skin was smooth and green. Upon the right half of her chest were clusters of medals and ribbons commendations.

"We have heard a great deal of you, Helga Pataki; a specimen of great passion and talent-"

"Yeah, yeah, your little friend already pitched me the job of 'sycophantic child-bearing receptacle.'" she shoots back. "Not interested. Now more importantly what have you done with my family?"

"Your family has been taken to our mother ship for safety. This mission of our 'little friend' as you call him has made quite the mess on your planet, and I am afraid this will not do. You have to come with us so we can fix it."

"And what if I don't?"

Earth.

The third rock from the sun.

Few in their lifetime will ever get the chance to see their world for the insignificant tri-colored marble it truly is when contrasted to the infinite void that we humans call outer space.

After slowly turning her head, Helga Pataki dared herself to glance out the window and join those few as the spaceship carrying her friends and family departed the galaxy. Her demeanor has long since pacified upon reunification with her family and friends, though the gravity (so to speak) of her fortune of seeing Earth from this perspective also left her transfixed. Upon ascension into space, the chamber is filled with a gas replicating the Earth's atmosphere so as not to cause everyone to choke to death.

Still, they are rightfully agitated and inquisitive of what methods the Thoraxians are to employ in fixing this mess. The windows turn into a giant screen which shows their city. Heavy and pendulous clouds fill the seasick green sky which release a steady stream of precipitation. In time, the little dribbles of showers turn to tumultuous raindrops falling to earth, soaking everything in their path.

"It's the only way we could make them forget in such a short window of time." The Admiral tells them. "This rain has the same chemical properties that altered Arnold's mind and began this whole stupid mess in the first place."

"Hey, while you've got all this space hoo-hah that spits in the eye of science as we know it; you wouldn't happen to have anything on hand that could…oh, BRING MY MURDERED PARENTS BACK TO LIFE?!" Arnold shouted.

The pall of silence that followed ship slowly answered Arnold's question. But it was the Admiral's pitiful stare that caused his temper to give way to despondency. Rightfully inconsolable, his stature crumples as he sits in the corner and cries.

"Mom...dad…

[…its me."]

[The fortress curtain is peeled back by the Green-Eyed People's child guards. I alone step forward to my parents as they lie (seemingly in state) on a stone bed. Entwining their hands together is an amulet, most likely put there for good luck, as they battle out the same Sleeping Sickness they were meant to cure deep in the San Lorenzo jungle. The disease that robbed them from me for the most formative stages of my life.]

[A cold air greets me as I fully pass the threshold, snuffing out the sun and any light provided therein. One by one everyone in my presence; Gerald, Helga, Eduardo, the Green-Eyes and their chief has vanished leaving me and my comatose parents.]

[Each step I take closer to them causes them to rot. Dad's hair falls out in clumps, and putrefied skin slides off his frame revealing a skeleton without a mouth. The blanket around them turns to tatters, revealing a cavernous hole in my mom's body before it too decomposes into nothing. I look down to see a cavity where my heart once existed, a gust of wind containing that horrid and telltale odor of death blows through it before enveloping the equally empty and decrepit chamber.]

[Is this what this last year of my life amounts to?]

[Is this what greets me after all these years of uncertainty and stories?]

[Is this my reward for facing off river pirates, being duped by La Sombra, briefly obtaining the contempt of my classmates, escaping a prison and traversing a jungle?]

[Like a violent storm, an apocalyptic thunder clap fills the air; causing the already somber and colorless sky to rip in two. If anything remained of Stella and Miles or their chamber, the rumble caused it to shatter irreparably. Pieces fall about me, crashing to the earth like raindrops as I still stand on a sturdy yet unknown grounding. Yet, rather than opaque stone fragments and skeletal smithereens, these pieces are almost like bits of broken glass; playing back my life beyond the jungle with Mom and Dad.]

[I kneel close to one fragment and see them waking up. "Hey…Arnold." They say in unison upon waking up after a decade of affliction. In another fragment, I watch them meet Helga (officially) for the first time at the boarding house. On and on I go, and more memories play like snippets; the milestones of graduations, weddings and welcoming grandchildren. The little moments like helping with homework, or a simple picnic in the park at sunset].

[Suddenly, I feel a hand gently touching my shoulder. I look up to see Eleanor kneeling beside me. I always knew she inherited a great deal in the looks department from Grandma Stella, but it never really struck me until now.]

["I'll…I miss them Eleanor…"]

["I know. We are all going miss them. But you're still alive Arnold, and you've got friends and family who need you, and are willing to help as you cope."]

["There was just so much more for them though…So much we…"]

[The sound of footsteps fills the void. Eleanor and I look up to see Helga join us. Each step as tender and timed as the day she walked down the altar to be my wife. By some force of gravity, all the pieces congregate at her feet and begin to give off a faint glow. The fractals bond themselves together as she scoops the fractals into her hands.

["I have something that might work."]

[Holding her hands out, Helga places the newly forged shards into the space within my chest. It glows with memory after memory like a wall of screens. Finally, she and Eleanor reach their hands out to me.]

["It's time for us to go Arnold…Arnold…"]

"…Hey Arnold."

With a crisp shake of his head, Arnold finds himself back on the spaceship with his friends and family. Upon seating himself, he joined his friends in watching Hillwood be cleansed by the rainstorm from the screen. Finally, The Admiral came to them again letting the group know that they would be returning to earth within the next hour.

"…Would you like to say goodbye to your parents Arnold?"

"Say goodbye?" Helga interjected with rage. "You don't mean…NO! Hasn't everyone here suffered ENOUGH indignities today without you dumping my in-law's corpses somewhere past the moon?"

"Helga…" Arnold began weakly.

"Miles and Stella will be interred on Earth after a funeral-"

"-Where morticians will most likely see their wounds, and think you and your husband are lunatics when you tell them they died at the hands of life forms from outer space?" The Admiral replied dryly.

Helga opened her mouth for a moment, but deflated quietly upon trying to give a rebuttal. Turning to her husband for back up, she is shocked to instead receive a gentle pat on her hand; a silent affirmation that he is oddly at peace with this decision. Nonetheless, she remains far from assuaged and demands hows and whys as to how their earthly remains will be addressed.

"We have been restoring a memorial dedicated to Y'niarb that had been destroyed under the latter half of the Second Orbit-" The Admiral said.

"Kreptikhon Patyri."

All eyes turned slowly towards Jack's direction, but it was The Admiral who seemed the most inquisitive of the bunch. Sensing their collective curiosity, he told them that the monument in question was 'The Patriot's Tomb' and was constructed after Y'niarb went AWOL after faking his death on Earth, but destroyed in the wake of his insurrection.

*"What Earthling are you that can converse in our tongue and know of our history?"*

*"Jack Partfine of New York and Connecticut. Former NYU Professor of Biology. Enthusiast of Cryptozoology and the Paranormal."*

This information causes The Admiral's disposition to loosen considerably; now awestruck at the sight of Jack as if he was Elvis, her eyes widen and her speech betrays her.

*"Your book Moth Man Balls is required reading at our Military Academies. It helped us clench victory in our 7891 War with Saturn. I have always wanted to meet you…but everyone said I was crazy!"*

Suddenly the chamber door opens an in steps another member of the Thoraxian Army. Pulling the Admiral aside, the news he relates in hushed tones causes her mood to deflate. Even with the language barrier, the earthlings know the news is far from good. Nonetheless she timidly makes her way back to them.

"Spit it out sister." Helga snidely remarks.

"There appears to be a complication with your return plans-"

"Define 'complication'."

"Our plan was to return you back to your planet through an Audio-Vibratory Physio-molecular Transport Device once the rain had subsided-"

"Like a laser beam or something?" Gerald asked.

"Precisely." The Admiral replied. "but there appears that we don't have enough means for all of you."

"Couldn't you stuff one of us on a pod or space ship or something and-" Phoebe began

"No. Laser transport is the most inconspicuous way." The Admiral said flatly. "And since we only packed enough crystallized Polonium Radonite hoping to beam my commandos to and from Earth, we only have enough left to power a singular one-way trip to Earth for nine of you. One of you must stay back."

Jack Partfine took a deep breath, but before the bald and scrawny man had any chance to forfeit his return to Earth, he could feel the eyes of his fellow prisoners turn slowly in his direction. The collective looks on their faces said more than he ever could. He seethes caustically, peeved by having his agency in the matter robbed from under his feet.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Helga began. "As much as we'd love to hear you wax sacrificially about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or…whatever, some of us have actual lives back on Earth we'd be more than happy to-"

"What my friend is saying, and rather acerbically, is that-" Phoebe interjected.

"I know, I know." Jack said giving his former colleague a reassuring squeeze on her hand. "Earth has nothing left for me. You'll get no argument from me. I live in an RV cluttered with paranormal paraphernalia; meager commissions to fringe periodicals about Bigfoot are my main source of income. The closest relationship I ever had with a woman ended awkwardly when my dog became obsessed with the idea that her pet squirrel was some thousand-year-old Nordic rodent deity with plans of world domination…anyway, my point is that it just felt a little impersonal to be shoved off is all."

"Admiral." The Lackey said. "The transport device is almost ready."

"I'll never forget you Jack." She said giving Jack a firm but platonic hug goodbye before returning back to her friends. "You made New York a pretty colorful time."

Finally gathered together in a chamber the size of a large elevator shaft, Arnold, Helga, Phoebe, Gerald, Olga, Lila, Eleanor, Cecil and Thomas had 30 minutes to drink in one final view of their planet within the grand scheme of the galaxy; relieved in the knowledge that they had reached the finish line of a traumatizing 24 hours. Yet while the end of the woods was close at hand, question after question about where this experience would take them going forward upon returning bounced around their brains like the hollow balls in a lottery machine. Outside their chamber, The Admiral watched the minutes tick away into seconds. Before long, the transport device had reached full capacity to send everyone back home. A burst of light filled the room as the nine earthlings hurdled their way through the vast recesses of space and back amidst their home somewhere on that that collection of gasses and rock.