A/N: Okay, so I've got a bit of an announcement to make. I've had the first 44 chapters of ATE bound into a book that's just under 400 pages. If you are reading this on FFNet or AO3, you can find pictures of the test copy I had made for myself on my DeviantArt account Courage09. Since the test copy does not seem to have any issues with it, I'm going to be giving away a second copy to one of you guys in celebration of the tenth anniversary of All Things End and as a thank you for taking the time to read this monstrosity that I've put my heart and soul into. The only limitation I'm putting in place is that you must be located in the US to enter. I don't have any experience with shipping overseas so to avoid any problems I'm going to have to stick with domestic shipping. PM me on either FFNet or DeviantArt and your name will be entered. If you are seeing this on AO3, since I don't think it has a PM system, you will have to use one of the other two if you want to enter. I will be picking a winner on January 1st, so make sure you enter before then. I am paying for everything out of my own pocket, shipping and all, so the only thing you need to take into account is that you have to be okay with giving me your shipping info if your name is the one picked.

I would like to have a few more of these made over the course of the year, so if you don't get picked the first time you will likely get another chance. Just understand that I am not exactly rolling in cash so I can only have more of these printed when I have enough money put aside to do so. No profit is being made on this, nor am I asking for any money. This is very small scale, labor of love, 'giving back to the community' sort of thing. I do not want to give the copyright gods even the slightest reason to think that money is being made on this. These books are meant as a gift and are for personal use only. Aside from that, there may also be some delays getting more of these books made and shipped out because of various slowdowns due to the virus. Unless something happens though, the first copy I'm giving away should reach the winner by the end of January.

I gotta say, it feels really weird to hold a tangible copy of something that I've been working on for so long. It also helps put things into perspective too. If ATE were a physically printed book series, and if the text was left as it is now, it would be around eight to nine books long. If the text was reformatted to better fit a printed medium, it would still be around six to seven books long. ATE is not so much one big novel as it is an ongoing book series that I just never had the forethought to split up into smaller chunks like I should have. I gotta say too, since I had to skim through a lot of my old work to get this book put together, it looks like my prose has improved quite a bit since then, or at least it looks like it has to me. I seriously doubt that I've reached 'professional' quality yet, especially since I still suck serious ass at revising and editing, but I'm glad to see that I'm continuing to improve as a writer bit by bit.

Chapter 116: When The Walls Come Down

Courage opened his eyes only to be blinded by the overhead lights. A dull ache pulsed inside his chest that radiated outward and caused the rest of his torso to hurt as well. Every breath he took was uncomfortable and he could feel his heart beating in time to the painful pulsing inside his chest. He was laying on what felt like a stiff bed and he was covered by something that seemed to be more like a thin sheet of paper than a blanket. Much to his happiness and relief though, Computer's vast presence was still with him.

In his post-surgery delirium he couldn't help but ask, "Am I alive?"

"No, you're dead and this is hell. I'm only here because I'm your eternal punishment."

Courage groaned at the joke and then groaned even louder when he tried to sit up and only sent a jolt of pain through his body.

"Yeah, about that. You probably shouldn't move around yet." Computer warned him...two seconds too late.

"Did...did everything go okay?" Courage asked, his voice somewhat strained.

Computer took on a hesitant tone. "Oh, well...I hope you didn't need that kidney for anything. And you may be missing a few ribs too. Oh, and your heart? Well, let's just say there were several fountains of blood involved and you became like one of those water geysers, only with, you know, blood...and they might have had to replace it with a hamster running on one of those wheels afterword."

Courage's eyes had widened further and further with every word Computer spoke, and now he could only reply by squeaking in speechless horror.

"...I'm kidding." His companion relented.

"DON'T JOKE ABOUT STUFF LIKE THAT!" Courage cried out, only to have that immediately turn into another painful groan because the chest movement involved in yelling like that only managed to inflame the pain in his torso even worse.

"Sorry, sorry!" Computer chuckled. "I couldn't resist."

Courage blinked and turned his head to the side to try and figure out where he was. It looked as if the SCC had returned him to that room that had been acting as their prison for days now.

"They've upgraded our accommodations." Computer spoke, sensing Courage's thoughts. "We get a crappy cot and a complementary blanket made out of paper. I guess they couldn't afford to throw in a pillow made out of cotton balls or something."

"Compute, seriously, how did the surgery go?"

"It wasn't a disaster, I'll give you that. I'd rather not have to go through anything like that again, but overall it went well."

Courage was surprised to hear that. "It went well? Really?"

It didn't seem possible that the surgery could happen without something going horribly wrong in the process.

"Amazing, I know." Computer quipped.

"You aren't lying to me, are you?"

"Why would I lie about this?"

"Because you would if it meant hiding it from me that you got hurt, or that we both almost died during the surgery, or-"

"I promise you that nothing bad happened. The machine was removed without any sort of hassle, exactly like I was expecting, and not once did your vitals drop during the whole affair. As for me, while I did not exactly enjoy having the body I'm inhabiting dissected while I'm aware of what's going on, it wasn't the end of the world either. Trust me, I've been through worse. Much, much worse."

Courage offered him a sympathetic nod. "Thank you for going through that for my sake."

Computer responded with an indignant sniff. "Maybe don't go getting yourself infested with weird machines again, hmm?"

Courage laughed at that. "Well, I've still got one that I need to get rid of then."

…...

He spent what was likely four or five days in recovery. It was difficult to know the exact time frame while stuck in that room. For the first day or so, the SCC had doctors checking in on him for what had to have been a near hourly basis. When it became clear that he wasn't under threat of some medical emergency occurring post-surgery, they had stopped visiting quite so often. Thankfully, it had not taken very long for him to be able to sit up and start moving around again either. He'd managed it only a few hours after the surgery, and while it had still hurt quite a lot, with every day that went by, the pain lessened.

He had managed to convince one of the SCC personnel who routinely checked on him to give him something to read. They'd brought him a few magazines that had likely come from the lobby of the building, still sitting there from when this place had been evacuated and made into a makeshift HQ for the SCC. None of the magazines were particularly interesting, but he was so bored that he decided to read them anyway. Never before had he believed that he could get anything out of a magazine about 'current fashion trends' that was ten years out of date...

To make matters worse, it was during this escapade of his into the world of outdated fashion that he found out that Computer could read much, much faster than him, and what good was reading to stave off boredom when you were stuck feeling the boredom of someone who had already finished reading the same page as you five minutes beforehand? At least Computer's running commentary had made Courage's newfound 'interest' in fashion a little more amusing. ("Humans really do decorate themselves in the strangest nonsense. You might as well run around naked and spare yourself the embarrassment of being seen wearing THAT.")

Courage had slept a lot during those long and boring days as well. Partly because of the sheer boredom involved, partly to help in his recovery, and partly to spare his brain. There was a strange sort of creeping exhaustion that was slowly overtaking his mind and thoughts, and no amount of sleep seemed to fully relieve it. It often manifested itself as a chronic headache, and Courage could sense a certain sluggishness whenever he tried to recall specific info and memories. Even though it was not something that Computer wanted or could control, he was inevitably taking up enough of Courage's brain processing that it was having a negative effect on his host. Both of them understood on some unspoken level that there was no way their current situation could possibly last. It just wasn't sustainable. Eventually this was going to do irreparable harm to Courage's mind, and the situation was already well on its way to reaching that point. But how on earth were they going to get Computer into a different body? Elizabeth wasn't going to help them. She was perfectly content to let Courage's brain turn into a burnt out husk.

For the time being, all Courage could do was sleep while Computer plotted. Albeit, none of his plots to escape had any real chance of working. Like Courage, he was finding his own ways of alleviating boredom, and at least he was giving his seething hatred for the SCC some form of outlet...

What certainly didn't help Courage's attempts to save his brain was that his dreams continued to trouble him with a distressing level of consistency. It seemed that every time he closed his eyes he would see some horrible fate befalling himself and the people he cared about. The Constructs were always there in his dreams too, either watching him meet a painful end or actively participating in it. His nightmares got so bad that by the second day of his recovery Computer had started to pester him about why he kept waking up in a near panic. Computer was stuck feeling his adrenaline response just as strongly, and he often felt Courage's fear as he slept through those nightmares, so there was no way to hide the truth from him. Courage had been left with little other choice but to open up about what he was seeing in his nightmares and Computer's alarm had taken him by surprise.

He had told him then, "Be careful! The amalgamation still has access to your mind through the Dreamworld! When you see them in your nightmares, you're likely seeing the real thing! So much time has passed that I'm sure they're getting impatient and expanding their influence outward."

But, neither of them could do anything about the intrusion, so Courage had to go on dreaming his horrible dreams while the Constructs watched or actively did harm to him. Although, much to his surprise, not long after Computer's warning, something about his dreams had started to change, as though the Constructs had been listening to them. It was a gradual change at first, but eventually his chronic nightmares became something far less hellish. At first it had been a relief, but he had soon realized that the Constructs had found an entirely new way to torment him.

His new dreams seemed to always center around him living his life on the farm like normal, only now Computer was a permanent part of his family. He no longer existed only as that computer up in the attic, but he was also living out his life in that dog body of his. Courage was often taken aback by just how happy the four of them were. Sure, Eustace would grumble about their being another Stupid Dog around, but it did nothing to dampen their happy existence. Over and over again Courage saw the bright, comforting future that he so desperately wanted, a future that he was steadily becoming more and more convinced could never be.

So often Computer's despairing words echoed in his mind, 'No matter what we do, there is no happy ending waiting for us at the end of all this.'

Perhaps that was why no matter how happy his new dreams were, he often felt such dread while partaking in that happiness. An ominous atmosphere colored every facet of it. He could be having the time of his life with his beloved family and it would still feel like some horrible doom was hanging over their heads. It seemed to affect his fellow dream-family as well. Sometimes he would notice Computer seemingly catch something out of the corner of his eye and briefly turn back to where he had been looking, often with a vaguely fearful expression. When Courage would ask him about it, he would simply shake his head and say that he wasn't sure what he saw.

At first Courage had not noticed it himself, but soon he caught on to their presence. It started in the windows first, often at night. He would catch the briefest glimpse of a face or multiple faces peering in through a window, always sliding just out of view before he could get a good look. He knew those faces though, even if they were evading his direct line of sight. Regardless, those brief glimpses of the white, ghost-like faces, twisted up in unimaginable agony, left him nearly screaming in terror every time he saw them.

The phenomenon worsened with every day that went by and every new dream he had. He would catch them in reflections, like the darkened screen of the TV and sometimes even in Computer's own darkened monitor. He would catch them in mirrors too. A twisted face would be peaking over his shoulder in his reflection and he would turn around to find nothing there. When not directly behind him in those reflections, he would instead find them peaking out from behind furniture or through doorways, and when he checked the actual thing, nothing would be there.

No matter how happy his dreams might have been during those last few days of his recovery, he was so paranoid while experiencing them that he could hardily enjoy it. Even his dream-family seemed to become wracked with fear and paranoia the longer it went on. They would try to put on a happy face for his sake, but he could tell that they were just as scared as him.

That ever growing sense of doom seemed to reach a fevered pitch when Courage began seeing a twisted, deformed figure lurking silhouetted out on the flat horizon of Nowhere. Every time he looked through a window, regardless of which side of the house he was looking out of, he could see it there, getting closer with every glimpse. Sometimes it looked as if it were just shamble back and forth, as though such a twisted mass could possibly pace like a human. Other times it seemed to do nothing but stand there twitching rapidly or writhing as if it were in unspeakable pain.

Desperate, Courage had tried to get Computer to look out at the figure, just to make sure he wasn't going crazy, but his companion had firmly refused. In fact, he had looked hurt that Courage would dare ask him to do such an awful thing. Any companionship Courage might have shared with that figment of his dream ended there, their relationship having somehow become irreparably broken. After that point, Computer tended to act like he wasn't there at all, and when Courage tried to force some sort of interaction with him, he would barely acknowledge him and end their conversations as quickly as possible.

With every new nap, the conditions of his dreams had only worsened. His dream-family kept their heads down now, refusing to look up unless they absolutely had to. They were all deeply fearful and made little effort to hide it. Whenever they ate dinner, Courage could hear the clattering of silverware as they all quietly shivered. Any happy chatter they used to share at times like this had gone silent.

Outside of his dreams, it wasn't all bad though. Even as his relationship with his fake family fell apart, he'd never been closer to the real Computer. With very little to do in that room, they spent a lot of time just talking with each other. Boredom tended to steer their conversations in random directions, especially since they had long since run out of relevant topics to discuss. As abrasive as Computer's personality could often be, Courage found that talking with him for long periods of time like this did not lead to arguments or conflict anywhere near as much he might have once expected. Computer was easy enough to talk to and he could be plenty fun to converse with when he wasn't being his usual huffy self. Courage didn't blame him for it, of course, and he understood perfectly well why he was the way he was, but it was nice to talk with him and to just have them both be on the same level with each other. It still took him by surprise whenever Computer laughed so openly and genuinely. It just wasn't like him to be that way, and even though it was undeniably a change worth celebrating, Courage still found it a little surreal. He was beginning to suspect that what he was seeing was simply the person Computer truly was under all of those layers of cynicism, bitterness, sadness, and suffering. He hoped that this trend would continue, in spite of all the painful realities surrounding the both of them. He wanted to keep trying to bring out this happier part of his beloved companion. Computer more than deserved to be happy for a change.

And while Computer did continue to try and keep what little distance he could between himself and Courage's own consciousness, at least when Courage was awake, it seemed that every time Courage woke up from a nap, no matter how bad his dreams were getting, he'd find himself mentally surrounded by that cracked glass feeling. Computer would deny that it was intentional every single time Courage teased him about it, but the results remained the same. Not that Courage minded. And even though Computer could not sleep in his current state, he could rest, and essentially relax a little. He seemed to reap the same benefits Courage did, both mentally and physically, from sleeping, even if he was not the one to do the sleeping. That might have been part of the reason why Courage often woke up from one of his bad dreams, surrounded by that overbearing presence, overcome with a profound sense of peace that did not belong to him, and as invasive as the feeling was, it was welcomed. It made him happy but also so very sad to know that somehow only a few comforting words on his part had somehow been enough to bring about this level of peace and acceptance in Computer about his own shattered being. It was very clearly a great relief to him to not have to feel like it was something he needed hide from Courage, or try to spare him of, or feel shame in, or have to worry that Courage might judge him for the sorry state he was in or that he might recoil in disgust. To have had his fears and insecurities assuaged, irrational or not, meant everything to him, and Courage was left dismayed that something so small could have had such a profound impact.

It was on that forth or fifth day, after having yet another frightening dream, he was lying there on his 'complementary' cot, sprawled out and staring dully up at the ceiling tiles.

"I'm telling you, there's a face." He muttered out, eyes half lidded with boredom.

"There's nothing there. It's all just a bunch of dots. I think you've finally gone insane from boredom."

Courage pointed upward. "See? Right there. Eyes, nose, mouth? It's a face!"

"It's just a bunch of dots on a ceiling tile." Computer dryly repeated.

Trying to do the ceiling equivalent of cloud watching with Computer was apparently an exercise in futility. Maybe it was an Organic Being Thing to see patterns where there are none, because Computer seemed incapable of seeing any sort of images in those dots.

...But it was a pretty dire situation either way if they were resorting to such a boring game to save themselves from even deeper levels of boredom.

What had to be the morning or lunch delivery of the dog food arrived, and Courage dutifully picked it up and downed it in one gulp. He had reached such levels of depravity that he barely even minded the taste at this point.

"You sure you were just joking about me dying on the operating table?" He asked his companion. "Because I'm starting to think that maybe this really is hell."

"It wouldn't surprise me if it was." Computer quipped back.

With a sigh, Courage flopped back down onto the cot. It was more of a thin mattress than anything. It didn't even have a frame so it had been placed directly on the floor and that only helped to make it even more stiff and uncomfortable to lay on. It was all Courage had though, so he made use of it.

He closed his eyes, feeling listless from the lack of anything to do. He barely even noticed when his mouth begin to move on its own.

"Courage?"

He grunted out a vague noise that resembled the word, 'Yeah?'

"What are the odds that Elizabeth wouldn't tell us that she is about to start her plans to destroy my siblings?"

Courage opened his eyes. "Likely." He answered, trying not to sound alarmed.

"Maybe she's done it already and we just don't know?" Computer offered, although not even he sounded like he believed himself.

Given the amalgamation's continued presence in his dreams, Courage seriously doubted that they were dead...unless they had decided to make a career out of haunting him.

"Well, no matter how this shakes out, my siblings have another thing coming if they think I'm going to let them infest you again." Computer assured with a haughty sniff.

Courage smiled at his overconfidence, but under the facade he could feel his companion's wariness and fear that this was going to end in disaster. It felt so similar to the near apocalyptic atmosphere of Courage's dreams that he was starting to wonder if maybe Computer was somehow affecting them.

Drifting off into another nap, Courage fell asleep comforted by the possibility that maybe he had this all wrong. Maybe it wasn't really the Constructs invading his dreams. Maybe it was just Computer's thoughts and emotions affecting him. It was entirely possible that Computer's conscious mind could have some sort of unexpected influence over his sleeping one. That would certainly explain the strange turn his dreams had taken after explaining his nightmares to him.

Well, that comfort did not last. An outright oppressive atmosphere had filled the farmhouse to bursting. Muriel and Eustace sat in the living room, keeping their eyes fearfully trained on the TV, even though they could not actually be watching anything because it only displayed static. Both of them were gripping the arms of their chairs like a lifeline.

Computer was gone entirely. Courage checked the house five times over for him but even the PC in the attic had disappeared. He had wanted to check the barn and the chicken coop for him as well, but every time he considered going outside such an intense fear overtook him that he could not so much as reach for the doorknob without being overcome and turning away in fright.

If there was only one thing that had improved about this reoccurring dream of his, it was that he was no longer seeing the faces in the windows and in reflections. And as much as he feared to look outside, he couldn't help but notice that the silhouetted figure was gone as well.

Why, then, was there such an oppressive atmosphere?

Night came with a startling suddenness and both Muriel and Eustace got to their feet with just as much suddenness. Courage jumped, feeling as though a predator had just tried to pounce on him.

"Time for bed!" Muriel announced in a panicky tone, all while keeping her eyes trained to the floor.

They were skipping supper entirely, and as silly as that was to concern Courage, this missing act in his reoccurring dream only helped to increase his dread tenfold. He felt as though he were walking into the jaws of some unseen monster.

Warily, he followed his family upstairs. He couldn't help but stop in the attic one last time, all while desperately wishing Computer was still there with him. The attic itself looked entirely normal, only that the machine that was supposed to be atop the desk was gone. It was this normalcy, missing one key element, that disturbed him so greatly.

Whimpering, he went to join what remained of his family. They were already in bed and fast asleep, or at least pretending to be asleep. Bright moonlight shined in through the window, and something about that ignited a strange and nearly primal fear in Courage. He knew something about it was wrong, even though there was nothing about it that truly looked unusual to his eyes. He loathed to move forward and allow himself to become bathed in that silvery light, but he had to if he wanted to get on the bed.

To his great relief, nothing happened, even as his fur turned white under the baleful glare of the moon. He climbed into bed without issue and laid down in his customary spot at the foot of the bed. He closed his eyes, but he could not sleep, perhaps because he was already asleep and what sort of dream within a dream could he possibly have?

Somehow though, even whilst directly under that hateful sort of moonlight, he began to relax a little. The dream almost began to feel normal, like he was actually back home in Nowhere. He missed this, sleeping at the foot of the bed while having the comfort of knowing that his family was safe for the time being. Well...most of them.

And then he began to feel as though he were being watched...

He refused to open his eyes. Absolutely refused. He knew nothing good would come of it.

But then he heard Computer's voice and he was so beside himself with worry for his companion's safety that he couldn't help it.

He opened his eyes. And he immediately wished he hadn't.

Directly in front of his nose, peaking up over the edge of the bed, was a twisted, ghostly face, contorted in eternal agony.

He screamed and backed away as fast as he could. He only stopped once he was between Eustace and Muriel, who were still blissfully asleep, or at least pretending to be.

The screaming face of the Construct began to rise, revealing the rest of the melted mass of tormented faces. The entire bedroom began to fill with their warped presence, until everywhere Courage looked, all he could see were those horrific expressions melting from one into the other.

Like his first dream, an arm made out of many arms reached out for him. The hand, too, was made entirely out of hands.

He pressed himself up against the wall, but there was nowhere to go. They were everywhere. Their melted form was even beginning to engulf the bed.

'We gave you one chance.'

The chorus of voices boomed in his ears, threatening to deafen him with their noise.

The arm split apart, becoming something resembling the branches of a grotesque tree. More hands than he could ever count slowly reached for him, closer and closer.

'And you have failed us.'

The many voices of the amalgamation sounded...betrayed?

Before he could say or do anything, the hands were upon him. They felt like ice as they gripped him and pulled him in a million different directions all at once. He felt himself ripped to pieces.

He woke up screaming, but that scream was drowned out by an explosive boom from somewhere deep within the building. The floor began to vibrate so heavily that he was rattled off the cot.

He felt Computer make his body brace itself as he yelled over the noise, "I knew it! I knew she wasn't going to be able to do it! Now they're going to-"

The room exploded and Courage felt his arms fling upwards to protect himself. He was not sure if it was his own doing or Computer's, but he none the less felt Computer's determination to protect him and his deep fearfulness that he would fail. He was fully aware of and dreading the fact that he was trying to protect Courage from a force so much greater than himself.

The room rocked like it was about to break apart. Brown dust filled the air so thickly that when Courage dared to open his eyes he could not see the end of his snout. Chunks of debris rained down on him, a few large enough to create bruises as they bounced off of him. Thankfully, nothing hit him large enough to do any serious damage, but he could hear those larger and much more dangerous chunks impacting all around him. He kept waiting to feel the floor give out from under him. There was no doubt in his mind that the amalgamation was going to bring this whole building down in their hate fueled desire to level the city.

But the end never came.

He continued to sit there on his knees with his arms up over his head, shivering. Computer's presence was wrapped entirely around his own, desperate to protect him in whatever small, pathetic way he could, despite knowing that he was just as helpless as Courage.

And yet the end still did not come.

Everything started to grow quiet. Way, way too quiet, but even an eerie silence was better than hearing the building about to collapse.

Even stranger, Courage began to feel a breeze on his fur. The air seemed to be clearing of the dust as well. He was still way too afraid to open his eyes and see what was going on, but so far it seemed like the worst was over, if that was even possible.

Computer was the one to break the silence. "Why are we not dead?"

...Only he could somehow manage to sound annoyed that they had not met the horrible end he had been expecting. If anything, he sounded like he wanted to complain to the manager.

"I was just about to ask you the same thing." Courage weakly choked out. He suddenly felt like he needed to puke his guts out and it was only Computer's iron will to NOT do that that kept him from emptying several days worth of nasty dog food onto the floor.

"I'm honestly rather amazed." Computer admitted when he felt safe enough to open Courage's mouth without running the risk of turning into a vomit geyser. "I didn't think they'd spare us if they ever got out again."

"Maybe they want to add you back into their collective?" Courage offered. "I can't think of any other reason why they'd hold off on killing us."

"If that's the case then why haven't they confronted us yet?"

Courage forced himself to open his eyes. As fearful as he was, he wanted to figure out what was going on.

The first thing he noticed was that he was covered in dust. The blue glow looked incredibly odd this way, but that quickly became the least of his concerns.

Gasping, he pushed himself backwards. The entire left wall of their room was gone and they had been dangerously close to where much of the floor had broken away along with it.

A bright blue sky was now opened up to them, and a light breeze continued to blow into the ruin that was the room. Daring to get onto his feet, Courage shakily walked just a little closer back to where he had been moments before. He could see that much of the lower floors of the building, at least on the side he was looking out over, had been blown out entirely. The destruction tapered off the higher it went, but their floor hadn't been entirely spared from the destructive blast. It looked as if an entire room beside their own had broken away and crumbled onto the street far below. The only thing that remained was a thin water pipe that connected their room to another one with its wall missing just beyond.

Looking out over the city, which was surprisingly still very much intact, Computer uttered out, "This doesn't make any sense. Where have they gone? Why aren't they on the attack? They were fully planning on leveling this city, at least back when I was still with them. What could have possibly changed?"

They turned their attention onto the street below. The SCC's building was not the only one that had endured the amalgamation's wrath. Though they had not gone on a full rampage, the smaller building that had once stood before the ruined one was now a pile of smoking rubble, and the two buildings beside it on either end were missing their walls, having been stripped clean in the destruction. The building beyond the one that was gone was missing its front end, but strangely the destruction tapered off halfway into the building.

Computer overwhelmed Courage with a wave of apprehension at the sight of it. "I don't think they're in my old body anymore." He warned, his voice grave. "This looks like they moved through the metal and machinery, destroying everything as they went. Up to a certain point that is." He waved a paw at the half destroyed building. "They stopped right around there, most likely deciding that it would be better to go into hiding for now, possibly to plan or set up some sort of ambush. I'm not sure what they could possibly be planning at this point, but...this is not good, not good at all." He gazed out over the city again, swallowing nervously. "They could be anywhere right now. Absolutely anywhere. They might have even returned to this building after creating a red herring so that they can figure out a new way to assimilate me."

Courage almost didn't know what to say to any of that. He did voice the one thought that was giving him the most amount of dread though, "Elizabeth said that their irrational use of an organic body was the only thing that allowed her to stop them."

"Yes."

"...They're not using an organic body anymore."

"Yes."

"A-are we doomed?"

"Yes."

Before Courage could fully process just how bad the situation really was, he caught sight of something moving below.

"They're alive?" Computer exclaimed.

The remnants of the SCC personnel stationed at the building were scurrying about below, trying to move debris off the road so that their surviving vans could get through.

"They look like they're trying to get out of dodge." Courage commented.

The two of them soon caught sight of Elizabeth as she moved about trying to supervise the evacuation of her surviving crew. It was quickly becoming apparent that there were a lot of injured people, and possibly just as many dead. Elizabeth herself looked entirely unharmed, even though she must have been directly in the cross hairs when the amalgamation made their move.

"She's still alive?" Computer furiously yelled. "That woman is a cockroach! She must be!"

"...Or a robot." Courage added.

"Ugh, don't remind me!" Computer groaned.

An unpleasant realization struck Courage then, and with newfound urgency he quickly explained to Computer, "Hey, uh, we should probably figure out how to get out of here. Since the SCC is still around, they're probably heading up here even as we speak to see if we're still alive. If we're not gone by then I'm betting they'll tranquilize us and cart us off to who knows where."

"You're right about that." Computer agreed with an anxious nod. "But how exactly are we going to get out of here? It's not like we can just jump down from here."

Courage turned his attention to the pipe that connected the broke floor of their room to the one beyond.

Deep seated dread rolled through Courage as Computer fully comprehended what he was thinking. All his companion could see was that the pipe was suspended over open air and that that was a long, long, long way to fall.

"No, no, absolutely not! With the way our luck goes, that pipe will break long before we can get across! It's guaranteed to happen!"

"Unless that room over there has another dog and government super weapon in it, I'm pretty sure the door won't be locked."

"And what if it is?"

"The room below it looks like it would be pretty easy to jump down to. We could try that one if we can't get through the door above."

"And what if that door is locked as well?"

"You really are a glass half empty kind of person, huh?"

"I'm more like a- 'I don't want to end up as a smear on the sidewalk because the person I'm sharing a body with decided to play stupid games and win stupid prizes' -kind of person."

"You know, that's pretty funny coming from the guy who thought it would be a great idea to hijack the body of an elderly woman and use her to jump off the Empire State Building."

"T-that was different!"

End Of Chapter

A/N: Computer's gonna run across that pipe like Spongebob ran to the dumpster and back in that Graveyard Shift episode lol. Twenty seconds of sheer panic followed by him immediately recomposing himself and acting like he was never scared in the first place.