Why did this take a month to upload? Really? How? This was pretty much split from File 6.31, so why does it somehow take me a month to finish up a second part?

(Remembers all of his real-life responsibilities and the recent discovery of a salmon allergy)

...Meh, at least it didn't take another half to three-years.

Ahem.

Welcome back all! As you can see, File 6.32 is up and running! We're getting closer and closer to finally ending this particular part of the story and hitting our stride very soon! I hope you've all endured all of the buildup and introductions so far.

Now, let's finish up this two-parter at last!

Special thanks to Donjusticia for allowing me to utilize one of his characters in this particular part of the story beyond a quick reference. He has generously provided a bit of his witty humor that will be seen at the end of this chapter. Go check out his stories if you're able!

Once again, I don't own CL. The rights are some chaotic mess even I don't want to look into, and we'll leave it at that.


Garage Kids

File 6.32 – The Evolving Evil II

They had been running for around fifteen minutes, and thankfully had not run into any other major problems so far, but Ulrich and Sebastian were not in the mood to take chances. Getting ahead of the incoming statue zombies was a benefit, but of course, there was a downside to such progress.

"Okay, let's, oh boy, stop for a moment, phew…" Sebastian said, panting.

And that downside was that running so fast took a lot out of them, more so Sebastian than Ulrich, and once the adrenaline was out of his system, the Street Kid collapsed on the street. Before Xanadu, Sebastian was probably the only kid in the group, the entire group, to be specific, not just the Warriors, who could keep up with Ulrich thanks to his long legs and a lifetime of street-based rogue aerobics and cardio.

Now, however, Sebastian regrettably had fallen very far behind. Ulrich had offered to carry him again, but the rush of actually getting ahead of their attackers had given the Street Kid confidence to say that he would rather take a skinny dip in sewage than do that again.

Partly (Completely) because of that mental image, Ulrich was glad to let Sebastian run on his own.

But now, as the samurai looked around at their new surroundings, he knew that it wouldn't be long until he probably needed to do it again, and he knew that Sebastian would likely not complain. He did agree that it looked ridiculous, but when the lives of his friends and Yumi's morality were at stake, Ulrich didn't care what he had to do. Besides, as the two boys had discussed, there were FAR worse lines to cross than gossip-inducing contact.

Before he could suggest anything however, his cell phone, which he had decided to put on vibrate, began ringing. Feeling the vibrations in his pocket, Ulrich pulled it out, and saw Jeremie's number. He motioned for Sebastian to walk over, and once the Street Kid obeyed, the samurai answered the call, putting it on speakerphone.

"We're keeping things in check for now, what's going on on the other side?"

"Well, that answers my main question." Jeremie said. "It's a bit hairy over here. Odd and Yumi are having to go to the activated Tower on foot, and Odd took a pretty bad hit a few minutes ago to boot."

"What limb did Della Robbia lose?" Sebastian groaned, his voice a mix of dread and acceptance. "Or did they nab a piece of his torso?"

"Nothing like that." Jeremie grumbled, not in the mood for any cynical interjections. "We have another showing of the Specters' evolution. There's a new kind of monster in Xanadu, one with long-range attack capabilities. I call it the Tardigrade."

"A new monster?" Ulrich gasped while Sebastian's eyes widened nervously. "Are they doing okay?"

Jeremie quickly summed up the situation, explaining the battle that, though it had been triumphant for now, was likely to get much tougher down the road. Whatever was in Xanadu now was more unpredictable than ever before, confirmation of things getting worse.

"If they're not attacked, I give them maybe thirty minutes to get to the Tower, and if the only Specters they have to deal with in order to deactivate it are the basic kind, maybe an additional ten at most. But I have no idea what they're going to find on their way there, so add maybe twenty minutes to that just in case, and maybe ten more to account for the shock Odd took."

"Well shit." Sebastian sighed. "I...I don't know what to say, fuck."

Ulrich decided that if Sebastian had nothing sarcastic in mind and was just content to swear, then that meant that things really were getting bad. "So what do you want from us?"

"Just giving an update, is all." Jeremie clarified. "If things get really bad, I'll call again if I can, and, well, we'll see what to do from there."

And with that, the computer genius hung up.

Ulrich looked at Sebastian. "Welp, looks like we've gotta get serious."

"Implying that we spent all our time joking and making asses of ourselves while an evil snake monster went around petrifying all of the crazy people in the city so that it could gain enough power to take over the world." Sebastian grumbled in response. "But yeah, I've got your point, Stern." He then began looking through his bag, then quietly hissed under his breath. "First things first, we've got to find more lighters or anything that can be used to start a fire. It's the only thing we know is a firm weakness of that thing. I want to think that maybe water could work too, y'know, clump up the ashes, but I get the feeling that that would just convince the zombies to beat us to death instead of making us 'one of them' or whatever."

Ulrich shrugged. "Makes sense." He had never given much thought to the 'science' of Xanadu anyways.

"So...where do we go now? Because if we don't find anything to hold back Medusa's Emporium, we're fucked."

A good question. Ulrich looked around where they were, which was a rare street that was straight. On the right side was a row of buildings, while the left was a concrete wall with an open chain-link gate, with a parking garage of about five stories in height standing above further down the street, bordering whatever lot the wall surrounded.

Motioning for Sebastian to follow, Ulrich crept forward, and looked at the open entrance. The walls surrounded a near barren lot filled with sand, gravel, and dirt, but a large number of generators were scattered around the lot, almost reminding Ulrich of the Towers in Xanadu with the way they were arranged on either flat ground, hills, or even deep holes.

He was just about to turn around, when he noticed something...off about the ground.

Most of it was made up of sand, and both it and the dirt were primarily colored a mix of tan and yellow, while the gravel and rocks stood out as gray. But staining the ground, like one of those flour crater/rift experiments Miss Hertz sometimes demonstrated to explain how the moon worked, was a dark gray or blackish color, like ash. The color immediately reminded Ulrich of the monster that had attacked them.

He then looked across the zone, and saw that while the ash stain did not stretch to this entrance, a look at the other side showed a much longer ash stain.

"Sebastian, wait here for a second."

"Oh sure, and when the zombies get me, I'll-"

Ulrich didn't wait to hear the completion of that complaint as he sped over to the other side of the lot, taking care not to touch the ash, and saw the dark track focus itself at the entrance before crawling down the other street for a few meters, whereupon it became lighter and vanished.

The samurai narrowed his eyes, and then sped over back to Sebastian. "We're in luck. I think I've found the place where the attack started."

The Street kid's mouth hung open. "That is the furthest thing from luck. A-and y-you're sure?"

"Positive." Ulrich said, wrinkling his nose grumpily. "There's this really suspicious set of tracks...and knowing our luck, I'm not going to chalk it up as a coincidence."

"Well at least we have caution going for us." Sebastian sighed. "So, we get the Hell out of this place right now?"

Ulrich looked up at the parking garage, then the buildings. He could tell immediately that the latter would be a terrible place to go to. Enclosed spaces would simply play to the Specters' advantage. A more open space would be better.

"Hop on, we're gonna see if there's anything in that parking garage over there."

Sebastian blinked, and seemed to raise a protest, then he looked behind him, bit his lip, lugged his pack over his shoulder, and did as Ulrich said.

He did however, scream in a panic since instead of finding the parking garage's entrance, Ulrich instead jumped over the wall, and managed to speed up the walls and gaps, flying into the third floor of the parking garage in less than four seconds.

"O-okay, when we're being chased, I can take that, but we could've just taken the ramp or the stairs, Stern!" Sebastian complained, holding tightly onto Ulrich's back-collar, not caring how foolish he looked.

"Nah, this way is quicker."

"I can't tell if you did that to troll me or if you sincerely think that and that worries me."

Ulrich's response was to keep a still, stoic face. Both boys however, felt themselves going still as they heard low, grim, sinister laughter. They looked around for the source and ran to both ends of the garage, but found nothing. Sebastian even pulled out a flashlight, but saw only grime and asphalt. They looked up, straining their ears, and realized that the source of the laughter was on the floor above them.

"...Zombie or average Cult Zone weirdo?" Sebastian asked.

The laughter continued, the voice of it dragging out a bit, before increasing in intensity once again.

"Cult Zone weirdo. Let's beat them up." Ulrich answered, cracking his knuckles.

"I cannot believe my life has jumped to the point where something like a crazy cultist is playing second fiddle to something worse in the space of a single weekend." Sebastian couldn't help but note with a sigh.

"If it means you're not going to run outside like a chicken, I'll take it." Ulrich smirked.

Sebastian's face convulsed in not-so-serious disgust. "Are you sure you're doing this to protect Ishiyama? I'm starting to think you'd actually enjoy seeing her kill everyone in this place."

Ulrich rolled his eyes, his trademark scowl already back on as the two walked up the ramp to the next floor.

The third floor had been grimy and dusty, with some graffiti here and there, but was otherwise normal for an abandoned parking garage. The fourth floor on the other hand…

"...Whoever lives here has got issues…" Sebastian remarked dryly as the two boys looked around.

The entire floor was decorated with strange patterns and shapes, the walls themselves seeming to have been painted black so that the vivid colors of the patterns adorning them would stand out more. Several of the gaps in the parking garage that would normally let light through were also covered up with slabs of concrete and enormous, towering black shelves. How and why someone was able to obtain all of these was a mystery neither samurai nor guide was willing to investigate. Then again, the fact that the entrance to the top floor was blocked by rubble offered a few answers.

At the far end of the floor was a man adorned with a black cloak, his arms adorned with tattoos similar to the marks covering his residence, who was resting on top of a large rectangular stone, making laughter and moaning sounds. It was clear that he was the source of them.

"Let's find what we're looking for and then get out of here." Ulrich said, immediately walking over to the shelves. Deciding not to argue, Sebastian followed, not wanting to be left alone if the crazy person woke up.

"Let's see...cards, cards, counterfeit cards, neon emo-girl figurines, blood-soaked knives, dynamite...uhhhh, let's go to another set of shelves, eh, Stern?"

Not seeing anything useful, Ulrich nodded and began wandering around the floor while Sebastian immediately tried browsing for anything more useful.

Seeing a light in the shadows, the samurai walked up to it, finding a computer hooked to a set of wires and a generator, sitting atop more carved black stones. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if it was indeed true that below-ground was where the attack source was, then this was the computer that had served as the gateway for the Specters to do it.

The monitor was open to a single window, one that showed a black market deal for drugs. Ulrich decided it best not to pry...but just in case, he looked around, and found a discarded pipe. He then ran up to the computer and smashed its screen in, causing sparks and some bits of glass to scatter.

Sebastian jumped at the noise, screaming in a loud pitch that rivaled Odd's voice.

"D-don't hurt us, mister! W-we're-We're...Oh come on, really Stern?"

"I think I found where the Specters attacked. Broke it just to be safe." Ulrich replied, his voice completely calm. "Now they can't have reinforcements."

"Or that alerted them that we're here." Sebastian sighed, walking away from the shelves, his pack sounding rather full of metal and plastic. "Well, I found a bunch of drugs in a box along with a few bottles of vodka and a couple of pre-prepped molotov cocktails. Not gonna touch any of those. Did find plenty of lighters though, so we're cool. Let's get out of here before that weirdo wakes up."

The weirdo of course, at that moment, groaned as he came down from his high and rose himself above his makeshift pedestal.

"...Oh, of course, of freaking course he's back in action!" Sebastian griped. "Go back to sleep, you junkie!"

The man's hood had come off, revealing a head of blue-white hair and eyes that had been tattooed pitch-black. He blinked as he registered the presence of two intruders in his inner sanctum, and the transformation was immediate and terrifying. His unfocused eyes narrowed coldly, and from his robes he produced a Ruby pistol that he pointed in Sebastian's direction.

"You know, I'd known that Oz and Lyle were working together, but I never thought that they'd send two weak children to deprive me of my items. I recall having won that little deal at cards a while back fair-and-square...however fair one can call for making a life in these slums."

Ulrich and Sebastian couldn't help but suppress a shudder. There wasn't a trace of mad levity or craziness in this individual like all of the other threats they had faced so far. For someone who had just come down from a high, his voice was disturbingly calm, quiet, and focused, while his eyes were twin-voids doing an excellent job in boring holes in the duo's heads.

"We're not out to steal your drugs, uh, sir." Ulrich replied, trying to sound innocent. "We just needed some lighters. Also, we don't work for any of those cults, if that's what you mean."

"Ah, so you're just wandering nuisances then." the man growled, straightening his back and stiffening his body. "Ta-ta."

Sebastian froze, immediately realized what was about to happen, but Ulrich did not freeze. As far as he was concerned, this guy was just another threat. Nothing more, nothing less. He charged at the man, not caring if the freakshow became aware of Super-sprint, and tackled him, knocking the gun out of his hand as it fired and instead caused the bullet to hit a jar full of boysenberry jam, shattering it, but thankfully the bullet came nowhere near Sebastian.

The two struggled. Ulrich was surprised that a drug junkie was even struggling at all, having expected nothing but weak bones underneath the man's cloak. Instead, the drug addict's tattooed arms were muscular, veins bulging as he forced Ulrich over to the end of the parking garage, towards an exposed gap.

"H-how the hell are you this tough?" Ulrich managed to grit out, trying to keep the man's hands from grabbing onto his throat.

"You'd be surprised at what nanomachines are capable of doing for you." The man sneered coldly, his grotesquely marked pitch-black eyes filled with murderous intent, his irises pinpricks in the terrible darkness. "I'm quite the connoisseur of exotic goods. Now then...do me a favor, little boy, and die. No need to worry about your friend, he'll be joining you in the void very soon."

Ulrich bit back a retort, and instead chanced to look outside, while still refusing to give any headway or advantage to the crazy person. It was good that he did look however. He would never figure out if Sebastian's worries about the attack were either correct, or it was just another coincidence, but the giant smoke serpent was slithering towards the parking garage, with yet more smoke being emitted from its body, its thralls walking amongst the dark fog. It then seemed to jolt, as if recognizing something...and then Ulrich saw it arch itself, knowing immediately that it was going to attack.

"...Well, you're a lot of things, but I've got more important things to deal with." Ulrich growled, positioning his legs onto the crazy man's stomach, before using his speed to give his next kick a surprise boost.

The crazy person screamed in anger and shock as he found his grip on Ulrich's jacket slacken...and realized that he himself was now plummeting towards the ground, which was now covered in black smoke.

But instead of just falling onto the ground below, he instead ended up becoming Ulrich's human shield for the blast of dark ash that collided into him instead of the boy. He still found himself falling, but it wasn't long until his flesh was covered in rock and his clothes became stone. He flipped down and landed on his feet, the impact creating a crater in the abandoned lot. The now converted disciple of the virtual world stood, eyes glowing as he glared upwards, joined by the statue forms of Lyle, Oz, and their subordinates as they seemed to consider how they would ascend upwards to get at the Warrior and the Guide.

"Well that didn't do much." Ulrich muttered before finding himself shoved aside by Sebastian.

"Move clear, Stern!" the Street Kid ordered, lighting one of the molotov cocktails and throwing it out of the garage with as much strength as he could muster.

It was good timing too as the snake creature charged another black ash burst. This time it collided with the lit molotov cocktail and exploded in mid-air, the heat of the flames causing the demonic creation and its thralls to flinch, loathing the feeling of their one true weakness outside of the Tower being deactivated.

"That's not going to hold them for long…" Ulrich said grimly. "You got any other ideas?"

"I could try dropping another one of the psycho junkie's bombs down there…" Sebastian mused, "but we kinda need to remember that there's power stations down in that lot too. I don't want to know if causing an explosion down there is a good or a bad idea. Best I can recommend for now is warding off the long range attacks."

That was a good point. One spark had caused a decent sized explosion in an empty cul-de-sac. An actual explosive, especially with all of the generators on the ground level would cause significantly worse damage...and probably not be something Ulrich could escape from, let alone hide from the untrustworthy authorities afterwards.

"So we gotta find an escape, then." The samurai said, pinching his forehead while Sebastian threw another molotov cocktail at a third blast of ash.

Looking back from the heat of the explosion, Ulrich looked at the back of the parking garage. While most of the gaps had been blocked off, there was still a space near the entrance ramp that was open, very capable of being jumped out of. And that was near the shelves where Sebastian had claimed to find dynamite…

Okay, maybe causing another big explosion here was a bad idea...but they really didn't have much of a choice in terms of escape options.

"Follow me, and light some of that dynamite!" Ulrich ordered, running to the back of the garage.

"I just said causing an explosion down in that lot was a bad idea!" Sebastian protested, though he still followed.

Ulrich shook his head. "We're not doing it down there. We're setting it up here and getting out the same way we got in."

That gave Sebastian some pause as he tried to parse Ulrich's line of thinking. Set up the dynamite here, and from this distance the snake monster would either have to charge in or send its thralls, at which point either their ash would ignite the lit dynamite or the dynamite would go off and throw them out, hopefully being far away enough from the lot that any further damage would be avoided. In the end, the only downside was another high-flying escape, but considering the alternative…

"Okay, setting up the trap, now!"

There was a low hissing noise, causing the two boys to look back. Three eyes glowed menacingly as the snake monster began to creep into the garage.

"HURRY!" Ulrich demanded.

"GOT IT! LET'S MOSEY!"

Sebastian wasted no time mounting Ulrich's back (and made a note to introduce anyone who had their own thoughts on that wording to Yumi), and the samurai sped forward, slipping through the gap and nimbly jumping down the remaining gaps of the parking garage until he reached the ground level, then jumped along the nooks, crannies, and whatever features about the buildings on the other side of the street made them akin to ledges. He didn't stop until he reached the top and continued running across the roofs, Sebastian looking behind to see if they were about to be sniped by a stray ash blast.

He needn't have worried.

The explosion that followed was not some massive burst that destroyed the entire parking garage...but the force of the explosion was still great enough to destroy the upper floor by blowing it clean off, sending chunks of concrete raining down on the streets and buildings. Regardless of the difference between the theoretical and actual blast, it was clear that the snake creature had been burned up in the explosion regardless. Still, it wasn't like it was going to hold it off forever. The chase would soon resume, and so the two boys sped off into the distance once again, taking care to avoid the falling debris.

There was, of course, more to the damage than the duo had cared or even had time to observe.

The parts of the fourth floor at the epicenter of the blast had obviously caved in, crashing into the third floor, which had failed to hold, sending debris through it and down onto the second floor, which thankfully did manage to hold. None of the support beams that made up the parking garage had been critically damaged, so the structure as a whole would not collapse. That did not change how the fourth floor was beyond repair, and exposed to the sun by the destruction of the fifth. All of the paraphernalia that had once made up the drug addict's possessions was destroyed, and some small fires still burned on what was flammable, while the rest of the floor was scorched black, with all of the paint burned away. Thankfully for Sebastian and Ulrich, the only explosives in the building to start with had been the now-used molotov cocktails and dynamite, preventing any further damage.

Some small wisps of ash drifted from the destroyed building, into the abandoned lot. Miraculously, none of the debris had hit any of the generators...except that obviously some of it nearly did. However, it was not because it had missed them by a few centimeters, but rather because the thralls had banded together to catch the worst of the debris and toss it out into the streets. Their speed was perhaps not an asset, but their strength was another story.

But even though they had prevented the worst of the damage...it did not change the irritation of their master.

Avatar and Guide…Have escaped again…unacceptable…

Now, multiple snake heads, thin and weak, began to form out of the smoke, all of them hissing in anger at once again failing to retrieve their targets.

Alternative method required…

Avatar and Guide were tracked down due to coming to point of origin. Point of origin is now useless for that purpose. New method required. Parsing avenues of approach.

The ash surrounding the gathered thralls pulsed, writhed, and twisted. Calculations were run, until an idea that perhaps should have been obvious in the first place was processed for feasibility.

Avenue of approach…considering, considering…Accepted. Initiating new strategy.

Now the ash began to swirl, the clouds twisting and warping, until they had turned into snakes that curled around each and every statue.

Subjects. Reveal your memories. Access all banks. The hunt must and will end. For the Will of the World.

The snakes hissed, and all of the petrified cultists opened their mouths, allowing the snakes to slither into the exposed maws, which swallowed the serpents effortlessly. The eyes of the statues glowed an ominous green as they adjusted to the modification.

Silence fell as the newly accessed hive mind began its calculations, learning about the streets, the paths, everything in the terrain that could be useful. With the processing speed, in mere moments they had come up with hundreds of methods to hunt down their targets.

Begin the final operations…

The sand of the lot began to darken once again, its color fading to grey, before the massive basilisk emerged, healed and reformed, ready to end the hunt.

This time, there would be no escape.


"Phew...oh, oh boy…whewww…" Odd gasped, leaning against a tree.

"Do you really need another break, Odd?" Yumi sighed, putting her hands to her hips.

"Look, I didn't think this would take so long! I'm still getting used to the scale around here!"

So far, the journey to the Tower had been relatively uneventful. Yumi had kept her eyes peeled for surprise attacks, but so far there was nothing suggesting that. Jeremie had theorized that for now, perhaps the Specters did not have the energy to spare to make the new varieties of monsters in as large quantities as they perhaps would've liked to yet. That was only somewhat reassuring though, and Yumi still kept a lookout for stray Ghosts, Tardigrades, or some other new monster that had yet to be introduced to them.

By this point, both virtual fighters could see the Tower in the distance, the top part of it choked with a thick ring of darkness, no doubt a collection of Ghosts.

Navigating to the Tower, admittedly, was proving a bit tricky. The shortest path, according to Jeremie's analysis as their trek truly began, was along the slopes of the green mountainside. It wasn't too steep, but crossing the mountain was still tricky regardless. They had to go through another thick forest to start with, where they'd had to jump over some small streams that had slipped into the woods, until finally reaching a clearing that enabled them to get a much better view of the Towers in front of them, still standing in the distance, their enormous size making it difficult to tell how close they were really getting. The trek was made more difficult by the lack of any proper mountain paths or trails. If there had been any in Xanadu before, they had long since been grown over, if growth was truly a concept for this digital dimension.

"You're halfway there. Still no sign of a Specter attack. Looks like my theory was right."

"Let's not count our chickens before they hatch Jeremie, alright?" Yumi said.

"Chicken would be great right about now, actually…" Odd sighed.

"Odd you ate plenty of snacks while we were out on our mission."

"Yeah! Snacks! I need some real food! We pretty much skipped out on lunch!"

"You can eat if we survive this." Jeremie reprimanded sternly.

"Big IF there, Einstein…" Odd groaned.

Yumi clapped her hands, glaring at the cat-boy. "Alright, yes, we get it. If you have the strength to run your mouth, you have the strength to run on your legs, so get up so we can get back to work."

"Alright, alright, got it boss." Odd stretched. "Sorry for the breaks, but those plasma balls hurt."

"I can actually defend the need for a rest." Jeremie put in. "You guys had to exert yourselves a lot harder against those Tardigrades than the usual Ghosts, not to mention that you've still got some lingering damage from that one attack Odd. I won't sugarcoat it, but if that plasma ball had hit a normal human, it would have certainly killed them in one hit. It might have even killed you if you hadn't blocked at the last second...wait, no, scratch that, definitely would've killed you."

Both of the virtualized fighters looked to the sky, then at each other.

"Well, never let it be said it would be easy." Yumi grimaced.

Odd's mouth simply opened and closed. He wanted to speak up...but he found his usual indignation towards Jeremie completely sapped. Probably because he had just experienced that risk firsthand and painfully at that. It had only been for a second...but he'd seen the future and his animal instincts had been raised to warn him that the blow would've killed him if it'd hit him in the chest.

He kept his mouth shut though, not wanting to be seen vocally agreeing with the computer genius, who was probably sitting comfortably in his chair in the real world.

"Alright...you guys should get moving again. Things have been smooth sailing right now, but I don't want my newfound hope that the Specters can't make that many advanced monsters yet to be proven false and for you two to get attacked."

In the dude's favor though, there wasn't any of his dissonant levity right now. Jeremie was serious, calm, and to the point. Not usually the type of person Odd was a fan of, but with his life in danger, he decided he could make an exception.

"Come on, let's pick up the pace." Yumi ordered.

Odd simply nodded, and the two set off once more.

The new pathway (for lack of a better term) was not as twisted as the previous one. Here, the terrain was not as packed with trees, and thus the ground was not packed or blocked with roots. Instead, the mountain side was grassy, with the only significant plant life being shrubs, and more scattered trees of a different type than the ones from before. Some large rocks were scattered around as well, proving to be helpful if the side of the slope got too steep, or if any more level trails would suddenly give way.

Thanks to this, their pacing became more even. Closer and closer, the Tower grew nearer, and so closer and closer the two tensed, preparing themselves for an attack. With no tree cover, at this high up, it was easy for them to be seen from most of the remaining island, and vice-versa. Both Geisha and Cheshire Cat found themselves looking down at the rest of the island below several times. They saw the many different details and features of the island as a whole, but found no sign of anything black or anomalous.

For now, the world was quiet.

The two were still paranoid of surprise attacks, Odd wondering when, rather than if, his Anticipation would activate. But as they moved further along the mountainside, no such visions came. They also found a greater number of trees, conifers to be specific, along their path, dotting the mountain. Looking above those treetops, the two could still see the black halo of the Tower. Using that as a guide, they advanced through the new tree cover.

And then at last, they arrived at their destination.

There it stood, the massive structure looming above them. It had been hidden by the trees, hills, and the High Tower itself at the start of their journey, but now they had found it. The other Tower on the tallest hill. Unfortunately for them, the place was guarded. Not just by the thick, swarming circle of Ghosts at the top, but also three large creatures that looked like mixes between UFOs and giant squids. Plus, the Tower was situated on an incline. Not a steep one, but the various small hills and rocks would make fighting rather tricky. Once they left the safety of the trees...there would be no turning back.

"You ready?" Yumi asked.

Odd took a deep breath, looking at the monsters from his vision. They were much more terrifying in the present-day in front of him in person. Quite simply put, he did not feel ready at all.

But he also knew what would happen if they were allowed to stay loose in Xanadu.

"Let's do it." he replied, cocking his right arm.


Now that they had a timescale to run by, both Ulrich and Sebastian found themselves trying to make a plan based on what Jeremie had informed them about. They knew now that they had to hold out for around another hour at most, and hopefully Yumi and Odd could stop the attack in that time. So in-between bursts of Super-sprint, Sebastian pulled out his phone and reviewed every detail of what he'd gone over with Jeremie the day before, explaining some parts to Ulrich in clipped, urgent tones to summarize details as best as he could before forming a proper plan.

Unfortunately, in talking and reading said plans specifically, Sebastian hadn't paid enough attention to the maps and they had quickly gotten lost.

The two had now found themselves in an area that at first glance seemed very normal. Buildings, constructed in tight proximity to each other, surrounded the roads, and these roads at first seemed organized in a sensible manner...but then they would find dead ends, and large, open spaces opening up new roads to new rows of buildings. It didn't take long for them to realize that they had wandered into a literal urban labyrinth. They did, of course, have an easy way out, thanks to the buildings having more than enough footholds for Ulrich to use, but…

"Okay, I don't know if this place is hidden well enough away from the enemy, but it's as good as any place to start planning out our final route." Sebastian said, leaning against a wall.

Ulrich raised an eyebrow. "You and Jeremie were already working on a few, why didn't you just have one at the get-go?"

It was telling that Sebastian wasn't interested in firing back, because his answer was spoken in a very genuine and matter-of-fact tone. "Mainly because we were focusing on locating the cult hideout with some focus on emergency routes. Problem is we weren't expecting the ghostmen to join the party, so those routes all just went down the toilet. I had some others marked in physical maps and saved the pictures on my phone, but didn't really commit them to memory or anything. But I've finally got 'em organized in one place, so maybe we can find a solution after all."

"Is that why you don't want me jumping up to the rooftops?" Ulrich asked.

"Yup, yup, yup." Sebastian muttered, studying the map pictures, thankful he'd made sure to avoid any glare on them. "I've got a hunch to maybe find our last-ditch effort to hold those things off...though I don't know if it'll work or not."

"And that's...what, exactly?"

"Remember the catacombs from this morning?" Sebastian asked, with Ulrich nodding in confirmation, allowing the Street Kid to continue his explanation. "After the Panic happened, some 'geniuses' got it into their heads to replicate them, and/or expand them. The entrance we used in the storm sewer isn't the only one of its kind, you know."

Then, it clicked. "You're trying to find another sewer route, aren't you?" Ulrich questioned, though it was more of just confirming Sebastian's plan. Though he didn't quite get why Sebastian wanted that kind of route specifically.

"It's our last ditch effort to escape." The Street Kid sighed. "Obviously, heading down into the sewers immediately would be a terrible idea. Yeah, there's plenty of water down there, gross as it is, but like I said before, that'd just invite the zombies to beat us to a pulp. Also...causing an explosion underground would not be the best move. Hence it being a last ditch thing to keep in mind."

Ulrich pulled out his phone and checked the time. They'd taken around thirty minutes going around the Cult Zone starting from Jeremie's call. Odd and Yumi were hopefully at the Tower right now...and hopefully making progress fighting the monsters.

"I'm sending you the route." Sebastian muttered, tapping on his phone. "No way am I doing the whole 'desperately-sending-you-something-as-a-last-resort-thing'. Could end up sending you the wrong pic."

"Yet you keep making films?" Ulrich couldn't help but snort, remembering all of the times he'd had to listen to Sebastian criticizing a movie someone else had wanted to see for movie night. It was honestly surprising that for such a chronic complainer of 'cliches', Sebastian wanted to go into film at all. It was a case where Odd's brand of creativity, from what little the Samurai had seen of it, anyways, actually made more sense.

"Don't ask me that kind of question, Stern, please." Sebastian begged in a tone that was half-joking and half-seriously. "I do NOT want my death-flag being raised…and if that just did it, then I swear that when I get petrified I will make sure to flip you off so that the-"

He didn't get the chance to finish that half-hearted threat. Because both boys heard the ground tremble.

Ulrich had felt the tremors of Xanadu before, during those attacks from before Odd had joined...these certainly weren't it. They could hear them together. The sound of heavy footsteps, all around them, akin to artillery shells exploding in the distance. There was no apparent single direction of origin for the sound, yet each thundering footstep seemed in orderly rhythm regardless.

"They're here…" Ulrich said grimly, before looking up at the sky, which was now an ugly shade of yellow that reminded him of the pictures of Blue Screen Skate Park, albeit it was lighter. "I know you said not to, but I'm still tempted to head up there and find out where they are."

"If you are, make it quick, don't let them see you." Sebastian cautioned with a resigned sigh.

The samurai nodded at the warning and quickly sped upwards, jumping from the various protrusions as he climbed.

He didn't plan to remain at the top for long, but he had to admit, he was quite tempted to as he rotated his sight atop the roof. Not because the view was anything spectacular, but because in every pathway Ulrich could see, he could catch a glimpse of dark stone-grey and glowing eyes, the latter of which seemed even more intense than before as the zombies marched throughout the labyrinth. Now, it was very important to keep that glow in mind.

Because it seemed Ulrich had not been the only one to have the idea to act as a sentry. The samurai took a sharp breath as he saw those same glowing eyes in the distance in front of him, and in the distance behind him when he turned around.

The glowing eyes of all of the stone creatures glowed ominously, turning white with fury.

There was no time to lose. Ulrich took a quick look around the labyrinth to catch where they were, and then zipped back down the streets.

"Welp, we're surrounded. Also, it looks like they've wised up because when I went up, they already had some guards on the other roofs."

Sebastian did not even manage a reply before the shaking and tremors on the ground became more intense. The enemy knew where the duo were now and were closing in.

"You got a plan?" Ulrich asked.

Sebastian took a deep breath. "Just...run...Stern."

Ulrich's only response was to blink..

"Okay, uh...bad idea in hindsight, never mind." Sebastian coughed. "Not quite the plan I had in mind." He then took a deep breath and slapped his hands against his cheeks. "Okay, we get as close as we can to that sewer entrance without getting caught...and then I'm going to draw them away as best as I can. After that, run, just...run as fast as you can, Stern. Belpois and I found a map of those sewers. I'll send it to you right now. Use it to find another exit point in the Cult Zone." The Street Kid's voice started to become shaky, but he kept soldiering through the instructions. "Don't let those things get outside of this district, keep running, do everything you can, until Della Robbia and Ishiyama deactivate that Tower or whatever."

His phone buzzed with the notification, but Ulrich ignored it. The boy was more concerned about just what their guide had resigned himself to.

"You're serious?"

"Do you want us to spend five minutes wasting our time arguing and/or crying, or spend those five minutes actually escaping? Well?" Sebastian retorted. "We can deal with the horrible trauma later! ...Assuming I survive even if you guys deactivate that Tower...and...and...uh-ugh, let's just get going before I go back into panic mode, okay?"

With a newfound respect for the Street Kid planted, Ulrich gave a grim nod, and the two immediately set out again.

Given that the whole point of the escape was to avoid being attacked, it wasn't surprising at first that they encountered no enemies. It was a bit strange that they weren't being attacked from the rooftops, but considering how heavy the statue zombies were, they might have taken a bit of time setting themselves up as sentries before having the rest invade the urban labyrinth.

Of course, that was a small mercy when the rest of the labyrinth was being invaded from both ends by the other zombies.

And any thoughts of mercy went out the window when they turned a corner into the next street. No zombies were present, but halfway through the path, another opened up. The tremors were rather intense here as well, and both boys could make out heavy footsteps.

Sebastian clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Okay, right at the end, see that manhole cover, Stern?"

Ulrich looked towards the end of the street. Indeed, there was a manhole cover, but unlike the one in the school park or a manhole cover from any other road/sidewalk, this one was perched atop a large concrete pedestal with a small ladder installed. It was also located off-center, to the left, hugging a building. Had Sebastian not called it a manhole cover, Ulrich might have just thought it was some statue pedestal left incomplete. At least that decreased his chances of being followed.

"Yeah."

"That's where you want to go."

Ulrich nodded. "So...this is where we split?"

"Yeah."

Ulrich knew he wasn't imagining Sebastian's body trembling in fear despite that confirmation.

"If it makes you feel any better, at least you got into this knowing something. Yumi and I didn't know what we were doing while that teddy bear was after you." The samurai tried to comfort. It probably didn't mean much, but Ulrich felt some compulsion to give Sebastian encouragement. "And...well, again, thanks for doing this."

Sebastian gave Ulrich a look that wasn't quite judgemental, but still rather deadpan. "I didn't do this purely for Ishiyama, y'know, and I certainly wouldn't do this just so you can kiss a non-psychotic, non-death-bringing girlfriend. I just want to wake up to a world that isn't worse than it already is."

"Hmph, sure.." Ulrich grunted, before putting a reassuring hand on the taller boy's shoulder. "...We'll get you out, don't worry."

"Don't count on it, Stern." Sebastian sighed in resignation. "Teddy disintegrated after you guys stopped that first attack. Who's to say the same won't happen to me?"

Ulrich honestly didn't have an answer. Part of him was tempted to join Sebastian, if only because leaving a teammate behind, especially one with no abilities, to Xanadu's influence was a thought that enraged the samurai and filled him with a sense of unwanted helplessness. Even if they might perish together, it just didn't feel right abandoning someone.

Unlike Sebastian, Ulrich personally felt like he was resisting the urge to head out into the open and fight to the end. His body felt tense and uncomfortable, and he wished he had at least had his katana with him to help ward off the monsters.

"...It won't happen." Ulrich said at last. "This attack's not going to kill you if we deactivate the Tower. I'm sure of it."

Sebastian looked at his companion, his eyes empty. "I don't know if you're trying to convince yourself, or me right now Stern, but it ain't working. If I die, don't be too surprised."

Tremors from behind began to pick up. There was no more time to talk about anxiety. It was do or die.

The Street Kid rolled his shoulders, pulling out his remaining lighters. "Let's do this."

Ulrich's face hardened, and he looked to the end of the street, ready to run the instant a signal was given.

Sparking a light, Sebastian ran to the front of the street. Just as he and Ulrich had heard, statue zombies were everywhere. They had not yet noticed him however, and Sebastian had no intention of announcing his position. Instead, he silently threw the lighter into the crowd and ran back to the safety of the other buildings.

The effect was immediate. The zombies were still releasing smoke wherever they went, and the trails immediately ignited. Both Ulrich and Sebastian found themselves falling to the ground from the force of the resulting shockwaves, but neither of them could afford to let that delay them.

"Go!" Sebastian hissed quietly. "NOW!"

Ulrich gave a solemn sigh, then sped towards the manhole pedestal. Sebastian ran back into the next street, brandishing another lighter.

"Well, if I'm going to die, I die on my terms…" he said to himself, before glaring at the stunned statue zombies, none of whom were worse for wear. "TRY AND CATCH ME, YOU TOTAL WASTES OF OXYGEN!"

And he ran past them, the statues unable to use their smoke to catch him, and still too dazed to attack. They could only report.

"Guide has been found. Focus all efforts on subduing Guide."

Sebastian, of course, could not hear this internal conversation and instead ran as fast as his normal human lanky legs could carry him. He had four lighters left that had been taken from the crazed drug addict, and wasting them was not acceptable.

Of course, now that he was on his own, without Ulrich to speed him out of the danger zone, that meant the Street Kid only had the walls of the labyrinth to protect himself from the heat and shockwaves of the explosions.

Not for the first time, Sebastian cursed his personal situation. He didn't want to be here, he really didn't. But then again, neither did Ulrich, Yumi, Jeremie, or Odd. All of them had been forced into a far worse position than him. They actually had to fight the source of this problem. Maybe Ulrich was going to be right, and Sebastian would not die today. He didn't count his blessings on that though, even if the chance was there, it was always best to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

At the very least, death from fading away was preferable to becoming a slave of the Will of the World that Teddy ranted about.

Sebastian passed an alleyway that led to a dead end. He just managed to catch the glowing of statue eyes before he tossed a lighter into the alleyway and kept running forward, even as the shockwave of the explosion threatened to trip him up.

Of course, it still did trip him up and saw two of his defense lighters skid away, but now the streets were becoming more open and wide, so unleashing an explosion would not be best.

Another turn was coming up though, and Sebastian's heart skipped a fearful beat as the statue form of the drug-addict appeared. Mustering what little adrenaline he had left, Sebastian threw the last lighter and ducked behind a wall as the third explosion rocked the labyrinth.

"Okay...where next?" he breathed, looking for the scattered lighters before turning his gaze forward to what had once been behind him.

There was the other half of the statues. Walking towards him with purpose.

Sebastian looked to his right, and saw the fourth lighter. He got up and tried to run for it...only for another statue zombie to drop from the sky, crushing the lighter without sparking it. He immediately recognized it as one of the technicians from the underground lab, who had likely acted as one of the sentries Ulrich had mentioned.

Sebastian backed away, and now found that his back was to the wall. He had some other tools left in his pack, but he knew they would do nothing. Still, he was desperate, and threw the entire backpack at the technician zombie, but it instead caught the pack.

The other statues strode up to Sebastian, before opening their mouths, causing the Street Kid to scream in terror as they all seemed to vomit black snakes that immediately coalesced back into the form of the massive basilisk that had tormented them all day.

The beast narrowed its three eyes as it slithered up to the Street Kid, who gulped, and then, with nothing left to lose, instinctively found himself standing his ground.

"Go. To. HELL!" He yelled in defiance, flipping the snake monster and its thralls off with both hands.

The basilisk responded by blasting Sebastian with an ash burst.

"Obey the Will of the World."

"Screw. OFF!" Sebastian managed to scream as his body was encased in rock, his fingers shifting from the offensive position to a neutral position as his mind and body fell under the dark influence of Xanadu.

"Obey the Will of the World."

"Obey the Will of the World."

"Obey the Will of the World."

This time, there was no defiant response. Sebastian's mouth clamped shut as the rock finished engulfing his form. His eyes now glowed the same as the rest of the zombies. The one who had caught his pack handed it back to him. As he slung it over his back, so too did the pack become covered in the same rock covering as its owner.

Then, from the maw of the master of the enslaved ones, a new, smaller serpent, coiled away from the larger whole, before it curled up along the new subject's body. The statue opened its mouth, and the snake entered its body.

"Subject, reveal plan."

In an instant, they all knew what had happened. The Samurai Avatar was still active. Now however, with the combined knowledge of the Guide and those Subjects native to the area, finding him was now assured.

And once he was found, they would be free to hunt down the remaining Avatars and their Operator.

"Find Avatar."

All of the statues looked upwards to their master. All of them, including the one that used to be known as Sebastian Toup, widened their eyes as they glowed in recognition of the order that had been given. The ones who had been stunned by the explosions were now gathering, affirming that all were present. Their master's eyes narrowed in dark satisfaction, as it felt its power increasing, with no more chance of being wounded or diminished. From its main body, countless minor serpents of darkness seemed to tumble and slither out, re-entering those hosts they had left, yet that very main body they sprung from seemed to now grow in size instead of shrinking. The creature trembled as it reveled in its newfound power, shifting size from small to large with ease, knowing that it could handle either.

The time had now finally come to end this.

"Begin."

And thus, the statues resumed their march once more.

Of course, there was another side to the story.

Not that said individual was glad to be on that side, of course.

Gritting his teeth, Ulrich ran through the sewers, the only other sound he could hear besides the impact of his shoes on the ground being that of the rushing water of the currents. He was glad for that. It meant that he could try to shut out the muffled sound of the explosions that had marked his friend's last stand. A last stand that he hadn't been able to help, just as he could not help his other companions, fighting what was likely an equally or even more desperate battle on the other side. A last stand that could very well be the fate for all of them.

And all he could do right now was a glorified version of praying where he had to hope his friends could succeed while running as fast as he could. It made the boy feel sick.

But he had no choice. The only way to help them all was to run away. An option Ulrich still hated.

"Odd, Yumi, it's up to you two now." Ulrich said to himself grimly, loathing the helplessness that rampaged through his mind, cursing him as a failure in the voice of the man who held absolute authority in his life. "Good luck."


Odd had at first expected that he and Yumi would just charge in, but the moment he made a forward movement, he once again felt Yumi's telekinetic grip, stopping him right in his tracks.

"Okay," she coughed. "Just because I asked if you were ready did not mean I wanted you to charge in like an idiot."

"Well, do you have a plan?" Odd asked, failing to hide any impatience in his voice.

But if Yumi noticed, she didn't care to reprimand her teammate verbally or physically for his attitude.

The two were currently hiding behind a set of piled up rocks, just out of the sight of the monsters. Their cover was helped by a small abundance of trees, so the enemy had yet to spot them despite their prior movements.

Yumi was silent for a few moments, sneaking a few peaks at the new monsters. "Jeremie, do you have any names in mind for those?"

"They're basically giant floating squids. No further need for any kind of special name there."

"Okay, boo! Too boring and too long!" Odd pouted.

"Tentacles?" Jeremie tried.

"If we survive this, I will kill you." Yumi said the instant the word left the computer genius's mouth.

"Yeah, leave the rest of the monster names to me, okay, Einstein?" Odd sighed. "We'll just call them Krakens and call it a day."

"Well, the name does fit, I suppose." Jeremie mused. "Curious that you wanted a name for them in the first place, Yumi. I'd have thought Odd would ask me that."

"Just need to know what to call them so I can figure something out." the Geisha grumbled. "I can accept Krakens as a name. One other question, do you know what they can do?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Great, we're facing a new enemy blind." Odd groaned. "That's gonna be fun."

"Yup." Yumi said in a tone that almost sounded eager, making Odd gulp as static filled his vision briefly. He quickly wiped at his eyes, and when Yumi was speaking again, the static had cleared up. "Alright, I'll use one of my fans as decoys to distract them. After that, Odd, you know what to do?"

"Break dance in front of them?"

Yumi's right eye turned to glare at Odd, who laughed nervously.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll blast them with Laser Arrows."

At this, the girl nodded, slinking back over to the other side of the rocks, pulling out a tessen. She unfolded the fan, and stood in a meditative stance, using her telekinesis to float the fan gently in her hands, clearly preparing to launch it. The blue light of the sharp disc grew brighter as Yumi inched closer to the other side of the rock wall.

The geisha took a deep breath. "Ready?"

There was no responding quip as Odd simply nodded his head.

Ready for action, Yumi jumped onto the rock face, before backflipping into the air and telekinetically launching the fan at the monsters.

The attack was not meant to deal damage, only get attention. Indeed, though the Krakens seemed to lack eyes like the other Specters, all three moved as if they had seen the fan. The leftmost one let out a deep, horrible noise from its fanged maw that put the Tardigrades and Ghosts to shame, before whipping out a tentacle that slammed into the fan...and in doing so, broke Yumi's concentration as she felt the force of the blow on her weapon as it flew back, digging itself into the ground.

But by then, Odd was already in place.

"Laser Arrows!" The Cheshire Cat called as he fired a barrage of arrows at the center Kraken.

The beast flinched as the projectiles came upon it. Some missed, while others hit its tentacles and yet others managed to hit its main body.

Odd was hopeful that he would be able to inflict some decent damage. After all, compared to the Tardigrades and most of the Ghosts, the Krakens were huge, so it shouldn't be too hard to hit them. And hey, maybe being based off of squishy seafood creatures would mean they would be equally squishy and easy to hurt.

He found himself both wrong and right.

Right in that indeed, the large size of the Krakens saw most of those arrows connect, but wrong in that the monsters had other attributes that rendered the damage trivial.

The main body had much less obvious defenses than the Tardigrades, as the explosions of the Laser Arrows managed to inflict more than a few holes in the beast, yet judging by the way its mouth growled in grimace, the creature seemed more annoyed than hurt or even alarmed by the damage. The tentacles likewise, had been injured, but instead of being completely blown off as Odd had hoped, the best he had managed was blasting off some of the tips or blowing a hole along the sides, but the girth of the tentacles was sufficient to prevent those holes from becoming too serious.

The Kraken's purple body seemed to glow in annoyance, before it roared in anger, bringing up its front two tentacles.

"Wow...uh...was really hoping that would hurt him more than that…" the Cheshire Cat quivered.

Before either Jeremie or Yumi could respond, the wounded Kraken beat them to the punch as it began firing purple orbs of solid energy from its two front tentacles right at Odd.

Yelping in terror, Odd immediately sprang to all fours and dashed down the hill as the orbs burst around him. He had at first expected them to expand the way that the Tardigrade's energy orbs had, but it seemed these solid orbs, with their denser energy, were only set to explode on impact. The shockwaves were much more powerful, but there were no accompanying stray fields of electricity.

Of course, said shockwaves were making it tricky for Odd to keep his balance. On the bright side, his more cat-like form was finding a niche in recovering balance a lot easier than if he'd been running on his legs alone.

On the downside, he was still being assaulted by energy blasts.

The Kraken on their right, who had yet to be attacked by either Avatar, growled, before floating towards the two Avatars, tentacles charged with purple electricity.

"Damn it…" Yumi gritted. Now that the enemy knew where they were, their current position saw them being pinned down. "Odd! We're moving!"

"Out of here?!" the cat-boy squeaked, hoping to retreat.

"Out of the rocks!" Yumi answered, running for her discarded fan, before focusing on said rocks.

The stones trembled as Yumi's telekinesis took hold over them, as she felt her psionic grip on them become firm. She would've loved to take her time with them, but the situation required speed, a factor that they were without thanks to the absence of a certain samurai. Once Yumi knew she had them in her power, she lifted them from the ground and with a powerful thrust of both of her arms, forced the boulders at the monsters.

Growling in a manner that almost seemed like a dismissive 'hmph', the leftmost Kraken's base glowed a bright purple as it levitated forward to meet the attack, grabbing the boulders and tossing them aside.

But now that the field was empty and the monsters' attention diverted, Odd quickly ran alongside the slope before crouching into a combat position and firing more arrows from his right arm at the center Kraken, hoping to finish it off.

Instead, a wide-arcing array of electricity was sprung from the side, intercepting the attack. Odd managed a quick look to his right, catching the third Kraken defending its ally. His attention however, was more focused on how his Laser Arrows, upon making contact with the side-assault of purple lightning, exploded, with not one of them seeming to make it to their target.

He then immediately regretted it as flashes of blue and purple light nearly blinded him, the Cheshire Cat shielding his face with his arms.

Then, the wounded Kraken flew towards him, growling as it raised a tentacle to counterattack.

Gritting his teeth, Odd ran back down the slope. It was good that he did. The wounded Kraken flew towards where he had been, growling as it had raised a tentacle to counterattack. The tentacle was charged with its own electricity and then slammed into the ground. But it soon saw that Odd was not where he had once been, while Odd's attempt to run faster caused him to trip and roll down the hill.

He just managed to catch himself as the Kraken lifted its tentacle out of the ground. Surprisingly, there wasn't any shockwave or ground-chain of electricity to follow up the impact with.

Well, at least that was one weakness the Kraken had for 'balance', though Odd would hardly call the monstrous terrors preferable to the Tardigrades.

"Odd, keep an eye on your ammo! You've only got three arrows left in your right wrist, and eleven in your left!"

Especially since he had now been helpfully informed he was running low on ammunition to fight them, and he doubted he had the strength to fight them hand-to-hand. Not that he'd want to fight Tardigrades without a weapon anyways.

"Eleven should be plenty!" the Cheshire Cat declared boldly, getting back into a combat stance.

But before he even had a chance to fire, the mouth of the Kraken he was faced bared its teeth as its body briefly glowed, with Odd gazing at the upper part of head just above the mouth, which seemed to twist into a facsimile of a skull-like face. The open mouth grimaced, as if it was chewing on something, before the Kraken reared back and fired…something out of its mouth.

Odd didn't need a vision to know that whatever that something was, it was bad news.

He immediately jumped to the side, catching the sight of something pitch-black and oblong in shape moments before it slammed into the ground, releasing a thick dark fog of inky-black smoke that completely blocked out Odd's field of vision.

"UGH! BLECH!" The cat-boy winced from being so close to the impact area, swearing that he could taste ink in his mouth. "Guess we should've expected a giant squid to fire off ink!"

"Odd! All my visuals on you just turned black!" Jeremie's voice warned.

"Yeah, I can SEE that!" Odd snarled, not having the time to enjoy the ironic pun as he stumbled through the cloud of darkness. Moments later, he tripped over something, letting out an irritated cry as he fell. "Ouch…"

It really was impossible to see anything. All Odd could see was black, even while his hands and knees kept to the ground, and if Future Flash was going to activate, or had activated the way it had seemed to for the entire day, where everything was black or covered in static, it was safe to say that it wouldn't help him.

The thought that his main trick to keep a step ahead of the monsters had been rendered useless thanks to the thick smokescreen sent a deep shiver down Odd's spine. Was that why he had been stuck with seeing just darkness several times today? No, that wasn't it, it was something else, something worse. He just knew. As if something had gone wrong with the world, and while dealing with upgraded monsters that could now shoot laser spheres and smokescreen was certainly bad, it didn't feel 'wrong'.

Odd swore several curses in Italian in his head, telling himself to pull it together. This was the kind of thinking Jeremie was into, which the boy had used to waste their time earlier today. He was NOT going to have those kinds of thoughts, especially in a battle.

Screaming, Odd leapt to his feet and began shooting wildly from his left arm, hoping to light up the battlefield and maybe score a few more hits.

Unfortunately, the wrapping of a tentacle around his waist, one of the damaged ones in fact, showed that wherever he'd been pointing his arm, it wasn't the right direction.

"Aw, crap."

Those would be his final words as his eyes were attracted to a light source. Of course, it came from the thick tentacle wrapped around his chest as the Kraken unloaded volt after volt of electricity into Odd, the Cheshire Cat screaming as he was fried to death.

"No! NO! NO! I said it before, and I'll say it again, BUT I AM NOT DYING TODAY!" Odd cried, barely managing to flip his right hand around so that his claws could scrape against the tentacle.

The grip of the Kraken loosened as Odd's claws dug roughly into the soft flesh. It did nothing to actually hurt it, but the disturbance was just uncomfortable enough to enable Odd, who was now summoning as much strength as he could, to pull his right hand free and fire his last three Laser Arrows into the tentacle that held him captive. The Kraken hissed as two of the arrows managed to hit the appendage, instinctively tossing Odd out of the smoke cloud and onto Yumi's side of the battlefield before the third could hit and potentially blow off the damaged limb.

Unfortunately for Odd, his landing was anything but smooth as he slammed onto the ground like a volleyball, gasping in stunned pain from the impact before he finally slid, or rather, ground, to a stop further down the slope, away from any collection of trees or rock formations, completely exposed to further attacks.

The only positive was that everything was clear again, but the ambient afternoon sky of Xanadu did nothing to comfort Odd as he tried to get up.

"Ooohhh…I really hope nothing's broken…" he moaned.

"Well, it doesn't…quite look that way." Jeremie offered, but his words were of little comfort to Odd as the Cheshire Cat thankfully found himself able to get up to his knees. "Yumi?"

Odd for a moment hoped Yumi was nearby, desperate for an assuring companion or ally he could actually see.

Instead, he saw a furious, yet also worryingly desperate geisha in the distance, fighting two Krakens at once, dodging various-sized orbs of energy, lightning blasts, and tentacle slams, all while keeping her fans floating in front of her akin to flying buzzsaws.

Yumi gritted her teeth, trying to focus her telekinesis on the Kraken to her left, but whenever she tried to go on the offensive, the Kraken on her right would fire a ball of energy that she would have to either deflect with her telekinetic aura, or block with one of her fans. The same happened if she tried to respond with that strategy to the Kraken on the right. It would be defended in an identical manner thanks to its partner at the left.

On the one hand, it was annoying to Yumi that the monsters had such teamwork, but on the other hand, she couldn't help but find it a bit admirable.

However, any thoughts of consideration of the positives and negatives of her adversaries' combat abilities fled Yumi's mind as both Krakens' charged their tentacles with electricity, before blasting the array of lightning at the geisha.

Yumi somersaulted back, before bringing both of her fans in front of her, pouring as much of her energy as she could to block the powerful double-attack. The girl growled, baring her teeth. How it was harder to block lightning versus saving a weak nerd falling to his death because he was too immersed in his own little world was a question that the geisha used to pump out more angered determination to keep the attack at bay.

The Krakens however, were undeterred, growling as the electricity being fired from their tentacles intensified, first through the maximum voltage they could muster, and then from increasing the number of tentacles being used to attack. At first they had used four, but then that number increased. Yumi found herself being pushed back as the lightning blasts intensified. Six, then seven, then nine, until they were using all ten tentacles at maximum voltage to attack.

"Grrr…ugghhh…" Yumi growled. "I. Won't. Let. You. WIN!"

With a great effort, Yumi closed her eyes, focusing her power for a few seconds, and then, with a great effort, summoned as much of her power as possible in a burst of energy. The telekinetic force propelled her fans forward, their attraction of the electricity bolstered by that force as the electricity was all focused into them.

"Yumi! Stop!" Jeremie warned. "You're going to overtax your fans, just like last time!"

"I don't have much of a choice here!" She yelled, turning her full attention back to her enemies, forcing out another burst of energy that caused the telekinetic aura her body gave off to appear as the blue glow that came forth whenever she was exerting more effort than usual. "Hiii-YAAAAAA!"

Her position was dire, yes, and her decision to keep attacking was hard to criticize, especially as the gathered energy focused onto her fans created a great radiance of pink light from the light-purple lightning and bright-blue weapon energy mixing together. A radiance so great, it gave way to a massive discharge that sent fragments of binary mixed with lightning bolts scattering in all directions…yet none of the energy shrapnel hit Yumi, Odd, nor their adversaries.

Yumi found herself faltering, hands on her knees, her throat dry as she gasped for breath. Ordinarily, a terrible posture when using her specific type of weapon, even with her power, but her fans did not return.

"Darn it…okay, I'm reloading Odd's arrows and reprogramming your fans! Just don't get hit!"

At least Jeremie had situational awareness when it mattered, considering he wasn't scolding Yumi for her recent move.

But her idle thoughts would have to wait. The Krakens seemed to recover faster than her, and the one on her left seemed to grimace, based on the expression its mouth was making. It was hard to tell exactly what, if any, kind of emotion it was showing, or at least trying to show considering it was an A.I… Yumi thought she could make out some shadowy features on the purple-black creature's face akin to the upper part of a skull, and if she wasn't just hallucinating, then the beast was either angry…

Or it was just charging up for a new attack as it breathed a thick burst of dark, inky fog at the geisha, whose instinctive movement to dodge with a cartwheel to the left turned out to be unnecessary and maybe a bit foolish as it didn't seem to do any damage.

But from his point of view on the lower part of the mountainside, Odd knew exactly what that attack was. "Yumi! Get out of there! It's a smokescreen!"

She heard Odd's call, and she knew the weight of his warning. Without skipping a beat, Yumi summoned up more of her energy and threw both her hands up to the side, applying her telekinesis in 360-degrees, blasting back the dark fog, causing it to dissipate.

Except it was a moment too late.

The Kraken on her right flew towards her, tentacles undulating as they crackled with electricity, slamming them onto the ground, trying to strike at Yumi, who barely managed to jump out of the way of the first few attacks.

She kept up the dodging, jumping from side-to-side, back-and-forth, using every evasive maneuver she'd trained for or instinctively knew. For a moment, she seemed to be making progress, but while jumping out of the way of a strike of two forward tentacles, Yumi caught the movement of a tentacle in the rear, too late though, to dodge again or set up a defense.

The electrified tendril slammed into her face, the tip acting like a giant palm-strike. Yumi was flung into the air, electricity running through her body, before she crashed onto the ground, right next to Odd, in fact.

"YUMI!" Odd yelled in alarm, managing to turn his body around to face the fallen geisha despite everything in him screaming not to.

She lay on her back, some remaining electricity running through her form, and for a moment, Odd feared he had just seen someone die.

But a low grunt of pain and her arms hitting the ground as she fought to get to her feet showed that Yumi wasn't out for the count, though her face was marred with burn marks, her right eye seemed ready to swell up and bruise, and both her mouth and nose were bleeding. Her fingers too, twitched involuntarily, clearing feeling the effects of the electricity.

"You're alive! Thank god…" Odd breathed, fighting off what he knew were tears of relief. "Ulrich would kill me if you died out here…"

"I don't plan on it…" Yumi growled in response, glaring at their opponents, which had now regrouped, "but…this is not good…" she muttered, wiping her mouth on her kimono sleeves, growling at the subtle differences in the shades of red of her kimono versus the shade of red of her blood. That made for her second injury of the day.

If she were to compare their situation to their enemy, both she and Odd were heavily damaged and disarmed, whereas only one of the Krakens had slight injuries, the other two were completely unharmed, all three were clearly ready for the next round, and there was still a thick swarm of Ghosts haunting the Tower.

Saying that the situation wasn't good was honestly an understatement.


If Ulrich honestly had to choose his battlefield between the urban jungle of the real world, and the actual jungle of the virtual world (even though Jeremie would probably go on some tirade about the terrain or whatever not matching a jungle), he would've picked the latter in a heartbeat. Xanadu was big, but for the most part, the Samurai felt more comfortable on that virtual island than he did in this underground maze. At least the air felt fresh compared to the rot and stink of this particular sewer.

He also would have had more space to move around, even in the thickest forests. This sewer, where the only light source came from dull-lit yellow and/or white lamps, casting sickly or eerie glows on the grey brick, had narrow sidewalks that led into water that Ulrich would rather not step or fall into, forcing him to be cautious.

Finally, he would've had a weapon to defend himself. The real world did have tools, but those only worked because of the method the Specters had used for their attack coming with a weakness of some kind, meaning those tools would either be too specific, or maybe even be flatout unavailable. His katana was a simple tool, but versatile all the same.

Sadly, open spaces, clean air, and a reliable weapon were not available to him in the real world. Only the power he had gained from Xanadu, which was only good for running.

He really wished he could shove all of those thoughts out of his head and focus on running-he had already given his teammates a distant 'good luck' after all, but he couldn't stop his worries from bubbling back up to the surface, no matter how much he tried to shove them down. Ulrich had volunteered for this job for Yumi's sake, terrified of…something that had been building within her. Sebastian had seen it as well, and despite his very blatant fear of the virtual world and the dangers it created, had volunteered to help. And now, the comrade who had helped Ulrich was either a statue or had been roasted to a crisp, while the girl Ulrich had hoped to save was facing an unknown threat that could kill her regardless of what state her mind was in, and there was nothing he could do to help her. Odd was there as backup, but he was still new to all of this, and so Ulrich couldn't keep an eye on him to make sure he could fight, nor make sure he too, was alright.

So as he zipped along the narrow paths, navigating the twists and turns of the sewer labyrinth, checking the map on his phone to make sure he was using the correct route, Ulrich found himself lost in his thoughts, hearing the voice of that man ring in his head, cursing him for his failures.

"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up." Ulrich muttered to himself whenever the stress seemed to be too great.

Only the endorphins released from his running stride prevented the boy from releasing his anger via punching craters into the walls of the sewers.

Ulrich looked at his phone for what might've been the umpteenth time for all he knew, then looked around. Everything looked the same as it always did. Intersecting rows of smelly canals, lit up by a mix of yellow and white lights, but to the boy's right, there was a flight of stairs leading up to a black, metallic-looking door.

According to the map Sebastian had sent him, Ulrich was to exit the sewers from that door, and run about the next mile until he found another location where there should've been another door. From there, he would cross into something closer to the Parisian Catacombs, which, while tighter, offered more hiding places. He would then be able to choose between three routes, each of which were well-hidden, and continue to lead the monsters away, hopefully buying Yumi and Odd enough time to finish off the guards in Xanadu.

Beyond that though, the Street Kid had no further plans besides what he had provided to Ulrich. It would be up to the Samurai at that point.

Looking at his phone, Ulrich saw that another ten minutes had passed. With the plan that Sebastian had provided, he could buy Yumi and Odd another forty-five minutes, and maybe another twenty if he figured something out. A little over an hour. Plenty of time to stop the attack.

"Okay, stop beating yourself up about what happened to Sebastian." Ulrich breathed, trying to get his composure back. "Just head up top, keep running. Yumi and Odd have got this. You just need to buy them time. Just need to buy them time…"

He turned, ready to begin the next stage of his trek, when a loud, metallic creaking began ringing in his ears. Ulrich looked up, and saw that the door to the outside world was opening. His heart stopped, and he prayed that whoever was opening it was just some maintenance worker or random hobo who'd be easy to punch out.

But to his dismay, the entity opening the door looked rather familiar, a dark figure who in the natural light making it into the sewer tunnels looked like some kind of monk or something akin to that. It took Ulrich only a few seconds to realize that it was the psychopathic drug-user he'd shoved off the side of the parking garage. In hindsight, he shouldn't have been surprised that the freakshow had been enslaved by Xanadu.

The man's face, frozen in a stoic frown, seemed to turn into a fiendish grin, the tattoos on his arms glowing with the same kind of eerie green light that shone from his eyes.

"Found. Avatar."

At least the voice coming out of his mouth sounded nothing like the dude. Instead it was the sound of a deep, hissing snarl more fit for a demon than a person.

Much more charming, if Ulrich was being honest.

What wasn't charming was how the man now dove towards him, hands stretched as if the maniac wanted to put his hands on Ulrich's throat and finish the job he'd tried to do before.

Of course, Ulrich was faster, and jumped out of the way as the petrified drug-user plunged into the smelly sewer water, which Ulrich now realized was also tinged with a charming shade of green. He kept far enough away to make sure the water didn't splash all over him, and so found himself ready to run away at first glance. Maybe the reason he hadn't already run fifty meters away in a second was because he wanted to see if Sebastian's theory on water congealing the transforming ash was correct. As the statue rose from the water, Ulrich could clearly see that the smoke wasn't leaking out of his body…but it was still leaking out of his mouth.

Well, at least his guide had been half-right.

With that fact confirmed, Ulrich sped down the narrow corridor, then turned around a corner. He looked and saw how the walls of the corridors, once straight before curving into arches, were turning back into the usual tunnel-shape he had seen in the sewers closer to home. Without a second thought, he sped along that curved bank, planted his feet, turned, and lept to the other side.

He probably should've been cursing more than he was, but a quick glance at his phone showcased that Sebastian had seen this coming and had marked a second, backup spot to go to if the first wasn't available.

So long as he had that, he was alright.

Then the tremors started again.

Ulrich froze. Somehow they were worse underground than aboveground. But that was all he needed to know that they were down here. Had they found the backup route? And if so, how?

Plenty of theories ran through his head: They'd gotten lucky, or maybe they'd just picked up from where he'd left off and followed him before splitting off, or they'd followed the creep and split off from there. All good theories, but when he thought about how these cultists all knew about this part of the city, he couldn't help but wonder if the monster was starting to use that knowledge. If so, that obviously didn't bode well for him.

Looking behind him however, Ulrich kept running. He didn't know if the creep from before had recovered, but he really didn't want to see him regardless. It'd be easier to think once he had thrown the guy off his trail.

He turned one corner, jumped across a gap, then turned around another corner, and then a third-he stopped, grinding his heels into the mossy-pavement.

The tunnel he'd turned into had a higher ceiling than the rest, smaller pipelines lined up on the curved ceiling. The grey concrete was accented by the lights being pure white, none of the yellow-tints from before. It helped the green-sludge that passed for water really stand out.

It also helped illustrate how this tunnel seemed more like a gaping maw, especially at the end where there did not seem to be any light. Only darkness. Darkness that seemed to form a barrier of sorts between each half of the tunnel. None of the overhead lights even seemed to penetrate the umbra in front of Ulrich.

All of this made a frightening amount of sense, and the boy was already backing away from the void, knowing exactly what was in there.

The sudden glow of about a dozen glowing green eyes answered that. The shadows scattered, and the lights returned, unveiling about a dozen possessed statues.

And at the front of this squadron was the unmistakable lanky form of Sebastian Toup, his posture frightening straight and his glowing eyes narrowed and focused on Ulrich.

Now it was a no-brainer as to how they'd found him.

"Sebastian…" Ulrich gritted, failing to catch himself as he began calling out to his friend. "C'mon, fight it!"

All of the statues shared the same, stoic, narrowed expression. The same hissing noise from before seemed to leak from them, a throaty growl that seemed to grow and echo around the tunnel.

"All for the Will of the World."

Well, if there was any hope of appealing to Sebastian's sarcasm or hatred of being assimilated into a hive mind, those words alone sealed it away.

It certainly didn't help that Ulrich also heard those words from behind him, where at the other end of the tunnel, another dozen or so statues stood, ready to attack him.

He didn't bother wasting time with any kind of grand statement of defiance. Seeing that the corner he turned was still free of statue zombies, Ulrich sped towards it and began running back into the yellow zone. As soon as he had gone no more than twenty meters, the tremors resumed. Louder. Deeper. Greater. He didn't need to look back to know they were chasing him.

He should've spared his phone a look, but his instincts screamed at him that it was pointless. Sebastian had brought up the map, and the cultists knew this part of town inside and out. It didn't matter what route Ulrich took. Either way, they would find him.

But now that meant he was just going in random directions, losing track of where he was. White, grey, and yellow light. Square, rounded, archway-style corridors. Brick and concrete. All of these details passed by him in a blur until he stepped into a circular area where all of the tunnels seemed to converge.

Ulrich looked around wildly, and seeing no-one present…fell to his knees, taking deep breaths. He couldn't be this tired. He'd traveled over mountains to kill monsters that had been present on one end of Xanadu after he'd destroyed the ones on the other end before. Why was escaping an army of stone zombies any different?

"I-I can do better than this. This won't beat me. It won't."

"IT WILL."

With a violent shove, Ulrich was forced into the green water. For a moment he flailed there in surprise. That made no sense, he was an excellent swimmer. Then a hand gripped his face, and with terrible strength, hauled him out of the water…before slamming him into a wall.

Sebastian was right there, his eyes empty, hollowed out of all life except for the energies of the Specters. It was his hand now gripping Ulrich's face, as if desiring to crush it.

"YOU WILL NO LONGER ESCAPE. YOU WILL SURRENDER TO THE WILL OF THE WORLD."

Ulrich froze, expecting the rock to creep onto his body and brainwash him…but despite the dust creeping from Sebastian's form, very little of Ulrich's body was being encrusted in stone.

Sebastian's words about water acting as a weakness rang in Ulrich's head again.

"Heh…looks like you can't possess people soaked in water. Looks like you were right about that being a weakness after all."

Sebastian's eyes narrowed in hatred, the light emanating from them turning a harsh shade of yellow. But his next words were strangely quiet.

"Then let the Source handle you."

Before Ulrich could fight his way out of the strong, stony grip, Sebastian hurled him onto the other side of the circle, in-between two of the tunnels.

Ulrich grit his teeth, resisting the urge to cry in pain as his body slammed sideways against the wall, before he crashed onto the dirty sidewalk. He looked up at Sebastian, who instead pointed to the ceiling.

The Samurai followed the direction of his possessed companion, looking at a large center white light in the center. At first, he wanted to move his eyes away from the bright fluorescent light, but in no time at all, the light seemed to be dimming. Ulrich thought that maybe the power was going out, but that made no sense. Why would that be attention-worthy? The answer of course, was that smoke and blackened dust was gathering at that spot, slowly but surely blotting out the light.

Ulrich shakily got up to his feet, hands clutching the wall behind him, helpless to watch as the forces of Xanadu began to gather.

First, statues rose from the water like an army of the dead trying to drag Ulrich into the Sanzu River. The Samurai managed to recognize the drug-addict as being among their number. Then, more individuals, none of whom Ulrich recognized, began to enter the convergence point from all of the available paths. All of them were coated in stone, none of them phased at all by the water, for those who had to walk through it at least. There also seemed to be more than before. Were there that many cultists, or had other people been caught up while Ulrich and Sebastian were out rushing for their lives? It was an answer the Samurai would never receive. None of these people came near Ulrich, but then again, they wouldn't have to as the cloud of dust and smoke, which leaked through all of the tunnels, having guided its thralls, began to shape itself into a new form.

Or rather, a very familiar form as the smoky three-eyed basilisk arose, its coils resting comfortably within the water, glaring at Ulrich angrily.

For a moment, the boy thought that his foe would stop in order to monologue. Teddy had done so, and despite seeming mostly taciturn, Sebastian had spoken a few sentences himself.

Unfortunately, whatever personality this thing had been programmed with was something that Ulrich would have usually appreciated. Quiet, focused, and deadly.

It proceeded to roar in Ulrich's face, sounding more like a dragon than a snake, pressing him against the wall with a powerful wind. It took the boy only seconds to realize that the monster was drying him off. On the one hand that was comical; the world's weirdest and largest air-dryer.

But on the other hand, it had stripped him of his one defense. Ulrich still felt a bit moist, and the creature's breath definitely had not erased the stink of the sewage, but it still meant that he was vulnerable. He looked for an angle to run, but found himself flanked by the very technicians he had beaten up before to get access to those cultists' supercomputer. Now they were taking their revenge, even if they were brainwashed.

And now, with its prospective victim having nowhere left to run, the creature hissed in what seemed to be satisfaction, and quick as a flash, wasted no more time in blasting Ulrich with its possessive dust. Almost immediately, the rock began to cover Ulrich's form. It was still slow from what little water remained on the boy, and maybe his virtualizations had had some impact on slowing the process down further, but the progress, though slow, was consistent. Already Ulrich found that he could not move, his feet remaining firmly planted on the ground. For a person who prided himself on speed, not being able to move at all, and having been caught by slow-moving statues to begin with, this kind of situation was unbearable.

Yet Ulrich could do nothing about it.

From behind the creature, Sebastian's statue form groaned ominously, a low rumbling laugh echoing from his mouth, satisfaction evident at the boy's fate. At least he hadn't tried to kiss Ulrich when he'd had him in his clutches before.

The martial artist would have gagged at how one of his last coherent thoughts would've been completing the little 'joke' the Street Kid had had...but then again...he had someone else on his mind.

Someone who he hoped was still fighting. Someone who he had to hope would save him.

"Sorry Yumi…" Ulrich managed to say as the rock kept creeping up his form, having now fully consumed his legs and arms, and was now moving onto both chest and head. His eyes glared at the blurring sight of the terrible monster responsible for all of this trouble, hoping to give one last defiant look of hate as his mind resigned itself to its fate. "Looks like I won't be able to come back after all…"


Final blows are dealt, but a cliffhanger is in place as Odd destroys the last monster, ending the chapter. Both of them are meant to be exhausted: Yumi from overuse of Telekinesis, tapping into the darker side of the Avatars, and being sniped at from a Tardigrade, while Odd is exhausted from his own physical limits.

"I think I asked this the last time we were in a fight here, but…is it safe to say that we're screwed?" Odd asked.

Yumi looked at the boy, his eyes seeming empty and hollow, with even fear drained out of him. It was quite the contrast from how he normally looked. "I don't want to say that, but this time, I wouldn't blame you."

The Geisha positively hated how accepting she was of this. Maybe it was because Odd wasn't whining this time.

A certain someone who had been like that no longer could, and in the future, might never be again. That too, was a contrast…and both situations were honestly, quite wrong.

"Welp, that means we're boned." Odd sighed, shaking Yumi out of her thoughts. "Been nice knowing all of you."

"You can't give up yet!" Jeremie begged. "I can get you two out of there, but by the time you're ready to go back in, that petrification monster will have taken over the rest of the city! Or even made it here! We don't have a choice, and we don't have time! You have to keep going!"

Odd looked at the sky, finding himself to not have the energy to have any real bark in his reply. "Look, I'm not gonna act out that part in the movies where we call it a day and give up, Einstein, but I've got no idea at how we're gonna get out of this, really."

Yumi's glare also followed, but there was no lack of energy in her eyes or body. How dare Jeremie suggest they give up, especially after all of the crap he'd put them through today. "Just because we don't have anything right now means we're giving up! We just need a new strategy, that's all!"

The glowing tentacles of the Krakens however, showcased that their enemies did not have the patience to see such a strategy form. Yumi had to admit, that was troubling.

"...Though I might NOT be against coming back to Earth right now!" Odd quivered, instinctively knowing that the Krakens were going to attack.

"But like Jeremie said, we can't." Yumi murmured to herself grimly. "And honestly, I don't want to."

"I should be able to get Odd reloaded soon, but it'll take longer to get your fans rebuilt. Try to retreat for now, buy time that way. Head back into the pines, they're your only hope."

Odd sighed in resignation, getting up to his feet, groaning as he clutched his left side. "Well, if you and I are agreeing on something Einstein, that's gotta mean something. C'mon Yumi, let's go."

Go?

That meant giving up.

She'd already gone over the enemy forces and their status compared to their own. In every regard they held the advantage. She didn't need to think about it again.

After everything she'd been through today. She was just going to run. Why? Yumi looked up at the sky, staring at the final set of monsters, the Ghosts surrounding the Tower, keeping it activated. She knew she had to conserve power to finish them off. Every single one of her fights in Xanadu up to now had been with those creatures, and even with these new monsters, the way the Ghosts worked was burned into her brain. It would be stupid to underestimate them.

Then she looked at the Krakens, whose 'faces' for lack of a better term, seemed scrunched up in thought, as if they were thinking about how to best kill the Geisha and Cheshire Cat now that they had the two on the ropes.

Everything seemed to be like that. These monsters in the virtual world, those monsters in the real world, as long as she could know, they were all like that, weren't they? They thought they held every card in the deck, and were content to play with their food before moving in, lording their power over the weak.

"Uh, Yumi?" Odd quivered, seeing the Geisha walk listlessly towards the monsters. "We have to go."

"Yumi! Retreat!" Jeremie ordered.

Honestly, Yumi had to thank the Krakens. Fighting them and seeing their unfamiliar power had opened her eyes. So what if Jeremie couldn't regenerate her fans? A voice in the back of her head warned that it was stupid, but another voice urged her to go all out. They had no time, and no options.

"We can't retreat. There's no time." the Geisha said, her voice seeming distant, and far too calm and quiet for the situation they were in. "Look, they're about to attack."

She was right, of course. The Krakens had decided to just blast the two Avatars and finish them off. Spheres of energy were already building up in their forward tentacles. Six purple orbs that both Odd and Jeremie knew, with a sinking feeling, could not be avoided.

"I'm going to rematerialize you!" Jeremie cried, deciding to throw caution to the wind.

"You don't need to." Yumi said calmly, raising a hand.

The voice that said not to hold back won out.

And the moment she listened to that voice, it was like opening up a valve that had been holding far too much back.

Odd brought his hands up to his face, expecting to be hit by the energy orbs. Then he opened one eye cautiously, and saw that the entire barrage had halted, the spheres of energy floating in midair, in front of Yumi Ishiyama, her form glowing not with blue aura, but with white aura that was tinged pink.

"Y-Yumi?" The cat-boy quivered, already seeing what he felt would see next.

The geisha turned to face him, her expression stoic, yet calm.

With her eyes glowing a bright blood-red.

She said nothing, instead focusing back on her task. Then, with the first smile she had allowed herself that day, Yumi thrust her right arm forward, and shot the energy orbs back at the Krakens.

The monsters' eyespots widened as they registered their energy blasts being reflected, and hissing, immediately rose their tentacles up to defend themselves. Charging the tendrils with purple electricity, they formed an impromptu barrier to block the reflected attack. The first three orbs collided with the wall of lightning and ground against it as Yumi exerted more force to keep them from flying back towards her and Odd.

Said force also enabled the fourth orb to fly past the first two Krakens and hit the injured third before it could create its own lightning barrier. The creature roared in pain from the impact, moments before the orb exploded, sending an even greater impact that blew all of its tentacles apart, along with the floatation ring, causing the monster's remains to spill onto the ground like jam. It tried to roar, to keep fighting, but ultimately, it was only able to give a weak hiss before evaporating into nothing.

The other two Krakens saw the defeat of their brethren. Growling in anger, they exerted as much force as they could muster, sending the remaining three energy orbs into random directions, none of which came close to Yumi or Odd, keeping them safe from the resulting explosions.

Of course, Odd did not feel safe at all, and he trembled in fear as he looked at Yumi who began to undergo a subtle transformation.

The billowing, flowing, white-pink/light-red energy she gave off seemed to spike like flames, before flowing like water and sparking like lightning, as if trying to settle onto a form. In the chaos, the top knot of her hair came undone, releasing it back to the style she had in the real world. Now free, her hair began flowing wildly in tune with the aura, along with the sleeves of her kimono. Yumi's hands twitched and her body seemed to spasm, as if the geisha was possessed by a phantasmal force.

So that was ho0 10101s en010. 101 tr010101 as he was 010 10 10 1a01 by 0101

010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101…..

"GAAAAHHH!" Odd screamed from the outburst of screeching static, gripping the sides of his head. It felt like his brain was about to run out of his skull. "STOP! STOP! YUMI, DON'T DO IT!"

But Yumi did not listen as the aura around her body twisted, and the girl quite literally rocketed towards the enemy, propelled by her own aura.

The remaining Krakens roared in anger and fired several bolts of lightning at Yumi, who with a thrust of her right hand seemed to attract, then scatter the purple bolts.

She didn't notice how her arm bent backwards perhaps a bit too severely.

Odd was still reeling from the shock of the mysterious new failed vision, something so much more severe than the blanks he'd seemed to have drawn throughout the day, so he didn't notice either.

Jeremie however, did notice, not to mention the warning signs that flared to life on his screens. Warnings that screamed the following: DANGER! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! INITIATE OVERRIDE! ERROR! OVERRIDE PROCEDURE NOT FOUND!

The computer genius was immediately scrambling in the commands to rematerialize Yumi. Instead, he received error message after error message, as well as more warnings. REMATERIALIZATION NOT POSSIBLE! AVATAR STABILITY COMPROMISED! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! ERROR! ERROR! OVERRIDE PROCEDURE NOT FOUND! REMATERIALIZATION NOT POSSIBLE! ERROR! ERROR! OVERRIDE PROCEDURE NOT FOUND! OVERRIDE PROCEDURE NOT FOUND! POWER BALANCE DISRUPTED! AVATAR STABILITY COMPROMISED! AVATAR STABILITY COMPROMISED!

AVATAR STABILITY COMPROMISED!

"Yumi! Whatever you're doing, STOP!" Jeremie wailed in alarm.

But Yumi did not listen as she answered the roars of her enemies with a terrible scream of her own, eager to unleash more force upon them. More was better. She had to meet their power with her own, after all. The Krakens were helpless, as if they were real sea animals that had suddenly come up to meet a hurricane, driven into the ground as they desperately tried to fight against an invisible force they could do nothing against.

The geisha's body twisted, shuddered, and convulsed as the aura around her began to darken, desiring even more freedom.

The ground began to shake, and the air seemed to fill with needles as the winds began to intensify.

Let out more power! It needed to be free! Kill everything in sight! Respond to 01010 101 010e m1r0 10101 0101d! 0101! 0101! K01L!

Agony flowed through Yumi as she brought her hands to her head and dug her fingers into the side of her head, veins pulsing and throbbing. But at last she had them on the ropes! The Krakens were struggling even to move, all of their lightning bursts being carried along the wind, and what little inky smoke they could create being blown alongside.

Now, to kill them!

The Kraken on her left screamed a guttural shriek as it was now lifted by a power that was not its own from the ground. One by one, each of its tentacles was stretched out, pulled by an unseen and unstoppable force. And one by one, each tentacle was ripped from its body and crushed. The Kraken roared in agony, its mouth and 'face' twisted in anguish. But it was not able to survive as it was reduced to a simple body.

A simple body that was then immediately crushed into jelly and then slammed into the ground, before it was driven along that ground, forced and squashed, until all that was left was a stain that crumbled into dust.

Yumi sneered in triumph, turning her attention to the final Kraken, which seemed to whimper in fear as it too was lifted from the ground to suffer the same fate as its comrade.

Her eyes glowed brighter than ever, and the aura around her changed to a shade of ruby, the power becoming even more intense.

It was wonderful. Glorious. This was what she had sought after so many years of pain and torment. She had found it at last. Vengeance, an0 retr1bu0101… 01010101010101010101010101010101010101010

"BLARGH!"

Yumi convulsed violently as she threw up blood from her mouth and nose simultaneously, her hands dragging across her face as her entire body shuddered terribly.

No! NO! Not like this! MORE! IT HURT!

"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Yumi cried, screaming as it felt she was forcing her limbs to straighten themselves out into a proper fighting stance.

The Kraken, who had attempted to recover as the telekinetic aura suddenly seemed to vanish, found itself immediately prone in the air, and then roared in pain as it felt its limbs about to be ripped from its body.

It might've suffered that as well, but now that the aura was only focused on itself, that meant an opening was possible.

Not from the Kraken of course, but from one of two final Tardigrades who had been mounted on a fairly large Ghost, so that they could act as a last-ditch defense effort if the Krakens had been defeated. That mount separated from the main swarm of Ghosts, its comrade ready for an attack. It would not waste that opportunity.

The instant the aura had weakened, the Tardigrade wasted no time in charging a plasma ball, which it immediately fired at the rampaging geisha.

It did not make a direct hit, but it was close enough that the electric shockwave slammed into Yumi, sending volts of electricity through her body as she was launched into the air, her body convulsing naturally, the girl screaming in pain as backlash from electricity and herself rampaged through her. The geisha made one final wail before she landed onto the ground, electricity coursing through her as she twitched, blood dripping from her mouth and temples, pooling around her head.

Jeremie watched as the warning signs started to recede from his screen, the blaring alarms quieting down. For a moment, he was tempted to assume the worst, but saw from the vitals that Yumi, miracle of miracles, had not died from the attack. He was honestly tempted to thank the Tardigrade for inadvertently saving Yumi from what was sure to have been total self-destruction.

The computer genius didn't waste a single moment. He immediately started the rematerialization procedure, and breathed a sigh of relief that it was now working. Yumi's body was enveloped in gentle blue light, before a loud hiss from the scanners on the upper levels indicated that the girl had been successfully returned to the real world.

If only he had the time to actually check on her.

"Odd! Odd! Are you okay?"

"Ugghhh…" The catboy groaned. "Feels like a bunch of fireworks went off in my head. Plus, y'know, still having to deal with getting tossed onto the ground like a volleyball, owww. D-did we win? Did…she get them all?"

"Listen, I've just finished reloading your Laser Arrows." Jeremie instructed. "You have to take out the last Kraken, that Tardigrade sniper, as well as the swarm of Ghosts to deactivate the Tower. Hurry up before the first one recovers!"

"W-wait, what about Yumi?"

"I managed to bring her back! No time to explain further! This is our last chance to stop the Specters!"

Odd shook his head, trying to compose himself. "Great…no pressure there."

But the pain in his head was leaving, the terrible white noise gone, leaving only some minor ringing. That meant he could gaze at the sights in front of him, but when the catboy looked around, his jaw dropped as he took in the sight of the devastation.

"What the heck did Yumi do to this place?!"

Odd was no stranger to Yumi's power, testifying to being pelted with rock-hard beads and rock-hard boulders that she had levitated at him with about the same amount of effort, but looking at his surroundings, he could hardly believe that this was what she was truly capable of.

A thin cloud of dust blanketed the slope, with the ground now scarred with curved gashes that crossed and intersected with each other, their individual shape reminding Odd of the crescent moon. Looking over the horizon to the forest he and Yumi had had to navigate through, the Cheshire Cat could see that many trees had been uprooted, as had several other plants in the vicinity now that he was getting a better look. These, along with many rocks, had been scattered randomly, as if a massive tornado had suddenly swept into Xanadu. Finally, in the distance, one lone remaining Kraken shakily began to levitate from the ground. If Odd didn't know any better, he could have sworn the monster seemed afraid.

"So, uh, was this kind of thing normal before I came into the picture?"

"We can talk about that later!" Jeremie cut in. "Remember what I said! Take out those remaining monsters, and make it snappy too!"

Odd prepared to fire back a retort, but then heard the loud, angry roaring of the last Kraken, who was already recovering from its near-death experience, its tentacles already charging themselves for another attack as it flew towards Odd with such force that it dissipated the dust cover.

"R-roger!"

Cocking his right arm and gritting through the pain, Odd immediately fired three shots, but these were absorbed by the orbs that the Kraken launched from its tentacles. Letting out a noise that sounded like a cross between a whine and a howl, Odd ran backwards, only for the Kraken to grab onto him with the tip of its tentacle, giving it a point-blank means to kill him.

Instinctively responding to an actually clear vision, Odd ran forwards, ducking under the Kraken's tentacles as they reached for him. Letting out his best howl, the Cheshire Cat rolled to his side, onto his back, before firing from both arms at the tentacles' base, at near point-blank range.

The Kraken's tendrils, though not torn off, had still been severely stressed while being tortured by the Geisha. The bursting Laser Arrows blew off each tentacle they made contact with, causing the creature to groan in pain, its maw wide-open as it let out an agonized wail.

Flipping himself onto his belly, Odd took his opportunity, and fired as many arrows into the monster's face as it could before he could be hit with another round of smokescreen. The familiar blue explosions were blinding close-up, but their effectiveness was apparent as the final Kraken dissolved into black ash.

"Okay, phew, is that the last one?" Odd wheezed, looking up at the sky, managing to catch in his eyes a new black unidentified flying object. "I wanna go home now, and-AHHHH!"

He just barely jumped out of the way of a burst from what he realized was a Tardigrade actually riding a Ghost. The idea sounded silly in his head, but as a second pair of monster-on-monster riders joined the first, Odd decided that there was nothing silly about aerial turrets. Still, having another hurdle to clear was not pleasant to learn, and the catboy made his protest known.

"You've gotta be kidding me, we just beat the final enemies!"

"Don't worry, this is probably their last line of security. You just need to defeat those last two Tardigrades and the Ghosts infecting the Tower. I've managed to get a good enough visual on them to give a firm estimate on how many there are. Just eleven to deal with, not counting the Ghosts that the Tardigrades are using to fly with."

Odd wasn't sure whether or not to be glad to hear that Jeremie's usual glib tone had returned, but considering the job ahead of him, the catboy decided not to complain.

At least, not extensively. "Yeah, great, because that's so easy. You got anything that would get me up to eye-level with those things, Einstein?"

"Unfortunately, no. You'll have to make do. I'll put that on my to-do list though!"

Well, at least one thing had returned to normal after the stress of the day so far. Glancing upwards, Odd saw two flashes of red light, and getting back on all fours, ran in-between the two plasma blasts, barely managing to dodge them as the attacks slammed into the ground. For a moment, Odd wanted to call to Yumi to go in, but then remembered that the geisha wouldn't be available for this last stretch.

It was then that the significance of this last stretch of the crisis sank in.

For the first time in this business, Odd was on his own, with only Jeremie's watchful eyes and computer skills to back him up.

Part of him wanted to follow the old plan and escape, but the majority of him told him that their one chance to solve the problem was right here and now.

"ARGH!" He groaned, having enough of his inner thoughts. "Less thinking, more hitting!"

And taking the opportunity to attack, Odd fired at the Ghost/Tardigrade combo hovering above his left.

As it turned out, while the Ghosts could still fly carrying what were giant solid walking boogers to Odd, the weight of said boogers slowed them down. The Laser Arrows made contact with the Ghost, blowing it out of the sky with a mournful wail, causing the Tardigrade to fall towards the ground. The monster gave a panicked roar as it fell to the ground, landing with a terrible impact.

Not in the mood to give the enemy any time to counterattack, Odd glanced upwards, then started running on all fours again as the final Tardigrade began shooting from its mount. The catboy just barely managed to get on his legs before he fired another volley of Laser Arrows at the downed monster.

Already weakened from the impact, the creature could not endure this attack, and shortly after seeming to endure the volley, it gave a final weak groan and collapsed into digital dust.

"One more to go!" Odd heaved.

Unfortunately, the final Tardigrade was also the one that had shot Yumi. Odd jumped as both it and the Ghost it was riding unleashed a cacophony of wailing and roaring, barely getting out of the way before the Tardigrade jumped from the Ghost it had been riding, landing on the ground to challenge Odd there, as its teammate flew upwards to join the remaining kin.

Odd managed a few quick back-and-forth glances at the separated duo of monsters, immediately recalling the previous usages of tactics and cooperation he and Yumi had seen from their enemies during this entire virtual battle. "Okay, is it just me, or have you things been reading out of a teamwork-and-strategy manual?"

The Tardigrade's response was to fire another blast of plasma at Odd, who barely managed to dodge. The cat-boy responded by firing a volley of Laser Arrows, but suddenly heard only empty clicks from his arm just as the first few blasts impacted his opponent, who growled angrily.

"I'm reloading you now. Please try to keep a better eye on your ammo count, Odd. Hold out for one more minute."

"One more minute?! I'll be dead by then!"

The Tardigrade growled, before roaring up at the Tower above. Odd didn't need a psychological guide on monster-thoughts to know what it was doing. Three large Ghosts broke away from the main swarm, flanking the Tardigrade, with all four monsters opening their dark maws in a way that reminded Odd of whenever he was presented with food.

"So, uh, just to let you guys know, I'm svelte, so you won't find THAT much meat on my body." The cat-boy gulped.

While the Ghosts were eager to charge at Odd to manually rip him to pieces, shrieking in what he could tell was delight, the Tardigrade preferred instead to engage in rapid-fire of plasma balls as Odd summoned whatever energy and stamina he had left to desperately dodge this final assault. The Ghosts were already hard enough to dodge thanks to their speed and size, but the plasma balls presented their own challenge thanks to their electrical shockwaves.

Ironically, without a weapon to encourage any form of counter-attacking, Odd found himself having better luck dodging this particular assault compared to the first one. But that first assault had left a deep injury, and now exhaustion from new ones was catching up to him. Odd could feel his movements getting sluggish as his breathing became more hagged, gasps turning to wheezes as he desperately coughed for air.

Part of him thought to count the time, but he barely got to 'three' before he found himself dodging another vicious attack, only to trip over one of the gashes Yumi had left behind. Odd gave out a cry of pain as he tumbled down the now roughened slope, barely managing to dig his claws into the ground.

For a moment, he thought it was over. He didn't need the power of future-sight to realize that as the three Ghosts readied themselves into a new formation with the Tardigrade at the center. A pincer-strike that would finish him off for good.

"You're reloaded!" Jeremie called.

Odd didn't bother to respond. Instead, he ran up the slope, tumbling forward to dodge the Ghost's attacks before firing right at the Tardigrade's open mouth.

The Laser Arrow had been fired right at the same time as the plasma blast. The two attacks passed each other by, mere centimeters apart. No matter where they would impact, they would impact and connect with their target. Odd of course, was far more nimble than a large, bulky Tardigrade. Instinctively, partly thanks to a brief vision, he was already moving out of the way of a fatal impact. It wasn't, however, enough distance for him to fully dodge the electrical shockwave, which managed to hit his tail, sending a current of pain right through him.

Odd screamed in pain as he crashed into another gash-ditch, one that was a bit deeper than the one he had tripped over. The cat-boy groaned as he received a refresher course on what it was like to be hit by this brutal attack, but since it had been a less direct hit, the pain wasn't as bad. It still hurt, but at least he didn't feel like he was a step away from dying.

That courtesy could not be given to the Tardigrade, which received a direct hit as the Laser Arrow flew into its mouth, already preparing to charge up another attack. The resulting explosion was far greater than anything the monster's external defense could offer as it blew itself to pieces, the remains crumbling away.

"You only have the Ghosts left now, Odd! No more advanced forms left! Get up! Come on! We're almost there!"

Odd gasped, trying to breath in as much oxygen as he could while climbing out of the ditch. Two of the Ghosts had what Odd assumed were their backs turned to him. Thanks to their size, the cat-boy didn't even have to aim as he fired six Laser Arrows from each arm, each explosion tearing into the monsters, who screamed as they were slain.

Unfortunately, the third Ghost, which was slightly smaller than its companions, was turned right towards Odd and it flew towards him at an incredible speed, grabbing him in its makeshift jaws before tossing him into the air.

Odd managed to cough out a response of shock before the Ghost came up at him again, grabbed him in its 'mouth', and threw him up into the sky again before it slammed into him like a battering ram.

It took every ounce of strength Odd still had to keep himself conscious from these terrible blows, the first ones he'd ever received from Ghosts. But why would it matter to think about that? He was nearly dead anyways.

The Ghost opened its maw open, and this time, it wasn't going to throw Odd up into the air. Instead, it tore into Odd's flesh, ripping off his right arm as well as the right half of his torso.

The Ghost opened its maw open, and this time, it wasn't going to throw Odd up into the air again. Instead, it tore into Odd's flesh, snapping him in two like a stick of beef jerky.

The Ghost slammed into Odd again, this time breaking what were probably his ribs. It slammed into him once again, breaking what was likely his spine. It slammed into him a final time, right in his face, twisting it near clean-off as the mangled corpse fell to the ground.

The Ghost opened its mouth for this final attack, and in a single bite, devoured Odd's head.

The Ghost snagged Odd in its jaws, and this time flew upwards to its brethren, before throwing Odd over to them. The remaining ten Specters, which turned out to be of average size, broke away from the Tower. Their smaller size was actually more terrifying that at first glance, since it meant all of them were able to have a piece of Odd Della Robbia as they ripped him apart and devoured the remains in a savage feast.

Yup, he was dead alright. There was no possible way he could-

Desperate, Odd brought out his claws, and when the Ghost dashed towards him, the catboy made a desperate fire. The Laser Arrow only nicked the Ghost, but it was enough to turn it slightly off-course enough for Odd to grab onto the monster's back, causing it to wail from the feeling of claws digging into its form. It flew around wildly, down to the ground, but failing to get rid of its unwanted passenger, flew upwards to its brethren for help.

Immediately, Odd managed a quick gasp of air and fired. The Ghost was coming at him from the right, from below. The Laser Arrow only grazed the Ghost, but it was enough to stun it so that it went slightly off-course. Reaching down, Odd gripped with all of his remaining strength as his claws skidded against the black, semi-etheral, phantom. Something akin to blood seemed to leak out as he did so, but it quickly vanished as he held on with all of his might.

The Ghost however, did not enjoy it one bit. It screamed in pain and flew around wildly, trying and failing to get rid of the unwanted passenger. Desperately, it flew down to the ground and crashed along it, hoping that the debris would knock off this cat pretending to be a flea.

But Odd kept holding on, even though every muscle in his body was screaming to let go. Maybe Jeremie was screaming at him too? He couldn't tell at this point.

Deciding it would need help, the Ghost flew upwards to its brethren, hoping that they could tear the remaining Avatar off of its body.

A fatal error that would be.

The moment it flew above the Tower, that was when Odd struck, firing Laser Arrow after Laser Arrow into the creature's back until it could no longer hold its form, bursting into oblivion.

That of course, left one Cheshire Cat flying through the air, in the perfect position for a last-ditch effort.

Odd would've tried to scream a war-cry if he could, but he had no energy left to do that. All he had were his weapons, and had to act fast before the remaining Specters took advantage. Yumi was out of the virtual world...he was the only one left for now.

For a moment, things went black, nearly causing Odd's heart to stop, but just as quickly, the black went away, with only some static to obscure his vision.

No more thinking…

With nothing left to do, Odd fired.

And all he saw was bright, flashing blue light before he began falling down to the ground below.


Annnnd that is the end of this fight! Lord, this was tricky for me to get into the right mindset for. Damn action scenes. This is why I had to stop work on Dimension Dowsing. Just could NOT get into the right mindset for a proper Action Duel (Also stupidly repeating the problems of canon. Why did I think that was a good idea?)

Anycase, before we move on, let us have our guest-speaker be cued in!

Donjusticia Commentary: Thank you again, Epsilon, for including me and my OC in your work. The crazy cultist guy is my contribution, and it was fun to see what Epsilon did with him here. You'll see a bit more of him in the next chapter (but don't worry, he will by no means eclipse any of the other characters. Epsilon and I both have something special in mind for him in the upcoming segment, eh he he!)

I would also like to take the time to thank the hero of this chapter, who fearlessly fought against the great evil, putting everything on the line to save the world as we know it! Let's all give it up for…

THAT ONE TARDIGRADE WHO SHOT YUMI!

Tardigrade: Thank you! Thank you! No really, I was just doing my job, all for the will of the world!

Here is a preview of more of his heroic adventures to come!

IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF…TERRIFIC TARDIGRADE!

Yumi the Destroyer: AW HAW HAW HAW! Fools! With the restraints on my psychic powers unleashed, I shall now destroy the world!

Tiny Tardigrade Tim: X.A.N.A., is anybody going to come and save us?

X.A.N.A.: I don't know, little Timmy! It's looking pretty bleak! If only we had-…

Kraken: Look! Up in the sky!

Phantom 1: It's a bird!

Phantom 2: It's a plane!

Phantom 3: It's a tactical frag grenade!

All Phantoms: A tactical frag grenade!?

The flying figure: Not bird, or plane, or even tactical frag grenade! It's just little old me!

*Dramatically lands on the ground*

Terrific Tardigrade: Terrific Tardigrade!

Yumi: Oh, rats and drats! Terrific Tardigrade! You've interfered with my ambitions for the last time! Prepare to be psychically crushed into a pile of black goo!

Terrific Tardigrade: Not today, fiend! FOR THE WILL OF THE WORLD!

*Blasts Yumi with Plasma*

Yumi: NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo! You may have defeated me today, Terrific Tardigrade, but mark my words, I will be back next week, and I will surely destroy you then!

Terrific Tardigrade: So long as the Will of the World remains true, you will NEVER prevail!

Tune in next week, for more of the exciting adventures of

TERRIFIC TARDIGRADE!

(Terrific Tardigrade is a Property of Xanadu)

Returning to Epsilon

Eli: *Looks above* What the Hell did I just watch? Did Fuuga or Kagami make this?! Ugh. Now I'm glad I've been ported over to another universe.

Thank you for that review, Eli.

But yeah, thanks again Don for letting me use your OC. Of course I don't intend to have him eclipse the plot and will dispose of him soon enough in a hopefully cathartic manner that makes sense and not a crass dunking.

And as for the rest of you, let's start up the QOTC again!

For this chapter's question: What were your thoughts on the 2D "Teleportation"/"Translation" combat in Season 4 compared to the 3D combat of Season 4 specifically? On that note, how would you rank the 3D combat of each Season, including Evolution?

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and as glad to be done with this portion as I have after being stuck with so long as we FINALLY start moving into new territory! Leave a review if you so desire and I'll see you again at an unspecified date because I SUCK at deadlines!

-Epsilon Tarantula-