Episode 15: Integrate
Blue Pearl Pet Hospital was the only place Rory could find that was even remotely nearby. She plugged the location into her phone and followed the muffled instructions, carrying Celene in her arms through the streets. She could hardly breathe, and every time she took a turn she expected to be lost, but then she would find her next landmark coming up.
She petted a hand down Celene's back. "Hang in there, girl," she whispered, but her guardian didn't reply. At least she was breathing.
She was glad that the police were distracted taking in the Roots, and vice versa; at least she didn't run into any unfriendly faces.
After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, she turned the corner to see the faint white porchlight she prayed was Blue Pearl, and she turned towards the building. She passed the street sign as she approached; 13240 Aurora Avenue. She grit her teeth—another coincidence. It felt like everything in the city had its eye on her.
She entered the building in a rush, pushing open the door with her elbows and causing the attendant at the desk to jump. The woman's clear brown eyes landed on Celene.
"Someone broke into my house," Rory burst out in a rush of breath. "I think they hurt my cat!"
The woman shouted back to the swinging door behind her, and a nurse gestured her in after just a moment. "Come in, let me see them."
The nurse, whose name was Jessica, looked Celene over, pressing gently on Celene's side where she made a little whine. She tsked. "It does look like she might have taken a hit. I'm going to take an x-ray so we can see what we're working with okay?" The woman brushed her dark hair behind her ear. "Don't worry," she said, but with urgency, "we're going to do everything we can. What's her name?"
Rory swallowed. "It's Celene."
She tapped her foot siting anxiously in the waiting room of the vet, hands steepled in front of her. She checked back with Narma, letting her know what was happening, and apparently, she had checked in with the others as well. The others were reasonably distressed, but she had nothing to tell any of them.
She breathed in deeply, setting her chin on her steepled hands. This was all her fault. If she hadn't been running around, trying to take on a gang all by her dang self, Celene never would have gotten Narma involved and then went back to Rory's place alone. Whoever it was, (and they still had no idea,) they were off with the Treasure Box and Celene was hurt. Rory didn't even know what the Treasure Box could do! How were they supposed to prevent something they knew nothing about?
Celene could have told you, if you'd listened to her.
After a couple slow hours or so, the attendant called her up to the counter. "They're going to be out to speak to you in a little bit, but while we're waiting, it might be a good time to get your information logged in. Now, I know this is not what you probably want to focus on right now, but I do need to log what payment method we're going to be using."
Oh, crap—Rory hadn't even thought about that.
Rory was kind of mad at herself that her first thought was Carmen. I have to quit doing that. Girl was going to start thinking they were only friends with her for her money.
But—that didn't matter right now.
Seeing her expression, the woman gave her a pitying look. "We can send you a bill, if you'd rather."
"Yes, please," she sighed.
It was another twenty minutes before the nurse came back out. She looked like she was about to call her name, but the moment she came through the entryway Rory rushed up to meet her. "How is she?"
Jessica pursed her lips. "There does seem to be some evidence of blunt trauma," she said, and Rory's heart dropped. "I'm anticipating the x-rays to come back showing some broken ribs. The good news is that cats are very sturdy animals. They can endure a lot." The nurse nodded at her, expression gentle. "I would definitely recommend we keep her here for a few days, in case of any internal bleeding the initial scans might not have picked up on. Cats recover from injuries like this all the time, though. I'm very optimistic."
By the time she got home, it was well past time for her mama to have gotten home from work and boy did she get an earful. It ended up being to her benefit to for the most part tell the truth then—she admitted that she'd been taking care of a cat (though, Celene really mostly took care of herself,) and that she had come home to find that someone had been there. Mama must have seen how upset she was, though, because she softened once she saw how Rory's expression.
Mama sighed. "I thought I'd been seeing cat fur. Girl, I told you, no pets."
"I knew you were gonna be mad," Rory mumbled.
Mama frowned at her, dark eyes weary. "...you obviously love this little cat. I supposed. If she pulls through, you can keep her."
Any other time, Rory would have been happy.
Right then, all she could hear was if she pulls through.
As morning dawned, Erin shuffled into the Institute without speaking to anyone. The duffle bag was bulged unnaturally beneath her arm as she speed-walked through the building, heading straight for the labs.
"Good morning Profes—oh?" The assistant trailed off as she moved for the door to the basement. She shut it behind her.
As she reached the second room, she fished into her bag, her hands closing over the elaborate embellishments and engraving. She exhaled heavily as she lifted the box from inside, setting it gently on the table.
It seemed innocuous. It looked as the name might suggest: too ornate, like a child's interpretation of treasure chest, more like a jewelry box than anything. Taking a sharp inhale, she backed away, the buzzing lights of the fluorescents above flashing a glare in her eyes.
She couldn't believe it.
She had it.
It was right in front of her: the key to fixing the most catastrophic mistake of her life.
With this, she was going to make sure that terrible day never happened.
From behind her, the feed of the future hummed placidly, her older self watching her handle the most precious object she had ever laid hands on. "I'll be honest, I wasn't sure you had it in you."
Erin adjusted her glasses, staring down the box as though it were an opponent she were trying to best. "Wouldn't that mean you weren't either?"
Her Benefactor went quiet, which surprised her. Maybe things had not changed so much, after all. "...we have to be very careful handling this," she said after a long moment. "Even without opening it, it's contents could be incredibly volatile to the procedures we're going to put it through. I have no idea what might happen if we overload it."
Erin turned back to the screen. "We're not going to open it?"
"It's impossible to open," her Benefactor said firmly. "It requires a very particular key and will yield to nothing else. Even being in this artifact's proximity should lend higher energy output than anything you've even encountered."
Erin swallowed, hands itching with the urge to get up close and examine every feature of box, and still. By every description, she had to wonder if she were playing with a bomb.
She remembered when her future self had first contacted her. She had just arrived here in Seattle, having volunteered for the collaboration with the institute. It was maybe a masochistic urge to return to a home she had run away from after Emma's loss had tainted every familiar sight.
Regardless, she'd just been moving her extra equipment into the old security room in the basement of the Institute when one of the screens flickered to life.
"Erin."
She froze, turning to look at the image that was blaring back to her. There was a woman on the screen—who had just said her name? About 5 reasons this was impossible flooded her mind; why did it turn on by itself, what's the likelihood that a television signal would have said my name specifically, this person can't see me this is a security feed why would there be a communicable video feed—
And then she took another look at the face on the screen, and the multiple trains she had going collided with a much more solid wall.
She hadn't known how to reconcile with the fact she was looking at herself.
"Stop staring and listen," her older self barked, a tapestry of stars glowing from behind her head. "I'm contacting you from 1000 years in the future."
Erin's eyes widened. "But—" You only look a few years older.
"Don't agonize over the logistics right now," she said harshly. "I'm not sure how long this signal can hold at a time. I'm contacting you now because I know how to save our daughter from death."
With those words, Erin's mind was made up.
She explained that she'd traveled through time and space to a place with incredible magic and technology. "I can't give you more than that," she'd insisted. "I don't know how much we're risking simply by me contacting you today."
This version of herself, who would become her Benefactor, had managed to reach back far enough to speak to her then, but something was blocking the signal from going any further. Still, the possibility had alighted the only hope she'd had since that day. "If we can figure out how to bypass whatever is blocking the signal in this time—"
Her older self nodded. "We can send a message far enough back to stop the accident."
Even once she had explained what they needed to do—Erin had been terrified at the idea of the damage she would have to cause, but it was worth it, it had to be—she knew there was no possible way she wasn't going through with it.
And here it was: the power source her Benefactor had said was waiting in this time.
"We have to try and integrate it with the machine," her other self called from the screen, indicating the energy transmitter she'd been building based on her future selves' advanced knowledge. She narrowed her weary eyes. "If we can feed the artifact's energy field directly into the convertor, it should give us a signal strong enough to bypass any interference."
"Professor Mooringer?"
Erin jumped where she had been kneeling to adjust the connections under her worktable. The feed clicked off without prompting, and she rubbed at her aching head. "Ah—yes! I'm quite busy! I'll be up in a little while!"
The assistant who had been calling down the steps hesitated. "O...kay? Well, we'll let you know if anything happens," he said, before shutting the door.
Gritting her teeth, she waited a long moment before stomping up the stairs to lock the door.
Forget what she had said before. Her job, her reputation—none of that mattered. Now, when she had everything she needed, when she was right on the cusp of seeing Emma again—nothing else mattered.
She couldn't afford any distractions.
She flipped the bolt before descending back into the bowels of the facility.
Narma couldn't believe she was here right now.
With everything going on, it brought her an unfamiliar anxiety to be going about her normal day when she knew that Celene was in intensive care. That someone had the box.
That she still couldn't hear out of her right ear.
It was just a small thing. She had finished the work repairing the slight damage her dresses had taken in the wee hours of the night whist she was waiting on tenterhooks to hear back from Rory, and the internship was close enough to over that this was one of her last opportunities to turn them in. Still, to be there and pretending that life was proceeding as normal when she knew a storm was brewing, black and ominous on the horizon...it wasn't a good feeling.
Everyone else was being useful. Carmen had driven Rory back to the hospital (it felt weird to call it a vet) to check on Celene, see if she was conscious enough to tell them anything. Gwen, Sylvia, and Mallory were combing through the information they had, scrambling to find any more clues to the thief's identity than they already had before.
She shook her head, bustling through the halls of the institute with her rack of dresses in their black bags. Best to get in and get out.
Carmen peered to where Rory stood next to her at the counter of the vet's office, staring guiltily at her feet. "You've got to stop blaming yourself for this," she whispered over to her, leaning on the raised countertop. "You couldn't possibly have known."
She could have. But no way was she going to be the kind of person to bring up the fact that leaving their houses alone at this juncture might have been unwise. Rory was obviously beating herself up enough for this; she didn't need help.
Besides, it wasn't as though Carmen had had foresight enough to protect her own home, had she? And whoever was doing this had asked unpredictably in the past, so who knew what they might have been thinking at any given moment.
She sighed, trying not to be audible about it. Maybe she was just mad. Mad that someone could come into their lives, cause this kind of chaos, and just walk away.
That didn't mean she had to be mad at Rory; she didn't deserve that.
Their heads lifted as the nurse emerged from the office.
Carmen said, "How is she?"
"She's doing well," the nurse said, and Carmen could see Rory slump on the counter from the corner of her eye. "I would still recommend that we keep her for another day or so, but she seems like she is going to bounce back."
Carmen let out a breath. Thank goodness. She couldn't imagine Celene not coming out of here, on top of everything else. It just...would have been too much.
Rory bounced on her toes, though there wasn't an ounce of enthusiasm on her face. "Can we see her?"
Carmen's stomach suck when the nurse shook her head. "I don't think a lot of excitement would be good for her right now, I'm sorry. Well—" she seemed to reconsider after she'd said it, glancing away. "—I suppose stepping in the back to see her would be okay. But I don't think it's a good idea to pick her up or anything at this point. She's still pretty drowsy from her medication."
Nurse Jessica lead them into the back, where a wall of square cages made her stomach turn. What could they do, though? They couldn't exactly tell the nurse that Celene was some sort of alien cat guardian who could speak, a person, and not just any cat—for anyone's pet, this would have been totally normal.
Still, it felt wrong for her to be locked up like an animal. She wasn't one; not really.
The nurse indicated one of the cages as they approached, and they peered inside to see Celene curled up, bandages around her torso. "There wasn't any bleeding," Jessica said quickly, "But we needed some banding to keep her ribs stable."
Carmen folded her hands before herself, unsure what to do with them as Rory slipped her fingers between the bars of the cage to stroke Celene's back.
Carmen bit her lip, glancing back towards the entryway door. She wondered if there were any way for them to get Jessica to leave them alone for a few minutes. As much as she hated to disturb her when she was recovering, if there were any chance they could get her to wake up long enough to check how she was really doing, or to see if she could recall any details about her assailant, they needed to take it.
Opening her mouth, Carmen prepared to create and excuse out of thin air, anything that might give them a few moments—
Then the lights went out.
There was a heart-stopping moment where the alarm she had felt at the hospital rose in her like a scream before she remembered where she was and willed her heart to calm down.
"Oh, not again," Jessica huffed. "Sorry guys," she said as the lights flickered, as though they couldn't decide if they wanted to come back on or not. "The power grid in this area has been terrible over the past few weeks. Seems like it's going out every other day."
Carmen narrowed her eyes. "Hold on. Do you remember the last time you had a power surge like this?" This place is nowhere near the other attack sites. Why would the power be affected here?
Jessica frowned, bringing her hand to her chin. "Um? Well—oh. I think it was about two days ago, because I had to re-enter those records..." she trailed off.
Two days ago? Carmen straightened. That's when that Cryptid showed up at home.
But her house was nowhere near there. So why...?
Suddenly, a little beep-beep sounded in the air.
Both she and Rory looked to each other, wondering why their cell phones had gone off at the same time.
Carmen pulled her phone out to see Narma's contact plastered on the screen.
hey, is everything good with you guys?
Shit is going down over here.
Pretty sure I need backup
Moments before...
When Narma wheeled her rack up to Abby, she blinked up from her work like she was coming out of a trance. "Oh, Narma," she said. She massaged the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry; I must have forgotten to include you in the email. We would actually like you to take those to your sponsoring department. They'll come to me eventually, but we decided it might be nice to let them be displayed in your department temporarily until the internship is over." She quickly amended, "The departments still have the option to display a look permanently, of course. I'm excited to see what you made."
Narma sighed. Well, that's one more trip across the building with this thing. At least she could leave as soon as she dropped this off. Come on, she was in a rush here!
She couldn't help but feel a little pensive as she chauffeured her rack over the tracks in the floor. As much as she appreciated the internship, she almost wished it had happened at any other time. So much had been happening lately that she didn't feel like she had been able to really get into the experience, which sucked, considering this was her passion. All in all, it seemed to have just flown by. She could hardly believe it was nearly over.
She wished she had the opportunity to do it over again, but she guessed that was the thing about life—you didn't get do-overs.
She was hyper aware of phone in her pocket.
As she moved towards the labs, the sounds of her rack wheels on the floor was joined by a second pair. Narma already knew who it was, so she didn't say anything, but sure enough after a moment of being ignored Antoni sped up to what had to be an uncomfortable level and came up beside her. "So," Antoni said, voice tart. "You finished your project?"
"Yep," Narma said. No need to engage; Antoni was going to find something to be snotty about regardless, and she would just rather not deal with that right now on top of everything else.
True to form, Antoni didn't let the silence stand. "I finished mine a few weeks ago, but then I decided that the stitch-work wasn't good enough for the finals, so I spent hours this week going back over it. How is your stitch-work?"
Narma rolled her eyes. Don't let her bait you, girl; she ain't even worth it. "It's turned out how I wanted it."
From the corner of her eye, she saw the red-head's lips fall into a pout, dissatisfied with being brushed off. She straightened her shoulders, slowing in an effort to not seem like she had rushed to keep up. She lifted her head, heels clomping down the walkway. "Well, I guess we'll see which the department thinks is best," she said.
Narma cracked her neck. "Guess we will."
Dammit. I don't have time for this.
When they got to the labs, though, the assistants looked particularly fretful. Narma slowed down, moving as Antoni slipped in with her rack behind her. As the girl planted her hands on her hips, presumably looking for their sponsor, Narma turned to one of the assistants. What a weird atmosphere. "Hey," she said, and the man turned to look at her, adjusting his glasses. "What's going on? Why is everybody standing around?"
The guy turned to her more directly. "Oh. One of you." Wow, okay; a little rude. He plucked at his collar. "We're not sure what to do. Professor Mooringer is acting really weird. She's been locked up in the basement all day." He bit his lip. "We have some new developments we want to go over with her, but we can't get her to answer."
Narma narrowed her eyes. That is weird. "Huh."
She paused, stepping away from her rack. She saw Antoni giving her a disparaging look as she opened the partition doors, peering through to the closed door leading to the basement stairwell. "And she's just...not answering?"
"No," another assistant piped up from nearby, leaning back against the countertop. "But we know she's down there; the door is locked. And she's, like, doing something with the lights. We can see them beneath the door."
Frowning at the closed door, Narma stepped forward. She cupped her hands around her mouth, the assistants flinching as she called through the door. "Professor Mooringer?" Her own voice reverberated back at her from the door's surface, but only on one side. Nothing. Hm. She tried again, calling, "Professor Mooringer, can you hear me? We're worried about you.'
She froze as she saw the lights above flicker. That...actually, now that she thought about it, had the lights at the Institute ever gone out? She never got any messages about outages. But those were happening all over the city, weren't they? They'd hit basically everywhere when the Cryptids first showed up.
Feeling a pit of dread in her stomach, Narma reached down to the doorknob. Even though she knew they must have tried the knob, habit caused her to grab hold and turn. She jerked her hand away as heat raced up her fingers. She looked down to see the purplish energy of electricity spitting venomous from the handle.
She cradled her hand, a strong suspicion beginning to form. She turned to everyone else in the room. "We need to get in there."
The lights went out.
Soft yelps of surprise sounded throughout the room, and more in the distance told her it wasn't only happening where they were. A rumbling throughout the building sent a chill up her spine with its familiarity.
This is bad. She backed away from the door. "Shit. Change of plan. We need to get out of here." I have to contact the others.
Antoni, of course, raised her voice to sound over the rumble. "I'm sorry, since when did you become group leader? I'm not going anywhere."
Narma stalked over and grabbed Antoni's arm, the girl yelling "Hey!" As she dragged her towards the door. The frightened lab workers flooded out behind her.
I need to get these guys out of dodge. I can storm that door once I have some back-up.
Ever the multitasker, she reached in her pocket for her phone.
Sylvia could tell that Mallory was stressed, despite her sister's attempts to help at something she knew nothing about. That wasn't to say that Sylvia was any better—she didn't know about tracking monsters, and even less about tracking people. The last time they had needed to do that, it had just sort of worked out, so she was relying on that to be the case again with lack of anything better to do.
And the other girls' cat friend was hurt, which made the atmosphere even worse. She's never known how to deal with other people's grief. The vibes were really just horrendous. So she hung back.
"Dammit!" The girl stood over her desk as Gwen hovered behind, Sylvia observing from Gwen's bed in their little loft. Mallory spat out, "This is getting us nowhere. That woman could have come from anywhere on the upper-east side. We have no idea what the treasure box even does, how—"
The lights in the room flickered.
The three of them froze. Sylvia may not have interacted with these creatures often enough to know too much about them, but the lights behaving improperly was never a good sign. Instinctively, her eyes moved to the floor, but the other two remained rigid.
Then their phones went off.
Sylvia reached for her own where she had been fiddling with it on the bed, knowing it wouldn't be the right stimulus to ease the grinding irritation in her hands but she was just going to have to fight through it because Giant Monsters.
She clicked the phone screen to life and a text from Narma blared up at her.
hey, is everything good with you guys?
Shit is going down over here.
Pretty sure I need backup
Mallory let out a groan as she read it too, eyes suddenly landing on the map. "The fucking Institute of Design, dammit. Guess where that is?"
"Right in the middle of that dead spot, I'm guessing," her sister grimaced as she began to gather up her stuff. She did too, digging her fingers aggressively into the knit texture of her bag.
"Until now." Mallory spat back, and they headed for the door.
They speed-walked out back towards their parent's run-down old mini-van, which they had mostly avoided using since they'd come here under the slight possibility of someone recognizing the plates. Desperate times called for desperate measures, though.
They filed into the car and Gwen quickly had them on the road, rushing towards the north side of the city. Mallory was slumped in her seat, and seemed to be sulking even though they were heading to fight the giant monsters anyways. "You shouldn't feel bad because you couldn't track the mother down," said Sylvia. "You didn't even really have any information."
Slowly, Mallory turned to look at her, and Sylvia fought to keep eye contact, as a courtesy. "'The mother?'" she asked, looking somewhat disgusted.
Sylvia clarified, "You know. The mother. The queen. Whoever is giving birth to these things, and sending them out into the world." She gave a helpful scuttling motion with her hands.
Mallory closed her eyes, dragging a hand down her face. "Bug terminology. Of course. What did I expect?" She plunked back in her seat.
Gwen spoke up from the wheel as she took the next turn at an unadvisable speed. Along the street, the lights were buzzing on and off like a rave. Good thing no one here is epileptic. "You did a good job researching us," she sucked up.
Mallory held a hand up. "Yeah, but I basically had your name. Not exactly rocket science."
"Too complicated for the police," Sylvia countered, feeling sassy.
Mallory flipped a finger back to her. "And I didn't even have to look for you. Your info was right there when I found Gwen's. Why are you still going by Sylvia, by the way? I would have expected you to drop it when Gwen did."
Sylvia shrugged. Up ahead, a traffic jam blocked the road, and she heard Gwen curse as she detoured. "I'd been wanting to change my name for a while," she said. "My old name was too boring."
Gwen shrugged. "When we had to change it anyways, we decided to just go with something we didn't mind being called."
Mallory narrowed her eyes over her shades. "And you went with Sarah?"
"It's neutral," Gwen offered.
She slowed the car as the tall building with Institute of Design written vertically along the side came into view. "Whoa. Uh, guys. I think we might have company."
"Probably a fair assumption," she monotoned back sarcastically, staring at the big hole in the building's side.
They climbed out of the car, leaving it a little ways back. No reason to place themselves at the scene of the crime if they could help it, according to Mallory. That was fine. Sylvia wasn't sure anyway how she would react if their parents were to suddenly come strolling in mid-battle. Probably for the best.
They peaked around the hole. Sylvia eyed the shape of the markings from the impact. "Whatever made this had spines," she noted to the other two, indicating the cracks arching out from triangular shapes in the hole's outline.
"Great," Mallory grunted. "I can already think of two things that want to kill us with that MO. We should transform asap."
As they moved inside, a wavy of nausea swept over her. She rubbed her arms insistently, hating the buzzing sensation that prickled over them. "Ugh, it feels bad in here."
"No kidding," Mallory grumbled, peering around at the abandoned cubicles. "Let's go."
The hid beneath a desk to transform as the lights flicked above them.
As they descended into the building, she couldn't help but wonder what might be waiting for them.
Narma pulled Antoni through the halls as the herd of scientists shuffled behind her. There were screams resounding throughout the building now, and her heart was pounding. Nightmare scenarios flashed through her mind of all the things that might be waiting for them when they emerged into the main area.
Antoni barked shrilly, "Let go of me!" and finally wrenched her wrist out of Narma's grasp as the cubicles of the custom-order bullpen came into view. Papers were scattered on the floor, the desks empty and doors to the back thrown open.
Where is everyone? She turned back to the group following them. "We need to get out of the building," she called out, and gestured for them to keep going.
"How do you figure?" Antoni shrieked. "You don't know what's going on any better than we do!"
Narma, sick of her shit, whipped around to face her. "There's screaming and the lights are flickering," she shot back. She narrowed her eyes. "That's happened every time one of those monsters has appeared."
Surprisingly, she watched a flash of nervousness cross Antoni's face. "...do you think one of those things could be here?"
Narma said, "I'm not sticking around to find out."
The group of them tromped through the building, the crunching and yelling only making her feel tenser as the neared the entrance. "We're almost there!" She cried back, knowing she might have been the only thing keeping these guys going towards the entrance.
When she saw the giant hunk taken out of the wall, she knew it was a bad sign. it became a worse sign as a wailing groan bellowed from behind it, and then a familiar goopy form began to push through the hole.
"Shit—" Narma quickly reversed, colliding with the group that was following her. I thought we got rid of that thing?! At least it just appeared to be the original model, based on the description Gwen and Mallory had given them before. No time now, though. There's an emergency exit in the cafeteria. "Change of plans," she said. "This way!"
As they neared the exit to the cafeteria, Narma froze to see a round white figure looming by the entryway. It was very still, but the familiar spikes jutting from its body glistened menacing in the florescent light. She brought a finger up to her mouth, glancing back to the others.
Her eyes stayed locked on what she knew to be the Urchin. This space was so narrow, and this thing was strong enough to bust through the cubicles that stood between them no problem. Narma took in a shaky breath. "We can't get past that thing," she whispered, barely audible. She hoped they could all hear her. "We need to hide."
Not turning their backs to the creature, Narma's mind raced, looking for somewhere she might be able to safely put these guys away. Her eyes widened—the fabrics room. It was a more out-of-the-way room and the fabric...maybe it would insulate them a bit? Make it more difficult to hear them? Well, it's the best I've got for now. She gestured them around the corner.
A little ways down the hall, she ushered everyone into the room. "Stay here," she whispered. "It's not safe to try and leave with those monsters at the exits. I'll go get help."
"What," Antoni called out, outraged.
But before she could protest, Narma said, "Don't let her leave," and shut the door.
She let out a breath and took off back in the direction of the cafeteria.
There was a closet just outside, so she ducked in and transformed into her Sailor Egeria uniform. Emerging from the closet, she peered around to make sure no one was there before creeping back into the open. As she neared the room, she heard tell-tale sounds of fright.
Heart pounding, she rounded the corner just in time to see the Urchin dart across the room, a stack of cubicles crunching beneath it, pierced through by spikes. There was an employee cowering by the wall, and before she could stop it the Urchin yanked the woman up and she shrieked before going limp. Narma winced as the creature tossed her carelessly behind it, where she jackknifed over top of cubicle's intersections.
"Hey!"
Narma's eyes widened as she heard the whisper-shout from somewhere in the room. Luckily, it didn't seem loud enough for the Urchin to hear, but as Narma's eyes scanned the room she caught sight of dark blue locks peeking from behind the far cubicles, along with one darkened lens.
Mallory, seemingly in her Decima uniform as well, waved her over.
Nervously, Narma glanced back to the Urchin. Slowly, keeping low, she crossed she room to her comrades. Turning into the cubicle revealed Gwen and Sylvia as well, as Sailors Fortuna and Gyges respectively. "I'm so glad you guys are here," she sighed. "Shit just went sideways."
"That's the creature that attacked the bus," Sylvia whispered, peeking subtly around the corner.
Narma nodded. "Yeah, and I saw the Miasma creeping in as I passed the entrance earlier."
The girls looked at each other. "Shit, it must have gone down the other hall; we didn't even see it," Mallory swore.
Gwen grimaced. "Just when we think we're rid of these things."
Sylvia spoke up. "Well, their maker is supposed to have that super strong box now. Maybe that gave them enough of a boost to bring them back."
A chill went down Narma's spine. She hadn't considered that, but it made sense. If so, it wasn't out of the question to think that Spindly Legs might be skulking around there somewhere as well. Great.
A stone sunk in her stomach. It also meant she had a pretty good idea where to look for the culprit. "...If that's the case, then I think I know where it is."
Mallory's eyes widened. "What? That's great!"
They all froze as the floor creaked nearby. "We need to move," Narma hissed. "No sense staying here where this thing might notice us."
They moved down the corridor, using the un-demolished cubicles as coverage. Narma was sure any second that thing was going to turn around and see them—she kept having horrific visions of the thing flying at them and having to watch her teammates be skewered like swiss cheese. Luckily, they seemed to get enough out of range that the thing couldn't see them anymore as they headed for the entrance.
Out of the frying pan.
As they reached the front of the building they were met with the sight of Sailors Boreas and Concordia mid-battle (damn, but she was happy her team had had access to vehicles that particular day.) It seemed that the Miasma had realized it wasn't where the action was and had come back.
Rory was blasting the guy with gusts to clear the...well, miasma away, as Carmen peppered him with Bellicosos. It seemed to have been working, as Narma didn't feel the miasma's pull with any marked intensity. The musical notes rang through the air as they set off tiny explosions all around it. The creature bellowed, the noise shaking the room.
No point in staying hidden if this thing is already on the defensive. Narma darted out from behind the cubicles, throwing her arms out. "Typhoon Strikedown!"
The trio of water blasts seemed more effective on this version of guy than it had been for it for its punked-out brother (an aesthetic which Narma could appreciate, for sure, but she certainly preferred this scenario.) The reverse geysers bored down into the monster's gelatinous flesh, forming large holes. Quickly, though, the holes began to fill in.
"Egeria!" Rory cried out thankfully, and her gratefulness only increased as she glanced over. "Decima, Gyges, Fortuna. Seems like kind of a mess you have here."
"Yeah, not great," Narma called back. "And there are some others running around too—at least the Urchin. Probably Spindly too."
Carmen panted, addressing the creature. "It's summer. Can't you guys go on vacation already? Harmonious Bellicoso."
Sylvia's eyes lit up with curiosity. "Can they understand us?"
"No, probably not," Narma grunted, shimming around the perimeter of the room. She pointed down the far hallway towards the back of the building. "I think the treasure box is down there."
Mallory ducked down defensively, eying the monster. "If that's what's powering these things, that should be our highest priority."
Rory sighed, morphing a Gust into a sharp drill-like shape and burrowing into Miasma's side. Damn. "Too bad this guy isn't just going to let us stroll out of here."
Gwen peered over to Mallory as Sylvia appeared to be...measuring the Miasma in hands? "You're still not 100%."
"That doesn't matter right now," Mallory frowned.
Gwen shook her head. "No, we should go after the box instead. Do you guys think that you're be able to hold off this guy by yourself?
Rory tilted her head. "This guy? Oh yeah."
Narma gestured down the hall. "You head all the way down and through two sets of doors. There's a room with a bunch of lab equipment, but the door is stuck."
Mallory held up two fingers, like the motion she usually used to summon her Chain. "Bet I can yank that thing off its hinges. Oh, wait," She suddenly stopped and made a crossing motion with her arms. "Ill-Omen Descension!"
As Narma watched, a plaque-like object appeared over the monster's head. It groaned, sounding angry, and began to undulate.
Narma narrowed her eyes. Never seen that before. "What is that?" She eyed the V on the plaque's surface.
"An assist. Should make this thing real uncomfortable when the countdown ends."
Sylvia nodded from the side. "I'll stay and help, then. Good luck. Don't die."
Gwen said, "We're going to try our damnedest."
Mallory and Gwen took off down the hall and Narma and Sylvia turned their attention back to their teammate's opponent. "Okay, well, time to get this thing handled, then." Narma stepped back, summoning another Typhoon. "Typhoon Strikedown!"
The downpour thrashed the monster, even the weird glyph above its head appearing damp. You have to appreciate continuity in an attack, I guess.
Rory gave a little cheer. "Yeah! Take that!" She caught the residual dampness in a gust, using it to dispel the fresh wave of miasma in the air. She glanced to Carmen. "Think it would fall for the same trick twice?"
Carmen cracked her neck, raising her arms for a Bellicoso. "It wouldn't be the first."
The creature thrashed, bellowing furiously.
And then Narma watched, uncomprehending for a moment, as two gelatinous limbs glopped out of the bulbous mass. It slammed the hands down into the floor, its fat fingers digging up the carpet down through to the cement.
"Oh," she said, suddenly remembering why Mallory had been hurt in the first place. "Yeah."
They screamed and could hardly leap out of the way in time at the Miasma slapped its arms out, suddenly ripping through the room from one side to the other with seemingly little effort. Its slimy body left a pinkish residue behind that Narma did not feel good about at all.
Well, this just got decidedly worse. Maybe they shouldn't have split up after all.
There was a thumping nearby, and Narma turned down to look the other way. Apparently, they'd been too loud—she could only say "Aw, fuck," as she saw the Urchin barreling towards them like fucking Sonic the Hedgehog.
They might have made a bit of an error, there.
Mallory and Gwen, or more correctly Decima and Fortuna, pounded down the hallway at break-neck speed. Okay, not really—Mallory, despite what she had told the others was still not at 100% and wasn't the best runner even on her best days. Needless to say, though, if there was a time to haul ass, it was then.
She just really hoped this battle wasn't going to end like her last active battle had ended. She could really do without any more abdominal trauma if she could help it.
She had mixed feelings about going to fight a door.
Gwen jogged beside her. She could tell the other girl was intentionally slowing herself down to stick by her, and as patronizing as it might have made her feel at any other time, right then it just made her feel like part of the team again.
Gwen glanced over. "So, what are we going to do once this door's open?"
She shot back, "Investigate, I guess. Try to uncover the box."
Gwen frowned. "...do we have a way to contain it? If it's that powerful, I don't know if we're going to be able to just...touch it."
Hm. That was a good point. You didn't touch a live wire; you don't manhandle a magical box in Chaos mode. "Celene was carrying that thing around in her head," she said, suddenly uncertain. Their smallest comrade was out of commission, after all. Not the best reminder. "Still. We'll deal with that when we come to it."
They eventually reached the rooms that Narma had presumably been talking about, and Mallory's eyes widened at the lab equipment positioned all around the room. "Why do they even need this kind of set-up in a place like this?" They slowed, pushing a rack of familiar dresses out of the way as they avoided the equipment abandoned in the room. "Guess it doesn't matter now."
She moved towards the interior door, and, as they'd been warned, the knob sparked at them.
"That doesn't look like your average electricity," Gwen murmured, hovering behind her.
"No, it doesn't," Mallory frowned, pushing up her shades. "That's fine," she said. I'll just have to not touch the door, then.
Standing back, she raised her two fingers, before making a sharp v-motion in the air. "Destiny Chain!"
Ugh, she could feel that the attack back in the front room was still draining on her resources; the chain seemed to suck more effort from her than normal. Even so, with a glow the chain burst from her fingers like a shot towards the door. One second she was calling on the attack, and the next the chain's sharp spade-like head had skewered the door.
"That'll work," she said. She wrapped her hand around the chain and stepped back, leaning her weight away from it as the chain grew taught. Gritting her teeth, she went a step further and wrapped the chain around her forearm, but the door still didn't budge. "Shit," she hissed, rubbing the sore spot on her arm. "Well, that's not doing it."
"Can I help?" Gwen asked, awkwardly hovering nearby.
Scanning the room, she caught sight of a piece of discarded PVC pipe leaning against a nearby desk. "...Yeah," she said slowly, "you can."
She set to work wrapping the chain around the PVC, before instructing her friend to take the other side. "Okay," she said as they each took one side of the pipe against their chests. "On the count of three, run forward as fast as you can. One, two.."
On three, they both barreled forward. A thrill of victory shot through her as she heard the wood splinter at the hinges.
Turning back around, they eyed the gaping maw of the stairs. "Well," Gwen offered, "no point delaying it."
Mallory nodded, though for some reason the sight of the busted door filled her with a decidedly bad feeling. "Right. Let's go."
They descended into the basement.
Narma blinked the stars from her eyes, struggling the regain her focus. She must have hit her head at some point because her vision was a little foggy for a second and now she couldn't exactly remember where she was.
A familiar moan burbled through the air, and oh, yeah. In between two big freaking monsters.
She had dived out of the way as the Urchin catapulted through the room. It had only been quick reflexes that had saved her, as she hadn't heard the thing on the approach until the last moment.
Seemed the blow to her head hadn't fixed her ear. Bummer.
She dragged herself up, watching distantly as the Miasma's sudden arms shot out, it rapidly pulling itself over the cubicles as if they were made of paper. The movement seemed to have shaken loose more of its spores, as as it passed her, she felt a wave of weakness ooze through her. She grunted, forcing herself up on her knees.
Her mind whirled as she watched her teammates fight from a distance. Was Rory okay? Was Carmen? Sylvia only barely knew how to fight; how was she supposed to fight back against two of these things?
Shocking her, though, her eyes found Sailor Gyges in the corner. As the two monsters created more debris, she seemed to have no hesitation in turning the wreckage into projectiles, using her summoned Willow Whip to grasp the broken pieces and fling them back at the creatures with an ease that could never have come from her petite frame. Freaking magic, damn. Good for her being able to access some kind of super-strength with energy-sucking spores in the air.
Speaking of which. "Boreas!"
Rory turned to look at her as she called, and Narma put her arms out.
"This place needs a dusting!"
Rory gave her a thumbs-up and called on a gust to pick up the spores as Narma dampened them with a Typhoon. The air lightened, and Narma scrambled out from her little nook. We need something better than this.
"Harmonious—ack!"
Narma whipped around to see the moment the Urchin grabbed Carmen off the floor and lifted her into the air. Carmen gave a wheeze as the creature squeezed, the energy flowing visibly off her like heat off the pavement on a hot summer's day.
"Concordia!" Narma jerked in her direction, only to stop short when a pounding sound brought the Miasma directly into her path. She hissed through her teeth, forcing herself to stop before she touched it.
"Dire Stellar Gust, jerk!"
The creature seemed to gurgle as the attack swirled in a loop around it. Narma stumbled away, and soon Rory came up beside her in full Boreas mode. "Vortex?"
"Vortex."
Across the room, she could hear Sylvia's flat tone ring out coldly at the Urchin, "STOP. THAT. THAT'S. RUDE." She ended the slashing motion on the monster's arm with the weapon's tails to let the momentum wrap them around the appendage. She dropped her full weight on the arm as though she were playing tug o'war, and Narma heard a tearing sound. Holy shit.
Carmen dropped to the floor, coughing.
Narma snapped her gaze back to the monster in position in front of her.
The vortex blasted through the monster like a rain of bullets. As expected, though, the creature seemed mostly unaffected, stiffening for a moment before shuddering and filling the gaps.
Narma shook her head. "This isn't working!" Rory stepped back with her as the Miasma shook, goo sluffing off it as it slammed its meaty hands (ew) down on the office floor.
Another hit, and Rory rolled out of the way, stopping in a kneel. "Think we can make this thing eat it again?"
Narma grimaced, dancing away from some pounding slams. "Despite this guy's big mouth, he doesn't seem to want to open it very much."
Rory frowned, casting a gust to get its attention. "You are right there," she said, before calling out to their teammates. "How are you guys holding up?"
"Okay," Sylvia said lightly, all the while having a limp Carmen leaning into her for support. She seemed to have tricked the Urchin into storming them directly, its quills stuck into a cubicle partition she was using as a shield as it gave an irritated whir.
Okay...well then. She called out to Carmen. "You alright, C?"
She sounded exhausted when she called back—dispelling the spores apparently didn't undo the effect of the Urchin's soul-sucking grip. "I'm fine," she said. "I mean, could be better."
"Fair," she called back. Narma's eyes drifted over their monstrous foes, to the space between them. Huh. Wait a minute. "You think you can stay in it a little longer?"
The Urchin wrenched at its obstacle, and Carmen called back over the noise. Narma was just glad that the distance seemed to distribute the sound evenly—not being able to communicate would suck especially hard right at the moment. Carmen grunted, "Don't think I really have a choice!"
"Good," she called back as the Miasma seemed to get its entirely metaphorical legs back. "Because I think I have an idea."
The stairway emerged into a dingy hallway. Mallory could feel static dancing over every bit of exposed skin, strands of blue-dyed hair suspended in the air around her. "Something's generating a lot of power down here," she grumbled as they cautiously moved into the new space.
Gwen walked stiffly beside her. She could tell she wasn't totally comfortable doing soldier work yet, no doubt in part due to how disastrously their first mission had gone wrong. Hell, though, she wasn't exactly the pinnacle of confidence just then, either. They had no idea what they were walking into here.
At the hallway's first room the door was standing open. Mallory half-way expected there to be someone inside, but the room was empty. Even so, there was something about the room's atmosphere that gave her pause. It just made her uneasy.
"I was really expecting...more," Gwen murmured after a moment, her voice loud in the quiet. The fluorescents were vicious, though, the buzzing noise permeating the atmosphere of the entire room.
"This must have been an old security room," Mallory whispered in response. No other explanation for the console full of screens in a place like this. She passed a table, and paused as she noticed open folders there. She jolted internally as she noticed one of the open files with Narma's name on it.
Delicately, she shuffled through the photographs on the table with a finger, examining the familiar likenesses of their squadron's original four in Narma's dresses. "Shit," she swore softly. Well, that explains how they knew who we were.
Frowning, she raised her gaze to consider the rest of the room. "...mh. You're right. It's pretty spacious for a security room, but I don't see anywhere in here where they could store the tech needed to pull off the tricks they've pulled."
Gwen shot a thumb back to the hallway. "The other room was labeled a maintenance closet," Gwen said, tone skeptical. "Did you see the size of that hall?"
Ah. Mallory nodded. "Pretty big maintenance closet." She wiped her gloves over her bracers, trying to will the static away. "Approach with caution, then."
Gwen said, "Haven't been doing anything else."
Mallory was a bit surprised when they opened the maintenance closet and revealed, inside, a maintenance closet. She was equal parts stumped and suspicious, and Gwen leaned in beside her to look. "Huh."
Mallory narrowed her eyes, staring petulantly at a mop and bucket. No, she was sure there was something else here.
"Hey," Gwen hissed, then, pointing down. "Look."
Mallory's gaze shot down to seek out what Gwen had spotted.
"The cables," she said.
Sure enough, threaded through the bottom of the back wall were cables, and Mallory could tell from here they passed over into the room they'd just come from. Still, something...
She narrowed her eyes at their spot passing through the wall. It almost looked less like they were passing through, and more like it, the wall, was sitting on top. She frowned sharply, and indignation bubbling up that she hadn't felt so sharply since she had seen Gwen standing in that freaking fencing studio. She reached out to the back wall of the closet, and she brushed her fingers along the wall.
Frowning with all the marked done-ness of Bert Sesame Street as he turns to the camera, she said, "It's fucking fabric."
Narma grabbed Rory's hand, pulling her towards the other end of the room. "We need to get this thing facing towards the middle."
Rory blew out a breath. "If you say so."
Narma heard Sylvia call, "What should we do?"
"Face that thing our way!" She yelled back. "But...uh, don't let it see us, if you can!"
They rushed to the far end of the office by the cafeteria, and the Miasma paddled after them, dragging itself along the wreckage of the office space.
"So what are we doing?" Rory pumped her arms, ducking down as the Miasma swiped out with its grimy a-little-too-human paws.
"We're trying to make it follow us."
Rory threw her hands up. "Oh! Well, we're good at that!"
Glancing back at the Miasma, she blew out a breath to see Mallory's Ill-Omen hit III. Wish I knew what was going to happen at I.
Sylvia thought that this was a pretty vague plan, but some direction was better than no direction. She eyed the pierced wall of cork in front of her curiously, holding it up with a hand to keep the thing from advancing. "These things aren't too smart, are they?" If it were, it would have realized that it would have gone a lot farther trying to trample them than simply trying to grab them around this wall. More to our benefit, I guess.
Carmen sighed, still leaning off her shoulders for support. "Now if only it weren't too strong, either."
Sylvia narrowed her eyes. "Still, this is surprisingly effective," she mused, leaning out of the way of where its remaining hand was trying to reach around to her. "If we just had a lot of really big corks..."
Carmen snorted, and Sylvia raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Then winced. Oh, yikes, there it was again. The buzzing feeling took a sudden grip in her belly, and her stomach turned. On instinct, she brought a hand too it, only to gasp and put the hand back up when the barrier faltered.
Carmen gritted her teeth. "We can't keep this up forever."
Sylvia chewed her lip, a bad habit she had picked up when she was concentrating. "They just said this guy had to face towards them." And not to let it see them, but that seems kind of self-explanatory to me.
Carmen frowned, finally letting go and bracing her shoulder against the wall. "Well I can't exactly Bellicoso him from here."
Sylvia nodded. "Yeah, I don't know if trying to pull this guy's other arm off would be a good idea in this position."
Glancing behind her, Sylvia saw they were about to run into the next row of downed cubicles. Wincing, she stretched to fling out her Willow Whip to grab up another partition. That seems like a good way to not let it see them.
Oh! Wait! "Concordia!" That was right, wasn't it? "I have an idea!"
"Yeah?"
"Okay, guys!" Narma called, breathing heavily behind them. "In about ten seconds—eep!" Sylvia glanced back to see the soldier drop a Typhoon where the Miasma's eyes should be, seemingly to distract it. How is it seeing us, anyways? The Urchin didn't have eyes either. Question for another time. "Never mind. Can you hold that guy there for like 30 more seconds?"
Carmen called back, "Yeah, maybe."
"Good." She said. "When I say so, move, okay?"
"Okay. Agh!" Sylvia gasped as the creature suddenly seemed to catch on and rolled, some of its spikes dislodging from the cork. Another, however, pierced the barrier to stab into her hand.
"Syl—Sailor Gyges, are you alright?"
Ooh, that was a lot of blood. Her eyes pricked with pain as the wound throbbed. "Y-yeah," she whimpered.
The monster wasn't done though. Having figured out why it wasn't moving, the monster began rolling rapidly, Sylvia quickly knocking the barrier sideways to cover them. "Take this!"
She whipped up the partition behind them to shove it off to Carmen, which gave them a larger block of protection except for the holes that were being punched through it at random. Sylvia struggled to keep her hand up as it dripped on the floor.
"We have to do something!" Carmen yelled, barely and gingerly holding up the partition. "It's going to break through!'
They still might be able to do what she had been planning, but it was going to be way harder with this guy thrashing around. She clenched her teeth. "I need you to trust me here," she said.
"Okay?" said Carmen.
Sylvia shot her a couple seconds of direct eye contact before breaking it. "We need to open the barrier."
"What?!"
"Just a little bit!" She dug her boots into the carpet. The room smelled like ozone. "I'm hoping this guy will reach through!"
"Why—oh!" Suddenly, she seemed to get it. "Okay." She hesitated. "Will we...still be able to hold it if we do that?"
Sylvia responded, flat, "I'm not sure."
Carmen inhaled. "Okay. Well, more of a plan than I have."
"Just a few more seconds, guys!" Rory yelled from...somewhere.
"Okay!" She turned her head back to Carmen. "On three."
"Okay." She nodded.
"One. Two. Three—"
They each backed up, just a little. A gap formed between them and the Urchin saw its opportunity. It thrust its gangly limb through the gap and grabbed for them.
"Now! Close it!" Each of them pushed together from their respective sides. The partitions collided with a slam, wedging the limb in the middle. It squealed, almost electronic sounding. It was trapped.
"Hold it still, guys! Get ready!"
Sylvia glanced behind with some alarm to see the other two herding the furious Miasma in their direction. Um. When...were they supposed to move, again? She was suddenly very uncomfortable, and her hands itched furiously at the buzzing on her skin.
Also, the gaping stab wound.
The Urchin's limb flapped stupidly between them, long, but not long enough to reach either of them in their current position.
"Okay—now!"
Eyes widening, the two of them jumped back, wrenching the partitions from the creature's spikes. As she might have expected, the Urchin immediately shot forward like a rocket to break free.
...and directly into the Miasma.
It was like time had been slowed down. They held their breaths as the two monsters seemed to stand in confusion for a moment, the body of the Urchin jammed half-way into the gooey mess of the Miasma. The two of them, surprisingly, didn't seem especially worse for wear from the collision, but...Sylvia watched them tug. And thrash. The gelatinous body of the Miasma began to glow somewhat.
"Sailor Boreas! Hold them together!" called Narma. "Don't let them come apart!"
Rory gathered up a Gust and looped it around the pair, enclosing them in a gale that she held together, muscles visibly straining and sweat beading on her brow.
"What's happened?" Sylvia asked, turning to Carmen.
"It's an endless feedback loop," Narma answered instead, "They're just stealing energy from each other."
"Oh!" She stood there, mesmerized by the almost grotesque scene. "So...what's going to happen?"
Narma pointed up above the pair where there was something floating. "That's going to happen."
Sylvia recognized the attack Mallory had cast, the one she had totally forgotten about, about two seconds before the plaque ticked down to I.
Δ
Moments Before...
Mallory and Gwen carefully made their way around the cleaning paraphernalia to push past the false fabric back of the closet. It was a shuffle. There was very little space for them and Gwen didn't think it would be a good idea to cause a ruckus at this juncture. Also, getting back out this way was probably going to be a pain. She just hoped there wasn't a scramble.
The room behind was significantly larger than it had first appeared, even bigger than the security room. There was another dark sheet clipped up to the ceiling that light flickered spastically through, turning their half of the room blue and burgundy in turn. She could feel the electricity—it pricked up goosebumps on her skin. She turned to Mallory, and the girl raised a finger to her lips.
They crept forward, and Gwen's jaw dropped as the change in angle revealed what the curtain was obscuring.
It was a machine. Its structure didn't appear too foreign on first glance, but it buzzed with energy that surrounded it in a pale purple haze. It reminded her of the sheen of the Miasma, but...that made sense. Presumably, this was the device that was creating them. Cords crossed the floor from one side to the other in thick ropes like muscle.
Off-center, she nudged Mallory to point out the golden box sitting within a round, clear casing. That had to be what they were looking for.
She watched Mallory creep forward, glancing behind the curtain and straightening at whatever she saw.
Mallory said, "Okay. We have to get the box out of there."
"Hold it."
They froze. Gwen turned slowly to where she had heard the voice call from behind her to see a woman pop up from behind the counter behind them. She raised her arms, aiming where she was holding something—it could have been a taser, maybe. A stun gun?
Bad news, basically.
The woman's gaze was obscured by blue and burgundy light, and her jaw was dropped open as she stared at them. "Amazing," she said. "This sort of technology is unprecedented; I don't recognize them at all." Gwen went to move, and the woman clicked something on the side of the device—it gave a threatening snap. "No. Don't move. I do have to commend you; I didn't hear you on the way in at all."
Suddenly, a screen on the wall flickered on. Gwen blinked through the dimness and the image resolved into another woman on screen. She spoke. "I told you someone was creeping around. There's more on the first floor."
It took Gwen a second to realize why the image on screen so unsettled her, but then she swiftly turned back to the woman with the stun gun.
She glanced back and for between them. Hold on—that was the same person. The one on screen looked slightly different, she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but unless she had a twin sister or something those were the same person. How...?
Gwen didn't know if Mallory noticed it or not, but the other girl didn't falter. "Put it down," Mallory ordered, voice hard. "I don't know who you are, but I can promise you you don't know what you're messing with. You can't control this—" she gestured back to the box, "—and besides, you can't get past both of us. You should surrender now, before anyone else gets hurt."
The woman laughed, but it sounded harsh. "That's exactly why I'm doing this," she forced out, and Gwen looked to Mallory, who shrugged, just as lost. The woman was apparently not done, though. "By the way," she said, "about that."
Gwen tensed as the woman hammered a sequence on her keyboard. Mallory jolted, looking as though she was about to rush forward, when a tingling sensation rushed over Gwen's body. Her gaze flashed down and, to her horror, she saw her uniform begin to flicker. She could see flashes of the clothes she was wearing out of uniform, blipping between the two like a bad television signal.
"Shit—" Mallory cursed behind her as the flashing resolved into their civilian clothes.
She untransformed them?!
The woman gave a victorious hm. "There. That should make you a bit easier to handle, now shouldn't it?" As she spoke, Gwen realized she could feel the sapping sensation that normally came with proximity to those Cryptids. Did she drain enough energy off them to cancel the transformation, then? Has to be. Now that she wasn't distracted by the flashing, she could feel the phantom weakness in her limbs.
Oh, this? This might have been bad.
Mallory scowled, though. "We can still take her," she groused, and the woman jabbed the stun gun out at them.
"I really don't recommend that."
Her name badge read PROF. ERIN MOORINGER; Gwen furrowed her brows. Why did that sound...?
"This contains 30,000 volts of electricity per hit. Not enough to kill you, but really, really unpleasant." Her eyes drifted over Mallory. "I recognize you, from the picture. Mallory, right?"
She heard Mallory inhale sharply.
Dr. Mooringer's gaze moved to her. "You, I don't know. That's okay." She gestured around. "I have a live feed right here in case I should need it." She gestured to the screen, where her doppelganger stared back.
"We don't have time for this," the doppelganger said suddenly. "Quit indulging them and activate the machine. We're too close to stop now."
Mallory jolted, though, moving explicitly to block the Professor. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here? Do you have any idea how many people you've killed or injured with your mad scientist schtick?"
The Professor grimaced. "You wouldn't understand," she said. "If you lost what I lost, you'd do the exact same thing."
"Erin," snapped the woman on the screen.
"S-sorry," the Professor stuttered, keeping the stun gun raised as she tried to move past them. "Don't try to stop me," she said.
Gwen stared at the weapon, trying to figure out how to get at her without being incapacitated. It was frustrating, knowing it was something so small, just pain, but knowing if they did this the wrong way, they might not stay coherent enough to stop whatever this woman was trying to do.
The question was answered for her, though.
Mallory, still a bit behind her, said "Get ready for an opening," not trying to disguise the warning from the other occupant of the room cautiously creeping forward.
Gwen floundered mentally for a moment. "And what's your plan for that?"
Mallory didn't hesitate. "My plan is she can only taze one of us at once—"
Gwen didn't have time to react before Mallory darted forward, the woman giving a yelp as she collided with her full-body. Even so, the moment she made contact there was the ugly snap of electricity as she dug the stun gun into Mallory's shoulder.
Gwen moved. She saw Mallory grit her teeth, paralyzed with pain and Gwen kicked the shit out of the Professor's arm. The woman let out a cry as her arm fell back, the stun gun dislodging from her grip. Gwen kicked it across the room in the same moment. "You okay?" she called out to Mallory who was still tense all over.
"—yeah," Mallory grunted. "That fucking hurt."
The professor tried to shimmy out from under her, but Mallory didn't give her the satisfaction. Going limp, she brought an elbow down forcefully against the woman's collar bone, and the professor choked. "I'll hold her down," Mallory said. "Go turn the machine off."
Gwen darted behind the counter at the front of the room.
The professor shouted "NO, don't—" pulling an arm free to reach out to her.
Mallory managed to keep her grip as Gwen's eyes moved frantically over the different devices along the countertop, all hooked up to the massive machine.
"GODDAMMIT ERIN YOU NEED TO GET UP AND MOVE—"
Gwen reached up and unplugged the monitor, cutting off the Professor's panicking double.
"No—" Erin cried again, struggling.
Mallory took the straight-forward approach. She tightened her gripping, grappling the woman in a way that looked decidedly Not Comfortable. "How do you turn off the machine?"
"You can't," the professor snapped.
"Bet you can," said Mallory.
The woman glared, baring her teeth. Gwen almost felt bad for her, the woman looking pathetic and decidedly upset. Then she remembered what she had done and redoubled her determination. "You can't," she said, and this time it sounded like a plea. She turned her eyes over to hers and Gwen tensed, uneased by the desperation in her eyes. "Listen. You can't break the machine. It's my only chance to save my daughter."
Mallory looked over to her. "...okay, you're going to need to elaborate." She didn't loosen her grip.
The woman exhaled harshly. "She died many years ago, and this is my only chance to stop it!"
Mallory and she looked to one another, equally blindsided, it seemed.
The Professor narrowed her eyes at them. "With that box, I can change the past. I'm so close; I just have to get the message to reach just a little further! It's so close—"
Gwen grimaced as she saw how blurry the woman's eyes had become. Damn. Why couldn't it have been easy? She wasn't expecting an ethical quandary, coming here! Then something struck her. "Wait. This thing can send messages to the past?"
"Yes," the professor insisted. "You have to let me send that message, or this all was for nothing!"
Mallory gave a long sigh. "Dammit." She closed her eyes, squeezing them as though to fight something off. Finally, she spoke. "Professor. You have hurt hundreds of people." She paused. "If this machine comes at the price of those people, we can't let you run it. Besides. The risk is too high."
Gwen was startled, heart pounding at Mallory's rapid judgement.
Mallory must have seen her glancing over for an explanation because she looked up to stare back at her grimly. "You change something in the past," she said slowly, it could cause irreparable damage. That's not sci-fi talking; that's common sense. You change one thing, who knows what else might change? It could be catastrophic."
The professor's expression morphed into one of panic. "No—listen. This device is changing things in real time. If something terrible was going to happen, it would have happened already."
Mallory cursed. "Well you haven't made this thing perform the final act, yet, have you? With that much power? You could blow up the city! Gwen, take it apart."
A pang of empathy still ringing in her chest, Gwen started looking around the controls. "I'm looking for some kind of release mechanism," she called over. "Don't exactly think it's a good idea to just bust this thing open."
"Fair," Mallory gritted out as the professor kicked and elbowed back at her. "Just try to hurry."
Suddenly, a surge went through the room. They collectively looked up as the lights buzzed wildly, the machine suddenly writhing with a wave of new energy. It didn't seem to like it—what Gwen would have classified previously as a mildly intimidating generator suddenly seemed almost hostile, purple energy sluffing off it in waves that made her toes tingle in her boots.
Mallory said, "What the hell was that?"
The professor wailed. "What have you girls done? Oh god, this was the only shot, oh god—"
Smoke cleared in the air as the monster's implosion racketed through the room. Sylvia hated the disgusting dizziness that sunk over her, a jitteriness setting into her finger and she rapidly swiped them over her skirt as though to wipe it off. Stop stop STOP stop. The friction warmed her hands, distracting from the sensation enough to be manageable.
"Well," Carmen said finally, rubbing her middle, "that was faster than I was expecting."
Rory leaned over on her knees, panting, "Y-yeah. I...guess it was like, pure energy, right? Maybe that's why? We have seen those guys straight disappear before."
Narma spoke up, straightening. "We need to go find the others," she said. "I don't think the Professor could fight her way out of a paper bag, but if she made these things, who knows what else she's got in her back pocket. Come on, I'll show you."
Sylvia wrinkled her brow as they started down the hall. "The Professor?"
"Chick that's doing this." Narma sighed, ushering them down the corridor Gwen and Mallory had taken off down a while before. "Don't know why, but we need to shut her down."
Actually, it had...been kind of long, hadn't it? Sylvia's stomach twisted.
They dragged themselves to the far side of the building, trying to jog but having to slow from the exertion they had spent.
"We're almost there," Narma called back.
And then Rory cried out, stumbling back. "WHOA, hey there. Guys, we've got company."
She braced herself and they turned to see a spiky looking fellow approaching from down the hall.
Oh, wait. She remembered this one. This was the creature that Narma and Mallory had fought when she'd been trapped in the bus. She'd caught sight of it from the windows. She reached down, and the sight of the creature sparking ahead reminded her of the tingling sensation still racing over her legs and she rubbed them, annoyed.
Her mouth twisted. She didn't have time for this—it had been way too long since they had heard from Gwen. Or Mallory.
Anxiously, she turned to the door as she glanced askew over her shoulders at the others. "Do you guys think you'd be able to handle this thing? I want to check in with the others—they've been gone a long time."
Rory cracked her neck. "This thing? Sure. We got it."
"Yeah," Narma said. "Go make sure those two aren't getting their asses handed to them. We'll hold this down."
"Thanks," she said, before continuing down the hall.
The tingling was only getting worse.
Mallory seemed to be getting sick of this. "Do you see this?" She snapped at the full-grown woman she was barely keeping still. "That thing is obviously unstable. You need to tell us how to turn it off."
"There's no turning it off!" She shouted, squirming viciously in her grip. "Once the power source is logged in, the energy potential is already being stored. It has to be released, or it will just break."
"So, we let it break?" Gwen suggested weakly. She wished Mallory and herself could have been in opposite positions—she would bet she was less familiar with this theoretical stuff than Mallory was; maybe she might be able to make some sense off it.
Mallory hissed back, "Blow up the city, remember?"
"Shit, right." Gwen let out a shaky breath. One wrong move might cause this thing to explode. She couldn't help but be frustrated—this was such a shit situation.
She eyed the screen in front of her, picking out individual pieces of information. "...there seems to be a set of coordinates entered here."
"It's my house, nine years ago. Don't touch it," the professor snapped. "AS I SAID, I was trying to send a message back."
Gwen's eyes fell to something in the bottom corner. "Hey, wait—there's a command input." She needed to calm down. This woman was a scientist—scientists tried to make their processes replicable, right? There had to be a logic to this.
"Nice," said Mallory. "There a key anywhere?"
"Stop," the professor shouted.
Gwen scanned the sea of information on screen. The line at the bottom didn't seem to say anything. Could that have been it? There was an indicator that read CTRL-KEY. "Yeah, hold on." Worth a shot.
She clicked the button, and a list came up. "Yes."
1 COOR – COORDINATE ENTRY
2 TRAN – TRANSMIT SCREEN (+FUTR, PAST)
3 PORT – DISPLACEMENT (+FUTR, PAST)
4 OTPT – ENERGY OUTPUT [CRITICAL**]
5 SCPN – SPECIMEN STATUS
Gwen narrowed her eyes. There were a couple more listed, but one entry seemed out of place. "What does 'displacement' mean?"
The professor gave her a withering look. "It means don't touch it. It's untested. I was toying with trying to transport something physical through time," she indicated a pad on the floor, "but I never had sufficient energy output." The machine gave a threatening whir, "WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. I was only just able to get the machine to a viable stability before you two showed up and ruined it, I don't even know if it's going to work but this is the only chance, you have to let me back on the console—"
They were all surprised at the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, backup.
Sylvia came through the door and startled, looking down as her uniform flickered and disappeared. "Whoa, uh—"
Her questioning gaze froze when she saw the woman on the floor.
Her expression went completely blank for a second, and she tilted her head at the woman on the floor.
A deep frown settled over her face. "Do I...know you?"
Erin Mooringer laughed. It was soft, and pained, and she brought her hand to cover her face. Mallory and Gwen looked at her, alarm bells suddenly ringing in Gwen's head.
And the professor said, calmly, "You're too late."
Erin was filled with a sense of peace.
God, it had been so long. It felt like the weight of self-loathing in her chest had broken open and, finally, disintegrated. Tears slipped down her face, and in her opponent's moment of confusion, she broke free.
The girl holding her down gave a yelp of indignation, but didn't catch her. Still, she didn't go far. She merely brought herself to stand.
She tried to breathe. She said, "Emma."
The girl Mallory behind her gave an incredulous "Emma?"
Emma stared back at her, just over her shoulder. Erin knew not to be hurt by it; Emma had always struggled with that. Still, Emma frowned. "How do you..." she saw the moment she realized, the moment she remembered. What did she remember? Her gaze snapped forward, and her mouth dropped open. "...Mom?"
"Oh, shit," she heard the other girl, Gwen, was it? Gasp. "Oh shit." Gwen took a step back. "Mooringer, I knew I recognized that name. Mallory, she's Sylvia's birth mom."
"No fucking way," Mallory swore.
She ignored them. Erin brought her hand back to her face, chuckling into her palm as tears poured down her face. "You're too late," she whispered, wiping her eyes. "It's going to happen. If she's here, then this timeline is already on course—that message has to have been sent to have prevented her death. You can't stop it."
Emma went stiff. "My death?"
"It's okay," Erin hushed. "I won't let it happen again."
"Shit," Mallory breathed behind her. "Shit."
She cleared her blurry gaze enough to look to the girl at the console. "You know her?"
Gwen stared back, horrified. "She's my sister."
Erin braced herself on the counter, shaking her head. She laughed softly. There was nothing more to worry about. "Then you know. This has to happen."
Erin's head shot up as Emma started screaming.
Mallory had known Sylvia's real name was Emily.
She'd seen it in the Amber Alert. Gwen Kingsley and Emily Kingsley. Of course, that didn't help her now—she couldn't have known they were going to be in this position, or at least that's what she told herself.
So when Sylvia started screaming, she knew it was a bad freaking sign.
They all shot straight as the girl put her hands over her head, and to her horror the girl began to flash with blips of light like a glitching program. Sylvia grit her teeth, curling up into a ball on the floor as the light strobed over her.
Gwen rounded the console to go to her and the Professor took that opportunity to dart for it. Mallory jumped up, darting after her.
"What's happening?" Gwen shouted from Sylvia's side.
"No, no, no, see?!" The professor had returned to full panic mode. "This is why we can't wait! We have to send it back now or this timeline will destabilize!"
She wasn't fast enough. She tapped over something on the keyboard before Mallory growled, wrenching her away from the console. "HEY!" She barked. She yanked back her shoulder, and the woman glanced back at her over her glasses. "What did you just do?"
"I initiated the output sequence—you can't stop it now—" Suddenly, the purplish glow of the machine shifted, taking on a bright green hue, power surging around the Cosmos Treasure Box. The professor's eyes widened. "I—wait, no. That's not supposed to happen. The parameters I entered were exactly precise—" she stopped suddenly, and Mallory gave a shudder as her pupils visibly dilated. "What did you press."
Gwen, hands still hovering over Sylvia, unsure. "W-what?"
"What did you press? I had everything. PERFECT. This isn't the transmission sequence. This is the transport sequence—what." She inhaled sharply, and Mallory watched her, a little bit terrified at the wild look in her eyes. "What have you done."
Gwen gaped. "I didn't push anything! I swear!" She looked terrified, eyes flicking between the Professor and her sister.
"You...you've ruined everything." Erin's hands shook, and Mallory was almost tempted to let go of her only to get some distance. "YOU—!"
Erin lashed back at her, and Mallory dodged out of the way. No longer was she just trying to get away—she was full-on attacking.
Mallory hissed through her teeth as she held her back, the woman reaching down to grasp at her. Gwen shouted something as the professor shoved forward with a scream, and Mallory managed to get her just to the side enough that the professor's own momentum worked against her. She flew from Mallory's grip past her towards the floor, her head colliding with the edge of the counter. In a moment of shock, her outburst was cut-off mid-cry, and she sunk to the floor, unconscious.
Mallory's heart pounded, frozen as adrenaline coursed through her.
But the machine was still blaring behind her.
She snapped out of it with a jolt as she met Gwen's gaze. The girl shouted, "Fuck—we have to move!"
They moved to the console. Gwen resumed her place, looking back over the controls that she had been fiddling with before.
"I-I really didn't touch it," she said weakly. She was shaking as though she was the one with some kind of electrical time current running through her. Not that Mallory was any expert on that. Her gaze flew over the different parts of the screen. "T-there has to be something we can do." Gwen peered over to her, eyes wide and glassy.
Mallory's exploring gaze fell to a small indicator in the corner—remote signal received. She frowned, but didn't mention it. That was something to wonder about another time.
There was a grim weight in her chest, knowing what she knew now.
Gwen bit her lip. She blatantly couldn't keep her gaze from drifting to her sister, still curled up on the floor. "There has to be some way to fix it. If the professor makes the machine, all those people—"
"Gwen."
Gwen finally seemed to realize that Mallory wasn't contributing. "What?"
She ducked her head, staring at Gwen over the lens of her glasses. Reaching out, she placed her hand on Gwen's shoulder, and the other girl stared at it as though it were some sort of parasite. "If she doesn't," she said grimly, "Sylvia dies."
Even though she must have understood it, Mallory regretted having to cause that stricken look to cross her face.
Gwen took a step back. "I'm not—" Sweat beaded on her forehead. "This—that's not fair."
Mallory pursed her lips. She was making the choice to not speak her mind here—it wouldn't help anything. Her stomach soured. It didn't matter that life wasn't fair, that Gwen had a family and chose to leave, that she could have everything fall in to place because she wanted it to. Mallory wasn't the one being faced with this choice. This was a terrible choice.
"We can't let those people die." It was said definitively. Just as quickly, though, Gwen's gaze fell to her sister. "But—" Her hands hovered indecisively over the keyboard.
And the most daunting factor in all this probably hadn't even occurred to her.
Gwen stared across to her, obviously looking for some sort of feedback.
Mallory swallowed. She had no choice. She had to tell her. "Gwen." She took a breath. "We have to use the machine."
Gwen frowned. "But—you said it could blow up the city?"
Mallory thrust a hand out to Sylvia, pulse pounding. "Weren't you listening? You're going to do it." Mallory held up a hand, trying to stay rational even as the machine blared green light behind her. "That's it. It's done. The fact that she's here proves that it's inevitable." It was freaking destiny. Sometimes, she hated being right.
"That's—" Her brow furrowed, and then Gwen's expression twisted into something angry. "No. That's bullshit. There has to be another way."
"You already did it, Gwen."
Gwen jerked back, gritting her teeth.
Mallory's fist shook, but she kept her voice level. "We don't do it? We create a paradox." The problems rose in her mind like popcorn kernels popping. "Ugh, but if we do use it, we create a paradox, shit."
Gwen clutched the edge of the console, rolling her eyes in frustration. The noise behind them was deafening. "What does that mean?"
She took a deep breath. "Let's say we go back and stop her from making the monsters. Then who creates the machine?"
Gwen blinked, seeming to consider it for a moment. Then her brow furrowed. Mallory could practically hear Gwen's heart thudding with anxiety. Slowly, her sea-green eyes gained a wildness. "What are we supposed to do then? There's no solution! Either way, we're—" she froze.
Gwen's eyes met hers, and a little spark of panic shot off spastically in her belly at the raw fear in her gaze. "Is this it?" She asked. "Is this the kickback from all the close calls recently? Is this the payback? A problem with no solution."
Mallory bit her lip. They were running out of time. They had to do something; they couldn't do nothing.
Erin had to make the machines to save Sylvia. But if Erin made the machines, people would die. If Sylvia was saved, Erin would never make them. It was a double-edged sword.
"What if..." She turned to see Gwen biting her lip. "What if we ignore the machine?"
Mallory's brow twitched. "'Ignore them.'"
"Just..." Gwen took a shaky breath. "Ignore the paradox. Just try and save her, and...who cares about the machines?"
Mallory stared at her, resisting the urge to wipe her glasses. "...that won't work, Gwen. It'll be a paradox."
"So?" Gwen stared her down, narrowing her eyes. "You said it. We already did it."
Mallory closed her mouth soundlessly. But the professor said this machine was changing the past in real time, that's...
The girl moved back to the transmission information. Mallory moved to read over her shoulder. "Gwen, I don't think—"
"We don't have Sylvia's information," Gwen murmured. "I don't think this will let us pull her out of there."
Oh, she might have been freaking out a little. "Gwen, this is a dangerous game you're playing."
Gwen quirked a brow at her. "More dangerous than this thing blowing up the city?"
Mallory grimaced. "Eh..." She shot a look at the Treasure Box. She wasn't sure it would blow up, but she wasn't confident it wouldn't with the way it was sparking.
As if to demonstrate, it decided to give a particularly violent snap. She jumped back. "Shit! Fine, fine!" She leaned over the keyboard. "It does have the professor's...god, did she use her DNA?"
She eyed the temporal coordinates on the screen. Besides the first set, there was only one other set of information logged in a similar format. She pointed a finger to it. "Where does that go to?"
Gwen's fingers hovered, before moving the cursor to select the second coordinates. "I don't know."
A selection screen came up—if Mallory was as technologically competent as she thought she was, it looked like a from and a to. She watched Gwen erase the entry labeled CURRENT TEMPORAL LOCATION in the from category. "Wait what are you doing—"
"We can't pull Sylvia out," she said, wide-eyed. "What if we pull the professor out?"
Mallory swallowed. "I don't...I don't know what that would do."
Of course, poetically, it was that moment red text began flashing on screen. Gwen stiffened, eyes locked on the red test scrolling across the black stating DANGER, CRITICAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED. "I-I can't do it," she whispered, clenching her teeth. Her gaze was locked on the final trigger: the conspicuous lever beside the console that couldn't be anything but an ignition. "Mallory, I can't. What if I kill us? What if I kill her?"
Mallory shook her head at the anguish on her face. She couldn't hear Sylvia anymore; she didn't want to know if she was merely drowned out by the machine, or—
"If we don't do anything, people will definitely die." Her head whipped around as the machine gave an ominous whirring. "Gwen, we're out of time. Do it now!"
She turned back just in time to see her hand on the lever.
Everything went white.
