ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS FAN FICTION — EVEN THOSE BASED ON FICTIONAL PEOPLE — ARE ENTIRELY MADE-UP. ALL DANTE REFERENCES ARE RESEARCHED… POORLY. THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS LEWD SEXUAL HUMOR AND DUE TO ITS LONG INTROSPECTIVE MONOLOGUES IT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE. _|_|_|

"Let not thy fear harm thee…" - Dante's Inferno, Canto VII

Kyle

When Mysterion just couldn't wait anymore for an all-clear from those who had gone into the Carnival, he pulled me and Angel to the side of our makeshift camp. Shadows danced around him, and I saw that he looked pale.

"Listen," he said to us, grabbing my right shoulder and Angel's left so we were in a semblance of a huddle. "You two are a couple of the most moral, practical people on this team. Whatever's going on in there, please keep your heads. Stay focused. I need you to try and do all you can to round up the others, all right? I'm getting worried."

"If there's anything I can do to report back," I promised, "I will."

"You know," Angel added, "that you can always rely on the Guardian Angel to keep watch."

Mysterion sighed. "I know. Just be… just be careful, okay? We'll get in touch best we can if there's any new intel that comes our way, too."

"Thanks," I said. "And, hey… don't let those shadows get to you. Keep your head, dude, remember?"

"All too well," Mysterion said with a solemn nod. "And Kite?"

"Yeah?"

Mysterion looked me sternly in the eyes and said, "Those letters. They were just to annoy you. You know that. If they try that contract shit again, do whatever you have to do to deflect them. Stay focused," he finished, returning to his first command.

Breathe, I tried to tell myself, but it was Stan's voice in my head saying it.

"I will," I told Mysterion. "I promise."

– – –

The path of red mist led us through the large, wrought-iron gates, and into the sprawling Carnival grounds. The first thing I registered was the heat from the volcano. I shielded my eyes and stared up at it. It was supposed to be dormant, wasn't it? But it glowed red with active lava, and I saw a stream of it pooling down off of one side.

And I thought about Stan. About how he still said he was cold. I wondered if even here, even in a Space Between our world and Hell, he was still getting chills. In a single, desparate attempt, I asked into my wire, "Toolshed, you copy?"

Nothing but static. A chill went down my spine, and I tried to tell myself that everything was okay. We were in Hell, but somehow everything was going to be okay.

Angel and I strode forward, to where three rivers converged, and a young man stood in a ferry on a dock. Just as Red Serge had warned.

He was cloaked still, but I could see Disarray's twisted grin. Trying not to shudder at the sight of him, I folded my arms and demanded, "What do you want?"

"So eager, aren't you?" he mocked me, his grin spreading wider and more skeletal. "We knew we could depend on you for a good fight, Human Kite."

"So let's go," I challenged him.

Disarray laughed, and it was echoed by a rumble from the volcano far behind him.

"Kite, don't provoke him," Angel tried. "We can't feed into what they expect us to do. Mysterion is counting on us to—"

"Mysterion?" Disarray repeated, his voice roughening to a growl. "Still thinks he has control, does he? Well. That simply won't do."

With that, he raised up his right hand, and we were enveloped in a thick red haze. I held my breath and shoved my hands out to both sides, forcing my glider out as well to dispell the haze. When it cleared, I glanced over to my side, but the Guardian Angel was nowhere to be seen.

Kenny was going to kill me.

I felt both a pang of guilt and a rising wave of heat in my chest, and I snapped my glider back into place and grabbed Disarray by the front of his cloak, hauling him about a foot up out of his raft. "What did you do?" I snapped at him. "Where's Angel?"

Disarray sneered, but did not relent. "This is not her fight," he said. "But don't worry. I'll take you somewhere you can let all that anger out."

"Just tell me where she is!" I commanded. "And while you're at it, where are Toolshed and Endgame? Mosquito and Red Serge? Answer me."

My wire crackled in my ear. "Angel?" Gary's voice came through. "Kite? What's… what's your status? What's going on?"

"I'm a little busy," I said. But I stayed tuned into the frequency so Gary could hopefully listen into whatever conversation I'd be able to have with the League's old nemesis.

"What's that?" Disarray asked.

"Nothing," I said, tossing him back down into the raft. I leaned down and grabbed both sides of the ferry and asked, "What's your game? What's the point of all this?"

Disarray laughed and sat up. He grabbed hold of a staff that was leaning against a post at the back of the ferry, which he used to hoist himself up to standing as he said, "There are rules in Hell, Human Kite. Those who don't play by the rules, well… let's just say that things get thrown into disarray for them."

With that, he reached forward quickly and grabbed me, flipping me down onto my back at the bottom of the ferry. Before I could recover, Disarray hoisted up the staff and stabbed it down dangerously close to the left side of my ribcage, and held the staff down on my glider. My eyes widened and I gasped, feeling a shock from the hit in my side all the same. Right in that spot. Right in the same spot Stan had taken a bullet for me nearly five years ago.

I tried to move, but found that I was paralyzed. The ferry began to move down the river, off to the right.

"You're so predictable," Disarray said with a scowl. He leaned forward onto his staff, holding it down now with both hands. I wasn't sure if it was exerting some kind of pressure or what, but I was completely trapped underneath it, and the shock from the hit still pulsed into my side. "So easily provoked, too. We could help you with that, you know. Give you a little more agency in your wrath."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said through clenched teeth.

"You're at the top of your game when you're provoked, Human Kite," Disarray said, his tone sinister and oozing both an insult and a compliment. I didn't want to take either, not from him. "You know, I never really saw your potential before, but Damien's onto something with you. You're not exactly… shall we say… chaotic material, but you're certainly talented when you're angry."

"What the fuck?" I barked. I tried to hoist myself up, but Disarray slapped the staff down again, sending that wave of pressure back into my side. I cried out without intending to from the shock, which only got him grinning that awful, hateful grin again. "Let me up," I forced out.

"You're holding back."

"Let me UP!" I shouted. I wanted him off me, and just like that, he was knocked to the back of the ferry by pure force of will.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to get my bearings. The ferry rocked a little, but my head was spinning almost out of control. My side still ached, and I tried to poinpoint exactly how I'd thrown Disarray off. I hadn't locked onto anything that I could figure… not the staff, not his cloak… and I couldn't read living bodies—but he was dead, maybe that had something to do with it.

But still… I'd done something like that before. I could still remember moving Clyde once, five years ago. I'd shouted at him and he'd just gone right across the room. And that sort of thing… I'd been able to keep that under control when Stan helped me train. It hadn't happened since. Until now.

Adding insult to injury, Disarray lay there and laughed.

"Get up," I said, clenching my hands into fists. I wanted to know where Angel was. I wanted to know where my brother was. I wanted to know where my boyfriend was. I just wanted everyone to be okay—and in Hell, that was a tall order, but that piece of shit in the ferry with me was just making me all the more fearful for what the others must have been going through. "Where are you taking me? What is this?" A sting hit my side and I winced and grabbed at the spot with my left hand. "And what the hell did you just do to me with that staff?"

Disarray kept laughing as he picked himself up, using the staff to assist him. His hood covered his eyes, but I saw another grin on the lower half of his mangled face. "I don't know what you mean," he fucking flat-out lied. "And as for this," he added, holding out one hand to point at the river. "Why, this is Styx."

"Styx?" I repeated, my eyes going wide.

I forgot I'd had the wire on. "Styx…" Gary said. "Human Kite, you've got the fifth ticket, you're heading for the Fifth Circle of Hell!"

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded of Disarray again.

Disarray laughed, but Gary answered. "It's Wrath. Kite, please, be careful. There's nothing but anger in there, a-according to the Book."

The ferry docked on its own in front of a rickety little shack on a bank far away from the Carnival entrance, surrounded by red haze and shadows. I stared at the building. It could have been a Carnival ride, I guess. Or a slaughterhouse. There were no windows, and the wooden planking was all jumbled and… and illogical. It gave me a headache just looking at it.

Disarray gestured toward the shack with his staff, and held out his free palm. "Your ticket," he said.

I scowled at him, but really did want to rid myself of that awful ticket, so I dug it out of my pocket and stared down at it for the last time. The embossed red numeral V glared back up at me, angry and sinister against the pitch black paper ticket. I took a deep breath and handed it over.

As soon as I did, a tall, narrow black door appeared on the otherwise grey and dingy building in front of me. After another second, the same red V appeared in the center of the door—two vertical slashes in the wood, it looked like, pointing downward like an arrow straight into the depths of Hell.

The door opened, and a cold chill blew out.

"Enjoy," Disarray said, and shoved me inside.

I stumbled and fell back, instantly feeling the shock of the cold inside, but I spun around and got to my feet in order to look at Disarray, who now stood in the doorway, blocking my exit with his staff.

"Mind over matter, Human Kite," Disarray mocked me. Fuck—that was almost exactly what I'd heard on the radio the night the Infras had first attacked. "The ceilings are quite low in this labyrinth. You don't want to bring the whole place crashing down on you."

"What are you talking ab—"

He slammed the door in my face and I heard a few bolts slide into the door. "Oh, fuck off, really?!" I shouted, pounding a fist into the door.

I took a step back and held my right hand out, trying to get a read on the bolts and padlocks on the other side. Four of them. I felt a sharp sting in my right temple as I tried to jerk the lock free; I heard it rattle like bones against the door, but nothing else happened.

Mind over matter in the labyrinth. That's what I'd heard on the radio. Mind over matter in the labyrinth.

Damien and Tenorman were calling me out for my quirk. They had made several blatant attempts to 'recruit' me into their Carnival, and wherever I'd just been locked up was sure to be their last-ditch effort.

I turned to face the room, and instantly felt fear engulf me like a hurricane.

My heart sped up. My arms burned. My side ached.

I was in a hall of mirrors.

My own terrified reflection repeated itself infinitely down at least three different paths, and the only light in the room came from somewhere distant, and it was red, red, red.

I thought about the painting entitled Wrath that Wilcox had hung in the Goths' place. The painting Damien had commissioned from him. The shattered red mirror that filled me with the same terror as the flashbacks I'd get from that one life-altering Halloween.

If they wanted to put me through hell, they'd already succeeded.

I looked back at the door again, once more trying to read the padlocks and bolts to no avail. My breath caught, and the only thing I could think to say to myself for reassurance was, "Toolshed?"

I'd asked it into the wire, and once again, static answered.

"Toolshed, if you can hear me," I said, "if you can… well… nobody knows locks better than you, so…"

I'll find you, he'd said before he and Endgame had journeyed into the Carnival.

And my heart hurt. We'd parted in our usual colleagues-first-in-the-League way, and here I was again, buying into that rule, talking about his lock picking instead of crying out, I need you. Where are you? I need you. So I said it silently to myself, hoping he'd get the message somehow.

I secretly hated that rule. I'd just never said it. Not yet. I hated saving face. I knew Stan definitely did. Maybe we were both afraid of how Kenny or Clyde would come down on us for it, if we let on to the entire town that Toolshed and the Human Kite were a pair in more ways than one.

But I couldn't think about that now.

I looked back at the hall of mirrors that sprawled out before me. There'd be no finding me at all if I got trapped in there. Not without some kind of path, anyway.

I took stock of the spools of emulsified string I'd brought with me and while, yes, I had plenty, I still felt that this was exactly the sort of trap Damien would be expecting me to waste my supply on. I didn't have much else, though, so I slowly started unraveling the bandages on my arms.

The burns from the ropes were still there, rough and red and angry, and they stung when they hit the exposed air. But I had to do this. The bandages wouldn't give me much in the way of distance if the labyrinth was too long, but they'd save me at least a full spool of string. That was worth it.

I rolled the bandages out completely and split them in half lengthwise with one of my knives to make longer strands, tied them all together, then tied one end to the knob on the door Disarray had shoved me through, gathered up the rest of the length, and began walking.

At the first fork in the paths, I wished I had chalk or something. Mysterion and the Guardian Angel were the only ones who really carried things to mark places with, and I tried to file the thought away for the future but instead was overwhelmed with the guilt of letting my anger with Disarray take precedence over my duty to see Angel safely into the Carnival. She'd disappeared on my watch. Yes, Karen wasn't much younger than most of us, but Kenny was still fiercely protective of her. I got it; I was the same way with Ike still. The team always stuck our necks out just a little more for the two youngest League members, and I'd just fucked that up.

But just as I was thinking that, I heard Angel's voice call out: "Kite? Where are you? Hello?"

I gasped. "Angel?"

The voice wasn't coming from my wire. It was coming, very distinctly, from off to my left. Without a marker, I quickly spun out one of my knives and knealt to carve an X on the wooden floor, then tucked the knife away and sped off down the path to my left, trailing my makeshift rope behind me.

My reflection echoed my movements over and over and over, and the red light grew just a little dimmer as I made my way to a dead end. Mirrors on mirrors on mirrors in an insulting curve. "Angel?!" I called out again.

"Anyone?" she called out. "Mysterion? Hello?"

The red light went out, and then flickered back on.

When it did, my reflection was gone from the mirrors around me, and instead they reflected an empty black space. But in the one straight ahead: the Guardian Angel. Her white cloak was stark against the dark void behind her.

And then there were eyes. Dozens of sets of eyes all opened up around her. She gathered up her slingshot with three flash bomb marbles in the baskets and sent a shot out at the sentient shadows, but when she released her weapons, every mirror around me shattered.

I doubled back and held my hands out to try to stop the sudden wave of shards, but they wouldn't respond to me. So I did the only other thing I figured I could do and ran. I bolted back to the fork in the path and then kept going, feeling guilty with every step. Where the hell was Angel? What were those eyes? Was any of that real?

Just then, there was another scream, and I skidded to a halt. That wasn't the voice of anyone I knew. It wasn't even human. But then, clear as day, Endgame's voice answered the scream with, "Aaaaah yourself, asshole!"

I gasped, and tried to find an opening in the mirrors. I glanced around, and my ongoing reflections glanced every which way around me. My head throbbed and I knew a migraine wasn't far off. A twinge in my right temple got me to turn right, so I set my right hand along the wall of mirrors in that direction and went toward the sound of Endgame's voice.

This time, I wasn't cut off with a dead end, but instead found myself in yet another fork, with a wall of mirrors off to my left, a wall off to the right, and hastily-angled, pointed mirrors forming a hallway down the middle.

Again, the light blinked, and this time, images flickered onto the walls on both sides of the room. To my left, I saw Engame, surrounded by jagged rocks, and to my right, Mosquito, a large wooden mallet in his hands, the blood on his mask looking almost more pronounced that before.

I looked back to my left just in time to see the sharp teeth of some enormous creature snap over Endgame, and I could not stop myself from screaming. As soon as I did, the mirrors on that side of the room shattered. The shattering was echoed by a shot from Mosquito's gun, and when I looked back to my right, his bullet flew in my direction and shattered all of the glass on that side of the room.

I couldn't make myself run that time, so I fell to my knees and covered my head. "What's going on?!" I shouted at absolutely no one. "What is going on?!"

The last of the glass from the mirrors clattered to the floor, and I picked myself up, my heart pounding and my breath catching. I was reeling from those—reflections? Visions? …Nightmares?

The glass lay strooned about the room, and the images were gone. The light flickered, and I picked my head up, expecting to see something else, but nothing happened. I slowly got myself up to standing and, out of pure curiosity, held my hands out and tried to get a read on the shattered glass. If I could pull the mirrors back together, maybe I'd be able to have some kind of window into the other Carnival attractions.

But they didn't move.

"What the hell…?" I said.

I narrowed my focus onto a single shard. Nothing.

My heart started pounding faster.

Just to test my abilities, I turned to read my makeshift rope of bandages, only to find that at some point, further back down the hall, I must have dropped it. "Shit," I whispered. I spun forward again and, panicking, took one of my butterfly knives out of my utility belt and held it out in my left palm. I held my right hand over it, concentrated, and it lifted off my palm with no difficulty. I upped the ante and made it spin out and click into place, then spin back to being closed before catching it again in my palm.

So I could still read things, I hadn't lost my telekinesis again. I just, for whatever reason, could not read the mirrors. They shattered when attacked, I figured.

I glanced behind me in the direction I'd come, but a brazen, distorted horse's neigh shocked me out of whatever plan I was about to make. The sound was coming from down the jagged center hallway in front of me, so once again I moved toward it.

The hallway became more and more narrow as I went through, until I had to angle myself sideways and squeeze through to a huge section of the labyrinth, mirrors in a twisted circle all around me. I looked around for any kind of exit, but before I could find one, the lights flickered and the sound of some hellish whinny rung out again.

I looked at one curve of the mirrors to see Red Serge, riding an animate carousel horse, looking back over his shoulder in desperation.

"Ike!" I shouted, rushing toward the mirrors. "Hold on! Ike!"

His image disappeared, and I flinched back, expecting the mirrors to break as they had before. They didn't, but instead showed a red haze, through which lumbered an enormous three-headed dog. At that point, I couldn't tell if the dog was on the other side of the glass or not, so I scrambled back as it lunged.

It was in the mirror. And that mirror shattered. I cried out, honestly believing that the hellhound might jump right through, and my cry echoed off of the other mirrors, setting off a chain reaction. "No!" I shouted.

I covered my ears and turned in all directions as the mirrors shattered in no logical order. "No, no, no! Why is this happening?! What's the pattern? What's going on?"

On that last word, the rest of the mirrors in the room burst and flew toward me.

I was confused. I was scared.

And, yeah, I was angry.

In a last ditch effort, I steeled myself and flung my arms out to stop the glass from breaking me. It worked, so I kept my concentration, pinpointing exactly where in my brain I was getting the read. Furious and fed up with my situation, I threw my hands down, and the mirror shards fell.

Breathing heavily from the exertion it had taken to stop the flying glass, I forced myself to keep walking. There had to be some kind of trick to the labyrinth. Something I wasn't seeing because I was distracted by whatever it was I was being shown in the mirrors. I had to believe that those were the actual Circles, the actual attractions that my teammates had found themselves in. But the shadows that had surrounded the Guardian Angel haunted me. What were those?

Mind spinning, I followed the empty, dark frames until I'd found an opening into another hall of unbroken mirrors. Keeping my right hand again on the wall, I picked up my pace, angry at myself for losing my one surefire way back to the beginning. If the mirrors kept breaking around me, too, pretty soon nothing would be reflecting the only source of light in the building, and I'd be trying to find an exit half blind.

The mirrors made me turn a corner, and started to lead me down a much more sinister path.

The mirrors in that new hallway were not as smooth and simple as the others. They started being angled oddly, tilted just enough to the left or right to make my reflection appear to be walking up or down and away from me. Trying to ignore the pounding in my head, I pressed on, clenching and unclenching my fists.

That entire building was freaking me out, and I hated it. God, I hated it so much. I'd hated the painting, too. Looking at that thing, at that painting, had started up my headaches again in the first place. Being provoked, being made uneasy like that… it had made me build my guard back up, it had made something in my brain realize there was something I needed to use my ability for. Something I had to protect. Something that needed my attention just as badly as…

As…

Okay. I had to actually admit it to myself: I did have residual trauma from that Halloween. I did. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop. It was something that I had to deal with, and it had been part of that trauma that had weakened my telekinetic connection over the past few years. There were things I didn't want to invite back, things I didn't want to have to reconcile, didn't want to have to deal with now that they were in the past. But the truth was, the night Stan was shot in the alley and Kenny killed himself to bring him back… that really had been the worst night of my life, and it had fueled me with a kind of empty rage I never wanted to experience again. Because it had been brought on by grief, by my anger at not having been able to do a damn thing when I thought that I had lost Stan, when I thought he was just… gone.

I'm a fixer. I've always been a fixer. I want to help. And when I can't… yeah, when I can't, I get angry. Maybe I even lash out. I needed to work on that.

And that night had just been the worst of it, because everything had been out of my control. I'd worked on it afterward; on gaining control, on calming my rage and the headaches that flared up when I used my ability. But I hated that Disarray was right: I was more powerful when I was mad. And I was afraid that someday I'd lose control again if something provoked me enough.

When I rounded the corner, something almost did.

The lights flickered. In front of the next mirror wall, I just plain froze. Felt cold, even. Clear as day, there was Toolshed, lying on the bank of a river both murky and shimmering gold. His eyes were closed but his mouth was moving as if he was speaking. Water lapped from the side of the boat and splashed him, hardly irritating him at all.

"Someone else, maybe," I heard Gary say through the wire. "Someone's got to do something to help Toolshed. He can't be near that water. He can't touch it, and he needs to stop drinking it, but I think he's tuning me out. I don't know what to do."

On the riverbank, a horrendous creature that resembled a fish bent to gather water into a small gold vessel. It picked up the vessel and stepped into the water, and began pouring the water into Toolshed's mouth.

And I screamed.

As soon as I could find my voice again, I shouted, "For God's sake, Stan, do not drink the water!"

He gasped and opened his eyes and started coughing, but then the mirror cracked. I screamed again and the mirror shattered.

"NO!" I cried out. I fell to my knees and tried to arrange the shards back together, but they only reflected the awful, awful red haze that was everywhere else in the winding room. "Stan! STAN!"

I double checked to make sure I was on frequency, and held my head as I started blathering out, "Stan, talk to me. Come on. Say something, please. Tell me you're okay. Tell me you're going to make it through this. Please. Oh, my God. Oh, God."

I bent over myself and let out another long yell, and felt my eyes burn with tears. "I'm sorry," I added, recalling our awful argument from the night before. "If you can hear me, Stan, I'm so sorry. I got mad. I know I can get a little short when I'm upset, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The night before—that had really been our first big fight. And we'd both hated it. We'd had arguments before, sure, but not like that; not yet as a couple. He'd been reserved and I'd been anxious, and we'd just not handled it well, and neither of us were proud of it. But the whole reason we'd argued in the first place was because we were both holding something back.

Stan had been quiet lately in his wanting to tell me something way, but every time he seemed close to revealing what that thing was, he'd look at my burned arms and get quiet again. Like we had to resolve that before he could work up the courage to say what he really wanted to say. And his concern and his fear and his hesitance all stemmed from love, and my impatience and my stubbornness and my worry all stemmed from love, and we were just both being stupid.

I choked out a sob and tried to will the mirror shards back together. I wanted to see if he was okay. I had to. But the shards wouldn't respond to me. So I started manually sliding the fragments together, just to try to catch a glimpse. "I love you," I said, still wishing Stan could hear me. "I worry about you. I love you. It scares me when you tell me you're cold, and I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose you again. I can't, I can't, I can't. I love you. Please, say something. Say something."

Stan didn't.

Damien did. "How touching," he said.

I let out another yell—out of pure anger this time—and lifted my head up, glancing around to all sides to try to get a visual on Damien. The mirror shards rattled beneath me. But there was nothing around me but mirrors, shattered glass, empty frames, and that slinking red haze. "Show yourself, you fucking coward," I spat.

"Is that any way to greet your host?" Damien said, his tone like poison.

"Where are you?" I demanded.

"I'm exactly where I want to be," Damien answered.

"Not what I meant," I muttered, standing.

"Oh, but I am, all the same," said Damien. I started walking down the hall, toward where his voice might have been coming from. The light flickered, and I continued on, my reflection following and flanking me and leading me forward. "I'm quite pleased with my expansion plan, if I do say so myself. Your little town is just full of fantastic natural resources that I can use to my advantage. Iron ore… active lava… willing participants… and, well… you."

A chill went up and down my spine, and I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles cracked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the offer still stands," Damien said. "You don't want to wander this labyrinth just a lost, angry soul forever, do you? I can offer you so much if you join the Carnival, you know."

"I doubt that."

"Oh, but I can. Answers, for example."

"I'm not looking for answers, I'm looking for an exit and the quickest way to kick your ass."

The mirrors had me turn a sharp corner, and I picked up my pace.

Damien laughed from everywhere in the building. "Oh, but you do have one burning question, don't you?" he taunted me. "Why, I'm sure it's giving you a headache right now."

I felt a sting hit my chest. He knew how my telekinesis worked. He knew about my headaches. I shook my head and walked even faster, not paying much attention to how quickly I was breathing out of sheer panic.

"Haven't you ever wondered where it came from?" Damien asked.

Don't buy into it. "I doubt you really know," I spat, scanning the mirrors for any sign of his reflection.

Damien laughed. "I'm the son of the Devil, Broflovski!" he announced with a sick sort of glee. "I know everything! Everything about you, everything about your intrepid leader Mysterion, everything about every last one of you. I've done my research. I've had plenty of time to kill."

"You don't know a damn thing," I said, attempting to issue a threat. I walked further into the next hall of mirrors and kept glancing in my blindspots, but still, I was the only one reflected.

"I know that you value logic," Damien said. That wasn't uncommon knowledge. "I know that you like things to be nice and tidy. You like everything to make sense. But you don't, do you? You're the most illogical thing on the planet. A force against physics itself. How do you do it?"

"I'm not answering you," I muttered, pressing onward. He was grating on me, but I tried not to let it bother me. I had to get out of there. I just had to get out of there.

"Is it a Ginger thing?" Damien continued taunting me. "Maybe it's a Jersey thing. Maybe it's even a curse. Hmm?"

"Shut up," I snapped.

The mirrors forked into a hallway to the left and a hallway to the right. I took a deep breath, held out my left hand, and forced the mirror directly in front of me to shatter. It responded that time. As the pieces clattered to the ground, I went to my left. Like a horrible dream, the pang in my side from Disarray's strikes earlier came back to haunt me, shocking my side. I winced, but kept going.

The mirrors became fewer, and the red gleaming light dimmed behind me as I stepped further into the shadowy hall.

"You never considered that, did you?" Damien went on. "Never considered that it might be a curse. Never considered that you could be just as damned as Mysterion. Did you?"

"It's not a curse," I said.

"How do you know?"

"It's just not, okay?!" I shouted. I took a deep breath to keep myself in check, grit my teeth, and kept going. The mirrors curved, and I followed their path. Still no sign of Damien's reflection anywhere, though his voice was everywhere.

"And who told you that? Marsh?"

The sting in my side flared up so horribly that I choked and had to stop walking. I grabbed at my side, feeling as if I'd broken a rib. But it was nothing, and in the back of my mind I knew it was nothing. Just phantom pain, just something that Damien and Disarray were forcing me to confront.

"You'll have to do better than that," Damien said, sounding closer. I lifted my head, but still no visual. "Besides, he's sunken so deep into his own Hell that it will be quite the miracle indeed to lure him out."

"Shut up," I demanded.

"What was that?"

"SHUT UP!" I cried out. I heard my own voice echo throughout the building, and every mirror around me shattered. I felt myself scream, and lifted my arms up to protect my face from the flying glass.

But I'd imagined the damage as worse than it was. The glass had simply fallen. Strooned about everywhere, but it hadn't flown about the room, hadn't cycloned. My arms began to sting as I lowered them, and I could feel the initial rope burn again from the night of the gallery opening, the night Tenorman had tried to get me to sign that fucking contract.

"What do you want from me?" I asked to the empty room.

"I want your Wrath," Damien said.

And just like that, there he was, standing not in a mirror but directly in front of me, veiled in shadows.

Once again, I was paralyzed. My arms burned, my side hurt. A headache started to sting, stemming from my temples. All I could do was try to focus on my breath. All I had to do was not lose control.

"That's why my Carnival needs you, Broflovski," Damien said, taking a step toward me. The shadows followed him. "It's no curse, it's no fluke. It's just you."

The red light around us was fading, but his eyes burned plenty red enough.

"You're a complete anomaly," Damien went on, taking another step closer. The shadows started flickering around him. "A force against nature. You may not be the only telekinetic human in this damned world, but you are by far the most interesting. I—want—your—Wrath."

"Stay away from me," I warned, not quite knowing what I was going to do.

"Or what, Broflovski?" Damien snapped. He took another step closer, and I swear I heard the faint sound of screams as the shadows rose and danced around him, as if each was its own sentient being. The room was growing darker and darker as the shadows rose around him and out to either side. "Go on. You're angry, aren't you? Furious? Feed it. Just think about it. Think about what you could do if you let that Wrath of yours ignite your mind. Think of the endless possibilities. Think of the power. The opportunities," he snapped, and the shadows roared and moved forward, shoving me back against the wall.

I slammed back hard against the wall, and while I was catching my breath, Damien encroached one step further. His image, I noticed, was hazy among the rippling shadows.

"You could be so unspeakably powerful," Damien snarled, "if you really thought about it. You would be such an asset to me. Hell comes for everyone in the end, you know—I'm offering you the opportunity to wield it for yourself, right here on Earth. I'm going to give you one last chance. Sign my contract. Just think about the—"

"No," I refused.

"What?"

"No," I said, stronger this time. "I control my abilities by not thinking so hard about them." Stop thinking, Stan and I had been saying about it from the beginning. Just breathe. "I'm not going to reduce myself to a single trait. I'm not going to fucking wield Hell, you asshole. I don't want to be powerful for the hell of it, I just want to help people."

Damien's shadows let out another shriek, and then his image dissolved, and the shadows melted back behind the shattered mirrors. He hadn't really been there at all.

"Shit," I said on an exhalation of breath. "Shit."

Trying to clear my mind and focus, I stormed back through the maze to the mirror I'd broken at the fork in the path. I could have continued down the other part of the fork, but the red light was dimmer in that direction; it led only to darker and darker shadows. So I turned and went back to the room where I'd seen flashes of Stan's own Hell, wishing I could get another glimpse, wishing there was something I could do to help.

Stop thinking, I told myself. Focus. One thing at a time. You can help the others once you… once you…

"Once I what?" I asked in a whisper to the air. "What can I do? I'm trapped in here."

The red light glared at me from overhead as I walked further into the maze, where I had had glimpses of my teammates before watching the mirrors break, leaving me wondering and worrying. I could be worried about them, or I could be angry about the fact that I couldn't do anything. Could I be both?

Would I let myself sink into a trauma-filled rage again when there seemed to be nothing else I could do? Or was there some way… some way for me to really take control, to own my fear, and my doubt, and my anger, and my sadness all at once, and channel it?

How could I use the Wrath that Damien wanted to my own advantage?

Stop thinking.

What do I do?

Don't think. Just do. Do what you can. Do good.

Everything was broken. Mirrors were cracked and shattered all around me but the red glow still reflected off of every surface.

"Give up yet?" Damien asked from wherever he was. "Ready to let all that rage in you out once and for all?"

"You fuck," I muttered, knowing he could still hear me. "You want me to lose my grip, don't you?"

"I admire your Wrath, Broflovski. You could be very useful to me. But you refused to sign my contract, so I'm afraid you'll just have to let that very anger eat you alive. Trapped in your own Hell. I expected better of you."

I glanced around again. That stupid voice had to be coming from somewhere. Light had to be coming from somewhere. But the ceilings were too low. Right? That's what I'd been told the moment I entered the attraction.

Wait.

Stop thinking.

I'd been told the ceilings were low and I'd fucking believed it.

For the first time since I handed over my ticket, I looked up. Without the mirrors to distort my perception of space, the red light made the lofty rafters more obvious. I glanced around, trying to get a read on some kind of intact object. As much as I didn't want to read whatever the light source was, I knew it was my only way out.

But those mirrors… something about them made them incredibly difficult to read. The only time they'd shattered for me was—when? Only when I'd screamed out my frustration and fear. Only when I was so angry at Damien that it was the only thing I could think to do.

So that was it.

I could read the mirrors. They just only responded to Wrath.

I gathered my breath, and focused. How could I make that wrath mine… truly mine? Not something that made me lose control, but something I could blend with the rest of me. Not something to consume me, but an impetus to act when I needed to, and for the right reasons.

After a moment of searching, really searching, I locked onto it. I found the light source. I found my answer. I spun around and ran toward what I could only assume was the center of the labyrinth, and when I stopped and looked up, there it was. The red mirror from the painting, whole and haunting. Affixed to a gilded frame right in the center of the, yes, incredibly high ceiling.

"You don't know what you can expect from me," I said aloud to Damien.

Not about to wait for a response, I focused, turning my anger into action, turning my wrath into reason. And the mirrors listened. I started gathering shards of the broken mirrors from all around me, keeping my eyes on the red mirror in case it shifted location on me. It was a strain, but I had to do it. My head was pounding and my arms were burning, but I mentally gathered shard by shard and stacked them up in midair to create a stairway for myself, up toward the red mirror.

When I'd made a suitable enough staircase, I bolted upward, running up what would have been several flights of steps until I stood on a large shard hovering just beneath the red mirror. I made a fist with my right hand and struck the mirror, hard, but it would not crack. I tried a couple more times and still nothing. After another strike, I felt the shard I'd been standing on fall out from under me. Shit—I hadn't been stabilizing it.

I fell, and the shards fell around me—the only thing that could break my fall was the labyrinth of shattered glass several feet below.

"No!" I shouted, to no one in particular.

Ignoring the headache, and how much strain this would inevitably lead to, I fell back on a trick that had only ever worked for me in R'lyeh. I mentally forced my glider open, spun so that my back was to the ground, and forced the glider to stabilize in midair.

It worked. I'd caught myself. I was fine. I was breathing. The red mirror was directly overhead.

It wouldn't break, but maybe I could dislodge it. The frame it was in might still give. I grinned, gathered my breath, stacked up a ladder again, and let go of my mental hold on the glider as I once again bolted up the makeshift stairs.

This time, I grabbed onto the frame—just as I'd thought; it was loose, hanging separately from the structure itself, blocking the exit. I kept part of my mind sturdy on the glass shard beneath my feet, and grabbed one of my butterfly knives out from my belt.

I spun the knife out, snapped it together, and lodged the blade between the mirror and the frame. Artificial light poured through from the other side. "Yes!" I exclaimed in spite of myself. I continued cutting, sawing at the red mirror until one entire side had slid free of the frame. I worked my way down along one side, then the other.

With three sides dislodged, the red mirror swung down like a trap door, nearly smacking me out of the way. I kept hold of the frame and took a deep breath of the air from outside. It wasn't fresh by any means, it was volcanic and heavy, but it was still enough motivation to work my way around to the bottom of the frame. I wasn't about to leave this thing even partially intact. I hated that building, and I hated that mirror, and I hated the painting back in the coffee shop that had tried to warn me about what I was going to be up against.

"You wanna see wrath, Damien?" I shouted down into the labyrinth. "Find me and fucking fight me yourself!"

I stabbed the knife into the bottom half of the frame and slit it down along the base of the red mirror until it gave completely. I lifted myself up onto the roof of the building, and looked back through the open frame. The mirror fell out of the frame with a groan and fell to the ground, shattering and scattering among all the other little pieces.

Oddly enough, when it had broken, my headache was gone. I was still keeping my concentration on the glass shard I was standing on, but despite all the strain, the headache was gone, and my mind felt clear and far less burdened. I gasped, trying to take stock of exactly how I felt. Nope. No headache, none whatsoever. All the strain, all the stress, all the concentration and mental hurdles had finally caught up to me, I guess.

I'd already accepted that I was telekinetic. And the more I embraced that, the stronger the quirk got. I wasn't going to let it bother me anymore, nor was I going to let it define me. It was a part of me, plain and simple.

And now, for the first time… I had complete control.

It was about keeping my emotions in check. It was about knowing I was doing the right thing with the abilities I had. I'd been concentrating too hard; I'd been letting my fear of the more powerful things I could do hold me back from letting my telekinesis just… be me. Stop thinking. Breathe. That's all I had to do.

Stop thinking, I realized, also meant, stop being afraid of the past. Which was difficult. There was no fully moving past that Halloween, but what I had to do now was, well… anything in my power to make damn sure it didn't happen again. And that started with finding Stan. Kenny had saved him from Hell last time. Now it was my turn.

I looked back down at the shattered red glass. I'd won. And I'd even managed in the process to comprehend true stability of my telekinetic quirk.

I let out a bit of a sigh, but then the building started to heave. "Shit, shit, shit," I said aloud, and I scrambled out of the opening and flipped onto the top of the roof.

From where I now stood, I could see the deceptively small entrance at the mouth of the river Styx, but I'd found myself a few storeys higher. The building rumbled beneath me, about to collapse, but I wasn't about to waste the opportunity of such a vantage point. I looked out first at the volcano, and the tents at its base; the ferris wheel and the shack in front of it; and, hidden from view when I first entered, a towering slide… a helter-skelter, with the number VII prominently displayed. My eyes widened. A tower. Chaos.

"Can anyone hear me?" I shouted into my wire. "I'm out! I beat my stupid attraction. Is anyone else—"

"Kite, don't call attention to yourself!" Delphi shouted back. "We can hear you loud and clear here. Gary's the only one who can get through to anyone till they're out of their rides, and so far, the rest of us have heard from you, your brother—"

"He's out?" Thank God. The building was shaking again. I looked away from the further reaches of the Carnival and scanned the ground for a safe place to land, trying to calculate the trajectory of the building's collapse. "Red Serge?" I tried into the wire. "Can you—"

Henrietta interrupted: "He's out, but he's requested a no-contact recon mission." What the hell? Ike had cut off his tech connection? Willingly? The building heaved again. "What's that noise?"

"Nothing, just a building crumbling," I said, still scanning for a landing point. Found one. Right in front of Attraction II. Even if I missed the bank, I might still hit the river. "What do you mean Ike—Red Serge requested no-contact recon?" I demanded. "And what about Mosquito? Endgame? Angel?" I stared down at the dismal entry of Attraction II again and felt my heart clench. "What about Toolshed?"

No answer. "What about Stan?" I demanded.

Henrietta again: "Not even Gary can get through to Stan."

"WHAT?"

I like to think that my fury is righteous. Not religiously, but in terms of what I believe for myself. My wrath, my fury, my anger is always fueled by my need to do the right thing for the people I care about. Sometimes I get carried away. Sometimes I get reckless, sometimes that fury can hurt people; sometimes I lash out verbally, sometimes I lash out physically. Either way, it's all coming from what I hope is a good place. It's all coming from me. Just like my telekinesis, my anger and my passion belongs to me.

"I'm going in there," I said, and made a run for the end of the roof.

I leapt off as the House of Mirrors collapsed below and behind me. I aimed my landing for the bank of Attraction II and spread out my glider to lessen the impact of the fall. Being on a rickety building had fucked up my jumping off point, though, and I landed not on my feet but on my side, rolling several feet in the dirt and sulfur and ash until I was at the bank of the river.

I rolled onto my stomach and my arms fell forward into the river. I gasped and forced myself to sit up and back a couple feet away from the bank. I tossed off my gloves, and my arms and hands dried instantly in the volcanic air.

"What do you mean you're going in there?" Gary asked me over the wire. "Kyle—sorry, Human Kite, I apologize and I dislike the idea, but that's suicide if you go into someone else's ride."

"Are you sure?" I asked, picking myself up and brushing the soot and ash off of me. "Was there anything on the instruction letter that said no interfering?"

"Ticket and token numbers," Delphi read off, "must be matched to the proper entrant. Admittance granted in order of attendant listing. No exceptions will be made without the explicit consent of one of the Ringleaders."

"I'm not willing to make any deals," I said, striding toward the entrance. "If I'm not allowed in, it'll just reject me, right? But I've got to try."

I had already beaten my Hell. That had to count for something.

Gary answered, "Kite, if you go in there, you'll be entering the Second Circle of Hell."

"Which is?"

"Lust."

Lust? Stan was stuck in Lust? I thought about it for only a second before it made sense. It wasn't physical lust for him; far from it. I knew damn well about Stan's lust for life. His want to just be alive, but his nightmares kept reminding him about his brief death. Reminding both of us, so much that it hurt. The more he wanted to break out of it, the quieter he became, the more introspective he got. The less he shared about it. We'd gotten into that fight the night before about his nightmares; about me worrying if I was exacerbating them.

While my telekinesis was something that was a part of me, those nightmares were things that were encroaching on Stan. Fucking up his outlook on life. Not talking about them was what was letting them in, not me, not anything else, and I deeply regretted pushing the issue.

Gary came in over the wire again, saying, "I also have reason to believe that Lust is just one aspect of that particular place. Henrietta thinks it might be tied to one of the Dhol Chants. That it's more Between than some of the other attractions in the Carnival."

"Okay," I said, looking up at the sign on the ride. E.O.D.: The Tunnel Without. "E.O.D.," I read off into the wire. "What's E.O.D.?"

"Oh, shit," I heard Henrietta say. "That's the Esoteric Order of Dagon. He really is Between."

Dagon.

"Thanks," I said. "That's all I needed to hear."

That meant that Stan's Hell was literally the source of his nightmares, and if he could beat it, he'd be rid of them. He'd helped me get a handle on my abilities, and I'd be remiss not to help him snap out of those nightmares once and for all.

I grabbed my spare gloves from my belt and pulled them on, then took out one long spool of emulsified string. I had plenty. I could put this one to use. I scanned the wreckage of the House of Mirrors for a good long board, grabbed a satisfactory one, and ran back to the mouth of Attraction II and drove the wooden shard into the ground to make a hitching post. Once the spike was in deep enough, I started tying one end of the string to it, just as I'd done with my bandages in the labyrinth but sure, this time, that it would be more helpful in getting out. Getting both of us out.

As I was tying off the knot, though, I noticed something. I fixed the spool back onto my belt, held my arms out, and gasped.

The burns were gone. Nothing left of them, no scars, no scratches; like an erased memory.

"Kite?" Gary asked.

"My burns are gone," I said in disbelief.

"What?"

"On my arms," I said, trembling somewhat. "They're gone. I have no clue how or when. They still hurt in my own Hell."

"Did you touch the water in either Styx or Lethe?"

"I… my arms fell into the river going into Stan's Hell when I fell off the roof of—"

"Be careful!" Gary cautioned. "Kyle—Kite… Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. I'm afraid Stan's caught and I can't get through to him because of it."

My heart started pounding. All the more reason for me to go in.

"I'll be right back," I said into the wire before cutting out the call.

I tied a second knot into my improvised hitching post, pulled to make sure it held, then forced my glider out. There were no more boats on the river, so I'd have to fly in. I took a few steps back, drew in a deep breath, then darted forward, leapt, and mentally hoisted the glider into the air. I was airborne, and broke through the entry and into a deep, hazy cavern.

Carnival or no, I'd go to the real Hell and back if it meant getting Stan out of there alive. Whatever was keeping him in that cavern, whatever was ladening him with nightmares of a world that shouldn't exist, it was going to have to deal with both of us now.

I'd beaten my Hell. And I was taking my wrath with me.

– – –

Stan

I had tried everything. Every tool in my arsenal, when Dagon let me get close enough to the urns.

Dodging that thing was a chore, let me tell you. It was slow, but it packed a punch due to its size. Whenever Dagon so much as brought a hand down on the riverbank, the entire room shook, and I'd have to redouble my efforts to both dodge the beast and stay standing.

But it was wearing me down. I'd make a run for the urn on my side of the bank and make a stab at it—awl, screwdrivers, hammer, crowbar, sledgehammer… nothing worked—but Dagon would notice and try to grab me. On my latest attempt, when I was ready to just bust out the chainsaw, Dagon pounded a fist into the back wall, which sent a rumble through the cave and threw me off my feet.

Its massive hand came down at me, so I quickly turned onto my back, grabbed out both drill guns, and fired into its palm. Dagon let out a howl, and sticky green pus started oozing out of its hand. "Gross, dude, what the hell?!" I shouted, and rolled out of the way, getting back onto my feet and running back up the bank, toward where the fish person had first stood to croak riddles at me when I'd arrived.

I ducked behind a rock and fired at the urns with both drill guns. Some of the bits hit and started to scratch the urns' surfaces, but most ricocheted right off. But at this point I was just mad. I had tried everything but the chainsaw. Which tool opens the urn? So I kept firing until I was out of bits.

Nice going, Stan Marsh. Great idea.

As I was reloading, Dagon recovered and lifted its right hand directly over me. I was hit with a split-second panic, not knowing whether to load up, grab out another tool, or just roll the hell out of the way again, but before I could figure it out, something sailed through the air from the open mouth of the cave through which I'd come in and punctured Dagon's massive hand right in the center.

Dagon reeled back and let out a screech as it tried to shake loose the thing in its palm. I reloaded and scrambled back to my feet just as the mystery weapon was dislodged from Dagon's hand. The thing fell to the ground at my feet, and my heart lifted into my throat when I saw that it was an incredibly familiar butterfly knife.

"There's more where that came from!" a voice came from the mouth of the cave.

And suddenly, there was the Human Kite. He made a three-point landing on the other side of the river, grabbed out another knife from his belt, spun it out and locked it into place, then hurled the weapon right up into Dagon's left eye. The beast reeled back and began an unsuccessful attempt at dislodging the knife, ignoring us.

"Kite!" I called out, rushing to the edge of the riverbank. It seemed completely illogical that he'd be able to enter another ride, but I knew him. I knew Kyle, and I knew that when he wanted to do something, he'd find a way.

I couldn't help it, I was fucking grinning. I was elated. I was the warmest I had been in days, if not weeks.

The dream I'd had in that Space Between… that hadn't been Kyle, that hadn't been me, that hadn't been us. I had chosen both paths, and this was exactly where I wanted to be; where we needed to be. Fuck settling down if it meant leaving the fight behind. I loved seeing him like this.

I loved feeling like the two of us could save the world.

He looked over at me and flashed a relieved smile. "Sorry to keep you waiting, dude," he said, giving me a salute.

"How did you get here?" I exclaimed. "Without a ticket and whatever?"

Kite took a spool of his emulsified thread off of his belt and held it up, revealing a long strand leading back through the cave tunnel behind him. "How'd you think? I flew," he said, his smile broadening to a grin.

As I was trying to figure out all of the compliments I wanted to shout out at him, Kite tied off the spool on a jagged rock on his side of the river, cast a look over at Dagon to make sure the thing was still momentarily out of commission—which it was—then spread out his glider and got himself airborne, effortlessly touching down again just about a foot in front of me.

Kite folded up the glider, and when he picked his head up to look at me, I tucked my drill guns back into my belt, took a few steps forward, and hugged him. He returned it right away, and when we stepped back, he searched my eyes and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I am now," I told him.

Kite smiled, then glanced over at the giant, ancient god at the other end of the cave. It was still thrashing, but it wouldn't be for long. "What is that thing?" he asked. "Is that—fuck, is that Dagon?"

"I think so," I answered.

"That's the thing that's been fucking with your nightmares?" Kite asked, his eyes narrowing as he assessed my opponent. Our opponent.

"Yeah," I said. "So I think… I think once it's dead, the Spaces Between won't have any hold on me. I'm supposed to do something… something about which tool opens the urn. But—Kite, what about you?" I asked, turning him to face me. "Where did they take you? Are you all right?"

"Unharmed, yeah," he said. "I beat my attraction, no thanks to Damien being terrifying as hell. And I kinda think I hit a new breakthrough with my telekinesis."

"You're really calling it that, huh?" I guessed.

He let out a light sigh. "I've gotta call it what it is, I think," he said. "If I keep calling it a quirk, I'll keep feeling like it's something that happened to me. But it's more than just a quirk, it's—I mean, it kind of is me. It's like you said. It's the way my brain works. I've gotta own it."

I felt myself smile, and a thought hit me: I was so proud of him. I was so incredibly proud of him. "Yeah," I said in agreement.

And that was when I looked down at his arms. No bandages, no scars. My heart skipped. "Oh, my God," I said.

"Hmm?"

"Your arms."

"Oh!" Kite said, looking down with me. "Yeah. Yeah, I… okay, so after I got out of my Hell, the building collapsed, and I had to make a jump for it off the roof, and I landed by the river your ride is on, and…"

"Are you okay?" I asked, frantically, looking into his eyes again.

He smiled reassuringly and said, "Better than ever. Gary said something about this river being forgetfulness. So I guess it kind of… erased whatever the GSM's ropes had done to my skin."

Concerned, I grabbed hold of his shoulders and really searched his perfect green eyes for any trace of something off. To my utmost relief, there was nothing to be worried about. Even so, I asked, "You didn't drink any of the water, did you? Is that all it did, just splash your arms? It didn't hurt you, or…?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine," he promised. "But what about you?" he asked, then, taking hold of my upper arms. "Did that thing—"

That thing let out another screech, and the ground rumbled beneath us. Kite and I both gasped and clung on tighter, taking a simultaneous protective step back. Dagon was through with its thrashing and had conceded to being blind in one eye, with Kite's knife still buried into its pupil. But the fish god itself was brazenly angry, and it slammed its left hand down onto the far bank again, shaking the cave.

"Okay," Kite said, and I could see the gears in his head whirring. "So the objectives are, bring that thing down and figure out the tool to open the urn. What urn?"

"Uh, back there," I said, pointing to the spaces behind Dagon on either side of the bank. One urn was still scratched from the aftermath of my forced dream. "Like the ones in Wilcox's painting."

"Which tool… have you tried some?"

"All of them, but I can't figure it out."

Kite grinned. "Then let's use the best tool we've both got at our disposal." Just before I could ask what it was, I got it, and he grinned at me before he said, "Logic."

I laughed a little. I was so glad he was there. "I like the way you think," I said.

Dagon let out a roar and slammed its left hand down on the opposite bank. The urns rattled.

"Okay," I said, "that guy's pissed off. But it's big and it's slow, so I think we've just gotta wear it down."

"Right," Kite agreed. "Hey, let's do a quick trade off. I've kind of got an idea, but some extra horsepower never hurts."

I caught on right away and took out one of my drill guns. I spun it around once before handing it over to him. "What's the trade?" I wondered.

"Here," Kite said, handing me a spool of his thread in exchange for the drill gun. "I think if we tie it down, we'll have that thing right where we want it."

"Nice," I said. I took the spool and added it to my arsenal, and Kite gave me a light squeeze on the arm for luck before spreading out his glider again and returning to the opposite side of the river.

Dagon followed Kite with its gaze, so to distract its attention, I took out my other drill gun and opened fire. The beast turned its head toward me, its right eye oozing that same green pus… as well as a thick red haze. The same haze that was everywhere, on the ride, spouting from the lamp—it was possible that some part of it was the same ore that made up all of Tenorman's Ginger clones.

I'd think about that later, though. Right now, I just kept shooting. I walked a few paces closer, knowing I'd have to get that string around its arm somehow, shooting drill bits into Dagon's scaly skin. I wasn't scratching it, much, but I was irritating it, which was good enough for now.

I glanced over and saw that Kite had successfully wound a length of string around Dagon's left wrist. When we locked eyes, he shouted, "Go for it, Toolshed!"

"Right!" I called back.

I holstered the drill gun and held my arms out, calling up to Dagon, "Come on! I'm right here!"

Dagon let out a horrible screech and brought its right hand down. Using my speed against its lack thereof, I darted out of the way as the hand came crashing to the bank and spun out a significant length of Kite's string. I tied a bit of it around a nail from a pocket in my belt, then rushed forward before Dagon could retract its hand and jammed the nail into its wrist.

Dagon bucked and I had just enough time to wrap the string once around its wrist before I collided with one of its massive fingers and it tossed me out of the way. I hit the ground hard on my side, but I still had a hold of the string. Ignoring my scrapes and bruises, I scrambled to my feet and let Kite know, "Done!"

"Great!" he said. "Wait for it…"

I took a few steps back along the bank, but Dagon reached for me again, not bothering with the nail in its skin. "Hey!" Kite shouted at it. He took out the drill gun in his right hand, keeping hold of his own spool in his left, and fired into the side of Dagon's gaping, fishlike mouth.

The beast howled and drew its hand back, moving to try to see Kite out of its good eye.

"Okay, now!" Kite called over, tucking away the drill gun. "Pull!"

We both tugged hard on the strings at the same time, and Dagon came crashing down. The ground once again rumbled beneath the impact, and the beast struggled to try to get up. "Don't let go!" I shouted.

"Not planning on it!" Kite returned.

When Dagon flailed to get up again, we both pulled harder. "I'm gonna try to tie it off!" I called over.

"And then what?"

"Take out its other eye. You still got a hold?"

"Yeah, for now!" Kite confirmed. "Go, quick, Toolshed!"

"On it!"

I looked around until I'd found a tall piece of rock jutting out from a pile on my side of the river. I yanked Dagon down and rushed for the rock, then tied off the string and took the awl out of my toolbelt. I took a deep breath, spun the awl around once to psych myself up, then tossed the tool into Dagon's right eye.

Dagon let out an echoing howl when I succeeded in fully blinding it, and it thrashed again, bucking off the strings that Kite and I had tied around it.

"Shit, it's angry!" Kite shouted.

I glanced over as Kite threw another two spools up into the air and mentally unraveled a huge length of both of them. He moved his arms out to either side and twitched his fingers, coaxing both lengths of string to tie into enormous lassos. He shoved his hands out and both lassos roped around Dagon's neck.

"Catch!" Kite called over to me. He thrust his left hand out, sending one of the spools in my direction. I caught it as he caught the other, and together we pulled, tightening the string around Dagon's neck. Dagon continued thrashing, but the more we pulled, the closer we got the beast's head down toward the river.

"Keep pulling!" I shouted.

Kite and I both walked back, yanking the string with us. Dagon tried to hoist itself up, but we both held firm.

And, while we were thick in the throes of the fight, while we were in the heat of battle and at the top of our teamwork game, I felt the need to open up a conversation I should have started a long time ago. "Hey, Kyle?" I called out as I pulled back again on the string.

"Yeah, Stan?" he called back, similarly foregoing our League identities.

Dagon thrashed again, but the two of us yanked our strings down, and the beast was lowered with them.

"Will you marry me?" I asked my partner, over the echoes of the fight.

Kyle flushed red and whipped his head to the side to look at me. "What, now?" he exclaimed.

"No, you know, like, eventually and stuff," I clarified.

"Goes without saying, Stan!" Kyle called over.

I tugged down on my string again and answered, "That's good—wait… wait, really?"

"Yes, really!" Kyle confirmed. "Of course, are you kidding me?!"

Dagon thrashed again.

"But," Kyle continued, "can we please talk about it after we bring this thing down?"

"Works for me!" I agreed.

With a yell, both of us brought one hand over the other on our respective strings and hauled at the beast. Dagon stumbled, but with one more hard pull, we'd brought it face down into the river.

The water splashed up around Dagon, shimmering gold for a moment before crashing back down onto the monster. The ground shook again, worse this time than before, and from the roof of the cave above Dagon, rocks and stalactites began to fall, crumbling down on top of it.

"Shit!" Kite hollered. In an instant, he flew back to my side of the river, and I felt myself being pulled back. Kite grabbed onto me when he'd pulled me to him, spun me around, then got us both down on our knees with our backs to the falling debris. He forced out his glider as an extra shield, and didn't move until the falling rocks seemed to have stopped.

We paused for a few seconds, catching our breath, then helped each other up and turned to look back at Dagon. Kite and I exchanged a glance, took up each of our drill guns, and walked a few paces closer, spreading out in case we'd be faced with another round of a fight against the fish god. As we moved, two final stalactites fell from the roof of the cave and fell directly onto the urns on either side of the river, shattering them.

Kite and I both stumbled back, and watched as a red mist, not unlike that which had been spouting from Alhazred's lamp, rose up out of the wreckage of both of the urns. Up from Dagon's body, too, came an oozing red haze, and as the mist traveled upward, lights flickered on up above us.

I shielded my eyes and glanced up, to find that the cave had more or less dissolved into a plain old carnival ride, with a light grid up above us and several theatrical instruments beaming a dim light onto various parts of the crafted room.

Dagon did not move. We held our breath for another moment, but nothing happened. The fight was over.

When it was clear that the beast was dead, Kite and I both heaved out a sigh and tucked away our drill guns, and I felt the air clear. The haze in the room was gone. Both of the urns lay shattered. A faint green light appeared at the mouth of the cave through which I'd entered the ride, signaling that I was free to go.

Kite saw it too, grinned, and said, "That's the end of that, huh?"

I tried to smile, and maybe I succeeded, but mostly I just wanted to look at him, and be with him. Before I knew it, I was taking long strides forward; I removed my tinted goggles and shoved them into a vacant pocket of my toolbelt as I continued walking forward.

"Toolshed?" he asked. "What's going… Stan? Are you okay?"

When I'd made it to him, I grabbed him by the shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him. I heard and felt him hum, and he took hold of the front of my shirt as he kissed me warmly back. Through my entire stay in that horrible cavern, all I'd needed was something grounding, something I could rely on. And that was Kyle; that had always been Kyle.

I drew back, and he carefully lowered his flying goggles so that they hung round his neck, and I was able to stare right into those bright green eyes and be further assured that this, all of this, was real.

"What's going on?" he asked, supportive but concerned.

"I'm sorry," I told him.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," I repeated, keeping hold of his shoulders. "Sorry about the fight yesterday, sorry I shut down again."

He smiled. "It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry, too. Sorry I get short sometimes. I just… I worry. I mean it, though, are you okay now? When we brought that thing down, did it…?"

"I think so," I said. "I feel better, anyway."

Kyle scrunched his mouth up as he always does when he's concentrating on something, then bit off his right glove in order to hold his hand against my forehead. He sighed as he pulled his glove back on again, and told me, "You're not freezing anymore, thank God."

"No?"

I took stock of myself for a moment and realized… yeah, the chill was gone. I took off my own right glove to feel my forehead—sweat from the fight, sure, but nothing out of the ordinary. I smiled, sighed, pulled my glove back on, and then gathered Kyle in for a hug. He returned it, holding me around the waist to avoid knocking the weapons strapped to my back, and he tugged me in closer.

"Sorry," I said again.

"Me, too," he repeated. "I love you."

"Love you, too."

He tightened his grip, and I felt his breath catch. Concerned, I set my forehead on his and asked, "Are you okay? What happened when you came into the Carnival? Did they set something like this up for you?"

Kyle nodded against me. "It was a hall of mirrors," he said. "I could see everyone else who'd come in, but I couldn't help. I couldn't help them, I couldn't help you. I saw what those… things in here were doing to you, and I couldn't do anything. I almost lost control."

"Kyle…"

"It's okay," he assured me, stepping even closer. "I'm okay. I'm… I actually was able to breathe, and stop thinking, and make my way out." He drew his head back a little, and said, "Damien said he wanted my Wrath. He's been trying to provoke me ever since they started sending me and Ike those letters. And it's not just me, Stan. I think the whole point of these rides, these Circles, is them trying to reduce us to whatever Circle our tickets corresponded to. But we're more than that. We're stronger than that. You and I are. We all are.

"But I… I have to kind of own up to something," he continued. "Or, like… admit something."
"What's wrong?" I asked, deeply concerned at this point.

"It's… I haven't stopped thinking about that Halloween," Kyle admitted. "I haven't. You know I haven't. And you didn't… you didn't see me after what happened, Stan. You didn't see how… Stan, that night, my ability was so out of control. I almost killed someone. But I was so angry, I was so traumatized, and that trauma hasn't… it hasn't gone away. It's not Wrath I have to work through, it's… it's that. It's a lot. It's something—it's why I have to call my telekinesis what it is. I have to own it, I have to move forward. I have to not be afraid that…"

"Kyle," I said, gently, gathering him in and holding him close. He tucked his head into the crook of my neck, and we held one another for a while. Just breathing. "It's okay," I said reassuringly. "It's okay. I'm right here. We can talk about it whenever you're ready, honey, okay?"

Kyle nodded, not even pointing out or resisting the pet name in any way. I'd let them slip when I was feeling concerned, or incredibly passionate, and to be honest, I did kind of want to let them be more of a thing. Because to me, it was just an added little bit of love and security. And I had the feeling that, deep down, Kyle felt more or less the same way. "Okay," he said. "Same with your dreams, all right?"

"Yeah," I promised. "Of course."

"God, we're a fucking mess," Kyle said, managing to laugh a little.

"I mean, we are in Hell right now."

"True. So let's haul our asses out of here, all right?"

"Please."

We paused for another moment, and when he stood back and our eyes locked, we made a silent pact that we'd re-address those things later. The little private hells we'd both kept inside, not wanting to burden the other with them. But that's the thing about Hell. It's never just a personal thing. It grabs hold of everything you love at the same time it pushes you down. But we were standing there, we'd survived those trials, and we were going to come out all the stronger for it.

We took a moment, then, to gather ourselves. Kite called back the four spools of string we'd used against Dagon, cutting off the used up lengths and setting the rest back into his belt. I reloaded my drill gun and glanced around to make sure I had everything else before we left.

"Hey," I said, wanting to get one more thing off my chest before returning to the inevitable battles we had on our immediate horizon. "Real quick, um…"

"Yeah?"

"When we go back out there, when we're Kite and Toolshed out there… I'm sorry, but I just can't do the 'colleagues first' thing anymore, Kyle," I finally told him. "I can't. Something I've been so worked up about lately was… was watching them take you, the night of the gallery opening, and trying not to blow our cover. Watching them do that to your arms and your ability, and… I couldn't do anything about it, even as Toolshed."

"Stan, it's okay," Kyle said, locking my gaze. "I'm safe. It's okay."

"I know, I know." Choosing my words cautiously, I went on, "But it's been eating at me. The fact that I was saving face and not jumping right in and saving you. And we've been in those positions before, and I don't like it. For a while, I thought that that meant I wanted to quit the League and ask you to… to move away with me, move on with me, get away from all this and settle down. But what it really comes down to is, just… please, let's not try to pretend we're 'just colleagues' in the League anymore, all right?"

"You sure?"

"It's really fucking hard for me to pretend we're not together, just for the sake of our identities," I said. "I feel like we're doing ourselves a disservice by trying to adhere to certain standards. If Kyle and Stan are a thing, then so are Kite and Toolshed. Can we make that work? Please? I don't care if Kenny or Clyde get all bitchy about it. Let people know that we're a thing. I don't think it'll give us away."

Kyle didn't even hesitate before he smiled. "Yeah. I'm all for it," he said, and my heart soared, "as long as you promise not to disregard yourself if I'm ever hurt, all right? You don't always have to be the one protecting me, Stan. We're partners, we're a team, and that goes for everything. Give me room to be concerned. All right?"

"Yeah. All right. I'm sorry I get like that."

"It's okay, Stan," my boyfriend said with an understanding smile. "And, so, hey, you don't want to quit the League?"

I shook my head. "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to even if I tried," I said. "I can't deny how much the League really means to me. I feel like I was born to do this, you know?"

Kyle laughed a little, then grinned, stepped up to me, grabbed the back of my head and said, "So do I." And he pulled me in and kissed me.

It was full, and warm, and everything that the false reality in the dream I'd had in this Space Between was not. And again, I thought, in that dream… that wasn't us. That wasn't where we were meant to end up—far away from our duties to the League. Our future was whatever we would make of it. Our future was something we would build together, something that would factor in every tiny piece of who we were.

When we drew out of the kiss, Kyle pressed a hand to my cheek and asked, "How're you feeling, now that Dagon's gone?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm okay," I told him. "I'm… yeah, I'm a little shaken by what happened in here before you showed up, but I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I just… it was lonely," I told him. "That was the thing about the cold, Kyle, it… it just made me feel so isolated, and I let it get to me. Those creatures in here tried to—I mean, dude, they tried to drown me, pretty much. But I'm… I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Okay…" Kyle said warily. "But are you… are you good to keep going right now? How're you feeling? Please be honest."

I took stock of myself, head to toe, inside out. And there was only one answer. I felt myself smile, and replied, "Warm."

"Oh, God." Kyle threw his arms around me again, and held me tightly for several beautiful seconds. "I'm so glad, Stan. I knew you could beat it."

"Thanks, babe," I said, letting another pet name slip. Once again, he didn't really seem to mind; he even flushed a little as he stepped back. "You, too, Kyle. You said you figured out something new with your telekinesis?"

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, I did," he said, rather excitedly. "I, uh… well, in the hall of mirrors, there was just so much, there were so many stimuli, and so many jarring emotions I had to balance that I just… once I figured out how to marry the fear and anger I've always felt about my ability with other things, the pain in my head kinda leveled out. I think I've gotten over my headaches."

"That's incredible!" I complimented him. "You are never going to stop surprising me."

He smiled, took me by the hands, and said, "Thanks, Stan. Now, let's get out of here and go save the world again."

"With you all the way."

We left behind my awl and the knife Kite had thrown into Dagon's eye, not wanting to have to dig the weapons out, and boarded the boat. Kyle cut the string that he'd tied off onto the bank, and then the two of us exchanged a glance, both took hold of the string, and started pulling, hand over hand, to lead us out of the cave and back out into the Carnival.

It had been a long ass ride in, though, so when we found ourselves with some time to continue talking, Kyle broached an earlier subject.

"So, uh… the 'marry me' thing," he said, blushing. "That wasn't just heat of the moment stuff, was it?"

"No," I admitted. "But, honestly, um… it is something I've kinda been wanting to bring up lately."

He went completely red. "Why haven't you?" he asked quietly.

"I dunno, Kyle. Cold feet or something. Cold everything, actually," I realized. "I didn't want it to distract from the mission, and there's my whole thing about balancing identities again, and I just couldn't bring myself to talk about it in the midst of all my nightmares. But I just…"

"Stan."

"I know." I took a deep breath and let it out, then leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Can we at least, like, start talking about it?" I asked. "Obviously get through this Carnival first and all, but…"

"Stan," Kyle said. "We're a team."

"Mmhmm."

"And I love you."

"I love you, too."

"And no matter what happens in the future, Stan, we face it together. We make ourselves stronger. And I think that's something that'll help keep us strong. You know?"

I smiled. "Yeah."

"So let's start talking about it," Kyle said through a smile of his own. "When we've got a little time, let's really talk about it."

"Okay," I agreed. "Sounds wonderful."

At that point, we'd made it out of the cave, but before we could celebrate in any way, the entire structure collapsed behind us.

Kyle grabbed me in and turned his back to the wreckage, mentally spreading out his glider as an extra shield once again. The falling cave didn't crumble onto us so much as it just pushed the river forward.

The boat was stopped, and when we both glanced up to see what the source of the halting was, a sigh of relief ran through both of us.

"Huh," said Endgame, who had one carved boot on the bow of the boat, the other firmly planted on the dusty Carnival ground around us. "Really was a Tunnel of Love ride for you, huh?"

"Uh…"

Kyle and I looked at each other and let ourselves laugh. I pulled him in for a quick kiss, and then the two of us resumed our identities completely, adjusting our gear as we helped each other out of the little boat. Once we were on the shore, we exchanged one more embrace before facing whatever the Carnival had to throw at us.

"'Kay," Endgame said. "Like, mazel tov or whatever, but can we get moving?"

"Oh, screw you, dude," I said, and Kite laughed.

"Lame," Endgame said.

"What?"

"That tool pun. Screw. Lame. You can do better."

"Whatever," I said, rolling my eyes.

Endgame ticked his head behind him and turned, getting us to follow him. Standing just a few feet off was Mosquito, who breathed a sigh of relief as the four of us started walking back toward the gate. "Glad you guys made it," he said. "We were getting worried."

"Glad you're okay, too," Kite returned.

The air, I noticed, was still unsettling, but somehow clearer than it had been when Endgame and I had entered. "Hey," I said. "This means you beat your rides, too, right?"

"Sure did," Endgame said. "And I still feel like I'm coated in Leviathan spit."

"Dude," Kite said, "you fought the Leviathan? On your own?"

"And blasted a hole through its throat. What."

"That's pretty amazing," Kite told him.

"I do what I've gotta," Endgame said. "And right now, I've gotta get you to our temporary base."

"Temporary base?" I asked.

"We're staking things out," said Mosquito, "but not making a move yet till we've got the full team. Red Serge is on recon, but we should hear from him soon."

"That's good. What about Angel?" Kite asked. "She and I came in together, but she literally disappeared. Any word from her? Is she in a ride? Is she safe?"

Endgame shook his head. "No word from her, but we're closing in on Mysterion's entry, so I figure if anyone's gonna be able to find her, he will."

Endgame and Mosquito led us to a makeshift lean-to made up of the debris of what had to have been a few ruined rides. It was all just piles of wood stacked up one on the other and propped against the far gate, under the spindling branches of a dead-looking tree that reached over from the other side.

"It's not much," said Mosquito, "but it's something."

"Yeah," Endgame said, punching my shoulder a little. "But now we can actually build a rendezvous shelter instead of just piling shit up."

"Dude, I'm not gonna waste my nails," I said.

"We can't risk making too much noise, anyway," Mosquito said.

Endgame let out a dramatic groan. "No chainsawing anything, either, then, huh?"

Mosquito shot Endgame a testing glare and signaled that we all get back into the conversation.

"So what's going on?" Kite asked, once the four of us had formed a near huddle in front of the lean-to. "Where is everyone? What's the plan?"

"The plan," Mosquito said, "is gather the team before we make another move. But we still have no visual or audio from Angel, and even though Chaos and Marpesia are supposed to be in here, neither of us have seen them. And apparently even Token's on his way."

"After surgery?" I said. "Dude, holy shit."

"Right? No audio from him yet, but Delphi and Iron Maiden are gonna get him back on the wire one he meets up with them."

"We can get through to Mysterion for now, too," Endgame added, "but once he's in here, who knows. But it's still better to gather forces than spread out, unless we've got visual, like, within running distance."

"Smart," I concurred. "So how long have you guys been camping out here?"

"Who knows," Mosquito said indignantly. "Time is really fucked up in here, I've figured out that much. Delphi will tell me a certain amount of time has passed, even if it doesn't feel like it."

"Yeah," I said, "I get that. Gary told me I'd been in my ride for half a day."

"Oh, shit," Kite realized. "Gary! He doesn't know you're out."

"I thought everyone knew you were out," Endgame chided.

"Fuck off, dude," I said, elbowing him. Endgame laughed, and I rolled my eyes and tapped into frequency. "Gary? Henrietta?" I said into the wire. "It's Toolshed, checking in."

But neither of them answered; Mysterion did. "Toolshed!" he exclaimed. "Shit. We were worried about you. What happened?"

"Just got a little bogged down," I decided on saying. "I dunno about others, but the ride that these dickhole Ringleaders put me on was a literal Space Between."

"I heard Kite followed you in. What's his status?"

"Right here," Kite answered. "And we found Mosquito and Endgame. What's the deal? Where is everyone?"

"Sucks to say I don't know," said Mysterion. "None of us out here do. I'm convinced that there must be some kind of locator on Red Serge's iPad, but Iron Maiden hasn't been able to find its signal."

"Timmy," Iron Maiden confirmed.

"Just try to gather all the intel you can," Mysterion said. "We'll all check in once we're together."

"Hopefully sooner than later," Mosquito offered.

When the call ended, Mosquito continued, "We keep trying, guys. There's little to no high ground around here, so…" He paused, then grinned. "Kite," he said. "Don't suppose you might be able to scale that tree from here?"

"We tried to get up there," Endgame said flatly, "but the trunk and the rest of the branches are on the other side of the gate, and when I tried to give this douchebag a boost, he stepped on my face and almost got his ass lasered."

"You're not a very sturdy base," Mosquito snapped back at him. "Besides, you're one to talk. With all your heavy gear, I couldn't even lift you."

"It's cool, guys," Kite said, pressing his hands out in front of him to calm the slight argument. "I'm on it."

I grinned. "Need a boost?" I asked out of habit.

Kite smiled modestly. "I mean, not really anymore," he said. "But I'd appreciate it anyway."

It was pretty incredible that he could lift himself on his own now, and he'd even moved me without issue while we were in the cave. Whatever breakthrough he'd had, it was indeed incredible, but some old habits on the field would still be hard to break, mostly because we just enjoyed them.

Mosquito and Endgame cleared back a few feet, and I positioned myself under the tree branch. Kite walked back several paces, and I laced my fingers together and bent my knees in position for our usual basket toss. Once I was ready, Kite ran forward, jumped up onto my hands, and I tossed him up; he caught the branch on the first try, and clambered until he'd found his balance.

"Oohhh," Endgame said. "Basket toss. Didn't think of that."

"Got anything?" I called up to Kite.

He got his full balance on the branch and said, "Remind me to add binoculars to my arsenal." I laughed, and watched as he took in the horizon. All of a sudden, he said, "Shit!" and jumped back down.

"Dude, what?" Mosquito asked.

Kite gathered his breath and got the four of us back into a huddle. "Okay," he said, "so I got a bit of a visual when I left the building I was in for my Carnival attraction, and saw a few things from there. Mostly, like… I think I know where it is Chaos is supposed to be headed."

"Uh-huh…" said Mosquito, concerned. He'd been very much not in favor of calling Chaos a part of the League, especially when it seemed that Marjorine, that Butters had taken such a sudden turn after his fight with the Lion. None of us but Kenny and Cartman really knew what exactly had happened to him back there, and most of our concern from that night had been for Token after his run-in with the Leopard.

"Yeah," Kite said, "and there's a pretty dark cloud over it. My guess is, Chaos and Marpesia are here, guys, they're just as trapped as we were. And now there's… now that there's at least three attractions demolished, it seems like things are being pushed back."

"The Bullseye," I said.

"Exactly," Kite confirmed. "And even past that, there's a ferris wheel and some other stuff, but what I saw from the tree was… they're gathering."

"Tenorman's army?" Endgame guessed.

"Yeah, them," said Kite, shivering somewhat, "and a whole bunch of shadows."

– – –

– – –

Authors' Notes:

South Park is -c- Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

I've been wanting to get to this part for a while. A lot of it has been written out, but I'm so glad to finally have it up here. (And I'm going to be honest, I love the Toolshed puns in The Fractured But Whole, so… there will be a few more allusions to that.)

Next time, we'll hear from Karen in Circle VI, and Butters, as Chaos enters Circle VII.

Thank you so much for reading, and for your feedback so far! We'll see you soon!

~Jizena, and Rosie Denn~

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