Nicholas could remember every plan Nick had ever made. It'd be odd if he couldn't, really; Nick had an excellent memory and so far as Nicholas could tell he knew absolutely everything his progenitor did up to the point of his creation.

But he wasn't Nick.

Knowing that he was a copy gave him a sort of distance from all of those plans, which he hadn't actually made, after all. He could remember all the intricacies of working them out, as well as what had actually happened. Nick prided himself on his ability to look forward and see a path that no one else had, which was at its heart the key to every success he had ever had.

Still, Nicholas was beginning to wonder if maybe neither one of them was as good at planning as they had thought.

It probably wasn't the appropriate moment for the thought, but being in a representation of Judy's mind and being menaced by a part of that mind seemed to have thrown things into focus. It was an absurd thought for an absurd moment, which really seemed to underscore the point. How could he have possibly seen it coming?

The short answer was that he couldn't have. Nicholas had actually felt somewhat optimistic, when things had started. He had managed to find Judy—or at least, the part of her that didn't want him dead—and fixed some of the damage to her broken mind. It had given him hope that he would indeed be able to fix the damage and Judy's shattered mind would come back together on its own, two halves that would naturally become whole if given the chance. He had even had the chance to see Judy as a kit when her memory of seeing the Middle Wall up close had drifted into focus. Everything had been going about as well as he could have hoped, considering how much of everything he was doing was guesswork.

Like telling Judy that she could imagine the door to the kitchen opening and it would.

It felt like it should be true; considering everything else he had seen while inside her mind, the instant Judy willed it to happen it should have. The fact that the two of them were still trapped in the kitchen, Judy frantically pulling at the handle, while another chunk of Judy's mind advanced on them certainly suggested that he was wrong. And, again, that he might as well not have planned anything, but there was no changing that.

The piece of Judy before them was certainly more intimidating than the first piece Nicholas had encountered. The one he had found cowering in her bedroom had been... soft. Nicholas wasn't sure what the right word was, and considering how grim the armor wearing Judy walking toward him looked he could probably be spending his time better. But it was true. The part of Judy he had spent the most time with was barely like the entire bunny, but in an odd way it made her more like him. Judy seemed as fearless and determined as a heroine out of an old story, the kind that always did the right thing and never gave up.

It was inspiring, but it was also a little intimidating.

Nicholas certainly didn't prefer Judy without her spark and fire, but it made him feel for her more, in a way. He had never had that sort of courage. What must it have been like to know what that felt like, and then lose it? Maybe it was better to have never been brave in the first place.

"This is the end for you," the armored Judy said, interrupting Nicholas's panicked and yet oddly calm musings.

He felt as though he was almost onto something, but he just didn't know what. Repairing the damage to Judy's mind—what she visualized as cracks in her family home—had taken so much out of him that it seemed as though there was barely anything left. And as glib as he could be, figuring out what to say was a bit difficult, especially when there was the awful smile on the approaching rabbit's face to consider.

She was enjoying herself.

Nicholas had no doubt of that; she was enjoying the panicked scrambling of her other half, her softer half, and was dragging out the moment. That was about as unlike Judy as what that softer half had shown, just in the opposite direction, and Nicholas had to wonder a bit at the source of it. She seemed to have all of Judy's courage, but there had to be something else to her. Something that apparently made her cruel.

And it was cruelty that lit up her face; it was cruelty that made menace radiate off her like a haze of heat coming off a building on a summer day. She was taller than Judy had ever been, taller even than he was, and almost disturbingly muscular for a rabbit.

"Why?"

The word seemed to have slipped out of Nicholas's mouth before he had even been aware that he was going to say it, and as he spoke both Judys froze. The soft Judy paused in her frantic attempts to force the door and actually turned to face her other half. That half stopped advancing, and Nicholas fancied he saw something else on her face.

Confusion.

Or simply some sort of irritation, but Nicholas was grasping at straws and he'd take what he could get. The feeling of being close to something finally clicked home, and Nicholas realized his mouth had gotten the idea before it actually registered in his mind. He had done his best to plan out what to do. Granted, he had thus far seemingly failed miserably, but still. There had been a plan to try following. Even the softer Judy had a motivation that made sense; she was petrified of her harder self and had tried desperately hiding.

"Why are you trying to kill her?" Nicholas demanded, and he found himself profoundly grateful for Nick's poise.

His progenitor wasn't exactly an unusually courageous mammal at heart, but he was a clever one. Nicholas was more than a little afraid, but he didn't think it showed in his voice at all as he positioned himself between the two bunnies. Perhaps it wouldn't do much more than stall for a little more time, but sometimes stalling and hoping for something to happen was what it all came down to. It had worked decently well for Nick. A couple times, at least, and all Nicholas needed was for it to work once.

The terrible Judy before him laughed, and it was a horrible sound. There was no joy or happiness in it, just a contempt that Nicholas would have never guessed Judy to be capable of. "You can see her pawing at a door like that and you actually ask why I'd do it?" the rabbit asked, and she smiled again, "I'll be doing her a favor."

She took a step forward, slowly drawing forth her sword. Some part of Nicholas that felt very detached from what was going on in front of him noticed that it was rather large and looked wickedly sharp. "She's weak," the rabbit said, taking another step, "She's why no one ever took me seriously. They could see that weakness. It ruined me. She trusted you and you mutilated me."

The rabbit held up her left arm, letting the sleeve fall back, and for the first time Nicholas noticed just how terribly wrong it was. It wasn't a fox arm and paw, as Judy's actual body had. It wasn't even what her arm had looked like when it had been mangled and swollen with venom. It was ghastly in a way that Nicholas would have never thought possible; compared to her otherwise athletic build the arm looked at first oddly withered.

But it wasn't simply withered; there was almost no flesh still clinging to the bones, and what little there was looked raw and gangrenous, completely devoid of fur. When the rabbit clenched her glistening white fingers into a fist, Nicholas could see the exposed tendons and hear them creak.

"So I'll start with you first," she leered at him.

"No!" Judy—the softer Judy—cried, and with surprising speed she was suddenly in front of Nicholas, pressing him behind her.

"I— I won't let you h-hurt Nick," she said, and although her voice and her body were trembling like a leaf in a storm she did not move.

The other Judy stared for a moment, and then laughed again, even more cruelly than before. "Nick?" she said, "You're weaker than I thought."

The softer Judy looked back over her shoulder at Nicholas, confusion etched into her face. "Nick?" she asked, "What is she..."

The dawning realization that spread across her features hurt more than Nicholas thought it would have. "You're not Nick, are you? You're the one in my head."

"Yeah," he admitted softly, "I am."

"You said you'd be there when I wake up!"

"Nick will be," Nicholas said, even though he knew how weak of a counterpoint it was.

He had lied to her, plain and simple. He could tell himself he had simply misled her, but that was all semantics. "He'll be there for you," Nicholas said.

Judy nodded, and from the way tears welled up in her eyes again he thought she understood what he had known but hadn't admitted. Fixing the damage to Judy's mind had come with a cost just like any other act of alchemy, but he didn't have any tricks. He didn't even have a body. And it seemed like every crack he had fixed had pulled away at him a little, unraveling him just a little more like cutting off lengths from a ball of twine. At first, there wouldn't be any obvious sign that the ball was getting smaller and smaller each time more twine was removed. But it was, and soon enough there wouldn't be any twine left.

"No," the harsher Judy said, "He'll be waiting for me. But I'll be ready for him when I wake up."

She swung out with her sword, but rather than trying to strike Nicholas or the other Judy she aimed her blade at the wall. It cleaved in a way utterly unlike how stone should have behaved; it seemed soft as mud. When she pulled her blade back, there was another of those terrifying cracks, one that seemed to have an unending void behind it. But it didn't stay as thin as the blade that had made it. The wall seemed to slide apart, that infinite gulf yawning wider and wider, and Nicholas realized what she was intending to do a moment too late.

The other Judy sheathed her sword in a single rapid motion and strode forward, seizing Nicholas around his wrist with her horribly skeletal paw. Her grasp felt impossibly tight, and no matter how Nicholas strained against it he couldn't break free. The harsh Judy grabbed the softer one with her other paw, lifting them both effortlessly. "You can't do this!" the softer Judy cried, but her eyes were wide with fear and panic, "You need me!"

Her taller and much stronger counterpart chuckled. "No, I don't. I'm doing away with both of you," she said, "When you're in oblivion I'll finally have peace."

Nicholas squirmed helplessly, but there wasn't anything he could do to break her grasp. And then, as the other Judy prepared to throw them into a void that he knew would destroy them utterly, he had an idea. It wasn't much of one, but it was better than nothing. Besides, it was a little late for planning.