Finally. After a day of searching, Mary and her sibling escorts found their two targets. They spotted Ib and Garry inside an abandoned convenience store, presumably scavenging for food and supplies. (Mary was aware that humans, unlike her, must eat in order to survive and do not do it merely for pleasure.) Now, they had their prey in their sights, and better yet, the two humans appeared to be completely oblivious to the perilous situation they faced.
All that was left was for Mary to move in for the kill. "Alright," she said quietly, turning to her escorts, "your work here is done. You can all go back to the fighting now. I will handle the rest by myself."
One of the mannequin heads looked back at her in alarm. Ib and Garry were armed and had killed no fewer than three siblings in the past few days. Confronting them alone would be unwise. It would be far safer for Mary to allow her escorts to remain with her and let them help her subdue the pair.
"I said, you can go now," Mary repeated with growing irritation.
The mannequin head persisted. She was being foolish! She would be outnumbered and was putting herself in grave danger! This would be a completely unnecessary risk!
"I said!" angrily snarled Mary. Her sharpened palette knife glinted in the light. Fearful of incurring her wrath, the mannequin head and the rest of the escort backed down and began to disperse.
Mary watched them as they left. This conflict, this injustice she needed to repay, was far too personal by this point to let anyone else handle or even help her. For anyone else to take part, even if they too had been wronged by Ib and Garry, would be to dilute the sense of personal justice to the point of meaninglessness. After all that had happened over the past few days, the crimes of these two humans could only be fully addressed if the retribution came from her hands and her hands alone.
Once all of her siblings were out of sight, Mary turned back to face the convenience store. "At long last," she said to herself with a sense of vindictive satisfaction, "we meet again… you two, and me."
"Ib, have you found anything else that isn't junk food or alcohol?" Garry called out.
"No. Nothing of use," she responded as she came back over to meet him. She was chewing on a small piece of candy she had found. Garry couldn't blame her.
The two of them surveyed the room. "Well, I think we've more or less covered this place," said Garry. He and Ib looked in their bag. Although they had found some items of nutritional value, mostly they had found only total junk food – potato chips, sweets, soda. The selection was definitely less than what they had found at the first store, and in addition it was also clear that they were not the first survivors to raid this particular shop.
Smiling wearily at his companion, Garry closed up the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. The two of them made their way to the door, when all of a sudden they ran into a familiar-looking young girl – far too familiar for their liking.
"Why hello there, Ib! Hello there, Garry!" the girl called out, grinning maniacally. She wore the same bold, green dress that they had last seen her in. "Do you remember me? Do you remember what you did to me?" Panicked, Ib and Garry backpedaled until they were flat against the wall behind them.
Mary took a step forward and drew a greatly elongated palette knife. "Of course you do!" she said with a twisted sort of cheerfulness, answering her own question. "You probably take pride in what you did!" As she spoke, a set of plastic-like vines slowly emerged in front of the exit, sealing it off. There was nowhere to hide, and now, nowhere to run.
Garry drew his piece of rebar. "You're – You're supposed to be dead!" he stammered, finally summoning the courage to speak.
"I'm supposed to be dead?!" Mary retorted. "Yes, my father brought me back, but you say that I'm the one who deserves death?! After everything you did, I think it's really the other way around!" She advanced another step. It was strange; Mary appeared no larger than she had been three years ago and consequentially was in fact now even little smaller than Ib, who being a human child had grown slightly since then. Yet somehow, the sight of her inspired more fear in Ib and Garry than ever before. Back in the Fabricated World, Garry had overpowered Mary with relative ease, but it was obvious to everyone that the coming fight was going to be very, very different.
Garry could tell that his makeshift weapon was failing to deter Mary whatsoever. Trying to think fast, he spied a discarded magazine on the ground and had an insane idea. Handing the rebar rod over to Ib, he grabbed the magazine, curled it into a tube, and set one end on fire with his lighter. "Stay back, painting!" Garry warned, holding the burning magazine out towards Mary, "or I'll give you the same fate we gave you last time!" In reality, he had no clue whether Mary herself could be ignited so easily or if it only worked that way with her painting, but it was at least worth a try.
Mary stopped. Something about Garry's words – the term he just called her, the unremorseful invocation of what he did to her – stung a certain part of her deeply, a part of her that still cared what they thought. Eyes filling with rage, Mary just stood there for a brief second, and she then lunged at Garry with her knife. Garry dodged out of the way just in time, and Mary's weapon instead wedged itself into the wall. As she struggled to get it free, he spun around and swung the burning magazine at her, but at the last moment Mary succeeded in freeing her knife and slashed the magazine in half. Startled, Garry fell backwards into a shelf, causing several bottles of alcohol to tumble to the ground and shatter. Burning bits of magazine scattered throughout the room, igniting several small fires. The embers had no more effect on Mary's person than they did on Ib or Garry.
Eyes gleaming with triumph, Mary raised her palette knife up into the air to plunge it into Garry's heart. Before she could strike the killing blow, however, she was caught off guard by the sight of Ib's rebar rod swinging towards her, forcing Mary to pull back from Garry and duck out of the way. The twisted metal bar just barely missed her head. Pressing forward, Ib prepared a second swing, but this time Mary was ready and used her knife to parry the attack. Ib stared in shock; not only had Mary somehow managed to block the larger and much heavier steel bar, but the palette knife had actually bitten into it slightly, leaving a small mark in the metal. Her surprised look caused Mary to smirk.
Getting back to his feet, Garry leapt back in and rejoined the fray. The fighting was like nothing any of the three had experienced before. Mary's weaponized art tool clashed with Ib's piece of twisted metal, Garry's human hands with Mary's fabricated fists. The two humans held a numerical advantage, but Mary had the edge in overall combat skill. Her small size gave her a slightly greater degree of agility than Ib and especially Garry, yet at the same time she now seemed to possess the strength of a full grown man. All the while, the fires burning around them began to spread, fueled in part by the spilled alcohol from the fallen bottles. Ib and Garry noted the flames with increasing alarm as smoke began to fill the room, but Mary appeared not to be the least bit concerned.
With a series of strikes, Mary managed to disarm Ib and cornered her against a counter. Elbowing Garry sharply in the abdomen to keep him from intervening, she prepared to slash her former friend's throat, but before she could strike Ib kicked Mary as hard as possible, sending her stumbling backwards. Regaining his stance, Garry seized the opportunity and tackled Mary to the ground, trying to wrestle away her knife. Ib joined in to help her friend, and working together, they began to out-muscle her. Just as the pair was about to succeed in prying the knife away, though, Mary managed to wrench it back from them and then broke free from their grasp.
Again the two sides stood off. "You've proven yourselves surprisingly good fighters," Mary growled as Ib scurried back to retrieve the piece of rebar. The light from the flames reflected in Mary's eyes, mirroring her inner mental state. "But it doesn't matter. Either I'll kill you myself, or we'll all burn in here together! I am not going to let you get away!" With that she lunged back at the pair and renewed her attack, stabbing and slashing at them with incredible ferocity. Ib and Garry frantically tried to keep up but found themselves outmatched. Overpowered, they retreated behind a display rack, with Mary in close pursuit. Between Mary and the fires, it only seemed like a matter of time to Ib and Garry.
After half a minute of frantic dodging and retreating, though, they saw their chance to regain the initiative. Narrowly sidestepping a strike aimed for his chest, Garry seized Mary's wrist and tried a second time to pry away her weapon. Again Ib joined in, and this time they managed to wrestle the knife out of Mary's hands. Before she could snatch it back, Garry hurled it out of the window. Undaunted but losing all composure, Mary then tried to grab him and push him into the spreading flames. Garry reacted too quickly for her, though, and struck her forcefully in the upper torso. Careening backwards into a wall, Mary slammed her head against part of a display shelf and then slid down the wall, unconscious. The plastic vines blocking the exit – which had proven much more fire resistant than the vines of three years ago – withered away.
Ib and Garry looked over at the motionless Mary briefly before Garry turned and said "Come on! We need to get out!" They grabbed their satchel – which thankfully was untouched by the flames– and raced out of the building as fast as they could. Whatever would happen to Mary was not their problem.
Before they got too far, though, Ib happened to look back at the burning store. A deluge of memories and emotions burst forth in her. Recollections of Mary's first death flashed through Ib's head – how she just stood by and watched as Mary burned alive, the despair and sense of betrayal Ib saw in her eyes then. Then she remembered the scenes from her nightmare the night before the invasion, the images of Mary slowly approaching and treating Ib to the same fate. Last but not least, she recalled the old Mary – not the Mary who had just attacked them, but the sad, lonesome Mary they met three years ago who hid her inner unhappiness behind her cheerful personality and whose questionable actions stemmed from a desperate desire to escape and live a normal human life. All of this came rushing back to haunt Ib in that one moment.
Before her rational side could intervene, Ib turned around and raced back towards the convenience store at full speed. Garry looked back in alarm. "Ib! Ib! Where are you going?!" he shouted. He tried to run after her but tripped. Ib paid no attention and continued running as fast as she could.
Ib reached the burning building and went back inside. The thick grey smoke stung her eyes and made it almost impossible for her to breath. Through it she saw Mary still slumped against the wall, unconscious. Holding her breath, Ib grabbed Mary by her arms and began to drag her towards the exit, pulling as hard as she could. With some effort, she managed to get her out of the door and away from the burning building. Once Ib had pulled Mary to a safe distance, she ran back over to Garry, who was racing to meet her.
"What on Earth were you thinking?!" Garry worriedly exclaimed when he reached her, panting. "You could've gotten yourself killed! You –" he looked over, saw Mary sprawled out on the ground, and looked back at Ib. Garry felt his blood begin to boil. "You risked your life to save Mary?!" he said sharply. "Why – why the hell did you do that?! She was trying to kill us, and thanks to what you just did she'll be able to continue trying to kill us!" For the first time he could ever remember, Garry actually felt angry with Ib. He just couldn't believe that she would do something so stupid.
"I'm sorry," Ib simply whimpered as they began walking away. "I'm sorry…"
Garry closed his eyes. Part of him really wanted to just grab Ib by the collar and shake her. Instead, he took a deep breath, opened his eyes again, and looked back at his companion.
"It's okay, Ib," he said, putting his arm around her shoulder, "it's okay. Just… just don't ever do anything like that again."
(That was one sharp palette knife...)