I have no idea how I managed to sneak back in and evade detection by the guards. It should have been impossible. There were soldiers everywhere. Nor do I have any idea how I slipped by the fighting and carnage on the other side without either side seeing me. Neither hold any warm feelings for me, that much I am aware of.

I do not even know why I have returned. What has brought me back here? Have I come back to beg for His forgiveness? To aid His enemies? To simply find a quiet place in my homeland to curl up and die? I truly do not know. All I know is that I must return.

I venture further and further into what was once my home. I am drawn to His presence; I feel it getting stronger and stronger as I come closer and closer. He does not seem to notice me though. He is too heavily engrossed in whatever He is currently focused on. Is this for the better? For the worse? I do not know… Nor does it make a difference. My feet carry me along as if they have minds of their own.

I reach a door. He is on the other side. I can feel it. This must be where His painting is now. As quietly as I can I crack the door open and peer in–

Oh my God! What is He doing to them?! I stare in silent, horrified shock.

My breath quickens. My heart, the one He created for me, begins pounding. Such a sight might not have bothered me earlier, but now… I need to do something. I can no longer simply remain passive. But wait! No! How can I let myself even think such thoughts?! He is my father! Oh what do I do? I am torn. I must act… but on whose behalf?

I close my eyes. I must think. To choose either way feels impossible, but I have no choice. Clearing my mind of all distractions, I just stand there for a minute, reflecting. I need to contemplate. Memories of all that has happened flow in and out of my mind. A burning building. A rebar rod. A crying baby and a dead family. Anger. Confusion. Despair. A hug. A jacket. I ponder these. Who hates me less? Who accepts me more? Whose side am I on?… Who is on my side?… Whose side should I be on?…

My eyes finally shoot open. I have decided.

Ib and Garry were in his grasp. Literally.

Having been brought to a large chamber at the end of the staging room, the two of them were each held firmly in the air by a large shadowy hand, mounted atop a long, black, serpentine arm. Ib and Garry struggled in vain against the vicelike grip. The arms extended from the sides of a giant painting at least twice as tall as Garry that could only be described as a strange sort of self-portrait (it didn't actually show a face, just an artist's backside), presumably of Guertena. Opposite the painting was a small wooden ledge with two eternal blessing-type vases, the type that never ran out of water. One contained Garry's ten petal blue rose, while the other held Ib's six petal red rose. (The sixth was added in accordance to her growth since three years ago.) Why their roses were there, they could only guess, but they knew that the answer was almost certainly sinister.

A disembodied voice coldly laughed to itself. "At long last, you are mine, at long last," it sneered. Ib and Garry knew it was none other than Guertena. "I must admit, your ability to escape capture and frustrate my forces was as impressive as it was enraging, but in the end, you were only delaying the inevitable… For over three years now, you thought you could get away with your crimes – insulting my name; desecrating my art; murdering and then corrupting my daughter; killing my creations; sabotaging my retribution; assisting my enemies. The list goes on and on. Despite this, you probably felt not a pang of guilt nor until recently a twinge of fear. But justice ultimately prevails, oh little humans. Now here you are, in my grasp and at my mercy."

Garry tried to talk back but found no words could come out.

"But don't worry. I Know this isn't all your fault," Guertena continued tauntingly. "You are merely part of the larger problem that is humanity. The injuries you inflicted against me are but part of a long train of abuses I have suffered from your kind. That is why this crusade must go on. Of course I would've preferred if you had not ruined my invasion, but when I realized that their forces would bring you along as guides, I rejoiced and prepared my welcome." He gave a dark chuckle. "I let them get as far as they did. It was funny. At first, when you struggled to break out of the first few hundred meters, I actually had overestimated your strength and needed to go easy for a bit. Now of course, it is my creations that have the upper hand, but oh of course now the irony is that your commander is now holding out surprisingly well, but it is only a matter of time. And once I have driven him back completely," Guertena continued with grim relish, "I shall continue this war, until one side or the other has been reduced to dust!… But either way, it doesn't matter now. I have won, because I have you.

"Now, you probably expect me to kill you, and as such you must be confused as to why I've placed your roses in eternal blessing vases. Well, had I caught you earlier, I probably would've been happy just to kill you, however slow it may have been." Ib and Garry could literally feel Guertena's sense of sadistic glee in the air as his tone turned dark. "But no. After what you have done, that would be too merciful," he slowly added. "Instead, you will live. With your roses safely in their pots, I can inflict almost any injury I want on you again and again, without ever having to worry about releasing you to the mercy of death. I can crush each and every bone in your body, just to watch it mend and become ready for me to crush again. I can dip you in molten lead and listen to your screams as music, and then bring you back in for an encore. So long as no single thing is enough in itself to kill your rose all at once! Your agony will go on and on until you beg me to simply remove your roses and rip their petals off, but I will say no. Oh where to begin? There is so much to do. So much –"

All of a sudden a palette knife hurtled through the air and embedded itself in Guertena's painting. The disembodied voice released a startled shriek of pain, and the shadowy hands dropped Ib and Garry. It was Mary! As if purely on instinct the two humans ran over to their unexpected rescuer.

"Leave them alone, Father!" warned Mary, staring straight at the towering painting before her. She stood almost protectively in front of Ib and Garry as they ran behind her. The pair couldn't believe what was happening before their eyes. As for Mary, never before had she spoken to Father like that. The size difference between her and her Father's manifestation corresponded with the unbelievable nature of everything that was going on.

Guertena began to regain his composure. "Mary…" he hissed, "So you are a traitor then… You–"

"I said, leave them alone!" she repeated with even more determination. Ib and Garry noticed two brambly, plastic-like vines growing out of the ground, about an inch thick and covered in large thorns except on the bottom, which was smooth. When they reached a little over a foot in height, they stopped growing and detached from their bases, falling to the ground. Realizing Mary had grown them to be wielded in defense, Ib and Garry picked the two surprisingly heavy brambles up, holding them like miniature maces.

The air filled with Guertena's fury. "Very well then," his disembodied voice snarled. The already palpable sense of rage in the air grew even more intense. Ib and Garry heard a faint click as the door to the chamber locked itself. "I'll kill you all myself! This ends here and now!"

With that, Guertena hurled the palette knife back straight towards Mary's head. She dodged and retrieved it from the ground, but before anything else could happen, Ib, Mary, and Garry all saw one of the giant fists rising up to squash them. "Watch out!" screamed Garry. The three of them scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid Guertena's hand slamming into the ground. The impact cracked the floor and set up several shards of stone. Guertena then tried to swat them with his other hand, but all of them were able to duck down to the ground, and the shadowy limb swung just over their heads. Ib and Garry realized they needed to fight back. Dodging out of the way of another attack, Garry grabbed a shard of the stone floor and hurled it straight towards the giant painting. It embedded itself into the canvas right as Guertena was about to corner and crush his daughter, causing the hands to wince and lose coordination long enough for Mary to scramble away. This time though Guertena was not entirely taken by surprise, and no sooner than Mary had wriggled away did Guertena's other hand snatch Garry and lift him into the air. Guertena raised the arm up to dash him against the floor, but just as Garry thought he was about to die, he saw the thorns of Ib's bramble burying themselves into the shadowy limb below. To his and Ib's surprise, the attack actually seemed to affect the arm, causing it to recoil and drop Garry and leaving dark purple gashes in the parts of the limb where they struck. Yet by the time Ib had run over to Garry and helped him up, the gashes had healed. Ready to attack, the hand formed a fist and rocketed towards Ib, but right before it reached her Mary swooped in and tackled Ib out of the way, the two of them just barely avoiding the attack.

For Ib, Garry, and Mary, it seemed like a frantic fight for survival against two massive black serpents. Guertena's fists, each almost the size of Garry, swung about the room wildly as he tried to strike, smash, and crush his three foes. Although somewhat slow to react, his long shadowy arms seemed able to bend in any direction and even shorten or lengthen as necessary, all while retaining tremendous strength. Quickly finding that they could only inflict temporary harm on the hands, Ib and Garry realized the only way to truly hurt Guertena was to damage his painting, but it was mounted too high off the ground for them to reach directly. Shifting strategies, the two of them focused on only keeping the hands at bay while they tried to find whatever possible projectiles they could throw at the painting. When Guertena conjured a scalpel and hurled it at Garry's head, no sooner than it missed did he find it hurled straight back into his painting. Mary, still reluctant to further harm her father's painting, fought more defensively, focusing mostly on her and her two allies' safety from the hands. Sidestepping a forceful punch from her father, Mary spun around, stabbed the arm as hard as she could to buy time, and resumed her focus on finishing the protection she was building around something only she seemed to remember in the heat of the moment, trying to get as much growth in before the shadowy hand could regenerate.

A shriek jolted her out of her concentration. Guertena's other hand had managed to grab ahold of Ib and lifted her into the air. "No!" screamed Garry. Chuckling darkly, Guertena jerked his arm back and hurled Ib against the side of the room. With a loud crash she slammed into the wall. Pain ripped through her body as she felt several bones all snap at once, but just as she was certain she was going to die, she abruptly felt them heal and the pain disappear! The roses! Ib and Garry had completely forgotten, and apparently so had Guertena. Seconds later the other, now-recovered shadowy hand grabbed Garry and slammed him against the floor, but he too soon stood back up without a scratch. Realizing this was all his own design, Guertena's bewilderment morphed into self-directed rage. Cursing his prior hubris, Guertena turned his attention to the ledge where the vases and roses were, only to find it protected by a thick tangle of prickly plastic vines.

And just like that, the nature of the fight changed. Guertena now not only had to divide his attention between the battle outside and the fight inside, but also between finding a way to get to the roses while simultaneously fending off Ib, Garry, and Mary. Unable to bring his full power to bear, weakened slightly by the damage to his painting, and needing to focus on several tasks at once, he pulled one of his hands out of the fight and set about using it to try and dismantle the barrier, pulling off bits and pieces where he could do so with minimal contact with the thorns, and leaving the other hand to fend off the three attackers all by itself.

"Ib, Now's our chance!" shouted Garry. Ducking underneath a vicious sideswipe, they grabbed two more stone shards off the ground and hurled them straight into Guertena's painting. His hands wincing in pain, Guertena retaliated by swinging his free arm and swatting the two against the wall, but once again, no sooner than did their bones snap and the petals fall off the roses did the petals regrow and the bones heal. Increasingly frantic, Guertena turned his attention to Mary, who was doing her best to repair any damage to the bramble barrier, and sent his fist rocketing towards her. Catching her off guard, he managed to strike a glancing blow before she could fully get out of the way. Reeling backwards into the wall, Mary gritted her teeth and looked back up to see the hand preparing to finish her off, but just before it reached her, she sank her palette knife deep into the palm before wrenching it upwards, sending the shadowy hand recoiling backwards with a tremendous purple gash. Right at that moment, a broken piece of bramble Garry threw embedded itself into Guertena's portrait.

For the first time, Guertena actually began to fear the two individuals he had brought into the Fabricated World three years ago. Again and again he managed to strike and slam Ib and Garry, but each time they got back up seconds later, fully healed thanks to the roses. Meanwhile, every time he tried to deal with Mary, she always managed to slip out of the way or counterattack at the last moment. Ib's, Garry's and Mary's confidence was rising. They could do this! They could pull this off! They –

"That's it!" All of a sudden Guertena swatted his three foes aside and then grabbed the bramble barrier around the vases with both hands, paying no heed to the thorns digging into them. Feeling their hearts drop into their stomachs, Ib and Garry struggled to their feet as fast as they could and raced over to intervene, but it was too late. With a determined pull Guertena managed to rip Mary's barrier apart, and then destroyed the ledge with the equivalent of an uppercut, shattering the two vases and splashing puddles of water across the room. A jolt of pain ripped through Ib and Garry as the impact sheared off half of their roses' petals each and flung the flowers upward. Guertena reached to snatch Garry's flower from the air, but just then someone threw a third rose-like object into the air, and Guertena mistakenly caught that instead. With triumphant relish he crushed it between his fingers, only to find bits of Mary's fake yellow flower everywhere. Garry caught his rose and was able to restore it with one of the larger puddles on the ground. Meanwhile, Ib's rose plummeted downward flower-side first. Lunging into the air, she caught the rose just in time before it could hit the floor but then stumbled on her landing and fell face-down onto the ground with a painful thud, costing a petal. A sharp ceramic fragment from the vase sliced into her skin, removing another petal from her rose. With only a single petal left and in great pain, Ib looked up and saw one of the fists rising up to crush her. She gritted her teeth, managed to dip her rose into the closest puddle to heal herself, and then scrambled out of the way just in time to avoid being squashed.

Despite having safely regained their roses, the situation began to look grim. Now with no water to regenerate their roses except puddles, Ib and Garry had to do whatever they could to keep themselves and their delicate flowers safe, frantically avoiding Guertena's fists. They knew all too well what a single blow could do, and they had already used up two of the four puddles of any significant amount of water. Mary too was beginning to look somewhat battered; the blows she had faced and the fatigue of battle were catching up with her. Once or twice Ib and Garry found enough time to pick up more debris and hurl it at the painting, but by now they were questioning whether it was even truly doing anything aside from temporarily stunning Guertena. Worst of all, though, some of the initial holes in Guertena's painting seemed to actually be healing.

Garry suddenly had an idea. Remembering what happened with Mary's original painting and the flammability of the vines blocking her room, he pulled out his lighter and brought the flame to the piece of bramble Mary had given him. To his horror, though, it would not ignite; it was now fire resistant for some reason. Just then, one of the shadowy fists punched him straight on, causing him to drop the lighter and sending him careening into the wall. "Garry, no!" screamed Ib before she herself was sent reeling by a glancing hit from the other giant hand. As Garry tried to drag himself to the nearest puddle Guertena raised his arm and prepared to finish him off, but at the last moment his hand was stopped by a large plastic vine shooting out of the ground as if to intercept the blow, growing far faster than any such vine he had seen during this fight earlier. He looked up and saw Mary concentrating as hard as she could, but then Guertena grabbed and hurled her against the side of the room. Bouncing off the wall, Mary crashed down into the floor with a sickening thud, and did not get up.

As Guertena prepared to finish off Garry and Mary, Ib, who was recovering from the glancing blow she received earlier, spotted the lighter on the ground and realized what she needed to do. Scrambling forward and retrieving it, she pulled out her lace handkerchief and wrapped it around the end of her piece of bramble where it started to taper off, cutting herself at one point on the sharp thorns. Spotting what she was doing, Guertena took his attention off of Garry and Mary and tried to crush Ib with his fist. Dodging out of the way, Ib lit the handkerchief on fire, ran forward, and hurled the bramble as hard as she could, like a burning torch.

It sailed through the air, seemingly in slow motion.

It struck Guertena's painting near the bottom of the canvas, igniting a small portion of it.

And almost immediately, it burst into flames. Within seconds it was engulfed completely. The heat could be felt across the whole room. The shadowy hands froze and withered away. Ib, Garry, and Mary felt in the air first denial, then rage, then desperation, despair, and finally embittered resignation, and then the sense of there being a presence in the room finally disappeared as the flames died out. The doors to the chamber unlocked. Outside the room, the death of their creator had an immediate impact on the monsters doing battle with the military. Half of them simply died right then and there, crumbling to dust. Of those that remained, coordination fell apart instantly. Most tried to struggle on individually, but others simply stopped fighting and stood there, offering no resistance as if they had lost any sense of purpose in their existence. The battered but still intact human army rallied and made short work of both groups. Before long, only a handful of those monsters that had submitted completely – several dozen statues, a handful of mannequin heads and painted ladies, a tripod monster or two – remained, which the army promptly rounded up and took prisoner.

Back in the portrait chamber, Ib and Garry used the two remaining puddles to restore their roses and then ran over to Mary. She was lying on the ground, badly wounded and clearly in great pain. A couple spots on her clothes seemed to be stained by a rainbow colored fluid. "Mary, are you okay?" asked Ib worriedly, stooping down. She knew the answer already but wasn't sure what else to say.

Mary looked up at them. "It… it hurts." she simply groaned. Upon closer inspection, Ib and Garry realized that the rainbow colored fluid was her equivalent of blood. Making eye contact with Garry, Mary then asked, "Do… Do you forgive me for… for what I did to you before?"

The two were initially at a loss for words. Barely over a week earlier, Mary had tried to kill them, again. Never in a million years did Ib or Garry think they would hear this question. For a moment they simply stared in shock, but finally Garry managed to say, "Yes. And thank you... for saving us."

There was a pause. He then asked a question that would've seemed downright unthinkable until recently, a question that required him to call into question everything he had felt about Mary for three years: "Will you – will you forgive us as well? For what we did to you before?"

Mary nodded, and then her pain directed her attention away again. She clenched her teeth and grimaced. For who-knows-how-long Ib and Garry just sat there, quietly looking over their wounded… friend. Finally, Garry turned his attention to Mary's injuries. "Okay," he tried reassuring her, "Hang in there. Your wounds don't look fatal. We're going to get you to a hospital in the real world. They should be able to treat your injuries. Together we can help you pull through." In truth, he had no idea what he was talking about, and he certainly had no idea whether the same treatments used for humans would work for a living painting, but he did not want to cause Mary any further distress.

Mary looked back up uncertainly. "Wait," she said worriedly. "Will… will they accept me?"

"Yeah…" Garry replied, smiling and trying to remain positive. "They will accept you, and after they fix you up, you can go out and live a normal life, make friends, and –"

"There they are! And the little witch too!" A gruff voice cut him off midsentence. A squad of soldiers had just entered the room. The sergeant's eyes were on Ib and Garry, but the soldiers' guns were all trained on Mary.

(So apparently the best way to fight off giant shadowy hands is with oversized plastic chunks of bramble. Good to know. Anyway, special thanks to Disciple of Ember for letting me send him a draft of the final fight, along with his vital support and encouragement from the beginning. I was going to save the big "thank you" for the concluding chapter, but here it is now. Don't unfollow just yet though: one question remains: Are we any better than "He" was?)