To V-Gurl: Um... One would think that a living, thinking Legretta would be able to predict Tear trying to run away and therefore would have better aim than a computer.

Anyway, I'VE GOT EVERYTHING EDITED ALREADY! I just kinda started working this morning and ended up just... going! 'Twas fun, and now I'm all excited 'cause I got it all edited and I wanna post it all at once so don't be surprised if I end up putting up more chapters later tonight! -squeals and starts twirling around happily-

Well then, onward, my minions! Er, readers... –slumps- I've spent too much time in Acidblitz's processor. Really. If I spend any longer there I might start asking for ALI. Not what I want to do... Though I find irony in the fact that I bring up Acidblitz, who is a Transformers fanfic OC of mine, in the chapter where Kairi decides to mention Transformers. (I'm serious. This wasn't planned at all.)

Also, Guy's quote isn't what it sounds like out of context.

"Your girlfriend thought it would be a great idea to spend the night with me, apparently!" –Guy

Chapter 13.4 – End Game
Part 114

Arietta and Danté.

Danté had been the one to speak.

"Danté, I—"

A growl interrupted her, and Danté scowled. "Damn... No sense of propriety, huh, replica?" he snarled, drawing a gun. Two shots rang out, and I noticed Dark swung back around the wall he'd been peeking around. He gave us a look, and I nodded. We'd known we'd have to fight these two eventually.

He turned and ran around the corner, chakrams in hand, and Asch, Luke, Guy, and Sync, the rest of our main melee fighters, raced after him. Selenia stayed back a few moments to cast—Angel Feathers, I noted from the wings—while the rest of us ran into the next room and fanned out, preparing for the fight.

Sorylle and Kallig immediately started in on each other, Kallig's feral mind barely identifying Sorylle as a liger of his clan and therefore someone he needed to fight, and Sorylle wanting to... you know, I'm honestly not sure why Sorylle ran straight for him. Something to do with Koran, I guessed as I let off yet another Silver Shot, this time aiming for Arietta.

Danté shot at me, and I barely avoided it.

"Damn, you're holding a grudge for something, aren't you?" I asked. Danté scowled.

"I've got a few different things I want to shoot you for, yes, but this? This is just business."

Dark snorted. "Yeah right. Like trying to kill me all the time was 'just business'?"

Danté shot at him next, then let off a brighter than usual shot, which I guessed was a strike arte. "Sure. Hard to find work with you and Ryndor taking up the market."

Dark rolled his eyes, rolled under an attack, and then jumped up, flinging a chakram at Danté, who was careful to dodge it, even though it meant he got attacked by Luke and Guy. Asch and Selenia were currently dealing with the small fry ligers around us, with help from Seth, Flick, and Natalia. Reighn, Jade, and Sync were focused on Arietta.

Danté glanced around, then decided he wasn't so uncomfortable with these odds that he'd retreat, apparently.

Then Sorylle clamped her jaws around Kallig's neck and twisted in such a way that I knew he wouldn't have survived it.

That she took a half a step back and immediately let loose with a heart-wrenching yowl startled me—and Dark and Danté.

Dark let his arms hang loose. "Sorylle..." He growled the next part.

She shook her head, mane rustling back and forth, and growled a soft reply.

Arietta let off one last Bloody Howling, looked at Danté, and ran. He followed after her without even a glance at Dark, and it didn't take the rest of us long to finish off the ligers they'd left behind. Once it was over, I looked at Dark, who was knelt by Sorylle and the still body of Kallig, kept whole only because Sorylle hadn't removed her paw from where it rested on his side. Dark looked up at me as I walked over.

"Kallig was the last of Illeka's nestmates to die. From what I've been able to gather, it sounds like, in his blind rage, Kallig's killed the rest of them. Illeka, and her two children, were the only ones he hadn't gotten to yet..."

I inhaled sharply as I realized it.

"Kallig was Illeka's brother..." I bit my lip. "Then, the liger Twilight left the Western Clan for was her uncle."

Dark frowned and looked at me, and I nodded, confirming that yes, he had heard me right the first time.

"So, those two knew each other..."

"Before you were born, from the sounds of it," I said. Sorylle bowed her head, then growled something softly. I sighed and prodded her gently with my mind.

*Do you think... he'd have minded... me and Twilight?* she asked. I smiled.

*Nah. On that note...*

*He's waiting for me to finish up here, and then we're going to try to figure out how to get them all to the Northern Woods. There's more than enough... If the Southern Clan hasn't died out from the illness, we'll finish cleaning up,* she said. I nodded.

"Alright. Well, for now, we should get going." Everyone else agreed, and we started moving.

We finally found a room that looked a bit different.

"Uh..."

I grinned, raced over to a computer, and started getting to work. These were controlling the outer defense systems, so if we could get these turned off... Yes! "Alright, that should be the end of the anti-air fire. Everyone ready for the next part?" I asked. They all gave me a curious look, and I shrugged. "Well, look."

I opened up what was basically a map of the outer shell of Eldrant, and a chorus of groans met me.

"You mean we have to get though that damn maze?!" Anise whined. I nodded.

"Yeah. If I thought we had some way of carrying this map around, I'd take it with us, but... Well, we don't. Also, it's not as bad as I'm sure it looks. I could probably copy this into a map that would keep us from getting lost, but, well... That might take me up to an hour, maybe more."

Jade looked thoughtful. "It's getting pretty late... Perhaps it would be best if we stopped here for the night? We've already been doing a lot of fighting, and I don't doubt we'll be doing even more of it tomorrow, and every day after that."

Dark sighed. "Right. Break time it is then. Since it looks like this place is fairly safe, we might as well build a fire and actually cook something rather than wasting the sandwiches Kairi and Selenia have packed," he said. "I know a few of us have firewood sitting around in our wing packs."

They got to work on that, while I pulled out my sadly mostly-abandoned sketchbook and got to work figuring out where we needed to go.

It took me closer to two hours to get it figured out, with Reighn bringing food over after the first twenty minutes. That got eaten rather quickly, and I put the sketchbook away as I walked over to the campfire we'd built up.

Since Eldrant was artificially lighted, the people who were on watch didn't have to worry about trying to see through the darkness.

On the other hand, it meant there would inevitably be a bit of that bright light passing through holes or seams in the tents. Still, since the others were mostly asleep, I found a tent, crawled in, and fell asleep without noticing who I was sharing with.

I woke up to a very loud yelp and some scrambling, and heard Jade laughing outside the tent.

"What's so funny?" I heard Asch ask. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around the once-again dark tent.

"Your girlfriend thought it would be a great idea to spend the night with me, apparently!" Guy grumbled.

Oh. That's who I'd shared with.

"Sorry," I called. "I didn't exactly check to see who was in here when I decided it was bedtime..."

A sigh, and the tent flap was lifted. "No, I probably shouldn't have been running off like that. You just kinda startled me."

I shrugged, rolled out of my blanket, and then crawled out of the tent. "It's okay. You're still trying to come to terms with... that..."

I stood up and pulled out my sketchbook. "Okay, now that I've gotten some rest and my brain doesn't feel like it's been tap-danced on by elephants..."

"What's an elephant?"

I giggled. "Oh, that? That is a very large animal."

"As big as a liger?"

"As big as ten ligers."

Anise gave me an odd look. "Yeah, definitely wouldn't want one of those dancing on your head..." I snorted.

"No kidding. Okay, back to business..." I sat down and put my sketchbook in Jade's lap. "I have basically no sense of direction, so I'll let you make sense of that."

He tilted his head to the side. "I think we'll be able to manage. This will certainly help to avoid any unnecessary delays, at least." He paused long enough to glance at me. "Um... By the way..."

I gave him an innocent look, and he shifted and brushed something off of my head. I felt a bit of hair fall against my arm, and guessed it had been sitting oddly. "Thanks. I don't exactly have a mirror."

"Hey, how much longer are we going to have to wait for the others to wake up?" Guy asked. "Because, um... I think I figured out where the monsters went."

I turned around, scowled, and then jumped to my feet, running after the pack of ligers. Asch, Guy, and Jade followed after me, and the five of us made short work of them.

"Damn. It looks like they've figured out where we are. We should wake the others and get going before more arrive," Jade said. I nodded, then went and started packing up the two empty tents. Asch scowled and went to wake up the others, while Guy dealt with the breakfast fire we'd made. He left the food out so the others would be able to eat, but he made short work of everything else.

I finished getting the tents packed up before anyone else got done eating, so once that was dealt with, I stood around, acting as a bit of a guard. Asch did the same.

"Guess I was up later than usual last night, if you got up before me."

Asch sighed. "Actually... I think it's turned into a matter of, if I can't see the sun, I'm up. I did the same thing at the Absorption Gate when we all got separated."

I hummed.

"Jade said that if your map was correct, it'll take us two days to get to the inner part, where the actual replicated Hod is. From there, depending on how much is actually, well, already replicated... Guy should be able to guide us to the central temple, where he said the passage ring should be."

I nodded. "And that's likely the command center."

"Yeah." He paused, and I scowled.

"Alright, we're done," Tear announced. I drew Silver Clematis.

"Good, because the monsters are here again."

Asch and I ran in to deter them, and Jade's Infernal Prison landed nearby. I used it for a Burning Havoc. Then...

"Prism Sword!"

I smirked. "Nice one, Jade!" I ran over and used that field of fonons, too. Asch chuckled.

"Favoring Burning Havoc today?"

I shrugged. "Well, I was favoring Silver Shot yesterday. Guardian Field!" I paused and glanced around, noting Guy and Luke killing the last two monsters. "Alright, where to, Jade?"

He led the way, after giving my sketchbook back. He'd torn out the pages with our map/directions on them, so after I put the sketchbook away, I followed him.

He eventually handed the map off to Guy, who ended up leading the group.

Aside from what felt like a few hundred confrontations with monsters (it was probably only a few dozen, but still) Reighn called for a break for lunch. He'd been assigned to keep track of the time.

"So... Anyone know what's up with Danté?" Selenia asked. I frowned and looked over at her.

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Well, Flick said he was all upset at the Isle of Feres, and then when Kallig died, he didn't even hesitate to run after Arietta."

Dark flinched. "That... That had more to do with the fact that one, Kallig was feral, had been feral for years, and... I think Danté just couldn't bring himself to put him down. Also, Sorylle brought up the fact that Kallig was her uncle right then and there... He was probably in shock."

"Danté? In shock?" Luke sounded appropriately skeptical...

But I nodded. "Yeah. That's the best way to put it, I think. As for the Isle of Feres... who knows? Maybe, if we have a chance, we can talk to him, but..." I shrugged. "Sorry. He's not exactly high on my list of people to try not to kill." I shifted, adjusted how I was sitting, and reached out with Energies to make my knee stop hurting. "I'm still rather miffed about my leg, to be honest."

Jade frowned. "That's right. Are you sure it won't be giving you problems while we're here?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yeah. The main reason it was giving me so many problems before was because I wasn't used to it, or I was so drugged up on pain meds that I wasn't feeling the warning signs that it was about to give out on me. But my system's clean—has been for a couple months, almost—and I can feel it getting a bit stressed. I'm rather glad Reighn called the break, since I'd have needed to stop later if we hadn't, anyway."

Reighn looked worried. "Are we going to have to stop more often for that?" I shook my head here.

"No. Actually, if it's old injuries we're worrying about, I'd be more concerned about Ion... In fact. Get over here."

Ion nodded and walked over, sitting down in such a way that I could easily get to his leg. It was healed, yes, but I knew sometimes stress would result in the freshly-mended bone fracturing again.

Sure enough, it was trying to fracture, and I pulled in Energies to both put it back together and ease the small ache I'm sure Ion felt. He hummed as I worked.

"Thanks... I hadn't realized how much that was actually starting to hurt..." he admitted. I sighed.

"You're hopeless..."

Dark chuckled. "Could be worse. Could be as hopeless as when I first met him."

I snorted. "He wouldn't be here if he were," I said. Ion frowned.

"I don't like fighting... But if it means I'm protecting someone, anyone, I'll fight for the rest of my life."

I sighed. Damn... The kid had definitely grown up.

"Alright. Are you done patching yourself and Ion back together?" Reighn asked. I nodded and stood up. Well, really, I hadn't done a lot of patching. Just a bit of pain killing. But it would hold until tomorrow even if I didn't actually reinforce it, so I'd be fine.

It wasn't much longer before Anise started complaining of being bored.

So I gave in and started telling a story that had been on my mind since I'd gotten the memory of it from my doppelganger back on Earth... Though the exact reasons why she'd suddenly gotten interested in Transformers, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Still, I told the story, and everyone found amusement in Sam's antics. Well, and the bots. Especially Ironhide and the part with Mojo.

By the time I was done, Anise looked thoughtful.

"Hey... Do you think there might really be other worlds out there?"

Asch, Sync, Dark, Jade, Reighn, Luke, and I busted up laughing.

Fun Fact: I actually started writing Dying Embers/A Dying Light before I got back to writing Re:A Spatial Tear after my almost year-long break. So when I finally got around to writing this in November, I had ADL Danté's personality in my head and I was having trouble getting back to Re:AST Danté's personality. So if he seems a bit less like a total asshole, that's why.

(This also means that Danté's final scene in Re:AST, which is written from Sync's POV in this story and Danté's in ADL, was written long before I ever got to it. There was some editing done on both sides to account for differences in actual continuity and planned continuity.)