I cut off the paper wrapping myself with the swords. Then, I saw where I was relocated to. I was in a rose garden outside of the castle with light snow falling from the sky. I was in a center where a suit of armor was covered in a rose vineyard. Great. I just escaped a rose garden and Greg brought me back again. Talk about adding insult to injury. And to make things worse, I wasn't alone. That's right. Worm Boy and Merrill's fangirl.

"Master!" Cuddles started bawling her eyes out.

"Oh, God, we're back to this again", Warren grumbled on my shoulder. "Hey, rabbit! We don't have it all day! Gregory is going through his final metamorphosis! We won't be able to get our hands on the book now that he changed everything." His yelling only made her cry harder. I sighed. Raph was afraid of her. Correction, we "were" afraid of her.

"Don't get your body in a pretzel", I told the worm mutant, "Getting Cuddles upset won't get us anywhere. And Cuddles getting upset about Merrill won't solve anything."

The rabbit sniffed. "...okay... are we going to find Master?"

How could I say no to a sweet face? Even though she tried to use me and my family as her screaming vamp bank. "...sure. But you gotta be strong, otherwise, your master will be disappointed."

Cuddles rubbed her eyes and she nodded with aggression. "Okay... let's find Master so he can praise me!" I rolled my eyes. I'd rather have her be enthusiastic than be mopey.

"Um, hello! Forgetting someone here!" I frowned, feeling Warren jumping on my shoulder. "We need to get to Gregory to take back the book!"

"Right. So you could use it as your gain", I said.

"What?! No! How outlandish! I wanted to use it to get us home!" Whatever. But he's right. We do need to get to Gregory fast. If Warren said this was true, then Gregory is pushing himself. He harnessed the book's power to separate me and Merrill. Knowing my friend, he would be acting fast and pushing his way to find Gregory, which I should be doing, too.

"Alright... we need to get to Gregory... I'm sure Merrill is thinking the same thing and he's on his way to him or pulling a Raph punching through every wall he sees", I said without taking a breath. "This has been turning into a great day!" I picked up Cuddles and started jogging out of the garden.

What I soon came to realize was the garden was more of a maze than a garden. With every turn I took I either ended up in a dead end or back to where I started seeing Sir Rose Knight greeting me. This was getting ridiculous; I went through that metal suit six times! I swear Gregory was having a field day watching me running around in circles. I huffed in annoyance.

"Here's a thought. Why not use those yellow chicken wings and fly over this crazy maze?" Warren asked.

"I would", I answered, "but Light gave me a little boost. And since I have no idea how much that is, and I basically used a lot of it while fighting my way through ice sculptures, I can't risk losing more power."

"It's better than running around like a headless chicken."

"But Bluey has his head. And he's a turtle", Mrs. Cuddles said.

"Oh, my God. Can we please get out of here!"

I walked up to the suit of armor. It was posed as straight as an arrow with its sword unsheathed and pointed downward. "At least you look good in roses", I commented before sighing, "Can this day get any worse?"

Apparently, it can!

I felt something grabbing my leg. I shrieked looking down. It was a rotten fleshed arm wrapped in vines and dead roses. I summoned a sword and sliced the arm off. I jumped out of the way. The cut limb flopped around like a fish out of water. Me and Warren screamed while Cuddles hit her hidden growth spurt. The ground shifted. A moldy body popped out of the ground. It was Mikey as a gross, moldy, covered in dead flower with flesh peeling off. I almost gagged at my little brother's state.

This isn't my baby brother. This is a sick imitation. This isn't my brother. Suddenly, two more bodies popped up. It was Donnie and Raph. They were just as bad as Mikey. They became garden zombies! They groaned seeing me. I took a deep breath as I summoned a sword.

They sped up my way, but with a swift of my wrist, I sliced all three in one sweep. They weren't my brothers. My real bros are safe and sound at home with Pops.

"Aw. That was easy. There's no big battle", Cuddles groaned. I held onto her long body with my one arm. That was easy. Too easy. It shouldn't be this easy, right?

I felt Warren tense beside my head. He tapped my cheek rapidly while looking behind me. "What? I have a fly on my cheek or what?" I asked, but he didn't say anything. He stopped tapping; however, he shivered like a leaf. I slowly turned around.

The suit of armor started glowing. The holes were flaring up in blue flames. Its eyes through the helmet glowed. It raised its sword. I managed to block the attack only to be roughly pushed back. I flew through three hedges dropping Cuddles and Warren. Thorns scratched on my skin and ripped through my clothes. I trudged through the thorns and branches. A branch scratched my head.

I had dived to the side to dodge the raging bulldozer of a zombie knight. It cut some branches. Its flames grew bigger seeing that it missed. Its movements creaked as it positioned itself to strike again. It ran to me, but I was prepared to fight. We clashed our blades. Its strikes were harder and faster than mine. The vibrations made my muscles shake. My adrenaline was running low again. This fight was as exhausting as fighting with the Ice Beauties. My sword was tossed aside. The rose knight grabbed my neck. It threw me to the ground. I hissed hearing my shell crack. I grabbed the gloved hand; it got a strong grip. My eyes widened seeing it raise its sword. I squirmed. I couldn't hold back my nervous chirp. I closed my eyes tightly. I guess all the fighting was for nothing.

"For Master!" I heard Cuddles' voice. I opened my eyes quickly to see the tall rabbit hitting the knight with her soft arms. Warren tried to cover the knight's eyes with his whole body. The entire distraction was enough for the knight to release me. I summoned another sword, and I had enough energy to pierce through its armor from the neck. It released a dying shrill before the flames died down and the empty shell fell scattering its pieces.

I huffed. Now that was intense. I hope that was the last fight I had to be a part of because I could barely lift my arms.

"Heh. You're welcome", Warren said. His tiny chest puffed with pride.

I narrowed my eyes. "I didn't say thank you."

"Well, you should! I risked my life to save you!"

"Actually, Cuddles did more work than you, but I thank you anyway for the help." Above us became bright. I looked up to see a portal materialized. It should either lead us to Gregory, to Merrill, or to another arena. Either way, I'm not staying here any longer than I have. I grabbed onto the sidekicks and summoned my wings. With one flap, I jumped up and flew to the portal.

I went through a long spiraling vortex of images. I realized these images were our adventures throughout our cycles. I caught Merrill's painful transformations repeatedly on the left. My right was showing my death counts like it was a tragedy (which kind of is). I felt uneasy. It wasn't because of the images I was looking at. It was something else. And I guessed it had something to do with Merrill. I flapped my wings harder gaining more momentum.

Please be okay.

My vision became disoriented until it was replaced by a weird atmosphere. Gregory was a giant and bare-chested! I couldn't make out his words, but I knew they weren't good. Everything was going too fast. I saw a giant hand crushing something.

Merrill!

I threw my arm out not realizing I summoned another sword. It flew through the portal. I flew after it. We entered a massive dimension with floating rocks and pieces of land. Gregory stood in the center his body becoming one with the book.

I saw Merrill and floated next to him. He looked like he went through one helluva fight. His dress was ripped apart. His hair was messier than I remember. Overall, I was happy he was okay. Mrs. Cuddles expressed her feelings by trying to pounce on him, but he caught her before she landed on his face.

"You look like shit." I scoffed. Of course, he would say that.

"Like you're one to talk. You ruined that nice dress", I countered.

"Alex didn't make it so I'm in the clear." Good point. I didn't bother tuning the three's conversation. My eyes locked onto Gregory's body, mostly his arms. The papers were barely holding on. The author's running his last course.

Speaking of the villain, Gregory looked at us, disgusted, like ants ruining his perfect picnic. "How disgusting", he said with a frown, "This motion of friendship is utterly disgusting." Don't knock it 'til you try it.

Merrill stepped forward. I knew he was going to give one big speech. "Heh. Jealous? Jealous that you don't have any friends backing you up? Sure you got the power, a thick body, and control everything with a single sentence, but you're forgetting one thing: we don't belong here. We're not your little minions made up by your story. We're from the outside world. We're going to kick your ass! And we're getting the hell out of here!" Could've said it better myself.

"With the power of friendship? What a laugh."

"With the power of these nuts plus ratio."

God, he's full of himself.

But damn do I love him.

Merrill's right. We're getting out of here.

Together.