She stood alone in a room filled with orbs.

Her dress slid on the floor behind her as she walked, her bare feet making small patters against the marble, her delicate hands reaching out to brush against the glowing orbs that surrounded her.

This was a place that only very particular... demons, she supposed, could enter. At this moment in time, only Charlie and her lesser half could slip into this world-between-worlds and read the source code of the world. Her face creased in the smallest of frowns as she turned her eyes to the edges of the room.

The edges were beginning to unravel, almost like threads that had been tugged at far too much.

Things weren't looking good. She normally had some control over events that transpired in the Constant, but humans were beyond her power. She could only watch helplessly as they wandered around for a few months before dying of starvation or falling prey to one of the many massive hound packs. So... she tried to stay away from meddling in their affairs, even if it wasn't always possible.

Her other half, however, was not the kind to stay out of things.

She let out a small, pained sigh. Together, her and Nightmare had brought the scientist back from death, a small victory in what eventually became a tragedy.

Her hand rested on an orb, voices coming to her ears as she did so. "Then, I thought that feeding you to the spiders would be enough! After all, your sister perished exactly as planned with no intervention. But then you refused!"

"I thought you could finally do it," Charlie whispered. She paced forward slightly in order to move to another orb. The boy was still alive, and she had a feeling that this would not be his end, but the agony he suffered was enough to tear at her heart. The robot hadn't left his side for days, nor had his arachnid companions. Nightmare had done this, and she wasn't too stupid to know that. She just... couldn't do anything about it.

But this latest attempt... Nightmare had been very angered by it's failure. Perhaps it knew that she had stopped anything worse from happening... perhaps it knew that she was trying to help them.

Charlie finally made her way to the far side of the room, where some of the orbs had been caught in the unraveling seams. In there, her eyes grazed over bloodstained memories that she preferred to forget. The horrifying murder of a prime ape's innocent mate at Nightmare's hand, the rejection of his daughter followed by the quick degradation of his sanity. Charlie hadn't been able to save any of them, and she had tried so hard. What made her think she could save these survivors?

Her heart twisted in her chest. It was days like this that made her wish that her sister was here. She always knew what to do and how to do it... if anyone could save them, it would be her.

Charlie growled to herself, shaking her head. As she did so, she heard an earthshattering crash. Immediately, her mind pulsed with an event that had been erased from everyone's memories but their own: the Prime Ape princess attacking her father and leaving him for dead. If any event had to be forgotten, at least it was one better erased.

Nightmare swooped in like a furious tsunami. Nightmare was a curious beast, always taking the appearance of whatever unfortunate soul had the burden of carrying it. In its current form, it looked much like Charlie herself, except if Charlie had been crafted out of red smoke and black shadows. Its eyes were blank, and fire burned at its hands as it glared down at the shattered remains of an orb.

"Nightmare," she greeted coldly.

The beast didn't look up for a long moment, its shoulders heaving with... rage? Probably rage. When it did look up, it took all of Charlie's strength not to flinch.

"How. Did. He. Hold back?" The demon snarled, enunciating every single syllable as if Charlie wouldn't be able to understand it otherwise. She struggled to push back the relief and glee that was threatening to cover her face. One person holding back Nightmare was nothing: the beast was something created by the world, tied to the world, and stronger than anything else in it. It could easily overcome anyone, especially a weak scientist with an even weaker will.

But if, say, Charlie assisted said scientist in fighting the demon back... Nightmare was not able to complete its task.

"I do not know," she lied smoothly. It was easy for Charlie to lie, now. Her entire existence had become one smooth lie.

Nightmare roared, and another orb fell victim to its rage. This time, it was an event that no one even remembered anyway: a warrior saving a mute, and both immediately falling dead afterwards. At least Nightmare wasn't trying to actively cripple the timeline.

"He is pathetic!" Nightmare snarled. "No one! He should not have had the strength!"

Charlie remained silent. It was best not to interfere with it when it was like this.

"I will end that spider if it is the last thing I do." Unnaturally long claws gripped an orb and held it in such a tight grasp that Charlie could see small cracks forming in it.

"Why are you so set on killing Webber?"

Those furious eyes landed on Charlie. She managed to hold her ground.

"You are not stupid," it said slowly, furiously. "You know who he is."

"The next Nightmare Captor," she responded. "Maxwell's Heir. Of course." It wasn't exactly a secret. Any creature could sense the sheer power of the aura he gave off, something that any Nightmare Captor needed above all else. He was going to be perfect. Perhaps the one to finally save this world.

"You speak as if it is a trivial manner!" Nightmare shook with rage. The orb cracked further. "To speak such a way about the Master's usurper... I dare call that treason."

"Relax," Charlie said breezily. "All will work out in the end. It always has." She waved her arm towards the crumbling edges. Somewhere out there were faded, grayed out orbs, ones that had existed for longer than Charlie. It was enough to know that this wasn't the world's first timeline, nor would it be its last.

And every time they failed.

So why!?... What can I do to stop this disgusting cycle?

She closed her eyes and thought... then thought some more. She tried so desperately to dig up old memories, but none came. Nobody would ever have that gift... the knowledge that they had lived through this a thousand times before. Even Charlie, one who could read the world's source code, could not conjure memories of events that had yet to happen. But maybe... maybe she could stop those events from happening again.

She paused, then turned. Surely... no.

Charlie knew she had the same power as Maxwell... to bring people into this domain. But she couldn't subject another innocent to this Hell. Especially not someone like her sister.

But... she felt like she had to. Winona was the only person that Charlie could think of that would be able to fix this. She could fix anything...

As Nightmare realized it had lost her attention, it let out yet another roar of rage and smashed the orb it was holding against the ground. It immediately shattered into a million pieces, shards of memories flying out in all directions.

A random memory, one of a pair of twins playing in the snow, was lost to the pieces.

WX-78's POV

I didn't see Wilson again for many days. It was a fact that I knew should be more prominent on my mind, but I forced it to the back of my mind every time it came up.

During those days, I never strayed from Webber's side. His condition was so volatile that I did not dare risk it. After the first attack, he had been badly wounded, but nothing so terrible that good care couldn't solve.

This time, however... it was impossible to tell whether we should've been more focused on his hand or his eye. Matters were only made worse by the speech barrier between me and the spiders, and the ice hound's many attempts to 'help'. Eventually, I gave up shooing the dog away: after all, its cold fur would do good for the raging fever that Webber had developed.

The spiders made quick work of trying to save the hand, with many long hours spent cleaning and binding it once more. The initial stab wound had indeed been worsened, but Wilson had clearly done something more to it until I was tempted to remove it entirely. The spiders had disagreed with this notion, after I had finally gotten the intention across to them.

The eye... there was no way to save it, even if we wanted to. That was the one thing I had completely entrusted them with, simply because I wasn't sure I could mentally go through with it: removing what was left. It was better to do that than to hurt him more trying to save it. Even then, if we had been able to save the eye itself, there was no way he would've been able to see from it ever again. It was completely ruined.

Occasionally, I noticed him stirring slightly, usually marked by small whimpers and flexing claws. When the spiders weren't there, or when they were asleep, I would attempt to sooth him back to sleep. My voice was loud and robotic, not one for lullabies, but it usually seemed to do the trick.

There was improvement, but it was slow. I knew he healed faster than Wilson or I did, but it was still many days before he actually seemed to have lucid moments.

Surprisingly enough, I didn't find myself annoyed about becoming the boy's caretaker. It was almost... calming.

I saw his good eye open slightly, and the whiskers on his face twitched slightly. He winced back against the sunlight, but a moment later, he had a focused and steady gaze on me. I tried to ignore the thick silk patch across the remnants of his lost eye.

"YOU ARE AWAKE," I observed. The dangling depths dweller- her name was Erika, wasn't it?- snapped awake and growled at him, waking her companion up as well. Webber hissed something back, his shaky voice obvious even in a different language. Finally, he looked back at me, his remaining eye round and... scared.

"We're awake..." he said softly. His voice was hoarse and ragged, clearly showing its lack of usage. "WX... what... what happened...? Why can't we..." His good hand made its way towards the patch across his face, touching it gently as if trying to figure out what it was.

Immediately, Erika snapped at him and I got to my feet. Webber snarled back at her, his fur bristling with agitation as his claws came out and he tried to tear the patch away.

I jumped forward and grabbed his hand, pulling it away. "DO NOT TOUCH IT."

He snarled again, in the spider's language, and struggled against me. A wave of annoyance flooded my systems. Even coming out of what was essentially a coma, he was still going to fight with us every step of the way? I vaguely considered knocking him out again, but that risked doing even more damage.

"YOU ARE INJURED." Clearly. "THAT IS THERE TO KEEP OUT INFECTION."

Erika let out a spidery sigh and looked at me. As she did, I had a feeling that I knew what she was thinking. Just let him do it. He needs to find out one way or another.

I released his hand, and he immediately went back to tearing the patch off of his face. I could start to see the ugly wound across his face before the eye was visible. I found myself looking away. I couldn't stand to look at it.

"Why can't we see!?" He cried. It felt like a stab straight into my chest.

I finally turned back to him, trying to avert my gaze from the massive wound. It was hard not to stare, though; even after the rigorous cleaning the spiders had done, it was crusted with blood and pus, and squeezed tightly shut. I slowly paced up to him and offered my hand. "I THINK YOU NEED TO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF."

He stared up at me, his good eye wide and confused. Finally, he took my offered hand and allowed me to pull him up. The second I released his hand, he crumpled to the ground and tried to catch himself with his marred hand. Immediately, he snarled in pain and fell sideways, clutching his injured hand. "Can't stand," he muttered. "Sorry..."

Erika hissed at him, and he shook his head, hissing back. I desperately wished that I could understand what they were saying, but he did look back up at me, his face creased with pain.

I felt like he really needed to see the wound in order to understand the severity of it, and it wasn't like it was the worst idea to clean it again, so I crouched down and picked the boy up in my arms, surprised again at how small and light he was. He let out a small yelp of shock, likely at the chill of my arms, but he didn't struggle.

I wasn't sure how long he would be able to stay awake: he was still gravely injured and it was surprising that he was this lucid.

And so, I tried my best to keep conversation with him, hoping it would be enough to keep him from drifting off again... even if the discussion wasn't one I wanted to have.

"HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"

He let out a small growl. "...not well."

I tried to think of something else to say, but he got to it first.

"WX... what happened to Wilson?"

What was I supposed to say to that? What was he even asking? What happened to the Wilson we knew? Why did Wilson snap? Where was he now?

Well... it would be easiest to answer the last question. "I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM FOR MANY DAYS."

Webber nodded slowly, visibly relaxing. He's afraid of Wilson.

His gaze snapped to the side and his whiskers began to twitch again. "The frog ponds...?" He asked softly.

"IT IS CLOSER THAN THE OCEAN."

His good eye turned down. "We nearly died, didn't we...?"

At least that was an easier question to answer. "YES."

"...did Wilson do this to us?"

Another easy question. "YES."

He fell silent for a moment. His claws twitched slightly, and I saw him reach up to scratch around his injured eye. I pulled his hand away from it before he could do any more damage to the injury. "WX?"

"MMM?"

"...was Wilson telling the truth?"

I scoffed. "WHATEVER HE SAID, I PROMISE YOU IT WAS A LIE."

"He said that nobody would ever want us," he said softly. His voice was shaky, as if he was on the verge of tears. "He said that... that all that ever mattered was escaping. He said that our p-parents abandoned us... knowing who we were..." He choked on his words, a sob forming in his throat. "He said that no human or spider could ever want us."

As he spoke, a frown grew deeper and deeper on my face. It sounded like Wilson, or whatever was possessing him, knew exactly what to say to hurt Webber. He had done more damage than I could see.

"WELL." I said after a long moment. "I SUPPOSE IT IS A GOOD THING I AM NEITHER HUMAN NOR SPIDER."

His gaze shot up, but I did not grace him with a look.

Once I knew that we were safe from any of the massive frogs that populated the area, I lowered myself to my knees and placed him onto the ground. He immediately dragged himself onto his hands and knees and scrambled to peer into the reflection.

I watched as his expression seemed to shift between a million different emotions. A claw reached up and touched the edge of the wound, then tracing the length of it. I could see the moment that he understood: his eye was gone, and he was never going to recover completely.

He stared down at himself for a long, long moment. I stood beside him silently, allowing him to grasp the reality of his situation. When he finally looked away, it was to use his fangs to tear away at the bandaging on his hand.

"WEBBER..."

He ignored me, tearing away at bloody silk until he was able to fully see the state of his hand. It had healed since I last saw it, but I could already tell that it would never heal well. Unlike his eye, it would still be usable... just not as much.

"We're lame," he whispered after a moment. "Nono... nonono..." he slowly shifted back, decidedly facing away from the reflection in the lake in order to rest his pitiful gaze on me, as if I could do something. "Lame... lame creatures die..." he whimpered.

When I had been injured severely enough to impact any of my senses, it had been a rather easy fix. Wilson knew robotics almost as well as he knew medicine, and he had been able to repair me fairly well. I still had some trouble from time to time, enough for me to realize that my hearing was not on par with what it used to be, but I had never suffered maiming of this extreme.

His dominant hand was borderline useless and his eye had been destroyed. Whatever the future had in store for us, Webber would never lead the charge again.

"LAME CREATURES MAY DIE, BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHY HUMANS CREATED SOCIETY." I shrugged, trying to brush off my own horror at the realization. "YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BE MORE OF A BURDEN THAN YOU ALREADY WERE."

I thought it was a pretty comforting sentiment, but apparently Webber didn't think so as he immediately burst into tears.

I considered my options- honestly, saying nothing and letting him cry it out was probably the best option- but before I could act on any ideas I spotted movement. Immediately, I angled myself in front of the boy and stared down the figure that was hesitantly approaching us.

Wilson looked... pretty terrible, if I had to be honest. His gray eyes were empty, his shoulder tightly wrapped in grass-woven bandages and his broken arm hung from a sling around his neck. He kept his gaze cautiously down, but when he looked up, I could see the emotions sparking in his eyes.

I didn't care.

"I HAD HOPED THAT THAT HAD KILLED YOU," I sneered. He winced, and looked back down at his hands. "ESPECIALLY AFTER HAVING NOT SEEN YOU FACE FOR SO MANY DAYS."

"I had to... prove to myself that I was safe," he whispered, wringing his hands together. I stumbled slightly as I felt Webber grasp me from behind, shaking. His fur was bristling, and his claws were digging into the metal of my back to the best of their ability. "Nightmare is gone," he said. "It's angry... so angry... but I can't do what it wants me to do." He looked up again, tears glittering in his gaze. I scoffed. I hadn't even realized humans could cry this much. "Even when it is controlling me... I can't kill Webber."

"YOU MAY AS WELL HAVE," I snapped. I hadn't brought a weapon with me, but I knew very well that I could easily defeat Wilson in a fist fight. In just a week, Wilson had gone from the one person Webber could trust above all else to his greatest fear. "GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY I SHOULD NOT END YOU RIGHT NOW."

I expected Webber to say something, to come to Wilson's defense again, but he didn't. He only let out the smallest of whimpers.

"I wouldn't blame you," he said, finally meeting my gaze. "I deserve anything... everything... for what Nightmare made me do. But... you know that it wasn't me. You know...! And it's gone, WX. I failed. I don't know what it will do next, but I promise that it will not be through me." He exposed his hands. His fingers were rubbed raw to the point of bleeding.

I said nothing. I trusted him last time, and he drugged me.

"Webber, please..." Wilson turned to the boy, but as he did, his shaking became more intense and he bared his fangs. Wilson took a step back, his eyes wide. He had lost Webber's trust, and I didn't think he would ever be able to get it back.

"YOU DESERVE WORSE THAN DEATH. IF I COULD DELIVER SUCH A PUNISHMENT, I WOULD." I thought for a moment, then added: "BUT I BELIEVE THE WORST PUNISHMENT THAT YOU CAN FACE IS HAVING TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS." I took a small step forward. "HAVING TO SPEND EVERY DAY WATCHING THE CHILD WHO TRUSTED YOU SO MUCH SHY AWAY FROM YOUR PRESENCE. SPENDING EVERY WAKING MOMENT HAVING YOUR EYES TURN TOWARDS THE BLOODSTAINED WOUND YOU MARKED ACROSS HIS FACE, OR WATCHING AS HIS AIM MISSES BY A MILE BECAUSE YOU DESTROYED HIS STRENGTHS." The more I spoke, the more tears appeared in the scientist's eyes. He didn't deny it: he knew what he deserved. "YOU DESERVE TO SUFFER, BY WATCHING YOUR HANDIWORK AT PLAY. BY KNOWING WHAT YOU DID, AND HAVING TO SEE IT EVERY SINGLE DAY."

Webber released me as I spoke, falling to the ground with a dull thump as he did so. I turned to look at him only to see agony scrawled across his face. This was a different type of agony than the pain he must have been experiencing from his wounds, though.

"I really am worthless," he whispered, his voice so soft that I could barely hear it.

Ah... so my words had been what had hurt him. I suppose I had lied for long enough at this point.

"COME ON," I growled at Wilson, who startled at my voice. If we made him leave, he would die. And death was too much of a release for him to deserve it.

Wilson hesitated, looking between me and Webber. I could see the pain in his gaze, but I had no proof that it was emotional pain. I had done a lot to him to keep Webber safe, but he would recover.

I bent down to pick the boy up again, but he flashed his fangs at me and dragged himself to his hand and knees, his injured hand held tightly to his chest. I felt a strange ache in my chest as I watched him struggle to stand on his own, but he was fragile and weak, especially after just having come out of a coma, and couldn't keep his balance for even a second. I didn't try to catch him. It was important for him to fall to understand. He would be able to stand, eventually, but he needed to learn sooner rather than later that he was going to have limits now, and he couldn't push them.

"WEBBER," I finally said after I had decided that he had tried and failed enough. Any more and he would hurt himself.

"Please," he whispered softly. I couldn't stop staring at that eye. I had never seen him look so… his age. "Please, we can't- if we can't even stand- what's the p-point of us being ar-round." His voice was a low whimper, and there were tears welling up in his eye.

"EVERYONE GETS INJURED," I said matter-of-factly. "YOU ARE NOT EXEMPT, CLEARLY. THERE IS AN OBVIOUS RECOVERY PERIOD. ONE THAT REQUIRES THAT YOU RELAX AND DO NOT STRESS YOUR BODY ANY FURTHER." The entire time, I found my gaze drifting back to Wilson, who I was sure I had never seen so still. I didn't think that he had realized the amount of injuries the boy had sustained. "LET ME CARRY YOU, AND YOU CAN CONTINUE TO BE STUBBORN WHEN WE GET BACK TO BASE."

His entire body shivered, and he stared at the ground for a much longer time than necessary, but he finally looked back up at me and nodded a single, small time. That was all I needed anyway.

Carefully, I picked him up once more, careful to keep my grip away from any of the injuries he sustained. I could feel the tension in his muscles, the aggravation that he was holding back, but he wasn't stupid. Stubborn and frustration, yes, but not stupid. He knew very well that his body was too fragile to carry him right now.

I didn't look back to see if Wilson was still with us. I couldn't care less. He could decide to turn around and jump off of the cliffs for all I cared at that moment. However, after a few moments I heard the soft sounds of his footfalls behind me, trailing after us.

I still had no doubt in my mind that Wilson had been possessed by something. His outburst the day before, the full-body, heaving sobs that he had let out after he understood what he had done, was enough to prove that to me. But… he let it happen. If Wilson could let something like this happen, he didn't deserve our trust.

Webber whimpered slightly as my grip on him tightened, but I paid him no attention. Wilson deserved nothing. No, he deserved worse than nothing. He deserved to be pinned by his hand and tortured in the same way he had tortured Webber.

But then…

I forced my limbs to relax. Wilson was my last priority. Once Webber was stable, healthy, then I would give him what he deserved.

"We're lame. Lame creatures die."

What was the point in trying to save Webber? His words, although harsh, were completely true. It was the simple concept of Survival of the Fittest. The weakest, the slowest, the more injured, would always die. Webber would never get better. I knew this, Wilson knew this, and Webber surely knew this. His injuries would always cripple him and hold him back.

Until one day… he would finally fall prey to the world, and something told me there would be no greater deity to bring him back like it did Wilson.