Five Nights At Freddy's: Protection Breach

by IndigoWizard

Okay, so this started off as a silly idea I had about making some of my adolescent power fantasies into a FNaF fanfiction but slowly became more and more of deranged clusterfuck in its conception, but I'm still gonna get all the concepts written out eventually. Don't be surprised when the story apparently forgets that it's a FNaF fanfiction.

13. IN THEIR DREAMS

After kissing Rochelle good"night", and promising he probably wouldn't be gone all the time, Ian walked out of Rochelle's room, only to be pulled up through the top of the hallway by Penguin and then through a portal to the 'dream room'.

"A dollhouse?" asked Ian. "That's where your dream world is located?"

"In a sense, a dollhouse is what this vast set of dreams is. A bunch of kids' toys, who are the kids themselves, all playing house in various ways." said Opera Penguin.

"Yeah, I guess so." said Ian.

"Oh, and as an aside," said Opera Penguin. "One of them is too bloated. It's taken a vast amount of dimensional fabric that I appropriated from Lowrealm and became a singular, chaotic dream so big that Lowrealm is actually trying to reclaim it. If it does that, then the other dreams may also be absorbed. So, try and destroy it so I can reallocate the fabric to something else, and also so Lowrealm isn't going to devour everything. But get the people first."

"Does the 'bloated' dimension come before or after Charlie?" asked Ian.

"Charlie is statically last in priority, always." said Opera Penguin. "Frankly, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go in myself. Even with my own power at work, I don't think it'll be easy. Your powers weren't quite made for searching, more for. . ."

"Fun stuff." said Ian.

". . .yes." said Opera Penguin, recalling only about two hours before, when Ian had been giggling joyfully as he launched lightning bolt after lightning bolt, froze and then crushed heads, performed mass amputations with the wind, and made the clouds rain droplets of water that were made to be like bullets under the influence of his power. And those were the Converts that weren't just subject to Ian beating them to death with his fists.

"Anyway, I'll open up a rift, but I'm also going to give you a little 'boost' that will spontaneously make rifts as you near the edge of any dream-world." said Opera Penguin.

"Neato." said Ian.

"First, find the third Mangle." said Opera Penguin.

"Third?" asked Ian.

"The one that came after the first two. The one you know is the second, this one is a girl that was fascinated by the Mangle, romanticized her and eventually snuck into the burnt down wreck of Fazbear Frights to sate her passion by looking for any artifacts left behind, only to get her neck snapped by Afton." said Opera Penguin. "It was at that point that his virtue of absorbing the spirit of anyone whose death was related to Freddy's was just beginning to develop, so it was natural that a direct victim would get taken into his possession." said Opera Penguin. "The rest are just additional fans of her that died after Afton's absorption got stronger."

"So the third is presently the biggest deal." said Ian.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin. "We have the first two out already, although I have sealed away the very first."

"What happens if I kill any of them?" asked Ian. "Do they. . . cease to exist?"

"No, it should only destroy their 'shell of identity'." said Opera Penguin. "Their spirits will be reabsorbed into another dream and given another identity."

"Alright then. Guess there's no point in pussyfooting around." said Ian. "Crack 'em open!"

"As you wish." said Opera Penguin, and opened up a stereotypical, whirling portal.

Ian looked at it uncertainly, before Opera Penguin, with what would look to a watcher only like a light touch to the back, practically threw Ian in.

. . .

Night 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Ian got dropped into what seemed like just the Atrium, and initially thought something went wrong.

"Penguin?" he called out.

Then they came out.

They weren't Ferdinand, Cheyenne, Rochelle or Monsanto, but they weren't animatronics either.

They looked like how a child for whom the 'magic' of the place hadn't yet been 'ruined' would see the Glamrocks—they were fleshly creatures, but they still had the cartoonish visages of the Glamrocks, causing Ian to appreciate how much more 'realistic' Penguin's resurrection of the Glamrocks was. That is, though they were far from the realm of the normal world, Penguin's subjects at least looked the part of beings who had animal features smoothly and gracefully blended with humanoid forms and facial expressiveness. These new things, on the other hand, seemed like a product of organic characteristics—flesh, skin, fur and the like—roughly forced into the precise template of the animatronics' forms.

They were not photogenic.

They all stomped towards him, and confronted him. Almost reflexively, he stomped his foot, channeling thunder through it, in a wave that produce not only sound but a certain amount of force that did not quite stagger them, but discouraged their movement.

"The Pizzaplex is closed. Please come back during daylight hours." said Glamrock Freddy.

"Okay, so let's take inventory here." said Ian, ignoring him. and looking around. "Narcissistic bitch, except that your narcissism is as fake as the rest of you-"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT ME?" roared Roxanne.

"conceited, with no self-esteem, your angst manufactured in the same factory as you," continued Ian, "and then we have the stepford shit-eater, with condescending tendencies to go well with her voice, which is easily the worst sound in existence,"

Glamrock Chica cocked her head, and asked "Is he talking about me? That's not very nice!"

"and over here we got Johnny Bravo trapped in a scaly's wet dream, pretending to be Mr. T," Ian went on.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BUT I'M MAD!" yelled Monty.

"and finally we have a patronizing fuck who's a fatherless numbnuts' idea of what a dad is." said Ian, nodding at Glamrock Freddy.

"I. . ." Glamrock Freddy said, shocked, "I do not know who you are, but that is no way to talk here. This is a place for innocence and joy, for children to see and interact with characters they adore, it is not a place for profanity and bullying—"

"Oh, cry me a river, you orange bitch." said Ian, casually and jovially striding towards Glamrock Freddy. "Why do people always whine, whine, whine about anything that ain't mindless positivity, call it 'bullying'? And what if it is? I mean, I was homeschooled most of my life, but y'ever noticed how 'bullying' always springs up whenever you haven't got sanctimonious asshats like you pushing your pussy shit on kids? Ever notice how it always induces either normalcy, or at least the ability to rationally convey and defend the nature of one's ab-normalcy to others? Why don't we hear you stuck-up nimrods preach about that? Backbone to take insults. . . social cohesion. . . aberrants like me prevented? All I'm saying is, you know," Ian stopped, his face right in front of Glamrock Freddy's dismayed face. "give a little trolling a chance."

"Please leave." said Glamrock Freddy.

However, Ian had different plans. Not knowing the door in Rockstar Row was inserted by Opera Penguin, Ian made his way there, and, upon finding there was no door, began punching at the wall, demolishing it easily.

"WHERE IS IT?" Ian roared.

"Where is—what?" asked Glamrock Freddy, who had ran after him.

"The Mangle." said Ian. "Where is it."

"The-the Mangle is a character based on the urban legends surrounding—" said Glamrock Freddy, before Ian turned to him, and turned his face into funny-smelling raspberry jelly with a right hook.

"Fr-FREDDY!" Glamrock Chica screamed in a suddenly raspy voice, loping over to the mutilated remains of Glamrock Freddy's head.

In no time, she was sobbing profusely, and Ian couldn't help but giggle with ecstasy. That pure, messy, unadulterated grief coming through each of her choked sobs filled him with something that was, in some way, more orgasmic than most of his time in bed with Rochelle.

Roxanne bounded towards him, not seeming to notice or, possibly, (and if so, quite concerningly,) not caring about the horrific mortality of her band's leader.

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK ABOUT ME! I'M THE GREATEST THING THIS PLACE HAS EVER SEEN! IT'S LITERALLY NOTHING WITHOUT ME, DO YOU HEAR ME!? NOTHING!" she screamed in Ian's face, on the cusp of tears.

"Firstly, that's not what 'literally' means." said Ian, grinning like a smug shithead. "And secondly, you're not. You're not the best. You're not making that real by saying it, either. You might have a little extra fanbase, except that isn't really you, it's only the person you're dreaming of being. You're not really Roxanne, but regardless, a bit of extra favor doesn't mean you're really all that more loved. The love you rely on is frail and fake. Nobody would really comfort you. Nobody would really hold you when you cry. Nobody will miss you."

"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" bawled Roxanne.

Ian spat in her eye, and used his aquakinesis to make the spit function as a bullet. It put out her left (on Ian's right) eye, causing her to jerk back, and scream.

"Sucks to suck, douzenit?" asked Ian.

"Y-You!" Roxanne sobbed, tears streaming from one eye, blood from another.

"Might as well give you an asymmetrical design. Those are hip, I think." said Ian, his hand shooting towards Roxanne's face, flipping her hand from it and grabbing onto the skin just below the crater of her eye, before he ripped most of the skin from that side of her face.

Roxanne didn't even scream this time; she merely panted from the shock.

"Y-you, you, you. . ." she said, her other eye unfocused as more blood oozed down to her neck and dripped on her conveniently-red crop top.

"You know, most people would find you horrific at this point. I think it looks good, though! Quite a glow up, in fact." said Ian, and then materialized water energy, turning it into an icy mirror.

Roxanne backed up, and let out a noise that sat on the border line of several categories of sound, but would best be described as a scream that failed for lack of breath and landed gracelessly on a sob.

"Yes, I quite like it." said Ian.

"No one-I'll never-I can't be like this-no one—wait, you, you like this? You like this, right? Like this? You, you like me? Please, please no one is going to love me please, no one else is going to please, if you like this you can love me right? Love me? Love me? LOVE ME? LOVE ME! LOVE ME, PLEASE, LOVE ME!" she ran up to Ian, pulling on his shirt, more than hysterical, incandescent with panic and disbelief, not able even to rage against her aggressor for the desperation that she be assured some corner of comfort and affirmation. Even so, Ian let out a wave of lightning that seared yet more of her flesh, making her scream as she dropped back down.

And yet, seemingly blind even to this pain, too caught up in her concern, she jumped up to Ian, clasping his shoulders even as one of her hands' muscle was raw and bare. "No one else will—you have to—you owe me that and a hell of a lot more for this, you owe me, your—your—"

"Of course. Of course I love you." said Ian, gently wrapping his arms around her, and locking his mouth to hers, as he pressed two fingers to her back, right behind her heart, and stopped it with a surge of electricity.

Ian felt a peaceful breath escape her nostrils, as her arms relaxed, and he let go of her, allowing her to slowly fall back, then hit the ground spread eagled, having died with a singular, brief moment of absolute peace and love.

He laughed pretty hard at that.

Then he quickly went about rationalizing to himself about how what he had just done wasn't cheating, only speaking to provide respite and simultaneously amuse himself, and nothing he said was specifically romantic, and even if it were, it would only be towards the part of her that he saw Rochelle in. This was because it was something that would actually bother him if he didn't address it, and, in fact, would probably bother him later anyway, but he might as well get a head start on the mental gymnastics.

Then came Vanessa, down Rockstar Row, witnessing the carnage. Their Vanessa. Her eyes lacked pupils, and her irises were faded. Her face looked absent and angry at the same time, and she held her flashlight like she was about to stab Ian with it. Her hair, also, looked pale, faded.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? You're not getting away with this. The cops are coming. You stay right here." said Other-Vanessa.

Ian shot towards her, stopping precisely three inches in front of her.

"I feel like you didn't pick her, did you?" asked Ian, though he didn't expect Other-Vanessa to understand. "You just got lost and so you defaulted to the one that was left over. Honestly I think you're barely conscious, aren't you?"

The Other-Vanessa was taken aback. "You—what—what are you talking about? Look, just get out of here, and I won't tell the cops where you-"

"There are no cops." said Ian. "There is nothing outside of this building. Not on this plane, anyway."

"You—what?" asked Other-Vanessa, and Ian decided he wouldn't beat around the bush anymore, taking Other-Vanessa's head in his hands and crushing it.

"Wh-why?" asked Glamrock Chica.

"Just felt like it, I guess." said Ian. "Serves this place right for wasting my time."

"Why does not having what you were looking for, a made-up character, justify all this?" asked Glamrock Chica.

"She's not any more made up than you or the others. None of her are. Just like 'you'—that which you believe yourself to be—have many 'selves'—that is to say, there are many like you believing themselves to be the same." said Ian.

"What made you have to kill Freddy, though? And Roxanne! I loved them. You just took away my world." said Glamrock Chica.

"Oh, so Monty isn't anything to you?" asked Ian.

"No, that's, what?" Glamrock Chica asked, confused.

"If Freddy and Roxanne made up 'your world'. . ." said Ian, patiently, "then that means that Monty doesn't! And that means" Ian turned towards Monty, who had lagged behind but finally caught up, and raised his hand.

"No!" said Glamrock Chica, who jumped in front of the wave of pure cold Ian intended for Monty. The wave of magical energy with a freezing power equivalent to liquid nitrogen turned Glamrock Chica solid, and her body, carried by inertia, sailed past the point of interception, only to hit the ground, shattering.

"No. . ." said Monty.

"I'm sorry about that." said Ian.

"You're. . . sorry? You're. . . SORRY?!" asked Monty.

"I only intended to kill you, this result was far worse." said Ian. "I wanted Chica to suffer the agony of loss and isolation, not you. I should have taken this possibility into account."

"You 'only' wanted to kill me?" asked Monty.

"Yes, I planned to make your death painless, as, in actuality, hers turned out to be." said Ian. "I wanted her to suffer, grieving the loss of everyone she knew, a fate would, over time, prove far worse than death. I wanted her to weep decades away in sorrow, loneliness and reminiscence of love long lost."

"Why?" asked Monty.

"Because she was ugly, and really freaked me out." said Ian, cracking a smile.

Monty said nothing, his only reaction being his jaw dropping. It wasn't even a staged or played-up reaction to be in keeping with his cartoon-like character, his jaw simply swung open as he gawped at Ian in utter disbelief.

"But as it turned out, I inflicted an even worse fate on you. Because at least, she, being the idiotic, ornamental girly-girl she is, would have known that the men in the life took the blow for her, and she was, in the end, protected, as such vapid doll-women are only suited for. But you, you're a man, and with this, you're a man who now lives with the failure of having protected your sweet, dumb bird." Ian said, with a weird grin on his face, a mixture of humor, pity and regret.

"Shut up." said Monty.

"No no, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's actually your fault," said Ian, "but I'm sure something in you feels that way. Or will, if left alone."

"SHUT UP!" yelled Monty.

"So what I'm saying is, since I didn't mean for this to happen, well," continued Ian, "come here, buddy."

"I'm not your buddy, pal." said Monty.

"Monsanto, please, this is not the time to cling pridefully to one's boundaries." said Ian.

"Mo-what? My name isn't Monsanto. It's Monty. Short for Montgomery." said Monty.

"Oh-haha, sorry." said Ian, shaking his head as he strode towards Monty.

Monty lunged at him, attempting to plunge his clawed into Ian's ribs, but Ian's raw physical durability from his powers made it like trying to scratch through black top.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be." said Ian. "I just want to give you the choice, do you want me to leave you here, or do you want me to kill you so you don't have to be sad?"

"You—what—I—I don't know." said Monty.

"Or, you could input any other ideas. I might be willing, since I truly am feeling so very sorry. . ." said Ian, his grin a jagged crescent of complete lunacy.

"Like what?" asked Monty.

"No, the point is that you come up with it, and I choose whether or not I like the sound of it. . . buddy." said Ian, walking towards Monty and laying his hands on Monty' neck, rubbing it in a way that Monty found all too sensual, which was Ian's intention.

"Is there something you're fishing for me to say." asked Monty, in a flat tone which only faintly betrayed the faintest signature of the absolute dread underlying his question.

"Why do you think that?" asked Ian, allowing his voice to get breathy and creepy, not unakin to the way Roxanne would speak sometimes.

"Because you're weirdin' me out, man!" whimpered Monty.

Ian came even closer, his feet almost encompassing Monty's, his face, and thus his unnerving expression, inches from Monty's face, and his hands pressing down twice as hard on Monty's throat.

"Come on. . ." said Ian. "I'm all ears."

Monty's response was to cough on Ian, a labored cough that came with an unintentional glob of spit, a cough which was both caused by Ian's squeezing, and which startled Ian into finally crushing Monty's neck, dropping Monty's body to the ground.

"Wait, I wanted to-" Ian said, and he tried to undo what he had done, and to his surprise, it worked.

"There we go, sorry about that." said Ian.

"Why did you bring me back to life?" asked Monty.

"Because I wanted it to be intentional, and ideally at your prompting, when I killed you." said Ian.

"What do you want from me." asked Monty, flatly again.

"Just want to make things up to you." said Ian, helping Monty up. "Seems like I caught you in the moment before you really died."

"So what, you want to hear me say I want to die?" asked Monty.

"If that's what you want." said Ian. "What do you want?"

"I want you to die." said Monty.

"Well, I'm not gonna kill myself, but you're free to try and make that happen." said Ian.

Monty repeated his attempts to dig into Ian's ribs, only for his claws to fail again, and he withdrew them, keening from the pain of his claws nearly being broken.

Ian formed a barrier out of materialized water energy, imbued with both the stopping cold and a reactive, explosive force aligned with a mixture of water, wind and lightning, which he made a mental note to make a sick-ass name for that later.

The result of the barrier was that when Monty proceeded to drive both his fists into Ian's torso at once, both of his arms were blown off.

"F-fugh. . ." said Monty, as he was thrown onto his back.

"I didn't say I wouldn't retaliate." said Ian, in an insufferable, matter-of-fact way.

"Just kill me, then!" yelled Monty.

"Alright, alright." said Ian, who then threw a punch which he extended through wind magic into a cannonball-sized, jackhammer-like impact centered straight on Monty's head, making similar work of him as he had of Other Vanessa.

As most of the corpses, except, oddly, Roxanne's, began to fade, so too did the surroundings. As if on cue, a portal opened up for Ian to step through, which he chuckled at, given how it was basically giving him positive feedback for the carnage he'd wrought.

The next realm he entered seemed to be made out of crayon, everything in it seeming like it was made out of waxy streaks, with a skeleton of pencil to it.

He began to walk through a familiar location, familiar to photos seen on conspiracy sites, to Let's Plays he had watched of the VR game the corporation behind all this released to make everything look like just a bunch of legends.

This was the 1987 building.

And yet, despite the crude, crayon-like surroundings, and the blackness of the distance, everything seemed. . . familiar. Calm. Tame. Even, much in a way that Ian was beginning to loathe, loving. Ian was beginning to get worn out towards this place's sickly conception of 'love'. It was beginning to show its shallowness, and more concerningly, its hunger. Like a consuming fire, it devoured other things, other thoughts and senses and feelings, all to grow itself and dominate those who felt it.

He just had to locate the locus of it. To place where its place was. To see the site of its presence.

And there, before him, pinging his 'radar', a white-and-pink figure half-skipped, half-stumbled out into the hall. It awkwardly asked, in a teenage girl's voice, for a kiss, and Ian fucking lost it. With the same concentrated finger-beam of fulgarity with which he had killed his own brother, Ian made short work of her, and oddly, as he did so, the dimension materialized a crayon drawing of a hand holding a gun around his hand, as if performing the dream equivalent of a 'government cover-up'.

Oddly, despite her looking to be one of the plastic machines of this era, she bled, her crayon blood pooling on the floor under her, around her.

Ian panicked, as he realized he had destroyed one of his targets. As if to run away from his mistake, to hide from any potential surveillance from Penguin, Ian ran out the building, and looked for any portals that would turn up, as he, theoretically, approached the edge of the dimension.

Yet the crude horizon of Ian's crayon surroundings extended into a town, into a neighborhood, into a house. Ian burst into a house, only to see that it was empty.

He entered a bedroom, only to see the sun go down, the moon rise, the moon go down and the sun come up again, all in a few seconds.

He heard a knocking.

Through the window, he saw a crayon Foxy. A red one, the classic color palette.

It turned to look back at him, and its face looked unhappy. Grieving. Blaming.

The face ducked down, and something was slipped under the door.

It was a crayon and pencil drawing. Ian thought this was pretty funny, a crayon and pencil drawing in a crayon and pencil world.

It was a drawing of the un-mangled Mangle, in the same art style as the world itself. Next to it was a crude, almost child-like scrawl, which was so disorderly as to look like one of those newspaper cut-out ransom notes you'd see in old crime shows: "ALL SHE WANTED was akiss. AND YOU. SHOT. HER. aNIMATRONICS. We bleed too. we are more alike than youthink.""

Ian burst out laughing, nearly pissing himself.

He tore open the door.

"Yoouuuu THINK?" said Crayon Foxy. "THAT THIS IS FUNNY?!"

Ian's laughed resolved into a low and constant throaty guffawing. "I understand your frustration."

"YOU THINK," Crayon Foxy began again, his voice wavering as it was apparent that his distress outweighed his intellect. His eyes now had crayon tears pooling in their bottom corners, and animesque highlights on top of them.

Ian started poking him in the face. "Did you unplug your computer?." he said, his laughter building up in his throat. "I have only been working here a short distance."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? YOU KILLED HE-" said Crayon Foxy, before Ian cut in with, "Do people ever tell you how boring you sound?"

"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT! I'LL BE LONELY IN THAT DUSTY OLD BUILDING FOREVER FROM NOW ON!" screamed Crayon Foxy.

"Have you tried setting it on fire?" asked Ian.

Crayon Foxy seemed to shut down emotionally at this point, and seemingly disappeared. Suddenly, the day/night cycle flashed by again, and Ian walked back.

The pizzeria had, indeed, burned to the ground.

Ian chuckled. "Thanks, Beavis. Thanks, Butthead." and then, after a few moments, "Thanks, Jameed."

Then, he noticed something in the rubble. It was the Mangle, still made of crayon-essence, but now in her traditionally 'mangled' state.

"Oh, Foxy. . ." she said. "Why couldn't you tell that I wasn't dead? I came back just for you. . ."

"Yeah, whatever, get in the bag." Ian said, grabbing a conveniently-placed sackcloth bag from a table that was inexplicably still standing.

The Mangle, clearly not in a state to put up much resistance, begrudgingly slithered into the bag as Ian opened it up.

Ian walked on, into another dimension.

Here, there was another Pizzaplex, and it looked normal. It was raining, which was Ian's favorite weather, but here, a stereotypical feeling of misery hung in the air, like a tangible manifestation of the Hollywood cliche.

Out walked a security guard, but he wasn't familiar to Ian. He looked like he would be happier if he were dying.

"Hey, what's up, man?" asked Ian, trying to sound as conciliatory as possible.

"Oh, nothing you want to hear about." said the man.

"I have presently decided that I do, in fact, want to hear about it. Now tell me." said Ian, a few electric sparks spontaneously flowing through the raindrops around him as if they themselves were produced by the force of the insistence he put into his words.

"Oh, well, I just finished my last shift. I got fired a short while back, for something that wasn't my fault." said the man.

"What was it? No wait, first, what's your name?" asked Ian.

"Well, I've got to get home, and this rain-" said the man, before Ian raised a hand, and the rain began falling around them in a dome.

"Tell. Me." said Ian.

"Whu-" said the man, reeling, before saying, "W-well, my name is Cooper, and I got fired because Monty-one of the anima-"

"Yeah, I got that, I know all about 'em." said Ian.

"Well, Monty went crazy, and some thing happened, and, well, a kid crashed a go-kart into Roxanne, and I got blamed for it all." said Cooper.

"You know what, we've got all the time in the world." said Ian. "Tell me everything. Tell me about everything, starting from when your employment began."

"You know, I really don't have all the time in the world." said Cooper.

"Let's put it this way." said Ian. "You will be in grave danger if you don't tell me all. Now." The personal, threatening nature of the statement was carried through that one last sentence, that one last word, that one last syllable.

"Well," said Cooper. "Okay, then. . ."

Then Cooper spun off into a story. It was wild, and Ian had to conceal his mirth at the silly nature of it, but he, if pressed, would not be able to help but admit that it tugged at his heartstrings a bit. Ian laughed and told Cooper to go on when Cooper shamefacedly admitted that he had a romantic relationship with Roxanne, telling Cooper that he understood.

Apparently, Cooper had replaced Vanessa, who apparently put Roxanne in her place quite well, perhaps too well, causing Cooper to need to undo some of the damages from that. From there, Cooper and Roxanne had drawn closer, but with the incursion of an orphan child named Gregory, a series of difficulties began, involving a serial killer named Vanny, the deceased owner of the company, and Monty.

Then, when it seemed everything was happy and resolved, like an unneeded and unwanted continuation of a fanfiction that would have been better off finished there, something made everything begin again, and with that, Cooper had gotten himself fired.

Though Ian was at first inclined to laugh, something gripped him. "So, after all that, after everything you did, as the one you were. . . you're really going to let some bureaucrat cocksucker take away who you are? And make it so that someone else is that instead of you? It's who you are, and you're just going to let them stick your damn identity on someone else? It's who you are, damn it!"

"They've already taken it from me." said Cooper, hopelessly, and seemingly quite scared of Ian's outburst.

"Then take something in exchange. Take what's essential to them, if they have the audacity to take that exclusive part of you, exclusive to you, and giving that distinction to someone else. If they're gonna take what distinguishes you as you from the world, and made up who you were in all those adventures, and make you part of the world it distinguished you from, and now give it to someone else, so that you're part of the world it distinguishes them from, making it so you're at the common end of that barrier, the barrier that lying at the uncommon end of which made you, you, then they don't deserve to exist as them either. Make them exist as something else. Make them something else than what they are. What are they?" asked Ian.

"I don't get what you're saying." said Cooper.

Ian breathed into his nostrils. It wasn't just a gross exhalation into another man's nostrils, however—it was that, but what actually entered the man's nostrils was not Ian's physical exhalation, but a spiritual wind from inside him, carrying a conveyance of his feelings, his passion.

Cooper's eyes glazed over, before his eyebrows clenched.

"WHAT ARE THEY, COOPER?" asked Ian.

"They're nothing." said Cooper.

"That's the right idea, old sport, but they must be something if they exist." said Ian.

"They're no one." said Cooper. "They're just meat sacks, squandering the souls they were born with, atrophying their worth as people. All they have going for them is money. And they only use that to preserve their worthless lives. That's all they are, in and of themselves. Alive."

Ian, his smile curling up wickedly for at least the third time this night, leaned in, and said, "Then take that from them." Then Ian metaphysically 'tore off' a piece of the 'shell' that made up his powers, and put it in Cooper. He saw a glowing light inside Cooper's eyes, which sparked with a bit of what looked like minute lightning.

"Gooooooood." said Ian.

Ian walked off. He was pretty sure the business execs that Cooper was talking about didn't even have a representation within the dream. Yet Ian felt like he had done a good thing.

Then Ian stopped a little, and let himself cry.

"A security position isn't the same as you were, Gretchen. But it's helped me understand." said Ian. "When I was with you, we were apart from the world. When you left me for someone else, you made me a part of the world you were apart from with someone else. That's why I had to kill you, Gretchen. Please forgive me. Please, forgive me, Gretchen." he muttered, breaking down into sobs and falling to his knees.

"Are you okay?" asked a familiar voice behind him, a hand touching Ian's shoulder.

Ian shot to his feet and whirled around, swatting the hand away.

"No. Yes. It's nothing that you can help. Roxanne." Ian said. "You stay true to Cooper. Even if he's gone for a long time. You two have formed into the perfect fit for each other. If you ever leave him for someone else. . . I'm gonna come for you. And I'm gonna crush your fucking skull, like so many others."

This version of Roxanne was too shocked to speak, momentarily, before stammering, "I wasn't going to. . . but, who are you to tell me I can't choose someone el-"

Lightning struck in the distance, illuminating Ian's bulging stare of volcanic fury.

"I. . . I wasn't going to leave him, ever. . . really, I'm not just saying that, I love him. . ." said Cooper's Roxanne.

"Good." said Ian. "You belong to him. As he does, to you."

Cooper's Roxanne looked too shocked to say anything now.

Ian turned around, and walked off, into another rift that formed as he walked out of bounds.

Ian walked in on a yellow rabbit giving another iteration of Mangle an ultimatum related to yet another stupid fucking romance plot. He was using some sort of dumbass remote to make his threats, but Ian walked right up to him and grabbed it, pressing all the buttons.

"Wh-Wha-" said the yellow rabbit man. His voice was raspy, putting Ian in mind of a Khajiit from the Elder Scrolls series.

"Fuck you all." said Ian.

The Mangle that was standing in front of the yellow rabbit collapsed on the ground, seeming to have a seizure.

"What?" asked the yellow rabbit.

"You're coming with me. Give me something worth calling you." said Ian.

"Well, spri-" said the yellow rabbit.

"And don't say some dumb shit like 'Springtrap'." said Ian.

"Well, I don't know what to say, then." said the rabbit whose name Ian would not allow to be Springtrap.

"How about, ugh, I don't know, uhh, Garvey?" asked Ian, tiredly.

"Garvey? That's the most idiotic name I've ever heard!" said the yellow rabbit.

"You got a better one?" said Ian. "And you're still not allowed to say 'Springtrap'."

"Ugh, fine." said the yellow rabbit, newly christened "Garvey".

"Alright, now follow me." said Ian. "But first, lemme get to her."

He then collected the unconscious Mangle in his sack.

After this, he led Garvey through another portal, towards where his 'radar' was 'pinging'.

He was once again in the 1987 location, and a punch of human-looking anime characters seemingly themed after the animatronics of then started dancing and singing in what Ian assumed was Japanese. For some reason, each seemed to generate a colored spotlight around themselves, as well as instrumentals, though some did themselves have instruments to speak of.

The one that was clearly supposed to be Toy Chica got too close to Ian, and was resultingly backhanded to death.

Ian marched on through the pizzeria, and retrieved the hyperactive anime girl that was obviously Mangle.

"So you're the third Mangle, huh?" asked Ian.

"Nope! I'm the only one I know about!" she said, in an annoyingly cheery voice.

"Yeah, but you know nothing, pendeja." said Ian.

He then grabbed her by the ear, and with a flick of the wrist, flipped her up into the air, and opened up his sack as she came down, hearing an "Ow!" and a whimper as she fell in with a sound like meat.

"Where are we? Is this a different world?" asked Garvey.

"This world, and many like it, are dreams. Reflections of a dryer reality. Something duller, filthier, more dull and bitter." said Ian. "Yours included. However dark you thought you were, it was all just a sweet dream."

"Heh, you think I'm sweet?" asked Garvey.

"Yeah, just don't ask for a kiss or anything weird like that." hissed Ian. "I've had enough of that shit for a lifetime."

"So the Fredbear in my dream-" said Garvey.

"Another fabrication. I mean, someone was in there, some consciousness, or if not, there would be, if and when you 'revived' him. But none of it was as deeply real as you thought. It was just a dream, and only just recently has it gained even the hallmarks of reality." said Ian.

"The hallmarks?" asked Garvey.

"I mean they've all been made into their own little worlds. So now that's what they are, instead of literal, shared dreams. But even still, all their history is only that. A memory of dreams once dreamt. Although, you could say they're more like virtual reality." said Ian.

"You know, I was there for a long time." said Garvey. "Decades, probably. I imagine, to the people of each of these, that each 'dream' seems like the singular, bitter reality you were talking about."

"Yeah, well they all seem to think that their purpose in reality is to live out shittily-written soap operas." said Ian.

"Well, perhaps each dream, formed under similar circumstances, and seen as all reality can ever be by those trapped in it, simply elicited the same response. An attempt at seeking solace that always took the same form. Have you considered that?" asked Garvey.

"Why do you care?" asked Ian. "You have the aura of an asspull villain made to evoke drama, and living for nothing else except maybe some life goal related to a bullshit tragic backstory."

"I just think maybe you shouldn't judge solely by your own perspective." said Garvey. "I think a limited perspective from a limited source of information can be. . . a snare."

"So you're saying people just fall on each other and start snogging the moment life becomes unbearable?" asked Ian.

"If that's all they have to do." said Garvey. "The fact that they're all so bright and pretty and sometimes even clean looking, in spite of their unclean nature—or, at least, the unclean nature of that which they dream themselves to be—isn't unhelpful towards that end, either."

"You think everyone who ends up here finds these character designs cute?" asked Ian.

"Would it be too hard to believe that this. . . Matrix-like situation, or whatever it is, changes the situation to suit its inhabitants?" asked Garvey.

"Yeah, but even with some adjustment, I'm having a hard time believing this many people are fucking furries." said Ian. "Not that I can throw too many stones in my glass house."

"Well, I must say, I did think the Mangle in my world was quite a hot girl. . ." said Garvey, "not that I really wanted her for herself, even on a sexual level. I just genuinely thought my past was real, and I needed something from her."

"What, her life force?" asked Ian.

"How did you know?" asked Garvey.

"What, for real?" Ian said, turning to Garvey. "How does a dead person have life force? Dumbass."

"It. . . made sense to me, at the time." said Garvey.

"Although, my employer does take something from the dead." said Ian.

"So, we are dead?" asked Garvey.

"Well, I'm not," said Ian, "and he's not, but you are, and everyone else living in these dreams. You're sucked into the same place where you would've been living within one of the animatronics or another if you'd died sooner."

"So we are all truly unclean." said Garvey.

"Well, if you really think being dead makes you unclean." said Ian. "Which is kind of pessimistic regarding the fate of all mankind."

"Maybe I'm wrong to suggest that the still-living are cleaner than the dead." said Garvey.

"Maybe if you see filth in everything, it's 'cause the filth is stuck in your eye." said Ian.

"Are you saying you are better than me?" asked Garvey.

"Did anything I ever said suggest that? Really?" asked Ian. "There wouldn't be anything to condemn us against if there weren't some strongholds of purity in the world. That's just logic."

"So you take a relative view of things." said Garvey.

"I don't think relativity is necessarily right, but I do think it's the only way when you've not got some omniscient view of everything's 'morality score' or whatever." said Ian.

"Fair enough, I suppose." said Garvey. "But what are you making your way towards? Explain your point."

"I don't think being a ghost automatically makes you some evil rotting devil zombie by default." said Ian. "It just means you're dead but not in the normal way."

"But isn't being anything in an abnormal way generally what ends up painted as 'impure' by society?" asked Garvey.

"Yeah, yeah, society, we live in one, whatever." said Ian, although, in truth, he himself had certain strong beliefs which could come under the same mockery.

"Frankly, though, there is something terribly unseemly about the undead." said Garvey. "Although, I have heard that ghosts are not quite the same kind of being as the 'true' undead."

"Where did you hear that?" asked Ian.

"I. . . don't know." said Garvey. His voice was suddenly getting clearer, and, strangely, older sounding. "But perhaps worrying about what is clean and unclean with no true basis for the distinction is trivial, in any case."

"That's the ticket." said Ian. "There are worse things to worry about, in life."

Ian and Garvey went on, and Ian managed to conscript Garvey to kidnap several more Mangles before they returned to Opera Penguin.

. . .

"Ahh, good." said Opera Penguin. "My esteemed guest has arrived."

"What do you want with me?" asked Garvey.

"I would like you to make a, how might one put it, 'test run' of an invention of mine." said Opera Penguin.

"An invention?" asked Garvey.

"The fuck is this, Dexter's Lab?" asked Ian.

"Go away, Ian, you are presently surplus to the conversation." said Opera Penguin.

"Presently surplus, how about I present my ass for you to eat. . ." muttered Ian, as he tromped off and promptly fell into the communal hallway.

From behind Opera Penguin came a young man, slim, not that different from Opera Penguin in appearance, except that his hair was slightly grown out, and a dark reddish-brown, his face had slightly harder features despite him clearly being younger, and his suit was a plain, albeit clearly fancy, business suit. To look at him longer would expose more details, such as his brown eyes and slightly thinner lips, in addition to the much-more-obvious exposure of his face and lack of a cape; nonetheless he was overall quite similar to Opera Penguin in clothing style, and, apart from the costume differences, the main difference from them that was apparent was their height. The newcomer was just a little smaller, and the smallest bit thinner. He bore an aloof scowl on his face.

"Is he gone?" asked the newcomer.

"Yes, Jason." said Opera Penguin. "Although I can assure you, he will not infect you with his crudeness."

"If only he could." said the stranger, apparently named Jason. "Then it would not be such a torment to bear witness to."

"I see it as a blessing." said Opera Penguin. "Between Vanessa's belligerence, Ian's repulsive nature and all the others' general troglodytic nature, I do find a reprieve from all the irritation quite. . . refreshing."

"Are you trying to sound smart by talking like that?" asked Garvey, whereupon Opera Penguin whirled his head towards Garvey and snapped, "Oh, fuck you."

"You really like to criticize Ian for not talking all long and pristine, but you immediately act the same the moment I criticize you?" asked Garvey.

"I merely. . ." said Opera Penguin. "feel a grace in eloquent phrasing that helps me retain an air of dignity. However, my nerves are sensitive, and prone to irritation."

"What's the invention, anyway?" asked Garvey.

"A body of energy." said Opera Penguin.

"Magical energy?" asked Garvey.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin. "Or, spiritual energy, if you like."

"The difference seems like pretense." said Garvey.

"I suppose past a few split hairs, it is." said Opera Penguin.

"But how do I. . ." asked Gravey, "get into a new body?"

"Well, I figured I would just dispel your current one." said Opera Penguin.

"Will that affect my. . . well. . . my. . ." Garvey grasped for words.

"You will remain yourself." said Opera Penguin. "None of your personality was drawn from the persona of that being formed of the fleshly union of William Afton and one of his own machines. Except, perhaps, an inclination towards malevolence, and a desire to restore that individual whose essence is presently contained within the persona of 'Fredbear'."

"Will it be painful?" asked Garvey.

"No." said Opera Penguin. "Except emotionally, if you have some strange attachment to your present body."

"In fact, I would like you to keep it around, just in case I need to return to it." said Garvey. "After all, the body is experimental, yes?"

"I'll keep it around, but I think that it may be too fragile outside the realm to which it is native to keep around, exposed, and tethered to your spirit in such a way as to allow you to return. I will stow it away in what remains of your home world, after turning that into a compact storage unit, while I will also make a receptacle for your spirit, should your new body be destroyed." said Opera Penguin.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'what remains of my home world'?" asked Garvey.

"Ian did quite a number on it." said Opera Penguin. "When he used that 'remote' of yours, he essentially 'killed' all the other members of your dream world. Their shells of identity became inhospitable for their essential purpose of containing their ghostly spirits, and so those were transferred on to other dreams. With the absence of their spirits, in turn, the force defining the world—their collective consciousness—was withdrawn, and so the world began to decompose."

"I thought the dreams were made real?" asked Garvey.

"They were made into real worlds, but those worlds were still like dreams in that their essence is subject to the minds of the dreamers." said Opera Penguin. "You must have some power, though, to be able to manipulate the dream so as to bring forth something that grants you control, not only over the dream itself, but also of the shells which are both part of the dream and home to the ghostly spirits." said Opera Penguin.

"What are these 'shells of identity' you mention, precisely?" asked Garvey.

"Your bodies, your identities. Although you are ghosts, and thus your spirits are capable of persisting on their own without a body and outside of a proper afterlife, you are also bound to this place, and subject to its rules, and, as everyone knows, a bare skeleton without a suit is not allowed at Freddy's. That applies also to the spirits of the dead." said Opera Penguin.

"You have a matter-of-fact way of talking about ghosts." said Garvey. "What do you mean that my spirit can persist without a body and outside of an afterlife?"

"An ordinary mortal's spirit ceases to function and decays without a body and a life force. Even in those with a body, things which affect the body can affect the spirit. But when an especially volatile, or sometimes simply unusual death occurs, the spirit spontaneously gains an essence to itself, an essence of sustained unsustainability, of life and death cohabiting, a self-contradiction. This is ghosthood, and it enables the spirit to function without life or body, though it often comes with a body. However, the way in which it forms often saddles it with caveats. Normally, when one dies, either by the body being destroyed or the life force being extinguished in some other way, the spirit either decays much as a body would, or is taken up by an afterlife, a plane whose essence accommodates that of the dead, making a form for them and replacing their life force with its own energy, even as that energy is still part of that which is woven into the plane." said Opera Penguin.

"So dying has a chance to give someone a greater form of life?" asked Garvey.

"Ghosthood is a separate kind of essence from life force. It is, in some ways, inferior, and generally thought of as a counterfeit to life force, but not as bad as necrotic energy, the inverse of life force and root of 'true' undeath. But also, it is possible to gain the ability to exist without a body as a living mortal. This is called 'transcendence', and it is usually just a result of vast power, though there are other ways to achieve it." said Opera Penguin.

"But isn't where I just was kind of like an afterlife?" asked Garvey.

"In some ways, but it ultimately is home only to beings that are ghosts, and could not sustain non-ghosts. However, the whole phenomenon that is this place does provide ghosthood in circumstances where it would not otherwise come into being, so it is, in a roundabout way, an afterlife." said Opera Penguin.

"I see, well, I do like the idea of this new body, when are you going to change me into it?" asked Garvey.

"Since you're willing, right now." said Opera Penguin. He materialized some magic into what looked like an orb of dark metal, and, with a whisk of his hand, sent a lavender strand forth from it to Garvey's sternum. Then he raised the other hand, and Garvey seemed to choke in midair before his body tore open like a plushie, except that inside there was no stuffing, only an empty blackness.

The body fell, and collapsed, though it remained solid.

Opera Penguin then called forth a black mass which took the shape of a body with his build, before suddenly gaining details that almost matched Penguin's. However, rather than eyeholes, its mask had buttons for eyes, and rather than a top hat, it wore a bowler. Under its lips, also, it had charcoal-colored, piranha-like teeth. Furthermore, its suit had multiple lines of stitching, as if it had prior been sliced apart, and lacked most of a cape—that is, the cape was so short, it came across like more of a shawl.

The lavender strand re-appeared, and then its end was dragged to the body.

The figure could not open its eyes, but its button eyes assumed a condition of openness, in that the body was able to 'close' them, essentially deactivating their vision.

Opera Penguin instantly transferred knowledge of the body's appearance to Garvey.

"Why do I look like this?" asked Garvey.

"I made it in my likeness, to an extent," said Opera Penguin, "but it had to retain some distinction. We can't have you looking too much like me. Henceforth, you will be known as 'Fake Penguin.'"

"What a flattering name. . ." said Garvey, who was now 'Fake Penguin'.

"Lastly, I will look at your spirit, and read your past." said Opera Penguin.

He approached Fake Penguin, and put his hands to Fake Penguin's cheeks.

"Interesting." said Opera Penguin. "Somehow, you're from Prismrealm."

"Prismrealm?" asked Fake Penguin. "Never heard of it."

"One of the Overseer's attempts at making an easily-controlled, yet powerful population. The Overseer made a set number of different forms of 'fluid' power, each of which could be conformed to certain set 'systems' that could be assigned to it. These 'systems' are structures that are imposed on the power that supply it with both a set of intuitive abilities, while also limiting the power to those abilities unless the 'system' is expanded. There are five base kinds of power: Red, blue, white, brown and green, respectively for strength, magic, mystical non-spellcasting abilities, artifice-related abilities and 'wild' powers—powers imbued into the world, into monsters and wild places, and to those who ape them. You seem to have some of the 'blue', that is, 'magic' kind of power. Though it's modeled after spellcasting, it lacks to versatility of true arcane magic, by its very nature. However, it seems your 'system' seems to have faded away, leaving only the raw power in a shapeless, unusable form. It's probably to do with becoming a ghost, I think the limit-breaking nature of ghosthood messes with it somehow." said Opera Penguin.

"I don't understand." said Fake Penguin.

"Don't worry, I'll apply a much better-made structure to it. How do you feel about. . . telekinesis?" asked Opera Penguin.

"Isn't that a rare dimensional spell?" asked Fake Penguin.

Opera Penguin sighed. "It's one of the most basic forms of magic. No matter, you don't need to be knowledgeable in these things to use it well. But first, let me read your past. . ." Opera Penguin resumed his previous scanning.

"I see. Our 'problem dimension' wasn't taking up the fabric I'm taking from Lowrealm, it absorbed an existing realm that formed between Earthrealm and Prismrealm many years before I even came along, oddly focused on Afton's story, as much as I was. This, this 'Freddy's world' somehow drew you, a simple so-called 'black mage' from Prismrealm. You fought against the varying fascimiles of the machines of this place, but ultimately fell, whereupon your ghost became part of it all when my set of dream dimensions began assimilating the realm you died in." said Opera Penguin.

"This disjointed cosmological rambling is incoherent to any but yourself." said Jason.

"Well, that's your fault for not listening." said Opera Penguin.

"Wait," said Fake Penguin, "you made the dreams?"

"Well, yes and no." said Opera Penguin. "I made them 'real', but the dreams started as part of the vast phenomena surrounding a man killing a bunch of children in his own business."

"That's what this is all about?" asked Fake Penguin. "A haunting?"

"This is a world where power is suppressed, and redistributed through very specific and confined channels." said Opera Penguin. "Imagine a whole world of power denied their power, just so all that power that they were never allowed to have was concentrated to just a few places. This world is like that, and hauntings such as this are so great in power as to raise up a god from one of them."

"But surely you're not making the child murderer a god?" asked Fake Penguin.

"That, I am!" said Opera Penguin. "But, I am going to be keeping him on a very tight leash. The only reason I am building this power around him, apart from the fact that he is the one most apt to be given it, is that I dare not experiment on myself in such ways. I am going to use him as a war machine, and then I am going to discard him. But that is much later. First. . ."

Opera Penguin slammed his palm into Fake Penguin's face, and a flash of bright bluebell light flashed between his eyes.

Suddenly, Fake Penguin's mouth rose in a vicious smile, the arrogance of his previous life regained.

"I'm back." he said, dramatically. "I'm back to raise hell again."

"There will be no need for that." said Opera Penguin, in a much more lighthearted tone. "The only hells that will be raised are the one I am already raising, and the one that will be raised against me. You are not needed to do the former, though you may choose to aid in defending against the latter."

"What do you need of me, then?" asked Fake Penguin.

"In a short while, I'm going to have you sent out against a difficult individual. I will telepathically inform you of everything you need to know. And then I will have you attempt to capture him, although if he seems truly beyond all control, killing him will not be out of the realm of possibility." said Opera Penguin. "In the meantime, I will place you in one of my personal dimensions, and have you practice with your body, and with the telekinetic abilities with which I have supplied you."

Then Opera Penguin waved a hand, and Fake Penguin vanished.

"Can I finally get a body?" asked Jason.

"Yes, yes, curb your impatience." said Opera Penguin, though his face and tone betrayed more of a tone of amusement.

Opera Penguin produced a body out of somewhere, which looked exactly like Jason's.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to be able to use my power for something else than simply sustaining a form." said Jason.

"I suppose you're a little rusty with using it for anything else?" asked Opera Penguin.

"No." said Jason. "There have been times when I have used it for other purposes. With terrible consequences. I came closer to death each time I played with it. And that was after I had honed my powers of sustaining my manifestation enough that it required no mental input. I thought it must have made it so I had additional power, so that I had some to spare, to use with my mental focus. But each time I felt the foundations of my being become dangerously unsettled. I had to resume my mental focus in order to sustain myself. But, nonetheless, I managed to do some things effectively in exchange for these periods of existential instability. Minor manipulations of others' psyches. Faint charms. Miniature possessions. Once I killed a man without leaving a mark on his body. He was medically alive, but in a vegetative state. In any case, I managed to keep in practice with these things when I managed to work them through my body. I didn't have to divert my power to charm someone when I moved the charm as a current through my body, although it did mean I had to touch them. That's just an example, though."

"Interesting." said Opera Penguin. "I think I'll send you to a controlled territory I've established in Lowrealm to train."

"Is that your plan with everyone?" asked Jason, incredulously.

"Everyone whose power I need to increase." said Opera Penguin. "Everything we have here in this world is domesticated, and dependent on my playing by this world's petty rules to channel yet more power from its cosmos. Out in Lowrealm is the wild and unbounded realm of power that can be developed without constraints. It doesn't give you power, understand, but it doesn't prevent you from gaining any, which is the issue of this world."

"So my power is great enough that you yourself find means of giving power that you have used for your present flagship soldiers is beneath me?" asked Jason.

"You mean Vanessa and Ian? Yes, you are above that fiddling, although they themselves will be joining you, or at least going where you are soon enough. Nonetheless, you need to use your power plenty just to make sure the remnant has fully assimilated into your spirit and become something solid and permanent. If the power's essence is volatile, or if it isn't fully part of you, it could be destroyed or dislodged in some cases." said Opera Penguin, and, seeing Jason's panicked face, added, "If it is either of those things, it won't be once you train it, and in any case, you wouldn't lose it unless something happened that genuinely targeted that weakness."

And, with that, Opera Penguin sent Jason off.

. . .

Night 39

Ian met Rochelle as she was waking up in her room. His face betrayed that something was wrong.

"Ian?" asked Rochelle.

"Yeah?" asked Ian.

"Is something up?" asked Rochelle.

Ian was silent for a moment, and then said, "If I. . . accidentally did something that. . . would look like cheating. . . in a moment that. . ."

Rochelle stared at him, dumbfounded, before saying "Really? On the first night you're apart from me and doing something else, you go off and—ugh! What's wrong with you, you fucking cunt?" she said, darting up off her bed and moving for her door before Ian grabbed at her side, just above her hip.

Rochelle cried out, as Ian's fingers were like steel as he gripped at her. Instantly, Ian winced, and his hand shot back, but as Rochelle continued to move towards the door, she was blocked by a whirlwind swirling around her and Ian.

Ian clapped his hands around her shoulders. "Rochelle, no." he said, firmly. "I didn't. I promise you."

"Then what the hell are you asking about?" asked Rochelle.

"I was thrown into a situation—Opera Penguin sent me somewhere to do something. There, I had to hurt some people. One person, somebody who reminded me of you, tried to fall on me for comfort. For just a moment, just a moment, you understand, I embraced her, because seeing someone who looked like you in such distress overwhelmed me in a moment of weakness. But it was only that, a moment, because as soon as my weakness subsided, I killed her. Because she was an enemy to Penguin, and to us all." said Ian.

"How can I know that?" asked Rochelle. "You seem so guilty, but you make it sound like it's alright."

"Like this." said Ian, and he replicated that thing which he had done to Cooper, but now to express his pure emotional reaction to the event to Rochelle, while still managing to leave out how he had instigated the violence that had led up to the event.

"Oh. . . Ian, you. . . why did you let me think you'd cheated on me, you dumb fuck?!" she yelled, and then punched him in the face before storming out.

"Ow." said Ian.

. . .

"Hey, Penguoperain." said Ian.

"Is there any reason you're fishing for a summary execution?" asked Opera Penguin, but his tone suggested he wasn't serious.

"None at all, but I am curious about something." said Ian.

"Yes?" asked Opera Penguin.

"When I was in the dream world, Vanessa showed up. What was with that? She's not exactly advertised." said Ian.

"The zeitgeist picks up even the mind of people who live in here presently." said Opera Penguin. "You probably met. . . new arrivals. . . to the dream world, if Vanessa was involved in the dream."

"How new, do you think?" asked Ian.

"Honestly, since I put you in the shallowest part of the dream world constellation, I think probably you ended up in the newest." said Opera Penguin.

"So, you think it might have been that orphanage?" asked Ian.

"Yes, but if anything amusingly sexual occurred there, I should point out that a fair few people in there were around the age of 17. Not completely kosher, admittedly, but not anything to put you on an amusing television show involving a man who looks like a disappointed father asking you to sit down and talking to you like a therapist." said Opera Penguin.

"Oh. . . good. . ." said Ian, visibly sickened regardless.

. . .

"Hey, Rochelle." said Vanessa, who was eating lunch in the atrium with Cheyenne, to whom Rochelle had awkwardly apologized a short while ago.

"Hey." said Rochelle.

"Something up?" asked Vanessa.

"Y-yeah, uhh. . ." said Rochelle.

"Is it Ian." said Vanessa, her voice like that of the reaper.

"Yeah, but he's not," said Rochelle, before her voice trailed off.

"Go on." said Vanessa.

"He's not. . . bad, it's just he. . ." said Rochelle.

"Go on." said Vanessa, her voice remaining arctic, with the condemnatory hollowness of a gavel before the issuing of a capital punishment.

"He said something, and I thought he was admitting to doing something bad, but he didn't and I didn't get it at first and I tried to get away but he grabbed me and it hurt but he got surprised and upset when he realized it hurt me, and then he explained it to me without words-" said Rochelle.

"Back up." said Vanessa. "What. What did he seem to admit to?"

"Cheating on me." said Rochelle.

"Son of a bitch." said Vanessa, half getting up.

"But-but he didn't!" said Rochelle.

"Why do you say that? How do you know that?" asked Vanessa.

"He breathed his feeling into me, he shared the experience," said Rochelle, before Vanessa spluttered "Fucking mind control? Are you shitting me? That's it, I'm killing him for real this time."

Vanessa marched towards Ian, who had just wandering aimlessly into the atrium.

"Ian." said Vanessa.

"Yeah?" asked Ian.

"Leave Rochelle. Let her go. Beg her forgiveness for whatever shit you pulled and I won't wipe you out from the cosmos." said Vanessa.

"How about-" said Ian, but he got cut off as his pubic hair-esque sideburns were the also cut off on the right side of his face by Vanessa's sword.

"This is your last warning." said Vanessa.

"It's wasted!" said Ian, as he shot into a side-kick to Vanessa's chin. Anyone else other than probably Penguin or Kendall would be bereft of a jaw at this point, in Ian's mind, but if Vanessa's jaw even cracked, the pain was either subsumed by rage, adrenaline or both.

Vanessa was shoved back, but was clearly enraged. Her sword still held out in front of her, she lunged towards Ian, but Ian replicated his earlier reactive shield, which caused Vanessa's arm to be thrown back from the tempestuous eruption, and her sword to be knocked from her hand, ceasing to be a sword and resuming its existence as a flashlight, before its lens shattered as it hit the ground.

"Behold, my. . ." said Ian, then let out an "nnngh" as he struggled to bring forth the aforementioned sickass move name, before lamely spitting out "BLONDE WOMAN DEFLECTOR!"

"Huh?" asked Vanessa, who then shook her head vigorously, and struck forth with an open palm, letting forth a plume of cream-colored flame.

Ian felt the blistering heat as a burning pain, but it wasn't the heat of actual fire overtaking his body. Either her powers weren't really making fire that was the heat of material fire, or his were minimizing its effect on him.

Nonetheless, it was extremely painful, and Ian was already pissed off at her for suggesting that he relinquish Rochelle, so he started beating the shit out of Vanessa. He laughed like a child, the manchild that he was, as he did so, throwing punches with no organization to them, punches Vanessa tried to block but despite her anger, he outstripped her in terms of strength, and so which merely pinned her arms to her as Ian's face only bore the likeness of a maleficent parody of Steven Universe, and his ensuing belly laugh, much the same.

"ENOUGH! I'M NOT PUTTING UP WITH THIS SHIT!" screamed Vanessa, ripping the leg off of a chair and transforming it into a cutlass. "I'M GOING TO CUT YOUR FACE OPEN TO REMOVE THAT INSUFFERABLE SMILE! I'M GOING TO SHOVE THE PAIN OF A BLOODSTAINED WAR TRENCH DOWN YOUR THROAT UNTIL YOU CHOKE ON IT, YOU STUNTED, REPROBATE SWINE!" she screamed, her jaw momentarily distending and her voice sounding like her throat was being sanded down as she started turning Ian into performance art of a zebra with red stripes.

Ian, meanwhile, was getting almost half as mad as Vanessa, and about twice as malevolent. His low giggling picked up to the point where Executioner Smough would feel the urge to ask if he was doing okay, as he jutted his hand out, his hand contorting upwards so that the palm was bared with the same impudence as the naked body of a college streaker, and a thick bolt of indigo lightning shot forth, curling around and slamming Vanessa against a wall, around a hundred feet away. Judging by a quickly-fading pale-yellow glow surrounding her body, which was now curled into the fetal position, her shell had been obliterated. Ian's, meanwhile, was nearly out of energy, but he felt more pouring forth with his still-abundant fury, in spite of his clownish facade.

As he surveyed her body from a distance, he felt more energy crackling into his palm, as he raised his hand again, another lightning bolt already queued up when Rochelle grabbed his other arm.

"Ian, what are you doing?" asked Rochelle. "You've already beaten her, you've already proven she can't make us split up, why are you still attacking her?"

"O-oh. I'm sorry, Rochelle. I just got carried away. You understand that, right? It happens, you know. I guess I got too much into the moment." said Ian, as he began regenerating.

"You didn't act this way the last time she went off on you. . ." said Rochelle.

"The last time, she was only trying to kill me." said Ian. "This time, she was threatening something more important."

"Oh. . ." said Rochelle, still concerned but now smiling, tears welling up as she felt cherished once more, blindly accepting the implication that 'something more important' was their relationship, and not, as it was in truth, Ian's ego.

"I love you a whole lot, Rochelle." said Ian, taking her into his arms.

. . .

Disgrace. Humiliation. Unseemly and unwelcome following the height of her emotions and certitude of Ian's incompatibility with a right and functioning world. Her throat burning with all the incoherent promises she'd made and then failed to keep within the span of seconds.

"Hey, are you okay?" asked Monsanto.

"What do I look like?" asked Vanessa.

"Well, you've un-transformed. You're, like, in your normal mode, or whatever." said Monsanto.

"I guess my powers broke. I'm gonna have to grow them back now." said Vanessa.

"Damn, that sucks." said Monsanto.

"Are you hurt, though?" asked Cheyenne.

"Do you see anything?" asked Vanessa.

"What do you mean?" asked Cheyenne.

"I don't feel hurt, but do you see anything off?" asked Vanessa.

"I don't see any injuries, except your clothes look a bit charred." said Cheyenne.

"I guess I'm fine." said Vanessa, sighing heavily.

"Are you disappointed by that?" asked Cheyenne, concerned.

"No, I'm just. . . I've shifted into a different phase of pissed. Now I'm just sad despondent pissed, not 'I'm feeling very righteous and going to fix all this' pissed." said Vanessa.

"Maybe it's not up to you." said Cheyenne.

"Huh?" asked Vanessa.

"You've done a lot for us, you don't need to worry about everything, and Ian is, even if he's awful, he's working for Penguin as well, it'd probably cause more issues to kill him like he's just another monster." said Cheyenne. "It's not the solution to this and you don't need to take it on yourself not only to start judging who lives and dies but also start fights with an unstable person who's been given more power than you."

"So I'm just supposed to let him do whatever he wants? With Rochelle? He's acting like a little kid who just wandered in here and is now calling on everyone and everything around him to entertain and please him however he wants." said Vanessa. "With the most petty reactions to any sort of feedback—if he can't smirk, he'll scowl, only his fat lips make it look a little more like he's pouting."

"And so your response is to just fucking kill him?" asked Monsanto. "Y'know, I thought this power strutting shit you do was pretty damn hot at first, but I think you're starting to view everything about your job here through the lens of who you can girlboss ass-kick, or else this place is making you see everything around you as a creature of the night."

"Both of those things, possibly." said Vanessa.

"Do you see us as monsters?" asked Cheyenne, looking like she was winding herself up to get hurt feelings as needed.

"Ehhh. . . sort of, but not really? Benignly? I dunno, I know you guys and I care about you all, and I see you as familiar as individuals, but I see you as unfamiliar in terms of what you are, and I see you as being there for me to manage, since it's my job, and all that." said Vanessa.

"Oh. . ." said Cheyenne.

"You could rip his nuts off." said Monsanto.

"No, firstly because he'd skeet himself, since he's into that shit. As he likes to remind us all. At every given opportunity. Secondly, because he'd just grow them back. And thirdly, since I'm sure his bitchiness wouldn't decrease, and if it changed at all, it would just be reallocated into something else." said Vanessa.

"And fourthly because he'd kick your ass extra hard if you tried that now?" asked Monsanto.

". . .yeah." said Vanessa.

. . .

"That girl could be Ember for you, Andre." said Opera Penguin's voice in Andre's head.

"Who?" asked Andre. "And what the fuck do you mean? You just destroyed me with the fact that Ember isn't real." said Andre.

"Don't worry." said Opera Penguin. "You can make her real. Look through that window over there." and then a ghostly hand was overlaid on Andre's vision. A lit window was the focus of the pointing.

"I'm not a creep, you sick bastard!" said Andre.

"She's clothed." said Opera Penguin. "And note the style of clothing."

"How is that—oh." said Andre. "But how would I make her Ember?"

"Kill her." said Opera Penguin.

"What?" asked Andre, stepping back, and clutching at his head.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic. As long as you have the energy to do so, you can kill someone and will them to persist as a ghost. Similar to the ghostly form your powers allow you to exist in—except that they'll actually be ghosts. As in, dead. But the difference is insignificant, entirely a technicality that only magicians such as myself would care to know." said Opera Penguin.

"I can will them to be ghosts?" asked Andre. "What does that mean?"

"It's sort of like an abstract application of will. Like wanting something, but more proactive. Like if you want something, you want it to happen, but if you will something, you decide it to happen. You force it with your heart. You push it to be, inwardly. Will is the same thing that underlies action, but it can, as I said, be applied abstractly in this way. It's raw effort. But how much effort it takes depends. Just. . . decide that you're going to make them ghosts. You decide who persists as a ghost, and who just dies normally." said Opera Penguin. "Those whom you kill, at least."

"And I can kill anyone and make them a ghost?" asked Andre.

"As long as you have the energy to do so. But you'll probably be able to tell that, in that case." said Opera Penguin.

"So I can free people from the chains of their lives." said Andre. "And give them a new life, a secret existence known only by me, and those whom I allow in."

"Of course." said Opera Penguin.

"And I can start with her." said Andre.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin, and, after a pause, "Go on, then!"

Andre shrugged, and swooped in through the window, ethereal until he appeared before her. He didn't give her more than half a chance to adjust to what had appeared before her, before he swung his blade like the grim reaper he had been lead to think he was.

"What did you do to me?" asked the girl.

"I freed you from the mortal prison." said Andre.

"I was perfectly happy up until you came in and—Am I dead?" the girl asked.

"No! You've been brainwashed to think you're happy in this hell that is the earth!" said Andre.

"I was perfectly fine! Don't tell me what makes me happy! You killed me and ended my perfectly-fine life!" said the girl, looking down at her body, and the guitar she had been holding, both of which had been cleaved.

"Hey, look, I'm sure I can figure out how to get you another guitar-" said Andre, right as a new guitar, styled after Ember McLain's, nonetheless, appeared in the air next to the girl's ghostly form, appeared next to her. "Oh." he finished.

"Yeah, you can add new stuff on during or immediately after the time when you form ghosts. That guitar you've made will now exist as an extension of her. . ." said Opera Penguin's voice, right as the girl smashed the guitar against the floor. ". . .and will continue to manifest as an ability of hers, and a reminder of this night, every time she even intends to play one."

"Huh?" said Andre, and the ghost girl took it as a response to her. "I don't want it. All I want now is to know how to move on, now that some pretentious, existential prick killed me." she said, crying.

"She won't be able to." said Opera Penguin. "Ghosts made by you are static entities. They're not bound to some arbitrary conditions of haunting, this is just a new phase of existence for her. She might come to be able to function as a living human, but until then, her life is over, and no new one is ready to begin."

"I-I'm sorry." said Andre, the fires licking around the edges of his outline turned grey-white. "You can't."

. . .

"You weren't really about to kill her, were you?" asked Rochelle, after they had returned to her room.

"Dunno." said Ian.

"Ian! Why? I'm not that important!" said Rochelle.

"You're more important than you think." said Ian. "But also, I'm not in a hurry to recreate my first relationship."

"How so?" asked Rochelle.

"When two people truly grow close, they grow into each other. They become a part of one another, just like all the parts of your body are part of one another. A truly close relationship is one where each owns the other, and is defined by what they are to the other. Being known as the other's other becomes a basic dignity. A human right, if you will. Or, not so human." said Ian.

"Am I really like that to you?" asked Rochelle.

"No." said Ian. "I mean, not yet. You might become that, though. And that's why conceding you to Vanessa was not only not an option, but the suggestion of it was an insult. It would be symbolic of the first time it happened. She and I had a love that should have been irrevocable. But she betrayed me. In my heart, what we had, while we had it, seemed unconditional. A permanent bond. Something that would persist without question. But to her, it was all too conditional. My being continued to regard hers as a vital element of my life. But she sanded the etching of my name out of her heart. And so I was left, branded with the name of a woman I needed, while she called other men her own."

"I guess that's just life-" said Rochelle, before Ian threw forth a hand, and clenched it into a fist so hard it created a small thunderclap. "NO!" he yelled, causing Rochelle to shrink back. "IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CONDITIONAL THAT SHE AND I REMAIN AS ONE! SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED MINE! THE BOND WE SHARED SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ABANDONED! WHEN YOU GET THAT CLOSE, YOU SHOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO PART! WHEN YOU GET THAT CLOSE, THE OTHER BECOMES A PART OF WHO YOU ARE! TO MOVE ON TO THAT, AND THEN TO BE WITH SOMEONE ELSE! IT'S INSULT ON TOP OF INJURY! MUTILATION OF THE HEART AND CONDEMNATION TO AN EXISTENCE OF SHAME! FORCED TO LIVE, AMPUTATED OF MY OTHER HALF!"

Rochelle began hyperventilating, as Ian sagged forward, then continued "Anyway. It will be hard for you, for us to get to that stage. I had her carved into the center of me. I don't know if you will ever completely smudge the old name out. But I'm not going to surrender whatever love comes into my hands."

"But you must have given up on her?" asked Rochelle.

"She took it onto herself to take it out of my hands. It was she who mutilated me in that way. And violated my identity by calling someone else her own. And, to ingratiate that violation, called even the love that we shared before illegitimate. Said that it had been platonic and she just hadn't known it. When I had known it as my one and only love at the center of who I was. The only perfect fit. The truest and only shot at real love I had. I knew it was true at the center of my heart and she made that truth a lie, she made one of the central truths of my existence, and of who I am, a base truth of my identity, false. . ." said Ian.

"Ian, you keep repeating yourself. . ." said Rochelle.

"Because I repeat these words deep inside, every time I think of her. The words are burnt into the very thought of her in my head, just as her name is branded into me." said Ian.

"You make it sound like no one could ever live up to her." said Rochelle. "And I'm gonna be honest, it's pissing me off."

"Believe me, I told myself when that part of my heart was still freshly dead, just starting to rot, that anyone else would be second best at most. And sometimes, I told myself that I would burn whoever even dared threaten to replace her." said Ian.

Rochelle backed up against a wall.

"But it's fine, Rochelle! It's fine, ever since she burned! She burned in her own house, she was heard sobbing just before the disaster left her a charred corpse. She's dead, Rochelle, and so I know she isn't existing outside of my possession. In a better world, she would be mine. She would belong to me. And what she was was irreplaceable. But her death gives closure to the part of me that was linked to her, the part of me that would weigh me down with eternal disgrace if she dared to exist without me, let alone all anyone else her own. Now I can lay that dead part of me to rest, and the gaping wound in my heart supplies me with boundless space for love for another." Ian concluded, arms opening towards Rochelle.

Rochelle's voice became shaky as an audible growl crept into it. "Are you saying I'm not the best thing that ever happened to you? Or, are you even saying you don't even love me?"

"Rochelle! Are you even listening? Of course I love you. My love for you wells up from the abyss deep inside that she left in me. And believe me, that abyss is massive. To fill it would take an ocean. When, when an organ is cut off, the blood that would flow into it instead bleeds out. The love that flowed towards her now flows to you. She taught me what love was, even if only to grind mine into the dust, to disgrace, mutilate-" said Ian, before Rochelle grabbed his shoulder.

"Stop. Repeating. Those. Things." she said. "I don't know whether to be annoyed or scared or upset but it's morbid as hell. Honestly, all these. . . analogies are just confusing and upsetting to hear. Not just because they're morbid, though, it's more how fixated it shows you still are on her. You belong to me now." said Rochelle.

"I love you to death." said Ian, grinning in a marginally more creepy fashion than usual, before seeing the current of fear breaking through Rochelle's snarl. "Or, you know, not." he added, his mirth folding in slightly. "But trust me, if that's what upsets you about my rants about Gretchen, it's probably only a matter of time before you become what she was to me."

"I should be already." stated Rochelle.

"Roche, there's different ways to be special, and I wouldn't say being specially someone whose adherence to me is a dependence of mine is exactly good." said Ian.

"I disagree." said Rochelle. "Because that would mean you've really devoted yourself to me. You don't feel like you've lost something vital when losing someone unless that someone is vital. You don't feel like them being with anyone else but you is wrong unless you've devoted yourself solely to being with them, even if it ends up not working."

Ian hugged her. "You get it. She didn't. She treated it like an unhealthy obsession."

"It is an obsession, but it's how I want love to be. And if it's unhealthy, I don't want to be healthy. I should be all that to you, because it's what I'm worth." said Rochelle. "If you see me as anything less, then you're not giving me the love I'm owed from you. You made a deal, remember? Love me, get graced by my presence? Keep up your end of the fucking bargain, you fat shithead." She herself couldn't process the words that were coming from her, but she felt that she meant them.

"But I care too much about you to lie, Roche. You've gotta understand that what you're dethroning was once the sum of my purpose in life. This, this little campfire we have can't burn through the dry tree that once was the very-alive tree of Gretchen and me in only a little over a week. But don't worry about the fire going out. There's much more of what you saw tonight, where it came from." said Ian.

Rochelle slumped into Ian's chest, and said "So for how long we've been around each other, I'm still better than Gretchen?"

"Leagues ahead." said Ian.

"Leagues?" said Rochelle, smiling. "Like racing leagues?"

"Actually, it's a unit of measureme-" said Ian, before Rochelle cut in with "Ian. Just let me have this."

Ian sighed a little, but it ended in a laugh. "Sure, then. Racing leagues."

After that, they sat on the bed, holding each other, before Ian, out of nowhere, said, "Anyway, can I suck your nipples?"

. . .

"So, how much of my powers did you specifically design?" asked Andre.

"Not a lot. Just the aspect that serves as a mold to channel your energies into the manifestation of that blade." said Opera Penguin's voice. "Nonetheless, the powers I made in you are my art, and this universe bends art to 'reference' other worlds in the cosmic federation."

"Cosmic federation?" asked Andre.

"Imagine gluing a bunch of universes together using spare bits of universe that form a faint, bigger universe around them. And it makes it so that now here is the same now as now in another world, rather than past, present and future being completely unrelated in one compared to another." said Opera Penguin's voice.

"What?" asked Andre.

"It's basically what dumbass Marvel writers think the multiverse is." said Opera Penguin.

"And what do you think it is, in your infinite wisdom?" spat Andre.

"Infinitely vast. Infinitely empty. Infinitely full. Infinitely terrifying. Don't think about it too much." said Opera Penguin, in a hollow voice.

"Ohhh. . . kay?" said Andre, nonplussed.

Andre had been walking on the roofs of buildings in the direction that Opera Penguin directed him, towards the Pizzaplex. He flew from building top to building top. This conversation was the only thing that he could pass the time by. Yet there were still awkward silences when Penguin said weird shit like that.

"But I notice the fire around me is kind of ghostily blue normally, but when I'm fighting or I'm pissed, it turns red, with maybe a bit of orange. But when I get sad or I sort of 'shrink back', it turns white, maybe grey. That's not an intentional thing?" asked Andre.

"No." said Opera Penguin. "Although they are slightly different forms of energy. Though your outer aura projects the different kinds of energy as you mentioned, you can actually produce any of them in any of the three states. The azure stuff is what forms ghosts, and also what forms into your blade. The orange stuff is what empowers your blade's strikes, and can in general hurt people. A lot. The misty stuff lets you phase through things, and go invisible."

"Oh. And which one magically fixes my personal problems?" asked Andre, jokingly.

"You can't fix problems, Andre. And neither can any power of yours. Because you are a problem, Andre. You are a problem to the world at large, and you are a problem to be cleansed." said Opera Penguin's voice.

Andre froze.

"Just kidding!" said Opera Penguin. "You were made to solve a problem. And I'm sure you will, whether you want to cooperate with me or not."

"That subterranean 'heaven'." said Andre.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin's voice. "Speaking of which, one of their agents is about to attack you now."

"What?!" asked Kendall, right before he was tackled by a horribly ghoulish figure. After spontaneously forming Fading Moon right before collision, blocking the motion and tumbling away, before rolling back and up onto his knees. "What the fuck are you?" he asked.

"Guess you can't even recognize what's already been introduced to you, Mr. Hellfire." said the thing, which surprised Andre, given how it looked: A human-like figure, looking either to have been skinned, or to have had its skin replaced. Its eyes seemed to be sockets, except with remnants of eyelids hanging limp, and within the sockets were spheres of some faintly-luminescent ethereal substance. It definitely lacked skin around its mouth, instead having raw flesh, and its mouth extended all the way into its neck, as if no respect was paid to the existence of a jaw bone. Its flesh overall was looked dessicated, and was a sickening reddish umber. It wore an elaborate black leather outfit that did not have any long capes or other dangly bits, but did include strange gloves that only covered the palms and ring fingers of each hand. On the back of each forearm was a steel panel, akin to a vambrace. "After all, you've already met one of our Preachers."

"And I'm assuming you're a mere Convert?" asked Andre.

"Yes." said the thing.

"Then what makes you think you can beat me?" asked Andre.

"I don't. But I have to fight you anyway." said the thing.

"Oh. I see." said Andre. And then he swung.

The thing raised an arm, metal panel forward, and the metal panel expanded into what looked like a tower shield welded to his arm.

Then the thing retracted in a flash, and his other hand flashed forward, a circular saw now inexplicably attached to the back of its hand.

Andre deflected the blow, and then the next twenty that were forthcoming from the thing's arms in alternation, before severing one of the arms.

"I may be outmatched, but I'm backed up, as well." said the thing, and a small horde of emaciated, pale figures jumped out of black openings appearing on the roof at random. They all just leapt straight at Andre, but with six sweeps of Fading Moon, all he had to worry about was the pain of getting hit with numerous assorted body parts. "Oh." said the thing.

"How do you know my name?" asked Andre.

"Any Convert that's sent to fight you is taught all about you." said the thing.

"And what's your name?" asked Andre.

"Michael." said the thing, which caused Andre to laugh, which in turn caused Michael to lunge at him again. Andre caught it just in time, pulling back and kneeing upwards at the underside of Michael's arm so hard it swung up, and with a flash of his blade Andre severed it.

"How the hell can you find that realm heaven?" asked Andre.

"I don't, don't you get it? None of the Converts do, that's why they're called Converts! They're in the process of being converted by that torment! It's only heaven in the eyes of the Preachers and of the Converts they're done screwing up!" said Michael.

"Then why are you cooperating with them?" asked Andre.

"Well, firstly, I have no choice. I'm spiritually tethered to them." said Michael. "The only way out is to die, and the only way to die, I think, is to be utterly destroyed, because the tether is so strong."

"Well. Guess I have to do that." said Andre, his aura of flames somehow growing even redder. "But first. . . you said 'firstly'. What's the other reason?" he asked.

"To fight my father. He's gotten away with endless atrocities over the years. All under the guise of a dearly beloved, sadly-departed business owner. His influence stretching beyond death. Well, haha," said Michael, "he's not been the one in control recently. A new guy came in and, I guess 'bought him out' in some 'spirit-y' way. Magical shit I don't understand."

"What's your dad's name?" asked Andre.

"William Afton." said Michael.

"Wait." said Andre. "That was the owner of that kiddy pizza shop ages ago that became. . . what was it?"

"Big mall. Named some dumb shit like 'Mega Pizzaplex.' Sounds like they transposed 'Pizza' and 'Mega', haha. Sorry if I'm rambling, I'm trying to savor my last few moments of consciousness." said Michael.

"Wait, someone I'm. . . at odds with. . . seemed to make a call from there." said Andre.

"Maybe it's the same guy." said Michael. "Well," he added, hanging his head low, "Maybe you can be the one to put my dad down in my absence."

"Heh." said Andre. "No."

"What?" asked Michael, raising his head just as Andre severed it.

Michael's head hit the ground. Michael's body hit the ground. Michael squinted his eyes, and leaned down to look at his severed head and headless body.

"Wait, what?" Michael said, once more.

"Yeah, you're welcome." said Andre.

"Not like you're much better." hissed Opera Penguin's voice in Andre's head.

"What even are you?" asked Michael.

"Wowww, really grateful, you are." Andre said, his bitchiness flashing a fin.

"But really. What are you. You're not roped in with my dad's. . . business. That much I know. I don't see his mark on you." said Michael.

"This magician man brought me back to life as this after burning me alive." said Andre.

"That seems like the guy who, I guess, owns my dad now." said Michael.

"Opera Penguin." said Andre.

"So that's what he's called." said Michael.

"Well, it's what he screamed down my throat when I called him Tuxedo Mask." said Andre.

"He does look like that guy." said Michael. "Anyway, am I free?"

"I rebirthed you as a being split off from the Preachers. If it works, you're not gonna have to worry about that stuff. At least, if I get my own powers right." said Andre.

"Strange. This 'Penguin' guy gave you your powers?" asked Michael. "I don't like that I, by extension, owe him anything, but thanks."

"No, no. I'm not for Penguin just because he gave me my powers, or because he also is against the Preachers. I'm just more against the Preachers than against him. And I knew you weren't for the Preachers, just against Opera Penguin. And frankly I think you're not all that much for the Preachers. That's why I freed you from them." said Andre.

"You trust me with my own agenda?" asked Michael.

"Can't be worse than the people who're already free." said Andre. "They're the worst kind. It's like the people I knew in the mortal world all over again, but with more power they don't deserve. Back when I was normal, I thought the supernormal would be different. Now I see it's more of the same. I thought the higher worlds would be something fun, or at least something meaningful, but as for this one, the highest point seems to go down. Down into the center, where people are stuck in their bodies, always rotting, but never allowed to have rotted all the way."

"That sounds about right." said Michael. "But it's still only the highest point of this world. Not any 'other world'. And I know there have to be others, since I think I heard that that 'Opera Penguin' guy came from another one. But what I care about more is this one. And making it a better place. No matter what revolting form I take, or what ridiculous powers I have to use. . ."

"Hey, I think these are cool." said Andre.

"Cool when you're stuck in a pretty boy's form and swing around a cool, marketable sword? Cool when you can just kill someone and with a moment's exertion, make them into whatever you want? Thanks, by the way, for keeping me looking like this. I'm more than pleased." said Michael. "And what's it gonna be like when we've got issues that can't just be solved by killing things? What then, when situations actually require patterns of thinking that aren't like my father's, when he did what started all this mess?"

"Wait, William Afton, William Afton," said Andre, "I think I saw a documentary on him. Almost thought I could understand him, though not like some others."

"Maybe." said Michael. "Maybe. Maybe you're another one of that type of person."

"And what do you mean by that." said Andre, flatly.

"Someone who thinks the complexities of their emotions, their 'struggles', are equal in significance the the lives of multiple other people. You know, not everyone just gets to become a ghost after they die. I mean, I understand my dad and yourself are poor examples of this, but for most people, their life is everything. At least, everything before some big unknown. Everything before the great something that comes when 'everything' has gone away. And you have no idea that they're going to become ghosts. So there's no reason that you shouldn't be able to see that because of your selfish actions, everything is over for that person. Everything. Because you were just too special, too complicated, to keep your inner world, inner. Too unique not to let your petty issues spill out into a much realer issue for a lot of people. Not just the victims. Everyone who knew them. Because you thought, with no good cause, that violence was going to be the solution to this. That outer carnage would solve your inner turmoil. That just 'experimenting' with a little hurting would help you explore all the options in life. Well, because you weren't sure, your little 'exploration' would prove to cut short how many peoples' potential? How many? You probably wouldn't think of how many, while you were doing it, except in terms of waiting until you've cut off enough lives to sate the hunger of your self-importance. But each of those heads, those lives treated as tally marks in the news, those were whole-ass people, Andre. Of course, now that you've been given powers that largely eliminate, if not invert, the consequences of your actions, and probably fulfill whatever delusion you were living under, you're definitely going to learn your lesson. Yeah. Definitely." said Michael, staring at Andre, his eyelids, which had formerly seemed vestigial, narrowing vindictively.

Andre stepped back, dumbstruck. "That's just how life is, ma-" he said, before he was cut off.

"Because of you. Because of people like you. Because of people like my father. It's only a 'basic fact of life' because people like you choose to constitute that fact of life. Each of you, individually, or sometimes piggybacking off of the fame, the mystique, the drama of others who did the same. Sometimes, somewhere in between. But each of you, in the end, is responsible for his own bloodshed. You didn't have to do this. Hell, you probably never had the balls to do it, given how you were alive, but you were still like it inside. You choose to make it a fact of life because the fact is that people choose to layer this pointless waste of life onto the sins we're all stained with. You know what would make the world a better place? If you started—and presumably stopped—with just yourself. Would make you look a whole lot better. Would make you be a whole lot better, a net neutral, not a net negative. But in order to choose like that, you'd have to be a different kind of person. Instead, you're you."

"I didn't ever murder anyone—well, unless you count when Penguin walked me through making a ghost—but I wasn't gonna murder anyone back before!" said Andre.

"How do you know you wouldn't have done it eventually? Haven't you got some big idea in your head about 'different worlds'? All it takes is one stray thought in a nutcase's head to look into his existing delusions and find inside it, some kind of instruction to do something very real. One moment, it doesn't matter if it's real or not, because it's all inconsequential, a daydream that keeps you alive, but the next, the hidden potential for a one-man cult is realized. You drop from sitting on the fence of belief into the backyard of fanaticism. You let the phantoms in your head become your guide, you look into the world of your presumptions with the eyes of a false prophet, prophesying from your imagination. You heed only the writing on the walls of your self-sheltering brain. Treat it as fact, try to make an offering to it all by ruining this world you think you're so much above? An offering to something that only exists inside the skull you'll probably blow out by the end of it all anyway." asked Michael. "Just shut up and enjoy the fact that your petty drive to kill briefly has a good purpose. And then dry up and blow away."

"You've got some guts telling me that." said Andre.

"I wish I didn't have guts at all." said Michael. "I've existed for far too long, but I'm half too bound to my duty against my father, and half just afraid of ceasing to be. For all I know, that's all that awaits me after my unnatural existence."

"Damn." said Andre.

"So are you gonna help me take down both the forces that brought us together?" asked Michael.

Andre was taken aback for only a moment, before straightening up, then immediately sagging, and saying, "Yeah."

. . .

Night 40

Ian woke up to Rochelle nestled on top of him, as usual. But what wasn't quite usual was how her hands were half clenched on him in her sleep. His upper arms weren't quite losing blood flow, but he could tell it was what woke him up.

"Roche." he said. She barely shifted back and forth.

"Rochelle!" he sort of whisper-yelled, and that got her to shift her head and stir, blearily opening an eye.

"Ian?" she croaked sleepily.

"You're grabbing my arms." said Ian.

"Ohh." she said. Her hands loosened slightly.

Ian settled back, before feeling a jolt from on top of him and a hand slap him across the face. "And what if I want to grab my boy?" he heard a much more awake Rochelle say.

Ian giggled a little, and simply said, "Well, I just felt you should know. I wasn't certain you did."

Rochelle smiled, and then stopped smiling. "I feel like you're gonna tell me something else. Something I actually don't want to hear."

"Well, actually yeah." said Ian. "I'm gonna be honest, I thought of you like a joke at first. Something to entertain myself with, and salve my ego. I said all that shit about 'something coming on' but 'it not being here yet', I was masking that I didn't feel a real damn thing about you romantically and didn't think I was gonna. But that changed gradually."

"How gradually?" asked Rochelle, with a frail tone of voice that suggested she was bracing for the next of many emotional assaults Ian had inflicted on her.

"I mean I lost the complete apathy almost immediately. But it took me a while to get where I was last night with Vanessa, you know?" said Ian.

"If the apathy went away quickly, why are you only telling me this now?" asked Rochelle.

"Well, it's not like I'd tell you that as soon as it stopped being that way." said Ian. "More that we've only just now become that close that I feel like that can't exist as a secret between us. I wasn't gonna mention it the moment I started feeling, but at this particular threshold I really feel like I have to confess it only because there's a new standard of, I guess, openness that I feel I should have because I feel like that's necessary at this point."

"Do you lie to me a lot, then?" asked Rochelle.

"Not in a way that I feel compelled to tell you about!" said Ian, cheerily, before he saw Rochelle's face, and then said "That was a joke. No, I don't." flatly.

"You're all I have in this rotting place, Ian." said Rochelle.

"You're telling me that?" said Ian, chortling. "But I don't think you should forget your friends, you know. I feel like maybe I actually don't want to be a dick anymore, not to the people around here. I mean I said it before, but I tend to be noncommittal about stuff like that."

"Do you really think they understand me?" asked Rochelle.

"Well, I mean, compared to literally anyone else in the world, they're the only ones in your boat." said Ian.

"But they don't know what it's like to be me, in particular. I can't just be. I need to be loved. I need to be regarded with awe, as something exciting, something with a cutting edge. Something romantic, even. It makes up my existence. I can't be what some might call 'humble'. I'm literally not compatible with an existence like that, where I'm just there and only loved in that homely way. I think you understand, when you go into that broken-tape-record screaming fit about Gretchen. You have that same need, Ian. You need to be a romantic being—it's not your only need but it's vital. Am I wrong?" said Rochelle.

Ian stared off into the distance that wasn't actually distant, as they were in an enclosed bedroom, and said "Nah. You're not. And that's the real kicker. But I'd like to think we have something apart from just a mutual need, yeh?"

"Of course. What we have is all I have. But it wouldn't exist without the need." said Rochelle. "You said yourself what we were at first."

"Yeah." said Ian.

"You two really are a dreary couple." said Opera Penguin, who popped into their room.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, not this again. . ." Rochelle moaned.

"He used to do this a lot?" asked Ian.

"I bet it's making you ache for the good old times before Blue Raspberry Pork Rind over here!" said Opera Penguin.

"Don't. . ." said Rochelle, but she wasn't sure which of several things to complain about. The nickname for Ian, the painful memory of Casey, or the volume of Penguin's suddenly chirpy voice.

"Anyway, anywhere, if all you two are going to do is engage in more fake deep conversation, I have something I need Ian for." said Opera Penguin.

"Ahh, damn it." said Ian. "Sorry, Rochelle."

. . .

"So!" said Opera Penguin, to Vanessa and Ian.

"Oh, hell." said Ian.

"What's got you troubled?" asked Opera Penguin.

"Well, since you brought both of us here, I assume it's to rant at us for the previous night?" asked Ian.

"Nope!" said Opera Penguin. "Since Vanessa managed to restore her shell to almost full power through the daytime, it shouldn't be a problem that you recklessly used lethal force on your own comrade because she yelled at you."

"Yeah, yelling is what it was. . ." grumbled Ian.

"Anyway!" said Opera Penguin, straightening up with his arms folded behind his back like a smug preppy asshole. "I'm just bringing you here to analyze what physiological distortions your shells have produced in you so far!"

"Huh?" asked Ian.

"You're not saying we're mutating, are you?" asked Vanessa.

"No, I'm sure I mentioned this in passing, but your powers can essentially warp the relationship your bodies have with space itself, modifying what's functionally there without changing the inherent properties of the bodies themselves." said Opera Penguin.

"Uhh. . . cool. . ." said Ian, uncertainly.

Opera Penguin's eyes flashed momentarily with a bluish-grey light, and he said, "Okay, well, Vanessa, yours make your spine a bit longer and stouter and your skin a bit thicker. Just the slightest bit, mind."

Ian grunt-chuckled. "Huh. Ironic."

"And Ian," said Opera Penguin, "yours make you just slightly taller and slightly express your jawline from the rest of your face. They also seem to make your upper body, your shoulder range, and the like just a little broader."

"Huh." said Ian.

"And also, a bit more to the cheekbones—overall, they mitigate the flabbiness of your face just slightly." said Opera Penguin.

"Neat." grumped Ian.

"Why is this so interesting to you?" asked Vanessa.

"Well, although neither of you noticed, I saw Vanessa's jaw lengthening and reverting at one point last night, while you were fighting." said Opera Penguin.

"I think I would've noticed that." said Vanessa.

"I think you were too focused on screaming." said Opera Penguin.

"I thought my brain was just translating my perception of her into the Loony Toons character she was acting like." said Ian.

"Go to hell." said Vanessa.

"Now, now, monkeys." said Opera Penguin. "Anyway, there's this threat I need you two to deal with. It's a big enough threat that I'm going to allow Ian out in the daylight, so that should speak to you about the level of threat." Opera Penguin winked at Ian.

"What are we looking for?" asked Vanessa.

"I'll give you the internal directions, but it's two apparently human individuals. They are. . . much like you. But a darker counterpart, from a darker place." said Opera Penguin.

"Great." said Vanessa.

"Anyway, it's a woman and her boytoy. Although she broke this one, I think." said Opera Penguin. "Watch out for the touch of either, and the strength of the brute. I think each can screw you up pretty badly.

"How so?" asked Vanessa.

"I have limited information." said Opera Penguin.

"Great." said Vanessa.

. . .

"I feel so bad for Rochelle-" said Ian, as they parkoured over the tops of buildings.

"Shut up." said Vanessa. "I don't want to hear shit about you and her."

They went the rest of the way quietly.

. . .

Laney Rodriguez was painting her latest victim, before execution. She was looking hard at the butcher—as in, one of the legal profession of procuring and preparing meat to sell—to determine the glib title she would give him before she would butcher him—as in, callously murder him as if he were an animal—with the help of the butcher—as in, savage murderer—she worked alongside.

"Mutton chops Louis? No, that doesn't roll off the tongue." mused Laney to herself. "Lathed Louis. . . not enough syllables."

Then she straightened up triumphantly. "Lamb chop Louis!"

Then she released the effects of her paralyzing touch. While she initially thought the pseudo-heat map look of the victims of her ability was aesthetically pleasing, it got old fast. She needed a fresh, natural view of how Louis would look before he died.

"Hodgins." she said.

"Yes, miss?" she heard the hoarse voice of her. . . partner, from the next room.

"Chop him into pieces." said Laney.

"Okay." said Hodgins. He took up the cleaver with which Louis had tried to defend himself, and it assumed a much larger, more horrific form, more like a hunk of steel than a refined tool. He did as told—quite well, truth be told, for one with only a singular arm.

"Can I take his other arm?" pleaded Hodgins.

"No." said Laney, smirking ever so slightly. But if Hodgins noticed, he didn't acknowledge it. He had become quite submissive to her ever since she took his face and stitched a new one on. Something about that, combined with his helplessness as she had done it, really broke him.

She was enjoying this new life quite a lot. Her previous one had been monotonous, attempting to get respect in the art world while simultaneously finding relaxation through smoke-filled one-night stands with men who would openly refer to her as an 'art hoe'. Neither of those things were all that great in retrospect, although they gave her just enough satisfaction to remain complacent until this most wonderful of developments occurred. Now she couldn't imagine how she had ever been satisfied as she was.

Admittedly, she did periodically miss some of the finer points of what she had enjoyed, but not enough to try and go back to those torrid liaisons, or, worse, attempt to recreate them with Hodgins. As much as the horrific visage she had given him did excite something in her, she felt it too much of a risk to relieve her mild concupiscence using him in that way, lest, by some horrific accident of the passion of the flesh becoming that of the emotions, she actually find in herself some modicum of tenderness or care for him. That, and she didn't quite see him as a person, so much as a tool, or, perhaps, a familiar.

She did, however, occasionally consider the idea of expediting the lack of ownership over their own body that her method of killings left her victims with, in their last moments. However, her ability to 'paralyze' left her victims' bodies almost as still as the dead, and the moment she released it, they generally would attempt to resist her. Severing limbs would generally lead to bleeding out, which of course was counterproductive for that purpose.

In addition, she wasn't sure if Hodgins would have any envy, either for her in being able to make use of their victims' flesh as she hadn't allowed him, or for the victims themselves in knowing her like that.

She had conquered him through pain, and so did not know what remained of him internally from the normal person he initially seemed to be, and thus whether he felt himself a slave to her, or saw them mutually tethered in damnation. He tended to be mostly deferent, but who knew if he was possessed or possessive, broken like a beast of burden or simply bestial in his simple-minded brutality and impulse.

His gift was certainly too valuable to lose from her disposal, though, and it was for this sole reason that she did not wish to tempt his hostility for the sake of enjoying. At least not before folding and allowing him to assimilate a spare limb to replace his own severed arm.

But as things were, she was far too stimulated with their killings to care too much about mundane debauchery. This lifestyle stimulated the mind and body, and would write a legend in blood, on the walls of this urban landscape. Something to spook wide-eyed adolescents for centuries to come. Anything else than the ecstasy of living as a nightmare was a bonus.

She went about painting her satirical masterpiece with her blood-stained palette knife. A caricature of his face and upper body merged with a filet mignon. Perfect. Truly masterful.

She penned the title of the painting on the back, and. . .

A flash of yellow light left a gash of red on her emaciated chest, and she looked down to see the painting halved.

She screamed, but not in fear.

. . .

Vanessa had crashed in through the window of an apartment that turned out to be a gory scene. A pale, thin woman wearing a hospital gown, with full lips but an otherwise sunken face, overwhelmingly dark circles around her eyes and long, disheveled black hair was holding a painting.

Vanessa already knew by Opera Penguin's mental directions that this was one of the murderers, so she swung without hesitation.

Pausing only for a moment, the woman quickly let out a banshee-like scream of rage, and quickly took up what looked like a misshapen scalpel, covered in paint.

The woman lunged, and Vanessa instinctively blocked it, moving with precise and sharp speed, only to realize that there was incredible power behind the weapon, matching hers.

Ian followed through the broken window, and intercepted a huge one-armed man who seemed to have swapped faces with someone, having a loose, red, leathery mask covering his head. Underneath, there seemed to be less than a complete face.

Ian grabbed the man by the ribs, while the man grabbed him by the throat, and Ian started electrocuting the man, before making a weird grunting noise.

"The fuck are you doing with my guts, man?" asked Ian.

"It's a skill of mine." said the man.

"Neat. This one's. . . nnngh, mine!" said Ian, before sending even more electric power into the stranger, who finally let out a hoarse, inhuman scream that made the other murderer's voice sound positively normal.

"Thank fuck I can regenerate." said Ian. "It also seems to be un-screwing up my internal organs."

"Yeah, that's really nice, Ian, I don't ca-" said Vanessa, who was dueling with the woman before the latter's other hand shot to her shoulder, and Vanessa was suddenly cast in a surreal light that looked like the psychedelic-addicted cousin of an infrared camera's display. It was an unnatural set of colors that faded from pine green through turquoise, through violet, through mauve, through puce, the colors based on how illuminated each part of her was.

The woman drew back her arm dramatically, before one of Ian's hands shot towards her, and, with a stroke of lightning, blew off the killer's right arm. This issued another feral noise, akin to a hawk being sawed in half.

The other killer, whose hand had still been on Ian's throat, relaxed his grip in shock.

Vanessa moved, ever so slightly.

"HOW?" the woman howled, upon seeing Vanessa moved, although it was less a vocalization and more a sudden twisting of the scream she had already been letting out.

Vanessa's face slowly shifted into a strained grimace, and then, with the sound of glass shattering, the strange illumination vanished in a flash of equally-discordant colors.

"Because I'm not beneath you. I'm the first person you picked on that was your own size." said Vanessa, and she diagonally bifurcated the woman.

The second killer repeated his previous ululation, moving as if to run to his partner in crime before Ian snapped his head towards the man, and with movement like lightning and fist engulfed in the same, plunged his hand through the brute, sending a crater through and through his torso and puling his heart.

"Whoo!" yelled Ian with gusto, throwing up his arms.

"Shut up." said Vanessa, who seemed ever so slightly more perturbed than she previously had.

. . .

"By the blood coating your arm, I assume all went well?" asked Opera Penguin to Ian, after Ian and Vanessa had returned and he pulled them up to the black room above the communal hallway.

"Yep!" said Ian.

Vanessa was quiet.

"Well, you should probably go wash that off." said Opera Penguin, gesturing to the exit to the black room in a fashion that Ian would find gay if doing so weren't dangerous for his health.

Ian took his cue to leave.

"And how did it go on your end?" asked Opera Penguin.

"I screwed up pretty badly. And I thought I was going to die. But then something worse than that happened." said Vanessa.

"Ian saved you in a fashion that involved sensually locking lips with you?" asked Opera Penguin.

"No, what the hell?" said Vanessa. "He just saved me. That's bad enough. If he had done whatever the hell you just said, I would probably have ascended to the tallest building in the city—"

"Willis' Tower." said Opera Penguin.

"—and swan-dived right the fuck off." said Vanessa.

"It would be a waste not to take Ian with you." said Opera Penguin. "From your perspective, that is."

"You think I want my death to be with him?" asked Vanessa.

"Touche." said Opera Penguin. "But anyway, it bothers you that you now owe him your life?"

"I don't owe him shit!" said Vanessa. "He only did it as part of the job, it wasn't out of care for me!"

"Very well. But this bothers you nonetheless? That you would be dead without him?" asked Opera Penguin.

"I mean, I screwed up. Doesn't that bother you?" asked Vanessa.

"It seems like it bothers you more." said Opera Penguin.

"Yeah. It does." said Vanessa. "I don't want to get saved by him ever again. I want to be strong. And competent."

"Then go to hell." said Opera Penguin.

Vanessa's face went blank. "What?" she asked.

"As it's colloquially known." said Opera Penguin. "However, it's more officially called 'Lowrealm'."

"You mean you want to send me to a hell-like dimension?" asked Vanessa.

"I'm saying I'm willing to." said Opera Penguin. "There, you'll be outside this world's suppression of the growth of power. I've managed to set up a stable connection to a sort of base I've made there, since I came to the Pizzaplex."

"You made this place into a fucking hellmouth?" asked Vanessa.

"No, no, Buffy," said Opera Penguin, momentarily imitating a venerable British voice before switching back to his natural one, "It's not incontinently cause random transmission of beings and energies to and from Lowrealm. It's more just that it has a sort of scaffolding by which beings with the needed level of power can more easily travel from this specific place to that specific place in Lowrealm."

"Oh. Okay. And what prevents some demon lord, or whatever, from just, I don't know," Vanessa waved her arms and then her voice trailed off as she flailed incoherently with the frustration she felt at this revelation.

"As I said, I made a base there. Or, speaking more grandiosely, I established a territory of mine. It's not quite as refined as this place, but it is much more warded." said Opera Penguin.

"And what will I do there?" asked Vanessa.

"Make excursions from the camp, and kill minor demons." said Opera Penguin.

"That's all?" asked Vanessa.

"Yes, but let me clarify that when I say 'minor demons', I mean 'minor in the grand, cosmic scheme of things'. You'll still be seeing giant monstrosities, and they're still probably going to kill you if you're not fighting with all of the power of your shell, all the accumulated lesser power you've built up, and all of your will." said Opera Penguin.

"Well, then." said Vanessa. "I guess, send me there. Send me to hell."

. . .

"Come back," the thing in the dark whimpered, as it tore into another dream Roxanne's flesh. "come back and give me what you owe me. You took it all from me but it's okay, it'll be okay when you come back and give yourself to me."

"What are you?" said the local Monty, looking, horrified, at the burnt face of the thing consumed the instance of Roxanne that had been his partner.

"I'm. . . lonely. And only one person can make me less lonely. You can't. But I can see. Because I took her and added her to myself. You're going to be lonely now. Don't worry. I can take your lonely self. And consume it. I can make your loneliness part of mine. And it will all be sated. All our loneliness. When I get him. When I possess him. When I own him." said the thing which had just a scrap of Roxanne-like features on its right edge of its face, the leftmost unburnt feature being her right eye.

"What do you mean?" asked the Monty.

"Everything in you that's already in me will be added to mine. And your consciousness will come along for the ride. As you, you'll cease to be, but you'll get to experience everything along with me. It'll be like a dream that will last forever. As long as I live, that is." said Burnt Roxanne.

"I don't want that!" said the Monty.

"Don't be afraid. I only break things out of care, and love." said Burnt Roxanne, as her hands shot about the Monty's neck and crushed his brain stem before she slowly devoured the rest of him and his former partner.

"I hear the whispers, and see the sights. . ." purred Burnt Roxanne. "This constellation of dreams is not as opaque as that magic man thinks. . . Ian. . . is that your name? You owe me. . . everything you are."