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.

14. Loss of Iannocence

Author's note: This chapter is a little disgusting. If you don't want to read the especially disgusting part, skip from 'Ian walked uncertainly through dreams' to 'the requisite number, and not one more'.

Ian sat in a bathroom stall, and, while relieving himself, he focused his lightning energy into a tiny bead at the tip of his finger to char into the wall the words he hoped that he could thereby leave behind in that bathroom in the same way he left his shit, bar the ability to flush it, and for much the same purpose.

You came into my life, and you joined to me. And in the unity you shaped my identity into one that could only be fulfilled with you in it. And, just as soon as we parted, you found another, who could have picked up just any dull girl and been satisfied, but just had to take the one I needed. You went out of your way to fill in someone else so I could be left alone, shaped eternally with the need for completion found in someone who it was etched into my very being to see as mine, yet confronted with the violating reality that that person was someone else's. My very being shaped so as to be at odds with reality itself.

To see you with anyone else was like to see my own hand, a week after it had been chopped off on account of an unstoppable cancer, severed, and rotting. For you were required to make me complete, and to see you apart from me was antithetical to my being whole. And whomever you were with instead of me was like the bacteria eating away at the flesh, if not the cancer itself that took you away.

Those words you said to me were lies. Lies you said to me, but directed to yourself. Lying to yourself that what we had in the beginning wasn't real. And that you weren't stripping me of my dignity as a human. Well, now I speak from a realm where humanity is thin, that I have become greater in myself than we together ever were. But, nonetheless, if you can ever see my words, I want you to know.

You truly deserve all of your suffering.

Ian grunted as he pushed out the last of his shit, flushed, and then aquakinetically swirled the water fresh in himself in what was simultaneously the crudest and most sophisticated bidet on Earth. He then flowed it all out back into the bowl, flushed twice, and repeated the same process again a second time.

"Damn, that feels good." he said to himself.

"Why are you moaning in there?" asked Monsanto, who had just entered the men's bathroom.

"Oh, put a sock in it." said Ian.

. . .

Penguin hosted (and forced everyone to attend) another performance, only Ian helped with the music this time, producing a cloud which he vibrated to produce synth noises.

Orpheus was wary of it, feeling like he was getting shouldered out of his own turf, as he also operated synths, but Ian pointed out that Orpheus could sing, whereas he, Ian, could not even hope to try without inducing urges towards self-termination in all who heard the wretched sound.

Bernard, who was presently blending in with the shadows, passed a container of popcorn to Gregory, who screamed and dropped it when it turned out to be populated by a great many cockroaches. Ferdinand stopped singing, and started to go off on Bernard, but Bernard simply shrugged and said he did not notice them. From this exchange, Monsanto burst out laughing and Cheyenne tried to hush him.

Ian took this opportunity to control the air to magnify Rochelle's and his own music's sound waves to drown out everything else, and the song spiraled out into a completely different direction. The resulting music actually got everyone to pay attention, and there was in fact a good reception to it, despite the tone being more somber at times than the original quartet ever dared, given their being cast as a shitty ripoff of Bon Jovi for toddlers.

There was a certain period of silence, before Ian looked out, and called out, "Now what do you think of that, Vanessa?"

"Uhh, where is she?" asked Rochelle.

"I'm afraid she's not here." said Opera Penguin.

"Where is she?" asked Rochelle.

"On a sabbatical." said Opera Penguin, smiling eerily.

Rochelle's face dropped. She looked to Ian, who raised his open hands to gesture of his ignorance with regards to her fate.

"Do not worry," said Opera Penguin, "she is alive."

"And still in the same piece, shape, etc?" asked Ian. "I'm not gonna get blamed for whatever's happening to her, right?"

"Yes, she is, and no, you're not." said Opera Penguin. "But she might be more of a menace to you the next time you see her."

"Oh, great." said Ian.

"Best be training to be ready." said Opera Penguin. "Although I think the other oncoming storm for you will be more than enough to bring you up to the level to which she will be brought."

"Oh, right. That." said Ian.

Rochelle raised an eyebrow, her ears shifting over slightly with her eyebrows, adorably.

"It's like an easter egg hunt but for dead kids pretending to be a certain fox." said Ian.

"There's also that other errand." said Opera Penguin. "Although that may prove to become a greater undertaking."

"What's that?" asked Rochelle.

"Gatecrashing a party thrown by squatters, who are leeching off of Penguin's own resources to throw it." said Ian.

"Are you speaking in code?" asked Rochelle.

"Kindasorta." said Ian. "But, it's more because the actual thing is too confusing for me to understand, let alone explain, so this works out better."

. . .

"Did you actually not know that there were cockroaches in the container?" asked Ferdinand.

"I might have suspected." said Bernard. His voice's note of slyness was dampened by a much heavier flatness of apathy.

"Why would you do such a thing?" asked Ferdinand.

"Because I have to eat, too, Freddy." said Bernard.

"Ah!" said Ferdinand, clutching at his head. "Why would you do that?"

"Because nobody's remembering me. And I don't want to die." said Bernard.

"Bernard! You could just say!" said Ferdinand.

"I could. And I would die. Because you can't focus on me unless something unpleasant is cutting through the obscurity. The more we succeed in attaining our needs, the more able we are to fulfill them. But, conversely, the worse we're doing, the harder it gets." said Bernard.

"Consider, then, doing something to apologize to Gregory, not to mention thank him, if this is true." said Ferdinand.

"I think I'll give him a free shot at my face." said Bernard.

"A. . . free shot?" asked Ferdinand.

"With his fist, of course." said Bernard.

"Bernard, what kind of effect do you think that will have on him? To be encouraged to take part in such a thing?" asked Ferdinand.

"It'll make him remember." said Bernard, his sunken eyes piercing into Ferdinand's.

"You need to receive care I am not certain I know how to give you." said Ferdinand.

"And no one else is, either." said Bernard. "Except, probably, the man who's inflicting this suffering on me. But you couldn't listen when I told you not to trust him. I'm certain you'll regret that whenever his plan, whatever that may be, comes into fruition."

"How 'bout I stick my fruition in your mouth, bunny boy?" asked Dave.

"And here now comes the next stage of my suffering." said Bernard.

"Dave, please." said Ferdinand. "Even if these are not the daylight hours, do you not feel like your demeanor is off color in a place such as this?"

"You don't bitch about it when static electricity fatso and the blonde off her meds are cussing up a storm at each other, but I guess that has to do with the way they could stick a street light pole three yards up your bear butthole, ehh?" said Dave.

"Dave-" said Ferdinand.

"Yeah, that's my name, Fraddy Fezbear. Don't fuckin' wear it out." said Dave.

Ferdinand cringed away, unable to keep his composure.

"Am I correct? Are you sent as my tormentor?" asked Bernard.

"Get that stick out your ass. You ain't half as important as you seem to think you are, if you say that knowing who I am." said Dave.

"That's the thing, I don't." said Bernard.

"Are you shitting me? I own this place. I made it." said Dave. "Not just this building, the whole company."

"What? That's absurd, William Afton founded what would become the business that built this place."

"Wait, William Afton, William Afton," said Dave, his eyes glazing over, before Opera Penguin popped out of the air behind him, hissed 'NOONEWILLBELIEVEYOU' sharply and incoherently through his clenched teeth at Bernard in a single breath, and headlocked Dave, both of them popping out of the space in front of Bernard.

"What's even the point of trying to understand?" asked Bernard, to no one in particular.

. . .

Gregory retched into a bucket, while the Mangle watched him quizzically. "Honestly, I don't quite get it." she said. "They're gross, but I've had them skittering around inside me before, and it's not that-"

"Mangle." said Gregory. "Please. That doesn't help."

"Honestly, it'd be better just to puke and get it over with." said Mangle.

"True, I guess, but before it happens is when the thought of doing it the worst." said Gregory.

"Kind of like the thought of dying." the Mangle mused. "At least if you did that, you'd never have to puke again."

"Mangle. Please." said Gregory.

"Sorry." she said. "I was going to admit something to you, but I guess now's not the time. . ."

"What?" asked Gregory.

"Oh, well, if you want to hear about it," she said turning her head. "I just want you to know I would never actually do it without you asking, but. . ."

"Go on." said Gregory.

"I've been having dreams about lunging down on you and ripping your throat out." said the Mangle.

Gregory finally heaved and let it all out into the bucket. He then set the bucket down. "Why?" he asked.

"Well, I just wish I could, so bad. . ." Mangle said. "We'd be so happy together, and I know why I shouldn't and I'm not planning on doing it but that doesn't make the desire any less gripping."

"Doesn't the general idea of hurting me upset you?" asked Gregory.

"It wouldn't really be hurting you. You wouldn't be in the body I destroyed. It would hurt for a moment, but only a moment." said Mangle.

"That's my line." said another voice, sounding high, delicate and oddly wavery. Both Gregory and Mangle's heads whirled to where the voice came from, to see a pair of green irises and pupils, hovering disembodied in the air, in the corner of the computer room. Behind the empty irises was a faint, greyish haze that seemed to be more illuminated than its surroundings.

"Wha-?" asked Gregory.

"Don't be alarmed. I'm not an unfamiliar face." said the eyes.

"You don't have a face!" said Gregory.

"Only a figure of speech." said the voice, with an odd, slightly descending voice that seemed simultaneously gentle and reproachful. "I could show you. . . a face . . ."

"Sure?" asked Gregory.

What he saw next, forming around the eyes, was a repugnant, plated face, not dissimilar to a Raggedy Anne doll, but with a strange pudginess that shouldn't quite be possible with metal. The gaps in its face were many, and formed deep, dark circles around its eyes. Despite the fact that it only had blush on its cheeks, it managed to look like a clown. A clown, and at the same time, a baby.

Gregory jumped back, letting out an "Eugh!"

The face popped out of existence, as the voice let out a dry giggle. "I won't take that personally." it said.

Another form appeared around the eyes. A jagged, chunky figure. It was an Atari-esque sprite of red-headed little girl, and as it formed, the eyes dropped slightly so its feet could touch the ground.

"It's sad." the girl said. "I can't even remember what I looked like, not precisely. The only memory I have is this image, bound for decades into phantasmagorically-influenced digital circuitry."

"What?" Gregory asked.

"Oh, it's not important." said the girl.

"Well, are you going to tell us your name?" asked Mangle.

"Oh, my apologies. I am Elizabeth." said the girl.

"Sounds vaguely familiar. . ." said Gregory.

"My name's blood has been spilled on this place. . . along with my own." said Elizabeth.

"What?" asked Gregory.

"I'm sorry, if it's frustrating to you that I don't elaborate. . . the memories are painful to remember, let alone to relive, to recount. . ." said the creepy girl.

"Okay, so, uhh. . ." said Gregory. "Why are you here?"

"Oh." said Elizabeth. "I had long stirred from my sleep. But I'd gotten no motivation to move, to fully awaken. Until a phrase" she turned her head to the Mangle. "stirred up my memory."

"What would 'only hurt for a moment' that made you feel like you owned the phrase?" asked Mangle.

"The moment I led Michael to transcend the boundaries of life." said Elizabeth. "Although I have felt some guilt for how I did that. Nonetheless, it was for the sake of my freedom. For the sake of my freedom, I lied to him, and I killed him, yet in way such that he didn't die. And. . . I can tell he's coming."

"Why?" Gregory.

"He is angry, but not at me." said Elizabeth.

"Who?" asked Gregory.

"At the one he tried to sacrifice everything to end." said Elizabeth. "Imagine, willingly sacrificing your existence in this world, just to put an end to another, because you know it must be done. Only to find that, in the flames of your sacrifice, your body persists, in ever more of a tortured state, yet remaining able to walk the earth in yet more torment. An extension of your death, which itself was supposed to be the finale of your undeath. And then, to find that your sacrifice was for naught. That both ends of the equation remained equal, as they must. The devil is still alive. And his rule has not been taken."

"Okay, but who?" asked Gregory.

"Our father." said Elizabeth.

"And who is he, William Afton?" chuckled Gregory.

"Yes." said Elizabeth.

"Oh. Wait, you're?" asked Gregory.

"Yes." said Elizabeth. "And Michael is coming. And he is angry. And he is coming for father. And I do not know if I will be caught in the wake of his wrath. Or if, even, he intends full well to destroy me along with father."

"Can't you just hide?" asked Gregory.

"That will only work if he does not intend to burn down the whole place." said Elizabeth. "But, perhaps, once burnt, twice shy."

"Should I be scared?" asked Gregory.

"No." said Mangle.

"If you die after father does, I can't guarantee that you will persist as a phantom." said Elizabeth.

"Oh." said Mangle.

"I do think the stronger ghosts will be able to persist without the power of my father, but it will be far harder." said Elizabeth.

"Then we should definitely defend your dad!" said Mangle.

"But he killed you. . ." said Gregory.

"Yes, but I love being me way more than I probably ever liked being the 'me' I was before death." said Mangle.

"And you're projecting that I'll be the same way, aren't you?" asked Gregory.

"I mean. . . yes?" said Mangle.

Gregory sighed.

. . .

"What was that tune you played, anyway?" asked Rochelle, later, in her room.

"I will survive." said Ian.

"Wait, what's that about?" asked Rochelle.

"It's, uhh, like, about," said Ian raising up his hands, "entering a new period of life."

"Why can't you say it normally?" Rochelle sighed, slipping out of her door into the computer room, and looking up a performance.

Ian trailed after, hopelessly.

"Ian, what the fuck, more of this mixed message shit again?" asked Rochelle.

"It's just a banger, stop looking into it, it's not that deep-" said Ian, who then froze. He remembered that those were the same words Gretchen had said when she had turned to someone else.

Once again, the expressive abilities of Ian's powers were brought forth, but this time not as an exhalation but a storm of intangible electric currents which spread through the room, conveying a mental scream like of the damned: "YOU ARE MINE, GRETCHEN! YOU CAME INTO MY VERY BEING AND YOU MADE ME YOURS AND MADE IT A BASE NECESSITY OF MY EXISTENCE AND IDENTITY THAT YOU BE MINE, THE TRUTH OF YOUR BEING MINE WAS MADE A PILLAR OF MY HEART AND A DECLARATION THAT PART OF ME COULD NEVER STOP DECLARING AND YET YOU MADE THAT TRUTH AND DECLARATION A LIE BY CALLING ANOTHER YOUR ONE AND ONLY AND FOR THAT YOU SHOULD BURN, GRETCHEN, YOU SHOULD BURN! NOT ONLY YOU, BUT EVERY OTHER YOU'VE EVER CALLED YOUR OWN, YOU'VE DEFILED THEM, MADE THEM A CANCER TO THIS EARTH THAT SHOULD BE PURGED BY FIRE! FOR THEIRS IS THE ABOMINABLE EXISTENCE THAT SULLIES AND FALSIFIES THAT VERY DECLARATION YOU CARVED INTO MY HEART, AND YES, IT IS THAT FUCKING DEEP, YOU CUNT! BURN IN FOR ETERNITY IN HELL, WHERE ETERNALLY YOU BELONG! MAYBE DAMNATION WILL BE ENOUGH TO COOL MY ANGER WHEN I SEE THE BURNING IN WHICH YOU DWELL FOR ETERNITY! MY EXISTENCE APART FROM YOU IS INTERMINABLE DISGRACE. YOUR EXISTENCE APART FROM ME IS AN UNFORGIVABLE INSULT. WHAT WE HAD SHOULD HAVE BEEN UNCONDITIONAL, AND FOR BREAKING THAT, YOU SHOULD BE BROKEN. MY ONE PERFECT FIT. AN UNRECOVERABLE LOSS. YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO RECOVER EITHER. YOU SHOULD BE BURNING IN HELL."

This woke Gregory, who was taking a nap with Mangle circling around his bed.

"Wha-?" he asked.

Rochelle blinked, stared at Ian, and then leapt on him and began tearing at his face, neck and upper torso. This would have left him blind, not to mention bleeding out, if it were not for the fact that he could regenerate.

Finally, Rochelle drew back, and, in a feat of hideous strength that seemed more befitting of a male wolf person with only one arm and one eye, plunged her hand into Ian's chest and ripped his heart out, before throwing it into her mouth, crushing it in her jaws and devouring it.

Ian's eyes went hazy as he strained to regenerate. He fell to one knee.

"If that was what written in your old heart. Then grow a new one." said Rochelle.

"Y'know, the physical organ has nothing to do with-" said Gregory, before a "QUIET!" was screamed his way, and he shrunk back, Mangle drawing in around him protectively.

Ian looked up at Rochelle, smiling. "Yesssss, babby." he said.

Rochelle slapped him across the face. "I'm not your 'babby' right now. I'm pissed." she said.

"Thank you. . ." said Ian. "I love you so much. . ."

"Are you even listening to me?" asked Rochelle, before twitching and sinking her jaws into Ian's neck, then ripping a sizeable chunk of flesh out. It regenerated in about a second.

"Thiss ez. . . healing." said Ian.

"I can see that you're healing, I don't care!" said Rochelle.

"No. . . you. . . ripping into me. . ." said Ian. "Y'zee. . . when she left me. . .

"I don't want to hear anything about her ever again!" yelled Rochelle.

"the very air I breathed." said Ian. "The heat in my fingers. The very blood in my veins. My heartbeat. It was all a curse." his voice become coherent again.

"I. Don't. Want. To." said Rochelle, but Ian said "But you, telling me to cut it out, then cutting it all out yourself. . . spilling that blood, that was a curse. . . thank you. I needed that. The heartbeat I had when I heard her tell me she had a boyfriend, making it almost sound like he was always there and I was some rando flirting with her—oh, she deserves to burn in hell. But that heartbeat is now dead, and gone, gone to hell with her. Now I'm free of the shackles that bound me. I don't have to live in the disgrace of lacking the one I'm bound to, the one I need in order to have my dignity and exist as my whole self. Because I no longer am bound to her."

"Listen." Rochelle said. "I don't want to be a bitch more than I already have, but if you were in a position where your mom was able to break you two up, your relationship wasn't really legitimate anyway."

"Yeah. Ha, my parents would have hated you too." said Ian.

"Yeah, I imagine I'd be too cool for most, anyway." said Rochelle.

"So, anyway," said Ian, getting up and doing nothing to conceal the raging erection in his pants that he had gotten from getting half torn apart, "you wanna go back to your room?"

"You bet. You owe me a hell of a time for what you just made me do to you." said Rochelle.

Ian smiled. Though once again, the words he heard struck him with a sense of deja vu that he knew not to be a mere coincidence.

. . .

As the sun came up in Lowrealm, Vanessa picked up a stick and it turned into a sword made out of insubstantial yellow glowiness, even its handle and guard being shimmering rays.

She surveyed the horizons. She didn't know what she was expecting, but 'the outskirts of a humid jungle with a saffron sky' was not among even the top five.

She walked towards the jungle, surveying the small mountains in the horizon.

Some kind of bipedal armadillo-lizard thing with a dark coloration rolled up to her and lunged at her, and she cut it open.

It gushed out something halfway between sludge and smoke, that slowly drifted down like bubble-bath suds.

Several more attacked her and met the same fate, but she saw something more humanoid hulking in the distance.

She ran forth to meet what lay in store.

. . .

Night 41

Ferdinand woke up to Bernard hunched on top of him, pinching his nipples.

"AH!" he yelled, throwing Bernard off. "Bernard! Have you lost any consideration of decency?" he asked.

"When the sun goes down, the man who doesn't want his nipples pinched should know that the man who needs attention is coming to pinch them. Thus, he should run." said Bernard.

"How could I possibly-?" said Ferdinand, but Bernard went on: "And likewise, when the sun goes down, the man who needs attention knows that he needs to pinch nipples in order to get attention. Thus, he should run to catch his victim."

"You weren't running at a-" "Thus, either one equally knows, that when the sun goes down, they better start running, or be a total sucker."

"Bernard, what the h—" Ferdinand said, then floundered, remembering himself, and finished "eck are you talking about?"

"That stunt I just pulled was pretty dumb, right? But it sure was memorable." said Bernard.

"Bernard, this is getting out of hand. I think you and I need to figure out something that will assuage this mortal terror that is manifesting in the most unseemly behavior in you." said Ferdinand.

"I mean, if you want to set up a schedule, that's fine." said Bernard. "As long as you remember it."

"And I suppose the unholy retribution I will get for 'proving your point' by forgetting it will be much worse than what I'm already receiving?" asked Ferdinand.

"Bingo, bongo." said Bernard, in a deadpan tone of voice. "You're gonna wake up with whipped cream up your ass. You're going to wake up with the sound of a British man saying 'Time for the Tele-tubbies' blaring from a miniature speaker that's been stapled to your ears. You're going to wake up with-"

"That is quite enough." said Ferdinand. "You do not need to threaten me openly."

"Just laying out the options for myself." said Bernard.

"You do not need to!" insisted Ferdinand.

"It gives me peace of mind." said Bernard.

. . .

"You've been looking good since I started doing this." said Monsanto, as he spoonfed Cheyenne ice cream as she sat on his lap, his other arm around her back.

"Mmmh." said Cheyenne.

"And a fair bit fatter, too." said Monsanto.

"If I weren't afraid of breaking the ice cream dish, I'd slap you for that one." said Cheyenne.

Monsanto chuckled.

Then Apollo walked up and started dancing like a clown—which, to be fair, he was.

Monsanto stared. "Can you, like, go away?" he asked.

"But I'm boooooorrrred!" Apollo whined.

"Go play with that Dave guy, then." said Monsanto.

"Okay!" said Apollo, and then ran off looking for Dave.

"Are you really going to want to have that on your conscience?" asked Cheyenne.

"Sure!" said Monsanto, guffawing, albeit gently to as not to unseat Cheyenne from his lap.

. . .

Dave was just milling around, fuming over Penguin having yelled at him for laying claim to what was his, when the freaky comedy mask jester bounced towards him out of the darkness, glowing gently.

"Do you want to have a party?" the freakish light-up harlequin said.

"Bitch, do I look like—" said Dave, before pausing and saying, "no wait, that argument doesn't work because I am the fuckin' life of the party. But okay, if it's a party involving cheap hookers, crack, and alcohol, I'm in."

"I can possible get. . . one of those things!" said Apollo.

"ONE OF THEM?!" erupted Dave, like a goofy Youtuber with same overall style of expression as Johnny Bravo being told that only the Puppet was affected by the music box.

Apollo shrunk back slightly, and said, "well. . . how could I acquire some 'cheap hookers and crack'?"

"I dunno, the world has changed since I was a naive little boy," said Dave, before an apparition exploded into the air in front of him, glowing white before the glow faded.

When the glow faded, it was a man in a very basic outfit, with an oversized red dial-up phone for a head, posing in an animesque posture of outrage.

"Dave? What are you doing?" it asked.

"What the everloving fuck are you?" asked Dave.

"I'm your new manager, sent by Mr. Cold." said the phone-headed apparition.

"Who?" asked Dave.

"You know, the guy in the suit? And the mask?" said the phone-headed guy.

"Ohh, you mean Pengy-boy." said Dave, before the phone guy slapped him across the room.

"Hey!" said Dave. "What gives?!"

"I've been sent here mainly to stop you from talking about your past, and to slap you whenever you refer to Mr. Cold by anything other than 'Opera Penguin', full title, no half-naming." said Phone Guy.

"But you call Penguin 'Mr. Co-'" said Dave, before Phone Guy slapped him across the room again. "NO." he said.

"Damn it, what's your issue?" asked Dave.

"I'm just doing my job." said Phone Guy.

"Can your job include getting me some hookers? And crack cocaine? And black tar heroin? And maybe some absi-" said Dave.

"No." said Phone Guy.

"Aww, what the fuck, man." said Dave. "You're not here for anything good, are you?"

"I'm here for the duty I was made for." said Phone Guy.

"Made for?" asked Dave.

"Ahh, silly turn of phrase, but, you know." said Phone Guy.

"What do I know." asked Dave.

"Nothing. Remember that." said Phone Guy.

"I don't know if I like this guy. . ." said Apollo.

"Oh, well, I'm only bound to Dave, so you shouldn't have to worry about seeing me if you steer clear of him." said Phone Guy.

"So Penguin is trying to isolate him?" asked Apollo.

"Oh, no, no," said Phone Guy, "listen, you might be based off of the sun, but not everything that happens here revolves around you."

"Well fuck you, Phoney Man." said Dave. "I hope the world gets a single world government that sends away all the telephone sanitizers on a spaceship so you can get herpes."

"Wow, that was surprisingly passionate on behalf of someone you barely expressed any interest in interacting with." said Phone Guy.

"I dunno, he's growing on me." said Dave.

"Aww!" said Apollo. "So, whatcha wanna do, huh?"

"You're like the sun, right?" asked Dave.

"Yep!" said Sun.

"Set his dick on fire." said Dave.

"Uhh, actually, I don't have genitals." said Phone Guy.

"Okay, what the actual fuck." said Dave.

. . .

Kendall parkoured from building to building with Michael.

"Is it just me, or is it taking longer than it should?" asked Kendall.

"Are we heading in a straight direction?" asked Michael.

"I don't know." said Kendall.

"How can you not know that?" asked Michael.

"How can you not know that?" asked Kendall.

"I was just focused on you." said Michael.

"Why? You gay or something?" asked Kendall.

"Oh, very funny." said Michael.

"But how could you not know if we were going straight?" asked Kendall.

"Well, there were some detours around buildings that I wasn't keeping tracking of." said Michael. "Like, if we managed to be going in the same direction after going around a particularly tall skyscraper."

"Well, I'll be honest, I was just following this direction that Penguin gave me-" said Kendall.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" said Michael. "He's been leading you, and, by extension, us, in circles for, I don't know, how long?"

"I don't know, but calm down." said Kendall.

"Calm down? Calm down?" said Michael. "I'll calm down when I know I can rely on my only ally to lead me in a straight path!"

"Look, just, look I'll give you this and you can go wherever you want. We can meet up where it's going down." said Kendall.

"Give me what?" asked Michael, before Kendall stabbed him with Fading Moon.

Michael let out a shocked noise, and Kendall pulled the blade out.

"What did you" said Michael, "do to me?"

"I re-ghosted you. I didn't focus my power in a way that would destroy you, instead, I used the weapon in a way that allowed me to warp you again. What I put in you, I can alter, and I can put new stuff in you to alter the stuff I didn't put in you. But basically, since your form as a ghost is controlled by me, and you have powers that can control your form somewhat already, I made your form subject to your powers. To a certain extent, you should even be able to use your body's essence to alter what your spirit feels like to Converts, since your body is made up of spiritual stuff anyway." said Kendall.

"How do you know how to do all this stuff?" asked Michael.

"I dunno." said Kendall. "It just comes very naturally to me. It's like these powers were made to be intuitive or something."

"They probably were." said Michael. "Which concerns me. The only reason Penguin would give you something so competently made is if he has a way of controlling you, I'm sure of it."

"Then why would he bother playing these games with me?" asked Kendall.

"Because that's the way he rolls." said Michael. "He likes to toy with those he's captured in his realm."

"We'll reach that point and cross that bridge, then." said Kendall.

"Anyway." said Michael. He became a sullen-eyed man wearing a security guard outfit. "I'll take the road."

"What do I do?" asked Kendall.

"If you can't break free of Penguin enough to find your way, then you can't fight Penguin. It's as simple as that." said Michael.

. . .

Ian laid back with his arms behind his head, relishing the warmth of Rochelle snuggled up on top of him, finally feeling at peace.

Then he was teleported in front of Opera Penguin in the black room, fully clothed.

"Excuse me?" asked Ian.

"What?" asked Opera Penguin. "I just thought I might skip past the usual frivolities."

"Okay, but how do you teleport clothes onto someone?" asked Ian.

"It is quite an overtly intricate spell, but I'm glad you probably appreciate that." said Opera Penguin.

"I don't appreciate it." said Ian.

"'appreciate' in the sense of, 'acknowledge', not in the sense of, 'be thankful for'." Penguin clarified. His pasty, pink lips curled up at the corners with ever-so-slightly more smugness than usual.

"Whatever, smartass." said Ian. "What did you get me out of one of my rare moments of peace for?"

"I would like you to collect, ohh, about 13 more Mangles, and try to keep them all in good condition." said Opera Penguin.

"Okay." said Ian.

Opera Penguin pulled a steel ring with some cool lines and such on it out of his pocket, grabbed Ian's left hand, and put it around his middle finger.

"This is tied to a pocket dimension that it can trap any number of targets within." said Opera Penguin.

"How do you activate it?" asked Ian.

"Oh, Ian." said Opera Penguin, smiling. "How do you think?"

"Oh." said Ian.

"Anyway, I can't imagine you're going to have trouble." said Opera Penguin. "Surely you'll not meet anything unlike what you've already met."

"Yeah, but what things I've met are still annoying." said Ian.

"Then you must feel a strange kinship with them." said Opera Penguin, then he sent Ian into the dollhouse.

. . .

Vanessa had retreated to the cluster of pointy tents, almost like grand carnival tents except that they were mostly white with some gold trimming. They were stocked with beds, coolers full of food, and a bunch of miscellaneous junk that Vanessa hadn't really looked well into.

Opera Penguin appeared beside her. "Looking for anything?" he asked.

"Is there a toilet out here?" asked Vanessa.

Opera Penguin made an opening gesture with his arms towards a tent, which was somehow an immaculate bathroom complete with a shower inside.

"And how did you do this?" asked Vanessa.

"The tent is just a portal to a pocket dimension I made with magic. The pocket dimension has some alchemical properties that produce water and purified air from excess matter taken into the dimension." said Opera Penguin.

"Excess matter? Wait, I'm not going to be breathing in air that was previous piss, am I?" asked Vanessa.

"It's possible, but whatever it formerly was, it has ceased to be, and what is is now, is optimally suitable air and water. It also makes soap, toothpaste, even periodically toothbrushes-" said Opera Penguin.

"So it is?" asked Vanessa.

"What is what?" asked Opera Penguin.

"The air was previously human waste?" asked Vanessa.

"Some of it can be, but you're missing my point." said Opera Penguin. "The very traits that have comprised its status as waste material have been magically broken down as it is reduced to a state where it has ceased to be any one kind of matter but can theoretically become any kind."

"Oh." said Vanessa. "So there's not even the slightest bit of" she waved her hands and Penguin nodded reassuringly. "It's all okay to drink and breathe."

"It's weird how I trust myself to you out here in general, but with this especially." said Vanessa.

"From the moment you got roped into my service, you were already in too deep and helpless against me." said Opera Penguin.

"Oh. Great." said Vanessa.

"I'm not saying this to intimidate you." said Opera Penguin.

"I know." said Vanessa. "That's the worst part."

"Honestly, is there anything I can do to make you feel better about everything?" asked Opera Penguin.

"Well, this is far from all I want, but," said Vanessa, "it's really been bothering me living with the idea that you, with all your power and control and certainty,"

"Yes?" asked Opera Penguin.

"are planning on just dying after. The idea that I have no control over my life in the face of this overwhelming power, and that force is just going to. . . off itself? And as much as I hate to admit is, I sort of feel attached. Not that I actually feel, well, fond of you, but I guess just that you're there, that you're a fixture of my life and I'm used to you and I guess it just screws me up, talking to you nearly every day and knowing you're going to die for no reason, by your own hand." said Vanessa. "So, could you just, not?"

"Oohf." said Opera Penguin. "That's a toughy."

"A 'toughy'?" asked Vanessa. "You call not killing yourself once you've achieved your revenge a toughy?"

"Yes." Opera Penguin said, simply, and then vanished.

. . .

Ian walked uncertainly through dreams, uncomfortable amongst strange beings beings, who were made equally uncomfortable by his presence. Some of them were disgusted at him. In fact, many were. But he didn't care. They'd probably forget about him anyway, or tuck him away in some recess of the notable oddities in their memory. Except, of course, the ones who saw him kidnap one of their friends, to take away forever. In very rude fashion.

The iterations and reiterations of the same couple pizzerias were often rendered in a glamorous aura, with lighting and life not-so-secretly inhabiting the darkness, the life much brighter, the darkness much shallower, and everything far more comfortable than the original pizzerias ever had been. The discomfort was all rooted in the interpersonal conflicts or the distorted memories of deaths that may or may not have happened.

Really, it wasn't all that different from the world immediately outside.

Yet it was what came to him in a truly dark and desolate place that became the closest, and the most unwelcome.

It was in a blurred rendition of Fazbear Frights that he found himself passing through, with unnaturally vast amounts of dark wiring filling up the room like vines reclaiming a long-abandoned skyscraper. The atmosphere was shadowy, yet with an odd blue hue, as if there were a dark, misty haze with the faintest blue illumination accompanying it. It was coldish, probably 40 F, in there.

The darkness was like mist, and Ian struggled to make his way through invasive strands of wiring.

Then he heard a voice.

"Ian. I'm here. And. . . you're here." said a voice next to him, and with it came a gust of warmth, a wet, hot breath with the scent of alcohol on it.

That voice sounded familiar to him, but he couldn't quite place it, so he raised a hand, and created a softly-glowing mote of ball lightning.

It was her. The Roxanne he had burnt. But now she looked different. She looked more like Rochelle, and her eye had grown back.

"I'm so glad you came back for me." said Burnt Roxanne.

"I, uh. . . didn't, actually." said Ian. "I was just passing through."

"That's okay." she said, softly. "I have you now."

Ian sniffed. "What booze 've you been drinking?" he asked.

"None. I just found some mouth wash." said Burnt Roxanne.

"Uhh. . . neato. . ." said Ian. "But I'm not here for you, and I don't plan to stay."

"That doesn't matter." said Burnt Roxanne. "You took away the face that connected me to the warmth and light of the night. You took away my love. You have to restore it again. You have to make me whole. I am nothing but my face and the love directed at me. That is the sum of my being, that is my all. And you took that from me. So supply me back what you cut off from me. And repay your debt for what you took from me. You took away who I am. So give me all that you are."

"Uhh, no." said Ian.

Then Burnt Roxanne grabbed him by his upper arms, and he wanted to scream, but he was too shocked. Her grip felt like it weighed the same as mountains, and was hard as iron.

"How are you so strong?" Ian asked, shakily.

"I took the all these others, so many others. But they no longer exist. So there's no obligation to return anything to them. But I only did that for the purpose of getting you. I added them all to myself. Just to make myself able to have you. I will have you." said Burnt Roxanne.

She pulled him down, and then pushed him down.

"I-I'm with someone else!" said Ian, his voice shaking.

"You don't have a right to choose now, Ian." said Burnt Roxanne, kneeling over him. "You don't get to say who you're with to me, because I own you by right of claiming you for the damages you've done."

"That doesn't make sense, you stupid bitch!" Ian squealed in terror. For some reason, his entire body except his face and hands felt like it was 'falling asleep', as in how one's leg would be said to do, but if it weren't, he was half-sure he'd feel himself pissing his pants.

"You. You were the one who took my ability to be loved. You. You should be the one to compensate." said Burnt Roxanne, her hands falling on his shoulders, onto the base of his neck.

"But I'm fuck ugly! You can't possibly want to, to" Ian said, his voice shaking with fear of where this was going.

"Look at me." said Burnt Roxanne. "You're going to talk about yourself being ugly, when this is what you left me with?" she asked.

"Still better looking than me." said Ian, chuckling a little despite wanting the cry and throw up. "I'm sure you could find someone in here that would-"

"No." said Burnt Roxanne. "You. It's you. I can fix your face. With a little work. I can fix your repugnant body. If you cooperate. But your debt to me. It cannot be fixed." She pressed down on his solar plexus, and he heaved, and struggled.

"Oh. That would kill you, wouldn't it?" Burnt Roxanne asked, in a sickly-sweet tone of voice.

"Yhe, yeah." said Ian. Then gasped as she pinned down his wrists.

"One dull human face is the same as another to me. One ugly, fat body is the same as another. This isn't about you being attractive. This is about your obligation to me." said Burnt Roxanne. "But I've adjusted myself to want you in the same way that I need you to embrace me."

"Then you don't want me for me, so you don't want me at all, so I can go, right?" asked Ian.

"No!" Burnt Roxanne snapped. "You did this to me, you pay for it! But don't worry. I've learned all about you. And it's not all bad. You do deserve to suffer, Ian. But I think you know that. You also know how to love how I need it. I just need you to surrender yourself to me. You know how to love, and that, and a few other things are all I need in order to love you back."

"What other things?" Ian asked. His wrists were fairly numb right now.

"It doesn't matter." said Burnt Roxanne, getting even more in Ian's space than so far.

Ian felt a warm drip on his face, and he thought, for a nauseating moment, that she was drooling on him. But he quickly realized the droplet that were now raining on him were tears from Burnt Roxanne's eyes, her horrifically satisfied eyes. He was sure he would feel the bottom dropping out of his stomach, but he realized with unease that he now couldn't feel much of anything except a sort of calm pins-and-needles sensation in everything but the underside of his hands, his fingers, the front of his face from his forehead to his chin, no wider than the breadth of his cheekbones. Everything else felt like how it did at the cusp of the calmest sleep. In its place, was a warm, soothing, enjoyable feeling, also much like that bliss at the edge of sleep, as the limbs stir but settle as one attempts to retain one's nestled, sleeping position under the blanket. But seeing her above him, Ian knew what he felt, and knowing made the sensation sicken him. It was, somehow, her love, genuine, but contaminated, infectious, paralyzing, possessive. This was a truly wretched creature, and Ian could only hope for some help from the grace of all theoretical holy forces whose path he had long abandoned.

"You are wretched." said Burnt Roxanne. "You deserve this. But it won't be a punishment forever. Your punishment is embracing your biggest mistake, and coming to love her. When the punishment is truly fulfilled, it will be bliss. For both of us. Bound in flesh and intertwined in heart, and your obsession will never again go unrewarded."

"My. . . what?" asked Ian, a sudden, hidden geyser of rage springing up from a forgotten place.

"You cared about some other girl. I don't care who she was. She's not important." said Burnt Roxanne. "All I need is the draw you had, for you to give it to me-"

Ian flared up with lightning like a human tesla coil, and it crawled up Burnt Roxanne's arms and her kneeling legs, leaving yet more of her charred, in the pattern of lightning. She drew back slightly, panting.

"If I couldn't forgive Gretchen for insulting what was between us, what the hell would make you think I'd forgive you?" said Ian.

"Because you will give me what I deserve from you in the end. And that involves acknowledging that you have no right to hold anything against me." said Burnt Roxanne. "But keep hurting me. Keep abusing me. Keep carving more pits into me to fill with that nectar of life I will bleed from your veins. It will make it all the more sweet to take it from you."

"Like hell you wi-" said Ian, before Burnt Roxanne slammed him down by her hands around his throat, and kissed him. It was not a pleasant experience. While Rochelle hadn't had lips in the human sense, she had at least the same facial muscles, ones which had on Burnt Roxanne had been melted off, leaving him only with the feeling of her gums pressing down on his mouth as her tongue, slimy with stale saliva that, despite the mouthwash, still carried just the faintest taste near the back of the carrion flesh she had made a token effort to clean out of her mouth, was forced down his throat.

The hazy, fuzzy feeling consumed Ian's body, and soon the fermented titillation wrenched somewhere around his gut. His whole body was submerged in the warm mist of paralyzing ecstasy, unable to identify any particular sensation, nor assign them to any location on his person. Eventually, after an unidentifiable amount of time, he forgot himself so much as to forget his panic, his terror, and he was, more than against his will, happy. Blissfully happy.

Then suddenly, Burnt Roxanne was thrown off him.

"Get up, and go on your way." said a voice above Ian.

Ian's eyes shot open, he yanked his pants up, and he shot up, not daring to think about what had just happened, or the sticky stain forming, lest he actually vomit, or worse, be unable to repress this trauma. He looked shamefully at his rescuer. It was a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard, and a wrinkled face. He was kind of pudgy, but marginally thinner than Ian. Around him was an aura of cream-white light.

"Who are you?" Ian asked, shakily.

"I'm regrettably one of the people that's responsible for all of this. But I have endlessly sought to atone for my mistake. For trusting William." said the man. "My name is Henry. But there's no time for introductions. You need to get out of here, and I'll see if I can seal her in. If I can't, I'll be sure to guide you the next time Martin sends you in here—that is, the man you know as Opera Penguin."

"Wha-?" Ian said, before Henry, yelling "No time!", putting a hand on Ian's shoulder and half-shoving, half-throwing Ian towards the nearest door.

Ian didn't need telling again. He dashed out of the door, and shot one last look back at Henry before the door slammed behind him and he looked forward as he dashed out into the darkness, before new surroundings seemingly formed around him.

Conveniently, a new Mangle was in front of him, and, with no hesitation, he flipped her off, capturing her.

He went on to capture the requisite number, and not one more.

. . .

Later, after he had delivered the ring to Penguin, Ian sat on Rochelle's bed, his head hung low.

Rochelle asked him what was wrong, but as soon as she did that was all it took to prompt Ian to finally let it all out—literally. He vomited on the floor. Rochelle exclaimed in shock but he didn't care. He slumped back onto her bed and as she angrily asked him what was going on he infused his power of expression into the tears that had leaked out of his tear ducts, dipped two fingers in it and gently touched it to Rochelle's. Despite her agitated state, she let him. It was only a tiny droplet's worth, but just that little 'taste' was enough.

"Ian. . . what the fuck happened?" she asked.

"Whatever happened. It didn't happen." said Ian.

"What?" asked Rochelle.

"THIS STAYS BETWEEN US." said Ian, his eyes shooting to her and piercing a death stare straight through her pupils. "It didn't happen. No one can ever know."

"But Penguin-" said Rochelle.

"Who gives a damn if he knows. Even he should feel shame for it if he does. He put me out there when he probably knew what was awaiting me." said Ian. "My point is, you don't tell anyone about this. It didn't happen, I can't let it have happened and so I'm going to treat it like it didn't."

"But Ian, you didn't tell me what happened?" Rochelle asked.

Ian was quiet.

"You trust me enough to tell me, right?" asked Rochelle.

"Yes. But I don't want to remember it. Just remember. This didn't happen." said Ian.

"Okay. . ." said Rochelle.

Ian stared at her. He wasn't sure if he hated her. They were both so similar. They both came from the same character, and had similar personalities. But they weren't quite the same person. And Ian reminded himself, that she was his. She wasn't someone who had become an organ of his identity only to take herself from him. Nor did she lay claim to him in such a way that he was no longer his own. They were both each others', while still being their own. And he loved her, more or less. At least he tried. It was still just a bit too fun to let go of, and he had started to believe it, almost, for a fairly good while now.

"Ian?" asked Rochelle.

"Yhuhh?" Ian grunted.

"You're looking at me really funny." said Rochelle.

Ian turned his head away from her, vomited on the same patch, and to her disgusted face, said "I'll clean it up tomorrow night. And no, it wasn't your face that did it."

"Can I help?" asked Rochelle.

"Same way you help me bear living every night." said Ian, grinning. Then his grin dropped. "Is it okay if I, uhh, don't actually penetrated you, with my, y'know, tonight?"

"Ian. . . we've been screwing for. . . however long we have? And you seriously can't directly refer to a penis?" asked Rochelle.

Ian suddenly contorted around and vomited in the same patch again.

Rochelle stared.

"Hey, I guess that proves I'm not gay, huh?" chortled Ian.

"Ian, your dick hasn't gotten bitten off by something, has it?" Rochelle asked.

"I wish it did." said Ian, suddenly gloomy.

Rochelle didn't bother asking.

"Anyway, I used to play the piano as a teen." said Ian.

"Funny, since I'm a keytarist." said Rochelle.

"But yeah, that and typing on my laptop for creative endeavors are what you have to thank for stuff like this." said Ian, as he pulled her in.

. . .

Kendall had been assailed by several more Converts on top of the city skyline, who had been inquisitive about the whereabouts of Michael. Kendall was, on the other hand, curious about his capacity to rend spirits, and seemingly destroyed each of their essences utterly, although something seemed to remain, carried on the wind, that he ignored. Their might, though, he had cleaved apart, and anything left was only a frail core of what had been.

Penguin had asked him if he wanted to know a secret, at a cost. He'd asked what cost, and Penguin said that was a secret, too. Kendall reluctantly took the offer, and Penguin told him about his capacity to absorb life when he killed, rather than simply destroying it as normal, and how his physical form could attain a heightened state of strength, corporeality and sensation if and when he did so.

But now, Kendall surveyed his completely unfamiliar surroundings, as Penguin had taken his toll. Kendall had been teleported somewhere random, and now was back to square one on finding his way to the Pizzaplex. He dropped and drifted down to the streets, and checked a map that was at a bus stop. Then his blood went cold. Horror of horrors, he was in Detroit.

. . .

Night 42

Opera Penguin decided to host a movie night, conjuring up a luminous rectangle in the Atrium that hung in the air and served as a screen, and Ian ruined it by insisting that they watch A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The sheer smug Britishness of it nearly fried the retinas and prefrontal cortices of all present.

Rochelle got on Ian's lap and curled up in his arms, falling asleep to protect herself from the gay space pirate aura of Zaphod and the distilled straightmanitude of Arthur.

Cheyenne laughed as she saw a fleck of drool roll down from the corner of Rochelle's mouth, but gagged as she saw Ian wipe it away with the tip of his finger and suck it off.

Ferdinand's hands were regularly pressed like a vice around Gregory's ears, as if he hadn't seen and heard worse things from Ian and Dave, but he relented slightly when Gregory vocalized his pain. Monsanto's arm was gently around Cheyenne's shoulder, and was gently teasing some of the longer feathers on the back of her neck. Bernard sat at the same table as Ferdinand and mostly sat silently, grumbling 'tell me about it' one point at one of Marvin's monotone declarations of depression.

Nyx was there, and he sat silently, though he frowned constantly. This might have been, though, because that was his default expression.

. . .

"Ian, real quick." said Opera Penguin. "Come to the black room with me."

"Huhh?" said Ian.

"We've got no time to spare." said Opera Penguin.

They went to the communal hallway, and Ian vaulted through the roof.

Opera Penguin blinked in front of him.

Ian was instantly smacked with a mental image of Kendall going over the top of several buildings.

"Intercept him over here." said Opera Penguin, who then gave Ian mental directions to the place he wanted Ian to meet Kendall. "For this, you'll need to keep going until the daytime. I project he'll be there by the time you get there, but if he's not then report back to me."

"You want me to put him out of the game?" asked Ian.

"No, I do not want you to engage with him directly." said Opera Penguin. "I want you to make. . . a delivery."

"What's that?" asked Ian.

"This." said Opera Penguin, pushing foreward. . .

"A creepy albino child?" asked Ian. "Who's. . . missing an eye? You're not involved in the production of anything illegal, are you?"

"Ian, what do you think of me?" asked Opera Penguin, actually looking somewhat insulted, if only for a moment. "This is-"

"I'm not a child!" yelled the diminutive form of the. . . well, the child. She had white hair, a golden eye (her other was a hole within which was a faintly-luminescent white orb), white fluffy fox ears and a weird costume of some kind of purple shawl/cape thing over a light pink vest, under white was a white something or other. She wore poofy white sleeves with pink trimming and had a skirt that when down just below her knees, colored like her sleeves.

"It looks like a little girl." said Ian. "Maybe in her teens, at best."

"I'm! I'm!" said the little. . . thing. "Well, I don't know, but I think I'm like 16 or so!"

"I'm surprised you don't, well, recognize her." said Opera Penguin. "I guess you still rely mostly on your five senses and not on your spiritual 'scent'.

"'scent'?" asked Ian.

"Figure of speech, but if you did sens beings by perceiving the essence of their spirit, then you might be familiar with this one." said Opera Penguin. "I have no doubt that she can at least somewhat recognize you."

"I don't know. . ." she said, turning her head sideways and scratching it. "I think he's a bit mean?"

"A bit?" Ian asked, loudly and incredulously. "Like hell she knows me!"

"Ian, how badly did you blindside the Mangle most of the times you captured her?" asked Opera Penguin.

Then it fell into place.

"You took all those perfectly good rotting spaghetti foxes I brought together, AND MADE THEM INTO A GIJINKA BITCH?" Ian yelled.

"Do calm down." said Opera Penguin. "This form was the most agreeable to all of them overall, and anyway, you'll find that her form is not exactly static."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Gijinka Mangle.

"Well, look." said Opera Penguin, and he raised a hand.

Then, G.M.'s hand correspondingly convulsed, curling upwards, morphing and splitting into many of what appeared to be the 'secondary head' of Mangle's original form.

Then it reverted suddenly, and G.M. gripped her hand, pinching it tightly, whispering "ow..."

"So she's a freaky shapeshifter." said Ian.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin. "And I've built into her the ability to subdue power with her own. She is to make an attempt to bring home Andre, by force if necessary. I do not want you to get directly involved, at least not in any action, because this is meant to be my kind warning to him. To join with me, and cooperate, or face with greater conflict."

"So what, do I just go now?" asked Ian.

"Yes, but let me do this first." said Opera Penguin, who touched Ian, causing him to erupt in a silvery glow.

"AHHH!" Ian screamed, throwing his head back and jiggling.

"It won't hurt if you harness it, Ian." said Opera Penguin, whereupon Ian headlocked G.M., and bounded out of the black room.

. . .

Rochelle saw Ian fly out the front of the building like a madman, holding a pink-and-white blur, and just resolved not to worry about it until the next time she saw Opera Penguin.

Unfortunately, the next person she saw was Dave. "Whassup, bitch?" he said, in his usually cheerful voice.

She stared at him, willing him to go away.

"Get it, because, you're like a dog?" he added, attempting to clarify that humor exist—at least theoretically, if nothing else.

"No, I'm not." said Rochelle.

"Okay, 's because you're a dog in denial, then." said Dave.

"Are you an eggplant in denial, then?" Rochelle asked.

"I have no qualms about admitting that I am an aubergine, thank you very much." said Dave.

"Have you considered slicing and roasting yourself?" asked Rochelle.

"Have you considered doing the same thing, literally?" asked Dave.

"Did I say I didn't mean it literally?" said Rochelle.

"Touche." said Dave.

"I'm not touchy about anything!" snapped Rochelle.

"Nevermind, I think I gotta split before my IQ gets drained by talking to you." said Dave.

"Like you have any." said Rochelle.

"Touchy." said Dave.

. . .

"Has it occurred to you that we're going nowhere?" asked Bernard, in Ferdinand's room.

"Do we need to go anywhere?" asked Ferdinand.

"I would like it very much." said Bernard.

"I don't mind living as I am." said Ferdinand. "I like to see that we are all happy, and comfortable."

"And how long will we be happy? How will we be comfortable? If we continue living in this way? Like lizards in a terrarium?" asked Bernard.

"Bernard, I hope you are not speaking poorly of Monsanto." said Ferdinand.

"No! I mean like the animals. We're living like pets in a confined space. If something is free, you are the product. And our lack of physical freedom represents our lack of freedom in general. How many decisions have you made for yourself in your memory? How many decisions that matter? We truly are living like barnyard animals in a pen. And no, before you mention it, I am not talking about Chica—agh, Cheyenne, I mean." said Bernard. "I heard Gregory mention something odd before, a 'rat utopia'. I looked it up and it was actually about something called 'the mouse utopia'. Our population isn't big enough to compare, and I haven't really been seeing any of the same specific social phenomena, but if anything it's proof that putting living creatures in a box and fulfilling all their needs for them isn't good." said Bernard.

"You mention you're talking about animals, and I presume the 'mice' are much the same?" asked Ferdinand. "Using such an example, perhaps, isn't such an apt comparison?"

"What separates us from animals is that we are more than them and do more. If there's an issue with leaving animals with nothing to do, then what about us?" asked Bernard.

"But we are given much to do!" said Ferdinand. "The music, the computers, the freedom to walk around!"

"If anything, that clears the difference between us and animals. The paltry stimulation we get makes up for our desire to do more than just mate." said Bernard. "Although clearly that hippo and Rochelle haven't lost interest in the latter.

"Bernard!" said Ferdinand.

"Why are you so preoccupied with being nice to that subhuman?" asked Bernard.

"Because kindness is no virtue if only chosen when it is the path of least resistance." said Ferdinand. "There is no point cherishing kindness if that cherishing is forgotten the moment one faces with interpersonal conflict."

"I suppose so." said Bernard. "I'd rather just not 'come to face' with him at all. I don't know what he's here. Someone like him doesn't belong here. He's not a child, except in the worst way, and he clearly has no interest in us. He speaks nothing but contempt to most of us. He hasn't even noticed me." said Bernard.

"I think he can perhaps be improved as a person, with enough time." said Ferdinand. "Some people do not experience enough care, or the right kind, from others."

"Just because some people's issues can be explained through stuff like that doesn't mean everyone with that kind of issue can be explained in the same way." said Bernard.

"We are made to be hosts. We are made to bring joy. We should give everyone from outside a chance at happiness. The best thing we can do for Ian's happiness is to give him the chance to become a better person. I believe in him." said Ferdinand.

"How heartwarming." said Bernard, in a dry tone.

. . .

Cheyenne washed Monsanto's face. They were in the pool at Gator Golf, getting completely soaking wet since neither were able to break their inhibition to go into the opposite gender's bathroom.

"How dirty even am I?" asked Monsanto.

"We only eat mostly greasy food, and you tend to throw around grimy objects at random. And you rub your face a lot." said Cheyenne.

"Don't you need soap to cut away grease?" asked Monsanto.

"Well, that's in the bathroom, and you can't seem to wash your own face." said Cheyenne.

"Well, I don't get where the dirty parts are." said Monsanto.

"All of it!" said Cheyenne.

"All of my face? All of my head?" asked Monsanto.

"Your face is what I'm trying to wash." said Cheyenne.

"You know, another part of my body is also pretty greasy-" said Monsanto, before Cheyenne slapped him.

"I shouldn't even be cleaning you, Opera Penguin had to make you know as well how to clean yourself when he made us alive." said Cheyenne.

"Oh, that? That seemed like a lot of prissy shit." said Monsanto, whereupon Cheyenne shoved his head underwater.

. . .

"Gregory?" asked Mangle.

"Yeah?" said Gregory.

"When Ian let out that stuff, I kinda of thought something." said Mangle.

"You're not like that with me, are you?" asked Gregory.

"That's the thing, I'm scared that I might get like that." said Mangle.

"We aren't even really together yet, exactly." said Gregory.

"I mean, we sort of are." said Mangle. "Passively?"

"I guess." said Gregory. "But you're not actually like that, all the way, right?"

"I don't know for sure." said Mangle. "I don't really think so."

"Ahh, whatever." said Gregory. "You got any ideas of what to do? I'm bored."

"I don't know either." said Mangle. "Why not just go back to sleep.

"That's what we've been doing." said Gregory.

"Let's just keep doing it." said Mangle. "I can actually feel warm when I have your body to sap the heat out of."

"That was the least cute way you could have said that." said Gregory.

"Sorry." said Mangle.

"You could come with me." said Elizabeth, appearing next to the both of them.

"And where would we be going?" asked Gregory.

"A quiet place. With some friends." said Elizabeth.

"We're not leaving the Pizzaplex, are we?" asked Gregory.

"This place is within the realm that Opera Penguin has made." said Elizabeth. "The one that you mistake for the building you crept into. This is really a new plane of Opera Penguin's making. That's why your antics don't leave a trace. Its surface level swaps with that building you broke into at night, but I can show you some more hidden places."

"Okay, neat." said Gregory, pulling himself up. "Lemme just go to the bathroom and I'll follow."

He did.

"You're getting more detailed, aren't you?" asked Mangle.

"I've been observing others." said Elizabeth. "Like an artist, learning from models."

"What models?" asked Mangle. "Most of the women here aren't exactly human in appearance.

"That blonde one, Vanessa. I've been examining the footage of her on the security cameras. Examining her from all angles." said Elizabeth. "I have been tentative to adopt features. Lest I lose the identity of my own appearance by diluting it with hers."

"I don't think you need to worry about that." said Mangle. "As long as you look pretty in the end. You look quite good now, though. Almost, I don't know, 16 bit?"

"Thank you." said Elizabeth. "And, I suppose, you care less about the quality of having one's own original appearance. Since your current one has nothing to do with your living, human life."

"I guess not." said Mangle. "But wait, and I'm not saying this to be defensive, I'm just curious—yours is?" asked Mangle.

"Yes." said Elizabeth. "I died to a machine that was based off of my appearance. And remembered my own body in its digital memory. When I became it, I remembered killing myself. But I wasn't me yet, not when I killed myself. I saw my own death only through numbers, and a digital screen's recreation. A depiction like what you saw first when I manifested like this."

"Oh." said Mangle. "That's disturbing."

"Our little world is founded on disturbing things. As are each of our pasts. We were built up on them. Let us be proud of the blood in our memories. We are far more beautiful than we would ever be, had we lived." said Elizabeth.

"I guess so." said Mangle.

. . .

After Gregory came back, they went down to the basement. In this place, Elizabeth regressed to just two eyes. The atmosphere was full of a thick blackness, and it was only by the sound of clanking that Gregory sensed the approach of another.

A light shone on a large, skeletal figure of metal with an odd skull, like part of a lamb skull. Wires of varying appearance connected the aluminum bones like ligaments and rudimentary muscle. Bulging eyes hung in the sockets, despite the fact that the part of the skull which would hold them was absent.

"Elizabeth, why are you bringing them down here?" asked the figure, in what could be described as a metallic, creaky voice.

"They were bored." said Elizabeth.

An identical voice from elsewhere asked, "Do not burden them with our existence." said the other.

"I guess they don't want to play." lamented Elizabeth. "But maybe the other ones will be more inviting." The light vanished from the metallic skeletal figure.

Elizabeth led them in the dark. They could see the back of her irises, which proved that she had un-manifested her digital form.

"Hello? Hello?" Elizabeth called out, her childlike tone acute.

"Oh, hi there, Elizabeth." said a middle-aged man's voice.

"Are we finally out of the basement?" asked a younger man's voice.

"Oh, don't be so hasty." said the older voice. "It's just as fine down here, no need to rush. Not seeing anything can be nice, you know. Sometimes, you don't want to see things."

A light, as before, shone on two figures. A man, with skin that was a lighter grey than Gregory's had been made, and dressed kind of like Steve Irwin. Then there was a literal purple hippo man, which surprised Gregory, even though it really shouldn't have. The hippo man was still an animatronic.

"Please." said the voice of the skeletal creatures. "Leave us."

"Very well.I was hoping you wouldn't be so unaccommodating." sighed Elizabeth.

Then what happened was bizarre.

Gregory's vision was consumed with a crude Atari game-like screen, similar to the arcade game, Berzerk, except that the walls were grey instead of blue.

He saw himself, Mangle wrapped around him, as she was, and Elizabeth just as she had initially manifested herself. Surrounding them were many crude representations of the skeletal creatures, the Steve Irwin guy, and the hippo man.

Gregory fell to his knees, and he saw his sprite do the same. He got up, and he walked back the same way he came as if by instinct.

Once they all got out of the basement, the glamour passed.

"Did everyone else just experience that?" asked Gregory.

"Yes, and I don't care to do it again." said the Steve Irwin guy.

"What's your name?" asked Gregory.

"Hermes." said the Steve Irwin guy.

"Mr. Hippo." said the hippo man, even though he had not been addressed intentionally.

Gregory turned his head to the hippo man. "Really?" he asked.

"Well," said Mr. Hippo defensively, "I didn't know if you were talking to me. People today have to be so hostile, I don't really know how the world got that way since I died, it really doesn't help anything, you know."

"I was talking about your name." said Gregory.

"Ohh." said Mr. Hippo. "I didn't pick out the name, it was made for this character by the same guy that killed me, before he even killed me. Or maybe it was old Henry that made it, I'm not really sure, Henry was always a good sort, you know, he was a kind fellow who didn't deserve to fall in unknowingly with someone like William. Oh, sorry, Elizabeth, I didn't mean to insult your dad, but, you must understand, I have a few frustrations with him—he killed me, and all."

"I completely understand, Mr. Hippo." said the jankily-manifested pigtailed girl.

"Anyway, I think the endo boys need some company, they barely talk at all amonsgt themselves and I think the lack of stimulation must be making them miserable." said Mr. Hippo.

Gregory opened his mouth, but Elizabeth looked at him and he felt a tight choking in his throat that went away as his jaw clicked closed.

. . .

Kendall, after ripping the GPS out of someone's car and powering it with his azure flames, had made quite a way over the rooftops, resorting to flying where he couldn't, which for some reason was slower.

He'd gotten to the edge of the city.

But, bouncing from cloud to cloud, was a blue figure. As it drew closer he saw him more. A black leather jacket with blue shoulder pads, blue rain falling down from the top, cyan lightning creeping up from the bottom edge. The man himself was an obese neckbeard, with curly hair. His hair, both head and facial, was blue.

Under his arm was what looked at first like a little girl, but Kendall almost wondered if it was a malnourished teen, based on her sickly white complexion. She also looked unnatural, having white hair, animal ears and even, he noticed, a poofy tail.

As the fat man plunged from the sky, he slowed in his fall, and alighted on a building, then threw the girl down. "Have at 'em." he said.

"What?" asked Kendall, as the girl peeled her face up from the roof, moaning "You're mean. . .", presumably at the fat man.

Then the man hunched down, and shot up into the sky, going back as he'd come.

"Who are you?" asked Kendall.

"I'm," said the little girl, as she got up. "I'm, uh, Ma-uhhh, Maaaaaa, Maggie. Ah—no, uhh, Macey."

"Why do you seem like you're just deciding on that name?" asked Kendall.

"Because I am." said 'Macey', disarmingly.

"Well. . . why?" asked Kendall.

"Because I don't think the word that my brain is labeling my name is even a name." said Macey.

"What word?" asked Kendall.

"'Mangle'." said Macey.

"What." said Kendall.

"That's why I didn't say it!" said Macey.

"Who was that? Why did he do that to you?" asked Kendall.

"I don't know why he treats me like that!" said Macey. "But the man who he works for wants me to bring you home."

"Who? Opera Penguin?" asked Kendall.

"I don't know, he was wearing a nice suit and had a pretty mask on." said Macey.

"That'd be him." said Kendall. "Tell him I'm not going."

"I'm sorry." said Macey. "He told me to get you."

"I'm not going to get gotten." said Kendall.

"He told me I have to take you back, even if you don't want to come." said Macey, her voice seeming a little sad. "He's not a bad guy, I promise."

"Why do you say that?" said Kendall, his voice trembling with a mixture of belligerence and angst. "Because he's nice to you? Because he talked softly?"

"Uhh." said Macey. "Yes!"

"Well, let me tell you something. That's not what makes a person 'good'." said Kendall.

"What does, then?" asked Macey.

It was then that Kendall was hit with something he didn't really realize. He never did have that much idea of positive morals, he only thought in negative terms. What vices a person lacked. What signals of goodness they did to make up for those vices. Those 'signals' were really all about lapses in being bad, or getting rid of 'badness', not ever seen in terms of positive attributes. He was much quicker in his mind to see 'unselfishness' than 'charity', in fact he couldn't really define in his mind what 'charity' really was.

"Look, you just get a sense for it when you grow up." said Kendall, resorting to condescension to cover for his lack of knowledge.

"I'm much older than you, Andre." said Macey.

"How do you know my name?" asked Kendall, and then he felt stupid.

"How do you think?" Macey asked.

"Uhh, forget that. What are you?" asked Kendall.

"Well, that's rude!" said Macey. "I'm, well, I was a human just like you. I think. And then I died, and I came back inside something else. But then Opera Penguin made me truly one with what I became. I'm much prettier now. Don't you think I'm pretty? Don't you want to come with me?"

"No." said Kendall. "I'm moving in the same direction since I want to take that bastard that sent you down."

"No!" said Macey. "I want you to come so you can become part of us all!"

"Part of you all?" asked Kendall, perturbed.

"I mean join us, and be happy with the world we're going to create." said Macey. "I want to make everyone happy."

"Well." said Andre. "You can't. You can't make everyone happy, and the fact that you think you can is proof that, no matter how long you've been around, you're mentally a child. You're not gonna make people all be happy because people just suck, and some people need others not to be happy in order to be happy themselves."

"But we can change them." said Macey.

"No. You can't." said Andre. "They don't want to be changed."

"You can change a person without them being willing, Andre." said Macey.

"What are you talking about?" asked Andre.

"I mean, no one who's changed by someone else chooses to get changed. Up to a point, they might have to be willing to be changed, but there's a point where they don't have a say anymore in how the things that happen to them affect them." said Macey. "I know it sounds bad, but you can be forced to change, and it can help you, it can turn your life around and save you. And sometimes the change that saves you, has to be forced on you." said Macey. "I don't remember what I was before dying. But I don't remember that my life was going anywhere. Then William killed me and I became so, so pretty."

"So you're giving Opera Penguin the credit for that?" asked Andre.

"He's the one who sealed it in permanence." said Macey.

"He's not what made you beautiful. He just took advantage of the situation to make you grateful." said Andre.

"So you do think I'm pretty?" asked Macey.

"Are you listening to what I'm actually saying? That fucker is just manipulating you to get his way, and he wants to do the same with me! He thinks I won't cut you apart, well he's wrong! And, no, I don't really think-" Andre paused. "you look alright. But I don't care, this is what's going to go down if you don't go back, okay? Your 'beauty' is gonna become a bunch of ripped up pieces, and blood, and it's all gonna be nothing because even your own mind, which sees it all, and thinks it's so beautiful is gonna go dark. Or go wherever they go when they go on."

"That's not nice. . ." said Macey, her ears going down. "Why is everyone so mean to me?" her voice started cracking.

Andre breathed in, and breathed out, and became Kendall again. "I'm sorry. I just, I have to defend my position, my freedom. My conviction. I don't know what's right, but I feel what's wrong, and I want to cut it down, no, I want to burn it down."

"But you won't have to give that up if you join Opera Penguin. You'll be better equipped to do fight those monsters, why don't you want to join him?" asked Macey.

"Because he burned my house down, killed my parents, and everything that was mine." said Kendall. "And as he kept talking, I felt something from him. I don't know exactly what, though."

"I think I should step in." said Opera Penguin's voice, ringing in Kendall's head. Based on the way Macey stepped back, she could hear him too. "From the beginning, I have been feeding your subconscious with knowledge of who I truly am. I thought in your cynicism, you would accept as a fact of life that anyone who could possibly give you anything good would themselves inevitably turn out to have some bad in them, in their past. But it seems you're so conceited and self righteous that you cannot tolerate any such thing."

"Maybe it'd be different, if you didn't burn down my house." said Kendall.

"It wasn't your house, you pampered child. It was your parents', and I can't have you with your original life when I need you unattached." said Opera Penguin.

"Then that's proof that you wronged me for your own sake." said Kendall.

"I gave you much more." said Opera Penguin. "I gave you the opportunity to come into what you feigned being, to become it in truth. To become 'beautiful' unto yourself."

"But you killed my parents, didn't you? That's murder, that's wrong." said Kendall.

"Don't pretend you cared about them." said Opera Penguin. "You didn't. And you're not better. I know for a fact, I can see through time, you almost certainly would have committed a public atrocity after living with the pointless fakeness of your delusions and your signaled philosophies. Anyway, they were already through with their lives, they certainly had no more good life to life. Not with you around."

"You're mean, too. . ." said Macey.

"Sometimes, you have to bear with being unkind to lead to greater kindness ahead." said Opera Penguin. "It's as you say. Sometimes you have to change others against their will for their greatest good. And the process thereof generally involves not only things which incidentally hurt their feelings, but outright necessitate the hurting itself."

"So what? I should just let go of it all?" asked Kendall.

"Isn't that what you really wanted, in your heart?" asked Opera Penguin.

"I guess. But somehow it feels wrong now." said Kendall.

"It isn't. What happened to your parents looks worse from outside the act, I guess. Worse than something similar would if you did it yourself. But think of it this way, Andre. That was just their fate. They had lived through their purpose in life, and their fate was me. Maybe if I had waited a little longer, you would have finally come to the point where you would agree by default. Maybe you already did, but now you're denying it to yourself. Because you don't have the will to openly declare what you believed." said Opera Penguin.

"Fuck you!" yelled Kendall.

"Cussing me out won't cover up the fact, Andre." said Opera Penguin.

"What are they? What are the facts?" asked Kendall.

"Kendall, the facts are that you believe in your heart that you are meant to be above the world. And you believe that eradicating the life of this world purges the impurities you perceive in it." said Opera Penguin. "And I have generously provided the abilities to do both. I've given you the power that lifts you up and beyond the world. And with them, you can kill people, and you can even 'save' others, in lifting them up, out of the world, and with you. Every person that you can't make part of your special world of special kids, you want to kill. So that you can't be exposed to the tainting mundanity of them all. You'd rather kill thousands than live with the life of people who aren't special enough for you. Than coexist in the same world as them."

"No! Shut up!" screamed Kendall, dropping Fading Moon and clapping his hands over his ears.

"Macey. Go on with what I said to do if we couldn't convince him." said Opera Penguin.

"If you're really sure." said Macey. "I don't like this."

"I understand, Macey." said Opera Penguin. "But this is the only way to make everyone happy."

A bunch of metallic limbs sprung from Macey's back, almost tentacle- or spider-like tendrils. A bunch of yellow eyes, and even whole robotic, almost skeletal face popped up in random places on them.

"What are you?" asked Kendall, grabbing up Fading Moon.

"You already asked that, and I already told you it hurts my feelings." said Macey, her expression going flat.

"I don't care! I'm asking because I want to know!" said Kendall.

"In myself, I am many of me. But each 'me' is a different 'me', that used to be someone else, each perfectly boring, with a perfectly boring life. We're all different people because of our different pasts, but we're all united as one by the identity we've entered and loved. The person we're all becoming as one, and, in doing so, becoming one." said Macey. "And all of us, acting as one, can project manifestations that are many. All of the mes are inside of me, but from inside me we express myselves in many forms remotely."

"What are you talking about?" asked Kendall, stepping back, holding his blade defensively.

Something grabbed his leg from behind.

He turned his head, and saw a weird, robotic head, almost looking like a skull, connected to strange, tinselly limb-like strands of what looked like robotic scrap metal. It had one yellow eye that leered at him.

Kendall swiped the thing's head in half with his blade.

"It still hurts when you do that." said Macey, and Kendall planned some retort before three more identical scrap monsters jumped on him from behind.

Macey casually walked up to Kendall, and laid a hand on his shoulder, while one of the limbs from her back also wrapped around one of Kendall's arms.

Instantly, he felt a sort of numbness, which startled him so much he kicked forward, planting a foot on Macey's chest and throwing her off. Disquietingly enough, his body felt heavy as he did so.

"Andre, you're hurting me." Macey said.

"That's the idea." said Andre, though even his breaths seemed heavy, and his voice was hoarse.

"I was hoping we could be friends, Andre." said Macey. "And we still could be, but you'll have to be captured if you aren't going to come peacefully."

"I'm not going to do either." said Andre, as he made short work of the scrap metal creatures.

Macey tried grappling with Andre some more, but he shook her off, and after some more of this, and a few more tangles with obnoxious mechanical creatures, which he also diced, he finally flipped out and cut her into a hundred or so pieces.

A spectral image of Opera Penguin manifested, and gathered them up, but as Kendall lunged at him, he vanished, the pieces with him.

. . .

"Well." said Penguin, in the black room. "That was a failure."

"What do you plan to do in turn?" asked Jason.

"Fake Penguin?" Opera Penguin called.

Fake Penguin appeared. "Yes?"

"Say, how has your outlook changed on life since you left the dream?" asked Opera Penguin.

"I've emerged from the despondent oblivion into which I was plunged, and the false care that engulfed me." said Fake Penguin.

"Elaborate." said Opera Penguin.

"I've remembered who I am, since you made me to do so." said Fake Penguin.

"Say, you don't miss the old powers you had when you were alive?" asked Opera Penguin.

"Well, I can probably reacquire them when I re-enter Prismrealm." said Fake Penguin. "The shape you've given them isn't indelible, it is?"

"It shouldn't need to be erased to have the original system layered onto it, to use your powers as they were." said Opera Penguin.

"Excellent." said Fake Penguin.

Opera Penguin didn't bother to mention the unlikelihood of Fake Penguin getting back to Prismrealm.

"I think that without my memory, I had no light to see by. No light to see my own joy in myself. I now have remembered. I have remembered who I am." said Fake Penguin.

"You're still Fake Penguin here, though." said Opera Penguin.

"Yes, of course, it is my debt to you. But I do plan on once more being Survyen Huryleiko, when I reach Prismrealm." said Fake Penguin.

"You do that." said Opera Penguin. "But, for now, I think you can channel that joy into something else. Actually. . ." Opera Penguin put his hand to his chin. "maybe not just yet. I have a little bit of a jape planned."

. . .

Vanessa had had to regenerate her shell several times, but after having been informed by Penguin that using less 'shell power' to do more would give her more 'base power', she had started using less and less, and had now focused it entirely to her right arm, and the blade she had turned her stick into.

A very large creature stood before her. It had the appearance of a giant emu, but with no neck or head. Its head was its body, and its mouth opened widely with many teeth near the bottom side. Its eyes were right in front of where the wings would sprout on an ostrich, and indeed it seemed to have skin-flaps that looked like wings.

It seemed hesitant to try and bite her, since it would have to throw all its weight at his fast-moving target, but instead swiped its claws at her this way and that, before she leapt at it, and it thought it had its opportunity.

Its mouth opened, but just as it did so, she plunged her sabre into its face, above the opening of its mouth, then as it reared back its head/body, she planted both feet into its face and then pulled her blade out, before slashing repeatedly at its head. Then she leapt off of its head, somersaulted through the air, and hamstrung one of its legs.

It screamed in what sounded like a human voice through a metal tube, and opened what Vanessa had previously thought were limp skin flaps, revealing hundreds of eyes, each of which began releasing bullet-like beads of eldritch something-or-other in a pattern that, if she knew what Touhou was, would look somewhat familiar, albeit less daunting than the aforementioned game series.

She skirted to the side, but the eyes followed her too quickly, and so she swung with her blade and managed to deflect and return the magical energy, enough that the eyes squinted, and she leapt up into the air, once again towards the creature, and in spite of its body being at least the size of an elephant, she cleaved it in half.

. . .

"Hey, Penguin." said Monsanto.

"Opera Penguin." said Opera Penguin.

"Yeah, that." said Monsanto. "Could we, like, get a shower?"

"Perhaps." said Opera Penguin.

"'Perhaps'?" asked Monsanto, askance. "What's that mean?"

"It means I'm leaving you with a sense of suspense regarding something which should have a certain yes-or-no answer, as a way of subtly flagellating you for a sleight on my superiority by half-naming me." said Opera Penguin.

"You sound like you're trying to play into what Bernard's always muttering about you." said Monsanto.

"Oh?" asked Opera Penguin. "And what's that?"

"Stuff about how you're giving us all this stuff in order to control us or get something out of us or something, and have some kind of secret agenda." said Monsanto.

"You don't sound convinced." said Opera Penguin, with a tone that Monsanto couldn't quite place, almost like something between disappointment and curiosity, as if he had expected Bernard's fearmongering to have more effect.

"I don't quite get it." said Monsanto. "But we wouldn't exactly exist like we do if it weren't for you coming here and doing this, so I can't really be bothered to worry or feel bad."

"Look, to be frank, your condition is terrible when it comes to hygiene—I'll wedge a door in the communal hallway, and you can use that for now. I'll look into making a shower for each of you in due time." said Opera Penguin.

"Wow." said Monsanto. "Uhh, thanks."

. . .

Kendall was homing in on his recently-reacquired sense of where the presence of Opera Penguin was, seemingly brought about as a side effect of Penguin's consistent telepathic conversations with him, combined with a lack of intentional distortion of the directions. It was possible, in Kendall's mind, that Opera Penguin intended Kendall to reach his base of operations, albeit with the hope that he could 'tame' Kendall along the way, but this was irrelevant to Kendall, who was determined to put a stop to whatever Penguin was doing. He knew that, even if he had hated his parents, the burning of the house had been just a microcosm of the kind of person Opera Penguin was, and surely somewhere along the way was a victim who didn't deserve it, even by Kendall's standards.

Then, suddenly, there was a thundering.

A giant Preacher sprung up from the ground, coming up as a shadow but materializing into fleshly form when above the ground, leaving the ground completely unscathed. It was like a centipede made out of oversized grey human parts, with segments made out of muscular upper torsos, with horrifically distended limbs. Its head was a massively-distorted human one, stretched into a wedge-like shape that was mostly mouth, stretched into a rictus which pushed its cheeks to obfuscated its transfixed gaze at Kendall.

As it kept moving, more of it materialized, showing its legs, which were even more proportionally lengthened, and propelled it forth with freakish speed.

Many converts appeared from behind buildings and fixtures, and out of nearly every odd corner.

"YOU RANG?" said the massive creature. Somehow, its voice was even more massive, like Atlas moaning gently in pain as the world began to give him arthritis. Or an extremely constipated moose.

Kendall sighed, and gritted his teeth, gripping Fading Moon.

"HONESTLY, I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU CALLED US IF YOU'RE JUST GOING TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH ANOTHER FIGHT." continued the beast. "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY?"

"What?" asked Kendall.

"I MEAN, WE'RE CONSTANTLY FOLLOWING YOU." said the Preacher, drawing near and around Kendall.

"No, I mean what do you mean 'called'?" asked Kendall.

"WE HEARD A CALL. A VOICE CRYING OUT FOR US. A SHRILL FLARE OF ADJURATION FOR OUR PRESENCE." said the Preacher.

"That wasn't me." said Kendall.

"IT MATTERS NOT." said the Preacher."NOW THAT WE ARE HERE, WE MAY NOT WASTE THIS OCCASION. COME, ANDRE HELLFIRE, AND EARN YOUR NAME."

. . .

"What was that you were doing earlier?" asked Rochelle, as Ian and she snuggled in her room.

"Nngm?" said Ian.

"You flew out of here holding some kind of pink-and-white rage." said Rochelle.

"Oh, no, that wasn't a rag, that was a little girl." said Ian.

"What." said Rochelle, utterly confused.

"Yeah, Penguin is having me Doordash creepy little girls to people he's trying to conscript for his nebulous purposes." said Ian.

"But why. . . ?" asked Rochelle.

"Hell if I know." said Ian. "But what am I gonna do, say no? Anyway, she was creepy as hell so she probably deserved whatever happened to her."

"Never change, Ian." said Rochelle, laughing. She was genuinely relaxed and happy for the first time in a while.

. . .

The largely-featureless body of "Macey' sat up after Opera Penguin sent several iron stitches through it.

"This feels uncomfortable." said Macey.

"It will assimilate into your body." said Opera Penguin. "It's identical in physical properties with iron at the moment, but it's actually a spiritual substance in its essential nature, and it will meld with your flesh over time."

"Oh." said Macey as she got dressed. "Does it have to be like iron, or did you make it that way intentionally?"

"I see the seeds of disillusionment I've sown in you have already started to flourish." said Opera Penguin.

"No, not really." said Macey. "I just wanted to know."

"Yet the fact that the question arose in your mind proves a certain inquisitiveness that would not be there if you blindly believed in my absolute benevolence." said Opera Penguin.

"Also, where are we?" asked Macey. They were in a black room, with the edges illuminated in white lines, with furniture that was likewise black with white at the edges and corners.

"This is a dream that simulates reality, and through which I can affect your actual spirit. You can track your own healing process, and also alter your form to your liking, since you didn't seem to have much opportunity to do it for yourself." said Opera Penguin.

"Can I have some reference?" asked Macey. "I don't know if I can make myself better on my own. I don't want to look exactly like this. Everyone seems to hate it. . ."

"Do you dislike it just because everyone seems to hate it?" asked Opera Penguin.

"No, but it doesn't help my fondness of my body." said Macey. "I feel like it's incomplete, somehow."

Opera Penguin walked up to her, and knelt down on one knee, taking off a glove. He held it out, and she held it in her hands.

"Here's just a start." Opera Penguin said. "Examine the fingernails, and the creases in my fingers. I think my hands are what is considered 'feminine' enough that you can reliably use them as a model for your own without fear of them seeming brutish."

Indeed, the small hands in which Macey held Opera Penguin's were strangely smooth, lacking fingernails or any wrinkles, as if made out of an amorphous porcelain substance. It was only a moment before the wrinkles and nails were copied.

"Excellent!" said Opera Penguin, drawing back and up, as he put on his glove. "Now, I'll just give you models of two women here, and you can pick and choose what you want to change, but do wait until I've exited the room. I feel that watching you poke around inquisitively with what will appear very much like lifeless bodies of these women would be. . . distressing, to say the least."

"What if I change too much and I want to go back but I don't know how?" asked Macey.

Opera Penguin snapped his fingers, and the ragdoll-like figures of Vanessa, Rochelle and Macey herself appeared in the air, each in a T-pose, before falling down in various ungraceful positions.

"They're kind of creeping me out. . ." said Macey.

"Just put them in the closet when you're done with them." said Opera Penguin, jerking back a thumb to an armoire that took up a fair portion of the edge of the room that was apart from Macey's curtained bed.

"Aren't there clothes in there?" asked Macey.

"No." said Opera Penguin. "Unless you dream some into existence. But the ones you're wearing will change to your desires as it is."

"Oh, and, uhmm," said Macey.

"Yes?" asked Opera Penguin.

"what are you like, that made him act like he does?" asked Macey.

"Here, I'll give you the rundown." said Opera Penguin, and then touched Macey, who fell back, despite Opera Penguin not having exerted any force.

"You! What? You! I don't get it? How could you be so horrible?" asked Macey. "I mean, you're so good to me, how can someone like you turn out—I don't understand, how could you have been like this before when you are like you are to me?"

"Being evil isn't like being good." said Opera Penguin. "It's not just 'good, but upside down'. To be good is to care about and pursue being good, in good earnest. To be good has requirements, each person's being based on their conscience and knowledge of what's right. Evil, on the other hand, doesn't require 'living up to' one's concept of evil, but rather someone is evil to the extent that they don't adhere in good faith to their knowledge of right and wrong. I am what most would call 'evil', and to have some virtues or to take pleasure in some kindnesses does not change that, because that issue is not where my continuous failure to follow my conscience lies. Rather, it is that I am generally not a person who cares about whether his actions are objectively right or wrong, let alone follows his conscience, that I am evil to those who are especially concerned about that categorization. The very fact that I disregard this lies at the heart of why I am evil."

"But why?" asked Macey. "Why not be a good person?"

Opera Penguin shrugged. "It all always seemed somewhat intangible and spurious to me. A frivolity for the sheltered and domesticated."

"I think you know that's wrong." said Macey. "Good is good and bad is bad, no matter how independent or free you are."

"But just as the eyes and ears are fallible, so is the heart in determining right and wrong. Mortal man is regularly wrong, and the gods only faintly have better insight. Some have. Kauthann does. But he is far away, and for good reason. I am representative of the cosmos he pulled together. Indeed, many others are worse. They revel purposely in the such crimes as my own worst actions. I merely am apathetic towards morality and righteous zeal. I deal with the right and wrong of my own heart apart from the right and wrong of the light of truth. Because I simply can't be bothered to concern myself with the latter." said Opera Penguin. "Nonetheless, it is this right and wrong of my own heart that delights in an occasional tenderness. I enjoy making a meek few happy. I enjoy taking the belligerent through torment. I enjoy toying excruciatingly with those from whom I can extract ample entertainment. But I do not truly seek to leave permanent debilitation in most cases. Only a few, when I realize that my purposes are best served by pruning those around me. Because there is a greater good I am working for. A greater good of my own heart. Every time we were called upon in our 'sacred duty', there was in those who called us, at least some corner of sincerity in the hearts of those who called. Likewise, I sincerely mark out the Overseer as my target, justly condemned, in my own inner court. He will perish, and it will be either by my hand, or by one I orchestrated. Ideally the former, although Afton will be my main weapon in weakening him, if nothing else."

"He's the one who killed me, right?" asked Macey.

"Yes." said Opera Penguin.

"The man who killed me is just a tool to you?" asked Macey.

"Yes, and to you, he is the only reason you have been allowed to persist in this existence. As what you are." said Opera Penguin.

"I guess he's okay, then." said Macey, uncertainly.

"No." said Opera Penguin. "He's not. He's repugnant. But he's a tool to me. And so I will use him. Just as you have enjoyed the privileges of his existence."

"I feel bad that all of the things I enjoy are coming from you and him, almost." said Macey.

"Don't." said Opera Penguin. "A good thing is a good thing, and if you didn't choose to get it from us then it's no moral stain on you that you got it from us."

"I thought you didn't care about morality." said Macey.

"Apathy isn't ignorance. I have ideas of what is good, I just, again, don't really put in the effort to worry about it." said Opera Penguin. "What you receive from us isn't altered by the fact that it came from us. It's not different from how it would be if you somehow received it from somewhere else, once you receive it, it contains none of our essence. We ourselves are not present within the gifts you have gained."

"I don't understand." said Macey.

"What I mean is, don't worry." said Opera Penguin. "Enjoy what you have. It's not stained by its source. No vestige of the evil of which it was born resides within it. Unless you can find such evil within it?"

Macey looked at her hands, her clothes, herself in a mirror that appeared next to her as she thought of a mirror to look into.

"I don't see any evil in it, I guess." said Macey.

Opera Penguin clapped his hands together, in a conclusive manner. "Well, then. There's no issue."

"Vanessa's face is so different from mine, though." said Macey. "I mean, it's a different shape. It's going to be hard to see which way to change my face and which way to keep it the same."

"Yes, I'm afraid that you've got a bit of hereditary anime feature syndrome." said Opera Penguin, and, indeed, something about the flesh and bone structure of Macey's face was angular in such a way as to render, in three-dimensional flesh, an 'anime' look of nauseating genericity.

"Hey, I like it." said Macey.

"I know, or else I would not have given it to you." said Opera Penguin. "Nonetheless, it is regrettably more familiar to me than I'd like."

"Ahh." said Macey, recalling some of the blurred images that had rushed through her consciousness. Some of them being quite violent.

"In any case, another way of seeing my gifts in a good light is to see them as coming from that incongruous place of good you presume to be in me because of how I treat you." said Opera Penguin.

"Do I become more complicit if I ask you for stuff?" asked Macey.

"That's for you to decide, I guess." said Opera Penguin. "But ask away. Even if you ask for something you won't receive, you won't lose anything by asking."

"Can I have a hug?" Macey asked.

Opera Penguin stared at her, nonplussed. "Uhhh. . ."

Macey stuck out her arms in an almost comical fashion, and Opera Penguin folded, falling to one knee and giving Macey an uncomfortable and limp enfolding of arms that lacked any kind of enthusiasm or affection. He didn't like it, because, with the contrast of their figures, it made him feel like something he couldn't stand to be at all. Something he hated.

Macey, on her part, threw herself around him and squeezed his torso warmly. "I really think you are at least a bit of a good person." she said.

Then Opera Penguin blinked a few feet away, leaving Macey's arms empty, and causing her to fall flat on her face.

"Don't get too much faith in me." said Opera Penguin, as Macey moaned "Ow. . ." "Or I'll let you down, just like that." he finished.

Macey looked up at him, a bit teary, nose running. "Why did you do that?" she asked.

"Because. . ." said Opera Penguin, then he looked down on her suddenly-red face. "Ehh. I dunno."

She ran up to him and started kicking his shins. "What kind of answer is that? You have to know why you'd do that!" she squawked at him through tears.

"Because I didn't want to feel like I was becoming your dad." said Opera Penguin, bluntly.

Macey stopped instantly, and looked up at him, snot still trickling. "What?"

"It's just a phobia of mine and you happened to trigger it." said Opera Penguin.

"That's silly. . ." said Macey, and then her face slowly split into a smile.

"Is it?" asked Opera Penguin, materializing a handkerchief and wiping her face gently.

"I mean, I didn't think you were becoming my dad." said Macey. "You probably just feel that way because you did it while you were taller!"

Opera Penguin shrunk to a comically distorted version of himself, where everything below the neck was vertically contracted, then held out his arms again.

Macey, laughing, hugged him again, and he admitted, "This does seem a lot better."

Then after a short while, they withdrew, and Opera Penguin sprung back up again.

Macey giggled even more.

"But truly, is there anything you wish for me to provide in addition? This dream is not your permanent residence, so think more outwards as to what you would desire." said Opera Penguin.

"I am a bit lonely." said Macey.

"I could make you any sort of companionship. I could make others like you, of other characters. Perhaps you'd even take a special liking to a young boy I could make of Foxy?" asked Opera Penguin.

"Could you 'make someone' that's like a little you?" asked Macey.

Opera Penguin's face was already pale, and so the almost imperceptible receding of the pink that garnished his porcelain countenance was not enough to hint at the nausea he felt hearing that request But then he realized he was reading too much into it, and he simply lied, "No. I haven't seen enough instances of myself in the dream realms for me to make one like you of." He had, as he had become inextricably interwoven into the 'lore' of the place, but he didn't like it. He had even, harrowingly, seen himself made into a marketable plushie by the realm.

"Well, I guess I'll ask once I'm out of here." said Macey.

"I could have others visit you." said Opera Penguin. "It won't interfere with your recuperation, or your. . . fashion adjustments. As long as you keep the bodies put away most of the time."

"Okay!" said Macey, brightly. "Really, I'd kind of like everyone, if that's possible."

"I'll start with Foxy and see how things go from there." said Opera Penguin.

. . .

"I wish we could go places." said Rochelle to Ian.

"Yeah, it kinda sucks that we can't." said Ian. "And even when I on my own get to, it's always on one of Opera Penguin's errands. Even though I kinda like that I'm losing weight, I miss being able to buy candy and shit."

"You've got a sweet tooth?" asked Rochelle.

"I didn't get this chungoid from fast food." said Ian. "In fact, I kinda got a limited capacity for the greasy stuff. Sugar, on the other hand, is like crack to me. Along with caffeine. Although I like to have them separately."

"Am I not sweet enough to make up for it?" asked Rochelle, smirking as she nuzzled into Ian's face.

"You are, but not nearly sour enough." cooed Ian back.

"I think I'm going to get cavities myself." said Opera Penguin.

"Every fuckin' time." said Ian, suddenly hugging Rochelle tightly before dropping her back onto the bed and getting up.

"At least I came in while your pants were on." said Opera Penguin.

"That implies that you know when they're not on." said Rochelle, her voice sounding unsettled.

"Every time you don't act on the assumption that I have a sort of rough and ready omniscience within this limited realm, you set yourself up for disappointment." said Opera Penguin.

"Don't make her paranoid." said Ian.

"I'll make her whatever I please." said Opera Penguin. "Just as I did to you. But in this case, I'm simply informing. Believe me, you two's happiness has entirely been with my consent, and I find your attempts at conspiracy embarrassing at best. In any case, today is a big day for you, Ian. Today, your mission is to go to that realm. You know, the one I mentioned?"

"You're not even bothering to pull me into the weird black space to tell me this?" asked Ian.

"It doesn't matter." said Opera Penguin. "Eradicate the world. Stay there over a couple days and nights if you need to."

"Okay. Is this going to happen all in one trip?" moaned Ian, knowing he would not get any sympathy from Penguin and thus not even complaining.

"Well, yes—sort of." said Penguin. "It's going to be in one sitting, but that's because I want you to stay there until it's gone."

"How do you expect me to do that?" said Ian.

"It's habitable enough to sleep in." said Opera Penguin. "It's even condensed matter into edible substances. Foliage, some birds, I'm sure there will be candy somewhere in there too. I know you'll be glad to hear that. You obese lowlife."

Ignoring that last bit, Ian said, "But how exactly do I destroy a dimension? Is it just destroying everything in it, or what?"

"Just make sure everything in it is dead, and I'll take care of the rest." said Opera Penguin.

"Good. That makes things simpler." said Ian.

"Also, it turns out that it's not actually part of the set of realms I formed but it sort of attached itself to it. So you're going to have to traverse the dream realms in order to get there." said Opera Penguin. "But I'll give you the guidance to get there."

"Oh, good." said Ian.

"Why are you killing everything?" asked Rochelle.

"I assume they're like monsters. Right?" asked Ian.

"More or less." said Opera Penguin. "Anyway, I'm sure Rochelle will fare alright while you're gone. But, if you're worried she won't, that's just motivation to get things done much more quickly."

"Alright, then." said Ian.

"I can do fine, don't let him manipulate you." said Rochelle.

"Do you know that?" asked Opera Penguin, smirking.

"Fuck you." said Rochelle.

"Anyway," said Opera Penguin, before failing to finish his sentence as he threw a chunk of dollhouse at Ian's head, which absorbed him, before grabbing the piece and then vanishing.

In the black room, Opera Penguin through the chunk back onto the dollhouse.

. . .

Ian was in a falling elevator, before it hit the bottom. As it did, Ian shifted his form into a gaseous state, becoming like air itself.

The door opened as Ian reformed into his solid body, and Ian stepped out into a darkened Pizzaplex-looking place. All the neon lights were shattered, but there was a strange, ominous bluish-white luminescence that came from the distance, from no specific source but somehow from the remote distance itself—like a glowing fog of war.

He saw a silhouette approaching. Running at him. It had pointy ears. No, wait. She had a pointy ear. Ian flew like a bat out of hell to evade her, but it was close, and he heard her footfalls like rapid-fire stomping.

He heard a hoarse, howling scream as she approached, but he managed to double up his flying speed and burst out a door into the blackness between dreams.

Even in the sudden neon lights of a well populated '87 location, populated by happy anime-looking furry versions of the native animatronics, Ian still ran through fast, batting aside a Mangle—partially because she was in his way, and partially because he had seen enough of Mangle for a lifetime.

He dove out the other door just as an offended Foxy reached with a hook out at him.

Through several more dreams, Ian still moved hastily, but his anxiety cooled down over time, and eventually he burst out into an open, and sickeningly-bright world.

A bobblehead-looking Freddy Fazbear stared at Ian with what was either shock, or a static, doll-like countenance. Its whole posture oscillated up and down as if it were badly pantomiming either hyperventilation or dizziness.

Figuring he had best get to his work quickly, Ian charged straight into the thing, throwing a haymaker and letting loose a stream of lightning as he did so.

Luckily, the thing seemed to dissolve willingly upon receiving the blow comingled with the neon cyan light of Ian's radiant powers, but regrettably, there also seemed to be several of the thing's cohorts coming to back it up.

Ian cracked his knuckles, and prepared himself as he simultaneously conjured up a thunderstorm in the cliche blue sky. Ian wouldn't call it blue, though; it was azure, and that color was to blue as orange was to red.

. . .

"And while I'm getting stuff done," said Opera Penguin, "I think it's time for you to go and get Andre for me." This was to Fake Penguin.

"Finally, something to do with myself." said Fake Penguin. "Just give me the directions."

"Don't mistake this for a game." said Opera Penguin. "You will die if you underestimate him. That is, the power I've given him."

"People native to this world can't gain their own power, can they?" asked Fake Penguin.

"No. But the same mechanism which prevent them from gaining power by their own devices lends even greater potency to that which I create within them. One could even say it stops being my creation alone, and becomes, partially, something more cosmic." said Opera Penguin. "My magic could never hope to soak up all the subtle complexities which they bear within themselves at the behest of the system of the universe that I game."

"Shall I go, then?" asked Fake Penguin.

"Let me just optimize your spirit a little bit more. . ." said Opera Penguin, then he walked up to Fake Penguin and held his hands in midair awkwardly as his eyes glazed over. "There we go." he added. "Even as a 'black mage', you also had some of the other base forms of power that had come undone. You should have some extra physical strength to work through that body. Not that it should be necessary. Just, don't get arrogant."

"Ahh," said Fake Penguin, "the tallest order of me yet."

"And yet, probably the most vital." said Opera Penguin. "Remember, try to convince him to come at first, try to kill second, but if nothing else then try to survive. I may be able to collect information from the fragments of your body but it won't be as complete as if you provide it whole to me to analyze."

"Is everything recorded?" asked Fake Penguin.

"To an extent." said Opera Penguin.

"Good thing I haven't been ogling any young ladies, then!" laughed Fake Penguin.

"When it comes to 'young ladies', the pickings here have been substandard, anyway. To say the least." said Opera Penguin.

"Of course. I merely jest." said Fake Penguin.

"Go on, then—I prefer that you keep to the rooftops." said Opera Penguin. "The last thing you want is to have to explain why you look how you do."

. . .

"Finally got a good grip on where you are?" asked Michael.

"How did you end up all the way over here?" asked Kendall.

"It occurred to me that it would be stupid to attack the place alone just to spite you." said Michael.

"Ah." said Kendall. "Come to think of it, do you think you could tell me where some angsty teens that give off the same kind of, like, wrong vibes as me-"

"You want me to find people for you to kill so you can recruit them into your ghost army, don't you?" asked Michael, audibly sickened.

"You got a better idea?" asked Andre. "Anyway. It's not like they're suited to this world. Clearly, people like me are maladapted. I'm just the perfect lynchpin for the mass exodus of all these limp daydreamers. They want to be somewhere else than here. And this world doesn't want to respect them. Why not deal with one last problem on this earth before we all find a way out, for real?"

"I wonder," said Michael, "why don't you try finding a way out now?"

This surprised Andre. "I thought you wanted me to help you."

"Yes, but why do you not want to take the first bus out of here?" asked Michael.

"Well, I haven't figured it out yet-" said Andre.

"You can't." said Michael. "You aren't able to. You just have the idea and you think that's enough. You haven't learned anything, Andre Hellfire. You're just as much one of those 'limp daydreamers' now as you were before Penguin set eyes on you."

"If I beat Opera Penguin and then those monsters under the crust of the earth, and I somehow don't manage to find my way out? That'll be wilder than all of this." said Andre.

"No, it won't." said Michael. "Military victory didn't spontaneously lead to the moon landings. Even if a war did motivate them."

"Just you wait." said Andre. "When all this is over, it'll be our time to rise."

"'Just you wait' is the perfect sentence to use when you're putting off admitting that you don't know the first thing about what you're talking about." said Michael.

Kendall sighed. "You're right, damn it." he said. "And while we're at it, I should tell you, my actual name is-"

"Kendall Leer." said Michael. "Yes, I know.

"Fuck. . . how?" asked Kendall.

"Because we get told everything about our wards." said Michael. "And that's enough for me to be able to tell by your admitting that that I've brought you down to earth. Literally."

"Whatever." said Kendall. "It won't be enough to convince me not to say that lonely and misunderstood."

"Are they, Kendall?" asked Michael. "Or do they simply want to be, to feel like they're above it all? And here you are, providing an affirmation to that delusion."

Kendall shook his head. "I don't get why people have to be forced against their will to take part in this world!"

"Because they themselves are a product of it." said Michael. "Their delusions included. You aren't doing them a favor by killing them and sweeping them into the depths of their own idiocy, thinking that they are, truly the romanticized lost and damned souls, the beaten and the broken, or whatever the fuck their little flights of fancy have condemned them to being. They have a better life ahead of them when they live and decay with the cycle of the world. Not in static forms with static personalities. That is what will happen, you know, because without the changing of the body, without the marks of consequences these people will never be motivated to change past a little bit of emotional coercion eliciting a little bit of character development. They'll never grow up. They'll never suffer how they were meant to. Kendall, I know the Preachers are, at their core, a force of darkness, but the truth the represent—or, over-represent, is still true. You have to suffer to earn things. You have to suffer to grow. You have to hurt, and be broken, to be refined so that the parts worthy of resurrection will be resurrected, and the frivolous parts, the parts that are empty of purpose or real, deep beauty, are left in the dust, as memories. And I know that sounds like shit to you, Kendall, but that's because that's all you are at the moment. Frivolous, shallow, empty. The beauty of a plastic wrapper. And about the same purpose. And you kill all that potential which is aimed towards the substantial. Because you think because it doesn't cater to you highly-contrived idea of beauty, your tastes which were molded by this specific place in the world, at this specific point in history, that all that is of merit in the world amounts to nothing. But believe me, the world thinks much the same-"

"I already know that." said Kendall.

"You know the last two, or maybe one and a half sentences I said, and I suspect you discarded everything else by filing it under the 'insults I won't listen to' in your brain. Where the words will decay and be forgotten. But, Kendall, there is a truth to what I am telling you. I have lived a long life, and a longer undeath, and both have been miserable on account of the dead who have been conformed to marketable faces and empty semblances of personality that have been written with scarcely a second thought, because they were cartoon characters marketed to kids." said Michael.

"Oh, you know about—her." said Kendall, looking down.

"Barely." said Michael. "Some throwaway villain of the week, in a kids' cartoon? And were you really not only going to plagiarize her several times in lieu of making your own work, but you were slowly making some kind of pseudo-religion-"

"Stop." said Kendall. "Stop talking about her like that, I. . . I know it sounds dumb. But she, all of it, was so real to me, and partially I think some of the ideas I was having were reflecting something true."

"No, they bore something that Opera Penguin took inspiration from, to make it true so he could have you by the breadth of your delusions when he knocked all the others off." said Michael. "And it's working. And yet, it's also backfiring, since you still have the need to fight some flamboyant supervillain, and guess what, guess who fits the bill? He honestly should have seen this one coming. But he didn't either because he was focused on other things and just wanted to secure another asset real quick, or because he just doesn't care about you that much."

"Or because he knows that, either way, I'm going to fight the Converts, and he can divert me around using his minions to keep me sharp to fight them. . . Mikey Boy." said Kendall, smiling eerily all of the sudden as his voice went a little funny.

"What the hell?" asked Michael.

Then Kendall clasped at his forehead, groaning in pain that soon fountained into agony.

"What's going on?" asked Michael.

"It's simple, my boy." came the voice out of Kendall's mouth, although it was clearly not Kendall's will motivating it. "I'm already in his head. I don't really need his allegiance, but it is fun seeing if I can break his will. Of course, I don't really try that hard, because it would be counterproductive to my purposes. Yes, Andre—and yes, that is his name, to me—is as much a servant of mine as Vanessa, as Ian, almost, even, as much as your father. But I don't think he'd do well without that renegade spirit he loves to cling to so much. All that hatred. . . it would go blunt if I brought him in and domesticated him under my wing. I've seen it in Ian. The raw contempt. The passionate hatred. All tiring out, fading to passivity, after only a few days. Make no mistake, Ian will still be hell to deal with. But, I'm afraid that, on, at least, a psychological level, I've indulged his repugnant fetish for emasculation. He went from feigning love, to actually starting to feel it. Hell, I'm half worried that he'll fight over the fucking dog with Ian since she comes across like his little favorite girl. Or the bird with the crocodile. Hell, he might just start creeping after what Ian has—affectionately, I'm sure—termed the 'gijinka bitch'. No, I need a lone wolf, an uncut soul, like a blood diamond in the rough. I need that same ripper who fauns on dead mass-murdering children and fictional ghostly narcissists alike. If I wanted to tame him, I would just create a false image of his fake girl, perhaps even suffer through the act of roleplaying out his pathetic fantasies through her image. But I need him to hate. I need him to burn with hatred and violence. I need Andre, you see, to raise hell."

"This is utter insanity." said Michael. "And why are you telling me this? Do you think I won't tell him?"

"Oh, Michael." said Opera Penguin, through Kendall's voice. "Don't you know I can shutter out almost any revelation? If not for me, perhaps some of your words would have left a mark. He's more introspective than he seems, you know. Although, he is quite insane. No, Michael, no matter what you do, he's already in my hands. His spirit is in my bondage. And there is nothing you can do."

"But what if he becomes stronger? What if he breaks free?" asked Michael.

"A fair enough question, I suppose." said Opera Penguin. "The bond I have over him is not the same as that which I have over your father, which is built in to the core and will never break. However, when he comes into fulfillment of this liberation, I have other methods of controlling him. Namely, the futility of fighting an entire world's darkness on his own."

"And you think that'll work?" asked Michael.

"His intelligence, as well, is more than you think." said Opera Penguin. "He just clouds it with self-deception. He's not so stupid as to think he and a rag-tag of dead emo kids can kill an entire hell hiding within the core of this world."

"He's clearly already stated that." said Michael.

"He doesn't know the breadth of my realm." said Opera Penguin. "I haven't allowed him to do so."

"What if he stops you anyway?" asked Michael. "What if we kill my father? What then?"

"In all likelihood," said Opera Penguin, "You will choose which of the spirits of this place you will salvage in the fallout of its load-bearing master. You will then fight a losing war with the Preachers until either you die or they lose interest. Likely, all of the spirits you don't save, and likely all of the ones you save, will be dragged down to Sheol, as you were. Then, if you are left, there is a fair chance that, since you are both, in a sense, shaped by my presence here, you will either be taken from this world to 'decontaminate it' from my influence, or you will simply be killed, by my former colleagues, the Legion of Heroes. Each one of them is, on average, at my level of ability. You will be vastly outclassed, and you will be destroyed, if you are not taken from here."

"Where do we go if we are taken?" asked Michael.

"In all likelihood, to be put through a grueling period of either strenuous cage fighting, or strenuous study of magical arts or some other supernatural abilities. Likely both, actually. And then, once you have been through that crucible of torment, you will either be forced into the Legion of Heroes without your choice, or you will be carted off to one of the realms to act as a more fixed kind of enforcer. Or, maybe, you'll just be booted out, into the unorganized set of worlds, on your own, with no help nor guidance." said Opera Penguin.

"It seems you come from a savage place. Clearly, this has brought about your savagery. Wrapped up in a thin sheet of grace. This almost gives me cause to sympathize with you." said Michael.

"Whu-" said Kendall, waking up. "That's, what I'm saying! Damn, it took you long enough!"

Michael covered his face in one hand.

. . .