[Neffy and Dev stop their fighting as she collapses against the wall of her pyramid, sobbing uncontrollably.]
Dev: Give us a moment.
[Neffy stands befuddled as Dev pressed his hands against the glass.]
Dev: Why would you say a thing like that.
El: It's true. You told me so!
Dev: [gently] I don't get it. You are the smart one. You've known me all my life. So why is it that you don't realize every word out of my mouth is complete and utter bullshit?
El: No...no...He doesn't...He can't...He...He's all I had to live for, Wren! He's the only one besides you who ever pretended they... they liked me. [Goes back to sobbing] The whole universe hates me!
Dev: El. Look at me.
[She ignores him]
Dev: Fine...look at me, Charly.
[El stops crying with a gasp. Her eyes dart between Dev and Neffy.]
El: What? Why...would you call me that?
[Neffy has gone back to drinking]
Wren: Because it's over. It's time to drop the act. We failed the mission. Metalia won't die. Evil triumps over good, yet again. Like it always does. But the silver lining in this horrible stinking cloud at least you get to go home to your Daddy.
Charly: No. You get to go home to Daddy. I get to stay here and die.
Wren: Why would I do that. He hates me.
Charly: [laughs] Are you kidding me?
Wren: No. [he looks pained] It is so obvious which one of us is his favorite. He is different when you are not there. He never smiles. He hardly says anything. He will barely look at me. When you leave a room it's like you take all the joy with you. You two have something...I can never be a part of...
Charly: And we have something he can never be a part of! Don't you get it! He loves you with all his heart! But the trouble is you two too much alike!
Wren: We are nothing alike.
Charly: You are exactly alike! Same macho pride! Same bullheadedness! Same ridiculous immunity to anything resembling logic. You two don't love me! You NEED me! Like you need a good hard smack in the back of the head, because deep down you are both true idiots!
Wren: [Smiles] There is the Charly we know and love. Same fire. Same passion, same know it all attitude, same callous bitchiness to anyone she perceives as her superior, which is everyone.
Charly: And you wouldn't have me any other way. [She smirks] Now would you please let me out of here so I can die as a noble sacrifice to Drunken Uncle Neffy, while you go home to Big Daddy and work on your issues?
Neffy: [rises] No, you know what? Why don't you both just get the hell out of here. [He walks over to the portal and pulls the last remain threads of dark magic away from it.]
Wren: Wait. You're serious? [Releases Charly]
Charly: [Taking his hand] No. Of course he is not serious. There is literally no way he can just let both of us leave here alive. He is bound by an unbreakable oath to Metalia. This is another trick.
Neffy: No. It's not. You see the two of you are giving me the mother of all hangovers with your boring maudlin mewling bullshit. I just want to drink myself into the next millennium, or until Metalia fries me like a side of bacon for their [gestures at his still frozen comrades] colossal fuckups, and I can't do that with a pair of children here, so I just want you two gone forever.
Charly: [dubious] All right. So what's the catch.
Neffy: I'm glad you asked...you see, the two of you are going to need to swear an unbreakable oath that you are never in your lives going to bother Metalia in even the slightest for the rest of eternity.
Wren & Charley: Deal!
Neffy: I wasn't done. And also no more time travel! Ever. Once you cross that time portal, you stay in your time lane.
Wren: What!
Charly: No!
Neffy: Yes.
Wren: You can't take away our one great ability! That's like-
Charly: -cutting off our arms or something!
Neffy: Don't give me any ideas. Look. I'm being very gracious by wracking poor drunken noggin for a way out of this mess that benefits everyone. You two all very lucky I'm a happy drunk, but once I stop drinking I will be feeling hell warmed over. So I would take the deal, swear the oath, and get the hell out before I come to my senses.
Wren: He's right.
Charly: Yeah. He is.
[They sigh and bite their own fingers until they bleed and then draw matching symbols on their own foreheads.]
Neffy: Oh? You've done this before?
Wren: Never. But we have heard the stories.
Neffy: [frowns] None are about me, I hope?
Wren & Charly: I solemnly swear, upon all the dark energy that makes up my existence-
Neffy: It has to be in your native language.
Charly: This is our native language.
Wren: We grew up in Malibu.
Charly: Don't tell him that!
Neffy: Doesn't matter. Don't care. On with the curse.
Wren & Charly: We solemnly swear, upon all the dark energy that makes up our existence, that we will never use our powers to travel through time again. Nor will we seek a way to travel through time by any other means, and if an opportunity is presented to us, we will decline to avail ourselves of it. So we swear, for now and for all time... we also swear to make no further attempt to harm, kill or even bother the Goddess Metalia, except maybe in a clearcut case of immediate and unpremeditated self-defense-
Neffy: The Hell you will! You have to let her kill you!
Wren & Charly: Correction-not even in self-defense. We will never make any move to defend ourselves from her. So we swear, by all that we are, for now and all time.
Neffy: Oh, and one more thing. In the very unlikely event or paths cross again, you have to swear to protect me at all costs, even at the expense of your own lives.
[Wren & Charly giggle until Neffy snarls at them, and they quickly add that to the oath]
Neffy: Now leave.
Wren & Charly take off running, with only one fond look back at Neffy with a wave and a blown kiss, before they cross through the portal and it closes around them.
[Neffy sinks in the corner, one hand on the bottle and one hand on his face to hide his despair]
[He barely hears the clack of feminine heels striding over to him]
Neffy: If don't know if this is Thetis, Metalia or any of the Great Youma, who have come to kill me, but is it too much to ask that you make it swift and painless?
Sailor Pluto: Not quite.
Neffy: [peeks through his fingers and stand up] And who the hell are you?