I couldn't decide whether the slang for vapes should be pixie sticks or popsicles, so I just left it at vapes.

Stepping past the double doors, you walk into a modest, open auditorium, sparsely populated with the other recruits.
You pass up the tray of free brownies along the way, well aware of many departments' tradition of lacing complimentary snacks with hallucinogens, and took your seat with an exhale. You've trained for this moment, suffering sleepless night after night, studying whatever the Foundation put in front of you.
Your phone says it's two minutes past the meeting time. Looks like the presenter is running a bit late. You're not quite sure what to expect from this; this department has always been seen as a bit nebulous. It's not long until a light clicks on, projecting a video of a woman on the far wall.

TFD-Orientation_Version-██.MP4
MPEG-4 movie -
Tags: Online-only

Created - 29 Jan 2024 03:41
Modified - 29 Jan 2024 13:25

[BEGIN LOG]
Hiiiiii, welcome to Orientation!~ Sorry I'm late, busy, busy, busy, you know how it is.
I know that a lot of you have questions, but no matter how many times you've been here, me giving this speech is absolutely necessary.

The woman in the recording seems somewhat familiar. Perhaps you've seen her before? You find it hard to believe you'd forget someone who looks so out of place (her red dress, matching purse, and a vape battery in her hands, nails painted a deep red).

First, lemme say - I know y'all came a long way to be here this morning. Prolly from across the country, or maybe from the other side of the ocean. I want you to know that we seriously appreciate you coming. Don't worry, y'all'll get back home by this time tomorrow, but we're gonna at least try and keep it refreshing for you in the meantime.

You did come a long way, in fact. It's nice that they at least acknowledged how far away from home you are, but "refreshing" in this context doesn't sit well with you.

Second, I baked the brownies myself! And yes, they're drugged. Though, if you ate any right now… Well, either you should have learned not to during your general Foundation orientation, or you're onto something.
Whether or not you did doesn't matter. You're gonna get fucked up either way, if you wanna work in the Final Department.
This time, you're gonna be taking them in your dorm tonight and you'll eat 'em before showing up to work. You'll thank me, you'll need the jump.

You would have waited for her to come out and say "'gotcha!~", but the open drug use felt familiar to you. Have you been here before? You take a deep breath and take a look around. The other attendees are playing with an — again — familiar headset, others are stashing a brownie away for later. What catches your eye is someone in the very back.
Someone looking at you.

With that over, my name's Claudia Pomare, and let me just say it's an absolute pleasure to meet you! I'm the Department's Admin, which means I'm your boss.

You break eye contact from the onlooker. Claudia Pomare. You're positive that you know her, or at least, OF her. She founded the Department decades ago by inventing the drug she's about to have you take now. But for someone who's supposed to be 80 years old, she hardly looks 30.
And this recording couldn't be that old; it's too high quality, and she's holding a modern vape battery.

This mandatory seminar for the Final Department is to get you inoculated to the drug that will save your butts every day you'll be working here. It's what makes us even remotely able to function alongside the Foundation's armed forces, its research department, and energy consumption analytics unit.
Now, of course, if you're uncomfortable with this, you are free to leave now. I'm sure that the Foundation can find a different use for you with your skill sets, but you all did specify that you would be willing to partake in performance enhancers, should the Foundation request it of you; I don't expect any proble-

Your overwhelming sense of deja vu is giving off too many red flags for your liking. It's nerve wracking; everything seems so familiar, yet nothing is making sense. You get up from your seat, eager to get out, but the recording of Admin Pomare pauses to address you.

Hey, you there, Agent "56th First Day?" You had your chance to step out already, this opportunity's not for you. Go ahead and leave, but you ain't escaping 'till you pass. Next cycle, speak to me in my office before this, that number is a tad high, and we might need to force some things.

You look at her for a moment. "56 first days?" What does that mean?
You consider sitting back down, but… She did dismiss you. Awkwardly pardoning yourself from the room as she continues the lecture, you step past some of your peers, and out through the double doors, passing up the brownies along the way, and make the walk back to your dorm. Thankfully, you didn't bother unpacking last night. You were only meant to stay here for a couple nights, tops.
This site is a dedicated training facility for new recruits, but you haven't really seen many people on-site, just a skeleton crew taking orders from the main site. Unless you count the Administrator's remote lecture, of course.
Thankfully, the dorm isn't too far. You quicken your pace to get there, the instinct to look over your shoulder not leaving until you finally have the security of a locked door behind you.
Digging through your belongings for your passport, you're about to leave and confirm with your Site that you want to be put someplace else, but your train of thought is interrupted by the knock at the door.

Anyway, what on earth are we coating your virgin lungs with? “neurolastic” doesn't really explain much, does it? Honestly, explaining how it'll help to someone who hasn't taken 'em makes me feel like a hippie, but you can expect euphoria, synesthesia - particularly in the “seeing infinity” department, and heightened energy. Mostly though, it puts you in the exact brain-state needed to do your job: handling the infinite.

Just as soon as you unlock the door, someone kicks it open. The edge slams into your forehead, knocking you to the ground.
You don't get to to see how the person was wearing a strange respirator on their face. You didn't see the glock in their hands as you tumble to the ground. You don't even realize that the person looks exactly like you.
All you get to see after you recover from getting bashed is the bottom of their boot, and the flash of gunfire.

Where does it come from? A plant. It's safe, no need to worry your pretty little heads about that. You'll notice "candy” comes in a lotta forms like patches, vapes, brownies, and cotton candy.
See that lil' respirator thingy in front of you? We call it cotton candy, after the serious cottonmouth it gives you as soon as it's on, but this lil' doodad is officially called a neurolastic Respiratory Mask, and you can prolly guess that pumps you full of vapors at full blast. Effects are instant, results are effective, and it feels intense. Which works, cause your flight or fight instincts should already be going off before you use it. This's so that when the time comes, you're at peak condition to stare the gods down in their face and walk backwards into the abyss.

You exhale into the mask, calming yourself as you stand over your own corpse. Hearing gunfire from outside as well, you look to your watch, and realize that Orientation ended right about now. Which means that all the other recruits are going to be killing themselves soon, if not now.
This is the 59th time you've woken up today, the first time that you took your Candy, and the first life you've taken. You considered yourself lucky, working for the SCP Foundation with no body count. At least 'till now. Assuming this counts.

It's especially important for our Sequence Breakers, but you guys in the lab coats need it too for rainy days. Now, we'll be inoculating y— here, let me join you —inoculating you so you know what to expect, but also we're going to see how you function while you're over the moon. The first hit is always the most indicative of how you'll react to it in critical conditions, and see if you can actually handle it.
So! Let's do this then! First, you'll fit it over your head like so, and once it's secure, take the cartridge, make sure it's tightly screwed in, and then… Theeeere we go. Everyone good?

You turn the valve on your mask, letting the neurolastic agent flow into your lungs, going into a coughing fit as soon as you do so.

… Oh, wait, yeaah, you'll be training your lungs too, I totally forgot 'till basically all of you were coughing them out. Anywho, your first test is gonna be surviving 'till tomorrow. We've introduced a twist on the famous Groundhog Day-type anomaly to everyone in this room while you were in transit. The Candy should help, but you're mostly gonna be on your own.

As you see and feel the neurolastic kick in, your fingers trail along the strands of space-time; it's almost like a running stream, but it has texture of marble.
But you know that you aren't out of the woods 'till you see sunrise.
The neurolastics makes it feel like the sun is shining down on your face as you move the couch up against your room's door, your nose feeling tingly in between brief coughing fits. As you listen to the choir of gunfire.
You're high as hell right now, but it's a functional high. You have your balance and faculties, and while colors are somewhat more vivid than you're used to, that's nothing to worry about. If anything, you feel more in control on the Candy than you do off it.
Despite that, you're still too distracted by what you've just done to notice the figure right behind you, stepping out of their hiding place. Despite their mask pumping their lungs full of Cotton, their breathing is steady. Low. And most of all, quiet.

Oh and uh, if you have been here before, you no longer are required to be here at orientation, but you may still repeat this meeting regardless. Candy's available in the cafeteria or in any of the machines, so you should be able to just get whatever whenever.

You don't hear them creeping forward. You don't see the barrel of the gun rising to the back of your skull. You don't see their finger curl around the figure.
But as you stare down at your own bleeding corpse, you do see the aura of someone else that does not belong in this loop.
Your grip on the gun tightens. You spin to meet yourself.

If you die, don't worry, you can try again next time. Oh and if you see your time-clone, kill them before they kill you, just don't kill your 'dupe 'till after they leave this meeting. You might think one of you is "destined to die," but the odds are really more like 60-40.
Hm… Anything else…

One more gunshot joins the choir.

… Nope, I think that's it! Have fun!


Canon Hub » From 120's Archives Hub / The Man Who Wasn't There Hub » GASLIGHT, GATEKEEP, GIRLBOSS Hub » Four Knights' Tango

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Co-written by JakdragonX, Ralliston, and Trotskyeet
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The following article is a part of the GASLIGHT, GATEKEEP, GIRLBOSS storyline. Whilst you can read it on its own, it's highly recommended you read the previous installments to get this article in its fullest.

2004

11th of January
Overwatch Command, 75 kilometers north of Kraków, Poland

Site-01 wasn't a quiet place.
Ever since its creation in the wake of the 20th century, its endless corridors were always filled with one sound or another. At first, it was the humming of perfectly-aligned machinery, feeding the Beast beneath the Factory with the products of its harvest. Then, it was the screams and shouts of a million-year war, brought to the building's threshold by a raging army of wronged men. And then, for almost a century, it was the shuffling of papers and research talks, vocalized by the endless array of personnel Overwatch Command employed in an attempt to contain the Queen in her Throne Room.
But tonight was different, for Site-01 was quiet.
Nobody knew when it happened, how it happened, or why it happened, but everyone within the building felt it. A dead silence, devoid of the endless whispers of the devil that tainted it for so long, filling every single centimeter of the place it could find. No motion, no voice, no presence could be felt, only the void of the god-shaped hole it left behind.
Site security raised a containment breach alarm within seconds.

The ancient doors creaked open, sweeping away centuries worth of dust and grime as a large humanoid figure stepped inside.
The suit was a cross between Darth Vader and a bulldozer, the peak of two decades of paratech research done by a dozen organizations that both legally and morally should not exist. With its every step came the crackle of druid protection wards, the humming of active Scranton Reality Anchors, and the thunder of two tons of Pittsburgh steel, protecting its user from the influence of almost any being that wanted to take control of its user, no matter how powerful.
Piloting it was Junior Researcher Christina Yates, who was not having a good day.
In her left claw was what looked like a Geiger counter designed by Escher, humming and wailing as she flipped through the detection frequencies: antimemetic, thaumaturgy-cloaking, Akiva, djinncraft, the whole nine yards. Nothing.
Well, not entirely nothing; what the Foundation called SCP-001-B still had one of its unmistakable traits remaining in place. The wooden throne room of the once world-spanning Fae empire, full of countless jewels and riches from forgotten conquests, weaved by magic so evil even the Foundation feared it, was still where it had been before, intact.
What was particularly noteworthy about the seat however was the visible absence of the immortal soul of a long-dead Fae monarch god on it, hellbent on enslaving all of Earth.
Christina sighed, activating her walkie-talkie, dreading the response on the other side.
"It's Yates. Scans confirm it. Mab's gone."
She was so getting fired.

12th of January
Esterberg's Market District: Częstochowa, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

EMERGENCY NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION O4 COUNCIL

The following message is currently broadcast to all Foundation Sites overseeing Free Ports.
During the morning hours of 11/01/2004, Site-01 was raided, resulting in the theft of an incredibly powerful artifact. Its proper usage would result in an inevitable and irreversible HK-Class "Deific Subjugation" Scenario. All clues lead to a single party being responsible: GoI-120, Triumviraté.
Per unanimous decision of the entirety of the O4 Council, all Foundation Sites overseeing Free Ports are now required to form small-scale operation groups staffed by their most competent personnel to not garner enemy attention. Those teams will be required to infiltrate the Triumviraté cells in their respective Free Ports in an attempt to find any potentially useful information regarding its future plans.
More information will follow soon.

— Ethan MacCarthy Jr., O4 Council, Summit Lead

"Why are we doing this again?" Magdaleine Cornwell said, groaning as more rain poured down from her coat's hood onto her face.
"Because Green and Westbrook already took Three Ports, and Eurtec's being explored by Rainer and Miller." Jessie Rivera answered, chuckling slightly at her partner's wet blond curly hair. Her red bundled ones were also wet, obviously, but it didn't bother her as much — she was almost always as cool as they got. "Oh, and because Esterberg's close to 120, dummy." She rolled her eyes.
The other sighed again, trying to avoid collision with one of the local denizens of the Free Port, who were as desperate to get out of the downpour as she was. "We're Site Directors, for fuck's sake!" She threw her arms in the air. "Why can't… I don't know, Asheworth or whoever else go? He doesn't do anything regardless."
Jessie didn't answer, instead smiling slightly as she hurried towards a roofed area, directly adjacent to their destination. She thought Mag looked cute when she got angry. Which was very often.
She sighed with relief, happy they weren't walking through a literal wall of water anymore, and looked at the doors leading to the building next to them.

Inventor's Ingredients

Open all day round!
(Unless you're law enforcement)

They were there.
Inventor's Ingredients was a place with many faces, depending on who the client entering was. To a regular observer, it was the biggest tavern in town, serving mediocre drinks and giving good prices for sleeping the night off. To the more informed customer, it was a hotspot for the dealing of more illicit substances under the nose of apathetic staff. To the countless Mab-hating Fae of the city, it was even supposedly the headquarters of an anti-Queen rebellion, said to serve Mab's sister, the Inventor (the name wasn't particularly subtle). And to personnel of a certain normalcy maintaining organization, it was one of the few spots where their three-arrow logo wouldn't draw too much attention.
Jessie strolled in, making sure to carefully avoid a pair of Yeren, ready to beat each other unconscious in the center of the room before making her way to the bar counter. Magdaleine followed close behind, unfortunately being not so careful, excusing the collision with the two with a nervous smile and a "sorry" muttered in Polish. She awkwardly placed her hands on the table, drumming them against the smooth granite.
Just a few seconds later, the tapping was interrupted by the creak of large wooden kitchen doors opening, from whom a large and mid-aged Fae woman emerged. She broke into a grin upon seeing Rivera, and came closer, stretching her back a little bit and yawing profusely.
"Jessie! Nice to see you again! The usual?" Cad'hla Gwyneth said, raising her eyebrow upon seeing Mag. Even if she was an insincere scoundrel that tried to be as nice to as many scum of Esterberg's criminal world to maximize profit as she could, her words this time were honest. Jessie was fortunate enough to be very good friends with her only daughter, Olivié Gwyneth, whose obsession with history had saved 120 personnel from trouble many, many times.
Jessie held up a hand, returning the smile.
"Not tonight, Gwyn'. Business calls, unfortunately." She sighed. "In fact…"
She pulled two small tickets from her pocket, sliding them across the counter.
"…we were hoping to catch a show."
Gwyneth smirked, inspecting the tickets before passing them back and giving the pair a conspiratorial wink.
"Of course, of course. Stairs to the left, think you're just in time for the headliner." She pointed to the appropriate door with her head. "You and your girlfriend have fun." She grinned stupidly.
Magdaleine was about to reply that they were strictly work partners thank you very much, but was quickly interrupted by being dragged away by Jessie towards a small door at the far end of the room.
"Show? Not exactly the greatest use of our time here." She groaned, correcting her still-soaking hair.
Rivera sighed. "Not about the show, silly. We've got a meeting here."
Jessie opened the horrendously creaking door, revealing a cramped set of stone stairs leading down. It smelled like death.
"After you." She smiled.

12th of January
Esterberg's Sewer District: Częstochowa, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

The Esterberg Sewer System was state-of-the-art, constructed by the Foundation a decade ago as a prestige project and apology to the city for their actions back in '85. It also smelled exactly as you'd expect.
Jessie and Magdaleine carefully marched along the tunnels' narrow walkways, trying their best to not fall down the slippery and awfully wet slabs of cold cobblestone (both did their best not to think of what the slabs were wet with). There was no handrail, which definitely didn't help the ever-present darkness and smell of rot and gunpowder.
"Where… Where are we even going, for crying out loud?" The blonde Director said, trying her best not to vomit at… well, everything around her.
"You'll see."
After what felt like literal decades to one of them and ten minutes for the other, the two finally escaped the never-ending staircase, entering a large and very wet corridor. Through its middle, a canal full of dirty water flowed, which would have made a lovely lazy river if one happened to be a rat.
"You're fucking kidding me."
"I most certainly am not," Jessie replied with an enigmatic smile on her face, continuing to walk with full confidence down the corridor.
Through more groans and complaints, they eventually made their way onto yet another staircase, then another, and then another, until the two were so deep underground one could hear neither the sounds of the city nor of the tavern above then. What Mag could hear, though, was extremely vague yet rhythmic music-like sounds, coming from beyond the brick wall next to her face. She came a little closer, trying to listen more carefully, only to realize the walls ended, giving in to large metal doors in a dead end. She looked at Jessie, raising her eyebrow.
The other nodded silently, giving the doors an irregular knock. Immediately, the doors' composition changed, forming an extremely small window, just large enough for the other side to be able to see the two but not for them to see the rest. The gap in space was suddenly filled with what looked like a skull, which quickly gave the two a look and disappeared just as quickly, changing the way the entry looked once more. They were free to come in.
The first thing that hit Magdaleine was the music. It was a local artist, Rhoteen C'ari, poster child of the Esterbergian post-punk neo-faechant hypertrance scene, filling the entire club with sounds she didn't think the human mind was prepared to experience. The music sounded like rhythmic grunting occasionally broken up by a guttural scream. The people loved it.
The second thing was the sheer size of the hall, which went against all logic and yet was completely reasonable for this place. The ceiling seemed to impossibly extend upwards for miles, occasionally broken up by floating bright lanterns until after a few miles, a layer of dark mist obscured her view. Hundreds of creatures — both recognized by Mag and not — fiddled about, filling the entirety of the club with chatter and drinking. However, most of their attention was focused on only one thing — the wrestling pit located directly in the center of the room, cordoned off by barbed wire and electric fences. The people around it were screaming — some because they had too much to drink, some because their fistfuls of złotys were riding on this match, and some because they accidentally touched the fence.
The third thing that Magdaleine noticed was the competitors. The hazy outline of a creature stood in one corner, chanting in an unknown language. It was humanoid only in the vaguest sense of the word — it was featherless and a biped to be sure, but she didn't think Plato ever accounted for additional tentacles and colors never seen on this plane of existence. The creature opened its countless mouths to expel the scream of an exploding star, the dirge for the long-dead Nightwalker god, and the last word to be spoken by humanity, making all observers weep with both agony and ecstasy. Mag didn't think it had anything equivalent to a head — but even then, she was glad its top protrusion was covered by a hot pink luchador mask.
Opposite the entity stood a singular skeleton, wearing the clothes of a Victorian aristocrat who got really into cosplaying. A short skirt forming a larger, war-like suit covered her hips to neck, ending in a shoulder-pad and a long, tethered red cape. Its barely-protected hands grasped golden knuckledusters, empowered with carvings of Celtic (the basketball team, not the people) runes. With one of them, it scratched its bare skull, only decorated by a golden diadem full of diamonds, with the other it took a cigarette from their many-pocketed suit and lit it in one fluid motion.
Ex-Foundation Agent Marie Antoine Surratt, first and last of her name, Mad Queen of Hell, Bones, and Suffering Itself, Bone Battalion's Baron, leader of Claire's Legion, Bloodless Kingpin, Murdered of Hope, Light in the Darkness, and just a Mean-ass Bitch et al was quite the sight to behold.
As Mag and Jessie made their way towards the bar counter, sitting in comfortable distance from the arena, a skeletal announcer counted down the match before quickly running out of the ring. The beast roared, prompting Surratt to spring towards it. Her punch connected with the being in its approximate midriff, causing it to stagger away. The crowd screamed, both with happiness and anger as the two threw punches at each other over and over as the skeleton grabbed the demon's head and bashed it against her femur. She punched it again and again, until its "face" was reduced to nothing more than pulp, spraying technicolor blood all over herself and the observers. No one particularly seemed to care.
The creature fell on the floor as the crowd whooped and hollered. Surratt took another drag from her cigarette, stretching her arms wide as she proudly strutted around the ring. The spectators ate it up, throwing their money directly onto the pit as the skeletal warrior burst out into uncontrollable laughter of a maniac.
She didn't notice it, not until it was too late. The being rose again from behind the ex-agent, opening its million mouths with the fury of a thousand suns and latched itself onto Surratt's body. It swallowed her whole, screeching with an emotion so alien to the human noosphere as to be entirely incomprehensible. Mag let out a small yelp of surprise which she would later insist was indigestion. As the crowd booed, it laid down on the arena again, panting with unmistakable satisfaction and exhaustion. The entire hall once again fell silent, waiting in anticipation for what would happen next.
And then the beast's belly exploded. A singular skeletal arm broke through the scaly and slippery body of the demon, its blood tainting even more of the arena, until Surratt entered reality again. She uttered a loud and triumphant "Ha!" before proceeding to kick the beast in the face, taking extra care to ensure no blood got on her boots.
"Get the hell out of my city, you fucking non-Euclidean, scum," she shouted, extinguishing her still burning cigarette on the blood-stained ground. She spat on the half-alive being, panting with exhaustion, happiness, and sheer adrenaline pumping through her nonexistent veins. "Nobody fucks with the Bone Queen, bitch."
It was over. And then the crowd exploded.
Jessie cleared her throat. "And that's exactly who we're meeting today."
Mag didn't reply, instead sighing as she looked around the hall once more. It seemed like Surratt was done with taking adulation from the crowd, as she made her way away from the arena down the hall. The crowd opened before her — be it from respect or fear — and in just a matter of seconds, she arrived at a gigantic throne, standing menacingly in the highest point of the room, near one of its walls. The construction was just as confusing as Surratt's attire, but, at this point, neither of the two questioned it, having long since accepted the bizarre as the norm in the confusing world of Esterberg's undercity.
Surratt clambered upon it, lighting another smoke while smiling with satisfaction, giving the entire hall a look with her supposed eyes. Mag's reason knew this was impossible, but a smaller and much older part of her brain that hadn't quite worked out yet that hunter-gathering was rather passé screamed internally that not only was Surratt grinning from ear to ear, but she was also looking directly at Mag. She blinked once, and the feeling was gone.
Their trance was suddenly interrupted by a large Child of the Night, scowling at them from behind the counter with a less-than-pleased expression on his furry face. "Oi, if you aren't going to buy something, get out of those seats. Paying customers only."
Mag immediately turned to leave, but Jessie stopped her and slammed down their tickets. An awkward smile entered her face as she chuckled nervously.
"I purchased two Deluxe Dinner And A Show Packages, which guarantees us each one meal and drink voucher. At least according to it, haha." The bartender looked closer at the tickers, groaning almost unnoticeably. "I'd like a water and a slice of bread, and she'll have… Mag, do you want anything?" She looked her directly in the eyes.
"Uhm… I…" She blushed slightly, coughing in an attempt to cover it up, which was extremely stupid because that's not how blushing works, she thought.
"She'll have a glass of water and bread as well," Rivera smiled sweetly, turning once again towards the bartender. "I trust that's not a problem?"
The bartender turned away, grumbling something about "fuckin' tourists," visibly not pleased.
"So, I, uh…" Mag tried to say, only to be interrupted by the match's announcer sliding into the seat next to her, ordering three shots of the bar's cheapest liquor. With enthusiasm she's never seen in anyone, it downed them one after the other, liquid splashing down from its jaws to its ribcage, with a few droplets of the booze getting on Mag's coat. She looked on with mild disgust and curiosity at the being, wondering what unholy force held together all these bones.
Her train of thought was shattered almost as quickly as it began, as the previous music suddenly stopped. She felt a sense of relief at the sense of relative quietness and tranquility that followed, but immediately groaned again as the endless crowds filling the club cheered for something in the distance.
Near Surratt's throne sat a seven-man band of skeletons, each of them occupying a different equally peculiar instrument. She was certain one of them was a modified flute and the other a guitar formed from the bones and maw of what appeared to be a dragon of some kind, but the one that really got her attention was the piano, occupied by a skeleton wearing eighteen-century clothing. The others waited for his command, and seconds later, the club exploded with a techno-dubstep remix of Moonlight Sonata. Mag never expected the crowd to enjoy the show, but for some reason she did not understand, it appealed to the Esterbergians even more than the previous chants.
"Alright, so, uhm," Rivera said, turning her head towards Mag and groaning slightly as she heard more and more of the music. "You wait here, and I'll go arrange a meeting."
"A meeting?" She raised an eyebrow.
Jessie pointed at Surratt with her head. "With her, dummy. She's not gonna talk to us in front of the entire crowd. It would break her image."
"Fair enough," Mag replied, making place on the counter for the now-arrived orders.
"C-Cool beans." The other raised her thumbs, walking away into the endless crowd. Before Mag could blink again, she disappeared into the rhythmically-dancing mass of people and monsters.
"So, what'cha doin' here, skipper?" The announcer suddenly spoke with surprising clarity, turning his skull towards Mag. "What drives a Jailor and her girlfriend out here, the middle of Esterberg Fight Night?"1
She internally sighed, too tired to explain their relationship for the millionth time this evening, instead just moving her stool a little closer to the other. "Meeting with her, apparently." She said, pointing with her head towards Surratt. She knew she probably shouldn't talk about the details of their mission with strangers, but something deep within the skeleton's voice told her he would forget the entire conversation in an hour anyways.
He burst out laughing, hitting the counter many times with his skeletal fits, much to the barman's disapproval. "Oh, man!" He wiped away a nonexistent tear from his cheek. "Well, good luck to you two lovebirds if you think the Mad Queen'll listen."
Mag shook her head. "She really did go nuts after she died in that grove of suffering all those years ago, didn't she?"
"Well, if ya went to hell and killed Satan 'imself, would you be sane?" He drank another shot.
"Fair enough." Cornwell shrugged, taking a bite out of the bread. It was hard as a rock. Taste was similar too. "Whawht abwout thwe west, thwouwgh?"
"Huh?"
She swallowed the bite. "The rest of the skeletons, I mean. You all seem pretty normal."
He looked around them, focusing on the band playing in the background almost immediately. "I guess they do, unless you count Beethoven out." He chuckled.
She raised her eyebrow.
"Oh, you don't know?" She nodded, making him point in the direction of the fancy-dressed skeleton on the stage. "That's Ludwig van motherfuckin' Beethoven, sweetie."
The airhorn and synthesizer section of the sonata started, and Mag decided that sometimes you shouldn't mess with the classics, because otherwise, the classics might decide to mess with you.

Interview Log 120/Alpha-49X0

«BEGIN LOG»
Rivera turns her recording device on as she comes closer to Surratt's bone throne. She shallowly bows, smiling through a grimace on her teeth, much to Surratt's satisfaction. The other shows Rivera can stand up with her hand, simultaneously filling her nonexistent mouth with a big sip from a gigantic bear mug sitting atop her seat. The liquid splashes through her open ribcage onto the floor below her. She does not seem to notice.
Surratt: Curse my goddamn eyes if I'm seeing the truth. Jessie Hannah fuckin' Rivera, in her very own person. Here, in the heart of my palace.
From one of her pockets, Surratt takes out a piece of paratechnology with a visible Prometheus Labs marking on it, and uses it to light her own cigarette. The lighter zaps with thaumic energy, but ultimately abides the order.
Surratt: What to do I owe the pleasure?
Rivera: Oh, Queen of Bones, Light in the Darkn—
Surratt rolls her eyes.
Surratt: Oh skip the bullshit, will you? Just get to the point already. <looking at her wrist> I ain't got the entire day, honey.
Rivera sighs, gently massaging her eyes.
Rivera: It's about Triumviraté.
Surratt raises her eyebrow.
Surratt: <quietly:> Even after the weeb Nazis, it's always those fuckin' forest idiots. <sighing, much more clearly and loudly:> What is it this time? Drugs, human trafficking, or just general bullshit all over?
Rivera comes closer, scratching her head.
Rivera: Weeb Nazis?
Surratt scratches her skull with the hand holding the smoke.
Surratt: Chicago Geist. It's… a long story. Point is even they were less annoying than Triumviraté. But I digress; what do you need and why should I help you?
Rivera bites her lip.
Rivera: I can't exactly tell you anything, but—
Surratt waves her finger.
Surratt: I'm still technically 120's employee.
Rivera: Huh?
Surratt: They never terminated my contract after I died. <stretches her limbs> So, y'know, I'm covered by the secrecy policy. Go ahead.
Rivera: I…
Rivera looks at the bar located in the background, grabbing her head in her hand. She sighs, and whispers "whatever" to herself.
Rivera: They somehow stole Mab's soul from Overwatch HQ, and now want to use it to summon her fully back into reality. Which would, you know, inevitably end it, alongside everyone in it.
Short pause.
Rivera: We don't know which cell of them has it, but since they operate in practically every Free Port out there, we sent two-man squads to check up on them to each one. <pointing at Cornwell in the distance with her head> Me and Mag were deployed here, and we heavily suspect we're onto something. Problem is—
Surratt: —that you don't know how to get in. And it so happens you just remembered your little experiment girl so happens to run the biggest racket in the city and can get any info on them. <scoffs> You really haven't changed, y'know?
Rivera: Look, Marie, I swear it's not like that—
Surratt: We both know it is like that. And it's "Surratt" to you, Jessie.
Rivera tries to speak, before turning around, beginning to step down from the dais.
Surratt: <raising her finger:> But I'll give you one more chance.
Rivera raises her eyebrow.
Surratt: They're a pain in my ass, too. No matter how many times I fuck them over, they always come back. And I don't want no ends of reality. So I think we can come to some… <gesticulates> consensus here.
Rivera: Anything works for me.
Surratt stops for a moment, tapping the right armrest of her throne with her hand and exhaling the smoke from the cigarette. She looks around them, and suddenly smiles widely.
Surratt: I can give you direct contact with someone that's itching to beat the shit out of any Triumviraté scum he comes across. And, trust me, he's good at what he does — so if anyone has any info about them, it's him. <interrupting Rivera:> I know what you'll say, I know — but you can trust me on this one. I'm insane, but I have a moral code.
Rivera: Where's the "but?"
Surratt: You see that arena?
Surrat points at the pit in the center of the room. Within it, two Fae are standing, trying to clean up the still-present mucus and body of the entity. One of them waves her hand in a circular manner, and the corpse starts to levitate.
Rivera: <nods> Yes. What about it?
Suratt: See, here's the thing, honey — I'm a Queen 'round these parts. I can't just randomly help Skippers, my technical employment notwithstanding, I've got a reputation to uphold. So, here's my deal: <pointing with her head at the arena:> you beat me there, and I give you all the help you need. The people are happy because they get to see two of us fight, I'm happy because I get to keep my reputation, and you're happy because you get your info.
Pause.
Surratt: So, you in?
As dead silence fills the area around them, Rivera blinks twice, shaking her head.
Rivera: You're… kidding, right?
Surratt grins widely, taking another sip from her cup.
Surratt: We can come in in ten minutes. I'm dead serious.
She chuckles silently at her own joke. Rivera sighs, sitting down on the dais steps. She looks at Cornwell, Surratt, the crowd around her, and then her hands. She smiles slightly, and looks directly into Surratt's eye sockets.
Rivera: You got yourself a deal.
«END LOG»

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?!" Mag shouted, trying to be just a little louder than the ever-present and very vocally chanting crowd. "THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I'M EVER—"
"I can hold my own. Remember Kraków?"
"You broke half your ribs in Kraków!"
"Still, I managed to beat them, didn't I? Besides, she's a skipper, I'm sure she'll go easy on me."
They both glanced over at Surratt, who was currently suplexing adoring fans in the stand. Despite it being mostly nonsensical tricks, the myriad creatures observing the upcoming match seemed to love it.
As Mag opened her mouth to protest, Jessie shushed her, putting a finger on her lips. "Point is, I'll be fine." She replied, tapping her head with her hand and strapping on a safety helmet with the other. The crowd found it to be very amusing.
Mag groaned gently. "But what if it's not enough?" She grabbed her palm, uniting it with her own. "I… she's strong, Jes. Please, take care of yourself. I—"
"I know."
No one spoke a word, but no such things were necessary — they understood each other perfectly anyway, and it would be simply energy wasted. Rivera smiled, and Cornwell returned the gesture. For a moment, all was quiet. For a moment, all was calm. For a moment, all was good.
They lasted like that for a moment, only for their moment to be stopped by their ears getting assaulted by a high-pitched sound coming from the arena. Above the pit, a platform levitating alongside the announcer from before appeared, piercing the shroud of darkness with accompanying light beams. They switched between million colors Mag wasn't sure she could describe, but that didn't really matter as long as its attention-catching function worked.
And it worked indeed; within one moment, the entire crowd previously screaming and chanting fell silent, gazing only towards one point above them: a single skeleton wearing utterly outlandish attire. He cleared his throat, making everyone know his voice was somehow boosted as to encompass the entire hall, and stretched his limbs, making the clicks of his bones heard by everyone.
"Fiends from forests, caves, plains, hell, and heaven alike: welcome, WELCOME!" He shouted, much to the spectators' entertainment. "I'm happy to announce a second — that's right, ladies and gentlemen: second! — fight this evening." As he took a deep breath, the illuminators suddenly shifted, changing their position to focus entirely on Surratt standing on one of the corners of the arena. He screamed at the top of his lungs: "Mad Queen of Hell and Bones, leader of the Bone Batallion, Bloodless Kingpin, Murdered of Hope, Light in the Darkness, the Chosen One, and Empress of the East: Queeeeeeeeeeeeen Marieeeee Surrattttttt!"
The crowd exploded with both happiness and anger, forming an incoherent mass of screeching in apparent and overwhelming support for the contender. Each of them tried to be louder than the previous, wanting their Queen to hear their words. Though they inevitably failed, it did not discourage a single present soul, gaining quite the opposite effect.
As they partially calmed down just seconds later, the lights made sure Rivera was the one to be seen by the public next. She groaned at their intensity, but tried to make her bravest face possible in one final attempt to gain the observers' approval.
She of course failed, spawning a wave of booing and disappointment, but she did not care. All she herself could focus on now was the skeletal general in front of her. For a moment, their eyes met, each drilling into the soul of the other. They tried to gain even a single advantage before the fight would start. But, invariably, they both remained as the immovable objects they were, not letting the other unstoppable force enter their emotions. Even if Jessie was strong as almost nobody else she'd ever met, she knew the other wasn't any weaker.
"JESSIE?" Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Mag shouting into the crowd from the audience, trying to make herself heard.
"YES?" She slowly turned around, barely hearing a word.
"JUST IN CASE SOMETHING HAPPENED, I WANTED YOU TO KNOW—"
"WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU HERE!" She tried to reply, tapping her ear, covered by the helmet.
"I WANT YOU TO KNOW I—"
"LET THE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH BEGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!" The fury of a thousand throats from above interrupted them, forcing Rivera to turn back at her opponent. She apologetically smiled and put on the protection for her eyes, blinking twice and breathing just as heavily. She knew she could do it.
It was on.
Jessie and Surratt slowly moved to the center, circling each other like sharks. The Director's mind was racing; her Taekwondo was abysmal, her Judo an affront to Japan. Her kickboxing was alright, though, maybe she could—
Surratt reached into a coat pocket, pulling out a fistful of sand and throwing it in her face. As Jessie spat grit out of her mouth, she just barely dodged a haymaker to the temple, courtesy of the skeleton. So it was going to be one of those fights.
"And the Queen goes for the SALT-SPRINKLER! How do we feel about that one, folks?"
The crowds cheering were incessant, echoing in Jessie's ears as the crunch of gravelly sand lingered in her mouth. By the time her left foot firmly planted onto the ground beneath, Surratt had already stepped forward, her dominant arm flailing outward in preparation for another strong-arm to the face.
Her arms shot up defensively — just barely in time to block the incoming blow by Surratt. The Queen was already preparing for her next attack, though, swinging her opposite arm across Jessie's neck in an attempt to grapple.
The doctor leaned backward, dodging Surratt before throwing a punch of her own. Her impact was grabbed by the opponent, who effortlessly flung it aside. A faint "ooh" echoed in the bleachers as Surratt slammed her shoulder forward, causing Jessie to jump backward to dodge. The ropes were now dangerously close nearby. Rivera grunted in anger as she held her arms up to her chin in preparation. This is exactly what Surratt wanted.
Jessie's instincts screamed at her to duck and weave, which her legs complied with before her mind had time to register. Buckling downward, she pivoted towards Surratt's left, trying desperately to find a better angle of attack. The red-haired woman caught a brief glimpse of a smile across Surratt's face as she realized her opponent's opposite leg was blocking her movement, boxing her between the ring and the Queen's reach.
And that was when she caught it — the impact of a boney knee directly to her nose.
The sounds of the crowd and Surratt's laughter only grew into a conglomerated roar as Jessie flung her body across the arena. Above her, the announcer's voice rattled and rambled, but she couldn't make out exactly what he was saying. Pain was the only thing on her mind, dulling her senses as she slowly planted her feet beneath her again.
I'm going to lose if this keeps up. Jessie's mind began racing. What was she supposed to do? Surratt was already on the approach, her demeanor towering above like a leopard ready to pounce on its prey.
And that was when she heard it. The desperate screams of Mag from behind her.
She couldn't make out what her partner was saying, but it didn't matter. Jessie knew that this couldn't continue. She needed to win this — for her sake, Mag's, and the mission itself. Whatever the cost, at that moment, was irrelevant to Jessie. She just had to do something and with that, Surratt's contender felt a newfound power. She knew that she could beat the Queen, and beat her she would.
Reality itself began to ripple around Jessie. Dimensional energy cracked and creaked around her as the crowds roar simmered. Surratt grimaced, taking a step backward as Jessie wiped the blood from her shattered nose, closing her eyes. When she opened them moments later, they were full of purple, rippling with a soul full of realty-bending.
One small step forward, and the ring beneath Jessie's foot crumbled into dust. The crowd was dead silent.
Surratt was now running towards Jessie in a full sprint. She didn't know if the Queen was maybe aware of her predicament, or if she was just trying to get in another blow to end the fight. Whatever the case was now though, it didn't matter. As she approached, Jessie's hands reached out in front of her body, her wrists connecting together with her outspread hands. The tug of reality grappled and shook her body in fleeting retaliation, but Jessie was the one in control now. And she didn't let go.
Her muscles tensed in unison as a single word escaped her lips.
"Push."
And then suddenly, the crowd's screams were a lot more pleasant to Jessie's ears.

The everpresent frost of the Esterbergian night was chill-inducing, but the slowly fading heat of adrenaline made up for it.
It seemed that with each step the trio made across the wet streets of the city, a single star above them flickered out of existence, making the sky just a little bit darker. The city — and, by extension, Surratt — didn't really seem to care, going around its business just as usual, but the newcomers in form of the two Directors very much did. In an effort to make sure they weren't being followed, every shadow, puddle, and corner was thoroughly inspected by Mag, much to Surratt's amusement.
But even then, it was all futile; the Night always watched, and those that lurked inside it observed the three undeterred.
"Where the hell are you taking us?" Mag said, focusing the beam of her flashlight on Surratt's face. The other didn't even flinch. "For all we know, you could be—"
The skeleton groaned, pushing down the light with a bony finger. "Even after you get a goddamned partner, you still have trust issues, don't you, Cornwell?"
Mag opened her mouth, ready to reply to this utterly ridiculous idea. Anger filled her head for the god-knows-which time this evening, forcing her to clear her throat. And just as she was about to share those words of disapproval, she realized that the sentiment was essentially entirely true, all of it. It forced her to shut up, spawning a reaction of looking down at the ground from self-centered embarrassment.
Surratt sped up her walk, as if she still had some appointment this evening, even if "this night" was a much better descriptor. She of course had none, but the idea of spending even more time than necessary with her former employers didn't exactly fill her with much joy. Especially when one of them was Magdaleine Cornwell.
As tens of minutes went by, they wandered seemingly without merit among the car-less city streets. The deeper they ventured in, the fewer people accompanied their voyage, until they made it so far away from city center they were the only ones among the dark skies, alone to the Night's touch.
Jessie felt a shiver go through her spine. She looked around, nervously glancing at the road they previously followed, only to meet nothing but their shadows. It was obviously just her imagination, she thought, chuckling in her mind nervously. It was just her mind, it had to be.
"We're here," Surratt loudly exclaimed, expanding her arms and smiling widely.
The square they found themselves standing in wasn't exactly the nicest area to be in. Small, dirty, in the back of half-ruined houses, and absolutely filled with trash, not the friendly type of trash contained in neat plastic bags mind you, the type that needed to be kept in metal barrels and even a cockroach would turn its nose up at. As Jessie tiptoed across, she did her best to ignore the sinking pit of dread in her stomach. This place seemingly reeked of anger, of grudges, of the will to hunt.
It stunk of hatred.
Jessie raised her eyebrow at the skeleton's comment. "You sure? Doesn't look like 'here' to m—"
And as she was about to let the final words exit her mouth, she noticed something. Before them, one of the brick walls of the demolished houses was… wrong. Deeply, deeply wrong. When she first noticed the expression of anger filling the area, it felt like it covered the entire square, but now she knew whatever the hell was such a furious being definitely hid behind the memetic cape covering the hole in the wall before her, making for a single hate singularity in the matrix of the Free Port.
She blinked twice, making her eyes burn with deep purple. The ontokinesis deep within the essence of the red-haired Director snapped awake once more, filling her very being with nothing more than pure power. It ran through her veins, eventually making its way to her soul and brain, until there wasn't a single ounce of her that wasn't one with it.
As she snapped her fingers, a strong and chill-inducing breeze swooped through the place, forcing her and the other two to blink once more.
When they opened their eyes, they were looking at something akin to a pit nested within the building, filled with endless items whose purpose the two Foundation doctors could only speculate about. Maps, drawings, bounty markers, knives, nets, bolts, flasks, you name it; they were all there.
Among the entire mess sat a single skeleton, his body in the expression of interrupted meditation. With an expressionless face — or, rather, skull — he looked at Surratt, completely ignoring the Directors. Noticing the expression, the General nodded, and that was all he needed to understand everything.
"And who the hell is this?" Mag said, raising her eyebrow at the obscenely dressed skeleton. His bones were covered by a large coat, filled with as many pockets containing as much illegal paratech as she could imagine, from the tip of his wide brimmed hat to the menacing crossbow, modified with so many enhancements even the Coalition would blush. He didn't say a single thing, but she felt his chilling stare run over her, as if he was gazing directly into their souls.
"Oh, him?" Surratt replied, slinging a shoulder around the being. "He's nobody."

12th of January
Somewhere in Esterberg: Częstochowa, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland

After life, there is death. After death, there is reincarnation. An endless cycle of rebirth and destruction, forever guiding the universe forward in its infinity; wherever one went, this pattern followed, inevitably rebuilding the world anew every millennium or so. Even when the Fae Empire was razed from the Earth by its hatred and scheming so many worlds ago, it still found its way back to reality alongside those that unmade it, bringing its darkness into reality once more. Such was the cycle: never-ending, never-faulty, and never-broken.
For as long as it existed, there had been men whose sole purpose in life was to make sure this harmony would fall, crumbled by their boots and made theirs by their spells. Each time, they would of course fail, unmade into nothingness by the cycle's balance. But in the end, it did not matter, as for as long as this harmony existed, so would its enemies; and for as long as they would exist, so would their inevitable failures.
What the cycle's past enemies however did not possess was what Ai'sling Fiadh held in his hands — the half-dead soul of the ancient Fae god-queen, filled with nothing more than her hatred and endless agony. And that was exactly what would make his plans different from the rest's.
He smiled, walking away from the ritual well containing the essence of his master, built-in five meters into the ground of the dark halls around him. He already made sure she was temporarily stable, and there was no need to gaze into the endless screech of hate she was for more than he absolutely needed to. There was never a certainty if the symbols glowing with blood holding her in would not malfunction, making the observer a similarly miserable entity, and Fiadh very much would not want that. Not before his plan to bring her back was finished, at least.
He opened his unseeing eyes, disconnecting the psychic bond with Mab he'd held up for the last couple of hours. It hurt like hell, but it was well worth it — any zealot would sacrifice anything to be with their messiah, and he was no different from them. A little headache was nothing when compared to a direct, faster-than-thought conversation with the one he held dearest.
Where he did differentiate himself from other insane worshippers across history however was that he actually had a plan to make the world his god's. And it was a plan he was almost done with.
"Master!" A cry broke the silence of the dark crypt somewhere below the City of the East he stood in. Through its gigantic doors, a single figure entered, running with a torch that pierced the shroud of Night within, allowing for the messenger to safely pass.
Ai'sling flinched slightly as the light met his deep, black eyes, illuminating his figure and its long, silver hair and ritualistic outwear. With a groan too quiet for the other to hear he came forward, spawning a flame as dark as his heart in the palm of his ring-decorated hand, in an attempt to see who the intruder was. Where his eyes had always failed since he was born his magic succeeded, allowing him to see the very essence of the newcomer.
"What is it?" Fiadh's deep voice asked in a slow yet soul-piercing manner, forcing the other to answer with its words of power.
The figure shivered as his order entered ver mind. "They-They are here." Ve stuttered out, avoiding eye contact with the priest as best as ve could. His will made ver fail.
Ve flinched once more upon seeing his blind eyes look directly at ver. "They know."
He turned back, closing his sightless eyes once more. With a smile too faint for the other to notice, he told his Queen of what he knew, of what he felt, of who he was. And she listened back, allowing him to spread her thoughts in return.
"Then we have already won."

The Lands Nobody Returns From

GASLIGHT, GATEKEEP, GIRLBOSS

I Was the Queen (Before It Was Cool)

Footnotes
1. First Rule of Esterberg Fight Night: Talk about Fight Night, word of mouth advertising is always good.


Last time on Nexus:
The Punishment of a God, Part 2

Tadao Akai sat in his coop and did what he was being paid for. Starring at surveillance screens, that is. There were significantly more exiting jobs in the Saiga Factions, but someone had to do this task and so far he hadn't complained. Here at least, he could switch off his brain. Right now, his glance wandered over to the camera feed of the cell where they had locked up this girl from nowhere. Mr. Masahito had overrun beyond measure by now. Tadao thought about paging him when he noticed that Masahito repeated a movement he had done before. It took a while and then he did it again. And again.
You could almost hear the penny drop.

"So, let me get this straight," Chloe began, while she walked through the corridors of the facility with Dean's Hand on her wrist. "I got thrown into another universe, into a building of the Saiga Factions?"
"Yes."
"Landed in the chamber of a god, who is about to be used as a weapon."
"Yes."
"Then you and Elli came, apparently because this is a very rare phenomenon and try to get me out, because I am pinned down in this universe thanks to the god."
"Yes."
Conversations with Dean were extremely one-sided, Chloe noted.
"Then there is still another thing bugging me. What actually are those Saiga Factions?"
"They are an organization distributed across many universes. They want to save other realities from destruction. As you can see, they are amateurs. This here, for example, is an abandoned underground complex they occupy. Nothing of their own. They don't even clean properly in here."
"Why did they imprison me then, if they are the saviors of worlds?"
"Because they don't want to save all universes. Necessary sacrifices, if you catch my meaning. You probably are from one of those necessary sacrifices, or they just didn't want to take a risk."
"Oh."
Elli, who was walking in front of them, took a gulp out of a flask she had taken from her purse.
"Wwwwath - Apologies. What brings us to the horrible vision of what this Saiga Faction wants to do with Ku's power once it is weapon-grade. He is a deity that eradicated entire star systems with one swoop."
"What? Why?", Chloe asked.
"Only he knows, I presume. Originally he was a very benevolent god. One that actually did something for his believers. But he probably got fed up somewhen because in the end his lambs went to war for the god of peace. Sounds to me like using arson to fight forest fires… Anyway, he seems to have developed a taste for violence after that."
She took another swig.
"What are you drinking there?", Chloe asked.
"Schnapps", was the short and clear answer. "Distilled it myself. You don't get any!"
Elli protectively laid her hands around her beverage.
"Elli, she is thirteen," Dean noted. "Additionally, nobody wants your booze. The stuff is classified as a weapon on nineteen planets. And it dissolves spoons…"
Chloe realized that something wasn't going as it was supposed to go…
"Wait, are you getting drunk while we're trying to get me out of here?" she asked in disbelief.
"No," Elli tried to appease her. "I was already hammered when I got here."
For a while Chloe had indeed had the impression that Elli staggered almost imperceptibly. And she was smiling the entire time.
Chloe was a little bit worried but Dean was reassuringly serious, and above all, reassuringly sober.
Suddenly, sirens started to attract attention with loud noises.
"Attention, all personnel," resounded from a nearby loudspeaker. "Mr Masahito was found unconscious in the cell of Subject Delta. The subject is together with-"
"And just like that, we got exposed", Elli commented. "RUN."
Chloe couldn't start running because Dean simply threw her over his shoulders in a firemen's carry. In this context she realized anxiously that he apparently had very pointy bones. In the distance, the thunder of shoes on concrete became audible.
To their left a door opened and two men, both relatively young, walked out, probably to evacuate. Elli immediately changed her course, threw herself against the ones fleeing. Dean followed at the double.
"Good reaction, Elli", Dean praised her, while letting a wobbly Chloe from his shoulders and closing the door. The two still dizzy employees he turned the hands on the back and held them down.
"Ouch!… What do you mean with 'good reaction'? I wanted to run past and not right into them…", Elli groaned and got tottering back on her feet.
"You should stop drinking."
"Forget it. I- oh hello…"
Apparently, Elli now got aware of the kind of room she was in. For Chloe, it looked like the Command Center of a futuristic space ship. Albeit one that got assembled from souvenirs from a computer component sale.
"JACKPOT!", Elli rejoiced and ran to what was seemingly the main frame.
"Hey, hey! What are you doing?!", one of the scientists held in a head lock by Dean yelled after her.
"Yes, what are you doing?", Chloe joined in quizzically.
"Weeeell", Elli smirked. "This here is, if the readings on this monitor don't lie, a terminal with access to the network of this building. Yes, just shake your heads, you're just confirming I'm right."
Elli searched in her purse and finally pulled out an USB stick adorned with kittens that was unceremoniously inserted into a port that was certainly not designed for an USB stick.
"Universal port stick", Dean explained because of Chloe's asking look. "Fits on any computer with an access point. Five hundred yottabyte storage and a micro processor with fifteen exaflops."
Chloe gave him an uncomprehending look. It took a while until Dean interpreted the facial expression correctly.
"The stick has a better performance then the most modern super computer of your world", he finally explained.
"Aha… And what do you want with that?", Chloe asked.
"I don't have a knack for hacking", Elli answered. "Therefore, I have an artificial intelligence on this stick that does it for me. I just have to tell it what I want."
She looked briefly at the numerous screens.
"Hehe, anti-hacker protocols, what a bunch of suckers… Oh?"
Elli opened a file that had gotten presented to her.
"110F after all. Chloe, I found our Destroyer. From here, I have access to his cell."
Chloe stepped closer. One of the screens showed a surveillance feed of the chamber she had gotten pulled from.
"Quite savvy," Elli commented, while studying several pictures and diagrams that told Chloe absolutely nothing. "This device saps his energy from him and not really gently at that. This makes his power easier to control if those people load it in, let's say, a canon. A genius contraption, really. Perfect if you want to build a weapon for deterrence. That's probably also how they caught him. But it was a really dumb idea to connect the controls with the main network, if you ask me. Typical amateurs… Let's see if I can tweak it a little…"
Chloe got dizzy as she watched how Elli's hands seemed to become specters, scurrying over the keyboard like two hyperactive tap dancers.
From the other side of the door, the already familiar stomping of several foot pairs resounded.
"No proper protection against hackers but corruption alarm… How predictable."
Elli pulled the stick out again when the door got kicked open. Several people in something they probably thought was tactical gear, walked into the room. Several gun barrels were pointed at the trio. Dean let go of his captives, walked in front of Elli and pulled Chloe behind himself while doing that.
"Surrender, you're surrounded!", a especially brawny man yelled.
Apparently he was the one in charge.
Elli grinned as she stuck out her head behind Dean's back.
"Are you sure that we are the ones that have to surrender?"
"Ma'am, we have the permission to shoot you and your college in an emergency. We matched your descriptions with the databases of all Factions."
"Then you are a tactical genius because you didn't do it until now."
"What did you do to them?", Chloe asked panicky.
"Long story."
"I am counting up to three now. If you do not raise your hands and surrender until then, we will shoot you and take the girl back into custody. Well then, one…"
The ground started shaking.
"Before you start doing something extremely stupid, I should probably inform you about what I did.", Elli announced. "This god you have locked up, very clever to drain his power from him to weaken him. But I just reversed the flow of energy. Ku is getting pumped up with his own power right now. How long will your security measures hold until he breaks out?"
"Wha-", the squad leader stammered. "If this thing breaks out, it will annihilate us! Us all! Including you!"
"What?" said Chloe tersely…
Nobody payed attention to her.
"Look at this whole thing from our perspective. Me and my college will probably be locked up for the rest of our lives, provided you don't kill us on the spot, and I have no clue what you are going to do to my friend. However, if I remember the sense of ethics of this version of Earth and your opinion towards the person of little Miss Winter here correctly, it won't be something pleasant. Seriously, you rip out nails for parking violations… So why shouldn't we prefer a fast and for the most part painless death? Oh, don't force your two eggheads over there to solve the problem. I bugged the remote controls. You can't access it anymore, from here or from any other terminals."
Elli put on and engaging salesperson smile.
"… What do you want?"
"First, I want you all to lower your weapons, and then you are going to escort us to the cell of Ku. From there, I can reverse the energy supply again by reconnecting a few cables."
"Why shouldn't we simply send somebody else to do that?"
"You keep thinking, glorious, you have earned a promotion. I changed the system parameters a little bit. Imagine the flow of energy at the moment as a giant knot. If you let someone who doesn't have a clue pull on it, you will blow up the building. And probably a remarkable portion of the continent we are on…"
The ground shook again.
"Think fast," Elli advised sardonically. "The system is just ticking over but if I see it correctly, you just have about fifteen minutes."
It took a short while but then the leader signaled the soldiers to lower their weapons.
"Follow me…"
"Did you plan that?", Chloe asked while they went towards room 110F, accompanied by a dozen soldiers. She pressed her Translation sticker as she spoke. Elli had explained to her that she could temporarily deactivate it like that, so nobody could listen in. Elli did the same.
"Well, actually I thought we would be caught while in route but hey, the result is the same."
Her German had a weird inflection Chloe couldn't quite place.
"And what do we do now? If you weaken the god again, we land in prison!"
"Not if the god prevents it," Elli said with a wink. "He didn't kill you when you landed in his cell. Quite the opposite, he did his damndest to keep you to himself. Let's see how attached to you he truly is. With some luck we simply have to ask him. Then I reactivate the energy-draw system, and we bail out."
"Hey, talk in a way we can understand!" one of the guards yelled.
"Alright, alright."
The squad stopped in front of the entrance gate while it got opened slowly.
"And if you are wrong?"
"Then it apparently has to be that way," was the short answer.
The doors where now opened far enough, so they could pass through.
"Whoa, in real life this looks even more impressive. Did you build all this with electronic and container scraps?"
"WHAT ARE THOSE PEOPLE DOING HERE?"
The scientist who had wanted to interrogate Chloe, probably Mr Masahito, looked angrily away from his work. Said work was seemingly to figure out how he could solve this problem with the energy supply.
"Mr Masahito, sir, that woman claims she can reverse Ku's energy supply again," the squad leader explained."
"And you morons believed that? What if she's here to free the Destroy- WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE!?"
Elli had inconspicuously walked away and tinkered with a wiring.
"What does it look like?", she asked. "Remember, you swallowed a bomb."
"I already know that it was just a glass marble! You are not fooling me again!" Masahito flared. And while addressing his security squad he continued: "Why are you not stopping her?"
The men and women cowered like caned dogs and hemmed and hawed for a little while before a somewhat more courageous guard rose to speak.
"Well, if we stop her we're going down anyway but like this…"
"Masahito, your really have to keep in mind that you are not working with pros. And besides, I am already done."
Elli made a pose that did justice to every show girl.
"And your were right, by the way. What's behind door number one?"
The ground started to shake due to a shock wave and two the container got pushed open from the inside by two big hands. Ku exited and shakily stood up to his full height. And seemed to grow.
Things were yelled and shots fired. Ku flinched because of the impacts and roared loudly. Nobody seemed to mind, except for Chloe who again had the feeling to be disassembled into her individual atoms.
"Hey, what the-", Elli exclaimed in horror. "Chloe, you didn't tell me that he's on his last legs! That one's almost a living dead."
"What? Why?", Chloe wheezed painfully while Elli and Dean used the panic to run to her.
"That there isn't any more than a rampaging beast, not a force of nature like I anticipated. He can be put down by simple backfire, despite his energy! Wait, I do something against the noise and then I will have to improvise a bit. Metaphysical ear plugs!"
Chloe got the described objects shoved into her ears. She still heard Ku's roars but now it seemed to limit itself to her ears. Also, she could now tell where exactly Ku was, even though she still couldn't fathom his true appearance.
Ku indeed got brought down to his knees by the assault. He did start to sweep away his attackers with his arms and threw them against the surrounding walls but that didn't stop the onslaught. He bled from many wounds.
"You wretched bitch!" Masahito bickered, while he stomped towards Elli together with two guards. "Ten years worth of work for nothing! Just you wait!"
The guards advanced fast. Elli, as cool as a cucumber, took a sip from her flask and spluttered it towards her adversaries. Whatever that fluid consisted of, as a mist it apparently was a very reactive mixture that ignited immediately. She improvised a flame thrower.
The guards caught on fire and hastily fell back while trying to beat out the flames.
"In my defense, you would have probably killed us anyway. Whatever that weapon was, you are destroying it yourself right now."
Elli walked confidently towards the scientist.
"Even if you kill me now, I won. As soon as the god is dead, your plans are down the drain and the girl will be free. Dean, to the gate!"
Dean did as told and took Chloe with him. At the entrance a portal to Elli's ominous Nexus opened.
"GUARDS! STOP THEM!" Masahito raged, and drew a pistol from the belt of one of the two goons still occupied with extinguishing the fire.
The security team reacted partially because Ku still struggled. Several weapon muzzles were pointed at the fleeing Dean.
Elli seemed to have expected exactly this.
Because now, Ku had a merciless advantage.
Everybody who was still firing at him got swept away in an instant and thrown against the people aiming at Chloe and Dean. It was just that the momentum was large enough to carry the two further and crush them into the walls.
And Dean.
Together with two unfortunates, he too made an unpleasant acquaintance with the wall. There was an audible crack upon impact. Chloe came shocked to a halt.
Ku meanwhile finally collapsed on the ground and started to crawl towards her. Slowly, but implacably.
"Chloe!", Elli yelled while hastily rummaging in her purse…
Then she got shot in the hip by Masahito.
"Your problem is over here", he growled while she groaned and tried to keep her balance.
Chloe was paralyzed with fear. She could not move while Ku crawled towards her, leaving a trail of dark blood. And finally closed the hand around her.
And Chloe became one with the god…
Ku once was a god of peace. A god of knowledge and life. However, unlike other deities before him he did not see his goal in doing whatever he wanted. Instead, he wanted to help the ones believing and relying on him. It was a symbiosis, because the ever increasing belief in him made Ku more and more powerful and allowed him to work greater and greater miracles.
But peace is not really known for holding forever. Others, driven by envy and greed, invaded the countries belonging to Ku's believers. They destroyed his temples, enslaved whoever worshiped him and decried him as the devil.
Ku saw himself forced to discard his title as a god of peace and retaliated against the invaders with elemental force. Floods struck their lands, earthquakes opened fissures swallowing their armies and cities and plagues carried off anybody wishing harm to his proteges.
Even if Ku wasn't a peace god anymore he was still the patron god of the countries in which he got worshiped. But envy, greed and stupidity are very widespread, and even Ku's own people weren't immune to them and went to fight for their god. And Ku with them, driven by his task to protect his people. His entire world, later his solar system, his galaxy and finally the entire universe got devoured by war, while his civilization reached new heights again and again.
It was terrible. He didn't know what to do in the face of all that destruction.
Until one day, he heard in the fresh ruins of a planet a cry.
It was a child crying over the dead bodies of his parents.
And then Ku realized that there would never be peace as long as there was somebody that could wage war against his people.
So he drained the power out of every life not believing in him, made himself so powerful that a snap of his fingers could destroy galaxies.
But when he tried looking for his believers he saw, that they as well had fallen victim to him. Somewhen after the beginning of the takeover of the universe they had stopped to truly believe in him, had seen him as a matter of course, although not as an ordinary being because that would have robbed him of all his powers. Even so, he had become a tool of the ones he had trusted. And he had eradicated so many innocents…
In his grief born from this realization and lasting for millennia he destroyed all worlds of his universe, now freed from intelligent life. He didn't even notice visitors from other universes and killed them without differentiation. That gave him the name Ku, the Destroyer and made him a threat for the multiverse. And a possibility…
Gradually regaining his senses, Ku saw himself confronted with new enemies, this time some who wanted to use his power for themselves. That power that could eradicate an entire universe.
Ku retaliated valiantly, but he determined that he had become too powerful and had taken too much guilt upon himself to allow himself a continued existence. But he could not die because there was nobody in his world that could not believe in him. So he discarded all power he could, made himself as frail as possible and sought out the most incompetent adversaries he could find in hope that they would waste his might instead of causing harm with it. And he hoped they would eradicate him.
But he was mistaken. He happily let himself get taken captive but the Saiga Factions had their eyes and ears everywhere. They appeared amateurish and kindhearted but their know-how was real and their morals ambiguous. Therefore, Ku was to become a weapon of deterrence, a fate he rejected with all his might. He thought that he would still exist when he was robbed of all his powers thanks to the method with which this Saiga Faction worked with him. Masahito was too clever as to simply let him pass away. He would find new ways to generate energy with Ku.
In his weakened state, he could, had to flee into the body of a mortal. Because in the body of a mortal he was nothing more than a thought. And like this he would perish in the mortals mind and vanish like a forgotten memory. And he would never harm anybody again.
But from where to take?
Ku listened into the void and finally found somebody that had fallen into it by an unfortunate accident.
Because of the absorption device, large amounts of power were required to bring the unfortunate one to him and even more to keep her here. But in his despair, Ku had not regarded two points. First, his being, his voice, was still too massive to be comprehended by an ordinary mortal and second, he had not payed attention to the guards.
Just before he could initiate the fusion process, his last hope was taken from him.
Until now.
This and more poured into Chloe's head while she tried desperately to not forget Elli and Dean in this flood of information. She felt the grief of this being His regret and his wish to finally vanish.
As much as Ku had frayed her, now she pitied him. Because all of this had happened out of sheer despair.
And then Ku spoke.
"Will you help me?"
Given what she had seen, Chloe didn't think long. Her own minor ailments like lost shoes or her clumsiness were nothing against what this being had lived through. She knew that there was no way out for the god anymore. Even if he escaped, he would forever be trapped in his prison of his own negative emotions, because such was Ku's character.
"Yes," she therefore answered.
Then Chloe noted that she could perceive the world with Ku's senses. It was a downright cosmos of alien inputs, none of them possible to describe.
She tried to get a hold of herself. She had wasted too much time!
Through Ku's eyes she saw Dean, collapsed at the wall and trying to free himself. And Elli, who got put a pistol to her head in this very moment.
"But before that, you need to help them."
"So it shall be."
Chloe blacked out. The last thing she saw was how Ku's/her? hand sped towards Masahito with the last ounce of strength and swatted him like a fly…

Chloe woke up. Slowly, as if her body tried to keep her in a blissful blackout.
According to her sense of touch she laid in a bed that was strangely familiar to her…
Chloe opened her eyes.
She was greeted by a white ceiling. She had a hunch that she had left the universe of the Saiga Faction.
Sluggishly she turned her head. An approvingly smiling Elli and a stoically looking Dean came into her view. Both stood besides the bed Chloe lay in and didn't wear coats anymore.
"That… was absolutely awesome! ", she got greeted.
Chloe didn't really know what the woman was referring to.
"What… What has actually happened?"
"You took a god into yourself!", Elli explained in awe. "And then wrecked that security team. How did you get Ku to do that? He was almost dead but no human should be able to just absorb him."
"he… he wanted to be absorbed by me, from the beginning…"
And Chloe explained what Ku had been in actual fact. Elli and dean listened attentively and pensively and after she had finished she asked: "And what will now happen to me?"
Elli shrugged.
"The same that always happens when you take something into yourself. Your body processes it and excretes what he doesn't need. Don't worry, gods aren't poisonous, the worst that can happen is maybe apotheosis but that didn't hurt anybody until now… at least not directly… And your body may retain some shock symptoms, but those shouldn't inconvenience you."
Chloe sighed in relief.
"Actually, where am I?"
Elli started to grin.
"Isn't this familiar to you?"
Chloe looked around and realized perplexedly that she was in her room.
"Voila, only one and a half hours after you started", Elli commented. "I like your bed sheet."
Chloe didn't know exactly what she should answer to that.
"How did you find that?"
"I had recorded your portal jump and determine your entrance point with this data. In addition, I checked the house plaque. By the way, there was ash on the ground, Dean has swept it away."
Chloe nodded briefly to show that she had understood that.
"And what will now happen to you? Do you stay?"
"No, we are going back to the Nexus. You probably have enough for now. And also, you need to go to school tomorrow if I interpret your lesson plan over there correctly."
Chloe was briefly flummoxed because Elli cared for something as trite as school. The woman meanwhile walked together with Dean to her closet. The door got opened with an omnibus creak and behind it one could only see black instead of Chloe's wardrobe. The entrance to the Nexus.
"Well then, take care."
"Will we see each other again?", Chloe asked.
"Certainly, because I really want to go with you on a somewhat less deadly adventure. If your closet creaks, hold yourself ready. You can keep the translation sticker for the meantime but keep in mind that you can only comprehend languages and always express yourself towards others. But you can't actually speak those languages. In case you had planned to cheat on your foreign language test."
Elli winked at her.
"I would never do something like that!", Chloe answered with honest indignation.
"Hehe, I thought as much."
"No, you didn't, you owe me ten", Dean objected, causing Elli to roll her eyes in annoyance. "Until next time, I wish you good luck."
Dean stepped into the blackness. Elli followed with sashaying steps and before she had completely vanished in the Nexus, she turned around a last time to wave.
"Adios!"
And with these words Elli closed the closet door to follow her companion. Chloe immediately ran to the closet to open it again but there were just her clothes, sorted into their shelves in an orderly fashion.
They were gone…
Chloe passed the hair-raising events in review. Even though she had almost died, she had felt something she had never felt before. True thrill and the feeling to be exactly where she wanted to be. Although she was to exhausted today, she already looked forward to her next meeting with Elli and Dean with excitement.

While lolling on a garish green leather, Elli realized frowningly that her flask was empty. Even though more than one hundred liters fitted inside it, prudently without affecting the container's mass.
"If you keep that much company with the bottle…", Dean noted, "then it's because you're uncomfortable, like your shoes are pinching you. I know you."
"What do you mean by keeping the bottle company?"
"You took five minutes to drink it empty. I am still amazed that your body can actually cope with such quantities of alcohol. What's going on?"
"I don't want to talk about it…"
Dean sat down besides her on the couch and gave her an expressionless look.
"Is it because of the girl? I know you lied to her. Why?"
"What was I supposed to do?", Elli replied heatedly. "Should I have told her 'Well, sorry, you have just one year to live, maybe a little bit longer'?"
"Can't you help her?"
Elli chuckled completely without humor.
"She has swallowed a god, Dean. A human body cannot endure that. And I can't just give her pills and everything is well. The problem lies not in her body alone, you know, but in her entire existence, which cannot possibly contain one like Ku. It will start to degrade and with it her body. Against something like this, there's absolutely nothing. I visited enough worlds to know that. Ku probably knew but did not mention it in his despair… frickin' jerk…"
Elli started to look around the room for further alcohol.
"So you want to take someone terminally ill with you on your journey?", Dean concluded and tilted his head. "Why? Do you wish to use her as emergency sacrificial lamb if things get dicey? I would have expected more of you."
Elli payed him an pitying smile.
"You still have much to learn, Dean. Chloe will under no circumstances be sacrificed or killed somewhere, not as long as I can prevent it."
"But why then? You will not be able to make her an full-fledged helper like me. There is not enough time."
"Call it the pity of a woman that already lives way to long. If Chloe's life is a no show in the quantity department, then I will give it quality. Live fast, die young, you understand that?"
Dean shook his head.
"Not really."
"Then think a little bit about it and please bring the Scottish single malt whiskey I bought last week to me."
Dean got up, still shaking his head.
"You will only make yourself and Chloe miserable in the end," Dean predicted.
Elli sat up and looked after Dean while he left the room.
"We will see. There is always more than one way to save someone, remember that."

Next time on Nexus:
The Better Man? Part 1