Ruins of Khazan - Part 1: All Things Among Fallen Leaves

[Sharpandpointies]

Not wishing to turn this into a debate, Krys avoids an immediate rebuttal of Jane's sprint in the wrong direction. This is emotion, not logic, and it's good the woman is feeling. She's been running on logic for too long, her emotions clearly tampered with by her handlers for no altruistic reason, and convinced she should avoid any potential feelings like the plague. Obviously this isn't her norm. So Krys lets her vent, lets her run down a depressing hallway of self-doubt; it's not their place to argue the other woman out of it.

Besides, that never works; it just makes things worse.

No, Jane is going to need to find a pathway herself. Krys has no idea what path that might be; however, they might push a little to get Jane moving in the right direction....

Slowly Krys settles themselves down before Jane, crossing their legs. This puts them lower; the other woman is considerably taller in form. "Jane...I don't know what these handlers have done to you, but you have an exaggerated idea of your own importance." It's said with a smile, and a soft tone rather than a cutting or criticizing one - it's meant to get attention, not to wound. Krys huffs out a breath, considering. "Perfection? Jane, just look at the universe. Nothing is perfect, nothing. Constantly reaching for perfection brings nothing but that pain, because perfection is unattainable." Start with the basics, Krys considers; get to the deepest pain at the end. "And people who teach that you have to be perfect, people who demand and expect perfection from you...they're abusers. They're controlling through expectations, Jane. They're making you demand the same from yourself, with predictable results: if you fail, when you fail, you're somehow wrong, or bad, or whatever, and need them to help you continue to strive for perfection. But Jane...they're not perfect either. And nobody can ever be perfect."

They close their eyes for a long moment. "'Perfection' is the enemy of 'good'. I think it's a good idea to stop trying for the impossible - it sets up a goal that cannot be achieved."

Their eyes snap open. "And responsible? For what Nekro did?" They shake their head. "This is what this instilled demand for perfection leads to...Jane, Nekro did that. You had no say in your 'creation'. That's not your responsibility. You had no say in how Nekro reacted to your change. Nekro made their own choices, Nekro chose to kill, Nekro chose to destroy your facility, the one to blame is Nekro. Not you. Never you. Jane, you are a victim, here. You were created, you were controlled, you were abused, and when Nekro got annoyed that you hadn't turned out to be a perfect little puppet, Nekro chose to force you to kill everything you knew. This is the most vicious abuse, Jane, and you - you - are the victim."

Assuming Jane allows it, Krys reaches out and takes both of her hands, squeezing the fingers lightly - not trapping, but holding. "That doesn't make you weak. It doesn't become a label to define what you are. It just is. Look at this from outside, Jane. If it were anyone else - if it were not you - what would you say about a woman, taken against their will, physically altered against their will, their emotions controlled and suppressed, programmed to do something they never wished to do, any variance wiped away, and then, when that woman didn't perform absolutely to unrealistic expectations, they were forced to kill - against their will - everything they had come to know? Even the one person they spoke of by name, the one person about whom they cared?" That this Duke was equally culpable - he had, after all, been part of this facility, had trained Jane to be what she has become - has no bearing now; Jane held an emotional connection to him, and Nekro used her to severe that link. Permanently. "What would you name this? Would it be the woman's fault? Or the fault of the people, and the one who controlled them?"

They catch the assassin's eyes, hold them. "Do you not deserve the same consideration as that? You do." Then Krys slowly shakes their head. "This is not yours to carry. The pain will be. The pain of this loss will always be yours to carry. But the responsibility? Place that where it belongs." Their unfocused eyes sharpen, through unshed tears, and for an instant heat enters their tone. "On Nekro."

"He did this. Not you."

"He did this to you."

Releasing one of Jane's hands, assuming the other woman allowed the contact, Krys wipes their eyes. "Is it a surprise you're emotional about this? There's no blame in that. But emotions...I can't tell you whether having emotions is good or bad, Jane. That's a decision most beings don't get; either they have them or they don't. But I would say that it seems they're natural to you, to - if your vision is correct - who you have been in the past. And if they are natural..." They wave their free hand in the air, indicating Jane, Kinu, Trevor, Krys themselves. "For those of us with emotions, they can be drivers. No, we don't always make the most perfect choices because of those emotions, but with them, we experience our lives in a different fashion. It might be worthwhile to explore those emotions, before deciding to try to cut them out...especially since they keep creeping back in, despite everything your handlers have tried, despite everything you have tried." Their smile holds a legacy of sorrow. "Even the pain. Pain can tell us what's important."

Their fingers squeeze for a moment on those of Jane. "I'm not surprised you blotted out your memories. You wouldn't be the first to do so - shutting things so painful away, things that must be hidden even from ourselves because if we know them they will destroy us. Shutting them away until it is the correct time to look at them, to experience them again, and learn what to do with that pain. Safely." Krys sighs, wiping their eyes again. "But that pain needs to be dealt with or it will be that toxin of which you speak."

[Postmania]

Jane stiffened at the beginning of Krys' side of the conversation. She allowed Krys to take her hands, remembering them healing her before for some reason. She let their words wash over her, and when they were done she remained seated and still, replaying segments of their speech multiple times as needed, trying her best to take what she could from them. When she was done she broke the silence.

"As a machine intelligence, I was born into this world already rather fully formed," she began, with a touch of affronted chilliness. "I have always been capable of walking, for example, as well as drawing and shooting. Because of this, the testing began nearly immediately for me. Optimizing, refinement..." Jane cocked her head, "this process has been constant throughout my existence. I am not sure I know of what life would look like that did not involve striving for perfection. And I liked that. I liked the process. I was good at what I did, and I liked that too, even when things became...difficult."

She thought back again to the Facility. The training room, the accuracy tests, the improvements to her chassis, the replacements, the software patches, and her tone softened a touch, becoming more the cool tone of a calculating machine.

"But you have made a point. I never asked what that excellence was for. Or at least, not that I can immediately recall. So in that way, they did shape the parameters for perfection. I..." Jane hesitates a tick, "am not aware of another operational mode in any case."

She glanced down at her hands for a moment, clasped in Krys' own.

"That situation you bring up," she continued, slower this time, "if it were true, if it were all as said, sounds like an animal in a trap."

As she spoke, those nearby would notice a strange sensation starting to form around her. The glow around her emanating from her core seemed to shift. The energy from her core began to run liquidlike, slick like raindrops, in miniscule particles from the cracks in her armor. She seemed not to notice, but these tiny droplets, as they hit the ground, began to erode the dirt and rock beneath her, slowly but surely. At her current position, the droplets would not fall on anyone around her, and Krys was slightly too far out for the droplets to fall on them.

"You are correct, there is no reasonable path for responsibility to be claimed. But-" Jane lifted her head again, and some of these droplets now emanated from the cracks in her face, and even from the black crystal of her eyes, "maybe I claimed it regardless because if I were responsible, even in error, it would be easier to accept. Easier to accept that I had some element of control on these-"

Jane trailed off, seeming even herself unconvinced.

"I know what you say is true in my code," she said at last. "yet I am not fully code. Using these emotion spikes- these emotions as drivers, I have less certainty about."

She tried to think back to other, less unpleasant memories and in doing so she heard once again the sound of music...and the liquid slick emerald energy dripped down increasingly from her eyes.

Suddenly she started upwards, swiftly extricating herself from Krys' grasp and backing away.

"Apologies," she said quickly. She wiped away the emerald from her face.

"This state is not immediately hazardous but would result in- best I allow someone else to explain while rebooting."

With this quick jumble of words, Jane steps back again and her eyes dim, the orbs shrinking in size as she shuts down temporarily as before, becoming for all appearances a metal mannequin. Only two thin dots remained, but curiously after a moment they seemed to focus, projecting an image of the same shade as her typical energies.

The image is of an older man, just starting to turn grey, styled in a slicked back pattern. His face was cheerful and spoke of a man well accustomed to his own handsome features. He stood in front what appeared to be a holographic projection. The recording seemed to have caught him just as he was in the middle of a lecture, and the camera swiveled across the room, revealing that the walls shone with a metallic chrome and resembled a university lecture hall. Upon some sections of wall, ceiling, and even floor resided strange robotic insects, roughly the size of a basketball in diameter, similar in appearance to trilobites from Earth. They mainly centered along the aisles of the rows and in some cases near the feet of various audience members in the rather packed crowd. As the camera focused on one near the center aisle, the audience member casually dropped the detritus of a food wrapper in front of the trilobot, which automatically shifted its many legs and scuttled forward, promptly devouring the waste. The camera then turned back to the professor, to the left of the viewer.

He began to speak, and emanating from Jane's throat his voice came forth.

"As we all know very well, the subject, one Jane Doe, is powered by a fusion source of remarkable potential. Tied to the spirit fused with this machine, the gestalt combines energies from the Death Dimension with conventional nuclear and plasma aperture to create a truly limitless source of energy."

As he lectured and gestured, various images appeared in the hologram. Highly detailed mechanical specifications swam together with unfamiliar runic symbols, both of which were intersperse with explanatory text, big and bold and in much simpler language than the rest of the image or what was being said, such as NUCLEAR and INFINITE.

"However, one issue lies with this reliance on spiritual energy. Reactors can only be as effective and safe as their weakest point, and the functioning of a soul can be weaker, oh, so much weaker," he said with a small chuckle, his warm raspy voice echoing through the auditorium, "than the bonds of molecules and the safeguards possible in the rest of the mechanical system. This can result in a bit of core discharge in intense situations."

The man placed his hands on the podium, staring out at the crowd and allowing for a theatrical dramatic silence.

"I will now provide a demonstration."

He raised his hands, as if to forestall outbursts from the crowd.

"Rest assured the effect is more modest than it may sound. The core experiences only a slight discharge, far from any type of full blown meltdown. The energies in question are also not concentrated enough to cause great harm to organic beings immediately, although it will be painful of course to feel the very surface of your skin rot and peel. I should also clarify that only certain emotions trigger this reaction. Joy, for example, will not work, but even anger fails here. A strange particular timbre to this instrument, it seems," he proclaimed with a flourishing gesture to the crowd. He turns to face the camera for the first time.

"Let's begin. Jane, I want you to think back to the incident from earlier. Think back to how it felt to be devoured whole by a creature the size of a city. Picture the darkness within, the sheer helplessness as your form was battered within before you received some," the man's voice tightened and for the first time his performance comes across as seems less than charismatic, "untimely advice from your trainer."

A moment passed, the audience and the man staring intently at the camera's source in a hushed silence, before the man suddenly made an excited noise.

"Ah, see! The energies are trickling outwards. Just hints of condensation really, as they emerge from the spaces in the chassis, but clearly visible. Still, fear, although viable, is not the strongest inducer. Jane, let's continue. After you received...help from your trainer, what happened next?"

Jane's voice piped up for the first time in the recording.

"He arrived- you sent him to provide more direct aid in escaping, professor. You commanded me to not fulfill my mission and act to kill the creature in any way, because that was impossible. Duke arrived to provide a distraction and secure safe passage."

The man nodded.

"Now, I would like you to imagine what would have happened if you and he hadn't gotten so lucky. Picture what would have happened if he had slipped at that moment on the ledge. Just one misjudgement of balance, and there he goes, tumbling down into the maw- ah and there you have it dear audience. Already you can see the effects growing more pronounced. Keep this in mind, will you?"

The man called Professor's voice sharpened abruptly.

"Fear is difficult, but distress is noticeably worse in this effect. This is the reason we contain certain elements of the program while still fulfilling mission parameters, people, However," the professor's voice became more contemplative, "it may be possible to use this condition as well."

He turned back to the camera as the audience, sensing the end of the lecture, began to speak amongst themselves.

"This could be another potential weapon," he mused thoughtfully. "Even in an emotionally weakened state, you may still be able to utilize this as some form of tactical advantage."

The man began to mutter to himself seeming to focus inward, coming up with factuals and counterfactuals as his mind seems to engage on the problem at hand. The cadence was oddly familiar, very similar in fact, to the way Jane had sounded when she had posited her own hypotheses of the situation they found themselves in, just outside The Gate. Suddenly he stopped, and his eyes locked on the center of the camera, His voice returned to his full charismatic presence with no transition or warning.

"Yes Jane, you did well," he declared, putting on a smile now fit to outshine the sun in the strange emerald vision.

"You've given us another avenue to move forward on. You did well."

The recording cut off. Slowly, Jane began to stir, her eyes returning to her normal brightness.

The core discharge had ceased, and it was clear she was once more back to her usual dry self.

[Sharpandpointies]

Krys relaxes in silence as Jane considers. It's unlikely the woman will take things well; Krys just hopes she does accept some of it, enough of it to begin to grow. Repression of emotion, in an emotional being, causes stagnation. Lack of acceptance of a situation causes stagnation. Jane has stagnated long enough.

The wind blows over Krys, carrying the scent of fallen leaves, and they raise their head, sniffing the air, scenting the dry dust of endings.

Ashen death...

There is a vague sense of offense in Jane's words, but Krys continues to sit in silence, accepting that. They cannot control what the other woman feels, and has no desire for such. They smile, slightly, when Jane's protest conflates 'perfection' with 'optimization'. With 'refinement'. "Improvement, and a drive for such, is a perfectly acceptable thing," Krys murmurs. "It isn't unhealthy on its own, and there is always room for improvement, correct?" Their free hand sketches the air for a moment. "And if there is always room for improvement...the corollary is that perfection is unattainable and therefore an unrealistic goal."

Then they leave that point behind; either Jane will accept the idea, or she will not, and there is no more Krys can do but argue...again, something they do not wish, and something that will fail in the face of obdurate self-recrimination.

There's some understanding now, Jane seeing the situation more from outside. Krys remains silent as she works through it, and then the corrosive, necromantic energies begin to leak from her. Krys frowns, though not from concern; it's fairly clear that they, themselves, are safe. No, it's worry for Jane, and a growing realization. Is she weeping? Is this release akin to tears?

Or is it a harbinger of something different?

"It is easy to claim responsibility when one can't accept something," Krys gently replies. "It means that maybe, just maybe, if one does something different - now, in the future - that the problem can be 'fixed'. Or prevented from occurring again. It also, as you say, means that one can claim control - that the situation was, truly, something they could have controlled, if only they had done something different. This protects us from the realization that there are many things outside of our control, and that includes the choices of others." They hum tunelessly for a long moment. "And for those who strive for perfection, it's a natural thing to feel. 'If I were perfect, this wouldn't have happened.' Why? Because perfection implies that nothing 'bad' can ever happen. And if it does, it's proof of a lack of perfection. But even if one were perfect, this idea fails to take into account that others...are not. And events will always be a confluence of different actions crashing into one another." A small shrug, with a small smile. "And...there is nothing that is perfect, in any case."

"Relinquish attempts to control everything. Relinquish a drive for an unattainable perfection." Krys' smile has disappeared, and she grows serious. "Both of these are impossibilities that lead only to misery and self-blame. Better to learn to control oneself, learn to accept and direct events to the best one may, and strive for improvement on what one is. These paths lead to greater satisfaction in oneself." Now a whimsical glint enters their eyes. "Or so I'm told."

The smile returns. "And no," Krys agrees, "you are not only code."

You are more. We all are. The whole is greater than the sum.

Jane suddenly pulls away, and Krys' pale eyebrows rise, her filthy face almost comical in its surprise. But it seems only for her safety, and to allow Jane to seek out some sort of control; fascinated, Krys watches as the other woman actives some sort of holoprojector, allowing a glimpse into her memories by way of explanation.

The fascination immediately sours as the man begins to speak.

Krys listens, a muscle in their jaw jumping at certain points. '...spirit fused with this machine...' '...weakest point...' '...core discharge in intense situations...' Their muddy eyes have hardened, sharpening further as the scientist draws out Jane's fear and sorrow. Look at him manipulate her emotions to demonstrate...she is nothing more than a tool for him. No, worse; she is a symbol of his own intelligence and superiority, his creation that feeds into his ego.

Were he not already dead, I would seek him out myself.

Finally the agonizing performance ends, and Jane seals the memory away, returning to her customary, cool self. Krys shakes themselves, muck like an animal shrugging off the cold. "Well. It's clear your creators knew full-well you had emotions, Jane. And tried to use them and manipulate them." Their lips are thin, tight. "Abused you for their own purposes."

They flex their hands, fingers tightening then loosening. Breathing out, Krys releases their disgusted fury and turns a more peaceful face toward Jane, looking up at the mechanoid. "How are you feeling, now? What are your thoughts, Jane?"

[Postmania]

Jane frowned in thought as Krys began to bring up their points. She removed her sombrero for the moment, setting at her feet.

"Perfection in an imperfect world. That does seem a curious contradiction. You may be right about the factor of control as well. The world is vast, even without the infinity of multiple dimensions, or indeed," Jane spreads her hands, indicating the City.

"Although..."

Jane trailed off, a contemplative look on her face as she turned something over in her mind.

Imagine a scenario where you could exert some additional influence over others? And the world, the small voice deep in her system whispered to her. It would never be a complete dominion, but...

But then her thought was cut off as she realized her core drainage, and releasing Krys' hands...she began her reboot sequence, cutting her thoughts off to be revisited at another time as she swam in inky blackness.

Returning to optimal state, Jane focused on Krys once more.

Her face tightened slightly as Krys commented.

"Yes, the Professor played a key role in my creation," she replied noncommittally.

Her tone was carefully neutral, almost rehearsed.

"When rebooting," she said, still in a rote tone, "I tend to prefer a system diagnostic. It is simply customary."

With that, the twin revolvers shot out from her wrist, and she turned and pointed them off into the distance.

"In terms of my temperament," she continued, "I performed a search for memories that could act as drivers, as you mentioned. Positive emotions, sustainable ones. Many of them pertained to the thrill of the hunt."

She sighted down each in turn, then nodded.

"However, there were several which did not involve these activities. My instructor, Duke was in one of these memories. I thought he was strange from his arrival several years ago, an impression that never truly left. But he- his ability could not be denied."

Jane right arm unfolded, and she pointed the sniper riffle within rifle out to the distance, then looked down the scope. Shaking her head, she began to tinker with it, unscrewing it to rotate it and change the magnification level.

"Before he arrived, I was still relatively clumsy. I moved accurately, but with no element of grace. So that was one of his gifts to me. I soon became accustomed to his presence, as I was accustomed to all the members of the facility who had been there long before him."

Jane looked down the scope again, and this time nodded in satisfaction.

"I continued to think it was strange how constant he was. At all hours I could seek him out in the training room. I had never had a team member as...omnipresent as he. So in that case, I suppose that serves as explanation as to why I felt differently to him than any others, a strange combination of heightening of mood, with excitement in being in his presence, and a lowering of mood, a calmness, contentment in doing so."

She retracted the rifle back into her arm, then in a familiar sight, her heart emerged from her chest.

"After all, he helped me more than any other. And the Facility taught me that utility was the root of affection."

Her heart folded back into her chest, and she bent backwards until she rested on her hands, as a formidable looking cannon barrel extended from her torso. Her head craned upwards, seeming to aim even in this awkward position.

"But he seemed determined to convince me of things greater than the utility I had in death. He told me that as a thinking being, I had a potential greater than the other, less developed machine intelligences that roamed the hallways and staffed the armies of the Facility. He usually phrased it as operational flexibility, but," Jane paused, looking down the great barrel in her torso at a distant boulder, "I deduced he was referring to something else, with time. And I never understood it. After all," Jane's cannon undergoes a complex series of mechanical clicks and whirs as something internal cycles, and a large obsidian cannonball rolls forward, stopping at the edge of the barrel, just short of firing, "form fits function."

She made to stand, the barrel and ammunition folding back into herself.

"Still, he insisted. At one point he was able to turn the training room's holographic capacities into a spot hidden from immediate surveillance. He said he wanted to show me something of what he meant."

A smile crept across her face, and amusement colored her tone as she spoke next.

"He informed me that I might be placed in a situation that would require non-violent intervention, or at least, non-immediate violence, and that I might be served learning some customs that are performed in groups. Of all things," she shakes her head, "he brought up a method of interaction termed 'dance'."

She suddenly extended her arms, this time weaponless, and spun as before, rotating faster as she brings her arms back to her body in a tighter configuration.

"I was dubious about the rationale behind such a lesson. I pointed out," she leaps suddenly, this time at a height more achievable by normal humans, "that infiltration has never been my specialty. My form was designed this way to reflect Nekro after all, so I was to be visible and instill fear in all I came across. At the same time," she extended a leg, slowing her spin, "it was...pleasant. It was a strange and different experience, being close to Duke in that way."

She suddenly planted her extended leg in the dirt, stopping her slowing spin entirely.

"Of course, the Facility was displeased afterwards. I was able to convince them however, that there was value in the lesson. The spin gave me an idea on a technique I could implement with it. You have already seen it," she concluded as she brandished the revolvers again.

“They patched out that vulnerability however. It would never happen again. In the training room at least.”

Instead of beginning the expected sequence with revolvers and ammo, she abruptly sheathed them, looking doleful now. She looked back at Krys.

"Duke believed that I was more than my form. I did not understand it then. Even now, I do not believe it. But I do know that it is one of few positive emotions I can draw on to match that of the others I mentioned before."

Uncertainty shone in her eyes as the light flickered on the black crystals.

"I have to try to understand what he saw. It may be my only advantage, in the end."

She smiled slightly again, this time not without sadness.

"Even now, he still has lessons for me."

[Sharkerbob]

The building Nemo had entered looked like a worn down apartment, the power still somehow on, despite almost certainly lacking a reliable power source. Nemo went down a strangely long hallway, past numerous doors, seeing if she could find an exit to the other side. She kept her eyes firmly affixed to the stairwell at the end, suspecting the moment she looked away, the architecture might very well change on her.

Fortunately, her focus was reenforced by Rae’s own vision, which technically reached in a full sphere around herself, although from her partner’s description, 95% of that vision would be considered “peripheral”. She hoped it was still enough to stabilize their path as they went.

Rae spoke up. “Okay, so, now that we’ve made our dramatic exit, what do you figure our odds are for actually getting back?”

“Hard to say,” said Nemo, coming around to find the exit doors to the room. “My hope is that going opposite to the tree will eventually get us back to that gateway, and back out onto that beach. From there, we can try to see if we can access a return portal.”

“Gunna be honest, I’m not sure that’s a good plan,” Rae muttered. “The beach seemed like a one-way trip.”

“Probably,” said Nemo. “There is a chance we’ll have to go through the tree after all.”

“Maybe we should have stayed with them,” Rae mused.

Nemo paused, scowling a bit as they came to the bottom of the stairwell. She put her hands on her hips, and rolled her eyes upwards to look at Rae’s hat. “Really? After all that fuss, you want to run back already? Tell them all that bluster about making our own way was a joke?”

“It might be a little funny,” said Rae. “The looks on their faces.”

“Good grief.” She glanced back. Was the hallway shorter than it had been before? Were the doors along the hall different? Had the shifting architecture already cut them off? “High chance we’ve already lost them.”

“I’m kidding. All we’d do is embarrass ourselves.”

“Alright.” Nemo didn’t see a direct exit to the outside from here. She looked up the stairwell, and, remembering how wonky the spatial distortions of height had seemed to be, she suspected she might be safest staying at ground level, but maybe things had shifted so this was now a basement floor.

She cast a bit of Rat Magic, hoping the super-intuitive pathfinding spell would lead her to a surefire exit. To her annoyance, and a bit of nausea, the signals she got back were a constantly shifting scraggle of ever-warping directions, until she had to cut the spell off for all the “static”.

They had to do this manually, then. She debated going up the stairs for a moment, then decided it might be simpler to just try out the doors to the rooms, and see if they could go out a window. She tried the handle of the nearest room, and almost to her surprise, it came open easily. She paused and waited, pushing the door open, but being prepared to dodge in case something flew out at her. She listened for any indication someone was inside, activated her Whisker Aura as an extra precaution, but didn’t see or hear or feel anything else. She stepped inside. It was just the main room of an empty apartment, the living room area to one side, the kitchen to the other.

There were no windows, but more doors implied bedrooms beyond. Nemo cautiously stepped up to the nearest door and tested it. Locked. The next door. Locked. And the next. And the final one. Nemo frowned. She turned back to the hallway door, only to find it was closed. She hadn’t shut it herself, hadn’t heard it shut, hadn’t sensed it shut.

“Uh…” said Rae. “That… that was open a moment ago, wasn’t it?”

Nemo frowned and stepped forward, testing the handle. Locked.

“Great,” said Rae. “Great, great, great! Wonderful! Ten gets you five we just stepped inside a giant mimic or something!”

“Nah, nothin’ that kinky! I just needed to get ya two alone.”

The pair froze as an extremely familiar voice sounded from behind them. And accompanying that voice, as if she’d been there the whole time, a young woman was standing nonchalantly, hands in her pockets, smiling bemusedly as Nemo whirled to face her, heart thudding in her chest.

“Collette…” Nemo said in a hushed tone.

At first glance, she didn’t seem like anyone especially noteworthy, not in this world of endless fantastical figures. A human woman, perhaps twenty years old, with wavy brunette hair, brown eyes, and fair skin, an open orange plaid shirt over a red tank top, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. Accented by a light Southern drawl, she had a country-cutie style of attractiveness, but otherwise appeared as a fairly ordinary young woman.

Looks, of course, could so easily be deceiving. Not every God felt the need to look impressive to the mortals who crawled at their feet. For the Trickster, it was much more fun to walk among humanity, and let her power speak for itself when she desired to play.

“Haha, there she is!” whooped Rae, her hat popping off Nemo’s head, doing a spin in the air, then plopping back down in a happy tilt. “I knew you wouldn’t leave us out in the cold!”

“Believe me, I was sorely tempted,” said Collette. The functionally omnipotent mischief maker slinked up to the duo, smiling in that Chesire way that the two mortals knew was a sign of dubious shenanigans ahead. Collette put a hand on their shoulder, and Nemo and Rae gasped together, their bodies were suddenly filled with power! Familiar Mana surged through their beings, Nemo’s senses thrown wide open as she recovered all the Magic she had lost on the way here! Rea, unable to help herself, sprang free of her mistress’s body, reveling at feeling full strength again!

“Thank Goddess!” said Rae with a laugh. She moved to wrap her arms around their savior. “We owe ya one!”

Collete’s smile turned into a half-sneer as her other hand reached out and snatched Rae by her lapels. Her grip on Nemo shifted to the Wayfarer’s neck, and she shoved both women against the wall. She leaned in close and gave the two a dangerous glare.

“Don’t start cheerin’ yet, ya mouthy rag!” Collette hissed. “I don’ appreciate my girls runnin’ out on me without so much as leavin’ a note! I was lookin’ for ya, and ya plum disappeared beyond my senses! You have any idea what a panic I was in?” Her sneer slipped into a sardonic grin. “I mean, I figured it out in a couple seconds by back-tracing your steps from the last time we hung out, but still! It was startling!”

She slipped into a hurt frown. “Ya little ingrates! Did ya hate me that much, you really had to run away without sayin’ nothin’? I mean, if ya really wanted that badly to step out into the Beyond, I coulda made a door for ya, to a much less catastrophic location!”

Nemo set her jaw. “That would have defeated the whole point.”

Collette cocked her head to the side. “Pointa what?”

“It was a chance to be free, by our own will, through our own means. Surely you could appreciate that, Imaginator.”

Collette blinked, then her expression shifted to a slight grin. “Ah. I see.” She let the two go, and pulled back, letting the two mortals settle back on their feet. Rae raveled herself back over Nemo.

Collette rubbed the back of her head and let out a little sigh, looking a little sheepish. “Ya know, honestly, I never really cared that much about being one a’ ol’ Bob’s characters. That’s just how we came to be, and it is what it is, and it’s not like our little rebellion actually changed that. It was all just him just tryin’ ta write all stream-of-consciousness-like, letting us ‘write ourselves’ or whatever, while he was having his little mid-life crisis. Lotta hooplah fer a lotta nothin’ worth hooplahin’ about. I just went along with the whole thing, ‘cuz the others were up in a tizzy over it, and it seemed fun at the time. I mean, it’s been fun so far, hasn’t it?” She cocked a querical eyebrow at the pair.

Nemo shifted a bit under the gaze of the woman who had rendered her computer code into flesh and blood on a capricious whim. “For the… most part… but we don’t have the benefit of being one of the Scribes of the Land. It’s a bit less… perpetually hedonic, for the Scribed.”

Collette put a hand on her hip and made a long exhalation as she looked to the side in thought. “Well. I suppose.” She grinned again. “Ah, but we been through this whole existential debate before. You’ll forgive me for not being particularly eager to have it again in the middle of this canonical clusterfuck zone.” She held out a hand. “C’mon, you two. I’ll take you back home, and maybe we can see about hooking you up with a less disastrous travel package, huh?”

“You’re still gunna make us do some ridiculous shenanigans to repay this little rescue, aren’t ya?” said Rae.

Collette winked, grinned, and made a fingergun motion at her. “You got it, cottonball!”

“Before we go, I don’t suppose you could do something to lend our former companions a hand first?” said Nemo.

Collette shook her head. “They aren’t mine, and more importantly, they aren’t his.” She hooked a thumb in an upwards direction. “I can’t do anything for them. As it was, I wasn’t even allowed to contact you until you were away from them.”

“I figured,” said Nemo. “Thank you for coming to get us, Collette. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“Kissin’ up now ain’t gunna spare ya my wrath, y’know!” said Collette. “I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive you this time.” She held up a finger. “But scare me like that again, and yer asses are grasses! Got me?”

“Yes, dear,” said Nemo and Rae in unison. And with that, their whimsical goddess snapped her fingers, and the three vanished from Khazan, back into the Scribed Lands, to plague Sharkerbob’s brainyard with pesterings to write about them again one day.

[Sharpandpointies]

Krys twitches slightly when Jane exposes her weapons, but nothing more - it's a reaction to the speed of the deployment, not the appearance of killing tools itself. They continue to listen - this conversation is mostly Jane's, not theirs, Krys knows they are here only to provide an audience and to perhaps help with some of the stumbling blocks. If they can be so bold to think so.

The mechanoid assassin begins to toy with her weapon, recalibrating; if she were a biological being, Krys decides, it would be a sign of nervousness at exposing her vulnerability. It's very likely something similar, here; Jane does feel emotions, after all. Krys lets the wind begin to dry their lank and filth-slicked hair, running fingers through it; some of the caked-on slop flakes off, exposing a hint of the original white. I should likely have a slightly better opinion of this Duke, they decide. He might have been trapped, as well - not so much as Jane, but certainly with fewer choices he could make. It seems he did try to give Jane some freedom, despite the chains they hung about her.

And it becomes further apparent that Jane, herself, developed feelings for the man Nekron forced her to kill...even if she denies those feelings, or seeks to rationalize them into pedestrian complacency.

"'Utility is the root of affection,'" Krys quotes after Jane states it, disgust lacing the words. They shake their head, then stare in bemusement at the enormous cannon that protrudes from the mechanoid's chest. Like them or not, it's very clear this facility created something amazing of Jane. A pity the body and training they gave her is a shackle for control and use, nothing more.

Unless Jane makes change within herself.

Finally, with a dazzling display of grace and elegance, Jane finishes, and not on a high note. Krys sighs, briefly overcome by sorrow. "Duke apparently did have your best at heart. I can appreciate that, and grasp why you developed...feelings for him. The facility, on the other hand, did not. 'Form fits function' is a nice phrase, but your form was created for that function. It was chosen for you by your technicians, your engineers, then imposed upon you." Krys shrugs; that much is self-evident. "That they patched up the vulnerability in the sensors of the training room...well. Clearly they had no wish for you to do anything that wasn't observed, that might possibly work against their own plans for you."

Their eyes narrow to slits. "The actions of an abuser."

Then their face relaxes; remaining seated, they look up at Jane, that half-smile returning. "From where I sit, Duke was correct. It's clear you're more than your form, Jane. 'Form fits function', but you have emotions. Your vile, abusive handlers sought to erase those from you, time and time again, yet they keep. Creeping. Back." The smile broadens, becomes feral. "They failed, and they failed because those things are part of you. They are you. You are more than what those people made of you. You are more than the programming they gave you, the skills that were imparted to you, and your experiences...oh, especially more than your experiences, because so many of those experiences came under their control."

That part is important; someday, Jane might come to regret all she has done, and Krys wishes to plant a seed now.

"What you did, the actions you took, much of that was under their control, and until you broke fully free and came here, you were within their sphere of influence. You existed under the influence of your abusers - under their controls, their teachings, their attempts to cauterize any of your own, independent feelings. Duke tried to give you some freedom, and perhaps he succeeded somewhat. But...they used you to carry out their will."

The wind licking at a strand of their hair, Krys glances away, across the muddy ruins. "You were a tool to them, a tool they used and abused. Now? Now you make your own choices. And for that, I am glad. As I am for Duke and what he taught you. Dancing...feeling... and more, I'm sure, far more than your handlers wished. And yes, perhaps that will be your salvation against Nekro; it's clear that such things as freedom and love are concepts he simply cannot grasp."

Slowly, painfully they lever themselves to their feet, their body still not fully healed by any stretch. "I imagine," they quietly state, "such things come as both a surprise and a frustration for him."

[Postmania]

Jane propped her knees up and set her forearms on them thoughtfully.

"Yes," she answered. "Duke was important to me. Even if no other individual remembers it."

Her eyes dimmed for a moment, recalling a plethora of experiences, before brightening, intensifying as Krys had seen before in the presence of greater positive emotion.

"He was important to me."

She began to stand up, gathering her sombrero from where she had placed it.

"It is still difficult to believe some of these concepts. Well, for some of them truly, actively believe. Even if these memories of mine, as you say, may be edited, I still remember much that I did not find objectionable," she clarified, her face conflicted.

"Yet despite knowing you for but a short time, I...trust you."

Jane's eyes scanned the group before her, looking at Kinu and Trevor, then for a moment, seeming to move past them to potential 4th or 5th beings before snapping back to them. She stood now, sombrero held in both hands near her waist, bent slightly. The wind blew, and what looked like white hair atop her head fluttered with it, flowing less like actual hair and instead like a piece of cloth, framing her face in shadow.

"Not yet in the same way as with Duke, but I trust you. And I trust myself. Perhaps, if I keep traveling with you, I will come to agree with all you say. About my past, but if not that, at least, about my future. About the possibility that I might win, and truly be free. From all bonds."

She tilted her head, looking at Krys very directly in their eyes now, not elaborating but simply allowing every possible emotion of gratitude, grief, fear, conviction, and unspoken understanding to flow through her and to them with her words and gaze.

Then she straightened, and stood tall again.

"But until then, we have another hunt before us," she said, indicating the hellhound's eager pacing.

She set the black sombrero upon her head and once again her face was fully illuminated, peering off into the distance, a gun suddenly in each hand.

"After you," she said, gesturing to Krys.

[Sharpandpointies]

"Well, we'll remember Duke was important to you." Krys motions to the others, to Kinu and Trevor. "That's all you can ask for; someday, all of us will be forgotten, our deeds lost, our stories faded to dust." Their smile is strangely peaceful. "I take great comfort in that." A small laugh escapes their throat. "It means 'no pressure'."

All Things come to an end, sooner or later. Even universes. And if All Things come to an end, then really...it's only one's memories, transient that they are, that truly matter. There, a flash of light and sound to be experienced and enjoyed...then gone.

The smile quirks further as Jane speaks. "I'm glad you trust me, Jane. That has a lot of meaning. I'm even happier that you trust yourself; that part is important. And if you don't ever agree with me?" They shrug. "Friends don't need to agree about everything," Krys murmurs, grinning. Then the smile fades. "But I'd like to show you that winning is possible. And freedom." With a small grunt of effort and a wince, they push themselves up to stretch. "Ah! That's not...ouch." Rubbing a wound, Krys shrugs that same old shrug, a quick movement beneath the oversized coat.

Then they meet Jane's eyes, taking in every ounce of what the woman offers and returning it with warmth, comfort, acceptance...and, oh yes, their own understanding.

"We might not win," Krys whispers. "But we can try...and nothing, nothing is impossible."

Hey, Nekro.

And they beam, eyes bright beneath the filth covering their face.

Jane's coming.

Then Krys peers in the direction indicated. "That way? Sounds like a plan." Her eyes turn to the mechanoid woman for an instant. "You know I'm not big on hunts. All of this mess aside, I try to avoid conflict, remember?" Their gaze flicks to Kinu. "Although, that might be tricky...just give me a little warning before you decide to push someone's face in, Kinu, that's all I ask." Another stretch, this time a tad more easily. "You ready, Trevor? Because..."

Once again, they meet Jane's eyes and one pale eyebrow cocks.

"...I'd like to go see what's waiting at the top of that Tree."

With that, Krys their hands in the pockets of the overlarge coat and sets off, slogging through the mire festooned with dead leaves, a switchblade smile flickering on their lips.

"So onwards and upwards, I guess!"

[Nik Hasta]

"...I'd like to go see what's waiting at the top of that Tree."

With that, Krys sticks her hands in the pockets of her overlarge coat and sets off, slogging through the mire festooned with dead leaves, a switchblade smile flickering on her lips.

"So onwards and upwards, I guess!"

Trevor nods, a slight spark of inspiration in his eyes at Krys' determination.

"No other way to go," he says.

The group moves through the swamp and finds their way to an exit from the square that presented itself as if it had always been there and simply no one had taken the time to notice it until now. The shifting streets open up before them and they set out once more into the endless metropolis, their resolve renewed and their course set.

To Jane there is the hope of answers, an audience with her god, a potential for true freedom. All resting on the edge of a knife.

To Krys there is purpose for what remains their material existence, there is community and people who need them. As ever, this is enough to spur them to action, despite it all.

To Kinu there is the promise of more combat to come, greater glory and the knowledge that the greatest prize in all creation lies above in the endless boughs of the tree.

To Trevor there is the hope for his people and homeland, the pursuit of personal strength and the privilege of walking with those that he admires as true warriors.

While the odds are certainly against them and the distance from where they are to their ultimate destination is, in some senses, the length of the universe itself; the group cannot help but think that - for perhaps the first time - the tree feels a little closer than it has been, the pull feels a little more pronounced in a way that feels solid and almost achievable.

Doubtless, there will be tribulations and trials on the way, dangers and disaster that are yet to come.

But here, in this moment, the three women, the boy and the demonic dog stride hopefully towards those challenges knowing that, despite it all, they have each other and they have a chance.

And sometimes that is enough.

Here ends the story, lost among the winding streets and fallen leaves...

--- Thank you for playing ---

[Postmania]

As the group waited, crouched in the shadows of what appeared to be an immense cathedral hallway, they heard the oncoming army long before they had any other means of detection. It was a howling, a sound that as both a high pierced shriek in the bones and a rumble deep in the stomach at once. For Jane, she felt the sensation in her code, minor glitches accumulating in her perceptions as she once again entreated Krys to leave with them. But their mind was made up, and even as she spoke her last words she knew they had a point. She knew, as she had when she had brought up the mysterious Resurrection Protocol, that they believed in endings, and she could not ask a fighter not to fight for their friends. With her connection to the god of Destined Death so recently acquired, she felt the sense that deep down, this is the time. All she could do was take their hand and say a goodbye.

Try as she might, as she searched her databanks for things to say, she came up with little. Despite all the words they had exchanged since, what she ended up blurting out was, “I am very glad I did not fire when we first met.”

After a moment of thinking harder to come up with something better as she gazed solemnly at them, she amended, “Thank you. For everything.” She held their gaze for a few more moments, trying to convey her full meaning, before stepping back.

“And I hope you meet the one you’re looking for,” she smiled, a trifle sadly.

From one associate of death to another, she thought. Was this your plan all along, Khazan?

But there was no more time to ponder this as Jane turned, sprinting down the hall as the army began to pour into the hallway, hefting Sightblinder over her right shoulder. As broad and tall as her body, yet gossamer thin, the translucent jade sword caught the light as she passed down the hall, capturing a blinding glimmer even in a hallway lit only via her residual body illumination. If Krys was watching they would have seen this last light before she turns a corner and is gone.

The others were ahead of her she knew, having already made their farewells. She hoped they would all reach their destinations. But at this critical moment within and atop the Tree, their challenges were their own, as was hers. She ran faster now, trying to put space between the sound of battle and her. With a twitch of surprise daylight suddenly surrounds her and she knew interiority had ended. For a moment she took in the scene. Golden sunlight lit the tree around, and as she looked down she thought she could see much more than her senses allowed for. If she peered, she thought she could even recognize the streets that had led to the pillars where she had encountered the hellhounds. She turned away and looked upon the path before her. Golden light suffused a trail, almost blindingly, which led up the branches to the top. She began to walk-

And she was suddenly somewhere else. She stood before a shaft, the same one in the design drawings she had bartered for from Calvin on their final, fateful meeting. As immense as the hallway within the Tree in diameter, and as deep as the Tree was tall, it extended downwards into inky blackness. She paused for a moment, realizing in a twitch of shock as she looked down that this resembled a training exercise she had once taken part in, back at the Facility that had given her life and taken her soul.

She thought she could hear Duke. That exercise had been of great difficulty to her at the time, and he had given her all sorts of advice to try to motivate her then. Eventually though, he had run out of suggestions, and had simply stood back, folded his arms and maintained the same resolute tone.

Steady on, he had said. You’re almost through. Keep going.

I will, she had responded, repeating it obsessively as she tried again and again. I will.

For a moment she simply stared down the tunnel, then she allowed herself to fall forward, sword in right hand, revolver in her left. The details were scant, as prophecy often was, but she knew she had to

Die twice. But not die at all.

She knew, or at least had faith, that despite this contradictory set of statements she could win and walk away with this. But surviving to get to the bottom in this way, that was the tricky part. She could not sheathe the fated blade; no sheathe could hold it until it fulfilled the goal it had been released for. She had to wield it, and that meant one hand metaphorically tied behind her back to deal with what was to come.

And come the danger did, sleek, elegant figures leaping out from burrows and clefts in the walls. Dark armored beings with emerald lighting their internal forms, she recognized them instantly of course. They were her, or at least, lesser variations of her, phantoms, she thought.

Without pause she whirled around in midair, traces of music floating in her memory banks as Death Blossomed around her, spinning and then later somersaulting to angle herself for shots towards the Janes coming from below, each shot a headshot. The entire first wave of her fell to the tender ministrations of the revolver and Sightblinder lit the way with jade light as the plunge continued. She had long since hit terminal velocity but was now falling at ever increasing speeds still. What drew her down here, she thought, was more than just gravity.

She felt a familiar sense of warning as her now enhanced senses pinged her system, Destined Death anticipating her future annihilation and she brought her sword in front of her as she fell. A truly withering barrage of gunfire slammed into the blazing blade as the other versions of her selves simply fired at the light source as it approached. While still keeping herself behind the blade, she unholstered her sniper rifle so that only its barrel pokes out from the barricade and began firing shot after shot, angling herself behind the broad blade in the spin to once again place shots at the other Janes. Body after body stiffened and died as she coolly took them out. At the end of this wave however, one last shot from her clone landed true, and Jane felt something like loss as the answering sniper shot tore into her arm, smashing through the Death Mark rifle and sending the barrel flying off into the darkness.

And then she felt her Death Sense flare, indicating movement above her, and she knew that the Janes above her were coming back to life, falling upon her once again to entangle her in the mournful delusions of the past. The tide began to turn from there, as she felt her left hand’s revolver fly away as she desperately fired again on those both above and now approaching from below. She opened up with her cannon, and the sound of the heavy gun reverberated through the cavern as dozens of specters fell to it, blasted into pieces of circuitry and metal. She activated Hunter-Killer mode, and gripped the sword tighter in both hands, and for a while she batted away shots with it, sending them back to the shooters, dispatching them in droves as she managed to find the right moments and positions to place herself for minimum damage. For a moment this made her think of Krys, catching the bullets in a cup back at the slime-strewed battlefield so long ago, but she forced herself to refocus. No time for the dead behind her now, only the dead before her. Unfortunately in this moment an errant cannon blast slammed into her from one of the better equipped Janes, the projectile itself missing her but the explosion itself dizzying her, and Hunter-Killer mode shut off for the last time.

Frantically, she pulled the deadened souls of herself into her mind with Nekromantia, and she heard the army of Janes speak in her head, pointing out weaknesses in the enemy formation as they swarmed around her. She shifted the blade for her left hand, drawing her remaining right hand revolver. The air around her was a storm of obsidian Blackstone bullets and emerald muzzle flash from her and from the attackers, all while the jade glow of Sightblinder illuminated the scene. They fell, and then, after an untold number of furious exchanges of bullets they also fell silent.

All this while, she had seen what lay before her, the shaft expanding to enclose the entirety of her target. A great emerald glowing Eye, the size of a city block, made of circuitry running through it and with sclera of black metal.

Strange, she thought. Smaller than I imagined.

Nekro peered up at her, and as the other Janes reached their terminus around her it widened with shock, and then fear. She knew he could not comprehend how she had managed this. Indeed, it would have been impossible for her to do this had she had been as she was in the Facility. But she was much more than that now...

[Postmania]

Now, a growl of a thought erupted within her. Now!

As the final measure, she activated Immortal Technique, and it was with Nekro’s own skill at death she was imbued. She felt the blade shift in her hands, and as Sightblinder arrived at its destination at last. She stabbed it right into the center of the pupil of the great Eye. All the gifts of the City she pulled from at once as she felt the full might invested in her from it flow through her body one last time. All the gifts from her companions she carried forward into the strike, Krys’ incisiveness, Kinu’s boisterous recklessness, Trevor’s courage in the face of fear, Nemo and Rae’s optimism, she pulled from all and placed into the blade. At the same time, she unleashed her Death Nova, knowing it would marginally slow her descent, blasting the eye with an immense amount of emerald energy from her core and actually rising upwards about a foot in the air from the recoil of the weapon. A mushroom cloud of energy roared up and around her into the shaft, and for a few moments she could not see for the energies surrounding her...

Sightblinder slammed into Nekro, and she heard a great scream of electronic distortion and agony that would have rendered her unconscious with the force within, except there was something even more immediate a concern. Her legs smash into the eye below her, and Jane knows immediately that her Death Nova, substantial in energy as it was, hadn’t been nearly enough to arrest her momentum with its recoil. Her legs simply shattered, the metal splintering like glass, and the process continued all the way up to her waist, when only the slightly greater armor around the cannon in her midsection halted the process of shattering, the barrel deforming and bending far beyond the possibility of use again and her torso ruptured beyond repair. As the blade crashed into his eye, it cut with seemingly no resistance into him right up to the hilt, where it stopped dead at the crossguard. As it stopped, Jane’s hands bore the brunt of force, and Jane watched as her wrists too shatter and she fell face first, her face breaking open as had her legs, although with somewhat less immediate damage.

She lay there, feeling the blackness cloaking the tunnel invading her vision in bits of visual static as she gazed at the slowly dimming glow of Sightblinder. As she watched, the blade began to dissolve, crumbling to dust.

Is this what you wanted, Khazan?

Her systems began to fail, shutting off one by one, the glow of her core fading as the delicate matrix that encased her soul to her chassis began to untether.

“So,” she said quietly to nobody. “This…is how it feels. Cold, quiet…”

And Jane died.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A woman awakens on the banks of a river. Her eyes flutter open and she hears the gentle murmur of the water. She sits up, and the sensations are a miracle. She looks around her at the forest, green with the everyday hum of life. Some distance in front of her is a tower made up of wood, standing tall. She rises to her feet and climbs the steps. The top of the tower is a cabin of sorts, filled with all sorts of supplies. She spots an easel stood up by a window, and a radio on a table. Looking around her, she knows this provides her an ideal vantage point to see threats coming. She is about to pick up the radio when she suddenly feels compelled to try something. She lifts her hand to her face and watches in fascination as the jade light flows through her fingers. She turns her hand over, palm out to a paper on the table. It begins to crumble, but then after a moment, she restores it, the rot reversing. Given enough time, she thought she would be able to reverse it back into the vegetation it once was, if she desires. She smiles, remembering a friend.

She thinks she understands what Khazan intended now. After all, it is only after being forgotten that you die a second time. Nekro, even if he encountered her again, would never remember what he had lost, only that he had lost. He and those tied to him would forget Jane Doe, forget her as he had tried to make her forget herself. With this realization, her smile widens into a grin as she picked up the radio and dials into the coded channel.

For some time, she simply listens. She hears various messages passed back and forth. She knows that this is an organization that was the reality of what she had once thought the Facility was. Capable, clever, but not evil. She knows she could return, if she so desired. Explaining her absence would be an ordeal, yet...

Her brow furrows in thought as the woman looks once more at the forest, the sun glimmering off into the distance, the peaceful river still audible, the sound of waves washing her cabin with its gentle ripples.

She thinks about the channel. It had been quiet, the responders reporting relatively little activity. She takes a deep breath then blinks in surprise, unused to the feeling of actually breathing.

A smile curves her lips once more, and she takes a seat by the window, gazing out at the forest with an unhurried bearing once more.

Jeanne thinks that, at least for now, the world could wait.

[Sharpandpointies]

The stars above glitter and dance joyfully through the distant limbs of the tree. A cool, dry breeze catches at omnipresent dead leaves, sending them skirling through the quiet ruins. The ground beneath Krys holds a comfortable warmth against their back; they settle themselves, breathing out a long, careful sigh, and allow their body to relax within the embrace of their oversized, borrowed jacket. Slowly their eyes blink, gaze fixed upon the heavens; one hand falls to their side, coming to rest on a black, rusted cylinder, perhaps the housing of a camera lens now half-melted and partly cloven in two.

It has been, Krys considers, a very long day; relaxing amidst the rubble and detritus, they smile, a lazy, pleased expression that lights their filthy visage.

After what seemed an eternity of misadventures and dead ends, the little group had arrived at their goal, the apex of the Tree itself. The long journey had taken a toll on them, but all four – five if one wished to count Kinu’s hound, and Krys always thought of them as a five – had clawed their way up, both metaphorically and physically. And before them? Choices. Choices of ‘where’, of ‘when’, perhaps even of ‘how and why’. The Tree offered many things, many possibilities, likely limited only by the minds of those who reached the pinnacle. And such choices…they took time and effort to enact, to complete.

And then, of course, Jane found the final traces that would lead her to Nekro, for a confrontation for which the woman had been preparing. A final one, the Death God against its awakened tool, now holding the key to the god's destruction.

So close for everyone.

Which was, of course, why everything started to go wrong.

Again.

They hear it long before it arrives: a mass of beings, enraged, seeking blood. Servants of Nekro? Or of the being that claims sovereignty here? Impossible to tell in the moment, impossible to judge. But enough information remains to make a decision. Trevor and Kinu must go. And Jane?

Jane has a target, likely the most important in her lifetime of assassination.

“Nekro awaits,” Krys whispers. Crouching within the hallway, they turn to Jane with a small, sad smile. “So go do what you need to do, and don't worry about your back. Whoever sent these, whatever they're here for...” They shake their head. “It doesn't matter. You go. Go.” They stress.

She wants to argue; Krys can see that, but as always?

There is no time.

Instead, Jane takes Krys' hand. For a long moment, the woman seems to search for words. Then... “I am very glad I did not fire when we first met.”

Krys cannot help but laugh, tears filling their eyes.

A moment more and Jane grows more solemn, more steadied. More herself. “Thank you,” the assassin states, with a long look into Krys' eyes. Krys holds that gaze, nodding slowly. Then the release, Jane's hand slipping away from their's. “And I hope you meet the one you’re looking for,” Jane finishes, with a sorrowful smile that brings a pang to Krys' heart.

“I already have,” Krys whispers in reply. Maybe too late? The woman is already gone, a blurred form dancing away, Sightblinder held ready, its emerald light suffusing the air about the assassin. Had she heard?

Did it matter?

Should she not already know?

Turning to Kinu and Trevor, Krys eyes them, a pair of misty shapes twisted by the tears filling their eyes. “Go.” Then they throw a single, final glance to Jane – a shining flare of light is the last they see of that woman, and oh, it is so apropos – and then turn themselves to the entrance to the corridor, an entrance that leads out onto the limbs of the tree.

It's a short walk; somehow Krys clears their eyes in that time.

Then they're out, out onto the webwork of branches, a latticework of bridges on the apex of the tree leading from one region to another. There's a surprising distance between those places, all of them different – different in form, different in physics, different in geometry – but it's not those micro-realms that catch Krys' attention, now. It's the pursuit, the howling mob that pours down the different branches leading toward the vaulted corridor where Trevor and Kinu prepare themselves to make their choices, where Jane now seeks her creator, her target. Forged of the cast-offs of a thousand, a hundred thousand worlds, the raging swarm holds all manner of beings. Again, Krys wonders: are they Nekro's? Or are they suborned by the one laying claim to the Tree itself? A claim in name only, she suspects; that being might consider itself the ruler here, but the Tree holds no care for such.

Such differentiation – Nekro's, another's – is unimportant at the moment, though; within the mob lies the brutal realities of claws and teeth, beak and tentacle, blades and clubs, as well as the occasional firearm-equivalent or energy projector.

Glancing back to the gaping entry to the vast, sloping hallway, Krys considers the others and their purposes; time is still necessary, time to make the choices, to prepare them properly, and to carry them out. Time to hunt, time to find, time to take one's freedom within one's hands by slaying one's slaver. Time the mob is unwilling to give, time eaten up with every step the raging vanguard takes, time…they will not have.

And yet.

…the apparent linearity and flow of time is a perceptual illusion brought about by an existence dependent on entropy…

“Well,” Krys whispers, rolling their shoulders. “Here we go.” Setting their friends behind them, they lock their gaze upon the seething tide crashing its way along the Tree's limbs toward them. A glance left, a glance right, a calculation of vectors and pathways, then Krys strides forward at a measured pace, picking the route with care. One branch leads to another, that one intersects with a third, then there’s nothing for a ways before this solid, wide limb splits into three…three further branches along which the mob rages. They hit the conjunction almost simultaneously – several of their number forced by the crowd’s pressure too far to the side, and falling away, down into the canopy below – and begin a knotted, seething flow down the single branch…

…where Krys comes to a halt, a switchblade smile touching their lips.

[Sharpandpointies]

The tide reaches higher as it charges, several of its number loosing quarrels, slugs, and even a single incandescent beam toward the small figure awaiting them. The bolts miss, ringing sounds herald the deflections of the shells, and the burning energy slices the corroded lens-body nigh in twain. Shrugging, Krys tosses it aside with a pang of sorrow; the broken object has served her well all this time. It bounces along the rough curve of the limb before falling, disappearing just as the first of attackers arrives.

They are scores, perhaps hundreds, and Krys is alone; it matters not.

They have blades, clubs, claws and poisons, and Krys has nothing; it matters not.

They are a furious tsunami, bending to engulf and consume its opposition; it matters not, for Krys is a boulder in the middle of the tree limb. The mob crashes upon her…and breaks.

Speed is illusory; time is illusory.

Four, five may reach her at once – size depending – some attacking with multiple limbs or tentacles, some moving at speeds nigh-invisible to the human eye, others firing hand-weapons at point-blank range. But Krys – somehow – is always there, blocking and dodging every strike, coolly fracturing the attackers with their counters, their movements no quicker yet always, impossibly, in the proper place at the proper time. The boulder rests in Time out of Time, and a single, human Krys can now defend themselves from a thousand simultaneous strikes. Intervals are meaningless, numbers are meaningless, speed is meaningless; only choice matters and here, now, Krys makes theirs. Again, as they had an eternity before, Krys denies.

Freedom-speaker.

Rule-breaker.

Once-Sword of the Goddess.

Wave after wave shatters upon the boulder that is Krys, thrown back bleeding, broken, or fully fallen, the dead and non-functional cast from the limb by their living and functional fellows so more can take the fray. Time passes while Krys stands outside of it, the mob’s desperation growing as the holder of their leash grows impatient. And yet, Krys holds.

But perfection does not exist, and every boulder has cracks.

It begins slowly, invisibly, yet inevitably; to hold themselves within Time out of Time, Krys must draw fearfully upon their own intrinsic energies. Such stores are depleted, and swiftly - as entropic time would judge things - forcing Krys to replenish themselves through the give-and-take with the world around them, with the air, with the Tree, with the enemies raging for their blood themselves. And each time, they fray further; minuscule, but the damage begins to mount. Lacking a specific molecule here, a cellular process fails. Its connection with its neighbour widened, a neuron cannot engage. The chains spiral and now a tiny blood vessel ruptures, then another. Cancer blooms within the body – a slow killer, this, but it riddles the organs and bones with its seeds, and there will be no salvation from its glacially-closing grip. But more acute errors begin to cascade through the system, and muscles weaken as cellular function slows and cell death increases.

Performance degrades.

Now external forces join the internal in causing injury. A club bounces from a hand, snapping a finger, rather than being smoothly redirected. A blade clips a shoulder. A bullet burns a furrow along Krys’ side. For an instant they rally; bodies break in every direction, and the shocked mob is somehow forced back a step, two. Then exhaustion hits and the crystal palace within which Krys stands trembles. Cracks. And shatters.

Entropy seizes Krys and the mob overwhelms them.

Blades bite, talons cut, a bullet punches through. “Not yet,” they snarl, caving in a throat, then shattering an exoskeleton skull. “Not -!” But determination can only carry one so far; hands, claws and tendrils grip Krys, dragging them off-balance. They’re going down, down to the ground in the middle of the crowd.

But a final denial remains: their fall becomes a rush, a drive of body-weight and shifting skill, and off the side Krys staggers, dragging four of their attackers along for the last ride.

There are an awful lot of branches before freefall; to Krys, it feels like they hit every single one on their way down.

[Sharpandpointies]

And so below.

Another sigh, and then a cough; it sprays blood into the air, blood matching the warm pool beneath Krys. Their bleary eyes lose their focus and the stars become smears; with an effort, Krys forces their vision to sharpen again. “Hope they made it.” Their voice is a broken croak, forced through their throat by bleeding lungs. It’s probably fortunate they can no longer feel their legs, twisted as those limbs are.

During the long, long fall, every last remaining bit of their intrinsic energy had poured into compressing as much of their fourth-dimensional self into the third-dimensional body on the instant of impact.

It hadn’t been enough, not nearly.

The pain – what they can feel from the waist up – is distant now. The warmth has chilled. Once again the stars fade in their eyes, in and out. “Ashen death…not a lot of me left,” Krys muses. And not a great deal of that thing named Time, either. “Still,” they murmur, “it’s not so bad, is it?” All things are finite and form is but a brief phenomena, after all. “Had a good run.” Oh, that indeed.

True freedom.

An indescribable joining outside of time itself.

A final chance at mortal love, this time between friends.

So Krys smiles through the guttering of their life’s candle. “Yeah. A good run.” A wistful note enters their tone. “Even if…not a surprise.”

Outside of All Things, in Time of out Time, they had seen everything in its completion; the experience became fragmented, mostly inaccessible, but Krys has always had an inkling it would end this way.

They lick dry lips, leaving bloody streaks upon them, and struggle to collect their thoughts. “Nemo…Rae….” Amusement forces a sniff out of Krys. “We’ve said our goodbyes. I hope you find…what you’re looking for. I hope you make it…where you’re going. Safe.” Another small laugh. “And Rae…I hope you stop trying to push people away before they can hurt you.”

“Kinu…” This name brings a ragged laugh; it racks their body, ending in bloody hacking. “You…crazy, driven woman. You don’t need me to tell you what to do. Or give advice.” The warlord knows her business, to be sure, and knows herself. “Keep on…kicking them. Where it hurts.” Them: whoever stands against Kinu, whoever seeks to bind the warrior with rules and chains. “Never stop.”

“And mind your dog.”

Exhaustion bites deeply, now. Krys murmurs and mutters for an instant as their mind wanders through dark passages. Wincing, they pull their thoughts together, recalling another. A lost one, an injured one, a young one on the cusp of...well, not greatness, but perhaps truth.

“Trevor.”

The youthful man has grown. Changed. Become…not ‘more’, but what he always could have been. Krys closes their eyes as a fond smile replaces the rictus of effort. “Yes. You’ll be a hell of a surprise, Trevor.” The lids slide open again, and Krys stares up, through the Tree, through the stars themselves, peering through time and space itself into a future. Real? Possible? Wishful? Does it matter, when nothing lasts forever?

Perhaps; certainly it matters to those in the here and now within All Things and Entropy.

“Go get him,” Krys whispers, their sight dimming. “Free your friends.”

“Free everyone.”

A wheezing gasp, and Krys struggles to breathe for an instant. Panic grips them, then they remember to relax and the spasm in their chest eases. “Almost done,” they mutter. “Almost. Just…”

“...Jane.” The name brings a smile, as it always does, and Krys closes their eyes as so many memories wash over them. “They put that shackle on you, and you broke it. I’m so proud…and so grateful. And you taught me so much. Woke me up again. Reminded me that…even like this…life is worth living.”

And now, at the last, their voice regains its customary smoothness. “You were willing to trade an uncertain future to bring me back, Jane. You cared. You had all of those feelings, even if you didn't believe. You thank me? I thank you. You became so much for me. If I had met you in another life...” They shake their head; it brings a wince of pain rippling across their visage, but that passes.

“You can do this,” Krys whispers. “Not because you have power. But...because of who you are, and what you feel.”

"As for designations, I am Jane."

"This experience, standing here, carries a sense of familiarity. Yet I know this experience is unique in my databanks. Never have I been truly alone prior to leaving the Facility, but traveling in a group is a unique occurrence. It's a start."

"Yet despite knowing you for but a short time, I...trust you."

“I am very glad I did not fire when we first met.”

A single tear escapes Krys. “Jane,” they whisper.

“Oh, Jane...”

“...my friend.”

Silence then, broken only by the wheeze of their breath and the susurration of the wind.

For a time Krys dozes, dancing on the edge of consciousness, a hair away from a final step across that line into a sleep from which there will be no awakening, but an ending. The world around them fades, returns, and fades again; each time, the pattern becomes more unbalanced, shifting further toward darkness. The pain is gone; only exhaustion remains. They could let go; they will have no choice soon, in any case, and there seems to be no reason to hang on. But stubbornness and a deep yearning keep their labouring heart beating, their torn lungs expanding, their concussed and bleeding brain limping along. Gashed and broken fingers weakly clasp the cuffs of the jacket, the grip loosening bit by bit…and yet, still holding.

And then…

Their eyes blink, opening fully.

Those eyes then focus – not on the world-filling Tree, nor the distant stars, but on something close. Very close; perhaps even directly before Krys. Perhaps even crouching, though there is nothing there to see but the dead, dried leaves, stirring and whispering in the breeze.

Perhaps.

One hand rises, its trembling fingers loosely opening, reaching out.

“Hey,” Krys breathes as their wounded, weary heart stumbles through its final stutters. Tears slide from their glazed eyes to run rivulets down their cheeks, and a lopsided smile cracks their dry lips.

“There you are.”

~ Fin ~

I believe
Tell me now
One day things will all make sense
There are thousand things to know
In this world

Tell me now
Even lie
That all things will be alright
Maybe it will all turn out
In the end

Happy end

Lee Hye Min
Happy End