"Hey, Anath, maybe we should—" Thea valiantly attempts, but her words are, of course, in vain. The Dark Rebellion's most feral member has already leaped forward to attack a magical girl head-on. Amaterasu's ears flick straight up on her head and she rushes forward to intercept, the two of them clashing in the middle. Anath's rough crystal arm blades catch on Amaterasu's incarnate daggers as they stare each other down.

"I love your little doggie ears!" Anath tells her brightly.

"Shut up!" Amaterasu growls back, heaving Anath away. "Gʟᴇᴀᴍ Bʟᴀᴅᴇ!"

"…Wait, why are you acting upset?" Anath asks, narrowing her eyes as she ducks a swing from Amaterasu's enlarged, glowing weapons. "They're cute!"

"I'm not proud of my corruption!" Amaterasu snaps at her.

"Huh?" Anath asks. "What are you talking about?"

The two of them exchange a few blows, Anath remaining bewildered but overall having a pretty good time. Amaterasu clearly isn't, but like, fuck her anyway. Thea and I stand around somewhat awkwardly as the two of them continue, hardly even using any spells as they try to whack each other to death.

"This is so stupid," Thea mutters.

I have to agree, but I'm not sure if I should intervene. I'm pretty sure I'm a more effective fighter than I was when I last fought Amaterasu, and I'm tempted to see if I can match her without Thea's insane buffs. I've got a better handle on spells than I did before, and way higher energy reserves, at least for now. But I'd prefer not to waste those energy reserves. Nothing about this situation is likely to make me very happy.

Amaterasu definitely has Anath on the back foot, but Anath isn't in her incarnate form so I imagine that'll be coming out soon to even the tides. I asked her why she doesn't just start in her incarnate form when fighting like everyone else (except Melpomene, I guess) and she said "This way I get to have a second phase! Like a video game boss! Isn't that so cool!?" Suffice it to say, I don't think anyone will ever get that girl to stop marching to the beat of her own drum.

"Pʀᴇᴛᴛʏ Wᴀʀʀɪᴏʀ Pᴏᴡᴇʀ Uᴘ!"

Oh hey, there she goes. Gotta say, Anath's transformation phrase is hilarious. It sounds like something she picked when she was eight and never bothered to update after her incarnate form stopped being a small girl in a dress and started being Anath the Hedgehog Original Character Do Not Steal.

"Rʜᴀᴘsᴏᴅɪᴄ Bᴇᴀsᴛ Cᴏɴsᴜᴍᴍᴀᴛᴇ Aɴᴀᴛʜ!"

And there she is, in all her blue-and-yellow glory. The squirrel-kitsune monstrosity that is Anath's incarnate form picks up the pace of the fight, flipping the metaphorical table and putting Amaterasu on the back foot. Buuuut I have no doubt that Amaterasu will pull some spell out of her ass to take back momentum, and then Anath will counter with one of her own, and on and on and on until the two of them are passed out on the floor, at which point I'll just grab Anath and take her home.

"This is so stupid," Thea sighs.

[LunaLightOTK]: Anath looks like she's having fun, at least.

Thea's laptop lets out a quiet beep in her arms, so she unfolds it and reads the message, sitting down and putting the device in her lap so she can type.

[WrenchWitch]: Are we sure she's not having a manic episode, still? She sure looks like she is.

Hmm. Well, I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but she does seem different from the last time I saw her fight. A little more defensive, a little more focused. It's not a big difference, but it's a difference.

[LunaLightOTK]: I think she's in control of herself. The real question is whether being in control of herself will keep her out of trouble.

[WrenchWItch]: That's a good point.

"Your tail is pretty too!" Anath calls out between blows. "Do you use conditioner?"

"Don't mock me!"

"I'm not!" Anath insists. "Do you think my incarnate form would have this many tails if I didn't like them?"

"Not everyone is as eager as you to be turned into some lowly beast!" Amaterasu snaps.

"Well yeah, but you are!" Anath insists. "Why would your incarnate form have such cute wolfy bits otherwise?"

"Because of Dark World corruption, fool!" Amaterasu answers.

"What? That's not how that works," Anath says. Which, what? I was under the distinct impression that was exactly how it worked.

"Anath, what are you talking about?" Thea asks, sharing my confusion.

"That's not how it works!" Anath insists. "I mean, the Dark World can give people extra parts, but that's for their material body. Incarnate forms are totally different! You know that, your incarnate form has way less cool monster bits than your normal body. I've seen Su-san's human form, and she doesn't even have any ears! Not good ears, I mean."

"You do not get to call me Su-san," Amaterasu growls, exchanging a few more blows.

"Okey-dokey, Su-chan!" Anath responds brightly.

Amaterasu snarls furiously and attempts a reckless lunge, which Anath sidesteps easily. Is she actually doing this on purpose? Making Amaterasu angry to weaken her? It honestly wouldn't even be that huge of an effect; Amaterasu's magic is aligned northwest, while anger is just west. The energy loss would be significant, but less so than it would be for most magical girls.

"Wow, you might be even more like me than poor Fulgy is," Anath comments, dancing backwards.

"We are nothing like you!" Amaterasu roars. "We did not abandon our duty to follow maddened, selfish whims! I have my disagreements with Fulgora-san, but there is no question that she is skilled and dedicated to the protection of this planet."

"It's not like I want to destroy the planet," Anath pouts. "But you guys should really try out selfish whims sometime. I think it'd do you a lot of good! That's why I'm fighting you. It's the only thing you actually let yourselves be proud of."

"You think you're helping us?! You really are insane."

"Nah," Anath says, a little sadly. "I think I'm just really bad at it. But don't worry, Su-chan, I'll keep trying!"

"Please don't," Thea chimes in.

"But I want to!" Anath responds cheerfully. "It's fun for me too!"

And then she and Amaterasu crash into each other again, and our front-row tickets to the idiot wars start paying off once again. Honestly, both of them do have extremely similar fighting styles, being close-range brawlers with feral undertones that rely on instinct and speed more than technique.

It's probably at this point that a manic Anath would be getting herself exceptionally fucked up and beat nearly to death through her own reckless behavior, and it certainly seems like Amaterasu wants to do that, but Anath's current fighting style looks more like she's playing with the other girl than anything. It's a violent game, to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if she's tallying up the blows she lands as points scored. That said, I'm not sure if she's winning the game, and frankly I'm not even sure if she wants to.

I'm probably going to have to step in. One way or another, Anath certainly isn't taking things seriously, and she's not winning decisively enough to ensure we'll actually get home. Sure enough, she leaves an opening for Amaterasu that the wolf girl immediately capitalizes on, kicking Anath away and sending her sprawling across the asphalt. But rather than leap onto her opponent and capitalize, she sheathes her daggers. Oh! Is she going to… no. No, wait. That is a terrifyingly familiar stance.

"Cᴀ—"

Ooh, I don't like that syllable. I don't like that syllable at all.

"—ᴛʜᴀʀ—"

Yeah, fuck, goddamn it, no no no! She's aiming to hit all three of us! I jump in front of Thea and yank her to her feet, but it's too slow, I can't get her out of the way in time.

"—sɪs: Nɪ—"

"[Gʜʀᴀɴᴛᴀғ]" I counter, the Antipathy word for shield empowering my natural defenses and extending them into a disk in front of me as I hold out my arms. Thea's eyes go wide as she realizes what's happening, and she pulls out her tome.

"—ɢʜᴛsᴘʟɪᴛᴛᴇʀ."

"Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!" Thea shrieks, flooding my reserves with temporary energy as the white-hot cone of annihilation floods outwards from Amaterasu's drawn blade. I can't tell where Anath is anymore, but I can't protect her. I can't even take a single step from this spot as the sheer, overwhelming force behind the attack threatens to blow me away, shield and all. I curl my toes and dig into the ground as I do my best to hold back the assault.

Temporary reserves at 37%.

Temporary reserves at 24%.

Temporary reserves at 11%.

Temporary reserves depleted. My power reserves have been reduced to 46%.

"Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!"

Temporary reserves at 15%.

Temporary reserves at 4%.

Temporary reserves depleted. My power reserves have been reduced to 33%.

"Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!"

Temporary reserves at 15%.

"Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ! Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ! Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ! Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ!"

Thea is screaming out spells as fast as she can, over and over, and it's just barely not fast enough to avoid my personal energy stores from plummeting towards zero at a rate I've never had to experience before. Ha. If only I was a green mage right now. Not that I'm not burning all my fear anyway. I feel almost lightheaded from how I'm pumping every last emotion into desperately trying to survive. Thea's eyes are scrunched shut, not just because of how petrifying this all is, but because the sheer amount of light still bleeding through my shields is probably enough to scour her retinas permanently blind if she looks for more than a fraction of an instant.

Yet eventually, the attack subsides, leaving the liminal space scoured white. Blocking that one attack was nearly a hundred and fifty percent of my total power reserves by itself. I had to structure my shields inefficiently to cover Thea as well, and I probably could have designed a more specialized barrier to dramatically improve effectiveness given I've already seen the attack once before, but… there was no time. I need to do a better job of cataloging enemy attacks and determining optimal counters to all of them, or else I won't be able to protect—ah! Anath! Where's Anath, is she alright!? Oh god, there's no way she could have taken that attack and survived!

Looking around, I don't see her anywhere… which is not a good thing, because there's a distinct chance her incarnate form just got vaporized. The residual northwest magical energy in the air makes it nearly impossible for me to lock onto any discrete signals, especially one so closely aligned like Anath's, but I should be able to find her anyway! Where is she, come on, where is she!? Null on visual, null on magical, null on lidar or any other terrain scanner, just some weird readings on the vibrometer that are probably just everything on the edge of the attack radius completely collapsing… oh, god.

This is going to start an all-out war, isn't it? Melpomene's going to murder Amaterasu if Nanaya doesn't get to her first. I stare at Amaterasu as she pants for breath at the origin point of all this annihilation, glowering furiously at me for having the audacity to not roll over and die for her. Sweat pours down her face. The last time she used her Catharsis, she collapsed soon after. She's managing to stay standing for now, but I doubt she'll be able to put up much of a fight. The question is: what do I do about her? How do I damage control here?

I can mourn later. For now, I have to—

"Eek!"

Amaterasu suddenly yelps in surprise as the ground underneath her collapses into a pit, a familiar furry hand grabbing her ankle and yanking her down into the ground. Oh! Oh!

"You missed," Anath says, and I can hear the grin on her face. "That attack was so strong! Not fast, though, and I am fast. Knocking me down isn't really immobilizing me, ya know."

Amaterasu's only response is what I assume to be some very unflattering words in Japanese. I'll look 'em up later. Thea practically collapses in relief next to me, falling to her hands and knees with an exhausted huff. I leave her on the not-boiling ground and carefully step over to where Anath has Amaterasu pinned against the inside wall of her little tunnel. …Oof. It looks like our resident squirrel didn't get out of things entirely unscathed after all. One of her legs is a burnt, charred mess, with the foot being entirely unrecognizable. A few of her tails are little more than charred stumps, too. She's only supporting herself by bracing against the tunnel walls with her forearms and balancing on the other leg.

She has, of course, decided to brace herself with her arms on either side of Amaterasu.

"I like you," Anath declares, and then Amaterasu passes out. "Oop!"

Anath tries to catch the girl, which causes both of them to tumble like an upturned sack of potatoes, collapsing against the cramped walls of the tunnel Anath somehow dug from her prior location all the way underneath where Amaterasu was standing. I guess I can see a few ways she could accomplish that with her magic, and it would have easily been hidden beneath the smokescreen of Amaterasu's overwhelming magical output.

Amaterasu is definitely stronger than any one of the three of us, but she's not all that effective at using her power. Anath is right; that really wasn't a great time to bust out her Catharsis. She had the space to pull it off, sure, but all of us had enough time to prepare countermeasures. Countermeasures that the monsters she's used to fighting wouldn't have access to, by and large, but still.

"Anath, leave the Earth Guardian alone and let's go home," Thea sighs, standing a little shakily.

"Can we bring her with?" Anath begs. "Pleaaase? It would be so good for her!"

"No, and no it wouldn't," Thea scowls. "How are you so good at empathy and so terrible at people?"

"I dunno, how come you're bad at both?" Anath asks, and so I kick some molten dirt down into her hole. "Ack! Appfflph—"

"Don't be a jerk," Thea scowls, blushing a little. "It's not my fault I've only had three other people to talk to my whole life. At least you kept sneaking out to Earth to talk to humans."

"Ooh, I should have done that more," Anath realizes. "That would have been fun! I mostly just hung out with Jim, though. He's so nice."

"Let's just… let's just go home and get Nanaya to look at you. Luna, could you take Amaterasu somewhere… relatively safe?" Thea asks. "I don't wanna just leave her in a hole while everything melts around her, and you're faster than me."

I nod, squatting down to accept Amaterasu as Anath does her best to lift the girl up into my arms. She falls out of incarnate form as we jostle her, the last of her residual energy running out now that she's unconscious. With her in my arms, I quickly run back to the edge of the liminal space, drop her off on a nearby park bench, and sprint back to the Dark World before any other magical girls get any bright ideas.

Back at the castle, I head up to the main room to find Nanaya finishing up on healing Anath's various injuries while the squirrel herself chows down on a stack of sandwiches, probably also made by Nanaya. The most responsible member of the Dark Rebellion who only occasionally attempts to murder children glances up at me as I enter, a scowl on her face.

"Luna," she greets me cordially. "I hear you managed to survive a Catharsis."

"Only thanks to Thea's help," I respond. "I'll be more prepared next time."

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Hopefully there will not be a next time," Nanaya comments.

"Well yeah, but like, come on. There's gonna be a next time."

"Mmm."

"Need any help, Nana?" I ask.

"I am almost finished," she responds. "I believe Melpomene was looking for you."

Oh. Joy.

"I'll go find her, then," I say, immediately doing just that. She's in her room, of course. All our best conversations seem to happen in her room. I trudge upstairs, doing my best not to look like I'm walking off to get hanged. Is this it? Are the chains going back around my neck already? There's no way to know until I get there and feel them start to choke me.

I head upstairs, walk down that familiar hallway, and enter her room, shutting the door behind me. The privacy spell activates. She's at her desk in front of me, reading through various scrawled papers of notes, chewing lightly on the clawed, crystalline tip of her thumb.

"…Luna," she greets me after a moment, pulling herself away from whatever she was reading. "Hello."

"Hey, master," I greet her flatly, and she winces.

"…About that," she grimaces. "I wanted to make sure I emphasized that your participation in this mission is optional. You probably heard it's likely to be important, and I didn't want you to… be forced to make a decision you didn't want to. You mentioned that added clarity would be helpful in these matters, so… yes. Here it is."

Oh. Huh. Really? …No. No way.

"…What's your angle here?" I demand.

"Wh… angle?" she blinks, seeming genuinely confused. "I just told you, I… I made a mistake with you, Luna."

"Then own up to it," I tell her.

"I… I can't," she insists. "But still, I—"

"This mission isn't just important because it's what you want," I say, cutting her off. "It should be some pretty major ruins, right?"

"…Yes," she confirms. "It's the same fragment that disgorged those kaiju near Denver a few months ago. Fragments have to be very large to create a kaiju, and they're usually signs of major population centers for the Antipathy. The miasma will be abnormally thick there, but it could potentially hold all the answers we're seeking. I think we have to risk it."

"Then I'm going with you," I tell her simply. "I still care about the others, and I care about protecting Earth. This would be a dumbass choice for me to opt out of, and you know it. Did you think I was going to forgive you if you faked being nice enough? Please."

"I… Luna, that's not…" she tries, but I'm not buying it.

"A fragment like that will be heavily guarded too, won't it?" I barrel on. "You might be strong enough not to need the help, but the others could still be in danger. Not to mention how badly you'll need me to actually translate anything you guys manage to find there. I'm definitely going. When do we leave?"

Melpomene sighs.

"…As soon as the others are ready," she says. "The fragment likely hasn't converged yet, but it will be a bit of a trip. It's still quite a ways south of here, so we'll be leaving the city."

Oh! Huh.

"Do we know anything about the magical girls that will be guarding the place, then?" I ask.

"…It doesn't really matter," Melpomene dismisses. "I'll be there, so they won't be able to stop us."

"And if Castalia's there?" I ask. "It is the big kaiju fragment they called her out of retirement for."

I know she won't be, of course. She's completely passed out in her bed, and unlikely to wake for at least another eight hours, probably more. But I want to see Mel's reaction.

"Then I'll crush her just as easily as I would anyone else," Melpomene scowls at me.

"Are you sure she's really that weak?" I ask. "It's not like she hasn't saved the world without you, after you left."

"The crystals growing out of my body aren't just for show, Luna," Melpomene says flatly. "You know that. We were nearly equals once, but now I have several advantages she doesn't, and she has several weaknesses I don't. You've never seen either of us fight seriously, so you'll just have to trust me on this. If the two of us fight, I won't lose. My power far outstrips hers at her prime, and she's doubtlessly gotten weaker since she left active duty. Out of practice, at the very least."

"What are your feelings on her, anyway?" I ask. "She still speaks quite fondly of you, you know. She misses you a lot. Any particular reason you're not taking her up on her request to chat?"

"She's had plenty of chances to reach out," Melpomene snaps. "She's the one who cut herself off from everyone. She doesn't get to suddenly show interest now that I'm finally making progress on my goals."

"…She's the one who cut herself off?" I ask incredulously. "Melpomene, you live in the fucking Dark World."

Melpomene suddenly stands up, slamming one hand on her desk and flaring her wings out fast enough to scatter her papers all over the floor.

"She could have found me if she wanted to!" Melpomene shouts at me. "She could have… she could have done anything! Thalia died for her, and Castalia went and became a fucking yellow mage like it was everything she ever wanted before leaving me to rot. She didn't even come talk to me when I got chased out of the Earth Guardians! Thalia was the only thing tying the two of us together, and she's gone. There's nothing between us now. Don't you dare tell me that stupid girl cares. People who care actually do things."

Really? I never did. I used to care about a lot of things I didn't know how to do anything about. Sure, I was weak, depressed, and generally a complete mess of a person, but… outside of her particular skill sets, Castalia clearly struggles. She might not know what to do. She might not know how to help. Even if all she had to do was reach out and talk to someone, she might not have known what to say.

Maybe all of this could have been avoided, if she did. But I can't blame her for something like that.

"The transformation stone you gave me," I say. "Is it hers? Is it Thalia's?"

Just the mention of her name causes Melpomene to flinch, and the anger floods out of her like I tore a hole through her soul. Her whole body sags, wings drooping down to brush against the floor.

"…Yes, it was," she says. "The Preservers assumed it was destroyed, but I've been hanging onto it all this time. I was originally going to give it to you, before… everything."

"Why?" I ask. "It doesn't house her soul or anything crazy like that, does it?"

"What? No," Melpomene frowns. "It's just a machine."

"Well that's the least convincing way you could tell me it doesn't have her soul in it."

"I… transformation stones don't work like that," Melpomene sighs. "There's nothing of her in it. It was just… long past time to move on, that's all. You have a powerful soul compared to most humans, and you seemed like you wanted magic, and… I thought magic would be good for you. So I made my offer, and the rest is history."

"I was just… what, a whim?" I ask. "You were going to give away your most prized possession on a whim?"

She shrugs.

"Yes."

Really? No wonder she flipped the fuck out on me when I rejected it. Someone as unstable as her can't handle her whims being scorned all that well, and that's before we factor in the memento from her dead maybe-girlfriend.

"Well, okay then," I say, not really knowing how to react. "I bet Nanaya's done healing Anath by now, so we should go downstairs."

"…Just one more thing," Melpomene says. "I know you don't want to hear it, but… I'm sorry. You're right. I went too far. …More than just 'too far,' if we're being honest. I don't think there's anything I can do to make it up to you, not without tearing the Dark Rebellion apart, and… I can't afford that. But I thought it might help you to know that I truly do wish I could take it all back. I hope hearing it helps you grasp even another inch of freedom."

"…Freedom?" I ask. "Are you going to rescind any of your prior standing orders? Any at all?"

"I… no," she admits, her tail coiling around her legs.

"Then fuck you," I say. "You're just trying to make yourself feel better. None of this was ever about me."

She sighs, looking away.

"…You're probably right about that too," she admits. "Let's just go save the world, then."

"You'd better," I warn her. "Imagine how horrible it would be if you did all this and it ended up being for nothing."

She shudders, stepping past me to unlock the door. I follow her as I always do, to the side and slightly behind.

The entire Dark Rebellion is gathered in the main room when we get back, Thea busying herself sorting a bunch of various equipment she's bringing along and trying to decide which to carry herself and which to give Nanaya to stuff in her artifact cloak.

"Hey, you two! Uh… everything okay?" Anath asks as we head downstairs together.

"…It's nothing to be worried about," Melpomene answers. "I was just asking Luna some questions about Castalia."

"Ah," Anath says. "That'd do it. Well, we got the whole flight over to cheer you up, right?"

"Right," Melpomene agrees, managing a small smile I can tell she doesn't really feel. And if I can tell, Anath certainly can too, but she just answers with a big grin of her own.

"Great!" she says, leaving it at that. I, wisely, keep my plating locked shut.

"Thea estimates she'll be able to manage an hour-long flight, assuming we want to keep her combat-ready. There's a high chance that we'll encounter resistance from Earth Guardians and a low chance we encounter resistance from powerful monsters, so I think it would be prudent to take things a little slow," Nanaya says.

"If that's what you think is best," Melpomene nods, to which Nanaya seems vaguely surprised before nodding back.

"Let's head out, then."

And so we do, everyone piling onto Thea's floating disc spell and settling in for a long trip. I, of course, just perform my usual anti-boredom tactics of autopiloting my own brain until something interesting happens, and before I know it we're in a different part of the state, with probably-hostile magical signatures in front of us.

"Heads up," I say. "I'm going silent soon."

"Contacts, I take it?" Nanaya hums.

"I'll handle it," Melpomene says. "I could use some exercise to clear my head, I think."

"There's five of them, for whatever reason," I say. "Varying levels of power."

"It doesn't matter," she says. "None of it matters. Just head for the portal and set up Thea's equipment so we can't be locked inside. I'll handle the fight."

My base programming bristles at the idea of leaving my master in a dangerous place alone, but an order is an order. I nod and watch as she spreads her wings and rises off the platform, flying ahead of us to intercept the Earth Guardians before any of them get the bright idea to try and stop the rest of us. I hear them protest her presence, shouting out demands, and Melpomene responds by summoning her lance and shield.

"Stand aside or fall," she tells them simply. "I Wɪʟʟ Nᴇᴠᴇʀ Tᴜʀɴ Bᴀᴄᴋ."

Thea rapidly accelerates us, making a beeline for the portal as the Earth Guardians stand enraptured by Melpomene's transformation. I want to crane my head to watch it too, but there are too many witnesses for me to be able to visibly show interest in something. So I just hear the gasps of fear and the cracking sound of twisting bone that none of the rest of the Dark Rebellion seems to want to look at either.

I've always known Melpomene was strong, but I've had my doubts that she was Castalia strong. I've never felt power like that come off of her before, after all, but I've never seen her incarnate form. I've seen her when she was swatting annoyances, never when she was actually fighting.

"Cᴏɴᴛᴇᴍᴘᴛᴜᴏᴜs Qᴜᴇᴇɴ Lɪɢʜᴛʙʀɪɴɢᴇʀ Mᴇʟᴘᴏᴍᴇɴᴇ," a growling voice intones, and my sensors blare a terrified warning moments before we vanish into the Dark World portal, cutting off my ability to sense the other side. I'd shudder if I still could, but I won't be doing anything I'm not told to do until we get a good distance away from that portal. I've gotta be careful about talking, too.

We emerge on the other side to a glut of black miasma, not as thick as our home fragment but still more than enough to make it difficult to see more than a dozen feet in front of us. From the way Nanaya wrinkles her nose and Thea covers her mouth, rummaging through her pockets for a medical mask to put on, it's probably not all that safe to hang out in for long either.

"…This will be difficult," Nanaya frowns. "I wasn't expecting visibility to be this poor. Luna? Can you detect anything?"

I can. There are several magical signatures in here, of varying size and strength. I imagine most of them are monsters, based on how they're moving about in groups, and one of them… hmm. I don't know what a kaiju feels like, but it's pretty damn big.

"Danger," I report quietly.

"Monsters? They won't bother us," Nanaya says. "Though if they get too close to the portal, it would behoove us to eliminate any particularly dangerous ones, since Melpomene will not be leaving the defenders in great shape to fight."

Speak of the devil, Melpomene emerges from the portal herself at that moment, back in her usual, non-incarnate form, as best I can tell. She doesn't look winded. Her hair isn't even out of place, though I suppose it'd naturally go back to the way it was before her transformation regardless of how mussed up it got in her incarnate form. …Somehow, I suspect that it was fine, though.

"Kill anyone?" I ask her bluntly.

"Of course not," she scowls at me. "A few of them are unconscious, however, and none of them will be following us inside."

She takes a deep breath, a small smile breaking out on her face.

"…Feels almost like home. Come along, I see the city over there."

She points a clawed finger into the fog, where of course none of the rest of us can see a damn thing. How is… huh. Wait, am I really seeing that right? I don't sense any abnormal magical movements, but for some reason the miasma around her eyes, and in whatever direction she's looking is just… thinner. Like the wind just happens to be dispersing it, every time she needs it to. I wonder how she's doing that.

"I can't see anything, Mel," Thea says, squinting in the same direction.

"No?" Melpomene blinks. "Well, follow me, then."

We do, letting Melpomene take the lead as Thea carries the rest of us. Slowly, the mists thin out in front of us… but only in front of us, still swirling thick in every other direction as it tries to squirm its way between my plates and into the lungs of my friends. I've never seen the mists this… active before. It's eerie.

It's like we're being invited in.

Soon enough, the rest of us can see the city Melpomene is leading us to. Most of it is completely destroyed, an unrecognizable ruin flattened by some massive force, the area carpeted with pockmarked craters that hold nothing but death within. But some parts of the city are almost untouched, pristine where they stand. And in the middle of it all, the same massive structure as the last Antipathy city we explored stands tall, towering over every other building in both height and width.

"Let's start at the outskirts and work our way in," Melpomene suggests.

"I've got a bad feeling about this place," Anath says. "Like it's… alive."

"I've been noticing some anomalous stuff, too," I concur.

"I don't think there's anything to worry about," Melpomene hums. "But we'll stick together, all the same. See if you can find a building similar to the one we found the injectors in, Luna."

"Sure," I agree, my eyes flashing over the intact buildings of the city. "There."

I find one immediately, because I will never struggle at Where's Waldo ever again. Thea takes us there, and it's actually intact enough to be locked… though of course we force ourselves in rather easily. Sure enough, there are more rows of injectors and guns. Nanaya quickly moves around the room, stuffing them all in her cloak as Melpomene inspects the walls.

"Hmm. We were in a hurry last time, but… Luna. Does this architecture look Antipathy in origin to you?" Melpomene asks.

Oh. Hmm.

"Not entirely," I agree. "Certainly not like their traditional architecture, considering the lack of any pictures on the ceiling."

"The damage to the city and its surroundings looks different than the last one," Thea chimes in.

"I noticed that," I agree. "I think it's more recent. The damage to the last city was a mix of damage done due to the war and damage done from general degradation over time. But a lot of the damage here seems like it was done a lot more recently."

"Probably 'cuz there was a kaiju in here," Anath says. "Those things don't tend to watch where they're stepping."

"…There might still be a kaiju in here," I admit. "Or something growing into one. There are some pretty big magical signatures away from the city."

"Ooh!" Anath perks up.

"We will be avoiding them," Nanaya says firmly.

"Aww…" Anath perks down.

"I found something!" Thea announces. "I think this is some kind of communication device. It might have records."

"Plug me in," I say, walking over to where she's kneeling down next to a moderately-sized box. "It looks pretty big for a radio."

"I think it might be a bunch of stuff for encryption and decryption," Thea says. "With all these guns here, I wouldn't be surprised if this place was relevant to the military."

"I'll crack it," I say. "I think I'm partly built for it. Some of the data I chew through on Earth is supposed to be basically impossible to unencrypt without a key, but I've never found any of it that hard."

"Oh geez, I never even thought about magical data decryption," Thea says, her eyes widening. "There's so much potential for that!"

"You think it's magic?" I hum. "I guess I can't always tell the difference when it comes to stuff I do. Sufficiently advanced technology, and all that."

"Makes sense," Thea nods, plugging me in once I open my ports. Ooh, this thing still has a tiny bit of power left in it. That's gotta be military-grade. Let's see what I can find in this sucker… ah. Hmm.

"Ominous," I hum out loud.

"What?" Thea asks.

"Almost every file in here has been scoured," I report. "Overwritten, more accurately. Nearly the entire hard drive is now just the word 'Antipathy' repeated in binary."

"Nearly?" Melpomene presses.

"Yeah. There's two left. They're message logs. One I can't translate, and one that I'm pretty sure is a translation, into the Antipathy language. It says 'Local forces routed. Infrastructure in place. Prospect City—' that's the word 'prospect' from the Antipathy language in both versions, by the way, '—is firmly under our control. Gods bless the…' and then it just goes back to saying 'Antipathy' over and over and over for like fourteen terabytes."

"I knew it," Melpomene hisses. "I knew it! The Preservers were occupying them!"

"Seems that way," I hum noncommittally.

"Come on. Let's check the central building," she insists. "Maybe we can find our answers there."

We load back up onto Thea's disc and make a beeline to our destination, a mix of anticipation and fury boiling off Melpomene in waves. The massive structure is much the same as I remember from the other one, barring a few large holes in the outer walls and—most importantly of all—it isn't vandalized. So when we make it to the front entrance, I can finally read the words plastered above the doors, and they fill me with far more fear than the earlier war report.

"Oh, god," I swear.

"What?" Melpomene demands. "What does it say!?"

"It says… 'Thana'tena Company Municipal Power Plant,'" I report.

There's a beat of silence.

"…Thana'tena sounds like a Preserver name," Thea says softly.

"Yep," I agree.

"Inside the last one of these, we found rows and rows and rows of little glass cubicles that had TVs with children's shows on them," Thea continues.

"We sure did," I agree.

"And it's… a power plant," she says. "It's a magical power plant."

"A privatized magical power plant, by the looks of it," I answer.

"And given what we found," Melpomene says evenly, "it's most likely one that specializes in harvesting joy."

We stare at the side of the building, my eyes reading the nameplate over and over. A power plant. A power plant that literally fucking steals the joy of children to run. What the actual hell? I'm struggling to believe it's real just because it's so insanely evil it couldn't possibly be real. I feel like I'm in a goddamn cartoon.

"Well shit," Anath says. "I guess if that was happening to me, I'd blow myself up too."

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