Hovering in the air above us, looking all imperious and superior, Ruthers glared down at… well, me. He was glaring at me. Sure, the others were all here and he definitely noticed them. But I was the one his focus was on. I could feel the mix of anger and glee coming off him. The man was furious that I was here, yet also happy about it. Because he thought I was trapped in this place. He didn't know who most of the others were, exactly, but had clearly decided that me being here meant I was his prisoner. And honestly, I couldn't say for sure that he was wrong.

Behind me, the assorted Patchworks and Fomorians were exchanging awed whispers with one another while gazing up at the floating man. Which was enough to draw his gaze, when he heard the strange language of the latter. I saw the recognition in his eyes, and the absolute bonfire rage rising there. In that second, he didn't say anything. He just acted.

I knew an attack was coming, my mouth opening to shout a warning that would come too late. Fortunately, I had been focusing on pulling those guys back into the Archive ever since it was brought up, right before Ruthers had shown himself. Even as the man extended a hand toward the Fomorians with red-black lightning coiling around it, I was already frantically doing my best to finish that. And it worked. At the last second, the last instant, just as a blinding bolt of red lightning lanced that way to utterly obliterate the ground those guys were standing on, they vanished. I'd managed to pull all of them out of the way in time. They were safe in the Archive.

Well, safe-ish anyway. I had no idea what would happen to that place if and when I was killed, but I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have to find out any time soon. Ruthers, on the other hand, might've had a different idea considering the next bolt of red lightning was coming my way. It was already filling my vision before I'd even fully registered that the Patchworks and Fomorians were safe. Too late to move, too late to do anything at all. Even Tabbris and Locke didn't have any time to step in. He was just too fast, too angry, too powerful. He wanted me to be gone now.

But someone else did have time to react. Mekkta was already there, in the same instant that I was starting to realize how much danger I was in. She jumped in front of me, taking the hit from Ruthers' red lightning bolt. A hit that would have turned me into so much dust did… nothing to her. Nothing at all. It slammed into the woman, leaving crackling energy in the air all around us. Beyond that, there was nothing. Mekkta didn't react with any pain. She just stood there, sizzling.

Honestly, I thought Ruthers might have been more surprised about that than he was about any of the other stuff that he'd just stumbled across. The man hovered there, staring while Mekkta raised one hand to touch what remained of the ordinary black, gray, and white flannel shirt she had been wearing. Because while she might have been unharmed, her shirt had been basically vaporized. Or it was, until she spoke a single word to activate a repair spell. Just like that, the shirt was as good as new, and it was almost like Ruthers might as well not have attacked at all.

"Ruthers, stop!" I snapped, my heart trying to rip its way up into my throat even as I shouted at him. "We're not here to fight, we're not here for anything like that, we're not-- just wait a second!"

"You should listen to the girl," Mekkta informed him, her voice decidedly dark with warning. "I'm not a fan of having to fix my clothes just because an impulsive child decided to be triggerhappy."

Percy, who had been only a step behind Mekkta in jumping in front of me, stood to one side and agreed. "Yes, talking would be good. It's less likely to end in horrible pain and loss for everyone."

By that point, Miranda and I had exchanged a quick look. I was trying to silently convince the other girl to accept a trip into the Archive so she would be safe. But she made it absolutely clear with one pointed glare what she thought of that idea. Neither of us actually had to say anything.

At the very least, seeing this strange woman he'd never laid eyes on before tank his lightning blast without any apparent ill effect (to the point that she'd casually scolded him about it) made Ruthers pause long enough to slowly lower himself to the ground. He stood there, about fifteen feet away from us. His glare could have incinerated me where I stood, powers or not powers. "I thought I already knew the depths to which you and your family would sink, but clearly I was still underestimating you. Bringing those creatures here? What are they, juvenile Fomorians? Did you think you could plant them in our jungle here and we wouldn't notice until it was too late? Is this some misguided attempt to domesticate the monsters? What the hell are you trying to do?"

Honestly, the man sounded almost as bewildered as he was angry. Oh, he was as furious as I had ever seen him, clearly. His rage was still practically a volcano mid-eruption. But he was also confused, and that was vying with his anger for the top spot. He really had no idea why I was here, or who these other people were (besides Miranda, I was sure he recognized her), and especially why I'd had what looked like some version of Fomorians with me. He wanted-- needed some real answers.

I could also see fire burning in his eyes, and flickering around his fingers. Despite his curiosity, he was really close to just dispensing with any attempt to find out what was going on and trying to solve the whole situation with as much fire as it took to get the job done. Seeing that, I silently told Locke to switch with Hot Type, just in case. Then I focused on replying to him. Or trying to.

What could I actually say? How much could I tell him? The others were looking at me, waiting to see what I did. But for a second, I just froze, waves of uncertainty washing over me. I couldn't tell him everything. He wouldn't stand still for the whole story, for one thing. And I just didn't know how much I should say in general. But he had to hear something soon. So, in the end, I just replied, "You're right, those are Fomorians. But they're not the Fomorians you know. They might be the key to finally stopping those monsters for good. And they deserve a chance to--"

That was the wrong thing to say. Ruthers' eyes bulged with even more anger than he'd already been showing, mouth opening to bellow a retort that seemed to shake the ground under our feet and left me reeling through all of it. "Deserve!? You want to talk about what those creatures deserve!? You would show them mercy? You would show them compassion? You would doom humanity and give us over as slaves to the worst abominations of this universe, you naive child!?"

Yeah, he definitely wasn't listening anymore. And he was too angry to even think about needing to take us alive for any reason. I didn't even have a chance to say anything else as he brought a very different power into play. The ground hadn't only been shaking under our feet because of his bellowing voice. He was controlling it, using some sort of power to send a river of lava up through the dirt, which broke apart under that force, exploding upward into a thirty-foot tall, forty-foot wide geyser that would have left… well, at least Miranda and me very much dead. And Penny's golem body probably would've been destroyed too, no matter how strong she was.

I didn't have time to shout a warning before the flaming liquid geyser was already erupting out of the ground. Fortunately, my mind worked faster than my mouth. Or, more to the point, Hot Type's power did. It was a good thing I'd listened to that hunch and switched her in. The instant the lava started boiling up like that, she was already focusing on the power that let her absorb heat on us or anyone we could see. Which she did with everyone else standing there. Yes, Percy and Mekkta would both be fine, but we still weren't going to let them take the hit. And we sure as hell weren't about to leave Eurso and Cerberus unprotected. Besides, we needed to absorb as much of that heat as we possibly could for what we were planning to do next.

The geyser faded after a few seconds, leaving Ruthers staring at our group as we stood completely unharmed. Which came right before my hand rose to send all that heat that Hot Type had absorbed right back at him in a white-red blast. It wouldn't actually hurt the man, obviously. But maybe it would send a message. One we followed up with by snapping, "That's enough!" My own voice didn't exactly shake the ground the way Ruthers' had, but it wasn't nothing either. Especially coming right on the heels of that blast of heat, which might not have hurt the man very much, but had definitely been felt. He knew he'd had his own attack sent right back at him. .

Before Mekkta or any of the others could say anything, I was already striding that way, walking right up to the man. "That's the second time in the past minute that you've tried to kill me. And yeah, I can understand the reaction after seeing those Fomorians. I really do get it, but enough!" By that point, I was standing barely a foot away from the older man, so close he could have smacked my head off before I knew what was happening. But I stood there anyway, staring into his eyes as I continued. "I understand why you're angry right now. I do, I seriously do. Hell, I understand why you're angry in general. But you need to listen to me, because I have a very important warning for you."

Ruthers glared right back at me, and my attention was drawn briefly to his visibly broken nose. How much angrier would he be if I revealed that I was the one who did that to him, as Jacob?

Yeah, this probably wasn't the right time to test that. So, I was silent as he retorted in a voice that was barely comprehensible through his rage, "You bring those abominations to this place of safety and learning. You threaten our students, your former classmates with those things? I thought I knew just how far you and your family would go, but clearly I underestimated you."

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"Damn it, Ruthers, this isn't about the Fomorians!" I snapped. "Just let me worry about them. Like I said, they aren't dangerous. They might be the best chance we have to stop that danger. But this is about something worse than them. You need to listen now, before everyone dies."

Thankfully, the man didn't attack me again. He did, however, glower at me even more, his voice dipping into a low, dangerous register. "Are you threatening my students here, Miss Chambers?"

I met his gaze evenly. "No. I'm not threatening anyone. I'm telling you about a threat that already exists. One of your people, Liam Mason, is about to do something incredibly stupid. And if we don't stop him soon, the Reapers are going to take the matter into their own hands. Which, in this case, means they'll wipe out our entire solar system and be done with us once and for all."

Obviously, Ruthers had had no idea what I would say right then. But whatever he'd told himself to be ready for, it clearly didn't come anywhere near reality. For a second, the man just stared at me like I'd turned myself into a neon striped zebra and started playing the bagpipes. His face twitched a little, and he made a soft noise of disbelief in the back of his throat before managing a series of grumbled curses under his breath. Then he breathed out and spoke a bit louder. "You brought an army of juvenile Fomorians to our private island school to warn us that the Reapers want to destroy the entire solar system because of something Liam Mason is trying to do?"

My head shook slightly, while Eurso moved up closer to put himself behind me and slightly to the side. Ruthers spared a very brief glance at the armored raptor, as well as Cerberus when the three-headed robot dog took up position to the left, but had already silently dismissed either as a threat before I even started to talk. When I did, I tried to keep my voice calm, but firm. I didn't want him to think I was just being hysterical or anything. Not that I really expected the man to believe me, at least at first. But still, I had to at least give it the best shot I possibly could.

"Liam wants his family back. He thinks we're a bad influence on them." I pushed on before the man could make any sort of remark on that, or do anything other than raise an eyebrow. "He thinks if he gets rid of us, all of us, he can fix things with his wife and daughters. So he's been experimenting with a spell to transport all of us, everyone he sees as a bad influence, to some other universe far away. The problem is, he's been messing with the Reapers to do that. And they aren't exactly happy about it. He's screwing with stuff they're pretty touchy about. So they want us to stop him. If we don't, they'll get rid of the problem permanently, by ending all of us."

After getting that much out, I took a breath before adding, "The Fomorians are… forget it, they aren't involved in this part. It'd take too long to explain and you wouldn't believe me anyway."

The gruff man's voice was a dry rumble. "Yes, that's surely the part of all this I wouldn't believe." He made a face, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction of the school. Which, my distance power helpfully informed me, was about six miles away. Then he focused my way again, shaking off whatever thought he'd had. "You and the Garden whelp come here with those creatures, and whatever the others were, to say nothing of what those are." His hand gave a sharp wave at Mekkta, Percy, Cerberus, and Eurso. "And now you say you came to warn us that the Reapers, whom we know for a fact have no actual organization or sense of society, let alone leadership, are going to destroy this solar system if I don't stop Liam Mason from casting some sort of prototype spell? A spell which just happens to be something that would end this war."

Before I could say anything to that, he pushed on. "You and your family, your mother and you and… you have all been such…" There was a brief pause while he fought to find the right words. A visible grimace crossed his face. "You would have been such assets to all of our people, to humanity itself, if you could just wake up and stop letting yourselves be so easily manipulated."

This guy's more full of himself than ever, Hot Type put in, sounding as annoyed and exasperated as I felt. Which made sense, given we were probably sharing those feelings with each other. I dunno how we can convince him we're telling the truth about all this. He doesn't even believe the Reapers have a real society. I don't think he believes they could do what we're warning him about. He thinks the best case scenario is we're being lied to. Worst case, we're the one lying.

Tabbris agreed quickly. He won't listen to us. He just keeps thinking about the mistake he made with Fossor that set off the Black Plague, and thinks we're making the same sort of mistake. And he's doubled down on hating Alters so much, for so long, he can't let himself change his mind, or he'd have to accept that what he's been doing is genocide. He has to believe you're wrong.

They were right, of course. The problem was, I didn't know what to do about that. I had known from the start that it wasn't going to be easy to convince Ruthers to put a stop to Liam's experiment, but I still had to try. The trouble was, what was I supposed to do now? I didn't know how to get off this island and back to actual Earth. And even if I had, I really didn't want to do it before making sure Liam's little spell was dealt with. I had no idea why that last rift brought us to this point, but if it was at all possible, I was definitely going to take advantage of it to handle that problem. At least it would be one more thing off what had already become a rather extensive list.

Ruthers was talking again, cutting into our private discussion. "It seems you and your mother would do and say anything to put an end to this war. Anything, that is, besides admit that you--"

It was my turn to interrupt him. "I'm gonna be totally honest with you, Ruthers. I barely noticed this civil war for most of this year. I've had other things on my mind. I'd say more important things, but I'm not gonna say anything is more important than stopping a bunch of genocidal fucks from massacring innocent civilians just because they look different and that's scary to certain people. Let's just leave it at, I had more immediately pressing things to deal with. This whole civil war thing was kind of a background problem. And frankly, that hasn't really changed."

His eyes narrowed at me. "Is that so? Well, then I suppose we'll just have to find a way to make this your priority. Maybe we can start by throwing you in the same prison cell your mother spent so much time in. Give it a decade or so, and we'll see how important this war is for you then."

The man started to reach out to me, trying to grab my arm. But his wrist was caught in mid-motion. Mekkta was there, her grip clearly tight as she warned, "Don't do that. I don't know everything about what's happening right now, but I do know I need this girl to come with me. And I won't let you get in the way of that."

Ruthers, for his part, looked her up and down. His voice was even. "I have no idea who you are."

"No?" Mekkta offered a small, humorless smile. "Then allow me to introduce myself." And just like that, her other hand snapped out, colliding with the man's jaw hard enough to snap his head back so he was looking straight up at the sky. Though I doubted he was actually seeing anything but the stars circling his head right then. And she didn't leave it at that. The first hit was just to stun him briefly. Then she caught hold of his arms, snapping some sort of bracelet onto his wrist before spinning around and hurling Ruthers through the jungle. And that was truly through the jungle. He crashed right through tree after tree. One of my ghosts flew up higher, and I watched through his eyes at the signs of Ruthers' flight taking him all the way out the opposite side of the jungle and off the island. He crashed down into the water like a cannonball and kept going, likely embedding himself deep in the ocean floor. Or lake floor, whatever it would be considered in this pocket universe.

We all stared that way for a second, before Miranda blurted, "What do we do now!? He can just teleport right back here!"

"Not for awhile he can't," Mekkta informed us. "The bracelet I attached to him will… well, let's avoid the long and boring explanation and just say he'll have to fight his way through a series of dreams before waking up. We have a few minutes."

"Great, fantastic, wonderful," Miranda stammered, "but how do we get out of this place?"

My mouth opened and shut a couple times. "I-- we… wait, I'm stupid! I'm being stupid, Bob can let us out!"

Mekkta started to ask what I meant by that, but was tuning her out, focusing on the Reaper head back at the lighthouse. "Bob, Bob, I mean, sir, I don't… I'm sorry to ask a favor right now, but my friends and I really need to get off this island. Please, we really have to get out of here before Ruthers shakes that off. Can you just--"

The scenery around us changed. I blinked a couple times, looking around at the very familiar sight. We were standing in front of that lighthouse, right there in the middle of the main Crossroads school grounds. Dozens of students and teachers were all around us, staring in confusion. I heard a few voices whisper my name.

"Felicity?" That was Liam himself, the man appearing right behind us as he gazed uncomprehendingly. "What--"

I would've liked to have said something nice and pithy then, or at least scolded him for his stupid idea that was going to get the entire planet destroyed. But I couldn't say or do any of that. I was too distracted by the sound coming from the lighthouse. A grinding, twisting, rumbling sound. The lighthouse, the one with the Edge in it… was starting to move. Dirt and rocks fell away as the thing slowly lifted up into the air. Everyone stopped talking. Hell, I was pretty sure we all stopped thinking. We just stared that way in disbelief.

The lighthouse kept rising, lifting itself further and further up, impossibly far. It had extended down into the Earth at least twice as far as it extended up, if not more so. And as it rose, the simple building was already changing. The simple lighthouse facade fell away, while parts shifted and rotated. Soon, it wasn't a lighthouse anymore. Not by a long shot.

"Is… that thing a Transformer!?" Miranda demanded.

"It's a ship," Mekkta noted, just as shocked.

"It's the ship," I informed them, as the realization came. "The sapient ship, it's been hiding here the whole time, right under everyone's noses.

"The Crossroads Lighthouse is Skuttlebutt."

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