Threadbare

Interlude: God Eater

She sat upon a throne of skulls, and her hunger demanded more.

Her hunger demanded a lot, these days. It was a cranky bitch, a junkie, and a goddess, all at once. It promised her power, and sanity, and a return to grace.

It was a goddamn liar.

Once she'd been able to sleep. Been able to call the frost to surround her, to wrap glacial folds around herself like a blanket made of cold death. She'd managed to sleep in it a few times, using skills chewed from the corpses of the bears that frequented the endless, dark pine forests of these lands. Hibernated a few times, until her fucking hunger found out how to get into her dreams.

She'd woken from that and almost consumed the village.

Not the first time that the temptation had come, but the closest it ever got. She had settled for the dry and withered flesh of the wendigo and kin that had been called by her restless sleep. There was a never-ending supply of those, and they came with or without her permission.

And why wouldn't they? She'd made of herself a queen.

Queen of shit, she muttered, as she ran long, clawed fingers over the yellowing bone of her armrests. Couldn't fucking run when he told you to run. Dumbass. Big cannibal dumbass.

The memory loomed up again, and again she shoved it away. Thinking about it too long hurt. Even wore down her sanity, according to what her status screen told her. And sanity was a little too precious to risk, these days.

Especially now.

The wail rattled through the caverns like a shrieking northern wind. It called her name, and ground down her brain.

LiiiiiivingDeeeeeeeeaaadGrrrrrllllll...

Lady Wendolyn Marks-Runcible's Wendigo Wail inflicts 6 points of sanity damage to you!

It was petty. It was nothing, in the grand scheme of things. An irritation at best.

But the bitch had been firing it off for a couple of days now, nonstop. She'd clearly brought snacks, to keep her moxie going.

LivingDeadGrrl was all out of snacks. Had been for a while. Cannibal life tended to be a bit hard on the old pantry.

She started counting, as she sat. And sure enough, when she got around six hundred seconds...

LiiiivvvvinnnngDeeeeaaaadGrrrrrlllllllllll...

Lady Wendolyn Marks-Runcible's Wendigo Wail inflicts 4 points of sanity damage to you!

Fuck it, she snarled, and rose off the throne.

The bitch wanted a go? Fine. Yeah, this was a risk. But it was one she had to take. The alternative was rotting in the dark, until her brain snapped and the stupid character mind took over. Then she'd probably end up going anyway, and getting punked like a chump. At least this way, she'd have a shot at the bitch.

It was a long hall, with trophies scattered around. Cracked bones, pelts that shed fur from their poorly-tanned backings, weapons that had mostly fallen to rust... and a few glowing items in the mix, that were in much better condition than the rest. From these she found her antlered mantle of the hunt, a hooded coat sewn from the single pelt of a yeti. Next to the hook it hung from was a wooden rack, and from that she withdrew a long spear, a thing of wood and sinew and dark metal. Bone charms rattled from thongs as she drew out the weapon, and it brought fond memories to her mind.

That was a mistake. Those memories brought back more memories, memories of eating her fill, and the hunger writhed within her, rose up like a serpent and dug its fangs in. LivingDeadGrrl shuddered, and the bone charms rattled on the spear as she forced the thoughts back down.

I am more than this, she whispered. More than my guts. My empty, empty guts. My guts that need food to she shut up. It wasn't helping.

Settle down and I'll feed you a Wendolyn. She sounds tasty, she told herself instead. Been ages since we had a Wendy, yeah? Be like Peter Pan and eat her like a pornstar.

That helped. A bit. She considered the other glowing items, and took a hatchet made from a femur and a shard of flint. It sizzled as she grabbed it, and she hissed, before tucking it into the folds of her mantle. It was normally a bad idea to bring the thing into a fight. Normally. But this wasn't a normal day.

Things skittered away as she left the hall, and took the stairs up into the tunnels. Smaller things, the usually-confused whydigos and wheredigos that hadn't yet leveled enough to be totally invisible. The usual trash mobs that she drew by just existing in the same place for long enough. They weren't tasty enough to be worth the energy to chase, not now with her name on an enemy's lips.

One hesitated, looking at her with sunken, all-black eyes, its stag-skull head staring at her mantle, and the stag skull mask that held her hood to her face. It lifted a hand and coughed something that might have been words in some northern language.

Poor fucker, she told it. Used to be human, huh?

It tilted its head, and scraps of rotten flesh fell from its bony face. Then it screamed in fear and fled. She caught movement down the passageway it retreated into, clocked a few forms slouching after it. It had shown weakness. It was prey now. That was how wendigos and their kin worked, most days.

LiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvviiingDeeaaaaadddddGrrrrrrrrllll...

Lady Wendolyn Marks-Runcible's Wendigo Wail inflicts 3 points of sanity damage to you!

Fucking shut up! she hollered back, then caught herself. She didn't want to alert the bitch. That was why she hadn't wailed back. That and the lack of snacks.

Either way, stealth would be a good first approach, up until it wasn't.

Always start with stealth, she muttered, whispering Camouflage, as she went.

The wendigo warrens spread out beneath the mountain like the roots of a twisted tree. It was actually close to a setup that she'd explored once, early on in her career. Only this one wasn't a prison for ancient evils. Just one big evil. And more importantly, it wasn't a goddamn dungeon. She'd had to patrol it well, to keep dungeons from springing up in here, learn to sniff the air for the scents of the strange, furtive things that appeared from nowhere and deposited the cores. Fortunately, wendigos were good at tracking their prey.

Scents and Sensibility, Find Prey, she whispered as she moved, well aware that Wendolyn would be doing the same

and pausing as a veritable smorgasbord of walking meat hit her nose.

Humans. Dwarf. And... halven?

Oh. Oh, this was unexpected. This was...

This had to be bait. This had to be a trap.

But just one of them would recharge her. Just one would help her tank up before she took down the interloper.

For a second she hesitated on the edge of indecision.

Thomasi Jacobi Venturi has attacked your forces!

Would you like to activate PVP?

Yes! she growled.

You are now PVP active!

You will be pvp flagged until time is up.

Timer: 23:59

LivingDeadGrrl felt her mouth filling with spit. She opened it, let it ooze to the floor. Inwardly she knew she was leaving her scent, leaving a clue for Wendy, but she couldn't bring herself to care. The hunger was driving now, and she found the tunnels speeding by as she ran, low to keep her antlers from scraping the ceiling, low and fast.

Wellp. Guess we're doing this. Poor bastards.

If it had just been humans, she would have tried to control it. Tried to fight. Not because of any racial solidarity or any bullshit like that, but because her villagers were humans. There was a chance of collateral, and collateral was unacceptable. She had to keep them safe. It was that simple.

But there were no dwarves or halvens in her village. And there was a player along, so she couldn't afford to ignore them.

They were fair game. Literally.

She smelled the gore as she got to the upper levels. Not prey. Not their blood. Every wendigo in the warrens that wasn't a part of the power struggle, or hiding from it, was smelling the prey and going on the hunt. But it was their blood she smelled, weak and watery and sick. Wendigos drew barely any nourishment from their feasts.

But there was an awful lot of it, and that gave her pause, made her hunger flicker and draw back a bit. Thanks to years of grinding willpower, her hunger wasn't all-consuming, just mostly-consuming. It occasionally let her self-preservation pipe up, and right now she had the thought that this was a part of Wendolyn's play.

And almost on cue, came the witch's wail again.

Liiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvviiiiiiinggggggdeaaaaadddddrrrrrllll...

Lady Wendolyn Marks-Runcible's Wendigo Wail inflicts 2 points of sanity damage to you!

Now that was surprising.

The prey smell and the scream were from two different places.

Judging by how far she'd come, the prey was just getting out of the lava tubs, and taking the long walk down the basalt stair. But Wendolyn's voice was coming from below.

And there's the trap, she thought. They were trying to catch her between them.

Well alrighty then. She'd played this sort of game before, back in the good old days. The trick was to get around the bastards, and keep them both in front of you.

They were probably adventurers or mercenaries this lady had hired. But they'd be slowed by the wendigos coming to eat them, their senses choked with growls and howls and the blood of the dying. Easier to slip around them than another predator.

She was in motion before she finished the thought, swerving from the direct route to the smaller paths, the longer ones. Even with her mobility, they would take hours if she stuck to regular means of getting there.

But why the hell do that?

Wind Walker, she snarled, and she ran, ran so fast that her feet burned, burned against the air, turning her face so her eyes wouldn't be crushed back into her skull.

This was the reason that so many greater wendigos looked like they had hollow eyes. Using your skills to their full potential was... hard on the body.

But then, you could always eat and get them back.

Ah. Bad thought. The idea got in her mind again, the idea of hot, wet blood, and soft, yielding meat. She lost a few moments there in the howling of the wind, and the heat ripping across the front of her frame, heat that made the surrounding walls crack and melt a bit, the frosty stone slicking as she ripped past.

The lightening of the stone told her she'd come back just in time, and she slowed and stopped well before the long tunnel ended in a sudden wall, then ran up it, singing the stone with her fiery feet before hopping off in the half-submerged lava tube that she called the obsidian crumble. The water billowed and steamed up around her, sogging her furry mantle as she slogged through it, turning her skill off.

Liiiiiiiiivvvvvvviiiinggggggdeaaaaddgrrrrllll... came the wail, along with a pitiful lump of sanity lost. But it almost seemed to her that this time it had taken longer from the last yell. Had the noise and fury of Wind Walker drowned out her rival? Or had she lost less time than she thought?

Third option, LivingDeadGrrl thought to herself. The bitch is mixing it up some, now that you're on the move. She's moving to, so she doesn't want you tracking her path.

Little of column a, little of column c, lot of all of the above, buddy, she whispered. Gold star. Head of the class. Like and subscribe.

Good to know. If she got too far down, sanity-wise, she could break out of here, Wind Walker off into the distance, and come back when she was rested.

Except... if the bitch had recruited mercs badass enough to come down here and take down her trash mobs, they'd probably be able to track her. And kill her while she slept.

Yeah, no. Fuck that noise. The plan stood. Get some snacks from the mercs, then kill everyone in front of her all at once.

The thing that was her hunger liked that plan, and so she slunk forward, sniffing and listening, and coming up from behind. She kept her hand up her spear, clenched around the bone charms to keep them from rattling. A small thing, given her stealth score. But it had tripped her up in the past.

A few minutes later, she recognized one of the scents.

Bortiz? What the hell was he doing here? He knew better than to come down here.

Unless he wasn't doing it of his free will. He was a captive, had to be. She felt her lips pull back against her teeth in a snarl. She needed Bortiz, needed the others.

This would not do. She couldn't go in with fury and rage and blasting. This would take some timing to pull off.

Fortunately, from the baying and growling coming from up ahead, she'd have ample distractions to work with. The lessers were coming in hard now, trying to flank and draw the mercenaries away, split them up and devour.

The fact that all the remains she'd passed by were wendigo told her this tactic wasn't gonna work out for them. But it might buy her the second or two she needed.

And in the large cavern that she called the Hall of the Mountain King, she found them.

They were Animators. Damn skilled Animators, with about six or seven golems or animi or whatever apiece. And unlike any animi she'd seen before, these talked, and used skills, and seemed to be smart enough to understand tactics.

How the hell were they doing this?

She watched a tiny bear in a Ringmaster's outfit dance around a human Ringmaster, keeping itself between harrying throngs of supremely mobile howdigos, while its master blustered, threatened, and intimidated them, snapping his whip to keep them away whenever they got close. A tiny orc puppet done up as a Shaman used a staff to draw thorny vines across the cavern floor, guarding off any that tried to come from the rear.

Across the way, a pair of wooden toys defended a trio of halvens so identical as to be triplets. One was a mighty-looking dragon, and oh, that brought back memories for a second. The other was something tiny and froggy, that bounded around and stabbed at small cluster of perpetually confused whydigos that were chaotically trying to grab it. The Halven, for her part, was tossing glimmering daggers or something similar, and chanting what sounded like a mix of Oracle invocations and warnings to her team.

The last member was a cloak-clad dwarf with a repeating crossbow, sitting astride a huge steel minotaur. He sprayed clip after clip of bolts into the ones further back, while the minotaur steered toward the bigger ones and absolutely wrecked face.

Karl's words came back to her, nagging in her mind. They're magazines, not clips.

Shut the fuck up Karl, your dick was tiny, she muttered, then shook her head. There was a reason Karl was an ex, and that was goddamn decades ago anyway.

Fortunately, no one heard her. And after a second, she realized what was going on. Animators had a trick to ride their creations, so this must be that. They'd set up shop up in the village, and sent their minds down below. It was like piloting drones. The fleshy types were the team's non-Animator specialists.

It was a pretty smart setup. But where was Bortiz?

She smelled him, but didn't see him. He did have a pretty good stealth skill. But if he'd managed to sneak off already, what was he doing still hanging around? She smelled him here...

Unless it's an illusion. Unless they're faking it.

Illusions. She only smelled one halven here, but there were three. Yes. There was a Sensate here. This was part of the lure.

Well, fuck it then. No reason not to eat her fill.

She stared at the halvens, until she found the ones that didn't move properly in the shadows. The group had brought magical lights down here for the living members of their team. And it was a weakness that she exploited, finding the mistakes in the illusions until she found the one that was real.

And then she struck.

Fight the Battles. Reckless Charge! with those words she blurred across the wide cavern, moving fast, spear out, aimed low to snag the halven and keep on running, pull her out of the pack and devour her in a matter of seconds, before settling things with the rest of them.

It was a solid tactical move.

But it didn't take the teddy bear into account.

The little thing shot out like it had been fired from a cannon, pulled by invisible chains from all the way across the battleground to the space right in front of her spear. Before she could adjust or aim around the bear, she'd stabbed it instead of the halven, skewering it like an apple.

It stared at her.

She stared back.

Bodyguard skill, she realized, and dove to the side, shouting Manipulate Air, as she went. She rose off the ground and flicked the bear from her spear with a quick gesture

and got struck right in the side of her head as the bear caught the spear with one paw, whirled around, and slammed into her skull, fuzzy feet first.

It wasn't a particularly heavy or big bear, but it kicked like a donkey and worse, now it was clinging to the side of her mantle.

Can't stop! She thought to herself, and steered herself through the air, flying and weaving through the stalactites above as the halven shouted to her team, and the next wave of wendigos roared and charged in. The first lesson she'd learned about fighting in this game was that you never wanted to stand still for long. So she got distance and cover as the dragon belched fire, and sprayed the spot she'd been a second ago.

Okay, she thought as she withdrew, trying with futility to catch the bear that was crawling around her head and shoulders like a cantelope-sized flea, Plan's still good. Just can't eat this thing. Kill it quick then get back to the fight.

Animate Fur Coat, Command Fur Coat join party, said the bear.

Fucking. Animators.

She threw her spear into the darkness. Easy enough to find it later. And just in time too, as her mantle swept up like a rug and did its best to roll her up.

But it wasn't as bad as she feared. LivingDeadGrrl had been doing this a long time, and while the magically-controlled mantle was strong, she was far stronger. Really it was more of a trick of keeping it away from her face, and after a few moments of struggle she'd managed to wrap it around her off-hand and wind it like yarn. It struggled to break free, and she bounced off the stony pillars of the stalactites a time or two, but it was under control.

That's the point she realized she'd lost track of the bear.

Whirling, she tried to reacquire it, figure out where the teddy had gotten to...

...and caught sight of a smiling, pale woman in a black ninja-like suit. She had a wide, white grin with sharp, sharp teeth that LivingDeadGrrl knew could only mean one thing.

Hello, Wendy! LivingDeadGrrl grinned right back, felt her teeth sharpen and lengthen in anticipation. Welcome to dinner, bitch!

The woman opened her mouth and screamed her challenge.

Liiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvviiiiiinnnnngggggggggdeeeeeeeeeadddddddggggggrrrrllll!

And yeah there were words popping up after that but LivingDeadGrrl didn't care. She just roared her reply, no words necessary, and went straight for her challenger.

They both knew the score.

The only way to become a wendigo queen was to eat a wendigo queen. And not in the fun way.

The two of them hurtled at each other, and LivingDeadGrrl fought to untangle her arm, hissed a Berserker's Furious Strike, and felt HP leave her as her arm lashed out hard enough to tear small muscles...

...and passed right through the woman.

The illusionist!

LivingDeadGrrl twisted, heard noise and rustling overhead, knew the bitch was coming in from a new angle

Tempus Fuckit.

and everything stopped.

Kind of. She was frozen in position, couldn't move her limbs, and locked in the air.

The fuck? she said, surprised that she could still talk.

It's my level thirty skill, said a wooden man, materializing from thin air. Invisibility? Maybe.

You got a time stop at level thirty? LivingDeadGrrl asked, impressed despite herself. Not impressed enough to let him live, though.

Nah, it's complicated. Basically it feels like time's stopped, but I've basically sped up the parts of our brains that think and communicate. So we have all the time we need to talk things over before I hit unpause.

She looked at him. REALLY looked. And sure enough, after a moment a green name faded in, almost grudgingly.

Daffodil Copperfield, she said, drawling the syllables. Now what the fuck did I do to piss off another player? No, players. That Thomasi guy back there's got skin in the game too.

Yeah, I don't know what his deal is, Copperfield said. Consider him irrelevant to this discussion.

Okay. Say like I believe that. What's your deal then, buddy?

You were there when the shit went down. You were streaming it live. I can't access it now, but I've heard the stories. You know what happened. You were friends with the guy who was using the dragon hack.

And there it was.

Pat sent you, she said, grinning her sharpened grin.

She had the pleasure of watching the wooden man recoil. What? No! He doesn't even know I'm here.

Yeah. Sure. That's what the last two said. And they thought they weren't lying. But a mind's an easy thing to manipulate, if you know what I mean. she grinned until her cheeks tore slightly, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. You think you did this of your own free will?

You're trying to rattle me, Copperfield said, shifting back. I've gone off-mission. He's not doing anything to get us out. I'm trying to do what he won't... or can't.

Heh. You're adorable. Heh ha hah ahahaha.... oh man. Heee hahhahha hah ha...

Don't you fucking...

You don't know what you're talking about. LivingDeadGrrl said, her grin disappearing as she looked him straight in his painted eyes. There's something out there. Something between us and home. Something big.

What's one more boss? Whatever it is, there's enough players left active, we can take it. Get everyone to go en masse and... shit! Stop laughing at me, you bitch!

She didn't. She laughed there in that timeless spot, howling and humored and fresh out of fucks. And when she was done, she calmly looked him in the eyes again and shook her head. You don't beat that thing. You survive it. And you go nowhere, because it's over, Daffy boy. We lost. Best thing we can do is live in this game, now. And do anything you can to stay alive, because the afterlife here never got patched in.

He was silent for a bit.

I have to try, he said, and she could hear the raw determination in his voice. I need to get home. I have to get home. And you know something. You got farther than anyone else. So you're going to tell me what you know and how we can try it again and succeed this time.

You're wrong in so many different ways, LivingDeadGrrl told him. Especially about that last part. I'm not going to tell you shit. So fuck off.

See, I had a feeling it was going to go this way. Which is why I brought the lady.

She'll be a good meal.

She'll be the one eating you.

I can take her.

But not her and all of her friends. And not ME.

We'll see.

No, I mean you literally can't. Look at my name.

A glance, then a double-take, and she saw what she'd missed the first time around. You're not PVP active?

Nope. I'm not partied up.

Realization came slowly. The sanity loss was getting to her. But when she realized the weirdness, it didn't explain anything. If you're not PVPing me, then how are you freezing me like this?

It's not harmful. I can't do a thing to you while you're in here. We're just discussing stuff between the seconds. And you know what? He grinned. Most of my illusions don't count as PVP. I can throw a ton of stuff in your way, and you can't do a thing about it.

She thought it over, as he continued. You won't be able to see or smell her, the scenery will shift around you, and all her allies will be able to come at you from every which direction. You won't even be able to run, I'll turn the tunnels back around on your senses. And I know you're tough, yeah, but you're not that tough. She'll kill you. She'll eat you. And then she'll call you over and over again and kill you over and over again until you tell me what I want to know.

LivingDeadGrrl tried to keep her face impassive. But this... this could actually work. Wendigo queens could summon other wendigos to them. And if she lost the queenship, then she'd be vulnerable to the summons. Distance wouldn't matter, either.

This could end her.

So why don't you save us both the time and trouble, and just tell me what I want to know? Daffodil pleaded. We can escape together. We can start working to take out that big guy. We can... shit, I don't know. We can do this. Just work with me, that's all I ask!

She considered it. There in that timeless space, she thought it over, forced her bruised and bloody mind to ponder the angles and work through the problems.

Then she looked him in the eyes.

Pat said it more prettily, when he threatened me, she told him. But I'll give you the same answer.

Fucking obstinate bitch! Copperfield yelled. I'll... you crazy fucking fool! You want to be dinner? Let's make you dinner!

And then the world was moving again, and a weight fell on LivingDeadGrrl as long teeth sunk into the back her neck.

Howling, LivingDeadGrrl ripped her off and threw her to the ground...

...where she exploded into a cloud of butterflies and was gone.

Falling back on her hearing, trying to tone out the sound of the mercenary team fighting a few hundred yards away, she listened, waited for her moment and struck at where she thought Wendolyn was rushing toward her, but caught only empty air. Seconds later a fencing saber ripped out of thin air and she barely caught it on her arm, blocking it before Wendolyn tore her throat open.

Two strikes, three, and there was a slight blurring of the air on the last one, so she managed to leap back before it tore a fourth line open on her mangled forearms. And as she did so, she whispered, Activate Recall Weapon.

Her spear ripped through the darkness, and Wendolyn snarled as blood sprayed... but LivingDeadGrrl caught the sound of retreating footsteps. Not a serious hit.

Then her spear thunked into her hand, and she used the other one to hold down the writhing bundle of cloth that was her animated mantle as she swept around, swinging the spear in wide arcs, trying to be random. Trying to buy time to figure out how to beat this.

A blast of hot air interrupted her, and she rolled to the side as dragonfire scorched the stone behind.

She'd been distracted too long.

The mercenaries had come to finish her off.

Surrender or be destroyed! shouted the halven, tossing silvery cards that barely missed as LivingDeadGrrl twisted aside.

We'll treat you well! Called the little orc doll. Just tell him what he wants to know!

Just give up. It's hopeless and you're being stupid, said the little bear, glaring at her with his arms crossed.

Or don't, and I'll teabag your corpse when you're dead, sneered the Ringmaster, licking his whip suggestively.

The minotaur golem just roared, low and brutish and bestial.

The distraction cost her, as Wendolyn's rapier tore at her back, and LivingDeadGrrl whirled, swung the spear wildly, and thought that she caught something at the end of the arc. But the force was diffused enough by then, she was sure it hadn't done much. And the strike cost her, as she heard the mercenaries charging the second her back was turned.

Can't fight them all, not at once, she knew. And she called the winds to her, sped off

and ran into a wall. Hard. One bounce and she managed to keep to her feet, but that wall hadn't been there a second ago. The tunnels were shifting as she glanced around. Copperfield was keeping to his promise.

Heavy, eager breathing and the patter of running feet behind, and she turned around fast, so fast that the rapier failed to catch the base of her neck, just tore her cheek open instead. She backhanded toward the empty air, was rewarded with a muffled scream from Wendolyn...

...then realized that she'd landed the backhand with the arm that had been wrapped up.

Her mantle wasn't fighting her anymore.

She hopped back, spared it a glance...

...and froze, as the little teddy bear wriggled out of the mass of fur, and waved at her, putting its paw to its mouth in a shushing motion.

We're going to get you! Came the teddy bear's voice from across the way, and she glanced back to see the mercenaries closing in, threat clear in their demeanor, walking slowly and certainly.

She whipped her head back to the hiden bear, knew she could bite it in two before it could act.

And she stared straight into its button eyes.

She couldn't. She hesitated. It was just too cute. Too many good memories. Her sister's bear, what was his name? It had been so long.

And in that moment of hesitation, came doubt. Now she realized where the bear had ended up, when she was distracted fighting with her own clothing. She'd thought it had jumped off and away, but clearly it had never left. Which meant that the other one was an illusion. It was threatening her.

But the real one wasn't.

Wait for it, whispered the bear's voice in her ear. When I say now, please attack what I'm holding whatever it might be.

She nodded, once.

Then she gasped, as the rapier stabbed straight through her ribs.

For a second she thought Wendolyn had gotten her heart, it was thundering so loud. She slumped, tried to scrabble at the blade but it had already withdrawn. Staggering, she swung the spear around, heard a voice screaming in rage, knew it was her own. Felt the air whisper, as she knew her enemy was lining up the killing blow.

And heard the little bear's tiny whisper.

Bodyguard Living Dead Girl.

The rapier stabbed toward her heart.

The bear flung himself in front of the rapier.

Now, said the impaled bear, as he pulled himself up the withdrawing blade, and someone hissed in rage and pain as his claws bit in.

Now please, repeated the bear as he started to fade, as Daffodil started to wrap him in illusions.

Too late.

Too late as LivingDeadGrrl, who had thoroughly had enough, lunged forward, got her hands on a slender, muscular form, pinned it beneath her as she fell, and shouted Rage!

The world turned red.

And in a very short time, the form beneath her stopped screaming. Or breathing, for that matter. Or doing anything really, save for gurgling and bleeding.

When she came to, her mouth was full of blood, her belly was full of meat, and her sanity was much, much recovered from the beating it had taken. LivingDeadGrrl sighed, and mopped her face with one hand, staring up to see the bear looking at her solemnly.

Thank you, she whispered, then tensed up and startled, rising to a crouch and hopping sideways, glaring as the semi-circle of toys and the living people she'd been trying to eat closed in around her. Who are you? The fuck you want?

No! Daffodil yelled and she whipped around to see him floating backward from a tunnel, legs kicking in midair, arms flailing as a miniature tornado whirled him around. No, let me go! You don't understand!

Oh, but I do, said a familiar blue woman, stepping out from behind a stalactite, arms working as she directed the tornado, and her cheesy white grin was as straight and perfect as LivingDeadGrrl's yellow rictus was snaggletoothed. I think I alone of all here understand.

Well she's not wrong, said another familiar voice, and LivingDeadGrrl felt her shoulders slump with relief, as Bortiz came out from his own hiding place back behind the strangers. Um, they're friendlies, Liv. It's safe.

Fuck, whispered LivingDeadGrrl, looking around at the weird crew. What is this? You're not with him? Then what are you doing here?

Midian has returned to the world, said Aunarox the djinn.

Oh. Oh shit, LivingDeadGrrl slumped down on the ground, staring in amazement. You mean...

Oh yes. It's time to put an end to everything.