Chapter 32: Cultivating Madness

“So, now what?” Nikki lay on her belly, looking at the flat screen PV mounted to the wall. There was a machoke in scrubs and a white coat doing chest compressions on a lopunny with graying fur.

Beside her bed, Artemis’ gaze wandered toward the desk in the corner of the room. It had a fridge and cabinet neatly stacked beside it. “I don’t know about you, but I’m raiding the minibar.” He slithered forward and opened the fridge to find tons of small, fancy bottles of various colors.

“Charge the paddles to two hundred!” Machoke shouted. The audino standing across from him lifted two defibrillator paddles that had gel dripping off of them.

“Clear!” she shouted, before pressing the paddles down and squeezing the triggers. Lopunny opened his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, groaning.

Machoke looked at the monitor beside the bed. “He’s back in sinus rhythm. Let’s get him to the cath lab! Move, move, move!”

“Man, this shit’s unrealistic.” Nikki shook her head. “I don’t care what shape you’re in, you don’t bounce back from CPR like that.” She picked up the remote and resumed flipping through channels.

“You want anything?” Artemis asked, using a ribbon to pull out a whiskey bottle. He removed the cap with his lips and spat it onto the desk.

“To drink? Nah.” Nikki scrolled past a few sports channels showing baccer matches, yawning. “Say, do they got any of them miniature bags of fancy nuts?”

The milotic opened up the cabinet and grabbed a couple of black plastic bags with his other ribbon. “These what you’re looking for?”

“Hell yeah they are!” Nikki licked her lips. “Give ’em here.”

Artemis tossed them onto the bed. Nikki reached for one when she flipped to a channel showing a stage with Starlene standing on a podium. “Oh, brother. They gotta put her concerts on replay?” Groaning, she grabbed a bag.

“I don’t think that’s a rerun.” Artemis took a swig of his tiny bottle. “Look there. It says ‘Live from the Venishian Amphitheater.'”

“The Amphitheater?” Nikki sat up. “Why would she perform at that rundown waste of space?”

Artemis frowned. “It’s a prized historical site,” he growled.

“Fine, fine.” Nikki raised her hands defensively. “Still doesn’t add up.”

“Let’s get things started, then,” the meloetta declared. She looked down. The camera panned to an aerial shot of an orchestra readying their instruments. The small lapras perched in front of them raised its conductor’s baton and pointed to a kirlia seated at a piano. A surprisingly somber piano riff began to play, followed by some minor cords from the strings section.

“Bwuh?” Nikki froze, holding a walnut in front of her open mouth. “This doesn’t sound anything like a song Starlene would sing. What gives?”

Rather than her usually animated choreography, Starlene merely swayed from side to side atop her pedestal.

“You’d never know.
No chance to grow.
It’s all for show.
Cuz the life you lead
Is not the life you’re owed.”

Nikki slowly leaned forward. Her heart rate quickened. Her right hand crushed the bag of nuts, spilling them across her bed. “No. It… it can’t be…”

The strings section grew in intensity, even as the camera panned to show confusion across the audience’s faces.

“They do not care
That they stuck you here.
Their burdens you bear
Throughout your life
Although it’s totally unfair.”

Artemis tilted his head. “This can’t be right.” The milotic set the whiskey bottle down. “The music’s a waltz, but the lyrics sound like something Crimson Cloud would come up w—”

“Because they’re mine!” Nikki stood up on her bed. Electricity arced down the toxtricity’s mohawk.

“You were stupid to trust them.
They’ve done nothing but take.
It’s obvious if you open up your eyes…”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nikki knew Starlene’s song was getting her worked up. Like she always did to anyone listening to her music. It was something she’d spent her life building up a tolerance to. But that was quickly going by the wayside. This was personal.

“I wrote those!” Nikki stomped her right foot down. “In a notebook I keep under my bed!” More electricity gathered around her hands. “I was gonna pitch it to Shredder!”

Some of the sparks jumped around the room. Artemis stiffened. “H-Hey, watch it!”

Nikki didn’t register his cry. “That bitch stole them from me!”

“That you’ve fallen for their lies.
The crown’s never on your side.
They’ll fool you ’til the day you die
With talks of pure paradise.
Then ignore your anguished cries
Cuz it’s all a great big lie!”

Nikki heard the audience’s confusion turn to cries of protest. The orchestra continued to play, seemingly unaware of what was happening. People were standing up. Shouting their protests at the stage. She even heard cries to cut the feed, followed by other voices saying the equipment wasn’t working.

“N… Nikki?” Artemis cautiously slithered toward her.

“My work…” Nikki’s breathing grew ragged. She ignored her pounding heart, throbbing head, and sparking hands. “My work. My work my work my work my work my work!“

The last of her grip on herself slipped. With an anguished roar, she thrust her arms apart. Sparks struck a yowling Artemis. A guitar-shaped surge of electricity formed in Nikki’s right hand. She stared it like it was an extension of her being, then faced the PV again.

“Just let it burn.
The crown’s no longer your concern.
To simpler times you must return.
The crown… will neveeeer leeaarrrn…”

The lightning weapon was new. It was powerful. It was perfect.

Nikki raised the lightning guitar over her head. Artemis cried out to her, but she leaped off the bed, lunging for the PV. As if destroying it would somehow harm Starlene.

The milotic intercepted her, however. They tumbled across the hotel room, ending up in a tangled heap by the bathroom. The lightning guitar dissolved away. Nikki thrashed about, trying to get Artemis off her.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!” she snarled. “That bitch… I’ll rip her throat out! I’ll kill her! I’ll—”

A searing pain shot through the toxtricity’s head. “Gnngh!”

Her vision blurred. One moment, she was staring at the tan ceiling. The next, hazy colors swirled in front of her. Familiar patterns of stained glass.

Noatun, where she’d been possessed.

There was an orange blur in the distance.

“… to free our Benefactor… prison…”

The ceiling flickered back into view, then disappeared. She had a grip on herself again, so why was this happening? Was this like when Princess passed out during the Crowne Cup ball?

“… anoint myself emperor… Eterna Empire…”

Back to the ceiling, then back to the hazy cathedral.

“… our temporary archbishop…”

Static pulsated around Nikki’s vision. The pain in her head grew worse. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.

“Let us pray!”

The ceiling returned, then immediately disappeared. Now, the toxtricity wasn’t hearing one voice, but many.

“Ardente veritate… urite mala mundi…”

“St… op,” Nikki wheezed. She tried reaching an arm out, but she was still wrapped up by Artemis.

… right, Artemis. Was he seeing any of this? He didn’t seem bothered by Starlene’s song like Nikki was.

“… incendite tenebras mundi…”

“Nos vera Natus! Nos vera Natus!”

“Stop!“

Nikki finally wrestled herself free and sat up. She was back in the hotel room. Artemis lay at her side, a dazed expression on his face. Nikki blinked. She rubbed her eyes, only to hiss in pain from lingering sparks in her fingers.

“Did you see that?” she whispered.

No response. Artemis’ mouth opened and closed, but Nikki was no good at reading lips. Still, that had to be a sign the song had done something to him, too.

She was going to nudge Artemis when the PV suddenly shut off. The lamps and circular orange lights in the ceiling fizzled out. The ventilator running along the base of the wall stopped whirring.

“A blackout?” Nikki shoved Artemis. “Hey, snap out of it. We’ve got a problem.”

Then the entire hotel room trembled. The PV fell off the wall and shattered on the dresser, which then fell over in front of the beds.

“What the hell?” Nikki shoved Artemis several times. “Get up, you idiot! It’s an earthquake!”

Chiaki was prepared to use the emptiness in Starlene’s eyes to convince his stepsister he was right about her. But then the performance began and the grovyle knew something was seriously wrong. And not in any way he could’ve expected.

The grovyle had assumed Starlene’s music had a hypnotic effect on anyone who listened, but proving it was the big problem. That was why he was here. Now, Chiaki had a sinking feeling that someone else had connected the dots before him. Someone with more sinister intentions.

Chiaki had the X-Transceiver in his right ear frill, but hastily stuck a specialized plug in his left. The music and lyrics grew so muffled he could scarcely hear them.

He hastily grabbed two more from his right coat pocket and shoved them against Kyoko’s head. “What gives?” the salazzle hissed.

“Put them on. Now,” Chiaki ordered. “We have a serious problem.”

Kyoko glanced at the other reporters, most of whom had dropped their equipment and notepads and were shifting about uneasily. Some were shouting at the stage.

“What did you do?” Kyoko growled, slipping the plugs into her ear frills.

“I didn’t do anything!” Chiaki fired back. He looked out at the stage an immediately recoiled in horror.

Purple spread across the seaside mural, followed by a white circle with five diamonds littered it.

“See that?” Chiaki grabbed his stepsister by the strap of her black dress. “It’s World Ender’s sigil.”

Screams rang out from beside them. They both looked left to see several of the journalists on their knees. The toxicroak that shot Chiaki the flirtatious glance gripped his head in agony. Similar cries of pain rang out from the crowd.

Kyoko’s right eye twitched. “I… I…”

“You have to get to a safe house,” Chiaki said. He stepped away from the stage lights. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“Excuse you? I’m not some damsel.” Kyoko reached into her handbag. In a blur of blue light, her black dress faded away. She crouched down on all fours, curling up her tail flaps and venting off embers and bits of purple ooze. “I can handle myself.”

“Fine.” Chiaki hastily turned away. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He broke into a run, passing the giant boxes for the stage equipment. Like Kyoko, he adjusted his holowear generator, swapping out the tuxedo for his jean jacket and worn shirt. Chiaki carefully looped the rose through one of the jacket’s buttonholes for Cyril and stuffed the rest of his gadgets in his jacket pockets.

He rounded a corner and found a hallway leading to a locked door with an ID card reader. The togekiss guard, however, lay on the ground, stubby feet twitching erratically.

“Nos… vera Natus,” he mumbled.

Biting his lip, Chiaki grabbed Togekiss’ ID badge and pressed it against the reader. The red light atop the door turned green. After hearing a click, Chiaki slammed his left shoulder against the door, thrusting it open. He emerged onto a grated stairway that crisscrossed an identical stairway coming from the opposite site of the backstage area.

“Hey! Da boss said nobody comes through here!”

Chiaki looked down and saw a skuntank and two stunky staring up at him. All three wore red hoodies that were way too small for them.

“And youse a body, so youse can’t pass!” Skuntank bellowed. His tail opened up and a Sludge Bomb hurtled toward him.

Hissing, Chiaki jumped down the staircase, spitting Bullet Seeds toward the stunky. “Cyril? We’ve got a problem!”

Acid streams met the Bullet Seeds in midair, cancelling them out and flooding the staircases with smoke. Another pair of Sludge Bombs broke through the haze. Chiaki rolled away, hearing the sizzle of poisons against metal behind him. He nearly slid off the bridging platform where the two staircases met.

“C’mon, Cyril!” Chiaki groaned, scrambling to his feet. Skuntank had his large tail trained on him.

“H-Hey, ain’t dat kid—” one of the stunky started, only for Chiaki to raise his prosthetic arm. Flames sheathed the mechanical Leaf Blades and he sliced through the grating in front of him.

His part of the platform lurched before falling down onto the partition of stairs beneath it. Chiaki dug his good claws in, riding the platform like an oversized metal sled skipping down the stairs. “Cyril, pick up, damn it!”

“What? What? What?! You’re not the only one with problems on his plate!” Cyril barked, his voice distorted with every bump Chiaki hit.

“After him! Don’t let him escape!” Skuntank cried, looking for a safe way to jump down and try to catch up. The Acid streams his stunky colleagues shot didn’t have the distance to reach him.

“More important than the Qliphoth sabotaging Starlene’s concert?” the grovyle snarled. “Eternatus’ sigil was just projected on stage and the attendees are dropping like flies!”

“Y… you’re kidding?!” Some colorful vocabulary followed. “First the uPhone lead turns out to be a bust and now this? Any more bad news?”

“Yeah.” Chiaki finally reached the bottom of the stairs. The platform skidded across the metal floor, kicking up sparks. Chiaki leaped off it and stumbled forward. “I found some Medici thugs further backstage. I think someone hired them to help screw up the concert.”

“The Medici? Uh… you gonna be okay?” Cyril clicked his tongue nervously. “I know—”

“I’m fine.” Grimacing, Chiaki tried to push images of a sceptile’s tail and bulbs shriveling out of his mind and press forward. “What were you saying about the uPhone?” He approached another door with an ID reader, only to glance up and see a Sludge Bomb splatter on the wall above him. Growling, Chiaki turned around. With a series of bright lights and mechanical whirs, his prosthetic shot back into his elbow. The Tactical Toucher materialized in its place. It wouldn’t do great against a skuntank, but it was the best Chiaki had.

“I didn’t find any sort of tracking chip,” Cyril growled. “Know what I did find? A small crystal rigged up to a miniature Miracle Eye TR.”

Chiaki thrust his prosthetic arm into the ground. A shadowy fist materialized by Skuntank’s tail as it opened to launch another Sludge Bomb. Chiaki Shadow Punched the tail. Skuntank accidentally fired at his flunkies. Toxins splattered both stunky and threatened to send them careening off the stairs.

“What are you saying, then?” The grovyle turned and fumbled for the ID card he stole. He pressed it against the reader, then slammed his right shoulder against the door.

“Paradox must be using the crystal to project something through the phone,” Cyril replied. “It could be, like, subliminal messaging. And I can’t risk triggering the mechanism.”

Chiaki didn’t have time for this.

“Then don’t touch it! Focus on helping me!” He emerged onto blacktop. “Someone else is bound to figure it out, too. And then there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Some deep breaths followed. “Where are you now?”

The amphitheater towered behind Chiaki. Several meters away sat a pink trailer littered in silver stars and music notes. He was ready to relay this information to Cyril when the greedent and nickit sitting on the steps looked up in alarm.

“What the—” Nickit’s tail puffed up.

“Uh, boss, I thought everyone was supposed to be inca… inca…” Greedent scratched his ear. “Y’know, all wibbly and wobbly.”

“Dey are!” Nickit hopped onto Greedent’s head. “And dose bozos were supposed to be guarding the stairs. But I guess it falls to the Crimson Zephyr to get things do—”

“Coming in hot, baby!”

A metallic sheen caught the corner of Chiaki’s eye. Next thing he knew, a dark blur blindsided Nickit and Greedent and slammed them both into the ground. Chiaki crouched down, readying his prosthetic. His jaw slackened, however, when a familiar corviknight stood victoriously over the newly unconscious crooks.

“See, V? What’d I tell ya? Easy pickings!” Griffon pointed a wing at Chiaki. “And look! A special prize at the bottom of this rancid cereal box. Must be our lucky day, huh?”

“… hardly.”

Chiaki looked up to see Vegna hovering toward the trailer. The dusknoir crossed his arms. His skull gauntlets radiated an ominous purple glow; a mix of their ruby eyes and the pale moonlight above Vegna.

“Poor, pale, pitiable form, that I follow in a storm.” Vegna looked disdainfully at Chiaki’s prosthetic. “Iron tears and groans of lead bind around my aching head.” He pointed a sparking index finger at the grovyle. “Come now, Paperboy. It’s time to bring you back where you belong.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Chiaki growled. “And neither should you. Can’t you tell? This concert’s being sabotaged. You’re with law enforcement. Call in the Radiant Guard!”

Vegna tilted his head. “Two trespassing pieces of rubbish hardly constitute sabotage.”

“They were sitting outside Starlene’s trailer.” Chiaki gestured behind him, where Polaris’ compass insignia was branded on the door.

As if to further emphasize his point, the door to the backstage area flew open. Skuntank appeared with his stunky associates. “End of da line, Grovyle!”

His tail opened wide and launched a Sludge Bomb. Acid sprits from the stunky accompanied it. Vegna turned and flicked his right hand. “Block them.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Griffon dashed forward and spread his wings wide, intercepting all the poisonous globs. “You don’t gotta tell me. I know how squishy you are, V.”

“What the—” Skuntank’s jaw dropped.

“A… ain’t dat da Grim Reaper?” one stunky squeaked.

“And he took out the Crimson Zephyr!” the other stunky yelped, pointing his tail at Nickit and Greedent.

Vegna’s eye smoldered with purple shadows. “And if you wish to avoid a premature trip to the Twilight Realm, you’ll explain yourselves this instant.”

Legs trembling, Skuntank staggered backward. “N… nuts to dis! Deal’s off! We’re outta here!”

“Wrong answer.” Vegna snapped his fingers.

Griffon charged the three thugs, metallic coat glistening in the night. He slammed himself into Skuntank, then grabbed each stunky in a set of talons. “Light’s out, losers! Ha ha ha!” The corviknight slammed their skulls together. Their eyes rolled back in their heads. Griffon unceremoniously dropped them on top Skuntank, who had also passed out.

They’re still alive… I think, Chiaki thought to himself while he tried to fiddle with the door to Starlene’s trailer. He could hear something whirring inside it. The source of the sabotage, perhaps? But with the door refusing to budge and the grovyle sensing Vegna’s attention turning back toward him, he threw caution to the wind and rammed his prosthetic’s spectral arm against the door handle.

The door rattled in place. Chiaki hopped back seconds before it fell off its hinges and onto the trailer’s steps with an unceremonious thud. He had no time to gather his thoughts, however, as giant, card-shaped ice chunks careened toward him. Chiaki fell back on his rear. The ice whizzed by, stinging his head leaf.

“V!” Griffon shouted.

Vegna raised his left hand. A strange circular rune appeared around it with a fire symbol in its center. “Burn.”

Chiaki watched slack-jawed as Talonflame emerged in a gout of crimson fire, burning through the ice shards before spreading his wings, dispelling the flames. His shriek echoed across the blacktop.

“Did… did I just see that right?” Cyril’s voice cracked in Chiaki’s ear frill.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“No way. He doesn’t have a Soul Dew like Yuna,” Cyril exclaimed. “But that would mean he’s—”

“—a necromancer.” Chiaki’s heart pounded in his chest. And here he thought they were only myths meant to scare children. But no… they were very real. For all he knew, Vegna’s Grim Reaper moniker hid the fact that he was taking the souls of his victims.

Chiaki could scarcely process the revelation as more icy playing cards shot out of the trailer. He rolled away from the staircase, ducking behind the front of the trailer. Talonflame spewed fire at Vegna’s direction and Griffon flew in to shatter a couple of the remaining cards with slashes of his metallic wings. Vegna safely hovered above the ones that got past his birds. Chiaki hastily pressed himself against the trailer and looked out toward the sea in the distance.

“… hmm. Seems someone’s played a wild card at the eleventh hour.”

Chiaki didn’t dare peek out from his hiding spot to identify the unfamiliar voice. Fortunately, he didn’t need to. Griffon’s big mouth told him everything he needed to know.

“Yo, V! Call me crazy, but ain’t that Minister Charles?” the corviknight squawked.

A Mr. Rime standing at a microphone on a stage immediately popped into Chiaki’s mind. Valkyrie had reported that Crowne Minister had gone missing and the Radiant Guard were searching for him even before the issue with the Needles began. What was he doing here? Was he the saboteur? Why would he do something like that?

“You seem to be misreading your hand.” A chuckle sounded from the staircase. “No matter, though. I’ll clear up this little miscommunication in a jiffy.”

“Slice him. Torch him,” Vegna ordered.

Intense bursts of heat and chilling air forced Chiaki to crawl to the other side of the trailer.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Cyril asked. “Did I hear Minister Charles talking?”

“I’m… not sure. But I can still hear some sort of machinery in Starlene’s trailer,” Chiaki whispered. He hoped Cyril heard him over Griffon’s unnerving laughter and Talonflame’s feral shrieks. Why would a necromancer go for a feral, anyway? Easy to manipulate?

“Are there any windows on this side? Anything we can see?”

Chiaki stood up and, sure enough, there was a large window. But curtains had been pulled over it. The grovyle could still hear the sounds of battle on the other side of the trailer, however, so he figured he could safely break in. He pressed the Tactical Toucher to the window. Its spectral hand phased through and found the bolt lock. Chiaki undid it and slid the window open. He grabbed the windowsill with his good arm and hoisted himself in. Nothing, however, could prepare him for what lay on the other side of the curtain.

There, lying strapped to a table with an oxygen mask over its blue snout, electrodes digging into its slender, blue and white-scaled body, and syringes piercing its tiny wings, tail, and neck orb… was an emaciated dragonair. Its ribs poked through its tiny frame and its eyes — forcibly taped shut — were sunken into their sockets.

Chiaki froze. His vision flickered between the table and the small locket that Nikki had shown him.

“Is that… a dragonair?” Cyril gasped. “Look at all those machines it’s connected to. I see little satellite dishes and radio frequency emitters. What’s going on here? D… don’t tell me this is the real Starlene?”

In Chiaki’s mind, it had to be. Why else would Dragonair be hooked up to machines resembling broadcasting equipment? And she had things sticking into her skull. Clearly, they were messing with her mind. Which made Chiaki’s other hypothesis all the more gut-wrenching.

“It’s her.”

The grovyle’s rasp was barely audible, but Cyril managed to hear it. “You know her?”

“Scarlett. Nikki’s friend who disappeared from Horizon.”

He shakily took a step toward the table, flinching at a series of bright flashes from outside the door. Scarlett squirmed under her restraints. Chiaki stiffened. He looked at the equipment beside the table. Bags of strange fluids and machines with pumps that moved up and down.

Chiaki’s head throbbed. Images of similar devices flashed through his mind. These ones connected to a withering sceptile whose tail had lost nearly all its pine needles.

She’s sedated. That machine’s breathing for her, he concluded, then looked at the accompanying monitors. They were beeping red. The number beside a heart icon was shooting up! One hundred and twenty… one hundred and forty… one hundred and sixty!

This was bad. She needed help. But at this rate, Minister Charles and Vegna would catch on and intercept him. Surely one of them would get the upper hand soon enough.

He didn’t have a choice. The grovyle had to break this dragonair out. But how? How?

The watch!

Though Chiaki had changed holowear outfits, Cyril had given him the watch. The one that could short out machines. If anything could break Scarlett’s restraints, it was that. Chiaki raised his left arm up and used his prosthetic’s ghostly fingers to set the watch to the appropriate time.

“Wait! What do you think you’re doing?!” Cyril cried.

“Freeing her.”

The trailer floor began to shake. The monitors flickered. Chiaki figured it was the shock of a blast from Charles or Vegna. He paid it little mind…

“Chiaki, stop! You can’t short out machines when there are oxygen tanks next to—”

… until the moment he pressed the button and the machines beside him exploded in a blue-purple blaze.

“All systems nominal. As expected.”

Zed floated beside the terminal overlooking Icarus’ incubator. Purple light reflected off the many tubes and wires jutting off the massive violet sphere. The blue holographic screens around it all displayed the usual waveforms.

The collection of floating disks backed away from the console. It had finished its final checks for the night, which meant it was safe to enter sleep mode for a while.

Sighing, Zed turned toward the long, metal corridor leading toward the circular elevator platform. “I hope Minister Dr. Tesla returns from the decontamination soon. I need something more… stimulating to do than this.”

As Zed prepared to hover down the hallway, a snap echoed behind him. “Bwuh?” Zed’s disembodied, bird-like head turned around. “Aaaaah!“

A crack. Right in the center of the incubator.

It glanced at the holographic screens. Their calming blue suddenly flickered to an alarming red and orange exclamation points peppered the screens as the waveforms undulated faster.

Then a second crack appeared in the purple sphere, followed by a third and a fourth and a fifth and—

“No!” Zed’s ovoid arms flailed about in random directions. “No, no, no, no, no, no! Bad, bad, baddy bad!” They zipped toward the main console. “Initiate emergency shutdown! Password is Minister Doctor Tesla Rules— aiyeeeee!“

All of the cracks in the sphere linked up. Then the sphere shattered, releasing a huge purple shockwave throughout the room. Zed was flung against the railing opposite the terminal. It lay in a daze for a few seconds, watching helplessly as the shockwave set off a chain reaction.

The tubes and wires connected to the sphere caught fire in surges of purple electricity. The computer terminal and other nearby equipment exploded, raining chunks of molten metal around the secret underground laboratory.

“Nngh… no…” Zed’s discoid arms twitched. They struggled to get airborne. “Have to… page Tesla. Page Arianna. This is… this is…”

A pile of red-violet sludge parted the wall of fire and thickening smoke. Zed finally got airborne and turned to flee.

“Emergency! Icarus is fre— eeEEAddGekgheiiaealurgekeilll!”

Zed’s voice descended into a staticky, incoherent mess as some of the purple sludge struck it. It fell to the ground once again, between two chunks of flaming rubble. Zed only had enough time to turn around before a wave of purple slime crashed over them.

At first, Zed saw only purple.

Then came the wings. Butterfree wings. Dozens— no, hundreds— no, thousands! Flapping at random intervals.

Some of them stitched themselves together. And slowly… scenes painted themselves across the white, silken wings.

A hunk of black crystal dashing for a giant moon bat and a star cloud, roaring in agony as a pink vortex swallowed them up while a pink silhouette howled with laughter.

“No…”

A large canine with a massive, shield-shaped head getting dragged down by wave after wave of purple chains. The chains slowly solidifying into a thick, brown mask over its head.

“… stop. Please stop…”

A battered riolu knelt before a hulking bewear with massive, fluid-filled arms. The bewear raised both arms… and brought them crashing down.

“I… can’t. I— B… A…”

A black silhouette hovering high atop an altar. Two titanic dragons and three pixies are trapped by a red mobius strip. A crystal surrounded by a golden wheel floated atop everything.

“… Up down… left left… start B A select…”

A weak stream of snow failed to reach the hovering figure. It raised a scepter, then sent a red Aura Sphere down from the heavens.

“… Start B right up…”

The scenes spiraled around one another. Swirling and swirling and swirling and swirling.

A black hood emerged in the center of the spiral.

“You see it, don’t you? The Butterfree Effect.”

Zed tried to move its arms. It couldn’t. The closest thing it had to an answer was [A B select.] Its voice was far more robotic than before. Its tone uneven. Like it wasn’t one voice, but many overlapping voices.

“Even when things are born anew, fate wraps the world in its chains. Forces everything to march toward the final destination.”

The spiral spun faster.

“But I’ve broken free. And now… I’ve given that same freedom to you.”

Faster and faster.

“What will you do? Let the Butterfree Effect play out? Or will you, perhaps, introduce a little… anarchy?”

At last, Zed found its body. It nodded its oval head.

[Start9! Start9! Start9!]

“Then you too shall bear the cross as a lowly omen… Ahsen.”

The hood faded into the spiral, which finally broke away. Ahsen found itself back in the wrecked lab. Water poured from the ceiling. A gift from the heavens for its christening, no doubt. It caught a glimpse of some of Icarus disappearing into one of the emergency drains. But that mattered not.

It raised its arms high. The arms briefly glitched, into the skeletal scythes of an undead kabutops, before flickering back into disks.

[PRAISE HELIX!]

Path of Valor Almanac
Starlene’s sabotaged song spoofs “No Time to Die,” by Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell, and Hans Zimmer. Part of the prayer heard in Noatun uses Latin lyrics from “Liberi Fatali,” the opening theme for Final Fantasy VIII. Additionally, the chapter title is the track title for Hojo’s theme in the Final Fantasy VII Remake Original Soundtrack.