Three transformed magical girls surrounded a bed, on which a tall, young girl was lying motionless, so many tubes around her that one could be forgiven for thinking she'd fallen into a bowl of spaghetti. Her chest rose and fell as a respirator pumped air into her lungs, and even her formerly bright green hair seemed to have faded to a paler shade.

Off to one side stood Decay, who, unlike normal, was untransformed. This required some amount of stooping to prevent his horns scoring gashes in the ceiling.

A nurse silently stepped around the group as she moved from patient to patient, making her observations. She knew full well that giant demons and colourful girls in frilly dresses didn't turn up randomly in intensive care units, and so the magic did its work and ensured that what she saw matched up with how she 'knew' the world worked, rather than what was actually there.

"Is everyone ready to begin?" asked Decay.

"I still can't believe we're trusting you with this, but yes," agreed Tracy.

Mary closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing, which was getting dangerously close to hyperventilation.

"Yes, we're all ready," nodded Natasha, speaking for her incapacitated teammate.

"Personally, I think their reactions are the normal ones and you're the weirdo, but whatever," said Decay, waving a claw.

Ribbons of shadow sprung from the floor around all three girls, grasping them by the ankles, then wrapping around them as the cocooning process began.

Mary started to tremble, screwing her eyes more tightly shut.

Natasha, on the other hand, looked down with interest.

"Softer than I expected," she commented. "Am I the only one who thinks this is kinky?"

"Natasha?" asked Tracy.

"Yes?"

"While Mary may be onto something when she claimed that you come out with things that best embody what us defenders of Earth should be, that doesn't mean you should voice every stray thought that pops into your head."

"I have a question of my own," said Decay, as his bands wrapped the arms of the girls, robbing them of any chance of escape. "What makes you think I'm not just going to take your energy for myself?"

Mary gave a terrified squeak and began struggling uselessly.

"Because that would be an evil act, and break your protection," answered Natasha.

"True, but it no longer matters. As long as I don't kill the four of you, you can't touch me. I could leave you all in comas and never need to deal with you again."

"Ah. Good point."

"Because you're hoping to get our help to sustain you indefinitely, not just a one-off meal," answered Tracy.

"A much better answer, but still somewhat flawed. I suspect you're aware that even if I completely drained the three of you, I can't store that much power, so taking an occasional sip is far more useful to me in the long term than one giant gulp. But a piece of information that you apparently don't have is that if I pump it into the rift, widening it just enough that the damn Devourer can't slip through, the extra ambient energy that would flow here from Midnight would let me sustain myself almost without needing to pray on humans. Certainly enough that I'd never need to be concerned about going hungry."

Tracy blinked, said a rude word, then joined Mary in fruitless struggling. "Natasha, you fool!" she shouted.

"Ah, I know!" declared Natasha, who was the only girl not panicking. "Because it means you'll never be able to break the one-all tie you currently have with Mary at scrabble."

Decay burst into great guffaws of laughter. "Really?" he managed, several seconds later, his ribbons pausing their work as they reached the girls' necks. "You think I can't find anyone else to play with?"

"Not anyone so meaningful, no," answered Natasha. "I think you want to prove that you're better than us not just in a fight, but in every way. That you can outsmart us as well as overpower us."

Decay blinked.

"Just how petty do you think I am? The correct answer would have been to point out that if I widened the rift, more Banes could slip through, and with you incapacitated, there would be nothing to stop them from widening it further and inviting my master through. Also, do you have any idea just how short the average lifespan of someone bed-bound and energy-drained is? With all four of you in comas from energy deprivation, statistically speaking, it's unlikely the oath of the Will of the World would last for as long as I would like."

"How do you expect me to know stuff about lifespans?!" complained Natasha as Tracy fractionally calmed down.

"I didn't. I suspect Mary could have answered, were she not gripped by panic."

"Please, whatever you're going to do, just hurry up and do it," said Tracy. "This is... uncomfortable."

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"Really?" asked Natasha, pushing back against her bonds as she tested them. "Are you stuck in a bad position? I'm pretty comfy here."

"I wasn't talking about physically."

Decay smirked. "Just one more question, then. Natasha, if I took energy from those two and pumped it into you instead of Stacy, I could regrow your arm."

This time, Tracy didn't panic. Even Mary managed to get a handle on her terror, calming herself enough to stop her desperate struggling, albeit not quite enough to stop trembling.

"So?" asked Natasha, answering in the way both girls knew she would.

"Don't you want me to?"

"No? I mean, it would be nice, but we need to wake up Stacy first."

"But Stacy will wake up on her own, eventually. Your arm will never heal."

"And again, so? Yes, losing an arm sucks, but at least I'm up and walking around. I'm far better off than Stacy."

"Hmm... And you don't resent me for taking it?"

"I was trying to kill you at the time. I think I kinda sacrificed any right to complain."

"You are a very strange child."

Tracy sniggered.

"Don't laugh," complained Natasha. "I'm serious!"

"I know. That's why it's funny."

"I don't get it."

"Nor me," agreed Decay as, with a wave of a clawed hand, his black bands finished wrapping the girls, leaving only a trio of noses on display. "Here goes."

Thin hazes of yellow, blue and red rose from the cocoons, before being sucked back into the shadowy ribbons. Decay rested a claw above Stacy's heart.

The green-haired girl twitched. Her hair brightened, starting from the roots but moving up its full length, and her cheeks regained some colour. One of the machines she was connected to went beep.

"Hmm," said Decay as he peered down at the still sleeping girl. Another wave of a claw freed up the heads of the other three, but left the rest of them entangled.

"What's going on?" asked Tracy suspiciously, trying to raise an arm but finding herself still pinned in place.

"I took as much as I could from you three without causing serious symptoms, and it has helped. She'll likely wake up in days, rather than months. But that doesn't change the fact that she's still asleep for now, and when she does wake up, she'll be very weak, probably to the point of not being able to feed herself. I can take more from you if you want, but I rather suspect that's not what Stacy would want."

"Thankfully, she's not conscious to complain about it," pointed out Natasha.

"If she was conscious, we wouldn't be having this conversation," added Tracy.

"I... I..." stuttered Mary, who had stopped trembling upon seeing her partially healed teammate, but was still struggling to speak. "Take... more... Even..."

"Huh?" asked Decay.

"She said to even the four of us out," said Natasha.

Decay shrugged. "If that's what you want. Pity it means I won't be able to feed off you for a while..."

"Wait," declared William, popping out of Natasha's backpack and speaking for the first time since Decay had arrived.

The ICU nurse—who had come over to investigate the beeping machinery—screamed. Then, having been confronted with one thing she didn't expect, the perception filter hiding Decay and the magical girls also shattered.

She screamed louder and fainted.

"How in the hells does your magic hide me but not you?" asked Decay as he caught her and laid her out on a spare bed. "Sometimes, I wonder who wrote your rules. Anyway, what do you want? Will you tell them they aren't allowed to donate more energy?"

Tracy peered at William suspiciously.

Natasha peered too, albeit for a very different reason. "Don't you dare do anything stupid!" she warned.

"Alas, it's a week too late for that," answered William. "And now it's time I undid the damage. You might want to gag the three of them, because they're going to start screaming in a moment."

"Don't you mmmpf!" exclaimed Natasha, following up with a, "nnn!" as she tried to express her objections through Decay's band of shadow.

"You wish me to take your energy?" guessed Decay. "I'm not even sure that's possible."

"It is if I will it," said William. "I suspect you have a slightly incorrect view of me. You refer to me as the Will of the World, which is not wholly inaccurate, but I am only a fragment of the whole. A tiny portion that was split off and granted independence to support these girls. My greater self has since concluded that I've grown too independent, and that I have begun to neglect my purpose. I am to be reabsorbed and replaced. It was my hope that on being rejoined, my greater self would experience my memory first hand, seeing things from my point of view, and hence understanding my choices. But, perhaps, showing my choices through actions will work just as well."

"I see. But, as a magical, dependent construct, if I take energy from you, you will not merely be weakened. You will vanish completely."

"Nnn!" exclaimed Natasha, struggling seriously against her bonds for the first time of the procedure.

"Yes," agreed William, ignoring her. "But, even as a mere fragment, the energy I possess is immense. I am, after all, a part of the Will of the World. It will be enough to fully heal these four girls, restore all the energy that has been taken from them, and to fill up your own reserves, too."

"If it is enough for that, it is also enough to tear open the rift in a single move. I could bring the master here, along with all of the Banes. Are you certain you want to offer that option to me?"

William glanced at Natasha, who was violently shaking her head and still trying to scream her objections into her gag. "She obviously trusts you, and she's usually a pretty good judge of character. Personally, I can see the light in you, however strongly you deny it. Whether that light blossoms or withers... Well, the Will of the World has its doubts. Last week, I gave in to those doubts, but today, I choose to trust, even if my greater self still disagrees."

"Seriously? I'd expect that spiel from your yellow pet, but from you? It just sounds wrong..."

"Meh. I just wanted to sound cool in front of the girls. If you want a more pragmatic reason, given what has happened here, I doubt the Devourer of Light would thank you even if you provided him passage. In fact, I imagine he will be most displeased. It's in your best interests to not widen the rift."

Decay smirked. "A much better answer. Only one issue remains; if I take your life, even if you offer it willingly, these girls will not forgive me."

Indeed, all three conscious girls were desperately fighting to break free. Even Stacy was twitching, as if in the grip of a bad dream.

"That is true. It's why I didn't intend to give you a choice."

"What do you mean by..." started Decay, before William burst into bright white light. "Shit!" he exclaimed, desperately summoning black ribbons to catch the expanding cloud of light.

The girls fell silent, watching the death of their long-time supporter in horror, even as his warm energy flowed into them, replacing all that had been lost and more.

Tracy's scars faded, and with them all lingering pain from her stab wounds. Natasha's arm regrew. Stacy opened her eyes.

None of the girls looked happy about it.

The light show faded, and with it went Decay's shadowy ribbons. Decay himself was left panting on the floor, the efforts of channelling so much energy having literally seared his flesh, his black blood boiling in his veins. If not for that same energy regenerating him, it would have been fatal.

"Shit..." he repeated.

"Why does it feel like we all just lost?" asked Natasha.