Zed knew the moment he got his hand on his best friends, he was gonna squeeze his neck until his head would explode like a balloon. Letting Curiosity and his cult run amok, what an insane idea! He was barely hanging on by a thread. Literally!

The bald man was hanging upside down by a metal cable, as close to the ceiling of the underground complex as possible. Surveying the carnage below him, he was glad he listened to his instincts. Zed has seen and been through some brutal and devastating fights in his life, some of them barely escaping with his life, but this… it could not be called a battle.

The only thing it could be called was mayhem.

The cultists did some serious damage to the slime monsters, almost wiping them off completely. Yes, they had powers no mortal man should and have no idea and how to use them. And yes, they somehow managed to poke holes in concrete as thick as Tiny, flooding the place with seawater, but it was manageable.

The real trouble started when a very intelligent ooze calling himself R.B Slyme dropped down the ceiling and began gathering the rest of the monster into him, slowly getting bigger and bigger. The result was something that probably only Tiny could fight.

The bottom of half of the complex was flooded entirely, buildings and rubble swirling in it like some kind of soup. Smack dab in the middle, the size of a six-story building, was R.B. Slyme, scraps of metal and rubble swirling inside him.

The giant monstrosity was systematically throwing rubble at any surviving cultists, pulverising them on the spot. Some of them, the ones who tried to charge the monster from behind buildings and the metal poles hanging about the place were not that lucky. R.B. Slyme grabbed them up and laughed in delight when their skin and bones began melting in his massive hands.

Amidst all this madness, Curiosity was somehow still alive, madly piloting the flying disk they came down with. Cherry was there as well, tethered in his head in a cocoon of hair, occasionally taking pot-shots at the green monstrosity, doing absolutely nothing besides irritating him and getting a building-sized chunk in their direction as a response.

Two of the cultists were on the disk as well, Silvia, leg bleeding and hands wrapped tightly around the terminal on the disk. The other one, Rudolph, was almost thrown off when Curiosity veered madly to the left from the incoming rubble.

They almost didn't make it, but at the last minute, Cherry managed to blast the side of the chunk, redirecting the piece of rubble downwards. On the bad side, a piece of debris flew straight at Rudolph, opening a wide gash on his stomach. He almost fell off as well, if not for Curiosity grabbing him by his collar and dragging him next to him.

Cherry shouted something in the man's ears, and Rudolph quickly wrapped himself around the terminal with one hand while his other tried to keep his innards intact.

Zed wanted to listen in. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, the scars on his body turning a dull white.

"CHERRY!" Curiosity screamed. "DO SOMETHING!"

"I'm trying!" Cherry shot back. "I need time to find a suitable weapon."

"We don't have time!" Curiosity swirled violently to the left, dodging a torn door. "I can barely control this thing!"

"Where did you learn to pilot these anyway?"

"I didn't! And we don't have time for chitchat! What kind of bodyguard you are if you can't even protect me!"

"I never knew we were gonna fight a giant booger from hell! Who the hell fights this kind of stuff!"

"Apparently me."

The rest of the sentence was cut off, courtesy of a giant hand flying in their direction. Curiosity somehow managed to avoid it, bringing the disk upwards.

"Shit!" Curiosity swore. "Do something useful or don't distract me! We almost died there!"

"I'm trying!" Cherry protested.

"Master," Silvia protested weakly. "I can help. Turn me towards the direction of the monster."

"What?"

"Rudolph!" Curiosity barked. "Take over!"

The bleeding man didn't even have time to protest before Curiosity violently switched places with him. Scrambling for the controls with one hand, the red-nosed man somehow managed to keep them afloat.

"Now what?!" Curiosity said, holding Silvia towards R.B. Slyme.

"Lift my head, Master."

Curiosity did as instructed, violently lifting the elf's head, exposing her massive third eye. As if waiting for this moment, the pupils began spinning around each other violently, and a beam of pure light shot forwards, pulverising everything in its path. It shot straight through R.B. Slyme like he was not there, making a giant hole in its side and making the monster cry out in pain.

The problem was that the beam didn't stop there, it continued onwards, punching a wide hole through the concrete. It keeps going like that for a few more seconds, vaporising away more of the concrete and R.B. Slyme's mass, till finally, Silvia closes her eyes. It was bleeding profusely.

"We did it!" Curiosity screamed, throwing his hands in the air and almost dropping Silvia off the platform. "Take that you overgrown snot! That was for killing my people!"

The overgrown snot was too busy screaming in agony to give the insult much thought. It didn't help that water was gushing in much much faster than before, picking up debris on the way and smashing it against R.B. Slyme's form, almost toppling the crumbing giant over.

"I got it!" Cherry shouted. "Boss, stay steady!"

"Got it!" Curiosity said, pushing Rudolph away from the terminal and taking back control of the console.

Cherry pulled out a golden grenade from the folds of her skirts. She was holding it between both of her hands, because it was quite big, for her size anyway. Grabbing the cross-shaped pin with her teeth, she pulled hard, the bomb letting out a heavenly sound that filled everyone, Zed included, with peace and tranquillity.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Cherry shouted and chucked the grenade with all her might.

A streak of gold dust left in its course, directly towards R.B. Slyme's whirling body. It hit the giant monster and began sinking into his body.

"MOVE, MOVE!" Cherry bellowed. "It's gonna blow!"

"Nothing is happening!" Curiosity protested but did as he was told.

Just in time as well. The insides of R.B Slyme lit up with the intensity of the sun, expanding his gelatinous body to the size of a zeppelin. A few seconds later, it exploded with a thunderous roar, spraying ooze, broken pubs and pieces of cultists everywhere.

"RUN!" Cherry screamed." It's raining boogers!"

"Where is Zed?" Curiosity screamed back, piloting the disk madly towards an exit.

"I saw him up there, hanging by a thread."

"Is he still there?" Curiosity ducked, narrowly avoiding being hit by a bloody tuba.

"Let me check. Nope, he's gone."

"Where?"

"We have no time, move, move, the same way we came in!"

"Who's the boss? Me or you?"

"Sorry boss!"

"You are forgiven. Silvia, Rudolph, you okay?"

Grunts and moans were his answer.

"I'll take that as a yes," Curiosity said. "Now let's get out of here. I'm pretty sure Darius can fix you guys up."

Darius was getting nervous. Stacy had been gone for more than fifteen minutes, and he heard shuffling and muffled thumps from upstairs. It took all his willpower to not burst there and laser everyone to death.

"She will be fine," Mark said. "She has Hidara there."

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The assistant was standing in the small kitchen, leaning against the sink, drinking something that looked like coffee but smelled of wet socks.

"How do you know that?" Darius said. "When Amanda designed Codec, she equipped him with weapons like the vaporising rockets, a level one monochromatic power crystal, and who knows what else she did not tell me about."

"Level one monochromatic power crystal?" Mark whistled. "And those vaporising rockets, are the ones you spent two years developing?"

"Yes."

"Wow." The assistant took a deep sip from his drink. "I would not worry, though. Hidara is a succubus from the ninth circle of hell, she regenerates from everything. Now that I think about it, why don't you take her as your assistant?" He took another sip from the cup. "I need a break from this, for at least a year, maybe more. I am starting to lose count of all those deaths I experienced and what that even means. I need time to think."

"What are you drinking?"

"Klatchian coffee. This is the soberest I have been in my entire life." Mark took another deep sip. "Taking this job because I thought it would make me immortal. What was I thinking? I need to find a way to live with the knowledge I died so many times."

"Can you make me a cup?"

"Sure."

Before any of them had time to move, the door burst open, and a dishevelled Zed appeared, carrying the broken door with him.

"We need to evacuate," Zed said. "I knew accepting Curiosity and his cult was a mistake. I told you we needed a task force to keep an eye on beings you summon, but noo, you needed to spend our budget."

"That was generously supplied by me," Tiny interrupted from the ceiling.

"Yes, thank you, Tiny." He went back to glaring at Darius. "But you insisted on spending our budget on Cheese!"

"Cheese is a crucial ingredient for summoning rituals. "Darius said. "Besides, we have an infinite budget now."

"What?"

"Hi," Mark waved his arm. "Curiosity broke the fundamental laws of reality and gave me infinite money available in every digital currency in the world, and some of them that I never heard of."

"Me neither," Tiny supplied helpfully. "And trust me, I searched."

"Great!" Zed looked ready to explode. "More trouble."

"Oh," Mark said. "Most of our Citizens have this as well. Curiosity was very generous."

Zed closed his eyes and began to breathe, his scars pulsing a vivid red.

"Mark!" Darius said.

"Yes professor?"

"Please brew him a cup as well."

"On it."

In that exact moment, the ceiling gave in, pushed through by an oven sized fist made out of small rotating dice. They retreated with a noisy whirl, and a few seconds later, a beaming Stacy jumped through, landing with a loud clank.

Pieces of plaster still floated in the air.

"Tada!" Stacy said, grinning widely, arms outstretched. "I have a giant fucking lego arm on my back! How cool of a powerup is this!"

Silence greeted her.

"What?" She tried again.

"Mark!" Darius said.

"Yes professor?" Mark replied.

"Make a cup for Stacy as well."

"On it."

A few minutes later, Stacy, Darius and Zed exited from the bottom of the backpack, steaming cups of coffee in their hands.

"I don't understand something," Stacy said. "If we need to evacuate, can't we just ask Tiny to do so? Why are we meeting him face to face?"

"You know Tiny does not work like that," Darius said.

"I thought you would be used by now," Zed said dejectedly. "Besides, he likes to put on a show every time we need to evacuate from a place."

"How often does this happen?" Stacy asked.

"Lost count."

"Oh," Stacy gulped down the rest of the coffee and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "That should help."

"That is a good idea."

Darius and Zed finished drinking their coffee, threw the cups on the ground and rounded the massive structure. Stacy gaped. Her mind was not prepared for this. Yes, she experienced a lot of weird things the mortal mind was not supposed in a very short time, but this... She had no idea where to even start classifying it.

Tiny was sitting with his full bulk in the middle of the ruined car park, form hunched forwards. In his hand, he was holding a grey hovercar and using it to draw small circles in the cement, creating deep gouges in the process.

"Tell me what is bothering you, Tiny," Lucy's voice rang out from the squeezed vehicle. "Everything you say will be documented and analysed."

"It's the potential of what could have been," Tiny lamented. "Imagine a living being, a statue, formed in my image, that thought that I was its mother. The knowledge I could have gained, the experience, I could have finally understood why do organic sacrifice everything for their offspring."

"It's in their nature, they are biologically and culturally wired that way."

"What about people who abandon their children and run away from their responsibilities? How do biology and culture go into this? Even here, on this planet with more than 100 different races, parents still do that. No, the only way to understand what goes through an organic parents head is to be one." Tiny let out a theatrical sob. "And it was taken away from me!"

"It's natural to feel loss," Lucy assured me. "Every parent feels that way when they lose their children."

"Mine was not lost, it was killed! Right in front of me! Do you understand my pain? I was hugging my son while its head exploded, and his innards rained down around me."

"That is very said. Tell me how it made you feel."

"Depressed." Tiny began drawing circles with more vigour. "Very depressed."

"Umm," Stacy whispered loudly. "What is happening?"

"I'm depressed, that's what!" Tiny snapped, turning his massive bulk towards Stacy and making his best effort to glare. "Can't you see that? They killed my child!"

"What?"

"Someone animated the statue of Tiny in the central museum to kill Curiosity," Darius said. "And when the statue confused Tiny with his mother, Cherry killed it."

"What?!"

"We don't have time for this," Zed said, stepping forward and levelling Tiny with his best glare. "Tiny, the city is collapsing, we need to evacuate now, for the safety of our citizens."

"Can you see I’m depressed?" Tiny pointed with the car. "Why can't you just leave an A.I to mourn in peace."

"You are not depressed, you just spent two hours programming depression into your personality, and now you are risking the lives of your citizens for your petty amusement!"

"Five minutes."

"What?"

"I spent five minutes programming depression," Tiny said. "Earth has done pervasive research on the subject. It was not easy to comb through that data and come up with the perfect depressed parent algorithm."

Zed said nothing, except letting himself explode into colourful scars, these ones pulsing rapidly around his body.

"Alright, alright, I get it, my people are dying, and I am irresponsible for my own amusement." Tiny closed his massive eyelids for a second. "I see the underground tavern complex is flooded, most of Curiosity's cultists are dead, and that slime monster washed up next to the museum."

"Tiny!" Lucy cried. "You promised not to hack my network!"

"I lied," Tiny lifted the car behind his shoulder and in one smooth motion, threw it towards the east. "If my aim is right, which it always is, she should fly out the gates and keep going for at least two weeks. I made sure to crush her thrusters."

"Tiny," Darius tried. "Please let go. The more time we waste here, the higher the chance the island will collapse with us on top of it. Again."

"Alright, alright, spoil my fun, will you. Give me a second to deactivate my depression protocol. Done." Tiny put his massive hands on the ground and pushed, lifting himself with the grace of a boulder. "Who knew it would be so inconvenient to be a dictator? Why did I ever let you live on me?"

"We ask yourself the same question every day," Zed said. "Why did we approach a maniac whose sole purpose is to make our life complicated and shrink from his responsibilities."

"And did you find an answer?"

"No."

"Me neither." Tiny began walking towards the backpack. "Is everyone here?"

"Can't you just make a headcount yourself? Why do you keep insisting on asking this every time we evacuate? You keep tabs on all of us!"

"Not on Curiosity and his cult. I don't know why, but every tracker we put on them, technological or magical, does not work."

"I agree," Darius said. "I tried multiple times."

"Did someone say my name?" Curiosity bellowed.

Everyone turned. Flying towards them was Curiosity, barely holding on to the terminal.

"Move! Move!" Curiosity bellowed. "I can barely control it!"

Before anyone could say or do anything besides scattering to the ground, Curiosity crashed to the ground and skipped a few times like a pebble in the water, till finally coming to a stop at Tiny's feet.

"I'm alive!" Curiosity shouted, climbing out of the wreckage coughing and sputtering. "Barely. Though my cult members are dying! Any medic here?"

Darius, the closest thing to a medic in the immediate area, pulled himself to his feet and sprinted towards Curiosity.

"What is the problem?" Darius said.

"I'm not sure," Curiosity said.

"They are almost dead," Cherry said. "Now if you will shut up and help me that would be great!"

The two-inch bodyguard appeared behind a broken terminal, dragging an unconscious Rudolph by his bootstraps. The gash on the red-nosed man was even wider than before, and a few intestines were poking out.

"Oh, right!" Curiosity claps his hands together. "Silvia!"

He ran back to the wreckage, rummaged a bit, and pulled out a wounded Silvia by her hair. The two coins in her eye were gone, leaving empty sockets, and her third eye was bleeding profusely, the whites almost entirely replaced by veins.

The two almost dead cultists were unceremoniously dumped in front of Darius. The professor gave the two injured people a long look, then fixed Curiosity with a glare so intense, the personification of an idea took a step backwards.

"What?" Curiosity said.

"They are almost dead." Darius knelt down, and from his claw, a bright green light emerged, scanning the cultists up and down in two seconds. "Correction, one will be dead in 90 seconds, and the girl will live for another five minutes."

"Can you use my power to fix them?"

"What?" Darius fixed Curiosity with a questioning glare.

"I mean they gained my powers by hanging out around me, you hung out with me as well. Can't you just put a rock in there, say I’m curious and twist reality to give them a new heart?"

"Why can't you do it?"

"I have no medical knowledge."

"That's pretty obvious. What this injured man needs is new intestines, not a new heart."

"So, can you do something about it?"

Darius was already on it. With deft movements of his fingers, he pulled off the shoelaces from Rudolph's feet, looked at it for a second, murmured the magic words, and plugged them deep into the man's side.

Rudolph instantly shot up, screamed in pain, and fell back down, passed out. Darius retracted his hands and pressed both of them to the side, trying to stop the blood from flowing.

A few seconds later, the wound closed on its own, and Rudolph let out a shuddering breath. Darius quickly bought his claw for another scan, and when he finished, he let out a loud exhale.

"Amazing," the professor said. "The shoelaces are clearly there, made out of cheap plastic and cotton, but at the same time, they function exactly like the small intestines, passing tissue and nutrients along with it."

"See," Curiosity beamed. "I'm amazing, aren't I?"

"The possible applications of this are limitless, it will revolutionise science as we know it." Darius turned towards Silvia and froze in place." Does that mean Stacy has this ability as well?"

"I don't see why not," Curiosity said. "She did hang out with me."

"Stacy," Darius said, raising his voice slightly. "Come here please, I wanna test something."

Silence.

"Stacy?"

"She went that way," Tiny said, pointing with his arm. "Towards the museum."

"Why didn't you say anything?!" Darius jumped to his feet.

"You didn't ask."

"Where did she go? Why did she go away?"

"She bolted when I mentioned the location of the slime monster."

"Damn that girl! She is going to get herself killed!"

"I'll go after her," Zed said, appearing behind Darius and putting a hand on his shoulder. "I'm faster than you, and our people need you."

Darius turned and looked Zed straight in the eye. No words where needed, not between two friends who have endured horror upon horror and have come out relatively sane. Well, at least for Zed.

"Protect her," Darius finally said.

"With my life," Zed said, and disappeared, leaving behind a worried Darius and a smoking Curiosity.