“Reaper’s Fang!” Calypso winced after saying the phrase. Not just because she’s still in pain after slicing her hand open, not because the others were around—thus second-hand embarrassment rolled in, but how said words rang out within her current emptiness. Playing make-believe as her family could be torn apart right now.

She let her arm transform into a scythe’s blade, squeezed her claws into a ball as they rested under the blade. The wild blade swung for her, craving away at the living branches that came for Natalie and Gale.

All she could really do was run. Run, be alert, and think. She took the lead, letting her arm do all the damage, the only real choice she had was afterward. The blade done with its then current carnage, looking—seeking more, and Calypso angled the blade with her entire arm. Aiming a rabid dog with a thick chain around its neck. Sure, all one had to do was just let it go wild, but you needed to yank it back. And it’s surprising, being so content with that power and not worrying about yourself—but the now heightened awareness of everything around you.

Calypso glanced backward, briefly. Gale regained her legs, now running with a hovering Natalie looking ahead. Gale muttering something about “not ending up like [she’s] in the Evil Dead”.

“Cal—dart around us—right now--!” Natalie shouted. Calypso was glad more than ever of how fast she spoke.

The skeletal monster girl used her entire, aching body to turn on a dime. It was such an odd dichotomy, especially if one was still thinking as a human. To run, focus on running, yet an entire part of one’s body was completely out of their control. Especially with victims that lost said part of themselves, the constant reminder of something they took for granted.

But it was oddly soothing. Calypso going full sprint, letting her monstrous, primal speed take her—circling around her friends in various laps as her fanged arm tore apart the trees that tried to trap them in. She didn’t stop until she felt that her wild blade was just swinging at air, leading the pack once more.

“Well, at least the lumberjacks will be happy—” Natalie quipped, smiling after. “Good work, knew my overpowered bud would save the day~”

“You saved the day with having a hundred eyes when we have two~” Calypso cooed at Natalie. “And the running mouth of a tactician.”

“… I made an Evil Dead reference,” Gale quietly mewled out. It broke the already brutalized, dead heart of Calypso further.

But it weirdly gave her inspiration.

“Don’t lose heart, Gale—because you’re going to help me keep track of what’s happening here.”

“I-I am--?” the swamp monster girl said in surprise, Calypso able to picture the widened eyes that had a hint of glistening.

“I rather recall fast—” Natalie warned. “More trees are slowly waking up—I’d give it 30 seconds or so—”

“We’ve seen this red lightning before, have we Gale?” Calypso questioned, with her claws dug into her compromised shoulder. “When we fight the Jaw Subsumed—when I nearly died again—”

“guys, what the fuck did you do befo—” Natalie interjected briefly.

“Not now, please, you’ve said it yourself—” Calypso cut her off.

“Yeah! A-and your Subsumed was half of you—and you had to fight it again—!” Gale reported.

“Obviously that was because of Cassie—the Terrortide—and remember what Richard told us--?” Calypso continued to question.

“Mhm, like—’she needed Terrorsigns to prove her point’—which was the hospital—and it became haunted like the woods now—like Moses’ house--!”

“And when that thing happened—where we saw that lightning for the first time… What were the Subsumed doing, then…?”

“…Watching it… Chanting ‘Terrortide’…”

Calypso nodded to herself, running forward with a face tensed with partial understanding.

“… I think I got what you’re laying out, Cal,” Natalie began to bring the pieces together. “It’s not lightning, they’re Cassie’s ‘points’.”

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“Reverting things into a haunted, ugly state… Given how much she ranted about the world being fucked, and how she was going to fuck it over…?” Calypso prodded at Natalie. Hoped that she’ll decode the meaning.

“…Of course—” Natalie shook her head. “A world that has to embrace the fact that it’s ugly—haunted—force to accept that we’re monsters with nothing to hide behind, no more extremes but the one: her Terrortide is un-masquerading the world so both humans AND Subsumed can’t hide anymore--!”

A walling of dirt interrupted the realization.

Calypso and Natalie stopped, looked about. Ready to face Cassie herself, blamed this sudden structure that popped before them as another part of Terrortide. Maybe opening the gates of Hell itself.

“Sorry, uh—you guys were all deep in the thought and like… Couldn’t remind you that it was 30 seconds…”

Gale was further back, once again merged within the earth. Protected her friends with a wall of dirt as the branches of the living trees slowly tried to dig into it.

“…Oh right—” Calypso blinked.

“Yeah, I uh—” Natalie echoed similar sentiments.

“No worries!” Gale laughed. “It’s just—well hold on—”

Gale went deadly silent, and the ground writhed violently. Within seconds, multiple dirt walls were erected. These makeshift monoliths slowly but surely dragged themselves across the disturbed land to circle around the group, before finally molding themselves into a dome.

Calypso waited for the darkness to take them… But she realized that her eyes can literally see through the dark, and got onto her knees. Natalie did the same. The skeletal monster girl’s blade was going to swing away, so she was forced to bury it into the ground.

“—Just that, like, I might as well be good for something~” Gale chirped with closed eyes.

Calypso wanted to bite back at that, but turned to Natalie. “Willow Reverie is old and already had this creepy air about it… Once it’s taken over by Cassie, it becomes a Terrorsign. The entire town.”

“And if footage comes out—and let’s face it, this is already on the news—then the influence could spread across America,” Natalie droned off, clearly perturbed. “This. This is bad. I don’t think there’s no stopping this… At least without a cost.”

Calypso stroked her chin with her free claw.

“At least we know now—at least relatively—about the endpoint… How can we discredit the idea that the world needs to embrace the horrible sides to it? Especially since… Well, 2 out of the 3 of us experienced said shitty parts, and are in no way excellent judges of that.”

Calypso’s dark eyes had a sudden glit to them. She immediately turned to Gale.

“Oh jeez—um,” Gale looked about. “Like… Yeah, of course, things are bad. It’s the way things work, sadly… If we’re… Like, in order to live freely and have a world that responds to choice, bad choices also have the weird right to exist? God this sounds so weird because I sound like I’m excusing all the bad things—"

“Sadly this is how pear-shaped things are now,” Natalie responded. “C’mon, bring it home—distill it—”

“It’s life! There’s good to that bad side! There’s bad to the good side! It’s a balance, and we’re all racing to it, we all need it and junk! To let one side win means a world that stops being a world anymore!” Gale was practically kneading her scalp during this stream of consciousness. Almost sweating.

“There we go—that’s equally as bullshit—” Natalie performed a thunderous clap of achievement. “We fight for the sake of good and fight so it can prevail or something—that’s something we can work with…”

As the fly monster girl rubbed at her stingy palms, she looked down with a frown.

“…With the help of the demonic… Monstrous… Evil powers we were granted. That—that uh—that can be used against us—pretty readily I might add—back to the drawing board or we run for the hills--?”

Calypso looked down.

“…No,” she argued, and proceeded to nod. “No. If anything… Being Consumed. We’re hybrids, are we not? Balance. We use dark, evil powers… Which are fueled by our very real, human emotions and motives. That’s it. WE’RE the solution.”

“… We’re the solution,” Natalie smiled, shaking her head.

“We’re the solution!” Gale cheered with the widest smile imaginable.

The branches slowly bored into their dome. But the trio couldn’t have cared more.

“Let’s go, girls,” Calypso smirked wickedly, pulling her blade out from the earth, as if it were a holy sword.

The dome fell, but not because it was overpowered. It was simply dropped.

Calypso hacked at the incoming arms, her scythe sliced through the trees with ease. Natalie flew above, dodging effortlessly. And Gale was slowly coming behind them, gathering the destroyed trees to return them back to place again.

“W-why--?” Calypso heard Natalie ask.

“Well, I’m gonna be useless once we get to the town otherwise, and I’m doing something good with my witch powers~!” Gale chirped.

Calypso wanted to laugh. Make her pitiful small smile more. But there was still that mental undercurrent paired with the physical undercurrent. And how they can intersect at such a horrible time. And there’s no worse time to fuck up during saving the Earth.

But there was no time to dwell on it.

The trio reached the town… To see it alive. To see it covered in flames.

To see, before them, a terrible wreck of a car. Clearly showcased that these victims tried to flee for their lives, only to lose them.

And not only that, they lost their bodies as well.

One of the Subsumed rose from squatting, a young woman that seemed to be around their age. A monster wearing her as a suit, pulling the back of her head via her brown ponytail to adjust the face that hung from the skull. A human being reduced and now had the mailability of a cheap Halloween costume.

A look of bewilderment stretched across the stolen face, before it settled into smug confidence.

“Oh dear. And we just got these…~” she flashed her fangs.