I woke up to the sound of bright, cheerful carnival music and the smell of pretzels and hot dogs. My eyes opened, as I found myself lying on hard cement. Slowly, I sat up while looking around. To one side, I could see a row of booths with various games. There was the one where you would throw rings around bottles, one where you were supposed to use a squirt gun to fill up a duck’s mouth, or another where you threw darts at balloons that were taped to a board. Looking the other way, I saw the food stand where all those delicious smells were coming from, next to a ride where you were supposed to sit in several small cars to get spun around in circles and swung from one side to the other. Near that was a carousel, which was the source of the music I was hearing.

I was at a carnival, or a fair, or whatever. The point was, I wasn’t in the vault. And how the hell was that possible? What was going on? First, I focused on my distance-finding power, trying to check how far I was from a few different places, like my old home in Laramie Falls, or the current Wonderland place. Nothing. I got no response at all. Which was… weird. Come to think of it, I couldn’t pick up anything through my item sense either. And–no, I couldn’t make a portal. None of my powers were working.

Turning in a circle, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. Someone had been poking their head up from inside one of the game booths. Spinning that way, I squinted, but they didn’t appear again. “Hey!” I called out, while starting to walk that way cautiously. I reached for my staff, but it wasn’t there.

Actually, come to think of it, not only were my powers not working, but none of my weapons were here either. Nor any of my enchanted objects. What the hell? I checked my pockets and all my special containers, but came up empty. I had no weapons and no prepared spells. But at least that didn’t mean I was completely helpless, right? No powers and no weapons, but I still had help I could call in.

With that thought, and without taking my eyes off the booth where I had seen that glimpse of movement, I focused. Tabs, are you there? Hey, can you hear me? But there was nothing. No response. Which made even less sense. If I wasn’t in the vault anymore, I should be able to hear her, right? So what the hell was going on? Where was I?

I was pretty sure there was at least one person around here who could tell me that, so I started moving closer to the booth. “Hey, can you come out? I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to know what’s going on, and where I am. There’s something really weird going on around…” Trailing off, I peered over the edge of the booth, before my gaze spotted a figure huddled in the corner. A fairly recognizable figure.

“Denny?” I blurted in surprise. “Wait–” It was her, yet not exactly. The figure huddled there looked like Denny with light pink fur over her whole body, dark blue, almost black eyes that were slightly too large for her face, and rabbit-like ears. She also wore a dark blue tee shirt and baggy cargo shorts. It was like… Denny with a really good costume. Recognizably her, yet different.

Those eyes widened, just as I felt another presence behind me. A presence I still did not pick up with my entirely non-functioning item sense.

In mid-turn, I heard a familiar voice snap, “Get the fuck away from her!” Then I was being grabbed and yanked away from the booth before the figure threw me to the ground. I landed hard, blinking up in even more confusion.

It was Denny. Another Denny. This one didn’t have pink fur or bunny ears, but she did have greenish-brown skin that was clearly rough, and her face bulged out slightly, with pronounced fangs. She also stood a good six inches taller than normal Denny, which made her bigger than me by a couple inches.

“Uhh, Denny?” I managed a bit blankly, my mind spinning out. What the fuck was happening?

“I prefer Loudpound,” came the snapped retort, even as this version of Denny punched a fist into her palm. “And if you think I’m gonna let you terrorize Bijou–”

“Wait!” Denny’s voice called out again, as I saw that pink bunny-eared version come through the booth. Her form had turned somewhat translucent, like a ghost, as she stumbled into view while tentatively managing. “Wait, I d-don’t think she wanted to hurt me.”

My head shook quickly. “Of course I didn’t want to hurt you! I didn’t even…” Trailing off, I looked back-and-forth between them. “Who are the two of you? Why do you look different? Where are we? What’s going on?”

The two different Dennys looked at one another. Before they could respond, I heard another voice call out from behind me. “Flick!?”

It was Marina. She was coming around the corner of one of the booths. But as my gaze snapped that way, then turned back, the two Dennys were gone. They’d run away, or… or something.

Picking myself up just as Marina jogged to me, I blurted, “Did you see them?”

“See who?” she shot back. “I haven’t seen anyone. And where are we? How did we get out of the vault?”

My head shook. “I… I don’t know. But Denny was here. I mean, two different Dennys.” To her mounting confusion, I explained what had just happened. Then I offered a shrug. “And I can’t contact Tabbris. There’s no answer. Does that mean we’re not out of the vault? But if we’re not out of the vault, where are we? And why are there two different Dennys who look different? And–” Cutting myself off, I sighed. “I’m really confused right now.”

“Welcome to the club,” the other girl murmured. “I don’t have any of my powers either.”

“Yeah, me neith–wait.” Stooping to pluck a small rock off the ground, I gave it a toss before focusing on stopping it. The rock just kept going. Reaching out, I touched the nearby booth and tried to inscribe an image on it. Nothing. Between those tests and the fact that I still couldn’t detect anything with my item sense… “Nope, I definitely don’t have any powers either. Now I’m even more confused.”

Marina started to say something to that, only to interrupt herself while pointing the other way. “Denny?!” she called out in a clearly uncertain voice.

Pivoting, I found myself looking at a figure who was like Denny, if she was made out of a tree. It looked like a Relukun mixed with Denny. Or something. Needless to say, my confusion didn’t exactly lessen.

The tree version of Denny stood next to the edge of that carousel, watching us for a moment. Then she turned and started to walk away, disappearing behind the ride. Marina and I glanced at one another before taking off to chase after her. We had no idea what was going on, but obviously she was our best lead. “Wait! Uh, Denny, or whoever, wait!”

And yet, there was no sign of Relukun-Denny when we got there. But I did hear a loud giggle coming from nearby, and spun just in time to catch sight of something darting around the corner of another booth, into the aisle beyond the one we were in. Without wasting a second, the two of us ran that way together. I didn’t have my phone either, or I would’ve tried to call someone by that point. It was gone on with my weapons, my wallet, everything that should’ve been in my pocket. All of it was gone.

Coming around that corner, we found ourselves facing even more carnival games and rides. Straight ahead of us was the big funhouse. I barely managed to catch a glimpse of what looked like a shape disappearing through the door there. Then that giggle returned, only this time it was coming from behind us. Quite close behind us, in fact.

As one, Marina and I spun on our heels, and found ourselves staring into Denny’s face yet again. A very, incredibly small version of her face. This was a pixie version of Denny. She hovered on wings right in front of us, giggling once more before giving a cheerful wave. “Hi! How’d you guys get in here?”

“Denny? Wait–how are you–what?” My mouth opened and shut, a whine of confusion escaping me. “Get in where? Where are we? What’s going on? Did you just… duplicate and… and shapeshift and…what?” Yeah, I was mentally flailing a bit.

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The pixie-Denny giggled again, seeming amused by my reaction. “That’s okay, you can stay as long as you like! But you better hurry up, we’re having a meeting! Denny’s in trouble!”

Well, now I was even more lost. My mouth opened to blurt something else, but the pixie was already flying away. She zoomed right past us toward the funhouse. Marina and I looked at one another and shrugged helplessly. What else were we supposed to do? Together, we ran after the pixie.

This whole place really was a big carnival. To the left, I could see the top of the Ferris wheel, alongside a couple other tall rides. There were more games, more food stands, a restroom to one side with a drinking fountain out front, the works. It was like we were at an ordinary, everyday carnival. Except for the fact that there was no one else around besides these various different versions of Denny, of course. The place was deserted or something. Oh, and I still couldn’t contact Tabbris, so we obviously weren’t in the outside world. In which case… what?

Still feeling completely lost, I continued to follow the pixie version of Denny all the way up to the funhouse alongside Marina. There was a small hole on one side that the tiny winged figure zipped through, leaving us standing in front of the door. I still wasn’t sure this was the best idea, but then, I had absolutely no clue what was going on anyway. So, I started to reach out to open it, just as the sound of someone clearing their throat made me look over my shoulder. Unsurprisingly, and yet still bafflingly, it was yet another version of Denny. This one basically looked just like her, except she had blonde hair instead of black, and she wore glasses, along with a crisp white button-up shirt and white pants.

Vanessa, I realized belatedly. She looked like Vanessa. Well, still Denny, but Denny dressed up like Vanessa and with matching blonde hair.

“Sorry,” she immediately apologized while squinting up at us. “But the meeting’s starting soon, so I really need to get in there posthaste. If you don’t mind?”

“Denny?” Marina started, voice catching a little. “Wha-what’s going on? What meeting?”

The girl in front of us shook her head quickly. “Oh, no, I’m not Denny. I’m Letters. If you want to find her, you should come to the meeting. She needs our help.” That said, she tried to politely clear her throat again while nodding pointedly to the door.

Taking her meaning, even if I was still lost, I opened the door and we followed her into the funhouse itself. The front entrance area led to another door where we found ourselves in the hall of mirrors. Except there was a wide-open circular area surrounded by those mirrors, where I could see more than a dozen different versions of Denny waiting. There were all the ones we’d seen already, the pixie, the Relukun, the pink bunny-eared one, the taller brownish-green armored skin one, and, of course, the Vanessa one. But I also saw a version of Denny that had somewhat gray skin and was wearing a cloak and hood skulking in a corner, another with dark blue skin along with what looked like scales along parts of her arms and legs, wearing a one-piece swimming suit and holding a trident, one with red skin and dark red hair who was floating cross-legged in the air while playing with a tiny ball of flame between her hands as she giggled quietly to herself, and yet another who looked basically identical to the real Denny but had visible scars on her face and arms, longer and more scraggly-looking hair, and wore what looked like baggy homeless people clothes. When our gazes met, she smiled and I saw her pronounced canines while a bit of fur appeared along her skin as she partially transformed into a werewolf.

There were several more, but that was the general idea. They were all different versions of Denny, most seeming to combine her with some Alter or another.

“Flick,” Marina started after we had taken all that in, “what’s going on?”

“Ahem,” the blonde, Vanessa-like Denny–Letters, apparently, announced after taking her place in front of one of the mirrors, “I believe I can answer that.”

“They’re intruders,” the brownish-green, big version of Denny–Loudpound, practically snarled. “They broke into our head without permission. So–”

“Wait, wait, broke into your head?” I blurted. “Hold on, are you telling me this is–wait.” Absorbing that, I rocked backward on my heels.

“I asked them to come!” That was the pink, bunny-eared version of Denny. Bijou. She cringed as everyone looked at her. “I went outside and I–and I asked them to come, but I didn’t think they would! I didn’t know they could. I didn’t–I didn’t…”

“You went outside?” That was the pixie-Denny, sounding excited. “What was it like?”

“Scary,” came the quiet response as Bijou shrank back a bit more. Her long ears moved to cover her eyes. “Really scary.”

The werewolf Denny piped up with, “You couldn’t have brought them in by yourself.” She looked around the room, sniffing a couple times. “You don’t have that power.”

“It was me,” the shadowy, gray-skinned figure I had seen with the hood and cloak announced while looking up. Her eyes were pure black. “I’m the one with the transportation powers. I just transported them inside. I thought they could help. And after Bijou asked them for help anyway, it felt like the right thing to do.”

“You teleported us inside your mind? I mean, into Denny’s mind? I mean–” I managed, still mentally flailing. “How is that–I mean–who are you–I mean…”

Letters raised a hand. “Ahem, as I said, I believe I can answer your questions.” She nodded toward the shadowy teleporter, then the pixie. “Walker, Bijou, all of us, we’re what you would likely call aspects of Denny’s mind. Separate personalities who exist within one host. We are each a mixture of some part of Denny herself, and pieces of the people killed by your brother, Ammon. You see, simply put, his version of the Reaper kill power allowed him to take memories from the people he killed, along with their powers. Those pieces of memory and personality combined with separated bits of Denny’s own personality, creating what you see before you. We are each our own separate person, with our own feelings, thoughts, and everything else. We simply share the same headspace. Up till now, our existence wasn’t quite so literal. We were more… quiet voices. We were half-formed, if that.”

Before Marina or I could respond to that, the red Denny who was floating in the air with that fireball spoke up. “When she did the bad thing, she freaked out. She was afraid the bad one was taking over, so she accidentally… gave full life to all of us. Like Letters said, we existed before, but it wasn’t like this.”

The trident-wielding blue Denny with scales gave a quick nod. “We were tiny pieces of memory and fragments of thought from the other people Ammon killed. But all of a sudden, after the bad thing, we were here. She screamed out for help inside her head, and she… pushed pieces of us together into what you see here. Pieces of her mind and the shattered personalities of people Ammon had killed, stitched together until we were our own separate personalities and everything. We could talk to each other. And play in this… carnival.”

“She created it for us,” Letters put in. “We think, anyway. We haven’t exactly been able to talk to her yet. She’s hiding.”

“Okay, hold on,” Marina managed. “The bad thing?”

“Perrsnile,” I replied while watching everyone’s reaction. “They’re talking about how she killed Perrsnile to protect Dakota, right?”

The pixie-Denny hurriedly nodded. “Uh huh! But she didn’t have a choice! She had to protect Dakota! But… but she got angry. She was really mad and she wanted to kill him. She wanted him to suffer for hurting her friend. But only for a second. Then she was umm… scared after that.”

“She got mad and killed him. Then she was afraid that she was turning into Ammon, so she… retreated into her own head?” I managed, trying to catch up with all this. “And she basically created all of you. Or you were just sort of… given a place, or… something. What about Dakota and Sitter? Why were all three of them invisible?”

“That was me.” A new voice spoke up, as a Denny Aspect I hadn’t seen up till that point made herself visible. Sort of. She looked like a version of Denny that was made out of semi-transparent glass. Or possibly– “Crystal. I’m Crystal,” she informed us. “I have all the hiding powers. When… when Denny freaked out, I was trying to help her, so I made us–all of us, hide. We thought we were going to be in trouble. I made us invisible. Tucker made them go to sleep. Because we panicked.”

“We all wanted to help her,” Loudpound added with a grunt. “That’s what this meeting is about, so we can figure out who should go find her.” Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me. “Before you two got here, anyway.”

I was still trying to process everything. Honestly, this whole situation was absurd, but then, what wasn’t absurd about my whole life? Sure, the idea that we had somehow been transported inside of Denny’s head and were now talking to different aspects of her personality, who had been combined with the memories of the people Ammon had killed, was a bit out there, but whatever. We’d just have to roll with that. Especially given the far more important point of–

“Denny needs us,” Marina announced, putting voice to my thoughts. “Whatever else is going on, you guys brought us in here to help find her. You said she’s hiding somewhere, so we just have to find her and talk to her, tell her that everything‘s okay.”

Moving her bunny ears up off her eyes, where they had been flopped down to cover them through these past moments, Bijou gave a quick nod. “W-would you? She needs someone to talk to her, and we don’t think she’ll listen to us.”

“Of course we will,” I assured her, and the rest of them. “We might be confused about a lot of this, but if Denny needs help, that’s what she’s getting. But uhh, how do we find her?”

“We’ll help,” the werewolf-Denny put in, voice sounding firm as she straightened up. “I can try to sniff her out.”

“And I can fly up high to look for them!” the Pixie put in before flying over to poke the fire-playing aspect. “I mean, we can!”

“Sure, whatever,” the other floating girl replied flatly. “If it helps Denny, I’ll do it.”

“I… I can look too,” the small bunny-like Bijou piped up, clearly nervous. “I’m really fast, and I can go through solid things, so I can look around pretty quick.”

That general feeling was echoed by all the other aspects, as Marina and I looked at one another and shrugged once more. Whatever else was going on, we had to find Denny.

I just hoped that when that happened, we would be able to convince her that saving Dakota by killing Perrsnile didn’t mean she was turning into a monster.