Uchronia jumped off her seat, performing a flip and landing next to Alwin. Her tail bristled with a fresh coat of thorns, ready to swat the ever-living daylights out of the treacherous, sneaky, lying, untrustworthy, and deceptive Lapis. "What are you planning on doing to us?" she screamed.

Lapis didn’t even flinch. “Relax. The only thing I plan on doing is having a talk and serving up the house specialty.”

The house specialty? What was that? It sounded ominous. Alwin’s mind whirred, going through scenarios faster than a conspiracy theorist on a caffeine high. What was she planning on doing to them? Was she going to kidnap them and torture them? Maybe she'd instruct her drones to rip them limb from limb—in Uchronia's case tail from body and in Alwin's case gel from gel, maybe. If they were lucky she'd probably have them executed right there and then, a swift death rather than a slow and painful one. Were the snacks she brought laced with poison? That sounded like a good way to go—eating yourself to death—only if it was fast-acting poison.

Alwin took a big gulp, the beating of his heart spiking to new heights—newly discovered heights. The part of his brain that was devoted to finding out ways to gain strength had shifted gears and had decided to get new jobs as a conspiracy nut. It was trying its best to decipher Lapis' true intentions. Without realizing it, he was right there with Uchronia in Paranoia City, Population: Two.

"Talk?" Uchronia's eyes narrowed into slits. "And what's the house specialty supposed to be? Torture?" She had begun chanting under her breath.

"That's the house specialty." Lapis pointed at the cake and drinks that the drones had brought in. She pointed at them not using the drones and definitely not with her hands—she lacked any. Instead, she pointed at them with a pair of Spirit Hands that had materialized right in front of them. The worst part? The duo hadn't even heard Lapis utter the skill's name. She had Silent Casted Spirit Hands.

Uchronia looked over to the plates of cakes and cups of cocoa. "Those? What's inside? Poison or maybe some mind control juice?" Her tail had gained a slight glow, her incantation was complete. All she had to do was touch Lapis and imbue her with what Alwin presumed was the Slow Spell she had conjured up.

"Cocoa, flour, eggs, sugar, milk, and a lot of love!" Lapis chirped. "It's my super secret special recipe. All of my customers love it."

“So you did put in a mind control potion!” Uchronia snapped. “Or some addictive substance that’ll make them slaves to your café, coming back for more, over and over!” She lunged forward without any theatrics this time, spun her body round, and slapped Lapis with her tail casting Slow on her.

With part of his brain stuck in conspiracy theory mode and the other part stuck watching everything unfold, Alwin didn't dedicate enough brainpower to react to the situation. Should he have been preparing a Spirit Blast to attack Lapis with? Now that the crystal was Slowed, should they run?

"Alwin let's go!" shouted Uchronia.

Run it was. Good thing Uchronia was here to tell him what to do. But it felt like there were thousands of people groaning inside of his head, screaming that he should be making the decisions not following the whims of others. The word 'Agency' echoed throughout his head. That was odd. He didn't dedicate any processing power to having imaginary people commentate about his actions—not right now at least.

Alwin hopped off his chair, accidentally knocking it over, the wooden chair smacking against the floor. Whoops! Sorry, chair. They made a mad dash to the exit—freedom here they come—until they smacked into something cold, hard, and very blue.

"Kids, that's very rude," said Lapis, picking up the fallen chair using her Spirit Hands.

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How was she moving so fast? Didn't Uchronia inflict her with Slow and yet she was moving as if the Speed Gods themselves had blessed her. In the blink of an eye, Alwin's entire perspective shifted. One moment he was staring up at the deep blue crystal that was Lapis, next moment Alwin found himself seated back on the wooden chair that he had knocked over. In front of him were the cakes and cocoa originally meant for them, while across from him Uchronia was seated as well, the poor monster looking at him with wide, confused eyes. Did they just travel back in time? Was this the start of his regressor arc?

"Now let's have a proper civilized conversation, okay?" said Lapis, her Spirit Hands perched where her hips would probably be—living crystal physiology was complicated.

"What just happened?" asked Alwin, looking around the room. Did he really time travel or was he just losing his marbles?

“I put the chair back and sat both of you down,” said Lapis.

"How!" shouted Uchronia.

"I instructed the Spirit Hands to pick up the chair, then I instructed them to pick both of you up and place you back on the chairs, and now we're here having a lovely chat."

"I'm not going to let you do whatever you plan on doing to me! Alwin let's go!" Uchronia shouted. She tried to hop off, but she couldn't move. She squirmed and rotated her body as hard as she could, but it was as if her bum had been glued onto the chair itself. A look of horror spread throughout her face as reality dawned on her. She was trapped.

That was Alwin's interpretation of her inner psyche so results may vary.

Alwin joined in on her tussle with the chair. Like Uchronia he found himself attached to the chair. Twisting, turning, and swiveling on his bum was no issue at all, the moment he decided to leave the chair it was like an invisible force was stopping him from doing so. Whatever was holding them down was stronger than his will to move.

"Just a little spell, I placed on both of you in case you tried to ruin more of my furniture," said Lapis.

"Why are you doing this? What are you planning on doing to us?" Uchronia shouted.

"What she said!" Alwin shouted, he had wanted to ask the exact same question.

"I already told you," said Lapis. "I'm here to talk and let you try the house specialty."

"What are you really planning!" Uchronia shouted.

"Yeah! What are you planning on talking about!" Alwin shouted.

"We're going to be talking about a lot of things," said Lapis. "Milvee told me about the both of you. What happened with the humans yesterday, Goblin Force Five, the mental inhibitors coming off. Oh, and Alwin, He told me to tell you that Lin is doing okay. No permanent injuries and her arm is arming again."

"She is? Oh, that's a relief to hear." Alwin sighed. " I was so weak. I couldn't do anything. Gary Stew kidnapped my squad and injured the Goblins when they came to save us, I couldn't do anything but watch. My attacks did nothing. I was so weak, so—"

"Enough moping, Alwin! And what's your relationship with Mr. Milvus? What is he making you do to us?"

"He's not making me do anything. Just like how Milvee is your teacher, I'm Milvee's teacher. He rang me up today because he didn't know what to do. Teaching isn't exactly his strong suit if you hadn't noticed."

Alwin had not noticed, simply because he was daydreaming rather than paying attention in class.

"He came to me asking for advice. He was worried that his star pupil now hated his guts. Isn't he just the cutest?" chuckled Lapis. "I told him to be more sensitive about his student's feelings, but he's always going on about the purpose of monsters or doing it for Monsteria. I can see why you'd get annoyed at him."

"You taught Milvus?" asked Alwin. "Since he teaches us and you taught him, that makes you our grand teacher."

"Sure. I like the ring of it. Grand teacher Lapis."

"Why do you want to talk to us? What is Milvus hiding from us?"

"I just wanted to see what got Milvee's knickers in a twist. You sure are a feisty student. Those mental inhibitors being forced off really did a number on you, didn't it." Lapis stared at Uchronia. "And what about you? You've been quite tamed." She turned her attention to Alwin.

A drone zipped through the air, halting right in front of him. A beam of blue light flickered to life, sweeping over him from head to bum. What was she doing to him?

"And you. Looks like only the emotional inhibitors are active. Very interesting. This'll be fun to investigate," said Lapis. "Now, how about we dig into those cakes?"