Sylvester and the alien fought atop the ferris wheel just as they had been doing. It was becoming repetitive, now that the initial surprise of their powers had faded. A barrage of various weapons clashed against each other, each slightly different but ultimately similar enough to cancel each other out, destroying one another.

He wasn't losing the battle, but he wasn't winning it either. He wasn't even close to the victory he so desperately desired. "Something has changed," the aviator-goggled alien had said. And he was right, something had changed, but it seemed it wasn't enough. To win, he had to go even further beyond this.

The alien was a small target, like a child. It didn't have much reach with those stick-like arms and legs. It didn't need to, considering its various abilities (it had suggested that it was something its entire species could do, something natural for this planet and its people, not part of the Game, after all). Sylvester... didn't necessarily need it. But it was something his enemy didn't have, and maybe he could exploit that. That's what he was thinking.

His usual katana was also in his hands. It was a stronger, more real weapon than any of the ones being fired from behind him like arrows or bullets. Sylvester slipped inside the enemy's guard and slashed him from the neck to the groin, if he had one. The blood flowed like a waterfall. It splattered all over his face, blinding him, and he lost control over his flight. Sylvester ended up crashing in the middle of the roller coaster. He knew it before he saw it, before rubbing his eyes with one hand to get rid of the blood, by the spaces between the metal beams.

The cart was coming toward him, howling even over the voiceless voices of the skeletons, who raised their arms and waved them in the air as they advanced as if genuinely enjoying it, as if this were just...

Well, a game. Yes.

That's what it was, nothing more, nothing less. Yet they could have a voiceless voice, but it was undoubtedly a scream full of agony. They could seem to enjoy it and scream like that at the same time. Even though they had no throat, tongue, lungs, what did it matter? All of this was unreal. The strange and contradictory would be to find things that made sense from one moment to the next.

Sylvester stood up, stumbled, and almost fell. What did it matter? He could fly, for God's sake, he always had been able to, but here he didn't even need the wings. Besides, a fall from this level couldn't even twist his ankle.

He had plenty of time to get out of the way. He jumped off the roller coaster and flew toward the enemy instead of waiting there until it arrived, because of course he hadn't lost a second, he had positioned himself behind his ass even before his knees touched the metal bars.

The skeletons, by the way, didn't even bother to do anything to stop him. Extending their bony hand, grabbing his ankle, and pulling him could have worked, but they didn't. They just kept doing their thing, they were neither friends nor allies, well, good to know, to have things clear.

Sylvester widened his eyes.

A moment ago he had opened the enemy from neck to groin. He had seen it with his own eyes before the blood blinded him. It hadn't been a mistake. But he was perfectly fine now. Not even such a serious wound had been enough to kill him.

Could that guy, whatever his name was, kill him in space *** (God, what a headache) but he couldn't? Could he do incredible things, but that was his limit, was there something holding him back, holding him off?

He shook his head.

There was no sense in doubting. He had decided, to let go of the reins, to go with the flow. To accept that everything was part of the great Game.

Those doubts went against his resolution, and he had only started to turn the tide since then.

Speaking of which, he hadn't returned to the real world since then, and he didn't think it was a coincidence. When he had been at the mercy of the bastard alien, his power had struggled to suppress the effects and get him out of here, give him as much time as possible. But now that they were equals, now that he could kill him, not anymore.

He had to believe it to make it real, right?

He could kill him.

"Die once and for all, monster."

"I am, but what do you think you are? All this talk about you deciding to defend yourselves, pretending you're better than us. But I see no reason to show myself to my mother, to try to manipulate me, instead of going straight to killing me. You're just like the rest: a bully, too confident that you won't get what you deserve. Because you're the worst kind of bastard. One so convinced he's the hero of the story that he thinks he can do no wrong."

He should have realized that sooner, but he hadn't had time to think about it. It was true, there was no reason for the illusion of his mother, pushing him to kill her.

That had been nothing but cruelty, and yet he believed himself above this?

To be better than him? What a bad joke.

The conversation that shouldn't have started finally ended. He shouldn't have let himself be carried away by the impulse to shut him up, he couldn't even say he had provoked him, with how little he had said.

He knew that in a life-or-death fight, a second could decide the outcome.

He knew that if he still had oxygen in a situation like this, he should reserve it for his efforts to stay alive, not to decide things that wouldn't change anything.

But it was easy to forget those things in the heat of the moment.

He directed his mind to more productive things.

To strategy. The battle returned to its usual rhythm, each arsenal breaking against the other, futilely. A very simple strategy. In a situation like this, what he needed to do was change the rhythm.

That's why he didn't fire all his weapons.

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Instead, he saved some and flew toward the enemy's 'bullets', risking being torn to shreds.

He skillfully dodged most of the bullets.

He had never expected to avoid them all. The important thing was that he didn't receive serious injuries. On his shoulders, chest, all over his body, but nothing serious. He wasn't sure if he could recover as quickly as the owner of this space.

His strategy, if it could be called that, was simply this. Create an opportunity to exploit the time between weapons breaking and the enemy manifesting others. So far he hadn't been able to exploit it because they were both equally fast, but now he could.

The weapons he had saved shot out and hit the enemy effortlessly, who was left without a way to defend himself. Who hadn't realized his simple strategy until it was too late.

Each and every bullet hit him. The force of the impact sent him flying.

The alien crashed into a lamppost.

Strong, but he was still surprised at how easily the lamppost bent. Only when it started to melt did he realize it was made of candy. Or it was now, a moment ago it surely hadn't been like that.

"I don't delude myself like that, so I'll tell you straight.," he spoke again, but he didn't waste time. He flew with the intention of finishing off the enemy before he could get up from the ground.

"No nonsense. No beating around the bush. If it weren't because you're too dangerous to let you live one more second, I would cut off your arms and legs or whatever you have in the real world, bastard, and then I would take you to see your family." The bastard finally reacted, opening his eyes wide, as if surprised. He had gone just as far. No matter that his mother had been dead for many years, now he remembered with horrifying clarity driving a knife into her heart like a stake. That false memory and associated sensations would always mark him like a burn. "To be able to kill you in front of them. Only then would I take you out of your suffering. Like putting down a rabid animal. Because that's what you are. An animal! And you're going to pay for it!"

Sylvester lunged at him, sword in hand, unleashed a blow with blinding speed...

And nothing, he suddenly found himself back in the real world. This time he hadn't resisted because of his special nature or his great willpower; he realized he had been expelled to save his neck.

He gritted his teeth, irritated.

So close.

The real world was pain.

The real world was the darkness of a tomb.

Slowly he remembered what had happened last "here." He hadn't been able to prevent the aircraft from crashing, and this had been the result.

He didn't stay alone in the darkness for long. A woman's hands brought light, removing the debris, and tried to pull him out of that hole. Emerald. She smiled when she saw him.

"Finally found you, sir. I don't understand what's happening, except that we're under attack."

"What are the others doing?" His voice sounded weak. His throat was dry.

"It's over. They're going to try to use the machine to get back home."

Like that, with that son of a bitch still alive? He wouldn't allow it.

"Leave me here, come with them and make them stop."

"Huh?"

"Don't let them use the machine." He felt her hesitation. "You wanted me to tell you what to do, right? Well, that's what I'm doing. Just trust me."

Emerald nodded, got up, and ran back where she had come from. He saw her run across the roof, which was now the floor, before closing his eyes and concentrating. He had pushed him to the limit and had been able to do all those incredible things.

In comparison, simply coming back should be the easiest thing in the world. Sylvester was a vengeful ghost who still had many scores to settle, oh yes, he did.

Somehow, Sylvester did it.

He found himself back in that space before he realized it. About to finish off the enemy, the damn alien. His katana sank into his neck.

"Wait, I'm the last one." He raised his hands in surrender, as if the gesture had any weight now that he had been definitively defeated and had no other choice.

The last one?

Not of his species. Of the Champions, of course. That's why they had "decided" to stay behind and wait for the enemies to reach them. With their lives depending on a single being, they had been too scared to risk their necks.

Sylvester smiled cruelly, mockingly.

He wanted to play the hero, but he hadn't had a good reason even for his supposed pacifism. He had revealed his true self on the brink of death, as people often did.

He supposed it was proven that humans and aliens had that in common.

"You're not good at negotiating," Sylvester said.

"Wait, you don't have to kill me now. I can help you, finding your enemies and killing them from a safe distance."

He didn't have to think about it at all.

"While you wait for the perfect moment to stab me in the back. Tempting, but I'll pass."

Sylvester put an end to this.

By tearing off his head.

That brought him back to reality, to what was left of the aircraft. In theory, others of his species could find them and attack them, but they didn't have anything to worry about anymore. It was done.

It was finally done. Sylvester crawled out of the darkness and joined the others on the deck. By others, he meant the survivors, of course. He doubted that everyone had survived the crash, but he didn't know ninety-nine percent of the crew, so he couldn't really feel their losses.

Just in a vague, disconnected way, like when you see a tragedy on TV and think, "Wow, that's a shame."

Just that.

He was always rather... disconnected.

He saw that Emerald had kept her promise, although that was also obvious by just looking outside and seeing they weren't in Kaleidoscope or what was left of it. Cynthia, Heather, and indeed most of them didn't seem very happy about it, but she had fulfilled it.

They fell silent as he approached.

"Ah, you're here. Thank goodness. This woman has very little patience."

Yes, and it was obvious that many people's patience had been on the verge of running out, of snapping like a frayed rope. He couldn't blame them. They were all soldiers who knew what they were getting into, who had chosen to risk their lives rather than live as comfortably as possible.

But one thing was to face a damn danger, to attack and defend, and another thing was to have the world collapse on you without being able to do a damn thing about it.

"Just enough and necessary," Cynthia said, the aforementioned woman.

"Are you done with this?" Ryan asked.

"With everything. He was the last of his Champions."

Someone else had done their dirty work. Since they were there, they could have finished it all, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?

"Which means we have to get moving, pronto, because we're stranded in a world that's about to disappear."

"I don't think anything will happen to us, but yes. Let's go."

He didn't feel like seeing that horrible spectacle for a second time; he wanted to look away from the gravity of what he had done, even though he hadn't hesitated for a second. Even though he didn't have a choice.

The machine started up, opening a hole in reality. They may have lost a few poor bastards, but the machine worked.

The aircraft didn't, however. It was in shambles; they would have to stay in this universe, whose remaining life was measured in minutes or seconds. Heather pushed the machine toward the portal; he didn't help her, he didn't need to. The whole crew disassembled to return home.

Mission accomplished.

It never felt like a victory, but mission accomplished.