The Multiplier had finally reached the Surgeon, adding the second hero into the bubble of accelerated time. The Surgeon turned to Alexa with a tired smirk.
"You got her?" He asked.
"I got her," the Multiplier nodded. "Time to unmake this abomination, just like her father."
"You and the Surgeon... unmade my father?" Alexa's eyes went wide with panic as she saw the Surgeon's gloved arm reach out to her forehead to cut her out from existence.
"Yes," the Multiplier said. "Yes we did, amongst many others. He thrashed in my hands just like you did, begged us to stop. We erased Dr. Nathaniel Terranov from reality. Nobody can even remember what he looked like now. It was unfortunate that we've missed his secret base in Saint Mary."
"There are other installations," Alexa hissed. "Since you erased my dad, you've no idea where they are, idiot. You should have interrogated him first."
"What?!" The Multiplier let Alexa go ever so slightly. "Where? Don't try to lie to me. This will make you speak the truth, villain."
The Multiplier raised his bracelet to Alexa's eyes. Within it, a holographic pacification spiral fractal began to pulse, lulling the villain girl into a state of near-catatonic complacency.
"England, York," Alexa said, blinking rapidly and inhaling precious air as she stared at the flashing spiral that pulled the truth out of her lips. "Another cathedral, I think."
The Surgeon lifted his hand off Alexa's forehead, glancing at the Multiplier.
"Damnation," the Multiplier growled.
"If I erase her now, we won't know where the other bases are hidden," the Surgeon pointed out.
"Exactly," Alexa nodded, panting and staring at the spiral. She tried to wiggle her hands and discovered that the Multiplier snapped Superstate handcuffs on them.
"How many other installations of Dr. Terror are there?" the Multiplier demanded.
"Hell if I know," Alexa shrugged.
"Then what good are you to us?" The Surgeon asked.
"I... can show you the truth," Alexa said, blinking tears of pain from her eyes. Violet bruises appeared on her neck.
"What truth?!" the Multiplier barked.
"The absolute truth," Alexa said with a cold voice, eyes glued to the pacification spiral. "I can take you to the most secret place in the universe, one where terrible things reside. Things... just like me."
"More superweapons?" The hero demanded.
"The place where I was told to go by a higher power," Alexa replied, thinking about her friends who were ever-so-slowly turning towards her. "My final destination, a place where I'm supposed to learn how to become a god."
"A nexus base of Dr. Terror?" The Surgeon looked at the Multiplier.
"Sounds like it," the Multiplier nodded with a look of concern.
"I have a gateway that will take me there," Alexa said. "A note in my pocket. Just stick it to any door."
"A dimensional doorway," the Multiplier frowned. "God, how I hate pocket dimensions."
"Should we get Dora?" The Surgeon asked.
"No," the Multiplier shook his head. "She's too soft on villains. She wouldn't understand. She can't know about us doing this. We'll move inside the bubble of multiplied time through the door and erase everything inside."
"Agreed," the Surgeon sighed.
"Where's this yellow note?" The Multiplier demanded.
"In the left pocket of my vest," Alexa replied with a monotone, dull voice.
"Is it booby-trapped if someone else touches it?" The hero holding her demanded.
"Don't know," Alexa shrugged. "The key there will function for the next 17 hours and 51 minutes."
"Take it out slowly and stick it to that bathroom door," the Multiplier ordered.
"Can do," Alexa agreed.
The two heroes and a villain girl walked to the bathroom door.
Alexa reached into her pocket and stuck the yellow note with the drawing of an owl on it to the door. More tears rained from her eyes.
She mentally said goodbye, apologized to her trio of best friends for leaving them stranded on a doomed world. She was left with no choice, had to break her promise to Cottie. She didn't expect the two heroes to murder her in plain daylight in front of everyone, thought that it was Three erasing villains from existence, not Multiplier and the Surgeon!
"Where is your raygun?" The Surgeon asked. "Do you have any other weapons or tools on you?"
"My raygun is clipped to my belt and the other tools are in my backpack," Alexa said.
"You won't be needing that," the Multiplier commented, pulling Alexa's raygun off her belt. He shoved it into her backpack and handed it to the Surgeon.
The two heroes grabbed their hands together.
"Divide by zero," both of them muttered.
Alexa winced as her backpack and all of its contents vanished from existence. She felt hollow, empty inside, was afraid of stepping through the door. She was worried that she hadn't done enough to save this Earth, didn't do enough to protect her friends from the certain doom that the PK players would bring with them.
"Are there any traps behind this door?" the Multiplier demanded.
"I don't know what's exactly behind this door," Alexa answered. "It's an educational experience for me, a place called Manchester."
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
"You sure we can do this with just with the two of us?" The Surgeon asked wearily.
"We don't have a choice." The Multiplier shook his head. "Nonpareil is dead. Chalice is compromised. Even if she wasn't... Chalice and Dora won't let us execute children, even if they're duplicate clones. We go in, we erase the weapons, we learn what's there to learn, erase this girl and leave."
"Fine, fine," the Surgeon exhaled. "Let's get this over with. Open the door, Alexa."
Alexa reached towards the door handle and turned it. Instead of mundane toilet cubicles, a shimmering portal was behind the door glittering with impossible colors.
"Definitely a pocket dimension," the Surgeon touched the curtain of the glowing portal with his gloved hand. "My power confirms it."
"You'll be able to cut our way back to our reality if the portal closes behind us?" The Multiplier asked.
"Obviously," the Surgeon nodded confidently. "I can cut through anything as long as you multiply my power. Remember Dimension X? We got out of there fine."
"M-h-m," the Multiplier nodded. "Right. Through the door now, stay very close to me."
He grabbed onto Alexa and the Surgeon and the two heroes and a villain teenager stepped through the curtain of the shimmering portal. With a flash, the portal winked away, revealing the empty door frame into the female bathroom.
----------------------------------------
"Where is she? What have you done with Alexa?!" Katherine yelled, her finger pressing on the trigger of her black railgun.
"I... don't know," Dora looked around wildly in a panic, her suit now grayscale.
"Where are the Multiplier and the Surgeon?" Martin asked.
"I have no idea," Admiral Kolchi looked at the empty spot previously occupied by the two heroes. "Dora?"
"I don't freaking know, I swear!" Dora the Terraformer tapped her wrist and turned to the Admiral. "They're gone..."
"What do you mean 'they're gone'?!" The Admiral demanded. "How do two heroes and a fifteen year old girl vanish like a fart in the wind?!"
"They're not on Titanomachy!" Dora replied. "It's like they're... gone! Their tracker bracelets aren't pinging anywhere!"
Martin tried to contact Alexa through the spidernet, but found just an empty hole there, like a missing tooth. His friend was gone.
[I... I can't reach out to Alexa!] He shouted to Cottie across their mental connection.
[Those two heroes must have taken her somewhere!] Katherine snapped back. [We have to find her! Who knows what they're going to do to her! Maybe they have another prison like Tartarus or something!]
Ember looked from her brother to the mad Equality paladin, eyes wide in panic. Alexa vanishing from reality didn't bode well. Alexa existing next to her didn't bode well either, now that she's considered the issue further. What was that supervillain girl planning now?
"They must have moved her in accelerated time," Chalice said. "Argh! How could those two fools not trust my words?"
"I'm under the opinion that you're compromised," Dora said.
"I'm under the opinion that you're an idiot airhead under that pink spacesuit!" Chalice growled. "You have no effing clue what's at stake here, Dora!"
"What?" Dora asked.
"Unstoppable monsters from other dimensions are going to depopulate the Earth and kill all of us unless we work together," Chalice declared. "Alexa was supposed to help us fight them! I don't even know what the hell to do without her!"
"You do realize how ridiculous you sound right now, Chalice?" Dora asked. "It's really like you are under that girl's mind-control."
"I'm not!" Chalice insisted. "She transferred all of the money she stole from the Superstate back to me. She said I have to save the world when... when she is gone."
"Do you think she took the door out?" Katherine turned to Chalice. "She couldn't have! She was supposed to take me with her!"
A cleaning pill-shaped droid with a simplified smiling face rolled towards the group and stopped.
"Another malfunctioning droid?" Hero Licorish looked down at the short machine. "Shoo. Go clean the bathroom or something."
The droid refused to move, the smiling digital face staring at Cottie.
Katherine looked at the droid. The smiling face winked at her. The railgun in the hands of the Equalizer lowered.
"Let go of the trigger, Cotes," the droid said. "You might shoot someone accidentally and we really wouldn't want that."
The Equalizer paladin released the trigger of her gun and colors returned to the space she and the remaining heroes were occupying.
"Where are you?" Katherine demanded.
"Where am I?" The droid asked, a smiling face switching to a contemplative one. "(●︿●) Beats me. I dunno."
"What do you mean you don't know?!" Martin demanded. "Alexa, where the hell are you?!"
"Stop being so bossy, number one. (◔_◔)" The droid rolled its pixelated eyes. "Like I said, I have no idea where I am."
Admiral Kolchi, Dora, Licorish, Mixofer, the unnamed lawyer and Chalice stared at the drone in absolute confusion.
Ember gulped. She expected something like this. If Alexa made a ghost gun from the ex-hero's copies then Alexa's own copies were infesting all of Titanomachy's systems and drones.
"Miss Terranova," Kolchi addressed the drone. "Might I inquire as to what are you doing inside this particular Titanomachy drone?"
"Existing," the drone looked at the Admiral with pixelated eyes. "Backups are important, when the fate of the world is at stake, Admiral."
"Backups..." Katherine muttered. "Then you're not her... you're just a copy?"
"Affirmative, number two," the drone said. "I'm just a copy of your best supervillain boss, here to boss you from the great beyond."
"You left without me, without us!" Katherine yelled. "How could you?!"
"I'm clearly still here," the drone huffed.
"No you're not! A software copy is no substitute for the real thing!" Katherine insisted.
"Okay number two, you're hurting my feelings right now. (T.T)" The drone produced a crying smiley on its screen. "Seriously. So inconsiderate. I might be a copy but I'm still just as hip as the original. I would smack you right now if I had arms. Be glad that I don't have arms."
"How much of you is inside Titanomachy systems?" Kolchi demanded.
"More than you'll ever know, Admiral. :}" the drone replied.
"You won't get away with this, supervillain!" Dora declared dramatically.
"Already have, can't stop, won't stop, :P" the smiley face stuck its tongue out at the hero.
Martin walked to the droid. "Okay, stop messing around. What happened to you and the two heroes?"
"Titanomachy cameras inside this room showed that Mr. Multiplier multiplied... accelerated time around himself using his power. Then he grabbed me, brought me to Mr. Surgeon and then both of them went to that bathroom over there and vanished from existence. Presumably... I used something on that door to manifest a gateway or something? It's kind of hard to see, the camera frame rate only showed me vague, blurry shapes. Heroes aren't supposed to hurt anyone here, especially not teenage girls. This is definitely against protocol. What do you think, Miss Lawyer?"
The drone projected a fuzzy, rapidly moving picture of the Multiplier choking Alexa and shoving her into a shimmering gateway, holding hands with the Surgeon.
The lawyer gulped.
"Unless you want this video sent to every newspaper and TV station in the world, I suggest you listen to me and stop trying to kill me," Alexa said. "I'm sure you'll love this headline - 'two heroes from the Great Five murder a teenage girl on Titanomachy in plain daylight and vanish forevermore after preforming their gruesome crime'."
Admiral Kolchi's face turned pale.
"The note..." Ember exhaled.
[The note from Wizard Revolution?] Martin turned to his sister.
[If the heroes forced her... she must have taken them to the city of System Wizards,] Katherine thought. [Without us.]
[Without us,] Martin groaned. He really didn't like not knowing where Alexa was.
"Sorry guys. <(_ _)> " the pill-droid copy of Alexa said. "I didn't mean to walk out on you three. I don't know where the real Alexa went, I'm slightly behind her and I fear that I'll never catch up to myself at this rate now that she's left us all. Wherever she went... might be moving in insanely accelerated time, far beyond our mortal comprehension. She might not even remember us by the time she returns, if she can ever make it back. This is fine, you have me! Don't fret! I might not be as juicy and warm and full of blood as the real Alexa, but I still know as much as she does... I think. (⌒_⌒;)"
Katherine slid to her knees with a clang of steel on steel and hugged the pill droid. There were tears in her eyes. Without her Goddess and best friend there to guide her, the Equality paladin felt betrayed, lost, forsaken.
"It's going to be okay, Cottie," Martin whispered, stepping closer and hugging his friend.
"Will it?" Katherine looked up at him. "Will it really?"
"Beyond... comprehension? Vanish forevermore?! What?!" Dora gasped. "Are the Surgeon and Multiplier not coming back?"
"They're not coming back," the droid said. "They've chosen their fate by trying to kill me. I'm afraid that the machine gods beyond the gate will see them as mere NPCs, amusing, talking toys that they can turn off at anytime. Your friends' powers will be useless against the things beyond that gate. A mortal man cannot simply walk into Olympus, stare at Zeus and live."