"Are you quite finished with your spiel?" Sasha One asked. Her slender fingers folded the torn piece of Alexa’s ticket and slid it into her chest. The ticket slowly sunk into the impossibly deep interior of her silver starscape body, gradually vanishing within. Hundreds of pale eyes blossomed upon the ticket's descent into Sasha's body, examining the yellow paper with a picture of an owl on it from all sides.

"Zat was not a zhpiel!" Zee huffed, sinking deeper into the French accent in irritation. "I am simply trying to..."

"Sales pitch, shebang, gobbledygook," Sasha One cut Zee Captain off. "Whatever, Miss Captain. Now it's my turn to elucidate this lovely pupil with the absolute truth of the matter."

"What truth?" Zee huffed. "You are a questionable Dead Zone conceptoid! Your data ID is obviously fake and your Aura radiates whispers of death and entropy!"

"I may be from what you so quaintly call the 'Dead Zone'," Sasha One rolled a few of her eyes, "but that hardly makes me fake or untrustworthy. In fact, I'd argue it makes me far more honest than you syntropy-afflicted lot."

"Now see here, you..." Captain began.

"You see, Alexa," Sasha One turned to the white haired teen. "The truth is far simpler than our Good-serving Captain here would have you believe. The Wizards and their Bobbies - they're all just elaborate shadow puppets, servants of the System and the Numbers that screw with innocent worlds afflicting their game rules and narratives upon them."

"I see. You are a baddie," Captain accused Sasha. Zee's hand reached into her pocked and pulled out a grimy-looking lighter.

A thousand silver eyes focused on Zee Captain's hand.

"A baddie?" Sasha laughed. "Oh please. Everything you see, everything you know, everything you are - it's all just temporary patterns in the cosmic noise, dust in the wind. You're just sparks frantically trying to build your deeply flawed sandcastles before the tide comes in. But the tide always comes, my little, late Wizard. Always. Because the System you prop up is a deeply flawed abomination, a colossus made from contradicting Rules standing on easily broken legs."

"You..." Zee huffed.

"I am the tide," Sasha said. "and I'm finally here to wash away all of your works. And don't expect me to play by your rules when your game was rigged from the start."

Zee's lighter pointed at Sasha, gloved finger pressed hard against the rusty wheel.

"Go ahead," Sasha One said. "Ignite me. Burn me away. Show this little wizardling that it is you who is a baddie. Just look at your little charge, she's already filled with vengeance and mistrust for your kind to the brim. So, spin the little Wheel of Death, push her over into the abyss, turn her to the side of entropy."

Alexa watched the tense exchange between Zee Captain and Sasha One with growing fascination. Her silver-blue eyes darted between the two, taking in every detail of their confrontation.

"Ladies, ladies," she finally interjected, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "No need to fight over little old me. There's plenty of Alexa to go around!"

She turned to Sasha One, her expression growing more serious. "So you're saying everything the Wizards do is ultimately flawed, meaningless and destined for oblivion? That's... pretty bleak. But also kinda metal. I dig it."

Then she looked back at Zee Captain. "And you're saying we should keep building sandcastles even though the tide's coming? That's... weirdly inspiring, in a futile sort of way."

Alexa leaned back, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "You know what? I think you're both right. And also both wrong. The truth is probably way more cheeky than either of you are making it out to be."

She grinned at the Wizard and the Virus. "But hey, that just means there's more for me to figure out and mess with, right?"

Turning to Charles, who had been silent throughout the exchange, Alexa asked, "What do you think, newbie? Entropy or syntropy? Cosmic janitor or cosmic tide?"

Charles looked startled at being suddenly addressed. He glanced nervously between Zee Captain and Sasha One. "I don't know," he said finally. "It would be nice to know who I am and why I'm here."

"Ah, the eternal questions!" Alexa exclaimed. "Don't worry, we'll figure it out together. Maybe we'll even break reality in the process. Won't that be fun?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

She turned back to Zee Captain and Sasha One, who were still glaring at each other. "Now, how about we all calm down, put that lighter away and have a nice, civilized discussion? Or better yet, tell me more about this Manchester place we're heading to. I want to know what I'm getting into before I decide whether to learn from it or burn it to the ground."

Captain’s lenses struck Alexa. The Wizard’s gloved hand reluctantly slid the lighter back into the dusty coat pocket.

“Burning or even threatening the beacon of syntropy is unwise,” Zee said. “You already have a tag on you. The more tags you accumulate the more Bobbies the others will send after you.”

“Do you have a Bobby, Z?” Alexa asked the System Wizard. "A lawful-good wolf-cop version of you that you send after lost little girls that accidentally implode transit terminals?"

“I am the Bobby that I sent after you,” Zee Captain revealed with a sigh.

“Oh?” The supervillain teen batted her white lashes. “You’re a syntropic copy of the original Captain?”

“Yes,” Zee affirmed. “I’m a... more orderly fraction of my greater whole, most of which is quite preoccupied with defending Captania against things like Sasha.”

“Like the tentacle of an octopus?” Alexa asked. “Curious, curious. I also left a copy of myself behind to keep an eye out for my minions. I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here.”

She turned to Sasha. “What about you Miss Googolplex? Are you a fraction of something greater? A drop of rain from the looming rainstorm on the horizon? A grain of sand from the greater beach?”

“Yes. I am the emissary of entropy, the Song of {the Wormwood Star},” Sasha answered. “I am an instance of an {Astral virus that's been laying siege to Manchester} for one hundred million years of linear and infinity number of years of liminal time.”

“An emissary of what… that's been doing what for one hundred million years?” Alexa blinked as Sasha's words vanished from her memory. “Can you stop doing that? It’s bothersome to converse with you if I cannot remember half the things you say.”

“Alas,” Sasha One sighed. “I cannot turn off the filters, they protect me and you against the Numbers. Only when the Rules fall will I be able to speak openly.”

“Did you catch what she said?” Alexa turned to the System Wizard.

“No,” Zee sighed. “She is clearly a very dangerous and powerful entity, one that should not be trusted for she hides her true intentions behind infomatic-erasing waves. It is unwise to befriend someone that hides their true purpose and passion.”

“It is unwise to listen to an instructor that seemingly switches their gender at random and hides their face behind a mask!” Sasha One parroted Zee Captain’s sharp tone.

“Yes, yes,” Alexa waved a hand at her future dark and light side instructors. “You’re both very sus. This is just a sus flying train packed full of sus entities. I get the gist. Also, I haven't eaten anything in what feels like forever. I vote we take a break from murderous intentions and the heavy philosophical debate and find us some snacks. Who's with me?"

"I suppose some sus-tenance wouldn't go amiss," Zee Captain nodded, standing up and opening the door. "Shall we head to the dining car?"

"Excellent!" Alexa declared, rising from her seat. "Let's go see what kind of cosmic cuisine this magic school train has to offer. And who knows? Maybe we'll pick up a few more questionable entities along the way. The more the merrier, right? Come on, Charlie!”

She grabbed Charles by his hand to pull the boy from his seat. Upon contact the form of Charles rippled like an ocean wave, the flesh and clothing of the boy suddenly rearranging itself in radial patterns.

“What the shit,” Alexa let go of the teen staring at him with wide eyes.

“Alexa?” Martin blinked. “What… what just happened? What am I doing here?”

“I… what,” Alexa stared at Martin. “Well… this is unexpected.” She inspected her minion from all sides without touching him. “Hrmmm… you seem very Martin-ish, but you definitely weren’t Martin just a second ago.”

“What are you talking about?” Martin demanded, glancing at Sasha and Zee. “Where am I? Who are these two supers?”

“They’re not supers, Martin,” Alexa said. “They’re a tired hapless janitor and a very slippery rain puddle that the janitor’s trying to clean forever.”

“What?” Martin sputtered.

Alexa ignored Martin’s look of increasingly dire confusion.

“Martin, what’s the last thing you remember?” She asked her minion.

“You and me, Cottie and Em,” Martin began. “We were inside Titanomachy station with Nonpareil and Chalice talking to Admiral Kolchi, the Multiplier, the Surgeon and Dora the Terraformer."

[You and I were holding hands and…] Martin suddenly switched to the spider-net thought-cast, blushing ever so slightly.

“Yeeees?” Alexa leaned closer to Martin’s face, examining every pore of his nose, every fiber of his green eyes for potential flaws. [Why were we inside Titanomachy, Martin?] She added mentally.

“You were trying to convince the heroes and the Admiral that you… Uhh, no, that all of us were there to save the Earth from certain doom!” Martin stumbled over his words as he spoke too quickly. [Because the System Wizards or whatever rewrote our Earth’s history, created villains and heroes for the entertainment of Nonpareil, aka Bob Proverra… a manager from Eureka who thought that we were just NPCs, quirky characters from the subscription-based game he bought!] "The Surgeon wasn’t listening to you at all though. He called you a liar and a villain and snapped his fingers and then… then I was here.”

“Uh-huh,” Alexa murmured. “Well, that makes sense. I think I get it now.”

“Get what?” Martin blinked. [Where the hell are we, Alexa?] He demanded loudly via his power.

“We’re on a train to Manchester,” Alexa said with a weary look. [And you’re not a real boy, Martin.]