I felt myself falling through an endless void of static and darkness, my consciousness fragmenting like shattered glass. Just as I was about to lose myself completely, my sense of self smeared across infinity, something warm and solid wrapped around me - Cinder's wings, her iridescent feathers glowing with a soft, anchoring light.

Her hands gripped my shoulders, pulling me back from the brink. "Hold on to me! Listen to my voice! Stay with me!" Her magic-laced voice cut through the static, clear and determined.

I gasped as reality snapped back into focus, my head pounding madly. Cinder's wings were still wrapped protectively around me, her face inches from mine with naked concern in her expression. The static in my mind receded like an ebbing tide, leaving behind a dull, clawing ache.

I noticed that my knees had given out from the awful aura the Vice Principal was projecting. It plowed right through my soul like a wave of terror, making me sick to the core, had nearly stopped my heart. Cinder held onto me, not letting me fall.

"Ah, young love!" Zee Captain's voice boomed from somewhere close by and also endlessly far away. "So protective! So fierce! Such passion!"

“I said, be gone!” Graves barked. The mind-melting, blinding, gut wrenching, static-filled ocean of terror beat against Cinder's hold on me, my head throbbing like it was about to split open.

"Calmness!" Zee's heavily-accented voice snapped back.

Cinder's wings relaxed, colors leaking from them, her grip on me weakening slightly.

Through the gaps in her feathers, I saw that a dark, static-filled shadow rushed from the Vice Principal towards Zee Captain.

The wave of static failed to reach the interdimensional tourist, flowing back like an ocean wave that encountered an island of jagged stone.

Graves wailed, wrapping his face-less head with his lanky hands as his own attack slammed into him, all of his tentacles coming apart into barely visible wisps of shadows.

“A bit too noisy, Mister Slendy!” Zee commented. “Consider a nap!”

Graves careened backwards into a wall and slid down, not moving. The aura of mind-melting horror radiating from the Vice Principal vanished entirely, the hissing, awful static gone from my head.

Cinder's hands and wings tightened around me once again, her feathers shifting through defensive colors - deep purples, steely grays, warning reds. I could feel her heart racing against my back.

"Alex," she whispered so softly only I could hear, "whatever happens, do NOT move."

Suddenly, Zee Captain's gaze locked directly on me. Even through the gas mask, I could feel the intensity of that stare, going right through the thick layer of rainbow feathers.

Something inside me snapped with a twinkle.

"Ci. Let me out," I growled.

"What?" Cinder asked.

"Please," I hissed. “I need to talk to that… thing. It obviously won’t go away until someone makes a deal with it!"

"But..."

"Let me out! I know what to say!" I growled. "Trust me!"

Cinder's wings loosened slightly, just enough for me to slip forward. My camera hung forgotten around my neck as I stepped towards Zee Captain.

"Cannot define view," Yulia whispered into my ear as I pointed my wristcam at Captain hoping for some advice.

Of course. My own wits it is then.

My mind raced, trying to process what I was dealing with.

This wasn't just some interdimensional tourist - this was a System Wizard, a being that could literally rewrite the rules of reality with a word or two.

How do you stop something that can simply decide that your attacks miss, that can make you trip over nothing, that can reflect any damage back at you? The Captain hadn't even moved to defeat three of the school's strongest students.

Then it hit me - you don't. You can't fight something like this directly. The only way forward was to play along, to engage with whatever twisted game or story the System Wizard wanted to tell.

My palms were sweaty as I stepped forward, but I kept my voice steady. If there was one thing I'd learned from photographing cryptids that could melt me with a single fiery hug, it was how to stay calm in the face of the impossible.

Welp, here I go talking again. I strapped on the Alexander Glock mask harder, aiming my metaphorical gun at unkillable entity.

"Guten Tag," I replicated the thing's accent. "I wish to parlay!"

"Ah," Zee uttered, looming over me. “Excellent!"

I nodded.

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“Then let us speak one on one. Let there be a... Pause!” Zee said with a gloved finger snap and the auditorium fell absolutely silent.

I glanced away from the post-apocalyptic figure at the audience. None of Omnid teens were moving. Their faces were gray, without color, not blinking, not breathing, as if suspended in time.

“Are you with them?” I turned back to the undefinable thing.

“Define zem.”

“System Wizards,” I said.

“Yes and no,” Zee shrugged. “Think of me as a renegade... cosmic janitor, a Caretaker of a Corpse world, doomed to forever roam across ze weary land and fix things that cannot be fixed.”

"What do you want?" I asked, my mind racing. "What's it going to take for you to leave? Do I have to wish on you or something?"

"Wishes are dangerous things to meddle with for an untrained Wizard," Zee replied, looking down at me. "For zey tend to expand exponentially and devour all."

"Fine then," I crossed my arms, suddenly thinking about the The Sorcerer's Apprentice's film where the wizard in training created infinite, self-replicating mops. "Then what do you wish for, Mr. Renegade Wizard?"

"I wish for... a story," Zee said. "An interesting fable from the heart. One to keep me warm out there in the endless dark."

I swallowed nervously, thinking of what to say.

"Once upon a time," I began, my voice steady, "there was a teenage girl named Alexa who lived in a treehouse made of stolen traffic signs. She believed that stories could change reality, that imagination was more powerful than any system, any rule. She was a clever, cheeky supervillain and nobody could stop her."

Zee Captain's violet lenses seemed to focus more intently.

"She found four friends and through cleverness and planning she overcame all odds, beat back the darkness, took over the Earth, saved everyone," I said. "Only for a big bad System Wizard to erase all of her work, undo everything, and scatter her friends. This is where I come in. Martin. Her best friend who cannot remember her. Like her, I'm not going to stop until I understand everything and win against impossible odds."

I fell silent.

"Ah," Zee Captain's voice took on a different tone, almost wistful. "Such a troublemaker, zat girl."

My heart skipped a beat. "You… know her?"

"Know her?" Zee laughed. "My dear boy, I was taking her to Manchester! Such a fascinating character - so determined to break ze rules, to rewrite ze narrative. Almost succeeded too."

"Almost?" I blinked.

"She was given a chance to become a System Wizard. She chose a different path. She hijacked zee train, directed it off zee tracks," Zee leaned towards me. "Sent it careening across the void.”

“And then?”

"Ah, but zat would be big Spoilers!" Zee Captain straightened up, waggling a finger. "Can't tell you everything, ja? Where would ze fun be in zat? But I will say... Your curious tale is adequate payment. I am now thoroughly inspired! Here. A gift to keep you warm.”

Zee dug into a dark-blue coat pocket and once again pulled out the old, grimy-looking, steel lighter. A gloved hand threw it my way and I caught it in the air.

“What’s it do?” I asked, glancing at the mundane-looking lighter.

“It’s a Wizard’s implement,” Zee replied with a wink of violet lenses. “You’re a magic-less human in the land of feisty, magic beasts. You’ll need it to fit in. Consider it payment for accidentally exposing you with my Infoscope.”

I glanced at the audience. They were still all frozen, suspended in time.

"Appreciate it," I said. "If I understand it correctly your kind can bend the narrative of reality, yes?"

Zee nodded.

"How do I stop someone like you? How can I prevent my world from being overwritten again? How does your narrative end, System Wizard?" I asked him, feeling brave and expecting more finger-waggling and ranting about spoilers.

"When you grow strong enough, figure out how to cross the threshold into Endalaus without turning to ashes, find me at the end of everything," she replied, my mind crawling sideways ever so slightly as my perception of Captain inexplicably wriggled from one gender to another. "And execute me with a gun that can kill a god."

I blinked.

"Then take my coat," she added. "And go to Manchester, for it is your Quest to slink amongst the System Wizards to unmake the Rules and tear reality asunder, my darkling."

"What?" I exhaled. "I have to do WHAT?!"

"Shhhh..." The undefinable entity put a finger to their mask and turned towards the gateway, which was still showing that endless, apocalyptic cityscape with the massive G-cube looming in the background.

"Hey!" I called out. "I need to know more! Tell me more about Alexa! What happened to her? Where is she?"

“Here,” Captain answered simply pointing at my head.

I swallowed.

"Oh, and Martin?" Zee turned back slightly. "Do try to keep zee teenage cryptids who summon things zey cannot control in better order, ja? Next time something might come through that won't be as Syntropic as me. You do not want to meet a genuine being of Entropy. Unpause! Have a Good tomorrow!"

Time resumed.

With that, Zee Captain stepped through the gateway.

Cinder's dark claws dug into my body, her entire body trembling.

My eyes settled on the dark bracelet in the snow. I somehow knew that in another second the gateway would snap and then Emerald would be gone forever.

Logically, this meant no more leader for the doomed troupe. No more troupe, in fact. No more Emerald. It would solve a multitude of future problems. But… also, it would not prevent my inevitable exposure. Everyone served their purpose in the grand scheme of things. Everyone mattered in one way or another.

I needed Emerald for my plan, the over-zealous dragon fit into a big part of it all like a perfect gear that spun so many of the others.

"Wait," I yelled at Zee Captain.

"Yeeees?" Zee paused.

"That dark bracelet," I called out, pointing at the hexagonal band lying in the snow beyond the gateway. "Can you... Kick it outta there?"

Zee Captain tilted their head. "Oh? And why should I do zat?"

"Because..." I swallowed hard. "Because a good story needs all its characters. Everyone matters, even the antagonists."

"Hmmm," Zee Captain said. "Very well."

A dark, grimy boot kicked the bracelet out of the gate onto the stage. The gate snapped shut, collapsing into itself like a winking eye.