Vee threw herself in front of me, her wings spreading wide. Lightning crackled between her talons, forming a sphere of pure electrical energy that pulsed with desperate intensity.

The arrow struck her hastily-formed shield, its momentum slowing but not stopping completely. The magisteel shaft pierced through the electrical barrier and then slammed into her armor, sending her stumbling backwards.

The glowing man on the lakeshore drew back another arrow.

Cinder sang, her voice carrying across the lake with terrible force. The sound was both beautiful and devastating - a high, clear note that seemed to tear through reality itself.

The antlered figure staggered as it released the shot. It missed us by a meter, the arrow splashing into lakewater.

Another humanoid thing emerged onto the shore, this one holding an arbalest. All around the lake, more people were appearing from the gloom, their hollow eye-sockets and skeletal mouths covered in glowing mites.

Dungeon Sentinels. A whole legion of dungeon Sentinels surrounding the lake, approaching from all sides.

"F-fly," I choked. "Fly my p-pretties!”

Blood was soaking through my remaining 13 hexasuits. The arrow had gone clean through my left side, probably puncturing a lung.

Breathing hurt. Everything hurt.

The lowest hexasuit down squeezed on the section where the hole was in my chest and behind it, trying to stem the flow of blood.

More figures were emerging from the gloom, all of them covered in bioluminescent growths. Some held bows, others spears or magic tools of unknown use.

I tore the core out of my chest, setting the pattern to a spiral. The core began to flash.

"Trrrow... at crrowd," I hissed out as I handed the core-bomb to Cinder, my vision going white.

She did.

The explosion rocked the shore, sending glowing bodies flying. The antlered figures didn't seem to care for being exploded, didn't even dive away, had no fear whatsoever. Fragments of people and crystal antlers and rock rained down.

"Now!" I gasped. "While... they're... scattered... Cinder... carry me out. Vee... fly... behind... blast arrows off... us."

Cinder's arms wrapped around me, her wings blossoming out. Vespera snapped the lighter shut, her own wings unfurling. The undead humanoids on the shore were rising, grabbing at their weapons, drawing back bows.

We launched into the air as arrows and magic spells rained past us. Vee flew behind and below, her magisteel armor crackling with electricity as she fired thunderbolts out, deflecting the projectiles and making spells detonate in the air.

Pain lanced through my chest with each wingbeat as Cinder carried me higher. The hexasuits were doing their best to stem the bleeding, but I could feel myself growing weaker.

"Stay with me," Cinder growled, clinging to me with arms and legs, her wings pumping harder. "Don't you dare die on me, you stupid human!"

More arrows and magic missiles whistled through the air. Vee's lightning flashed, but she was tiring rapidly, her movements becoming sluggish.

"Sss-fine," I bubbled. "Jssst incarnate me... k? K."

I closed my eyes.

My consciousness was fading in and out. Each breath felt like fire in my chest. The hexasuits were warm and sticky with blood. Rainbow-wings flapped above me. Behind us thunder boomed and crackled.

Pain. So much pain. Not as much as Cinder felt when the Skinwalker snapped her wrist though.

She had to go through that every night, enduring the dream-pain over and over.

I couldn't die. I couldn't let Cinder be alone in that nightmare.

Without me the girls would fight, argue.

If I died now, I would lose the extra week on Arx. I was running against the clock… needed the time to direct everyone, to save Vee from her arranged marriage. Time to help...

Darkness.

Warm hands prying open my mouth, pouring something down my throat.

Warmth. Sparks. Current.

My eyes shot open. Vee was looming over me, hands pressed to my chest.

Lightning danced across her armored fingers, making my heart beat. Rushing my blood down my veins. Forcing my body to stay alive, against all odds.

"What happened?!" Katherine growled from my left.

"Antlery… zombies," I coughed, tasting copper. "Really... rude... with arrows..."

"What were you thinking, going down there?!" Kat growled.

"Blame Vee," I let out. "At least... we know humans... aren't immune... to arrows," I tried to grin but it came out as more of a grimace.

Io appeared in my field of vision, holding what looked like a very questionable weapon with the words "Dora's Med-gun!" on its side in fading scratched up pink.

"Hold him still," he said calmly. "This is going to hurt."

"What... is that?" I wheezed.

"Don't know," Io explained. "Used it on myself when some jerk shot me from inside the gate. Should work on you too. Probably."

"Probably?!" Cinder barked, holding me down with her claws.

"The healing potions we fed him didn't work fully," Io replied with a far too casual look as he pressed the gun to my wound. "Either 'cus he's a human or 'cus the Sentinel's arrow was cursed to make a wound that's impossible to seal with magic. So there's this."

He shoved a leather strap in my mouth and pressed the trigger.

Pain exploded through my chest like liquid fire. I screamed, biting down as something that felt like molten metal poured into the arrow wound, burning and freezing simultaneously.

"Hold him!" Io ordered as I thrashed.

Cinder and Vee pinned my arms while Katherine held onto my legs. The burning sensation intensified, spreading outward from the wound in waves of agony.

"Almost done," Io muttered, keeping the gun pressed against my side. "Relax. The pain will pass.”

Another surge of burning cold shot through me. My back arched involuntarily as the sensation peaked.

Then, suddenly, the pain began to fade. The burning turned to tingling, then to numbness. I could feel something shifting inside me, making questionable gurgling noises. More numbness.

"Is... is it working?" Cinder breathed out.

"Seems like it's working," Io shrugged.

"Yes," Vee replied. "I feel it. There's some kind of liquid metal in him... it seems to be fixing him, filling the hole."

I gasped for air, finding that I could breathe without pain. The wound in my side had closed, filled with some kind of silver stuff.

"What... what is that stuff?" I panted, touching the silver patch on my side that was visible through the hole in my hexasuits.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Liquid nanites," Io said, examining the med-gun's scratched up label more closely. "Says here they're programmed to repair biological damage. Gunshot wounds and stuff. Made by Dora the Terraformer Co. Neat, eh?"

"So… you just... shot me with mysterious interdimensional nanobots?" I wheezed.

"Yep," Io nodded. "Seemed better than ending our field trip a bunch of days short. Besides, I've used it on myself three times. One more capsule left. Only minor side effects."

"What side effects?!" Cinder demanded.

"Numbness, cold and lack of feeling in the repaired area and whatever nerves go through," Io shrugged. "And occasionally you might taste colors. Nothing serious."

"Um. You guys are... glowing with smol spooders," I commented, squinting at Vespera and Cinder. "Go into the cold tunnel till you stop."

As the two girls looked at each other and rushed off into the tunnel, I lifted my hand. Patches of glowing mites were crawling all over me. I summoned up my stats.

[Mana: 0/7]

"Guess that answers that," I said. "I'm immune to this dungeon. Hooray."

"Yeah," Io commented, looking at the mites moving on and falling off me. "They seem to be flaking off ya. Guess they don't like humans.”

"Alas, we were not meant to be together," I lamented. "Goodbye 90'538 smol mite GFs. You have sucked me dry, you parasites… and yet I still endure."

"You could have died," Katherine growled.

"A minor inconvenience," I shot back. "Now we know humans can survive here. Just need better armor against arrows. And maybe some anti-squid measures. A tank could probably take out both. Maybe a trench. Actually, no. A hamster wheel. Take their weapons away and put the glow-zombies in a wheel. Free electricity!"

"You nearly died and you're already planning how to weaponize the undead?" Katherine asked.

"Yes," I affirmed. "If I don't, somebody else will."

"Nobody is insane enough to put dungeon Sentinels into giant hamster wheels to generate electricity," Kat let out. "How do you even think of these things?!"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "I have two souls. Maybe the second one is whispering excellent ideas into my head while the first one does the manual breathing and whatever."

"Two souls?" Katherine's emerald eyes narrowed. "What do you mean two souls?"

"Alex and Alexa," I said, sitting up with a wince. "As above, so below. Physical and Astral.”

"Alexa?" She blinked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "You know. The girl from your book. That Alexa. And before you ask if it's a joke, no it's not. I saw her. I saw Alexa in me when I dove into Genesis fluid."

Katherine frowned.

"Kat," I said. "She's real. Your art is showing people another world... the same dead world where Io is pulling all this snack shit from. I'm sure of it now. It's not a coincidence. There's a reason why I found you. I'm… Alexa and Martin. I am one hundred percent certain of it now. I was your best friend… in another place and time.”

Katherine stared at me, her emerald eyes wide and unblinking. For a moment, the only sound was the distant dripping of water in the tunnel and the soft crackling of the hexasuit cores.

"That's impossible," she finally whispered.

"Improbable, perhaps," I corrected. "But not impossible. A Corpseworld Caretaker told me that Alexa crashed some kind of an interdimensional train into our Earth, breaking our reality.”

Katherine's tail lashed back and forth. "You're claiming to be a character from my own unfinished novel? Do you know how absurd you sound?!”

"Is it?" I raised an eyebrow. "I showed you my birth certificate, my passport. Martin Kilborne. But what if that's just another layer? What if I'm something more?"

Io watched our exchange silently, munching on another pocky stick.

"You have two souls?" Katherine repeated.

"That's what this damn bracelet says," I shook the Lazarus bracelet. "Eighty nine for me. Eighty nine for Alexa. One hundred and seventy eight in soul."

Katherine stared at me, her emerald eyes boring into mine with a dangerous intensity that made me want to run away.

"Prove it," she said finally.

"Prove what?" I asked.

"Prove you're Alexa," Katherine's tail lashed against the stone. "Tell me something only she would know... something that I haven't written two years ago when that damned beerch Em posted my draft online to make fun of me."

I closed my eyes, digging through myself.

Not my memories. Not Martin's. But... something else. Something deeper. Something behind me. Below me, like an impossible shadow cast across reality sideways.

Then the world flipped and I knew exactly what to say to her.

"Why'd you stop writing about me, Cottie?" I asked. "You think I would have wanted that? Verse 24:19... I've made you into the Eminence Equality, gave you the highest position in all the land, forced the previous techno-pope to retire. I go away and you just give up? Is that it?"

Katherine went very, very still.

"No one knows that," she whispered. "I never wrote that part down. Never told anyone."

Io's pocky stick fell from his mouth. He tried to catch it but it bounced on the rocks and rolled off the edge of the platform into the glowing dungeon below.

"You're the strongest person I know, Cottie," I said, staring at her emerald, flickering eyes. "You are my Knight. Always and forever. No matter what shape you are. No matter what you look like. No matter if you're dying. I'm not going to give up on you. Ever. Never ever. Not in infinity number of years. No matter what world we stand on. You and I, we're going to win."

Katherine blinked. Then she blinked again.

Sparks of tears came. More tears.

"You can't.... you... I made you up in my head to make myself feel better about my shitty life!" She cried. "How can... how can you be real?!"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "I just am. Everything is a little bit different this time around. You're a cute dragon-cat. What, you're not shocked by the fact that you can shove people into the deep and that Io can literally open gates to Corpseworld dimensions, but when I say that I have two human souls in me that's somehow 'ohh so scary and impossiburrrr'?"

"But..."

"Deal with it," I said, crossing my arms. "Look, I'm sorry it took so long for me to find you… to find myself. Yeah, we lost each other for eighteen years and stuff, but we have each other now. That's what counts. System Wizards for all their bullshit reality-rewriting powers can't stop our friendship."

Katherine stared at me, eyes wide and unblinking.

"Gimme a hug," I ordered.

Tears ran across her blue and black dragonscale cheeks. For a moment, she looked like she might start to argue. Then, unexpectedly, she lunged forward and wrapped her large arms around me, her magisteel-covered armor clinking softly.

"You absolute idiot," she whispered into my shoulder. "You absolute, impossible, crazy idiot."

I hugged her back, feeling her trembling slightly. "It's okay, Cotes." I said. "Everything's gonna be okay."

"How are you real?" She repeated. "I don't understand."

"Partially human stubbornness," I grinned. "Partially interdimensional shenanigans. Mostly spite. Work with me, yeah? I know I'm weird. We all are. Weird in all the right ways... That's what makes us different. Special. Cool. Insert complement here, I'm tired and there's a hole in my chest."

"Insert complement?" She smirked. "Who even says that?"

"I do," I said.

She smacked me on the head.

"Ow," I whined. "I already got an arrow through the chest, why would you injure me further, art-nemesis bestie?"

"I wrote you as a smart character," she growled. "Not a suicidal lunatic."

"Technically," I pointed out, "I didn't do anything suicidal this time. Vee kidnapped me and flew off with me 'cus I made her smile. Totally different scenario. You know… if you gave me some of your scales, I could have maybe sunk into the deep and avoided that arrow. Come on, sensei, teach me Umbramancy. Pretty please with a sugar on top?"

She squinted at me.

"I'm a perfect student," I marketed myself. "Eager to learn. Willing to practice. Totally responsible."

Katherine burst out laughing. A full-bodied, slightly manic sound that echoed into the tunnel behind me.

"You? Responsible?" She wiped a tear from her eye. "We haven't even made it to register at the Adventurers Guild!"

"I bought an Adventurers Guild!" I protested. "That's like one thousand times more responsibility!"

"You bought a criminal organization with stolen Genesis fluid and framed Emerald for it," Io pointed out from beside us.

"It's going to be a highly respectable institution in a decade or two," I said. "Just you wait! I'm dispensing responsibilities across my acquired mooks, turning them into magnates of industry!"

Katherine snorted. "You're turning criminals into business leaders?"

"Why not?" I grinned. "That's basically what most corpo CEOs are anyway. At least my criminals are honest about being criminals. Besides, think about it - we've got a whole underground network ready to help build our dream city. Your dream city. Katsburg! It's what the people voted for!"

"We are NOT calling it that," she growled, but I could see her trying to hide a smile. "What fucking people? I don't recall voting for any city names."

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Imaginary people in my head. Katlantis came close too, but that's more like a great idea for our future Nation-State name, not a city. How about... The Dark Citadel of Cottie the Magnificent?" I teased as I grabbed her hand. "Or maybe Emeraldville, since technically she owns it? Eh, eh? Come on, fair dragon-cat maiden. Our tower and two frosty, winged princesses await!"

"Whatever," Katherine started to walk into the tunnel.

"Actually," I looked at the fields of bloom below. "Umm. You guys go ahead. I'm going to sit here for another hour or two. Watch the wildlife. Write ideas down for where to build a lodge."

"Are you... you aren't going to do anything stupid... right?" Kat asked.

"Nah. One arrow through the chest was enough for me. Just going to sit on the ledge and relax," I said. "Go back to the Guild with the others. Ain't nothing gonna hurt me up here. I'll Voicecast Shash and make sure he's nearby and won't let anyone else into this tunnel. I almost died just now because of Ci and Vee. I'd like to just... be alone for a bit please. Leave me Lance's bag. I'm going to go over the stuff in it with Yulia, see what I have to return in five days."

"Fine," Kat let out. She pulled the bag off her shoulder and put it down next to me. "Let's go, Io."

The Mothman gave me a quizzical look of dark gray eyes from under his wide-rimmed hat, but didn't say anything. I was certain he sensed it.

The intent. My desires. My dastardly plans.

Io didn't say anything. He wanted an apocalyptic end to everything. He would get it.

Io and I nodded ever so sightly at each other like two bros who knew the symphony of the doomsday-filled future that I was about to conduct.

Io and Kat vanished in the tunnel.

I waited until their footsteps grew silent and rushed to the rope ladder leading down to the shimmering grasses below.

I felt a bit bad about tricking Kat, but it was for a worthy cause. If she knew of my insane plan she would most likely try to stop me.

This was just backup. I assured myself. Just a bit of a precaution.

In case things went... horribly wrong.

Which they usually did. My numb, silver-spotted chest was evidence of this fact.