“Who are you to command me?” asked Merryway.

“I am Watchful. I am the last survivor of the team that created the Benevolent Heart and Sapient Brain. With them, we performed the first Scissions. We made perfect humans, and, with them, the malforms.”

“Don’t trust him!” whispered Thyssa.

Merryway sounded nauseous. “You…you stole the waters’ power for yourself. You let countless people die of disease, of malform attacks, of despair…all so you could be perfect.”

“We saw a fountain that gave health, and we thought to concentrate that power in the stones.”

Merryway scoffed. “Steal it, you mean.”

“Yes. We stole its holy power, and told ourselves it was for the greater good. Why settle for curing disease when we could cure madness, hatred, even death itself? In our blasphemy, we reached for perfection, and we lost what made us human. And what we lost came to life.”

Merryway burned with indignant rage. “Every death. Every mourning. Every ‘they’ll come back someday.’ Generations of tears and blood, all on your hands.”

“Yes. I have kept myself alive all these aching years, just to fix my mistake. And prevent anyone else from making the same mistakes.”

“Run,” whispered Thyssa. “I can distract him, but you have to run.”

Merryway paused, considering Thyssa’s words. “If you truly want to fix your mistake, help me restore the Goddess Fountain.”

“You mustn’t!”

“So that story about fixing your mistakes was rubbish.”

“Both water and stone are tainted incurably. As long as that power remains, so too will the malforms. The stones must be shattered! Return tainted stone to tainted fountain, and nothing can repair the Scissions and unmake the malforms. People will remain split, scattered, fighting their own shadows.”

“I need it to save my mother.”

“What poisoned her? It was a malform, was it not?”

Merryway’s grim silence agreed.

“The threat must be dealt with at its root. You can save her, or you can save everyone!”

“You are wrong,” said Thyssa, breathing heavily. “Malforms aren’t just mindless monsters. We’re human too. And we can live in harmony.”

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Merryway’s eyes widened. “You’re…a malform?”

“It speaks the truth,” said Watchful. “It has been using the Benevolent Heart to look human.”

“But if she has the Fountain’s power, how could she be poisoned?”

“I only have half of it – the other half is his. And he used the most powerful venom there is.”

“He…” Merryway turned to Watchful. “You tried to kill her.”

“To take the Benevolent Heart. Had it died then, as it rightfully should have, I could have ended the malform plague then and there.”

“You know what we’re like,” said Thyssa. “Even if we were made by evil means…we’re our own people now. He’d take that all away, reduce us to nothing more than unwanted flaws.”

Watchful drew his sword. “I would make people whole!”

Merryway stepped in front of Thyssa and drew their sword. “You would shatter not only my people’s health, but their peace. You would make butchers of us, and I will have no part in it.”

Thyssa drew her own blade, the mirror shard. “You…stand by my side?”

Merryway smiled back at her. “I am confident we can work together to find a solution. For now…neither of us wants the stones destroyed.”

Thyssa nodded. “So we kill this guy.”

Merryway pointed their sword at Watchful. “If he doesn’t stand down.”

“So be it,” said Watchful. His ticking sped up, and he charged forward.

“Take off his head!” yelled Thyssa. “That body’s just clockwork!”

Merryway nodded. “On it!”

Watchful swung at Thyssa, and Merryway blocked it. He swung at Merryway, and Thyssa blocked it.

“You can’t beat us together,” said Thyssa.

“Why do you help this monster?” asked Watchful, lunging at Thyssa.

“Because the way you talk about her people sounds familiar,” said Merryway. “Like they once talked about my people.”

Watchful spun around and hacked at Merryway with righteous fury. “You claim to love your people, and you would scourge them with malforms!”

Merryway parried his blows, one by one. “You took the Goddess’ blessing from us. I won’t let you take my love as well!”

“A malform knows nothing of love,” spat Watchful. He tripped Merryway with a sharp kick. He swung down on Merryway, but Thyssa blocked it.

“If my kind doesn’t know love,” said Thyssa, “it’s because people like you keep us from it!”

Watchful drew back his sword, but Merryway had already rolled to the side and sprang back up.

“You cannot defeat me,” said Watchful. “The Sapient Brain sees all of your clumsy moves and tells me just how to match them.”

“Does it tell you how you’ll die?” asked Thyssa, her blood afire, her blade everywhere at once.

“A machine does not die. It only serves its relentless purpose.”

Thyssa and Watchful both went for the kill at once, but in a flash, Merryway was behind him. With all their might, they swung their sword, and beheaded him. The birdlike mask fell to the temple floor.

Watchful’s clockwork body collapsed. But it was a trick. With unnatural grace and speed, the body spun around and slashed them across the chest. Merryway fell, bleeding out like a river.

Separating the body from the head wasn’t enough. She had to separate the head from its power source.

Thyssa grabbed the head, and the body chased as she ran. She pulled and pulled, trying to tear out the Sapient Brain. It wouldn’t budge! The body cornered her, sword raised. With all her might, she gave the stone one last pull, aided by a sharp kick.

The mask clattered to the ground, and the Sapient Brain was there, in her hand. No longer connected to its power source, Watchful’s machine body fell limp.

Thyssa rushed to Merryway’s side. She held the Benevolent Heart and Sapient Brain to Merryway’s chest. They were breathing – just barely – but they didn’t move.

“Don’t die,” said Thyssa.

“More blood on your hands,” came a cold voice. Thyssa’s heart sank.

“Lili.”

“And guests,” said Lili. Over a dozen Stormwatch rushed into the Fountain chamber, encircling the room with pointed spears.