A/N: Hello everyone! I am so so so so so so so so so so so so hungry. Unfortunately I have the 'I hate eating' autism, and it's been really acting up lately. Hence in part why I am so hungry. I'm going to go force myself to eat something. Enjoy the chapter!

Minerva! Minerva. You're back you're back you're back.

Yeah! Uh, hi! I guess. Sorry, I'm a little disoriented, I thought I was just you. Again? Yeah.

You died!

Yeah, I… I remember that, we still have all the same memories.

What do we do?

Huh?

What do we DO? I can't figure out anything on my own. I don't know what I'm doing. I need your help.

Just… just give me a second, okay? I need a moment.

Okay. Sorry. I'm so glad you're back.

Yeah… uh. Yeah. Good to be back. 

This feels off. What was I doing? I spread my senses out through the miasma-filled waters, my awareness brushing over the massive kaiju slumbering next to me. The beast offers no comfort or explanation for what just happened to me. I just know it won't attack, somehow, and indeed it doesn't. Even when I swim down in front of its giant eye, letting it stare at me until it knows me inside and out, it does not move. It regards me as a friend and ally. Is it right to feel that way?

Fulgora… broke, after Minerva's—after my death. She wallowed in loss, barely even tried to escape the fragment she was trapped in, and now our body is… this. Adapted for water over land, more able to see in the darkest depths than in the sun. Why does it not feel wrong to me the way it does to her?

I flex and stretch our fingers, feeling the way the webbing pulls on them. I kick our tiny vestigial legs, delighting in the way they cut swiftly through the water. They're not totally useless; far from it, really. I could probably grab something with them, if it were the right size, or cut something open if I held it close enough. And my tail? Well, it might make it hard to move on land, I'll grant that, but here in the water I'm faster and stronger than ever before. Every part of me is stronger. This is more power than we've ever had before, emboldened as we are by the transformative properties of the Dark World. Here, we are being changed into something more. Something with a purpose. 

What purpose? I need to know. Please, just tell me what to do.

Well… it's to stop the Preservers, isn't it?

Stop them from doing what?

I dunno! But why else would we be given all this power by the Dark World? We're supposed to help it, probably. Help it heal, like Melpomene said! Probably.

Probably?

Look, I don't know anything that you don't know. We're the same person, remember? And while I'm not gonna claim that Melpomene has all her screws perfectly tightened, almost everyone we knew was starting to think Luna was onto something regarding how suspicious the Preservers were. I mean, you saw Chloe's face after that video of the Antipathy apocalypse bunker or whatever it was.

Yeah… I guess that's true.

Waving goodbye to the giant monster, I start swimming again, mostly for the enjoyment of it. That all… makes sense, right? I'm admittedly flying by the seat of my pants a little here. Something feels wrong about all of this, but I guess if nothing else, Fulgora is right in that she needs someone to kinda… get us functional again. If she's putting that job in my lap, I'll just have to rise to the occasion. Because, uh. Well, I don't really have a lot of choice. I'm pretty sure she was going to end up killing us at the rate we were going.

Ooooh. God, that's scary. That's really scary! Okay, well, at least we're feeling fear again! That's nice. That's good! Healthy even. I… used to use fear all the time. Because I'm Minerva.

You're Minerva!

Yyyyyyep! Who else would I be? Process of elimination and all that. The alternative is that we went even more crazy and ended up with someone new and that would just be silly. Probably not what's going on here. I'm just nice and alive again. God, why am I so worried about this?

Chloe would probably say it's from trauma or something.

Yeah… yeah, that's probably right one way or another.

So now what?

Hmm?

Now what? What should we do now?

Oh, uh. I dunno. Wanna swim some more?

…Sure.

Yeah! Let's do it! 

With a powerful kick of my tail, we rush deeper down, circling one of the kaiju's limbs as we pass it and head for the bottom. Or… what I thought would be the bottom. But before I know it, we've passed the kaiju's floating legs, the creature contentedly buoyant in the middle of the lake. Down further, we descend. Down through the waters thick with hate and regret. The emotion might have been alarming, once, but after eight months in the Dark World choking on it, it has become more like an old friend. The hate of the Antipathy isn't a threat; it's simply a fact. A reality created by the source of that unquenchable hate. I can almost hear the lost souls whispering: make them pay, make them pay, make them pay.

Yet at the same time, if I've truly come back from the dead, if my soul has healed of its most grievous wound, what could the source of that healing be, if not for the Dark World? It certainly wasn't Fulgora herself, leaking our emotions out like a cracked bucket everywhere we went. Perhaps it was her overwhelming despair that made the Dark World choose us, though. Perhaps it saw someone that it knew could understand the sort of agony a species like the Antipathy must have been going through to do what they did.

Why am I thinking so much about this? Is the Dark World putting these thoughts in my head, or am I just putting together the pieces of information we already have to their logical conclusions? It would be crazy to think we're not at least a little crazy. Nanaya even warned us that having a different body would mean that there are as many mental changes as there are physical ones. Is that all this is?

Who am I, really?

You're Minerva.

Right. Yeah. Of course. But what if I'm like… infected Minerva. Or something. I dunno, something feels off.

Who cares? Something is always wrong. We're nothing BUT wrong. But you're back now, and that's what matters.

I'm flattered! But also very concerned. Then again, I suppose nearly any conversation one has with the voices inside their own head while deep underwater in a black void of possibly sentient hatred is probably cause for concern. Oh, hey, we found the bottom! Or… well, the closest this place has to a bottom, I guess.

Instead of a bottom of sand and silt, the lake simply ends at the void between worlds, the fragment only going so deep. I'm kind of surprised the void holds all this water up at all, honestly. I would have assumed it would… fall in. I swim down close, reaching out my arm to poke at it.

Anath told us not to do that.

Yeah, but what does Anath know?

True and valid.

I press my fingers against the edge of the world, feeling the subtle pressure. The force of the storm creates a membrane of sorts, one that can accept or reject any offering it desires. Or… no. Maybe it's more that the edge of the fragment is like the wall of a cell, able to keep out whatever parts of the storm it wants and pull in whatever parts it needs. Or maybe I'm assigning way too much agency to something far too broken to have any. Who knows!

Regardless, storms and I have long since had a common understanding. It may rage far more fiercely than any hurricane, but I've fought worse than hurricanes before. I could have made worse, if I had… lived long enough. I suppose now we'll have that chance.

For now, though… we've had our fun in the calm waters. How about a real swim?

Hell yes. Let's go!

I'm not even sure why we're getting so excited about this, but who cares? I press harder on the membrane, forcing my hand through… and almost immediately, the storm yanks us the rest of the way in, magic screaming and clawing at our body. Crystal starts to grow faster than it ever has before, starting to encase us again, swallow us up, dig inside of us and peel us apart… but I'm not having it. With a pulse of power, we exert our dominance over the storm, making an eye of calm in the screaming void.

In just those few seconds, though, we've been dragged far away from where we entered. The currents here are ravenous, and the power contained here is scratching at the walls of our control. We've got a lot of new crystal growths already, too. It would have been bad if we'd not had experience pushing away Dark World miasma. This is mostly just that, but dramatically more dangerous.

You think some of the new crystals are in your color?

Oh! Uh. I don't know. Do you think I'm, er, still yellow-green? Hard to stay a pride mage after dying, haha. 

I guess that sort of experience seems class change worthy, yeah. That sucks, though. You hardly got to be your new class at all before I screwed everything up and got you killed.

I'm sure my new class will be just as good! Don't worry! …Please.

No, you're right. Things are gonna be okay now. Minerva's back and things are going to be okay…

Ahahaha um yeah for sure, so anyway, on the note of things being okay, we should probably try and figure out where the heck we are and how to leave. We did not think this through! Any idea which way we got sent from? 

No. None whatsoever.

Well. Shit. U-uh, I mean, shoot.

Heh. You never did like to swear.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. Let's… just focus. If we don't know where we are, can we at least figure out where we should go?

How?

That's… unfortunately a valid question. A very valid question. The storm around us is pure chaos, raw emotion completely unbound by direction or will. I reach out my senses as far as I can stretch them, and I feel nothing but that endless roar. There's no way to know anything about where we are or where we were. At least, nothing comes to mind.

I feel like this might be why Melpomene was making those tunnels instead of just jumping in here like an idiot.

Yeeeeeah maybe. Probably. Almost certainly. It's kinda neat here, but we should probably figure out a way to leave before we die.

Well, you know what Jim would say in a situation like this.

'If you don't know where to start, start anywhere.' Yeah, alright. We'll just pick a random direction and swim as straight as we can, as fast as we can.

Both of those things are going to be difficult.

Well, if you have any better ideas they're extremely welcome!

…I do not.

Me neither! So… more swimming time! Kicking as hard as I can, I focus on enjoying the exercise rather than the creeping terror of potentially never making it out of here and accidentally consigning us to death on a whim. Come to think of it, this is actually our real body, so exercising in it will like… genuinely do stuff. I wasn't even considering that, given all this magic we've been casting.

Yeah. Huh. I guess it's way easier to cast outside of incarnate form now. I wonder if it's the crystals, or something. 

Maybe. Just another perk of being a fish, I guess. As much as I say it's neat that this exercise will matter, we're already in pretty incredible shape. I wonder what sort of magic is doing this to us? Is it the kind of magic that someone could learn to use? It's obviously possible to do, but is it feasible? How much power does it take? How much focus and control? Was this a super-complicated spell, or has this all just been raw, unguided will? And if the latter… the will of what?

It seems… weirdly impossible. This kind of magic seems too vast, too complicated, and too comprehensive to be the result of just one mind. Yet at the same time, it feels too specific, too directed, and too purposeful to be several. The random chaos of the Dark World has the power, certainly, but there's no way it has the focus, assuming it's even capable of thinking at all. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Probably that.

Wait… do you feel that?

Oh gosh! Yes, I do! Over there!

There's an edge to the storm, another cell of the Dark World floating in the chaos. We immediately turn and rush toward it, for as fun as swimming in the abyss has been, it is perhaps a little bit like flying right toward the sun. As we approach, however, we find ourselves also coming into range of a far larger mass, a complicated, mind-bending weave of unfathomable size. Just trying to feel out its shape is enough to give us a headache, its twists and bends seemingly impossible, following logic we cannot understand. But this massive, unfathomable organism is not without weakness, for countless little parasites attach to its edges and suckle on its blood.

Is that… Earth?

It… it might be? The closer we get to it, the more I can feel how much it feels, or perhaps more accurately, how many people inside of it are producing a steady stream of emotion and magic. As we start to get close, though, the headache of trying to understand what exactly it is we're looking at just keeps getting worse. 

We might be able to breach into Earth directly, but if we're understanding this right, then this Dark World fragment should be converging, or close to it.

Yeah. We can head inside the fragment, use the fragment to get to Earth, and then figure out how the hell to get back to Fort Collins. I mean heck.

Sounds like a plan.

We swim into the Dark World fragment, pressing our hands against it and kicking as hard as we can, trying to force our way in. It's hard at first, but the more magic we pour into it the more easily the Dark World fragment accepts us, eventually sucking us inside of its own accord. We're dropped unceremoniously on the edge of the world on what appears to be a mostly barren plateau, with no sign of a portal in our sensory range.

We didn't think this through at all.

Yeah I'm starting to suspect that's not our strong suit. Now what do we do?

Crawl?

Well. We don't really have any other options, do we?

Nah. We could also give up.

We don't have any better options, I mean. Onward!

Crawling across the ground sucks. I thought it might not be entirely bad, since our upper body strength should be more than up to the task, but even if it's not physically difficult, it's still slow, uncomfortable, demeaning, and generally stressful. As much as I was enjoying kicking what's left of our little legs around, they're only marginally useful for helping us crawl, as they have absolutely awful traction on this stone surface. 

Do we even know what direction we're going?

Mmmmaybe? I mean, the Dark World is slurping up magic from Earth or something, right? So presumably we should be going in whatever direction feels like it has the most magic coming from it. Basically, we want to go toward whatever the mists are blowing away from. Probably.

I guess that makes more sense than anything else we could try.

Yeah, that's the spirit! So… away we drag! Wow this still sucks. I wish there was some faster way to… oh, shoot. 

What?

There's a convergence, so… that means monsters. You feel those?

Woah. That's a lot of monsters.

Maybe we can ask one for help!

Uh, what?

Well, Melpomene did it. We probably can too! Helloooo out there! Any friendly monsters willing to lend a claw?

Monsters kind of aren't friendly by definition. Well, at least not to people. And I guess we don't qualify anymore, do we? There, that one, you feel it? The big mantis thing? Probably strong enough to carry us.

Good idea, Fulgora!

Uh, thanks?

We reach out through the mists, trying to do… something. I dunno what. Some giant monster bug equivalent of 'here, kitty kitty!' But also like, something that works, unlike any time we've ever done that to a cat. This is a bad analogy. Metaphor? I don't remember the difference. I'm not doing a good job, is what I'm saying.

With Melpomene, they just liked her instinctively. I don't know if she was really doing much of anything.

Well if they don't like us, we'll just have to make them like us. They're dumb monsters; they can't be that hard to please. They tend to just rush toward sources of magic and try to like, beat up and eat them, right? We're a source of magic. Why don't they try to kill us?

Maybe because we feel Dark Worldy? Dark-World-ish? We smell like home.

What makes our magic feel that way, I wonder… hmm. Maybe if we just gather a bunch of it in one place and see what happens, we can figure something out.

What, just like raw magic? Not even trying to do anything with it?

Yeah, exactly. Should be easy enough. Magic power of 'make magic do nothing.' Very simple.

As soon as I start trying it, I realize it's not simple. Magic, after all, comes from emotion and will. It is, intrinsically, an energy that does something. That wants to do something. Nothingness is not in its nature. I wrestle with the power, but if I simply try to let it go, it vanishes into the mist. I don't know how to shape it without wanting it to become something. It wants to be a change, a creation, a strength. It doesn't want to be nothing.

Let me try. I think I see a pretty obvious loophole here. I want to be nothing. I crave nothingness. We'd be better off if it were just you in here, Minerva.

F-Fulgora? Wait, hold on, that's not true!

You're always so kind to me, but we both know I'm just holding you back. At the very least, though, I should be able to help here. Nothingness. Void. Darkness. A complete absence of will or desire. Let's see what shape magic takes when we do this. 

Our first attempt is a resounding failure. Fulgora's desire for oblivion only manifests as dangerous energy that lashes out back at us, a crackling ball of teal lightning that seeks the path of least resistance toward our heart. I almost demand that she stop just because of that, but she tries again, and this time we get something… else. 

The energy is still teal, but it's… calm. A floating orb of power, as a broken statue. The air glows with strength, but that strength is empty. Hollow. Directionless. Waiting for some other desire to come and fill it. And in response, nearly the entire fragment reacts at once.

The monsters we felt… they were all rushing toward the open portal to swarm out into the liminal zone. But now, the ones remaining in this fragment have changed course. Now, they rush toward us, or more accurately, this fragile sphere of power Fulgora carefully maintains. I'm… not sure if this is a good thing or not, honestly, but hey! It's kind of working!

Even as the swarm of monsters bears down on us, I don't feel particularly worried. It's not us they're coming for. This kind of power feels somewhat familiar, now that I think about it. It reminds me of an LCI. Remember those, Fulgora? Wait, dumb question.

Yeah, those things were crazy. Raw, concentrated power, completely directionless. It was really easy to take those emotions and use them for our spells.

Is this what the Dark World needs to replenish itself? No, that can't be it. It's taking emotions from Earth, from human feelings and all the chaotic needs and wants that entails. But the monsters yearn for whatever this is, and they come to us. Surrounding us. Begging us. It's something that they need.

Well. May as well give it to the big one, then. Go ahead, Fulgy!

Oh my god, don't you start calling me that, too. 

Hehe. Fulgora does as I ask in spite of my teasing, pushing the power toward and ultimately into the big mantis monster near the middle of the crowd of smaller hounds and birds. The energy seems to vanish from our awareness, and all at once the rest of the swarm loses interest. They start rushing back to the portal, and the mantis stays. I think this is wooooorkiiiiiing!

"Hey big guy!" I greet him, reaching out with one arm as I prop myself up with the other. "A little help up, please?"

The monster regards me curiously. My smile wavers.

I don't think it speaks English, Minerva.

Oh. Right. That would make sense.

"Uppies!" I try.

While technically not English, I don't think that's really solving the issue. What if we give it more magic, but like, directed?

Ohhh. Yeah, I can do that. I mean, wanting to get a ride is the whole reason we did all of this, so I'm full of that. While my little ball of orange magic doesn't make the rest of the monsters go crazy like Fulgora's did, the mantis still accepts the gift. Once the energy vanishes, it kneels down, allowing us to crawl up onto its back and wrap our arms underneath its armpits. 

"Onward, noble steed!" I declare, which of course doesn't do anything by itself, but I can also give a little bit more orange magic with my desire to go to a certain place and the monster seems to figure it out. 

We're headed for the breach! Time to get back to Earth, or at least the liminal space and then Earth. The monster happily bounds forward to obey, rushing to the portal alongside its brothers and sisters. When it leaps through the portal, breaching out of the Dark World, it feels like coming up for air for the first time in ages… which, as a fish, I can't say I find pleasant.

Once again, we're immediately, completely blind. With the miasma no longer surrounding us, there's nothing for our weird miasma sense to lock onto. Instead, though, our emotion sense goes wild. There's so much more of it out here, even just in the liminal zone! No wonder all the poor monsties are so hungry.

And speaking of meals… wow. Were Earth Guardians always this… vibrant? They stand out like stars in the night, beacons of concentrated emotion. Is this what incarnate forms feel like to us now? I guess this is the first time we've felt one other than our own ever since we became like this. That's… wild.

I can feel where the monsters around me are, too, though a lot less clearly. Monsters, to my emotional sense, are relatively small and chaotic. They don't truly have much in the way of comprehensible feelings; they're just a concentration of the same emotional chaos that the mists tend to feel like. The point is, though, I can feel them. I can feel them dying in droves. I can also hear what sounds like a really big gun shooting really, really fast. It's kind of familiar, honestly.

"Hey, the portal!" a girl's voice shouts. "What the hell is that?"

"What's what?"  another voice responds. I know these voices! "Wait… the heck!?" 

The two concentrations of emotion I feel aren't familiar to me, so I was thrown off at first. Not only are my emotion senses a little different now, but the feeling of a purple mage really threw me off. Those are rare as hell, and I'm certain Celaeno wasn't one the last time we met. The other emotion source makes it obvious, though. Aello, an orange mage!

I'm in Loveland! It's a town just south of Fort Collins and about half the size. Oh, thank goodness, I was afraid we'd end up on another continent or something, but this is super close by. We should be able to make it back to the castle without much trouble.

We could see Jim…

Yeah, that's also true. Is that… a good idea?

No. It's not.

Yeah. It would be nice, but… no. We can't. Not like this.

"What kind of monster is that?" Aello asks.

"It's strong. Way too strong," Celaeno says.

"You scared?" Aello taunts.

"Oh, shut up!"

Ah, these two. It's been a while since we've seen them. They're about three years younger than us, and for the entirety of their lives I don't think they've ever stopped bickering. I don't care all that much about them, though, at least not right now. They're winning against the monsters, and while that's a little sad, I get that it's necessary. Besides, in the midst of the fight it should be easy enough to just slip past and head to Fort Collins.

How are we going to get there?

Hmm? On monsterback, of course.

Putting aside how crazy that is, again, how? How will we know what direction to go?

Uh… good question! I'm sure we'll figure it out. Maybe we can ask for help?

While riding a monster? While BEING a monster?

We'll figure it out.

Alright, if you say so.

I direct the monster we're riding on to try and stealthily slip behind a building or something, but while I can tell it tries, it doesn't seem to be doing a very good job. 

"What!? It's getting away!"

"I got it, I got it!"

Last I saw Aello and Celaeno, their incarnate weapons were as aggressive as they are. Aello uses a giant hammer, and Celaeno uses an enormous chaingun. Unlike most teams, they don't have any balance between offense and defense: both of them are all offense, all the time. They used to have a supporting teammate, but she is… dead. She died in a joint operation several years back in Fort Collins, actually. They've never liked us since.

Though for once, that was a death that DEFINITELY wasn't my fault. Unless it… hmm.

No, Fulgora, that absolutely wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It's just one of those deaths that happens because a warrior isn't paying enough attention at the wrong moment.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. We weren't even anywhere near…

"Fɪʀᴇᴡᴏʀᴋ Cᴀʀɴɪᴠᴀʟ!"

An explosion nearly knocks us off our ride, the monster hissing in anger as a gatling barrage of explosive shots detonates everything around us. 

"Sᴛᴏʀᴍ Sʜɪᴇʟᴅ!" I counter, absorbing the rest of the volley. "Hey! That's not very nice!"

Pfft. Yeah, you tell 'em, Minerva.

"Wh—huh!? You can talk!?" Celaeno asks. "Oh, wait, shit! You're one of those monster freaks with the human kaiju!"

"Human kaiju?" I ask.

"She means Melpomene," Aello clarifies. "Because her incarnate form is a terrifying, giant monster."

"Oh, yeah," I agree. "I guess I do follow her, more or less."

"Is this your doing, then!?" Celaeno demands. 

"Huh?" I ask. "You mean the swarm? Heck no! I just got lost in the Dark World and wandered out over here. Why, do you need help?" 

This conversation is kind of surreal. I can hear the sounds of them fighting and feel the deaths of the monsters around us, so it's clear the swarm is still going on. But I can't see it. I don't really have any idea how it's going or who's winning or anything like that.

"No, we don't need help!" Celaeno snaps. Gosh, she's so high-strung. She's got one of those reedy voices that sounds like it's always just almost on the verge of cracking.

"Quit running, though!" Aello says. "Stay here!"

Aello's got a bit more heft to her voice, though it's still somewhat… mmm, not sure how to describe it. Girlish? There's a lot of energy behind it, but it's much more relaxed than her partner. There's a bit of a teasing tone to much of what she says, too.

"Why would I do that?" I ask honestly. "If you've got it handled, great. It's not my job anymore!"

"Well that's sort of the problem, isn't it?" Aello says.

"That depends," I say. "Are you going to make it a problem?"

"You know, I think I will! You've got the entire rest of the swarm, right Celaeno?"

"What!? No! Get back here!" Celaeno snaps.

"Thanks, sweetie! Looooove you!"

"Shut up, you fucking slut!" Celaeno shouts, purple magic blooming around her. "God damnit, you always do this! Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Lᴇᴀᴅ Tᴏʀɴᴀᴅᴏ!"

The roar of Celaeno's gun wipes out a huge chunk of the remaining wave, and at the same time Aello's orange magic signature rushes my way at high speed.

"Let's dance, mermaid!" she shouts. "Stand down or get pounded down!"

"Are you sure you want to offer poundings when your girlfriend is right over there?" I ask.

Wh-what!? Minerva! Oh my god!

"Oh, that just makes it even better," Aello says, and I can hear her grin.

"I am NOT! Her fucking! Girlfriend!" Celaeno roars, wiping out yet more of the monsters.

"See?" Aello says.

"Well no," I say. "I'm blind."

"Oh," she says, the wind knocked from her sails a bit. "Really?"

"Yeah. You wouldn't beat up a blind girl, would you?"

"Well, I guess that depends," Aello hums. "Is the blind girl going to take a monster to Earth? Because like. I obviously can't allow that."

"He's just my ride!" I pout.  "He'll behave! I don't have legs either, you know."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Bah!" I huff. "Show-off."

"Th-that's not what I meant," she says. "Look, I don't really know your situation, but I think you need help. Come with me back to HQ, and we'll work out a way to get you home, okay?"

"Ha!" I laugh. "No."

"Why not?"

Because we're freaks, and the Preservers will never accept us.

Because the Preservers can't be trusted in the first place.

Because we don't deserve to be helped.

Because we have all the help we need already.

Because if I go back I'll just end up hurting them.

Because everyone there will want to hurt us for what we are.

But most importantly of all…

"Because I said no," I tell her. "And if you try to stop me, I'll kick your butt, Aello."

"You don't have legs," she says.

"I sort of have legs," I protest, wiggling my sort-of legs.

"Yeah, well I'm afraid… wait. How do you know my name?" 

Oh. Uh. Well, I guess it makes sense she doesn't recognize us.

Let's keep it that way.

"Your… definitely-not-girlfriend said it?" I try.

"Nah. She never says my name," Aello shuts me down.

Now what?

Don't worry, I got this!

"Huh. Weird. Well, bye," I say, directing my ride away from her.

"Hey, wait—!"

She lunges for me. I can feel it, both the sudden forward lurch of her emotional signal and also her intention. My shield is still active, though it has diffused into the air. A simple desire is all it takes to reform it between the two of us, shoving Aello back with a burst of wind and rain.

"Back off," I snap. "I'm not warning you again. I'm going home, and you can't stop me."

"Hey, do you need any help?" Celaeno asks, flying toward us.

"…I might," Aello admits. "She's not a monster, but she's not very cooperative."

"Are you stupid? Of course she's not cooperative," Celaeno says. "She's so corrupted she barely even has any human parts left. She's not even wearing clothes."

Oh my god I totally forgot we aren't wearing clothes.

Uh. Whoops. Me too!

"In my defense, I've had a bit of a weird day," I hedge. "And hey! Don't be mean! I'm plenty cooperative with requests that aren't stupid."

"Yeah? Cooperate with this," she says. "Gʀᴀɴᴅ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴᴀᴅᴇ!"

"Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Dᴇʟᴜɢᴇ!" I counter on instinct, summoning up a huge amount of magical pseudo-water and launching it like a cannon shot of my own. It would seem that my attack beat hers, because I hear her cry out in pain and feel her signature get launched away.

"Celaeno!" Aello calls out, "Alright, that's it! Gᴀʟᴇ Cʀᴜsʜᴇʀ!"

Pfft. You think you can crush a storm that easily? I don't even bother with a spell, I just summon up a shitton—er, a crapton of wind and knock her flat.

"Let's go, buddy!" I call out, mentally spurring my ride into a sprint.

Yeah, that's the Minerva I remember. You're so strong!

Uh, I try! Haha. A-anyway, we probably need a real escape plan. I don't want to hurt these girls, but they're not going to leave me alone no matter what I say, are they?

Oh my god.

What? Oh. Oh. 

…Now we know how Luna felt.

Okay, do we, though? Because I still find it hard to believe she was a freaking robot the whole time. That's crazy! I know Melpomene said it was true, but seriously, what? Besides, if that was her, she didn't even try to talk to us.

Didn't try to fight us, either. Most of the time.

That's… true, but still! It's weird. Something's not adding up. We know human Luna actually liked us, at least for the most part. You can't fake emotions like that.

Maybe robots can.

Oh. Oh geez. I hope not…

"We're not done with you yet!" Aello shouts. "Bᴏᴏsᴛ Hᴀᴍᴍᴇʀ!"

"Fɪʀᴇᴡᴏʀᴋ Cᴀʀɴɪᴠᴀʟ!"

Aello rushes towards us as Celaeno fires ahead of us. Sandwiched between a rock and a hard place, and I just want to get away. But how can I do that without hurting them?

Just trap them. You know, like you did in the fight on campus.

But that… well, fine. Fine! You know what!? If I'm Minerva, I can do it, right!?

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Cʏᴄʟᴏɴɪᴄ Dɪᴠɪᴅᴇʀ!" I incant, and to my mild surprise it actually works, Fulgora and I both pouring our magic into creating a wall of tornadoes between us and our pursuers. They roar to life, the wind howling as our ride rushes us away. Hopefully, if we're lucky, we'll be well out of emotion-sensing range by the time they break through. 

Sure enough, through either speed, strength, or luck—

And let's be real, we don't have any luck.

—we make it out without getting harassed any further. The long, leaping bounds of my mantis make good time, and soon enough, we breach the liminal zone and make it to Earth. If the liminal zone was like coming up for air, Earth is like stepping into the sun for the first time in months. 

…No, wait, it's exactly like that, it's literally that. But it's also metaphorically like that, in the way that the sheer overwhelming breadth of emotion in every single direction sends tingles up my body in the same way a warm sunbeam soothes you on a chilly day. And the sun itself! I was half expecting to find it unpleasant, but no. The warmth is welcome, so very welcome.

God, it's so welcome. I… I'm tearing up a bit. We're on Earth again. We're actually on Earth again.

Fantastic. So now where do we go?

Towards the highest concentration of emotions, I guess. We need someone to give us directions, and I doubt we could convince anything that isn't human to give us a worthwhile answer. 

You're sure the monster isn't going to attack anyone, right?

It's fiiine. They only attack because they're hungry. He'll behave. And if he doesn't, we can rip his head off and find some other way to get around. Don't worry about it.

If you say so.

We head… well, away from the liminal space mostly, and presumably towards town. I have absolutely no way to know where exactly we are or what's around us. Each second, for all I know, we might be about to smash head-first into a wall. We might be about to jump off a cliff. We might even not be in a town at all! But eventually, finally, we get some confirmation of progress.

There's a sharp uptick of fear in front of us. It would seem that we've been spotted. A scream confirms it, and several more screams follow it. Well, well.

"I just need one, buddy," I say, patting my mantis and feeding him power. "Don't hurt them."

My ride leaps forwards, and in an instant, we have one. Humans are no match for monsters. Never have been, never will be. That's what makes us monsters. 

"Hi," I say, not a hundred percent certain what my mantis has done to pin the person beneath us down, but hopefully they're not in too much pain. "I'm trying to get to Fort Collins. Can you help me?"

I don't get an answer for a little while, just sounds of hyperventilating. Poor thing is scared half to death.

"Take your time," I encourage them. "Sorry. I promise I'm not going to hurt you."

It takes a little bit, but eventually I get some words out of them.

"F-Fort Collins…?" a man's voice! I think. Eh, it's not important.

"Yeah, Fort Collins!" I confirm with a nod. "That's… north of here, right? Are we in Loveland?"

"Y-yeah, this is Loveland," the human says. "Um, just head up the road that way."

"I'm sorry, I can't see that. I'm blind. Can you help point me the right way?"

"S-sure?"

I send the command to my ride to let the human up, and instead of running off he actually touches my hand! It surprises me a bit, but he gently guides it to point in a certain direction and I figure things out from there.

"That way?" I ask. "Okay! I can do that. Thank you so much! We just follow the road we're currently on?"

"Yeah, it's the highway…" he confirms. "Or, it becomes the highway."

"Great! Thank you so much. Sorry for pouncing on you! You're being a great sport about all this."

"Y-yeah, well. I thought I was gonna get eaten, so. Thanks for not doing that."

"Any time!" I say cheerfully. "Don't worry, the magical girls got all the dangerous monsters. Y'know, today at least. Ta-ta!"

Once more, my mantis leaps into a bounding sprint, and we're off. Next stop, homeward bound! …Which is to say that we're going to return to the Dark World fragment with the castle, of course.

As nice as Earth is, we're more at home in that stormy void than we ever could be here.