A/N: Hello! Sorry for the delay. Had to get this one right. Hopefully, I did. I hope you all enjoy. Content warnings for suicidal ideation and abuse. And, of course, our transformation themes, in order:https://youtu.be/f7iS7F-jUv8https://youtu.be/uMvlkOj5LnM

Enjoy the chapter!

Sadness is thick in the air. It almost feels like walking too close to a funeral. Humans don't really have direct emotional senses in the same way magic users do, but they'll feel it anyway when magic gets this dense. If Anath isn't already a blue mage, she's certainly about to be.

Well, I guess that's not true. The other possibility is that Anath is about to get her ass beat. Normally, I'd be quite happy with an outcome like that, but… but. But something. I don't know. I guess I just don't care enough about anything anymore to care about seeing her lose.

Go, go, get out of here, get help, run!

"Are you sure you want to go back to them, Anath?" Nanaya asks. "To the people who knew exactly what was happening to your team and who chose to do nothing?"

"Compared to people who know what they're doing and are doing it on purpose? Yes," Anath hisses.

You don't deserve to be trapped here. Not like we do.

"I know you care about Fulgora, Anath, but I am not so certain you should trust everything she says," Nanaya hums, glaring at me. "She's not well. And unlike the Preservers, I have every intention of helping you keep her alive in spite of that."

"You… you're lying to me," Anath insists, her voice nearly cracking. "You don't care about her, Nanaya."

"Both things are true, Anath," Nanaya says. "I don't care about her, but I care about keeping her alive."

"I don't know why you think that would be enough," Anath says, her voice cracking as she holds back a sob.

"Sufficient force is always enough," Nanaya says. "If she tries to kill herself, I simply will not let her. And neither will the Dark World. She's in more danger out there, without its protection."

She's right. I tried. I tried countless times, enough to grow hopeless that there could even be a release from hopelessness. No matter how hard I tried, the worst I could do was make myself pass out, the wounds I inflicted sealed up by crystal when I awoke. Why couldn't the Dark World have given Minerva that same courtesy? Maybe I should go back to Earth with her, just so I can finish the job.

I get the feeling that Anath is glancing my way as her breath quickens.

Just go. I'm sorry.

The feeling of being watched ends, and Anath's next words are directed toward Nanaya.

"I'm leaving," she says.

Nanaya says nothing.

"I'm leaving, Nanaya."

I hear Nanaya's grip on her incarnate weapon tighten, the conjured magical wood creaking in protest.

"I said I'm leaving! Get out of my way!" Anath shouts.

"I Wɪʟʟ Nᴏᴛ Tᴏʟᴇʀᴀᴛᴇ Tʜɪꜱ."

Anger flashes as Nanaya speaks her transformation phrase. I can easily imagine the formal business suit that composes her outfit coalescing into being around her.

"Fᴜʀɪᴏᴜs Sᴀᴠɪᴏʀ Rᴇᴠᴏʟᴜᴛɪᴏɴᴀʀʏ Nᴀɴᴀʏᴀ. I'm not losing you, Anath. I refuse. Just turn around."

There's a desperation in Nanaya's voice that even I can't miss, her statement as much of a plea as it is an order. I can even feel green wisps of fear flitting between the crackling furnace of her rage. For my part, I just drag myself a bit further away, propping myself up against the wall. Even if I'm not going to be a participant, I don't turn away from fights.

"I refuse," Anath says, drawing herself up from her hunched, depressed posture. "If you don't want to lose me, then come with me. Just stop. Please."

"Never," Nanaya hisses. "Last warning, Anath."

"…Okay," Anath accepts quietly. "Okay, then. Pʀᴇᴛᴛʏ Wᴀʀʀɪᴏʀ Pᴏᴡᴇʀ Uᴘ."

That… was not a new transformation phrase. It was the same childish one she used the last time we fought, so very long ago. Probably the same childish one she's used since she was a child. Maybe that means she opts to keep it when she changes classes… but no. I can feel it, within the torrent of her sadness. Tiny, gasping sparks of joy are all she has to fuel her transformation.

"Rʜᴀᴘsᴏᴅɪᴄ Bᴇᴀsᴛ Cᴏɴsᴜᴍᴍᴀᴛᴇ Aɴᴀᴛʜ."

And there it is. The same name. The same joy-based magic. She has nothing but a puddle to work with, and it's already evaporating in the flames of Nanaya's rage. Even when she was nothing but feral joy, I could fight her to almost a standstill long before I was strong enough to take on Nanaya. 

"Anath…" Nanaya sighs, out of a mix of reluctance and pity.

"Don't," Anath snaps at her. "I was an Earth Guardian for longer than you were, Nanaya. I was an Earth Guardian after my parents died, I was an Earth Guardian after my teammate died, and I stayed an Earth Guardian until everyone left me and you saved my life. I was a joy mage though all of it. If you think I can't fight when sad, I'm going to destroy you."

She's practically crying when she says it, yet I feel magic stir around her hand. Something small conjures itself into being. Is that… an incarnate weapon? I didn't even know she had an incarnate weapon.

"Is that… a wand?" Nanaya asks. I guess she's never seen it before either. "I thought you were a frontliner."

"I am. Pᴀssɪᴏɴ Sᴛᴇᴘ!"

Given that I was fully expecting the two of them to beat the shit out of each other, I'm kind of surprised when something suddenly breaks several of my ribs, smashes me through the wall I'm leaning against, and flings me out of the castle entirely. Anath wraps one arm around me before I land, hoisting me over her shoulder and hitting the ground in a dead sprint through the Dark World.

I can feel the dinky little wand clenched in her other hand, now. It's not really much of a weapon; she could maybe jab it in someone's eye, but that's nothing her claws can't accomplish just as easily. I guess it's like Minerva's weapon, in that it mainly acts as a focus to enhance her spells. That kind of thing is pretty much as far from her preferred fighting style as you can physically get. It's little wonder I've never seen it before.

Well, whatever. It's not really important. What matters is this bitch not getting the message.

Watch out!

"Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ!" I growl, lightning crackling between my fingers as I drive my claws into her chest.

Anath screams in pain, the electrical shock sending her body into spasms and causing us both to tumble across the rough stones of the Dark World wasteland. Not being in incarnate form, I take the fall far worse than she does, though the cuts and bruises are nothing compared to the pain that shoots through my broken ribs. My mouth twitches into a smile. I haven't cared all that much about pain in a long time, but now it's almost like a close friend.

Anath tries to get up as fast as she can, her body struggling with all the magical lightning I shoved through her veins. She's too slow. Nanaya lands in front of her with a furious crunch of stone, fury blazing. Winding her leg back, Nanaya gives Anath a set of broken ribs to match my own as she kicks the girl halfway back to the castle. 

"Would you just listen to me for once!?" Nanaya roars at her. "Can't you just trust me!?"

Anath responds with a wordless scream, bouncing off the ground and charging directly at Nanaya the moment she gets her claws in the dirt. There's anger in both of them now, and as Nanaya catches Anath's blade-arm with her viola, the two rush through a series of rapid blows that ultimately ends in Nanaya grabbing Anath by the hair and cracking her into the ground like a whip. Without hesitation, she follows up with a stomp, but Anath brings her arm up to chop off her hair and roll away at the last second. 

"I've done nothing but help you since the first day I saw you," Nanaya hisses. "And you want to leave me?"

"I love you, Nanaya," Anath says, scrambling to her feet. "But I have to do this. I love her, too."

"Who? This pathetic ingrate who never once even tried to understand you?" Nanaya demands, motioning toward me. "Let alone care about you?"

"That was my fault," Anath says. "I always knew it was my fault. I was stupid. I still am stupid."

"Then let me help you," Nanaya pleads.

"No!"

Growling, Nanaya is the one to lunge first this time, but instead of meeting her charge, Anath flicks her wand down, an invisible force causing Nanaya to stumble as it forces her down into the dirt. Anath tries to rush past her again, but Nanaya leaps at her, grabbing her by the ankle and tossing her away.

"Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Tᴀᴄᴛɪᴄᴀʟ Pʀᴇᴄɪsɪᴏɴ Sᴛʀɪᴋᴇ!"

Oh, goodie. My least favorite spell. It almost makes me want to root for Anath.

Get her, Anath! You can do it!

Nanaya rushes at her again, and once again Anath tries to slam her into the ground, but Nanaya is ready for it this time, keeping her stance low and pushing through the sudden spike in gravity. With one final leap, she prepares her attack.

"Aʀᴍᴀɢᴇᴅᴅᴏɴ Iᴍᴘᴀᴄᴛ!"

Anath points her wand again, but it's different this time. Before, it was a casual point downward. Now, she's pulling her target back, yanking Nanaya toward her even faster than before. And with the very same motion she uses to flick her wand, she winds her entire arm back, wrapping her hand tight around the weapon to make a fist.

Accelerating toward her target far faster than she expected, Nanaya realizes too late that Anath isn't even trying to dodge.

"Mᴀɴɪᴀᴄ Bʟᴏᴡ!"

The two of them cross-counter, punching each other square in the face as their respective spells detonate in a cataclysmic burst that launches them away from each other and sends them tumbling across the ground. Anath's body is mangled, her spell having dramatically reduced her defenses to improve the strength of her attack. Nanaya's body doesn't feel much better… but Nanaya, as always, can heal. Her incarnate flesh quickly starts to knit back together as she forces herself to her feet and stomps back over to Anath.

"You. Will. Stay," Nanaya orders. "Is that truly so much to ask? That you continue to enjoy living with the girl you're obsessed with, in a home that loves you, where all of your needs are taken care of and everyone understands you and wants to help you? Because you need help, Anath. You are unstable. You can't live your life alone. You need m—hrgk!"

Anath cuts off her monologue with a swipe of her claws, slicing through the stomach of Nanaya's outfit and drawing blood from underneath. She was probably trying to aim higher, but her legs faltered as she went for the leap, leaving her face-first in the dirt in front of Nanaya. 

Nanaya just glowers at her, the blood from the cut already dissolving, leaving only freshly healed skin behind.

"…And what was that supposed to accomplish?" Nanaya asks. "Just look at yourself. Fighting is the only thing you're good at, and you can't even take care of yourself while you do that."

Anath doesn't respond, just swiping at her again, but Nanaya isn't caught off-guard this time and easily steps away from the attack. Crawling forward on her arms and a single working leg, Anath continues her desperate assault, pulling Nanaya in with magic to connect with another feral swipe. Nanaya grits her teeth and starts doing her best to anticipate the sudden shifts in force, dodging the next few wild blows. 

When she steps in to kick Anath back, though, Anath chomps down on her ankle as hard as she can, her sharp teeth imbedding deep into Nanaya's leg. Nanaya screams, and Anath wraps both hands around her thigh as well, claws piercing skin to secure their grip. Nanaya kicks and shakes, but Anath just holds firm, biting down harder and trying to tear open enough flesh to outpace Nanaya's healing factor. Swapping tactics, Nanaya stands firm and just brings both her fists down on Anath's head, smashing her over and over and over, rage bubbling over into a furious scream. 

This isn't a fight anymore, not really. It's just two women trying to hurt each other until the other one stops. And in the end, it's Anath that falls first, her fingers snapped and her jaw broken. Her body has no choice but to let go, and once it does, she can no longer move at all. Nanaya's leg bleeds, though. It's a ragged mess, only partly holding her weight. Nanaya's magical reserves are healing it as fast as they can, but exhaustion is starting to set in.

Not that it matters. It's over. Nanaya won. Anath's incarnate form can't even lift a finger anymore, let alone fight.

"We… will talk about this again… after you've had some proper rest," Nanaya huffs, reaching down and lifting Anath by the scruff of her neck. "I will heal you when you see sense."

Anath chokes up some blood. 

No… she's not choking. She's laughing.

Why would she… no. No way in hell. Her Catharsis! What was it called, 'laughter of the blood' or something? It makes her stronger the more damage she's taken! But… that doesn't make sense. She doesn't have enough magic to use a Catharsis, that's been obvious from the start of the fight. She probably couldn't even use an Abreaction. She doesn't have a trump card!

Maybe she learned a thing or two from you.

What? No, she… oh god. She would. And just as I realize that, she does it.

Anath drops her incarnate form entirely, returning to her real body, and punches Nanaya in the face.

The damage Anath took to her incarnate form was catastrophic. Even if her physical body doesn't mirror those injuries, it must be screaming in pain.

But she's like us. She hasn't cared about pain in ages.

She was losing before, and she's even weaker now!

But Nanaya has a bad leg. She's not healing it fast enough.

She could just fight in her normal form too!

But will she? Would that even be enough? She'd be so much weaker, and Anath is probably better at it. She spent ages fighting us without her incarnate form, after all.

You don't think she's going to… wait. You're supposed to be shutting the hell up.

If I can't stop you from bringing us both down, I can at least help her! Go, Anath! You can do it!

Oh god, she can hear you, can't she? Or at least feel you, anyway. God, she knew I'm insane all along. No wonder she liked me…

"Hᴀᴍᴍᴇʀ Kɪᴄᴋ!" Anath incants, following up with a magic-assisted roundhouse to Nanaya's chest. "Gʀᴀᴠɪᴛʏ Wᴀᴠᴇ!"

A column of translucent magic fires out from Anath's wand, passing over Nanaya and causing her to start falling sideways, away from Anath. Still off-balance from the kick, she accelerates rapidly away for quite some distance before managing to get her hands and feet on the ground.

"Anath!" Nanaya shouts at her, crawling forward across the ground like she's scaling a wall.

Anath keeps her wand pointed Nanaya's way, resolutely maintaining the beam of altered gravity. She can't really escape like this, though, and she'll run out of magic eventually.

"What is your plan here, Anath?" Nanaya demands. "You don't have one, do you? You never do!"

"I told Uma'tama once that I thought I wasn't good at anything," Anath answers back. "She told me, 'You're good at being happy. I think that's one of the best things a person can be.'" 

Nanaya growls, focusing on her climb.

"She was right," Anath says. "But it's not enough, is it? I want to be good at making other people happy, too! I'm going to make Fulgora happy. I'm going to make you happy!"

"Anath!" Nanaya screams again, desperation muddying her anger a familiar brown.

"I know I'm not good at it. I know that! But even someone like me can learn."

"Anath, please!" Nanaya begs. "Please! You do make me happy. You do. I need you here! If I don't have you, then I…!"

"It's okay, Nana," Anath promises. "I'll be back for both of you."

Nanaya grits her teeth, tears running down her face.

"Fine," she hisses. "Fine! Go, then. If that's what you have to do, I… I concede."

Anath grins warmly.

"I love you, Nana!" she says.

And then, a bolt of red streaks down from the sky. Raw, destructive anger, concentrated into a form Nanaya hates with all her being. A missile, a tactical precision strike, like the very kind that likely killed her family in the first place, drops down towards Anath's head.

"…But I know you better than that," she finishes.

With a sudden leaping spin, Anath brings her tail up and spikes Nanaya's abreaction directly at her, redirecting it in much the same way Minerva and I did in her last fight. The attack hits Nanaya directly in the chest, exploding with the full, indiscriminate force that anger brings. Nanaya is sent tumbling in a smoking heap, eventually rolling to a motionless stop.

Anath turns to me.

"What?" I spit at her. "You spent so long trying to get me to join the Dark Rebellion. This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

Some part of me knows the words don't mean anything. They're just the first thing I thought of that I knew would hurt her. It works, at least. I feel her give up on trying to carry me out of here again.

"…Don't die," she pleads. "Either of you."

"Don't hold your breath," I sneer, once again just trying to say something to twist the knife. 

I don't even know why I do it. I feel it hurt her, for a second, but then Anath smiles so brightly I think it might blind me all over again.

"Hehe!" she laughs. "Fish joke!"

Wh… huh? Because I… I breathe underwater? I don't need to hold… no, that's stupid, it doesn't…

"Bye, Fulgora! And… bye, whoever you are. I'll be back."

Goodbye, Anath. Hurry, please. I don't want to die.

Should have invaded someone else's head, then. Anath runs off, leaving Nanaya and me alone. Lacking anything else to do, I start dragging my way over to her. When I get close enough, I find that she at least isn't dead or unconscious. She's just… motionless. Staring up at the empty blackness of the Dark World with her eyes wide and watery. Eventually, she turns over onto her stomach, dragging herself slowly up onto her hands and knees.

"I… lost," she says, her voice hollow.

Bringing a fist up, she slams it down into the ground, shattering the stone beneath her as she lets out an overpowering wail of anguish, the cracks from her blow only spreading wider as she screams. It's not like the shouts of fury she'd been making throughout the fight, though it is angry. It's simply too tinged with despair and self-hate to be recognizable as the same sort of sound.

"AM I NOT YET ANGRY ENOUGH!?" she howls. "DID I FORGET!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

She slams her fist into the ground again and again, bloodying her knuckles as I reach up to cover my ears, not wanting to be blind and deaf. In the end, her tantrum leaves her emptier than the fight ever could have, and she collapses to the ground again, her incarnate form finally vanishing away. She lies there in silence for a while. I could wait, but… I don't really want to.

"Can you carry me back to the castle, now?" I ask plainly.

She chuckles, though there isn't much humor in it at all.

"Of course, Fulgora," Nanaya agrees, lifting me up in her arms as she rises to her feet. "Let us… return to the work."

"Oh, yeah," I say sarcastically. "All that work that I'm absolutely doing. Sooo much work to do. Busy bee, that's me."

"No need to worry," Nanaya says. "The Dark World yet has plans for you, storm swimmer."

Storm swimmer…

"Well I hope those plans come soon, because I have nothing to do," I complain petulantly.

"Well," Nanaya says, "if there is any upside to this, it is that I will have more time to progress those plans."

Huh. I'd ask, but I'm struggling to actually be curious. I just hang limply in Nanaya's arms until she takes me back to the castle, tracking down my wheelchair in an empty room down the hall from the destroyed wall. It feels like some miasma follows us, flowing into the castle from the breach and hovering outside the room. 

"Fulgora…?"

Is that… oh, right, Veritas is red now, not blue. Almost confused her for Nanaya. She sounds exhausted. Did she just get up? Did she sleep through the wall getting smashed?

"Fulgora…" she repeats herself, and her little body falls onto me, nearly knocking my wheelchair over as she collapses into a desperate hug. "You're really alive…"

I freeze, not knowing what to do as her little arms wrap around me and tears of relief pour down her face onto my shirt. Do I push her away? Do I do nothing? Every idea in my head sounds horrible or wrong, leaving me utterly paralyzed. I didn't care with anyone else, but this is Veritas. My… her teammate. She deserves better than me, but I can't… I'm nothing. Just a hollow, emotional wreck.

Let me.

What…? No, I… why would I ever do that?

Because I can't possibly do a worse job than you. Let me talk to her. I promise I can do it.

I… okay. Okay. You're right. It doesn't matter what you are. It can't possibly be worse than me. Slowly, I start to release the ironclad hold on my head that I barely realized I was maintaining and let myself just flow into the background.

I take a breath. A deep breath, just to remind myself it's me doing it. And then I take my arms and I wrap them around Veritas. She's hugging me, after all. Obviously, the right thing to do is hug her back.

"I'm okay," I reassure her, not caring right now about whether or not it's a lie. "You found me. I'm okay."

Veritas' sobs grow louder, and she nods profusely in agreement. I'm okay. I have to be okay, at least for her. Even if I don't know what I am or what's going on or why Fulgora wants to hurt me so badly… none of that matters right now. There is a crying child in my arms, and I'm all she has.

Even when she was a blue mage, I never saw her cry this much. I pass the time by stroking her hair, holding her close and just letting her have her catharsis. The kind with the lower case 'c.' Nanaya has long since wandered off, probably trying to patch the hole in the wall or something, so it's just Veritas and me here, alone.

Eventually, I pull her up to sit in my lap rather than just awkwardly leaning over my wheelchair to hug me like she had been doing. It's a lot more comfortable of a cuddle this way, and the improved proximity seems to help her calm down a bit faster. Before I know it, she's sniffing up her dripping snot and wiping her eyes clean. Strong girl.

She is strong, yeah. She deserves better than me.

Well, we're what she has. I can at least quiet you for her sake, if no one else's.

"You're a mermaid now," Veritas notes.

"Uh… yeah, I guess so!" I agree. "It wasn't by choice, exactly, but there are worse things. I… don't recommend that you let yourself get as mutated as me, though."

"I wasn't gonna," Veritas insists. 

She stops hugging me to do what I suspect is probably crossing her arms, but despite the hole in the wall, the castle doesn't have enough miasma in it for me to be able to tell. Still, it's Veritas. I can imagine her expressions and body language pretty easily.

"I'll have to take your word for it. I can't really see anymore, unless I'm in incarnate form," I say.

"You're blind?" Veritas asks, frowning. "Huh. Okay. I'll forgive you for not looking at me, then."

That manages to make me chuckle, and I tousle her hair a bit.

"Hey, cut it out!" she complains halfheartedly. "Anyway, that's not important. What's the plan?"

"Plan?" I ask.

"Yeah, what are we doing here?" she asks. "You told me to bring you back here. So now what?"

"I… have not thought that far ahead yet, honestly," I admit.

"Typical," Veritas huffs.

"What do you think we should do?" I ask.

"Me?" Veritas says disbelievingly. "Uh… I dunno. I mean, I don't really like anyone here other than you. But the Preservers are being so stupid! They didn't want me to look for you even though I was right and you were totally alive!"

Partially alive, anyway.

Hush.

"Plus, they let Luna and Thea join even though they beat me up a bunch!" Veritas continues. "What if we just do our own thing? Maybe we can get Aurora to help, too. Start our own magic club without any jerks in it! Doesn't that sound cool?"

"Plotting sedition already, I see," Melpomene says, startling me as her voice and presence suddenly appear out from the cloud of miasma that followed us earlier. "Tsk, tsk. And after I invited you to my home in good faith, Veritas. What a shame."

"M-Melpomene!" Veritas gulps. "I… you…!"

"How long have you been here?" I ask.

She used a sneak attack when I let Minerva die, too.

"Hahaha! Calm down, both of you!" she chuckles. "I'm joking, darlings. I can hardly blame you for having reasonable suspicions. Our history has been somewhat fraught, after all."

"You tried to kill us!" Veritas accuses.

"We were all trying to kill each other. Why don't we let bygones be bygones?" Melpomene dismisses cheerfully. "We can start over. In fact, as a show of good faith, I wouldn't mind teaching you both a few things I've learned about magic over the years. You can be my disciples! Won't that be fun?"

Veritas seems more than a little surprised by that offer, and I can't say I expected it either.

"You… want to teach us how to fight better?" Veritas asks. "But…"

"No buts about it!" Melpomene cuts her off. "It just makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, you even use the same incarnate weapon style that I do. Shield and lance. And Fulgora here is already following in my footsteps. She's learned so much!"

"She has…?" Veritas asks, glancing at me.

I have? I mean… I guess I sort of learned a bit…?

"I promise dears, I'll get the two of you stronger than ever before! I know the Preservers don't teach you poor things at all. We've all had to figure it out for ourselves. I've just had a lot longer to do that, so there's much I can teach you!"

This is… weird. Something about this doesn't feel right.

"Did you just get back?" I ask. "Shouldn't you be… comforting Nanaya or something? Anath just left. Like, I think she left the Dark Rebellion entirely."

"Wait, she did?" Veritas asks.

Melpomene's smile dips, and she glances awkwardly down the hall in the direction of the destroyed wall.

"We… talked a little," she admits. "But Nanaya is a person who prefers action to conversation. She's thrown herself into working for now. I think it's probably best if we give her some space."

She thinks it's best to avoid your girlfriend after a member of her family leaves her…? Well, okay, I guess. It's not like I have any experience with that sort of thing. She's the expert.

"I guess we have nothing better to do," I admit. "What do you think, Veritas?"

"…Sure," Veritas allows.

"Just follow me then, dearies!" Melpomene says, her cheer instantly returned. 

Ooooh, I get it. She's faking it, isn't she? She's not actually very happy right now at all. It's kind of hard to tell one way or another, given how chokingly thick her disgust is. Still, I follow her, adjusting Veritas on my lap and wheeling us after Melpomene. 

"It's right through here…" Melpomene says. "Oh! I forgot one thing, though. Fulgora, would you be willing to come with me for a moment, please?" 

"Sure," I agree, grabbing Veritas by the waist and gently removing her from my lap. "What's up?"

"I just needed to talk with you for a second," she insists. "Veritas, just take a few moments to warm up in there. I've inscribed the walls so they should be able to hold up to stray fire, but don't go too crazy with it, alright?"

"…Okay," Veritas agrees, hesitating a moment before walking into the training room.

"Just over here, Fulgora," Melpomene says, leading me into a side room… which she quickly locks behind me and casts some sort of spell on the door. Ominous!

Not really. I mean, what's she going to do, kill us? Anyway, Veritas isn't here anymore. It's my turn again.

W-wait. Hold on.

"What really happened, Fulgora?" Melpomene demands.

She's asking for me by name. Seriously, you can go ahead and fuck off.

No, wait, please! It's my body too, dang it!

"Are you asking about Anath?"

"Of course I'm asking about Anath!" Melpomene snaps. "I come back to a nearly empty castle, one wall is blown open, Anath is missing, Nanaya's barely talking to me, and you're sitting alone in a dark room with a crying child!"

"Well, no one told me the room was dark. That's not really my fault," I point out.

"Fulgora. What happened with Anath?"

"Not much," I say. "I just told her that you knew exactly where I've been for the past eight months, and you chose not to help me or tell anyone. She was pretty upset about that and tried to kidnap me, so I electrocuted her. Then Anath and Nanaya fought, Anath won, and then she ran off to join the Earth Guardians, probably."

"What. The fuck. Were you thinking?" Melpomene hisses.

"Ha! Wait, did you not want me to tell her?" I ask, chuckling a little. "It's true, though! What were you expecting me to say? I thought it was part of your plan or something. Are you actually just an idiot?"

She socks me in the face, knocking me out of my chair which topples over with a clatter. It hurts, and I laugh harder. 

"Oooh, yeah, send me back with a bruise! That'll make Veritas trust you," I say, rubbing my cheek. "Seriously Mel, you never even told me to lie for you. Or maybe you did? I don't fucking remember. Did you just trust me to keep the secret just because?" 

"You kept yourself locked in the Dark World!" Melpomene hisses. "You were punishing yourself!"

"Sure, yeah, probably," I agree, because even though that doesn't sound true it's probably something I would do at this point. "But you still knew where I was. You rescued me after eight months. Why didn't you rescue me sooner?"

"You didn't want to be rescued," Melpomene says.

"I didn't want to be rescued when you did rescue me, either," I say.

"But you didn't push me away like you did all the other times."

"Mmm. Maybe," I concede, a grin pulling at my cheeks. "You should just tell Anath that! I'm sure that would smooth it over."

She kicks me in the ribs, reminding me rather efficiently that mine are broken. I start to laugh, the fit of giggles causing yet more pain and therefore even more laughter.

God, what happened to us? I know it was bad to lose Minerva. I know that. But it feels like Fulgora is gone, too.

Of course I am! Why wouldn't I be? Minerva was the only part of me worth anything.

Why would you say that…? You're the same person. We're the same person! You can be just as kind and good and strong as she was!

You have no idea what you're talking about. You're just some Dark World parasite!

Is that… true? Am I just…

"Stop laughing!" Melpomene demands, stamping her foot. "What the hell is wrong with you!?"

"What do you mean?" I ask. "I'm just like you, aren't I? That's what you said."

"I didn't mean—"

"Didn't you, though?" I interrupt her, crawling closer. "Isn't this exactly what you meant? That you're a husk of self-hatred, trying to pretend everything around you isn't collapsing because you're the one who pushed it over in the first place? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense."

"You don't know anything about me. I'll have to ask you not to project whatever mad insecurities you have onto me," Melpomene says, but as I crawl ever closer she takes a step back. I laugh again.

"Why don't you tell me a little about yourself then, Melpomene?" I ask. "Help me get to know you. After all, we're on the same team now, right?"

She tries to take another step back, but I snap my hand out and grab her ankle. She trips, tumbling backward and landing on her tail. She kicks me as I crawl closer, but it doesn't deter me. I crawl overtop of her, straddling her with my arms and hovering my bladed pseudo-legs over her stomach. 

"Get off me this instant," she orders.

"Or what?" I ask. "You'll kill me? After all the trouble you went through to get me here? Seems like a waste, but I'm okay with it."

What the fuck are you DOING, Fulgora?

That's the thing, I don't know. I don't know why I do anything anymore. I just keep going forward, no matter how much of myself and everything around me that I have to smash.

"Ha!"

Melpomene suddenly barks out a laugh, collapsing into giggles not unlike my own.

"Ahahahaha! God, look at you! Look at what I've done to you!" she grins. "Having you around will truly be my greatest source of strength yet."

"And working for you will be mine," I agree. "This madhouse is my kind of lost cause."

Without warning, her laughter stops. She grabs me by the throat and hurls me at the wall hard enough to crack the stone, pushing herself to her feet and stomping over to where I've crumpled onto the floor.

"It's NOT a lost cause!" she shouts at me. "We will win."

"Win what?" I ask. "How? You have two allies and a ten-year-old who hates you. Never mind, don't answer, I don't care. I'm with you either way, Mel."

"We will win," she repeats.

"And I don't care," I repeat right back. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

She grits her teeth. Ha-ha! Gotcha. I always fucking hated it when Chloe hit me with that one. She kicks my wheelchair at me, which thankfully stops before hitting the wall by running into my fingers instead. 

"Just… get yourself presentable," Melpomene orders me. "And none of this nonsense during the lesson. I will not entertain your childish arguments in front of our newest member."

"Oh, no need to worry about that, Mel," I assure her. "We're the same, remember? I've got the nicer version of me I only let out in front of the kids, too. Our little spat isn't something Veritas needs to know."

Oh, good. You're using me so you can go crazier in secret. Is that what this is?

Ha! Probably.

I'm going to stop you, Fulgora. I have to stop you. This isn't who we should be. This isn't who Minerva would want you to be.

I know that! I know. But Minerva is dead. You're not her. You're just another fragment of my splintering psyche. Another fucking PTSD symptom. I don't see any reason I would need to listen to you. So smile, do what I tell you, and if you try to pull that shit with Anath again, I'll strangle you out of my body one way or another. Understand?

This is wrong.

I know. But we're doing it anyway. And if you really are me, you'll know that's exactly why you'll never be able to stop me. I only ever make mistakes. There's no point in even trying anything else.

I crawl up into my wheelchair, patting down my face. I wonder briefly how I'm supposed to even know if I have visible bruises in the first place, let alone cover them up, before remembering I don't actually care. It takes another minute or two for me to find the door to the room and exit. It's your turn now, Fake Minerva. Play nice with Veritas, and don't screw this up.

I sigh, shuddering as I push away all of Fulgora's suicidal, self-destructive needs as best I can. I'll be there for Veritas. I have to be. And maybe if I'm lucky, that need will keep us alive long enough for someone to save us.

"Please hurry, Anath," I mutter under my breath, and I wheel toward the training room.