Definitely Bad Guy stared steadily for a few minutes at Qube’s invisible self. She had expected him to run around doing various tests, but instead he just sat, and looked. After a while, it was a tiny bit uncomfortable.

“There is only one person in the world who is more powerful than I.” Definitely Bad Guy said eventually. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “But why would he make someone invisible? Unless this is some kind of test.”

He jumped up to his feet and began pacing back and forth in front of Qube. Qube gave him her strongest Encouraging Smile, in the hopes that it would somehow help him.

“I cannot see through it. But… I wonder.” Definitely Bad Guy pivoted on his foot and faced Qube. His hand shot out, and hit Qube directly in the chest, knocking her back and out of the circle.

“Ah! I can see the scuff marks in the circle! It seems I can affect the subject, even if I cannot personally feel it.” Definitely Bad Guy’s eyes pulsed. “Let’s test how far that goes.”

A giant fireball appeared above his right hand as he sighted up where the salt had scattered to, zeroing in on where Qube had been knocked back to.

Qube was starting to question their potential friendship.

“[Lesser Shield]!” Qube cried out just before the fireball hit her. The fireball exploded around her shield, blasting the furniture to the sides and blowing out the windows.

“What are you doing?” She yelled at Definitely Bad Guy as she scrambled backwards, her shoes smearing the soot on the floor. Definitely Bad Guy followed the marks on the floor, although he still seemed unable to see Qube or her shield. He approached her as she backed up, his stride filled with terrible purpose as a dark red blade appeared in his hand.

“It appears the subject was not injured by the attack. Interesting. Every time I try to look directly at it, I experience substantial pain.”

Qube’s back hit the wall, and she kicked away debris to try and free herself.

“This is not how I wanted to learn about magic!” She yelled, not caring that Definitely Bad Guy couldn’t hear her. “Are you even on the side of Good?” Definitely Bad Guy swiped at where he thought she was, his knife slicing through thin air.

“Stop!” She screamed, and pushed him away only to watch in horror as he stumbled backwards and tripped out of a shattered window and fell… fell… fell to the bottom of the tower. She stared out of the window and winced when he hit the ground with a THUMP.

Oh no. This was so much worse than the other times she’d pushed people off of buildings.

Qube raced down the stairs, grabbing the bottom of her robes so she wouldn’t trip and fall.

“Please don’t be dead.” She chanted as she ran. “Please don’t let me have killed someone. Please don’t let me have killed someone destined to help the Chosen One save the world. Please don’t let me have doomed the entire world just because someone wanted to stab me a little. Please-please-please no dead.”

By the time she hit the bottom level, she was almost convinced she’d led to the death of everyone in the kingdom. She slammed open the wooden door, ignoring its confused protest, and ran out to the courtyard where she’d seen Definitely Bad Guy fall.

He wasn’t a bag of coins. She heaved a giant sigh of relief. She hadn’t murdered the secret ally of the Exiled Prince and Princess.

She was definitely going to stop shoving people off of ledges.

Definitely Bad Guy had managed to get up onto one knee and was breathing heavily.

“I’m so sorry!” Qube blurted out to the man that had tried to set fire to her. “Please, let me heal you! [Heal]!” Her silver-shaded mana leapt from her to him, instantly sinking into his skin. She smiled as the wounds started disappearing. “There, all better.” She said breathily.

Definitely Bad Guy started screaming.

“What’s wrong? Are there more wounds? [Heal]!” Qube cast again, feeling her mana reserve starting to dip. Definitely Bad Guy just screamed louder, his whole body going rigid. “[Lesser Shield]! What is happening?” She covered her mouth as he stared directly into her eyes, his screams hitting a fresh note. This was just like when she [Heal]ed Mother Gothel! Did that mean he was going to attack her? She took a half step back, instantly afraid.

She was being watched.

She spun on her heel and looked up at the castle. The Wizard’s Tower (named such despite the fact it held a Mage, not a Wizard) was right next to the castle inhabited by the Evil Emperor. And from the very top of the rampants she saw him. The man who had cursed her to be invisible, and caused this whole mess in the first place.

The Evil Emperor.

He was looking at her.

His troops continued their parade; they appeared to gather every day under the rampants to listen to him give a speech, before marching around for a few hours and then engaging in various forms of combat training. She could faintly hear their steel boots clanking against the flagstones. He was still giving his speech, his voice projecting out to the troops even as he looked away from them, directly at the sight of his most trusted advisor writhing on the ground, screaming in agony, while over him stood -

Her. He was looking at her. It was wrong. He shouldn’t be able to see her. No. He’d been the one to curse her, of course he could see her. No. He couldn’t stand in the castle and see her. He, specifically, could never see her here in Cobbletown. It was wrong. Deeply, profoundly wrong. She couldn’t be here, where he could see her. His eyes burned into her, there was a connection between them, why, why, why was the Prophecy pain back, why was she having this reaction, her mind, it was breaking, she was breaking, he could see her he could never see her she wasn’t supposed to exist-

Anger flamed within her. No. She would not allow herself to break under the gaze of some tin-covered dictator who had only seized power by treachery. She grabbed Definitely Bad Guy’s shoulder, shook him, and glared defiantly at the Evil Emperor. Definitely Bad Guy stopped screaming, and looked from her to the Evil Emperor, seeing the intensity of their gazes. Slowly he seemed to centre himself, and nodded.

“I see.” He said, then gave a small, satisfied smile. He dragged himself up, helped by Qube, and then put his hand on her shoulder and joined her in looking at the Evil Emperor.

“I will protect her.” Definitely Bad Guy said quietly to the far away Evil Emperor. The Evil Emperor, having finished his daily speech, abruptly turned and walked back into the castle.

Qube forced herself to look away from the Evil Emperor’s retreating form, and turned to see Definitely Bad Guy giving her a very interested look, her arm still wrapped around him to support him, and his hand still on her shoulder. She blushed and stepped away from him, letting his hand fall to his side. She- she had never had someone declare their protection of her before! Never mind standing up against the Evil Emperor himself! Sure it was from a massive distance but still! Definitely Bad Guy seemed amused by her confusion.

“Now it makes sense why he would have cast an invisibility curse on you.” He mused, still watching her. “I had no idea he was even interested in anything other than conquest - I can see why, of course.” He looked her up and down.

Qube was thrown into exquisite agitation, unable to even understand what Definitely Bad Guy was saying. He couldn’t look at her like that! She was sworn to save the world; she had no time for romance! She had her duty as the Prophecy Approved Companion to give her all to the cause! She had to focus entirely on being the Chosen One’s guiding light. Not to mention the Chosen One would take her wandering off with someone else rather than helping him very poorly.

“Oh! I- that is, you musn’t. It wouldn’t - I can’t.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. Definitely Bad Guy put his hand over his heart.

“Not a word.” He promised. “I would not dare to interfere with his plans. I, too, serve him. Just know that he has my undying loyalty, and so I will guard you with my life.”

Qube breathed a sigh of relief. Of course he wouldn’t want to interfere with the Chosen One’s plans. He truly was on the side of Good.

“Thank you.” She said sincerely.

---

Qube and Definitely Bad Guy had barely made it up to the top of the Wizard’s Tower before the Chosen One teleported into the room.

“Hey,” he said casually to Qube. After a second, Sewer Bard appeared behind him, looking decidedly ill. Another second after that, Sexy Screamy Spider Lady appeared, instantly flinging all the furniture around her into disarray as they got caught in her limbs. This had the benefit of hiding the destruction caused by Definitely Bad Guy’s rather unorthodox experimentation method, but it also raised questions.

“Did you take Sexy Screamy Spider Lady with you when you went exploring?” Qube asked the Chosen One, as the other companions looked around in confusion, trying to locate the source of whatever had flung all the furniture around.

“I thought it would be funny.” Chosen One grinned. “It was. Very.”

“I rather think I need to sit down,” Sewer Bard said, trying to find a chair that wasn’t smashed to pieces.

“Me too,” Sexy Screamy Spider Lady said. It was hard to tell, what with her spider head and screaming children’s faces, but she seemed rather shaken. “When I said I wanted to know what humans looked like under their clothes, I imagined they would at least still have their skin.”

Definitely Bad Guy cleared his throat.

“No doubt to the uneducated, some of my more… intensive research may appear disturbing. I assure you, all that I do is for the good of the cause.”

“It was kinda messed up,” the Chosen One confessed to Qube. “The ragdolling of the corpses when Sexy Screamy Spider Lady popped in was pretty amazing, though. They got some good air.”

Qube gave the Chosen One her default Understanding Smile, mostly to cover the fact that she didn’t understand what he was saying.

“So did you manage to fix her?” The Chosen One asked Definitely Bad Guy. Qube’s Understanding Smile stiffened a little.

“I am not the one who needs fixing, it was the curse that needed removing.” She reminded him patiently.

“I cannot remove her curse.” Definitely Bad Guy said firmly. “The only one who can remove a curse this powerful is the person who cast it. So, unless you wish to go and kindly ask the Evil Emperor to help you, I fear she must stay like this.” Definitely Bad Guy gave Qube a sly wink as he said that. Qube, flustered by this novel experience of having someone wink at her, cranked up her Understanding Smile. She would have to tell Definitely Bad Guy not to try and flirt with her like that! Everyone knew that winking at someone was how you flirted with them! You had only to watch Sexy Screamy Spider Lady wink half her eyes at various people as she sashayed past them, her abdomen knocking them off their feet, to realise that winking was not to be trifled with!

“Cool, well, we tried.” Chosen One said.

“You are cool?” Definitely Bad Guy asked, “I suppose the lack of window panes does make this place rather drafty. Shall we instead continue on our journey to the... Fire Temple I think you said?”

“Oh yeah.” Chosen One said. “We’re probably gonna need fireproof gear and stuff like that. Probably from that royal bestiary we unlocked. You know what that means!” He said, suddenly excited. Qube stifled a groan. “Time to go shopping!”

---

Qube added ‘shopping’ to the list of things that she hated. It was still under ‘platforms’, but was rapidly rising up the ranks. It didn’t help that shopping, according to the Chosen One, mostly consisted of her taking everything in a shop and then him selling back whatever they didn’t need, thus making even a simple trip take forever.

Currently he had trapped the Beast Keeper at his table, forcing him to continue trading with them. All the other shop owners in the Royal Bestiary (of which there were a surprising amount) had long since packed up and gone home, but the Beast Keeper seemed physically unable to leave his table as long as the Chosen One stood next to him and continued selling him things.

“So how do I get a special mount?” The Chosen One asked the Beast Keeper, refusing to let go of the last horseshoe Qube had taken from said Beast Keeper mere hours ago. Until he released the horseshoe, it seemed that the sale was not considered “done”, thus Beast Keeper could not leave. A strange custom, but perhaps it had something to do with shopkeeper culture or superstition? Mr Igma had never encouraged anyone to talk to him socially, and Mr Clockwork had never discussed the finer details of business in his gossip sessions. There had always been much more interesting things to talk about.

“No special mounts unless by order.” The Beast Keeper repeated. Chosen One had tried asking the question several different ways, claiming the Evil Emperor had said it was “ok”, then that he was a close personal friend to the Exiled Prince and Princess, then that he was actually the Evil Emperor in disguise, and then just repeatedly asking, as if hoping to break the Beast Keeper’s patience.

“But what if someone stole a special mount? What would happen then?” The Chosen One suddenly changed tactics.

“Wouldn’t go with a thief. I’m the only one who can tell the special mounts who their new owner is. And I won’t do that without a royal order.” The Beast Keeper said stubbornly.

Eventually, the Chosen One gave up.

“Fine.” He said, finally releasing the horseshoe. He looked at Sexy Screamy Spider Lady’s large form, and his eyes narrowed in sudden calculation.

“Maybe if I could find a saddle…” He said, and trailed off in thought.

“Chosen One.” Qube said wearily. “Can we please now use the Salamander Leathers, Lava Slime Jelly etc etc and go steal fire’s heart? The fate of the world does depend upon it.”

“Fire Temple it is then.” The Chosen One said, looking at the Royal Stables. “But I’ll be back.”

The stables did not reply.