"This one next, you'll like it, I swear!" giggled Ruby, punching another number into the music sampler's touchpad.

Adam reluctantly slipped the headphones back on. "If you insist, Ruby," he moaned, giving Holly a desperate look. The elf pretended to ignore him, and returned to flipping through the stacks of CDs.

Data discs. The Master of Games replicated a full library of old-school data discs. Well, and the rest of this mall. Impressive- it wasn't too long ago that I could notice how fake the arenas seemed, but now… Adam roaring broke Holly's train of thought.

"MIENE GOTT IN HIMMEL! WAS IST DAS?!" he screamed, ripping the headphones off.

"It's a sick drop, ain't it? Personally one of my favorites. It's downright filthy!" smiled the girl.

"It's the sound of the Prince of Hell himself vomiting!" cried the artificial man, holding the headphones with trembling hands. Ruby plucked them out of his grasp and set them back on the display rack.

"That's why it's so great! Can't wait for the next concert."

"You're going to have to, as long as we're here," muttered Holly as she examined the jewel case of The Essential Shining Finger: Twenty Years of Face-Melting. The genre on the case's spine read 'Smooth Jazz', but Holly was not so sure. She was about to set the CD back on the shelf when a glimmer of movement through the aisles caused her to drop to the floor, and instruct her teammates to do likewise.

"What is it?" whispered Ruby, propping her elbows up against the store's crummy red carpeting.

"Other people," hissed Holly, subtly pointing across the mall's open square to a food court. Two figures walked slowly, talking softly. They reached a table, pulled out chairs, and sat. "They're not fighting each other… which means they're on a team of their own. We need to be careful."

Adam carefully adjusted his body to lie flatter against the ground. "That voice… it sounds… familiar."

Holly dropped her helmet's HUD down over her eyes and toggled the zoom function. "Human male and female," she noted. "Guy looks tough. Short vest, big sword, crazy hair. Lady's got a pink suit."

"Oh!" said Adam. "The man is Fred. He also called himself Sol Badguy. He claimed to be a psychologist, but he seemed rather uncouth."

"And apparently a real ladies' man, too," noted Ruby.

Holly adjusted her zoom's focus quietly. "So you guys never fought him?"

Adam shook his head. "No. We simply spoke with him."

"Then we have no idea what he's capable of," grumbled the elf. "How about his friend there?"

"I'm not certain, but I think that's Janice Starling. Ryuko sent Fred to go talk to her when he was bugging us earlier," whispered Ruby.

"Must have ended up working out for them. Guess she's his patient now?"

"Well, why don't you put those big ears of yours to good use and find out?" replied the Huntress.

"Why don't you put that small mouth of yours to good use and shut up?"

Ruby followed orders and became silent, though not without glaring at Holly. The elf listened in as well as she could, her finely-tuned fairy hearing picking up the other warriors' conversation easily.

"So, when did you realize you had… lost control?" said the man, making slow, relaxing gestures with his hands as he spoke.

"I… it was when-" Janice paused, sniffling softly. "It was when I realized… that I was doing what it wanted. At first, I was killing for revenge… I was angry, bitter… I wanted them out of my company. It was a power high. Then… I ran out of people I wanted out of my company. I think it wanted an excuse… so it made me paranoid."

"Paranoid?" asked Sol gently. "How so?"

"It made me think… that Alec was cheating on me. So I killed the woman, and I almost killed my best friend… at that point I came to my senses. I killed myself."

"You probably did the right thing," said Sol. Janice smacked him hard enough that it probably could have been heard while listening to The Essential Shining Finger. He touched his reddened cheek softly.

"Hmm. Your strength is certainly above average," he noted, slipping his oversized metal-plated headband back into place.

"How can you say I did the right thing?" she cried.

"Let's think about it. If you hadn't killed yourself, you would have kept on killing- submitting to the wasp, right? Eventually your human side would come to the same conclusion, so the choice would be to die after killing ten people or twenty? I know it doesn't sound good, but sometimes that's the kind of call you have to make."

"So… is that it then? Killing myself is the only way out?"

"Now, hold on. I didn't say that. My experience is that any mutation or transmogrification like this can be controlled. It may take astronomical amounts of discipline, but it can be done. That you were able to tell that it was taking control is a good sign; it doesn't have that strong of a grip on your mind. I mean, it's not influencing you now, is it?"

"Not that I can tell," Janice replied.

"Good! Then we should practice here, where we're safe."

"Practice?" said Janice, looking a little concerned.

"That's right. I said it was going to take discipline to control it, didn't I?"

"So you're going to… train me?"

"Right again," said Sol, getting up from his seat. "I want you to transform."

"Here? Now? But all the other times I was angry. I'm not angry now."

"Have you ever made yourself cry? Not like you were really sad, but you made yourself tear up, to convince someone you were?"

"Yeah, I guess. What's that have to do with it?"

"A transformation like yours is a physical manipulation of the body, just like making yourself cry. In your transformation's case, you're not in direct control of when or where it happens. But you can be. When you make yourself cry, you know how it feels when you cry naturally- the way the muscles of your face clench up, the welling of the tear glands. You can replicate the results by replicating what you feel when it happens. You can do that for your transformation, too."

"Really? I just- It sounds so easy."

"Most people with problems like yours don't realize how easy it can be, because the last thing they want is to change. But those who want to change have no problem doing it. Now, when it happens, what do you feel?"

"Well… I've never described it," she mumbled. "This almost feels awkward. Like this is personal, you know."

Sol frowned. "Janice, are you going to let that get in the way of mastering your condition?"

Janice sighed, blushing slightly. "Well, no… I mean, if you say so… It's like- like when someone scares you. It feels just like the adrenaline, the way it just radiates out. I guess it makes sense, it's the hormones doing it, right?"

"That's what you told me," shrugged Sol.

"Well, it feels like that- but where you feel adrenaline where your heart is, this starts from my head, and goes down… and as it goes… it…"

Her voice trailed off, and she shivered. Sol "Fred" Badguy took a confident looking step forward, brushing her hair aside and staring into her eyes. He cradled her chin with his rugged, gloved hand, and pointed a finger upwards.

"Well, look, Janice. You've done it." She looked up, and noticed the antennae that had sprouted from her forehead.

"Oh! Oh, my God. It's… happ-"

Sol pulled his hand away from her face in time to dodge the mandibles that erupted outwards, formed from her skin's transmutation into chitin. Janice reeled backward as her extra set of legs and abdomen pushed their way through her neat suit. Tight patches of fur sprang up around her neck, and long gossamer wings began to pump full of blood once her jacket was torn off.

Adam began to make soft gagging sounds. Ruby responded by punching him on the shoulder. "What's the matter? Never seen a horror movie?"

"One of those picture shows you told me of?" asked Adam weakly. "Nein. Are they all as grotesque as this?"

The girl giggled. "Only the good ones, you big baby."

"Ssshhh," hushed Holly. "Now would be a really bad time for her to hear us."

Janice had finished her transformation, the wasp's compound eyes looking down at the rags the change had made of her suit.

"Huh," mused Sol. "Look at that. You're considering what happened to your clothing. That's not an animalistic response at all." Janice looked back up, shaking her head in agreement.

"Now, would you have normally responded like that? If you had changed- let's say, while you were totally alone- would that have been your first response?"

Janice shook her head.

"So, you would have been looking for your prey?"

The oversized wasp shrugged.

"It seems to me that part of the reason you're doing so well is that the wasp is a little confused. Its instincts don't know how to respond to the situation the Grand Combat poses- everyone around you is dangerous, so that rules out hunting for food. Your emotions are removed from the equation, too- there's no one you want to take revenge on, either. If I was hostile to you, you'd try to kill me in an instant, I'm sure… but now, you don't know what to do. That's a great place to start."

The wasp gave Sol a blank stare.

"Look, it's not pushing you to do anything! So you can do whatever you want! So you can practice using your conscious mind to control it!"

Janice lifted a clawed hand and scratched her head, which looked much funnier than it sounded.

"Here, it'll be easy. Practice by fighting me. I won't use my Fireseal, and you won't use your stinger." To demonstrate, Sol drove his chunky, square sword tip-first into the floor. He backed away from it, holding his hands up to show that he was unarmed. "How does that sound?"

The wasp nodded, wiggling its claws and adopting a wider four-legged stance. Its wings buzzed with anticipation, and it began to circle the bounty hunter/ scientist/ bioweapon/ psychologist.

"Now's our chance," whispered Holly. "Sol's unarmed. Starling shouldn't be too difficult. We can take them."

"All right! This will be a perfect opportunity to test this new technique Adam and I came up with!" giggled Ruby, picking herself up off of the floor slowly.

This can't be a good thing, Holly thought. As far as she could tell, she was right. Ruby leapt into the air and curled into a ball, and landed in Adam's massive arms. He shifted Ruby's tucked-in, comparatively tiny body into one hand, and stretched the other out toward the two distant warriors.

"What in Frond's name are you two doing?" asked the elf, quite concerned.

"I saw it in a comic book once," said the girl, popping her head out of her little ball. "It's gonna be so cool!"

Adam stuck up his thumb on his free hand, indicating that he had locked on to his targets. "Ready, Ruby?"

She was too excited to whisper anymore. "Aw yeah! Let's do it! FASTBAAAAAAAAAAAAALL!"

"BEESSSSSONNNDEEERE!" yelled Adam, hurling Ruby into the air with dramatic speed.

"Nice," noted Holly, pleasantly surprised. "That might take care of the wasp."

"But I wasn't aiming for the wasp," said the artificial man.

Holly placed her head in her hands, cursing. "D'Arvit," she swore.

As Ruby flew toward Sol, her scythe unfolded, the blade cutting a wide, looping path through the air. Thanks to their loud announcement of the attack, the bounty hunter picked up on what was going on- and sidestepped the twirling huntress, pulling his sword out of the ground. Ruby smacked into the wall, her scythe's blade plunging through layers of drywall.

"We missed," she moaned.

"Okay, Janice," said Sol, shoving a bullet into what looked like a breech on his Fireseal sword. "Change of plans. We're going to practice teamwork now. Got it?" The wasp nodded. "Good," growled the scientist. "Then let's rock!"

Ruby pressed her feet against the wall and pried her scythe's blade out, landing on the floor with a graceful backflip and Crescent Rose slung over her shoulder.

"Adam!" she called as the huge man sprinted up behind her. "Let's show Headband McGee here what happens when we don't miss!"

"Ja wohl, Ruby."

The oversized wasp began to move to intercept the two intruders when she was tackled into a wall, her spindly claws failing to find purchase on the slick floor.

"Sorry, lady," grunted Holly, shifting her weight off of the insect and snagging one of the wings as she fell. Instinctually, Janice pulled the other way- tearing her own appendage off. With a snarl, she swung a claw at Holly, who hopped backward in time for the attack to miss. She used Janice's slow recovery to check on her allies. "How's it going, Ruby?" she asked.

"Fine!" chirped the girl, swinging her scythe to catch Sol's bulky sword in the curve of her larger weapon's blade. She flicked Crescent Rose's trigger, causing the scythe to jump in place and return Sol's sword. Adam threw himself behind the bounty hunter, grabbed his outstretched arm, and flung him into the wall. Sol righted himself in midair in time to land foot-first and propel himself back at his foes. He extended a boot and twisted his body, driving a kick into the side of Adam's face. Ruby raised her scythe's snath in time to block the attack, but was still thrown backward. She lowered the barrel of Crescent Rose at the triumphant-looking Sol.

"Hey! Katniss did those! What did she call them? She would say, 'SHOWER IN THE SKY KITE', right?"

Adam placed a hand on his wounded face. "I thought it was 'Shining psychic block'."

"No, I call that the Bandit Revolver," chuckled Sol.

"Fandub reposter? I hate those," growled Ruby, firing her weapon. Sol flicked his sword down, deflecting the bullet.

Sol laughed aloud. "You guys are great," he said as he jammed his sword's tip into the ground, causing a gout of flame to cascade up through the floor toward Ruby. The girl leapt to the right with superhuman speed, leaving a trail of rose petals in her cloak's wake. Sol frowned, sliding a panel on his sword back to allow a spent shell to pop out. Ruby's eyes widened in excitement.

"Yours… does that too?" she giggled, pulling back her own weapon's bolt to eject one of Crescent Rose's shells. "That's awesome!"

Sol was about to respond when Adam tossed him into the air, leapt after him, grappled him again, and plunged with him back into the ground. The artificial man hopped back up, preparing to drop an elbow onto Sol's body. Holly interrupted.

"Hey, I know you're a little occupied-" she strained, attempting to hold back Janice's abdomen- and by extension, stinger- with her feet. "But… I could use some help!"

Adam turned back to his friend. "Ruby- can you fight Sol alone?"

"Sure thing," she replied.

"Then I shall assist Holly," he stated. He charged at the insect, lowering one of his massive shoulders. The impact from the second tackle Janice had received that day was enough to snap her two left legs. She flailed her huge, misshapen body to no avail; her single wing incapable of helping her escape, her intact legs scraping uselessly against the tile floors. Holly flipped herself to her feet, drew her Neutrino, and taught her opponent what a bug zapper felt like.

Ruby continued to cross blades with her opponent in an intricate dance of slashes, bullets, punches, kicks, gymnastic leaps, pirouettes, and one-liners. A boot to the chest sent Sol flying back, but he managed to land on his feet as always.

"You… you just don't quit, do you?" gasped the huntress, finding herself a little short on breath.

"I don't have any reason to fear the reaper," Fred replied with a grin.

Ruby's eyes narrowed, and a short giggle forced its way out between strained breaths. She extended an index finger to point at Sol's bicep. "You… sure?" The bounty hunter looked, and noticed that a trickle of blood was rolling down his arm.

"Okay, you got me once. But it'll take more than that to knock me out."

Holly touched down on Ruby's left, while Adam arrived to cover her right flank.

"Incidentally," Holly noted, "We have more than that."

Sol smiled, raising a hand to his bulky-looking headband. "Eh. You're still a little short," he scoffed. With a flourish, he flicked a few clasps open, and promptly exploded into flames.

"DRAGON INSTALL!" He cried, while producing a shockwave that knocked the members of Team Mockingjay onto their backs. They quickly regained their footing, preparing for whatever the bounty hunter had up his sleeve. Or headband. Sol was now wreathed in flame.

"I thought you guys were being silly when you mentioned it earlier, but that really does look similar to that thing Katniss did," noticed Holly.

"This ain't some technique you can copy," growled the conflagrated Sol. "I've just released a small portion of the power of my Gear form. Now you're all gonna bite the dust."

Holly fired her Neutrino at full strength at the man, only for the blast to dissipate on the fiery aura that surrounded him.

"…D'Arvit," swore the elf.

"Hate to say I told you so," cackled Sol, who leapt forward with enough force to cause the floor where he had been standing to cave in. With a swing of his arm, he drove the blunt edge of his sword into Holly's stomach and sent her flying back into the music store, crushing the entire discography of several thrash western trance groups and ruining her mechanical wings. Holly struggled to place a hand on her destroyed midsection, her magic incapable of responding fast enough. Ruby swung her scythe toward the spot where Holly had been standing before that Sol now occupied. Sol planted his sword between his body and Crescent Rose, causing the large sniper scythe to bounce off of his Fireseal's broad side.

"NOW! NAPALM DEATH!" he screamed. The flames surrounding his body responded by jumping to far greater heights, as if fanned by Sol's shouting itself. His bulky weapon split in half, revealing a sliver of red-hot metal, spitting and bubbling like magma.

Holly attempted to pull herself away from the shelves full of destroyed jewel cases, but her shattered ribs convinced her to stop. Her magic had begun to heal her, but for an injury this serious, it would take more time- time Ruby and Adam didn't have.

I guess you can't win them all, she groaned in her head. If I hadn't let Ryuko and Katniss go off on their own, this wouldn't have happened. So much for being the Idea Elf. She could see out through the store's open front into the battle-torn food court, her friends and their assailant clearly visible. Sol was most of the way through a swing, and it did not look like Ruby would be able to dodge this time. As his blade drew nearer and nearer to its target, the flames rising from the bounty hunter began to cause something in the air to twinkle. Those aren't sparks. That's broken glass- like something fell through the skylight.

Indeed, something had fallen through the skylight, and before Sol's attack could connect, the meteoric impact sent the bounty hunter and his two foes flying on a debris-filled shockwave. The massive wave of dust was powerful enough to invade even the music shop, which did no favors for Holly's injured lungs.

"What-gah!- in Frond's name!?"

In the center of the dust cloud, thin pink lines began to glow.

"Could we have landed a little more softly?" asked the voice of Katniss, sounding a little frustrated.

"Maybe," replied Ryuko's voice. "Now, where is everyone?"

Holly saw the flicker of a fiery blade rise from the far end of the food court, arc through the air, and descend toward the dim light from Ryuko's outfit. A second shockwave ripped through the mall, displacing the dust that had hung ominously. In the center of the now-cratered food court, Ryuko held her Scissor blade aloft, and above, Sol –still ablaze- forced his Fireseal down. He hung in the air, suspended by his own sword and arm, but only for a moment. Ryuko gave a gentle push and sent Sol flying into the metal trusses under the tasteful glass roof. Katniss, who had been standing next to her, hopped backwards at the sudden movement.

"Oh! There was a guy! And he almost killed us!"

"Yep," grunted Ryuko. "And if I'm not mistaken, it's that pervert from before. Fred."

Sol growled, twisted in place, and freed himself from the rafters- to tumble to the floor, he picked himself up, and sprinted toward the girls, a mass of flames and rage.

"Katniss, you know the drill."

The armored-up tribute nodded. "I'll clear out. If you need me, I'll get to work." With that, she turned on her heel and rushed toward the nearest cover, which happened to be the music store. It took her a few seconds to recognize the limp body as her friend's.

"Holly? Oh, my God!"

The elf managed to pull her lips back into a reassuring smile.

"Relax. I'm not kicking the bucket just yet. But I'm not going anywhere for another minute or two."

"That's a relief," breathed Katniss, lowering herself into a crouch and aiming her bow out of the shop's entrance. Two short panels removed themselves from the back of her armor's ankles and drove their tips into the ground.

"Ooh, stability anchors?" wheezed Holly. "For mud men, that's right clever. If you had a gun."

Katniss collapsed her bow and secured it on the back of her armor, casting a glance back at her friend.

"What do you mean, if?"

A large, boxy plate on her left thigh opened, and inside, wrapped in ethafoam, was a high-caliber receiver. A deft hand drew a few more plates off of her back, which folded out into a stock. Katniss worked hurriedly, glancing up every few seconds to make sure they were safe, as she disconnected other various hidden pieces of her suit and clipped them together.

"An origami sniper rifle," whispered Holly, watching the device take shape. "Why didn't we think of that?"

Ryuko deflected Sol's first attack with some effort- there was no denying the ignited man was quite strong.

"Well, if it isn't Ragna the Boobedge," he cackled.

"Bug OFF!" shouted Ryuko, laying into him with a reverse-grip swing. Sol's oversized Fireseal was broad enough to function well as a shield, as he demonstrated by lifting it to absorb the girl's attack.

"Good grief!" he said, suddenly flustered. "Where are my manners? Well, I know- they're not around in this form." He lifted a hand to his headband and pressed the clasps he had opened closed. The flames surrounding his body extinguished themselves. Ryuko took a step back, unsure of where this was going.

"Sorry 'bout that whole ambush thing," said Sol, flipping his long ponytail over his shoulder.

"Um… okay."

"You see, I have a policy of not attacking potential clients until they've had a chance to accept or decline my offer."

Ryuko peered over his shoulder and identified Adam leaned against a wall, cradling his head.

"Were you in the middle of something with him?" she asked. "I thought you already bugged him. According to you, you shouldn't have been fighting him."

"He turned down my offer, though. I believe he had your help with that. But you, on the other hand…"

Ryuko changed the subject. "Hey! How about that wasp lady? How are things going with that?"

Sol pointed past Ryuko to the other side of the food court, where a large, singed wasp carcass lay. "Other than that little speedbump, Janice is making great progress. And just think, you could be, too."

Ryuko looked back over her shoulder. "Man, if that's what you call progress-"

"Listen, kid! You've got issues. And I'm willing to help."

"What do you mean? I'm totally stable!"

"As stable as a one-legged horse," he chuckled. "I mean, look at that outfit. Let's face it, it takes some serious mental trauma to convince yourself that getup is normal."

Annoyance took a nosedive into the depths of pure rage.

"What. Did. You. Say?" Ryuko's outfit began to glow again, and short bursts of steam escaped through its vents and creases.

Ryuko, cried Senketsu. You're doing it again! Just calm down.

"I said, that's just not normal. You're in denial about the whole thing, really. Not being human, and all."

"I AM human!" she growled. The lines covering her outfit began to veer closer to crimson than pink.

Ryuko, stop it. Please. For the good of both of us. It hurts me and you. I don't want this to happen again.

"This exhibitionist escapism, denial of your nature, and poor temper… I'm willing to bet this had something to do with how you were raised. Let's start with your mother."

"N-no! I! I don't! Need! Your! Help!" Ryuko wailed. Trickles of blood began to seep through her Kamui, dripping to the ruined floor and evaporating instantly.

Listen, Ryuko. Take a deep breath, step back. He's stepping on all the wrong nerves by accident. He just thinks he can help.

Ryuko swallowed hard and began to calm her heavy breathing. "Y-yeah. This is why I keep you around, Senketsu. I'm sorry."

"Look at that," said Sol, waving a hand toward her outfit. "You're even talking to it."

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!" screamed Ryuko, removing any progress Senketsu had made in calming her down. "THAT'S IT! NO MORE! I PUT UP WITH DIO! I PUT UP WITH THAT SLIMY HAIR BITCH! I DO NOT HAVE TO PUT THE **** UP WITH YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE INSULTING SENKETSU!" Blood began to explode out of Ryuko's outfit, turning to steam seconds after hitting the air. Debris surrounding the girl began to float into the air.

"What the hell is happening to Ryuko?" breathed Katniss, having just finished assembling her rifle.

Holly shifted her weight off of the shelves and fell forward, putting a hand down in time to catch herself. "I don't know. But is certainly isn't pretty."

"I'll take that as a no, then?" said Sol, taking a step back.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT MY OUTFIT, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT MY TEMPER, AND NOBODY IS GOING TO TALK ABOUT MY MOTHER, EVER, ****ING AGAIN!" The red striping that covered Senketsu was now gushing blood, and Ryuko seemed to be having trouble standing.

Ryuko? Why would you do this again? Why?! This isn't what I want. I thought you were fighting for me. But you're being very selfish!

"You know," mused the bounty hunter. "I think I can't say you're in a decision-making mind right now. So I'm going to stage an intervention." He readied his sword, and backed up once more.

Against the far wall, Adam cradled the unconscious Ruby in his arms, using his broad back to shield her from the splashes of boiling blood.

"If I do not look, it will go away… If I do not look, it will go away…"

Ruby began to return to consciousness, blinking her silver eyes open. "A-Adam? What's going on? What smells like blood?"

"That would be blood," he squeaked. "Ryuko seems to be producing an excess of it, and at a very high temperature."

"You don't know much about girls, do you?"

"Admittedly, no."

Ruby scooted herself along Adam's arm and peered past his shoulder, took one look at Ryuko, then quickly popped back into shelter, looking very concerned.

"You know, maybe I don't know that much about them, either."

Katniss removed her eye from her rifle's scope. "Should we… go help her?" she asked to Holly, who by this point had pulled herself into a sitting position.

"Sol wiped the floor with us when we fought. I doubt you could do much better in a close-quarters battle like that. Ryuko should be our best bet, but right now-" she gestured outward to the large mess the other girl was creating. "Well, I'm not sure what to make of that."

"You know, she started to do something similar when we ran into-"

Katniss was interrupted by Ryuko's outfit doing something that could be best described as "exploding", though that didn't really do it justice. Very suddenly, she was no longer clothed (well, less than usual). Senketsu seemed to become a terrible, fanged mouth, which promptly clamped its teeth over Ryuko's bare body. This was followed by a more conventional explosion, accentuated by the pink sparkles that tended to follow one of her outfit's transformations. But as the bright flash disappeared, it became apparent that this was no ordinary change. Not only had her outfit been altered, but so had her body- and it did not look pleasant in the slightest. The creature that had replaced Ryuko was twisted far enough that it would be surprising to know it was ever human.

Ryuko's skin was now a pale, corpse-like blue. Her left arm had become hideously oversized and bloated, bent along its length in a manner that suggested it had been sliced horizontally like a cucumber. Her right, as a counterpoint, was greatly reduced; a mere twig fused to her Scissor Blade at a useless angle. Her head limply teetered on Senketsu's eye-crest, which had grown significantly in order to accommodate the ungainly left arm hanging off of it. Massive tusk-like fangs forced their way out of their mouth, in directions inoperable for any form of eating. A couple even shot up through her skull, protruding grotesquely from her forehead, like horns. Her eyes were wide and sunken in, jammed open with what must have been excruciating pain. Perhaps most horrifyingly, her waist had been replaced with a wide, gritting, bestial mouth, filled with the same sort of teeth as the ones in her head, only larger. Blood still streamed from every part of her body, ranging from thin rivulets to full-blown geysers.

"Hey, Adam?" asked Ruby quietly.

"What is it?"

"You know how I called you a big baby earlier?"

"Yes."

"I take it back. For your own good, don't look behind you."

"Jeez!" yelped Katniss, tripping over her own foot-anchors onto her bottom. She scrambled to get her sniper rifle back into a firing position, now unsure of whom to be targeting. "What did- that's Ryuko?"

"There is a certain resemblance," grunted Holly. "If I had any guess, I'd say she can't control that very well. Don't do anything until we see what she does to Sol." Katniss nodded an affirmative and returned her eye to her scope. "Hey," continued Holly. "Do you see Adam and Ruby out there?"

Katniss swung the rifle's barrel left and right, scanning the debris scattered throughout the food court. "Shoot, I almost forgot about them," she muttered.

"Sol knocked me out of the fight a while back- I didn't see what happened after Ryuko crashed through the roof."

"I've got a fix on them. They're up against the west wall. They're keeping very still. Adam's got his back to the room and is using his body to hide Ruby."

"D'Arvit, across the room? If this situation gets any worse than it is now… we'll have to cross her."

"That's assuming it gets any worse," commented the sniper. "I mean, she could just make a scary face, change back, and be do-"

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!" bellowed Ryuko, spattering Sol with blood. The bounty hunter drew a gloved hand over his face, shaking the hot liquid back onto the ground.

"Now, see what you've done there? You just transmogrified. And that is my area of expertise," he chuckled. He pointed his rectangular sword at the mangled Ryuko, and with his other hand, waved her on. "Now, show me how it works!"

Ryuko responded by launching herself off the ground, bringing her bloated arm down in a spectacular punch. Sol inched away, raising his sword so that Ryuko's momentum carried her down onto the blunt edge with horrific speed. A moaning gasp escaped through her mass of teeth before the psychologist sent her flying away with a spinning heel kick. Sol flung himself after her misshapen body to continue his string of attacks.

"What kind of rounds are those?" asked Holly as Katniss began to advance a bullet into place.

".408 High-Accuracy Anti-Materiel. They always were telling me how rare these bullets were…"

"I don't need a story," huffed Holly, crawling to Katniss' side. She sat down and placed a glowing hand back on her chest. Nearly done. Come on. "But I think I have a plan."

"Talk to me," Katniss spat, adjusting her scope.

"Remember when you went crazy with the Satsui no Hado?"

"Yeah. Are you ever going to tell me just when you learned Hokuto Shinken?"

"Later, I swear. It's not actually that interesting. Now, when you were under the influence of the Hado, which was powered by your anger, it was fairly easy to snap you out of it."

"You just had to hit me once."

"Exactly. We need to calm Ryuko down. Right now, she's obviously angry. It's being fueled by some pent-up aggression and sustained by the fact that her body- well, is like that. But if we can get her to where she doesn't feel anything…"

"Just before she would black out," whispered Katniss. "Like from a serious enough wound."

"There's the trick. You're going to need to hit her where you can injure her enough that she's very, very close to death, but not dead."

"If I could get a decent angle up through the stomach, I could put a hole through a few organs and leave the lungs and heart intact," considered Katniss. "Or I could go for between the lungs. Now that's a tricky shot."

Holly frowned. "Well, whatever you do, her body clearly isn't laid out like a human's anymore."

"So I'm shooting blind? Great," she muttered.

"Mostly blind," offered the elf.

An upwards swing from Fireseal sent Ryuko's hulking frame airborne. Sol leapt up after her, preparing to follow up with an elbow drop, when the monstrous girl spun in midair, slashing her Scissor Blade arm across his chest. Sol reeled backward, and Ryuko seized the opportunity by grabbing him with her oversized hand and flinging him to the ground. He attempted to rise, but was unable to before she landed on him heels-first.

"GWUUUUUUUURHHH!" she howled in triumph, driving her Scissor Blade tip-first through his ribcage. Sol coughed up a mouthful of his own blood, and placed one hand on the weapon in his chest and another on his headband.

"Final… Dragon… Install," he coughed, tossing Ryuko aside as he powered up. Once again, flames crawled across his body, but now he exhibited drastic physical changes. His skin darkened to a burnt reddish-brown, and long wing like projections rose from the back of his head as a horn protruded from the front. He floated off the floor, hovering toward Ryuko as the wound in his chest sealed.

"I'VE JUST RELEASED AN EVEN LARGER PORTION OF MY GEAR FORM!" he shouted in a now-echo-ey voice. He raised his sword above his head, and it split in two once more, revealing its searing-hot innards. "NOW, IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO BE REHABILITATED!"

Ryuko accepted his challenge with a guttural roar, and the two locked blades once again, with Sol's heavier swing winning out. Ryuko was knocked back into the eastern wall, landing next to Janice's corpse- not that she noticed. She flung herself back, grappling Sol with her oversized arm and shoving him on to her extended Scissor Blade.

"Oh," he wheezed, looking down at the weapon that had just run him through. Ryuko clenched her hand around his legs and began to pull downward, the blade slowly advancing up his chest. "W-w-w-wait!" he cried, but Ryuko did not. With a final pull, she cleaved his upper body in two, tossing him aside. He landed next to Adam, which caused the huge man to leap into the air squealing.

"Was ist das?! Eine-"

Ruby shot a hand to his mouth.

"Quiet! She'll…" the girl noticed that the now-unoccupied Ryuko was staring at them. "see… us."

Adam finally turned around to see the thing that had been causing all of the noise.

"Ruby," he whispered, "I turned around."

"I know," she squeaked.

"BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHH!" screamed Ryuko, blasting towards Adam and Ruby in a full-blown charge.

"D'Arvit," cursed Holly. "You've got to shoot. Now!"

Katniss obliged, and sent a round into Ryuko's midsection. The bullet whizzed out the other side, passing between Adam and Ruby by inches before embedding itself in the far wall with a sharp CLACK. The monster that had been their friend stumbled, tripped, and fell on its hideous face, sliding to a bloody halt at the artificial man's feet. Silence returned to the ruined mall, with the exception of the soft sound of blood from the ceiling dripping onto the floor.

Holly walked slowly out of the music store, observing the horrific scene that had been created.

"What have we done?" she whispered before scrambling to Ryuko's side. She cautiously searched for a pulse, not entirely sure that she was completely incapacitated.

"Y-you shot her," cried Ruby.

"She was about to kill you," stated Katniss.

"But she was our friend!" the huntress protested.

"Do you think I didn't know that when I pulled the trigger? I did. And I knew exactly what was going through her head." Katniss turned to Holly. "Is she going to-"

Holly breathed out slowly. "No pulse. She's dead."

They paused, realizing the severity of the situation. Ryuko had been their strongest fighter, and now she could no longer help them. Furthermore, they had killed her.

"Will she… forgive us?" asked Katniss.

"I don't know- I mean, I would assume that she would- she wasn't in her right mind- but would she- I just- I don't know," stammered Holly.

"And how are we going to get to Twilight now?" asked Ruby. "Sol was just one guy, and he wiped the floor with us. We couldn't fight another guy like that!"

"Well… we could have lost here in this building when she killed all of us… or we can lose later when we run into something worse later on… maybe we should have stuck with the first option… but…" Katniss' voice trailed off, and she fell to her knees with a distressed sigh.

"We are totally screwed," moaned Ruby.

"Yeah, there's no way around it," said Holly. "Adam, what do you-" she realized that he was no longer at the spot he had been standing before, but had instead found one of the few clean corners of the room and was vomiting violently into it.

"… I see," concluded the elf.

At that moment, their mourning and consternation were interrupted by two small objects hitting the floor after falling through the shattered skylight.

Holly looked up, delicately walked around Ryuko's body, and rushed to the items, which she found familiar.

"It's like before… in the token-collecting round," she said, picking up the paper-wrapped lumps and wiping the blood off of them with her sleeve. The rest of the team scurried over to take a look, though without as much spring in their step as usual. Holly unfolded the first, finding a pink heart surrounded by a thick gold bezel.

Holly folded her lips in approval. "Second Street Ballrooms. At least it isn't a riddle."

"How about the other?" asked Katniss.

Holly held it up. It was a similarly-sized disc of metal, with a central sun-like image and six boxy rays pointing towards the edges. The perimeter was also carved with a pattern that echoed the logo.

"Eighth Street Foundry," read Holly. "I have to say I'm appreciating this new straightforward approach."

Ruby scratched her head. "So that's where we have to go to find those VIWs?"

"That's what makes sense," said Katniss. "But why two of them?"

Holly tilted her head sideways a little. "Well, we killed Janice, right? And Ryuko killed Sol…"

"And I killed her," grunted Katniss. "But that would be three kills to three clues, and we have only two."

"So somebody's not dead," scowled Holly, drawing her Neutrino, as the others followed suit with their weapons.

Ruby blasted a magazine into Janice's large and waspy corpse, sliding backward on the wet floor thanks to the recoil.

"I think she's all right," she called, swinging Crescent Rose back over her shoulder.

"I do not think Sol's body is going anywhere," shuddered Adam.

"Aw, crap," hissed Katniss. "The trick shot worked." Toward the center of the room, a large puddle of blood had developed a large, misshapen depression in the center. Inside of it lay an uncharacteristically limp and particularly human-looking Ryuko, stark naked. A tattered-looking Senketsu lay crumpled next to her.

"So we didn't kill her?" whispered Ruby.

"Maybe not," said Holly, rushing back to the girl's body. She placed a hand on her wrist. "No pulse." She promptly twisted a dial on her Neutrino, shoved the barrel into the center of Ryuko's chest, and fired. Ryuko's body jolted in place, and the girl inhaled with great effort.

"You shot her again!" cried Adam.

"I defibrillated her," explained Holly. "A shock from my Neutrino was enough to restart her heart." She checked for a pulse again, nodding her head. "It's there, but irregular. If we're going to save her, I need you all to help out. This is a mall, it should have supplies."

"What do you need?" chirped Ruby excitedly.

"You can go and look for a blanket. Katniss, you go and find some water. Adam, you look for food. She lost a lot of blood, and since we don't have any way to do a transfusion, we'll just have to help her make more of her own. Get moving!"

"Will do," grunted Katniss, sprinting away with the others. Holly knew she didn't have much magic left, but she figured that this was as good a use as any. "Heal," she breathed, placing her hand on the girl's chest. Sparks of magic danced from the elf's body into Ryuko's, and Holly felt the ragged heartbeat under her palm begin to stabilize. A pair of dark blue eyes fluttered open.

"H-Holly?"

"Yeah. Hold still, kid."

"I… I should probably… tell you what all of that was."

"Stop talking. That's using up resources your body doesn't have."

Ryuko breathed out slowly, nodding. As the other members of the team began to return, Holly directed their actions into a calculated medical effort. Within minutes, they had wrapped Ryuko in the blanket and had begun to supply her with sips of water, while Senketsu had been hung on a re-appropriated clothing store rack to dry.

Ryuko sucked down another tiny plastic cup of water and began to explain. "So, in case any of you didn't figure it out, I'm not completely human."

"That's a bit like saying, 'I'm only partially insane'. If a little bit makes you do stuff like that, what's it matter if you were 100%... whatever?" jabbed the elf.

Ryuko made a small huffing noise and continued. "I was born normal, but I was fused with Life Fibers- the stuff Senketsu is made of- when I was a baby. They've grown inside of me all of my life. They're what makes me so strong. Senketsu's actually made with some of my cells, too, so we're sort of meant to work together."

Katniss looked back over her shoulder from her position on watch. "That's not explaining the rampaging monster thing."

"I'm getting there. Jeez," Ryuko hissed. "When I get too angry, the Life Fibers in my body go all wonky and smash together with Senketsu's, making… that. It doesn't happen too often. It's not very-" she coughed briefly- "…healthy."

"So it was a good thing that I shot you, then?" asked Katniss. Ryuko gave her a confused look.

"Bullets normally don't do anything to me," she said.

"I'm a good shot, I guess," replied Katniss humbly.

Holly cracked open another bottle of water and refilled Ryuko's cup. "I think the real question here is, will you let it happen again?"

"I never let it happen, okay? I… I've just been fed up with everyone making fun of Senketsu… and when we ran into Dio-"

"You ran into Dio?" gasped Holly. "And made it out alive?"

"We didn't fight him," explained Katniss. "He's got a new lackey. Some girl who fights with her hair. Kept switching from polite to creepy. We killed her."

Holly narrowed her eyes. "Then why didn't you get one of those clues?"

Ryuko and Katniss shared a glance. "Oh," said the wounded girl. "Maybe we didn't."

"Anything else about your little adventure you want to fill me in on?" growled the elf accusingly.

"We lost the motorcycle," offered Katniss.

"It was a nice motorcycle," elaborated Ryuko.

"Well, maybe there was something. Didn't Dio say something about another, more important mission?" asked Katniss.

Ryuko nodded. "Yeah, yeah, he did."

"That's pretty vague. I don't think that really gets us anywhere," commented Ruby, stuffing her face with another handful of potato chips.

"Would you quit eating those?" groaned Holly. "They're simple carbohydrates for Ryuko."

"Nope!" giggled Ruby. "We got extras!"

"Fine," sighed the elf. "We need to start planning our next moves."

"We could try going for a VIW," said Katniss. "There's a good chance Twilight has nothing better to do than complete the objectives."

Holly shook her head. "But that's what everyone is trying to do. She would know that we would assume that. So she would purposely try and do something else."

"Forgive me for my intrusion," said Adam softly, "but an attempt to complete one of the objectives puts us closer to at least one goal. The most benefit can be derived from pursuing the option that provides the greatest chances of success."

"What did he just say?" whispered Ruby to Ryuko.

"No idea," replied the wounded girl.

"I see what you mean," said Katniss. "If we do go after a target, we at least have a chance of getting that done and maybe winning the round. We even have clues for two of them already. If we try chasing Twilight down, there's a chance we may not find her and we'll have wasted the whole round."

Holly stood up and shrugged. "Okay, okay. You guys win. We can head out when Ryuko's feeling well enough to walk."

"I am," grunted Ryuko, who jumped off the floor as if nothing had happened.

Ruby opened a second bag of chips slowly, until an approving nod from Holly allowed her to dig in.

Holly sighed. "Let me guess. Life Fibers?"

"Life Fibers," replied Ryuko.

"Of course. And are those Life Fibers going to get you some new underwear as well?"

Ryuko looked down, yelped, and frantically snagged Senketsu off of his makeshift clothesline to cover her shame. With a sheepish gulp, she ducked into a nearby discount store.

"You'd think she wouldn't be so sensitive about it," whispered Ruby. "Given, well, you know."

"We will never speak of this again," commanded Holly.