Holly pressed her foot down a little further, and the engine picked up speed just as it should.

"This replacement driveline is probably better than what this jalopy had in it in the first place," she noted.

"I'm just glad that you're driving instead of Usagi," called Twilight from her seat in the back. Usagi evidently took offense at that.

"Hey! I'm a great driver! I'm going to pass my driver's exam with flying colors!"

"You're not," stated Alucard.

The van, while more full than it had been before, seemed far more peaceful, if only because it was no longer jolting back and forth across the road. Twilight's plan had worked wonderfully, and after a little trimming with the Neutrino's laser cutter mode, the new driveline was in place, and they were on their way. They were making good time- they had nearly made it to Terre Sombre before midnight.

"We've got to be close by now," said the unicorn.

"And we are," replied Holly, pointing out the window at a passing sign briefly caught in their headlamps, which read "YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME IN TERRE SOMBRE!"

"Woo-hoo! We're here!" cheered Usagi.

Holly peered up the road from her several-phone-book perch. "Huh. It's a pretty big town compared to the others, but where's all the traffic? Shouldn't there be more?"

"Maybe they're all in bed?" Jack suggested.

Alucard pushed his sunglasses up further.

"No. There is death in the air."

Holly took the van out of gear and brought it to a gentle stop. She kicked the release on her captain's chair and swiveled back to face the rest of her passengers.

"How much death?"

"A lot," the vampire replied.

Holly kicked her feet up onto the center console. "Why don't I go scout ahead? If there's another team out there, it'd be good to know in advance."

"I'll go with you," offered Twilight.

Alucard undid his seatbelt. "I must accompany Miss Sparkle."

"Hey, sounds good to me," shrugged the elf. "The more of us out there, the better chances we have."

Luffy flipped his hat onto his head excitedly. "Then I'm going too."

"You two guard the van," instructed Holly. "We'll be back."

The expeditionary party set out from the van and travelled into town on foot, passing silent buildings and wrecked cars by the light of Twilight's horn. Holly drew her Neutrino as the four moved onward down a deserted road.

"Yeah, Alucard, I'm thinking that you're right. This place is pretty… dead. Are you sensing anyone out there?"

"No, police elf. For the moment, we seem to be alone."

Twilight cautiously charged her magic up a bit further. "The second you hear or see anyone, tell us, okay?"

"I shall, Miss Sparkle."

Holly held up her free hand, indicating for the rest of the fighters to stop.

"There's a barricade along the road up there," she whispered. "I'm going to go fly over, and see what's on the other side."

Twilight and Alucard nodded their approval, and the elf took off, circling over the wreckage before coming back in for a landing.

"You're going to want to see this."

Twilight's magic deposited Luffy in a smoking pile on the pavement, which he was not pleased with.

"Hey! Why don't you warn somebody before you do that-"

He realized that the unicorn was ignoring him, as was the vampire and the elf. They were all gazing silently at the ground, for beyond the barricade lay a truly gruesome scene. Hundreds of bodies were strewn across the ground, piled against cars, and hung from low windows. Twilight placed her hooves over her eyes.

"Oh, it's… worse than in Southville," she gagged.

Even Holly was having a little trouble looking at the carnage close-up. "Who could be worse than Dio?" she wondered, hand over her mouth and nose.

Alucard moved toward a single body that sat alone, facing the sky. It was a girl, not much older than most of the child warriors, clad in a bloody special-forces suit. One of her eyes had been removed, and an arrow protruded from the other.

"I have a feeling it was her," he grimaced.

"And that arrow- that's one of Katniss'," confirmed Holly. "Did she-"

Alucard wrinkled his nose. "She is not here. She escaped."

"If we didn't see her on the road or back in Southville, she must be moving the other way- along the road, like we are," Twilight hypothesized. "If we can move- ugh- faster than she does, we should catch up to her."

Alucard fished a glove into one of the girl's tactical pouches and removed a single gold coin, which he flicked squarely between Luffy's eyes.

"You heard Miss Sparkle. Let's move."

***

Yoko burst through the doors and skidded to a halt at the command chair. Rei Four, who had been waiting patiently at her own console, snapped to a salute.

"Captain on the bridge," she announced.

The other gunnery officers turned and saluted as well, and Yoko did her best to wave their respect off.

"Don't worry about formality, folks. I'm your captain and I'm wearing a bikini, in space. Do you think I care? Let's focus on the task at hand. Four, give me a sitrep."

Four tapped a few buttons at her console, and the bridge's physical windows were overlaid with a three-dimensional panoramic hologram. The effect was startling, but very convenient for their job. Four pressed another button, and the void of space was instantly separated into glowing green boxes, denoted with complex alphanumerics and minimalist symbols- a tactical overlay. Several zoomed-in images appeared, displaying slowly-rotating planets.

"There are approximately five hundred celestial bodies in this sector. Approximately four hundred of them are now on a collision course with the Cathedral Cosmos," she explained. "Many of these targets are small planetoids. Despite their lack of mass, a collision with any one of them would deal serious damage to the Cosmos, which would take time to repair."

"And that's time we don't have in hostile territory," added Yoko. "What can we bring to bear at the moment?"

"Our Spiral Energy reserves are at fifty percent," expounded Four. "Activation of the main battery is expected to draw thirty percent, leaving the engines with twenty percent power."

"That's too dangerous. The main battery is not an option. What about our secondary weapons systems?"

"Considering the situation, I recommend activation of the Wave Motion guns, Captain."

"And what exactly will those do to our planetoid friends?"

Four tapped with dull excitement at her console until long strings of equations began to appear next to each zoomed-in view.

"Breaching the cores of these planetoids may trigger a catastrophic disintegration event," she explained stoically. She drew an index finger through the air, and a green circle appeared as an artificial horizon across space. "This is the maximum range necessary for causing such an event."

"All right, ladies and gentlemen!" shouted Yoko quite suddenly, visibly startling her gunnery officers. "There's your mission. Everything that enters the killzone gets blown to high heaven, or you can kiss your universe goodbye!"

Yoko took her turn to press buttons, flicking a switch on the armrests of her command chair. The mechanical arm on which it was mounted raised the chair into the center of the room, giving her a full view of the proceedings.

"First target is entering firing range!" exclaimed an officer.

"Wave Motion Engine charged! Engaging the firing conduit!" shouted another.

Yoko watched the zoomed-in image disappear, their target becoming a green-highlighted twinkle tens of thousands of miles away.

"Firing solution ready," said Four, reading off her displays.

"On my mark," commanded Yoko, waiting for the planetoid to drift closer. Her officers knew this was what she was doing, but after a minute of her waiting, they began to doubt her methods.

"Captain Littner, we are ready to fire," reiterated Rei Four. "At any time you could issue the command."

"I know. I'm just waiting for it to get close enough that Artemis will remember what he's gotten us into."

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

A mischievous grin crept across their captain's face as she pulled her hat's brim in front of her goggles.

"Just make sure you all grab onto something. Mark."

The hologram was overwhelmed with white-blue light as the Wave Motion Gun discharged its planet-busting beam into the center of its target. The zoomed-in screens reappeared, showing the once-vibrant planetoid crumbling away into the briny black.

"Excellent shooting, guys," smiled Yoko. Four did her best to express a foreign emotion called 'concern'.

"Captain, at that range, some of the debris will impact our shields."

"Which is why I told you to hold onto something."

"But, Captain, this action may put the ship in danger."

"There are two things that will get put in danger, Four," explained Yoko. "One, whatever sector gets hit might get a brownout as the shields try to compensate, so your buddies may not be able to read their Nietzsche; and two, Artemis is in grave peril of losing his freshly-poured glass of spring water. And that will be quite worth the danger."

Four could not think of anything better to say, so she replied with, "Of course, Captain."

Robotnik slowly tightened another screw into place, which would finally lock the primary servo in. The replacement arm for his Egg Robo would be complete, and he could then spend the last hour of his shift calibrating it. Machines were nice and orderly like that, everything about them boiled down to a process. If only people could be so simple.

"Hey, fatso, you're getting paged," snarled Koboi from her workstation. Robotnik looked up and found that, yes, his communicator was indeed buzzing. He picked up the small, square tablet from the corner of his desk, scrolled through the menus, and found that he had received a text message. It took him a moment to recognize the name.

Granger? That was the lady from earlier, right? What does she want?

He opened the message-

Are you busy?

Robotnik was not exactly sure what to make of it. He looked to his left and right, as if he was about to stuff a tube of toothpaste under his jacket and walk out with a tip of his hat to the cashier, to realized that he and Koboi were the only ones left at their stations. He had let time get away from him again, but it was no matter. He did his best work on as little sleep as possible, so a late evening at the lab was nothing he was concerned about, much unlike the text. He typed his reply quickly.

No

...GET A LOAD OF THIS

Have u ever built exoskeleton?

Robotnik let out a sigh that was half disappointed, half relieved. He had sort of expected an offer for a date, but he knew that robotics was his forte, not romance, and that if she approached him, he would undoubtedly screw it up. That, and he was certain he recalled seeing a ring on her finger, which would make things very complicated. So he thankfully returned his focus to the question- exoskeletons, yes, he had indeed built them. He was very good at building them, even if they had never been successful. That wasn't his fault, for once.

Yes

…GET A LOAD OF THIS

R u using a signature?

No

…GET A LOAD OF THIS

OK so if I needed to lift some things could u make an exo for that

Yes

…GET A LOAD OF THIS

OK do that and fast and send it on an elevator to Personnel

Koboi is a bitch dont listen to her

why do u need exo?

…GET A LOAD OF THIS

to lift some things. Thnx bye

"Koboi, I'm going to need your help with something," he grunted, getting up from his seat and wandering to the parts storage bins.

"Oh, so I get your work done, and now you need my help, that's how it's going to be, fatass?"

Robotnik drew something flat and rectangular from both of his back pockets.

"Oh, what's that? Are you going to bribe me with chocolate? It's going to take a lot more than that-"

He fanned the five extra bars he held in each hand open.

"And what do you need help with, Robotnik?" asked the pixie, suddenly more cooperative.

"We're going to build an exoskeleton," he declared.

"Like, a heavy lifter?"

"Ho ho ho!" he chortled. "An Egg Lifter!"

***

Twilight found the warm light against her eyelids to be too annoying to sleep any more. She stretched as much as she could in her seat, removing her head from Alucard's shoulder- all of the other passengers seemed to be asleep, including her bodyguard. She doubted he really was, and was most likely resting his eyes, or something. Out the van's windows she could see the wisps of white clouds peppering the blue sky slowly trundle past, faintly cognizant of where they had been, and unsure of where they were going- borne along by some convoluted invisible force that they could not understand. Twilight smiled at the parallels.

"How are you doing, driver?" she called softly.

"Fine, fine," assured Holly. "The long-cut around Terre Sombre was a pain in the bottom, but we're nearly to Easton now. No sign of Katniss on the road."

"Do you think she's there, in Easton?"

"Either that or she got carried off by some giant desert death-bird, but I guess both are equally possible."

"We'll find out soon, then," said the unicorn, settling back into her seat. Across Alucard's shoulders, she could see across the sea of salt-packed dirt, until it was eventually halted by great hazy, distant mountains. Somewhere in the haze, something flickered.

"What's that?" she asked quietly, hoping not to wake her more excitable companions.

Alucard stirred, pulling his sunglasses off and blinking into the distance.

"I don't know," he murmured. "But it's very strong. I can feel it."

The flicker at once erupted into a great pillar of light that tore into the sky for miles, suddenly bleaching the normally sun-lit landscape.

"D'Arvit," swore Holly, keeping check on her volume as well. "It's a good thing we're nearly there."

"Agreed. Whatever caused that… I wouldn't want to run into it," said Twilight.

Holly eased off of the accelerator and began to shift down as they rolled into a dusty patch that might have been a parking lot next to a run-down looking diner, sliding up alongside a custom semi-tractor. She opened the door quietly and pounced to the ground, motioning for Twilight to do the same. The unicorn and the vampire followed Holly out, with Alucard doing his best to push the sliding door back into place silently. Holly drew her blaster as the other two formed up, and the trio whipped around the corner, ready to fight. They were not ready to be greeted by the tall, wiry man in a red coat that was sitting along the wall with a box of donuts.

"Hello!" he cheered, taking another bite of an éclair.

Holly gave the man a skeptical look. "Uh-huh. And you would be…?"

"Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III, don't hesitate to call."

"What a colorful name," gushed Twilight, before turning to Alucard and whispering, "Seriously?"

"I like his coat," the vampire replied quietly.

Holly scratched her head. "And you're eating some donuts, there?"

"Yeah, and watching the fireworks. You want some?"

"No thank you," declined the elf. "And are you sure about those fireworks? I don't think that's something you want to stick around for."

"I dunno," he shrugged. "We thought they looked cool."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "We?"

The door to the diner jingled open, and a girl emerged carrying a soggy white cardboard box.

"Okay, Vash, this is the last box they've got."

When both parties saw the other they set down their respective weapons and donut boxes and charged headlong into an enveloping embrace.

"Oh, Katniss! You're okay!" cried the elf.

"Yeah, I'm fine," strained Katniss.

"So we've got Katniss back. That's a relief. Thank you for taking care of her, Mr. Vash," said Twilight gratefully.

Vash let out a nervous giggle. "He-heh, no problem. Just doing my part, ya know?"

"I'm going to go tell the children that we've got breakfast," groaned Alucard to Twilight. "And when I get back, I want to know where you got that coat," he added.