Even falling completely onto the floor didn’t immediately wake Jackie up.

She then startled herself woke, quickly getting to her feet, knowing that she’s seeing the stalling out siVis use was flickering more and more.

The hallway was deep in shadow, the lights overhead busted open with only a few dangling and less that were still on.

Jackie leaned against the wall, or what she thinks is one. Carefully, she walked down the hall, hearing the crunch of glass under her shoes.

She kept her panting below a whisper, her movement steady and efficient. She cursed herself not asking the researcher for… Any direction, really. But she trusted that she was here—they did understand who she wanted to save, after all, so she has to be in the right place.

Then she saw the shadows move before her.

Move as in, writhing and bubbling.

She forced herself still, but it was already too late.

“… Don’t think I didn’t hear you, straggler,” the other monster of the day said. “You’re kinda messing with my idea of an entrance, here. Tell ya’ what. After when I’m done with Tabby and Davvy, I’ll come back for ya’.”

To think, this was the poor, screaming man that Jackie and everyone saw before, the night of the hospital.

She couldn’t think much on that though, as she feel something liquidly, pouring onto her back.

“You should be somewhere over there—hiding or whatever,” the fear user audibly shrugged. “Now I really gotta go, or else this chick has more time to run away…”

The sounds of his steps crunching the glass were muffled, as the goop begun to slather her head with it’s mess.

She was forced onto the ground, the volume of the stuff beginning to pin her onto her belly.

With her eyes squeezed shut and instinctively tossing and turning within her trap, Jackie cursed herself. No, this can’t be over before it even started. She had to run away, find a safe place, distance herself from the slime until she figured something out. But it’d be over, in that case.

She then noticed how the smile wasn’t consuming her. Or molding into a nightmare.

Just docile.

Her eye lids relaxed, confusion written on her worn face.

And for some reason, Tracy sprung to mind.

Could his ability have the same drawback?

She focused. She slowly lifted herself up, used the tips of her fingers to elevate her hands higher. Beginning to crawl, she actively pulled away from the goop, just going forward.

Then it sprung tendrils to latch onto her, on various and uncomfortable parts of her body.

But she still noticed—they lacked power.

She couldn’t give in. That was the trick.

She continued onwards, struggling as the slime tried to follow after, and the glass on the floor pricking her fingertips on the off chance, as well as her body being past her limit.

Jackie still trekked on, using her mind and sense to complete her goal.

She heard screaming, shouting. Laughter.

She picked up the pace, using her ears to direct her, and she was gaining enough ground that she didn’t feel the presence of the slime minutes after.

As the sounds progressed, she stopped herself shy of where they were getting more and more pronounced, laying on the floor, playing dead.

There was whimpering, muffled dialogue of confidence. Then the creaking and opening of a door.

“Guess I’ll come back later and scoop you up,” the familiar smug tone. “Don’t go anywhere, now~ As if you did.”

He closed the door, walking away and then forming into a sprint that grew more and more distant.

Jackie knew it was time, and got off the floor, letting the shards of glass trinkle down. She carefully and slowly made her way to the door. She only grasped the door handle, leaning against the structure as she continued to pant.

There was rustling beyond it. Which was understandable.

“D… Don’t be alarmed,” she said, in hopes to calm Tabby down. “I’m here… To help…”

There was a very noticeable pause.

“…That voice…” Tabby’s own responded. Jackie’s eyes opened a bit in confusion.

“You… Know me…?”

“…I never forget a voice…”

Jackie just decided to roll with this. “Can I open the door, then…? Can I… Help…?”

What was a couple of seconds felt like eternity.

“Please,” Tabby responded.

Carefully, Jackie opened the door, into the girl’s hospital suite.

It was roughed up, in disarray. He did that damage, in that short of time…?

She looked down, at Tabby-in-gown, still covered in bandages and patches that took up 60% of her body. She was leaned against her bed on the floor, sitting up, looking back at Jackie in amazement.

“…Oh honey,” Tabby sounded sad. “You’ve been through so much.”

Jackie wanted to wrack her brain around whatever that meant, but there wasn’t time.

“T—” Jackie shook her head and started again. “Is there a way for you to get out…? Shiftication…?”

“O-oh—” Tabby nodded, struggling to get to her bare feet. “Yeah yeah yeah.”

She lifted up a mummified arm, showing a bracelet around bare wrist. “This is what this is for… I wanted—he came in, used that fear ability on me… Tried my damnest to hide that I could get away…”

Jackie nodded, and decidedly avoided the topic for the possible trauma. “And I know… It’s, uh… Classified… But surely you know where Davenport is…?”

Tabby sighed, and looked to the side. “That was the info he ended up getting out of me.”

Jackie gulped, and then gritted her teeth.

“B-but he can handle himself, he’s a crafty guy for all of his terrible,” Tabby reasoned. “He doesn’t need rescue, especially from someone that’s so banged up like you!”

“We lost… Already lost… Extant Leader…” Jackie grunted. “If we lose another in the span of weeks…”

Tabby looked grim, her own jaw tightening.

“I promise… It’s not going to be a fight…” Jackie staggered forward towards her. “I just need to create… A chance. For him to escape. I’m too small, for that fearmonger. I’m not a threat. I can… Use that…”

Tabby looked at the tall woman before her, looking her up and down, trying to gauge her words with her big, expressionate eyes.

Tabby walked to her left, towards a wall. She clicked her bracelet, causing a pod to open.

She turned on her heels, prowled back to Jackie, took off her bracelet, and slammed it onto the tall woman’s wrist. Then she held it and her big hand.

"You promise me that you're going to give this back to me--th-that we're going to meet again and I actually get to see your face again, ya' hear?"

Jackie smiled warmly at her. “It’d be my honor…”

“…I was intending for that to be my final—n-not final final—but I was gonna leave after saying that and forgot to tell you how it works—” the poor girl sputtered out. “P-press and think about the lowest reaches of this thing. Okay?”

Jackie chuckled. “Okay.”

Tabby walked backwards, towards her pod. She waved and climbed within, the wall sealing up.

Jackie pressed the button and thought about going deeper.

Soon, the floor swallowed her up and she was transported through the network of the structure. Awaiting her moment.

Within this barely-awake state, her siVis senses were cranked to the maximum. Normally, this would’ve easily overwhelmed her—nothing but sensory abuse. But with this state of numb pain, within this barely-there state, the toll isn’t any different from the others heaped on her at the moment.

So she heard the conversation between the fearmonger and Davenport.

She willed her transport to hone into that direction.

With the added caveat that she’s within the ceiling of this room.

Being spat out gently onto the last layer, the pod creating a new one so she is between the various pipes, wires and support—she can hear everything clearly.

“…What’s this going to prove, son?” Mr. Davenport, being eerily calm. “You’ve made yourself public enemy #1. The Trends are people that under no circumstance, we face head on, because if we do—then it means the possible end to everything. What you and N’atural done is gotten everyone—and I mean everyone—pissed off. The unspoken rule of the time is to never make things harder for others, and you crossed it.”

“Eh, because you’re not getting the bigger picture here,” the fear user confidently stated. “Because you can’t. You’re a relic—and that’s the whole problem here, you’re holding us back from truly changing shit here. That’s what I’m doing—especially now that I literally have the power of a Shift and it’s been building up again. By getting rid of you false idols and these false ideas—we’ll finally embrace these weird times and finally move on as a race. A race of literal transhumans, and I’m gonna be the leader of it all.”

Suddenly, the room started to shake, therefore Jackie’s pod.

She tried to hold on and there was nothing to do so.

Rocking and being battered within, she saw pieces of the ceiling fall off—this giving her an unstable view of the room.

Davenport was just at his desk, as his entire room started to shift and whirl. Items floating about, structure becoming undone.

And there was the fear user—terrible head of meaded dreaded locks that went in every direction, the shaved sides, and the ruining eyeliner from his now glowing eyes as the rest of his body was covered in his slimy filth.

“I THINK I’M GONNA CALL IT A PARADIGM SHIFT—” he laughed, as her words echoed. “MAKE WAY, OTHER THINGS SHIFT AND SIVIS—”

A sphere of influence bubbled within him and then emitted from him, quickly bursting outwards in a unhealthy light—adding to the previous use.

Jackie knew he was going to say something else. Evoke more misery.

She put everything into her fist.

She reeled back and punched the part of the ceiling she’s on, as a thunderous sound followed through, as it flung out and her pod quickly saving her from falling along with it.

“THE FU--?!” was all the fear user could say before getting hit by it and the raining rubble that followed after—forcing him onto the ground

And like that, the room ceased rumbling.

Jackie was within a metal cocoon, only her side of her face being visible as she couldn’t move, but strangely see.

She bore witness of Davenport calmly getting out of his chair and walking towards the struggling would-be-king.

“Now, as a man of science and reason—I reckon what you just did, that order of yours… Might’ve cleared up the damage you caused here. ‘Make way, all things siVis and Shift’, yeah?”

“DAMN IT!” the boy shouted. “You mean to tell me that I resetted everything?!”

“Probably not, no,” Mr. Davenport shrugged, slowly prowling towards. “Buildings and non-Noumena injury withstanding. But hey, that gives me no hurry to give a little talk to you.”

The man stopped there. Stroking his chin.

“I evoke Siddhartha.”

Suddenly, the boy’s arms shot out of the rubble, and then his whole body.

Jackie watched in abject horror as the fear user screamed and was contorted into a massive puzzle piece—with his head being unchanged.

This caused the fear user to stammer in horror, looking up at the growing shadow that came over him.

“The reason that I’m not killing you in self-defense is because I don’t have a speech prepared for that, boy,” the man adjusted his mostly white and red accented suit. Adjusting the feathery frills of his collar, he continued.

“You claim that you’re going to be this… This leader in a new era, and it’s so funny to me. All you did was cause wanton destruction that made people accept we need to change. You can’t nor will you be there for the most critical part. The aftermath. We people step up, become appointed, and clean the mess up… All to build things right again. That’s my role, I’m already there. You’re a nobody upstrart. Me? Years of controversy, eccentricity, building… I’m the solution. I’m the one who’s going make this my Era.”

He motioned his hand, lifting the fear user up as he screams and shouts.

“Now get the hell out of my office.”

Davenport flings the recusant out of the building, literally forcing him to phase out of the walls into further pieces.

“YOOOOU GOT ME—” the last shouts Jackie heard, as they echoed within the walls, maybe even in the building. “BUT YOU GOT A MONSTER TO DEAL WITH---!”

With that, Jackie pressed her button in a hurry, the pod surfing within the network again.

She helped it push through the stags, the interior damage, and told it to go to the location post-haste.

Somewhere the information was stored. Somewhere you could get files of yourself, indepth.

She knew that she was there and it was up to her to stop her again.

Once again, she was spat out from the ceiling, landing on her feet.

Instantly started running, across a lab that equipment has been totaled as she looked around.

Only to find N’atural there. Standing within a ring of information about her.

Jackie stopped, a ways away from her. Jackie only saw her back, her blonde hair against the light.

N’atural turned around, looking normal. A longing look in her eyes.

“Well, hello there, stranger.”

Jackie recognized it—it was what she called her.

N’atural then looked back at her ring of data, shaking her head.

“I admit. I really wanted… I came here just to confirm that I was really fucked from the beginning. Maybe if I saw something… Something positive. Maybe I just turn myself in. Let them jail me and fix me for the good of humanity.”

She sighed, combing her fingers through her hair.

“There really is no hope.”

“Only… Because you abandoned it…”

N’atural looked to Jackie, with a perked eyebrow.

“I’m here now… Because I know it doesn’t come easy… That you have to make your own way… You literally had the power… The power to make your siVis flexible or… Or maybe even cure the people you’ve hurt… But no, you wallowed within your own… Shit…”

N’atural growled.

“When we met… When I heard your story—it wrecked me. Destroyed me. I didn’t know what to say. That was me, in the end, pouring my fucking heart out for you and in some ways… I got why you gave in, then and there. That would’ve tragic but understandable. Now, you’re stretching it thin.”

“…We met…?”

Jackie did a double take.

“Yes!” Jackie shouted. “Of course we met!”

N’atural tilted her head, “Was it at a performance or…?”

Jackie scanned her face, her eyes, her overall body language. There was no lying or sarcasm. Nothing to hide.

She was just as confused.

“At Future’s! The night of your change! We—I tried to talk you down!”

N’atural eyes went wide and then put a hand on her forehead.

“Ooooooooh… Right. Well, I keep the essential details of that night.”

Jackie honestly looked confused and dazed. “What…?”

“It’s a thing we can do with our siVis abilities,” N’atural explained. “Going into the Mindscape, altering memory even just a tad… A very slippery slope, I must add. I nearly lost my entire self.”

Jackie just stared at her.

“The details aren’t gone, just merely locked away,” N’atural rested her elbows against her hands, crossing at her midriff. “I couldn’t go on, if I kept those memories. In order to become what I am now, I needed to cast away those unneeded… Reminders that I was weak. Pitiful. To fully become the monster I always was.”

Jackie was brimming with anger. Anger and hurt.

“That’s funny,” Jackie spat venomously. “I still see a coward.”

N’atural’s expression steeled and glared towards her.

“Taking away your memories?! Screwing up your own head—just to feel better about doing the wrong thing?! It’s literally self-serving! You idiot! I fucking bled my heart for you and you threw it right back into my face!”

N’atural’s mouth started to move subtly.

Showing that her sharpened teeth were beginning to push out.

“Then I’ll make you bleed more,” N’atural retorted.

***

Maddie instinctively looked up—and was the one to see Jackie spurt out of the building, sailing downward in the air.

“SHIT--!” she shouted out. “JACKSON’S THROWN OUT—EVERYONE COME AND HELP QUICK!”

Jackie was sailing forward, was glancing at her bracelet for the quick escape, even if it meant something like this.

As she was approaching the ground at blinding speeds, and turned on her back, and covered her head and neck—bracing for impact.

And impact she did, landing onto the broken but moldable streets, skidding so much that she created a hill of street in response.

Maddie, Aiko, and the duo of Tracy and River—the latter helping her as her arms were near-ruined, gathered around the sight.

Jackie shouldn’t have been awake. She shot up, studied herself… Still intact, despite the pain.

She remembered what Leslie said.

And without warning, a N’atural landed front from the group, already at Stage Two.

The monster quickly swiped and pushed and assaulted the rest, causing them to land at various wrecks at high speeds.

There was the terrible, dry heaving sound again. Jackie knew this to be her disgusting laughter in this state.

While she struggled to get up, she managed to do it.

“Now jussss…” N’atural hissed. “Yooou and meee…”

“She didn’t—just—fight you, y’know---”

Confused, the monster looked around.

She then saw the pathetic victims that should’ve been on the floor, in pain, struggle to rise.

“w—” the monster stummered. “What issss this?!”

“It’s simple.”

Jackie walked forward, knowing she has nothing left but wanting to show who’s truly winning here. “We’ve dealt with enough shit already. Including yours.”

The monsters growled, looking animalistically as she’s cornered by prey that should be bleeding out.

She then took a bound, and landed further back.

“FINE THEN.”

The environment began to swirl and shake. Things becoming intense, things becoming undone.

The girls were scared, but they stood the little ground they had left.

“LET’SSS SEE HOW A BEASSSST WILL USE THISSSS NEW SHIFT ABILITY”

DIE VERWANDLUNG: BüHNE… DREI—VIER—FüNF

The humanoid monster gave way into the odd, perplexing design of it’s—now—true face.

It began to roar, causing all of the debris, wreckage, and rubble to rise along with the volume—and create this terrible force of power.

The girls couldn’t even get close—they were instantly pelted by various trash and random object, just like the start of this. Right back at the bottom.

But the objects started to bounce off their ruined bodies.

This causing each of them to look down, they noticed their forms starting to vibrate and flicker.

Soon, they noticed that their siVis permanently activate.

Finally. They achieved their siVis.

Flickering turned into steady vibration and the vibration turned into shifting.

There they were, shifting beings within this hellish landscape.

So they moved forward.

It was a painful, slow and methodical walk forward, but they did it. They shifted against the monster’s force, one step at a time.

Soon, their very eyes began to glow into vivid multicolor.

The shifting shadows, noticing how they often stumbled or was on the verge of collapse, they met in the middle of their pilgrimage to band together, holding each other up as they took their time. One step ever closer.

They got to the roaring monster, and then hit her.

This caused the monster confusion, stopping it’s roaring to face them, only to be punched again.

They kept punching and punching and punching—using their experience from before.

They didn’t need to win against her. Just break whatever concentration she had until it all fell down.

And soon, the force started to lose it’s focus.

Within minutes, whatever hold N’atural had over the Shift was gone—instantly vanished as soon as she did lose it.

***

And that was Stark’s cue.

With little she had left, she used her influence like a lance and shot through the sphere with precision.

It soon collapsed onto itself and dissipated within the air it once ruined.

Panting, exhausted, humiliated with only an arm propped up, Stark laughed. It pained her, but she needed to laugh.

Only because in that moment of victory, she saw within the sphere of influence—to see if anything—and more importantly anyone—was okay.

What she saw warmed her worn heart once more.

“Told you guys…”

And she slammed onto the street.

***

Standing proud and ceased their shifting, the girls simply fell onto the street as well.

Bunched together, nearly side by side, but completely spent.

And much worse, felt their cracks deep and started to spread across their bodies.

As they saw the angry beast N’atural hover over them, preparing to strike. Jackie said this.

“It was worth it…”

“It was worth it…” Aiko repeated.

“For once… We were worth something…” River said.

“Even if it was meant to be this way…” Tracy agreed.

“We became… Somebodies…” Maddie struggled to voice.

E-MOTION: DETERMINATION’S ARROW!

They all let out a collective gasp that soon was taken away.

A orange, flaming arrow of energy pierced into N’atural’s maw and caused her to skid backwards.

The new player floated down, her naked feet gently touching the ruined street.

Her robes, pristine white, were made up of smaller wrappings—fashioned into a robe dress that had a cape that started from the lower back down. She had long, flowing sleeves but on her arms wore long finger looped gloves. Her hair was pure golden, draped on her shoulders, fringe curved across her brow.

She was in position for an archery pose, her stout and beautiful frame making her presence known, and had very focused eyes and expression.

Until she dropped the pose, turned her head slightly, and wore the warmest expression imaginable. Even her hazel eyes, due to her big cheeks, were smiling just as warmly as her lips did.

“Well said, guys,” Grace Masters complimented.

She quickly snapped back into the fray, getting tackled by the monster.

E-MOTION: CONFIDENCE’S BOOST!

Said boost made the already strong woman more so, peeling the monsters back and away from her despite her being ontop of her.

But there was something wrong.

The monster begun to lurch forward against Grace’s grip, snapping at her.

Grace looked confused and possibly troubled.

And that was before her hands being ruined, due to N’atural’s face platelets springing forth.

E-MOTION: FEAR’S SWIFTNESS!

Grace quickly bailed, turning into blur and past the monster’s blindspot, as it still tried to bite at a target that wasn’t there.

The heroine looked at her mangled hands, with holes bored through it, and her expression was pure panic.

It was both humbling and scary, seeing that even she could be so, as the girls watched.

Regardless, the heroine balled them into a fist, and closed her eyes. Breathing, taking the time to, and then sported a face of anger.

E-MOTIONS: RAGE’S RAY!

Without warning, she opened her mouth wide and unleashed a red beam of pure energy.

The monster was startled by the lowtone noise, more than anything and was barely prepared for what was coming.

As it hit, chunks of her flesh was fried off.

Revealing a familiar and hurt, human arm.

“And there you go…” Grace said in a growl.

She fired again, hitting the monster trying to flee, blowing off more chunks to reveal the little girl inside.

As the entire spot where they fought kept flashing red, that meant every ray being used and more importantly, hitting.

Soon, N’atural was there. Gasping, hurt, ruined. She was in a corner, looking at Grace with a scared gazed.

Grace simply walked forward towards her, clearly the ambers of rage still fresh on her mind.

But she closed her eyes again, simply breathing again.

She put her hurt hands together.

E-MOTION: CREATIVITY’S GIFT!

What came out of her hands where a purple coated net. She thrusted her hands outward, snaring the monster girl into the net.

But Grace held a purple rope, and proceeded to go into the archery stance again, facing away from N’atural.

“Next time you terrorize people—remember the things they’re truly capable of,” Grace winced as she readied her hands.

E-MOTION: DETERMINATION’S ARROW!

The orange arrow appeared, now interlinked with the robe.

Feeling it out…!

Soon, the arrow doubled in size. And then it doubled that. To the point where Grace had to get lower and adjust for the size.

AMPED UP! EXPRESSION!

She launched the arrow, and as it sped up within the air, N’atural within the net was soon to follow.

The last the girls and anyone saw of her, was her screaming out in confusion and in fear, as she disappeared into the night-like sky.

Grace was panting and lowered her hands. She carefully wiped her hands of sweat, looking at them in worry.

She got up, looking at the battlefield that was once considered humanity’s last chance and looked on in melancholy.

She gently put her hands together, into a gesture of pray and closed her eyes.

E-MOTION: HOPE’S HEALING

Grace became a glowing, green beacon of light—pulsating across the plane, each beat causing her to look more and more tired.

But the girls felt it, how warm it was.

They didn’t feel the cracking anymore. In fact, they felt something they haven’t felt in a long time.

Little by little, all of their aches and pains melted away into a calming embrace. And soon as they could move again, all of them quickly came together for a hug.

“We’re alive—” Maddie said, on the verge of tears despite herself. “We’re alive—”

If someone like her watershed was broken, everyone else fell into line too.

Tracy went into a slow but fast wail. River tried her best to not make any nose, but was shuddering out her tears. Aiko’s face was covered, as she tried her best to mop up and stop her instant flow.

Jackie, sobbing and holding her new friends close, whimpered the same thing.

They’re alive.

They’re alive.

They’re alive.