Other than The Node, Vrume T'cha T'cha wanted nothing more than to have General Kendra Eppie be the last life he ever had to take on his mission to save the universe.

He stared at the lifeless open eyes, and the twisted look on Eppie's stupid face, feeling a little shame. Not only for killing his long-time foe, but for all the lives he had taken. From the Squambogian kazoo snail he accidentally stepped on over a million years ago, to the not-entirely-ugly Sammolite he had recently murdered. It was all feeling so pointless.

When Teeg's voice came over the communicator informing him they had docked to the Bad News Bearer to rescue him, he took his finger off the ship's self-destruct button. There were still Node Guards on the ship, and perhaps some surviving Quarol clones. Though it would tie things up neatly and get rid of a powerful enemy ship if he pressed the button, he just couldn't do it. Not anymore. Not again.

Instead he coughed up his Eppie-like impression again and announced to the ship, "All Node Guards are to stop fighting at once. All Quarols are to stop fighting with them as well and come to the bridge for evacuation. Once the Quarols are evacuated, the remaining guards are to take the ship back to Lyme Node and await further instruction. Oh, and I'm sorry for being such a jerk-wad. I love you. That is all."

Soon Vrume and the remaining twenty-seven clones found themselves on the now-crowded Shiv. If the lone Aye clone had survived, he was now wandering around the Bad News Bearer in search of drink and sex, both of which a lonely guard may have given him.

Vrume soon stood on the bridge of the Shiv with Teeg, Gekko, Clory, Potto and a still-sleeping Aye. No one knew what to say. There was a general feeling of both surprise (that they had survived the previous onslaught), and the rather lost feeling of "What-do-we-do-next?"

It was Knutt that broke the uneasy silence.

"Hey, Cap'n...do you remember that piece of garbage that had attached itself to the hull? The one that we thought was not worth the resources to pillage or give a second thought to?"

"What about it? Is it still there?" Teeg asked. She sounded exhausted. She was exhausted.

"It's not that it is 'still there', it's more like 'it's back'."

"Back? How can--?" she started before Knutt cut her off.

"Two life forms just exited the debris and are now on the ship. Clover and some...uh...I don't know...walking meat-thing in a hat?"

~~~

It often felt like a major imposition to get called into work to cover the shift of a sick or absent co-worker. Even more so to a teenager making minimum wage and having to call off a date because the co-worker had suddenly quit and walked off the job.

Brian Puff was not happy. He was on a date with Shabby Mailman, and he was finally going to make his move. What was supposed to be the night he lost his virginity, was now a night of stacking jugs of very unsexy jetsam oil.

When he arrived, he was surprised to see half of the Vexian fuelling station destroyed by fire. The fire department had finally put it out, but the sight was still quite crazy to behold. Though not so crazy that it made up for his lost chance to see someone (other than his gross parents) naked.

As he tidied up the display of questionable oil and grease, the wind started blowing, nearly knocking him over. He ran into his kiosk and watched the biggest ship he had ever seen lower itself over the station. It was a Node warship. He had only ever seen one on television, and never one this huge.

It was too big to land properly. As it hovered over the station, it lowered a long girthy hose. A Node Guard slid down the hose like a fireman down an oddly thick fire pole. He connected the hose to a fuel receptacle.

The meter next to Brian Puff spun out of control. This was going to be the biggest sale in the history of the station. When the guard finished, he entered the kiosk.

"Uh, just put it on the corporate credit card," he said as he fished through his pockets searching for the card.

As the guard fumbled with his wallet, Brian noticed, over his shoulder and through the window, that a very tall and muscular, scantily armour-clad warrior woman was climbing up the hose to the ship above.

"Ah. Other pocket! I swear they make these uniforms with too many of them. I mean, yeah, they won't allow us to carry a purse, so the pockets do come in handy. Y'know...keys, lip gloss, phone, foundation, gun...but c'mon. There's one on the back of my knee! When am I ever going to need a pocket on the back of my knee? You can't put anything in it. You wouldn't be able to bend your leg if you did! Well maybe you could put some loose potato chips in there, but they'd get all crumbly the second you sat down..." the guard yammered on as the ship behind him took off without him. He turned and helplessly watched as the ship disappeared in a flash.

"So...um...you guys hiring?" he asked Brian Puff.

They were!

~~~

K'ween stood before the Node Guards on the bridge of the Bad News Bearer. She was surrounded, guns aimed directly at her. She was smiling regardless. In her mind this was her new ship, the idiot men around her just didn't know it yet.

The communicator crackled.

"What is going on there?? Why haven't I been updated???" yelled The Node, a larger-than-life image of his face appearing on the screen above them. "Where the hell is General??"

"Uh...right over there, sir," a guard stuttered, pointing to the dead body in the corner of the room.

"Oh. Well, then."

"We're coming back, sir."

"Did you catch the Quarol? Did you destroy the prison?"

"Uh, not exactly, sir."

"WHAT??" screamed The Node. "YOU ARE ALL--" he started, but stopped mid-sentence upon spotting K'ween.

"Who...who is that?" the lonely Node asked. If the guards hadn't known any better, they'd have thought The Node had almost sounded bashful.

"I am K'ween. Leader of the Barbohdean Sisterhood," she stated with confidence, puffing out her ample chest.

"Bring her to me." The Node said softly.

After all these unkind years, he was finally experiencing "love at first sight".

K'ween smiled wickedly.

~~~

In the same back room of the Shiv where he had first been hypnotized, and again with the artificial gravity turned off, Potto now floated, back in a trance. This time Clover was joined by Vibloblblah Ooze, Vrume T'cha T'cha and Clory.

Clory rooted herself in place and held onto the others with her branches and vines to keep them from bumping heads. Her mental abilities would be needed to amplify those of the eternal Oians as they delved as deep into Potto's mind as they possibly could. Hopefully they could finally break down the wall that kept the Quarol from his deepest thoughts and simplest memories.

Vibloblblah knew who Vrume was, but there was no way for Vrume to recognize his old monk-mate through the scars and fabric. He simply trusted Clover. He hadn't seen her in many years; not since she had been the love of his old comrade Theodore.

Aye waited impatiently on the bridge of the ship as Teeg and Gekko navigated, heading it in the direction of Vrume's secretive Hephmote. He had discovered some old mouthwash and was chugging it straight from the bottle, hoping that the alcohol level in it would take the edge off. It was only making him minty sick.

~~~

In the fantastical forest in Potto's mind, Vrume stood across from Vibloblblah, thoroughly (and delightfully) surprised. Vibloblblah had taken on his original, scar-free form in this dreamworld.

"Theodore? Is that really you?" he smiled and threw his arms around the reluctant monk, nearly stepping on a neon pink polymer clay dandelion. "I thought you were dead!"

"I should have been, Bertholt. I would have been. But if you, Festus, Meesha and Allison had bothered to check..." Vibloblblah/Theodore said. "You left me to burn, Bertholt."

"If we had've thought that for a second...we would've pulled you from the aftermath, Theodore! Well, maybe not Festus...he was always a bit of a dick," he said apologetically. He had forgotten his name was once Bertholt. "But if we had, you would probably have been killed just like them."

"Did you actually see my body? Did you see theirs? You survived...somehow...what makes you think any of us died at all?" Vibloblblah asked. "How did you survive, Bertholt? And without a scratch on you?"

After so many years believing one thing to be certain, it was difficult for Vrume to believe any of them had survived, including himself...but here he was standing in front of Theodore. He didn't have an answer. He wasn't sure himself, but a surge of guilt shot through him like he was suddenly dipped into a frozen lake.

A giant tree, obscuring the orange clouds in the lemony sky, leaned over. It spoke. Only in Potto's subconscious could anyone hear Clory speak out loud. Her voice was like liquid velvet passing through a didgeridoo.

"Men. Stop. We are here for other reasons. Bigger reasons. Reasons beyond your sordid past. Let's focus before Potto wanders off again."

This was not only enough to snap the two monks out of their heated conversation, and Clover out of her staring-at-Vibloblblah's-new/old-look in a nostalgic love malaise, but it also was, indeed, enough to stop Potto from wandering off again. They all stood around the mighty and majestic tree waiting for some woody wisdom, when Bundle fluttered down from her branches, leaving a trail of weightless glitter as she did so.

"This is Potto's fairy," Clover stated, like it was an everyday thing.

Potto cheered. No one seemed surprised.

"Hello dummy," Bundle said affectionately, winking at Potto. "Let's all go to the wall. And it's about damn time!"

The group wandered through the multi-coloured woods until they got to the edge of Potto's mental block. It was huge...there was no climbing it. And it was thick...there was no way of crashing through it. It was covered in wires and circuit boards, technological thingamajigs and electronic do-dads.

Vibloblblah put his hands on it. A slight glow emanated from the entire wall. Vrume put his hands on it. It glowed a smidge brighter. Clover put her hands on it as well, and it brightened up further. The three stood, eyes closed, and meditated harder than they ever had. They tried to make it transparent and translucent. They tried to see so far into it, that they could see right through it.

Clory then reached out her branches and joined them. It got much brighter, but still not quite bright enough.

It was Bundle simply sitting on one of her branches that boosted it enough, causing the strange thing to go from solid metal to a sheet of glassy ice. Hands and branches still on the wall, they opened their eyes.

A recorded history of the "mind block" played out like a film montage through thick glass. It was as if it had a consciousness of its own. It was as if it could both see itself through the eyes of all who came across it, and through its own eyes as well. This gave those trying to help Potto a panoramic and cinematic picture of its memories.

They saw a very sick and very old Node take a removable (old fashioned) flash drive and plug it into a panel on his armoured suit. He downloaded a part of himself into the drive. As he did, he started to look younger and much healthier...but also angrier and more sinister. He was downloading an illness onto the drive, and perhaps any joy he possessed. Perhaps it was a virus that was killing him, and an emotion he deemed useless and was willing to give up.

Next up, the flash drive was in a lab, and its contents were being loaded onto a machine that, in turn, loaded those contents onto a smaller microchip. There was something else on the chip already, taking up memory. Only the monks knew what this was.

It was the same A.I. program that the Node had originally created to take over all of the web networks in the entire universe. It was unclear why he would load a virus onto this same chip, but before they could get an answer, time skipped ahead to an image of Theodore running. Tiny chip in hand, he was on fire.

The chip then made its way from the burnt hand of Vibloblblah Ooze (as he was being chased by Node guards) to a cargo ship. Out of desperation, he hid it in a sack of oatmeal being transported to Croptle, the snack manufacturing planet. It then skipped ahead, like a vinyl record skipping on a gramophone, to a snack food wrapper being opened. A protein bar was being consumed on a camping trip by a Quarol. By Potto.

The chip then separated from the oats and chocolate and nuts inside of Potto, and made its way, almost crawling like an insect, into his brain. It wired itself in deeply. It became the wall that stood in their way now. It became the wall that changed Potto.

This is what Clover saw. This is what Vibloblblah/Theodore saw. This is what Vrume/Bertholt saw. This is what Clover saw.

This was not what Potto saw.

Through the now glassy wall, he saw himself around a campfire. A beautiful woman sat by the fire. He was walking down a path away from her, with a rucksack of food to hang from a loom fruit tree so that it wouldn't attract northern neglies. He turned back to the woman as if answering a question. He smiled at her.

"Galago..." observing-Potto whispered. He looked up to Bundle, who still sat in Clory's giant branches. She smiled down at him.

"She really was quite beautiful, wasn't she?" she said.

This broke off their contact with the wall. Before it became completely opaque again, they caught a glimpse of what Potto had seen. They saw his wife for just a few seconds. They saw the rockslide crush her, and understood that this was much more than a mission to save the universe for Potto.

"One day, when he no longer carries this burden...this chip...and his head is clear, he will remember this. Fully. Then, I fear, the sweet Quarol will lose his sweetness. That sweet will become sour. He will no longer be immune to an overwhelming and horrible longing for revenge," Vibloblblah Ooze transmitted to Clover, Vrume and Clory. "Perhaps this is his 'fairy'? Perhaps. Perhaps."

When they all came back to reality, an uneasy sadness hung in the air like a dreary fog.

~~~

"So, we can't remove it?" Teeg asked Clover back on the bridge of the ship.

"No. Not without killing Potto. It's really rooted. And the chip would probably rapidly deteriorate without his brain keeping it charged up...before we could figure out how to use it." Clover replied sadly. "Before we had a concrete plan."

"We have more information than we had before, though. A lot more. We can go back to my hideout and figure out how to get it out, and how to use it," Vrume added. "We'll have time there. We'll have protection. And with Theodore's help..."

Viblobliblah nodded. He was willing to put his ill thoughts aside and work with Bertholt. For now.

"It will take some time. Hephmote will only be safe for so long. We have to hide the Quarol until we figure this out. Somewhere where The Node will never, ever find him. Too much is at stake," he added through his crackly, metallic voice box.

"Where in this universe can we hide him where The Node isn't?" Teeg asked.

"My ship for starters," Vibloblblah answered. "I created a wormhole generator. I can create a tiny wormhole that can take them anywhere in space or time. It doesn't always work well. Often I will want a quick trip to Lyme Node and end up on a prehistoric Squambog, but it always finds its way home. I will be able to track him when the time comes."

Potto didn't really understand what was going on, but he knew he didn't want to be sent off somewhere scary by himself. Aye could sense this. Potto looked uncharacteristically worried and frightened.

"I'll go with you," he volunteered. "You don't have to go alone."

"Yes," Vrume added. "And maybe take the Sentaphyll for protection."

Clory agreed.

"We'll have to make use of more of my tech," Vibloblblah added. He hesitated before he continued. They were not going to like this next bit.

"First, we need to inject a DNA cloaking device into them both. This will change their appearance slightly. Just enough to fit in with the dominant species on whichever planet and whichever time they end up. Second, and this will not sit well with any of you, but it is important..." he sighed. "We will have to temporarily clear all memories from the Quarol and the Topher."

"What!?" Teeg barked.

"I don't trust these two to refrain from messing up any timelines or accidentally starting wars or somehow giving away important information and getting themselves discovered. They will need to go into hiding as clean slates. We will restore their memories when we retrieve them," Vibloblblah explained. "It's the only way. I will set the ship to do this as they cross through the wormhole."

Aye wasn't bothered by this at all. He needed to forget the evil that his father did, and the tragic effect it had on his mother. He needed to stop feeling so much anger. Even if only for a short bit. This might just be the vacation he required.

He pictured the wormhole opening on "El Gusto!", the tropical sex planet.

~~~

Once in Vibloblblah's garbage-shaped ship, and after extensive instruction to Clory on how to work everything to some passable degree, Aye belted himself in, and Potto looked at those they were leaving behind through one of the ship's monitors. He hit the communication button and words spilled out of his mouth like water from a broken pipe.

"I don't want to do this. I sit here on this ship now, desperately trying to burn your faces into my head, so that when you bring my memory back, I remember you all.

"I am aware that this is the last time I might see some of you. I don't know if I'll remember you even if my memory is returned and I do see you again. I sure do hope so.

"You all mean the universe to me, and I want you all to know that. I know I was on a prison moon. I don't know why. That's still a mystery to me, but I know I couldn't have been that bad a person to somehow have all of you with me now. I know I haven't been easy to tolerate. But I love you all. Thank you for your friendship."

"You are loved, too, Potto." Clover said.

Teeg said nothing, but she agreed with the hippy for once. She felt it in her anguished bones.

"Can we just sit here for a minute before we go? I want so badly to remember this moment, if no other," he added.

As they stood there motionless, staring at Potto, Aye and Clory through the screen and allowing Potto to stare back at them for a few minutes, there was no awkwardness. They instead basked in love and respect and family. None of them had felt it in a long time. Some of them never had.

Teeg felt so much growth. Her desire for blood and money had become a desire for justice and a hero's legacy. Potto the fool had given her that.

Vrume T'cha T'cha felt like all of this was not solely on his shoulders for the first time since he was a monk. Potto the fool had given him that.