As soon as the fleshy arm burst into existence from thin air, Elena diverted her eyes from the thing and sprang into action. “Carlos! Jim! Focus up, try not to look directly at it!” Half of her words were already on the verge of being drowned out by the infernal wailing coming from the arm, but Elena could tell that the gist of it had made it to her companions as Jim coated his body with gold and Carlos stuck a bubble of water around his pierced stomach. It was not a moment too soon, for just as Jim’s skin finished taking on a brilliant golden hue, the nightmarish wailing coming from the arm intensified and it began to thrash, as if the creature was in an unimaginable amount of pain. Elena, Jim, and Carlos frantically dodged the movements, but every action they took felt like they were swimming through a thick ocean of molasses, and each narrow escape from the creature’s blows only served to reveal another hideous defect on its body. A swipe of its arm showered Carlos in sticky yellow and green pus, causing the man to scream and convulse in pain. A gentle graze of the arm on Elena’s armor hit with enough force to make a crater in the metal, with several chucks of the armor being outright gone after several gibbering faces emerged from the arm to bite straight into the metal with splintered teeth.

Then the arm elongated, tearing past the heroes to reach the forest behind them. Faces of every race emerged from it, biting deeply into the surrounding trees with such strength that their teeth outright disintegrated. At the same time, tiny roots split out of their gums to find purchase in the wood. Then arm gave one mighty heave, and Elena, despite her efforts to avoid looking at the creature, beheld the rest of its body as it slipped out of the crack in the world with a vile squelch. It had no torso, no neck, not even a head. Instead, it was naught but two impossibly long arms that were connected to two crooked and malformed legs. Every inch of skin that was not covered in bubbles of pus or vomit-inducing black boils was filled with faces of all ages and races that gibbered and wailed like an ordinary infant would upon its first introduction to the world. Each harrowing scream, each blasphemous syllable the faces howled, felt to Elena like her mind was being fractured into separate pieces that were aware of each other, yet completely unable to interact. One piece of her noted coldly that the child who might know who had laid the trap for Bill was out cold on the ground, surrounded by a pile of nearly translucent rats that had begun to devour each other from tail to mouth. Another piece of her felt grateful that Jim, even though he was making such a horrible groaning noise, had blocked a stray blow from one of the creature’s legs from crushing her to a bloody pulp. The third piece of her scattered mind considered the strange, yet somehow familiar sight of a grey man rushing over the treetops with his face set in a wild, contorted grimace of fear and hatred. Yet, for the life of that third piece, she couldn’t remember why that grey man felt familiar. The final piece of her mind noticed only the rumbling of the ground, along with the horizon, for as far as she could see, being completely filled with an unending tide of rats.

The grey man rushed closer, stopped with a vacant look in his eye, shook his head in confusion, and continued to run forwards. Every ten steps he would repeat that process, until the third piece of Elena’s mind completely lost sight of him as the tsunami of rats overtook the man. The ocean of rats crashed into the arms and legs of the creature like the tide meeting a large wall. Four Elenas blinked all at once, gradually forgetting concepts such as ‘identity’ and ‘purpose’. It was all she could do to let out a faint groan.

And then, Elena blinked. The motion itself felt like it took an entire hour to complete, but as her weighted eyelids rose, she beheld the campfire once more. There were no monstrosities of flesh. No rats. No demons, no man wearing a suit in the middle of a forest, and no strange girl. All she could see was the comforting sight of the campfire Bill had put together after the battle with the demons, which she sat next to with Jim, Carlos… Elena did a double take as she noticed their visitor.

A tall, blue man, wearing a pair of sunglasses, a mage’s cloak, and smoking a fat, blue cigar.

“Evening, dingbats.” Demu drawled out as he took off his sunglasses to look each hero dead in the eye. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m about to offer you a deal, and you’re gonna fucking take it. If you don’t, and I know you do since I looked in the future, I’ll drop you back off where you left to take another crack at meeting a fate worse than death to the Fetus, or a horrifyingly painful death to the Rat King.”

Nothing but silence met Demu’s words as the three heroes processed the entire situation, at least until Carlos broke the silence by vomiting messily into the grass beside him.

“Great, that’s really great, Carlos.” Demu snarled. “Way to add to the conversation. Shape up now you lot, aren’t you supposed to be heroes?”

Elena’s eyes widened as she finally made the connection as to who the man was. “Demu.” She breathed.

“In the flesh, baby. Now…” Demu rolled back one of the sleeves on his cloak to produce an arm covered in multiple watches while he made a big show of looking at them. “Time’s a’ tick, tick, ticking. I know you dumbasses are going to ask me about some crap, so spill it so I can tell you about stuff that doesn’t matter and you can say yes to my deal.”

Jim opened his mouth, a question clearly forming in his mind, but before he could utter even the first word, Demu irritably started to talk again. “Yes, yes yes. I fucking know what you lot are going to say. Future me already thought of that and told past me your questions, so present me (which is soon to be future me) can speed this bullshit up. Yes, I’ll tell you the deal, and tell you why I’m interested in you lot accepting. The latter answer will go before the former, of course. Future-Past me, who requested that I add the bit about him being a remarkably different entity than future me and past me, yet who also contains parts of them both, sent me an email about that approach working best. “

“You see, you fucksticks from Earth aren’t supposed to be here. Well, you were supposed to be here earlier, but not too early nor too late. The heroes before that stupid woman’s generation were mostly fine, as in they didn’t fuck things up enough that I had (or have) to care. Kevin and Adrian were set to become future problems, so I influenced that Tim guy to bop them out of the way. It’s pretty crazy, actually. Those two assholes, had the timeline continued without my gentle guidance, were set to learn how to fucking teleport around in between worlds within twenty or so years. Anyways I found out through Past-Future me (who I might mention is completely, one-hundred percent different from Future-Past me and Past me, but not Future me) that Kevin ends up blowing a certain planet to smithereens. Again, wouldn’t necessarily be my problem, but back in the 80s on your Earth I managed to track down where Elvis had disappeared to. Long story, yeah I know. I ended up stashing him on a planet that has a peculiar age prevention magic until I can find out how to make him immortal. Yeah. That’s the planet Kevin was going to blow up on a dare with Adrian. So, I convinced that half-elf with a giant fucking chip on his shoulder to have a little hero-murdering time. Great, right? But it gets better. A few years later (or was it a few years earlier?) I get a note in my mailbox from my Future self. He says, and I quote, ‘Younger Demu, you done fucked up. That stupid kingdom is summoning more heroes and since none of them truly give a shit about the place, they gonna get their brains torn out and our retirement property on the continent will be turned into a literal hellscape.’”

At this Demu paused his mildly unhinged rant to take a breath, but continued before Carlos could begin to ask a question of his own. Elena just stared, and Jim opened and shut his mouth silently like a fish.

“Yes. I’m getting to the point. My point, is that I need you guys off world pronto so this dumbass world can focus on giving magic to local heroes that actually give a shit. They won’t be able to kill the Fetus or the Rat King, but they can seal them away and save my retirement property. My deal for you lot is simple: you three give me your verbal consent to whisk you back to Earth and we never have to see each other ever again. No, you won’t be keeping your magic. No, I can’t get you back at the exact time you left. I have more important things to do than figure out the math for that, like going to Woodstock back in ’69 for the one millionth time.”

Elena stared at the blue man in shock. “Wait… you were behind that mad man? And… and going back home? Can we really do that?”

“Yes, now either shut up or accept my offer you stupid piece of shit.” Demu replied with a deadpan expression.

Elena choked back the angry retort that sprang to her lips and looked at her fellow heroes, seeing that even though their physical appearances were no different than they were after the battle with the demons, their eyes told a different story, one she was sure was mirrored in her own. Despite how hard Elena had fought throughout the years…

She, no, all three of them were tired. Even the thought of having to duel those… those monstrosities again sent shivers down her spine, and she assumed Jim and Carlos felt the same way with how uneasy they looked. Hell, Carlos had been impaled through his stomach not even a few minutes ago!

So, once her fellow heroes had steeled their gazes and nodded to her, she turned back to Demu and gave her answer.