A numbing realization set into Anthony’s tingling body as Rachel cried into his chest; the strength of her trembling fingers lessened by the second. He didn’t know what to do as joggers and cars slowed to a stop on the road, aiming questioning looks at them.

Molly was gone? It didn’t make sense to him, and everyone else’s attitude only further dug the mystifying dagger into his mind. Was there an enemy to fight that had taken the kindhearted woman?

Snapping back to his senses with Jaenona’s gentle prompt, he pulled Rachel closer to him. No, if there were something to do, his girlfriend would have jumped into action—this was loss and pain—Rachel needed comfort, not someone to fix something.

He drew away from the others, Nia panicking as she ran inside to ask Scarlet to look through the neighborhood and get comfort, trailed by a very addled Alexa. Yseress firmly guided Jaenona into the front room to explain what had happened to the bewildered circle; Cahira silently watched him bring Rachel indoors, white-faced and motioning for Melissa to follow her outside to get answers.

“Why…” Rachel wept, face buried into her shoulder as she quivered and hiccuped in his arms. “Why am I so stupid—why couldn’t I do anything—why my mom?”

Squeezing her to let Rachel know he was here, Anthony carried her up the stairs to her room. Her shivers and weak grip drew his lips in, pulling his memories back to Amelia’s fits of pain when the cancer was too much for her medication, and he’d held her through the down times.

“Breathe, Rachel,” he whispered, rubbing her shoulder as she choked; he guided her through the process of redirecting her panicking mind through prompts to breathe and hold.

“I couldn’t save her—I… I…”

Anthony lifted her up more to press her head against his as she coughed, unable to finish her sentence, and repositioning to open the door, he pushed it in; Gisele’s head jerked up, blinking in shock upon seeing her master quivering in his arms.

Shutting it with a foot, he laid her on her sheets, and her shaking arms tightened around his neck, unwilling to release him. “I’m not going anywhere…”

He allowed her to pull him over her before she used one hand to pull the blankets out to cover them—not well—so Anthony helped her, knowing she was trying to shut out the world; he was careful with her drawn back, twitching ears and supported himself to not crush her after losing most of her lunar energy.

“I’m here…”

It must have been hard for her, unable to block out all the sounds happening when she just wanted to shut everything that hurt out.

She struggled to pull him closer, so he carefully complied, positioning himself to let her breathe while compressing her weakened body against the mattress.

Rachel’s quakes and sniffles brought tears to his eyes as he guided her into a slow roll to allow him to be on the bottom, keeping the blanket over her so she’d still feel safe and enclosed from what tormented her.

“Why my mom—why my mom?” Rachel whimpered. “She just wanted to be a mom—that’s all she wanted… Why—it’s not fair—not for Nam, Scarlet… Not to me… to Nia…”

Anthony held the back of her head and stroked her back as Rachel’s dress wrapped around his left knee with her knotted legs. She didn’t need him to talk; he didn’t know if he could without breaking down himself. There could only be one thing that would shatter Rachel like this, and he didn’t want to believe the smiling woman he’d seen not long ago was gone.

His chest rose and fell with Rachel’s as he tried to keep control of his emotions to be ready for anything she might need, but it was hard; knowing how tough Rachel was made this so much worse—just as it had been comforting Amelia in her torment.

Scarlet and the others were likely gaining the answers from Jaenona, and the Vespertine Reaper wouldn’t interrupt them using her x-ray vision to see the state Rachel was in; they’d be there for one another—he had to be there for Rachel.

He could understand the shock rippling through the others; they only saw Rachel as this stoic, calculating, and composed superhuman genius, yet she felt emotion like anyone else—she was just better at hiding it than most.

Anthony lost track of time as Rachel gradually regained control, hugging him desperately and using him to rest her head; her ears hung limply in a v-shape around his neck, and between sniffs, eventually, she drifted off to sleep due to exhaustion—she really didn’t have great stamina, especially after being totally drained.

Jaenona informed him through instinctive pulses that conveyed ideas more through impressions than words. Nia and Scarlet were taking the news poorly; they couldn’t believe their sunshine of a mother was gone, and Anthony found himself in that same bewildered state.

Yet, with the emotions from his little eldritch companion came hope—Molly wasn’t completely lost—which calmed his turbulent heart.

Closing his eyes, Anthony allowed his emotions time to unwind while feeling Rachel’s rising and falling torso as she rested. He wanted to do more, to understand what more he could do to make her pain disappear, yet he came up empty, so he held her.

Hour after hour, he laid in silence; at some point, the plump rabbit squad bounced in to snuggle under the covers to comfort Rachel. Gisele remained at the end of the bed, and he could hear her ruffling her feathers every once in a while.

At some point, Rachel’s hot breath pressed against his stomach, passing through the rips she’d made in his shirt as she pushed herself up to his chest, repositioning her ears to not lay over his face.

“Haaa…”

Anthony rubbed her back, patiently waiting for her to talk, which took several more minutes as her four bunnies snuggled closer.

“I’m too weak.”

Pushing his lips out, Anthony released a steady stream of air. “So, we get stronger.”

“Hah… How long will that take?” she whispered, pressing her cheek against him as her arms tightened around his body. “My mom needs me… yet I’m hiding here under my blankets like a little girl… hoping someone will solve something for me.”

Head relaxing against her pillow, Anthony stared at the blanket draping over them. “You’re not weak, Rachel… you’re grieving, and that’s okay.”

“You don’t get it,” she mumbled, still refusing to let him go. “I am weak—so weak… Every time I feel like I’m making progress, there’s always something stronger… so far out of my depth that I can’t think of a way to even reach it.”

“Hehe. Like being taken to an Eldritch Existence and turned into something else? Rachel, you stood in Hades and didn’t blink… Everything’s going to be okay,” he soothed, stroking her head to reposition her absurdly long hair.

“Twilight, Revilla, the Eldritch, deities, Fate… The Beast… How can you say that?”

A small, half-smirk lifted Anthony’s face as he recalled the same emotions that flooded his own heart after Amelia’s funeral; it hadn’t hit him for a while, but he didn’t have anyone there to hold him—he could be here for Rachel.

“Anthony?!”

Carefully drawing the blanket off, he scooted to the backboard, pulling Rachel close; Gisele’s focus darted to them as she got a fresh look at her master again, and the Rabbit Gang wiggled out of the folds to look at them.

“Everything is going to be okay, Rachel… because I know you are strong, and when you’re not feeling it, I’ll be here to tell you you are. Sure, there are a lot of monsters out at night… but the night is your home, right? And, heh, it’s not like you’re alone—they should be the frightened ones… because we are monsters.”

“Pfft-heh…” Rachel sniffed and choked a laugh. “How long have you been practicing that line?”

“Hehe. I thought it sounded good in my head.”

He smiled while reaching up to clear away her shiny, wet cheek, watching her take several deep, controlled breaths. “Everything is going to be alright.”

“Really?” she asked, rubbing her other cheek and puffy eye. “Can we rescue my mom? I don’t even know where to go or what to do; I just know it’s so far out of our league, and she could be absorbed at—I don’t even know!”

Puffing up his chest as a visual aid, he smiled and motioned to her, guiding her through the steps to calm her again. “Breathe… haaa.”

“Huu-haaa… I don’t know Anthony.”

“I believe you do,” Anthony returned, holding her quaking hands. “You’re allowed to feel weak when something so sudden and terrifying happens… that doesn’t mean you’re weak.”

“Heh… better,” she sniffed, bowing her head and calming her thumping heart for a few seconds. Opening her eyes, she gave him a thankful smile. “Alright… I might do some insane things, though—I need to get stronger—stronger than gods and the unimaginable.”

Flashing his teeth, Anthony chuckled. “It’s a good thing I’m the ride or die type, huh? A little insanity is fine by—”

She pushed forward, lips meeting his as he met her force, and she pulled him to the side to lay over him again, scattering her buns before breaking contact to settle against his chest. “Haaa… huu-haaa. Will you just wait here… let me think?”

“Haha. Do you think I’m the kind of guy that would say no to cuddling next to a hot bunny girl?”

A smirk lifted her eyes as she tilted them to look up at him, relaxing against his body. “A bunny, am I? Also, as the only resident ear-hater, I’d think so.”

“Oof. Hehe. Well…” He felt her stiffen as his fingers slid down to press against the base of her tail. “Can I make up for it by saying this little puffy thing intrigues me?”

“Bad!” she chided, yet there was a smile as his fingers settled around her lower back again. “Haaa. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you explore it later,” she mused, relaxing again. “I just need to clear my head and think right now.”

“Think away, My Bunny Queen.”

She slapped his arm, making him laugh and close his own eyes to loosen up; Rachel just needed time away to untangle the knot that had tightened around her heart, and if his presence could calm her boiling emotions, he could think of worse ways to spend his time—plus, he really did love to cuddle next to a warm body.

* * *

Rachel let her flaming emotions melt in Anthony’s embrace; she’d never felt delicate—she couldn’t feel powerless—yet, in Anthony’s arms, Rachel didn’t feel like she needed to be steel, allowing her time to work through her softened core.

She’d subconsciously put up a wall between Nia and Yseress to save them from her crippling collapse. Anthony’s words resonated within her; she was allowed to feel weak—it didn’t mean she was weak.

Her mother and grandmother had sacrificed everything—an entire Existence had been wiped away due to the Jade Hare’s weakness—and, while it wasn’t necessarily her fault, it was hard not to disconnect everything she’d been born from as her mother’s words sank in as reality.

The Jade Hare’s corrupted brother was her goal—in a way, her own brother—and that meant putting herself in the middle of this multi-Existence, maelstrom-like conflict.

If she was going to make this Seed grow, she needed to take advantage of every battlefield she could insert herself into, and she had to make that clear to everyone.

Rachel’s ears lifted after forty minutes of cycling through everything her mother said, and she lifted herself up to stare at the wall, causing Anthony to stretch out beneath her.

“Something wrong?”

“My dad…”

Suppressing the emotion that bit into her breast, Rachel smiled at her concerned pets, wiping away a tear she couldn’t withhold.

“Right,” Anthony mumbled, head falling to the mattress again and rubbing his forehead. “He doesn’t even remember your mom, does he?”

Rachel swallowed, needles pricking her skin; she didn’t want to believe it, yet a few painful conversations had forced their way into her brain, unable to shut out all sound under the blankets.

“It’s worse than that,” she whispered, glancing at her blinds; she’d put them up herself to block out the sunlight. “C’mon…”

She guided him to the door, pausing by a drawer on her way out to open it—it was mostly empty—the clothes her mother bought her were gone. “Everything my mother touched or had a direct hand in influencing…”

Her throat caught as she went into the empty hallway; all the pictures and memories her mother had cherished so much were gone—she now knew why—she wanted to feel real, but her mother had been an echo of the goddess that had given her birth.

Holding Anthony’s hand, she moved through the bright lights of the hallway; it didn’t matter if the sun drained her at this point. Scarlet was hiding in one of the basement rooms as a depressed Nia went with Alexa, Yseress, and Nam to the nearby store to get supplies to block out the light in the house.

“This is… crazy,” Anthony mumbled at the drastic change that had taken hold of the household. “Pictures, furniture… practically everything in the kitchen… It’s as if…”

“My mom built this house and family,” Rachel whispered, fighting back more waves of emotion as she moved through all the nearly empty rooms.

Jessy and Mason sat against the kitchen wall, finished cooking instant noodle ramen cups; her big bear of a cousin lifted it up with a grin. “Yo, Cuz, when are y’all gonna get the new fridge—oh, my dad’s going to stop by tomorrow to check out all the renovations your dad has going on.”

She forced herself to smile as Anthony gave her a concerned look. “Yeah… Heh, a lot of stuff is backed up since The Oscillation, huh?”

“No joke! Aye, could you teach me one of those combination punches you do?”

“Some other time… We have a meeting tonight, right?”

“Ah, yeah, yeah!”

Jessy had stayed quiet, glancing between Anthony and her. “Hey… are you okay, Rachel—is something wrong?”

It was like the knife had been plunged into her heart again, yet she controlled herself this time; she had to be strong for everyone else—her entire life had just flipped upside down—everything she knew washed down a drain to be ground into splinters.

“Just… a rough couple of days. I’ll be fine. Melissa and Cahira are downstairs with Scarlet?”

Mason nodded. “Uh, yeah… She’s… awkward.”

“Cahira?” Anthony questioned, but Jessy was the one to translate his meaning.

“Ugh… he just can’t handle her flirting—she’s so… ugh… We’re technically still underage, you know, and she just has to touch Mason’s arm to see how muscular it is…”

“Eh-hehe. I’ll talk to her about it. Fiona, Maria, Nora, and everyone else should be coming in a few hours.”

“We’ll be ready!” Mason grinned, throwing up a thumb. “Can’t wait to hear all about this secret stuff Mythic has been keeping—hehe, who needs rumors and conspiracy theories when you got an inside cousin—am I right?”

“Yeah…”

Waving them off, she pulled Anthony toward the rarely used basement, which had typically been used for laundry, long-term storage, and a workout room she used to use every day—her old sanctuary from Alexa.

She entered the cleared-out storage room, where Cahira, Melissa, Jaenona, and Scarlet sat in chairs; blood stains were still fresh on Scarlet’s rosy cheeks.

“Rachel… We can rescue Mom—how—what do we do? Everything… everything disappeared shortly after you went upstairs… The p-painting of your cousin, brother, and…”

“I know…” Rachel puffed out a long stream of air, trying not to let the emotion get to her. “Heh… I guess my mom really was the cause for my uncle and dad splitting up—my aunt couldn’t get over the pain… At least my dad’s not alone.”

Scarlet’s lower lip started to tremble as she got up and hugged her, burying her head in her bust with bloody tears falling onto her blouse; Rachel held her, rubbing her back as Anthony had done for her—it hurt more realizing Scarlet had lost two mothers now.

“We’ll get her back, Scarlet…”

“Will we?” she sniffed.

“We will… I promise.”

“W-We didn’t go shopping—we were supposed to go shopping t-today… Why did she disappear today?”

Rachel couldn’t hold back the tear that left her eye, throat thickening since she knew the answer; her mother couldn’t let her dig into why she refused the Seed and discover their origins without telling her the truth.

“I’m sorry, Scarlet…”

“I just… don’t want to curse anyone else!”

“You’re not a curse,” she tried to assure. “If anything… I’m the curse.”

“W-What?”

“Heh… the living embodiment of misfortune. Scarlet, we need to get stronger to save Mom. Cahira…”

The nervous Pirate Queen straightened as she called her name. “Aye?”

Melissa seemed to have been crying herself, likely empathizing with Scarlet throughout the day as she stood and cleared away her cheeks. “Is there anything I can do?”

Giving her a thankful smile while holding Scarlet, she shook her head. “Actually, we are going to help you… We’re going after your sister.”

“When?” she choked, tight fists held against her chest.

Rachel set her jaw, eyes hardening as she drew her sister away to look her in the eyes. “Tonight. Everything has changed… and—and I’ll talk to Dad. We can’t relax. Blackbeard, the Eldritch, the World Tree, Lucifer, Twilight… We can’t keep dancing to strings, jumbling around, trying to keep up on the world stage.”

Cahira sucked in her lower lip, holding her arm against her rear. “Umm… what are ya sayin’, Boss—are we goin’ to war or something—against who?”

A grin twisted Rachel’s mouth. “Everyone, Cahira—if they stand in my way, then I’m going through them—there is a plot in the background, and it’s about time we forced our way into the room. Prepare yourself because I’m done playing these political games.”

The woman shivered as Rachel’s gaze left her to focus on Scarlet. “I’ll explain tonight when we reveal everything to Tom. Are you okay?”

Scarlet swallowed the blood in her mouth, resolve setting into her shining blue eyes. “We’ll get stronger to beat anything that tries to take what we love?”

“That’s it,” Anthony chuckled as the little, white-haired eldritch girl walked over to stand beside him with a pleasant smile. “What do you say, Jaenona?”

They turned wry smirks to the child as she giggled. “To mend the space between the lost and found—to recover the memories you hold onto—you have to swim deeper into this ocean to reach its bottom before discovering the song within… You must think quicker, Rachel—if you are to get to the top from here.”

“Hehe-haaa,” Rachel nodded. “It’s hard to swallow, but… you’re not wrong, Jaenona. Let’s prepare for tonight.”

Rachel found her phone and contacted everyone, sending a message to her friends, asking everyone to be sure they were present.

Selvaria said she would come with Maria and her mother since it was a long drive; the Unicorn had bought a reinforced truck to haul her around in, to the Leviathan’s delight.

Fiona and Nora confirmed they’d be able to make it, while Nemesis and Mara connected with Maria after Cahira left, giving them a way to reach them.

Everyone arrived at varying times, and they patched up the windows for Scarlet’s safety with the rest of the day.

When her father woke up, it hurt more than Rachel thought, seeing him come downstairs as if nothing had happened; he was certainly less in touch with his emotions without her mother’s bright smile in his life, and she couldn’t confuse him with the truth about his wife—she hoped all this could be reversed once her mother was released.

Her mother had returned to her main body—she was still her mother—and Rachel had to believe their past could be salvaged; she told those who did remember her mother or those who went on faith, such as Cahira and Melissa, not to further complicate her family.

Nia was a mess when she returned to Rachel’s Core, and even Yseress seemed to be affected, showing the devil was connecting to her new mistress and lifestyle; the 14-year-old bunny teen was ready to blow up the world for her Molly.

At this point, Nia had already convinced Alexa of the tragedy, yet Nam thought they were just roleplaying; it was sad to see after coming to see her sister-in-law in a new light, but Nam and she were apparently having some kind of emotional troubles without her mother’s influence and her recent angelic transformation into a 13-year-old.

The story gave Alexa hope that it wasn’t just her and her selfish desires that had caused the growing divide in their marriage; her mother had been such a pillar in all of their lives, working her magic in the background to smooth things over and uplift them.

She had to rescue her mother, and she didn’t care if she had to work with Twilight to get it done.

At 9 p.m., Tom arrived with Clay, and Rachel sat everyone down; Scarlet’s nerves seemed to have vanished in the wake of losing her second mother, and to Rachel’s surprise, the girl told her own story, expressing her experience with Twilight.

Maria and Fiona were hurt that she hadn’t told them sooner but could understand why the trauma had been too much for her; Tom and Clay listened in silence for the entire discussion as the night went on.

As her story drew to a close, Rachel stepped in to explain her own thoughts on a fragment of Twilight that had potentially escaped through Relica.

Even when dead nine times over, cremated, and having her ashes spread across the world—one jar was tossed through a closed Crystal; Rachel respected Tom’s thorough caution—the witch was still a pain in their side.

Tom’s folded fingers tightened when she got into her thoughts on the heroine of France and how their path to rescue Melissa’s sister could bring them in that direction; the addition of Alexa’s vision was the nail in the coffin to get him to sign off on it, but there was one concern that couldn’t wait any longer.

They split up into two groups at the end; Tom with her, while the others in Mythic walked the opposite route around the block to talk about Rachel’s mother and why she was pushing them to rush back into the field tonight.

To Rachel’s disappointment, her father wasn’t nearly as concerned about her safety and showed more pride in her ever-growing accomplishments; she wouldn’t have thought that what she’d wanted more than anything in the world before The Oscillation would become so hollow to her now.

Mom… How would I act without your touch in my life?

Tom held his hands behind his back as Rachel finished their private conversation, brushing by many of the details involving her being the combination of so many Korean goddesses’ essence and the personification of misfortune. She only touched on her mother being swallowed by some powerful beast, and only a few people even remembered her existence.

Unfortunately, the news elicited the exact fear she’d expected.

The man looked up at the moon hanging low in its rise through the night, a somber expression on his face. “I get where you’re coming from, Rachel, and I’ll offer you all the support I can—not officially in this regard, of course—but there’s something that has to be resolved before I can do anything else for you… especially after what you told me.”

“Haaa,” Rachel ran her fingers through her hair, smiling at Nia’s inner jokes about being headcases. “The psych evaluation? Wow… it feels like an eternity since I last saw Doctor Richard Raynott, heh… MD of Psychiatry and General Surgery,” she mumbled, recalling her first meeting with the man.

Tom scratched his forehead. “I was briefed on the way over by the NSC… After Cuba, they want a detailed account of your mental state; they want another specialist to offer a counter opinion of your sessions, and they will be sharing notes.”

Rachel folded her arms and chuckled as they stopped, staring up at the lunar globe filling her with strength; a fire was kindling within her breast with the drawing force that infused her with a sure resolve.

A storm was coming, and she could feel the misfortune brewing in several directions; maybe it was her awakening to the truth about her past or feeding into what she typically had seen as paranoia or unreliable gut feelings, but she wanted to run into the eye of that hurricane.

“How about this, Tom…” She turned to give him an innocent smile that made the man sigh and Nia giggle.

“You get them to Cahira’s ship by the morning, and they’ll have their interviews, but we shove off at first light—I hope they want an early vacation and don’t get airsick—because they’ll be with us until we can drop them off in France.”

“I… can work with that; after all, you’re free to do your own activities outside of the U.S.”

Making her way back to her house, she lifted a hand and waved him goodbye. “Make sure they bring their passports; I wouldn’t want them getting stuck or imprisoned. Oh, and we still have the universal ones you had made for our Cuba trip—thanks, by the way!”

“Heh. Sure thing. Keep me updated,” he muttered, knowing she could hear him miles away, even if whispering. “I hope you’re wrong about Jeanne d'Arc.”

“Hmm. Who knows, she may have her reasons,” Rachel returned, flipping around to walk backward while raising her voice. “I only want answers; I’ll call you when I find them!”

“…Good luck… We’re going to need it.”