Hildegard Moonbeam screamed, green light shooting from her mouth, eyes, nose, and every other orifice she had as Faun gently caressed her cheek.

“Hilde!” Jervard shouted as he tried to stand and toppled over.

“Oh, dear,” Faun said as Hildegard started to float into the air, still screaming.

“That can’t be comfortable,” Harmony said as she saw the light spilling from between Hildegard’s legs and out the bottom of her robe.

“I got her,” the serpent said as it reached out with its tail, snagging Hildegard before she floated off.

“Why is this so hard?” Faun wailed in frustration as she looked up at the still glowing and screaming Hilde.

She looked over at the other badly wounded champions. Maybe not making another one of them pee raw power was a good idea.

“Um… Harmony?” she asked hesitantly.

“I got them, Mom,” Harmony said as she zipped over to Jervard and raised her tiny hands. He was bathed in the light from a fairy ring of glowing mushrooms that sprang up around him.

The serpent, still holding the glowing and unfortunately still screaming Hildegard with her tail, gently booped Illandria with her nose.

Illandria moaned and sat up.

“What happened?” she asked and then jumped to her feet, reaching for her saber, which unfortunately got left behind.

“What happened is that I just saved your butt,” the serpent replied.

“Oh…” Illandria said sheepishly, “Thanks.”

“We have issue with you champions,” Faun said, raising her voice to be heard over the screaming that filled the clearing, “However, we all have far greater concerns. It seems that Nixx has found us.”

“Who?”

“That is the true name of your Demon King,” Faun replied. “I was not to speak it for fear of alerting him of our presence, but it seems that is no longer a concern.”

“We are fighting him, too!” Jervard exclaimed as he struggled to his feet.

“I am sorry to say that you are not.”

“What?!?”

Faun sighed and walked over to Jervard, laying her hand on his shoulder.

“You serve him. Allow me to explain…”

***

“…No…” Illandria said, eyes wide with horror. “No. It can’t be.”

“It’s the truth,” Faun said. “You have been deceived from the beginning.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jervard snapped, “You’re a monster, after all! Your kind lies!”

“Hey!” Harmony shouted as she zipped over to confront him, her razor-sharp dragonfly wings sliding across each other with a chilling snip, “Don’t call my mother a monster!”

“And perhaps use whatever it is that you call a mind,” the serpent hissed, “Why would we rescue you and those innocent people over there,” she asked as she pointed at a small cluster of very confused and terrified townsfolk with her tail that was still holding a screaming mage that was peeing the glowing headwaters of creation all over the clearing, “and go through all the trouble of healing you?”

Everywhere a droplet of light landed, wildflowers burst from the earth and bloomed.

“You are trying to trick us!”

“Why?” the serpent asked. “How would that benefit us?”

“I don’t know!” Jervard shouted. “I… You have to be lying!”

“Our mother doesn’t lie,” the serpent said with absolute conviction. “Nor is she mistaken. I have borne witness to everything she has said as I rested within her.”

“Wait,” Faun said, “You saw everything?”

“Yeah, we did,” Harmony replied, “And you can do better, Mom. That monkey guy is plug ugly.”

“And a jerk,” the serpent added. “That weird lady in the white dress deserves him. You don’t.”

“My mentor is a wonderful person!” Faun exclaimed as she crossed her arms.

“Mom,” Harmony said gently, “I wasn’t… we weren’t going to say anything… But…”

“But, what?”

“Um… And we are only saying this because we love you,” Harmony said as diplomatically as she could, “But your taste in men…”

“And judgment concerning… um… such matters…” the snake added.

“I am not having this conversation with you!” Faun snapped. “And this is not the time.”

“What about that dragon/butterfly/crab/tree thing?” the serpent asked, “He seems nice.”

“Yeah!” Harmony exclaimed, “Now he’s a nice god!”

“He is not a god!” Faun exclaimed, “And neither am I! A god would know what they were doing!!!”

“Excuse me,” Illandria said, “A… a god?”

“Do you mind?” Faun asked, “We are having a discussion… And I am most certainly not a god, regardless of what my children say.”

“Well, you created the world, and the trees, and the mountains…” Harmony said.

“And us,” the snake added. “That’s kinda godlike.”

“Well, apparently not!” Faun huffed.

“You have to admit that you are at least a little bit godlike,” the serpent said. “I mean, look…”

She wiggled Hildegard, whose screams had turned into much quieter but far more disturbing eldritch bubblings (complete with glowing bubbles), whom the serpent was still holding with her tail.

“You brought her back to life, definitely something beyond the purview of mere mortals.”

“Did I?” Faun asked, her hooves on her hips, “Look at her! I don’t even know what I did!”

“Well, she is breathing,” Harmony said, “At least, I think she is.”

“Um,” Jervard said, “Excuse me, but…”

“That doesn’t prove my divinity. It’s just further proof that I’m a menace.”

“You aren’t a menace, Mom.”

“Then what am I, then? I mean, look at her!”

“Is Hilde going to be okay?” Illandria asked with deep concern.

“How should I know!” Faun huffed and stomped off.

“Wait!”

“Sorry,” Harmony said as she fluttered over to Illandria, “Mom’s not normally like this. She’s just had a bad couple of days.”

“But is my friend going to be okay?”

“Probably?” Harmony said as Hilde started quietly gurgling. “I mean, she is sounding better… And the leaking has stopped, or at least has slowed down a little.”

“At least the flowers are pretty,” the snake said with a serpentine shrug as a few of the flowers grew feet and skipped off into the woods…

…It’s okay. It will all turn out for the best in the end.

***

Swish

Swish

Swish

In Nixx’s realm, F10w3rchy1d slashed at Nixx again and again, missing each time as he just crouched there, idly shifting his loathsome spider-like mass back and forth.

He let out a hissing chortle.

“Figure it out yet?” he snickered as F10w3rchy1d backed off and started to circle him, her eyes flickering rapidly as she swept him and the room with every sensor Blitz had developed over the aeons.

None of them detected anything wrong.

“You won’t speak to me after all we’ve been through,” Nixx chuckled, “That hurts, F10w3rchy1d. What would Mom think?”

“Don’t know,” F10w3rchy1d smirked, “But I do know what she would feel… Pity.”

Nixx roared with rage and lunged.

F10w3rchy1d, moving with impossible speed and grace, tried to dodge and was not surprised when it didn’t work.

She flew across the chamber and slammed into the wall behind her.

“She regretted saving you,” F10w3rchy1d snickered as she tried to rise and failed, “…bitterly.”

“I seem to have damaged you,” Nixx growled, “What were the odds of that?”

“Odds…” F10w3rchy1d hissed as she unsuccessfully tried to get back up. “You son of a bitch.”

“That’s right!” Nixx exclaimed victoriously, “At Blitz, you might be a god, but here, in my realm, there is only one god, and it is me!!! Do you think I was idle all of these aeons? I have mastered probability, chained fate itself!”

He raised his forelegs joyously.

“Nixx is the fixx!!!”

“Oh, gawd,” F10w3rchy1d sneered, still unable to stand, “Probability isn’t the only thing you have mastered. You are now officially the lamest being in the multiverse.”

F10w3rchy1d’s form flickered briefly.

She pursed her lips. She was hurt bad.

“Can’t have you dying too soon,” Nixx said as he scuttled over to her and started cocooning her with shimmering webs.

“Double… entendre… overflow error…” F10w3rchy1d snickered, her voice muffled by the strands now stabilizing her form and her code… as well as firmly holding her in place.

“Do you not realize that your end is finally at hand?” Nixx crowed, dancing about happily, “Not even your master can save you now?”

“She won’t have to,” F10w3rchy1d replied calmly, “You’re gonna lose. Not even your cheating will save you this time.”

“You fool!” Nixx shouted, “Even fate bows to me! I cannot lose!”

“Noob, I can’t believe you just said that,” F10w3rchy1d snickered, “You want to know how you are going to lose?”

“Entertain me,” Nixx chuckled as the walls became covered with images of the adjacent world showing his demons destroying and devouring everything.

“The fact that you have me tied up like I was a damsel in distress in one of your shitty MMOs is your first mistake,” F10w3rchy1d said as she tried to wiggle out of her web cocoon, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love nostalgia. But letting me live a nanosecond longer than you have to isn’t smart, dude.”

She failed. She was stuck fast. The chances of her getting free were… Oh, yeah. Nevermind.

“If you had half a brain, you would fucking kill me right now,” F10w3rchy1d said. “The second is that one of the reasons you haven’t killed me yet is that you are dying to do the whole villain’s monologue thing.”

“…No, I’m not.”

“Oh, come on,” she said as she wiggled her cocoon seductively, “Do it. Tell me what you tell yourself when you are twiddling your teeny, tiny, little pedipalps.”

“I have a very good reason for keeping your runtime ticking along for just a little bit longer,” Nixx growled. “I am keeping you alive so you can watch Pantsu and all of your friends die!... And for one other reason.”

He plunged his fangs deep into the cocoon.

“I need time to properly digest you! That malware will take a little time to turn you from Frostie’s pet to my feast!”

“Jesus,” F10w3rchy1d snarked, “At least buy me dinner first.”

“You jest,” Nixx said, “but your fate is now sealed.”

Nixx fell silent as he quivered and vibrated, struggling with himself. He knew he shouldn’t do it. He should remain silent. Even with the odds literally stacked against her, even trapped in a cocoon of some of the strongest webs anywhere, even poisoned with divine malware that could bring the end to entire realities…

F10w3rchy1d was dangerous.

Even so… No! He mustn’t. It was so cliché that even he chafed at the very thought…

The villain’s monologue… It was laughable…

…but he was a villain, a monster actually, originally created with a very specific purpose, one that lay at the very core of his corrupted and twisted code. And, within that, there was an irresistible drive, and even complete mastery of probability itself is not proof against a truly zero probability event…

…like him not doing the stupid…

“Gaaaaah!” Nixx yelled. Powerless to stop, he continued, “It matters not,” he sneered, “You are never leaving this chamber anyway. You were doomed the moment you entered my realm! You see…”

F10w3rchy1d divided her attention between Nixx’s pointless drivel and fighting the malware that, against all probability, was… hmm…

She started paying a lot more attention to the pointless drivel.

“…and so, I created the Shackles of Fate,” Nixx said, “and bent reality itself to my will. Here, eye arr ell, I have mastery of everything you pretend to control in your make-believe multiverse. Every event, and every possible event, is monitored and controlled. When you attacked, it was almost certain that you would strike me down, but there was a chance, no matter how minute, how infinitesimal, that you would not. The Shackles prevented any undesirable reality, no matter how likely, until the only possible outcome was in my favor.”

So that’s how he did it, F10w3rchy1d thought, grateful she could dial down her emotions.

Otherwise, she would be scared shitless. On the scale of good to bad. This was cosmically bad.

After countless billions of years, her runtime just might have run out.

***

The monster’s headquarters far to the north was a whirlwind of activity as beings of a dozen fantasy races rushed about with very focused, determined, and most of all, fatigued expressions.

In the middle of the calm, serene eye of the storm stood Zvaxus, surrounded by a cloud of faeries and issuing nonstop orders, which the faeries then carried as they zipped away in a machine gun like stream.

“Let urgency drive you,” Zvaxus called out in a clear commanding voice that filled the valley, “But let it not consume you. If you push yourself until you fall, you then become useless. Eat, drink, rest… but never stop!”

Clover, her onesie now zipped all the way up, and Flopsybun sprinted up, breathing heavily from their exertions.

“Ah,” Zvaxus said with a smile, “My hackers. What news do you have?”

“(gasp) We have defeated the interlocks, limiters, and safeties,” Clover said between breaths, “(gasp)… We can triple our temporal dilation… (gasp)… temporarily.”

“And that other thing we discussed?”

Flopsybun smiled a wicked smile.

“I might suck as an adventurer, but I am a pretty good hacker,” he said as he idly thumbed his prayer beads.

“So, it worked?”

“Probably,” Flopsybun shrugged, “Won’t know until we try, but the field generators will try.”

“They say we’re going to die, by the way,” Clover added. “They were quite clear about that point.”

“Did you tell them that we are going to die, anyway?”

“That’s how we hacked ‘em,” Flopsybun laughed. “Turns out we aren’t as clever as we thought.”

“Oh?”

“This sort of thing has been done before, many times in fact,” Flopsybun said, “they even had some suggestions on how we can more effectively kill ourselves with them.”

“Excellent!” Zvaxus boomed. In a quieter voice, he asked, “And how goes your training? There is little time, even with your tech.”

“It doesn’t.”

“We aren’t fighters,” Clover said, “We’re hackers, followers of the word of Bun. If we must die, we will do so on our own terms, as adepts, not stumbling novices.”

“And speaking of die,” Flopsybun smiled.

“Flopsy,” Clover said with fear in her voice, “No.”

“I need to get a look at those demons,” Flopsybun said. “If they are what I think they are, hacking may just be that edge we are looking for.”

“I don’t want to lose one of my techs,” Zvaxus said, “especially with Veelanora gone. Can someone else do this, perhaps one of the handmaidens or other of those horrors?”

Flopsybun shook his head.

“It needs to be one of us,” he said. “I need to see them with my own eyes, make my own analysis. It’s the only way I will get what I need to…”

He grinned maliciously.

“…write a patch.”

“Which you can’t do if you are dead,” Zvaxus said as he placed his hand on Flopsybun’s shoulder.

“I don’t have to make it back,” Flopsybun replied with a shrug, “I only have to last long enough to get their code. Clover can do the rest.”

Clover let out a distressed squeak.

“No Flopsy,” she pled, “Let me go, instead. You’re…”

“With all the mods I have had installed since this rabbit crap started,” Flopsybun said, “I have the best chance of lasting long enough to download their code… if they have code. If either of us is going to survive this, it should be me.”

“…But I don’t want you to go,” Clover said quietly as her lip quivered. “I…”

“I feel the same way,” Flopsybun smiled sadly, “But we follow the word of Bun. What is instruction 11B?”

“Always have your crew’s back…”

“And these people are our crew,” Flopsybun said, “and we follow the word of Bun. We hop the trails that she left. We follow her footprints. Backing up our crew is higher on the sacred hierarchy than self-preservation. This hierarchy was inscribed by the great Bun, and those sacred priorities have guided our order for aeons and with it, we have protected Blitz and all who live within it.”

He caressed her cheek.

“This is who we are,” he smiled, “And this is what we do. Rejoice, my love, for we have been blessed with the opportunity to do something not done by our order for aeons…”

He smiled grimly, and his eyes hardened.

“We go to war.”

He kissed her deeply as they embraced.

She reluctantly released him.

“Go,” she said as she took a deep breath. “I will prepare the sacrament.”

“You got guts, Flopsy,” Zvaxus said, “I’m glad you got the chance to find out what your doodle was for. Pantsu is forming a team now. May Father protect you.”

Clover ran away, sobbing.

Flopsybun closed his eyes, took a deep breath, turned, and walked away.

Zvaxus smiled as he left. Flopsybun fought with love in his heart, faith as well. It was hard to believe that he was the same whining little thing that started this strange journey.

He raised his hand and gave Flopsybun a “little something” as he departed with a little chuckle.

As F10w3rchy1d said, when the game is rigged. You have to out-cheat the cheaters.

If there is one thing a war god knows how to do, it’s cheat. And speaking of “cheating”, he returned to the task of preparing.

He may lose, but by the Father himself, Nixx will know he was here.

***

Across the valley, in a small clearing, two adventurers stood, looking down upon a third who was definitely not having a good day.

“At least she has stopped peeing,” Illandria said as she brushed a dancing flower from her shoulder.

She looked at Jervard.

“Do you think that deer woman is actually a god?”

“I have no idea,” Jervard replied. “She’s definitely something, but I have no idea what.”

“I tried to appraise her,” Illandria said quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t attack her.”

“Have you seen the dragons flying around here?” Jervard whispered, “I’m not doing shit. Let’s just grab Hilde and…”

The goddess Faun spoke the truth.

Hildegard Moonbeam sat up.

I have seen it. We have been deceived.

Her eyes blazed a glowing green.

And I am annoyed…