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#101

You, Jacob, Mina, and Susie stand up; as do the two Ultramarine Guards. The latter look down at Mark, who is thankfully face-down. “I'm...sorry about your friend,” one of them says.

No one says a word. Susie shakily walks off by herself, and You instantly pursues her.

“Susie.”

“Don't.”

“You don't even know what I was going to say.”

“I don't care. I need a minute.”

“Susie, we all hardly know each other...”

“I hardly know You anymore, You. You's barely reacting to this at all. I know I barely knew Mark, but he had become my friend. He and I...aboard The House, we made plans. I-I can't explain it, but...I just don't understand how You became so cold.”

“How I became so cold? Maybe it was the torture! Maybe it was the fact that I've been wandering for miles and miles, without any sleep, with barely any reprieves at all...”

“You forgets that I did that too, You. You's not just the main character in a story. Even if it does always come back to centering around You.”

You is saddened by this, because it all clicks in Your head. That's what it all is. That's why the pronoun stuff is so weird about the group; why the group always seems to center around You. It's the APPLE. It's making You always the center of attention; the main character.

Maybe now You understands why people hate people who have Your mutation. Because somehow, it is always about them.

In the days before the Empire, did apples go on long adventures that proved them to be heroes? Did they always do it right, because they curve the tense of the universe around them to make themselves so important? You feels some sort of deep-down confirmation of this; as if You's communicating with the apples of the past, from the era before they became hated.

Or maybe this is all wrong. It's all wrong, and You's just a narcissist in disguise. Or maybe You's just scared of hurting Susie.

Then You acknowledges the depths of Your fears of losing Susie. Because she's been Your only friend, for such a long time. But unlike her, You sealed Yourself off from making new friends. You hated Mark just because You was tired, and Your exhaustion made You hateful, and You didn't even consider understanding another person. You's ignored Jacob and Mina, and Doctor Kai, and You's always viewed Klaus as a tool, an instrument, to getting to Susie. You wasn't worried about her when she was happy with Mark because You, y'know, liked her or something—because know You remembers the Die, which says she may well be Your sister, or at least considered as such by both of you. You was worried she was going to think Mark was a better friend for her than You. And now, in his death, he is.

Because You did this all because You was selfish. Because You didn't want to be alone.

You looks back at Mina and Jacob. You doesn't feel like You can be friends with them, now. Perhaps You's destiny is to be alone.

But for now, there can be none of that. You can't just leave now. Your group—the group—has to stop the Emperor.

The group begins walking down the hallway, towards their fate.

As they walk, the Ultramarines of course walk with them. Without them, they all know that they would have surely died. They want to talk to them, but they can't conjure up words now.

Eventually, and inevitably, the hall ends. The silence continues even as they stand before the Emperor.

Inspector Fox is at his side, and Jacob suddenly flashes back to the “virus” he got from the Skype session. He's suddenly slightly afraid of the three-headed creature, but he chokes down his fear, justifying it by saying that being scared isn't cool—but he knows he's partially lying to himself in that respect.

For awhile, as it was before, the only sound is the grunts of pain from Lefty Sinister, which the kids try to ignore, because it's incredibly weird to them. They want to question Inspector Fox, but don't for now. Because for now, the Emperor is speaking. And applauding.

“Excellent work, my son!”

You regards him as coldly as You can. “Dad.”

“Getting past the three stages I set for You and Your friends was no easy task. However, I am disappointed that You had to resort to cheating on all but the first. So, really, You did no hard work at all, which in Your future services to me will be noted.”

“Dad, I'm not going to serve the Empire. I—we have come to stop you. We'll kill you, if we have to.”

“Oh, yes, killing. There will be much killing today. I was about to get to that; but I want to only to punish the elements which helped You cheat.”

He presses a button on his seat, and suddenly, faster than the eye can catch, a pair of massive spears fire from the wall, directly into the two Ultramarines. They're impaled straight through the heart and have no chance. Blood is everywhere as they fall heavily to the ground.

You looks up at him with rage in Your eyes. “You didn't have to do that! You didn't have to!!”

“I'm petty, son. I will admit that. But unlike some, I have my mind focused on larger goals as well...” His face doesn't change at all. “I will still let the four of you surrender. If you do not, I will not spare you. And those are the facts.”

“You and Susie have told us about you,” Jacob says then. “I don't take too kindly to dictators. And also...who is that behind you?”

The Emperor gestures as if the Inspector doesn't matter. “Who, this?” He privately sweats at such confidence. “This is Inspector Fox, a very good friend of mine. Unless you mean the person in his mouth. That's nobody.”

“You. I don't think Your dad is the problem here. I know that other guy, the Fox guy. He...did something on my Earth.”

“Oh!” the Emperor interrupts. “You're from Earth-Beta-2! I suppose that's quite interesting. And the girl and you, she looks related to you. Sister, perhaps? Fascinating. Well, I'm not biased in this situation—if you two want to join me, you can feel free.”

“You killed my cousin,” Mina interjects. “And his brother. He was our friend.”

“I haven't personally killed anyone in awhile,” the Emperor says. “In fact, I want to keep things that way.”

“How about this, Kai?” Susie replies. “We'll fight you, and if we defeat you in personal combat, we'll let you live. But you will have to unconditionally surrender.”

The Emperor suddenly seems amused. “Susie, I've always been impressed with you...”

“I think we both know that's bullshit by this point.”

“...and I'm still impressed with you. Tell you what. I will challenge You to unarmed combat...and you three can take on Inspector Fox. He does have three heads, in case you haven't noticed. It'd be three against three, in all honesty. How does that sound?”

You doesn't even look back to see the expressions of the others before he speaks. “I will fight you, Dad.”

You continues to avoid looking back. You can't let Yourself be swayed. This is what You must do. You isn't going to hide behind Your friends, because You realizes now that they are, or could be, Your friends.

“Is You sure?” he says. “If I defeat You, I will kill You, and I will take the Item from Your body. You knows this, right?”

“I do.”

The Emperor blinks then, but the emotion that blink conveys surprisingly isn't fake. “Son, I...” But then he blinks again, and that feeling is gone. “Step forward. The Inspector will fight Your friends first.”

You does step forward, standing near the throne. The others don't move, and Fox moves towards them, silently. You watches them, privately shaking, while making sure Your back isn't exposed to Your dad.

Jacob takes off his gloves, and Susie throws her Tommy gun aside; they grab the rifles from the dead Ultramarines, while Mina hangs onto her apparently actually magic guns. Fox stands before them, and they aim their weapons and him.

Without moving Fox fires an enormous beam of energy that instantly burns them to broken skeletons.

“No!!!”

They didn't even have time to scream.

“NO!!! No, no, no, no, NO!!!”

Unmoving, You instantly begs whatever God You may believe in for it to just be a hallucination; or for You to just wake up in Your bed, with no memory of this nightmare. But You realizes that it's not a dream in a manner just as swift as the actual killings that just took place.

The Emperor still stands behind You. “Too bad,” he says quietly.

You turns and looks at him, tears streaming down Your eyes. You sobs heavily, hyperventilating. Nothing could have prepared You for this. Nothing. You looks at the man who looks so much like You, but older, and wonder how this man—this monster—could have ever sired You. And You stands up is about to run towards him, to strangle him in his bare hands, to crush his throat, but as You does so Inspector Fox raises a glowing hand towards You.

“We must fight as agreed, You,” the Emperor says. “I'm sorry, son.”

“Sorry?” You harshly takes a breath. “You're not sorry. You don't know what sorry is. You're insane, you're a torturer, and you're a murderer. We'll fight, yes, but I will beat you. And I'm changing my terms. I will not let you live; I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to kill your triple-headed mutant, or die in the attempt.”

“You speaks frankly, and to the point. A noble attribute, which I never noticed in You before now.”

“Just be quiet and fight me.”

To this he nods, and Inspector Fox leaves the room. He then walks back to his throne, and pulls out two swords.

“These are elegant blades, You. I know You hasn't fought with one before, but to be honest, neither have I. So this battle might even be a little funny, because we'll be pretty awkward.” There's a small chuckle. “Isn't it funny? Awkward together. Together.”

You says nothing as he hands You the sword. It's light, which You recognizes is an incredibly good thing for a neophyte like Yourself. The two blades are simple, though nice-looking, and identical.

As soon as the sword's in Your hand You aims for his heart.

But he parries, and You immediately swings again. This he also blocks but You drives him backwards a bit. This won't take long, You figures. Just bash through his defenses and chop his head off. Then figure out what to do from there.

You can't restrain a bestial cry as You lunges for him, which surprises him; drives him back further. As he blocks horizontally, as You wished, You swings down as he swings up. But You instantly twirls it around and comes down again; and then again, and again. You loses track instantly of all the strikes You makes, but he's good; he's fighting them, though You keeps driving him back. Though is that what he wants...?

Suddenly his leg comes up and clumsily knocks Your arm to the side. He's wearing steel-toed boots, which makes the kick hurt hard, but You quickly recovers, knocking aside a fatal stab. He swings the blade around like a clock-hand and makes an overhead strike; likely the first part of taking an offensive. You blocks and manages to turn Your block into yet another downward strike; then You spins, which leaves You open, but the subsequent swing upward, to knock the blade from his hand, avenges any chance he might have had on You.

Then You takes a leaf from his book, and kicks upward, this time flatly into his stomach. He gasps and actually sort of gurgles, but refrains from vomiting; still, that gurgle shows You hit him hard, even with Your simple shoes. This is Your chance—You moves in to impale him, but he stumbles, and this stumble saves his life; it barely parries Your strike. His face is red hot now, with either exhaustion or anger; likely the latter, given the briefness of the duel. For indeed, You senses suddenly that this battle isn't going to last long.

You takes another opportunity from his fumble to knock him forward by striking his back, sending him rolling and causing him to lie prone. With a cry of many things, You pounces to try to stab him, but he somehow tumbles away. As he rises he imitates Your spin, which actually knocks You off-guard and sending You back against the throne. You both flick Your swords out at once and sort of tango around each other, until he stands before the throne, as Your back faces the entrance. Your swords are crossed, and you both give each other pause.

“None of this is necessary!” he says then. You can tell he's not up for this, not for much longer; despite only being middle-aged he's out of breath, and now the redness in his face is tinged with sweat. “You doesn't have to do this. Don't end up like Your friends, You!”

“Well, to pop the cliché, I'd rather die than work for you.” Your heart is accelerating. Something is coming up, but...what is it?

“I need You!” he exclaims. His face actually softens, becoming that which You remembers from when he was raising You; from when things were good. But then, things were never good, were they? He was always the Emperor. And it would always come to this. “I need You, son.”

You doesn't even think before You speaks. “I'm not your son.”

There's a curious moment where a shadow pauses across his face; and it seems to be the shadow of sadness. But then, suddenly, it's gone, and all the softness in that face is gone. It's replaced with violet-hot rage. His features crinkle as he gives a bestial scream. Then, before You can flinch, he rams the sword through Your chest. The blade emerges from Your back.

You gives a little hiccup as this happens. But You doesn't feel any pain. Just coldness.

There's a hiss as the sword is pulled from You's body, and then it slices cleanly through the air, slashing You's throat. A steel plate then kicks upward, snapping the boy's head back, breaking Y̶o̶u̶'̶s̶ his neck, and driving his sinuses back into his brain. By that point, he's already gone. His body falls back, and there's an agonizingly loud thud as it hits the ground.

Blood swiftly pools and wets the bones of his also-lost compatriots. The Emperor sighs as he looks down at what he's just done. His breath only quavers a little.

Inspector Fox returns, having only stood on the elevator platform, watching from the shadows. The Emperor startles a bit as he enters, as if he had forgotten the Inspector existed.

Neither of them say anything as they look at the bodies. Instead, after a short pause, they walk to the platform, and descend to the bottom of the Red Tower. It's time to go.

#100

The party has already reached the central spire, the one that they think will lead up to the Emperor's chamber (assuming Mark is correct). Instantly, and without flourish, ritual, or any particular cleverness, the assembled robots appear before them. Everyone takes out their weapons, but as they do so, the door behind them leading to the computer room closes. As it does, silence sets in, except for the hissing of fuel and the vague clanking of external devices. The robots do not move, but the floor starts to, with a jolt. This entire room, which forms a massive disc, though one much smaller than the disc of this central tower itself, begins to rise. It must be one of several elevators leading up the Red Tower; and the controls are in the hands of another party.

An intercom turns on, and a mechanical voice, which You recognizes as the same from Zorro City, begins speaking. It simply says: “Stage One.”

“So I guess we're locked into some sort of gladiatorial battle,” Jacob says. No one replies, but it's clear that it's agreed upon.

“Our first enemies are robots?” Mina questions. “Piece of cake.”

“Just be careful. I think the Emperor won't allow us to see him unless we get past these guys,” Mark says. And that's the last thing said, before a few more seconds of pause.

That's when Susie runs forward and starts attacking. She doesn't shout, or if she does, her voice is censored by the sound of Tommy gun fire.

The robots lunge forward then, and the battle begins.

There are five of them in all; the Pneumatic Prototype, three members of the Stellar Corps, and the Death Guardian. One foe for each kid. Both sides recognize this and split up to take each other; the robots tend to be slow and heavy but there's nothing holding back the youths. They're already sprinting and dodging attacks, which mostly manifest in the form of pink diamond-shaped energy shots from the rifles the Corps members are carrying. These shots cleave through the walls, exposing the gnashing teeth that drive the elevator upward.

Mark has the Pneumatic Prototype. To him, it looks unbelievably shitty; a huge, block-shaped thing with elephant legs, that has a tube for one arm what seems to be a piston for the other. It doesn't even have a head, just a tracking sensor on top of its “torso”. Still, he's not one to talk; he only has a knife. He doesn't really know what to do, but it does. It aims the tube at him, and without warning it sucks in a huge amount of air; knocking him off his feet. In fact, it goes further than that; he loses his grip on the ground and is dragged towards the tube. This occurs just in time for the air to be sucked through the mechno-beast's body, and into its piston arm—which slams into Mark in midair, throwing him across the room. Susie yells his name even as her gun opens fire on the Stellar Corpsman she's engaging.

Susie isn't alone. The three Corps members are being dueled by You and Mina also. The androids—resembling essentially large, mechanized Imperial soldiers, with greatly defined muscles and all-black armor—are doing pretty well against You's laser pike, sadly, but a few shots from Mina's revolvers seem to be ripping apart hers. She's noting, between nerd-glee poses she's striking, that she's already fired more than twelve shots between the two guns; but they're not running dry on ammo anytime.

This of course leaves Jacob against the Death Guardian, which stands twenty feet tall, and has a platinum finish. Why this thing was never used properly, no one really knows, but it is very slow and that might have something to do with it. It's mostly human-looking, aside from its size, but is covered in sharp fins and spikes. It keeps trying to simultaneously crush and slash him, but to no avail. Still, it's a melee duel, since he only has his metal-cast “boxing gloves”; which aren't doing anything against the creature's hull.

Mark gets up, and is more angry than hurt. He redraws his knife and charges at the Prototype. This is only a kitchen knife, but it's remarkably sharp; if there's even a tiny part of a somewhat soft metal, like gold perhaps, he can cut into that. It doesn't look like there's any gold on it, but there could be tin or aluminium somewhere. He just has to try to stab it, in essence. He just has to make sure that that piston doesn't hit him again; but it looks like it needs to suck in air to “charge” the piston. Which reminds him of something—vacuum cleaners. He used to work with those, he remembers dimly (though he doesn't have time to question why he can't recall this so easily). And then he knows what to do.

Meanwhile, Mina has nearly made short work of her Corpsman, while Susie has managed to blow a few holes in hers. You isn't exactly impressed with Your enemy either; the laser pulses from Your pike are starting to melt and fuse the robot's armor. It turns out that the Stellar Corps would have to rely on blind luck to hit anything; their shots are basically flashing cake sprinkles for all it matters, really only imperiling Mark and Jacob, who are off to the side, and the Corpsmen themselves. In general, You and the girls don't really have the hard part of the fight, which you are all aware of. Susie finds this demeaning, but Mina is happy to be in a fight. She almost feels like this is what she's wanted to do her whole life.

Jacob slams his fists into the massive legs of the Guardian. Even with the protective gloves his hands are starting to hurt, and he hasn't even made a scratch. He glances over and sees how happy Mina is, just as she blows a hole in the central processor in her Corpsman's head. “Hey, Wilhelm!” he calls over to her. “Wanna lend me a hand?”

“Just a sec!” she shouts back. She deserts her partners for a second, causing them to cry out; but they're almost done, too. The pair of cousins then take up the offensive against the titan.

Mark isn't getting any reprieve from the piston arm. The vacuum-arm must have been rusty or something, though probably not literally; it's drawing in air in quicker succession, meaning that it can slam outward more swiftly. The punches it's throwing are capable of cracking the floor, as demonstrated by one close call. But Mark knows what he's doing now, and jumps onto the vacuum-arm. Sure enough, there's a panel on the external part of it that he can get off with the knife. The seam of this panel is softer than the metal around it and soon he breaks it off. There's a simple plastic tube within, just like one of his old vacuum cleaners, that's sucking in that air; and he cuts that immediately. The drone is useless now, though it could perhaps still crush someone with its bulk. Mark is about to end that menace, now at his own leisure...

But the fight has driven him back, into Mina and Jacob's playing field. Acting on a programmed instinct, the Death Guardian lashes out, and a bladed fin slices through Mark's side.

“AHH!!”

“Mark!” Susie looks at him as he crumples to the ground. Then she looks at the Guardian. “You killed him!”

She then jumps at the thing, firing several shells into its hide. Like Mina's bullets were doing, some of these rupture it, and the Guardian seems to cry out in “pain”. You is at her side as well, trying to calm her down, but also firing Your laser pulses at well. Those are having difficulty damaging the metal skin, however; in fact, most shots are reflecting. However, You knows You has to think quickly. Though the Guardian's movements are accelerating, thus making aiming difficult, You begins to shoot at the thing's eyes—two dark spots indicating sensors on its head.

Mina catches on to what You is doing, and also opens fire. It tries to dodge but it can't reckon with your combined accuracy, and soon those eyes shatter.

The thing begins making more low roaring sounds, as it begins to rampage through the suddenly cramped-seeming elevator. However, Susie's anger has allowed her to tap into swift wisdom, and she opens fire at the ground where the Guardian is running. Fortunately, it happens to be headed for where the Prototype had smashed open the floor; and her bullets cut through the floor around that area. Inevitably, a good-sized chunk of the floor falls in; and the Death Guardian falls with it.

With the platform in shreds, the ride is much shakier, but the group grabs Mark's body to prevent it from falling with the Guardian. They nearly lose it when the platform suddenly stops; they have no time at all to check if Mark is even still alive or not, because now doors are sliding open. They raise their weapons, but a voice comes from within: “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”

As the intercom overhead announces “Stage Two”, a pair of Ultramarine Guards walk in. Behind them, there's nothing more than a pile of dead soldiers and fellow Ultramarines.

You is about to fire anyway; after all, it had been Ultramarines who had tortured You, and who had escorted You to Your would-be execution. But even though they're armed, they raise their hands in the air.

“We're here to help you!” one says. “There's not a lot of time to explain, but we took down 'Stage Two', for you. Those soldiers, those Guards in there, they were still loyal to the Emperor, but we figured if you've all made it this far—it would be a good time to take a stand, and maybe escape being turned into those Crimson things...”

As if making a peace-token gesture, one of the Ultramarines turned his rifle downward, to face the Pneumatic Prototype; and he opens fire. The blast that results from this particular rifle is like a rapid-fire series of shotgun bursts, with a field of flak pellets opening into a cone; this easily shreds the already-defeated Prototype. If this was meant to imply friendliness, then it's a strong sell.

The party is aware that there's no time to decide. Instantly the platform shifts again, and they all privately note that it's moving faster with each stage. They must be getting close to the top by now.

Sure enough, as the speed increases exponentially, they're all floored; just as the intercom voice, to the sound of rushing doors opening, says, “Stage Three.” Jacob is the first to look at up at what this stage entails—only to see a platoon of five Crimson Guards.

“Oh, shit.”

The Guards step out, and they don't waste any time waiting for the group to stand up. They have their spears out and are charging, though their charge is more like a hypnotizing dance...

The Ultramarines lifted their rifles and open fire. The shells mercilessly crush the Crimsons, with the shrapnel fired shredding their armor and blowing their helmets and exposed skulls apart like glass.

A mere thirty seconds have elapsed since the Ultramarines accessed the platform.

The platform doesn't move for a very long time; and in what seems to be, by measure of heart beats, an eternity, four young men and women let out a long, collective sigh.

Of course, one of their number, it looks like, can no longer sigh. And it's the shocking realization of this that breaks the second-long calm.

Up ahead, the chamber that held the now-mutilated Crimson Guards slides open in a way that no one assembled cares to try to understand. There's only a dark hallway ahead now.

The four, plus their two spontaneous helpers, are left alone in the silence; or near-silence. Mark's blood can be heard dripping through the platform, onto the mechanisms below.

#99

The Red Tower was once used as a production facility for a series of prototype warriors intended for Imperial use. The Ultramarine Guards, from the viewpoint of the Emperor, were always meant to be replaced, and before the rise of the Crimson Guards, robots had been subjected to viability tests at the Tower. While the White Tower had served as the initial throne of Imperial power, and had been used to store a good number of political prisoners—the grand majority of which were now free—the Red Tower not only served as a secondary control point for the entire Empire, but also was a sort of museum, holding such failed experiments as the 1^st Stellar Trooper Corps, Pneumatic Prototype 3H-12I, and the Death Guardian. The Emperor now sees You's party entering the Tower, and so these old relics are ordered to be powered up.

The group moves swiftly, but cautiously. They're on the Emperor's home terms here, and already they can here the sounds of a good number of people moving about. Eventually, the hallway walls open up, becoming glass, and through this glass those assembled can see a number of similarly glass-clad pathways above and below them. There are a number of normal Imperial soldiers walking along them, being escorted by divisions of Crimson Guards. Some of the Crimson Guards still haven't received armor, and are little more than grey corpses covered in the red circuitry. Occasionally, the Guards can be seen escorting the fuel-mutants on chains, who appear to be docile, at least in the presence of the soldiers. There are also a few chambers off to the sides that can be seen; and in these, there are cyborgs, presumably patching up any worthwhile casualties from Imperial Central; or else turning those less worthy into Crimsons.

Everyone is amazed at how huge this Tower is. The passages branch off everywhere like spider-webs, and below it all, many more passages are eclipsed by the yawning blackness of the pit beneath.

You feels around inside Your pockets, and remembers then that You left the Cosmic D8 or whatever it is back in The House. You's not going to risk taking it in, because it's what the Emperor wants. However, You does have the flash drive, in case You needs to disable security. Maybe You can scramble the forces here and keep them away from Your path. But then, none of you know the path ahead.

Aside from the laser pike and the flash drive, You has nothing else. Remember how You was lugging around a car battery for most of this adventure? You thinks You left it back in the White Tower or something. Geez. What a weird thing to think. You doesn't really have hammerspace or anything; so, like, really? But that doesn't explain how You could conceal a pike like the one You has. Oh well.

You has noticed something else that's more serious, though. You's been watching the grammar, subtly, in some of the instances of Your group. Occasionally, You will sense the pronoun “they” or “them” applied to the group, as if they were all just...separate from You, detached from You. The only reason why this is irregular is that the APPLE has also been shifted the group, any group You's been with, to cause the group to be referred to as “you” or “you all”. It's apparently been shifting randomly, but You wants to chart it all and see if there are any patterns. You doesn't believe there have been any so far, but You never knows.

In any case, you all (see?) keep moving, hoping none of these Guards notice you. They don't seem to. Which is odd; presumably a facility such as this would have a strong surveillance system that would take notice of the floating House outside its wall. But then, there were no defenses here either, so maybe this place hasn't been properly reorganized. That would serve as an excellent advantage.

Ahead, there seem be some sort of room. This room bulges off of a large, central spire that all of you can now see; it was masked by the darkness of the vastness of the Tower. This “middle” tower has a number of bulges on it that link to several passages; each of these chambers presumably uplink with elevators in the center tower, allowing access to other passages. They don't intersect otherwise. Several of you get the impression that at the Tower's bottom—if it has a bottom—there are even more rooms of larger scale, like perhaps a docking bay where the Emperor's escape pod could have entered.

In the room up ahead is one of the massive computer terminals that You, Mark, and Susie have seen so often. Everyone sprints towards it, knowing from You's story and from experience that they can use it to potentially take over the Tower. As they approach, however, Jacob, who is at the front, holds his hand up to get them to stop. There's a bit of a “lobby” leading into the room, with walls separate from the chamber, so they hide behind those.

The others besides Jacob peer in, and sure enough, there a figure at the screen. However, he or she seems to be leaning heavily on it. The lighting is good, though, so they can see that it's a Crimson Guard; an unarmored one. There's a fainting dripping sound coming from it, and at once they can see that the drip comes from...a patch of rotting flesh on the Guard's face.

“Ugh!” Mark cries, and Mina tries to silence him; but he goes unheard anyway. The Guard stands but then lurches around, heedless to the group. It seems to be talking quietly to itself.

“Necrosis...” it gasps. “Necrosis...detected.” Its voice is low and crisp, and it's impossible to tell whether or not it was once a man or a woman.

The circuits on its face begin to buzz, and suddenly, emerging from one of the caps gripping its face is a tiny probe. The probe is grasping a small scalpel, which begins eagerly cutting away the rotten flesh. Soon, other such blades pop out, and began to hack away all of the flesh on the Guard's head. The moldy patches fall and splatter on the ground, and as they do the tiles on the floor glow with an eerie blue light; the fallen skin and muscle are vaporized. Within seconds, all that's left of the Guard's head is a grinning skull, held in place by the circuit caps, which indeed cut down to the bone.

And it isn't over. The neck-brace of the Guard, made from the medic's dart that assimilated this soldier in the first place, is suddenly buzzing as well; and from the brace, there appeared to be a scarlet cloud emerging. Susie, in particular, recognizes this from a book: they're nanites. Jacob and Mina know of these things also. The nanites encompass the skull and after another short period of time, the eyeless helmet of a Red Guard has been built.

The Guard straightens out its back, and without a word begins to walk away. Soon it leaves the room completely, much to the group's relief.

Trying to shake that image out of their heads, they approach the computer. As they approach, a metal plate slides over the keyboard.

Jacob points towards a circular sensor of sorts, which has a five-fingered imprint in it. “Looks like there's a hand scanner on it. And I doubt we're in the system.”

“I'll fix that,” You says. You takes the flash drive, and thankfully, there's a port. You enters it into the server and the virus suddenly retracts the metal plate. That's when Mina walks forward.

“Let me give this a try. I bet I can enter us into their database.”

After some typing, she grins. “Okay. Just set your hands on there, one at a time. I think we're good.”

Jacob goes first, and sure enough, a high-quality image of his hand's texture appears onscreen. Susie goes next, followed by Mark and You, with Mina going last. “Welcome to the Empire, I guess,” You says.

Mina continues to mess with the computer. “It looks like your virus isn't perfect, Yorick,” he says. “There are still some protected files that I can't get into, even with the virus affecting them. So I don't really know where we're going, or what's ahead of us.”

“Wouldn't it make sense for the Emperor to be at the top, and in the center top at that?” Mark points out. You looks back at him, and realizes that he's probably right.

Everyone else nods, figuring it's the best bet they've got.

There's another door, one beside the terminal. Mina opens it for you, and all of you go through.

Meanwhile, up ahead and below the floor, the robot forces whir to life, and begin moving. They remember little of their failed former lives. They now merely have some hand-imprints entered into their databanks; with the knowledge that the possessors of these imprints must be destroyed.

#98

Susie and Mark are standing together as they approach the Red Tower. “What is it about all these phalluses?” Mark murmurs.

“Sometimes God does strange things, my dad says,” she replies.

His voice drops by quite a bit. “...I wonder if God is ironic.”

“What was that?” she says with a smile.

“Nothing.” 

“What, are you being anti-social now?” The smile is still there.

He sighs. “I'm sorry. I was...raised different. You know that. I told you about my hometown, right?”

“It must have been nice. Having a hometown, that is.”

“I'm sorry!”

“Stop apologizing! Though it is sweet of you to do so.”

“Heh. Well. We can't have had bad childhoods, given, y'know. The book thing.”

“Yeah. I do love books. My dad loved books. Loves books.”

Mark pauses for a second. Thinking about fathers made him feel weird.

“Books are magic, you know,” Susie continues.

“I was raised with magic in my life, which You tells me is weird. But it was irony magic, which someone told me once wasn't real.”

“It might not necessarily be...'not real'. It might just be a dilute form of something else. I mean, currently, we're running into an embodied field of trope magic, which sounds really vague. But, I'm guessing it's just based on the idea that shared attributes of culture, because they're so well shared and so profound for so many people, that even from a subjective scale they have power that can be tapped. And that's just language, really, in the end.”

“So because irony is part of language, some of the wizards from my...clan, could actually use irony for real magic?”

“It just sounds like it could be misused because your clan used it for selfish gain. I mean. It sounds like you can use magic for selfish gain but your magic became so...inbred, that it stopped working. It ran out of new ideas, because it became so ironic.”

“Are you lampooning postmodernism?”

“Not necessarily.”

One of those trademark pauses we keep talking about comes back in again.

You joins the pair at the window then, which annoys them endlessly. And yes, that includes Susie. You is examining the Tower.

“We're getting close,” You says. “Where's Doctor Kay? We should probably get ready to brace against any defenses.”

“I didn't see him go,” Mark replies.

“Yo, Yorick!” Mina shouts. “He and your German chap went somewhere else into The House. Or the house or whatever.”

“Did you see where they went, specifically?”

“Nah.”

“Nah? What do you mean, 'nah'?”

“Um. No? Nope? Negative?”

She was silently laughing at him, and Jacob was laughing at her. She was getting on a roll now that he was back. When Susie and Mark had been talking, they had been having a frank conversation about the greatness of not being dead to each other, and how it was good to be able to call people things like “nymphoid pooptwiddler” and “incomprehensible nincompoop” without getting weird looks. Berkley blood ran strong. Stronger than You or Yorick's rage.

“Well, look at it this way. The House is getting really close to that Tower, and soon they'll be upon us...”

You glances again, however, and The House is farther than You thought. The House is actually about to collide with the Tower.

You's about to shout something when it stops. As it stops, it spins slowly, so that the front door faces the wall of the Tower that you've all been approaching. Someone—whether it's the Doctor or someone in the Tower—is moving it so that if you were to go out front, you could enter the Tower, assuming there's a door there.

There are no defenses. At least, not outside. The Tower could be abandoned. Or—more likely—this is a dare.

Mark has his knife. Susie has her Tommy gun. Jacob has his metal gloves. Mina has her magic (?) revolvers. And You has Your motherfucking laser pike.

The front doors open, and they open into a passage in the Red Tower. You figures you all can just charge right in, then.

It's go time.

#97

Everyone has since settled in at McGee Manor. Now that The House has more guests, it's being a bit more agreeable with the settings and is doing its best to avoid making everyone feel like they need to vomit. It might even be able to conjure up some weapons for the could-be fight ahead. Fancy sci-fi weapons. Hyper-cannons and optima-bombs or something.

Doctor Kai has been able to get the computers working in a way that won't attract unwanted attention. Now he's currently scanning for anywhere that the Emperor might have fled to; or potential trails, in case the destination for his escape pod was just a temporary rendezvous. However, so far, said scanners appear to be picking up a large maroon shape directly head. A Tower, as it were.

But Doctor Kai, like his own Master, b̶e̶g̶a̶n̶ begins to sense things, particularly about this Tower, and what it was linked to concerning one of the current House crew members. And this leads to the making of deductions about certain suspicions surrounding said crew member—in turn, these deductions caused him to realize that the suspicions were not grounded. That is to say, it was not impolite, in this scenario particularly, to be suspicious of the mentioned crew member, yet the suspicions should be geared towards something other than the insinuations that said crew member was involved with such cultural annoyances such as, say, hypothetically, hipsterism, and as this sentence d̶r̶a̶g̶g̶e̶d̶ drags on, Kai knew that his brain was fucked up. What made it worse was, actually, getting closer to the Tower. Using as aggressive a tone as he could summon at that point, doing his absolute best to avoid beating around the bush, knowing that, in fact, beating around such things as bushes tended to bog down text in an irksome and worrisome fashion, he holy shit he t̶u̶r̶n̶e̶d̶ turns back to the main “crew”.

“I'm not sure I'll be able to follow you in on this battle,” he says.

“Why not?” Jacob says then, genuinely concerned. (While he is concerned, Klaus and Mark look more annoyed.)

“Our target is, as Mark says, a Tower...but the Tower has a presence within it that, in this situation, is resulting in a defined complication of absolute magnitude in my psychiatric personality...” He breathes heavily, as if trying to force words out—which is what he's doing. “The Tower is making me demonstrateanotherpersonawhichisinturn...which is making me speak in...padding.”

“So,” Mina says. “You're having difficulty not using sesquipedalian loquaciousness, as the Internet calls it.”

“Yes, in theory. And...I feel an urge to...exposit, now, in a way which will no doubt serve to entangle, bamboozle, frustrate, and infuriate any degree of battle tactics that you may choose to utilize.” He pauses. “I can give one of you my magic guns, though.”

You in particular, having suffered from an APPLE all Your life, sympathizes with the Doctor's present vulnerability to trope magic. You hopes that, as a voodoo construct or whatever, Klaus isn't vulnerable to such things. In fact, he isn't, and is presently explaining such a thing to his brother.

Give the guns to the Beta-2 girl. I get the impression she and I may be able to communicate soon. I'm getting some emotive radiation from her and I like the cut of her jib.

Kai nods and hands two revolvers to Mina.

“For me? How sweet. I suppose this is your way of not coming across as a creepy interdimensional wizard.”

Klaus smiles.

“For your information, young lady, you literally have no occupational reason to harbor such ill will against one such as myself, given that is merely my nature to express malcontent at those who apply such unpleasantries as loud noises to me in times of crisis.”

“Relax,” she says with a grin. “I actually am glad to have this. It would have been handy...not that long ago.” Then she thinks. “Besides, in regards to the whole...mad at me randomly thing? I think all of our personalities are messing up now. Our...'characterization' as it were, is being glitched with because, as you say, something is messing up space and time and grammar—at least, we feel that way. And in any case...you've got a couple personalities in you, don't you, Doctor?”

Kai blinks then, and looks around as if suddenly nervous. Which is, as she's hinting, part of another persona inside him. “Yes.”

No one else is paying attention at this point.

“Because you're...part of a larger system of people? A duplicate made of someone else from across time. But...different from your kin. An ugly stepbrother.”

“Yes.”

“The Son of someone else. A hero...”

“The greatest hero. The enemy of the Second Enemy.”

“You fought him, as Sons always fight their Fathers...and your own Son killed you.”

“No. I was...killed by the Second Enemy. And...I became the Second Enemy. And because I was a duplicate of the Second Enemy, I was always him, but when he absorbed him I became him in a different way. And then my Father defeated him, as my Son defeated me.” He pauses. “This isn't a story that's meant to be told right now. It's the Second biggest story in the Multiverse, and telling it could...break things. It's a story with heavy words.”

“I understand.”

“How?”

She blinks, and as she does so something seems to change in her.

“I don't know.”

Doctor Kai at once senses a time trail coming from her, and tries to track it; but then his cerebral functions are overburdened with ultra-complicated systems of ceaseless permutation and infinite ire, so he can't pursue it in a proper manner.

All he knows is that he was strangely lucid during that conversation, and so was she. In fact, she was super-lucid, like she had some knowledge of something that went beyond her described experiences. But he can't figure that out for now—so he figures he might as well just destroy this Tower, regain his sanity (as much of it as he still has) and ponder it all later.

Mark had been complaining this whole time about not having a weapon, so Klaus slips him a knife. He had been hesitating for a while to give him the knife, not because he fears such a weapon in Mark's hand, but because he's Klaus and he thinks Mark spouting off is hilarious. He's been getting “emotive radiation” from Mark, too—except what he gets from him is utter bullshit.

Klaus isn't done doing things. He starts thinking over to Kai.

Brother, that time trail you sensed...

You sensed that I sensed the time trail?

Peripherally. I have followed it. And I believe certain measures will need to be taken for the safety of the party.

Kai didn't say anything aloud. If Klaus had meant for the others to know of this he would have said something.

Of course I would have said something, you non-German idiot. We must hurry if we are to initiate my plan; follow me.

Where are we going?

The House's crafts room.

Kai says nothing once again, on behalf of his brother, as the two men go off to do such a thing.