The four stood ahead of the wall. A dozen saws burst out -
- and four swept back as Naomi stomped for a wall of asphalt ahead; Serena started filling it with fog as the farther half of the barrier broke down, Julia at her side and holding Manufacture's rod to the center of the wall, and in the next instant -
- hundreds of vines burst out of the floor; green mist filled the hall as they each took a deep breath -
- and Kate's hair filled their ears & nostrils as Naomj snapped her stone fingers, spikes slicing the vines off from their roots underground, and as the plants started to split open -
- streams of fog filled them with spiked magnets; Julia threw one Manufacture rod down the hall, electrical arc attracting every last metal & spiked bit towards it, and as the lightning bolt shot from further down the hall -
- Manufacture's first rod absorbed it just in time for the floor to open up and for the four to start floating in zero gravity, bottomless void below as the four started spinning in midair; once they hit upsidedown, their blood started to pool to their legs as their heads started to ache -
- but one Split knife slit everyone but Julia's legs; the poet set her rod to her skull, ensuring her blood was still running there as streams of fog filled the other's ears, steady dripping of blood out of their limbs but ensuring it couldn't clot or clog, and in the next instant -
- hundreds of spikes burst out of the wall -
- but were blocked by a stone dome that formed around the four as they huddled tight together, still floating, but in the next instant -
- her stone fingers snapped; her stone dome collapsed as the floor reappeared below -
- and renewed gravity slammed Kate so hard in to the ground her legs snapped on impact; she stifled her shriek as the floor disappeared again -
- but quick Split strands kept the four tied close together as she yanked them back up to the ceiling, one strand searching on the ceiling like it was going through a maze; below, insects started crawling out of the bottomless void and flooded all over the walls; ahead, Julia saw the spiked magnets start to fall -
- but she threw her second rod first; it sparked and brought the magnets back to itself, and her first rod sparked & brought back its sister to Julia, spiked magnets still safe on her metallic batons -
- and above, Kate's hair found the miniscule pinhole in the roof; one strand traveled up it as streams of fog filled the insects with lead -
- and the floor reformed just after the insects fell back in to the featureless pit & away; Serena repaired Kate's broken legs as they hit the ground, and the four jumped -
- just as a hundred spikes burst out of the ceiling; a hundred spikes burst out of the floor; one still-beating & still-floating heart burst out of the ground a hundred feet ahead -
- Julia's first Manufacture rod blasted her second away, spiked magnets still on the second; she threw her first forward -
- and it blasted its sister further -
- and it blasted their spiked magnet cousins right through the heart in a shower of gore just as the spikes disappeared and the four fell back to the ground, shooting up to their feet again as they heard a rumbling begin from the prodigal wall behind -
- the wall opened up to the untrimmed ground outside, forest beyond -
- and no danger came as the wall peeled fully back, four squinting from the square of light filling the hall.
"...c-careful." said Kate. Serena nodded.
"Stay still."
"It looks like it's outside, right?" winced Naomi, vision readjusting, walls stopped in silence.
"…looks like it. Might be the backyard." said Kate. "Keep still. Be ready for anything."
The four waited for five minutes and spoke after six.
"…five trials. Right?" said Kate, and the three nodded. "…could be the end of it.
"I-I'll go outside first." nodded Julia, and three stood tense as she went outside. She turned back, and in the next instant -
- nothing happened, and she nodded as Manufacture's rods formed -
- just in time for nothing to happen; with no time to waste, the three rushed out, and as they turned their eyes back -
- they saw they were at the base & back of the mansion still standing on its hill, spire at the top piercing through the white sun.
"Is that it? Naomi winced, seeing the walls close behind.
"I-I hope so." said Julia, and the four backed away slowly. After a minute, Kate glanced back in to the forest behind.
"...ready to swing?" she said, and the three winced as they huddled at her back. Split grabbed them tight, and the branches cut Kate's cheeks as they swung through the forest, eventually landing on the cliffside road that led back to the city.
"…f-fuck." groaned Naomi as she stood, Kate's bumpy ride worse than Marisa's.
"…think it's over." sighed Kate, and eight eyes turned to the house they couldn't see. "When we get back, think we should ask the government to quarantine that place."
"…yep." Serena sighed relieved. "I'll tell Matoi when we get back."
"Sounds good." said Naomi.
"Back to civilization." said Julia.
"Yep. Only got a few wounds for it, too." said Kate, gesturing to Serena. Streams of fog started to fill her cuts.
"Yeah." said Naomi. "Are we even... are we even in the same place?"
Serena checked her phone and tablet. "Um, looks like it, yeah. Still need to find our car."
"Lemme scout." Kate's hair went taut and grabbed a nearby branch.
It was night, and after Kate re-found their car, she drove them over to a local 24/7 diner for non-Blackburn food. Kate & Serena had their own conversation alongside Naomi & Julia's own, and Naomi recognized this as an odd sort of cutting her own life into distinct units, yet was not as bothered by this seeming asymmetry as she once had.
When they left, their car's windshield had frosted over.
"Serena, fill with heat." Split held its hairhand out, which Serena filled with heat, and it wiped their windshield off.
As it did so, Kate looked to Serena. She knew that there had been work done on Serena in some way, but she felt that to ask such a question would be dropping the role she played in their friendship and expose it to rejection. A typical Kate reflection on her transgender friend would involve wondering how she had realized such an identity or how she felt towards it, who else besides Yuruko knew -- and then it would simply end, for it did not really matter to Kate.
Kate couldn't fathom the inability of some to have no opinion on a matter. It seemed the quality of those who in their need for security must hitch their own selves upon something, much like her father, whose rot through conservative talk radio had led him to his bilious opinions of the minorities Kate worked alongside. His internal bereftness had only been remedied through the grasping of rules others set for him, and it was a trait she could never respect, even as she loved his nobler qualities.
What compelled men to cruelty, and why did others follow them? It was something Kate's investigative side always wondered, for she had known people in worse households that never displayed such bigotry or malice; her old friend in Lanacca, Lanara, herself had once come to school with curling iron burn marks on her arms. Yet Kate had no satisfactory answer for such a query, and felt it must lie in that apparition world beyond nature that may better explain the laws governing humans, creation, and the thaw of the stars' silvery winter in their morning windshield.
[END OF ARC: EVERYONE'S A CRITIC]