Chương 90: 89: Something's Off

The dimension folded. Light swallowed them whole. When it receded, they stood outside the Commander's chamber. The corridor widened into a vast ceremonial approach carved from polished black stone veined with silver. Towering pillars marched into the darkness on either side, each wrapped in slow-moving bands of violet Apis that flowed beneath the surface like liquid starlight trapped inside crystal.

High above, the ceiling disappeared into shadow, broken only by suspended rings of white light that rotated soundlessly around a colossal circular vault door at the corridor's end. The door itself was less a door than a monument. Concentric plates of alloy interlocked around a single hexagonal recess glowing with subdued violet radiance. Countless microscopic runes crawled across its surface like living circuitry, rearranging themselves with every passing second.

Around it, rows of statues stood at perfect attention, faceless soldiers carved from dark obsidian, each gripping a spear tipped with crystalline Apis. The air carried the sterile scent of ozone and polished metal. The alarms continued their relentless cry, echoing through the immense chamber until the sound became almost cathedral-like. Butter glanced down at herself. Melody shifted. The white bandages darkened, bleeding into matte black while the soft pink lines beneath continued to pulse like a heartbeat.

Katherine blinked.

"I didn't know it could do that."

"Neither did I," Butter admitted. She reached into empty air and pulled out another beanie. It was black wool, complete with floppy rabbit ears and an embroidered pink nose stitched across the front. She tugged it over her head with complete seriousness before producing packets of peanuts, cookies and gummy worms from seemingly nowhere. She handed them around without explanation, finishing by offering Korhess a bright red apple. Korhess accepted it after a brief pause.

For several moments, the four of them simply stood in the middle of the fortress, eating snacks outside the Commander's chamber while alarms screamed overhead. It was ridiculous. Someone laughed. Then everyone did. The absurdity settled over them like a blanket. Against all reason, standing together like this made the impossible feel survivable. The food disappeared quickly. Butter dusted cookie crumbs from her hands and rolled her shoulders.

"Better." Her pink eyes sparkled beneath the rabbit-eared beanie. Her grin returned.

"Now," she said, "what's the play?" Clock answered immediately.

"We split up. Korhess and I go after the galaxy-thing. She's effectively indestructible, and I can get us in and out faster than anything in this facility. We wake it, retreat and let it tear this place apart." Katherine's head snapped toward him.

"No." Clock frowned.

"What?"

"You're not going with her." The words came too quickly. Too sharply. The Nonagon pulsed against her hip. She drew a slow breath.

"I'm coming with you. Butter and Korhess can deal with the Commander and Thornburgh if he shows up." Clock held her gaze.

"Katherine, I'm the fastest person here. Korhess can survive almost anything this facility throws at us. Together we have the highest chance of succeeding."

"I don't care about the highest chance." Silence. Butter slowly raised an eyebrow. Korhess's ears angled forward. Katherine barely noticed.

"I'm going with you," she repeated.

"That isn't negotiable." She expected an argument. She expected Butter to tease her. She expected Korhess to murmur something ancient about hearts clouding judgement. Instead, Clock simply studied her. After several long seconds, he nodded.

"All right." He turned toward the others.

"Butter. Korhess. The Commander's chamber is through those doors. Thornburgh's in the west wing, but once he realises what's happening, he'll come here." Butter grinned.

"A Commander and a wolf?" She cracked her knuckles.

"I've had scarier breakfasts." Korhess remained silent. Her mismatched eyes swept the corridor, measuring distances, exits and shadows with quiet precision.

"If he comes," Katherine said softly. She was looking at Clock. Trying to say something she didn't yet have the words for. He understood enough. Without speaking, he reached for her hand. His fingers slipped between hers. He gave a single reassuring squeeze. — The air changed.

"He's here," Korhess muttered. A wall of fur, muscle and rage erupted from the darkness. Thornburgh's hand clamped around Korhess's throat. His thick, clawed fingers swallowed her slender neck. His face hung inches from hers. The white-amber eyes she remembered from the Common Hall had vanished, drowned beneath bloodshot crimson, the skin around them raw and weeping. His jaw ground so hard she could hear his teeth scraping together.

His lips curled into something that only vaguely resembled a smile, the expression of a man who had forgotten every emotion except hunger. His transformation wasn't even complete. He already looked like a monster. Korhess's hooves left the floor. He hurled her. She became a blur of antlers and silk, smashing through the corridor like a discarded doll. Her back obliterated the first wall in an explosion of stone. She tore through a second, then a third.

By the fourth impact, debris and blood had become indistinguishable from her body before both disappeared into darkness. Thornburgh followed.

"Traitor." The word barely sounded human. Silence swallowed them both. Butter lurched forward, fury igniting across her face. Katherine caught her wrist.

"Stay." Butter tensed, every muscle straining to break free, before forcing herself to stop. Clock's gaze swept the corridor.

"Heads up." A low vibration settled over the hallway. It seeped into Katherine's teeth, her bones and the spaces between her thoughts. Her hand flew to the satchel. The Nonagon pulsed. The bullets arrived a heartbeat later. Katherine saw them before anyone else. Six slivers of condensed Apis cut through the air, each iris tracking a different trajectory. Every round had a single destination. Clock's head. He moved instantly.

Transport remained available, but he refused to trust an unknown weapon empowered by a Hexagon. His body folded through impossible angles as Gloom flared around him, desperately intercepting attacks it barely understood. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. One bullet grazed his temple. A thin line of blood appeared. Apis burned against the wound, probing for a way inside. Clock froze. His fingers brushed the cut. The blood had already dried.

"They came prepared..." For less than an instant, the Hexagon had driven each projectile to effectively infinite velocity and momentum. Enough to punch through Transport. Had he relied on it... He would already be dead. His expression hardened. That wasn't the real problem. The vibration flooding the corridor wasn't interference. It was a magic revoker. A Hexagon-forged device that forced Gloom into the category of 'magic'...... then erased it. The premise was absurd.

Gloom was no more magic than a heartbeat was machinery. Truth didn't matter. Given enough authority, a lie became law. Reality obeyed. For the next sixty seconds, Gloom no longer existed. None of the impossible miracles that had carried them this far. Normally, Abominations could overwhelm suppression fields through sheer force, reducing a minute of suppression to only seconds. Humans like Paris Moon never had that luxury. This wasn't a suppression field. The Hexagon made the sixty seconds absolute.

Clock looked up.

"The Talon." Henry stepped from the shadows. The same Talon Clock had fought before. The same hunter who had scouted Thornburgh. His armour remained a lattice of interlocking amethyst and citrine feather-scales built for war, twin white lenses glowing with predatory calm. Everything else had changed. Power radiated from him in relentless waves. The Hexagon pulsed within his armour, feeding Apis into every movement. Its rhythm matched the oppressive vibration blanketing the corridor.

Claws extended from his gauntlets, humming with the same frequency that had stripped Gloom from reality.

"How..." The word escaped Clock before he could stop it. It wasn't disbelief. It was calculation. Henry answered anyway.

"The Hexagon's HUD predicted your arrival fifteen seconds before you materialised." His voice sounded like glaciers breaking apart.

"Every movement since then. Every decision. Every word. Every breath." He raised his weapon.

"You are merely reliving a prediction that has already accounted for every variable you possess." He fired. Katherine didn't think. Ellipsis. The world went black. For a single impossible instant, existence became nothing but white outlines sketched across an endless void. Walls, pillars, Clock, the bullets, even the air itself were reduced to delicate lines, as though reality had become an unfinished drawing. Nothing had stopped. It merely felt as though the current carrying everything forward had hesitated.

She moved. Wherever her body passed, those glowing outlines dissolved into darkness, fading behind her as though erased by her touch. The moment ended. Colour rushed back. She was already standing in front of Clock, arms spread wide. Six slivers of condensed Apis struck her chest, stomach and throat. They bounced harmlessly away. Metal clinked across the stone floor like scattered rain. Understatement reduced each impact to that of an ordinary bullet.

Herculean carried her far beyond anything conventional ammunition could threaten, while the Nonagon's integration had already begun making her resistant to Apis itself. The Talon's visor tracked her.

"So much power." His voice carried quiet fascination.

"I wonder how far it goes." Butter blinked, her anger momentarily forgotten. She realised she had never actually asked what the Nonagon had done to Katherine. The extra irises. The glowing cobalt tracery. The impossible strength. Honeycakes had somehow crossed the space between herself and Clock faster than she could even perceive. She tilted her head.

"... Did Honeycakes just teleport?" Clock remained silent. He simply watched, calculating. Katherine's voice faltered.

"I saw... you weren't supposed to be here. I saw the path. I saw—""Hei..." A woman's voice drifted from the darkness beyond the Talon.

"You saw what we wanted you to see." A figure stepped into the corridor. She wasn't what Katherine expected. Only slightly taller than average, she was slender, moving with the effortless confidence of someone who had never needed to hurry. A simple brown dress hung beneath a practical jacket embroidered with strands of green seaweed that shimmered faintly beneath the corridor lights. Long ginger-and-black hair spilled past her shoulders, flowing as though suspended beneath invisible water.

Her horns drew Katherine's attention immediately. Twisted cobalt spirals rose from her temples, bending the light into impossible patterns that made Katherine's eyes ache. Her own eyes were stranger still. Orange and blue swirled together like oil drifting across water. She smiled. It wasn't kind.

"Hei... you've been carrying that Nonagon for hours," she said softly.

"Did you think we wouldn't notice? A new artifact awakens in the heart of our facility, and you simply... walk away with it?" Katherine felt the Nonagon pulse against her hip. For the first time, she couldn't tell whether it was protecting her...... or using her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Who are these people?" Clock answered without taking his eyes off either opponent.

"The Talon is Syndicate Special Forces. I've fought him before. Fast. He doesn't miss." His gaze shifted to the woman. Caution flickered across his face.

"I've never seen her before." A brief pause.

"But I know what she is." Warpfluff's smile widened.

"And what am I, little god?"

"An Abomination." Clock's voice remained flat.

"One of the experiments beneath the lower levels." She laughed. Soft. Almost musical.

"Hei... you don't remember me?" Clock frowned. A heartbeat later, his eyes widened. The iridescent sphere. The gravity goddess.

"You." He glanced at the others.

"Be careful." Katherine stepped forward.

"I've killed an Abomination before." Her eyes narrowed.

"That creepy Amalgation thing."

"I'm not scared of you." The Talon and Warpfluff exchanged a glance.

"An Abomination killer..." The Talon's voice almost sounded pleased.

"This grows interesting." Warpfluff tilted her head, her smile tightening ever so slightly. Butter's jaw dropped.

"Oh my." She turned to Katherine, pink eyes sparkling.

"Honeycakes, you killed an Abomination?" Katherine rubbed the back of her neck.

"I... sort of."

"That is amazing!" Butter clapped once.

"Well, this'll be easy." She pointed at the pair.

"Alright, dorks."... Warpfluff opened her mouth to speak again. Butter answered with the loudest, most deliberate yawn Katherine had ever heard. She stretched lazily, rolled her shoulders, and cracked her neck as though she'd only just woken from a pleasant nap.

"That's enough chatter," she said.

"It's only entertaining when Korhess does it. She paints with her words." She lazily pointed at Warpfluff.

"You? I don't care who you are. I don't care what you are. I don't care about your predictions or your fancy HUD." A playful smile spread across her face.

"Put your hands up... or get out of my way." Warpfluff's expression lost its warmth.

"Hei... hands up?" A quiet laugh escaped her.

"Do I look like common riffraff?" Her orange-and-blue eyes shimmered.

"The Hexagon is humming. Your magic has been revoked." Butter raised a single eyebrow.

"You think I need magic?" She flexed her fingers, one by one.

"I've still got these." Her grin widened.

"In fact... I won't even use them." Warpfluff moved first. She lifted a hand, curling her fingers as gravity itself answered the gesture.

"Hei... I can crumple continents like a piece of paper," she said, her smile widening.

"You stand no chance." The corridor groaned as the weight around Butter multiplied thousands of times over, enough force to flatten mountains. Butter flowed instead of resisting. Her body twisted through the impossible pressure in smooth spirals, every movement dividing the crushing force exactly as she had once split the moon itself. Warpfluff's smile faltered. The gravity field rippled. It wasn't overpowering Butter. She was slipping through it.

Each precise turn carved apart the invisible currents, separating overwhelming force into harmless streams that flowed around her instead of into her. Warpfluff's orange-and-blue eyes widened. She had just cut through gravity. With technique. How? Butter stepped clear of the crushing field and flashed her a grin.

"Don't get too cocky, cowgirl." Moth-Step. Butter appeared above Warpfluff, her bunny ears flopping behind her as she spun through the air. One bicycle kick. THOOOM — KRAK! Her prosthetic leg slammed into Warpfluff's jaw with a metallic crack that echoed through the corridor like a cathedral bell. Warpfluff's head snapped sideways, the rest of her body following an instant later as she was ripped free from her own gravity and hurled the length of the corridor before disappearing into the darkness.

Anyone else would've died from a blow like that. Warpfluff had long since anchored her existence to gravity itself. Broken bones pulled themselves together, torn flesh knitted shut, and her orange-and-blue eyes slowly opened once more. They shone not with pain, but with delight. She wasn't dead. She was simply out of the fight. For now. Butter landed in a smooth roll, rose effortlessly to her feet, and dusted herself off without so much as a glance behind her.

"That's one." Her smile widened as she looked around the corridor.

"Where's the other?" Silence answered her. The Talon had dipped from sight. Butter frowned, jogging a few lazy steps forward.

"I was just getting warmed up. Why'd he run?" A blade materialised behind her. The Hukan edge swept silently toward her throat.

"Pow!" Katherine raised two fingers like a pistol. An invisible projectile tore through the Talon's chest, leaving a hole the size of a fist. His body shimmered...... and dissolved into light.

"A hologram," Clock said immediately. The real hunter had never been there. Butter spun toward Katherine, her pink eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Honeycakes, what was that?" She hurried over and threw her arms around Katherine in an enthusiastic hug. Katherine laughed.

"I can use definitions as powers now." Butter blinked.

"Hmm?"

"Words. Concepts." Katherine rubbed the back of her neck, smiling sheepishly.

"That was an onomatopoeia. I figured it out while I was fighting Amalgation... after it ate you." Butter nodded slowly.

"Oh my." She looked genuinely impressed.

"That's unfathomable... how powerful..." Her expression suddenly froze.

"Wait." Her eyes lifted back to Katherine.

"You said... while it was eating me?" Katherine's smile disappeared.

"…Yes." Butter stared.

"Something ate me?" The next few seconds were spent filling in the missing details. With every explanation, Butter's expression became progressively more horrified until she physically shuddered.

"That is disgusting." She released Katherine and cracked her knuckles, a dangerous grin slowly returning to her face.

"Okay."

"Now I really want to wipe this place off the map." Katherine laughed, caught Butter by the front of her bandages, and pulled her into another kiss. Butter didn't resist in the slightest. She melted into it with an embarrassed smile, and when they finally pulled apart, both of them were quietly giggling.... Only Clock remained silent. His attention never left Katherine. Or the Nonagon. Something was wrong. Butter would never relax this much while a Talon remained somewhere nearby.

She was laughing, kissing Katherine, joking as though they weren't standing inside one of the deadliest facilities on the planet. Butter loved fiercely, but she survived because some part of her mind was always watching the battlefield. Even in moments of joy, she never stopped preparing for the next attack. Today, she had. It wasn't just the kiss. Butter had accepted Katherine's feelings with almost no hesitation. Marriage. Children. Forever. Five hours ago, they had been strangers.

Butter should have laughed, blushed, deflected, anything except embrace those promises as though they had always belonged together. Clock knew his sister. This wasn't her. His thoughts drifted to the Talon. Butter had once treated beams of light as little more than a warm-up exercise, yet she had somehow failed to anticipate a Hukan blade travelling only a few dozen times the speed of sound. She should have seen it coming long before Katherine did.

Instead, Katherine had been given the perfect opportunity to intervene. Warpfluff disturbed him even more. The gravity Abomination had erased him before. She wielded one of the fundamental forces of the universe as effortlessly as breathing. Butter was extraordinary, but defeating Warpfluff should never have been so simple. One kick had taken her out of the fight, almost as though reality itself had stepped aside to make room for the outcome Katherine wanted.

Korhess had been removed from the battle just as conveniently. Thornburgh had appeared without warning, seized her, and carried her away before she could remain beside him. Katherine had disliked how close they had become. Now Korhess was gone, Butter stood at Katherine's side, and every obstacle between Katherine and the people she cared about had quietly rearranged itself. None of it was impossible. That was what terrified him. Every event could be explained in isolation.

Together, they formed a pattern too precise to ignore. Katherine wanted Butter alive. Butter survived. Katherine wanted to protect him. Every bullet struck her instead. Katherine needed a way to stop the Talon. A new ability manifested at the exact moment she required it. Katherine wanted Butter. Butter kissed her without question. His gaze settled on Katherine's hand. She had spoken a single word.

"Bow." Reality obeyed. Definitions had become power. Words had become law. A thought surfaced so quietly he almost dismissed it. What if the Nonagon wasn't merely rewriting reality? What if it was rewriting causality itself? Stories possessed their own logic. Heroes arrived at the final moment. Impossible powers awakened precisely when they were needed. Coincidences accumulated until they became destiny. Relationships formed with unnatural speed because the narrative demanded they exist.

Katherine's abilities were rooted in language, in meaning, in definition. Perhaps the Nonagon had simply taken the next step. Perhaps it no longer viewed existence as a universe governed by physics and probability. Perhaps it saw reality as a story. A story it could edit. A story in which every scene bent, ever so slightly, toward Katherine's desires. Clock felt a chill settle deep inside him. If the Nonagon truly possessed that kind of authority, it wasn't merely changing the world. It was becoming its author.