“...And now, we're about ta tackle this supposed ‘Betrayer of the Light’  head first, eh?”

I nod, arms crossed and back to the wall of Liz’s throne room.

“That’s right. Any bright ideas, Liz Wonder?”

The Rat Queen lays sideways on her couch throne, legs kicked over one armrest, head draped over the other.

“Sorry to says, but time manipulation ain’t somethin’ easily prepared for, even by we less bound by mortality,” she says with a shrug, before tacking on, “Lest ya worry, I’s always gots a counter attack on claw~”

Vivian raises her eyebrow, the single eyed slime girl sitting pretty at the edge of the counter in Liz’s little kitchenette.

“That’s nice and all, but wouldn’t actually knowing what you have planned help us to coordinate better?”

Liz snorts, shaking her head, her rat eats flopping from side to side atop her meticulously groomed hair, “I’s afraid things don’t work quite da same as they do in ya favourite rocket ship, goily.”

Our alien friend sighs, pushing herself off the counter and walking with completely silent steps towards the center of the room, as if seeking an audience with royalty.

“Maybe you could explain how things work if I’m being contracted to work with you for a time?”

The rat pulls herself up with a one-two-and a heave, kicking her legs while her elbows prop her up by the armrest.

“You dance to my tune. It’s quite freeform, so be prepared to improvise~”

“In other words,” I interject, tail swishing with irritation, “let the brat do as she pleases, there’s no point in trying to compromise. Follow my lead instead.”

Seeing Vivian’s smile brings me a mote of comfort in this trying time, even more so when she gives me a cute little curtsy with her shiny malleable alien armour.

“I’d be more than happy to, ma’am. We seem to work well together anyways, so I’m confident we’ll be enough of a force to be reckoned with. Janus won’t know what hit him.”

Her confidence is awfully cute, almost infectious. ‘Spose I won’t be getting far without a bit of that, so I let that almighty sickness take me, standing straight and walking towards the den's exit, a swaying strut propelling me forward.

“Alright, crew. Let’s storm the bastard’s deck.”

I ignore Liz’s laugh.

 

Vivian’s form shimmers as she takes on the appearance of a human, hair covering where her missing eye would be, along with a very dashing looking suit befitting a hitwoman like her. Goddess dammit, why are women so pretty.

She does shift back once we’re all aboard the crap-mobile, the two of us sitting in the back as Liz drives us forward…until we’ve made our way between the technological train stop beyond the Stellar Stowaway, and the Frigid Anomaly, Liz’s rinky dink ride coming to an abrupt halt in the darkness.

“What’s the holdup, rat?” I ask, sitting up and peering past the driver’s seat, a terrible screech making my fur stand on edge, and I immediately see and hear what’s up.

Ghosts. There aren’t any more than what I remember seeing the previous trip down here, but they’re incredibly agitated, their immaterial forms shuddering and twitching even more often, violently so. The sickening crunch of metal crashing against stone makes my spine curl, the effect only worsened when I see that it comes from a magical metal amalgamation banging its head against the subway’s wall, and it isn’t the only one. Some gnaw at the rails helplessly with chainsaw-like teeth, others scraping themselves along the ground with a maddening wail, twisting and contorting into a repugnant sound mixed with the grinding of steel against the ground and walls.

“...What the fuck…?”

Vivian and I look on in horror, while Liz seems more annoyed than anything, claws angrily tapping along the side of the steering wheel.

“Deez dumb shits…makin’ a liar outta me…” she complains, the grinding of her teeth all too audible. “Alright, ladies, look alive. It’s time ta bust some ghosts.”

The two of us in the back look at one another and nod, Vivan opening and exiting her side while I hoist myself over the door, Liz doing much the same  over the hood of the vehicle. With a bit of flourish, I spin and summon my spear, Liz joining in with her bat, and Vivian pulling out a massive half of a gardening shear in one hand and a laser musket overgrown with alien flora in the other. Something tells me she doesn’t use Stellar Stowaway sanctioned arms.

“Take the front!” I cry, planting the base of my spear to the ground, using the time the other two buy for me to observe and plan. 

Where once was fear, anger pulsates like a necrotic heart, the spirits moving with such animosity as their disgust distorts into a welling pain. Seeing a need to end their vitriolic suffering, I begin painting my burning picture while Vivian stands guard by me side, taking a stab and a shear out of the closest aggressors, while her blunderbus fires a spray of explosive bullets– no, seeds–that keep the ones behind the first wave at bay.

The rat, on the other claw, dives head first into the fray, landing on her heels and bouncing out of the way as a ghost jumps at her with blinding speeds, the Rat Queen counter attacking with a brutal swing one way, then another in the opposite direction to fend off the rattling chain fingers of another specter. In a single swift motion, she draws her phone to her ear and with a squeak, commands the rat cavalry to come.

“Rain hell on ‘em! Go scorched earth on deez mother fuckers!”

And in the very next moment, she’s back to batting, backed up by rat controlled miniature tanks and bombers that blow the surrounding ghosts to smithereens! Metal and ectoplasm crash and splatter against the floor and walls of the subway, quickly thinning out her side of baddies, and leaving me to pick up the slack.

Considering what we’re going up against, I paint a grim portrait with my fire, a barren land of lost souls and the end of days, my arms and legs moving in long strokes and slow sweeps before harkening to the darkness at my back.

“I call upon the reaper, THANATOS!!”

The flames I wield fade with a whimper before rematerializing as a cloak over my back, silently manifesting the hushed whispers of encroaching death in the form of a fiery shroud with burning eyes, a melty scythe resting in their overgrown claws. Tracing my movements, my own ghost follows me as I leap into the fray, impaling one fading foe while a grim reaping spins around me, aiming for the head of each spirit, then driving the edge of its blade into the ground and dragging a trail of ghastly flames behind it.

This time, I follow it, charging towards the next batch of ghosts and driving my spear forwards and down at the clambering and clunky metal and gooey feet of the enemy, heaving my weapon up in time with Thanatos’ upheaval. I wasn’t expecting to dance with death quite like this, but we spin and slash around the other, Vivan taking care of the stragglers with keen eyed shots and silent backstabs.

 

Soon enough, we’ve taken out enough of them to where the remaining ghosts stare on, the hatred in their eyes yet snuffed out, burning upon us with a smoking disdain before turning tail and wandering off, into the walls and the darkness, clearing the path ahead for us. Wiping my brow, I sigh and wander back into my seat within the crap mobile, ready to get to the point of this excursion–

“Hmph,” goes the rat, throwing herself back into the driver’s seat and kicking her legs up over the hood. “Maybe we’s shoulda brought along the usual dumb broad, eh?”

I cock an eyebrow at Liz, Vivian staring with frustrated confusion as she opens the car door and seats herself.

“Pardon me?” the alien hisses, crossing her arms, clearly not expecting a nice answer.

“Ehh, you’re kinda shit at this, y’know?” the rat blurts out, her complete disregard for our partner in crime only fueling Vivian’s frustration, jabbing back before I can even intervene.

“Excuse me?! I’m an assassin, not some punk street brawler!” she yells, arms doing half the talking for her. “Sorry for not being a fruity magical furry freak.”

“Uhm?”

My surprise escapes my lips as much as it’s written all over her face, her gooey hands rising to cover her lips.

“Uhh, yeah, whoa? Let’s not get cunty, eh ya fake ass silicone slut? Whore? Bitch?!”

Though closer to what she had intended, the surplus of poison dripping from Liz’s teeth catches even herself off guard.

“Okay, okay everybody, buckle up and shut the fuck up.”

The command even leaves my lips a bit harsher than I’d have liked. Taking a deep breath, I rest a paw on either of their shoulders.

“Did anybody mean to say what they just said?”

Vivian shakes her head, while Liz purses her lips and makes a “so-so” gesture, relieving me at least a little.

“It must have been those ghosts,” I theorize, lowering my head with a sigh. “I could feel the anger and hatred oozing from every part of them. Let’s all just keep a cool head about this, alright?”

I look from Vivian, who nods with a saddened expression pointed inwards, then to the rat.

“I know you wouldn’t agree to letting those ghosts get the better of you, right?” I say, squeezing Liz’s shoulder and earning me a begrudging groan.

“Yeah, yeah,” the rat sighs, pulling her feet in and starting up the vehicle. “I ain’t gonna apologize, just ain’t in my nature, but I’s is a liar, if it makes ya feel any better, gooey~”

“Such a roundabout way of actually apologizing, but thank you,” Vivian says, sighing and bowing her head. “I am sorry as well, to both of you. I promise you I would never intend to say or even think anything like that.”

Liz waves her off and I give her a reassuring nod, though, even if the end results are much better than things might’ve otherwise gone, I can’t help but feel incredibly unnerved by the entire situation…

 

With that debacle behind us, however, it’s not long before the slightly bumpy ride brings us before the only slightly less haunting scene where Janus supposedly resides. Bricks frozen over line the walls in rickety fashion, frost creeping over and between each, slinking upwards onto the subway’s concrete ceiling and dripping onto the ground, creating an eerie mist both above and below us, one that whirls one moment, then stops completely in its tracks the next. Even if Liz is right about time manipulation being something beyond our scope of preparation, seeing the uncanny motions of clockspun cold makes the coming trial seem even further out of reach of us.

“Don’t let the frost nip ya tips, Cat Kitten~”

Snapping out of the frigid trance, I shake my head and hop out of the cart, ignoring Liz and climbing up onto the platform, already shivering. The fog moves as I step through it, and stops to a complete still as I do, turning back and finding the rat and Vivian at my sides, Liz seeming especially fired up for some reason.

“Guessing you’ve got history with this guy?”

She shrugs and saunters past me, a few steps in already seeming to make her figure a blurry silhouette, one I can just make out tilting its nose up and looking back at us.

“I’s lost a lotta important things doin’ this job. Ain’t nothin’ a pack ‘a street rats can do ta get em back,” she sighs, the glow in her eyes piercing the veil of cold. “But I ain’t no ordinary street rat no more, see?”

The shadow and her voice fade further into the mist, the onset of quiet making me keenly aware of a faint ticking in my head that slowly grows louder as I trail the Rat Queen.

Frustration quickly comes over me as the chill seeps underneath my fur, that raw anger seeming to draw on an older fire as my tail wriggles and curls to summon a warmth bearing lantern that hangs from its hooked end. Its light struggles against the fog, the frigid corridor we walk reflecting the lantern’s shine off its frozen walls until we’re finally beyond the narrow path, the ever present ticking now accompanied by the dull churning of gears seen through the icy walls of the new chamber. Everything seems just a little off, those translucent sheets of ice holding everything in allowing an endless darkness behind them to peer back between the cogs turning and ticking.

“...So we can just walk in? No issue?” I ask, kind of disappointed at the lack of required stealth, and only further unnerved by the ease of entry with which Janus is permitting us.

“Oh, poor Cat Kitten,” Liz obnoxiously coos, “it’s never dat easy, as I’m sure you’re aware by now~”

“She brings up a good point, we should be more on guard,” Vivian adds, feeling about the perimeter of the room with some kind of alien instrument, a metallic rod with a glowing purple and yellow vine wound around it. “After all, if we’re inside, there’s no way Janus doesn’t want us here, and if he wants us here, then we should be paying close attention to what ‘here’ is.”

The rat groans and rolls her eyes, heel clacking impatiently against the frozen floor.

“Fine, play detective, but you’s got a minute before I start walkin’.”

Well, any form of cooperation from the rat is better than none. I do a bit of investigative work myself, taking note of the spiral staircase that leads up to nothing but a cluster of scrap metal hanging from its rails, but which goes down into another room. Liz seems to take a particular interest in the bits and pieces metal which trail up towards the…

“...Ceiling…?”

Looking a bit closer, the scrap almost looks to be in the shape of a humanoid body, clinging to the steel of the staircase…

“...Upside down…”

 

The entrance’s frame reaches from the bottom of the wall to the top, the floor does seem a bit smooth and slippery compared to the tiled ceiling above, and that would explain why the stairs go up to nothing…this clock tower is upside down! That explains why the loudest of the ticks and tocks seems to be coming from below…

“You see why dis place is called da Frigid Anomaly, eh?”

From the void engulfing it to the very structure of this construction, it’s definitely not something put together by human hands. Still, knowing this doesn’t exactly give us an edge in this fight…

“...What’cha doin’, Viv?”

The goo girl perks up from her task, having been fitting some kind of wire around the hole leading further into the tower, more alien flora twisting and winding about the ring.

“Oh, this is just something of a safety net,” Vivian explains, taking out the wand-shaped instrument from before and tracing it over the lip of the wire. “I use this whenever I have to go, say, deep into a building for a mark. Paws and claws on the vine, please!”

Liz and I look at one another, the rat shrugging and lowering herself to grab at the plant life, an odd glow pulsing through it stemming from Elizabeth’s claw. Vivian joins her, and I follow suit. The vines shimmer and shine, until the alien girl snips a bulb off the end.

“Alright, now remove.”

I nod at Vivian, all of us pulling away from the ring to find a budding flower where our hands had once been, Vivian promptly opening the snipped bulb and handing each of us a bulbous seed.

“Eat this,” says the goo girl before grabbing the arm Liz was about to use to throw the seed into the air and catch with her mouth, “and you’ll be brought back to your flower. I don’t know exactly how it works, my moms are the real alchemists here…though, dad would be upset if I didn’t credit him for growing and harvesting all the materials.”

“Dis here fruity hoolahoop is confirmed to work on non-aliens, yea?” Liz asks, yanking her arm from Vivian and rolling the seed between her claws while the goo girl taps her chin, formulating her answer.

“Well, it works on humans. I don’t see why there would be any problem with Ascended, especially considering you used to be human, as was I.”

“Wait, what–”

“Regardless!” Vivian cuts me off, climbing onto the steps and making her way down as the roots of the vines very slowly grow out over the metal bars, twisting and coiling about them. “We should all be good to go if all your preparations are finished. Shall we?”

 

Click.