t was as if the beast swallowed a screeching fax machine whole, despite being trapped within its throat. The outright alien sound it made… It caused the girls to lock themselves up in terror.

A-J violently snapped her fingers, siVis flashing back and forth to accelerate her motion to do so, creating a human-made, but equally as commanding sound in the process.

There was a violent jerk from each of them, but the girls came to their senses, instinctively turning their heads towards the woman.

“Time is little—” A-J shouted. “—I won’t have teenager death on my ledger—let’s run our collective asses off!”

The woman then motioned her arm forward, over and over. Signaling to do that here and now. The girls were happy to.

They ran, and instantly they pieced together the immediate struggle they’re going to be having tonight.

Half of them were in shoes not made for taking long stretches of sprinting. Maddie was the one that was ahead, as Jackie noticed she was wearing high top sneakers. Sure, an example of how pointedly uncaring she is—but it was aiding her better than the rest of them.

Jackie didn’t even have time to mentally curse herself.

The shadow above them lanced across them, to the point that the girls only noticed when it was gone, versus when it was coming for them.

“The hell was that--?!” Tracy screamed out.

“You lot couldn’t gleam that?!” the woman trying to protect them shouted from behind.

“She said, ‘the hell was that’—” Maddie screamed behind her. “You do the math!”

“Fuck meee-!” the guide stressed out of her teeth. The primal, ungodly noise cut her off. “JUST KEEP RUNNING, GO FOR THE OFFICE PLACE THAT LOOKS LIKE A TICKET BOOTH—SIVIS YOUR LEGS IF YOU HAVE TO!”

Jackie nodded, followed up on the request, shooting down the siVis influence into her long legs and bolting upwards along with the others, only just a few feet from Maddie who was audibly panting haggardly.

This time, a gush of wind that cuts—hitting Jackie from the left side as she winced.

Tired of this game of hide and seek already, she sacrificed her legs to enhance her sight, her senses. She looked around in the dark sky, but even the clouds were too dark to properly see.

“Hey, hey, hey--!” the guide used her hand and pushed Jackie at her back. “Don’t lag behind—you can’t see them, then you can’t see them! I can! I got you--!”

The sound was getting louder, and louder, to the point that it overwhelmed Jackie’s senses—forcing her eyes shut as she felt a massive weight push at her as the guide screamed out in genuine fear.

“—FUCKING GO, GO!” Jackie could barely hear the guide scream out to her.

She had to swallow her pride, thus activating siVis in her legs again, gaining ground again with the rest.

Jackie looked forward, seeing the others making it to the office, crowding over the door. Jackie then sprinted to make up for lost time, again seeing the shadows zip past yet completely covered her.

She practically had to stop herself from falling over, meeting up with the others, and felt the guide zip past, pushing them away.

The guide quickly opened the door, shoving each of the girls in, ending with Jackie being the last pushed in. She stumbled once more, turning to see the woman locking the door.

“Yeah sure,” Maddie sounded outright groggy. “I’m sure a door’s gonna—gonna stop whatever that thing is—”

The guide just turned around, looking at each of them with a very pointed, concerned expression. With a balled up right and an open-palmed left, she softly banged her hands together, just taking in who she’s seeing.

“Okay—” A-J started. “All of you just recently got your rigs, right? Is that a right take--?”

“Literal months ago, mam—” River was turned away from her, as Jackie caught from the back of her vision.

“Oh fuck me running—” the guide’s head fell into her hands. She then rocked on her heels, back and forth, practically burrowing into the spot of the floor where she stood. The pit in Jackie’s stomach was settling just as deep.

“Hey!” Aiko rose her arms in defiance. “You forgot to add in that month—no, weeks after gaining it, we actually spoiled a Nulgarrt’s Stew! We messed up the ones we fought—and we were handicapped while doing it!”

A-J’s head shot up from her hands, tilting her head subtly to the right. “That right…?”

“These guys are so down on themselves, you don’t get the impression that we’ve survived some pretty narly shit on our end,” Aiko grinned while putting her hands behind her head. “From near-death, every time, in fact!”

The guide looked at them again, with… An interesting expression along her eyes. There was the quickest flash of a somber emotion that Jackie wasn’t able to track in time. But she nodded a bit.

“Well, that’s certainly something… How did you stop the Emergence? Where was it?”

“It was at the… Formerly-newly-opened Megaplex—”

“You mean the one that they built in the pissing side of nowhere?” A-J exclaimed. “Why the hell were you there---?!”

“It was a good idea at the time…”

“We needed some shelter, thought we were cool… And then the goo started to drip,” Jackie jumped in. “We stepped in, we used… everything in our limited arsenal and barely didn’t make it. Both of us were downed, I tried to fight them off—in fact, I activated my ability during that. Didn’t work. If it wasn’t for us spoiling their stew…”

“Two of you went down, your ability didn’t work against them, and you barely got out of there,” A-J restated. “That’s what I’m hearing…?”

“We’ve… S-survived increasingly horrible things and got our powers from those events too…!” Tracy meekly chuckled out.

A-J just slumped a bit, and sighed loudly. “I can’t say that… It’s not impressive… But… For any of this to remotely work, we need a team of siVis users to ward things from getting worse until Extant comes with the Null Void.”

Tracy blinked rapidly. “To ward off? That’s the best-case scenario here?!”

“Eyeeeep,” A-J shook her head. “We’re pretty much fucked.”

Tracy gulped, stammering a bit before making sense seconds later, “Y-you seem to be a very accomplished siVis user! Just coach us through things! Teach us the trade s-s-secrets that uh, that uh we—we’re clearly missing here, improving the odds--!”

“Even if I was that desperate, I’ll ruin each of your lives,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “My shit ways should NOT be emulated at all.”

“Everyone we run into says that practically and I fail to see how that’s so awful--!” Tracy shouted, waving her arms.

“Because all the shit that hits my blind spots? Not only you get hit just as bad as I do, but it doubles because it’s not yours.”

A-J smirked a bit. “And if you fail to see that, then I guess you’ll fail to see most of my grand teachings anyways, so~”

Tracy then made a garble of noises that were just as alien as the thing outside.

“Well, you were the one that seen what we’re up against…” Jackie began to ask. “What Stage they’re at?”

“Fourth,” A-J said bluntly.

The room descended into a confused chill.

Even River turned on her heel in confusion. “That’s impossible. Four is ‘found another pool to soak in and will establish their first flock’. Surely it’s Third?”

A-J just looked at the girls with an exhausted, steely look.

“This isn’t it’s pool.”

River turned pale. “Pardon?”

“This isn’t it’s pool,” A-J said again. “This pool came out of the butt fuck nowhere. They travelled here.”

“But it takes weeks for it to build, right?!” Jackie said with the highest pitch she could’ve made her voice.

“I’ve been working here as a siVis user for hire for 5 months, girls,” A-J explained with a wariness. “I was literally put here to scope out any weird shit and pummel it as best I could. My night involves sniff up and down this place. This came from completely nowhere.”

Jackie grabbed her head, in distress… But a distress that was powered by a growing rage.

“That is—” Jackie cut herself off. “—The SECOND Noumena event that just ‘happened’ out of nowhere. The hell is going on here?!”

“Other than hell itself deciding to open up?” A-J shrugged. “No idea, kid… Honestly, at this point? I’d take the Hellmouth from Buffy other than this. At least those demon’s variety has like, themes to them.”

“1), I love you—” River began.

A-J chuckled at that. “Maybe when you’re older or something, lass. But go on?”

“give me a moment, I need to keep from coughing up my lungs—”

A-J chuckled more, Jackie seeing a flicker of life to her for the first time since the news being broken.

“okay—Uh, 2) … What do you suppose we do? Uhm…”

River looked at her tag on her chest, and then immediately turned away. “m-ms. ‘A-J B.’--?”

“Just A-J,” A-J nodded. “Annie-Jane, I know, my mother hated me since I escaped her womb, that’s why I’m just A-J now.”

She then combed her hair through her fingers. “But what to do… Well. I gotta do my job. And lose out on that sweet sleep I enjoy so much… I gotta squish this thing before it gets worse, and I gotta get you all the fuck out of here. But you lot have to understand that… It’s not going to be the standard escape. You’re basically my squad and we work as a squad until this is all over.”

“Please,” Maddie’s congested tone made itself apparent. “The tall blonde cop girl there beat that mantra for months now. We know how to do it.”

A-J looked at Jackie, stroking her chin with an eyebrow rise. “That right…?”

Jackie smiled a bit nervously. “A bit shit, but yeah…”

“Good to know…” A-J nodded. “And hey, you’re learning. You can’t fail if you’re learning, you have to do that so you could learn…”

“If I can ask a question—s-so that I can learn something today…” Jackie began, tilting her head. “‘siVis User for Hire’…?”

“Oh yeah, we’re everywhere,” A-J answered. “Everywhere you’re not looking, essentially. It started as a shady practice in the 90’s, when all sorts of crazy secret shit happened… I’d advise you to look that up and see what you make of it all on your own time, but…” She shrugged, with her palms up and out.

“That’s… Insanity…” Jackie wiped her face in astonishment. “So of course, it’s a practice… Since there's more people like you out there? Why have we never heard about anything like that...?”

“Well, protection's about hiding what you got. Of course, it's secret. Taboo, keeping face… That’s how it was then and as it still lingers now, so does the unwritten rules.”

Jackie nodded.

A-J looked at the door, and then at the girls again.

“I have to keep you girls safe… But you girls really need to step up to the plate, here. If you barely survived the Third Rush, then this will fuck you up. Whatever drives you, whatever keep you going. Hold onto that and don’t let it go.”

Jackie looked towards the others.

“We’ve done it before, and we can do it again!” Aiko shouted firm.

“…We’re going to get these nice clothes ruined…” Tracy moped.

“We’re in it, so we dig ourselves out,” Maddie then cleared her throat.

River just shook her head. “I’m always with what you guys want.”

Jackie turned back to A-J.

“What can we do…?”

“We gotta sneak to a place,” A-J said. “A place I know that has material to fuck up their Stew. But they’re out there, so we have to be ready for anything.”

A-J opened the door, and crept out, looking around. She made a motion with her hand for the others to follow and that they did.

The chill of the night made this entire event feel feeble, like they were just walking into a trap. The large stretch of land that was the plaza was practically buffet table for something that possibly eats meat. Or meat with something else. Whatever’s the weirder option.

Nulgarrt were creatures that never should exist, Jackie recounted to herself. Beings that are brought into the world from the horrors of primordial creation, cursed to life with whatever they spawned with. Sometimes they’ve killed themselves under their own power. And then there’s what happened with the Nulgarrt of the Oceania, now roaming lands that they’ve taken for themselves but have no idea what to do with.

They were always the tricker of the existential threats. Not only living, but inspires discussion and horror about how we came to be. If this was deserved, killing them before they had a chance to be. But humanity was barely living with the little we have now, and there’s no way they can share when the things in question causes so ecological destruction, it’s just not worth it for them to continue.

The group, led by A-J, was currently out of the plaza and into the “Savanna” biome of the Zoo.

They walked past the Zebra exhibit… And all they could see, was the heard of them just staring. Staring off into the distance.

“Shit,” Maddie croaked out. “Animals just stare at Noumena shit, they don’t freak out like we do. My dog went through that shit multiple times, so I know—”

A-J just looked over with a surprised but sorrowful face.

“…The edgy one has a fucking pupper at home? C’mon girls. Now you’re going to make me real fucking sad if I don’t manage to save yo—”

Their guide quickly shivered, screaming “FUCK” before the rest heard the ungodly noise again.

But this time, it was just lurching there, allowing the girls to see it and all of it’s… Twisted glory.

It was sitting atop of a lamp, bending it under it’s weight. It’s wings acted as spindly limbs, so long that they curved back up pasted it’s head, which was equally large and stretched out. No eyes. No holes to signal a nose or anything. The elongated “beck” had a black wedge coming out of it, with vertical slits that patterned up and down. It had less of a neck and more of a massive, potbellied stomach that caused the actual white and red body to look like a dried out pouch in comparison. It was a massive bird, that was hunched over and on all fours like a wolf.

Before they freaked out, before they cried out their disgust, before even screaming in the first place, it curved it’s massive head back.

The black wedge began to stretch, causing the slits to become ovals, and through those ovals, the ungodly, borderline electronic cry whined throughout the Zoo.

It leaped at the girls, and began to run at them quickly on all fours.