Devil's Looking Glass

By my estimate, it would take less time to execute the retrieval than to try to convince that brave, stubborn girl. This only added to the urgency of the matter—not only could Steve, Jane, and Renata be found at any moment, but every second also increased the strain on El.

Having no time to lose, I broke the connection with Khenumra and opened my eyes in my hospital bed.

There were some unexpected visitors. Damien, Sen, Halena, and Lukas had invaded the room and were currently being lectured by Joe.

"…break protocol again, and you'll answer to me," Joe barked, his tone sharp and commanding, like a drill sergeant addressing a line of rookies. "Security's in place for a reason."

"What security?" Damien scoffed, crossing his arms. Coiled around his neck, his pet eldritch snake Saralacc opened its petal-like mouth and hissed. "If we wanted to kidnap…"

"Enough!" I interrupted, rising from the bed. "We don't have time for this."

Joe and the others turned to me, his agitation giving way to a mix of relief and frustration. "Your nose is bleeding. Stop being so reckless."

"I know my limits," I replied, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and standing up. The momentary dizziness that followed only fueled my impatience. "We're on a tight schedule, and every second counts."

Archer was suddenly at my side, gently but firmly steadying me. "Here, use this," he said, pointing to a hospital wheelchair.

"What?" I asked, taken aback.

"It's policy," Archer said dryly. "And since you're in a hurry, you don't have time to argue."

I scoffed, but he was right. Every moment counted. I sat down and draped a blanket over my lap to preserve my modesty.

"Push fast," I ordered. "To the closest portal to the moon."

"Wait! Are you going to brief us first?" Joe asked, his voice laced with concern.

"On the way," I replied, taking the shirt Archer offered and slipping it on. "I'll fill you in on everything you need to know as we move."

"We're coming too," Damien said, his tone leaving no room for debate as he spoke for all the younger ones.

"Negative," Joe cut in sharply, his voice firm, like he was about to issue a command.

"You can for now," I interjected smoothly, overruling him as Archer started pushing the wheelchair. "We'll finalize the plan on the way."

As we passed through the door from the hospital room to the corridor, I continued, "First, the good news. Dr. Jane Smith and Steve Harrington are alive and well. Although they're on a Nazi base on the far side of the Moon."

"Anyone else?" Archer asked, his voice tense. "Our missing list is much longer than that."

"No," I replied grimly, "and there's little hope for the others."

The chances that the Nazis had two separate locations for captured personnel were extremely low—so low it was almost negligible. Their Moonbase was too streamlined for that kind of redundancy, even if logic suggested otherwise.

"Extraction before they're compromised?" Joe said, his voice sharp and tactical, already shifting to mission mode.

"Not exactly. My agent can conceal them for now. The problem is Ms. Jane Evans—she's inserted herself into the situation. We need to mount a rescue before she burns out from projecting herself all the way to the Moon," I said, as the corridor blurred past with Archer pushing the wheelchair at high speed. The others had taken to jogging to keep up.

"I'm going to make her break rocks and put them back together," Damien growled, his voice tight with frustration, "with her mind."

"Good training," I agreed. "But make sure she learns some discipline too. That girl's too reckless."

"Is that a case of 'do as I say, not as I do?'" Archer remarked dryly. "Maybe you should set a better example."

Point made, though Archer calling me reckless was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.

The portal to the Moon rushed toward me at high speed. Or perhaps we were rushing to it—relativity at work.

Speaking of theories, portals weren't wormholes. That had been proven with the first portal to the Moon. A wormhole's gravity gradient would slow any object passing through, but here, that didn't happen. Electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces traveled through portals without issue, but gravity? That was different. Either it didn't propagate through the portal at all, or it was so diminished that we couldn't measure it. Whether gravity spread across dimensions or something else entirely was still a matter of theoretical debate, with no experiments designed to settle it.

I gripped the handles of the wheelchair as Archer slowed to a stop, banishing the thought. I didn't have time to indulge in science. There was work to do.

I scanned the interior of the Moonbase, noting the scars left by battle. Repairs had patched the life-support systems and sealed the leaks, but the place still bore its wounds—scorched walls, shattered panels, exposed wiring that crackled and spat sparks like angry fireflies.

Robots and humans worked together in silence, sorting through the salvage. They moved with a grim efficiency, each group so focused on their tasks they barely spared us a glance. A few eyes darted our way—recognition flickering before they turned back to their work, giving us a wide berth. It was a subtle sign of respect or perhaps wariness; either way, they knew better than to interrupt.

"I'm going to first apport my agent and use the traces apport leaves behind to open a larger portal," I explained as the rest of the group caught up. I was pleased to see no one out of breath. Joe didn't let his position as CSO keep him from staying field-ready, and I insisted my students stay in top shape. Before preparing to cast the spell to summon Khenumra, I added a warning. "Be ready for anything. I've confirmed the Nazis are experimenting with stolen Aleph objects."

"Mantis Men?" Joe muttered, standing a little straighter, his hand resting on the grip of his gun. He didn't just jump to that conclusion—he pole-vaulted there. But to be fair, it was the only Aleph-object he had firsthand experience with. My mind flickered briefly to those memories, or rather Alex's memories. Without magecraft, Mantis Men had been a more persistent problem, but Aperture Scientists who couldn't put down rogue experiments didn't survive long at Aperture. With the discipline inherent to a practising Magus, I cut the thought short and refocused on the spell.

"One thing we didn't need a remake of," Joe continued, voice hardening as though recalling old nightmares.

Recall was a spell I'd designed to recreate the miracle of a Master using a Command Seal to summon their Servant. In the original wishcraft, the spell handled all the details—gravity gradients, momentum shifts, reference frame alignment, even the adjustment of astrological influences. My version? I had to handle all of that by hand. Or rather, I entered the variables into the spell matrices and adjusted constants as needed. Although Astrology was helpful in other ways—using constellations as reference points, and larger masses like planets and the Sun for more precise gravitational pulls.

"Mantis Men?" Sen repeated, his voice barely cutting through my concentration.

That was why, at its current iteration, the spell was limited to familiars. The karmic bond provided most of the information needed. It wasn't a problem with short distances, but with larger jumps, it required more calculation—or more Od. Summoning Khenumra from his sarcophagus was simple; I'd already measured precise values for its location.

"It was before your time, kid," Joe replied, loosening his shoulders, though I could sense his unease. "Wish I'd grabbed a flamethrower. Those bugs don't swat easy."

It would've been easier to dismiss Khenumra back to his resting place and summon him from there, but that wouldn't create the path I needed. Thus, direct summoning was necessary, though it required less Od if we were on the same celestial body. That, and the potential backlash, was why I decided to operate from the Moon—it minimized the cost.

"Cheer up," Archer added dryly. "Who'd be crazy enough to inject someone with mantis DNA?"

"You mean besides Aperture?" Joe shot back.

Their banter faded into the background as I tuned it out. My focus narrowed. The spell matrices unfolded in my mind, each equation, each variable aligning perfectly as I began the process of summoning Khenumra.

"Recall," I intoned, setting the spell in motion with one-word aria. 

Space tore open for just a moment, depositing Khenumra into the room. The tear sealed behind him, leaving only a faint ripple in the air. It was a blink in time, but long enough for the next spell.

I spared only a brief glance at Khenumra, taking in his condition. The black Nazi uniform he used to disguise himself was torn, slashes of illusory blood smeared across the fabric. His magical energy was low—drained, a subtle flicker in the bond between us. Clearly, something unfortunate had happened during his mission, but there was no time to ask. Not now.

I locked that thought away, filing it under "later." Steve and the others were still out there, and they needed a way back. The spell thrummed beneath my fingertips, rippling like a current of raw potential. It was time to carve the path, even if it meant charging into the unknown.

And I'd just been lectured for being reckless. I guess the lesson didn't stick.

The pain came sharp, digging into my senses like needles of ice. It hurt. It hurt so much. But pain is just a condition of the mind—a signal to ignore when there's work to do. What I was about to do would bring even more agony. A Magus might dance with death, but we always go home with pain.

My hands shook briefly, the tendons pulling taut, but my thoughts remained clear, honed to a knife's edge.

"Retrace," I intoned, the second aria rippling through the air as I pushed and prodded, prying at the barely sealed wound in space, forcing it open once more. The strain burned through my veins, every movement like scraping an open wound.

"Darkness," Khenumra gasped, barely holding on. He looked as if he were one breath away from collapsing, but I wasn't worried. He wouldn't die—just retreat to his sarcophagus. "Hungry... darkness..."

"Guard the portal," I commanded the students, my voice cutting through the haze of pain, steady despite the torment wracking my body. Then I turned to Joe. "Take point. Be ready."

Joe might not have been the most powerful among us, but he was the most disposable. He had some military training, but more importantly, his long experience at Aperture gave him a better chance of surviving the unknown.

Without a word, Joe moved into position, slipping through the portal with the efficiency of a seasoned soldier, his weapon trained on the unseen threat beyond.

Hungry darkness... That didn't match any Aleph-object the Nazis had stolen. I mentally sifted through the list—nothing devoured light, not even the nanocore swarm. And even if they had, something purely physical wouldn't have troubled Khenumra.

Was it something native to the Moon? Something the Nazis had dragged up from Earth? Or maybe… one of their twisted experiments?

The sound of gunfire snapped me out of my thoughts. It came from the portal. I gestured silently to Archer, ordering him to take me through.

Without the Mystic Code, fetishes, or imbued gems, and sitting in a wheelchair, one might think I was a liability in a fight. But I was hardly helpless.

As soon as we crossed, the noise hit me—a barrage of gunfire and the acrid scent of burning gunpowder. Steve was firing a machine gun—not Aperture issue, probably something scavenged from the base. Jane stood pressed against the wall, holding Renata in a protective grip. Joe was locked in, squeezing off controlled bursts, targeting whatever threatened them.

"This is no darkness!" Joe shouted over the noise, referencing Khenumra's earlier warning, as he unloaded his weapon.

And he was right. It wasn't some abstract force. It was a mass of human corpses, dead yet moving. Bodies, head to toe, fused together like some grotesque human centipede. Their skin was gray, their open wounds bloodless. Countless arms and legs twitched and writhed, propelling the abomination forward. At the front of the writhing mass was a twisted human torso, stretched and distorted, fused into the heap of corpses behind it. Its head was sunken into the shoulders, gray and withered, with a face that looked barely human—its eyes hollow and wide, its mouth agape, as if perpetually gasping for air.

Bullets tore into the mass, flesh splitting and breaking away, but the creature pushed forward, showing no sign of pain.

But unlike Joe, I could sense more than the physical. It wasn't just animated flesh; it was an absorber—a devourer. It fed on what little life force lingered in the air. I understood now why Khenumra, whose senses were more mystical than physical, had described it as hungry darkness.

It was both an absorber and animator. The manifestation was new, but I had enough information to narrow it down to one Aleph-object—Aleph-13, the Devil's Looking Glass. And that one had a particularly dangerous trait.

"Avoid its eyes!" I shouted in warning. "The eyes are the weak spot."

"Which is it?" Joe snapped, his frustration cutting through the gunfire. "Avoid the eyes or target them?"

The creature was locked onto the group we came to rescue, slowly advancing. Its numerous limbs moved with erratic coordination, each step ponderous but utterly relentless. It was as though it savoured their terror, dragging out the moment.

"Both!" I shouted again. "Smith, get the girl to the portal, and don't look into its eyes or let it touch you! Dwight, we need a distraction—something imbued with life."

Archer nodded and pulled a few throwing daggers from his lab coat. Suddenly, they seemed much sharper, his Od filling them up. The undead construct twitched, turning toward us, drool seeping from its slackened mouth.

"Not directly," I added, giving just enough instruction. Even with sparse words, Archer understood exactly what I meant. Gracefully, with swift precision, he threw the dagger, aiming just right of the creature's distorted frame.

The creature reacted with startling speed, lurching toward the throwing knives now embedded deep in the metallic wall of the Nazi Moonbase. Its limbs twitched, drawn to the Od radiating from the blades.

Jane moved fast, pulling Renata close as they dodged past the abomination. Its many arms lashed out—bony fingers scraping against the floor and walls. Several limbs reached for Jane, but gunfire cracked, and Joe and Steve shredded them apart, chunks of grey flesh and blackened gore splattering across the walls.

I gripped the blanket over my lap, the fabric tightening under my fingers. The distraction wouldn't last. The moment it touched the imbued knives, it would drain their life-force dry, turning them into lifeless metal—useless, and of no interest to it. Then it would focus back on living things.

Like us.

"Go! Go! Go!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the din of gunfire and the creature's wet, rasping breath.

Both of them rushed past me as the creature began to turn. I grabbed the blanket and hurled it at the creature's head. It sailed through the air, tangling over its face and blocking its deadly gaze. The soft fabric clung to its twisted features, muffling the grotesque rasping sounds that escaped its mouth.

"Now, destroy the eyes!" I ordered, even as I let the portal close. By my calculations, it had stayed open long enough for Jane and Renata to pass through. Keeping it open any longer would be an unnecessary strain. Pity about Steve, but he was a trained combatant and could still be useful.

The creature staggered, its arms flailing as it struggled to rip the blanket off. Bullets tore through the air, slamming into its cloth-covered face, chunks of flesh splattering against the metallic walls. The creature jerked and convulsed, but it was the pair of throwing knives that found their mark—sinking into the hidden eyes beneath the ruined blanket, piercing deep into the creature's skull.

For a moment, it paused, its many limbs twitching violently, before its head caved in under the relentless assault, a black ooze dripping down the shredded fabric.

"What the fuck was that?!" Helena's voice rang out from behind me. She wasn't supposed to be here. I twisted my head, and sure enough, there she stood, right next to where the portal had been. And she wasn't alone—Damien, Sen, and Lukas were with her. At least Jane and Renata had made it back to safety.

"Is it over?" Steve asked, stepping up beside Joe as the corpse centipede finally stilled. All of us were now facing the enemy from the same direction, giving us potential retreat route behind us.

The creature would have to come at us head-on, and with our focus and a clear path for retreat, our chances were much better now.

"No," I replied, my eyes narrowing as the corpse collective began to twitch. A tearing sound echoed through the space as the corpse in front—the one with the knives embedded where its eyes had been—was violently ripped away from the mass, tossed aside like discarded tissue. Behind it, another corpse slithered out, as though it had been attached like some grotesque tail. Half-formed, it twisted and writhing, forcing its way forward.

"They're... linked," I said, my voice steady, revealing just a fraction of what I'd pieced together. It was like a macabre train, each corpse part of an unholy chain. One fell, and another took its place.

"This has barely begun," I added, my calm tone betraying none of the chaos around me.

The sound of gunfire echoed in the corridor, following my words. The bullets tore into the creature's new head, shredding its cheeks, blowing out its mouth, and sending teeth splattering into the air. Its nose turned into a gaping hole, and one bullet even punched a neat little hole in its forehead, straight into the brain. But these weren't zombies from Romero's films. The brain wasn't a critical organ for them.

As the creature pushed forward, Damien added sarcastically, "Nice shots, but it's still up."

"Save your ammunition, Steve," I said, addressing the shooter. "This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon." I gestured to the line of corpses, stretching down the corridor of the Nazi Moonbase. "Unless you hit the eyes, it won't make a difference."

"It's hard to hit an eye without looking at it," Steve shot back. His face was pale, and his hands trembled slightly. Most would mistake it for fear, but I knew better.

"Don't look into its eyes," I repeated firmly. It was important they understood.

"See how it's done," Damien continued, his voice brimming with confidence. I couldn't see what he was doing, but it wasn't hard to guess. Telekinesis—Damien's first answer to any problem. As a diehard fan of Star Wars, he took using the Force quite literally and with great enthusiasm.

"Don't use your psychic powers directly on it!" I admonished sharply, then quickly explained, "Neither kinetic nor sensory. This creature is a manifestation of Aleph-13, also known as the Devil's Looking Glass. Dwight, please—I need to explain."

Another pair of throwing daggers embedded themselves in the creature's eye sockets, courtesy of Archer. The corpse at the front twitched and swirled, then was cast aside, making way for another body to emerge. It wouldn't buy us much time, but enough to finish the explanation.

"It's primarily an absorber, draining energy from its environment. It has a preference for certain types, but I won't go into the details right now. Just know that psychic energy is very high on that list. The main drain comes through reflections, especially in its eyes. That's why you don't meet its gaze—or even the reflection of its gaze. Perseus' little trick won't work here."

I gestured toward the mass of corpses. "The most dangerous drain comes through flesh, but at least it's weakest through inorganic mediums, like air."

Turning to my psychic students, I added, "You'll be able to feel it. It's like a cold wind—a pull, a suction. Be aware of that."

I could see them react, the way their expressions tightened slightly, their breaths becoming shallow. They could feel the drain clawing at them already.

Then I addressed the whole group. "First, don't look into its eyes. Second, don't let it touch you. Keep your distance. The drain weakens with distance thanks to the inverse square law, but make no mistake—it's still dangerous, especially over time. Steve is already feeling the effects."

Several bullets tore through the creature's head, first grazing its left temple, then moving across, hitting the edge of one eye, between them, and finally skimming the right temple. Even the partial hits were enough to pulverize its eyes. They were delicate, after all.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this," Joe said, a hint of self-satisfaction creeping into his voice. "Definitely adding this to Aperture Security training—how to hit something without directly looking at it."

"Still," Archer chimed in, as he methodically pulled his knives from the head of the discarded corpse, "it took five bullets just to take one down. Do you have enough ammo for a hundred more?"

I wondered where he got that number. The line of corpses extended from this chamber into the corridor beyond, like a grotesque centipede, or perhaps some nightmarish vision of people who had waited in line so long their bodies had fused together. Twisted limbs and slack faces blurred into one another, making it impossible to count. A hundred might have been a fair guess, but it could have been more. There was no way to tell—the corridor was too narrow, the view too distorted.

"This is taking far too long," he added, turning to me. "Would cutting it in two work?"

"With what?" I replied rhetorically. Magecraft, psychic powers— nothing would work without triggering the drain. Explosives? Maybe. But, "No. At best, it would merge back together. At worst, we'd end up dealing with two of them."

As we spoke, the creature dragged itself forward, its movements deliberate and slow, like it had all the time in the world. Its numerous limbs twitched and shifted, pulling the mass of corpses along with it—a relentless tide of death.

"Is it just me, or is it getting up faster?" Sen observed, his voice calm despite the situation. I couldn't help but feel a touch of pride as his professor. Even in the midst of chaos, my student had kept a clear head and noticed the irregularities.

"No," I replied, circulating Od through my Magic Circuits to fend off the drain. It was like trying to hold a handful of water in my palm while running across uneven terrain. The effort burned, but it was better than succumbing to the icy chill of the drain. Archer was probably doing the same, but the others had no such defences.

"Drain pulls in psychometric impressions along with psychokinetic energy," I explained. Or rather, the flow of mana pulls in Remaining Thoughts. The distinction might be purely academic—I wasn't entirely sure. That was the problem with the Preservation of Mysteries. It made peer review difficult. "Impressions from dying humans are most intense. They gather, and animate the corpses because humans remember having and moving bodies."

Gunfire interrupted my explanation, followed by the clicking sound of an empty magazine. Steve had run out of bullets, but at least he'd managed to take out one of the eyes.

Slow, ponderous step by step, the creature inched closer, and the drain intensified.

"As the number of corpses decreases, so does the interior volume," I continued, my voice steady despite the growing pressure. "The impressions are getting concentrated, and so does its vigour. The same way pressure creates heat."

The remaining eye was crushed by, of all things, a screw. As the leading corpse was once again discarded, I glanced back to see Damien standing with his eyes closed, a collection of small metal objects orbiting his head like the halo of a mechanical saint. Saralacc, still coiled around his neck, pointed directly at the corpse-centipede.

"Saralacc has no eyes," Damien said proudly, "but I can see through him, in a way. Enough to aim."

"Excellent thinking outside the box," I complimented him, my voice filled with the quiet pride of a teacher. "Precisely what I'd expect from you."

The discarded corpse hit the wall with a wet thud, and a new one took its place at the front. The decay made it hard to distinguish one from another, but this one was smaller—either female or a teenager.

"Why do I feel like we're being graded?" Lukas asked, his tone half-serious.

"If we are, you three are failing," Damien boasted, just as the eyes of the newest leading corpse were smashed by a piece of metal—a spent casing. If nothing else, Steve's shooting provided ample additional ammunition. "That's two for me."

"I could move Harrington further back," Sen suggested. His eyes were fixed on Steve, who looked pale and unsteady. "He's not looking good."

The next leading corpse was unmistakably female. Its hair hadn't completely fallen out, making it stand out among the others. A Nazi man wouldn't have long hair—too much chance of being accused of homosexuality, a lethal accusation in their society.

"Good initiative," I said, nodding sharply. "But there's a more efficient plan. Set up a fallback position and rotate out of the drain area. Take Helena with you. Her scouting paired with your mental influence should counter any surviving Nazis lurking around. You know your limits—use them wisely."

The sound of gunfire punctuated my words, and the eyes—the source of the corpse's animation—were pulverized. Only four bullets this time. Joe was getting better. Whether it would be enough in the end, only time would tell. At least we would save on funeral expenses; our bodies would merely join the others.

"My puppets can help here too!" Helena said, her reluctance to leave the fight clear.

"Don't use them. Your body has natural protection against the drain. That's why meeting its eyes is so dangerous—it circumvents that defense," I explained, though speaking was becoming increasingly unpleasant. The air stank of blood and rot; with every word, I could almost taste the decay.

"Astral projection would leave you extremely vulnerable. At best, the drain would intensify; at worst, you'd be drawn in. Trust me, you don't want to see the inside of the Devil's Looking Glass."

The new leading corpse was missing its lips, revealing teeth in a demented grin. The deeper we went, the more the flesh was fused, and the more violently it was torn apart when each body separated. The timing between replacements was getting shorter, and the limbs twitched more violently with every step.

"Devil's Looking Glass? Is that John Dee's mirror?" Lukas asked.

"Yes, the one you acquired for me," I replied to Lukas. He made a clicking sound, and a spray of spit splashed onto the eyes of the leading corpse. Immediately, they began to sizzle.

"Echolocation and pH manipulation," I said, nodding. "Smart application of biofeedback. But don't overdo it—you'll dehydrate quickly."

I turned to the others. "Find water—Lukas isn't the only one who'll need it soon. And grab anything to cover its eyes—blankets, curtains, thick paint if you can find it."

Archer added without missing a beat, "Bleach or anything corrosive to melt the eyes."

Joe snapped, "And something flammable!"

Already, the corpse collective had begun to move again, replacing its leading corpse.

"Got a shopping list for us?" Helena quipped, her sarcasm barely masking the tension.

"Wait," Steve interrupted, his voice weak. "You said if someone's astral projecting, they could get trapped, right? Did that happen to El? She just disappeared when that thing attacked."

A pair of throwing knives embedded themselves in the creature's eyes—Archer's work. If I were keeping score, I'd definitely be at the bottom. But I was conserving my energy for later.

"I hoped she did the sensible thing and returned to her body," I said, weary but focused.

"That's not her," Steve countered. "She wouldn't run—not when others are in danger."

How inconvenient. I knew what I had to do, but I didn't relish it. I glanced at the enemy. It was already stirring again, and I noticed something else.

"We need to take a few steps back. It's getting too close," I instructed, gripping the wheels of the wheelchair and inching myself back. The creature moved so slowly, almost lazily, that it was deceptively easy to misjudge the distance. That was what made it all the more dangerous—its patient, inevitable crawl forward.

"What about El?" Steve pressed, his voice cracking slightly, frustration seeping through his concern.

"I'm getting to that," I replied, my tone steady despite the chaos. "But it won't be much of a rescue if we end up in that thing's gullet." I shifted my focus. "Lukas, you're the spotter. Keep track of its approach and call out when we need to pull back. Also, guard my body while I go after El."

Then I turned to Steve, Helena, and Sen. "You three—fallback position takes priority. Make sure we don't get pinned between the undead and any Nazi reinforcements. I need you to keep our escape route open."

Finally, I addressed the rest of the group. "Everyone else—focus on keeping it off-balance. Don't let up, even for a second. Keep cutting it down."

I closed my eyes, severing my connection to the world around me. The faint scraping of countless limbs dragging along the floor faded first, followed by the squelching of dead flesh and the sharp clicks of bones grinding together. The acrid stench of gunpowder, mingling with the rot of old blood and the metallic tang that permeated the Moonbase, was next to go. I released my grip on that sensory world, casting it aside like a discarded cloak.

The cool touch of the wheelchair beneath me dissolved, leaving only a faint impression in my memory. I even let go of the void—the hungry, yawning pull at the edge of my awareness, the unseen threat gnawing at my sixth sense. Bit by bit, I unraveled every thread connecting me to my physical form.

Until there was nothing.

In this place between places, boundaries ceased to matter. But the human mind cannot conceive such an expanse, and thus I found myself within the confines of a jewel. It wasn't real, just my mind's way of coping with the unknowable. But it was a useful start—a fabricated structure to cling to in the void.

Still, I needed more than that. To find what I was seeking, I needed a reference point. A memory, a tether. I needed to describe, visualize, and define exactly what I was looking for. The more detail, the better. Anchoring the mind would anchor the search.

What was Aleph-13?

It was not the grotesque conglomeration of corpses I had just fought. Nor was it the small obsidian mirror that Lukas had acquired in an underworld auction after it had been stolen from the British Museum.

No. Aleph-13 was a reflection.

It was the thing that looks back when the world isn't watching, that takes hold in the spaces between perceptions. Not the mirror itself, but what the mirror contained—the infinite possibility of distorted realities.

But it was more than that. It was an Incomplete Adjacent World. It didn't dwell in any space familiar to human understanding but hid within the smallest conceivable measures—in the gaps between Planck lengths. A manifestation of Multidimensional Refraction Phenomena, one set to dispersal, not convergence

But what was before? What were its origins?

The Devil's Looking Glass—once known as John Dee's obsidian mirror, a tool the famous occultist used to communicate with angels. It was said that Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, gazed into the black surface of the mirror during his séances, seeking guidance from ethereal beings. But the mirror's history stretched far beyond Dee's hands.

Before it ever reached the hands of the English magus, the object had been sacred to the Jaguar God of the ancient Maya. It was used in rituals to reflect the will of the divine. Blood sacrifices, offerings of great power, were made in front of it, their reflections caught in the mirror's dark surface. It was believed the mirror didn't just reflect—but absorbed. Countless lives and prayers had been drawn into its depths, and some whispered that the souls of the sacrificed still lingered within.

How did it become Aleph-13?

By my hand. By my knowledge. By my Art.

I had shaped the stolen mirror into something far more potent. In the workshops on Io, I had transformed it.

It was said that the last image seen was captured in the eyes of a dead man, but that was merely an urban legend. In reality, dead eyes became reflective, especially when properly embalmed, giving them an eerie appearance but holding no visual record.

But belief matters in magecraft—perhaps more than the truth. Without belief, any mirror would have sufficed. There would have been no need to spend millions to acquire one stolen from the British Museum.

An embalmed eye reflecting the obsidian mirror, which, in turn, reflected the eye again. In those infinite reflections, I had fashioned a world.

Aleph-13.

And the final key. What was its purpose? For what reason had it been made?

The Crown of Midnight—my renegade creation. It had been stolen from me, or perhaps it had stolen itself from me. I wasn't sure. I had my doubts.

For now, it was in the possession of Ozerov—or was possessing Ozerov—spreading death and misery across the SSSR.

It wasn't in my best interest to retrieve it yet. It was destabilizing Vril-ya, a useful distraction. But I never forgot that the enemy of my enemy was just that—an enemy. Not an ally. Just an obstacle with a temporary purpose.

In truth, I would have preferred to deal with it immediately. Archer convinced me otherwise. He favored the tactic of letting enemies weaken each other. I, on the other hand, disliked unnecessary variables.

Time would prove whether this choice was wisdom or folly.

But either way, the moment would come when we would retrieve it. And its host—its current wielder—would not let it go easily.

Thus, Aleph-13 was intended as a lesser absorber—a nullifier—a way to practice fighting against something similar. A test.

But in that, it had been a failure. Too uncontrolled.

The drain it created dissolved any control spell. I hadn't anticipated it would also draw in all Remaining Thoughts and drive them so mad that communication—much less command—was impossible.

That unpredictability, though—it was exhilarating. The more it resisted my expectations, the more intrigued I became. There was always something to learn when things didn't go according to plan; the deviations were where true discovery lay. After all, if there was no risk of catastrophic failure, was it even real science?

But once I had learned all I could from it, the thing was still useless. Perhaps disposing of it would have been the wiser course, but there was always that slim chance I could come up with another experiment. So, I'd stored it in what I believed to be a safe place—until it was stolen.

That was enough. The gem shattered, and I beheld the other side of the Devil's Looking Glass.

An eye, and a mirror, floating in a starless void. Between them stretched a delicate bridge of transparent planes, each holding a singular reflection. Similar, but subtly different.

And where was my wayward Alice?

In many places, apparently. This was how the drain worked. By scattering everything that passed through the mirror into infinite reflections, an almost infinite volume was created. Not just volume—surface, too. Everything was stretched thin, like peeling apart the layers of wet pages in a book so they could dry faster. Or flattening a chicken breast to fry it more quickly.

This was why I had to take the roundabout route, rather than simply jumping into the mirror. To approach from the side rather than be scattered. It was also why the minds trapped inside were driven mad. Remaining Thoughts—memories, emotions—were metaphorically put in a blender, mixed without rhyme or reason, until madness and hunger reigned supreme.

A fractured realm of reflections, each plane a potential prison for my lost lamb.

It was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. But, as with most things, it was easy enough if one had the right tool—a proverbial metal detector.

El stood out from the echoes that populated these reflections. She was still alive.

Well, I presumed so, though it wasn't a certainty. The probability dropped with each passing moment.

The reasoning was simple: this place wasn't meant to hold disembodied souls. If her link to her body had been severed—if she'd died from the drain—she would have been freed from this place. To capture a soul required more than this.

Still, I operated under the assumption that she was alive. It was the rational course of action. If she was dead, the effort would be wasted. But if she was alive, there was still hope of saving her.

I flickered between the planes, weaving through the pale memories of dead Nazis, searching for something that didn't belong.

"Cripple."

"Stupid."

"Invert."

"Waste."

"Waste."

"Waste."

"Designated for euthanasia."

The voices whispered, their malice like a cold wind. It was hardly surprising. I hadn't expected the Nazi regime to be pleasant, especially not when isolated on the Moon. Isolation breeds paranoia, and with no external enemies left to blame, they had turned on themselves. It explained how the corpse collective had grown to such grotesque proportions.

Their triumphs were paved in so much blood, and such things always produced spiritual corruption. The darkness that had permeated their deeds had fed Aleph-13, empowering it far beyond its original state, twisting it into something much more dangerous.

It had become a living weapon of hate, not just a mirror of dissolution.

I found what I was searching for in a twisted recreation of a medical ward. The lines of faint echoes shuffled slowly, inevitably, toward a bed designed for quick euthanasia. Nearby, amidst the chaos, stood something unexpected: a simple blanket fort.

The sight struck a familiar chord—a memory of the first time I had met El, in the basement of the Wheeler house. It wasn't entirely surprising. Synergies like this were to be expected in this fractured realm, where thought and reflection bled into one another.

I knelt beside the fort, and there, hidden within, was a much younger El. Her head was shaved, her eyes wide with fear and distrust as she peered out at me. It was the look of someone who'd been told too many times that the world was a hostile place.

I smiled softly and extended my hand, letting the truth in my voice resonate as I spoke. "I mean you no harm. Come with me if you want to live."

Without a word, she reached out, placing her small hand in mine.

It wasn't surprising that she trusted me. There was no air here—no sound. We communicated through thought alone, and in such a place, sincerity carried its own undeniable weight. Her grip was tentative, like she was holding onto the one lifeline in a storm.

With the first fragment gathered, finding the others became easier. Even separated, the fragments were linked, drawn together by the invisible threads of the Law of Contagion.

Following that link a few panels away, we came upon two much younger girls playing on the floor of a cold, metal corridor. One was barely there—little more than a ghostly outline, her presence more faded than an echo. Kali. Not truly here, just a memory, fragile and insubstantial. The other, more solid, was a much younger El.

As we approached, the fragments seemed to pulse, drawn together by some invisible force, merging and becoming one. I could feel El's presence growing stronger, more tangible. She was becoming more real.

Following the trail, we moved through several planes, each more distorted than the last. Finally, we reached a corridor that seemed like a patchwork of many others—an amalgamation of wreckage and disrepair. Exposed wiring crackled with electricity, openings to hard vacuum loomed ominously, and pipes hissed as they released scalding steam. It was a place of ruin, accidents frozen in time, a grim monument to the unforgiving nature of space—where even the smallest misstep could mean death.

I walked past the echoes, re-enacting their final moments—boiled by the steam, impaled on debris, suffocated in the vacuum, or electrocuted by sparking cables. The fragments of El clung to my hand, their presence faint but steady. Even in this fragmented state, I could sense her resilience. It wasn't just fear that drove her; it was the need to survive, to reclaim what she had lost.

At the centre of this chaotic corridor stood something different—a sensory deprivation tank, an imposing metal cylinder filled with water. Another fragment of El stood near the hatch, hesitant, frozen in a moment of indecision.

I felt a flicker of pride, despite the tension. The way she faced these nightmares, even in pieces, spoke of the strength I'd always seen in her. If anything, this place had underestimated her. And that was a mistake I was going to exploit.

Beneath the tank, shadowy figures writhed, half-formed memories of faceless people. The only clear figure was Dr. Brenner, his image unnaturally sharp and cold, as if stripped of what little humanity he had in this warped memory recreation.

Lurking in the shadows was something else—a gaunt, indistinct figure, almost human, but not quite. Its skeletal form clung to the edges of perception, predatory, watching, waiting to strike. It wasn't the monster she knew was coming, but a manifestation of her fear—born from El's worst recollections. This was the dream of a child who knew enough to dread the real thing, yet couldn't fully comprehend it.

And yet, as soon as the two fragments met their eyes, all of it began to fade—the looming monster, the shadowy figure of the forgotten scientist, and even the image of Dr. Brenner, though it lingered the longest, as if unwilling to disappear. But it too dissolved, like mist under the morning sun. El, still fragmented, broke free from my hand and ran toward the other pieces of herself. The fragments climbed, merging together, and as they did, the sensory deprivation tank faded as well.

When the fragments finally clicked into place, there was only one El—more solid, more real. More aware.

"Come," I said, offering my hand again. "We don't have much time. We need to gather all the pieces of you."

She took my hand, her voice barely a whisper as she said, "Broken."

There was almost sadness in her tone, but not enough of her existed yet to fully feel it. I could sense her disorientation, the fear of being incomplete, so I began to rhyme softly.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall..."

She glanced at me, her brow furrowing in confusion. I offered a small smile and moved us forward. The more of her we gathered, the easier it became to find the missing pieces. It was almost like gravity drawing them in.

"Humpty Dumpty had a great fall..."

The next fragment was small, barely there. Two boys on a bed—one sketching, the other reading a comic. Will and Mike. A fragile piece of her hovered nearby, incorporeal, flickering like a distant star.

Like meteors falling to Earth, the smaller fragments drifted toward the larger one and were absorbed.

"All the king's horses and all the king's men..."

As I spoke, the world around us shimmered and shifted, the broken reflections of corridors and shadows flickering in and out of existence. I squeezed her hand, pulling her gently forward as we slipped through another plane.

"...couldn't put Humpty together again."

But then again, whole was not the same as unbroken. And even shattered, she was something remarkable—a puzzle with more pieces than anyone else could see.

As the rhyme faded, we entered a new scene. Not a battlefield—a mass execution. Nazis killing Nazis. It was a visceral sight, although I knew it wasn't real. It was a conflation of many moments, many executions scattered across time and space, now compressed into a single room and a single moment.

Still, there were quite a lot of them. Some of the killings were merciful—quick executions of the crippled, beyond saving. Nazi medicine often hid behind the veneer of euthanasia. Others were executions for transgressions, punishments meted out for defiance. And some made little sense to me, but logic was often lost in the madness of their regime.

But we weren't here for that. We came for her—the largest fragment yet, the most active. She was in the thick of it, fighting Nazis to save other Nazis, wresting the aggressors away and trying to protect the victims.

It was utterly futile.

This had already happened. These were only memories, echoes of the past, and while memories could be changed, it was much harder to alter the dead than the living.

But she stopped once she saw her other self. As before there was almost magnetic attraction.

I did not let of the younger fragment's hand, forcing her to come to me. A flicker and I could feel the hand clasped in mine grow, from that child to that of a teenager.

She pulled her hand away, the way teenagers do when comfort turns to embarrassment. Holding hands might work for a little girl, but not for her anymore.

"Doc Ace?" she said, using that nickname she and her friends had come up with for me. They rarely said it to my face—it was something they used among themselves. Still, nothing happened in the Enrichment Centre that I didn't know about. "I mean... Director Johnson, why are you here?"

"No need for formalities, Jane," I replied, offering an amused but disarming smile. Calm was what she needed most. "I'm here to rescue you."

"We've got to stop this!" she insisted, glancing at the ongoing slaughter, her hands already balled into fists. "We can fix it!"

"There's no point," I said, keeping my voice steady. "All of them are already dead. This is just a memory. We could clear it out, but it would waste time—and they deserve to be remembered, however briefly. Their society will forget them, toss them aside like trash." I sighed. The wastefulness of the Nazi regime always grated against my aesthetic sense. "Besides, we've got more urgent matters."

"You mean Steve," she blurted out, a mix of worry and relief in her voice. "He's somewhere here. I lost him when this place... changed."

"Steve is safe," I assured her, my tone firm. "Safer than you, at least. We don't have much time," I added as I examined her, looking beyond the projected image, trying to gauge how much life she had left. "But strangely, we have more time than I expected. Jane... do you feel like something's missing? A sense of emptiness, like there are gaps in your memories?"

She paused for a moment, looking confused, but then nodded with determination. As I began explaining the nature of this place and what had happened to her, my mind raced with lingering questions.

 She was in much better shape than I'd expected. The double drain—from both being here and the reflections in her eyes—should have done far more damage. I had a few theories. Maybe she had avoided looking into the mirror or the eyes of the animated corpses. Unlikely. Perhaps the projection had disrupted the reflection. Also unlikely. Or maybe the distance between the Moon and Earth had reduced the drain's effect. It wasn't something I'd ever tested over such a vast distance.

The unpredictability was exhilarating. The more situations resisted my expectations, the more intrigued I became. True discovery always lay in the deviations.

"What next?" she asked, after I finished explaining, her voice now steadier.

"We pick up the remaining fragments. There shouldn't be many left," I replied, her increased awareness being a good indicator of that. "Focus on the empty spaces. Try to sense what's been missing."

Explaining had been necessary—not just for her understanding, but because with her assistance, this process would be far more efficient, allowing us to recoup the time spent and more.

As she focused, the bond between her and the other fragments became much more noticeable. It was working.

"Come," I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. In this process, physical contact was necessary to guide her. We flickered between reflections, moving through fractured memories, collecting smaller pieces of her.

There she was, sitting in a classroom—the Enriched Centre's familiar setting blurred with the stark, sterile corridors of the Nazi base. Another fragment appeared, showing her on a date with Mike, the starlight from a planetarium's dome mixing with the harsh artificial light of the base. Then there she was, playing Dungeons and Dragons with her friends while Nazi soldiers marched past in the background, a surreal combination of innocence and horror.

Bit by bit, we gathered these fragments, drawing them in like threads weaving her back together.

The largest fragment was in a surreal maternity ward, where Nazi women lay on sterile tables, their bodies withering as they birthed baby after baby in an endless cycle. Doctors hovered nearby, coldly assessing each newborn—some were approved, while others were swiftly discarded without hesitation. In the corner, El sat quietly with the fragmented memory of her mother and aunt, the only sense of calm in the horrifying scene.

But now, with enough fragments gathered, I could glimpse a piece of the truth. I peered beyond the fractured planes of her mind, down to her physical body, and finally understood.

"Someone has been clever, brave, and ruthless," I said, my voice calm but resolute. "You should forgive them—for they likely saved your life. Maybe even the lives of others."

She looked back at me, confused, but I knew she would understand once she returned to her body. Reflections in eyes were more than just a vector for the drain—they were also infectious. A spreading outbreak of the drain in the Enriched Centre would have been catastrophic. It would have triggered the Bound Field protocols, and the response—especially from artificial constructs like our false angels—would be anything but merciful. Angels, even fake ones, were rarely kind. Especially fake ones.

El still looked confused, though I could see her piecing together fragments of understanding. "Is this all of them?" she asked, her voice steady but tinged with uncertainty.

"There's one more," I said, feeling the weight of what was still missing. "Be brave. We're nearly done."

"But I don't feel like I'm missing anything else," she protested, searching herself for further gaps.

"That's because this last piece is something you forgot long before all of this."

As I guided her toward the final piece of herself, the surroundings began to shift again. The cold metal of the Nazi Moonbase was replaced by the sterile, gray concrete of Hawkins Lab. Trauma had a way of warping environments, blending them with memory until they were indistinguishable from the pain that caused them. The corridors, once alien and futuristic, now resembled the oppressive halls of the lab where she had spent so much of her childhood. I knew what we were walking into before we even arrived.

The first thing we saw were the twins. Their broken bodies lay together on the cold floor, dressed in hospital gowns, their heads shaven. They looked like a pair of broken dolls, abandoned in death.

"I remember this now," Jane gasped, her voice trembling as the memories came rushing back. "And more. I remember them. We spent so much time together under Papa. But... it makes no sense. They're alive. I talked to them just yesterday."

"If circumstances align, and someone knows how, it's possible to bargain with death," I explained, deliberately avoiding too many details. Especially my own involvement in the entire mess. "But it's never a profitable exchange. It takes many lives to restore a few."

"Then Papa…" she started, her voice faltering. But I understood what she couldn't bring herself to say.

"Brenner started it," I said, keeping my tone neutral, "but he lacked the wisdom to finish it. I had to intervene."

We continued down the hall, passing more memories of the other Numbers. One by one, we found them, echoes of their suffering, their pain lingering in the air.

"Damien blames me for this," she said quietly, lost in her thoughts. "Why?"

"You'll find out, in the end," I replied, my voice low but steady.

"You know everything, don't you?" she added, a note of accusation creeping into her voice.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, turning to face me, her eyes hardening with anger and confusion.

"Because it was pointless until you remembered it," I answered calmly.

"You could've made me remember," she pressed, her voice rising. "I asked you to."

"And I gave you the same answer then as I do now. Forcing you to remember wasn't the best solution."

"And this is better!" she shouted but did not say anything more.

The last fragment hovered near the organic gate, a grotesque portal that radiated menace even in this surreal, nightmarish place. It pulsed with a malevolent energy, but like all the others, it faded as soon as Jane joined the fragment. The scene twisted and shifted, the world around us reforming into the cold, sterile corridors of the Nazi Moonbase.

Immediately, I grabbed her shoulder and pulled us sideways, yanking us free from the reflection before it could trap us again.

We stood in the void—an empty expanse beyond the mirror's reach. Above us, the familiar eye, the mirror, and the bridge of reflections floated like a cosmic constellation.

"Damien was right," she whispered, her voice trembling. "It was my fault."

"No," I said firmly. "It was Henry Creel's crime, not yours. You were just a child. And Brenner's upbringing left you vulnerable to manipulation."

"That's no excuse!" Her voice cracked, the weight of guilt pressing down on her. "I was the one who freed him, and he killed them all. No wonder Damien hates me!"

"He doesn't hate you," I said with certainty. Damien was my apprentice; I knew him better than most. If he seemed harsh, it was more envy than resentment. "I know those memories feel fresh, but this happened years ago. You need to work on forgiving yourself."

"How can I? After something like this?"

"One day at a time," I replied gently. "And speaking of time, mine's up."

With that, I pushed her—flinging her spirit back toward her body. As she vanished, I shifted my focus back to my own body. Jane was free. But as I glanced upward, I realized the Devil's Looking Glass still hung above, vast and uncontained.

And when I opened my physical eyes, the material manifestation awaited me—a twisted amalgamation of corpses. From the edges of my vision, I could tell it had grown more grotesque in my absence, as expected. Fewer bodies in the mass meant the Remaining Thoughts had become more concentrated, intensifying the creature's distorted self-image. Trying to get a better look would risk meeting its gaze.

The stench of blood and rot hit me harder than before. My skin was sticky with sweat, and the dull ache in my muscles reminded me of how stiff I'd become, sitting in the wheelchair for so long.

Then the sounds filled my ears—the dragging of limbs across the floor, the exhausted panting of my comrades, the wet slap of metal striking decayed flesh, and the unsettling pop of eyeballs bursting.

"Got it," Damien said, his voice tinged with triumph, but I could hear the weariness beneath it. I glanced over at him. His usually neat blond hair was now matted to his forehead with sweat, and his pale face showed the strain of battle.

"Good work," I encouraged, layering subtle intonations and a trace of Od into my words. More than mere praise, it became a veritable energy boost—a calculated spell of sorts.

It worked. Damien straightened almost instantly, his lips curving into a stiff but unmistakable smile.

"You're back," Archer said, visibly relaxing, though still drained. He held an improvised spear—a broom handle with a sharp piece of metal affixed to the end. He must have run out of throwing knives. "Did you save her?"

"Yes," I confirmed, glancing around before adding, "But how did we end up in a dead end?"

We were in an observation room. A thick glass window behind us provided a clear view of the barren lunar landscape, while the only exit was blocked by the hulking mass of the corpse amalgamation.

"Had no choice," Joe interjected, his voice tight. He no longer held his gun—it must've run out of ammunition. Instead, he gripped two glass bottles filled with liquid. "Nazis locked down the sector. This was our only fallback position. No time for breaches."

Ruthless, but workable. Without living prey, the corpse collective might eventually wither. However, I doubted that would happen before it found an alternate energy source—like the electricity powering the base. If it learned to drain from that, the base itself would become a death trap.

Before I could elaborate, a severed hand flew past me, slapping wetly against the window and sliding down, leaving a streak of blood.

"Next wave coming. Be ready," Lukas warned, his voice clipped.

"Counting eyes," he added.

I touched my fingertips together—right hand to left—then spread them apart, forming a thread of Od between them. I began weaving my Cat's Cradle spell, somatic gestures resembling the children's game, creating delicate patterns of energy.

"Seventeen eyes," Lukas called, using echolocation.

"One more than last time," Helena added, grim but focused.

With a final twist, I completed the weave, snapping a small Bounded Field into place around us. A compact cube of space separated us from the advancing monster. Its simple rule: keep life force in. While it wouldn't completely negate the atmospheric drain, it would reduce it significantly.

The pressure within the cube eased, the suffocating pull from the monster weakening, allowing everyone to breathe easier.

"Stay close," I said, holding the Field in place. "This won't hold forever."

But while it stopped further draining, it didn't undo the damage already done. We were running on borrowed time.

"Marking targets," Sen announced. His mind briefly touched mine, and in an instant, I understood the monster's grotesque form. He had likely gathered the details from Lukas' echolocation and transferred them to the rest of us.

Fourteen of the eyes were clustered in the distorted mass that served as the creature's head—an amalgamation of seven human heads fused into a horrific, bulbous shape. Two additional eyes jutted grotesquely from where nipples should have been—one on a twisted, muscular pectoral and the other hanging loosely from a sagging, distorted breast.

The final eye was embedded in what might've been a hand, though calling the limb an arm was generous. It was a grotesque fusion of two legs mashed together, ending in a deformed hand where feet should have been.

The creature was an abomination of death and decay, but we had its weak points. Now, all that remained was to strike.

Others moved with practised ease, but I supposed that they did have a lot of practice while I was busy rescuing Jane.

I could feel four objects pass through the boundary of the Bounded Field: a pair of screws, telekinetically launched by Damien, a glass bottle hurled by Joe, and Archer's makeshift spear. No—not a spear. I sensed the trailing rope behind it—a harpoon.

I adjusted my fingers slightly, modifying the Field. While creating a weapon that could be retrieved solved the problem of limited ammunition, it also created a connection. The drain would propagate through the rope—not as fast as through flesh, but certainly faster than through air. I needed to account for the increased drain.

This also explained why Archer was the only one employing such a tactic. With his magical core, he could afford the additional strain.

The sound of the harpoon piercing flesh was unmistakable, followed by the wet pop of two eyeballs bursting. Then, a sharp crack of breaking glass, accompanied by a fierce sizzling.

Moments later came the familiar, fleshy tearing sounds, and with them, a fresh wave of stench—blood and rot, mingling into an assault on the senses. The monster began to shed itself apart, replacing old, torn flesh with new, as it dragged itself forward for another attack.

The cycle of rot and regeneration was relentless, but we had bought some time, even if only temporarily. The brief lull allowed us to regroup, catch our breath, and adjust our strategy.

"This was easy," Damien commented, though his voice was tinged with exhaustion. "I need more ammo, Helena."

"We were lucky so many eyes were grouped together," Joe added, wiping sweat from his brow. "And the targets were clearer. Good work, Sen."

"It was easier," Sen replied, his tone steady. "Must be what Director did." He glanced toward me, acknowledging my contribution.

"We're almost out of ammo," Helena warned, tossing a handful of makeshift projectiles to Damien. I could hear the clatter of metal against metal as he caught them.

"There are bone shards in the flesh it's shedding," I advised, keeping my voice calm. "See if you can repurpose them."

Damien's lips curled into a grin, a dangerous spark of enthusiasm lighting up his face. "Kill it with its own bones," he said, almost reverently. "Metal."

"Next wave," Lukas interjected, his voice sharp with focus. "Wait! Something weird is happening! You can all look! There are no visible eyes!"

At his words, I turned to look. What I saw was unsettling. All the remaining corpses were collapsing, compressing into an egg-shaped mass of flesh—like a star running out of fuel. And just like stars, the next phase was bound to be explosive.

"Take cover!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the tension. "It's going to blow!"

Archer stepped forward without hesitation, incanting quickly, "Trace on— Rho Aias!"

A shimmering, petal-shaped shield materialized just in time, forming a barrier between us and the impending explosion. Blood, flesh, and bone shards exploded outward in a violent wave, splattering against the protective shield. The force of the blast reverberated through the room, but we were safe behind Archer's magic.

Like when I'd experimented on Aleph-13 with dead rats, the explosion was not an end but a birth.

The final form of the monster had emerged.

The explosion had obliterated all delicate features like eyes, but what remained was even more grotesque. It was mostly composed of bone and viscera, a nightmarish fusion of human remains. Several grinning skulls mounted on long, exposed spines—like a twisted hydra—snaked through the air. Only two arms, but impossibly long, constructed from numerous arm bones connected by ten or more elbows, moved in a serpentine motion, quick and slithering. Countless legs splayed out in a grotesque circle, making it look like some monstrous fusion of a table or a twisted ballroom gown.

At the centre of its torso, a massive cage of rib bones encased the black obsidian mirror—Aleph-13—bound in place by ropes of viscera, pulsating faintly as though alive.

"Don't look into the mirror! Don't break the mirror!" I shouted, urgency sharpening my tone. It was critical to make that clear before anyone acted recklessly. Looking into it would be like staring into its eyes—only worse.

And breaking it? That could be catastrophic. In the worst case, it might trigger a massive explosion, unleashing all the energy it's stored in an instant. But more likely, it would fracture like a hologram etched in glass—each fragment still containing the complete image. Every shard would become a new mirror, a fresh source of Aleph-13's power.

It was perhaps a touch narcissistic, but I couldn't help but admire the macabre, lethal beauty of what I had created. Aleph-13, now turned against me and those I felt responsible for, didn't diminish its worth in my eyes. If anything, the way it manifested—twisted, relentless, and undeniably potent—was a testament of my skill. After all, being threatened by one's own creation was just a common hazard for a Magus, or a scientist. And I was both.

There was no guilt. I had properly stored it, locked away in a secure vault hidden on the Moon. Its unleashing required circumstances I could not possibly have foreseen. There's a difference between being paranoid and being prepared. Preparing for Nazis on the far side of the Moon seemed a step too far, even for me. Yet here we were, dealing with that very reality. Lesson learned if nothing else.

"No weak spots! Then how the hell are we supposed to fight it?!" Joe shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. Before I could respond, the monster was upon us.

In this form, it was fast.

Its long, skeletal arms breached the Bounded Field first—one lunging for Damien, the other reaching straight for me. Damien barely dodged in time, stumbling back by the slimmest margin. But I couldn't move. Not without collapsing the Bounded Field.

Such is the frustrating nature of topological magecraft—it relies on fixed points. Which, frankly, is ridiculous. Nothing in the universe is truly stationary; everything moves relative to something else. My attempts to blend Bounded Field theory with the Theory of Relativity had yet to bear any practical fruit. For now, if I moved, the Field would unravel.

And though the Field would soon be useless once the creature fully entered it, for the moment, it shielded us from the environmental drain. So, I stood my ground, immobile.

But I wasn't a sacrificial lamb. I knew Archer would step in—his harpoon-like weapon struck true, piercing the arm and snapping the brittle bone in half with a sharp crack.

The creature's limb recoiled as quickly as it had attacked, one arm whole, the other now reduced to a splintered stump.

"Like this," I said, my fingers busy weaving adjustments into the Bounded Field to maintain its integrity despite the puncture. "Take it apart, piece by piece." With a twist of my wrist, I altered the Field's settings to emit a soft red glow, making its boundaries visible. "And try to keep it out."

Archer nodded, already resetting his stance for the next strike. Joe and the others drew closer, visibly steeling themselves for the next assault. The brief respite was over, but we had a plan now—a dangerous, desperate plan, but a plan nonetheless.

"Ignite it!" Joe commanded Helena, his voice cutting through the chaos like a drill sergeant's order.

In response, the second bottle he held—a makeshift Molotov cocktail with a rag protruding from its top—burst into flames. Helena's pyrokinetic action was swift and precise. Clever, too; the drain would make using pyrokinesis directly on the monster's body ineffective, but this indirect ignition was a smart workaround.

Joe hurled the bottle, and flames erupted across the monster's many legs, igniting instantly. The heat and light spread quickly, but it wasn't enough to burn through the creature's bone-like structure. Still, the fire and smoke served another purpose—it obscured the mirror embedded in the beast's torso, temporarily shielding them from its deadly gaze.

Damien's nose began to bleed as he focused, a severed skeletal arm rising into the air under his telekinetic control. With a wild grin, he hurled the limb at the monster, striking it squarely.

"Stop hitting yourself!" he shouted, his voice tinged with a demented giggle.

The impact staggered the creature just long enough for Archer to move into position, standing at the very edge of the Bounded Field. He was soon joined by Lukas, who still had his eyes closed but now held another broom hastily reshaped into a spear.

It was almost beautiful to watch, like a savage dance. The monster lashed out with skulls mounted on long, spiked necks, their jaws snapping like feral predators. Its spider-like legs, some still smoldering from the flames, scuttled and struck in rapid succession, while its crippled arms flailed wildly, trying to smash through their defenses.

Archer stood at the edge of the Bounded Field, his harpoon moving in a blur as he deflected the creature's relentless blows. His movements were precise, each parry calculated to redirect the monster's attacks rather than force it back. He was a rock in the storm, absorbing the impact of each strike without leaving the protective boundary.

Lukas, just a step behind Archer, wasn't idle. He darted in with his makeshift spear, timing his thrusts to exploit the openings Archer created. When Archer's harpoon hooked a skeletal limb, Lukas would lunge forward, his spear piercing through exposed joints or stabbing into the beast's misshapen skulls. The point of the spear drove deep, cracking through brittle bone, sending shards splintering across the floor.

They moved in sync—Archer blocking, redirecting, and keeping the monster at bay, while Lukas followed up with swift, precise jabs. He wasn't as fluid as Archer, his strikes more forceful and less controlled, but he had speed and accuracy on his side. When a bony club came slashing toward him, Lukas twisted his spear to deflect the blow, then immediately countered with a strike to the creature's shoulder, severing sinew and bone.

Archer shielded Lukas from the brunt of the assault, using his harpoon like an extension of his own will, guiding each of the monster's strikes into vulnerable positions. Meanwhile, Lukas stayed close, exploiting each momentary gap with a quick, brutal efficiency. Together, they created a rhythm—a back-and-forth assault that held the creature in place without letting it advance.

Even as the beast lashed out with its many limbs, its attacks became tangled in the coordinated defense between Archer and Lukas. The two of them moved with a practiced precision, their weapons cutting into the creature's flailing parts, whittling it down piece by piece.

Archer's voice, calm and unyielding, cut through the chaos: "Hold your ground, Lukas. Stay inside the Field." He blocked a skull on a neck-like stalk from striking Lukas, then twisted his harpoon to hook the creature's limb, giving Lukas the opening to deliver another fierce thrust straight into the beast's exposed ribcage.

"Got it!" Lukas grunted, his face determined, as the spearhead sank deep, cracking more bone. He yanked the spear free, bone shards and viscera spraying as he pulled back, keeping just within the protective boundary.

But there was one hand left, and it was reaching straight for me. As before, I couldn't move. Archer and Lukas were locked too close to the monster, their strikes too intertwined with its attacks. Without the Bounded Field, the drain at this proximity would be catastrophic—not just for me, but for all of us. Even now, each time they struck it with their weapons, I could feel the creature leeching away small slivers of their vitality.

I braced myself for the inevitable—a foul touch and the draining pull that would follow. Stopping the flow of Od to lessen the drain wasn't an option; I needed that energy to keep the Field intact. My fingers danced in a flurry, adjusting the Bounded Field in real-time like the hands of a virtuoso pianist or a Hollywood hacker navigating code at blinding speed. The complexity had grown with each passing moment, and I was struggling to keep pace.

It was like trying to hold a handful of water while sprinting to stay ahead of a pack of wolves.

And then there was Sen, appearing out of nowhere with a metal bucket. He bravely interposed himself, catching the monster's grasping hand inside it. Buckets, brooms, and bottles—they must've raided the cleaning closet while I was out.

There was little physical force in that attack, but that wasn't its true danger. Sen's face immediately paled as he whispered, "It's so cold." Even so, he held on, his knuckles white with effort.

Damien leaped into action, applying telekinesis to propel himself upward. He hit the ceiling in a single bound, rebounding off it to gain momentum, and then crashed down on the monster's hand, shattering its fragile bones with a sickening crunch.

He landed heavily, his legs giving out beneath him. "You were right. It's so fucking cold," he gasped, shivering as he struggled to rise.

"That's why, numbskull, you should've used something with longer reach," Helena remarked dryly. I glanced her way and saw her tending to an unconscious Steve. So that was why Steve hadn't said anything. Helena's hands moved deftly, checking his vitals with the kind of focused determination that masked her worry.

Turning back my attention to Archer and Lukas, I noticed that fire was going out, much faster than should. The drain was consuming the flames.

The monster was missing several skulls, one arm was gone entirely, and the other hung crippled. Several of its legs had been shattered or scorched. Yet, despite its mangled state, it fought with the same inhuman determination. When a skull was crushed, it lashed out with the remaining spines like a flailing whip. When its arm was broken in half, it still wielded the stump like a club. The loss of legs hardly slowed its relentless crawl forward; it had far too many legs to begin with.

Archer and Lukas were holding their ground, narrowly avoiding each strike for now, but that didn't mean they were unscathed. They were flesh and blood, and exhaustion was seeping into their movements. Each time they struck at the monster, it wasn't just the beast that took damage; the impact reverberated through their muscles, weakening them bit by bit. Even when they managed to wound it, they paid for every blow with another fragment of their own strength.

The creature's relentless attacks forced them into a dance that was becoming more sluggish with each step, each dodge. They were still moving in sync, still coordinating their strikes, but the weariness was starting to show. Their breaths came in ragged gasps, sweat stung their eyes, and the once-fluid grace of their defense had begun to fray around the edges.

It was only a matter of time before the beast found a gap in their defenses. And it would only take one mistake.

A bucket flew through the air, launched by Damien's telekinesis. "Take that, you poor excuse for modern art!" he shouted.

The bucket crashed into the monster's chest, cracking a few ribs. It wasn't much, too small to cause significant damage, but it was enough to stagger the creature, forcing it back and giving Lukas and Archer a momentary reprieve.

If only we had heavier ammunition.

A slow smile spread across my lips as an idea took shape in my mind. I couldn't move without dismantling the Bounded Field, but that hardly mattered if I was sitting on the floor or in the wheelchair. It was just a matter of repositioning my resources.

"Joe, come here," I called, my voice steady. I would've waved him over, but my hands remained occupied, fingers dancing to maintain the delicate weave of the Bounded Field.

He rushed to my side without hesitation. "Hold me steady," I ordered.

Joe gripped my elbows, anchoring me as I lifted myself slightly out of the wheelchair, relying on his grip for balance.

"Damien! Take the chair!" I commanded. The chair began to move, inching backward toward the window in response to his telekinesis. "Joe, guide me down—slowly."

I took special care to keep my hands steady, ensuring that the crucial space between my fingers—where the threads of Od wove the Bounded Field together—remained undisturbed as I gradually lowered myself to the floor. The cold metal pressed against my skin, slick with a grimy mix of blood and fluid, as I finally settled down.

"Dodge!" Damien shouted at Archer and Lukas, just as the wheelchair accelerated, speeding straight toward the monster.

As one, both spearmen—Archer and Lukas—jumped aside just as the telekinetically-driven wheelchair crashed into the monster like a runaway train. The sound of breaking and twisting metal filled the air, followed by the sharp crack of bone splintering. Shards flew in every direction, one of them slicing across Sen's cheek, leaving a bloody gash.

And yet, the monster was still standing. The wheelchair had entangled itself in its many legs, rendering the creature nearly immobile, but it still tried to drag itself forward. Even better, the lower part of its ribcage had broken, exposing a path directly to the black mirror within.

Lukas didn't hesitate. He moved swiftly, perhaps too recklessly, as Archer blocked several hits that might have otherwise struck his comrade. But Lukas's gamble paid off. With a single, precise swipe of his spear, he severed the viscera binding the obsidian mirror to the bones.

The moment he did, the monster collapsed—all bones and twisted flesh falling apart, becoming nothing more than lifeless debris.

The freed mirror began to drop.

"Don't let it break!" I shouted in a sudden burst of panic.

Archer was the fastest to react. With a sharp lunge, he extended his spear, catching the mirror at the last possible moment, balancing it on the tip like a fragile relic poised on the edge of a blade.