The Anti-Venom Saga

It’s Cal again. It’s been an hour or so this time.

After Alex called me, Marley and I went back to Faucheuse Tower, to the lab.

I want to go home, but this shit is probably gonna take up my whole night.

As Alex said, the system he and Sander designed to track Carnage’s fragmented self showed the red dot that was presumably in a plane suddenly moving to be right on top of Cetteville.

Oddly, a dot remained in the plane, and Alex’s guess is that Carnage must have left a piece of himself in the plane before he somehow came here.

So we’ll be having the plane searched when it lands anyway.

Once I heard this, I couldn’t just go home, fall into bed and forget about my bad day. Even if I have to pull another all-nighter, we need to tie up the loose ends, one by one.

I can’t rest easy with so many villains out there, waiting to make a move. It’s even more of a clusterfuck than Spider-Man 3.

Why do I have that weird feeling again?

So yes, I hauled ass to the lab with Marley, after calling Judy to tell her that there’s a chance that I’m not coming home until the morning.

Fortunately, she understood, because she knows what’s at stake. She knows the score.

I’m still gonna try to make it up to her and the rest of the family.

If we somehow make it out of this unscathed, that is.

Scott’s gonna be spending the night at my place, in the room he was occupying when he had just returned to Earth, and I trust him to keep the family safe with me and Marley absent.

He may not have his nephilim powers anymore, but he still has the Omega power those Gurus forced upon him, even if he’s been taking his time copying powers, and isn’t quite on my level yet.

Also, we think he might be another of Dehak’s targets. The Dark Demon is effectively nonexistent right now, but a Seed of Darkness can probably bring him back.

And there are enough pains in the ass at large right now.

Me and Marley walked into the lab to find Alex, Sander and Miles frantically working at the computer rigged up to the Thermos-like device with a piece of Carnage inside.

We’re still there, and they’re still doing that as I speak. Yes, we’ve been here for about an hour.

They told me that they had yet to pinpoint Carnage’s location in the city, but that’s what they’re working on.

I had hoped that the system would already be able to do that.

“I don’t mean to sound impatient, but is this going to take much longer? We’re racing an opaque hourglass here, guys. I thought this thing could give us an exact location.”

Alex wipes the sweat off his forehead with a tissue, tossing the sweaty tissue into a nearby paperbin.

“I should have mentioned that earlier, but no, it can’t do that yet. This technology is still in its infancy, and narrowing down the location of the target requires a bit of guesswork. We could figure out that one piece of Carnage was in a plane based on the speed at which the respective dot was traveling, and the altitude of said dot, but we couldn’t pinpoint his location in said plane. All we could do from there was make an educated guess that he was in the cargo hold. So we know he’s in the city, and we know which general area he’s in, but we can’t give you a street name yet. We’re improving the system as we work on finding him, so hang tight, Cal. We’ll get it done.”

“You’ll all be rewarded for this, guys. You’re going above and beyond, and I want you to know that I appreciate it.”

Miles nods, sitting at his own computer and typing out code as fast as he can without going so fast that the computer can’t keep up with him. Don’t forget about that superspeed of his.

He’s got a keyboard designed specifically for him, it’s very durable, and now it’s another FauCorp product being sold in stores.

“I’m working double time on getting that app done for the squad ASAP. I may need to tag along to field test it, Cal. Bloody hell, there goes my night.”

I smile sympathetically at him.

“Miles, when I woke up this morning, I was hoping for just another nice, peaceful day and a relaxing dinner with the family.”

Miles was invited. We have him, Future Quin and other ChaotiX members over for dinner a lot, and we’ve brought the family to dinner at other team members’ houses too. We’re all just like a really big, unusual family.

“Ever since that letter came in when me and Mar were with Bomber, shit has just snowballed into a full-on avalanche, and there was no time to get away. Aagragaah, I think Kobul said it’s called in Trollish. So I know how you feel right now.”

And if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the developments so far, dear readers, if you think this Saga has gotten wildly out of hand:

Congratulations! You know how we feel too!

Wait. Hold on. Didn’t Vulcanus shout “Aagragaah!” when he tried to stomp us in Nevada? Right before you killed him with the Stone?

I think he did.

Huh. I never really thought about that before. Makes sense, in hindsight.

Kobul’s been kinda shook-up since we told everyone what we learned from Pumyz in Atlantic City.

So has Burik. Yeah, we kept everyone on Tenneb Island in the loop too. Duwen said he might be tempted to join in again if this leads to a fight, which it probably will.

Even Shyne didn’t know that Vulcanus started off as a Silicoid, so he’s dismayed too.

Sander chuckles weakly. You remember what he looks like, right? Nowhere near your stereotypical crazed blood mage, more like an aging hippie who had to get an office job, but hasn’t entirely let go of the hippie life yet.

“It almost makes me wish that another evil Klyntar will come along, because it would be a shame if we work so hard on a system we only have to use once.”

I smirk at him.

“Well, good news: there’s already one other evil Klyntar out there, and depending on how things go with Carnage’s spawn, there may be two. But if you guys are telling me you already know which part of the city Carnage is in--”

Valerie walks over, smiling confidently.

“I’ve already deployed drones to search the area, they’ll be following Carnage wherever he goes in the sewers, and Uncle Des wanted you to know that the squad you assembled earlier is ready to go down into the sewers if need be. Venom said that Carnage was using San Francisco’s sewers to get around unnoticed, and he probably hasn’t forgotten that trick.”

“We’ve really gotta do something about bad guys constantly hiding in the sewers. The abandoned building problem was bad enough, and I still don’t know who keeps leaving all of those cardboard boxes around for alley fluffies to live in! By the way, I’ve gotten texts from both Victor and Dave, those two, Scarface and Slayer will be joining the squad. In Victor and Scarface’s case, at the former’s request, and in Dave and Slayer’s case, at the latter’s. In both cases, I was happy to oblige. I’ve already told Des about that.”

The former’s reason is that Victor thinks whoever helped Carnage get here was the same asshole who robbed his cabin, or at least a friend of said asshole, and he wants to make the slimy shitrat talk.

And the latter’s reason is that Slayer still owes Carnage a good hard dicking and a burning load of demon fluffy cum.

Last time, in San Francisco, Slayer did his thing to one of Carnage’s flunkies, but the real deal knocked our horny half-demon pal out of Oracle Park when Slayer tried to give him the same.

There’s no conflict of interest this time, though. The threat of Slayer having his way with Carnage may be exactly what convinces Carnage to give Victor the answers he wants.

I want those answers too, because I haven’t forgotten what the Trinity told me. Whoever helped Carnage get here is connected to my childhood tragedies, and is working for Dehak.

Yeah, we’ve figured that Carnage didn’t get here by himself, and there’s a very short list of suspects.

So bringing Carnage here wasn’t just a prank, or Pax moving the goalposts, or a random act of spite. Dehak knows about the Klyntar, he said so at the Festival, and he presumably knows about Carnage. He wanted Carnage brought here.

Dehak got what he wanted from sending his golem after Jeff, but he clearly has something else in mind.

Pumyz is still out there, with his own score to settle, and Silicoids and golems have a lot in common, so Dehak’s plan might just be to have those two hold me still so Carnage can skewer me. To put me between a rock and a hard place, if you will.

Any information we can get out of Carnage is vital, and by now, he can barely be called a fluffy anymore, so he’s one of the rare few fluffies whose suffering wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

Which means I’m willing to accept that we may have to get brutal with Carnage to squeeze the intel juice out of him. Can’t say he doesn’t have it coming, he makes the worst of normal fluffies look good.

Of course, even if Carnage spills the slimy red beans, Slayer might end up enfing him anyway, because Slayer has been waiting a long time to do that, and doesn’t enjoy being blue-balled.

Classic Slayer.

Carnage became rather large during the last round. It would have been hard for Slayer to fornicate with someone of that size.

Yes, but if ANY fluffy could find a way, Slayer is that fluffy. By now, I know him well enough to be sure of that.

What did Carnage call himself when he got that big? Maximum Carnage, right? What’s he gonna become THIS time? Minimum Carnage? Superior Carnage? Absolute Carnage? Extreme Carnage?

All of those sound incredibly stupid, Niv.

In the School’s rec room, Jeff is chatting with Chaos, Valerie and Konba, while Electra chats with Bulma, Loki, Eris, Ms. Pac-Man and Dig-Dug, the humans sitting on the couches, the fluffies sitting on the floor, June filling up the arcade games’ scoreboards with profanity again.

Chaos showed up with his fluffies, wearing a nurse costume over his jester outfit and profusely apologizing to Jeff for not saving him from the golem, but Jeff reassured Chaos that Calvin has his back.

With Calvin occupied by business elsewhere, Chaos is sticking to Jeff and Electra like glue until Calvin comes back.

He pulled out a giant tube of super glue, but Jeff insisted taking it that literally wasn’t necessary.

Yes, the glue was rainbow-colored.

When Jeff spots Venom waddling into the rec room, he turns away from the conversation, staring blankly at the symbiotic fluffy.

“Uh… hey.”

Venom stares back, both halves of them needing a few seconds to recognize Jeff.

“Hey. We saw yu at Ow-wah-kaw Pawk, diddin we? Ugwy Swet-uw Gai, wite?”

Jeff gets up, walking over to Venom.

“My name’s Jeff, actually. Jeff Robinson.”

He kneels down, offering Venom a handshake with a friendly smile. He’s trying a bit too hard to make himself seem nonthreatening.

“Nice to finally introduce myself properly, we didn’t get a chance to chat last time. But I know what your name is. Venom, or Tom, but I know that’s a secret. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Venom accepts with a slimy hoof, which Jeff quickly regrets.

“Yu wuz fite-in Cawnage tuu, wuz-unt yu? Back in San Fwan-siss-koh? Caw sed he an Mawwey saw yu in Chai-nuh-town.”

Jeff cringes as he stands up straight and covertly wipes his hand on the back of his jeans, wishing he had one of his little bottles of hand sanitizer in his pocket.

“Yeah, uh, Chaos kinda made me pitch in. You know Chaos, right?”

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at Chaos, who is now standing next to Victor’s La-Z-Boy, obviously tempted to sit in it despite Victor’s insistence that only he is allowed to sit in it, as well as Scarface if he’s in Victor’s lap.

“I’m not playing the game with Chaos anymore, but now I’m a ChaotiX member. Electra might be joining too.”

Venom tilts their body, looking past Jeff’s legs at Electra, who is now bombarding Bulma with questions about what it’s like on Vajarsi.

The Saingans’ home planet, if you’ve forgotten. Konba has moved back into Tema’s palace with Bulma, but he, Trota and Xanitas are still training under Lorekeeper Karne, and Xanitas is also training under Master Luxi on Lumix with Calvin, Marley and Xarlath.

Calvin and Konba have already proven that combining the teachings of Luxi and Karne has impressive results. Xanitas has seen that for himself. He was on the receiving end of it. Twice.

The ChaotiX have portal guns, the commute isn’t even a breeze. More like a small puff of air.

“Ewectwa am da gowd an siw-vuw wun, wite? She nu wuz wif yu wast time.”

Jeff nods, thinking back to when he adopted Electra.

“You should’ve seen her when I first met her. She was so filthy, I thought she was yellow-brown and grey. I couldn’t even see her horn and wings under the filth.”

“Musta bin a big suw-pwize wen yu gabe hew dat fiwst baff.”

Having an inkling of how little of his story Venom knows, Jeff simply can’t help but start laughing.

“You have no goddamn idea, Venom!”

Elsewhere in Cetteville, Carnage peeks out through a sewer grate at the streets above his current hideout.

He can see the feet of humanoids and the hooves of fluffies as they go about their Christmas shopping before the stores close, but not much else.

Don’t forget that Calvin said it’s close to Christmas.

This is Carnage’s first time in Cetteville, the city where anything can happen, and he hasn’t been here very long.

He’s still getting adjusted to the abruptly changing plan, but he’s not complaining about the sudden change of scenery.

Had Darksyde Gladys not shown up, then by now, Carnage would have landed in San Francisco, and assuming that he wouldn’t immediately be ambushed by the ChaotiX, he would currently be on a futile search for Venom.

Because Venom is here, in Cetteville, and Carnage can guess where.

In a place that he can’t get into.

So for now, Carnage is just trying to learn the lay of the land, and avoid detection until he figures out his game plan.

He’s got food down in the sewers, because there are always rats in sewers, but the sewers here seem to have less rats than Carnage is accustomed to.

He saw a lot more rats in San Francisco’s sewers.

Of course, Cetteville has a lot more dwarves than San Francisco does, and dwarves can easily tackle a city’s rat problem if they’re supplied with enough ketchup.

Carnage is aware that he won’t be able to stay hidden for long. Every time the ChaotiX finds and destroys one of the hidden pieces of his Klyntar, he can sense it, so, while he can’t see or hear much through the piece in the Nerd Squad’s custody, he's guessed that the ChaotiX has some way to track his pieces down.

He started off as a fluffy, and not a particularly intelligent one. He may have become dangerously cunning after gaining the power of the red Klyntar, but still, he’s no Umbra.

What perplexes him is that he can sense the presence of Klyntar besides Venom and himself in Cetteville.

He can sense that Bellikose is in town, along with a Klyntar that feels like Venom.

But he can also sense that there is another Klyntar in town.

And it’s not his spawn.

In Kansas City, straddling the border between Kansas and Missouri, Leo drives his school bus through the streets.

It’s starting to get late, so the hippies need to find a place to spend the night before they continue their journey.

But as Leo goes through a green light and turns a corner, the hippies see a new addition to Kansas City.

A large building, shining chrome, cars and trucks driving in and out of it, employees in silver uniforms scanning every car that drives in with futuristic devices.

Oddly enough, the vehicles driving out of the building have license plates from a number of different American states, and very few of them are from Kansas or Missouri.

A neon sign outside the building makes everything clear.

Those are a new development, and so far, the portals in the drive-ins only lead to other American states. With America being a country of people who can’t imagine a life without automobiles, there had been complaints about that for a while.

Leo can guess what those devices the employees are using do. They most likely scan the cars for anything that’s illegal in the driver’s destination. He’s seen the regular Tele-Ports, and they have devices like that there too.

Did you genuinely think that they just let criminals waltz in and smuggle illegal goods across the universe? No, you’d have better luck using a spaceship. Calvin and his friends have never been interrupted when using the Tele-Ports because they’re not intergalactic criminals, and they were usually on official ChaotiX business. The ChaotiX have been designated as official allies of the Intergalactic Patrol, which grants them a lot of leeway.

And one time, Calvin and Marley were participating in the Intergalactic Tournament, which would have been difficult if they couldn’t even get to the venue.

Fortunately, weed is legal where Leo and his hippies want to go, so he doesn’t think they’ll have any trouble getting in.

Even if they have to dump the stash before driving up, Leo hopes that Calvin will be willing to compensate the hippies for the loss.

Calvin smokes weed too. He’ll probably understand.

“Look at that, guys. Fortune is smiling upon us!”

As I’m watching Sander, Alex and Miles work, my phone vibrates in its pouch.

vrrrrrrrrrr

I take it out, reading the text that just came in with a heavily annoyed groan.

Goddamnit, Pax is doing this now?

Y’know, that guy is REALLY starting to rustle my jimmies!

I think he has discovered that Venom is no longer in San Francisco.

How can he know everything he knows?

Because he’s a puppet of an eldritch abomination and they just LOVE pulling stuff out of their tentacled asses.

Well, we’ve got an opportunity to ask him, at least.

Okay, I’m sure I can get there and back without any other developments occurring.

In the sewers, Carnage is on the move when he suddenly stops in his tracks.

He just detected something.

Yet another Klyntar has just entered Cetteville.

And it’s the one he’s been journeying to find all this time.

The one that feels like him, albeit not entirely.

He’s not sure how it happened, but it’s another thing he can’t complain about.

Carnage smiles wickedly at this stroke of good fortune.

“Dewe yu am… babbeh…”

At Cetteville’s recently constructed drive-in Tele-Port, not far from the one for pedestrians, Leo’s school bus drives out.

Fortunately, they got through with their weed. The employee that scanned the bus just shrugged, knowing that it’s legal where the bus is going.

The Klyntar detected aboard the bus was harder to explain, but it isn’t any of the Klyntar wanted for space crimes by the Intergalactic Patrol, so the employee saw no reason to bring that up.

The employee happened to be an immigrant from Tuuni, and that many colors on one vehicle were giving him a headache, so he just wanted to see the back of the bus, and decided to let it be Cetteville’s problem.

Leo insisted that he needed to speak to Calvin Korkea about a fluffy-related matter, which was also a factor.

As the bus pulls away from the Tele-Port, Leo’s got a smile on his face, Stephen sitting on the dashboard.

“And just like that, we’re in Cetteville! Gotta love portals, huh?”

“Su we cudda jus takun a pow-taw hewe aww awong? Stee-fen nu eben had tu awsk fow a wide!”

“Hey, we like having you around, man. Alright, now we’ve just gotta get to the School… anyone got a map of Cetteville?”

Stephen turns, seeing one of the other hippies in the bus pull a large cardboard box out from under a table before she starts searching it.

It’s full of folded-up maps of cities across North and Central America. Some of them look very old and frayed, dating all the way back to the Swinging Sixties.

The hippie kneels down, pulling maps out of the box.

“There’s gotta be one in here somewhere! Man, we need to sort this thing.”

She puts the maps that aren’t of Cetteville in haphazard piles at random.

“Why is this box always so jumbled up?”

Leo shrugs as he reaches a red light and stops the bus, waiting for it to turn green.

“I mean, we can just buy a map, or ask for directions…”

Then he notices the Volkswagen bus waiting for the green light next to the school bus, painted just as garishly.

(That many colors on two vehicles really is a bit too much.)

And Leo recognizes another member of his own kind at the wheel, a rainbow alicorn stallion riding shotgun, so he opens the driver side window, raising his voice and waving.

“Tommy! Hey, Tommy! Long time no see, dude!”

Yes, it’s Tommy and Woodstock in the Mothership, and Tommy opens his own passenger side window, looking and sounding very surprised.

“Leo? Is that you, or did someone lace my shit again? How you been, man?”

Leo smiles as they both awkwardly stick their hands out of the windows, their vehicles close enough for them to shake hands.

“Groovy as always, Tom! Heard you had a kid, congrats!”

Tommy smiles warmly, looking at a photo of him with Maria, Moonflower and Woodstock outside their cabin in Blueberry’s Forest that he keeps on the dashboard.

It wasn’t until after Pierre had taken the first photo that they all realized that Calvin had photobombed at superspeed, managing to do the bunny ears behind everyone’s heads in the split second that Pierre snapped the pic.

So they took another photo without bunny ears after Calvin had gotten his laughs, and that’s the one Tommy keeps on the dashboard. Tommy has the other one in the Fonda cabin, because he thought it was pretty funny.

“Thanks, man. So you guys are giving another fluffy a ride, huh?”

Tommy immediately noticed Stephen on the school bus’ dashboard, and his power to see what’s really there told him all he needs to know.

Leo nods, pointing at Stephen, who is waving at Tommy and Woodstock, with an overly friendly, nonthreatening smile just like Jeff’s.

“Yeah, we were going to San Francisco when we picked Stephen here up. That’s actually why we made this little detour here, we gotta talk to the ChaotiX.”

“You’re talking to the ChaotiX right now, man.”

“Woah, far out.”

Tommy points at the ChaotiX logo badge on his sleeveless denim jacket.

“You ever get injured, gimme a call, I can help you out.”

“But we gotta talk to Cal-- Mr. Korkea--”

“You can just call him Cal, he says so himself. You need me to show you the way to the School?”

Leo nods again.

“We were actually talking about asking for directions when we saw you. Kind of a freaky coincidence, really. Don’t you have one of those blipper things?”

“I just didn’t feel like blippin’ today, man. Also, the Mothership gets moody when I don’t drive her for too long.”

“Yeah, I feel you. Oh shit, light’s about to turn green.”

The light finally turns green, and both drivers hit the gas, Tommy gesturing for Leo to follow him.

“Just stick to me, man. I’ll get you guys to the School.”

As I arrive in the alleyway behind Sugarbean’s, tantalizingly close to home, I find someone surprising waiting for me.

“Kirk?”

Kirk Stahlberg, leaning against a wall in his new battle suit with his arms folded, still wearing his limiters.

“Cal, what’s this about? Why couldn’t we just meet at the School?”

“Woah, woah, back up. I didn’t tell you to meet me here.”

Kirk stops leaning on the wall, pulls his phone out of a pouch, and shows me a text, which I quickly read.

What the actual fu--

“You don’t remember texting me ten minutes ago, Cal?”

I shake my head as he puts his phone away, feeling deeply concerned.

“No, I don’t. I didn’t send you that text, Kirk. And I got a text telling me to meet Pax here.”

I turn, seeing a white door on the wall that wasn’t here when I arrived, just like behind the cathedral in San Francisco earlier.

“Oh, of fucking course he would.”

Kirk has seen the door too, and he doesn’t seem to like what’s happening right now.

“Cal? Where did that door come from…?”

“What’s more important is where it leads, Kirk. Follow me. I know what’s going on here, you’ll see for yourself.”

I throw the door open and storm inside, Kirk following me into the white void.

“Faking a text from me, Pax?!? Really?!?”

Sure enough, Pax is standing there, spreading his arms with a smile and an all too friendly chuckle.

“You make it easy to impersonate you, Calvin. No wonder you have been framed multiple times.”

Kirk looks at the space where the door was before it vanished behind us, he looks at Pax, and then he looks at me.

I can practically see the cogwheels turning inside his head.

“So that is Father Lucian Pax? Leader of the Peacemakers?”

I nod solemnly, wishing that it was that simple.

“And a puppet of the Light of Peace. He played you, Kirk. That text you supposedly got from me--”

“Actually came from him, ja, I already figured it out. I got some of my fath-- of my grandfather’s brains.”

Thanks to the Trinity of Terra, I know that there was a massive gulf of competence between Hans and his own father, Otto, as vast as the gulf between Hans and Pierre, but thanks to my many unwanted encounters with Hans, I also know exactly how Kirk feels about his late father, so I’m not going to correct him, because now is definitely not the time.

Which is also why the rest of us in Cal’s head are staying quiet again.

Thanks again, Niv.

Pax’s grey eyes linger on Kirk.

“It is good to finally meet you in person, Mr. Stahlberg. I see you’ve gotten a new suit since that whole Vincal affair. Such an interesting choice of color scheme. Would you mind if I call you Projekt Schatten?”

I can’t stop myself from facepalming at the absurdity of this.

“Oh my fucking God. So Kirk was the friend with a dark secret you alluded to earlier, Pax?”

Pax nods with a very smug smile.

“Indeed. You never got around to telling the public about his past as a Nazi super soldier, did you? I was genuinely surprised that no one ever figured it out, considering that Mr. Stahlberg joined your team not long after your battle with Projekt Schatten. The dots are so easy to connect, even a fluffy could put two and two together. Now you see that my threats are no bluff. I know that Venom is in Cetteville, Calvin. You thought you were clever, but I make the rules here, and I will not allow you to bend or break those rules.”

I give Pax the finger, my eyes glowing red for a moment.

“Bend or break this! No, really, go ahead and try! You’re too used to ordering your Peacemakers around, Pax! I’m the Harbinger of Chaos, bitch! Breaking rules is what the Harbinger of Chaos does! You wanna tell the public what I did to Oliver, that’s one thing, but leave Kirk out of it! He was brainwashed! He didn’t choose to be Schatten, but he chose to stop being Schatten!”

Kirk nods.

“And it was Cal who showed me that breaking free from that identity was possible. He didn’t stop trying to find the good in me, even when I was trying to kill him.”

I gesture at Kirk, completely on the same wavelength as him right now.

“And that good was still there, even when Hans had him brainwashed to be a Nazi!”

Kirk sighs sadly as he relives those horrible memories.

“My father tried to make Projekt Schatten be all I am. He stole my past away from me, and I thought that I’d never get it back, that I would be my father’s pawn forever.”

Then he smiles warmly, gesturing back at me.

“But thanks to Cal and the ChaotiX, I’m a free man, and I am all of me again. I’ve been a black-hearted evil…”

“And now he’s a brave-hearted hero.”

Pax smiles smugly at Kirk.

“You still chose to join the Nazis, because you wanted to do what you thought was best for your country, and because you wanted to make your father proud of you. And then you let Hans turn you into a monster. His monster.”

Hearing his father’s name makes Kirk snarl angrily, his brown eyes briefly glowing red like mine did.

“I didn’t even kill anyone in World War II! My own father cryogenically froze me after experimenting on me, and he wasn’t even sure that I’d survive being frozen!”

Pax promptly turns back to me, completely disregarding Kirk now.

“Let’s get back to the main topic, Calvin. I expect you to return Venom to San Francisco and cease interfering in Peacemaker business henceforth by this time tomorrow. Fail to comply, and not only will I tell the world that you murdered Oliver Dinopolous, I will also tell the world that Kirk Stahlberg is Projekt Schatten. If you continue to defy me after that, I will leak all of the ChaotiX’s secrets to the public, one at a time. I will tell the world that your brother Scott and the Dark Demon are one and the same, and that Scott attacked his own company and murdered his own board because they tried to force him out. I will tell the world how many people that scruffy immortal has murdered so you wouldn’t have to murder them, how hard to kill he really is, how much that piece of riff-raff and the Faucheuse brothers have meddled in world events, how the brilliant Dr. Pierre Faucheuse actually built his fortune, how many people he has had killed for his fluffy rights agenda, and that the Faucheuse brothers and their pet dog are the Trinity of Terra. I see everything you and your friends do, Mr. Korkea. I know everything you do. And once I have thoroughly ruined the ChaotiX’s undeserved good reputation, the Peacemakers will only be some of the countless people baying for the ChaotiX’s blood. I will regret it if I have to take this so far, I truly will, but you insist on constantly defying me, and that has become a problem which I can no longer ignore. Your time is running out, Calvin. If you and your ChaotiX want to survive, bow your heads low while you still can. Bend the knee, and you’ll all have places in the world of light. Refuse to submit, and none of you will have a place anywhere. You won’t even be safe in your own homes, or in that pitiful excuse for a house of education that is actually the headquarters of a dangerous group.”

I narrow my eyes as they glow red again, the urge to just kill that hollow puppet harder to fight down than ever.

“Listen to me, Pax, don’t you dare bullshit your way out of answering these questions: how do you know all of that stuff about us? How did you see me kill Oliver? How did you even get my phone number, and Kirk’s?”

Pax chuckles again, and his chuckle is a lot more annoying than Pierre’s or Deston’s.

“You see, the answers to those questions are actually very simple, for they all have the same answer…”

Suddenly, his expression and tone becomes deadly serious, his eyes start glowing pure white, and I know that I’m not just looking at Pax anymore. I never was.

“…it is because I can see and hear through every PHOTON in the universe. Everything the Light touches is MY kingdom. And YOU bring the Light with you EVERYWHERE you go, which is only partially thanks to ME.”

He holds up his hand, a white cellphone appearing in it.

“You talk to your friends with light. You entertain yourself with light. You banish your enemies with light. You open letters with light. Even BEFORE you met me, your flames have brought light and warmth wherever you set foot. I have ALWAYS been watching you, Mr. Korkea. Since the day you were BORN, when you were a helpless little child who couldn’t go to sleep without his NIGHTLIGHT plugged into the wall. And I will always BE watching you. What exactly are you going to DO about it? Stumble in darkness for the rest of your life? Go live in the shadows with the OTHER filthy creatures that hide away from my all-seeing eyes? Oh, you WOULD, wouldn’t you? Your fraternization with beings of darkness never ceases to baffle me, Mr. Korkea.”

As the white cellphone vanishes, the Light of Peace dismissively looks at Kirk’s battle suit.

“And what is worse, you encourage your FRIENDS to embrace darkness too. I know that your past as Projekt Schatten is not your ONLY dark secret, Mr. Stahlberg.”

The Light of Peace smiles knowingly at Kirk.

“Why don’t you show everyone what your new suit REALLY looks like?”

Kirk looks at me with an uncertain expression, not sure if he should do what he knows the Light of Peace means.

“Cal? Is now the time for that?”

I shrug.

“I was hoping that we’d get to save it for when we find Michelle, but that cluster is gonna be fucked enough. Go ahead, Kirk. Get it over with.”

Kirk nods, clenching his fists.

“Herr Pax, I’ve been thinking about my past a lot lately. I’ve been wondering if I should reveal my past to the public. I don’t know how they’ll take it. I don’t know if… they’ll understand. I don’t even know how to tell Karla, or Knux.”

The Light of Peace folds his arms.

“And if they DON’T understand, if they decide that they want you gone like the REST of the Nazis, if the entire WORLD chooses to become your enemy… then what will you do, Mr. Stahlberg?”

Kirk smiles a confident, haughty smile.

“I will fight, like I always have. I’m not merely all of me anymore, Herr Pax. I’m more than me now. Because now…”

His battle suit bubbles, taking on a slimy texture and shifting.

The slime covers his hands, turning them into sharp white claws.

The ChaotiX logo on his chest remains, a slimy white X in an octagon, and his golden limiter rings remain on his wrists and ankles.

As more black slime covers his head, his eyes turn jagged and blank white, his teeth turn long and sharp, and his tongue becomes long, red, and slithery…

And five big curved spikes form on the back of his head, with red stripes, much like when he was Schatten, and when Arachnus was wearing him.

The Light of Peace stares blankly at Kirk’s new look, apparently stricken silent by it.

Kirk grins right back at the big shiny bastard, him and his new Klyntar speaking as one.

“…I am all of WE! And WE!!! ARE!!!! SHADOW!!!!!”