Sometimes by fire. Sometimes by fang. Sometimes by impaling. Sometimes by lightning.

The falling and the dying were blending together into a single continuous drop that never so much as reached the marble floor, and the rising and the fighting were wiped away by the sheer terror of free-fall.

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Penn gasped for air as he bolted up in the driver's seat. He scrambled for the handle of the door, already feeling the urge to vomit overwhelming him. By the time he had fumbled the door lock open and nearly ripped off the door handle, he could feel the bile pushing its way through the gaps in his clenched teeth.

The cold of the dirt underneath him was like ice as he flopped onto the ground, only barely managing to once again aim his spray underneath the car so that it wouldn't be discovered by the girls in the morning. Despite the rapid cold creeping into his fingers and knees as he gripped the ground on all fours, the shock of it wasn't enough to get his head to stop spinning. The bursts of steam erupting from his mouth clouded his vision as he swallowed down lungful after lungful of freezing-cold air.

It felt like an eternity before his sense of balance returned enough for him to pull himself out of the dirt and sit up in a kneeling position.

If he'd had the energy to jump at Missy's voice, he would have. As it was, all he could do was roll his eyes upwards, finally spotting her hovering over him with a concerned look on her face. For the first time, he felt the small hand rubbing his back in an attempt to soothe him.

"Th-This happens..." he stuttered, beginning to shiver as his body finally caught up to the fact that he was kneeling in the dirt in the winter. Even without the moisture to make snow, the southern US could still get terrifically cold at night. "I- I'll be f-fine... J-Just a n-nightmare."

Missy's concern wasn't lessened at all by his dismissal, grabbing his arm and pulling him up enough to guide him back into the driver's seat.

"What was it about?" she asked quietly, helping him swing his feet back inside. He felt awful, being so weak that he needed to be shuffled around like some kind of infirm.

"It's... hard to say." he mumbled as she flew into the car with him and swung the door shut behind her. After only hesitating a moment she settled into Sunset's usual spot in the passenger-side seat.

"You don't remember? It must have been a real night terror for you to wake up and immediately puke." Missy reached up and took off her tiny hat to reach inside. A moment later, she had produced a steaming hot cup of tea and passed it to him. He mumbled a quick thanks and took a sip.

It tasted like apples and cinnamon, but with a hint of caramel, as if someone had used soft caramel candies instead of sugar cubes to sweeten it.

Without either of their input, the car chugged to life. A moment later, Isis's drone crawled out of the glove box and clambered over to the dashboard, using her mouth to turn the knobs to set the heater to maximum.

"It's... hazy. It always just turns into a blur of falling and death at the end... I don't really tend to remember why or how." Penn mumbled as he reached out to stroke the drone's head. "Th-thanks, Isy..."

"It has been for a while. Used to be one a month or so, but... the stress I've been under lately has made them happen more often."

"I don't wanna hear it!" Penn held up a hand to stop Isis. "I'll never be able to sleep if I know one of these is coming."

"Penn, this is really serious-" Missy started, only for Penn to reach over and put a hand over her mouth.

"Missy, you're NOT going to tell Sunset about this. I'm going to figure out where they're coming from by myself."

Missy squeaked indignantly, but he ignored her as he rubbed at the center of his forehead with the thumb of his free hand.

"Missy, if this isn't just my trauma manifesting, then whatever this is warning me about, it's SERIOUS and LETHAL, and we need to tiptoe around it, not blunder straight in with nothing but our good intentions. If it IS my fight-or-flight response going haywire, then Sunset's going to want to try to do some well-meaning 'maintenance' up here..." he pointed to his skull to illustrate, "And I don't want her shuffling around up there if I'm not comatose or worse."

Missy had stopped protesting by now, settling for glaring at him with the half of her face that wasn't covered by his hand. After another few seconds of silence, however, she seemed to relent, rolling her eyes and sighing. At that, Penn finally pulled his hand away again.

"Look, it's not a secret... It's just not enough information to do anything with." Penn sighed and leaned back in the reclined seat, pulling his blankets up to cover himself again. His whole body ached from the retching he'd been doing moments prior, and he felt made of glass. "You don't point out every single cloud out of fear of a blizzard, do you? Same thing." He took a second to think about the situation. "Why are you even up, anyway?"

"Don't even." Missy cut him off. "I'm the ace of my own archetype. I might be a kid, but I'm not a human kid." She turned to stare out the window, taking a long look at the tent where Sunset was sleeping. "I'm a duel spirit, I can take care of myself. Just because my archetype wasn't around for the days of the Pharaoh or the Supreme King doesn't mean I haven't seen a few things in my time."

Penn paused, really being struck for the first time by how, being an eternal child, potentially alien Missy's concept of age and maturity could be. Come to think of it... do any of us actually know how old she is?

"You know... duel spirits have connections to the afterlife. Sometimes souls and spirits even merge or split off from one another while they're passing through." She settled back into the plush of the seat "If your nightmares are about death, I could go home... poke around and see what I can find. See if any powerful entities have their eyes on our little troupe."

Penn considered the offer for a moment, then shook his head. "Thanks, but I'd rather have you here. It would break all of our hearts for you to go. Especially when we're on the cusp of what could be our biggest fight, yet."

Missy frowned at that, reaching into her hat again and producing her own cup of tea.

"About that..." she murmured, staring deep into her cup. "Between you and me, why are we even fighting this fight?"

"No." She turned her gaze toward him, and Penn suddenly felt the urge to squirm in his seat as if she was judging him. "I mean, why don't you just end this before it starts? Open up your laptop, control-A, delete, problem solved."

Penn gripped his teacup a little tighter, only barely managing to avoid shattering Missy's fine china.

"At the risk of sounding like you-know-who... if they misuse it, why do they deserve to have it? You could at least alter them enough to get them onto a better path."

"If free will isn't absolute, then it's not really free, is it?" Penn grumbled. "Trust me, I've had this argument with myself a thousand times since I heard Baalchion was running wild. I'm not a god... I don't deserve the ability to give or take their-"

"But you DO have the ability, deserving or not. One night at your keyboard, maybe two, and this problem could end without any more people getting hurt." Missy spoke over him this time, and every one of her words felt like a two-ton weight. "If you have the ability, the power, then don't you have the responsibility to use it?"

"Okay... let's say for the sake of argument, that I DO have absolute control over the worlds I've written. Additionally, let's say that in this case, absolute power DOESN'T corrupt absolutely. That would make any decision, any imperative I enact, a newly written law of that universe." He took another sip of his tea. "Would you want to live in a universe where God could just... take control to protect His personal interests? Not a nudge, not circumstantial pushes, but actual direct interference to make you act contrary to your own will? Even if you think you were doing the right thing?" he shook his head. "If you treat free will as a privilege and not a right, you destroy the nature of being a cognizant, sentient being. If the ability to think and decide for yourself ISN'T an intrinsic part of consciousness, then what else could possibly separate the living, thinking creatures from being nothing but a deterministic wind-up toy made of chemical reactions? Chess pieces moved by an uncaring God in a game played purely against Himself?" He downed the rest of his tea, set down the cup, and gripped his blankets a little tighter, fearful at the thought.

"I certainly wouldn't want to live in a multiverse where free will is considered a revocable privilege and not an inherent right of all thinking beings. Not for me and not for anyone. Even Baalchion and Chirac."

The two of them sat in silence for a while, listening only to the sound of the car's engine and the heater blowing at maximum power.

"I'm sorry, but... I'm only ever going to approach Chirac and Baalchion as a man." He thought for a second. "Maybe a devil, too. Just kinda by definition of going against the gods... but never as a supreme being of any kind."

Missy sighed, and Penn couldn't help noticing a lot of tension leaving her body before she finally smiled again.

"Good. I was kinda scared that the phenomenal cosmic power might just go to your head." She chuckled and floated up, giving a light rap of her knuckles against his skull. "And you've got too much garbage up there to begin with!"

"Well, yeah!" Missy dismissed his concern with a wave. "I don't mean to be mean, but ever since you trapped Bendy in your head, you've been leaning a little more into your... worse impulses."

"I know, I know!" Missy cut him off. "Onee-sama isn't exactly a good influence on you, either. But I just wanted to be sure it wasn't YOU who was changing, you know?"

Penn reached over and chuckled as he gave her hair a loving tousle. "Well, don't worry about that. I'm right here, and I'm not gonna change just because of some stupid demon or two."

Both of them laughed even harder before she settled back down into her seat again, grabbing at the edge of his blanket and pulling it towards herself until they were both covered.

"Well, I'm gonna stay here in case you have any more nightmares, and you can't stop me."

Penn rolled his eyes and reached into the back seat, grabbing another pillow and tossing it to her. "You're gonna need this, then."

Penn grabbed another pillow from the back seat, smacking her squarely across the face with it before tucking it under his head. This, of course, was reciprocated a moment later when Missy's pillow slapped him on the chest with a surprising amount of force.

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"Awww..." Sunset made no effort to hide her reaction when she glanced through the windshield in the morning. Penn and Missy were both curled up together in the second row of seats in the car, huddled under the same blanket for warmth. It looked perfectly peaceful and serene...

Which was the complete opposite of the pillow carnage scattered through the rest of the car. Feathers and tattered pillowcases were EVERYWHERE, including one draped across each of their faces like an improvised pair of sleep masks. She smiled and pulled her jacket a little tighter as she made her way back to her heated tent. Breakfast could wait a little longer.

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Sunset didn't let Penn's jab at her pride wipe the smile from her face. They were nearly back to the portal to Remnant, which meant that, after MONTHS of searching, she was a matter of hours from seeing one of her friends again.

She was SO eager, not even the deep buzzing of the Queen Lancer that Salem was riding just behind them could bring down her good mood.

"Speaking of... have you told Ozpin that Salem changed sides and is coming back with us?" Sunset asked.

"How were we speaking of..." Penn shook his head before dismissing his question. "No, she hasn't changed sides, she's still only acting in her own self-interests. They just happen to line up with the greater good this time." He took a deep breath, his eyes locked on the road ahead. "As for Ozpin, no. I still haven't told him. I'm trying to figure out how we can just keep those two completely isolated from one another, even if they're working toward the same goal."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Because THAT kind of dishonesty doesn't have the potential to blow up in our faces completely..."

"Okay, let me explain." Penn jabbed this thumb over his shoulder, indicating Salem. "She's nitro. Oz is glycerin. If we let them interact, SOMETHING'S gonna explode!"

"Be my guest. Go ahead and tell the headmaster and most influential person in that world that we've been joined by his mortal enemy from across multiple millennia... that we managed to be a good influence on the Empress of Evil and she definitely HASN'T used her magic to either manipulate or blackmail us. I'm sure we won't be greeted with a veritable army waiting for us on the other side of the portal!"

Sunset felt her argument dry up in her throat. "Okay, but trying to hide it isn't going to do us any favors, either!"

"Which is why I'm working on a way to handle Salem... remotely." Penn grumbled, gripping the steering wheel more tightly.

Sunset glanced back out the rear window of the car, seeing the two-story-tall giant wasp easily keeping pace with them while Salem sat on its back with a disinterested look. "Well, let me know when you figure that out..."

Sunset turned her attention down and into the back seat, where Missy was nestled in a pile of blankets and pillows that completely filled the second row of seats. She smirked as the little angel snuggled in tighter into the heap of soft items. "Feeling comfy, Missy?"

"Good, sleeping in the car should be a lot safer." Sunset smiled. "At least this time we can expect you to be out of commission for a day once we cross over."

"Mmhm..." Missy took her own turn to glance out the rear window. "Are you sure you guys will be okay without me? What if she double-crosses us when I'm not around to fight magic with magic?"

"We'll be fine." Sunset gave the top of her head a pat. "I may not be Applejack, but I can tell that she's being honest about wanting to save Remnant, even if it IS so that she can have it for herself later."

Sunset glanced around, taking in the landscape. It was colder and frosted slightly in some of the shadier places, but this was definitely the same place the portal had been last time. The shimmering air in front of them confirmed it, as well.

Penn tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his breath coming in shorter bursts. He seemed to catch the hyperventilating before Sunset could point it out, though. "Everybody ready?"

Sunset was having trouble understanding why they seemed to be giving the moment such reverence, but then the realization hit her: This is the first time we've ever gone BACK to a place... We've always just kept moving forward.

Penn nearly jumped out of his skin when Salem strode up beside the driver's side window, rapping her knuckles against it. After a moment's hesitation, he clicked the button to roll the window down.

"So... this is the place?" Salem asked, regarding the portal with a critical eye.

"Feels like crap to say so, considering I fought so long to avoid you finding out... but yeah." Penn was practically glowering, now. "On the other side of that portal is the location you spent a month trying to torture out of me." He cast an eye up towards her. "The other side has a small bit of clearing, should make for a good base of operations."

"Because I know better than to surprise Oz with YOU." He took a shuddering breath and whispered his next words. "Dealing with one of you at a time is hard enough..."

Salem gave him a sideways glance, but there was surprisingly little malice in it. "I'm surprised that you regard him so poorly. You are so similar, after all."

Penn's lower left eye twitched, and Sunset could tell that he was biting back his outrage at the comparison. Even if she thought Professor Ozpin was a good person to be compared to, Sunset could tell Salem knew it would make Penn upset. He didn't look at either of them as he reached over and yanked open the glove compartment. He snatched a small item from inside and tossed it absentmindedly out the window for her to catch. "In that case, I'm sure you'd like to put some distance between us. That's a communicator I had Isis make for you. More portable than a demon jellyfish. Feel free to go try and fight Baalchion on your own, if you'd like."

Salem caught the cell phone without missing a beat just before it hit her square in the face, swiping her finger across the screen a few times and watching it glow with life. After another moment, she slipped it into a hidden pocket in her dress. "As much as we would BOTH enjoy that, I take pride in not being the first to abandon or betray my allies. It's a matter of courtesy." She waved her mount forward, causing a gut-shaking buzz to ripple through the air before it landed back on its six legs. Penn's grip on the steering wheel instantly became white-knuckled, causing Salem to chuckle.

"Seeing how frightened you are of harmless insects DOES provide no end of entertainment..." She murmured before floating up onto its back with a gust of wind. "I trust you'll have no issue going first, given this is the correct portal?"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up..." Penn grumbled as the window slowly rolled back up. "See you on the other side."

All fell silent again as they stared at the portal for another few seconds. Finally, Penn took a heaving sigh and reached up, shifting the car back into drive.

"No use putting it off any longer. Dread it, run from it.... destiny arrives all the same, right?"

Sunset blinked. "Aren't you excited? I mean, we're going to finally find Rainbow Dash! She's here! Plus we're going to get to see all of our friends again!"

"I'm still not convinced Remnant isn't cursed." Penn rolled his eyes slightly as they passed through the portal. "If I'm honest, I intended to leave this place behind us for good last time."

"Hey, come on..." Sunset reached up and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I promised you that I'm not going to let Salem hurt you again, and this time you're going to get to come to Beacon with me! It's not going to be like last time!"

Outside their windows, the world outside brightened more and more until they were completely surrounded by white. There was a rolling shudder through the car as the ground that they were rolling on changed, followed by a sudden jolt that nearly threw Sunset forward out of her seat as the car collided with something.

Penn's inevitable expletive was cut off as he planted face-first into the steering wheel.

He struggled for a moment before pulling his face off of the wheel with a distinct popping sound. His face seemed to stay completely flat for a moment before he slapped both of his cheeks with his hands, forcing it back into shape.

Without his head pressing down on the horn, the suffering of everyone's ears came to an end.

"I thought we were still coming through the portal!" Missy cried indignantly. "How can we have hit something in here!?"

"Is everyone okay?" Sunset craned her neck to look into the back seat, where Missy was curled up tightly in her pile of blankets with wide eyes, clearly having been shocked by the collision but otherwise unharmed.

"I'll tell you in a minute..." Penn growled, practically kicking open his driver's-side door... only for it to only open by about a foot wide as something stopped it short. A second later, a wave of ice-cold air practically set Sunset shivering in an instant, and she realized why they were still surrounded by blank whiteness:

Penn narrowed his eyes and threw his weight against the door, forcing it open a little more each time. "I NEED! ...to CHECK! ...the DAMAGE!"

With that final push, he stamped out into the snow. Sunset could barely make out the shape of him as he stomped around to the front of the car, examining the point where it had been forcefully stopped for a moment before coming back around to his door.

For her part, Sunset grabbed her jacket from the back seat and threw it over herself like a blanket to stop from collapsing into a shivering mess. A few seconds later, Penn stiffly clambered back into his seat and yanked the door shut. Every hair on his head was now frozen a perfect horizontal line, and some even had tiny icicles forming on them. His entire body was covered in a thick layer of white frost.

"You're really laying the cartoon physics on thick today, huh?" Missy mumbled from behind them.

"Okay, good news is that it's JUST snow, so it didn't do much damage. It's less like hitting a wall and more like hitting a giant, freezing pillow..." Penn sighed with what was clearly relief as he gave the steering wheel an affectionate pet. "No need for repairs like last time. However... being stopped by three feet of snow means that, unless we go back the way we came, we are now stuck in three feet of snow." He took a moment to shift the car into reverse, but pressing down on the gas pedal seemed to only make the wheels whine and squeal. "Okay, correction, unless we get out and push back the way we came, we're now stuck in three feet of snow."

Everyone fell silent for a moment, just in time for the loud, angry buzzing of Salem's mount to come up behind them and then overtake them. Sunset couldn't make out more than the vaguest of shapes moving past them due to its white carapace, but the sound of it grew softer for a moment, then louder again, then soft once more, in a way that made Sunset think that it might have been circling over them. A few seconds later, the white blizzard outside began to slow. The winds whipping against the side of the car became less brutal. Slowly, the white haze melted away, revealing the familiar clearing where they had arrived last time, albeit under a heavy blanket of snow. In the center stood Salem, raising a single hand in defiance of nature and making it clear that it was her magic that had lessened the blizzard's might in the clearing. Her Queen Lancer was simply sitting in the middle of the clearing, obediently waiting for its master to finish her business. Sunset wouldn't call it CLEAR skies, but it had gone from a complete whiteout to only a light snowfall under dark clouds. Even the excessive snow on the ground had been lessened, blown away by the magical wind until it looked as if it would only go up to just above the tops of Sunset's boots. When Salem turned back to look at them, she smirked.

Sunset wished she could say that they didn't need her help, but... they certainly didn't have the power to hold back the weather like that.

"That's better, but it doesn't solve the fact that we're half-buried and the snow is probably just as deep or deeper all the way to the nearest road." Penn grumbled. "And I do NOT want to ask her to be our snowplow. Even if we're allies, I just KNOW she'd never let us live that down."

"All that time tinkering and repairing and you never added an all-terrain option?" Missy tutted. "Penn, if you don't turn this into an Oldsmo-ATV, what's the point of spending half our nights working on it?"

"If I took the time to revamp the whole suspension system for all-terrain capabilities, we'd be stranded for DAYS unable to go ANYWHERE..." Penn folded his arms and leaned back in his seat as Missy's joking intent went cleanly over his head. "Isis and I designed it AGES ago, finding time for installing it is the problem..."

Sunset reached into her pocket, withdrawing her phone. "Isis? Can you call Professor Ozpin and let him know we need some help? We're a little stranded-"

"Would it have killed Oz-pinhead to just keep our landing zone clear, to begin with?" Penn mumbled sourly.

Penn groaned and pressed his thumb to the center of his forehead, rubbing softly. "I hate the fact that makes sense..."

Sunset looked back out the front windshield. "Don't look now, but you're not going to like what's coming next... Salem looks like she wants to talk."

Penn groaned again, reaching to the back seat to grab his own jacket before turning to look at her. "Either way, we should probably be ready to go out and meet Ozpin's landing committee."

"...or YOU could go out and meet them while I stay here, where it's warm?" Sunset gave him a pleading smile, but his complete lack of reaction made it clear that he wasn't about to go out into the snow on his own. "...fine, I'll get my coat on."

"Hehehe..." Missy giggled from under her blankets. "Enjoy the winter wonderland... Leave the car running and I'll keep the heater on for you!"

Sunset took a moment to stick her tongue out at Missy as she rammed her door open a few times to push back the snow. The fact that Missy's smirk didn't falter felt more insulting than any reciprocation.

Thankfully, her boots were waterproof... unfortunately, even with Salem's magic reducing the force of the storm, the freezing wind felt like it passed straight through her jeans to chill her directly, and that was to say nothing of her exposed cheeks and nose. Thankfully, Isis had delivered her a new leather jacket soon after Halloween had passed, so that was keeping her torso and core warm, but if she stayed out here too long, she knew she was liable to start shivering in spite of it.

"Hmm... it's a bit chilly..." Penn muttered, taking a second to rub at his nose. "Might just be the wind, but the air's got that below-freezing bite to it..."

He hardly seems affected at all, and he's not even wearing leather to keep the wind out!

"I trust that I don't need to tell you both that this is out of the ordinary for this time of year..." Salem gestured to the sky as she approached. "Will you be able to navigate like this?"

"Ozma is sending an escort for us to help us get to Beacon." Penn stared upwards, as if he was trying to read something in the clouds. "But this is bad. Climate change is one of the late stages of invasion... it means Baalchion's gotten enough influence to affect things at a city- no- potentially country-sized level. If this invasion goes on much longer, we'll be facing continental-scale baddies..."

"And how, exactly, do you propose we stop him?" Salem tilted her head as she cocked a single eyebrow in a way that bordered on "mocking." "You haven't been very forthcoming with your plan in that matter."

Sunset swallowed, feeling a lump rapidly forming in her throat. Something felt... off. She shifted back and forth from one foot to the other, kneading the snow beneath her feet. It wasn't just fidgeting because of the cold, she was getting the sense that her footing just... wasn't as steady as she'd like.

"I don't want to tell it over and over, and the less time people have to poke holes in it, the better..." Penn muttered. "It's not easy figuring out easy ways to explain the physics behind what Baalchion and Chirac do, and I don't think talking about it all like it's magic is going to be enough for Oz OR Ironwood."

Sunset's head snapped from side to side, trying to spot the source of the noise. After a moment, she realized that neither Penn nor Salem seemed to have heard the rumbling.

It had felt more like the "sound" of blood rushing through your ears. Judging by the fact that no one else had responded, it probably WAS the blood rushing to her ears... maybe a response to the cold? The strain of trying not to shiver?

"Well, considering that you do not want me present when you speak to those fools, I think that I could be afforded at least a one-on-one-"

"Hey!" Sunset didn't flinch at the glare Salem gave her when she interrupted. "...did anyone else hear that?"

That was enough to get Penn's attention, though Salem remained purely irritated.

No one had time to react when the ground just behind Salem violently exploded, sending dirt and snow spraying high into the sky. The force was enough to lift the ground beneath their feet, throwing everyone to the ground at once. As Sunset was flung backwards and into the snow on her back, she didn't even feel the cold.

Every ounce of her attention was focused on the titanic, jet-black centipede that currently had Salem's mount gripped between its mandibles. The gigantic wasp fired its projectile stingers at the monster at point-blank range, but they simply grazed off with minimal effect against its natural armor, deflecting off and out of sight into the unbounded storm outside the clearing. With what looked like zero effort, the thing snapped the Queen Lancer in half like a twig. Its numerous legs rattled and shook as they shuffled the Grimm's remains up to its mouth, snapping and tearing at it in an attempt to eat it before it dissolved away to ashes. The fruitlessness of losing the carcass of its prey so quickly seemed to only enrage the creature more, and it turned its face to the sky.

When it roared, it wasn't the hiss or screech Sunset would expect from a giant insect. It was a low vibration, one that reverberated through the ground and into Sunset's gut and bones, making it feel like the thing could shake every grain of dirt around it with sound alone.

It hadn't even come completely out of the ground, yet it already stood at least six stories high, possibly more. Its carapace was as dark as the night sky, in a way that made Sunset think of the space between stars. Its underbelly was covered in countless limbs, starting with the largest set on the outside and growing smaller and more fine as one moved inward towards the center of its body.

She hadn't even had time to get back on her feet before Penn was already standing over her. He reached down and, before he could grab her shoulder or jacket or something, Sunset took hold of his hand with her own. He pulled her up to her feet with ease, and Sunset reached down to her belt for her saber.

"No!" Penn grabbed her hand, pulling it away from her weapon. "It's too big, we've GOT to get out of here!"

Penn gave her arm a hard tug, pulling her towards the car with enough force to nearly pull her arm out of its socket. By sheer force of his grip, she was forced into an all-out sprint just to avoid getting dragged.

Penn finally released his grip on her arm long enough to wave frantically at the car with both arms.

Sunset could see Missy through the windshield, wide-eyed and scrambling to try and get untangled from her nest of blankets. At the same time, the wheels of the car began moving of their own accord as Isis took remote control, but they only could spin wildly in place against the snow beneath them. Penn landed shoulder-first against the front of the hood, clearly dead-set on pushing Sylvia back to safety. Just as Sunset was about to join him, she chanced a look back over her shoulder.

She planted one of her boots in the snow at an awkward angle, perpendicular to the way she was moving, and slammed into Penn from the side with the full force of her sprinting body. Together, the two of them tumbled to the ground just in time for the razor-sharp mandibles to pass over them.

The revving of the engine and the squealing of the wheels were like a pained scream as the pincers closed around the front of the car. There was a shriek of tearing metal and the crackle of breaking plastic as the monster tried to lift its prey, tearing its jaws through the body of the car and completely ripping off the hood, bumper and headlights to expose the motor inside.

Oil and coolant were spraying everywhere, but the engine continued to rev and roar, now free of any engineer's attempts to dampen the sound, punctuated with the occasional pop of extra fuel from the now-leaking fuel pumps catching alight. The ten-story insect seemed to take this as a challenge, rearing back like a snake about to strike.

The cry and a futile reaching hand were the only attempt Penn could make to save his beloved Oldsmobile.

In a motion almost too fast for Sunset's eyes, the creature descended, hammering down jaws-first onto the engine bay. Its mandibles came from around the outside, grabbing the front wheels and crushing them inwards, while the teeth of its true mouth settled on the engine block like a vicegrip. With a proper hold on the car's frame, now, it lifted Sylvia into the air entirely, as easily as a dog would pick up its chew toy. The back wheels spun wildly for a few seconds as the monster shook it back and forth. Sunset could hear the sound of snapping, and then the engine fell silent. With a final shake to confirm that its toy was dead, the monster seemed to lose interest. First, its true mouth spit out a chunk of metal that landed only a few short feet away from them...

Then, it casually tossed aside the rest of the car, sending it careening and rolling into the treeline at the edge of the clearing, where it finally settled in a broken, smoking heap. It looked almost as if a giant hand had picked it up and squeezed it like a paper cup: crushed and folded in on itself at every single angle.

Sunset, however, knew that there was something even more precious that had been inside.

Sunset's head snapped up, and she almost wanted to cry at the sight of Ghostrick Alucard cradling Missy in his arms, having obviously snatched her from the back seat before the monster struck. Sunset jumped to her feet, rushing up and wrapping her arms around them both in the tightest bear hug she could manage.

He was on his knees, staring straight at the remains of Sylvia with wide, tear-filled eyes.

"COME ON!" She grabbed at the back of his jacket with one hand, trying to forcefully pull him to his feet. He didn't move, heavy as an anchor to her. Somewhere in the back of Sunset's mind, she remembered that it had taken her a full-sprint tackle to even knock him off of the hood and onto the ground. There was no way that she could move him against his will. "PENN, WE'VE GOTTA GET TO THE PORTAL!"

"PENN, MOVE BEFORE-" Sunset's yell died in her throat as she looked up at the monster, seeing that it was staring at them, now, in the same snakelike striking pose.

In the back of her mind, Sunset's brain was throwing up a million alarms to run. If she stayed here, she was going to die, and every instinct in her body was telling her to run.

But one thought, one desire that rose up above all others, drowned them all out until it left a singular, pure thought in her mind.

Just like every other time, her saber was in her hands without needing to think for it. She leaped into the air and over Penn's head, interposing herself between her friends and the danger. Without thinking consciously about it, she settled into the ready position Weiss had taught her. This time, it was like the monster was moving in slow motion to her, and she was able to see it bearing down on them. Her body felt sluggish compared to the speed of her thoughts, but she still flicked the switch on her saber, summoning the crimson blade in a flash of light and heat.

Just as the mandibles were about to close on her body like a pair of gigantic guillotine blades, Sunset felt nothing but quiet fury. This thing, she didn't even know what it was CALLED, had just destroyed their home, narrowly missed potentially KILLING Missy, and now was trying to kill them all... and they hadn't even DONE anything to it, to begin with!

She could see the light of her saber reflected on it's body, half in a cluster of shiny black orbs that she could only assume were its eyes, and half in the fluid leftovers of Sylvia's insides that were still splattered across its shell.

The first sliced through it's mandibles, cutting them too short to even consider meeting in the middle and gripping anything. All that was left was a pair of stumps, glowing red and ragged at the ends.

The second grazed upwards across the front of its head, the closest area that could be considered a "face." Instantly, the plasma of the blade set the oil and gasoline on the monster's body aflame, causing it to burst into a red-hot inferno. On an almost unconscious level, Sunset made a note that the saber didn't pass straight through it like it had every other substance they had encountered.

The third was a thrusting motion, planting the glowing red blade directly into the thing's true mouth, causing a violent crackle and sizzling of its bodily fluids instantly boiling and vaporizing inside of it.

All of this happened in less than a second, a mix of supernatural reflex and practiced discipline.

The monster instantly reared back again, this time making a new noise that Sunset could only imagine was a scream of pain for something so huge, something that made her think of a pained whale song.

Rather than flailing in an attempt to extinguish the flames, the monster dove headfirst back into the ground, burrowing down into the dirt. Sunset mentally marked the end of the "slow motion" sensation as she could barely keep up with its motion, digging furiously as it uprooted and tossed aside trees to properly encircle them in its body.

Those seemed to be the magic words to pull Penn out of his own head. He shook slightly as he came back to his senses.

Penn pushed himself to his feet, stepping up beside her as he gathered the situation.

"If this thing has some kind of secret weakness, I'd love to hear it..." Sunset mumbled.

"Well, considering Salem's vanished, that cuts our options down, but I've got an idea. I NEED to get to Sylvia." He glanced down at her saber's blade. "It's going to go after heat and light, they're Baalchionic creatures' natural enemy, so you're ringing the dinner bell right there. Can you and Missy keep it distracted for ten seconds?"

"After what this thing just did to Sylvia?" Sunset tightened her grip on her saber once again, letting her rage flow down into the weapon, rather than build up inside of her. "I'm ready to fight this monster for ten YEARS."

"Good. You girls break left, I'll break right. Syl is on her back right now, so it shouldn't be hard to get to what I need. On my mark, lead it back to me and..." he sighed slightly, as if in pained resignation. "Then we need to try to make it strike one more time."

It sounded crazy, insane, possibly even suicidal... but by this point, Sunset was used to Penn's plans including an element of insanity.

The Multiverse in a Nutshell

by Pennington Inkwell

No Brakes