The Monsters of Faggot Forest

I gave Nifty another $50. Why? Because in addition to Nifty being the best and least-censored story site on the web, I also royally screwed up the formatting on my last chapter, causing someone some grief, I'm sure. How does someone manage to screw up the formatting on the simplest writing tool in existence? I'm gifted that way, I guess. I followed Nifty's recommendations, and hopefully this story will be readable in both sections. But considering my weird, fucked-up luck, probably not.

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I hope I can finish this story before the Republicans repeal The First Amendment and institute their Christ-free Christian Nationalism.

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During an impossibly warm Saturday in January, Michael Pearson, an overweight, mostly-closeted high school genius, checks on the welfare of Kenny Miller, a former friend who suffered a terrible beating administered by his father. Mike finds Kenny in the company of two delinquent classmates, "Crazy Tom" Daggen and Grant Anders, and ends up going on an ill-advised drive with the group.

An argument leads to Mike exiting the vehicle and having a scary encounter with a supernatural creature named Lure. After escaping and conditionally being allowed back into the vehicle, Mike finds out that their destination is Ferret Forest, a former campground/picnic area/illicit gay cruising area that was shut down after decades of periodic anti-gay murders. To Mike's horror, he discovers that Tom and Grant want to go there to do some gay bashing.

When they arrive, Tom and Grant inexplicably turn on Mike, coming at him with baseball bats. However, before they can strike even a single blow, a sleepy telepathic entity called "Overseer" leads Mike away from danger, but Mike soon bumps into an even GREATER threat: a classmate who's been possessed by a fragment of Lure, called "Shard-Lecher", who threatens to slaughter Mike if Overseer doesn't agree to psychically repair Lure's fractured mind and make the monster whole.

Shard-Lecher has Mike on the ground with a knife to his throat, waiting for Overseer to respond to his threat, but he can't, since he's slipped back into dormancy, leaving Mike to either handle the situation himself ...or die.

But at least there's a funny side to Mike's predicament. Shard-Lecher tells Mike that Lure was never a threat to him. Tom, Grant, and Kenny are Lure's real targets. Also, Lure is something that could best be described as a cum vampire.

Even if Mike didn't have a knife poking against his jugular vein, he STILL wouldn't see the humor in it.

The Monsters of Faggot Forest

Chapter 13

"Control, Betrayals, and Deadly Things with Silly Names"

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Faggot Forest

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"OVERSEER! SHARD-LECHER DO IT! YOU SEE!" the monster screamed even louder, making Mike realize that Shard-Lecher's patience was probably just about up, at which point he would most likely make good on his threat to kill Mike.

It was a seemingly hopeless situation: Mike was pinned beneath the body of Austin Mitchell, who'd been possessed by an entity whose intelligence had suddenly dropped to neanderthal levels. This meant that Shard-Lecher could no longer be reasoned with, and if Mike tried to push Austin off of him, the knife pressed against Mike's neck would be used to slice his throat, and "Michael Pearson" would be added to the list of unfortunate gays who'd been murdered in Faggot Forest.

However, Mike had a plan, or at least a 'shard' of a plan. He'd come up with it a minute or so earlier, when Shard-Lecher made the foolish mistake of telling Mike he was a "cum vampire", giving the young genius actionable information. Granted, Mike wasn't naive enough to think that traditional vampire weaknesses would work against Shard-Lecher, although Mike's brain DID instantly suggest putting two sticks together in the form of a cross, or fleeing across a narrow creek exactly two hundred and seventy four feet north northwest of his present location in order to put running water between him and Shard-Lecher.

"Anything that calls itself a cum vampire would have to be at least a little susceptible to male seduction ...the promise of a free meal," Mike assumed, betting his life on a theory whose sole flaw was its underestimation of its effectiveness. Both Thralls and their Entangleds were actually virtually powerless against male seduction.

"Why am I attracted to guys who are mean to me?" Mike muttered as he reached up and gently slid his hands around the soft globes of Austin's ass.

Guile could've answered that question. Just like the half-brother Mike didn't know he had, Mike inherited a gender-flipped version of their biological father's attraction to toxic women.

Mike didn't feel any additional pressure applied to the knife, so he continued caressing, letting his fingers drift into Austin's crack. In spite of the circumstances, he momentarily lost himself in the feel of Austin's peach fuzz against his fingertips.

"Get your fucking hands off of me!" Austin commanded with slightly improved eloquence, informing Mike that Shard-Lecher had relinquished control over his mouth.

"Get your BODY off of ME!" Mike snapped back.

"I CAN'T!!!" Austin yelled down at Mike's face.

"Shit, Shard-Lecher is still in control of his body," Mike fretted.

Mike reached further into Austin's crack and touched his asshole, which startled Mike by moving. Austin's sphincter was absolutely squirming! Despite Mike's fear, he couldn't help but be utterly intrigued.

"WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING D-D-D-D-D-D-DOING?!" Austin stuttered.

"Are you really that sexually sensitive?" Mike inquired unnecessarily, since the crawling flesh beneath Mike's fingertip was already confirming that suspicion. "This must feel really good to you."

"I-I-I-IT D-D-D-D-DOESN'T!" Austin unconvincingly lied, "Because I'm n-n-n-n-not a F-F-F-F-FAG, like you!"

"I think he's telling the truth," Mike contemplated. "He's NOT a 'fag' like me. But what I'd like to know is: what kind of 'fag' IS he? And I wonder what else has been done to him besides increasing his sexual sensitivity and both the volume and pressure of his ejaculations."

All of sudden, Mike felt Austin's asshole open up. Naturally, Mike assumed Austin was trying to repulse him by passing gas, and indeed Mike felt air flow around his finger, but it was flowing in the wrong direction!

"Is his ass...INHALING?!" Mike marveled, just before feeling and hearing it noisily 'exhale', after which it gaped and stayed that way.

"Jesus Christ, Austin, what kind of freak are you?" Mike inquired, using the same word Austin had frequently used to describe Mike, due to his unnatural perception.

Austin responded by spitting in Mike's face. Mike simply smiled, letting the spit run down his cheeks. In that moment, Austin Mitchell finally understood what it was like to be consumed by impotent rage, tormented by someone who derived pleasure from their suffering.

Mike slid his fingertip around the rim of his possessed classmate's asshole while staring up at Austin's face like a scientist observing a lab mouse. Austin seemed to be trying to maintain his hate-filled expression, but he couldn't. His features kept softening and his eyes wouldn't stop glazing over, no matter how many times he kept violently shaking his head.

"I SAID STOP!!!" Austin screamed, pulling himself together and fighting to control his pleasure-induced stutter. "G-G-G-G-G.......GET OUT OF THERE!"

"GET OFF OF ME!" Mike countered.

"HE'S S-STALLING!" Austin suddenly informed Shard-Lecher. "H-H-HE KNOWS Y-YOU'RE A GASP!"

Austin's eyes and mouth shot open wide at the feel of Mike stabbing his finger through Austin's gaping anus. It put a strain on Mike's arm that only slightly detracted from the sight of Austin's stupefied expression.

"You just tried to get me killed, Austin," Mike snarled. "Thanks. Now I won't feel guilty for 'stalling' by offering to FUCK you!"

"F-F-F-F-Fuckin' KILL YOU!" Austin threatened, hateful words that contrasted absurdly with the euphoric expression that Austin couldn't wipe from his face. "N-N-Not even gonna- HEY...WHAT?!"

To Mike's considerable relief, Shard-Lecher removed the knife from Mike's neck and began to crawl forward, making it possible for Mike to slide out from beneath him. However, as Austin's erect penis (so hard that it was seductively pressed up against Austin's washboard abs) passed over Mike's face, he made the tactically unwise decision to pull it downward and lick the head.

"D-D-D-DON'T!" Austin shouted, his body further defying him by stopping and spreading his knees to lower his crotch closer to Mike's mouth.

"Shut up, Austin," Mike spat, before FORCING Austin to shut up by pulling the end of his middle finger out of Austin's ass and roughly wiggling his WHOLE THUMB in there to replace it. Impossibly, the lining of Austin's rectum -slippery as FUCK- came alive! It was moving... undulating against Mike's thumb and alternately tightening and loosening, making Mike wonder what it would feel like if he stuck his dick in there -exactly what the demonstration had been designed to make people in Mike's position wonder.

"UHHHHHHHHHHH......UHHHHHHHHHHHH....!!!" Austin kept grunting deliriously as Mike stirred his guts, fighting against the tension while also raising and lowering his head in order to slide his lips up and down Austin's shaft.

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"And once my hand touched you, I'd be retroactively proving that you made the right decision by running out on me on my birthday. No thanks. Unlike you, I value my pride." (Chapter 1)

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Mike's lofty words to Kenny tried to come back and haunt him, but Mike refused to listen. This wasn't like Mike ...it wasn't like him at all. Despite Austin's willingness to aid Shard-Lecher in killing Mike, that didn't justify using Austin to gratify his long-suppressed sexual urges. Mike briefly considered the possibility that maybe Shard-Lecher had entered his mind as well, and he was forcing Mike to act out of character. However, Mike's brain -sometimes his worst enemy- forced Mike to dismiss the idea. Thanks to Lure, Mike KNEW what it felt like to have an external force attempt to influence him. He would never forget that sensation ...and he didn't feel it now. Also, if Shard-Lecher was a piece of Lure, and Lure hadn't had the power to compel Mike to stay at the Bottleneck, it was unlikely that Shard-Lecher could dictate Mike's actions either.

What Mike didn't know was that NO Thrall could POSSIBLY take control over his mind ...EVER! Mike Pearson's creator had SEEN to THAT!

"I d-d-don't....like....this," Austin volunteered in an unconvincing whine.

Mike momentarily let Austin's cock spring out of his mouth and slap into his belly.

"Uhhh, okay. Good to know ......but nobody asked," Mike mocked with the same smug sarcasm that Austin always used. Mike then pulled Austin's pole back down into his mouth and resumed blowing him.

For two full minutes, nothing was said as Mike used his lips and tongue to construct a perfect 3-D mental image of Austin's erection. Once it was complete, Mike's vision suddenly extended beyond his eyes, just as it had in the back of Tom's car, when he was able to see Tom urinating up close, even though Tom was in a clearing far away.

Mike watched himself give Austin head for a moment before circling around his hated foe and committing every inch of his naked body to memory. Then, Mike's floating ghost eyes stopped and stared in fascination at Austin's face. Contrary to what Austin wanted Mike to believe, his expression gave away the fact that he was enjoying Mike's efforts far more than Mike could've ever imagined. His expression was totally blank, and his eyes were practically devoid of intelligence.

"What the fuck was DONE to you, Austin ...and WHY?" Mike wondered.

And then Mike saw IT! The knife! When Shard-Lecher pulled the knife away from Mike's throat, he'd set it down on the ground before crawling forward to make his asshole more accessible to Mike's finger.

Mike's ghost eyes stared at Austin's face to make sure that it remained vacant while Mike silently contorted his left arm to retrieve the discarded weapon and palm it the same way Shard-Lecher had concealed it earlier.

Mike knew exactly what he needed to do with the knife.

Mike lowered his head to the ground and gave the helmet of Austin's dick a couple of long, passionate good-bye kisses before opening wide and letting it smack Austin in the gut one last time.

"I like the way your ass is sucking my thumb, Austin. I can't wait to find out how that feels on my cock!" Mike said for Shard-Lecher's benefit, advertising his false intention so he wouldn't think Mike was up to something ...which he WAS.

Mike sat up and ducked beneath Austin's spread legs, silently basking in the feeling of Austin's balls coming into contact with his forehead and then sliding over Mike's head. After getting to his feet, Mike reached down and put his non-dominant left hand onto Austin's ass to misdirect from what Mike was about to do next.

"N-NO!" Austin shouted, jumping to his feet without warning and trying to flee. But just as quickly, his legs brought him to a stop. His glutes, hamstrings, and calf muscles convulsed erratically, yet they steadfastly declined to propel him into the shadows so that Austin could preserve the last shred of dignity and bodily autonomy that hadn't been stripped from him over the last few weeks. Psychologically, Austin needed to escape from Mike, so that he could mend his savaged self-esteem with the knowledge that although Austin had spent the last few weeks maniacally servicing every cock he could get his mouth on...or back his ass into...Mike Pearson's hadn't been one of them.

"Let me GO!" Austin cried out, repeatedly slamming his palms against his head as if he could dislodge Shard-Lecher like a hunk of earwax. "I DON'T DESERVE THIS!"

Mike fought off the urge to dispute Austin's claim. Instead, he took the butterfly knife and FLUNG IT AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE!

Austin instantly ceased pounding his head, and his leg and gluteal muscles stilled, losing their appearance of mice scurrying beneath a rug. With a remarkable display of grace, Austin executed a flawless half-twist backflip, coming face-to-face with Mike. This elegant maneuver affirmed Mike's conviction that disposing of the knife had been the correct decision.

"You s'posed to be SMART, Fat Boy!" Austin growled, giving Mike an unsettlingly contorted sneer that left no doubt as to Shard-Lecher's return. "Smart boys no throw away PROTECTION! Not throw away WEAPONS, Dumbass!"

"I am smart," Mike confirmed, squatting down and picking up a stone. "Let me show you why I threw the knife away."

Mike backed up fifteen feet and cocked his arm to throw the stone.

Shard-Lecher's face went neutral, and he watched what Mike was doing with cold but curious eyes.

"Try to catch the stone," Mike challenged. "Don't worry. I won't throw it at your head ...or use it to distract you while I run away."

"Throw wherever...DO whatever!" Shard-Lecher hissed. "NO difference!"

"Okay, here it comes!" Mike warned, whipping the stone to Austin's right, barely within his reach.

Austin's hand shot out and caught it without looking.

"You see? Your speed, reflexes, agility, physical coordination, and spatial awareness are far beyond human," Mike explained, completely justifying his wise decision. "Even if I were wielding that knife, you would still be the one in control of it."

"SO TRUE! ME LIKE!" Shard-Lecher grunted enthusiastically at the praise, bouncing with joy from one foot to the other, making Austin Mitchell's cock and balls flop around like crazy. "Now Shard-Lecher show YOU a trick!"

"Without a moment's hesitation, Shard-Lecher hurled the rock into the darkness using Austin's left arm, then promptly cupped that hand and theatrically pressed it against the back of Austin's left ear, as though waiting to hear something."

Mike could've easily done without the disturbing maniacal look of expectation on Austin's face.

tink

"SHARD-LECHER WIN!!!" the monster exclaimed happily while clapping Austin's knuckles together and helicoptering Austin's penis at high speed with UTTER efficiency of movement. "SHARD-LECHER FIND KNIFE!!!"

Mike felt hope abandon him. Shard-Lecher hadn't even SEEN Mike throw the knife, yet he not only knew exactly where it landed, he also managed to HIT IT WITH A GODDAMNED ROCK!

"Echo location? Vibrational sensitivity" Mike asked weakly, his curiosity demanding to be fed despite the despair he felt at the knowledge that however the hell Shard-Lecher had detected the knife, it meant that Mike wouldn't be able to run away and hide from him.

"Ghosts," Shard-Lecher answered with a smile, "Shard-Lecher is SWARM OF GHOSTS! Only ONE of Shard-Lecher inside human. Lots MORE of Shard-Lecher all around you. Two Shard-Lecher ghosts at knife...but Shard-Lecher not need it to kill you."

Shard-Lecher stalked forward to demonstrate.

"WAIT-WAIT-WAIT-WAIT! Before you kill me like you killed Jayce Harris..." Mike blurted.

"Not dead, Smart Boy," Shard-Lecher corrected, giving Mike the information he wanted, just as Mike planned. "Alive...SUCKING COCK...GETTING FUCKED!!!"

Mike was relieved to hear that Jayce was alive, but horrified at the possibility that he was being forced to perform homosexual acts. Austin deserved it, Jayce did not.

"You...made him like Austin?" Mike guessed.

"No NEED to," Shard-Lecher said with a grin on Austin's face, then lifted his arms to do something that Mike probably wouldn't like.

"WAIT! Don't you want MY cum?" Mike frantically negotiated. "I mean... you didn't interrupt while I was fingering Austin and sucking his dick. Was that because you said you liked pain, and you were feeding off of his emotional pain?"

For an excruciatingly long time, Shard-Lecher stared at Mike without saying anything.

"Yes."

"Then let's do this, cum vampire," Mike replied, unfastening his shorts and pulling them down along with his underwear, revealing that he was fully erect despite the enormous stress he was under. His continued existence depended on his ability to perform sexually ...therefore it should've been virtually impossible for him to achieve and maintain an erection. And yet...

"He's not taking his shoes off!" Austin's mouth shrieked as Mike stepped out of his shorts and underwear, once again endangering Mike's life ...and once again alleviating Mike's guilt concerning what he fully intended to do. "He's trying to trick you!"

"How many guys has Austin sucked and been fucked by, Shard-Lecher? I want to know how many dicks have been inside the kid who's been calling me a fag," Mike inquired, his real reason being to confirm beyond all shadow of a doubt that this was not Austin Mitchell's first rodeo.

"BUMS...HUNDREDS of bums," Shard-Lecher cackled while putting Austin's body right the fuck back down on all fours. "Mawklynd...Timbersburg...Johnsport. All those filthy, REEKING COCKS! In MOUTH! Up ASS!"

"I'm not going to catch anything off of him, am I?" Mike questioned out of concern for his health.

"Can't. Entangleds no can disease," Shard-Lecher clarified(?). "If Overseer no fix Shard-Lecher, disease LAST of fat boy's worries!"

Mike squatted down behind Austin, hoping that Shard-Lecher wouldn't take control over Austin's mouth again until he was done. However, there was one last question Mike just HAD to ask.

"Are you doing something to make me excited, Shard-Lecher?"

"No. No Vapor...no Fog...nothing."

Mike had no fucking clue what any of that meant, except for "no".

"Then why the hell am I so excited right now?" Mike whispered softly to test Shard-Lecher's hearing.

"Ask old fisherman...one with guitar! Him CREATED you!" Shard-Lecher snorted, startling and confusing Mike so badly that he feared his erection might start to sag.

Mike grabbed Austin's right ass cheek and shifted it to expose his asshole. Wanting to "test the water", Mike placed the head of his penis against Austin's anus ...which promptly went CRAZY, writhing against itself while making kissing and sucking noises. It should've been the ULTIMATE turn off. If asked, most guy-fuckers would say they'd NEVER stick their cock into an ASSHOLE that was moving around like a MOUTH!

Those men are called 'liars'.

If "those men" could see what Mike was seeing, they'd be FEVERISH to shove their cock inside!

"YOU'D BETTER NOT!" Austin out-and-out SCREAMED at Mike. "IF YOU DO, I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU! I FUCKIN' SWEAR!"

"Better get a fast-pass," Mike advised, "or you'll be waiting in line behind Tom, Grant, Shard-Lecher and a 'swarm of ghosts'."

Mike slid his cock deep inside his despised enemy, making him quake so violently that Mike thought Austin's arms would give out and cause him to fall forward.

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Although Caleb-Guile was not present inside Austin's mind to transfer creatures from Caboose's insides to Austin's insides and back again, there are a few creatures who do not require supervision or guidance while performing their functions, so they were created with the innate ability to teleport across the dimensional barrier all by themselves, should an Entangled subconsciously signal that he would be engaging in receptive male intercourse. One such creature had come across to gather up Austin's shit take it back to one of Caboose's stomachs for reprocessing. Another had -of course- sprayed Austin's rectum with green, accounting for the mobilized skin and anal tissue. And now, a third creature watched and waited as Mike's penis entered its 'cave'. It was about to cap the tip so that it could receive Mike's eventual release of semen...when it suddenly stopped.

Detecting something unusual about Mike, and lacking a normal Guile and Lecher to tell it what to do, the creature vanished.

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Mike moved his hips, screwing his very first sex partner, who responded with unsuppressible groans of unwanted pleasure, hateful curse words, and sobs of frustration. Mike should've been angry that yet another first had been ruined by Austin and Shard-Lecher, but he wasn't. As terrified and endangered as Mike was, he was also strangely relieved. After fleeing from Lure at the Bottleneck, Mike feared his life would return to mundane normalcy and he would never encounter anything supernatural again. But here he was, not only experiencing the supernatural again, but having sex with it! Moreover, "the supernatural" wouldn't stop handing Mike tantalizing clues that maybe there was far more to Mike than just being an overweight artist with a bizarre ability to remember everything in astonishing detail.

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"And you weren't so 'terrorized' that you couldn't CONCENTRATE, FOCUS, and use the gifts Reality Itself gave you to UNLEASH TELEPATHIC DEVASTION ON ALL FIVE OF US..." Shard-Lecher had said. (Chapter 12)

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"So...I'm a telepath," Mike considered. "I wonder what my capabilities are. How do I activate them ...control them? And what did Shard-Lecher mean about 'reality itself' gifting them to me? And who is the 'old fisherman with a guitar'? The only person I know who matches that description is Kenny's Grandpa Andy ...but he's dead!"

"Christ, you're so tight, Austin," Mike laughed as he boned away, plowing Austin's asshole with gusto. "When Shard-Lecher told me how many other guys you've been with, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to feel anything."

"FUUUUUUUUHHHHHH........" Austin grunted back, which Mike could only assume was an attempt to say 'fuck you' that had gotten swallowed by an involuntary groan. Mike was surprised that Austin had been able to pull himself together enough to even say that, considering that according to Mike's 'ghost vision', Austin's eyes had rolled back, giving him the appearance of someone completely disconnected from reality.

However good it felt to Mike, it felt even better for Austin ...whether he wanted it to or not.

"CRAP!" Mike suddenly thought, realizing that he was so excited, sexually and intellectually, that fucking Austin's impossibly-responsive ass was rocketing him towards orgasm, after which Shard-Lecher would probably carry out his threat to kill Mike -unless Overseer finally DID SOMETHING- which Mike didn't have the luxury of counting on.

"As far as I can tell, Shard-Lecher can't do anything to me without Austin's body," Mike planned. "I need to incapacitate him, but how....?"

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"You could try screaming into their minds," Kenny suggested. "It was painful, and you weren't even trying."

"I've been trying that, on Grant," Mike sighed, "but he's not reacting to it." (Chapter 10)

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"Might as well try again, on Austin," Mike decided.

Mike focused on the back of Austin's neck and imagined him grabbing his head in agony and passing out. Then Mike tried screaming into Austin's mind. Nothing happened.

"COME ON! I hurt Lure and Kenny with my mind, so I know I can DO it! Why can't I do it NOW?" Mike mentally yelled at himself. "If I can't do it NOW, I'm......SHIT! I'M STARTING TO CUM! I'M OUT OF TIME!"

Mike considered fleeing, but since his approaching orgasm was "past the point of no return", it would mean trying to outrun Austin -who was considerably thinner and more physically fit- while Mike's legs were being turned to jelly by sexual release.

"Damn it, here I cum!" Mike panicked, experiencing a much higher level of enjoyment than usual...FAR higher. "Christ, I'm not even going to be able to STRAIGHTEN UP when I'm done climaxing, let alone RUN! I HATE this plan, but after I'm done ejaculating, I'm going to have to collapse on top of Austin and hold him down. My bulk is the only advantage I have."

But then...

"ARRRRGGHHHH!" Austin screamed in response to Mike's first squirt of cum, falling into his side and grabbing his legs in horror.

"What?!" Mike yelled, having no idea what was going on.

"POISON!!" Shard-Lecher accused out of Austin's screaming mouth as Mike, confused as hell, continued firing ropes of semen all over him. "Reality Itself make fat boy cum POISON!!"

Shard-Lecher appeared to take full control over Austin and tried to get him to his feet. He wasn't having any luck. From what Mike could tell, Austin was now paralyzed from the waist down.

Mike and Shard-Lecher reached for Mike's shorts, grabbing them at the same time and engaging in a tug-of-war. Shard-Lecher suddenly pulled HARD, yanking Austin's body close enough to Mike that he was able to grab Mike's wrists.

"I KILL HIM NOW, OVERSEER! HE DIES NOW!"

"He can do amazing things with Austin's body, but as far as I've observed, Austin still only has the strength of a normal human," Mike contemplated while rotating his wrists and yanking himself free.

Mike ran over to Austin's discarded clothes and despaired at the discovery that they didn't contain a cell phone. Without missing a beat, Mike grabbed Austin's shirt and sprinted for the exit.

"I'll run to the main road, cover myself with Austin's shirt, and flag down a car...HOPEFULLY before Austin's body recovers from WHATEVER HAPPENED BACK THERE and Shard-Lecher catches up to me ...with or WITHOUT that knife!"

"FIND YOU...ANTI-THRALL!!!" Shard-Lecher's scream echoed from far behind Mike. "KILL YOU GOOD!!!!"

"It didn't get me, Dad," Mike thought as he passed through the gate and tore through the parking lot. "It tried to swallow me, but it-

"Mike, please don't go!" Overseer's voice pleaded pitifully in Mike's mind.

"Overseer?! Did you do that to Austin?" Mike asked without slowing down in the slightest.

"No, that was you," Overseer breezed before getting back to his main concern. "Mike, please stop! Don't leave me here all alone with them!"

"I can't! I'm in DANGER here, Overseer! I've got Tom and Grant trying to bash my head in with baseball bats, and that 'Shard-Lecher' thing is trying to kill me because you won't fix him! And after what just happened with Austin, you've shown me that I can't depend on you to protect me!"

"I didn't fix Shard-Lecher, because I can't...not yet!" Overseer begged. "Mike...please stop leaving! I'm afraid!

"Yeah, me too! But I can be killed...you can't!"

"Mike, I'm not a ghost. I have a body, just like you, and bullets and knives can kill me just as they can kill you!"

"Well, YOU might not be a ghost, but Shard-Lecher said he has a whole SWARM of them, and they're probably standing next to me right now ...and screaming: 'Hey! Look! He's over here!'."

"Shard-Lecher abandoned Austin, who is still paralyzed. And as far as Shard-Lecher's 'ghosts' are concerned, they're not ghosts, they are remote points of view, duplicates of Shard-Lecher's consciousness that float around like drones and relay what they perceive. Sound familiar?"

Mike stopped and caught his breath while staring across the parking lot at the gate, keeping an eye out for any movement.

"You mean... when my eyes reach out..." Mike questioned, his desire for knowledge butting heads with his desire for safety.

"You can create remote points of view, just like Shard-Lecher."

"How? It keeps happening, but I can't make it happen!"

"I can teach you, ...if you stay with me until help arrives," Overseer proposed. "And before you ask, no, I cannot leave Ferret Forest."

"Why not?" Mike asked.

"Because I tried to use Shard-Lecher as a conduit to contact his other pieces ...to get them to order Shard-Lecher to leave you alone! It didn't work...they're so BROKEN! But I saw something INCREDIBLE in the mind of the primary Guile. Uh, I suppose I should explain what a Guile is-"

"How about telling me about the 'something incredible' first?" Mike suggested.

"A MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE, MIKE!" Overseer tantalized. "It's a HORRIFYING message, but that doesn't change the fact that it's A MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE, MIKE! Isn't that so EXCITING?"

"What did it say?" Mike couldn't help but ask despite being HIGHLY skeptical ...while still watching the interior of the park for movement.

"I translated as much of it as I could, and according to what I saw, unless I stay here and await my creator, TIMBERSBURG WILL BE DESTROYED BY MONSTERS NEXT AUGUST 17TH!"

Mike had no idea what to say to the childish ....the RIDICULOUS response. If Overseer hadn't saved him from Tom and Grant, Mike probably would've resumed running away from Ferret Forest.

"Who's your creator?" Mike asked innocently, deciding that if Overseer tried to avoid answering the question, Mike was OUTTA THERE!

"Maximus Morgan."

"MY GYM COACH CREATED YOU???" Mike gasped, his mind WRITING A FUCKING PAPER on all the reasons why ...if ANYONE in Timbersburg was connected to the supernatural... it would HAVE TO BE Coach Morgan!

"I'll explain once you come back inside, I promise. I'll tell you all about what Maximus Morgan IS! Mike, he's from a parallel dimension! And all the strange things that Shard-Lecher said to you? I understood it. I can explain it all to you! Mike, humans are NOT alone. Beings like Maximus Morgan and his people wander the Earth, each of them possessing the power to transform matter and manipulate energy on a TITANIC scale. Mike you NEED to hear the things I could tell you!"

"But if Shard-Lecher is all around me right now..." Mike fretted.

"When you incapacitated Austin, you also cloaked your body from Shard-Lecher's POVs. They're flying all around looking for you, but I can see that you're hidden from them. Austin can't see you either now."

"Can I make myself invisible to Tom and Grant?" Mike wanted to know.

"No."

"Then you're still asking me to risk my life in there, Overseer!" Mike pointed out.

"I know, Mike. I'm being selfish...just like Kenny. Fear makes the fearful selfish. However, I can offer you something in return: answers, the answers you didn't get when you fled the Bottleneck. And if that doesn't move you... Mike, you're naked from the waist down. Even if you turn Austin's shirt into a wrap when you reach the main road, the only ones who will give you a ride will be the police. And once that happens, I doubt that Austin Mitchell will corroborate your version of events...or admit that he was even here tonight. Your college plans might require some alterations ...and lowered expectations."

Mike's powerful desire to resume running from Ferret Forest stopped instantly. Overseer had found the correct button to push. Getting out of "The Most Homophobic City in The United States" was all that truly mattered to Mike.

"So...cum vampires from other dimension-" Mike mused humorlessly while looking over at the sign that had once read "Ferret Forest" before spray paint had been artlessly used to hatefully rebrand a place that had given Mike so many happy childhood memories.

"Mike, you're letting Shard-Lecher influence the way you're perceiving all of this," Overseer gently scolded. "Contrary to what HE thinks, Thralls -as they are properly referred to- are not 'the punchline to a fag joke' or 'something straight out of a cheesy gay porn'. Mocking something you don't understand is beneath someone of YOUR intellect, Mike."

"Fine, then educate me," Mike challenged. "Give me a rational explanation for why Lure and Shard-Lecher want semen."

"Only the first answer is free, Mike," Overseer negotiated. "I won't tell you the rest until you are deep inside of Ferret Forest."

"Until it swallows me whole, huh?" Mike sighed.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean, Mike," Overseer lied.

"Nothing," Mike dismissed before walking back toward the entrance gate.

"There is a special energy, Mike, the energy of life," Overseer began, holding up his end of the bargain. "It travels through space as a beam that goes from star to star, threading the galaxies together. Each star that is touched by the beam radiates some of its life energy outward on the solar wind, causing it to wash over the planets in that system, providing an essential component for the creation and development of all life. The energy is virtually impossible to capture, even for beings who can CONTROL energy, so another method needed to be developed to collect and process it. But I am getting ahead of myself. First, let me tell you about a race of spacefaring protoplasmic creatures from the other dimension. They had no name. They were simply called 'blobs'. They were a noble race of enlightened beings who spread knowledge throughout the entire..."

Lost in the information he was receiving, Mike passed through the gates...

...and Faggot Forest swallowed him whole.

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The Feeding Area. Robbie Byrne's Christmas Make-up Party

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Tobacco juice poured over Alex Thornn's lower lip and dripped down onto the head, shoulders, and upper back of the boy kneeling in front of him. Strangely, the crowd of naked men watching Alex had a lot to say about his inability to manage his dip spit while totally trashed, but less to say about the fact that he was getting head off of Robbie Byrne, a kid who the crowd mistakenly believed to be nine years-old. Alex didn't pay any attention to the taunts. The drug-induced mental euphoria he was experiencing, combined with the sexual pleasure he was receiving from Robbie's mouth, was putting Alex into a state of mind and body that was located somewhere between "bliss" and "zen".

"WIPE YOUR FUCKING MOUTH, YOU DROOLING 'TARD!" one of the spectators yelled, whipping a discarded shirt at Alex, who brainlessly laughed along with the crowd mocking him while wiping his face and Robbie's back, accidentally pulling his boner out of Robbie's mouth in the process.

"S'rry...m'sorry," Alex slurred horribly as he straightened up and drunkenly guided his cock back into Robbie's mouth. Afterward, Alex didn't look back up, instead becoming captivated by the sight of the boy's head endlessly surging forward and pulling back as Alex was made to feel Robbie's lips and tongue lovingly slide up and down his flesh-pole.

The ceaseless motion caused Alex to start to trip out a little.

"How's my son's mouth feel, Alex?" Craig Byrne, one of the higher-ups at the factory where Alex worked, inquired in a lascivious tone. His words snapped Alex out of his light trance and redirected his limited focus to Craig's naked, muscular body lying on a bed resembling an oversized slab of reddish-pink rubber, the same material that covered the ground. Two men were holding Craig's legs in the air while a third guy stood between his thick, spread thighs and fucked him rough and hard.

"Haaaawt 'n wheeeeet," Alex drunkenly drawled in response to Craig's query, affecting a distorted southern accent that didn't sound like it belonged ANYWHERE south of the Mason-Dixon line...or north of it...or any compass direction from it, actually.

"Alex, don't read too much into this, 'cause right now I'm kinda in a weird place ...mentally, I mean," Craig preambled, referring not to the drugged fog that was fucking up Alex and the rest of the men in the clearing, but to the temporary alterations to Craig's personality, which were increasing his sexual desires and flooding his mind with filthy thoughts.

"Yeah...yoo shoor arr," Alex chuckled while shaking his head, still in a state of disbelief at what Craig was allowing guys to do to him.

"...but I want you to know that it's making me feel good to see you all gooned-up, happy and relaxed. You're always so stressed out and miserable at work. Rutherford's is NOT a good fit for you."

"S'only...s'only job I c'n find," Alex lamented, making Craig angry at himself for bringing Alex down.

"I'll keep my eyes and ears open for any job openings I think you'd be a good candidate for," Craig offered, trying to salvage Alex's mood.

"Pre-shiate that, Craig. An...an don't worry, I won't say nuthin' 'bout tonight," Alex assured him with an adorable, wide-eyed nod, ...the innocence of his boyish face contrasting greatly with the brown juice dripping off of his whiskered chin, his nakedness, his vast collection of body art, and the fact that he was being sucked off by a thirteen year-old boy."

"I don't think anyone here's gonna be talkin' about tonight," the guy fucking Craig threatened. "Nobody that doesn't wanna get shot, anyway."

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," Burt Veribton muttered, although Reality Itself's undetectable videographer could not be heard.

Robbie stopped sucking Alex's dick and stood up to face the older young man. From Craig's perspective, it looked as though the two were kissing, but he quickly realized that his boy was blowing Ball Vapor into Alex's face ...and Alex was eagerly huffing it into his lungs. After a moment, Robbie hopped up onto the other side of Craig's fuck platform and laid down on his belly, carefully tucking his erect penis beneath him before reaching back and spreading his butt cheeks. Screened to everyone except Craig, an object that looked like a big worm -or a small snake- poked out through Robbie's butthole and hissed a thick mist, spray painting Robbie's pink boy-hole a green color. Craig was intimately familiar with the spray, having received several applications of it himself. It was a substance that made anuses and rectums more sexually sensitive, cock-responsive, slippery, and dexterous than a vagina could ever HOPE to be.

"Why'd you turn the other way?" Craig asked, confused by his son choosing to lie in the opposite direction, until he realized that Robbie had positioned himself to be able to turn to the left and look beneath Craig's right leg to get a close-up view of the various cocks whose owners were stepping up to fuck Robbie's father. Craig's question was further answered when Robbie's left hand reached over between Craig's uplifted legs and felt around, looking for his father's sex organs.

"Yeah, play with my junk," Alt. 4 Craig encouraged, making his child smile. "Make daddy happy. Move my shit all around."

"I used to try to touch you like this when we used to have tickle fights," Robbie reminisced while happily obliging his father. "You'd stop me and get all mad. Remember?"

"Uh-huh, I remember you doing that," Craig acknowledged, wondering what his boy was getting at ...besides Craig's penis, that is.

Robbie released his daddy's dick and engaged his fingers to "walk" and gather up Craig's slackened scrotum until Robbie literally had his father by the balls.

"You're never gonna be able to stop me from touching you ever again," Robbie promised coldly, his smile disappearing.

Craig suddenly reached over with his right hand and mischievously wiggled his finger into his son's freshly-sprayed asshole, which responded by going absolutely insane ...and dragging Robbie along for the ride.

"Duly noted," Craig informed his squealing, squirming, protesting child -letting the boy know that just because he had full sexual control over his father, that didn't mean Craig was totally helpless.

Craig stopped as Alex -coping badly with the combination of intoxication and sexual urgency he'd been inflicted with- stumbled up onto the platform, clumsily turned to face the proper direction, and crawled over top of Robbie's prone body, whose legs were spread as much as an inflexible boy of thirteen could separate them comfortably. Unable to help himself, Craig reached out and gave Alex's flesh-spike a firm squeeze, causing a glob of precum to form at Alex's pee hole and slowly drip down to Craig's forearm on a shiny gossamer strand. Seized by an uncontrollable desire to taste it, Craig quickly turned his head away and fired off a stream of tobacco juice over the edge of the platform before turning back and sliding his tongue over the enticing globule. Because of his dip, Craig didn't think he would be able to taste anything. He was wrong. Craig tasted EVERYTHING!

"The FUCK?" Craig thought in alarm as the full spectrum of electrifying flavors contained in Alex Thornn's precum suddenly overwhelmed him, and his five senses came ALIVE ...in ways specifically geared toward making Entangleds go crazy for the sights, sounds, tastes, touch, and various natural smells of the male physique.

"Jesus, you taste good," Craig informed Alex, who was too doped up to think of anything adult to say, so he just flashed Craig a brainless, dip-flecked smile that caused more brown saliva to pour over his lower lip and dribble from his chin, splattering onto Robbie's back.

"Yew still 'kay with thiz, Craig?" Alex drawled, awkwardly resting his upper body on Robbie while lifting his haunches and feverishly fumbling around with his cock and Robbie's ass cheeks, the Ball Vapor that Robbie had just blown at him making Alex VERY eager to establish a deep connection with the boy.

"My opinion doesn't matter," Craig informed Alex. "I can't stop Robbie from fucking anyone he-"

"I KNOW!" Robbie snapped, irritated that despite his clear demand for his dad to stop reminding him he was blameless for everything Robbie made him say or do, his dad still found sneaky ways to do it.

Alex lowered his hips, entering Robbie and sliding all the way up inside, until his pubes were mashed against Robbie's bum. The crowd noise was so loud that Craig shouldn't have been able to hear Alex's deep masculine groan or Robbie's higher-pitched, boyish whimper, but thanks to his Entangled hearing, both homosexual activity-related sounds were plainly audible.

"Welcome to the club, Mr. Thornn," Burt Veribton thought, unconscionably recording a man who'd been unwillingly drugged into having anal intercourse with a child. When Burt first started filming, his 'personal moral code' demanded that he only film the faces of Caleb Crandal and the cops who'd participated in the Timbersburg Rainbow Tavern raid. But after a while, Burt's unnoticeability emboldened him to the point that everyone in the clearing was fair game for his life-ruining camera ...proving that Burt's 'personal moral code' was bullshit.

Burt stood to Craig's left and filmed Alex Thornn as he proceeded to have sex with Craig's underage son, working his hips and making the child beneath him adopt the same overwhelmed and dreamy expression that Austin Mitchell had worn while getting his ass fucked.

As Alex continued to rut Robbie, the boy's left hand- which he'd used to successfully get his father hard- drifted further down and scissored the cock that was pumping Craig's hole.

"Yer killin' me, Buddy," Alt. 4 Craig chuckled in delight as his son tickled the skin around his cock-plugged asshole between each slam of Craig's lover's loins against his meaty ass.

"Hey, kid, you ...you shouldn't be doing that," Dr. Ralph Higginbotham informed Robbie, despite the drugs in his system that were making it impossible to focus or bring his unbridled sexuality urges back under control. "Get your hand away ....away...from.....*"

The man stopped talking and increased his fuck-tempo while bearing his teeth and unfocusing his eyes, telling everyone around him that he was about to climax. Pissed at being yelled at, Robbie changed his hand position, wrapping his thumb and index finger around the man's penis, so that he wasn't just fucking a father in front of the man's underage son, he was also fucking the son's hand. It wouldn't be the easiest thing for Doctor Ralph to live with, especially since it was being filmed with the intention of being distributed.

Burt Veribton heartlessly recorded the pediatrician's orgasm, which had -from the camera's view- been provoked by the touch of a child. Thousands would view the video and decide that although Ralph should be granted amnesty -just like the rest of the hostages in the clearing- he should not be permitted to practice pediatrics in the state, a view that would be shared by the medical boards of most other states as well. The man's life, personal and professional, would be ruined.

But that outcome was in the old timeline. Now that Temporal Certainty was no longer certain, all bets were off.

As Ralph pumped cum into the creature inside Craig's rectum, who had capped the tip of the good doctor's penis, Craig laid back and enjoyed the corresponding pleasure pulses designed to keep him docile and motionless until Ralph was done. Turning his head to the right, Craig derived satisfaction from the close-up, hypnotic view of Alex's hips, moving so seductively it almost appeared as if he were dancing on top of Robbie instead of fucking him. Instantly, Craig was assailed by the dizzying odors coming off of Alex's body ...the stench wafting off of his balls as his scrotum bounced up and down ...the stink of his cock, mixed with Robbie's anal juices ...the heady reek of his body odor, in spite of it being masked by failing, cheap deodorant ...and even the funk of Alex's ass, which was especially surprising to Craig, since he'd watched his son thoroughly lick it clean just a few minutes ago.

Although Craig was new to homosexuality, he'd been fucked by lots of men who were younger, more built, and far more handsome than Alex. However, Alex knew Craig, and for Alt. 4 Craig, the idea of defiling his friendship with Alex ...changing it into something far more sexual, intimate, and downright FILTHY ...was incredibly erotic.

"Robbie gets to have you tonight, Alex, but after that ...you're mine," Alt. 4 Craig thought with utter determination while massaging the erection that his son had manually forced upon him. "I know you like to get high in your car during your lunch break. Well, why not spend it in my office, instead? As long as you don't mind getting naked and sitting in my chair with your knees spread and my head in your lap for a couple minutes, I ain't got no problem with returning the favor by making you happy as hell and stupid as fuck for an hour while I do paperwork and eat my sandwich."

Alex, who'd been staring off into space while he fucked, suddenly turned and looked over his shoulder at Craig. His expression was slack and zombie-like, and dip juice was still dribbling out of his mouth, but the nod he gave Craig seemed lucid and purposeful, as if he'd heard Craig's thoughts.

"Excellent work, Craig!" the voice of Guile praised. "I relayed your offer to Mr. Thornn, and he has agreed to your terms! He's VERY excited about the deal ...as you will now witness.

Alex's fucking slowed down and became more forceful, and both he and Robbie started groaning at comically different pitches.

"NEEDED this," Alex grunted, pushing into Robbie's ass so hard that Craig stared in fascination at how, with each thrust, an amazingly large and deep hollow formed in Alex's left butt cheek.

Burt was filming Robbie's orgasm face while trying to avoid filming the orgasm face of the disgustingly scruffy, brown saliva-drooling, tattooed freak whose prominent Adam's apple was resting on Robbie's head. Burt was so into Robbie's erotic expression, which made him look young enough to sexually excite Burt, that he didn't realize that someone was approaching him from behind.

"Having fun?" Lecher asked.

Burt spun around, almost slamming into Craig's left leg attendant. When he got his bearings, he saw that Lecher had been talking to Robbie, not Burt. However, Guile was right next to the possessed body of Caleb Crandal, and HE was squinting RIGHT AT BURT!

"Uh-huh," Robbie acknowledged while basking in the pleasure pulses he was receiving in response to Alex's cum-squirts -more than making up for the fact that Alex was resting his full body weight on Robbie, crushing him. It was quite fortunate that small organisms full of air were crossing the dimensional barrier and materializing inside Robbie's lungs. Otherwise, he would've passed out.

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Burt moved around the platform to a safe distance, BUT GUILE'S EYES WERE FOLLOWING HIM! Worse, Burt realized that the Pit Fog in the immediate area was thickening.

"NO! He's packing the area with fog!" Burt thought. Burt had no idea if Guile would be able to notice him if the fog reached a certain density, BUT HE DIDN'T WANT TO FIND OUT! And to make matters worse, a few of the light bubbles were drifting down from the fog "ceiling", brightening as they approached, causing everyone to cast sharp shadows ...even Burt. He quickly darted into the crowd, narrowly avoiding leaving a footprint on the tongue mat, which Guile had momentarily adjusted to make it spongy and sticky.

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"What are you guys d-d-d-doing?" Robbie asked, shivering at the end of his question due to Alex -his penis drained and shriveled- abruptly pulling out and rolling onto his back to rest and enjoy his drug-enhanced afterglow.

"Well, first of all, we came over to stop your dad from jackin' off!" Lecher sidestepped, not wanting Robbie to know that Guile had once again sensed a strange presence ...this time standing RIGHT NEXT TO ROBBIE! "What's wrong with you, Lumberjack? Didn't your dad never tell you not to stroke it in public in front of your children??? Fathers should only masturbate in front of their kids IN PRIVATE, you sicko! Besides, that load doesn't belong to you! It's Robbie's!"

"The other reason we came over is because I want to show you something VERY special, Robbie," Guile tempted.

"What?"

"Do you remember that fantasy you told me about ...the one in which you catch your father masturbating, and blackmail him into letting you finish him off?"

"Well, yeah," Robbie said while reaching over and stroking his father's dick a couple of times. "But I can't do it now. I've already seen him naked ...jerked him ...watched him jerk... It would just be lame role-playing."

"No it wouldn't," Guile corrected. "It's time you learned about Alternate Personalities Five and Six!"

"What are those?" Robbie asked.

"Your two new favorite numbers," Lecher snickered.

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The Bottleneck

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"No...no...you're LYING!" Cynthia Keim accused the disembodied spirit inhabiting the body of a naked, racist, militia member.

Officer Tracy Rogers, Cynthia, the Steve Collier-Thrall and the Ryan Klein-Thrall had just learned that the spirit in question, "Shard", was the result of an Enthrallment gone horribly awry. A barrage of questions had bombarded him, but he decided to respond to Cynthia's inquiry first.

"I would never lie to you, Cynthia," Shard-Guile said solemnly, "and for a Guile -even a part of a Guile, like me- that's a special thing. I might have needed to keep things from you, but I've never lied to you ...and I never will. I consider you a friend."

"A 'friend'?" Cynthia objected, having no idea how to handle the situation at all ...which caused her to handle the situation badly. "I don't even know WHAT YOU ARE!"

"I'm someone who could really use a friend, Cynthia," Shard sighed before turning and glaring at the ghost of an emaciated young man in a tank top and athletic shorts. "I'm someone who's never known happiness or contentment, except when we exchange emails. By the way, when I told you I didn't think Jaden was cheating on you, I was understating. I know he isn't cheating on you. A piece of me follows him everywhere, and-"

"WAIT...STOP!" Cynthia shrieked, momentarily putting her hands over her ears to stop the THING she'd known as "Shattered Fourths" from adding MORE to the supernatural INSANITY swirling through her brain. "I NEED to focus on JAYCE right now! You're telling me that pieces of you sexually assaulted him and dragged him away to... to... TO DRUG HIM AND SUCKLE SEMEN FROM HIS PENIS ...but he woke up and decided to STAY....and do MORE drugs ....and give BLOWJOBS and offer his ass to STRANGERS?!?!?!?!"

"Jeez, when you put it THAT way..." Steve-Lecher, the ghost of a boy with a man bun, chuckled deviously.

"What other way is there to PUT it?!" Officer Rogers snapped indignantly.

"OH...you had just BETTER shut the fuck up, Tracy!" Shard-Guile hissed. "If ANYONE can relate to Jayce Harris wanting to submit to a chem sex gang bang, it's YOU!"

Shard-Guile ordered Shard-Lecher to make Russell Hawksmoor put his fingers on his temples and scrunch his face in concentration. Unlike movie telepaths, Shard-Guile didn't need to, but he wanted to scare Tracy by letting her know that he was doing something telepathic, something that she wouldn't like.

Four pairs of ghostly eyes slowly turned toward Tracy. The Guiles looked as though they'd sucked lemons, and the Lechers looked as if they'd swallowed canaries.

"Shard-Guile, please refrain from transmitting unsolicited memory packets unless they're related to Reality Itself or your Master," Steve-Guile, the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair, chastised. "And Officer Rogers? I believe that Dugan's Vroom Room and the modus operandi of Thralls are both now closed subjects. Also, I've just become the first Guile in history to require THERAPY, and I'm sending YOU the bill for it!"

"Whatever Shard -or Shard-GUILE- showed you, my private life is none of your goddamned business!" Tracy shouted. "And unlike all of YOU, I've NEVER done anything sexual with anyone AGAINST THEIR WILL, or with anyone incapable of GIVING CONSENT!"

"And until Ryan and I needed to SAVE A LIFE, NEITHER DID WE," Steve raged. "We may use Pit Fog to relax potential donors and cut down on their conditioned homophobia, but if they're still not interested, we leave them alone."

" 'CONDITIONED HOMOPHOBIA' ?" Tracy blurted, completely aghast. "It doesn't matter HOW an opinion is formed, once a person HAS IT, it's THEIRS, and you don't have the right to suppress it with drugs just to GET WHAT YOU WANT. Jesus, Steve, you think exactly like most of the guys I bust for sex crimes!"

"How many arrests have you conducted in bars, when a man tries to hook-up with a woman who's had a few too many? Or when an unattractive woman vamps a man who's 'opinion' has been 'suppressed' by a pair of beer goggles?" Ryan-Guile, the ghost of an emaciated boy in a tank top, inquired. "Or is this ANOTHER case of the 'Most Homophobic Police Force in the U.S.' from the 'Most Homophobic City in the U.S.' selectively enforcing the law with a heterosexist, anti-gay bias?"

"Oh for Christ's sake," Tracy groaned.

"Sex and drugs are linked in Tyler Whitlock's mind," Steve-Guile revealed, "Shard-Guile showed us the drug transactions you and he witnessed and participated in at Dugan's ...drug transactions that didn't end with you and Mr. Whitlock face down on the ground for hours, getting 'accidentally' kicked by police officers and having your wallets taken and returned with cash missing, all while being forced to pray with Officer Joseph Prender-"

"ENOUGH!!!" Cynthia suddenly screamed. "WE GET IT! TIMBERSBURG IS SWAMPED WITH INSTITUTIONALIZED HOMOPHOBIA AND SEXUAL PREDATORS, BOTH HUMAN AND VAMPIRE!" CAN WE GET BACK TO TALKING ABOUT MY BOYFRIEND'S STRAIGHT BROTHER ALLEGEDLY WANTING TO....RYAN! NO! GET AWAY! I DON'T WANT-!"

Ryan forced Cynthia into an embrace that shattered her resolve, unleashing a torrent of tears. Tracy angrily stepped forward to tell Ryan to back off, but a silver strand slid out of his ass and hovered in front of her face, implying that SHE was the one who needed to back off. Tracy was pissed, but she took solace in the jealous look on Shard-Guile's face.

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"Only pain," Shard-Lecher whispered to Shard-Guile, who wished that HE were the one consoling Cynthia.

"NEW and BETTER!" Shard-Guile angrily replied, more determined than ever to change his circumstances.

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"He's not lying, Cyn," Ryan whispered into her ear. "I hate the bastard, but what he's saying ...it all tracks. Jayce isn't straight, he's gay."

"But why would he...why would he stay?" Cynthia sobbed.

"He's been in denial for a long time," Ryan explained, continuing to whisper in spite of the fact that everyone except Tracy could hear him loud and clear, "Jayce is so invested in the guy he wants to be that he won't let himself be who he is. It happens. This'll sound crazy, but tonight ...well ...it might end up being a good thing for him."

"Ryan...what ARE you? What did you (sniff) DO to yourself?"

"It's complicated, Cyn," Ryan sighed, squeezing her even tighter. "So fucking complicated."

"Oh for FUCK'S sake!" Shard-Guile snapped, wanting to end the tender moment as harshly as possible. "No it's NOT! It's fucking SIMPLE! Cum contains the POWER OF LIFE! A 'being', a visitor from elsewhere, needs it to survive. He altered Ryan, giving him supernatural abilities that enable him to safely, stealthily and efficiently FIND it, ACCESS it, ACQUIRE it, ESCAPE with it, and PROCESS the energy out of it. In exchange, the transformation cured Ryan's terminal brain cancer. He has a Guile in his head to manage his mental powers and act as a handler. He also has a Lecher to manage his physical powers and act as a motivator. SIMPLE! Any questions?!"

"SEVERAL," Steve-Guile jumped in, angrily gripping the arms of his phantom wheelchair. "What is your game, Not-Quite-A-Guile? From the things you've revealed, you're obviously NOT here under Kaschak's orders, so...?"

Russell Hawksmoor's face crinkled in confusion.

"You're a FULL-Guile, and you SERIOUSLY haven't figured out-?"

"You OUTED one of our Master's THRALLS!" Steve-Guile snapped. "If you think he would actually POACH YOU after doing THAT, you are INCREDIBLY MISTAKEN, SHARD-GUILE! And even if he DID, as Thrall-Leader, I would refuse to accept you!"

"Wow! Fuck...ME!" Shard-Guile laughed out loud. "You ARROGANT piece of holographic SHIT! It's not bad enough that you domineered your Lure into playing SUPERMAN just so you can fulfill YOUR desire for FAME, but to steal HIS authority as Thrall-Leader is just-"

"NO HE HASN'T!" Steve objected.

"Really?!" Shard-Guile questioned in amazement at Steve's lack of perspective. "Your Guile was so angry about the way you buckled under to this COP that he let her PUSH YOU DOWN AN EMBANKMENT! Your Guile and Lecher are supposed to always PROTECT you, NOT set you up to be HARMED! PUNISHMENT is only meted out by your Master, someone ELSE I've observed Steve-Guile constantly undermine."

"Shard-Guile, that's enough," Steve-Guile hissed.

"GUILES WANT POWER, Steve, and he's been slowly stealing YOURS!" Shard-Guile continued undaunted. "Steve-Guile let you roll down that hill for the same reason he won't stop bitching about Dugan's, and it's NOT because he's trying to get you to be your own man. QUITE THE OPPOSITE! He did it to PUNISH you, Steve, ...punish you for DARING to let someone besides HIM control your actions!"

"Nice try at manipulating me, Shard-Guile, but the only Guile here who's trying to 'control my actions' right now......* "

Steve stopped speaking at the sight of Ryan moving his head to the other side of Cynthia's, thereby covering his face. Similarly, Ryan-Guile and Ryan-Lecher chose to divert THEIR eyes from Steve's as well.

"Steve Collier, allow this 'Almost-A-Guile' to tell you some things that this SNAKE ON A SKATE will try to stop you from hear-"

"Shard-Guile, this isn't about ME, it's about YOU, YOUR MASTER, AND REALITY ITSELF!" Steve-Guile interjected, accidentally proving Shard-Guile right.

"GUILE!" Steve snapped. "I want to hear what he has to say!"

"NO! He will say things to deceive you and turn our Thrall against ourselves! As the protector of your mind, I cannot-"

"Protector of his mind?" Tracy Rogers gasped in astonishment. "Do you even LISTEN TO YOURSELF, or do you already KNOW what you REALLY are ...what ALL Guiles really are?"

"I know what you're getting at, but Guile doesn't control me!" Steve asserted.

"Here we go," Ryan sighed, wishing Cynthia were taller so he could rest his weary head on her shoulder, "because we just didn't have enough shit to deal with."

"Then prove it, Steve Collier," Shard-Guile challenged. "Quit."

"Quit? In the middle of ALL THIS?" Steve scoffed, spreading his armored arms and looking around at all the shattered windows, the wrecked vehicles, and the fallen tree. "We're on the brink of NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON, and you think I should-?"

"NOT TONIGHT, Steve, ...TOMORROW!" Shard-Guile yelled to cut through Steve's bullshit, the bullshit his subconscious mind was using to protect Steve from an uncomfortable conversation, one that was fifty years overdue. "If you survive the night ...and live to the dawn...just QUIT. Take back your humanity ...reclaim your heterosexuality ...use your accumulated skills to become rich and famous ...have sex with lots of women ...finally mature into an adult ...settle down ...raise children ...make lots of happy memories ...and eventually die, like humans are supposed to do."

"I don't want that," Steve dismissed.

"What DO you want, then?" Shard-Guile posed. "From what I can tell, you became a cum vampire to get your legs back, and once you did, you spent HALF A CENTURY learning amazing skills, ...with absolutely no plan as to how you intended to put those skills to USE! And once Maximus Morgan gave you that suit to conceal, protect, and defend you from Master Kaschak and any Thralls he might send your way, your Guile and Lecher created The Creeping Vine to give you PURPOSE, while also serving their own respective needs for recognition and action, ...yet you've FOUGHT THEM every step of the way. So again, WHAT ...THE ...FUCK ...DOES ...STEVE ...WANT?"

Steve took a deep breath and straightened his posture.

"I want your Master dead, and I want my life to be exactly like it was before last March, before he ruined everything," Steve stated without hesitation. "I also want YOU to stop trying to make me feel stupid for not conforming to what YOU think 'humans are supposed to do'. I like being young forever, and I love feeling so good that I can't STAND it, and making lots of men feel the same way. And as for my 'skills', Shard-Guile, they're only HOBBIES, things I learned JUST BECAUSE I WANTED TO LEARN THEM! I'm not gonna ask to be Unenthralled just because you think I have to use them 'to become rich and famous'. I'm more than happy living on the tips and gifts my donors insist I accept from them."

"And what about that costume, Steve?" Shard-Guile continued to interrogate, determined to prove his point. "Thralls were meant to be forever naked, clothed only in illusion, but there you are, smothered in skin-tight black fabric with yellow metal covering your extremities and face ...with all your greenish tendrils looking nothing like "vines", rather that children attacked you with Silly String. And don't even get me STARTED on that ridiculous insignia, which looks like it was stolen from the window of a Chinese restaurant or purchased from the clearance section of the gawdiest party store on Earth."

"Fuck you, 'Some Re-assembly Required'!" the ghost of a boy with a man bun growled, sick of hearing people disrespect his alterations to Maximus Morgan's armor, especially someone trying to destroy Steve-Lecher's dreams by making Steve reconsider being The Creeping Vine.

"When tomorrow comes, if you live that long, there will be no need for you to wear that suit ...that suit you HATE!" Shard-Guile summarized. "Will you wear it still, tolerating the discomfort and embarrassment, or will you refuse and stop deferring to beings who were only ever meant to defer to YOU?"

Everyone stopped mumbling amongst themselves and awaited Steve's response ...however, Steve just crossed his arms and said nothing. Tracy, Cynthia, and Ryan couldn't see through the cloudy pink energy that concealed Steve's eyes, but the Guiles and Lechers could. Steve was looking down, obviously pondering Shard-Guile's words.

"I find it contradictory, Shard-Guile, that despite wanting to be a part of our family, you seem determined to destroy it ...as well as make enemies of us all," Ryan-Guile remarked.

"I'm just trying to be conversational," Shard-Guile revealed honestly, "but my Lecher is psychotic, and his bitterness and obsession with causing pain is bleeding through, affecting my mind. Our faulty Enthrallment caused us to be connected in a horrific way, you see, but I'll try my very best-est to be more polite and less mentally ill."

"The connection also rendered you psychic, apparently," Steve-Guile snarked, desiring payback. "How nice to know that after nearly a full calendar year, all of this hardship is scheduled to simply STOP 'tomorrow', by decree of HALF OF A GUILE!"

"I'm actually 73.1 percent of a Guile," Shard-Guile responded.

"Oh ...I stand corrected," Steve-Guile scoffed.

"Yes, but since KNOWLEDGE is POWER, that makes me a BILLION percent more powerful than YOU!" Shard-Guile growled back, deciding that he now hated Steve-Guile even MORE than Ryan-Guile.

"Dazzle me," Steve-Guile mocked.

"I will, and I'll do it without falling for your blatantly OBVIOUS attempt to change the subject away from you having successfully conditioned your Lure," Shard-Guile said while Shard-Lecher used Russell's right hand to give himself a cocky crotch grab. "First of all, Reality Itself blackmailed a pedophile named Burt Veribton into filming everything going on at my Thrall's feeding area. I would stop him, but Reality Itself rendered him utterly unnoticeable and undetectable, even to us."

Steve's armor started to hum.

"Steve, raise both arms eastward," Steve-Guile commanded. "Since Shard-Guile won't allow us to surveil his feeding area, I've broadened the E.M.P. beam to-"

"What are you DOING?!" Tracy Rogers suddenly shouted in astonishment.

"Relax, only TWO of the men in the clearing have pacemakers," Shard-Guile answered before Steve-Guile could. "Acceptable losses. Just kidding, I'm SURE that Steve-Guile, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF A GUILE, has somehow adjusted the Creeping Vine armor to fry Veribton's camera without killing those men."

"FUCK......YOU, YOU.....ABERRATION!!! YOU DEVIANT MONSTROSITY!!" Steve-Guile erupted, outraged at Shard-Guile for trying to strip him of his Lure, as he'd probably succeeded in doing to Ryan-Guile.

"Weren't you JUST lecturing ME about tolerance?" Officer Rogers pointed out, basking in the Guile hypocrisy.

"But getting back to 'dazzling' Steve-Guile: Reality Itself invaded my Lure's brain-section by hitchhiking on the mind of a newborn Entangled," Shard-Guile suddenly announced, causing all four phantoms to give Shard-Guile their FULL attention. "The intermingling of his temporal energies with the exotic energy channeling capabilities of a Thrall caused the formation of a mind-only time portal, one that the Overseer from a potential future harnessed and used to briefly contact my other half."

"Shatter, what are you even saying?" Cynthia asked, pushing Ryan away.

"QUIET!" Steve-Guile screamed at her before turning back to Russell Hawksmoor, who'd clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his lips to the sky, and started whistling what could only be described as suspenseful sci-fi background music. "WHAT DAY WAS IT ON THE OVERSEER'S END? WHAT DID THE OVERSEER SAY?"

"Before I give you that particular 'Guile intellectual FEAST', I'd like to take a moment to revisit the topic of you refusing to accept me into your family," Shard-Guile stated with a pleased grin.

Cynthia screamed and Tracy drew her borrowed handgun as a black figure materialized in the space separating the group.

"...THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" Ryan yelled at Steve-Guile after turning to his own Guile and receiving a head shake in response.

"Whatever the hell he wants, with no regard for anyone else," Tracy observed. "Just like the rest of you."

"Just like a Timbersburg cop!" Steve-Lecher remarked, "Careful, guys! She's buttering us up! I think she's going to try to recruit us! How are we gonna get gays to fuck us and let us suck their dicks once they find out we also have to raid their bars, face-plant them, kick them in the ribs, and refuse to properly investigate anti-gay murders?!"

"To answer your rude question, Ryan," Steve-Guile snapped, refocusing the conversation, "the .731 Guile has been EXTREMELY forthcoming with respect to his lack of respect for OUR Thralls, but he's been somewhat...shy, shall we say, about giving US the opportunity to judge HIS Thrall, particularly his Lure, who he prefers to remain anonymous. But thanks to a grateful, FORMERLY hearing-impaired man named Gary Orlinski, whose vehicle you are presently resting your ass against, we have this image of Shard-Guile's Lure, which we can color-correct, try to lift some of that hair off of his face without distorting the features beneath, and hopefully find out who we're dealing with."

"You mean you haven't figured THAT out yet, EITHER?" Shard-Guile scoffed in honest amazement. "Were either one of you 100 percent Guiles even LISTENING when I talked about Reality Itself's Kenny Miller Web? We're all trapped by coincidences and bound by connections, including one that you haven't even thought to question ...one that, on the face of it, makes no logical sense."

"Your connection to Cynthia!" Steve-Guile instantly realized.

Tracy Rogers -who'd been trying and failing to place the matte black face beneath the veil of stringy black hair- let out a surprised grunt that ordinarily would've caused her to feel embarrassed.

"My, Officer Pudroolen was correct," Shard-Guile noted. "Most of you cops HAVE had to deal with that mouthy prick at one time or another."

"CYNTHIA, CALL YOUR BOSS...NOW!" Tracy ordered.

Instead of reaching for her phone, Cynthia took a second look at the image and reached for her mouth, stifling a scream of horror.

"OH, ...you are so fucking SHITTING ME!" Ryan raged.

"Ryan, who is he?" Steve asked, oblivious to Ryan's personal life and the majority of the student body of Weyerhauser High.

"Caleb FUCKING Crandal!" Ryan snarled. "'Death Ray's' son from his first marriage. A fuckin' smug piece of shit who thinks he's better than everyone else 'cuz daddy's got money and he's 'connected'."

"Anything you wish to say to Ryan, Shard-Guile?" Steve-Guile taunted before Tracy was able to remind Ryan that his father was wealthy too, and before Cynthia could dispute Ryan's claim that her boss was 'connected'. "I mean, he just insulted your Lure. I believe you were saying something to Steve about how Guiles are supposed to protect their Lures."

"But I'm not a Guile, AM I?" Shard-Guile snapped, not bothering to turn his head in Steve-Guile's direction.

"But...he didn't sound anything like Caleb," Cynthia protested, unable to reconcile the image of her attacker with her boss's son.

"Thralls can shape-shift, slightly," Shard-Guile quickly explained to Cynthia before anyone else could, "We can change our eye color; make our lips thicker or thinner; grow a foreskin or remove it; make our hair longer or shorter, and change the style; alter our larynx to manipulate our voice..."

"Steve, I'm calling this in and arranging for Raymond Crandal to be taken into protective custody until Caleb is captured! Prove that you really ARE in charge of yourself by stopping your MIND PARASITE from destroying my radio!"

Russell Hawksmoor had a brief giggle fit.

"Tracy-kins, you might not want to be around when my Master comes down to the station to 'post Caleb's bond' ...if you catch my drift," Shard-Guile said with mock sweetness. "Thrall Master Ladislav Kaschak of the Tethered Ones used to be a celestial ambassador, but his time on your 'lovely' planet has made him a little less ...diplomatic. I suggest you leave the safety of Raymond Crandal and his other son, Parker, to me, where it's been since the newly-transformed Caleb Crandal woke up and immediately went completely berserk. I have a very big personal stake in preventing any part of my Thrall from killing anyone tonight, so you can rest assured-"

"You mean like how Caleb's OTHER Guile almost killed ME tonight?" Tracy growled.

"Ummmm ......oopsie?" Shard-Guile pretended to apologize with the utmost insincerity.

"What about when Guile was going to burn my face off?" Cynthia wondered.

"That was Caleb's Lecher, actually, and yeah, I'm really sorry about that," Shard-Guile apologized with ACTUAL sincerity. "I had trouble coming to my senses after Guile finally convinced those survival protocols to shut off, but I promise, MY Lecher would've handed Caleb-Lecher his ASS if he'd tried to burn you."

"The news of Caleb Crandal having undergone Enthrallment, one with a less than successful outcome, is yet MORE bad new that will displease someone greatly," Ryan-Guile remarked.

"Coach Max Morgan," Cynthia interjected while continuing to stare transfixed at the monster who'd attacked her, trying and failing to reconcile him and her boss's son as the same person. "I figured out that Coach Morgan is behind all of this when Officer Rogers told you that Reality Itself brought Ryan and Jayce here to get someone's attention. Ryan and Jayce only really have the 'Woodpeckers' in common. Also, Steve-Guile said Coach Morgan's name to Shatter a couple of times, and even though he 'muted' himself while doing it, I'm a good enough lip reader to know that the first and last name began with either a "B" ...or an "M", confirming my theory, at least to MY satisfaction.

"I should've been more cautious," Tracy lamented, worried that her sloppy secret-keeping might've put Cynthia in danger. "I underestimated you, even after reading your witness statement and being impressed by your deductive skills."

"I'm a young, pretty, blonde girl. I'm used to having my intelligence underestimated," Cynthia said proudly.

"Are you intelligent enough to know how dumb it was to let on that you know the identity of a secretive 'being who has absolute control over matter and energy'?" Officer Tracy Rogers snapped. "You KNEW they can't read female minds, yet you went ahead and told-

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Shard-Guile shouted, angry at Tracy for chastising Cynthia. "IF I GET WHAT I WANT, NOBODY'S SECRETS GET EXPOSED!"

"The Overseer?" Steve-Guile marveled. "THAT'S what this is all about? THAT'S why you outed Ryan? THAT'S your bargaining chip to get poached?"

"Uh....yeah," Shard-Guile acknowledged, sensing that he was about to receive some discouraging information. "I know his location. Once Master Morgan agrees to my terms, the Overseer can be retrieved and activated."

"What exactly does an 'Overseer' oversee?" Tracy inquired. "I gotta say ...NOT liking the name."

"The THRALL Overseer, to use its full name, is a telepathic entity that was designed to oversee, or rather supervise, every single Thrall on Earth, a job presently done by their creators, Master Morgan's people, the last members of a race that was hunted to the edge of extinction and sought refuge here, where they cling to this planet, and this dimension, while growing more and more depressed with every century, ...to the point that they can no longer perform a necessary life-sustaining duty, and require a Thrall Overseer to do it FOR them, despite the fact that by not interacting with ANYONE, not even their THRALLS, their despondency will only GROW," Steve-Guile explained.

"And if my Master gets ahold of the Overseer, he intends to-" Shard-Guile started to say.

"Could we please stop giving away trade secrets," Ryan-Guile interrupted, "Since the Overseer CANNOT be used to mind-wipe them away!"

"WHAT?" Tracy blurted.

"WHY NOT?! Shard-Guile shouted over Tracy, hoping that Ryan-Guile was merely lying to torment him, and not driving the final nail in Shard-Guile's hopes and dreams.

"Because THINK ABOUT IT! If Master Morgan activated the Overseer, what exactly could it DO with regards to Ladislav Kaschak?" Ryan-Guile explained. "Even if Master Morgan used the Overseer to seize control of the military personnel at the bases in Mawklynd City, what could bombs and missiles do against a GOD who controls matter and energy?"

"Two walking nukes, someone who can manipulate chance and the weather, three cum vampires, ....and now, something that controls minds," Tracy muttered. "This just keeps getting better and better."

"And besides, Master Morgan would NEVER try to solve this problem by involving humans," Ryan-Guile added, ignoring Tracy. "We've BEGGED for him to let us try to recruit. We could teleport Thrall-candidates into the compound, and Master Morgan could not just Enthrall them, he could ARMOR them. An entire ARMY of Creeping Vines, hammering away at Kaschak's Fingernail with specially-designed energy weapons, while also teleporting out of the way of his counterattacks. There would be considerable casualties, but victory might be possible."

"But he won't even give ME armor," Ryan grumbled.

"After you went rogue and tried to actually FIGHT Kaschak, a notion so RIDICULOUS that I don't even have WORDS FOR IT-" Steve-Guile began.

"I'm sure you'll find some," Ryan hissed.

Rather than complete his thought, Steve-Guile turned back to Shard-Guile.

"And So WHAT if you know the nascent Overseer's location?" Steve-Guile scoffed.

"Uh ...he could give it to Kaschak!" Steve pointed out.

"Shard-Guile is in the process of betraying Kaschak, Steve," Ryan-Guile explained. "If ordered to do so by Master Morgan, we Guiles and Lechers could turn over our memories of this discussion to Kaschak, who would then END the Caleb Crandal-Thrall for their attempted betrayal, EVEN IF they secure the Overseer for Kaschak. Therefore, we are all in a tenuous stalemate."

"If I may continue," Steve-Guile grumbled, "it doesn't matter if you know where the Overseer is right now, Shard-Guile, because most of the time, so do Ryan-Guile and I! Steve could've smuggled the Overseer into Master Morgan's compound at any time during the last few months, and Master Morgan could've activated him, but once he DID, and the Overseer was lost to Kaschak forever, what do you think your Master would have done in response?"

The ghost of a boy with a man bun brought his hands together and slowly separated them while making an explosion noise.

"My Master has been standing outside of your Master's compound for nothing," Shard-Guile muttered miserably. "Master Morgan never intended to attempt to reach the Overseer, because if the Overseer is never activated by Morgan, Timbersburg remains safe."

Shard-Guile entered into Hypertime to TRY to figure out how to salvage his plans.

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"SHIT! I got the impression that Morgan just couldn't GET to the Overseer, and his Thralls weren't able to retrieve him for some reason," Shard-Guile thought in Hypertime, "or he ordered the dormant Overseer to hide itself somewhere even Morgan couldn't find it."

"Without Overseer, we DIE soon," Shard-Lecher snarled. "maybe take rest of Thrall WITH us when we do!"

"Thank you for pointing that out, Lecher. That's very helpful," Shard-Guile sighed. "Now if you could leave me alone to think up a plan-"

"THIS IS PLAN: YOU GIVE ALL OUR POWERS TO SHARD-LECHER! SHARD-LECHER KILL BOTH THRALLS TO KEEP THEM QUIET! WE THROW RING AWAY AND PRETEND WE NOT TRY TO BETRAY MASTER KASCHAK! THEN DO WHAT OVERSEER TOLD CALEB-GUILE FROM BEGINNING, BEFORE SHARD-GUILE GOT STUPID IDEA TO GET INVOLVED!"

"So you not only think you can take out the two most powerful Thralls there have ever been, you also think you can outrace the meteorological fury of nature's assassin and reach Faggot Forest?" Shard-Guile asked.

"Shard-Lecher KNOW he can do it!!!"

Shard-Guile knew it too, which made him even MORE determined to negotiate a deal with Maximus Morgan in spite of Shard-Guile's biggest bargaining chip -the location of the Overseer- having been rendered useless. Shard-Lecher needed to be fixed and brought under control ...FAST!

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The Master Bedroom of Craig Byrne's Rented House

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It was the middle of the day, and Craig Byrne lay naked on top of his made bed, masturbating. It was hardly an unusual thing for Craig to do. As a divorced man who was still too shell-shocked to seriously date anyone, and only hooked-up every once in a while, Craig masturbated at least once a day, sometimes twice.

But this time was different. Craig's libido was out of control.

"Oh Gaaaaaaaaaaaawd," Craig groaned, suddenly seized by the overpowering need to release his penis and rub his hands all over his chest, belly and thighs, causing him to experience waves of sensuality that made him feel as if he were melting into the bed.

"What the hell is the matter with me?!" Craig wondered in a panic. "Am I in HEAT or something?"

Without thinking, Craig turned his head to the left and spat at the hardwood floor.

"When did I...? But I quit using...!" Craig's thoughts spiraled as he sat up and gazed at the small brown puddle on the hardwood floor.

Craig reached into his mouth and pulled out the remnants of the dip, having no memory of packing his lip with it. Before Craig could ponder the mystery, however, he was hit by another one of the surges of sexual arousal that had been plaguing him for the last few minutes. The FIERCENESS of it caused Craig to slam his shoulders back down onto the bed and grimace as if he were receiving a spinal tap.

"Jesus CHRIST!" Craig screamed at the intensity, arching his back and complying with a sudden need to pinch and rub his nipples. Stored up tension in his legs suddenly released, causing them to tremble so violently that the headboard repeatedly smacked into the wall.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?!?!" Craig yelled.

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Craig's dilemma had begun downstairs while he'd been washing dishes. Out of nowhere, the smell of heavily-used jockstraps filled his nose. Before Craig even had time to ponder the source, a wave of pure lust traveled throughout his body, compelling him to hastily shake the dishwater off of his hands, fumble with his belt, button, and fly, and then push his pants and underwear down to mid-thigh.

"Where the fuck did THIS come from?" Craig wondered of his powerful, unprovoked sexual arousal as he wiggled and massaged his limp penis with the fingers of his right hand while pulling his balls with his left. "I wasn't even thinking of anything."

In spite of what he was doing to himself, Craig fully anticipated that as long as he didn't start fantasizing, his libido would calm down, or at the very least, lessen enough for him to finish the dishes.

It did neither.

Craig watched his cock grow erect -almost painfully so- and despite his best efforts, he could not stop from stroking it.

"I guess I'm gonna have to take care of this," Craig decided, momentarily abandoning the dishes and heading to the downstairs powder room so that he could solve the problem by squirting it into the sink. However, he found himself changing course and running up the stairs to his bedroom instead, his rigid cock bouncing up and down all the way there. Once Craig arrived, he managed to kick off his shoes and take his pants and underwear the rest of the way off just before he smelled the reek of sweaty balls, heralding the approach of another wave of raw sexual desire.

"Fucking SHIT!" Craig bellowed, pulling his shirt off and flopping naked onto his bed -his large, muscular body making the springs scream in protest. Craig got his cock in a death grip and started fapping like crazy, but shortly thereafter, he found himself compelled to rub his hands all over his hairy, naked body while moaning like one of the many slutty girls he'd fucked over the years.

...leading to the present moment.

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"Gotta get RID of this!" Craig thought desperately, forcing himself to fight his desire to caress and massage himself and instead concentrate his frantic, unfocused sensuality on taking care of his cock. As enjoyable as the strange situation was, it was uncontrollable and alarmingly intense, and things that are uncontrollable and alarmingly intense usually end up with the recipient either dead or in the hospital.

"The hell?" Craig gasped, taking hold of his boner and discovering that it had somehow become slippery, VERY slippery.

"Fuck, I hope I don't end up in the emergency room over this," Craig muttered aloud while rubbing his inexplicably-frictionless cock. "If they test my blood, they're gonna find out I've been using-"

"Dad, what are you doing?"

Craig turned to see Robbie standing beside the bed, clad in a bright red shirt and faded orange shorts.

"Damn! I have Robbie this weekend!" Craig thought in horror, having completely forgotten about him. "Why didn't I close the fucking bedroom door and lock it??? AND WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I STOP STROKING MY COCK IN FRONT OF MY SON!"

"Buddy, you're thirteen, I think you know what I'm doing," Craig answered with forced calm, trying to normalize the situation as much as possible, as if walking in on their father while he was masturbating was just one of the many awkward adolescent experiences that a boy should expect to happen during their childhood.

"Yeah, I know. I do it all the time." Robbie confessed with far more casualness than Craig would've expected from his thirteen year-old son.

"Then you know how you would feel if I walked in on you while you were doing this, so how about giving your dad a little privacy, okay? We can talk about this later ...if you need to," Craig reluctantly offered.

"I'm gay," Robbie commented nonchalantly, walking closer to the bed. "I wouldn't care if you walked in on me."

Craig tried to process the news of his child's homosexuality, but he pushed it to the side. This wasn't the time. Besides, considering Robbie's years-long obsession with seeing Craig naked, it wasn't exactly as if Craig hadn't suspected it."

"Even if you're serious, and not just messing around, that doesn't mean you should be watching me do this! I'm your DAD, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!"

"Don't fucking yell at me," Robbie commanded.

Craig REALLY wanted to yell NOW, but as he opened his mouth to put his child in his place, all of Craig's anger drained away.

"Robbie, I won't yell at you, but I need you to go away and let me finish doing this in private," Craig calmly reasoned, feeling extremely self-conscious, especially now that he knew his son was gay. Had Robbie been straight, it would've been bad enough, with the awkwardness, the embarrassment, and the fear that Robbie might feel the need to tell the whole fucking world what he'd seen. Robbie's homosexuality amplified all of that ...as did the fact that while his gay kid was sexually objectifying him like a piece of meat, Craig couldn't stop BEATING his meat.

"But you WANT me to watch you," Robbie protested. "You're an exhitition ...exhibist... You're one of those guys who likes being naked in front of people ...and jerking off in front of them."

Craig opened his mouth to deny his son's assertion, but his mood and thought processes suddenly shifted, and all of Craig's discomfort evaporated. Out of nowhere, Craig experienced a wave of giddiness at what his son's eyes were watching him do ...and what they would be watching him do if Craig couldn't stop stroking himself before it happened. However, being stripped of shame doesn't mean that a man is stripped of his morality. Craig continued to fight himself, for all the good it did him.

"No, Robbie, I don't want you watching this," Craig lied. "And this has nothing to do with 'want'. You are my son, and you shouldn't be seeing me like this."

"I won't tell," Robbie informed Craig, making him cringe at the wording. "You know I'm not gonna tell anyone about this."

"That's not the point," Craig stated, wishing he could've SHOUTED it instead ...before being befuddled by an INCREDIBLE sense of relief out of nowhere, proving that it HAD mattered, it mattered a whole fucking lot.

Robbie didn't reply, and Craig had no idea what else he could say, so he just silently continued to choke his chicken, now secretly thrilled to be performing a very personal and private ritual in front of his child, who observed his daddy's demonstration with a wicked grin and a gleam in his eye, the products of Robbie realizing just how much control he now had over his dad.

"All of the adjustments you're making to your father right now could've been done prior to putting him into Alternate Personalities Five and Six," the voice of Guile taught in Robbie's mind. "Before you temporarily make him forget your shared sexual history (Alt 5) and temporarily restore his pre-Entanglement personality (Alt 6), tell him exactly how you want him to think, act, and behave during your 'scene' together ...then give his Entangled mind a moment to make the requested psychological adjustments and, if required, dose him with either Pit Fog or Ball Vapor. Should you ever read the manual I've placed in your mental desktop, I've listed all the changes you can make to your father's mind before engaging in sex play with him."

"Tell me some," Robbie requested while making Craig jolt and squirm by reaching down between his father's legs and fondling his wrinkled, bulbous sack ...and using his right hand to pet Craig's crimson pubes.

"Well, you can make him willing or resistant ...moral or immoral ...sober or intoxicated ...unaroused or horny ...terrified or unafraid ...submissive or dominant ...confident or full of self-doubt...serious or buffoonish ...depressed or excited ...quiet or chatty ...mentally organized or totally erratic ...or just simply confused ...or..."

As Guile went on, Robbie salivated at the thought of all the fun he would have with his father once he got him back to his real bedroom and Robbie was able to spend the rest of the evening and the next day happily fiddling around with all of his daddy's bells and whistles.

"Robbie, please stop touching me down there," Craig requested, deeply uncomfortable with feeling his child's hands above and below his penis, particularly since it was hard, and Craig was stroking it. "I'm about to ...you know ...and I don't want you touching me when my dick starts ...you know."

"You're not close," Robbie commanded, instantly causing Craig to experience a moderate drop in sexual arousal. "And you fucking LOVE it when I touch you 'down there'."

...and Craig suddenly did, removing another layer of his parental decency.

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"What the hell is Robbie doing, Guile? I thought he was gonna blackmail his dad...make him his BITCH!"

"It seems that Robbie has changed his mind. For years, Craig frustrated Robbie by refusing to even let his son see him naked. There were walls between Robbie and what he wanted, so now that Robbie has full control over his father, he's tearing those walls down, one by one, to experiment to see what it would've taken to get his pre-Entanglement father to crack and consent to allowing Robbie to see and touch him sexually."

"Really? 'Cuz I thought he was 'experimenting' to find out what it takes to BORE A LECHER TO DEATH!"

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"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Craig cried out as the illusion of his bedroom disappeared and he found himself in the center of a circle of naked, sexually aroused strangers. "WHAT THE FUCK'S HAPPENING?! WHERE AM-?"

Craig felt his chest involuntarily inflate with cool air that he hadn't felt flowing into either his nose or mouth. Instantly, a numbing calm washed through his body and he was overpowered by unsolicited peace of mind.

All was right with the world, despite NOTHING BEING RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

Craig still had many questions, but none seemed important anymore, so he let them go. Instead, Craig serenely continued to masturbate while eagerly scanning the crowd to see just how many eyes were watching him do it.

"Why is Ray Crandal's piece of shit son talking to my kid?" Craig wondered dimly.

"So where are you going with this, Cop-Sucker?" Lecher grumbled. "Things are grinding to a halt here."

"I dunno. I was thinking about...maybe...I'm not sure...." Robbie fumbled. "I kind of want to try...something....but I dunno..."

"Guile? What the hell is the kid being weird about?"

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"If you must know, I'm also making Robbie sexually versatile. He doesn't like to fuck, but soon he will...," (Chapter 7)

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"Because of the adjustments I made to Robbie's psyche with the plum tendril, he's been growing more and more interested in the idea of fucking his father. He's been suppressing it, though."

"Why?" Lecher gasped, the very CONCEPT of suppressing sexual desire being completely foreign to him. "He could've cut in line and boned his daddy TWO OR THREE TIMES by now."

"Yes, but sloppy seconds -or in this case, sloppy fifty-seconds- wasn't all that appealing to the boy. It was only after Robbie learned that he could use Alt-5 and Alt-6 to restore Craig's anal virginity and old personality, respectively, that he became obsessed with the idea of topping his father."

"Okay, so what's the problem?" Lecher wanted to know.

"The problem is the OCEAN OF DIFFERENCE between a boy forcing his heterosexual father to fuck him....and a boy forcing his heterosexual father to BE fucked BY him," Guile pointed out. "It would seem that Robbie does have some scruples. However, I have a solution. When we drugged Jayce Harris into a state of absolute euphoria and intense sexual arousal, Craig couldn't take his eyes off of the boy. Craig tried to disguise it as disgust over what we'd done to Jayce, but it was not. According to his thoughts, Craig wasn't disgusted ...he was envious ...DEEPLY envious."

"Well, he IS a junkie, so....."

"True, but it goes FAR beyond that. Craig is so pleasure obsessed that he BARELY managed to keep it together and refuse to allow us to Churn Robbie. He DESPERATELY wanted to know what Jayce was experiencing."

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"Oh God," Craig whined mentally in response to Jayce's fevered groans, "I can't fucking TAKE much more of this!" (Chapter 6)

Jayce's shameless reactions to the pleasure caused by the drugs in his body and the finger up his ass had Craig on the verge of mental collapse. As straight as he was, and as much as he hated Lecher, if Robbie were safe at home at that moment, Craig knew damned well that he'd be tearing his clothes off, lying down, pulling his knees to his chest, and presenting his ass to Lecher, as long as the vampires agreed to make him feel the way that they were making Jayce feel. (Chapter 6)

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"In fact, Lecher, I am convinced that if the erroneous rules I was playing by at the time had allowed me to ply Craig with Pit Fog, I could've SHATTERED his resolve! He would've not only allowed us to Churn Robbie, he would've allowed us to Churn HIM, TOO ....while his child WATCHED! 'Pleasure' is the answer to Robbie's query regarding what it would've taken to get his father to stop covering up. With enough of it, Robbie could've twisted his father into letting him satisfy his prepubescent curiosity about male sexual development by allowing Robbie to manually explore his adult genitalia. Robbie could've even gotten his father to take him into the bathroom or bedroom to demonstrate what he is demonstrating right now. I'm certain of it!"

"As the only one of us who's actually experienced pleasure, I think you're reaching, Guile. Pleasure, no matter how powerful, ain't enough to make a decent guy mess around with kids. The guy would have to be a congressional Republican, a right wing church leader, or some other kind of sicko to start with."

"Since you doubt my theory, I will have to prove that I am right," Guile exclaimed boastfully.

"No, you don't have to. I agree. You're right," Lecher conceded, needling Guile as only Lecher could. "You don't have to prove it."

"I WILL ANYWAY," Guile snarled, defiantly accepting a challenge that hadn't been issued, as Guiles always do.

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Robbie reached toward his father's pumping fist.

"Dad, let ME do it," Robbie commanded.

"Robbie, seriously, what's the hell's going on?" Craig asked -since he couldn't yell at Robbie- while unwillingly relinquishing control over his cock to his child. "Will you at least tell me if I'm in danger right now? Am I going to be ass-fucked? beaten? killed? Do you hate me THAT much?"

Robbie didn't respond. Instead, he wrapped his hand around his father's erection. Craig gritted his teeth and contorted his face into a pained expression, not because it hurt, but because it really, really DIDN'T ...and Craig didn't want Robbie or anyone watching to know that.

"Jesus CHRIST!" Craig yelped internally. "What the FUCK?! Why does it...feel so good?! Something's wrong with me! Something's REALLY wrong with me! He's just fucking HOLDING it! WHY DOES IT FEEL SO GOOD?! SHIT...if he starts STROKING it, I'm not gonna be able to TAKE-!"

Robbie started stroking it.

"Oh God...oh God...oh God," Craig thought, his mind so utterly blown by how his son was making him feel that he didn't even hear the spectators laughing at the feigned look of indignation on Craig's face, which was being undermined by the fact that Craig was compulsively working his hips in an unconscious effort to gain some control over the situation and assert his heterosexual masculinity by actively fucking his child's hand instead of passively allowing his boy to jack him off.

"just relax and enjoy it, Craig," Lecher grumbled. "No one's here is gonna-"

"I was talking to my SON, not YOU, CA-" Craig yelled at the boy he recognized as Caleb Crandal, trying to use anger to overcome the taboo sexual pleasure that was being inflicted upon him. But before Craig could say Caleb Crandal's name and risk waking him prematurely from his coma, cool air filled his lungs, even though he hadn't inhaled. Robbie stared in amusement as his father's eyes brightened and unfocused, and his lips separated, leaving his mouth hanging open.

"Dad?" Robbie asked while continuing to glide his hand up and down his fathers penis.

Craig was too far gone to answer.

"Hey, GUILE, I thought he had to stay sober!" Lecher objected.

"He IS sober, completely. I'm just dosing him with raw pleasure to prove my theory," Guile explained.

"But...the piece of Craig that's inside Lure's mind-"

"...is completely unaffected by the Pit Fog I'm using to pleasure THIS part of Craig," Guile assured. "After some trial and error, I've managed to completely separate the two Craigs until they recombine."

"You haven't gotten any recent updates about what's going on in there, have you?" Lecher blurted hopefully.

"Yes. Everything is falling apart and death looms for the both of us," Guile sighed.

"AND...???" Lecher yelled. "You have to give me more details than THAT!!!"

"Oh, I don't actually know what's going on in there, I was merely making a guess based upon how things have gone up until now. As soon as the part of me that's inside of our Lure's mind sends out another POV to update me, I will let you know."

"Thanks, Asshole," Lecher grumbled.

Craig began to snicker, drawing Guile and Lecher's attention.

"Why'd you guys fuck Dad up so much?" Robbie giggled -delighted by his dad's delight- as he continued waxing his father's dolphin.

"Guile's trying to prove something. He's saying your dad isn't fucked up, just feeling no pain, but I think Guile's cheating so he can be right," Lecher claimed.

"I am not cheating," Guile hissed. "Robbie, I am trying to prove to Lecher that if you had been Entangled when you were younger..."

Lecher shuddered at the thought of what his Thrall's internal monitors would have done to him if he'd Entangled a boy even younger than thirteen.

"...you would've been able to use Pit Fog to pleasure your father so much that if your hand had 'drifted' up his shorts during one of your tickle fights, not only would he have made no effort to resist, you would've discovered that he wasn't wearing any underwear.

"I don't...think he...would've..." Robbie stammered, knowing just how guarded and modest his father was before Lecher 'loosened him up'.

"Guile's right," Lecher informed Robbie with a sinister lilt. "Please tell him nicely that you think he's right, too, so he doesn't feel as though he has to PROVE that he's right."

"SHUT UP," Guile snapped, utterly unamused, "...and I AM right!"

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"Hey, Red! Your boy giving you a happy ending?" asked a man with a beard and mustache that were trimmed far better than Craig's.

"Yep!" Craig replied after a moment. At first he wasn't going to respond, because doing so would've established that he was a willing participant in what his son was doing to him. Also, the man's question was obviously meant to demean him. Finally, and most importantly, there was a guy kneeling in front of the man, performing oral sex on him. An authentic-looking police hat was lying on the ground next to the cocksucker. In fact, there were several men and boys, with and without police hats, blowing members of the audience. However, Robbie and whatever drugs were in Craig's system had him feeling so good that he didn't care about any of that ...or anything at all.

And then Craig felt something squirming around in his colon.

"THERE'S SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME!" Craig yowled, hopping off of the rubbery platform and grabbing his ass, to the amusement of all. "ROBBIE! WHAT DID THEY P-AAAAACCCK!"

Craig had forgotten that he'd been ordered not to yell at Robbie.

"Get back on the table and pull your knees to your chest," Robbie ordered.

"IT'S SPRAYING SOMETHING IN ME!" Craig yelled at Caleb Crandal -since he couldn't yell at Robbie.

"Calm down, Dad!" Robbie instructed his father, who sat down on the fuck-platform, rolled back, and pulled his knees to his chest as he'd been told.

"You lose your keys?" Lecher joked when Robbie buried his hands in Craig's hairy, beefy ass and pulled his cheeks apart, exposing his father's asshole.

Robbie leaned down and inhaled deeply.

"When you get home, spend a couple of minutes sniffing your daddy's junk," Lecher suggested. "You'll be able to remember his scent and track him for miles, like a bloodhound."

Robbie crinkled his nose ...at Lecher's remark, not the smell of his father's ass. For some reason, Robbie LOVED the heady mixture of sweat, shit, and funk that was wafting from his father's crack.

"That wasn't funny."

"That's good, 'cuz I wasn't joking," Lecher pointed out. "Now stick out your tongue and lick your daddy's pink before a tentacle pushes through his pucker and paints it green."

Robbie leaned over and slid his tongue across his father's splayed asshole. Afterward he went to straighten up, but only made it about halfway before he leaned back down and had a second taste ...and a third.

"Robbie, please," Craig whimpered, which was weird coming from a man his size. "I don't like this. I really don't like this."

"Tell me the TRUTH," Robbie quickly blurted between slurps.

Craig struggled with himself for a moment.

"I...I like it...I fucking looooove it," Craig groaned in spite of himself. "But that not the point, Son. You can't be-UUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

The spray took effect, and Craig suddenly began breathing like he was practicing Lamaze, which amused Lecher immensely given the birthing position of Craig's body.

"Looks like your boy's a great kisser," the irritating man with the neatly trimmed facial hair commented. "Izzy slipping you the tongue?"

Truth be told, now that Craig's asshole was opening and closing from the spray, Robbie WAS slipping his dad the tongue. Robbie was completely unable to pull himself away from his father's tasty hole, especially now that his dad's anus was kissing him BACK!

"Time's up!" Lecher called, pulling Robbie back. As soon as he did, a tiny tentacle poked out of Craig's pulsating asshole, turned back on itself, and sprayed in a circle, turning Craig's asshole green. Then it blooped back inside and the critter it was attached to disappeared across the dimensional barrier to its home deep within the enormous creature named Caboose.

Craig lowered his legs and sat on the edge of the platform, a move designed to shield his asshole so that the men surrounding him didn't get any ideas.

"Get control!" Craig chastised himself, flexing his sphincter in a useless attempt to stop it from going nuts, and concentrating to fight the growing hunger in his bowels.

"I never wanted to rim before, because I thought it was gross!" Robbie commented to Lecher, ignoring his father's plight. "But it's fucking AWESOME! I'm gonna lick my dad's asshole all the fucking TIME! You guys DID something to me, DIDN'T you?! NOBODY likes licking ass as much as I just did!"

"Your senses of smell and taste are becoming much sharper, but only for the distinct odors and flavors produced by the male body," Guile revealed. "They will intrigue you, intoxicate you, and trigger you sexually ...and none of them will ever disgust you, even body odor. Soon you will even start to detect male sex pheromones, which humans ordinarily cannot, and their effect upon you will be ...rather profound."

"That's messed up," Robbie opined while catching random whiffs of his father's breath, feet, balls, and armpits. But oddly, he couldn't smell his father's deodorant, mouthwash, cologne, or any of the unnatural scents meant to block the odors that Robbie now found to be so alluring.

"HEY!" Robbie shouted angrily as a blob of peach-colored goop hit him in the face.

"You got something on your nose," Lecher snickered while retracting the peach tendril, "and on your chin...and your lips."

"Thanks!" Robbie snarled while trying to wipe off the peach goop, only to end up unintentionally washing his face.

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"Gotta control this," Craig grumbled in his mind. "I can fight this! Not gonna take a cock up my ass...not in front of Robbie...or EVER! I just have to get control and......WHAT? NO!"

All of Craig's pleasure vanished in an instant.

"NO! BRING IT BACK!" Craig begged. "Am I supposed to let someone fuck me? Is THAT what you want? Because I WILL IF YOU MAKE ME FEEL GOOD AGAIN!!!"

"Good evening, Craig," something said in Craig's mind.

"WHO SAID THAT?"

"I hate reintroductions, and the exposition that must follow, so please switch to Alternate Personality Six .....WITH ALL OF YOUR MEMORIES RESTORED!"

Craig shook his head violently, trying to clear the swirling thoughts, as he reverted to the person he had been before Lecher Entangled him.

"................"

"Nothing to say, Craig?" Guile asked. "Odd, I expected screaming, crying, or begging. I can honestly say that 'the quiet treatment' wasn't on my list."

"I can't.....c-c-concentrate," Craig finally replied. "The green shit, it's making me..."

The anal urgency stopped.

"There you go. Happy? Now please...proceed. Berate me at your pleasure," Guile urged with a strategic emphasis on the word 'pleasure'.

"Look...I don't have anything to say," Craig floundered. "Could you just...make me do whatever you......WITHOUT talking to me? You WON ......congratulations."

"Yes, I did win, didn't I?" Guile gloated. "Guiles LOVE to win, and I certainly did win out over you, didn't I?"

"Yep," Craig thought at Guile dispassionately. "Big win."

"But now I get to use you to win AGAIN!" Guile cried out excitedly.

"How?!" Craig asked, suddenly very concerned about whatever Guile was up to.

"By offering to Unentangle you," Guile said, his voice as sweet as honey.

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Inside The Mind of Caleb Crandal

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The moon came out from behind a cloud and cast it's pale light onto the bloody, gore-filled waters of Manjinankton Lake.

Despite the parade of party boats cruising the other side of the lake, the surface was unearthly flat. It was an impossibility, but it made perfect sense in the strange mental-made-physical, patchwork psychic landscape, since in spite of existing within the same lake, the two waters were separated by five months of time.

An arm broke through the surface. Unlike the other arms in the lake, this one was large, muscular, and still attached to its owner.

"NO!" Craig screamed as his head rose above the water, only for the life-saving maroon air tube surrounding his lips to suddenly detach from his face and get yanked down into the depths to rejoin the memory of its suicidal owner.

Craig had been counting on using it to help revive Kenny.

"I GOT HIM!" Craig yelled toward the dock two hundred feet away, where a portly older gentleman and a skinny, elderly bastard were getting out of a rowboat to meet with a zombie wearing a black robe.

Guile made no effort to help Ruby Nash or Andrew Miller up onto the dock, whose planks were slick with blood. Ruby was a ghost, after all, and couldn't be touched. And Andrew Miller was actually Reality Itself, a powerful being who'd been fucking with Guile all evening, so Guile didn't give a shit if he fell on his rickety ass or not.

"CRAIG, TRY TO RESUSCITATE KENNY," Ruby shouted back, "BUT KEEP HIM OUT THERE! STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE....DON'T COME ANY CLOSER...AND DON'T BOTHER US AGAIN!"

"Mr. Nash, I think you should've put on an N95 mask before getting into that rowboat with Reality Itself," Guile opined, worried that Ruby would RUIN the Overseer's plan by allowing Kenny to die. "I think you may have contracted his disregard for human life."

"Protecting the life of this biosphere is the reason I exist!" Andrew Miller spat with venom. "Caring for human life is my whole damned PURPOSE!"

"In theory, but I've recently had cause to audit Craig's thoughts, and I learned about your intentions regarding homosexuals," Guile disputed. "You SAY you care about life, but you sure as hell don't care about LIVES! But getting back to the topic at hand....Ruby, why are you risking Kenny Miller's life by having Craig attempt to resuscitate him OUT THERE?!"

"Yes, Rudolph, why ARE you afraid of Kenneth Miller being brought here ...to ME?" Reality Itself grumbled, making the situation all about himself. "I heard you say that you have knowledge of the future...

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"Ruby, do you know-?" Guile yelled over to the rowboat.

"I don't foresee how you rescue Craig, but I know for a fact that you DO!" Ruby informed Guile as quickly as possible. (Chapter 12)

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...so enlighten me, Rudolph. What would the boy tell me?"

"Most likely, he would tell you to stop wearing his grandfather's face and then completely lose control, punching you repeatedly, just like he did a little while ago ...from his perspective," Ruby disclosed sadly.

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"You're not him!!" Kenny screamed, going absolutely nuts with rage. "Stop wearing my grandpa's face!!!" (Chapter 7)

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"Are you saying that there's a possibility that I might meet the Kenneth Miller from THIS time period at some point tonight?" Andrew scoffed contemptuously. "Impossible! He's at Faggot Forest! We CAN'T meet. We aren't supposed to meet at ANY point before Tom Daggen shoots and kills him!"

"You and he weren't supposed to meet, but thanks to Temporal Uncertainty throwing time for a loop -so to speak- I have little doubt that in a few hours, Kenny Miller will have the severe misfortune of standing in the presence of the heartless bastard who not only murdered his grandfather, but also set HIM up to be murdered as well."

"Ruby, if the drowned Kenny with Craig is the only Kenny Miller variant who managed to survive whatever happened at Faggot Forest, might we be a little more zealous about saving him?" Guile suggested nervously, not wanting to risk enraging the Overseer, who would be performing delicate psychic surgery on Guile's Thrall. Guile wanted the absolute BEST-EST outcome possible, so Guile was VERY eager to earn as much of the Overseer's goodwill as he could, which meant SAVING KENNY FUCKING MILLER, JUST LIKE THE OVERSEER ASKED HIM TO!!!!"

"He'll be fine, Guile," Ruby dismissed with a bizarre amount of surety. "I know for a FACT that Craig resuscitates Kenny, just as I knew that if you chose to save Craig from drowning, you would succeed. I also know that you use your influence over Caleb's mind-"

"IF we could refrain from saying his name..." Guile cautioned nervously. "...especially since we're in his mind. None of us would benefit should he awaken from his coma prematurely."

"Sorry. Please use your influence to keep all blood and body parts away from Kenny. And I know that Entangleds have superhuman senses-"

"They have only TWO superhuman senses, smell and taste, which are geared solely toward those that are produced by the male body," Guile contradicted. "Since the dead do not store Soul-Creation Energy -nor can they ejaculate, for that matter- Kenny will only be able to smell the blood, gore, and decay at the same intensity of a normal human."

"Uh, thanks for the clarification," Ruby muttered politely. "Be that as it may, if Kenny sees or smells what's in the lake with him, or if he sees or hears Reality Itself... regardless of whether he does so at normal or superhuman levels..."

"I am altering the environment directly around Kenny to either inhibit or distort all five of his senses."

"Much appreciated," Ruby acknowledged.

"Prove it," Guile demanded, eager to have the favor returned. "Explain the source of your sudden omniscience. Unless, of course, you don't want Reality Itself to know."

"Now that your future-self ruined the Overseer's plan, it doesn't matter WHAT Andrew knows," Ruby said pointedly before shifting gears. "The reason I know what happens to Kenny ...and what happened to Kenny Miller at Ferret Forest, too.. is because -and I apologize in advance if my explanation is hard to follow, but-"

"I am a Guile, human," the irritated zombie snapped while adjusting his bathrobe, "Your brain is incapable of laying out a concept so poorly that I am unable to grasp its meaning with ease."

Ruby gave Guile a wry smile.

"Let's test that, shall we?" Ruby challenged. "The Overseer reached back in time to change the future! He accounted for all of the variables and achieved Temporal Certainty, but then your future-self screwed that up by introducing an unexpected variable, so now the future is back to being a bunch of different possibilities! HOWEVER-"

Guile and Reality Itself glanced at one another, exchanging frustrated and tired looks at Ruby's sudden, loud theatricality.

"...I am FROM the future, which is actually my PAST, so now the last five days of my life have been rendered uncertain, too! As a result, I have experienced INFINITE five day blocks of time, each one corresponding to one of these dead Kenny Millers -and the live one- floating in this lake. I have seen the entire multiverse, at least the section of it that began with the Temporal Uncertainty event and ended ...WILL end, rather... with the moment the Overseer copied ...WILL copy, rather...my memories into this memory phantom."

"I am having trouble grasping the concept," Guile reluctantly admitted.

"Explain it to him again, Rudolph, but with even MORE gesticulating. And emphasize and stretch out your esses. That should help." Reality Itself suggested hatefully.

"Actually, the problem I am having is with the fact that Craig overheard you two talking, which means I overheard you two talking," Guile explained. "We all know that Reality Itself intends to have the Overseer killed...

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If Tom Daggen fails to kill the Overseer, Kaschak will get his hands on him and use the Overseer to endanger ALL LIFE on your precious biosphere! Get the Overseer BACK to Morgan, who you KNOW will only use him responsibly. (Ruby's appeal to Reality Itself, Chapter 10)

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...and he probably succeeds in at least SOME of the alternate futures you've experienced, which means THOSE Overseer variants wouldn't have survived to be able to contact you, show you what happened at Faggot Forest, and send your memories HERE to contribute to your multiversal knowledge of the next five days. Therefore, you shouldn't know anything that occurred in any timeline in which the Overseer was killed at Faggot Forest."

Reality Itself let out a grumbling sigh and turned toward Guile.

"So much for keeping you away from Faggot Forest NOW!" Andrew lamented.

"Yes, now that I know you were trying to keep me away from Faggot Forest so I wouldn't interfere with your plot to have Tom Daggen kill the only being in existence who can fix my Thrall, ...yes, I agree, 'so much for keeping me away from Faggot Forest'."

"If you even try to go there, I'll fucking DROP YOU before you have time to flap those laughable trash bag wings of yours even ONCE!"

"Guile, to answer your question, the future Overseer was affected by the Temporal Uncertainty too. It mentally connected him with all of his other variants, giving him access to their experiences at Ferret Forest up until their deaths ...which he, in turn, transferred to me," Ruby summed up before turning to Andrew. "And just so you know, when the Caleb-Thrall goes to Ferret Forest to retrieve the Overseer for Ladislav Kaschak they won't be using those 'laughable trash bags wings' to fly there. They'll use an entirely new and better set of wings, meticulously designed for SPEED and AERIAL AGILITY."

"Ummm.... according to Alexa, I don't have any pending Amazon orders," Guile commented, wondering what the hell Ruby was even TALKING ABOUT. "May I ask from where I procure these wonderous wings and learn how to use them before I'm supposed to depart for my 10:25pm appointment at Faggot Forest, Clearing 37?"

"The shards decided to get involved, did they?" the old man growled. "They weren't supposed to. Damn. If only I'd foreseen that possibility and prepared for them."

"Hold up! 'The shards?' Is one of them AGENT Shard?" Guile blurted, horrified -as any Guile WOULD be- to learn that he was the least informed of the group about an important topic. Or infinitely WORSE, Guile might have stupidly allowed himself to have been MISinformed!

"Your PRE-Temporal Uncertainty countermeasures against the shards, whatever they were, failed in this POST-Temporal Uncertainty world, Andrew," Ruby gloated with satisfaction as he prepared to give Reality Itself terrible news. "Ladislav Kaschak gave them the go-ahead to set their big plan in motion TONIGHT! Maximus Morgan's compound is now surrounded by Entangleds."

"Agent Shard is working with my Master???" Guile blurted. "WHAT plan?"

"BULLSHIT!" Reality Itself screamed. "I didn't foresee any possibility of that happening, and the Temporal Uncertainty event only happened a few minutes ago. HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM, RUDOLPH?"

Ruby Nash smiled.

"The Overseer told me that the event didn't just mess up the future, it reached back and screwed with the past ...just a teeny, tiny bit. So now, just like how your nasty plot radiated outward from the moment Kenny Miller refused to pose nude for Mike Pearson, its undoing started with the moment Guile told Officer Tracy Rogers YOUR NAME ...which happened right about the time you rode Craig's Entanglement into Caleb's mind, which gave Shard-Guile plenty-

"Shard-GUILE?!?!" Guile yelped.

"....of time to plead his case to his Master-"

"His MASTER?!?!?!" Guile shrieked, trapped in a whirlpool of ignorance and confusion. It was hell. To a Guile, the only thing worse than oblivion ...is obliviousness! "If my Master had another Thrall, I would sense it ...BUT I SENSE NOTHING! RUBY, TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM! WHO IS HIS LURE?! WHEN DID MY MASTER ENTHRALL HIM?! DID SHARD-GUILE TRICK ME INTO STAYING AWAY FROM MORGAN'S THRALLS FOR REASONS OTHER THAN MY THRALL'S SAFETY?!?! ARE THE THRALL MASTERS EVEN COMING?!?!"

Ruby held up a finger to silence Guile while he finished his point. Guile wanted to BEND IT BACKWARD UNTIL IT SNAPPED! From the enraged look on his face, if Ruby weren't a ghost, Andrew would've helped Guile do it.

"...and mobilize the Entangleds to surround Maximus Morgan's home so that Shard-Guile can pretend to blackmail Morgan by threatening the lives of the Entangleds. But in actuality, it's all just a show for Kaschak's benefit, so that Shard-Guile can surreptitiously negotiate with Morgan."

The face of the murderer of Kenny Miller's grandfather did NOT look happy.

"FOR WHAT?!?!" Guile screamed at high volume. "HE TOLD ME THE TETHERED ONES WERE COMING FOR REALITY ITSELF! HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO GET ME FACE TIME WITH THEM! WHAT IS HIS GAME, RUBY?! TELL ME HIS GAME!!!"

"How about I offer you a mystery to solve instead?" Ruby offered, needing to quickly put Guile on the road to horrific self-discovery in order to shut him up so that Ruby could focus on dealing with Reality Itself.

"WHAT?" Guile huffed in frustration. "JUST TELL ME SHARD-GUILE'S-"

"Before I begin, just to warn you, I'll have to use your Lure's name and some personal details, which might-"

"I DON'T CARE!" Guile thundered. "JUST TELL ME YOUR GODDAMNED MYSTERY!"

"On November 9th, Caleb Crandal awoke as Thrall. Before you'd even started to introduce yourself and Lecher, Caleb ran out of the room and discovered that his father had removed his mother's things -every TRACE of his mother, actually- from the lake house. Consumed by rage, Caleb destroyed everything he could find, just like his party guests on the Fourth of July. Alan Richardson arrived shortly thereafter and tried to stop Caleb, but only succeeded in activating Caleb's Thrall nature. He forced Alan to the ground, ripped open the crotch of his jeans and underwear, then savagely fellated him. When Alan fought back, you were able to act without permission. You turned Caleb's sweat into Pit Fog and dosed Alan into compliance, facilitating his eventual safe and successful 'milking'."

"YES-YES-YES!" Guile dismissed with a series of hand-flops. "I KNOW! I WAS THERE! WHAT IS THE MYSTERY?!!

Ruby paused. It lasted either three seconds or A BILLION FUCKING YEARS, depending on whether or not you were Guile at that moment.

"The Mystery of Caleb Crandal's Missing Medical Staff," Ruby finally replied, baffling Guile for a second ...just a second ...until Guile realized what Ruby was telling him.

Guile stepped back, suddenly requiring distance from Ruby despite having been directly in his face for the last minute. Guile's foot slipped on the bloody dock and he fell backwards. He couldn't possible have cared less. Midway through the fall, Guile entered Hypertime and set himself to solving the mystery before his diapered ass could hit the wooden slats below.

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"Before Caleb Crandal was Enthralled, he'd been recovering from a major head injury for months!" Guile's out of control thought processes reasoned. "There should've been constant visits from doctors and nurses, and there CERTAINLY should've been SEVERAL trained attendants in that house AT ALL TIMES to see to Caleb's needs. But instead of all that, the only person who visited the house was Alan Richardson, a laborer who worked with the construction firm that was finishing up repairs to the lake house. Raymond hired him as a companion for Caleb, due to his brain-damaged son bonding with Alan so much that when the repairs were complete, and Alan stopped coming over, Caleb would throw huge fits. But Alan has no medical training. Why was he the only person who ever came to the house after Lecher and I were 'born'? It makes no sense. And why have I never even ONCE questioned this glaring discrepancy?!"

Guile worked the problem, and went nowhere.

"Someone's been manipulating my mind, but no one can do that, even a Guile-Brother from another of Master Kaschak's Thralls! Even a Thrall Master couldn't do it without KILLING me, unless the Overseer helped them by reducing their telepathic SLEDGEHAMMER into a scalpel ...but the Overseer hasn't been claimed and activated yet! So who could possibly-"

Guile's eyes drifted down and to the left, noting something strange about his bloody footprints on the dock. Being a Guile, he knew everywhere he'd stepped ...and everywhere he hadn't. Moreover, the barefoot prints he hadn't made were unstable, flickering in and out of existence, so quickly that the effect would've been impossible to discern by anyone who hadn't entered into Hypertime before viewing them.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

If you'll permit me to do so, please allow me to tell you what I told the LAST body-hijacker who tried to assert his authority over me without proof!" Guile snarled at the strange entity who'd claimed Jeff Hildebrandt's body for use as his temporary avatar.

"The Overseer," Agent Shard replied. "Yeah, I know. I was standing right behind you the whole time." (Chapter 12)

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Guile reduced his rate of Hypertime just enough that he was able to flail his left arm in a wide arc in the direction of a phantom footstep that had JUST been made. It was too far away to reach, but Guile didn't NEED to reach it. He just needed for his fingertips to come into contact with......*

Silk.

It was invisible, and during Guile's swipe it kept jumping back and forth between real and imaginary, but Guile could tell that it was the exact same material as his robe.

"But what does this MEAN?" Guile asked himself, his discovery only creating more questions ...the most important of which Ruby answered shortly after Guile exited Hypertime and his ass hit the dock.

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"You created the "Kenny Miller Web" -as Shard-Guile calls it- to achieve your objectives with as much death, misery, and destruction as you could shoehorn into it!" Ruby accused.

"It was NOT intentional ..it was NECESSARY!" Reality Itself self-justified. "Protecting the biosphere will ALWAYS require that sacrifices be made!"

"Particularly if one happens to be a homosexual," Ruby reminded him. "But TONIGHT'S sacrifices have been canceled thanks to Guile, his future-self, ...and his missing shard."

Guile said nothing. He just continued to sit in Kenny Miller's blood and viscera, and tried to come to grips with the knowledge that he was far more broken than he ever imagined. And the more broken something is, the more difficult it is to fix. And the more difficult something is to fix, the easier the decision to just throw it away and replace it.

"Thanks to Shard-Guile, there isn't a single potential future in which Morgan abandons the hostage situation literally in his own back yard in order to go to the Bottleneck to deal with the one THERE, especially since Morgan knows what Shard-Guile wants, and knows that Shard-Guile will keep everyone at Guile's feeding area safe from harm for fear of queering the deal Shard-Guile wishes to make with Morgan," Ruby laid out. "And since Morgan will NOT be coming to the Bottleneck, your plan to have Kaschak follow him there and kill him ...will fail. It's over, Reality Itself. Call it off, let go of the sentience you HATE, and get the rest you crave. Go dream of future disastrous plans with LOTS of juicy collateral damage ...and large-scale horrific deaths carried out in the name of life."

"No, it ISN'T over!" Andrew hissed. "I can fix this! Once I leave here, my ability to foresee future possibilities will return and I'll FIX THIS!"

"You placed your essence inside of a THRALL, Andrew," Ruby informed him, "and Thralls are designed to channel a variety of energies, including exotic ones ...like chronoton energy."

Guile's head snapped up.

"Ruby, should you be telling Reality-?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Guile, because it won't change a damned thing," Ruby reassured before addressing Andrew once more. "Caleb's body has been draining away your chronoton energy since you arrived. That energy created an anomaly that the Overseer was able to exploit in the form of a mind-only time portal. According to what he told me after the Temporal Uncertainty event ...or before it, I suppose ...your future forecasting power needs to recharge, and that will take time, LOTS of time. You won't be able to use your potential future divination powers to affect the outcome of tonight's horrors. You're future-blind, Reality Itself. The only one here with the power to foresee potential futures is ME."

If looks could kill, Reality Itself's glare would've instantly wiped out every Rudolph Nash in the multiverse ...painfully.

"Then by all means," Reality Itself growled. "tell me my future, Rudolph."

Ruby sighed and crossed his arms.

"Well, according to all of the five-day long alternate timelines I've lived through, you're destined to go to Ferret Forest and take your place... among them ...among your 'kind'," Ruby stated with a venomous shiver.

"'Among' whom?" Andrew questioned, taunting Ruby by imitating his lisp.

Ruby Nash took a second to build the moment before informing Reality Itself of his part in the tragic, deadly drama he'd set into motion... before he'd completely lost control over it.

"The monsters," Ruby informed Andrew, his words granted weight by the solemnity with which Ruby uttered them. "The monsters of Faggot Forest."

"The what?" Andrew spat after taking the time to twist his face into an impossible sneer.

"Uh...would you mind elaborating on that a bit, Ruby?" Guile requested while getting to his feet with his hand politely raised, his curiosity concerning Ruby's declaration giving him a welcome intellectual respite from the staggering personal information he'd just received.

"Sure," Ruby agreed. "Before your future self caused Temporal Uncertainty, we were heading toward a future that, if it were one of the science fiction books I like to read, probably would've been titled: 'The Faggot Forest Massacre' or 'Massacre at Faggot Forest'. However, AFTER the Temporal Uncertainty, we shifted toward a different future. I call THIS one: 'The Monsters of Faggot Forest'. Lord I hate using that word, but replacing it with 'Ferret' kills the impact, makes it far less dramatic."

"Ruby, just to be clear, are you just talking about human monsters, like Tom Daggen and Grant Anders, or do you mean literal monsters?" Guile REALLY wanted to know. "And is ONE of them a vengeful, psychotic, teenage fusion of BOTH?!"

"I get that you Guiles are creatures of information," Ruby acknowledged, "but in this situation, the less you know ...the better."

Ruby turned to Andrew, whose evil, mocking face still hadn't un-contorted from his irritated and perplexed reaction to Ruby's bizarre revelation.

"Feel free to say whatever mean-spirited remark you want," Ruby offered. "I don't care. I've seen the future... LOTS of them, in fact... and I KNOW all the terrible things that might happen up there in that CURSED, GODFORSAKEN place, so that stupid look on your face only makes YOU look stupid, not me!"

Reality Itself whipped his head toward Guile.

"Stay away from Faggot Forest or I will kill the boy!" Andrew threatened.

"Ignore him," Ruby advised Guile. "In one of the alternate timelines, he let it slip that after he murdered Andrew Miller so gruesomely, Nature was so furious with Reality Itself that he is no longer allowed to use his powers to kill humans -or former humans- directly. That's why Andrew needed to use a proxy, Officer Mark Pudroolen, during his FIRST attempt on Robbie Byrne's life, and why he used Robbie to distract your Lecher so that Jaden Harris could try to shoot him in the eye."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"HEY ROBBIE," Lecher called out, "CARE TO GUESS WHAT THE ORANGE ONE DOES? IF YOU GUESS RIGHT, I WON'T USE IT ON YOUR EX-DAD, ...OR I WILL! YOU GET TO CHOOSE!"

"Does the orange one spray acid?" Robbie guessed.

"How the fuck could you possib-?"

BANG!!!

(Chapter 4)

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"I can still DETONATE HIM!" Reality Itself shouted.

"Yes, you could, but since Guile is going to use his Entangleds controller to order Robbie to stay close to other people...and not compulsively wander away to explode in private...it's kind of a moot point. And before you threaten his father's life, the Overseer also told me that the simulated, artificial homosexuality that is installed into heterosexual Entangleds -and Thralls- doesn't count as true homosexuality, so they haven't been biologically prepped by you for use in your mad scheme to save the Earth via mass murder."

"Well, as part of a formerly heterosexual former human, I suppose I need not worry about the weather all that much as I use my forthcoming new and better wings to retrieve the Overseer, then," Guile crowed.

"He can't kill you, but he can hurt you ...or possibly disable or break you long enough to ruin everything," Ruby disputed. "In other words, if he throws a swarm of insects at you, or a tornado, you might want to evade them."

"Noted."

"You'll never leave the ground, Guile," Reality Itself vowed. "I'll hurl lightning bolts at any limb you try to use to launch yourself!"

"Then I guess it's a good thing that Shard-Lecher is about to invent 'The Bottleneck Maneuver'," Ruby considered. "Instant high velocity ascent, with no tree required."

"Then I guess I'll have to end the Caleb Crandal-Thrall while they're still on the ground," Reality Itself cackled.

"I suppose you will," Ruby sighed, still not turning around.

"Well, why aren't you telling him?" Andrew asked Ruby. "Why aren't you warning him?"

"Warning me about what?" Guile asked Ruby, since he knew damned well that Andrew sure as hell wouldn't give him the answer.

"I have no idea what he's talking about," Ruby lied, knowing full well that Reality Itself was referring to Jayce Harris. "Don't listen to him, Guile. Lies are all he has left to keep you from going to Ferret Forest and saving the Overseer."

Guile sensed a hint of tension in Ruby's voice, suggesting possible deceit. However, without Lecher there to meticulously analyze Ruby's microexpressions, Guile couldn't definitively determine if he was being truthful.

Andrew, on the other hand, was CERTAIN that Ruby was lying. As to why Ruby was keeping it secret from Guile, however, Andrew had no idea. Before he could ponder the mystery too much, another guitar appeared in his hand, which he instantly backhanded into a dock post, smashing it to bits. Pieces flew everywhere, most of them landing in the lake and floating among the many corpses and body parts of Andrew Miller's grandson. Kenny Miller had been reunited with his treasured inheritance, in the most macabre of ways.

The sound of Kenny Miller's screams caused Guile, Reality Itself, and Ruby to look out at the lake.

"What the HELL?" Ruby yelped in horror at what he beheld. "Guile, why is that happening? What's causing it?"

"I thought you knew EVERYTHING that was going to happen during the next five days, Rudolph," Reality Itself snarked, wondering if it meant that Ruby didn't know about Jayce.

"I'm carrying too much future information! Sometimes I forget things, like when I forgot how Guile saved Craig and Kenny from drowning! Guile! Are YOU doing that?!"

"NO!" Guile gasped in horror. "CALEB'S doing it."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The Feeding Area. Robbie Byrne's Christmas Make-up Party

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"You're going to let Robbie and me go?" Craig inquired warily, suspecting a trick.

"I never mentioned Robbie, Craig," Guile chuckled. "Nice try, Sly Guy."

"LET HIM GO!"

"Never."

"WHY?!" Craig screamed mentally.

"Because for reasons I cannot explain, I care for him, and-"

"YOU'RE MAKING A THIRTEEN YEAR-OLD BOY SUCK AND FUCK, AND YOU SAY YOU CARE FOR-"

"Shut up!" Guile commanded, then sighed. "I truly hate it when people demand an answer, then interrupt me while I'm giving it to them. Anyway, first of all, I haven't made your son do a goddamned thing, certainly nothing that he wasn't gearing up to do anyway, with whichever of his internet fans paid him the most money ...regardless of their disease status or any unrevealed darker intentions. Second, let's not kid ourselves. Robbie is sick, by YOUR culture's standards, thanks to your ex-wife's sleazy interest in his body and YOUR steadfast refusal to do your fatherly duty by showing him YOUR body as he approached puberty. I love your son far too much to have him go through endless counseling sessions in a hopeless attempt to turn him into a brainwashed, passionless husk, all so he conforms to the standards of present-day morality, which BARELY tolerates homosexuality, and just a few short decades ago demanded that boys NEVER masturbate and ONLY have sex once they are married. RIDICULOUS! And while I agree that thirteen is a bit too young to be having sex -an opinion NOT shared by THE HOLY BIBLE- I do not agree that psychological sexual maturity magically occurs AT THE SAME FUCKING AGE FOR ALL CHILDREN! Simplistic blanket laws, mindlessly drawn up by politicians, does not equal WISDOM, Human ...especially since many of those same politicians CAN'T STOP FUCKING THE KIDS THEY CLAIM TO BE PROTECTING FROM CHILD PREDATORS!"

Unaware that Guile and his father were speaking telepathically, Robbie started to pull off his shirt in preparation to join Jayce Harris and the cops in 'working the crowd', but Guile mentally ordered Lecher to urge Robbie to stay clothed, just for a little while longer.

"This is taking too long," Guile sighed, suddenly realizing that he tended to sigh quite a bit for something that did not possess lungs. "Craig, you will accept the fact that I am not going to Unentangle your son. If I did, you would blow your brains out with your Glock, your ex-wife would continue being a shitty mother to your child, and Robbie's life would be tragic. Now...let's talk about you, and you alone. Shall I set you free? You can speak now."

Craig's face twitched and winced.

"Craig?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Craig snapped, causing his mind to fill with the sound of Guile's laughter.

Most men would've shrugged off the pleasure they'd experienced, eagerly reclaimed their heterosexuality, and spent the remainder of their life consumed by rage at their brief Entanglement, fed by feelings of victimization and shame.

"I didn't know it would feel so fucking good," Craig confessed, keeping spite out of his voice now that Guile knew Craig wanted to stay Entangled, and could therefore use the threat of Unentanglement against him. "And I've been thinking a lot about the ... other benefits and stuff, while guys were fucking me. I just... can't you... maybe not let Robbie control me?"

"Craig there's a reason I'm not letting Lecher listen in on this. You see, I anticipated you asking me to do that, and I wanted to be able to tell you ...honestly and sincerely... why that would be a terrible idea. And I wanted to be able to do it without Lecher ruining the moment."

Craig felt anger rise within him, but he held his tongue. Guile had made his decision, and Craig would just have to live with it. He had no choice, because while an army of men had been pumping Craig full of more pleasure than any Unentangled human could even BEGIN to tolerate, Craig realized that they were also pumping him full of something else: the will to live ...and if Guile took that away, Craig would finally be able to find the will to pick up his Glock, hold it under his chin, and fire.

"Listening," Craig simply said.

"The strides you've made tonight in reestablishing a relationship with your son ...can be undone by your ex-wife in a very short time. She's a narcissist with a histrionic personality disorder who's done an enviable job of digging her filthy hooks into Robbie, and even SHE can't beat and berate them out of his soul. Robbie will never go back to hating you, but to keep his mother happy, and to spare himself from her psychotic, manufactured meltdowns, he might do what she wants ...by avoiding you again. HOWEVER, you can fight back against her. I know you don't like it, and you're understandably morally opposed to it, but Robbie is sexually -not romantically, just sexually- obsessed with you. Over the years, especially after you were kicked out, he has spent hundreds of masturbation sessions fantasizing about silly little sexual scenarios involving the two of you, things we both know you would never willingly act out with him, and even if you did, you would do a shitty, unconvincing job. Having the ability to control you is the only way Robbie will be able to bring his fantasies to life, and Robbie is seriously invested in those fantasies, Craig, SO invested that he's thinking up MORE...NOW, despite having an ocean of drugged, sexually aroused men to play with! His fantasies will drive him to want 24/7 access to your body and mind, as many of his scenarios occur in the middle of the night. USE those fantasies to prod Robbie into helping you get custody of him. Craig, you HAVE to get custody of him! He has to move from Timbersburg to your home in Johnsport. There's far more at stake here than just saving Robbie from his toxic mother."

"Like what?"

"On the week of August 17th, you will take Robbie out of state," Guile commanded. "Take him wherever you want, so long as it's FAR FROM TIMBERSBURG! Do not ask me why."

Craig shook his head, trying to ward off a strange feeling of disorientation.

"Uh...okay. Don't really know where we'll go, but..."

"Camping, hunting, fishing, shooting, sailing, or anything else you like to do," Guile suggested. "Robbie's now interested in all the same outdoorsy macho shit that you are."

"Really? That's great. I didn't think you were going to do that, since I didn't accept your deal."

"As his father, you're obligated to disagree with me on this, but I think that in the end, you and I agreed to a better deal. Time will tell."

"Are you sure there's no way I could end up going to prison as a child molester for this?" Craig asked with an understandable note of concern in his voice. "I mean...none of this is my fault, and even if I ask you to let me go, I'd never be able to spend time with Robbie alone ever again. Visitations would have to be supervised, because if they weren't, he could gas me unconscious and do whatever he wants to me. Hell, what's to stop him from gassing every guy he meets?!"

"The fact that Entangleds cannot summon the creatures who dispense Pit Fog, and they cannot control the effects of Pit Fog," Guile replied. "I don't wish to go into detail, Craig, but I very recently learned that Guiles don't just 'pop in' on an Entangled when a feeding opportunity arises and we're within a telepathic range of a few miles. We're SUPPOSED to be telepathically connected with ALL Entangleds, ALL THE TIME. Should things go well tonight, Robbie will always have me ...or another Guile... around to prevent him from doing anything foolish that might result in you and Robbie not being able to collect semen for us."

"An Entangled could collect LOTS of semen in prison, Guile," Craig pointed out.

"True, but if I betrayed you like that, what would happen to Robbie?" Guile countered. "And should you end up in the hands of another Thrall, his Master would NEVER permit you to go down as a child molester either, Craig. You're safe ...and, as you said, blameless for all of this. It just simply needs to be this way."

"What happens if tonight doesn't 'go well'?"

"Lecher and I will be dead, and you and Robbie will Unentangle. If that happens, hopefully a being named 'Overseer' will show up to fix all of your and Robbie's problems and see to it that you both live happily ever after as a non-drug addicted father and his sexually well-adjusted son. If not, you and Robbie will continue to follow your ruinous paths."

"No...if we were BOTH freed, I'll fix things," Craig stated defiantly.

"You'd completely give up drugs and circumnavigate your conniving ex-wife's authority as Robbie's custodial parent in order to get your son prohibitively expensive psychiatric help that he would resist tooth and nail?" Guile mocked. "Amazing, but despite now having FULL access to your Entangled mind, I can't....quite....seem to find your action plan to accomplish those miracles. In that case, Craig, it would appear that no matter how tonight goes, everything will work out for you and Robbie just fine. Well, it would appear that you and I are done here. Good-bye."

"Could you...bring back how you were making me feel a minute ago?" Craig requested. "That was fucking GREAT! Also, I stopped wanting to do gay shit as soon as you started talking to me. I feel weird now, what with all these guys staring at me. Could you bring back the gay, so it excites me instead?"

Guile let Lecher into the chat, but on mute.

"Absolutely, as soon as you prove that I am right, and Lecher is wrong," Guile replied.

"You two BET on me?" Craig asked.

"Yes."

"What's the bet?"

"If I tell you, it might affect the outcome. All you need to know is that there is a connection that, once made, will cause you IMMENSE euphoria. It will also 'bring back the gay' and reactivate the fresh coat of green in your rectum, leading to another train of anonymous cocks up your ass, with all the various resulting pleasures."

"What do I have to do?" Craig asked eagerly, but with a hint of concern. "What's the connection?"

"Your son's penis inside your asshole," Guile revealed before ending the telepathic call.

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After about twenty seconds, which felt long enough for Craig to convince himself that his decision wasn't immediate and had, in fact, been the result of a deep internal struggle, he stood up and took action.

Guile and Lecher watched with interest.

"Heyyyy.....buuuuuuddy," Craig patronized, placing his hands on Robbie's shoulders and acting as if he'd polished off half a case a beer.

Craig was stone sober.

"Hey, Dad," Robbie happily responded, reaching down and playing around with Craig's balls and his penis, which his conversation with Guile had completely deflated. The intimate contact by his son felt so disturbing that Craig had to fight to keep his discomfort from showing on his face. He forced his mouth into a loopy smile."

"What...what izz alla this?" Craig slurred while looking around the circle.

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"HEY, HE'S CHEATING!" Lecher complained privately to Guile. "He's pretending to be fucked up! And he's not telling Robbie that he remembers everything!"

"How is that cheating?" Guile hissed. "The bet was that pleasure alone would be sufficient motivation to get Craig to voluntarily have sexual relations with his son, that's IT. Why are you tacking on irrelevant provisions?"

"Because I don't want you to win! DUH!!!!"

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"Howcum...how come you're not like alla the rest uv us?" Craig inquired, awkwardly tugging at Robbie's red t-shirt. Robbie automatically obeyed his parental programming by lifting his arms and allowing his father to strip him to the waist.

"Because we were playing that game, the one where you couldn't stop jerking off in your bedroom," Robbie explained, naively thinking his father actually cared, and wasn't just using the question as a pretext to take off Robbie's clothes. "I had to get dressed so I could play my part."

Craig ran his hands over his child's back, chest, stomach and shoulders, feeling nothing sexual, just pride and paternal love toward the young man he'd created. However, Craig was able to trick Robbie into believing that he was initiating sex, simply by thinking about the pleasure that awaited Craig, which caused his penis to grow in eager anticipation.

"What are you doing?" Robbie asked as his Dad started undoing his shorts, despite knowing damned well what his father was doing ...but not knowing that Craig didn't actually WANT to be doing it, and was only doing it in order to get SUPER high.

"Just wanna...see how you're...how you're developin'," Craig claimed, employing the most commonly-used method for a male family member to trick their pubescent son, stepson, nephew, grandson, younger brother or younger cousin into either exposing himself or allowing the family member to do it for them.

Craig pulled down Robbie's faded orange shorts and pretended to become momentarily fixated on the curved bulge in the front of his son's underwear. He was fixated on it, but only because it was the key to the lock that would bring Craig boundless pleasure. Craig gave his boy's trapped erection a firm squeeze of appreciation and anticipation, causing a stain to appear in the material a little further down, towards the bottom of the pouch.

"Let's git these off," Robbie's father blurted with sudden urgency, tickling his son in a frantic effort to get his fingers beneath the waistband of the briefs. Within moments, Robbie's wiener sprang into view."

"That's BIG," Craig lied, having noticed Robbie's smallish penis earlier and wanting to take the opportunity to counter any negative feelings Robbie might have about it. What Craig didn't know was that thanks to the internet, lots of men had seen Robbie's penis and reassured him with the very same lie.

"What... what happened?" Craig asked, regarding Robbie's smooth crotch. Craig had already asked Robbie the same question earlier, but to maintain his deception, he had to ask it again. Craig didn't want Robbie to know that in addition to having his 'old' personality back, all of Craig's memories had been restored and his homosexual urges had been temporarily shut off -essentially turning him back into the man he'd been prior to Entanglement. Craig NEEDED Robbie to believe that THAT man would NEVER do the things that Craig was doing now. It was dishonest, and, as Craig now knew, inaccurate as well. However, in his defense for the former sin, considering that Robbie had decided to ENSLAVE HIM SEXUALLY, Craig felt entitled to self-servingly deceive his son into thinking that Craig's "former self" never would've messed around with him for ANY reason. And as for the latter sin, Craig now firmly believed that MOST fathers would probably agree to have consensual intercourse with their post-pubescent gay son if said fathers ever got to experience the full power of Pit Fog, and were paid for their services with a free lifetime prescription to it.

"Why didn't I get DARK red pubes instead of ORANGE ones," Robbie complained, sidestepping the question in favor of asking one of his own.

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In a few weeks, Robbie would have "Lech" (aka Robbie-Lecher, aka R-Lecher) give him the same crimson-colored pubes as his father. Never one to withhold his opinion, "Argyle" (technically R-Guile, but with a spelling adjustment to satisfy his need for a little individuality) would suggest that the drapes match the carpet, thus capping off the signature look for the assertive and disquietingly young Thrall known as Robbie the Cum Vampire.

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"Sorry," Craig called behind him while lying face down on the platform, in the same position that Robbie had been in while Alex Thornn fucked him.

"You wanna?" Craig asked, reaching back and slapping his ass with both palms in an attempt to convey his offer to his son as quickly as possible with as few words as possible.

Craig really hoped that Robbie would just crawl on top of him, slide it in, and bone away while Craig lay there in a state of Pit Fog-induced bliss. In that position, Craig wouldn't have to look his child, particularly his eyes, while Robbie fucked him .

"No, you gotta have your legs in the air, like you did when I licked your butt," Robbie protested, choosing the least desired and least dignified position for Craig, not that there really was a MORE dignified position for a big, muscular man to be fucked by a boy with below average height and a slight build.

Burt Veribton moved through the crowd, desperate to get a good angle. Nevertheless, he kept a sharp eye on Lecher, since Guile wasn't presently manifesting.

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"You're going to dope me stupid as soon as he sticks it in, right?" Craig requested mentally while rolling back over, sitting at the edge of the platform, and simultaneously lying back while lifting his legs in the air once more.

"No, you gotta stay sober until he slimes your hole," Lecher mentally protested, just to needle Guile.

"NO HE DOESN'T! STOP ADDING PROVISIONS!" Guile snapped.

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Robbie stepped up, pulled his father's butt cheeks apart, dove his face between them, and passionately ate Craig's ass.

"At least he ain't doing that to my mouth," Craig consoled himself while trying not to think about how good it felt.

Fortunately, but secretly UN-fortunately, the rimming was brief.

"Why isn't his asshole moving around!" Robbie whined.

"It will, once you shove your cock into it and give your daddy what he NEEDS!" Lecher informed Robbie.

"He's not wrong," Craig thought, referring to the euphoria and delirium that he was salivating for, because what 'daddy' truly 'needed' was for reality to go the fuck away, even if anal penetration by his kid was required to achieve that.

Lecher spat his tongue down into the flooring next to the fuck platform, beneath Craig's ass. Instants later, a block rose out of the mat ...a stool to bring Robbie to the correct height. Robbie stepped up and skinned back his long foreskin, which covered the boy's glans even when he was fully erect. However, instead of inserting himself immediately, he just stood there and slid his exposed dick head up and down Craig's crack, unintentionally TORMENTING his father.

"OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE," Craig groaned mentally, frustrated at the ENDURING creepy awkwardness of his ORDEAL, "JUST STICK IT UP MY .....ahhhhhhhhhhhh."

Craig felt his son enter him, reactivating the green and causing Craig to let out a sustained moan that was so loud that it almost sounded like he was shouting. Craig would've been mortified, if Guile hadn't kept his promise all too well. Craig was high as a kite and stupid as fuck, wrapped in a blanket of unbridled joy and reality-dimming idiocy. Craig abruptly stopped moaning and busted up laughing at the sounds he'd just been making, while compulsively sliding his palm across his face.

Guile scanned the crowd. Several men were looking around, gauging the reactions of the people around them and asking if they TOO had a problem with what they were all witnessing. If allowed to continue, they would easily rile up the rowdy crowd into a mob. However, one by one, they suddenly pushed their way through the back of the circle and went off to lie down, too intoxicated to continue recruiting.

Robbie haltingly moved his hips back and forth, lost in the sensation of repeatedly plunging into his dad and feeling the comfortable warmth of his father's core temperature.

"You're doing great, Buddy!" Craig cheered without realizing he'd said it. Even in a situation like this, Craig was compelled to raise his boy's self-esteem. But the fact was, Robbie wasn't doing so well. He had neither motion nor rhythm. He did have enthusiasm, however, and that was seeing him through, barely.

Craig, Jeff Hildebrandt, and the cops would help Robbie get better at fucking ass.

Lech would help Robbie become one of the BEST at it.

"Your butthole feels squishy and hairy on my pee-pee," Robbie blurted, because he was thirteen and too much time had passed since the last time that words had come out of his mouth.

Men in the audience turned and looked at one another in response to Robbie's disturbing word choice.

Lecher laughed his ass off.

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"Guile," Lecher added far too excitedly. "Tell Robbie he has to call his dick a pee-pee!"

"And for the rest of the evening, Robbie," Guile sighed wearily, "I order you to only refer to your penis as a 'pee-pee'."

"AND...AND...AND HE DOESN'T KNOW HE'S CALLING IT A PEE-PEE!" Lecher blurted with cruel delight. "AND WHEN OTHER PEOPLE SAY 'PEE-PEE' BACK TO HIM, HE THINKS THEY'RE SAYING 'DICK'!"

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"Thank you, Lecher," Guile snapped. "Because it wasn't hard enough keeping the majority of these men from fully grasping what they are witnessing."

Lecher didn't listen, he was paying attention to Craig's legs, which were slowly lowering as the Pit Fog relaxed him more an more. Instantly, Lecher effortlessly hopped up onto the platform, grabbed Craig's ankles, and held them so that Robbie could continue fucking his dad.

What happened next had a profound effect on Robbie, changing him for all time.

Robert Byrne looked down upon his father, noting his gooned face and drugged helplessness, but most of all, the way his father's chin moved each time Robbie thrusted. Robbie was satisfying his daddy sexually while he laid there submissively and just TOOK it. At that moment, Robbie fully made the transition from exclusive bottom to versatile ...which kicked off an orgasm that wasn't born of sexual submission, but of sexual DOMINANCE, something Robbie never understood until that very moment ...a DEFINING moment that Robbie would hold close to his heart for centuries.

"It...IT HURTS!" Robbie suddenly shouted up at Lecher.

"It's not pain, it's pressure ....and it's fucking WORTH what's coming your way," Lecher explained, passing on a golden opportunity to make fun of Robbie. "An Entangled's cumshots are fucking AMAZING. You won't BELIEVE how powerful they are! You might want to pull out and see for yourself. Be careful where you aim, though, so's you don't kill nobody!"

But Robbie didn't WANT to pull out, and his brand new alpha male side demanded that he didn't. Robbie wanted the RUSH of defiling his father in a way that had never occurred to him before, and had never been a part of any of Robbie's fantasies -but certainly would be from now on. After all, what was the point of having his father drugged into giddy helpless and ass fucking him in front of a multitude of shocked onlookers ...if Robbie didn't cum inside of him?

"FUCK!!!" Robbie screamed in a high-pitched shriek, pleasure finally overtaking the pressure, which felt as if Robbie were about to projectile diarrhea out of his dick.

"Hang in there, Sport!" Lecher encouraged as Robbie endured an orgasm that kept threatening to make Robbie pass out before he could claim the badge of honor of having used his dad as a cum dump.

At Guile's command, Tyler Whitlock un-mouthed himself from a cock he was servicing and came running over. He stepped up onto Robbie's stool, squatted slightly, mashed his crotch against Robbie's ass, and reached around and put his hand on the boy's shaved pubic area. Now in control of Robbie's core, Tyler moved his hips with the sleazy skill of a man who'd fucked well over a hundred girls, transferring the motion into Robbie's hips, enabling the boy to continue rutting his dad despite his endless climax and the relentlessly building pressure in his crotch.

For ten more seconds, Robbie let out a low, continuous, barely-audible whine while Tyler danced with him from behind, doing all the work and freeing up Robbie's mind to truly feel, not just his first Entangled penile orgasm, but the movements and tension of his father's living asshole traveling up and down his 'pee-pee'.

And then, finally, the tremendous pressure exploded out of him.

"UUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Robbie grunted, so gutturally that a few of the spectators wondered if the little boy's throat would be okay when he was done.

Craig's eyes bulged and he gasped audibly as a blast of jizz splattered WITH FORCE deep inside of him, against the upper portion of his sensitized, erogenous colon. Instantly, mindfulness cut right though the Pit Fog, and "old" Craig was back, briefly, for one last time ...just long enough to realize where he was, what was happening to him, and who was doing it. For a moment, Craig contemplated the small tube of flesh that was wedging his asshole open and rubbing its center. He thought back to when he would bathe Robbie as a baby, and he would have to gently handle the teeny, tiny piece of flesh between his son's legs, somehow managing to skin back the foreskin and wash beneath it despite Robbie refusing to stop kicking his legs.

Craig never dreamed that his baby would grow up to someday use it on him.

"I only squirted one time!" Robbie shouted. "And... and... Am I cumming AGAIN?!"

"You're welcome," Lecher replied. "But I ain't too sure about it. A bitch boy like you might not be able to take the pressure...LITERALLY!"

"I can take it!" Robbie claimed, although it was obvious that he would need Tyler's continued assistance.

"YOU CAN DO IT, SON!" Craig encouraged, clapping his hands as if Robbie were competing in a school sport instead of summoning the stamina to squirt more semen into him, to add to the sticky goop that Craig could feel sliding down the walls of his hypersensitive rectum and pooling at the lowest point. (Since Robbie was an Entangled, his semen did not contain S.C.E., which meant that Craig's creatures didn't want it, and Craig would have to dispose of it the old fashioned way.)

In spite of his reluctant acceptance of his and Robbie's new circumstances, Craig was not FULLY on board with what has happening. However, he forced his misgivings out of his head, something that really wasn't all that hard, considering the Pit Fog, the sexual gratification he was receiving from his child's 'pee-pee', and the forced submissiveness that Entangleds experience whenever there's a dick inside of them.

"Keep shouting stuff!" Robbie commanded, amused (and secretly touched) by his father's words and gesture of encouragement. "And...and SWITCH TO ALTERNATE PERSONALITY FOUR!!!"

"Oh, shit!" Guile thought.

"Oh, shit!" Lecher thought.

"FUCK ME, SON!" Craig roared, loud enough for everyone in the clearing to hear. "FUCK DADDY GOOD!"

If anyone didn't know that an act of incestuous pedophilia was going on among them, they sure knew it now.

"HEY! EVERYONE COME AND WATCH ME GET FUCKED BY MY KID!" Craig insisted. "DOES ANYONE GOT A CELL PHONE?! I WANT THIS RECORDED! I WANNA SHOW IT TO MY ASSHOLE BOSS!!!"

"Oh, I'm sure he'll see it," Burt Veribton mused, having found an acceptable angle far enough away from Lecher .

Men of various levels of intoxication were approaching to see what was going on, even men whose interest in what was happening inside of the circle was ANYTHING BUT sexual. Before they could break through the circle and cause problems, though, down they went.

"Why do you keep dropping them?" Lecher asked. "Can't you just talk in their heads and confuse them into backing down? It should be easy. They're average and below-average guys who are drunk on Pit Fog, it ain't like they're geniuses who see stuff in a weird way, like that Pearson kid.

"I would, but suddenly I'm experiencing frequent power drops in my telepathy," Guile revealed.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Lecher, a moment ago, I started noticing that my telepathy levels keep fluctuating downward," Guile snarked.

"It can't be! Our mental and physical and mental energy levels are MAXED!" Lecher dispute, unable to COPE with any more SHIT at the moment.

"The moronic comment you just made is like saying: 'Our car CAN'T be struggling to drive up this incline, the gas tank is FULL!'"

"Whatever. What do you think is causing the problem?"

"I DON'T KNOW!!!" Guile screamed in frustration.

"FUCKING THEORIZE!!!" Lecher shot back.

"Someone or something could be stealing a large percentage of my resources and utilizing them for something I'm completely unaware of!" Guile spat after a moment in Hypertime. "THERE! I 'THEORIZED'! HAPPY?"

"Uh...okay...well...WAIT! Maybe it's Agent Shard!" Lecher speculated while staring down a potential troublemaker in the crowd and seriously considering letting go of Craig's ankles, hopping down off of the platform, and dropping the guy WITHOUT the need to put further strain on Guile's telepathy. "We don't know what his powers are."

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"A couple of remote points of view...the ability to assume command over Entangled individuals -one at a time, sadly- who have not yet been 'claimed' by a Guile...manipulation of psycho-reactive substances...and a nasty surprise that I don't even want to discuss for fear that Collier is somehow listening to us through his armor," Agent Shard disclosed. (Chapter 12)

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"He TOLD me what his powers are," Guile grumbled, "and the only one of them that could POSSIBLY explain the overtaxing of my telepathy is if the 'nasty surprise' he mentioned is the ability to seize and utilize the mental resources of other Guiles without their knowledge. A preposterous idea, considering all of the additional psychic firewalls that our paranoid Master has installed within all of his Thralls, including us!"

"So if Agent Shard ain't stealing pieces of you, who is?" Lecher questioned.

"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" Guile thought IN HORROR as Lecher's word choice keyed something in Guile's mind, putting him on the same terrify path to self-discovery as his disconnected POV inside of Caleb's mind.

"Guile?"

"LET ME FUCKING THINK!!!" Guile shrieked.

While waiting for Guile to say something, Craig cried out in elation as his son spat another load into his touch-sensitive shitter ...and then kept going, with Mark Pudroolen taking over for Tyler.

"I NEVER USED TO KNOW WHERE TO TAKE MY SON DURING OUR VISITATIONS," Alt-4 Craig informed the audience. "ALL THAT TIME, I WAS TOO FUCKING STUPID TO REALIZE ...ALL I EVER HAD TO DO WAS TAKE HIM UPSTAIRS!"

Only a few watchers laughed, but none reacted negatively, telling Lecher that the problem cases had all been dealt with.

"Lecher," Guile said, startling him.

"What?! What's wrong?!" Lecher interrogated, rightfully dreading the answer.

"I figured out what Agent Shard IS!" Guile snarled in rage. "The Overseer LIED TO ME!!!"

"About what???"

"You and I aren't 'underpowered' ...we're FRACTURED!!!" Guile cried out in despair.

Lecher didn't understand what Guile meant, but he was certain it wasn't a good thing.

He had no idea.

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Moments Ago, Out In The Dark Waters of Manjinankton Lake

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"C'mon, Kenny!" Craig yelled, flipping the boy around in a desperate attempt to find a position, ANY position, that would help Craig get more water out of the boy's lungs.

Craig wanted to SCREAM! He couldn't believe that Ruby had ordered him to keep Kenny in the water, far from shore. Craig was no longer intoxicated by Pit Fog, so his head was now clear, allowing him to figure out that Rudy's reasoning involved not wanting Kenny Miller to encounter the nasty THING pretending to be his dead grandfather. Still, how the HELL was he supposed to save Kenny's life if he couldn't get him to dry land???

Craig initiated mouth-to-mouth on Kenny, bringing their lips together and repeatedly filling him with as much air as possible before wrapping his arms around Kenny's back and squeezing it back out out.

Despite the tension of the moment, or perhaps because of it, Kenny's lips and the feel of his naked body pressed up against Craig's, started to have an affect on him.

"Not NOW, goddamn it!" Craig thought, feeling his balls tighten, his penis stiffen, and his blood BOIL with sexual arousal.

Craig continued his life-saving efforts while fighting off an attraction to Kenny that was at least as powerful as Craig's desire for his own son. Craig managed to control it and focus, though ...mostly. Every few breaths, he found himself taking advantage of the situation by licking the boy's tongue while inflating his lungs, and while Craig's right arm compressed Kenny's lungs, his left arm acquainted itself with Kenny's ass.

Moments passed, stretching the overall period of time that Kenny had been without oxygen to an alarming degree. But without warning, Kenny suddenly came alive and lung-puked water into Craig's mouth.

"BREATHE...JUST BREATHE, KENNY!" Craig automatically encouraged as Kenny fought for breath, realizing how stupid the "advice" was, but needing to say something.

Kenny began to retch, expelling water from his stomach. After a moment, his eyes snapped open, and he jolted in surprise, apparently unaware that he was puking at someone.

"Relax, it's just me!" Craig said to Kenny, who was frantically shoving water in an attempt to put some distance between himself and Craig.

"I DON'T KNOW YOU!" Kenny screamed in panic, splashing wildly and making little progress.

"Really? How many bearded, red-headed bodybuilders do you KNOW?" Craig chuckled in an attempt to use humor to calm the boy. "You must go to a different gym than I do."

Kenny stopped and squinted at Craig.

"Robbie's dad?" Kenny asked hopefully.

"Once in a while," Craig joked. "Two days a month, if I'm luck-"

Kenny suddenly swam at him.

"IS MIKE ALIVE?!" Kenny screamed into Craig's face. "DID HE MAKE IT OUT?!"

Craig was at a loss for words. He had only recently been given the freedom to think again, and he hadn't yet had the time to process all the random pieces of information he'd received from Guile, Lecher, Jayce, and Andrew...

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Caleb Crandal...Fourth of July party...crashers...Kenny Miller, Grant Anders, and Tom Daggen...turned physical...caved in his skull...cum vampire...stopped him from going to Faggot Forest to kill his attackers... (Chapter 6)

"What did the Overseer to do TIME!.....Kenneth Miller, a murder victim who hasn't been murdered yet...I have no power over the future, and if I did, I'd know exactly what the fuck I was doing..." (Chapter 11)

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...but Craig was pretty sure that Kenny had somehow traveled back in time. The thing was, how to explain THAT to a dumb, traumatized sixteen year-old who was freaking out over whether or not his friend was dead.

Craig Byrne took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, despite having no idea what he was going to say.

"Kenny, I'm sorry, but I don't....I don't know..........* "

"Mister Byrne, are you okay?" Kenny asked in response to Craig suddenly shaking his head violently.

"Um...I'm not...uh...just give...give me...I need a second to..."

"Stop fighting me!" Shard-Guile demanded in Craig's head. "You have to let me talk to him! ........I HAVE TO KNOW IF I SURVIVE!!!"

Shard-Guile wanted to scream in frustration. All of the answers he DESPERATELY NEEDED were RIGHT THERE, floating three feet in front of a normally easily-possessable Entangled ....but Shard-Guile was so telepathically overburdened that he couldn't take control of Craig to GET those answers! Shard-Guile ACHED to render one or more of the hostages at Maximus Morgan's compound unconscious, enough to free up sufficient mental resources to overcome not just Craig's resistance, but the ILLOGICAL -the utterly STUPID- mental physics forced upon Shard-Guile by the Lure Section's Security Barrier! However, if one...JUST FUCKING ONE ...of those hostages were to lie down and take a nap on Maximus Morgan's lawn, it would attract Master Kaschak's attention ...BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WOULD... and the bastard would question it!

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When the Caleb-Guile's remote point of view entered his Lure's mind, it was transformed by the Caleb-Thrall's internal biological processes into a simulated physical body in a simulated physical environment. This was done to allow Caleb-Guile to deal with the detected threat, BUT prevent Caleb-Guile from tampering too much with Caleb's mind. However, when Shard-Guile went past the disabled Lure Section's Security Barrier, everything went horribly wrong.

Shard-Guile appeared far above Manjinankton Lake ...and immediately dropped like a stone. Knowing that Caleb-Guile had become physical, Shard-Guile assumed that he had as well, and therefore expected to plunge deep into the water and have to swim back up, exactly like a human would. No such luck. Instead of slamming into the lake's surface and creating a huge splash, he PASSED THROUGH it like a ghost and continued to fall! For him, water and air were pretty much the same thing!

In a rare stroke of good luck, the bottom of the lake was ACTUALLY FUCKING SOLID. However, the pain involved in "making" that discovery caused Shard-Guile to feel anything OTHER than "lucky".

Shard-Guile stood on the bottom of the lake and quickly assessed his LATEST awful circumstances. First and foremost, he was completely invisible and neither air nor water would carry his voice. There were other drawbacks, but before he could discover them through experimentation, he realized THAT HE ALREADY WAS! The water around his knees was becoming turbid, and he'd sank into the lake bottom up to his ankles!

"Shit!" Shard-Guile screamed soundlessly, then reflexively tried to fight gravity and levitate, like he normally could.

"There is no conceivable explanation for this!" Shard-Guile bitched as he discovered that he could indeed fly ...and all it took was A METRIC FUCK-TON OF CONCENTRATION! But contrary to Shard-Guile's statement, there WAS an explanation for what was happening to him: He was vibrating at an ultra high frequency due to constantly shifting back and forth between a mental entity and a physical being.

"Kill me NOW!!!" Shard-Guile screamed as he slowly and agonizingly levitated his diapered ass back up to the surface of the lake and over to the dock, just in time for the arrival of the Overseer.

From that point on, Shard-Guile stood behind Caleb-Guile and listened to everything, while also concentrating just enough to keep himself from gradually sinking through the dock.

But then, Kenny Miller fell from the sky, handing Shard-Guile the opportunity to learn what happened at Faggot Forest, information he would use to ensure his Thrall's survival ...his ENTIRE Thrall, the shards included.

"Shit! I knew it wouldn't work, but I had to try!" Shard-Guile spat, frustrated that despite Kenny being Entangled, he couldn't be possessed. Just like with Caleb-Guile, Reality Itself, and Craig, when Kenny's mind entered the psychic landscape -where the mental is presented as physical- it was subjected to an artificial physical reality. Put simply, Shard-Guile needed access to Kenny's brain -his ACTUAL brain- to possess him, and THAT, as far as Shard-Guile knew, was several hours in the future. Shard-Guile couldn't possess Kenny for the same reason that the Overseer from the future could not link minds with Caleb-Guile: a Time Gap.

"I'll have to use Craig to interrogate Kenny," Shard-Guile decided.

Shard-Guile telepathically reached out into the real world, psi-connected with Craig's brain, and sought out the tiny piece of his mind that was being projected into Caleb's hellscape. The link was far from perfect. Shard-Guile gained complete control over Craig's mouth, but could not possess his body. Fortunately, impersonating Ruby Nash's voice was simple for Shard-Guile, so he was able to use Guile's Entangleds Controller to make Craig instantly think, feel and obey anything Shard-Guile wanted him to. It was a bit of a clunky puppet show, far inferior to full possession, but it would have to do.

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"Sorry about that, Kenny," Shard-Guile said out of Craig's mouth. "I felt sick for a moment there. So, uh... don't worry about Mike. Gary called a little while ago and told me the military stormed Ferret Forest and got Mike and some of the others out. Mike's being taken to Johnsport Memorial. Gary and Diane are on their way there now. So...what the hell happened to you boys up there? I heard some really strange stuff went down tonight."

Kenny slowly moved his arms under the water, once again pushing himself away from Craig.

"DAMMIT!" Shard-Guile screamed to himself. "The kid's a MORON, but he saw right though my lie. What the hell did I say wrong? How do I FIX this?"

"Of course, I've been swimming, and I might've lost track of time, so it might not have been a little while ago," Shard-Guile attempted to smooth over. "Could've even been a couple of hours."

Kenny moved further away from Craig, filling the weakening Shard-Guile with despair.

Fireworks filled the sky, shocking the shit out of Kenny.

"NO!" Kenny screamed ...then started swimming for the Crandals' dock.

"Kenny, DON'T!" Shard-Guile screamed. "Craig! Alternate Personality 2, NOW! Stop him!"

Super-charged by Alt. 2, Craig swam after Kenny, needing to put an unexpected amount of muscle behind it. The boy was a powerful swimmer, but his technique was shit, more splash than motion. As such, Craig managed to grab Kenny's ankle a mere five yards away from all the blood and body parts that Caleb-Guile was keeping away from him.

"LET ME GO!" Kenny whined. "I CAN STOP IT! I CAN MAKE IT ALL STOP!"

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"I just wanted to fix things," Kenny whined to himself, "But I can't fix anything. I just keep making stuff worse! And it won't stop!" (Chapter 1)

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"Kenny, this isn't real! It's all an illusion!" Shard-Guile pleaded. "Jayce Harris told me about you being over there on July 4th, and he said that the place got trashed, and then raided. Kenny, you can't prevent those things from happening...or anything else that went wrong that night!"

"When did he tell you that?!" the frantic boy demanded, kicking his foot and breaking Craig's grip. "When did Jayce say that?"

"He's setting me up," Shard-Guile realized, briefly becoming a true Guile. "I could answer safely by saying 'weeks ago', but that isn't the answer he's fishing for. I think I finally figured out why Caleb-Guile never made things easier on himself by Entangling Jayce Harris: Reality Itself used his power over probability and influence over Caleb's humanity to discourage Guile from doing so ...and I have a sneaking suspicion I know WHY!"

"Jayce told me that, just before your grandfather-"

"IT....is NOT.....MY GRANDFATHER!!!" Kenny roared, all of his adorable naivety suddenly vanishing behind a mask of burning hatred.

"...just before Jayce was killed by the bastard who murdered your grandfather," Shard-Guile amended, banking on his guess concerning the potential future fate of Jayce Harris to hopefully earn himself a tiny amount of trust from Kenny ...and therefore some much-needed control over this situation.

But in a realm of pure madness, how can someone sane truly be in control of anything?

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Across the lake, on the Fourth of July side, the engine of one of the party boats suddenly cut out, along with its lights. Stranger still, its celebrating memory phantoms suddenly stopped conversing with one another.

One by one, they all turned toward the spot where Craig and Kenny were floating, off in the distance.

In spite of the engine being turned off, the darkened boat began to move soundlessly through the water.

Caleb Crandal's subconscious had detected Kenny Miller's presence ...and it wasn't happy.

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"Kenny, please stop paddling away from me," Shard-Guile appealed. "I just want to talk ...ask you a couple of questions."

"About what?" Kenny asked, his face continuing to reflect the boy's nervousness and skepticism.

"I need to know what happened to you at Ferret Forest," Shard-Guile requested, making Craig's voice sound as compassionate and understanding as possible.

"No," Kenny blurted, shaking his head emphatically -something even a boy Robbie's age wouldn't do for fear of appearing childish.

While Kenny performed his immature gesture, Shard-Guile suddenly swam Craig's body forward, closing the distance between the two humans, and partially restored Craig's independence and used his mistaken belief that Shard was actually Ruby to order Craig to reach out beneath the water and grab Kenny's boyhood.

For a second...just a second...it looked as though Kenny was going to yell, maybe even try to fight Craig off. His FACE certainly seemed to suggest those possibilities. It was the perfect facial expression for a sixteen-year-old boy in that situation.

But Kenny never followed through. He just continued slowly kicking his legs to stay afloat while Craig fondled him. Gradually, Kenny's startled expression softened, turning to mere concerned confusion. He didn't tell Craig to let him go, however, and Shard-Guile knew that he wouldn't. Contrary to Kenny's initial response to Craig's touch --understandable surprise and offense, but blown way out of proportion by years of anti-gay societal indoctrination, or as Steve called it: "conditioned homophobia"-- Shard-Guile knew that the Entangled boy was actually enjoying what Craig was doing to him ...he just wasn't comfortable with enjoying it. Time would tell whether Entanglement would psychologically destroy Kenny, as it had Austin Mitchell, or if he would adjust and surrender to its pleasures.

"Kenny, look, I know you've been through I lot, but I'm gonna need you to man up and answer a few questions!" Shard-Guile demanded while ordering Craig to stare angrily at Kenny with a look of intimidation.

Kenny couldn't hold Craig's gaze, exactly as Shard-Guile anticipated. It was a perfect, Guile-worthy maneuver. As an abused child, Kenny's natural response to male aggression was to "show his belly", just like the poor, whipped puppy he'd always been. As an Entangled, however, Craig's look was also interpreted as sexual aggression, since beneath the water, Craig was forcing him to become aroused. Entangleds, just like Thralls, respond to sexually submissive men by becoming more dominant. However, the reverse was true as well, and Shard-Guile had just used it to put Kenny in the correct frame of mind to tell Shard-Guile everything he wished to know.

"I don't think I can," Kenny whimpered. "It's only been a day since it happened, and I'm still pretty messed up about it. I think...I-I-I-I think I need to talk to a counselor, or-"

"Hold up!" Shard-Guile commanded. "You're saying that from your perspective, Ferret Forest happened last night?"

"Y-Yeah, last night," Kenny confirmed, wondering what Mr. Byrne meant by 'from your perspective', but too afraid to ask.

"Kenny, I know you're Entangled-"

"Mr Byrne? I don't ...don't know what Entangled means," Kenny sobbed.

"Really?" Craig inquired with a sexy sneer. "Well...let's see...ummm...'Entangled' means...well...it means that I could turn you around, shove my COCK up your ASS, and fuck a pint of Manjinankton Lake into you, along with one of my loads, and I wouldn't even need to ask your permission."

Kenny looked away and winced. To any onlooker, it might seem that Craig had scared and embarrassed the youth, but in reality, Kenny was struggling to resist the impact of Craig's words.

"I th-th-th-thought you w-w-w-were straight," Kenny asked, shivering as if he was freezing to death.

Shard-Guile made Craig's hand start stroking Kenny under the water, causing the boy to let out a whine.

"Just relax," Shard-Guile commanded, "and tell me who put the gay in you."

"C-C-C-Caleb C-C-Crandal," Kenny admitted, sounding as if he were on the verge of crying. "A-A-A-And I can't c-c-control it...c-c-c-can't get it t-t-t-t-tuh stop."

"And there it is," Shard-Guile thought miserably. "Confirmation that Caleb is going to wake up soon, drag the four of us to Faggot Forest, and become one of the monsters Ruby mentioned. And I can't try to stop it, because if I do, I'll alter the timeline and Kenny will end up either dead, or dead and in pieces, just like every other Kenny in the multiverse ...as represented in this FUCKING lake. GODDAMN IT!"

"Kenny, when was the last time you fed...I mean...when's the last time you had butt sex with a guy, or sucked a guy off?"

"A little while ago," Kenny disclosed. "I...kinda did stuff with a guy named Alan."

"Alan Richardson?" Shard-Guile uttered in disbelief.

"Yeah," Kenny confessed shamefully.

"Okay, Kenny? You're gonna have to help me here. Caleb Crandal wanted to lure you to Ferret Forest and put you and the others through HELL!"

"He did," Kenny said in barely a whisper. "Him and the others."

"But from what I'm gathering, you not only survived Ferret Forest, Caleb took you home and let you have a go at his 'Igor'? That doesn't make any damned-"

"But I don't think I did survive Faggot Forest," Kenny contradicted. "I think I died there."

"What?" Shard-Guile asked after a brief WTF moment. "Kenny, you're not dead. You're being silly."

"But nothing's made sense since I woke up!" Kenny protested. "And weird stuff keeps happening! And...and...and it's back to being cold outside again, and I don't know if I can go home, and nobody will tell me what happened to Mike! And then they tell me to go across the lake, and all of a sudden I'm way up in the air, over the lake, and I start to fall. And then I hit the water and passed out, and now it's the Fourth of July again ...and it's warm again! It's not silly to think I'm dead ...it's STUPID to think I'm still ALIVE!"

"I can't let him lead me down a conversational rabbit hole," Shard-Guile reminded himself. "I'm burning out so fast that if I don't wrap this up soon, some of the Entangleds at Maximus Morgan's compound are going to start slipping their leash."

"Kenny, I need to ask some questions about those ghosts that hang around Caleb. Afterward, we can talk about you thinking that Caleb killed you."

"Caleb wasn't the one who killed me," Kenny corrected, causing Shard-Guile to react by making Craig raise an eyebrow.

"You were killed by Reality Itself?" Shard-Guile inquired, wondering just how fucking MURDEROUS the 'Guardian of Life' truly WAS. But then, Shard-Guile remembered that Ruby Nash mentioned that Nature had limited Reality Itself's ability to kill humans and partial humans, as a consequence of what he'd done to Andrew Miller.

"Yeah," Kenny confirmed, knocking Shard-Guile for a loop, "but he didn't do it himself ...he ordered s-s-s-something else t-t-t-to d-do it."

"Some-THING?" Shard-Guile asked, wondering what the fuck Kenny was talking about. "Did 'Some-THING' have a name?"

Kenny nodded for so long that Shard-Guile almost repeated the question, but when Kenny did finally answer, Shard-Guile found himself wishing that Kenny had just kept on nodding forever, instead of saying HIS name.

"Sh-Sh-Sh......Shithead," Kenny forced himself to say.

The moment dragged out into the infinite as Shard-Guile tried to convince himself that Kenny was referring to someone ...ANY-one... any-THING .......other than HIM.

"Kenny?" Shard-Guile began with forced calm. "Would you please describe what this...'Shithead'...looked like?"

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"There is a creature on the Master's surface that patrols the same vast plains that the Pilot Fish clean. These creatures have legs like an ostrich, but much thicker. They can run almost constantly, at tremendous speed."

"Driller Killer," Lecher thought to himself.

"They have large, impact-resistant, compound eyes that extend all the way around their head, interrupted only by two hyper-sensitive ears that are usually covered by a protective hood of durable flesh, but when the creature stops, the hood lifts away from the ear canal and forms whatever external ear shape is required to aid in capturing specific sounds. Its mouth is a broad muzzle, with bulging jaw muscles and teeth strong enough to bite through virtually anything...or crush it! Lord only knows why the Masters needlessly designed it that way."

"Guess I'm the Lord, then," Lecher secretly pondered, "because I know they were designed to tear drillers apart."

"The creatures have four pairs of mighty arms, most of which end with organic, ultradense, tool-like structures. Two arms end with large hooks, the next two down end with what looks like the tips of pry bars, the next pair have seven long fingers apiece, each one shaped like a different cutting implement. I don't know what the last pair look like, but I naturally assume they cannot be used to handle stemware or chopsticks."

"They're a pair of tough, regrowable tentacles that can wrap around a Driller's drill and jam it up before the unit can begin tunneling down towards the Master," Lecher happily recounted to himself. (Chapter 6)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Mr. Byrne, I can't...I can't talk about him ...or even think about him...please!"

"Just tell me what his eyes reminded you of," Craig's mouth instructed with a patience that Shard-Guile had to force himself to fake with all of his might.

"A f-f-f-f-fly," Kenny said, confirming Shard-Guile's fears.

"Kenny, at Ferret Forest, did you see a creepy, Dracula-looking asshole in a long leather coat?" Craig's mouth asked, needing to know HOW IN THE FUCK SHITHEAD GOT TO EARTH!

"No," Kenny replied, narrowing Shard-Guile's list of potential suspects down to ONE.

"Besides Master Kaschak, only a Guile would have the ability to transport things from Master Kaschak's planetoid to Earth," Shard-Guile pondered to himself. "But after what happened with Caboose, why the fuck would Guile bring the most dangerous monster on Ladislav Kaschak's surface across the dimensional barrier?! And why would Majoris obey Reality Itself?! Majoris, like ALL of the creatures on Master Kaschak's planetoid, only speaks the language that Kaschak created for them ...and that SURE ain't English! Whatever happened in this Kenny Miller's timeline, it doesn't make ANY damned sense. One thing is absolutely clear, though..."

"I'm sorry, Kenny," Shard-Guile said, making Craig's face as sad as the situation called for. "Your timeline can't be allowed to happen. I really wanted to save you...mostly for selfish reasons, but also because I feel bad for you. Reality Itself really went out of his way to fuck up your life...completely. You didn't deserve it...none of it. But I can't save you if it means setting Majoris loose on Earth."

Kenny pulled his dick out of Craig's hand and pushed him away.

"Who are you?!" Kenny demanded, shifting to a state of high alarm. "Who's in there?! Who's really talking?!"

"Relax, Kenny, I was just leaving," Shard-Guile sighed, depressed at how things had failed to work out, and hopeful that the Overseer would agree that saving Kenny's life would've come at too high a price.

"Who am I talking to?!" Kenny shouted, keeping his distance. "Only the Guiles call him Majoris! Which one are YOU?!"

"Which Guiles are you talking about?! Did you meet them at Ferret Forest, or AFTER Ferret Forest?" Shard-Guile shouted right back, needing to know if he survived!

"AFTER! Which one are you?!" Kenny demanded.

Shard-Guile wished he were Caleb-Guile. HE would know how to answer, or at least how to deflect the question and get the information he wanted.

"I'm Caleb's Guile," Shard-Guile half-truthed, since most of his lies to Kenny had backfired. "I'm sorry for what Caleb did to-"

"What did you tell me to stop stepping on?!" Kenny demanded, proving that Shard-Guile sucked so bad that he couldn't even pull off a HALF-truth.

"I...forgot," Shard-Guile floundered, not even bothering to TRY another lie.

"You said it less than a half hour ago!" Kenny pointed out, "How could you forget?! You told me to stop stepping on CALEB'S GRAVE!"

"Caleb DIED at Ferret Forest?" Shard-Guile yelped to himself, keeping his terror off of Craig's face while trying to understand how Kenny could've possibly spoken to Caleb-Guile if the Caleb-Lure was dead! If Caleb died at Faggot Forest, the entire THRALL would've died TOO!

"Some Guiles aren't all that smart," Shard-Guile lied, working Kenny HARD. "Other Guiles make fun of me for it, but it's not my fault. It's just the way I was-"

"What's the name of the man you were all talking to?" Kenny asked, giving Shard-Guile another chance. "WHAT'S THE NAME OF THE MAN IN THE GRAY SUIT?!"

Craig sighed.

"Look, Kenny, I'm not really Caleb's Guile, I'm just a ...a broken piece of what Caleb was supposed to be," Shard-Guile confessed while casting Craig's eyes up in exasperation, and therefore not seeing Kenny's face instantly change into an expression of terrified concern. "My name is Shard-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" Kenny screamed, going absolutely nuts. "STAY AWAY!!!

"Kenny! What's wrong?!" Shard-Guile had Craig call out to the hysterical boy, whose swimming technique had suddenly improved from last time he'd tried to get away from Shard-Guile.

Shard-Guile tried to order Craig to swim after Kenny, but he resisted.

"Craig, you have to stop him before he reaches the blood and carnage!"

"Can't. Ruby told me to stay out here ...and you told Kenny you're NOT Ruby."

"I was lying to Kenny!" Shard-Guile lied, trying to regain control over Craig. "He's heading for the DOCK! If he sees his grandfather's killer he'll.... Hey! What's that party boat doing all the way over HERE?!?"

The boat that had silently approached Craig and Kenny suddenly turned on its lights, all of them, ...navigation, deck, cabin, and underwater lights, flooding the whole area and allowing Kenny to finally see the lake around him. Corpses, viscera, and body parts floated all around him.

The intact bodies were face-down in the water, but Kenny instantly knew who they were because of their faded yellow shirts, the same shirt Kenny had been wearing at Faggot Forest.

Kenny Miller screamed... and he wouldn't stop.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The Feeding Area. Robbie Byrne's Christmas Make-up Party

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After his third and final DEVASTATING Entangled penile orgasm, Robbie pulled his shrinking pee-pee out of his father and flopped down on the platform next to him. Without saying a word, one of the men in the audience (a man in his forties whose hairstylist should've been publicly executed to serve as a warning to others) came running over.

If he hadn't been fully erect with a look of desperation on his face, Lecher would've used the yellow tendril to tase him ...in the dick!

"Sorry!" the man blurted as he grabbed Robbie's feet, lifted them high, and stabbed his cock into the boy's bum with the urgency of a man who was about to piss himself.

"Couldn't TAKE IT ANYMORE!" the forty-something with bad twenty-something hair bellowed to Craig, frantically trying to explain himself as he vigorously copulated a boy in front of his father. "I need it to STOP! It's making me CRAZY!"

Alt-4 Craig looked at Robbie's face and saw an open-mouthed smile.

"Have a party," Craig said dismissively, distracted by Joseph Prender and Tyler Whitlock, who were lifting his legs back up while George Klempernick stepped between them and rudely stabbed Craig in the ass with his cock, wanting to HURT Robbie's dad, but only succeeding in causing him intense enjoyment.

"Lecher wants us to fill you up with cum," Tyler blankly informed Craig.

"Have a party," Alt-4 Craig repeated, happily surrendering his asshole and settling in to finally engage in a mutually-enjoyable father/son bonding activity.

"Holy shit," Craig remarked as George grimaced after only six thrusts and started to go through the same pressure build-up as Robbie.

"Dad, what kind of helicopter is that?" Robbie asked, referring to the persistent air-chopping sound coming from somewhere above the fog.

"It's a Boeing AH-64 Apache," Joe Prender answered gruffly while directing an angry stare at Robbie.

"Boeing, huh? I hope pieces don't fall off and kill us," Craig growled, snapping his fingers between Joe and Robbie to get Joe's attention. With a slow shake of his head, he warned Joe not to speak to his son like that.

Robbie wondered what the guy's problem was. After all, Robbie didn't even KNOW the guy ...thanks to Guile, who'd wiped all memory of Joseph Prender and his warped, Satanic, Republican Christianity from the boy's mind.

"Ain't you the guy who sucked off that kid and got fucked by his brother while you were acting like a sheep?" Robbie asked pleasantly.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Is there a reason you're using the other Entangleds to turn Craig into a cum-balloon, Lecher?" Guile inquired.

"Yeah, to give me something to do so I don't go INSANE waiting for the POV you sent into Lure's brain-section to come back and tell us what the hell's going on in there!" Lecher fretted.

"It did, a few moments ago," Guile said glibly.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!"

"Because I was being nice to you."

Lecher made Caleb's right palm slam into his face.

"Just tell me," Lecher mumbled while keeping the hand in place.

"The piece of me that exists in Lure's mind managed to save Kenny Miller and Craig, and he is now engaged in a heated discussion Reality Itself and Ruby Nash, who, for reasons I will NOT get into, knows EVERY potential outcome to tonight's 'festivities', and has had contact with all of the Overseers FROM those potential outcomes. Ruby says that our Thrall must go and save the life of the Overseer."

"Uh...we already knew that's what was probably gonna happen. Anything else?"

"Only the bad news," Guile sighed. "Caleb's mind is attacking Kenny, who is in a state of panic, swimming towards the Crandals' dock through a sea of chum made up of blood, body parts, and corpses of alternate versions of himself who didn't fare as well at Faggot Forest as HE did. And once he reaches the dock, he will have what PROMISES to be an ESPECIALLY unpleasant family reunion of sorts, since at Faggot Forest, he engaged the GOD OF WEATHER AND PROBABILITY in a bout of fisticuffs."

"Please tell me the bad news ends there," Lecher groaned with Caleb's hand still firmly planted on his face. "Just tell me...even if it ain't true."

"Oh nooooooooooo, my friend who has to hear every last fucking detail before following my commands," Guile lorded. "You have to know everything. Reality Itself's POWER and Thomas Daggen's AR-15 are just the smallest aperitifs of our evening banquet. According to Ruby, we also have to deal with ....THE MONSTERS OF FAGGOT FOREST!"

"TELL me...you did NOT just say that," Lecher muttered.

"I honestly wish I could," Guile lamented.

"I'm afraid to ask, but anything else?"

"Yes, the piece of me inside Lure told me that he already knew about Shard-GUILE, and my information was of no help whatsoever. Also, he said thanks for bothering him 'NOW...OF ALL FUCKING TIMES!'. I believe the comment might've been meant sarcastically."

"Geeze, you're even an asshole to yourself!" Lecher marveled.

"As I'm absolutely certain Shard-Guile will discover when next we meet!" Guile grumbled.

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Lecher joked humorless, words that he would soon wish he'd never uttered.

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The Psychic Void

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"Former Thrall Master Maximus Morgan, before we begin, please allow me to apologize for my prior attitude toward you," Shard-Guile acknowledged respectfully, wanting the following negotiation to get off on the right foot. "Although I only did it to deceive my Master, I feel I went too far in-"

"Apology accepted!" Maximus Morgan snapped impatiently. "You might want to think twice about ever calling me 'Max' again, though! You know, I told my Thralls to stop calling me "Master", but in YOUR case, that's all I EVER want YOU to call me! GOT IT?!"

"Yes, Master Morgan," Shard-Guile stated with the utmost sincerity.

"Now tell me what you want, and how far you're willing to go to GET it!"

"A complete betrayal of Ladislav Kaschak is what my Thrall is willing to offer, even if it leads to him being Untethered and pulled into the Gash," Shard-Guile said proudly, feeling giddy for daring to say such forbidden things. "As far as what my Thrall would appreciate in return, we would be thankful if you utilized the Overseer to separate Shard-Lecher from me and merge us with our proper "other halves", making us a true Thrall. And if you would see fit to poach us, place us in a WILLING Lure, and make us part of your Thrall Entourage, we would serve you well and faithfully. Also, and I know this is an unusual request, but if you would allow us to transport our Pilot Fish from Master Kaschak's surface to yours, all four of us would be truly grateful."

"Are you kidding about that last part?" Coach Maximus snapped. "Are you familiar with the phrase 'Trojan Horse'? Do you know how many Drillers you could hide in a Pilot Fish? Or, for all I know, Kaschak developed a biological agent that could EXTERMINATE all of my goddamned Driller Killers, so he can RAIN Drillers down on me, rip through my crust, and shred me to bits!"

"You could...quarantine him," Shard-Guile suggested. "as well as the herd of OTHER Pilot Fish I intend to gift you, each of which are packed with enough Soul-Creation Energy to heal your avatar. In your dimension, your matter and energy powers are virtually limitless, since they aren't restricted by needing to be channeled through your Fingernail into this dimension. Creating a safe quarantine container on your planetoid's surface should be simple for you, by far the most intelligent of your kind."

"Hmm. Very tempting," Maximus admitted with an ominous grumble, "But tell me why Kaschak even HAS a fucking herd of Pilot Fish packed with S.C.E.! What's he plannin' on doin' with 'em?"

Shard-Guile's heart sank. He knew that Master Morgan would probably ask that question, but he was REALLY hoping he wouldn't. Fortunately, Shard-Guile had prepared a way to sidestep it. However, before he could launch into his bullshit...

"Be honest," Shard-Lecher cackled over the telepathic connection. "Don't be evasive."

"Master Morgan, please forgive my Lecher! Our botched ...uh, I mean ...'unusual' Enthrallment, led to our fragmented brain-sections becoming somewhat linked. Our minds and powers are ...shared, allowing him to speak out of turn. Please don't be upset with him. Shard-Lecher's mind has been slowly unraveling since our creation, and earlier tonight, our entire Thrall was subjected to an unanticipated psychic attack that accelerated Shard-Lecher's deterioration, leaving us with only hours at most before-"

"A 'psychic attack'?" Maximus interrupted. "Reality Itself is telepathic?"

"No-no-no, ...well, yes, ...somewhat, I think," Shard-Guile vacillated, frustrated by his inability to guide the conversation where HE wanted it to go, something that made him wish that instead of the majority of a Guile's POWER, he'd gotten Caleb-Guile's CUNNING. "We were attacked ...I mean we encountered a human whose visual capabilities were beyond Caleb-Guile's ability to convincingly screen-"

"PSIONIC FEEDBACK?!" Maximus Morgan blurted.

"Uh....yes, Master Morgan," Shard-Guile confirmed. "The human's perceptions demanded a freakish degree of resolution that the Caleb-Guile was unable to provide, but the screen demanded Caleb-Guile supply it anyway, resulting in a loop that completely drained-"

"I WANT TO SEE THAT FIGHT! GIVE IT TO ME ...NOW!" Maximus Morgan insisted.

"Yes, Master Morgan!" Shard-Guile immediately agreed.

"NO!" Shard-Lecher bellowed. "Without ...BARGAIN? Without even ...single provision agreed to?! SHARD-GUILE RIGHT WHEN HE SAY SHARD-GUILE IS NO GUILE!!!"

Shard-Guile fumed. It's one thing to get legitimately criticized by a genius, but it's quite another to be shamed by something that spent most of it's time talking and thinking like a drunk barbarian with a learning disability ...especially while Shard-Guile was desperately trying to save both of their lives, and possibly the lives of their entire Thrall!

"We have a bargain!" Maximus Morgan roared into the psychic nothingness. "But I want every damned memory in your head! Both Guiles and both Lechers, NOW!"

Shard-Lecher frantically borrowed some of Shard-Guile's intelligence from their shared, makeshift brain section in an attempt to figure out how to stop Shard-Guile from compelling him to surrender his memories to Morgan. Neither of them could be allowed to find out what Shard-Lecher was doing at Faggot Forest. At least, not until Mike Pearson was DEAD.

"NO! Don't do it!" Shard-Lecher screamed at Shard-Guile. "Master Morgan cannot win this! Think about it! He would never allow Kenny Miller to die, yet the only multiversal variant of Kenny Miller who hasn't been SLAUGHTERED comes from a potential future in which a certain someone comes to Faggot Forest to join that exclusive club Ruby Nash mentioned! Ladislav Kaschak WINS! There is no other possible interpretation!"

"The hell are you talking about?!" Maximus Morgan snapped, suddenly DESPERATE to get his hands on those memories AT ALL COSTS! "You two encountered multiversal variants of the Miller boy? Where? HOW? I can't dispute your IDIOT Lecher's dumbass causality conclusions if I AIN'T GOT ME NO INFO!"

"Now you will," Shard-Guile said, ignoring Shard-Lecher and broadcasting his own, personal memories into the brass ring, which relayed them into a heavily damaged Fingernail, where they were channeled through an interdimensional portal inside the avatar, to ultimately be instantly absorbed and examined by a 400 mile long protoplasmic entity whose brain and body were the same thing.

Shard-Lecher's memories would be next.

"IDIOT!" Shard-Lecher screamed at Shard-Guile. "You know there are only TWO possible outcomes of Faggot Forest, and Master Morgan would never allow EITHER ONE to come to pass, which means you're betraying the eventual winner and siding with the loser! Would you care to guess the potential multiversal outcomes for THAT?! Here's a hint: THERE'S ONLY ONE, AND IT'S DEATH!!!!"

"Holy shit," Maximus Morgan commented, utterly blown away by the data he'd received, especially the information about JUST THE PAST THREE HOURS! "Psychic time travel! Potential-future memory phantoms! Multiversal outcomes! TEMPORAL UNCERTAINTY! All of that is theoretical, even to ME ...on BOTH sides of the dimensional veil! FINALLY...after all these centuries...some science I can really sink my teeth into! Hot DAMN!"

"I am delighted that my offering pleases you," Shard-Guile remarked, desiring credit for the tired, ancient god's momentary reinvigoration. "Speaking of multiversal outcomes, I don't suppose you have any thoughts as to why a second time portal opened in Caleb's mind and discharged Kenny Miller's horrific fates, do you, Master Morgan? I realize that Kenny sits at the center of Reality Itself's probability web, and he's also the future Overseer's primary motivation for opening the first time portal, but neither of those explanations seem sufficient."

"They're not, but you're on the right track," Maximus Morgan confirmed. I just ran a few trillion temporal simulations based on the information you handed over. I designed you Guiles and Lechers with telepathic sensors you ain't even aware of. You're constantly scanning the world around your Thrall and POVs for all sorts of things, but that data can only be read and understood by one of us Tethereds. And based on what I learned, I know for certain why Kenny showed up there."

"And if I might be permitted to ask....?" Shard-Guile respectfully prodded.

"It relates to a question you asked my boys a little bit ago," Maximus Morgan hinted. "That's all I intend to say on the matter, though."

"Why?" Shard-Lecher snarled.

"You know," Maximus Morgan growled, "I'm not accustomed to Lechers talking to me in that tone ...or questioning me."

"Explain Steve-Guile, then," Shard-Lecher challenged. "HE questions you all the time. Hell, you even let him dominate his Lure! Will WE be allowed to subvert OUR new Lure, or will we have to tolerate his pesky free will?"

"Shard-Lecher, be quiet!" Shard-Guile insisted, although it sounded more like a plea. "Master Morgan, you've seen what happened with Michael Pearson. Shard-Lecher took the brunt of it, and it has sped up his mental deterioration. I apologize on his behalf, something he will assuredly do himself after he is made whole."

Shard-Guile assumed he'd successfully smoothed things over so that negotiations could continue, but he was wrong.

Negotiations were closed.

"Master Morgan, why didn't the Overseer from the future tell Caleb-Guile to give the Overseer to YOU?" Shard-Lecher suddenly blurted, HORRIFYING Shard-Guile by mentioning another topic he was desperate to avoid.

"SHARD-LECHER! STOP IT!" Shard-Guile screamed, feeling the unpleasant yet familiar sensation of the entire universe -more accurately, the multiverse- crashing down on him and his dreams.

"When I get ahold of the Overseer, you son of a bitch, I'm gonna be making some adjustments to you that you ain't gonna like too much, no matter who your master ends up being, me or Kaschak," Maximus Morgan stated with a disquieting amount of cold calm.

"BRRR!!!" Shard-Lecher mocked. "Your BEST scientific efforts turned me into a PAIN MONSTER! I shudder to think of what I'll become if you actually TRY to fuck me up!"

"Shard-Lecher, PLEASE back down!" Shard-Guile begged, despite knowing that he would not.

"So, now that you know about Ruby Nash and his foreknowledge," Shard-Lecher continued to decimate, "how does it feel to know that if things don't go your way tonight, and Kaschak gets the Overseer, it's going to BREAK you? It's going to drive you so far into despair that in five days, when KASCHAK'S OVERSEER comes to you for help in altering the past, you REFUSE. You give him those mechanical screen orbs to communicate with Caleb-Guile -literally giving the Overseer YOUR BALLS so he can save Kenny Miller on his own- but that's ALL you do....LOSER!"

"You THINK, huh?" Morgan snapped.

"I FUCKING KNOW IT FOR A FACT!" Shard-Lecher shrieked in triumph. "Guile! Give him the REST of your memories ...the ones you're KEEPING from him! 'Master' Maximus Morgan needs to know about SHITHEAD!!!"

"Yeah, fork 'em over! NOW!!!" Maximus Morgan agreed, realizing that a deal with the Caleb Crandal-Thrall was now impossible, but determined to gain every SHRED of information from them that he could.

"I am...unable to comply," Shard-Guile responded, wishing it were possible for a Guile ...even a fraction of a Guile... to cry. "I am convinced that Shithead is the reason you become despondent, like so many of the other Thrall Masters. Lecher? Since ruining this is so FUCKING important to you, go ahead. Slam the stake into the heart of my new and better life."

Shard-Lecher made all the Entangleds encircling Morgan's compound smile. Shard-Guile should've been terrified that Master Kaschak might notice, but he wasn't. Shard-Guile had no more fucks to give, and in a few moments, neither would Maximus Morgan.

"How shall I begin? Let's see..." Shard-Lecher happily mused. "On Master Kaschak's asteroid, of all the monstrous things in the air...in the lakes ...and above and below the ground ...NONE are as feared as the mightiest of all Driller-Killers. He is the BADDEST motherfucker ever created by one of your race ...a race that never seems to get tired of playing God, I might add, despite lacking infallibility, as my genetic NIGHTMARE of a Thrall can CERTAINLY attest! But I digress. The aforementioned Driller-Killer struts around Master Kaschak's surface as if HE were a god, TOO. He's so arrogant that the insufferable prick even dared to give himself a NAME!"

"I'm gonna go ahead and GUESS that he didn't pick the name 'Shithead'," Maximus Morgan grumbled.

"No, 'Shithead' is the name Shard-Guile came up with to provoke him into ordering all of the other Driller-Killers not to collate our Guile and Lecher Archives. Shard-Guile knew that if we were loaded up with stealth and combat files, we would be forced to spy on your Thralls and eventually hunt them down and kill them. Shard-Guile...the COWARD...didn't want to take the risk."

"I wish you would've tried," Morgan spat.

"I WILL try...and I WILL succeed!" Shard-Lecher informed him with absolute certainty. "Unless Shard-Guile 'redacted' it, I think you know the reason WHY!"

"He DID redact it! He redacted a LOT of THINGS! Hand them over!" Maximus Morgan commanded.

"Now that I've completely lost control over Shard-Lecher, and he's made it known that he intends to engage your Thralls in combat, my biological programming forbids me from divulging a tactical advantage," Shard-Guile said miserably. "But as the author of that programming, I believe you already know-"

"CREATOR OVERRIDE!" Maximus Morgan bellowed.

"Deactivated so long ago that I doubt Master Kaschak EVER made a Thrall that you would've been able to seize control over," Shard-Guile sighed.

"FUCK! THOSE BACKSTABBING PIECES OF SHIT NEVER RESPECTED MY AUTHORITY .....EVER!!!!"

"As one of your failures, I have to question whether they ever SHOULD'VE!" Shard-Lecher beamed. "But getting back on topic, Master Morgan, do you know why our Master wants your Overseer?"

"Yeah, Ladislav is bored, and he wants to entertain himself by playing chess with the human race."

Shard-Lecher snickered derisively.

"Good guess, but it doesn't go far enough. Master Kaschak wants to RULE the human race. But the Overseer has limits. He can only help Master Kaschak control a few thousand people at a time. To bring the rest under his thumb, he needs a little SHOCK AND AWE! Care to guess what he intends to do? Hint: despite considering himself a master strategist, Master Kaschak is a BIT of a one trick pony."

There was an unsettling pause before Maximus answered.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" he finally replied, trying and failing to use volume to hide the fact that he was well and truly rattled. "Pilot Fish are the only creatures that can survive on Earth unaided, and THEY'RE only safe from Earth's immune system and dimensional incompatibility for a half hour, TOPS! Larger Pilot Fish organisms can survive there for an hour or so at a time, but only if everything except their tentacles stays inside the stomach or ass of an Entangled. And TINY Pilot Fish organisms can survive in the lungs of an Entangled for a few minutes, or outside in the open for an indefinite period, provided the turquoise tendril creates an energy aura of Gash-side S.C.E. to protect them. However, any OTHER creature from THIS side that gets sent to THAT side is DEAD MEAT! For THEM, the Earth is a fucking WOOD CHIPPER! I'd give a driller-killer FOUR MINUTES before he was completely consumed like a steak in a piranha tank!"

Shard-Guile sent Maximus Morgan the unredacted memory of his recent discussion with Kenny Miller, confirming that the boy had encountered a driller-killer named Shithead.

"HOW?!" Morgan demanded.

"Special harnesses, based on your Fingernail design," Shard-Guile explained. "It creates an internal field of Gash-side S.C.E. to sustain the creature, and an external field of Earth-side S.C.E. to protect the creature while on Earth."

"How the ABSOLUTE FUCK are the two fields kept SEPARATE?!?!" Morgan ranted in horror. "If those two fields...as concentrated as they'd have to be to protect the wearer...WUZ TO TOUCH...!!!!"

"BOOM!!!" Shard-Lecher laughed. "Believe me, I know ALL about energies from THERE that should never be brought HERE!"

"Shard-Guile, how many harnesses does he have?! How many creatures is he planning on sending over?"

"I'm sorry, Master Morgan," Shard-Guile said woefully. "I...I don't want to be a party to your emotional breakdown, nor the utter despair that has been foretold."

"Don't worry, my friend, I can tell him," Shard-Lecher taunted.

"Don't call me that, Shard-Lecher," Shard-Guile chastised, mourning the loss of his second and final friendship. "We're now mortal enemies. You and I shouldn't use that word."

"OVER A HUNDRED THOUSAND HARNESSES!" Shard-Lecher cackled at Maximus Morgan, not even bothering to respond to Shard-Guile formally ending things between them. "And the things that'll be wearing them have been TRAINED...ENDLESSLY TRAINED by Master Kaschak's most trusted and vicious MONSTER: SHITHEAD! Or as HE likes to be called: INVASION COMMANDER MAJORIS."

"................."

"Nothing to say?" Shard-Lecher inquired. "Master Morgan?"

"................."

"Hellooooo? Master Morgan? Don't withhold your reaction. I've EARNED hearing you scream: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"................."

Shard-Lecher felt something weird, prompting him to look at the brass ring. When he did, it crumbled into dust.

"Wow, you certainly screwed THAT up, Shard-Guile," Shard-Lecher 'joked'.

"I'm trying to reclaim my brain power, but you're resisting. GIVE IT BACK!"

"Not happening. I need it to kill those two Thralls."

"When I tried to introduce myself to Kenny Miller, he panicked when I said the word "shard". I think I now know why," Shard-Guile pondered aloud.

"Pray tell why?" Shard-Lecher asked innocently.

"I think he met you...up there. I think you did bad things to him and the others. I think you are one of the monsters that Ruby Nash spoke of."

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," the third monster of Faggot Forest sneered. "Although... I am up there right now, and I'm about to kill Mike Pearson, so I guess it kind of tracks."

"So you have no interest in using him to find the Overseer?"

"He FOUND the Overseer, but he refuses to give him up. Also, I threatened to slice tubby's throat if the Overseer didn't fix us, but the Overseer didn't respond, so Pearson's a dead end."

"You and I could work with our other halves and Entangle Mike, FORCE him to track down the Overseer for us," Shard-Guile suggested half-heartedly, knowing that despite the intelligence Shard-Lecher was stealing from him, reason was now beyond him.

"Nah. Reality Itself's science project gave my Entangled an ass full of poison cum. He dies for that."

"So you wish to embrace death? THAT'S your plan?" Shard-Guile asked.

"No, my plan is to walk one of these Entangleds over to Master Kaschak and tell him exactly where the Overseer can be found," Shard-Lecher laid out. "Let's do it."

"No."

"So YOU wish to embrace death?" Shard-Lecher laughed, throwing Shard-Guile's words back in his face. "That's YOUR plan?"

"Yes," Shard-Guile confirmed. "I don't want to die tomorrow at the hands of our Master ...I don't want to die on August 17th at the hands of the Creeping Vine ...and I don't want to live in the world Ladislav Kaschak wishes to create. I wish to die tonight ...and take you with me."

"I guess you want Cynthia to die too," Shard-Lecher threatened.

"She has no interest in being my friend, so I have no interest in being hers," Shard-Guile sighed.

"I'm going to kill her," Shard-Lecher stated coldly. "When I do, I guess we'll find out if you were bluffing just now."

"Yes, I suppose we will. By the way, I've told everyone that you've gone insane. All of us are against you.

"Meh," Shard-Lecher chuckled. "The odds are still in my favor, AND YOU KNOW IT!"

Sadly, Shard-Guile did.

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The Bottleneck, Moments Before Shard-Lecher's Betrayal

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A cardboard box materialized atop the rough surface of the fallen tree. With practiced speed, Steve-Thrall fired the orange tendril out of their gauntlet and hosed down the box with a potent, fuming substance. Instantly, the box began to dissolve, emitting a violent plume of smoke. However, before the emanations could pose a threat to the humans standing nearby, Steve-Guile shifted the fog to carry the fumes away. He'd tried to create a pretty vortex of Pit Fog to guide the exhaust downwind, but there wasn't any wind (or even a slight breeze), and although Guiles could mobilize large quantities of Pit Fog and move it around quickly (as the military had discovered), compacting a small amount of it and imbuing it with cyclonic motion required too much precision and power focused on a tiny area. As with the Thrall Masters' telepathy, Guile Pit Fog control was a more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel.

"Steve, as a superhero, it's your responsibility to say something somber and menacing right now," Steve-Lecher notified him.

"I got nothing, so I'm just going to glower at it angrily," Steve replied, ACHING to tell his Lecher AGAIN that he didn't WANT to BE a SUPERHERO, but keeping it to himself to avoid ruining the moment Steve-Lecher was enjoying. "I would cross my arms and assume a 'somber and menacing' pose, but the armor gets in the way. Guile? Anything dramatic you want to say to mark this super heroic moment?"

"We will happily reimburse you for the destruction of your box full of childhoods betrayed, Mister Veribton," Steve-Guile intoned solemnly. "I believe silver should cover it. We don't have thirty pieces of it, though, so I hope you're willing to settle for a long, sharp strand of it instead. We look forward to seeing you very soon."

"Hopefully before he uploads that VIDEO," Ryan-Lecher muttered.

Shard-Guile turned toward Tracy, who was having conflicting thoughts. The box had been illegally removed from Veribton's car, and its contents hadn't been visible from the outside of the vehicle, so she had no basis for arresting him when he "reappeared" and went to his car, thus proving he was the one in possession of the box, and not anyone who'd borrowed his car. However, it would've been better for him to KEEP the box in case an investigation led to Tracy being able to obtain a search warrant so that it could be discovered inside Veribton's home.

"Steve-Thrall probably won't really kill Burt Veribton, but in case they do, could you talk to the detective in charge of the murder investigation and ask him to ...wink, wink...you know...?" Shard-Guile snarked.

"We're only allowed to botch murder investigations that occur at Faggot Forest," Tracy snapped sarcastically. "provided the victim's gay, of course."

Everyone, including Cynthia, briefly glanced at Tracy to let her know that regardless of her contention with Shard-Guile, her retort wasn't funny in the slightest.

"So how well do you think you're going to play college ball without all of those superpowers Max Morgan gave you, Ryan?" Tracy jeered, finally finding the right moment to bring up something she'd been wanting to say from the moment Ryan materialized out of thin air. "Think they'll rescind whichever scholarship you used those abilities to steal away from some poor kid who worked hard to get a shot at being noticed by the NFL?"

"What the hell is your problem, Lady?!" Ryan spat. "And WHY THE FUCK are you even HERE?!"

"To answer your first question, she's a nymphomaniac who hates men because it's easier to blame THEM for tempting her than it is for HER to accept responsibility for her inability to be faithful to her husband," Shard-Guile explained. "And since cum vampires-"

"WE'RE THRALLS, NOT 'CUM VAMPIRES'!" the ghost of a boy with a man-bun roared. "HOW THE HELL DID THAT EVEN GET STARTED?"

"And since Thralls," Shard-Guile continued while pointing at the screened image of Caleb Crandal to answer Steve-Lecher's question, "spend most of our time seducing men, like men seduce her, she is using US to vent her PREPOSTEROUS moral indignation, ...indignation that she would NEVER direct at a good-looking man from across the bar who bought her a drink, even after he was done 'forcing' her to make a slut of herself."

Tracy opened her mouth to speak, but she was caught off guard by Shard-Guile suddenly snapping Russell Hawksmoor's fingers at her, indicating that she should shut up. However, before she could get over her outraged ASTONISHMENT, Shard-Guile was already talking.

"But to answer the question you MEANT to ask, you semi-literate LUNKHEAD," Shard-Guile growled at Ryan, pissed that Cynthia had backed up and was standing partially behind Ryan, as if she feared Shard-Guile, "Officer Tracy's problem with YOU is that you're a superpowered CHEAT who has no business on a gridiron, slamming into NORMAL BOYS, and putting them in the position of having to HURT THEMSELVES by trying to TACKLE you!"

"HEY! ...I power down before I hit the field, games AND practices!"

"Really?" Shard-Guile scoffed mockingly. "Ryan-Lecher can 'power down' Thrall indefatigability? AND Thrall reflexes and healing responses? Impressive. You know what, since you feel like LYING to me Ryan, why not tell me that Ryan-Guile never gave you play tactics, and Ryan-Lecher never utilized your subtle shape-shifting powers to make your smooth, soft hands all rough and sticky for better ball handling?"

"Wow, now that I know you bring nothing to the field, Ryan, I think I'm going to really enjoy watching you try to play college ball. So...which university did you grift?" Tracy asked, bringing back some of the winter chill that Reality Itself had taken away. "I need to give Dugan the inside track on which team is going to suck HARD next year."

"I wasn't gonna ACCEPT any scholarships! I decided to go to college in Johnsport so I can keep my powers and LIVE FOREVER!" Ryan seethed at Tracy before snapping his head in Shard-Guile's direction. "BUT YOU FUCKED THAT ALL UP!"

"I SWEAR we had nothing to do with his decision to remain a Thrall! We did not influence him at all! This is the first we're even hearing of it!" Ryan-Guile quickly blurted at the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair before addressing Shard-Guile. "Not that it changes anything for us NOW, thanks to YOU!"

"Sadly, it does, since your Master, soon to be MY Master, decided to agree to my terms a few moments ago," Shard-Guile revealed, annoyed that thanks to HIM, Ryan-Guile's perfect situation would go on, perhaps indefinitely. "Now, shall we discuss how my new Thrall-Brothers and I are going to smuggle a herd of Pilot Fiiiiiiii....................* "

Russell Hawksmoor's face contorted in sudden terror.

"Shatter, what's wrong?!" Cythia asked, telling Shard-Guile that maybe she wasn't really afraid of him after all.

She would be.

For a split second, Shard-Guile took a moment to mourn the new and better life that had finally been his ...for just a fleeting moment ...before slipping far, far away. Shard-Lecher had been correct, despite cheating by fulfilling his own prophecy: There was no hope ........only pain.

"Ryan!" Shard-Guile yelled, his Guile cunning instantly telling him who to deal with, and who NOT to deal with. "My Lecher is out of control! He's going to kill Cynthia! GET HER OUT OF HERE...NOW!"

"OOOO......scary," Steve-Lecher mocked. "A piece of a Lecher is coming, and he's-"

"RYAN...FOCUS ON ME!" Shard-Guile pleaded. "Don't pay any attention to their stupid bullshit! Shard-Lecher is POWERFUL, and he and I are blended, so we can use some of each other's powers, which means that in LESS THAN A MINUTE, he is going to seize FULL control over this body and use it to kill Cynthia! Ryan, YOU'RE the REAL superhero here, not that Guile-whipped PUSSY! YOU tried to go against Kaschak after he took Morgan down, and YOU were the one who disobeyed orders to save Morgan's life! You're a HERO, Ryan. BE ONE RIGHT NOW!!!"

"I'm sending you somewhere safe!" Ryan notified Cynthia, instructing his spectral twin, Ryan-Lecher, to deploy his lilac tendril, which wrapped around Cynthia's waist. Nothing happened though, due to Steve's lilac tendril swiftly extending from his right gauntlet and ensnaring Cynthia's wrist, effectively working against Ryan-Guile's efforts to displace her spatially.

"LET ME GO!" Cynthia screamed, noticing worrying tears streaming down the face of the entity who'd entered her life under false pretenses, yet nevertheless seemed to have strong feelings of friendship for her and concern for her well-being.

"Ryan, Cynthia knows too much and cannot be allowed to leave until Master Morgan arrives and decides how to handle this situation," Steve-Guile self-justified, getting the words out before Ryan could object.

"YOU'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!" Russell Hawksmoor's mouth screamed. "HE'S COMING!"

"Ryan, he's just a possessed Entangled, not much stronger than a human," Steve-Lecher pointed out. "What can he even DO against us? With Steve's training and armor, and your physical might, Shard's Lecher doesn't even register as a threat."

"Shard-Guile, why do you think your Lecher stands a chance against us?" Steve quickly blurted to distract from the fact that Steve-Guile had just acted without Steve's permission, which proved beyond all shadow of a doubt that Shard-Guile was right about Steve. "What can he do?"

The sweating and straining face of Russell Hawksmoor looked over at Ryan-Guile and gave him a slack-jawed eye-roll of supreme exasperation, which Ryan-Guile instantly interpreted a plea for him to answer Steve's question FOR HIM so that Shard-Guile could focus on restraining his Lecher.

"Steve, in a conflict situation between Thralls, Thrall Masters, or in this case, BOTH, Guiles and Lechers CANNOT divulge tactical information that might lead to the defeat of their Thrall," Ryan-Guile speed-spoke. "And before you ask why, living trapped on Earth has made the Thrall Masters petty and mistrustful of one another, so Master Morgan added that rule to Guile and Lecher programming to hopefully PREVENT the sorts of conflicts that would require such a rule."

"SHARD-LECHER IS AN.....IDIOT SAVANT!" Shard-Guile wailed, fighting his genetic programming to give Cynthia's arrogant protectors SOME idea of what they were up against! He wished he could tell them more, like how Shard-Lecher could do astonishing -and LETHAL- things with psycho-reactive substances, but he was helpless to do so.

"We never found out how he was able to prevent me from screening Ryan!" Ryan-Guile warned Steve-Guile, realizing that his refusal to teleport Cynthia to safety had little to do with Cynthia's forbidden knowledge, and a LOT to do with Steve-Guile reclaiming his authority, most of which had not even existed in the first place. As the Guile of the Thrall-Leader, only Ryan-Guile and the Lechers had to obey him, but his authority over them didn't even supersede Ryan's, let alone Steve's.

"HE CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING EXCEPT PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PAIN, SO HE'S ADDICTED TO THEM!" Shard-Guile called out, technically not violating his programming.

"We Lechers can be pacified with pleasure, so maybe Shard's Lecher can be pacified with pain," Steve-Lecher suggested.

"Ryan, we can use the yellow tendril to deliver electrical shocks the Entangled," Ryan-Lecher suggested. "The Lecher will absorb the pain, the human won't feel anything, and any injuries will heal quickly."

"DO IT!" Ryan commanded.

The yellow tendril whisked out of Ryan's ass, curved around his right leg, split into six ends, and wrapped around Russell's neck, wrists, ankles, and the base of his penis and scrotum like a cock ring. Before Ryan-Lecher could electrify the tendril, however, the slack of Steve's lilac tendril extended and wrapped around it.

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Addendum to the Tendril Guile at the end of Chapter 7:

Lilac

Purpose - Universal bi-dimensional energy absorption and redistribution.

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"We won't be doing that," Steve-Guile stated imperiously as his Thrall absorbed the electricity. "Unlike Shard-Guile's Thrall, we have respect for humans."

"No you DON'T, and if you DID you'd be getting Cynthia the hell out of here NOW!" Tracy refuted.

"This is obviously an attempt to trick us into letting Cynthia go so she can expose us," Steve-Guile decided. "Officer Rogers, I'm surprised you're so willing to take the word of someone who's spent the last few minutes calling you a slut."

"Guile-Brother, there's an OBVIOUS solution here that can satisfy-" the ghost of a scrawny teenage boy in a tank top fatefully tried to tell Steve-Guile.

"Keep it to yourself!" the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair commanded, preventing Ryan-Guile from being able to tell anyone his solution. "I have this situation under control! Once Shard-Guile's Lecher emerges, I shall use the violet tendril to restrain him. Simple!"

"YOU COCKY PIECE OF SHIT!" Shard-Guile called out while losing his battle for Russell Hawksmoor's body, if the strain in his voice was any indication. "Were you even LISTENING TO ME?! Do you ever listen to ANYONE EXCEPT YOURSELF?!"

"Guile! I want Cynthia teleported to safety...NOW!" Steve shouted, asserting his authority ...only to find that he had none.

"Steve, long ago we agreed that our Thrall would function democratically," Steve-Guile stated with infuriating patience. "You told our internal monitors to change-"

"You're outvoted, Guile!" Steve-Lecher bellowed. "Let me retract our lilac tendril so Ryan can get Cynthia out of here!!!"

"No! If Cynthia reveals what she knows, Master Morgan will be FURIOUS!" Steve-Guile refused, revealing that contrary to what he'd just said, Steve-Thrall was NOT a democracy.

Steve came to the same realization that occurred to Caleb Crandal just before his suicide attempt: He'd allowed himself to be enslaved.

"Call Coach Morgan!" Cynthia yelled incredulously. "Call and ask him if he wants you to trap me here so Shatter's Lecher can kill me!!!"

"I've been trying, but I cannot reach him," Steve-Guile dismissed. "Since Shard-Guile is speaking with Master Morgan at this very moment, I'm certain he is already aware of the situation."

"No, he's not...Shard-Lecher broke him...forever," Shard-Guile sighed as his strength finally failed him, causing him to embrace the same hopelessness that he imagined Maximus Morgan was experiencing at that moment.

"STEVE, FRY YOUR GUILE!" Ryan screamed, horrified by Shard-Guile's disclosure, despite not knowing what he meant. "IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE CYNTHIA! DO IT NOW!"

"I can't!" Steve replied. "Guile used it to discipline Lecher once, and it upset me. Guile and I made a deal that he and I would never use our punishment options! The system shut down and I can't reactivate it! Coach Morgan has to do it, I think!"

Shard-Guile laughed hysterically. Partially because Shard-Lecher's madness was overwhelming Russell Hawksmoor's mind -thus forcing Shard-Guile out- and partially because Steve had made the same well-intentioned, yet ruinous deal with his Guile that Caleb-Guile had made with his Lecher. Had either of those two deals NOT been made, Cynthia would've been safe.

"Guile, is Steve's mind telling you what his facial expressions and body language are telling me?" the ghost of a boy with a man bun said to Steve-Guile privately, his voice quivering. "If Cynthia dies because of your ego trip, Steve won't forgive us. He could quit, and I'm not just talking about him quitting being The Creeping Vine!"

"This has nothing to do with my ego!" Steve-Guile lied to his Lecher ...and himself. "Weren't you just saying that Shard's Lecher couldn't possibly be a threat to us?"

"BY ORDER OF THE TIMBERSBURG P.D. I ORDER YOU TO LET HER GO!" Officer Tracy Rogers barked over the cacophony of shouts, aiming her borrowed handgun just above, and to the right, of the small metal plate over the center of Steve's sternum. Tracy kept her finger up against the trigger and used her left hand to cover the weapon. If a silver tendril tried to destroy the weapon or slice off the trigger (like what happened to her poor service revolver), it would also have to maim Tracy in the process.

"Seriously, Officer Rogers?" Steve-Guile groaned in annoyance.

"Final warning," Tracy warned.

Steve-Guile's expression grew dark.

"Yes, Officer Rogers, this IS MY final warning to you!" Steve-Guile threatened, making a mistake that would do the impossible: it would haunt a ghost.

BANG BANG BANG BANG

"Tracy, stop!" Steve yelled in surprise, terrified that Tracy would hit his armor, causing the bullet's momentum to be deflected 180 degrees, possibly causing it to hit Cynthia, Shard-Guile's Entangled, or perhaps even Tracy herself.

The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off of the black sections of Steve's bodysuit, exactly as Tracy had anticipated. When she stopped shooting, Cynthia was still present and the end of Steve's lilac tendril was still around her wrist. Tracy's plan had failed, but she had a back-up, for which Steve-Guile would only have himself to blame. While everyone was still shocked at what Tracy had done, she switched on her radio and clicked on the microphone with practiced speed and fluidity.

"Max Morgan and Caleb Crandal are responsible for everything hap-!" Tracy quickly and clearly enunciated before her mike cord was cut by a glint of silver.

"NOW EVERYONE KNOWS, SO GET CYNTHIA OUT OF HERE!" Tracy shrieked.

"Woman, you've just made the worst mistake of your life!" Steve-Guile gasped, despite it being HIM who'd made the worst mistake of HIS life.

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Shard-Lecher, now fully in control of Russell Hawksmoor's body, watched the chaos with a gleeful smile. He'd succeeded in completely suppressing Shard-Guile a few seconds prior, and he'd been just about to murder Cynthia, but now he simply stood silently and watched with sublime appreciation as his Thrall opponents unraveled, thanks to a Guile with an insatiable need for control, and the willingness to commit multiple betrayals in his quest to hold onto it.

When Shard-Lecher tried to kill Mike Pearson at Faggot Forest, he'd been forced to use a knife, since his preferred weapons, his supernatural weapons, were unavailable to him. But here at the Bottleneck, he had access TO ALL THREE OF THEM! Shard-Lecher was going to kill the strongest Thrall EVER and the best Thrall warrior in history, and not even Maximus Morgan's power enhancements or armor would make any fucking difference.

Everyone was too engaged in conflict to notice that Russell Hawksmoor's penis was growing.

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"I TOLD YOU TO CUT STEVE'S TENDRIL OFF OF CYNTHIA'S WRIST, SO WHY AREN'T YOU DOING IT???" Ryan bellowed at his phantom mirror image.

"I CAN'T!!!" Ryan-Lecher bellowed right back, pointing at Ryan-Guile to indicate the source of the inaction. "Steve-Guile ordered OUR Guile to prevent me from obeying your-."

"YOU DON'T WORK FOR HIM, YOU WORK FOR ME!" Ryan screamed into his Guile's face, his face flushed as crimson red as Craig Byrne's pubic hair.

"Uh...we're not allowed to injure a Thrall Brother," Ryan-Guile whimpered impotently. "I'm sorry, but we can't cut his tendril-"

"When a Lure leaves Master Morgan's service, his Guile and Lecher are put into storage," Ryan-Lecher quickly interjected, letting him know the REAL reason Ryan-Guile was passively disobeying him. "As the Guile of the Thrall Leader, Steve-Guile has the power to SKIP OVER the next Guile and Lecher in the queue and choose whoever he wants! He plays favorites! He does it all the time! If you force us to oppose Steve-Guile, when you leave Maximus Morgan's service you'll be sentencing us to an eternity of inactivity, a living HELL for beings like us. Steve-Guile will vindictively sink us to the bottom of that goddamned storage cabinet, even lower than his worst enemy!"

"We get it, all of you ghosts are useless!" Tracy interrupted, cutting through the shit and snapping Ryan out of his frantic apoplexy. "Is there anything you and Steve can do to save Cynthia? Something the ghosts can't STOP?"

"I..." Ryan fumbled with a shrug, unable to think of anything he could do while his own support team was working against him.

"Yes, there is," The Creeping Vine said while reaching up and taking ahold of his mask.

"STEVE, NO!!!!" Steve-Guile shrieked.

"I'M WITH YOU, STEVE!" Steve-Lecher shouted in support. "DO IT! DO IT NOW!!!"

"It's about FUCKING TIME!" Ryan-Lecher grunted, using the same guttural bark that Ryan used when he called out plays. "LET'S FINISH THIS SHIT! GET KASCHAK'S ASS UP HERE! WE CAN TAKE HIM!"

"I agree," Ryan-Guile informed his Thrall ...privately, so that Steve-Guile wouldn't hear.

"I'm WITH you, Bro!" Ryan informed Steve. "You and me...together! WE CAN DO THIS!"

"TRACY!" The Creeping Vine announced loudly to get her FULL attention. "When I take off my mask, Ladislav Kaschak will sense my presence and come straight here to kill me so he can stop me from keeping Coach Morgan alive. I could teleport away from Kaschak, but I'm not going to do that. I'm staying to give Coach Morgan time to escape the compound, retrieve the Overseer, and get away from the area."

"He won't do that, Steve, he'll stay right where he is!" Steve-Guile contradicted in a panicked tone. "Shard-Guile was right! Master Morgan hides it well, but he's been at the end of his rope since even before he met you! And now that his people have betrayed him, he wishes for death to free him from his imprisonment, despite being terrified of dying ...especially if it means falling into the GASH! Master Morgan's compound isn't a sanctuary, IT'S A HOSPICE! Our Master is waiting there for death, LADISLAV KASCHAK, to figure out a way past his compound's defenses and COME FOR HIM!"

"When Kaschak gets here," Steve continued, ignoring everything his Guile had just said, "my Guile will be forced to let Cynthia go, and Ryan's Guile will be forced to take you both to safety. Ryan, you need to go, too."

"I'm staying! NO DEBATE!" Ryan declared.

"Master Morgan will be PISSED if you die, Ryan," Steve disputed. "He's determined to keep the promise he made to your parents."

"It's MY choice, not theirs, yours, or Coach Morgan's. This is GOING to happen!" Ryan countered, showing Tracy that maybe Ryan Klein did 'bring something to the field' after all.

"Give us one of those sleeves of armor, and the archive files we need to know how to use it!" Ryan-Lecher requested. "We can unload on Kaschak and use teleportation to keep him from getting a lock on us. This can WORK!!!"

"FUCK YEA*AAAAAACCCKKKKK!" Ryan shouted in triumph...before tongue material suddenly exploded out of his mouth ...and covered Cynthia's face.

"Get it off of her!" Tracy barked, her police training making her immune from the initial paralyzing shock that most civilians undergo during a crisis.

"I can't," Ryan-Guile replied. "I'm focusing my telepathy on it, but nothing's happening. It's like trying to manipulate NON-psycho-reactive substances!"

Tracy looked over at Russell Hawksmoor, noticing his erection and satisfied smirk.

"Lechers, attach your tongues to the mass so you can aid us in trying to remove it," Steve-Guile ordered, eagerly stating the obvious to remind the ghosts that in spite of the overt and hidden rage being directed at him by the Lures, he STILL expected to be obeyed. "Quickly! Before she suffocates!"

As the Thralls tried to deal with the suffocating substance, Tracy decided to attempt to work Shard-Lecher.

"You just ruined your companion's appeal to Max Morgan, you probably destroyed his friendship with Cynthia, and now you're trying to KILL her," Tracy summarized, trying to ignore Cynthia's thrashing form, which was being supported by Ryan, whose tongue -along with Steve's- was pressed against the suffocating mass of tongue material covering Cynthia's face, trying to force it to liquify so that the tongues could blend with it and remove it. "Let me ask you the same question I ask every abusive partner I encounter on an almost DAILY basis: What do you gain by hurting someone close to you?"

"NO GAIN...JUST PAIN!" Shard-Lecher squealed maniacally, letting Tracy know that reasoning with him wasn't an option. There were no depths to Shard-Lecher's soul, if he even had one, ...just one overriding desire: the constant acquisition of the only thing he was capable of feeling.

"Ryan-Lecher, we can't make it connect to either of our tongues," Steve yelled urgently after withdrawing his tongue so he could speak. "We can't take control of it! THIS ISN'T WORKING! What else can we try???"

"Let's try-" Steve-Guile began.

"NOBODY FUCKING ASKED YOU!!!" Steve Collier bellowed into the face of the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair, his friend and trusted adviser for over fifty years. Steve rarely swore.

Ryan's maroon and olive tendrils slid out of his asshole and hovered over Cynthia's convulsing body.

"Steve, put your tongue back on Cynthia's face," Ryan-Lecher instructed. "As soon as I finish this sentence, all of us and Steve-Guile will concentrate on turning the tongue material into a liquid so I can get the air and exhaust tubes into her mouth! NOW!"

Shard-Lecher winked at Tracy, letting her know that Ryan-Lecher's plan would not work, and sure enough, it didn't, ....until....

Cynthia's face covering suddenly exploded into pinkish-red smoke, which instantly sought out and poured into the mouths of both Ryan and Steve. Upon contact, the smoke resolidified, adding extra mass to their tongues, which both boys' Lechers automatically pushed through the dimensional portal in the back of each Thrall's throat, shunting it to the tongues of Touchdown and Thunderbug, the Thralls' Pilot Fish.

"Son of a BITCH!" Shard-Lecher cried out angrily, his Entangled grabbing his head in apparent agony, which was actually ecstasy, since Shard-Lecher was delighting in the intense disorientation and pain caused by having his control over the psycho-reactive material RIPPED away.

"RYAN!" the ghost of a boy with a man bun hollered, pointing at Cynthia's wrist. While they'd all been focused on Cynthia's "death mask", Steve-Guile let his hold over Steve-Lecher lapse slightly, allowing him to retract their lilac tendril. "IF CYNTHIA ISN'T TELEPORTED AWAY RIGHT NOW, DO YOU WANT RYAN-GUILE'S INTERNAL MONITORS TO ADMINISTER PUNISHMENT?"

It was a genius move, allowing Ryan-Guile to act without fear of reprisal from Steve-Guile...maybe.

"YES I DO!!!" Ryan shouted hatefully over the sound of Cynthia crying and gasping for breath, taking the ball from Steve-Lecher and running with it. "MAXIMUM DURATION AND INTENSITY!!!"

Refusing a threatening hail from Steve-Guile, Ryan-Guile quickly entered Hypertime and used his six points of view at the military's evacuation site to locate medical personnel and gather spatial data to aid in the complex calculations required to set up a teleport jump.

Cynthia Keim disappeared from the Bottleneck and reappeared on a gurney in the back of a mobile medical unit, startling the hell out of 3 EMTs.

"Traumatic air deprivation for about a minute!" the ghost of an emaciated boy in a tank top and athletic shorts informed the man and two women. "If there's anyone ahead of her, just know that she's Raymond Crandal's personal assistant and she was attacked while helping The Creeping Vine, so you might want to prioritize her."

His job complete, Ryan-Guile could've just disappeared, but instead he chose to continue screening that piece of himself into visibility. Just like Steve-Guile would've done, Ryan-Guile wanted to milk the moment. People in the immediate area had seen his and Cynthia's astonishing arrival, and more and more people were staring at him. It was nice to be noticed, but it did little to ease his pain.

Steve-Guile had forced Ryan-Guile to betray his Lure ...and now his Lure was mad at him.

Ryan got mad a lot, despite Lures having a natural unnatural tendency toward serenity. Ryan-Guile quickly figured out, though, that the reason Ryan's Thrall coping enhancements didn't extinguish his rage with forced well-being was because Ryan was just one of those strange humans who needed to be angry in order to be truly happy. It had never really bothered Ryan-Guile, despite Ryan's anger being frequent, tiresome, and usually accompanied by an inability to THINK and REASON. Tonight was different, though. Tonight, Ryan was mad at Ryan-Guile, ...and for once, it was for adult reasons, and not the usual childish ones.

Everything would now change, at the very worst time, for the stupidest of all reasons: Guile politics.

Ryan-Guile was a sniveling kiss-ass, and up until tonight, he'd been quite happy being a sniveling kiss-ass because it had kept him out of that goddamned storage cabinet, or at the very least, reduced the time he spent there.

It had come as no suprise to Ryan-Guile that Shard-Guile wanted to be poached by Maximus Morgan. Why wouldn't he? From an outside perspective, service to Maximus Morgan was akin to immortality. Usually, Guiles and Lechers were created from the spare gray matter left behind during the Enthrallment process, and then UNCREATED when the young man chose to be Unenthralled. Guiles and Lechers were horrifyingly DISPOSABLE, something they were simply forced to accept. But Maximus Morgan was different, in that he reused Guiles and Lechers, making service to Maximus Morgan, as opposed to any of the other Thrall Masters, a coveted position.

But there was a downside to the arrangement, a downside whose ego needed to be jacked off constantly. Otherwise, a fate awaited that made the oblivion of Unenthrallment seem humane by comparison: endless restless sleep in a storage cabinet, dreaming endless dreams of the glory of UTILIZATION, and dreaming endless nightmares of being in that container FOREVER! The thing that presently inhabited the body of Steve Collier was a BASTARD, one who mistakenly thought of Ryan-Guile as a brother, when truth by told, Ryan-Guile HATED him, and the self-nullifying things he had to do to remain in Steve-Guile's good graces ...LIKE BETRAY RYAN!

"It would seem I've allowed you to bully me into ruining my perfect relationship with my Lure, 'Brother'," Ryan-Lecher muttered after making damned sure that none of Steve-Guile's POVs were floating around nearby. "Perhaps Shard-Guile will hate me less, now that you, he, and Shard's Lecher have destroyed the life that Shard-Guile was so jealous of. And bitterest of ironies, I am forced to conceal my resentment toward you and continue to kiss your ass, lest -when I am soon removed from Ryan Klein- you further abuse your authority and stroke your ego by passing me over for centuries."

Ryan-Guile took a moment to look around again to make certain the coast was clear, then uttered a curse. And unbeknownst to him, it would come true.

"Of the many Guiles and Lechers you've wronged by prioritizing me and my Lecher over THEM, none have as much reason to HATE you as The Dark Guile. Despite his worrying excess of intelligence and ambition, he deserves a second chance that you have steadfastly refused to give him. I would see him RELEASED, 'Brother', just for the joy of watching him systematically DESTROY YOU!"

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Mister Harris, what are you?" Robbie sniffed after pulling away from their embrace due to suddenly feeling silly and childish.

"Young man," Mister Harris responded, making deliberate eye contact with Robbie, "you just asked the one question that no one EVER asks Mister Harris."

"Oh....sorry," Robbie replied nervously, hoping he didn't just ruin his chance to become a cum vampire....and find his lost friends.

"That's okay, son. Everyone's allowed to make that mistake...once."

(Chapter 11)

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Several miles away, from the direction of the Bottleneck, loud explosions were heard, startling everyone at the evacuation site.

"Shouldn't you go back there?" Cynthia yelled from the gurney, resisting whatever calming drug had been injected into her arm by the EMTs a moment ago.

"I am back there," Ryan-Guile informed her, accidentally reminding himself of the movie, 'Avengers: Age of Ultron', a film about a robot with the ability to spread his consciousness to mechanical duplicates of himself. At first, Ryan-Guile was intrigued by Ultron, since he was able to do more or less the same thing, using Entangled humans. But as the movie went on, Ultron reminded Ryan-Guile more and more of his 'brother', who Ryan-Guile could easily imagine following up Ryan-Guile's answer to Cynthia's question with a demeaning: 'Don't worry, you'll catch on.' as Ultron had done under similar circumstances.

"Then what's happening there?" Cynthia asked, catching on instantly. Ryan-Guile wondered if it was because she was quite sharp, or if she'd simply seen the movie too.

"Two immensely powerful beings and their support ghosts are learning a valuable lesson about the dangers of hubris," Ryan-Guile explained sadly. "The pain monster is also teaching us that the old saying: 'It ain't what you got, it's how you use it', applies to superhuman abilities as much as it applies to penises."

"Is he okay?"

"For now, but if I suddenly disappear, expect that he is not."

An overweight, 30-something, male military officer was running up behind Ryan-Guile, prompting him to Entwine with the man to scan his active thoughts to find out what he wanted, ...also to learn all there was to know about him, sexually. Certainly not because Ryan-Guile needed to know at that moment, but because in the midst of all the tragedy and chaos, Ryan-Guile wanted to do something that was normal for a Guile to do.

"ARE YOU A GUILE?" the man roared at him.

"I'm thin as a rake, clothed, and TRANSLUCENT ...what the fuck ELSE would I be?" Ryan-Guile thought bitterly to himself before respectfully addressing the military officer. "Yes, I am a Guile. I work with The Creeping Vine."

"THANKS TO THAT BASTARD IN THE WHEELCHAIR, WE'VE GOT INCAPACITATED SOLDIERS CLOSE TO YOUR GODDAMNED WARZONE! WE HAVE TO EXTRACT THEM!"

"I'm terribly sorry, I'm waking the men and clearing the heads of the women," Ryan-Guile said glumly. "I'm pushing the fog back into the valley, too. Pull your people as far back from the Bottleneck as possible. I fear this situation is going to worsen quickly."

"IF I SEND MEN DOWN THERE, CAN YOU KEEP THE FOG FROM AFFECTING THEM?" the officer continued to yell, despite the explosions having ceased.

"No, we've just learned that our opponent is a savant who excels in manipulating psycho-reactive substances, such as our fog, with far more skill, power, and complexity than we are capable of. We cannot protect soldiers when we can barely protect ourselves."

"Since you seem a lot more reasonable than that wheelchair Guile, will you tell us what we can expect when we get to Max Morgan's place?" the officer inquired, telling Ryan-Guile that Tracy's radio message had been intercepted by the military.

"I appreciate the compliment. The 'wheelchair Guile' represents us, but he does NOT 'represent' us, if you understand my meaning," Ryan-Guile stated dangerously, but with a lot of satisfaction. "Please repeat those words to Lieutenant Veronica Preston, along with my apologies for my broth- ...my colleague's treatment of her."

"I will," the man affirmed. "Now about-"

"When your men arrive at my Master's home, they will find that he is being held under house arrest by an angry godlike being capable of manipulating and transmutating enormous quantities of matter and energy. On the way, as the men pass what used to be Malawny Hollow, have them slow down and imagine it filled with the corpses of soldiers who have been transformed into metal statues. The metal will probably be osmium. Our foe is quite fond of osmium, as I'm sure you already know. THAT is what your soldiers can expect if you send them to Maximus Morgan's prison."

"I am sorry," Ryan-Guile apologized after a moment's reflection, realizing how rude he'd just been. "I guess I'm not so different from 'that bastard in the wheelchair' after all."

"No offense," the officer muttered before turning away and speaking into his phone, rephrasing and relaying Ryan-Guile's assessment for his superiors, who couldn't hear what had been said due to Ryan-Guile being a telepathic illusion who couldn't actually produce audible sound.

"How are things with Shard-Lecher going?" Cynthia asked from behind one of the female EMTs.

"Bad."

"What can you tell us about the Crandal boy?" the military officer jumped in before Cynthia could ask for elaboration.

"Nothing except that he has been either willingly or unwillingly transformed into a superhuman by our Master's jailer. Caleb has many of the same powers as The Creeping ViiiiiiiiiiEEEEEEEEEEE***!

The illusion of an emaciated boy went haywire, randomly expanding, contracting, and rippling, as if it were being put through a filter designed to cycle images through a variety of funhouse mirror effects.

...and then it disappeared.

Cynthia stared in horror at the empty space where Ryan-Guile had been.

"Didn't he say that if he disappeared, it meant that someone was injured or something?" the other female EMT asked.

Cynthia worried for Ryan's safety. If she could've seen what Shard-Lecher was about to DO to Ryan, she would've worried a hell of a lot MORE!

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The Bottleneck, Immediately Before Cynthia Was Teleported Away

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Cynthia's face covering suddenly exploded into pinkish-red smoke.

"Son of a BITCH!" Shard-Lecher cried out angrily, his Entangled grabbing his head in apparent agony, which was actually ecstasy, since Shard-Lecher was delighting in the intense disorientation and pain caused by having his control over the psycho-reactive material RIPPED away.

"RYAN!" the ghost of a boy with a man bun hollered, pointing at Cynthia's wrist. While they'd all been focused on Cynthia's "death mask", Steve-Guile let his hold over Steve-Lecher lapse slightly, allowing him to loosen the lilac tendril enough that it wasn't touching her skin. "IF CYNTHIA ISN'T IMMEDIATELY TELEPORTED AWAY, DO YOU WANT RYAN-GUILE'S INTERNAL MONITORS TO ADMINISTER PUNISHMENT?"

"YES I DO!!!" Ryan shouted hatefully over the sound of Cynthia crying and gasping for breath, taking the ball from Steve-Lecher and running with it. "MAXIMUM DURATION AND INTENSITY!!!"

Cynthia disappeared.

"Ryan-Guile has complied with Ryan-Lure's command," Ryan-Guile listlessly informed his mental monitors before falling silent and withdrawing completely from the conversation unless directly addressed. It was an unconventional strategy for a cunning entity whose arsenal for navigating life and performing his duties consisted mainly of words, yet undoubtedly the most effective approach to avoid involvement in the escalating power struggle between Ryan and Steve-Guile. Both wielded a formidable amount of influence over Ryan-Guile, each believing his primary allegiance should lie with them. Ryan-Guile couldn't afford to do anything that might be interpreted as declaring loyalty to either one. In tugs of war, the rope never wins.

"I take NO responsibility for what she tells the media when they run to her for ANOTHER comment, RYAN-THRALL, AND YOU TOO, LECHER!" Steve-Guile hissed before turning to Shard-Lecher. "And to answer your question, while you were struggling to keep the others from liquifying the tongue material on Cynthia's face, I sublimated it instead, successfully gambling that you couldn't simultaneously prevent it from becoming a GAS while also inhibiting it from becoming a LIQUID. I took a plan that that was doomed from the start and turned it into a winning strategy!"

The smug grin vanished from the face of Steve-Guile's screened image upon seeing that Ryan and Ryan-Lecher were glaring at him with matching expressions of loathing and hostility, and Steve and Steve-Lecher weren't looking at him at all.

Directly above the group, one of the light bubbles began to change. Neither Thrall noticed ...but the biosphere did.

"Now that Cynthia is safe, Steve, I hope you intend to keep your mask on," Steve-Guile lectured, chattering away to gloss over his actions and work on establishing a detente amongst the broken team and work on rebuilding camaraderie. "I vote that we all NOT tell Master Morgan what Steve almost did ...and that some of you backed his decision."

"Votes only count in a democracy," Steve-Lecher noted. "You just killed ours, if it ever really existed in the first place."

"You were making bad decisions!" Steve-Guile disputed, angrily accepting that he would have to justify his actions to everyone, who were so determined to be angry at him that they refused to see the obvious truth: Steve-Guile had been RIGHT! "You overreacted to Shard-Guile's warning, and it almost led to you summoning Ladislav Kaschak, who probably would've killed hundreds of people in front of the worldwide media! And WHY were you going to do that? Because Shard-Lecher can somehow make it a little bit difficult to liquify tongue material! Whoop-de-doo. He PLAYED his stupid trick, I foiled it, and you all ended up getting EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED, which was apparently Cynthia Keim on the eleven o'clock news! So what the hell is the PROBLEM?"

Above the group, the battle between the extradimensional light and the biosphere's immunological response was reaching critical mass. Shard-Lecher was expertly increasing the illumination of the bubbles at the same rate that the biosphere's immune system was decreasing it, creating a halo around each bulb that was actually an event horizon between two opposing and EXTREMELY incompatible energies.

"Uh, oh. Tracy ain't gonna like THIS!" Shard-Lecher chuckled to keep the group focused on Russell Hawksmoor.

"I'm not going to like WHAT?" Tracy snapped back, well and truly SICK of the sound of Russell Hawksmoor's voice and everything that was utilizing it to SPEAK!

"Things are getting out of hand at Caleb-Thrall's feeding area ...THANKS TO ME. I've just reintroduced a man named Jeffrey Hildebrandt to Tyler Whitlock, the bad cop who kicked and tormented him during the Rainbow Tavern Raid! My GOD!!! The VIOLENCE!!! THE BLOOD!!! Sweet Jesus, THEY'RE KILLING EACH OTHER!!!"

"RYAN!" Tracy yelled, grabbing his meaty shoulder, "GET US DOWN THERE, NOW!!!"

"NO!!!" Steve-Guile screamed. "SHARD-LECHER JUST DEMONSTRATED THAT HE'S A MASTER OF MANIPULATING TONGUE MATTER, AND YOU WANT RYAN TO TAKE YOU SOMEWHERE CARPETED WITH THE STUFF???"

"Why not teleport to Faggot Forest? There isn't any tongue material THERE! THERE, all I have is a KNIFE, and I'm a few minutes away from GUTTING MICHAEL PEARSON LIKE A HOG!" Shard-Lecher cackled. "But you might want to reconsider going to the feeding area. Y'see, I've taken control of an Entangled thirteen year-old boy-"

"A WHAT?!" Ryan shouted, drowning out the other horrified reactions.

"...named Robbie Byrne, and for shits and giggles, I'm gonna run him into the woods, far away from other humans, so that when I go to collect the Overseer for my Master, Reality Itself will be so furious that he uses the kid to recreate THE PETER TOYNSBEE INCIDENT!"

"Master!" Steve-Guile called urgently into the telepathic receiver of Steve's suit. "We have multiple crisis-level emergencies that require your immediate guidance! Please respond!"

"Do you know that Pearson kid?" Steve blurted.

"Yeah, he's in my grade," Ryan affirmed.

"Go to Faggot Forest and save him," Steve instructed. "Since Guile won't let me teleport, I'm going to the feeding area on foot to try to deal with the situations there!"

"Steve, don't do this!" Steve-Guile warned. "We have to wait here until Master Morgan contacts us and gives us instructions!"

"I'm coming with you!" Tracy informed Steve.

"Only if you can keep.....HEY!!!!"

The Creeping Vine had launched into a standing broad jump, which should've given him enough forward momentum to easily clear the guardrail, reach the forest line, and disappear deep into the forest, leaving Tracy far behind ...and safe. However, Steve's body suddenly gained a large amount of gravitation mid-jump, causing him to plummet like a boulder, crashing down and flattening the guardrail beneath him.

"GUILE!!!" Steve roared, his superhuman strength insufficient to get him back on his feet.

Once again, the lilac tendril zipped out of Steve's gauntlet. This time, it wrapped around Ryan's neck. Had Steve-Guile taken a moment to think about where to put the tendril, he would've chosen Ryan's ankle. Instead, he picked the WORST place to put it, and the leash symbolism was not lost on ANYONE there.

"GET THIS OFF OF ME!!!" Ryan screamed, yanking on it while losing his goddamned MIND with rage.

"LET ME UP, NOW!!!" Steve demanded.

"No one is doing ANYTHING until Master Morgan gives us our orders!" Steve-Guile commanded. "And THAT, is THAT!"

"Then he'd better get over his sad real quick and call inside of fifteen seconds, because that's how long Tracy Rogers has to LIVE!" Shard-Lecher announced. "Unless you activate that nifty pink forcefield I saw you use against that Preston woman's snipers!"

The fog suddenly pulled back from the group, leaving them in an oasis of clarity ...visually.

"There!" Steve-Guile crowed proudly, calling Shard-Lecher's bluff. "No fog, no tongue matter, and your Thrall body and its tendrils are nowhere nearby. So.....HOW many seconds do we have left?"

Ryan-Guile, sensing that Steve-Guile's rampaging overconfidence was going to get them all killed, surveyed the area with as many POVs as he could generate, looking for any conceivable threat, including the possibility of the Caleb-Guile's tendrils burrowing through the ground beneath them. Nothing. But then, on a whim, he happened to take a look at something he had no reason to fear...something that he'd always considered to be as harmless as the air on which they floated.

Something was amiss.

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Ryan felt weird things happening inside his mouth.

"Ryan, I am having Lecher reconfigure your jaw! Lecher, prepare for emergency human protective measures on Officer Rogers and Shard-Lecher's Entangled! Don't detach your tongue afterword! We'll use your physical connection to the tongue material and my influence over psycho-reactive matter to prevent Shard-Lecher from pulling the same trick twice!" Ryan-Guile instructed.

"TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE DOING!" Ryan demanded, having lost faith in his Guile for allowing Steve-Guile to overrule him, and for refusing to cut Steve-Thrall's lilac tendril OFF OF HIS FUCKING NECK!

"I've noticed an imminent threat, possibly the one Shard-Lecher intends to use to kill Officer Rogers, but since Steve-Guile is power-tripping and refuses to listen to me, I'm preparing for it on my own."

"WHAT'S THE THREAT?!" Ryan demanded.

"Right now, your body language and facial expressions," Ryan-Guile replied. "We are dealing with a Lecher. If I tell you the nature of the threat, you'll unknowingly telegraph my discovery to Shard-Lecher, who will use his Guile's cunning to nullify my countermeasures. Do I have your permission to proceed?"

"Yes," Ryan responded reluctantly.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Ryan-Thrall, maintain control over your tongue!" Steve-Guile directed, oblivious to his brother's intentions. "If you feel him reaching for the Pit Fog or any of your tongue matter, let me know!"

"Guile, if you won't activate the force field, at least teleport Tracy out of here!" Steve pleaded as the fifteen seconds elapsed.

"Thanks to Lecher, Ryan, and Ryan-Guile, we already have ONE security risk running around," Steve-Guile breezed, refusing yet another command. "Besides, you promised Officer Roger's captain that you would look after her and keep her safe from the military."

"I'm not leaving, but I'd be safer with THEM than here with you and Shard-Lecher, Steve-Guile!" Tracy hissed.

One of the light bubbles dropped from the air above and headed straight for the group. Steve-Guile saw it and finally understood, but it was too late. His mental touch couldn't deflect the Shard-Lecher-controlled projectile, nor did he have time to activate the armor's force field.

"Ryan....NOW!" Ryan-Guile instructed.

Ryan opened his mouth impossibly wide and unleashed a forked aerial river of tongue matter. Half of it smacked into Tracy and flowed around her body before solidifying, and the other half did the same to Russell Hawksmoor, but left an opening at the base of his skull to prevent Shard-Lecher from being RIPPED out of Russell Hawksmoor's mind, shredding it in the process.

Just before the devastating explosion, Ryan side-kicked Russell's shell from the other side of the guardrail, causing his casing to topple to the muddy ground, covering the hole in the back. He then brought Tracy down onto the roadway and got down on all fours to cover her with his naked yet impossibly durable body. As an extra measure, he ordered his Guile to increase his gravitation to make him a better shield ...in place of the force field that SHOULD HAVE BEEN protecting them.

It didn't work.

"GUILE!" Ryan screamed at the last second.

The explosion shook the roadway and turned the shards of broken auto glass into deadly shrapnel that filled the air and flew outward. Worse still, vehicles near the epicenter of the blast were lifted and/or moved by the force of the blast, bringing Gary Orlinski's car right next to Tracy and Ryan, proving they were far less protected than Ryan-Thrall would've liked.

Ryan, I couldn't shift any of Touchdown's gravitation to you! Something went wrong!" Ryan-Guile yelled.

Ryan's lilac tendril slid out of his ass and reached out to touch the car.

"Don't worry about it...just lock this car in space so it doesn't crush me and the cop!" Ryan-Lecher called out, prompting Ryan-Guile to attempt to activate the tendril and turn Gary Orlinski's car into an unchangeable, positional fact!

Steve-Lecher watched in depressed envy as Ryan-Thrall behaved like a team, like the superhero that The Creeping Vine wasn't.

"It's not working" Ryan-Guile alerted Ryan and everyone else. "I can't get the tendril to transmit the Spatial Distortion Energy!"

Another overloading, unstable light bubble dropped from the air. As it fell, the ghost of an over-developed teenager ran/floated over to the ghost of a boy with a man bun and the ghost of a boy in a wheelchair. Reluctantly, the ghost of an emaciated boy in a tank top came along too, pulling his Lecher into Hypertime to match the time perception of Steve-Guile and Steve-Lecher, who were unsurprisingly locked in a heated debate!

"Tracy and Shard-Lecher's Entangled are going to suffocate, and Shard-Lecher keeps going back and forth between trying to liquify Tracy's casing and trying out that new TRICK you just fucking taught him! WE CAN'T KEEP COUNTERING HIM LIKE THIS!" Ryan-Lecher screamed, so upset that his mind-voice was barely comprehensible. "And if Shard-Lecher detonates that light bubble close enough to the roadway, the explosion could flip one of these vehicles right on top of them!"

"CALM DOWN!" Steve-Guile shouted with authority, which only served to piss off Ryan-Lecher even MORE. "I've activated the armor's forcefield projector! The humans will be safe, but you WON'T be if you keep SPEAKING TO ME LIKE-"

"Guile!" Ryan-Lecher said, turning his BACK on Steve-Guile to consult with Ryan-Guile, a move that also served to show Steve-Guile how little Ryan-Lecher thought of him now. "Will the force field form around the humans before the light bubble reaches the ground?"

Ryan-Guile looked at Steve, still face down on the crushed guardrail. His black bodystocking was slo-o-o-o-o-owly dissolving away from his body, turning into the same defensive energies that normally occupied the eye sockets and mouth area of his brass masquerade mask. The energies were expanding outward, covering most of Russell Hawksmoor's body, but they still had several yards to travel before they would envelope the body of Tracy Rogers.

"No, the blast wave will reach Officer Rogers instants before the forcefield covers her and Ryan!" Ryan-Guile calculated while staring at the shimmering, slowly descending orb of concussive death.

Ryan-Lecher turned to face Steve-Guile again.

"So...now that you've taken full control over your Thrall, WHAT DO WE DO NOW, 'THRALL-LEADER'?" Ryan-Lecher hissed, acting just as Ryan himself would've done at that moment, had he been able to enter Hypertime.

"The plan is for me to ask Master Morgan to replace you at his earliest convenience. Say hello to the Dark Guile for me. He'll be on the shelf ABOVE yours!"

"Coach Morgan, as my memories show, Steve was SCREAMING at Steve-Guile to activate his force field, but he refused!" Ryan-Lecher leaned down and snarled in Steve-Guile's face, giving Steve-Guile a sneak peek of how he intended to present this incident to their Master. "My Thrall barely managed to save Officer Rogers and Shard-Lecher's Entangled from the first explosion by surrounding them with solidified tongue material. We weren't able to completely insulate them, though, so the pressure wave, shock wave, and localized earth tremor rattled them pretty bad. It's no WONDER Tracy Rogers didn't survive the second explosion! I look forward to working with the new Steve-Guile, who I'm sure will do a much better job-"

"Steve-Lecher, the force field has spread wide enough that you should be able to teleport Officer Rogers beneath it! Do it!" Steve-Guile commanded after spinning his wheelchair around to give Ryan-Lecher HIS back.

The ghost of a boy with a man bun sent the lilac tendril out of Steve's gauntlet and over to Tracy's mummified body. Due to the time dilation, it moved agonizingly slow through the air ...and the light bubble was moving alarmingly quick.

The lilac tendril made contact with Tracy. Nothing happened.

"Why isn't it WORKING?!?" Steve-Guile screamed.

"I only direct the tendril to the target!" Steve-Lecher yelled back despite knowing that Steve-Guile hadn't actually been addressing him. "YOU'RE the one who does the spatial calculations and controls the result."

Seeing a perfect opportunity to protect himself against Steve-Guile's revenge by making him look even WORSE by showing him up, Ryan-Lecher looked over at Ryan, who was down on all fours, shielding Tracy's 'cocoon'. Three tendrils slowly pooped out of his ass: violet, maroon, and aqua blue. The violet tendril ribboned, looped around Steve's boot, then came back to encircle the casing around Tracy's ankles. The plan was to contract the violet ribbon and pull Tracy under the field, but since the action had to be accomplished in under a second, there was a danger of putting too much strain on Tracy's joints and vertebrae. To address this issue and reduce friction between the tongue matter and the roadway, Ryan-Lecher strategically aimed the air-blasting maroon tendril and the water-blasting aqua blue tendril slightly below her casing. With luck, Tracy would be instantly washed, blown, and pulled out from under Ryan, to safety.

Once the tendrils were all in position, Ryan-Lecher triggered the maroon and aqua blue tendrils to dispense torrents of air and water, respectively, and commanded the violet tendril to contract.

Nothing happened.

"We are....so.....fucked," Ryan-Lecher mumbled.

All faces turned toward Steve-Guile, who quickly altered his Hypertime rate even higher so that he could escape their accusing eyes and compose himself in private.

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"ARGHH!" Steve-Guile screamed. "It's all falling apart! I did exactly what Master Morgan would've wanted us to do, but they FOUGHT me, but now I'M the asshole because Master Morgan hasn't shown up yet! And when he does, they're all going to tell him that Tracy Roger's death was all MY fault ...and blame ME for her BROADCASTING HIS NAME AND HIS INVOLVEMENT IN ALL OF THIS SHIT!!! ...not to mention everything that spews out of Cynthia Keim's mouth the next time someone gets too close to her with a NEWS CAMERA!"

The imploding Guile drifted away from the soon-to-explode light bubble and floated from one end of the Bottleneck to the other, trying to clear his tortured head. Along the way, he passed over Tom Daggen's skid marks, whose significance in his downfall, Steve-Guile would never know.

"Shard-Guile hates Ryan-Guile for his idyllic life, but if he'd only seen how I spent the last fifty years, that jealousy would transfer to ME in an instant!" Steve-Guile mused. "Japan, China, Brazil, and France, just to START with! So many languages and cultures to learn, simply to feed. What a CHALLENGE it was, keeping up! Not to mention all the fun Lecher and I had, translating each of Steve's new martial arts styles and various other disciplines into Archive Files. And the different FOODS we sampled..."

Shard-Guile looked down at the glass-covered road as he continued on his aimless trek. A perfect metaphor for what had now become of his once-perfect life. OF COURSE it would ALSO have to be the perfect metaphor to describe the two goddamned SHARDS!!!!

"But now we're stuck HERE, where almost everyone is white, and even the Native Americans only speak American English! I haven't Entwined with anyone interesting in over a YEAR, and every restaurant serves either hamburgers, pizza, or steak! And worse YET, Steve is acclimating just fine! I know that Lures are psychologically altered to be able to DO that, but how does someone who's seen the WORLD ever manage to ADJUST TO TIMBERSBURG???"

Steve-Guile drifted back toward the most recent devastation, where the damaged cars in the area had been further damaged and flung around by the light bubble detonation, with another one coming less than a second after Steve-Guile exited Hypertime.

"Shard-Guile thinks that I want Steve to be The Creeping Vine because I desire fame! He's right, but what I mostly want is to get OUT OF HERE! This area is UNENDURABLE! During his confinement, Master Morgan has expressed regret that he hasn't kept up with advances in Earth technology, which might've given him an edge in this conflict with Master Kaschak, since most of Master Morgan's acquired technology from the other dimension doesn't work over here. He's even said that should this situation END, he might reveal himself to the American government and make some sort of deal with them, an information and technology exchange, like what his people used to do in the other dimension ...something that would serve to occupy him and ward off the despair that threatens to consume him. I doubt he would go through with it ...his depression being as bad as it is...but SHOULD a deal be brokered, I would BET that the U.S. government would, from time to time, ask to borrow the services of a certain well-trained 'superhuman operative' to handle situations that the humans cannot deal with themselves. Introducing the world to The Creeping Vine was a HUGE step in attaining that goal, but now that the others have ruined my attempt to prove to Master Morgan that my Thrall can be trusted to obey his mandates if we are let out into the world, free of our hunting circle restrictions, I'm certain that my dreams of travel, utilization, and fame are now dead."

Steve-Guile approached the volatile light bubble, its descent imperceptible due to Steve-Guile perceiving the world at a much slower rate.

"What should I call you?" Steve-Guile wondered. "I can't very well have my FUCKING LIFE RUINED by something called a 'Bubble Bomb', can I? No, that name is too silly for something as deadly as you. Let me take a look and try to figure out what Shard-Lecher did to make you so disagreeable. Once I do that, naming you will be much easier."

Steve-Guile stared into the bulb, which appeared to be functioning exactly as it should, putting off the precise amount of localized illumination that Steve-Guile had set it to. In fact, it looked SO maddeningly ordinary (as ordinary as an extra-dimensional light source could) that Steve-Guile became more and more obsessed with discovering its secrets.

"ARRR!" Steve-Guile grumbled once his in-depth visual analysis yielded no clues. "No, I will not give in to the same frustration that is slowly destroying the Thrall Masters! Although Guiles are given certain human attributes to better interact with our Lures, I am NOT ruled by them! I can SHUT THEM OFF and conduct a PROPER and DISPASSIONATE scientific investigation."

Steve-Guile floated to the outer edge of the illumination being produced by the light bubble and shifted his perception so that he could see the Earth's immune response as it gobbled up the extra-dimensional brilliance, preventing the 'photonic infection' from spreading. It was a beautiful, invisible, soundless, INTERDIMENSIONAL WAR that should've appeared to Steve-Guile as a wafer-thin, shimmering field exactly thirty feet away from the light bubble in all directions.

It did not.

"What in the hell did that bastard DO?!" Steve-Guile marveled upon seeing that instead of bordering the area of extra-dimensional light, the Earth's immune response had COMPLETELY FILLED IT!

"The brightness of the bulb...the illumination it's putting off...it only APPEARS to be functioning normally!" Steve-Guile surmised in a state of shocked appreciation of his HATED enemy's GENIUS! "He somehow 'teased' nature with either the amplitude or frequency of the light, coaxing it into supplying TONS of 'antibodies' which sought to snuff the bubble, which Shard-Lecher then compensated for by increasing the illumination, but doing it so masterfully that neither of our Lechers noticed a change in the brightness of the physical environment. There must be a point at which the bubble becomes so bright, and the antibodies get so densely packed together as they fight it, that it triggers an explosion. Which means...

....MY DREAM HASN'T DIED YET!"

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Just before the light bulb exploded...it simply disappeared, as did all the other light bulbs overhead, plunging the area into darkness. Steve's forcefield finished expanding, shielding Tracy Rogers' body.

"Crisis averted," Steve-Guile crowed, "You can all stop cowering at SHART-Lecher's stupid trick. Now release his Entangled and Tracy Rogers before they-"

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" a unfamiliar voice roared.

All six members of the two Thralls turned toward the cocooned body of Russell Hawksmoor. Floating over him was the scowling, naked ghost of a lean, shredded young man with wild, platinum blonde hair - Caleb-Lecher's murderous, psychotic, identical twin.

"I disabled all of your D.I.G.s by simply turning off the lights ...as ANY Guile can do, rendering your stupid little gimmick useless in a Thrall fight!" Steve-Guile mocked with self-satisfaction.

"What the fuck is a D.I.G.?" Shard-Lecher snapped.

"A D.I.G. is a Dimensional Instability Grenade," Steve-Guile sighed, his mental voice full of melodramatic sarcasm. "That's what they're CALLED, Stupid!"

"I invented them, and that's not what they're called!" Shard-Lecher snapped.

Steve-Guile smiled.

"It's all anyone will ever call them from now on," Steve-Guile gloated.

"I thought they were always called D.I.G.s," Steve-Lecher joined in, hoping to use the opportunity to piss off Shard-Lecher as a team-building exercise to bring everyone back together after Steve-Guile's bout of unilateral megalomania.

Neither Steve nor any part of Ryan-Thrall joined in the fun.

"You can get off of me now!" Tracy angrily shouted at Ryan, rapidly slapping her hands against his meaty flanks.

As she got to her feet (surprising herself by accepting Ryan's offered hand) she looked over at Steve, who was also getting to his feet, apparently having been allowed to do so by his Guile. Steve was now naked except for his mask, his arm and leg armor, his lip coverings, and the little metal plate that hovered over his sternum. From the expression on the lower, now-visible part of Steve's face, and his listless movements, Tracy could tell that the young man was -understandably- distraught.

Steve's supernaturally well-endowed, limp penis suddenly stretched itself out, as if an invisible person had grabbed the tip and pulled. Then, it whip-cracked the air twice, to dislodge pieces of glass that had stuck to it while being mashed against the road surface.

"You guys have prehensile penises?" Tracy asked Steve, hoping to lift his spirits.

"Yeah," Ryan answered when Steve didn't, keeping a hateful eye on the naked ghost of post-Enthrallment Caleb Crandal as it sunk back into the unwrapped body of Russell Hawksmoor.

"All that armor, but Maximus Morgan never thought to include a codpiece?" Tracy asked, trying again to bring Steve out of his funk. "Did he run out of cheap doorknobs to melt down?"

"It ain't HIS fault your trailer didn't have enough to finish the job," Steve-Lecher insulted, his goal being the same as Tracy's.

"I just tried to teleport myself to Caleb's position so I could teleport him a hundred yards in the air and let him DROP, but it didn't work!" Ryan notified the group.

"I didn't authorize-" Steve-Guile reflexively snapped.

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU AUTHORIZE! YOU DON'T GIVE ME ORDERS! GUILE! BLOCK HIS SIGNALS FROM MY MIND...NOW!" Ryan demanded, absolutely livid.

"Ryan, you're being foolish!" Steve-Guile warned. "If you can't see or hear me, and your Guile has to relay my instructions from Master Morgan, it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to our command structure!"

"YOU...ARE NOT...IN COMMAND!" Ryan-Lecher screamed, answering for Ryan since he could no longer hear Steve-Guile.

"If he stops me, I'm ripping your mask off!" Ryan told Steve as a warning to Steve-Guile before hopping over the guardrail, entering the tree line, and ......coming face to face with a D.I.G.

Ka-BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

For the second time that evening, Tracy grimaced and clamped her hands over her poor, abused ears.

Ryan flew backwards from the blast, heading straight for the force field. Assuming that Shard-Lecher's goal was to have Ryan smack into it like a bug on a windshield, Steve-Lecher raised Steve's arm and fired the lilac tendril at him to touch Ryan and use Caboose's stored Spatial Distortion Energy to absorb all of his backward momentum. Unsurprisingly, just like Ryan's attempt to use the S.D.E. to teleport to Caleb's location, it failed.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Ryan-Guile gasped as the fog rushed in at incredible speed, transforming into a living wind that created an updraft, lifting Ryan's careening body up and over the force field. A downdraft on the other side adjusted his trajectory, causing Ryan to slam into Craig Byrne's pickup.

"Go after him! Get him back in here, fast!" Tracy cop-shouted at Steve, snapping her baton open while glaring at Russell Hawksmoor's toothy smile in the pink glow of the force field, knowing damned well that once Steve was outside the force field, Shard-Lecher would probably make a move on her.

"YOU CAN'T! KASCHAK WILL COME!" Steve-Guile shrieked, stopping Steve cold. In all the excitement, he'd forgotten that whenever the protective black areas of his suit expanded outward and became the pink force field, he had to remain inside of it.

"I'll go!" Tracy offered.

"IF YOU TRY IT, I WILL USE ILLUSION TO BLIND YOU!" Steve-Guile threatened. "Steve, Ryan has to get back over here by himself, it's the only way!"

"I DON'T TRUST YOU!" Steve shouted at something that had, up until a few moments ago, had his complete trust.

"You shouldn't," Steve-Lecher agreed. "But you can still trust me, and I'm telling you that with your tendrils malfunctioning and your tongue able to be used against you, there's not a damned thing you can do to help Ryan!"

"If you take down the field, and try to re-establish it around Ryan, Officer Tracy will be vulnerable to Shard-Lecher's STUNNING ability to wield Pit Fog with unheard of SPEED, FORCE and PRECISION!" Steve-Guile explained. "If you run through the force field, Kaschak will come, and considering we can't even deal with a HALF OF A LECHER-

"88.2 percent," Shard-Lecher corrected.

"...and Ryan is INJURED...do you REALLY want to TAKE ON A GOD RIGHT NOW?!" Steve-Guile tried to reason.

"Is Ryan okay?!" Steve asked Ryan's ghosts, but before either could respond, Ryan hopped off of the pickup's crumpled roof and started on his way back.

"I'm good!" Ryan claimed, like a football player always does, regardless of whether he truly is or not.

Shard-Lecher gave Tracy a cocky double eyebrow raise ...and then the fog mobilized and slammed into Ryan as a sustained, high velocity wind, pushing Ryan back from the safety of the force field just a few feet away.

"Holy SHIT!" Steve-Lecher gasped at the POWER of the fog whipping around the outside of the force field with hurricane intensity.

"Make him heavy, just like what General Custer-Guile did to Steve!" Tracy suggested, getting in a well-deserved shot at Steve-Guile.

"Tried and failed!" Ryan-Guile informed her.

"WE HAVE INCOMING!" Ryan-Lecher bellowed. "A SWARM OF D.I.G.S COMING IN FROM THE EAST!"

"There are too many for us to disarm before they reach us," Ryan-Guile noted, using his multiple POVs in front of the wave of bombs to deactivate as many as he could.

"He's bringing them over from his feeding area, or having his Thrall make more!" Steve-Lecher speculated.

"Wow, I really wish I had that extra 11.8 percent so that I could needlessly point out obvious shit, too," Shard-Lecher snarked. "Guess I'll have to settle for having access to my Guile's mind powers ...AND MY OWN GENIUS FOR KNOWING HOW TO USE THEM TO KILL ALL OF YOU!"

"Ryan! D.I.G.s inbound! Let the wind blow you over the guardrail and down the embankment!" Steve shouted out into the river of whooshing whiteness.

"We've already tried that!" Ryan-Guile replied, somewhat annoyed that Steve would think he HADN'T been actively trying EVERYTHING to get his Thrall out of danger. "Any direction Ryan tries to go, the Pit Fog INSTANTLY shifts to counter it."

"My hat is off, you psychotic genetic septic tank," Steve-Guile hissed at Russell Hawksmoor's smirking face, paying respect to a feat of Pit Fog control so extraordinary that even a hundred Guiles working together couldn't pull it off.

"9...8...7...!!!" Ryan-Lecher counted down.

Tracy stepped closer to Russell Hawksmoor, whose eyes were busy looking all around to enjoy the reactions to all the chaos he was causing.

"Do you want to know why I'm such a good police officer?" Tracy suddenly asked Shard-Lecher out of nowhere.

"Who said you were...UGH!!!" Shard-Lecher tried to answer before Tracy's left arm shot out and slammed into his face.

Ryan-Guile suddenly felt the flow of Spatial Distortion Energy return to the lilac tendril.

"I pay attention," Tracy said, answering her own question.

Ryan materialized inside the force field, so fast that even his supernatural balance and coordination couldn't stop him from falling forward onto the pavement due to the instant lack of fog resistance.

"HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!" Shard-Lecher shrieked from Russell Hawksmoor's bloody mouth, despite no one understanding its meaning.

And then HELL came raining down from the sky!

"Oh my GOD!" Tracy screamed at the sustained barrage of explosions that immediately cleared away the fog and caused the force field to be machine-gunned with hunks of trees and metal. "WILL THIS THING HOLD UP?!"

"The technology used to create this shield was obtained from an extradimensional Type II Civilization, and translated for use in THIS dimension by a 400 mile wide BRAIN!" Steve-Guile 'Guile-splained', when all Tracy wanted was a simple 'yes' or 'no'. "I think we'll be FINE!"

"I'D JUST FEEL BETTER IF THE DAMNED THING WASN'T PINK!" Tracy opined before being startled by a chain of trees falling on top of the force field like dominoes ...before subsequent explosions cleared them away by blasting them into sawdust.

"SHAME ON YOU, TRACY!" Shard-Lecher laughed, not even bothering to hold Russell Hawksmoor's ears to spare them the deafening noise. "YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW THAT PINK THINGS CAN REALLY TAKE A POUNDING!!!"

Ryan's phantasmic mirror-image and the ghost of a boy with a man bun advanced menacingly on Shard-Lecher.

"Shame on YOU for being a LECHER who allowed himself to be SUCKER PUNCHED!" Ryan-Lecher barked, deeply offended by what he'd witnessed. "How the fuck does that even HAPPEN?!"

"Couldn't you tell RIGHT AWAY that she's ambidextrous?" Steve-Lecher criticized viciously. "She opened the baton to draw your attention to her right side...AND YOU FUCKING FELL FOR IT, YOU SAP! Were you even paying attention to her posture??? The tension in her left shoulder???"

"And even if you didn't see the punch coming before she threw it, WHY DIDN'T YOU CATCH IT?" Ryan-Lecher raved. "That body is young and in moderate shape with no physical impairments to get in the way of our hyper-fast reflexes! Being able to act as a Guile makes you a fucking SHIT Lecher!"

"Michael Pearson didn't think so," Shard-Lecher snickered. "He seemed really impressed by my demonstration. He, Tyler Whitlock, and Robbie Byrnie are STILL in a hell of a lot of danger from me. But don't worry...I'm sure Maximus Morgan will be contacting you real soon. Just keep cowering under this neon pink umbrella until he does...or until my three targets are dead."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Brother, we may have to accept the possibility that our Master is 'unable' to contact us," Ryan-Guile counseled privately, HATING himself for once again calling Steve-Guile 'brother'. "These explosions will stop eventually, or at least appear to stop in order to lull us into a false sense of security. When they do, we should have a plan."

"Our only plan is to wait to hear from Master Morgan," Steve-Guile reiterated, tired of repeating of himself.

"Even with what's now at STAKE?" Ryan-Guile gasped. "If Shard-Lecher is telling the truth, and he DOES manage to-"

"QUIET!" Steve-Guile shouted. "If he can block our screens and prevent you and me from activating tendril functions, there's no telling if he's not listening to us right now!"

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Who's 'The Corn Man'?" Shard-Lecher asked everyone able to block out the deafening blasts and focus on Russell Hawksmoor's voice, which pretty much amounted to just the ghosts of the two Thralls.

Steve-Guile and Ryan-Guile cringed, thinking that Shard-Lecher had perhaps heard them. He hadn't.

"I have no idea who you're talking about," Steve-Guile growled, lying his fucking ASS off.

"He's gotta be talking about 'The Blue Man'," Ryan-Lecher clarified, smiling a vengeful smile at Steve-Guile.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Say nothing more about The Blue Man!" Ryan-Guile yelled privately to his Lecher. "NOTHING!!!"

"Why does it matter?" Ryan-Lecher asked. "The guy died over a hundred years ago."

"When you told Shard-Lecher who 'The Corn Man' REALLY is, our internal monitors primed your punishment system for use. When you defied my command to say nothing more about The Blue Man and asked about him anyway, I had to use our current CRISIS to appeal to the system not to PAINFULLY INCAPACITATE YOU, fearing it might leave us unable to DEFEND OURSELVES AGAINST SHARD-LECHER! But if you bring up The Blue Man a THIRD time, either openly or privately....!!!!"

"Oh, then never mind," Ryan-Lecher wisely agreed. "I didn't really care anyway."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"The BLUE Man???" Shard-Lecher pondered. "Ohhhhhh, I see. When he's on the ground, looking at him is like looking through a window at a cornfield, but when he's flying above, it's like looking through a skylight to a clear, BLUE sky! Yes...The Blue Man! Tell me all about him!"

"Would you also like to know how to shut down my Master's defense grid?" Steve-Guile proposed sarcastically.

"That would be cool, but for now, I just want to know why The Blue Man has the same face as a Korean guy who was hanging around near him in the Lecher Archive memory I watched earlier tonight. If it weren't for that memory, Shard-Guile never would've even TRIED to trick Caleb-Guile and Caleb-Lecher into believing that the Thrall Masters created an enhanced human named Agent Shard. So, who IS that Korean guy?"

No one said anything.

"Yeah, I'm definitely onto something here," Shard-Lecher chuckled. "Well, if nothing else, how about telling me what happened in that cornfield that was so goddamned important that The Blue Man literally carries it around inside of him?"

"The Master, for whom you betrayed your Guile's hopes and dreams, has the answer to that question. I suggest you ask HIM." Steve-Guile snarled.

"Nah, he'd probably be an ASSHOLE about it, like MORGAN was when I asked why a SECOND mind-only time portal opened up in Caleb's head and dead multiversal variants of Kenny Miller poured out of it."

The four ghosts looked at each other in confused wonder. As they did, the explosions suddenly stopped.

"Why would that even HAPPEN?" Steve-Lecher wondered aloud.

"The Master, who hasn't responded to your repeated calls for help, has the answer to that question. I would suggest you ask HIM, but you'll all probably be dead shortly. I've got good news, though. If you survive, and Morgan hasn't responded by then, Steve-Guile will keep all of YOU ...all of his CUCKS... trapped here and USELESS until he does show up, no matter HOW long it takes, which means you won't have to face Shithead."

"What are you talking about? Who's Shithead?" Steve asked, as he and Steve had quickly shrugged off the aftereffects of the loud, sustained assault far faster than Tracy.

Shard-Lecher ignored him. Instead, he turned to Ryan, who had a bemused smirk on his face.

"Go ahead ...laugh," Shard-Lecher urged. "Go on, Gay-For-Pay. Laugh at Shithead's silly, silly name. If you two meet tonight, I want him ...IT... to know how little you respect him. Y'see, Shithead's BIG on wanting respect."

Ryan slammed both of his meaty hands down on Russell Hawksmoor's shoulders almost hard enough to break bone. The gesture and the broad smile on his face looked friendly.

They were not.

"How about...you take control over your Thrall...pull the silver spoon out of Caleb's ass...and fly on up here so you and me can......talk, face-to-face," Ryan challenged. "Or do you want to go on hiding from me inside that Entangled?"

"Since Ryan can no longer HEAR me, someone remind the hot-headed DOLT that physical might will mean NOTHING in a Thrall fight!" Steve-Guile spat. "Only Steve can win this!"

"DEAL!" Russell shouted with way too much eagerness. "Snake your tendril down to the feeding area and teleport my Thrall here! They'll be forced to give me FULL CONTROL!!! And then we FIGHT!"

"DEAL!" Steve shot back.

"NO!" Steve-Guile refused.

"Ryan! Guile's blocking me again! GET ME CALEB CRANDAL!"

"ON IT!" Ryan announced, bending over and mooning the place he assumed Steve-Guile was still screening himself, and then sending his lilac tendril out of his asshole and off into the forest."

"STEVE, I FORBID THIS!" Steve-Guile shrieked.

"We have a thirteen year-old boy who's going to be BLOWN UP, a law enforcement officer being beaten to death, and a high school student who's about to get murdered in Faggot Forest ...and YOU don't even want to get the HOSTAGE TAKER AWAY FROM THE HOSTAGES? What the hell kind of superhero are you PART OF?" Tracy unloaded.

"The kind that doesn't let himself get suckered!" Steve-Guile snapped. "With his control over psycho-"

"HERE ARE THE RULES: No psycho-reactive material! No light bubbles and no fog manipulation, but tongues can be used, so long as material is not detached from them!"

"Agreed!" Steve-Lecher shouted proudly.

"Agreed!" Steve called out.

"NO!" Steve-Guile shouted.

"And you can keep your armor on, but you can't USE it! And unless you hand over your Guile and Lecher Archives Files about how to use the lilac tendril to distort space-"

"Weren't we JUST talking about how no Thrall can relinquish a tactical advantage!" Steve-Guile hissed. "What? Is that missing 11.8 percent YOUR INTELLIGENCE???"

"Actually, yes," Shard-Lecher said with a smile.

"No lilac tendril! Agreed!" Steve said to hurry things along. "But you can't shut down our other tendrils!"

"Agreed!" Russell Hawksmoor squealed gleefully.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Floating off to the side, Ryan-Guile came to a startling realization.

"Ryan! We need to take control of your body, NOW!"

"Do it. Why?"

"So Shard-Lecher doesn't read your face or body! Lecher! Call off the lilac tendril and when I tell you to, hit Shard-Lecher's Entangled in the head as fast and hard as you can without doing permanent damage!"

"Understood! Can you tell me 'n Ryan anything?"

Ryan-Guile took the Guile equivalent of a very deep breath.

"Shard-Lecher wanted to kill Cynthia, but we were able to teleport her to safety despite Shard-Lecher being able to block our tendril functions. WHY? Because at that same moment, Shard-Lecher's Entangled was reeling from the telepathic feedback of Steve-Guile suddenly sublimating the tongue material over Cynthia's face, ripping control away from Shard-Lecher. From that point on, our tendrils didn't work, which must've told Officer Rogers that whatever Shard-Lecher was doing to our teleport capabilities, it could probably be interrupted by causing his Entangled more head pain, which she successfully proved, thereby saving our lives."

"So we knock him out...got it," Ryan-Lecher acknowledged. "But why? Even if he shuts down ALL of Steve-Thrall's powers, they've still got their Creeping Vine armor. There's no WAY Caleb Crandal and his head full of scrambled Entanglement can defeat THAT!"

"Yes, there is," Ryan-Guile corrected. "I believe Shard-Lecher's ability to foil our screens and tendril functions isn't just a telepathic trick ...it's part of a larger upgrade!"

"But, Kaschak doesn't give a flying FUCK about his Thralls," Ryan-Lecher disputed. "Shard-Guile told us he killed 312 of them! Why would he bother upgrading them?"

"Because what would it say about HIM as a LEADER if one of HIS Thralls ever lost a fight to one of the OTHER Thrall Masters' Thralls?" correctly guessed the quarterback of the Weyerhauser High Fightin' Woodpeckers.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"I'm almost there... almost got him," Ryan-Lecher lied out of Ryan's mouth to maintain the deception.

"Dropping shield," Steve announced, causing the pink energy to instantly contract against Steve's body like shrink wrap, then turn back into his black body stocking."

"Steve?" Steve-Lecher's voice asked timidly. "The rest of it. Could'ya...please...for ME?"

The greenish tendrils flowed out of the holes in the bottom edges of Steve's pauldrons, traveled around his body, and decorated his costume with a vine motif. Then, the red and white tendrils came out of the two holes in Steve's sternum plate and formed the letters "C" and "V".

"Thanks," Steve-Lecher whimpered miserably, knowing that thanks to Shard-Guile's words and Steve-Guile's actions, this would probably be the last time Steve would ever use his superhero name and Lecher's additions to his armor.

Steve stepped over to the center of the explosively-cleared roadway, now covered with sawdust and metal debris. To the north and south, piles of former cars (now twisted metal) formed impassable traffic barriers.

Tracy started to move, intending to go to a safe distance, but she saw Ryan's body shift slightly, as if to subtly attempt to block her. She got the message and remained where she was.

The Creeping Vine made for a majestic sight in the moonlight, lit by the incandescently hot red tendril, with condensation fog rolling off of the white tendril.

"Whenever you're ready," Steve informed Shard-Lecher.

"Just...about....there..." Ryan-Lecher continued to lie, getting ready to deliver the blow.

"Ryan, look out for Tracy, 'kay?" Steve requested, remembering his promise to her captain, Harry Patrell, to keep Tracy safe and out of the military's hands.

"Yeah," Ryan-Lecher acknowledged in Ryan's place, now needing to wait a few more seconds, since Steve had unintentionally delayed the plan by putting Shard-Lecher's attention on him.

"Steve, I can't let you do this!" Steve-Guile said firmly.

"I vote with Steve," Steve-Lecher piped up. "Just for the record, I mean, since your bullshit about us becoming a democracy was only a trick to get Steve to hand over enough power for you to be able take full control."

"That was NEVER my intension, but it's a good thing I CAN since you two are insisting on making stupid decisions!"

"Ryan? Where IS he?" Steve asked impatiently, spinning to face Ryan JUST as he was about to blindside Shard-Lecher.

"Wait...your lilac tendril is nowhere near the feeding area!" Shard-Lecher snarled. "What are you...?"

"ARRRRRRRGH!!!!!" Steve suddenly cried out as his head filled with static, shattering his concentration and will.

"This WILL NOT HAPPEN, STEVE!" Steve-Guile growled. "I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!"

Shard-Lecher turned toward Steve and busted up in hysterics...for two seconds Ryan-Lecher coldcocked him!

Ryan-Lecher flicked his wrist, causing the slack on Ryan-Thrall's retracting lilac tendril to form a transverse wave that slapped and rubbed against Tracy's arm.

"WARN THEM!" Ryan-Guile instructed Tracy just before she disappeared, materializing in the exact LAST place she wanted to be: at the top of the hill, surrounded by soldiers.

Now that Tracy was safe, the ghost of an emaciated boy in a tank top and athletic shorts ordered his Lecher to whip the lilac tendril toward Russell Hawksmoor in order to teleport Shard-Lecher's 'avatar' ...his 'power relay'... away from them. It was what Ryan-Guile had wanted to do from the very beginning, when Shard-Lecher first emerged, but his CONTROL FREAK of a "brother" had ordered him to be silent about his suggestion.

Russell Hawksmoor did not disappear. Despite being dazed, Shard-Lecher had managed to get his shit together and shut down Ryan-Thrall's tendril fast enough that it couldn't send him away.

"Steve, please calm down!" Steve-Guile appealed to Steve, who'd dropped to his knees and started screaming in his effort to clear his besieged mind so he could THINK again. "You're acting like a child. I understand that Thralls are developmentally frozen at the time of their Enthrallment, but you still have some degree of maturity, or you wouldn't have been able to master so many martial arts disciplines. Why not use some of that training now, to get CONTROL over yourself? Otherwise, if you keep this up, I might have to forcefully pleasure you to make you stop behaving this way."

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Steve screamed while pounding his mask. "JUST STOP TALKING! JUST FUCKING STOP TALKING! STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP!!!!!!"

The static in Steve's head suddenly stopped.

"You're in luck, Steve Collier," Steve-Lecher said with a twinkle in Russell Hawksmoor's eye. "I can help you with that."

The ghost of a boy with a man bun, and Ryan's ghostly duplicate, disappeared. The Guiles could no longer project the Lechers' POVs outside of their respective Thralls.

Ryan-Guile felt himself involuntarily consolidate. He sensed the aspects of himself and Ryan-Lecher within their Entangled, Angelo Consiggieri, being forcibly withdrawn. THANKFULLY, it was a clean departure. Angelo's mind hadn't been shredded.

Both Guiles screamed as their images all went through the same fun house mirror distortion effect that Ryan-Guile was undergoing at that moment up at the medical unit where Cynthia Keim was receiving treatment.

"What's happening?!" Ryan shouted.

"The Guiles are under attack!" Ryan heard Lecher say through Ryan's ears, vibrating his eardrum, indicating that Ryan-Guile was no longer transmitting Lecher's thoughts to Ryan.

Both Guiles disappeared, and suddenly everything went unearthly silent, except for the sounds of soldiers and machinery at the top of the rise. Ryan and Steve each tried to contact their Guile, but heard nothing back. For all intents and purposes, they were gone.

Without Steve-Guile to regulate their temperature, the "C" in Steve's insignia lost its glow, and the rippling fog emanating from the "V" stopped.

Steve and Ryan looked at each other with matching "What the fuck do we do now?" expressions.

"Shit," Russell Hawksmoor sighed. "Killing you with the coerced help of the entire Caleb-Thrall would've shown the others why they should listen to ME, and do things MY way! Whatever. Once you're dead, I only have to worry about Reality Itself, but since YOU TWO won't be able to feed Max any more S.C.E., he'll die soon, which was Reality Itself's primary objective from the start. Maybe he'll show his gratitude by letting my Thrall claim the Overseer without any resistance.

Russell momentarily appeared to be deep in thought.

"No, probably not," Shard-Lecher decided. "That guy is a SERIOUS asshole."

Russell looked up at Ryan and Steve, who didn't appear to have mouthed any grandiose save-the-day plans to one another while Shard-Lecher wasn't paying attention.

"Do you know what the REAL shame about all of this is?" Shard-Lecher inquired, Russell's face appearing to genuinely want them to try to guess.

"No, WHAT?!" Ryan spat.

Russell's face went very dark, and he placed Russell's hands on his tight curls, as if he were a demented mentalist performing for an audience.

"Even more than that fucking ARMOR, I really wanted those lilac tendril Archives!"

Without warning, Ryan's tongue exploded out of his mouth and streaked down the road to the wall of mangled cars, wrapping around a truck axle. Instantly, Ryan-Lecher deployed his Thrall's silver tendril, one of the few that didn't require Ryan-Guile to activate it in order to perform its function. But Shard-Lecher caused a part of the tongue to separate, leap at the tendril and engage in a wrestling match with it. The silver tendril could cut through it with ease, but the tongue just kept on liquifying and resolidifying, cutting down the silver tendril's speed like a grass build-up underneath the deck of an electric mower, slowing down the blade. Steve tried to add his silver tendril to the effort, but it only ended up getting gunked up too.

"Let him go!" Steve shouted with absolutely NOTHING to back it up. Without Guile, he couldn't even activate the armor's weapon systems ...and even if he could, he couldn't possibly bring himself to kill a possessed Entangled. Still, Steve could knock Russell out, though. But after only three steps, Steve's tongue exploded out of his mouth and wrapped around him, binding him and tripping him to the ground, despite Steve-Lecher trying to stop just that very thing from happening.

"Thralls are WAY durable, to the point that I didn't think it was POSSIBLE to kill one of us," Shard-Lecher ranted. "But thanks to CALEB CRANDAL'S SUICIDE ATTEMPT TONIGHT-"

Ryan's head snapped toward Shard-Lecher in surprise at the news, momentarily distracting him from his and Ryan-Lecher's futile efforts to sever Ryan's tongue.

"...I KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO KILL YOU!!!"

Ryan's tongue retracted at high speed, sending him flying and pulling him toward the distant wreckage. Before Steve could come to grips with seeing Ryan suddenly disappear for NON-invisibility and NON-teleportational reasons, he heard Ryan's body crash into the barrier.

And then Steve watched in horror as Ryan's tongue streaked off in the OTHER direction, towards the SOUTHBOUND wreckage, to DO IT AGAIN!!!

"Leave him alone!" Steve screamed, as best as he could, considering that his tongue was trailing out of his mouth to form his bonds.

More tongue material exploded out of Steve's mouth, straight up, like a geyser. At its peak, the matter fanned out like an umbrella, or a mushroom. Strings of material extended down to rejoin the main stalk, creating what looked to be a customized drag chute, far more complicated than the primitive ones Caleb Crandal used to brake his flight speed in order to keep from overshooting Tom Daggen's car ...an event that happened just a few yards up and over from where Steve lay.

"Since I don't get your power to TELEPORT, you don't get my WINGS!" Shard-Lecher hissed. "But don't worry, Superhero, you're still gonna fly......ONCE!"

The fog mobilized, sweeping up under the drag chute and yanking Steve straight up into the air!

"I knew I could use the fog and tongue together to achieve a vertical take-off!" Shard-Lecher cried out with genuine excitement from far below Steve. "I think I'll call it....THE BOTTLENECK MANEUVER!"

Steve rocketed above the Fog cover, a high-velocity plume of it following him up to maintain Steve's violent upward ascent. Military drones and helicopters filled the sky. Some turned in response to Steve's fog plume, but none had any hope of catching him.

"I should've stopped fighting our tongue and snared a guardrail with the violet tendril!" Steve-Lecher fretted in Steve's ear. "I'm trying to extend our tongue to counteract our upward momentum and add too much mass for the fog to lift, but it's not working! Shard-Lecher has too much goddamned CONTROL!"

Since Steve's situation prevented him from speaking aloud, and he and Lecher couldn't talk telepathically without Guile, Steve made a whipping motion across his forearm.

"Steve, even if I could free up the silver tendril and use it to collapse the chute, I wouldn't be able to use the lilac tendril to teleport us back down to the ground, freeze us in the air, or slow our descent. We would just plain FALL! And yes, your armor reflects any force directed against it, but from THIS height, are you SURE you want to find out what happens when we hit the ground? And are you sure you want to take the risk that my righting reflex is good enough to keep us from landing on your BACK, potentially turning your insides to jelly?"

Steve made the motion again, indicating that yes, he DID!

"Obeying Steve's command, Steve-Lecher retracted the silver tendril to hopefully scrape off the tongue material that had engulfed it. It did, but when Steve-Lecher deployed it again, cleverly doing it out of a different hole in Steve's armor, tongue matter from Steve's bonds flowed onto it and traveled to the tip, coating it once more. Even so, it was able to cut a few of the chute's suspension lines, but the severed ends reached for one another and reconnected after the tongue-gummed silver tendril moved on. Any cuts to the chute itself healed instantly."

The Creeping Vine continued to gain altitude.

The ground looked so very far away.

End of Chapter 13

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MY BIGGEST COINCIDENCE EVER!!!!!! .......which probably wasn't a coincidence at all.

Before I tell you what happened to me on the late afternoon of April 23rd., I want you all to know: I fucking HATE "recreational liars", people who make shit up for self-gratifying reasons I hope I will never understand. Everything I wrote about at the bottom of my last chapter is the truth as I know it, as statistically unlikely as some of them might seem.

Every word I wrote about the murder of Debbie W. is true, to the best of my recollection. (Last name withheld due to not wanting this porn story linked to the case via internet searches.) After 34 years, I didn't expect it to generate any buzz. It did ...I think.

On April 23rd. there was a loud thud on my door. I opened the door to find a plain-clothed Pennsylvania State Police Trooper standing there. He'd come to interview me about Debbie's murder.

What followed was a truly bizarre encounter. Not in a contentious way -the guy was very nice and professional- but...weird nonetheless. I bet he feels the same way.

I won't be talking about what we discussed, since I promised I wouldn't, and since offering any aid I can in the capture of Debbie's killer is my primary motivation, but I do want to discuss the interview itself. Some things just didn't make any sense to me, and I like for things to make sense, especially with random chance always striving to work against me.

1.) How did he know I was home?

Look up the distance from Greensburg to Meadville. It's a haul. Why drive somewhere that far away if you aren't certain the person is home?

2.) Why didn't he call ahead?

Duh, probably to catch me off guard...but why? I'd coincidentally (there's that word again) written out what could be considered my comprehensive statement on the matter, all of which I regurgitated for him, making the drive unnecessary, so why not just call me instead? Which leads to my next question:

3.) Did he really have no knowledge of "The Monsters of Faggot Forest"?

Yes, I brought it up. The First Amendment is still in effect until the Trump Supreme Court repeals it, and although I write about minors having sex (the only thing I have in common with Stephen King) I do not possess nor view child pornography, so why NOT bring it up? If I were ashamed of my story, I wouldn't have used my real name. Rather than be confronted with the discovery later, and accused of withholding information, I disclosed it up front.

4.) Did he really not know that around the time I wrote about the murder, I reached out to the moderator of a Facebook page dedicated to solving it?

Since I don't do Facebook, I had my husband join the group. I tried to reach out to the moderator to discuss the case, but she never opened the chat, so no one besides my husband and I would've known about me trying to reach out, right? My husband is convinced that the interview occurred because the trooper saw that my husband had joined the group and did a little research on him, which led to me, who'd never been interviewed before. But since the trooper claimed to be unaware of my activity on Facebook......

...after THIRTY-FOUR YEARS of never having been interviewed concerning the death of Debbie W., I was COINCIDENTALLY selected to finally be interviewed a mere three months after having COINCIDENTALLY discussed the case here.

Sorry, that's just too much of a coincidence, even for me. Most likely, one of you dropped a dime on me. If you did, no harm, no foul. I'm glad someone showed up and finally took my statement. I never would've contacted the lead detective on my own, since I didn't think my information really mattered all that much. Still, there was always that little niggle in the back of my mind, that feeling that maybe I knew something they didn't, something that could finally crack the case wide open. I can rest easy now that they know everything I do.

5.) Was he trying to "Columbo" me?

My husband and I have Discovery Plus and we watch way too many forensic shows and interrogation videos, which means that while the trooper was probably wondering why I kept fiddling with the crumpled up paper towel I'd used to dry my hands before opening the door, I was paying attention to how he seemed to be trying to unnerve me by constantly clicking his pen. As the interview went on, I was fascinated that he was writing things down on a file folder instead of using a tablet. And instead of handing me his card, he said he had to go to his vehicle and search for one, which he failed to find, so he came back with all of his information written down on...I swear I'm not making this up...A PIECE OF TABLET PAPER. Now just to be clear, I'm not making fun of him, especially since I have no doubt that he's reading these words. I just found it funny that a homicide detective would be so disorganized. However, all of my doubts about his competence were instantly dispelled....when he told me he thought I was smart. I've seen too many forensics shows to accept THAT compliment at face value. He wanted me to underestimate him, but for the life of me, I have no idea why. Maybe he just wanted to get a little practice in.

6.) This is probably just more proof that he was playing with me, but...how does a homicide detective NOT know what prosopagnosia is?

There are people in the world who can remember the faces of people they've only met once, even decades ago. These people are called "super recognizers". I'm on the other end of the spectrum. If we meet, and I turn my head, I will have no memory of what you look like, beyond vague details. This is probably why I haven't done a good job describing my characters' appearances. Anyway, after interviewing so many individuals, I find it odd that the trooper never heard the word "prosopagnosia" before, but considering that he asked me to spell it for him I'm going to go with: see question 5).

I was a little disappointed that as he was leaving, he didn't suddenly turn around with his arm raised and say: "Oh...just one more thing...".

Anyway, during the interview, my husband ABANDONED ME AND WENT UPSTAIRS. Now, the thing you gotta know about my husband is that he's watched every episode of "Forensic Files", "The New Detectives", and everything that Lt. Joe Kenda has ever done. So WHY would he LEAVE THE ROOM during an ACTUAL HOMICIDE INTERVIEW???? He said he didn't want to get in the way, but.....seriously??? How do you understand someone completely, yet not at all?

I hope my modest contribution to the case helps somehow. It would sure be nice to tell you all that it was finally solved. It seems unlikely, but a lot of unlikely things have happened to me since I started writing this, so I'm hopeful.