Chapter Twenty-Three:
Phoenix Caged

by Emiko, Tami and Steph

Jace Kellen rolled out of bed with an extremely dejected sigh the moment the door closed behind the man whose apartment she shared. Well, squatted in, illegally. Jack gone for the day, now; he would be out until late at night, gone over to have dinner at Wilma's. At least he'd get a decent square meal not made by Mama Taco Bell, five vitamins and MSG.

Jesus.

Clinic had said she needed extreme rest or she'd conk over from equally extreme exhaustion. Well, the impossible could wait a little longer when you were knee-deep in a freaky goddamn cult of aliens all because of a mutant partridge. Jace rubbed her eyes, feeling puffy and swollen all over; trust her to have exhaustion, trust -her- to have an unusually rough pregnancy, trust her placenta to roll around the front so her stomach looked like an oversized comedy beach ball. She hurt all over, and she couldn't sleep at night for fear that any moment the Snotblob from Hell would break in and kill the young man dearest to her before turning on her and her MiniJace. MiniJace didn't appear to care much; it was doing cartwheels like a carny and hitting her in the ribs occasionally.

Time to pay the piper.

Her muscles ached as she made the transformation, fingers almost too swollen to pull the sleeveless high-hipped bodysuit off with all the clunky metal shoulder-armour that surrounded her left arm. Off went the guards, the gloves, the metalmaterial fabric; she pulled herself into a particularly raggedy pair of Jack's old jeans, and found they would only barely zip. She swore darkly as she pulled on her shirt, fastening the unhappy jeans with string over her stomach, feeling bloated and uncomfortable as she pulled on a borrowed pair of Jack's workboots. They'd muffle the clunking of her feet, anyway.

There. She had change in her pocket. She could catch a bus down to the chemical plant. Jace ran a couple of fingers through her lank blackdyed hair, scribbling out a letter. Just in case she came back late.

Gone to get food.
- Jace

Realizing she might be killed, she expelled a lung-hurting breath and wrote in tiny letters beneath. Love you. Scared, thin. Why was she being such a goddamn sissy? She got herself into this, she'd see it through. For Talos, if nothing else. She'd generally given up any hope of resurrecting Tibby. It was a pipe dream, nothing more. A retarded pipe dream that insulted her intelligence by existing. Goddamn.

Blobs, dogs, and aliens, oh my. Jace locked the door behind her and clunked on to possible massacre.

The chemical plant was quiet, as usual. The aliens currently in residence seemed accustomed to solitude, or perhaps they just disliked one another. Only the faint noise of the television playing downstairs indicated that there was any life in the building. "Sea Escape, I wanna Sea Escape," sang the speakers, advertising a relaxing cruise vacation in the Bahamas, or perhaps the Virgin Islands. It mattered not.

"I want to see the ocean," announced Bjerlo.

"It's big. And wet," replied Talos. "Don't you have oceans on Mis'ell'prat?"

"Yeah, but they're toxic. Cheese doodle?"

"No, thank you."

Bjerlo shrugged and opened his mouth twice as wide as a human to accommodate the entire bag of cheese doodles, including the plastic bag. It was moments like these that reminded Talos his friend was not, despite many physical similarities, a human. "Ooh, it's that toothpaste commercial again!" Crunch, crunch. Then again, whole bags of cheese doodles were nothing compared to Bjerlo's other eccentricities, and chief among them was the television.

The fact that Bjerlo watched television was nothing unusual. Humans watched hours of it every day. It was his choice in programming.

"Darn, Law and Order is back on," said Bjerlo, and changed the channel. He only ever watched the commercials. That, Talos reasoned, was truly inhuman.

Something seemed to tug at the back of Talos's brain. He stood up from his roost. "I'm going to see Henry."

"You sure? There's bound to be a car commercial..." But Talos was already gone.

With the sounds of the television fading away behind him, Talos paused a moment to think. It could always be a fluke, a stray synapse reacting for no reason... but it wasn't. He'd known this day would come. He tapped his beak against Henry's door. "Henry?"

The door slid open almost immediately, revealing the watery mass that was Bliigurt blup-blup Gigleblublai Boukwap; "Henry" to anyone lacking the semiporous membrane necessary to pronounce that. "Good day, Talos," greeted Henry, bubbling.

Talos clicked his beak in nervousness. Better just to get it over with. "It's Jace. She's heading this way."

Something in the membrane's surface changed, indicating some sort of emotional response on Henry's part. It was impossible to know exactly what, since his artificial voice remained perfectly calm. "Are you certain?"

"Yes."

"Then we shall go to meet her." One of Henry's translucent tentacles scooped up the partridge while another closed the door behind them. It was a smooth ride to the front room.

"She's at the fence now," said Talos.

"Wait."

They waited, and sure enough, Jace came straight to the door. Talos could hear her metal legs scraping the wood boards of the dilapidated porch.

"Wait," said Henry again, quieter this time.

There was only a single moment of hesitation before the senshi opened the door, perhaps with an unneeded wrench before she shut it behind her. She leant against it and closed her eyes on the inside, breathing deeply, apparently tired from the walk from the bus stop to the abandoned pink chemical plant.

Taking advantage of the moment Jace required to adjust her eyes to the dim interior, Henry morphed effortlessly from slug to human form. "Jace," he said, smiling unnaturally.

"Fucking christ!" She started, visibly, moving from her position of leaning until she spotted the partridge behind him. "That's your human form, huh, Henry? God, you guys should hire a fuckin' butler. Almost pissed myself."

"It is proper form to knock before entering a residence. Perhaps doing so in the future will prevent any unnecessary shocks to your system." Henry crossed his hands, the simulated fabric of his brown tweed jacket folding perfectly. "Of course, those in residence here need not concern themselves with such formalities. You, however, are not a current resident."

"No, I'm not," Jace snapped, pulling herself to her full height and folding her arms in front of her. She was afraid. "I live in a nice place, hot and cold water, company that doesn't slither and won't possibly kill me. You gotta problem, Commander?"

"Subject responds to threats with anger, indicating fear. Displays posturing behavior in an attempt to frighten away her enemy. Exactly as predicted."

"Henry!" yelped Talos from the floor.

"I think it is about time we set some things straight, Miss Kellen," continued Henry. "Your behavior is unacceptable. You may not come and go as you please, nor may you consort with our enemies on this planet given the information you possess. Furthermore, there is the matter of the corpse you left lying in the basement, which I have been tending for you in your absence. I would dearly love some insight into your thought processes, Jace, for the sheer illogicality behind your actions is astounding."

"... Where'd he get a cellphone?" Jace started inching towards the door again. "I can leave any time I want," she blustered.

A stray tentacle popped out from Henry's sleeve. "I'd rather not have to detain you. If you'll wait a moment, please? Ah, hello Ms. Young, is Emperial there? Yes, of course. ... Em! How are you? Quite well, thank you. Listen, would you mind popping down here for a moment? Excellent. We'll see you shortly." He flipped the phone closed and it slid into the palm of his hand, invisibly floating back to his pocket.

"Oh, fantastic!" Jace cried out, throwing her hands up and stomping off to the other side of the room. "Yes, there's a voice of sanity! Hu-fucking-rah!"

For the next few minutes, the girl paced back and forth until she finally collapsed on a half-rotting business chair, eyes closing in her wan face as she muttered to herself. Henry observed her every movement, taking mental notes. Of course, he could also be hiding a pencil and sheet of paper inside his jacket and be scribbling away in alienese. It was completely possible. Talos, for his part, fluttered around Henry's feet trying to figure out if he was angry or not.

The sound of tires on gravel signaled the arrival of the one and only Em. She burst through the door with a giant, "Hello!" and quickly located Henry, latching onto his arm and squeezing. It made a satisfying squelching sound. "Oh, hi, Jace, haven't seen you in a while."

"Hi, Young," the ex-redhead said sourly, not bothering to lift her head up from the chair. "How's it been? Having fun being the Avatar Of Unholy Doom Sentencing Our Planet To Certain Death?"

"That's 'Her Imperial Highness the Lady Duchess Rear Admiral Emperial Teal Atreides-Piett' to you," said Emperial.

"Kill me."

"That won't be necessary," interjected Henry diplomatically. "If you'll all accompany me to the park? Ahem. BJERLO! Kindly join us in the foyer?"

It took a moment for Bjerlo to comply. "But it was a Viagra commercial," he complained lamely to Talos.

"To be sure," echoed the bird.

Emperial looked down. "Oh, hi, Talos, didn't see you down there..."

Ignoring the minor side conversations, Henry ordered, "You're to come with us and control any stray humans that wander into our vicinity, understood?"

"Yes," mumbled Bjerlo.

"To the park. After you, Bjerlo, and then Jace. I'll bring up the rear." To make sure Jace didn't escape, no doubt.

"I'd kill fuckin' all of you if I wasn't pregnant," announced the Graikos stormily before stomping out, clunking like the Tin Man as she went.

The walk over was short and uneventful, but it gave Henry time to clarify a few important points. "Jace, one thing confuses me. Why, if you had it so lovely at your friend Jack's place, did you bother coming back here?"

"Talos," Jace said shortly. "I keep my promises. Besides, you'd come after me. I'm a liability, Commander." The 'Commander', as always, had a faintly sardonic tone. "I'm not going to have you guys touching people I love. They're under my protection. Not you, not that freak Isyarra."

"Hum, no, I wouldn't want her anywhere near Glubbug," said Henry, and that seemed to be enough.

Predictably, they came to the clearing where the aliens had first arrived. It was partially hidden from the sidewalk, but just in case, Bjerlo transformed in a short burst of purple light, ready to deflect any onlookers.

"Now, Jace, you stand right about... here." Henry took her arm in his hand and placed her near the center. Then he positioned Emperial directly in front of her. "Emperial, place your hands on her face like so."

"Maybe I should stick out my leg at a thirty-degree angle and we can put tinfoil on my head?" Emperial offered helpfully.

"No, not today. But if you'll close your eyes and concentrate, it would be helpful. Picture the stars pouring into Jace." A decidedly cryptic instruction, but Emperial seemed to understand it. She closed her eyes tightly and bit her lip with furious concentration.

Jace squawked, but in one of the more unlucky choices of her history, decided to be still and do nothing. "What the shit is this?"

"Whoa," said Emperial.

"Keep still," said Henry.

Suddenly, Emperial's expression softened and there was a crackle in the air. The hairs on Jace's arm began to stand up.

The forge-senshi shivered and crackled as if her skin was attempting to blow off; she clutched her hands to her head, and then to her middle, as if trying to protect her body. Her skin looked transluscent for a moment, red-hot lights searching beneath it; then she fell to her knees, shaking convulsively, face buried in the cool soft grass of the park.

When she rolled over and lifted her head up, gasping for air as if it was poisonous, her forehead had changed. Her dyed-black hair was swept off it with sweat; dull cherry-red markings now daubed it, set in her skin. There was one circle in the middle of her forehead; two others were set beside and above it, one slightly higher than the other. Curved tails followed after them, as if it all symbolized falling red-hot rain. She could not speak.

"Jace! Are you okay!?" exclaimed Talos, stumbling forward.

Henry merely smirked. "Shall I check your ass for you or would you prefer to check it yourself?"

She put her hand up to her forehead and shivered out of senshi form. The marks immediately disappearead, leaving her forehead unblemished as she collapsed completely on the grass. "'Ll fuckin' kill him," she murmured, tiny and lost. "No. No no no no no."

"What did you do to her!?" yelled Talos.

"It is called a 'Dark Energy Infusion,' roughly. Simply put, in order to create a senshi, a Universalis senshi seeds a living entity with energy. It is precisely how the senshi in both your universe and ours were created. Of course, that was only a very small piece of energy, enough to mark you as one of us, nothing more. It should prevent guardians such as yourself from sensing Jace and allow the Conduit to sense her in your place. It is also something I should have done a very long time ago."

Talos looked back to Jace, wishing he could put his arm around her in comfort. She was better off with Jack after all.

"You will probably be interested to know it comes with some fringe benefits, such as power enhancement--"

"No, I wouldn't! You promised not to hurt Jace!"

"I did instruct her not to move. The pain will fade shortly. She is otherwise unharmed. In fact, I would daresay she is now in better health than ever before." Henry's human form dissolved into his slug state. "Pardon me," he remarked, slipping a thin layer of his membrance underneath Jace and gently moving her aside. One of his tendrils quickly encircled the partridge. "Talos, you're next. Em?"

For a moment, Emperial did not move, shocked into silence. Then she reached out and took Talos from Henry, clutching the bird against her chest tightly so he could not squirm away. "I always knew," she said to Henry, eyes brimming with tears. She smiled. "Don't move, Tally."

"But--" Talos protested once more before remembering what had happened when Jace moved. He went completely still, eyes wide with fear.

Once again Emperial closed her eyes and the crackling of the portal jumped to life. Little jolts of electricity seemed to dance across Talos's feathers. Just as Jace, he felt his skin attempting to separate from the layers of fat, muscle, and tendon below. The universe seemed to be pulling him in every direction, trying to rip apart the fabric of his being.

There was a gasp. Talos suddenly felt himself falling, still tightly confined in Emperial's arms, but falling. A strong pressure drove him into the ground. He was suffocating! Panic set in. Unable to help himself, he struggled to worm free, ignoring the pain that coursed through his body with every attempt. He had to escape, or he would be crushed to death.

With a scream that was easily five tones too high in pitch, Talos wrenched himself free and spilled out onto the grass. His wings seemed to be at a funny angle and his feet seemed miles distant from his body. "Jace!" he whimpered, forcing his eyes open. He somehow managed to roll himself to his feet. "Amazing," Henry was saying. Talos kept focused on only one thing. "Jace."

Half-stumbling, half-falling, Talos pitched forward and landed next to Jace, his arm draping reassuringly over her shoulder.

She immediately moved forward, burying her face in one of his small shoulders for comfort, grey hair tickling her nose before she opened her eyes wide. It wasn't a partridge pushing his dusty-sweet feathers in her face; it was a little boy, a silver-haired kid of about twelve or thirteen.

"Talos?"

As soon as she said it, he seemed to realize it himself. His mouth fell open and his eyes, a deep shade of blue, looked downward at his body.

His body. Clad in a jacket of navy blue to match his eyes and a shirt of grey to match his hair, he was human. Furthermore, he was wearing pants and boots and a belt. Lavender edged the jacket and shirt, accenting the blue, and three lavendar markings lay unseen on his forehead. A fourth marking, shaped like a teardrop, was burned in the corner of his left eye.

Talos moved his eyes to Jace's shoulder. "I... I have hands."

"You've got more than hands, kid!" She was so excited she forgot her own misery and her shackles in momentary joy for him. "You have the whole fuckin' shebang! Look at you! Big blue eyes and everything!"

"I-- I--" He quickly gave up on forming coherent sentences and settled for crying into Jace's lap.

The noise was beginning to attract attention, though. Demantoid was busy furiously concentrating, but could not last much longer. Henry quickly re-formed. "We need to be moving. Can the two of you stand?"

"Apart from the lack of legs, yes." Jace stroked Talos' hair, still in complete bewilderment. She marvelled at the soft, fine threads of grey. They really were human. "You'll have to give me a few to transform or have Bjerlo carry me. And I'm heavy."

"Wrong choice of words," mused Henry. "Bjerlo!"

Without hesitation, Bjerlo stepped forward and picked up Jace as gingerly as he could. Talos made a noise that sounded suspiciously like an attempt to squawk as he scrambled to his feet. "Be careful!" he implored, though Bjerlo was already doing just that.

"Not that heavy, apparently." The redhead clung to Bjerlo's shoulders for dear life. On a rate of hate, Bjerlo was currently at the bottom of the list when compared to the other DU. "Aliens are good for something, huh? We should get B-Man some of those America's Funniest Ads or something. Can you walk, Tally?"

"I think so," he replied, but looked dangerously close to falling over.

Henry and Em stepped up, two minds acting with apprently the same thought processes, and each hooked one of Talos's arms.

"I can't believe it. You're really real?" asked Emperial, giving Talos a small poke on the cheek.

"Not now, Em," chided Henry. "When we get back."

The trip back to the plant was uneventful. The group received a few stares -- Bjerlo/Demantoid was dressed like a reject from Ambiguously Gay Duo tryouts and Talos looked liked a Ren Faire escapee -- but no one said anything. The few people they passed simply made it a point to avoid them.

Once they were all settled in back at the putrid pink building, Henry ventured an explanation. "What has transpired here today is nothing more than a simple energy realignment, so to speak. Henceforth, the two of you are no longer Graikos, but Dark Universalis senshi, which I hope will put an end to all this foolishness about running away."

Jace arranged herself in her mouldy armchair like a queen, hands folded in her lap over borrowed jeans as she eyed Henry through her messy-dark veil of hair. "Are you saying I can't go back to Jack?"

"I'm saying you've been with us long enough to be counted among our number, it is time you presented yourself as such. Furthermore, if you spend your time consorting with him, I will know of it. I have my duties to perform, and your predicament, no matter how sympathetic I am, comes second after the safety and defense of my daughter." Henry's face remained strangely impassive throughout the speech. His emotional expression still needed some work.

"Christ, the safety of your daughter? That little retarded mini- blob'd eat my friggin' foot if I let it. She doesn't need to be looked after!" There were two bright spots of colour in Jace's cheeks as she worked herself up again into another rage, probably unwisely considering her condition. "I'm not going to live in this run-down shack, Commander. I'm about to give goddamn birth. This is dirty and filthy and run-down and you let Isya live away, though that's because she's batshit crazy. It's not like you guys have held up your end of the deal yet. That corpse is still a corpse."

"That doesn't mean you should forget him!"

The appearance of a tiny, high-pitched voice surprised everyone. "Charis?" said Henry, turning towards the source of the noise. Timidly, as she did everything timidly, the mouse emerged from one of the sideboards.

"What? Who? Where?" went Emperial, trying to follow Henry's gaze. Finally she spotted the mouse. "Holy frelling mackerel crap! A talking mouse!"

"I've got a stomach out to here and you think I can forget him?" the ex-Graikos asked sourly, but her expression had softened a little. "And you hang around with a giant ball of snot, Em, don't throw a spaz attack over the mouse. It's Theo's guardian."

She placed a hand down to the ground, cupping it open for the tiny creature. "C'mere, Timocharis. Where've you been?"

Scampering forward, Timocharis lept into Jace's hand. "I-I've been out looking. And I came b-back to tell you that I've f-found her."

"That Sailor Phoenix?" asked Henry.

"Y-yes!"

Jace closed her eyes. Oh, Jesus. Crunch time. For some reason, she had never quite believed that this particular piece would fall into place. "Where is she?"

"N-northwest. I found her house. 3742 Pembroke Street."

"Then we shall shortly commence with that experiment, -after- I have satisfied Ms. Kellen's wanderlust," stated Henry. "If I may be so bold as to ask, were you planning on having your child at the apartment of your friend Jack? Might it not be wiser to instead bear the child in a hospital?"

"Hey, there's one across the street," said Em.

Henry stiffened. "As I am aware," he said dryly. "Furthermore, our run-down shack, as you called it, is considerably in better repair than that run-down little hole in the wall your Jack lives in, particularly as Bjerlo and I have been working to hard to upgrade this building. It is also considerably larger. You barely fit into Jack's apartmant, much less both you and a noisy baby. Have you taken any thought as to what you would do once the baby is born? I hardly think Jack needs the additional stress of four-o-clock-in-the-morning feedings. He would most likely lose his job as a result. Not to mention that I am still a qualified doctor and we live across the street from a hospital in the event of emergencies. As my final point, you are fortunate in that you have not been privy to Talos's increasingly neurotic behavior in your absence, and for the sanity of all concerned, myself included, can you not merely settle for visiting Jack on, say, a weekly basis?"

"Oh, fuck you! In the eye!"

That made her heart go cold. Henry, among being a general super- genius, was apparently a complete master in emotional manipulation; his quiet, impeccable English rammed the knife down in all the things she had been worried about.

Oh, God. But Jack. He'd endure anything. He just wanted her safe. He couldn't bear to have her living here, in the company of wolves. But she was a wolf now, wasn't she? What if the Graikos found out if he was shacked up with a DU? Oh, shit, like that mattered, she could take out any Graikos who said different. Henry banged down on her worst fears - but Jack needed her. She needed Jack. She needed to be with him during his limb-twitching gasping-breath nightmares.

Fucking retarded Dark Universe.

"You don't know shit about Jack," she grated, feeling perilously close to pregnant-girl weeping. She hurt all over. "Or where he lives or how he lives. Or what he's prepared to do. Or what I'm prepared to do. I, I... I'm not saying yes to anything. I'm not giving you shit until our deal's done, all right? You've already pumped me full of your fuckin' DU shit. Let's see about Phoenix. Give me Phoenix and we'll see. I'm considering your offer."

Henry stepped in close, his voice going down to a whisper. "I know much more than you think, Jace Kellen, and surely you must have realized that by now. I should expect that you've also realized you have at this point gone too far to go back. Humans, my people, Bjerlo's people, all the peoples of the universe, cannot go back. If you continue to live in the past, you will end up with only sorrow, as the past is the one thing which we can never achieve. You therefore must accept your choices and live with them, no matter how painful." His watery-clear eyes looked into hers, though whether the compassionate look within them was genuine or merely a concoction of a genius was uncertain.

"I don't know." Jace was gritting her teeth, a habit of her old one-time lover's, before she realized she was doing it and relaxed her mouth. She held her head high, quivering, moving her face away until she was looking into the distance past Henry's hip. "If I wasn't so addicted to living in the past, Commander, I wouldn't be trying to resurrect a fuckin' dead man and selling my soul to the mucus devil."

He moved back slightly. "Captain. Bjerlo is the only leader and General here. I wasn't born as powerful a senshi as either of you. But do consider what I've said."

"Who gives a fuck? Senshi names." She looked at him, eyes like chips of grey ice. "We all know who's in charge here, Henry."

Eager to get back in on the conversation, Emperial protested, "I thought that was me!"

A smile crept onto Henry's face. "Dear me, how could we have forgotten that we all owe our allegiance to the Empress Em?" He was rewarded with a wide smile from Emperial.

"Um, Talos?" asked Timocharis, looking over at the unfamiliar boy.

Talos, who had spent most of the conversation trying to stay out of it and let Henry make his case, gave Timocharis a weak smile and a small wave. "Hiyas."

"Well, since you are all my subjects, I demand you all get along," continued Emperial. Her face took on a mockingly serious expression. "And pay more attention to me. I can't know how great I am unless you all tell me."

"I hope everyone remembers you as contributing to the downfall of the human race," the ex-Graikos said gloomily, unconsciously petting Timocharis' silky little head and feeling vaguely numb. "When do we go and get Phoenix?"

"The human race was needing a downfall," pronounced Empress Em. "And while I have no idea what's going on, I'm not doing anything tonight and it's still several hours before my bedtime, so I say we go now."

"Em." The dark-haired forge senshi looked carefully at the pixie- faced brunette Empress Em, who was completely human. Well, mostly. "Let me get something straight. You do realize you're gonna be party to a cold- blooded murder? Does this not bother you?"

"I am the expert in these sorts of things, you can't deny that," Emperial said. Her eyes were lit up with a particularly evil glint. "In fact, I know exactly how we can do this. Even if she lives on the second floor! Oh, but you'll need a disguise, Bjerlo, in case you get seen. Maybe we'd better wait until night, when she'll be asleep. Ooh, ooh, I've got an idea..."

"I'm in a room with a young teenage serial murderer who is empress of the planet, a human partridge, a human-shaped ball of snot, an alien whose sole joy in life is Johnson and Johnson advertisements, and a talking mouse. We're all planning sacrifice. God loves me? Bitch, please," Jace said, despondent.

"Um, it'll work out," said Talos.

Undeterred, Emperial announced, "We're going to need two hazmat suits!"

Several hours later, in the dead of night, a stolen unmarked white van filled with an unlikely group of occupants prowled the streets. Seated in the driver's seat was a small figure totally obscured under a blue poncho set, having been talked out of the slightly more unrealistic hazmat suit. A mouse scampered across the dashboard, nervously chattering out instructions. In the back sat Henry and Bjerlo, protected by virtue of their alien birth.

The van had been found in a nearby parking lot. It belonged, ironically enough, to a local security company. Henry had picked the lock to get into the parking lot, Demantoid had sent the security guard looking the other way, and Talos looped the security cameras and hotwired the vehicle.

"My sphere of influence is invention," he explained during the planning part of the meeting. "I can figure out anything if I can get my hands on it. I've had enough exposure to modern technology to figure most of it out. I'll just have to get it right on the first try." Thankfully, his senshi powers were strong enough that he did just that.

Finding the house proved to be a bit harder than expected, much to Emperial's chagrin. She nearly told everyone to forget the venture, convinced that half the city had seen the unmarked van driving around blatantly lost, but Timocharis pushed her on, pleading and cajoling for help in returning her lost senshi charge.

With Talos still back at the security company's lot, the minutes ticking by were excruciating. Timocharis had not found Briony's residence by road, so her recollection of her terrifying journey was not as helpful as they had initially hoped. He guardian sense led them to the right area, but several dead-end roads prevented a smooth journey, and Emperial's increasing fear they would be pulled over for having no license plates kept them on the back residential roads.

Eventually, Timocharis spotted something familiar and made a squeaky exclamation. Emperial parked the van in the best location she could find, a long driveway rimmed with concealing bushes. She watched the house she was parked in front of like a hawk, but no one stirred. "Okay, guys, go to it."

Bjerlo, Timocharis, and Henry moved out. Henry changed into his slug form, cushioning Bjerlo and Timocharis atop his back. As per Emperial's advice, they went through the alleyways.

The target house turned out to be an unassuming two-story "shoebox" house, as Emperial called them. Henry pulled open the alley gate and slid across the backyard to Phoenix's window.

Emperial, in a demonstration of how thoroughly she had plotted out the perfect murder, had already thought of that. "Henry," she said, "stretch up to the second floor and open the window if needed, then solidify your form as much as possible so Bjerlo can climb up. You could try to lift him, but I doubt you're strong enough. Anyway, this will doubtless leave a mark on the ground below, but nothing forensics could make heads or tails of. Just a strange indentation."

A rather uncomfortable minute passed, as Henry turned into something vaguely resembling a staircase. He safely propelled Timocharis up to the top of his pillar to make sure they had the correct room. "She's in there," Charis confirmed.

One of Henry's tentacles slipped through under the window and eased it up. It made a tiny scraping noise and they all froze. When no noise answered from the room within, they resumed. The window slid open nicely after that.

With the window open, Demantoid was finally ready to climb up. Each of his steps caused Henry's elongated form to bend and wobble from the strain; alien slug creatures were not designed to be used as ladders.

A harrowing minute passed by, highlighted by Dematoid nearly falling when Henry's midsection buckled slightly, but Demantoid's fingers successfully closed around the window frame and he pulled himself into the room. Henry followed a moment later, expanding and contracting his form until the majority of his bulk was in the room, then sliding his remaining bulk through the window.

The room was probably typical for a girl of Briony's age, but as such it was something Demantoid and Henry had not yet experienced. The walls were covered in posters; music, movie stars, a symbol like A with a red circle slashed around it that Henry would later learn meant anarchy. It was slightly cluttered, as a teenage girl's bedroom was wont to be; baggy trousers, rainbow-coloured beanies, clothes and books and pencils.

Their target lay sleeping under a puffy quilted comforter, one leg hanging off the bed. A tangle of red and blue hair lay over her face and pillow. From her slightly open mouth faint sleeping noises could be heard. These would be the last sweet dreams for Briony Gryphon, more famously known as Sailor Phoenix. Henry moved ahead to begin the capture.

So fast it was hard to tell for a moment what was happening, a streak of dark feathers plunged into the room, barreling into the first target it could locate: Demantoid. "Briony!" yelled the bird.

It was the only word he had time for. Demantoid's hand closed around the bird's neck and his mouth opened, revealing several rows of pointed teeth normally unseen. Two tendrils shot out of Demantoid's throat, securing the hawk and dragging him into the gaping maw. The whole struggle lasted less than three seconds. Timocharis never even had time to scream. The lump was already halfway down Demantoid's throat by the time she realized what had happened, and by then her potential for screams had subsided into a whimper.

The noise was enough to wake Briony, but it was already too late for her. Henry was in position, quickly engulfing her head. Any cries for help were drowned out by her gasping for breath in his watery insides. Her arms and legs thrashed about helplessly until they, too, were engulfed. After a minute her convulsing subsided; she had taken in enough of the fluid to be able to breathe it. Instead, she began to struggle against his thick, rubbery hide, trying to claw her way out from the inside.

This left the kidnappers with a new problem. Demantoid's head snapped about as he sensed the waking of others in the house. His brow furrowed: this was exactly the reason he had been brought along. After a moment he signaled to Henry with a tongue click (or some similar noise emanating from his mouth). He had successfully coerced Briony's parents back to sleep. The capture was complete.

As per Emperial's recommendation, Henry collected a sampling of Briony's clothing, a stuffed toy, and a picture he presumed was a family portrait. It showed Briony with three older humans, two males and a female. The male was either a friend or a sibling.

Returning to the ground proved to be easier than the earlier ascent. Henry tipped the majority of his bulk out the window and let it stretch down to the ground, Briony sinking down with it. Then Demantoid sat on top, holding Timocharis, and Henry lowered them to the ground, closing the window and wiping off the window frame as a final touch.

It was probably not the perfect kidnapping, as Emperial had attempted to plan, but it was full of more than enough mystery to sufficiently baffle investigators. No sign of forced entry, clothes and some belongings missing, as if a runaway attempt, no foreign fingerprints.

It was time to go back.