Jenny stopped her laser when she felt her reserves dropping low again. Her hair had already reverted to its blue color.
She'd just released most of the energy she got from the emerald into that beam, and the result was a ten-meter-wide hole in front of her, going all the way to the other side of the moon. There was no sign of Dark Jenny anymore. Its signature had completely disappeared.
Jenny took a step back and released the last bit of dark limb from her clutches, allowing it to float in the vacuum and fade out of existence. She felt a sense of relief like she'd never felt before and sat down on the rocky surface, looking at her world.
The path she took to get here was clearly marked by a trail of gold, and the clouds at the origin point were still parted from when she blasted through them.
It couldn't have been more than a minute since she was brought back, but a lot happened in that minute. It all went by so fast, Jenny closed her eyes and replayed the scene.
When she opened her eyes on that rooftop, she felt a surge of overwhelming energy she was very familiar with. Greeted by the bewildered faces of her friends, who looked like they'd been through hell and back. The sweat on their foreheads and the ominous clouds in the sky spoke for themselves, and there was no time for reunions.
Before her friends could utter a single word, and before the undead could tear their faces off, Jenny took to the sky and unleashed a single laser beam across the horizon. Enough to cut all black threads in an arc around her, to end the scourge and to guarantee the safety of her friends.
During her spin, her lock-on caught on to Dark Jenny, who'd apparently never moved too far away to break it. Wasting no time, Jenny flew over to finish the job and to save the life of one final survivor.
Back in the present, Jenny opened her eyes and looked at the hole next to her. Slowly, she reached out with her hand, as if Dark Jenny was still there and would touch it back. Jenny thought about how it was now completely gone from the universe, and all she had left were her memories of it. She almost felt bad that she didn't get to say goodbye in some way, but she knew there was no room for sentimentality with this thing.
Maybe the creature deserved no sympathy from her at all. From what she was able to see, the black threads looked like they covered the whole city. She wondered how many people died there tonight because she wasn't fast enough, feeling partially to blame for letting Dark Jenny become what it did and letting it kill so many people.
Jenny closed her eyes again with her hand reached out.
She recalled pressing the side of Dark Jenny's head against the rocky surface of the moon with her foot, while pulling its dark limbs out of the way like she was pulling its hair, exposing the wound through which it could be killed. In its last moments, it stared at her from the corners of its eyes. Neither scared nor resentful. An expression Jenny could never begin to understand.
Jenny opened her eyes with a bittersweet feeling. In principle, she'd lost to Dark Jenny when it mattered most. This pyrrhic victory only served to make her feel even more powerless. And in her head, Dark Jenny had the last laugh.
She lowered her hand and put her arms behind her to lean back on the rocky surface. Then, she looked down at her sweater. It was riddled with little holes, and there was shrapnel lodged in the fabric. Jenny recalled the shotgun in Circus' hands and could piece together what happened.
Surrounded by the silent vacuum of space, she started giggling.
That's right. She was alive because her friends decided to come with her on this adventure. Maybe losing every now and then wasn't so bad if it was going to be like this.
Jenny stood up again. Peaceful as it was up here, it was time to head back.
She hopped off the moon in the direction of the parted clouds with the remnants of gold shine. She gave herself some additional thrust towards the target and then surrendered to the pull of the planet's gravity.
♦
The three were walking down the stairs when they reached one of the holes in the wall that the larger undead creature created. Through it, they could see a blue projectile coming back down to the surface, slamming into the ground in the direction Tatters was taken. Saturn wondered if Jenny couldn't stop her momentum in time or just liked to land with a bang.
When they brought her back, there was no time to celebrate. Before they could open their mouths and tell Jenny to go after Tatters, she was already gone and the scourge was already fading away. Saturn didn't even get a chance to compliment her golden hair, which was probably gone now, judging by the blue look when she came back down.
When they finally reached the ground floor, Jenny was there in the parking lot, sitting next to Tatters' unconscious body in the snow. When she saw her friends exit the building, Jenny smiled and gave them an excited wave.
One by one, they threw themselves on top of Jenny to finally hug her. She squeaked for each one, then giggled as she hugged them back.
"Hey guys ~" she said happily.
"You did it! We saw everything!" Circus said.
"I think the whole world saw that," Saturn added.
"You went into space! And you were gold!" Plural said.
"Heh, thanks guys…" Jenny said, a little embarrassed at the attention.
After that, nobody said anything else for a while as they lay there.
…
"I think… I owe you guys my life," Jenny said, breaking the silence.
"I don't know how to repay you…"
The others gave each other a doubting look.
"You don't have to repay us…" Circus said.
"Yeah, you save the world all the time and we don't repay you!" Plural said.
"Besides, that's what friends do!" she added, giving Jenny another squeeze.
"We'll save you as many times as you need," Saturn said with a grin.
Plural looked to the side, at Tatters.
"Is she okay?" she asked Jenny.
"I think she's asleep," Jenny replied.
"I tried to wake her, but she keeps moaning and slapping my hand away."
Plural let go of Jenny and moved to Tatters. She tried to wake her up by shaking her on the shoulders but got the same reaction Jenny had already described. She was clearly asleep, and not in a coma.
"She's cold," Plural said.
Circus moved from her position on top of Jenny to Plural's side. Saturn was on Jenny's other side.
"What are we gonna do?" Circus asked the group.
She looked at Jenny, who might've had an answer.
"There's… nobody left, right?" Circus said, looking around her.
Jenny looked around as well.
"I'm not getting any signs of life besides you guys…" Jenny said, looking gloomy.
"It was like this last time too…" she said, looking at the sky.
Circus retrieved the idol from her pocket, catching Jenny's attention. Circus handed it to Jenny.
"I think Dark Jenny dropped it on the roof. Can you seal him again?" Circus said.
Jenny gave the idol a good look, then took it.
"This guy's not very strong," she said with a bitter smile, knowing full well how much damage the scourge had just caused.
Jenny held the idol in front of her, and she examined it as her eyes changed, displaying some strange patterns.
"He's already back in here," she said.
Jenny looked up at the others' surprised faces.
"He always goes into the next best suitable host. Any corpse will do, except for the ones he's already possessed before," she explained.
"That thing is a corpse?" Circus asked.
"More or less. Someone designed this thing to act like one. Except he can't do anything while he's inside," Jenny answered.
Nobody replied. Her friends still looked confused.
"It was five years ago. I didn't know what to do when the scourge kept coming back, but a demonologist approached me. He knew what to do and designed this," she added.
She looked at Circus.
"When I sealed it, I gave it back to him, and he entrusted it to the museum where Dark Jenny took you," she said.
Circus looked at the idol with sparkles in her eyes.
"Guys, she's freezing. Can we go find a car first? Talk then?" she said with her hand on Tatters' forehead.
"Right…" Circus said as she got up.
"Long drive…"
Saturn got up with her, as did Jenny.
"Stay?" Plural asked Jenny as she tugged on her sweater.
Jenny looked back at Plural, then back at Saturn and Circus.
"It's okay, we'll be right back. Lot of cars without owners around here," Saturn said.
"Get a roomy one!" Plural said.
♦
Jenny looked at Plural in disbelief.
"You guys went to a hot spring?" she asked.
Plural looked like she only just realized what kind of impression that left on Jenny.
"No!" she blurted out.
"Well, we did… But not for fun. Circus and Tatters were already hearing voices!"
Jenny looked away.
"It's okay, I understand…" she said.
Plural looked like she didn't believe that. She'd be right, Jenny wasn't comforted.
"So, did you guys go… naked?" Jenny asked, still looking away.
"Yeah," Plural answered with a defeated tone.
"That's okay," Jenny replied.
She was drawing circles in the snow with her finger. Jenny was well aware of how she was coming across, but she didn't know how else to act. In fact, it was her own advice to find a source of heat to counteract the effects of the scourge. However, it seemed like a special kind of experience that her friends had shared with each other, and she was a bit jealous of not being included. Almost like the rest of them increased their bonds with each other, but not with her.
After Saturn and Circus left, Plural started telling her about everything that happened after Jenny lost consciousness, but she didn't get very far before mentioning the hot springs.
"You wanna know what we talked about when we were in there?" Plural asked with a teasing look.
Jenny looked her in the eyes and refrained from giving a sarcastic and slightly suggestive response to that question. She could just imagine them in there together, leveling up their bonds and unlocking new perks. Maybe Plural could fly now.
"What?" she answered instead.
"How we'd all die for you," Plural said, poking Jenny's arm.
Jenny looked back at her in surprise.
"Even her!" Plural added, pointing at Tatters on the ground.
Jenny looked at Tatters.
That's right. No matter how great they were, Jenny's friends weren't special enough to be able to survive the scourge the way they did. Right now, Jenny owed everything to the girl sleeping in the snow right next to her.
"We all agreed we'd save you or die trying!" Plural said proudly.
Jenny felt bad about reacting the way she did, now, and tried to apologize.
"I'm s-"
Plural pulled Jenny towards herself and rubbed her head.
"And now that we have, we'll just take you to the hot springs later," she said.
Jenny jolted a little at the suggestion. She did want to be included, but the idea of actually going scared her. Jenny wondered if she was the odd one out for feeling this way, and if everyone else just didn't think anything of it.
"Wasn't it embarrassing?" Jenny asked, embarrassed herself for asking.
"Maybe for some," Plural smirked and pointed behind Jenny.
When Jenny looked, she saw a van coming their way. Roomy, like Plural asked. It had to be Saturn and Circus. She didn't want to discuss the topic anymore if Saturn was going to be involved.
"A-Anyway! What happened after that?" she stuttered.
Plural frowned and studied Jenny's unconvincing expression.
"What uh… what did y-" Jenny interrupted herself and looked behind her again when a van door opened. Saturn was holding the door open with one foot inside the car and one on the ground outside. He pointed his thumb at the van to show them what they found.
Saturn looked at the two girls, noting Jenny's facial expression.
"What did you say to her?" he asked Plural.
Jenny nervously looked back at Plural, hands clutched together on her chest. She gave Plural her best puppy dog eyes. Plural looked Jenny in the eyes and seemed to catch the hint. She looked like she was thinking about what to say.
"Something I'm not supposed to know?" Saturn asked when Plural didn't respond on time.
"You know I don't hide anything!" Plural replied.
"Literally!" Circus said, her head poking out above the other opened van door.
Plural looked like that was a quip at her expense.
"If you must know…" Plural said, arms crossed and eyes closed.
"…I told her about how we all declared our love for her! In the hot springs!"
Jenny looked at the other two for a reaction. They both smiled at Jenny. Circus gave her a thumbs up and Saturn gave her a wink. When he did, Jenny imagined it emitted a small heart that floated through the air in her direction. She crawled backwards slightly as the imaginary object approached her, until it made contact with her face and popped, causing her to let out a cute squeak.
Jenny opened her eyes again. They were all looking at her now.
"L-Let's get her inside!" Jenny exclaimed.
Saturn walked over to help Jenny carry their sleeping savior while Circus opened the sliding door. Saturn and Jenny carefully placed Tatters on the bench seat on the left-hand side without waking her up. Not that they could if they tried.
"Are we really kidnapping her?" Jenny nervously asked.
Before anyone could respond, there was a massive rumbling sound coming from the night sky, like it was cracking open. Everybody looked over to see a dark cloud forming on the horizon, with lightning crackling inside of it. Out came the bow of a massive warship, facing down like it was going to crash into the planet's surface head-on. But as it emerged from the dark cloud, it adjusted its course, pitching up and leveling itself out. Another ear-shattering sound: it honked its horn three times, as if to warn other aircraft of its arrival. But it was a bit late for that. Eventually, it slowed down and the dark cloud disappeared until the craft sat still in the sky.
As they watched in awe, Plural was the first to speak.
"Is that…"
"The Accuser…" Circus said.
"I've never seen it in person…"
Jenny clenched her fist and looked at the vessel in anger. She picked up comms from the thing, informing the crew that lockdown had been lifted. Her eyes went to Saturn when he put his hand on her shoulder with a concerned look.
"Jen, what's wrong? They're here to help, right?"
Jenny looked at him and pressed her mouth shut, then returned her gaze to the warship.
"You guys get going. I'll catch up," she said as she turned her hair blue and floated into the sky, but when she felt a small resistance, she stopped and looked back. Saturn was tugging on the sleeve of her pants.
"Hold on! What're you gonna do?" he asked.
"I'm just gonna talk to him," she responded.
Jenny looked Saturn in the eyes with a serious expression. She didn't want to tell him out loud to let her go, but she let her eyes do the talking. Saturn reluctantly let go of her and backed off, watching her fly away.
As Jenny approached the carrier, she scanned its technical details and saw the signature of its otherwise invisible shield. Before she crashed into it, she teleported and appeared on the ship's bridge, warping in with maximum violence to make a statement. When she stood up straight, she looked a woman in the eyes who'd fallen to the ground in front of her, coffee spilled all over her uniform. The woman looked at Jenny like she was seeing a ghost, as did most of the other staff on the bridge.
Jenny gave the woman a dismissive look and walked to the front, where an older man stood, looking at her with his hands behind his back. The tension in the room was razor sharp. It was so quiet, it was as if everybody was holding their breath. Just like how her friends had never seen a carrier jump with their own eyes before, the people on the bridge had never seen the Sparkle Princess with their own eyes before, either. All except one.
"Jenny! Excellent display! We had front-row seats!" said the older man.
"Admiral Mouseville," Jenny said as she walked up the stairs and crossed her arms.
She tried her best to give him an intimidating look, but at the end of the day, Jenny was still relatively small and friendly looking. The man opened his mouth, but before words could come out, Jenny interrupted him.
"You're late!"
The man tried to laugh the matter off.
"Well, we can't all be as fast as you. Moving this hunk 'o junk takes-"
Jenny responded by turning her hair gold again, prompting some gasps from some of the staff on the bridge. It was a bluff. Jenny didn't have enough energy left to justify overcharging her powers, and she certainly wasn't going to hurt anyone.
"Everybody down there is dead! My friends risked their lives to bring me back! While you watched!"
The admiral dropped his smile and looked around the room, like he was contemplating what he was allowed to say.
"You wanted me to throw away the lives of my staff? Billions of taxpayer credits? Against that thing?"
In truth, if Dark Jenny had any capacity left to teleport, it would've been able to destroy this craft from the inside with ease. Killing everyone on board. Jenny was angry at the man but couldn't argue with him on that point.
"For the record, I did lose good men trying to kill it on its way here. That told me everything I needed to know," he continued.
Jenny responded: "You should've cut the threads when they first appeared! Stopped people from turning! You were there five years ago. We both know how easy that would've been."
The man looked at Jenny with contempt, racing the options for his counterargument through his head.
"I appreciate working with you, Jenny. But my loyalty lies with my soldiers."
Jenny listened with a distrusting face.
"Not with you, and not with your friends. I expect you'd say the same thing about us."
"They'll blame me for this," Jenny snarked with increasing anger.
"Big deal. Welcome to the club," he dismissively replied.
He couldn't quite hide the fact that between the two of them, he'd shove the blame towards Jenny, too.
"It is a big deal… to me…" a frustrated Jenny said.
In the meantime, the rest of the staff had distanced themselves from the two, gathering on the opposite side of the bridge, watching the conversation unfold.
The admiral put his hand on Jenny's shoulder, not even slightly intimidated by her golden hair.
"I'll get your name cleared. We have plenty of footage."
For the first time, Jenny wondered if this guy was really on her side, or if he was just a professional talker. In person, he seemed reliable. But in the media, he never hesitated to throw her under the bus if it benefited him.
When she didn't respond, the man tapped Jenny's shoulder again and concluded the conversation.
"Go back to your friends. We'll take care of the rest."
The man had made it perfectly clear that there was nothing left to discuss. Jenny gave him one last resentful gaze, then disappeared with a bang.
♦
Tatters woke up to find her head resting on someone's shoulder. She needed a second to get a grip on where and when she was. It was a car, parked somewhere, with a roomy interior. She didn't need to look up to know it was Plural's shoulder she was sleeping on, because of her smell. She did anyway, and she found Plural returning a playful wave.
Tatters raised her head to sit upright in her seat and found that she was covered by a blanket. Next to Plural was Saturn, looking asleep. The three were in the middle bench seats. There were two small seats behind them that nobody was using. Tatters looked at the front seats to find nobody there. The car was parked, and it was dark outside. She looked back at Plural.
"Welcome back. You were out for a whole day," Plural said.
That was some much-needed context for her. A day had passed since she passed out in the snow. It was coming back to her now. She tried moving her left arm a little to find it was as broken as she remembered. The same thing with her ribs and leg. She remembered how she wanted to ask them to take her with them, but she fell asleep almost immediately after Jenny saved her.
"Where are we going?" she asked Plural.
"Back home. Our home, anyway…" she replied.
Tatters had a humble look on her face. This must mean they did exactly what she wanted them to do, even without her asking.
"Before you say anything, we couldn't just leave you behind!" Plural followed up. She held her hands up like she had to justify why she did it.
"And we couldn't get you to wake up either!"
Plural left a bit of a pause to see if Tatters had anything to say. She didn't.
"So…" Plural cleared her throat and continued.
"I decided to kidnap you!" she said, sounding less apologetic now.
Tatters still said nothing. She just looked at Plural wide-eyed and with her mouth slightly open, like she'd been wanting to say something the whole time but couldn't. Plural continued again.
"So you can be my familiar!" she said with a confident look.
"Okay," Tatters replied, smiling a little.
She wasn't sure what Plural even meant by that, but it didn't matter. She was happy to be with her. She didn't want to think about the details of starting a new life in a different place either. All she could think about was how good these people treated her. Much better than the people in her hometown did. While she was sleeping, they'd retrieved her from the snow, loaded her up into a car and wrapped her into a blanket, ready to take her someplace safe like she secretly wanted them to do. This is why she liked them, because they were good to her and she didn't have to work hard for it.
"You're not mad?" Plural asked her with a guilty look again.
Tatters shook her head. She couldn't bring herself to tell them that in her eyes, they saved her life over the past few days, and this was the happiest she'd ever been.
"Tell her what happened to your last familiar," Saturn said, not so asleep after all.
Plural looked flustered at that.
"He, uh…" she mumbled.
Plural put her arm around Tatters and pulled her closer, hurting her broken ribs.
"He was weak! Unlike you," she said proudly.
Tatters groaned a little from the pain in her chest. Then, the two occupants of the driver and front passenger seats returned to the car with some supplies. Circus opened the door and handed a bag to Saturn, who took it and put it on his lap.
"Welcome back!" she greeted Tatters excitedly while getting herself seated in the driver's seat. Tatters looked out the window and gave a nervous wave back. She suddenly felt like the center of attention, and she didn't like that.
This wasn't helped by the fact that Jenny, who'd returned with Circus, was nervously staring at her from the passenger seat. She was sitting on her knees, with her back facing the windshield, trying and failing to hide herself behind the headrest. Tatters looked back at Jenny, and they made nervous eye contact. Jenny didn't say anything, but her body language revealed she didn't harbor any animosity towards Tatters at all, instead looking at her like she didn't know what to say.
"I think she can see you, Jen," Circus told her when she was done adjusting the seat and mirrors.
"I'm sorry!" Jenny yelled at Tatters with her eyes closed after Circus' comment snapped her out of her deep thoughts.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Tatters replied, looking guilty.
"…for being mean to you," Jenny said.
That's what she was sorry for? Whatever Jenny did and said to her, she deserved it ten times over. Tatters looked at the others and found she was definitely the center of attention. She didn't want to do this right now. Tatters looked out of the window again, hoping the others would change the topic.
"It's okay, Jen, I think that means she forgives you," Plural said.
Tatters didn't like the impression she was giving off here. They were the ones who should be forgiving her, not the other way around. She just didn't want to express all these feelings in front of everybody right now. She watched the outside world start moving as Circus drove off, and she enjoyed the feeling of Plural's arm around her shoulder.
♦
"~ Plural Added you"
"[~ Plural]Sleepy!"
"[~ Circus]@You Welcome!"
"[~ Circus]How did you add her if she's still asleep?"
"[~ Plural]Hacked her phone"
"[~ Saturn]👮?"
"[~ Saturn]@Circus illegal?"
"[~ Plural]I try to do smth good"
"[~ Plural]I can delete"
"[~ Circus]😒"
"[~ Circus]@Plural don't delete her! 🔫"
"[~ Plural]Hehe"
"[~ Plural]Oki"
"[~ Saturn]@You When you read this, welcome!"
"[~ Saturn]Try to take care of yourself around her."
"[~ Saturn]Her last familiar, Mr. Nibbles, was flattened by a truck."
"[~ Circus]@Saturn didn't you almost flatten her once yourself?"
"[~ Saturn]Karma"
"[~ Saturn]Also how do you know that?"
"[~ Plural]😢"
"~ Plural Removed ~Jenny"
"~ Plural Added ~Jenny 2"
"[~ Jenny 2]@You Welcome😣"