by The Eurostar, I'm Not Mister Mxypltk and T5
The spell Aurochs was whispering was like a soft and tender litany, self-hypnotizing. Soon, he was lying on the gray tiles of the room, while the walls of the Castle of Crossed Destinies still vibrated from his arcane song.
When he awoke, he didn't recognize the place. All had changed. He was in a dark alley among the debris of a ruined building. A man with long, flowing white hair over his shoulders looked at him behind green sleek glasses. "Bull, are you still alive?" he whispered.
Aurochs looked around, totally lost. "Who are you?"
The white-haired man paused, unsure if he should answer. "Have you lost your memory? They hit you hard. That's understandable."
"Where are we?"
"Chicago, Auguste. I am Charles Elias Walker. And we are the MBL."
The MBL? Why in the world would I be in the MBL? wondered Aurochs. "What... what are we doing?"
"We are about to free the world, Bull. We are going to kill Cicciotto!"
"Cicciotto? Who is Cicciotto?"
"You can't remember anything, eh? Edulcore Cicciotto... the Eurostar... the emperor of the world!"
"Gah!" M'xy exclaimed as he took over Mick Harrison's body. He started floating around Mick's room.
"It's not nice being forced to go back to M-I-C-K's unconscious, you know!" he said, apparently to himself. "Oh, yeah, I know you're there! Maybe you can fool the rest, but you can't trick me, no sir, you can't."
Mick's room started slowly fading away around M'xy. Behind the walls, there was only darkness.
"C'mon, show up already! It's obvious that you and your buddies are behind all this," M'xy said. "You know what I think? I think you're jealous of me. Yeah, that's it. You saw that I had found some buddies in this dimension, and you just had to find some for yourself."
When Mick's room was totally gone, shadowy figures started forming in the darkness.
"What's this? Oh, come on... You think you can trick me like you tricked the rest? Puh-LEASE! Gimme some credit, will ya? I bet you're doing this 'cause you don't wanna look bad in front of your..." M'xy said, starting to notice the figure that took shape in the darkness. "What's that you're formin' there? Do I see a nipple?"
But what formed in the darkness wasn't a thing or a place... or even a sound... it was a fact.
M'xy looked at it, petrified. "That's not truth," he said.
But the fact remained there. Everywhere M'xy looked, he saw a dark truth he didn't want to accept.
"That's a lie!" M'xy yelled. "Take it away, liar! TAKE IT AWAY! I DON'T WANT TO SEE IT!"
Somewhere else:
K'tl, Kalunga, and Aurochs sat in a circle, holding Aurochs' spell together. Aurochs had passed out, but his spell remained strong thanks to K'tl and Kalunga.
"What are you doing to him?" Kalunga asked.
"I'm simply making my counterpart face truth... the hard way," K'tl answered coldly. "And as much as I'm enjoying this, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go there and take care of the damn fool myself."
"Go do that if you must," Kalunga said. "I will keep Aurochs' spell."
Without saying anything, K'tl disappeared, leaving Kalunga alone with the unconscious Aurochs.
"I hope you don't mind me using your energies in addition to mine, Aurochs," she said to the mage. "But it would be impossible for only one person to preserve a spell of this nature. Even with the extra power Smith gave me, I need you to do this and remain alive. Speaking of Smith... I wonder how he's doing."
In another place, Mr. Smith continued absorbing evil power.
Soon I will reach my limits, he thought to himself without breaking his concentration. I wonder what will happen when I break them...
Mr. Smith looked at the hanging Naecken, smiling. "You, an abomination of fate, have something inside you that I need to further empower me... to raise me to a new level of greatness."
Naecken barely registered what was happening around him, but his inner selves were sending him signals on a unconscious level, signals of imminent danger. He opened his eyes and looked straight down into the dark, mad eyes of Mr. Smith.
"I will draw forth your inner energies to add to my own. You will be nothing but a shell, a vegetable... a drooling idiot when I'm done with you."
Mr. Smith began the siphoning. And within Naecken a presence awakened to full clarity. Lord Kwaiziel was free again...