***FIONNA***

Grace has to search around for the door to the Third 'Verse, and it takes her several tries to get the right one. Before she does so, she first opens doors to a teenage boy's messy room (probably belonging to Yash, or maybe his kid brother, whatever his name was), a kitchen crewed by a chain gang of pirates (the bandannas are the giveaway), and a yawning darkness interrupted only by a few distant, but somehow still burning-hot, flashes of fire. A Dantean Inferno if ever there was one, just minus the blood, guts, and shit. (And I do mean shit, by the way. Literally. In case you never read that book in freshman-year Honors English.)

And then finally she opens the right door, perhaps the most nondescript one in the entire Terminal. It's pretty much plain white, with no identifying symbol to suggest a Third 'Verse lying in wait on the other side. And inside, I'm actually more than a bit surprised to see rows upon infinite rows of steam-cloaked metal cryo-pods stretching into the light.

What do you know? Maybe Elijah was right about the Third 'Verse being some kind of dream machine. Is this where we all end up after we die?

Don't ask me, Grace thinks. I'll never get to live here, I don't think.

Not wanting to think about the ramifications of what she's just said, I move past her and walk down the first corridor directly in front of me. Somewhere way down the line, I hear a faint voice - male, I think. As I get closer to its source, the shapes of people form in the fog, and I recognize a few of them, even with their backs turned, based on their clothes. Annie, Harlan...and Alex. There's a fourth figure, a guy based on the shape of his body, standing kind of awkwardly between Alex and Annie and leaning to one side just a bit. He's much shorter than Alex, so I think I have an idea who he is.

He turns around and my guess is confirmed. Steve Walker. He nudges Alex, who gets a look at me, then waves me forward. "Just in time to fight the zombies, guys."

Now I realize how many of my friends are with me right now. A look around reveals Gabe, Kelly, and Gideon following closely behind me. Everyone else - I guess that means Grace too - must be back in the Terminal, keeping Alicia restrained. And those that are here? They're getting their elementals ready, as am I.

"Don't kill any of 'em," says Annie.

"Especially not Russell," Harlan chimes in.

"Uh, you realize all of them are technically twice dead, right?" Steve points out.

"Not Michael," says Alex.

I look over his shoulder, standing on tiptoe to do so. "I'm guessing Michael's the Brit? Blond, sorta looks like James Paxton's evil twin?"

"Who now?"

"Son of Bill."

Alex does a facepalm. "Oh. Yeah, I can sorta see it too now. But you don't think he looks like Gabe?"

Gabe shakes his head as he gets his own first glimpse of Mr. Michael the Brit Twit. "Like me? In his dreams. Though he does look more like an elf boy than I do."

Michael shakes his fluffy blond head. "You know I can hear you all chattering away, right? Are we gonna fight or what?"

"You really wanna do this?" Kelly calls out. "I'm pretty sure nobody sane wants to fight people he doesn't even know."

"True, I don't really know you." Michael snaps his fingers, and the crowd of people around him - people I'm only now noticing are all in their underwear - advance slowly. "But here's the thing. I've had enough of Alicia's experiments sending people to this 'verse where they don't belong, and of all the experiments that led you all here to this place." He cocks his head. "I'm especially looking at the two Breakers. If you hadn't been made the way you had, I'd have a lot less bullshit to put up with day in and day out."

"Gee, it's not like you're the first to tell us we should never been born," Gabe mutters.

"But it doesn't hurt any less." Alex bumps fists with Gabe, then both of them coat their hands with ice. I take that as my cue to really start throwing fire, as does Steve, who targets Michael with near-unerring accuracy right alongside me.

Near, but not near enough, because Michael summons several of those under his control to get in formation around him and become humanoid shields. What a fucking asshole coward this guy is - and I thought Alicia and Penner were bad enough as enemies.

"Land and dark elementals take the crowd?" I suggest. "Ice and fire take the head of the snake?"

"I'm a little offended that you lumped our brother into the snake," says Annie, "but then again he always was one of the trouser variety." She clenches her fists, then a couple of collapsible-style dark batons appear in her hands.

Harlan forms a long dark blade, then says, "I hope you know what you're doing, Fionna, 'cause I bet we'd stand a better chance if we-"

"I can still hear you!" Michael waggles one finger in the air, and the closest Third 'Verse zombies to us start firing their elementals at us. "Come on, at least try to keep me in the dark!" As if to emphasize how much he isn't, he fires more lightning into the air, almost striking a couple of pods that haven't opened up. All he'd need would be flames as orange as mine, and he'd be able to say he's literally playing with fire.

Wait, can I make my flames blue? It's long been a challenge, increasing my heat. I've always run pretty orange. Yellow if I'm especially pissed. I can try to go for blue, but that might sap a little too much concentration, and I need to conserve my focus while I'm taking Michael on. If I can push past his mental blocks - because yes, I can feel him working to restrict the movement of my muscles the closer I get to him, and I know I'm not the only one - I can throw out a layer of enough fire, with Steve's help (and I notice his glows redder than mine; does his having died more times diminish his heat?), to keep Michael so on his toes that he can't control the whole horde he's got at his disposal.

Okay, don't let Annie or Harlan hear me lumping Russell into another group with an unsavory name. Capisce?

Together with Steve, I help form a continuous ring of fire around Michael. Continuous except for the lightning he keeps sparking off, which occasionally interrupts the path of the flames but is too insubstantial to really stop it. From time to time, Michael forms a light blade, with which he slashes out at us, but he can't keep track of us both because he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head. So these light blades, he throws them and they embed themselves in the sides of open pods just long enough to spark some more before they vanish.

The blades actually do come pretty close to striking both me and Steve, but they never really hit. I think, instead, he's targeting Alex and Gabe, who have to do some fancier footwork than us in order to dodge.

It's practically a video game, with God and three of His friends at the controls. Mash down the circle button, hit X from time to time when we need to jump, and pray for a critical hit each time someone presses square. Or something like that. (And what does triangle do? Most games don't assign a function to triangle. Except Kingdom Hearts, according to Ash, who always loved to abuse those games' reaction commands.)

"You really think this will help you out?" Michael laughs, high and cold like Tom Bloody Riddle. "Come on, I know you can do better than that! Hit me! Go on!"

"As you wish, my good sir." I break the circle and send the tongues of flame from my right hand right at Michael, but instead of hitting him directly, I connect my fire with Steve's right-hand fire above Michael's head. Then I pull my left-hand flame into a tighter curve, as does Steve, until these connect as well. Our fire circle is now a fire figure-eight. Or an infinity loop. Whichever shape you prefer to see it, Steve and I are turning up the heat on him, the red and orange tongues meeting in midair to form a spot of yellow, then blue, right in the center.

"Am I supposed to be afraid of that?" Michael jerks his thumb at the blue flames flickering over his head.

I lean over to look around Michael, then catch sight of Steve. Together, we pull our flames off to one side of Michael, deforming the infinity loop but still keeping the hottest flames in the center. They're no longer blue, but yellow. Guess that couldn't last long, but yellow will do. Even red would burn something fierce, but yellow will be particularly nasty.

As Michael finds out firsthand when Steve and I swing the yellow flames like they're a solid two-person medieval flail of some kind and smash them right into his side, forcing him to his knees, roaring in agony. Our flames disconnect from each other at this point, but Steve simply has to follow my lead when I swing my flame again, this time over Michael's head, one hundred and eighty degrees until it impacts on his other side, blackening his armor and charring his hoodie.

"Oh, sorry," I laugh as Steve's flames hit him as well. "I forgot to tell you how nice that hoodie was, shame if something happened to it, blah-dee-blah..." I watch as the others keep resisting the zombies, but the zombies are slower now, probably because Michael isn't as capable of controlling them while he has to deal with his pain. Annie and Harlan, meanwhile, have basically sat Russell down and focused entirely on him, while Gideon and Kelly keep on trapping the others in sinkholes. It must be a challenge for them, using their land elemental when there really isn't much land to speak of indoors like this. But I've been surprised by the extents of Kelly's powers before. Not only with plants (sadly, she can't work with those here), but even concrete has been known to bend to her will. After long periods of mental exertion, that is.

Michael's burns are still smoking, and he keeps looking from one side to the other, wondering which one to devote the most attention to.

"Feeling the burn?" I laugh. "Wanna put some ice on that?" I snap my fingers, and the Snow Bros come in, brandishing their ice shields. "You know what to do, boys."

Alex and Gabe take my place and Steve's, respectively, around Michael, then fire long shots of ice at his burns. A layer of frost covers those spots quickly, but then Alex starts expanding that layer, and soon, Gabe follows suit, quickly freezing Michael in place even as he resists.

The zombies stop moving, then turn around and retreat back to their pods one by one. Russell included. "Okay, that's enough," I tell the boys. "He's not controlling them anymore...uh, boys?"

They're not stopping.

Especially not Alex, who's doubling down, hitting Michael with both barrels.

"Alex?" I can't get close enough to look him in the eye, certainly not while he's got streams of ice all in front of himself. But even in his periphery, I see that his eyes, normally a dark slate gray, have lightened to a shade of pale silver. "Alex!" I run around Michael, whose entire torso and upper legs are now covered in ice, and get a glimpse of Gabe. His eyes aren't quite as pale as Alex's, but they're getting dangerous too. "Guys! Stop!"

They finally listen to me, but by now it's too late - Michael is now completely frozen to the spot.

I don't like it, but seeing how the zombie people are all retreating back to their pods and closing them up, I think now's as good a time as any to get the hell out of here.

I look at Russell, who's the last one to get back into his pod. He relaxes seconds after a set of IV lines automatically connects with his chest - probably it's pumping him full of sedative. Then he looks at us all, smiles weakly, and whispers, "I'm sorry, guys. Michael...he..." Then he closes his eyes. I never really noticed how big and brown they were before, but mostly because A) he never exactly crossed my sexual radar, and B) his glasses always had a way of hiding them.

He opens his eyes again to say, "Michael...he...God..." Or something like that. Either way, his words become hazy and incomprehensible as he falls asleep and the pod seals on him with a hiss.

As for Michael, he's still frozen fast, but that won't last long judging from the small shaft of white light piercing the ice around his fingertips.

"All right, we gotta go, guys." I lead the way, bringing everyone back to the door at top speed. Behind us, the whole time, I hear the ice crumble loudly as Michael makes his escape.

I think we're lucky to get out while we can. All of us.

The last thing I do before we go back to Grace's Terminal desk is burn the Third 'Verse doorknob. If it conducts the heat to the other side, that should serve as a nice deterrent for Michael should he come after us.

That silly goose? He won't. Alicia hears my thoughts when I get back to the desk, but she can't talk while Harris is still keeping her mouth thoroughly darked up. But you should be careful of him, take it from me. There's nothing worse than an archangel with a chip on his shoulder.

I eyeball Ariel's corpse, which still lies at the foot of the door back to Bearville. "What about a murderer, murderer?"

To that, she has no response.