CHAPTER 17: Knock, Knock, Knockin' On...

Elsewhere

The Milky Way galaxy is of such baffling, unthinkable size that most human minds find it difficult, if not impossible, to visualize.

For a human standing on the surface of the planet Earth, it is impossible to be more than roughly 16,000 miles or 25,700 kilometers from the place of their birth. In other words, halfway around the world. A considerable distance for a human, of course, but on a larger scale...

From the surface of Earth to the moon (or Luna) is 238,000 miles or 384,000 kilometers, a journey that took the Apollo 11 astronauts close to 52 hours.

The distance from the Earth to the Sun (or Sol) is commonly called one astronomical unit, or AU, which is equal to 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers, such a distance that even Sol's rays take eight minutes to reach Earth at the speed of light.

Mars, the nearest planet to Earth, is approximately 225 million kilometers away at the closest point of its orbit, or slightly under 2.5 AU.

The nearest star system to Sol, Alpha Centauri, is approximately 1.34 parsecs away, which equals over 206,000 AU.

And there are hundreds of billions of star systems in the Milky Way, across a range of an estimated 31,000 to 55,000 parsecs, large enough for hundreds times hundreds of billions of planets.

Most humans don't like to think about such incredible distances. If they do, they try not to dwell on it. Thinking of one's relative size in comparison to the universe tends to make people feel uncomfortable. The whole of known creation is simply so vast that humans are mere cells in a cosmic body.

If the reader feels frighteningly small when reading this, they may rest assured; such a feeling is entirely normal, an indication of a healthy sense of scale and perspective.

Such is the point of this diversion: to impart that sense of perspective... to give some idea as to just how far from Earth we are about to travel.

Nearly 8000 parsecs from Earth, somewhere within the constellation we call Sagittarius, there is a bright, compact radio source that has never been directly observed by human astronomers, due to being shrouded in clouds of cosmic dust. Current scientific theory posits that this radio source is a supermassive black hole that serves as the rotational center, and possibly the creation point, of the entire Milky Way galaxy. The phenomenon is called Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star").

It will likely take millennia of technological development before human eyes can see Sagittarius A* without the aid of telescopes and satellites... that is, if such a thing is even possible. When and if humans ever make the journey there, they may find more than just the theorized black hole, hidden within clouds of cosmic dust large enough to cover a million Earths.

Somewhere in the dark unknown of Sagittarius A*, precariously hovering just above the event horizon of that black hole... there is a palace.

Known to precious few, the palace resembled an enormous, elaborate cathedral in space, the size of a city block. How it stayed in stable orbit without plunging into the black hole's depths, no one could say. Its great towers and spires, seemingly delicate, were constructed of a material far stronger than any diamond... a substance like nothing ever seen on present-day Earth. Venture close enough, and one could see that the palace's strangeness was not limited to just its materials: half of its mass appeared sharp and solid, real, while the rest faded into intangible shadows of itself, in apparent defiance of every natural law.

It was that strange, half-solid palace, in the very heart of the galaxy, that served as the vantage point for the forces of Dead End.

La Fin de Toute

In his private chambers, Joker sulked deep in his favorite chair. Once more, he winced and traced the lines of the X-shaped scar in his mask with his fingertip. It was a tempting idea to kill this flawed body and generate a new one, but that was a waste of energy, and shouldn't be done except when necessary. But the scar bothered him, it marred his otherwise immaculate features... and it itched. Damn it all, it was difficult to think when it itched.

Joker's chambers were sparse and dimly-lit, decorated with little save for a floor-length mirror, the chair, simple and high-backed, and the usual circus trappings that he favored, plus a few scattered toys for when he entertained himself with the Bad End Cures. Other than those, he had no need for material possessions, so what else would he fill it with? There wasn't much reason to keep his chambers private, in truth... but doing so kept the troops on edge, thinking that he had some dark and terrifying secret to hide from them. That was reason enough.

The scar itched.

Something to take his mind off of it, that was what Joker needed. His claws drummed the arm of his chair as he considered his options. He could call for Bad End Happy and the others and play with them for a while... that would leave such an awful mess, though. The Merry-Go-Round wasn't any more ready than it was the last time he checked, so there was no point in going down there again, except to watch the captives squirm and moan in agony. That would be entertaining, but he didn't feel in the proper mood to enjoy it at the moment.

The scar itched.

A dangerous growl built in his throat as he ran through the rest of his choices: monitor the Will regenerating herself, which would be a long, dull, slow process. Supervise Dark Precure and her troops, who were being deployed to secure the abandoned worlds across the multiverse, which wouldn't be fun unless he could participate directly. Perhaps he could interrogate Mercury's puppet again? Already she had divulged so many treasure troves of fascinating information about herself, her friends, their many battles, and the Silver Millennium, but there was always more to ask of her. After all, it wasn't as if she could refuse to answer him.

Something pulled at him, deep inside his being, and his foul mood dissipated at once. A summons, at last! He began the teleport before he was even fully out of his chair.

His body materialized within the blackness that surpassed blackness, in the metaphysical realm that Chaos (or part of Chaos, or an aspect of it, Joker wasn't sure) called its home.

Joker. The void resounded with Chaos's voice, its sepulchral tones echoing both around him and within him.

"My Master," said the harlequin, bowing low. "Everything is-"

I am aware. You must prepare yourself for the next phase.

"Of course, Master. Where exactly am I going?"

The final Vertex.

That gave the harlequin a bit of surprise. "Really?" he said, raising a brow. "You think we're ready to seize the Third?"

There is no 'we', Joker. You will go alone.

"I'm not entirely certain I follow you," said Joker, tilting his head to one side.

Alone. Without the Time Reaper, without your forces. The Reaper is still strong enough to open the door, but only you may safely pass through it. The entity that rules the final Vertex is one whom you cannot afford to cross. If you show the slightest sign of aggression, the Third will be lost to us forever.

"Ahhh." Joker grinned. "A bit unstable, non?"

Do not make light of this, Joker, the void rumbled. Listen, and listen carefully. As you are, you, with all your power and cunning, are less than dust to this entity. Start a war, and it will end in the space of a heartbeat. Identify yourself as a threat, and you risk annihilation so complete that even I may be unable to restore you.

Joker tapped his chin. In truth, he felt... rather thrilled. An entity that could potentially bring him to such a permanent end that even Chaos could not help him? That was an enticing sort of danger. Certainly more of a challenge than any of the other Vertices had been. "Are you asking me for subtlety, Master?"

I ask you for whatever is necessary to seize the Third.

"Hmm. If I may be so bold..." Joker paused, choosing his words carefully. "What exactly is the nature of the final Vertex? You've told me very little about it, and aside from the Soujus and the Witches that the Time Reaper pulled through, we have very little in the way of allies or resources that originate from there... why is that?"

Chaos told him.

As he listened, Joker felt chills scamper up and down his spine, and his scar tingled...

-VERTEX FIVE: 10.194412-

Mitakihara

All was well.

There were no more Witches. No more Wraiths. No more deadly battles inside hidden barriers, where the corpses of the losers would disappear forever. No more Incubators preying on the vulnerable and naive... as they were now, the Incubators were barely more sentient than the primitive pre-humans they found when they first came to Earth, untold millions of years ago. Through the guidance of unseen hands, history had proceeded just as most people thought it did... this time, without secret manipulation by the Incubators' minds, incapable of emotion and bereft of human morality.

There were no more Puellae Magi. No more Soul Gems... save one, though with all that it had changed, it wasn't accurate to call it that anymore.

No more Puellae Magi, which meant no more needless suffering. No more despair. No more wishes, selfless or otherwise, for good or ill, to tempt young girls into lifetimes of ceaseless pain and tragedy.

Of the five who fought so hard for so long, those five who had a larger part in changing the laws of the universe than any other Puellae Magi to ever live... four were now nothing more than normal human girls, living ordinary lives, having no knowledge of the horror lurking just out of their sight.

The fifth... the fifth was that horror, the one controlling it all. The only law of the universe now was her bidding, and so long as the universe she maintained kept the one person she cared about safe and happy... it was all worth it.

All was well.

"-with Kamijo-kun, but he has a recital, so we had to cancel."

Four girls walked down a cobblestone street together on a bright spring afternoon. Fragrant pink petals from cherry trees in bloom littered their path. It had been unseasonably warm lately, so the trees were blooming earlier than normal... not that anyone minded.

"Sorry, Hitomi. There'll be another time, right?"

"I'm certain there will, but it frustrates me sometimes..."

"Oh! Next time he has one, we should all go there to cheer him on! We can invite Mami-san and Kyoko-chan..."

"Kyoko, at a violin recital?! You're out of your mind. She wouldn't set foot in there unless there was free food involved."

"Aww."

"It's a good idea, but I just can't see her going for it. Mami-san, yeah, but not Kyoko."

"What about you, Homura-chan? Would you like to go with us?" The speaker turned to the pale, quiet girl with the long raven hair, who walked a step behind them.

Homura Akemi smiled. There were plenty who thought that smile was unsettling, but she didn't care. It wasn't as if she smiled for anyone but the girl facing her. She was all that mattered. "Whatever you want to do is fine with me, Madoka."

"All right!" said Madoka Kaname, clapping her hands and bouncing on her heels in delight. Her twin pink pigtails bounced along with her, tied with red ribbons. "I'll meet with Mami-san after class... and I'll ask Kyoko-chan, just in case."

With a shrug, Sayaka Miki crossed her arms behind her head. "You're wasting your time, if you ask me." True, the blue-haired tomboy knew Kyoko better than any of them did, with the possible exception of Mami... but one never knew. Kyoko could surprise them.

"I would like to get to know Sakura-san better," said Hitomi Shizuki, prim and proper and elegant as always, the perfect figure of an upper-class girl. "And Tomoe-san too, of course."

Sayaka pivoted so that now she walked backwards while keeping in step with them. "Mami-san could use some cheering up lately. Seems to me like she's been bothered about something..."

"Ah?" Hitomi put a delicate hand to her lips. "Did she say anything to you?"

"Uh-uh," said Sayaka, shaking her head. "But I can tell. She just seems... down."

"Poor Mami-san..." Madoka turned back and looked over her shoulder. Empathetic as ever. "Maybe we should pay her a visit after school."

Homura listened, as she always did. Personally, she didn't care one jot about whatever it was that was troubling Mami Tomoe, but if her emotional state threatened Madoka's happiness... something would have to be done.

Following behind the group, unseen by the other three, were a selection of bizarre figures: a collection of more than a dozen animated porcelain dolls, all dressed in black funeral clothes, with wide, unblinking blue eyes and eerie painted smiles... Every few steps, three or four of the dolls would lag behind, giggling and whispering to each other in high-pitched voices, before running back to rejoin the rest. What they whispered, and what they giggled at, was always the same, without fail: "Gott ist tot. Gott ist tot. Gott ist tot. Gott ist tot..."

Homura Akemi never lost a step. Keeping stride with the others, she sent a mental command to the dolls, a pointed instruction mixed with a threat: Deliver Mami Tomoe a cake tonight. Something expensive, from the finest bakery in the city. If you can't find one, make the patissier bake one for her, but be subtle about it. Don't be seen. And do it right... If you put anything in the cake that shouldn't be there, I'll know... and I'll twist your foul little heads off one by one.

Five of the Clara dolls shrieked in terror and scuttled off to do their mistress's bidding. They were simple-minded things, usually obedient, but with a mischievous streak that Homura couldn't seem to eliminate, no matter how many times she destroyed and recreated them. Every once in a while, a few of them would grow too bold and attempt to pull a childish prank: tacks in Sayaka's shoes, hiding Kyoko's secret stashes of candy from her, and once, yes, wasabi paste snuck into Mami's cake batter. True, Homura found that last one moderately amusing, but not enough to abate her anger at the dolls... a stunt like that could have upset Madoka. Hundreds of the Claras were punished that night, which put a stop to their antics for a month. That was a record, considering their limited memory.

Limited memory or not, though, they never attempted to pull anything of the sort on Madoka directly. They were simple-minded, but not completely stupid. None of them dared risk it.

Lagging behind the remaining dolls was another being, something like a cat and something like a rabbit. Once, not too long ago, it would have been considered cute by the girls, but now... now they couldn't see it. If they could, they might have been horrified by its sorry state: its ragged white fur, its round, glassy red eyes, the pathetic droop of its long ears and fluffy tail, the way it trembled constantly as if it were afraid of someone striking it. Even the frozen smile that it always wore seemed forced.

It was one of millions of identical creatures, all slinking about the world, undetectable to mortals. The once-mighty Incubators were reduced to a drooling, lobotomized servant race. Homura rendered them all just coherent enough to be in constant terror of her... though none of them had the mental faculties left to comprehend why they felt so. Whenever she grew bored, she would pick one at random and tear it apart molecule by molecule over a period of hours (or days, if she felt like it), just to strike a little more fear into the others. As they were now, they would never cause suffering to befall anyone ever again.

Incubator technology had its uses, even if the Incubators themselves no longer did. A species advanced enough to combat the principle of entropy directly was more than capable of making sure the universe ran itself as it should, Homura thought, so she used what they had built to keep her domain functioning smoothly and quietly; there was no point in personally managing the menial, day-to-day details when she could devote her full attention to other things.

To Madoka.

This world, this farcical puppet show of a universe, was all for Madoka, created and maintained for the sole purpose of keeping her happy and safe in an eternal paradise. Before, the universe had been random, meaningless, pointless in its cruelty, appalling in its apathy. "Gott ist tot," the Clara dolls constantly chanted, but Homura knew that wasn't true... God couldn't be dead if there was never a God in the first place.

The closest thing this universe had ever to the idea of "God" was now a normal, happy, contented teenage girl, as she was before... as she always should have been. The unfathomable power she once wielded to reshape the universe, to become Hope itself?

Now it was Homura's, and she was hardly God.

Just the opposite, in fact.

She saw what she had made, and it was good... or at least, good enough.

Before he even finished materializing in the final Vertex, Joker felt it... a sensation that made his black heart sing with twisted joy. Traipse about the multiverse for long enough, and you could sense disruptions in space-time, like feeling the change on your skin when a cloud passed over the sun. With the kind of disruptions he felt here, he didn't need the Reaper to interpret what had happened: space-time in this universe had been torn apart and rearranged over and over again, in ways that even he and the Reaper combined would have difficulty managing. The fabric of time here was a frayed patchwork, hastily stitched back together into some semblance of what it once was.

Glorious, thought Joker. Magnifique...

Oh, he felt her power, and what power it was! If anything, Chaos had understated what he risked by setting foot in this world. A raw, angry, violent storm of cosmic energy, barely contained within the facsimile of a human body... and fragmented remains of that same energy inside another, always at her side.

Recruit both of them, and he could quite literally end the war with the light before it even began. Temptation gnawed at his stomach, a feeling of longing mixed with naked greed... but no. Chaos was right, of course. An all-out assault would be worse than pointless. This required skill.

Clutching the "marbles" in his pocket, Joker grinned and cloaked himself in shadow, lying in wait for his prey.

It didn't take long.

"Bon appetit," he chuckled to himself before he pounced.

Just the two of them. No Mami or Sayaka or Kyoko or Hitomi to get in the way. These were Homura's favorite moments with Madoka.

Sometimes, she entertained the thought of tearing it all down, blasting the whole of wretched creation to dust so that the two of them could float alone in the ashes forever. It was tempting, and well within her abilities. Once it was set in motion, she could put herself and Madoka in a happy, endless sleep, and they could dream together for the rest of time...

Tempting, and the universe did deserve it, after all it had done. But she decided long ago that she would only do so as a last resort, once she grew bored with maintaining the façade. That wouldn't be for a long time yet.

Madoka yawned and sighed, resting her cheek against Homura's shoulder as they walked across the Uegawa Bridge, the rays of the sunset warming their backs.

"Are you tired, Madoka?" said Homura, nuzzling her.

"A little bit," said Madoka with a sleepy giggle. "Mmm. You're warm."

"Mmm."

"And your hair smells nice. Like lilacs."

"I know. I still use that shampoo that you bought me."

"Still? After all this time?"

"I refuse to use anything else," she said, mock serious.

"You're so silly." Madoka's arms wrapped around her waist. "You don't have to use it all the time just because I bought it."

"Of course I do. What kind of friend would I be otherwise?"

Kind eyes the color of roses looked up at her, and her lower lip jutted forward in the tiniest pout. "Don't you know? No matter what you use, you'll still be my best friend, Homura-chan."

Their foreheads bumped softly together. "I know," said Homura.

It was right here on this bridge, long ago, on an evening like this, that Homura's current existence began... the evening that she followed a voice murmuring dark thoughts in her ear, and stepped from the cool paving stones of the bridge into a twisted realm of smeared oil paint and grotesque figures. Her first Witch labyrinth, where she was saved for the first of so many countless times... by Madoka.

How long ago was that now?

Homura didn't remember. After repeating the hell of that terrible month over and over and over, she didn't bother to keep count. She knew that when the cycle finally broke and everything started over, it was only a scant few months before the Incubators snatched her and plunged her back into a hell somehow even worse... There was no telling how long that had lasted. When she finally emerged from that hell as the Devil triumphant, everything started over once again.

And how long ago was that?

She didn't know. Time had no more meaning, unless she desired it. Whenever the school year ended, she would simply restart it in the previous spring, with things exactly as they were before. She would let events play out, with only the occasional nudging and coercing of her puppets necessary to keep Madoka immersed in bliss. No partings, no aging, no sorrow or tears... her beloved was trapped in an eternal cycle.

If Homura saw the irony there, she chose to ignore it.

Whether she had done this for months or eons, it didn't matter. Time had no more meaning, unless she desired it.

It could have continued this way forever.

A chill wind broke the moment. That was wrong... chills didn't happen on evenings like this, not anymore. Homura snapped to full alert in an instant, as she did something she hadn't done in ages... she brought time to a halt, and the world faded to muted colors. There was no more need for a clockwork shield.

There was someone in the time-stop with her, someone behind her and Madoka on the bridge... a gaudy harlequin dressed in purple and white, with a swirl of red-yellow-blue-violet hair resembling a jester's cap, the upper half of his fade covered by a white mask with empty black eyes, marred by the dark lines of an X-shaped scar on the forehead. The harlequin waved at her.

That wasn't possible.

That wasn't possible.

A wide smile spread across his face as he approached her, wading through the frozen time as easily as air. He lowered himself in a sweeping bow, a black rose clutched between his middle and index fingers. "Enchanté, Madame Diable," he said in silky tones. "It is an honor and privilege to meet you at last."

Homura stared, too stunned to react. "Who are you? How did you get here?"

Rising from his bow, he brought the rose before her face. "Por vous. I am Joker, a visitor to your world, here to pay my respects to the highest of demons."

In disgust, she swatted the rose aside. Once it lost contact with her hand, it hung suspended in midair. "My world has no visitors. Leave. Now."

"But madame," said Joker, "you haven't even heard my proposition yet-"

"I don't care." Her voice was icy as a midwinter's night. "Leave."

"Pardonez..." Joker shrugged and began to circle around them. "I merely wanted to suggest a way to spend even more time with your beloved. Is that so wrong?"

Ice trickled down the back of Homura's neck. It was a sensation she had all but forgotten. "What do you mean?"

"I have a way for you to make a deeper bond." Retrieving his rose, Joker turned his back to her, a brazen show of confidence. "A bond beyond physical or emotional. You would never be separated again."

"We already have that."

"Do you, though?" One eye of the mask widened. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't she tend to rattle the bars of that gilded cage you've built for her on occasion?"

Her skin crawled... This Joker was speaking of things he couldn't possibly know. "Who are you?" Homura asked again.

"A jester wandering the worlds, and a representative of Dead End." Joker made another of those sweeping bows. "We're amassing quite a cast for a show a few universes over from yours. It would be lovely if you and Mademoiselle Madoka could attend-"

"I'm not interested in anything you have to offer." The words escaped in an angry hiss from between Homura's clenched teeth.

"You should be. There's no better way to keep her safe for eternity than what I have in mind. You two are close, but are you inseperable? At least consider it-"

Homura's eyes narrowed to slits. "If you truly know who I am, you know I'm not inclined to trust strange creatures with offers of granting my heart's desire," she said, colder than ever.

"Mmm, yes," chuckled Joker. "Given your history, I can understand that. But Madame Diable, I don't think you quite grasp the scope of what I'm offering." He spread his hands. "When I say you can be together with your Madoka for all eternity... I mean that quite literally." Suddenly, he was inches from Homura's face, the pitiless black eyes of his mask staring into her cold violet ones. The awful grin split his face. "Imagine it, madame: with my assistance, you two together can tear every universe apart at the seams, destroy everything not just here but everywhere. All possible obstacles between you, gone for good. When it's over, you'll finally be alone. Just you and your Madoka as one, forever... that's what you want, isn't it? You've thought about it, haven't you?"

It was as if he had given voice to her deepest temptation, as if he had reached into her thoughts and pulled out her plan for if she ever grew tired of it all... but she didn't trust him for a moment. Never again would she trust someone making offers like this. There was always a catch, always a price, a sinister caveat lurking behind the promise of a miracle.

Homura looked into those endless black eyes, into whatever remained of Joker's soul, and saw the barest glimpse of what he had in mind should she accept...

And the Devil was horrified. The thing that Joker pictured... it was an abomination to put herself and all Witches combined to shame. A tortured, twisted amalgamation of shifting light and shadow, at war with itself, at war with reality... It was as he said, it was herself and Madoka as one being, entwined so tightly that seeing where one began and one ended was impossible... but both would suffer, every second of their combined existence a thousand times worse than sum total of the lifetimes they had already lived through...

"No," she whispered. She shook her head and said it again, louder: "No. I will never... ever... allow that to happen." Trembling with fury, she stood, and stood, and stood... Homura loomed over Joker, a thousand miles tall, barren wings erupting from her back as she assumed her true form. Her eyes blazed with magenta fire as she lifted the harlequin up with her will alone. "I said it before," she intoned, her voice echoing throughout her universe like the bells of the damned. "This is my world, and you are not welcome here. Leave." She blinked...

... and Joker rocketed out of the city, out of the world, a meteor screaming toward the borders of the Devil's universe at a speed that outpaced light, outpaced thought... He howled with laughter, calling back to her as friction ignited his body, burning him to cinders: "Don't think I've taken 'no' for an answer, Madame Diable! This is only-"

And he was gone.

Silence.

Homura shrank back down and sagged against the edge of the bridge. Madoka and the world remained frozen around her, waiting for her command, but she wasn't ready to resume the normal flow of time yet... because for the first time in a long, long time... she was trembling. Afraid.

How? she thought in disbelief. How could there be something out there...

... that's worse than me...?

Miles away in Mitakihara's industrial district, a single Incubator crept along in the shadows, its mind an unending stream of concepts it couldn't understand. Or rather, it could almost understand them... but not quite. The spark that would light the fires of true intelligence and sentience was long since missing.

Γ is a linear, common direction of a body and one is the kinetic energy by the formation, it thought, its unblinking red eyes staring straight ahead, glazed like marbles. The work done in the communication in common direction in this way, the resultant acceleration can be X in presence of the other senders.

The Incubator twitched. It stopped in mid-step, one paw hovering over the pavement.

V is through ΓB. The receiver know which sendently of classical message (i, j) was transmit any state, where are the channel?

Something was wrong. It had no way to determine what, but something was very wrong.

A typical system always has connection technique can be employed to the reflection, it thought. For a given incoming plane wave, the whole infinite non-Hermitian Hamiltonian in the scattering tight-binding state of a PT symmetric non-Hermitian has constructed whether following wave, the input leads.

Pain. Pain, it understood. The Incubators once formed their bodies with only enough internal systems to imitate certain Terran mammals, finding over the course of much experimentation that the adolescent human females most suitable for contracting had a psychological inclination toward certain mammals in particular, specifically juvenile ones that engaged a protective, pseudo-maternal instinct. They combined elements of the species most favored by female adolescents, resulting in biological constructs with a blend of feline and lepine traits, mixed in with traces of several other species. The result was the "Kyubey" construct, which was judged a tremendous success. However, these creatures only needed to resemble the Terran mammals on a surface level... inefficient systems such as pain receptors were not required, so long at the "Kyubey" constructs could mimic the functions of such systems well enough to appeal to the adolescents and trigger the proper responses.

The corresponding plane wave, the eigenstate of its non-Hermitian reduced to ansatz method... error... Method plane Hermitian error...

Homura had changed all that. One of the first things she changed about them, in fact, was giving all the Kyubeys fully functional nervous systems, studded so many billions of nerve endings and pain receptors that even the slightest injury caused them unbearable agony.

This was not a slight injury. The Kyubey had no way of knowing or understanding it, but it was being torn apart and rearranged from the inside out. All of its meticulously crafted systems had gone berserk, its brain screamed even as it was rewritten cell by cell...

Warning, problem malfunction error, it thought, fragmented impulses racing through its deforming body. Local function error constant overstimulation critical. Stimulus response overeffective, catastrophic threshold limit function leading to imminent primary burnout error. Polynodal nociceptors stimulating simultaneous visceral, deep somatic, and super somatic, simultaneous sensory-discriminative, effective-motivational, and cognitive-evaluative... Recovery processes inactive... Unit override malfunction...

Malfunction...

Mal-

The wretched creature reared onto its hind legs, synthetic bones making nauseating cracking and snapping sounds that went unheard by Mitakihara's few late-night factory workers... thanks to Homura, the Kyubeys were invisible, inaudible, intangible, less than nothing. Until she had need of them, they were beneath her notice.

As it happened, that was exactly what the unwanted visitor had counted on.

Its limbs and toes elongated, its tail contracted back into its spine, its vertebrae shifted and ground together as they rotated into a new position. The long ears shrank into smaller pointed ones, the white fur pulled back into its follicles and left bare flesh behind. Pointed teeth tore through the soft tissue inside its mouth, violently ejecting the rudimentary canines and molars. Only the eyes stayed relatively the same, still red, still unblinking... but now fires lit within them, the fires of sentience, of intelligence... of Hell.

Reborn from the pitiful, shed remains of the Incubator, Joker stood and stretched in a languid motion, naked save for the crimson blood that coated every inch of him. He rather liked the look, but it was impractical to say the least... not to mention wet. Before he materialized the usual clothes for himself, though... he waited. This was a dangerous gamble indeed, but if he could pull it off...

Silence. No response from the Devil, no terrible, wrathful figure swooping down on him to eject him from her world again.

Perfect.

The harlequin's jaw creaked. Still tender and raw, his new lips split open, and fresh blood oozed from them, turning from red to black as pitch as he grinned.

"All right, madame," he said to the empty air. "Scene two, commencer."

END OF CHAPTER 17