End of RAF

[redtailedsaffa]

I'm trying to visualize post-apocalyptic Houston and all I'm getting is Mordor.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Heh, Rad had a similar thought upon reading that chapter.

I wanted Richard to say "One does not simply walk . . ."  I have no idea why.

Great minds, am I right? 

Chapter Forty-five

"Whatever we decide to do, I will need to stay here," Aquilai said, barely looking up from his work on the TARDIS.  "See if I can repair her enough to get us out of here."  If he even noticed that he had referred to his ship as 'her,' he gave no indication of correcting himself.  He leaned over to call through the open door, "Shade, you too!"

"Old man, are you still mad at me for breaking your TARDIS?" Shade protested from inside.  "If you'll recall, I fixed it!  Good as new!"

"Which is exactly the point," Aquilai shouted back.  "It means you can help me fix it again.  Come on."

Shade sulked, but in the end, acquiesced.  The wizard drew his wand, and joined the Time Lord outside the TARDIS.  They made for quite a strange pair, repairing the broken craft, with their mismatched combination of magic and technology.

The rest of the RAFians, back inside the relative safety of the TARDIS, debated strategy.  How would they catch a Bug fighter, when they couldn't even move more than a few feet away from the TARDIS without being seen?

As they tossed ideas back and forth, Seal looked up at Lumy, stroking her chin with a flipper.  "Hmm," she muttered.  "I think I have an idea."

The RAFians listened as she outlined her plan.  "You know how dangerous that's going to be, right?" Phoenix said worriedly, after she had finished.  "Lumy is the only one who can pull it off.  Meaning we can't send backup.  I don't like the idea of sending one RAFian in there, alone."

Lumy, meanwhile, was wearing a dangerous grin.  "It sounds like fun, Seal.  This will mark the first time I've ever tried to teleport that far, or hit a moving target.  It's gonna be awesome!"

Seal was looking a little concerned, like maybe she was beginning to have second thoughts about her own idea.  "Wish I could come, but I can only teleport through water, and I doubt there's going to be a body of water aboard a random Bug fighter."

"I can technically teleport," Bear pointed out, a little awkwardly.  "But, only when I'm struck by lightning, and even then I can't control where I go.  Which is, um, not exactly helpful, here."

"We don't even know it will work," Underseen noted.  "If Queen's lair is protected from teleportation, maybe her ships are, too."

<No,> Russell stated flatly, shaking his head.  <It would be far too impractical to shield every Bug fighter with that kind of technology.  Teleportation shielding would interfere with their z-space engines.>

"It's still risky, Lumy," Bear said worriedly.  "Taking on a Bug fighter with no backup?  If anything at all goes wrong . . . "  He trailed off, not wanting to think too long on that possibility.

Monica's eyes suddenly brightened.  "Hey, maybe we could-"

"Bug fighter incoming!" Aquilai interrupted, having heard them outline their plan from outside.  "About two minutes away.  Get ready."

Lumy moved forward, coming to stand in the doorway of the TARDIS, where he could see outside, but could still use the shadow of the overhang to try to conceal his bright aluminum skin.

He tensed as the Bug fighter came closer, a dark blob against the sky, growing ever larger as it drew nearer.  Closer, closer.  It would need to be directly overhead if this was going to work.  He waited, craning his head higher and higher, as the drone of the ship's engines grew louder and louder.

Frustratingly, the fighter somehow seemed to be going incredibly slow and yet far too fast at once.

Finally- "NOW!" Rad shouted.

Lumy stared upward, focusing his eyes on the Bug fighter.  Suddenly, like a scene change in a movie, he was falling through the air.

Too low!  He hadn't teleported far enough!

Hurricane winds spun him end over end as he plummeted from the sky.  He tried to focus, tried to aim again at the Bug fighter, but everything was a blur, ground and sky whirling around him, over and over at a dizzying pace.

There!  For just a split second, on every spin, he could see the dark grey shape against the blood red sky.  He counted in his head, readying himself to jump again.  Three, two, ONE!

. . . Nope, he was still falling.  But the Bug fighter loomed larger in his field of view this time.  Could the Bug fighter see him, too?  No way to know.

Another scene change, and this time he suddenly heard a jarring metallic "CLANG!"  He had landed on something.  The impact would have knocked the wind out of his lungs if he'd had lungs for the wind to be knocked out of, but he could tell the momentum of his fall had damaged a few circuits in his mechanical body nonetheless.

For one dumbfounded moment he didn't know whether he was inside the Bug fighter or if he had landed on its roof, but he picked himself up and saw a Hork-bajir and a Taxxon wearing slack-jawed disbelieving stares at the robot who had suddenly crashed into their midst.

"Gafrash RAFian!" the Hork-bajir shouted, suddenly putting the pieces together.  Lumy groaned.

The two controllers attacked.  Lumy had fought Hork-bajir before, but this time he was already hurt from his fall.  His movements were halting and imprecise, as his machinery struggled to compensate for the damage he had taken.  He punched and kicked erratically at his onrushing opponent, trying to feel the rhythm of the battle in his battered gears, as the Hork-bajir's blades whirled around him.

The Taxxon, at least, was pitifully little challenge in this fight.  As Lumy and the Hork-bajir exchanged blows, the Taxxon had the misfortune of getting too close, and a slashing blade carved deep into its yielding flank.  But, even as it lay bleeding, it unfurled its long tongue and hungrily lapped at its own spilled entrails.

"Why are you here, RAFian?" the Hork-bajir asked, panting heavily as he continued to counterattack and defend himself against Lumy even while he spoke.  It would seem, Lumy thought to himself as he ducked a blow that would have removed his head, that this must be one of those 'smarter-than-average' Hork-bajir-controllers.  "Why waste your abilities on one Bug fighter?"

Lumy said nothing, knowing better than to reveal what he was really after, instead focusing his attention on combat.  He punched and kicked, and the Hork-bajir slashed and spun, matching him almost blow for blow.  Not a typical Hork-bajir, indeed.

Suddenly, with a harsh mechanical grinding noise, Lumy's arm spasmed.  The damage his body had taken was causing him to malfunction, ever so slightly, his gears glitching for just a fraction of a second.  But, in that split second, as his arm twitched upward, the Hork-bajir's blade came down.

It wasn't until he heard the sparking of wires just below his shoulder, that Lumy even realized what had happened.  He looked down and spotted his own aluminum arm lying on the floor in a small puddle of oil.

Grinning, the Hork-bajir rushed at him, assuming he had already won this fight.  Thinking quickly, Lumy shoved the stump of his arm towards the chest of the onrushing Hork-bajir.  The frayed ends of his wires dug into leathery skin.

The Hork-bajir jerked violently, as the same electricity that powered Lumy's body coursed through the controller's own veins.  There was a smell of smoke as the Hork-bajir slumped to the floor.

The Taxxon, meanwhile, was still bleeding, but still alive.  It made a hesitant move towards the crisped body, fearful of Lumy, but unable to resist the lure of half-roasted meat.  Lumy ignored the foul creature.  It would be dead soon from blood loss anyway.

Instead, he turned his attention to the ship's controls.  He needed to land it, to pick up the other RAFians.  He grabbed the joystick, frowned, had to let go in order to press his hand to the pad next to it, unable to do both at once with only one remaining hand.  But he focused his mind on where he wanted to go, like the books had said.

Nothing happened.  Nothing at all.  The Bug fighter stayed on its course, listing slightly now that nobody was steering it.  Nothing Lumy did could change its direction.

He began to feel a surge of panic.  If he couldn't fly the Bug fighter, the whole plan fell apart.  He would be delivered to Queen's fortress, alone.  One robot against Queen's army?  There would be no hope of survival.

No, there had to be something he could do.  He frantically yanked on the controls, willing the ship to change course with all his might.

<Bug fighters are thought-controlled,> a voice behind Lumy said.  <I think mechanical 'thoughts' don't work.>

Lumy spun.  "Who's there?" he demanded.  He saw a hunched shape, an insect of some kind, but it was already the size of a cat and still growing.  Unnervingly human eyes looked out from its black carapace.

<Come now, did you really think this whole 'take over a Bug fighter without backup' thing was going to work?> the voice, which Lumy suddenly recognized as Monica's, went on.  <I have to admit, that was pretty awesome, though.>

[DinosaurNothlit]

Two chapters for the price of one!

. . . So, free, basically.

Chapter Forty-six

"You hitched a ride," Lumy marveled, as Monica stood up on her still thickening but mostly human legs.  "Where'd you find a flea to morph?"

"The bear has 'em," she said simply.

Lumy made a face, a little uneasy about the idea, as if Monica were insulting Bear's hygiene.  "What?" Monica countered.  "You think because he's a magical talking bear that he's immune to fleas?"

He sighed, but decided to let the subject drop.  Tempting though it was, there was no real point to starting an argument at a time like this.

As soon as she was human enough, Monica came forward to try her hand at the ship's controls.  Lumy realized that his arm was still lying on the floor, and went to pick it up.  "I could have used your help, oh, a few seconds sooner, you know."

She turned around to give him a scornful raised eyebrow.  "And make myself vulnerable in midmorph?  I'd only have gotten myself killed.  Anyway, you did fine."  She shot a glance at his severed arm.  "Well, I'm sure one of your friends can fix ya."

"Thanks for your concern," Lumy said sarcastically.  "Really, I'm touched."

There was a high-pitched revving sound, as the Bug fighter finally changed direction.  "There we go," Monica said.  The fighter dipped its nose, pointing towards the ground as it turned, coasting lower and lower towards the RAFians back at the TARDIS.

"You're not a bad flyer," Lumy commented as he held his arm up to the stump where it had been attached.  Trying to see if he could connect it on his own.  "Most RAFians took a few weeks to-"

The Bug fighter suddenly dropped several feet with a lurch.  "Oh, shut up," Monica said, even though Lumy hadn't said anything.  Her defensiveness only made him grin.  She saw his smile, and snarled.  "I'd like to see you do better.  Oh, wait.  You can't."

Lumy scowled.  It was never a good feeling, to be reminded of one's limitations.  "And I'd like to see you get here without my help."

After a tense moment, Monica softened slightly, realizing Lumy had a point.  Maybe there was at least some merit to the idea of working together, after all.  "Fair enough," she allowed.

Monica really did have a tendency to rub people the wrong way, Lumy thought to himself.  But he wondered how much of that was just a false bravado, to protect herself from ever feeling vulnerable, to keep from ever having to rely on anybody.  Almost like a harsher, female Marco.  The thought made him smile inwardly.  It didn't exactly make him suddenly want to be Monica's friend, but at least he thought he might be able to understand her.

The flickering TARDIS loomed larger and larger in the viewfinder.  As Monica came in for a landing, she nearly overshot, tried to turn, and the Bug fighter awkwardly crunched into the ground at a leaning tilt.  She opened the door to see that several RAFians had already come over to the ship, and others were darting nervously across the open space between the TARDIS and the Bug fighter.

As the RAFians crowded around the small craft, it was easy to see that a Bug fighter built for two was not going to hold thirty people.

"It's risky, but we will have to make several trips," Richard said to the assembled crowd.  It was amazing how quickly he had become comfortable taking command.  And, now that he had planning and strategy to focus on, he was even able to forget the sheer strangeness of the situation he found himself in.  Sometimes.  "Even with some of us able to morph smaller forms, there's simply no way for everyone to go at once."

He looked around at the RAFians, thinking.  Planning.  "We'll want our strongest fighters to go first.  They'll be on their own when they arrive, so they'll need to be able to get out of any tight situations long enough for backup to arrive.  Estelore, Phoenix, Shock, Demos, Russell, you'll be in human forms for the trip.  Seal, Gaz, Underseen, and Tony, you can take smaller forms.  Gaz can take bat form, Seal, be yourself.  Tony and Underseen?"  He shrugged.  "Be whatever you like."

"Nine in one trip, yeah, that should do it," Phoenix agreed.  "Well, eight, since Russell will have to fly the ship on the return trip.  Tight fit, but it will have to do."

Illim stepped forward hesitantly, a little afraid of volunteering for a mission like this, after spending most of his life running from Queen.  But also knowing that his knowledge of her methods could prove useful.  "Room for one more?" he asked, as he began to demorph from his human form.  "Don't worry, I don't take up much room."  Odret shot him a worried look, but he shook his head, telling her to stay behind for now.

The nine RAFians and one Yeerk climbed aboard, Illim lying cradled in Phoenix's hands as the last vestiges of his human face disappeared.  Gaz used the claws on her bat wings to hang onto the back of Shock's shoulder, while Seal scuttled around the forest of legs hemming her in, trying her best not to be stepped on.  Underseen had simply shifted into a smaller copy of himself, looking like he'd been shrunk, whereas Tony had gone mouse.

While Seal wasn't looking, Underseen jumped onto her back, straddling her like she was a horse.  "Hey!" she barked, but didn't make any other move to throw him off, so the tiny shifter stayed right where he was.  Seal soon relaxed, deciding that being someone's 'steed' was actually kinda cool.

Russell took the controls, easing the ship back into the air.  He had a lot more experience than Monica did flying Yeerk ships, and the ride was smooth enough to be mistaken for autopilot.

But that didn't change the inevitable discomfort of five humans and five miscellaneous other creatures in one Bug fighter.  The flight felt like it took forever, with everyone so uncomfortably close to one another.  Shoulders dug into backs, elbows into stomachs.

Not even the scenery could distract them from the miserable ride.  There was nothing to see but black below, and nothing but red above.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the fortress loomed into view.  The ship slowed, as though hesitant to come closer.  Demos elbowed Russell.  "Scared?" the demon taunted the Andalite.

"Uh, guys?" Russell said anxiously.  "I'm not doing that.  I'm not the one slowing the ship down!"  He twisted the joystick, and the ship didn't respond.  He looked up through the Bug fighter's window to see a metallic line opening in the ground, the black earth itself splitting down a straight-line seam to reveal a silvery chamber within.  It was this chamber that the Bug fighter was slowly but unwaveringly drifting toward.

"In fact," he began, with the unnerving kind of calm that is born of sheer terror.  "I'd say we've got a tractor beam on us."

[redtailedsaffa]

Well, this is just lovely.

[Underseen]

I assumed that in chapter 45 we were purposefully ignoring Monica and her plan. Glad that you just post chapter 45, but there's even more suspense at the end of 46.You're doing this on purpose you sly dinosaur

[DinosaurNothlit]

Of course I do it on purpose, thanks for noticing. 

Chapter Forty-seven

Aquilai wiped the sweat from his brow as he worked, reconnecting the wires and circuits that lay deep inside the TARDIS.  A gentle green glow accented his features, as he reached down into the alien-lighted innards of the machine.

A drop of sweat fell into the maze of circuitry, and Aquilai gave a sharp intake of breath as the droplet fell towards the delicate electrical components.  But it landed on a conduit and fizzled harmlessly away.  Aquilai sighed with relief.

It wasn't that the work was hard, not really.  It was more that it was so nerve-wracking.  He had never had to do such extensive repairs on his TARDIS before.  And, while he knew that 'she' wasn't truly alive, he felt a sense of kinship, nonetheless.  The same way you learn to care for your own car, after it has carried you across all those thousands of miles, to the ends of your own personal universe.  A machine that becomes a friend.

Well, that, and then there was the fact that he was in Texas.  It was hot.  Yeah, sure.  That was the real reason Aquilai was sweating.  Not because he was cobbling together the broken remnants of his most beloved possession.

Aquilai could hear Shade muttering as he performed his own repairs.  The wizard was learning to cast spells wordlessly, but he wasn't quite always able to.  So every now and then Aquilai would hear a whispered "Reparo."

To be honest, it made him more than a little nervous, letting someone else work on his TARDIS.  Particularly a non-RAFian.  But it was either that, or stay stuck here twice as long, without any means of escape if anything went wrong.  So, like it or not, he would take the risk.

"I wonder what's taking so long?" Shade asked, glancing up briefly at the sky outside, as he voiced the same worry that Aquilai had been thinking for a while now.  "It feels like it's been hours."

"I'm sure Queen's fortress must just be farther away than it looks," Aquilai reasoned.  But he sounded like he was trying to convince himself, as much as Shade.  "That's all it is."

"That's never all it is," Shade said darkly.

Aquilai felt his hearts twinge in his chest, as he recognized that Shade was right.  And, really, it wasn't like he hadn't known.  He just hadn't wanted to admit what he already knew.

It had been hours.  There was no way it should take this long for Russell to fly the stolen Bug fighter back to the TARDIS.

"Something's wrong," the Time Lord said.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Rachel said, startling Aquilai as she suddenly appeared next to him.  Rachel, at least, had no interest in wasting time moping.  There were friends to be rescued.  "What's the plan?"

Aquilai sighed.  "What can we do?" he shot back, angrily.  Not angry at Rachel, but at everything.  "We were only barely able to figure out how to get to Queen's castle at all.  How are we supposed to do it twice?"

"We could catch another Bug fighter," Lumy said, flexing the fingers of his recently reattached arm.  The seam where the limb had been welded was still clearly visible, but other than that it seemed to be working fine.

"With you only just out of the repair shop?" Shade retorted.  "It was a close call the first time, before you got damaged.  I really don't think you can pull that off again."  Lumy frowned, but, after a beat of frustrated silence, nodded.

Odret looked like she wanted to add something, but instead she just kept pacing back and forth across the TARDIS, obviously distraught.

She should have gone.  That was all she could think about.  It should have been her.  Instead, Illim was alone somewhere and in danger and there was nothing she could do.  Why had she stayed behind?

And, although the question never quite entered her conscious mind, in some corner of her thoughts she couldn't help but wonder why she suddenly cared so much.

"Uh, guys?" Rachel said, tilting her head curiously as she suddenly spotted something in the very back corner of the TARDIS.  Whatever it was, it was obscured by shadows, until everyone else had long-since forgotten it had ever even been there.  She walked towards the darkened area, trying to get a better look at whatever it was that had glinted at her, catching her eye in the gloom.  "What the heck is this thing?"

A few RAFians came over, following her, wondering what she had found.  The glint she had seen was a bit of stray light reflecting off of the machine's metal body, the object having shifted slightly towards the brighter center of the TARDIS in the crash.

But, as their eyes adjusted to the shadows, the RAFians soon saw what appeared to be a two-seated vehicle of some sort, vaguely Delorean-like but smaller and without wheels.  It was gold, with red and orange highlights.

Cody, Bear, and Jess gasped at once.  "Phoenix's time machine!" Cody said.  "Oh, man, he must've forgotten he even brought this!"

<Phoenix is with the others, in Queen's castle,> Noelle pointed out.

"Can anybody else fly it?" Becky wondered.

Rachel grinned that dangerous grin of hers.  "I think we're about to find out."

In the end, it was decided for Odret to try flying the new ship.  She had more experience than most of the remaining RAFians did with any kind of spacecraft.  And, as was apparent to most of the RAFians, if not the reason why, she seemed possessed by a sudden, newfound determination.

Aquilai seemed slightly wistful, as though he wanted to go.  But it was still important to fix the TARDIS, seeing as Phoenix's time machine couldn't hold everyone.  And he and Shade were the only ones who could make the necessary repairs.

After a moment's thought, Bloodbane opted to come along with the rescue team as well, his blank-slate human form fitting surprisingly easily into the passenger seat beside Odret's own human form.  At least, he seemed surprised by it.  He still wasn't quite used to the new body.

Rachel, Richard, Becky, Saffa, Rad, Cloak, Terenia, and Monica comprised the rest of the rescue team.  Richard, Becky, Rad and Cloak each acquired fleas as Monica had done before, each of them making uncomfortable faces as they did so.  But Rachel assured them that, as far as insect morphs went, fleas were easy.  Nonetheless, there was something about turning into something so small, especially when preparing for a mission this dangerous, that made all four of them a little uneasy.

"Don't worry, fleas are sturdy," Rachel said with a laugh at their worries.  "Ever tried to kill one?  It's not as easy as you'd think."

After they'd acquired the new morphs, they loaded themselves into the 'car.'  Terenia slipped into Odret's ear, both of them appreciating the irony of a human-turned-Yeerk infesting a Yeerk-turned-human.  Rachel went roach, while Saffa used a fly morph she'd acquired a while back.  The rest of them went flea.  Bloodbane did his best to keep an eye on the flea that was Becky, but she was hard to see, and after a while he decided he had to trust that she would be fine.

There was a certain kinship that the four captives from the lab in Switzerland felt for each other.  It would have been hard to explain to an outsider, but it was a sentiment that any RAFian could understand.  They had been through hell together, and that was a kind of bond that stuck with you.

Terenia glanced at Bloodbane through Odret's eyes, and saw the compassion and worry for Becky written on his face.  It was hard to be sure whether it was Odret, or Terenia, who put a comforting hand on his shoulder.  But they both understood.  They understood what it was like to have a family, closer than blood, brought together by some force that couldn't quite be put into words.  RAFians on one hand, the Yeerk rebellion on the other.

Odret shook her head slightly and took a deep breath, focusing her mind on the matter at hand, as she clenched her fingers around the steering wheel of Phoenix's time machine.  She had no idea how to drive the thing, of course.  But she saw the levers next to the readout where the date was inscribed.

They'd agreed that they would go back in time, to a time before Queen would have been able to construct her fortress.  From there, they would sneak into whatever the place had been before that.  Then, simply fast forward to when the Russell and the others had run into trouble.  Nice and simple.  Only about a dozen things that could go wrong.

Odret pulled the levers, and watched the number wheel that displayed the date, as the numbers spun backward.  The TARDIS disappeared around them, leaving only the burned wasteland.  But as they watched out the windows, the landscape was suddenly engulfed by fire.  The two 'humans' in the car winced in fear, but they were protected from the flames by the machine's shields.

After the explosion had cleared, ending in a laser-red flash, buildings stood once again where they had been destroyed.  Time continued to run backwards, and plants unfurled from their dead husks.  The sky brightened, the reddish tint clearing like it had been nothing more than a bad thunderstorm.

A college campus stood where Queen's castle had been.  Odret stepped on something that was strangely similar to a gas pedal in a human car, and the time machine hovered forward.  It was similar enough to a normal car that none of the people on the sidewalk noticed that it didn't have wheels.

It seemed easy, almost too easy.  Nonetheless, Odret could feel Terenia's worry.  <What is it?>

Terenia sighed anxiously.  <Let's just hope that Queen can't protect against time travel as well as she can against teleportation.>

[DinosaurNothlit]

If you're wondering why I always like to post two chapters at once, it's because my brain has a tendency to get ahead of itself. 

Chapter Forty-eight

Iniss 226 spun in his swivel chair, trying to entertain himself during the boring work of watching the security monitors.  Nothing ever happened, and he was pretty sure nothing ever would.  Surely, even RAFians wouldn't be so stupid as to attack the fortress directly.  Right?

But, well, Queen was nothing if not a paranoid despot.  And so all of her most trusted lieutenants had to take their shift watching those monitors.  These awful boring monitors where nothing ever-

Hold on.  Wait.  That was strange.  Iniss saw Temrash's ship, coming in.  But Temrash was scheduled to arrive by the north hangar.  Whereas his ship was clearly heading for the east side of the fortress.  He was completely off-course.

Iniss wavered his hand over the intercom button, then thought better of it.  If the ship had been taken over, which was completely impossible of course, but if it had, then the last thing he wanted to do was to alert the hypothetical intruders that he was onto them.

A little paranoia was sometimes a good thing.

Instead, he ran a life-scan on the incoming ship.  The machine beeped and whirred as it ran its invisible probing rays across the Bug fighter.

Wait, what?  That had to be an error, Iniss thought, as he looked down at the display.  There was only one living thing aboard the ship?  And that one thing, was a Yeerk, without a host?  That couldn't possibly be right.

<Shielded,> Goom's broken voice spoke up from inside Iniss's mind.  <Their life-signs are shielded.  By the same devices that protect their timelines from the likes of you.>

Goom was rewarded by a spike of fear coming from Iniss.  Only one group of people could shield themselves like that.  He knew exactly who it was, who possessed that technology called the 'Marks,' that in another timeline would have been designed by his very own host.

"RAFians!" he hissed.

<Yes, RAFians,> Goom agreed smugly.  His voice, so long beaten down, now sounded almost like he was singing.  <They've come to destroy you.>

Iniss jumped up from the chair, where he could punch the button that activated the tractor beam.  Nothing they could do, now that they had so foolishly wandered within range.  They couldn't possibly escape.

But there was more to it than that, wasn't there?  There was that paranoia again, the paranoia that Queen had instilled in him, sounding alarm bells in the back of his mind.  They wouldn't have come without a plan.  So, then, what would they do, now that they were in Queen's trap?

Sometimes, as Iniss himself knew very well, a trapped animal could be the most dangerous of all.

As the tractor beam drew the ship into the hangar, the front of the hull began to glow molten orange.  Waves of heat shimmered from the firey metal.  The ship itself began to deform, to warp, the front end sagging as it melted.

Then, like a bubble, the front end of the ship simply popped, the molten goo dripping away to reveal the interior.  Goom recognized Estelore, their hands glowing with sunlight, standing in front of the others.  But, within a fraction of a second, as soon as the ship had popped open, Estelore's hands went out, and a tiny white furred figure leapt forward.  Seal quickly raised her fins, and the glowing metal immediately went out.  Iniss could see a hint of frost forming in the air around her, as Seal's icy wind put out Estelore's fire.

"Guards, guards!" Iniss cried out over the intercom.  "Everyone to east hangar!  NOW!  Code Sky-Blue!  RAFians!  I repeat, we have RAFians!"

The RAFians tensed as they themselves heard the announcement.  They looked ready to run, but so far they weren't sure where to run to.  Shock switched to his dragon form, and the others jumped onto his back as the ship sank lower and lower along the tractor beam's path.  He unfurled his wings, taking off right as the ship finally crunched into the floor of the hangar.

But the hangar door had already closed above them.  Estelore aimed a beam of flame at the solid steel doors, but the hangar was much stronger than the Bug fighter had been.  The metal only glowed dimly, showing no sign of weakening.

There was nowhere to go.  Shock roared in frustration, like a tiger in a cage.  Iniss heard the mighty dragon's roar as a tinny warbling sound, echoing pitifully through the speakers of the monitor that showed their plight.

That was enough fooling around.  Iniss grabbed his Dracon, and ran out the door, heading to the hangar himself.  If there were RAFians to be caught, well, he ought to be there to claim the glory, oughtn't he?

Hork-bajir and Taxxons bustled past, all running like their lives depended on it, and all headed towards the same place.  Their lives probably did depend on it, lest any one of them be the one who was left out of the fight when Queen realized there were RAFians right here on her front door.

But Iniss briefly paused, as he ran down the corridor.  Something made him stop, made him wonder.  There was a little inscription on this wall, etched deep into the stone.  It had always been there, of course, since even before any of these buildings had been fashioned together into Queen's fortress.  But it had never made sense.  Nobody had been able to puzzle out what it meant.

Until now.  Suddenly, with a force that made Goom gasp so sharply that even Iniss couldn't prevent his intake of breath, he put it all together.

It wasn't meant for Queen, or her followers.  It wasn't even meant for their innocent human hosts.  It was written, somehow, for the RAFians who were here, today.

Don't give up.  Help is coming.

Your friends are here.

[redtailedsaffa]

There is a lot of timey wimey involved...

[DinosaurNothlit]

Late post again because I was waiting for chapters to happen.

But, anyway, you've got a story with no less than four different time machines (count 'em: the Time Matrix, the TARDIS, Phoenix's time machine, and my Sario Ripper), so of course it's going to be timey wimey.

Chapter Forty-nine

Terenia, Rachel, Cloak, Saffa, Odret, Rad, Monica, Becky and Bloodbane walked through the bustling college campus, all of them feeling strangely out of place.  Here, in this place, it was so . . . normal.  And that utter normalcy now felt alien and strange.

Terenia hugged some books to her chest, clinging to them like they were a lifeline.  Maybe, she thought, if she was carrying books around, she would look more like just another student.  And less like an alien in a human hologram.

As long as the librarian didn't notice she'd stolen the books right off the shelves, that is.

The others wavered behind her, letting her lead the way.  Even Rachel seemed just a little on edge, if only because she knew she was much too young to be here.  Yeah, a middle schooler in college, that didn't look suspicious at all.  But, hey, maybe she could pretend to be the sister of one of the others?  She decided she looked enough like Terenia to be passed off as a visiting relative, and hovered close by Terenia's elbow.

It was hard for any of them to let go of that lingering sense of paranoia they each felt.  The feeling that every face could conceal an enemy.  It was hard for them to believe that this was just a normal day, in the normal lives of a hundred normal people.  When, they each knew, there was nothing normal about anything, anymore.

Only Monica seemed at ease here.  But it was hard to tell if her confidence was genuine, or just another misguided attempt to 'prove herself.'  Either way, she walked with her usual swagger, nonchalantly keeping to the back of the group, as though disinterested in being here at all.

Suddenly, Terenia gasped.  A few of the others tensed, as though expecting an attack.  But most of them seemed confused when they looked where she was looking, and saw only an innocent-looking red-haired girl.  Just a student like any other, as far as Richard could tell.  Of the group, only Saffa shared in Terenia's surprise.

"Marie!" Terenia exclaimed, rushing towards the girl, Saffa following quickly after.

The girl looked up, startled and confused.  Why were these strangers acting like they knew her?  She'd never seen any of them before.

Terenia slowed to a stop in front of her, as she bitterly reminded herself that Marie would have no idea who she was.  Not her, or any RAFian.

"Don't you remember me?" Terenia asked hopefully, thinking maybe there might still be something.  They'd been such good friends, it was painful to think that she might remember nothing at all.  All because of RAF they had known each other, and without RAF, they had never met.

"Uh, from Chemistry class?" Terenia tried lamely, hoping to pass this strange encounter off as something that had a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"I'm not even taking Chemistry," Marie said, raising an eyebrow.  Almost disappointedly, she sighed, and started to leave.  "Sorry, you must have me confused with someone else."

Richard grabbed her shoulder.  He, at least, wanted to get down to business.  He was done with nonsense.  Sick of doing nothing, tired of going nowhere.  "Listen, we're in a different timeline," he whispered urgently to her.  "Many of us don't know each other, but we're supposed to."

A librarian suddenly rounded a corner, and narrowed her eyes as she saw Richard with his hand gripping Marie's shoulder, the poor girl frozen in shock at the man's unexpected audacity.  As Marie stared back at Richard, wide-eyed with fear, he suddenly realized what this might look like.  Quickly, he let her go, almost jumping back, like somebody recoiling from a shock.  The librarian seemed to relax as he let her go, but she kept a wary eye on Richard, nonetheless.

Marie backed away from Richard with the sudden fake urgency of someone who just wanted to be anywhere except here.  He sighed, and turned back to the others.  It was back to nothing and nowhere, it seemed.

"So," he said wearily.  "Has anyone come up with any new ideas how to get, uh, Phoenix's car, in here?"  He looked over his shoulder, fully aware that there were students in hearing range.  He picked his words with hesitation.

"I still say we just drive it through a wall," Rachel said emphatically, clapping her fist against the palm of her other hand.  "That car's gotta be a sturdy thing, right?"

A few frat boys looked over with enthusiastic smiles and noises of approval, apparently excited about the mere mention of driving a car through a wall.  Like it was some kind of epic senior prank.

Bloodbane sighed, ignoring the grinning idiots eavesdropping on their conversation.  "We've already wrecked one, uh, car.  This one's our last shot."  He lowered his voice.  "Besides, what if we killed someone?"

"Why can't we drive it through the outdoor part of campus, again?" Monica asked snidely.

"Because," Terenia grated, lowering her own voice to a whisper.  "If we do that, then we make the news.  And, if we make the news, then Queen knows right where and when to find us."

Saffa, meanwhile, had found a scrap of metal, and was carefully etching something into the wall behind a bookcase, only half-listening to the conversation.  Now that Marie was gone, she was bored.  The others were still talking about the same things they must have already discussed a dozen times.  It felt like the conversation just circled around and around.

But, well, this was something she needed to do, anyway.  She wasn't sure why.  A message of encouragement and hope, to their friends who were probably in too much of a mess to notice the writing anyway?  It was almost silly.  But, still, it was a good thing to do, the right thing.

And, Saffa hoped, nobody would be able to find the message that she was writing, as long as that bookcase stayed there.  It could stay there for years and nobody would be the wiser, no nosy teacher would clean up what looked like graffiti.

But, Saffa had a feeling, Queen probably wasn't a big fan of books.  So, maybe, just maybe, the message would be seen by those who needed to see it, when they needed to see it.

She hoped, at least.  It was all she could do.

Suddenly, like a draft of bitter wind, an ominous feeling swept across the RAFians.  That nervous gooseflesh that comes with being watched.  Saffa dropped the piece of metal.

"Oh, don't stop on my account," a sinister voice came from behind them.  "Please, finish what you were writing."

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter Fifty

Estelore roared in frustration, unpleasantly reminded of their time spent in that horrible blank white eternity inside the data drive back in Switzerland.

Nowhere to go.  Trapped, with nothing to fight back against.  Trapped in an indestructible box.

The hangar doors still would not open.  The RAFians knew that Queen's forces would be massing outside, waiting until their victims were so hopelessly outnumbered that they could not stand a chance.

But there was nothing the RAFians could do about it.  Phoenix and Demos and Estelore threw fireball after fireball at the blast shields, nothing.  Shock clawed the walls, and Russell slashed with his tail at the thick steel panels.  Nothing.

It felt like forever.  Waiting.  Just waiting.  The calm before the storm.  Except that it wasn't calm, it was anxious and nerve-wracking and terrifying.  It was worse than the storm.

Except . . . no, it wasn't.  It wasn't worse than the storm that was coming.  That was the very worst part of all.  They all knew the storm that was coming would be deadly and terrible, and they might not survive it.

So they paced, and they fumed, and they roared.  Hours passed, or what felt like hours, in those tense moments of time condensed by unspent adrenaline.

Finally, after that unbearable eternity, after their frayed nerves could no longer bear the waiting, the doors creaked.  The RAFians tensed, so suddenly that their hearts felt like they each skipped a beat.

This was it.

The things that finally came through the door were barely even recognizable as Hork-bajir.  Their faces were covered by silvery welding masks, the classic flat rectangle shape distorted and swooped forward to cover their beaks.  There was only the narrowest of slits, covered by orange-tinted glass, where the creatures' eyes should have been.

Their bodies were enclosed by bulky silver fabric, with metal sheaths over their blades.  No part of their skin was exposed.  Even their tails were draped with that glinting silver canvas.

They looked like a hazmat team.  Or like a bomb squad.

Estelore pointed their hands at the nearest Hork-bajir, and immediately a huge and brilliant gout of flame shot forth, blinding anyone foolish enough to be looking in that direction.  Nothing could be seen of the Hork-bajir beneath the raging white fire.

But, when the flare had cleared, the Hork-bajir still stood, his suit glowing a dim orange like dying embers.  Within seconds, even that dim orange glow had faded back to silver.

He looked down at his arms, almost as surprised at this development as Estelore was.  "Hah!" he said, his voice muffled by the metal over his face.  "Queen was right!  Suits protect Hork-bajir!"

For the first time in a long time, Estelore felt a pang of fear.  What could they do, if their powers were useless?  How else were they supposed to fight?  Their powers, so seemingly unstoppable, were, in the end, all they really had.

The Hork-bajir troops rushed forward, emboldened by their perceived invincibility.  Seal threw up her flippers, hoping they might be more vulnerable to cold than they were to fire.  Nothing happened.  The suits briefly glowed a dim blue, but the Hork-bajir didn't even slow down.

Shock roared.  The shiny suits were not without disadvantage, he had noticed.  They made the Hork-bajir slow and clunky, unable to make full use of their natural reflexes.  The dragon darted his head towards the nearest Hork-bajir.  The Hork-bajir was helpless to escape as Shock snapped his jaws around the unfortunate controller's body.  There was a metallic crunching noise, as his teeth punctured the metal suit.  Like biting into a soda can.

Shock whipped his head and flung the Hork-bajir into a wall.  The metal suit slid to the ground and slumped, lifeless.

The dragon smiled a sharp-toothed grin.  Not so invincible, after all.

But his smile quickly faded as he realized that he was still only one RAFian, fighting against dozens of Hork-bajir.  Phoenix and Demos had added their fire to Estelore's onslaught, but with just as little effect.  Seal was trying to freeze a Hork-bajir, but the soaring heat from the other three RAFians' fire, trapped in the enclosed space of the hangar like an oven, ensured that no ice would stay frozen for long.

Russell swung his tail, slicing through metal sheathing.  His Andalite tail made a horrific combination of high-pitched metallic whine and the much lower sound of ripping flesh.  But, like Shock, he was one against a legion.

The Hork-bajir laughed as they closed in.  They knew they had already won.

Tony looked back, as well as he could, over his furry grey shoulder, as he ran from the now-open hangar door.

In the chaos, nobody could have noticed a mouse darting past.

He told himself that he wasn't being cowardly, only practical.  The RAFians weren't winning this fight, and without the TARDIS there would be no escape from Queen's army.  Not this time.

The only hope was to get to the Time Matrix.  End it now, before any more lives could be lost.  He had been so close, once before, as he had chased Queen across time and space.  So close to ending it all.  The Time Matrix had only been feet away.  Yet he could not reach it before it was yanked away again.

So, it wasn't cowardice that drove him to run away from the fight.  Although that was what it felt like, filling him with heart-wrenching shame, as he scurried along the floor on tiny mouse feet.

He steeled his mind against those thoughts.  The Time Matrix.  End this horrible fight.  Save his friends.

He remembered the schematics of Queen's fortress from Illim's holographic map, trying to picture the maze of tunnels in his mind.  It was harder to visualize, when he was now looking up at the hallways from ground level, compared to seeing things from a human's viewpoint.  But there had been a place, off the very edge of the map, where it looked like the beginning of a hallway, but it had simply cut off.  Just an open doorway to nowhere.

And, now that he had briefly seen the fortress from the outside, he knew that the hallway he had seen would have led directly into the heart of that awful barren plateau that protruded from the ground like scar tissue.

It was, he realized, an underground bunker.

He didn't have to wonder what it was that would merit such protection that it needed to be hidden away deep underground.  What would be so well-protected from spies that there would be no data pertaining to the location where it could be found.

It could be only one thing.  The most powerful object in the universe.  The Time Matrix.

<Hang on,> Tony called back to the others, just before he was out of thought-speak range.  <I'm going to save the world.>

[DinosaurNothlit]

One more chapter (for now).

Chapter Fifty-one

That voice.  It was Monica's voice.  Nervously, Saffa turned to where Monica was.  And there Monica still stood, just as stunned as the rest of them.

But as she looked at Monica, Saffa realized that, no, it hadn't been her voice at all.  At least, not quite her voice.  No, Monica's voice did not quite have that deep and broken cruelty to it, that strangely layered sound, like an echoing snarl.

Slowly, fearfully, the RAFians turned to face the true source of the voice.  They hesitated, as if they didn't quite want to see the one they already knew would be standing there.

And there she stood.  The multi-layered outline of a person who was not quite Monica.  Behind her stood about a dozen burly students, like thugs, ready to obey her command.

"Queen," Cloak hissed.

Other students, those not in league with her, looked on in fear, silent.  Afraid to do or say anything against this warped abomination of reality.  Some tried to look down, go back to whatever they'd been doing, pretend as if nothing was going on.

She was just human enough that maybe they could convince themselves they weren't really seeing what they knew they saw.  It was all they could do, to go on pretending she wasn't real.  This woman, this monstrosity in their midst, exuded a presence that could not be challenged, no matter how obvious it was that she did not belong.

"My dears, you seem to have misplaced a friend of yours," Queen said mockingly, reveling in the effect she had on those around her.  "I was simply returning her to you.  Dearie?  Won't you introduce me?"

Terenia gasped as Marie stepped forward, taking her place by Queen's side.  "You . . . what?!" she started, incredulous, before she suddenly realized the terrible truth.  That was not Marie's smile, that horrible grimace that cruelly twisted her normally innocent face.

It was not Marie at all.

"I simply remembered an odd meeting, once upon a time," the controller that was once Marie laughed.  "Queen was very interested to hear all about it, you see."

A slightly younger Marie, meanwhile, peeked her head around a corner, perplexed to be hearing a voice that sounded so remarkably like her own.  She hadn't gone far, it seemed, even after the encounter with Richard.

It was the silence, the deadly silence in a library that was never quite entirely devoid of the chatter of students, that had drawn her, like an onlooker to the site of an accident.  Where Richard had seemed strange but not truly dangerous, this, whatever it was, reeked of danger.

She should run.  Should.  She knew she should.  But something kept her here, against every instinct, against every alarm bell that was ringing in her head.

"Oh," the future Marie said, snapping her fingers.  "And I remembered running into my future self, too."  Suddenly, she shot a glance right at her own younger counterpart, as though she knew exactly where the other girl would be even before she'd looked.  The younger Marie gave a frightened squeak, and darted back behind the corner, breathing heavily.

So much was wrong with this, Marie thought, as her mind raced in panic.  So much was wrong, with all of it.  What in the world was even going on?  Her future self?  How was that possible?

And what was it that compelled her to stay, when every nerve ending and every muscle in her body was screaming at her to run?

The future Marie laughed.  "That was a strange thing to see."

"You arrogant-" Terenia began, starting towards Queen.

"Ah-ah-ah," Queen said coyly, backing up to gesture to the muscular 'students' behind her.  The RAFians probably wouldn't have noticed anything strange about them, if one of them hadn't suddenly flickered.  In the space of a blink of an eye, the human was replaced by something green and bladed, the image gone again so fast that most would have written it off as a trick of the mind.

They were wearing wristbands, like oversized watches.  Exactly like the RAFians' own Marks, Saffa realized with a start.  Except that these were a sickly shade of red instead of that familiar comforting blue.  And where there should have been an 'R,' there was, instead, the letter 'Q.'

Richard narrowed his eyes.  "You don't miss a trick, do you?"

Queen beamed, like she'd received a compliment.

Monica, still standing off to the side of the group, where she might not be seen, took a step towards her warped counterpart.  Slowly, almost hesitantly.  She knew what she needed to do, and this was the time to do it.  Perhaps her only chance.  But what would happen to her when she did?

In the end, she never got the chance to do anything.  Queen saw Monica's approach out of the corner of her inhuman metallic eye.  Snarling, she spun, raised an angry hand, and slapped Monica across the face with a harsh and resounding crack.  Monica looked stunned, and several of the others did too.  Yet Monica didn't look like she'd even registered the pain of the strike.  What had surprised her was that nothing else had happened.

The two 'Queens' had touched, if only for a brief moment.  The paradox was supposed to have destroyed them both.  That had been the Ellimist's big clue.

Hadn't it?

"You half-rate, sadistic, self-absorbed b-" Cloak started, his lip curling from the rage boiling inside him, like a dammed river that had risen until it was unable to be held back.

Queen moved so fast that none of the RAFians even had time to react.  By the time anyone knew what was happening, she had Richard pinned against a bookcase.  He squirmed helplessly, but couldn't move so much as an inch.  Queen wrenched his arm with all the strength of the multitude that she was.  The strength of a thousand.  Richard might as well have been struggling against a steel vise.

"Now, now," Queen purred, as she gripped Richard by the throat.  "I just want to talk."

"No, you don't," Terenia hissed.

Queen laughed.  "No, I don't."  In the blink of an eye, she shoved Richard headfirst into a nearby wall.  Richard slumped, unconscious.

Saffa uttered a choked cry, horrified.  "Now, we can do this the easy way," Queen whispered, almost gently, as she snatched Rachel by the wrist.  "Or the hard way."  Rachel stifled a cry as Queen twisted her arm with a horrible cracking sound.

"You see, my dears, you're in the wrong time," she explained cheerfully.  "And if you'll please follow me, we can fix that."

"What?" Terenia asked, confused, but almost hopeful.  Wondering what Queen meant, that she would take them to the time they were supposed to be.

Would she really be stupid enough to lead them right to the Time Matrix?

Queen laughed as she saw the foolish hope in Terenia's eyes.  "Oh, no, no, nothing like that.  Come."

The RAFians had little choice but to follow.  Even if they could have taken on Queen, she still had a dozen disguised Hork-bajir with her.  And even if they could have fought against them, there were innocent bystanders here, as well.

No, this was no place for a fight.

Bloodbane and Cloak each put an arm around Richard's unconscious form, propping him up as they draped his own arms over their shoulders.  Queen took the opportunity to stroke the once-father of RAF's face, a sinister touch, a poisoned caress that carried a promise of pain.

Cloak snarled.  He wasn't sure why, but he felt protective of Richard.  Because he had once been a RAFian, himself, in some other time?  He had none of those memories.  Yet, in that moment his rage flared, he felt a bond with the other RAFians, against this common enemy.

Yes, he would protect them.  With everything in him, he would.

Queen led them away from the library and across the campus.  Again, there was that normalcy that felt so abnormal.  Green grass, laughing students, sunlight and trees.  And through it all they were marched, as if at gunpoint, but unnoticed.

They were marshaled to a shed on the edge of campus, not much more than a little abandoned shack.  Inside the dark and dusty interior, there were person-sized glass cylinders, nine of them, with machinery that quietly whirred and clicked, and plastic tubes that oozed fog like a liquid spilling across the ground.  The white mist swirled around the RAFians as they entered the place, chilling their feet from the ankles down.

"No!" Terenia shouted, immediately realizing what this was.  She tried to back away, but a Hork-bajir, no longer behind the ruse of his Mark-inspired human hologram, rudely shoved her towards the tubes.  "NO!"

"Stasis," Odret said in a flat monotone.  "You're going to put us in stasis."

"You don't understand!" Terenia cried out, horrified.  Knowing that pleading would be useless, but also knowing that there was nothing else she could do.  "I have one day left!  One day!  One day and then I'm dead!  You can't do this, you'll kill me!"

"Maybe it'll kill you, maybe it won't," Queen said with an indifferent shrug.  "I don't really care, one way or the other."  She made a gesture to her faithful Hork-bajir-controllers, who grinned like hungry sharks as they closed in.

[redtailedsaffa]

S***.

[DinosaurNothlit]

Chapter Fifty-two

Richard blinked wearily, as he slowly returned to consciousness.  It took him a moment to track where he was.

With a shock, he remembered everything.  All the craziness that had happened in only the past day and a half came rushing back to him at once.  Richard looked up at the distorted form of Queen, who was laughing as he awoke.  Cloak and Bloodbane were looking nervous as they propped him up by his arms.  They felt him stirring, and when he had regained enough of his strength to support himself, they let him go.

"You're finally awake," Queen crowed, striding over to him like a cat who had trapped a mouse.  "Now the fun can really begin."

"Can we talk?" Richard said desperately.  Feeling like he was grasping at straws, but willing to try almost anything.  "Can't we please just talk about this?"

The Hork-bajir on either side of Queen crossed their arms.  Not exactly a friendly gesture, but showing their willingness to listen.  Queen herself stopped a few inches from Richard's face.  Waiting for what he had to say.

"I'm sorry that you were banished from RAF," Richard said, hanging his head in contrition.

"We are all sorry," Terenia went on, picking up Richard's thread.  "RAF is a place of friendship and love, and, well, your presence there had put that in danger.  We only wanted our friends to be safe and happy.  We never meant to hurt you."

Queen glared fiercely, but then turned away, hiding her face.  When she looked back, there was something underneath the anger.  To all of their surprise, Queen raised a hand to brush some wetness from her eye.  There was a beat of silence, as the RAFians realized that Queen wasn't quite the evil creature as they all had come to see her.  She was human, too.  With thoughts, and feelings.  "It hurt me, you know.  I had friends on RAF, too."

For the first time, Monica looked at Queen with an emotion other than the anger that seemed to mirror Queen's own.  What was this feeling she felt?  Pity?  Pity for this twisted version of herself?  But, well, in the end, Queen was right.  Rejection truly was a hurtful and terrible thing.  Monica knew that, too.  Given enough time, it could twist anybody into something vengeful and evil.

"Come here," Monica said hesitantly, stretching out her arms.  Queen paused, but then dived towards her counterpart.  The supervillain let out a small sob as the two of them, Queen and her 'twin,' embraced.

"It's not fair," Queen moaned disconsolately.  "I just wanted to belong somewhere.  All I ever wanted, was a friend."

Monica patted Queen's head.  "There there.  It's okay.  You don't have to destroy the world.  I'm here."

While Monica comforted Queen, her subordinate Hork-bajir looked mournfully at one another, lost in the sentimentality of the moment.  Two of them moved towards each other, attempting a hug of their own.  One of them, predictably injured by the other's blades as they embraced, let out a shrill screech, which was ignored by the RAFians.

Rachel had her arms wrapped around herself, letting herself feel that warm fuzzy feeling that came with a moment like this.  A crisis averted, no killing required.  It was a beautiful thing.

With a sudden rush, the RAFians moved towards Monica and Queen, surrounding their embrace with an enormous group hug of their own.  For the first time in years, Queen smiled.  Not a cruel and twisted smile of vengeance, but a warm smile of friendship.

Cloak was the only one still standing back from the group, arms crossed.

When he finally realized what was going on, he literally facepalmed.  "You have GOT to be freaking kidding me," he said, his hand on his forehead, as he suddenly realized what day it was.

[spoiler]APRIL FOOL'S!  [/spoiler]

[redtailedsaffa]

WHAT?!

I knew there was something up when all the happiness started oozing.

[theyoungphoenix]

I was wondering what happened there. Haha.

I love your chapters. . .except for the inevitable cliff-hangers, that is. Lol