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Janine Liberi     It's a curious sight indeed. Military men in the Mirror Forst, clad head to toe in black fatigues and body armor, brandishing high-powered rifles and weighed down with grenades and other tactical gear. Sascha stands with them, clad in the samesuch armor, but missing the face-concealing helmet. "Better late than never huh~?" she says, playfully ignoring all the everything that preceded this teamup.

    Janine's face is grim. "The Pig won't lead us in that direction. But it's fine, we just have to follow the fear." For indeed, just standing in the Forest creates a thrill of fear, a chilling sensation like you are being watched, gooseflesh arising on your body that points in the direction of the source.

    Some stray Shadows are floating around along the path, the military men training their guns on them as they pass by, but they become sparser to non-existent the deeper everyone goes. The trees become more tangled, the path disappears under tangled roots. The military guys are jumping at shadows (actual shadows this time), and even Sascha looks on-edge.

    The group walks on. They can do nothing but walk, deeper into the Pale Wolf's section of the Mirror Forest. And yet, he makes no appearance. No tracks, no toppled trees, no fur. The long journey mixes with the agonizing absence to fray on the nerves, causing Sascha to snap and fire her gun into the trees. "COME OUT HERE WOLF! I'M HERE TO TAKE YOUR HEART!"

    The trigger clicks as she mashes the trigger after the clip was expended, but the sound of heavy padding begins getting closer. The Wolf approaches, the Forest seemingly bending around it to permit it passage. It's awful mouth stretches, revealing far too many teeth, and its dar eyes seem filled with black gallows humor.

    "You will take my heart?" it says, speaking for what may be the first time in millenia. His voice is nails down a chalkboard, the scream of violin strings, the agonizing shriek of the dying. He laughs. It is not a nice sound at all. "Try it then." There is no threat, no boast, no promise. Only cold, bemused certainty of the folly of humans.

===============================THE TOWER EMBODIED===============================

----------------------------EMBODIMENT OF REFLECTION----------------------------

                                    ????????                                    
                                  FEAR ITSELF                                  

-----------------------YOUR JOURNEY REACHES A CROSSROADS------------------------

======================================XVI=======================================
August Kohler "I hear you." August says to Sascha, completely referencing the fact he shot her ear subtly. It's a little cheerful. It's fake. She's enough of a manipulator that she can tell August hates her guts, probably because he said it before. Dietrich is already summoned, as August rides on his back.

As they approach the woods, and the trees become tangled, the path disappears, and Shadows appear, August ignores them unless they attack, though he's certainly on edge. He grits his teeth, moving into the woods, and then, when Sascha fires into the trees, his eyes widen.

She shouts that she's here to take his heart. At first, he wouldn't think anything of it, until the Wolf himself /appears/, speaks, and seems to take on a challenge. August starts considering things in his head. "Be careful. The Wolf is just a mask, like how the Woodsman is Siegfried. Whatever he is, he's dangerous - we're lucky it's not Halloween."

As the wolf approaches, August swallows, and charges forward, Dietrich's blade catching aflame. He's playing a little safe, judging the Wolf's defenses, and then trying to scrape his side with the sword to see if he can even hit the beast, or if it's a regenerator like Siegfried. "Do you remember us, dear wolf? Can you remember your prey? You going to show us what we fear again? Try it! I'm stronger than ever before."
Rean Schwarzer Rean's never been here before, so the natural fear aura of this section of the Mirror Forest is compounded by the fact that he's got no idea what to expect. Given how jumpy Sascha's men seem to be, he's not the only one. Rean keeps one hand by his sword, keeping a wary eye out for anything, shadow or otherwise.

They arrive, and to no one's surprise, the Wolf is a giant freaking wolf. He nods at August, and then rushes in with his own sword strike.
William Pauwel Will /has/ been here before. That is, perhaps, what elevates the wolf's appearance from 'just' terrifying to something utterly and existentially horrifying.

Or maybe that's just what staring down a primal manifestation of the emotion of fear feels like.

There's something about knowing exactly how scary something is though, as opposed to only 'feeling' it. This is the kind of monster that even the Woodsman doesn't take lightly, and the Woodsman put several of Will's friends through multiple walls.

"I've got your back, August," Will says from over his longtime fight-pal's shoulder. The reassuring light of Terminal Judgment ignites in Will's mechanical hands as he begins laying down a field of suppressing fire across the gap. If a few stray shots hit, that's great-- but also not precisely what he's going for.

Right now, it's all about minimizing injury.

...Also about steadying a heart about to beat out of its chest.
Janine Liberi     Gunfire fills the Forest as the military joins the assault, spraying the Wolf with bullets. Sascha summons Frytojet, which joins the attack with its sabre, while Janine assails the wolf with sharp golden threads with Catherine.

    Dietrich and Rean's swords strike. Every single bullet finds its mark. And the worst comes to past. August was worried that the Wolf was a regenerator. But he doesn't seem to be. Rather, his fur itself is like steel, deflecting the shots and the testing strikes. "No, human," the Wolf intones in response to August. "I have been challenged to battle. I will not hunt you as I have before. I will simply kill you with overwhelming power I will leave you with no excuse for your loss. It will be your own fault, and you will all die broken."

    The Wolf swats at Rean with a paw. He doesn't even extend his claws. And yet, that seemingly lazy strike comes out of nowhere. It almost seems to come from the blind spot in his vision, even though the gigantic creature is right in front of him. And when it hits, it's like being struck by a train going at full speed.

    Frytojet and Dietrich are next. The flaming dark knight is snapped at by a mouth with far too many teeth, followed by the dog soldier. The Wolf lashes like a snake, covering the distance in an instant, razor sharp teeth and foul meaty breath striking the Persona in an instant.

    Finally, the Wolf moves like smoke, casually loping forward to stand among the soldiers. Will's blasts scorch its fur, causing sections to glow akin to heated steel, but the Wolf is not deterred. Two are crushed instantly under its paws, while Janine has to contend with a casual wag of its tail coming at her like a whip. As for Will, the Wolf goes to... lick him? Its tongue is far too long for it's mouth, and should it find him, it's rougher than sandpaper, almost akin to a shark's skin. In essence, getting licked is like being cut by millions of tiny blades.

    The Wolf is still laughing.
William Pauwel The Chaser lifts his arms in pure reflex as the Wolf appears, seemingly at the speed of thought itself. It's all that saves his delicate and very squishy meatbits from being torn to shreds by the creature's slobbering tongue. Even so, the screech of metal being sheared apart is all that a body needs to recognize that the Wolf's affection is as lethal as the rest of it.

There are many things that Will is pretty sure are liable to kill him. 'Getting licked to death by what is basically an overlarge dog' is definitely not one of them, but here he is, being lapped at with a chainsaw-sharp tongue in a gross perversion of the most loving gesture that man's best friend has available to its canine faculties.

What this /does/ do, however, is leave Will in a very unique position.

...One of being /right there/ in front of an ostensibly open maw with too-many teeth whilst simultaneously being armed with what amounts to a hand-held sun.

"I'm pretty sure us dying here would be entirely /your/ fault, though!" Nevermind that idiocy is its own cardinal sin when it comes to notions of survival. This enterprise is foolish at its heart, and the Chaser is all too aware. And yet--

With one mechanical arm, he tries to wedge the wolf's maw open for just long enough to aim and fire a roiling sphere of protostellar matter into the beast's (presumably) more vulnerable internals.

Of course, this thing /is/ Fear, so what's inside is almost certainly even scarier than its apparently impervious hide.
August Kohler August doesn't sigh in relief as the Wolf responds. He can't trust the beast. As it snaps at the dark knight, the teeth crunch into the armor, breaking it and stumbling August back instantly. It regenerates the armor, but August is already clutching his head from the sheer pain of the blow. This is going to be difficult.

But at the least, Sascha Leitner might be able to die in the process, and he won't even have to rig it.

Sliding backwards, Dietrich takes that sliding sword, and charges at teh Wolf mid-laugh. The blade moves to strike into the head, maybe break a tooth or too with sheer strength, August hopes. He's not sure /how/ durable the Wolf is, but he thinks 'very', and he wants to show that he's better than he used to be.
Rean Schwarzer Rean's strike bounces off of the Wolf's hide, as if he were trying to cut into an armored train. Sure, maybe coming here was folly, but it wasn't the first time he'd faced a rough monster before, and it probably wouldn't be his last at this rate. If they all stayed focused, they could do this. Probably.

Then he gets smacked with all the force of an oncoming train. Rean grunts, as all the wind is knocked out of him and he flies through the air, eventually striking the ground with a loud thud. He lets out a few coughs and staggers back onto his feet. Maybe a different angle would work. A ring of blue light surrounds him for a moment before fading. A ring of heat appears underneath the Wolf, sending a burst of fire upwards.
Janine Liberi     Will actually tries to wrench the Wolf's mouth open even more, but it's hard. The Wolf actively clamps his teeth together into a sneer just so he can watch Will struggle. But then Janine's threads weave through the gaps and help to pull it open. "Don't answer him, just kill him!" the girl barks as Will fires the tiny star.

    And in the darkness of the Wolf's body, he catches a glimpse of a pair of reptilian eyes staring back at him.

    The Wolf tries to reel back, but Janine's threads have him pinned for a moment. Dietrich buries his blade into the Wolf's mouth, and while he doesn't manage to remove a tooth, he does at least crack one, drawing a yowl from the Wolf. Rean's Orbal art scorches the beast's underbelly while Sascha and her remaining men get right up close to press their gun barrels right up against it and go full auto.

    "Hrah... this is the power that brought pause to Seigfried and Brynhildr, is it? Potent indeed, for your kind. I only recall its ilk from millennia long past..." The Wolf begins to convulse in a way like body bags shouldn't. It's as if a swarm of rats contained in a sack were all fighting their way out at once. "BUT EVEN THEY IN ALL THEIR NUMBERS COULD NOT BRING ME DOWN. WHAT HOPE HAVE YOU FEW?"

    A scaly, taloned foreleg erupts from the Wolf's mouth.

    Another soon joins it, as the Wolf begins to split apart, blood and sinew raining about as the creature within emerges in the most awful way possible. From out of the Wolf comes a dragon. It's scales are pure white, in spite of the gore it unleashed. It's fore and hindlegs bear massive, razor sharp claws. It's great wings twitch and extend, flapping to blast the Forest with wind and fury. A long, serpentine neck reaches a hideous maw and keen slitted eyes filled with malice. A forked tongue lazily tastes the air as its long, knotted tail thrashes lightly.

    It's very presence is heart stopping fear. This is the thing that comes in the night. The thing under your bed. The thing in the dark room. The source of the scraping noise. The breathing in the dark. The glint of the knife. The sound of the gun. The fear.

===============================THE TOWER EMBODIED===============================

----------------------------EMBODIMENT OF REFLECTION----------------------------

                                     FAFNIR                                    
                          THE TRUE FORM OF FEAR ITSELF                          

-----------------------YOUR JOURNEY REACHES A CROSSROADS------------------------

======================================XVI=======================================
August Kohler As the foreleg erupts as the Wolf convulses, August moves back, slightly. As the dragon erupts from the wolf, August closes his mental sheet. Fafnir was one of his guesses, though he couldn't be sure. The dragon of greed is the wolf of fear. The primordial beast.

And the very presence gets to him. Not because he's mentally weak - he's far from it - but because he's already been afraid. Not of the wolf, either. Of the power Sascha Leitner contains, in one little remote.

The heart-stopping fear closes him down. His thoughts race. If they fail this, if she gets killed, they might just clean up his family. They might just erase them off the grid. He'll never see them again. And it's all because of Sascha Leitner.

August realizes a very sad, very critical thought: he can't do this anymore, if he has loose ends like this. His mind circles back to Nameless's offer, to kill his family and cut the loose ends. But, there was another option. One he now realizes he truly has to consider.

Breaking from his fear, the fire sword bolsters. It glows brighter, not from strength, but from fear. From will. August needs to kill the Wolf. Dietrich boosts into the air, wind buffeting his armor, as he moves to slice into Fafnir's neck and start at the process of eventual beheading. The fire rises.
William Pauwel The scariest thing about seeing those awful, reptilian eyes within the wolf's maw isn't that there's something lurking within the darkness of the beast, it's that that something sees /him/ just as much as he sees /it./ "There's something inside," Will says too late, his face sheet-white. "There's something inside!!"

And then, with a splatter of blood and a shower of gore...

There's something outside.

The dragon- Fafnir- soaked in its own crimson afterbirth, emerges into the world.

Fear pulses through this deeply metaphysical place. It permeates the very substrate of existence. Every neuron fires, every impulse screams, they all cry out in unison: fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Will staggers back, clutching at his heart as if trying desperately to slow it before it bursts. His breaths come in halting, terrified gasps, and it's all he can do to stand.

To turn.

To run...!

"Stay away!" Will yells, firing bolt after bolt after bolt of plasma at the colossal manifestation of fear. "Stay back!"

Is he... is he really turning tail and running...?

Or is there another purpose there? Is he not running away from the monster, but toward something else...?
Rean Schwarzer So the Wolf was a Dragon. Rean braces against the wind coming from its wings, struggling to remain standing.  Fear grips his chest, and he glances around at the others present.

No words of encouragement come to mind, nothing to rally this scattered group into facing their fear and pushing forward. They might honestly die here. They can't even retreat, can they? Not with what's on the line.  There's nothing else to do, is there?

With a scream, Rean rushes forward, swinging wildly at Fafnir's leg.
Janine Liberi     The military men have fallen apart. A couple just drop dead instantly from heart attacks. Others scatter and flee. Sascha is left with only a couple left. "Get back here cowards!" she shouts, in a tone of voice that implies that she's petrified too.

    Janine is white as a sheet herself, but musters herself long enough to bombard the dragon with blades of cutting wind that barely manage to score its scales. "Stay together! We're easy pickings if we split up!" she shouts at Will's fleeing back.

    Dietrich swings at the neck. There's a lot of it to cut at, and as expected, the scales are tough, and the sinew dense. But with a blade burning with will, he manages to score a deep cut, one that makes the dragon yowl and gives Rean a merciful moment to hack at its forelegs and draw some more blood.

    But now Fafnir is bloodied, and he lashes out.

    Rean experiences a vision of his entire class dead before him, his own hands and katana stained with their blood. He smells copper, feels the crimson dripping and drying on him, and it wounds his heart. Almost as much as Fafnir's fang does as he bites the swordsman.

    August sees a Watchtower aflame, by his own hand. Be it that he sicced Dietrich on his comrades and burned them alive, or his own poor decisions brought this about is unclear. But in this vision, he knows for sure that it's his fault. All he can do is stand there and watch it crumble, just as he stands there as Fafnir stabs a talon at him.

    William sees his village decimated by a robot that he himself found, brought out of its ruin, and repaired. His own kind heart and curiosity lead to the deaths of his family and friends. From a hill, he watches it scour the earth with lasers, just as Fafnir aims to scour him with fiery breath.

    Janine screams as she receives a vision, while Sascha howls in fury and the remaining military panic. Fafnir is going all out now, using every trick it can to kill.
William Pauwel There's ostensibly a plan here.

Ostensibly, Will manages to dodge-roll and pick up the thing he was looking for just as the wolf-- the /dragon/ lashes out.

                      -------------------------------                      

Everything burns. Gale is ablaze. The places and things that have always been home, turning to ash. The familiar roads and alleys, split and levelled until their streetsigns lose their meaning. The faces of the people he loves contort in abject horror and then pain and then nothing at all. A colossus of black steel strides through the village, its voice a keening death-knell that beckons swarms of shimmering ebon haze, its gaze a baleful holocaust that turns flesh to dust and turns hills to wastelands.

It strides away from the burnt-out hollow of the old farmhouse. A pair of withered, old bodies are draped over broken weapons. He watches with tears in his eyes as they're set upon by that ominous black cloud-- and rise, jerking and twitching as spines of inky darkness jab through limbs and joints, transforming them into jagged marionettes with empty faces and mouths that buzz with a swarm of vile flies.

And Will knows, as the sky parts and the angels descend--

This... This is all his fault.

This is all his fault.

All of it.

A man in armor stares at him from on high, disappointment and pity in his mechanical gaze as he raises his weapon.

And all that he loves disappears in a flash of light.

                      -------------------------------                      

Will's eyes open with a start. He sees the flames all around him and screams, bolting upright as if the nightmare had started all over from the beginning. It didn't, and yet it did. The nightmare never ended, it just segued into something much more personal. Much more painful. Will's breaths come hard and haggard as he turns his face toward the dragon, flames still billowing from his shoulders. "You--" Will swallows. The burns hurt less than the pain of loss. He reaches for his chest, for his heart. His hand is half-slag now, it creaks as he clutches. That felt... so real. Too real. Is that where is his path leads? Destruction and the loss of everything he loves? Is it? Should he stop? Should he just-- give up--

Will's expression twists into a grimace, then a scowl, then a full-throated snarl, "No! I haven't forgotten! If I don't-- If I stop-- then something much worse will happen! I know you can see it! You can see in my head, then you know! You know-- but you won't show that to me, because you know the fear will just keep me going. You... You damn liar...!"

Will raises his weapon. He looks at it for a moment, as if for the first time really considering how /heavy/ it feels. Considering what the light that shines within it truly means.

Judgment.

The light of hope.

"You said... That you were going to beat us fair and square, didn't you?" He asks, turning his face toward the dragon. "What is this, then? What is /this/, Fafnir!? I know what it is, do you? Let me tell you! You broke your word because /we're/ what /you're/ afraid of!"

Judgment comes undone-- No. It unspools, unfurling into a whirlwind of light and metamaterial that shifts and rearranges, unfolding into a weapon many times its original size. Will growls as he aims it at the dragon, his arm groaning under the strain even as the building heat sees it begin to turn red, then orange, then yellow, then white with blackbody radiation. "If we lose here... Even if we lose here, you won't stop this. /Fear/ won't /stop us!/ We've got more to be afraid of if we /let it!/"

"AUGUST!" Will screams as he hurls something white and unfathomably sharp through the air. "NOW!" He has to yell it-- he has to do it now-- because when he pulls the trigger, all words are banished before the deafening thunder of a star being born.
August Kohler As Dietrich slices inwards, Fafnir lashes back with visions. And August sees what he feared he'd see. Normally, he'd push past it. He'd fight past it.

But he believes it. He believes that's the path he's on. He's going to either become a villain, or a failure. He won't be a beautiful martyr, a dogged avenger, a righteous hero. Just a failure.

The talon slams into Dietrich, and August goes flying off, rolling to the ground. He stays prone for several moments, bleeding from his mouth and nose. He only rises after a few moments, but it's not a determined comeback. He's trembling. Even so...

He must keep fighting. If only so he doesn't die. If only so he can see tomorrow, and return to his family.

August waves a hand, and Dietrich stands tall, using his sword to hold back Fafnir, but not striking. It's when Will calls out that August starts moving. As Judgment changes, and fires his weapon, August moves. Dietrich leaps into the air, as August sprints after him. Dietrich's sword is sheathed as he grabs the fang, impossibly sharp, and lands right in front of Fafnir.

And with another gesture, as August gets into range, Dietrich jabs the fang into Fafnir's chest, with everything he's capable of. Immense strength just pours through. August's doubt hasn't changed at all. Will's speech hasn't roused him.

But, at the least, he can still kill a monster.
Rean Schwarzer Rean raises his sword to block Fafnir's bite, its blade digging into his palm. His grip wavers as visions fill his mind. Everyone he'd come to care about dead at his own hands, gone because he couldn't keep it together again. He'd promised Mikoto he'd at least try to stop running from it, told Laura's father essentially the same thing...

But what if he couldn't?  What if there was no way to prevent himself from being consumed by his own power?

Maybe it would be better if he let this dragon eat him.

Then William calls out and attacks, and August follows suit.

Rean pulls back, dislodging himself from the beasts jaws and scrambling back onto his feet.

William was right. There were more things riding on this than just his own life. If they could make it through this, they could save August's parents and it'd all be worth it. Worth having someone like him around. With a shout, Rean ignites his sword, and jumps, plunging it into Fafnir's head.
Janine Liberi     Fafnir screams bloody fury at Will. "THAT I SHOW YOU MY TRUE FORM IS RESPECT FOR YOUR POWER BOY. DO NOT DARE TO CALL IT FEAR ON MY PART. I /AM/ FEAR!" He barrels after the cowboy, heedless of the massive weapon Judgment is forming into. Dietrich gets in his way and pushes back, but he only manages to slow the massive dragon. But then, Catherine's golden threads loop around Fafnir's neck, biting into the wound Dietrich made previously, and pull back also, drawing a pained bellow from Fear Itself. The top of his head aims to push through and swallow William whole, but Rean's burning stab buries deep in his brain, causing him to scream and thrash to try and dislodge him.

    And then Fear is illuminated by the light of the sun.

    Judgment's blast scorches the dragon, peeling away the layers of scales to expose its flesh. Janine's threads are burned, and the Forest behind the dragon is liquefied. But it still stands, looming towards Will, when suddenly, Dietrich pierces its breast with it's own tooth.

    The scream that follows flatterns trees for miles around and shatters the eardrums of everyone present. Fear falls, it's body crumbling away to reveal a regular sized white wolf, panting, bloodied and bruised. The Pale Wolf is defeated. No longer the master of the Mirror Forest.

    Sascha pops out from under a bush and approaches with wide, crazed eyes. "You did it... you actually did it," she mutters, giggling under her breath. "Good job. I'll hold up my end of the deal. Just... gimmie a sec."

    She picks up a knife from a dead soldier and advances on the wolf. The whole world seems to hold its breath. Just like with the Woodsman and Brynhildr, everyone is filled with a sense of wrong, as if what Sascha is about to do is something that Must Not Be Done.
August Kohler August is in pain. He's bleeding, he's broken, he hurts. But Sascha gets up. She has a crazed look on her face. That's not a good sign.

And neither is the feeling of what is wrong. August knows what she's going to do. She's going to kill fear. If he's Fafnir, perhaps...take his heart? But then- no. That can't. But then, if he stops her, Janine might not get what she needs in the world. She might suffer. His family might suffer.

But if fear dies, so will they, he rationalizes. Nuclear war crosses his mind, as a result of a loss of fear. August swallows, and then, walks up. Sascha's out of it. She won't notice him, hopefully.

"Sorry, but I can't let you do that. This is for everyone you've fucked over, you psychopath." He speaks, right as he's behind her. His knife suddenly goes into the soft spot of her back, as he draws his revolver. If she moves to grab her radio and speak into it, or after she falls to the ground, he aims the gun at her.

"And this is for me."

The gun is aimed straight at her head. August has no love lost for the Wolf...but it's necessary.

BANG
William Pauwel     "Doesn't mean--" Will answers as the trigger is pulled, "That it doesn't make you a liar."

A sun is born. Judgment unleashes a light that even the gods hardly know. In ages past, that was the light which might have saved a world.

...Now, for all its destructive might, it can barely stave off a dragon.

But as Fafnir looms, as Will stares it in the eye, his arms sparking and smoldering, vital circuitry overheated beyond recovery, the dragon might catch sight of a slim smirk work its way across the cowboy's face.

Hope doesn't defeat fear. It just holds it at bay long enough to do what must be done.

August does it. The scream hurls Will backwards, sending him skidding once, twice, thrice across the ground. But there, finally, finally-- it's done.

...

No.

Not quite.

"What's she--" Will groans, struggling to stand. His arms creak and whine as overtaxed servomotors struggle to force them into motion-- but the controls are shot. He can hardly hold onto his gun. Sascha moves, approaching the wolf-- approaching fear itself-- with her knife poised to strike.

...But before Will can call out, August is already there.

He has made his choice of his own free will.

And before that, there's nothing Will can do but snap his jaw shut, look on and commit the sight to memory.
Rean Schwarzer Rean gets thrown off of Fafnir when he thrashes, and falls to the ground dazed. And thus, the dragon falls and turns into a normal wolf.

Sascha approaches it, and something about all this seems /wrong./

"....This place is connected to this world's collective unconscious or something like that, right?" Rean murmurs. What would killing the embodiment of fear do to the minds of the people in this world? "Wait-" Rean finds himself stammering. He /knows/ that this is what she wanted and if they stopped her, they'd be going against their deal.

And then August does what he'd said he'd do and moves to kill Sascha. Rean doesn't stop him, not that he even could.
Janine Liberi     It's a surprisingly soft sound, driving a knife into flesh. Even with her body armor, August finds that spot, and draws a soft gasp from Sascha. And then he raises the gun, and she starts to say, "No-" before the gunshot rungs out.

    And so, she joins the rest of her men.

    And then, from the trees, a soft clapping. A figure strides forward. An old man, clad in golden armor and clutching a spear. His face is kindly, but a quarter of it is missing. Not as in 'there's a bloody chunk torn out' but rather, part of it has crumbled away, leaving only a black void. This has consumed the top right half of his face, and has even taken away his right eye. Standing with him is the White Pig, looking... oddly at peace, for the first time either. Also with him is Spriggins Jack, the little hero, who looks morose.

    "Well done everyone," says the golden man in a voice that seems to come from everywhere at once, and yet is also difficult to discern. "You're looking for me, aren't you? Well... I'm sure you're not in a state to talk. Go do what needs doing, and I'll meet you all at your little clearing. Especially you, young man." He looks at August. "You're going to save your family, aren't you? This is good. Go do that."

    With that, he and his fellows retreat into the trees, the Wolf limping after them. "Wait!" Janine coughs, but they've already vanished into the darkness. "Dammit... he's right though. Let's get out of here." She stops by Sascha's corpse, and retrieves her wallet and ID before pocketing them.

    On their way out, she reaches up and pats August on the shoulder. "You did the right thing. Don't worry, I'll figure something out," she says. Her voice sincere.
August Kohler Another life taken. August laughs, wildly, coping. As the golden man speaks, August only barely listens, and registers what he has to say. He must be the nothingman. August turns back from her corpse, and heads towards the exit - he doesn't care about this right now. He has to get to his parents.

As Janine pats him on the shoulder, August's coping mechanisms die down. That...was actually extremely helpful, because it was Janine he was worried about most besides his parents. "I usually try." It's bleak, but...he's got hope, at least a little.

He'll be there at the clearing. But what he plans to do next is probably going to be shocking.