Not being comfortable in the environment, Alex didn’t want to rest. She wanted to be rid of the demon he kept sneaking into her dreams and transforming her. But at the same time the two hours of interrupted sleep the previous day was not enough. She could feel the irritating effects of sleep deprivation.

  “I hate this. I feel like the longer I get hounded by this succubus the more urgent it is to fix it.” Alex fumbled with some string, trying to reinforce the dream catcher. “This whole ordeal is exhausting.”

  Fufi tried to comfort the magical girl. “We’ll figure out a way. We have to. But trying to sew when your hands are shaking isn’t going to make that thing cuter.”

  Alex looked down at the dream catcher, the stitches were uneven and she had poked her finger a bit, but didn’t notice until she examined the little red dots forming. “You are right. One more day and I can get a bit of breathing space. That succubus can’t completely transform me in one dream. And there has to be some way to get the sailor doll back.”

  “If you want to take a nap I can wake you up if the dream catcher breaks again.” Fufi spoke softly. “What could possibly go wrong in less than a day. We are in the home stretch to treat your demonic corruption issue.”

  The exhaustion weighed heavily on Alex, a dull, throbbing ache behind her eyes that made any productive thought an impossibility. The ck of sleep finally cimed her, leaving her mind a hazy, unproductive mess. She changed out of her travel clothes and climbed into the small, cushioned berth of the carriage. Fufi, ever vigint, hopped onto the foot of the bed, a warm presence watching over her when her eyelids fluttered closed.

  Alex found herself in a bizarre, sun-drenched ndscape. A pair of familiar lovers could be seen holding hands off in the distance. But her attention snapped to the brilliant pink fmingo towering above her , its long, elegant neck arcing down. The bird began to peck at her with surprising persistence, not cruelly, but with an insistent rhythm.

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  The dream was abruptly, violently shattered. A deafening CLANG of metal striking metal, impossibly loud ripped through the thin wall of her consciousness. Her eyes snapped open, her heart hammering against her ribs. The loud noise was instantly followed by a return of the same persistent, sharp pecking sensation from her dream, no longer a phantom, but a definite, irritating physical reality. As she blinked in the gloom of the carriage, trying to orient herself, a solemn, distant sound began to drift in through the window, the deep, resonant tolling of a church bell, ringing out ominously in the world she had just returned to.

  “Wake up!” Fufi honked. “Wake up, something’s wrong.”

  “Waaa… what happened?” Alex blinked the sleep away.

  “The dream catcher broke.” The fmingo continued. “Then some kind of bell from the temple started ringing repeatedly. I worry about what that means.”

  The pair headed out after Alex changed to something more presentable, and did a quick rise of her face and brushing of her hair.

  Some of the residents of the temple were running back and forth, panicking from the bell.

  “The church bell has never rang like that before.” One Ekta procimed fearfully.

  “What does it mean?” Another gnced around furtively.

  The cloned clergy who were running around like chickens with their heads lopped off got their questions answered by a maid who came out from the temple proper.

  “The angel statue.” The maid tried to expin. “It activated somehow. Does anyone know what apocalypse protocol is?”

  Alex rushed out to the maid. “Apocalypse protocol? That sounds dangerous. What exactly happened?”

  All the clergy stopped running around to crowd around the maid.

  “I wasn’t there originally, but one of the other maids were cleaning and I think she said something about how a demon has infiltrated the temple and it was requesting activation of apocalypse protocol. It kept saying: query for confirmation returned no answer, trying again. Then a few minutes ter it said 2nd attempt, maximine attempts 100 before auto approval. Loading outsider worldwide purge program.” The maid frantically expined. “What does it mean?”

  “Outsider?” Fufi stated, then paused. “That could be you Alex, or anyone not from this pne of existence, demons, elementals and many other things.”

  Alex didn’t like the sound of that. “I’ve heard what happened to demons that tried to attack Luna’s grotto. Bob and Martha said that their defeat was very instant.”

  “Catalina might have set a surprise here as a parting gift for the moment demons took this pce.” Fufi sounded concerned. “We should get as far away from here as possible.”

  Not missing a beat, several maids came up with baskets in their arms.

  “Magical Girl Alex, it looks like you will be leaving sooner than expected.” One maid deadpanned. “May we restock your stores for the return journey?”

  Alex’s skin crawled at the maids acting like nameless again. She thought that their fix didn’t stick, but saw one in the background holding back a chuckle.

  “Very funny.” Alex humphed and took the basket. The maids followed and they did an insanely quick cleanout of the stuff that had piled up from the trip and had everything nicely stored in the right pce.

  “Thank you for not making me have to see Lady Yvne again.” The st maid bowed before leaving.

  Alex awkwardly smiled. “No problem. I’m gd things have worked out so far. Hopefully if we leave that doomsday angle will go back to sleeping.”

  One of the older Ektas spoke to some of the younger cloned clergy. “The Ekta that came before me told us we had to protect the temple at all costs. Maybe this is what he meant? I can’t remember exactly all the instructions I was supposed to follow.”

  Alex wound the key on the carriage to make sure the spring was as good as it could get and headed towards the gate to the temple. It was still dark out and there would be more winter weather waiting for them.

  “We need to leave.” Alex waved to the gate guard. “Can you open the gate?”

  “Magical girl Alex.” The priestess sounded confused. “I know things are up in the air, but we still have the spring being prepared to purify you of the demonic corruption. If you leave then how will you be healed?”

  Alex called out. “I don’t have time for that. If the angel doesn’t destroy the world I’ll come back ter.”

  “Understood.” The dy operated the mechanism that opened the rge door and the frigid wastes outside. She called out. “Catalina bless you with a pure path.”

  The quiet rage that had been simmering in Alex finally boiled over. The sheer, baffling devotion of these people to a goddess who had not only vanished but had seemingly abandoned them was an acid on her nerves. It wasn't just faith; it was a kind of self-destructive loyalty she found utterly irrational. It grated on her that what was left of her followers was her only hope of being cured of this demonic corruption. With a final, impatient shrug, she steered the clockwork carriage out onto the frozen waste. The gates closed behind her.

  The ndscape was a study in blinding white. Snow and cracked ice stretched to the horizon. The Silvery light of the moon reflected it back with an unnatural brightness that made the whole world seem ft and featureless. The air was a clean, sharp bde in her lungs.

  The carriage moved with a rhythmic, measured tick-tock that was the only sound besides the crunch of its treads on the hard-packed snow. Inside, Alex quickly set about making the space habitable. She lit the small, contained fire in the carriage's stone. She was already bundled in her heavy fur outfit but the cold of this nd was a constant, pressing weight.

  A quick calcution ran through her mind, mapping the distance traveled against the time remaining before the expected apocalyptic event. The numbers were grim. They would barely make it back to the hidden portal pipe. From there, it would be a race through the pipe nexus, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the source of the coming destruction.

  Her greatest variable, and thus her greatest fear, was the "angel." She still knew frighteningly little about the thing other than it was the final, doomsday failsafe of the temple. Its speed, its destructive radius, its very nature were a mystery. But in a universe of magical rules, a doomsday weapon was inherently faster, stronger, and more relentless than a lone magical girl in a clockwork carriage.

  Run, her mind screamed. Run and hide, because you cannot fight this. Her only viable strategy was retreat: use the network of pipes, the shortcuts of reality, to catapult herself to the farthest possible corner before the angel could catch up. In a way she awoke it and assumed it might head straight for her, so best to pn for the worst.

  The journey was a grueling, all-night affair. The constant ticking of the carriage became a hypnotic, maddening metronome counting down to oblivion. Alex watched the moon sink and the stars wheel overhead, the white ndscape slowly taking on the pale, bruised colors of predawn. Finally, as the first, weak rays of the rising sun began to tint the eastern horizon a cold orange, the familiar, dark shape of the rocky overhang emerged from the white expanse.

  The shelter Merumeru had used to conceal the entrance to his dimensional pipe came into view.

  There was no time for hesitation, no time to savor the relief of arrival. With the efficiency of a seasoned traveler, Alex performed the ritual swap. She discarded the bulky, warm fur outfit, repcing it in a shimmer of light with her plumber getup: the tough, leather overalls and high, insuted boots designed for… well plumbers.

  Stepping out of the carriage was like plunging into an ice bath; the subzero air immediately bit into her exposed skin. She shivered, but the urgency was paramount. With a practiced motion, she concentrated, and the intricately constructed clockwork carriage began to fold in on itself, its brass mechanisms colpsing into an enchanted pying card, which she slipped into a pocket.

  Shivering, she scrambled toward the mouth of the pipe a wide, metal drain secured beneath the rock and took one st, involuntary gnce back in the direction of the temple, miles away over the snowfield.

  It was then she saw it.

  It wasn't a sudden explosion or a storm cloud. It was a slow, terrifying, deliberate ascension. From where the temple stood, a single, impossibly intense point of light was rising into the morning sky. It was a light of the purest, most blinding white, a color that burned the very concept of shadows. It wasn't the reflection of the sun, but something that outshone the sun. It was the fwless, deadly incandescence of the newly activated angel and it was beginning its terrible climb into the heavens.

  Terror, sharp and cold, finally pierced through Alex's yers of irritation and pragmatism. Without another thought, she dropped into the dark, welcoming maw of the pipe, the echoing of her boots on the stone a big *nope* in dealing with whatever that was..