CHAPTER EIGHT: UNSTOPPABLE, IMMOVABLE

At the center of the Thelema Nature Preserve, Ian Crowley and Maya Olvide stand opposite Abigail O’Hare. Ian, unharmed and fresh to fight, was now coated in a thick but pliable armor, blood red and ridged - the hide of a mysterious cryptid once claimed to be found in Mongolia, reformed into something new. Maya, now defenseless with the destruction of her weapon and armor, kept a few steps behind her commanding officer, trying in vain to contact her coworker. Abigail, coated in blood with a hole in her shoulder, gave off the most fearsome aura of them all, a dark purple ring of fire orbiting her body, growing and pulsing as blood leaks from her wounds and ignites. 

“I will take point on this, Maya. You stay back, try and find a weak point.” Ian says, now freshly calm and collected. 

“Yeah. Yeah, good idea.” Maya stammers, taking a few extra steps back. 

Abigail’s eyes lazily float between the Peacekeepers as she analyzes her position. 

Her analysis completes itself as she stumbles a step forward, the grass beneath her feet sizzling and smoking from ignition, and immediately being put out by the rain. She suddenly explodes forward, her legs igniting from the calves, charging at top speed directly past Ian and into Maya, who she smashes in the chin with a powerful kick. Maya is rocketed backwards, soaring through the woods behind her as she gets ejected from the fighting arena. 

Ian growls. She’s so fast..! He thinks, spiraling to face Abigail - but she had already vanished, reappearing with a second powerful kick straight to Ian’s head. His armor absorbs most of the impact, allowing him to grab her ankle and smash her into the ground, which she responds to with desperate kicks from her other leg, firing off haphazard purple flames in every direction. 

Ian is undeterred, slamming her on the ground back and forth from the ankle, then tossing her in the air and raising his right arm. “FIRE!” He shouts, another bolt of lighting screaming down from his Thunderbird that narrowly misses the floating Abigail. 

Abigail takes advantage of this miss, shooting flames from her hands to rocket to the ground, then forcing her back up to throw a right hook into Ian’s side, her dark flames firing off in tandem. Ian’s suit is singed, but he is otherwise unharmed - and he throws his own right hook into Abigail’s face, smashing her into the ground. She twitches as she lands, and her body goes limp. 

“Pretty tough suit, isn’t it? Had to travel across the world to get this one. All these different cultures with all these different stories…Obscurus really allowed some magnificent beasts to cross over to reality, didn’t it?” Ian asks, grabbing Abigail by the hair and lifting her to his eye level. 

Abigail screams, firing her darkest flames yet from her mouth, directly into Ian’s shielded face. These were hot enough to cause damage if he didn’t drop her, so his hand releases as he attempts to jump backwards, but Abigail latches onto the front of his suit with her whole body, continuing to scream out her flames. Ian roars and leaps forward, landing on top of Abigail with the combined weight of him and his suit, causing her to go limp again. 

This time, Ian doesn’t allow his pride to get the better of him. He stands, then kicks Abigail with all his might, sending her flying into the remains of the globe statue he had erected fifteen years prior. He raises his right arm again - “FIRE!” - another bolt of lightning strikes down, this time hitting its target true. 

Or, so he thought - it seemed to strike her, but it dissipated right as it made contact. Is my Thunderbird afraid to make contact…? Or is she somehow deflecting the lightning? He wonders, watching Abigail once again rise to her feet. Her nose was broken, skull fractured, left eye swollen shut. Her right arm was cracked and broken, her left one long extended bruise. Her shirt was hanging on by a thread, revealing just how broken and tattered her torso had become. Ian couldn’t see much of her legs through her pants, but assumed they were just as busted as everything else. 

How? He thinks, raising his right arm again. “FIRE!” 

As the lighting falls, Ian watches it carefully in the nanoseconds it takes to strike. The lightning comes close to Abigail, but arcs off in a different direction just before impact. Abigail looks up to follow the electric current, and from her sudden jolt backwards, seems to have just noticed the massive creature floating in the sky. Did she not realize…? Ian pauses, and sighs. Thunderbird is useless here now, but is it worth sending it back? If Arihiro gets up, I might actually be in trouble.

Ian breathes out again, and stares intently at Abigail. No. One maniac at a time. I can’t worry about Arihiro now - she’s a much more troublesome target. 

Abigail stares back, just for a second, and then she’s right in front of him, sonic booms going off in her wake. She slams into Ian with her shoulders, and while this is finally enough force to crack his armor and shoot him backwards, it was also enough for Ian to figure things out. 

All this power she has…it’s too much for her body…! He realizes, landing on his feet and parrying the flash of Abigail that flies by, smashing her into the ground. She tackled me because her arms won’t work…! And this speed she has, it’s destroying her legs! He thinks, watching as flames propel Abigail upwards and back at him. He catches her in midair, leaping high into the air with his hand around her neck, and then jets straight down back to the ground, throwing her into the earth with all his might. Her body flips over her neck, and then flops back down. 

Ian pants, and looks at his left wrist. A light glow begins to flash. The suit is at 35% stability…? He thinks, then taking another glance at Abigail.

She’s laying still on the ground. 

“Stay down,” Ian spits, walking towards Arihiro. 

A hand grips his ankle, and he sighs. 

“O’Hare, you have to stop this,” he says, slamming his foot down onto her hand. The crunching he hears lets him know he definitely broke her hand and wrist in several places, but she doesn’t make a sound. He looks down in just enough time to see another blast of fire coming from her mouth, but it’s easily dodged just by shifting his head. “You’re running out of gas. Stop.” 

The flames don’t stop, and Ian suddenly realizes she must have burnt her vocal cords to a crisp, and that’s why she isn’t making sounds anymore. He reaches down and raises her up by the neck again. 

“Just what is it, Abigail?” He asks, watching her shoulders twitch. “You want to pull my hand from your neck, but your arms can’t move, right?” 

Abigail closes her mouth, and meets eye contact with Ian before spitting out molten blood at his hand, which starts melting through his suit like acid. He throws her to the ground as his armor shifts to drop to the burned section and replace it, but he catches a glimpse of his bare wrist, which still shows signs of being burned. 

“I said enough, O’Hare.” Ian raises both hands, and the Thunderbird above him glows. “FIRE, FULL POWER!” He shouts, swinging his fists down directly at Abigail, fully intending to have to tank a part of the lighting strike himself - which he does, as a beam of electricity rips through the atmosphere and strikes down right in front of him. The release of energy sends him flying, and the Thunderbird rumbles in the sky as it goes dark and starts recharging electricity. He skids across the grass, sliding a few dozen feet before coming to a stop, resting on his back.

For a moment, he doesn’t want to stand up. He can feel a chill traveling through him as he checks his left wrist, the glow pulsing faster than before. 5%? What the hell happened…? He rubs his finger down his wrist, and his armor dissolves into dust. He slowly stands up, and looks toward a small crater where Abigail had been before. Cautiously, slowly, he makes his way to her body, and feels a combination of relief and repulsion when he sees her laying there. Her clothes had been burned off, and he could see where the lightning stuck her side, a long root system of lightning scars spreading from the point of impact. 

He looks down at her for a moment, the air around him warming back up and the rain stopping. The winds calm, and the clouds begin to clear. He lets out a sigh of relief, looks back to where Maya had been blasted off to before, and shakes his head before turning back to finish his march towards Arihiro. 

Ian Crowley freezes in place for the second time. He felt it. He still feels it. In a reaction even he didn’t expect, his lip quivers and he suddenly feels like he needs to cry. “O’Hare…you have to stop…” he manages to say. 

The very tip of Abigail’s finger was barely grazing Ian’s ankle. Lifting her arm was all the strength she had left. 

Ian returns his attention to her, seeing white eyes staring back at him. “You’re not even awake anymore, are you?” He asks, and the living corpse in front of him doesn’t react. 

“Ian -” Maya’s voice weakly calls out. 

Ian looks to where her voice is coming from. “Maya?” 

“Ian - your -” 

Ian can feel this now, too. He looks up, and his Thunderbird is falling from the sky, an entire wing missing and floating off in a different direction. “What now?!” He asks, spinning to finally take care of his original task - 

He’s met with darkness in front of him. His eyes start to look up, and this darkness turns out to be a figure, jet black and covered in a coat that appears to be a mix of fur and feathers. Once his gaze raises to 9 feet tall, his eyes meet another set. Large red insect eyes stare back at him from above a cowl of fuzz. The figure in front of him spreads its coat, revealing it to be a massive set of wings - the creature screams, and a red flash goes off, blinding Ian and Maya as the light gets brighter, brighter, brighter…

…And then it’s dark again. 

Abigail, Arihiro, and the creature are gone. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

…sorry for how things…

But it’s time for my med….

…what you’ve done?!

Abigail

…rifice must be ma…

..eed to go…

Abigail

..ed me for the final ti…

run

Run

RUN

ABIGAIL!!!!

Abigail’s eyes fly open as she gasps herself back to the world of the living. She pants, unable to catch her breath, and looks down at her body. She’s clothed in an oversized t-shirt and boxers, but her body is almost completely healed. She reaches for her face, patting her cheeks and staring back at her hands. I’m alive…! She thinks, looking around her. The room she’s in is dark, but a small amount of light bleeding through the underside of the door offers enough illumination to pick out a couple things. She’s in a small bedroom, of some sort, in a small twin sized bed with just a single sheet, blanket, and pillow around her. A crooked painting on the cracked walls depicts a sailing ship being knocked around by a storm, but still triumphantly carrying itself forward. Next to her bed is a small table, with a broken lamp and a broken clock resting on top. She places a hand gently on her own throat, and makes a light hum. The vibrations she feels in response reassure her. 

“Hello…?” She weakly calls, surprised by her own voice. It sounds harsher than usual, injured. She clears her throat, but this starts a coughing fit where she spits out a bit of blood into her hands. She stares down at the warm liquid when she’s temporarily blinded by light rushing the room as the door opens. 

“Young Miss? Hello, you have awoken!” A voice booms into the room. 

Abigail’s eyes widen and she sinks further back into the bed. In front of her was a bizarre creature - a moth’s head, complete with large red eyes and antennae that stretched up another foot and a half like massive rabbit ears, with a thick grey scarf of fuzz overtop an elongated coat of wings made of feather and fur. It was easily 10 feet tall, and stood as wide as a bodybuilder with strangely small forked feet at the bottom of its coat. She’s too shocked to respond. 

The creature stares at her, and then recoils. “Oh. I have done this incorrectly. If I could attempt it another time?”

Abigail just stares. 

The creature takes her silence as permission. “Hello, young Miss. You have awoken!” 

Abigail’s mouth opens to speak, but she forgets how. “You - wha - ? I - …” She takes an unsteady breath in. “Hello…?”

The creature nods joyously. “Yes, yes! Hello, you are the one who saved Sir?”

Abigail squints and furrows her brow. “Saved…? What?” She asks, watching the creature sway back and forth. “...Arihiro?”

“Yes, yes! Sir! I must humbly thank you for what you have done,.” The creature says, now bounding with excitement. “Ah, I apologize, I am not yet used to this. When you feel rested after something unexpected?”

“...Relief?”

The moth laughs. “Yes, yes! Ah, correct, relief.”

Abigail allows herself to smile. “I’m, uh, Abigail, by the way.” 

“Abigail! Wonderful! I have been called Actias, and you may refer to me this way as well!”

“Actias. Nice to meet you, friend.” 

Actias gasps. “Friend? Ah, far too kind. Far too kind.” 

Abigail chuckles. “Where are we, exactly?” She asks, shifting to get out of bed. 

“Oh, I must insist you rest. I have done what I can for your wounds, but they require rest.” 

Abigail gives a half-shrug. “Not really the resting type. Where are we?”

Actias sighs. “Same as Sir. Frustrating. Don’t listen.” He turns and motions with his shoulder. “Follow, if you must.” 

Actias leads Abigail through the dingy hallway of a single-family home, and she makes careful notice that all the windows are boarded up. A series of strung holiday lights, blinking in a comforting rhythm, illuminate the house in lieu of traditional light fixtures, leading the way to the central living space, the center spider web of stringed lights extending to each corner of the house. The front door is blocked off, with a hole up top allowing view through the peephole, and the back door, which seemed to at one point be a sliding glass door, has been replaced by a crude concrete wall. Sitting in the center of the room, resting in a meditative pose, is Arihiro. 

“So you didn’t die. Good job,” Arihiro dryly says. “I see you’re recovered now.” 

Abigail cocks her head. “Thanks to your friend here, yeah.” 

“Great. You can go now.” 

“Sir, she must still rest - “

“Actias, please escort our guest out of here.” 

Abigail takes a step forward. “And where is ‘here’, exactly?” 

Arihiro finally turns to look back at Abigail. “Nowhere. Now get lost.” 

“Sir, Miss Abigail just saved your life, do you not - “

Arihiro glares harshly at Actias. 

Actias returns a dejected nod. “I understand. Miss Abigail, if you could come with me?”

Abigail shakes her head. “So what was that, out there? What happened to you?”

“It’s not important. Won’t matter soon.” 

“Is it your Calling?” 

“I said, it’s not important.” 

“But - “ 

Arihiro is suddenly standing, and closing in on Abigail. “Did you hear what Crowley said? I’m a mass murderer, Abigail. A wolf in sheeps skin, a beast laying in the wings, a crazed science experiment. Everything he could’ve said about me is true.” 

“And what a foul beast you are, sacrificing your body to save everyone from the dragon.” 

“I wasn’t trying to save everyone.”

“Just me then? How romantic.” 

Arihiro scowls. “Not you either. Not anyone.” 

“Then why?”

A long, frustrated growl escapes Arihiro. “You wouldn’t understand. I get to have a choice in this.” He shakes his head as soon as he finishes his sentence. “It’s not important. Doesn’t matter. I’m no hero, Abigail O’Hare. I did what I had to do, to do what I want to do. And it’s just as simple as that.” 

Abigail shakes her head too. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“I don’t care what you believe. ‘You can’t tell me how to atone’ - I seem to remember you saying that, while I was somewhere between here and there. Well, you can’t tell me, either.” Arihiro says, his eyes growing cold. 

Abigail stares into his eyes for a moment, and nods, a facetious frown crossing her lips. “All right, then. Actias?” She says, looking towards the uncomfortable creature beside her, “Take me home?” 

Actias nods reluctantly. “As you wish, Miss Abigail.” He reaches out a wing and surrounds her with it as he opens the blocked off door. “Do not look outside my wing.” 

Abigail closes her eyes in compliance, and while she can detect some vague sense of disappointment coming from Actias, she herself feels something completely different. She had been growing concerned with Arihiro’s attitude, confused at his snap from joking over his name to this angsty, frustrated persona, trying to marry the gap between the savior Carlos had described to his sudden declaration of selfish focus. But, he had overplayed his hand. In his attempts to build a wall, he left a gap in the middle from punching out the bricks.

The creature and the girl of fire took flight, soaring across sheer darkness, and while Abigail didn’t dare break the rules and look beyond Actias’ wing, she could feel it. She didn’t need to be told anymore, she knew exactly where they were. 

Arihiro and Actias lived beyond The Deep Woods, beyond Astoria and beyond ‘place’. 

As she felt a bump, followed by the crisp smell of Fall wilderness, she knew. 

They live inside The Void itself. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside Abigail’s apartment, activity was beginning to stir. The lights were all out, the fan turned off, ice maker croaking as it finishes making the last ice cubes to fit inside the tray. In her pen, Miki, right now taking on her Earthly form as a simple grey rabbit, yawns as she fully awakens, tinges of purple flame starting to dance along the edges of her fuzz. 

Abigail’s almost home, she thinks, now gaining the ability to do so upon Abigail’s approach. She stares down at her paws as they start to shine brighter, and smiles. Something happened. I can’t wait to find out.

A key jiggles in the lock. Miki jumps up for joy as the door opens, but instead of Abigail, it’s her sister coming through the doors instead. 

“Lea?” Miki asks, pulling back into her pen. “Where’s Abigail?”

Lea shoots Miki a look instantly. “I was really hoping you knew. Can’t you feel her?” 

Miki shakes her head. “I thought I did, for a moment, but - “ She interrupts herself into silence, and then grins. “Ah, I was right.” 

Lea turns around to see Abigail slowly pulling herself up the steps to her front door, and doesn’t bother waiting for her to finish her ascent before running towards her and holding her tight. 

“Abigail.” Lea says, gently, sadly. “I thought Ian really did it.” 

Miki’s ears perk up. “Ian?! Like IAN CROWLEY?? What the hell happened after I left?!” She shouts, dashing to the edge of the doorframe. “Get in here. You need raisins, and so do I.” 

Abigail remains quiet, but her arms slowly raise and weakly grab Lea, returning the hug as best as possible. 

Lea sighs, and tries to pull back to see her sister’s face, but Abigail grabs her tighter. Lea gives a sad smile and returns to her original position, but feels a shock go through her as Abigail begins to periodically shake. “Abigail…?”

Abigail’s sobbing in her arms. “I”m running…out of time…” she chokes between heaves. 

“Out of time…? To do what?” Lea asks, again trying to look at Abigail’s face but again being denied. 

Miki takes a couple slow hops outside the door, and lands on Abigail’s head. “Come on, Abby. Let’s lay down.” 

The weight of her rabbit on her head was enough to entice movement as she finally releases herself from Lea’s arms. She nods, tears and snot dripping down her face. 

Lea leads the O’Hare trio to Abigail’s couch, turning on the ceiling fan and light above them. The fan rotates slowly at first, hissing out crunches of opposition as it fights against a starting motor, but soon gives way as the rotations speed up. The structure rotates slightly on its hinges, not enough to bring constant worry, but enough to give Lea a light sense of the jitters as it continues to speed up. “What happened out there?” She asks, guiding Abigail to the couch and easing her down. “You don’t seem terribly injured this time…”

“I was. Probably the worst I’ve been in a long, long time,” Abigail replies, laying her face in her hands, “First was the dragon -”

“Dragon?!” Miki shouts. 

“Oh, right, only Lea saw that...last remnants of the Roku’kus showed up. Turned into a massive monster, but when - “

Miki shakes. “You opened it again.” 

“I tried to. But it didn’t work. Arihiro saved us - but it hurt him in the process. Peacekeepers show up, say he’s some sort of mass murderer - “

“Mass murderer?!” Miki shouts again. 

“- and try to take him. I grabbed him, flew away, tussled with Maya and Ian…they almost got me. Almost got him. But…” Abigail sighs, her head falling deeper. “...I was wrong. He does have a Miki. He’s not completely alone. But it’s not enough,” she says, her voice cracking into a desperate cry, “It’s not enough. He won’t make it like this, like that…He…” 

Lea and Miki share a glance. It’d been a long time since either of them saw her break down in this way - the kind of breakdown that comes from an insurmountable task. 

“I think he’s dying.” Abigail finally says. 

Silence fills the room. 

“He’s dying,” Abigail repeats, “he’s dying, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help.” 

“Wait, Abigail, calm down,” Lea says, placing a hand on either side of Abigail’s face, “How do you know? Did he say something?”

Abigail shakes her head violently. “I could see it. It was in his eyes, he tried so hard, he tried so hard to push me away, but I could see it. This light going out, a darkness swimming in. He’s dying,” she repeats one final time, her jaw shaking, “and…I….I don’t think it’s for the first time.” 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day after her massive fight with the Peacekeepers, Abigail O’Hare sits with Carlos in their usual spot for training and planning - the outskirts of The Deep Woods. Why Abigail chose this spot in particular, Carlos could never quite figure out; shades and hazes of creatures ducked and wove their way between the trees, hovering somewhere between harmfully curious and actively mischievous. He glared at what he assumed to be a couple small forms of translucent pixies, but they giggle and leave as he manages to see where they are. 

“...Carlos?” 

Carlos snaps back to attention. “Huh?” Sorry, kinda spaced - “

“I asked what happened after I darted off? Lea said you shot yourself into Michael freaking River?!” Abigail asks, notably more fired up than usual. 

“Oh, ha, yeah, I dunno, I guess I wasn’t really myself - “

“How’d you do it?”
“Huh?”

“You shot yourself straight up in the air? How?”

“Oh. Well, uh, I just sorta thought, ‘man, what if the earth was a geyser’ and poof, just sorta…happened.” 

Abigail nods, carefully analyzing her friend. “Uh-huh. Any adverse effects?” 

Carlos grins with a joking confidence. “Bled like a fire hydrant from my nose and my head still hurts.” 

She just nods again. 

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, I - no. Sorry, I guess - no. You didn’t do anything wrong. I would’ve definitely been toast if you hadn’t gotten at least one Peacekeeper off my ass, and I appreciate you doing that. Just didn’t expect you to get yourself into the fray like that so fast. Are you okay now?”

“Besides the throbbing headache? I’m alright. Landed on top of like…an inflatable crystal, or something, and it broke my fall.” 

Abigail raises an eyebrow. “An inflatable crystal…? You mean Michael -”

“He helped me out, yeah. Said he wasn’t gonna make a big deal about this to Crowley.” 

Abigail’s face drops. “Great. And in return…?”

Carlos laughs, standing up from the stump they’d been sharing and taking a few steps forward, his hand laying in embarrassment over the back of his neck. “You know, he doesn’t seem like that bad of a dude.” 

“So cool. And in return?”

“He did sorta save my life twice, y’know, with the cushion and the not-making-a-big-deal thing…”

“Carlos,” Abigail snaps authoritatively, “And in return?”

Carlos bites his lip, not sure if he was holding back a deep laugh or a scream of terror. “He kinda sorta wanted your help with something.”

“No way.”
“And, well, we ARE a team now, so-”

“You’re fired.”

“Come on -”

Abigail sighs. “Fine, you’re not fired. But what the hell, dude? Last thing I want after all this is to work with some Peacekeeper -”

“You know he destroyed his headset?”

This gives Abigail pause. 

“Yeah,” Carlos continues, “he was getting a call from the other girl, Maya? And he just….smashed the headset while I was waking up.” 

Abigail looks up at Carlos, staring intently into his eyes for a moment. “Did he now?”

Carlos nods. “Maybe he’s not quite so Peacekeeper-aligned?” He posits, laying his chin into his hand as he thinks. “He is young, after all.” 

A gently glowing green deer, decaying and majestic, walks its way out of The Deep Woods, looks towards Abigail and Carlos, and stands steady. 

“Should we be worried about that?” Carlos asks, suddenly feeling the urge to stand completely still. 

“Nah,” Abigail says, giving the creature a nod. “They’re harmless. You know humans weren’t the only things affected by Obscurus, right? These dudes are like…a collection of Phantoms of all the creatures of the woods. You see a lot of them this time of year.” 

“Why in Fall?”

Abigail shrugs. “Fall and Spring are transitional seasons, right? Like, they’re defined by what season they bring you to. Fall gets cool, Spring gets warm. Maybe they just want to use this transitional time to find somewhere else to go.” 

Carlos turns to look at the creature, and his gaze meets its bright green eyes. It blinks at him, nods, and walks toward the city, fading into invisibility as it walks. “Anyway,” Carlos says, “If Michael is coming to you for help? I say we see what we can do. Wouldn’t hurt to have an insider in our corner, y’know?” 

Both of them shudder as something else starts to walk out of The Deep Woods. A dark silhouette, hidden by the still-rising sun. It spreads its wings for a moment, and Abigail sighs in relief as the figure awkwardly walks on tiny feet in their direction, seeming to glide with each step. 

“Abigail -” Carlos says, his body shifting back as flight or flight takes over. 

“Relax,” She responds, getting off the stump and walking towards the figure. “Actias?” 

The figure freezes for a moment, and then hurries to get closer. “Miss Abigail.” 

Carlos’ whole face rises. “Uhhhhhh, Abigail, uhhhh - “

“Carlos, Actias, Actias, Carlos,” Abigail introduces. “What’re you doing here?”

“Ah, Miss Abigail. Mister Carlos. I must…I must humbly ask your assistance. You are, after all, Freelancers, yes?”

Abigail and Carlos shoot each other a look, and then look back at Actias. “...Yeah?” Abigail says tentatively. 

Actias nods, and Abigail’s brow rises in concern when she looks into his eyes. Bulbous and insectoid, normally eyes like this couldn’t convey emotion, but deep inside, she could see it. “Miss Abigail…” Actias begins, his voice suddenly quiet. “I…come here to ask if I may request your services, then.” 

“Uh huh?” She feels a rising wave of energy. 

“Please,” Actias says, suddenly falling to his knees and fully extending his wings in a sad bow, “Please, Miss Abigail. I beg you to please save Sir.” 

“Sir?” Carlos asks. 

“Arihiro,” Abigail says, covering her mouth in surprise.