Return to St. Jonsabooru:
An Egg P.A.C. Halloween Special

One morning, in the Canadian city of St. Jonsabooru, screams could be heard from an apartment like any other.

The sole occupant was having an argument on the phone, and things had escalated to the point of shouting.

“I spent years writing that book and it barely gets any attention, but your half-assed comic goes viral immediately?! That’s bullshit!

“You’re one to talk! Your comics just make the same five jokes over and over and over again, ad nauseum!

“And they don’t want to read about what lesbian romance is actually like?!”

The one on the other end said something. The occupant froze. His eyes went wide with horror.

“You—you don’t even draw your own—what?!”

And the one on the other end said something else – worse. The occupant was silent for a moment, then let out a loud scream.

“Fuck you!”

He threw the phone at the wall. There was a loud noise from the impact, followed by a second one as it fell to the floor. The screen had cracked.

He collapsed on his sorry excuse for a bed and violently attacked his pillow, eventually reduced to a sobbing mess.

He didn’t see the strangely-shaped shadow on the wall.

But he did hear a strangely seductive whisper in his ear:

“It’s so unfair, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I can help you… for a small price…”

In a small mercy, after how chaotic the night had been, the actual trip through the corridor was largely uneventful. The most exciting thing that happened was one of us accidentally kicking something – usually someone else – because ‘shockingly’, it was hard to see in a dark corridor where the only light was the glow of my holographic head.

After the third time this happened, a disgruntled Loria pulled out her phone and switched the torch on. (‘Torch’ in the sense of what US Americans would call a flashlight. Loria’s phone did not have a built-in flamethrower. Disappointing, I know.)

I took the opportunity to give the map another look. I knew, from previous conversations with Juno, that she owned a lot of cafés, but it wasn’t until now that I really got to see just how many she had to her name. This was comparable to the map of a city subway with a lot of stops.

For a moment, doubts flooded my mind. Was accepting Juno’s offer even a good idea? Did she truly have our best interests in mind, or were we merely mortal pawns in a game being played by ancient immortals since the dawn of time?

“Oi, cousin.” Loria’s voice snapped me back to reality. “How many more doors until we get there?”

She’d calmed down a bit, but it was clear that Loria was still a bit agitated, if only through her impatience.

“Alright,” I began, “checking the map, I think—yeah, we just passed the Dead Ninja, so we’ve got a few dozen more to go.”

“Bloody hell, how many cafés does Juno have?” Loria asked as she shone her phone-torch back on the path.

“I was asking myself that earlier.”

Fang made a gesture that seemed to be the quadrupedal equivalent of a shrug, then pointed a paw down the corridor, as if to say ‘let’s keep going’.

And so we kept on walking.

Several dozen doors later, there it was: a door simply labelled, ‘Coffee Bagel, St. Jonsabooru, Canada, Earth.’

“First-Parent, I could go for a bagel right now,” Loria said. “Maybe with cattle-cream cheese and brined salmon fillet?”

Fang grumbled.

“Look, bud, I’m not eating fermented fish again. That was an accident.”

Fang squawked, as if to ask how one could accidentally eat fermented fish.

“I was drunk, okay?!”

“Hang on,” I added. “Fermented fish has that stink. It is very noticeable. How the hell did you not smell it?”

“Again: drunk.”

Fang made a noise, as if to say that being drunk could only excuse so much. Then another, which seemed to say that she definitely needed to stay sober.

“I’m aware, Fang,” Loria grumbled.

Wait…

Fang was just making his usual noises. Yet my brain was registering those noises as speech, with meaning and intent.

Holy shit, the card Juno gave him was working.

One argument later, we finally opened the door.

Like the one on my homeworld, this door led to a small room which clearly hadn’t been used in a while, judging by all the dust. (Thank goodness none of us were allergic.) There were some shelves that contained boxes of what I guessed were more cards, and likely other supplies.

It was then that a realisation hit me.

“Gimme a moment,” I said to the other two. “There’s something I need to do.”

Like always, I was wearing a hoodie, but I’d had the hood down. This time I pulled the hood up. There was a collapsible structure built within the hood, and it helped it keep its shape, framing my holographic head.

Then I reached under my shirt and pulled out a mask. It bore a vague resemblance to a fox’s head, except it also had a simplified version of my face-mark.

The mask fit perfectly over the hoodie’s opening.

The Masked Barista was back.

I looked back at the other two. They were very confused.

“This is the face that Jonsabooru knows me by,” I quickly explained.

“Okay, but… why wear a mask in the first place?” Loria asked.

“Long story.”

Loria frowned.

“You know, your insistence on keeping secrets got us both in trouble before.”

“So did you rushing to tell me shit without thinking about how to stop your employers from finding out,” I snarked back, the eyes on my mask narrowing.

Fang let out a warble, pleading us not to argue.

“Alright, alright,” I grumbled. “I’ll explain later. But for now, we need food and bev.”

I walked over to the door that led to the rest of the café and opened it--

--and was promptly greeted by loud ska music.

Coffee Bagel was a bizarre chimera of black-and-white tiles, gaudily bright colours, and otherwise typical coffee shop décor. The entire aesthetic seemed to be designed specifically to hurt my eyes. Even the staff were dressed like that, with everyone wearing suits, shades, and ties that were competing to see which one could be the ugliest.

Speaking of the staff, they looked in our direction in clear surprise when we entered the room.

“Uh, good afternoon,” one of them said cautiously, in English, “Where are you from?”

“Caffeinated-Chalice-of-Fortune on Patterns-of-Woodland,” I replied, also in English. “Juno sent us.”

“Oh!” The barista’s face lit up. “Juno told us you’d be coming. Please, have something to eat – it’s on the house.”

“We’re getting free food again,” I told the other two. Fang looked happy; Loria did not.

Loria got her bagel (the food, not the cat), Fang got a meat soup, and after some explaining, I got a bacon-and-egg burger. We sat down at a table that was far too dainty to be in a place with such an aggressively gaudy theme. Then again, maybe that was intentional; who knew?

One of the baristas came and sat with us, and made attempts at conversation. However, this barista could only speak English – a language which neither Loria nor Fang were fluent in. So I had to do the bulk of the talking.

“How far are we from the BVA Tower?” I asked.

“We’re in the outskirts of the city,” the barista replied (and I relayed). “The Tower’s close to the city centre. Unless you’ve got someone to drive you, you’ll probably have to take the J-Train to get there. Thank god it’s too early for peak hour traffic.”

“How long does the J-Train take to get there?”

“If nothing goes wrong? About an hour and a half.”

Loria’s fur bristled. Fang gave a reassuring warble.

“Sorry, my cousin here’s impatient,” I explained. “She wants to get in contact with the BVA as soon as possible.”

“Have you tried calling them?”

I very nearly shot that barista A Look. Then it dawned on me.

“Actually, that might not be a bad idea, now that we’re back on Earth.”

I pulled out my phone and opened the contacts app, and began scrolling down to a phone number I hadn’t called in a long time.

That was when the lights flickered.

Then one of the baristas yelled something.

“My painting! My painting!”

We quickly looked up.

On the wall was a painting of a voluptuous woman in a bikini. Or rather, what was left of that painting, as the paint was melting off the canvas at a speed that couldn’t have been natural.

Before long, all that was left was a blank canvas.

The canvas rattled, before flying off the wall, shooting out of the building through the window.

“What the hell?” Loria muttered. “Is that normal here?”

“No.” I replied.

Screams could be heard across St. Jonsabooru. Graphite and ink fell off paper, paint melted from canvases, pixels vanished from screens. Software suddenly began outputting garbage, then crashing. Chatbots only output ellipses. Canvases flew away, pages were torn out of sketchbooks, and fabric flew out and vanished.

All of the stolen materials flew in specific directions, towards one specific place downtown.

At the centre of this was an individual floating in the air: the novelist. Only, the irises and pupils had vanished from his eyes, and they were now glowing pure white.

“Listen to their screams,” he spoke in a voice that seemed to echo on its own. “Listen to how these fools react when deprived of their precious waifus. Like spoiled children, they cannot handle it when their pictures are taken from them – for that is all that they care about: pictures. They have no respect for the purest form of art, the written word.

“I would know. I poured blood, sweat and tears into my novel for years, and got nothing for it. If anything, I was mocked! I was told that writing was easy, that even a child could do it – hell, that even a machine could do it. And yet, people cared about the writing in comics, movies, TV, games, even visual novels?! Fuck you all. I’ve had enough.

“Now—” he flashed a feral smile, and even his teeth seemed to glow, “—I will show them what happens when you disrespect the written word!”

All of the stolen material coalesced around him, then began to form a mass. It grew and grew, taking a vaguely humanoid shape. Paper, wood, fabric, cardboard, even electricity; all joined together in what could only be described as a grotesque paper sculpture, a bastardised mix of origami and papier-mâché – with pigment and dye stolen from coloured paper as the glue.

Before long, the transformation was complete. He was now a blank white humanoid figure, angular in every way. His new body was made of paper turned into sharp, jagged shapes, with every finger and toe ending in sharp claws, and the knees, elbows and shoulders having spikes jutting out of them. Even the head was quite angular, complete with horns.

He was ‘only’ twelve metres tall, but that was still enough to make a loud thud and a small shockwave when he landed back on the ground.

He let out a sigh of exhilaration, and smiled menacingly, baring his sharp teeth.

“St. Jonsabooru… can you handle a Blank Canvas?!”

And Blank Canvas let out a loud, maniacal laugh.

“What the hell is going on?” Loria asked, staring at the screen of the phone. Several of the baristas, including the one who sat with us, had pulled out their phones, so we had a live feed.

“Someone’s gone kaiju,” the barista replied. “Going by that speech, sounds like a writer with a chip on their shoulder who got pushed too far.”

Loria and Fang stared blankly.

“Sorry, if someone ‘goes kaiju’, that means they’ve turned into a giant rampaging monster.”

Now both of them looked alarmed.

Fang squawked that this wasn’t right – that while he could see where the kaiju was coming from, this wasn’t worth turning into a rampaging giant monster over.

“Yeah. We need to help.” Loria quickly got to her feet.

“How?” I asked. “You’re just an ex-rugby player and a rock cat-bird! And we just got here!”

At that, Loria gave a toothy grin, pulled out the card from her pocket and showed it to me.

Red Sword. Oh.

“How are you going to get there, though? Looks like this kaiju’s in the city centre, and that’s too long on the J-Train.”

“Hold on,” the barista responded, also getting to their feet. “My car’s not far away. I can drive you there – takes about twenty minutes, if nothing goes wrong.”

“If nothing goes wrong,” I added.

A few minutes later, the three of us plus the barista had all climbed into their car, and were already on the motorway that headed into the city proper. I noticed a lot of vehicles were going away from the city, to my lack of surprise.

There wasn’t a lot of talking, as the barista’s phone was kept on the live feed of the kaiju’s rampage. Loria was doing whatever stretches she could manage in a car seat, and Fang was keeping an eye out the window.

As for me, I withheld the urge to rant about the fact that being on the right side of the road, with the steering wheel on the left of the car, confused the shit out of me – back on the Seven Moons we drive on the left side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the right of the car.

Instead, I pulled out the card Juno gave me and took a look at it.

Blue Chalice of Spirits
Use this card on a beverage, and you will grant its waters the power to influence the emotions of the one who drinks it.

… Okay, that seemed possibly unethical. Thanks, Juno.

Elsewhere in St. Jonsabooru, there was a room full of penguins. Some of them weren’t actually penguins, but rather people in costumes; the actual penguins didn’t seem to notice or care. They were just going about their business, preparing various computers and drawing utensils for another day of work.

The lights flickered. That was their only warning before the computers all blue-screened. Seconds later, pixels seemed to fly out of the monitors, mixed with arcs of electricity from the towers—through the wall of the room.

One of them followed the pixels through the hole they left. Ultimately they went through a window. Through that window, they could see something appearing in the distance, and growing larger and larger.

A loud sound – the sound of an alarm – began to ring throughout the building.

“Attention, combat personnel!” A voice came through on loudspeaker. “Someone in Downtown Jonsabooru has gone kaiju and is on a rampage. In addition to putting countless ordinary civilians in danger, this rampage has already damaged our tower and the artworks within. Combat personnel are recommended to mobilise immediately!”

One of the people in a penguin costume sighed.

“I’ll go. You stay here and try to repair as much of the damage as you can.”

Remember when I said that the car trip would take about twenty minutes ‘if nothing went wrong’? Well, something did go wrong, and the something in question was a traffic jam – at a place where traffic jams weren’t common. After five minutes of sitting still, with equally stationary cars on all sides of us, it became clear we weren’t going anywhere.

“Hey, could you check to see what might be causing this?” the barista asked.

I pulled out my phone and opened up the traffic app. Thank goodness I hadn’t removed any of the Jonsabooru apps from my phone – I’d considered it a few times back on the Seven Moons, but choosing not to was paying off right now.

The motorway we were on was at a standstill. And according to the app—

“The kaiju broke a giant jar of jam and it landed on this highway,” I said, paraphrasing the app.

Loria swore loudly in Septolunar.

“Damn it! It’s on a rampage now and we’re stuck here?!”

Fang put a paw on his spirit-sister’s shoulder and made a soft noise to try and calm her down.

“You know what? Sod it.” Loria undid her seat belt.

“Loria, wait!” I reached out to try to stop her, but she’d already opened the door and hopped out of the car.

Fang groaned in frustration. Then he took a breath to mentally prepare, undid his own seat belt, and quickly followed her out.

The barista and I looked at each other with a mix of exasperation and concern.

Loria was better at understanding English than she was at speaking it. When the other drivers stuck on the highway were yelling at her and Fang for getting out of the car and running to the edge of the road, she knew about enough to understand what they were saying – something along the lines of ‘what the hell are you thinking’ and ‘you crazy cat bitch’ – but she wasn’t sure how to respond.

She knew what she was sure about, though. Something had to be done about that giant creature. And if that got the BVA’s attention, so much the better.

Eventually, she found her way to the side of the road. They hadn’t hit the city proper yet, but she could see tall buildings in the distance. Besides, if what her cousin had said was true, perhaps she just had to follow the trail of destruction.

Once more, she pulled out the card Juno gave her, and gave it a look. It was red, depicting a sword with a spade as the pommel, and the blade covered in flames.

Red Sword of Destruction
This card will enhance all of your natural abilities to the level of the superhuman.

This had better do as it says…

Loria took a deep breath and extended her arm, holding the card to the sky as if in offering.

“Juno, Goddess of Fortune! Give me the strength to protect!”

From where I was, I saw a bright flash of red light. No doubt the other drivers saw that too, judging by the noises I heard.

Then the light faded. I looked out the window of the car, and what I saw – just barely – would have made my jaw drop if I still had a jaw.

Loria was in a suit of crimson armour. It was hard to see the details from where I was, but she had gained a helmet, proper breastplate, a shoulderpad, a waist-cape, enormous boots and gauntlets, and even a scarf.

She crouched, as if preparing to run.

Then, a loud sound, as if a gunshot had gone off—she took off in a crimson blur, leaving behind a massive cloud of dust.

First Fang’s, now Loria’s. There was now no doubt that Juno’s cards worked.

Speaking of Fang, I heard an indignant squawk. He was fast, but he couldn’t run as fast as this new super-Loria. Still, he took off himself, his four legs carrying him as fast as they were able.

Thankfully he didn’t have to go far before the red blur returned. Loria quickly and sheepishly picked her companion up and slung him fireman-style over her shoulders. Then she took off again.

Things had gone well and truly into the realm of the superhuman (super-being?) now. Meanwhile, the barista and I were still stuck in traffic, and we’d probably have some explaining to do once the BVA showed up.

…wait, the BVA!

I quickly opened the Contacts app again, and scrolled down to a particular number I hadn’t called in years. It took little time for me to hit the Call button and hold the phone up to my ear.

It was several long rings before I got an answer.

“Uh, hello?”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“Nasue?! Oh my god, you’re alive?!”

At ‘just’ 12 metres tall, Blank Canvas was relatively small for a kaiju. However, he was no less destructive than his much larger fellow giants.

His razor-sharp arms and claws let him slice through billboards like scissors through tissue paper. No-one was going to miss those grotesque advertisements.

His clenched fists smashed signs and neon lights. How dare they mock the written word!

His feet crashed into sculptures, reducing them to rubble. He laughed at the terrified screams of passersby. That was what they got for seeing any value in those glorified rocks.

Slowly he approached the Crabman Institute of the Arts. They only cared about pretty pictures, not real art. And their idea of ‘pretty pictures’ was grotesque at best.

One of the art installations nearby was a giant smiley face that was on fire. A meme. Inexcusable.

Blank Canvas quickly snatched the flaming smiley face and threw it at the Institute.

It crashed into one of the walls and exploded. From within, he could hear alarms going off, and more screaming – more fools whose priorities were wrong, no doubt.

Blank Canvas grabbed the walls and began pulling them apart, exposing more of the Institute’s insides. The face’s explosion had started a fire, and while the sprinklers were making a valiant attempt to put it out, all he had to do was tear out the walls and ceilings where the sprinklers were.

The fools inside were evacuating. He let them be. He had one specific target in mind…

That was when he heard an unexpected noise. It sounded like a whistle, except it was rising in pitch, and…

coming towards him—

very rapidly—

To onlookers, it would have looked like the giant paper humanoid was suddenly struck in the face by a small red blur.

The impact was loud – and enough to knock Blank Canvas off his feet. He crashed into the ground, crushing a building that, thankfully, was already scheduled for demolition. (The demolition company was probably grumbling about their newly-lost paycheck, though.)

The red blur began to descend. As she did, there was a squawk, and a pair of strange green wing-like fins rapidly spread. The figure glided, slowing descent and changing direction, before landing on the roof of a nearby building.

Fang quickly retracted his patagia – wing-like fins that allowed him to glide – and climbed down from Loria’s shoulders. The two quickly surveyed the scene. Neither of them knew the area; they just knew that a big, fancy-looking building was damaged and on fire, people were evacuating from it, and that she’d accidentally destroyed another building by knocking over the kaiju. Hopefully that building didn’t have any people in it.

Speaking of, the kaiju was now groaning and getting up. He was clearly angry about being interrupted.

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?!” He bellowed. “Who the fuck interrupted my rampage?!”

Well, at least he admitted it was a rampage.

For a moment, Loria thought about their options. The kaiju was still there—but the museum was still on fire—but people were evacuating—but the kaiju might notice—

The kaiju spotted them.

“You!” He roared. “You’re going to face consequences for helping these fucks!”

Well, that decided it.

Blank Canvas got up and lunged at the building, aiming for a punch.

Loria crouched, tensing up her muscles, then leapt into the air. She prepared her own punch.

Tiny fist and gigantic fist met in mid-air.

Both punches came to a complete standstill.

Blank Canvas blinked in confusion.

“What?!”

Loria quickly used her other hand to dig her claws into the giant paper knuckle – the gauntlets even came with super-claws. She promptly climbed up onto the back of the giant’s hand.

“Get off me, you insect!”

Blank Canvas quickly tried to grab the ‘insect’ with his other hand, but she dodged it and began to run and climb up his arm, dodging more attempts to grab her along the way.

This guy was made of paper, cardboard and cloth – all materials known for being vulnerable to slicing and cutting. So if her new super-claws were super enough…

She got to the shoulder. Then the neck. Then climbing up the back of the head, nearly getting thrown off.

Finally, she was at the top of the head.

One crouch, then she leaped into the air.

She clapped her hands together, forming her hands into a blade with the claws at the end.

She did a somersault in the air and dove back down, claws first.

The top of the kaiju’s head raced towards her, faster and faster—

Thunk.

The giant was not bisected.

Instead, her hands were half-buried in the giant’s paper-cardboard-cloth hide.

“What was that supposed to do?”

Uh oh.

Across Jonsabooru, people watching a feed of Blank Canvas’s rampage reacted to the sudden appearance of a vigilante in red.

Some were excited, cheering for the possible saviour (including some who, disturbingly, cheered as if it were a sportsball game).

Some thought that the newcomer was an idiot, taking on an opponent many times her size, even if the kaiju was ‘only’ 12 metres tall.

And some were wondering who the hell that was and if she was part of the BVA.

The BVA themselves, however...

“Oh god, another vigilante.”

There was a control room of sorts in the BVA Tower, where a team of people could monitor situations from afar and stay in contact with any operatives out on the field. They had someone keeping an eye on Blank Canvas, and so spotted the red stranger fighting him.

Their reaction to the appearance of the vigilante was to groan and facepalm.

“Another one?” One of them went. “We’ve already got too many of them running around!”

“First the pay cuts, then the layoffs, now the vigilantes,” another grumbled. “What next, City Hall actually decides we’re not needed and disbands us?”

“Hey.” A stern voice came from boss of the control room. “What did I say about the doom and gloom attitude?”

The two operators glared at her before returning to work.

The boss sighed and rubbed her temples. This was getting more and more difficult by the day. The BVA was under more pressure than it had ever been, even more than when it was defending the city from Jolianna and her master. The organisation’s very existence could be at stake.

How long would it be until another person broke from that pressure?

“Wait! Everyone, wait!”

A different voice shouted from the entrance to the control room. The operators turned around.

It was a person in a penguin costume. They were holding a phone in one hand.

“You’re not gonna believe this, but—” the not-penguin took a moment to catch their breath. “Nasue’s on the phone.”

There was a murmur among the operators. Many of them looked at each other with surprised expressions. Some others just looked confused.

“Wait, who’s Nasue?” An intern asked.

“Sir, how many times do I have to ask you to please evacuate the building?!”

A crab-like humanoid in black t-shirt and jeans was seated in his office inside the Crabman Institute of the Arts. He was gripping a controller tightly in his claw-like hands, for he was playing a first-person shooter. He barely even looked at the second crab in the doorway to his office.

“And how many times do I gotta tell ya, I need to win this match!” the crab snapped back. “If I lose because a little fire forced me to leave, the Bees’ll never let me live it down!”

The second crab facepalmed (or perhaps the word would be ‘face-clawed’).

“Sir, the building is on fire and is being destroyed by a kaiju.”

“So? Not my problem.”

“You are the CEO of the Institute! On top of that, your life is in potential danger! This is one hundred percent your problem!”

“God, you’re worse than my mom!” The bratty crab CEO slouched in his chair. “What, do you think the problem’s gonna come right to this room?”

That was the precise moment that Loria – having been grabbed and thrown by Blank Canvas – crashed through the ceiling and landed with another crash, crushing the console the CEO was playing on, the TV it was attached to, and the furniture they were both on.

“Ir’huus’ria!” Loria yelled an apology in Septolunar. Then she froze. Why had she apologised in her native language? Maybe the stress was getting to her.

The two crabs didn’t understand what she’d said. However, the one closer to where she’d landed definitely understood what had just happened to the things she’d landed on.

“You—you broke my Gamer Station!” The CEO jumped out of his chair and pointed at her. “I was this close to winning a match and you ruined it! And do you know how much a Gamer Station costs!?”

“Sir,” the second crab said, “you called ten thousand Canadian dollars ‘cheap’ just last week.”

“Are you accusing me of being inconsistent?!” The CEO yelled.

“Yes.”

“Anyway,” the CEO turned back to look at the red-clad stranger. “You owe me triple—”

“There you are!”

The crabs barely had time to react before a gigantic hand, made of cloth and paper and every finger clawed, crashed through the hole.

The hand grabbed the CEO.

“Wait! Let me go!” The CEO squirmed and yelled in fear. He looked at the other crab. “Don’t just stand there! Help me!”

The other crab hesitated for a moment.

“Actually, you know what?” the second crab said. “I quit.”

The CEO screamed, right before the hand rapidly exited the building, taking him with it.

The red-clad stranger had sat there, stunned, but now had got up to her feet and was preparing to jump after the giant hand.

“Excuse me, can you speak Galactic Common?” That was the second crab.

Loria froze in surprise.

“I can,” she replied in Galactic Common.

“That guy whose TV you just destroyed and who just got grabbed? That’s the CEO of the Crabman Institute of the Arts,” the second crab explained. “He took over after the first one was killed several years ago – local years, I should say. The first one was his dad. And we quickly learned that this guy was a spoiled brat who’d never actually had to work in his life.”

“Oh, First-Parent, he’s one of those,” Loria groaned.

The second crab nodded.

“We tried to control the damage, but we knew he was going to get in trouble one of these days. That kaiju who’s attacking him?”

The crab pulled out his phone and brought up an image on the screen. It was a close-up of a human face.

“That’s who he was before he transformed. I think he’s someone the CEO has bad blood with.”

“Oh.” Loria’s eyes went wide as the realisation hit her.

“So, I dunno about you, but if it were me, I’d just let the kaiju kill the CEO. He deserves it.”

Loria briefly hesitated, her emotions conflicted. Then she shook her head.

“Even if the CEO had it coming, that kaiju’s still hurting people who had nothing to do with this. That needs to stop. And I’m going to stop him, even if it kills me.”

The crab looked at her with a mix of emotions – exasperation, concern, some others… then shook his head and gave a small smile.

“Alright. I know where the fire escape is. Follow me.”

“People of St. Jonsabooru!” Blank Canvas roared triumphantly. “My rampage has been fun, sure, but I did not go on this rampage for no reason. No, I was after someone specific.”

He held up his prisoner, who was still screaming in terror.

“I present to you Jeremy Crabman, son of known mafia boss Terrence J. Crabman, CEO of the Crabman Institute of the Arts, and a criminal in his own right!”

There was a crowd fleeing the Institute now, but they weren’t much of an audience; they were too busy fleeing for their lives. However, there were helicopters approaching, and some were definitely news copters. They would do.

“Several months ago, Crabman Junior became a cartoonist. Frankly, his comics are shit. They insult the intelligence of people attracted to females, by assuming they’ll be won over by generic half-naked women making the same five jokes over and over. And yet, they go viral. Every damn time!

“So many, so many people sang Crabman Junior’s praises, calling him an upcoming great of the cartoon scene – queued up to kiss your ass, like always. Well, that ends today.” Blank Canvas smiled sadistically.

“It’s only fair, plagiarist.”

Up to that point, Crabman had been continuing to scream and beg for help – but the moment his captor uttered that word, he froze, and his eyes somehow went even wider than they were before.

Then they narrowed, and he turned to look at his captor.

“You.” He snarled. “You should have just accepted that people are stupid and gullible, you pathetic piece of shit.”

“Bold words from someone I could crush to death!”

Crabman whimpered again. The whimpering didn’t last long this time, though.

“So what if I copy work done by students attending the Institute?!” he spat. “If they didn’t want their work to be copied, then those dumbasses shouldn’t have submitted those in the first place, obviously! That is why I’m successful: because unlike them or you, I’m not a fucking moron!”

For a moment, Crabman had a smug smile on his face.

That disappeared when he heard yelling from below.

By then, a crowd had gathered nearby (though not too close to the kaiju), and had been listening to Blank Canvas’s speech – and they had heard Crabman’s confession. Some of them – then many of them – began yelling in anger.

“I fucking knew it!” “I told you he stole my work!” “No-one believed us!” “You monster!”

“People of St. Jonsabooru!” Blank Canvas roared once more. “Do you hear this?! Jeremy Crabman has confessed! He is a guilty man!”

“Blank Canvas is right!” “Make him face justice!” “He should pay for what he’s done!”

The kaiju’s sadistic smile grew even wider.

“Please!” Crabman begged, tears welling in his eyes. “Let me go! I-I’ll pay you! I’ll give you all the money you could ever want! I’ll even give you the best publishing deal in the world!”

“Hmm… you know what? You’re right. I’ll let you go.”

And he did—

Except he let go of Crabman more than 12 metres up in the air.

It took a second and a half for Crabman to plummet, screaming, to his death.

Fang hadn’t been sitting idly while things had been happening. He couldn’t keep up with this new super-Loria, but there were things he could do, like help evacuate the people in the burning building.

As he ran through the building, squawking loudly to get peoples’ attention and help guide them, he didn’t see a corrupt CEO or signs of exploitation. He saw frightened students trying to find a way out, trying to get their stuff. He saw staff trying to salvage what they could and guide the students to the exit.

He couldn’t speak English, but for the first time in his life, people actually understood what he was saying when he made his noises. If rock gryphons were capable of shedding tears, he would be. He made a note to thank Juno later.

After what seemed like an eternity of frantic running, he was able to get a good number of people out, and they were evacuating to an underground shelter away from the rampaging kaiju. Or at least, they were supposed to.

Instead, a number of students had gathered to watch the kaiju, who was now holding someone up in the air. Fang could barely understand what the giant paper creature was saying, nor what his prisoner was saying. Something about how this crab made cartoons but was bad at it? Or that the crab copied other peoples’ work?

However, when the crowd of students started yelling in response, one thing became clear:

They were bloodthirsty. They wanted the crab to die.

Fang felt sick to his stomach. Even if that crab had wronged the people who were supposed to be under his care, he needed to face justice in the courts – not executed by a giant vigilante.

Then the giant let go of the crab – many metres up in the air.

Fang didn’t have time to save him before he crashed into the ground. Blue blood and gore, and reddish exoskeleton pieces, were sent flying everywhere, some even splashing onto people in the crowd.

The crowd were now screaming in horror. Some of them looked like they were about to lose their lunches.

“What the fuck?! First you want me to kill him, and now you’re upset he’s dead?!”

The kaiju roared at the crowd, a furious expression on his face.

“You’re secretly on his side, aren’t you?!”

The crowd was panicking now. Some of them were breaking and running away.

“Fucking cowards! I’ll kill you all!”

That, Fang understood perfectly.

The kaiju was going too far.

The rock gryphon let out a loud scream – GET AWAY!

As the crowd dispersed and ran, he ran out and stood in front of where they were – patagia spread, all fur standing on end, making himself look as big as possible.

Right now, all he could do was buy the crowd a few seconds. Hopefully that would be enough.

“Oh, you’re that insect’s wings.” Blank Canvas narrowed his eyes as he looked at the defiant small creature. “How annoying. Guess I’ll just crush you first.”

Fang growled loudly, daring his giant opponent to just try.

Blank Canvas raised his leg, and he saw the shadow of his foot looming over him.

“The insect is no match for the boot!”

Fang burst into a run, aiming to go in a circle around the kaiju. He stopped after a short burst, and the kaiju moved his leg in turn.

Another short burst of speed, then stopping. The kaiju followed.

Another sprint, aim adjusted again.

“Stand still, you fucking cockroach!”

Fang, annoyed at being compared to a cockroach, refused to grant that particular demand.

After what must have been half a minute of this cycle, the paper giant must have had enough, because he finally lowered his foot—and lunged directly at the rock gryphon, trying to grab him.

Fang barely managed to dodge.

Then he heard a rush of wind, and felt someone lift him off his feet.

“Nisia'mesar he'rusaro si asi'ath!” ‘Leave my spirit-brother alone!’

It was Loria. Fang almost squeaked in surprise and relief. His spirit-sister was here.

Loria, aided by her new super-speed, rushed up the wall of a nearby office tower and stopped on the roof. This one was taller than the ‘merely’ 12-metre tall Blank Canvas, so they got to look down on him for a change.

Fang quickly adjusted himself so that he was back on his spirit-sister’s shoulders. It also gave him a clear view of the paper giant.

Blank Canvas looked up at where the intruders were and roared once more.

“You again?! Why don’t you leave me alone for a change?!”

Loria looked back at her spirit-brother.

“I can’t beat this guy on my own,” she said in Septolunar. “But if we can buy enough time for help to get here…”

“Wait, who’s Nasue?”

Other operators in the control room looked at the intern. The intern winced, wondering what they’d done wrong this time.

“Nasue Blue is the former manager of our café,” another operator finally replied. “They quit about a year ago to go back home, or something like that.”

“Would’ve been before your time,” yet another operator added. “So don’t feel too bad, okay?”

The intern sighed in relief.

“Anyway,” the boss said, “Put Nasue on loudspeaker.”

The penguin-suited one nodded and pressed a button on their phone.

“Alright, you’re on loudspeaker now,” the not-penguin said.

“Am I?” A voice neither feminine nor masculine – my voice – came through.

“Hello, Manager Blue,” the boss replied. “It’s been a while.”

“Manager? Oh First-Pare-- god, sorry, it’s been ages. But you can drop the ‘Manager’ stuff. Just ‘Nasue’ is fine now.

“Anyway, that red vigilante who’s fighting the paper kaiju? That’s my cousin.”

“You have a cousin?!” The boss replied, surprised.

“Wow. By the way, I also have parents,” I dryly remarked. “Anyway, yes. Her name’s Loria; she means well, but she’s an impulsive idiot – I know she’s just trying to help and didn’t think this through. She’s got a magic card that’s giving her those superpowers, I guess.

“Oh, and she can’t speak English. Just her native language and Galactic Common.”

The operators looked at each other with surprise.

“Is that going to be a problem?” the boss asked. “We’ve got a team on the way, and they’ve got Joniversal Translators with them.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I had to translate for her when we first arrived at St. Jonsabooru. But really, whatever happens… just try to help her, okay?!”

“Stop flying around and let me hit you!”

Fang swooped past, his patagia allowing him to glide surprisingly fast for what the concept of gliding would imply. He blew a raspberry at the paper giant as he ‘flew’ past.

“What’s the matter?” Loria yelled from the kaiju’s armpit. “Not so good against someone who can actually fight back?”

“Shut up!”

He couldn’t understand Septolunar, but he sure understood that she was taunting him.

He tried to grab the ‘insect’ in his armpit, but Loria jumped down, dodging his hand. She dug her claws into the kaiju’s side, slowing her descent, before she took off on all fours, running across the giant’s torso, dodging more attempts to grab her.

This continued for several minutes – Fang flying past, Loria running all over the giant, and Blank Canvas repeatedly trying and failing to grab his opponents.

It was clear that Blank Canvas was starting to get frustrated, or at least more frustrated than he was before. He already wasn’t the most graceful of giants, but his movements were more clumsy and rushed than before.

Maybe they could tire him out?

Then their luck ran out.

During one swoop, Fang got distracted at a bad time, and flew right into one of the giant’s horns.

He squawked in shock and pain.

He didn’t have time to get away before Blank Canvas grabbed him.

Loria saw this, and her eyes went wide in shock.

“Let him go!” she yelled. She charged, aiming directly for the arm holding her partner.

Blank Canvas grabbed her with his other hand.

Damn it, not again!

“You,” he snarled, “need to just fucking die already.”

He lifted both of his captives into the air, and began gripping them tighter, then tighter--

--he was going to just crush them both to death.

“This is what happens to those who try to stop Blank Canvas!”

Damn it… the second time that day, and this time there was no goddess to come to their rescue.

Loria and Fang could only hope that they’d bought enough time…

A linear bolt of energy shot through the air.

Before he had time to react, the bolt went through both of Blank Canvas’s arms.

The hands immediately fell, severed from the rest of the kaiju.

Blank Canvas screamed and stumbled backwards.

Loria quickly tore herself free, and jumped to the other hand, tearing it apart to get her partner out of there.

Then she jumped. Fang spread his patagia and the two glided away from the wounded kaiju.

Fang squawked – look!

A human on a flying skateboard was coming right towards them. This human was clad in a black robe, had purple hair, and was wearing a beanie. (Why was the skateboard flying? …why were they questioning that specific thing?)

“Oh, thank god, we got here in time,” the human said. “You’re the vigilantes, right?”

… Was the human speaking Septolunar? Loria blinked in confusion. Fang, though, nodded and made a noise that roughly translated to ‘yeah’.

“You’re lucky we got here when we did,” the human continued. “Your cousin had time to vouch for you.”

Cousin…?

“You know Nasue?” Loria asked hesitantly.

“Not directly, but they used to work for my employer. I work for the BVA.”

Loria and Fang’s eyes went wide. Finally.

“Anyway, thanks for buying us time,” the human said. “Get to safety. We’ll take it from here.”

With that, the human turned and flew in a specific direction, away from the descending duo.

As they glided, Loria and Fang saw that she was flying towards two other new combatants.

One of them was a giant machine that resembled a penguin, with a rifle in its flippers. Judging by the smoke, that was the source of the bolt of energy. Loria made a note to thank that one later.

The second was the seventy-eighth-largest dragon the two had ever seen, ‘only’ 9 metres tall at the shoulder. This was still large enough for them to see that this dragon resembled a weird cross between a wolf and a pterosaur.

And definitely large enough for the scaled beast to charge right at Blank Canvas and tackle him.

If Blank Canvas had been losing his composure before, this destroyed any last traces of it. He was clearly out of his depth, and he knew it.

“Let me go!” the paper kaiju pleaded. “Please! I’ll stop my rampage if you let me go!”

“No.” The dragon’s response was concise.

Instead, the dragon twisted and manoeuvred until they had the paper kaiju completely helpless.

“Alright, Boulder-Hopper, split him open!”

The penguin withdrew the rifle and swung one flipper. The flipper suddenly developed a blade and began to glow and vibrate at the same time.

Blank Canvas’s eyes went wide.

“No! Don’t--!”

The penguin charged right at the kaiju.

Blank Canvas screamed.

It was the last sound he made before the flipper-blade made contact--

and sliced him open, vertically.

Loria and Fang shut their eyes and looked away.

However, a strange humming noise got their attention. They opened their eyes and looked back.

The penguin now stood to the side, the flipper-blade returned to a normal flipper.

The dragon was holding on to the split-open body of the kaiju.

The human on a flying skateboard had approached something within the body.

And that something was a floating human, curled up in a ball, emitting a strange glow.

“I knew it,” the witch said with a sigh. “Another Rage Glitch victim.”

The dragon and penguin looked at each other with concerned expressions. Meanwhile, she pulled out a number of cards, each with a series of symbols on them.

“Be ready,” she warned. “Rage Glitches can get loud when they’re threatened.”

Her eyes glowed. She began chanting, and the cards floated out of her hands, surrounding the possessed floating human.

A distorted voice let out an unearthly scream. It was so loud that it briefly disrupted the witch’s chanting; Fang nearly fell out of the sky in shock at the sound; and people could hear it from multiple blocks away.

But the witch kept chanting, and the ritual kept going.

In less than a minute, all of the cards had formed a sphere surrounding the possessed human. They all glowed at the same time.

There was a flash of bright light.

With a horrific noise, the Rage Glitch was torn out of its host.

It took a form vaguely similar to a face, howling in sheer fury at being defeated.

Then the witch clapped her hands.

The Rage Glitch fizzled out of existence.

There was a hum in the air. The paper, cloth, wood and cardboard that had made up Blank Canvas began to slide off the giant’s body.

They floated in the air and then began to fly away.

Loria and Fang watched, in awe, as the materials left the battlefield like migrating birds.

The barista and I saw it from the car, still stuck on the motorway.

All across St. Jonsabooru, the stolen materials flew, and returned home.

Paper filled their sketchbooks once again. Canvases returned to the frames and easels they sat in. Plushies reformed. Screens returned to normal. (Chatbots still didn’t work, though.)

And the drawings, paintings, and such returned to the surfaces that they had once adorned.

Within minutes, the destruction caused by the formation of Blank Canvas had been undone.

The human dropped from the sky, but was quickly caught by the witch, who gently lowered him to the ground.

He groaned and opened his eyes, which had gone back to their natural colour.

“Where am I?” he quietly said. “What… happened?”

The witch sighed. She always hated this part…

By the time the traffic jam finally cleared, we had been stuck there for several hours – longer than Loria and Fang’s entire confrontation with the kaiju. Even though the barista and I weren’t the ones in danger, we were still exhausted from the whole ordeal – not to mention hungry and in need of beverages.

The nearest convenient place to eat was a sandwich place known as Frogway. Not the best sandwiches in the world, but at that moment we really needed food.

After a while, I got a text message. It was from the person I’d called on the phone earlier.

Where are you?

Filling my gullet with a Frogway concoction, I replied.

You might want to come to your old cafe ASAP. Some old friends are here. Your cousin, too.

…they weren’t.

“Hey,” I said to the barista, “sorry to bother you again, but could you drop me off near the BVA Tower once we’re done here?”

“After I finish this pop,” the barista replied through a mouthful of Proton Cola.

Now that the traffic jam was gone, the rest of the drive to the BVA Tower wasn’t that long. Before I knew it, and yet after what seemed like an eternity, half an hour had gone by, and I climbed out of the barista’s car.

Night had fallen by now. The tower was lit up from within by dozens of lights. Combined with the sheer height of the building, it was gigantic… or, on the outside, a typical skyscraper.

In walking distance was a much smaller building – a café.

It wasn’t a long walk, but it felt like an eternity.

So many memories were in that small space.

I could see that things had changed since I had gone.

Would I even recognise what was inside once I opened the door?

Well, I grabbed the handle, opened the door…

And was greeted by a rock gryphon tackling me.

I nearly fell over, but managed to regain my balance with the help of leaning against the wall.

“Hey, Fang,” I muttered. “Good to see you’re okay.”

Fang chirp-meowed happily.

“Oh, you survived the traffic.” Loria’s voice spoke up from nearby. She was no longer transformed, and was carrying a mug of some strong-scented coffee.

“And you survived the kaiju,” I responded, deadpan as ever.

Both of us were silent for a moment.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I finally said. “You could’ve been killed, you know.”

“Yeah,” my cousin replied quietly. “I know.”

Fang dropped back to the ground and returned to his spirit-sister’s side.

Meanwhile, I got up, looking around at the interior of the café.

Multiple familiar faces had gathered there – people I knew from my time as part of the BVA.

People who were there to welcome me back to Earth, even after all this time.

If I was capable of crying, tears would have been forming in my eyes.

It was good to be home.

Meanwhile, on Eris…

“Yes, the traitor and her cousin have arrived on Earth. Remember, though; all is not yet lost.

“Yes, one of your Rage Glitch servants has been defeated. Fear not, Your Grace; ‘tis only one.

“We should not rush our plans, of course. Like you, and like my beloved, I aspire for nothing less than a Grand Finale.

“It will be truly a night to remember… O Goddess of Discord and Strife.”