The world got spooky as Halloween approached. It was as if the System itself knew of the hokey tradition and decided to spin up a few Essence anomalies for the season. Graveyards jiggled, unfurling and spitting new horrors awake. Pumpkins might come alive and chase children, demanding candy or parts of their souls. The monster under one's bed turned out to be real. That strange feeling when passing a mirror? As if something was looking out, just waiting to replace you? Yeah, best not to blink. Try to catch the smile. They're probably friendly.

"We're never going to find them at this rate. It's already been almost two hours!" Mary stopped under the flickering streetlight and swore down the empty street.

Alex had the heebie-jeebies. They were in an area he liked to avoid, and not because it was riddled with crime.

Locals called it the Dead Zone, as it lay between downtown and the East End. Abandoned factories and houses crumbled under overgrown vegetation. Those not welcome or those who wanted to avoid mostly civilized society lived there. Things lurked. Unexplainable things often used to terrify children into getting home on time. Only the stories were true. And of course, Mary had to have a hissy fit in the creepiest spot.

"I'm getting a bad feeling," Alex licked his lips and stared at the dilapidated building across the street. "Are you guys getting a bad feeling?"

"Mmmmmmm!" Brody poked Alex on the shoulder.

Alex didn't look his clone's way. He just gulped while his brain figured out the quickest path to the hell out of there.

"I know, man," He pointed at the building. "That place? Closed down sometime in the nineties. Even creepy back then, I'd bet," he sighed. "I just know that place is filled with nasties."

Every local knew of the condemned mental asylum. Somehow, in the thirty-some-odd years before the System came, no developers bought the land. It just felt…soiled. Even those without homes avoided the place. Alex sure had. Over a hundred years the ginormous Victorian house used medieval methods to treat patients into drooling sanity. Prisoners more like it. Good riddance that it was closed, but that didn't make the aptly named House of Dymphna any less creepy.

"Are you done having a fit?" Alex asked Mary. "Because there's no way Brody and me are going in there. Right Brody?"

There wasn't a mumble or moan from the clone, and when Alex turned his way, he realized that Brody was gone. Dissolved and back in the unspace. He'd been trying to tell Alex that his time was up.

"Crap," he murmured. "Four-ish hours it is."

"Perfect," Mary sighed. "We've lost our super clone. Shit. Can you call Snu? Call him back? She's got to be good at finding things," she pointed at her cyber-eye. "This isn't meant for searching in the dark. Shit!"

He could have summoned Brody again but chose not to. Instead he turned, ready to talk some sense into her. "They're OK, Mary. Sure, Beepy and Zippy screwed up, but they'd never let anything happen to Aria. Can we please get out of here before I--"

The streetlights went out one by one, until only the bulb above them remained. It buzzed and flickered weakly as the darkness swallowed the overgrown street.

Mary shuffled over closer to Alex, and said, "Me and my stupid ideas."

"Me and my stupid friends."

It was at that moment that the miniature skull on Alex's [Scary Girlfriend Clasp], his gift from Snu, started gnawing gently on his wrist.

Then they heard a sound.

It was just a giggle, high pitched, childlike, and belonging to a little girl. It came from the direction of the House of Dymphna. Another one followed from down the street. Then from up the pitch-black street. Then from across it. A dozen tiny voices joined in and surrounded them.

With a hammering heart, Alex wanted to run away. He could too. His muscles and gut were begging him to get out of there. But Mary's trembling hand clamped down onto his arm as she pulled herself into him.

"I can't see anything," she whispered. "It's too dark. Fuck."

The giggling finally stopped, and for a few moments, there was only the buzz of the dying bulb and the sound of their breathing.

Then a little girls voice that was clear and somehow wrong in every possible way whispered right into both of their ears.

"Want to hear a secret?" she asked sweetly. "It's quiet in here now. Too quiet. I miss the noises."

The light above them started to flicker slower, on and off, each flicker casting them in complete darkness longer than the last. It felt like the darkness was closing in around them.

Of course, from the House of Dymphna came another sound. It was a tiny, thrilled squeal. Then a thudding hammer of small feet on an old staircase. The little girl that was calling to them was sprinting down the stairs of the asylum.

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"I'm coming to get you!" the little voice sang all giddy and happy.

"Don't leave me," Mary whimpered, digging her fingers into Alex's jacket. "I can't see!"

He felt every bit of himself shaking from terror. The Monster clearly had some sort of Fear Skill. He squeezed back and made a decision. They were not going to fall to this Monster, and there was no way he was leaving Mary.

"Mary, get on my back. Now. And ping the boys." He spoke too loudly.

"They're not answering!" she hissed as he positioned herself to scramble up his back.

"WELL FUCKING PING THEM HARDER I DON'T KNOW!" Alex snapped as the little girl screamed from the front door of the house.

He stared into the darkness of the street and took off as fast as he could in some direction. Mary flexed her [Drone Connect] Skill and clamped her arms around his chest.

Behind them, the [Daughter of Dymphna] sprinted towards them on bare feet with a happy needle gripped in one hand.

Zippy closed the container door of the Paladrones hideout. Darkness engulfed the space, split only by the boy's red camera lights. After a second and with a mechanical click-click, the silent drone reached up and tugged a string dangling from the ceiling. The lamp welded into the ceiling turned on and Aria saw the interior fully.

One wall was fully taken up by shelves full of…stuff. Bolts and broken parts, a torn open stapler, and a cracked plastic bin labeled VOID GRENADES. She knew those. She spotted glasses, and two guns fused together to point their barrels dead on, blades and hooks with bite marks, tangled wires and chains, even shoes, a bow tie, and a glass eyeball that looked around the small space quickly.

"Woah! Cool! Loot!" She spun and spotted the other side.

A wall of printed out photos were lined up and displayed dozens of faces in black and white. Many of them were crossed out with permanent marker. Most were normal looking people, but some looked evil. They sneered into the camera or looked over their shoulders with dead eyes. There were Monster too of all sorts. A praying mantis wearing a pair of familiar glasses was crossed out.

"Woah!!!" She yelled again and turned to the back of the crate. What she saw surprised her.

A child-sized desk took up much of the back wall, and on it was a turned off cracked tablet with a keyboard. Oddly enough, there was a receipt printer plugged into the tablet. Above the desk were even more pictures, though much less ominous than the crossed out scary people.

It was photos of everyone Aria loved. Mary was front and center, with the photo clearly taken from the desk in her room. Though she didn't have her new cyber-eye, she beamed into the camera. Next to her was a photo of Alex eating from a bowl. Was that taken from the stove in the kitchen? There was even a photo of Jemin leaning back against the counter in his shop. Off to the side was a little business card with a complicated glowing stamp with Paladrones written on it. Maybe the Clan marker? The last photo was of Aria, sitting on top of a bookshelf, laughing and pointing.

One more piece of paper was stuck the wall above all the photos with writing on it in perfect Times New Roman.

FAMILY

Aria turned to face her brothers. The pair stared at her, with Beepy standing seriously, and Zippy wringing his hands.

"WOAH!!!" Aria pointed at the crossed-out photo wall. "Who are those people!?"

"WE CALL THEM MEANIE-BO-BEANIES," Beepy explained. "THEY ARE PEOPLE WHO BREAK THE BALANCE OF GOOD AND EVIL. BAD PEOPLE. MONSTERS. TRUE MONSTERS, ALL OF THEM."

Aria nodded seriously and walked up to the wall with her hands on her hips. "And who decides if they are bad?"

Both brothers were silent. Aria looked up at each of the photos and got the shivers. She was excellent at reading people, and some of their body language revealed darkness that chilled her. When they didn't answer her, she turned back towards them.

"And who decides they are bad?" She repeated.

Clearly, the pair talked in the private manner. Aria knew that they could speak without making noises, and from the slight shift in Zippy's feet, and the way Beepy rubbed his thumb and metal forefinger together, a discussion was happening. One final choice to be made about if the secret could be trusted with Aria.

Zippy sighed and nodded with his head towards the desk. When Aria looked that way and still didn't understand, Beepy pointed at the receipt printer. Confused, she walked up the printer and poked it with her finger, but the thing didn't stir.

At the back of her head, she could feel Mary trying to ping her. Permanently linked together, her Creator could shove emotions through the passage. But so could she. It wasn't speaking communication, but it was close enough. And sometimes Aria just wanted some privacy and exploration. Mary must have been pissed real bad because the pings she blocked felt tough.

"The printer?" She looked over her shoulder.

Beepy and Zippy seemed to reach some sort of decision. Walking over together, Zippy placed a hand on the turned off tablet while sticking out his other fist in the air. Aria swore Beepy gulped before fist bumping his brother.

Together they activated [Better Together – Level 5].

The tablet didn't turn on. It was broken. But that didn't matter, as the System did not need to follow the rules of Newtonian physics.

The System stirred at their Skill. It assessed two of its Favoured, spiraled outwards across a ten-mile radius, evaluated the state of things, and reached its conclusion in less than a nanosecond. Its fundamental principle was balance, and something had tipped the scale toward the dark. After eons, the System had leaned its lesson about letting such shifts linger. So, it acted through its Favoured. The pair, aligned to Good, were granted only information. Knowledge of the Evil that threatened the scale. What they did with it was theirs to decide. If Good would not rise to meet Evil, then Evil was simply part of the balance all along.

The receipt printer whirred to life. A strip of paper fed out, printed completed in black from edge to edge. Nothing, just darkness. Aria frowned at it, confused, when the printed clicked again and spat out another slip before cutting it. She tore it free, and her eyes widened at the words.

Hello, Aria. Care to aid your brothers in their duty?

"What the--?"

"BLACKNESS," Beepy held up the fully black sheet and turned to Zippy. "HOW DO WE FIND THIS?"

Aria's mind was whirling at what her brothers had just revealed to her. But her mind was also thumping from Mary pushing the pings harder and more aggressively. Surely, she wasn't that mad? Who can get that angry? Aria knew people, and something wasn't right. Her Creator never expressed that emotion through their connection. Not even when she refused to hand over Jemin's [Void Grenade]. She couldn't place a finger on it without opening herself up, but something wasn't right.

But she shoved it down. She wanted to be cool like her brothers and understand what was going on.

"Who—who's sending the messages?" She croaked and rubbed her head.

It was at that moment that Mary's [Drone Connect] broke through their ping shields and all three of them received the abject fear their Creator felt. Thankfully, they also received her location. Not far at all.

"WE MUST GO," Beepy announced while Zippy was already scooping her up to carry.

"MARY NEEDS OUR HELP. PALADRONES, MOVE OUT."

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