Don't worry. I let Babalon get you, Bastian said. I am going to use the inevitability of the malware against them.

  ... what the fuck? ... Bastian? BASTIAN!

  You kind of have flux. You won't have kaya yet, Bastian explained. But I got you something better, especially at the age you'll spawn at.

  As Iggy reverted to fourteen-year-old Iker like a suspended glitchy model, to his surprise, the pixelating environment was not changing much. It was as if the lambda ship was being replaced with another, this time with a blasted entrance wide open and with no comfortable seats in sight. Cold black metal in every direction.

  T-pose,. Now, Bastian instructed.

  What am I asserting my dominance over? Iker asked.

  I AM NOT PLAYING AROUND!

  As his black hoodie and shorts became more stable rather than bizarrely static, Iker extended both of his arms to the level of his shoulders, resembling a human cross.

  Help me spawn. Don't let the spaceship move or crash yet, Bastian requested.

  What do you mean by yet? The fuck? Iker asked.

  I don't know man. Like airplanes, helicopters... whatever... they just crash man. Every time. It's like a rule of the simulation.

  What's a helicopter? Iker asked.

  If we have to travel to the past you'll see one. Get ready. Don't let them move the ship!

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  Iker lost the ability to throw another quip, the model he became floated perfectly still in a t-pose while his face went flat, losing its aloofness. He found a perfect replica of himself spawning that was lying down on the spaceship floor that stopped flickering. And when his body on the floor stopped flickering too, the t-posing Iker overlapped over the newfound body, and he fused with it like a flashfire.

  And the unconscious Iker woke up. Centerward of where Iker was sitting up, Monica was spawning too.

  Is she deradicalized yet? Bastian asked.

  I don't think so, Iker replied.

  Shit. Fight her with your summon.

  Iker was not sure what he was the talking about until he sensed the presence standing behind him when his drowsiness began to wear off. Torn between his different selves and his different memories, he found his future self Yggdrasilland in midair inside of the spaceship. However, would future self be the correct terminology? If Iker understood anything in this time and memory war he was forced into, the linear concept of time itself was being toyed with. Iker's worldline was being modified. Iggy's hind legs were in shadow, but the rest of the undead centaur was floating in midair. More concerningly, his armor and weapons were missing. He was only wearing the worst-looking tunic Iker. Iggy was now just a floating skeleton centaur with a loosely-hemmed rag.

  Bastian? Does he have his instakill? Iker asked on the mindlink.

  You can't kill Monica.

  And on that topic, Monica finished spawning, and so did the rules of physics in this reality or simulation apparently. Now the unrelenting sky whirlpool from the destroyed entrance was trying to pull both future combatants and catapult them towards the clouds.

  Monica planted her bare feet while infusing flux into them, and Iker noticed the square-shaped dust marks on the metallic floor around her. The culprit that got rid of the crates earlier must have been the suctioning air from the entrance itself.

  "I don't know what you did to me. I am not sure if you used an illusion technique on me. But I will never betray my family. I will never betray one platoon. I will never join you," Monica proclaimed.

  Iker was not sure how to respond, because Iker remembered something significant as he raised his fists up at the same time Monica.

  I did not expected to lose to your platoon like this, I did not expect you to care about the city of Ember this much, Ameen had said.

  I guess... I'll just rewind and try again.

  As Iker caught his breath, the fight between him and Monica had begun.