Minus-four dropped to the ground, sprawled out in a heap, barely illuminated by its own light in the darkness. It hadn't meant for this to happen, this infiltration of foreign thoughts and feelings...this wasn't its fault! It was an unstoppable side effect of this entire form! How was it supposed to...to...it gaped as the realization hit it: it was never meant to return, was it? It must have been known that this infection was a possibility...it would not possibly have been allowed a full return. It was intended to be separated...intended to annihilate itself in the zero-summation...intended to die.
Perhaps that would not have mattered in other circumstances, in other realities, but this universe...it was curious. The inhabitants would put names on things...try to pin down and categorize the chaotic, ever-changing state of its component matter...try to establish reference points as if there was some constant reality in the shifting patterns. Somehow that had rubbed off in addition to the emotion and sensation. Somehow Minus-four had begun to perceive, out of a chaotic skein of transient thought, sensation, and emotion, a fixed "self;" and this notion of "death" had instilled the idea with value, made the self a precious thing, to be held onto because it could vanish...
"N-no..." it whispered, tears stinging at its eyes. "No, t-take me back..." Take me back! But there was no response. It moaned, despairing, but that was cut short when it felt something in its left hand. It gasped, shocked; this...this was pain. Out of everything it had felt, nothing had really hurt until now, but its hand...it looked to see the fingertips disappearing, unravelling into mist before its very eyes. This was it...this was what happened. It had failed in its purpose, it had been separated, and it could not survive on its own...it was going to...going to die.
"No! NO!" it wailed. "Please, please!" It didn't want to die! It didn't...it was so scared it...it couldn't even think straight anymore. Minus-four huddled up on the ground in a fetal position, clutching its knees to itself as it felt the very structure of its body begin to come apart, its own light fading as the sun began to emerge from the eclipse.
"What's happenin'?" asked Jenny, placing the gun on the ground next to her. "Is she okay?" She made to move toward her fallen adversary.
Tetra shook her head. "Don't, Jenny! She could still be dangerous...even if it's not a trap!"
"But what's happenin' to her?" she asked.
Artemis spoke up. "She isn't made to live in this world, not by herself."
Tetra nodded. "Moon-girl's right. She was made for a specific task, not for long-term survival. They must've separated from her, and now what's left is withering away. And since it's part of her genetic structure, it's taking her body with it..."
Muriel stared at the little figure on the grass. Here was everything she'd feared for Jenny when she thought about her position as one of these "Numbers." A child soldier...created for one purpose, neglected in every other area, abandoned and left to die, with a convenient self-destruct mechanism so that she could never come back to haunt whatever monster had used her so...empty, abandoned, and alone. She felt herself beginning to tear up; half subconsciously, she walked over to the girl, sat down, and picked her up, cradling her in her lap.
She felt like throwing up when she realized the extent of it; the girl's arms and legs were simply evaporating; already, she had hardly more than stumps past the elbows and knees. There was no blood, but somehow that made it even worse. The girl looked up at her, pain and terror in her eyes. "P-please..." she whispered.
Muriel looked to Tetra. "How do we stop this?" she asked. The cat-girl shook her head. "I don't know! I don't think this has ever even happened before! She's losing part of her genetic material, I don't know how you just fix that!"
The policewoman looked down at the little girl. She didn't have long, at this rate...there wasn't time to do anything but guess. She was losing genetic material...but how could you just restore that? How could you get a source of...of...
She had an idea. It wasn't a very good idea, but it would have to do. Pulling a multi-tool from her belt, she flicked out one of the knife blades.
Robert had had to be very careful following the squirrel-girl in the dark, but when the eclipse began to pass as quickly as it had come, she was able to pick up the pace again. In hardly a minute, they had crashed through the brush into a clearing in what she guessed to be the park. Here was a strange tableau: a girl almost like the one she was seeking, only white-haired and in a white-themed version of the same outfit, with a firearm at her feet, a pale-skinned girl in a school uniform with the slightest hint of a pattern on her skin, a little cat-thing, and a woman who appeared to have some kind of insect features cradling...
The devil-woman rushed over to Muriel's side. Yes, it was the little girl she was seeking - but what in God's name had happened to her? Lilly took one look at her and scurried off to Jenny's side.
"What are you doing!?" Robert asked, stunned, as the woman pricked her finger with the point of a knife. Muriel looked at her. "I'm trying to save her life," she said. "Please...I can't stop and talk."
Robert didn't understand this at all. There was no blood, yet what had happened to her...her limbs? This vapor...what was happening to her now? She prayed that whatever this was, it would stop...
Muriel squeezed her finger until the tip was covered in blood. She lifted the girl's upper arm and smeared her finger across the stump at her elbow, then gasped as she felt more blood drawn out of her finger. She yanked her hand away and stared as Minus-four suddenly convulsed, gasping, and then went rigid. As she did, her magical-girl uniform vanished, leaving her naked.
As Muriel watched, the blood disappeared, and something began to form where it had been - while a subtler change swept the other way, up the remains of her arm and along her body. Her skin changed its hue and texture very slightly, her build just a little bit different, slight changes in her face - and more noticeably, her hair changed from black to Muriel's reddish-brown. And strangely enough, antennae like Muriel's own poked out from under her hair.
Her arms and legs, meanwhile, had been rebuilding themselves, but not on the original plan. What formed where the vanished bits had been was a structure of flesh and bone, but with an outer covering of green chitin. Muriel watched in amazement as the missing segments reconstructed themselves before her eyes. The arms, aside from the plated gauntlets now covering them, were human in structure, but her legs, below the knees, were spindly and grasshopper-like.
Minus-four's muscles relaxed, and she went limp. Muriel was alarmed by this, but no, she was breathing. Conscious, even - just limp. She gently tried to prop the girl up, and got a better look at her. She no longer looked like Jenny's black-haired clone; the resemblance was still there, but she looked more like Jenny's sister - and as much like Muriel's daughter. That was a little strange, but Muriel didn't care; she was just happy that the girl was alive and un-mutilated.
Suddenly the girl lurched to her feet with a gasp. She looked around...looked down at herself. She had undergone a change...the physiological decay caused by her separation was repaired, but the process seemed to have purge the last physical remnants of her old existence. Her mind...her thoughts...were as they had been before this change, but she could no longer feel the lack of connection as she could before. And these new, strange replacements for what had been lost to the decay...she took a tenative couple of steps on these new legs, finding them to be stabler than they looked.
She looked around, and saw Four. Just standing there, not fleeing, no weapon in her hands, no fear in her eyes, just an expression of...of...concern. She stepped towards her. "T-touch..." she murmured.
"Can she? Will that be a problem? What is she?" Muriel asked.
Tetra nodded. "I'm not 100% sure what she is, but after all that, she can't possibly have the negative-four nature. She might be magical, she's still gotta be mostly Jenny, but not in a way that's going to cause a cataclysm if they touch."
Jenny stepped cautiously forward, and the other girl took awkward steps toward her, hand outstretched. They met, and Minus-four touched Jenny's face, feeling the warmth of her skin through this armor covering her hand. Touch...the one task she was given...the one simple instruction...she had done it. She paused for a moment, then wrapped her arms around her target. She had done it...but it didn't work. Nothing spoke into her mind to welcome her back...but she'd known that wouldn't happen. She was deprived of the power to complete the plan...but she couldn't make herself want to, anyway. She didn't want to die...and now she wouldn't. Now...now she had to face the prospect of living.
She burst into tears, burying her head in Jenny's shoulder. "Why?" she asked. "Why? Why am I?"
Jenny was a little confused, but hugged her back. "Why are you what?" she asked.
Robert, still a little confused herself, knelt down beside the two girls. "I think," she said, "that she's trying to ask what her purpose is." She still hadn't gotten any kind of an explanation, but seeing this, a lot of what she hadn't understood earlier made sense. Someone had raised this girl for some kind of purpose...had never instilled her with anything beyond that. No wonder her behavior seemed so off-putting...no wonder she was so captivated by the simplest things...she put a hand on the girl's shoulder.
Minus-four looked over at the owner of the hand to see the strange red woman who had given her food. She sniffled, tears running down her face. "Why am I?" she asked.
Robert tried to put on another warm smile. "Why do you exist?" The girl nodded. "You exist because life is precious and beautiful," she said. "You exist to experience it and savor it. Some day you'll find a higher calling for yourself, but for now, your purpose is simply to live, and enjoy what life has for you."
She tried to comprehend that. She was alive so that she could live...that was self-fulfilling, in a way. There was no way for her to fail in this purpose, except to die, which she didn't do. To enjoy...was that like the reaction she had felt when she'd tasted food? Or the exhilaration she'd felt and tried to suppress when bounding from rooftop to rooftop in her magical form? That meant that...that she would get to experience these things again, didn't it? But...a "higher calling?" That meant that she would have to stay alive until she could discover that...but she could do that. She wanted to do that. There was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, though she was still crying.
Muriel put a hand on her shoulder. Minus-four gasped softly at the touch of the chitin plating...like her own, now. She turned to face the woman, who smiled at her. Smiled! No longer was she trying to detain her, accusing her of wanting to...to kill. She was smiling...and she reached down and picked her up. Not a grip to prevent her from moving...she was held gently in the woman's arms, resting against her body, feeling the warmth and touch of another, like when she was dying...
That set off a fresh new round of tears. Muriel reached a hand around the girl and placed a hand on Jenny's shoulder. "You did wonderfully, Jenny," she said. "I'm proud of you."
Jenny beamed. "Th-thanks, Mom. But...'m sorry I used your gun..."
"Don't be," Muriel said. "You did the right thing, and you did a good job with it. You got everybody to stop and listen, and nobody had to be hurt or killed. That's the best thing you can hope for in a fight like that. Now, you three should get back to school, okay? If they ask where you've been, you can tell them that you helped a lost girl find her way home."
Jenny looked around at her friends. "Uh, oh, yeah," she said. School was still in session, wasn't it? She let herself return to normal form, and with a soft whoosh, she was back in her uniform.
Lilly stared. "H-how'd you do that, Jenny? A-are you...?"
Jenny realized that she'd never actually told her friend her secret. Artemis could figure it out, 'cause she was acquainted with magic, but Lilly must not even have known. She smiled. "I'll tell you 'bout it on the way. But why'd you come here? You coulda got hurt!"
Lilly shrugged. "I...I thought we were gonna...gonna stick t'gether..."
Oh. Jenny realized that she must've been feeling left out. First because she'd used to be a boy, then because Artemis and Jenny had taken off with Tetra...but she had honestly been worried that her friend might be hurt. Still... "'Course we're gonna stick together!" she said. Lilly smiled, and the three of them began to walk back to school.
Robert frowned. "I, uh...I had encountered this girl earlier, and I was hoping to see that she's safely returned to her parents...is she yours? What happened to her just now? Is she going to be all right?"
Muriel thought about it, almost laughing at the scope of the questions. "I...I don't know," she said. "What happened to her...it's a long story. But I think she'll be okay. I'm Muriel Walsh, with the police department."
"Robert Douglas," the devil-woman said. "I trust that you'll see her safely returned?"
Muriel nodded. "We'll look after her."
