Trio asks a question - 1774, SEPT 21st, Wednesday.

The old man suddenly fell to his knees, letting go of Dreg’s cape, and grabbed at his chest. Dreg was focused on the origin of this new voice. Turning to where the sun had set, Dreg saw the referee girl from earlier; standing in front of the giant crimson Ferris wheel that took up most of the violet night sky. Beside her was a staff with two floating octagons at each end. This peculiar woman had solid red eyes with yellow pupils, a solid black hat with two long thin feathers on it, a lengthy belt that looked like a tail, choppy silver hair, wore a turtleneck referee shirt with black neck, a silver whistle, solid black pants, solid black shoes, and solid black fingerless gloves that had metal plates on their backs.

“YOOOOO! How’s it going, Dreg and Co?” She asked.

“General Trio…” Dreg said between grit teeth.

“The west Cross Compass… The mad?” Noche said.

“Fo sho, lad!” Trio said.

As Trio said this, the fisherman billboard behind her collapsed.

“How fishy, it’s raining men.”

Dreg was ready to commit suicide. Trio approached him as Noche went to the old man; still collapsed on the ground. After confirming he was ok, she opened her wallet, and took out what appeared to be some sort of thin rectangular plastic card.

“It’s not much, but this is all the credits I can spare.” Noche whispered, “Try to get some help, ok?”

Timmy was surprised by the kindness, he stared at Noche as she walked past him.

“Not your rent, I hope.” Dreg asked

“No, just for groceries.” Noche said “This mission will pay for rent.”

“You mean this mission you illegally snuck onto?”

“Yeah. You’re gonna pay me, right?”

Dreg rolled his eyes. He looked annoyed, but was secretly slightly amused.

“A person with atrophy shouldn’t skip their meals.” He said.

“I’m not that bad…”

“As you say.”

Trio approached and firmly took Dreg’s limp hand. She shook it super aggressively, as she grinned foolishly at him. When Trio stopped, Noche noticed the anglerfish emblem engraved into the metal plating off her gauntlet. Looking over, Trio noticed Noche standing nearby.

“Ahh, so its begun.” Trio said.

“General Trio.” Dreg said..

Trio put her hands on her hips and puffed her cheeks.

“General Dreg.” She mocked.

Dreg looked so frustrated that Noche couldn’t help but chuckle under her breath. While this happened, Trio quickly grabbed the floating octagons on her staff and threw them into a far off dumpster; nearby the wall has LAGRIMAS written on it.

“10 POINTS!” Trio shouted, “The ashes are gone now…”

Dreg looked at Trio with confusion.

“Trio… you’ve had those for years…” He said, “Why did you just throw them away?”

“Not that its any of your business, LION, but it BEEEEECAAAAAUSE…”

Trio did a long pause. When Dreg was about to speak, she cut him off.

“I’ve grown bored of them.”

“Watch it monkey.” Dreg said, “What are you doing here? Only one Cross general is allowed out at a time.”

“I’m in the hood, popping wood.”

Trio walked towards Noche.

“Aaaaannnyywaaaays.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Dreg was completely ignored as Trio grabbed both of Noche’s shoulders; startling Noche. She leaned in as close as possible to Noche’s ear.

“This game looks like a duo, but it is actually a,” She inhaled, “Triiiooooooooo.”

Noche went very far away from Trio once she let go. Trio laughed so hard that she had to bend over and continuously slap her left knee an unnecessary twenty or thirty times.

“Noche, there’s something I want to tell you.” Trio said, “Let me make a statement, in the guise of a question.”

Noche, guard still up, listened carefully.

“How do you kill a concept?” Trio asked.

Noche looked at Trio for a moment.

“… What?”

“How, do you kill.” Trio grinned, “A concept?”

Noche paused. Then slowly, and carefully, shrugged confused.

“To kill a concept, you must kill all forms of intelligence that can recognize and understand said concept. On a related note, if all forms of intelligence are gone, then does existence still exist? It is impossible to say, as no intellect would be around to recognize existence after intelligence. Simply said, when death dies, existence won't exist. But what is death, but a concept?"

Trio walked towards Noche, removing her hat slowly as she got closer.

“Tell me Noche,”

Trio took off her hat to reveal a bald head. She stared at Noche with piercing eerie eyes and a wicked grin.

“How do you kill a concept?”

Noche stared at Trio in confusion and worry.

“I… I think you just told me how to kill death.” Noche said.

Trio put her hat back on.

“Ohh, and how do you do that?”

“By destroying all existence.”

Trio wrapped her arm around Noche and aimed the other one towards the clouds; like a con-artist would do when selling an idea to someone.

“That’s what makes this idea so neat. One day this will happen.” Trio said, “To question whether something CAN happen, means there’s a chance of it happening. And if there’s a probability of it happening, then it boils down to not a matter of if, but when.”

“If something can happen, then eventually it will happen?” Noche said

“Pretty much!” Trio said “Probability is impossible with the added element of time.”

“Why is this important?” Dreg said.

“Can’t you let me trick a newbie into thinking I’m smart?”

Trio forcefully jabbed Timmy’s face.

“OY!”

“Besides, why did Medusa send you to capture a baby?”

Trio kept poking Timmy’s face as she talked. Until he bit her finger, but surprisingly, he only ended up hurting his own teeth. Dreg put Timmy’s cage down and leaned on it.

“OY, I’M NOT SOME BENCH!” Timmy yelled.

“If you’d show up to at least one briefing this year, you’d know I was here for the United Government council meeting.” Dreg said, “I stumbled upon him my way back.”

“Well you did a great job. Way to make us generals look capable what with that giant bomb going off.” Trio said, “She’s gonna kill you, ya know.”

“I didn’t expect him to have so much Drive…” Dreg said, “I just wanted to teach Noche a lesson for sneaking onto my mission.”

“Great thinking… Wait, did you just call some conference a mission?”

Trio burst into laughter, then nudged Timmy’s face.

“Oh man, look at this guy. Mr Cereal over here being super serious. HAHAHAHAHA.”

Dreg’s eyebrow twitched.

“Its not just some conference, its an annual meeting where important figureheads-”

“BLAH BLAH MEN IN SUITS BLIPPITY BLOPPITY BLAAAAAH!” Trio snickered, “And you came IN PERSON, dude, we have a thing called cameras these days. I know your old, but even you can use Skope.”

Dreg closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. After taking a singular deep breath, he opened them again.

“Trio, leave me be. I’m tired.”

“Oh, you’re tired? Is that it? Well that’s fine, let’s all be sloppy cause we’re tired.” Trio said, “The United Government, Planet Lance Cult, MoveCity… Ahhhh, nevermind dealing with those properly, we’re tired.”

Noche took a few steps away from Dreg, who was now looking quite stern.

“Raptorman has forbidden Cross from interacting with MoveCity.”

Dreg ground his teeth.

“We don’t have to get involved until there’s a threat.”

“One billion Create Users live in MoveCity…” Trio said, “And they are a razor’s edge away from a civil war explosion… AnD yOu WaNt To WaIt FoR a ThReAt?”

“If Raptorman dooms his city, he has himself to blame.” Dreg said.

“THIS ISN’T ABOUT RAPTORMAN! IT’S ABOUT ALL THOSE LIVES THAT WILL BE SACRIFICED!” Trio yelled, “WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR BLOOD TO SPILL BECAUSE! OF! HIS! ISSUE! WITH! CROSS?!”

“By choosing to obey him, they rejected us.” Dreg said, “If blood is spilled, then they brought it upon themselves.”

“If you wanna play politics with the United Government, fine.” Trio said, “But when millions of people die in the desert, don’t expect me to continue being a part of Cross.”

“You know that’s forbidden.” His eyes narrowed, “If you did that, I would hunt you down myself.”

“Dreg, you’re undefeated, not immortal…” Trio said, “It doesn’t matter how many battles you’ve won, you only need to lose once to die.”

Dreg and Trio stared at each other for a moment, but Trio lost interest and turned around.

“You killed my buzz…” She said, “Forget this, I’m outta here.”

As Trio walked off Dreg couldn’t help but hold his head in pain.

“She’s so off…” He mumbled. “Noche! We’re leaving.”

Noche nodded her head and walked towards Dreg.

“Alright, let’s g-“

“-CAWWW!”

Noche turned around and saw a single crow. It sat on the roof of a nearby building with a damaged window. As she watched the crow, the dud-bomb on the opposite side of the window exploded. Shattered glass, brick, and mortar was sent flying everywhere. As Noche watched this scene, a memory re-surfaced in her mind. The memory that followed the C4 explosion. The memory of what occurred, after she fell.

The world around her went dark. She remembered waking up, washed up on a beach. Before her was a desert, void of life and color, where nothing existed; aside from sand and sky. There were no cacti, no hills, no clouds, and even the sun was hidden. Afraid, she stood up and took a step back, but when she turned around the ocean had vanished too. Panicked, she shut her eyes and held her head, but all she could recall was static.

Fear and anxiety took hold of her. She snapped her head left and right to look at her surroundings. Then she felt something wrong, she looked down at her left hand. It crumbled away like sand and was blown away into the nothingness, her arm soon following suit.

Noche ran in a panic, she ran straight into that desert. She looked around for something! Anything! While the sand consumed her arm and went towards her shoulder. Before she knew it, the sand took her legs and she dropped to the ground. She screamed and squirmed about, but it was all for naught. She hyperventilated as her limbs were blown away; only her torso and head remained. Soon even her voice was gone.

Elsewhere, in a blackened room with faint golden specks of light, floated a pure white orb with the tiniest hole in it. The orb shook a bit, and this tiny hole developed miniature cracks around it. Back in the sand, a pinhole develops in Noche’s left eye as her head was blown away into that desert.

Breaking out of her trance, Noche continued to stare at the smoldering building. No one noticed the pinhole that developed in the pupil of her left eye; leaving a golden color that matched the iris instead of a black pupil.

“De Ja Vu…” Noche said.

Noche turned around, paused for a second, looked back, and then followed Dreg; not looking back again. Within the smoldering building, was an abnormal amount of darkness. Residing in this darkness was a shadowy figure that appeared like a giant lifeless doll. It fed on fear, for it was fear. Its head twitched from direction to direction, as if in stop-motion or a glitching video. Then, it’s eyeless gaze looked directly upward. There it stopped moving and opened its big grinning maw full of jagged teeth. A dangerous white mist leaked between the motionless rows of razor sharp teeth… As the monster lurked in the dark.