Toxin flickers into the throne room and collapses on his throne as Queen, Ruler, and Sal arrive.

“Toxin, are you alright?” Queen said as she ran up to him.

Toxin breathes heavily until he starts hysterically laughing. “I saw Smiley. The fool fell right into my hands! He actually bought the scared act!” He said as he continued to laugh as he straightened up.

Queen takes her seat. “How is he? Still terrifying?”

“Angry and yes, it helped me sell the con.”

Sal chimes in, “Excuse me, what are you talking about?”

Toxin looks up, “Oh hey Sal! She finally wore you down?”

“No. Smiley returning is a problem for all of us.”

Queen tosses a digital version of the device Sal gave her to Toxin, “No luck with sister though.”

He breaks the blueprint apart before flickering it away, “she’s gonna be a hard nut to crack. I’ll work on a different version.”

Sal smacks his hands together, “Focus Toxin, Smiley? Plan?”

Toxin rolls his eyes, “We three worked out every possibility that he could take if he ever got free and the most likely outcome is what he is doing.”

A small circle with twelve circles appears in front of them. “He plans to connect to each of our fragments through a human vessel. The vessel is a skilled Multi named Cass. he has Rulers, mine, and Smileys, of course.” as he says each of their names, their symbols appear.

“What he doesn’t know,” Queens symbol, a bee, Toxins symbol, and Rulers symbol all light up red as sickly red branches move to the center of the circle. “Our pieces come with a small virus. Once all three enter Cass, it will cause a feedback loop that will cause Smiley’s code to quite literally fall apart.”

Queen clears her throat.

Sal sits back on his throne. “That seems doable. What aren’t you saying?”

Toxin shifts uncomfortably, “Well, he has to get all the other pieces first. Queen has to be last so he assimulates the pieces.”

Sal’s eyes grow wide, “So, sit back and hand him total power on the off chance that he doesn’t anticipate your virus.”

Toxin stands up, “why would he? He has no reason to suspect anything!”

Sal stands up, “what do you think he was doing in the prison?! Twiddling his thumbs?! I guarantee he spent the entire time thinking of ways to get back at us and how we would respond.”

Toxin puts his hand on his shoulder, “You left before we did this but we put ourselves in an accelerated sim. When I say we thought this through, we have.”

Sal swallows hard then nods and sits back down. “Now, Ruler and I are going to go with Queen to convince our sister to help while you go next.”

“Go next?”

“Time to see Smiley and Cass.” Toxin says as he walks up to Ruler and Queen.

Sal stares at him in disbelief. “Why would I do that?! Willingly invite the devil into my home?!”

Toxin stares daggers into his soul.

“I meant to say, how am I to do that?”

Queen walks over to him and produces surveillance footage of Cass’ fight with the Knight back at the Wasteland Pantry. “I’m under the impression that your people had a hostile encounter with Cass, use it. Get him to come to you and give him your mark.”

Sal stares at the screen, “I remember the report. They said they were attacked but it appears to be the opposite. Cass of all people to attack." The footage gets to the point where Cass assimilates the knight's armor and he transforms. “What was that?!”

All four perk up and Queen rewinds the footage. Each of them grow more shocked as they watch. “Did he do what I think he did?” Toxin said.

“He definitely used Smiley’s power. He actually gave him the power.” Sal said as he sat on his throne.

Toxin rewinds and watches it again. “We didn’t see this coming. I thought Smiley was using it and changing him. This changes things but the plan doesn’t change for now.”

“Sal, go meet with him. Sooner rather than later!” Queen says as she grabs Toxin and Ruler and the three Flicker away.

“This is bad but maybe I can use this. It’s worth a shot.” Sal says as he flickers away.

Back in the Troop De Fungi, Cass and Smiley emerge from the hallway. Cass looks around and Portobello is nowhere to be found.

“Hey Smiley, that was a little messed up back there.”

Smiley sighs before turning to Cass, “I understand why you think that but before you feel bad for him, remember.” Smiley grabs his face, “he is trying to kill.all.of.humanity.”

Cass pulls back from Smiley, “But it felt personal. I don’t think any of that was to save humanity.”

Smiley floats away, “you aren’t wrong. When we were at odds, before I got locked away, he was the one who lured me into the building that they locked me away in, before transferring me to the spellbook. I thought about that a lot. He got off easy.”

Cass nods, “Fair enough. Let’s get out of here.”

Portobello sits on the edge of the steps leading to his tent, drinking tea. He looks down to Cass as he exits the tent. “How did it go?”

Cass shrugs, “As well as it could. Thank you for letting me see them.”

“You earned it. I suppose you’ll be leaving now?”

“Yep, I have prior commitments to see to.”

He turns to enter the tent. “You are always welcome here. Come by some time.”

Cass heads toward his bike before calling back, “Will do!”

He hops onto his bike and takes off toward the town. About ten minutes outside of Trash Heap, Smiley appears and waves for him to pull over in a nearby six story tall building.

Cass hops off his bike, “What is it, Smiley?”

“Go up a few floors. Somewhere no one can see us.”

Cass shrugs and goes up to the fifth floor. “Okay, that is good enough. Now what do you want?”

Floating a few feet away, “I wanted to test your new power now that you have one.”

Cass stares at him, confused.

“Remember, you unlock more of assimilations potential as you connect to more of the original A.I.’s. You got form blending from Ruler and I wanted to see what you got from Toxin.”

“But I mixed the cheetah form and the knight form before I got Rulers mark.”

“You performed it but did you notice that you didn’t get sick like you did the first time? With the gun.”

Cass looks surprised, “Oh wow. I didn’t. Huh.”

Smiley rolls his eyes.

“So what did I get from Toxin?”

“I’m not sure. Try transforming.”

Cass transforms into his base cheetah form. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Focus.” 

Cass sits in a cross legged position, closes his eyes, and controls his breath. 

Cass falls deeply into himself. Floating in a black void, he sees a glowing red crystal in front of him. He catches glimpses of movement at the edge of the darkness until a massive jaw clamps down around the crystal.

Cass leaps to tear the jaw open but fails and sees the jaws belong to a cheetah. The void fills with light and sitting in front of him is a normal cheetah with glowing ruby eyes.

The cheetah cocks his head to the side and Cass mimics him. The cat and Cass begin swaying back and forth. The void begins to vibrate then stops as the cheetah is a mirror image of Cass in his cheetah form.

“What do you want to be? to be stronger, deadlier, faster? What is more important to you?” the cheetah said in Cass’ voice.

“Survival.” 

The cheetah smiles as his fur turns blood red and Cass wakes up.

Smiley looks at his red fur, “A color change? Not the cool power I thought it was gonna be but cool, I guess.”

Cass stands up and feels his new body. “It feels different. It’s like the muscles and skin feel wrong. Not bad or anything, just not what they are supposed to feel.”

Smiley looks at his red eyes, “Test it out. Maybe it’s stronger?” 

He jumps up and down to get the feel for it but the floor gives way and Cass plummets four stories and smashes onto the ground.

Blood pools on the ground as Cass loses consciousness. 

Back in Trash Heap, A knight of the AngelOS enters the Multi Guild. Lila greets him, “Hello! May I help you?”

He silently walks up to her and hands her a scroll with a skull wearing a halo on it. “For the Multi named Cass.” She takes it and the knight leaves.

Lila grows very worried before thanking him and running back to Stone’s office.

Lila busts in the door while Stone is on the phone. “Hang up!”

“What? No. I’m talking to the guild in Necropolis about a job out this way, come back later!”

Lila slams the scroll on the desk and Stone’s face grows pale as he sees the symbol. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

“It’s for Cass.” Lila said in between deep breaths.

“And where is he?”

“I just received confirmation that he completed the job for the Troop so he should be on his way back.”

Stone sits back in his chair while holding the scroll. “It could be nothing.”

She looks at him with a face that says it’s not nothing.

“Yeah. This is bad.”