Alwin had a brilliant idea. One that would bring an end to all of the suffering that Lapis was putting him through.

There was a flash of light. His hard outsides turned into gooey insides. Fire fizzled. Lightning grounded. Shades of black and white swirled as everyone's favorite ball made an appearance.

"Lapis, it's me!" Alwin said—or tried to.

Though he lacked mandibles in this form, the damage from losing them in his Crimson Gold King Ant form still transferred over. This time, it was in the form of losing parts of his lips. So, what Alwin actually ended up saying was, "Lammphhs, ihh's mmphee!"

"The impostor is still among us! More water!" Lapis shouted.

A dozen more of Lapis' drones emerged from the gateway, each one of them carrying a bucketful of 'Super Extra Strength Virgin Holy Water' on the tips of their diamond-shaped heads. The water splished and sploshed as they floated their way over to Alwin.

One by one, they threw the water his way. One of them even threw the bucket at him.

Alwin yelped in pain. Only to pause.

He realized something.

The pain only lasted for a fraction of a second. Sure, there was still a dull ache where the bucket had hit, but that was quickly subsiding. And the areas around his lips still stung a bit, but that was nothing compared to the feeling of Super Extra Strength Virgin Holy Water 'burning' him.

Alwin ceased his needless screaming, though deep inside he wanted to continue for dramatic effect. However, even he knew that it would only add more fuel to the fire, as ironic as it was. Oddly enough, Niwla and Winal weren't saying anything about his pointless screaming—not like Winal said much anyway. But why wasn't Niwla asking him to shut up?

Or saying anything at all?

Whatever. He'd deal with the existential crisis that he really was being possessed another time.

Finally, after all of that internal monologue, Alwin found the brainpower to stop screaming.

"Did it work?" Lapis asked.

"Nnuh, ihh dihhn't," Alwin muffled back.

And in case one wasn't fluent in Mufflenese, Alwin had said, "No, it didn't."

"I'm still sensing faint traces of the creatures possessing you," Lapis said.

If she had hands, she'd be stroking her chin—but she still needed a chin first. So instead, she stroked her drones. But since she didn't have any hands, barring magic of course, she had a drone stroke another drone. Again, since her drones lacked anything to stroke or stroke with, it ended up with the two diamond-shaped drones rubbing up and down against one another, which… looked incredibly inappropriate for kids.

Bear in mind, Alwin, was still less than a year old!

A pair of Spirit Hands popped into existence. They wrapped their fingers around his squishy ball-like form, leaving just the slightest of gaps between the interlaced digits for him to peek through.

These Spirit Hands weren't being controlled by him, though it was undoubtedly his. They had the slightest whiff of Niwla and Winal on them. So, they were still somewhere inside his head and present enough to know what was going on.

That was a relief.

The holy water hadn't worked. And Niwla and Winal weren't actually possessing him. Existential crisis averted—for now. The mechanics of how it silenced the voices in his head would be the next problem he'd target.

Also, he really had to say something instead of thinking because Lapis was looking at him funny.

"Do you think slime boy apprentice of mine, is back?" Lapis asked one of her drones.

It responded with a shrug of its shoulders—which, translated to drone physiology, meant that it floated up and then back down again.

"Well, he's still acting weird. But then again… he's always been weird."

Alwin knew what Lapis was talking about. It was one of his quirks that he had gotten better at suppressing. But due to the circumstances of almost being turned into a pet, followed by being assaulted by his teacher, it wasn't exactly a top priority at the moment.

Even through the Spirit Hand mask, it was plain as day: Alwin was making weird, funny faces when he was thinking... again.

Talking was a pain, literally and metaphorically. With a mental grunt, he wrestled control over the Spirit Hands and instructed them to get off his face. They peeled back obediently, giving him a full view of the scene in front of him. Thankfully, by then, the drones had stopped stroking each other.

It was time for good ole' sign language.

"Why'd you do that to me, Lapis? I was never possessed in the first place."

"That's what someone being possessed would say."

Alwin rolled his eyes. The Spirit Hands rolled their fingers.

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"Okay, then what are you doing here?"

"Rescue op. We received word from your classmates that the gate had collapsed. So, they called me over to open a temporary one. And now I'm here. I had to close my cafe for the day," Lapis sighed like it had physically hurt her.

"But if you're asking why I'm here—'here' meaning right in your face—I sensed my lovely student losing a fight against the demons possessing him, so I just had to help."

"Again, I was never possessed. So… why you?"

"Because who else is skilled enough to open a teleportation gateway using zero equipment and only pure, raw, magical talent? I'm suffering from success," Lapis sighed again.

"Noted, with thanks," Alwin signed flatly. He wasn't about to feed into her ego. But if she could feed into his… that'd be nice.

"Shouldn't you be helping the others instead of focusing on me?"

Alwin looked around the remains of Tentative Camp. Aquatic monsters were still fighting against the raging fire with frantic sloshing water spells. Meanwhile, those who had surrounded the fused Elders had fanned out in search of any survivors.

Lapis' drones, some of them, were scooping up the ashes of the fused Elders, for whatever reason. Research? Proper burial rites? Hard to say. But the fused Elders had been so thoroughly obliterated, chances were the drones were just scooping up dirt from the ground. The rest of her drones were out doing something more productive—searching for any survivors.

"Not really. I gave my orders. Opened up the gate. And finished off the big, bad, evil guy. My job here is like ninety percent complete. Just got to wait for the Dimensional Transit Engineers to arrive and set up a slightly less temporary teleportation gate. Then I can go back and open up my cafe. I hope my customers won't leave any bad reviews," she sighed again.

"Right…" Alwin didn't really know what to say—or sign, in this case. "Well, what now?"

"Now," Lapis said, turning away from him. "I run away before I get scolded for delaying your medical treatment. Toodle-oo."

Just like that, Lapis floated off into the smoldering wreckage, a trail of obedient drones gliding after her like oddly-shaped ducklings. Where was she heading? Alwin doubted that even she knew. She just had to get away before they arrived.

A trio of plant monsters, different from the one that had carried off Mrs. Cooper and her child.

First came a pumpkin-headed monster, with an axe embedded into its head. It was attached to a tree stump using its roots to drag itself forward. Beside it, a walking cactus with boxing gloves at the end of its thick green arms. Lastly, behind them was a kiwi fruit that seemed to have gotten confused. Its body resembled a kiwi fruit, but the rest of it mimicked the ancient flightless kiwi bird.

The cactus monster walked up to him and gently pressed a boxing glove against his gooey side.

"Can you hear me? What's your name?"

"Alwin." The Spirit Hands signed for him.

"Are you having trouble speaking?"

He wanted to say yes, but it came out as a muffled, "mmm-yesshh."

"Understood. Just keep using your hands. Any aches or pains?"

"My mouth stings a little bit."

The kiwi bird-fruit monster waddled up and leaned in far too close, its sweet-smelling beak nearly poking his eye out. Alwin recoiled instinctively.

"Patient has visible trauma around the oral region," it chirped.

The cactus nodded, "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"I don't think so."

"Understood. Please remain still while we prepare to transport you to the hospital."

All three monsters surrounded Alwin. The cactus monster pointed its boxing gloves at him, while the others used whatever 'limbs' were available. In the pumpkin head monster's case, it pointed a tiny little branch that protruded out of its brown tree stump body. For the kiwi fruit-bird, it used its beak.

Together, they used the same skill that the other group had used to transport Cooper Trooper and Mrs. Cooper.

It wasn't that the other group was too far for him to hear the skill's name, it was simply Silent Casted. The same went for the group here.

Pink petals sprouted from the tips of what they were using to point at him. They continued to blossom, growing larger and wider, expanding outward in waves until the petals touched each other. They interlocked and overlapped, and the growth really picked up. In an instant, it had bloomed into a large pink flower easily larger than Alwin himself.

Without warning, the pink petals folded in on themselves, sealing him in.

It wasn't total darkness, like Mrs. Cooper's huge clam. Light diffused its way through the petals. Through them, he could make out the blurred silhouette of the monsters as they hoisted the flower and began to move..

Alwin's heart hitched for some reason. If the only visible trauma was around his mouth, then there were probably heaps of invisible trauma from this nightmare of a final exam.

A sweet-smelling scent started to fill the inside of the flower. It was sugary and soft, like springtime nectar. Most of all, it was calming. It soothed his nerves, and the panic ebbed.

The shadows of the three plant monsters swayed back and forth on the surface of the petals. And he could feel it too. The flower rocked back and forth with every synchronized step.

Step after step, they carried him through Lapis' gateway—which was really obvious by the bright flash. Even through the pink petals, the light poured its way through, stabbing his eyes.

They kept moving from wherever the gate had popped them, heading toward the nearest hospital—also wherever that was.

Alwin felt like a baby being rocked to sleep, which technically he was.

The soothing swaying of the flower as it bobbed up and down, rocked left and right, to the motion of the monsters moving. It lulled him. His eyelids grew heavy, finding it harder and harder to stay awake. Eventually, the weight became too much to bear, and they shut.

The next thing he knew, the world of flowers had left him. Replaced with a hard mattress and scratchy blankets.

An IV tube was stuck into the side of his body—or head—pumping green fluids into him. Thankfully, it didn't alter his color scheme, because he didn't know what a black, white, and green slime would be called. Yin-Yang-Yo?

Probably not.

Alwin forced himself up, trying to get a bearing on his surroundings.

On his left was a half-burned giant bird with more bandages than feathers. He wasn't lying on the bed next to him. Nope, he was glaring down with the unbridled fury of a parent.

He chose to ignore that.

On his right was a huge, hulking turtle, whose spikes had fully grown back and were extended up, scraping ominously against the ceiling with every breath. She, too, glared down at him with the untempered wrath of a parent.

He chose to ignore that, too.

In front of him, at the foot of his bed, was Cooper Trooper. He looked up at him and raised his turtle arms to the sky. His little nubbed wings shot up as well.

Alwin didn't ignore that.

"Awww, what a cutie-patootie."

Wait. That came out clearly?

Yippee. His mouth was healed.

Cooper Trooper giggled. He got on all fours and started to crawl toward Alwin.

If only that moment could last longer, because the intense heat of the dual-parental glares was becoming too hot to handle.

Honestly, it was a good thing he was already in a hospital.

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