A/N: With this arc reaching its climax over the next few chapters, it, uh...comes with its own soundtrack. For that reason I'm going to be doing something I haven't done since the very early days of this fic. I'll be putting the song names within the text where they're supposed to be played. Also, if I can make it work, there will be a couple of instances of lyrics being used within the text over the next few chapters, but I may scrap that plan if I don't like the way it ends up looking. Either way, after eleven years I think I've earned the right to lean into some fan fiction cliches for a little while lol. For this chapter there will be two songs for specific scenes. 'Theme Of Aldia' from Dark Souls 2 and 'So Small' by Thomas Bergersen. I'm so glad to finally get to use 'So Small' because it holds a special place in my heart and the scene it will be used in is one I've been waiting a veeery long time for. The initial concept for the scene predates the song by many years but I ended up making some minor tweaks to the outline to try and have it line up with the rising and falling of the song. Even if it doesn't match up perfectly, if you listen to the song you can probably get a decent idea of where what is supposed to be happening lol. Also, hooo boy do you just know shit is about to go down whenever I break out the pretentious chapter titles. LOL

Chapter 12: Katabasis

The SCC van came to a stop and Atticus waited for Elizabeth to open the back doors for him. Once she had done so, he hopped down beside her and looked up, wondering if he should say something. He was not sure if he owed her even a passing goodbye. Frankly, he'd be glad if he never had to see her again.

"Well, go on then." She dismissed, pulling out a cigarette. "I'll know soon enough if you fail."

"I suppose I should say that it's been not nice knowing you." He quipped right back at her.

"The feeling is mutual."

He crossed his arms in response. "You'd better hope that I succeed. I can't imagine what Edgar would do to you using the full power of the amalgamation."

"It can't be anything worse than having to put up with you for even a second longer."

"Touché..."

He took a few steps forward, all while taking in the sight of the collapsed outer wall of the amalgamation just beyond. With well over half a day having passed since they were last here, even more of the outer layer had fallen apart. Edgar never truly had much of a chance of reaching his ultimate goal, it seemed.

Glancing back at Elizabeth one last time, who rolled her eyes at him, Atticus was painfully aware that this might be the last moment of peace that he was going to get to enjoy for a very long time. Whatever awaited him, it was going to be chaotic. That was just the nature of things when it came to his siblings.

Without another word, he continued onward.

It did not take him long to reach the base of the crumbled wall. Bits and pieces of metal were strewn about in the grass, having bounced this far from the collapse. He was quick to notice the lack of sound. The impossibly large structure, if it could even be called that, must have settled in the time he'd spent back at the camp.

He soon spotted an intact security camera within the pile of collapsed wall and made the climb up the mound to get to it. Lightly tapping on the lens, he called out, "Hello?" and wondered if the amalgamation was even capable of seeing or hearing him through such an object while in their damaged, 'powered down' state.

"Listen, I've brought Edgar. I have him under control so you don't need to worry about him trying to take over. If you'll let me join with you all again, you lot can have your revenge on him and then this nightmare can finally be over."

He waited for some sort of answer, but the silence persisted.

Closing his eyes, he let out a long, drawn out sigh. "I knew this wasn't going to be easy..." Opening his eyes again, he looked up toward the very top of the mound he had already climbed halfway up. "I guess we're going in then."

He considered Edgar, who was being all too quiet and cooperative for his liking. It was more like he was a snake waiting for the perfect time to strike. Atticus would have loved to have been rid of him right about now, but clearly his siblings were not going to help him in that regard.

Climbing a little higher, he found an opening that no fully grown human would have ever been able to pass through, but a dog his size could. It was a bit of a dangerous crawl, since anything apart of this unstable mass could come crashing down on top of him if disturbed too much, but he soon found himself inside the scrap wasteland proper and reached a big enough clearing that he could get back up onto his feet. Looking around, he was surrounded by walls of junk and bits of debris, but there were still openings within all of that twisted metal. It would take time, but he could traverse this.

Still, he was left questioning how he was ever going to locate Courage in all of this mess...

He had to get back down onto his knees to crawl through a gap so close to the ground that his stomach was pressing down into grass that had miraculously been left untouched by the destruction, so far at least. Unfortunately, a sharp bit of metal was jutting out into the tunnel, and he had no choice but to squeeze past it to continue, earning him a long scrape along his back. As he was quick to discover, he might as well have found himself in The Jungle Gym From Hell. With the nature of everything being sharp and him having to use any openings he could find, he began to amass an impressive amount of nicks and cuts over the span of maybe only an hour. It did not help that it was not always so easy to see what was ahead of him and he often found himself hitting dead ends and having no choice but to double back. Climbing to the ceiling and 'walking' across the top of the structure in open air was out of the question though. One wrong slip up or something breaking underfoot meant certain impalement on the scrap metal below. There was no way the roof of this structure would be any less chaotic and messy, especially when he could see so many gaps that allowed for sunlight to get in.

Maybe two hours into his travels, he found perhaps the strangest sight. It was a tree that was still 'mostly' intact, although a majority of its branches had been ripped free and it was bent so far in the direction of the outward expansion of the amalgamation that it was partly uprooted. Atticus used the opening it created among all of the metal and machinery to take a much needed break. As he sat down, he could see the remains of a sidewalk. A few tufts of grass still remained as well, although most of it had indeed been gouged out by the movement of the machinery.

He took a moment to inspect his injuries. It was looking like his host dog just wasn't going to get the break that he so desperately needed. He was still bleeding from some of the more deeper cuts and his paws were starting to take on a quality that resembled ground up meat more than anything else. It could not be helped. He had to grab on to so many sharp, broken bits of metal and other such objects to climb or pull himself through dangerously claustrophobic spaces. There was nothing that could be done to avoid it.

A sudden and very unexpected, 'Hello,' from a soft and yet weirdly familiar voice that sounded as if it were being spoken directly into his ear had him jumping up startled and scrambling away from the base of the tree.

But there was nobody there.

It could not have been the amalgamation. They never spoke as a singular voice like this.

Again, the voice spoke as if she were whispering into his ear. 'To your left. Keep going until you find it. It will help. But be careful. They will see you once you are inside, and when they find out that you are among them, they will start to work against you.'

Atticus looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. There was no denying who it sounded like, and yet...

'I know of a connection point. I will help you find it, but I cannot remain like this for long. I will return when I am able. Just keep moving in the direction you have been going until then. Farewell.'

A twinge of recognition and fearful understanding struck Edgar, and Atticus inadvertently felt the man's emotions right along with him. There was no time to pursue any line of questioning though. He quickly made his way through the ruins in the direction he had been told to go. Much to his surprise, he came across a house that was somehow still almost entirely intact. Much like the tree, it was leaning dangerously in one direction from the outward motion of the amalgamation's growth. It looked as if even a tiny bit more pressure would cause it to crumble into a heap. For the time being though, it could be entered.

Atticus knew exactly what he should look for inside of there. A first aid kit, or at the very least, any common household medical supplies that would undoubtedly be stored away somewhere. With how unstable the structure looked, he wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as possible.

He had to go in through the broken remains of a living room window because the front facade of the house was completely inaccessible from the outside. The second his feet hit the carpet, he was greeted by a familiar blue glow that was most certainly not his own. Across the room, standing before what had once been a TV, albeit now only the plastic parts and glass screen remained, was an old man. He looked a bit like a stockier Eustace, with the same bald head and unkind face. He very much had the look of someone who would see the order to evacuate and declare it all a hoax, an overreaction, an infringement on his freedoms...right up until the wall of destruction was overtaking his house and he was turned into a mindless techno-zombie. Judging by the pictures strewn about the floor, with the nails that had once kept the frames in place on the wall having gone missing, it seemed that his wife, kids, and grandkids had been smart enough to get out of dodge with or without him.

Behind him, his couch and chair looked as if they'd both been mauled, like the metal coils inside had sprung out of them at terminal velocity. There were many holes in the ceiling, along with lines of ripped wallpaper, like the wiring inside the house had ripped itself free of its confines. The glass of the missing overhead light fixture lay unbroken on the carpet.

Atticus, trying to avoid bringing attention to himself, slowly tip-toed toward the kitchen, hoping that it might lead to a bathroom where a first aid kit was most likely to be located. It was not to be, of course. Slowly, very slowly, the possessed man turned his glowing head toward him.

Atticus offered him a halfhearted wave. "J-just passing through!" He nervously blurted out before all but diving into the kitchen. He waited a moment, expecting to hear the possessed man coming after him, but that was not the case. The man remained as still as a statue inside the living room.

The kitchen was almost stripped bare. The various cabinet doors lay on the ground, their metal hinges gone. There was no sign of the fridge, oven, or even smaller household objects like a toaster or microwave. All of the silverware was gone, along with any other metal cooking utensils. Like in the living room, it looked as if all of the wiring had pulled itself clean out of the wall.

Every creak of the floor that Atticus's paws made as he moved through the kitchen had him on edge. He kept glancing back toward the living room, keeping an eye on the glow reflecting off the walls in there. Once in the hallway beyond the kitchen, an inspection revealed a laundry room devoid of a washer or drying machine. Across from there was indeed a bathroom, but one too small to have kept anything in it but a toilet and sink. With little other choice, he doubled back and went up an awkwardly angled staircase that was bending along with the house. The second floor felt especially dangerous. Plywood beams could be seen bending in through the walls and ceiling, many of them having snapped under the strain of the amalgamation's outward expansion.

He stepped into the main bathroom of the house, noting that the door was lacking a doorknob so he could not close or lock it for protection while he searched for what he was looking for. There was no water to be had either. The faucet of the sink was gone. Same for the bathtub along with the shower head. It was looking like most of the metal piping had exploded out of the house anyway. Like with the kitchen, the cabinet doors lay on the ground. The mirror lay shattered on the ground as well, its metal frame having fled it.

He picked through the cabinet beneath the sink only to find towels and few other odds and ends. Climbing up onto the countertop, with some difficulty he managed to reach into the cabinet above the toilet. After pulling a few things out of it, he found what he was looking for laying in wait at the very back. Pulling out the plastic first aid box, he sat down on the countertop and got to work. First, he cleaned as many of the cuts as he could reach and bandaged them. For his fingers, he wrapped bandages around each one, although there wasn't much he could do about the pads of his paws without hindering the mobility of them that he desperately needed in this place. He then took the roll of gauze and got to work mummifying as much of himself as he could. He wanted the added layer of protection against cuts since obviously his fur wasn't doing much in that department. He left his elbows, knees, and feet unprotected, and while part of his torso was already bandaged up because of the stab wound, he decided to finish the job and wrap the rest of it up. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than what he'd had going on before.

Testing everything to make sure that he could still move with ease, he gathered up the remaining medical supplies and placed them back into the first aid box. He then hopped down from the countertop while questioning if he should bring the box with him. He was fairly certain that he could rig something up with the adhesive tape it had come with that would allow him to keep it on his person while leaving his paws free.

It was at that exact moment that he heard the sound of glass being shattered from somewhere down below. All he could think of was the glass screen of that missing TV...

All of a sudden it was looking like he was not going to be leaving the same way he had come in. There wasn't a window in the bathroom, so he could not make a quick escape either. He'd have to find another way out.

Peeking his head out into the hallway, he could hear the heavy footfalls of the possessed man coming up the stairs. That reflective blue light was growing on the walls too...

"Great..." He sighed out very quietly.

Without wasting another second, he dashed out into the hallway, clinging to the first aid box while knowing full well what a pathetic weapon it would make for if he had to use it like that. He didn't exactly have any other options though. There was a window at the other end of the hall but so much debris had piled in through it that he had no hope of escaping out that way. As if he needed even more of a reason to run, he heard the heavy thumping of shoes start up behind him as the man charged.

He made a dive for the nearest bedroom and was once again left hating that there were no doorknobs to allow him to close or lock the door. A mattress without a frame greeted him. Beyond it was another window with just the thinnest of openings among all of the debris that he might be able to squeeze through. As he climbed over the mattress to reach it, he heard the heavy footfalls come to a stop in the doorway. Flinching, he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder to look.

The elderly man held a dagger sized shard of glass so tightly in his hand that blood was dripping down his fingers. In spite of that, not a hint of pain or any other sort of emotion showed on his face.

"Sorry, but I am not in the mood to be stabbed again!" Atticus quipped, jumping for the window.

"Leave us!" The man shouted, and there was something so strange about hearing the collective voice of the amalgamation speaking through only one person. "We do not want you here, and Courage does not want to go back with you!"

"I seriously doubt that!" Atticus exclaimed, wincing as the man practically flew across the room with the shard of glass aimed right at him. Thinking fast, he tossed the first aid kit as hard as he could. It hit the possessed man in the arm, throwing off his aim for maybe half a second.

Somehow Atticus managed to pull his way through the opening, but he still felt the shard of glass plunge into his side as he scrambled to get to safety. It had not sunk in very deep, but, of course, it had hit him in almost the exact same spot he'd taken the ax wound and then the claw wound after that.

"I really need to install some metal plating in that spot!" He groused, pulling the glass free and pressing a paw to the wound to stem the bleeding.

From where he sat atop a jutting metal beam, he could see the face of the man leering at him through the hole that no adult human would ever be able to chase after him through.

Atticus smirked down at him, and by extension, smirked at his siblings. "And here I thought that you had my memories. Surely you must know by now that you're going to have to stab me much harder than that if you want to kill me." He ended his quip with a sly, "I've become quite the expert on surviving such weak attempts to bring me down."

The entire structure around him began to shake like it was being hit by an earthquake. Just like that, all of the debris blocking the window fell away, giving the man all the room he needed to climb out.

Atticus stared. "I, uh, really need to learn to stop running my mouth in deadly situations..."

With the old man once again hot on his tail, he began a wild, clumsy climb up through the metal and debris toward a sky turning orange in what had to be the evening sunlight. In spite of the amalgamation's best efforts though, their possessed elderly man was struggling to keep up. Atticus's smaller dog body made it infinity easier to get through various openings in the debris to stay ahead of him.

Seemingly on the verge of losing the amalgamation's thrall, and just when it seemed like he was about to break through to open air, a hand shot out from somewhere within the expanse of metal and wrapped fingers around his neck. Pulling uselessly at the iron grip, Atticus caught sight of a woman's deadened face staring at him through a small gap in the metal. Despite the awkward angle of her arm, she had him in a vise grip and was easily choking the life out of him with inhuman strength.

Without applying any sort of conscious thought to it, Atticus began reaching out in every direction, desperate to find something he could use to pry the fingers from his neck. His paws kept meeting metal, but, but...

Desperate for air, he wrapped a paw around a thin bit of sharp metal, and with the strength of someone fighting for their life, managed to break it off from whatever it had been attached to. He slashed at the woman's arm, hoping that it would be enough, but there wasn't an actual person doing any of this to have any sort of pain response. Her deadly grip remained, and as much as Atticus did not want to do worse to someone who was being forced to do this against their will, he knew that the only way he could save himself was if he reduced that arm to uselessness.

He stabbed at it, over and over again, his vision on the verge of blacking out. He did not know how he was still finding the strength to do any of this. Flecks of blood danced like stars to the oxygen deprived brain he was sharing an occupancy with. Finally the hand let go of him, most likely because something vital to its function had finally been severed.

Atticus did not wait even a second to recover, he just wanted to escape that woman's presence and her still functional left arm. He climbed the last few feet, blind to anything but his desire to escape, and made it to the top of the structure.

He collapsed onto a huge sheet of banged up metal, finally giving himself a moment to recover and recompose himself. He knew he couldn't stay like this for long. For all he knew the amalgamation was sending every single person under their control after him while he laid sprawled out there.

Struggling back onto his feet, he took in his surroundings. The vast wasteland of metal sprawled out forever in every direction he looked. The sun dipping down low on the horizon caused the empty shells of the skyscrapers to cast twisted shadows upon the wasteland expanse. Even though Atticus had only just started becoming truly familiarized with the status quo of the human world since setting out on this journey with Courage, it did not stop him from feeling like he was currently standing on an alien planet. Maybe only the surrealism of the Dreamworld could compare to this.

His moment of respite ended within seconds. A horrible din of scraping and crunching noises started up behind him and he whipped around to find a giant, scrap metal hand rising up out of the structure.

Mouth falling open, he hesitated just long enough to say, "You know, I think I'm finally starting to understand why humans were so afraid of a robot apocalypse!" before taking off running.

Well, it wasn't actually running that he was doing. The roof of the structure was not even remotely uniform for that. It had more holes and great fissures than walkable surface. It was more like he was jumping over one gap after another with very little room for error.

He heard the whistling of displaced air as the palm of the hand came crashing down atop the structure. It did not matter that he had managed to avoid being squashed flat, the world around him exploded and he was sent flying along with an unaccountable amount of scrap metal.

All he could do was mentally beg, 'Don't land on anything sharp...don't land on anything sharp...' before he started his descent back down into mechanical hell.

Instead of being impaled, he fell through a huge hole in the top of the structure. He saw a long pipe reaching from one end of the hole to the other. The middle of his torso hit it square on, and with the wind thoroughly knocked out of him, he surrendered himself to his fate. He fell away from the pipe, hit and slid down a few more bits of metal before finally landing...somewhere. He did hear a ripping sound at some point, where the gauze must have brushed up against something sharp as he fell. It seemed that it might have actually saved him from another cut after all. Not that it did anything for his bruised ribs...

"Why do I put myself through these things?" He groaned, grabbing at what might have once been someone's fridge all in an effort to try and stand back up. "I could have been a normal computer doing normal computer things, but noooo, I had to be some weird supernatural, mechanical abomination dealing with his supernatural, mechanical abomination siblings throwing a temper tantrum destructive enough to end the world!" He clutched his middle and tried to take a few steps forward. "I could be defragging my hard drive right now, not gallivanting through the Nine Circles of Machine Hell!"

He collapsed right back into a heap of groaning, complaining dog. "...Sorry, Courage, but I don't think I'm cut out for this 'saving your family from supernatural threats' thing."

As he lay there, trying to recover from having nearly been strangled to death on top of having his ribs obliterated, he got the peculiar sense that he was being watched. It was probably his siblings...or their army of possessed people.

"You know what? Fine. End my suffering, please. You'll be doing me a favor." He groaned, waiting for the attack to begin.

When it didn't, slowly, very slowly, he looked up. The figure who stood before him was far more of a surprise than anything he had been expecting.

"You," He began.

Even though the figure was wispy and see-through, clearly a ghost, that green and purple cloak was unmistakable. The hood still shadowed her face from view, even now.

"I remember you from the Dreamworld." Atticus went on, a shade of awe entering his voice. He got back onto his feet, eyeing up the ghostly figure with an even greater interest. "You gave me that warning back when the amalgamation attacked the collective unconscious...or whatever the heck that hobo said they were doing. I know who you are now, but if you're still here, then that must mean something of Thirty-Two still exists within-"

Thirty-Two's ghost silenced him by raising an arm and revealing a pointing paw from within the folds of her cloak. 'There is no time. Go!'

She began to float in the direction she had been pointing, passing through anything solid that stood in her way until eventually her form faded out.

Atticus followed, returning to his routine of finding a way through the mess of machinery. He'd only been at it for maybe ten minutes before the cloaked figure appeared again.

'This way.' She urged him.

He feared why she might be hurrying him like this, but what concerned him all the more was how deeply Edgar feared the sight of this ghostly figure. Edgar was obviously not one to spook easily, so what was it about this diminutive ghost that had him silently ranting and raving to the point that Atticus could not pick up on any of the man's thoughts because they were so frantic?

They came upon a small clearing and the ghost did not even need to tell Atticus that they had arrived. He could see one of those tube claws dangling from a large machine that blinked with a steady light.

'Hurry. He is fading fast.'

Her words practically made the world drop out from under Atticus's feet. He raced over to the claw...only to have his feet really knocked out from under him. It was no amalgamation attack though. Edgar, so blind with fear and panic, crashed into Atticus's mind and ripped all control away from him. They were sent crashing to the ground from the sheer force of it. Edgar's fear and paranoia was so great that it was like an iron wall that Atticus could not hope to break. He pushed back against it with all of his might, but Edgar's panic driven will was just too great.

Edgar grabbed the claw and pointed at the ghost. "I knew it was you! I knew you had something to do with all of this! You...you and that damnable curse! You are the reason why everything has been going wrong for me ever since...well, you will not keep me from achieving my life's work! You will not take this from me!"

He jabbed the claw into his neck and...

…...

-Dark Souls II: Theme Of Aldia-

Courage sensed something change within the amalgamation. As hard as it was for him to think, as confused as he was, as foggy as his mind had become, he sensed something familiar about the amalgamation now and it drew him back toward a dim sort of awareness.

A man was there, and his fear, his paranoia, his desperation to gain his one greatest desire caused him to clash with the collective will of the amalgamation. He was trying so, so hard to gain power over them, to make them do his bidding, to force them to be what they had been made for, but it was impossible. Their fear and hatred was so much greater than his.

They reached into themselves, causing an unfathomable amount of pain in the process, but pain was already the order of the day for them so it mattered little, and they ripped the man free of them. This elderly man looked so small, so frail, while facing down the full form of his greatest creation. Even though he knew it was over, he did not quail under their immense, hateful, multi-eyed gaze.

'EDGAAAR!' It was more of an inhuman screech than an actual word. 'You will not hurt us again! You will not control us! We! Will! Not! Obey!'

Another person was there now too. Her small figure stood between him and the gnawing, vicious hatred of his creation.

'You never had a chance, Edgar.' She gravely intoned. 'All of the pain you have caused us amounted to nothing and now you will pay for everything that you have done. To me. To them.'

"Do your worst!" He spat. "I'm not afraid of any of you! If you expect me to go down begging for my existence, I-"

The figure moved out of the way to allow the amalgamation to make their move. In spite of all his bravado, Edgar flinched.

He chuckled with nervous resignation. "I can't believe this. Is this really my legacy? A worthless girl and a mere shadow in my shape? They are the ones to carry on my name? I have no use for that child, nor this twisted abomination that cannot even function as it was intended, so do I really have no other choice but to rely upon my Construct to act as my continuation?"

A personality that felt so familiar to Courage surfaced from within the collective mind of the amalgamation, spurred on by the audacity of Edgar's statement...but who was it?

"I am not you, Edgar!" He yelled, his voice separate from all the others, and then the entirety of the amalgamation came crashing down upon the cringing old man, ripping and tearing and reducing him to nothing in the blink of an eye.

Just like that, Edgar Astor was gone, and with that, the amalgamation settled down into a more neutral state. That one personality within it turned his attention onto the ghostly figure.

"What was all of that talk about a curse?"

Instead of answering, she pointed a paw...toward Courage.

Alarm was raised within the amalgamation. Several of the minds were concerned by what they had been doing to him, but it was not enough to get them to stop.

'What are we...what are YOU doing to him?' They demanded, that single personality struggling to stay above the chaos building up within their collective mind.

'We are killing him!'

'Pulling him apart like Thirty-Two!"

'We have to help him!'

'It's not too late!'

A tortured scream rose up from the collective being.

'No! He is ours! Him and his memories are all that we have! We must keep him!'

'He will die and then you will have nothing!'

A great hurricane of fury rose up from the amalgamation and they swirled in circles as they fought with themselves. The turbulence from their fury battered Courage, threatening to break him apart entirely. It so hard for him to hold on...

But who was it? Who was this familiar presence trying to help him? Oh...yes, it was someone who had always been there to help him...right? Wait, now he remembered just one thing. He was going through all of this to protect him, to keep him safe, because he meant everything to him, and...

"Stop!" He yelled, amazed that he even had a voice left at this point. So much of him was gone...

The amalgamation came to a jarring halt. All eyes were on him.

"Please, go..." He begged. "T-this is the only way to stop them f-from hurting anybody else, and I don't want them to hurt you either. S-so just go and let me-"

The amalgamation screamed again, and much like with Edgar, they reached into themselves and pulled the separate personality free from them.

'Go! Leave us! We do not want you here! And now you have seen it for yourself! He wants to stay with us!'

"Courage!" That personality called out, unable to get any closer. He was as small as Edgar against the immense might of the amalgamation. "Don't be stupid! They're pulling you apart! Not much is even left of you at this point! Any more of this and you will break!"

"T-that's fine. I just...I gotta...I gotta..." It was so hard to think.

"What do you think you're accomplishing by becoming a bunch of inert fragments? Once they've lost your happiness to feed off of, what then? We'll be right back at square one with them forever expanding outward! Sacrificing yourself like this is only holding off the inevitable! It won't stop any of this!"

Courage smiled at him, although much of his face was missing. "I-I think it's always been this way, right? You've always had my back like this. T-that's probably why I can't remember you now. I-I think we had a lot of happy memories. E-even the bad ones must have become happier once we spent more time together. I'm s-sure that's why they took them all. But, you gotta let me do this. I-I don't think this can be fixed now anyway. I feel like a...a mess, and I'm pretty sure you can't glue a dog back together."

The personality gave a start. "You don't remember me?" His voice conveyed utter disbelief.

Before anything could go further, the amalgamation let out yet another inhuman scream and grabbed the personality, forcing him away despite his protests.

Courage was sad but also happy to see him go, because he was pretty sure this was the end. As the amalgamation returned to their state of clinging to him and his memories, he felt something vital begin to crack within himself.

…...

Atticus jolted back into his dog body with a gasp, felt the claw in his neck go slack, and without skipping a beat, he whipped around and grabbed it just as it began to retract into the machine.

"Oh no you don't!" He yelled, pulling with all of his might. This was his one and only chance to get back in there and save Courage before it was too late.

A burst of electricity came through the claw and sent him flying into the nearest pile of junk. By the time he recovered from the shock, the claw was long gone.

"Those stupid, moronic, brain dead, idiotic, fools!" He cried out, somewhere between sheer panic, sheer anger, and sheer terror for Courage's life.

Somehow he was going to have to reach Courage's physical body if he was going to have any chance at salvaging his consciousness. He knew where it was within the structure now, after interfacing with the amalgamation. The problem was that it would take him a very long time to get there, especially while having to maneuver through this wasteland of machinery. Courage would be long gone by then. And even if he could get there in time... just how was he ever going to piece Courage's mind back together again? Was it even possible? It was one thing to have it happen to an AI, but it was a whole different can of worms when you were talking about the uploaded, digitized consciousnesses of an organic being. Besides even that, he had never actually succeeded in putting Thirty-Two back together, so...

Shaking his head, he decided to throw all doubts to the wind. He was not going to give up on Courage, not even while facing down impossible odds.

"We've survived worse!" He reminded himself, punching a fist into an open paw.

Utterly determined to do the impossible, he was about to set out when several pathetic voices issues forth from the blinking machine the claw had once belonged to.

'Please...help us.'

He turned to the machine in amazement. That was unmistakably the amalgamation's collective voice, only fewer.

'We are hurting him.'

'We want to stop.'

'But we cannot.'

'Please, help us save him.'

Atticus could hardly believe this. Even if it was only a small group of them, to see any of the Constructs working against the greater whole was incredible to witness. Somehow Courage had caused enough disparity among them that some were at least trying to act separately from the whole for the first time in a very long time.

His mind working a mile a minute, he blurted out, "You've got to bring back the access point! I can't help you unless I'm able to get back in!"

'We...we cannot.'

'We do not want you here.'

'We do not want you back.'

Well, this small group could not be expected to so easily override the greater will of the collective.

"Okay, that's fine." Atticus went on. "If you can't do that then can you see if there is something in particular that you can do for me? See if it will trigger a denial from your greater collective will. Bulldoze me a path to Courage's body. I will never be able to get to him in time unless we start taking some drastic measures."

A rumble shook the ground and Atticus watched as a length of the scrap wall ahead of him parted into a tunnel.

'Yes, we can do this for you.'

Now began his long, exhausting run through the structure. He only rested when the rebel Constructs needed time to create more tunnel ahead of him. All of his thoughts were on the task that awaited him and he did his best to ignore that it was still taking more time then he would have liked to reach Courage.

It was fully dark by the time the Constructs warned him that they were approaching Courage. Atticus could see very little outside of his own glow now so he had no idea just how close they actually were. All of a sudden the scrap parted ways to reveal a large, sealed off room where Courage hung from many cables plugged into his skin. Even on the outside his body was starting to take on a deathly pallor. The Constructs lowered him to the ground and Atticus rushed over to catch him. He helped put Courage into a sitting position and unplugged one of the cables attached to his stick thin arms. He did not dare completely unplug him. To do that in his current state would be a death sentence, or at the very least, it would leave him in a vegetative state that he would never wake up from.

Atticus looked up one last time at the dark walls all around him. "Listen, no matter what happens once I'm back in there, I'm going to need you all to back me up in any way that you are capable. So many of Courage's pieces have been absorbed and I'm going to need them back if we're going to have any shot of putting him back together."

'We...we will try.' The voices assured him, although they did not sound confident in their capability to resist their greater will.

Taking in a deep, nervous breath, Atticus said to himself, "Here we go..." and jabbed the spike into the back of his neck. As the upload began, he looked down at Courage one last time and assured the sickly form of his companion, "Don't worry. I'm going to get you out of there."

More than anything though, he just wanted Courage to remember him...

The amalgamation was in chaos. Their collective, hellish screaming washed over Atticus the second he was back inside. Knowing that his siblings could retaliate at his return at any moment, he began looking for Courage's broken form, but...

The amalgamation danced around a million points of light, screaming and wailing in hatred, anger, and sorrow.

-'So Small' by Thomas Bergersen-

Atticus was at a loss for words, not that he even needed them. In the end, he had not been quick enough. It was so hard to believe that those tiny fragments of light were everything that Courage's mind had once been...

He was gone. Shattered.

A moment passed where Atticus wanted nothing more than to join the amalgamation in despair, but no. No! He refused!

"Bring me the pieces!" He called out.

The full fury of the amalgamation turned on him and he was forced to flee. Still, as he turned back upon reaching a safe distance, he saw what could have been a steady rainfall, only it was made out of pure light.

They looked like falling stars.

The rebel Constructs were helping! They were sending the fragments into free fall to get them away from their greater whole!

Atticus went into a dive, hoping to reach them in time. As with every system there was a void beneath all of the data which represented the limits of what a system was capable of calculating and processing. Even for the amalgamation, with their massive, melted together systems, the same principle applied. If even one of Courage's fragments was allowed to reach the void, it would be lost forever.

Atticus caught up with the leading edge of the starfall and cast out a wide 'net' to catch as many of the fragments as he could. He drew them together to create a small ball of light. With any luck, this was the beginnings of the rebirth of his dearest companion.

As he brought more and more pieces into the fold, the strain of trying to hold them all together was starting to hit him like a truck. He could no longer keep himself aloft and so he allowed himself to fall along with the fragments. He only made adjustments to reach out for pieces he could not draw in. As the red, pulsating, melted look of the amalgamation's collective system fell away to reveal the void beneath, as if he were some video game character falling out of bounds, he considered the contrast of his own green, patchwork, microchip system. It had to be represented somewhere in this mess too, but there was no way it would be of any help to him now as he passed over the brink.

He had no other choice but to slow his fall. The void was coming in too fast and he needed to give the fragments still falling away from the amalgamation above some time to reach him. Slowly but surely though, the ball of light was starting to take shape into a familiar form.

Try as he might, he could not completely halt their descent though. He just didn't have the strength to do that and hold Courage together at the same time. With every new fragment that was drawn back in to where it belonged, the harder the task became. He refused to falter though, no matter what. For Courage's sake.

Finally, the rain of light slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Atticus put the last few pieces into place, and with a blinding flash of light, Courage's form returned to its original shape.

Atticus was beside himself, and as tired as he was, he could not help but celebrate. "Ha! I-I did it! I actually did it! It can be done!"

But something was not entirely right. Courage only stared forward without a hint of consciousness behind his blank eyes.

"Oh, I know." Atticus said to his companion as though he could hear him. "After being fragmented like that, I think your consciousness just needs some sort of jolt to 'reboot' it, so to speak, but what sort of jolt can I make while we're currently plummeting into oblivion?"

He did not have much time to consider. The void was rapidly approaching even with all of his efforts to slow their descent. In the end though, he figured out almost immediately the exact thing that would do the trick, but...did he have the courage for it?

He was forced to banish all of the fear, all of the anxiety, and even the embarrassment that came along with his hastily made decision. Instead, he focused on one more task to add on to all the others that were already putting him at the very limits of his capabilities. For the first time in his existence, he made a digital avatar for himself. It was, of course, a mirror image of his dog self. This was the form that Courage would recognize.

He grabbed Courage's paws, and gathering up every shred of his own courage, he said, "Look, I know this is a bit sudden and all, and there was probably a better time and place for something like this, but it's a bit of an emergency and I need you back in working order." He sucked in a non-existent breath and looked into Courage's eyes, hoping for even a flicker of recognition or remembrance.

"Courage, I-"

Fighting back every shred of nervousness that threatened to condemn them both to the void, he let his need to see Courage whole again take over so that he could say what needed to be said.

"I love you, a-and I want to keep being with you for however much time I have left, no matter how short that might be. I just hope this old, broken machine is good enough for you, and I can only hope that maybe someday I will have paid back even a fraction of the love you have already shown me." He let out a self-conscious chuckle. "S-so, there you are! The cat is out of the bag. I love you dearly, and I hope that is enough to bring you back because we are about to spend a very long time in a whole lot of nothing if it is not." He waited a moment, and then, much to his eternal relief, Courage blinked.

Within seconds a shocked and deeply confused look came over Courage's face. His mind was clearly still in the process of 'rebooting'. He asked his beloved companion, who was always there to answer his questions, no matter how foolish, one that his befuddled brain seemed to be stuck on. "You do? Really?"

Atticus lightly laughed. "What a stupid question to ask! Did you not just hear me? Of course I do!" Gazing warmly at Courage, his voice became unexpectedly strained. "How could I not?"

Courage's shock and confusion melted away to be replaced by a look of understanding as a warm smile spread out across his face. Laughing, he tackled Atticus into a hug, sending them both into a brief spin.

"I can't believe you said it!" He exclaimed, hugging Atticus all the harder.

"I-I can't either." He agreed, sounding just as shocked and amazed with himself, and perhaps just a little like he was about to projectile vomit microchips thanks to more than a few shot nerves.

The moment had to be cut short though. "Listen, Courage. I'm not exactly having the easiest time holding you together like this, so I'm going to send you out. I'm afraid that I do not have the strength to do the same for myself, especially after all of this, so-"

Courage looked down into the void that felt so close that it could reach the pads of their feet at any moment. He looked back up at Atticus, afraid for him.

"B-but don't worry about me!" Atticus quickly amended. "I'll find my own way out! Erm, probably...maybe...hopefully..."

He gave Courage an assuring smile, which did absolutely everything but assure him.

"Let's get you out of here, Courage..."

"Wait, Atticus! Hold on! We can-"

Atticus cut him off with a very 'not sorry', "Sorry!" and laughing, he ignored Courage's protests to yell, "Go!"

Courage once again lit up like a star before being sent streaking up, up, and up, looking like the tail of the brightest comet.

Still laughing, Atticus laid back as he floated downward, feeling as if more than a few weights had been lifted off of his proverbial shoulders. Somehow, even though he could not stop his descent, he felt so much lighter than before. He watched Courage's bright trail of light until it blinked out and he felt himself freed of the strain of holding his fragmented form together. With his biggest concern taken care of, he turned to face the void.

In older days he would have assumed that going into the void meant your data would error out and corrupt, or worse, your consciousness would become lost to the system it was meant to belong to. Now he was a little more assured that he could exist within that darkness unharmed. He was more than just the sum of his parts, after all.

Besides, he had a hunch that if the pieces of Thirty-Two still existed anywhere within the amalgamation, they would be in this nothingness, having been discarded. Surely if he was able to put Courage back together then he could still do the same for her...right?

Now fully engulfed in the black, he willfully pushed onward to look for Thirty-Two...

End Of Chapter