They had been working on the issue of Evil Chaos for hours at this point. Eventually Chaos had unfrozen and even joined in the conversation, but sadly it did nothing to help. They all found themselves at an impasse with Evil Chaos lurking in Stu’s dreams. He’d really hoped to get some answers or even a clue of what was going on. The gods weren’t in consensus on anything except that Evil Chaos was bad news. After several hours, a knock at the front door stopped their conversation.

  All three of the girls stared expectingly at Stu. He sighed while getting up, and saying, “Yeah, I’ll get the door. Maybe, it will be a hot dy, and she will take me straight to the bedroom.. or maybe she will just put me out of my misery.. Either or will do..”

  Chaos yelled after him, “That’s not funny!”

  He didn’t let them see him grinning as he went to answer the door. The knocking continued as he got to it, he opened it to find a girl looking at him smiling. Not recognizing her he asked, “Who are you?” No sooner did he ask the question; he noticed her red hair, bck skirt, and those unmistakable eyes of a god. Stu’s eyes grew wide.

  She said, “Hello Stu, I’m here to kill you.” Smiling she snapped her fingers, and Stu saw a bright fsh of light. He opened his eyes as soon as he impacted the living room wall bouncing off of it. Scrambling to his feet, the front of his shirt was covered in blue. She’d hit him center mass with whatever that was.

  Stu spit blood yelling, “Girls!” Not waiting he turned running to the kitchen as the girls came running out.

  Prosperity ran to Stu looking him over. She asked, “What happened?’

  The red-haired girl walked into the kitchen saying, “Me.” She snapped her fingers again, Miracle blew up sending her flying through one of the walls. Chaos managed to catch her by surprise tackling the girl and crashing down the hallway. Stu watched as prosperity ran to help Miracle next, he caught his breath before running to help Chaos.

  Chaos was still trying to subdue the girl and yelled, “It’s Deception!” Then Chaos blew up, sending her flying off the girl.

  Deception scrambled to her feet saying, “Chaos, you were always a bitch!” She snapped her fingers and Chaos blew up again; she took a lot of damage this time from the bst.

  Stu ran, grabbing a frying pan as he charged her. Deception snapped her fingers and Stu blew up, but out of the bst the frying pan flew strait at Deception and bounced off her head. Her nose sprayed blood as she screamed in pain. The ringing of the pan was like a church bell going off. She looked up from the blood pouring from her nose and Stu was gaining on her fast, his gsses now only frames with no gss. His clothes tattered and soaked in blood, his eyes bled green fmes, this wasn’t tears. He roared raising a fist, she snapped; Stu exploded in a fsh and smoke, the roar persisted as the smoke gave to Stu swinging on Deception.

  Deception wore a look of shock; Stu looked like a beast ripping out of the flesh of a human. The moment seemed to be frozen in time as prosperity watched from around the corner of the kitchen. Stu skin was split all over, his teeth were shattered, his eyes were gone or repced with voids, and his blood was no longer blue; it was an eerie green fme that ran like water. She watched as Stu connected the punch, she had to doubletake; as she realized she only saw one punch for every three that were thrown. Stu hit Deception and the fire expanded from his blood, like an explosion of green fmes. The fsh made Prosperity blink.

  Stu watched Deception fly through the wall and not slow down. She screamed in pain as she crashed into Stu’s car. It caught fire immediately, he turned looking at Chaos she was unconscious, but most likely fine. He looked over seeing a scared Prosperity. He yelled, “How is Miracle?”

  Prosperity blinked the fear out of her eyes, but her voice was trembling. “She’s going to be fine.. She’s just hurt..” She couldn’t help but stare at him.

  The smoke detectors began ringing everywhere. Stu yelled, “Can you carry Miracle? I’ll grab Chaos. Let’s go!” Prosperity nodded and grabbed Miracle, they Followed Stu as he carried Chaos out. They got out front of the house, and Stu said, “I’m going to finish this, take care of them until I get back!” He set Chaos down and took off running at his car.

  Looking it over, there was a lot of crimson everywhere, but no body. The fire burned hot, but she would still be there if she was dead. The blood trailed off from the car, Stu followed it to near the edge of the road, he saw two separate sets of footprints and car tracks in the tall grass. He looked around, but there was nothing else.

  Stu shouted in the air, “Deception, I’m coming for you bitch!” He huffed and puffed looking around still. Finally, he made his way back to the girls, by this point the house was completely abze. Stu looked at Prosperity and Miracle who were on their feet, but Chaos was still down. Stu asked, “What do we do now?”

  Miracle looked at him and coughed before saying, “It was a hit. We were meant to be taken out quickly. That was a good try too, it almost worked. I was rendered useless immediately, they wanted me out of the way fast.” She looked really upset as she said everything, Stu could see the guilt she was feeling.

  Stu pulled out his phone, it came out of his pocket in so many pieces it may as well have been dust. Prosperity pulled her phone out and slowly brought it over to Stu, she looked unsure of him though, and that made him uneasy. He took the phone saying, “Thanks.” She nodded and backed away. Weird, he thought. He dialed Marrow, and he said he’d be by in a second.

  Marrow sounded sad as he spoke, “You weren’t exaggerating, this was an unsanctioned fight alright. My house.. I mean, I’m sorry for your loss today, it pains me greatly to.. It just pains me greatly..” He watched sadly as the house colpsed further into the fmes.

  Stu pointed to the bonfire next to the house saying, “They got my car too. I can’t believe they burned it down..”

  Prosperity spoke barely above a whisper, “They didn’t set everything on fire, you did. It was all coming from you..” She hung her head shamefully while refusing to look at him.

  Marrow stared at the house still asking, “Who did this?”

  Stu responded, “It was the devious big titty girl, and her god D..D.. Uh, um.. Oh well, it was big titty girl and that God of hers..”

  Everyone stared at Stu; Marrow was even staring. He asked, “Seriously Stu? How? Why? Big titty girl? That’s all you remember. Really? Are you..”

  Stu raised an eyebrow, “Really. You don’t forget holding a pair of watermelons that voluptuous..”

  Shaking his head trying to get the stupid out of it, Marrow asked, “Even if you are autistic, how did you manage to chase them off?”

  Stu shrugged pointing at the house saying, “Don’t know exactly.. But, I have an idea..”

  The cat’s ears went back and he looked sad again. “Oh, right.. Yeah, I should have guessed that. My poor house.. I’ll miss you, old friend..”

  Standing there watching the property going up in fmes, they watched as the st of it burned to cinders. Stu asked, “What now Marrow? What do you think we should do?”

  The cat stood up saying, “Good thing you were prepared with a safehouse. Come, we should get moving, who knows if anyone is still watching.” He sighed taking one st look at his house, then he led the way for Stu and the girls. He took them to Broth’s b then to a safehouse he and Tom had prepared in advance. Having moved into the new location, it was at the border of the two districts the cats shared.

  What looked like a concrete bunker stood before the group, they were all recovered by this point. Even Chaos was back on her feet having had to be filled in on the situation on the car ride to the new pce. Tom had joined them there, he stood in front of the new pce proudly exciming, “I dare you to try and burn this one down!” He grinned at Stu.

  Stu winced at the comment before saying, “Yeah, I didn’t mean to do that..” he walked up to Tom without the rest of the group, turning and looking at them, they all seemed hesitant about following him too closely. He turned back to Tom and said, “They had a long day, don’t mind the odd behavior..” It was obvious that he was speaking more to himself than actually speaking to Tom. He started inside alone.

  The girls followed at a safe distance and Marrow stayed behind to talk with Tom. As Stu entered the pce it was a bunker alright, but it was furnished like a mansion. The main difference between this pce and the st one was the major ck of windows. Stu walked down a narrow hallway and came to a room with his name on it. Opening the door and peering inside, it was a really nice room. A crate inside said Fragile. He opened the top and looked inside, it was a crate of new gsses. He pulled a pair out and tried them on, they were perfect. He looked in the mirror, exactly the same as his old pair.

  Tom broke his concentration saying, “Yeah, I thought you might appreciate that, well, it was actually Kay’s idea. So really, I suppose you should thank him at some point if you get the chance..” He casually strolled into the room finding a perch.

  Stu sat down on the bed saying, “You know, I think I scared the girls today. I’m not sure why or how, but I get the feeling I did somehow.” He leaned back staring at the ceiling.

  The bck cat sat there staring at him for a moment. The silence was almost unbearable as Stu anticipated the ck of an answer. Tom finally spoke, “The girls are terrified, not for the reasons you think though. Today real unbridled danger found you, when it did, you banced your self-knowledge and your inner-chaos to create your own unique powerful self. As judges we call it the power, a dancing star. Today you used your Steward powers with Chaos. This dance you performed allowed power the equivalent of a star to expand from you, or more simply it was a transmission of cosmic power with you as the conductor. This is as simple as I can state it, they were scared for you, not of you. You achieved a big step today, and they are concerned for you.” The cat wore no readable expressions as he expined this to Stu.

  Stu asked, “A dancing star? Is that why everything caught fire today?” Tom nodded at him. Sounding more like his old self Stu spoke with confidence, “Alright, if this is my power then I guess that’s pretty cool. Dancing star sounds kind of badass anyway, it has that hint of beauty and death. I can dig it, and also.. You know, it was pretty awesome of you to get me so many pairs of gsses.. Thanks Tom, for everything.” He looked at the cat smiling.

  Grinning back Tom asked, “So, Stu, think you are ready to learn how to use your powers? I think it’s time, how about you?” There was a look in the cat’s eyes that seemed reassuring to Stu. For once he felt like Tom was on the level with him. Tom continued, “Deception broke the rules, now it’s time for punishment. I don’t suppose you’re interested, are you?” Stu gave a wide grin.