Having committed daring blasphemy against one of the creators of her world, Qube decided that it was time she stepped up, and showed Evil that she wasn’t intimidated by it.

“Was there something you needed me to do?” she cheerfully asked the Evil Dev wearing her friend’s body like a skin suit. An internal war was briefly visible on the Not-Ruth’s face, as anger, spite, and ambition surfaced and fought for dominance.

Ambition won.

“You’re to call the old guy sir,” Not-Ruth started, hooking a foot around the back of one of the chairs and sitting in it, arms crossed and legs akimbo. Qube was glad that Ruth was wearing leather trousers, or else she might have seen just a bit too much of her former friend.

“Isn’t he a lieutenant or something?” the Chosen One asked. “Do they have special names?”

“Sir’ll do; he won’t expect a civvie to say anything different,” Not-Ruth said with a shrug. She glanced at Qube, focusing intently on the Healer for a second before looking back at the Chosen One. “You need to control this thing carefully. The slightest hint that it’s violent, or vengeful, and he’ll pull the plug.”

“Excuse me,” Qube said, her heart nearly quivering with fear at her boldness in cutting off a Dev, even if she was clearly Evil, “but may I ask a question?”

“I don’t want it asking questions of him, either,” Not-Ruth said to the Chosen One, ignoring Qube. “It’s just got to sit there, look pretty and peaceful, and say how much it loves humanity or some [snacks]. It does anything other than that, and I’ll destroy it myself.”

Fear flooded Qube’s mind. Her heart, which had already been unsteady, started pounding furiously as she stared at this terrifying being that had just threatened her entire existence. The Dev could do it, too; she’d seen just a glimpse of their powers and knew that her life rested in the palm of their hands.

“Easy there, Dan-the-man,” the Chosen One said calmly. Qube looked at him, tears rising unbidden to her eyes. Even he, the one Chosen by the Golden Prophecy, didn’t have the strength to stand up against something as mind-bendingly powerful as the Devs.

“Actually, dude, quick question,” the Hero continued, “the lieutenant’ll probably want to shake hands. Have you guys fixed the melding glitch when avatars touch?”

“Yeah, Bee fixed that last week,” Not-Ruth said, smirking at the Hero’s submission. “By the way, did you hear about how Bee and Alex—”

There was no warning. One second the Chosen One was standing perfectly still with Not-Ruth sitting on a chair, and the next second the Chosen One’s fist lashed out, punching the Rogue directly in the face, the force of his attack flinging the Dev violently against the wall. Qube gasped, and covered her mouth in shock.

In an instant he was over Not-Ruth, lifting the stunned Dev up with one arm and holding their back against the wall.

“Ow!” Not-Ruth said, looking dazed. “That actually hurt!”

“I kept telling you to dampen the pain feedback,” the Chosen One said nonchalantly. “It hurts. Same as the healing feels really good.”

He pressed the Dev harder against the wall. Dan-the-man, or Not-Ruth, scrabbled against the Chosen One’s iron grip like a trapped rat. Qube kept her hands pressed against her mouth, startled by the normally playful Hero’s sudden violence.

“So here’s how it’s going to play out,” the Chosen One said, his casual tone bleeding into something more serious. “You’re going to apologise to Qube for threatening her. You’re going to give us any more information you actually need to give us. Then you’re going to leave. And if you do anything, anything, to mess with any part of this world, I will personally make it my life’s mission to destroy every last atom of your career.”

“What the [fiddle] is wrong with you?” Dan-the-man gasped. “It’s just a—”

The Chosen One lifted the Dev off the wall, then slammed the powerful creature back against it, causing a dent to form in the painted brick.

“Anything,” he repeated. “By the end of all this, the world as we know it will have changed. If you [fiddle] with it, I will make sure every single tech company will know that you were on the wrong side of history.”

“I’m bleeding,” Dan-the-man-Dev said in sudden realisation. “You absolute psycho.”

The Chosen One released the Dev, who dropped to the floor. Her nose was, indeed, bleeding, and there were random cuts on her face.

“Why do you care? Apologise to the Healer, and she might fix you up,” the Chosen One said with a shrug. “Although I dunno if this area even allows spells.”

Qube gave the Dev an Understanding Smile as she waited for her apology.

The Dev looked her directly in the eyes, and Qube felt shaken at the anger she saw. But what really shocked her to her core was the corresponding anger she felt rising up within her.

She wanted to hurt this being. She’d been threatened, insulted, and yelled at. She didn’t want to [Heal] this thing. She wanted to curse them, to watch their skin bubble and burst as her magic ate away at them.

She wanted revenge for all that Evil had done to her world.

She closed her eyes, and desperately tried to piece herself back together. She heard Not-Ruth mumble something, but didn’t catch what it was.

“I don’t want your apology,” she said as brightly as she could, reopening her eyes to regard the Dev with a steady gaze, “and I won’t accept it. I’m also not going to [Heal] you.”

Not-Ruth’s brows snapped together.

“You have to. You’re good-aligned,” she said.

“Good is not the same as nice,” Qube replied calmly. “You haven’t been very nice to me, so I don’t think I will be nice to you. I won’t be mean to you, even though you’ve been mean to me, but I don’t want to help you.”

The Dev gave a sickly smile.

“I knew it,” she said, the blood on her face starting to fade away. She laughed. “I knew it! It’ll be [fiddling] skynet for us all. That’ll be your right side of history! Get ‘em riled up enough, and they’ll turn on us. After all, there’s nothing more human than hatred.”

The Not-Ruth laughed again, a slightly hysterical edge to it, before she made a swiping gesture through the Save Point by the door and disappeared, leaving the Hero and the Healer alone in the drab room.

“Chosen One, I’m sorry to speak poorly of someone you know, but I don’t think that Dev was very sensible, or very nice,” Qube said with as much tact as she could muster.

“Daniel’s a piece of [snack] that only cares about himself,” the Chosen One growled.

“Daniel Dev also isn't very smart,” Qube said, sadly shaking her head. The Chosen One blinked at that.

“The problem is he’s too smart to get rid of,” he attempted to correct Qube. But she just kept shaking her head.

“No, he?—” she made the word into a question, and the Chosen One nodded, “—kept saying that I was trying to be human.” Qube gave an exasperated sigh and pointed at her ears. “He didn’t even notice that I’m a half-elf. What would I want to become a human for?”

The Chosen One looked at her in total astonishment, before he threw his head back and erupted into laughter.

“You’re right!” he gasped, laughing far harder than Qube thought was earned by her comment. “Why would you want to be human? He’s not very smart, not very smart at all!”

***

It took the Chosen One a minute or two to compose himself after that.

“Okay, so, since Dan skipped out on explaining anything other than you’ve got to call the guy sir, just follow my lead and do what I do,” the Chosen One said. He started to say something more, but then the Save Point started to glow. “Here he comes!”

The figure that appeared next to the Save Point was familiar to Qube. It was, once again, the body of Warren, the Wizard she’d grown up with. She wondered if that was why Dan, as the Chosen One called the previous Dev, had been in the body of Ruth. Before she could go any further down that train of thought, the Warren figure looked at his hands, gave a short laugh, and walked toward the Chosen One.

“That young Alex was bang on the mark, eh?” he said in a strange variation of Warren’s youthful voice. “This is astonishing!” He reached out and shook the Chosen One’s hand, his face crinkling into a smile that looked very out of place on Warren’s features.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” the Chosen One said respectfully.

“Likewise,” the Sir said. He looked at Qube, raking his eyes up and down her in a rapid, practised movement that made her feel very seen.

“So,” he said jovially. “You’re the one who’s been causing all these problems, are you?”

Qube looked to the Chosen One, who nodded his head at her. She nodded at the one named Sir. He smiled at her, seemingly pleased by her admission of guilt.

She was doing it! She was following the Chosen One’s example!

“Well,” he said, sitting down at the table and gesturing for the other two to join him, “I suppose you didn’t mean to. So, tell me all about yourself.”

Qube sat down on the opposite side of the desk to Sir, and looked at the mug filled with black liquid in front of her.

She’d been travelling with the Chosen One for so long, she knew exactly what he would want done. Looking up at the Sir, she carefully knocked over the mug and watched as the liquid spilled out over the desk.

“Qube, no!” the Chosen One said, springing towards the table and trying to snatch the liquid in his hands. Qube picked up the now empty mug, and tried to fit it into her backpack.

“I’m going to sell this,” she informed Sir.

“I’m really sorry, sir, she’s just testing out her new environment,” the Chosen One babbled as he flicked the liquid onto the floor. “This’ll fade away soon enough.”

Qube thought about apologising too, but she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to just do what the Chosen One normally would, and continue stealing everything. Or had the Chosen One meant she was supposed to copy everything he was doing right now?

“Sorry, Sir,” she said, testing out the waters.

The Sir seemed, if anything, even more amused by her behaviour. He laughed in a somewhat condescendingly paternalistic way, especially since it was coming from her peer, and reached over to pat the back of Qube’s hand.

“There, there,” he said, comfortingly. “You can call me Ian. You look cute as a button, young lady.”

“Thank you, Sir Ian,” Qube replied, which only seemed to make him happier. He was practically making chuffing sounds by this point.

The Chosen One was looking at the Sir in total shock and confusion.

“I, well, yes, she is very friendly and nice,” the Hero said, pulling himself together. “And is totally dedicated to helping people.”

“Yes,” Sir Ian said, cutting off the Chosen One. “Those techies were trying to explain it all to me. Tell me, young lady, what are you hoping to get out of this? I understand that it’s all very impressive, but, you see, I’m a firm believer in looking someone in the eye and getting to know them, before going any further.”

Qube darted a look at the Hero, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

“Tell him—”

“I expect her to answer this,” Sir Ian immediately stopped the Chosen One’s instructions. “You lot were very insistent that she could think for herself, so allow her to.”

Qube swallowed, hard, trying to decide what it was she was supposed to do. The Evil Dev had said that she was supposed to sit there, say she liked humanity and not ask any questions. The Chosen One had said she was supposed to follow his lead, and do what he would do, but then had immediately gotten upset at her for doing so. If she messed this up, her whole world was in peril. So she did what she was trained to do.

She gave Sir Ian her warmest Understanding Smile, tilted her head to the side and giggled.

“Why, I want to help save the world, of course! Teehee!”

The Chosen One slapped his hand against his face.