Noah dove behind a clothes rack, speaking quickly into a walkie-talkie as he checked over the counter. Aidan, Haydn, and Brayden were ambling about, looking very out-of-place among the casually dressed mallgoers. "All right, it appears that Thaddeus has been sidelined into a pocket dimension for plot convenience - there's no way he'd lose to these chumps otherwise. I think the plan should work if we pull it off juuuust right, okay?"

Lily was staring dreamily at the three unreasonably handsome men, her head tilted as she rested it on her arms. "Did you notice that Brayden's arms are really veiny? I didn't know I liked veiny arms until just now."

Turning to look at Noah, she was met with the singular most nonplussed expression she had ever seen. "Really? Veiny arms? That's what you're thinking about right now?"

She folded her arms, leaning against the back of the clothes rack and almost falling into the layers of clothes. "Well, yeah, why not? They're literally the most handsome possible people!"

Noah sniffed irritably, tilting his nose into the air. "Yeah, and if you get in a committed relationship with any of them, the universe will finalize the change and you'll be stuck in a rom-com. Forever."

Her eyes widened. "Wait, that's it? All I have to do is hook up with one of those guys and I'll get to stay in Happyland for the rest of my life!?"

He snorted loudly for some reason. "Technically speaking, yeah, if you're talking about a certain Minion's definition of Happyland. In reality, it'll be a never-ending series of Hallmark sequels, constantly breaking up with whoever you picked and coming back to him, because reasons. Anyway, we seriously need to change the genre!"

Lily frowned. "Wait, what's the next genre?"

Noah shrugged. "Alien invasion movie. Pretty easy to handle if you know how to do it right, but after that comes a comedy and I'd really like to finish the randomatter before that happens. Comedies can get wild."

The entire clothes rack lifted up, and Brayden smiled down at them. "Lily! I found you! Why are you hanging out with this guy? He's so..." He ran his eyes up and down Noah critically. "...normal."

Noah stood up, and Lily winced. "Normal? Normal? Did you just call me NORMAL!?"

Brayden set the clothes rack down and folded his very impressive arms. "Yeah, I did. You're wearing a sweatshirt and jeans - I'd call that normal."

A grin appeared on Noah's face that Lily would have called shark-like, if not for Duck's remarkably adorable version of it. Instead, she would have said that it was the sort of smile one would give a friend when they were about to do something deliberately annoying. "Uh, let's just calm down before-"

Noah snapped his fingers, and gravity inverted. Everything on the floor crashed to the ceiling, including Brayden, the clothes rack, and about five tons of various types of clothing. Lily and Noah stayed firmly put on the ground.

Laughing manically, Noah shouted, "How's that for normal, sucka!?"

Lily practically dragged him out of the clothes shop, trying to ignore the confused stares of everyone they passed. "Noah, calm down! I get it, you're a freak of nature in the best way or whatever, we've got to get going!"

Noah shrugged as they ran, fixing his off-kilter sweatshirt on the way. "Freak of nature is putting it a bit mildly TBH - I mean, I'm literally made of several trillion black holes!"

It was getting harder and harder for Lily to not think about the turned-up-to-eleven weirdness of Noah, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that. One thing was for sure, whatever relaxant device he'd had in the apartment definitely wasn't here, because she was starting to panic. "For the last time, what's so bad about the universe staying like this!?"

He stopped dead, and she nearly fell over her own feet as he did. He was practically anchored to the ground. "Well, two reasons. One, because rom-com relationships are almost always the most shallow, appearances-matter things you can imagine, and nobody would be happy stuck in one of those, you least of all. You might not have a whole lot of friends - or any, from what I can tell - but trust me when I say you are not a shallow person."

She stared up at him, eyes wide. "Noah, I... I had no idea."

He smiled oddly. "Thanks. And two, because the genre switched about ten seconds ago and we should probably start running."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As they sprinted out of the shopping mall, Lily squinted in the sudden increase in light. It felt like there were lens flares flashing all around her, which was weird for fairly obvious reasons. At the same time, everything was too dark, as if there was a heavy layer of thick clouds in the sky. "What's going on!?"

Noah raised a finger to point at the sky above them, and Lily raised her view to find a monolithic black shape floating far above them. It looked kind of organic, a glittering veneer of some unidentifiable gray material making up much of the shape. Small sparks of light shone at intermittent points on the colossal whatever-it-was, and a truly enormous cylinder faced downward, a dull light building in its depths.

She stumbled backward inadvertently. "What - what is that!?"

Noah squinted at it curiously. "Well, it's not from any of the sentient alien lifeforms that I know. I'm willing to bet it's only here for plot convenience - no alien species in the universe wants to come close to Earth. They think that your definition of 'humane' is a contagious virus, and they want nothing to do with any of your mess."

She glared at him. "Gee, really feeling the love. Can't you just-" she waved her hands wildly. "-poof it out of existence!?"

He frowned up at it, tapping one foot. The light in the belly of the ship was building rapidly, and the air around it was wavering from the sheer heat. "Technically? Yeah, easily. I could take out the whole universe in one good snap if I felt like it. Unfortunately, that'd count as an unsatisfying deus ex machina, and we can't have any of those. We need a good get-out-of-jail-free card."

Lily stared at him in blatant shock. "Are you kidding me!? I traipse around with you for the past two days listening to you talk about how awesome you are and the moment I actually need you to do something you just... wait!?"

He grinned. "I didn't say I didn't do nothing." He frowned for a moment. "Wait, is that right? Did I not do... wait, no, that's - oh, never mind. I totally did something."

She blinked. "Well, what did you do!?"

Pointing up at the sky, he said simply, "I asked Duck to help."

Lily almost strangled him at that point for asking a shark the size of a zoo's gift-shop stuffed animal to try and take down a spaceship the size of Manhattan, but then the sky darkened. Turning around, she looked upward, and her mouth opened in a slightly oval O.

A triangular shape was approaching the ship at an unbelievable speed, hurtling above the clouds. It was so mind-bogglingly huge that Lily kept looking for the edges and not finding them. The spaceship's barrel-looking thing dimmed abruptly, and it began to rise, heading back to the atmosphere.

It was far too late. A maw as big as the sky bit down on the top half of the ship, severing it neatly, and a second bite swallowed the sparking second half as it fell to Earth. The teeth were bigger than skyscrapers, rows upon rows of perfectly white mountains of enamel sawing through the foreign metal like it was warm butter. As the clouds were disrupted by the shape, Lily caught a glimpse of the owner of said teeth.

Island-sized gray scales hooking backward. A pure black eye rolling around curiously, looking bigger than the moon from where Lily stood. A ridge of pale color, marking the beginning of a white ovaloid shape on its stomach. Two Japan-sized fins on the side, gently waving as they carved through the clouds at a ridiculously fast speed. A blunt shape on the front that could be mistaken for Mount Everest.

She blinked. "Is that - is that Duck!?"

Noah nodded happily. "Yup! I probably should have mentioned, he's a protoshark. The bigger they are, the scarier, and the smaller they are, the cuter! Duck here happens to be able to get smaller than any other protoshark in the whole megaverse! Isn't he adorable?"

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Noah bellowed, "HI, DUCK! HOW DID IT TASTE!?"

Naturally, Duck didn't respond. Sharks couldn't make sounds, after all.

It was only a few moments before the shape began to shrink, the incomprehensibly massive shape of Duck's new size becoming smaller and smaller before vanishing from view. Seconds later, a tiny, fuzzy shark about four feet long dove out from underneath the clouds, hurtling towards Noah with an overly pleased grin on his nub-nosed face. Slamming into Noah, Duck began swimming up towards Noah's head, eyes wide and sparkling.

Laughing, Noah began to vigorously rub the shark's stomach, and Duck rolled over with an expression of pure bliss on his sharky little face. Glancing up at Lily's awestruck expression, Noah said easily, "Hey, come over here! The genre won't catch up for like an hour at least, and Duck needs his tummy rubs!"

Lily shook her head in disbelief but walked over and tentatively placed a palm on Duck's white stomach. His fuzz was unreasonably soft, and she started rubbing it dazedly.

Perhaps she'd signed up for a bit too much weird.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back at the apartment, Duck was locked in a ferocious battle with the ceiling fan once again, and Noah was messing with a lot of chemicals, most of which looked cartoonishly dangerous. It didn't help that he was muttering to himself almost constantly, and Lily was beginning to get a bit worried. Jill, of course, was utterly uninterested and tapping at her smartphone.

"A hint of einsteinium here, a dash of Essence of Diamond, and maaaaybe just a bit of dark matter."

The more Lily thought about it, the more she realized that it didn't sound as though Noah entirely knew what he was doing. "Noah, not that I'm questioning your ability to do whatever the heck that is, but... are you following a recipe, or just messing around?"

He snorted disdainfully. "It's randomatter. It's literally the essence of random made manifest and edible - how in the world would there be just one recipe for that?"

She blinked. "Wait, then how are you supposed to know if it works?"

He shrugged. "No idea if it'll work. We'll know once I chug it."

Lily was beginning to get a bit tired of her mouth hanging open. Basically her entire life she'd had a normal experience. Her first school had a bulldog as a mascot. Her first dog had been a black Lab named Fido. She'd gotten a scraped knee from crashing her bicycle, which had been neon yellow. Her life was a living stereotype, all the way up until she'd met Noah.

From that point on, she'd petted a shark, watched a person get shot in the forehead, seen her shadow become a person, lost and regained her job in under five minutes, briefly dated the three most handsome men she could conceive of, and watched a giant alien spaceship get eaten in two bites from the same shark she'd petted, except bigger than anything her brain could comprehend. In two days.

Her life was anything but a stereotype now. She didn't have a clue what in the world was happening or what was going to happen. She was stuck on an untested rollercoaster, wearing a blindfold, in a car with a flying pig. It terrified her on levels she didn't know existed. Something had to give, and her sanity held firm. Her temper didn't.

Slamming a hand on the table, Lily glared into Noah's startled eyes. "Stop it! Just stop it! How on earth do you manage to stay calm like this!? We almost died like five times! I haven't been this scared since I walked into the wrong haunted house on Halloween!"

She was aware that she was yelling, but her brain was a little fuzzy and she didn't entirely know how to stop. "What are you, some kind of psychopath? I haven't seen you scared at all! You weren't even nervous when you got SHOT IN THE HEAD!!!"

There was a long silence as Lily heaved, taking heavy breaths from her rant. Slowly, she noticed that Jill was staring at her with a gleeful grin on her face, Duck had paused mid-nibble on one of the lightbulbs of the ceiling fan, and Noah looked incredibly confused. "Uhhh... why would I be scared? I can't die."

She stared at him in shock. "Wh-what?"

He indicated the chemist's bottle, with its iridescent rainbow-colored liquid inside. "That right there is randomatter. I'm pretty sure it is, at least. If you drank it, I have no idea what would happen. The highest odds are that the genres will stop changing and go back to normal. Plot convenience practically demands it. On the other hand, I could drink it, and there would be no effect at all, because I'm already the most random possible thing in the universe. Aside from that, I'm immortal. Like, perfectly immortal. The whole multiverse could implode and I'd just get shunted to a new one. I was once stuck in a black hole for a few millennia."

He leaned against the table, folding his arms. "Do you get it yet? I literally can't die. Yeah, it means I'm effectively indestructible. I can do whatever I want, right?"

She nodded dazedly, and he continued with the most grave expression she'd ever seen him use. "Yeah, well, that's wrong. Except for the rest of the Cosmics, everyone and everything I encounter will be dust in a blink. Doesn't matter if it's a tree, a mountain, a planet, a universe..." He gestured at her sadly. "A friend."

Lily was... she didn't know how she felt, aside from terrible. "Noah, I... I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "Eh, I'm used to it. Kind of. Either way, I don't take anything seriously. There's no point in doing that when everything I meet is going to be reduced to atoms in just a few thousand years. So I enjoy the little things, the tiny moments in space and time when the clashing weirdness of everything settles a bit, clicks just right, and lets me genuinely enjoy some fraction of a percentage of my ridiculously, incredibly, depressingly long life."

There were no words for Lily. What could she say to that?

She glanced down at the gently steaming vial of randomatter. What was it Noah had said? That there was a good chance it would fix everything?

Noah considered her to be important. After that speech, she knew just how absurd that was. And, if she was honest with herself, she didn't feel very worthy of that opinion.

Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the vial and dumped the contents down her throat.

She was surprised. It tasted like chocolate milk.

And then she passed out.