It only took about an hour and a half for the No-Zone Cleanup Crew to turn up to the scene. If there was one thing that Lilac had to admit about these unhelpful surveyors of spacetime, it was that they were quick and punctual. She didn't even remember what happened after Brevon slumped to the floor like that. She only remembered the exo suit shutting down and then waking up back in her wheelchair. Surgeon filled in some of the blanks for her; as she had somewhat rightfully guessed, the strain of the battle, plus the strain from the exo suit wearing on her already broken and fragile body, was too much for either to take. The suit had not only flattened the myriad of batteries on and around its frame, but it had sapped Lilac too. She had tumbled to the floor, sinking into an empty blackness for a good while. While there she dreamed. Dreamed of unusual shapes dancing in the air. Of Carol and Milla cheering her on with high-fives. Of Brevon's battered and bereft-of-life body slowly sinking into the inky blackness, only to splash into a thick goop underneath her and to slowly sink into the ooze, never to return.

It would be quite some time until Lilac came to. Now she was outside, with the others, on a cliff just off of the edge of the Battle Glacier, Brevon's infernal ship the Dreadnought just beyond them. She was back in her wheelchair, a shawl of sorts wrapped around her freezing frame, the burnt remains of the exo-skeleton frame cooling off in the snow beside her. Her legs worked no more, once more, but for once she did not care in the slightest. The exo-skeleton, while still in its early stages, was all that was needed for her to get up, leap and bound. After all, she had mastered it in a few precious hours, though how she did so even she did not know. Regardless, it was at least a small comfort, for it make her legs usable again. It made life...possible. Not right now, though, the frame was too battered itself for that. Instead, she twisted her head around to look at what was now before her. The others in the group were still here, surrounding her. Carol and Nikolai, perhaps the strongest of the group, were helping random and scattered No-Zone Agents carry bits of technology from the Dreadnought into a sort of "space truck", doubtless for their own use and resource-gathering. A green tent was to her side, and within the open cracks of the tent's opening, she could see a stretcher. Katherine was laid out upon it, a No-Zone Medic that almost looked like Milla was attending to her wounds, while Lowell was by her side, squeezing her hand tight with worry. The Surgeon and Torque were overlooking the whole scenario, Surgeon speaking into some sort of device and Torque watching him casually. And finally, Milla was just being Milla, rolling around in the snow and being cute.

However, when Milla noticed that Lilac had come to, she sprung up and rushed off to get some of the others, "Guys! Carol!" Milla squeaked excitedly, "Lilac's awake! Lilac's awake!"

Before long, a good number of people came bounding across the snow to greet Lilac, with the No-Zone people free to continue hauling the tech into their own 'verse, while also cleaning up what Lowell and co left behind; broken robot parts, spilled oil, and so on. Lowell was there, with a wounded but stable Katherine propped up under his arm, a small weak smile across her face. Nikolai was there also, helping Katherine continue to stand. Carol and Milla were circling around the dragon with glee, while Surgeon just sort of...stood there with Torque by his side.

"Well, if it isn't Little Miss Heropants!" Surgeon was the first to talk, his voice full of pride, "How're you feeling?"

"Better?" Lilac shrugged, almost non-nonchalantly, "I mean I-OOF!"

Carol had quickly pulled Lilac up out of her chair and into a strong bear hug, "We did it, Lilac!" she cried out in joy, "We beat the guy, he's never gonna bother us again!"

Lilac shrugged a little, "Well, me and Lowell kinda did..." she looked over Carol's toned body, before noticing something on her torso; it was a bandage over her abdomen, poking out of rips on her shirt and clearly bloodstained. She began to panic, "C-Carol! What about your own wound? Brevon shot you!"

"Hmm?" Carol seemed confused about what Lilac was talking about, before she looked down to see the bandage Lilac had seen, "Oh yeeeeah, he did, didn't he? Well don't worry, he didn't hit anything important!"

"Actually it punctured her liver and narrowly missed her own spine..." Torque corrected sternly, glaring at Carol, "You're lucky that Katherine decided to use her blood healing powers to heal you and not just use them on herself."

Carol's ears dropped with a mixture of embarrassment and regret, "Well yeah, I guess that was nice of her concerning her own injuries..." she turned to Katherine, "Uh...sorry?"

"None taken," came her shrugged reply.

Milla, having now noticed Katherine up and out of bed, hopped up to her, "Hello, Mrs Katherine!" she chirped, "Are you feeling better?"

"Yep..." Katherine lied, chuckling to avoid the bitter pain in her torso, "Better me than you, after all..." Both Lilac and Milla began to stare at her, with a mixture of confusion and fear. Lowell too gave her a confused side-glance, to which Katherine slowly realised what that meant, "Uh, whoops, kind of a spoiler? I mean we avoided the mutation and mutilation, so...eh, the point is, I'll live."

"Thank the Great Dragon..." Lilac sighed, relieved. She wheeled over to Surgeon and...attempted to look cool, putting her balled fists on her hips, "So...who called the No-Zone guys?"

"I did," Surgeon shrugged, "After all, I'm with them. The main threat has been eradicated, and peace has been restored, and now we have to come in and clean up all the mess."

A quick change came over Lowell, his air of confidence shattered and he spun around to face Surgeon, though not before handing Katherine over to Nikolai to not injure her further. His face was showing he was freaking out, "Wait, what? Are you mad?! What about Zonic, exactly? What if he finds out we were even here?!"

Surgeon merely smiled, "Relax. I've got that all sorted out."

It didn't take long for the distinctive hum of the distinctive portal Zonic used to get around to bleed into reality, before the portal itself ripped a hole in spacetime. After a few seconds of the swirling purple vortex, Zonic stepped out, an angered grimace visible on what little of his face could be seen. This was perhaps the first time Milla got to see this Zonic person in the flesh - as before, he was a blue hedgehog, dressed in a red suit of sorts, with green and yellow armour clipped onto it and a strange helmet. He approached Surgeon, growling under his breath, "Surgeon."

"Zonic. You appear to be looking substantially more irritated then usual."

"Well, for a team we dubbed the Peacekeepers, you sure have a violent method of keeping the damn peace. Not that Brevon didn't deserve it, but..." Zonic trailed off before he began to glance towards Lowell and the others. A snarl spread across his face as he approached them and talked in a barely restrained manner. "So, what are you three even doing here? We told you, by mandate, to stay away."

Lowell began to sweat, "Well, uh, you see-"

"You know what, never mind," Zonic growled, lunging out to grab Lowell by the throat, "You disobeyed a direct order no matter what excuse you make up to justify it."

"Hey! Why don't you just get lost?!" Carol piped up, leaping up and towards the armoured hedgehog, "He knows what he did was wrong! It was a mistake!"

"Yeah, leave them alone!" Milla cried out.

Zonic would not budge, "We made ourselves clear. Your mindless little lupine acted out of order. Now your punishment is going to be all sorts of nasty," he gave Lowell quite the death glare, throwing him to the ground and digging out a trio of handcuffs - doubtless for the trio, "A few weeks in a jail cell should do the trick."

"Oh, that will not be needed, Zonic."

Zonic stopped, and turned in fear to see the person whose voice had rang out aming the team. With a soft clop of heels, what appeared to be a human female approached the group. She was quite tall, with pale skin and a mop of red hair tied into a large braid down her back. She wore a similar sort of clothing range to Zonic, a bodysuit of sorts. Only instead of being red, her suit was a dark blue, and the armour clipped to her a navy blue. Her armour was padded in a style that was somewhat ceremonial, like a general's jacket, with five stars on her lapel and white gloves. Her legs were likewise covered in padded armour to resemble navy blue trousers. She didn't wear a helmet. Zonic panicked and quickly got down on one knee, like a sort of courtesy, "L...Leader Zelise!"

"Wait, an Elise is the leader of the No-Zone?" Nikolai asked, somewhat dumbfoundedly, "That's impossible! The Elder Masters forbid it!"

"We don't listen to them, anymore," Zelise noted, "Besides which, I passed with flying colours. Finally gave an Elise the chance to do some good around here."

"And you're doing that by letting them free?!" Zonic cried out incredulously.

Zelise gave Zonic an ocular patdown, "Yes. No-Zone Rule #392 states that a higher member of the No-Zone can determine if an unscripted intervention is reasonable or not through context. They came back, yes, but they came back to help and resolve an issue. An attempt to rectify the issue that they caused..." she arched closer to the slightly more fearful Zonic, a disapproving look on her face, "And one I believe you attempted to circumvent purely because it would look good on the record."

"But Miss Zelise!" Zonic attempted to explain, "You cannot-"

"Go against every rule, no" Zelise sighed, "But here would be a good time to exercise some forgiveness. And perhaps for you to exercise some caution. The last thing you want on YOUR record is being demoted or punished by the heathen that ruined everything..." she pointed to herself.

"But, I..." Zonic attempted one last time, before he finally met defeat and arched over, "Yes, Miss Zelise..."

"Well done. Now, dismissed..." Zelise waved him. Zonic sighed again, and walked back through his portal - but not before he turned to glare at Lowell, in look that screamed 'next time you mess up, I'm gonna ruin everything about you' before storming off. Zelise dropped her more stoic look and sighed, exhausted, "Sorry about that. Ever since...well, that event, Sonics and Elises don't really get along. Anyway, it shouldn't take long to get all of this cleared up. The No-Zone should leave this universe and return to monthly checkups, as normal. What about you all, then?"

"Well, I'm afraid I gotta go," Torque sighed, walking in front of the trio, "I called my own people, they'll be down with a shuttle to pick me up."

"What, no!" Carol called out, approaching Torque with a look of shocked sadness in her eyes, "We only got you back! Don't go..."

"I have to return to the Coalition, make it known that Brevon isn't going to be an issue anymore. Besides, as long as you keep your batteries charged up, I'm sure you girls are plenty capable of defending the planet now."

"I...I guess. C-Carol, could you...pick me up?" Lilac asked. Carol looked at her like she had asked for pineapple on her pizza, but regardless she plucked Lilac up out of the chair and brought her towards Torque. Lilac spoke, her voice breaking and eyes full of tears of joy, "Thank you, Torque. For..." sniffing and sobbing, she arched forward and pulled Torque into a tight hug, "For letting me walk again..."

"Hey, it's okay..." Torque sighed peacefully, patting Lilac's back as she calmed herself, "There we go...when I take leave, I'll see if I can come back, check up on you guys from time to time."

"And, uh, us too!" Lowell said, "We're planning to keep in contact as well. It's certainly been a wild ride, and all."

"Just...gotta let us heal first..." Katherine groaned, clutching at the exit wound that was still in her bandaged abdomen, "...Damn, that mine hurt."

Nikolai turned to his side, "And you, Surgeon?"

"Me?" Surgeon pointed to himself, "Oh, I'll be off doing my own thing, as usual! Saving the world, serving the No-Zone, helping Markus, that sort of thing. I'll come see you too, don't worry!" he walked over to Lilac and held his hand out. Lilac reached out and high-fived him before she begun to clung to Carol again, "Heh heh, nice. Okay guys, time we headed back to the No-Zone in question. Got a TON of reports to write after all this. Would you like a lift in the TARDIS?"

Carol's head tilted, "The what now?"

"My TARIDS..." Surgeon reminded. Lilac twisted her head towards where the lynx-jackal...thing, was pointing. Behind him, a good distance away, was a medium-sized white cylinder with straight-edged segments on the top and bottom. A single standard door was plastered on the front, a small light on the top, and "TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSIONS IN SPACE" on a plaque on the top, "I mean, how do you think we got here so fast? Getting the hang of an exo suit doesn't take minutes, you know!"

"Hours at best," Lilac reminded.

Zelise turned to Surgeon, smiling politely, "I would love it, Surgeon. Thank you for offering."

Lowell chuckled, "Yeah, we'd like it too. Much easier on our, uh, battered bodies. OOH, one more thing, though!" he quickly dashed over to Carol and Lilac, and helped the latter get the former back into her wheelchair. He sighed, and arched forward to grab the handrests, a sorrowful expression on his face, "Well, I guess this is it, Lilac. I...I do hope you'll forgive me for...you know."

"It's okay, Lowell," Lilac sighed, leaning forward and pulling him into a small hug, "I forgive you..." they broke the hug, and Lilac continued to stare at Lowell, a hopeful yet stern look in her eye, "Just promise me, next time you see another Lilac, even if she's having trouble...think before you take part. Let her run her course, even if it does her wrong. You know know what might happen if you intervene again."

Carol bent over to look Lowell in the face, "Yeah, I hope you learned some lesson from this..."

Lowell cleared his throat and stood upright, "Yep. Think before acting, got it," before a whistling sound caught his ear. To Carol's utter surprise, the group was now piling into the the small cylinder, walking through the doors and all into the ship as if it was a clown car. It was Surgeon who had whistled to him, and was now leaning outside of the doorway. Lowell jumped, "Oh, right! Okay girls, we have to go. Bye!"

Lilac called after him, "Bye, Lowell!"

Milla joined in, "I hope we'll see you again!"

Lowell flashed a small grin and then turned and bolted into the TARDIS, before the doors shut with a resounding clonk. The ship stood silent for a few seconds, before the door burst open again and Lowell leaned out of the doorframe, "Oh, and one more thing! Good luck with Merga!"

"...Merga?" Carol asked, tilting her head in shocked confusion, "Who's...who's Merga?"

Surgeon likewise appeared in the doorframe, his tone falsely jovial, "Nothing girls, haha!" he then turned to Lowell and grabbed him by the scuff of the neck, his tone scornful, "Okay now you're actively pushing your luck. Get in the TARDIS."

Lowell could only manage an "Aww..." before he was pulled inside. With another, final clonk, the doors to the strange machine shut tight. Then, with the top light pulsating and an otherworldly groan wheezing out of the contraption, it slowly faded in and out of reality. Winds were whipped up and brown leaves scattered before a final wheeze occurred and the ship vanished into thin air. With the ship gone, Torque said his goodbyes. There was a lot of sadness and wailing, but it was clear that Torque had more important things to work on. He said a final farewell and took the first of many steps to the rocket sent to pick him up. Then the No-Zoners finished their duty and began to pack up and leave too. They rode the space truck through another of their portals, before it closed with an otherworldly sound. The leaves settled, and the three were left alone once more. Lilac sat back in her wheelchair, lying back and sighing. It had certainly been a long day, and she was now drained from the entire thing. Carol slowly walked up to her, and put one of her hands in Lilac's. Lilac, after a brief gasp, returned the sentiment and held that hand in both of hers. Carol got down on one knee.

"Well..." she sighed, "That's everything, then. We won. Brevon's gone. The Kingdom Stone is back in the temple, safe and sound. You're okay now...right?"

"Okay...?" Lilac asked, before flashing a warm smile - the warmest Carol had seen since Mayor Zao's dining table, all those weeks ago. She turned fully to Carol, "I'm feeling better than okay! I feel great! I feel like I can take the world on!"

"So you're not as bummed out being in a wheelchair?" Carol asked hopefully.

"...Well," Lilac calmed herself and sighed, "It's...something I'm still gonna have to get used to. But with the suit for walking and running, I think I can adapt. I feel like...I can live a life now. A life that's all my own. With you and Milla, of course."

"Thank the Great Dragon..." Carol sighed, a small but warm blush spreading across her face, "So...what do we do now?"

Milla bounded up to the two, "Yeah, what now?"

"...We keep going," Lilac said after a pause, her voice fully confident, "Brevon's robots are still out there, and we gotta make sure we can get rid of as many of them as we can. We gotta destroy the robots, charge and upgrade the suit, find Serpentine, get back in Neera's good books, complete our mission, unite the kingdoms, make sure the Stone stays protected..."

"That's a lotta stuff, Lilac!" Milla cried out, almost worried, "Are you sure we could do it?"

"We could do a lot now," Lilac said, bringing the little puppy in for a hug, "We just gotta take it at our own pace, do it our way. I'm gonna get used to the suit, AND this wheelchair. I feel like I could...no, WE, can do anything!" She motioned for Carol to come closer, to kneel by the side of the wheelchair, and she wrapped her free arm around Carol as they admired the sunset - the entire day's events had passed by so quickly, and now the setting sun painted the sky a beautiful burnt orange, "It's just us, girls. Us against the world. Let's do it, to it!"

Carol quickly swung around and planted her hands on Lilac's shoulders and flashed a flirty smirk, "Together, this time?"

Lilac smiled warmly and repeated, "Together, this time."

The look on Carol's face was washed away as she gasped a little. She never realised how wonderful Lilac's smile was. It was...beautiful. Like the rest of her was beautiful. She looked so happy and warm and...cute? Carol flashed back to when she discussed that with Surgeon. How his face was almost joyous when Carol called Lilac cute. Like he knew what was to come. Well he was a time traveller, but...still...was there no shame in finding her cute? Perhaps more? Carol's blush spread across her face as she stared at Lilac, drunken from love, "L-Lilac..."

After a few seconds of ambiance, Milla suddenly piqued up, "Uh, Lilac? How're we gonna get home from here?"

And Lilac went silent, a shocked fear across her face.

============
Ten Years Later

A shining city, bathed in white sunlight, situated in the middle of a lush jungle. The light of the sun bounced headlong off of the shiny white towers of the city, and showered the citizens below in reflected glory. The pavements were a pristine grey as people in fancy outfits clomped along, carrying bags of shopping or smoothies or other costly items. The buildings were skyscrapers, lined wall to wall with glass panes, on the bottom level showing shops with all sorts of wonderful and expensive items within its insides. A clothing shop here, a coffee shop there, some selling toys for small children and so on. A few restaurants also littered the complex, while red and gold walkways wove in and around the pavement, mostly under beautiful red canopies that covered gaps in the road and complemented the old-fashioned decor lining the walkways. Benches lined the streets as well, as well as the odd cart selling street food. There was an ambient noise of murmur, purchases and the playing of kids in the street, but it was all soon silenced by a mechanical wheeze just off to the side. There, a bright light flashing from the void, a while capsule of sorts erupted from nothing, fading into reality and landing with a clonk type sound. After which, the door on the front burst open, and a funny man stepped out. He was a jackal, wearing a bizarre tuxedo with bowtie, brown leather driving gloves and two white and red trainers. Even as people stared on in confusion, he took a big lungful of air, and sighed happily.

"Aaah, so nice to see this place again!" the man called out, his accent now known as 'British', "I must say, the rate of progress is stunning sometimes, isn't it? Come along, Janic!"

A new figure stepped out of the object now, turning to lock the door behind her. She appeared to be...a hedgehog? Indeed, a purple female hedgehog, eyes a glistening green and her quills shortened and spiked up towards the top of her head. She wore two earrings, one in each ear, as well as purple lip gloss. She also wore a black shirt, denim jacket, jeans and red boots with a red stripe on them. She tussled her hair back a bit and shielded her eyes with one hand, "Wow, this place is pretty...bright," she spoke, her accent also suitably British, "Where've you taken me this time, Surgeon?"

"Shang Mu, 2024, Planet Avalice, FP-084!" Surgeon said with glee, spinning in place like a showman, "Place is a marvel of commerce and cuisine!"

Janic continued to stare at the white city around her. This...wasn't right. Wasn't Shang Mu supposed to be red and old-fashioned? She turned to Surgeon, a look of confusion on her face, "Wait, wasn't this the universe where you had to intervene a few months ago, from our perspective?"

"Yes, that's the one! No-Zone interferance caused the progress of technology to...uh, sky-rocket in speed. Bit of a side-effect, that. But still!" Surgeon nervously scratched the back of his head, then lept into action and bound across the street like a child, "Come on then, there's a cafe and bakery that's just opened up around here! Does the best krullers this side of the multiverse, and it's not quite the world-renowned place it will be yet! Should get a table, haha!"

Janic chuckled lightly as she began to follow Surgeon, "Ooh, we hipsters now? Mmm yes, I liked this place BEFORE it was super popular. Which is right now! Heh heh..."

The two eventually slowed their pace and began to walk normally through the streets, Surgeon pawing at a map he took out of a tourist box and Janic following not that far behind, smiling. She quite admired Surgeon, actually. Heroic, silly, intelligent and yet still humble and not without his fair share of mistakes. The two had actually gone on many adventures before - discovering the fabled Train to Paradise, fighting Cybermen, fighting the Metallix, even landing on Bygone Island. In fact, it was that event where they met, and Surgeon saved her life. Well, his, at the time. Being another Sonic in the wrong place at the wrong time, and all. She was just thankful he shared some of his regeneration energy after being hit by the laser bolt. Even if the new body was hard to get used to, at first. But now things were different. She felt like a new, entirely different person...and perhaps that was for the best.

Before long, the two rounded a corner, and came across the cafe that Surgeon was talking about. It was a small cafe called the "Bread and Butter Cafe", of all things. It had a few tables and chairs outside, and was situated off to the side of a busy city square, an intersect where four other streets melted into a single, central meeting hub. Janic took a set on one of the tables outside as Surgeon quickly went in to order some pastries and coffee. Tapping her fingers in a rhythm on the table, Janic watched with wonder as the people of the city continued to go about their day. She thought that two alien invasions would have left everyone on edge, but it was not to be. They simply continued, so tranquilly and peacefully, chatting and laughing and sipping coffee. It was almost serene, almost safe, in a way. It wasn't long before Surgeon returned with the coffee and pastries, laying them out for the two to snack on. Janic thanked Surgeon, before taking her kruller and taking a sizable bite out of it. A sweet sensation rushed through her senses, and she smiled in an almost amazed way.

She grinned further and turned to Surgeon, "Man! I see what you mean now, this stuff's incredible! It's so doughy and sweet!"

"Nice, isn't it?" Surgeon chuckled, "A nice kruller, with just a hint of red leaves..." he took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair and admired the view as well, "Aah, I'm so glad this place got better after that nasty business with Brevon. Even if it's not exactly as it started."

"Yes, you told me about that...I think," Janic spoke, her eyes darting around her head as the gears turned like crazy within it, "Dragon gets paralysed, almost offs herself, you save her, she gets robo-legs, they destroy Brevon, and everything's hunky-dory."

Surgeon chuckled, taking another sip of his coffee before staring into space and then going back on his word, "Uh, sort of. After Brevon was defeated and what remained of his robots were lapped up, things kind of went a bit pear-shaped. After all, the king of Shuigang was still dead, the Kingdom Stone was still ripe for capturing and people still needed...uh, re-educating about disablement with the healing baths irreversibly destroyed."

Janic shrugged, "Well, as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day."

"And neither was Avalice renovated in one," Surgeon sighed, circling the coffee in his cup, "...More like, well, about ten years. Bit of a hard thing to say, but it took Lilac putting an end to Brevon once and for all for people to start taking her seriously."

Janic flashed an all-too-familiar sad frown, "How quickly some change their tune, eh?"

"A feeling we know all too well..." Surgeon flashed the same forlorn look, "At least they had Mayor Zao on their side. After all, he seemingly got incredibly guilty about letting Zahl just hurl abuse at her like that. So he helped with the funding and then set about helping the trio...well, clean up. Dail was cleansed of his brainwashing ,Serpentine was tracked down and apprehended. Even when Merga came knocking, Lilac and co teamed up to put an end to it."

"How, exactly?"

Surgeon took a look at Janic's innocent face asking the question, and tapped the side of his nose, in a teasing manner, "I believe that is what we call Classified Information in the Zone..." he trailed off, then pulled back "Or, to put it another way, I don't know. No-one does. The timeframe where her invasion takes place is barred off to travellers, No-Zone or Normal alike. Obviously don't want a repeat of what Lowell and co did..."

"Makes sense..." Janic said, taking another hefty bite of her kruller and following it with some more coffee, "So, how did the tech levels rise, then? What did they discover?"

"Our tech," Surgeon noted, nervously scratching the back of his head, "Some of our stuff was accidentally left behind and the Red Scarves stole it. Shuigang took it from them, reverse-engineered it and then everyone got hold of it. Result, ten years later, future kingdom. The other two aren't far behind, I don't think. In the end, when Zao ran out of terms to get re-elected in, he chose Lilac to be the mayor in his stead."

"Oh!" Janic sounded genuinely surprised, "Well, good for her."

"Indeed. She's perhaps the most popular mayor they ever had," Surgeon cast a glance towards no-one in particular, "Of course, don't know where else you go but up from Zao, but...still. Goes to show a few things. I mean, one's ability to bounce back from really anything. People in wheelchairs are more accepted now, things are more...normal. Everything's doing just fine, especially for the mayor..." he trailed off, before suddenly pointing behind Janic, with a warm smile on his face, "And her assistant, of course."

A confused Janic looked in the direction that Surgeon was warmly pointing, towards the centre of the square. People were quickly standing aside and bowing in respect as two people wheeled their way through the town centre. Some waved and cheered, and one of them waved back. It was...well it was two people. One pushing the other in a wheelchair. The standing was one...Carol, Janic thought? Surgeon had only told her what these two looked like. Carol was some sort of green wildcat, with darker green strikes on her face and parts of her body, as well as a tail and a red scarf wrapped around her neck. She wore a sort of business suit, no doubt needed for her assistant duties, black in colour with a green shirt and tie. She wore glasses and no gloves. And then, in a gilded cyan wheelchair, was seemingly Lilac. She was a lavender dragon with long hair, pointed lavender horns, large magenta eyes and two long tendrils woven into a braid and running down her back. She wore a white blouse with a cyan shawl, as well as a large and long sea blue skirt that covered her legs and feet completely, as if she had a mermaid's tail. The two wore matching earrings and, oddly enough, the same gem-encrusted ring on their fingers.

The two were wheeling down the street, laughing like old friends - as, well, they were. They were enjoying the crowd as they continued to wheel further into the city. Lilac's expression was soft and warm, a far cry from the broken, jaded look she sported in the group photos Surgeon had showed her. Carol, on the other hand, had the same confident smirk as in the photos, as the two waved to their adoring citizens. They were chatting, but at the distance they were it was drowned out by the crowd a bit. Lilac reached up and tapped Carol on the arm, smiling warmly, and Carol reached down so the two could share a passionate kiss, to the cheer of the crowd. Janic just looked confused, "...They do seem to hook up in a lot of these worlds, don't they?"

"Mmmhm. Call it bias, probably..." Surgeon shrugged. He looked on as the two lovebirds shared another kiss, a proud smile on his face, "To think, when I first saw her, she wanted to throw herself off a cliff. She thought it was the end, but it's never the end. There's always a reason to pick yourself up, and keep going. And you never know where you're gonna end up."

Suddenly, there was screaming. The clomping of boots. What appeared to be police were running down the street and into the city. Most ran past the girls and off further into the city, seemingly to protect something. But one of them was not so lucky. The guard, dressed in the same maroon red SWAT armour as the other guards, stumbled before the two and collapsed to his knees, wounded. He cried out. "Mayor Lilac! The Scarves, they're returning!" before collapsing to the ground.

Carol barely had time to check his pulse and thankfully get him to his knees and send him on his knees before people started to flood into the square. They too wore army uniforms of sorts, padded suits with armour and pouches baked into the outfit. They wore helmets hiding their faces, stun batons slung across their backs, and brass knuckles slipped over their hands. The armour was of a green shade, with the maws of monsters painted on their visors and red handkerchieves not unlike Carol's around their necks. People screamed in fear as this new force attacked, bashing into shops and stealing what they could find, then kicking the citizens around for fun. Surgeon and Janic saw the ruckus and took action, grabbing their krullers and kicking the table over to make something resembling cover. The coffee cups hit the ground and shattered, spilling whatever remained of the bean juice, but the krullers were fine.

Janic quickly took another bite of hers, and then turned to her equal, "Surgeon, what's happening!?"

"Urgh, the Scarves..." Surgeon grumbled, hiding behind the table, "Spade's lot. He got himself killed sometime after Merga's invasion, and some other violent creature took his place. The tech and the new leadership's made them cocky. From small scale stealing to full on raids. They've been fighting them back for years."

"That's terrible!" Janic cried out, peering over the table to look at the others, "We have to do something! They're in the middle of the crossfire!"

"Don't worry," Surgeon said, "They'll be just fine..."

Janic looked up over the table to get a better look at Lilac and Carol. They were still in the middle of the square, Carol urging people to run in the opposite direction while Lilac was yelling into a megaphone on what to do and where to do. But of a weird thing to do considering the enemy was right there, but then the Scarves seemed more pre-occupied looting than to listen. Finally, everyone was evacuated, leaving only the two alone with the Scarves. Lilac noted something to Carol, who gave her a kiss for good luck, and then ran over to the back of the chunky, mechanical wheelchair and pressed some buttons on a pad. To Janic's shock, the wheelchair split and almost seemed to envelope Lilac, covering her body from neck to toe in a sort of grid of mecha parts. Bits shifted around, forming armour on her arms and legs, with electrical components running under the armour plates and shifting around to cause the contraption to grow. Finally, Lilac sighed happily, standing up tall and giving Carol a little fist bump before both rocketed into the fray, punching bad guys this way and that with frightening efficiency.

"Is that...her exo suit?!" Janic said aloud, her mind absolutely blown, "I...wow! I guess that tech allowed a few...uh, improvements."

"Exactly," Surgeon said, his face slightly stoic, "We mustn't interfere, we cannot risk breaking time more than it already has!" he paused, and stared at Janic with a sly face, "...Although...if a rogue member or two would accidentally fall on your cricket bat, I SUPPOSE I could look the other way..."

Janic chuckled, digging out a cricket bat from hammerspace. It was broken, battered and wrapped in duct tape, but it was her bat for smashing things if the situation called for it. And this situation absolutely called for it, "Surgeon?" she asked as the two lept over the table and dashed into the fray, "You read my mind."

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THE END
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