Part 1 — The Main Event
Derpy began walking.
The clearing felt too wide for how little air he had left.
Joker turned his head.
A sinister smile cut across his mouth like a blade being drawn.
“Now,” he said, voice carrying like a stage call. “For the main event.”
Derpy’s heart rate stuttered—too fast, then too slow—like his body couldn’t decide whether to run or fight.
Two presences pressed in close.
Celica.
Blight.
Hands he couldn’t see but could feel settled on his shoulder—steadying, claiming.
Only he could sense them.
“You’re all over the place,” Celica said.
Blight’s voice came after, lower, patient in a way that made it worse. “If you can’t focus, then we’re done.”
Derpy’s gaze locked on Joker.
Joker straightened.
Then he reached up and removed his mask.
The face underneath made Derpy’s blood drop cold.
“My name is Jack,” he said, as if introducing himself to a crowd that had been waiting. “It’s good to be back.”
Derpy’s tail flicked uncontrollably.
The world narrowed.
And the memories came.
Part 2 — The Old Failures
A night.
Lewd—hurt—Derpy trying to protect her with shaking hands and not enough power.
Lenora.
Vespera.
Him.
All of them failing to stop what happened.
The feeling hit like a weight dropped into his chest.
Worthless then.
Worthless now.
Holding everyone back.
Another memory—Derpy dancing for a team in his world, feet missing the beat, timing wrong, the moment where you realize you’ve let people down and there’s no way to rewind.
Another—his violin, fingers too tense, notes coming out wrong, the sound turning sour in the room.
The looks.
The shunning.
Another—friends needing him and him not being there.
The guilt stacked.
It didn’t just sit on him.
It pinned.
His shadow held him this time.
A voice slid through the dark like a familiar chain.
“Remember what you said,” the shadow murmured. “You can’t get rid of me. I’ll always be there when you’re at your lowest.”
Derpy’s knees threatened to soften.
Then—
A faint voice, like a light flickering in a storm.
“Get up.”
Vambasta.
“You can’t falter now,” she said. “If you stop now, it’s over. Do you want to work for the Queen of Faydurn? Seraphine? Do you value your freedom? Move.”
Another voice cut in—rougher, urgent.
Lewd.
“Move.”
Another voice—thin, doll-like, too close to his ear.
Riven.
“Friend. Move. No fail.”
The chorus snapped him back.
Just in time.
Part 3 — Strings in the Air
Jack’s wires hissed forward.
Derpy barely managed to dodge.
The wire cut the space where his throat had been.
Jack’s voice turned playful.
“Give me a show worth dancing for, little boy.”
The word dance hit Derpy like a hook.
His stomach tightened.
His magic was low.
His body was worse.
Celica’s embers stirred.
Blight’s hunger stirred.
Derpy swallowed once.
“Celica. Blight.” His voice came out rough. “I need a favor.”
Jack didn’t rush.
He watched.
Like he wanted Derpy to beg.
Derpy forced the words through.
“I’m going to let loose what little magic and energy I have left. Can I conjure something that fits my style?”
Celica’s answer came first—warm, dangerous.
“Yes.”
Blight followed—slow approval.
“Do it.”
Derpy thought of Lewd—how her calamity moved like poison hands.
He imagined poison ice.
Gloves.
His Frostburn gauntlets shrank.
Metal and frost collapsed inward, reforming.
One glove turned black.
The other turned white—stained through with green, like rot under snow.
His sinister side leaned in, voice close enough to feel like breath.
“Can we do this together?” it asked. “I can lend you power you’ve been holding back. It’s time to start the show.”
Derpy’s posture shifted.
His voice sharpened.
A chaotic chuckle broke out of him—too raw to be joy.
“Man,” he said, “you sure got me worked up.”
He stared at Jack.
“Tell me, Mister String-Wielder—are you going to be the one to make me dance… or will you be the one who will be dancing?”
Jack’s eyes tightened.
He didn’t like the way Derpy was talking.
Part 4 — Boulder Toss
Jack’s strings snapped around two boulders.
He yanked.
Stone tore free and flew.
Derpy raised the poison glove.
The boulder hit the air in front of him—then softened, melted, and collapsed into slush and dead grit as the poison-ice ate through it.
Derpy dashed.
In a blink he was close.
Inches from Jack’s face.
Jack’s wires whipped for Derpy’s wrists.
Derpy moved wrong on purpose.
A wire wrapped.
Then shattered.
Because it wasn’t Derpy.
It was a perfect ice decoy.
Jack’s head snapped.
Derpy’s voice came from behind him.
“You’ve been so focused on me,” Derpy said, “you forgot one thing—my jester comedian.”
Jack spun.
Derpy’s hand covered his own mouth as if holding something back.
But his eyes showed it.
A wide grin.
A laugh trapped behind his palm like a secret he didn’t share.
Jack’s wires surged.
Derpy didn’t flinch.
Because the field was changing.
Part 5 — Mist Terrain
Mist rolled in.
Cold mist.
It swallowed ankles first.
Then knees.
Then the whole clearing turned into a fogged, icy terrain.
Jack didn’t realize it at first.
Mia—still in chibi form—was active.
Her ice breath had turned the battlefield into her territory.
Derpy’s steps made no sound.
He walked through the mist like it belonged to him.
Jack’s wires snapped out—blind.
They caught nothing.
Derpy’s voice came from the fog.
“You will be the one to fear me.”
A hand touched Jack’s arm.
The white-green glove.
Poison-ice spread.
Heavy.
Biting.
A slash of cold that wasn’t clean—cold with rot inside it.
Jack screamed.
Terrified—sharp, real.
For the first time.
Derpy’s voice stayed low.
“Tell me, little jester—do you fear that if you lose, Queen Seraphine will find a replacement?”
Another touch.
Jack’s leg.
More poison-ice crawled up.
His arm went limp.
His fingers stopped obeying.
Derpy’s eyes narrowed.
“That night,” he said, “you toyed with people I cherished.”
A flash in his mind—Jack toying with him when Derpy tried his best.
Looking down.
Planting fear.
The kind that becomes panic attacks.
The kind that waits behind your ribs.
“You played with your food,” Derpy said. “And you put a fear in me that still follows me.”
Ice formed around Jack’s legs.
Locked him.
Forced him still.
Mist thinned just enough to show the end.
Derpy stepped in.
Crescent Eclipse in scythe mode.
Point-blank.
Blade at Jack’s neck.
“This time,” Derpy said, “you danced for me, little jester. Not me for you.”
Jack’s eyes rolled.
His body dropped.
Unconscious.
Not dead.
Just out.
Part 6 — The Aftershock
Derpy’s legs began shaking.
The gloves still steamed with cold.
Mia grew bigger—just enough to brace him.
She pressed in under his arm, holding him up.
Seraphine stepped forward.
Her gaze went to Jack.
“Can he continue?” she asked.
Jack didn’t answer.
Seraphine crouched, checked him with a glance that didn’t need hands.
“He’s alive,” she said.
A pause.
“Well. A deal’s a deal.”
Mina—still bound to the calamity Marionette—moved in and hugged Derpy.
“Thank mew,” she whispered.
Kara rushed forward.
“Mina—”
Mina’s face crumpled.
Tears spilled.
“I’m okay,” she managed.
Seraphine’s voice cut through, sharp with promise.
“You proved you’re no joke,” she said to Derpy. “You and your friend took out two of my heavy hitters.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Next time, I won’t—”
She stopped.
Because the air changed.
Part 7 — Hooded Cloaks
Figures stepped from the edge of the clearing.
Hooded.
Silent.
Four of them.
Weapons raised.
One pulled back his hood.
An elf.
His eyes pinned Derpy like a specimen.
“Tell me, boy,” the elf said, “how long can you keep going?”
The others spoke—voices layered, wrong in a way that made Derpy’s skin tighten.
“Where is the calamity book?”
The words sounded like Riven.
Not her.
But shaped like her.
Derpy tried to move.
His body didn’t answer fast enough.
Not after the fight.
Not after the gloves.
Not after the memories.
A strike hit him.
Hard.
Clean.
He went down before anyone could react.
Mia lunged.
Too late.
Sphinx tried to rise.
Too slow.
Lenora was still down.
Jack was out.
Seraphine’s fan snapped open.
But the cloaks were already moving.
They grabbed Derpy.
And then—
They disappeared.
Mist swallowed the space where he had been.
The clearing held its breath.
And the board changed.