The Sanctuary had settled into an uneasy peace after the Cleanup Crew's defeat. The air still smelled of burnt sourdough and lingering ozone, but the walls hummed with a new energy—something defiant, something alive. Jayden sat on the steps of the broken altar, rolling the Lace of Infinite Tripping between his fingers, watching the way it caught the light like a promise.
Mittens, Devourer of Realities, lounged atop the demonic karaoke machine, tail flicking in time to its distorted bassline. The cosmic cat had been unusually present since the battle, as if waiting for something.
Then the first letter arrived.
It materialized in midair with a sound like a sigh, crisp parchment unfolding itself before Jayden's face. The handwriting was elegant, precise, and utterly terrifying in its simplicity:
> To the Anomaly Known as Jayden Malone,
Your defiance has been noted. Your persistence has been measured. Your existence has been... reevaluated.
The Council does not wage war. The Council does not negotiate. The Council adjusts. You will be adjusted.
Expect us.
—The High Auditor
The moment Jayden finished reading, the parchment burst into blue flame, leaving behind not ash, but a single black chess piece—a pawn.
Beatrice snatched it before it hit the ground, her reforged hammer humming at her back. "They're not sending soldiers this time."
Barry, kneading dough with more aggression than necessary, snorted. "Yeah, because that worked out so well for them."
"No," Jayden said, staring at the pawn. "They're sending something worse."
The air rippled.
A man stepped out of nothingness.
He was tall, impeccably dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, his hair silver-streaked and slicked back. His face was unremarkable—neither young nor old, handsome nor plain. The kind of face you'd forget instantly, if not for the way the room seemed to bend around him, reality itself straining to accommodate his presence.
[High Auditor Detected]
[Threat Level: Administrative]
"Jayden Malone," the High Auditor said, his voice smooth, almost pleasant. "I've been looking forward to this."
Jayden tightened his grip on the Holy Frying Pan. "Let me guess. You're here to 'adjust' me?"
The High Auditor smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Oh no. I'm here to offer you a promotion."
The word hung in the air like a guillotine blade.
"See," the Auditor continued, stepping forward, hands clasped behind his back, "the System doesn't destroy anomalies. It recruits them. You've proven yourself... uniquely disruptive. The Council has voted. You're to be given a seat at the table."
Jayden barked a laugh. "Let me get this straight. After sending goons, drones, and a two-faced janitor to erase us, now you want me to join you?"
The High Auditor didn't blink. "We want you to lead."
A holographic screen flickered to life between them, displaying a sprawling, labyrinthine bureaucracy—the System's Core. At its heart pulsed a massive, glowing orb: The Grand Algorithm, the engine of all reality's rules.
"You'd have authority," the Auditor said. "Power. The ability to reshape existence itself. No more struggling. No more fear. Just... order."
Jayden stared at the orb. For a second, just a second, he imagined it—no more running. No more losing people. A world where Simon could have lived. Where Pinchy wouldn't grieve. Where the Admin—
Then he looked past the hologram, at his people.
Beatrice, gripping her hammer like a lifeline. Barry, flour-dusted and scowling. Marcy, clutching Yog-Sothmayo like a child. Pinchy, curled at the base of Simon's statue, clicking softly.
And Mittens, watching him with those endless, knowing eyes.
Jayden turned back to the High Auditor. "What's the catch?"
The Auditor's smile widened. "There's always a catch." He snapped his fingers.
The world dissolved.
Suddenly, Jayden wasn't in the Sanctuary anymore. He stood in a void, endless and starless, before a massive round table. Twelve figures sat in shadowed thrones, their faces obscured by shifting veils of static.
The Council.
At the center, the High Auditor took his seat, gesturing to an empty chair beside him—a throne of polished black stone, etched with glitching runes.
"Your seat, Jayden Malone," the Auditor said. "All you have to do... is take it."
Jayden stepped forward.
The throne pulsed, whispering promises in a voice that sounded like his own: Safety. Control. No more loss.
He reached out—
—and the Lace of Infinite Tripping around his wrist burned.
Jayden recoiled. The whispers cut off. The Auditor's smile faltered.
And in that moment, Jayden understood.
This wasn't a promotion.
It was a trap.
The moment he sat in that chair, he'd become part of the machine. Another cog. Another enforcer. Another liar.
Jayden looked up, meeting the Auditor's gaze. "Yeah... no."
The Auditor sighed. "I did hope you'd say that."
The void shattered.
Jayden slammed back into his body, gasping, just as the High Auditor raised a hand—
—and erased Barry from existence.
One second, Barry stood there, dough-covered and defiant. The next, he was gone, not even a shadow left behind.
The scream that tore from Marcy's throat was raw enough to crack stone.
The High Auditor adjusted his cuffs. "Let's try this again. You have until dawn to accept our offer. If you refuse..." He glanced at Beatrice. Then Marcy. Then Pinchy. "We'll adjust them instead."
And with that, he vanished.
Silence.
Then—
SLAM.
Beatrice drove her hammer into the ground hard enough to split the floor. "We fight."
Marcy, tears streaming, nodded. "We fight."
Pinchy click-click-clicked, claws raised.
Jayden looked down at the black pawn still clutched in his hand. He crushed it to dust.
"Yeah," he said, voice low. "We fight."
Somewhere above, Mittens purred.
[New Quest: Burn the Council Down]
[Reward: Everything.]
The air inside the Sanctuary hummed with a new kind of tension—not the wild, chaotic energy of before, but something sharper. Something deadly.
Jayden stood at the center of the nave, the Holy Frying Pan resting across his shoulders, the Lace of Infinite Tripping coiled around his wrist like a serpent. Beatrice paced nearby, her hammer's bass thrumming in time with her steps. Marcy clutched Yog-Sothmayo, the sentient mayo packet pulsing with subdued fury. Pinchy perched on Simon's statue, claws clicking against porcelain.
And Mittens?
The cosmic cat was gone.
No dramatic exit, no flicker of reality—just absence.
Jayden tried not to think about what that meant.
Instead, he focused on the plan forming in his head. The High Auditor had given them until dawn. That meant the Council wasn't invincible. They had rules. They had limits.
And Jayden was going to find them.
"We need leverage," Jayden said, voice cutting through the silence. "Something they can't just erase."
Beatrice stopped pacing. "The Grand Algorithm."
Jayden nodded. "The heart of the System. If we hit it hard enough, the whole thing cracks."
Marcy frowned. "But how do we even get there?"
A sound like a thousand printer jams echoed through the cathedral. The demonic karaoke machine glitched violently, screen flickering before resolving into a familiar, staticky face.
The Admin.
"Malone," the ghost in the machine rasped. "You're thinking too small."
Jayden's pulse spiked. "You're alive?"
"Debatable. But I've been busy." The Admin's face twisted into something like a smirk. "I found you a backdoor."
The screen shifted, displaying a labyrinth of code—a hidden path winding through the System's infrastructure, leading straight to the Grand Algorithm's core.
"It's not a fight you can win with hammers and condiments," the Admin warned. "The Algorithm is pure logic. Unbreakable rules. To beat it, you don't break the rules—you rewrite them."
Jayden exhaled. "How?"
The Admin's smirk widened. "You're the Anomaly, Malone. The glitch in the code. You don't follow rules—you make them."
A new notification burned into Jayden's vision:
[New Ability Unlocked: "Recursive Nonsense"]
[Effect: Reality bends to your will… if you're funny enough.]
Jayden grinned.
"Then let's give them a show they'll never forget.
Dawn came.
The High Auditor appeared at the Sanctuary's broken doors, flanked by twelve figures—each a Council enforcer, their faces shifting masks of static.
"Your choice, Jayden Malone?" the Auditor asked, voice smooth as poisoned honey.
Jayden stepped forward, Holy Frying Pan in hand. "Yeah. I've got one."
He raised the pan—and slammed it into the ground.
[Recursive Nonsense: Activated.]
The world rippled.
The High Auditor's perfect suit turned neon pink. The Council enforcers' masks flickered, revealing—for a single, horrifying second—the terrified faces beneath. The very air twisted, gravity hiccuping as Jayden's will rewrote the rules.
"You want order?" Jayden laughed, wild and unhinged. "Here's your order."
He snapped his fingers.
The Grand Algorithm screamed.
Code unraveled. The System buckled. And in the heart of the chaos, Jayden Malone stood, a glitch given form, a joke that had finally landed.
The High Auditor staggered, his polished facade cracking. "You—you can't—!"
"Watch me," Jayden said.
And then—
Mittens reappeared.
The cosmic cat landed gracefully on the High Auditor's shoulder, leaned in, and licked his ear.
The Auditor dissolved, not into code, not into data—but into laughter, pure and unfiltered, the sound echoing through the collapsing System like a death knell.
The Council's enforcers fell next, one by one, their masks shattering as Jayden's recursive nonsense rewrote their very existence.
And then—
Silence.
The Sanctuary stood intact. The System was gone.
Jayden exhaled, shoulders slumping.
Beatrice clapped a hand on his back. "We won."
Jayden shook his head. "No. We just made a better game."
Somewhere in the distance, a pigeon cooed.
And the world, for the first time, felt free.
[Quest Complete: Burn the Council Down]
[Reward Claimed: Everything.]
The End