It’s when she says things like that…that I remember she’s still Paca.

As Paca continues to rant to Lamar about how unfair it is that she’s leveling up so slowly, and that her ass isn’t as phenomenal as the old Paca’s, I turn my attention to Kai, who takes a seat on the throne next to me.

“When lives are lost, you start from the beginning. You move through the obstacles with a sense of past failures instead of the feel of winning,” I tell him, quoting one of the journals.

He gives me a bland look.

“What does that mean?” he asks me.

“It’s from her journals. Most of the quotes that didn’t apply to Paca facing Jahl seem to apply to us facing life after the battle. Sometimes it feels like we lost. But we won. I have to remind myself of that from time to time. Paca did what she set out to do, and she’s still here with us now.”

He shrugs. “She’s still Paca,” he says with twitching lips, while she argues with Jude about something asinine.

“If I give them popcorn, I’ll be their hero!” she’s griping.

“You can’t give people popcorn in the trials, Paca! It’s stupid!” Jude harps. “They’re fighting for their lives, and not everyone is as fucking insane as you are!”

“What else am I going to do? If I save them, they may fall in love with me, and then you’ll kill them. At least you’d better. I still want to kill that Chloe girl for the way she looks at all of you. Are you sure you never had a thing with her?” she asks.

I hate it when she looks at me while mentioning Chloe. Sometimes I worry it’s really our Paca and she’s fucking with our heads, pretending not to remember. She gives me knowing looks like the one she’s giving me right now, and I get hella uncomfortable.

“Before you, there was only the other you,” Ezekiel assures her, just as we always do. “We’ve never been with any other woman,” he adds, smirking so that she can’t see him.

I love this Paca just as much as I loved the other. Sometimes even more, because she doesn’t struggle against us so much. It’s finally the equal unit we never could figure out before. This one hardly ever leaves our side and tells us every single thought—serious or stupid—that flits through her mind.

Possibly because there’s not a death awaiting us at the finish line any time soon, and we’ve all relaxed a bit in Hell.

“Do you think it’s because my favorite color is black? You’d think Hell people would prefer the gothic vibe as opposed to some bubbly, purple-wearing girl, who ran around in stupid costumes all the time,” she says on a harrumph.

She cups her mouth and shouts into the gulley, “Denizens of Hell, I am your Apocalypse! I will destroy the world one day and make you proud! If you want me to do it in a Devil costume, all you need to do is ask!”

Her voice echoes, but…no one answers back.

“Think they heard me?” she asks, leaning forward and staring at me as though I’m the one who has to answer the nonsense this time.

A stampede of sorts draws my attention, along with the rest of us, as we look over and see the emerging quad that is racing away from the horned buffalo with dragon tails.

“Oh! Look! Someone who needs my help! This is my time to shine,” Paca says as she hurries to the edge.

I shoot to the edge as well, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her from toppling over and breaking all the bones in her body.

“They may not need our help if—”

One second she’s in my arms, the next she’s not.

My breath hisses between my teeth, as I dart a look around, wondering how the hell she managed to fall even with me holding her.

“Shit,” Kai says on a surprised breath, and my gaze darts to the stampede Paca is now in front of.

“Stop!” she shouts. “I command you to yield—eek! Why aren’t they yielding?” she gripes as she turns and starts running behind the quad…that is leaving her behind very rapidly, while the stampede gains ground on her.

She siphoned? “She can’t fucking do that! How did she do that?” Kai yells.

“I have four fierce boyfriends! Can at least one of you get me out of this mess?” she calls up, clearly not to the point where she’s ready to face a stampede of monsters fearlessly just yet.

Just as I siphon to the bottom, flames erupt, shrieks emerge, and I lose sight of Paca. My heart pounds in my chest so loudly it deafens me to all other sounds, as Jude darts to the infernal girlfriend, who is blazing red fire uncontrollably.

Just as Kai slides up next to me, along with Ezekiel, Paca emerges from the flames, as the stampede drops in her wake. She struts through the flames, patting some of the stray fire on her dress to extinguish it, as she cuts a grin in our direction.

Then, she tips her head back, and… “Mwahahahahahahahaha!”

One other thing, aside from her hair, that didn’t change…is her voice. It’d been so long since we’d heard it, that it took a little while to realize how very exactly matched it is.

As she releases another evil laugh, relishing her small victory, my feet start moving as if on their own.

Jude beats me to her, surprising her when his lips crash to hers, and I all but knock him out of the way so I can do the same.

My heart is still jackhammering against my ribs, so I kiss her like it could be the last time, just like I kiss her every time.

“Don’t do that ever again,” I whisper against her lips, clinging to her.

She looks surprised, but Ezekiel tugs her away, kissing her just as desperately, as I run a hand through my hair.

“Where you go, we go,” he tells her quietly, adding to my command.

Kai steals her last, and we make an unspoken decision to leave the trials hanging and go enjoy our lives. Fuck this shit. This girl gives us twice the cardiac arrest than before.

She goes all too willingly, her legs wrapping around Kai’s waist, as she kisses him with a smile on her lips.

For all eternity, we’ll always have Paca. Even if we have to make new memories. But it doesn’t matter what she remembers. It only matters that she’s still her to the very core, everything that made us batshit crazy and head-over-fucking-heels.

Who’d have ever thought The Apocalypse was too busy enjoying her fucked up romance to end the world?

“Come, harem!” she tells us in her most regal tone that she uses too often when she decides to sound like she’s running this shit show. “Give me evil orgasms and feed me strawberries or something,” she adds very primly.

I smile to myself, idly noticing Jude and Ezekiel doing the same. As Kai siphons her away, her laughter rings in their wake.

“Mwaha…haha…ha.”

In the end, regardless of how many memories she loses, there will only ever be one Apocalypse. And we’re always going to be her horsemen.

THE END.