Enemy Offers Peace in Bones's Crypt

The portal did not give the party time to feel rescued.

It dropped them into Bones's cemetery, directly in front of the problem the maze had been saving for last. Bones was already meeting with Enemy, M.A.I.C.G., and another Maine-variant when My Alchemical Romance arrived with the rescued crowd behind them.

Enemy did not open with a strike.

He offered a truce.

His argument was not soft, and it was not clean. Jericha was being invaded by outside forces. The same Centrum-era monsters who had changed him and Maine were still active, still dangerous, and still worth killing before the variants destroyed each other. For one narrow moment, the Maine-variant conflict became something larger than personal hatred. It became a possible alliance against Castro, void power, and the people who had built the wound in the first place.

Bones urged Maine to listen. He admitted he did not know who could be trusted, but he thought Enemy was saying things worth hearing.

That almost mattered.

The peace offer existed. The chance was real.

Then Maine's trauma moved faster than diplomacy.