#unfortunately the portals in renata are really hard to get to because nobody has any weapons that are actually effective on the twilight

[duckapus]

The Snail

As if living in the apocalypse, somehow getting blocked at every turn from finding a portal out of the hellhole Renata has become and into Mount Nexus, and dealing with weird blackouts (and an even weirder dream the previous night) isn't enough, Tulip finds herself tormented by a tiny green snail of all things.

Eventually her increasingly frantic (and completely ineffectual) attempts to get rid of it land her in a crowd of mid-level Twilight, and just as she's about to get torn apart a mysterious power awakens within her, manifesting as a big, motorcycle-themed, vaguely key-shaped, club-like weapon which she somehow Knows is named Road Rage. She manages to use it to make short work of the Twilight, and once she's safe again openly wonders what the hell is going on.

And then her phone starts talking.

As Tulip and Alice meet for the first time, the snail, forgotten in the chaos, watches from atop a nearby ridge for a few moments before vanishing in a flash of green pixels.