The Last Call Inn had settled into that peculiar atmosphere that only emerges in the small hours of the morning, when pretenses drop away, when strangers become confidants, and when the line between one day and the next blurs into insignificance. It's the same in every bar in every dimension: the 3 AM Truth Hour, when even the most hardened warriors admit they're scared of the dark and dragons confess they collect teacups.

  Bart had brought up his best bottle from the cellar, a thirty-year-old whiskey he'd been saving for either the end of the war or the end of the world, whichever came first. Now it seemed both might be happening simultaneously, which meant it was definitely time to break out the good stuff. The liquid poured with a sound like velvet sliding over marble.

  The customers had drifted closer over time, the artificial boundaries of faction and species giving way to the simple desire for connection in uncertain times. Even the dwarves had joined the loose circle around the bar, though one kept glancing nervously at the remnants of their dissolved blueprint, which was now forming a small puddle of what appeared to be liquid reality on the floor.

  "Then we started to throw our cannonballs at them!" Grimshaw concluded with uncharacteristic animation, his naval formality momentarily abandoned in the enthusiasm of the story.

  A laugh erupted around the bar, the sound jarring after so much somber conversation.

  "Wait," one of the dwarves said as he wiped a tear from his eye, foam glistening in his beard like morning dew on a particularly hairy plant. "Was that at Hollocks Bollocks?"

  Grimshaw emptied his beer and nodded, the movement precise despite the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. "You were present at that engagement?"

  "Yes!" The dwarf lit up, foam sputtering from his beard like a malfunctioning espresso machine. "My party took out one of those damn airships with an exploding sheep-spell, a balloon and the best damn archery I've ever seen!"

  "That was your handiwork?" Grimshaw asked, his mechanical eyebrow raising with a soft whirring sound.

  "I engineered the balloon, but it was a joint effort, yes," the dwarf confirmed, chest puffing with pride.

  Grimshaw slammed his glass on the bar, making the empty glasses rattle like wind chimes in a hurricane. "My family was on that ship."

  Silence fell over the Inn, as silence does when everyone is uncomfortable and waits for someone else to break the silence. The dwarf paled underneath his beard, and Bart was sure he was about to throw up, pass out, or possibly both in an impressive display of multitasking.

  Grimshaw started to laugh deep and hard, the sound starting somewhere around his boots and working its way up. "I'm merely jesting. That vessel was likely occupied by useless bureaucrats," he clarified, formal diction returning despite his mirth.

  Relief flooded the dwarf's face, visible even through the thicket of facial hair. "Had me going there, Captain! Thought I was about to experience high-velocity dismemberment!"

  "Not that it matters who did what to whom," Nova interjected, measuring her words with scientific precision. "We assessed Hollocks Bollocks after the battle. The casualty statistics were significant."

  Spark grunted, a small ember escaping his nostril. "Like the battle of Eagle Mountain?"

  Nova started to blush, which looked as weird on her as makeup on a rock troll. The constellation scars on her face seemed to glow slightly, as if embarrassment activated their luminescence.

  "So what happens now?" Bart interrupted, pouring another round with the practiced ease of a man who could hit a shot glass from across the room. The interruption was tactical. He’d seen enough bar fights start from reminiscing about battles. "The war's over. Do you all just... go home? Open a gift shop? Start a band?"

  The three soldiers exchanged glances. Something unspoken passed between them, a language of shared experience that needed no translation.

  Nova shrugged, her constellation scars catching the lamplight. "If there is still a home to return to." Her tone remained clinical, but her fingers traced one of her scars in what appeared to be a self-soothing gesture.

  "I mean..." Grimshaw said, his mechanical fingers drumming on the counter in what might have been morse code for "damned if I know." The rhythmic tapping created a soft metallic percussion.

  "The rifts are kind of working overtime," Spark added, stretching his wings briefly before folding them again. The leathery membranes made a sound like canvas in a light breeze. "Swallowed entire outposts. Like cosmic Pac-Man, but with more screaming."

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  Bart frowned. "So you might be stuck here?" The thought of permanent interdimensional refugees wasn't appealing from a business perspective. Refugees tended to have limited funds and unlimited problems.

  "Maybe," Nova shrugged, her scientific precision returning as she adjusted settings on her wrist device. It beeped softly, displaying readings that meant nothing to anyone except her. "Don't even know if there's a 'here' to be stuck in much longer."

  "Does it matter?" Spark asked, surprising them all with the philosophical turn. "Five years of war? We've basically redecorated the entire planet in 'post-apocalyptic chic.'" His flippant tone couldn't quite hide the concern in his eyes, which had darkened to the color of cooling embers.

  No one argued with the assessment. They'd all seen enough to know it was true. The silence that followed had the quality of mutual recognition, the shared understanding that sometimes there are no good answers, only less terrible ones.

  "What about you?" Nova asked Bart, her analytical gaze taking in the inn around them. "This establishment has somehow maintained structural integrity. Will you remain?"

  Bart looked around at his inn, battered, scarred, but still standing. The worn boards, the stained ceiling, the clock that refused to acknowledge the apocalypse. All of it painfully familiar and somehow precious.

  "Well, not exactly here in this spot, but tt's all I have," he said simply. "Plus, I've got a mortgage that'll outlive the heat death of the universe."

  "Speaking of which," Grimshaw said, checking a pocket watch that seemed to be running both forward and backward simultaneously, its ticking a strange syncopated rhythm, "we should probably return to what remains of our posts." He spoke with the resignation of someone who had followed unwelcome orders countless times before.

  Nova nodded reluctantly, draining the last of her drink with scientific efficiency. "They'll be looking for us by now."

  "If they're still there," Spark added, adjusting his makeshift armor with a series of metallic clinks. "If anywhere is still there."

  They settled their tabs, though Bart tried to refuse payment for what had essentially become a wake for the world they had known, and gathered their gear. The sounds of preparation, buckles fastening, gear shifting, weapons being checked, created a practical counterpoint to the melancholy mood.

  "It was an honor," Grimshaw said formally, extending his flesh-and-blood hand to Bart with a slight bow that spoke of his naval background. His grip was firm, warm, and slightly calloused; the hand of someone who worked despite his officer's rank.

  "Best bar on any world I've visited," Nova added with a small smile. "And I've been to the gas giant where drinks serve themselves." The scientific observer in her gave way momentarily to genuine warmth.

  "If we somehow stick around," Spark promised, his claws leaving one final scorch mark on the counter, "first round's on me next time. Assuming currency still exists and hasn't been replaced by interpretive dance as a payment method." His tail swished behind him, leaving a faint trail of smoke.

  Bart found himself unexpectedly moved. "I'll hold you to that," he managed, surprising himself with the sincerity in his voice. "My interpretive dance is terrible. I look like a wounded flamingo having a seizure."

  He followed them to the door, suddenly reluctant to see them leave. After five years of carefully maintained neutrality, of keeping everyone at arm's length, these strange warriors had somehow broken through his defenses in a single night. Which just proved that the universe's most effective solvent was alcohol and shared trauma, possibly in that order.

  "Be careful out there," he said as he unbolted the door. The metal latch made a solid, final-sounding clunk as it released.

  "Always am," Spark replied with forced bravado, puffing himself up to his full height, which was still barely above Bart's waist. "Hasn't killed me yet. Well, technically it did once, but I got better."

  Bart swung the door open, hinges creaking in protest, and they all stepped out into what should have been night.

  What greeted them wasn't darkness. Nor was it light. It was devastation.

  The sky burned with rifts that tore through the fabric of reality like badly-healed wounds, offering glimpses into other dimensions that should never have touched this one. Familiar landmarks had been twisted and broken, buildings stood as hollow shells where they stood at all, and the very air tasted of metal and magic gone wrong.

  Through the rifts, impossible worlds leaked into their own: Strange forests with trees that ran on clockwork, oceans where the water flowed upward, cities built from crystal and thought. The mountains in the distance were crumbling, while rivers had either dried up or now flowed with substances that weren't water at all.

  Everything and nothing, was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

  They stood in silence, taking in the apocalyptic landscape. Nova's scientific detachment crumbled as she removed her helmet completely, letting it fall to the ground with a hollow thud. Grimshaw's formal posture sagged, his mechanical arm venting steam in what sounded like a sigh. Spark's wings drooped, and his usual fiery demeanor dimmed to embers.

  "So," Bart finally said, his voice small against the backdrop of destruction, "who won?"

  Spark looked at the desolate wasteland, then at his unlikely companions, his scales shifting through a spectrum of colors that perfectly matched the emotional journey from disappointment to resignation to gallows humor. "Beats me."

  The three soldiers exchanged one last look, then trudged away into the broken landscape, their silhouettes growing smaller against the chaotic backdrop of a world coming apart.

  Bart watched them go until they disappeared among the ruins. Then, with a sigh that carried the weight of five years and approximately three extra dimensions and then some, he stepped back inside and flipped the sign from "Open" to "Closed."

  Some habits die hard, even at the end of the world. And sometimes, Bart thought as he began wiping down the counter, those habits are the only thing keeping you sane when everything else has gone mad. The familiar motion was comforting. A small island of normalcy in a sea of chaos. If the world was ending, at least his counter would be clean when it went.