I’ve worked with a lot of Glyphs, but none are quite like Tick Wick.

He’s not intelligent the way humans are. He doesn’t understand betrayal, loyalty, or strategy. He only reacts. Fear, instinct, and survival drive him. And that’s what makes him both fascinating and dangerous.

Tick Wick’s body is an hourglass. The sand inside isn’t just decorative—it’s part of him. When he’s scared, he can slow time, or even accelerate it without control. Panic makes him unpredictable. But calm him, and he can anchor the flow of the world around him.

When I first caught him, he was terrified of everything—my hands, the wind, Boom Boom’s stomps. But I learned to calm him. Boom Boom helps too. Together, we can stabilize him.

Then came Mothich, a more deliberate Glyph, a silken creature with replication abilities. Alone, he’s chaotic but contained. But when Tick Wick and Mothich worked together… instinct aligned, fear subsided… they voluntarily fused into something new.

I named this creature Mothwick.

Mothwick is a living combination of sand and silk, wings and hourglass. He’s balanced. His instincts coordinate naturally. He doesn’t panic. He doesn’t cause temporal surges. With him, we can control the flow of time in a small area safely. He’s brilliant, beautiful, and a reminder that harmony can be found even in the strangest of creatures.

But nothing lasts forever.

Orion took it too far. He forced another fusion, not natural, not voluntary. He created Dark Wick—an Obsidian Glyph.

It looks almost identical to Mothwick, but it’s dangerous in ways I can barely describe. Forced fusion strips instinct, compresses two beings, and twists them into shadow. Time around Dark Wick is unstable. One wrong move and the temporal distortions can fracture reality.

We tried to ground him using Blessed Goddess—magic water that stabilizes Obsidian Glyphs—but Orion still took him. He mocks us by calling it a “favor,” knowing the creature is now in his hands, and he’s already using him for his plans.

Now, I have both Mothwick, the balanced fusion born of instinct and trust, and the memory of Dark Wick, the twisted creation of Orion’s ambition.

They’re two sides of the same coin: one shows what cooperation and instinct can do, the other shows what happens when fear and control are forced into a single being.

As their catcher, I feel responsible for both. I have to protect Mothwick, retrieve Dark Wick, and stop Orion before he can create more forced fusions.

Tick. Flutter. “Baboom.”

Every step we take, every move we make… the fate of our Glyphs—and maybe the universe—depends on keeping instinct alive.