"What the hell is Blackett doing here?" Lia asked over the comms. I was running back into the fight, already headed towards the base of the fortress armor, my path lit up in random intervals by streaks of blue plasma like I was chasing a falling star.

"He wasn't supposed to come until tomorrow," I panted. Being pissed off all over again was doing great things for being able to push the pain of my messed-up body from my mind, but I'd been going a long time now today, I couldn't keep going without a rest forever.

"It is true, that was when I was scheduled," Blackett added, and I could still hear his cold smirk. "But then I was informed there was something of an uprising occurring at the moment and thought that perhaps the presence of my entourage might help to suppress it."

"And if Saga was involved, you'd want to handle the torture yourself?" I shouted. Fuck, I hated him. I can't believe I'd ever agreed to work with him. Even if the XPCA needed him, even if the world needed the XPCA...what he'd done, what he was was sick.

"Come now, Chariot. You've proven yourself that Exhumans are difficult to control. I need Saga. I made her some very generous offers, but she turned them all down. It wasn't until she became completely unreasonable that I had to show her that my offers were out of kindness."

"Kindness? Listen you sick, perverse, evil, twisted, fuck. I should have killed you the first moment I had the chance. That would have been the only kind thing you'd be capable of."

"You wound me with your words, Chariot. I take this to mean our relationship has become less than amiable?" I started to reply with another torrent of profanities when he cut in again. "Think very carefully about your answer. I am not above doing to you what I did to her."

"Um," interjected Lia. "I wasn't asking why he was here, I was asking why he was here in our comms."

"We're on a military base, and one that's on alert for an underground resistance," AEGIS sighed. "Did you think they wouldn't be listening on all frequencies?"

I skirted around the Exhumans fighting. The resistance seemed to be badly outnumbered, but also seemed to be composed of the most dangerous and well-trained Exhumans. Of the remaining, it was clear Targa had targeted those with combat potential for redevelopment first, and the majority of fighting was between those groups. There were some civilians in the mix...Trish was in there somewhere, I knew for certain, but by now, they seemed to have mostly managed to escape...or been killed.

The perimeter of the fight was mostly XPCA, and I had my work cut out for me avoiding them. My shield was saving my life here constantly, but there were still explosions going off constantly--stun grenades dropping entire groups of Exhumans to the ground, reeling and clutching at their heads, concussion grenades, throwing back Exhumans who tried to charge the line of exosuits, and more. A few flew my way and I did my best to keep my eyes open and try to cut them out of the air before they hit me.

"Athan, where are you? I've got a bag of stuff for us," AEGIS said.

"I'll be at the armor in a minute."

"Please refrain from causing any more damage than you already have. I hope I don't need to explain, but those fortress armor suits are prohibitively expensive," Blackett said.

"Please shut the fuck up."

"Eloquent as ever, Chariot."

I'd almost rounded the fight when an Exhuman popped up on me. He wasn't wearing red, so he wasn't resistance, and his coming right at me and taut poise definitely seemed to indicate he wanted a fight.

I swore inwardly. I didn't want this. I wanted to release these people from Saga's influence, not kill them...and any injuries or time I spent here would be diminished capacity I had against the real threats. But he wasn't letting me pass, so out my swords came.

"Athan, move three steps right and don't move. And don't let him move," Lia said, and I heard her exhale deeply.

I didn't want her shooting this guy. She'd already killed enough for a lifetime. I didn't budge. The other Exhuman stood motionless, seemingly waiting for me to attack first, not showing anything of his powers. As someone who didn't want to be on the offensive in the first place, that just put me in an even worse position.

"Athan you big dummy, just move!" Lia's voice shouted at me. "I'm not going to kill him, Jesus."

I almost rolled my eyes, which would have taken them off my rival, and that could have been terminal. I didn't know what she was planning, but Lia was smart, and I trusted her. She was...manipulative, though. She might be saying just what I wanted to hear so she could blow the guy's head off anyway.

I only hesitated on that thought for a moment before moving three paces right, on the pretext of circling my opponent slightly. My swords hovered in the air all around me, poised and waiting.

And then something huge impacted my shield on the side, and shrapnel flying faster than sound tore right through the guy, still so much force that he was bodily thrown a couple feet to his back.

Blood seeped out from his...his everything, really. He was screaming and writhing, which I hoped was a good sign, meant he wasn't choking on his blood or anything, but still.

I started running again, feeling a black pit in my stomach and leaving the guy behind. "Fuck, Lia, that guy's probably totally dead. What the hell was that? I thought you said you weren't going to hit him!"

"I was aiming at his foot!" she yelled back, panic in her voice. "I didn't realize it would clip your shield."

"Could have just had me walk another two steps!"

"I'm sorry!"

I remembered how it had felt to get hit with shrapnel from that very gun when Luminary's manservant had been behind the scope. It had been white-hot pain all over my body, and Karu had to fly me to an emergency center to keep me alive. I very much doubted anyone other than me cared about him enough to try to do the same, but I didn't have a jetpack, or an emergency center, or open access to a regenerator. He was just going to writhe there on the hot rocky sand until he bled out and that was it.

Another completely unnecessary death, and on Lia's shoulders as well. I was so mad I wanted to vomit.

I was distracted and almost lashed out when something came charging at me with inhuman speed. It caught up to me and wrapped me in a hug, and only by the familiar gesture and smell did I realize it was AEGIS.

But she hardly looked like herself anymore. Her sundress was torn and burned, and instead of that showing off more of her skin, it showed off less, as she just had less skin on her now. All over her body, she was torn and peeling, making her look half-machine, half-human, and I saw that the damage wasn't just superficial either, lots of pieces of her weren't moving as intended, or like her hand, were probably just defunct from damage.

But somehow none of that stopped her from putting on a big smile when she finished hugging me, her face as pristine and beautiful as ever, even with a layer of grime and what was probably some XPCA's blood.

"Are you...okay? Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "Only a lot, but I have my settings throttled down. Pain isn't such a useful signal when it's just...everywhere, and constant."

"You're gonna break," I frowned. "You need to get out of here while you still can."

"And leave you behind? With Karu? As if."

Someone coughed irritably in the comms.

"Here," she said, getting a backpack off with some effort, as she only had one functioning arm and it didn't seem to have as much range of motion as it should. "Your munitions, sire. I'm looking forward to seeing how you drop that fat mother tubber."

I took the bag and found it heavy. I couldn't stop my eyes from roaming up and down her body. She'd been hurt so much getting these, it didn't seem worth it. If I'd gone with her instead of just sending her off to fight the XPCA on her own…

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said with a toss of her hair meant to look casual, but which suffered for her stilted movement. "There were more shadow ops in there, and now...now there aren't. But I'm still kicking. So it's fine."

"You just look so...beat to hell."

She gave a shrug which looked almost natural. "I'm the most durable one of us. Comes with the territory. You can make it up to me later," she said, bending forward to show off a chest that was also undamaged, with a saucy wink.

But a chest hanging there, no matter how beautiful, on a battered and torn woman just reaffirmed the wrongness of it all.

"AEGIS, you need to leave, seriously," I said. "Go with Lia, keep her safe."

"No."

"Why not? You've done so much already."

"I'm not leaving you." All playfulness had left her voice and she adjusted her glasses at me with a vague menace. "We're doing this together. When Karu and you broke up, wasn't it about this exact thing? I'm not letting that happen. I'm with you until the end, one way or the other."

"I am right here," Karu's voice said quietly on comms.

"Besides," AEGIS continued, unperturbed. "If we're together, then one way is more likely than the other. So stop wasting time and let's go, Athan."

She move as though to hug me again but instead just sorta bodily spun me around so we were a few feet over, as the big gun from the fortress armor pounded a new crater into the ground where we had stood.

"See?" she said with an indefatigable grin.

I didn't return it. I might not have liked what Karu decided for us, but I agreed with it on some level. She couldn't just brush this off with a cutesy smile, not when her life was on the line.

"You have to promise me, if things look bad, you run. You save yourself. You got it?" I said, crossing my arms and blocking out the fortress armor slowly advancing on us, like we were a couple arguing in a grocery store and it had the gall to try to interrupt us to pick out a bag of marshmallows.

"No," she said, mirroring my posture and stubbornness. "I'll do what I want, and if I want to die next to you, I'll damn well do it. If you don't like it, don't put yourself in a position to die."

This damn girl, always doing exactly what she wanted. She was so impossible...it made her impossible not to love.

"Karu, are you listening?" I asked.

"No, I have torn off my ears," she complained. "I am not available to solicit for relationship advice. If that is truly the most concerning thing on your mind at the moment, I may recommend you hold the conversation under the foot of the armor, so that I do not have to endure it for quite as long."

"Yeah, this is getting awkward," Lia said. "I am open for relationship advice, though!" she added cheerily.

"Having never sat in on your ops personally before, are they all like this?" Blacket said with boredom only barely hinting at amusement. "I am shocked you have the successful record you do, if so."

"I thought I told you to shut the hell up, assface," I yelled back. I realized I just screamed that in AEGIS' face by her shocked reaction, though she waved me off when I started to apologize. "Karu, I wasn't looking for advice, can you meet us outside the battlefield? Near...but not too near the armor. Should be easy to find."

"I can," she said warily. "For the record, between myself and yourself, the AI and yourself, and now our enemy being on comms...this mission has far surpassed any other in terms of awkwardness."

"Great," I said shaking my head. "We'll work on that. For starters, AEGIS is there any way to kick Blackett off our comms?"

"We can meet up and jump channels, but I think they'll just scan and find us again."

"Okay. So we kill Blackett then, that'll sort it," I said.

Karu landed next to us with a roar and a thud. Without hesitating, she reached for me, and I was worried she was about to grab me and pull me in for a kiss with AEGIS literally right there, but instead she pulled away with my earpiece in her hand.

"My comms are off for the time being," she said, and scrutinized the device. "This is a very basic model, I do not believe it would support any useful encryption."

"So I just have to talk to Blackett all the time?"

"Until you kill him, as you said" she added, giving the comms back to me. "Before we proceed...I must speak to you on something."

"Oh here we go," AEGIS said, turning and walking a few paces.

"Not that, damned robot," Karu said bitterly, bringing AEGIS back. "It is your plan. I understand you are...justifiably enraged. You have been betrayed and those you love have been hurt. The justice of this place is not your justice, and the disconnect burns within you. But--"

"But what, Karu?" I almost-shouted at her, stopping her right there. "There is no but. There's no excusing any of this, no moral high-ground you can take, no anything. You can't justify anything here. There are no buts."

She frowned under her visor. "I do not think you are being very long-term in your solution. Director Blackett's means are abhorrent, on that we can agree, but his ends are...ideal. And he has very nearly succeeded."

"You're fucking kidding me," I now totally shouted at her. "He's enslaving people!"

"He is," she gnawed on her lip like the words had burned her coming out. "Yet...these are Exhumans who would be dead otherwise. And with their service, involuntary as it may be...Exhuman events may become a thing of the past. Imagine that, Ashton, a world where Exhumans are a threat no longer." She shook her head in disbelief. "There would be no need for hunters, for the XPCA, for the cycle of propaganda and indoctrination you hate. No need for daily anxiety of an attack, for teaching children fear, for the self-hate those like you carry."

"And all it costs us is mind-fucking people and forcing Saga into a suffering so dark, she wants to kill herself just to end the pain? For the rest of eternity?"

"If she dies, she will have eternal, unimaginable pain regardless. Her actions have secured her a spot there, I am certain."

"Fuck you, Karu."

"Regardless of my beliefs," she backtracked "would you not sacrifice the life and happiness of one in order to rid the entire world of the threat of Exhumans? Is that not what you are currently doing...were, anyway...putting yourself purposefully beneath Director Blackett's heel to better the world? Sacrificing your morals and life to spare others?"

"Maybe...but I'm not going to sacrifice Saga. Maybe if she'd chosen it for herself--and that's a maybe--but she's being tortured, forced into this in the wrongest way possible. It's sick and fucked up, and I'm not going to let them do it."

"Ashton," she said, almost pleadingly now. "I do not think you have given this even a proper moment's consideration. You are hurt and full of rage and feeling without thinking. The end of the Exhuman threat. Pause for just one moment and consider how monumental that is. I beseech you."

"And if I don't?"

She sighed heavily and seemed to shrink. She looked tired and beaten, dirty and worn. "I do not think you are acting in the best interests of the world if you do not. I cannot fathom why one would purposely choose not to think, especially with the stakes so high, as it were. But...I also said I would follow you, and I intend to. I would not become your enemy to defend a man so cruel as Director Blackett but...I still beg you to consider."

She shook her head and was quiet, almost defeated. "I have done cruel things to Exhumans as well, Ashton. Always for the good of others, I believe, and I have no regrets. I fear...that Director Blackett may be just...his evil for the sake of the trillions on Earth. Please...consider them also, while you weigh the value of one life, immortal though hers may be."

I wouldn't. Karu hadn't seen what I'd seen. To paint him as cruel and evil was a disservice to those words, what he'd done was so far beyond, so calculated and methodical, he'd broken one of the strongest people I'd ever met, who'd endured a century of torture with a grin.

If that was what it took to fix this world, the world didn't deserve to be fixed. I could make whatever arguments and justifications I wanted, that he wasn't a man who should single-handedly control an Exhuman army, that it wasn't just Saga's life, but the lives of all enslaved Exhumans who hung in the balance, that there were other options, and most Exhumans were already surrendering peacefully, the era of apocalyptic events seemed to be behind us with the prospect of New Eden.

But honestly, I didn't care about any of that. The pain I'd felt inside Saga, the fear Blackett had put in her, the despair...even at the end, when I'd given her a small sliver of determination and hope...she'd been so twisted up by him that she held it like a weapon to her own throat. Blackett could not do that to her, or to anyone and not have me to answer to.

"I'm done considering," I told Karu. "Blackett dies. Today. By my hand."

She let out an enormous sigh. "You are certain? Machine, do you have anything to add? You have been silent this entire conversation."

"My name is AEGIS, not machine." She waited for an apology but none came. "And I don't really care about the fate of the world. I tried that once, and all I did was almost kill the only person who cared about me. Athan saved me from myself, and I'm never turning back to that. I don't want to be an AI that runs countries anymore, I just want to be a human, and be by Athan's side doing it. Whatever he does, I go with him."

"So there you have it, Karu," I said. "Satisfied now?"

"Both of you are amazing in your wasted potential," Karu said bitterly. "And yet, still here I stand beside you, perhaps no better than her."

"Oh, you're definitely not better than me," AEGIS grinned.

"You are truly impossible. I cannot believe you jest at a time like this."

"Well if you're done trying to convince me that the fuckhead out there deserves to live, we have a fortress armor to bring down. AEGIS got us some explosives, but I think we'll need your help to deploy them," I asked her.

"I believe you are mistaken at my odds of standing successfully against the behemoth," Karu said. "It is riddled with anti-air weaponry. Regardless of my agility, I would be pounded full of flak within moments of trying to approach."

"Well, we can't do it the same way as last time either," AEGIS said apologetically. "I'm too disabled to throw you that far again...you'd just splat on the leg."

We stood in silence for a few seconds, a bizarre circle of quiet amidst the din of people fighting and dying just a few dozen feet away, and the tower of angry metal bearing down on us.

"Then...I guess...there's only really one thing we can do," I said after taking careful inventory of everyone and all the resources we had. "I don't really like the idea, but...Karu...I think...I'm going to need you to strip."

"Wh-wha...what?" She glanced at AEGIS for an instant, her face flushing.

"Come on, we've done this before."

"N-not in a battlefield!" she yelled back for some reason. "And..I thought…" she gestured towards AEGIS who looked about as shocked as Karu looked embarrassed.

I didn't get it.

"Your guns and armor...we need to take them off."

"O-oh. Oh. I s-see. Of course. That is exactly how I interpreted that," she stammered.

AEGIS moved forward and helped Karu to disrobe. "Athan, you're such an idiot," she said, glaring at me.

"What? It's our best shot."

"Not the plan...your phrasing. You almost broke Karu's heart again. And almost got a facefull of my kicking it."

I blanked. "What?"

"Never mind," Karu said, breathing heavily for just taking off her armor. "I believe I know what you have in mind, but before we get back on comms, could you outline your plans?"

"With pleasure," I said.