The old school building’s interior looked like a library. Shelves stacked with books ran along the perimeter of the rectangular building, and looking up several floors were above, each with a square hole in the middle with waist-high glass blockades to keep anyone from falling in.

“Please tell me exactly what we’re coming in here for again?” She looked around curiously.

“Did you sense that Lena was actually in this building? Ooh, maybe it’s a Temptation instead?” Her eyes lit up at the prospect of battle, so I did the only logical thing I could: facepalm.

“No, that’s not it Dantae. Stop getting your hopes up.” I looked around to make sure her zeal didn’t attract any unwanted attention, then brought her behind a bookshelf.

“Oh,” she let out a sensual gasp, “have you finally awoken to exhibitionism?” In all her excitement I had to practically peel her off of me.

“No, that’s not it.” I used the void to detect whether or not the strange woman was still in the building or not. After confirming she was, I redirected my attention back to Dantae to see her pouting.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to use our powers, otherwise Lena might get scared and run.” I smiled at the concern she showed for her friends. She really had grown.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t manipulate anything, just took a peek at our objective.”

She still looked skeptical. “And what is our objective exactly?”

“I saw a girl earlier who wasn’t Lena or her friend Jessica, but-“

My words were cut off as Dantae wrapped her left hand around my throat and lifted me solely with the strength of her left arm. “I’m sorry, Leo. I must have misheard you. Did you say that we were going to look for another woman? Even more so when I’m here with you?”

I could only wheeze under her strength until she loosened her grip. “Oops, I might have used a little too much strength there.”

I slumped back to the ground, experiencing an all too real reminder of why this woman was considered one of the most feared people on the planet, right behind her mother.

“God damn you’re scary.” I stood up and brushed myself up before walking off and leaving her behind the bookshelf.

“Oh, come on Leo, don’t be like that! You know I would never actually hurt you, right?” I turned and glared at her, which caused her to shrink back from my gaze and scratch her cheek.

“Ok… maybe not intentionally, at least.” I sighed and felt around using the void once more. Where… ah, found her. How did she get up to the roof so fast? Well, it doesn’t matter. With the void I can also-

“Leo, hey, I didn’t mean it, really. Hey, please talk to me?” Taking my silent thoughts for ignoring her, Dantae cuddled up to my left arm and stared at my stoic face.

I kissed her in response, and then warped us both up to the roof, where the girl was waiting, back turned to the both of us. Dantae separated us and looked at me, annoyed.

“Again, weren’t you not supposed to do that? What would happen if Alison couldn’t talk with Lena!?” There it was again, concern for her friends.

My chest tightened as I smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, when I used the void to track this girl earlier I noticed that they had already met with her. It’s up to them now to convince her not to run or fight. I don’t want to have to kill another experiment, after all.”

She frowned but acquiesced and stepped back, allowing me to take in the girl- no, the woman in front of us. “Welcome, I’ve been waiting for you.” The wind bellowed at her back and she pushed her unruly bangs out of her eyes.

“Seriously? Where did you meet this girl? I’ve already forgiven Alison and Angelina’s feelings for you out of the necessity to work well as a team, and now I have to think about another one?” Dantae was clearly upset, but I didn’t take my eyes off of her.

No, it was more accurate to say that I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. “Dantae, turn around. Just trust me.”

God damn it Leo, I’m trying to have an important talk with you and you… just…” Stopped speechless, staring past the girl to see what I had tried to point out: the gaping hole in reality that led to what seemed to be desert beyond it.

“Don’t worry Vanessa Kumo, your betrothed does not yet know me… but I know him. You can call me Lenora, I am also known by one of my other titles, the ‘Princess of Prophecy’.” She curtsied deeply, and came back up, looking at me with an air of elegance around her.

Dantae and I were both silent and on guard, but Lenora seemed to sense that and smiled, a beautiful image which soon became a touch more sinister. “Don’t worry, although you haven’t met me yet, I’ve already experienced meeting Leon- I mean Leo several times already.”

“Should you not understand my words yet,” she said, pointing back to the portal, “I think Miss Kumo knows it best: there are other worlds out there that you have to be careful of. Especially those with sentient life.”

Just as soon as she said that, her image flickered. She became a woman whose slim figure was hugged by dark blue skinny jeans and a white crop-top that revealed her muscular midriff. A dark diamond tattoo lay on the tanned skin of her neck, and her blue eyes shone similar to Dantae’s when she would manipulate the void.

“Remember this, Leo. I’ll be waiting for you, no matter how long it may take.” She took the gun, still in the holster from her pants and threw it at the ground. “Now this may also not make sense to you, but when we meet you’ll need a favor of me. So should you choose not to attack me here, I will grant it.”

“Leo, we shouldn’t let her leave. She knows both of our names and has an ominous title like that… we need to squash a threat like that before she rears her head again.” I looked at Dantae and then at Lenora.

“I don’t think we should. I think we should just let her go.”

“What!? Are you insane!?” Dantae hissed and grabbed my head in her hands, wrenching it around to face her. “You can not be serious about this. Think of the downsides!”

I looked past Dantae at Lenora. “Yeah, but if she wanted to attack us, she didn’t have to let us know who she was and where she was from. Besides,” I said, removing her hands and holding them in my own, “I have a good feeling about her offer.”

Lenora smiled at me before turning around to enter the portal. “I knew I didn’t choose the wrong man. Farewell for now, although we’ll be meeting before long.” She stepped through, the tear in time and space closing behind her mysterious silhouette.

“What the fuck was that?” Dantae muttered at my side.

“I don’t quite know,” I shook my head, “but I trust things are a bit more efficient on Alison’s side now.” Turning to face the Copley Building where their meeting was taking place, I sighed. “At least, I hope.

———

“What did you just say?” Lena’s eyebrow twitched in anger as she looked at the three intruders in her new classroom.

She had expected this somewhat, but some part of her had wished that they would just leave her alone today. To just let her be normal for once.

But no. Reality had other plans. Just as she and Jessica had pulled out their notebooks, the fire alarm sounded and the 21 other students cleared the room. Just as she had put all her things in her bag and had also gotten up to leave, three figures stood in the doorway.

“Hi Lena, it's been a while, huh?” Lena frowned as she eyed up her former subordinate, Alison Walker. By her side were the two other members from her former squadron, Robert Taylor and Maria Guerrera.

“Listen, I know it’s been some time since we’ve been in contact but things have been so busy I just didn’t have the time. What do you say you come back to our safehouse and talk to us about why you killed those guards and what you plan to do going forward. How does that sound?” Alison looked so bright, so inviting. No matter how much she wanted to grasp that light and feel safe once more, Lena knew she never could. Not knowing what she knew, and especially not after she killed her bodyguards.

Seeing the people she had some faith amount of faith in appear as her stalkers, although she had known from the start, seeing it in reality really drove the point home. Like that, how could she not react angrily.

“What did you just say? Funny you want to treat me like a friend now when this past week all I’ve been was your prey.” Alison and Maria looked taken aback, however, Rob just watched with quiet indifference. Even Jessica, who stood by her side through the worst of it all seemed to wince at the amount of venom in Lena’s voice.

Alison looked guilty and stuttered, “W-we really didn’t mean it to come off like that. It’s just…”

“It’s just what!? You come here into New York and on the first day trip my system, alerting me that you’re here. Do you know how in danger you made me feel at that moment!? I thought Armando and his goons had come after me, but the worse reality was that is was Armando, and by people I thought to be friends!”

Lena couldn’t stop herself. As if a dam had burst open her tears, along with her emotions came bursting forth. “Do you know how scary it is to lose the military’s protection!? I had to deal with having the minimal in guarding placed on me and for what!? So some other country could kidnap me and experiment on my body!?”

Her breathing became ragged, but she didn’t stop there. “You all think you’re invincible with those powers, but you’re not.” Lena sneered, ridicule and the envy of ignorance plain as day on her face.

“They can find a way to get to you, believe me,” she laughed, a hollow, emotionless sound that echoed throughout the empty room, “You don’t even know what we were supposed to be, do you?”

“Lena…” Jessica put a hand on her shoulder but Lena shrugged it off.

“No, Jessica. They should know.” Lifting up her shirt to just below her breasts, she displayed the cause of her anxiety, laid it bare for her former friends to see. A jet-black orb was lodged in her stomach, so dark in color that it reflected nothing, only absorbing what it was revealed to.

“This,” she pointed to her stomach, “is a void core. But you didn’t know that, did you.” She snarled. “No, of course not. How could the great General Christian Armando let you know that the Walker Gene we took when we gained our powers was actually laced with extract from Dimension Eaters? How could he tell you we might become that which we swore to destroy!?”