Braellyn steps away from Avery, settling into the center of the ground. She looks around before booking it down the nearby hall. Flynt approaches Avery, gesturing her toward that same hall. Walking alongside Flynt, Avery stumbles down the hall at the end of the room, keeping the ornate styling of the preceding room, with maintained trims at the base of the walls, pristine hardwood floors, and a smooth white ceiling. At the end of the line rests a single, pristine elevator. Braellyn stands before the elevator, staring into its doors. Avery and Flynt stop just behind her. The elevator doors slide open just before Avery can press the button beside them. Cervantes stands at the center of the elevator. His blank expression fades into malice. He gazes at the three of them, glaring at Avery in particular. He stands still at the back of the elevator. Avery looks up toward him, snickers, and pushes on toward the elevator, standing in place just behind the man. Flynt gestures toward Braellyn to get on the elevator before him, and, jittering about, Braellyn steps onto the elevator, pressing herself back against the furthest corner from the woman. Still, he does not react, nor does he appear to move a muscle. He stands still as a statuette. Flynt steps onto the elevator and presses the uppermost button in the elevator, the button for the top floor.

“We aren’t going there.”

The man reaches his hand past Flynt’s face, pressing a button corresponding to a few floors below the top floor. Flynt has not a moment to react as Cervantes draws his hand past him. He pulls his hand back toward himself at the back of the elevator, shifting his weight around, turning toward Avery. He stops in his tracks, looking just above his line of sight toward Avery. Just inches away from each other, they engage, locked in a staring-contest of sorts. The elevator shakes as they ascend, and, with a quiet dinging, the elevator decelerates and speeds up once more whenever they pass a floor. In the center of the elevator, Flynt taps his hand against his side after every ding of the elevator. The silence breaks as Braellyn drops her hand back from off her shoulder onto the floor, dropping, crossing her legs on the floor, rummaging through the bag with her own two hands. She holds the back open with her beak, scattering papers all about the floor of the room, letting out a fluttering sound throughout the elevator; she rummages more and more vigorously, not letting up for a moment.

In an instant, Cervantes lunges toward Braellyn. Avery tackles the man into the back of the elevator. Braellyn dives out the way as Avery and Cervantes lay pressed against the side of the elevator, crushing each other in a headlock. Braellyn snatches a pistol out of her bag. Her nervous expression becomes joyous; she tosses her bag at the two of them, stepping away as a clutter of papers forms a facade before them. Braellyn fires at the man, letting out a deafening echo throughout the elevator. Cervantes hops up, out of Avery’s grasp, lunging toward Braellyn, stirring up the smoke and the collection of light papers. He lurches across the elevator, smashing his fist through its wall. Flynt draws his pistol just as well from his back pocket. Braellyn hops toward the side of the elevator, firing at the man between them as he tenses up.

A dinging sound fills the elevator. Sparks collapse from out of the ceiling as the lights dim. The bullets ricochet throughout the pitch-black room. The smell of gunpowder overpowers the room, and the persistent ringing in the ears of everybody overtakes the sound of people shuffling about. A bullet, having ricocheted throughout the elevator for a good while, spots its way through Braellyn’s forearm, preceding her birdlike screeching and cawing. The lights of the elevator come back on. Avery jumps up from her minimized squat in a corner of the elevator, in one swift motion, drawing the new brass knuckles from her sweatshirt pocket, and slamming them toward Cervantes. Each with their feet pressed against the sides of the room swipe at each other, each impact against the other’s arm ringing out almost explosively. Simultaneously, their fists spot each other’s faces. The elevator stands still, as the two of them stand bloodied and bruised. Blood runs down Avery’s nose, and scratches line the entirety of Avery’s face. Of Cervantes, there is no clear damage. At once, he clutches his chest, staring silently at Avery across the elevator. His eyes widen, and he drops to his knees. Flynt and Avery stare at the woman from the side of the elevator. Avery stares down at Cervantes, the blood vessels in his neck seeming to pop out.

The streams of blood all around Avery’s torso, having occurred from stab wounds and bullet holes prior, grow wider, falling a deeper shade of red. Cervantes collapses face first onto the floor, in minor convulsions. Avery hobbles toward the center of the elevator, jutting her arms out to keep her balance. Smoke rises from the back of the woman on the floor.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Braellyn still has a real beak.”

Braellyn stares nervously around the room.

“Wait, you really killed me before?! I thought that was a joke.”

Avery chuckles one more time before falling unceremoniously on her face overtop the other woman in the center of the elevator. Flynt and Braellyn exchange glances for an awkward period before the elevator doors finally open.

Flynt peers out of the elevator toward a large central office, surrounded on the remaining three walls by all-encompassing panes of glass, leading out toward the visage of the entire city. He saunters out into the center of the empty room, followed closely behind Braellyn. In the back of the room, there is a wooden desk, surrounded on either side by two thick support pillars. A white-hooded man jumps out from under this desk, standing on the top of it with his arms outstretched overhead, as if he were preaching. He pulls down his hood. The man is Deagon’s boss.

“Hello! It’s so nice to see you two.”