Nico climbed up the mountain, a little flutter in each step. He barely held himself back from sprinting all the way up. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this…lively. His heart was fluttering.

She flipped in the air using my kinetic shell and tossed me out of the mountain. He could have tried hitting her with the Bone Skewer, or popped in the air, but he didn’t have the heart to do either. The wind falling past his ears felt too enjoyable, and the excited look on Luna’s face made him far too happy to interrupt it.

He found Luna right where he last left her—lying on her back at the edge with outstretched arms and legs. Her facial expression hadn’t changed a bit. She looked slightly more surprised when Nico stood above her.

“How does it feel?” he asked.

She raised her right arm, the one she had tossed him with. She looked at it with awe. “It…that moment, the way the Locust felt on my fingers, the air, the fire beneath me, everything…I keep repeating the scene in my head. I keep imagining doing it, and what I could have done different, and what you could have done different. There are so many possibilities.”

“Remember this,” Nico said, catching her hand with the Locust. He squeezed. “This is what it feels like to fight well—exceptionally well. Be proud of yourself, so that you repeat it.”

“Even though you went easy on me?”

“The first time we fought, it wasn’t easy—it was nothing. You were nothing. And now, an hour and a half later, you beat me on easy mode. Keep it up, and in a few more hours you might completely surpass me.” Nico was only partially joking. He had a few years of training on her but she was still able to surprise him.

He helped Luna get to her feet. They walked together towards the shade of the tree.

“Now we sleep,” he said with resignation.

Luna stared at the shade. He could feel her resistance to the idea, especially when they were making such great progress, but still she nodded and laid down without a complaint.

He waited for her to ask why. She didn’t. He shrugged and walked towards Aiden. If she’s studied sociology, then she probably also studied psychology. A large part of learning a new skill was done during sleep. Words could not explain how stupid it would be if they skipped such an integral part of the learning process, which only made Nico’s own resistance to the idea more frustrating.

Nico stood over Aiden, his Bone Skewer aimed at his head. He stood there for a few seconds. No, no this feels wrong. He aimed the Locust away. “Hey Aiden, you owe me Energy. Pay up 6.” Aiden didn’t answer. “Guess you’ll pay how a Rat does,” Nico said, firing the Bone Skewer. It pierced his head and bounced off the ground, transforming into a grappling claw. Much better.

It wasn’t a pretty way to go, but it was painless. Besides—Nico wanted to try something.

Siphon, Nico thought. Aiden’s body glowed yellow. His body transmuted into an Energy. It went inside the Locust and offered Nico his two choices—either to Siphon, or to Harvest. Good to know. He Siphoned him and walked back towards the tree. He laid down next to Luna and closed his eyes.

Now we sleep, he thought to himself. He closed his eyes and kept them shut. He tried to think of nothing, but it was the same as always. His brain wouldn’t stop thinking, wouldn’t stop asking. What is Kara planning on doing? What is Devi trying to accomplish by using Nico? What were they going to do, what could they do, about their maddening world? For the past couple hundred years nothing has changed. For the past couple thousand years, nothing good has happened. What made Luna think she can do anything about it?

The Deep. No one has been able to control it until the 4th Fall, and now Kara. Maybe Gaia, since the sword was hers? But then if she destroyed the 4th Fall without anyone knowing how, why stop there for three years? So why not rule the world with it? Do as I say, or I will destroy you?

Nico heard the branches moving with the wind above him. He opened his eyes, sighing as he realized that not only had he failed to sleep, but that he wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. He heard Luna’s breathing. He focused in on it, hoping it would distract him from his thoughts. Her breathing was slow, deep, and had even intervals in between each. It was too regular to be sleeping. Maybe she’s praying? Nico knew little about the Suns and their rituals. Though the more Nico learned of life, the more he understood why people were desperate for the alternative reality they offered.

Nico looked at the sky through the branches, wishing he’d learned how to sleep with his eyes open.

“Are you proud of yourself?” he asked.

“I am,” she said, after a pause. “Are you?”

“I am,” Nico said. “I’m not,” he said later. “But I know I should be. So maybe a little?”

“What’s preventing you?” Luna asked.

“I forgot what it feels like. The past day…I’d felt more alive than I had the past few years.” Nico clung to those feelings—punching the fairies to a mush, escaping the Riders, killing that dastardly crocodile, flying with the Hunter, flying with the Doomie, standing with Luna within the red cloud, blowing the Phoenix’s head wide open, and passing on what he learned over the entire course of his life to Luna in an hour.

Each memory was proof of his efforts, and that it sometimes even worked.

Never again will I put my fists down. He’ll fight until his end, no matter the cost, no matter what the sacrifice was, no matter what anyone else wanted from him. He closed his eyes and prepared for the coming fight.

***

When the clock struck zero Nico bolted towards Arxon, who very slowly crouched down and swiped his hand across the ground. Five circles of bright blue flames appeared. Torrents of fire roared to life from them. Fire Barrier. It was 2 meters wide and shaped in a half-circle. The flames were 2 meters tall and lasted 5 seconds. It would rotate around the point of origin of the cast on command.

Arxon stood behind it, charging a Flame Blast. By the time the Fire Barrier ran out his Blast would decimate the area in front of him in a cone. There were no dodging blast attacks when they’re fully charged. Nico had seen what it did to Rankers within their suits and shields, and he had seen what it did to those without.

That was Arxon’s strategy. It was an automatic win against someone that had no way to get past the Fire Barrier, like Nico.

It was an impossible puzzle. There was no way to solve it. It wasn’t meant to be solved. The only way out of this situation was not being in it. No one would have blamed Nico for surrendering.

But as he reached the wall, and as he felt the heat on his skin and saw the beautiful yellow flames spiral upward, Nico realized he didn’t want to play this game.

He didn’t want to be used as a source of entertainment for people who had nothing better to do than watch kids beat each other up. He didn’t want to be used as a token Rat to convince other orphans that if they tried hard enough every hour of their life, if they beat the other Rats competing for those scarce rewards, and that if they hunted monsters long enough while swallowing the pain and death that came with it, then they too may become Rankers, so that they too may dress in pretty suits and hunt monsters for the rest of their lives like good little fucking machines.

Nico ran through the flames. He came out on the other side as a skeleton. He used his healing on some instinct, and lunged low, tossing his axe up on another. He wasn’t sure if he was already dead, or whether his body actually did this. He was visualizing the fight in his head, mutely, and ignoring the sound of fire in his ears.

Arxon had his arm pointed at the wall, but he didn’t account for the height difference and had his arm raised at Nico’s neck level instead of chest. Nico imagined Arxon jumping back and pointing down, in surprise and terror, and he imagined the axe striking Arxon’s hand from the bottom, nudging it back up. Nico imagined the bright yellow-orange of a Fire Blast going over his shoulders, and he imagined catching the hem of Arxon’s sleeves, and yanking on it, and catching his face, and smashing it against the blue flames, again and again, until his skull and Nico’s started to melded together.

***

Nico opened his eyes to Luna’s. She laid across of him.

“How are you doing?” she whispered. Her voice was soft. It didn’t hurt Nico’s headache, which he noticed wasn’t even there.

“I remembered why I killed him,” he said.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to serve them…any of them. Hunters, Rats, Rankers, even the ones that bet against me. I wanted to win. I had to win, otherwise…” he shook his head.

“It makes sense,” she said.

“Does it?” It was a selfish decision that caused more pain to everyone around him than the alternative.

“Give me freedom, or give me death,” she said, then smiled wide. “Famous words, unironically said by a slave owner, but it’s catchy.”

Nico chuckled. He smiled and went back to sleep.