It was like getting thrown out with a blindfold on after spinning around a couple hundred times. I was stumbling over roots and stones- or maybe just myself- as I explored the forest.

“It’s not that big an area, I gave it a glance when Tayanita pulled up.” Gurl’s voice made my head ring.

“How much longer,” I asked aloud, though it was a question meant for myself.

Gurl gave me the only answer she could, “I don’t know. I’ve got an idea of its distance from me, but as for you, I have no idea.”

Over the last month I might have become too reliant on Gurl’s aid. She was excellent at directing me to warehouses and stashes and criminals that were getting away, but that was when she was able to survey the area. Right now, I needed eyes on the Mothman.

I tripped clumsily, shouldering a tree, “What’s he doing?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Apart from recycling his own vomit. Even then, he’s just standing perfectly still, his proboscis is the only thing moving.”

She tutted, “Fuck it, I know I say this all the time boss, but I say we ditch this one. You’re panting, honestly, you sound pathetic. Well, you’ve never sounded anything sounded impressive, but back when we were butting heads you gave me shivers when you were on the end of the rope, now-”

“We take it out now. Monsters are too unpredictable.”

She was right, however. I was out of practice, blind, and I've never been good at winning fights under those conditions.

“The cops’ll be here,” I reminded her, “If they find this thing... ‘resting’, then they might stir up trouble.”

She paused, thought about it. “You’re forgetting Tayanita. We forgot her. I should have looked for her first. If she finds that thing, there’s a chance she’ll blow it to high hell, or, it’ll crush her.”

“The latter is our only option.”

She hummed, “Is it?”

I paused wiping sweat from my forehead, “She doesn’t deserve to die.”

It was a couple seconds after I said it that I realised my voice had come out gruff, harsh.

“You’re being defensive. Boss.”

I frowned. How much longer? Something like this seems to happen every month. I final settle down, get a chance to ease off and feel good about myself, then low and behold, something pops out of nowhere to screw with me. Maybe it’s a god, or a wizard or a witch, an ultimate lifeform, a monster, a shadow, or just one great big bell-end.

It’s always me too. I have to go chasing after the bad guy, I have to stand in front of him.

If it was just... if it was just a quarter of the work, I might be happy.

I had to go through Irminsul, alone. I had to kill Belfast.

I know other people don’t have it easy, but I know that if I just went through all this with a team, things would have been so simple.

“I’m not your boss, G.”

“You pay me.”

“Clearly not enough, how much would it take for you to stop hurling abuse at me?”

“It would cost me my dignity. I’m for real, if I think you’re pathetic, I'm going to point and sneer, nothing better for it.”

I grinned slightly, “Alright, alright, before we get into all that, give me an x-ray of Mothman. Any weird organs I should be worried about? How dense is he?”

“Damn it Sham, I'm not a doctor! What the fuck do you think I'm going to find exactly?”

“Weird stuff, obviously.”

She paused for a minute, making a choke noise, “Nasty is what it is. It’s got stuff coiling into its muscles from outside in, I’m sure it’s got ‘magic’ backing it, but under normal circumstances that thing’d never support its weight, let alone fly.”

I nodded, “Did’ja catch any of my fight with him? Did I throw a Rock at him?”

She made a confused sound, “Excuse you? Did I forget to check your head? Is your plan really just to... throw a rock at him really really hard? That’d knock a person out, splatter their skull at worst, sure-”

“No, no, no,” I crunched over branches, getting used to the terrain and my own dizziness, “I mean, did I throw a Rock at him?”

Gurl quietly imagined I had developed some disassociation.

“You know, a Rock!” I threw a feint, as if to show her. I have to confess; I was losing some lucidity.

“I should have gone with Clover,” she said, “Feoli would have taken me.”

My arms went limp, realising I'd never explained this to her before. I’d never even said it out loud before, and with good reason.

“It’s my ‘special move’. I use it on monsters and walls, basically, I use a combination of precision, speed, and power to punch through a target.”

Gurl did not reply.

I could hear all the sounds of the forest, birds cawing, the wind in the trees, the not-so-distant suburban area- and my own choked breathing.

“So... what you’re saying is... your ‘special move’ is that you punch them harder?”

I thought it over then corrected, “There’s speed and precision too.”

“Yeah, that sort of goes without saying. That’s just a punch Sham.”

I gave one final effort, mumbling “It makes something like a ‘rock’ sound when I do it too.”

I faintly heard a squeak on the other side of the line, “Wait a second, I thought you called yourself Shamrock just because you were irish, did you actually have the second braincell necessary to make the connection between the fact you are tough and that a ‘rock’ is tough? Do not tell me that you call that shifty cheat power a ‘Sham’.”

“No,” I muttered, “I call it super power 2.”

Again, judgmental silence.

“I was scared for a second there. Man eating monster on the loose, you know? It’s reassuring to know that a simpleton’s going to deal with it.”

Simple? Maybe, but I still had the brain power for one more move. “You’re probably going to lose these memories, right? Guess I can be honest for once. I’m terrified. Of this thing, sorta. That I'm going to die, not so much. You’re up your own ass gurl. You say people should be free to do what they wanna do, but in the same breath you put people down. You’re a pasty girl with a couple hobbies, you were stupid enough to trust Belfast as much as you did, so you clearly don’t have brains going for you. You think because your small, weak, and have some emotional baggage to get through that it means your own cruelty is just breaking even.”

“It’s not. It just makes you a big bully. I know, because I got thoughts like that. Just this once, I’m not going to tell you to be better, because I don’t know what better looks like. You know why I went for ‘Shamrock’? Yeah, I’m Irish. I'm sturdy like a rock. But I'm a goddamn sham. I’m never going to be a hero.”

I was breathing heavily and my head was swimming. Honestly, I don’t remember if those were my exact words to her, but it doesn’t matter, that’s what I wanted to say, and it’s not like she remembers I said it.

Quiet again.

“I think you... you do the best you can. I think that’s the only thing everybody has in common. I let my greed and my pride swallow me up. You know what the worst part about Adonis going was?”

I thought I knew, “You blamed yourself.”

She sighed, “That’s part of it, but not the worst. I blamed him. Honestly, I was angry when I found out he was dirty, I felt like I had one really good thing in my life back when I was normal, and then it just... it disappeared. It was like an illusion being lifted.”

“You, boss? You’d blame yourself; you’d gnaw on your teeth and get angry while the rest of us fall apart.”

I wanted to tell her that wasn’t a good thing. If I could curl up and cry, I would. My heart just doesn’t go there anymore. I’m so angry. All the time. It’s a tension between hope and despair, a constant struggle that I'm simply not built for.

“Gurl-”

Twigs snapped; metal buckled. I snapped my neck around looking for it. Tayanita was unaccounted for, and we still didn’t know the limits of this ‘Mothman’.

Facing the direction of the noise didn’t do me any good, I could just faintly make out the trees in the moonlight. They were dark pillars against a darker night. And in the middle of them was a pole that didn’t go much higher than I stood.

I wasn’t afraid, not of dying. The unknown made me freeze.

Water trickled, and it burped. I still didn’t move.

“Tay?” I tried to hide the fear in my voice.

A nonchalant voice, simply grunted.

“H-hello?”

“Man, shut the fuck up, I’m pishing.”

The shock loosened me. What were the odds? Out of all the places in this town to spend his Halloween...

“Mullet?” I asked.

“Kirk?” He asked in turn.

“No, it’s- it’s uhm...”

I didn’t know whether to say Shamrock or Emmett, or to try and lie.

He zipped up his trousers and rebuckled his belt, “Listen man, I’ve been smokin’ the same grass as you, and I can speak perfectly good, hell’s up with your voice?”

He hobbled out and put a hand on my shoulder, “Come on mate, let’s get back to the spot, the boys probably got that fire going.”

“Mullet,” I decided to at least act like a hero, “You need to get your friends and get out of here. There’s a monster on the loose, I’m hunting it down.”

“Man, you been on something stronger?”

“Alright, there’s a woman with a pension for shooting on sight out here, get out or get shot.”

“Haha, dude, I know It’s Halloween, but-”

I rolled my eyes, half shouting, “The cops are coming, you idiot! Get the others and go!”

He listened to that one, stumbling back a step, “You serious Kirk? Don’t screw with me man.”

“It’s Shamrock you dumbass!”

He acted stupefied, and I was a little surprised myself. It had been a while since I'd made that declaration.

There was a wait, like the words were struggling to enter his ears.

“Jeeesus Chriiist,” he moaned, “I’m dense. Dense as horse crap. You sound identical. You know, like, two puzzle pieces in my brain, trying to click together, but, like, I was tryna push it in sideways or something. Like...”

He went on for quite a while, slowly crouching down to try and take it all in, forgetting that he’d pissed in that spot not too long ago.

“I wasn’t joking, Mullet. A fight is going to break out here. You need to get your friends and go.”

He stood up shaking himself off.

“Listen man, I know it’s going to be tough, but you should know I’m still here for you bro, I don’t go back on my word, not even when the guy I'm talking to is a two faced liar- I'm goin’ to find a compromise, I’ll hate you, and I'll be your guy, hell, this might make it easier, you’ll be interesting now.”

I pinched my head. AI didn’t have time for his high ramblings, or time to decypher them, not when Gul was- Gurl. I didn’t tell her what was going on.

I turned away from Mullet, pressing my ear piece, “Gurl, I found some civilians, I had to handle it- have to handle it. If the monster is stationary, then I'll-”

“Found him, he’s moving- Got him he’s going- It's heading- He's heading north-”

I was freaking out now.

“Mullet. Run.”

He was coming up now, “Who were you talking to?

I screamed at him, “Leave!”

I was getting angry- I remembered every time I’d been in this situation before. Grey, Adonis, it seemed like every time I was put alongside a normal person- just one- I failed to protect them. Those pillars that had been black slowly grew redder and redder, I could make out Mullet’s expression finally, that’s when I shoved him, and turned to the source of the light.

The second I saw it my mind was chopped into pieces again. I occasionally caught glimpses of an arm, or just the pitch black of my eye lids, either way I could feel the pressure and stress of this creature, hear it’s chopped screeches and whirrs.

Of this... I was not afraid. I would find myself screaming and lashing out against it. It was battering me, twisting my limbs. I did the same.

Blind moments of rage jumping between points of action where I was either getting my face smashed or I was landing a punch.

There was a word on my mind, or rather, I could feel it through the entire struggle.

A comic. For a moment it felt like my life was simply a mashup of the best panels and shots. A simple and cathartic experience... one that wouldn’t last.

I had it in a hold, something wet and slimy was running up or down my arm, as I grabbed at its face. I was on its back, my hand gripping its shaggy neck-less head, stopping it from turning.

The first thing I realised was that I could ‘see’ it just fine, I remembered seeing parts of it. I asked myself, what I hadn’t seen? It’s face and its wings.

It was trying to turn its head around, like an owl. That, and the strange glow told me that it was the eyes.

Maybe I lost my grip on it because of the jarring shift in mentality, or maybe it was because I stopped acting like a wild animal, started thinking, strategizing.

I called Gurl a bully. Is that what I've been looking for with this ‘Rori’ thing? With the easy jobs taking care of drug houses... Am I just looking for some way to... to vent? To escape myself?

My mind jumped forward again, smashing through a tree and rolling in the dirt.

It gave me a second to think. What would be my plan A in this situation? Use his blind spots, go for his back. I had surely tried that in the moments I don’t remember. But there would still be moments where his memory alteration took effect.

Plan B, wasn’t good. It’s what I went with.

I felt around for my shirt as the red light shifted over the trees, finding some tatters. It took zero effort to strip them off, even if there was no super strength at my disposal. They were crusted with blood, viscera, and ash.

I wrapped them around my head messily, tying it with a couple knots at the back.

It was loud in its approach, leaves bustled and branches splintered as it came in. Above it all, the sound of my own breath rang loudest in my ears. I squared off.

A fist bigger than my head smashed into my face rocking me to my core. I didn’t have to see it to know.

My feat held strong, and after reflecting on Gurl’s info, I hit him square in the face with a crack. I heard a groan, then felt him grab my arm, and again we were rolling and fighting, only now I wasn’t afraid of much more than the damage already done to my body or some power I hadn’t seen yet.

Something wet and slimy lashed out, striking me for the throat. My hands were preoccupied, so I had to leverage my elbow around its ‘tongue’ and tug it it out and away.

I was looking for a way to cause some serious damage, and Tayanita came to mind. First I thought of her guns. Then I thought about kissing her.

I brought the Mothman’s tongue back near my face and it was searching for flesh to pierce. I leaned into his face, feeling some sort of mandible scratch my cheek. I kissed it. And then I pull it’s tongue out with my teeth, with a sound like retching.

For a change, the monster was startled by me. For a moment it lost its grip, and I smashed right through his face. I felt the same mandibles break against my fist.

It fell to the ground with a thump.

There was silence and my own impossibly loud panting. My heart was rocketing out of my chest, and I wasn’t sure what sort of damage had been done to me. I reached for my mask-

When my fingers touched it, I stopped.

“Mullet? You here?”

There was no answer.

“Call Gurl...” I pushed my fingers into my ear, looking for the piece I used to talk to her, she’d find him in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t there.

The sound of my laboured breath was less calming now, the silence deafened it.

Then I heard fireworks. Something like it. At least. I felt it collide with my torse and then-

There wasn’t a boom from the projectile itself, the only force I felt from it was in my ribs alone. It was like a bubble of pain, one that SP2 did little to curtail.

And I do mean ‘curtail’ I don’t know exactly what I was able to block from it, probably not the pressure or force, but the heat of it might have been negated at least.

It was still going when I heard her voice, “Don’t worry. That little lamb made it back to his flock.”

The miniature explosion dissipated and I fell. To say this was the nail in the coffin would be an understatement. It was more like shooting an old crippled horse.

“Who’s this ‘girl’ you were talking to? If I read the file right, there was a Unit that went unaccounted for in Belfast. Right of conquest, huh? You kill Belfast, she and his equipment are yours.”

I grabbed at my head with one hand, pulling. As torch light peaked into my eyes, I left the mask on my face.

I was the pull of a trigger away from death, and yet all I could think about was how wrong it would be to rip the mask off now.

Tayanita’d been hunting me, for who knows how long. She let me square off against the moth, as she put it, “Prey is weakest when it’s hunting. I’m glad you didn’t die up north. This’ll be your final honour, die with dignity.”

Stall.

I heckled at first, “You gonna hit me with that peashooter again? Taytay... you’re a horrible picker. When the shotgun didn’t do much, you upgraded to just a tier below what you needed to...” I started coughing.

I heard her weapon click and flinched a little as she put it together. “You’re right. That was a 1kmS chipped shell. Enough energy to blow a quarter of this town to hell. I guess it’s fitting that I kill you with 5kmS,” I heard a ticking sound, “after all, you’re the spirit of this godless town.”

I coughed something up, grinning as best I could to keep up appearances.

“Taste in men,” I choked, “You know what that Rori kid pulled tonight?”

She snorted at that, “It’s time to die.”

“The cops have your entire operation surrounded, they’ll be here... five minutes, less. He’s been playing you, Tayanita.”

It was a gamble. I offered Rori up in exchange for Emmett and Shamrock.

“Die,” she reiterated.

She said that but hadn’t shot me yet. I couldn’t make any sudden movements, in fact, I could barely lift myself from the ground. It might sound a little unheroic, but I was waiting for the cops to get there. Any interruption would’ve sufficed actually.

“Did you ever see him handle drugs? Did you think he was being cold in some vain attempt to be masculine? You never met anyone he knew, never went to his house, and you thought he’d run away with you?”

That stopped her.

“How do you...”

“Sea-Threw Gurl. She was x-ray vision, and I had her learn lip-reading. You were talking about how me inspiring people was pointless... I don’t care that I don’t have the ‘honour’ of finishing this operation... Rori did it for me.”

“You’re nothing but a liar, an empty creature!”

“Sure,” I smiled along, “that’s the type of man you like, isn’t it?”

I raised a hand, slowly. The muscles in my legs were finding some life. In my head I was considering two options, one, I take of my mask and show her who I am. Or two, point and shout ‘what’s that!’

I was about to go for option two, when an arm wacked into my face, and I felt a rush of air.

Not dead I realised. For some reason that gave me a boost.

The moth had its hand around my head, lifting me. I immediately threw a fist into him. I was blind so there was little affect. I thought he was just lifting my up at first, but then there was a gust of wind, and we launched into the air. The rise whipped the mask off my face, and again there were cuts in my memory.

It wasn’t battering me, that much I could tell. I think it was looking to store me, in a man-sized nest or something, who knows. Maybe it went docile earlier because it thought its prey was charred to a crisp, maybe it had given up and forgotten about me. Now that I was limp all over, it thought I'd make an excellent meal.

I elbowed it as hard as I could, but there was little point. For all my anger, and discontent it wasn’t enough to destroy this monster. I opened my eyes.

The wind and clouds were rushing by in a freezing mist, but I just felt like I was sinking.

No, it was a sinking feeling. Not the same as what I needed for SP2. It was like an epiphany welling up deep inside me.

I suddenly realised the absurdity of a giant moth man carrying me like a baby. I felt like I was seeing for the first time after entering that forest. I’d blindly reacted to a man pissing in the bushes, berated a girl over the phone, and then bargained for my life with another.

It all moved by so fast, with only short moments of peace with a sense of normality.

“Hey, Mothman... you can totally eat me. If you’ve got the stones to replace me... in my crappy life.”

It didn’t reply, the sound wasn’t even audible.

I looked up at its wings. They were built like a bug’s, shimmering silver on the underside. They hardly ever flapped, it just sort of glided higher and higher.

It was cartoonish. His wings were only slightly bigger than his arm span and yet we were going fast.

I looked down.

On the ground, I could see the newly installed fluorescent street lights sprinkling the black beneath me. I noticed that orange lights spotted the town as well, the lights from people’s homes.

I thought it was beautiful. It was like taking the scenic route for once.

I wheezed out a laugh, thinking that I didn’t really want to kill this thing anymore, after all, it showed me soe thing like this, saved me from Tayanita.

Then I remembered Belfast. I wanted him dead. Something in me changed in me then, a step had been taken that I can’t untake.

I, Emmett O’Hara, comic book nerd and sewing enthusiast, am a vengeful murderer. I can try and say that I did it so he wouldn’t kill again, I can justify it as a heroic action in my head because it stopped him from ever hurting innocents again...

That doesn’t make it anything more than murder. I think of every heartfelt moment I've had with somebody, every complement I've received, ever joke about wieners and butts or whatever crude little thing might have made me smile...

And I compare it to that side of myself. What if neither Shamrock or Emmett is my true self, what if I'm someone worse than Rori?

“Just drop me.”

I said it with defeat on my tongue.

“Drop me.”

I looked across all of Kerry, though there wasn’t much to see.

I found it to be beautiful.

I slammed a mad fist into its wing, “Drop me ya big bollocks!”

It didn’t listen, but as if by my will, something shot up from a patch of darkness in that patchwork quilt of dim light and black.

It left a semi-blue trail as whizzed up and into the moth’s wing, the creature catching on a small airy blue sphere that brimmed tightly with energy.

The Mothman squealed out as it’s wing jittered and we tilted. I glared at the light for a while, realising that it was burning a line through the wing, as if an ‘arrow’ were boring through it.

We began our fall to Earth.

With the turbulent conditions, he let go of me, flapping to save himself. I’m sure, like me, he could have survived the fall with his durability. It must have experienced some primal fear of falling.

I wasn’t afraid.

Pulling myself close to its shaggy body, I flet hundreds of little arms just beneath its oily hair.

I held onto its giant torso with my legs, and looked right into its eyes.

I don’t know why, but I could see it in that moment, really see it. Maybe the moth wasn’t using its power, or maybe it’s because I didn’t take my eyes of him until we were done.

I tried to find my strength, to draw out whatever was at the core of my being.

I started hitting him from left and right in the chest, just generally thinking about all the unpleasantness in my life as we spiralled around in a red glow.

I thought of Lechoslaw Limorilow, the Gator, and all the other petty sadists that have tortured me.

Of Belfast. That fist didn’t go as far, and I stopped for a bit. My eyes winced, something was welling up, finally.

I started hitting him quicker, as I thought of Clover’s friends, Adonis, Grey, the people killed by the Circuit board, the people who died in B-city, I thought of my dad, and I tried to think of Sam, coming up short.

I wasn’t hitting any harder, but I could feel my heart beating at least.

I thought of everyone I’d met so far, all their oddities and issues, and the good in them. I thought of everyone I still had to meet, everything I still had to do.

Every fist that hit that monster altered his trajectory. I was no longer wincing, its red eyes flickered, I was rocking it to the core of its alien being.

I reared back my fist, waiting, breathing, I could feel my heart in my throat along with sentence.

…

A metre from the ground I rocketed my fist through the monster's head, popping one of its enormous eyes and lodging forearm through its skull and into the earth.

The light faded from its other eye slowly, and some colour returned to the world as I looked around.

Suburban housing lined the road on both sides, it must’ve been a good neighbourhood, because the Halloween decorations were really impressive.

I heard another sudden sound like Tayanita’s R.O launching, gazing back up at the sky.

An orange light from the firework filled the sky, then it was joined by another, all sorts of colours and shapes filled the sky.

Every inch of me was broken. I could only smile.