If someone had asked me why the fuck I had drawn attention to myself—and a good chunk of the chorus were doing exactly that right then—I would have struggled to formulate a response.

[Klaus: What are you doing?!] [Caterpillar: Sixteen. No.] [Butcher: Excellent.] [Toro: Ha! Yes! Haha!] [Alchemist: Oh dear.] [Diamondback: Moron.] [Deimos: Oh? Tsssss… Oh yes…] [Danger Zone: What the fuck, June?] [Quarrel: Is that right? Don't back down, Sixteen.] [Footloose: Llllleet's get ready to ruuuuumbllllle!] [Sarah: June…?] [Edict: Fuck me…] [Rotlimb: Fuck yes!!] [Belial: I see.]

The assembled onlookers roared their disapproval of my interruption, jeering and booing, stomping their feet and banging their fists on the railings. It was a wonder they didn't all fall to their deaths or serious injuries, abusing the suspended walkways of a condemned steel mill with the sheer weight of their condemnation of me. [Klaus: Oh, that is not sound, and this is such a bad idea… No no no no—] [Diamondback: Morons.]

Hookwolf, like everyone else in the cavernous room, had turned my way when I cut through their celebration with my proclamation, my challenge. I couldn't see what expression hid behind his mask, but I could read his body language well enough. It was hard to miss when the man was effectively half naked, after all. Before, the metal under his skin had been writhing just out of sight, flowing over the contours of his body. Staring me down from his perch overhead? Blades and saws, hooks and all manner of implementations untouchable by my power had risen up out of him like raised hackles. He was either pissed at my disruption, afraid of me, or both.

Just the thought had me grinning, teeth bared behind my scarf. [Rotlimb: I knew there was a touch of madness in there! Give him hell, Sixteen! Kill him slow.] [Belial: Is this what you need?]

His hangers-on, Cricket and Stormtiger, had bristled as well, but he raised a hand to stay them then lifted that hand up into the air, where a sea of steel erupted from it, his skin sliced to ribbons and slipping down into the depths within. Silence took the crowd again in a wave that rippled out from his position, and before it had finished reaching the other end of the arena, Hookwolf stepped up onto the railing and jumped off. He killed his momentum with his legs shifting into more of the lupine form he was known for, every inch covered in protrusions that could have torn me to pieces the last time he had brought that form to bear against me. That still could—envisioning advancing and trying to pull him apart set my nerves on fire, Danger Zone's power screaming in warning. Diamondback's power made me durable and incapable of feeling pain, but it did not make me invincible.

Knowing that felt good. Why did that feel good?

Hookwolf stalked forward, more wolf than man. "Didn't expect this." [Footloose: Okay, get this man some shampoo, stat. But then so much yes.]

"Me neither." [Toro: For once, we're in agreement, Six. D-ish.]

He stopped maybe fifteen feet away and made a show of looking me over and audibly sneering. "You don't belong here, 'hopebringer.'" [Alchemist: Ugh. Truly?]

"If you're referring to my heritage, I half belong." [Rotlimb: You can't tell me you're surprised, Eight.] I caught myself off guard with my own joke, a laugh clawing its way out of me with a shudder that sent tingles of goosebumps down my arms. "Or is it because I'm wearing a full set of clothes?" [Six fucks everything, and Nine has a type.]

When I'd pulled on my costume that morning, my black bodysuit and all the silver accents pieces, they hadn't felt right. It hadn't felt like me.

Hookwolf's other arm bloomed into a garden of blades, only his torso and head human. "Leave, or I'll make you," he growled with a curl of his lips and gleam in his eyes that made it quite clear he wanted me to choose the latter. [Belial: The water's warm.]

"Oh, I want you to," I breathed. [Klaus: June…?] [Sarah: Ah.]

And I did. I. Did. I had no idea why, but I truly did. I wanted to punch him, and obviously! He had nearly gotten Masuyo killed. Nearly killed me too. He distracted me while Victor stole my ability to speak for months. Of course I wanted to punch him. … but there was a part of me that wanted to be punched back. To give and take with one of the few people in this city who could challenge me.

"Here or there," I tacked on. I took a step forward and pushed my goggles up onto my forehead. "Your choice. But I'm not leaving here without a fight."

Hookwolf paused at that, every part of him. The violence that lived under his skin, the truth he'd torn away his flesh to bare, stilled. Every last hook and blade and spike, they all froze for an instant of recognition. Not that he said as much, but I felt it all the same. The moment we both realized we were looking in a mirror—distorted.

The moment passed, barely there and gone, but the tone in his voice had changed when he said, "That right? I'll make you regret coming here." [Belial: Let's see if you can swim.]

The last vestige of his humanity slipped away, the veneer of flesh and bone wadded up and swallowed whole by the wolf at his core. Hookwolf, the real one, came out to play. Compact, far smaller than he had been when he tried to savage me last year, but then he had to be to fit through the gate he'd turned to stalk towards. I lifted just enough that my feet were dangling and followed, my approach met with a redoubling of the jeers from the nazis above. Their threats and slurs slipped over me, beneath my notice.

The guards had already dragged the fallen father out of the ring by his arms and deposited him just past the radius of the gates' swing. His daughter stood over his unconscious body, watching first Hookwolf then me as we passed and entered. Her expression remained unperturbed by my presence, by my theft of her moment—her glory. That thought gave me pause. Glory? I'd never cared about that before until…

I was suddenly very aware of the eight days I'd been awake and the fifteen parasites in my head.

This… wasn't a good idea. [Butcher: Of course. Pathetic.] [Belial: Barely a toe? … no. No, you've realized you're already in.] [DZ: Dude. You're just figuring that out?] [Rotlimb: Aw, c'mon, don't puss out now!] [Footloose: Eyes were bigger than your vagina, huh?] [Klaus: Well thank god you can see that now at least!] [Alchemist: Head on confrontation is never a good idea, June darling.] [Toro: Cold foot! Bah, should've fucking known.] [Edict: None of this is! We've been telling you that for fifteen minutes!] [Caterpillar: That's how it gets you, Sixteen. It slips in…] [Diamondback: Those are their urges. Just ignore them.] [Deimos: Tsssss… De-lic-ious…] [Quarrel: I can't believe this. You imbecile.] [Sarah: Oooh, this is giving me some unfortunate flashbacks…]

Realization did little to rectify that I was standing in front of a wolf made with death.

Hookwolf swelled, the mass of sharp metal making up his wolf form quickly reaching the size he'd been when we fought on that warehouse roof last year. The steel mill might have been a rough match in size, but the arena assembled in its belly most certainly wasn't.

"There it is." It was disconcerting, hearing a human voice in the metal monstrosity looming over me, even distorted and tinny as it was. "There's that regret." [Butcher: Hopefully we're looking at Seventeen.] [Rotlimb: Seriously, Sixteen! What a fucking waste.] [Footloose: SixteeEeeeEeEen!] [Toro: Almost had me rooting for you, Sixteen.] [Quarrel: All this, and you back down, Sixteen?]

But something else quickly overrode that feeling.

My name is June.

Hookwolf lunged, and the cage ate him.

Whatever pretense had kept Cricket, Stormtiger, and the unpowered nazis from attacking me collapsed into shambles the moment I'd ripped the steel walls of the cage free from where they'd been welded in place and used them to trap Hookwolf before he could escape, to imprison him in a glorified jungle gym made immutable when I shoved it into elsewhere.

Commitment, I thought as I grabbed every piece of metal in the building at once, isn't always a good thing.

"Meteor?"

I stirred, looking up from the phone in my hand. The screen had long since locked itself after I'd stopped scrolling through PHO in a futile attempt to ignore the complaints. I'd expected Gregor but hadn't expected Masuyo to join him, though in hindsight I really should have. The feel of a pistol at her hip, rifle slung across her back, and knife tucked into her boot burned like staring right at the sun.

"Hey." [Butcher: You're a pissant, you little shit.]

"Hey yourself," Masuyo lisped, her eyes flicking from where I was sitting hunched over on the ground to what was past me and back. "So how did this happen?" [Butcher: No fucking spine. No wonder you wanted to chop off your dick and balls so badly.]

I sighed. "Went flying, followed someone here, picked a fight with Hookwolf." [Toro: You're being a bit ridiculous at this point, One.]

"Skipped a few bits there." [Butcher: No one is talking to you, poofter.]

Her gaze lifted again. I didn't need to turn to know she was staring at where the abandoned steel mill had been, only the foundation and an absolutely ginormous, gleaming structure left behind. It was roughly cubical, though I'd been more concerned with sealing in the nazis than the shape at the time I made it. Neither she nor Gregor would be able to tell by looking at it, but the solid prison I'd made had a bottom as well, forged from the chipped and cracked epoxy and the concrete hidden beneath.

"They can breathe in there, right?" Masuyo asked. [Footloose: Whoa! Party foul!] [Toro: You seriously wanna go there, douche canoe? Keep spewing that shit at me, and I'mma rip you a new asshole.]

"There's a bunch of air holes up top. None on the sides, so Stormtiger doesn't get any ideas." I jabbed a finger at her face; more particularly, the shiny scarf wrapped around it and tucked into a hooded shirt with horizontal bands of charcoal and a rich, deep purple. "And you?" [Butcher: I'll call you whatever I damn well please, especially if you side with this dickless coward.]

"I wore this in New York," was her non-answer. "You never wear the old ones anymore." [Footloose: It's okay to be a lil' jelly sometimes, One-ton!] [Toro: Up yours, you crotchety bastard. If I think Sixteen owned, then it's my motherfucking right to say it.]

She had, hadn't she? Looking back, I might have peripherally noticed, but I had been so occupied with other matters that I just hadn't paid it any attention. What I really wanted to address was the rest of her outfit, namely the black tactical vest over the horizontal bands of purple and black and the baggy black cargo pants tucked into steel toed combat boots, but I never got the chance.

"Meteor," Gregor said, speaking up for the first time since the two of them had arrived. Where Masuyo had elected to wear what looked disturbingly close to a costume for a normal human, Gregor was wearing a simple hoodie and jeans with the hood pulled up to ward away any attention he might get for his translucent, growth-covered skin during the day. Despite his far more casual attire, he still commanded my attention at that moment. Namely because he was not happy. "We should be preparing for a funeral right now."

I cringed away, shrinking in on myself. "I know. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't… have…" [Butcher: And now you cower before this fat fuck?! Disgraceful!]

I trailed off, my apology derailed by what I felt just beginning to come into my range. "You… You called the PRT?" [Rotlimb: Look, One, I hate Sixteen pussyfooting around as much as you.]

Nearby, the door to the crew's van sliding open with a click and a whir. Therese climbed out, giving me an apologetic look. Why, I wasn't sure. Perhaps because like Masuyo, she was wearing one of my old, cloth scarves wrapped around her face. It seemed I had started a fashion trend. I'd have remarked on that more if circumstances had been different and the PRT hadn't been approaching. Was that why they'd brought Therese? To handle the authorities? [Rotlimb: And sure, I would've rather seen her actually fight that Hook guy, but you have to admit she did win.]

"Yes." [Butcher: Have all of you forgotten yourselves?]

"We could've wait—!" [Forgotten what it means to be strong?]

"No, we could not." My protest died immediately. It was not like Gregor to interrupt. He exhaled, seeming to age a decade with the act. "The Empire may have called for assistance. Better to have some of our own." [Forgotten what it means to be Teeth?!]

I tried to meet Gregor's gaze but couldn't, eyes falling back to the pavement. The worst of the Chorus promptly started tearing into me for it, unified once more by either me deferring to Gregor, Butcher's urging, or perhaps both. I couldn't bring myself to care right then, not when I was ruining everything. Again. Melanie had me swear I wouldn't do shit like this when I joined. That I wouldn't antagonize the local gangs; that I wouldn't antagonize potential clients. And now she was dead—dead because of me, no matter what the others said—and everything was falling apart.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Did Gregor and Masuyo know I'd heard them debating next steps for hours last night? Trying to figure out what contacts would still be willing to work with us, now that Melanie was dead. Discussing whether or not we could leverage my new fame as a 'hopebringer' to bring in new clients to replace the ones who'd canceled upcoming jobs, anxious over the change in leadership. Bemoaning the difficulty we might have picking up jobs from the PRT once it became clear we had poached a member.

All. My. Fault.

The soft scratch of shoes on concrete caught my ears. Therese's shoes, the bright pastel colors a sharp contrast against the grainy black of the parking lot. "I imagine it's a small comfort, but… You did a good thing for the city." [Rotlimb: God, I don't get you kid. You just overwhelmed three capes and a hundred plus normies, and you don't give a single shit.]

A single, humorless, "Ha," slipped out of me. I didn't look up. "What made me feel better was having these pricks off my back for once." [Edict: It's baffling to me that you can't see how this is a complicated situation for her.]

"Really?" Her hand slipped into my field of view. "They let up?" [Toro: What's really baffling is how a gigantic cunt like you can live with herself.]

"After I trapped all the nazis, yeah. Everyone but Butcher." I could feel the PRT vehicles coming into my range. I lifted myself to my feet and couldn't help but add, my eyes flicking to the hand Therese had offered me as I did, "Your confidence in me is misplaced." [DZ: Just let it go, Edict. Don't get him more fuel.] [Edict: You—! Raaagh!]

She yanked the hand back like she'd touched fire, her face looking like she'd fallen into one it was so red. "I wasn't—! That—! Those were special circumstances!" she hissed, the first glimmers of tears in her eyes. [Toro: Don't worry, Three. My hate for her is always burning. Clean and strong.]

Sounds like a slippery slope, I almost said, but I held my tongue. She was clearly distraught enough from my rebuke. That moment of the Teeth's attack in New York still stood out starkly in my memory; the moment Therese had gifted her confidence in me. She'd caught me as I'd been collapsing in on myself, and that had maybe made the difference in saving the crew from injury or worse, and yet… She'd Mastered me. She'd unequivocally changed how I felt about myself, slipping something else into place.

It was Octavia all over again. Fuck, it was that and Aisha all over again. Being made into someone else, only this time it was done by someone I knew—someone I trusted.

But then I'd learned what the PRT wanted to do to her. I'd learned that someone I knew, someone who was like me, was about to be forced to be someone she wasn't, and I'd demanded and all but unilaterally decided she be given a place on the crew. I did what I had wished someone would have done for me, and I was confident I'd done the right thing, but… whose confidence was it?

The PRT finally arriving saved me from mustering a real response to her obvious guilt or from having to wrestle with my own conflicted feelings. A dozen armored vehicles with a familiar motorcycle at the front. None of their green flashers or sirens were on, the convoy almost eerie as they slid into the lot one after the other like a long, segmented snake slithering off the street.

Armsmaster all but leapt from his motorcycle—I was unsurprised when the tinkertech contraption parked itself—halberd in hand and promptly demanded, "Hookwolf, Cricket, and Stormtiger are inside?" without so much as a 'hello.' [Footloose: Well, hey there, handsome…]

I was equally unsurprised by Footloose wanting to fuck anyone still breathing. Masuyo responded before any of us, "Them and over a hundred unpowered, yes." [Edict: Oh, I forgot you're in ENE.] [Quarrel: Armsmaster…?] [DZ: You would, Foots.]

If Armsmaster was surprised by an unknown person taking charge, he didn't show it. "Status?" [Footloose: Duh.]

"Hookwolf is trapped in a cage. Rest are loose." She nodded at one of the PRT vehicles with a roof mounted launcher. "Air holes up top. Foam?" [Do you see that chin?]

"That's a 49,500 square foot building." [I could do things with a chin like that.] I blinked. That was a very specific size. "We'd need half the city's supply. Impossible on a time limit." [That chin could do things to me.]

"Time limit?" Masuyo hadn't paused but half a second before answering her own question. "The metal. Empire doesn't know." [Caterpillar: We get the picture.]

Behind Armsmaster, PRT officers had begun fanning out along with a few heroes. Dauntless I recognized from the incident at the hospital, but I didn't recognize the other three. A man in a red bodysuit with a 'V' on his chest, another man in a fully concealing white clock costume, and a younger girl in a green and white costume with wavy, intersecting lines. Speed, time, and… whatever swooping lines meant.

"No movement we'd expect. Weapons?" [Footloose: Oh, I'll paint you a picture.]

"In the building, Meteor," Masuyo clarified before I could piece together exactly what he meant. [DZ: Dude. No.] [Rotlimb: Fuck, Six, c'mon, man…]

"Uh, no?" I said before more firmly restating, not having meant to sound unsure, "No. Plenty in their vehicles, but the guards weren't letting them in." [Footloose: A beard that short and cropped? Gawd, do you have any idea how it feels to rub your dick on something like that?]

"Scribe!" Armsmaster barked, unwittingly masking my sputtered disbelief. Scribe? I wondered, doing my damnedest to not pay attention to Footloose. The name of one of the unknown capes? The small one, if I had to guess from the costume designs. Seeing her perk up at the shout gave me the impression I was right.

"Ocelot, alpha delta," Armsmaster added along with four quick jabs of his finger at points roughly equidistant from each other along the wall of the structure closest to us. The small cape and the one in white moved into a loose semi-circle formation with the officers who had containment foam launchers strapped to their backs. Dauntless, meanwhile, moved to stand just behind and right of Armsmaster. "Meteor, can you open entrances where I just pointed on my command?" [Klaus: Foots. Stop it. We don't want to know.] [Footloose: Like fucking heaven if you go with the grain, but shit, if you go against?] [Quarrel: Shut the fuck up, Six.]

Masuyo slipped her open palm between him and me, wordlessly drawing the focus back to herself. "We provided the opportunity and alerted you out of good will. Anything further, you'll need to pay." [Footloose: Aw, lighten up, guysos! I'm just talking about getting a blowjob! You all need to live a little!] [Sarah: … can we bleach our brain? I really want to.]

"The bounty isn't enough?!" Dauntless blurted, prompting Armsmaster to harshly slash his free hand through the air between him and us. Dauntless clammed up, his lips puckered up like he'd bit into a lemon in the shade of his helmet.

"Your name?" [Butcher: Six.] [DZ: Foots.] [Rotlimb: Six…] [Klaus: Foots!] [Edict: Footloose, jesus.] [Caterpillar: Six.] [Diamondback: Pointless.] [Quarrel: Six.] [Sarah: Ugh.]

"Wire. And yes, I have full permission to negotiate on behalf of our crew." [Footloose: Fine! Fine. … buncha prudes.]

I was very grateful for my scarf right about then. Not just to hide the monumental blush that had blossomed on my cheeks but also my gaping bewilderment at what was unfolding before me. So she was wearing a costume. And Masuyo was… Fuck, she was doing a very convincing Melanie impression right now. Which, sure, she had always been able to turn on the professionalism when the situation called for it, but this… She was stepping up to a whole new level.

"Wire," Armsmaster continued, more terse and rushed than before, which was saying something, "the bounty for Hookwolf's capture is functionally similar to that of a kill order, meaning its proportional. The vast majority goes to those responsible for the capture with a much smaller portion set aside for the person or persons, if any, who provided the info leading to that capture."

"You're suggesting if we don't cooperate, you'll reduce our take."

"I'm suggesting your cooperation reduces the amount of risk my people are in, and the longer we wait, the more likely Empire reinforcements become, effectuating the same."

"Meteor," Masuyo—Wire, apparently—said, turning her attention to me. "You comfortable doing the PRT's captures for them?"

It didn't need to be said that I could. With the powers she and I both knew I had at my disposal, it would be trivial. What she was really asking was, did I think I could handle this non-violently. If I hadn't been certain before, the request made me certain she knew exactly why I'd gotten involved here.

"You got it, boss." I winced at my slip of the tongue. Gregor looked away, and Therese looked distressed, fully aware of what we were both thinking.

Wire didn't so much as bat an eye as she returned her attention to Armsmaster. "That brings us back to our fee. I could call in the rest of our team, ask Meteor to tear down those walls, and we put our full focus on Hookwolf. You'll lose out on a big capture and the publicity and your people's safety will be put at risk, but we'll get our full bounty. Or you could pay our fee to have a Hopebringer handle it safely.

"It's up to you, Armsmaster. How much is your people's safety worth?"

Armsmaster, for the first time in the conversation, didn't have an immediate response. After a pregnant pause, he looked at me and asked, "You can capture all of them? Including Cricket and Stormtiger? A simple yes or no, please."

Weird. But, "Yes," I could do it with my eyes closed.

As it turned out, Armsmaster did value his people's safety. Either that or the perception that he did.

And so, after reassuring Gregor and Therese I'd be fine, I surrounded myself in scrap metal from around the lot and merged it with the wall, my darkness becoming one with theirs. Difference was, I could see where all their veins were.

I should have been the one springing an attack on them, my arrival unnoticed until the people I restrained started calling out to alert the others. Instead, my veins immediately screamed in warning. I shoved up off the wall to dodge over whatever was coming and heard the howling scream of Stormtiger's air blade tear through where I'd just been. The blade struck the wall behind me, and though I had warning from Danger Zone's power, I wasn't quick enough to escape the unexpected secondary effect of the damn thing exploding.

I shot away at speed to prevent any repeats while counting my blessings that I couldn't feel pain and wouldn't take lasting damage. They'd been smart enough to remove the metal on them for our last encounter, so I wasn't surprised to feel the chains from Stormtiger's outfit laying on the ground. The bastard had also been smart enough to toss said chains away from his location, if the direction the air attack had come from was any indication. Couple that with the room erupting into chaos as nazis throughout the room began to shout and run in alarm, and he should have had a clear advantage.

He didn't. [Butcher: Get him.] [Rotlimb: Yeah! Hunt the lil' bitch down!] [Toro: He thinks he can escape us?] [Deimos: Mmm, heavenly.] [Quarrel: Fool.]

I peeled away enough steel from the walls to make a half dozen, roughly spaced blades from each and hurled them inward, away from each wall, with Stormtiger in my mind as my target. Quarrel might be pretty insufferable, but her power was pretty invaluable. I felt each bend their trajectories, adjusting for my complete lack of aim, and just as importantly, I saw when one set of veins dashed out of the way.

Sensory aspect to his power, I mused as I redirected the blades and accelerated their flight while peeling more off the walls. So that's how he knew I was here. [Rotlimb: Skewer him, yeah!] [Klaus: Don't cut him! Rotlimb's power!] [Toro: Gut him like a fish haha!]

Shit. Thankfully Klaus' warning was timely enough I managed to spin the blades flat-side and blunt their edges before they slammed into Stormtiger, who hadn't had enough time to get out of the way again. I twisted the metal into tight coils of chains and threw him through the wall to the PRT, and with the tiger captured, I turned my sites to the cricket. [Klaus: Oh thank god.] [Toro: Ha! Almost, Sixteen! But hey, ya got'm!] [Sarah: You need to be careful if you don't want the PRT to know you're, well, y'know.]

Cricket had likewise discarded her cage mask and the miniature scythes and strange, stick-like device she'd been carrying, so I half expected her to try to play at stealth like her comrade, to be the proverbial needle in the nazi-stack. But when I started repeating the process for her, I felt someone pick up the weapons and start sprinting in a beeline straight for me. More sensory powers; if she knew where I was, she probably knew what had happened to Stormtiger.

She'd recognized the futility of hiding from me. [Butcher: We are inevitable.] [Belial: Excellent.] [Rotlimb: Take her out, Sixteen! Give her some scars to remember us by!]

I turned the blades of her scythes on her, yanking them forward and into the path of her mad dash, but she was already sliding under, taking full advantage of the smooth surface of the mill's floor. I saw the veins of her arms fling something at me, and I dodged to the side, wary of tinkertech bullshit. I'd not yet forgotten how Danger Zone's power hadn't warned me of certain categories of 'danger' back in New York. The distraction at a half second, which wasn't nothing with how fast she was tearing across the room while blindly dodging between the arena's scattered crowd, but she had started her rush from much too far away for it to truly matter.

If she was that quick to move and react, then overwhelming force was the answer. I ripped dozens upon dozens of strips of steel from the walls and speared them into her path like a maze of bamboo just waiting to lash out and trap her. She tried to change course to duck around, but I was already surrounding her with more and more. In moments, she was trapped in the middle of a metal cornfield, but even then she refused to bow down and wait for capture, resuming her course towards me while ducking and weaving as the beams split into fronds to lash out and grab her. She made it further than I expected, but I bound her in the end and hucked her through the wall like Stormtiger.

With Hookwolf still caged, that just left cleaning up the trash. And maybe it was the method I'd used to catch Cricket was fresh on my mind… Or maybe it was something closer to home, a pang for something lost… But I tore down the walls of the structure, blinding them all while I showered the area with tens of thousands of spears, carefully keeping ground around people but not under them in mind.

"Iron Rain sends her regards," I whispered from above as I chained them all in place.

[Butcher: That's it. Make them helpless.] [Belial: Beautiful.] [DZ: Holy hell, that's one way to get it done.] [Rotlimb: What a finish!] [Ror: Whoa…] [Footloose: Heeey, that's kinda kinky.] [Klaus: Wow… It's been a while since I've seen that.] [Alchemist: Points for style, Juniper.] [Toro: That's what I'm talking about, Sixteen!] [Edict: Yowza, kid.] [Caterpillar: Excellent technique!] [Diamondback: Quick and effective. Good job.] [Deimos: Mmmm…] [Quarrel: That is how we do things.] [Sarah: Holy shit… I mean, well done, but holy shit…]

It was over. The capes were all caged, the unpowered secured, and the PRT rushing in at Armsmaster's signal. I gave Wire, Gregor, and Therese a mid-air bow as I started to drift down—

Over the cosmos, the vast void of space enveloping me, the closest stars unfathomably distant pinpricks of light the only bulwarks against a darkness absolute. I knew this. I had been here before, a speck drowning in emptiness, crushed by the weight of my own insignificance.

Light swallowed the dark, became my world. Twin creatures more massive than the sun, scale I knew in my soul without understanding how. World eaters. Star eaters. As atoms were to me so were the engines of life to them, power beyond my understanding the fuel for a purpose I had been chosen to be a part of.

A purpose disrupted. The end long fled, the eventuality of everything. As they had consumed, so to were they, and with them so all our bond perished. Except his.

—gravity returned first, and hot on its heels the primal fear of plummeting that all humans felt.

I jerked to a stop, slamming my fall to a stop far quicker than was wise for the human body. A deep, aggrieved groan crawled its way out of me, my eyes snapping back and forth in an instinctive effort to orient and ground myself. I didn't mean to see her, didn't mean to lock eyes, but once I saw hers, I couldn't look away. It was the girl from the ring, Kennedy Hart. Across an abyss, connected once by something I'd forgotten, she met my gaze. A storm was suspended in the grays of her eyes, a fear catalyzed by me. Then she was gray, her eyes white—perspective inverted, place inverted. The chain that had held her clanged to the ground as she vanished into the spear she'd been lashed to.

Then she was gone.