Ru’s hand slipped through Revol’s fingers, which were made of the smallest stars. He called her name, but he no longer had a voice. He reached out to hold her, to keep her from drifting, but when galaxies collide, they bleed each other, and her blood mixed with his. They opened their mouths to scream, silently, and in their conniptions, they were one and undone.

Their red cloud oozed liquidy, a nebula, a memoir. It splattered on Mr. Barrus’s lapel. Catalyst saw with fear, Aster with hope, Eukary wept for herself and Ishtar comforted Forge. Netz raved in her prison and only her voice could still be heard. This is not a dream, she said, dislocating her arms to squeeze through the bars. Hanging, an unwinded flag, she is boneless flesh and her fish body stinks in the desolate market.

Mr. Barrus fills his basket, fruit bursting in his tips when he finds it ripe. They wonder why he buys the greenish berries only, and what larder could store the rancid crème he exclusively selects. He sniffs an ear of corn and tests a fresh bud between his teeth. Old whiskers dance and he is seized by a productive cough.

The aged mother watched the market from the old grave hill. Mourning, her black gown snapping in the rush of cold air, she watched sadly as a dear friend debased himself. The blood from cherries pooled, the flesh of grapes burst, the light of candles snuffed. The aged mother’s lament rang shrill. But there was only the grass to hear her soft, weak sobs. Upturned, a drained corse sighed. She planted corn seeds in the empty space of its mouth, and a tree nut in its ribs. Bending under her burden, crouch, looking into the wind, no, into the sun, cold and pale and very distant. She was never young. So it seems to her. Even that dying sun is a child to her. The children she mentored, the Titanomach contenders, and all the fertile eggs she incubated, they are dust. Titans stood across shores with their hands dipped, platforms for the masses to ride to grand new heights. She warned them their own splendor was enough, the splendor of many suns. But they wanted more, pitied more, regretted every pair of wrinkled eyes that closed.

“Mother!” Hal stomped, splashed and circled through the puddles. “Mother!”. He first found the puppies near the broken road. “Over here!”. He skipped over every puddle, watched the splashes from the oily rain. “This way!”. Found a snail. A beetle. A frog. “Mother!”.

He knew where they were, though their whimpering first gave them away.

“Mother!”.

How she loved Hal’s accent. Even when he cried, his weeping sounded so proper. Each sob the same as the one before.

“Oh, Hally.” She stooped to put a hand on his back. How his shoulder shook. “All small creatures die.”

Between sobs: “I took too long.”

Barry and Polly and Topie and Oddie and Jerra all cry with him, but Rash tries to convince him the puppies are still alive. It was Rash who first mentioned the veterinary, though Mother warned the puppies were gone. But Hal took them all the same, hiding them in his bag until they stank.

Mother took them then. She buried them, singing over Hally’s tears.

“She’s gone to be,” he told Topie.

“Only just.”

“It’s dark already,” said Polly.

“So, when we get there, it will be light.” Hally found the grave and put his claws to work. The great white circle of the moon framed his horns.

Revol’s hands were young again, broken knuckles and scars. So long as he could hold hands with Ru. But she was still asleep. The stories she’d told him, ravings of their cursed dreams, they were real now, and she gripped by her ongoing sleep. So, he held her hand without her knowing. His fingers locked with hers he pretended they were on a date. Chloe had promised to meet him by the swings. She said she was ready to kiss now. If she was ready to kiss, then maybe more? But Keri Wayland wasn’t ready. She ran and hid, but the small boy found her and hollered.

Solomon could have warned them, Catalyst thought. Remy had a grandfather much like him, and that grandfather was everything Remy wanted him to be other than around.

“Not again...” Revol struggled.

“No.” Cat struggled.

Forge was quiet. Forge... Simon. Simon Fjarli. He took everything apart, watched them move or roll or fly. He watched everything. He watched Aster fade to stardust. He watched Ishtar swirling, a milky cloud. He watched Revol try so hard to hang on and felt sad when he finally slipped away, calling for Ru.

Ru. Where was Ru?

She was in pain. Remy could feel that. The shrapnel was deep in her side.

“Mom,” he said.

“Remy,” her hands cup his head, thumbs caress his cheeks, sweep away tears. “Remy, you gotta go, baby. You gotta go.”

“No.”

“Remy, you gotta take your sister and go. She needs you now. Okay?”

“No.”

He shakes his head free, saying ‘no’ even as he obeys. Hand wrapped around hers and squeezing tight, he leads the little girl away, dragging her behind. He’s halfway to the ship when he realizes she’s dead. He cries, falls, rolls, bloodies his fists on a dead exo. The soldiers scoop him up and take him the rest of the way, and he’s too tired to say anything on the flight to the cruiser. It’s a military craft, so the refugees are given cots in the gym, and he’s safe but he can’t feel like he is. He keeps his distance because he’s afraid that if he cares the person will end up dead. He grows up and he becomes a killer. Not a soldier, a killer. The raiders needed a leader, and he’d done what he had to till then. He killed three of them first, then worked his way up, killing to make room as he went. When he died, he thought of them, slowly expiring near the hole breach, his legs crushed and pinned by the bulkhead.

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“Port Minizone,” he wheezes. The effort solidifies him a little, but he is still a cloud.

“Cat,” Aster turns her fingers into glitter to meld with his. “Cat, baby.” Aster out of time, a maiden fair who compelled took up the dagger so that in her wedded prison she might avenge her lord husband, and as a vagabond be safe when sheriffs and highwaymen sought the supple vine, unawares of the thorn hidden beneath the foliage.

Revol, or is it Cayde? A soldier either way. The children wore the same bomb vests as the adults, and there were children on his side of the bunker too. He had to shoot.

Ishtar, propped on her lotus, she cut it down, refusing to let her mother’s subordinates continue abused. Let Father face me, if he’s really a man. Let Father… that is not my father. That is… Mother… the Surge? How could you? And on that day a warrior was born.

“Guys,” said Revol. “Seriously, guys!”

Somehow, that worked. They came out of their feverish visions and with help of some strange particle from the thermos took shape, exerting themselves intensely until they were once again themselves, though a residue of some old beef kept nagging at Reev. Something about staying still and moving somewhere else. Then being put in a metal box and feeling terribly cold and for the first time afraid with no context to help him… them process what was happening and the first face they saw in their cold prison bodies was a terrible deformed and calcified horror “Goddamut! I hate this freaking place! Netz!”

Reev shook his head and kicked as he shouted.

“Bleeding hells!” yelled Cat.

“Sorry,” Reev said when he realized how hard he’d kicked Catalyst in the head. “Maybe you should uh, make yourself a helmet there eh buddy?”

Cat seethed as he formed his skullfort.

“Allright, Captain. You got this? Euk’s a little out of it so it’s either you or me.”

Catalyst grabbed the thermos. “Where are the controls?”

Reev shrugged. “Dude, I was on the inside. I don’t know where all the buttons went.”

“How are we supposed to let her out?”

Reev, still shrugging, shrugged more. “Why would we? We’re still in Ulro!”

Cat growled and ripped the thing apart. His fingers glowed at the tips.

Netz flew wild, screaming and spewing liquid photons, then calmed down.

Reev took in their surroundings. All about then were blue and green clouds, here and there dotted by pink. He looked at Netz.

“So. Where’d ya take us?”

The blast came from above then. Cat felt it coming and pushed Reev out of the way, then rotating onto his back and sent a shockwave that scattered the rest of the team, saving them from the attack.

“It’s him,” Netz whispered in a hoarse voice. Then she screamed and flew towards Orak with Brionic energies spewing in gouts of white phosphorous.

Revol grabbed at her, surprised that he could hold her photonic form. He looked at Cat, who was forming another thermos, then put her in it.

“She brought us here for a reason,” Cat said.

“Yeah,” Reev dodged a blast, seeing the attack this time. It was a spear of some burnt metal that trailed a snaking path of thorns. It tore the space it flew through.

Three more ripped past them, clipping Revol in the mouth and Catalyst in the leg. They summoned powerful rifles and brought them to bear, seeing their attacker large in the near distance. A chitinous mass in the form of a gladiator, Red Orak spread his wings and limbs. His bramble spears came in a storm.

Aster put herself between the monster and her love.

“No!” shouted Catalyst.

She too spread her limbs, summoning brilliant light in sharp petals that matched Orak in size. His brambles met the flower and dissipated, but Aster floated limply upward.

Catalyst lurched forward and took her in his arms, guarded by Revol’s suppressing fire.

The others came together with summoned rifles and grenades, and in that moment Revol saw why Haleon’s champion was close by. They were at the border, the daughters standing in a line beginning their sordid hymn. Behind them were specters by the millions, fading from view at a great distance in every direction. They were sitting, heads bowed while spindly creatures fused their sinewy flesh with twisted metal plates and tubes.

A Shadow Child appeared. He was small, shriveled with age and his eyes were clouded. He turned to the Harbingers and nodded, then turned back to Orak and sounded a dreary moan that rose to a ragged scream. His body opened into a maw of spiny teeth. The mouth grew until they stood within it, then snapped shut, cutting them off from the rest of Ulro alone with Orak.

There was a stone floor beneath them. No sooner did they realize they fell. Orak shook the ground when he landed. He glared at them with his single glowing slit of an eye.

Revol stood, brushed himself off. He looked at his rifle. “What’s this gonna do?” He gave his weapon a larger barrel and a hopper for loading micro grenades. “Guys, make bigger guns!”

Orak glowed red in the black walled space. His red shadow gurgled, and the luminous stone floor cracked where he tread. He drew a fiery glaive from the hard material of his back and crouched for their brawl.

The team started turning their rifles into grenade and missile launchers. But Eukary stopped halfway and threw her weapon on the ground.

“Euk,” said Revol.

“Lieutenant,” said Catalyst.

“Euk, baby,” said Ishtar. She went close to her friend. “Euk, you okay?”

Red Orak thundered forward, closing the distance of the arena.

Eukary let out a scream of rage and hurled herself ballistic into Orak’s chest. He swung his glaive to swat her away. Too slow. She burst her radiance into a micron bullseye and he fell from the shockwave.

“That was awesome!” shouted Revol as he followed suit.

They rose and fell, pummeling the beast with raw power. But he was large, and his hide was osmium hard. He eventually did rise and grappled with then, spurring resurrections from each. But in time they wore him down enough that Revol thought they might have a chance at a killing blow. But Orak seemed indestructible, and when they were exhausted, he turned onto his side and propped himself up with one arm. His laugh was terrible.

His face, a hollow chasm where gases plumed, framed by a helm of twisted black metal around his jagged brow and single horn, sent a vapor that sickened the Harbingers when he spoke. And his words were felt, not heard.

Een harr yow wall dom thow dun tur keeln yur die ken keel yur har them soon be made undone don’t run you can’t I take each soul and carve so small you gems for rings your souls are salt we take we eat devour you can’t escape…

And like that he was gone, as was the arena. They floated where they were as Orak’s sister made their noise. They saw the thermos, and bits of the Shadow Child floating around them.

“We gotta go!” said Revol.