“Dad? What happened to you?” Ryn asked as she struggled to release the straps and bars locking her into her jump seat. He waved a hand and the material dissolved. She leapt up and threw herself into his arms in a fierce hug. “Mum and Evie?” she asked, pulling back then flinching at his eyeless sockets.

“They’re fine. They’re all fine but they’re different now. They’re busy with the armadas at the moment but they’ll be back soon,” he said.

“What happened to you?” she gasped.

“I had to change, kiddo,” he said sadly. “So will you all in time but we have a chance to be free of the Alliance and the Void if this works out as I hope.”

“Um, Mr. Borrows, you just unmade that metal, that’s not your power,” Simon said.

John turned to look at him, the boy went pale and staggered back into the seat had just climbed out of.

“What the fuck did you just do?” Simon demanded angrily. “Where’s my power gone?”

“I’ve a gift for you Simon.” John held out his left palm and a purple object shrouded in pink sparks appeared through his skin. John strode forward and held out his hand. Simon reached out tentatively but didn’t touch the interface.

“It will give you back your powers but they’ll be different. We can all learn to use other powers, those of us who give up the system. We’re always best at what we knew before. It’s something to do with our brains adapting to think in the right way to use the system abilities, I think. Take the interface and become the man we need for the future.”

“Traditionally parents bring gifts for their children when they come back from holidays,” Ryn said acerbically. John glanced over and smiled softly.

“I’ve brought all of you a gift: freedom. Simon is needed to complete the Warspite. I took the Essence from hundreds of Alliance fighters to craft special interfaces for Simon and Bob. They are the hope of humanity. The rest of you will be changed, assuming you want to. I’m sorry boy,” John turned back to Simon. “I don’t have the option of letting you choose. Take the interface.”

“Prime is currently assimilating mine. I took the deal, kid. I recommend you do as well. It's been years for the Earth-Bobs whereas it’s only been a few months since I last synched with them,” came Bob’s voice from the speakers in the hull. Simon reached out and brushed a finger over the interface which dissolved into his flesh. His eyes went wide.

“Let’s move to somewhere we can see what’s going on,” said John. There was another wash of pink light and Ryn, her friends and a battered looking spider-bot wreathed in purple sparks were standing in the vacuum outside the ship. Ryn gasped and reached for her helmet but quickly realised she could breath perfectly fine.

“What is this?” whispered Bad as he came to the same conclusion as Ryn. The stars were blocked across a huge swath of the sky as black and gold ships wove around each other in their efforts to attack the Warspite.

“Magic gave me the tools I needed to break free. The Carnival followed me and now we’re at war with both the Void and the Alliance. They’re the two sides of the same fucking coin anyway. Just a way to suck Essence from the Outside and feed it up to the ‘gods’,” John said bitterly.

The ships were exploding as purple specks flashed between them but a number of the black ships had surged forward. They moved deceptively quickly for such vast constructions. John glared and the ones heading for the Warspite dissolved into cubes that drifted apart. Others rushed past where the small group of people stood between the Necklace and the invaders.

The ships crashed into the delicate metal webwork that made up the Necklace. At this distance it looked like bright sparks erupted where they collided but up close the explosions would have been catastrophic.

Some of the black ships passed through the barricade in one piece while others broke apart into a shower of shadows that fell towards the surface of the ruined Earth. They left trails of fire in the sky as they fell, then huge eruptions threw clouds of dust and debris into the stratosphere as they impacted the land and oceans.

“How will we deal with the Void forces on the ground?” asked Kev. He’d been trying to worm his way into John’s mind, carefully and without being noticeable, but he was bouncing off the kind of mental defences he’d only experienced with other psykers.

“I’m immune to that boy. More so than any implant could make me. The simple answer is we won’t. Sometimes you have to know when to cut and run.”

“What about the people left on the surface?” asked Claire.

“Fuck those guys! They’re all feral now!” snapped Jane.

“No. They’ve become so but they weren’t destined to be that way. Maybe they were… They were victims of circumstances like… what did you do with Fury?” asked Kev.

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“He’s in a hold on the Warspite. We’ll rescue the ones below when the time comes. They’ll go into the Warspite collared. The irredeemable ones will be killed, the rest will either join us or return to being normal humans. No powers, no abilities,” said John. “There’s a couple of people down there I’m interested in having a private chat with at some point. They won’t be coming along with us when we leave.” His voice was flat and cold. It had been years since Ryn heard her father speak in person and the change was stunning. Was this even the same man?

More of the black and gold ships detonated, breaking apart in bursts of pink light.

“Who is that?” asked Sally, pointing at the fleet being destroyed in the distance.

“All of us. We can all teleport and bend reality. What they’re mainly doing is breaking the chains on the Concepts bound to the engines of the voidliners. Those things are pissed about being enslaved as well, so they tend to break their prison as they slip back across the bridge,” John said calmly. “Ah, they’re starting to run. I thought they would.”

To the rear of the armada ships began to vanish but not in destructive explosions, they simply winked out of existence. The armada began to dissolve on two fronts, violently where they were close to the Warspite and quietly at the rear.

“I’m ready, John,” said Bob-prime. “This is… It’s a big change.”

“It won’t be so dramatic, old friend. You’ll still be present.”

“I know but Christ, I’m going to become something incomprehensible!”

“Let’s get it done,” said John sadly. They all vanished from their pocket of atmosphere in the vacuum and appeared in a strange place. It was all bronze and silver metal winding around itself into intricate knots that gave Ryn a headache. It was like looking at an Escher painting in real life.

“Where-” began Simon. “This is the engine?” he gasped as he began to recognize some of the weirder parts he’d made for Bob over the last few years.

“My final resting place,” grunted Prime. “I’m ready. There’ll be some disruptions and the boy will have to complete the rest while I get used to it.”

“I can manage. What do you need? Ah. Jesus! Ok.” Simon said, then he vanished in a flash of purple.

“He’s a good kid, really,” muttered Prime. “Ok. All or nothing, I guess.”

Purple sparks began to float up around Prime as it scurried forward on its many legs. It melded into the wall like it was dissolving in a solvent.

“What the hell?” asked Kev.

“He’s becoming the ship. He’ll need a few hours to settle in. Those chains won’t be comfortable for a while. Bob?” John asked.

“I’m still here. This is… confusing.” Bob’s voice echoed around them. “The others are- they’re back as well.” Before he could finish the Carnival appeared around Ryn’s team and Vic and Evie rushed forward to embrace her. Tears began to fall as the women tried to catch each other up on the last few years.

John smiled sadly as his family was reunited. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay with them for long. He had some things to do first then he had one final important item on his agenda.

“I’m going to deal with the last of our problems,” he said. He earned a savage smile from Evie, a long look from Vic and a confused stare from Ryn. “I won’t be long and then we’ll have some time to catch up.” John vanished.

He appeared floating over Magic’s flying island. He just stood in the sky and stared downwards for a few minutes as motes of pink danced around the island. It wasn’t him, Magic was desperately trying to decide if he should fight or not. Clearly he came down on the side of wisdom and eventually a ruined half-man in a ragged cloak flew up to hover near John.

“You did it then.” His mouth didn’t move. It was locked in a lipless rictus grin, white teeth contrasting against his warped grey flesh.

“I did. I want your hostages,” John replied.

“And what happens to me afterwards?” Magic asked, waving a stub of arm at his home below.

“That’s up to you. You’ve put me in a position to play god over our entire species due to your own cowardice. Would you like an interface?” John asked coldly.

“I wasn’t a coward!” snapped Magic.

“You could have done to yourself what you did to me.” John floated closer to magic, the purple fire flaring in his eye sockets. “But you chose me as your experiment, Mr. Goodman. Hah! Even the pseudonym you chose was ironic!”

“I couldn’t,” muttered Magic, drifting away from John slightly. “If it had failed there’d have been no one to try again. We’d have been trapped forever!”

“You could have but you didn’t want to risk yourself, so you didn’t.”

“What’s it like? The bridge? I can see shadows of it around you but I’m cut off,” Magic asked as his eyes rolled back and forth, scanning the air around John. “It’s like a halo.”

“It’s eating me. As you fucking knew it would. That it’s the right thing to do is the only reason I haven’t taken your Essence for the bridge. Give back your hostages!” John’s voice boomed.

“They weren’t hostages. I saved them from the madness after the Revenge,” Magic snarled.

“Partially true. But your real motivation was to keep your former colleagues who remained alive off your back. As well as tying the hands of Bob and his forces,” John replied more quietly.

“Partially true,” Magic replied in a smirking tone. “But I also saved hundreds of thousands of people from grisly, short lives. That has to count for something?”

“It does,” John ground out. “It’s why you’re being given an opportunity to release them of your own free will.”

“Fine. Where do you want them?” asked Magic.

“I just took them.” Magic floated away again and his wild eyes tried to blink. “Thank you for your permission. The only question is what to do with you?”

“You still have enemies here. There are powers-” Magic tried to say.

“None of them matter now. We just destroyed the combined might of the Alliance and the Void in space. It was only the tip of their spear, locally available forces, but it will have stung them and they’ll think twice before attacking us again. What are some level sixties to us now?” John asked.

“I would make a request, if it is allowed?” asked Magic in a defeated voice.

“What?” John said harshly, expecting some trick or trap.

“Take me with you? Use my Essence as part of your transformation?”

John grunted and what remained of Magic’s human body dissolved into specks of pink and purple light that flowed into John’s right fist. He clenched it tight as the last of them vanished into his skin.

“Granted.” The floating island below tipped over onto one side and began to fall to the ground. “Just one more who needs the personal touch,” he muttered before vanishing.