The song blasting from the speaker cut out, replaced with a flurry of cymbal hits. But then this, too, came to a stop and gave way to another track.

Pang lay there wheezing, hardly able to keep her head up, as Danek stood directly above her and toyed with his metal-studded watch. Countless intros started and stopped at his whim until he landed on his track of choice: one with a droning, sustained distortion.

His face was unbothered, more like someone about to fold their laundry than someone about to commit murder.

Pang was more than familiar with this sight, but from the opposite perspective. She knew exactly how pathetic she appeared to him now, because she'd been in his shoes.

She'd seen what he was looking at. She'd been Danek to her fallen opponents on Artifex more times than she'd dare count.

A metallic taste scratched her throat. In the face of demise, all Pang knew to do was let out a laugh. Fate had finally come to answer for the things she'd done.

It's about time, she thought bitterly. I really had this coming.

Danek didn't even bother speaking to her, or offer the chance for final words. He merely unsheathed another blade from his belt.

In the end, she was a helpless nobody, just like the countless people she slaughtered throughout her childhood.

“Okie dokie. I think that's enough,” decided a voice with a subtle lisp.

Danek froze with a scorn. Pang forced her head to turn as Pyper drifted into her peripheral vision.

“I think they all get the idea…” the second-strongest prosciousness supposed.

If ‘the idea’ is a bunch of broken bones before we get shanked to death, then YEAH, I'd say we got it! Pang wanted to fire back–but her lungs were too pressed in to speak.

Danek clicked his tongue, his scorn deepening. But he didn't budge. His eyes never wandered his teammate's way.

“I wasn't playing around. I was really gonna kill them,” he muttered.

Pyper's long, flutelike laugh echoed across the room, drowning out the seriousness of his intent. Her smile scrunched her nose.

“Right. It's just that I'm telling you not to, though,” she replied cutely.

A chill shot up Pang's otherwise numb spine. She'd never misread somebody so badly before.

By those gentle words alone, or rather by the unspoken threat looming within them, Pang found she didn't need to see Pyper's powers to be convinced.

This woman was at the top.

Whoa, Tea Lady is kinda terrifying…

Danek appeared to know it all the better than her. He shut right up and backed off from Pang.

“All right. Aoi, Benton, Irma, Pang,” Pyper declared, “our first session together is over.”

~

The ship was totally quiet. Not one voice was left to speak.

All that remained was to wait for the rescue shuttle to return this year, and Pang would be free from the hell she'd been born into.

She survived.

And yet, her chin remained quivering: what did it matter, when there was nobody left to care?

Why did she even try?

~

“WHOA!”

Pang jolted upright, nearly launching off of the bench. The fatigue from the healing process retreated from her all at once, and a spark of energy splashed her like ice water from the inside out. She sat with eyes shot wide, more alert than when she'd entered the machine.

“Oh. Sorry, Aoi,” she said beside her. “Wait…Aoi?!”

The cloaked prosciousness sat right next to her, but must have pounced backward from surprise at Pang's explosive awakening. Her constantly blank stare didn't at all match her recoiled body, though, eliciting a chuckle from Pang.

“You're already totally healed?” Pang wondered.

Aoi didn't bother rebalancing herself, so Pang reached forward and propped her back up. She'd guessed right: Aoi looked totally fine, and what Pang could see of her face was unmarked, despite the massive punch Danek had given her.

“You should be more surprised about yourself. Your chest blade was almost crushed in and you had broken ribs,” came a voice.

Pang flinched as she realized Pyper was standing there before them, sipping from a mug.

Having awoken on a cushion, her brain had placed her in Irma's apartment on the couch. But it turned out she was still in the training gym: a row of silvery healing capsules were behind Pyper at the wall–the same ones Pang remembered entering before jolting awake.

Benton and Irma emerged from the automatic doors of the small chambers, a hint of minty green fog exiting with them. Though not as wired as Pang, they walked with ease and alertness, wearing no signs of aftereffects.

“So these things can fix us up without the healing-hangover?” Pang observed. Would've been nice if Gloat Center had that.

“You’ll feel it later, believe me,” Irma warned while she and Benton sat down on the bench beside hers. “They’re made to heal us fast and act like a mega-caffeine hit so we can keep training. You’ll crash later tonight.”

“Gets easier to deal with the more ya use it,” Benton insisted, rolling his shoulders.

“Gotcha…”

Pang glared around at everyone. Considering what had just transpired, this was way too casual.

“Okay guys, welcome,” began Pyper like she was hosting a Conscious Conference panel. “Let’s—oh, Danek, can you get over here?”

With a monologue of muted grumblings mixing in with his jingling chains, Danek appeared from a far corner of the room and lingered on the outskirts. But Pyper waved him closer, so he dragged his feet to stand beside her.

“Okay, let’s get orchestrated,” Pyper tried again. “As you know by now, we’re gonna be training y—”

“Wait, so we’re just…not gonna address the fact that this dude literally just tried to murder us?” spouted Pang.

“I’m not sorry and I’ll do it again,” Danek countered immediately.

Irma shrugged. “I told you there were plenty of reasons we weren’t looking forward to this,” she said, her hand pointing at Danek as Exhibit A.

“Guy’s psychotic,” Benton agreed. “I’ll get him good, don’t you ladies worry.”

Danek snorted. “Keep talking, grandpa,”

“Alright, alright everyone.” Pyper raised her mug to reclaim the room, clearing her throat. “We’re here to decide which of us will step in as your new leader. You’ll spend the next few sessions working with one of us, and once they’re satisfied, they’ll pass you on to the next member. At the end, my team will come back together and decide who gets the job.”

“And it better not be me,” Danek added.

“I was thinking the same thing,” came the indignant chorus of Pang, Irma, and Benton.

Pyper pretended she didn’t hear any of it. “This will be a way to see how you mesh with each of us, and study how you handle different types of threats together,” she reasoned. “And who knows…it may be fun!”

The ensuing silence made it clear her optimism was hers alone.

“Anyway, we agreed to give each Rank-S member full freedom over their curriculum,” she shared. “Danek is training with you first.”

Wonderful. Of course he is, Pang bemoaned.

He cracked his knuckles. “I’ll sum up my ‘curriculum’ right now: I’m gonna kill you, unless you can stop me.”

“Real shocker there,” mocked Irma.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Pang looked to Pyper for solace, but this time, she didn’t speak up to put Danek in his place. Perhaps she didn’t think she needed to again, but it still made Pang’s stomach turn. This was certainly not a man to leave to his own devices.

“Then that’s why you attacked before any sorta initiation,” Benton figured. “That was the sneaky first session, huh? That’s low.”

“That’s how my sessions are gonna go,” warned Danek. “You won’t know when it’s coming. So you better watch your backs, cuz I’m not joking. I will kill—”

“Alright, we get it,” Pang groaned.

Despite her dismissal of his threat, Pang thought back to the ambush. He’d crushed her with a single attack and there was nothing she could have done to defend herself. He took on Irma and Benton simultaneously, and won.

They needed all of their strength if they wanted to live.

No—more than that: they needed Aoi.

If she fights, we win. It’s that simple, Pang was willing to bet. We gotta keep her away from him so we can use her.

Aoi remained in the exact same position Pang had left her when she sat her up.

‘Use her…’ she contemplated again. It’s like she’s a tool or something.

She found herself unable to keep thinking about it, repelled by a sudden restlessness.

“Well we have a mission tonight, so good news: you guys get off easy today,” Pyper congratulated. “We’ll see you tomorrow for another session! Well—Danek will. Make sure he doesn’t actually murder you when I’m not around!”

She smiled sweetly like she was speaking to a bunch of school children.

Is everything just daisies and rainbows to this chick?! wondered Pang.

Pyper waved, Danek crossed his finger over his neck at them, and they left the swiftly defeated team to themselves.

~

“Well…that sucked,” Pang declared.

“Told you.”

She sat in the food court across from Irma and beside Aoi like usual—at some point, this had become their unspoken configuration.

But it felt far from routine tonight. By now, she and Irma would be back in the apartment whipping up one of Irma’s latest recipe fascinations and cuing up their show. Post-training dessert was a Benton and Aoi thing.

After today, though, Benton had proposed a group ‘pick-me-up.’ And even Pang agreed.

“We got our butts handed to us,” she lamented.

“He’s Rank-S. He’s good,” Irma shrugged off. “Like, Danek’s been doing this even longer than me and Benton.”

“Yeah? He have a sob story like the rest of us?”

“Nope,” Irma denied. “I heard he was a hotshot in the League a while back. He thought he deserved better pay than what the agencies were offering, so when Proscious offered more, he just followed the money. That’s all.”

“Loser,” Pang jeered. Having taken lives because it was the only way to keep living, she couldn’t imagine just doing it to get rich.

But in a way, Pang was relieved she could cleanly hate Danek. She wasn’t sure she had the capacity to feel sympathy for any more enemies.

“Aoi could wipe the floor with him though, right?” Pang pointed out.

“I mean, like, yeah. But not if we can’t tell her to.”

Pang tried to resist the memory that brought up: the way Danek was able to step up to Aoi, and the way she just took it when he slammed her to the ground…

It awakened a new fear deep within.

And that fear’s very existence terrified her more.

She knew she couldn’t separate it from herself, but she couldn’t figure out why. All she knew was that it wasn’t directed towards Danek.

Pang glanced at Aoi, who politely awaited her dessert.

The feeling festered.

“That must have hurt a ton when he hit you,” she told her.

Aoi didn’t react.

“Hey!”

Aoi turned to Pang calmly.

Heart starting to pound, Pang raised her hand back at Aoi, just like Danek did before he struck her. She faked like she was about to strike.

But Aoi merely watched her, waiting loyally to receive whatever pain Pang intended to inflict on her.

“Cut it out…” Irma tried to interject.

Pang’s chest tightened. “I’m gonna beat you up, Aoi! Got it?!” she pushed.

Aoi only nodded.

“No! Why are you just nodding at me like that?!” Pang growled. “Why would you let me hit you? Why would you let anyone hurt you when you can do something about it? Aoi…what’s your deal?”

“We already told you,” Irma stressed. “Proscious is using her to—”

“I’m asking her,” Pang interrupted. She leaned closer to Aoi. “You like Irma and Benton, don’t you? If Danek killed them today, wouldn’t that make you sad? What would you do if they were dead, and we weren’t about to have dessert together?”

Aoi stared on.

Pang waited. But when nothing changed, she backed off and shook her head. “Let me guess: you’d do exactly what you’re told, like a dog.”

“Give her a break, Pang,” Irma said. “It’s not her fault. She doesn’t understand things like that.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Irma’s right. That just ain’t how she works,” came Benton.

He reached the table with a tray of cupcakes from one of the food court’s bakeries, placing them between them all as he took his seat.

“Only Wei knew why she’s like this. He’s the one who found her,” Benton shared, “but he never explained it to us.”

“I think that was on purpose,” Irma theorized.

“Maybe. But at the end of the day, this is just how she is,” resolved Benton.

He distributed the flowery cupcakes, one dark chocolate and one strawberry for each fighter. His eyes lit up, while Irma’s immediately went analytical—sizing them up to decide if she could do it better.

Aoi simply sat there like before.

“Aoi, start with the chocolate one,” Benton insisted. While it could have passed as a recommendation, it made Pang squirm—she knew it was a command.

Stirring, Aoi faithfully followed his words and reached for the pastry.

But just before her pale fingers could retrieve it, Pang snatched both cupcakes away from her.

“Hey!” Irma protested.

Aoi’s hand remained suspended there, frozen for a moment, until she turned to look at Pang blankly.

“Pang, what are you doing? Give those back,” Benton demanded.

“No.” She held them just beyond Aoi’s reach. “Which one do you want to try most? If you don’t tell me, I’m not giving you either.”

“Pang!” Benton admonished. “You’re not being very nice, missy.”

But Pang’s will was unmoved. “Which one, Aoi?”

“Stop, she can’t respond to things like that,” Irma expressed.

“Oh, yeah?”

Slyly, Pang leaned closer with the cupcakes. She brought them up to Aoi’s face, until it was clear her eyes were hooked. Then, just as Aoi brought her longing stare closer, Pang pulled away again.

“What’ll it be, sweetheart?” she toyed.

Irma shook her head. “Here, Aoi. Just take one of mine—”

“Stay out of this,” Pang cut off. “Are you gonna pick one, or not? I love strawberry and chocolate. I’ll just down all four of these if I have to.”

Aoi stared, perhaps the slightest bit more intently than usual. Whether she was aware of it or not, she was leaning towards the cupcakes now, her eyelashes subtly moving her bangs as she most likely looked between the snacks and Pang.

It was hardly different than when Pang first awoke in the lab to find her gazing from the other side of the glass.

But nonetheless, Aoi didn’t act.

“Fine. More for me.”

Pang brought both cupcakes towards her mouth.

But a pale hand darted forward and snatched at one.

The cupcake came loose from Pang’s grasp and Aoi’s, and plummeted for the floor. Pang’s quick instincts pounced her into action, and it sunk back into her fingers just in time.

Some of its pinkish white icing smudged her palm.

The uneasiness within her began replacing with warmth. Her heart fluttered.

Yes!

When she sat back up to face Aoi, she found Irma and Benton’s mouths dropped open. Neither spoke.

“You knew you wanted the strawberry one,” Pang said to Aoi, her voice finally softening. “And when Danek was walking up to kill me, and you got up and stood in his way, you wanted to do that too. Nobody told you to.”

Pang placed the cupcake in Aoi’s hand, a warm smile growing.

“You’re Aoi, not us. You should do what you want, and reach for the things you want…like you just did.”

The way Aoi cupped the prized dessert in her palms, glancing between it and Pang with more life than Pang had ever seen in her, pulled at Pang’s heart. She took a bite, some of the icing sticking to her overgrown bangs.

Pang blinked and looked away before her feelings could show too obviously. She returned the chocolate one as well, and then retrieved her own strawberry cupcake.

“Here. I lied; I hate strawberry stuff. If you like that one, you can have mine too.”

Aoi received it quietly—but not before gifting her chocolate cupcake back to Pang.

“Aw. Thanks, buddy.”

They indulged. Irma and Benton exchanged identical, awestruck glances. But eventually, they joined too. The voices of surrounding diners filled the silence that came as the two tried to process this uncharted territory.

Even as satisfied with herself as she was, though, Pang couldn’t stop studying Aoi.

Why did she think if she looked away, Aoi might vanish like an abducted child?

“Seriously girl,” Pang spoke up. “You shouldn’t just blindly do what someone tells you to all your life.”

“That’s it, Pang! Finish him off!”

“’Cuz one day they’ll get everything they needed out of you,” Pang said, “and then you’ll be alone.”

“Just fight one more time, Pang! We’re almost there!”

“I did it, Daddy!”

“…Daddy…why are you pushing me away…?”

“DADDY?!?! COME BACK!!”

Pang’s throat tightened. She dropped the remainder of her cupcake onto the table.

“Pang?” Irma wondered.

“I’ll…be back, guys,” Pang forced out. “I uh…I need to pull an Irma.”

She didn’t wait to see anyone’s reaction, retreating from the table and hiding her face as she hurried from the food court.

“Pang? What’s wrong, darlin’?” Benton called.

“Wait—why’d you have to word it that way?!” Irma snapped.

Pang only sped up. Her vision fogged as her eyes began filling with tears.

Daddy…I hate you.

She swallowed, squinted her eyes to hold in the tears, and pressed forward to go get some air.

Skrili…Phillip…everyone…I…I hate—

A hand grabbed hers and stopped her in place.

She would have assumed it was Irma’s, but it was unusually cold.

Pang turned around.

“Aoi?”

The top prosciousness stood there, still tenderly grasping her hand.

Pang sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Can I help you? What are you doing?”

“You should reach for the things you want.”

Pang’s eyes shot wide. It took her a moment to realize Aoi’s words didn’t come from her mouth. They weren’t physical—Pang heard them inside her head.

And they were in Pang’s own voice, resampled from what she’d said moments ago. It was riddled with the fuzziness of static.

Aoi lifted her other hand and used both to enwrap Pang’s, her oversized sleeve blanketing Pang’s wrist. She took a soft step closer.

Then, the static returned to Pang’s head.

“…really the best you can do?!”

“Looking at you makes me sick…”

Pang had never heard those voices before, and they clearly weren’t speaking to her. The room ambience underneath made it sound like a recording playing in her mind.

Aoi suddenly turned her head away, as if she hadn’t meant for Pang to hear that.

Mixing back in, Pang heard her own thoughts from moments ago feed into the static: her tears, her hatred, and that overwhelming tide of isolation. They blended together in a spiral until Pang couldn’t even sense which feelings and memories were her own, and which were Aoi’s.

But somehow, that didn’t matter. Something seemed to be embracing it all—a gentle warmth, invisible and beyond the physical realm.

What…is this?

Aoi, how are you doing…?

Her heart skipped a beat.

Can she feel my thoughts?

Finally Pang noticed her tears had continued streaking down her cheeks. The release was soothing now.

“Pang!”

Blinking to recover her vision, Pang found the forms of Irma and Benton rushing to catch up and join them from down the hall. They paused at a slight distance for a moment, watching this encounter unfold between their teammates.

Eventually, Benton smiled.

“Listen Pang, I know we ain’t the people you wanna hear this from, since we’re the ones who got you here an’ all…” Benton stammered, “but…we get it. We’re all messed up, too, and that’s why we’re here. So…”

“So you can lean on us,” Irma finished for him. “We want you to.”

Pang could see her conversation with Irma on the tennis courts written all over Irma’s soft gaze.

“And I’ve never seen Aoi like this, but…I think she’s trying to tell you the same thing now,” Irma added. “In…her own weird way.”

Pang could do little more than sniffle and stare back at them. She noticed the slight smudge of icing was still in Aoi’s bangs as her cold hands warmed against Pang’s.

For once, Pang didn’t wish she were anywhere else right now.

A couple of fleeting notions swept by her mind:

What if I just…don’t try to escape?

Or what if…I can get these knuckleheads to escape WITH me?

Under her enemies’ fond gazes, Pang smirked to herself. Her heart twisted again.

Yeah right…I must be losing my mind.