The villains wasted no time in attacking. Cooped up in the woods, such violent people were no doubt itching for a fight, and Tulpa was more than happy to give it to them.

His specters rushed headlong into the chaos while he only had to stand and think. Tulpa's psychic style commanded awe, with all the tenacity of a bruiser and the cool distance of a mastermind. He would occasionally step to the side as someone got the bright idea to send a rock sailing his way.

The enemy's main goal was to get close and bog us down, but they could gain no ground. Fortitude would lock down anyone who slipped through the front line, helping them to receive a quick beat down while immobilized. Each shadow-man hit harder and faster than a normal human, with perfect synergy and skill. For the first few minutes of the fight, it seemed that the two of them alone had victory in hand.

Buckstop had yet to step forward. He was stern and determined as he made his plunge into the battlefield, and he did it just by opening his eyes. A red glow spiked in the distance, emanating from his irises. Immediately, all who he deemed worthy, fell to their knees.

Even I had been within his sight, I discovered. Buckstop had mentioned he was the father of Turvy, from the confrontation before, and now I knew the consequence. I felt the gravity shift over my entire body, only this time, I wasn't thrown skyward. I felt as if hundreds of pounds had been added to my shoulders. It brought me crashing to the sand.

At my side, Fortitude hit the dirt face first. She could barely manage to raise her chest to breathe, I saw. She had been taken completely out of the fight with only a glance.

"Creep!" I heard. "Get up here!" Tulpa was straining to stay standing. His specters had each fallen flat, some of them dissipating completely back into the ether. Still, he was far from beaten.

The remaining ghosts moved by an invisible force, merging together until the total number was cut in half. The projections which remained seemed far less troubled by the increase in gravity. With Power concentrated, they were twice as strong.

I ran up to Tulpa's side after making sure Fortitude was okay, fighting the exhaustion all the way as if I were pulling a refrigerator behind me in the sand. "Tell me what to do," I said.

With our front line cut in half and our range gone, it had only been a matter of time before the first attacker broke through. He stood a head taller than me, with spikes protruding from every practical surface of his body.

I knew by how Tulpa's specters avoided him that he was meant to be mine. He was rapidly closing the distance. "Where the hell is Ironbolt!" I shouted.

"Focus!" Tulpa ordered me in response. "Go!"

I grit my teeth and ran forward to meet my target. I braced for the impact. The one relief I found was that, as the spikey bastard closed in, he blocked Buckstop's view. Instantly, I was as light as a feather. I was ready to try my hand at fighting.

With my posture readied, I hit him head on. I put out my hands, trying to stop him from his attempt to enact a death-hug. He wrestled to throw my hands aside and get closer. His spikes varied in length, but most were as long as a knife. I struggled to avoid a dozen stabs with every jerk and push.

To my horror, it was not in the cards. I had thought I was clever, avoiding the spikes in where I placed my hands to keep him back. I thought I was strong, being able to keep him at bay. But I had underestimated his Power. From beneath my palms, two excruciating points jettisoned out of the man's body.

I yelled in pain and anger but refused to let go, even if I could have. Our strength was roughly matched, but there was one fatal difference between us.

One of us had fought to the death before, and it wasn't me.

He formed spikes on the underside of his forearms and, with years of practice pouring certainty into his act, proceeding to plunge them downward. He made swift work of his killing blow, first knocking down my arms and then, in the same swift motion, going for the throat.

His wrists shot out new knives, striking forward with the freed momentum of his body and I braced for the pain.

Yet, to both of our surprise, the spikes glanced off. With nothing to stop him, the villain fell forward. He stabbed me in a million different ways, but I was able to throw him down with a twist and push.

Laying in the dirt, he scowled. "Armored neck," I gurgled, blood welling up in my lungs. The healing came quickly, allowing me to maintain my composure with great effort. "Weirdly specific," I added, though I knew the reason for it. Hickory.

Spikey was struck with a poetic spirit as he lunged for his second attack, screaming, "DIE!"

This time, I was ready. The adrenaline and malice in my veins combined to make me capable of abandoning my body. A truly unnatural state to be in, completely devoid of fear.

I knew he would be expecting the same defensive moves, so I did the opposite. I went straight for a punch, completely ignoring his reckless charge. By the force of these combined, I could hear his jaw crack. The sound filled me with violent elation.

But, there was a price. He succeeded in wrapping his arms around me and I would take every stab which followed. Spikes formed and reformed at across his whole body, inflicting wounds like a mobster with a Tommy-gun.

I was Swiss cheese. Even with all my healing, I fell flat like a corpse in the sand. A satisfied but stricken villain, absolutely covered in blood, got his bearings again while I had to put myself back together again.

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Tulpa found time to send one of his specters while the villain was distracted, testing his broken jaw. The apparition didn't bother slowing down as it let out a flying kick and completely finished the job. I saw Spikey hit the ground while Tulpa's fighter moved on without breaking momentum. 

Only through great determination did I find my way to sitting up. With chrimson stains surrounding me and an unconscious villain to my side, I tried to find the will to rejoin the fight.

I had always known how evil people were, and I'd had no shortage of people trying to hurt me these last days. But, seeing my stab wounds heal, it really occurred to me that any other person would have been left a lifeless, gory stain. The combination of echoing pain and cognitive dissonance made me stumble getting up. There was so much violence around me.

"Is Fortitude okay?" I asked. Last I'd seen she had rolled over onto her back just to keep breathing.

Tulpa only barked as always. "She's fine!" I followed his line of sight to the glowing yellow shields which had reappeared on the field. She must have gotten out of Buckstop's sight, retreating to cover of the trees. "You need to stay focused on your work," he chastised. "Get back in the fight!"

Nerve damage was still being rooted out in my extremities, with awful pins and needles refusing to shake out. I was reluctant to keep going. To be treated like a punching bag, with no fighting experience and no real offensive options, it was humiliating. I was expected to throw myself to the wolves, because my suffering was meaningless.

"NOW!" Tulpa commanded.

I snapped back. "Give me a goddamn minute, bitch!"

I hated my Power with every fiber of my being. There was no choice, though. I would run off when it suited me; at the very first moment of convenience, I would be gone. But, I was no coward.

The front line was bursting with shouts and swearing. Every time that one of Tulpas' specters was stabbed or had its head crushed, another one simply took its place, running up from the back. The truth was beginning to dawn on them, just as the sun itself was dawning on a new day over the pines.

Any time your opponent is fighting a war and you a battle, the outcome is fixed from the start.

Buckstop had switched modes with his Power, turning his baleful gaze at any Specter which grew too close. At full force and concentrated on one person, the gravity it created saw legs shatter rather than buckle.

I took a hit from a smaller villain made of solid metal as I approached the front line. There were half as many villains still in the fight, but of them, a great deal of tenacity had yet to diminish. The metal one was hardly slowing down, and he went in for a barrage of hits.

I was no trained fighter. Against a knowledgeable opponent, I was a mere punching bag. No one was perfect, however, which meant the occasional opening for a strike of my own.

The hits dealt to my head and body felt each like being struck with an aluminum baseball bat, but none hurt for more than a few seconds. It was truly surreal, knowing that the pains which warned of mortal wounds were no more than a passing sensation. I'd never known what it was like to hear my own skull crack, but now it was like metronome in my ears with every punch.

Finally, my own attack illicited a grunt of pain, signalling progress. As my fist impacted his side, I felt it give way, leaving behind a noticeable dent. His breathing was diminished and I pressed the advantage. Just like the specters, no matter how much weaker, I only had to stay in the fight to win.

Two days ago I would have laughed at the thought of all this.

Sure enough, the metal-skinned villain lost consciousness after one too many punches. In the same span, I had kept on my feet and at full power, though I could tell that I was losing weight as I went along. Naturally, once fat was exhausted, stopping power vanished next. Eventually, I would hit a point of diminishing return as I cannibalized my muscles to heal ever-mounting brain and body damage.

For the moment, at least, I was shredded as hell.

Buckstop decided, watching his ranks dwindle, that the time had come to call his losses. Too few of his best fighters remained between those who had deserted and the raiders which we'd captured. There was yet a handful of Supers that he had kept in reserve, and now he called them forward.

One of them stomped the ground, causing a deep rumble. The ominous sound grew until the signs of his Power reached the surface of the sands. In a blast of wind, a crack emerged which came to encircle the tents, where I and the specters fought.

I looked to Tulpa. "What do I do?!"

"Get that Super!" He pointed. "Don't let them escape!"

The ground became unstable. I understood what he meant as the entire area of land on which I stood started its slow ascent into the sky. They meant to fly away on this rock.

Every ghost concentrated its effort now, not on keeping the line held, fighting a war of attrition, but on breaking through to the back. Roles reversed at once, and I followed the change in the wind. With villains surrounding me and Buckstop's power intermittently beating me down, I fought to get through.

I only needed to disrupt the one lifting the ground. If I could do that, the rest would be scattered in the fall.

As the platform of earth and sand reached a certain height, Tulpas reinforcements grew slower and slower to replenish. Attention began to concentrate on me, with each stab and strike growing fiercer as I kept getting back up. 

There were four of them on me, kicking, zapping, stabbing, and punching. The pain of it all grew into a single distant blur, as if I were watching it from afar. My eyes had no time to regenerate with every stomp of my face.

I was in the dark, watching my own neurons attempting to put themselves back together. The stress of every killing blow had transfigured itself into a dull ache. A tension in the dark, begging for release.

I searched the abyss of my own mind, trying to remember a time when there was anything else. What had I ever believed in but this hungry pain, I thought? Nothing else was real. It was as if I was grasping at the rain. Even my own name escaped me. 

I needed release. I needed... control.

When they kicked me from the platform, I could barely feel the impact of my landing. By the time my sight returned and my head straightened out, the platform was flying away under the pale blue sky. My hands were shaking as my memory came back to me and I could tell myself. "I'm Walter..."

"Dammit," Tulpa said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was so close to getting Buckstop on my record."

I grimaced, but I kept my mouth shut. "They're getting away."

"No," I heard Fortitude. "They won't get far."

The flying chunk of earth was shrinking over the horizon. I gestured at it in exasperation. "You want to tell me what you mean?"

"We try to take them alive," was all Tulpa said.

Suddenly, I knew what he was talking about. I could hear engines crackling in the distance. They came with a thunderous blast which bent the trees. 

Ironbolt made a single pass in his fighter, above the flying villains. He was a deadly silver streak, moving far too fast for reaction. A second after his passing, they were vaporized.

A missile exploded against their platform, blindingly powerful even at a distance. Its shockwave hit us and the rubble of shredded humans and dirt hit the earth.

"Still a win." Fortitude reassured me, "It was their choice to die, Walter."

I stared at the few villains who, having been beaten too far from the camp, were left behind. The survivors. "Nobody has any choice," I told her. "Least of all those forced to choose between Heroes and Villains."