"'Sup guys. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this party blows," Saga said breezily. "I'm on my way out."

"Do you have Moon? And Tem?" I asked, realizing that I was spitting as I yelled into my comms.

"The tiny, deluded one, yes. The other tiny deluded one, no."

"Saga, for fuck's--"

"Shit there's more of them? Fuck, Athan I have to go--"

She dropped off abruptly, leaving me staring at the comms in my hand pointlessly. I wanted to howl at it in frustration, my hands shaking as I was forced to stand here and wait and endure, as I had been already. My own uselessness in this situation was driving me insane, but the only thing that held me back was the hope that no news was good news, and that if I jumped in, I'd just make things worse for Saga.

But she'd been in trouble. I could read between the lines enough to know that. She sounded completely serious in her signing-off, and completely serious wasn't something that Saga was lightly. There'd been trouble, no matter how casually she tried to pass it off.

"We should go in," I said, and Karu nodded, needing nothing else to get her off the wall she was leaning on.

"Wait," AEGIS asked. "She didn't say she needed help."

"There was a situation," I argued. "The plan was for her to sneak in. Obviously that didn't work out, so now there is no plan. Which means we need to be there for her."

"No, it means we need a new plan," she said. "Saga's best defense is, ironically, the huge number of scary people there right now, and using them herself. If we go in, guns blazing, we'll just pull them off of whatever she needs them for and onto ourselves. We can't present an external target, or she's doomed. 'A situation' means we need to stay more cautious, not less."

"And would you let your comrades perish, doing nothing?" Karu sneered. "Knowing that, though a remote chance, you did not do all in your power to aid them? A soldier does not leave a man behind, and though I think of her as neither, Saga is our ally in this fight, and I would be remiss to not so much as attempt to salvage her."

Lia bit her lip. "Maybe we can intervene indirectly? I wish I had my sniper rifle. Or that we could tap into their security."

"If we are to act, we must do it now," Karu said, turning to me. "Every second spent is paid to the reaper."

"Karu's right," I said. "If nothing else, we should be close by, so that if we're needed, we can move in."

"But if we're spotted--" AEGIS argued.

"We won't be."

AEGIS pointed at her own chest, the ruffly cream-colored fabric stretched over her curves. "Yellow dress." She pointed at Karu and me in turn. "Shiny, clanky, white armor. Hissing pneumatic clanking exoframe." Lia waited her turn in her charcoal slipskin but it wasn't coming. "We are not a stealth detail, Athan."

"It doesn't matter what we are, or aren't, or are dressed in," I shouted, already moving. "If Saga needs us, we help."

"You help, you mean!" AEGIS shouted back, catching up easily. "You're infuriating!"

"Though you must admit, this is precisely what you signed up for, as it were," Karu mused, jogging beside us.

"That's irrelevant right now!" AEGIS said. "Look, Athan, please. Just--"

"Look out!" Lia shouted, and I felt her suddenly dragging my arm sideways, doing her best to approximate throwing me around a corner, given our weight disparities. Confused but loyal, I followed her, and then moments later…

VROON. From nowhere, a VTOL whipped past overhead, low enough that I could feel the props shoving me into the ground. The only sound I heard was it whipping past, the fans deadly silent, impossibly silent, as it hovered eerily in the air in front of us.

It swept low to the ground, even lower than before, and coils of cable exploded from its sides, followed by a dozen men in uniform, strapped with more gear than I'd ever seen a soldier carry, who rappelled down the cables faster than I could run. A moment later, the craft pulled away, only to be replaced by another, and then another...and then moments later, two land vehicles pulled up, which could be succinctly described as 'very light tanks'.

"What the fuck?" I asked, whispering now as we watched from behind a corner.

"A hundred men in less than a minute," Karu whistled, clearly impressed.

"But who? And why are they massing outside Ichiro's gate?" I watched the last of the VTOL take off into the sky, disappearing into the dusk almost supernaturally. "Wait. You don't think...these are the terrorists after IkaCo, do you?"

"No," AEGIS muttered. "There was an insignia on the side of the tanks." She held up her phone and plugged it into her hair for us. "Look familiar?"

It took all of us a moment to pick through the blurry image.

"XPCA?" Lia asked. "But why?"

"Come on, Lia, that's a stupid question," AEGIS said, looking like a disappointed teacher.

"No. Nuh-uh."

"It has to be," I agreed. "The XPCA only does one thing, and that's fight off Exhumans. They know Saga's in there somehow, they're getting ready for her."

"Shall we continue to sit on our hands?" Karu asked.

"Wait, we can't just charge in," AEGIS said. "That's suicide."

"But if we leave her to face them alone…" Lia trailed off.

"We need…" I looked around the neighborhood, but found only the same complexes of stone wall topped with slanted tiles that I'd already seen a thousand times while waiting. "We need...something. We need to get closer."

"So they can spot us? What is your plan?" AEGIS asked.

"Karu, help me over this wall. You two, stay put."

Karu took a knee and helped me scale the wall easily, and I pulled her up after, keeping the noise to a minimum without using my exoframe or her jetpack. But just as we landed within the yard of Ichiro's neighbor and began to take it in, there was a soft crunch as Lia landed next to me, and then AEGIS after that.

"Like duh, I'm not gonna leave you alone," Lia shrugged.

"Lia this isn't a game."

"And I'm not playing. Saga and I are technically besties, so it's my job more than anyone's to get her back safe."

I didn't have anything more for her but to growl my displeasure as we continued onward, approaching Ichiro's place now behind the safety of a wall. I heard a dog barking and hoped it wasn't sharing a yard with us now...for its sake.

"XPCA is beginning to move in," Karu announced, adjusting her optics as she ran. "They are at the front gate, discussing some matter with the bouncers."

"We just need to get closer," I panted, running as fast as I could without kicking the exoframe into high gear. It was still making a lot of noise, but I hoped the XPCA would be focused on the front. We just had to get closer. We were almost there, I could feel it.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

And then, suddenly, we were there, and I could feel it. I picked up on Saga, underground, fighting hard. I closed my eyes and blocked out my own senses to pick up on hers.

Fuck you're annoying, were her first thoughts, but she didn't do anything to block me out. She was in the basement...second basement underneath the manor. The whole floor had been basically destroyed somehow, and she was fighting off these two...toady(?) guys who were darting at her from the shadows.

At her and at Tem, I realized. Neither of whom were particularly mobile, and neither of whom were remotely effective at striking at the fast-moving, erratic, hard-hitting...toads…

"Saga, they look nothing like toads," I whispered.

[Shut up!]

Karu and Lia...and everyone else on the block flinched, and Saga cupped her hands over her mouth, before filling her head with look what you made me do.

She shook her head and cleared her thoughts. We just need more time. Get the fuck out of here.

I tried to warn her, to convey the number and discipline of the XPCA coming down, but she was finding the images distracting, and she was basically running Tem right now already, the only thing keeping the toads off of her. She waved me away, which just added to my frustration, which in turn added to hers, and with that she shoved me out.

"What's going on?" AEGIS asked, staring at each of us intensely as we all sorta suddenly freaked out around her. "What's Saga doing?"

"She's fighting something she can't hit with her mind. She knows about the XPCA, and there's more of the toads...more of...more of the things she can't hit mixed in with that group somehow."

"Toads?" AEGIS blinked at me in confusion.

"Sorry, that's what Saga decided to call the guys she can't grasp mentally."

"Why can't she? Is there some kind of tech?" Her eyes lit up. "Anti-code-X tech? Ooh, I've always dreamed of it but…"

I snapped my fingers in front of her. "AEGIS. Please."

"Well I guess they had that back in Vegas, too. It was just the size of a truck," she said.

"Focus."

"Right. Well. What's her plan then?"

"I don't know. She says she just needs time, but more enemies are coming in and she's only barely holding out. The two after her now are unarmed, but the XPCA are fully-armed with exotics. There's no way she'll make it on her own."

"So we strike," Karu agreed. "With their current clustering, a surprise attack might reduce their forces by sixty percent with a few well-placed blasts. And hellfire would buy us entire minutes more time--"

"Athan would never agree to killing a hundred XPCA with a bomb, much less burning them alive," Lia said, crossing her arms defiantly. "They might be our adversaries, but they're just people doing their jobs. People Athan used to work with, heck, people Athan used to be one of."

"Before they betrayed him," Karu clarified.

"The actions of a corrupt organization does not make their members cannon fodder," AEGIS agreed. "But Saga's in very real danger here. Some of that tech might even kill her for good."

"I cannot believe what I am hearing," Karu said, scolding all of us. "Cowardice and weakness. Were you in that position, would you ever, for a moment doubt that Ashton would come charging in as your salvation?"

They all went quiet for a moment.

"No, but that's kinda the problem," Lia muttered. "I wouldn't want him to, if it were me."

"There are always backups of me. Maybe months old, maybe it'd take years to access and upload me. But there's only one Athan."

"It's this all over again, isn't it," I asked. "You guys trying to keep me out of the fight, to spare me against my own wishes."

"No!" argued Lia. "Well...yes, kinda. But...there's good reasons for it this time. You heard Saga, she said no."

"She had a plan," AEGIS said.

"And so do we," Karu sneered. "One of valor and courage and loyalty. We leave you two to your snivelling. I pray that my rescue never falls to the two of you. Come, Ashton."

I looked at the others, Lia and AEGIS already so defeated. They knew. They'd been here before, several times now. They knew the responsibility I felt towards others, the burden I put on myself. Self-destructive, I'd been called, more times than I could count.

And I really needed look no further than my own missing leg to agree with them. I couldn't even let a ghost of a girl go unavenged, and she didn't even need rescue. She was already dead, and I still had to charge in and slay Dragon and heroically rescue all.

I thought about Saga, how she felt, how I could still feel her emotions, her fear and panic rushing through me if I concentrated. She was in very real danger, and I couldn't turn my back to that.

Could I?

Wasn't she?

I closed my eyes and felt my own blood pounding. Every inch of me wanted to throw down, to strip off this restraint and shout fuck that to everything and everyone standing between me and her. Every inch of my body burned and seethed and boiled as I imagined...as I remembered the pain and injustice and suffering she'd already endured at the hands of the XPCA, something I promised her she'd never go through again.

Every inch of me...except those beneath my knee on my left leg.

I looked down at the empty gap my exoframe held up. One of my feet was buckled in, strapped to the frame, vital and raring. The other was just...not. Was nothing.

"Damaged goods," I whispered.

"Ashton, do not waste our time with your mumbling. We must make haste if you are going to rescue your ally."

I turned and locked eyes with AEGIS, and could read surprise in their electric yellow. "Do you remember...the conversation we had a few days ago. You almost smothered me with your tits?"

"Um," Lia interjected, but AEGIS just nodded.

"Damaged goods, you called me," I said, lifting my leg. "It was Mage all over again. All over again, again, and again, and again. I keep hurting people. I keep hurting myself. I burn through relationships and safety nets and now finally...my own body."

She nodded again, a lot slower and more sadly this time.

"And I still don't know how to say no. Every cell in my body is screaming to go out there, to slash and tear and do everything I can, have whatever needs to be done to my body, to myself, to make sure Saga's safe. It's all I want to do."

"Then do so," Karu said.

"No," I said, turning on her. "No, I won't. Not this time."

I didn't think it was that dramatic a reveal, but Lia gasped anyway, and then came at me bouncing in for a hug.

"Are you serious?" Karu asked. "You are serious, aren't you. After all the incredulous situations into which you throw yourself, this is where you draw the line?"

I shook my head. "The line should have been way behind me a long time ago. If I'd had more restraint, I wouldn't have lost Mage. I wouldn't have gotten the Defiant killed. I wouldn't have led Dragon to Alyssa. I wouldn't be standing here on one leg, or even looking for Moon and Tem right now."

"You would have done nothing," Karu said, disbelieving. "And you believe that to be better somehow?"

"I wouldn't have done nothing!" I shouted at her. "I'd have done more than I already did! I'd be successful and complete instead of this constant...constant fuck-up! If I just waited and listened and shown patience and discipline--"

"Your ally needs your help! You need to act. Do you turn your back to her?"

"My ally," I said "told me to wait. She told me she needs more time and to stay out. What I need to do is learn to listen, learn to trust, learn that...honestly, I'm wrong more often than I'm right when it comes to making snap decisions. Other people can, and do manage themselves, better than I can manage them. If Saga says she just needs time, she'll have her time. I'll wait and see."

[Good fuckin' boy,] Saga said.

And all at once the XPCA turned on each other, forming into small masses, the whole unit seemingly focused on killing the absolute shit out of four or five specific members. The 'toads', I realized, were being forcibly purged from the ranks by their own peers.

And if I'd engaged sooner, I'd have ruined everything. Karu said nothing as she watched a beam of light erupt from the ground and from it, a burly man emerged, carrying Saga under one arm and Tem under the other. The crowd, enraptured by the sudden bursts of gunfire and fighting out front, seemed oblivious to them entirely as they slipped right through.

The man approached and deposited the two on their feet near us, Tem collapsing in a heap. Saga made a wink and gun gesture at Karu, and when that didn't land, drew her thumb across her throat and then pointed at her most recent ride. This, Karu picked up on, and shot the poor bastard straight in the face.

"It won't hold for long," Saga said. "I couldn't do too good a job given the circumstances, and there's too many of them in there. I don't think the regular XPCA will win out in the end, given how the toads fight."

"Then...what do we do? Go in and even the odds?" Lia asked.

"If we do, we'll break the compel," Saga sighed. "It's fragile. I didn't have much to work with. They're only programmed to kill the toads, and specifically that. If they're put in a new context, they'll regain themselves."

"Then we leave," I said.

"Leave?" AEGIS echoed. "But Moon's in there."

"Yeah, you can't be serious," Lia asked.

I shook my head. "No, we leave. We know where she is, we know that she's being taken care of. This isn't a fight we can win right now, and more importantly, not one we need to win right now. More XPCA are coming for sure, to say nothing of other groups. We need to--"

I was cut off by a spotlight landing on us from above, one of those silent VTOLs hovering a good hundred feet above us. There was a fwipping sound of a dozen ropes descending as the XPCA prepared to land right among us.

With a feeble wave, Tem banished the light from hitting us, and I scooped her up as Karu picked up Saga, and all six of us sprinted off into the growing dark of night.