I was not certain what I was supposed to think, or say, or do, as Chariot talked to the man floating in the VTOL's door. They terrified me, and I think he tried his best but thought they terrified Chariot, too. I was not sure there was anything for me to do, although, if there was, I thought Chariot would tell me.

So I hid. And I waited, and tried not to mess anything up. I only half-heard their conversation though, even though it was crystal-clear over comms, but because I was really very distracted.

I was distracted before, but even more after Chariot and I talked. I had not wanted to tell him, for fear that he would feel sad or betrayed. It felt shameful that he spent so much time and effort on me, and I could tell him, to his face, that he had done it worse than his enemy did.

Our enemy did, I corrected myself. An enemy of Chariot's was an enemy of mine. I should have fried him, just to be sure.

But I had told him, and now it gnawed at me like he'd read my diary. Chariot always saw right through me...but here he had only known something to be wrong. The one time he had not, because I had wanted to keep it secret, and I should have known better. He was too much smarter than me for me to hide anything. As I sat, hidden, as they talked and I tried not to look at the scary eyes or blood on his hands, I felt myself flush with shame.

I was bad. I should be grateful to Chariot, not lying to him. I was awful. I was garbage.

He would know that but would not punish me, because he was so kind. It was one reason I loved him so.

I was startled back to life by the sudden flashes of light and sirens of the VTOL warning us of something. I tried to blink back my tears of self-pity and clear my head and listen to what people were saying.

"From the shadows, you strike. Liar," the man said.

"No, they're not with us!" Chariot shouted. "They're shooting at us!"

Who was they? Who was shooting at us? I did not understand. Chariot was in danger and I was being useless and spacey and he was right. Earlier he said I had been spacier, and that was a warning. I hadn't listened. I was useless and didn't listen!

"Liar and parasite. I am Justice."

Chariot stumbled backwards, and I felt like my head suddenly got even dumber. Something big and invisible pushed out of the man, but not invisible like anything I saw or did. It was like when we had swim day, and the girls would hold me underwater. I could not move, I could not breathe. Even Chariot seemed to only barely stay on his feet.

And with courage, his blades came out. I realized, I should be helping. I should be helping, right? I looked around and saw nobody else helping. Somehow, AEGIS and Saga weren't even here anymore. Where had they gone? I was lost again.

Suddenly, he disappeared, and I was more than lost. There was what looked like a black little triangle in the air and it ate Chariot up, and then...it flew backwards, eating a hole in the back of the VTOL as it flew between Moon and me. I screamed.

Moon threw her book to the side and grabbed my face from behind. I did not know what to do, but she did. She appeared on me, and she didn't even hesitate to shoot a laser right through the door where the man had been floating.

She was right. I was being stupid again. I stopped screaming, and I shot through the door too. There was so much light, I had to dim how my eyes saw to keep looking through it.

But through it, I could see we missed. The man was gone. He'd told Chariot that he was a parasite, and then he left. He called Chariot a parasite. And then left. And I didn't even fry him afterwards. I felt a sob rising in my chest, but I didn't want to be sad, I wanted to be angry. I hated him, the flying man. And I hated myself.

The beam from me glowed twice as bright, until the whole side of the VTOL crackled nearby. The metal sizzled and twisted, Karu shouted, and Moon yelled in my head and on my shoulder at me.

I did not know where the man went, but if I saw him, I wanted him to feel my anger. I wanted his blood to pour like tears from his eyes until his body was withered and dry. I wanted him to know the heat of being locked in a locker on a summer's day, and feel as dry and helpless and stupid as I did. He hurt Chariot. The one person who treated me like anything more...more than nothing.

Everyone was screaming at me but I couldn't hear them. The beam grew wider. I felt Moon in my head, fighting me for control over myself. I wanted to turn the beam on her body and let her feel my anger, too. She would not feel so smart if she was erased like dust in a storm. She would have a moment of absolute stupidity, where she realized she, too, could make mistakes like Tem always did.

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. I heard my teeth cracking. The skin was coming off my fingers where they were too close to the light. The pain just made me want to turn it even brighter. Even if I couldn't see him and kill him, even if he'd already run away and taken Chariot, I could show him how brightly he would burn. He could look, and see, and be afraid. He should be afraid, not me.

A corner of my mind nagged at me, pulled into my head by Moon clawing at it. It said, Chariot is gone, and it's too late. There is nothing you can do. Stop hurting people.

If I turned the heat up more, the air burned around my ears, and I couldn't hear that thought anymore, I thought. The entire side of the ship was white instead of black now, from the heat. The horizon outside was not steady, and I felt it in my guts as Karu flailed at the controls. Everyone screamed. Everyone was falling. Everyone was a stupid and scared as I was.

It didn't matter. Chariot was gone. He was the only one.

But the voice spoke again, and I couldn't tune it out. I was already burning as brightly as I could, but no amount of heat or fire or pain would make it go away. It wanted to break me and see me cry. I didn't want to be sad.

But the words...I...they were right, weren't they?

If Chariot was the only one...what was Ichiro?

I didn't know. I wasn't supposed to have to know. Chariot was supposed to help me with these things. He was supposed to mean I didn't have to think or decide anymore. I needed him, and he was gone.

But he was gone before. I survived. Ichiro took care of me, and he hated me. Anyone could do it. Everyone would.

But Chariot wasn't anyone, or everyone. He was special. He was important!

He was just an idiot like me, and I knew it.

The beam fell away despite myself. It was too hard to focus on with everything else roaring in my head. The second it turned off, it was like the volume turned up on everyone else. Everyone was screaming. Cosette was yelling orders at me, Moon was clawing through my thoughts, AEGIS was shouting on comms and Karu was shouting out problems and statuses from the pilot's seat, half-standing to get away from the heat of the wall next to her and the damage I'd caused.

But none of it was Chariot. None of it was even for Chariot. It was all because of things I'd done. He was gone, and because I was so stupid, all of his very smart and capable friends were worried about me instead of him now. I was so disgusting, I shouldn't even be alive.

Except if I listened closely. As everyone panicked and struggled, I heard a voice. It sounded...somehow...like it was calling for me. Even though it was not, because that was not who they were calling out to.

"Athan, come in. Athan, where are you bro? Athan...do you copy? Athan? Athan…?"

Lia sounded scared, but calm. Her voice was tense, like every time she said his name, every time she asked, it hurt her. But she kept right on being hurt, because unlike me, she was strong, she could endure the hurt, as long as she needed to, because if she didn't, Chariot would be gone.

I felt sick. Not only had I ruined everything, not only had I missed frying the man and damaged the ship, not only was I making everyone panic...but I'd also given up on him. That fast, the first thing that had hit my mind when I saw him gobbled up by the dark triangle was Chariot is gone. I hadn't hesitated or questioned or struggled like Lia was doing.

I was just that ready to give up on him, I guess. And that thought made me feel so repulsive and small, I wanted to laser myself on the spot and scour this selfish, stupid, worthless girl from the world. Maybe if I found the man again, I could explain to him that Chariot was good and patient and smart and kind, and it was me who was the parasite, and somehow he could switch which one of us died.

"By all the corgis in creation," Moon breathed in my ear and mind. "Would you give it a rest?"

I slumped further in my seat, hiding myself and trying not to look at the others surveying damage and making plans. I should have stayed hidden. I should have done nothing.

"Yeah, maybe you should have," she said. "But do you know how appallingly unpleasant it is to be bonded to you when half of your thoughts are how valueless you are?"

I didn't answer. I didn't want to answer her. She was mean in a way, but a very smart way which was usually right. She was not like Chariot, who was always looking out for me. She was always looking out for...something more. Which was smart of her, but also mean at the same time.

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"You know I can still feel your every thought, right? Even if you don't want to respond, you still do. You thought, 'I screwed up everything'. And maybe you did, on a level. But you saw that man, 'Justice', the same as we did. He was not to be trifled with. And Athan trifled away."

My breath caught as I felt her words sink in. She was blaming Chariot? For his own death?

"Calm down," she said, and some trick of the mind very nearly made me do it. "Blame is pointless, get that through your head. That's what I mean when I say it's appalling in here. You spend half your time blaming yourself. Imagine what you could get done if you just fixed it instead."

"I can't fix it," I shouted at her. "Chariot is gone."

"Gone isn't the same thing as dead."

"You think?" Cosette asked, cutting in. "He's utterly vanished to all my readings. 'Bout the same as I'd expect from someone getting in the way of Tem's laser. Not to insinuate that she had anything to do with that...just a basis of comparison."

"I believe," Moon said, and there was an uncustomary note of emotion in her when she did.

We lurched suddenly and there was a groan as the VTOL swung to a halt in the sky, only a few feet off the ground. We stayed there for a few seconds, before gently, Karu put it down.

And then, once it was down and the fans were slowing and the roar of the engines and wind were gone, Karu unbuckled with quick, deliberate motions and spun around her chair to advance right towards me. She stopped, standing in front of me, staring right at me with her visor which I knew could see me even now.

And then my vision popped and I felt like I passed through a wave of blackness as she pounded the side of my head with an armored fist.

"Ow, damn," Moon said flatly.

"If you do not wish to share in the punishment, leave the punished," Karu spat.

"I just finished explaining to her how laying blame is a waste of time." Moon crossed her copy of my arms in a way much better than I'd ever done it. She was floating above me, half off my shoulders so she was eye-level with Karu. Both of them looked scary in their own ways.

"I disagree," Karu said, and again, I felt pain and stars, this time on the other side. I could not hold my head up anymore and felt myself almost sliding to the floor, only kept in my seat by the harness.

"What the fuck. Is Karu beating you guys in there?" Cosette asked.

"This little demon has imperiled us for the last time," Karu answered. "Ashton is too patient with her constant failings, and it has now cost us dearly. In his absence, I will be assuming the role of disciplinarian, one she's lacked badly her entire tenure."

She struck again, this time doubling me over in the chest. In the spots which flashed in my eyes, I thought she looked like my mother for a moment. What a strange time to have a recollection...though I guess the connection was obvious.

"Karu, stop," Moon growled, putting herself between us now. "You're no better than she, now."

"Oh, my apologies. Am I destroying our only vehicle of escape? Am I imperiling the lives of all on the mission? Is my constant and flagrant disregard for naught but shoving my tongue up Ashton's ass getting in the way?"

She tried to throw another punch, but Moon got her arms up and inhaled sharply as the blow still landed brutally on them. Karu shook her head and then threw a second, faster, which snapped her head backwards.

"Karu stop it!" I heard Whitney scream. "Stop fighting!"

"You're right," Moon said, her face still frightening in its calm, even with ghost blood dripping from her ghost nose. "You're so, so much worse."

"Oh?" Karu cocked her head. "I would love to hear this."

"Tem's an idiot, sure. Dangerous, impulsive, way too powerful for her own good. And don't get me started on what it's like being in her head," Moon said, her voice almost growly. "But she messed up on accident, because she's undertrained and underprepared, and mental. Here you are, threatening us the same as she, and what is your excuse?"

Karu stared at her a long moment over a stiff frown. And then her hands lashed out, harder and faster than before. One, two, three, and Moon was on the ground, rolling off my back, the echoed pain enough to drop me as well.

"I do not believe in excuses," Karu said.

"Would you two fucking stop?" AEGIS barked. "We have a real situation here, and I don't give a shit what any of you think, we need to work on that, instead of...whatever the hell this is."

Things went quiet for a moment, and, a little afraid she was dead, I struggled backwards to put Moon back in her own body where she'd be safe again. As I struggled, I could hear Lia somehow still calling for Athan.

Moon inhaled sharply and jolted when she came to. Then unbuckled and stood to stare down Karu again.

"What's your problem?" she asked. "Do you honestly think punching people out is going to teach Tem a thing? She needs help, not more violence."

"How can you say that as one who is, if possible, very nearly as disciplined as myself? Knowing the girl as you do, how can you doubt--"

"ENOUGH," AEGIS barked, and even Lia went quiet for a moment. "Look, ladies, you might fucking loathe each other, and we might have lost the one guy keeping everyone together…" She paused, and I realized I couldn't hear Lia anymore. "Um. For the moment. I'm sure he's fine, that is. But that's what we really need to work on. And confirm. That he's alive."

"Then I go," Karu said, stepping into the back and pulling her jetpack onto her armor.

"Wait, without you, we'll all be grounded," Moon said.

"Then you will continue to be every bit as useless either way," Karu huffed, and before they could reply, there was a roar and streaks of blue plasma.

"What a bitch," Cosette said.

"I am still here on comms," Karu interjected.

"Oh, I know. Doesn't make you less of a bitch."

"What we need," AEGIS stressed "is for someone to verify the area where Athan...fell out of the VTOL. Worst possible case scenario, he and 'Justice' both vanished because...well...you heard the ugly guy, he thought Athan had a bone to pick. They might still be fighting back there somewhere. But if not, he's still...there somewhere…"

"I will find him," Karu said, her voice low but sure.

"And um, Saga's still out. I don't think...I've ever seen her...out before," AEGIS added, with a hint of worry. "I'm no expert but shouldn't she be...back up by now?"

"Being in the presence of...are we calling him Justice or Liev?" Moon asked.

"Whatever."

"I suppose Justice when he is on-duty and Liev otherwise," she said. "That was joudan."

"...what?" Whitney asked.

"I cannot believe I miss Chariot already," Moon said with a tone of regret. "Regardless. Being in Justice's presence seemed to cause Saga impossible pain. There was something in his mind that affected her. As loathe as I am to put myself at risk...I am not certain we have an alternative but for me to bond with her as well, and impersonally help her repel the trauma as best I am capable."

"Well that sounds like a good plan," AEGIS said. "'Cept I'm over here and you're over there. And I don't think Karu's in the mood to carry Saga and me."

"You assess correctly. My priority is in locating Ashton, regardless."

"Well that's good...just making plans, anyway. It's important we--"

Whatever she said next was lost in an echoing boom that was filtered by the comms. It sounded like she just exploded.

"...AEGIS?" Cosette asked. "AEGIS, report. That sounded like fucking artillery fire."

"I'm here," AEGIS answered, but her voice was panting and heavy, and there were more sounds of explosions from her end. "Fucking, fuckity, fuck. Everything's blowing up somehow. The military is here or something. I can't even tell where the shots are coming from."

In the distance we could hear them as well. I looked around, trying to figure out which way they were coming from, bending light as I could to see further from my seat.

And then I saw something I didn't expect and froze up for a second.

But it was only a second. Moon was right, Chariot was right. I'd spent too much time today blaming myself and being useless and not paying attention. Moon was his friend and it was my responsibility to make sure she was safe. She would save Saga, and Saga would find Chariot, and everything would be okay.

If I could just stay focused.

I let loose and destroyed the invisible creeping agent with a white-hot beam, his scream disappearing into the rush of burning air. Moon was there at once, touching my cheek to bond with me.

"What's going on? Report!" Cosette barked.

"Positive contact!" Karu shouted. "Air force VTOLs on rapid approach."

"I found a recon!" I shouted, but it came out a lot more like a squeal than Karu's.

"Artillery for sure. Audio analysis indicates coastal bombardment," AEGIS said. "Anyone think this is a little more than a coincidence?"

"The area's full of troops of all branches, all looking for Liev," Cosette muttered. "This was a shit plan, and nobody would listen."

"Um, just Athan wouldn't, really," Whitney added.

"Enemy VTOLs are engaging. Going hot!" Karu announced, before the whooshing salvo of micromissles launching filled my ears. I heard AEGIS panting as she ran. Moon was spinning around above me, but she was not nearly as good at picking out invisibles as I was, there were two or three more in the same area, and she had missed them completely.

One I shot down. Another came right at us.

"Not a recon." Moon said, as she caught it as it bounded into our ship's door. "Those are shadow ops."

Cosette swore. "Shit, guys, there's...a lot headed your way. Whatever station tracked you and fired those SAMs, it reported positive your identities, and that Liev was just here. Basically every red-blooded American with a gun is coming to look for a fight."

"We need to leave," Moon said.

"We need to find Athan."

"No soldier left behind."

"But if you all die…" Whitney spoke slowly, like she didn't have a second half of that thought.

"There's a chance...Liev might intercede and draw away some attention," Moon said. "But otherwise, this is plain suicide. We, as a group, have already attempted to battle the whole of the XPCA, without success. What hope do we have against combined arms?"

"I am not leaving without Chariot," I said. "He would not leave us."

"Okay...Moon, Tem...get to me then," AEGIS said. "If we can get Saga back up...we'll have a chance. Karu...keep sweeping for Athan in between...blowing up VTOLs or whatever it is you're doing. This is gonna suck."

I wished I was stronger as both of me could only barely carry Moon's body. She thought a lot about whether it would be better for her to just walk, but when another shadow ops jumped at us and she fried him, she made up her mind.

"Athan, where are you?" Lia muttered. "Come back, we need you."

"He's probably somewhere stupid, getting into trouble," Cosette answered.

They were both right, I thought. Even I knew, Chariot could get into a lot of trouble. But he also was always there when we needed him. He wouldn't just disappear on us now, not without a good reason.

Or so I hoped. I found it increasingly hard to believe it, when I'd already given up on him not just once, but twice now before. But Moon kept those thoughts pushed out of my mind, and I understood and appreciated that, and focused on seeing and shooting bad guys instead.

But that was getting harder. There were cars showing up now, troops beginning to assemble faster than we could move and shoot. Exosuits were beginning to emerge, and all around us, the distant sounds of AEGIS' artillery was now the familiar, scary sounds of battle breaking out.

"Where are you, big guy?" Moon asked, as she swept a beam across another few men. "We could really use an out right now, we could."