I was so excited to see Athan that I didn't realize I didn't recognize him. I'd jumped straight to Lia's mind, since we were all besties and whatnot, and didn't even realize that doing so probably saved my life.

There was something seriously wrong with him, and looking into him was like...going down a tunnel made of writhing eels. Strange bits of blackness began to manifest in my vision every time I glanced near him, painful little haunting ideas that hurt to think about, that made me severely uncomfortable.

He'd fucked himself up somehow, and I didn't understand it, but what I did understand was that it was familiar, even if it wasn't like anything I'd experienced before, and that kind of paradox set my brain on edge. It wasn't until I was digging through Lia's thoughts, trying to make sense of the situation I understood.

"Oh, fucking Athan," I muttered out loud.

"What has he done?" Dragon asked.

"He went and...Exhumaned himself up a ton. Fuck. Now I know why it's familiar, he's like Justice! I had to burn Justice out of my head and write a compel in there to be incapable of seeing into him, because when I did, I went insane this one time."

Dragon gave me a sideways glance. "You went insane...one time?"

"Code-X stuff. Never you mind."

He apparently took that literally, because he went right back to being stunningly silent and creepy. I didn't rely on my physical senses too much at the best of times, but having someone around whom I couldn't perceive mentally, who also moved with complete stealth was borderline unnerving. He felt like one of those nervous shadows I started seeing when I looked at Athan too much.

I bit my lip and started working on expanding my current compel to extend to Athan, too. I didn't want to write him out of my head entirely, but I needed to be able to focus on this fight without stabbing myself in the eyes every time I glanced his mental direction.

Our working environment was...not ideal. We were still on the back of Bob's shoulders, still underground, still in the dark, but we were close. Close enough for me to see what was going on up there, and close enough for Bob to be able to do that funky reality-ripple-shuffle things and send his arms through the ground to punch, stab, and shoot.

Or he was, until Justice had frozen his hands, and apparently, him. Now we weren't climbing anymore, just a couple chumps stuck underground on the back of a frozen titan.

I was fairly certain that was the entire premise of at least one Greek myth, but that wasn't really relevant. I needed to focus. I was already distracting myself plenty by reading back what happened to all of them through Lia, and almost metaphorically dropped my wrench twice, at her literally dying to radiation poisoning, and to becoming Exhuman. I would definitely need all the details on how that all worked as soon as we got the fuck out of here.

The earth shook around us and I saw Dragon glancing around with something that should have been nerves, but absolutely wasn't, and I realized I had a third distraction going now, which was the fight above. Again, Lia was my eyes.

And through her, I saw...erm...I wasn't exactly sure.

There had once been a street there, I was fairly certain, a mere moment ago. But something had completely ripped it open, like a dissected frog, and all of the pipes and cables and wires under there were currently ripping through the air after Justice, jumping into lightspeed in instants, slamming into the ground or punching right through buildings with sonic booms, with such stupidly huge amounts of force that a dozen feet of cable was creating a crater ten feet across and a mushroom cloud five times that.

It was Athan, I realized. This was...the extent of his new powers. He hadn't done as Justice had, filling himself up with every conceivable power, but rather had cherry-picked them somehow, kept them all focused on his lightning, enhanced the absolute ungodly fuck out of his capabilities until he was...that?

Well, shit. I'd always had a little power envy over here about how much shit he could get done, but this was preposterous. A house, for some reason smashed into the middle of the road, suddenly imploded on itself as a writhing, snaking mass of what looked like every single magnetic thing in the structure, from nails to knives, erupted from the wreckage and bolted into a two-story explosion of dirt and rubble.

"Are they blasting us free?" Dragon asked.

"Athan's blasting the fuck outta something alright, but it ain't us. And be glad it--"

I didn't even parse what happened. I came to from death several times, barely having time to take in my surroundings and add to my confusion before I went under again. It took most of a minute before I found myself intact, with Dragon looking down at me, somehow still looking bored.

"Whazzat?" I mumbled, my head spinning.

"A piece of pipe," he gestured. Illuminated by his flashlight, I could see it angled down from the dirt ceiling and stopping at Bob's back, deformed and flattened like a shot bullet. But calling it 'pipe' was an understatement, it was industrial-grade bullshit, with a diameter bigger than a hula-hoop. It'd crushed me before I even knew Athan had shot it.

"Hey watch it up there!" I shouted.

[Saga?] I heard Lia's mind pick me up. Talking to her felt weird, weirder than usual, almost like there was some feedback.

"Lia? Ouch. Are you...are you a code-X now?"

[I...don't...know? Sorry.]

When she wasn't talking, I could see her mind readily enough, and sure enough, it looked like she'd picked up dominion over people's emotions. That was a cool trick, and she had a lot better grasp on it than I'd ever attain. Lucky girl, although her range was rather shit, and that was why right now she was…

"Hey, why are you flying?"

[Oh. Um, Athan just...put us up here. I think...he forgot...to put us down.]

"He can levitate people now?"

[I guess so. AEGIS says there's a lot of iron in blood. That thought kinda...makes me go...ick, though.]

There was another explosion, and then another. Athan was now on the defensive as Justice was apparently still a better flier, and he was slashing at Athan with attack after attack, each one different, coming from nothing, fire and iron and rock. He dipped and flung through the air, certainly evasive, but most of his defense came from his surroundings.

The metal which sizzled through the air towards him halted on his demand, and there was a brief moment where both of their powers were acting on it at once, causing the metal barbs to vibrate in the air as though possessed. And then Athan won out, and they shot right back towards Justice, a thousand times faster than he'd fired them, punching through his chest with such speed that it sent his skin rippling.

The stone and fire ran into a physical barrier, another chunk of metal ripped out of the ground, clanging off of it and washing it into a superheated red, which Athan swung back at Justice, sending it spiralling off like a crashing UFO.

I realized that there were people out there, a lot of them actually, many mentally broken, but quite a few still trying to run, or watching the new scene unfolding with petrified awe. I, um, only really realized they were there when suddenly, a handful of them weren't, completely flattened by the spiralling, exploding furnace of superheated metal, which was melting into slag across their thankfully-dead bodies.

But Athan was doing more of a number on the populace than Justice was. Sure, he'd been zipping around blowing people up, but at least four of five of Athan's now-dozens of railgun blasts had punched straight through the horizon, and the buildings on it, killing God-knows how many. I'd only just learned my lesson on tempering my titan's power, and now Athan was shooting without abandon.

"Lia, he's gonna kill someone!"

[Isn't that the point?]

"I mean...someone else. There's a refugee camp not too far from here, if he fires anywhere that direction, splat."

She took a deep breath as she understood my meaning. And then slowly, deliberately, let that kernel of panic down, pushing it away as she was so good at doing by now.

[It...doesn't matter.]

"What?"

[If he destroys the refugee camp. It's still...the best option we have.]

"What the fuck do you mean the best option? I thought we were all doing this to fuckin' save people or some bullshit. Now you don't care?"

[Now, I don't have that option, okay?] she snapped.

"I know you're new at this, but you're a code-X who doesn't have to interface with his fucked-up head. You can get him under control."

[Maybe.]

"No, you can. I can see it in you."

[Not...what I meant. I meant...maybe I should. Not...I could. But I don't think so.]

I blinked inwardly at her, as I watched Athan send a car through literally four houses. A tendril of shadow lashed out at him from Justice's back, and Athan caught it somehow in his hands, in some kind of floating ball-lightning, before calling down a literal bolt of lightning which struck him, and went right up the tendril to make Justice scream and seize as the full force of God's own smiting went through him.

"Don't think so how?"

[I don't want to lose,] she said with conviction. [Athan needs to be able to give this his all, without being distracted by me muddling with his head. Even if people die, it's worth it, I think.]

"Damn girl, you got strong. Next time there's a cross-dimensional field-trip, sign me up.

That's what I said, but let's face it, that was just a face I was putting on for Lia's sake. She hadn't been the same since she'd been burned earlier on, and I guess she'd had another trial by fire out there in other Earth. It was...a little sad, to see the cynicism grow up in her like that.

Justice was flying away, and Athan after him. After a few moments, Karu and Tower unceremoniously flailed and fell towards the ground each of them catching themselves in their own way.

"Jesus, what the hell was that?" he asked. "I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe, I don't know how I'm still alive."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Karu, for her part, just pulled off her visor and cried. I didn't understand, and didn't want to.

"C'mon girl. I know...I know it's real bad. First Jack and now...her. But we've gotta warn Athan about that power. If he gets close to winning, Justice is just gonna stop time on him, too."

Karu sniffled, tried to stand, and failed, her mind screaming into mine about how none of it mattered, and how pointless it all was. She was too far gone, so pained, it hurt.

"Lia?" I asked. "Tower, can you unstick Lia from the air and bring her to Karu?"

Bob was climbing again, and I had no idea where Athan and Justice had gone, apparently far enough out that we weren't in that time-stop power anymore. I wish I knew where Athan was, I didn't want him dying out there without me even being around to help. He was holding his own pretty well, but...well it was Athan, he made me nervous.

Lia offered soothing words laced with her brand of Code-X as AEGIS redid some of Karu's stitches, and soon she seemed more embarrassed than defeated.

"I apologize. I do not know...what came over me."

"It's the screaming," AEGIS said. "It builds up in one's mind, pushes out rational thought and feeling, it leads to…"

She glanced over at the wall of zombies, huddled under one of the strung-up corpses. I saw in their minds nothing but Justice, like an Old Testament God, sparing them or wiping them out according to his whims and powers alone.

"Lia if you do not mind, perhaps you could also help those people, as you did myself," Karu suggested, which AEGIS seemed to be ready to shout down for a moment, before biting her tongue. "I am sorry, I am...I am no longer fit for service. I must come to terms with what went through my mind, must find a reason to fight again. I am useless."

"You're not useless," Tower said seriously, about to clap her on the shoulder, but stopping with the realization that he might kill her in her state. "Erm, I mean...don't think that way, aight?"

She gave a weak nod and staggered to a nearby porch, where she sat, staring at Trish's body on the ground.

"Well she's out, but I'm still ready to fight," Tower said, turning to AEGIS. She flinched at his approach, arms going up. "Uh, I ain't fighting you."

"I...yes. Sorry. I'm just...jumpy around Exhumans right now."

"Girl, it's me, Tower," he beamed. "C'mon."

"All the same, I'm sorry. I need to find Athan and make sure he's...taken care of."

"...you mean, he's being taken care of."

"Yes. Right."

AEGIS jumped off, leaving Tower blinking stupidly in her dust. I felt the ground shake closer, and knew the fight was coming back our way.

"Air," Dragon said.

And I realized, I smelled it too. The sweet, sweet…Stench of death. Blood. That...weird...death funk, I dunno exactly what it was. I always thought it was the stench of whatever gasses he human shell held onto all the time, pouring out only when the body around 'em failed. It was not a breath of fresh air, but it was air.

It was surprisingly quickly that air became light, and light became the surface. Six arms, indestructibility, and mindless will apparently made for very efficient digging. I gave Bob very specific orders on helping and mostly, on avoiding collateral damage, as he limped us back towards the others.

They were all a little shocked at seeing Bob, but after today, nobody had much surprise left in them. And no time for it, besides, as Justice suddenly came crashing down, skittering off the street on his shadow-tendrils, as a cascade of thousands of bulbs of lightning showered down around us.

Karu didn't stir, saved by the house she was mostly-in, and those of us close to Bob took shelter in his shadow. I heard Lia's scream in my head, but not out loud.

"Lia!" I shouted, finding myself running across the electrified ground, my legs jarring and failing under me, like the stupid, useless meat-boats they were.

Thankfully, AEGIS was already there, scooping the girl up, even as electricity arced up and down her body.

"What the fuck?" Tower asked. "He almost hit us. He did hit us."

"He almost killed Lia," AEGIS snapped, checking the girl's eyes. She bit her lip and shook her head. "Yes he would, Lia. Stop being in denial."

"Why's she not talking?"

"Do you see the burn scars, Tower? Use your damn brain."

"Jeez, sorry. I'm sorry Lia."

AEGIS looked like she was going to snap again, but suddenly froze, and then glared at Lia. "Get. Your. Powers. OUT. OF. MY." She paused again, blinking as she took deep breaths. "Head?"

It was fairly clear to me that this entire situation was entirely shitted up. Just a few hours ago, Athan, AEGIS, Karu, Lia, and myself had been ready to do anything for each other, to throw everything to hell and back to take down justice, no matter what it cost us.

Now Karu was going through existential shit, AEGIS had somehow turned into a shitty bigoted version of herself, Lia was scarred and mute and Exhuman, and I had to scrub one of them out of my head to even make it by. Oh yeah, and Athan, whom I scrubbed out of my head, made it easy to forget him, I guess.

What the hell kind of shit had we fallen to? We were pathetic. Justice sizzled past us again, cleaving at us with huge blades made of light, and when Bob blocked them, barely anyone even batted an eye. That was the guy we were supposed to be fighting, and instead...what?

"Fuck you guys," I said. "This is pathetic."

"You're the most dangerous of all," AEGIS hissed at me.

"I fucking hope so. What the hell went up your ass anyway?"

I didn't bother asking her, just turned to Lia to pick it up. And then sighed deeply. "Wow, computer troubles? That's your excuse? Pull yourself together, AEGIS. We need a plan, and that's like, your thing. So fucking do it."

"I'll fucking do you--" she started, but halted again at Lia's insistence. "I fucking told you--"

Tower caught her wrist before the backhand landed. "Not cool."

"I will crush you."

"ENOUGH," I screamed, loud enough to make even the broken humans stumble. "We need something to fight off Justice, and this isn't helping. You can all squabble once he's dead, and not until then. I swear to god I will fucking rape your goddamned minds into quivering pulp if you do not cooperate."

"You can't touch me," AEGIS spat.

"She can," I jabbed towards Lia. "And I control her, don't forget. Now cooperate, or I fucking swear to God."

Her face twitched as she stared at me with a calculating hostility I knew meant she was planning on how to take me out. I think the only thing keeping her from acting on it was the fact that as much as she wanted me dead, she also wanted Justice, and maybe she could defer on killing me until after he was dealt with.

Such a bitch. She needed a few hours with herself and a debugger like I could not believe, but we didn't have that.

"It doesn't matter," a fleeting voice said. "You can plan, but you can't win."

I turned and found Karu magically had the strength to join us when it came to giving up. Lovely.

"You are either going to help, or I'm putting you to sleep. I understand you're too beat up to fight, and thank you for your service, but we're still going."

She shook her head, her green eyes glinting in the dim glow of my titan. "You don't get it, do you? Right now, Athan is the most stupidly powerful thing we have ever heard of, and even he is merely slugging it out. What can we possibly do? I am a woman with a semi-sentient plasma-spewer on my back. What difference could I possibly have made?"

"You helped," Tower reassured her. "You really did. You bought time, you saved people, now we're ready to end it."

"Did I? Who here is saved?" she looked around. "I see only failure."

"Okay, I warned you," I said, reaching out to put her down.

She shook her head and took a step back. "It is fine. I will not trouble you. I just...I tried. I tried my absolute hardest already." I saw her lip tremble slightly but she just wiped her eyes and kept going. "I gave my all, when I had nothing left to give, and my failure and powerlessness were thrown into my face. I just...do not wish that despair on you, whom I love. It hurt me, more than I thought possible. I do not want you to face your own insignificance as I have."

"It's okay," I told her. "I know I'm not insignificant."

"That is what I thought. But if Justice succeeds today, and Earth becomes barren of life, and the bleak, empty future you fear is not millions of years but a dozen from now...and you were there to stop it, but could not…"

Her eyelids fluttered as I shut her up.

But at the same time, yeah. That kinda would prove me completely insignificant, wouldn't it? That'd be the exact kind of fucking despair that Justice would love. Piece of shit. And Karu for saying it.

"AEGIS, a plan. A good one, and now, if you please."

"Bite me."

She said that, but still skittered away when I tried. "Lia, Tower, any ideas?"

"Um, I just follow other people's plans. And she don't talk anymore, right?"

"I'm a code-X," I informed him. "I can read her thoughts. She doesn't need to speak."

He nodded wisely. "Yeah, this is exactly why I follow other people's plans."

But Lia had something, and I shared it with them. Even as the ground shook under us again from another assault.

"Seems to me that the two of them are fighting with their all," I echoed. "If I...if Lia...can just get within her short-range to Justice, just for an instant, and slap him with a sudden inability to fight...that might be all the opening Athan needs to land the decisive blow."

"We did just see that once Justice is hurt, he starts losing control of his powers. There's a definite threshold in there," Tower said. "Except one thing."

"What's that?"

"He can stop time, remember? What the hell is Athan supposed to do about that?"

"Easy," I grinned. "We kill him before he does that. He can't stop time if Lia's got him not using his powers, right? We'll just use his overconfidence against him. By the time he needs to use it, bam, we'll have him in a place where he can't."

AEGIS was eyeing me warily. "I have to admit, it's a decent plan, minus the glaring holes. I know it's from Lia, but it sounds strange to hear realized thoughts coming out of you."

"You like strange, admit it," I said, walking my fingers up her sleeve. She casually reached over and broke them for me.

"The hardest part," she continued, staring me down "will be getting Lia close enough, obviously. We have Tower to get her into the air, but she's completely unprotected."

"Um, no I'm not. Err, she's not," I sputtered.

AEGIS just crossed her arms and waited for an explanation, and I pointed at the bodies where Lia had been electrocuted before, where there was a waxy effigy of her, who'd been left there when she...uh...hadn't been electrocuted, I guess.

"Right," AEGIS agreed. "Except we don't know the limits on that. You can dodge out of trouble and leave behind a fake, but what if there's nowhere to go? What if it hits you too quickly, or too slowly? If you're killed instantly, or poisoned, will your power react? Do you know?"

Lia frowned. "I don't know. But if Athan needs help, I have to help him."

AEGIS sighed. "I hate plans with too many unknowns in them."

"It's the end of the world," I said, stripping Karu of her jetpack, and then a few other random pieces of clothing, and leaving her spooning a corpse, just for fun. "There's bound to be a few things we don't know."

"How have I been okay with what a terrible person you are, until now?" AEGIS asked me seriously, undoing my hard work and moving Karu back indoors.

"My sparkling personality, I assume."

She sighed heavily as Lia put on the pack and climbed onto Tower like a jetpack of his own. "If I'm not needed here, I may as well try to find a computer and plug in, see what I can do about his malfunction."

"As much as I'd like that, I think we need you here. I think this is going to be it. Lia said that," I told her. "Personally, I think she just wants your moral support."

Tower and Lia prepared to leave, when suddenly she stopped and turned back to me.

"Oh, I guess so…" I agreed.

"What?" AEGIS snapped.

"She's wondering if I should come, since she can't talk to Tower."

"If you're coming, I am too." She bit her lip. "Sorry. I'm...I mean...if it comes to stopping Justice, and Athan's current destruction...I'm all for it. I'm...sorry again...for being such a pill. I really do want you to succeed. I just...don't..."

I gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder, and even that made her flinch.

"I get it. Or Lia does, not sure who really gets the credit," I smiled at her. "You don't wanna be left alone with those thoughts, either."

She didn't agree, but she didn't have to. We just stood there awkwardly, casting long shadows over the gutter as a rivulet of blood made its way past our feet.

"Well I can't carry all of you," Tower added.

"How 'bout you just help Bob limp with your powers as best you can and we'll all ride him?"

"It's a deal," he said, Lia sliding off his shoulders as I had Bob stoop to pick us up. "But when we get close to the two of them, Lia and I are taking off to try to get her close."

"And I'll...dig through myself," AEGIS said, bitterly. "I'll start ripping out whatever code I need to, even if I don't have a system or backup. I can't keep functioning like this."

"Aren't you scared of hurting yourself? Sorry, that was Lia again. I don't care, obviously."

I met her eyes, and the look of helplessness inside of them. As a code-X, as an Exhuman, I was well aware of people who hated me, despite themselves. It was an ugly look, and one she'd been marinating in for too long now. She wanted all of us dead, without even a reason why.

"At this point, I'm more scared of hurting you guys," she sighed. "But everyone else here is willing to put themselves on the line...I have to try too. Let's just try to keep Bob steady while I work."

"I'll do what I can," Tower said, with all the reassurance he could muster.