Stretch got shot.

It didn't come as much of a surprise, at least in retrospect. In the moment, yes, he'd been rather shocked, seeing as he'd never been shot before. But later, as he crouched beside Roman and used his Trick to push the bullet out his shoulder, Stretch figured it made sense for everyone else to start targeting him. Out of everyone in the garden, he was the only one going around hitting people with absurdly long noodle limbs. They'd likely thought, 'Hey, it's another one of those weirdos! Kill that guy!' All things considered, Stretch couldn't even blame them.

Still, it hurt. He sucked air through clenched teeth as the round popped out of his skin and bounced to a stop on the ground beneath. Used cartridges littered the lawn, hollow cylinders of bronze and yellow metal joined by specks of blood. It was pretty in a messed up kind of way, bright colors twinkling in the daylight. Almost hypnotic.

A hand came into view, and Stretch heard the finger-snapping with the abruptness of an alarm clock.

"Stay with me!" Roman was saying, now kneeling in front of him. The man's dark face was drawn into an upset scowl, stress and determination lining his face. "You'll be fine, hear me? Just stay awake!"

Stretch blinked, took a sharp breath, and as he did the whole world came back into focus. The sound of bullets pattered at his ears like rain in a storm, and he smelled again the refuse of graphite, burning metal pungent and heavy in the air. His shoulder, once numb, now sparked into pain.

Good, he thought, pressing down on the wound. The pain was strong, but it kept his eyes open. "I can keep going," he gasped. "Hold on—"

"You're done!" Roman said, pressing Stretch down against the bush they hid behind. Around them, some of Roman's crew peeked out with weapons at the ready, shooting back at the gunfire piercing through toward them. "You could barely move as it was. Last thing I need is your blood on my hands, on top of everyone else's."

He didn't say it, but Stretch caught the meaning of his words: You are a liability. Setting his jaw, Stretch forced down his immediate impulse to argue, to complain, to recklessly endanger himself even further. Instead, with great difficulty, he plunged himself into the mind of a Ranger and assessed the situation as objectively as possible.

His back was still paralyzed, one of his hands refused to work, and now his other hand was held back by a shoulder he could barely move without flinching. Only his legs still worked at more or less peak efficiency, and though he could stretch them out in any direction he wished they would be unwieldy to use without the rest of his body behind them. Most likely he'd just end up getting bungling things in his attempts to help.

You helped split Owl and Hound up, he thought to himself. You got Vincent away from Kitty. Stretch had already done plenty, he knew that in his head, but it still felt like a cheap contribution. Especially with Red and Kitty both in there still, facing off against the real dangers. Just like the week before with those wind sprites, he simply wasn't good enough to be counted on when the chips were down.

But this wasn't the time to think about it. Stretch swallowed down the melancholy—an increasingly familiar feeling these days—and refocused on the present. Looking around the bush, he took stock of the battle lines and saw that Emma and Yovanni were on their left, somewhere behind the gazebo, while Agrivon and his people had positioned themselves just before the east wing exit across the garden.

"Where's Donny?" he asked. "He should've met up with us by now."

Roman shook his head, eyes on the gunfight. "He might already be out here somewhere, or maybe he got caught up with something inside. I don't know."

A worrisome thought, and not only because Donny had become something of a friend after the past week. Scarlet's ring was still in his possession; who knew what their enemies might do with it should they happen to find out about it?

"We should try to push through," Roman said, mostly to himself. "I don't want to kill Yovanni, but if we could capture him somehow..."

A desperate move, but Stretch couldn't blame him. Even if Yovanni and Agrivon's crews came after each other as much as they did Roman's, that still left them outnumbered. The way things were going, they'd need a miracle to get through the ordeal.

Just then, two things happened at the same time.

The first came from the east wing, with two tangled bodies shooting crashing out through a window and falling several stories onto the garden. Kitty and Owl, Stretch recognized. They landed on one of the lion-shaped shrubs along the mansion wall, crushing it in a crunch of foliage.

From the west wing also came a pair of bodies—Red and Vincent—though in this case the former carried the latter on his shoulder. And, as they flew through their window, a great explosion ripped through the air behind them. It blew out every other window in their vicinity, surrounding them with an avalanche of dust, rubble, and broken glass. When they landed, it was on Red's solid feet atop the stone path that snaked around the garden.

The shooting stopped as everyone turned to see these new arrivals, or more specifically the trail of destruction they'd left in their wake. Yovanni and Emma looked at Vincent as Red lay the man broken on the ground, noticing the grave wound on his stomach. Agrivon turned to see the two girls lying on the grass behind him, both groaning in pain and struggling to find their feet. Their crews glanced from one spectacle to the other, guns held tentatively before them, unsure who was on whose side. Even Roman, more aware than most of what was happening, stood uncertain.

Only Stretch, already well into his Ranger's mind, saw the opportunity for what it was. He hissed up at Roman, kicking down with his heel. "It's your chance, man! If you're gonna do something, do it now!"

Roman glanced down at him, saw the intensity on Stretch's face, and with a start realized he was right. For the first time since this battle had started, all its combatants had been shocked out of their bloodlust. Soon that shock would subside and the fight would return, but for now they had one brief pause in which their runaway enmity could be taken hold of.

"Everyone, listen to me!" Roman shouted, his voice carrying over the fading echo of the explosion. "That girl you see there, that's your assassin! We've caught her! Don't let her get away!"

Agrivon's men were closest, and Roman saw their obvious reluctance. They glanced at each other, some silent decision communicating between their eyes, before finally a few broke from the rest of their group and went for Kitty and Owl both. The girls, still too stunned to fight back, were pressed down and rendered immobile.

Roman was about to shout a command, but then he and Agrivon shared a glance of their own. It was a quick thing, an instance of shrewd recognition, and in it Roman saw he had nothing more to worry about. Fighting down his relief, Roman boldly strode toward the other man, crossing the garden and garnering a tense regard from everyone else, each unencumbered step through this crowd serving to tame them. Authority surged from him as he passed, a weight borne of decisive action in this moment of indecision, and Roman felt, as he was sure the others did, that he now became a ship in troubled shores whose calming wake the others would feel compelled to follow.

That feeling, rough at first, smoothed over once he passed Agrivon and the other man stumbled back from his path. Don't play it up so much, Roman thought, but most of the attention was on the cuffed Magician girls, both of whom tried in vain to push back against the men holding them down.

"Let the black-haired one go," Roman said, voice strong.

Agrivon's men looked to their leader, saw the nervous quiet in him, and so given no other anchor did as they were told. Kitty remained on the ground as they released her, her wrist linked to Owl's by the thin Talisman cuff she'd carried all this time, too weak to do much more than let out a wracking cough. The fight had taken a lot out of her, it seemed, and there'd be no healing the damage as long as she was bound.

Roman turned to face the others in the garden, finding their eyes already fixed on him. He saw Yovanni cringing beside a terse Emma, and knew the other man had already realized the same thing he had: everyone now waited for an explanation, some resolution to their fighting, and Roman would be the one to give it.

"This girl," he said, gesturing down at Kitty, "is one of mine. Some of you remember her. She's a specialist I hired, one with the same powers that our assassin used to kill so many of us. I'm sure you've been told that I was behind that assassin, that I was the reason all this was happening, but the truth is that from the start I've been trying to solve this problem. As you can see, the assassin is caught. She's ours!"

At first, silence. Then, spontaneously, one of his own men pumped a fist in the air and let out a sharp cheer. Roman smiled as others joined in it, more and more falling into the relish of victory as they saw the truth in his words, saw the girl who'd occupied their nightmares brought down to heel, knee planted hard against her back and arms held roughly down.

"And the other one?!" Emma shouted, steadily recognizing where the power in the air was shifting. "That gun-toting maniac, what about him?!"

Roman turned his smile on her. "I'm glad you asked," he said, enjoying the quiver of her lip. Turning to Red, he gestured with only a little flair. "This boy is another one of mine. Well, Red, where's Hound now?"

It was a calculated risk, because Roman didn't know for certain that Hound had been dealt with and so could only guess based on his distinct absence. Red, distracted by the bleeding Vincent lying beside him, frowned up at the man.

"What? Oh." Red looked around pointedly at the swirling mass of pages that now fell like singed leaves from the hole in the library. "That guy just blew himself up."

"So he's dead?"

"Uh, probably? When's the last time you saw someone blow themselves up and walk it off?" The boy glanced at the people around him, putting pressure on Vincent's wound. "Look, who cares? Can someone please help me stop this guy from dying now? I have no idea what I'm doing."

A bit snidely put, but his report still had the intended effect. More cheers, a mix of joy and exhaustion. The anger that had driven them had been real, but anger took far too much energy to sustain, and when combined with the physical exertion they'd all been put through it burnt up into embers at the first opportunity.

Kitty watched it happen from her place on the ground, just now climbing up to her knees. It was impressive how quickly Roman had spun things, though now she had more important things to worry about. Her ankle was killing her, and her throat felt like she'd swallowed a bucket of sand, but it wasn't hard to shove the pain aside once she saw how Owl was getting treated. Just beside her, the other girl was practically suffocating under the weight of Agrivon's men, pale face turning blue.

"Roman!" Kitty rasped catching the man's gaze. She sent a tired look at Owl, then glanced back with pleading eyes.

Jaw tight, Roman gave a sharp nod. "That's enough," he told the men. "I don't want the assassin dead, yet. Let my specialist contain her for now."

A strange order for mercy, considering how much blood Owl had spilled, and it strained against the carefully constructed air of command Roman had cast over them. Still, that air was just thick enough to manage it. The men stood grudgingly, unhanding Owl and stepping back, though not without spitting on her gasping form for good measure.

Kitty shuffled close and helped Owl sit up. The other girl heaved as she did, lungs filling greedily, so taken up by the need to breathe that she didn't react when Kitty reached up to wipe the spit and grime from her cheek.

"Hey," Kitty muttered, voice shaky. The fight had stopped, but she still felt full of adrenaline. While Roman's goal had been all but achieved, hers still felt just out of reach. "Are you alright?"

Owl recovered enough not to slap the helping hand away. "You don't have the right to ask me that," she hissed.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have the right to say that either."

"No, I'm... I'm sorry about back then." Kitty stared directly into Owl's eyes, no longer looking for some emotion within them. She'd push instead, fill those eyes with her own. "You were right. I did abandon you. I didn't know if I'd ever get another chance to leave, so I took it when I could. But I shouldn't have. Everything I have now, it wasn't worth it if you couldn't have the same."

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Owl shook her head and tried standing, but her arm tugged on Kitty's and she stumbled back down. She'd forgotten they were cuffed together. "You're full of nonsense."

"Not about this." Kitty breathed deeply, closing her eyes. "You showed me what it was like to have a sister. A real one, not the lie Father always talked about. Isn't there anything I can do to convince you I'm being honest when I say... when I say that I love you?"

Still shaking her head, Owl avoided her gaze. It seemed a conscious effort. "I already told you, love isn't real. People only care about themselves. This feeling you have, it's just your pride."

Her eyes hardened then, and a desperate sort of insistence tinged her impassive face. This truth had gotten her through all those years, Kitty realized. Betrayed and alone, she'd needed to believe there was some reason for it. She'd survived the House, survived Father, survived the lack of a future, all through her resolution that there could not have been anything better. To avoid disappointment, she'd destroyed her faith in anyone or anything else.

"When it really matters, they'll leave," Owl whispered. "You get to say all this trash because your side won. If you were in real danger, if it was you or me, you'd choose you. We would all choose ourselves."

Was it really hopeless? Kitty was spent, all her words used up, and the more she crashed into the fortress Owl had built the less faith she had in herself. Who was she, really, to be talking about love and trust? Who was she to try and pull someone else out of that void when her own feelings always came so slowly, when her own impulse was always to see even those she cared for as obstacles in her path?

A commotion across the garden interrupted her spiraling thoughts. Kitty and Owl both looked up to see Vincent up on his feet, belly wrapped up with the shredded remains of his own coat, one hand held against his wound and the other gripping his silver gun tight by his side, shoving his way through the goons all around them.

"There you are," he seethed. "Finally, I got the both of ya right where I want ya!"

Roman, who'd been coordinating the beginnings of a cleanup effort, paced toward them. "Hold on, you can't—"

"Shut up, civvy." Vincent let out a strained breath and pointed at the pin on his chest. "See this? I'm an agent of the Ranger Corp's Bureau of Enforcement, god dammit! You get in my way, you're gettin' in the way of the goddamn United States government. Whether ya like it or not, I'm not lettin' these two monsters get away from me." He raised his voice, and it boomed far louder than his bedraggled state should've been capable of. Hatred powered him now. Hatred and righteous fury. "I'm warnin' all of ya that I'm an agent of the state! I've been lookin' the other way so far, but anyone here stupid enough to get in my way now'll bring the hammer down on this whole operation!"

He pushed past Roman and went to stand in front of the bound girls, glaring murder down at them all the while. "Look at that. Already cuffed yourselves too. Makes my job easier." He raised his gun.

"W-Wait a minute."

Vincent didn't turn, but he knew the voice well enough by now. Red hopped on one leg behind him, the other barely strong enough to use as a peg as he came closer.

"Y'know, it's not nice to cheat," Red said. He'd actually been worried about the guy too, and then out of nowhere his leg had gotten shot and paralyzed. Some demon had taken over Vincent the moment he set eyes on Kitty and Owl from across the garden, enough that whatever camaraderie they'd built throughout their battle had dissolved like salt in water. "Put that gun down, dude. Stop being an asshole already."

Easygoing in the face of danger. It was the kind of thing that usually caught people off guard, but Vincent wouldn't get distracted. "Don't come any closer, kid. I mean it."

Red hopped again. "Look, we can talk about—"

Vincent shot Red in the chest, the beam slipping near his heart. The boy tumbled to the ground and smacked against it face-first, hard enough that Roman and Kitty both drew forward before Vincent raised his gun again.

"These two might look like a couple little girls," Vincent said, setting his gun back on them. "But don't be fooled! They're killers even beyond anythin' you think you've seen!"

"Owl is one thing," Roman started. "But Kitty—"

"Both of 'em!" Vincent stressed. "Oh, I don't doubt this one's done her best to convince you otherwise. That's what they do, mister. They trick ya, they pretend, and then right when you let your guard down they stab ya in the back! I saw that girl right there..." He let go of his wound and pointed at Kitty with a hand covered in drying blood. "I saw her look me right in the eye and slit an innocent woman's throat! She's a remorseless killer just like the other one, and what they deserve is proper justice!"

Kitty looked at this man, stared first at the gun he pointed at her and then at the expression on his face. Vindication, rage, and sorrow all lined his face, seeping down from his sharp brow to his protruding chin. He planned to kill her here and now, she realized. Judge, jury, and executioner had finally sought her out.

She turned to glance at Owl, and saw the other girl looking back at her. Face still expressionless, a silent message nevertheless crossed that short distance. See? It all came back for us eventually. There is no way out.

No way out. Kitty nodded, finding that she could accept that. As Scarlet had said, this was always going to happen one way or the other. She glanced around at the ragged and injured people around her, finding nothing but the refuse of violence in these last moments, and thought that if this was the justice she deserved then it was probably better than she should've come to expect.

Eyes passing Stretch, she saw the young man laying limply on the ground, eyes wide and face paled as he looked back at her. He seemed to strain against himself, trying to climb up to his feet and help, but it was clear that he could hardly so much as sit himself up. Kitty nodded at him, face set in a mask of reassurance, telling him without words that things were alright.

Closing her eyes, she heard Vincent pull back the hammer on his gun. It had been enough, those years in the Roxbury Outpost. Even this, kneeling beside Owl, was enough. At least, in the end, she'd have those memories. Fleeting as they were, they'd been hers.

"What—God damn kid!"

Kitty snapped her eyes open, looking down to see that Red had crawled over and grabbed Vincent's ankle. The Enforcer tried shaking off the weak grip, kicking down at Red's head with his other foot, but the boy held on despite the loud sound of failing lungs.

"Stop..." Red grit his teeth as Vincent's heel crashed again and again down on his face. "Won't... let you!"

"Didn't you hear a single word I said?!" Vincent said, foot coming up and down with relentless force. "You're defending a murderer! Don't you understand that?!"

"Maybe... I don't understand," Red wheezed. One of his eyes bulged purple, and his lip was split. "Maybe you're right... about how Kitty was back in the day."

"Then let go!"

"No. See, I don't care about the past." Red turned his head up at Vincent. "The only thing I need to trust... is what I can see with my own eyes. And the Kitty I see now is someone who always wants to do right by the people she c-cares about. You ask me... that's a pretty awesome way to be!"

Vincent stopped kicking and pointed his gun down at Red's head. His voice now was deadly, all the anger and resentment of five years seeping through a threadbare containment. "You know my Moonshooter blows through Spirit, kid. What d'ya think happens when I go for the Spirit in your brain? Wanna try your hand at undoin' that?!"

Red looked past the gun and at Vincent's face. Face a mess, leg and chest paralyzed, too tired to push his Spirit through the holes in his soul, he grinned. "I might not know much... but I do know that the justice you're talking about's a load'a junk. I k-know that what the Kitty of today really deserves is someone who'll stick by her no matter what. So pull the trigger, douchebag." His grip around Vincent's ankle tightened. "I won't give up... and I won't regret a single bit of what happens next."

Hand steady, Vincent kept the gun aimed right at Red's forehead. Again that feeling came between them. A meeting of minds, of souls, brought about by the strain of their battle. He felt Vincent's determination, his drive for revenge. A deep pit of feeling, one that sucked in everything else like a black hole.

But that was fine. Red had faced his own share of darkness. He met Vincent's eyes easily, held them with the knowledge that death was not something to fear if met well. He'd had fun, he'd made memories, and now he felt something new. A responsibility. Whatever it took, he would deserve his friends. Kitty had taught him the value in that, and it was only fair that he pay her back for it.

The steadiness in Vincent's hand slackened. Looking around he saw that Roman had not stayed still. Despite his warnings, the other man had silently directed the goons around them to hold their guns at the ready. It seemed, after everything, they were no longer afraid of a lone Magician even if he claimed to hold official power.

Had Red banked on this? Looking down at the boy, finding his grin still in place, Vincent decided that no, he hadn't expected it. He'd been ready to die, and perhaps that had inspired the others. If a boy could be this brave, why shouldn't they?

Clicking his tongue, Vincent drew the gun back, spinning it around his finger and stuffing it back in its holster. When he pulled his foot up, Red let go without trouble. "You're lucky, kid. You're real lucky."

Blinking, Red pushed himself up to see Vincent start walking away. The goons opened a path, more than happy to give him space, all simply watching nervously as he made his way back toward the mansion. Each limping step tapped loudly against the garden's stone path.

Right before the door, Vincent turned to look back at Kitty. Hand raising, he pointed a finger at her. "Don't forget me, girl. One of these days, I'm comin' back for your head."

And that was it. Vincent stepped into the mansion, disappearing through one of its big doors, leaving silence in his wake.

In that silence, Kitty glanced at Owl, too tired now for relief. But she saw that the other girl's focus was on Red, a strange intensity that seemed to pierce through the usual stoicism. In her grey eyes, Kitty saw to her amazement a dull yet burgeoning glitter.

Well, maybe that made sense. Kitty looked at Red too, and for a moment panicked once she saw him lying still on the ground with his eyes closed. But his chest heaved, a soft breath coming and going. He'd managed to repair his Spirit enough to fix his lungs, and had then fallen asleep immediately after. Right in the middle of what had been a warzone.

Kitty shook her head. "Idiot," she said, the word coming out fondly despite herself.

"Are you all finally done?!"

Turning, Kitty saw the Syndicate Don Sergei Volante getting rolled through the crowd of goons by Luther, both old men looking around in horrified awe at the destruction around them. It was surreal to see them there now, particularly in how clean they looked compared to everyone else.

"Look at what you've done!" Sergei said, looking at Roman. "My god, I knew it would get bad, but this." He pointed at the west wing, which still smoked with the aftermath of its explosion. "Do you realize how much this will cost me?"

Roman, to his credit, recovered quickly enough. "You mean how much it'll cost me."

"You think I can really let you lead this organization after all this chaos?" Sergei held a hand up to his forehead, looking down at the bodies that littered the garden grounds. "Nevermind me. How will anyone else accept it?"

"First, by proving I had nothing to do with starting this war to begin with." Roman looked at Owl now, the first time he'd done so since the girl's capture. "Assassin, your mission's failed. Tell us, who really hired you?"

Owl blinked, the small glitter in her eyes fading as she came back to herself. Idly, she searched the crowd of suited men and women before pointing at a figure slinking away at its edges. "That man did."

Everyone turned to Agrivon, who now froze in place. Those around him stepped back as if he were diseased, and he sputtered at finding himself suddenly surrounded. Looking around, he tried meeting their growing anger with his own, turning to his father.

"Are you really going to believe a cold-blooded murderer over your own son?" he asked, stomping toward the older man

Crewmen—some of them his own—blocked his path. Behind their stocky builds he saw Sergei's face, saw the betrayal that seemed to fill those aged wrinkles, but most of all saw the lack of surprise.

"Dad?" Agrivon stepped forward again, but now the crewmen grabbed him. He struggled against their grasp, growing more and more desperate. "Dad! I did what I had to do, don't you see that?! I did it for our family!"

"Not our family," Sergei said, voice hollow. "Not anymore, my foolish son."

"Take him away," Roman said, not bothering even to look as he gave the order. "I'll deal with him later."

"Dad!" Agrivon kept shouting, pushing fruitlessly against the mass of goons that now dragged him away. "This isn't right! I did it for the family! I did everything for the family!"

Sergei shook his head throughout it all, as if dispensing with the words. Hands held behind his back Roman now turned to Yovanni and Emma standing tensely nearby.

"I believe," Roman said, "that you and I had something of a misunderstanding, Yovanni. Of course, I see that you acted only for the good of the Syndicate."

The two stared at each other, threat and comprehension passing between them.

"Of course," Yovanni said, voice demure. "An honest mistake on my part."

Roman nodded and stepped away toward Sergei. As he did, Emma grabbed Yovanni by the arm and hissed into his ear. "What are you doing?" she asked. "You're just giving up?"

"There's nothing left to give up," he said drily. "We lost, Em. Our freak bailed on us, and the entire basis for our side crumbled the moment Agri turned out to be at fault. There's no convincing our people to keep fighting now. We're lucky Roman's being so forgiving."

"Forgiving?" Emma glared at the dark-skinned man whispering to Sergei. "There's not one forgiving bone in that guy's body."

Yovanni glanced at the bodies that surrounded them, finding plenty of his crew among the dead. "Maybe you're right. But I'd rather take the pretense of forgiveness right now. It'll be better than what happens later."

Emma looked down with him, and the fire in her dampened. He was right, damn him. They'd lost, and they'd lost big time. Roman was being all nice now, but he wouldn't forget what they'd tried. "What do we do?" she whispered.

Sighing, Yovanni offered her his elbow. "We do the only thing we can, my dear. We attend this wedding, and hope the champagne after is on the strong side."

The ceremony that followed wasn't long, and it wasn't particularly joyful. There had been too much death, too many hurt feelings and stressors, too much shock in the system. But in the end, Roman Jackson and Alainne Volante were married, a union of duty and ambition. Those who attended could only hope that the day's events were not indicative of the hands their Syndicate had been left in.