“Fine—that’s all covered---but how are we gonna outrun a neighborhood collapsing on top of us?!” Maddie questioned.

“Keep running and hope we see something else to run on--!” Jackie, the responsible leader, responded.

“S-so no pitstops--?” Tracy whined out, a semi-joke. “N-no meetings—no place to just rest our legs—We haven’t met in a while after all--!”

“All the more reason to survive this time—” Jackie, gaining a bit more confidence despite still lagging behind.

“Guys guys guys guys guys--!” Aiko tried to warn, pointing forward, looking back, while running ahead. “The street corner’s coming up!”

Jackie tried to speed up, but felt the surge of pieces go out of control, forcing her to keep the pace. “Good! Is it stable, at least?!”

“No! It’s literally coming up--!”

Jackie looked up, and had to blink multiple times to gather what she was seeing.

A sectioned off-street corner, a neighborhood store outlining such in design, was hurling itself towards the street before them.

Now there were debris, dust clouds rolling the back of them and the front of them.

“BRACE YOURSELVES AND JUMP FORWARD--!” Jackie commanded.

As the dust covered the scene, she could only make sure that she makes it. Had to put trust into the others.

She ran towards the crush, hoping her damnest that she doesn’t run too far ahead, and jumped as high as her enhanced limbs could take her.

Luckily, as weird as it was to think about it, she felt the pull of the structure.

She let it take her, and as she heard the screams of Tracy not too far into the distance, Jackie surmised that it was at least possible for the rest to follow through.

Her legs locked for a bit once she landed, creating a light shockwave upon impact. Which made Jackie pause…

Confused, because Tracy’s screams indicated that she was near, she looked around and got her answer.

The corner was now divided into a multi-triangular shape. Jackie was on top, the others scattered across it’s new surface.

“THIS IS A SERIES—OF MISTAKES,” Tracy shouted behind Jackie.

“The fact that everything’s becoming a fractal…?” Jackie questioned, yelling a bit. “Or the fact that we’re in this mess to begin with--?”

“—Either way, this is bad!” River said from afar—maybe from the side. It was odd, hearing her shout, and possibly hard for her to shout, as she sounded stilted. “We’re getting to the point that things come part, crash into one another—there’s going to be a Shift spawned here if this keeps up!”

Jackie took out her phone in desperation, but it was already clear.

It was stuck. Hit it’s limit in operating in a Noumena space, as the screen flickered with the other data and programs she had up. Part of the screen was trying to display weather, the other was trying to render an ad, and the bottom was recording the bottom of her face as it formed a frown.

“Yep, can’t check if Extant is fucking it up or getting ready for that doomed party they’re throwing—” Jackie put it back in her pocket.

“Yeah, gonna borrow a quote from Goodwin—‘why are we here?’”

Maddie climbed up, struggling, but ultimately joining Jackie. “Why couldn’t we just leave? Get you and just bounce--?”

“Well, there’s still the terrible waves of cosmic death, Madison—“ Jackie pointed out.

“We can’t really quit and go home—home is at stake, here—” River answered, still awkwardly yelling.

“Guys, I’m willing to take lumps for being dumb as fuck—but this really isn’t the time, Jackson, what’s up--?” Maddie shouted.

Jackie looked down, ready to test her theory. She stomped down, causing another light ripple effect. She knew what to do.

“That’s how we cause the counter ripples—we slam into these places with everything we have—repeatedly, until something happens or we lose consciousness,” Jackie explained. “That’s all I have right now.”

“We’re gonna get swallowed up and stranded in some fucked up dimension again, aren’t we…” Maddie sighed.

A tangible, pregnant silence fell as soon as she voiced it. Jackie herself felt all of those buried emotions, kicked up from the depths of her being. Soon, she was surrounded by the memories made manifest.

She remembered the fear, running away as the ground she knew crumbled after they took their steps.

She felt her throat twinge in pain, as she remembered screaming at the fact that the fake sky above them began to crack as well.

Her mind pulse against her skull, as she realized that she was surrounded by various people that were out for themselves, realizing that they would’ve soon tore themselves apart than saving one another. The existential breakdown they had, the irony of going to get superpowers to survive the changing world only to fall into a terrible, surreal fate.

It took Aiko to voice what everyone felt right now.

“…Do you guys think we can do this again…?”

Jackie snapped out of her Mindscape, just looking around slowly.

“We’ve… Failed so much lately… Barely achieve the baseline level of a siVis user… And get messed up more than the general public… And even me, I nearly gave into that failure, and that would've killed me. What are we? What can we do…?”

Jackie looked down. Moved her lips in a grimace, as the pieces shifted with the motion.

“Let’s find out.”

Jackie jumped, slamming her weight back down. The kinetic energy transferred into the mess of ground, creating multiple, flashing ripples. She does it again, and again, knowing she doesn’t have much movement left until it really hurts.

“C’MON GIRLS!” Jackie screamed, commanded. “JUMP UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENS! IF WE FALL, AIM WITH YOUR FEET, ADD SIVIS TO IT AND LAND! KEEP IT GOING, AND WE’LL KEEP ON AS WE GO!”

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As she focused on her ripples, spreading out further and further, little by little, waves flowing in and out—she begun to see similar waves starting to grow.

“THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT!”

They all stomped, causing ripples to cover the entire structure, as it looked to physically waver from afar. The structure began to twitch, to shudder. And before they knew it, started to be battered down, falling slowly back down into what was once the ground.

They were too busy being launched back into the air.

It was sudden, the places where they stood shot off from the corner of the street, all of them landing wrong on their legs, causing each to fall down—Maddie on her side, River her back, Aiko fell face first, Tracy tried to save herself but landed on her knees due to her trying to curl up, and finally Jackie, slightly twisting her foot as she stiffened and bowed on one leg, right into their fragment of “earth”.

“Uh—WE’RE ALMOST THERE! JUST ONE MORE PUSH--!” Jackie rose to her feet, and heard the creaking from her body.

She forced herself to crouch down.

She forced all of the parts of her legs to click together.

Leaping up into the air, possibly a few feet up, Jackie then hardened her legs outward and straight. As she raced down, and then impacted the little ground she had left.

The rock was forced to sail back down into it’s place of origin—creating a flash of light that consumed Jackie, and without a second of thought or reaction, her vision became white as well.

***

“Jackie…! Jackie--! Oh good, you’re getting up! I was reconsidering my options again—”

The girl in question shook her head, rising it as she felt her cheek mold against… What was asphalt.

“Huk—” Jackie made noise, before she regained control. “Tracy, where are we…?”

“Good question!” Tracy, who was over her, turned behind herself. “Maddie, where are we--?”

“THE ALLIES DISTRICT!” the small girl shouted beyond Jackie’s sight.

That caused her to scramble upward, truly taking in her surroundings.

If there wasn’t a model contemporary suburb… Well, this place was definitely it. Rows of empty, but identical housing. Rust-colored rooftops, square-structured—pale-colored homes each with a porch, lawns that illustrated that they were on hills with green grass that somehow wasn’t tall or anything.

Rows, of the same repeating imagery. In front of Jackie and behind Jackie.

It was such a weird sight. And a sight that hurt Jackie, a little.

Maddie walked up to her. “Man. You got trapped, had to use siVis to keep yourself from getting fucked up, and had to guide us.”

She extended her small, olive-colored hand. “No wonder you passed out.”

Jackie smiled, grabbing the hand and hoisting herself up. “And the crying. Don’t forget the crying.”

“Eh,” the small girl turned away quickly, looking around. “That’s a low blow. Sure, don’t do it, but that’s like making fun of shit people can’t help. You’re a desperate, attention-hungry motherfucker for that. Someone to say clear off, definitely.”

“You sure know how to phrase things, Maddie…”

“Totally, it gets the point across,” Maddie rubbed under her nose with a finger, stopping. “Weird that we ended up here of all places… Remember the sheer amount of fuckery we had to do to find this place months ago? And we didn’t even managed that?”

“Like I said then…” River scrolled up, hands in her massive winter coat. Jackie realized by looking at it, that it stopped raining as well. “It all reads like a preteen’s understanding of what they think a tragicomedy is.”

Jackie looked around. “So, where’s Aiko--?”

“Kobayashi is trying to unlock one of the houses,” Maddie explained. “Like I said before when we were talking about it… These were basically a test run, Davenport trying to make ‘smart housing’ that has everything to it. Bills and shit a thing of the past because it’d be up to the owners to understand the house and access all the features. Lucky for us, we have an Asian-sized, Daredevil-ass cheat code sheet.”

“Right…” Jackie scratched her still street-imprinted cheek. “So you guys want to live in this…?”

“Might as well see what it’s like!” Maddie exclaimed. “We busted our asses trying to get here all that time ago, let’s see if it’s worth it.”

“A place without bills truly sounds like a future I can dream of…” Tracy said wistfully.

“A-and everything’s right again?” Jackie sounded tense. “The city isn’t Terminsys?”

“More or less,” River answered. “We don’t know if we helped or not, because we passed out too—but we all woke up here and we checked the news to see that yeah, everything is stabilized—they’re looking into it—and the conference is still on and they’ll report the findings there.”

More bait to virtually trap people. Yeah, that was the catch Jackie was searching for.

“OooOoh… It’s you girls…”

But it was hearing that, Jackie realized that alone wasn’t the other shoe that fell.

Tracy screamed and covered her mouth. Maddie’s eyes were wide, as she slowly backed away.

“Oh my God…” River said shakingly, gulping after the face.

Jackie turned on her heels, and saw the horror before her. A horror that was once a man.

He was a twisted existence. His arms were embedded in what used to be his chest, his hand that were just three prongs sprouted out of his shoulders. It was like he was wearing a shroud of plastic, but that was his skin. He didn’t really have legs, but a pathetic take of a snake’s tail.

But the head… The head was lopsided, spiking upward on the right. And surface was so cracked, it multiplied his eyes into many.

All of them, elation written all over.

Only the voice was recognizable.

“Turns out… I didn’t need you… I got all the power I wanted… Rid of my pathetic body…”

Jackie just shook her head. “Why did you do this, sir…?”

“You gave up your body to be a Shattered—you hate model ships that much, grandpa…?” Maddie tried to sound confident.

The man who used to be desperate like them, only chuckled at that remark. Glad that they recognized him from that night, glad that he wasn’t that gibbering, haggard breathing, middle-aged man anymore that ran from them when they told him the risks. He doesn’t care.

He twitched forward, slithering forward towards the scared teenagers. He suddenly shuddered and darted in the middle of all of them, spinning around with his body and whacking them with his tail.

It wasn’t about him being possibly more powerful. He was like the rest of the Shattered, they were more or less on par. But it was what he represented to each of them, all of them separately coming to the same, terrible conclusion.

The “fight” quickly got desperate. He leaned over a down Maddie, as she struggled to keep him off. Tracy was too overwhelmed at the image of the man, that she just shut down, her mouth still covered with trembling hands. River was going to activate her ability, but decided against it when she realized he could thrive in it. The girl in the glasses threw herself into the fray, trying to peel him back but lacking the strength to do it, even with siVis.

Jackie’s body was still aching. It was still damaged. She already used her last boone of defense.

But she had to do something.

She raced over, and yanked the Shattered man from the back.

In the process, her siVis outlined and illustrated pulling her muscles within her arms, causing the girl to scream out in bloodcurdling pain.

It wasn’t even enough.

He was pulled away, but he tugged to the right to turn around, facing Jackie while her arms dangled at her sides.

Aiko rushed in from nowhere, and was promptly thrown into the side of the street, causing her to roll.

Jackie felt the muscles twinging, beating with pain. Her vision was swimming with the rapid heartbeat. Everyone else wasn’t remotely better in their respective states. Once again, after doing something terribly hard that required all of their energy to work, they instantly get rushed by the outside world. A reminder that they always have to keep going.

Even someone like them. They still fell behind.

PERSPECTIVE FLIP!

The Shattered Man was flung forward onto his belly, due to the brave efforts of Tracy from afar.

Using the moment, Jackie rushed over and threw herself on top of him.

He screamed and writhed, but Jackie knew that all she needed to do, was to wait.

She found her friends pile on, despite it taking a while. They just laid there, using their bodies against the gross husk.

A Shattered lacked the internal structure that siVis came with. Foundation with a glass flooring. Hence the term. Sometimes, like the ones they've fought before--their metastructure were too foreign, too odd to use this against them effective.

After a while, he stopped moving. And under them, they all felt him slowly crack into crystal. Unstable siVis, and a sudden but constant stop.

A fate that they all could’ve shared, not so long ago.

They all slowly got up, each with a face of disgust, fear. Hollowness.

Jackie wanted to say something. Wanted to say how this was a sign, how they needed to figure things out right now, or end up doing something as desperate like this. How they need to look out for each other, not just to check her from getting into her feelings, but checking the others. How they’re truly alone, as they straddle this line of capable and mundane.

But there wasn’t anything to say right now.

Jackie grabbed her arm, throbbing within her ruined cast.

They needed to rest. They needed to heal for once.

Aiko led the way, everyone followed her into the new house. The only gift they’ve recently gained, from these days of nothing.