When Mia hit the ground hard, I wasn’t far behind her.

She let out a cry of pain when I tumbled over her. My body crumpled on solid concrete with aches and pains flaring across my body. Exhaustion hit me like a freight train, and I could feel my eyes threatening to close. It would have been so easy to close my eyes and welcome sleep, but I forced myself to sit up and look around. We were shrouded in darkness, and if it weren’t for the glowing green lights on my suit, it would be impossible to see anything.

“Mia?”

“I’m here,” she groaned. “I think I broke something.”

I heard her shifting around in the darkness. Above us, snarling and vicious roars echoed. It sounded like some kind of dog, but whatever had hit me was far too large for that. I had caught it out of the corner of my eye before being knocked down the ladder – it was a monstrous beast that towered over me, much like Anomaly.

“Any idea what?” I asked, hoping that it wasn’t her leg. We needed to keep moving because I had no idea if that monster would be able to find a way down, and I didn’t want to find out. “Can you move?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s my arm… and my shoulder I think. It hurts.”

Broken bones tend to do that.

“Sorry,” I grunted. “But we’ve gotta move. We can’t stay here.”

“I-I know,” she hissed in pain as I heard more shuffling. “I’m trying to but I can’t see a damn thing. Does that suit of yours have a flashlight by any chance?”

“No,” I replied, squashing her hopes. “But I do have a night vision setting.”

I switched the vision module, my visor lighting up and illuminating the surroundings. We were in a concrete room with only one way out into the storm drains. It wasn’t the first time I had been forced into the sewers to escape, and a part of me doubted it would be the last.

“Okay, you can lead then. I’ll see if I can get one of my statues somewhere safe so I can swap.”

I stood and limped over to Mia, shaking off my daze. I helped her to her feet, ensuring I didn’t grab her injury. It was pretty clear which side it was on, given her hand was gently clasping her wounded shoulder while the arm attached to it hung limply. No bones had broken through the skin, so at least she wasn’t bleeding.

“You still have statues in the lab, right?” I asked.

“You asked me to move the equipment there back to the apartment,” Mia said. “I could switch to one of them, but that monster is still close by,” she tilted her head up to observe where we had fallen from. The snarling and howling had stopped, but I wasn’t in any rush to go up to see if the Morpher was still there. From the looks of it, neither was she. “I’m too scared to test that theory.”

“A last resort then,” I said. “If it chases us down here, you can switch to one of them to get away.”

“And leave you down here to fight it all by yourself?” Mia replied incredulously. “It’ll kill you!”

“It can try,” I shrugged. “I’d have better chances if you’re not in the way – not to discredit you, of course,” I said, trying not to hurt her feelings. She didn’t look offended, though she was probably more focused on her injury to care. “I just wouldn’t want to blow you up by accident.”

Having to explain that to Anomaly would not go over well.

“Yeah…” Mia sighed. “That makes sense.”

We pushed on through the darkness. Mia kept a hand on my shoulder so she wouldn’t lose her way, but her injury was still giving her grief. I wouldn’t blame her for regretting getting involved. Honestly, there was a small part of me that regretted it as well.

The dull thuds of gunshots and explosions above us started to become more numerous, and despite the impending danger that I assumed was following us, I could feel my adrenaline fade away. Soon, my body would simply collapse under the exhaustion.

“I need a moment,” I said, slowing to a halt. I guided us to another room that led to another hatch. It was still too close to where we entered, so I didn’t want to risk going up. If the Morpher is as fast as I suspected, it would take seconds to arrive here. We needed to keep moving to buy time for a plan. “Just need a minute to uh… rest.”

I found the nearest wall and leaned against it. To my surprise, I collapsed under my weight and hit the ground. I groaned but didn’t move to get back up. I’d take any form of respite I could get at this point. The night was just beginning, and Grim had yet to show his face. Maybe he was already fighting? It’s not like his power was flashy, so I had no way of knowing.

There was only one thing I knew with certainty. If there was still fighting, then Grim had yet to claim victory.

“I don’t blame you,” Mia said, finding a spot at my side. She was slower to sit down on the account of her busted shoulder. “You’ve had a rough day.”

“Something like that,” I sighed wearily. “We’re all in for something bad tonight.”

We fell into silence with the booming echoes of violence above us to keep us company. I tried to regulate my breathing, but slowly, I felt my eyelids grow heavy. I wanted so badly to close my eyes and drift off. The only thing that stopped me from giving in was the possibility of being ripped to shreds while I slept. I couldn’t afford to let my guard down, not here, and especially not right now. I just needed to hold a little bit longer.

Unfortunately, my will was not strong enough because I slipped out of consciousness, awoken only by the blinking lights that grabbed my attention. In my attempt to blink away the sleep and drowsiness, I found that my software had finally broken through Splicer’s security. In our panic to escape, I had forgotten that my suit was still connected and had been this whole time.

I laughed, but it only came out as a pained cough.

“It’s done. I’ve broken through Splicer’s security,” I murmured. “I can set those kids free now.”

One by one, I switched off the systems imprisoning the three children. I couldn’t physically see what was happening, but the stream of code I was reading told me they should be safe to remove. Craning my neck, I turned to see Mia staring at me, her eyes glittering with hope and astonishment.

“Can you get them out?” I asked.

Mia groaned a little, clearly as exhausted as I was.

“Give me a minute, I have another few statues on the way.” Minutes later, she spoke again, this time sounding more uplifted. “Okay, I’ve got them out and wrapped them in some towels from the store below the lab. I’ll take them to the nearest hospital. The doctors should know what to do.”

“Even if they don’t, they’ll get them to people who can,” I replied evenly.

I felt good about that. Those kids would be safe and would receive treatment for the trauma they experienced. It might take a while, but children were always a top priority for the ECU. Whether or not they ended up joining the ECU or returning to their regular lives didn’t matter to me. The only thing that mattered was that they lived.

“Yeah… yeah,” I could practically hear her smile. “We actually saved people! Those kids, they’re going to be alright because of us,” I felt her relax next to me as a low chuckle escaped her throat. “I… never thought I’d be able to make a difference. I-I’ve always heard about all the horrible things that happen and hated that I couldn’t do anything about it.”

I could see where she was getting at. It did feel good to make a difference – to have done a good deed. Those kids would probably never know it, but they were alive because of us.

“It’s an interesting feeling, knowing that you have power most people will never have,” I noted idly. “I think… outside of rescuing you, those kids are the first people I’ve actually helped.”

“Really?” Mia sounded surprised.

My thoughts immediately drifted to Mom, my mood souring. By now, I could’ve gotten her walking or – better yet – fixed her condition entirely. My selfishness had prevented me, and now here I was in a damp, dark sewer, sitting with an injured girl three years my senior, hiding from a monster out to kill us.

God, what I wouldn’t give to go back for a complete do-over.

The thought had my guts twisting themselves in knots. Was it doubt or regret I was feeling?

If I really could, would I? I never would have met Sam, Liam, and Mia. Under different circumstances, I could see the possibility that I would have, eventually. I could see myself running into Alice and Anomaly, though the context of those situations varied and didn’t make much sense. Maybe… Maybe I wouldn’t have met them at all. If I told Mom and Alex everything from the start, I could only imagine them insisting I don’t use my powers.

I could hear their unspoken words echoing inside my head: ‘If you use your powers, you will draw attention to yourself.’

The thought of them asking me to restrict the use of my powers would be like asking a child not to buy candy in a candy store. I wouldn’t be able to do it. Just like Sam had said, eventually, someone would find out, and trouble would find me regardless.

Mia would still be rotting in Splicer’s lab, and the kids we just saved would be at the mercy of The Cains. What else would I have neglected if I had stayed home and used my powers on my mother?

“No,” I answered truthfully. “I’ve been focused on staying alive and making sure the team’s stable. I haven’t had the time to consider anyone else.”

“That’s…” I could tell she wanted to say selfish, and to her credit, she would be right. “I can get that. You have to make sure you can keep yourself safe before thinking of others, right?” She didn’t sound like she believed her own words. “Hmm, doesn’t sound right saying that. I’ve um… always been a bit of a bleeding heart. I suppose that’s why I didn’t go straight to the ECU after you guys saved me.”

“You didn’t want to turn in Liam.”

I didn’t need her to clarify. She had a history with Liam while Sam and I were strangers. If she had gone to the ECU, she would’ve thrown all of us to the wolves. Liam had been the only reason Mia hadn’t done that in the first place. She probably also thought she owed us as well.

“His sister tutored me so I spent a lot of time around him some years ago. He has a bit of a crush on me I think.”

“You think?” I gave her a skeptical look, which she obviously couldn’t see through the darkness and my helmet. “He was fixated on saving you, so I just assumed you two were close. I didn’t get the impression he felt that way about you.”

“He admitted it to me at the party, before I was kidnapped.”

I bet Gold picked up on that on our first meeting with him. That means I wasn’t too far off on the ‘emotional manipulation’ comment after all.

She hadn’t even said a word about it either. Mia probably considered it useless information in my hands, and she wasn’t wrong. If the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t want her spreading my private thoughts around.

“Right.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Sorry, I’m just making conversation,” Mia muttered. “I hate the silence and all the fighting has got me anxious.”

“I get it,” I said. “After my first fight I got home and the first thing I did was make some equipment. I couldn’t keep still, but I’ve gotten to the point now where it’s just tiring, talking is actually keeping me awake.”

Mia chuckled. “Yeah, I bet after all that crap you went through today you’re about ready to crash.”

“I shouldn’t even be here,” I admitted, feeling a sting of guilt. “I should be home with my mom, making sure she’s safe. I have no business getting involved in all this shit. None of us do. We’re too young for this crap, should’ve just left it to the people with experience.”

“I’m not much of a history buff, but this is hardly the first time young people have gotten involved in conflicts,” Mia mused. “All the World Wars, civil wars. Really, any conflict has people our age getting involved. It’s just… powers have made us more valuable, able to do more damage.”

She noticed my silence and read my thoughts exactly.

“It’s not your fault you know.”

“I wish I could believe that,” I sighed, resting my head against the wall. “Really, I do. If Abby and I hadn’t gotten so eager I’d probably be at home relaxing. We just had to go inside the house because we just had to know.”

In truth, Abby had been the one to insist on going inside, but I couldn’t claim any innocence. I had followed her inside, which all led to our current predicament.

“But it’s like you said. We have power that most people don’t. You were just trying to check if your friend was okay,” Mia said in my defense. “I think that gives us a bit of responsibility. Sa– I mean Alice. I get what she wants to do and a part of me even understands it but… just how far will she go to get it? It drives her. Liam… he’s just going along with the flow. But you…? I don’t know what you want out of all this.”

“Me?” I asked, slightly perplexed. “You’ve talked to the others about this?”

“I wanted to get a better idea of what I was getting into,” Mia explained. “You caught a bit of it the other day when you were worried about your friend. I’ve had a few conversations with them in private while you were busy upstairs in your… workspace.”

“Oh,” I said flatly. That all made enough sense.

“So?” Mia asked, curious. “What are you in this for? You were more than happy to go along with what Alice was saying earlier about territory and all that crap, but is that what you actually want?”

“That's an oddly personal question,” I observed with a plain tone. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’ve gotten to know S– Alice over the last week and I’m already caught up with Liam— sorry, Anomaly,” she rubbed the bridge of her nose in annoyance. “That’s going to take some getting used to, but you get where I’m going with this.”

“You just want to know more about me.”

Mia tried to shrug but winced on the account of her broken shoulder. “If I’m going to trust you guys with my life, shouldn’t I know at least a little bit about you? No offense, but if Anomaly wasn’t with you guys, I would’ve been much more inclined to run to the ECU for safety.”

That much I already knew, so it didn’t surprise me.

“No offense, but if Anomaly wasn’t with us, we probably wouldn’t have saved you in the first place,” I replied without thinking. Mia huffed a sigh. I suppressed the urge to groan at my tendency to go ‘full foot-in-mouth syndrome.’ “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah,” Mia’s reply was stiff and bitter. “I know.”

I didn’t want to let the awkward silence linger, and we had rested long enough. All that was left was to push on. So, that was what I was going to do. With a groan, I pushed myself back to my feet, using the wall as a support. Mia sluggishly followed my lead.

“I’m good now, let's keep moving.”

“Are you leading us anywhere or are we just stumbling around in the dark?”

I considered the question for a moment. My goal had just been distance, but having a goal would be great. I pulled up a map of Bayside on my visor and saw that we had made it a few blocks from Browning Street. That was good, but I wanted to ensure we got far enough away from the Morpher, assuming it couldn’t track Mia while we were down here.

“We’ll keep moving east,” I said, scrolling to the side to find a viable path. I wanted somewhere I was familiar with. My school was about a fifteen-minute jog from where we were, but given our injuries and the claustrophobic tunnels, it’d probably take about double that. “Toward my school.”

“Any plan is better than none,” Mia said, trying to sound optimistic. “Do the others know?”

I activated my inbuilt radio. “You there, Alice?”

“I hear ya loud and clear, Uppies! We’re still tryna catch the big boy. Do ya think if I potty trained him Blue would let me keep ‘im?”

I rolled my eyes and ignored the unhinged statement. “We’re heading east toward Minerva. Think you and Anomaly can meet us there?”

“Yes sirey! Aye, you hear that tall, dark, and gooey? We got a new destination!”

Alice’s radio crackled and stopped transmitting. Given how fast Pink and Anomaly were, unless something stopped them on the way, they’d beat us there.

The minutes ticked on, and I could tell Mia was getting sick of this place, literally and figuratively. Every couple of minutes, I heard her gagging from what I could only assume was the horrendous smell. Again, I was thankful for the enclosed suit.

“How much further?” Mia asked, her voice strangled. “I can barely breathe down here.”

“Not long now. We’re most of the way there.”

Ten minutes of trudging through the dark later, we arrived at the door I was looking for. It was another identical concrete room leading to another rust-coated ladder. We were well and truly away from our last location, so now it was time to see if the Morpher had tracked us here despite our best efforts.

“I’ll go first.”

“No–” Mia interjected quickly. “Maybe I should? It’s after me. I don’t want you to get your head ripped off or anything. I can switch if anything bad happens.”

“Not a chance,” I remarked, trying not to sound impatient. “You got lucky with your switch and whatever it is managed to rip through your metal statues. It’ll tear through you like you're made of paper. At least with my armor, I might be able to survive.”

“Might!?” Mia hissed.

“My chances are better than yours.”

I didn’t give her a chance to respond before I started climbing. I heard her hiss my name in one last attempt to convince me to switch, but I ignored her. I ascended the ladder, and as I pushed open the metal hatch, I realized I could have called Alice to see if the area was clear. I considered it a minor victory that despite rushing into this, my head wasn’t ripped clean from my body the moment I poked my head out of the ground.

The street was empty for the most part. There was a thick smog covering the sky, and it made the night seem darker than it was. Regardless, I climbed out to get a better survey of my surroundings. So far, so good. There wasn’t any danger that I could see, but the chaos across the city was only getting worse. Several tall buildings had disappeared from the city’s skyline.

It wasn’t even midnight yet. The ECU would be in damage control for at least the next few days. There was no telling how long this conflict was going to last.

“I think we’re okay,” I said, looking down at the hatch. Unfortunately, Mia was already halfway out before I could give the all-clear.

“Good, I don’t think I could stand being down there a second longer,” she crawled out of the hole and onto her knees. “Ah, fresh smog. My favorite. A stark improvement from dirty water and sewage.”

Mia had barely made it to her feet when we heard the roar. I spun on the spot and spied the beast camouflaged against the dark smog covering the sky. Mia wouldn’t have been able to see it, but my visor highlighted the monster in a deep crimson red.

It was big, easily four meters tall, and hunched over on all fours. Slowly, it straightened to stand on two. It leaped over us, clearing the whole street before landing. I felt the thud, my pistol already in hand. I watched it turn, its beady eyes zeroing in on Mia. Surprisingly, it didn’t rush her like I thought it would. Instead, it stalked toward her, drooling like a rabid animal.

Mia backed away while I leveled my weapon at the creature. Its head turned and acknowledged me with mad, bloodshot eyes.

I didn’t even get a chance to fire when a blob of darkness flung itself at the beast.

The Morpher instinctively tried to dodge. It hadn’t even looked in the direction of the attack, but it had moved anyway. Luckily, Anomaly was the most flexible super I had ever seen. His form caught the tail of the monster and latched on, coiling around the Morpher's body and restricting its movements.

I opened fire just as Pink zipped onto the scene.

“No fair! I wanted cuddles first!”

When I blinked, Pink was gone, leaving pink trails of electricity in her wake. She attacked every limb in the blink of an eye, bludgeoning them with the stun sticks I had made for her. They crackled and zapped with every impact, the beast flinching and howling at every strike. When I unleashed a storm of laser fire at the monster, all it could do was thrash around in pain.

For the moment, we appeared to have it pinned down. Pink was zapping it, I was shooting it, and Anomaly was impeding its movement.

I wasn’t an expert, but I knew it couldn’t withstand this assault much longer. Victory, it seemed, was going to be easier than I anticipated.

I was convinced of this until it started ripping chunks out of Anomaly.

It clawed at itself, unconcerned about tearing into its flesh. It ripped and tore Anomaly to pieces, tearing chunks of its body off in the process. I thought it counter-productive until I saw its raw flesh knitting back together and regenerating. Once it had torn off enough of Anomaly to free up its limbs, it turned its feral aggression to the closest annoyance.

“Hah, slowpoke!” Pink flashed between every wild slash, blowing a raspberry at the beast. During her taunting, one of its slashes caught a strand of her golden hair. Pink’s giggling turned into an indignant scowl in a flash. “Bad doggy! No tummy rubs for you!”

It didn’t seem to care about her insults. It continued to attack with reckless abandon. There was no doubt in my mind it wanted to rip her into bloody ribbons before gorging on the remains. Pink, however, was far too quick to let that happen.

Another few shots from my gun had it giving up on Alice entirely to focus on me. It roared and leaped. I dodged to the side, extending my blade, and carved through its side. Blood splattered across my visor as the beast tumbled. I barely felt any resistance. The blade had passed through its matted skin like a hot knife through butter.

Straightening up, I tried to turn to see where the Morpher had landed. My heart thundered in my ears, and I was nearing my limit. This thing was large enough that any sort of attack would knock me clean off my feet. If that happened, I would be out for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately, my exhaustion caught up to me, and my knees buckled.

“Oop, I gotcha!” Pink caught me before I could fall. “Stay away from it ya big lug. I can’t have ya passing out now. Real bad place to visit sleepy town!”

“I’m good,” I reassured her, regaining my balance. Anomaly had reformed and caught the monster in another hold. It roared and thrashed around, but Anomaly had learned from last time and wrapped himself tightly around its neck and claws. “Any ideas to end this quickly?”

“Gold says to pump ‘em full of those tranq thingies!” Pink said. “Use ‘em all. Pop pop pop! Full power, knock him down till he’s dreamin' of big fluffy sheep.”

Right, simple enough.

I retrieved my sniper rifle from my back and began loading the tranquilizer ammunition, but the monster sensed the oncoming danger. It doubled its efforts, snapping and ripping at whatever part of Anomaly it could get its maw around. It tumbled and rolled, wrestling with the black cosmic horror.

“Ah, stay still!” Pink snapped angrily. “You’ll get ya damn shot if I have to shove it up your butt!”

Just as I aimed, the monster's roaring stopped abruptly. It stiffened before struggling further. Its roars turned into gurgles and pained whining. When it flopped over to face us, we recoiled in horror to find half of Anomaly’s body forcing itself down the beast's throat.

“Ah! What the hell are ya doing!?” Pink cried. “Ya supposed to hold'em, not suffocate ‘em!”

The beast's maw slammed shut, causing the other half of Anomaly to fall out and pool on the ground beside the monster’s head. I was so dumbfounded by what I was seeing I could barely move. I couldn’t even look away as the creature’s chest bulged, and for a split second, I thought he would burst out of it.

“I suppose that’s… one… way,” I murmured as the monster stilled. My eyes trailed down to the remnants of Anomaly’s body just pooling next to the head. Bits of black goop dripped from the teeth to join the growing puddle. “How is he going to reform?”

Pink was holding her head, and for once, I couldn’t tell who was in control. Based on her silence, there was probably a storm of arguing inside her head.

“...Guys?”

I turned to see Mia. She hadn’t moved from her spot behind me, but her gaze was locked on something ahead of us. A convoy of vehicles had just turned into the street, their headlights blaring down on us.

“Incoming,” Mia muttered sourly.

My grip on my sniper rifle tightened.

These guys weren’t Pandora, The Cains, or The Queen’s Court. They weren’t even the ECU.

The convoy slowed as they approached.

Pink had since switched out for Gold and came to stand beside me. The situation with Anomaly and the Morpher would have to wait.

Gold grumbled, and the convoy came to a stop.

The first vehicle’s front passenger seat door opened, and a figure stepped out. He casually shut the door before strolling into the headlight, his hands loosely hanging by his sides. When his features became clear, I felt all the air leave me.

“You…” I murmured in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

It was the same Old Man I had sold Mechatech to.

“We figured you’d need some help cleaning up this mess.”