What could it be? What happened after this moment? Lyssa could not for the life of her remember. But whatever it was gave Chesed immense strength in her mind. Power that the Self used to simply do nothing. What was that power contingent on?

Every other Self succumbed to Lyssa one way or another. Even Bil eventually folded. Chesed was fundamentally different. Lyssa tried to remember what created her. The night of the operation in the woods was too fuzzy for her to recall, which was odd; it had not happened long ago.

She looked out at the horizon, where reality leaked through the haze of the cloud. Absinthe was taking her body out into the edge of the city, playing Pied Piper with hundreds of people. They were being stopped by a cordon made of machines. The familiar skirmisher bots and victim androids had been deployed to corral them away. Until the public had been sifted like chaff from grain. The farther they were from Absinthe, the more agitated they became, all the way up to inconsolable. Being close to her had given them more joy than anything in their lives ever head. A fake joy, derived from an insane young woman’s gift.

Armored Personnel Carriers formed blockades, but no actual personnel poured out of them. The vehicles were being remote controlled, funneling her out of public spaces like a maze with moving walls.

And of course Absinthe simply stumbled about, following the cordon, giggling about something nobody but her misunderstood. Maybe it was a good thing. She couldn’t wander about the city like this. She had to let M.A.G.E do whatever it was they were doing.

Lyssa sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “I give.”

The memory repeated, beginning another loop.

“What happens after this?” Lyssa asked. “You might as well tell me.”

“Nothing,” Chesed said simply. “Everything. Our life.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

“…”

“What happened to me on this day?” Lyssa said, her impatience returning. “What created you?”

“We went to the beach,” Chesed said.

“That’s it?” All her Selves attached to some fear of hers, a hurt, a repressed thought. “You’re rooted in a beach?”

“Yep.” Chesed smiled.

It didn’t make sense. “Nothing happened this day.”

“Yep.”

“Then… after this day.”

“Everything. Our life.”

Lyssa’s expression deadened. She had been hit by a car, seen her grandfather die, she had been bullied and neglected and mistreated by the people who were supposed to love her, and she bore the weight of the world, and faced death multiple times. But that had all come after. Before this day on the beach, there was nothing. She had been happy.

“I see,” Lyssa said.

Chesed turned to her.

“Good bye,” she said.

The memory was being tainted. Green clouds roiled and bubbled. Great waves rolled and broke on the rocks in foaming green phosphorescence.

A voice spoke in multiple tones, some laughing, some slow, some fast, “I need your help.”

Chesed did not move. Lyssa looked around her, but there was nowhere to go. She braced herself. The waves grew monstrous, pouring over the cliff and swallowing them both.

The dream ended.

Lyssa opened her eyes in the real world. She was in a field of grass. The air was a cold, heavy mass moving under a starry sky. But she didn’t feel any of the night chill. Her skin was covered in plates of glassy obsidian. She swept her fingers past the wild grain, leaving a trail of burning vegetation behind her.

This was Sethlana’s gift. But Lyssa was not in command. She was laughing, even though there was nothing funny about this situation. This was no longer her body. She was only allowed witness through her own eyes.

Standing thirty or so feet away a familiar man in a brown duster stepped through the grass.

“Lyssa,” Whitworth said. “How are we doing?”

“I like long stalks on the beach,” she said.

“Me too. I’ll take you there. Why don’t you sleep for now?”

Absinthe giggled. “Interesting,” she said. “You’re rejecting my love.”

Whitworth shrugged. “I’ve taken psychedelics in the past, to train myself to withstand its influence in the 60s. That is this gift, isn’t it? Sensory induction. Pre-psychic. It goes after more base aspects of the mind.”

Even as he talked, they were being intruded upon by the sound of legs rubbing and croaking. The grass waved as insects and amphibians began to gather in circles around her feet.

“The animals,” Whitworth said, “they don’t understand it themselves. But they just want to be near you.”

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Absinthe waved her new followers off with an absent-minded swing of her arms.

“Was this you?” Whitworth said. “When you were younger? Did you wish for attention? Was it through this power that you got it?”

The croaking stopped. The grass stopped shuffling.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Absinthe said. “I’m just following the flow of the world.”

“The world doesn’t have motivations. People do. And when people want something, sometimes they’re willing to hurt to get it. Is this an idea you understand? Perhaps you’ve lived it all your life.”

Absinthe was laughing. But Lyssa was in her own head; she knew it wasn’t out of humor.

“Is this how you get control over your subordinates?” Absinthe said. “Everyone’s an open book. Everyone’s a mass of pressure points to press.”

Whitworth made a face. It was out of sadness, but not regret or guilt.

“I’m not in your head,” he said. “I’m not reading your mind. I’m just reading you.” Then his expression hardened. “Stand down.”

“Why don’t you just put me to sleep?”

“When you wake, this will all start again. You need to be stopped as you are.”

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“I know. The problem is you could do a lot right, if you were in the right mindset. The citizens of the world need you, not as you are now.”

“Will I be free if I do?”

Whitworth smiled. “I’m not free,” he said.

Absinthe breathed in. For what felt like a long time there was only the sound of the wind. Then she attacked. Force-fire shot out of her hands, dragging flame from her claws in a brilliant spiral.

Whitworth didn’t react. The attack did not touch him, splattering against metal skin like a flash bang—all sound and fury, but no effect.

There was nary a mark on Vigil’s chest.

“It’s you,” he said. “I remember you from the stadium op. What happened to her?”

“Long story,” Whitworth said.

There were more coming. Heroes suddenly came out of thin air.

“Better finish this quick,” Whitworth said. “They’re billing me by the teleport.”

A wave of ice engulfed Absinthe, shot from Everest’s palms.

“From what I’ve heard, you’ve potential, young lady,” he said. His voice echoing like a bell through his diving suit costume. “Please stop this.”

The ice shattered in a shower of shards and sleet.

“I can induce pain, if you like,” Absinthe said with a snarl.

“Try,” Whitworth said.

Absinthe did. Her gift was working. Everest ought to be in agony. But he simply listed above her in a defensive stance.

She gathered black mist and used Mercurial’s twitchwalk, slipping through the air faster than the eye could see. Vigil would not be quick enough to react, and neither would Whitworth. She went around the steel giant, aiming straight for the Director.

She saw dirt an instant later. A hairline fracture split in her cheek from the impact. She sprang to her feet, furious.

“This one can’t teleport, can she?” Fleetfoot asked. “I’ll never live that one down.”

“No,” Whitworth said.

Absinthe screamed. A blue wave of stasis expanded from her like a sea mine in water. Grass waved in slow motion. Matter still airborne from that last strike fell like snowflakes. Then the wave dissipated, and the world moved at a normal pace again. She had captured no one. Fleetfoot had outrun her bubble, gathering every hero in the area away from her.

“I’m giving you a chance here,” Whitworth called. “Let the real Lyssa come back. You will not be punished.”

Absinthe sneered. “You’ve never met the real one,” she said. “But I’ll introduce you.”

The space around her began to warp. Pink folds of energy distorted the area in aberration. The horizon began to tilt upwards like origami paper. Grass began to wilt, growing heavier by the second.

“She can fold space!” Vigil said as his feet sank into the ground. “Director, what is this?”

The others were being forced to a knee. Everest had dropped out of the sky, slamming into a divot in the wet earth.

“She’s not Rachminau, relax,” Whitworth said between deep breaths. “Just follow my lead.”

Fleetfoot could still run. He went to the left. Vigil charged from the right, tearing through the earth. Everest flooded Absinthe’s feet with ice. She pushed back. The perspective warped. The stars turned blue and red. Gravity tilted forward, pushing them all back.

Something hot and coppery trailed from one of her nostrils. She acknowledged it, but kept pushing. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer. She had used too many gifts—space folding was her most powerful, and difficult one. And she would use yet another. She glared at Everest. His suit was made of metal. She began to constrict it. The ice flow stopped and the hero began to cry out.

“Don’t do this!” Whitworth shouted.

“Or what?” Absinthe said.

She sensed it too late to redirect her gravity. It came from the sky, away from her spatial fold. Twin dive-bombing figures traced a curved trajectory from the sky, slamming into her back. She lost consciousness for an eye-blink. She woke in a crater. A rippling barrier hovered above her skin, flickering, about to collapse. Chesed’s energy absorption. It was barely enough to withstand Ace Pilot and Hawktress’s maneuver.

She roared, releasing the kinetic energy back, widening the crater. The land was scarred beyond recognition. Steam and disintegrated grass billowed in wisps.

“You need all these people to stop me from living my life?” Absinthe shouted. Her armor was falling apart. She couldn’t regenerate it.

“We’re not trying to hurt you, Lyssa,” Whitworth said. “This isn’t a show of strength.”

Absinthe glanced around her. Vigil had scrambled back on his feet, but did not charge. Everest had taken off his deformed helmet, revealing a pale, blue face steeped in worry. The flying pair stayed in the air a good distance away. Fleetfoot was peering over the rim of the crater. None of them looked tired, but Absinthe didn’t see that. She only saw that the path towards the Director was open.

She gathered black mist and charged, her claws raised towards Whitworth’s face. Until it wasn’t his face. She hadn’t lost consciousness again. She hadn’t even blinked. But instead of the Director, she was running claws first towards Carrie.

“NO!” Lyssa screamed.

Lyssa woke from a dream within a dream. The green tide was pulled back. She rushed forward. Her claws stopped inches from Carrie’s face. They trembled in position. Absinthe was not going down with grace. Her body shook as they competed for control.

“We were happy,” Absinthe said quietly. “This is what we wanted.”

Lyssa said nothing. She was staring at Carrie’s expression, frozen under the terrified gaze of those dark brown eyes.

She did not see Whitworth tap his earpiece.

“Now,” he said.

Somewhere far, far away, hidden under a blanket that looked like dead grass, a weapon fired. A hollow .338 Lapua round streaked through the air. The lonsdaleite tip broke through the weakened armor in Lyssa’s back, flooding her insides with diluted Q-toxin. She gasped once, seized, and fell into the crater.

“Lyssa!” Carrie cried out. She tried to run down the decline. Her foot tripped and fell forward, slamming into the wall of her room. It was as though she never left.

Whitworth looked at a sleeping Lyssa lying at the bottom of the pit, then at Fleetfoot, who was an inch away.

“You wouldn’t have let her, right?” Whitworth said.

“She stopped in time,” Fleetfoot said, nodding. “I didn’t need to.”

Whitworth sighed in relief.

“Alright,” he said loudly. “Good work everyone. Take a day off.”

Vigil stomped towards him.

“Sir, we ought to have a proper explanation as to why you just had us beat up a kid,” he said grimly.

“I will,” Whitworth said. “I will. I mean it. Let’s get this mess sorted first.”

The heroes looked at each other. One by one they left the scene, murmuring among themselves.

The Director looked at the girl below. Asleep, she looked impossibly young, and far too delicate to do this line of work. But he had made a decision. Over his long career, he had made good ones and bad ones. The good had far outweighed the bad. There was no way to be sure which was which. But there was one thing he was certain of—no matter the situation. Going back on a decision midway was always catastrophic.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”