Ben was just settling into bed when Elisabeth knocked on his door. It had been a particularly tumultuous day, and with an ultimatum hanging over their heads, they had yet to make a certain decision. Of course, their route should have seemed clear. To rid the planet of those without powers was a foolish and immoral thing to attempt to do, yet with the weight of the world on their shoulders, they had to admit that to have so many lives not resting on their choices would have been a blessing.

Kiyomi Takada, Light explained, was one of his ex-girlfriends from his high school in Japan. They had been going steady and were going to date in university when Light had decided she was too high-maintenance and manipulative, that too much pressure was placed on her by her family and the school faculty and he did not want to be mixed up in such expectations.

Elisabeth knew the type. Working in a hospital, she had seen kids come and go with problems that she knew parents had caused, from anxiety-related stress because of pressure on exams to children that had been physically abused because their parents were not satisfied with their academic progress. Seeing how it not only made the children victims, but aggressors also, made her practically nauseous. It was a disgusting cycle.

"Hey."

Ben opened his eyes, putting his hands either side of him and beginning to push himself to sit upright. "Hey."

"No, no, don't get up." He sank back under his covers, watching his older sister walk into his bedroom, close the door behind her and go to sit at the foot of his bed. "I just wanted to come in and check on you, see how you're doing."

"I guess I'm okay," he shrugged. He smiled. "What are you doing?"

"I'm tucking you in," she responded with an equally as amused smile. "I used to do this for you every single night when you were little. You loved it. You'd always deliberately scoot out of bed so that I'd tuck you in again and you could get that new feeling of being all safe and warm."

"Cute, real cute," he commented. "How's the boyfriend?"

"Bad mood, I imagine," she admitted. "I let him stew for a while. He needs thinking time, and I'm not going to stop him from getting it."

"He's a good guy."

"I know he's a good guy. He just requires more space at times than other good guys. I do worry about him obsessing over work, to be honest. What he does is not what you would generally call healthy, is it?" she sighed. "But he's doing what he loves, and if I denied him that, I wouldn't be a very good girlfriend, would I?"

"From when I've seen you and him together, you seem happy. Making someone happy in that way makes you an awesome girlfriend," he told her. She ruffled his hair playfully. "You're acting like you're my mom."

"Well…" Elisabeth murmured. "We both know what Mom's like." Ben could sense that she was holding something back. He looked at her with reassuring eyes, as if what she had to say would be fine. She met his gaze and took a deep breath. "Ben, there's something I haven't told you… about Mom and Dad. The thing is, there's a reason that you've been staying with me for so long-"

He reached out and touched her hand. "I know about Mom and Dad's divorce," he said gently. "They called and told me about it the day before the storm. I know what you were doing – what you've always done for me. You were protecting me." She bit her lip. "It's okay, Lise. You're my sister. But I'm not a little kid anymore. You don't have to."

She shuffled along the bed slightly and hugged him close. "Now you listen to me, Benjamin Reid. You will always be my little kid brother, and as long as I am still living and breathing, my door will be open to you. If you ever, ever stop wanting to live with our parents, you can always come and live with me." She placed her hands either side of his face, watching his wide brown eyes, almost identical to hers. "I would do anything for you, Ben, anything to make sure you were safe."

"Lise-?"

"If anything were to happen to you, I would never forgive myself," she whispered. "I hope you realize that."

"I understand," he said quietly.

She let her hands drop into her lap. "Good." She stood up and kissed Ben's forehead before she went to the door. "Goodnight, Ben. Sleep well. Love you."

"Love you too. G'night."

She flicked off the light switch, closing the door and heading out into the corridor, where something – or someone – ran into her. The owner of a head of dark hair wrapped their arms around her torso and held onto her as if she never wanted to let go.

"Tessa?" Elisabeth choked out, a little winded. She glanced down at her friend. "Contessa, are you okay?"

"I just wanted you to know that… that you were the best babysitter ever," she mumbled. "The best of the best."

"Contessa," Elisabeth said, trying to force some strength into her voice, when she could sense something was horribly wrong. "Are you… crying?"

"No…"

This was wrong. Tessa didn't cry very often. Ever, actually, in Elisabeth's memory as her babysitter and friend. "Ssh," she comforted the girl, "ssh… it's all right. Why are you crying? Everything's going to be okay."

After a few moments stroking her hair, Elisabeth felt Tessa pull away slightly.

"Everything?" she asked, her voice breaking on the word.

"Yeah – why?"

Tessa withdrew completely from Elisabeth and brushed past her, continuing her way down the corridor. She stopped once at the end of the corridor and looked back, her expression torn. She looked so hurt. But that wasn't what shocked Elisabeth the most. What shocked her the most was the phenomenal amount of blood smeared down her shirt.

She ran after Tessa as the girl turned a corner, her heart hammering. She halted on the corner, seeing that there was no evidence Tessa had even been there.

So where had she gone? And whose blood had that been?

XXX

Throughout the next day, Wammy's students could tell something was wrong. Teachers could tell something was wrong. Only the Zapped truly understood the extent to which the gloom should descend upon them. Near just sat and stared into the distance in his lessons. Mello said not a word to anyone other than Lara, Tessa, Matt and Ben. Matt didn't even look at his gaming consoles. Lara did not smile. Ben stuck close to Lara and Tessa. Tessa kept putting her hair up in a ponytail and then taking it out again, thinking it not quite right.

Light spent the day with L and B, looking for any hint that Takada had been bluffing, that she may not take action against them. They formulated plans, then dropped them, then reinstated them, then threw them away. All Emilia thought of doing was going for a really long run. Misa watched films with Matsuda, though no meaning came from them. They were just to pass the time.

As for Elisabeth, she went to hospital again. She told the same nurse that her flight had been cancelled so she could keep an eye on Claire. It was a lie, of course, but it may as well have been the truth for the effect it had. The nurse insisted that she stay as long as she wanted, and could even help herself to the grapes that had been left by a friend.

She sat down at Claire's bedside and talked. "I don't even know if you can hear me. I mean, I thought you could hear me last time, but… I can't read your thoughts like L can." She slapped her hand against her forehead. "Of course you can't hear me! You're in a coma…"

Another nurse came in, checked Claire's temperature, nodded to Elisabeth, then left.

"I don't know why I'm here. I don't even know you. I only met you that once, when you came round to the orphanage to deliver pizza. Somehow… you acted like we were friends, like you knew me." She sighed. "Why do I feel like I can trust you? And if I can trust you so much, why can't you give me any answers?" She felt her eyes beginning to moisten.

"Claire, Claire, Claire…" she breathed. "What am I meant to do? Tell me, because… as much as I want to look after Ben, and protect him, and I want to go on living my life in the exact same way… I've got nothing." She let slip a small chuckle without humor. "For all the training you do, for all the school you go through and everything you think you've learnt, what we know is so… tiny. I know almost nothing about the world."

She stopped to relax a bit. She studied the young woman's dark blonde hair, strewn across the pillow, and her pale, unmoving face. She envied a girl in a coma. She envied being shut off from the world where your mind could stay silent and you could stay that way until you were ready, until you had healed.

"I think you knew that all along, didn't you?" Elisabeth whispered. "You always knew where you'd end up. I don't know how you could have known, but you did… and… maybe you came to the house because you knew what would happen, that I'd meet you and come see you after the accident…" She sniffed. "Did you want to show me how peaceful death is, so that…?"

The idea was unbelievable. "Do you want me to join Takada? To put the world to sleep?" She gulped. "Because the powerless ones don't deserve to be in a world where people with powers would threaten them forever. Or the ones with powers need to see that death is not the worst thing that can happen to someone, that chaos derives from supremacy, and…" She shook her head. "But you couldn't have known all that."

It took an hour before she did anything else. She finally looked up again, having wiped away the burgeoning tears and gained the strength to look at the comatose girl in the bed.

"I've made my decision."

XXX

The last words that were said before Elisabeth left for the aquarium were part of a short exchange between her and L. She had seen the others when she had gotten back from the hospital, and they had been so off their usual behavior that it broke her heart to see them that way. As it approached midnight, she stuck her head around the door of the office, where Light, B and L were busy working.

"Hey," she called softly.

"Hello," L replied over his shoulder, focus still on his computer screen.

"I'm just going to get some sleep now, okay?" she told him.

"Mm-hm," he agreed.

"Don't do anything stupid without telling me," she said. "All right?"

"Sure, sure," he mumbled, not paying attention.

"'Night."

"Yeah."

He didn't see that, when she left the office, she was wearing her Zapped suit underneath a jacket. She slipped out of the front door and escaped via the front gate trying not to make any noise. Earlier that day, she had checked on Google Maps the location of the new aquarium. Now, she was borrowing a car from the orphanage's garage. She hadn't needed the keys.

Pulling into the aquarium's parking lot, she wondered why the aquarium had been Takada's choice of rendezvous point. Regardless of the woman's motive, she had no doubt in her mind of what she had to do now. She trusted that the door to the aquarium was open, and she was right. She pushed her way through the ticket barriers and eventually reached the first exhibit – the shark exhibit.

In the teal glow of the tanks, everything was particularly eerie. Takada was waiting on the providing shelf of seating right next to the shark tank, hands elegantly folded in her lap and irises standing out almost white against the water. Her expression was obviously expectant, though it flickered to surprise for a fleeting moment.

She glanced up at the clock above Elisabeth's head, sharks flitting about threateningly behind her.

"You're ten minutes early," she remarked. "I'm impressed. But I have to ask, where is the rest of your entourage?"

"They're not here," Elisabeth said. "I came alone."

Takada tilted her head to one side with interest. "Is that so?"

"I've come to tell you what my decision is."

There was a triumphant smirk in response. "Go on."

This is where I want to hear what YOUR choice would be. You have a chance to save your family and friends, but everyone else on Earth would die. You also have a chance to save the planet, but your family and friends would die, and the people you saved would still shun you as if you were dirt.

What would you do?

I have a habit of telling people I'll write one thing, then completely changing it so that they don't know what's going to happen when they read it, so it's not going to necessarily be as evident as it seems from here on out, folks!

Poll results will be up in the last chapter of "Zapped", though that, of course, has a few chapters to go. I look forward to hearing your reaction.

Next chapter, clearly, is the great climax of the story, so stay tuned for next time!

Thanks to everyone for helping me reach 100 reviews! Zephyr Morpheus Lee was my lucky one hundredth reviewer!

C.