For Better or For Worse

by rareID

Anna used to be the leader of the Protector League. "The hero of the people," they'd called her, until she murdered thousands of people including her Elite teammates and never explained why. Now the new League leader, Blizzard, seeks Anna's help; but can the infamous villain do that without outing the secrets she's kept buried?

36. Embracing Hell

A/N: Thanks to my editors: Sneks, SexyMist, and Halladelle.

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Six Years Ago

Calhoun sits at the back of the soldier transport with her arms crossed. She has lightweight piercing prevention armour equipped, but she plans on changing it the moment she has more space. She doesn't have that leeway when packed in like a common soldier in the cargo hold of a ship. At least she gets her own seat. The ones who don't are sitting on the floor.

One of those people is Arson. She's in the corner and laughing over what Calhoun suspects is a game. If nothing else, the Colonel has to admit that Arson has done wonders for morale. Her presence is as bright as her flames, and people gravitate towards her like bugs to dead flesh.

Athena, on the other hand, has more of a stoic, inspiring presence. It's far from inviting, but she motivates people to do their best by just being present. It annoys the hell out of Calhoun.

This, on top of the fact that having these two around makes the bugs develop even faster. Before they were only developing based on civilian technology and powers belonging to the native planet metas. Now they have two new overpowered threats to respond to.

The problem is that neither hero views the problem as severely as they should. Arson at least sees the issue and has developed a healthy dose of concern. Athena? Not a chance.

"This is serious," Calhoun snaps. "You can't go onto the battlefield anymore. The bugs will develop even more out of our military counterstrike abilities and my people will be slaughtered left and right."

Arson, dressed in a local biohazard outfit, rubs the back of her neck and turns to Athena. "She has a point."

Athena shrugs. "If the bugs develop to that level I can wipe them out."

"If you have that power," Calhoun says, "why the fuck are you waiting?"

"I don't have that type of power all the time," Athena says, as if talking to a four-year-old. "And, like Arson's HF, it isn't the type of magic to be trifled with. I'm not even sure if my own body can withstand the full force of it."

"Then stop wasting my fucking time." Calhoun looks at Arson because at least this hero appears to get it. "You want to help me and my planet, don't you?" Arson nods. "Then you have to stop. You're creating long lasting effects that my people can't handle. You're making it worse." Part of Calhoun wishes she could see Arson's face so she doesn't have to stare at the unnerving reflective glass of her helmet.

"I—" Arson interlaces her fingers behind her neck and sits down, head bowed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make this harder for you."

Calhoun relaxes, if just a little. "It's fine so long as you get your asses out of here. Can you do that for me? Please?"

"Your forces can't handle the bugs as it is," Athena says. "Whether we stay or leave doesn't matter because those insects will get stronger regardless. So we leave. Great. You all die in six months instead of one."

"Athena—" Arson tries.

"No. It doesn't make sense." Athena's head turns to Calhoun, and the materialization meta swears she can feel the glare behind the eagle inspired helmet. "We leave, you have no chance. You'll have a longer time to develop technology slower than the things you're fighting, and you'll die. We stay and yes, you'll have a shorter life window, but you have a chance to win because Arson and I are stronger than those mechanical pests."

"Do you honestly think it'll stay that way?" Calhoun asks through gritted teeth.

"It will if we don't engage with our big guns," Athena states. "We stay out of the fighting as much as we can but if we're forced to engage we stick to our tamer abilities until you come up with a plan for us to carve their hearts out."

"Pleasant imagery," Arson murmurs.

"You're saying we're helpless without you." Calhoun doesn't phrase it as a question. She half wonders if Athena can hear the anger in her voice, or if she even cares.

"With how long you've all been fighting? Yes," Athena says. "The bugs have developed too many countermeasures for any of your weapons or tactics to be effective."

"Athena has a point," Arson says. "But"—she adds before either woman can respond—"so does Reeves. The planet is fucked if we leave, but it's fucked if we keep helping. So, I suggest we do whatever Reeves proposes. This is her planet. She deserves to say how it's defended." She looks at Calhoun. "Do you want us to leave?"

Calhoun hesitates. Of course she doesn't want her people's only chance to leave, but she doesn't want this situation to get any worse, either.

"I can call in Black Dragon," Athena suggests. "Gives us extra firepower that the bugs haven't had previous experience with."

"You . . . want Black Dragon here?" Arson makes a face. Her tone suggests a type of history that Calhoun wants nothing to do with.

"No, but I don't want to take Hades and have her alone with Bear. Unless you want to go back to deal with her while Hades and I take care of this?"

Calhoun rubs her helmed head. "You want to bring someone here who needs babysitting?"

"She's new but powerful," Athena deflects. "We just don't want to leave her to her own devices."

Calhoun doesn't believe her. "Can this Bear not watch her?"

"Not effectively," Athena says. She doesn't elaborate, which doesn't bolster confidence.

"She listens to me," Arson says. Athena's hands clench into fists. "So if we call her in she'll do as she's told. If, of course, you want us to stay. What do you say?"

Calhoun tilts her head back to rest against the bulkhead and stares at the ceiling. It's nearing the time to see if her answer was worth it, and she isn't sure she's confident about the result.

"Colonel? Are you alright?"

Calhoun blinks out of her stupor and looks towards the voice. It's one of her soldiers, but she doesn't know who it is with their full body armour on. "I'm fine. Just thinking about how slow our transports are." In normal conditions, a procession of this many ships would have been overrun by bugs within minutes of taking to the air. Athena is preventing that by acting as a distraction. Calhoun only knows that it isn't utilizing any of her more powerful abilities, whatever the fuck that means.

The soldier chuckles. "Yeah, they're in bad shape, but at least they fly." His head shifts towards the exit. "I will admit, the quiet is concerning me. I know it's supposed to be this way, but not having the bugs hound us is discomforting. It feels like they're planning something."

"Athena won't allow anything of the sort." Calhoun doesn't know this for a fact but confidence is what her people need to hear, and she knows others are listening in. "Even if the bugs do have a trick up their sleeve for Arson and Athena, we have their additional member doing a satellite rotation in space. The bugs can't counter abilities they've never witnessed before." Unless Black Dragon is weaker than Athena has led her to believe, in which case they're screwed.

Arson stands from her game, drawing far more focus than Calhoun is comfortable with, and starts walking towards the cockpit. "How long do you think you have?" she asks. She must be talking to Athena. She hums. "Okay. Let me check something."

That doesn't sound good. Calhoun stands and follows the other meta. Now everyone in the cargo bay is paying attention to them, and she hopes with all her heart that Arson knows how to curb her tongue in front of an audience. Even in the pilots' den, the cargo bay is quiet enough to hear everything that they say.

Arson stops only a few steps into the cockpit and stares at the displays. "We're pretty close. Not too far off from our planned location." She looks over her shoulder at Calhoun, who stops a mere breath behind her.

"What's our status?" the colonel asks.

"Good," Arson says. Her words are muffled by the half face gas mask Calhoun's unit provided her. She'll lose it during the fight because of her powers, but no one wants her getting high off the planet's oxygen in the meantime. "Athena's going to fully engage prematurely, though. She has more heat on her then her lower-range powers can account for."

"How early?"

"We'll be two minutes off our mark."

Calhoun glances at one of the monitors. They're sitting at two and a half minutes out. She pushes past Arson and opens the line to all the pilots in the convoy. "This is Colonel Calhoun Reeves to all transports. Crank all engines, full speed ahead! Attack begins in thirty seconds! Go, go, go! Get to the drop location!" She exits out of the call and rushes back into the cargo bay. Everyone is already scrambling into ready positions. She knew they'd overhear.

"Yes, be on high alert," Arson says. "When we call you in we'll need you immediately." She listens for a moment, then the corners of her eyes crinkle in amusement. "Yes. You'll be able to smash."

"Black Dragon?" Calhoun asks.

Arson nods. "She's excited to get her claws dirty. She's been 'literally dying of boredom' apparently."

"Uh, that's good?"

"I'd say so." Arson points to the floor, where everyone is kneeling in rows and locking in their leg armour to the ship. "I don't need to do that, do I?"

"You couldn't if you wanted to. You have no armour."

Arson looks down at herself and her tight fitting fabric costume. "Right. Should I hold on?"

"Unless you want to fly off the damn ship, yes."

"Got it." Arson takes hold of one of the support poles. Calhoun half hopes the fire meta isn't as strong as she claims, just to see her lose her grip and fly off when the walls come down.

Calhoun cracks her neck and changes her armour to her heavy duty battle armour, the sturdiest one in her mental arsenal, before kneeling and securing herself next to the control panel. She selects the option to seal the entryway to the pilots. It takes a few seconds to respond. What a piece of trash, she thinks. She clicks a few more buttons and braces her hands on the ground.

A few seconds pass before the whole bulkhead groans and twitches. Screeches of metal on metal fill the area as the two sides and back recede. Wind whips through the cargo bay at a much higher rate than most of her soldiers are used to, and she sees them struggle to remain kneeling. One soldier gets blown over, saved only by his mount to the ship. Another soldier grabs him to prevent him from flying around. Good. No one needs to get a concussion before the fighting even starts.

"Fucking mother of hell," someone says over the in-helmet comm system. "Do you see that?"

Calhoun looks around. Her heart drops when she sees it. "Oh, shit."

An apocalyptic swarm blots out the sun in the distance, and is moving at a speed that makes Calhoun sweat. She sees the glint of light on armour a fair distance ahead of the swarm. "Is that Athena?" she shouts through her helmet's speaker.

"That's her!" Arson bellows back. "Holy god, she has a knack for understatement. Ugh, Athena preserve me."

Calhoun bites her tongue before she can say, 'she's doing the opposite of preserving.' Instead, she opens a line to the other metas in the fleet. "Colonel Summon Master Calhoun reporting in. Sides down on one."

"Second LT Summon Master Opaltine reporting in. Sides down on two."

"Major Summon Master Galinate reporting in. Sides down on three."

"Captain Summon Master Houl reporting in. Sides down on four."

The other metas continue through all thirty without issue, to Calhoun's relief. She purposefully put the metas in charge of the ships in the worst shape. At least then if the side motors failed, the metas could blast out the walls.

She opens a line to include the rest of the ship leaders. "This is Colonel Calhoun Reeves. All sides from one to thirty down. Report if status is not the same." She doesn't have time to listen to all of them like she'd prefer.

"Sides stuck halfway on forty-seven."

Of course they are. "Anyone else with stuck sides?"

"No stuck sides, but the crew of seventy is being flung around with our speed this high."

"Unfortunately, they'll have to suck it up. Anything else?"

"How are we going to deal with that swarm?"

"Athena's got it." She hopes. "Any other ship issues?" No answer. "Good. Ship forty-seven, I'll send Arson your way to blast open the walls. You'll need to fall out of formation so that the debris doesn't hit another ship. Calhoun out. Arson!"

"What!"

"I need you to go to the ship pulling down." She points. "Its walls aren't fully down. Get in there and blast those fuckers out."

"Aye aye!" Arson releases her handhold and jumps. The ship's speed whips the floor out from under her feet and she dives towards the ground.

A blinding light has Calhoun changing her visor type and turning towards the source. Her eyes widen. Suddenly the phrase 'Athena preserve me' makes a lot more sense.

Golden lightning crackles up from the ground and down from the heavens simultaneously. In the middle it all meets in an explosion of energy that shoots out shockwaves so strong they're visible to the naked eye. Athena, in the sole area unaffected by the chaos, holds her arms outstretched beside her and golden wings the span of several transport ships spread behind her. She looks like she was sent by the gods themselves.

"Fucking hell," Calhoun chokes. No wonder Athena is so full of herself. If that's only one of her abilities, Calhoun isn't surprised she thinks she's impervious.

Athena turns, her wings and lightning fading away, and bursts forward so fast she breaks the sound barrier. The sound of a huge impact crater being created ripples through the air a few seconds later.

Calhoun changes her visor back to normal and looks at where the bugs used to be. There's nothing left of them that she can see.

A ripple of cheers overtakes everyone in the cargo hold. Calhoun can't help but smile and join in. That might have been the biggest victory they've ever had.

The ship banks heavily towards the ground. Calhoun isn't affected by it, but she's sure a couple people feel like they're going to lose their lunch. She hopes they don't, because they'll be stuck with that in their armour for hours, if they're lucky. Days if they're not.

The transport levels out and slows down. Calhoun unclips her restraints and runs to the open back. She stops and waves out to the landscape. "Unclip and go! Everyone out! Weapons at the ready!"

"Engine trouble on twenty-one! Going down, going down!"

Calhoun whips around and watches the uncontrolled spiral of one of the ships. A few soldiers jump or get flung out, at least the lucky ones who manage to unlock themselves from the floor. Calhoun figured overtaxing the engines could have caused this, but seeing it happen is . . . a whole different story.

Arson swoops under the transport, grabs hold, and pushes fire in all directions. The ship stabilizes and she sets it on the ground before flying off again, further into the fleet. She's making sure all the ships drop the soldiers off safely. One less thing Calhoun has to worry about.

The last of Calhoun's unit jumps off the moving aircraft and she follows after them. Unlike the others who have to roll to break their fall, she just bends her knees and keeps going. There are some perks to being a meta.

She summons her particle destruction rifle and examines the area. She doesn't see any bugs heading towards them, which is disquieting. Even the flashes of golden light in the distance don't comfort her. There's more than enough bugs to attack two fronts at once. Why are they all still focusing on Athena?

"Head out, on me! Double time, people!" She jogs towards her unit's objective. She would sprint, but she's faster than her soldiers. Her full speed would leave them in the dust.

Arson drops to the ground beside Calhoun and keeps pace. She still has the respirator. "All troops on the ground. Airworthy ships are pulling to the safe zone now. A dozen or so have been grounded, but only a few of those had full engine failure. The rest would have if they stayed in the air, though."

"Okay." Calhoun looks into the distance. "Does Athena need you?"

"I can't get near her when she's using these powers, they'll rip me to shreds."

Calhoun smiles at the irony. "So you both have powers that could destroy each other?"

"Yes and no," Arson hedges. "She . . . is so much stronger than me."

Calhoun opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. It's hard for her to argue against what she just saw. Arson may have taken out a hive, but Athena took down an end-bringer level swarm. Both feats breach the line of the impossible, but there's no question in Calhoun's mind which of the two is more extraordinary.

"Will you be protecting troop advancement?" she asks instead.

"It's part of my job description." Arson glances aside. The corners of her eyes pinch. "I really hope I don't burn this thing off my face too soon." She leaps into the air with enough force to crack the ground.

"Yeah, don't want to have to pull back because you're intoxicated," Calhoun murmurs under her breath.

A ripple of exclamations comes through her unit's line and she looks up. Her eyebrows raise. Arson's set the entire sky ablaze with white fire, and heat waves shimmer against the foggy horizon. Calhoun checks the sensors of her suit and, sure enough, it's fighting against an extreme heat spike. It's that hot even at this distance? Fucking god.

"Houl to other summoners," Houl says on the meta communication line."Who else is feeling inadequate?"

"Oh hell yeah. One hit wonder bitches over there."

"Ah, duh. I have eyes."

"I wonder if they're willing to recruit more than just Calhoun, because I want to join in on that."

"Think they'd be up for a spar later?"

"Boy, they would tear you a new asshole."

Calhoun bites back laughter. "Keep the line quiet to allow for emergency communications only." A chorus of apologies ripples through her helmet. "Thank you." She smiles. "And for the record, we could kick their ass in a heartbeat." The only reason Arson and Athena are more effective in this case is solely because the bugs haven't been exposed to their powers enough to create countermeasures. If it were those two versus Calhoun and her fellow materialization metas, the League heroes would have their work cut out for them.

"Destination drop ahead!" Calhoun picks up speed until she's sprinting and summons a shield over her shoulder and head. She slams into a unsuspecting mound of rubble full-tilt. The impact jars her down to her bones and she grits her teeth, but she powers through it. On the other side she rids herself of the shield and raises her rifle. Sure enough, she's in a developing hive. She's lucky. If it were complete she wouldn't have been able to burst through the walls.

Bugs in the hall turn her way. She fires before they even have a chance to attack. The blue spray of her atom shredder rounds rain off the insects as if she were doing nothing but throwing pebbles.

"Fuck," she hisses. She changes her weapon to a rail laser and pulls the trigger before it's fully formed. An green beam the width of a hair shoots forward and she moves the rifle on an erratic pattern. The laser gets between the seams of armour on all the bugs and in the panels of the walls themselves. She takes her finger off the trigger and stares at the damage with a measure of relief. At least some of her weapons are still effective.

She looks over her shoulder. Her unit is still trying to catch up with her. She raises an arm and a translucent screen pops up with a rough blueprint. There's no way she can make it all the way with her unit intact, but she already knew that. She picked this route for a reason: she's the only native meta strong enough to survive the trek, the rest of the unit won't.

She lowers her arm back to her gun and the screen flickers out. "Reeves to the League frequency, do you copy?"

"If you're not connecting to tell me I can wreck shit, I don't want to hear it."

It isn't a voice Calhoun is used to. "Black Dragon?"

"The one and only," she drones. "The fuck you want?"

"Do you have my position?"

"I don't know."

"Computer is tracking all native metas," Athena says. Her voice sounds strained.

"Sure. That," Black Dragon dismisses.

"Want to drop on this developing hive and bust through as many floors as you can?"

"Fucking yes. Some fucking action."

"Uh, I'd stay clear, Reeves." It's Arson, and her tone is dripping with concern. "She could drop right on you and your unit if you're too close."

"Yeah, get out of my way or you're going to die. Incoming, whores!"

"Get out of the way, Reeves," Arson orders. "Move right now, get clear."

Calhoun isn't going to ignore that amount of worry. She bursts back through the hole she made and dematerializes her weapon so she can wave at her approaching unit to back off. "Stop!" she bellows. "Make way for meta drop!"

Her unit stumbles to a confused halt, but they follow Calhoun when she runs past them.

"What's going on?" one of her soldiers ask.

A roar rips through the sky and Calhoun skids to a stop and looks to the sky. A dragon with glinting black scales drops through Arson's white fire as if it weren't even there.

"Fuck!" another soldier shouts. Calhoun doesn't blame them. That beast is bigger than every ship in her transport fleet combined.

Green flame licks out between the dragon's knife-like teeth and it bursts towards the ground with a roar that shakes Calhoun to the bones. She doesn't want to imagine how it affects her soldiers.

Calhoun leaps over her unit, plants her feet, and summons a translucent shield big enough to protect her unit.

Green flame explodes along the landscape, setting destroyed buildings alight and melting through the ground. It streams past Calhoun's shield and she blinks when alerts start popping up in her helmet. It's eating through her defensive summon.

"It's corrosive," she murmurs in fascination, a moment before Black Dragon slams into the ground. Every soldier behind her gets thrown into the air when the shockwave in the soil hits them, and even Calhoun's feet get uprooted for a second. It's only the weight of her armour that keeps her steadier than the rest of her unit.

Black Dragon roars again and thrashes in the crater she made: a hole so deep that Calhoun can only see the top of her outstretched wings. Green fire erupts upwards like an exploding volcano, and green speckles fall towards the ground long after the flame itself extinguishes.

"Summoner line. What the hell just dropped in?"

Oh, right. "Calhoun reporting. The drop was Black Dragon, one of the League heroes."

"We have three heroes on the ground now?" It's Opaltine, Calhoun recognizes her voice.

"We do. I called her in to help with my hive. I wouldn't have been able to survive without it." As an afterthought, she adds, "If any other unit needs Dragon's assistance with their hive call her in, but stand clear. Her flame is corrosive and it gets everywhere. If you're too close you'll die."

"Understood. Thank you."

Claws slam into the ground and Dragon lugs herself out of the ground. Bugs swarm her, but the beast doesn't even bat an eye. "Arson!" she shouts in a guttural voice. "Heat me up!"

The temperature required to destroy those bugs, at this distance, would melt the armour off Calhoun's soldiers, too.

"The sky!" she shouts into the League frequency. "Heat Black Dragon in the sky! You'll wipe us if you do it down here!"

Arson bursts into view a moment later, hovering in front of Dragon's face. Calhoun isn't sure what she says, but she shoots herself back into the sky and Dragon launches herself up after her. The ground shatters under her might, and some of Calhoun's soldiers scream. She evaporates her shield to whip around and grab the nearest hand she sees, but stares in horror as at least ten of her people fall through the crevices.

"Thank you," the soldier dangling in her grip sobs.

She pulls them back onto solid ground. "You're welcome." It doesn't feel like enough. "Everyone, forward! Let's end this war!"

Athena drops in before Calhoun can so much as take one step. Golden magic crackles over her armour and glows in the engraved grooves of her helm.

"Uh," Calhoun utters, "Are you okay?"

Athena turns to her, and it sends chills down Calhoun's spine. She isn't sure if it's the magic leaking from her being or her intent, but either way it makes Calhoun blood run cold.

Athena says nothing and turns back the way she came. She's being followed by another swarm of bugs, smaller than before but still enough to rip the whole army's intestines out through their nostrils.

The heaven meta plants her feet and outstretches her arms.

"I can't get near her when she's using these powers, they'll rip me to shreds."

Arson's words from before shake Calhoun to the very core. She summons her strongest shield, the one meant to defend against planet-level destruction, and bellows, "Get directly behind me! Now, now, now!"

Pure golden light leaks out of Athena's hands for a few terrifying seconds before, with a blast that sucks in all sound, a pulsing beam explodes from her hands with enough force to dig her feet into ground halfway to her knees.

Calhoun stares, listening only to the blood pounding in her ears and watching the surreal, silent view in front of her. It feels wrong for something so destructive to be so quiet.

The beam stops and Athena lowers her arms. It takes an extra couple seconds before sound rushes back in.

Groaning fills Calhoun's ears and she turns around. All her soldiers are collapsed on the ground, writhing in pain. Anger boils in her blood and she whips on the heaven meta. She doesn't lower her shield. "Are you fucking insane?" Spittle sprays the inside of her helmet. "If Arson can't handle your powers up close, why the fuck did you do them so close to my soldiers? Answer me!"

Athena turns, slow and dangerous. More golden magic than before licks her armour, and some even drips off her fingers and chin like blood.

Calhoun's eyes widen. Does Athena's passive magic storage expand the longer she uses her powers, or does she just have a harder time controlling them? She also notes that it's harder to breathe. She doubts that has anything to do with the adrenaline of battle.

"Go do your job and I'll do mine," Athena says. There's a coldness to her voice that tightens Calhoun's chest.

"You just incapacitated my whole fucking unit." She wishes she had the vocal strength to sound more than just frustrated.

"If you had stuck to the plan instead of calling in Dragon early this wouldn't be a problem."

That makes Calhoun's ire spike. "You're a goddamn hero! It's your job to watch out for collateral damage!" She points to her soldiers. "I was trying to save them from the bugs. What the hell are you doing?"

Athena stalks up to her and slams her head against Calhoun's shield. It sends spikes of heaven magic through the metal and into her arm. Calhoun cries out, dissipates the shield, and staggers backwards.

"I, am saving your planet," Athena says with a voice trembling with unspent energy. "I'm sorry about your grunts, but I have greater concerns to contend with." A series of explosions makes her look up. Arson is creating a fireworks show of blue and white fire throughout the sky. Black Dragon is nowhere to be seen. "Excuse me." She hovers into the air and disappears. The shockwave afterwards knocks Calhoun off her feet.

Calhoun shakes her head and pushes herself to her knees. Her soldiers, while still twitching, aren't making sound anymore. Whether they're alive or not, Calhoun has no way of helping them.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Calhoun punches the ground. She doesn't do it full force, everything is too unstable for that and she doesn't want to risk her soldiers anymore than she already has.

Gritting her teeth, she summons shotgun gauntlets and bolts towards the crater in the ground. She doesn't look back. She stops thinking of protecting others.

Without regret, without thought, and without fear, Calhoun leaps into the hole. She lands in a full kneeling crouch, shaking the ground beneath her feet, and looks around. A lot of destroyed or collapsed tunnels, but no bugs. She raises her arm and looks at the rough blueprints again. It takes her a while of looking back and forth before she determines that there's still an untouched section beneath her.

Closing the screen, Calhoun runs into the nearest tunnel. She doesn't care that it doesn't look completely intact.

The maze that ensues gives Calhoun time to think, but she drowns it out by focusing solely on her goal of getting to the hive center and ripping out its heart. She isn't even sure what the 'heart' is. She's only ever destroyed a dozen and that was at the beginning of the war, before her weapons stopped being as effective. She has no idea what they've turned into now.

Calhoun slows to a walk. In front of her is a door, the only structure so far that looks complete. It's pitch black with blue patterns littering it. That's the same type of door she saw guarding hive hearts in the few she was able to successfully raid.

She walks up to it and examines the surface. It's a smooth metal that blends into the tunnel walls and has no obvious way of opening. She reaches out and traces the blue markings with her fingers. For bugs, this truly is a work of art.

Buzzing behind her makes her whirl around. There's a bug double the size of the regular ones hovering in front of her. Its half dozen eyes glow a faint white and the blue patterns over its black body shift and move over its skin.

Calhoun throws herself backwards with wide eyes. That's a hive heart, outside the heart chamber.

Something catches Calhoun's heel, she falls on her ass, and glances at her feet. She chokes on her own spit and lunges aside. The hive heart she tripped over ruffles its wings and stares at her with two glowing white eyes. It's a newer, immature heart.

Calhoun stands and looks around. Her heart drops into her stomach. There are thousands of glowing eyes staring back at her. She glances back the way she came to see the door she'd been staring at earlier closing. The bugs literally made her fall into a trap.

"Reeves to League, do you copy?" No response. "Reeves to League Computer, are you receiving me?" Nothing. Calhoun twitches a bitter smile and walks to the center of the room. Her gauntlets fade and she summons her planet shredder weapon in duel pistol form. She's never used this outside of shooting asteroids out of the ionosphere so she knows the bugs have no defenses against it, but one stray shot will destabilize the planet's core.

"Colonel Calhoun Reeves, materialization master."

Calhoun startles and snaps her head to the voice. A figure steps out of a shroud of darkness and stares at Calhoun with a calm expression. "This has been a long time coming," she says.

Calhoun narrows her eyes. "Why do you say that?"

In the seconds before the figure responds, the Colonel takes a moment to examine her opponent. She wears some sort of fabric armour with inlaid plates, and her helmet is somehow attached to it on her lower back. A long, fine chain with a large serrated arrow head attached at the end is wrapped around a notch on her waist.

Her face catches Calhoun off guard the most. She could be mistaken as anyone. She doesn't have any bug-like features or any distinguishing factors at all save the broken blue tattoo on her chin that spreads out like a web of jagged scars over her jaw line.

"I've known for a long while that I'd have to face you." She sits on one of the hive heart bugs, and it moves to make her more comfortable. "Can't say I've been looking forward to it."

"Who are you?"

The woman smiles. "I'm nobody."

"Bullshit," Calhoun snaps. "You're in the middle of all of this. There's no way you're nobody."

"To you and your planet, I could be considered everything," the woman muses. "But in my life I'm nothing without . . ." she shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. After all this, I won't be happy no matter the outcome. I've caused too much pain to think this is right."

"I— what?" Calhoun takes a mental step back. "What do you not think is right? This war? Are you behind it?"

"I wasn't the catalyst, if that's what you're asking," the woman says. There's a haunted look in her eyes. "But I did make everything . . . significantly worse." She raises her hands enough to stare at them. "Your people created the bugs and decided to do away with them. I gave them the means to evolve at an exponential rate before you could exterminate them."

Calhoun's eyebrows furrow. "Were you one of the lobbyists? The ones who believed the bugs deserved to be free?"

"No. I'm not a native here and I've never been enwrapped in your politics." The woman picks pieces of nonexistent lint from her pants. "If it were up to me, I never would've come here at all."

"You . . . you're under orders." It's a realization that shocks Calhoun more than she thought it would.

The woman's eyes harden. "If you want to put it lightly, then yes. I'm under orders." She meets Calhoun's gaze. "But unlike regular orders, I have no choice but to obey. I need to do this. Trust me, I would've gone AWOL a long time ago if I could."

Calhoun doesn't know how to respond to that, so she says nothing. Tears well in the woman's eyes the longer the silence drags on.

After a full minute the woman stands and bellows, "Say something!"

Calhoun tilts her head. "What do you want me to say?"

"That I'm a terrible person, because I'm the reason hundreds of millions are dead!" She grits her teeth and rubs her mouth with a shaking hand. Her eyes are wide and haunted.

"Billions," Calhoun corrects. "Billions are dead because of this war, not millions."

The woman stares. "Billions," she repeats, as if she's having a hard time believing it. Her trembles morphs into unstable laughter. "And for what? All this death for what?"

Calhoun takes a hesitant step forward. "Is there any way you can stop this?"

The woman laughs, loud and hysterical. "This can only end one of two ways, and which one that is completely depends on you. So do me a favour"—she takes her helmet from her lower back and puts it on—"and make me pay for everything I've done."

Calhoun raises her pistols. "You're not giving me a choice, are you?"

"You always have a choice." She takes the chain from her grip and spreads it between both hands. It starts glowing a faint gold. "I am limiting your options because I need to try to kill you, but you can choose what you want to do about it."

She pulls the trigger. "I see." The woman, who Calhoun's come to think of as the Hive Queen, somehow manages to dodge, and she stares at the bug that was behind her, ripped to pieces and scattered across the floor.

"So you have more tricks up your sleeve. Good. You'll need them." Queen spins her chain and releases it so fast that Calhoun barely has the time to duck and dodge when the head is pulled back.

Queen spins the weapon around her body, never letting the momentum slow.

Calhoun has seen this style of weapon before, but never with a meta at the wheel. And the glow? There's no doubt in Calhoun's mind that this weapon is enchanted.

With a flick of her wrist, Queen steps on the chain and slams the spearhead into the floor in front of Calhoun's feet.

A scream rips from Calhoun's lungs and her knees give out under a spike of gravitational force. That in itself would've been fine, but the pulse of energy that ripples through the floor into her armour burns her muscles. It feels eerily similar to when Athena head butted her shield.

"That's a heaven weapon," she gasps when she can find her breath.

"It is," Queen says. "Most people don't guess it right away, if they get it at all, but most people have never encountered a heaven meta before." Something rumbles above her and Calhoun glances towards the ceiling. "But you've been dealing with one of the strongest I've ever heard of. That gives you an advantage over the others."

Others? "Have you fought metas like me before?"

"A few, before hives became impossible for your forces to penetrate."

Calhoun's hands clench on her pistols. "You killed them." She remembers the metas that never came back. It was the first warning sign that the bugs were enough of a threat to plunge the planet into war.

"I— yeah. I did." She shakes her head. "So make certain I don't kill you, too."

Calhoun dissolves her weapons, stands, and holds a hand to the ceiling. "I have no plans of dying today." In the blink of an eye she summons a planetary destruction cannon on her outstretched arm and fires. The shockwave knocks the Hive Queen off her feet.

The cannon disappears and Calhoun leaps into the hole she created, jumping from one side of the tunnel to the other until she reaches the surface. The first thing she notices is the shattered moon in the sky, and she knows it's her fault. She hopes it wasn't one of the planet's main moons.

"Reeves to League! Enemy heaven meta located! I repeat, enemy heav— guuuh." A serrated blade rips through her abdomen and swings back with a soft clink against her knee. She stares at the chain and spearhead dangling from her body and collapses to her knees. It cut through her armour as if it wasn't even there. The chain becomes taut and then a foot slams into the back of her helmet.

"I'm sorry," Queen whispers, and rips the chain back out. Besides the pain, the absence brings a measure of relief. It stopped heaven magic from leaking into her.

"Reeves!" Arson blasts the heaven meta away with an explosion strong enough to force Calhoun's face into the dirt. The fire meta rolls her over. "I can cauterize your wound. Will you let me?"

"Do it," Calhoun chokes. She dissipates her armour around the wound and grits her teeth. It doesn't prepare her for the heat that lights every nerve in her abdomen on fire.

"Sorry. Sorry!" Arson shouts through Calhoun's screams.

"Oh my— fuck!" Calhoun summons a stronger set of armour and sits upright, clutching at her aching stomach.

"Sorry," Arson says again, but her eyes are on Queen who's once again found her feet.

"Arson," Queen says. "I would say it's a pleasure, but nothing about this is pleasant." She starts spinning her chain again, in wider arcs now that she has more space to maneuver.

"That's a heaven weapon with gravitational properties," Calhoun says. "Knocked me clean off my feet with one strike to the ground."

Arson nods. "Okay. On a scale of bug to Athena, how scary is she?"

Calhoun thinks back to the lightning. "If the bug is one and Athena is ten, I'd say a four from what I've seen."

Arson bursts into laughter. "Dude, that's nothing."

"She cut clean through my armour," Calhoun snaps. "I wouldn't call that nothing."

"Oh, it's definitely something," Arson allows. "But I've been through some crazy shit. A four is manageable." She takes off her gas mask and pulls her hero mask down around her neck.

Calhoun blinks at Arson's full face. She's looks so . . . young. How can someone almost half her age have the eyes of a haunted war veteran?

Arson sucks in a breath through her nose and opens her mouth. Black fire explodes outwards with otherworldly screams of tortured souls. Queen doesn't move. At the last moment, one of the hive hearts with eight eyes flies in the fire's path. It writhes in pain but stays in place until Arson cuts off her fire with a frown.

Queen shakes her head. "I am so, so sorry." She launches her spearhead into the air, where it crackles with heaven energy. She kicks out her leg, wraps it around the chain, and drives her foot into the ground. The spear point follows and, when it connects with the ground, both Calhoun and Arson are forced face first into the cold hard dirt.

"Jesus!" Arson shouts. "She has one hell of a swing! Athena and Dragon, this is Arson. I need backup, now. This bitch has a grav weapon with a pull stronger than my super strength, and Reeves isn't faring much better. Hey," she says in a softer voice. "Are you doing alright, Reeves?"

Calhoun can't speak. The heaven energy coursing through the dirt into her veins is making her brain fuzz out. How can Arson still be functional?

The pull subsides and Arson jumps to her feet. She puts both of her masks back on. "You're a little firecracker, aren't you?"

Queen chuckles. "From you I'll take that as a compliment."

"Oh, it totally is. Ever been interested in being a hero? I'd love to have you on my side."

"I really, really wish I could, trust me." She looks to her feet where the bug struggles to its feet. "But I have orders and I . . . I can't disobey him."

The bug turns and Calhoun's blood runs cold. Its black skin is now a deep crimson and its eyes glow red. Black fire leaks from its mouth.

Arson's eyes nearly pop out of her head. "Athena, Dragon, watch out! Blue bugs absorb magic and one of them got my hellfire!" Arson winces away from one of her earpieces. "I didn't do it on purpose. I was trying to wipe out the heaven meta."

Athena slams into the ground in front of Arson. Heaven magic drips down her armour like thick syrup, and her very presence makes it a little harder to breathe.

Queen takes a noticeable step back. "Athena."

Athena takes one step, then pauses. A swarm of black and blue bugs streams out of the hole in the ground and swirl around the Hive Queen.

"Shit," Athena snarls.

A roar makes Athena's head snap to the side. Black Dragon flies in full tilt, changes into human form mid-flight, and slams into the bugs. Green fire explodes outwards in every direction. Dragon keeps tumbling forward with her momentum until she plows through a pile of rubble. She leaps atop the pile a moment later with a triumphant battle cry.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Queen hisses. She's rubbing the heaven chain all over herself to scrape off the lingering acidity. To Calhoun's intrigue, the heart bugs hit by the fire lay half disintegrated on the ground.

Athena laughs. "They can only absorb certain powers."

"And bugs have encountered my hellfire before," Arson supposes, "but I wiped that hive in an instant. I wouldn't think that'd be enough time to get relevant data out to create a counteract for it."

"Well, they did." Athena turns to a nearby heart bug, one with four eyes, and punches it so hard it sends out a shockwave. "But this is a good sign that we need to end this and get the fuck out of here."

Athena gets sent flying across the landscape with a startled yelp. Calhoun looks down and shudders. The four-eyed bugs eyes glow gold and its black skin has taken on a golden sheen.

Arson pulls Calhoun to her feet and yanks her into a tactical retreat. "Fuck. Fuck. Athena, I think these things are primed to absorb hell and heaven magic. I don't know how. You and I have been here for weeks, it's possible— I don't know! Dragon is our best bet right now because the bugs have had zero exposure to her until today. I don't care if you don't like her, she's our only chance of getting out of this shit alive!"

"Either I die alone or this whole planet comes with me!" Queen shouts. "Those are the only two options!" The tip of her spear digs into the ground with every spin, and it's spinning faster than Calhoun's eye can track. Gravity keeps increasing and Calhoun pales. She can't fight this. Not with two of her hero supports benched.

Dragon bursts into insane laughter. "You think death and gravity scares me?" She barrels forward, completely unaffected by the increasing downward force.

Arson throws Calhoun into a ship before she can see the ensuing battle. "We're retreating to a safe distance until Dragon takes down the heaven meta." The ship closes and starts moving.

"Is Athena not coming with us?"

Arson's eyes almost pop out of her head. "Are you crazy? Did you see her? We can't be on the same ship as her with her magic pissing out like that. She's got the ship Dragon came in on if she needs to retreat."

"'If'? You mean she's not retreating?" Calhoun exclaims. "The hell is she thinking with those hive hearts everywhere?"

For a second Arson just stares. "Hive— you mean those blue bugs? Uh, yeah. Athena's pulling away from them and will continue to do so as necessary, but she's going to keep fighting in the meantime."

Calhoun looks to the ship, then back to Arson. "But we're not joining her."

"We will rejoin at a safe distance," Arson reassures. "I'm just not as confident in my ability to out-fly gravity bombs and you looked like you were having as much trouble as me, so I called in my ship."

"Oh." Calhoun stands and walks to the exit. She takes two steps before crumbling to a knee. "Augh! Fuck!"

Arson kneels in front of her. Her eyes shimmer with concern. "Is it your wound? Do me a favour and do away with your armour for a second. I want to take a proper look at it."

"Emergency retreat! All forces, retreat!"

Calhoun frowns. The alert echoes through her helmet and the League ship's speaker. It was a warning for all frequencies.

Arson whips around and jogs to the door. "Athena, update! What the hell hap— oh."

Calhoun struggles to find her feet and staggers to the open door. Her eyes widen. Gold and red bugs have taken to the sky and black fire has overtaken the landscape.

"They multiplied on their own," Arson murmurs in a trance. "They didn't all need a direct attack from me or Athena, just one." She takes out one of her ear pieces and walks further into the ship with a shell-shocked expression.

Calhoun's heart drops into her stomach. "But you can counter it, can't you?"

Arson sits on one of the benches. "I can face the red ones, but I can't get near the gold ones. The opposite applies to Athena unless she wants to sign her own death warrant. She won't do that."

"There's still over a billion people living here!" Calhoun exclaims. Her voice cracks. "What's one life for all of them?"

Arson raises her head and sends Calhoun a stormy look of raw agony. "I'm sorry. She won't do it."

"She won't do it, or you won't let her?"

Arson closes her eyes. Tears streak down her cheeks. "I just— I know her. She won't put her life down like that for your world. I don't think she'd even do it for ours. I'm sorry."

"No! That's not enough! How—" The ship banks and Calhoun falls and slams into the wall Arson's against with a cry of pain. She dissipates her armour and lifts her shirt. Gold veins are creeping outwards from her cauterized wound.

"Oh, fuck." Arson stares at the wound with wide, haunted eyes.

Black Dragon barrel rolls into the ship and the door closes behind her. Half her dragon scale armour is damaged or missing, and blood coats her upper arm. "Jesus, it's been a while since I've had my ass kicked like I was a pup." She touches her biggest wound with a hiss. "Those bastards don't fuck around."

Calhoun, clutching her wound and gritting her teeth, forces herself to her feet and staggers to the exit. "Open the door."

Arson blinks out of her stupor. "What? No."

"I am not going to abandon my people."

"Your people are dead men walking," Dragon deadpans. "If you go down there you'll be dead, too."

"I don't care!" Calhoun bellows. "Those are my soldiers, and I will defend them to my last breath."

Dragon shrugs and goes for the medical kit. "Whatever. Go commit suicide if you're so keen on it."

Arson walks to Calhoun's side. "If this was my planet I would fight to my last breath, too, but you . . . you won't do them much good with a heaven infection."

"She has a heaven infection?" Dragon glances to Calhoun's bloody side and breaks into a wide, toothy smile. "Wow, you unlucky bitch. That is a horrifying way to go."

"So I die if I stay and I die if I go back, what's the difference?" Calhoun touches the door. "I choose to fight for them, not wither away in here."

"Arson, put on your fucking comm," Athena barks from the ship's speakers.

"I'm in a League ship with Dragon and Reeves," Arson says. "What do you need?"

"We're leaving. The heaven and hell bugs are destabilizing the planet's crust and the gravitation is making the fucking thing collapse in on itself. And don't ever take out your earpiece in the middle of a mission, do you understand me?"

"I— sorry. I already figured we couldn't win. There's no way we'd be able to counter that without you activating seals."

"Fuck that."

"Yeah. I knew you wouldn't want to, that's why I took my headset out. Mission over. We lost."

A long couple of seconds pass before Athena answers. "Lost is a harsh word."

"We lost, Athena!" Arson bellows. "We should have been smarter! We should have planned for this because we knew that those fucking insects created defenses to all magic and technology they encounter! We should have known!"

"Hey," Dragon calls from the cockpit. "I think you might want to see this."

Arson wipes tears from her eyes and stalks towards the front of the ship. Calhoun follows after, but at half the pace. Her limbs are feeling far more sluggish than they were a moment ago.

Calhoun enters the pilot's area and looks at the wraparound monitor. They're in space overlooking Hero's Duty. It looks misshapen, and it becomes more compressed the longer she stares.

She's not sure how long it lasts or how much of her soul dies watching her home turn into the equivalent of small asteroid, but she does know with certainty that everyone she loves is dead. "Life signs?" she isn't sure why she asks. She knows what the answer is going to be.

Arson leans against the wall and shakes her head. Somehow she looks as traumatized as Calhoun feels. "Nothing. It's gone." She swallows. "Athena, are you picking up any—"

Ringing fills Calhoun's ears and she retreats out of the room. She trips over her own two feet and face plants into the floor. She doesn't try getting up.

A high pitched scream fills the ship. It takes Calhoun a moment to realize it's coming from her, but it doesn't last long. Soon she falls into a coughing fit that edges her vision into blackness. The muffled sound of voices somehow penetrates the ringing, but she ignores it and runs full tilt into the darkness of her mind. The part that doesn't feel.

She doesn't remember losing consciousness.

---

Present Day

Calhoun pushes past Blizzard with wide eyes as Anna collapses. "We need to get her mask off," she says. Her voice sounds foreign to herself. "We don't have a suppressant on us. We need Archangel to do it."

"That wasn't a normal transition," Elsa says. "I don't— Chel is in her head, we don't know—"

"Anna?" Ariel whimpers. Even the wind dies at the sound of her voice. Calhoun doesn't want to know if that's natural or the marine meta's powers at work.

Ariel starts walking, slow at first and speeding to a full sprint until she slides to a stop next to the fire meta and holds her tight. "Hey, I'm right here. It's fine. We're fine."

"Ariel?" Anna whimpers from the end of the hall, her eyes wide with horror.

Calhoun rubs her hands on her thighs as if it would rid them of the phantom feeling of Ariel's blood. She pauses at the sound of metal on metal. She looks down and stares at her new armour. Somehow it slipped her mind she was wearing it.

"Shut up, Reaper!" Emma barks. Her 'husband', who's been laughing nonstop, cracks up even more.

Calhoun's eyes harden. "Archangel, is there a way for you to nerf him?"

The muscles in Emma's jaw jump. "I'd need to close my seals, but our bond is so unstable right now that it's plausible he'd be able to kill you all before having to close his own."

"Does your bond get more unstable over time or only with seal manipulation?" Rapunzel asks.

"Both." Emma flashes the League heroes a tight smile. "The magic that binds us wasn't meant to sustain itself with both people mentally functional. Us using it on each other was bad enough. Us retaining our core beliefs made it worse. It's the reason I had to retire in the first place."

Interesting, but not something Calhoun needs to know. "You don't have to manipulate your seal, though." She points at Darryl. "You only need his."

Darryl smirks. "Yes, dear, work my seal."

The muscles in Emma's jaw jump. "I can't do that, he won't let me."

"But I am," Darryl mocks. He pats his chest. "Come get it. You know you want to pull something out from inside me, or would you prefer it the other way? I might be into that if you do it."

Emma gags and covers her mouth with a wince. "He won't mentally let me," she clarifies. "His will is strong enough over this one aspect that my will can't overshadow it, even with our bond"—she spits the word—"weakened."

"So," Rapunzel says, slow and careful, "he can make you do things you don't want to do?"

"More like he can stop me from doing things." Emma shakes her head. "It doesn't sound as damaging when put like that, but remember that I had kids with him that I most certainly didn't want."

"Worked out so well at first," Darryl says with a taunting grin. "Jennifer, that adorable soul, took to me because of your disdain. I only regret that you learned your lesson with James. He had so much potential."

Calhoun has been wondering about that. "I'm going to ask you about that later."

"No," Emma says. Her voice is clipped.

When nothing else is forthcoming, Calhoun sighs through her nose and turns to Darryl. "So we kill him." Elsa and Rapunzel stare at her. Calhoun summons a pair of glistening black pistols and spins them in her palms. "Let's finish what Anna started."

"Anna is stronger than us and she lost," Elsa hisses. "How are we going to fare any better?"

Calhoun shoots Darryl in response. He blocks the attack with black mist. "We'll do better because on a scale of bug to Athena, this bastard doesn't even make the list."

"That . . . doesn't make any sense," Elsa says.

Darryl's mist retreats back to his skin and he grins. "A new challenger approaches."

Calhoun snarls at the sarcasm in his voice. "I can tell being under Emma's influence for so long has affected your common sense, because you've forgotten everything about being a villain. It isn't what you say that makes people shit themselves hearing your name, it's what you do, and you're doing a whole lot of nothing."

Darryl's eyes darken and his smile fades. "Ah. You're that type."

Instinct is the only thing that saves Calhoun from the insanity of a hell gate. She leaps out of the way half a second before it appears beneath her feet and runs in randomized directions to prevent from hitting any of the gates that appear on her path afterwards. Darryl is good at what he does, Calhoun will give him that. If she wasn't trained to counter before attacks even happened, she'd be dead right now.

Clang!

The hell gates stop appearing.

"Emma!" Darryl barks. "Stop trying to fucking fight me, you'll destroy us both!"

Calhoun looks over to see Emma's sword against Darryl's scythe, and they both have expressions of raw pain cracking through their vengeful expressions.

"I will smite you in heaven itself if it means you fucking die," Emma growls.

"Stop!" Calhoun barks. "This is destabilizing the both of you and, no fucking offense, Emma, but I'd rather not have to deal with two crazy motherfuckers instead of one."

Darryl laughs. "Yeah, Emma," he mocks. "Don't go worrying your— augh!" Darryl staggers back gurgling on blood and pawing at the trident sticking out of his chest.

Calhoun blinks and turns to the marine meta. "Ariel—" The name dies in her throat and her mouth goes dry. She holds out her arm at the other two heroes and starts backing up. "Back up. Support roles only."

Ariel, her eyes red from crying, stares at Darryl with wide eyes and pinprick pupils. Her whole body is vibrating with restrained power and moisture starts collecting in the area, something Calhoun hadn't noticed in her panic over the hell gates.

"You hurt my home," Ariel says, calmer than Calhoun expects from the meta's expression. "You . . ." Her teeth click together and upper lip twitches up enough to bare her teeth. "How dare you!"

Water wraps around the trident's handle and rips it out to return it into Ariel's waiting hand. She flicks her wrist to spray Darryl's blood off the weapon and into the sand.

"Shit!" Darryl dissolves into mist, but a well timed shot from Calhoun has him taking solid form a few meters from where he started, clutching his stomach. She notes that the chest wound is no longer bleeding.

With a snarl, he spits out blood and summons his scythe. He glances around with narrowed eyes. Ariel isn't where she used to be.

A second later she crashes in from above like a merciless god.

The ground craters under the force and the shockwave knocks Calhoun a good length back. Her experience with ground-shattering forces is the only reason she doesn't end up on her ass like her teammates.

Emma, she notices, stands impervious in the exact same spot she was in before. She watches the fight with a fixed concentration.

"Jesus!" Elsa stumbles to her feet shaking her head to dislodge the sand. She grabs Rapunzel's hand and helps her up. "I knew Poseidon was a force to be reckoned with, but seeing it?" She looks into the inverted sand dune. "Fucking Christ."

That's one way of putting it, Calhoun thinks.

Ariel is going toe-to-toe with Darryl who's throwing mist, hellfire, hellfire smoke, and hell gates out his ass, and she's winning. She's even avoiding his scythe with a fluid efficiency that causes a tinge of jealousy to spike in Calhoun's chest.

After all, Calhoun was the dumbass that tried to catch a heaven weapon with what was essentially her bare hand.

But she's objective enough to notice that something isn't right. Ariel's expression doesn't match her tone, and her fighting style doesn't have the looseness it usually does. There's a harshness there that has never been a feature in the marine meta's personality.

Narrowing her eyes, Calhoun walks to Anna's body and kicks it over. No reaction, and her showing features are slack. She looks from Anna to Ariel, then back again.

Calhoun uses her mind to activate her communication earpiece. "All on the line identify. E-zero-zero-eight."

"E-one-two." Oh. Calhoun didn't know Belle had joined the comm.

Rapunzel cocks her armoured head. "E-one-zero."

"E-one-five," Elsa says. Her eyes shine with confusion and a sharp concern. Good.

"E-zero—" The last number is garbled, but Calhoun recognizes Ariel's voice.

She turns to Anna and shoots her with a lightning round.

Ariel throws herself backwards as if she'd been shot.

Darryl laughs and punches Ariel into the ground. He raises his free hand and waves. "Goodnight." He lifts his foot and slams it into Ariel's stomach, but it doesn't drive her into the ground.

She falls through a hell gate.

"Poseidon!" Rapunzel wails and tries rushing in, but Elsa grabs her friend's arm and pulls her back.

"Don't, it's not safe!"

"Don't tell me what's fucking safe!" Rapunzel struggles as hard as she can, but her super strength is weaker than Elsa's. She cries out in frustration. "Poseidon!"

Calhoun stares in horror as the gate beneath Darryl's feet closes. He raises his head and sends the materialization meta a smile that makes her insides crawl. "Thanks for the assist."

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she looks back to Anna. She's as knocked out as she was before.

"No. No. No!" Calhoun whips on Darryl and bellows a war cry that drowns out the severity of her mistake. Her mind burns, her ears ring, and her hands hiss with the tell-tale sign of a new summon. It's odd because she didn't have that with her other new weapons, but she doesn't spare the brainpower to analyze it.

Darryl raises an eyebrow and looks Calhoun up and down. "Is a colour change supposed to scare me?"

A pistol solidifies in one of Calhoun's hand and a shield attaches to her other forearm. They're heavy enough to weigh her down, even with her super strength.

"Colour?" She looks at her arm. "Ah." Instead of silver, the metal is a sparkling blue and white.

"Whoa!" Belle huffs an excited laugh. "I thought you lost your armouring. How did you do that?"

"I didn't summon armour, I adjusted what I already had." Somehow. "You shouldn't be here."

"What? I'm not there."

Calhoun frowns. "How do you know?"

"Didn't you— Scar's broadcasting this internationally. He started less than a minute ago and I told you about it."

"Ah." She wasn't paying attention, obviously. The thought of Ariel makes her heart fall into her stomach and she marches to Darryl to stop herself from thinking.

Laughter bubbles out of Darryl's lips. "Wow. Walking towards me. That intimidation strategy didn't even work with Archangel, you know, and she was a legitimate threat."

A hell gate appears under Calhoun's feet.

The white on her armour flashes and the gate disappears, along with Darryl's humour.

"The fuck?" He throws a ball of black mist. Calhoun shoots it out of the air. She breaks a sweat moving her arm so fast against the weight settling over her.

Darryl takes a step back. His eyes are sharp with attention and, for once, he has nothing to say. That's a good a sign as any, Calhoun supposes, that shows that she's being considered an actual threat.

"Huh. Interesting. Reeves, do me a favour and get Archangel to shoot her magic at you."

"What? No, this isn't the time for unnecessary risks." She already made that mistake once.

"You'll be fine, I think. Just get her to shoot your shield where your arm isn't."

Calhoun stops and turns her head to Emma. "Shoot my shield, top." She extends her arm away from her body, and it trembles from the effort. Whatever this summon is, it's doing one hell of a number on her.

Emma charges golden light in her hand and punches it out without question.

The blue patterns of the shield flash on an impact Calhoun doesn't even feel. She turns back to Darryl and keeps walking. It's harder to do now. "Satisfied, Decryption?"

"I am." She certainly sounds happy with herself. "You nullify heaven and hell magic with that on. Your colour scheme is the inverse colours of gold and black, the common ability colours for those magic types."

"Interesting." Calhoun raises her pistol and shoots. She's slower than a human and misses by a mile thanks to meta reflexes. "I swear to god this would be useful if I wasn't the speed of a goddamn turtle."

"I can try to pin him down," Elsa says through the earpiece, "but I don't know how long my ice will hold him."

"Poseidon could do it," Rapunzel says.

Oh.

"I suggest retreating," Calhoun says. "If either of you fall through a gate like her you're as good as gone. It's a miracle you haven't been targeted already."

"So we retreat, then what?" Rapunzel asks. Her voice is raw. "You may be immune but you're crippled by your speed and Archangel can't help you. What the hell are you going to do? And what if Anna wakes up Red? What will you do then?"

"Archangel can handle Red Arson."

"And what about Reaper?" Rapunzel shouts. "Who the fuck is going to deal with him? Because it certainly isn't going to be you!"

Soft, unhinged chuckling sets Calhoun's hairs on end.

"Don't worry. The situation is under control."

Calhoun turns slower than a snail and looks to the top of the crater. Anna— no, Arson, stands there with one iris all but glowing red while her other remains its normal teal, ringed in gold. Beside her is a straight-faced Ariel who has a wild look in her eye.

Arson tilts her head to Calhoun. "Point your gun in any direction and shoot on the count of three, I'll handle the rest. One."

Calhoun lifts her arm. It's harder than it was a few seconds ago and she can only go halfway before her muscles refuse to go further.

"Two. Three."

Calhoun shoots, and Darryl screams.

"Good." Arson waves her hand and Ariel dashes forward. "Release your summon, Colonel Reeves. It's hurting you."

"Only if you let Archangel suppress the HFS in your system."

Arson twitches. "You want me to reveal my face for the whole world to see?"

Right. Fucking Scar and his stupid cameras.

Arson jumps forward and lands in front of Calhoun. "I have a better idea." She looks over at the sound of another scream. Her eyes crinkle in amusement. "But first, let me watch this."

Calhoun turns her head in time to see Ariel twist her trident in Darryl's gut and drive him into the ground. She presses the weapon down with one hand and holds the other as if she were pulling something out of the ground. Darryl screams and throws his head back into the sand hard enough to blow out sand like an explosion.

When the sand settles, Calhoun pales. Darryl's blood is oozing out of his wounds and hovering in the air over his body.

Arson chuckles. There's a dark look in her eyes. "Okay, I'm good." She turns to Calhoun and pulls her into a tight hug.

Calhoun's armour flashes in blinding show of white and blue, and the agony in Arson's voice when she cries out almost breaks Calhoun's heart. She dispels her summon immediately.

Arson collapses to her knees. Her upper body leans into Calhoun's legs, but the older meta is so weak that the weight makes her fall over.

"Damn it," Calhoun groans. She can't remember the last time her muscles ached from something other than physical injuries. Then again, she's also getting used to physical pain in general.

"Reeves, are you okay?" Elsa asks.

"I'm not sensing any injuries," Rapunzel says. "She's just exhausted."

"Exhausted?"

"Oh," Belle says. "It has to be the new summon. I can't say I'm all that surprised, heaven and hell magic is leagues above regular powers. I couldn't imagine the energy it would consume to combat them as a regular meta, Elite or not."

Arson struggles to her elbows with a grunt. She shakes her head. "That has a kick," she rasps.

"Home," Ariel calls. There's a strange quality to her voice, and Calhoun's translation earpiece kicks in. Is she speaking her native language? "Come kill."

Arson, who isn't wearing a communication or translation device, turns her head. "Okay," she answers in Atlantian. She pulls herself off of Calhoun and crawls over with one arm, her fake one, dragging in the sand.

Emma closes the gap and kicks Arson to her back.

Ariel's pupils narrow to the point Calhoun can no longer make them out, and then Emma slams into the sand on her hands and knees.

"Poseidon," Emma says. Her voice is strained. "Arson can't kill Reaper when she's Red. She's already too powerful for the League, and I won't be able to help after his heart stops."

"She just fell through a hell gate," Arson grumbles as she props herself up on her good elbow. "You can't logic with her. Her brain is scrambled."

"But she listens to you." It isn't a question.

"Yes and no." Arson stands on wobbly legs and continues her way to Darryl. "She's protecting herself, but a lot of her sanity is tied to me being her home. That's what she's latching on to."

Emma's expression slacks. "But you're not you right now."

Arson laughs. It's harsh and hollow. "But who she loves is in here somewhere past Chel fizzing the fuck out and making the inside of my head a goddamn nightmare." She kneels beside Darryl's head and raises her fist.

"Arson," Emma says, "please stop. Let me see your eyes."

Calhoun finds enough strength to push to her elbows and watch the scene unfold. For a surreal couple of seconds, everything remains in picture perfect stillness. Then Darryl chokes on his own blood and Arson shakes out of her stupor. She turns around to meet Emma's gaze.

One eye is no longer red, but it now encroaches in both irises from the pupils. It's an unnerving mix of gold, teal, and red that makes Calhoun feel as if she's staring at three different people, all struggling to control the same body.

"You can't kill him like this," Emma says. "The hell energy of weapon transfer will tip the balance inside your head."

For a second Arson only stares, then the corners of her eyes crinkle in amusement. "I know." She turns and swings down with a blast of heat, and Darryl's skull cracks open. "Like father like daughter." She chuckles. "I suppose it's fitting." With a crack, Arson forces part of Darryl's ribcage out of the way and shoves her hand into his chest.

"Arson, no!" Emma cries. Her eyes widen and she grabs at her chest. She gags and spit drips from her lips into the sand.

Arson rips out Darryl's heart and stands. She stares at it, laughs, and crushes it in her palm.

Haunting whispers explode outwards from Arson's hand, engulfs the area, then sucks back in to a singular point. Mist blacks out Arson's hand and expands outwards into the classic scythe that gave entire generations across the universe nightmares.

Emma's eyes roll back into her head and she collapses. Her sword and shield disappear in bolts of golden lightning.

"Crossroads!" Calhoun shouts. She realizes the distance between them and activates her comm. "Crossroads, the backlash on Archangel started."

"On my way!"

Insane laughter echoes through the area. Calhoun turns. Arson is clutching her hair with her free hand and is staring into the sky with glowing red eyes. Her armour changes colour to match her irises, and is only broken by the black designs that crawl over it in moving wisps.

"Shit, shit, shit," Rapunzel utters under her breath as she skids to a stop by Emma's trembling body and rolls her over.

Arson's head snaps to the healer. Her eyes crinkle and she twirls her scythe. "Mate, I can't let you save that whore. Poseid— oh." She stares at the marine meta, who's in the fetal position with her hands buried in her hair. She shrugs. "Good help is hard to come by. Too bad." She hooks Ariel with her foot and kicks her at Rapunzel.

Rapunzel cries out and grabs her.

"Two for one!" Arson cackles, and then she's on top of them with her scythe primed behind her.

"Crossroads!" Elsa screams. The temperature plummets and ice spikes from every direction. It melts before it hits Arson's body. "Fuck!" She breaks into a sprint, covering the extreme distance in a second flat and tackles Arson to the ground. She leaps away before Arson gets her with the blade.

"Bitch!" Arson punches out a blast that throws Elsa hard into the opposite crater wall.

"Blizzard!" With one hand Rapunzel whips out her sniper rifle and shoots through the billowing cloud of sand. Arson screams, then she punches Rapunzel's head into the sand with the force of a demon.

"Scar!" Arson roars to the heavens. "Leg!"

Calhoun looks down and, sure enough, Arson's right leg is blown off from the knee down. She half expects to see blood pouring from it, but the wound has already been cauterized.

"You, fucking, bitch." The scythe is back in Arson's right hand and there's no teasing left in her eyes.

"Blow her hand off!" Belle shouts in the earpiece. "She can't hold a hell weapon in an arm made of heaven energy!"

Calhoun doesn't question. She whips up an arm and fires a shredding round before the barrel of her shotgun has fully formed. The round goes stray as a result and literally rips Arson's entire forearm into scraps of flesh and armour.

"Focus on Archangel!" Calhoun yells at Rapunzel. She kicks her feet into the air and pushes off the sand with her hands to land on her feet. Her energy is borne from pure fear and adrenaline, and she thanks all her soldier instincts for channeling it this effectively.

Arson stares at her with a focused expression that scares Calhoun more than Darryl's anger ever could. His anger made him stop thinking. Arson's anger turns her into a nightmare incarnate.

The corner of Arson's eyes crinkle and she lifts her stump of a leg. "Your ruthlessness is astounding." A box of metal slams into her raised leg and she slides back. There's the sound of motors and drilling, and Arson throws her head back in a pained laugh. "God, yes! Hurt me harder!"

"I see your masochist tendencies transferred," Calhoun mutters.

Arson shakes her foot to throw off the excess metal and plants her new gleaming black metal prosthetic in the sand. "I suppose with you in play I should've been using the arm you can't destroy." She cackles. "Oh well. A few lost limbs never stopped me before." She holds out her left arm and, amidst bolts of golden lightning, she summons Athena's spear.

Calhoun's eyes widen and she takes a step back. "Your memories—"

"Have been sorted," Arson answers with an evil glint in her eyes. "I know what's real and what's fake, and I know this malfunctioning piece of shit"—she taps the spear to her head—"holds even more potential for me, but her damn power programs stopped functioning. I suppose it's fine. If she crashed completely I'd be a vegetable." She laughs. "My noble self tried so hard to push Chel away that she destroyed her goddamn brain. We can't operate without the AI anymore, and if that isn't a nice slice of irony I don't know what is."

"For fuc— you're better than villain rants." As useful as the information is, Calhoun needs to get under Red Arson's skin. "Or did Reaper rut in your ear and cum stupid into your head?"

Arson's eyebrows fall into an unamused line. "Ha ha." She throws the spear and Calhoun whips her head to the side. She isn't quick enough. The point rips through her helmet and slices the bridge of her nose, through her eye, and out her cheekbone.

"Fucking shit!" Calhoun grabs at her face but before it can reach, it's caught in Arson's iron grip. "Fu— aaaaAAH!"

Arson heats Calhoun's armour until it glows and slams her hand against her knee. Every bone in Calhoun's hand cracks. The fire meta squeezes the broken extension and rips it off.

Calhoun staggers back and summons a flame thrower. She charges it and presses her stump of a wrist into the barrel. She bellows against the pain, and thanks any god that's watching that she can't smell her own burning flesh.

Arson tilts her head. She holds out her arm and summons the holy spear back to her hand. "I know you're not one for conversation, but I've got to ask: are you tired of fighting losing battles?"

"I am." Calhoun chokes on the blood pooling in her helmet from her eye.

Arson laughs and lifts her injured arm. Another box of metal slams and drills into her. She shakes her arm to reveal yet another pitch black mechanical arm. "So how does it feel knowing you're going to lose again?"

Calhoun removes her helmet and spits out the blood that had gotten into her mouth. The rest spills onto her chest piece, which she's sure doesn't inspire confidence in the civilians watching all of this unfold. "Without Chel's help, what threat number do you honestly think you are?"

Arson narrows her eyes. "Still insist on mocking me, huh?"

With a smile Calhoun attaches her broken helmet to her lower back. "Genuine question. On a scale of bug to Athena, where am I compared to you?"

"Without this arm?" She raises her free hand and wiggles her fingers. "Maybe our numbers would have been closer." She summons the scythe and spins it. "Not anymore."

"Let me rephrase." Calhoun nods her head to the wall of ice erected to her right, at the edge of the crater. "How much closer am I to Athena if I have help?"

Arson looks at the ice and her eyes crinkle in amusement. "You're closer to bug."

A trident catches in Arson's hair and throws her into the ice wall.

"So I win either way," Calhoun comments. "Cool."

Arson roars and swings her scythe to cut off her caught hair. She falls back to the sand with heat wafting off her. "Poseidon," she snarls. "Back off."

Ariel, standing beside Darryl's body, stares at the fire meta with a blank expression. "You're not my home."

Arson narrows her eyes and ports on her mask click open. "No. I'm most certainly not."

"Poseidon, move!" Calhoun bolts towards the marine meta and tackles her out of the way of a hellfire blast. She whirls to her feet and charges Arson before the insane Elite can change her target to someone like Rapunzel. She jumps over one attack in the last span.

Arson laughs and covers herself in hellfire smoke.

Calhoun laughs back and whips her newest summon out of her ass. She falls with the weight of a small moon on her shoulders, right into Arson's chest. The hellfire smoke sparks out of existence in a flash of white, and her armour continues to crackle as she all but straddles Arson's torso.

Arson struggles and cries out in frustration and no small amount of pain. It isn't enough.

The materialization meta raises her white and blue pistol and shoots Arson in the face, over, and over, and over again until her eyes roll back into her head and she stops moving. Then Calhoun shoots twice more just to make sure she stays down.

She dissipates her summon and collapses atop of her friend. She doesn't even try to move. Every bone in her body aches.

A few moments and a few shuffling feet later, she hears. "I got her."

Arms wrap around Calhoun's abdomen and pulls her back and rests her against a propped up piece of ice. It's more comfortable than she would have suspected.

Elsa appears in front of her with concern shining in her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Calhoun smiles. It doesn't reach her eyes. "I feel less whole than I did at the start of the fight."

Elsa winces. "Yeah, uh, it doesn't look as bad as it feels, and I'm sure your eye is fixable."

Calhoun turns her head to Rapunzel. She's still dealing with Emma. "I wouldn't count on it. Decryption, you wouldn't happen to have an eye that I can use, do you?"

"Not on hand, but I'm sure I can raid one from Scar when we take him down."

Calhoun rubs her mouth so that Scar can't read her lips. "You better check them so I don't turn into another Mechanical Warfare."

"Of course. I'd have to triple check everything that maniac owns."

Elsa sits back on her heels and turns her attention to Arson. Arson, with her two new limbs and uneven hair. "Is it over?"

"Not even close." Calhoun glances into the sky as another League ship snaps to a stop atop the battle zone. Shang, Jane, and Mulan jump out of open bottom door. All three of them walk to Arson and work as a team to put on her upgraded suppression items. They put on the neck clamp and a new circlet that tightens to the point that it looks physically painful.

When it comes to the mask, Shang holds his shield close over Arson's head to block the cameras. Calhoun breathes a soft sigh of relief. She knows Anna herself would be safe if the public knew who she is, but her family would have no way of protecting themselves.

"I really hope these items work," Shang says, so low that Calhoun barely hears him even through the comm system.

"I can't guarantee that without testing," Belle says.

Ariel retrieves her trident and puts it on her back. There's a serious edge to her expression that puts Calhoun on edge. She clears her throat and asks, "Poseidon?"

Ariel's narrow pupils snap to Calhoun, but her attention doesn't last. The moment the three former juniors start moving Arson to the ship, Ariel stalks towards them. "Out of my way," she orders in harsh Atlantian. She all but shoves Jane on her ass to cradle Arson in her arms and ferry the villain to the ship herself.

Calhoun tilts her head until it hits ice and stares into the sky. For the first time she sees one of Scar's levitating cameras, far enough from the action to avoid getting destroyed from anything other than long range attacks. "Blizzard?"

"Hm?"

"This doesn't feel like a win, does it?"

Elsa's gaze flicks to the ship and watches Ariel board it with Shang and Mulan in toe. Jane remains and starts dealing with the cleanup. Then the icy meta looks to Darryl, limp and bloody. They have to wait until his blood loses its poisonous quality before they can move him and dispose of his body. At last, she looks to Emma, still being attended to by Rapunzel.

"This is a win, because it could have been so much worse, but . . ." Elsa sighs. "Yeah. This doesn't feel like winning." She shakes her head, pushes to her feet, and points to the first camera she sees while oozing confidence Calhoun knows she doesn't feel. "Arson has been defeated, and the rest of you villains will follow. You don't have your big bad monster to shield you anymore, and without her we will uproot every last one of you and make Earth safe again. The League will succeed. Heroes will prevail. And we will take, you, down."

Calhoun grins and throws her only fist into the air. She doesn't feel like celebrating, but if there's anything Anna's taught her it's that pretending for the people is half the battle in gaining public faith. And they're going to need all the public faith they can get to convince Earth that Arson is safe as an Elite in the League.

Because Arson being dead? No one will believe that if Beta Rho comes along with the same weapons Arson was waving around here.

Calhoun can't help but laugh aloud at the PR disaster awaiting them. The old Anna would shit a brick at the very idea of her causing such a mess, but the new Anna? Calhoun gets the impression she won't care.

And that, behind anything else, saddens Calhoun the most.

Anna finally became someone Athena could be proud of.