Kit had the plane revving to power in half a minute. Adrenaline thumped. He was familiar with every switch and button already, had the starting sequence memorized, as he had already sat in this seat many times just dreaming of flying it. Now he had the chance. It didn't seem real ― but the fact that it was very real robbed him of the thrill of the moment, instead drawing him back into the urgency of his mission.

The pirate crew, pushing on the tail and back of the wings, helped get the plane turned around in the long, narrow space of the cargo deck, so that it faced the dropped ramp in the back, which served as the exit to open sky. In their cooperation they said nothing, not to each other, nor to Kit. Their faces were locked in a state of perpetual apprehension.

Kit gave one last glance at the captain, who, standing at the side of the deck with his arms crossed, mouthed this warning: 'Remember what I said.' Kit nodded, gave him a thumbs-up; he wished his hands would stop shaking. Karnage snorted at him and looked away, shaking his head ― but in that outward show of disinterest, a lone thumb rose from the captain's crossed arms.

Kit felt his confidence boosted. He pulled the goggles over his eyes, stared down the exit with his tongue between his teeth, and pushed the throttle forward ― too much. The plane took off like a cork from a champagne bottle. The last thing the pirates saw was Kit and Flynn getting sucked into their seats, screaming, and the plane bursting into the sky, wobbling this way and that.

"Oh crud, oh crud!" yelped Kit, as he tilted the stick left and right, overcompensating each time and making the world a tumultuous teeter-totter. Time apparently moves very slowly when you're in the throes of such swinging upheaval, but in a moment that seemed to take forever to achieve, he finally got the wings level ― and about three seconds to plowing nose-first into a pasture. Frightened cows stampeded out of the way, and if you've never heard a cow curse before, you should have heard some of those ornery moos. Two parallel swathes of long grass got mowed by the plane's propellers as Kit, grunting, urgently pulled back on the stick with all his might. That sent the plane careening skyward, but, at last, under control.

"You know laddy," Flynn called out behind him, panting, "being immortal and all, I'm not one to scare easily, but might I say of your handling of his vessel ― congratulations."

"Aw, quiet! Doin' my best up here!"

A turn of his head saw the Iron Vulturewhatever huge, ghastly thing it was now ― looming over the largely flat, sprawling city. He had to get over it, he thought, as falling distance was of no matter to Flynn (or himself, if he could ever really wrap his mind around that), and the height would aid Flynn's leap without the plane getting too close to their foe. The plane moved at speed and acceleration that Kit was still not used to, and as it climbed, in mere seconds it was caught in a blinding veil of the overcast clouds. This wasn't good ― Kit couldn't get the plane over the monster if he couldn't see the monster in the first place. So, he lowered the nose again, skimming just under the ceiling of gray clouds. Flop sweat from his brow was being swept away in the wind. His hand quivered tensley over the flight stick as he turned toward the Vulture, for the Vulture had turned to look at him.

"Easy, lad, and hold steady," said Flynn, who holding fast to the edge of the cockpit had already assumed a kneeling position over his seat, legs ready to spring. Kit couldn't see him, but the canine's eyes were coal black as he summoned his otherworldly strength. "It's me she sees, not you."

Others, however, had a different view on the whole "hold steady" thing at the moment. 'Boy! It's watching you! No good! Get back here!' so Don Karnage ordered over the radio. Kit could visualize him stamping his feet. 'Get back here this minu-ette!'

"Just a bit further!" cried Flynn.

Kit felt terrible chills looking into the face of the Vulture, for as many times as he had seen it before, it had never fiendishly smirked at him like it was alive.

'I said turn back!' demanded Karnage. His furious tone brooked zero tolerance of defiance.

"Hold just a moment, lad! Almost close enough! I'm going to give it my all, by thunder!"

'Boy! You do what I tell you!'

Kit writhed in his seat with hesitation. It was the thought of the people in grave danger that kept him from completely losing his mind, and gave him the courage to pretend not to hear Don Karnage. "I can do this," he muttered to himself, aiming the plane headlong toward the monster. "I can get him close enough, turn back, just like the plan…" He gulped. He was scared ― less so at that moment by the crazy lady inside that flying monster who had a magic sword that could kill them all, and more so from looking forward to having the captain smack him into next year when he got back.

But neither of those concerns mattered as fire suddenly streaked from the Vulture's wings, flaming meteors bulleting into the sky, one after the other ― as far as Kit could tell, shooting right at his face, lighting up the lenses of his goggles. Instantly his aviation-manual-oriented mind knew this called for evasive maneuvers ― problem was, meteor dodging wasn't something actually taught in the flight manual! Crying out, all he could do was tug hard on the flight stick in a random direction. It sent the plane rolling away at an incredible rate, and Flynn shouting as he did his all not to get hurled off.

The first fireball missed, but came so close Kit got a taste of its incredible scorching heat. As the plane rolled the world was in a sort of kaleidoscope before his eyes, but what he could make out was more fire coming ― and that hideous smirk from the Vulture. Whether there was luck involved or not, he didn't care, but he managed to wrangle the plane from spinning widely just as another fireball roared over his head. It was only half a second behind the third, a short time before Kit would ever know it was there. All Kit knew was that he was suddenly grabbed under his arms, and ejected would be putting it mildly.

Flynn held onto him fast, leaping from the plane in an impossible skyward bound, not an instant before the fire struck. In a fiery flash, the Stormhawk was vaporized. The bits and pieces left bursting into a fluttering metal rain weren't much larger than teeth. Kit didn't even have a second to think about what happened to the plane, as he was primarily occupied in screaming and wondering what the hell was happening.

Flynn's leap put them in a trajectory of a high, long arc, rising above the altitude of the Vulture, whose burning yellow eye watched keenly. He held out a hand toward the monster, his face dark with great concentration. By some power he was conjuring he was guiding himself toward the airship, pulling him and Kit toward the dark mist of writhing phantoms that gave the airship its demonic shape. Kit cried out more, as he did not fancy landing in that mist ― but they were going to.

Over the Vulture's head, they landed hard, through the mist, hitting a solid surface. Concrete. The top landing deck. Kit was down with the wind knocked out of him, but Flynn rebounded to his feet at once. He waved his arms combatively, delving into his own sorcery, becoming as shadowy as the phantoms that hissed around them ― the phantoms, as with some sense of fear, shrank back, clearing them room, but circling them like the eye of a hurricane, countless red eyes glowing.

"It's not your fight, laddy," said Flynn, helping Kit up. "You can step off, and you should. Granted, it's' a doozy of a step, alas you know how it works. You'll come to, with a headache at most."

"I… I can handle myself," said Kit, fighting off the shock he was feeling for what happened to his plane, his awesome, awesome plane, not to mention the ghastly sight of the phantoms swirling around them, hissing for their blood. His face screwed up as he forced himself to focus on the task at hand, and he patted his sweater over his hidden airfoil, which Flynn was unaware of. "But what about you?"

Flynn blinked, puzzled.

"If you don't pull this off, then what?" asked Kit. "I mean, there's not exactly a Plan B, is there? For anyone!"

Eyes full of regret, Flynn shook his head no.

"Well then… you need all the help you can get," said Kit.

"Admirable, lad, but you need to go back to your captain, as you were told. It's too dangerous! You must understand, we've no power against the sword. One good slash is all it would take."

"So what if you get slashed?"

"I don't right know, to be honest, but ―"

"Then to be honest," Kit cut him off, "you need all the help you can get. You don't even know how to get inside! Now c'mon!"

"Ah, who am I to stand against such stubbornness," Flynn replied dryly.

Kit nodded at him, curtly, now that they had struck an agreement. He started for the location of the nearest hatch, but stopped almost immediately, as the circling phantoms blocked the way. As Flynn walked with him, though, the phantoms kept their distance. Kit got to the hatch, cranked the wheel and pulled it open. "Okay, here!" he called.

"Thanks, lad, now shove off!" Kit was suddenly grabbed, not by a hand, but by a shadowy tendril extended from Flynn's outstretched arm; he yelped as it lifted him off his feet. "I've enough lost lives on my conscience, I'll not add yours to the tally. Now the fall might be frightful, as are many things in this world beyond our control. But just remember ―" He smirked. "You'll get better!"

With that, Flynn cast the kid skyward. Screaming, Kit was launched in a high arc, with power that flung him far away and above the Vulture; Flynn only needed to make sure he cleared the deck, but put in that extra oomph into the projection just to make sure, and indeed, as he jumped into the hatch and entered the airship, he was certain anyone who was flung that high and far wouldn't have a chance at getting back aboard.

That done, he jumped into the hatch.


Flynn dropped inside the Iron Vulture; not that he hadn't seen grisly sights in his life, but the transformation of the interior caught him off guard, and he shuddered. The iron walls had morphed into some substance of ghoulishly pale, living flesh, thrumming in a web of dark veins, mingling with solid metal fixtures like pipes and door jambs. The veins thrummed in a rhythm of a heartbeat - thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.

"Captain Flynn, me luv!" her voice called to him; he turned one way and the other, finding she was nowhere near, but her voice sounded like it was right in his ear. "Come to 'ave pint with some ol' friends?"

The plural friends did not escape him, though he found no need to give it much thought. He did not bother to shout as if she were in another room; he knew she heard him just fine, wherever she was.

"Jack, matey. There's no use to this madness. Put a stop to it!"

"Funny, that," she replied amusedly. "I think Rajjy meant to say the same, but ye know 'e is. Not one to articulate. I think the way 'e put it was, an' I quote, 'Grr, growl, rip 'n' roar!' Unquote."

"Raj'jik, then…"

"Ah, we 'ad a dance, we did. Until 'e could dance no more."

Blackmane was slain, he realized. Vicious Blackmane, who was infinitely more qualified than he was at a combative task, couldn't get the job done. It was sinking in how abysmally the odds were against him. The heartbeat thrumming along the walls became more powerful, quick and loud: thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

He realized ― it was his own heartbeat being mimicked. She was mocking him with his own fear.

"I've no wish to cross blades with you, Jack."

"Then don't. No point in fightin' what yer 'elpless to control, luv."

"By thunder, can you not be reasoned with? Live! And let live!"

"Quite an interestin' bit o' philosophy," she remarked. "Tell me now, Flynny-boy, thievin' pirate captain of the Calico, what did live 'n' let live mean to the misery ye caused innocent merchants?"

"Harmless robberies, say I."

"Truly? An' what when their children went 'ungry, or were put out to the street when dear ol' dad, 'avin' his livelihood taken from 'im, couldn't pay the bills."

"I didn't steal from the poor," he said. "And, I didn't kill."

"Di'n't mind the blood that was spilled by others ― like me ― either. Did ye."

"That, I regret," he admitted.

She cackled merrily, as if he had just delivered the punchline of a good joke. Flynn traipsed the corridor, phantoms whisking around, watching his every move. They were her eyes and ears. He came upon a metal door, half open; at a glimpse he found that it was, as he presumed when he first explored the room in his attempted mutiny, Don Karnage's extended closet, as it had several articles of clothes hung up, notably spares of his iconic blue coat. He pushed the door all the way open, knowing Karnage didn't only keep extra clothes in here. The normal looking clothes and fixtures in the room were a jarring contract to the fleshy, thrumming floor, walls, and ceiling. He found what he was looking for, a rack of cutlasses. He took one for each hand.

"Second thoughts on the not crossin' blades, luv?" Sterling giggled.

"I'll do what I must, you can lay to it."

"I'll be a-waitin'," she sang.

Like children playing a game, the phantoms flew away ahead of him in the corridor, waited for him to catch up, flew away again, and repeated. He understood this was Sterling's means of leading him the way to her. He at last came to the bridge. She sat leaning on the network of gauges before the airship's cyclopian window, her eyes burning red, the sword Bloodfang being caressed over her knee, its runes along its black, razor edge seething white hot, the red gem at the base of its hilt aglow and pulsing. Dark mist covered the room, flickering in shapes like fire.

The bright, inescapable view outside of the window made Flynn stumble immediately, reaching out for something to hold steady onto, until he realized the floor wasn't moving. The bridge wasn't moving. But the view was. It looked here and there quickly, upon the ground, upon the city, upon the sky and the zeppelin a few miles away carefully keeping its distance. It was the Vulture turning its head according to Sterling's puppeteering.

"Fancy tricks," he muttered.

"Oh, it's nothin'," she smirked. "Now wha'cha 'tend on doin', luv? Cut us down and squander off with me toy? We're all ol' friends here, aren't we?" Us ― the plural again, so Flynn noted. Her smirk indicated to him that she knew he noticed.

Crossing his swords in front of his chest, Flynn slowly, cautiously stepped forward, getting as far as beside the captain's chair. There was no one else in the room, he was sure. But that damned smirk told him otherwise.

"Jack, abandon this madness, I beg you."

"Ugh, ye used to be more fun. Fine, since yer not gonna ask, I'll let ye know I've been a-waitin' for ye to catch up. Planned on 'avin' a right celebration, I did, us ol' friends, back together, once more." Her smirk turned hideous. "An' never to part again."

Flynn heard a clattering behind him. He turned, nervously keeping one sword toward Sterling's direction, and one behind him ― a form materialized from the dark mist, walking bones, and clothes ― clothes wrenchingly familiar. As was the shadowy face enveloping the skull. Flynn uttered a shrill cry, he couldn't help it. His cutlasses faltered in his hands. "M-Mary?"

Another skeletal ghoul stepped out beside the first, also dreadfully familiar.

"And Mary… by the powers, no. No!"

There was nothing familiar about their hideous, ethereal voices. 'Join us, Flynn,' they hissed in unison, reaching out to him with skeletal fingers. 'We miss you! Come back to us!'

Flynn stepped back, nearly stumbling on his own feet. His eyes flooded with tears, and his voice wavered as he shouted, "Curse you, Jack Sterling! Curse you to all damnation!"

Sterling only kept smirking, her head tilted with rapt, undivided attention and at the show before her, her hand caressing the blade of Bloodfang as if she were stroking a pet. The frightened beat of Flynn's heart echoed loudly, reverberating through the ship. He frantically circled around the captain's chair, trying to keep it between him in the ghouls, but they lurched at him from both sides.

'You'll let us bring you in, won't you,' they hissed. 'Yes, yes. Come into the Dark.' They opened their bony maws wide. 'We're hungry!'

"Gads!" cried Flynn, as they lunged at him, swiping hands and snapping jaws. He leapt upon and over the chair. Upon landing on his feet, he glared at Sterling incredulously. Despite every vile thing he had thus witnessed since Bloodfang was brought into his life, every vile thing that should have conditioned him to never be surprised at the depths of her depravity, he was yet stunned at the unfettered levels of her creative cruelty.

"More blood, please!" she kindly requested of the actors in her play. The ghouls reciprocated viciously, rushing upon Flynn. He tried to fend them off by blocking them away with his blades, but he was overwhelmed. He would not fight back. He could not ― ever ― harm the most treasured friends he ever knew. Sterling cackled at him for it, she was very much enjoying this. But then he took a claw across the face. It cut, and it hurt, severely so. And it occurred to him, about his treasured friends ― they would never harm him, either.

His cutlasses slashed upward in the path of an X. The ghouls were pushed back. "You're not my lasses!" he roared. His tearful eyes became black as he called upon his otherworldly strength, and shadow burned from his blades. "Avast ye!" In a maddened fury, he attacked. It took but two powerful slashes and the ghouls were cut down, their bones scattering onto the floor, lost in the dark, flickering darkness that permeated the room.

"Ooh! Impressive," said Sterling.

"And now you, matey," snarled Flynn.

"Oh, such anger," sighed the fox. "An 'ere I thought we were 'avin' a ball. Sure yer quite done with yer friends, though?"

There was more clattering at Flynn's feet. Gasping, he leapt away, as almost immediately the ghouls were reforming and standing on their fleshless legs. He cursed at himself, thinking he should have known there was no way for him to put them down for good. Not while Sterling had the sword.

He ignored the rising ghouls, and with a furious cry lunged at Sterling, both cutlasses swinging. "Avast!"

She merely flicked her eyebrow, and Bloodfang flared brightly. Flynn, in mid-leap toward her, was slammed with a force of he knew not what, but it cast him to the far side of the room. His back careened into the jamb of the entryway ― the jamb didn't break, but his back did, as far as he could tell. He heard certain bones crack as much as he felt them. The pain was immobilizing.

Sterling clicked her tongue at him. "Tsk! Still don't know when yer bein' toyed with, do ye?" Now deigning to stand, she sauntered toward him, flanked by the two ghouls. "Exactly 'ow do ye think this ends, Captain Flynn? Ye don't seem to know, so I'll let ye in. It ends painfully. Coldly. An' with absolute finality. Don't it, lasses?"

Flynn groaned and gnashed his teeth, eyes clenched; with all his consciousness he was delving into the Dark, into the part of him that this world could not touch, desperate for healing in all haste. He felt the bones mending, like a thousand tiny, icy claws needling his ribs and spine. His ears on earth, however, picked up a curious sound, something slicing through the air: whoo-whoo-whoosh!

And a hollow, metallic clunk.

"Ow!" Sterling yelped. Flynn opened his eyes just in time to see the strange, silver wedge bounce off of her forehead. And well enough, too, for she had Bloodfang raised as to cleave him in half before she was interrupted. The blow stunned her enough that her burning red eyes snapped back to blue and natural, and she stumbled backwards.

Kit ran through the doorway, snatched rebounding airfoil out of midair, but then skidded to a terrified halt ― that is, even more terrified than in his initial finding of how the steel surfaces within the airship turned flesh-like, or show a cold fire of dark shadows licked up at his knees. They say look before you leap, and that advice might have served him well, for he had no idea the room was occupied by two undead skeletons, monsters that he was suddenly in arms' reach of. Their hollow, red-glowing eye sockets flared at him with ravenous hunger. Purely reactionary, and not to say a fair amount lucky, he deflected a skeletal claw swiping for his head with his board before his senses even garnished what was attacking him. He screamed and leapt backward, back toward the doorway and beside Flynn.

"L-lad!" cried Flynn. "How did you get back aboard?" He didn't know it, of course, but the answer to that question was what Kit was carrying.

"Never mind, we gotta split!" urged Kit, struggling to help Flynn up by pulling his upper arm.

"The lad Kit, I presume!" greeted Sterling. The two ghouls clattered to their impending feast, but stopped as Sterling held up her hand in some unspoken command. Though stopped, they writhed in an animation eager to get to their hideous task. Sterling stepped between them. "What a fancy showin'! I thought you were crcrk!" With that sound, she tilted her head in a pantomime of a neck snapping in a hangman's noose. Then her head recoiled with pleasant surprise as she eyed him, and she seemed to sense something, glancing once at the blade of Bloodfang. "Oh, but ye really were, weren't ye? Ha! I see now! Well ye arrived just in time for supper, the more the merrier I say!" She giggled, a tickled sound that evolved into a hearty cackle. "And the fool, I! Seems, Captain Flynn, the mummery of yer courage was so amusin', I di'n't even notice we had a visitor comin' our way."

"In that case, lady," said Kit, fearfully ogling at the devilry before him, and further helping Flynn to stand as the two of them scooted back into the corridor. The kid's face, yet frightened, shone of something he knew. "Bet I'm not the only thing you didn't see comin'."

Sterling started; at once, her blue eyes flared red as lava. Flynn shuddered, for he felt it now, too. Even Kit ― he had actually seen it coming when he was gliding down toward the airship on his board, but now he could also swear he felt something, like some faint sense of radar he never knew existed, but radar nonetheless that alerted to something ― and the bleep on that radar was incoming.

Sterling turned to the eye of the Vulture, which scanned in all urgency to and fro ― then at last, finding in the sky a pair of black wings hurling toward it, only at that last second. The demonic creature shattered through the eye, glass went exploding everywhere. In that blizzard of sparkling shards, the creature partially evaporated as it careened onto the floor; after one quick roll it stood upright, the wings remaining, cloak-like, over Blackmane's shoulders. He had one hand clasped at a deep slice cut over his chest, the other had its claws extended.

"Oh, bugger,"muttered Sterling, deadpan. Then her voice changed, as did her very form. "'ERE WE GO AGAIN." In a dark burst, her legs divided into four, black and spider-like; clasping the hilt of Bloodfang with both hands, by her sorcery she pulled the sword apart into two identical blades, wielding them effortlessly in each hand, and her arms twisted in the enveloping shadow to become the shape like those of a praying mantis. The shadow formed on her head became the shape of a dragon's.

Blackmane's ethereal, winged cloak resumed spreading its darkness upon his own form, smoldering like smoke. The demonic figure, resembling a hulking gargoyle with immense claws, roared at her.

"Bloody hell, I wish I could do that," grunted Flynn, as he finally stood on his own. He pulled Kit behind him as to shield the boy. The ghouls went clattering for Blackmane in murderous abandon. His claws, however, made quick work of them, flinging both of them back at Sterling, where they broke against her bladed arms and did not reform. The brawl was on, one nightmare versus another.

From Kit and Flynn's view, it was impossible to distinguish what was happening among the hurling, flinging shadows on the bridge, and all the deafening, hellish roaring, but the impact of the fighting was rocking the ship like a cosmic club was bashing the Iron Vulture's head.

"Lad, get out of here!" cried Flynn. "He can't take her on alone, I must help! And you must save yourself!" There was no discussion Flynn would suffer on the matter; he pushed Kit away with such strength that it sent the yelping kid sliding and tumbling the entire length of the corridor.

And so Flynn charged onto the bridge, evading at once the powerfully swiping storm of claws and blades, furious attacks that cared not what they struck. He found the cutlasses he had dropped by the door and readied them in hand. Frantically, edging the side of the room, he looked for an opportunity in the chaos to jump in. Blackmane's form managed to grab Sterling's by the equivalent of its wrists, just under the blades, and by the arms swung her over his head, crashing into the captain's chair, which was instantly obliterated. Flynn saw his opening there, for Sterling was stunned, and her gruesome form dissipated in a dark flash. He had but a second, but the chance was there, to grab the sword out of her hand before she came fully to. He went for it ― only to be brutally swatted away by a monstrous talon delivered by Blackmane. Flynn hit the wall hard and bounced, falling face-first into the shadow roiling over the floor.

Flynn realized it at once, Blackmane only too late, the folly of the latter's move. Blackmane's hulking arm went for the sword for himself, but the second wasted in throwing Flynn aside was long enough. Sterling came to, and as the gargoyle-like creature bent over her, reaching its monstrous claw for the sword, she thrust the blade into its gut.

Blackmane roared in agony, dark wings flailing as he fell backwards, where upon hitting the floor entirely his demonic form vanished. The lion was left painfully quivering and convulsing, balled up with his knees and arms over his chest.

Sterling stood over him, sneering, no trace of her persistent smirk, but only loathing. No expression worn upon a face could ever show how infinitely deep that loathing was. "Bloody codfishes, the two of ye," she said. "Ye think ye know the power of the Dark 'cause ye can whip up a few tricks." She took a deep inhale and exhaled through her nose, and holding out the sword high, announced in a foul, thunderous voice, "I AM THE DARK."

There was a bang.

A large, three-pronged hook, shot from a grappling gun and trailing with a slender rope, slammed into her sword-wielding hand. The fast impact was more than enough to crush someone's fingers, and Bloodfang flew from its shocked master's grasp.

Flynn watched the sword tumble upward, end over end, twirling just under the shadow-veiled ceiling. It was far from his reach, but he reached for it nonetheless despite no hope in catching it. Likewise, even Blackmane, above all the agony he was experiencing, noticed the sword fly, and raised a hapless hand, futilely trying to muster what sorcery yet remained in his power to somehow grab it, or pull it toward him.

What ended up actually catching it was but a blur Flynn only saw in his peripheral vision as he stared with all his attention at the sword, a blur with some green and a smidgen of red on it. It wasn't until the hilt, golden skull glistening bright and gloriously despite all of its reckless vileness, was snatched out of mid-air that he realized the blur had any intention of making a grab for the sword at all. The hands that snatched it were small. And the boy that took it wasted no time jumping out the shattered eye of the Vulture.

"Lad!" cried out Flynn, in tumultuous emotion that was both incredulous and cheering. Sterling, crying out furiously, leapt after the boy, and Flynn, groaning and grunting from injuries that had not yet healed, after her.

In freefall, Kit held onto the hilt with one hand, and with the other fished out and flicked open his airfoil. He was tumbling, head turned to the shapes of the quickly-approaching city one second and at the sky the other, where something was chasing after him, straight down vertically. Something winged and dark. It roared at him, and just as he was able to wrangle his board under his feet, he was stuck with a vicious claw from an elongated arm. Somehow he managed not to lose the sword, but his board jerked from under his feet; he just managed to catch the edge of it with his fingertips, but with a weak grip plus the wind fighting to blow it away, he could not get it back under him. He screamed, the city was spinning closer at deadly speed. Tumbling once again to see the sky, he saw Flynn accosting the dark, demonic creature, peeling it away from him. He saw the Iron Vulture ― the real, true Iron Vulture, stripped of all ghoulishness ― falling. He saw the zeppelin that brought them all here coming his way. Last, he saw the overcast sky, and thought, for a split second, that even gray skies looked pretty.

There was a stop so sudden that he never even realized it happened, and everything went blank.