A/N: To anyone still reading, thank you so much! I'm attempting to wrap this up, it should only be a few more chapters. I hope this all still works haha.

Kessler scowled at the sample on the microscope.

It wasn't right, what he was seeing wasn't right at all.

The madman moved on to the next microscope. After the girl's blood sample hadn't led him to any useful answers, he'd decided he needed a skin tissue sample.

She'd been back in human form when he'd returned to harvest a skin sample from her, exhausted from attempting to break out of her cage. The girl hadn't exactly appreciated him taking a knife to her arm, but ah well… sometimes progress called for sacrifice.

That had made her angry, of course. She'd gone back to an insubstantial form and proceeded to overreact by throwing another massive temper tantrum. He really wished she would quiet down… He was starting to get a headache.

Her skin cells were strange. As soon as he'd begun to examine them, they'd gone from tightly interwoven to… well, not so much. They'd begun to drift apart.

Kessler was almost certain that if she and Cole hadn't exchanged pieces of themselves, she would have been well on her way to being essentially dead by now, her powers having torn her to pieces.

That irritated him. All that effort to get rid of her was basically pointless… If there was one thing he hated, it was wasting time.

Still, she'd been a loose end, one he couldn't just leave to chance. And she'd stalled Cole's progress long enough. Kessler needed his weapon perfected and ready. They had a new future to forge.

Kessler glanced at his newest creation. Either way, now that the girl had bonded herself to MacGrath, she definitely needed to be removed. And this should do it. It was a bit of a risk, of course… but there was no other way.

If I get out of here, Cole thought to himself as his palms broke out in a cold sweat, I will never watch another horror movie ever again. Ever.

Gory movies had used to be fun, used to be funny. Cole had used to laugh when people got dismembered in horror movies, used to make fun of the guts and gore.

But not anymore. Because now, wandering around in these sewers, he got it… He was no hero, coming to save the girl. No, he was the star of his very own horror film. And somewhere in these sewers was a madman waiting to turn him into a monster, or rather, more of a monster than he already was. He hoped it wasn't the kind of movie where everyone dies at the end.

For one thing, the sewers were a hell of a lot creepier than he remembered… Mostly it was the bodies. But the ghosts didn't help, either. Incorporeal forms stood and stared blankly as he passed.

Using his sparking hands for light, Cole crept through the mangled corpses. He did his best not to focus on them, or the ghosts, and instead tried to focus on anything that looked like it might be some kind of secret underground lair. But that was proving difficult. The bodies were everywhere… some mangled, some not… it was hard to tell in the dark, and Cole didn't want a closer look.

They weren't Reapers as far as he could tell. They were ordinary people. What had they been doing down here? What exactly had happened to them? At least he could be sure that he hadn't done this. That was a boon to his sanity, at least.

The air smelled like piss and blood and decaying human tissue. It was an unsettling mix.

His soggy sneaker slipped in a bloody puddle. Cole's stomach lurched.

Trish had hated it when he'd come home from exploring the sewers. Mostly she'd hated it because he'd walk in the front door smelling like a horse's ass. The smell hadn't bothered Cole so much. But now it did.

Let her be here, please… if she's not down here, then I'll have just mentally scarred myself for life for no reason. Should have started saving money for therapy.

Cole knew he was probably waxing sentimental at this point, but he didn't care. He missed Shane, missed her voice in his ear. He knew they'd only known each other a short while, but… he was sure they could make a relationship work. They could be happy together, if they could just escape this hell…

Just… just think about her, Cole told himself as he stumbled over someone's severed leg. Imagine sleeping with her every night, having a girl like that be in love with you… She gave a shit about you, she saw the truth when no one else did.

Worst of all, the pain in his chest did nothing but ache and ache like it was sucking the life out of him. His electrical powers almost seemed weaker than they were before… But that was wishful thinking. After all this time of hoping to just be normal again, there was no way that his powers were just going to go away now.

Shadows moved in the darkness, just out of sight… Cole was on the edge of panicking like he had when he'd first faced the Reapers. Maybe they were here, watching him, waiting to devour the rest of him. Cole really didn't want to get ripped apart and eaten. That was not on his To-do list.

Cole gave up on trying to keep it together and ran into the darkness, hoping his pain would lead him to his missing friend. He rounded corners, scanning each and every nook and cranny as quickly as he could… but it wasn't long before he'd tripped and slammed face first into a wall.

"Ugh," he grumbled, feeling his newly split lip. Maybe freaking out hadn't been the best idea. Tiny little electric sparks crawled over his lip, healing the wound.

Then he blinked, staring at the wall he'd face planted. It wasn't a wall at all. It was a door.

This didn't used to be here.

Cole knew these sewers pretty damn well. They'd been one of his favorite places to wander around, especially if he'd been kicked out of the apartment for some reason. And he'd never seen this door before, a door with a key pad and a lock… that was unusual. Why so much security on a door in the sewers?

Cole scowled when he realized there wasn't even a handle on this damn door. This had to be the place. He angrily mashed buttons on the keypad, not really expecting anything to happen, but it helped relieve some of the stress.

Goddamnit! I haven't come all this way and lost two fucking fingers just to be stopped by a damn door!

Cole decided to do the only thing he could think of. He'd blow the damn thing up! Cole began gathering up his remaining energy, channeling all his frustration into the electricity gathering in his fingertips.

Something helped him though, just a little bit… there was a tug on his heart. For a while he'd been feeling drained, but right then, something fed back into him. Cole wanted to believe it was Shane helping him out, wanted to believe that she hadn't been hurt too badly… Wanted to believe that she still cared for him, despite the fact that he'd let her get kidnapped by a madman.

Cole slammed his hands against the door, forcing all the power he'd taken into the annoying structure that was standing in his way.

There was a horrible metallic screeching explosion as the door latch blew apart, and Cole triumphantly threw it open, bolting inside. He had to make this rescue quick.

Inside was deathly quiet. A sour, chilly air hit his face… the hallway smelled like mildew and moldy books. Multiple door lined the eerily dark hallway, but Cole couldn't sense Shane behind any of them. He felt like he'd know where she was.

Then the hallway opened up into a massive room. Cole gaped in fascinated horror. This place was right below his feet the entire time?

The entire space was covered in papers and books, all over the goddamn place… Wires and chains and naked light bulbs were dangling from the ceiling like an enormous stringy death trap waiting to fall on him. A desk was standing out in the middle of the chaos, like a port in the storm.

Cole was instantly drawn to it… He carefully waded out through the paper sea to the desk. Laid out on the desk were tools and schematics. Cole exhaled slowly as he recognized one of them.

That's the sphere… Cole thought, his heart pounding. That's what he gave me. That's the thing that destroyed a city, and almost killed the girl I came down here to save…

His muscles tensed. It wasn't easy seeing his supposed fate laid out on a table like that, once nothing but insane plans, and now a reality. Such a simple thing to have ruined his life… And then he snapped. His big hands snatched those schematics off the desk, shredding them into as many pieces as he could. A brief spark of electricity from his fingers set the shreds ablaze. He dropped them on the table and watched them burn.

There… try and fix that, Kessler!

For a final touch, he smashed the tools and scattered them across the room. Then he gazed around the space, hoping to see a sign leading him to where Shane might be being held…

Come on, Shane… help me out. Where are you?

That was when the screaming started. Light bulbs shattered above his head, showering him with broken glass.

Cole stumbled and clutched his head, gritting his teeth. Well, that was one way to get his attention. The young man ambled towards the horrible sound, which seemed to be coming from behind him, though his body was screaming at him to get away from it. Shane's scream ripped at his eardrums in the most painful way possible. He wouldn't be surprised if his ears were bleeding.

Shane's room wasn't hard to find. It was the door that was shaking and vibrating, nearly battered to pieces by her powers. There wasn't much holding it together anymore, considering all the cracks in the concrete… Apparently, his angelic girlfriend was NOT happy about her current confinement. In fact, a few more hits and Shane probably would have gotten the door down on her own.

That knowledge didn't do much for Cole's ego, but he approached the door. Through the tiny window, he could make out nothing but a big mess that was being tossed around as Shane turned the room into her own personal tornado. A very loud, screaming tornado.

Cole reached for the wall, hoping to tear down the door to free his precious pissed off angel, but she beat him to it. As Cole reached for what power he could find, the door blew apart, knocking him backwards into the opposite wall. His head banged against the concrete, and Cole momentarily slumped over into the debris.

His head spinning from the blow, Cole watched through bleary eyes as the tornado escaped from its irksome confinement. The young man could just make out Shane's form riding the wind as she spread out her misty wings in the larger space. But she'd stopped screaming, at least.

Except that she looked absolutely furious. Cole wondered if she even recognized the fact that he was on the ground beneath her.

Apparently not. Both the girl and the tornado took off towards the paper-filled room. Cole got up and staggered unsteadily after her, trying to avoid getting slapped in the face by Shane's swirling papery tornado of death. There was only one problem… the strange room wasn't devoid of others anymore. Kessler had come back.

Shit, she was flying right at that madman! Maybe she didn't realize where she was going… Then he remembered the furious look on her face. No, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Even from across the room, Cole could see the grin on Kessler's face. But he did nothing… Would he even try to stop her? And then Kessler held up his metallic hand.

"Shane, wait!" he called desperately. "He's gonna..."

Bang!

Too late… A mini explosion shook the room, and a tiny body materialized out of nowhere in midair. Shane's body was tossed backwards like a rag doll, flying through the paper tornado. Moving faster than he ever thought he could with his head spinning and his guts rolling, Cole leaped forward to catch her. Shane crashed into his open arms, knocking him on his ass for the second time in only a few minutes.

"Ow," Cole wheezed to himself, slowly forcing his arms to come up around the young woman flopped out on top of him.

Just moments before, he'd been hurting all over. But even lying on his backside with the wind knocked out of him, Cole almost immediately started feeling better. The ache disappeared from his mutilated hand, and his head stopped spinning so fast. Even better than that, all those empty spaces inside him filled up with something more than just his powers.

Shane didn't move as he sat up and cradled her in his lap. In a flash, he'd stripped off his bloody coat and wrapped it firmly around her, covering her state of undress. She looked like she'd been through hell, her face was dirty and scratched and her arm was smeared with blood, but to Cole, she was still the most beautiful angel he'd ever seen. The only thing that marred her beauty was that damn collar around her neck… that had to go.

Kessler still hadn't moved, so Cole decided to risk it. Since Shane was passed out cold in his lap, he dug what remained of his fingers under the collar and pulled, putting a little bit of power into the metal. The collar shattered in his hands, burning Shane's neck. Instantly full of guilt, Cole hastily pulled her into his chest, feeding her what energy he could… He was shocked at how easy it was. Her burns healed nearly as quickly as his own wounds did.

"By all means… take your time," Kessler sneered at him from across the room. "Neither of you are going anywhere… not yet."

"SHUT UP!" Cole roared back.

Now that he had his woman back in his arms, Cole stood up. Shane seemed to be stirring a little bit. That was good. She wasn't too badly hurt.

Kessler casually began strolling toward him through the papers, swinging something round and metallic from his normal hand. Cole's heart skipped a beat as he recognized the object.

That… no, it can't be… Fuck, it's another sphere! He's going to blow this place sky high… again!

Cole backed away in horror, but there was no way out except past Kessler. He didn't want to die here, especially now that he had something worth living for… The madman held up the sphere like he was offering Cole a delightful present.

"This is the answer to all our problems, Mr. MacGrath!" Kessler exclaimed. "All I needed was a little time to cobble it together, and well… here we are. And here you are! You're even more resourceful than I thought."

"You knew I'd find her?" Cole breathed, still backing away.

"Well, I admit I thought I had more time, but… I needed you here to pry the two of you apart, so I suppose now is as good a time as any," Kessler said, like he was explaining himself to a child. He flipped the sphere around in his hands. "This should do it. It isn't exactly like the one I gave you, of course… This will reverse whatever it is you've done to each other."

"Cole," came a faint whisper from his arms. Cole glanced down at the pale face below him. "I think I can get us out."

"The both of you?" Kessler questioned loudly. "Yourself, maybe… but not Mr. MacGrath… would you leave him behind?"

Shane's face was pale, but her blue eyes were clear and deathly serious. Kessler was busy prepping his sphere, turning a few dials.

"Now, this will probably hurt quite a bit, but it won't kill you, Cole. Her, on the other hand… Well, she might not make it. You're likely the only thing keeping her alive at this point. Her power is much more unstable than yours," Kessler said easily, an insane light in his hollow eyes.

"What?" Cole said, completely distracted by that. Kessler growled impatiently, eager to get on with his murder of an innocent girl.

"You're keeping her alive," Kessler barked irritably. "I've studied her blood, her tissues… I told you that she was a mistake. It's extremely likely that her power should have torn her apart by now, but then you went and saved her at the last minute!"

He shook his head regrettably as Cole let that soak in. He was keeping Shane alive? That meant… Oh fuck, that meant…

"And now she's slowing your progress even more, draining you of what momentum you had… as if you slowing down your own progress weren't enough!" Kessler snarled. He paused, and then shook his head again. "Well, this will kill two birds with one stone, so to speak… separate the two of you, and likely be the cause of her death. Convenient, eh?"

The sphere started to glow in Kessler's hands. Cole felt a small hand touching his face.

"Cole," Shane said more insistently. "I think I can get us out."

Cole, who was still reeling from what he'd just learned, definitely didn't like the "I think" part of that sentence… He felt like those two words would probably get them killed.

On the other hand, staying here would almost certainly get at least one of them killed.

"Come now, Cole… you don't really want to leave, do you?" the man said with a grin. "Surely you don't want to be tied down to a girl you still barely know for the rest of your life? Just put her down, and we'll get on with this. It's meant to be. After all, I've seen your future."

Meant to be. That was the phrase that jolted Cole out of his stunned silence.

No… Leaving Shane to die in the sewers was not what was meant to be. Just like he was sure he wasn't meant to be a weapon… He was sure he wasn't meant to be alone, either. That wasn't his future.

"No, I don't think so," Cole said coldly, setting Shane down beside him, readying his hands to fight. Jagged blue bolts of electricity crawled up his arms, wrapped around his body like snakes. "I think I'd rather go down fighting than be stuck with your fucking future."

Kessler shrugged.

"Have it your way."

Then he activated the sphere.

Oh, fuck.

Instantly, Cole felt a wave of sickness pass over him. The electricity surrounding him fizzled out. A second later, he wanted to puke all over Kessler's research. And he might have puked if there was anything in his stomach, but of course there wasn't. This was something he couldn't fight, he couldn't fight invisible radiation…

Out of options, he stooped down to pick up Shane to try and run. He gathered her up in his arms, but soon found that he was too weak to stand. Even Shane, who he knew barely weighed a hundred pounds, felt like a ton of bricks in his arms.

Kneeling there on the dirty floor, Cole felt like someone was viciously yanking out all his vital organs. Because what was being ripped away from him now… he felt like losing it would kill him. The sphere was breaking their bond, turning back the clock.

Kessler had said that this wouldn't kill him, though… It would only kill Shane. So Cole curled up around the girl, shielding her from Kessler with his bulk. Maybe… maybe if he could just keep giving her more of himself, he could keep her life from being snuffed out.

"Hang on," Cole muttered. He felt himself drooling onto a textbook he was lying on. That wasn't very heroic, but he couldn't stop it. "I got you."

His arms shook as he tried to hold on, but Shane was wiggling around in his embrace.

Jesus, hold still! I'm trying to save your life.

She continued twisting until she was facing him. Her eyes were still bright, clear… how was that possible? He felt like shit.

"You don't listen very well," she breathed.

"Huh?" Cole said blankly.

Shane rolled her eyes.

"You trust me?" she murmured to him.

Cole blacked out for a moment as another wave of sickness passed over him. Kessler was talking in the background, making notes on the progress of their separation.

"… Unusual, very unusual… How you managed this exchange at all is some sort of anomaly… The girl held on for much longer than one would expect… It's ironic, really... Her powers likely would have killed her if you hadn't interfered… Well, these things have a way of working themselves out..."

Shane's hand trailing down the scar on his cheek brought him back from unconsciousness.

"Hey… stay with me. You trust me, right?"

"Yeah," Cole managed. Of course he trusted her... how could he not?

Her hand found his mangled hand, and she grasped it tightly. Cole could tell that she noticed his missing fingers from the momentarily stunned look on her face, but she couldn't dwell on it at the moment. She simply adjusted her grip a little.

"You have to help me," she said seriously. "I… I won't make it without you."

"I'll help," Cole wheezed. Whatever she was going to do, he hoped it would be quick. "Whatever you want."

Shane smiled and cuddled up closer to him. Then she kissed him.

Well, this isn't so bad, Cole thought. I can do this.

He returned her kiss as warmly as he could. In a second, she'd somehow ended up on top of him. Cole squeezed her to his chest with his free arm, his tongue flicking against hers. She hadn't exactly explained her plan to him, but Cole trusted her. If one passionate embrace would help, then that was okay by him.

Kessler started laughing. Maybe he thought Cole was simply saying goodbye to his girl.

Cole found he couldn't care less. True, he was beginning to feel a little strange… But Shane's mouth was just so warm and yielding against his… And she wouldn't let go of his three-fingered hand. She just kept holding on so tight and kissing him like it would be the last time.

In fact, Cole was so absorbed that one kiss that he didn't notice his body beginning to fade.

What a strange display, Kessler thought. Why was the girl kissing him? Perhaps she just wanted to leave this world on a pleasant note…

Except when she disappeared, she took Cole with her. His body faded along with hers, simply dissolving into silver mist. Oddly, Cole didn't seem to notice what she'd done to him. The kiss must have simply been a distraction so he wouldn't struggle or try to stop her.

Their bodies had intertwined in front of him into a single misty entity, their hands still clasped as the girl led the boy along. Swift as a gale, they had whipped away from Kessler, down the hallway, banging against doors and debris. Seconds later, there was silence.

Well, well… the girl had done exactly what she'd said she would. She'd taken Cole with her.

Except…

"That's impossible," Kessler growled, his metallic hand creaking like it needed to be oiled. "What exactly did you give that girl, Mr. MacGrath?"

It shouldn't be possible. She shouldn't be able to affect him that way…

Kessler picked up his sphere and inspected it. There was nothing wrong with it. It should have torn the two of them apart in no time flat.

This wasn't what he'd seen, not at all… And he'd never had a vision that he hadn't been able to make a reality. Whatever he saw… he could make it real.

Except the girl still existed. She'd held out against the destructive nature of her powers when all logic dictated that she should have died many times over by now.

So what had they done to each other? What exactly was thwarting his vision for the future? Could his experiment have had some sort of flaw?

Even worse… could he have made some sort of… miscalculation?

No, that was even less likely. But just to be sure, Kessler swept over to his desk to double check his work. Moments later, he furiously slammed his hands on the empty surface. All of his schematics had been reduced to ash.

"Alright, Mr. MacGrath… you want to play with fire?" Kessler growled. He let the unsaid threat hang in the air as he swept out of the room, his white coat whipping behind him.

He was done wasting time... It was time for drastic measures. He'd come too far to lose now.