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Binary 15.6

Brandish soared overhead on the jetpack Dragon had lent her. I must have looked like a streak of silver on the asphalt as I sprinted after the rapidly-flying villains.

I was interrupted by a figure lunging at me out of an alley. I rolled to avoid it, then skidded to a stop as I turned.

It was a Frankenstein's monster of twisted flesh. It looked as though someone had stitched together pieces of every kind of animal in the city into an unnatural chimera. Three dog's heads snapped at me at the end of three necks, while a cat's hissed at me from its back. A pair of long wings that looked pieced together from a staggering number of pigeons arched over its back. It skittered to a stop on eleven legs of unequal lengths, some of which seemed to have more joints than they really should.

I had just enough time to look into its eyes—all nine of them, counting the one embedded in its tail—before it lunged at me again. I could see the terror and pain in them.

This wasn't something I knew how to undo.

Sunrise arced through the air and the abomination came apart in two pieces. I had just enough time to see the electric red light inside its chest cavity, and close my eyes, before the explosion bloomed throughout the street.

I was flung upward, twenty feet or more, the exposed flesh of my face aflame. My nerves screamed furious, hateful pain, and I let the scream out through melting lips.

I opened my eyes to see Carte Blanche already between me and the street. He gestured with one hand, and gravity rotated ninety degrees and strengthened by an order of magnitude or more. The masonry of the building beside me cracked as I slammed down into it, but Carte Blanche gave me no time to recover. Another gesture, and fire burst from the fissures in the wall as though from the cracked surface of Orodruin itself.

Then Jack Slash was beside him and stabbing forward with his knife. This time, his aim was true, and the blade embedded itself in my eye, stabbing straight through my skull.

They let me fall, and I hit the ground limp. Blood pooled beneath me, and I allowed myself a moment to rest while the nerves of my spine knitted themselves back together. Then I picked myself up, lifting myself to my knees, then to my feet.

Brandish had landed beside me. She stared at me in awe as I stood. I looked up at the two villains staring down at us. There was genuine fear in Jack Slash's eyes now, though he hid it well under a veneer of bravado. "You look like hell," he informed me with false cheer.

I tried to answer him before I noticed my jaw was shattered. I raised my left hand to my chin and squeezed it back together. "I'll be pretty again in the morning," I said. "You'll still be Jack Slash."

Carte Blanche waved a hand, and a sphere of greenish energy appeared around me. "I'm sure you'll manage to break out of that," he said conversationally. "But not immediately. And fun fact—Brandish still has an unshielded Shard." He glanced at Jack Slash. "You deal with her," he said, gesturing at Brandish, then waved his hand at me again, almost lazily.

I sank Sunrise into the ground below me just as gravity spun again, so that I was clinging to the ground by the hilt of my sword.

I thought about the Rings in my pocket. The idea had come to me when Brandish had met us earlier in the evening. The way she spoke about her estranged daughter had been achingly familiar.

Brandish knew the risks, the benefits, the costs. Nothing I said would be new information to her anyway. I would normally prefer a lot more ceremony, but it wasn't really necessary this time. All I had to do was confirm.

And if Brandish died here because I was hesitant, I would never forgive myself.

"Brandish!" I shouted. "Do you regret what happened with Amy?"

Brandish flinched with her whole body, her eyes flicking to me. "What—?"

"Oh, no you don't." Carte Blanche gestured again just as I was reaching into the pouch at my belt. Gravity rotated again. My sword slid out of the ground easily as I sailed directly upwards.

Below me, Brandish turned to Jack Slash and dove for him. She was beyond my help now.

I spun in midair, turning to face Carte Blanche and bringing my blade to bear. Just in time—I saw golden light playing about his hands, which fired out in a beam. I caught it with Sunrise and deflected it, sending it lancing outward into the night.

Carte Blanche gestured and my little bubble halted, my body slamming into the top before falling to the bottom again as gravity righted itself.

That golden light was flickering around his palms again. He wore no mask, so I saw his dark smile. "Bet you were thinking I couldn't kill you," he said. "What could, after all? No ordinary weapon could pierce your armor, and as long as that Ring's on your finger, you're basically unkillable."

I didn't answer. I had recognized that golden light.

"They all have it, you know," he continued conversationally. "Every Entity. They call it Stilling. I imagine you know it better as Silence. Pure and undiluted, taking matter and energy apart at the quark level."

"What are you, exactly?" I asked softly. "You're not just a clone of Eidolon."

"Two clones, actually," said Carte Blanche. "I subsumed the other one. Do you have any idea what Eidolon's Shard actually is?"

"I can guess," I said. "It's the part that's supposed to assign Shards to hosts, isn't it? The part of Eden that would have chosen her parahumans."

"Yes, but so much more than that," said Carte Blanche with relish. "I'm probably the closest thing to Eden herself reborn, because that Shard was probably the closest thing to her mind. Besides whatever core their 'soul'—or anti-soul or whatever they have—lived in. Eidolon could be the same if he had any imagination. Instead, half of his power use is unconscious. He never considered talking to the other Shards. Learning from them." He shook his head, almost despairingly. "These things have uncountable millennia of experience with how to fight with powers. How is it that I'm the only one who bothered to ask for their input?"

"They aren't exactly talkative," I pointed out.

"No, I suppose not," he agreed. "You don't seem pressed to get out of there."

"You don't seem pressed to help Jack Slash," I countered.

Carte Blanche snorted. "What exactly gave you the impression that I give a shit about Jack Slash?" he asked. "I just sicced my own version of Broadcast on his to get it to shut up and stop trying to talk to me. I'm only here for one reason."

"What's that?"

He grinned, then dropped—just as a blast of green light shot through where his head would have been.

Eidolon shot over to me. With a gesture, the bubble around me disappeared. With another, I was hovering beside him. "Mairë," he said shortly, staring down at Carte Blanche, who was grinning up at him.

"Eidolon," I answered.

"Hey," said Carte Blanche with a wave.

Eidolon's fists clenched. "You wanted me here. Here I am. Any last words?"

"Just a few," said Carte Blanche with relish.

I lunged at him, but he sailed out of my reach, hovering above us, laughing.

"The Endbringers are projections!" he cackled, madness dancing in his eyes as he glared at Eidolon. "And you're the Master! Or you were—until I took them!"

The words took a moment to sink in. My eyes widened. Eidolon's entire body tensed up.

Laughing madly, Carte Blanche raised arms flickering with golden light, taking aim at the other man. I leapt in the way and deflected the beam of Silence with Sunrise, then charged at him.

He backtracked, giggling like a man possessed, and I pressed him. "This doesn't have to end in death!" I called as he shot another beam of light at me, and I deflected it again. "Yield! I'm working with Shaper—I can work with you!"

"Oh, but it does have to end in death!" he laughed, orbiting me and firing another beam. I blocked it and thrust at him, he dodged back. "It does! But don't worry—you won't have to kill anyone!"

"You think you'll win?" I asked him.

He grinned, baring his teeth. He kept grinning as green fire burst out of his chest as Eidolon thrust his fist through his torso. "I already have!" he screamed, and then, as if his animating spirit had suddenly left his body, he slumped dead.

Eidolon let the corpse slide off his forearm and drop down towards the ground. He was breathing fast and hard, almost hyperventilating. No, not almost. "It's a lie," he said to himself. "It's a lie. It's got to be."

There would be time for whatever this was later. "Head in the game, Eidolon!" I shouted, and mentally cut my connection to his power. Gravity abruptly reasserted itself, and I started to fall.

Brandish was almost directly below me, a sphere of light sailing into a wall as a laser struck it hard. The beam had been fired by a strange, malformed creature, like parts of half a dozen bodies sewn together. I dropped past her like a stone, taking in the twisted amalgamation. I could recognize parts of Crawler's body mingled with parts from other humans, and a laser cannon grafted to its arm.

Sunrise tore through the monster as I dropped past. I hit the ground in front of it with a thud, and it split down the middle and fell, both halves still writhing. I Sang a single, furious note, and they both burst into flames, then fell still.

Brandish rolled to a stop beside me. Her Breaker form shattered like a hatching egg to reveal her body. Blood seeped from a wound in her side, and her right arm hung uselessly from a devastatingly deep gash in her shoulder.

"I fought him off," she said, voice taut with pain. "He ran that way."

I stared at her for a moment. "I'm… impressed."

She bared her teeth at me. "I'm not going to be much use going forward," she said. "Losing a lot of blood."

"Let me help you with that," I said, reaching out.

Eidolon drifted to the ground beside us as I began to Sing under my breath, wounds knitting together before my eyes. He stared listlessly at us, his whole body shaking. "We don't have much time," he said, but his heart wasn't in it. It sounded like rote, like something he was saying out of habit.

"We have enough," I said, pausing to answer him before returning to the Song.

At length, Brandish's wounds were closed. She took a deep breath, testing her elbow and fingers. "Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome," I said. "Brandish?"

"Yes?"

I pulled out a Ring of Power. Gold, inlaid with a pearl. "You know how these work, at this point," I said.

She stared at it for a moment, her lips pursing. "Mostly," she agreed. "Although I gather they've changed a little since your trip to Yellowstone."

"A little," I agreed. "The Ring-Bearers are connected mentally through my Ring, now. But the idea remains the same. This is Formenya, the Ring of the North, one of the Penitent. If you want it, it's yours—in recognition of all you've overcome, and of the road still ahead of you."

She considered it for a moment, then met my eyes. "You said you're all 'mentally connected.' What's that mean? Telepathy?"

"To an extent," I agreed. "And an empathic bond of sorts."

She shook her head. "Ask Amy first," she said. "I'm not about to jump into something like that without asking her if I'm welcome."

I grimaced. "That… makes sense. I should have considered… I'm sorry. I'd ask her now, but she's asleep."

"I appreciate the offer," she said. She frowned. "Should I stay back from this one? If Jack Slash can—"

"I don't think it'll be an issue if I take point," I said. I looked back at Eidolon. "Are you still able to fight?"

It took him a moment to register that I had spoken to him. "Yes," he said.

"Are you sure?"

He took a shuddering breath. "I think fighting is the only thing I am able to do right now," he said.

I nodded slowly. "Okay," I said. "Let's go."