Many thanks to Technetium43, frustratedFreeboota, Assembler, and Fenrisulfr for betareading.

Many thanks to MugaSofer for fact checking.

Sheen 4.6

I just got all my friends killed.

The thought bubbled to the surface slowly, like fetid air from the depths of a bog. It breached the surface of my thoughts first as a thick, shapeless blob. When it burst, it released horror, pain, and awe—awe at my own stupidity, my hubris, the sheer scale of my failure.

But even as the tears rose to my eyes and the bile rose to my throat, one screen lit back up.

"Taylor." Sophia's voice was choked with bone-deep exhaustion and tight with loss and pain.

"Sophia," I whispered. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I—"

"It's not your fault," she lied. "Taylor, listen to me. I managed to follow Bakuda out of the garage before the bomb got me, but I'm tapped out. I had to make four blinks without resting, and I hit the ground pretty hard."

"I'll get them to pick you up," I promised, wiping my eyes. She was on a roof, I could see, lying on her back. Her camera gave me a lovely view of the stars, dimmed by the Bay's smoggy haze.

"No, you don't—fucking listen." Sophia's voice rose, grew heated, but the effect was ruined as she was interrupted by a coughing fit. "She's coming, Taylor. She was headed straight down Stockton. She'll be by the PRT building in just a couple minutes. She's going to bomb you."

My mouth opened slightly. "She's coming here?"

"She's lost her megabomb. She'll want to do as much damage as she can on the way out. Taylor, move!"

I stood up. "Can you move?" I asked.

"If you need me to." But her voice was rough, exhausted.

"No, you rest." I shook my head. "I have this. I'll send someone to find you. Be careful."

"Don't worry about me. Fucking kill this bitch."

I was reaching for Narsil before she'd finished speaking. It wasn't at my belt. I could have sworn I'd had it there when I sat down.

Casting around the room, however, I saw Aeglos leaning against the wall.

You'll do.

I took it up, and it gleamed cold in the electric lighting. "That's the plan."

I picked up the Jewelry Box, lying open beside me, and slipped off Nenya. I didn't want to be protected right now, nor to be concealed.

The Ring of Sapphire found its way onto my finger. I closed my eyes as I shut the Jewelry Box and laid it back down, allowing the power to flow through me.

Vilya, the Dominant Ring, the Ring of the Healer and the King, shone like a star. It eclipsed the pale incandescent lights as the moon eclipses the reflection of rusted iron. Aeglos, the Icicle of Gil-galad, shone blue and white in its light. My armor flared around me.

I had failed, and my friends had paid the price. But I could still avenge them.

Im ná i Calimatar Hrómen. I am the Bright Lord of the East.

The single light of Bakuda's motorcycle came into my view not long after I took my position on the street outside the PRT building. I hadn't passed Triumph on my way out. I assumed he was either patrolling the rest of the building or killing time in the break room.

I hadn't told him what had happened, or asked him to join me. There would be time—time to accept Piggot's punishment, to face the fury of the Protectorate and the sympathy of my dad. There would be time to go to each set of bereaved parents in person and offer what little closure I could.

There would be time to suffer for my failure. For now, there was still work to do—and I wanted to face this alone.

I unslung Belthronding from my shoulder and drew forth the only arrow in my quiver. The shaft of black yew seemed almost too dark—as though, rather than reflecting the starlight above as one would expect of polished wood, it consumed it, pulling it in like a black hole.

The power of the Black Arrow should not work when exploited. It was not supposed to be the only arrow in my quiver. It was supposed to be my final shot, the end of the battle. It was supposed to come after I had depleted my options, after I had run out of time, choice, and hope.

But when I put it that way, it was only fitting that it should serve now.

"Arrow," I whispered as I nocked it. "Black arrow. I have saved you to the last. If I have made you true, and if my cause is just, fly now straight and sure."

I let fly. The arrow struck dead into the workings of Bakuda's motorcycle and sank deep. There was a flare as the gas canister ignited, and a screech as the back tire snapped out of alignment. The motorcycle flipped, rolling end over end, sending sparks everywhere and trailing smoke and flame. I heard Bakuda screaming as she burned and was battered by her own machine.

The bike landed on its side and slid, Bakuda's left leg trapped under it. She screamed as her flesh was flayed between the heavy motorcycle and the rough asphalt. For a moment she was was dragged along the coarse roadway, and when it came to a stop, she gave a moan of pain through gritted teeth and laid back against the tarmac.

I walked forward. Belthronding returned to its place across my back, and Aeglos came forth. "Bakuda."

She glanced up, her red reflective lenses glinting in the light of the streetlamps. "Annatar," she said, and her voice was stiff and brittle with agony. "Saw you on the news."

"You killed my friends."

She gave a short, sharp laugh. It came out almost as a cough. "Not yet."

I stopped. "What?"

"The instant timestop bomb." Her breathing was ragged. "My slow-acting ones are permanent, or near-permanent, but the instant ones aren't. Their duration scales negatively with their area. Had to freeze the whole building."

I stared at her. "So they're not dead."

"Not yet, they aren't. The timestop should go down in a few minutes. Also, don't come any closer," she warned, "or I detonate every bomb I've got left in this city—including the implanted ones. You want to be responsible for the deaths of a few hundred more people?"

Will she do that?

Vilya curled about my finger. No.

"You're lying."

"Nope. You know I can remotely detonate my bombs."

"I know," I said, "but I'm a precog."

She lay back. "Fuck."

"Since I know you can't or won't do it, mind satisfying my curiosity?"

"Sure. I do like a good monologue, and it's not like it does me any good anymore. Toe-rings on my left big and second toes; I cross them to trigger the bomb—or bombs—of my choice." She looked down ruefully at her motorcycle. "Not sure I even have a big toe down there anymore, and I sure as hell can't feel it." She glanced up at me. "You know I'm going to bleed out in a couple minutes, right?"

"Not with that fire cauterizing the injuries, and the debris and road keeping them covered and under pressure," I replied. "No, your death will be slower. First the wounds will close, sealing asphalt and gasoline under your skin. Then the scabs and internal injuries will sicken as the infection sets in, until your blood is toxic and your body fails around you." I smiled. "Your death will be slow, Bakuda. Slow and painful. And no one will lift a finger to save you."

"Lung owes me this city." Her voice was hoarse.

"Lung doesn't strike me as the type to pay his debts to a dead woman with no attachments in this world. Why should he? Who will come to collect?"

"You wouldn't leave me here," she said, but she sounded almost resigned. "You're a hero. You're supposed to be better than that."

"I didn't say I'd leave you here. I'd find the nearest abandoned building—probably one you emptied out with a bomb—and then I'd drop you there, and drop your bike on top of you. Then I'd leave. No one would ever know. If you're lucky, you'd die of thirst before the blood poisoning got you. Either way, no one would find you; not for weeks. Not until well after your body had cooled and become a nest for maggots."

"Damn, you really hate me." The hint of mirth in her voice was almost appreciative. "What'd I do to you?"

"You've been terrorizing my city for a week now. You hurt my father. You almost killed my friends."

"Almost?"

I frowned. "I know the timestop will drop, but—"

"No, you don't get it." She was smiling around the pain now; I could hear it in her voice. "Were you listening, at the garage? I guess you were on mission control, coordinating."

"I heard."

"Then you remember. The megabomb? It's not finished. The blast isn't nearly as big as I wanted it to be."

My face slackened. "But it's—"

"What do you think I was waiting to arm? The time bomb was ready from the start." She laughed—a short, hacking sound. "I did say yet. The timestop should go down in just a few more minutes now. One bomb fails, and the other succeeds."

"No," I said, in dawning horror. "No! My—"

And then there was light. I looked up, behind her, and saw the light rising in a great cloud of debris, dust, and ash. In the same instant, the streetlamps on either side flickered and died. Behind me, the lights of PRT HQ went out.

Then the shockwave hit, moments later, setting my hair billowing behind me and making the motorcycle skid about an inch on Bakuda's leg. She hissed in pain, but she was laughing, too—laughing almost hysterically. The darkness was total, save for the stars flickering overhead, and the gleaming of Aeglos, Vilya, and my armor.

"They weren't dead then," she giggled, almost choking, "but they sure are now!"

I watched the stones falling back to the earth, the dust settling. Tears pricked my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but they kept coming.

They're gone. Carlos, Dennis, Missy, Dean, Chris… they're gone. And it's my fault.

"There," said Bakuda, sounding almost satisfied, her eyes lingering on one darkened streetlamp. "That's that done. Faster than I expected, too." She smirked up at me. "Really should've held back on the grief until now."

"Why?" I asked her, and hated how my voice quavered. "Why would you do this? Why would you want to?"

Bakuda chuckled wetly. "It's like this, kid. The world's a shit place, full of shit people."

"That's no reason to—"

"I didn't finish. World's shit. People are shit. We walk around on this shitty little planet for, what, fifty, sixty years? Then we die. Nothing changes. World's still shit, people are still shit. Shakespeare couldn't change that. Einstein couldn't change that. Mozart couldn't change that."

"At least they tried to leave it better than when they arrived."

"Tried and failed." She gurgled slightly, shifting her position on the ground. A faint gasp of pain escaped her as she accidentally moved her injured leg. "I spent all my life trying to chase after great people. Trying to be remembered, to leave a legacy. Then I realized—none of it fucking matters. No one listens to Mozart anymore, except rich snobs trying to look educated. Same for Shakespeare. And Einstein? All anyone remembers him for is the bomb."

She laughed again; wet, tight, and frantic. "I want to be remembered. I don't want to be just another poor sap crawling on all fours from one edge of a plateau to another, only to fall into the dark at the end and be just—gone. And if I can't be remembered for art, or literature, or science, well," she held out both her arms, wincing as the motion jostled her wounds, gesturing to the dark city around us, "there's always the bomb."

I studied her through eyes blurred with tears. "That's it?" I asked, my voice low and soft. "That's your great reason?"

"Yep. Well, that and the whole 'I really like explosions' thing. Going to kill me now? Or make good on your threats?" She coughed and chortled.

I reached out and touched her with my left hand. Bakuda was strong-willed by nature, but weakened by pain and by serving Lung for months. The struggle was fierce, but short, and in a few moments, I had her mind in my grasp.

"Your deadman's switch," I said. "How is it activated?"

"Heart rate monitor," she told me, her voice perfectly monotonous, staring up at me with dull eyes. "I have a monitor patch on my chest, controlled through my HUD."

"Can you disable it?"

"Yes."

"Do so."

A pause. "Done."

"If I took off your goggles, would you be unable to reactivate your switch?"

"Yes."

"Good." I reached down and grabbed at the lenses, pulling hard until the strap snapped and the red lenses came free, sparking slightly as the HUD interface broke down. I held it up for a moment, staring into the red disks, before tossing it aside. "You're free."

Her eyes blinked and cleared. She stared up at me in sudden fury which slowly gave way to dawning horror. "What the fuck did you do?"

I didn't answer her. "You ever heard of Grendel?"

"No," she replied warily. "Who's that?"

"Mm. Bet you've heard of Beowulf, though."

She stiffened.

"No one will remember you, Bakuda," I told her. "You won't be more than a footnote in the history books, remembered only for the challenges you offered your betters. No one remembers Grendel—they remember Beowulf. No one remembers Claudius—they remember Hamlet. And no one will remember you." I raised Aeglos. "They'll remember me. The one who put you down like the rabid bitch you are."

"Fuck you," she hissed. "This is real life. There is no happy ending, there is no resolution. The hero doesn't always come out on top, and it's the winner that writes the history."

"Yes," I said. "Hail to the victors." And I brought the spear down.

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