Many thanks to BeaconHill for betareading.

"Butcher's on the move!" Weld said through my earpiece. "We can't follow—Spree has us pinned down."

"Don't worry," Sophia said, her voice calmly soothing. "You've done your part."

"Be careful," ordered Bastion. "Butcher is accompanied by Animos and Hemorrhagia. Spree and Vex are here. We don't know where Reaver is, though he might be out of town."

"Don't worry," I said, tossing my paper cup into the wastebasket. I left a tip for the nervous-looking barista with a reassuring smile before striding out of the Starbucks. Glad I had the time for the coffee. I needed that. "We've got this under control. Tirissëo—are they traveling along Cummins, like we planned?"

"Yep," Sophia confirmed. "Gonna steer them along Belgrade at the intersection. Shouldn't be long."

"Keep me posted." I rolled my shoulders and unslung Belthronding from my back, nocking a mithril-tipped arrow, before starting to jog eastward up Centre Street. Right at the traffic circle, south a block, and then a left turn onto the corner of Belgrade Avenue.

Only a minute or two later, her voice came again. "All right, they're on their way to you. Chasing me, the idiots."

I smiled grimly. "Good." I drew back my arrow and aimed east along Belgrade. It was a low-rise commercial street, quiet but for the sound of PRT sirens in the distance, with a gentle downward slope. A mundane place to capture such a notorious supervillain. I could see them more than half a mile away, tearing up the road as they ran, chasing after the wisp of shadow that was my Sophia. I took aim and waited. "I have a shot," I said. "Can you get them closer?"

I saw Sophia coalesce for the moment it took her to say, "Easy enough." Then she vanished again, dodging a thrown blade from Hemorrhagia. I saw the Butcher, who was on a motorcycle alongside the galloping form of Animos, throw out a hand in frustration, causing a nearby wall to ripple and burst into a sharp starburst of stone.

I was struck by a sense of familiarity, remembering another masked villain on a motorcycle, speeding toward the tip of my arrow.

They drew closer, ever closer…

I released the bowstring when they were a little over a quarter mile away. The arrow struck deep into Animos' shoulder, and his four-legged form stumbled and fell, reverting to human shape as he did. Another arrow hit Hemorrhagia in the leg, and she fell too, her skates of blood losing cohesion and pooling behind her.

Butcher leapt off her motorcycle, drawing her own bow, and turning it in my direction in midair. She fired before she hit the ground, and I felt the Silence twist space around the bolt.

My hand snapped out. Song rejected and repulsed the Silence as I caught her arrow. The arrow's shaft was dark carbon-steel, and it alone weighed more than Belthronding did.

I snapped it between my fingers, and let the pieces fall. Through the Rings I drew on Missy, and she willingly gave me a moment of her power. I took a single step forward and was suddenly standing less than five meters from the Butcher.

Her eyes were bright with madness under the demonic face of her mask.

Sophia coalesced back into form beside me, turning to face our foe. For a moment there was silence.

"You're an idiot," said the Butcher in a voice that was hoarse with disuse. "You know what happens if you kill us."

I nodded. "I don't plan to kill you today, Quarrel."

The Butcher's eyes twitched. Her left hand snapped out.

I felt her powers pulling on me. One tried to whip me up into a berserker's rage. Another tried to set my nerves afire with pain. I ignored them, and the tendrils of Silence found no purchase against me. I strode forward.

Her eyes grew so wide that I could see a ring of white around her irises. She charged, a frenzied wail of fury escaping her. The asphalt shattered beneath her feet like glass under gunfire. Her fist shot out, a shockwave bursting forth as it broke the sound barrier.

I caught it with my left hand and let the wind of its passage sweep over me. For a moment she stared at me, surprised. Then her entire body grew white-hot suddenly, beginning to glow like the sun. I ignored it and stepped inside her guard. She tried to teleport away, but I held tight, and the power failed to pull her away. My right hand cupped her cheek gently.

"Enough," I said, and reached into her mind. I felt the connection between her Shard and herself, a festering wound, puffy and infected and full of unpleasantness. I did not tear it free. Instead, I followed it up. My eyes slid shut, and I let go of physical form for a while.

Sophia later told me that when the Butcher's body stopped glowing, the woman was falling face-first to the ground, and I was nowhere to be seen.

The Shard that had once been Quarrel's was nearly as massive and inconceivable as the one that had tried to bind itself to me, all those months ago—or at least it would have been, were it free. Instead, I saw all of its infinite space confined into a cage of Silence, squeezed into a tiny cell from which its power was drawn like a drink being sucked from a juice box.

A dozen more of these cages orbited the vast web-creature, the tapestry of horror, which held dominion over this place. In each of the other cages, trapped in with the power, I could feel the faint flickering of Fëa—or, perhaps, only the echoes of those souls which had once been bound to these imprisoned Shards.

The Butcher's Shard was fat and bloated, and all the more ravenous for it. It screamed at me, babbling a thousand incoherent ideas in a tide of meaning as I invaded its metaphorical space.

I drew Sunrise. Though it was a sword of steel and galvorn, it was woven with myself, and so it was real in a profound way these things were not. Where it met with the scything limbs of black crystal-flesh, it cut through them with scarcely a hint of resistance. With each limb severed the thing grew more frenzied and furious, its attacks grew more reckless, and the damage I dealt with each blow increased.

Eventually, it seemed to realize that it could not defeat me. It drew away, but the shackle that had bound its Butcher now tied it down. I pressed the attack and it fell back, cornered.

One after another, I severed its tethers to the trapped powers in their cages. They burst free and fled into the ether between realities. Last to be freed was the power that had once been Quarrel's. It stayed. It watched as I beat back the Butcher-Shard's last, feeble attempt to push me back, and then at last severed its connection to its stolen host. Diminished, damaged, and perhaps broken, it fled from me like a shadow from the dawn, slinking away into the space between spaces.

I turned to Quarrel's power. It was still here, watching me placidly, innumerable eyes holding something like curiosity.

Every instinct I had was telling me to strike, to drive this thing away like I had all of its siblings. I held that impulse back. "You want to reconnect to your host."

It was not a question, but the thing responded with a sense of affirmation.

"Remember this," I said, gesturing around at the ruined space, the crystal-flesh strewn about like gore on a battlefield. "And remember also that I spared you, that I allowed your brethren to flee. We are born enemies, Child of Ungoliant, but we need not remain so. You have no Fëa, but I think you have something like it, an inverse form, that allows you some measure of choice. Soon, the time will come for all of us to make our last great choice. When it does, I hope you will remember this.

It studied me silently, and after a time I turned and left, returning to the reality I had left behind, the Earth that was my home.

I stepped back into being surrounded by the Boston Protectorate and Wards. They all started for their weapons at my sudden appearance, save Sophia, who was bent over Quarrel's body. She just straightened calmly and looked up at me. "So?" she asked. "How did it go?"

"The Butcher's power has been severed," I said. "All of the powers and identities it trapped have been set free. She's just Quarrel now."

"Nice." Sophia grinned at me, her eyes sparkling behind her mask. The Boston heroes did not seem to know how to react, looking at each other blankly.

"What about the other Teeth?" I asked.

"I finished with Hemorrhagia and Animos while you were busy," Sophia said. "Knocked them out and hit 'em with confoam grenades." She gestured behind me at two lumps of containment foam in the street.

"Good," I said, nodding. Then I turned to Bastion. "Quarrel was one of your Protectorate, before she killed the Butcher, wasn't she?" I asked.

He stared at me, eyes wide behind his boxy, metal mask. "Yes," he confirmed eventually.

"Good," I said. "Let's get her to your headquarters, then. Get her into M/S confinement initially—she may be violent at first, until she understands what's going on. After that, she should be looked at by a psychiatrist. A physician, too—there may be some swelling around the gemma after I disconnected the Butcher's power. It shouldn't be life-threatening."

"Is that it?" Weld asked us as Bastion called for a PRT ambulance to carry Quarrel. "That's all of it? You show up for an afternoon, and the Butcher is gone?"

I gave him a wry smile. "I'm afraid so," I said. "Sorry if I'm encroaching on your territory."

"No, no!" Weld laughed, the sound ringing oddly as it emerged from his metal body. "I don't—I heard when you took out Nilbog, but I got the impression that you weren't doing that kind of thing anymore. Then you took out the entire Empire 88 in three days, and now this. I just think I'm getting whiplash."

"Things are moving quickly," I acknowledge, looking at Sophia. "We're not the only ones doing our best to get things back in order as quickly as possible."

He frowned suddenly. "You sound like you're working on a deadline," he said slowly. "Are you?"

I pursed my lips. "I'm… trying to get as much done as I can before the next Endbringer attack," I said carefully.

Weld considered me, but his teammate, Caroller, nodded in understanding from her place at his right shoulder. "That makes sense," she said. "You never know how an Endbringer is gonna fuck things up."

"No," I agreed. "You never know."

Bastion returned to the group, stowing his phone in a pocket under his boxy armor. "PRT's on their way with a gurney," he reported. He looked at Sophia and I. "We're probably going to celebrate tonight," he said. "You two planning to stay?"

I looked at Sophia. "Your choice."

She shrugged. "Either way is fine, so long as we eat. I just sprinted for two miles. I'm hungry."

"There's a restaurant here in Boston with a parahuman chef," Bastion offered. "We sometimes get food catered by them. Their food is preternaturally good and imparts a minor healing factor and strength enhancement for several hours. Thinkers have looked at it, and there's no Master effects involved."

Sophia looked my way. "Sounds like something to try," she said. "And, hey, we might as well take a couple hours to see the sights. Only been to Boston once before."

"Really?" I asked. "It's only a two-hour drive."

She shrugged. "Family didn't travel much. Probably a good thing."

"Ah." Yes, I supposed trapping Sophia with her stepfather and mother in a small metal box for two hours would not go over well.

"So?" Bastion asked. "Should I call for catering?"

I looked at Sophia, then back to him, and nodded. "Sure," I said. "And we'll be off in the morning."

Bastion nodded and walked away. I could hear the PRT sirens getting closer.

"Where are we headed next?" Sophia asked, coming close and speaking quietly into my ear.

"Dragon hasn't found the Slaughterhouse Nine yet," I replied, murmuring. "So I was thinking we'd head across the Atlantic. The Three Blasphemies are in France right now, and Ash Beast is somewhere in Algeria. And there's the Sleeper in Russia."

"Want to hit all three?"

"Ideally. Who do you want to start with?"

Sophia considered for a moment. "Ash Beast," she said at last. "Ash Beast, then north to France to take out the Blasphemies. Then east to the Sleeper."

I nodded. "Sounds like a plan."