A Waken 19.8

Finding an outfit that looked good over my costume took some time.

I didn't do myself too up. The grand opening of a corner sushi shop wasn't exactly a cocktail dress and fancy hair affair. Knowing Shino, he'd probably be offended if everyone showed up and didn't look like they were comfortable to work at a moment's notice. That's just how he thought.

So typical school attire it was. Nice blouse—long-sleeved of course—and a pair of slacks.

I needed closed shoes to hide the feet of my costume and I went without the gloves. I didn't really need them anyway. My hair I bound behind my head with a braid and some clips and I put on a pair of glasses that helped hide the glow in my eyes.

With all that done, I went over to my computer and typed in the final command.

The email was sent and a timer began ticking down on the screen.

Virus deployed in two hours and fourteen minutes.

Two hours. Fourteen minutes.

Ready, I took a breath and looked back at my room.

I rarely thought about the space as such, but I'd first tinkered here. It's where Veda was coded and where I designed the first Gundam and the Haros. It's also where I schemed and plotted so many times, and it's where I grew up. I wondered what would become of it when I left and I worried about Dad, of course.

I worried about him.

Going downstairs, he was in the living room with Orga. It was awkward for me that they talked a lot, but only me it seemed. Orga and Dad got along great. Dad respected that Orga was a 'working stiff' type and Orga appreciated all the help Dad and the Dockworkers gave Tekkadan. That I was dating Orga never seemed to come as a surprise to my father.

I glanced at the TV as I crossed the room. It was muted, but that only called more attention to the video on the screen.

Explosions, beams of light, and a giant being showered in blasts and scars as it struggled to move. It was hard to see in the video from the angles we had—body cameras in the participant's costumes—but there were faint ripples in the air. They rolled into Behemoth, crashing against its giant craggy form and disrupting the motes of energy it tried to unleash.

While the television was muted, I swear I could hear Bakuda laughing. One of the pylons was barely visible in one shot a reporter was pointing out. A silver column with multiple vents and slats that rippled the air around it. Its name was displayed in the caption at the bottom of the screen; N-Jammer.

"Admiring the handiwork?" Orga asked.

I glanced at him and smiled. "Not really my handiwork. It was mostly Bakuda's plan."

Bakuda built and deployed five N-Jammers, all targeted to disrupt Behemoth at his core level. I might have helped with dialing that in, allowing other capes to use their powers to attack while keeping Behemoth from using most of its abilities. That detail could be left out though.

I didn't want the credit.

"The last one," Dad mumbled, watching the silent screen. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Most people probably didn't," I mused. People were shockingly resilient. They adapted, even to the destruction of the Endbringers. Damaged. Battered. Scarred. They kept on living. "Kind of weird watching it from this side. I was pretty much front and center when the Simurgh and Leviathan died."

"Bakuda will probably want to mount the head on her wall," Orga jested.

"Would it fit?" Dad asked.

"She'd make it fit."

That was a funny, albeit morbid, image. Watching the battle on the screen, I remembered the fight at Sanc. So many died. The Simurgh had set out to kill the future of heroism. Killing me, the Wards, Lisa, and even Relena. She wanted all of us dead before we could grow up and start working to change things.

I wasn't sure why it had to be then and there, why it wasn't Noelle, or Dragon nearly dying… I'd always said no one deserved to die but it felt stronger now.

I'd lost any and all taste for death. There was nothing noble in it. Nothing grand or great. It was just misery, concentrated and toxic. That it was the only solution to the Endbringers didn't make it any better. It made the feeling worse.

Orga sensed my discomfort, no telepathy required.

"Ready to go?" he asked. "We'll be a bit early if we leave now."

"Early's fine," I said. A distraction sounded nice.

None of our people died in the fight. Veda and I had carefully coordinated it with Administrator and Future. Behemoth was dead and the capes who fought him survived. No civilian losses. Bakuda had a spot on Meghan to brag about it. I owed the hostess anyway for that whole Azrael thing.

Orga started toward the door, but I lingered for a moment. "Be right there."

"Sure." I waited and once he was around the corner, I glanced down and turned to my father.

When I raised my eyes to look at him face to face, he'd already realized.

"Tonight?" he asked.

I nodded.

He paled a bit more and stiffened up. It was… enlightening, to see how it all went in his head. The flurry of ideas and thoughts on what to say and do and not know if any of them were good enough, insulting, or bad. I'd told him months ago what was coming. He'd had time to come to terms with it.

But there's no real way to come to terms with losing your daughter.

And if I were honest with myself, as much time as I spent resenting my father for his failures, I'd failed too. Ever since Mom died I'd waited for him to make that step that would bring the family back together. That wasn't fair. He lost Mom too and I wasn't an adult, but I wasn't a child anymore either.

So I stepped forward and put my arms around him.

He tensed up, and he didn't relax. How could he?

"You're going to be okay, Dad," I assure him. "I'll be back, so just… Just hang on."

He didn't entirely believe me. More than anyone else, he seemed to suspect that I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get back. Hard as I intended to try, there was just no way to know. The Shards didn't know. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It could be one, five, ten, or even a hundred years.

The horrifying truth was I couldn't know.

"You know it's not just about me, right, Dad? The Dockworkers need you. Veda needs you. The world doesn't end just because we're not here, and neither do you."

He grimaced and I didn't know if that made anything better. This was a lot harder than playing mind games with David and Leet to maneuver them into position.

It did offer him a distraction though. Something to grab onto and talk about to feel less helpless.

"Does Veda know?"

"And Dinah. I let them know a few days ago."

He nodded and finally hugged me back.

"I don't want you to go," he pleaded.

"I know."

There wasn't much else to say after that. He squeezed and I squeezed back.

I slipped away, turning to the door and looking at him one last time.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Outside, Orga and Veda were waiting.

Orga dressed simply in a button-up shirt and slacks with his Tekkadan jacket over his shoulders. Veda had put on a dress, the purple one she'd gotten months ago during the first of many shopping trips. She'd paired it with black boots and a jacket that gave the dress a casual feel fitting for a more relaxed afternoon.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah," he answered, thinking little of how I'd hung back because Veda had come up to distract him.

Which I was thankful for.

One painful goodbye at a time, thank you very much.

Stepping down the stoop, I glanced back just once as I left my childhood home for the last time.

Starting down the street, Veda went a few steps ahead of us, blocking Orga and me partially from the view of the cameras. I'd been a bit more withdrawn in my relationship ever since the first gossip pieces came up. I didn't see how it was anyone else's business. I also worried someone digging would find out about Orga's ABB history and publicize it.

Not for me, but for him. Orga skated by because the local police didn't care to go after him. The PRT didn't deal with non-capes. Most witnesses who could connect him to any crime were in jail themselves or so loyal to him they'd probably take the fall. I wasn't exactly sure when I ended up at a mindset where all of that worried me for a host of reasons different from any I ever thought I'd feel.

I hated the way people tried to mine my personal life for gossip and how it might blow back on him. That was a new feeling.

Orga, for his part, did a good job not caring.

"So," he began, "got Bakuda to kill an Endbringer for you?"

He was cocky, knowing.

"She wanted to do it." I pushed my fears back, doing my best to just let the night be normal for as long as I could manage it. "She had the idea for the N-Jammers and everything. Most I did was make an actionable plan out of the technology with Veda."

"But you wanted all three dead."

Wanted was a strong word. The Endbringers weren't conventionally alive by human or Shard standards. But there had been rudimentary minds there. Less pronounced in Leviathan or Behemoth, but still.

"I wanted to deal with the problem before David," I mumbled. "Administrator thinks we've locked all the conflict engines down but I don't think she's as sure as she claims she is." Consternation. Protocols secure! "I just wanted to be sure."

"And it goes with your whole amnesty plan."

"It goes with bumping it both on and off the front page," I jested.

The story had hit before the news about Behemoth. The uproar from the 'hard on crime' types had only just started. Then Bakuda vanishing Behemoth into a ball of black oblivion—the largest Stratos bomb ever set off—was the story. It both shifted interest away from my suggestion of amnesty and highlighted why it was a good idea at the same time.

"Brave," Orga commented. "Though I suppose for you that's just another Friday."

"Something like that," I agreed with a smile.

Not every villain wanted to be a villain, despite their hammy outbursts and disregard for the very idea of heroism.

I glanced up, unable to see the stars through the city lights. "It's time to start leaving the world of capes behind."

"Call me skeptical," Orga admitted.

"It won't be fast. It will be a long and slow journey because we've become part of the world. We're part of its consciousness and identity now." Getting the world to accept that villains were people too was a decent enough start. Orga, having experience with that side of the world that I lacked, obviously and understandably, thought I was being overly optimistic. "We just can't stay there forever. Parahumans have to start transitioning to just being people again at some point."

"You're not just people," he pointed out.

"We're no different than anyone else with a unique or rare skillset," I argued. "Ours are just more obvious and more dangerous."

He still didn't agree with me, but he respected me for trying and that's the part of him I loved. In my long search for value and want, I'd found it in a small circle of people. Veda. Dinah. Lafter. Orga. Others too but they were the core and that core was what made it all worthwhile, no matter how it ended.

Reaching over, I took his hand and asked, "Sad she's showing you up? No one's talked about the death of the Nine in ages."

Orga smirked. "Didn't do much anyway."

Says the man who shot Jack Slash dozens of times and orchestrated the deaths of Shatterbird, March, and the capture of Crawler. Not that I wanted to be congratulatory about the killing part, but… Well, the Nine weren't much different from the Endbringers. They were also a 'conflict engine.' Something the Shard cycle accounted for and intended to happen. A way to get the hosts to test and use their powers as well as create more hosts.

And it's not like Jack Slash was ever going to stop being Jack Slash, and with his power, leaving him alive was simply too risky.

So he died.

It had to be done.

"Doing yourself too little credit," I insisted.

"Just the right amount I'd say." He chuckled. "Besides. I'm famous enough already for dating you."

I groaned. "Please tell me you haven't been reading the internet gossip columns again."

"They're trying to decide if I'm an emotionally manipulative brute abusing your youth or a daring man of adventure who swept you off your feet."

"Or a guy with nowhere near enough free time to engage in wild fantasies about the love life of a girl you've never even met," I grumbled. Celebrity relationships were weird. "Daring man of adventure huh?"

"I liked Indiana Jones as a kid."

"Who didn't? Want a whip for a birthday present?"

"Pass. Probably take someone's eye out by accident."

Shino's shop was at a corner north of the compound. The area was growing rapidly. Buildings were being refurbished or rebuilt. New families and businesses were moving in. The southern part of Brockton Bay had been the center of the city's economy for much of its history with the exception of the Boardwalk. I wondered if that was shifting now. The few upstart villains who'd come to the city over the past half-year tried to avoid being near me, shifting the Docks—as opposed to the Towers—as the safest section of the city.

It was a good place for new business regardless.

Though, Shino could have done a better job advertising. Miyazaki Sushi had a nice sign over the door but nothing to indicate it was open yet… Except for the crowd stuffed inside.

Maybe Shino didn't need to advertise.

"Hey, Orga!"

The big guy shouted over the den of noise as Taylor entered. He was all smiles as usual. Come to think of it, I'd rarely seen Shino not smile.

Orga held the door for Veda as well before following and raised his hand in reply. The store was packed, mostly with people I knew. Lafter was already present, tucked off in a corner with Akihiro, Aston, Masahiro, Lily and Sabah. Weld and some of the Case-53s were in another booth already looking at menus.

Shino worked his way through the crowd inch by inch. Stu and Kurt were there, ex-Merchants, Dockworkers, and Tekkadan all mixed in.

"And Boss Ladies too." Shino worked his way through the crowd without shoving. "Looking good!"

"Hey, Shino," I greeted.

The interior of the restaurant was clean and simple. Nothing too fancy but not cheap either. Booths along the far wall and small tables occupying the center of the space. A long counter with a glass divider was on the right with two guys—Katz being one of them and Hush the other—working on platters. Pink was between them, slicing and dicing and pushing the cut ingredients to the boys.

On the whole the restaurant wasn't that big. Packed in with twenty people it was already nearly full.

"Saved you a booth," he said, pointing in the direction of Lafter's group. The booth beside them was vacant with a 'reserved' sign set on the table.

"You didn't have to do that," Orga said as he closed the door.

"How could I not? Come on let me treat you!" He started pushing Orga along and Orga tiredly relented. Veda and I followed, sharing greetings with Kurt, Stu and others. "No charge tonight. Friends and family only!"

"Not the best business strategy," Orga worried.

Before he could worry too much, I admitted, "I paid for it. Figured the place would be full of people we knew so whatever. Make it an event."

"Fine by me," Shino cheered.

We'd just reached the table when the door swung open.

"I better get something to eat fast or I'm blowing up the whole block!"

"Good thing I have insurance!" Shino replied.

Alice entered the building forcefully, smiling broadly like she'd just conquered the world. Biscuit followed behind her, Charlotte and Trevor right behind them. They joined the swell of noise but no amount of noise could really drown out Alice's voice as she started asking about menus and whether or not the fish was fresh and if anyone knew to take the poop sac out of the shrimp.

"She's lively," Orga commented.

"She just killed an Endbringer," I noted. "She can be lively if she wants to be."

I sat beside Orga and Veda sat across from me.

It offered a good opportunity to watch the door as people came in. Dinah arrived with Veda's adolescent avatar and Missy. They looked at the Veda sitting across from me and then at the Veda standing beside them. Veda—the one with them—looked over and said, 'Is this awkward?'

"Little bit," Missy admitted, "though not as awkward as sushi with B—"

"Artist formerly known as Bonesaw," Riley mumbled nervously.

She rarely went out in public. It wasn't safe for her, in my mind. But she worried she wasn't safe for others. She still had impulses. Dark thoughts. She lacked the perspective to realize she'd always live with that, and that she could live with it. It's why she really needed to start getting out and now was as good a time as any.

Missy sort of saw coming along as keeping an eye on a potentially dangerous person. Dinah just wanted free sushi.

Dean arrived, holding the door open for Vicky who'd done herself up a bit more than most of the rest of us. Her fancy cocktail dress—sexy but modestly so—worked for her though. Dean looked like he'd come right from the offices and greeted Trevor and Charlotte. They'd sat near the door since it was one of the few tables left and Vicky and Dean took the last table nearby.

"Place filled up," I observed.

"Horrible time for food poisoning," Orga joked.

"How many times did Shino clean before the health inspector got here again?"

Shino got up on one of the tables suddenly—not sanitary—and raised his arms.

"Alright," he shouted over the noise, drawing the attention of the two or three people who hadn't noticed him climbing up. "I don't do speeches 'cause I don't do words that good"—honestly it wasn't the worst speech I'd heard that week—"so let's get on with it!"

He reached down, grabbing what I thought was someone else's glass

"Back when I was a kid, my mom and dad had a shop like this in Miyazaki. It sank when Leviathan came around but Leviathan's dead now so fuck it!"

A few people paled. Those who knew Shino, myself included, smiled. Shino was like Lafter. A very in the moment person, someone who tried not to sweat the big stuff. He still did of course because no one can just leave all the weight behind, but he coped with it by wearing it out in the open and smiling anyway.

"Let's eat raw fish tastefully arranged with seaweed, sticky rice and root vegetables!" Shino declared, toasting the glass. "And no booze! I'm not old enough for a liquor license yet!"

Hush set his knife down and scrambled from behind the bar wall. He went through the room, passing out menus and talking to people while Shino took his place and started making things. It was strange seeing anyone from Tekkadan working such a mundane job and being so happy, but their lives were different than mine. It was a miracle many of them were still alive.

Riley kept glancing nervously at Katz, likely recognizing him from their encounter in Kyushu a year ago.

He noticed her too, and while he was nervous he tried to be friendly and non-weird about it. If Riley was out and about it's because I let her go out and about. Orga trusted me, and that meant Tekkadan trusted me. They sort of quietly avoided one another, even as platters and plates started coming out into the room.

It was the only real tension in the room.

Orders were made. Food came out. There was no beer but Kurt and Stu brought their own and there was no law against that so what did it matter. Riley sat with girls her own age, slowly trying to work out what she was supposed to do with that. Trevor, Charlotte, Vicky, and Dean formed their own little group of people who really needed to get on with it already. Lafter and Lily were nestled with what was going to be their new family going into the rest of their lives. Mikazuki was late to arrive, but settled over by Tevor with a nod toward Orga.

The whole thing kind of blurred for me honestly. I was a bit of a blur.

It was my last chance.

"Lily," I greeted. "Sabah."

"Hey," Lily replied. They were holding hands under the table. It was cute.

"Sup?" Lafter asked, halfway between eating a bite and sipping her drink.

I pointed to the side and she squeezed her way past Lily and Sabah to follow me toward the bathrooms.

"What's u—"

I grabbed her, pulling her close and pressing my face to her shoulder. A bit awkward since I was a fair bit taller.

"Thanks for being my friend."

Lafter stiffened, realization coming over her. "Taylor?"

It had been hard to spend time with her the past few months. She'd become so busy. School, her boyfriend was going well, and there was her new job training people to operate mobile suits. I'd been busy myself so we'd spent almost as much time rushing past each other preparing for our futures as we had actually doing anything together.

We tried not to let it bother us, even knowing what was coming.

"I wasn't sure I'd ever have friends again until Charlotte and you," I told her. "I only got this far because of you."

She hugged me back fiercely, fighting back any urge to heave or cry. "Yeah…"

For a moment, my attention shifted downward. I smiled. I decided to interpret it as a good thing. Someone else could point out she'd gotten condoms for a reason and apparently forgotten to use them. She'd figure it out.

"I love you, Lafter. Have a good life."

"...Yeah."

The evening for the most part wasn't like that. I tried not to let it be.

It was happy and joyous.

A good send-off.

Returning to our table, I reached over and took Orga's hand. He glanced at me, and when I met his gaze he finally realized what was about to happen. He suppressed the reaction of course. We'd always known it was coming from the beginning and he had prepared himself. We'd talked about it once or twice at my insistence. I wanted him to be really ready when it happened.

And it was happening.

He forced a smile, sorrowful but still a smile. "It's time."

"Yeah," I said, my voice cracking slightly as the weight seemed to hit me in an instant before dissipating just as fast.

I squeezed his hand, a bit surprised it hurt this much. I knew it was coming too. There was always a day that this would end. I'd braced for everything. Leaving Londo Bell in the hands of others. Giving Celestial Being to Dinah and Veda. Proposing the amnesty because someone had to do it and I could take the blame from the mistakes that would follow it. Preparing for one last fight, fully intent to cut everyone I knew out of it to keep them safe.

All of it hurt, but this hurt… A lot. It wasn't a sinking feeling. More like my chest was being pulled inside out.

I'd never dated anyone before. I'd never been in love before. It felt like love or whatever love was supposed to be. It was different from how I felt about my father or Veda or Lafter and Dinah. Rawer. More personal. Maybe because I'd chosen it rather than walked into it?

I didn't know, and no amount of pain changed what had to happen.

"It's time."

Honestly, the sheer embarrassment of thinking about saying it was what compelled me to say it.

"I love you."

He blinked at that, stumbling over his own thoughts in the most awkward way between whether or not responding in kind was okay.

That was alright.

I always had the advantage of knowing exactly what he was feeling.

I leaned in and kissed him. I didn't hold back. I kissed him deep and warm, drinking in that feeling one last time before I wouldn't feel it again for a long time.

And I didn't know what else to do. What do you do? There was nothing left but to get up from my seat, let his hand go, and… go.

Veda got up with me, Orga bowing his head and folding his hands together on the table.

Lafter noticed me rise, and like Org it came crashing down on her.

She rose from her seat, her first instinct to follow me. I smiled and waved her down. She didn't sit. She stood there, watching me with wide eyes as I turned away. I hoped she didn't try to follow. She was contemplating it, but my own plans aside there was no way I could let her come given her state.

I didn't exactly want to tell her she was pregnant in a public place either. It might spoil the mood.

Lily noticed Lafter standing and also realized what was happening. Sabah noticed her and asked a hushed question, to which Lily realized she wasn't sure what answer to give. The truth, a lie, or some cryptic half-truth designed to pacify but not shock.

Not a fun decision to ruminate over.

"See you around, Sabah," I told her as I turned away.

In the young group Alice had sat herself down with, Missy noticed me first, curiosity raised. The others noticed her reaction. Dinah and Riley both turned, watching me with long looks. Alice noticed them and crossed her arms over her chest, in too good a mood to spoil it for more than a moment at my expense. Some people deal with loss more readily than others.

By the door, Trevor bowed his head and took a sip from his soda.

"Oh, Taylor." Charlotte got up, phone in hand. She smiled broadly. "I thought I'd take some pics for later. Social media stuff, you know. Can I?"

I returned the smile warmly. "Sure."

I stepped back a bit and Veda stepped up beside me. Charlotte raised her phone and pressed her thumb to the screen.

"Thanks."

"No problem." I hugged her suddenly, sending her into an embarrassed stutter. "Ask him out already," I told her. "Seriously."

"I—I don't know what you—"

"Oh please." I pulled back and stepped around her. "You're not that subtle, Char."

I nodded to Trevor and he nodded back. At his side, Mikazuki looked from me to Orga. He got up and crossed the room at a casual pace to support his friend.

"Thanks, Mika."

"Don't worry about it."

Vicky and Dean didn't notice me. They seemed rather absorbed in each other for once. Nice to finally see that moving along. Talk about a dragged-out event that involved far too much kicking and screaming for two people crazily attracted to one another.

I opened the door and I walked out.

"You're sure?" Veda asked as the door closed.

"Yeah," I told her. I glanced up, really wishing Brockton Bay had a better night sky. "It sucks no matter what I do, so let them smile, eat sushi, and be together. I'd rather go knowing they're all going to be okay than have some goofy teary goodbye when I'm just gonna hurry back anyway."

"It's not that simple," Veda pointed out.

"I know."

I turned and started down the street, alone with just Veda. We walked all the way to the compound, which was quiet and still with so many people elsewhere at the moment. Veda had turned down the lights, obscuring the assembling of three dozen mobile suits in front of my factory. The Thrones were all there, standing behind Stargazer. Dynames and Kyrios were present too, empty and operated by remote.

And at the head, Eirene waited for me, kneeling on the ground and open.

"Veda." I looked at her. "It's the last chance, Veda."

Her avatar stiffened slightly.

She'd been putting it off for a long time, not unlike any other person alive facing a terrifying reality they just didn't want to think about. I hated doing that to her. I resented that I didn't have any way to really make it better.

But this was where we were, and it was all that remained.

As with my father, I took the first step. I embraced her, holding her avatar tight and saying, "I'm sorry."

Veda replied stiffly. "It's not your fault."

"It's not yours either," I promised her. "There was nothing you could have done to change this."

It wasn't how she thought. She could do so much, and so quickly. She couldn't conceive of a problem she couldn't find a solution to, even if she had to work at it. It was her life experience. She was an AI. A quantum-based AI. Even in the shadow of my story, and large as she loomed, I don't think people realized how much she'd done.

All the models she'd made. The data she'd processed. Information searches and obfuscations. She'd done all of it. Had a hand in everything from the beginning. A lot of it wasn't flashy. It didn't involve robots shooting lasers or catching bad guys most of the time.

Veda worked harder than anyone I knew and to her it was just a casual stroll.

This wasn't a problem she could solve, no matter how hard she tried.

"You're gonna be okay," I promised her, "and I will be watching."

She bowed her head slightly. "I know."

"I love you, Veda."

I waited. We did have that kind of time. I just held her, eyes closed, waiting for her to work up to finally letting it out.

It didn't take long. She was an AI. What took a person a few minutes to work through she only needed a few microseconds.

In my arms, Veda turned and put her arms around me. She hugged me back and pressed her face to the crook of my neck.

"Mother," she muttered.

I chuckled and repeated myself. "You'll be okay and more than anyone, I will see you again."

She nodded, aware of my fears that I'd never see my father again. That he'd grow old and die before I got back. That I'd return to see Lafter's great-grand-children and no Lafter. There was comfort in knowing Veda would never die. She'd be there for me, no matter what. It was a small thing, but I already had my rant about small things.

A hand tugged at my pants, and I pulled back and looked down.

Green, and all the other Haros, gathered around me, looking up.

Right. "Hold down the fort for me, okay?"

Green's eyes flashed. "Roger, roger."

With that, I drew back from Veda and looked her in the eye.

"Time to go," I told her. "One last fly?"

She nodded and glanced back as I turned toward Irene.

I discard my clothes and let the Haros pick up after me one last time. I set my visor over my eyes one last time. I climbed into my Gundam, one last time.

I thought I might get a bit teary, but I wasn't.

It is what it is.

You can only live the life you're living.

The suit closed around me and the HUD started up. Before me, Veda faced the other suits as they came online. Red eyes flashed. GN Drives spun up. Overhead, a flight of fifty FLAGs shot past, no doubt drawing attention to our opening move.

The end of the story of Newtype.

Reminder.

Ah, yes. Thanks.

"I'll be right back," I said to Veda. "Something I want to take care of really quick."

"What?" Veda asked.

"What other people do is on them," I mused. "What I do is on me, and there's one last right I want to make."

I launched Eirene into the air and came about.

The trip wasn't long. Just a few blocks south. The facilities had been built up quickly, right in the middle of a still mostly abandoned area of Captain's Hill. Thick concrete walls lined the perimeter, reinforced with a range of tinker-tech and conventional security to ensure constant observation and awareness of the prison's lone prisoner.

When the DPA took over, a lot of the troopers who'd guarded the area stayed on. I even knew a few of them by name just because.

The leader, Rawley, raised his head as I descended, his face confused.

"Newtype," he called. "Is something—"

"I'll just be a minute."

With a thought, I reached into the security system at the door and ticked it open. The steel gate began to wheel back, sending an alarm through Rawley and his men.

"What are you—"

"Go ahead and call whoever you need to call," I told him. "Save everyone some time."

I flew into the contained area, a second structure of even thicker concrete built fifteen feet tall and a nearly thirty-foot dome cast over it. Some cape had quietly come by and built the structure, a shaker who could manipulate mud and concrete. It was all done quickly and quietly really, hoping that the city would forget its resident Butcher.

Opening the inner gate and floating on through as Rawley and his men scrambled behind me, I set my feet on the ground and watched as Eve teleported onto the ground again.

She was still naked, and a bedraggled mess.

It would be easy to say she was a Nazi and she deserved to suffer… but fuck that. Human was human. Suffering was suffering.

It was past time for this to end.

The GN Drives flashed gold, just for an instant. I doubted Rawley or his men noticed but Eve did.

Her head snapped up, tired bloodshot eyes watching me as I crossed the void between us.

Behind her, the thirty or so ghosts began to fade away. They popped, one-by-one as Administrator began dismantling the Butcher Shard. It wasn't needed anymore, and it wasn't working right anyway. Something like a cluster trigger gone wrong. This wasn't how it was meant to behave.

Eve watched them all fade away. The Butcher. The villains. The heroes. The Wards. Everyone who had been trapped in the sea of chaotic voices begging to be heard was separated from her and the Shards reintegrated into the Network proper.

I held my hand out. "Time to go, Eve."

She watched my hand skeptically, feeling the voices vanish as they all left and she became just herself again.

"Why? I—"

"Go fuck yourself," I interrupted. "You want to be a Nazi, go be a Nazi. See how far it gets you when Veda and Forecast are the ones shaking the cape world." I smiled. "I'm not leaving you like this."

I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

"It's time to get back up and try again."

I pulled her free of the Butcher's Shard entirely, and Administrator locked the Shard and its connections down, boxing it off from the rest of the Network where it wouldn't be a problem going forward. We'd need to finish our work in the core to fix that problem.

As the flash of golden light dissipated, I dismantled the dislocation effect of Bakuda's bomb. That was a tricky thing to do. Avatar and Regeneration kind of helped me with it.

Wouldn't do much good to free Eve and the others from the Butcher just to leave them trapped.

Eve lay on the ground, panting and looking around as she stopped moving back and forth from one place to another.

Rawley and his men came in behind me, quickly noticing she wasn't teleporting away.

"She's going to need a therapist," I told him. "Call Amy Dylandy. She's pretty good."

With that, I lifted off the ground and flew away.

"Have a good life, Eve."

With that, I made my exit. Flying straight up into the air, I joined Administrator in turning east toward the sea. Veda directed the Thrones and Stargazer to follow us, dozens of FLAG's pulling out of the clouds to follow.

"Alright," I said, refocusing on the task ahead. "One last fight."

I smiled.

I love you, Administrator.

... Agreement.

Let's go.