Fon coughs out blood, curled up on his side in the trashed living room. He struggles to prop himself up on the arm that isn't broken, only dressed in loose sleeping pants and untied hair splayed out over the carpet like spilled ink.

"Stay down," Bermuda warns, the bandaged infant standing on a leg of the overturned coffee table. The faint moonlight casts a shadow behind him, stretching up the wall and forming a monstrous figure.

Fon is already tapping through the bond-

RUNRUNRUNRUN

The other Vindice are still warping in, top hats shading their bandaged faces, heavy cloaks dragging along the ground, chains clinking together. It looks like the entire prison is coming here, crowding Reborn's house. Some of them are already moving to the stairs.

Colonnello breaks in through the living room window, Lal only just dropping down outside from the storey above behind the blond. There's a shout and two Vindice come tumbling down the stairs with Skull clinging to them, having tackled them down.

Verde comes rushing down after, lab coat gripped in a fist, the other hand rummaging around quickly for an invention he can use. Viper hasn't shown themself but the chain around Fon's neck loosens and unloops from around his neck without anyone the wiser. Tentacles form a slate underneath Fon and drags him out of the way.

Another Vindice, the one holding the chains around Fon, seems to feel something. They tighten the chains and the decoy body chokes but the Vindice just tsks. "The Mist is here too."

Lal is slammed up against the wall and falls to her knees, Colonnello tumbling to the ground next to her. Skull is thrown into the pile and Verde tosses a beeping sphere that gets swallowed by a portal before being dragged by chains to the others. Viper is the last and they're torn from a sliver of air, kicking and screaming.

"What have we done?" Lal snarls. "What laws have we broken?"

"Oh, what haven't you done?" Bermuda muses. "That Sky of yours goes on a rampage across western Europe, bleeding flames, and you have the gall to ask what you've done?"

"No civilians were affected," Viper hisses. "Omerta stands."

"The mafioso influenced by your Sky went insane. They tore through cities in your Sky's name."

"The weak are not our responsibility," Verde scoffs.

Bermuda seems to frown behind the bandages. "There is a way. The Vindice can be lenient with your punishment…if your set agrees to monitoring-"

Reborn comes in out of fucking left field and punts the Vindice baby across the room with a kick, faint remnants of Viper's Mist flames still clinging to the edges of his form.

A Chaos Shot goes off, shattering chains and piercing through Vindice even if the prison guards don't truly bleed. Colonnello is yanking Fon up, taking his weight, and their Guardian set is using the shattered window to escape, Reborn defending them from the back.

Verde is the first one who trips through the portal but the rest of them inevitably follow when the portal expands to swallow up the entire backyard.

They land in knee-high snow, freezing winds cutting through their light sleeping clothes and the nighttime suddenly switched to a pale, watered down Northern sun.

Bermuda is perched on Jaeger's shoulder, the Vindice forming a ring around them. "Let's talk. Don't do anything rash."

Reborn whips around, gun coming up but hesitates, unsure if he should push for negotiations. What Bermuda said, before Reborn showed himself, it sounded like this attack was just a front for the Vindice to have leverage over Reborn and his friends.

A Vindice reaches through a small portal in front of them. Skull pushes Viper out of the way and his hair is grabbed by the handful instead, the Vindice dragging Skull backwards through the vortex and the portal shuts while he's still halfway.

Skull's body hits the ground and his decapitated head dangles from the Vindice's grip, something like choked laughter coming from the bandaged prison guard.

"Alejandro!" Bermuda bellows in outrage.

Reborn's breath hitches and his chest explodes. He shudders but stays on his feet. Mostly because Lal is in front of him, hands on his chest, trying to push the Sky flames back in with Rain to slow the bleeding.

Fon spits out a fireball of Storm flames to dissolve the lingering portal far too close to his Guardian set while Jaeger's chains have already snapped out, lashing around the other Vindice and yanking Alejandro down to his knees. Other Vindice move in, chains layering on top.

Alejandro only laughs, manic, desperate. "Kill them! We just need to kill them! The Iron Hat is too weak, it's been too long since the last bearers! Kill them and we can kill him!"

Reborn pours all of his blackened, rotting Sky flames into his gun and the Vindice guard disintegrates along with the chains, along with a good chunk of the mountain range behind.

Viper is hunched over Skull's body, tentacles yanking the head up from where it fell in the snow. Viper fumbles the catch and tries to fit Skull's head back onto his body.

"He's not a fucking Lego piece," Verde snaps. "It's not plug and play. Sew it on."

Mist flames whip around, forming threads. They have to get him back up and bonded to Reborn before their Sun loses his shit again. They can't have Skull down right now, not when they're being attacked.

Fon tries to stand but his legs give out from his injuries and so he remains sitting in front of the fallen Cloud and the hunched over Mist. Fon pulls from his soul and Storm flames swell up, filling the air around his Guardian set with a poisonous red fog. It's inefficient and he's bleeding flames too quickly but he'll keep it up for as long as he needs to.

If another portal forms, anywhere in Fon's radius, he will burn through fingers and hands and fucking herbivores until either they stop trying or everyone is dead.

Lal shoves Reborn down into a kneeling Verde's arms, the hitman shivering from the cold and the loss and the goddamned hole in his chest. It's too soon, he can't lose another one so soon, and he claws at Verde's arms, throws himself over Skull's body, and pushes in all the Sun flames he can muster at once.

Lal and Colonnello stand at either side of their Guardian set, knowing that they don't stand a chance. Lal is best at guerrilla warfare ambushes and Colonnello is the most long-range fighter a man can possibly be, but they're going to die before any of their own gets hurt again.

"Stop!" Bermuda cries. "Everyone stop. We are not here to hurt you. The Cloud is an unfortunate matter but there are bigger things at stake-"

Colonnello fucking loses it and his scream is inhuman as he launches himself at Bermuda. Jaeger cuts him off but Colonnello slams the other man to the ground and his first punch explodes with Rain flames that paralyse the Vindice, stop even Night flames from manifesting.

He only gets one punch in before he's pinned to the snow in chains by the others. Lal rips out an eye from the Vindice closest to her before they get her down and she still manages to take out a kneecap and break an arm before they finally knock her out.

Viper turns themself away from desperately trying to patch Skull together as fast as possible to summon hands - massive, clawed hands that burst from the snow and throw off the Vindice around Lal and Colonnello.

The hands slam down on the dual Rains and they sink into the ground, teleported back into the middle. A Vindice tries to lurch after them but reels back, half an arm gone when it entered Fon's red fog.

Verde forms a small protective sphere around his Guardian set with crackling green flames and calls down a lightning strike.

The half overcast sky flares a blinding white for a brief second before the thunder cracks like the mountain is splitting in half and the lighting hits Verde's dome, the shockwave throwing the Vindice to the ground and cratering the surrounding area.

"Enough!" Bermuda roars.


And the world is swallowed by darkness.