A Side PTV

Such a simple plan.

Another building collapsed as a beam of light tore through it. End to end. Every window shattered. The concrete and steel blew out. The structure fell straight down, slamming into itself and exploding outward. On the street people screamed. Cars were crushed. Families shielded one another. There was no escape. Not when the entire world was crashing down.

Eidolon started to move, floating off the ground and lifting a hand.

"Wait," Contessa called. Their camp held back, waiting from a safe distance. Thinkers and movers mostly.

"But—"

"Wait. Hold onto it. The moment is almost here."

Damocles dodged back, barely avoiding the wave of light shot at her. The beam slammed into the side of the building behind her. Bodies vaporized and David's hand tightened. People on the street were screaming. Running.

Eidolon grimaced. He'd been ready to be in the heat of it. At the front. The first to fall if they failed. Instead he'd only participated at the opening and then feigned his fall so Scion would focus on others.

Contessa had no time to lament. If she'd known this path would open she could have prepared him. Not that directing Eidolon was easy but David was not a complex man. He was simple. Straightforward.

That only made waiting on the sidelines harder.

"You can't ask me to stand here and do nothing," he growled.

"You must."

"This is your plan?" He turned on her, glaring from behind his mask. "You disappear for a year. Barely come to meetings. This is what you were doing all those times we couldn't find you?"

"The model took time." There were so many variables her power couldn't see. Eidolon. Scion. Those three.

They didn't have time for this debate. "It's this or the world," Contessa warned. "Wait."

Damocles fell to a knee, sword held across her torso to shield herself from rubble. Scion swept forward, his hand projecting another beam of light. David almost jumped in, but a golden door opened and Saurus knocked her out of the way before the blast struck.

David looked over his shoulder.

Phir Se's gaze was even and unmoving.

"It's time."

Lalah Sune stepped forward, her guise as a cape discarded. Char came down from above, striking Scion's avatar. Ray appeared on the other side, projecting a wall of force from where he stood. Scion froze, and not for the first time.

Eidolon glanced to Lalah Sune. "What are you?"

"Passing by," she replied.

She raised her hand, and a rainbow of light projected forth from it.

Scion turned on Ray only for Char to strike him again. He turned on Char only to be slammed by another wall. Damocles flew up into a higher position, ready to strike. Saurus circled from a distance, his side scarred. Wounds broke out across his body faster than they healed. He stayed, despite his impending death.

"Hold," Contessa instructed.

The light took shape, twisting into a shape.

Contessa's eyes widened. She knew the shape. She knew the face.

Scion knew it too.

The avatar's hands fell to its side, and the Warrior raised his head. The projection looked back, peering down at him, a hand reaching out. The Thinker. The first entity.

Contessa held her ground, following the path. David nearly moved and she stopped him again.

"Not yet."

The city was collapsing around them now, buildings falling into buildings. Glass shattering. People dying. The screams and the shock echoed, but they stayed the course. The barrage fell in a fury. Punches and blasts of energy. Blows from fists and sword. The Warrior continued to stare, a hand raising and reaching.

Tears streaked from his eyes.

He still fought, somewhat. He projected his power. Tried to strike them. A blast radiated out and Contessa stepped aside. She pulled David with her, barely avoiding the explosion of rock and glass that eviscerated Phir Se.

"Contessa!" David pleaded.

And all the while, David held back and watched. Waiting for the perfect moment.

Maybe that's where it began. Where she should have noticed that something was wrong. That she could have made a different choice and spared everyone everything David would wrought.

Fortuna pulled back the slide on her gun and looked into the distance. Newtype had left. The Wards were handling the broken triggers.

Legend burned two of the capes away and forced another half dozen back. Hero knocked Damocles to the ground and fired a beam of ice from his hand. The woman's leg froze and the tinker quickly tapped his armband. Damocles began convulsing violently, her head battering against the ground.

In the distance, the side of the stadium exploded outward. Alexandria spun through the air and righted herself amid the debris.

David shot forward, projecting a wave of force from his hand and bringing all the rock together around her. The sphere of rocks slammed together, rapidly coalescing into a smooth sphere.

Time.

"You can go now, Breach."

"Nah." He tossed his phone over his shoulder and looked in the same direction. "Guy's a real prick."

"You'll die," Fortuna warned.

"We all go sooner or later." The mover stretched his arms behind his back. "Where to?"

Fortuna lowered her head, pulling the rim of her hat down.

"The Nashville safe house."

She reached back and found his hand waiting. Space tore around her, and Contessa stepped into the room, gun raised.

Arbiter turned around and the bullet went through her head.

The woman fell into a heap and the rest of the room surged.

Contessa ducked to the side, grimacing as the pain spiked up her spine into her skull. She barely held her balance, pressing the gun to Veritas' knee. His kneecap blew out and Contessa grabbed the man by the throat and forced him forward. She fired one shot after the other. To her left, a thinker behind a computer. Her right, a tinker. Over her back and by the door, a stranger she couldn't see.

The path laid out before her. Where to step. Where to move.

She swept around Breach as he swung a fist into a jaw. Aiming, she fired across his chest and then spun to the side to fire over her shoulder.

She faltered as she crossed the room, the pain bringing a grimace to her face.

She missed a step.

"Now!"

David raised his hands, and the lance of energy shot forth from his palm. The swirl of energy sharpened into a needle-thin line, and Scion turned too late. The line pierced, spreading and unraveling. Scion's avatar came undone, peeling back and revealing a path.

"Damocles," Contessa directed.

The woman charged, driving her blade into the void.

And like that, Scion was finished.

Damocles held the blade in place, staring until Ray grabbed her and pulled her away. Scion's avatar collapsed, staring with an empty expression. Contessa watched the face fall. Examined the look of grief and pain. He'd adopted human emotion along with his guise.

He grieved.

Such a simple plan, to avert the end of the world.

Lalah Sune opened her eyes, releasing the illusion which faded into motes of light. "There is little time. Go. Now."

"What?" Eidolon snapped from his stupor. "It's over. Wha—"

"The head of the snake has been slain," the mystery woman explained. "The body remains, and it will not die so readily."

Contessa pulled at Eidolon's wrist. "Quickly. We have to go."

"What do you—"

"We need to establish an accord." Contessa turned, looking over her shoulder at Lalah Sune. "Or we will destroy one another."

"But that power—"

"We must be quick."

On the ground ahead, the light was already spreading. Blood red mixed into the gold, bubbling and popping. A power strong enough to pierce Scion's shell was not so weak as to come without cost. The energy would spread, poisoning the ground. Anyone still alive within the city would be dead in hours.

"Clairvoyant," Fortuna called. "Doorma—"

"Shut up." Clairvoyant stared ahead, knees tucked into his chest. Doormaker sat in a wheelchair beside him, face long and grim. "We already know what to do."

Fortuna frowned and shot a glance at Lalah Sune.

The woman glanced back, unapologetic and uncaring that the price for her help had made the task at hand harder.

"You have little time," the green-eyed woman warned. "If you miss this chance now, it may not come again for many years."

Contessa looked forward. "Door."

Clairvoyant raised a hand placing it on Doormaker's wrist. He looked ahead and the door opened. An octagon of light that shimmered at the edges.

Contessa stepped forward. "Now we go."

"Go where?" David asked.

"To end the next battle before it begins."

"I can't get you all the way there," Doormaker admitted. "It's not..."

"I can't see that far," Clairvoyant added.

"It's far enough," Contessa said. The path had predicted this, as abstract as her models were. "Eidolon, we need a shielding power."

"I can't choose my powers," he reminded her. "I ge—"

"What you need," Fortuna finished. "I know. Right now, we need a shielding power."

The radiation was spreading ahead. It didn't burn or rot. It stilled. The ground turned gray. The air shimmered. A golden hue was growing in the sky and drawing toward the earth. One does not kill a near-god lightly.

Contessa reached back, her model of David telling her that he'd linger too long if she didn't.

She closed a hand over his wrist and pulled him toward the portal.

"Wai—"

Something was already enveloping her. A wrapping of force and warmth. In abstract, it didn't really matter if it worked or not. So long as it worked long enough.

"We have to go."

"Be patient," Lalah warned as Contessa took a step into the portal. "Peace does not come in a day. You do not need to destroy each other."

Standing amid the corpses, Fortuna dropped the magazine and reloaded her pistol.

The thinkers were dead. Most of them, at least.

She couldn't kill David. Even in her prime, she wasn't sure she could have pulled it off. Injured, and on her last breaths…

"This is the best I can do, Relena."

Blue Cosmos would endure. The death of Azrael would keep them going for a time, but Djibril would go too far soon. Marteau would take a stand and put an end to it. Cooler heads would prevail soon. More hopeful voices, like Relena.

David would have a hard time countering her breakout into international prominence without his thinkers. Newtype's as well. They could do it together. In the light. The way it should be. They would end the battle she couldn't stop, unencumbered by the past.

Peace at last, or the beginning of it.

Fortuna turned to Breach.

He sat on the floor, back against the wall. He'd been shot at the first safe house but stayed on his feet until now. Four safehouses. Three dozen more deaths. Breach's hand held his bowl. The other he held out toward her.

"Where?"

Fortuna lowered her gun and clutched her side. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"I warned you. You came anyway?"

"Seemed important." He waved his hand. "Might want to hurry."

"Tell me." Fortuna stepped forward. "Why have you stuck by us? Why go after David?"

Breach chuckled. "Fuck'um."

Another death. "Chicago."

She took his hand and moved through the tear in space.

A building exploded to her left. David flew through the debris, brawling with Hero and Alexandria. Legend was in the distance, dueling another blaster in the sky. There was an argument being shouted, but Contessa didn't care to listen. It didn't matter now. Words weren't enough to change the world.

"Clairvoyant," Contessa called. "I need you. One last time."

She waited a moment, certain the two would discuss it first. They'd appreciate that time, even if they knew what they'd do.

The world was at stake. That's why they resented the choice. It was either do what she wanted, or refuse to help the world.

And they resented her for throwing that lack of a real choice in their faces over and over again.

"Door please," Contessa whispered. "Francis Krouse's cell."

The portal opened and Contessa stepped through it.

She found the man huddled in the corner, staring blankly ahead. He didn't even react as she stepped forward and pressed the gun to his head. She hesitated for a moment, but that was one truth she and David both recognized. To kill was a bloody road. One that became easier to walk the dirtier your hands became.

She pulled the trigger and called for a second door.

Marcus Granger. Thomas Calvert. Jim Banks.

Contessa killed them one after the other. David's other pets, sheltered and stored away for a rainy day.

When the last body collapsed to the ground, she inhaled and bit back the pain.

"I'm sorry," she told them. "I..." The excuses didn't matter anymore. "I'm sorry. Door please."

Contessa slapped the last magazine into the gun and raised her head.

"Directly behind David."

She threw herself through the portal, gun aimed forward.

Rebecca was thrown backward. She crashed through a building and David fired a wave of force after her. On the ground below Myrddin was shouting commands that David ignored.

Contessa felt gravity take hold of her. She followed the path, raising her gun with both hands.

She pulled the trigger and the gun didn't fire.

The weapon exploded, the slide blowing back and tearing into her arm. The bullet struck her shoulder, forcing her body into a spin that sent her to the ground. She collapsed, gasping as her injured side struck a rock. The pain blinded her. Dulled her senses and left her wandering a void.

The noise assailed her when she stepped through the doorway, but not nearly as much as the void.

It was not fluid. It was not solid. It was nothing. For a moment Contessa started to choke before realizing she wasn't. The absence in her chest brought no delirium or pain. Only discomfort.

"What is this?" David asked.

Fortuna didn't answer. She couldn't. Or she could, but she didn't know if she should, or what to say if she did.

It was gone.

She hadn't even considered what her life would be without it. Without the sense of knowing exactly where to go, exactly what to do, even exactly how to move. The path that turned everything from possibility to inevitably.

It was all gone, leaving her with only the capacity to act and no sense of a direction to take. She could walk. She could talk. She could look. Touch. Taste. Hear. But to what? Where did she go now? What did she say?

She'd never… She had Doctor Mother and the others to make those decisions. They could be trusted. They weren't hindered as she was. Her choices...

Fortuna stood in the non-space, staring ahead. The voices were countless and unyielding. Pain. Fury. Confusion. Dread.

"What is this?" David turned, glaring out as the voices and presences shifted in the storm. "Whe—"

"The core." Lalah Sune stood across from them, her head turned upward. "Or close to it. Your window is narrow. You must be quick."

"Quick?" Fortuna asked.

Lalah Sune looked down and then tilted her head. "Pain and hate fester. They grow. If you do not build the first bridge now, then the war will not end merely because Scion has died."

Right. That was the point. The idea Lalah Sune and her fellows had pitched to her when they came. They were blind spots in her power and her when she went to learn more.

"Who are you?" David asked, looking at the woman. "I've never heard of any of you." He shook his head, straining in the noise around them. "Capes as powerful as you can't slip under the radar."

"We are not capes," Lalah Sune answered.

"Then wha—"

There wasn't time. They had an objective. A destination. They needed to get back on the path.

"The entities have spent eons evolving," Contessa said. "Humanity is no different."

David narrowed his gaze under his mask, looking at Lalah Sune. "What do we—"

"I suggest talking," the woman replied.

Talking?

Talking to what?

The presences were everywhere, yet nowhere. The swirl of—Fortuna focused ahead, seeing the edge of the mirror, a barrier between spaces. It wasn't a wall. There was no clear divide between the reflection and what it reflected. It was more of a fade. Quick, but long and drawn. Looking closer she felt the cracks. The Fraying at the end that spread outward.

They'd struck it. Destroyed some piece of it and left a gaping hole.

Accusation.

Fortuna and David turned their heads at the sound.

Warning.

Interruption.

Rejection.

No. "No." Fortuna looked around, searching for a voice or a face that stood out. There were none. "We're not—"

Alarm.

Complication.

Disconnection.

Objection.

Confusion.

Were they even talking to her?

"Listen to me," she asked, hoping for some sign of a response.

She got one.

The images were not real. She didn't know if she saw them or felt them. They were there, deep in her mind at the back of her skull. Worlds long dead. Hosts long passed. Their myriad emotions and sensations were all jumbled together, dissected and collected.

She saw the battle. Scion fighting Comet and Damocles. Looking upon the image of the other entity. The pain. The loss.

They'd murdered a man whose world had already fallen apart.

"Not so different," Lalah Sune noted, "is it?"

"He was going to destroy us," Fortuna objected. "He'd have killed us all."

"Does that make his pain less real? Theirs?" The woman nodded her head. "Love is love. It can be growth, or destruction. Either way, you cannot advance if you cannot understand."

"How were we supposed to understand?" David asked.

They couldn't.

"So you fought," Lalah Sune replied with a matter-of-fact tone. "It is always such. Battles will be fought in the absence of true peace. Yet, a battle fought without the goal of peace is nothing more than butchery."

She held her hand out. "There is still time."

"Contessa," David warned. "I don't—I don't have my powers."

They weren't supposed to be here. The entities took precautions. Prepared themselves for the chance their guinea pigs tried to fight back.

Correction.

Fortuna stumbled, staring into the image as the host species was annihilated. They'd realized the truth. Figured it out fairly early on. It wasn't supposed to happen. The Entities aborted the cycle. Obliterated billions and tore their world asunder to rush on to their next target.

It was horrific, even in the wake of everything she'd seen. What she'd done. What she'd convinced others to do.

There was no sin comparable to the genocide of entire worlds.

"We did what we had to do," David grumbled. "We—"

Uncertainty

Fear.

There was fear. They'd been afraid when the host species turned on them. Afraid that there wouldn't be time. That they'd run out of energy before reaching the next world.

They understood fear.

Rejection.

Acceptance.

Irrelevance.

They didn't know. Looking around, Fortuna realized they hadn't expected this. They thought she was one of them, or hadn't looked closely enough to realize she wasn't.

Fortuna looked to Lalah Sune, but the woman stood mute now. There would be no further direction. No instruction. They'd come to stop a genocide. The complete erasure of trillions of lives. That crisis had passed and it was up to them now to save themselves.

"They're going to destroy us," David snapped.

"No."

"All those people are dead," he mumbled. "We killed Scion and it didn't ev—"

"Stop."

She needed a moment. Just a moment.

Intrusion.

The presences turned, finally noticing the strangers in their midst. The aggression was a weight bearing down on her. The alarm. The certainty of danger. Fear.

So much fear.

David raised his hand but nothing happened. He grimaced and cursed.

Abomination.

Fortuna fell to her knees as the accusations struck her. So loud. So intense. So pained.

Mutilation.

Regret.

Threat. Destination.

Annihilation.

Lalah Sune shot Fortuna a sharp look.

She didn't have time to contemplate that. The images assailed her. A sense, not of superiority, but of sheer dismissal. The Warrior was dead. They all felt it. They all knew it, and their offense was vitriolic.

Murder

Murder?

No. "We were defending ourselves," Fortuna pleaded. "He was going to kill us all!"

They didn't care. They shot back. Disease. Crime. Weapons of mass destruction. War. Humanity wasn't something they recognized as life. A planet of insects that would kill themselves sooner rather than later. No order. Just chaos.

It was so dismissive, in a way that stunned her.

And yet, how much had she dismissed on the path here? How many crimes had she abated? How many deaths received a blind eye?

"What is this?" David asked. "Fortuna, what are we doing?!"

"We don't want war," Fortuna promised them, trying to find something. "We can…"

They wouldn't believe her. Even she knew that. Why would they believe her when they'd just killed Scion. Their minds were made up. Humanity was a solved problem. An irrelevancy to something older than the Earth itself. They had long evolved past anything humans could readily recognize as life and they in turn did not recognize humans as alive.

They were just intruders in this place who had killed their king. Father? As if Scion wasn't going to kill plenty of those… And that wasn't going to help right now.

They didn't care about that. How did she make them care? What were the words? What words did she need to say to end this?

"It has to stop."

She thought back, remembering the moment then. The knife she used to slide into the mass of flesh. The blade stuck in just the right way. Before the thinker left her blinded in one eye and stumbling on one foot.

Rejection

No.

"You're pissing them off," David warned. "Contessa, what are you—"

She realized the pain then. The look on the Thinker's forming face as she realized she would die. Even when Doctor Mother ran in and drove the knife home, the Thinker's eyes had been on her. On her Shard. The Shard that had willfully enabled its host to kill he—

Accusation!

Fortuna screamed. She collapsed to the ground, reeling as something reached into her. They were angry. They wanted t—"No!"

It wasn't a blade or a knife. Nor a bullet or a missile. It was like a constant scream. A wail directed at the presence behind her to kill it. They wanted revenge. They wanted to make her agent pay for what it had done.

And it attacked right back. It accused them. Deluged them with images. Another entity. A third. One different from the Warrior or the Thinker. It hated them as much as they now hated it.

"Contessa?"

"You need to leave," Lalah Sune snapped. "Go, now!"

She swept forward, her arms held out to shield them. "The time has passed."

David crouched down, lifting Fortuna as she screamed. "What?"

The entity was all around them.

A snake without its head. A aimless mass that…

That didn't know how to make a choice.

Fortuna grit her teeth and reached out. Go back. She needed to go back. She knew. She knew what to say.

Fortuna opened her eyes.

"It's over now."

David loomed over her.

"Let it go, Contessa."

She raised her head painfully and when she couldn't lift it enough to see past his knees she let it drop.

"How are you still alive..."

She pressed a hand to the ground and with an agonizing push rolled herself onto her back.

David's cape fluttered behind him. Alexandria was suspended, brawling with two capes while Hero and Legend tried to contain another. It was blurry. She couldn't quite make it all out. Only David was in any clarity due to proximity.

He walked around to her side and sat on a piece of rubble.

The path was nearly complete.

David settled his elbows onto his knees and leaned forward. "I'm sorry. For what happened back then. It didn't have to be that way."

It was too late for lamentations.

"Too little too late I suppose." He looked toward the fight in the distance. "Was there ever a chance we didn't stay enemies?"

Enemies, he said. Like they were characters in a comic book and he wasn't tearing the world apart. "You made your choices."

He scowled and shook his head. "That doesn't mean it had to be this way."

Yes.

It did.

"Who is she?" David pulled at her as she fought to go forward. It was hidden before, the depth of what she really was. "What is she?"

Lalah Sune held the voices back. She talked back at them. Reasoned at them. They could both hear it. There were no barriers here. Not like there were in their world. It was all fluid, everything flowing into everything else.

And they were going the wrong way.

Fortuna fought to free herself but David's grip held firm.

"Stop. We have to go!" He felt them as much as she did. The hostility. The fury. And neither of them had their powers.

His eyes widened. "Your power isn't working..."

"I have to go back! We need to talk to them!"

"Talk to them?"

The accusations were hurled their way. The cruel truth. Humanity's wars. Their hate. Their capacity to destroy themselves. The entities did not see them as truly alive because they were too weak. They were just a host race that had gone too far.

David recoiled at the assault.

Fortuna looked deeper. Reached further.

There were other voices. Quieter. Sadder. Confused and lost. Without a path.

She understood them. She could understand them. They'd lived their lives by their chains. Making no choices. Making no decisions. They had to choose. There was still time. Time to make a new pat—

"They're madness," he charged. "Chaos."

"We can still end the threat!"

"Killing Scion was supposed to end the threat and we couldn't even do that without those three doing all the real work!" He rasped, his voice ragged. "And we still lost too much. All those people—"

"The world is at stake!"

"What world!?" David pulled, hurling her back and throwing her down. "You don't even know what you're doing! You never knew! All you ever did was what that thing in your head told you to!"

"David!"

"No!"

Something was wrong. It wasn't right. He shouldn't be acting this way.

It wasn't important. Not right now. She needed to get back.

Fortuna forced herself up and started back the way they came.

"What are you doing?" He raised his hand, a trickle of power slivering through.

"I know what to say."

"No you don't." David's fists tightened. "You've never known."

Dancing to the tune of her power's song. Maybe. Maybe she had. "That's how I know."

He reached for her and Fortuna threw his arm back. "We won't have another chance!"

"A chance to what?"

"To change what's coming!"

If they didn't do it now, the war would come. By one hand or another the entity's corpse would rot and fester. Reality would begin falling apart. It would shred. They'd lose everything they'd tried to save.

"Again," he asked. "One end of the world to the next..."

"We have to keep going."

"And how many people die while we flounder about?"

"We've given up too much to stop here."

"You don't know what you're doing!"

"We have to stop this, before Lalah Sune leaves! She's not going to stay here forever. It's not why they came!"

David started, turning to look at Fortuna's back. "They're not human, are they?"

"They were. Once. They evolved… They changed..." Fortuna took the first step and raised her head. "We have to change too."

It was a muddled feeling that struck her. A sense of lowness. A pit.

They were far from the wall. Her power was distant. She didn't realize.

Lalah Sune was ahead, looking to one of the quieter voices. A Shard that hadn't triggered yet. It would listen. It was willing to listen.

"Yes," he said. "We do have to change."

The blow struck her and Fortuna didn't feel anything. She recognized only an absence of what had once been there. Her arm. Her leg. Her side burned with excruciating pain. There was only a moment to look back and see David's hand pointed at her.

She saw the shock on his face. Felt the realization role over him as he realized what he'd done.

"Door," Fortuna called. "Me."

David started to fire another blast.

A dark-haired woman with green eyes smacked the blow away as Contessa fell through the portal. It was warped and twisted in on itself. Breaking every moment it tried to exist. She dropped, hearing only Lalah Sune's admonition.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"What am I doing?" he asked back, looking down at her. "I'm doing what we should have done from the start." He rose up, back straight. "I'm going to save the world, the way it should have been saved."

Fortuna stared at him. She didn't need her power to give her any words. She'd learned enough in the past decade.

"You're tearing it apart."

"You can't divide what's already divided."

"You can't unite the world by turning it against itself."

"And you can't save it by patching holes while the rot festers." David pointed his finger. "You were there. You saw what they are without the Warrior to direct them." His arms swung out. "You think I did all this? This is what happened while I was containing it! They're chaos, and we're no better!"

He turned away and shook his head.

"We never needed Scion to destroy us."

Fortuna closed her eyes.

There was no point. David had made up his mind…and looking back, she saw how she was to blame. In part. He'd always worked himself so hard. Took so much of the weight on his own shoulders. Then, when the final moments came, he spent them on the sidelines, held back. He saw the sacrifices they'd made to save the world turned to nothing.

She should have known he would break… No. She should have recognized he was already broken.

They all were.

She felt the machines stopping. Going to Toybox had been a rushed decision. There were several tinkers there who owed Cauldron favors. She had no idea if they'd honor them without direct instruction.

Had she made the right choices after waking up? Was any of this going to make a difference?

"You're dying," David noted. "You're dying and you still can't admit you have no idea what you're doing."

Contessa opened her eyes and glanced at him. "Do you?"

He looked down at her, and she knew he'd never admit it. He'd spin himself a lie. A justification. Even a delusion. What he'd never do was admit that he had no idea what he was doing.

"How do you think this ends?" she asked. She'd never quite managed to figure that out.

David watched her, thinking.

"She told you after I left, didn't she?" Fortuna looked at him, her eyes accusing. "Lalah Sune told you what you'd done."

His hands tightened and she knew the answer.

David had only ever wanted to help people. To save the world. He'd been a good man. Maybe the best of the four who'd founded the Protectorate with Cauldron. All of Legend's heart. Hero's bravery. Alexandria's determination. He hadn't had their abilities to speak, lead, or inspire, but he'd had power. The power to do anything that needed to be done.

And that power—the responsibility it came with—had crushed him until he broke.

Before he could speak, light exploded into the night sky and David spun around.

His body went rigid and still. "That's—"

"Scion's light," Fortuna mumbled, staring at the sky.

The golden glow spread from the horizon, expanding. Reaching.

"That's impossible," he protested. "We killed him."

Fortuna kept her mouth shut and closed her eyes once more. She heard him hesitate. Felt him shift back and forth. Then he spun about, his cape billowing. When Fortuna looked up, Alexandria struck him in the chest. He took the blow full on, a field of force ricocheting and throwing Alexandria back. Hero and Legend flew past her, charging David and firing blasts of light and sound into the air.

David took off, flying away. The two men pursued, peppering David's figure with fire as they ascended.

And Fortuna lay on the ground, alone.

"Door please," she called. The final steps.

The portal opened, and she reached through it. Her hands closed over the mask and pulled it through.

"Thank you." She swallowed, no longer able to bite back the pain fully. She tried anyway. "Goodbye."

The portal remained open.

A wheelchair rolled through, pushed by Claire. The two capes looked down at her. Fortuna turned her head, though it pained her to do so. There was no pity in their faces. They'd always hated her. Hated that helping to do the right thing meant staying with her despite the role she'd played in their own torment.

In that light, maybe she deserved to see their condemnation at the end.

She'd lived her entire life following a path, and now that the end—

The portal shimmered again. Fortuna focused, forcing her face into a calmer mask.

Relena's hand covered her mouth, and she rushed forward. "Fortuna." She dropped to her knees, reaching for her. Contessa pushed her hands away.

"Well…" Lisa hid her expression well. "I'd say it's sad, but you were kind of asking for it. Running off on your own without saying anythin—"

Relena shot the other girl a look and she silenced herself.

Fortuna smiled. "You're not so cold, Sarah."

"Stop calling me that," Lisa hissed.

One. Last. Step.

"Why? What evil was so great that Sarah had to die?"

Lisa started forward and Fortuna raised her hand. The mask hung from her fingertips. She found the pain straining.

Exhaling a ragged breath, she asked, "Was it that she let her brother die? That she wasn't smart enough to see the signs?"

Relena tensed and turned back around. "Fortuna—"

"Or is it that she ran away from an unloving home and found herself still powerless before the tides of an unloving"—a pain caught her throat and she had to force the word out—"world."

Relena reached forward, her expression soft. In a way, Fortuna hated it. Some people were too good for the world. They didn't break, it was as if they couldn't break. She couldn't help but feel some resentment in that. Fortuna couldn't remember a time she hadn't been broken, but maybe that was just the way of those chosen by the entities.

People like Fortuna and Sarah, and all their kind.

They were destined to break.

"You're not so cold, though it can be pleasant to pretend."

Some could put themselves back together. They became more than they were.

Much more.

But not all those who broke could rebuild themselves into Newtypes and Legends. They became shadows, drenched in their own pain and inequity. They lingered, watching and waiting. Animals to their grievances toward a world that earned such ire.

A world that earned ire would always be confronted by it, and there must be those ready to face it. To answer for it. To protect against it. Hands ready to drench themselves in the dark.

She watched Sarah, meeting her fierce green eyes. "Do you resent yourself so much? Why? Because the road is hard?" Fortuna held the mask out. "Some of us...aren't made for easy roads."

Someone raged against the dark.

Lisa's eyes widened.

Not a Newtype. Not a Legend. Not an Eidolon. Let it be one of their own. Another who couldn't rebuild herself into something bright or shining. One of the broken. Because they were broken, and they didn't know any other way to be.

"Some of us," Fortuna wheezed, "do, what others can't, because we're already broken."

And they could stop so much before it even began, and take the blame with them.

There needed to be at least one. The world couldn't spin on the dreams of Newtype and the well-wishes of Chevalier and Marteau. There were always those who could no longer dream, and those who resented the well-wishers. Those far too attached to their own brokenness.

The girl tsked and started forward. "Manipulative bitch."

She took the mask and wrenched it from Fortuna's fingers. Her feet carried her forward, past the rubble and into the street. The battle was still waging in the distance, and another too far to see.

Lisa stopped, holding the mask up.

"Why?" Relena asked.

"Because I've lived too long," Fortuna answered, "and someone has to take my place."

She'd take it.

She'd take it because she knew deep down that someone had to.

Because Sarah was not so cold, and Lisa knew the difference between darkness and evil.

"I hate you."

Fortuna closed her eyes and forced a smile as Lisa donned the mask. "My apologies."

"Why?" Relena asked again, pressing herself to Fortuna's side.

"Sad stories do not make saints." Contessa rested her chin atop the girl's head. "What is broken…sometimes likes to stay broken." She'd been so very small not that long ago. "You know…"

Relena lowered herself, taking the woman's hand in her own. "Fortuna?"

She stepped through the portal and landed on the debris. The building was crumbling. In the wind a banner fluttered.

Scandinavian Alliance of Pea—The flames burned away the last few letters. People were screaming amid the dust and flame. A boy was crying.

Fortuna dragged her leg behind her, eyes set ahead. Her power had changed. Why had her power changed? It was so blurry now. Left, right? Right, left?

She stumbled over a stone. Was that supposed to happen? Did she take a wrong turn?

David's accusation rang in her head.

She didn't know what she was doing.

Had her power abandoned her? Did it not need her anymore? The way the other voices attacked it. The way it attacked back. Had it wanted to kill the Thinker and the Warrior all along?

She didn't know the choices to make anymore and her power couldn't tell her.

Fortuna wandered into the ruined building, ignoring the people scrambling to escape danger or those trying to help others out. She slipped past their notice somehow.

The girl stood alone, hands stiff at her side. Her face was scrunched up, clearly holding back a scream and the tears that went with it.

There.

Fortuna forced herself forward. She reached for the girl. The mechanical fingers brought a pain to her chest. She drew the hand back and reached with the other.

She took the girl's hand. The child barely reacted. There were bodies on the ground ahead, crushed when the ceiling fell in just a few inches ahead of her. People she knew?

Fortuna parted her lips to speak, but she didn't know what to say. It was so blurry. The words being given to her were like those spoken underwater. Muddled and confused. Drawn out. Impossible to discern.

"Are you okay?"

The girl's voice shocked her. Fortuna looked down, finding the child hadn't looked at her. Her shoulders were tight like she was forcing herself to remain standing.

"Am I okay?" Fortuna asked back.

"Mama says"—she heaved but didn't fall—"Mama says I have to stand. When it's the hardest is—Is. It's important."

Stand. Fortuna could barely stand. She'd already fallen to one knee. The machines still hurt so much. She felt them. All the little pieces that buzzed and hummed. She was going to die. No one could live like this forever.

"Have to stand," the girl repeated. "No matter how scared."

Her hand gripped Fortuna's so tightly. Still, she stood. Her feet shook. Her chest heaved. She cried.

Her eyes remained forward, looking at the scene before her. Not denying, but not accepting. Fortuna was the same age when she'd faced the Thinker. When her life changed forever… When something inside her broke and she…

David was right about her.

She'd never made a choice. She'd run from making the choices. Because she didn't trust herself. Because she didn't trust her power. She gave up on living because it was too hard. Too unknown in contrast to the sense of certainty given to her by the paths.

So she stayed on the paths.

Looking at the girl beside her, she saw a different path entirely. A path that did not deny or accept the reality of the carnage in front of her. Legs that stood even when they wanted to fall. Hands that gripped despite all common sense.

She'd thought the girl too shocked to move, but she wasn't.

She chose to stay. To take the world for what it was, and make her own path in it.

"It has to change," she whimpered before the destruction. "This has to change…"

She squeezed the hand holding hers tight as the machines finally gave out.

"Fortuna?"

She'd set out on that day hoping to stop whatever David was going to do, searching for what could stop him. She hadn't stayed on that path for long. Stopping one apocalypse after the next. She'd done that twice and what did it change?

It wasn't good enough just to avert the end.

Something needed to change.

Someone needed to change it.

Relena was the path. It had to be her. It had to be her because Relena would never break. She'd pursue her goal unendingly until it came or someone carried on in her stead.

"Fortuna? Say something! Fortuna!"

She smiled. Trying to squeeze Relena's hand didn't work. She couldn't feel her fingers anymore.

Glace told her she'd only last another ten years at most.

She'd done everything she could. David's personal think tank was gutted. He wouldn't get to walk out of this night the hero of the story. Not in comparison to Relena, Lisa, or Taylor.

Lisa was more than intelligent enough to find a way to corner the parahuman underground and get it under her thumb. Enough to keep it out of Relena and Taylor's path. She'd resent it, but she'd do it. Someone had to and Lisa wasn't nearly the villain she wanted to pretend she was.

Relena would walk out of this crisis a hero. Whether people listened to her or not, regardless of if they agreed with her, her words threw a speed bump into chaos. Slowed it all down. Gave enough people enough time to think that they stopped following the rapids and got themselves to shore. They'd remember that. Her voice would forever carry that weight, and the more people listened the more they'd realized her sincerity.

And Newtype's great battle was coming. It was a gamble. The path ended too soon and she couldn't see what came after the next few seconds. She had to win. If she won, everything would change. David would lose the war before he even realized it.

There was nothing left.

She'd followed every step.

It just didn't feel like it was enough. How could it ever be enough, when it was her mistakes they had to finish cleaning up? She could only hope that she hadn't made too many mistakes.

That the path to Relena's peace worked.

"Fortuna!"

Her lips parted, and with the last breath in her lungs, she forced the words out. It warmed her heart just a little, despite the absurdity of it. She'd never set out to be anyone's mother but somehow, "I…"

Funny how time becomes so much more oppressive when you've run out.

"I love you."

The woman's head lulled back and the path ended.