They were coming for him, of course. Trim, hard-eyed men who were posing as laborers: they wore stocking caps, dark jackets, jeans, workboots, and faded brown gloves. But they looked too energized and purposeful to be men that were just getting off of long shifts. The G-men approached from different angles, striding down the street and converging on the condemned building that he was hiding in. The sun had just gone down. Paul-Halo Knight-was watching from the top floor, carefully hovering from window to window. He laughed at how small their thinking was. They were trying to end him, and he was trying to end the world.

Paul shouldn't have been scared of them. Compared to the darkness that called itself "Daredevil," they were nothing. He was injured, though: his body ached all over, with his neck being particularly stiff. And one of his legs was really throbbing. (Daredevil had aimed a kick at his knee, but Paul had started to fly, so it hit his ankle, instead. He'd narrowly avoided getting a broken leg.) Paul wasn't afraid of dying, but he was terrified that he wouldn't complete his mission. He was incredibly close to triggering something, so, naturally, this dead-end world was trying to stop him. Paul thought about simply flying away...but he was pretty sure that he'd spotted at least one sniper on a neighboring rooftop. Luckily, most of the windows were boarded up, so he could peek through without getting his head blown off.

You'll have to stand and fight-but that's just what you need, isn't it? Practice. When I was living on-base, I was constantly under guard. I never had a chance to practice shooting energy or flying. If they'd seen me doing anything like that, they would've put something in my food and locked me in a bunker under the desert. That's why the first fight didn't go so well. If I have to beat the darkness and the false light, I need to get better at this stuff.

Questions were scratching at his brain: what was the name of the (mental) disease that everyone else had? That desperate, delusional addiction to hope? And why did he keep thinking about some random building?

Paul took one last drink of cold milk (he'd stolen a bottle of it earlier, along with a few other supplies), slapped his cheek a few times, and put his helmet on. He'd taken a nap, but his mind kept drifting. Get with it, Paul, you need to focus.

He should have been gone by now, but he'd run into a problem. Paul had been brainstorming, trying to think of a way to draw out Angel and Daredevil...he needed something specific, something that was guaranteed to get their attention. But nothing was coming to mind. Paul had thought of a plan to use the next time he fought them; unfortunately, after that, he'd hit a wall. Sure, he could just fly around the city and scare people until they showed up, but that could get too messy. There were a lot of superheroes in New York, and a lot of men with badges and guns. Paul needed to do something that was on his enemies' wavelength. He was about to be besieged by men that were nothing but distractions, and he didn't want to attract even more of them.

The G-men might as well have been zombies. They were part of a dead, futile world...its social machinery was still running, the governments and economies and churches, but the people had been left behind long ago. And they were doing everything they could to avoid the truth. Paul didn't know which branch of the government had sent these men, but they were on a sort of unthinking autopilot, defending something that was already doomed. All they could do was stop him from saving everyone.

Paul had spotted six of them (not counting the sniper), but he was far from an expert, so there were probably another six that he hadn't seen. He was sure that they were all carrying guns. Knives and piano wire might be fine for conventional targets, but he didn't think they'd want to get that close to someone like him.

You have to survive for just a few more hours...you have to complete the ritual. If you don't do it now, you might never get another chance. You're light, Daredevil's darkness, and you're both in the same city at the same time. Everything is lined up perfectly. For all you know, there could be a nuclear war, tomorrow. That's the wrong kind of end of the world. Instead of everybody going to paradise, we'll just limp along in a post-apocalyptic wasteland for a few centuries.

Paul hovered downstairs, floating down a stairwell; the building consisted of three floors and a basement, and it was full of empty crates and garbage. The rooms were large-they'd probably been offices-and about half of them lacked doors. There was hardly any light, but the visor in his helmet enabled him to see in the dark. This suit had been designed for space-combat, and light was at a premium, up there. His visor gave everything a greenish tinge. From what he remembered, the helmet was some Stark-made prototype.

He flew around and shot heavy-gravity rings (though he thought of them as halos) at all of the first-floor doors. If a few stray halos hit fixed portions of a building-walls, floors, ceilings, or rooftops-they wouldn't have any noticeable effect. Paul had learned that early on, when the scientists had him pump large objects full of anti-gravity. They'd thought that single chunks might be ripped out of those objects, but, instead, his halos were "thinly distributed" through them. It took a ton of halos to affect something that was big. Doors were different, though. They were incredibly heavy, now, and they wouldn't budge. Paul shot five halos into each door. It wasn't exactly scientific, but, he figured that it would keep them shut for twenty or so minutes. His would-be assassins would have to come in through the windows, and the boards would make that a little noisy.

They probably think that I'm nothing but powers. 'Oh, yeah, he's a freak with special abilities, but he isn't tough or dangerous outside of that.' Keep thinking that, guys. I faced death for years, and I was still a kid, back then. It made me stronger. My parents abandoned me, and I have these visions that would drive most people insane, but neither of those things broke me. I taught myself how to use my powers. And I may not know much about fighting, but I spent years doing nothing but reading. Yeah, I never got to graduate from high school-or even go there-but my brain works just fine, thanks. I've been planning this for a while.

Paul felt like Halo Knight, right now. When he put the helmet on, it made his voice more imposing, but it also changed the way that he expressed himself. He spoke from a part of himself that he hadn't even known was there. Not the part that was scared, but the part that was sure. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't a religious nut. No, he just happened to be living in a crazy world, and he'd decided to play the odds. A number of cosmic systems were in place, and certain actions were bound to trigger at least one of them.

We deserve an alternative. Every other human being keeps trying, and it hasn't worked-at least one person needs to stop trying. Just to see what would happen.

Paul heard someone trying to pick one of the locks, and he smiled underneath his helmet.

It was one of the side-doors. He floated over the crap on the floor (broken beer bottles, crumpled-up newspaper pages, ancient cigarette butts), approaching it. The doorknob rattled a little, but he didn't hear the lock moving. It was probably as heavy and immobile as the door itself. He heard a metallic scratching, and then nothing. Moments later, there were similar noises by the back door, the front door, and the other side-door. He heard some shoving, but they didn't try to kick the doors in. They were probably just trying to avoid noise. They were lucky; they would have broken their feet trying. The building was surrounded...Paul felt a brief flash of claustrophobia. Then, weather-battered wood groaned, and his pursuers started to yank boards off of the windows.

Don't panic, Paul. Just stick to the plan.

The doors were temporarily out of the question, and this building's fire escape had literally fallen down, so the ground-level windows were their only way in. Paul could see most of the windows on the first floor. It consisted of a large foyer and just two offices, so it was more wide-open than the other floors. He heard the boards come off, one by one, and horizontal stripes of light started to appear. (Most of it was from streetlights, but there were also a few neon signs.) Paul avoided the light-his visor didn't like brightness-and stood in the middle of the room.

They started crawling in, and he started shooting.

Paul hit most of them with heavy-gravity halos. He waited until each man had climbed halfway through, stranding them in an awkward position. Their ribs and stomachs slammed against the windowsills. They shouted and cursed, and a few of them managed to get off shots. But it was still pretty dark, and Paul had started to fly, turning himself into a moving target. They were more than a little distracted, too. Their new weight pinned them right where they were. They weren't strong enough to push themselves in, and their comrades weren't strong enough to pull them back out. Most of the windows were blocked. The rest of the men were stuck outside, desperate to get in.

He flew in a jagged circle and fired more heavy-gravity halos at the trapped men (with one exception). Most of them hit the men or the wall around them, but he eventually managed to get their guns, as well. They became too heavy for them to hold. When they fell, they created dents in the tile floor.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said, because that sounded like something a movie-monster might say. The more scared they were, the better.

Only two of the first-floor's individual offices had windows. One of them was now blocked by a panicking hitman who'd lost his gun, but the other...the other was the next part of his plan. When a G-man had climbed through it, Paul had shot him with an anti-gravity halo, instead. The small of his back slammed up against the top part of the windowsill. He yanked himself in, only to immediately crash against the ceiling. His head forcefully bounced off of it, he lost his gun, and he stuck to the ceiling like glue, dazed. That window was now the only way in, and they'd have to squeeze through one at a time. Paul would be able to shoot them like fish in a barrel.

One man came through, and Paul hit him with a heavy-gravity halo. The second man got in a little quicker, and he rolled out of harm's way; Paul's first halo missed, but the second one made him crack his back against the ceiling. It was the equivalent of a twelve-foot fall. His anti-gravity was powerful, so the man had moved at a high (and painful) speed. There wasn't a third man. Instead, they started shooting through that window, and Paul floated backwards, slipping around a corner. He went back into the foyer, making sure to avoid their line of fire.

The first wave was still stuck in the windows, blocking them...but it looked like the men outside had decided to start shooting in, as well. Paul saw them wedge guns inside, squeezing them between their allies and the windowframes. His stomach went ice-cold.

It was still pretty dark inside, and they must have had trouble seeing him, which bought him a few seconds. Paul's aim was getting better, and he thought about shooting their guns...but people were big targets, and guns were little ones. His aim wasn't that good. Instead, he made his body rigid and compact, flying for the stairwell. He heard bullets fly by. Once he crashed into the stairwell, he kicked its metal door shut behind him. Bullets rattled the door; it sounded like a tin roof in a hailstorm.

You accidentally created a shield for the ones outside. They can just stick their guns in, and hide behind their buddies and the wall.

Paul shot heavy-gravity halos at the door. The building wasn't up to code, it only had one set of stairs. This would be their only way up. Paul Battaglia just wanted to slow them down, and buy himself some time. But Halo Knight knew that time was of the essence. They were making him waste it, right now. He needed to take care of them, and quickly, so he could focus on the more important stuff.

Get upstairs and shoot at them from the windows, or fly down there and strafe them like a warplane. If they've got the building surrounded, they must be stretched thin, right? They're on different sides of it, so they can't all attack you at once.

Paul flew up to the second floor. There was a main office, some hallways branching off of it, and then smaller offices in the back. It was empty and filthy. No one else would be up here-the building no longer had a working fire escape, so the first floor was now the only way in. He went to a certain boarded-up window, which was right over the ground-floor window that he'd left unblocked. A few quick halos took care of the boards that had been covering it. Paul waited for a moment, thinking that the sniper would take a shot at him, but nothing happened. Maybe he was on the other side of the building? When he looked down, he saw his would-be assassins starting to swarm around the unblocked window. Paul shot them with heavy-gravity halos. Half of the men went down, and the other half scattered and fell back.

Suddenly, Paul felt movement behind him, and he twisted around and hovered sideways. Bullets tore into the wall around the window.

Paul flew as quickly as he could, racing down a hallway and shooting back. One of them had gotten up there. The guy must have literally scaled the building...which, unless you were Spider-Man, should have been impossible. Paul only got a glimpse of him. Just another plainclothes hitman, seemingly the same as all the rest. He turned a corner, landed, waited a second or two, and peeked back around. A bullet hit him right in his helmet. It nearly knocked him over, but he used the wall to hold himself up.

Well, I'm still alive, so the helmet must be bulletproof.

"You aren't getting out of here," the man said. He had a vaguely Western accent. "You could have been part of something incredible-the next age of humanity-but, no, you had to go and screw up the whole thing."

Paul was surprised to hear one of his attackers say that. Most of them probably thought that they were serving their country, protecting it from some threat, but at least this guy knew what they were really risking their lives for. They were fighting for an ideal that was also an idol. Sure, the future that they were imagining was impossible, but their masters would still send them out to die for it. Paul didn't think of them as people, anymore. They were just symptoms. The world was broken, had always been broken, and everybody was in denial about it. It was a sickness. Trying to reason with them would be pointless, they were determined not to see it.

He (carefully) stuck his hand around the corner and fired off some halos. Paul hoped to hear a thump, as the man hit either the floor or the ceiling, but one never came. He couldn't see or hear him, but he was sure that he was coming. In fact, as strange as it sounded, he could feel him. But Paul didn't have time to think about that. He was focused on his opponent, and how something about him was different. For instance, the floor was covered with garbage, so he should have heard glass breaking, and paper crinkling. But there was nothing. This man had climbed the building, and now he was somehow being as silent as a ghost.

Wait...all that garbage...

Paul got down on his knees, put both hands an inch or two above the floor, and once again fired around the corner. But he was firing low, now. He didn't know where his enemy was, but the floor was easy enough to find, as was all the crap on it.

Detritus rocketed toward the ceiling. Broken glass, shredded newspapers, chunks of plaster, wadded-up flyers, abandoned office supplies, and even a few dead rats. Paul stepped around the corner and kept shooting. The assassin was trapped in a flurry of garbage, and the sudden movement had kicked up a lot of dust. Paul raised his aim, but the man sidestepped, squeezing off a shot. Most of his halos went by the assassin, while one actually hit the bullet. It crashed through the floor like the world's heaviest marble. Paul knew that it was a complete fluke, something that he'd never be able to pull off again.

The man continued to fire, but Paul took to the air, flying up to the ceiling and shooting halos down at him. His bullets passed underneath him. The man wasn't as acrobatic as Daredevil, but he still managed to dodge the halos, and he used a corner as cover, getting ready to fire back. But his gun clicked empty.

Paul landed a few feet away from him, got ready to shoot him point-blank, and promptly received a spin-kick to the ribs.

He fired halos, but the man jumped over them, tackling him. By the time that Paul realized he was on the floor, he'd gotten hit in the chest and arms four or five times. Human nature had kicked in; he was using his arms to shield himself, when he should have been using them to shoot him. By the time that he thought to do it, the assassin was off of him, and Paul heard a knife slide out of leather. Paul scrambled to his feet, forming a halo in each hand. This guy was bigger and stronger than him, and a better fighter, as well. Punching him probably wouldn't do much. If he could swing his halos at him, though...

You only have to hit him once.

Paul lunged at him, swinging a halo in a downward arc, but the man blocked his attack and slashed at his stomach. The outer layer of the suit tore. Paul felt the knife hit something thick and solid-it must have been a pad-but it didn't seem to get any deeper than that. The knife stuck in the suit; Paul made it heavy and let it hit the floor. He stumbled back, decided to give up on the hand-to-hand idea, and tried to line up a shot. But the man charged at him before he was ready. He kicked Paul in the groin, causing him to double over, and then he kicked him in the face, causing him to (painfully) straighten back up. But Paul heard him grunt when his foot made contact with the helmet; he probably hadn't been expecting it to be so hard.

He started to continuously shoot halos, figuring that he could aim as he went, but his opponent got in super-close, so that Paul was actually shooting past him. The guy was insanely fast. He flipped his gun in the air, catching it by the barrel-and then he started using it as a blunt object. Staying tight, he played Paul like a set of drums. The gun's butt bounced off of his helmet, torso, and arms. It was a silver blur. Paul tried to aim at him, but he'd casually brush his arms aside. While he worked his upper body with the gun, he used his legs to try to trip him, and Paul had to use a halo to hold himself up. He formed a heavy-gravity halo in his other hand, hoping that he could tag him with it. That close, it should have been easy...but the assassin twisted, ducked, and weaved, and Paul never came within six inches of him. It was maddening.

If not for the suit's padding, Paul would have been rolling around on the floor, screaming in pain. As it was, he merely felt like he'd been hit by a truck. Paul kept swinging at him, and the assassin did the same thing, but his attacks hit home.

This doesn't have to be a boxing match, genius-you can fly-

Paul hovered away, once again trying to line up a shot. Unfortunately, the assassin pulled out a second gun, and Paul went from aiming to evading. They fired at each other. Paul flew erratically through the room, zigging and zagging; he was trying not to run into any walls, so he could only aim during stolen glances. He felt a few bullets wing the suit (but not his body), while his halos hit the floor and walls. Paul was getting closer to hitting him, without a doubt, but the assassin was incredible. This guy had reflexes like a cheetah.

There was an explosion downstairs: it sounded muffled, and Paul assumed that they were trying to blow the stairwell door. The scientists had run hundreds of tests on objects affected by heavy-gravity halos. Until his gravitational effect wore off, large objects (such as doors) were hard to move, even with explosive force.

Then, Paul got lucky. The detritus that he'd hit earlier-the garbage on the floor-had been pressed against the ceiling. But the effect wore off, and it started to fall back down. The paper, glass, and dead animals fell on and around the assassin. It distracted him right as his backup gun ran out of ammo. His last few shots weren't as close, and while he paused to reload, Paul swooped in and fired. The assassin ducked, rolled, and almost got away...but one of his halos caught the edge of his ankle. It didn't pull him down to the floor, but he seemed slower and heavier. Paul started to close the distance between them...

...and he heard a louder explosion downstairs. This one seemed to rock the entire building, and he heard boards splinter. They must have gone through the wall to get to the stairwell.

The assassin thumped around the corner, trying to reload. Paul was sure that he could get there before he did. But he heard a horde of footsteps on the stairs, and he suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to make the stairwell door heavy, or even close it. It was cracked open. Paul shot it, hitting it dead-on, but his halos didn't have any force behind them, so the door didn't shut. A gloved hand reached through, flinging a grenade into the room.

HOLY-

Paul missed it, missed it, missed it, and hit it. The grenade, which had gotten halfway to him, struck the ceiling. It punched a hole in it. Paul flinched, but he remained in the air. The now-heavy door was pushed further open, and at least ten men poured into the room, weapons drawn. Some of them were the men that he'd trapped in the windows. Chunks of plaster and wood started to rain down, and a web of cracks spread through the ceiling. Paul shot the men in front, and they went down (or up, depending), but there were too many of them, and they were about to open fire.

That could have been the moment that Paul died. It also could have been the moment that he decided he was afraid of death, and that he wanted to stop being Halo Knight and live. But neither of those things happened. Instead, Paul fired a series of halos up at the grenade-damaged ceiling.

It wasn't one continuous surface, anymore: the explosion had turned it into a cracked, falling-apart thing. Chunks of plaster and wood continued to come loose and crash down to the floor. Others were dangling, hanging by a proverbial thread. Paul hit as many of them as he could, making them incredibly heavy, and the armed men suddenly found themselves in a manmade hailstorm. Judging by the dents the chunks made, they weighed at least as much as bowling balls. A few of the men did manage to fire, but they were getting battered by the debris, so the shots were wild. Paul heard cursing, and bones breaking. They fell down and curled up defensively. One man managed to avoid the onslaught, but he tripped over one that had embedded itself in the floor, falling flat on his face. It sounded like a few of his toes had shattered.

All of them were down, now. They were covered with bruises, and bleeding, and some of them seemed to be unconscious. There weren't any more footsteps coming up the stairs. For a moment, Paul felt confident and happy-if he could do something like this, he had to be the light-and then he remembered the other assassin. He spun in a wild circle, his eyes scrambling all over the room. But the man was nowhere to be seen. He was probably in the back offices, somewhere. Those offices were smaller, and the hallways were tight...it would be tough for him to fly around. And there were plenty of places for the man to hide.

Paul put two or three heavy-gravity halos into each of his opponents, making sure to keep his eyes peeled. He'd only hit this other man once, and it wouldn't have worn off by now, but it had just been a partial hit. The guy would still be on his feet, just slower and more awkward.

And he has at least two guns...and he's probably reloaded both of them...

Paul flew through the hole in the ceiling, going up to the third floor. He tried to land, but he found that he could barely stay on his feet, so he hovered, instead. The assassin had really worked him over, and Paul hadn't been in great shape to begin with. Also, since he'd been pushing his abilities to the maximum, more memories/visions were starting to cloud his mind. The light and the darkness. He'd read about the yellow-and-blue man getting an escaped lion out of a tree, and he'd heard someone talking about how the darkness could change its shape.

Trying to focus on the physical world, Paul aimed down through the hole: he didn't want to go back into those cramped hallways, so he'd lure the assassin to him.

"I know what you are," he said in Halo Knight's voice. "You're a Candidate. The way you fight, you have to be. I've heard the guards whispering about you guys. You probably know some things about me, but I bet I know more about that program than you do."

The assassin didn't say anything.

"When all of this started, I was just a scared kid, and the scientists kept trying to calm me down. They told me a lot of stories-stories about stuff that a teenage boy would like. Some of them worked with the different Captain Americas. The original one that vanished, and the fake ones from the late forties and fifties. Well, guess what, Mr. Candidate? After what happened with the last fake one, they're never using any version of the Super-Solder Serum again. It's too dangerous. You'd have an impossible legacy to live up to, and you'd be trying to do it with one hand tied behind your back. Don't worry, though...we both know that they'll never give you the job, anyway. They want a fresh-faced war hero, not some hardened killer."

The assassin didn't say anything. He didn't scream and come out shooting, either.

"Your friends are alive. I could have killed them, but I didn't, because I'm not the bad guy, here. I'm doing everything I can to save our species. I only want to kill one-no, I only want to kill two people. Just leave me alone. In a few hours, the world will be over, so none of it matters."

The assassin didn't say anything...and Paul decided that it was time to leave. He didn't want this guy coming after him again, but, ultimately, it didn't matter whether he beat him or not. Daredevil and Angel were the real priorities.

That sniper was probably still out there, so Paul knew that the windows were better off avoided. Instead, he flew up to the roof access hatch, creating an anti-gravity halo. He'd make the hatch fly off, and then shoot straight up like a rocket. The sniper might have time to get a single shot off, but he'd be a fast-moving target, and he'd be high and (hopefully) out of his range before he could try a second shot.

But, when the light from Paul's halo glowed against the access hatch, he saw a dull reflection of himself, and everything suddenly became clear. He knew what humanity's disease was called. He knew why Daredevil and Angel were pretending to be superheroes. And he knew how to draw them right to him.

Seconds later, the hatch soared into the sky, and Paul was right behind it. A gunshot eventually went off, but he was high above the buildings by that point. It hadn't even felt close. Paul smiled, thrilled that he'd finally figured out the truth. All it took was being reminded of the color of his helmet.