Things fell apart faster than Ella could've imagined. Already they were barely holding on. Leo and Netoya had been popping back to help out, but they must have been still looking for the control central, because she hadn't seen them for what felt like ages.

She was tired. She was shooting down spikes of force fields like arrows, but now it seemed like they were only piercing through their armor, barely wounding them let alone killing them, and what had started out as a force-field dome around the not-so-abandoned spaceship had now sunk down to a wall only as tall as the Mogs themselves. And she was only floating above the battle field, she had no idea how the others were managing to hold out, especially Sam.

A couple more Mogs ran out of the building, she threw up a couple force fields just above the ground. One tripped and face planted, another stumbled but kept on charging. She sunk another foot or so closer to the ground, it was getting harder and harder to keep this one suspended. Why hadn't Leo and Netoya come back yet?

Better question, why didn't she have healing powers, she wondered as she sent another force field arrow slinging down, knocking the wind out of one Mog. That would have been way more useful than stupid night vision or x-ray vision. She was useless. She threw another force field at a Mog roaring towards Sam, managing to shove him to the ground, if only briefly.

They were ugly, monsters out of nightmares. She'd never seen a Mog before today, not that she could remember, despite having trained to fight and evade them her entire life. She'd built them up to such horrifying heights in her head over the years, that honestly they weren't as bad as she had sometimes imagined. But they were terrifying.

Then Daniel fell.

The world narrowed in on that one point, that one moment. Everything had stopped, but at the same time at the edges everything was blurred and moving incredibly fast. Cold and clear and hot and fuzzy at the same time. Distantly she heard Sam's scream, but she couldn't turn her head.

She dropped to the ground with a thud, racing towards him, clearing a path with her force fields. He hadn't gotten up yet. It was certainly just exhaustion, just exhaustion, she knew that wasn't the only explanation, but it was the only explanation her brain could bear to deal with right now. A Mog stood in front of him, tall, imposing, dark, and pointed his gun down at Daniel's chest.

"NO!"

She hardly even realized that that sound had come from her. She launched herself forward, throwing a shield between Daniel and the gun.

She was still at least thirty feet away, but her legacy was faster. A force field slammed between the laser beam and Daniel, stopping the blazing red ray inches from his chest.

The Mog shot Daniel again, and again and again and again, but her shield held and Daniel continued to lay unmoving on the ground. Another Mog joined him, but it made no difference, she made the shield wider, struggling to her feet. They'd clearly figured out she was the cause of this.

Mogs were running at her now, multiple. She threw up a shield as a laser shot towards her then let it drop immediately as the beam ricocheted away. She needed her full attention on the Mogs surrounded Daniel. She knew she was safe, they couldn't kill her out of order, the only danger she was in was being knocked unconscious, which would force her shields down as well.

Ella struggled closer, trying to keep Daniel within her line of sight. The Mogs couldn't kill her – not their laser beams, not their knives, not their guns – but they could still hurt her, still slow her down.

They were all around him, she couldn't keep him entirely in a bubble, she didn't have the strength for that, not now. She focused on keeping the shield between him and the laser strong, still pointed directly at his chest. Other force fields came and went, as she saw a knife around him, when another Mog pulled a gun out on his right, the laser aimed towards her head, when a Mog grabbed her arm, some kind of metal in his hand.

They were dragging him away, she realized with horror. Further away from her. She tried to push through faster, but she was already nearly at her limit. Following him now was only following him into capture. But abandonment was not an option. Abandoning him meant sentencing him to death. It was unthinkable.

Ella plunged after him desperately holding on to both his life and her own.

Sam wasn't quite sure why he was still alive. The other group was safe inside the compound – he hoped. Leo and Netoya had teleported away. Six and Ella couldn't be killed by Mogs. And Ella was making sure Daniel wouldn't be killed by Mogs either.

But Sam? He was just a human. He had no one protecting him. It could only be by dumb luck that he was still alive. But dumb luck had carried him this far, throughout this entire adventure. Maybe it would hold out just a bit longer. Just long enough to get out of here in tact.

He sat on the cold metal floor, fingering the metal chains around his wrists, watching as Six paced angrily around their cell like a caged animal. Not just like – she was a caged animal.

She'd been absolutely terrifying when she'd regained consciousness. Her eyes had suddenly snapped open, their starling blue returning abruptly to life, more beautiful then ever, allying the brief terror that she'd never wake up, and she sat bolt upright.

"Where are we?" was her first question, followed quickly by "What happened?"

Sam quickly tried to explain, fumbling over his words, trying to give an accurate description, trying not to leave anything out, trying to be concise, trying not to bumble over the important details.

But Six was almost instantly distracted. "What's this?" She demanded angrily, moving her hands and arms in motions meaningless to Sam. "What's wrong?" She demanded again, a note of fear creeping into her voice. "What did they do to me?"

"They hit you with a laser," Sam explained as quickly as possible, trying to edge the facts in between her questions. "You were knocked unconscious,"

"But what did they do to me! Where are my legacies?"

"Where –" Sam's voice faded out as he began to process everything. "You can't? But Ella –"

"Ella?" Six demanded, whirling around.

"She's still using her legacies. Over Daniel." Sam pointed first to the cell next to them, containing a slumped over Ella, then to the center of the small, circular room, where Daniel stood, hands shackled to a metal bar above his head, a laser from the ceiling cutting directly towards his chest, only stopped by Ella's shield. Six's eyes slowly followed his direction, gradually taking in the room, appraising the situation.

"Why can she use her powers but not me?" Six asked, a faint layer of panic seeping up. "What did they do to me?"

"I don't know," Sam answered honestly. "We were together the whole time." His eyes flickered between Six and Ella, finally focusing in on Six, frantically tugging at the metal around her wrists.

"The cuffs." He said. "You have them, Ella doesn't. Why bother to handcuff you if they aren't even attached?" Six surveyed her hands as he spoke, turning the cuffs over more carefully. "That must be it. They must be blocking your legacies, somehow."

"Is that even possible?" Six asked.

Sam shrugged, biting his lip. "I don't know." He admitted. "But that's the best explanation I have."

Six took a deep breath and nodded several times. Sam watched her steadily, his own hands hanging limply by his side, cuffs useless. "Yes." She said. "That makes sense. That must be it."

Accepting that explanation, her momentary panic seemed to have been just that, momentary. She quickly returned to normal Six. A Six who was, predictably, furious with the situation.

Sam watched her make another circle of the cell. It had been several hours by now, at least, by Sam's count. The others would have had to have realized, if not exactly what had happened, at least that something had happened. Six may be resentful, but Sam wouldn't at all mind playing the damsel in distress if it meant he got rescued.

"Why hasn't Leo come?" Sam asked softly.

Six glanced down at him, then away again. "I don't know." She said in a matching tone. "Maybe he doesn't know where to teleport to."

"Ella," Daniel's voice broke from across the room, starting up again. "Please. Stop. You're only hurting yourself."

Six and Sam both turned to them. Sam reluctantly. This was a lot to handle already, ashamed as he was, he'd been trying to ignore the psychological torture going on in the middle of the room.

Ella was collapsed on the edge of her cell, one hand gripping the bars, then other extended weakly towards Daniel. Her shield was much smaller now, only about a square foot, with the laser attempting to cut through its center.

"Ella, it's okay. I'm going to die, but I want to. Just let me go."

Ella didn't respond, didn't even move. Sam hadn't heard her say a word since they'd gotten here. She looked utterly exhausted, maybe she wasn't even capable of speech right now.

"It's going to end in me dying either way. I'd rather die knowing you're alive."

Sam looked down at his hands again.

"Ella, the only reason they haven't killed me already is because they're hoping you'll keep this up and kill yourself doing it. They can't kill you out of order, but you can kill yourself. You can't save me, Ella. The Mogs could come in any minute and kill me, or stop you from using your legacies. Don't waste any more of your power on trying to keep me alive. Please."

Sam didn't know where to look or what to do. Daniel had ben trying to persuade Ella to drop the shield from the second he'd regained consciousness. But it seemed he was fighting a losing battle. Sam didn't know what to think. The whole situation was awful.

"Use your powers to get Six and Sam out. Save them while you still can."

Still receiving no response, no change, from Ella, Daniel looked desperately over to Six and Sam. "Please," he said.

Sam looked back at him, his throat dry and at a loss for words. He was useless.

"Ella," Six said slowly, more carefully than Sam had ever heard her speak before, as if her words were made of glass. "If you're able to, maybe you could use a force field to cut through the bars, so me and Sam could get out. Then we could free you and Daniel, get these cuffs off, and get out of here."

They were all looking at Ella. She hadn't moved. Her shield hadn't moved. She hadn't even looked over at Six. Sam wondered if she'd even heard.

"I can't."

Sam almost missed these two words, they fell so silently out of her mouth, almost as though exhaled instead of spoken.

"Okay." Six said softly, then to the room at large, "We'll try to find a way out of this."

She turned away from them, and Daniel fell back into silence.

Six thudded down next to Sam, dropping her head into her hands.

"We'll be okay." Sam said after a minute or so of silence. "I don't know how, but we'll okay."

"I don't know how either Sam." Six said. "Maybe Daniel's right. Ella's the most powerful one out of all of us right now. But I couldn't argue with him."

Sam tried to process his thoughts into words. "Well,"

"I know, I'm the big bad enemy of love," Six said, "Ripping John away from Sarah, telling John he needs to move on from Sarah, telling John he can't go see Sarah."

She looked away, over towards Daniel. "But I can't tell her to let him die." She said softly, exhaling, "I'm not that heartless."

Sam stared at her, eyes wide, wondering why, why now, confined in the middle of a Mogadorian stronghold, Six was allowing her hard exterior to fall away. "I never thought you were." He said simply.

"We have to go back for them," Teresa said.

John's mind was still reeling. They'd said they hadn't seen any bodies, but that didn't mean anything. He knew Six and Ella had to still be alive simply because he still was. But Sam. Sam could be dead. Why had he brought him here? It was all his fault Sam'd gotten into this.

"Do we know where to go back to?" Patrick asked.

Netyoa answered steadily, "They seem to have taken them their compound next door, but we do not know that for a fact."

"Can you teleport us there?" John asked Leo.

"I can get you inside of the compound," Leo said hesitantly, "But I've never been there before, so I wouldn't be able to go to any specific place inside of it."

"At any rate, we don't know where in the compound they are." Patrick said.

"We need to focus." Netoya said calmly. "Things did not go according to plan, and that is unfortunate. We know that Six and Seven are still alive, by mere virtue that Four is here. Daniel and Sam knew the risks going in. We run the risk of disaster if we go after them, of being captured ourselves, and their situation will not change. We continue with the plan and we succeed, we will be able to find them."

Leo looked vaguely shocked. "But . . ."

"No." John said. "Leaving them behind is not an option."

"I agree." Teresa said quickly.

"They were part of our plan," John said, attempting to argue with Netoya's logic. "Without them, there's a much lower chance of our plan working at all. Our plan failed. We have to adapt."

"We need to retreat." Patrick said firmly. "We need to step back, reconfigure, and form a new plan. It is too risky to continue in this vein."

"Every minute we wait is another minute they're in danger."

"We're all in danger. If we aren't smart about this, we can't be any help to them."

"We may be giving up an advantage." Netoya said tersely.

"We've been fighting a losing battle anyway. We'll gain more than the Mogs will by this break."

Netoya gave a terse nod, Leo grabbed John's arm, and just like that they were gone.