Taylor, Time Tinker!

by nezexyzzar

Give a tinker enough time and they will give you the world.

10. Old Debts

"It's Bonesaw. She's been modified by Bonesaw."

Dragon took a deep breath, trying to reorient herself as she stared at the impossible corpse, the hidden murder. On one end, she was in Canada, in a lodge in the middle of the woods; on the other, she was in her room, the different tiles of grass and wood and sand beneath her feet.

Narwhal had gone outside, cordoning off the scene and calling in for more support. Dragon got up, standing motionless in the house and in her room as she struggled to calm her thoughts, to form the words.

"It's Jack?"

"It is."

Dragon looked away. She wanted to get angry, to demand answers but then her hand would twitch with a phantom beat. Even now she could still feel it: the heat of Taylor's skin, her naked heart underneath it.

She felt volatile, on the edge. The nozzles on her dragonflight thrusters expanded, as if priming to take off. She clenched her hands even as she felt the urge to move, to blast through the roof and swoop into the air.

The rush of energy left as quickly as it came. Her servos sagged. Dragon blinked as her systems slowed for half a second, a trip and a glitch that interrupted her thoughts and cleared her cache. Her processes rebooted.

Back in the digital space, she breathed out slowly, feeling strangely drained.

"Is the corpse safe?"

Taylor seemed surprised at the question. "Yes," she said slowly. "Yes. It's safe, don't worry. Cardinal removed all of Bonesaw's failsafes."

The small loss of composure made Dragon feel lighter, but only slightly. Her fingers curled into her palm, rubbing the skin to the invisible beat she'd felt, still felt.

"How many years was Jack under Heartbreaker's control?" Dragon asked again. She got up, pacing in her small room. "What if Vasil found out? What if Jack overpowered him? All those risks for... what? Revenge?"

Taylor met her eyes calmly. "Cardinal was tortured by Jack for many months."

"That—" Dragon frowned. "How is that even possible with your powers? He would have to capture her first."

Taylor smiled humorlessly. "I'm flattered, but you remember I'm just a tinker, right? Disable my tech and, well." She left the rest unsaid.

"Your tech is far beyond anything else. The only person capable of doing that is probably only..." Dragon drifted off as her mouth caught up to her thoughts. "...yourself."

Doppelgangers. Thoughts whirled in Dragon's head as she ran through their conversations again, checking every word, every little action Taylor made. She felt as if she was at the bow of a ship, watching her prey slip free.

"This... isn't about Jack, is it? It's not even about Cardinal." Dragon tilted her head, her brows furrowed as she continued.

"It's a little bit about both," Taylor replied, her voice suddenly next to her dragonflight body. Dragon jerked, taking a step back involuntarily as Taylor walked around her. Back in the digital world, she blinked, staring at an empty teacup resting on the chair.

"What? How are you..."

Taylor had her hands in her pockets. A portal spun open behind her, peering into a vast, crystalline land. Red and shifting, under a rainbow-hued sky, blazing with swirling nebulas. Dragon fired off her sensors but she couldn't read anything beyond the portal.

"What?" Dragon repeated. She shook her head and straightened up, recomposing herself. "Is this... the Entity? Scion?"

Taylor pinched her fingers, winking. "Think smaller."

"A shard." Dragon walked up to her. She held her hand out, moving it through the different glittering lights shining out from the other side. "This is your parahuman power."

Taylor nodded. She stepped through the portal, cocking her head at Dragon. "C'mon. It's all the answers you wanted and more."

"I..." Dragon hesitated, turning back to look at the open door. Narwhal was just outside, still busy coordinating the response.

The portal continued to whirl silently. It was bright, an illuminant halo that cast no shadow. Somehow it felt both real and unreal; where the world beyond felt both near and far.

On this precipice's edge, Taylor waited patiently again. Dragon still remembered taking her hand as she wondered about her motivations, her truthiness.

She opened her communicator. "Narwhal. I have to go. The body's safe, don't worry. Sorry for the abruptness."

"What? Dragon—"

Dragon stepped through the portal.

Cardinal pressed her hands flat against the ground, trying to push herself up. She could feel the roughness of the road, the scattered crumbs of gravel and dirt jabbing through her gloves.

Drops of blood splattered onto the ground; Cardinal could feel the wetness dripping down her chin. She coughed and spat, trying to dig out the coppery taste in her mouth. Her katana felt unfamiliar in her hand, the dizziness in her head spinning the world into something big and small at the same time. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second to focus, trying to fix herself in place.

Newton, again. Impossibly. She saw her body, crystallized. But she also fought her, living and breathing.

Where was she? Cardinal took a deep breath and coughed as she turned. It didn't matter what was real. Only Newt mattered. She had to find her, she had to help her.

Suddenly something struck her katana, ripping it out of her hand. Cardinal reacted before she could even think, pulling out a massive claymore to cover herself just as two more bullets pinged against it. She peeked through an inlet hole in the middle of the blade; Miss Militia was perched on one knee, her power shifting form as she moved it to her shoulder.

Cardinal's eyes widened as a rocket slammed into her. She lost her grip on the claymore as she smashed through a window and a wall, tumbling through the interior of what looked like a laundromat. She gripped the rim of one of the washing machines, trying to shake the ringing out of her ears.

Miss Militia hopped through the hole in the wall.

Their eyes locked for a second before Cardinal scrambled for cover, sliding across the smooth tiles while Miss Militia pulled her submachine gun up. Washing machines shattered and burst as she emptied the clip, stepping into the aisle to follow the tinker.

Cardinal reached a concrete pillar. She winced as her shoulder bumped against the hard surface; she got hit once or twice there, she was sure, but there was no time to check. She ignored the pain lancing through her arm and pulled out a pair of knives.

Bullets chipped off the edge of her cover, narrowly missing her. Cardinal hefted the knives in her hands, wrapping her fingers once, twice around the handles. She looked at the room around her again, at the solid ceiling above, and quietly flipped one knife back into her spatial pocket for a bronze chakram. She let it dangle on her finger, feeling the weight as it swung while she calculated the right angle.

The bootsteps on the floor slowed as they drew nearer. The bullets had stopped. Cardinal perked her ears, barely catching the stifled breaths of Miss Militia. Her shield was dead and her time-tech was still disabled. No stopping time, no absolute protection — Cardinal found herself baring her teeth in a grin as adrenaline jolted her system.

There was a sound. A shift in the air, a light crackle of energy; Cardinal rolled a second before a glowing grenade lobbed around the corner. She kicked herself over the line of machines separating the aisles and threw the chakram up into the ceiling while vaulting forward.

Militia was already jumping back. The grenade launcher in her hands phased into a compact submachine gun. Cardinal was darting in, knife at the ready but she was a step too slow as Militia swivelled the gun up into her face. The dark barrel stared at her for that long second between heartbeats; then the chakram smashed into Miss Militia's wrist, throwing her aim off as she pulled the trigger.

Fire sparked. Cardinal felt the heat sear past her cheek as she rushed forward, slamming into Miss Militia. They hit the ground hard. Cardinal grabbed her arm with the weapon, pinning it down, but Hannah shifted her power to her other hand and stabbed upwards. Cardinal rolled, wrenching her around and flinging her into the ceiling.

Hannah groaned as she hit the ground again. She flinched, curling up slightly as pain pierced through her elbow. Her fingers gripped a pistol as she turned around; but Cardinal was already there, standing over her with a rapier poised at her throat.

Silence hung over them for a moment. Hannah watched her carefully, not moving. The blade was wobbling ever so slightly; Cardinal was panting, she realized. A blistered streak cut across Cardinal's cheek and her lips were slick-red with blood. Neither was healing. She didn't see wrong when she thought she had hit her in the shoulder previously.

Hannah slid her finger around the trigger. Cardinal glanced down at the tiny movement. She shook her head a little and met Hannah's eyes. "Don't do it. You know I don't have my time powers now. If I kill you, there's no reversing that."

"Is that suppose to scare me?" Hannah's voice was steely. "Newsflash, Taylor Hebert. For everyone else, we live without take-backs our whole lives. Maybe you should consider that more," she said as her hand shot up abruptly, grabbing the rapier and twisting it away from her neck. She drew her gun up to Taylor and fired.

Cardinal leaped back, using the knife in her other hand to cut through the first and second bullet before deflecting the third. She yanked her rapier out of Hannah's hand and stabbed it deep into her thigh.

Hannah hissed. Before she could do anything, Cardinal was gone, disappearing out the window. Hannah pressed a palm to the hole in her leg and transformed her power into a stick to pull herself up.

She hobbled out onto the empty street. Cardinal was gone. She winced as she accidentally placed her weight on her injured leg. It wasn't bleeding very much so Cardinal probably missed her arteries, but she needed to get a tourniquet on it to be safe.

Something glinted in the periphery of her eye. She turned around, looking up. A series of specks streaked through the sky, almost invisible against the purple dusk as they raced straight towards where Alexandria and Newton were fighting.

Hannah instinctively held her breath; tremors rocked the ground when they hit, almost knocking her off her feet. Pain flared through her leg as she tumbled along the ground, buffeted by multiple explosions rocking the earth around her.

Another shadow rocketed over her as she pulled herself up, impacting a building just opposite the street and the building shattered, detonating in a shower of brick and dust before the whole foundation gave way entirely. Another shophouse exploded, and Hannah started to run, hobbling as fast as she could on her leg as she raced back towards Alexandria.

She entered an alley, ducking instinctively as something crossed overhead. Bits of debris showered over her, falling to the ground and bursting into powder. She could see the street further down; a car flew across the space in a flick of a second, the loud tumble of metal against the road lost in the booming explosion that shuddered through her feet again.

Suddenly, a shimmering light blocked her path. Hannah squinted through the light as she brought her gun up. She lowered it almost immediately when she made out who had just stepped through.

"Vista? Glory Girl?" she said, disbelief creeping into her voice. Vista was still in her normal costume but Victoria was dressed in a sleek, familiar bodysuit, her hair pulled up in a ponytail.

"Miss Militia!" Vista stepped forward. "We need to evacuate now."

"How the hell are you guys here?!" Then Hannah turned still as she recognized the bodysuit Glory Girl was wearing. "Why are you wearing Taylor Hebert's outfit?"

Victoria raised her hands placatingly. "Trust me, she's not the enemy. Scion is. And he's headed here right now."

"Scion?"

"That's who chased us from the MS cell. Didn't you guys see him on the video?" Vista asked.

"He was invisible to them." Hannah blinked as Tattletale suddenly cut in, nonplussed. She noticed the same bodysuit on her as well.

The teenage villain turned to her. "She thought it was Taylor chasing us."

Miss Militia raised a hand. "Okay, stop. Start from the beginning. Where have you all been? What do you mean Scion was the one chasing you?"

"He was after temporal energy. This whole town is covered with it. You have it too," Victoria pointed at her. Hannah glanced down, sucking in a quiet breath at the strange glitter on her skin. She looked around, suddenly noticing the same glitter clinging to the buildings, the rubble and the ground.

"Don't worry, it's harmless," Victoria continued. "But when Scion extracts it, he's not so kind."

"That's what happened to the men in the other cells," Vista added quietly. "You saw that part, right?"

"And Taylor Hebert?" Militia glanced at their outfits again. "You've met... another version of her?"

Victoria sighed. She craned her head up for a second as if to gather strength. "I know you fought like, a crazy version of her, but another Taylor saved you, right? She reversed everything? We can trust them."

Hannah shook her head slowly. "You didn't see Taylor. Both Taylors. They don't—"

"—care about us?" Tattletale finished for her. Miss Militia turned to her, surprised. The younger girl shrugged in response. "I get it. I don't completely trust them either. But whatever Taylor is, Scion is a hundred times worse. A thousand.

"When they fight, everything here is going to be annihilated. We don't have a choice. It's beyond our scope. Anyone remaining here, they're all gonna die."

Hannah gave her a long, hard look. Her hand gripped her communicator tightly.

"This is Miss Militia." Finally, she activated the radio and spoke. "All units, respond. Calling for code black, immediate evac. Everyone get as far away from Shining Town as you can, right now."

Victoria exhaled in relief as people started responding back. She nudged Lisa with her elbow, flashing an awkward smile.

The other blonde looked at her wearily.

"Great going," Victoria started. "Nice, uh, nice speech. Your power give you all that?"

Lisa turned away. Miss Militia was still talking, trying to convince the others to leave. She only spoke after a long pause.

"My power's only telling me one thing."

"What?"

"We're not making it out."

Suddenly, a scream broke the air. Hannah broke off mid-speech, whirling around with her gun up. "Who was that?"

"That sounded kinda familiar," Vista mused aloud, mildly confused. Then her head jerked up, eyes meeting with Miss Militia.

"Sophia?!"

"The first time we met, I remember telling you 'one hour'."

Taylor chuckled. "You did, I'm sorry. There was no chance I could have made that."

They floated through the air on a cuboid rock. From above, the crystal sea looked like pixels, square blocks crashing against each other in an eerie, noiseless patter.

Dragon shook her head. "How is this just one shard? This looks like an entire world."

"Extra-dimensional, remember? Playing with space is as easy for them as playing with food."

"But what does that mean? Is this whole place alive, then?" Dragon gestured at the rock carrying them. "Does it know we're here?"

"Afraid?" Taylor teased. She sat down at the edge of the rock, letting her legs dangle underneath as they flew forward.

"Just cautious. These are alien creatures after all," Dragon retorted. She relaxed marginally, settling awkwardly next to Taylor. Her oversized suit was not meant for casual sitting.

Taylor didn't seem to notice. The tinker seemed to lean into her as she stretched her hand out to catch the breeze. Below, the sea retreated as they crossed into a black landscape.

"I don't know if it's still alive," said Taylor. Her braid fluttered behind her, the white shaded in shifting colours. "I'm pretty sure it's dead but then again, what is 'alive' or 'dead' for these things?"

Dragon looked down at Taylor. She looked thoughtful and soft, her hair muted in shifting colours. They were close, touching; a part of Taylor's dress draped against her leg. Despite the lack of sensors there, Dragon could almost imagine the light pressure on her side. Her hand twitched as she was filled with a sudden urge to do something, but she didn't know what.

"What makes you say it's dead?" she asked instead.

Before Taylor could answer, they suddenly dipped into a valley. Gold spread out before them, crumbling shapes scattered and broken over a craggy expanse.

Dragon scanned one instinctively. She stuttered short when she saw a close-up image of Taylor, her face frozen in an agonized rictus.

"Are those… you? No, your doppelgangers." Dragon scanned another statue. This one had a calmer expression, serene, as if accepting of what was coming next. It was broken in two, its lower half in pieces around it. "What happened here?"

"Scion happened. It was a surprise attack."

"You told me that you had been locked in a stalemate with him for a long time. What changed?" She leaned forward slightly, her mechanical eyes glittering as she analyzed deeper. "I've never seen this sort of mineral composition before. It looks like he… petrified them, somehow."

They started to slow down, circling around the ruined base of a building. Dragon could make out the remains of what looked like a spire, flattened across the ground behind it.

Taylor hummed as she hopped onto the ground. "You're close," she said, motioning Dragon to follow. The ruins shook and groaned, slaking golden dust as they floated off to reveal a long staircase in the ground. "The element is extra-dimensional in nature, that's why you can't fully break it down. And it sticks to you like blight, even through time."

"Through time," Dragon repeated. Her thoughts whirred as she ducked under a coil hanging out from a hole in the ceiling. "They're unaffected by time, forwards or backwards?"

"Yes."

They were in a winding corridor, their footsteps cracking through the stale silence. The walls were shaped oddly, ribbed protrusions and long grooves that made the material look almost organic.

"Is this because they're extra-dimensional?" Taylor glanced back at her, a knowing glint in her eyes. The answer was plain on her face. Dragon nearly smashed into another coil as her thoughts hitched and connected.

"Scion, the shards... they're extra-dimensional as well."

"They're both." Taylor drew a circle in the air, and the wall next to them suddenly shuddered. The protrusions and grooves slid like worms over each other, revealing a hidden corridor. "Their physical bodies exist on a single plane, like where we are now. But their senses, and more, extend beyond."

Dragon was quiet as they continued down the corridor. She ran through the information that Taylor gave her earlier: how Scion was an alien creature; how parahuman powers were extensions of 'his' hivemind.

How Cauldron had an Entity of their own, Eden; how they harvested it to create powers for their own purposes.

Taylor said that Scion was after her time travel technology. A question had always lingered in Dragon's mind: why would Scion need to go to such lengths if they were already connected in a hive? Why would Scion need to know if he gave her the power in the first place?

A spike on her passive sensors jolted her from her thoughts. Dragon detected a burst of energy from the room up ahead, disappearing as quickly as it came. She scanned again but there were only traces left.

"We're here. Ah, it's been a while."

Dragon followed Taylor warily. The room was enormous and tall, a ribbed dome swooping over their heads. A series of consoles circled the middle, but most of it looked broken, their innards hollowed for parts for the frankensteined machine to the side.

She checked the results again; the EMR signature was a match.

"Your doppelgangers were here," Dragon started. "But I'm sure you already knew that."

Taylor spun around, a faint smile on her lips as she answered the unspoken question. "Sadly for now we have to be limited in our interactions."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a metaphysical problem. Don't you know it's bad luck to meet your doppelgangers?" Taylor's reply sounded nonchalant, but Dragon could pick up on the forced cheer in her voice. She followed her gaze to a mess of shattered crystals on the floor. One of the larger pieces was half a face: a broken image of Taylor staring back.

Dragon swallowed her next question.

Taylor shook her head. "Ah!" she shouted as if to rouse herself. "It's easier to show you. It's why I brought you here."

The room trembled. Loose, scattered parts of machinery shook and fell over each other as the floor started to shift. A loud, painful groan echoed through the walls. Almost instinctively, Dragon took a step back, bracing against the ground. Her gyroscopes spun crazily as the center of the room seemed to dip into a hole; the hole grew wider as it pulled the rest of the room in. The center consoles fell in first, then the machine at the side, the loose cables on the ground, and then—

"Relax," said Taylor, right as the world pushed them forward and sent them spinning in.

Newton huffed as she leaned against a wall. Her legs were shaking. She reached for her glasses on the top of her head but they were gone; her heart sighed with a pang at the small loss.

The last two of her rods exploded in the air as Legend intercepted them. Even from a distance, the impact shook the buildings below it, a few streetlights around them toppling over.

Opposite her, Alexandria finally climbed out of her hole. Her left arm was completely bare, her cloak only hanging off her other shoulder. Cracks ebbed out from the left, cutting deep and unevenly into the armour. As she moved, bits of material continued falling.

Her helmet was somehow still intact, albeit with more scratches. She rotated her head, her mouth pressed into a thin, straight line. Overhead, Legend circled around, his hands glowing.

"You done?" she said flatly, unimpressed.

Newton merely pressed a hand to the wall, feeling the bricks and spreading the last of her power over them. She could turn them heavy and fling them into Alexandria, but there wasn't enough to cover Legend as well. Not to mention Alexandria could probably shoulder through everything. She was already at her limit.

A Taylor is never late, right? C'mon Sage, Franklin. Where the hell are—

A massive green hand popped up just as Alexandria rocketed forward. It tried to close its fingers around her, but the heroine reacted quickly, turning on her heel and kicking herself backwards just in time.

Legend tried to swoop in, only to be cut off by Franklin. The blue-haired Taylor was wreathed in lightning as she bounced in the air around him, forcing him away instead.

"Time-out!" Dozens of glowing lanterns unfolded in the air, casting a green pallor over everyone. A ball of lightning sparked and darted over to Newton before transforming back into a humanoid form. Franklin stood protectively in front of her, grinning slightly as she wiped a drop of blood from her mouth.

Legend stepped down to the ground, eyes focused on her. He was pressing his shoulder.

Alexandria watched as Sage walked up to them. She stood a respectful distance away, her hands clasped.

"Scion is coming." She spoke quietly, but her voice carried through the ruined street. "I suggest you recall all your men and leave."

Alexandria didn't reply immediately. Sage couldn't tell what the older woman was thinking with her face hidden underneath her helmet. She merely turned towards Sage, silent, the green glow of the lantern gleaming crookedly on her visor as she regarded her.

"What do you mean, 'Scion is coming'?" Legend asked. He folded his arms, but his face was worried. "Are you planning to fight him here?"

"He's here for the temporal energy. We'll try to hold him off as long as possible but…" she paused, clucking her tongue. "We're not perfect. His attacks are wide and indiscriminate. You need to leave right now."

"Are you planning to kill him?" Alexandria finally spoke. There was no trace of emotion in her question. "You have a plan?"

Sage narrowed her eyes. At the back of her mind, she was still distinctly aware of their disabled tech. "We'll try. It'll help if you disable whatever you cooked up to cut off our time tech," she replied, watching the other woman carefully.

Alexandria didn't react outwardly. "Doesn't sound like much of a plan," she said, almost too neutrally, and this time Sage picked up on the tiny bit of suspicion lurking behind her words. She glanced over to Legend; he was frowning behind Alexandria. He leaned in towards her and whispered, but she only shook her head.

Suddenly, Sage thought of an awful possibility. A coldness shot down her back, so tight and intense, it curled around her armpits. The blinking red light on her bracer felt like a blaring siren.

"We're winging it." Sage forced a smile. "That's why you should leave."

"Aren't you going to ask about your tech? How we did it?" Alexandria straightened, her legs tense as they shifted. "Or do you already know?"

She vanished in a crack of thunder before Sage could even reply. A green sphere wrapped around her as Alexandria appeared over her mid-pounce, one fist cocked. Her punch seemed to throw the world up, burying the sphere halfway into the shattered asphalt.

Franklin shot forward, lightning blazing from her feet but Legend intercepted her, smashing her sideways into a broken car. He gave a quick look towards Alexandria, indecision flashing over his face for a second before he refocused. He sent a beam searing across the wreck; Franklin ducked under it, slugging back with a bolt of energy.

"You're compromised!" Sage shouted. She put the sphere away before Alexandria could hit it a second time. The woman fell into the round pit and a massive green palm surged forward, pinning her down.

"What did she tell you?" Sage asked. "She had pink hair, right? What did she say?"

Alexandria grunted in reply. She pushed, the veins on her neck popping as she strained and pushed. Bit by bit she walked her legs up the sides until she became parallel to the ground. Her shoulders hefted against the palm.

Sage narrowed her eyes. Her projection shook as fine cracks began to spread across it. She stepped back as Alexandria pushed. One step, two steps. Then—

"NOW!"

A portal opened underneath her feet. Her connection with her hand was severed as Sage fell into a dull, dark room. Almost immediately, her suit started to spark. Little bits of fire flickered in and out along her suit as the machinery, electronics lined in her outfit started to melt. Her bracer became impossibly soft, like putty or slime, the screen falling in on itself as it slipped off her arm in large, viscous teardrops.

All links to her technology vanished. This was different from earlier in Shining Top. There her tech was still available, just disabled. She could still use her projection technology. But now, nothing remained.

Sage took a deep breath, flicking away the black ooze as she climbed up to her feet.

The portal above her closed as Alexandria came through it. She dropped her helmet as she stepped down onto the ground, digging out a wireless bud from her ear. It, too, was melting.

Rebecca Costa-Brown looked at Sage. Her face was perfectly blank, every muscle held unmoving as she folded her arms.

"You wanted to talk? Then talk." She didn't raise her voice, she didn't muscle in closer; she spoke with the absolute confidence of having all the power in the room.

Sophia huddled as another explosion thundered down the street. Bits of debris were stuck in her hair; she gripped her crossbow tightly, trying to calm her racing heart as a building across the street evaporated into a thick, red-brick cloud. Lasers and fireworks bloomed across the sky suddenly, lighting up the alleyway she was hiding in, and then she saw her.

Cardinal was looking up as she walked backwards. Sophia aimed her crossbow, bolt-nocked and ready. She fingered the trigger along its smooth metal curve. It felt unyielding, impossible to pull back. Sophia grabbed her hand, trying to steady herself. She braced the crossbow against her shoulder, but all she could think about was how that crossbow bashed a hole in the face of Emma's mom.

Sophia blinked and exhaled. Just pull the trigger. It was easy. She did a thousand times before. Taylor was a villain. She... her mom... Taylor killed her—

Taylor turned around abruptly to stare straight at her. Sophia flinched, squeezing her finger automatically, and Taylor batted it away casually. She tilted her head, a slight look of befuddlement crossing her brows.

"It's you?" she said, and it was that in her voice, a dismissive something in her tone, as if she was seeing through her, as if the world was never changed and the morning never happened—

Sophia broke out of her shadowed alcove and charged screaming at Taylor. She threw her crossbow at the other girl's head and pulled some bolts into her hands. Taylor batted the weapon away and sidestepped her swipes, looking unamused as she stepped back. Sophia snarled, thrusting forward, but Taylor simply grabbed her hands and forced them back, pointing the bolts towards herself.

Sophia burst into smoke and leaped back. Taylor was already walking away when she reappeared.

"STOP!" She shouted, her face contorted with hatred.

"What?" Taylor stopped. She turned around impatiently, bringing Sophia up short for a moment. The Ward looked at her, incredulity turning into anger.

"What? What do you mean, 'what'?!" Sophia yelled. Her eyes were red. "You killed... you killed..." she choked out, unable to say more.

Cardinal raised an eyebrow. "I did? Newton must have reversed it."

"That doesn't count! You still did it!" Sophia bit out, her hands clenched white around the bolts. "You still killed Emma's parents! You killed my—my—ARGHHH!" she screamed, clutching her head between her fists.

"Sure, it doesn't count. But they're still not dead. Which means I didn't really kill them. Newton must have offered to reverse time for you too," Cardinal said neutrally. "Why didn't you take the deal? You could have simply forgotten everything."

"It's not the same. It's not — I can't let you get away with it," Sophia muttered, half to herself, before her eyes snapped back to Taylor's in a crazed glare. "You're not gonna get away with it."

Then she lunged forward again, whipping her bolts around. Her form was desperate, sloppy, and Cardinal easily dodged without effort. She continued to step away, turning between the swipes as Sophia tried harder and harder to pin a bolt into her. Her snarls became more choked as tears streamed from her eyes. Her attacks got wilder, slower; one bolt broke off against the wall when she missed and then Sophia stopped, panting and heaving as she flung the other bolt at Cardinal.

It missed. Cardinal cocked her head as she looked down at Sophia. "Are you done?" she asked, a hint of dismissal leaking through. But she did not walk away this time.

"Why did you attack them?" she muttered, wiping at her face. Her shoulders drooped as she looked up. Her eyes were dull and exhausted. "I was the one who fucked with you. You should have attacked me. Not them."

Cardinal didn't answer. She remained silent, clasping her hands behind her back. Sophia scowled.

"Answer me!"

"Why did you bully me?" Cardinal asked instead. Her lips curled with a ghost of a smile. "I didn't do anything to you at all."

"No." Sophia shook her head violently. "No, that's fucking bullshit. You don't get to do that. You don't get to put that back on me. You're the villain here! You're the one that—that—" she scrunched her face up, trying to force her words out. "—murdered people. I never did that. I never..."

"Sure," Cardinal nodded. "You're not answering the question though."

Sophia clutched at her throat as she gasped. Her cheeks were wet. "All I did, I only ever hurt you!" she shouted, stomping forward. Taylor didn't move. "I didn't fuck with your family. Your mom was already dead! Why did you have to attack them?!" Sophia asked. Her voice wobbled, nearly breaking as she choked with emotion. "It's not the same, okay? I—I only—I never—your mom was dead when I did all that shit, okay?! It's not fair! It's not right!"

She spun around on her feet, yelling headlessly into the night. Taylor looked at her impassively for a moment before she spoke.

"It's not fair. It's not right." Her words were quiet. "I used to say that too. Many nights after school I would stay awake crying, hugging my pillow." There was no recrimination in her voice. She just sounded bored.

Sophia looked up, her lips twisting involuntarily, hysterically. Something crushing surged behind her eyes; she blinked away her tears as she turned to Taylor.

The bald girl seemed to take pity on her. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

"I want— I want—" Sophia pressed a palm on her chest, trying to tame her hiccups. "I want you to go to hell. I want you to apologize."

Taylor appeared befuddled. Then, mild amusement crossed her face as she shook her head slightly. "Apologize? Why?"

Sophia stared blankly at her reply.

"If I never forced you, would you ever have said sorry to me?" Taylor's eyes were dark and piercing, and Sophia felt caught, trapped, unable to look away.

"I think you have your answer there."

Sophia balled her hands into fists. She quivered with anger, red-hot and righteous, but with it also came something bitter: shame. It blunted the edges of her fury, it made her feel small and fake, and it left her with nothing to say.

Green lanterns suddenly bloomed into existence over them, illuminating the night with a soft green glow. Cardinal looked up, eyes wide. She stretched a hand up over her head as if to reach for one.

"Sage?" she whispered. Then she turned back to Sophia, all traces of amusement gone. "Good talk. You should leave before it's too late."

Sophia watched helplessly as Cardinal walked away, the words stuck in her throat. She wanted to shout, to throw out a rebuttal, anything, but she couldn't. Her leg shook with pent-up energy as Cardinal went further and further, and finally she screamed, whirling around and smashing her fist into the wall. Pain radiated through her knuckles but she ignored it; instead, she yelled some more, punching and kicking and lashing out against the wall.

When something cracked in her hand and a tingling numbness lanced through her arm, Sophia finally stopped. She staggered backwards, blinking furiously as she started hiccuping and heaving in short, ugly barks. And then her face scrunched up and she curled inwards, wrapping her arms around herself as she sank to her feet and cried.

Miss Militia stepped into the alleyway just as Cardinal was about to leave. She saw Sophia next, crumpled in a ball on the ground, and reacted immediately to fire a shot at Taylor.

The girl ducked, almost preternaturally. A long blade appeared in her hand, the sharp end pointed at Militia as she prepared to lunge forward.

"Stop!"

The ground between them split and shifted as Vista caught up. "Stop! Now's not the time!" she said again, pulling Miss Militia back. She focused on Cardinal. "We came here with Sage and Franklin. We're on the same side."

Cardinal flinched. The blank expression on her face slipped; she looked lost, her eyes betraying a delirious hope. "Impossible. They're dead."

Glory Girl floated next to her. She looked nonchalant, but her hands were loosely clenched. "Cardinal, right?" she said slowly. "They're alive. You did it. The machine you made worked. It just needed a boost."

"Newton too," Tattletale added. She yelped as Cardinal suddenly refocused on her with a piercing stare. Her surprise morphed into a weird, questioning look as she reexamined the bald girl again.

"She's alive. You really did save her," the blonde continued. She waited, almost in anticipation, as if to confirm something she just realized.

The wonder on Cardinal's face only lasted briefly. Her smile disappeared as the lanterns overhead abruptly winked out of existence, plunging everyone back into the dusky night.

"Something's wrong." Cardinal raised her sword again, pinning them with her eyes. "Where are the others?"

Sage didn't talk. She looked around instead. There was a simple table in the middle, one flickering candle on it that provided scant illumination. Two chairs seated opposite each other. The room was seamless monochrome grey, made of metal, except for a dark, massive piece of glass that filled the place of a wall.

It was a window. She could make out some vague shape on the other side, a giant mountainous blob lying on the ground. As her eyes got used to the darkness, she could just barely make out the shapes of a head, twin lumps of legs, and some massive paws folded over its bulging stomach.

It was human. Fat choked around its limbs, turgid shapes spilling over its joints that piled up to a craggy summit over its stomach. It had no face, only holes where the eyes and mouth should be, a layer of pudge simply filling over every feature. Every breath was a heavy labour, its chest lifting ever so slightly like a flag of life.

"A case-53." Sage refocused on Alexandria, looking at her through the reflection on the dark pane. "Its power... destroys all technology in its sightlines?"

Alexandria didn't answer. She waited.

"Right." Sage shook her head. "I really did want to talk. But it's too late now. We've already lost."

The older woman folded her arms. "I'm not interested in whatever squabbles you have with your counterpart. I only want to know about Scion, how—"

"You should be worried about something else," Sage interrupted. "You know, for all our power, our expertise has always been about time travel. Dimensional travel, on the other hand, remains a tough nut to crack, even for us.

"So, your Cauldron," she spun around, waving a hand at the room, at the place they were in, "your little extra-dimensional base... can you believe we've never actually found this place? Never managed to set foot on it… until now."

She turned towards the other room, staring into the darkness beyond. "Isn't that right, Infinite?"

A sharp rap echoed through the room. Alexandria whirled around towards the glass wall.

Infinite stood on the other side. Her white clothes made her stand out like a ghost, blurred and shadowed. She tilted her head, pink hair falling messily to the side, and unfurled her fist to tap her fingernails on the glass. The sound was like a spider skittering in the dark, fussing about its parlour as it set to welcome the fly.

"Hello Sage," she said, never looking away.

Sage glanced at Alexandria. The woman was frozen, her face stuck in a rare show of expression: brows furrowed, mouth downturned in a grimace. The candle flame had turned grey.

"Hello, Infinite. Were you expecting someone else?"

Infinite smiled faintly. "I see Cardinal managed to revive you. I'm glad."

Sage didn't reply for a long moment. She examined Infinite closely, at the well-pressed pants, the sharp lines of her sleek suit, the white-on-white shirt and vest buttoned to her neck, and the gleaming amethyst and gold brooch pinned to her lapel.

She glanced at her mismatched eyes, one blue, one brown.

"You've cleaned up nicely."

"It's a grand occasion." Infinite stepped away from the glass a little, waving her hand around. "Can you believe it? We're here. We're finally here. Remember how difficult this was? All those nights we tried to calculate this location. You said it was impossible. And now here we are. Just a bit more and I can fix everything."

"I didn't say it was impossible. I said it wasn't worth it." Exhaustion sank into Sage's face. She looked at Infinite with no trace of friendliness. "And even then, I underestimated the price."

Infinite grew solemn. "Sage..."

"You killed all of us." Her tone was flat. "You don't even know if it'll work, and you killed all of us for it."

"It'll work."

"You sent Scion to our home. You—"

"No," Infinite corrected, speaking loudly over Sage. "That wasn't—" she tried again. "I didn't—"

"YOU DID!" Sage exploded. She punched the glass, the thud of flesh and bone like thunder in the room. "YOU DID. I TOLD YOU, INFINITE! I told you Broadcast was far too dangerous a shard to integrate and you went and did it anyway!"

"BUT IT WORKS!" Infinite snapped, trembling. She showed her hand, her pale skin turning luminescent as light started shining under her skin. Her blood vessels were like dark tendrils against the glow. "It works exactly as I told you it would. The assimilation went fine. The Broadcast shard is completely under my control, like how I expected."

She pointed at the large, disfigured parahuman behind her. "Do you know this is a man? He's been stuck like this for more than a decade. His power keeps him alive. I can hear him. I can hear him crying in his head, pleading, begging. He's saying: 'Please'. Please free me."

She clenched her glowing hand into a fist. "With Broadcast, I can talk to any shard. I can command every shard. No more wasted years researching the host. No need to understand the human just to even touch their power."

"How did you decipher Broadcast in the first place?" Sage asked tightly. She paced, shoulders rolling, eyes never leaving her other self. Her anger was like a leash. "Tell me. I know you went to Shining Top with Rook and Cardinal. So where's Rook?"

Infinite's face shuttered. "Rook is…" she floundered, trailing off.

Sage jumped on that invisible crack in her words. "Did you even give her a burial after murdering her?"

"That was uncalled for," replied Infinite. Her words were like steel, a tinge of anger tempering the edge.

"Tell me what happened then. Tell me I'm wrong."

"She..." One hand was clenched, shaking up and down tensely; the other picked on the button at her throat. Infinite continued without meeting her gaze. "Rook knew what was necessary. What needed to be done."

"Oh?" Sage laughed humorlessly. She stepped closer to the glass pane. "Are those really her words? You're not answering the question. Tell me what happened."

Infinite stayed silent. Her fingers were now snaked around her neck, reaching for her face.

"No answer? I figured not." Sage scoffed. "We found the lab, you know? Where Cardinal was held. I saw Bonesaw's notes, her diagrams and her logbooks. All the things she did, all the things Jack got her to try." She shook her head. "I know for damn sure Rook would never have stood by. She would have tried to stop you."

Sage raised her chin, peering down with fierce challenge in her eyes. Infinite glanced away.

"You know, when the three of you disappeared, we thought you were all dead. Except Newton. She couldn't accept it. She spent ages searching for Cardinal. Not eating, not sleeping. Many nights, I had to carry her to bed. When she fought Scion, she— It was like she was looking to die. And when she finally got a location, we reached the wrong time.

"I was the one who found the lab first. What was left of it anyway." Sage craned her head back, blinking the wetness from her eyes. "I hid Bonesaw's notes before Newton could see them. I didn't want her to break further."

"Enough." Infinite finally spoke. It came as a raspy growl, one shaky exhalation.

Sage looked at Infinite. Her lips were parted, her eyes red, half-lidded.

"What? Can't bear to hear what you've done?"

"I know what I've done," Infinite replied, slowly, methodically. "I was there." Her face was twisting into a snarl, the emotions curling around her like heat from a sparking ember. "I. Was. THERE!" She crossed her arms, fists tucked against her elbows. "I was next to her the entire time. You think I enjoyed it? I hated every moment."

"Yet you did it anyway!" Sage threw her hands up. "You were there?! You think that's somehow better? You're not the only one who knows about shards, Infinite! I know what you were doing! You let them torture Cardinal, turn her into a gibbering wreck just for a fucking shortcut, for your slimy—"

"I HAD TO!" Infinite was stiff, the whites around her pupils stark and bright. "It was the fastest way to decipher Broadcast! With that, we can save our parents, we can even save the world!"

"WHAT ABOUT ROOK AND CARDINAL! WHAT ABOUT SAVING US?!" Sage slammed her fist onto the glass. Spittle covered the pane. Her face scrunched up as she wheezed, trying to hold back her sobs. "You didn't even come home to help! Do you know how he killed us? How painful the petrification process was? Bits of yourself, moored in time. The crystals just start eating away at your bone and flesh. Impossible to stop, impossible to even carve away."

Infinite looked lost. Her eyes darted about everywhere but Sage. Her fists clenched tighter, the bone pressing clear through her knuckles. "Scion... the attack on you, I— that wasn't— that—" she stuttered, a trace of panic leaking through.

"Don't act dumb. You've researched Broadcast for so long, you must know." Sage choked on the last word, something bitter catching her tongue. She felt sick, clamminess pooling in the pit of her stomach, crawling down her chest. Golden faces of everyone she knew, everyone dead, shattered through her mind.

Her breath turned heavy. When she spoke, it was soft, but each word felt like the gavel hammering the block.

"Broadcast. Is. Communication. Communication works both ways. Both. Ways. Everything you learned about them, they learned about you. About us.

"How did Scion suddenly return to life? How did he suddenly know the rudiments of time travel? You taught him, Infinite. You gave him the knowledge on how to kill us."

Infinite closed her eyes.

Sage tilted her head back, but her tears still tracked down her face. "Why did you do it? All of our work, all of us… we were over a hundred strong. Now we're less than a handful. How could you think it was worth all that?"

The silence between them rang for a long time.

Infinite sucked in a breath. "I will make it worth it," she whispered, her words dripping with a sibilant malevolence. "I will not let their sacrifices go in vain. Once I have Eden, I will find him, take him apart shard by shard, and when he's all that is left, I will reduce him to atoms. To nothing."

She met Sage's eyes calmly. Any panic, any vestige of remorse was gone. There was only something alien left, something cold in her shuttered expression that belied the vicious resolve simmering within her. The frozen light, the dark shadows in the room changed her features in a way Sage found unrecognizable.

"And then, when my work is done, we can sit down to fix the world. To save our parents, even bring back what was lost! All this, and more. The power of the universe will be in our hands."

"No. It'll be in your hands." Sage wiped the last bit of wetness from her face. "You dyed them red to get what you wanted. Don't you dare sound so righteous when you made this decision for us."

"Trivialities. What's mine is yours." Infinite smiled. Her mouth pulled wide. The skin of her face seemed to stretch unnaturally over her cheeks. "You. Me. We're the same person, remember? As long as we live, they all live."

Sage scoffed. "Is that how you face yourself?"

"Whatever you think of me, Sage, I'm not a monster. Everything I did, I did it for us. You'll see. I will fix things. I will save our parents. I will remake the world for the better."

The candle flickered amber.

"What the hell is going on?" Alexandria growled out. She grabbed Sage by her arm, jerking her away from the glass pane.

She didn't try to resist.

"You stopped time." Alexandria focused on Infinite, her eyes darting between her, the mountainous Case-53 behind her, and Sage.

"Hello Rebecca," Infinite waved her fingers. "I'm sorry for lying. In my defence, it was only a white lie. Oh? You're wondering how I'm here with your little trick." She glanced at the mountain of flesh behind her. He was moaning now, a low, guttural sound that grated on the ears. "I have a trick of my own too."

"What are you doing?" Alexandria stepped back as Infinite's hand started to glow. She shook Sage roughly. "What is she doing?"

The man wailed even louder. His hands trembled; one arm slid off his stomach, landing with a thunderous slap. It continued to tremble, to move, as if trying to reach for something.

For Infinite.

"You know, it's very cruel, what you've done to him," Infinite said softly. Her voice echoed with layers, her words both sing-song and guttural. Then she turned to the man and spoke simply.

"You're free."

His head exploded with a bang. An instantaneous pop, like a bottle uncorked. Flesh scattered, splattered like water when a stone is tossed in it; a red liquid, viscous and stringy, spattered over the floor, the walls, the glass pane; to reveal bone, a rictus of a naked skeleton sighing with relief as it was pulverized into dust; and next—

Starlight burst from what was left, spiralling up into the air with a blistering white trail. It looked crystalline, constantly changing, reshaping, turning inside out, as it brightly illuminated the dripping mess smeared across the room.

Infinite stood in a circle clean of blood. She gave a sharp whistle. The crystal — the shard — seemed to tremble at the sound. It twisted, turned, spinning into a thin silver line before barrelling straight towards Infinite.

The tinker didn't move. She merely stood still, a hand lazily outstretched. The shard zipped erratically around her a few times, almost like an excited dog sniffing about. Then it dashed into her finger, burrowing straight into the bed of a fingernail.

Infinite exhaled shakily. She smiled, her nose flaring, a strange incandescence gleaming in her eyes.

She glanced at Sage.

"I'll show you," her gaze was saying.

A familiar glowing door split the space open behind Infinite, and she left.

Sage frowned when the room turned dark again. She was pulled out of her thoughts when Alexandria slammed her into the wall, one hand pressing into her chest.

"Door, me. Door!" Nothing happened. No portal came to her call. Alexandria turned back to Sage, her hand pushing in slightly harder. "Speak! What just happened?" she snarled heatedly. At the moment, even Alexandria could not completely hide her franticness. Sage could see it in her eyes: she was already putting some of the pieces together.

"We all have our specialties," Sage replied calmly. She ignored the growing pressure against her chest. "Infinite specialized in shards, in powers. She researched how they functioned, how they connected to a parahuman, and most importantly," she looked up at the taller woman, eyes boring straight into hers, "how to take them."

Alexandria turned stony. She studied Sage for a long, quiet moment, eyes rapidly springing over every inch of her, every little expression on her face and body. She couldn't quite trust herself to read if it was the truth anymore.

"Doormaker. Clairvoyant. She's here for Contessa?" she finally spoke. Her words were a dangerous whisper.

"Contessa?" A shake in her chest. Sage gave a short, humourless chuckle. "Think. Bigger."

It took a long second. Then Alexandria staggered back, her blank facade broken as she stared at Sage in disbelief. "The Garden," she breathed out with a strangled voice. She hit the table as she spun around; the candle tipped over and rolled onto the floor, leaving a trail of burning wax.

There was a hidden door in the wall. The moment it opened an inch Alexandria grabbed its edge and wrenched it open. She burst out of the cell, tapped against the ground, and fired off with a deafening boom that echoed through the hallway to and fro.

Sage followed slowly after her. The hallway was massive. Tall and wide, with large numbers stencilled over every cell. The entire complex looked like it was built entirely out of metal.

She took a deep breath. First, she ripped out the console at the door, pulling out the various electronics and wires. Then, as she twisted them together in the beginnings of a rudimentary device, she started walking. Fine scratches marked the sheen on the metal walls in Alexandria's sonic wake, leaving a clear path for her to the main base.

To Eden.

Dragon stumbled forward. Her thrusters almost fired automatically as the floor fell away from her.

Then her gyroscopes righted themselves; she was back on solid ground, a massive crystalline lattice towering over her. It sparkled in the dim cavern, casting a tranquil shimmer that seemed almost corporeal.

"This is..."

She could make out lights buzzing within the crystals: energy signals unlike anything she had ever seen jumping from point to point. She looked at the structure again, this time following the ebb and flow of the energy inside, the way they circled in a regular pattern from one part to the next.

"Is this some kind of processor?" Dragon turned towards Taylor. "How did you even make this?"

"Well, it wasn't done overnight." Taylor chuckled. They walked closer to the tower. "This represents everything that I know about the Entities and the shards. It took us a long time to even reach this stage."

At the base, a part of it jutted out, almost like a table. More than a hundred hexagonal crystal rods were embedded in it, arranged neatly next to each other. It looked like a flat honeycomb spread wide.

Dragon touched one of the crystals. It was dull, a splinter running through the middle. Most of the crystals were unlit and broken; they looked out of place next to the shining lattice tower.

"It only works for me." Taylor sidled up to her, sliding a finger across the crystal she was touching. A face popped up: another Taylor, with wild purple hair and a welder's mask perched on her head.

Dragon retracted her hand. Understanding flickered in her mind as she looked down at the hexagon rods again. "Is this some kind of registry?"

"Yes. We needed a system to keep track of ourselves, especially when everyone was going in and out of the past." Taylor stretched out, tapping on the lone lit crystal in the last row. Another portrait appeared, green-haired with eyes shaded in emerald.

"Where's yours?"

Taylor pointed forward. Dragon looked again, not seeing any other lit spot near the tower.

"Wait." Her thoughts shuttered to a stop. "Are you the tower?" The realization caught up with her as she spoke. "Are you the original Taylor?"

Taylor hummed. She turned around, leaning against the honeycomb console. "Hmm. Does that matter?"

"Should it not?"

Taylor quirked her lips. "We're all Taylors," she replied. "I was never too fond of the distinction of being 'original'. My doppelgangers are all me. The loops that I've been through, the histories I've changed and discarded... past selves, but still me."

"Where did they even come...?" Dragon trailed off as she understood something. "It was Scion? When you loop through time, he can see your past selves because he exists outside of time."

"Yes."

"Are you saying he brought all— from all the different time loops you went through, he brought those versions of you into this world?"

"Exactly right." Taylor held her hands up to stop the next question. "If you're asking me how he did it, I have no idea. I'm well aware how it breaks all causality in my timeline but here we are. It happened."

"Why can't you meet your doppelgangers?"

"We'll negate each other. You know the multiverse exists. Out there, are other versions of you, other versions of me. But my doppelgangers are not alternate versions. They're my past selves. They're not distinct and apart in the way an alternate is, they're part of my continuum.

"When Scion pulled them into this world, he broke that continuum. He might have treated them like alternates, but the universe does not see it the same way.

"All roads lead to me. My doppelgangers should become me. If there's me and another Taylor in the same place, that's an aberration. One of us has to go. It's just a coin flip which one."

"This only affects you? Because you're the final Taylor? Did Scion do that on purpose to restrict you?"

"Yes, it only affects me. Something that I still don't quite understand why." Taylor quirked her lips in a small pout. "And Scion... well, my doppelgangers think it was unintended. That he got lucky. For me, perhaps I'm biased, but I think he did intend this. I think he is... can be much sharper than most people give him credit for."

Dragon paused, the lights on her suit flashing rapidly. She glanced at the honeycomb console and stepped closer, gliding her hand past the cracked and empty crystals.

"You said you wanted to show me something?"

"Yup." Taylor pulled a long needle-like sliver. It was thin and flat, glinting strange colours in the light.

"What is that?"

"A piece of this, broken off." Taylor positioned the sliver over a cracked hexagon, sharp edge point down, and carefully slid it in. Crystal curled against crystal, the sound like marbles ringing.

It fitted perfectly. Taylor rubbed her thumb over the surface, pressing it flush.

"If you cut the crystal in just the right way, just this thin slice, it disconnects you from the system."

"Wouldn't the other Taylors notice?" Dragon jerked, a sudden thought coming to her. "Or did they already know about Scion's attack in advance? Then it'll just look like they died in the chaos."

Taylor shook her head. She smiled wanly. "No matter how terrible our differences may be, none of us would ever side with Scion."

Suddenly, the console started rumbling. The cracked hexagon that Taylor fixed, previously dim, shone orange, the colour thick and cloying as it washed over everything.

Dragon stepped back, only to hear sand crunching under her feet. They were in a desert, the evening sky stained with the colour of rust. In the distance, her sensors picked up a small town, engulfed in a roaring blaze. Even from here, her microphones could pick up the sound of houses crackling, crumbling under the heat.

Embers split from the flames, dancing upwards with the hot wind. The town looked as if it was drowning in an orange sea.

"What is this?"

"A last memory." Taylor started walking towards the fire. "Do you remember I said that we actually did beat Scion before he came back to life?"

Dragon nodded.

"It's funny, but when we beat him, we thought everything was over. The villain was dead and everything else would just fall into place." Taylor chuckled to herself, shaking her head. "That didn't happen. We tried for decades. Centuries. We only barely scratched the surface of how he folded space and reality. We couldn't undo the bubble at all. We managed to make it smaller, but…"

Dragon saw the problem immediately. "Your house is in the middle of that bubble."

"My house. My parents," Taylor agreed. "We decided to give up. Well, the others discussed and I agreed. The space around my house was too dense, and worse, the density was increasing. Too many timelines overlapping each other when Scion pulled everyone into this world, maybe.

"Besides, it wasn't a matter of science. They were just too alien. The way these entities manipulated dimensions felt too intrinsic to their nature, too different." Taylor scooped up her braid and fiddled with it. "How does a 2d creature understand 3d physics?"

Dragon fell silent for a moment. "I can't imagine every Taylor was fine with that."

"No." They stopped at a small rocky crest, just on the outskirts of town. The fire spread wide and tall, only reigned in by the sand. Already Dragon could sense her suit warming up.

Taylor turned to her. "Welcome to Shining Top. The most reliable place in recent history if you want to find the Slaughterhouse 9."

"Your doppelgangers broke their connection to come here? What has the S9 got to do with Scion?"

"Scion is a hivemind composed of many, many shards. Every shard has a function, a purpose. When linked to parahuman, that function is expressed as a 'power'.

"They are here for Jack. He holds Broadcast, a shard meant for communication within the hive," Taylor explained. She drew a squiggly line in the sand with her toes as she spoke; only then did Dragon realize she was still barefoot.

"Infinite thinks that's the key. If she takes his shard, then maybe she could communicate with them. Understand them, understand the way they manipulate space and therefore understand how to save our parents."

"Take his shard?" Dragon's tone was sharp. She turned still. "You can steal powers?"

Taylor paused for a moment. When she spoke, her words were placid and measured. "I needed power. I had been fighting Scion for so long, it was exhausting. The same night, over and over again. Seeing my parents... over and over again. I wanted— no, I needed it to end.

"So I started studying other parahumans. Just for inspiration, at first. I wanted to understand their mechanics, how they broke physics, how they were even possible."

"At that time, you didn't know Scion was the one behind all the powers, right?" Dragon asked.

"No. Maybe I would have done things differently if I did." Taylor looked strangely resigned. "The trauma of a trigger event is what shapes a parahuman's power. So to understand the power I had to first understand everything about the host. I had to get right in their heads and know their needs and wants and fears — everything about how they see the world.

"After all of that, I'll finally reach the shard." The tinker chuckled at the memory. "And then I was lost."

"You didn't know what you were dealing with then."

"I did not. Everything was byzantine. I didn't know where to start, how to start. All the time I spent on this... for nothing." Taylor straightened up slightly. "I had to change course."

Dragon shifted, just slightly. "The Corona Pollentia."

Taylor licked her lips, delaying for a moment. "Yes. I thought I could divine its secret by studying the physical source."

"You took them from other parahumans," the AI whispered, the horror of it dawning on her.

Taylor looked away, at the fire, into the amber glow. "Would it make you feel better if I said I stuck to just the villains? Ah. I suppose that's no real excuse. As cruel as you can imagine me, I was probably worse.

"I cut into many heads. I dug up their Gemmas, to their true extra-dimensional nature. I looked into how they connected to the brain, our nervous systems, and then..."

Subconsciously, she rubbed her arm. "I implanted them into myself."

"You have other powers now?!"

The girl shook her head. "It wasn't a magic bullet. I couldn't use them. Powers are shaped by their hosts, remember? Ironically, to use the power, I had to completely understand them, to know how they tick." Taylor finally dragged her eyes away from the flames. "It felt like I just returned to the start. I had two halves of this mystery in my hands and yet they just couldn't fit together."

She smiled, faintly, and Dragon was suddenly struck by just how tired she looked. It was bone-deep in her face, in the droop at the corner of her eyes, in the way her shoulders slumped.

"Then Broadcast…"

Taylor shrugged. "Broadcast is communication. Theoretically, that means Infinite can skip the host and talk straight to the source. If she holds Broadcast, she can hold them all."

Before Dragon could ask more, a house by the edge exploded. A bulky figure dashed out, fire streaming off it as it skidded to a stop right in front of them. It was armour, its sleek metal frame covered in soot and heavily battered.

The AI's first thought was how something in the curves on its hips and shoulders felt feminine; then she noticed the second thin, angular body in the person's hands. It looked like a giant mantis, thin arms and legs on a segmented carapace.

The armoured figure had one massive hand curled around its head. It squirmed as she pressed a knee into its chest, swinging weakly with its razor limbs.

The armoured woman ignored it. Keeping it pinned, she heaved upwards, slowly pulling and pulling, pulling and pulling. Someone was screaming, Dragon thought, an inhuman shriek of incoherent babbling that seemed to echo in the air from nowhere over and over.

The head popped off with a squelch. There was no viscera, just a series of tangled strings running free from the body. The shrieking ceased abruptly.

The armoured woman jerked up, almost falling off-balance. She steadied herself, knuckles into the ground as she sat back on her haunches. The head was tossed aside.

Her helmet split loose with a hiss. A Taylor, hair matted flat, dripping with sweat, gasped and coughed as she pulled it off. Her hair was a wild orange, the colour muted flat in the amber glow.

"Rook."

Dragon looked up. A second Taylor was walking up. Her hair was a shocking shade of pink that stood out even in the dark. Her arms were crossed, hands tucked into her armpits. She wore a white suit; it was clean but askew, her shirt tucked haphazardly into her pants. One of her sleeves hung uncuffed.

In the light of the fire, shadows danced over her like ghosts.

"You got Mannequin?" she said, looking at the lifeless body and head.

Rook dropped her helmet. She pushed herself up, struggling to stand one foot at a time.

"Where the fuck were you?" She growled out. "I had to take out four of them myself. This was not the fucking plan."

"We underestimated them. They got the jump—"

"Don't." Rook flipped her wrist to show her bracer. It was flashing red. She raised her other hand at Infinite, a large cannon yawning out from her arm. "Unless you're really saying the S9 somehow cracked our time tech?"

"I..." Infinite dithered on her words. "It's my fault. I've been scouting this timeline's Slaughterhouse for quite some time now. I must have got careless and they noticed me."

Rook scoffed. Her mouth curled involuntarily, incredulously. "Oh yeah? Meet my eyes and say that again."

They stood, one at gunpoint, the heat and smog billowing over them.

"I…" Infinite started and stopped, her mouth working out the invisible words.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced between them.

Rook whirled around. Her eyes widened. "Where's Cardinal?" she asked tightly.

Infinite shook her head slowly.

"Fuck!" Rook lowered her weapon and started stalking off. "We have to go back. We have to find—"

Infinite grabbed her. "Wait!"

Rook jerked away, cannon up again. "What are you doing?"

Infinite wetted her lips. Her eyes were slightly lowered as she considered her next words. "We need to consider the worst-case scenario."

"Excuse me?" Rook narrowed her eyes. Her fingers curled inwards into a loose fist.

Infinite faced the town. One of her fingers tapped rapidly on her thigh. Against the amber flame, she looked drenched in sin.

"What if he already has her?"

Rook was tense, impatient. "We save her."

Infinite shook her head. "She might already be compromised."

"He doesn't work that fast."

"Not him. His shard." Infinite took a deep breath. "It automatically interfaces with any other parahuman near him."

"So what?"

"So we can use that connection." Infinite finally turned to Rook. Her arms were still crossed, shoulders folded in. "We all have the same shard. If I access Cardinal's copy and start streaming the data from her, we'll have all the secrets and insights we need about Broadcast."

Rook took a step back, eyes wide. She opened her mouth but no words could come out. She just stared at Infinite, at the stranger suddenly living with her face.

"What the hell are you saying?" she whispered.

Infinite straightened up, her expression turning resolute. She loosened her arms, clasping her hands together in front of her — right hand over left, then left hand over right.

"Do you remember what I said about this? How long it takes to fully decipher one shard so I can use it?" She took a deep breath. "Decades at the minimum. And in this case, both Broadcast and Jack Slash are much more complicated than the average shard.

"We don't have time. That bubble is growing denser and denser by the second. By the time I'm done deciphering this power, I'm afraid it might truly become impossible to undo.

"I don't want to do this either." Infinite looked like she was talking more to herself now. Her hands were still moving, wringing, and she stuttered over a word or two as she forced herself to continue speaking. "But we don't have a choice. This is the only way to get Broadcast in time. It's the only way to save—"

Rook slapped her. The sound of metal on skin echoed as Infinite staggered back, clutching her left cheek.

"What the fuck are you even saying?" Rook stalked closer, her hands closed and hackles raised. She was shouting. "Are you INSANE? You want to leave Cardinal to be tortured by a madman for an experiment?!"

"We don't have a choice!" Infinite snapped back. She still had a hand on her cheek, one eye squeezed shut. "I need time to decipher Broadcast. I need time to analyze the bubble again. Time, time, time!" she spat, before laughing hysterically. "You think I want to do this?! You think I'm happy about this? I've tried to think of another solution, I've gone over other plans, but this is the only way!"

"Then ditch it!" Rook threw her hands up in frustration. "I want to get our parents back too, but not like this. They're DEAD! Cardinal is ALIVE." She shook her head, but her eyes never left Infinite, boring straight into her. "There's no comparison here."

"You don't understand. I'm close! I'm so, so close to the solution." Blood started dripping from her shut eye. Rook stiffened as Infinite dropped her hand, blinking and twitching on her left side.

Her eyes were mismatched hazel and blue.

"You…" Rook breathed out. She retreated, almost instinctively as horror mounted on her face. She raised her cannon arm again. "Why do you have Jack's eye?"

"It's ju—just cosmetic. A side effect," Infinite dabbed at the blood from the corner of her eye, trying to swipe it off. It left a light smear of red across her cheek like an indelible shadow. Her blue eye blinked again.

"You've already implanted Broadcast," Rook said in disbelief.

"I can't use it yet," said Infinite matter-of-factly. "But I'm nearly there. I just need the data from Cardinal. Can't you see? Just one day! Just leave Cardinal for a day, and that should provide enough data for me to use. That's all, and then you can save her, and I can undo our mistake."

Rook clenched her fist. Her cannon started glowing but she didn't pull the trigger. "You brought us here for this." Rook gestured to the fire, the smoke. "You planned for us to fall to Jack. Did you bring two so that you could have a spare?"

"I didn't— I just, I just, I didn't have a choice I just wanted—"

"You're compromised."

"I'm NOT compromised," Infinite suddenly shouted. Fierceness glinted in her eyes as she pulled herself taller. "I'm not compromised. I'm the only one seeing things clearly. I'm the only one willing to do what's necessary!"

"Then do it yourself!" Rook was also shouting. Her cannon arm was wobbling; her eyes were wet and shining. " You sent us here for—for Jack Slash? That's a fate worse than death!"

"I have to!" Infinite screamed. Her head was bowed, hands up into her hair, pulling and squeezing them into clumps. She looked up, shaking slightly. Her eyes were haunted. The dark circles around them stood out starkly. "You don't know how hard… how… I'm the only one who can do this," she said hoarsely.

Rook flickered through a few expressions. Her mouth was pressed flat, her lips pale. She took one tight step forward, the movement jerky as if she was trying to hold herself back. Her cannon arm was trembling, turning as she squeezed her fist until the metal creaked. The cannon whined as it started glowing intensely, but after a long moment she put her arm down.

"You're sick," she finally said. "I'm bringing Cardinal back, with or without you." She spun around without looking back and started walking back to town.

Infinite watched her silently. She stood completely still, her face blank, only her eyes darting left and right.

Then they stopped. Snapped to Rook, to her back, growing smaller as she walked away. Infinite straightened up, her shoulders tensing. A small wind ruffled her hair. A second scream echoed from the town, fainter this time, almost lost in the crackling flames.

She disappeared.

A flash of danger. Rook only had a millisecond to feel it but it was too late. Infinite caught her mid-turn, slapping an open palm onto her back. Something pressed into her from behind, a rough nub that grew sharper and sharper until Rook realized too late it was inside her armour.

Metal bloomed through her. It burst out of her front with a terrible sound, the crunch of bone and flesh overwhelmed by an ear-splitting grind. She couldn't breathe, couldn't feel, couldn't see anything but the massive spike pushing out from her chest. Rook choked blood, barely tasting it as she crashed to her knees. More metal drove out of her; against the burning town, it looked like a bouquet of spikes, pushing her backwards into the ground.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Infinite was there. She looked hollow as she kneeled by her side. Rook opened her mouth, but all she could manage was a rattling gasp.

"I can't let you do it," Infinite said. She crawled closer and pulled Rook up, dragging her head onto her thighs. Blood started to seep into her clothes. Rook swayed dazedly. She tried to move her arm up; Infinite barely flinched as the cannon blasted wildly into the air. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she kept repeating, snot dribbling from her nose. She wanted to pull Rook closer, to better hold and comfort her but the spikes slicing out of her body kept her at bay.

Rook just looked at her. Her eyes were wide and accusing as she died.

Infinite stayed pinned to the spot for a long time. Her hands moved around Rook's face, tucking an errant piece of hair away, picking sand off her skin. They twitched every time she neared her eyes: hovering close then back; stretching to touch, but not. Her fingers would curl up when she tried and she couldn't bring herself to close them. Even in death, Infinite couldn't bear the weight of Rook's gaze.

She clenched her hands, digging her nails hard into her palm. She wanted them to cut, to cause pain; she wanted to scream but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was a strangled whimper.

The blood on her was starting to dry. It was turning sticky against her skin. Infinite looked up at Shining Top, the roaring fires and the thick, undulating plumes of smoke blocking out the stars. She had to move. Jack and Bonesaw would have already started on Cardinal.

Gently, very carefully, she shifted Rook off her lap and set her head down on the sand. There was no time for a proper burial. Infinite flicked her wrist, calling on Burnscar's power. The flames at the edge of town shuddered in response, growing and slithering out towards her like curling tendrils. They licked around the metal spikes, enveloping Rook in a flaming cocoon.

Infinite did not watch. She turned away when the metal turned red hot. Her face was blank as she strode into town, the heat and flame making way for her.

Dragon watched in silence as Infinite disappeared into the smoke. The scene froze. Piece by piece, the world crumbled, returning them to the shade of the crystalline tower.