hey guys! here is chapter eight!

I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far! please, read and review so I know how it's going!

silvie where have you gone? I would love to hear your feedback on shattered sun!

hope y'all like the big reveal at the end of this chapter! I've been planning this moment for a long time, and I'm so excited to finally be here!

after this chapter, there will be two more, and then shattered sun will be done! stay tuned for the title reveal for the fourth installment of Resistance...it's gonna be AWESOME!

thanks to my sis helena for the megan perspective in this chapter! originally she wrote it as a little bonus scene and i loved it so much i had to include it! It's so cute, I hope you guys all love the megiro ship! It's one of my favorites :)

I hope you guys LOVE this chapter!

peace out!

—HIRO—

I hear a loud bang, and then Karmi is collapsing to her knees, clutching her chest. Meg stands above her, panting, still holding the dart gun. A small cloud of smoke is dissipating into the rainy air, which is soon rent by a terrible scream.

Karmi curls onto her side, shaking violently and screaming so loudly I think my eardrums will rupture. I press my hands to my mouth, terrified, as Tadashi rushes forward with his first aid kit.

"What did you do to her?" he shouts at Meg, yanking the dart out of Karmi's chest and flinging it onto the ground. "What was in that dart, Meg?"

"Chlorine!" she snaps. "She was never gonna step down, and that would have doomed us all!"

"Honey!" Tadashi gasps, trying to keep Karmi still. "Is there some kind of chemical we can inject her with to stop it?"

"Not when it's been injected into her chest!" Honey wails, all the same searching for a combination of elements on her arm. "I don't think anything will work, Tadashi!"

Tadashi flings open his first aid kit, muttering, "It's gonna be okay, Karmi, I can help, I can always help—Advil—no, that won't work—maybe some kind of stem cell injection—no, it's moving too fast—oh, no—I have nothing—what can we do?"

"You'll—pay for this!" Karmi shrieks at Meg, the sound quickly rising to the highest scream I've ever heard.

I cover my ears as multiple other people start to scream, some in anger, some in fear. Tadashi is sobbing and still desperately trying to find something in his first aid kit that'll stop the spread of the chlorine, Granville and Chief Cruz are bellowing at Megan, who's yelling right back, and Karmi's terrible screams rise above it all as the chlorine rips her cells apart.

Finally, her screams die away into shaky breaths, which gradually slow until Karmi's chest stops rising and falling. I stare at her tortured face as she gasps her last breath and all the life goes out of her body.

I stand there for several seconds, my eyes wide in horror, and I'm vaguely aware that my cheeks are stinging from my fingernails gripping them too tightly. Much worse, though, is the fact that my head is starting to spin violently. The world is tilting.

No, I think desperately. There isn't even blood—

It's no use. Shadows creep in on the edges of my vision and almost immediately take over the world, and I barely even notice when I keel over backward.

The world swims back into focus, and with it comes a pale face and jet-black hair. A vivid splash of blue is also present against the backdrop of clouds and rain, and I realize I've woken up in Momokase's arms.

"About time," she says, but she looks worried. "You were unconscious for approximately two minutes. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," I groan, even though I still feel dizzy and my head is throbbing. "You can put me down."

Momokase sets me on my feet, but the dizziness takes over and I nearly collapse again. I decide it might be a good idea to sit down and sink to the asphalt, putting my head between my knees.

"I would recommend lying down for several minutes," Momokase advises. "The dizziness should wear off in about an hour. Until then, you should not exert yourself—unless, of course, you feel the need to defend your faction."

"Are we fighting?"

"Not with our weapons. But there seems to be a rather intense argument going on."

I look up, the blurriness having mostly cleared from my vision, and realize that Megan is still having a shouting match with her dad and Professor Granville. I don't know exactly what it's about, but it doesn't take a genius to guess that it's about the fact that she literally just killed Karmi in front of all of us.

I get shakily to my feet, somehow managing not to collapse, and stumble past Karmi's limp body and Tadashi, who is still sobbing, hunched over her with his first aid supplies scattered across the asphalt. Behind me, Momokase bends down to comfort my brother as I walk over to Meg.

"—completely uncalled for!" Chief Cruz is bellowing. "I thought you wanted peace!"

"I do!" Meg fires back. "But she was never gonna give it to us! I did everyone a favor!"

"Miss Cruz, you have just committed murder!" Professor Granville snaps. "Of one of my students, no less! This is a capital offense, even in war!"

"It wasn't murder!" I say desperately, positioning myself in front of Meg. "Murder is the shedding of innocent blood, and Karmi wasn't innocent! She nearly killed us all!"

"That may be," Granville hisses, "but it was not right to take her life!"

To my horror, she whips a pistol out of her pocket and points it at Meg. "I could—should kill you, here and now!"

"Stop, you guys!" I beg, stepping in front of the pistol's barrel. "Don't kill her, Professor Granville! You'd be committing murder, too, because Meg is innocent!"

"Stay out of this, Hiro!" Chief Cruz yells. "This isn't your fight!"

"It is if you're gonna blame Meg for saving our lives!"

"You shouldn't condone murder, Hiro!" Chief Cruz roars, right in my face.

"I'm not condoning anything!" I snap, my hands balled into fists. "I'm just saying she had a reason!"

"Of course you'd say that, you little—"

"Everyone shut up!" Wasabi shouts from behind me. "Stop fighting!"

Miraculously, everyone does shut up. The only sound left is Tadashi's last quiet sob, which then dies away into shuddering breaths.

"Why don't we ask Megan why she did it?" Wasabi asks. "We shouldn't be mad at her if we don't know her reasoning! No one has bothered to find out why she killed Karmi."

"So, um…why?" Fred asks.

Meg gives Wasabi a nod of thanks and begins to speak. "Karmi was a monster. She burned Hiro's house down and sold him to North Korea just because she didn't like him. Jeong tortured us in prison, trying to get information from us, and nearly killed Hiro. She also shot Cass when we tried to escape. Because of Karmi, almost everything important to my boyfriend—" Chief Cruz gasps, a look of horror passing over his face. Meg ignores this and continues. "—is gone. I wanted to make things right for Hiro. I killed her for him. Don't tell me the rest of you wouldn't do the same."

"I wouldn't!" Chief Cruz says indignantly.

"Not even for me?" Meg challenges, and her dad's shoulders slump. He stares at the ground, his eyes suddenly shimmering.

"You're right," he murmurs. "I'm sorry, Meg. I should have been there for you."

"And I shouldn't've gotten so mad at you," Meg mumbles. "It was wrong to burn down SFIT, and I regret it. I'll probably end up regretting this, too. None of this is your fault, Dad. It's mine."

Chief Cruz cautiously steps forward and enfolds his daughter in a hug. Meg returns the embrace, her shoulders shaking, and I wonder for a moment if my girlfriend is crying.

After several moments of silence, Chief Cruz and Meg break apart, and Meg turns to address us, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry I put you all in danger. If that dart hadn't worked, you all could have breathed in chlorine—and we'd all have died, not just Karmi. I know it was a bad decision, but…does anyone still wanna join factions? That was the whole point of the peace summit—it wasn't just to get Karmi in a better position. I really do want peace between us. I just thought that, with Karmi as leader, we were never gonna get it."

"She is correct," Momokase puts in. "Miss Chen was ruthless and did not consider how her choices would affect others. Perhaps she could have led us to victory, but I believe the cost would have been far too high for anyone's liking."

"I think we should join," Tadashi says quietly, his face still streaked with tears. "I don't want to fight each other anymore."

"Everyone who wants to merge, raise your hands!" Fred calls. "Let's make this resistance a democracy!"

To my surprise, everyone raises their hands, even Granville. Fred whoops in joy and does a super jump into the air, spraying fire into the rainy sky.

Meg smiles. "Alright, you guys. I'll give you all one more night in your current base. Pack up your weapons and meet me at Basemax at noon tomorrow."

With that, she fires up her thrusters and takes off, soaring through the sky toward Muirahara Woods. I follow, trying to be careful where I fly. I'm still kinda dizzy, so I wouldn't put it past myself to slam into a tree or something.

When we arrive back at camp, night is falling rapidly and I'm exhausted. I practically crash into the hollow, not even caring that rain is pouring into it, and pass out almost immediately.

—MEGAN—

I did it.

Karmi Chen is dead. And I killed her.

Too-vivid memories rush through my head, of meeting at the peace summit, of standing five feet in front of Karmi, of looking deep into the arrogant brown eyes of the woman responsible for everything that happened in the last seven days. For the fact that I spent hours watching Jeong torture my best friend, that we lost one of the only family Hiro had left trying to escape, that for the past two nights, my nightmares have been of Hiro's scream. She is the reason for all of it, and I killed her, and I know that the nightmares, at least, are nowhere close to an end.

Tonight, my dreams are different. Once again, I am locked in the North Korean prison, and Hiro is screaming while Jeong stands to the side, asking questions I know I can't answer. But this time, when Jeong turns to look at me, her face morphs into Karmi's, and the scene around her fades into the streets of a destroyed city. I step forward to shake her hand, and my traitorous fingers raise a gun and aim it at her chest, and before she can do anything, I close my eyes and squeeze the trigger.

And it is only when I open them that I see Karmi standing too far away, watching me with a shocked expression, and I realize that the body on the ground with the poison dart in his chest is Hiro's.

I gasp as my eyes fly open and I shoot up from my spot in the hollow, terror rushing through my sweat-soaked frame. My heart is pounding, my throat constricted to the point I can barely breathe. Everything seems real until my vision clears and I see Hiro's peaceful, sleeping form through the darkness.

I quietly stand up, figuring a late-night walk will help me clear my head. I climb up a tree on the outskirts of camp and look over the woods, letting the moonlight and fresh night air calm my mind.

The crack of a twig comes from below and I panic for a moment, but nothing is there.

I nearly fall out of the tree when I turn my head and Hiro's face appears out of the darkness.

"Hiro!" I shriek, catching myself on a branch. "Don't do that!"

Hiro grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry."

I sigh and sit down in the curve where the branch meets the tree trunk. Hiro holds onto the branch above him, standing next to me.

"Can I join you?" he asks.

I look up at his hand, fingers curled around the branch. "Aren't you coordinated."

Hiro smiles. "Was that a yes?"

I scoot closer to the trunk. "Why not. As long as you've recovered from your faint and won't immediately fall out of the tree."

He lets go of the branch and almost immediately falls on top of me. I yelp and quickly feel my cheeks get hot as I realize that his face is only inches from mine.

"What did I just tell you?" I grumble, but I can't keep the laugh out of my tone.

"Sorry," Hiro mumbles, a blush evident against his pale skin. He pushes himself off me, an embarrassed smile that makes my heart beat faster spreading across his face.

Hiro settles himself on the branch next to me, his shoulder pressing against mine. I try not to let my expression show the apprehension his touch gives me.

"How are you?" Hiro asks softly.

I shrug. "I've been better."

He sighs, turning his face toward the darkened sky. "So have I."

Hiro's fingers drift toward his collarbone, the spot the transdermal patch was place during the interrogation. Heart pounding, I gently squeeze his hand, praying he doesn't pull away. He doesn't.

"So," Hiro says softly after a few minutes, intertwining his fingers with mine. "How do you feel after the…the summit?"

I look up through the trees, at the stars between them. The storm has abated somewhat, so I can see the tiny pinpricks of light, but they still look dimmer than I've ever seen them.

"I killed her." Tears sting at my eyes, and I desperately will them not to fall. "I killed Karmi. I wanted to kill her. I wasn't even saving someone, I just did it because I wanted to, and that scares me." My voice catches. "I'm a monster, Hiro. I'm turning into a monster."

Hiro reaches out and brushes his thumb across my cheek, catching the tears I didn't know were falling. He gently cups my jaw in one hand, turning my face toward him.

"Meg," Hiro whispers, "You're not a monster. You didn't kill her for no reason, and everyone is better off now that she's gone. You saved a lot of people, Meg. You're the furthest thing from a monster that I can think of."

He pauses a moment, then breathes, "And I could never love a monster the way I love you."

I stare at Hiro, at his wide, brown, impossibly sincere eyes, at the fading bruises on his face, at the beautiful blushing boy in the moonlight who just told me for the second time that he loves me.

And I break down in tears, Hiro wrapping his arms around me as I do. I still can barely see the stars, and this war is far from over, and what we have is even farther away from perfect.

But for now, it's all we've got.

So it'll have to be enough.

—HIRO—

The next morning, I wake up in at least an inch of water. Rain is still falling steadily from the sky, and the hollow is filling up pretty quickly.

I sit up, rubbing my eyes and then putting my helmet and gauntlets on. Everyone else is getting up around me, grumbling at the clouds for pouring rain into our camp.

"You guys ready to fly to Basemax?" Megan asks cheerily, none of the sadness she showed last night visible on her face. "We've gotta pack up and head over, it's like eleven a.m."

I drag myself out of the water-filled stone bowl and gather up my printer and graphene processor. Meg enlists Tadashi and Professor Callaghan to carry the pieces of Silent Sparrow, and I place the processor inside of the printer so I don't have to carry as much.

The rain pours down even harder as we take off, and I look down for one last look at the outcrop before we rise above the trees. It wasn't much, but it was a kind of home. Still, at least we can sleep indoors now, so I'm not complaining.

We fly over the woods and cross the bridge, then veer left toward Basemax. But as we pass over the city, it becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong.

I hear a faint explosion, then a louder one. Looking down, I think for a moment that the ground is moving, but then I realize that soldiers in olive-green fatigues are pouring down the street.

San Fransokyo is under siege. Again.

"Meg!" I call, hoping she can hear me over the pouring rain. "I think North Korea's attacking!"

"What—oh my gosh!" Meg yelps, looking down at the city. "Uh—nobody panic—get the stuff to Basemax and then get out there! We've gotta help—Vortex doesn't have any armor!"

We touch down at Basemax, and I run the printer inside, flinging it down on the table and then darting back out onto the street. Taking off, I scan the fighting for the members of Vortex, knowing they need our help. The American military will be fine—they're trained for this—but Vortex is at a huge disadvantage.

Megan suddenly dives down into the fray, and I realize she's spotted her dad. Granville, GoGo, and Abigail fight beside him, and they are quickly losing.

I swoop down beside Meg and send sonic waves at multiple North Koreans, trying to fling them away from Vortex as gently as I can. Then I lock disks onto the rifles of the soldiers that remain, sending their weapons spinning into oblivion.

The rest of Echo speeds to the ground around us, firing their weapons at North Korea. Tadashi stuns several soldiers at once with a well-placed shot, and I give my brother a thumbs-up. He shoots me a wide smile and fires a second bolt into the enemy's midst. Krei and Liv fight back-to-back, him shooting lasers, her shooting paralysis compounds.

"I didn't know you could fight like this!" Liv shouts to Krei.

"I didn't know I could either!" Krei replies, flashing a smile. "Never fear, Vortex! I'm—we're here to save you!"

I stifle a laugh and fire more sonic waves down at the North Koreans, blasting them away. Then, suddenly, I catch sight of a massive figure several hundred feet away on a pile of rubble, heading toward us. On its shoulders sits a much smaller figure, holding a rifle.

Baymax. And Jeong.

"You guys!" I whisper-shout into my comm link. "Jeong's over there!"

"Let's go get her," Meg says immediately. "Grab Vortex, you guys! We're going for Jeong!"

Tadashi swoops down and grabs Chief Cruz under the arms, and Callaghan does the same to Abigail. Wasabi is left to scoop up Granville—he does it very carefully. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to mind. GoGo absolutely refuses to be carried and instead runs as fast as she can behind us, keeping up surprisingly well given that we have wings and she doesn't.

Several North Koreans fire on us, but we're able to dodge fairly well. As we fly through the air, though, I hear a bullet pass alarmingly close to me, and I gasp as it slices through my sleeve, grazing my skin.

Warm blood immediately starts to drip down my arm, but I don't think it's a serious wound—only a graze. Nevertheless, I fly a little higher, still trying to avoid the shots of the North Koreans.

The rain starts to pour down harder, and I hear Krei gasp as his Buddy Guards suddenly become visible.

"Intern!" he gasps desperately. "How do I make them go invisible again?"

"I don't know!" I call back. "You invented them!"

The robots start to flicker, and one crackles with electricity. They're short-circuiting—I really should've made those waterproof after everything that's happened with them.

"You might just have to use your lasers!" I yell over to Krei. "The Buddy Guards are useless in the rain!"

Krei fires a laser blast down into the North Koreans, several of whom yelp and leap out of the way. Liv follows him with a well-placed dart, which flies straight into the chest of an officer I recognize—Hyun. He collapses, unconscious, and takes several of his buddies down with him. Honey flings chem balls at the fallen soldiers, enclosing them in bright pink bubbles.

"Nice work, you guys!" Meg shouts. "We're almost to Jeong!"

But as we draw near, Jeong sees us. Her eyes widen and she whips off her patrol cap, letting her long dark hair fly wild in the wind. I see a flash of silver and instinctively raise my gauntlet, ready to yank her rifle out of her hands, but that's not what the glint is.

Jeong places something on her head, and suddenly, the ruins begin to move, a wave of darkness rising up to meet us.

Oh my gosh.

Jeong has a neural transmitter.

And one heck of a lot of microbots.

The mass of carbon fiber shoots toward us, splitting into tendrils. I yelp and dodge the one that shoots at me, struggling to see through the rain. One could come whipping out from the side at any time and I wouldn't know until it was five feet away.

"Get the transmitter!" Wasabi yells. "It's just like last time—if we take it off, the microbots can't do anything!"

The microbots immediately grab him around the chest, and Wasabi lets out a shriek, dropping Granville. I wince as my professor hits the rubble, not letting out any sound of pain or fear but probably having cause to.

I try to knock Jeong and Baymax over with my sonic waves, but Jeong blocks them easily, as well as my magnet disks when I try to attach them to the transmitter. Meg is having the same problem.

Callaghan activates his own transmitter, and his microbots rise up behind him. But I didn't make nearly enough—he's no match for Jeong. Callaghan manages to make a shield for Abigail and Granville, hiding the two women underneath a shell of microbots. I'm gonna have to make them some armor as soon as we get back to Basemax so they can fight.

I dodge another tendril of microbots as it comes slicing through the rainy air and just barely misses me. Flying a few feet higher, I squint through the rain at Baymax, who now seems to be helping Jeong fire the microbots at us.

"Hiro, look out!" Tadashi screams, and I look up too late.

What almost looks like a fist made of microbots comes whipping up to meet me, and I can't get out of the way in time. The microbots slam into my side, barely missing crushing my wing, and I yelp as they throw me to the ruins with a crash.

Thankfully, I manage to retract my wings before I hit the rubble, avoiding snapping them, but that doesn't lessen the impact. I curl into a ball, gasping at the pain in my ribs where the microbots hit.

Fred crashes to the ruins beside me and lays there motionless, his wings cracking into broken shards. Wasabi soon follows, plunging deep into the rubble. No one else falls from the sky, but a spear of microbots strikes Liv in the face, knocking her sideways into Krei, whose laser shoots out to the side and hits Tadashi. I wince at this sequence of events—we're losing badly.

I stand up shakily, one arm wrapped around my rib cage—I don't think anything's broken, but I definitely have at least one bruised rib—and flick my wings out again. Next to me, Fred and Wasabi are slowly getting to their feet, both looking rather dazed but not badly hurt.

Firing up my thrusters, I soar back into the air, aiming my sonic waves at Jeong's transmitter again. Another wave of microbots intercepts them and then comes to try and knock me out of the sky again. Meg swoops in front of me and fires out several of her own waves, keeping the microbots at bay. Momokase slices several tendrils in half with her blades, and Tadashi causes them to short-circuit. It's a good offense, but we're still not winning. How could things get any worse?

The answer comes in the form of a tower of microbots. Everyone, even Jeong, looks up, and my eyes widen as I make out the man standing at the top of the tower, also wearing a neural transmitter.

"Big Hero 6," he says softly, somehow speaking through the comm link. "Welcome."

"Obake!" Honey gasps, clapping a hand to her mouth. "Oh no—he's helping Jeong—"

"Hey!" Chief Cruz yells up to Obake. "You're supposed to be dead!"

Obake sighs. "Foolish chief. The police must stop assuming that no body being found indicates death. No, of course I am not dead. I'm here, aren't I?"

He fires a spear of microbots down at Chief Cruz, who immediately shoots a graphene bullet out of his gauntlet at them. The microbots fly off in all directions as the bullet's fins expand and spin, shredding the spear to pieces.

After that, the battle becomes a blur. Microbots are shooting out everywhere, knocking people out of the sky left and right. I try desperately to knock the neural transmitters off the heads of their owners, but every time, I'm nearly killed by the microbots. One particularly sharp tendril punches a hole in my wing—a small one, but if many more hit me, I won't be able to fly anymore.

I hear a yell from my left, and I look over to see Callaghan gripped by hundreds of chains of microbots, which are slowly squeezing the professor. Jeong is clenching her hand in a fist, obviously controlling them. Callaghan tries to loosen her grip with his own microbots, but nothing seems to be working.

Suddenly, I see a bright flash of yellow as GoGo's disk flies through the air, heading straight for Jeong. The disk slams into the chasu's head, breaking her transmitter and knocking her off Baymax, and GoGo lunges, pinning Jeong to the ground.

"Do it!" Momokase yells as she engages in battle with a horde of microbots. "Kill her, GoGo! End this war now, before there are any more casualties!"

But GoGo's eyes are wide and tormented as she stands there, one foot on Jeong's chest, raising a disk in the air. Slowly, the hand holding the disk drops to her side.

Then GoGo does the last thing I would ever expect.

She reaches down and offers Jeong her hand. The chasu takes it, and GoGo pulls her up—then embraces her. Jeong returns the hug, burying her face in GoGo's shoulder.

I stare as Obake descends from his tower of microbots, stopping beside the women and whispering something I can't hear. The microbots stop attacking, and the rain pounds steadily down as everyone flies down to land on the rubble, watching this interaction.

Then I get what is quite possibly the biggest surprise of my life, surpassing Honey's pregnancy announcement, Karmi's death, and the fact that the fire wasn't an accident.

Obake, Jeong, and GoGo turn to face us, GoGo pulling off her helmet, and the left sides of all three of their faces glow purple.

"You're—you're—" Tadashi sputters, sounding like he can't get enough air. "You guys are related?!"

At first I don't know what he's getting at, but then I see it—all three of them have dark, narrow, stormy gray eyes, the color of the clouds above us. And all of them are, quite obviously, Korean. North Korean—which means Obake and GoGo must have escaped somehow and come here.

"We are," Obake tells him. "You're certainly perceptive to notice."

"GoGo…you've been working with them this entire time?" Fred asks, his eyes wide and betrayed.

"Of course," she replies, her arms crossed. "Rinah is my twin, and Riku—Obake—is our brother. Why wouldn't I help them?"

"Why?" I breathe, wincing as my side twinges. "Why do you guys want to destroy America?"

"I suppose you'll want the whole story," Jeong sighs. "Let us implement a temporary truce while we tell it, and perhaps, at the end, you will be somewhat more willing to give us what we want."

She closes her eyes and begins.