AN-Phew, this one turned out longer than I anticipated- and took longer, thanks for the patience!

(Also I don't know if I even need to say it at this point but brace for some intensity)

Songs that inspired this chapter:
- Rose Vine, by Graveyard Club
- Care, by Bry
- Solo, by Bayonne
- Jason, by The Midnight + Nikki Flores
- Sisters, by The Halluci Nation + Northern Voice
- Be Afraid, by So Much Light
- money, by flor
- Killer Shangri-Lah, by Pshycotic Beats + Pati Amor

"Go!"

With a mighty swing of his arm, Meowth lobbed the pinecone high into the bright blue sky. It made a big arc down the path, and landed splat in a puddle. Wobbuffet raced after it, squealing happily and not at all put off by the thick layer of mud gathering on his feet.

"Ugh, now you've got him all messy!" Jessie groaned, but it was through a smile. It was hard to find fault with the pure glee on Wobbuffet's face as he picked up the pinecone in both arms, as carefully as if it were an egg ready to hatch, and then sprinted back to Meowth so the game could begin again.

After they'd finished packing, Jessie had relayed to the others what Cassidy had told her: that their best bet for staying out of sight was travelling to port on foot, and if they made a stop in Fuschia on the way, Cassidy had a contact who could get them quality fake passports. No one wanted to say it out loud for fear of jinxing it, but a light had appeared at the end of the tunnel. Getting out of Kanto alive no longer seemed like a fantasy, but a thing they were on their way to doing. Hope fizzled in the air, despite everything.

Remembering James' repeated complaints that only Tauros made for a good pack animal, Mondo released Ditto, muttering the order for it to transform.

And just like that, they had a second tauros, identical to the other if not for its eyes, which always remained black dots no matter what shape it took. Mondo stroked its newly-formed mane, soft and rough at the same time.

"Would you carry our bags for a while?" Mondo gently asked. It nuzzled its neck into his hand and blinked in affirmation.

"Oh praise be," James gasped, probably exaggerating how tired he was as he let loose the straps that held the tent to his back. "My spine simply can't take that kind of treatment! I'm really not as young as I used to be," he lamented.

"Lost ya spine but not ya whine, eh Jim?" Meowth teased.

"Rather," James grumbled.

Jessie lent a hand as Mondo arranged the heaviest bags on Ditto's back. They didn't have a second saddle, so had to make do with what rope they had.

"Good thinking there," Jessie said as she tied a knot, so quiet Mondo almost missed it. It was the first thing she'd said directly to him since convincing him to stay, and it was followed by a silence that neither of them knew what to do with.

Wobbuffet came to a quick halt, and held the pinecone up to Mondo.

"Wobba," he said, solemn.

Mondo took the pinecone unsurely. He'd barely said a word since promising Jessie he wouldn't leave, the sun and wind and friends around him not enough to wash away his shame. But there was something about the purity of Wobbuffet's request that took Mondo out of the identity of traitor, and into the identity of someone who was trusted with the pinecone.

"Go on," Meowth encouraged. "Really huck it!"

So Mondo drew back his arm and gave it all the welly he had; the pinecone soared, and off ran Wobbuffet, his arms trailing at his sides.

Mondo couldn't help but smile. A moment of joy, for all his woes.

The group came to a field, which they were about to cross when both Mondo's tauruses began to bray, stamping their hooves energetically. "Easy!" Mondo soothed them. "What's up, huh?"

A rumble started to shake the earth, and before they could wonder what was making it, a herd of at least thirty tauros came streaking into view, a river of hooves and horns. It would have been a terrible thing to get caught in their path, for a charging tauros stops for nothing and no one, but from the safe distance at which the group stood, it was a majestic sight.

"Whoa," Jessie gasped. Mondo glanced at her, the sheer awe on her face. Then he quickly looked away.

Of course it was still awkward. It hadn't even been a day since Mondo had given up Cassidy's name- you didn't just forget something like that in a few hours, nor forgive it. There was still that hovering tension that he wished he hadn't created, and the fear that it would never truly fade.

But there was a love underneath all of that, holding him together, keeping his promise not to run. It poured through every dark thought like sunlight through silk.

They were alive.

Not many agents in Team Rocket wanted a job in security. The starting pay wasn't much more than that of a field agent, which most people considered a far more romantic job, and given how commonplace it was for a security officer to be injured or killed, the turnover rate was pretty high.

So when it came to picking a squad that Ravi had faith in, it was pretty slim pickings. Of the officers they had graduated with, only a couple had avoided both promotion and death, and therefore still worked in the department.

There was Alp, a military school flunkout who'd decided Team Rocket was the next best way to getting his hands on a gun. A brute on the surface, but when you got to know him, he was surprisingly shy, especially in one-on-one conversations, where he often mumbled his way to awkward silences. All in all Ravi trusted him, at least to have their back and shoot where they pointed.

Then there was Beckerson. Put plainly, Ravi was amazed she'd lasted this long. She'd never quite managed to live down the legend of Carter pouring coffee on her face after she fainted on the track. People still mockingly offered her coffees, though she never realised she was being insulted, and seemed to think she was much more popular than she really was. Ravi usually assigned her to low-skill, high-risk jobs, and, to Beckerson's credit, she'd done a remarkable job of not getting killed. A couple of years ago she'd been caught in a Hyper Beam, and woken up in the med bay to find not only that she'd lost her right arm, but also that the boffins in the science department had replaced it with a bionic one.*

*(In the small print of the sign-up contract was a paragraph that said in the event of injury, Team Rocket had permission to experiment on you, as long as there was technically a chance of it making you better. Beckerson, like most of Team Rocket's recruits, hadn't bothered to read that part before printing her name on the dotted line.)

An armful of metal had taken a while to get used to, but if nothing else could be said about the woman she could throw a fierce punch, strong enough to break most walls. And if you wanted to be rude about it- which Ravi did- Beckerson was too stupid to be disobedient, which was always a plus.

Those two would handle the brawn, but there was still something to be desired when it came to the brains department. Ravi's expertise lay in combat and strategy, and they wouldn't claim to be the best when it came to stuff like knowing which wire to cut to disable an alarm, or similar things they considered to be for nerds. Problem was, nerds would generally do anything to avoid being put on the front line, most of them in the labs or hacking remotely. You hardly ever saw one in a security uniform, Mondo had been a true exception to that-

They froze in the middle of that thought.

Every room felt empty without him.

"Stop it," they murmured to themself with a rough shake of their head. Then they put a hand to their neck, relishing the freedom of movement the potion had returned to them.

They were strong by themself.

Right. Nerds.

Ravi ran through the possibilities in their head. They could probably get Casimir to tag along if they threw enough money at him, but how useful he'd actually be was another question- he mainly worked with numbers and chemicals and shit, breaking and entering not so much. Plus when Ravi tried to imagine him sneaking all they could picture was him doing a campy exaggerated tip-toe.

That ruled him out as far as they were concerned.

The next obvious port of call was the techie crew, the one Ravi was often in contact with over their earpiece when they wanted an address, or someone's phone tracked. Ravi admittedly hadn't taken the time to learn most of their names, but there was one guy who answered every call with "Curly speaking," who'd always struck them as particularly competent at handling crises. A skim-read of his file showed a very impressive mission success ratio.

Wasting no time, they went to the building he worked in.

It was a pretty bleak work environment to step into. The computers looked solid, modern builds with multiple monitors, but you could see the budget cuts in the fraying carpet and faded posters that had probably spent more years on the Earth than Ravi had.

"Curly here?" they asked, raising their voice since just about everyone in the room was wearing headphones. The agents finally noticed there was a commander present; there were a few hurried salutes that Ravi ignored.

A man in the corner nervously raised his hand. "Here," he said softly.

Ravi studied him as he shrunk back in his chair. Young-ish, probably late thirties, early forties. They'd always supposed his name was based on his hair, but if he had any it was hidden under a green snapback.

They sat down in the desk chair next to him, crossing their legs and trying not to look scary. "You ain't in trouble, first off," they smiled.

"Oh." He looked slightly less nervous. "Good."

"We've talked before, dunno if you remember-"

"You're Commander Ravi," Curly said. Finally the smile Ravi had been trying to coax from him emerged on his lips, and he stuck his hand out for them to shake: "Wow," he gushed, "what an honour, Commander-"

"Ravi's fine," Ravi said.

"Ravi." He smirked like he was saying a swear word. "Um, well, what can I do you for, Ravi?"

"I've got a job needs doing," they replied. "But it's on the ground is the thing."

Curly hissed in a breath, grimacing. "Oof, I don't know, that's…"

"I'd get one of my men to do it but I need a n- someone who knows how to do a power cut," Ravi quickly corrected themself. "It'd be in and out- whaddaya say?" They could tell he was still unsure, so elbowed him gently: "C'mon, you'll make more cash on it than you make in a month here- and I'll put a fat gold star in your file, yeah? Go onnnn, you'll be a legend!"

Curly thought about it. "It's not too dangerous, is it?" he asked.

"Nahhh," Ravi lied. "So that's a yeah, right?"

"Well, if that's really all I need to do, then I guess-"

"Great," Ravi cut him off, jumping back to their feet. "Then get your arse in gear."

Ten minutes later, the squad of four were gathered in one of the spare meeting rooms. Beckerson had brought donuts- another thing she was good at- and between Alp and Ravi, they were being polished off fast.

"Okay," Ravi said, licking the sugar from their fingertips. Their posture straightened up as they went into professional mode. "The ultimate target is Cassidy Yamato," they began, walking around the table to give everyone a printout of her file.

Curly gave an audible gasp. "The traitor who killed Boss Carter?!" He held his hands up, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but this is too much for me."

"Yamato's not our mark for this mission," Ravi continued, already bored. That was by far the worst part of working with other people- having to catch them up. "Our mark tonight is called Dick Dempsey-"

Beckerson snorted.

"-goes by Derby," Ravi continued, ignoring her. "An informant said Yamato was at his horse racing business last night. Mission is to corner him when he's at home, find out what he knows." They clucked their tongue. "Apparently he runs some assassin ring, so we can assume he'll have some proper security."

"How many guards?" asked Alp, his lips sticky with jam.

Ravi raised their eyebrows. "Not sure," they admitted. "We got an address and an outside blueprint, but that's about it. On the graveyard shift, one or two human guards max, probably. Plus pokemon. So- phase one, me and Curly sneak onto the property and cut the power."

"Um-" Curly started.

"Relax," Ravi assured him, "I'll cut you a clear path. All you have to do is stick with me and tell me what needs destroying, yeah?"

"Yeah," Curly said waveringly.

Ravi nodded. "Cool. Phase two- Alp and Beckerson come in and take out the remaining guards- nothing too loud guys, don't want Derby waking up if we can help it. And nothing lethal unless you really have to, I don't need that mess." They stretched over the table to grab the last donut before Alp could think about it. "Phase three," they continued, stuffing their mouth so the rest of their sentence was muffled with dough, "I get Derby on his own, job done."

"Pardon me, Commander," said Curly, "but surely there must be more to it than that-"

"We'll figure out the rest on the way," Ravi dismissed. They gulped down the last of the donut and smacked their lips, standing up. "Let's go. Got a long drive to iron out the details."

They drove through evening and dusk and finally to night, where the cities sparkled neon. Ravi made a quick stop at a drive-thru for burgers and fries, a pre-mission morale boost that they'd always found highly effective, and then it was up the wiggling road of nicer and nicer houses to the gated residence where Derby lived, up on the flat of the hill.

Gated really meant gated these days. Surrounding the square of land were tall, mean bars, painted gold so as to at least look expensive, with sharp pointed tips meant to ward off any bird pokemon from landing, or trespassers climbing over. Ravi kept a sensible speed as they drove past, not wanting to attract the attention of any guards on the night shift, or nosey residents who took their Neighbourhood Watch duties a little too seriously. A combat truck zooming along at 3am was something of a tipoff; they parked it out of sight, in an unlit community car lot around the corner. One last run through of the plan, and they ordered everyone out.

Ravi geared themself up with a pair of night vision goggles, a dart gun at their belt and a rifle slung across their back. They insisted Curly take a dart gun, though he was very reluctant- they convinced him by pointing out it was more for his safety than anything.

Ravi led Curly across the road, having told Beckerson and Alp to wait at least ten minutes before they followed. A staggered approach tended to be the best way, but undeniably it always felt a little intimidating to be the first group to go, especially in a squad as small as this one. Ravi had gotten used to the feeling, could even enjoy it as excitement if they were in the right frame of mind, but Curly was quickly losing what little cool he'd had to begin with, looking left and right over and over again down the quiet, empty streets.

"Chill," Ravi muttered from the corner of their mouth. "We haven't even done anything yet."

"What if we get shot?" Curly whispered back.

"You've got the bullet jacket under your shirt, ain't you?"

"Yes, but what if we get shot in the head?"

Ravi didn't have a good answer for that, so they put a finger to their lips instead, and steered the way around the side of the gate. Curly looked dismayed, not sure why he'd ever agreed to this now that the danger was actually approaching, but followed Ravi, deciding his best bet was sticking close to the guy with the gun.

The two came to a stop at Ravi's signal. Curly was holding the blueprint of the grounds like a map: "Cameras?" he mouthed.

Ravi shook their head. "Not here," they mouthed back, and went for one of three pokeballs on their belt.

Out came an impressively large sandslash, which immediately started sniffing at Ravi's ankles. Ravi gave it a hurried pat on the head and pointed at the ground.

"Dig, Needles," they whispered.

Needles stopped snuffling and scooped its claws into the earth, carving out a hole with incredible efficiency. Soon it had burrowed down, out of sight until its head popped out from a mound on the other side of the gate.

Ravi knelt at the hole, and shifted onto their belly so they could crawl through. It was dark, and bits of dirt kept crumbling onto them, but before too long they were out the other side. Brushing off their uniform, they beckoned Curly to follow their lead. He hesitated a moment longer than Ravi would have liked, but he eventually bit the bullet and wriggled through the tunnel too.

Returning Needles to its pokeball, Ravi surveyed the property as Curly struggled to pull himself up through the tunnel's exit.

It was one thing to look at the place on a map, but a different thing to experience it in person. The house- more of a mini mansion, really- was an ugly example of modern architecture, a soulless arrangement of white blocks with huge windows. Off to the left was a kidney-shaped pool, lit up with pink LEDs. The lawn as immaculate and sterile as a golf course, bordered by well-kept hedges that must have been a hired gardener's work. A garage big enough for multiple cars.

The whole place screamed "look at how much money I have". Ravi smiled. They so much preferred it when the marks were rich.

They gave Curly a hand up, and the two of them scuttled for cover behind the nearest hedge.

"So where's the fuse box?" Ravi hissed.

"I don't know," Curly answered, glancing around at every rustle, poised to run at a moment's notice. "Somewhere on the walls, there should be a box- what about the guards?!"

"Haven't seen any yet," Ravi murmured. Ironically, it was right then that the swoop of a flashlight's beam came down the steps from the house; Ravi and Curly stiffened, and kept tight to their hiding spot as a heavy set of footsteps came into earshot. Curly's eyes went as wide as a magikarp's as he looked at Ravi, and then back behind him, as if asking to run. Ravi shook their head firmly, then, very slowly, peeked around the hedge.

A very well-built man dressed in navy walked lazily down the stone path. Once he'd cleared the steps he put his flashlight back on his belt, and took a flask out of his inner pocket. He knocked back a quick swig and put the flask back before continuing on his way- past the hedge, oblivious to the Rockets stowed behind it.

Ravi already had their dart gun in hand. Carefully, they crept to the side of the hedge to line up a shot, and promptly fired a dart into the guard's upper back.

The guard stopped mid-stride and spun around, one hand going for his gun and the other reaching behind him to paw at the sudden sting. By the time his fingers closed around the plastic tail of the dart, he was already wobbling to keep his balance, and two seconds later he was a heap on the ground.

Ravi waited a little longer to make sure he was really unconscious, then kept moving, around the side of the house to the back. Breathing heavily, Curly followed, and pointed at a black square of metal fixed to the middle of the wall.

"There!" he hissed excitedly.

No one else was in eyesight, so Ravi went while the going was good and jogged to the box.

Its doors were stuck together with a thick combination lock, which only made Ravi more sure that Curly was right- it had to be the panel they were looking for. They took one of the vials hanging from their belt: a pale yellow acid sloshed inside. Ravi uncorked the tube with their teeth, and poured about a quarter of it onto the ring of the lock.

The surface of the steel started to bubble like hot cheese out of an oven. The metal link began to droop, until it simply melted open, thick drops sizzling onto the earth below.

Ravi yanked the doors open, and was met with so many buttons and levers that their eyes didn't know where to look. Frowning with distaste, they looked back to Curly, stepping aside expectantly.

Curly's shoulders were tight with tension, but he seemed to be getting into the swing of the mission now that the first few hurdles had been cleared, and didn't hesitate before getting to work. Ravi covered his back as he took out a dim flashlight so he could see what he was doing. His finger traced a few switches before he pressed one with a click-

-and darkness burst around them as every light on the property blinked off.

The flashlight didn't look so dim now that it was the brightest thing around, and Ravi saw Curly cringe as he fumbled to turn it off.

Now it was really dark. There was just enough light from the neighbouring street lamps to see the silvery outline of everything, but the details were lost to obscurity.

"Alarm's off?" Ravi whispered.

Curly nodded. The glimmer of his eyes was all Ravi could really make out.

They both waited, listening.

The power cut was Alp and Beckerson's cue to breach the gate on the other side- noisily enough to lead any remaining guards their way. As soon as the lights shut off, Beckerson pulled back her bionic arm, and with the help of a little spring-loaded technology, launched a punch hard enough to bend a gap in the metal bars. It was a big enough space for her to fit through, but she had to punch out a bit more room so Alp could follow.

All that clanging was more than enough noise to get the attention of the guards, who appeared in a pair on the lawn. One of them was instantly taken out by one of Alp's darts, and Beckerson rushed the other as he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, just as she tackled him to the grass.

A quick clonk on the head from her metal fist put him out cold. Quite pleased with herself, she turned to grin at Alp- but he wasn't smiling at all.

Because behind her, what the guard had whistled for was fast approaching.

From up on the balcony, Ravi had quite the view of the scene. They'd put on their night vision goggles, then taken out Bob- their drifblim- to float them up over the railing, where they had landed as silent as a ghost.

The same could not be said for Beckerson, who Ravi watched tackle and knock out the guard. But they'd also heard the whistle that had come before, and before the goosebumps could even settle on their skin, new ones prickled at the three pairs of yellow eyes that emerged from around the building.

Ravi knew that terrible glow anywhere.

Urgently, they leaned over the railing and gestured frantically to Curly. He'd opted to stay in his hiding place behind the wall rather than risk a shootout with Derby in the house, but had ironically put himself in much more danger by staying where he was. His baffled frowns made it clear he didn't understand a word of Ravi's hand signals; Ravi bit the bullet and pressed the button on their earpiece.

"Luxray!" they exclaimed through grit teeth. "It can see you!"

Two of the luxray had gone straight for Alp and Beckerson, growling low, but the third had been distracted by something in Curly's direction. In fact, it had been distracted by Curly himself, who it could see quite clearly through the wall. Those gleaming yellow eyes saw through brick and plaster just as well as they saw through the dark.

There was well and truly no use in hiding.

Curly staggered backwards, readying the dart gun; he fired off a few shots around the corner, but the luxray dodged all of them as it skittered down the steps.

Ravi automatically threw down Needles' pokeball: "You've got Dig and Sand Tomb," they told Curly through the earpiece, only bothering to list its Ground-type moves.

"Wait-" came Curly's voice back, but then the luxray was upon him, and he had no choice but to battle.

Well, it was every person for themself at this point. Ravi certainly wasn't sticking around to lend any more favours.

They released their second sandslash, who looked completely unperturbed by the violence below.

"Cover me Pins," Ravi murmured to it, then looked up to Bob. "You cover the roof."

So here it was: their final breath before going in. But they knew, as they crept towards the balcony doors with their silenced pistol in hand, that they were by far the scariest thing the dark had to offer.

Derby woke up in the pitch black of his room, his eyes wide open. He wasn't sure what it was that had pulled him out of his sleep, only that his heart was beating fast, and he had the overwhelming sense that something wasn't right at all.

His hand went for the light switch on the wall next to him, only to find flicking it did nothing.

His feeling of dread doubled.

He knew his way well enough around his bedroom to navigate it in the dark, and after collecting his pistol from his bedside drawer, moved slowly to the window. He peeled back the thin curtain inch by inch, and balked as he revealed the scene outside.

He'd had his walls soundproofed, so hadn't heard a thing, but now he saw that his suspicions weren't for nothing: as his eyes adjusted to what little light there was he saw intruders on his property, messing up his guard dogs, digging up his lawn…

Indignation kicked into gear. Oh no, he wouldn't stand for this, no way no how. That blonde bitch might have shown him up in his office yesterday, but lightning didn't strike twice. Whoever the hell had come for him, he was going to exercise his every right to put bullets in all their heads, because that was what you got when you messed with-

A soft beep behind him made him jolt halfway out of his skin. He knew for a fact there was nothing in his house that made that tone. He turned, aiming his gun towards his door, where the noise had come from: beep beep BOOP-

The door and a big chunk of wall around it exploded inwards in a firework of dust and debris. Derby fell back as a piece of the door hit him in the chest, and countless other splinters showered him, piercing his skin all over. He landed on his back, coughing and struggling to sit up straight as somebody walked towards him.

He fired off two shots without thinking, but his aim was all over the place and neither bullet found its mark before Ravi levelled their rifle with his shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

Derby didn't know where he was for a second, the pain was so blinding. He screamed, biting his tongue to stop himself halfway through the sound, and then whimpered as he felt the hot river of blood pumping down his arm. He shakily tried to regain his grip on the pistol, but already his fingers felt cold, weak, and before he could get one back around the trigger, Ravi kicked the gun out of his hand.

"No," he groaned in misery, clawing uselessly after it. Realising how much blood he was losing, he used his unshot arm to bunch up the sleeve of his dressing gown around the bullet wound, wincing as he pressed down. "Who are you," he panted. Desperation was setting into his tone. He didn't like this, not one bit. "What do you want."

"Cassidy Yamato," Ravi answered, towering over him as he huddled against the wall. "She came to see you last night."

Derby's jaw dropped. "Y-You're…?"

"Yeah," Ravi snarled. "I am. And actually Dicky, I got reason to think we'd better kill you." They leaned in closer, watching for his reaction. "Did you kill Giovanni? There any truth to that rumour?"

"N-No!" Derby gasped. "I can assure you, I got nothin' but respect for Team Rocket! On my life, I would never start that kinda war with y'all!" But there was something unconvincing about the way he said it. Like he was trying way too hard, even given the gun in his face. "You want the girl?" he went on, nodding. "You keep me alive and I'll tell you-"

"You tell me and I'll keep you alive," Ravi spat, jostling the rifle. "How's that?"

Derby flinched: "All right fine," he breathed. "J-Just. Please. Don't."

"Where did she go?"

"I sent her 'round- 'round a deserted island, near Navel," Derby recalled with effort. "Godddddamn," he hissed in pain.

"Why? What's she looking for?"

"Same thing 's you," Derby blurted. "For who put the hit on Giovanni."

He never saw it, but Ravi smiled.

"And tell me," they said, savouring the words, "why you would know such a thing, if you weren't in on it?"

Derby went even paler as he realised what he'd essentially just admitted. He'd steadily been losing blood despite trying to keep pressure on the wound, and the lighter his head got, the less he considered the words out of his mouth. It was hard to keep track of what they were talking about, but even so he knew he'd fucked up massively.

"No," was all he could think to say, and then Ravi shot him in the head.

It looked weird in night vision. The blood was more green than red.

Ravi took off their goggles, then took their phone out of their pocket and opened the camera. The flash lit up the whole room as they took a picture of Derby's corpse.

Matori always asked for proof.

Ravi stood there for a few seconds, not sure what they were waiting for.

There was a silence swirling around the room, a void.

They knew better than to stare.

All the fighting was done when Ravi regrouped with the others. The luxray all lay knocked out, and Curly didn't seem to have a scratch on him, though he looked to be in the middle of some sort of anxiety attack.

Alp carried Beckerson over as quickly as he could; her leg had a nasty bite, not deeper than flesh from the looks of it but still definitely a medical priority.

"Lay her down, quick," Ravi said. "Pass the med kit."

Curly kept fidgeting. There were sirens in the distance. "Shouldn't we get out of here first?!"

"We'll be fine," Ravi muttered, unzipping the med kit and taking out the roll of bandages. They turned up Beckerson's tattered trouser leg, then wound the bandage tight up and down the bite before tying it off hard enough to make Beckerson yelp a little.

"Thanks," she grinned weakly.

"Right, let's go," Ravi ordered. The sirens were getting louder, and they didn't have time to waste bailing anyone out of jail tonight.

As Alp scooped Beckerson back into his arms, Curly looked to the house.

"So we got what we came for?" he asked.

Ravi found their smile again. Victory shimmered on the horizon, a mirage coming true. "We did."