The massive brass gears of the Clock Tower groaned, a low, rhythmic dirge that seemed to vibrate through the very stones of the ruined mechanism room. The air, previously thick with dust and the sharp tang of ozone, had shifted. The cloying sweetness of the Rage Gas was gone, replaced by the heavy, damp scent of a summer storm and the musty comfort of being sat in front of a fire place.
Paul Strahm stood on the edge of the fractured platform, his gray coat tattered, his chest heaving. He looked up at the hole in the roof where the dragon had vanished, his eyes wide and frantic. He reached out with a trembling hand, miming a pair of binoculars, but his focus was shattered.
"What..." Paul whispered, his voice cracking. "What the hell is going on? Where is the anger? What's going on?"
He spun around, looking at the others. His masterpiece, the eternal scar of hate he promised to carve into Ostara, was evaporating into a thick, melancholy fog.
Corbin Monet was leaning against a bent support beam, clutching his bruised ribs. He wiped blood from his mouth, but instead of scowling, he let out a short, wet laugh.
"You look confused, clown," Corbin rasped.
"Shut up," Paul hissed, dropping his hands. "What did he do? What did the thief do to the boy?"
"Ruben figured it out," Corbin said, pushing himself upright. "He's always thinking. Always three steps ahead while you're still reading the instruction manual. He's good at figuring out powers."
Corbin grinned, his teeth stained red. "He probably figured out a different aspect to Oscar's power. Something your self-absorbed, narcissistic ass could never see because you were too busy treating the kid like a Duracell battery."
Paul grit his teeth. "I gave him purpose!"
"You gave him trauma," Corbin corrected. "Ruben gave him a way out."
Lea Lantern stumbled through the debris of the doorway, her silver armor dented, her face pale. She leaned against the frame, breathing hard, her eyes wet with the sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion that had washed over the city. She looked at Paul, then at Corbin, sensing the shift in the dynamic.
Paul looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
It doesn't matter, Paul thought, the nihilism creeping in to replace the rage. The drug. The dosage was lethal. The boy's heart is a hummingbird trapped in a vice. He will still die.
"He's dead anyway," Paul muttered, his voice hollow. "You can change the flavour of the gas, but you can't stop the chemistry. He'll overdose in the sky, and then the corpse falls."
"Unlikely," Bruno Fernando rumbled.
The tall and slender Paladin stepped forward, his rune-mask removed, revealing a face etched with a profound, weary sadness.
"If the boy is with Rayo, he will be retrieved," Bruno said with absolute conviction. "The second strike team is airborne. They have medics. He will be brought to emergency care before his heart gives out."
"And even if such misfortune happens," Rosette St. Jon added, stepping up beside Bruno. Her crimson eyes were no longer glowing with bloodlust; they were soft, reflective, mirroring the sorrow in the air. "Even if he dies... look around you, Strahm. Feel it."
She gestured to the open air.
"The rage is gone. What we are feeling now... this profound sadness mixed with an odd hope... this is what will set. If he dies now, he leaves behind a city in mourning, not a city in chaos. Your legacy of hate is dead."
Paul stared at her. The logic pierced him deeper than any spear. He had wanted to create a monument to the Nine Clans' anger. Instead, he had inadvertently created a memorial of their grief.
His legs gave out.
Paul stumbled, falling to his knees on the cold metal grating. He bowed his head, his shoulders slumping. He looked small. Defeated. A boy who had tried to burn the world and only managed to make it cry.
Bruno sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of his duty. He walked toward Paul, pulling a pair of heavy cuffs from his belt.
"It is over, Paul," Bruno said softly. "I will give you one more chance. Surrender. Face the justice of the city you tried to destroy."
Paul remained motionless for a second. The silence stretched, filled only by the ticking of the surviving gears.
Then, a sound bubbled up from his throat.
It started as a whimper, then warped into a giggle, and finally erupted into a jagged, manic laugh that echoed off the high ceiling. It wasn't the laugh of a victor. It was the laugh of a man who realized he had nothing left to lose because he had already lost himself.
"Surrender?" Paul choked out, looking up. His eyes were wet, wild, and utterly broken. "To you? To the butchers?"
He slowly stood up, wiping his face with his sleeve.
"If I can't make them kill each other..." Paul whispered, his voice rising to a scream. "Then I'll just have to finish it all myself!"
He slammed his hands down, palms flat against the invisible air.
He mimed a rocket.
BOOM.
There was no fire, only a colossal discharge of kinetic force. The metal grating beneath him buckled. Paul shot upward like a bullet, riding a column of pure telekinetic thrust. He smashed through the remaining debris of the roof, soaring into the gray sky with a scream of defiance.
"NOT THIS TIME!"
Corbin reacted before the dust had even cleared. His Boost flared, feeding off the sudden spike in adrenaline. He didn't think, he launched himself. He jumped, catching the edge of the broken roof and vaulting into the open air, a blur of bruised muscle and determination giving chase to the Mime.
"He's running!" Rosette shouted.
She was a split second behind Corbin. Her crimson energy flared, forming a sleek, aerodynamic aura around her. She leaped, using her blood-constructs to kick off the air itself, streaking into the sky like a red comet trailing behind Corbin and the fleeing terrorist.
Bruno, Kade and Lea were left on the platform, watching the three figures disappear into the clouds, the chase for the soul of the city entering its final, desperate stage.
The wind had died down, leaving only the rushing sound of the air beneath the dragon's wings and the terrified, erratic drumming of Oscar's heart against Ruben's back.
Ruben looked down. They were no longer over the jagged spires of the city center. They were drifting over the Great Lake, the massive body of water that fed the waterfalls of Brumália and stretched out toward the open sea.
From this height, stripped of the smog that usually choked it, the city was agonizingly beautiful. The water was a sheet of polished obsidian reflecting the breaking clouds. The Gothic architecture of the distant skyline looked like a painting of a world that had figured out how to survive the dark. It was peaceful. It was tragic.
Ruben wiped his eyes, his hand coming away wet. The residue of the grief-gas was still in his system, making the beauty hurt more than it should.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.
Oscar's heart was a hummingbird trapped in a ribcage. The boy was unconscious, his skin burning with the chemical fire of the overdose.
I have to give him up, Ruben thought, the realization settling like lead in his gut. I can't save him. If I keep running, he dies on my back.
But surrender felt like failure. It felt like handing a lamb to a pack of wolves who had already decided how to cook it.
The air pressure shifted. Two figures descended from the clouds, flanking him.
To his left, Elise Vogel hovered, her cape snapping in the breeze, her spear held loose but ready. To his right, Lance Onida sat on the air as if it were a lounge chair, his silver eyes bored but watchful.
"Are you done now?" Lance asked, his voice carrying effortlessly over the distance.
Ruben looked at him, bewildered by the lack of urgency. "Why aren't you moving faster?" Ruben snapped, his voice cracking. "The kid is dying! Why are we talking?"
Lance tilted his head, a look of genuine confusion crossing his features. "We are moving at the speed of the situation, Rayo. You are the variable slowing us down."
"I'm the variable?" Ruben shouted, gesturing to the unconscious boy. "He could die right now! And I simply don't know whether to trust his life to you! To any of you!"
"We are the good guys here," Elise interjected, her voice sharp and brittle. "We are the Paladins. We protect the state. You are the criminal who kidnapped a volatile asset."
"Jesus Christ," Ruben groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "It isn't even about that anymore! Can you stop reading from the manual for five seconds?"
He looked at Elise, his amber eyes shining with tears that were half-gas, half-frustration.
"It was because of your failure that Oscar was caught!" Ruben yelled, pointing a shaking finger at her. "Because of your incessant need to seem like the hero, to ignore whatever it was me and Corbin had to offer, Paul took him back! This city could have looked so much worse because of your ego, Elise!"
Elise stiffened, her face flushing, but she didn't strike. The gas lingering in the atmosphere seemed to dampen her fury, replacing it with a heavy, uncomfortable shame she refused to acknowledge.
"Hand the boy over," Lance commanded, his tone dropping an octave. "Now."
"Where?" Ruben demanded, clutching Oscar's arm. "Where are you taking him? To a hospital? Or a lab? How will you make sure he won't die? And if he lives... how will you make sure he lives a proper life?"
Ruben looked between them, desperate.
"If you were him," Ruben whispered, his voice trembling, "what would you want? What kind of life are you offering him where death doesn't seem like the better option?"
Lance stared at Ruben. For a moment, the mask of the arrogant prodigy slipped. His mouth twitched, a tremor of understanding passing through his jaw. He looked at the dying boy, and for a second, he looked tired.
Below them, on the surface of the lake, shadows began to elongate and twist, despite the sun being high. Ruben saw them move, unnatural, fluid shapes darting across the water, but he ignored them. He was too focused on the Paladins.
"Ruben!"
The shout came from above.
Ruben looked up just as Paul Strahm burst through the cloud layer, screaming like a banshee. He was propelling himself with invisible blasts, his face a mask of bloody, manic determination.
Close behind him, a red comet streaked through the sky, Rosette St. Jon. And right on her heels, Corbin Monet was free-falling, using his Boost to kick off the air itself.
"DIE!" Paul shrieked, aiming a mimed bazooka directly at Ruben and the Paladins.
But before he could pull the trigger, the shadows on the water erupted.
A figure shot upward from the lake's surface, riding a tendril of pure darkness.
Elijah Neri.
He was a blur of motion, a young man with a fox-like face and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He spun in the air, a sword that looked like solidified shadow materializing in his hand. It wasn't metal, it was a void, a absence of light sharpened to a razor's edge.
"Pop goes the weasel," Elijah whispered, his voice silky smooth.
He slashed at Paul.
It was a kill shot, aimed for the neck. But Paul, driven by the hysteria of his own drug cocktail, twisted in mid-air with impossible flexibility. The shadow sword sliced through his gray coat, drawing a line of blood across his ribs, but missed the artery.
"Traitor!" Paul screamed, miming a shotgun blast at Elijah.
Elijah dissolved into mist, reforming ten feet away, still smiling. "Slippery."
"Protect the kid!" Corbin roared as he crashed into the fray, swinging a fist of compressed air at Paul.
The sky became a chaotic brawl. Rosette unleashed a volley of blood-needles, Paul detonated kinetic blasts, Elijah darted through shadows, poking and prodding with lethal intent.
Ruben shielded Oscar with his own body, banking the dragon hard to avoid a stray blast.
This is seriously unneeded, Ruben thought, gritting his teeth. We are fighting over a dying boy while he dies!
He glared at Elijah. He remembered him from the academy and that paladin exam, the sneak, the spy. His presence disgusted him.
"I am tired of this," Lance said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the noise of the battle like a gavel. It was dark, heavy, and completely devoid of his usual playfulness.
Lance raised both hands.
"Cosmic Vendetta: Submerge."
The air turned to lead.
It hit everyone at once. Ruben, Paul, Corbin, Rosette, Elijah, Elise. It was an oceanic pressure. It felt as though the sky itself had collapsed.
"This won't kill any of you," Lance stated, hovering effortlessly while everyone else was swatted out of the sky. "But it's the easiest way to handle things."
Ruben gasped as his dragon shattered into dust. He fell.
They all fell.
They hit the surface of the lake not with a splash, but with a solid, bone-jarring impact, as if the water had been turned to gel. They were pushed under, deep into the cold, dark silence of the lake.
Ruben held his breath, gripping Oscar's collar. He saw Corbin thrashing nearby. He saw Paul's eyes wide with panic.
Then, there was a bursting sensation.
It felt like a bubble popping inside his brain. The gravity vanished instantly. The cold water disappeared. The pressure in his chest released.
Ruben's vision went black.
It was a void of absolute nothingness that lasted for seconds, or maybe hours. There was no sound, no pain, just the dark.
Then, light.
Ruben's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, his lungs filling with sweet, warm air. He squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding brightness, then opened them again.
He wasn't in the water. He wasn't in the fog.
He was lying on his back on soft, dry grass. Above him, the sky was a piercing, impossible blue, devoid of a single cloud. A bright, warm sun beat down on his face, drying the dampness of his clothes in seconds.
Pop.
His ears popped loudly, equalizing to a pressure that felt lighter, cleaner than anything he had felt in Brumália.
Ruben sat up, blinking, his heart pounding in the sudden, terrifying peace.