Anisa watched Gina’s fight with Shawn with the phantom chill of someone standing over their own grave. As each clean strike on his form lead to more and more of the shadowy armor cracking and splitting like a piece of firewood, she wanted to believe that it was working. That she was getting through.

  “But you can feel it, can’t you?” Anisa jolted at the sudden intrusion, turning to see the silver smile of the woman who started this. As the Merchant of Despair looked over Anisa, she couldn’t help but beam with pride. “You turned out to be quite the specimen, didn’t you? I would say you are almost as much of a triumph as him. But I suppose it takes time to make perfection.” Anisa wanted to strike her. Wanted to threaten her and call this deal off, but every ounce of her survival instinct told her that was a bad idea. As Argenta looked at the fight, she chuckled. “Closer and closer…”

  Anisa may not have been able to bring herself to strike the woman, but she couldn’t restrain her tone regardless. “I’m not some toy!” She could feel every muscle tense even as her blood ran cold.

  Argenta responded with a hungry laugh, “You’re right! You were an investment! And it has paid me back with dividends.” She patted Anisa’s shoulder and as her amber eyes locked with Anisa’s own, her tone shifted low as though speaking in omens. “Tell me… does the world feel a little… darker to you?” When Anisa looked up to the monochrome clouds, she could finally see what the Merchant of Despair was talking about. Looking down at the torn up battlefield, she noticed the cracks in the shadowy form of her friend continue to spread. Every crease in his attire, every corner of his eyes. Even the mouthpiece of his helmet had begun to carry the glow of heated metal as though the fire within was trying to escape. She watched as the purple clad figure tended to Gina’s most recent wounds before the red-head dove right back into the fight.

  Anisa couldn’t shake it. The ache in her chest from the memory of the wound he had given her the last time she was on this planet. One she had begged for within her mind before the end. And there she could feel it again. The taunting smile of Argenta. The low chuckle that was both terrifying and yet weighted with pride. “Someone overcome by despair being puppeted against their will into conflict with those they care about most. And the only cause and solution being someone ripping out their heart.” However the tone shifted into one that Anisa didn’t expect. One of eager hope. The tone of a girl watching her favorite hero show. “And yet, I doubt it will be that easy. Things always get worse before they get better. But you might be the only one left who can see that, aren’t you… Zora?”

  As she said Anisa’s first hero name, the cracks grew brighter than before and the mouthpiece of the mask finally cracked into a toothy set of jaws. As he leaned back and the maw opened, he howled with fury, flames escaping as a wave of pure despair washed over them all. As the world actively began to darken, she could see the weight pressing down on the other two. The purple figure seemed to be having an easier time, but it wasn’t long before the city was forgotten in a wash of pure…

  Anisa was still standing. Cold to the bone but this wasn’t pain she hadn’t seen before. Nothing she hadn’t felt every night since Argenta first gave her the crystal that now sat in her bracer. And as she watched the movements of the beast that now shone with Shawn’s fire, she could see it’s shuddering as nothing else. Grief…

  She didn’t need to see him stalking towards the fallen forms. She didn’t need to hear another howl of his pain. She leapt down without a hint of doubt, tapping her gem and landing with the cloak of shadows around her shoulders. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge the fiery tears that were tearing him apart. She said in the same tone as she used to back then, “Good god, Hemmingway. Pull your shit together.” She swayed out of the way of his strikes, seeing the way his fire was staring past her. The way his blows weren’t just direct but practically aimless, as if he was only guessing at her position on instinct. Instincts that had been honed by necessity and efficiency, but clumsy when compared to the man who had once ended her life on this very world. “You can’t keep going like this. Burning yourself out over things you didn’t have any say or control in.” The lines shone brighter, the shadowy jacket igniting from beneath before becoming flaming wings, an agonized scream escaping him as they did so. As he began to move faster, she began to lose track of him in the shadows. The flashes of his fire drawing her eye only for her to just barely escape a full force haymaker from the other side. “I get it, you have done a lot of impossible things, but you can’t take responsibility for everything that’s ever happened. You can’t just-”

  Her cloak could only impact the blow so much. While this was the same Null Resonance she was using, it was grief run rampant. Not a shooting star cutting through the night but a wildfire set to keep the monsters away. All consuming and without restraint. A force that was consuming the shadows themselves. She could feel her ribs crack one by one in this seemingly frozen moment, the air driven from her lungs and her spine rattled from the impact alone. She could feel her transformation shimmer for a moment, the form almost dissolving from one strike. As she rolled away, she tried to force her way back to her feet, and for the first time she heard genuine words from him. His voice was distant, as though his actual thoughts were far from this place. Still, the words let out fire that spread the damage further over his shadowy form. “Mine… is a life born… of ashes…”

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  She wanted to blame the crystal in his chest. Wanted to convince herself that it was somehow punishing him for his hatred of it. The hatred he held because of the way it had shaped his youth and turned him into the perfect soldier in the war on evil. And yet, she had heard these words too often from him to suspect otherwise. This was Shawn. Slowly but surely they were getting closer and closer to where the man had gone… but seeing the world was all but pure darkness and that Gina and the purple figure were no longer even visible, she knew this feeling. She had been here before.

  -------------

  Shawn’s laugh was a reflex. A way to block out the pain. A way to pretend this was fun and not scary as hell. Especially when he could feel Sculptura’s claws gouge his skin even through his transformation, cutting into the orange hero suit he had been wearing as armor for awhile now. But he had to. There wasn’t a choice. Until he could think of a way to fix this, she needed to spill his blood to buy time.

  There isn’t a solution, Shawn. The needs of the many. You have given up enough on your path to this moment to know by now. There is no way to defeat evil if you keep holding back. No way to save millions if all it takes to stop you is one.

  Shawn tried to block it out. Tried to ignore his companion. The Phoenixian Crystal had saved him on countless occasions, but this wasn’t negotiable. This was the one thing he had left.

  But he knew that was a lie too. That’s why he would bleed for this. Why he would push himself. Because there had to be more. There had to be an answer. He had to keep his promise. He had to save Anisa. Her strikes were direct and predictable. By the time she would swing for a vital organ, he would already pivot to avoid anything he couldn’t get stitched up later. He would use his cutlass or his pistol, but those were too dangerous. Kid gloves. He had to use kid gloves.

  You know that sacrifice means nothing without giving up something that matters. The lines you have had to cross. The temporary losses for the sake of protecting something precious in someone else. You have done worse than this for the sake of others.

  That’s not the same. Those weren’t his problems. He was just passing through and couldn’t bring himself to turn a blind eye. This? This was different. This was the whole reason he was here! He wouldn’t give up on her. He would rather die.

  And force her to live with what she was forced to do… and without her friend to guide her through it. I’m sure you have learned enough by now how that would go. Rob the cosmos of their hero and in his place give them a villain driven by grief and revenge… Don’t deny her this. Don’t deny her a merciful end at the hands of someone who has proven time and time again that he cares.

  It… it isn’t the same. The promise was to always be there for each other. To never let each other give up… not until the last moment… but they were both so tired now. Ten years. Ten years of hell for both of them. Countless dead… countless more at risk. Even as he looked into her eyes he could see the flicker of her there. A sense of his friend signaling a defiant fire that wanted only one thing. That she would sooner die than be used as a tool one more day.

  And so he did what he had to. He did what he always did…

  He kicked her away and did a backflip, landing on his gilder as it flew by. Circling around, he drew his pistol and heard the beeps of the machine he was on and his gun synchronizing. He said with a growl and a growing fury, “Cosmic Barrage!”

  And as the area she once stood was replaced with a glowing crater, the quarry now little more than a valley of glass, he circled the area a few times before shouting with a confident smile, “That all you got? It was a nice warmup but you are going to have to face me yourself. Anisa and I grew up watching heroes. Sacrificing yourself for the greater good was a no brainer.”

  But it was a lie. He had to block it out. Had to move on. Yet again, someone he cared about died… and yet again he knew they would have told him those same words branded into his soul.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’