(Marvel, DC, images, manhuas, and every anime that will be mentioned and used in this story are not mine. They all belong to their respective owners. The main character "Karito/Adriel Josue Valdez" and the story are mine)
Lux breaks formation first. Jinx right after, because of course. Neeko moves with that soft, certain speed that says she's already halfway inside my posture. Janna and Soraka aren't far behind; their eyes have that gloss my Aura taught them years ago—concern tuned to my frequency. Ahri and Sarah hang back a step, checking my edges, counting the ways the city could still be lying. Syndra watches like a hawk tracking wind—concern refracted through logistics. Poppy's mouth makes a line that means don't make me say it. Lulu waves with both hands, too bright, the way you act at a bedside when you're terrified and you think volume can keep a heart beating.
They all talk at once without meaning to.
"Peter—"
"Are you—"
"What happened—"
"Did you see—"
I hold up a hand. Not sharp. Exact. Threads stir out of habit and I keep them shallow, like tape on a floor. Enough to line a room. Not enough to move the furniture.
"I'm here," I say, and I hate the way those words feel in my mouth now. "I'm fine."
Liar, the memory of the glass says, and I let it say it.
Lux gets close enough to touch and stops just short, waiting for permission she shouldn't need from me. Jinx does the opposite—barges into my space, checks my eyes like there's a switch she can flip, pulls back before I can read the ask under the bravado. Neeko stares at my throat the way people do when they're listening to someone's pulse. Janna's palm hovers, then withdraws like a tide. Soraka's gaze is soft and holy and wrong because I made it wrong. Ahri's tail flicks once—calculation, worry, old habit. Sarah gives me the commander's nod you give a weapon that came back from maintenance. Syndra's question is one sentence and a book's worth of math: "Can you still hold?"
"Yes," I tell her. "Not everything. Enough."
Poppy grunts, satisfied only with the part where I didn't die. Lulu steps forward with a smile too rehearsed, then back with a flinch she turns into a giggle.
"Hey, Lulu," I say, soft as I can afford. "You don't have to fix the weather."
Her eyes widen like she's been caught and pardoned at the same time. She nods too many times.
Akali and Kai'Sa lean against the railing, gulping air like it owes them interest. I put a hand—gloved, careful—on the metal between them, not on them. "You did fine," I say.
Kai'Sa huffs a laugh that almost means it. Akali mutters something about hating benches forever. The bracelets settle to a quiet hum.
Lux finally finds her voice. "What was in there?"
"A room that wants to be in charge of the story," I say. "And a man who doesn't need to raise his voice to get it."
"Name?" Sarah asks.
"Not yet," I say.
Ahri's eyes narrow like she recognizes the shape of a lie that isn't exactly one. Jinx opens her mouth to fire a joke and decides against it. Neeko's hand slides an inch toward mine and stops when my breath misses its second beat on purpose. She blushes anyway, at war with the gravity I refuse to let myself radiate.
Janna's concern tips toward devotion; Soraka's toward faith. I lower the field another notch. If they love me, they can do it on their own legs.
Syndra reads the room faster than anyone. "What do you need?"
"Time," I say. "Quiet. And nobody goes near that seam."
Heads nod. Even Jinx manages not to smirk. Lux swallows back three questions and locks onto the fourth. "Are you hurt?"
"Yes," I say, because the cost of the lie would grow teeth. "Not bleeding."
She breathes out like I handed her something she can carry.
I stand there and let them verify I'm alive. I don't perform competence. I don't make it easy. I keep the cut open and let it teach me posture. If I cauterize it, I'll forget the lesson and take the next bargain that sounds like mercy.
Ahri steps to my periphery. Quiet voice. "You weren't followed?"
"No," I say. "He doesn't need to follow. He sets the room and waits."
"Another one of your gods," Jinx mutters, but there's no heat in it.
"Not mine," I say. "And not a god."
"What then?" Lux asks.
"Human," I say, and that's the worst of it.
I catch myself almost telling them to breathe the way she told me. I don't steal her voice. I make my own.
"Decompress," I say instead. "Check your corners. Eat. Sleep. If you pray, make it practical."
They disperse in that messy, competent way teams do when they trust a plan even if they hate the man who gave it. Lulu lingers. Poppy shepherds her. Sarah stays half a beat longer than she has to. Ahri's eyes live on the seam until she convinces herself it won't widen because she stared it down. Syndra sends the rails a long look that means warding.
Janna and Soraka keep orbit and I feel the old geometry strain toward the pattern it knows. I let it stretch and then I let it go. They blink, step back a pace, and the air between us remembers it isn't an altar.
Neeko, Lux, Jinx—my trio of bad habits—hover like lovers do when they don't know which part of you they're allowed to touch. I give them an out.
"I need a perimeter," I say. "Do it wrong and I'll pretend not to notice."
Lux laughs, shaky. Jinx salutes with two fingers and a grimace. Neeko squeezes my sleeve once and vanishes with the others, tail flicking like punctuation.
I'm alone at the rail with the seam's shimmer making promises it can keep. The wrong city on the other side holds its breath like a prankster in a closet. I don't open the door.
I name the resolution where no one can hear me.
Not his face.
His cadence.
Joy at the edges. Human words like clean instruments. Green moons that tune crowds. Courts that don't need doors. Winds that move posture, not hair. Two taps. Steam that waits. Offers that polish your vices and call them workflows.
I map the beats. Three. Pause. Two. Pause. Three.
Down the block, in the reflection of a dark window, a black fountain no one built keeps climbing. The pulse threads through the glass and into the air like a metronome I didn't ask for.
I match it.
Once.
Then I break the beat and breathe on mine.
Akali POV
The air on this side was blessedly ordinary—street sounds where street sounds belonged, clouds doing normal cloud things, gravity obeying the social contract again. I could finally hear my own breath without the world trying to finish my sentences for me.
He was there first.
No mask. Just... Peter. Same calm shape from the flower kiosk, only now ringed by a cluster of girls in matching uniforms that looked equal parts magical and "we have a group chat with rules." They radiated different flavors of worry: pink-haired one vibrating like a live wire, red twin-buns girl pacing like a tiger in glitter, a mint-haired priestess type with eyes too soft to be an accident, a fox-eared beauty watching the seam like it owed her money. Two more hung back—one with commander posture, one with a floating crown of annoyance.
I didn't know them. But I knew him.
Or thought I did.
Peter looked up mid-briefing—if "lower your field and don't even breathe near the fracture" counts as a briefing—and found me. Recognition lit his face with something gentler than relief and sharper than surprise.
"Hey," he called, like we were still standing at a flower stand. "You alright?"
Words? Unknown. My mouth elected to be scenery. I nodded, and my brain, bless it, chose honesty. "Just... didn't process that my designated wiseman is also—" I made a useless circle in the air, like that would summon the right noun. "—that guy."
His lip quirked. "The branding is usually 'Spider-Man,' but I'll accept 'that guy.'"
"Wait." Kai'Sa stepped in at my shoulder, the bracelets at our wrists chiming like they wanted to be in this conversation. She blinked between his face and mine, eyes narrowing in that way she does when she solves a puzzle with feelings. "He's the one? The kiosk guy? The flowers and the bracelets and the 'show don't talk' advice?"
I swallowed. "Yeah."
Peter rubbed the back of his neck, half-sheepish, half-like he'd just realized he was holding his mask in his hand instead of on his face. He glanced at it, then at us, then shrugged the way people do when the truth is already out in the air and behaving itself. "In my defense, today wasn't a great day for brand consistency."
The pink-haired girl—Lux, I'd learn in a second—took two steps like she planned to intercept every conversation he might have and install herself in it permanently. "We should move this somewhere safer," she said, not unkind, just... territorial.
"Five minutes," Peter told her, soft but firm. It worked. She stalled—glowed a little—and let the five become a thing.
Jinx (the red buns; the name really fit) flicked her eyes over me with a grin that tried for feral and landed on protective big sister. "So you're flower girl. Congrats on not dying in the funhouse."
"Thanks?" I said, because I think that was support.
The priestess—Soraka—looked at our linked bracelets like she could hear them. "Those are sweet."
"Emergency diplomacy," Peter said. "Highly recommended."
Commander Jacket (Miss Fortune, I remembered after a beat) gave Kai'Sa a once-over that read as clinical concern. "You steady?"
Kai'Sa lifted her chin. "Getting there."
Fox Ears—Ahri—finally tore her gaze from the seam and offered me a small, apologetic smile that didn't belong to a stranger. "You handled that better than most."
"Lies," I muttered, but it made her laugh anyway.
Peter stepped closer—careful, deliberate, not touching. "If you feel off later—headache, static, deja vu—text me," he said, easy as breathing. "I'll walk you through grounding."
"Like breathing exercises?" Kai'Sa asked.
He nodded. "Like remembering where your feet are when the room forgets."
I exhaled through a laugh that wasn't really a laugh. "That line should come with a business card."
He tapped his chest pocket. "Out of cards. Kiosk lady banned me."
Kai'Sa lit with recognition. "You went back and paid."
"Eventually," he deadpanned.
The pink-haired one edged nearer again, orbit tightening. Not jealous—not exactly. More like a planet reminding the sun of its calendar. Her hand hovered at his elbow and stopped just shy, as if a rule neither of them said out loud stood there.
Two others lagged at the perimeter: a floating queen with a gravity problem (Syndra) and a little knight with a hammer bigger than my future (Poppy). The tiny one looked like she'd seen a hundred Peters come and go and didn't plan to be impressed by this one. The floating one folded her arms and measured him like a variable. I liked them both on sight.
Then my fandom radar finally stopped buffering and caught up.
"Hold on," I said, blinking at his face like it was a limited edition poster. "You're... Spider-Man. Like—Spider-Man."
I heard Jinx's grin without looking. "Welcome to the party, Blue Bangs."
"Do I... bow?" I blurted, then wanted to crawl into the nearest bush. "Sorry. That was—my brain is still on hard reboot."
Peter smiled with his eyes more than his mouth. "Please don't bow. Just don't walk into any mirrors for the next twenty-four hours."
"Sure. I'll add 'avoid cursed furniture' to my calendar."
Kai'Sa nudged me, softer than her smirk. "You texted him?"
My phone was a glass brick in my pocket. I nodded. "He owes me seventeen coffees."
"That sounds like something I would say," Peter said.
"It is something I said," I shot back, then immediately regretted sass in front of a superhero committee. He didn't seem to mind. If anything, a corner of his tension eased, like normal conversation was an antidote he'd been rationing.
Lux finally broke her silence with a breath that looked like it had been waiting in her chest all afternoon. "We should debrief," she told Peter, then, to me and Kai'Sa, softer, "You're safe now."
It hit strange—kind and possessive both. I didn't know what Star Guardian meant, but I knew a found family when I saw one. This one had fault lines and rules and that weird shine people get when they belong too hard. Some of their gazes stuck to Peter like magnets; two of them (the priestess and the wind girl with the serene smile) looked at him like he was a lighthouse. It should've been creepy. It wasn't. It was... complicated.
Peter clocked my look like he always did. "You'll meet them properly later," he said, and then, to the group, "Names and hugs later. They need food and quiet now."
"Food I can do," Miss Fortune said, already pivoting to logistics. "Quiet is above my pay grade."
"Poppy can enforce quiet," Lulu chirped, then flinched when Poppy actually nodded once like she'd do it with the hammer.
Janna—wind girl, because of course—tilted her head. "You sure you don't want a check-up?" she asked us. "No magic, just tea and blankets."
My shoulders loosened in spite of myself. "Tempting."
"We'll take rain checks," Kai'Sa said, and squeezed my wrist where the charm warmed against my skin.
Peter's attention came back to us, heavier but not pressing. "You did the brave thing yesterday," he said to Kai'Sa, "and the harder thing today." Then to me: "You did the smart thing both days."
My face chose now to be hot. "Don't say it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're going to write it in a file."
He almost laughed. "If I had a file on you, it would just say 'turn left when panic says right.'"
"Gross," I said. "Keep your flattery to yourself."
"Working on it."
He started to step away, then remembered his whole lack-of-mask situation and looked down at it like it had just told him a secret. "Right," he muttered, then to us, "The part where you pretend you didn't see my face?"
Kai'Sa lifted her bracelet. "We're good at pretending."
I added, "We also owe you. For the... corridor instead of blade."
He understood that without asking. "Then we're square."
Lux drew closer one last time, the way waves test the shore. "You're not leaving-leaving," she said quietly.
"Not tonight," he said, and something uncoiled in her posture.
He flicked his gaze back to me. "Seventeen coffees, huh?"
"Minimum," I said, because humor is easier than admitting I'd started breathing better when he walked over.
"Text me a cafe that won't call the cops if someone shows up with a giant hammer," he said, nodding at Poppy.
"I know a place," I said. "Owner thinks I'm charming."
"That makes one of us," Jinx sing-songed, and earned herself a look from exactly six people.
The seam across the street held like a healed scar—the kind that still aches in the rain. The city went back to pretending it was fine. The group peeled away by twos and threes—orders, errands, "we'll talk later"s wrapped in glances. Peter pulled the mask back on like flipping a sign from CLOSED to OPEN. Different person; same eyes.
He lifted a hand in a little salute. "Don't walk home alone."
"We're literally together," Kai'Sa said, lacing our fingers.
"Then don't walk home alone-alones," he corrected, because he's that guy.
We let them go. The street resumed being a street. Somewhere behind us, a bus sighed. A kid dropped an ice cream and learned about grief. The bracelets chimed when our arms bumped, tiny flowers catching a sliver of late sun.
Kai'Sa leaned in, voice barely a thread. "So... your wise guy is Spider-Man."
"Apparently."
"You gonna be cool about it?"
"Absolutely not."
She laughed into my shoulder, and the normal of it all—the good, boring normal—was a miracle.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number: If the cafe has decent tea, I'll count three coffees as one.
I bit back a smile as I saved the contact under what it had always been in my head: Designated Wiseman.
"Text him later," Kai'Sa said, like she'd already read the chat over my shoulder.
"I will," I said. "After we eat. After we sleep. After we don't think about mirrors for a while."
"Deal."
We walked. Not alone-alone. Just together. And for the first time since the world tried to fold me in half, the city felt like it might hold.
Peter POV — Night
Basement lab. House above humming the normal hum of people who think they're being quiet. Lux pacing grooves into the hallway carpet. Neeko's tail thumping couch-cushion in her sleep. Jinx's playlist misbehaving somewhere between floor one and two, volume at "don't worry about it."
Down here, it's just light and glass and the sound of fans. My boards are crowded. Chalk under my nails. Coffee cold and where I left it.
Mug down. Three breaths. Page where you left it. Then we talk.
I do the ritual because my hands need something to obey.
The symbiote likes the room. It spreads thin over my shoulders, velvet-warm, pleased with our little cave; pleased I'm not pretending to be fine for anyone except the walls. When my head throbs—clean, white— it purrs like pain is a fuel it knows how to burn.
"Not tonight," I tell it.
It sulks against my ribs and behaves.
I draw the room I fought, not the man. Squares. Etched bases.
DENIAL / CONTROL / HUNGER / LOSS / TRUTH
Arrows between them. Web-lines across cause and effect. A note: anchor the rule, not the actor.
Under that, three columns I hate:
Offer 1 — No migraines (cost: Aura always ON)
Offer 2 — Return a memory (cost: edited; seed doubt forever)
Offer 3 — Simpler world (cost: safety > love, permanently)
I circle nothing. Passing a test isn't the same as winning.
The air here is ordinary. No wrong wind. No green in the moonlight trying to tune the people I love. My nose remembers it anyway—that faint ozone prickle, that dishonest-clean odor undercut with rot. You don't forget a smell that tries to edit your posture.
"Joyous, human, propagandist," I write. "Stands in coordinates, not faces. Court. Void. Green celestial bodies. Wind. Ozone. Odor. Talons at the shadow's edge."
I don't write the name. I don't say it. I'm not superstitious, I'm disciplined. Names are handles; I'm not handing him one from my mouth until I can make that a blade.
I've done a version of this before. Different board, colder room. AM terraforming the Freljord into an allegory with teeth. Super-ego, ego, id wired like trip mines inside a cathedral of bad code. Me talking three minds into killing each other while I killed the hallway. Five survivors who would have let AM ride them out of the fire; five I didn't leave standing. I still taste metal when I think about it. I still feel the echo of its rage pacing the back corridors of my head, looking for exits I keep locking.
The symbiote raises its head when I go there. The echo likes company.
"Down," I say. I mean it for both.
The Guardian trick stirs without me calling it, then settles when I do. It's muscle memory now: pick a question, widen the aperture, let the world pour in until the shape of the answer is obvious. Dangerous to leave the tap open. Comfortable to drown.
"Outer," I say, just to test the lock. The trick turns once and stops when I tell it to. Good.
On the board, I list symptoms like a doctor who hates bedside manners:
— Active. Walks. Enjoys the people.
— Never names himself. Names me.
— Moves the room, not the fight.
— Sells workflow, not worship.
— Knows my erased layer. Knows hers.
The last line tightens everything in me. Mug down. Three breaths.
There's a knock like someone taught a drum to be polite. Then the door cracks and Jinx slides through sideways, your favorite havoc in a hoodie two sizes too big, carrying a plate.
"I bring tribute," she announces. "Also carbs. Also a plan to annoy Lux so she goes to bed."
She sets the plate beside my elbow, leans against the table, studies the board like it's a puzzle she intends to solve with stubbornness. "So," she says, popping a fry. "How's the existential horror wall?"
"Chatty."
"Hot." She glances at the chalk. "Translation for the non-meta among us?"
I point with the chalk. "Framework versus agency. He doesn't punch. He changes the room and asks if you're still yourself."
"So a landlord," she says solemnly.
"Worse. Competent."
She chews, watching me watch nothing. "I've heard you mumbling upstairs. You were talking to a chalkboard like it owes you money. Words I don't know. Math I refuse to know. Philosophy I'm allergic to. I picked up... 'Outer God,' which, dumb name, and 'not a god,' which is inconsiderate. Also the part where you sounded nervous?" She pulls a face. "Hated that. Ten out of ten do not recommend."
I look at her to calibrate my field. She reads me back because she always does, right past the steadiness into the wobble I don't let anyone else see.
"He was powerful," I say. "Not theatrics. Infrastructure. I've never fought a man who could ask existence to tune a city and have it listen."
She stares. "Yeah, cool, I'm going to throw up."
"I have a dustpan."
"Romance isn't dead." She swallows. "Define 'Outer' before my brain invents a worse thing."
"Outside the story's normal walls," I say. "If a universe is a house with rooms stacked on rooms, most monsters are burglars. This one is the architect. Walks through without using the doors."
"Okay," she says. "Hate that."
"Appropriate."
She leans her hip into the table until the hoodie rides up and she yanks it back down with dignity. "Peter, if you're nervous, I get terrified. That's the rule."
"It's a bad rule," I say, and I mean it. "And I am... respectful. Not nervous."
"Liar," she says, fond and furious in the same breath.
The headache flares. The symbiote flexes, eager to translate pain into something simpler. I keep my posture on TRUTH anyway.
She catches the flinch. Of course she does. Her voice drops. "You okay?"
"No," I say, because lying costs more than it saves tonight. "But I'm here."
She hates that sentence and loves it. Same as me.
Her eyes cut to the offers I wrote. "He tried bargains."
"He tried good bargains," I correct. "That's worse."
"Say no louder," she mutters, like volume can retroactively protect me. Then, lighter, "So step one: we don't leave the Aura on 'cook.' Glad that's out."
"That was never on the table."
"Cool, cool." She points to Offer 2. "Memory edit? Hard pass. I like your brain exactly how it is: annoying and mine."
A laugh escapes me before I can bury it. She pockets it like a prize. Then her gaze snags on the third line and sticks.
"A simpler world," she reads. "With... bendy definitions." She looks up. "You didn't."
"No."
"Good," she says, and her relief lands heavier than any compliment.
She doesn't understand my math tonight, but she understands me. You don't bend love so it fits in your hand. You learn how to carry it without crushing the person it connects to.
She inches closer, shoulder a careful threat against mine, waiting to see if I'll make it easier and pull her in. The Aura lifts instinctively to meet her, threads remembering how to hold. I nudge it down until it's just a line on the floor between us: stand here, breathe your own breath, and I'll breathe mine.
"What do you need?" she asks, actually soft now. Jinx has a lot of settings. This is the one that comes out at three a.m. when no one is grading her for being loud.
"Time," I say, "and a plan."
"Plans are my love language," she says. "Step two?"
"Map cadence, not face," I say, tapping the board. "He likes standing where my teacher stood. Where she stood. He occupies coordinates. If I feel those get filled by the wrong person, I know he's in the room."
She doesn't know "she." She knows enough to leave it alone.
"Step three," I go on, "we train the team to anchor rules, not punch men."
"Punching men is my second love language."
"You can keep it. We add another."
She nods like she's already scheduling practice she'll pretend to hate. "And step four?"
"Story-metal," I say. "Hardening the web for narrative loads. New cartridges. New phrasework. If he turns the board again, I don't waste time proving I'm real. I staple the exits and walk people out."
"Hot when you talk shop," she says, then blinks at her own words and decides not to be embarrassed. "Sorry. Brain-to-mouth pipeline is busted."
"It always was."
"True." She sobers. "What about you?"
"I keep the wound open," I say. "If I seal it, I'll tell myself today was a bad dream, and I'll take the next 'efficient' bargain he offers."
She watches me for a long second. "You hate letting yourself be human."
"I prefer a strong brand."
She snorts. "Brand this: I'm terrified." She says it like a dare, like if the words break in half I have to fix them. "He sounded like—like god with good PR. And if you—" her mouth tightens— "if you can't make a joke about him, I don't know where to put my fear."
I set the chalk down. Turn fully. Make sure the field between us is a table, not a leash.
"I'm scared," I say.
She blinks. Of all the things I could give her, that one steadies her the fastest. The truth is boring and miraculous.
"But," I add, "I know what he wants me to do now. Bend. Codify the worst parts of me and call it safety. I'm not doing that."
She swallows. "Promise?"
"I promise. And if I start, you hit me with a hammer."
"I know a girl," she says, mouth curving. Then, smaller: "You'll win."
"I'll prepare," I correct. "Then I'll win."
That gets the right smile. "There he is."
We eat fries over philosophy. She throws out nonsense ideas on purpose because ridiculous is a pressure valve: "What if you just unplug the moon?" "What if we hire a worse propagandist to counterpropaganda him?" "What if we lace the web fluid with glitter so he underestimates us?" I file them as jokes and also as seeds because sometimes the stupid version points to the right one.
Upstairs, a door opens, closes. Lux's footsteps pause over the stairwell, hover, retreat. Neeko turns over on the couch; the springs complain; her tail thuds. Normal noises. A house being a house.
Jinx gathers the empty plate. Doesn't move.
"Bed," I say.
"Bossy," she says.
"Accurate."
She scowls like she's going to throw the plate, then sets it down neatly and steps in to hug me like I'm an argument she refuses to lose. I let her. Aura down, down, down. No nudge. No tuning. Just contact.
"I hate being scared," she mumbles into the black suit. "Bad for my image."
"I know," I say. "You wear it well."
She squeezes once more, hard, and lets go like she decided not to drown me after all. "Wake me if the moon goes weird," she says at the door. "I'll glare at it."
"I'll call you if I need a death stare."
"You always do." She points two fingers at her eyes, then at me. "Don't disappear into your head so far I have to break down the door."
"I left it unlocked."
"Rookie move," she says, and vanishes up the stairs.
The lab goes quiet again. I stand in the middle of my boards and let the cut the man left in me draw a new line on the map. It's not fatal. It's instruction.
Mug down. Three breaths. Page where you left it.
I add one last line under the offers: Agency over ease.
On the bench, the cartridges wait. On the board, the squares. In my bones, the two taps that say again without saying again.
"Next time," I tell the empty room, and maybe it hears me.
Upstairs, the house settles. Down here, the hum finds a rhythm.
I leave the lab when the coffee goes cold a second time.
Upstairs is soft. House-soft. Lux fell asleep sideways across my bed like she lost a duel with gravity. Jinx is sprawled on top of the covers, hoodie half-unzipped, a red spill of hair across my pillow, mouth open in the kind of sleep you only get after browbeating the day into a draw. Down the hall, Neeko has cocooned herself on the couch; her tail twitches when she dreams, habit from too many nights learning to breathe again after the Darkenstine cage.
The place hums at a normal frequency. Good. Let it.
I'm halfway to the bedroom door when the air changes.
Three presences. Close. Trying to be smaller than their shapes. I recognize the flavors the way you recognize a scar by touch: sugar rot and borrowed starlight (Zoe), neon-sharp and brittle (Xayah), glossy charm stretched over a wary core (Rakan). A month of my life maps itself into muscle memory—Neeko's rescue, me vanishing on Ahri's favor, the long corridor of bad decisions that followed.
I open the door before they can decide whose mistake this was.
They flinch as one. Hallway light cuts a clean line across their faces and doesn't do any of them favors. Zoe looks like a kid who borrowed godhood and can't get the smell off. Xayah's jaw is locked so hard enamel thinks about it. Rakan's grin is on—default, defensive—while his eyes do math he's not built for.
"I'm tired," I say, quiet. "So tell me if this ends with me killing you on my own doorstep."
Zoe actually chokes. "Please don't," she blurts. "We— we need protection."
The laugh gets out before I can bury it. Old mask, old reflex. "From me?"
"Ahem," Rakan says, dignity offended. "We already survived you."
"Have you?" I tip my head, remembering the castle, the feel of fear overtaking them as they realized they where so outclassed by me. "Because the tape says otherwise. Zoe, Xayah, Rakan—plus two off-brand keyblade prodigies from a franchise that refuses to die—and the most you managed was scuffing the floor."
Xayah's fingers flex like she wants the dance-knives and hates needing anything. Rakan puffs, realizes puffing at a cliff is theater, deflates.
"And for the record," I add, "Aqua and Riku did the only real damage. You three were color commentary. Neeko was in a Darkenstine coffin. You couldn't scratch it. My suit did."
Zoe swallows. "I know," she whispers. "That's why we're here."
There's a beat where nobody breathes right.
I let my gaze slide—stupid, unnecessary—over Xayah. The phase I hate myself for remembering blinks through me: a month of too much 'protection,' too much control, Aura tuned to keep a room obedient because it was easier than convincing it. She feels the look hit and looks away like it burned. Rakan catches it; suspicion sharpens.
"Talk," I say, and lean my shoulder to the frame. "Fast."
Zoe steps forward like the floor might collapse if she lands wrong. Tonight there's no manic skip. Just trip.
"I thought I knew what Dark was," she says. "Dark Star is a thing. A destroy-the-sky, make-constellations-out-bones thing, but a thing. You can bargain with a thing. Corrupt it. Be corrupted by it. We were already halfway down, and that felt... manageable. Honest." Her eyes flick up. "This isn't that."
Rakan's charm cracks enough to show the man under it. "We misjudged," he admits, like the word tastes like metal. "We thought we had leverage. We were wrong."
Xayah hisses through her teeth. "We were stupid," she corrects, and it costs her something to say it while looking at me. "Satisfied?"
"No," I say. "Keep going."
Zoe's hands twist. "Today? The seams? Not Dark Star. Not our usual. He— it— started making tears that mirrored everything. Afternoon. City went sideways. Not broken. Edited. And the green in the moon? The way the crowd turned? I thought I was going to throw up my mind."
She's shaking. Not for effect. The tremor you get when your brain keeps reaching for a rule that isn't there.
"What do you want from me," I ask. Flat. Not unkind.
"Protection," Zoe says again, smaller. "From that."
"Because the First Star failed you," I say, and let the ugliness sit between us like a spill no one wants to touch. "Because your dark learned a new trick and you don't like how it feels when something bigger plays your game better."
She nods, miserable and honest. Xayah's jaw works. Rakan's hands open and close on air.
I watch them without speaking until the silence hurts.
"Describe it," I say at last.
All three go still.
"No," Zoe says immediately, voice thinning. "If I say it— if I have to remember—"
"You came to my door," I cut in. "You want shelter? I need blueprints. I know the verse. I need the address."
"I'll tell him," Rakan says, too fast, too brave. Xayah's head snaps toward him. "She doesn't have to—"
"She does," I say, and I hate that I'm right. "All of you do. If you want me to keep you standing, you give me the thing that knocked you down."
The symbiote warms along my ribs, eager to press, to solve. I keep the field down. No tuning. If I get this by force, the data rots.
Zoe's eyes close. When she opens them, something older looks out. "It wears a man when it wants to," she says, slow. "Tall. Thin. Laughs like music that means something. Human words on a human tongue." Her throat works. "But that's the kindness. That's the lie."
Rakan steps in, gentle. "The not-mask," he says. "When it looked... wrong."
Zoe's fingers sketch in the air, chasing curves that refuse to close. "Tall," she whispers. "No face, but too many mouths. A head like a hood that's also a serpent. A neck that's a tower. Skin that isn't— ridges and plates like bark that learned to breathe. Holes that open when it laughs. Something where a heart would be if this were still about people— a cluster. A bloom. It pulses when it looks at you." She swallows. "Arms ending in claws ending in claws. A hundred black ropes behind it— not tentacles, not marine, more like nerves that escaped."
Rakan's charm is gone. "The smell," he adds, soft. "Rot under soap. Hospital pretending."
Xayah's voice is a scrape. "It doesn't move," she says. "The world moves it. It steps and the floor decides it was there."
Zoe's voice frays. "And the air bends. The breath is a door. If you breathe with it you go through."
The hallway tilts inside my head. Not in reality—recognition.
"Okay," I say.
Zoe's eyes snap up, terror and hope the same shape. "Okay?"
"Okay," I repeat, and put the name down in my head like a brick I don't want to carry. Joyous man who walks the earth. Propagandist who sells workflows. Court without doors. Green to the white. Wind that moves posture. Ozone and undertone. Talons at the shadow's edge. A hundred escaped nerves. Heart-cluster. Laughter like meaning.
Nyarlathotep.
Well, shit.
I don't say it. Names are handles. He doesn't get one from my mouth tonight.
The migraine blooms white. The suit tightens like it wants to be brave for me. I let it.
"You were right to run," I say. "You have successfully terrified me and validated your decision. Congratulations."
Xayah makes a sound that isn't a laugh. "We're not here to hear you pleased with yourself."
"I'm not pleased," I say, and let enough of the day bleed through that she believes me. "I'm tired. And I don't get to underestimate a thing that talks reality into obedience."
Rakan straightens. "So you'll protect us."
I let him hang there a second so he understands the ask.
"I'll protect Valoran," I say. "You are currently part of inconvenient Valoran. That buys you shelter. Conditional."
"Conditional how," Xayah says, chin up.
"Rules," I say, and let my voice define instead of push. "You sleep downstairs, nowhere else. Living room only. Kitchen stays closed. You don't touch the stairs. You don't go near the seam unless I say. You don't recruit. You don't corrupt. You don't breathe on Neeko. If you pull a stunt, I end the stunt. If you become the stunt, I end you."
Rakan bristles; recognizes the math; swallows it. Xayah's anger sparks, then retreats from the line because she's smart. Zoe nods too fast, the relief of being told what to do almost a sob.
"Agreed," she says. "Just— I don't want to see it again."
"You might," I say, honest. "If he wants you to."
She nods like a child agreeing to drink something bitter.
"Why would a god come for us nobodies when he can play with your head?" Rakan asks, trying for swagger; landing on worry.
"Because he likes people," I say. "He collects them. Sells them better versions of their worst impulses. He'll buy you with a feeling you already want and invoice you for your soul later. He's human that way."
Zoe shudders. "He smiled when everything got worse."
"Yeah," I say softly. "He does that."
We stand there in the cheap hallway light while the house pretends to be ordinary. Upstairs, Lux mumbles my name in her sleep. Jinx doesn't stir.
"Couch is yours," I say at last. "Blankets are in the hall closet. Tap water only. Bathroom door sticks; don't break it. If you wake the house, you meet the floor."
Rakan tries a grin; it dies politely. Xayah holds my gaze for half a second, kills it before it can be a conversation. Zoe hugs herself like she's holding her mind together by hand.
She pauses at my shoulder as they shuffle past. "It said 'thank you for walking,'" she whispers, as if confessing a crime.
"Yeah," I say. "He will."
I web a thin lattice across the bottom step—quiet, invisible unless you're looking. Not a leash. A line. If a foot touches the first stair without permission, the stair weighs as much as a car. Call it an anchor. Call it peace of mind.
They make nests out of blankets and guilt. The living room becomes a refugee camp for bad choices. I listen until their breathing evens into the human kind. When the quiet holds, I shut the bedroom door and stand with my hand on the wood until my pulse decides not to sprint.
Lux shifts, half-wakes, breathes my name like a secret she's not sure she's allowed to spend. Jinx is dead to the world, red hair a warning flare against my sheets. Neeko snuffles in the hall and rolls, the couch springs complain, then forgive her.
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, mask on the nightstand. The symbiote climbs my spine and settles like a hand. The headache taps the 3-2-3 just to remind me it's here.
The second voice doesn't gloat. Doesn't soothe. Just marks the point on the map.
Good. You named it. Now prepare.
"Yeah," I tell the dark. "We lock in."
I breathe with the house for three beats because ritual is how you make the future behave.
And for this one, I'm uncertain.
No POV
Morning arrived pretending last night didn't happen.
Lux was up first, sleeves shoved to her elbows, whipping the kitchen into compliance with a whisk and pure willpower. Neeko drifted in next, hair sleep-mussed, tail swishing a slow, absent beat as she blinked at the stack of batter bowls like they might blink back. Jinx and Peter were last—both carrying the "awake under protest" face—following the cinnamon like it had them on a leash.
"Breakfast," Lux declared, flipping a pancake with rude confidence. "Sit. Eat. Lie to yourselves about being well-adjusted."
"Arrest her," Jinx muttered, red hair everywhere. "This level of chipper is illegal."
Peter leaned on the counter, edges sanded down. The formal, careful cadence he'd carried out of the Mirror World was gone; he sounded like himself again—short, dry, human.
Lux clocked it immediately. "Okay, who kidnapped 'sir, yes sir' Peter and replaced him with brunch Peter?"
"Formal is my fake calm," he said. "Coffee's the real one."
Neeko slid onto a stool, chin in her hand. "Did you... win?" she asked, voice light, eyes not.
"I survived," Peter said. "Counts for now."
They ate in an almost-peace for a minute. Lux plated; Neeko taste-tested like each bite might turn into homework; Jinx inhaled pancakes like they'd run away if she didn't. Peter didn't tap—whatever engine in him had been stuttering last night had found a lower idle.
Lux finally pointed a spatula at him. "Okay. Explanation time. You vanished into not-reality, came back with haunted eyes, and last night you were doing the lecture-hall tone. Download it."
Peter sighed, then nodded. "Right. Headline: I know what we're dealing with."
Jinx's chewing slowed. She'd been in the lab last night—saw the chalkboards, the math, the way his voice crowded with words that didn't like being said out loud. She set her fork down. "And?"
"Outer God," Peter said. "The kind that wears a person like a nice suit because it's fun. Doesn't hit you; edits the room and watches you fall over. Think sales pitch from a deity."
Lux went a little flat around the mouth. "That's why the city felt like it was... listening. The green in the moon wasn't just a filter."
"Yeah."
Neeko's tail stopped swishing. "And Peter is sure?"
"I was annoyingly sure," he said. "Pattern, smell, the way time slid like it was on bad rails. Then I got confirmation."
"How?" Jinx asked. "Because last night you were in the lab sounding like you were arguing with God and TED Talk at the same time."
Peter rubbed his jaw. "Because three people—very much not on our holiday card list—described it to me. In detail. It matched what I already hated."
Lux narrowed her eyes. "Which three people."
He exhaled. "You're not gonna love this."
"Understatement of the year," Jinx said.
Peter looked at Neeko as he said it. "Zoe. Xayah. Rakan."
Silence did a full stop.
Neeko's fingers tightened on the edge of the counter. Lux's eyebrows did murder yoga. Jinx's mediums, Kuro and Shiro itching like they'd heard a siren.
Peter held his hands up. "They came last night. They're terrified. I laid rules—downstairs only, no lab, no upstairs, no anything unless I say. I needed to tell you because I'm about to call them up here. I'm not springing a jump scare in our own kitchen."
"You're about to what," Lux said, too calm.
"I'm not going to ask you to trust them," Peter said. "I am going to ask you to let reality be what it is for five minutes while we set rules as a group."
Neeko's voice was small and steady, the way people talk when their body is trying not to shake. "They hunted Neeko. Years."
"I know," Peter said. "If you want them gone after we talk, I will make them gone. Gentle if I can, not gentle if I have to."
Jinx's mouth thinned, but she didn't argue. Lux looked like she was preparing for impact.
Peter tapped the tile. Once. Again. Once more.
The basement door eased open like it had a conscience.
Zoe came first—hoodie sleeves swallowing her hands, swagger checked at the threshold. Xayah followed, chin high, fury contained like it was on a timed feed. Rakan last, smile holstered, palms open, doing his best impression of furniture with feelings.
Jinx didn't think. Her magical mediums flashed—their familiar hiss as a barrel unfolded, Kuro and Shiro flaring into twin pistols. She squeezed—
—and nothing left the chambers.
Peter's hands were already at both muzzles, fingers on the idea of the bullet, and the idea obeyed him. No bang. No hole. Not today.
"Indoor freakout," he said.
Jinx stared at her guns, then up at him. "You're the worst."
"Correct," he said, and didn't move.
Neeko's eyes had gone wide and glassy, pupils blown. She wasn't looking at anyone; she was listening to the hallway the way prey animals listen to grass. Peter angled himself so she could see him motion slow.
"Three in," he said, soft. "Hold. Two out. Hold."
She mirrored him. Shoulders dropped by degrees that felt like miles.
Lux set the spatula down like it was evidence. "You brought them here," she said, voice thin with not-yelling. "Into our kitchen."
"Onto the rug," Rakan offered, trying humor and aborting halfway.
"Don't," Lux said.
Zoe didn't pretend it was fine. "We're not here to... anything," she said, voice scraping small. "We're here because we're scared."
"Of me," Jinx snapped.
"Of something worse," Zoe said, and her eyes flicked to Peter with a kind of miserable honesty. "Also you. But mostly worse."
Xayah's jaw clicked. "We're not asking for a hug," she said to Neeko without flinching. "We're asking you not to kill us while he—" chin toward Peter "—figures out how to shoot a god."
Jinx snorted. "Oh we're doing metaphors and blasphemy. Great."
Lux's gaze cut sideways at Peter. "Back up. Explain the god thing, then we go back to 'why my arch-nemeses are near the pancake pan.'"
"Sure," Peter said, like he was giving a talk in a classroom that was also a bomb. "He's not louder than us; he's upstream. Doesn't break rules; updates them mid-run. Human face on purpose. Talks like your favorite teacher. Sells you a workflow for your soul. Yesterday he offered me three deals and a smile. I said no to all three."
Lux grimaced. "What kind of deals."
"Migraine gone if I keep my Aura on—code-for coercion," Peter said, counting on his fingers. "A memory back but edited—code-for doubt forever. A simpler world—code-for love bending to safety. All traps. All cute."
Neeko swallowed. "He knew... a piece you don't," she said, careful. "Like he walked somewhere you can't."
Peter nodded once. "He quoted something that shouldn't mean anything to me, but it did—like it belongs to someone I can't remember. Not guessing. It felt to accurate too be just random."
Jinx's bravado hiccuped. "I hate this conversation. For the record."
"Same," Peter said. "But I'm not underestimating a verse that eats universes for a hobby. I won't give him the version of me that wants shortcuts."
Lux rubbed her temple. "Okay. How'd you know it was him? And don't say 'vibes.'"
"Pattern, smell, the way space did a bad hinge," Peter said. "Then I asked them—" a glance to the trio— "to describe what they saw. It matched. Down to the rot-under-soap hospital smell."
Zoe flinched at the wording, like the memory had teeth.
Lux looked between faces like she was triangulating a decision she hated. "Cool. Hate it. Now the part where you justify this house being a crossover episode."
Peter didn't sugarcoat. "They came to my door," he said. "Because they misjudged what dark is and panicked when the floor dropped out. I set rules. I'm not asking you to trust them. I'm asking you to let me keep the crisis in one place while I build the thing that will keep it from eating our neighborhood."
"House jail," Jinx muttered.
"Exactly," Peter said. "House jail with blankets."
Lux exhaled through her nose. "Neeko?"
Neeko stared at Zoe for a long, quiet second, then at the floor where her nightmares usually start. When she finally spoke, it was blunt.
"I hate you," she told Zoe, simple as weather. "I hate the cage. I hate the chase. Neeko runs in dreams. Neeko runs when awake. It is tiring." Her tail flicked once; she didn't blink. "But Neeko is tired of running from ghosts. If you are this scared that you knock on his door, maybe pancakes and rules are better than running. For now."
Zoe's mouth trembled. "I'm—" She actually had to fight the word out. "I'm sorry."
No one absolved her. The word just sat there between the tile and everyone's pride.
"House rules," Peter said, catching the moment and driving stakes into it before it got away. "No upstairs unless I say. No lab unless I say. No weapons. No corrupting. No recruiting. If you scorch my kitchen, I cry and then I end you."
Rakan lifted both hands. "We can follow rules."
"Growth mindset," Xayah deadpanned, bumping his hip without looking.
Jinx kept her eyes on Zoe. "You breathe wrong, I'm inventing new crimes," she said. The magical mediums stayed round and cautious, but her vibe didn't soften.
Lux folded her arms on the counter like a field commander doing community theater. "Temporary neutral," she said. "We are not friends. We are barely co-existing atoms. We're doing this because the alternative is dumb."
"Agreed," Peter said. "Now eat before the pancakes secede."
They migrated into a shape that wasn't quite seating and wasn't quite a standoff. Zoe chose the carpet by the doorway like she'd decided on probation herself. Xayah took a chair with a straight line to the exit because of course she did. Rakan sat where Lux pointed and didn't test the boundary again.
They ate—awkward, then less awkward because chewing is democratic. Conversation slid practical whether anyone wanted it to or not.
"How do we fight a room?" Lux asked, stabbing syrup. "Because blasting a person is one thing. Blasting... ambiance is another."
"You don't," Peter said. "I do."
Three pairs of eyes.
He kept it simple. "Darks live outside your reality. You can't touch them. You can't even really see them unless they step down on purpose. That's by design. I'm the antivirus; you're the system I'm protecting. Your job is keep the world running, keep me plugged in, keep civilians out of the splash zone. My job is the weird part."
Jinx made a face. "Cool, so we're tech support."
"Top-tier tech support," Peter said. "If I say 'anchor' or 'lock,' translate it as: I'm pinning cause-and-effect so he can't slide time for free. You don't have to understand it. Just don't walk through it."
Neeko sipped from a mug like it was a talisman. "Grounding," she said. "Neeko will leash heart to now. No run."
"That's the most important part," Peter told her, and it landed like a blanket instead of a rule. "When I go upstairs—metaphorically—you pull me back down. Count with me. Read my name if I stop answering. That's the tether."
Lux exhaled, then squared up. "Fine. I'll do comms and perimeter. Quiet channel. Jinx, do not name it 'godslayer chat.'"
"Too late," Jinx said without looking up. Beat. "Kidding. Maybe."
Peter glanced at the trio again. "You three—couch, shower, sleep. You don't come upstairs unless I say. If you breathe on the lab door, it grows teeth. You'll know."
Rakan opened his mouth to go for a joke, clocked the room, and closed it again. "Copy."
Xayah stood—posture controlled, words costed out. "We're not going to make this easy," she said. "We're going to make it possible."
Zoe hugged herself. "We won't touch anything," she added quickly, like the promise could be a shield. "We— we just don't want to see him again."
"Same," Peter said softly. "But I'm planning for it."
He clapped once, sharp as a reset. "Agenda. Lux—comms and neighborhood pings. If the sky tints green, red, whatever, or you hear a 3-2-3 hum? You ping me and leave it alone. Jinx—help me mark our side of reality: doors, hallways, rooftops. We're placing physical tells so you know where my anchor-webs are and don't cut them by accident. Neeko—grounding runs at your pace. If I start talking like a podcast you can't follow, you say my name until I come back."
Jinx squinted. "Anchor-webs?"
"Think 'do not cross' tape for causality," Peter said. "If you see the lines—don't touch. If you don't see the lines—also don't touch."
"Boring is my kink," Jinx muttered, then grimaced. "Nope. Still cursed."
Neeko tilted her head. "Glitter? Makes lines visible for Neeko. Not the bad god—just Peter's webs. So friends don't walk through."
Lux pointed a spatula at Peter like she'd just lost a bet. "If you start bedazzling our reality, I'm moving out."
"Glitter goes on my webs," Peter said, deadpan. "Not on existence. Misdemeanor at worst."
Outside, Valoran did normal city noises—buses sighed, drones beeped, some guy yelled at a pigeon. Inside, a Guardian of Fiction, three Star Guardians, and three very unwelcome guests decided not to blow up breakfast.
No one said the name again. They didn't need to. The house remembered for them.
Neutral wasn't peace. It wasn't forgiveness. It was pancakes and rules and the choice not to shoot first. For a morning, that was enough.
Peter rinsed his plate, dried his hands, and looked at the people he'd just convinced to share air. "Okay," he said, easy on purpose. "Let's get to work."
To Be Continued...