Chapter 9 – Fractures and Fires
It started the way it always did—Powder hunched over a tangle of wires and gleaming virellite coils, her workshop cluttered, Ekko pacing beside her with a hopeful grin that wavered when the fizz of unstable energy cut the air.
She muttered, "Just a bit tighter… This time… this time, I got it right," Powder whispered, eyes too bright with hope.
Ekko smiled, cautious but supportive. "You've almost got it every time. Let's not get blown to bits this round, please."
She forced a laugh, twisting the screwdriver. The Chomper sizzled, blue light flickering across both their faces. Before Ekko could pull her away, the device crackled, hissed... and exploded in a arc of viridian light and smoke.
Powder slammed to the floor. For a heartbeat, everything burned: her hands, her ears, her lungs. She rolled upright coughing, gasping for Ekko, dust in her mouth.
But there was no reassuring smile. Ekko lay sprawled, chest unmoving, his hand outstretched toward her, eyes shocked and empty. Powder crawled to him, shaking. "Ekko—no, don't! I can fix this, just—please—"
His silence shattered her. And suddenly, the world spun.
Now she stood in a ruin, tools scattered, orange light of warning glyphs blinking behind the smoke. A different lab, a different accident? Through the haze, one disaster spiraled into another: the sound of running boots—Vander rushing in, face grave and helpless—Mylo blaming her, Clagger coughing blood. Viktor, then Lynne, and Ashryn's voices came echoing, each accusing, each fading out with the realization she'd lost them, too.
It was always her FAULT.
With every echo of footsteps and alarms, everyone she ever loved vanished or died screaming her name, and every time she begged them to stay, all they did was scrawl more damning words in red on the lab's walls—JINX JINX JINX.
Vi appeared last, kneeling beside her in the smoke. Her voice was gentle, comforting: "It's not your fault, Powder. It never was." Powder clung to her, sobbing. Vi held her for what felt like hours, her words slowly hardening.
Mylo's taunt hung in the air: "You're nothing but a JINX."
Vi's jaw clenched, her comfort fading. She stood, withdrawing her hand. "You are JINX," Vi spat, pain and finality in her voice. "And I'm done saving you."
Suddenly Powder was alone—her world filling with shrieking specters, the walls crawling with scribbles, the shadows seething. All you do is break things. All you bring is chaos. So break more. Burn more. Prove them right...
"You are CHAOS. Not creation. Not salvation. Not even hope. You are our RUIN."
"Cause CHAOS. Don't THINK, don't CARE. BURN IT ALL."
She reached for the nearest Chomper, set it hissing—and flinched as a sharp, searing burn dug into her palm.
PAIN.
That pain surged real and raw. For a single, vertigo-spun instant, the world snapped.
She jerked violently upright, cold and breathless, pressed against dirty concrete—no fire, no dead friends, no neon graffiti. The world was real again, not ruined fantasy.
Somewhere near, Vi's silhouette towered, battered and bloodied, fighting tooth and nail with a tall, black-clad woman whose face was sharp as a razor and whose eyes—icy, unblinking—glimmered with something just short of delight.
Beside Powder: Mylo, Clagger, Ekko—unconscious, but alive.
Her hand ached fiercely. The defective Chomper, still spitting sparks, smoldered on the floor. The pain was real, not imagined.
Powder blinked, terror mingling with relief. For a moment, her whole body trembled.
Vi saw her, face flickering between panic and resolve. "Powder! You're awake—thank the Forges." Her voice was hoarse, ragged at the edges but strong. "Wake them—now! Then run and send for Sevika and Callum."
Through her terror, Powder heard Vi's urgency and steadied her trembling hands. She leaned over Ekko first, pressing her fingers to his shoulder, calling his name. When he didn't move, she shook him harder, but it wasn't enough—his eyes flickered, lids fluttering but no sign of real consciousness.
Behind her, the Black Rose operative's gaze darted sharply. Powder's heart seized, the memory of hallucinations clawing up her throat. She tried to refocus but her breathing faltered—panic threatening to drown her. The voices from before almost returned; she almost slipped.
But then Vi's voice cut through, not soft but commanding, the same way Ashryn had during the city's worst days. "Pain, Powder! It woke you. Do it—just a pinch."
Tears streaming, Powder hesitated, then used her nail to prick Ekko's arm. His eyelids snapped open, his breath coming sharp. "Powder…?"
One by one: Mylo, then Clagger—each awoken with a jolt, flinching from the pain but looking to Powder with confusion and slowly growing realization.
The Black Rose operative, frustrated, snapped her wrist; silver light shimmered, shadows coiling. Mylo, stumbling to help Vi, was immediately caught—eyes glazing over as he collapsed back into hypnosis. Vi, spotting the distraction, launched herself forward and stabbed toward the operative—a blow that landed hard, the woman's arm bleeding as the illusion faltered.
But Vi staggered, blood pouring from her own wounds now. The fatigue and pain—real and false, it was impossible to tell which—began to overwhelm her.
Powder tried to help, but the closer she got, the more the operative's magic clawed at the edges of her mind, dragging her toward another hallucination. Desperate not to slip away, she pinched herself repeated until tears sprang to her eyes and clarity returned, again and again.
Ekko and Clagger tried to move closer, but one by one, the operative snared them—forcing only one into a trance at a time, leaving the others protected by real pain and adrenaline.
Vi's breathing rattled, but she refused to go down. Every time a friend was dropped by hypnosis, she pressed in harder, drawing the operative's ire, keeping her attacks focused. Clagger, shaking, managed to crawl from the trance by squeezing his own hand so hard the knuckles blanched.
Vi yelled, voice thunderous even through exhaustion: "Powder, Clagger, Mylo, Ekko—run! Now! Get help!"
But no one wanted to go. They circled up, shielding Vi as much as possible—even if it meant risking another spiral into illusion.
The warehouse's stale air hung heavy as the operative moved like a shadow woven from silk and steel. She had anticipated a simple capture, a controlled subjugation of a few pawns, but the reality twisted differently — raw, relentless resistance.
Vi was more than a stubborn enforcer; she was a storm contained in flesh and fury. The flashes of steel and pulse rounds forced the operative to dance back, sending ripples of illusions to confuse and unnerve. Yet Vi's will burned through the phantoms like wildfire.
Her eyes flicked to Mylo and Clagger, hypnotized puppets now shaking off the haze sooner than expected. They pressed with wild, coordinated brutality, their blows aimed to overwhelm. The operative parried, summoning searing illusions to fake pain around her attackers, twisting their minds.
But controlling four adversaries, each fighting both body and mind, frayed her concentration. Each moment spent weaving webs of illusion sapped precious energy. A stumble here, a missed flicker of her controls there — and Vi landed a strike, rending through a shimmering double.
The operative's pulse quickened. She had trained for war in shadow, but never this many wills so fiercely intertwined. Her pale hands pulsed with arcane energy, but each hypnotic hold wavered in the storm of resistance.
Deep inside, she cursed the unpredictability of youth, the raw will that no spell could fully chain. Her lips curled into a thin smile — admiration tinged by frustration. The game had grown complicated.
With a sudden breath, she backed toward the fractured light, weaving new illusions to cover her withdrawal, every nerve straining to maintain control — knowing she had to preserve herself for the next move, the next deceit, before this fight shattered beyond repair.
The operative snarled, "So much spirit. Such persistence. Pitiful."
Silvered light rippled. One by one, the crew slipped in and out of mirages—agonizing, disorienting, but each time they broke through, their resistance returned a little faster, a little stronger.
It was a war of attrition. Both sides fraying.
Finally, the operative, bleeding and spent, staggered backward. "Enough," she hissed, raising her sigil-marked palm for a final spell. "Let's see how you handle this surprise—"
But the warehouse doors burst inward with a dozen armed boots—Sevika at the lead, her cybernetic arm gleaming, Callum right behind, squads fanning out in disciplined arcs. Jarvis's measured voice filtered through Sevika's comm: "Target anomaly identified. Containment in progress."
The Black Rose operative cursed in a language none of them recognized, casting a final burst of blinding light. In the chaos, she vanished—teleporting out as shadow and shimmer folded inward, leaving only blood and confusion behind.
Vi, finally spent, crumpled to her knees, pulse thundering in her ears.
Powder's arms gathered the others close, all of them trembling, heart-wrung and breathless but alive.
They'd survived—barely.