Chapter 10 – Picking Up the Pieces
Powder awoke shivering, tangled in sheets damp with sweat, Ekko's voice echoing in the pit of her memory—shouts, the whine of a failing Chomper, a sudden blast. For a heartbeat she saw Mylo burning, Clagger falling, Vi vanishing behind thick, crimson fog. Sacred silence stretched, pierced only by the staccato beat of her heart—and the whispering, ghostly chorus in her mind:
"YOU ARE A JINX."
She clawed at the sheets, desperate for breath, slow to realize she was in her own lab, not the endless warehouse night. But still, the voices wouldn't let her go.
The city moved forward—steel and commerce, rain on rooftops, laughter echoing down glimmering rails—but for Vi and Powder, the world remained split by what had happened in the Dead Slabs.
Vi sat hunched on an old bench in the gym, gloves off but blood-stained wraps still clinging to her knuckles. She trained until her arms trembled—punching bags, shadowboxing, slamming herself mercilessly into routine—but nothing dulled the echo of those illusions. Nightmares returned each night, the faces of Mylo and Clagger, Powder's sorrow, Ashryn's disappointment. Even with daylight washing over her sweat-slicked skin, guilt gnawed; part of her still believed she'd failed them all.
Across Virelle, Powder sealed herself in her lab, going longer and longer between meals and rest. She'd barred Ekko from entering, even threw a wrench at Mylo when he knocked, voice cracked with something near panic. The walls filled with graffiti and frantic technical notes side by side—one wall crammed with scribbles, curses, looping apologies, the other neatly scrawled blueprints. At night the shadows moved, names muttered in the darkness, and her hands shook as she soldered the same Chomper again and again.
Ekko, Mylo, and Clagger all struggled too—Ekko's jokes grew rare, Mylo rubbed tired eyes, Clagger's smile lost some of its bite—but it was Powder and Vi who were worst off. The others, jarred and sleepless, still managed to push through their days. For Vi and Powder, the city had become thin, brittle, full of cracks.
Elsewhere, Lynne sat with Cael in her dimly lit office, files spread across her desk. A heavy mood pressed between them.
"Do we report this?" Lynne's fingers tapped nervously on the folder marked ANOMALY – DEAD SLABS. "A magician—if that's even what it was—on Virelle's streets. I don't know who would believe it, but even if they did…"
Cael shook his head, worry deepening the lines at his eyes. "The council would want details we don't have. The city's still fragile, and those who fought her—especially Powder and Vi—they're not right."
"They're... not just shell-shocked. They're changed," Lynne agreed, lowering her voice. "Let's wait, get Ashryn's guidance. Until then, Jarvis can try to reach her."
It took two days for Ashryn to surface—her interface alight with blueprints and runes, eyes tired but energy undimmed. When Jarvis relayed the message—she paused, for the first time in weeks, and felt a genuine shiver of unease.
A magician? And not just any street-talent. No, if Jarvis held back an emergency notification, it wasn't a full-scale champion's attack—but even an "ordinary" mage could be disastrous for a city just finding its rhythm. Still, worry warred with a sliver of pride. A magician had come to Virelle—and her people had survived, even if just barely. The historian and tactician in her was dying to hear every detail, to see magic not in books, but living, terrifying, real.
If only this curiosity didn't run alongside so much dread.
She reminded herself: first, her people's hearts and heads. Then, and only then, could she indulge in geeking out over magic.
On her way to Lynne's office, Ashryn spotted Mylo pacing anxiously in the corridor outside Powder's lab. His hair looked even messier than usual, one hand twisting his sleeve, oblivious to Ashryn's approach.
She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Mylo jumped a full inch and spun around, wide-eyed.
Ashryn's laugh was a brief bright spot in the hush. "Relax! Not a ghost—just your ever-distracted boss."
He exhaled shakily. "Didn't see you. Sorry."
Ashryn's tone softened. "Aren't you going in? Why are you out here alone?"
Mylo glanced down the hall. "Clagger's on shift, Ekko's…well, he tried, but Powder kicked even him out. Vi's locked herself in the gym. She does patrols, but when she's not working, she never comes out. Powder, she…" He trailed off, voice raw. "She kicked all of us out. Won't say why, just won't. And it's not like we're fine either, just...They're worse."
Ashryn's playful look faded, replaced by quiet concern. "What exactly happened down there, Mylo? I need to know before I talk to her."
He told her what he remembered—the confusion, the cold emptiness, the feeling that something inside his head had been rearranged, and nightmares that replayed it in endless, shifting loops. Ashryn made notes silently, listening for details behind the facts.
Mental wounds from magic run deep, she thought grimly.
"Leave it to me," she finally assured him. "But I'll need all of you once I've spoken with Powder. For now, get the others, let them know we'll meet after."
Inside the office, Lynne's face brightened at Ashryn's arrival—a flicker of relief and almost-childlike hope.
"I'm glad you're here," she admitted quietly.
Others didn't know it, and even she hadn't expected it to be this stressful. Before Ashryn locked herself in her lab, it had been Lynne who handled most of the work, so she assumed nothing would change in her absence. But the moment something like this happened, she and Cael were like headless chickens—unable to respond properly. No, it wasn't that they didn't know what to do. It was that they couldn't do it without Ashryn. Even Lynne didn't fully understand why. Maybe it was the weight of responsibility that came with making real choices. Whatever it was, Lynne was just glad to have her back, even if only for a brief moment. She really couldn't handle the stress alone.
Ashryn squeezed her arm and got straight to business. "You've spoken to everyone involved?"
Lynne nodded, her briefing calm but laced with fatigue. The facts came out: Powder and Vi the worst affected; each friend haunted by illusions tailored to their worst, most personal fears.
Ashryn's mind spun through probabilities, her meta knowledge blossoming: Classic case of magical trauma—persistent, tailored nightmares, ongoing social withdrawal. Hypnotic spells can leave a mark long after the caster departs. She had a suspicion about Vi's and Powder's specific triggers—abandonment, disappointment, failure—all seeded by years of struggle, fear of not being enough.
She asked Jarvis for monitoring logs—sleep cycles, social activity, mental stress markers—building a profile on the trauma's real extent. The patterns matched: Vi isolated and overtraining, Powder hyper-fixated, the others restless but still functioning.
Under her breath, Ashryn mused, "So even in a new world… their core is the same. Powder's greatest fear is everyone leaving her, Vi's is failing the family she built."
She stifled a sigh. If any of their fears ever push them over the edge, Powder's chaos could end in citywide disaster—and even Vi, for all her fists, might finally break at something words can't punch through.
She also wondered, uncomfortably, if the world itself sought to nudge the story back toward darker fates. Maybe this universe wants a Jinx, after all. But as long as Powder's mine to protect, I'll never let her break alone.
Meta-knowledge or not, these kids weren't cartoons. They were hers now. She wouldn't let trauma win. "No way I'm letting the world write Jinx into existence by accident," Ashryn vowed privately, eyeing the graffiti and neat-untouched part of Powder's lab she'd glimpsed earlier. Maybe Jinx needs to exist, but only as part of Powder—not her destroyer.
Ashryn found Mylo still sitting guard outside the lab. She ruffled his hair gently. "Don't worry, I'll bring her back to us. But I need to talk to her first, okay?"
Mylo's eyes brightened. "You sure?"
"I'll need you and the others here soon, but not yet. Go round them up, let me get her talking first."
Mylo nodded and left, shoulders just a little lighter.
Ashryn knocked gently. Inside, tools clattered and a puff of smoke hissed. "Go away, Mylo! I said no!" Powder barked through the door.
"It's me, Ashryn. I just want to talk, Powder."
Silence. Then the door cracked open, Powder peeking out, face stained with soot and sleepless worry. "What's up?" she said flatly.
Ashryn grinned, pushing into the workshop before Powder could object. "I hear this is the new city council chamber—lucky you!" Powder scrambled to tidy up as Ashryn weaved among gadgets and graffiti.
"Don't worry, Powder. I know what you're going through, and there's nothing here that scares me," Ashryn said lightly. She started cleaning one wall, talking all the while. "We'll be using your lab for the meeting. Might as well get the place ready before everyone shows up."
Powder rolled her eyes, half-annoyed, half-relieved. "Why do they always have to meet here? You're just trying to get me out where you can talk at me like I'm broken."
Ashryn stopped scrubbing, smiled a gentler smile, and said, "Listen, I know you don't want comfort right now. But I do want you to know—I don't judge you, and I mean it."
Powder bristled. "You don't know what I'm going through. Nobody does."
Ashryn's reply was quietly firm. "I might not truly understand—not perfectly. But I know what you're going through. There's a difference, Powder. No one can completely understand another person, but experience, empathy, and a little guesswork can get us pretty close."
Powder frowned, unconvinced. "So you know, but you don't understand? What's the point in that?"
Ashryn shrugged. "Understanding means living it exactly as you do—and no one can. But I know you're afraid that if you're not useful, if you mess up, everyone will eventually leave you. Especially Vi. That's not something to be ashamed of, Powder. It's just...human."
Powder's jaw slackened, a mix of hurt, hope, and disbelief swirling in her eyes.
Ashryn let the silence stretch, then brightened again. "I'm not just going to help you—I'm going to help everyone. Today, before the sun sets, you'll all be one step closer to being yourselves again."
As the others began to trickle in, Ashryn greeted each with a warm smile and steady gaze—Powder, Vi, Mylo, Clagger, Ekko—all still pretending, all still visibly haunted.
She waved them to seats around the worktable, every heart knotted but every friend, finally, together.