Section 3: Three Little Pigs (POV: Alternating between Blue and The Wolf)
Setting: The Ruins of the Fortress.
The last part is a chaotic ball ballet of three different breathing forms colliding in the dark, destroyed inside of the warehouse. Declan struggles with obstinate, indomitable Puff, which is a rock attempting to withstand a hurricane. Blue is pure Huff--making plays, dodging, playing on his vagaries, to win the foul of the Wolf, his laughter a quick, nervous firearm. The Wolf is a virtuoso of all three, smoothly switching between them: after absorbing a blow with Puff on the arm of Declan, Huff to spin and slice at Blue and then igniting The Burn to go on an overwhelming, crushing rush.
The brothers are losing. Badly. They do not match individually, in terms of style. It is not strength but forced trust that leads to the breakthrough. Incidentally, Blue falls after stepping on a cable on purpose and in a state of madness, knowingly. The Wolf strikes to kill, and, acting entirely on his instinct, Declan does not stand in his path, but reaches out and seizes Blue and hauls him out of the path, their tunes tuning up briefly together. It is at that moment that they realize.
They start to fight as a unit. The stabilization of Puff by Declan opens gaps. The Huff of Blue, in its franticness, takes advantage of them, and shakes the Wolf, putting him off his time. They are no match to his power, and yet they can outlive his Burn. The battle at the end is a physical claustrophobic fight. Perhaps they make use of the setting--Blue lures the Wolf beneath a broken girder and Declan makes use of the strength of his arm to get it down. The fatal stroke is never struck.
The Wolf, with bleeding wounds of a dozen, his state of Burn smashing beneath his feet, just... ceases. He gazes at the three battered brothers finally fighting collectively and all you can see is that glance of wearied disgust in his eyes. He disappears with a rough bloody sigh, and is once more enveloped in the darkness of the city, and they are changed forever. All their houses are in ruins, including their house. Nonetheless, the pigs continue to breathe. For now.
That is how the story ends: no triumph, just a survival. They are united in one place, consumed by the rubble of their personal lives, and discovering finally that it is not in bricks, neon, hustles that they find their strength, but rather in the common air between them.