Covenant Base — The Labyrinth — Same Time
Jonathan ran.
The base was still shifting—hallways folding, ceilings becoming floors, doors opening onto voids. Hero was somewhere behind him. He could feel the heat, the static, the weight of radiation pressing against his skin.
He turned a corner. Dead end.
He turned another. Hero was there.
Jonathan didn't stop. He threw a punch—not to hit, to see. Hero raised his hand. Flash. Jonathan was already behind the wall. The light seared the concrete, but not him.
He needs line of sight. He telegraphs.
He moved again.
---
Jonathan burst through a shifting wall, Faith propelling him across the room. Hero's eyes tracked him—slow, too slow. Jonathan was already behind a pillar.
Blast Wave of explosion. The pillar shattered. Jonathan rolled, came up behind another wall.
Countdown.
He looked at Hero's chest. The timers were moving. He had minutes. Maybe less.
He ran faster.
---
The labyrinth answered.
A hallway folded, giving him a path above Hero's head. Jonathan climbed—Faith burst, hand over hand—and dropped onto a ledge. Hero was below him, scanning the wrong direction.
Jonathan jumped.
His fist—Mass Addition stacked, gauntlets heavy—slammed into Hero's shoulder. Not a clean hit. Not enough. But the timers flickered. Hero stumbled.
Jonathan rolled away before the Flash could find him.
"You're fast," Hero said. His voice was the crackle of a dying broadcast. "But speed doesn't matter. The blast radius is already decided."
"Then you already know how this ends."
Hero raised his hand.
---
The Flash blast came. Jonathan closed his eyes. Faith burst sideways. He felt the heat pass his ear, his shoulder, his hip.
He opened his eyes. Hero's guard was down.
Now.
Mass Addition. Everything he had. His right gauntlet was dense enough to warp the air around it. He swung—not at Hero's chest, at his ribs. The Countdown timers on his left arm.
Shattering Impact.
The gauntlet connected. The timers cracked. Hero's eyes widened—just for a moment—and the numbers froze.
"Finally," Jonathan said.
Hero backhanded him across the room.
---
Jonathan hit the wall. Rolled. Stood. His ribs were cracked. His gauntlet was dented. But he was alive.
He charged again.
Hero raised his hand for another Blast Wave. Jonathan slid under it—Faith burst low—and came up inside his guard.
Double Impact.
His left fist struck Hero's knee. The first impact cracked the metal. The second detonation shattered it. Hero dropped to one knee.
Jonathan didn't stop. He struck the other knee. The same knee. The timers on Hero's chest—still cracked, still frozen.
"Your sister cried at the end," Jonathan said. "Called for you. I didn't stop. You want revenge? Come get it."
Hero's eyes went cold.
"You should have stayed quiet."
---
He raised his hand. Not for Flash. Not for Blast Wave.
Something smaller. More focused. A beam of white light, condensed into a needle, aimed at Jonathan's chest.
Jonathan couldn't dodge. Didn't have time.
The beam punched through him. His lower body disappeared. His left arm was gone. His right arm—barely holding on—clung to the floor.
Hero stood over him.
"Ask for forgiveness," Hero said. "She's waiting."
Jonathan coughed blood. His vision blurred.
"She was crying for you," he said. "Not for me."
Hero raised his hand again.
Then a punch hit Hero.
It came from nowhere.
A fist—not gauntleted, not reinforced, just massive—slammed into Hero's jaw. He flew across the room, crashed through three walls, and landed in a crater of rubble and dust.
Kanuel stood where Hero had been. Older. Greyer. Thinner. But his shoulders were still broad. His fists were still dense.
Hero pushed himself up. His jaw was cracked. His timers were flickering.
"You're supposed to side with us."
"A symptom? You're mistaken."
Kanuel moved.
Not fast. Inevitable. He crossed the distance before Hero could raise his hand. His fist—pulling air with it, compressing it into a vortex—connected with Hero's chest.
Hero flew upward. Through the ceiling. Through the floor above. Through the shifting labyrinth.
He exploded.
The base shook. Walls crumbled. Dust filled the air. A mushroom cloud—small, contained, but absolute—rose through the shifting corridors. The labyrinth absorbed the blast, redirected it, swallowed it.
Hero was gone.
Kanuel stood in the crater, dust settling on his shoulders.
He looked at Jonathan—the upper body, the one arm, the blood pooling beneath him. He started moving toward him.
"Kanuel, stop."
He turned.
Lyric stood at the entrance of the crater, Joy unconscious in her arms. Her voice was steady, but her hands were shaking.
"Please don't get close to me."
Kanuel stopped.
His face—older, greyer, thinner—did something complicated. Affection, maybe. Regret. Something that looked like the ghost of a smile.
"Lyric."
She didn't answer.
She walked past him, carried Joy to the edge of the crater, and laid her down. Then she went to Jonathan.
Her hands glowed—white, soft, urgent. She pressed them to his chest. The wound didn't close—not yet—but the bleeding slowed.
"You're going to live," she said. "You're too stubborn to die."
Jonathan didn't answer. His eyes were already closing.
Kanuel watched for a moment. Then he turned and walked away.
The labyrinth shifted. He was gone.