Eli flew through the wall of Scott and Celi’s highrise home into the open air, hurled by his friend. He reoriented himself with puffs of stardust that he condensed in a preliminary barrage of aurora bolts to pepper Scott with once he jumped out to attack. It took him until he was halfway to the ground to realize that Scott was content to wait until he landed to strike.

  He tried to teleport, but found he could only shift a few inches through space. Starspace Nexus fizzled, tapped out from its rapid use. That was fine. He trusted Stellar Body and Aurora Stardust to enhance his body enough to mitigate any harm from hitting the gr—

  Both his ankles folded once they met the asphalt. Eli toppled onto the sidewalk with a startled, pained yelp. The unyielding curb hammered his ribs. His left hand caught the rest of his fall, twisting his elbow to the side with a sharp pop.

  Profound Erudition cataloged every injury while it bolstered his mental fortitude in the wake of his crash landing.

  Eli’s chin followed the rest of his body and cracked onto the pavement, knocking his teeth together. Blood and chips of broken enamel filled his mouth with a choked gurgle. That did not matter. What he cared about was that all the powers he held closest to his core faltered and failed. Already, his consciousness threatened to buckle under the constant agony.

  There’s not enough essence for all my powers. He realized, pushing away all the aspects from his core except for Profound Erudition.

  “—ay? Eli? Get down here, guys, he’s not responding!” Scott’s shouts scraped his eardrum raw with loud, frantic concern.

  Eli sat up, wobbled, and stabilized himself with his right hand. Turned to stare at Scott’s blurred face, exposed by the gap in his shadow scaled armor. He tried to speak around the jumble of broken teeth and blood filling his mouth.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m pbine,” Eli mumbled, wincing at the sudden crash of torment filtering through his healing nerves. Profound Erudition had enough juice to elevate him from roadkill to dimensional-traveling vagabond.

  “What’s your Body stat? Do you need anything to heal from that?”

  “I bunno,” Eli shrugged and immediately wished he had not. Fire ravaged his splintered shoulder, crumpled left arm, and the sprained, knotted muscles in his back.

  “Um, alright. I think Moongirl might be able to heal?” Scott reached out to console him, changed his mind, and walked over to shout up at the others to come down.

  Eli reflected on how he had survived the System deleting him, and yet he had still turned into a pancake after falling a couple of stories. He waited for Profound Erudition to tell him the exact number, but it stayed silent. Between it and Stellar Body, both took up all his available essence for him to remain conscious, let alone begin healing.

  No wonder the System only allows people to have three powers equipped at a time. After all, he had been using seven powers in total for hours ever since he and Daisy made their way over here. He watched the flows of essence trickle into his core, then drain back out into Erudition and his stellar bones.

  “I wumder ib I can…” Eli picked at some of the loose grit on the sidewalk and pulled the mass into the empty void inside of Stellar Body. Specks of concrete and dirt appeared, then disintegrated inside his spatial reality. Instant relief massaged his bruised organs.

  “Okay, they’re here. How are you feeling… Wait, are you healing from that fall already?” Scott asked incredulously. Everyone watched Eli like a hospice patient that decided it was time to run a marathon.

  “Kind of,” Eli admitted, squeezing another handful of concrete vaporized out of the sidewalk into his void. Bones shifted back into realignment, lacerations threaded shut, and new teeth shoved aside cracked molars filling his mouth with the old. Instead of spitting them out, he absorbed them and shuddered. His discarded teeth gave way to a rush of essence that spiked directly into his body.

  No wonder his celestial galaxy and sanctum were empty. Everything inside had probably dissolved to restore him after his fight with Ethel and subsequent deletion from the System. He stood up.

  “H-how? How are you alive, Eli?” Scott stumbled back from him along with Celi, their hands folded into each other for comfort. As if he were a monster… or an abomination.

  “What do you mean? I healed.” Eli glanced past them to Roman and Steria. His gaze snapped back to his friend and the new metal scars leftover from his fight with Alfred. In the sun, they looked far more noticeable.

  “But how? I have Hydra Transfiguration and a Body stat and I don’t heal that fast. I’m still hurt from that weird lightning bolt you shot me with. What powers do you have to walk away fifteen minutes after falling more than forty stories?”

  “Fifty-two,” Roman corrected with a stern smile. His eyes bored into Eli’s with silent chagrin, as if saying that his recklessness had gotten him hurt once again.

  "Good ones.” Eli shrugged, the motion a normal a ripple of nonchalance. “Sorry for the scare, but you were the one that threw me out the window in the first place.”

  “Yeah, I uh, assumed you would fly or teleport. That’s my bad. I wanted more of a badass fight and not leaving you a crippled mess. I don’t even know what I would have done if you had died, man.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have thrown him out of the window.” Steria said before Eli could speak. She glowered at Scott, her moonlit eyes shadowed in the dark promise of a new moon.

  “I apologized already. He’s fine, right?”

  “A little embarrassed, but there was no lasting damage,” Eli said.

  “How could you possibly be okay after three fights back to back? You need to rest!” Steria moved closer, her hand alight with lunar purification. He retreated. “What? Let me heal you!”

  “Thanks, but I’m alright.” Eli chuckled awkwardly. He and Roman had technically been fighting almost nonstop for two days since they were in the ruins of New Faram. He had no idea how many fights they had gotten into, even with Profound Erudition chugging along in the background. Most likely it was too many, and not enough. They needed to be stronger if they wanted any chance of competing in the Tri-Delve Cup. And to protect their families, of course.

  “Still as stubborn as ever, I see. Why can’t you let people help you until the last moment?” Scott rolled his eyes, eliciting a chuckle from Roman.

  “That’s just how he is. We were stranded in another dimension for almost two weeks before he agreed he needed help to come back. And then he figured it out all by himself in the end.” Roman shook his head wryly. Profound Erudition flagged the wrinkle of irritation scrunching around his eyes. Yet, paradoxically, Roman’s stance was loose and open. He was happy now that they were reunited with Scott. Joking as if they hadn’t spoken or hung out for a few days and not two years.

  “C’mon, that’s not fair. I only figured it out because of you and Maeve. Plus, Richard took us to that volcanic dungeon,” Eli said, shoving down the adolescent bile of jealousy that threatened to snap its jaws around his heart.

  “What the fuck do you mean by ‘volcanic dungeon’? Roman did not mention anything like that at all.” Celi glanced at the three boys as if they were playing a prank on her.

  “Didn’t I? The System has these dungeons where it spawns in what you call abominations. It’s probably where most of them are coming from, to be honest.”

  “So, that’s where we would strike if we wanted to get rid of them. How do we find these dungeons?” Scott asked.

  “Uh, I think Les mentioned a scanner he had. We could ask him about it or build one of our own?” Roman suggested, glancing at Eli to see if hopping dimensions was on the table.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that for a while. I pushed my spatial powers. Hard,” Eli added for emphasis when everyone stared at him blankly.

  “Okay? We can wait a bit, I’m sure. What are you thinking, Scott?” Celi bumped her boyfriend with her elbow when he failed to respond right away.

  “I’m thinking that we clear out all these fuckers out and reclaim this city. Imagine what our lives would be like if we could make this place a home again. Yeah?”

  “Right. For our parents.” Celi’s eyes blazed scarlet and gold with fire.

  “What do you think, Roman? Eli? Are you in?”

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  Eli paused with his mouth wide open, ready to declare his support when Roman beat him to it.

  “Uh, maybe? I’m not sure if I’m down for too many more spawn genocides. Outside of the other dimension’s dungeon arcade, Delver’s Dive, I have found dungeons to be some of the most awful experiences I have ever lived through. I only want to build cool shit and know my friends and brothers are safe, you know?”

  “At least you and Eli have the option to leave and go anywhere whenever you want. I wish we could do that. Live in a place with working water, electricity, and know Celi and I are finally safe.”

  “Come with us then.” Eli held his hand out. “We can go anywhere and be done for a bit. Go back to Farbrook, Rockford in the other dimension, wherever you want. Hell, if you give me a couple of days at least, I bet we could find a new dimension to crash in for a while.”

  “You would want to leave everyone else behind to suffer. Guess you haven’t changed after all.” He sneered.

  “I thought we agreed to move past that, Scott.”

  “Goddammit, enough, no more fighting!” Roman shoved himself between Scott and Eli and tried to push them away from each other. Neither of them budged. He continued speaking. “It has been one constant fight after another and I am tired of it. How many times do we have to risk our lives, huh? And for what? The thrill of it? To prove a point? Revenge?”

  “That’s not—“

  “Shut the fuck up, Elias. It is my turn to talk and you will listen. Please.” Roman glared at him with tears in his eyes. Normal, mundane tears and no sign of his powers boiling under the surface like the rest of them.

  Eli nodded with his heart stuck in his throat. Everyone stared at Roman.

  “You are and have always been my best friends. Both of you. And I am so incredibly glad to have you both in my life, knowing that you are strong. For fuck’s sake, it seems you two are thriving here. But I’m not. Theo has gone completely insane, and I… I don’t even know what to do or think about him. Cyrus wants to be exactly like you, and that scares me. All I wanted was for everyone to get back together and be people again. Don’t any of you want that?”

  Silence stretched for a few impossibly long seconds where no one dared move or speak first. Waiting for someone else to respond. Eli and Scott shared a glance over Roman’s head.

  “I’m sorry—“ They both said in unison.

  “Are you? Or you?” Roman stepped off the curb into the sundered road to stare them both down.

  “Of course we are, man. I never meant to hurt you or drag you along if you didn’t want to come. That was never my intention.”

  “Yeah, same. It’s… We really have a shot here with all of us working together. Can you imagine it? Pushing out all these abominations so we can retake a city of our own? I don’t want to fight either. I don’t think anyone does? But we have to.” Scott said, cutting in right after Eli.

  “That’s what you say now, but what about the next time? Or the time after that? Huh? Let’s leave. Find a new or better place and bring people there instead of conquering an already broken city. Wouldn’t that be better? Nicer?”

  “Anywhere we go, we would have to fight,” Celi snorted derisively. “I get you missed most of the past year and that things are different on the west coast. That’s fine. Except here, we had to fight for our lives almost every single day.”

  “We already fought an army to protect our town. An army of fucking tree people tried to wipe out Farbrook. Oh yeah, and my brother and his sister created them so they could kill them and get stronger and keep fighting. When will it be enough?If it wasn’t for Maeve, we would all be dead.” Roman paced back and forth in the street. Dreamy purple mist wisped off him in a haze where images of the greant attack flickered. “And that wasn’t even the end of it! New Faram is a wasteland almost as bad as here, full of their own spawn and people like you.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Celi crossed her arms in a huff.

  “I mean, people like you, who are so desperate to fight non-stop. How long until spawn or ‘survivors’ make their way to Farbrook and attack it? When do you think another army will make its move or an actual war will happen? Days, months, years, if we’re lucky?”

  “Dude, I’m sorry, but that’s life now. Gotta do what we have to in order to survive and see tomorrow. Besides, how is it fair if we can leave and go somewhere else?”

  “Oh my god, what kind of argument is that, Scott? ‘We’ll keep fighting because they will, so let’s never have peace.’ Sure, okay, but we do have other options. The other dimension is better than it is here and I’m ready to go back. We could leave and be normal people again. If you want to fight, you still can. Eli wants to recruit you into a dungeon delving sport tournament, anyway. Do that and come back stronger afterward, yeah?”

  “What?” Scott blinked at the Roman’s verbal deluge and turned toward Eli. “You came here because you wanted us on your sports team? What the fuck.”

  “And to make sure you were alright.” Eli fidgeted with the tatters of his shirt, sodden with his blood. This was not what he had expected at all when they came here.

  “Does it really matter in the end? Let’s go there. You lunatics can train, learn about powers, prepare, and come back! Maybe we can even bring in some people from there to help out? Anything is better than this slow march to our deaths.” He pleaded.

  Nobody moved or said a word. Eli tried to process everything that had happened, and how Roman had only ever signed up for causes. Meanwhile, he threw himself at every situation with all the intensity he had ever since two people broke into their house in the middle of the night.

  Essence flared a few feet away from them. Curtains of Dream and Light flickered, then fell apart. Daisy smirked at all of them. “Well, you can count me in.”

  “You?! Everyone, run away, I’ll hold her back!” Scott charged forward, a juggernaut of scaled darkness. Daisy teleported into the void hidden behind Eli. Scott skid to a stop, panting for breath. His eyes roved the area for any sign of her.

  Eli reached into the void-hole with Stellar Body, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out. “That’s not funny. How did you find me?”

  “Why do you ask as if it was supposed to be a challenge? You pissed the Azurites off bad. They’re looking everywhere for you after you teleported directly inside one of their camps.”

  “You did what?” Scott shrieked. He, Celi, and Steria all stared at Eli as if he had arrived here from London during the Black Plague.

  “I wanted to see what they were,” Eli mumbled under his breath. Daisy tugged her arm back, breaking his grip on her wrist. She leaned on his shoulder to smile and preen at the three Anhedonia Prime locals.

  “Did I mention a raiding party is on their way here too?”

  “Goddammit, here we fucking go again. At least I won’t have the System logging my kill count anymore like a fucking sadist.” Roman drew the cloud of Dream-like miasma surrounding him into a suit of pyrovoltaic steel. A colossal sword sprouted from his hands, enchanted to rend, shock, and burn.

  “What an interesting thing he said. Is that why you and your friend’s powers feel different?” Daisy whispered to Eli while everyone else made defense plans. Scott and Celi disintegrated into darkness and fire to scout the area.

  “How far away are they?” Eli pulled away to meet her laughing eyes, partially obscured by her cracked glasses. He wondered why she wore them with the number of powers she had. Was it sentimental or a waste of space in her status?

  “Hard to say, really. I was more interested in finding out what you were talking about with the Couple and Eclipse over here.”

  “Tell us what you know, Collector,” Steria grimaced with distaste. Her blonde hair rippled white with moonlight.

  “I just did, didn’t I? Think that warning was enough to count as a gift yet, or do you want more to sweeten the pot?” Daisy smiled at the other woman.

  “No, it doesn’t, and I won’t let you trap me with your stupid debt power.”

  Roman walked over to Eli with all the subtlety of a clanging suit of regular armor and sighed through his helm’s visor. He leaned his fabricated sword on his shoulder as if he were a knight called to duty once more.

  “I really am sorry, you know. This was supposed to be easier than this. Now, it’s just another mess,” Eli said.

  “I know. You weren’t the only one that made mistakes. I rushed us into this and broke our Systems. Too bad we can’t get it back.”

  “Oh, yeah, we need to talk about that, too. Later?” Eli said, eying the bad blood brewing between both women. He wondered what the history was since they clearly knew each other.

  “To be honest, I would prefer to hear whatever you have to say now instead of later. What happened?”

  “So, uh, when we were fighting Ethel and Alfred, Land and Sky, you know?”

  “You mean the ones that stabbed me? I remember them.”

  “After I went fully Void—“

  “Which you promised to not do again as a last resort? Does that ring any bells for you?”

  “Ha ha,” Eli rolled his eyes, oddly calm now that another battle was on the horizon. Maybe Roman had a point after all. He hardened a barrier of space with Stellar Body in a dome around them to keep their conversation private.

  “Anyways, I had a meeting with the System, and-don’t-interrupt, buuut it’s kind of a dick and I don’t want to have it again? I’m sure if you want to be under its control, you could ask or something, but I bet you could also build your own System.”

  Roman’s mouth hung open while he listened. His eyes popped, bulging with disbelief, and quite a bit of fear, according to Profound Erudition. At last, he said, “What the hell are you talking about? You talked to the System that manages our powers? What did it say?”

  “A lot of stuff that I found to be condescending and ultimately useless. Oh, and it would prefer to be the power System for dogs? Which I found odd since I didn’t even know that animals had powers.” Eli recalled after the System’s attempt at blasting him.

  “Come on, man, you cannot drop a bombshell like that on me and go on a random tangent like that. What did the System say?”

  “Mostly it insulted me while looking like me.” Eli shrugged. “Said a lot of shit about being all for the good of humanity, even though it locks us in its little box. Kept trying to convince me to join it again, but I refused. I mean, haven’t you felt better without it trapping you and your powers?”

  “No, I absolutely have not felt better!” Roman hissed. “Everything is so much harder. My thoughts and feelings fluctuate from a person’s to a machine. Using my powers hurt in a way they never did before. I hate this, and it’s all my fault we’re like this. Do you think it would let me join it again?”

  “I don’t know why you would want to be a part of the System considering it tried to erase me out of existence. Does that sound like a System you want to be a part of?”

  “I guess not.” Roman slumped in defeat. “And now that I have a choice, there’s no way I would willingly choose to be a part of a System that rewards killing others for their powers. How would I even build a new System though?”

  “I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to be the one that wanted to become an engineer? Either way, I’ll help you. And I agree with you about fighting. Kind of. After this next fight, let’s find some place to rest and get our bearings, yeah?”

  “Only if Cyrus comes with us. I’m not leaving him alone longer than I have to. Not again. I’m all he has left.”

  “Okay.” Eli nodded, collapsing the spatial privacy barrier. “Ready to do this?”

  “And what were you two talking about in secret?” Steria asked them accusingly.

  “I’ll tell you what they said if you agree that it’s a gift.” Daisy grinned at the other frustrated woman.

  “Don’t pretend like you know. We were both trying to figu—“

  Loud resonant horns rang. Vibrations rumbled in his bones, thrummed in his blood, and filled him until he tasted the sound. A squad of three dozen Azurite giants bore down on them.

  It was time to fight. Or was it? Profound Erudition broke down everything that had happened with fragmented memories of the other dimension’s peace. How had the Savior carved out a protective zone for humanity, and could they do the same?

  All he knew was that he agreed with Roman. He wanted to slow down or stop the constant bloodshed and live again.