Buzzcut entered his home with all the grimness and gravitas of a man marching to his own execution. He struggled with the bag of cleaning supplies under one arm and closed the door behind him.

With an audible sigh, he hung his keys on the steel hook beside the door, then stopped.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Stayed rooted to the spot behind the plasterboard and cocked his head as if he was listening for something.

I’d told Azure to pay special attention to the entryway, make sure we unsettled nothing, avoided setting off any unknown triggers. And my summon had followed through. Absolutely everything was exactly the way Buzzcut had left it, down to every speck of dust, the angle of the doorknob, and the small pile of dust behind the door.

Yet, somehow, he knew.

Buzzcut reached out slowly for the light switch. As soon as he flicked it, <Probability Cascade> activated as the leg of one of the hall shelves gave out, spilling out dozens of books as it fell sideways.

Buzzcut dropped the cleaning supplies in his arms and jumped backward with a startled shout.

I waited until the complex black-and-silver sights of <Nychta’s Lament> perfectly aligned with my target. In the darkened house, the proceeding arrowhead glowed a dull green from Sae’s enchantment. It was subtle, only a faint shimmer in the shadow.

At this range, it didn’t matter that my skill with the bow was lacking in comparison. I needed the stopping power, and as long as the target was standing still and I’d successfully baited out <Perception>, I had him.

I loosed the arrow.

Buzzcut’s head snapped to the side and he stumbled back against the door, back slamming into it as he reached up in shock toward where the arrow had pierced his neck. He wasn’t bleeding much. A shot through the throat was debilitating enough to make this a hell of a lot easier than it would have been otherwise.

There were precious seconds before his abilities kicked in. Maybe less. I dropped the larger, unwieldy bow and activated <Page’s Quickdraw>. The crossbow was in my hand in seconds, and I pulled the trigger, aiming for center mass.

Buzzcut threw himself to the side, falling over. The bolt narrowly missed, lodging itself in the wall.

I scowled. <Perception> was such a double-edged ability. Fantastic if you were the only one who had it, infuriating when everyone else did.

Audrey dropped from her hiding place on the roof and tangled herself around Buzzcut’s upper body, using all her attack and mobility vines to lash his massive arms to his sides. Instead of reloading and risking another miss, I changed tack again, dashing the short distance from the far end of the room and slamming my knee into Buzzcut’s face.

His nose flattened like it was made of construction paper, head bouncing back against the wall.

When I tried to repeat the motion, Buzzcut lashed out and kicked my foot out from underneath me. My entire leg felt like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer, and I was suddenly airborne, rotating at a speed more than fast enough to break my neck if I landed wrong. Instinctively, I twisted midair to alter my trajectory and landed jarringly on one knee.

Buzzcut roared. Audrey bit him, sinking her many teeth into the nerve cluster on his shoulder. Instead of running or focusing on the plant tearing his flesh away, Buzzcut forced his way to his feet, bent at the waist, and charged, bowling me over.

All the air went out of my lungs as he landed on me, a few of Audrey’s thorns catching my armor and digging into flesh where the armor was torn.

Buzzcut roared again, spittle flying into my face. This time, his voice was more raw, guttural. His shirt strained as his muscles swelled, the fabric growing tauter until it split across the seams, buttons popping free.

I drove the meat of my palm into Buzzcut’s ruined nose. He reeled back, sunglasses flying off his head. His considerable weight shifted off me, and I snatched <Blade of Woe> from my inventory, stabbing it straight toward his chest.

Instead of sinking in, there was an audible scrape, and I nearly lost my grip on the blade as it recoiled across his body.

Shit. Too late.

I got a leg free and planted a foot against his chest, using all the strength I could muster to dislodge myself. Tile squeaked beneath me as I slid backward. Using a mix of my abilities, I landed two more of Sae’s poisoned bolts in Buzzcut’s legs.

Whatever protection ability he was using, I’d hoped it followed a logical order. Started around his chest and vitals, but initially left his extremities and lower body unprotected until it fully kicked in.

One bolt bounced off his shin, leaving a deep gash. The other sunk directly into his knee.

Bingo.

Buzzcut howled. His anger was tinged with pain and fear. But he wasn’t folding. He bent forward, and there was an audible creak from the vines. A series of explosive pops filled the air as Audrey’s vines frayed and snapped, Buzzcut’s mass growing more pronounced.

“Now.”

A lithe form flew through the darkness. In her altered, feral form, Talia gripped Buzzcut’s leg in her jaws, growling loudly. In the short time it took her to join the fray, the magical protection had spread down Buzzcut’s body, and Talia’s teeth barely sunk in.

Finally freed from Audrey’s vines, Buzzcut grabbed Talia by the scruff of her neck and threw her across the room.

“You… have no idea…” Buzzcut wheezed, his voice deep and altered.

Banter was for children. I had no intention of letting him finish.

I raised two fingers and Sae dropped on Buzzcut from the balcony. The same move she’d pulled on me. In some ways, it felt like nostalgic. Only this time, Sae was playing for keeps.

Sae slammed Buzzcut facedown into the ground, hard enough to send a series of spiderwebbing cracks across the tile. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. I leapt over the counter, landing hard on his wounded leg, feeling the arrow snap from the pressure.

When the blades on her arms failed to do damage, Sae snarled, pinned his head to the ground for leverage, and drove a fist into Buzzcut’s ribs repeatedly. There was an odd, echoing feedback that sounded vaguely like a rock bouncing across ice in the middle of winter.

Until the ice broke with an audible crunch. Sensing that the ability that shielded Buzzcut had weakened, Sae’s forearm blade extended outward and she cocked her arm, prepared to thrust the blade between Buzzcut’s ribs.

In a sudden burst of motion, Buzzcut twisted beneath Sae, driving an elbow into her jaw. The strike caught her by surprise and she hit the ground hard. Even so, honeycombing frost spread down Buzzcut’s waist as he struggled to his feet.

At some point, he got his weapons out of his inventory. With his stance, I almost mistook them for boxing gloves. In a way, they were. Only meaner.

The leather gloves were covered with studded metal, while a row of nasty-looking spikes lined the knuckles. Though the spikes themselves were immaculately clean, the leather beneath them was deeply stained. He’d used the hell out of them, and seeing how he was still alive, they’d served him well.

“Don’t get hit.” Sae was back on her feet but only partially recovered. Her warning sounded obvious until I saw the black, jagged protrusion that stuck out from her jaw where a mandible once sat. Little green sparks kindled on the edges, slowly rebuilding the broken appendage.

Carefully, I took stock. Talia slumped over in the corner on her side, a smudged red imprint on the wall behind her. Audrey dragged herself away from the fight slowly, her mobility vines a fraction of their original size.

Yeah. “Don’t get hit” deserved some emphasis.

Buzzcut was still expanding. The panic in his eyes had faded, but the fury remained.

“Move.” We split, darting in opposite directions. If he fought defensively, aggressive flanking was the only way to handle this.

Only, Buzzcut wasn’t interested in fighting defensively. If he’d waited to go on the offensive, given us time to tire ourselves out, I’m not sure there’d be anything we could do. With my attack summons handled, all he had left to contend with was two Users. We were both strong in our own way, but I’d spent most of my mana setting the stage, and the hit Sae took had visibly rattled her.

In the end, Azure made all the difference. He made sure Buzzcut connected the dots between this ambush and the hellish night that preceded it.

And Cameron was pissed.

He didn’t even look at Sae as we split, tracking me as I ran in the opposite direction of Sae into the kitchen, trying to put a counter between us to give myself time to reload.

Buzzcut dropped into a crouch and hurled himself at me. The kitchen wasn’t massive, and Buzzcut was so big now he had a good chance of tagging me, even if I timed the dodge perfectly.

So instead of trying to evade him, I stopped still, mentally toggled the <Operator’s Belt>, and jumped straight up.

My feet barely settled on the top of the massive fridge before he slammed into it full force, the entire stainless steel surface buckling inward, the glass within shattering.

<Probability Cascade> activated, and my arms pinwheeled as the fridge toppled. Cameron caught it before it could crush him, glaring daggers upward before he ripped the fridge out from under me.

I was already moving, lightly dashing across the countertops as Cameron raged, pots and pans flying everywhere. Tired of my bullshit, he grabbed the counter itself and ripped it from its wooden base with an ear-splitting crack.

Sae walloped him from behind, striking the same spot she’d weakened earlier. Buzzcut turned and chased her, tripping from the unwieldiness of his body and scrambling until he made it back onto his feet.

Like they’d rehearsed it, Sae danced. She threaded the needle throughout the minefield that was now Buzzcut’s living room floor, evading him until he reached one of the pre-set traps, raining down blows on him every time he took a misstep and broke through the floorboards.

I watched him try to split the difference—being wary of his footing and his opponent—but Sae was too fast for that, punishing him every time he hesitated or looked away.

Either from the exertion or the poison, Buzzcut was slowing down. I readied my bow and waited for an opening.

With an angry roar, Buzzcut picked up his ruined couch and hurled it at Sae.

Sae slid beneath it, driving a fist into Buzzcut’s ruined knee. It cracked, and he fell.

I fired. The arrow sunk into the weak spot on Buzzcut’s back.

As if she’d planned it, Sae leapt on Buzzcut’s back as he toppled and threaded an arm around his neck, catching him in a blood choke.

But Buzzcut wasn’t an amateur. He moved quickly—quickly enough that I had a feeling his abilities didn’t offer any protection from that sort of attack—and reached up to grab at Sae’s hair. He ripped a handful out at the root and Sae screamed. Instead of knocking her loose, she redoubled her efforts, muscles rippling, her face a sneer.

I reloaded my crossbow and moved closer.

“Feel that? The way your mind’s blanking out and your body won’t quite respond to anything you ask it to do? That’s how it felt in the tunnel, you piece of shit,” Sae snarled into Buzzcut’s ear. He reached up again, trying for another clump of hair, reaching nothing. “And you keep hoping for someone, anyone, to come along and help you. Because it can’t end this way.” Sae chuckled. “But you’re alone, Cameron. It will end this way. And no one is coming to save you.”

The last vestiges of lucidity left Buzzcut’s expression. His arms, once struggling to either push Sae off of him or push himself off the floor, went limp.

Slowly, his eyes closed.

Still straddling Cameron, Sae released her hold and leaned back, gasping for air. “Ho-lee shit.”

“Good job.” It sounded awkward, but I wasn’t sure what else to say. Seeing Buzzcut defeated after all the buildup felt strange, somehow.

“For a second,” Sae heaved between words, “I thought we were gonna need the tank—”

Buzzcut’s eye shot open. It was glowing red—the whole eye, no visible sclera to be seen—and he screamed. Sae tried to grab him, but he threw her off easily, standing to his full height. Between the eye and the dark veins that lined his face, he looked more demon than human now.

Fuck.

Sae was further into the living room, laying smack in the center of the outline where the couch once sat. She was forcing her way to her feet, but her movements were stilted. Either she was stunned, or she’d injured something.

Regardless, she’d be slower than before.

I needed to end this quickly. With a precious few seconds, I studied the kitchen furtively, looking for anything I could use. It was more or less a wreck. The fridge was overturned, and just beyond the fridge, the torn-up marble countertop leaned against a pantry next to the stove like a stone tent. The pieces were all there, but I needed to put them together.

Buzzcut took a menacing step toward Sae.

Lacking a better alternative, I pulled an umbrella out of my inventory and tossed it on the floor in front of him. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

Slowly, Buzzcut’s head tilted down, not comprehending. Then his mouth widened in a rictus of anger and he lost all interest in Sae.

I didn’t bother looking back. Instead, I sprinted into the kitchen and reached toward the back of the stovetop, in the guise of pushing against the wall for momentum. I turned the stove on and redirected myself in the same motion, hoping the ploy wasn’t too obvious. I dove into the open space between the counter and the wall.

Buzzcut’s footsteps thundered behind me, picking up pace. From his perspective, he’d cornered me.

I covered my ears and shielded my head with my arms.

<Probability Cascade> activated for the last time. The resulting explosion was deafening. I heard something that sounded more like it came from a bear than a human. Bits of marble and pulverized stone rained down on me as the sheet of counter fell to pieces.

I emerged from my improvised shelter to find Buzzcut’s once-tidy house a derelict mess. The cupboards and counters were awash in a circle of flame that radiated outward from the stove, where the jagged and blackened remnants of a propane tank sat in the stove’s base.

Sae staggered toward me. “You didn’t die.”

It was a minor miracle I hadn’t. Even with the considerable work I’d put in reinforcing the stove’s metal interior with <Probability Cascade>, redirecting the blast forward, most of what I’d done was theoretical. Something we could fall back on if everything went sideways.

Still, I’d had no intention of being this close to it when it went off. I reached up toward a wetness on my cheeks and my hand came away red. My ears were bleeding.

Buzzcut was slumped over in a pile of rubble. He’d flown clear across the full span of his open-plan home and was half buried in a now-crumbling wall. His face was a mask of blood, his body slowly returning to its original size.

Once I was positive I could walk without falling over, I crossed over toward him, turning back to speak to Sae. “We need to go. That wasn’t exactly subtle.”

Buzzcut’s chest was rising and falling. His breathing was shallow, but he was still alive.

I stood over our target and pointed my crossbow at his head. It would be so easy to pull the trigger. Slowly, I lowered the crossbow and sighed. “Big picture?”

“Big picture,” Sae confirmed. She didn’t look any happier about than I was, but there was something else in her expression. Relief, maybe.

“Get the curtains.”

I pulled up my social UI and sent a message. <Matt: Door. Plan A.>

Kinsley’s door appeared where the refrigerator used to be.

“You sure about this?” Sae asked. She grabbed Cameron’s leg and unceremoniously dragged him toward the exit.

I reached out toward my fallen summons, returning both Talia and Audrey to the void, then went to help her. “More or less.”

“Great. Exactly what I wanted to hear right now.” Sae glared at me.

“Whether or not he talks, Azure will pull something useful out of him. Eventually.”

“It feels like an unnecessary risk,” Sae grunted.

“Sunny put a price on his head. Aaron sold him out,” I mused. “He doesn’t know it yet, but I might be the last friend he has in the world.”