Ignatius is paler than I remember him the next time we see him. He's not unwell enough that I can't even imagine him going out in public, and the Diosite-infused form he takes on, covered in vines and succulents, like the plants are growing through him, puts a little color in his cheeks, but I can still tell he's sick, and that makes me feel sick. It's something about the way he moves, like each step is a burden, or more like he's not the thing actually animating himself. He staggers forwards, still looking grim, when we next find our way into the basement, past the front guard.

"You have to kill them," his breath rasps. "Every single time. Is that any way to show hospitality..."

"If you want to talk about common courtesy," Karen says, "You should keep your pets in the house."

Ignatius looks past us towards the carcass we left. "How incredibly thoughtful of you," he says. The vines itch at his face. "I'll keep it in mind, but actually, I had planned to create some... ah... outdoor cats."

"For what purpose?" I ask, holding the team back with my arm splayed wide as it can go. We're still negotiating, I think, no, we're stalling him, replies Shiloh, I can handle this, I manage, You know that it isn't going to work, Will, he's sick, Shiloh chides me, in equal measure.

Ignatius's eyes are the same still, calm hazel as when we met him, but set behind his now quivering eyelids, they're no longer welcoming but instead unsettling, like his pupils are the only thing that still belongs to him around the twitching eyelids or the slack body. "I take it you're not a fan of my work."

Lightning flashes around the room and something falls to the ground. It turns out we weren't the only ones who were stalling. Karen elbows me in the side, and I realize that this is likely the point at which I no longer have a leg to stand on, so to speak. Ignatius draws himself up. "So twitchy," he says.

"Luna," Karen warns. "On three?"

"On two," Amanda argues.

"Wait, are we counting down, or are we just adjusting--" Garrett, please, dude, get it together.

Ignatius is somehow just as difficult in melee as he is up close. The vines wreathed around his arms, which should be cutting off his circulation (...have they), are spiked with something, and none of us want to find out what it is. Amanda's brush is tipped with acid, so she bears the brunt of the front line, a whirlwind of energy and precision twice that of what she could do before. I'm on perimeter control, with Karen, who unsurprisingly seems to be managing herself fine as we take on the latest batch of botanical nightmares wonderful control really, while Garrett is at the edges, portalling them right into her grasp. He still can't go more than one simultaneously tell him to work on it and then, there's the issue of the ice I do not seem to have in my system.

"Can't expect every day to be my best day, can I?" I ask, deflecting a stray vine. "Cee? You're missing a spot."

"Little hard to handle two vines, and by two, I mean, what, a dozen, with one person and an imprecise instrument. If you wanted me to, I don't know, burn down the house, then maybe--" Amanda calls back. I'm still deflecting blows from the probing, essentially autonomous vine.

"Maybe try not to aggravate him?" I almost said it.

"The brush you wield is a mockery of art. Art is precision. Your expression is--" Ignatius says, which is really as chatty as he's been thus far, and I wish that there was anything less snidely villainous coming from his mouth.

"This thing, for Luna's sake, has primarily avoided your face, good sir, but if you want to change that, we'd love to renegotiate the terms and conditions of our battle." Amanda's brush twirls in a wide, fierce arc of green. It almost scrapes the ceiling and the floor, leaving burns on both.

"I'd love to negotiate," I say.

"We know, Luna..." Karen sighs.

"Just--" He's not making eye contact with me. He's not looking at me at all, there's no reason I should ask, really, "If you wanted to sit down, if there's anything we can do to talk about what it is you attend to achieve with your powers, or what it is that you're trying to do here, we can all have a conversation. We could work this out together without it coming to blows."

You're not going to like what he says, Will.

Shiloh, let me have the answer.

"Okay."

The vines slacken, just a touch, and Karen, on perimeter control, currently has nothing else to fry. I feel my shoulders drop, too, and the others, still poised for his next attack, all stand in their corners, Amanda's brush and Karen's lightning at the ready.

"Prove to me the world wouldn't be better off without people."

Told you.

He's not serious. He is serious. I'm staring at him right now. Is he joking? Are you kidding with me?

"You'd have to inflict an incredible amount of pain on the world to remove everyone from it," Karen begins. "Do... do you realize how much is wrong with that question?"

"Right, but that pain is entirely experienced by people. They're out of the equation. Irrelevant. Now prove the world wouldn't be better without them. Tell me that it would not, one way or another, eventually fix hundreds of years of maltreatment, disregard, who knows what else, of global proportions. We were the ones who took the world into our hands. Did a terrible job. Everything is dying. Could be dead within the century. We could go with it, as we deserve, or I could be merciful and cut it all off, right here, and something else might still survive after us. It doesn't seem like much of a choice, does it?"

Totally. Totally cracked. Is this the shard, or is this him, and how am I supposed to even be interpreting it?

"If you don't care about human life, how are we supposed to make a case for human life?" asks Amanda.

"I feel like my dog would be pretty sad if I was just gone," Garrett shrugs.

Karen is a dark shadow against the wall.

"Shouldn't you know what happens to people in your situation?" I ask. "How is it not super obvious to you, right now, that you're talking like a villain from a bad comic book?"

"I don't do character development. I do world design," he says. "You think I'm a lot more genre savvy than I am." Those eyes are still staring up at me, blankly, from the white pools in which they lie. Then they roll up and forwards as he falls to the floor, and all at once, in the wrong order, I finally process the thwick and the subsequent thud of his light frame hitting the ground.

One of his conspiracy boards, broken, lies next to his still body, covering him in red lines. Karen stands behind him, chest heaving.

Garrett swears under his breath.

Karen looks down, pitiless, at the body. "You guys must think I'm a terrible person, huh?"

"No," Garrett says. "No, why would we think that? We know he's a menace. At least you're not terrified of him--"

"--I am not scared of him--" I interject. Shiloh is pressing me forwards, his desire so strong that I can barely even move or speak beneath the weight of it. My hand is barely my own hand when I reach out, then draw it back. "I... are we sure he's down? Should we call a hospital? He could have sustained some serious brain injury..."

Karen puts my hand back down, bending down to his side. He's so light when he's not standing up, and the ginger hair, bright as fire under shieldlight, falls all across his body. "I can handle it, if you want."

Amanda's face twitches.

Reaching out for one of his twin Diosite shards, Karen says, "Thank you for the diploma- aaah--" Faster than her lightning, several vines seize her around the neck. She's too close for us to do anything that wouldn't hurt her, or at least for Amanda to do anything. My shield rises up in my hands and falls upon the vines around her, hacking around Ignatius's back, each blow shaking his body as I try to thrust the two apart, and then we hear the skittering. Something knows we've hurt him and it's furious about it. Karen's scream rises up into a gasping void where noise should be, and then all the light of the room goes out.

Garrett is next to Karen's body in the Veins. "Karen," he states. "Karen!"

She rises up like a wave on the ocean, a storm arising from the depths, a stormcloud of hair surrounding her face. "I could have been killed," she warns him. "What if those vines had pulled taut?"

"I figured if I cut them and pulled open a portal simultaneously--" Garrett says. "No. You're right. Bad idea. I'm just glad that you aren't dead right now."

"I'm so sorry," I say. "I should have done something. We were so close, and in the end it all came to nothing--"

Karen gets onto one knee, brushing her hair away, and holds up a little, dark stone in her hands.

Shiloh steps forwards and takes it in his mouth. His eyes are pacing everywhere, the opposite of Ignatius's eyes holding still in a shaking frame, and though his expression is still cherub-slack, there's a slight twitch to his tail which at least signifies he wants us to know that he is excited about the progress we have made. "One of two," Shiloh says.

"Figured," groans Karen. She feels the area around her neck with a few fingers, and I can feel pain vibrate up my own body where the burning lines are on hers. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice," she pauses. Her downcast gaze is so sharp that you could cut someone on the glare of her eyes. "Fuck him."

"Karen," I begin.

"You shouldn't have portalled us out," warns Karen. "You know, we really might have had him, and you-- why would you do that?"

Garrett has his head covered with his hands. "Hey, please, don't-- I mean, I didn't mean anything by it, yeah, I'm a coward, yes, it was totally instinct, Karen, don't stare at me like that, geez you're terrifying--"

Karen's knuckles graze Garrett's arm. He tenses, but the impact isn't coming. Her fingers hover just above his, her fist suspended right above a potential site of impact. "You're a goddamn coward, Garrett."

He shoots her the most incredulous stare, and then the two of them are laughing again. She wraps her arms around him, and he's practically crushed up against her. Karen gestures, with one hand still locked around him, for us to come over, and we hug it out, which in my opinion, is the best way a mission can end. Catharsis floods over me like a wave, and I hold them even tighter.

"One more to go. He'll be weakened," I say. "We have this. We've got this!"

"Guess I'll just have to get strangled again," decides Karen.

"Please don't," Garrett mutters.

She lets us go, which is great, because I love her, and I love Amanda, but I also love my ribs, and I was going to have to choose in a hot second, there.

"I have no intention of getting hurt again. Will. He's going to be desperate. You know what the right thing to do is. Don't slow us down," she says.

"Aye aye, captain," I say, with a little salute.

She rolls her eyes, her mouth curves upwards into the slightest smile, and like that, she's gone. I can still feel the burning lines that aren't mine and wonder if they're going to be an issue when she gets home. I've had scars carry over. I'd love to go on about all I've done to hide them, but actually, I stopped at some point, because no one in my family has noticed. They're not looking. A little of mom's concealer, some Vaseline, and a few days, and the danger always passes, and sometimes I don't know if I wanted them to find something out.

Garrett asks, "She's not angry, right?"

"At you?"

He nods. This is not a legitimate field of inquiry, but whatever, man.

"That hug is negative angry," Amanda says.

"Thank goodness," he says. "I mean, I know this is totally ridiculous, but we've... I... I can never tell if she's happy with me or if she wants me to leave the team. She's just like that, you know? Then there's the whole nightmare thing--"

"The what?" I ask.

Shiloh exits through one of the doors on the first floor that don't open when we try to unlock them. I'd imagine he has better things to do than handle us.

"Have you not been having nightmares?" asks Garrett.

"Not often?" I say.

"Shakes?" he asks.

"Are you on something?" asks Amanda.

Garrett stops. "Are we?"

"I don't know," I admit.

"Then I don't know," Garrett says. "I keep imagining the first night she almost got hurt, and I imagine her in Ignatius's basement, and when I wake up, I can't tell if my brain is just threading things together, or if I know something. I keep thinking of her, thinking she's in danger, even when we're at school. I want to drag her away from the windows and tell her to get down. I want to portal out of situations and I don't have my powers, and that feels limiting, now. I can't escape if I need to. It feels flat, and she, she's electricity, she's light, she's really something, and we belong in this, together, and not out there."

"Heavy," Amanda says.

Garrett looks at his hands. "I've got to tell her eventually."

Amanda puts her whole arm on top of my head. "Will and I don't give good love advice, dude."

"Thanks for listening," he says. "Tell her and I will deny everything."

"Understood," I say.

He nods, sharply. "Then... this is until next time."

The Phantom Loop formally departs.

"We're the better couple," Amanda says.

"We're not dating," I say. "You don't even like guys."

"Yeah, but we are," she says. "You know what I mean."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Platonically."

"Huh," I say, thinking it over. I've been taught for most of my natural life not to brag, but if there's one thing I can be proud of this year, besides some marked improvement in my art, higher grades than I've ever had, and learning how to wield a shield and three people simultaneously, or maybe above all of those things, it would be this friendship. "Can't argue with that one."

"Be ready to argue. Meeting tomorrow. We're finally having that book vs. movie debate, and we're going to be watching and reading The Grinch to kick off vacation."

Somehow I managed to forget that vacation started tomorrow. "Which version of the Grinch?"

Solemnly, Amanda says, "I have no idea. Well! See ya!"

I have things to look forwards to. We got a whole half of Ignatius's Diosite. I want to punch the ceiling, but it's a little high for me. When I get home, I could absolutely punch the ceiling, but I actually just want to pass out through all of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, which my family watches once in a blue moon when my dad and mom aren't watching HGTV or football. I could care less about any of these things, but it's more about the family experience. I think I'm almost surprised to see my brother there, arms folded, but even when he's looking right at the television, he couldn't care less, either, and I don't know what it is that's actually pacing, tigerlike, behind his eyes.

"You're doing alright, aren't you?" I ask, as we're getting into bed.

Adam stares at the ceiling. "Dunno yet."

I sigh, "Well, I'm doing great."

"Congratulations."

"Noticed anything weird lately?" I ask.

"Weird how?"

"I don't know, weird, potentially animate trees," I say, hoping this is vague enough that I can play it off.

"Just people," he says. "People acting off. You haven't noticed any of that, have you?"

"People are weird, by nature," I say. "It's one of the most wonderful things about them."

I can sense the strained intake of his breath. "Dangerous weird."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have asked," Adam says, reaching to turn our light off. "Good night, Will."

"No, seriously, what?" I ask, grabbing for his hand.

He jerks it back. "I just meant that weird isn't always this great, wonderful-- you act like people being quirky is unilaterally great, but quirky people are, with a few notable exceptions, the most self-centered people, and hell, if we're talking really quirky, sometimes people are just screwed up. I get it. Weird is wonderful. Be yourself. Consider, though, that sometimes, 'yourself' isn't actually the greatest person to be, and if you're that far out of existing customs and norms, it might be because you're just out of line, period."

"I know that," I say. "Do you think I think mental disorders are 'quirky' or something? That I'm all down with people being so caught up in their own heads or narratives that it spirals into people being stuck there? Because I'm not." I can see him behind my closed eyes, sprawled out on the ground. I don't want him in my room. Shiloh, help. The moonstone is clutched in my right hand.

"You're in a club that fetishizes it," Adam says. "I don't know, you tell me."

I can feel the light pour through me, that little beam of moonlight settling me without words. There's no winning this argument. "Good night, Adam."

Adam turns in his bed. This is his age-old way of saying, Well, I guess you lost, and it used to always drive me to get the last word, even long after he'd stopped talking, but tonight, I don't care. I'm tired as death, and for once, it's easy for me to move seamlessly from one darkness into the next.

I'm still here.

Hell no.

I run my hand along my bedpost, which is textured as it is in real life, and stare into the gaping void. Adam's still beside me, but he's as innate as anything in the room. He might as well be a rock, and the slight orange gleam of his body is just from a streetlight down the road, which should, in all honesty, be too far away to catch his pajamas. No accounting for lighting in dreams, I suppose.

The entire wall is a dark pane of glass.

It's not mine tonight.

Moving my hand to the rail of the steps, I walk through the house, which is darker than in a blackout. I attempt to click on the television, but all the electronics are stone-cold and dead as Adam is. I can sense none of the usual electronic hum that pervades everything, and open the door, soundlessly, to take in the unseasonably tepid night air.

On the other side of the street, near the church, is a man in a white labcoat who should not be here, his clothing billowing around him. I try to hide myself behind the door, but I can't quite get it closed, and deep in the night, I sense the trees moving. Outdoor cats. Things do not settle the same way, and when I swing the door all the way open, again, the landscape is imperceptibly altered. I open my mouth to call out to him, but I already know that he can't hear anything I have to say, that my voice is hollow inside of my throat.

He has one of his plants by his feet, lying still.

It's not a plant.

"I'm sorry," I tell the ceiling of my room, jolting back into consciousness. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry--"

It's a black pane of glass. The door is cut in two by a stray opening of the Veins. Similar cracks plaster the walls and obscure large parts of the outside world from view. If the cracks were any deeper there would be no way out of the room. Are you kidding me... I want to wake up my brother like I did when we were small, when we would be up in the middle of the night together, no matter who woke up first, building forts to keep the bad dreams at bay, but now if I woke him up, even the night before vacation, I don't know what he would do.
I don't know when I lost him.

I don't know how, even when I have someone right next to me, I can feel so isolated.