I spent a few precious seconds hammering the delete key, wiping the console clean of the conversation—at least from this end. God only knows what Umbra’s got on her side, but I could at least make it harder for Apex’s goons to piece it together.

Then I bolted.

Out the room, up the stairs two at a time, heart hammering in my chest loud enough I was sure someone would hear it echo through the halls. I paused, just for a second, trying to put a chair back where I’d moved it, brushing a scuff mark out of the floor with my sleeve like that would fix anything. What was I even doing?

Screw it. No time for that.

I pivoted and looked toward the stairwell. Flashlight beams cut across the corridor like searchlights, sliding into view through a window on the inner wall—one of those big reinforced panes meant to give a pleasant, open feel during daytime hours. Right now it was just a big glowing "YOU'RE SCREWED" sign.

Yup. Shortcut it is.

I dashed to the window, shoved it open, and climbed out just as voices shouted behind me.

“HEY! STOP!”

The second I leapt, I regretted everything. My brilliant plan of “window escape” did not account for the fact that the drop outside was about fifteen feet. Onto concrete.

Nice soft, rock hard, soul-sucking concrete.

See, in my dreams I do parkour. I twist through the air, land like a cat, tumble, and come up running. In real life? I do not do parkour. In real life, I have the agility of a shopping cart with a busted wheel.

So I landed. Front-first.

There was a crunch.

I wasn’t sure if it was my ribs or just my dignity.

The air blasted out of my lungs like I’d been body-slammed by a freight train made of regret. Stars popped in front of my eyes. Concrete kissed my face in the least romantic way imaginable. Pain bloomed through my chest and shoulder, but I pushed myself up with a grunt.

Okay. Okay. Still alive. Still moving. And the silver lining?

Now I had some kinetic energy to work with.

Yay. Superpowers.

“HE’S OVER THERE!”

Voices shouted behind me. I staggered upright and turned just in time to see a cluster of security goons spilling out the building’s side entrance, flashlights bobbing like angry fireflies.

I ran.

And I would just like to say, for the record, that “he’s over there” hurt a little. I know I’ve got kind of a boyish figure under the armour, but come on. At least say they.

Geez.

I did need to get away because—oh fuck they are getting way closer. Okay, time for speed mode. My least favourite mode.

I slowed just enough to collect myself, felt the surge build in my thighs, ankles, toes—then pushed off hard. Concrete shattered beneath me as my soles dipped into the pavement, a gritty little explosion of force kicking up dust and rubble.

Then I bolted.

Okay, not like super speed bolted. I’m not breaking the sound barrier or anything. But I was definitely moving faster than your average night shift rent-a-cop. Most of them, I could pull ahead of. Most of them didn’t matter.

Except someone apparently thought bullets were a good idea.

Something sharp whizzed past my ear. It hit the wall in front of me with a loud crack—spitting concrete chips across my face. Another shot followed, closer this time. Too close. I flinched and instinctively ducked, heart hammering harder now for a whole new reason.

“Oh shit—they’re shooting at me?!”

What happened to tasers?! Warnings?! Morality?!

I spotted a chain-link fence coming up fast. No time to think, just move. I vaulted—well, half-vaulted, half-collided—over the top. My foot caught the upper edge and I stumbled on the landing, nearly faceplanted again. My momentum—I said the thing—nearly completely died.

Weird power mechanics. I still don’t get how it works. But apparently interrupting your run mid-burst screws everything up. Guess the laws of physics like being obeyed when it’s convenient.

I didn’t stop to figure it out. I kept running.

But then I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder.

Behind me, silhouetted by streetlight and adrenaline-fueled dread, was a dude with ears. Big ones. Twitching in the wind. And legs that bent way too far backward to be comforting. A goddamn rabbit man. Bounding after me like a furry nightmare straight out of a Red Bull commercial.

“Fuuuuuuck me running—”

No time to fight. Definitely no time to monologue. I needed an exit.

Think, think, think—Where was I? By the sea. Industrial harbor. And ohhhh boy, did I hate the idea that popped into my head.

But… options were in short supply.

I changed course, beelining for the water. The harbor wasn’t far—maybe two minutes at my current pace. But that kinetic burst I'd built up? Already fading. Fast. My legs were burning, lungs felt like they’d been scrubbed with sandpaper, and I was one good stumble away from being a hood ornament for Bunny Cop.

Still, I grit my teeth and pushed.

“I’m gonna dive into the ocean,” I muttered to myself. “I’m actually gonna do it. I’m gonna see if I can just... not breathe for a while. That’s my whole plan.”

God, I hoped I didn’t regret this.

The air stank of sea salt and tar as I tore down the service road toward the docks. My breath came in ragged gasps. My knees were screaming. My whole body ached from the concrete belly-flop earlier. The rabbit guy? Yeah, he wasn’t slowing down. Every time I risked a glance back, he was closer. Bounding, not running. Freaking pogo-sticking down the street like gravity didn’t apply to him the same way it did to us mere mortals.

And those ears were aerodynamic. Fuck.

I cut hard around a shipping container, nearly wiped out on a slick oil stain. My shoulder clipped the metal corner—ow—but I kept moving, ducking through stacked crates and barriers that might slow him down for half a second. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not.

He was gaining. I could hear him now, the heavy thump of feet landing behind me like a drumbeat of doom. And I swear to god I heard him mutter something—like a countdown. “Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.”

NOPE.

I kicked hard again, burning the last of my kinetic energy like a match tossed into gasoline. My thighs felt like exploding sausages. My lungs? Dead. My vision? Tunneling. The world narrowed to that faint shimmer of harbour lights and saltwater mist just up ahead.

Almost there. Almost—!

A blur of movement flashed to my right. I turned my head just in time to see the rabbit guy leap—leap—over a stack of crates and arc through the air like a furry missile.

My brain went:

HE’S GONNA TACKLE ME.

So my body went:

NOT TODAY, SANTA.

I dropped low at the last second, letting him sail over me and crash into a stack of pallets. They collapsed in a glorious cacophony of splintered wood and angry groaning.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran, because I am a polite delinquent.

The ocean was right there now. I could taste it in the back of my throat—or maybe that was just bile. The dock ended in a short ledge, probably six feet above the water. And I didn’t even think.

I ran. I jumped.

I screamed a little.

The cold slapped me across every inch of exposed skin, sucking the air from my lungs like a vacuum. One moment I was in the air, the next I was in hell. Freezing, suffocating hell.

The world went blue. Then black.

I kicked to the surface, gasping, sputtering. Salt burned my throat. I treaded water and looked back—lights danced across the dock above. Flashlights. Shouting.

But no diving bunny men. Thank god.

They weren’t following. Either they didn’t see where I went, or none of them wanted to ruin their boots chasing some C-class dumbass into the ocean.

I floated there for a long second. Shivering. Alive. Very wet. Very cold. Possibly glowing a little, but that might’ve been adrenaline.

Well, now for the sucky disappearing act.

I sucked in a deep breath, mentally apologized to every cell in my body, and dove into the freezing dark water. It hit me like a brick wall. A wet, hateful brick wall that hated warmth, light, and joy. I kicked down until I hit the bottom with a dull thump, grabbed the first decently hefty rock I could find to weigh myself down, and started walking. Like a cartoon character. A very cold, very stupid cartoon character.

It was pitch black. No visibility. Just the pressure creeping into my skull like icy fingers and the taste of rusted pennies in the back of my throat. Every footstep sent little puffs of silt swirling up around me, and my body thrummed with pain that never quite got worse—but never healed either. I liked to think of it as “motivational suffering.” I could heal, yeah. But only if something actually hurt me. So here I was, dragging my dumb ass along the seabed, slowly charging up power by giving myself the world's most aggressive ice bath.

Okay. I’ll admit it now. My powers aren’t lame. I’ve said they were before, I know. Because they’re not flashy. They’re not cool. No laser beams, no flight, no sexy armour or shadow-cloaks. But I’ve been underwater for almost an hour now. An hour. That’s kind of OP. Bullshit-tier nonsense. I don’t even know how my body’s processing oxygen—maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m dying in micro-doses and my brain just keeps resetting itself fast enough to fake survival.

Also, fun fact? No one’s ever knocked me out before. I’ve had limbs broken in ways that make origami look straightforward. I’ve had my skull cracked and popped back into shape like a stress toy. I've been paste. And I got up. Every time.

So yeah, the only thing that really scares me is a mind-fucker. Someone who can reach in and scramble the signals. Turn my own reflexes against me. Someone who doesn’t need to break bones to stop me—just bend the right thought.

Even then, they usually have a range. Or a duration. If I can outlast them, I can hurt them.

...Which is exactly the kind of terrifying logic that comes to you when you've been walking along the bottom of the ocean for long enough to forget what sunlight looks like.

God, this was too long. How far had I gone? I didn’t have a compass. I didn’t have a clue. For all I knew, I’d made a slight left turn and was now trudging valiantly toward Japan. I didn’t feel like I was going in circles, but it’s not like my depth perception was working. Or any perception.

But then—finally—the floor started to slope upward. Just a gentle incline, like nature’s way of going “Okay, loser, you earned it.”

I held onto hope like it was a life preserver. Maybe I was coming up near a beach. Maybe a drainage outflow. Maybe I hadn’t just spent three hours walking into the middle of the goddamn Pacific fucking Ocean.

If I saw coral, I was going to scream.

Underwater.

My head finally broke the surface with a gasp that probably sounded like someone trying to scream through mashed potatoes. I blinked against the sting of sea spray, looked around, and saw—thank fuck—shoreline. Actual land. Buildings. Distant traffic. Streetlights. Civilization. Not a coral reef or a pack of angry dolphins or an oil rig manned by anti-meta mercs.

I crawled out of the surf like a soggy goblin, flopped face-first into the sand, and just lay there for a second, panting, dripping, and reevaluating all of my life choices.

Then I sat up and groaned the groan of someone whose body was rapidly transitioning from “barely functional underwater survival machine” to “everything hurts, please stop existing.”

“My hair,” I muttered, dragging both hands through the tangled, salt-matted mess. “Oh my god. It’s totally salt-fucked.”

It was stiff, clumpy, gritty, and flat in all the wrong places. I could feel individual grains of sand braided into my scalp like some spiteful sea witch had cursed me. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got.

And don’t even get me started on the suit.

I looked down, grimaced. The tactical fabric was sagging in heavy, soaked folds. Salt crust lined the seams. I smelled like a dying tidepool.

“This was dry-clean only, you absolute bastards.”

I tried wringing the arms out, then gave up halfway through the pant legs when I felt something shift down my thigh with a squelch that made my soul leave my body. My boots were little ocean terrariums now. Fungal ecosystems. I was 90% kelp.

Note to self: develop ocean-resistant stealth suit. Or better yet, don’t go swimming during fucking black ops missions.

A clang echoed from nearby—metal on metal, maybe from the docks. I stiffened. Right. Just because I’d escaped didn’t mean I was clear. They might still be combing the streets. Looking for a metahuman in a wet suit with murder in her eyes and seaweed in her pants.

I needed to move. Fast.

One last look at the waves—one last internal “fuck you”—and I limped inland, dripping and disheveled, like a very cranky cryptid emerging from the deep.

 

---

 

After the most thorough scrub of my life—and I mean exorcism-level cleansing—I still smelled like an ungroomed sailor and a haunted aquarium. I’d used half a bottle of shampoo, the entire bottle of body wash, and enough scalding water to boil a lobster. Didn’t matter. The sea had marked me. Salt crust clung to my scalp. My skin felt tight and rubbery. My nose still caught the faint trace of brine and shame every time I inhaled.

I dried off, flopped face-first onto the bed in a towel, and groaned like a dying whale.

Everything hurt. Everything. Muscles I forgot I had were throbbing in weird protest. My head pounded like a bad remix. Pretty sure my brain was still healing from that brief flirtation with oxygen deprivation and kinetic-based trauma-induced cognitive soup. You know. Normal hero stuff.

Holy shit. I was actually insane.

…Not, like, villain insane. I wasn’t about to start monologuing or talking about fate and the heat death of the universe. But definitely “makes questionable life choices while half-dead in the name of justice” insane.

Still. Not gonna get a god complex or anything.

Maybe just… have a little more faith in myself. I mean, I did survive that. Not bad for a C-class reject with a punch-based power and the social awareness of a toasted marshmallow.

I closed my eyes, letting sleep crawl over me like a weighted blanket full of regret and muscle cramps.

And then—

BZZZZZ. BZZZZZ.

The alarm blared. Morning sun bled through the curtains like a celestial insult.

I cracked an eye open. Squinted at the clock.

No. Nope. No thank you.

Work. I had work. A shift. Human hours. Real life.

Absolutely not.

So, being the mature, responsible adult and functioning member of society that I am, I reached for my phone with a hand that felt like a roast chicken leg and texted Randy:

“You’ve got a paid day off. Don’t ask. Don’t come in. If anyone calls, tell them you had diarrhea. It’s bulletproof.”

And with that brilliant display of leadership, I tossed the phone across the bed, rolled over like a greased seal, and let unconsciousness win.

Let the world burn for a few hours. I’d earned it.

 

---

I woke up bright and early at six PM, crusty-eyed and feeling like I’d been reincarnated through sheer willpower and spite.

Twelve unread messages. Fantastic.

Most of them were variations on the theme of: “Are you alive?” Which was flattering, in a way. Nice to know people noticed my complete radio silence. One of them was from Da, which just read:

“Banoffee pie. Want some?”

Like it was the most natural question in the world.

And obviously, the answer was yes. I always want banoffee pie. Man’s a baker by trade and a food-based demigod by skill. His pies could soothe international conflict. If peace talks ever break down, just send in Da with a tray of warm banoffee and a handshake.

Still. Fuck. I felt guilty for ghosting everyone, even if the ghosting was unintentional and coma-adjacent.

A couple messages from Randy too, which started off mildly concerned and gradually escalated into full-blown existential panic. One read:

“Are you dead? Do I inherit your comic stash?”

Another:

“Wait. You are dead, aren’t you? That’s why I got a paid day off. Is this guilt money? Is this your will??”

God bless that idiot. For twelve glorious hours, I had been determined to be as dead as possible, and I succeeded. But now that I was alive again, I had to deal with life.

And, notably, Selene.

There were two texts from her. The first one was cute:

“I hope you’re not dead. I have questions. Also, I miss your stupid face.”

The second?

“The moon is a mirror, if you know how to look. Don’t be late.”

Which, okay. Creepy poet girlfriend energy aside, I was going to charitably interpret as “we should meet up” and not “I’m about to lure you into a psychic dreamrealm made of shadows and unresolved feelings.” Could go either way, though.

Still. Like hell I was gonna say no to a meetup with Selene. Girlfriend. Hopefully. Probably. We haven’t really had the “labels” conversation yet, and we’ve only been seeing each other for, what—two, three weeks? I mean, who’s counting? (Me. I’m counting.)

So yeah. I texted back a very suave and cool:

“Yes. Also I want pie.”

I figured that covered both fronts.

Now I just had to figure out what to wear that said: I almost drowned in the harbor but still look hot enough to flirt with you. Casual apocalypse-core, but make it flirty.

Actually, drop the water-themed bullshit. I never want to do that again. Not breathing—something I can apparently survive now—still sucked like nothing else. It was cold, it was dark, it was saltwater up my everything, and now I smell like a sun-dried corpse left out at low tide. Never again. I am now officially anti-ocean. No notes.

So, obviously, I threw on my sauciest, raunchiest, sluttiest outfit: a pair of baggy old jeans, a crop top that mostly existed to remind me I had abs, and a zip-up sports jacket for a team I could not name if someone held a wrench to my temple.

Also my steel-toe work boots, because those things are my personality at this point.

Total filth, right? Absolutely indecent. Slut behavior.

Okay no, I looked like a walking laundromat mistake and I smelled like brine and trauma. But the confidence? Immaculate.

Selene wanted to meet in a park. Overlooking the sea. Which was rude, frankly, given the literal salt still in my sinuses.

FUCK YOU, OCEAN.

Still, date night was date night, and I wasn’t about to flake. I took my baby—my under-used, over-maintained motorbike—and rode out under the moonlight. Because yes, I’m a grease monkey with a lovingly restored ‘69 Mustang in my garage and an entire collection of car parts alphabetized by brand, but I also walk basically everywhere because, y’know. Hero gig. Can’t exactly stealth a burnout past enemy lines.

Anyway.

The park was quiet when I arrived. Just one person there, sitting on a bench like some kind of noir goddess.

Selene.

She looked out over the bay like it owed her something, moonlight cutting over her profile. Even in silhouette, she looked like the kind of woman who probably had several aliases and maybe a secret castle.

“Hey, hot butt,” I said as I strolled up.

She turned, smiling. “Hello, Ivy.” And that voice. That laugh. I swear, she could giggle and assassinate someone in the same breath.

I dropped down next to her, casual as ever, and let her kiss me. Yeah, let. I’m growing. Emotionally.

“So,” I said. “Your first message was super cute. The second one? Cryptic as hell. But appreciated.”

She smiled, though it faded a little. “That’s… fair.”

Then came the shift. The tone drop. The heavy pause.

“Hey. These past few weeks have been great, but…”

GOD. FUCK. SHIT. No. I mentally grabbed the panic lever and yanked it off the wall. My brain was already jumping to abandonment emergency mode. My stomach actually flipped.

“You don’t need to look so panicked,” she said quickly. “I just need to go away for a few weeks. I’ve got a big job. Out of town. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Relief slammed into me like a freight train.

“Oh thank fuck,” I said, flopping back dramatically on the bench. “I thought I was gonna get dumped. Assuming we are girlfriends. Haven’t exactly had The Talk. You know. The we’re lesbians one. Anyway, big job? You finalizing plans to take down Apex?”

I tossed it off like a joke. Casual. But I was watching.

She stilled. Just a bit too long.

Then she looked at me. Really looked. With all those dangerous little emotions bottled behind her eyes—surprise, fury, suspicion, a hint of do I need to kill you now?

Her voice dropped. “How do you know?”

And here we go.

“Would it be weird if I said that tone just made me wetter than walking under the ocean for three hours last night after breaking into an Apex facility thanks to a lead I had because—holy shit—you know Petunia, don’t you?”

Her eyes widened.

“Wait… you’re Miss Momentum?”

I grinned. Hook, line, and chaos.

“Okay, I just—” I held up my hands, gesturing wildly for emphasis. “I gotta say. I talk the exact same in both hero mode and civvie mode. Like, there’s zero difference. You’ve seen me in both! I’m just out here running my mouth at terminal velocity, constantly, whether I’m punching people through cargo crates or fixing a carburetor. Meanwhile, you have a sexy voice and a sex-while-murdering voice, and they are distinct. You seriously didn’t notice?”

Selene’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again as she frowned in mild frustration. “I… I might have developed a blind spot.”

“Oh?” I leaned in, smirking. “Am I just that hot and butch that I make your brain short-circuit?” I waggled my eyebrows with the kind of exaggerated sleaze usually reserved for late-night dive bars and gym locker rooms.

She paused. That rare pause. Then: “More than I let on.”

“Aha!” I pointed dramatically. “Got you! Ha! Look at that. Confirmed: I’m irresistible. Irrefutable evidence, right here.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t hide the grin curling at the edge of her lips. Victory.

“But seriously, Selene,” I said, nudging her shoulder with mine. “I put it together because I saw that old Yamaha you had me fix parked near one of those ‘totally-not-a-meeting-of-supervillains’ locations. I was like, sixty percent sure I was dating a baddie-baddie.”

“Only sixty?” she asked, arching a single, unimpressed eyebrow.

“Mhm.” I nodded solemnly. “Then, after some frankly mind-blowing sex—” I gave her a meaningful look, which earned me the faintest smirk, “—you rolled over all casual and asked me what I thought about Apex. Like it was pillow talk. That bumped the odds up to ninety-five.”

“And the last five percent?”

“You kinda just confirmed it with your whole ‘I’m going away for a bit, ignore the dramatic pause and haunted tone’ thing. But also—wait, hold up. You’re Umbra, right? Like, the Umbra?”

“I would love to deny it,” she said with a sigh that was equal parts dramatic and resigned, “but you are infuriatingly perceptive.”

“Smarter than I appear, huh?” I grinned wide.

“Much more,” she admitted, then added dryly, “If I’d known Miss Momentum was the woman I was dating, I might have been a little less… condescending.”

“Ohohoho! So you were condescending!” I poked her in the ribs, which was a dangerous game considering she could probably break my spine with a thought, but hey, flirting’s a contact sport.

“I was careful,” she replied, arching an elegant brow. “You didn’t notice me, either.”

“Yeah, but in my defence, your civvie voice doesn’t have the same ‘I’m about to seduce you or stab you’ energy. You use your soft voice around me. It’s… really fucking cute, actually.”

She looked at me, for a moment, like she wanted to say something more—but instead, she reached over and gently took my hand.

Silence for a beat. Just the sound of the sea (ugh), wind in the trees, and the distant hum of the city.

“You’re full of surprises,” she said softly.

“You’ve got no idea,” I replied, giving her hand a squeeze. “But if you stick around, I’ll show you a few more.”

“You know you’re dating a wanted criminal,” Selene said, her voice low, almost tentative—like she was trying to gauge my reaction without fully committing to the fallout.

I tilted my head, gave her a look, then shrugged. “Ehhhh, but why criminal, though? I mean, let’s be real. You’re not out here setting orphanages on fire or robbing pensioners. As far as I’ve seen, you mostly leave folks alive, haven’t pulled any cartoonishly evil bank heists, and you sure as shit aren’t monologuing from a moon base. You’re just, what, going after some corrupt asshole with a private army and too much PR? Honestly sounds like a net positive.”

Selene arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been making a lot of assumptions.”

“Ass-umptions, actually.” I pointed finger guns at her with zero shame. “And listen, babe, I’m great with ass. So yeah, I’ve been assuming. You don’t exactly give off ‘evil mastermind’ vibes. More like... ‘disillusioned goth with a plan.’ And if you think this guy needs to be taken down a peg, then hell yeah, let’s fucking do it. You’ve got your reasons, and I trust that they’re good ones.”

Her eyes searched mine for a second—intensely. Like she was still waiting for the catch, waiting for me to flinch or pull away.

“You would trust me that much?” she asked, quiet now.

“Well, yeah? I guess?” I scratched the back of my neck. “Look, I don’t have a lot of people in my life. Like, not many at all. I keep my circle really tight. And yeah, I joke around and act like I’m just vibes and biceps, but I’m actually pretty good at reading people. And I clocked you pretty fast.”

There was a brief silence, something unreadable flashing in her expression.

Then she said, more softly than I’d ever heard from her, “You also know I’m transgender?”

That made me blink. “No,” I said quickly, brows rising. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I clocked you emotionally. Like, I saw you for who you are underneath all the mystery and dramatics. But—” I paused, more gently now, “—thank you for telling me.”

Selene looked away, and for the first time all evening, she seemed... vulnerable. Not in a fragile way, but in the way someone does when they’ve braced for a blow and realized it’s not coming.

“You’re not surprised.”

“Selene,” I said, nudging her with my knee, “you think I’d be surprised the woman I’m dating is more of a badass than I thought? That just makes me like you more.”

She looked at me again, eyes shining with something I didn’t want to name just yet. But it was warm. And real.

“You’re kind of a mess,” she muttered, smiling faintly.

“And you’re deeply into it.”

“I might be.”

“Good,” I said, grinning like a dumbass. “Then let’s take down the most powerful man alive together, you beautiful, morally flexible enigma.”