Logan, Laura, Pierce, Charles, and all the soldiers finally saw the world as it was – chaotic, but understandable. The phrase everything is not as it seems never applied more than in those moments when the veil was lifted.

“He~He~He…” Sprite chuckled nervously, marching to the center of the bloody, body-ridden battlefield as if it was a modeling stage. “How about we stop this bloody war? How about a truce? Any more death would get government attention and none of us want that.”

Pierce didn’t know how to reply. No one knew how to reply. Words were at a loss in such a bloody situation. Usually in war, the eyes would only see blood and nothing else, but everyone felt strangely lucid as if they were watching the fight from the outside.

And in some ways, they were. After all, even if Sprite’s illusion abilities were glitching right now, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t recover her ability the next instant. Sprite was a mystery to everyone, especially Laura who knew her best.

Pierce rubbed his non-existent beard, plotting strategies in his mind. He was a trained soldier through and through – from the army to covert ops in special forces, then defected to France, until he finally ended up in Russia and felt the betrayal all of his other employers experienced.

All of Pierce’s instincts as a soldier, betrayer, and survivor told him this would be a useless battle, but his intuition was speaking a different language. Pierce was caught between experience and instinct – not a good place to be.

‘Opportunity or fucking trap?’ Pierce mused internally. ‘Maybe, I can delay until my unit regroups. My guys will be out for blood after this.’

The soldiers – the ones that somehow survived get sliced by Laura, and Logan, or tricked into killing their friends by Sprite – were awaiting Pierce’s decision with hopeful eyes. The grimaces on their faces were enough to tell Pierce that no one had the will to continue the battle.

Pierce’s eyes drifted over the battlefield once more, and this time, he noticed something new. Logan and Laura had also lost the will to fight, and Sprite had positioned herself in a way to defend against attacks from both groups.

This gave Pierce ideas, but none too concrete.

Logan was tense, not daring to relax even one bit. He had been in enough battles to know that the moment someone lets down their guard is the moment they die. Still, he was not healing as well as Sprite’s illusion had made him believe.

Laura, likewise, had lost the will to fight, not knowing who she would try and kill next – would it be Charles or the soldiers? With Sprite around, there was no way to be sure. The thought to kill Sprite had never left Laura’s mind since they first met, but she was waiting for Tyrone to give the order.

Sprite scanned the battlefield, knowing she had lost the trust of all her allies in one move, but she had also gained the fear and respect of the enemy. Only one of those things would be of immediate use.

“We’re going to leave,” Pierce decided, backing away slowly. “There is no more need for any bloodshed today. I can’t guarantee my people will leave you be.”

“I have lived for thousands of years killing organizations like yours,” Sprite rolled her eyes and walked to Laura’s side. “If you guys come after me, then it will be like giving yourselves an early death. You should be more worried about yourselves.”

Pierce nodded, and took careful steps backward, gesturing for his men to do the same. The soldiers kept their aims on Sprite, Laura, and Logan the entire time. Sprite snorted, wondering why no one was aiming at Charles when he was, by far, the most dangerous person present.

“Oh…” Sprite smacked her head as if forgetting something. “Leave a car behind for us. We like to roll in style.”

“Will do.” Pierce bowed respectfully, and entered the nearest SUV, unwilling to spend another second speaking with the devil herself.

---------------

Pierce slumped into his seat, exhausted beyond belief. The door opened and shut a couple more times as a group of his guys entered. The other soldiers chose different cars, opening the back door to get a good aim in case Sprite would try anything.

But there was nothing to try – it had already been done.

“As soon as we’re in the clear.” Pierce slid a com into his ear as he gave the order. “Call the lab and tell them to blow this place to smithereens. We might attract attention, but killing that little girl is worth the risk.”

“I am so happy to hear you say that.”

Pierce frowned, glancing at the front mirror to see which soldier would dare talk to him in such a casual manner. He knew all the names and faces of his soldiers, so it surprised Pierce to see a mature blonde he had never seen before.

“And who are you?”

“Tu muerte.” The reply came and Pierce realized too late who it was.

The illusion disappeared, and reality was no longer hidden from the eyes. Pierce glanced around, finding himself in a car with Sprite, Laura, Logan, Charles, and Caliban. There was no way to escape.

Pierce opened his mouth, just about to plead for his life when adamantium claws slit his throat, dumping him through the door before anyone could tell Laura otherwise. Sprite was both pissed and proud – pissed because she wanted to keep the man for information, proud because Laura knew to kill people like Pierce.

Chances are – if Pierce had started to talk – Logan and Charles would have allowed the man to live due to some twisted kind of kindness.

POP

POP

POP

POP

As soon as Pierce’s body was dumped through the door, Sprite hit the gas, shooting the borrowed SUV through the mangled gate of Logan’s home. The tire skidded in the sand, and Sprite was forced to slide in and out of her seat.

She was nowhere near tall enough to drive the car like a normal person, but Sprite was confident her skill in carriage steering would transfer over to cars, and she was mostly right. She swerved left and right, trying to get as much traction as possible between the sand and the wheels.

“Everyone good?” Sprite questioned as soon as the driving stabilized.

“Hay más gente que viene.” Laura stuck her head out of the window and sniffed. “Tenemos que tomar otro camino.”

“It’s fine.” Sprite threw a quick cloak over the car, and simply drove past the dozens of SUVs coming in the opposite direction. “See, everything is fine.”

The revving of wheels and the skidding of cars were the next sounds everyone heard, and Laura threw a deadpanned gaze at Sprite.

“Maybe things don’t go as smoothly as I expect them to.”

------------------

“It would be best if I drive.” Logan dug his claws into Sprite’s front seat, severed the metal holdings, and pulled her chair backward, taking her place at the steering wheel. “Your feet are barely long enough to touch the pedals.”

“La televisión dijo que las chicas cortas son especiales.” Laura rubbed her head, clearly confused by the fault in Logan’s logic. “¿No es este el caso?”

“Of course, it is!” Sprite almost jumped out of her seat, feeling very strongly about any topic that concerned the words short or tiny. “Cualquiera dice diferente, ¡córtate la garganta de inmediato, Laura!”

“Hm!” Laura responded positively, adamantium claws gleaning between the gaps of her wrists. “Kill when … call short?”

Sprite smirked inside her mind. One would expect her to be complimenting Laura internally, but Sprite was secretly pleased that Laura sounded so uncultured when she tried to talk in English. Even without Tyrone around, Sprite was comforted that Laura would never measure up to her.

Logan swerved the car left and right, trying to get away from the cars trailing behind. Sprite wanted to throw up another illusion, but she was honestly running on fumes. Even now, it was taking a fair bit of effort not to pass out from exhaustion.

“We need to head south.” Charles opened his mouth for the first time in a while.

For the entire escape – up until that point – Charles had his eyes closed, focusing on something that wasn’t there. Sprite always kept her guard up, wondering if this would be the moment when the old man went nuclear… but it seemed Charles was scanning minds.

Caliban stayed as silent as possible. He knew his place in the group was shaky at best, and Sprite didn’t seem like the type of girl that would keep a useless person alive. The best Caliban could do was stay silent and hope not to be noticed before absolutely necessary.

Logan took a quick right turn, shifting the car south, driving into even more unstable sands than earlier.

“The window,” Sprite yelled, and Laura instantly caught her meaning.

The car tilted onto the wheel, and Laura slid her claws across the tinted windows, slicing her way outside. As soon as she was done, Laura leaned back, and Sprite slid into her lap, pushing her hand through the sliced window.

Sprite mustered every bit of strength available to her – it was more than a normal human could manage, but less than someone like Gilgamesh – and pushed on the sand, shaking the car back into stability. The car slammed onto four wheels once more.

“Thanks.”

“Courtesy of a short girl.”

“I’ve dated short women before.” Logan scratched his beard. “Never really worked out.”

“Sorry, but this one is taken.” Sprite puffed her chest, a beyond-smug smile on her face. “Besides, you’re too old for my liking. If I break you, you definitely won’t heal.”

Logan furrowed his brows. “I said I dated short women, not little children.”

“Wait, Spri-”

Laura barely had time to raise an objection before Sprite’s foot blurred, stomping Logan out of the car – breaking through the door – and ramming the man into the sand. By the time she realized what she had done, it was too late to undo it.

The car spun out of control, and despite her clear disdain concerning Sprite’s actions, Laura still dug her claw into the seat, and hugged Sprite around the waist, locking them in place. Caliban and Charles were left spinning with the violent rolling of the car.

۞۞۞

Dark smoke drifted into the air, trying to rouse something awake, but it was refusing to wake up. Tyrone believed he was dead, but believing in something – even as deeply as he did – did not make it so.

A dark flame blazed across Tyrone’s corpse, and the body bag housing his corpse was rendered to ash. Tyrone jumped awake as if he was shocked by electricity. Jesus would have been jealous of Tyrone’s resurrection when it took him three days.

“What?” Tyrone scanned the room – it was a strange mix of a mortuary and lab. There was no way to distinguish which it was, but just from a glance, something at the back of his mind could tell exactly what it was – A Laboratory.

A couple of seconds passed in silence. Tyrone was at a loss, sorting the jumbled memories popping up in his head. The importance varied, but soon, he started to remember everything – he had died.

“I was dead?”

Tyrone could recall the bullet, how it felt, and the heat brushing across his body after the explosion he had caused. It was a death worthy of action movies, but that was beside the point. The point was Sprite – what would she do now that he had died?

“She’s probably robbing more casinos, using Laura as her little bodyguard.”

Tyrone didn’t bother to place many expectations on Sprite. After all, he knew the girl well enough to know that he could never predict her actions. He pushed himself off the metal table, and that’s when Tyrone realized he was much higher up than he previously realized.

Then, another realization struck – it wasn’t that he was higher up, it was that his legs couldn’t reach so far down – not when they had been reduced by a couple of inches. Tyrone pushed himself off the table and rolled to disperse the momentum of the fall.

Mechanically and with deliberate slowness, he stared at the metal table, trying to see his reflection in the shining metallic sheen. What he was could only evoke one type of reaction…

“WHAT THE FUCC-”