He moved again. Faster than before. My Rubber Body dodged by instinct, stretching backward to avoid a punch that would have taken my head off. His fist went through the wall where my skull had been.

I wrapped an arm around his waist and slingshot us both through the gap. We crashed into the street outside. Cars burned around us from earlier in the match. Smoke filled the air.

"You can’t beat me," Nolan said, his voice steady despite the chaos. "Not like this."

"Watch me try."

I opened a gate beneath my feet and dropped through. The In-Between swallowed me—that dark space between portals that felt like drowning in warm static. I emerged behind him through another gate and kicked his spine.

He staggered. Turned. Caught my second kick with his hand and twisted my ankle until something popped. I screamed, the sound ripping out raw and involuntary.

He let go and I collapsed.

"Stay down," he said. "Please."

My ankle throbbed, already starting to heal but not fast enough. I looked up at him through blood and sweat. The protagonist stood above me, backlit by arena lights, looking every inch the hero this story was supposed to be about.

Except I’d changed that story the moment I walked into it.

"No," I said.

Fire erupted from my hands.

Fire Fist activated, flames coating my knuckles and forearms like molten gauntlets. The heat washed over me, familiar and hungry. I pushed myself up with my good leg, standing on borrowed power and spite.

"New trick?" Nolan asked.

"I’m full of surprises."

I threw a flaming punch. He blocked it with his forearm and the kinetic impact transferred straight into his body. But the fire stuck. His costume sleeve caught and he had to slap it out.

"Interesting," he said.

I grinned through blood. "Thought you’d like that."

He came at me again. I met him halfway. Fire against force. Speed against strength. Every punch I landed fed his ability, but every punch also burned. He couldn’t just absorb fire like he absorbed impacts. The flames had mass and heat and weight.

We traded blows in the burning intersection. His fists hit like freight trains. My fire scorched everything it touched. The ground cracked beneath us. Buildings trembled.

Somewhere overhead, Usagi screamed Noel’s name.

I risked a glance upward. Mera had found Noel’s physical body. Her red figure stood over the unconscious girl, a portal open behind her, ready to drop something heavy on Noel’s foot.

"Noel!" Usagi fired a massive gum shot from the water tower. The pink projectile sailed across the arena and slammed into Mera’s portal before she could act. The adhesive sealed the gate shut and pinned Mera to the wall of the building.

Mera struggled against the gum, swearing in what might have been Spanish.

Nolan saw it too. His eyes found mine.

"Your team protected each other," he said. "Good."

"Don’t patronize me."

"I’m not. I respect it." He cracked his neck. "But you’re still losing."

He blurred again. This time I was ready. I opened a gate directly in front of me. Nolan’s punch went through the portal and came out behind him, connecting with his own spine. He grunted, surprised, and stumbled forward.

I stretched my leg backward and used the elastic tension to launch a kick that caught him in the jaw. His head snapped to the side. Blood sprayed from his mouth.

First real damage I’d done all match.

He touched his lip, looked at the red on his fingers, and smiled.

"There you are."

The green light around him pulsed brighter. I felt the shift in his Essentia from ten feet away. The air got heavier, denser, like someone had turned gravity up a notch just around his body.

"Aurora," he said without breaking eye contact. "Get Usagi. I’ll handle this."

"Nolan—"

"Trust me."

Aurora didn’t argue. She pivoted and fired a light blast toward the water tower. Usagi dove behind cover, her position compromised.

Now it was just us.

The protagonist and the villain. Exactly how the story was supposed to end.

Except the villain had drain abilities, rubber body, fire fists, gravity manipulation, and portals. The protagonist just had one really good trick.

I stretched my knuckles and felt the elastic give.

"You ready to lose?" I asked.

"I don’t lose," Nolan said.

His stance dropped lower. The kinetic energy he’d been storing from every impact he’d taken since the match started flared green around both fists. This was the money shot. The moment where he ended it.

I grinned.

"Good. Neither do I." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

We charged each other simultaneously.

His first punch shattered my guard. The kinetic force behind it drove through my fire coating like I wasn’t even wearing it. I felt ribs crack again, freshly healed bones breaking a second time.

But I caught his wrist on the follow-through.

The drain opened.

Nolan’s eyes went wide as his Essentia poured into me. Not slowly. Not gently. Fast and overwhelming, like someone had opened a dam straight into my chest. I tasted his power—summer mornings and thunderstorms and something else, something that tasted like conviction and hope and every stupid heroic ideal ever written.

The taste of it turned my stomach. Everything about him was what I’d been before my first death. Before I learned what survival actually meant.

"Let go." His voice came out rough as he tried to wrench himself free.

My fingers only gripped harder. "Come on then."

His free fist crashed into my jaw. Everything went sideways for a second. Copper flooded my mouth and something small and hard rattled against my tongue before I spat it out. A molar, probably. The blood ran hot down my chin and splattered against white strands of hair.

My hand stayed locked on his wrist.

The drain widened further. I was pulling his reserves dry, gulping down his Essentia like I’d been dying of thirst. The knowledge of his ability downloaded into my brain—how to feel impacts, how to store them, how to redirect them into explosive bursts.

His legs buckled. The glow in his eyes flickered.

"Rome," he said, his voice weak. "Stop."

"Sorry. Can’t."