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My Dead Girlfriend

The widely televised "Battle for the Heart" (as news anchors would call it) is now available in full and uncensored for media record. Let it be known, distributing for money or leisure is strictly prohibited. As The Coalition of Planets, we do not celebrate the loss and suffering that occurred in this taping. Please, be wary of the disembodied head at timestamps 21:03-21:04.

The writer and editor are now engaged!

[Invincible Variants X Reader]

[Part one] [48] [Ao3] [Chapter Index]

49 * My Dead Boyfriend [13.5k]

"I think you’re a bad man, I know what you’ve done, You think you’re a good guy, Take it and run."

Run - Slow Funeral

Fifty-six paramens ago.

Him: I can provide more transcripts after I'm told about the signal.

Them: We're at risk of packet sniffing. We'll find the rest of them on our own.

Him: There are no hard copies left. I remember their contents. I have them typed and ready. They are not exact replicas, but you need them. I can make the files more difficult to decrypt.

Them: Send them.

Him: What is the signal?

Them: Send the files. If they can prove further useful in our mission and we detect no further interference, then I will speak to my advisor about telling you more.

Him: If The Emperor has found a way to view our messages, I'd already be dead. Your technology is bound to send off signals due to the way it's designed. This line has remained uncompromised, if it becomes so, I will cease communication. What is the signal?

Them: We will not risk communicating that on this line.

Him: You've risked more than enough on this line.

Them: We have other avenues of gathering information. Slow communication for now. We'll be in contact.

Him: The other "defector" on board hasn't sent anything useful and never will. He will not fight by your side. I, and my other Viltrumite ally will, if you tell us the signal so we can coordinate.

Them: You can't miss it.

Now.

The creatures came apart at the seams, but their blood didn't ease the tension in his back. Ever tight since Hydrox, tighter still since your defiance. Gray watched Thula whisk you away, gears turning about how to proceed in the aftermath. He'd side with Mark, but be gentle with you. Humans tended to lash out when emotional- Mother framed proposals as high stress. You just needed a nap and some food, simple human routine and you'd curb that issue. Gentle re-education could-

The imperial tower's rightmost spire blew apart at the middle. Chunks of its walls flew overhead, crushed corpses and corpses to-be. Gray barely noticed it, or the fire suddenly blasting out of the wound in the tower. Eyes caught instead on the glittering shards of glass from the cria tanks. The fact that even keyed-in, he couldn't hear their cries.

He was there in the next moment, an unthinking drone scanning for life. The air stuffed thick with smoke and heat, but he saw enough flying through the blasted ceilings into floors. There were no bodies left to incinerate, pack into a tube, and store close to Viltrum's core due to re-contamination concerns. Nothing but the shattered hulls, they cooed and reached for him in. Empty, aside from the ashen shadows where'd they'd once been.

Gray rose through the fire, but the heat didn't touch the ice that'd solidified his insides. He glimpsed what was left of the waddling girl and her overseer. He started to shake.

At the final floor, he found the boy alive. The top floor was unscathed save for the door that had been blasted up into the ceiling. Soon the whole tower would fall, a structure older than human history reduced to rubble. The cria, slipping as the structure began to sway, would survive. He would make sure.

Gray brought the boy to a pavilion where there was no fire. In the half second he'd gone, it'd bloomed red everywhere like a field of poppies. He didn't know what they looked like, just that Mother said the name and red a long, long time ago, and he'd felt warm and safe and slept in her bed that night.

Gray's hands slid off the boy's shoulders. "Stay here." Shadows zipped overhead. None of silhouettes he recognized. He watched them, tensed, ready to-

"Sir, there's a-"

The boy's body shattered under the mace. Gray turned a quarter second later, mouth open to tell him again to stay. Blood misted over his tongue and stung his eyes.

Battle Beast scoffed and pulled his bludgeon from the corpse. "I left the war-dunes of Tscnar for this? You, Viltrumite, prove to me the travel was worth it." The mace came down again.

Markus didn't leave the slaughter pit when the explosions started. He slowed, watched as the council ping-ponged in different directions to deal with dozens of sudden emergencies. The food processing plant, blown apart, animal breeding grounds, on fire, power production, mills of all kinds, historical relics, gone, gone, gone.

And still, Markus waited for the other shoe to drop. If he'd learned anything in this life, it was the worst was always yet to come.

The worst came as a man in a cream robe from beyond the horizon. Behind him, beings in armor with peashooters. Blue blazes shot from their backs because they needed codes and circuits to fly.

Markus could've killed them all first. Mark certainly went for it, screaming his head off and lunging into the throng of them. But Mark wasn't thinking about what was holding the guns, just the weapons themselves and how they'd ruined his proposal. Markus was stuck there too, lingering on it, so angry his whole body throbbed, but it wouldn't make him stupid. The man in the cream was pointing and ordering, flying without a pack, the commander who needed to die.

Markus had heard enough about Thaedus in Kregg's history spiels, but he'd never seen the man's face. He didn't care to make the connection as he headed for him fist first. The man started to speak in that know-it-all balm the elderly had, "You-" Markus hit him and felt the healing cracks in his bones split open. He didn't grunt or nurse the arm, just swung again.

Thaedus maneuvered out of the swing, spat a, "Fine then." Speeches were mostly a post-victory tradition in the old days, after all.

Towers crumbled, shots were fired, Markus took two fists to the back. The old man was faster than he looked, had an edge of five-thousand years too. Markus was spiked into the ground so hard he felt himself disconnected from his body, consciousness continuing into the planet's core. It'd been such a long time since he'd hurt so badly. Nostalgia was seeing his battered body and wondering whose it belonged to.

His body rolled barely out of the way of the man's heels, aimed like a spear for his head. Then it clicked; it was his body. Moving perfectly as it'd been taught, even without his mind. He snapped back into it.

Numb legs swung for the old man's ankles. Father had taught him that. A last resort only, to go low and "dirty"- it was below their Viltrumite heritage to use anything but perfect stances and strikes.

The old man was not snared. Markus was, head pinned to the ground by a knotted palm. So quickly he'd fallen apart. The pain wasn't bad enough to justify defeat, yet there he was, about to die. Too slow, too hurt, too stupid to realize Mark was planning on proposing. Lamenting was easy on death's door, he was a failure by all metrics of the word.

Thaedus wasn't exactly tickled by his thrashing. The overgrown cria hit hard, but there would be no more cria soon. No more grown Viltrumites either, after he eradicated the rest of his own species. "You believe the empire has taught you to win but they have not." Perhaps it was his old man tendencies, his impending suicide, or the fact Viltrum taught him to never do his brethren harm, but he couldn't stop the lesson coming from his lips. "You have never known victory and never will. Victory is-"

"Shut up, bitch!"

His feet connecting to Thaedus' jaw sent a shock wave up Mark's legs he wasn't ready for. He crashed and skittered through wreckage and knew by the end his ankles were shot. Which was fine, at least Thaedus was off Markus and on him.

Markus wobbled upright, dazed and coming to quickly. Mark's blurred outline zipped around the old man's. Blows connected so hard they blasted wind through his concrete-gelled faux hawk, sending the grayed strands out of place. Fighting hurt Mark the same way it did Markus, and still the little bastard was taunting, bouncing around. Pretending he didn't notice how outclassed he was as he fought for an impossible outcome. Before, Markus would have thought it was stupidity, but now he knew it was resolve.

Easily, Markus had given up. Let himself be beat down. Let himself down. Which meant letting you down.

A split moment, he locked eyes with Mark.

Thaedus tried to throw Markus off his back, who was suddenly there and clinging on hard. Without a clue of what he was doing besides digging through Thaedus' robes and piercing shallowly into his body anywhere he could reach. Dishonorable, and messy and haphazard- something Mark would've done.

The same thing Mark was doing to Thaedus' front. Wide open for the same rip-and-tear treatment. Didn't matter how much time the old man had over them both. They had something to live for- a knock-down drag out fight over your hand in marriage- Thaedus did not. Five-thousand years and all the love in the galaxy couldn't have prepared Thaedus for being shish kebabed by two clones of the royal bloodline.

The bundle of Viltrumites thudded to the ground, Thaedus no longer able to hold them up as he drifted closer to death.

Mark and Markus breathed in the smell of each other's blood. Their noses now twins, crooked and streaming blood into their open mouths.

"Find Gray." Mark said soft, words just for him and not for the corpses.

Markus went.

Mark stayed. Took in the battle around him. The council, what was left of them that Mark could see, were taking on the backpacked soldiers. Making fast progress. A pitiful army, he laughed around a mouthful of blood. How had Thragg ever thought this would destroy the empire?

A slipstream lightened the evening sky, headed by a pale twinkle. There it was, the coup de grâce, whatever the hell it was meant to be. Probably the tiny-headed fuck himself coming in for a grand entrance. Mark wouldn't allow it.

He took off hard for whatever it was.

And stopped as he heard- "Dude, (Y/n)'s not in her room."

Seb opened the closet, finger to his comm. You weren't there either. Grayson told him to go get you but, "She's not here!" Or on the observation deck, or in the mess hall, or in the training room.

Mark paused. What did he mean you weren't in your- his- room?

"Who is this?" Gray's voice cut in over the sound of a cat's hiss.

A pause on the comm line then, "Your emperor... Dipshit." The impression wasn't bad, they were the same man after all.

Mark turned around. "Yeah, that's not me. I'm heading to the ship."

Seb's hand flew off his ear. "Shit." Out of all the Viltrum tech bullshit he forgot, it just had to be how to privately comm Grayson. At least he remembered how to empty the septic tanks. God, he hated this place.

Air split around Mark's outstretched fist, then the airlock door just as easily. "Are you two together?" He slowed in the halls, scared he'd move so fast he'd tear you in two.

"Yes-" Markus took his finger off his ear so the whole planet didn't hear him get body slammed. "Busy."

"Watch for Thragg, he's-" Mark stepped into his bedroom, and you weren't there. Fine, Thula put you somewhere else, if he just checked his-

Thragg didn't wait for the ship to land. He stepped out of the airlock and onto the screen of every speakeasy and shit box across the galaxy. Onto Mark's data pad screen, the camera floating down to his side, framed by the destruction. Easily, he'd reassessed Viltrum's broadcast system. Even his off-world earpiece was dialed into the speakers that sent his word to millions: "This chaos was preventable."

Mark turned, mind in a million places. He nearly walked right into Grayson.

Thragg eyed the battlefield as if he weren't being shot at by flying rebels. "I could have stepped in at any time, stopped this from reaching our sacred homeworld."

Mark paused, uncharacteristically quiet as his mind struggled to place the man in front of him. Why wasn't he fighting rebels?

Thragg continued from his arm, "The Mutt could have too, if only he'd looked in the right communication channels, but he is witless as the young often are."

Mark knew all at once why Grayson was at his door. So obvious, he felt stupid not seeing it coming. "What do you think you're going to do, huh?"

"I will no longer allow him to let our home burn." Thragg prattled on. If Mark had been watching the screen, he'd have seen Kregg smacked aside like a sick puppy by Thragg's backhand.

Grayson shifted in the air. All he could do was float with the one leg, he looked ridiculous, raising his fists and frowning- as if he was a threat in any capacity. Mark scoffed, "Oh come on, you know you can't hit me, you forget that? Got so caught up in whatever you thought you had with my fiancé, you forgot you're also my bitch." He hit him, a pistoned punch to the chest. He expected Grayson to go through the wall, frail and easy like he'd always been. But he caught Mark's fist and twisted. Mark's own momentum sent him through a wall.

His earpiece buzzed with Kregg's voice, "Emperor, we need you out here. Thragg is here, I repeat, Thragg has entered Viltrum's atmosphere."

Mark floated out the him-shaped hole and found Grayson. The smooth, marble joints that carefully made up Grayson's knuckle, twitched. He waited for something, but Mark didn't care for what. "That one kiss you had really was enough to turn you traitor, huh? I mean, I'd go the same way. She's so good with that tongue. Good at lying too. What'd she tell you, she wants to run away with you?" He hit him again, same easy motion. Grayson didn't deserve a battle plan.

"I will no longer allow The Mutt or his father's legacy to tarnish the great expansion." Thragg.

"Mark!" Kregg.

Grayson caught it again, taking the brunt of the impact without moving an inch. Mark felt his lips curl into a snarl as Grayson just watched him with their father's eyes. Mark tried to rip his fist free, but he was trapped in his grip. "Bet she forgot to tell you how much she loves the empire, though. She has to with all the cock she sucks for it."

The floor met Mark's back. Grayson let go to swipe for him, but Mark twisted upright. Snarling, "You're a great lil employee, Grayson, really, ya are. Could let you in on the action anytime I want, because you wanna know something?" He was wide open and weak, but even at his most pathetic, it was enough to beat Grayson. Too easy. Should've done this months ago. "She would never be happy with you, she's too much of a slut to end up with only one of us, needs all the dick she can get."

Soft as a kid in church, "Don't talk about her like that."

"You can talk." Mark's fist bloomed open to a waiting spear. "Where is she, Grayson?"

False hope was better than what the emperor deserved. Grayson gave him what he did- a prosthetic fist to the face. Joints became shrapnel, metal plating blades, Mark's face an open wound. Grayson shattered to the elbow, a stump once again.

Mark wobbled back, a groan out his open, bleeding mouth. Metal stuck through his cheek, glimmering as it stabbed into his tongue.

Grayson didn't wait for him to process what had happened, that the programming he'd made to trap Grayson had been nothing but an illusion. He was just as capable as the rest of them. Subjugation a mask, the same he'd worn as Invincible.

He tore the data pad from Mark's arm and ran best a one-legged man could; through flight.

Grayson closed Thragg's broadcast and opened the control panel for you. No passcode to it at all, sitting pretty on Mark's home screen unprotected and obvious. Turning it off a single motion, no verification needed. It'd always been that easy.

Finding you was just as easy, your location viewable in the next thumb swipe. Your dot flashed beside two others. The angel started screaming.

Thick in a stupor, Mark found himself on the floor. Alone. Face throbbing. One eye swollen shut. His breath heavy and wet as his teeth clicked against a thick chunk embedded in his gums. He tore the metal out with an animal cry. Blood flooded his mouth. So much if he didn't keep swallowing, he'd choke.

Mark checked his arm for Grayson's location and found his wrist bare. He screamed.

The angel wouldn't stop crying. Telling him how badly it hurt to die again.

Twice Grayson pushed his earpiece, said a quiet command of, "Seb," and he was wired into direct communication with the useless fool.

"What!?" Seb's voice came over the universal comm line. Idiot.

"You need to get her now." Grayson pushed himself faster through the halls. The ship shuddered as Mark tore through it, smashing through the walls instead of navigating around them. "She's in the-"

The wall blasted apart behind him. Mark's smile wetly glimmered. "Thound you, atthhole!"

Grayson had been counting on it. He pushed himself through the door instead of waiting for it to open, tore the cuffs away instead of sitting around while they unlocked.

Originally, The Asshole had been a bone to throw for information. Only in The Coalition's caginess did Grayson find a place where he neatly fit. Between plan Y and Z. Freeing him wasn't optimal, but he'd planned right for it. Fed and watered the dog best he could and hoped it'd prove loyal.

The Asshole lifted his neck and drooled out glitter, the agent fourteen vial chewed to sand. Only thing he could destroy and it was between his teeth. "Now?"

"Now."

The Asshole nearly fell onto his face. Unused to holding himself aloft. He'd better get used to a whole lot in the next two seconds, Mark was in the busted door frame.

"Where is she?" Seb said in Grayson's ear.

He wouldn't say, not in front of these two.

Mark cackled and sent blood misting out his mouth. "This is your plan?"

The Asshole was so tired of that smell. Ever present in this room. He lifted to his feet, body shaking the whole time, but his muscles held. "Eve." Was all he could say because it was all he could think about. So close he could almost taste her in his dry mouth- or was that just what you tasted like?

He couldn't remember. Too much warping and twisting and torture. He knew one thing here, in the fogginess of his cage, Eve was the light at the end of the tunnel. Really, it was the hallway light that blinded him. The emperor's throat under his forearm. Pushing, The Asshole tried to sever the man through, but Mark's meat was too gamey.

Grayson left, finger to ear.

Mark punched Mark in the stomach. Hard enough to make anyone puke, but there was nothing to puke, so he got a hot cough instead. Then teeth closing on his nose. "Get the-" Mark breathed in blood, choked, coughed it into Mark's mouth.

They snarled and thrashed and clawed wall to wall. Metal dented and went red in splotches.

Mark sent the Emperor through his cage, harder than he thought he could throw. The Emperor made an easy hole to the outside. Weak and hurting almost bad as The Asshole was.

Freedom had only been six feet away this whole time. Dirty air blasted The Assholes face. He moved toward the wind and into the outside world. Once again, the sun warmed his skin. Not much of it left, and he couldn't see it through the smoke, but the warmth was there. What little fresh air there was made him human again. Spark returned to his eye.

The Emperor shot out of wreckage to snuff it out.

"Emperor!" Kregg screamed into the comm line to no reply. "Generals!" He searched for their shapes in the smoke. Mechanical eye whirring in his skull, locking onto bodies, but none of them the right one.

Mark wasn't listening anyway, blood rushing in his ears. Thragg and his political devastation had been wiped from his mind as soon as the image of him had been torn from his arm. The war march hadn't stopped, nor the monologue.

Thragg gave no particular skirmish any mind as the creatures with nearly the same skin as Viltrum's evening sky flooded out of the ship. "The nymphs come from a race so worthless our tech has left their planet unlabeled for eons." He spoke to the universe calmly despite the threats to his life all around. He let them come just to bat them away like toys. This was his fight to win, but not yet. "Weak without my DNA. But they are better now, even as the lowest rung of abominations." They wore his red and white. His sigil. "They are beyond enough to take back my empire from The Mutt's paws." He only needed to nod toward Kregg, and a swarm of them went. "Watch them work."

You were right where Grayson said you'd be. Worse and somehow better off than Seb had imagined. "I've got you." He pressed you so close you must've felt his hammering heart. "I've got you, dude." Your blood pressed warm and sticky to his chest. "Are you-"

"I'll be fine." You shakily pulled up the bottoms. Wind a hard wall at your cheek.

Seb's stomach swirled with sick. Knowing what they'd done. Wanting to make them pay, but there'd never be time for it. He told himself so he'd keep moving. "Yeah, yeah, we'll be fine. Gonna get you outta here, man."

"We weren't done!" Ollie burst from the shattered airlock. He locked onto your retreating forms, a feral bloodhound.

Sebastian lagged behind. Disbelief all over his face. He followed. Mouth open, hissing in your scent, still pungent in his olfactories. You haunted him from his nose and mouth and deflated, stuffed away cock. Haunted when you were right there, still living. She wasn't anymore. She was gone because she hated him. He couldn't stop thinking about it. The fact solid, absolute. Coming back again and again no matter how hard he tried to think of something else.

"Sorry, I gotta- we gotta run." Seb covered your head the best he could and pushed harder. So fast you could barely catch enough air to breathe.

No way in hell was he leading these two freaks right to your happy ending.

Seb was lithe, twisting around crumbling buildings and people killing each other. Still, the pair stuck to his heels. Gaining fast. "Hold on." You already were, hard as you could, like he was worth trusting with your life. He had to earn it.

Seb shot out his forearm. An axe of air sliced a tower in half. Sent it teetering down hard for the dog's heads. Thank you, gravity training. "I got 'em!" His dad had done that move a hundred times, and he'd never been able to, too lazy to even try before coming here. Maybe he really could do this. His arm wrapped back around your shoulders. "And I got you! Fuck those guys." He veered for the shipyard.

Mark saw it all through blurry vision. Making out only your flowing clothes, the chase, Seb's whooping. It cost him another punch to the face. Pain didn't register when you were getting further away. In another man's arms, during a coup and-

You'd done it to him again, hadn't you?

They were battered, bruised, bleeding. A claw stuck out from Markus' shoulder and fur spilled out of Gray's mouth. He hadn't been proud of biting the beast, but the damn thing wouldn't go down. Only after he locked eyes with Markus did the plan slide into place. Connection between them near psychic. Gray one side, Markus the other, their fists met in the middle of Battle Beast's great, collapsible head.

Triumph. Surely the greatest warrior The Coalition had to offer, was defeated. The hard part was over, now was the clean up. After a moment's respite, to breathe and pick at teeth. Just a second, they wanted to relax their stinging bodies.

Mark's voice came icily in their ears. "She's trying to leave." Calm. About as much Mark could spare in his body. Emperor-like for a single moment before he exploded. "Shipyard! Get to the fucking shipyard! Now!"

They went.

As did The Asshole chasing after Mark's skirts. Forgotten as soon as you were on the line.

As did Ollie and Sebastian, only mildly dusty.

Seb didn't look behind himself, only ahead, but he heard their bodies singing. Coming in hot. He pushed his shoulder into his earpiece, "Which one is it? All these ships look the fuckin' same!"

Briefly, in the before when the chaos broke out, and Seb didn't know where to go- Grayson spoke in his ear. "Find the cleanest ship and wait for me." But all the ships in the yard were clean, everything was pure white, it was Viltrum for God's sake.

Radio silence. If you ignored Thragg talking, the council screaming at Mark for help in a handful of different places. But no Grayson.

Seb made the mistake of looking back. "Fuck, I don't know if I can lose them all." He looked back at you as a voice split the sky.

"Give her to me, now!"

It could've been any one of them. Each fate just as bad. Seb saw the visions on your face. Mark caught you, and it was game over. Jesus, why had he said that? "But I gotta try," he amended, "They're not touching you. I ever tell you I'm the fucking expert at girlfriend keep away? You know how many girls I was juggling, watch this!"

Kregg didn't have to punch for the children to hurt. They wounded themselves, pounding their glass-fragile fists to his face. Burst apart at the wrists and knuckles and shoulders. Brothers and sisters shared the pain of trying to kill him together. Simply, they could not. They were Viltrumite in shape and composition, but not in age. No longer cria, but still nymphs as Thragg had called them.

He only needed to slash, and a row of them came apart, even on the back winds. Like cutting through mud. They hissed at him for it, came down in a tighter knot, but it didn't matter. He slaughtered through them all. Heart aching, they looked like cria, but all they were was abominable homunculi.

Thragg piloted the camera away from Kregg and the worthless nymphs before the universe saw. Fine. He'd sent a weaker fleet for Kregg, he knew that.

The best grapes for the best wine. Thragg's personally picked favored. He pointed at the bodies lunging for the shipyard. Escape wasn't an option he'd allow. They, all seven hundred of the least violet-hued children, flew off as a uniformed storm.

The rest were punished by staying, by having to join the swarm trying to kill one man. He'd told them they could kill thousands, but they knew, joining the back of the throng, they were in line for execution. They deserved it for not making it into the favored. Perhaps if they landed the killing blow, they'd finally be seen as anything other than fodder.

Thragg followed behind, camera at his shoulder, the shot perfectly capturing the swarm. The impending impact. He turned to the camera, utterly balmy as Viltrum burned. Optics, it was all about optics. "When this is done, I will come to you and yours. I, and my full-blooded peers, will gift you all new generations of a better breed. They will never be pure, but they will be better than what you are capable of."

The skin on your hands, your face, heated. You hissed, losing the breath before you could take it. Seb was going too fast but they were going to-

"We were having such a nice time." Ollie swung in front of him, fist ready. "Why'd you have to-" Seb couldn't slow down in time. He was going to ram into that fist, and it was going to go right through you. "-ruin it?"

A flash. The tailwinds made Seb spin. He corrected before he crashed you both. The sky in front of him clear. Ollie yards away, getting further with Markus' hands on his throat.

The others would get you back safely. It'd be fine, as soon as Ollie was dead for good.

Seb lost speed, bobbing like a plane in turbulence.

An iron grip clung to his left boot. Thrashing and going faster would not dislodge Sebastian. "Get off me!"

"You-!"

His sole slammed into Sebastian's nose. Cartilage popped like the swollen back of a fat tick, blood bursting like one too. Sebastian howled, blood blew into his eyes. Stringing so badly, he swore they'd been burned away.

Blindly, he snatched for Seb's other foot. Pulled to feel a give. Lids opened, not seared away but working. In his hand was not you, not Seb's corpse, but Seb's boot lined with his skin still inside. Tendons and tissues still attached, twitching and glimmering in the light.

"Fuck!" Seb stomped him again, but the burst tick did not let go.

If he wasn't so infected, so bogged, Sebastian would've taken the whole foot, the whole leg. You, you put something in his head that made everything boil and let off thick, toxic vapor. Made him shake, made his legs go useless behind him when you looked at him with a fear that normally fueled him.

He let the boot fall. Blunted nails tore up Seb's leg. Piercing fabric and muscle. Ignoring the degloved foot that kept smashing at his face. Voice closer to a dying rabbit's than a man's, "You don't get to leave me."

He left you. Not of his own volition, but Gray's. Swooped up like a baby chick by an eagle. Taking him and more flesh from Seb's leg. Gray hadn't forgotten being gutted in that cave. He'd stayed impartial in the halls for the sake of the empire. Tried to move on, but he stayed awake in the night, dreamt of the sensation of being unwound from the inside. He wanted to return the favor.

"Motherfuckers!" Seb dipped then shot off. Mark was still coming.

"You okay?" Choked out against his chest.

"I'm," he swallowed bile, "fine!"

"Come." Mark swiped for Seb's raw heel. Missed by millimeters. "Here."

You shouldn't have looked down at him. Saw how badly he wanted to hurt you. Seb. Everything. Everyone. The longer this went on, the worse the inevitable would be. Because he always won. No chance in hell you got away. You were weak and-

Behind him, a cloud of pale purple. Battle cry like cicada buzz. A chance in hell.

"Mark, stay!"

Like a bowling ball to the chest.

He went straight as a pin. Fought hard as he could for the two seconds you could keep him, but it was enough. Seb gained distance, and the kids gained ground. The connection snapped as they swarmed him.

Sebastian had been right, saving it for Mark was the thing to do.

Seb laughed from his belly. "Suck on that, dipshit!"

He curved down, eyes on the ships. They blended together into a perfect, colorless nothing.

"I had to order something for them to get here." You said wispy as a dandelion in bloom. "It'll be a-" Your head dipped. "Space ship."

"How much blood did you lose? Of course, it's a space-" Out of all the identical ships, one was nearly without windows. Built like an eighteen-wheeler. No, like a freighter. "Oh, oh! Ship."

The Asshole nearly had Mark until he was whisked away by a screaming ball. Then all he could see was you. Less than half a second, gazes met.

Stomachs dropped like you were seventeen again. The sky dim and fires flickering, you both slow dancing on your apartment stoop the night he stood you up. He thinks you're good for him. You think you finally found something good.

The next moment comes like cold water to the face. "Stay there!"

The Asshole went stiff. Dropped half a football field before he caught himself. Gasping and terrified. Off balance as a newborn calf, as he'd been after your first kiss, as he'd been when he realized it was you at Machine Head's side.

That's what you were going for, right? To disarm him? To bring it all back to rub salt in his wounds? Fuck you, fuck you.

He hurdled for you. Fists in front of himself for that extra inch of speed just to kill you faster. He wouldn't tell Eve about this. About anything that'd happened. He'd lay on her thighs and weep and tell her nothing because she'd frown and hiss, "Mark." With all the disapproval in the world. Your staunchest defender. He just needed her voice, even imagined to call to him sweetly. But as long as you existed, he only heard yours. Let the disapproval come.

Seb wasn't wounded enough that he couldn't dodge a starving man. Though it sure came close. "Jesus!" He nearly spun out again. "Where do they keep coming from!?"

The Asshole rasped, "The cage where you put me."

"What the fuck?" Seb chanced a glance back, "Wait, is that your ex? How the fuck did he get out?"

"I have no idea." But no one heard it, carried away by the wind.

"I didn't do shit to you man, you're looking for the guy with the mohawk!"

Seb (whose name he did not know) was right, he hadn't done shit. They all could've been like the Robot, petting him and feeding him like he were a stable mare. "I don't care." He shot for Seb, swung with claws for nails. Missed. "This is her fault. She-"

"Go away."

Blame was washed away. He was nothing but a husk. Turning away from you and floating off in a dreamy stupor. Going no particular way, just away from you.

Seb let out a breath, "Holy fuck, dude. Thanks." Out of fear of looking too relieved to be saved, he said, " That guy looked like he was like, gonna give me something. Ya'know?"

"Just get us out of here."

"Yes, ma'am." Seb landed.

He hammered his fist to the freighter door, "Hey, we're here!" It did not budge. "It's us, the spies, let us in, man." Knock, knock. "Hey, Coalition? We're on your side." Knock, knock, nothing. "Oh, shit do you think we need a password or something?" He thought for a moment, hard as he could, "Password!"

Nothing changed.

Sebastian had gotten loose from Gray's batting. He held himself together at the stomach but ribbons trailed behind him. Headed straight for you. Oblivious to Gray at his heels. Getting his hands on you mattered more than surviving. Getting his hands on you and... and...

The connection stretched until it held no more. The Asshole was coming again.

"I lost him."

"How much juice you got left, dude?" Seb watched them come, knocking on the door like an idiot.

"Not a lot."

"My turn then, huh?"

Grayson was there. Suddenly and with blood dried between his remaining knuckles.

You were alive. The angel quieted.

He hovered, a pillar between Seb, The Asshole, and the feral, gutted thing hounding for you. He turned to The Asshole, said gently something you could not hear.

The Asshole lost momentum in a tumble. Then he was a bullet, re-chambered and shot for Sebastian. They collided, a snarling mass. Ripping and pulling instead of punching.

Grayson linked to the overhead announcement system, via a button by the door frame. He said something in an alien language, and it opened.

"Thank fuck you're here, I would have never guessed that."

The ship sat in the middle of an empty room. Bootprints painted the floor while the cruiser was shiny. Body sleek and ready to cut through Viltrum's sky.

Grayson stepped inside.

"They're just gonna follow us, man, we won't make it." Seb said, following him anyway. Gray following all of you.

"We can't stay." Space Racers gun was either about to blow or the shot was coming.

Except Gray, without an opponent was gaining, Markus was coming to, Ollie's limp body dropped the second he could, and Mark was clawing out of the ball. "Get her. That's a fucking order." They obeyed. Coming in fast, not to cradle you, but to tear you from Seb and freedom.

The cruiser hadn't opened. Maybe there was no pilot inside. Maybe you'd come all this way for nothing. Be better if you'd bled out in that prison cell.

Mark burst from the lilac cloud, but he was red all over. The favored fallen.

"Casualties are expected." Thragg narrated, hovering slowly over the circling vultures. One himself. The only one not squawking and panicking. "They are young. Inexperienced but only a modicum of Viltrum teachings even with their flawed DNA has made them make The Emperor bleed. I can admit, he is a strong boy."

You eyes were dragged away from your coming doom by Grayson holding something out to you. The ear piece for his communicator. You opened your mouth to ask what he was doing but when your eyes, clear and confident, you knew just what to do. You turned your head and he pushed into your ear with the ghost of a smile.

"Huh? What's going on? I can't hear them if-"

You interrupted him, "I'm not talking to either of you, okay?"

Spit flew off Mark's lip, "I've killed millions- fuck, billions- of people for you, you bitch. You really think I'll let you go? You-"

"Stop."

For half a moment, you had all three of them paused mid-air. The moment was long enough to actually get closer to the cruiser, for Grayson to reach the control panel and shut the door of the freighter.

"Oh shit." You heard Seb distantly.

Snap.

Mark landed through the roof. Needing to be the loudest, the spectacle, the one you looked at. Shrapnel around his feet, in his hair, shiny specs in the nook and crannies of wounds on his face.

Markus and Gray followed.

They landed, an unbroken front assessing the situation. They didn't lunge further. Wouldn't with the immanent threat of death at your throat. Seb's hand open like a blade. "Back the fuck up. I'll lop 'er fuckin' head off if any one of you fuckers move."

"Shut up, we know you won't do it." Mark smiled with all bloody teeth. Fingers flexing for a throat to squeeze. Yours if he had the chance.

Calmer, though with an edge you'd never heard from him. "Put her down." Gray.

Seb didn't budge. "You really think I give a fuck about this stupid broad? Few lies here n' there and she invites me to piss off. Not hard to get 'er to like you if you treat 'er nice." He nodded, "Get the door, dickhead."

Markus didn't bother with words. Seb was beneath him, always had been. He looked to Gray and Gray looked back. Another killing akin to Battle Beast it'd be.

"Markus, Gray, I know you both can beat Mark." You said, throat bobbing against Seb's hand. "You don't have to kill him, I know you're friends but just- fuck. Come with me."

Markus paused. Gray hesitated. All they had to do was turn, punch together. This whole mess would be over.

"He hits hard enough but..." Thragg descended slowly through the freighter's new sunroof. The remaining favored followed, waiting for orders. He didn't spare them a glance. "Human DNA twists far too much. It's left his faculties inept. You can tell by how easily the empire has folded in his hands. He is not worthy of his lineage, he is worse. A scourge."

Mark laughed, "You think they're gonna kill me? Do you know what that'd do?!"

Betray the empire. Leave all structure. Create a universe ripping power vacuum. No more safety, but, no more Mark.

"You-" Mark shook. Dug his nails into where his data pad used to be, only to find skin. "-Ungrateful fucking bitch. I gave you everything."

Perhaps it was the blood loss, or the emotional exhaust, or maybe, you'd just gotten that good at playing victim- but your next words came out in a quiver. "Please. Please, come with me."

Mark opened his maw in a snarl. Stepped forward.

"Stay the fuck back!" Seb pushed his hand closer to your neck.

Quietly, Gray's voice came to you. "Your plan was foolish, this would never have worked."

You knew it was coming, Gray had always been loyal, but hearing it made panic well up in you.

"Markus!" Wouldn't look at you, another betrayal he hadn't expected. He was scared he'd kill you again.

Rejection slid between your ribs and slit your heart. You hitched but did not stutter. You were used to Mark Grayson disappointing you. You screamed, "Look at me." Eyes, all remaining four-hundred pairs, turned to you. Your traitorous boyfriends and fiancé, barely connected. You pointed to them, "Get them out of here!"

Like piranhas in a feeding frenzy. They came as a wave, crashing down before Mark was halfway to you. "Bit-" The swarm cut him off. The floor shook violently as they were carried away by the riptide of nymphs.

Grayson finally bypassed the ship securities. The pilot had locked the doors, unwilling to let you in with the emperor still so close. He didn't care what she wanted.

The Asshole watched the nymphs make a hole out of the freighter door. Through it, he caught a glimmer. A mirage, he thought, but it didn't leave like Eve always did. Escape was right there, and they were taking it without him. He left Sebastian, a pulpy mess in the sky- the both of them.

Sebastian chased until his ears sang. Then he was falling. A distant thought that he should start flying, but he couldn't do anything beyond thinking about it. He tried to move his body to the hole in the ship everyone had entered, but he slammed into the roof instead.

Ollie wheezed beside him, "Hey, buddy." Together again by pure happenstance. Fate, in Ollie's mind.

Sebastian spat out chunks of his own flesh and blood, they didn't taste a lick like her buttery bone marrow. Swallowing down pieces of her, of you, would fix the problems. All of them. He couldn't do anything but lift his head and watch.

Thragg let the camera follow the storm of his children. He signaled for the group to split and capture the rest of the runaways. They paid him no mind, throwing themselves at the Mutt and his generals like he didn't exist. They had known nothing but obedience their entire lives, failure of blind subservience led to death, and they knew it well. This was something beyond their control, something he would remedy himself.

Thragg landed on the bridge up to the escape cruiser's hull. Uncaring as the fruits of his labor were shredded limbs at a time. There were only forty of them left in a second. The camera lens caught it all, but that was okay. "The nymphs have little experience or pedigree." Thragg mused, "The Mutt has much more and still, he struggles against them."

Seb's hand lowered from your jugular, "Can we uh... Get past, dude?" The dude was old looking, but Seb learned by now, the older, the harder the ass.

"Dude, that's Thragg!" You hissed from his arms. Grayson was still in front of you, trying to find the next right move.

Thragg didn't budge, yammering on, "A few years time and their siblings that come after them will be unstoppable. This is only the first generation of the new empire, and already we reap great rewards."

You weren't going to be trapped in another empire.

"Hey! Hey! Look at me." You waved. Some of the nymphs turned head, easily drawn by your voice, even with their personhood revoked. "Attack!" You pointed, and the few that looked, went. Hands scratching and grabbing at their own father, though they had called him such.

Blindsided, Thragg watched you escape through the flood of subordinates, the children not even looking as you passed. Your eyes met through the flurry, and he knew his next target.

You disappeared inside the ship's heavenly light.

"No." Sebastian's small intestine unfurled under his belly as he elbow crawled toward the hole. Voice small and so far away from himself, "No, don't..."

"Don't move." Ollie said, closer. When had he gotten closer? How could he still move with so many broken bones sticking out his skin?

An arm squeezed under Sebastian's chest. "We won't."

Ollie didn't have much strength left in him, Markus had played too rough. Hitting the roof hadn't been a kiss on the head either. Despite the pain, he dragged them both slow as molasses. Moving hurt too much. There was the normal weakness that came with pushing himself too far, his body begging for him to cum and drift off to sleep.

The cruiser opened around you. Teal and orange inside with puffy seats and neon screens. Straight out of a fifties sci-fi movie. The one thing out of place was a white box. Package slim and discreet as a customer could want. The rebels didn't have to deliver on the order, but it sure was fitting to send a cock to the empire as a last gift. Except the soldiers actually doing the fighting didn't want to see the package and think about what the emperor would be doing with it, if they were to fail- so here it went.

But you didn't know that. You wouldn't know till later.

Seb let out a breath, "Sorry man, you're not stupid. You're smart and hot, and I do give a fuck about you. Like, a lot. 'S why I-"

"Hold onto somethin'!" The pilot said. "After this door shuts, we're outta here!"

Hands grabbed rails and throttles as the door began to close-

The Asshole landed inside the cruiser with a thud.

"Dude, fuck off!" Seb kicked him in the stomach. The Asshole hit the shut door and slid to the floor. "Wait, open the-"

The cruiser shattered out of the freighter's front. Everybody inside leaned hard and had to pull themselves harder to keep straight. Faster than anyone but the pilot thought it'd be. Less than three minutes and you'd be a blip on Viltrum's radar.

Silence fell over the engine hum. All of you tense and waiting for the wild animal to lunge. The pilot's grip was white knuckled on the driver. Too many Viltrumites on her ship, more than she had been ordered to bring back.

The Asshole broke the silence, "You." He peeled himself off the wall, crawled toward you on heavy, prowling shoulders.

"Back up." Seb shifted on his feet and almost slipped on his own blood.

You gathered power in your throat.

Grayson shoved himself between you, "You're fast enough to kill her, but not both of us after. Don't you want to see Eve again?"

"She-"

"(Y/n) distracted the emperor so I could get to you. She's been trying to help you for months." Lies came out smooth as buttercream, curdled in your stomach just the same. You thought he was going to die in that ship and you'd never have to think about him again.

The Asshole's- Mark's eyes softened. That plump bottom lip you'd sucked on as a teenager, opened. Shut. The hardness returned. He didn't look like Mark anymore. He looked like Markus. Like Mark. Like Gray. "I don't give a shit."

"We're a few days' trip from The Coalition stronghold," Grayson said. "Once we're there, you never have to see her again."

Mark's toes flexed. Gripping because he needed to. Already so tired of being upright, his body wanting to return to the kneel he'd been trapped in for months. "You tried to leave me."

"There was no safe way to get to you."

"Bullshit." But he let his body drop anyway. Blood-caked and reliving every soft face he sheered in half. What would he tell Eve? How could he go be a Father after that? He collapsed into a chair, knees throbbing and wanting to bend shut, but he forced them to stretch, to accept his new reality out of the cuffs. And he wept.

"You said Angstrom was coming, not him." You wiggled in Seb's hold.

Seb started, "Hey, stop, you're-"

"Put me down." It was over. Lot of snags in the way, but it was over. You were done being swaddled.

Your feet hit the ground, you swayed. "Whoa, hey, take it easy." Seb steadied you by the shoulder as you pushed the still bleeding wound shut.

Pain made you snap, "Really? Fucking Mark? What happened to the plan?"

Grayson pushed out a sigh, "Angstrom didn't make it."

"Didn't make it? So what he just-!" You gestured to Mark and saw a ruined mass of man. Empathy struck your righteous ass down. He couldn't help you get away like Angstrom would have, "Just keep him away from me."

"We won't let him do anything."

Seb nodded, "No way, dude."

Wa-bump!

"What's-"

The ship groaned and teetered sideways, your feet slipping out from under you.

Thragg slaughtered the nymphs first. With their viscera in his retinas, he found the camera and faced it. "I've allowed this to devolve too far, trusting the young too much often does that. I have learned my lesson. I will wait for them to grow a while more before moving forward. It will not be long but, while I wait to fix you-"

Mark tore the last teenager into two. The ship in the sky getting smaller. All Thragg's fault.

"-I will do this inexorable favor of killing The Mutt and his pups myself. Come to me, you creature, come and die."

The universe watched Grand Regent Thragg get ripped to shreds in high definition. Too fast for most species to process. In the hours after, the recording was slowed and analyzed. First, they speared his gut in three separate places. Then they ripped him. Tore the flesh and fat right off his front in long ribbons. His face came apart in their hands, mustache first. Only scraps were left, one eyelid still blinking as he aimed for the Emperor's head.

The Emperor took Thragg and threw. A giant baseball aimed for the ship. He missed. Thragg was a glint in the atmosphere then gone. The camera followed his image just as he'd programmed it to. Until the camera hit space and its weak propulsion left it uselessly spinning. Recording stars, then turning back to show Viltrum's scorching body before returning to the stars.

Days after, debates on thousands of news networks. "Viltrum's long thought dead Ex-Grand Regent Thragg is dead for certain this time... or is he? Shonni, tell us what you think."

The newscast lady pointed a green antenna toward the footage, "I can't agree with the general consensus, Smim. If we compare Viltrumite to human biology- which is the closest species anatomically- we can assume damage to the heart is enough to kill. But... There is no way they pierced his heart. Look here, they angled too low. He's hurt, recovering for sure, but that Viltrumite is not dead."

"Oh yeah? Where is he then?"

"Well, we can't assume anything."

"He's an ice cube! If anyone watching is doing some intergalactic travel this week, keep an eye out for Thragg's body, contact-"

But that was a million miles away and days from now. Now?

The cruiser struggled to gain speed as it left the atmosphere. Perfect calibration thrown off by three hundred extra pounds on the ship's left wing. Without calibration, the cruiser couldn't cruise. The pilot cursed, tendrils working overtime on multiple keyboards, and screens to try and get you going.

Ollie clung to the cruiser's wing, Sebastian held to his side. He looked at you through the port window and smiled big.

You tensed in Seb's hold. "What are you doing? Fly!"

"I'm trying, but Beauty's a delicate girl!" More fumbling.

"Open the door! I can get them off!" He said.

"Can't guarantee I can get you back in once you're out." The pilot veered the thruster hard to the side. "Best I can do is rebalance this thing with their weight and deal with the consequences later." The ship started to tip to the other side.

"Just go, we can't be sittin' here!"

"You think I wanna be a sitting starmink? I don't exactly wanna crashland on Viltrum." At Seb's silence, the pilot said, "I got it."

Mark flew harder than he ever had, but his bones seemed to liquify and settle in his feet, his head like a balloon from the pressure. He pushed harder and only seemed to get slower. Fine. That was fine. The impossible task of catching up to the escape ship was possible now that it had nearly stopped. Still, he pushed harder for the ship, vision blurry at the edges. Tears.

"Sirs!" Kregg's voice in their ears. "We've received a report from the warship. The infinity ray's heat signature has been picked up above your location." He was flinging the last of the children off, trying to go, but they just kept grabbing onto him. "They've been distracting us!"

Mark tore the earpiece out and let it drop. The quiet made him faster, let him fester in the burning anger consuming him. Markus and Gray did not peel off his sides. Satisfaction swirled in his gut but, "I fucking got it. Go."

If he didn't have it, he wouldn't order them away, Gray thought. Mark knew what he was doing. He went.

They'd be quick. Deal with one problem, then solve the next before the minute was up. Markus thought. He went.

"I need half a paramen!" The pilot said. "Then we're gone."

The ring of white-clad corpses hung over the ship. Casting a shadow that left Ollie as a cancerous lump on the wing. You couldn't see his smile but you knew it was there. Same as the cold gazes, millions of them staring you down. 'How dare you leave?' Their faces said. 'How dare you leave this mass grave of a place- of a relationship- behind?'

"I just want it to be over." You told the bodies.

Snap. Your neck went cold. You turned to him, his sunshine of a smile, and felt the warmth of it on your cheeks. "It is over," Seb crushed the metal heart of the collar in his palm, "lil hiccup doesn't mean shit, we're out." He let it fall and tumble under a seat. A weight lifted.

"I'll have everything that's tracking our locations deactivated before we leave the solar system." Grayson was already working on it. Sat in a chair with Mark's data pad balanced on his leg.

"You can smile now." Seb huffed a laugh, "Wow, that makes me sound like a dickhead."

You were an emotionless slate, saying, "Just a little bit."

"There's my girl." Seb turned you around. Grip soft, gaze softer, "Missed you, toots."

The slate cracked like your lip to cheek, "Don't call me that." You laughed, once, curtly and it was enough.

"How's about beach babe?"

"Still a little nineteen-seventies misogynist, but you're getting better." You leaned in, dreamily light. Dopey because it'd be okay- after you got twelve or so stitches, but that was a later problem.

"Misogynist? You shoulda heard the shit me and Rex would call girls. Wha'dya want me to call you then? Main squeeze? Man, that's also shit. Girlfriend doesn't really work that well into the end'a sentences like babe does-" You cringed. "-but I don't think I'm a big 'babe' guy anymore. What about, oh fuck- fuck- you're stepping on my foot." He hopped half a step backward, raw toes in the air like a cartoon character.

You laughed, and fell forehead to his shoulder.

"Ougghh, it's not funny, that shit really stings, like, all my nerves are out!" He played it up to keep you going.

"Sorry, sorry. I just- I can't believe we didn't die out there." You shook with laughter.

"Hey, me too, man." Then so did he. "It's kinda like, ludicrous. Holy shit, I've never said that in my entire life. I think the empire did something to me, dude."

"Me too, man." You kissed him.

Grayson's cheek twitched, but neither of you saw. Too wrapped up in celebrating together when you should've been kissing him. Why hadn't he just died?

You pulled off Seb's lips. Said into his skin, "I really like you."

"Wow, I help you escape, and I go from being liked to really liked... High standards, got it. Guess I gotta bust my ass for-"

"Something's coming in hot. Brace!" The pilot shouted down the hull.

Wha-bump!

Two dents pushed into the closed ship door. The whole cruiser shook, but didn't stop.

Mooaaannn.

The door cracked open at the top, pulling down. Air hissed as it escaped. Oxygen replenishment systems groaned into overdrive. The crack widened, you saw smoke on the skyline. Widened until you saw the raging red dot that was Mark's flesh-wound of a face. Mohawk slick and fanning out as the air whooshed out of the ship, out of your lungs.

"You're gonna regret this."

Wider. You saw Mark's shoulders now, flexing to the point of stringiness.

"I don't know what I'm going to do to you yet." He said, voice tamed into raspy calm. It was a lie. He shook at the idea of ripping you apart. Wider. "Come here, and I might be good to you."

Seb held you so tight it hurt.

"I said, come here." Mark had the door wide enough to plant a hand on the inside and start to pull himself in. Everything he touched smeared burgundy. "(Y/n). You don't want me to hurt you, right?"

"Leave."

If you'd just been without the collar a little longer. If you'd just trained, you'd have enough left, so close. Close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.

He laughed, wet and more crazed than he'd ever been in the desert, "You want me to hurt you then? Is that it? I can hurt you more if that'll make you stop ruining everything. Do you need that baby?" He was inside to the hips, bending the metal around his fingertips.

"I'm not her." You were shaking. "I never wanted this!"

He grinned at your terror, "I don't care."

Seb had been relieved, really, he hadn't had to fight Mark. Sure, he'd pumped himself up for it for months, but when it was going down- Seb was closer to shitting his pants than punching the emperor in the jaw. He'd been glad to run. He wanted to now but-

The look on your face, as if nobody could save you.

The others surely couldn't, untrustworthy and weak and watching from the ship's wing, down to two limbs- then there was Seb. Unscathed compared to the others. But he was the weakest link of them all- isn't that what you thought?

No, no that couldn't be what you thought, because in the half second before the void of space tried to yank you out of his hold- you looked at him.

Rex turned to him. Body flying backward, neck twisted from that hell of a punch Eve threw at him. Crying already because he knew he was about to die. Could feel the heat of the pink spear about to pierce him. He decided to look at Seb. Not to beg for help, because he knew it was too late. Seb was too far away, still smashing through those stupid walls she put up- and there was no time for help. But because he just wanted to look at him.

His sweet, stupid, useless little soldier boy that he half-hated.

Rex smiled for a second. At him. For all the people who wished him dead, finally getting what they wanted. For himself. Free of the rotten killing work.

After, he gasped like a dying carnival prize goldfish. Of course, he didn't get a clean break. Of course, he had to sit and wait to die while Seb cried over him and tried to fix the unfixable. And fuck, it hurt so bad. Not the wound, adrenaline cleared that, but the collapsing of his lung, the suffocation. It burned and made him all wormy and pathetic.

"Shh-shit," he managed between blubs. The only thing Seb could do was cry louder, redder.

"No. No bro, you'll be fine. I just gotta-" Seb fumbled with his pockets. Wasn't there something he could use in there Dad told him about? Agent something?

"I know what's happenin', ma-" Rex coughed out a lump of himself.

Eve wielded another spike over her head, ready to bring it down to smash on Seb's back. It'd do nothing, but she had to try for the resistance. Sick to her stomach about Seb's turned back. He wouldn't look at her. Accepted whatever would come because the worst already had.

Power fizzled to nothing in her palms. She left them.

"It's- it's not that bad, man- you're good. You're gonna be-"

Clarity. Like a crystal blue cloudless sky over a grassy field. Rex didn't know why he thought of that, but he did. Grass, oxeye daisies, the sun.

"I should've kissed you." Another cough. Rex didn't taste the chunks, only felt their weight on his tongue.

"Wha-"

He could see it. A difference if he'd just leaned in all those times. A better apartment, real part-time jobs, and hiding from Seb's shithead Dad. It'd all go to shit anyway, but those years living paycheck to paycheck could've been good. Not a dime of going out money between them, so they'd get into hiking. Tall grass on their shins, buying long white socks to spot ticks, bug spray. The sun hot on the backs of their heads, their hands together.

Rex lived it in seconds. Wanted more, greedy greedy. He tried to close the inches between them, feel the dream upon his lips.

"What are you doing? St-stop moving!"

Rex didn't. Chasing the feeling because he couldn't feel much else but fear and a need for this. He curled up and reached. Breath on Seb's mouth, their skins so close. The spike shifted, blocked or popped or ruptured something else, and he fell back.

The sun. Bright. Warm. White. The whitest thing there ever was, so white, there was nothing else. Not even them. And Rex Sloan was too, nothing else.

Not again. Never again. He couldn't stand by and watch anyone else die.

You were shoved into Grayson's lap. His one arm immediately locked over your belly.

Oxygen roared out of the hull, but Seb's voice came so clear. "I think I could fall in love with you stupid hard, ya'know? I'm probably gonna fuck it up. I already have a lot, but I'm gonna fix it, okay? I'm not running from this-" Hair blew over his eyes, all you could see was his crooked smile. "-just takin' care'a you."

Seb lunged. Took Mark and himself off the ship's ass, spinning toward Viltrum.

The hull door slammed shut. Oxygen levels equalized.

"We're good!" The pilot pushed the driver, "Let's go!"

"No!" You tried to stand, but Grayson kept you down.

He felt the wetness warm his arm. "You're hurt."

The ship started to move. For a single instance, you saw them out the ship's back window. Then you saw nothing else, the cruiser too fast. Your getaway too clean. All because of Seb.

"We can't leave him there!"

"He can catch up if he kills him quickly." Grayson hoped he wouldn't.

He was the most afraid he'd ever been, but Seb didn't stop punching. The two of their bodies an asteroid returning to Viltrum, getting further and further away from you. Much uglier than the shot from the infinity ray that Gray and Markus were too late to stop.

Nothing to say between them, just pure honesty in their fists. Seb's hit harder, thwack, and a tooth popped out of the fucker's mouth. Rolled down his shredded emperor's clothes and spun toward Viltrum. By the time they touched the ground, Mark would be dead. Then you'd really be free.

Mark hit him back. Desperate. Swearing. Seb felt none of it. Nothing at all.

He smiled.

Alone with Grayson. Not alone. With Mark. Sebastian. Ollie. Not a real friend between all of them.

"We can stay close." You begged, "He'll get lost. The other's will find him, they're-"

"They'll hurt you if they find you." Grayson finished.

"Markus and Gray won't." was logical with blood loss to turn to the pilot and demand, "Stop the ship."

The ship stopped, but not at the pilot's command. She couldn't do anything, crushed in the crash that sent everything backwards. Grayson twisted, took the brunt of the force, but you still reeled. More from your throbbing head. Squeezed dry.

He stepped out of the brand-new black hole that was the cockpit. The reddest man you'd ever seen. He looked upon your feeble resistance and said, "You have something I want."

The Asshole lunged. So afraid he ought to piss himself, but there was nothing in his body but the fear.

Thragg swung out an arm, slamming the boy into the wall in one motion. The Asshole rag-dolled to the floor. Skin hung off him in sheets. Bleeding so much, a pool was forming at his feet even as it was pulled into space. He paid the agony no mind. Nothing mattered, not even the remaining five nymphs stood behind him, loyal drones despite. But something did matter, one lone thing.

"Will you try as well?" The skinless man asked Grayson. Even pulled apart at the seams, his voice stayed softly poised.

"Are you taking us to your cloaking ship?" Grayson said back. A new plan made. Risky. High chance of failure, but it was all he had. "I've been trying to track you for weeks. The scanners haven't been able to find you at all."

Pale pink muscles pulled into a meaty smile. "So not all of you are foolish. Good. Give the human to me, and perhaps you'll live." He held out a raw paw.

Grayson's hold tightened. "You can have us both. I am no friend to the Emperor, they won't find you without me." He shouldn't have waited. Should've known another horrible thing was coming. The angel's silence should've told him that- why hadn't he listened?

"Very well." Thragg spun around, said over his shoulder, "Bring them to me."

"Alive?" A nymph asked.

"Did I say otherwise?" He was nearly to the black hole when he spotted them on the wing. Ollie's eyes closed, but his grip still strong on the wing and Sebastian. "Fetch them as well. Bring anything valuable. Go."

He disappeared into the black hole.

The teenagers came for Grayson, but he floated on his own. Two stuck to his side, fists ready for funny business.

You could only be carried along. Mind a blur. Too terrified to speak over a whisper, "What did you do?"

"This is our only option." Grayson stepped into the black.

Lavender steel, screens with flight paths, unmanned seats, apparated around you. You looked back where your escape ship had been and only saw black. Through it, stepped the teens with their captives. The hole closed. Some sort of door or closing field that warped reality itself.

"Shall we get them to the tubes or save it for you, Grand Ruler?" Asked the boy, who looked no older than fifteen. Ollie slung over his shoulders.

"Only the weak rely on such technology, remember that, boy." And yet Thragg couldn't remember the nymph's name. He hadn't earned that even by surviving. "Put them where I can see them." He floated to a raised platform and sat heavily upon a high chair overlooking the cabin. Cold metal pressing to his open wounds.

The others were deposited in chairs too small for their bodies. Legs stretched long, arms hung limp, but they breathed. Grayson fit without the extra leg to take up so much room. He kept you on his lap. Heart a jackhammer.

"Don't keep them alive, they're useless." Said the half-limbed thing. Said it, while cradling a human so preciously.

"I did not see useless creatures in them," Thragg said.

"They're more useful to you dead, I promise."

"I thought that about these people at one point." Was all Thragg said about that. He flicked fingers toward the windshield, "Set a course."

The children obeyed. Scrambling in the lowered control deck. It'd be much faster if there were more of them and the best of them with the ship's controls, Zynia and Luoth and Freigg and so many others, were all dead. Only the slipperiest remained, the ones always at the back of the pack. But they lived, so perhaps when the next generation came, they'd be the new heads. Fantasies of recognition kept their hands moving, though grief stilled the hemolymph in their systems.

Nobody spoke. Thragg's body pulsed. Healing slow. The skin wouldn't return for days. Days where dust and cold air would irritate his sticky tissues. Hubris had to hurt so he could learn. Not to be bested a third time by a mutt that should've been extinguished in utero.

"This thing is, ahaha, still, haha, on?"

Thragg lifted his palm from the armrest, a perfect print where it'd been. He pointed, "Enlarge the broadcast."

A nymph tapped at a tiny square and swiped.

Mark's face took up nearly the entire window, wet as a newborn. "Of course it fucking is." He laughed. Everything about him stained. His hair, his teeth, now crooked and gaped, his thumb print on the camera lens. "Are you watching this, baby?" He turned his ear to the camera like he could hear you say yes back. You said nothing at all.

Behind him, a purple spear had struck Viltrum through. But Mark didn't care about the infinity ray that'd slowly tear Viltrum apart in a matter of days- because planetary collapse was anything but quick.

His dying planet didn't matter. What did was a small list comprised of you and a thousand different ways to make you pay.

Mark turned back to the camera, nodding with a close-lipped smile, "Mhm, mhm, good! You see this?" Something was shoved into the camera. It took a moment for the lens to adjust because he was so pale that he glowed. Nearly bloodless.

Seb looked like he'd won, face unscathed, just a misting of blood over his mouth.

Lips apart, like he'd just blown out smoke. Eye's expectedly glassy, looking at some faraway point. Like he was high and thinking about reaching out to you. But how could he with no body to reach with. He hung from Mark's fist by his overgrown slick-back. The loser.

Somewhere on the cracking ground, his body lay. Knuckles busted open, foot raw. He'd been running for such a long time, but now he was utterly still, only his heart moving as it pumped blood into the dirt.

He'd just been right next to you. He'd just been holding you. He'd just been smiling.

Grayson reached to cover your eyes, "(Y/n)-"

You escaped his hold, swayed for the screen, told it, told Mark, Seb, "No."

Mark smiled like he'd heard. "Yeah, you fucking do. You like that?" He pulled Seb's head back, then pushed it forward just so it'd grotesquely sway. Sway it did, a leaf in breeze, like his hair in the purple water of Ka'thala, yet when you held his cheeks, he'd been solid, immovable. "This is what you wanted, right? Don't pretend you didn't know what'd happen if you left. You knew." He shook Seb again, stained the camera red with his splatter. "Every second you're gone is you begging me to kill Markus and Gray. I'll do it for ya, baby. I'll find them right now. Let's do it live on camera, doesn't that sound nice?"

You turned to the nymph with fingers on the controls. You didn't even hear yourself say it, "Turn the ship around." You had to kill him. Had to kill him right now.

The nymph furrowed a brow at you. "Your word has no meaning here."

Not even enough left in you to control one of them- whatever they were.

"Or, or, or- you turn that tiny little ship around, and you come to me." Mark was moving now. Everything was a blur, but he kept the lens trained on Seb's head and the streamer of flesh that flapped out from his severed neck. The speed made his mouth drop open. Made his eyelids flutter. He looked mid-orgasm. Supple, sweet.

Horrible. You'd never seen something that'd made you feel worse. Never had tears come so quick. "Kill him." You said to anybody who'd listen, but the power fell on deaf ears.

"I see you," Mark said beyond the frame. "Good girl, stopping the ship. Wait for me."

The lens followed Seb's eyes as Mark took off to your abandoned ship. Half lidded. Calm, cool, collected. They belonged behind sunglasses. They could've been, if you'd just gone with him the first time. If you'd just- you'd just-

Grayson turned you away from the screen, but you pushed and screamed and clawed. "Don't fucking touch me!" He pulled you into his chest, kept you there despite your fighting. His skin felt like Seb's. His shape. His warmth. You were sick with the realization you would never feel it again, and clung to him all at once. Screaming like Mark was hacking you apart the way he'd done to your boyfriend.

Did it hurt? How long did it hurt? Did he regret it? Did he hate that he died for you? Did he-

Grayson said, "Destroy the ship." The last place Seb had ever kissed you. "Mark won't look for us if he thinks she's dead." Everything tracking you was offline.

Thragg watched dots move on his chair's inlaid screen. Three of them, coming in hot for the stopped ship. None of them yet realized it was stopped because it'd been smashed into by an invisible ship. They'd find out if they came closer.

"I want him to know I have her." Thragg said.

"We won't survive that now." At Thragg's narrowing eyes, he said, "Give us time."

"Us, so presumptuous." His teeth gleamed, somehow smiling without lips or skin. "Do it."

The imperial vessel was piloted away from the cruiser. Pulse beams charged faster than you could blink.

Markus didn't know what he'd do when he got on that waiting ship. He just knew he had to get there before Mark. Stop the inevitable, though Mark didn't announce it. They were the same person. He'd thought the same thing, felt your betrayal like her neck breaking in his grip. Harder, he pushed for Mark's heels. Pushed so maybe he could be the first aboard.

They failed the mission. Viltrum was dying in agony. Gray couldn't stop that, but he could stop you from leaving. Holding you, in turn, would stop the slithering feeling inside him. A feeling he'd only realized was lurking in him when you'd tried to convince him with such human conviction. He'd train it out of you. Effective immediately.

You could still hear Mark screaming as you sobbed into Grayson's collar, growing quiet in the vacuum of space as he got further away from the camera. Grayson destroyed the data pad.

The beams on Thragg's ship too, were undetectable. Heatless. No warping light. Just seemingly nothing, and then the escape ship wasn't a ship at all, it was an explosion that sent all three of them backwards.

Mark's fingers flew open. Seb escaped in a slow roll. Past the camera, past the ring of bodies, into the abyss. Never to be found. Forever wandering space, a nomad, just like he'd always wanted.

The wreckage fell and burned. Pieces too small to contain your body. You were the flaming pieces, fizzling out before they hit the ground. You were the ash carried in the wind. You were the smoke in their noses.

You were memories. You were things left behind. You were dead.

Actually, you were a thousand miles away already. Listening to the hunka-tunka-tunka of this new ship's engine. Beside, outside, inside yourself. Sobbing, blabbering, but you felt everything leaving you fast.

"I know, I know." Grayson rubbed your back.

Hunka-tunka-tunka.

Five thousand miles. Grayson convinced Thragg humans needed medicine. A needle pushed into your flyaway flesh.

Hunka-tunka-tunka.

You didn't feel it. You didn't feel anything at all.

Hunka-tunka-tunka.