“Darik, wait.” PK grabs his wrist.

  “No! She killed—” His voice catches, “she killed Clark, where the fuck are you keeping her!?”

  “Revenge won’t—”

  “Fuck you!” He throws PK against the wall, grass, bone and tendons wrapping around his arms. “Who the fuck are you to tell me that revenge is won’t help? The whole fucking reason you do this is for revenge.”

  “What?” He shakes his head to get the accusation away from him. “Listen, you can’t kill her, she’s insane, she’s ill, she—”

  “Exactly, she’s insane, and wants all my friends dead.” His arms out stretch and grab PK again, Ecto pulling a knife and diving for him, only to be grabbed and hoisted into the air by tentacles.

  “Tell me where the fuck she is, are I’m going to snap the ghost guys arm.” Darik threatens.

  “You’re an asshole, but you’re not a psycho.” PK grits his teeth as he tries to muster what little strength he has to escape Darik’s grip. “You don’t want to hurt him.”

  “Nah, but I will.” And the arm bones snaps, Ecto letting out a grunt of pain, suppressing a yell. “Tell me where the fuck she is.”

  “She’s...” PK tries to think of a lie, anything convincing. “She’s too strong, if you try to kill her, she’ll beat you! Kill you!”

  “Yeah, well I got some ideas for that, plenty of fucked up shit at the zoo to borrow. Now, tell me where she is, or...” A tentacle wraps around one of Ecto’s legs.

  Ecto’s a Hunter, someone who keeps people safe from the supernatural, and one of the few who could do it. With ghosts and Devils popping up, could Tim risk Ecto not being able to move for long?

  “In Alpine.” Tim breaks.

  “Give me the address motherfucker.” He tightens his grip on PK and Ecto both.

  “No, you have my super senses now, use them.” He narrows his lenses at Darik, if he lets Tim get away with this, it’ll buy more time, time for... something.

  “Fine.” Darik tosses both of the heroes against the wall and storms out of the room, slamming the front door as he exits, the footsteps of Henry and Emma following him, before they’re drowned out by bird wings.

  “Let's go, we don’t have much time.” PK struggles up, Ecto helping him the rest of the way, before they both open the bedroom window and slip out of it.

  ***

  “How l-long do you think we have?” Ecto asks on the ride to his home.

  “He can fly, so not enough.” Tim sighs. “The senses bit should delay him by a lot though, if he actually wants anything to go off he'll need yours, mine, or Cristine’s scents. All we need to do is get a good distance from the house or cover up our trail.”

  “Tim.” Ecto says quietly.

  “What?”

  “We don’t have a way to restrain Cristine’s powers. She was st-still controlling the Kamaitachi.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Tim.”

  “And that’s all the more reason for you to not have tried to kill it!” He snaps, then shakes his head. “Sorry, I'm just tired.”

  Edward goes quiet. all the way until they hit the path that leads up to his and Lance’s secluded home.

  “Sometimes, you need to end a life to save more.”

  “Maybe that’s the way it worked before, but not anymore.” Tim says firmly.

  “It's not something you can change.”

  “But I will anyway, all I’d need is a miracle.” Tim shrugs. “And I’m the world’s first superhero, it's my job to make miracles.”

  Ecto sighs as his bike slows and comes to a stop in front of his house, “I don’t believe in miracles.”

  “You should, you are one.” Tim taps his shoulder and climbs off the bike. “But, for tonight, let's settle for just finding another way.”

  God his speeches are getting cheesier and cheesier, but he can’t help but like them, and buy into his own words just a little bit. After all, his original goal was to “make drugs extinct,” he wasn’t naive enough to believe he actually could, right? That would definitely take a miracle, so... He shakes his head, there’s more important things to think about than that right now.

  He leads the way to the basement this time, finding Lance and Jane waiting there.

  “What’d you tell Rowan and Alex?” Tim asks Jane as she leaps for him, hugging him tight.

  “That we had an emergency to take care of.” She says into his chest.

  “That’s it?” Tim raises an eyebrow over to Lance, who shrugs. “You guys are awful at this.”

  “Shut up.” She sniffles, “I heard what happened, you...”

  “Kept my promise.” He nods.

  “Wha? Barely! You almost...”

  “I-i-I'm sorry, Jane.” Edward says. “Bu-but we have more important thin-things to do, and not much time.”

  “Sorry love, he’s right, I’ll banter with you later.” He kisses her forehead and goes to the secret room, opening it up.

  Cristine quietly sits in pajamas while reading a book by the candle light, tilting her head in confusion when the door opens, “Tim-Chan? What are you doing here so late?”

  Tim narrows his eyes at her, her heart rate increases as he looks at her, and it started as soon as he opened the door. She has dried sweat on her skin despite the cool room. He doesn’t want to trust Edward’s assessment, but…

  “Cristine, did you have the Kamaitachi kill Clark? Continue to attack Henry?”

  “What?! It's alive?!” She pops up with genuine surprise and excitement.

  “It was.” Edward says from behind Tim.

  “Oh...” The girl’s enthusiasm instantly fades away.

  It seems so genuine, and Cristine isn’t that good of a liar. There’s no way this is any kind of manipulation. But the heart rate and sweat…

  “You’re lying.” Tim accuses, “Your heart rate increased as soon as I opened the door, and you're covered in dry sweat. It's not exactly warm in there, and you don’t strike me as the exercising type.”

  “Why would I be getting exorcised? I’m not possessed.”

  “What? No not...” He pinches the ridge of his nose. “Working out, Cristine, just answer the questions.”

  “I was excited to see you, I haven’t had anyone to talk to all day, the hot twink just ignores me when he brings me stuff.” She pouts, “and I was cause I was—“

  Jane claps her hands over Tim’s ears as he closes his eyes and his mouth goes into a line.

  “Can you not be so open with my boyfriend?” Jane grinds her teeth and glares at her.

  “Whaaaat!?” She squeals. “You guys are finally dating, ugh, my otp!” She skips towards them, bashing into the barrier and sending her to the ground. “Ow!” She rubs the font of her face.

  “How did it happen? Was it romantic? Was it—”

  Tim cuts her off by shutting the door.

  “I don’t trust it.” Edward says, Lance wrapping a cast around his arm.

  “You should, she’s not smart enough to play us like this.” Jane shakes her head.

  “She could be taking advice from whatever other Yokai Crypt Keeper sold her.”

  “Why does it matter?” Jane asks.

  “Because, Darik is coming to kill her, and Ed and I aren’t strong enough to fight him off, not right now, especially not after I... gave him so much extra power.” He goes into detail about everything that happened, Jane sighing and Lance nodding along.

  “I see, you want to let her out to defend herself.” Lance states.

  “That’s stupid, she’s crazy Tim.” Jane frowns.

  “The way I see it, is this can only go down in a few ways.” Tim explains. “One, we don’t let her out, defend her from Darik, we lose, maybe die, she dies.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing?” Jane asks.

  “Jane.” Tim scowls at her.

  “What? She’s crazy, she's disgusting, she’s a murderer. I know you... see faster or whatever, I know you noticed she didn’t give a fuck when you mentioned Clark was dead.”

  That’s true, she didn’t even flinch.

  “Look, I know, I know Beth and Delilah have killed people, but that doesn’t mean, just cause you let someone bad die, that you’ll be like them.”

  “That isn’t why.” Tim narrows his eyes, all of Darik’s accusations and comments about him over the last few days rising to the surface now.

  Jane rolls her eyes, “Whatever, the point is, if a bad person dies on your watch it's ok.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “She isn’t ok, she’s mentally ill, Jane.” Tim raises his arms up. “She needs therapy, medication, not an execution from Darik or Edward.”

  “You’re so fucking stubborn.” Jane huffs.

  “I fucking—”

  “Tim.” Lance cuts him off. “I’d like to hear the rest of your thoughts, without interruption this time.”

  “Right,” He frowns at Jane who looks away, “So we defend her, we lose, she dies. Next way this goes, we try and talk Darik down, but Darik genuinely hates me, and his friend is dead, it doesn’t work, Cristine dies.”

  “You’d do the same shit if—“ Jane begins before Lance puts a hand up to stop her.

  “Jane, please, this is important.”

  “Next, we go to Arch, but we all already know we don’t want to do that. Besides, they’ll backstab us as soon as Darik is dealt with.”

  “Lastly?” Lance asks.

  “Lastly, I do my job, and make a miracle.”

  ***

  Lance is the only one convinced by Tim’s little spiel, Tim himself not fully buying it. Part of him believes in what he’s doing, but as far as miracles went? He at the very least thinks he always landed on the more logical side of those bits, but, ghosts and devils and hell are real, so surely miracles can happen, right?

  Luckily for him, he did have at least a little logic to the plan, he still has his amp. He really wants to keep saving it, hoarding it for when Arch or Site 51 come for him, but this is an emergency. He’ll make damn sure no one else will die tonight, even if it costs him his extra resources.

  The food he was able to eat at Darik’s, and the bumpy rest he got from riding on Edward’s bike to Alpine, let him recover enough to transform at least a few times, and he uses those to head home faster than sound. Unfortunately the the low blood sugar-like effects creep in on him as he goes human in his room and fishes for the Amp in his clothing drawer.

  This one, according to Lance, is more potent than the one he had used at school, designed with Tim’s powers in mind. It stores a lot more of the plant's power, somehow, Tim couldn’t quite wrap his around it he technobabble, but the important thing is it’ll give him more than a single punch.

  Unfortunately, Lance thinks that there’ll be side effects. There wasn’t any from when he fought Ray, but he wasn’t pushing his body the same way then. Lance hypothesizes that what Tim is doing is not unlike taking shots of caffeine after days of no sleep, once it wears off, he’ll crash, and crash hard, regardless of his will power or stubbornness. There’s only so much that even he can fight against his own biology.

  God is he tired, he just wants to crash and sleep for an entire week, but he’ll have to earn it by dealing with Darik. Not that there’s any real way to deal with him, Darik carries all of the problems that defeating Cristine did, plus some. They can contain her with circles and iron, but Darik? Lance is going to chat with Becca about maybe suppressing the energy that gives them powers, but that’ll be far off even for the two geniuses. There’s also the fact that the both of them need professional help, Darik needs to work through his grief, Tim knows what that’s like.

  Jane’s comments during their brief argument resurface as he ponders that, slipping out of his window and up to the roof. “You’d do the same if...” She hadn't finished the sentence, but Tim knows what she was going to say. If Cristine had done half the things she did to Darik’s friend group to theirs? If she had tried to kill any of them, did kill any of them, wouldn’t Tim want her dead too? Wouldn’t he go after her without holding back?

  He makes his way onto his rooftop and gazes up to the Summer moon, yawning. How long has it even been since he got his powers? A month or two? And everything has gotten infinitely more complicated, infinitely more difficult.

  It's honestly what he should’ve expected, what superhero’s life is easy? But now, with all this death, would it have been better for him to never get his powers? Clark’s death is partially on him, if he had been there for Cristine she might've never snapped, and this whole situation could’ve been avoided.

  Then again the ghosts and Passion would’ve still talked to her, manipulated her. Things could’ve turned out much worse if it wasn’t for Prehistoric Kid, more dead kids on the end of Cristine’s sword. The logical through line does little to alleviate anything, all Tim can do is steel his resolve, roll his neck, and fly back to Alpine.

  He opens up his senses as he flies, between driving to Alpine, talking to his friends, flying home and now flying back, Tim figures he’s chewed through just about all of his extra time. Darik let slip he was going to the zoo to get something to kill Cristine, and if he’s a fast flier he’s probably already in Alpine by now. Not necessarily a bad thing, if PK can intercept him before he even picks up on Cristine’s trail thing might end up simple tonight,

  No such luck, Tim instead goes and meets Ecto on the top of a rocky cliff, a few miles away from his home.

  “Anything?” Tim asks as he lands.

  “Not yet.” Ecto moves his cast uncomfortably. “Are you ok? You’ve tra-transformed a few times n-now, haven’t you?”

  “So far so good, I'm feeling it but I’m not totally drained yet.”

  “Sit, if he gets cl-close we’ll see h-him, or Lance will before that.”

  Tim doesn’t particularly want to, he was too anxious, but the more chances he has to rest the better a chance he has, so he obliges. He walks up to Edward, who leans against his bike, and drops to the ground, putting his legs criss-cross applesauce.

  They sit in silence for a long time, Tim extending his senses as far and wide as he possibly can, his eyes zooming in every time he tracks movement, focusing in on coyotes, rabbits, rats, tumbleweeds and falling rocks.

  “I...” Ecto starts to say as his eyes trace the sky, but he stops.

  “Hm?” Tim turns to him.

  “W-we, can’t get distracted.”

  “You not finishing the thought is far more distracting than any conversation, what's up?” Tim presses.

  “I-I just want to... ap-apologize.”

  Tim raises an eyebrow to him before his head snaps to some rustling, a raccoon emerging from some tall grass.

  “I ju-just can’t bring myself to bel-believe in La-Lance, in you.” He sighs, “ I especially want to believe for Lance, i-in Lance, but...”

  “Listen,” Tim looks to him, “I get it, believe it or not I loooove science, and science is evidence based. What evidence do you have that I can do what I say? None, but don’t you worry, I’ll change your mind soon enough.” He winks.

  “I hope so...” Ecto says before his attention snaps away, along with PK’s.

  Huge wings beat rapidly on the other side of the mountain across from PK’s and Ecto’s perch. The two heroes turn and nod to each other, Ecto hopping on his bike and riding off as PK flicks the Amp in the air a few times.

  He tenses his leg muscles, then launches himself up and above the mountain, his vision honing on Darik’s 30 foot wingspan, beating as hard and as fast as an insect’s. He angles his body and dives down, landing and sliding down a hillside, then puts his foot out to catch a stone that flips him into the air, then he comes down and lands atop of a white boulder, and looks up to the incoming Darik.

  Chimera sees him, and accepts the implied invitation. His massive wings stop beating and deconstruct as he plummets, all of its chitin and sinew sucking back into the red rip in space. He must weigh tons, as his landing sends up dirt and stone that breaks up the thick steam rolling off of him.

  The steam only reveals his glowing red eyes and his swirling, meat dimension vortex until it begins to fade, only a few wisps coming up from his shoulders now. PK watches as snakes he recognizes slither in out of Chimera’s muscle fibers and grass strands, Boomslangs, King Cobras, and Inland Taipans. So that’s his play, try and use venom to kill Cristine, and those are heavy hitters.

  Boomslang venom is some of the worst on the planet, it makes you bleed from every orifice on your body, and Inland Taipans are the most venomous snake period, of course coming from Australia. He’s not sure if it’ll work, but he wouldn’t be shocked. If PK’s healing factor can be overtaxed from the exhaustion of the mark, why couldn’t Cristine’s be affected by three types of venom coursing through her as Chimera fought her?

  “Didn’t realize you were into snakes.” PK looks down on the massive form from his elevated position.

  Chimera’s form bursts out more steam as the exposed muscles contract, bringing his shoulders up into a shrug. PK wonders how much effort simple movements like that take, with the added complexity and nearly incompatible biology of it all stapled together.

  “Snakes are cool.” Chimera’s voice echoes through his bull skull, making it sound like a hollow growl. “But whatever, what are you doing Tim?”

  “I want to try talking before we do this.” PK takes a seat on the boulder.

  Chimera scoffs, “There ain't no point. You’re not going to change my mind.”

  “Why land and indulge me then? Why not just attack?”

  “Cause, as much as I hate you, as much as I think you’re full of shit, I owe you.” Chimera sighs. “Ain’t somethin’ I can exactly pay pack either, so I don’t want to fuck you up to get to that psycho bitch. There ain’t no point to whatever we say right now, we both know it, but we need to, yeah?”

  PK sighs, “I never know what to think about you.”

  “Don’t care, get to it.” Chimera motions for him to start.

  “Right.” PK’s eye twitches as he considers just attacking now. “Listen, I know you’re hurting, but this isn’t the way to handle it man. You don’t need to kill Cristine, you need to grieve.”

  “It ain't about that!” Chimera rumbles. “It's about everyone else, everyone else I love. She’s ruined Emma and Henry’s life because of a fucking delusion, killed Clark because of a fucking fantasy, you think she’s gonna stop? What if she decides our parents are bad?”

  “She’s sick, she needs...”

  “Shut the fuck up!” His body rumbles with anger. “You know what happens when a sick dog loses its mind and bites a kid? You put it the fuck down.”

  “This is different.” PK begins to let his agitation get the better of him. “She’s not a dog asshole, she’s been bullied relentlessly since she was little, and I seem to remember a few people—”

  “So what?” The bull skull gets inches from PK’s face. “Tryin’ to say its ok she killed my friend cause we fuckin’ picked on her? Is that it?”

  “Get out of my face Chimera, that’s not what I mean.” PK grabs the nostril holes of the skull and shoves the huge head back.

  “What do you mean then, cause it sure as hell sounds like you’re just on the freak’s slide, full stop.”

  “The only side I’m on is my own.” PK stands up and his lenses narrow at Chimera.

  “Nah, it is her side, you just won’t admit it. Now Tim, last chance, fuck off or else.”

  “Fine,” he flicks the amp up like a coin and soaks up its power. “Fine.”