Something was wrong, but that wasn't what was eating at Tristan Traeger. Something was wrong, and it was the [i]same[/i] wrong thing, the same twisting-out-of-true that had begun at least since the first time [i]she[/i] had come to him, her eyes shining in every color but human. Maybe since the start of his life. Maybe longer. Maybe all of history was just this, these [color=708090][i]events which would prove beneficial to your understanding[/i][/color] landmarks on the path to some terrible final fate. Isn't that what she'd told them? The fate of two worlds, hers and theirs, only...something in him rebelled against the association. [color=82ca9d][i]Is this really her world? Or is that just...what she wants to make it?[/i][/color] Those thoughts were too threatening, though, to harbor long. Thoughts of conquest and making. Forging. [i][color=82ca9d]Blades.[/color][/i] They were all changing. An eye found Tabitha, and then another, and another. [color=82ca9d][i]Even if we can go home...[/i][/color] Tristan shuddered. If his constants were to permutate... [color=708090][i]The truth is invariable.[/i][/color] He'd fought it. He'd died... ...he was here, like any of the rest. The rest... The newcomer - [i][color=82ca9d]Zino[/color][/i] - was acclimating well. Too well, maybe. Too calm. Did [i]she[/i] send him? What was he [i]for[/i]? Their captive was insane, and yet in some ways...some of the things he said were too clear, too aware. He didn't just rave; he was contemplating, paying attention. The homicidal intent was a problem, though. [color=82ca9d][i]Unreachable?[/i][/color] He wondered. The boy with wings - [i][color=82ca9d]Ascot[/color][/i] - oscillating between murder and lust had startled him almost as much and made him thankful for his new body's difficulty communicating emotions. [i][color=82ca9d]They're closest.[/color][/i] The ones that kept flickering through the places in his brain the Semblance had hijacked, or altered, or created. The ones that were beginning to take on the same cognitive overlay [i]she[/i] inspired. Edged in that light, edged like [i][color=82ca9d]blades. And what about Tabitha, who's following the path and wearing her mask? Easy to leave her out, isn't it? Easy to let your guard down, and then they burn - no, that's not my thought - and where are you, Tristan T.? What would your overlay look like, if you weren't too afraid to find a mirror? Why'd Ascot choose you to be a killer, exactly?[/color][/i] A fourth eye slid to Tabitha. [i][color=82ca9d]No. No. I have to -[/color][/i] Like something from a nightmare, bound up within secret edges of his own, Koda lunged for Stormy, otherworldly teeth tearing her flesh. The spatter of blood flared in Tristan's eyes, and he almost didn't feel the tendrils sliding loose from his stomach, taking the uneaten fruit he'd been carrying around out of his fingers, carbon knives and silver needles going to work. He didn't feel it when the collection of reductive tools drew back inside him, either, or the strange rushing feeling of the resultant slurry filling cylinders rising out of his back. [color=82ca9d][i]I guess that's how I eat,[/i][/color] a sudden inane flash as shock made the world into an incoherent disaster of chaos. There were teeth gnawing at his mind, a rush of [color=#d5c7b1] [i]hunger curiosity hunger [s]help me[/s] hunger[/i][/color] alien thoughts flooding out from Koda, or Koda's Semblance, like a wave - something let loose as the scientist lost himself to the demons he'd invited in. In that moment there wasn't time to understand what had happened, was happening. There was just the question of whether or not Tristan would wait for the [color=708090]train[/color]. Eyes like red embers found eyes like golden pools, and something new slid into his mind. Triangles. Red, sharp... [color=82ca9d][i]Oh, fuck, he's looking at me. Why -[/i][/color] Because he'd fired, of course, because he'd been halfway to drawing his gun ever since they'd arrived, and when Koda had lunged part of him had known exactly what to do. [color=82ca9d][i]Balance the equation. Eliminate the threat - [/i][/color] But he'd...had he missed? A warning shot? The Koda-thing was turning, and Tristan's subroutines were conscious this time, his awareness extending into the gun, a tiny piece of his architecture. Its ammunition was something bright and sharp and beautiful, a shard of opalescent crystal, sublimated by the trigger-pull into a wave of killing starlight, roiling out into the world and then returning to crystallize again, a perfect circle that left the world a little cleaner with every iteration. All he had to do was - Koda's phantom remnant screamed without sound, a sudden psychic burst that hammered away his intentions, shattered his consciousness, sending hot spikes of agony through his head. Circuits sparked and went dark, and Tristan's knees hit the ground. His eyes guttered out. Empty. The phantom flowed [i]around[/i] Stormy, its mouth stretched open, its whole body - tendrils of mist, unnaturally stretching extremities - reached for him, and - The cylinders in Tristan's back slammed home, pumping a flood of alien material through his spinal column and into his veins, the impact and the mind-searing rush driving his upper body down, just beneath the phantom's pounce. All five of Tristan's eyes flared white. The world was crystalline, everything etched in lines of perfect clarity. Structure and design. Had he imagined disaster, earlier, in his shock? But there could be no disaster. Everything could be correctly arranged, even - the phantom was turning, twisting around [i]itself[/i], an amorphous flow of ripping death, a thing of chaos, disordered, [i]Unfettered[/i] - Tristan was faster, adrenaline and catalytic oils rushing through him and coupling with his clean, clear high, and he was well out of the way for the second pounce, rolling and rising to one knee. His gun stretched out towards Koda's phantom. Chrome and ivory, a basket hilt of silver filigree. [color=82ca9d][i]Beautiful. The perfect tool to contrast that filthy thing's - Koda.[/i][/color] Tristan hesitated. So did the phantom. Did it perceive the threat? Was it contemplating its angle of attack? Or... ...its thoughts were still 'audible,' a constant hissing babble of desires Tristan profoundly wished were left incomprehensible by the projection. He hadn't known the other man very well, but there wasn't anything coming from the phantom that suggested humanity, empathy, recognition, the capacity to stop. But if he fired...[color=82ca9d][i]I'll be a killer. This was a person. Like me. Oh, god, like me, like Tabitha...[/i][/color] What had happened on their journey? What had Koda seen or heard, what had changed him, destroyed him? Was it [i][color=82ca9d]that scream[/color][/i] something from his Semblance? In the Ghost Girl's words? Breathed in from the air of this place, the soil, some pre-existing condition, there had been a person and now there was a monster, there had been a man and now there were only [i][color=#d5c7b1]red triangles[/color] [color=708090]blades[/color][/i] eyes like embers and jagged teeth. Blackest mystery. [i][color=82ca9d]He was the scientist. The one with the smart questions. He kept asking about the details. He wanted, oh god, to understand what was going to happen to us. Looking for the truth...[/color][/i] [color=708090][i]Eventually, you will come to realize the truth.[/i][/color] The two beings regarded each other, dark against the bright of the day and the green of the grass, there in the shadow of the tower. A faint wind stirred the world, but not the man of iron and not the beast of shadow. Red eyes watching white. Tristan let one eye, just one, look to find his friend, and the phantom leapt, and starlight swelled, and whatever Koda had realized and become, whatever he might yet have been, was burned to ash and carbon on the evening breeze.