“I’ve felt this directionless threat before,” she said. “It was after I came into my power, before I’d exercised it and learned its limits. Someone came for me. A monster, but the bitch looked human. She sent me to Shin. To give this feeling a name… it’s inevitability. A doom through a nearly complete and total lack of options.”

“Inevitable doom, affecting this whole world?” Rain asked. “Hollow?”

“Hollow, with a bloody aftertaste. I’ve never felt a hollow doom before,” Goddess said. “Maybe one of you has. Figure this out, now.”

“I’m an expert in worlds ending, traps, and being doomed. Been hearing about it for years, sometimes my whole life,” Rain said. “Has it been inching closer all night?”

“I stopped looking when the purple fire blinded me, there was nothing before then. I started looking after, and it was there. Are there more questions? If you can’t give me an answer, I’ll ask others.”

There was a pause. We shook our heads.

Goddess used her telekinesis to lift herself off the ground, flying past the mud to another group that was at the admin building.

“No reports on Teacher?” I asked Lookout.

“No, but I’ve been distracted. Our guys on the far side are just about out of gas. He’s got guys massed but he’s waiting instead of sending them in.”

“Backup for the big gun?” I asked.

“Except not a gun,” Damsel said. She moved her hand, one blade extended, the tips of the other folding loosely around it. She winked at me. “Guns can be dealt with by bigger guns.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

“Could it be an Endbringer?” Rain asked.

“Jesus,” Byron said. “Don’t even joke. They’ve been dormant.”

“They can’t be predicted easily with danger sense either,” I said.

“I’m trying to think of things big enough. It’d be embarrassing to be the kid who grew up in an Endbringer cult who doesn’t think of Endbringers when we’re debating possible apocalypse scenarios. Seven plagues? The four horsemen?”

“I like Death,” Damsel said. “He has style.”

“Back when I was a hometown hero, my—we joked about the Undersiders being the four horsemen. Guy in black with the skull, girl with the locusts, girl with the howling hellhounds and spiked collar, and the guy who controlled people.”

“You lost me with that last one,” Byron said. “And I’ve actually read the bible.”

“Depending on interpretations, the guy in white is seen as either Conquest or Famine,” Rain said.

“Oh, like Conquest from the Toronto segment from the Maggie Holt series!” Lookout said, all excitement now that she was back in the conversation. She took a step forward, and Monokeros reached out, seizing her by the shoulder.

Everyone present reacted in some way to that. Even Damsel.