A tiny part of him, buried deep, deep inside, expressed the deepest and darkest kind of terror at that notion.

Hey, power of mine, he expressed the idea. Distract me? I don’t want to dwell on things.

His body moved, heavy and monumental. The device he was building was almost as dense as he was. He stepped back into the desolate wasteland of Bet, just as Valkyrie stepped into the irradiated waste.

He turned his back on her, because the machines were changing direction, fixating on him again. He smashed one open, prying tech free, as smaller ones began opening fire. A hail of bullets, missiles, and laser beams.

Behind him, Valkyrie reappeared. A shadow appeared behind her.

Before she could move from where she was, the shadow became Axehead.

A part of him watched Axehead smack Valkyrie out of the sky.

A part of him, deep inside, saw facets and figures, shadows buried within. He was a person reflected in crystal, looking at a woman reflected in crystal, and they could each see so many sides of one another.

He might have had a drink with her, before. He might have asked her to spend the night with him.

She might have said yes. He could see it, read it in her.

That bit of imagining and connecting was the closest thing he experienced to warmth now. Another thought that provoked a spike of terror, driven deep down inside him.

Valkyrie had lived. She was hurt, though, and needed to use a borrowed power to pull herself together.

The Machine Army closed in on her.

But she had allies. Connections.

He was keeping to the rules, like this. Having the right allies to watch his back. Taking a good searching look before he made any decisive moves. Both with Axehead and with Valkyrie.

In keeping with those rules, he couldn’t leave it at this. One decisive shot was good, but the follow-up was essential. Wading through the Machine Army, he aimed his partially built tinker weapon at Valkyrie.

Axehead was already gone.

His tinker device amplified his own power, adding versatility. His current form enhanced both power and versatility as well. Combined, they were enough. He pulled more scraps of metal to his device with reversed beams, and let tendrils of power pull that metal into the right shapes, reinforcing for the decisive shot.

An explosion rocked his device. He shut it down.

Attackers. New capes.

Reinforcements for Valkyrie.

Darkness billowed up around him, limiting his sight—

He reached for an escape route, and found the escape blocked off as well, by the oppressive dark.

⊙

Auger emerged from the desolate wasteland and plunged into dark water.

Not the best end result.

Especially when the water lacked any buoyancy. He’d had a glimpse as he fell, and he saw water.

This wasn’t water. It was too thick, too dark, and it was occupied.

He felt a hand as he floundered.