Mouse didn't seem to know what to do about the newcomer.

  He clearly didn't like the fact that Theo was there, but he didn’t attack him outright, his weapons still swirling around the kneeling Aiden.

  “This has nothing to do with you [Hero],” Mouse finally said. “This is just two [Villains] settling a score.”

  “Hmm.” Theo stepped off his cloud of fire and the flame extinguished instantly. Despite the heart-pounding tension of the moment, Lexie distantly wondered how that worked. Obviously, she’d seen fire powers in movies and stuff before, but fire-flight always seemed to her like one of the more far-fetched uses.

  Theoretically, she guessed it could work in the same way as a jet or a rocket, but wouldn't generating that much fire-force at once cause the human to burn alive or explode? Unless, somehow, having fire powers also made them impervious to the effects of fire.

  Lexie wasn’t sure. Physics had never been her favorite subject.

  "You should leave," Mouse said to Theo, trying to sound as threatening as his high-pitched voice could manage.

  “See I would do that, except for the fact that I’m pretty sure you’re somehow involved with that bomb that went off today.” Theo Firebringer cocked his head as he stared down at Mouse. His voice had a dragging, bored cadence as though he were just having a dull conversation rather than confronting a villainous human magnet. “You’re that rat man, right? The one that’s working with the GLITCH gang?”

  Mouse’s jaw twitched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course not. It’s only a coincidence that you happened to be in Alpeco around where we found the first bomb, and now you’re here right as another bomb goes off.” Theo sighed. His eyes shrewdly took in the entire situation even as he put on the aura of a vaguely irritated teenager. “Just admit it and give up, okay, so we can all move on with our lives. Why don’t you [Villains] ever wanna do things the easy way? Why you gotta make everything such a drag?”

  Rather than respond, Mouse let out an expletive and immediately sent all his weapons from Aiden to Theo Firebringer. Theo immediately blocked the attack with a shield of fire that burned the wooden bat to ashes, allowing the embedded metal shards to clang to the floor.

  So cool, Lexie thought.

  Meanwhile, her dad was moving, with his mace, running towards Mouse. Lexie could tell that his stunt with the tilling bands had drained him somewhat as it took a lot of effort for him to move that fast, and it still wasn’t enough. Mouse immediately pulled some of his weapons from Theo, including a metal spike, and then repelled them at Lexie's dad.

  Aiden paused and deftly avoided the spike, knocking the rest away with his mace. With only three weapons surrounding him, it was easier for him to defend himself. Also because Mouse had focused most of his attention on trying to get the rest of his weapons to break through Theo’s fire shield. He snarled with the effort while Theo appeared unphased.

  Mouse was directing so much of his energy to Theo that Lexie was pretty sure he’d dropped her from his magnetic field. She no longer felt that slight tug of attraction that had remained even after Mouse had knocked her out of the way.

  With his attention on Theo, this would be a perfect time for her and her dad to get away.

  Lexie considered using her card right now, but it would be pointless since Mouse didn't seem to be threatening her at this point. He was focused on Theo and Aiden and even if she disappeared he would still attack Aiden.

  She had to get the card to her dad.

  She stood. She needed to get close enough to do an inventory transfer, but she nearly jumped out of her skin as Theo's fire shield blazed with a force that sent the war hammer flying back. Mouse ducked as it smashed into the wall behind him, splitting a hole in the brick.

  Lexie swallowed, and then she began hobbling towards her father, but Mouse must have seen her because the magnetic field snapped back in place and she couldn’t move.

  Damn it.

  How on earth was he doing that?

  Also how come he wasn’t doing it to the other two?

  Lexie struggled to move forward but the force held her back. It wasn't pulling her to Mouse though, either because he wanted her to stand there at this awkward distance or because he couldn't pull her back. It was probably the latter, given how much effort he was expending on Aiden and Theo.

  Perhaps if she was stronger, or all healed up, she could break out of it.

  But as it was, she had suboptimal physical strength and just standing was already an effort. And she didn't have any cards to boost her strength either. All she had were stupid cards that wouldn't help her at that moment.

  She couldn’t get to Aiden.

  She felt so useless.

  No time for catastrophizing and self-loathing, she scolded herself. Time to think. There has to be something you can do.

  Lexie swallowed down her feeling of despair and pulled open her card inventory trying her hardest to ignore the sounds of a fight ensuing in the background.

  She searched for anything that could help her, trying to think creatively and quickly. Her eyes fell on but that could go either way. Maybe a speed boost would help her to escape Mouse's magnetic pull, but then again the card made her lighter, which might make it easier for Mouse to hold onto her. She scrapped it and thought about trying the card on him again, but if it hadn't worked the first time, it probably wouldn't work now. For the same reason, she scrapped other effect cards like , and . She couldn’t use yet because she didn’t have a contract with an approved creature.

  was a stupid card just generally and she was too far away for to do any good.

  Nothing else seemed like a good fit, and Lexie was frantic, trying to scour for anything that would work.

  The sound of her father's cry had her whipping her head around, refocusing on the battle.

  Her father was ducking and knocking away the metal club with his mace, but she was starting to see his exhaustion. The silver at his neck continued to glow and she didn’t know if it was because he was attempting to use magic or because he was exerting himself too much physically.

  Aiden’s hands shook as he clenched his weapon tightly, snarling as he sent the metal bat flying again, but it soon ricocheted back his way. Meanwhile, Theo was flying around avoiding his metallic assailants, seemingly trying to get a clean shot at Mouse.

  Lexie felt that the [Hero] was being too conservative in his approach. He seemed to be trying to get close to Mouse rather than blasting him with his fire powers. She knew Theo could probably incinerate Mouse on the spot, or just send his shield of fire Mouse's way and it would burn him. So why wasn’t he doing it? Why was he messing around while her dad got hurt?

  “Argh!”

  Lexie’s head swung back to find that the bat had slammed into her dad’s shoulder but he managed to duck to avoid another hit to the head.

  “Dad!” she yelled, but he didn’t glance toward her, which was probably a good thing because he had to throw himself to the side, just as Mouse sent the war hammer his way.

  But after the hammer circled, Aiden didn’t let it leave.

  He dropped the mace onto it, even as it yanked higher in the air, pulling his shoulder out of his socket.

  Lexie winced at the sickening sound.

  But Aiden refused to let go. He grabbed it with his other hand, grimacing as he finally pulled it closer to him.

  He held on and eventually, Mouse decided to just let the Warhammer go, regaining control of the mace instead.

  Lexie had never been this afraid for anyone in her life. It was strange because she wasn't feeling personally threatened now. In fact, throughout this whole encounter even with her kidnapping, she'd never felt personally in danger. Even when she'd been hit by the bomb blast, she’d felt pain but not really fear.

  Maybe she was still having trouble seeing this as anything but a video game. Or maybe after surviving death once, she was finding it hard to accept her own mortality.

  But seeing Aiden hurt, seeing him in trouble, knocked her back to reality. She might not care as much if she died in this world, but she couldn't let him die.

  Not on her watch.

  I need an opening.

  Mouse’s head swung between his two opponents and his hands hung in the air as though coordinating a particularly contentious orchestra. Sweat dripped from the forehead as he worked. This was taking a lot out of him too.

  And then Theo suddenly executed a flip over the metal weapons and found himself starkly right in front of Mouse. He swung at him.

  Mouse squeaked and backed away, bringing his shield forward to intercept Theo’s blow. At the last minute, right before his fist met steel, Theo's hand turned into a ball of fire that knocked both the shield and Mouse into the brick wall.

  Mouse cried out but landed on his feet. But the weapons around Aiden crashed to the floor and his hold on Lexie vanished.

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  Lexie didn’t hesitate then. She ran for Aiden and requested the inventory exchange. Aiden’s eyes widened as he accepted it and she transferred the card to him.

  Meanwhile, they both heard Theo say, “Surrender, Rat. And tell me everything you know about the mana bomb.”

  Ah. So maybe that’s why he didn't burn him. Because he needed him alive to fess up.

  “Lexie,” Aiden said and Lexie turned her attention back to her father. His body was jerky and his breath shuddered out of his mouth. He gave her a grave look. “Run away. Now."

  Somehow, Lexie knew he would say that. She shook her head stubbornly.

  “Not without you. Activate the card.”

  But he hesitated and she knew why. He wanted her to use the card to get away.

  But he needs the card more than I do.

  Meanwhile, the fight between Mouse and Theo had taken a turn. As Theo tried to speak to Mouse, the latter suddenly struck out his hand and gripped the air next to the wall tugging.

  One of the rusted pipes that lined the outside of the brick home suddenly burst, and a gust of water sprayed out,

  “Shit.” Theo tried to jump out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough. He got doused and his flames turned off.

  Mouse cackled maniacally as he put a hand in the air, recalling all his weapons to attack Theo. Theo shook the wetness off his hair like he was in a hair commercial, and then narrowly avoided getting him in the face with a spiked club. Another aimed for his leg and another for his side, but he expertly avoided both with the ease of sophisticated martial artistry that reminded Lexie of old Kung-fu movies.

  "Lexie," Aiden said again, his eyes fixed on the battle. "You should run now."

  Lexie was about to say no again, but then she thought about it. Maybe she should run. But not in the way her father expected.

  "At my signal activate the card," she told him.

  Aiden's eyebrows furrowed. "What? Lexie I said–"

  But she was no longer listening. She was running away from him, needing to put as much distance between them as possible. While she ran, she activated . It took her about twenty seconds and it was done by the time she got out of Mouse's peripheral vision so that he would have to turn his head to see her.

  “Mouse!” Lexie yelled. “I have a question!”

  His head swung to her for a split second, attracted and confused by the volume.

  “The toupe. Is it magnetic, or glued?”

  His face had only a second to register confusion and anger, as Aiden quickly activated the card. By the time Mouse turned back to him, his face furrowed in confusion.

  “Where the fuck did he go?” he wondered for a second.

  Of course, Mouse couldn't afford to stay confused for long. Because Theo had managed to jump on the floating shield, and bounced off to hook his elbow on a high balcony railing. He perched his feet on the wall like Spiderman as he sent a light flame toward Mouse's feet.

  Mouse jumped back and refocused all his attention on Theo, arranging half his weapons around his own body like shields while sending the rest at Theo. Theo danced, twisted, and volleyed them back to Mouse, all the while shooting jets of fire from each limb at Mouse’s feet.

  Theo was going for the distraction angle as he could see Aiden reaching Mouse in record time. Aiden leaped and attacked from behind, swinging the hammer back as far as it could go and then slamming it into Mouse’s head.

  The crack resounded through the atmosphere. Lexie winced again. Without a single cry, Mouse plunged to the ground.

  So did all his weapons.

  Through the cacophonous clatter, Mouse groaned from his position on the floor. Aiden held out the hammer threateningly to him. Blood was streaked on the hammer, on his forehead, and on his arm. The other arm was still shifted out of its socket.

  But anger rather than pain was etched into every line of his face.

  “Don’t,” he said in a voice like steel. “Ever touch my daughter.”

  The tension was still high in the air, but Lexie sagged now that the immediate danger was neutralized. Aiden finally turned to her. The anger fled and relief took its place as he hurried to her.

  Lexie felt dizzy right before he reached her. She was about to collapse when his good arm wrapped around her, dragging her in for a tight, trembling hug.

  “Are you okay?” Aiden asked, even though his voice shook. “Did he do anything to you?”

  Lexie shook her head. “No. I’m just tired from the bomb.”

  Lexie wished she hadn't mentioned it, because Aiden's expression grew even more agitated as he pulled back.

  “I’m fine now.” She hurried to add. “I only got caught in the blast because I was napping by the window and didn't hear the evacuation message. My desk and I got thrown across the room–” Lexie had a singular electric thought, an occurrence like a lightbulb going off in her head, or lightning singing her mind.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “What?” her father inquired, sounding even more alarmed.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Just remembered something someone told me. Anyway, I’m fine now. Just tired.”

  As Aiden’s shrewd eyes took her in, he finally nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little.

  Speaking of shoulders…

  “You should probably get your arm looked at,” Lexie mentioned. “It looks…wrong.”

  “I called a healer already,” Theo said from behind, still standing over Mouse. He was staring down at the man crumpled on the floor with a foot on his back as he spoke. “Although it might be a while. The city is in chaos.”

  “I don’t need a healer,” Aiden called back and Lexie wondered if it was her imagination or if Aiden sounded a little terser than normal. Then again, he was probably in a lot of pain so it was to be expected. “We’ll go back to Hovelton and Emma will set it right back.”

  “The train lines might be closed off due to the bomb. Your best bet is to get a medic at one of the bomb shelters.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll do that.” He squatted and picked Lexie up with his good arm, carrying her.

  “You don’t have to carry me–” she started but then she felt it, that slight pull that warned her that it wasn’t over.

  Before she could so much as shout a warning, Mouse disappeared from under Theo's feet, only to reappear on the other end of the wall and Lexie immediately swung into his arms.

  “What the hell?” Theo’s voice showed his shock. Lexie didn't blame him. She didn’t know what just happened either.

  “Lexie!” Aiden called out but Mouse held out his hand.

  “One move and I’ll end her,” he said.

  Lexie felt her heart beat a warning. Was this it? Was she about to die?

  Sure, she’d just said she had no problem facing her mortality but she didn’t expect to be tested on it so soon.

  Both Aiden and Theo were also frozen in horror.

  Theo recovered first and said, “Let her go, man. Or else.”

  “Please. Your threat means less than nothing. I know your Hero Code means that you can’t kill me without consequence. And you’re a Firebringer which means you actually care about keeping your squeaky-clean reputation.” Lexie felt Mouse nudge his chin at Aiden. “But you can kill him though.”

  Lexie had been somewhat calm under the threat of her own demise.

  But Mouse's request for Theo to kill Aiden made panic skitter through her mind.

  Taking short, deep breaths, she opened her inventory, grabbing a card, praying it worked this time.

  “What?” Theo’s face twisted in confusion.

  “Kill him and I’ll let the girl go and tell you whatever you want to know about the mana bomb," he said. “I know who you are, Theo Firebringer. I know how you must hate him for what he's done to your family. So this would be the perfect opportunity. No one is here. No one will see you. You can finally execute the vengeance you must have wanted all this time.”

  Theo simply blinked at Mouse in shock. “You’re an insane creep, Rat.”

  “His name is Mouse actually,” Lexie said.

  “It’s Magnet!” came the voice from behind, irritated.

  “Magnet, let my daughter go and you can kill me yourself,” Aiden said. "Wouldn't that feel much better?"

  “No." Mouse shook his head like a petulant child. "Now, I want him to do it.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Theo said. “But what is going to happen is that if you don’t let her go, I’m going to kill you, in an excruciating way.”

  “Right,” Mouse laughed.

  “No, I’m serious,” Theo said, conviction ringing in his tone as he cracked his knuckles. Lexie noted several slim golden rings glittering on each finger. He then casually crossed his arms. “If you don’t let her go, I’ll happily kill you and deal with the consequences.”

  “How are you going to kill me without hurting her?”

  “Easy,” he said. “I’m going to boil you from the inside out.”

  That statement seemed to shock Mouse into a temporary silence. Meanwhile, Lexie had already activated the card, pushing everything she had into it, praying it would work. She closed her eyes and focused on watching the pathway, plugging the holes, pushing every single shred of mana she could afford. Meanwhile, Mouse continued to talk.

  “I’m wearing a bomb under this coat,” Mouse said. “If you don't do what I said, how about I just blow all of us up?”

  She saw the second the external pathway opened and she pushed her awareness outward to try to get a feel of Mouse's pathways. She was touching him so it was easier. She felt it, got a taste of the fizzing mania under his skin and she tried her best to push the mana in that direction, to twist his hands, praying this worked.

  She wasn’t sure if it was the card’s effect or her imagination, but she felt his hold slacken just a little bit and she drove her head into his nose.

  He finally freed her with a snarl. “Ugh! You brat!”

  Lexie dropped to the ground, and she heard her father shout out “No!”.

  But she didn’t stop moving, crawling across the space to try to get to safety, knowing in her heart that it was probably too late and the bomb had already been set off and she would undoubtedly be caught in its blast again.

  Lexie had a single thought about what dying would feel like for the second time around. She thought about whether she would go home, whether the ISTS would simply take her to another dimension or another planet. Or whether it would truly be ‘game over’ this time.

  And with that, Lexie finally confronted the truth that she may not want any of those options.

  She found that she didn't want to go home right now, not really.

  She didn’t want to leave Aiden, not with his eyes staring so desperately at her, not with the devastated broken gaze, not with him already having lost his wife.

  If Lexie died, it would break him.

  In her old life, she didn’t think anyone, except Logan and maybe Mickie, cared about her that much. And maybe they had even moved on already.

  But Aiden hadn't and he probably would never move on from her death. She was all he had left.

  She couldn't do that to him. She cared about him too much.

  She didn’t want to leave him, not like this.

  She felt the heat explode behind her as she collapsed halfway across the field. She knew it was inevitable. She'd already heard the click, felt the boom of the blast, and expected the fire to engulf her any second now.

  Except, the fire never came.

  Seconds ticked by and nothing happened.

  She finally continued crawling and once she'd ventured far enough away, she risked a look behind her.

  What she saw made no sense at first. It was such a bizarre thing, that she had to concentrate to make her brain piece together what was happening.

  Mouse was…in the process of exploding.

  His jacket was thrown open revealing the bomb strapped to his chest and it had gone off. Some of the fire had already torn through his skin and split his face into two, his eyes were ablaze with madness, his mouth wide open in a shout of victory that quickly turned into choked screams of torture and despair when he realized what was happening.

  The explosion wasn’t reaching completion.

  Instead, it was held in that moment of stasis by Theo, who had a hand extended toward Mouse, sweating as he held it there.

  "Get out of here," he said to Lexie and her dad, his voice slightly strained. “I can’t hold it forever.”

  Aiden didn't need to be asked twice. While Lexie was still stunned by the sight of Mouse exploding in limbo, he rushed forward, picked her up, and ran toward the entrance of the alley without another word.

  The path seemed to stretch on forever, the sunlight at the other end seeming farther away the closer they got to it.

  And then, they finally broke out and turned the corner just as the flames finally erupted, engulfing everything in its path.

  Hi guys! Thanks for reading.

  I wanted to bring something up because I’ve seen a few comments and while I love to let y’all theorize I want to make sure that I’m not making some story-telling errors that are causing confusion.

  Basically, the system and the heroes were never meant to be portrayed as evil entities. Like most things in life, it’s more nuanced than that. The system is, at most, semi-sentient but at this stage, it really isn't in control. It is continuously being changed and updated by System Developers to serve the larger population, but that ultimately means that some people will be served more than others. Hovelton tends to get the short end of the stick simply because it's less densely populated and a remote, lower priority area. The system is also updated every once in a while and there are complications with every new update, and things sometimes go wrong and some laws are misguided. But for the most part, the System is simply a thing that’s trying its best to advance humanity, taking in input from humanity itself. It has reasons for the things that it does, even though those reasons may not be apparent yet.

  Most importantly I want to point out that the system does not set out to punish anyone, but it can be used to carry out punishments set by the ruling governments. So Aiden’s punishment was not given to him by the system, but by governments through the system. Hope this makes sense.

  The System does not, by itself, assign the Villain role. A Villain role can only be given when the individual accepts a Villain sentence (or in rare cases when it is presented with overwhelming evidence for the Villain’s terrible crime). In Aiden’s case, he accepted the Villain sentence and thus, this was his punishment. The system also cannot, by itself, take away that role just because Aiden does something heroic, the same way one does not stop being an ex-convict simply because they do good deeds.

  Again, if I’m in any way missing the mark and not quite landing this portrayal, please let me know so that I may consider that in the edits. Once book 1 is done, I'll probably go back and try to figure out how to incorporate this information naturally into the text or maybe just a Q and A at some point where I’ll address them and all the other questions.

  Thank you.