Abigail Callahan had exactly three thoughts as she hurtled through the night sky trailing sapphire flames: this was going to make an excellent superhero entrance, she probably should have brought marshmallows, and—most pressingly—she might have slightly underestimated the evil sorceress currently turning downtown into her personal dimension of eternal darkness.

  "Just another Tuesday night with your friendly neighborhood Ignition!" she shouted to nobody in particular as she rocketed between skyscrapers, her red fire leaving artistic swirls against the night canvas.

  The local news would get excellent footage—assuming anyone could see through the expanding dome of purple-black shadows engulfing three city blocks.

  The sorceress—who'd introduced herself as "Mistress Nyx, Sovereign of Eternal Shadows" (complete with dramatic arm flourishes)—stood at the center of the park, arms raised while tendrils of darkness coiled from her fingertips.

  The shadows pooled and thickened like oil spills, swallowing streetlights as they spread.

  Abigail banked hard, adjusting her trajectory with small jets of flame from her palms. She could pull off an absolutely perfect three-point superhero landing if she angled just right.

  The citizens would love it.

  "Is the monologue portion of the evening finished? Because I've got plans later," Abigail called out as she descended, red fire crackling around her fists. "Something about stopping megalomaniacs with questionable fashion sense."

  Mistress Nyx turned slowly, the motion unsettlingly fluid. Her eyes—entirely black, no whites visible—locked onto Abigail with predatory focus.

  "Ah. The flame child arrives." Her voice carried like poisoned honey. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten our appointment."

  "Sorry, had to stop for coffee." Abigail touched down with a theatrical flourish, allowing her flames to spiral dramatically upward. "Evil-stopping is exhausting work."

  The sorceress's lips curved into something resembling a smile. "Such confidence for one so young. Tell me, little flame—do you know what happens when light enters absolute darkness?"

  "Is this a physics pop quiz? Because I was more of a C-student—"

  "It is consumed." The darkness around the sorceress pulsed, tendrils snaking forward. "Just as you will be."

  Abigail rolled her eyes—part of the superhero aesthetic she'd been cultivating for the six months since discovering her powers. "Right. Very scary. Let me show you what happens when darkness meets a really, really hot flame."

  She summoned her fire—not the gentle red flames she used for dramatic effect, but the scorching, concentrated blaze that could cut through steel. The heat built within her core, spreading through her limbs like liquid lightning.

  Nyx watched with detached curiosity as blue-white flames engulfed Abigail's body. The sorceress raised one elegant eyebrow. "Impressive parlor trick."

  "Parlor trick? Lady, I'm about to light up your life." Abigail grinned and unleashed a concentrated blast of fire directly at the sorceress's chest.

  Only for the flames to vanish inches from Nyx's body, swallowed by absolute darkness.

  "Wait, what—"

  The shadows lunged like striking snakes.

  Abigail blasted backward, tapping into her second power—speed. The world blurred as she accelerated, molecules vibrating as she pushed toward the sound barrier. She circled the park's perimeter, creating a ring of fire around the expanding darkness.

  "You cannot outrun what you don't understand," Nyx's voice somehow reached her despite the howling wind in Abigail's ears.

  "Watch me!" Abigail shot back, pushing faster, her body humming with the peculiar vibration that preceded her splitting. If speed and fire weren't working individually, perhaps a coordinated attack would.

  It was her third and most complex power—the ability to split herself into multiple identical copies, each with a portion of her abilities. She'd never managed more than three before, and maintaining them drained her quickly, but desperate situations called for desperate measures.

  She focused, feeling the familiar internal tug as her consciousness prepared to branch. But something was wrong. The darkness had begun seeping into her flames, corrupting the white with streaks of purple-black.

  "Your power is diluted and undisciplined," Nyx said, stepping through the flames unharmed. "You treat your gifts as toys, little flame."

  Abigail skidded to a halt, switching tactics. She concentrated on splitting—just two copies would do. One to distract, one to attack from behind.

  The familiar sensation of stretching, of consciousness expanding...

  The sorceress's eyes widened slightly. "Ah. How interesting."

  The shadows coiled around Abigail's ankles, crawling up her legs like living ink. She tried to burn them away, but her flames sputtered where the darkness touched.

  "Get off!" Panic edged into her voice. This wasn't how superhero battles were supposed to go. The witty banter, the dramatic comeback, the last-minute victory—that was the formula. Not...whatever this was.

  Nyx approached, darkness flowing around her like a living gown. "Such potential, wasted on childish games and theatrical displays."

  "Hey, the theatrics are half the fun," Abigail retorted, struggling against the shadows binding her legs. She focused again on splitting, feeling her molecules begin to separate as her consciousness stretched—

  Nyx's hand shot out, fingers curling into a complex gesture. "You take your gifts lightly, hero."

  The sorceress's hand plunged directly into Abigail's chest.

  There was no physical wound, but Abigail felt something tear inside her—not flesh, but something more fundamental. She screamed as the splitting sensation, normally under her control, accelerated wildly. Her vision fragmented like shattered glass, consciousness pulling in five directions simultaneously.

  "Let's see how playful you are when you cannot bear to be alone—even with yourself."

  The shadows pulsed, surging through Abigail's body. Her blue flames turned violet, then fractured into five distinct colors—orange, gold, crimson, azure, and a smoky blue-gray. The pain was exquisite, like being turned inside out on a molecular level.

  "What are you doing to me?" Abigail gasped, her voice echoing strangely in her own ears.

  Nyx's smile was terrible to behold. "Giving you a gift, little flame. The gift of perspective."

  Something inside Abigail snapped—not physically, but deeper, at the quantum level where her powers originated. Her consciousness shattered, fragmenting in ways it never had before. The world kaleidoscoped around her as the splitting accelerated beyond her control.

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  "Stop!" she screamed, but her voice came from five different throats.

  "Magic has consequences," Nyx said, stepping back as Abigail's body began to separate into distinct forms. "Power requires respect. You will learn this lesson—fractured but never truly apart."

  The world collapsed into nauseating vertigo as Abigail felt herself being pulled apart—not just physically but psychologically. Aspects of her personality ripping away, fragmenting into distinct voices.

  This isn't happening.

  We need to escape.

  Oh god, the pain—

  Fight back! We can still—

  What if this is permanent?

  Five bodies where there had been one, each surrounded by flames of different colors and intensities. Five perspectives, five fragments of a single consciousness. Different yet connected, separated yet irrevocably linked.

  "The curse is elegant," Nyx explained, circling the five dazed forms struggling to stand. "You may exist apart, but never alone. Fewer than five selves will bring pain beyond imagining. A single self..." She smiled thinly. "Well, let's hope you never discover that consequence."

  Abigail—all five of her—stared in horror at her duplicates. These weren't the temporary copies she'd created before. These were...different. Aspects of herself, separated and given form.

  "What have you done?" they asked in unison, their voices overlapping discordantly.

  "Given you the weight of your power," Nyx replied, her darkness beginning to recede. "Live with it. Learn from it." Her form began dissolving into shadow. "Or don't. Either way, you'll never take your gifts lightly again."

  As the darkness withdrew, Nyx paused, her form half-dissolved into shadow. "I was like you once," she said, her voice suddenly devoid of its earlier mockery. "Young. Gifted. Cavalier with power I didn't understand."

  The five Abigails stared, their flames flickering in confusion.

  "My mentor tried to teach me discipline through meditation, through study." Nyx's eyes—those bottomless black pools—reflected something almost like regret. "I ignored him. I experimented. I pushed boundaries that shouldn't be pushed."

  Her form solidified slightly, and for a moment, they glimpsed a different woman beneath the sorceress's imposing exterior—younger, with normal eyes, shadows not yet etched into her very being.

  "I tore my soul to shreds," she continued. "I shattered the boundary between my body and the shadow realm. There is no fixing what I did to myself." Her gaze traveled over the five fragmented Abigails. "But you—your fracturing is controlled. Purposeful. A lesson, not a destruction."

  "You call this controlled?" one of the Abigails sputtered, flames flaring orange around her hands.

  "I call it mercy," Nyx replied. "I could have let you continue as you were—treating cosmic power like a parlor trick—until you inevitably destroyed yourself and countless innocents."

  Her form began dissolving again. "Now you will understand the weight of what you carry. The responsibility of power. The nature of wholeness." Her voice grew fainter. "When you understand that your fragmentation is not weakness but strength—when you embrace all aspects of yourself—only then might the curse begin to ease."

  She vanished, her final words echoing in the suddenly silent park.

  "You wanted to be special, little flame. Now you are."

  Three weeks later, Abigail (all five of her) stood in the sub-basement of Quantum Frontiers Research Facility, surrounded by humming machinery and concerned scientists.

  "The split is magical in nature, not quantum," Dr. Hannity explained, reviewing readings from their latest tests. "We can't reverse what we don't understand."

  "So we're stuck like this?" asked the Abigail with flame-orange hair, gesturing dramatically. "Because let me tell you, sharing an apartment with myself is not working out. Especially when myself keeps eating all the good snacks."

  "I bought those snacks," muttered the Abigail with shorter, sharper orange hair.

  "And I'm the original me," countered the first.

  "That's debatable," said a third Abigail, her hair cascading in soft waves. "We're all technically originals now."

  "Can we focus?" snapped the fourth, her posture rigid with tension. "Doctor, there must be something you can do."

  The fifth Abigail said nothing, her gaze distant as smoky wisps curled from her shoulders.

  Dr. Hannity sighed, adjusting her glasses. "We've been running every test imaginable. The magical—"

  "Quantum," corrected the fourth Abigail.

  "—the quantum-magical entanglement between you is unlike anything we've documented. The best we can determine is that you're maintaining a multidimensional cognitive state while existing in five distinct physical vessels."

  "English, Doc," the first Abigail prompted.

  "You're one person in five bodies, connected by something beyond conventional physics."

  The five Abigails exchanged glances. They'd discovered this themselves through painful trial and error. When they'd attempted to separate beyond a certain distance, the agony had been unbearable. When one of them had tried sleeping while the others remained awake, they'd all suffered crippling migraines.

  "And the...other part?" asked the third Abigail hesitantly.

  Dr. Hannity's expression grew grave. "The data suggests the sorceress was telling the truth. Your quantum signature becomes dangerously unstable with fewer active vessels. That's why merging back into one causes such extreme pain."

  "So those bizarre things she said—about understanding wholeness and embracing all aspects of myself—that was real?" The first Abigail's flames flared white for a moment, reflecting her agitation.

  "Perhaps," Dr. Hannity said cautiously. "There's a psychological component to your fracturing that our instruments can't fully measure. Your five forms appear to represent distinct aspects of your personality—not just copies, but facets."

  The quiet fifth Abigail finally spoke. "We are fragments seeking wholeness while paradoxically fearing it."

  The others turned to look at her.

  "When did you get so philosophical?" asked the second Abigail, flames crackling around her fingers.

  "I've always been philosophical," the fifth replied softly. "You just never listened to that part of yourself before."

  Dr. Hannity cleared her throat. "We've prepared the DRS—Dimensional Resonance Stabilizer—in the main lab. If our theories are correct, it might help balance the quantum fluctuations between your five forms. Not a cure, but perhaps it will ease the strain."

  "Worth a shot," the first Abigail said, bouncing on her toes. "Can't be worse than being five people trying to share one bathroom."

  They followed Dr. Hannity into the main lab, where a massive ring of equipment surrounded a platform. Technicians moved about, adjusting settings and checking readouts.

  "This is impressive equipment," the fourth Abigail noted, studying the machinery with obvious appreciation.

  "Advanced quantum field manipulation," Dr. Hannity explained. "It creates a harmonic field that might help balance the fluctuations between your five forms."

  "And no chance this thing accidentally sends us to another dimension or anything, right?" asked the first Abigail, poking at a control panel until a technician gently moved her hand away.

  Dr. Hannity laughed. "Absolutely not. Interdimensional travel is theoretically possible, but would require energy levels we couldn't possibly generate. We're simply trying to stabilize your current condition."

  The five Abigails took their positions on the platform, each standing on a glowing circle. Technicians adjusted equipment while Dr. Hannity monitored readings from a control panel.

  "Initializing harmonic field in three...two...one..."

  The air hummed. Blue energy crackled between the five Abigails, connecting them in a perfect pentagram. For a moment, there was a sensation of alignment—the fractures between them smoothing, the constant disorientation of five-fold existence momentarily easing.

  "It's working," Dr. Hannity murmured, watching the readings fluctuate. "The quantum signatures are beginning to harmonize."

  The five Abigails felt it—a sense of connection stronger than they'd experienced since the splitting. Not unification, but understanding. For a fleeting moment, they glimpsed what Nyx had meant about embracing all aspects of themselves.

  Then the third technician sneezed.

  It shouldn't have mattered. A sneeze shouldn't have caused the cascading failure of seven redundant systems. It shouldn't have triggered the power surge that overloaded the dimensional containment fields.

  But as the five Abigails would later reflect (once they stopped screaming), the universe has a peculiar sense of humor when it comes to cosmic irony.

  The harmonic field collapsed. Energy rebounded between the five connected forms, amplifying in unexpected ways. Warning alarms blared. Dr. Hannity shouted for emergency shutdown.

  And reality—solid, dependable reality—tore open beneath their feet.

  The last thing the five Abigails saw was Dr. Hannity's horrified expression as they plummeted into swirling, prismatic chaos.

  The last thing they felt was their flames—orange, gold, crimson, white, and smoky blue—erupting around them as they fell.

  The last thing they heard was the universe itself whispering:

  Be careful what you wish for.