What little moonlight remained was fading fast behind the clouds leaving Ethan almost totally in the dark.

  He had spent his first few minutes alone pushing against the stone trapping him, futily hoping it would crack and free him. He then spent longer than he’d like to admit crying, leaning his head as softly as he could against the coarse rock. When he was done with that, he took a deep breath and came up with an escape plan, which he realized he should’ve just tried in the first place.

  Sola was just a few feet away, free but unconscious. Slate had made sure he couldn’t flex his hands enough to create a portal big enough for him to maneuver, but he didn’t have to free himself if he could get Sola to do it for him.

  His idea was childish, but hopefully effective: he summoned a void with his left hand, no bigger than a dime, then whacked her on the forehead. She stirred, but didn’t wake, forcing him to do it again. On his third whack, her hand glowed purple and she fired off a blast of plasma that whizzed by his face and slammed into a tree behind him, eating away at the trunk.

  “What the hell happened?” Sola asked him groggily, looking confused.

  “My plan, as so many of them seem to do, backfired disastrously. Slate has the Firestone, and she’s about to attack Alex-Titan, sorry, with the one thing on this planet that can actually hurt her.”

  “So, a total loss,” Sola shook her head. “I need Titan alive to stop Titan so I can go back to Maybell and live my life.”

  “Luckily, I have a new plan, one that won’t end in disaster. Probably. I need you to break me out of here so I can follow her to Ascension and try to stop her.”

  “I hate to point this out, but that plan is literally no different than your previous ‘plan’. Besides, aren’t you safer in there?” Sola asked, gesturing to the stone encasing Ethan. “She nearly killed you already. Are you sure you shouldn’t just let Titan handle this herself?”

  “I get that a lot, but this is my fault,” Ethan said firmly. “I need to fix this, now.”

  Sola hesitated, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She blasted the stone by Ethan’s shoulder with a small stream of plasma, increasing the intensity until it cracked and shattered, freeing his left arm. She did the same with the area above his right shoulder until both of his arms were free, allowing him to open a void inside the stone and force it through, cracking the weakened stone.

  “Thank you,” he said, stretching out his cramped muscles. “I owe you one, if I survive this.”

  “You better, or else I’m going to feel really bad about letting you go alone.”

  “I’ve got this,” Ethan said quietly, trying to convince himself. He gave Sola a confident nod and, with a running start, opened a portal into the sky and towards the fluorescent lights of the Ascension skyline.

  ——-

  Ethan carefully positioned himself on the roof of the arena, shocked by the chaos below. The dome had seemingly caved in, leaving jagged chunks of concrete debris littering the stands. He also spotted Quinn’s blonde hair standing much closer to the melee than he’d like, but she was trapped like everyone else, unable to leave until there was a victor.

  A loud thud drew his eyes towards the left side of the arena. He watched the fight below, transfixed at the display of power: Alex had just punched through a stone wall where Slate’s face had just been. Sensing an attack, Slate wisely retreated, dancing back until Alex launched herself at Slate, swiping at her with an open palm, desperately trying to grab her and remove her from the crowd only to come up with air.

  “This was the first event this arena has hosted since the Surge and you ruined it.“. Alex gestured towards the stands where more than a thousand people still hung about, watching the spectacle below. “People have been waiting for this for months! Just when it’s finally safe, you show up and nearly kill them all!”

  The ground beneath Alex’s feet rumbled, eliciting panicked murmurs from the crowd. What remained of the roof shook violently above them, threatening to rain even more debris on the people below.

  “Nowhere is safe, not while you’re still around to patch any problem Apex fails to fix. But, look at you now. There’s cuts even you can’t stop.”

  Alex was bruised and bleeding from a few places, but, as far as Ethan could tell, she wasn’t dead. Ethan’s eyes widened, his heart racing. I’m not too late!

  He opened a portal way out in the mountains where only he could reach, then tried, carefully, to open a portal when the stadium lights suddenly went out, dampening his vision.

  Damn it, I can’t see who is who and who knows what Slate would do if Alex wasn’t here to stop her. I can’t get Slate out of here and away from Alex unless I get closer to them.

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  Slate suddenly raised three thick, sharp ended columns of stone above her head and launched them one at a time at Alex. She bashed the first one to bits with her fists interlocked, then used her spinning momentum to kick the next in half, splitting it in front of her. The third she timed perfectly, ducking underneath it and then springing her hand up into the center, stopping its momentum.

  “Let’s see how you like it,” she snarled, rearing back and firing the column like a missle at Slate’s head. The stone clipped her motorcycle helmet, shattering the glass lens. Annoyed, Slate ripped it off her head, exposing her raven hair. Ethan’s eyes darted to Quinn, who gasped.

  With both of them fully occupied, Ethan dropped down next to Quinn who was standing ten rows directly in the center of the stadium.

  “Quinn, it’s me,” he said, startling her.

  “Ethan!” She threw her arms around him, pulling him tight, desperate for something to hold onto. All he wanted was to melt into her embrace, shut his eyes and pretend none of this was his fault, but he forced himself to pull back. “Are you okay?”

  “I, I don’t know even know how to say this, but that’s my sister fighting Titan.”

  “I know, Ethan grabbed her shoulders, “but it’s okay, I’m going to fix this and make sure both of our sisters are safe.”

  “Okay, Quinn nodded, relieved, but only for a moment. “Wait. You knew about Rainey? How?”

  Ethan went to answer, but became distracted when Slate ducked under what would’ve been a brutal right hook from Alex, using her opening to rake her spear across Alex’s midsection, ripping into the normally pristine white fabric and staining it red. His hands were gripping the railing in front of him. Without thinking, he was already vaulting over them. He yelled back to Quinn as he opened a portal right next to Alex. “I’ll explain everything after I fix this!”

  Touching down into the center of the arena, Ethan nearly stumbled on the pieces of broken concrete and rope from the destroyed wrestling ring, which wasn’t the capable impression he wanted to give off. Nonetheless, he straightened up and faced the surprised Alex. Slate was the first to notice him, squaring her shoulders and tensing up. She was visibly annoyed at his presence.

  “How did you get out?” Slate groaned.

  “Had a little help,” Ethan told her cooly. Alex whirled around to see him standing next to her. She smiled, but only for a moment. Up close, Ethan could see the sweat matting her hair to her forehead and the pained expression in her eyes. The fight was taking a toll on her unlike any he’d seen in her entire career as Titan. Alex launched herself into the air and, spinning like a drill, dove into the concrete, creating a wide hole ten feet deep just next to Slate, who stepped back uncertainly. Once Alex was clear and back in the air Ethan took over, opening a wide void and, using it like a flyswatter, pushed Slate into the hole and set the void on top, locking her inside.

  Alex landed next to Ethan and clapped him on the back. “Nice move. Now, we only have a second: what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to get Slate away from you,” he told her. “Give me an opening and I’ll teleport her away.”

  “What? No,” she shook her head. “Not until this is over.”

  “But, Alex, she could kill you. She has a firestone at the end of her spear. We need to run!”

  Even though she was only three years older than him, Alex looked at Ethan like a disapproving parent. He shrunk, his shoulders dipping.

  “Ethan, I didn’t get these powers so I could run away, and, despite what Kingston said, neither did you. That’s not what we do.”

  Ethan went to protest, but one look at Alex's implacable visage told Ethan this wasn’t something she would budge on. He went to say something, then caught movement out of the corner of his eye: he summoned a void in front of them to block Slate’s assault of flying jagged rocks. They thudded against his shield, crumbling to the floor.

  “Go help those people, this roof could collapse any second.”

  “I need to stay with you,” Ethan protested. “I can help you if-”

  Without warning, Ethan felt like he had been whacked with a steel beam, the impact forcing all the air out of his lungs. He was knocked off his feet and flew through the air, smashing into the wall behind him.

  Alex turned and reached out her hand to help him up, leaving her exposed and defenseless. Ethan tried to speak but could only wheeze while he watched Slate rear back and then drive her spear straight through Alex’s stomach, stopping her cold. Alex’s eyes went wide and darted down to the spear suddenly protruding from her stomach, confused. With a quick chop downward she shattered the spear, then staggered backwards before falling onto her back. She laid there, unmoving, a felled giant in the center of the destroyed ring.

  The arena went silent. Ethan expected something from Slate, a roar of triumph, a malicious laugh, anything signifying the magnitude of her victory. Instead, she stood there, broken spear piece in her hands, silent as anyone else, seemingly afraid to move. Thousands of people stared in unison, unsure if what they were witnessing was even possible.

  Quinn was the first to speak. Her voice was soft, but in the silence it sounded like a shout, puncturing the somber veil that had settled over the arena.

  “Monster,” she said quietly, then louder, her voice echoing through the stands. “You monster!”

  As she stood in the rubble of what she created, Rainey gently touched her face, possibly realizing for the first time how exposed she was. The longer Quinn yelled, though, the more her face hardened, shame turning to red hot anger. “You don’t know what’s coming! I did this for you,” she pointed at Quinn, then gestured to the remaining crowd. “For all of you!”

  Her cry was met with only silence, a resoundingly concise response without a single word being uttered. Instead of begging her case further, she growled and raised a pillar of stone that carried her through the open roof and out into the night.

  All at once sound returned to his ears and Ethan was acutely aware of how fast his heart was beating. Suddenly it felt like he was watching his body move without his input: he was vaguely aware of Quinn’s voice calling out to him over the panicked noise of the uncertain crowd. He ignored her and dashed through a portal to Alex, gently cradled her in his arms. He stepped through a portal into the top of the roof and then to the same hospital Alex brought him to months ago after the accident that gave him and Rainey powers.

  He gently lowered her onto a bed then grabbed the emergency button and sunk to the floor where three nurses rushed in and took Alex away, leaving him alone in the dark room, crying to himself on the cold tile floor.