Year 2 – Shift 25 – Project Zeta: Still Burning
For most of Mora’s life, mornings had meant servants, schedules, locked doors, and the dead-eyed silence of people paid to pretend they didn’t hear royal children cry.
This morning meant Kaori’s knee in her ribs, Muffin’s hair in her mouth, and someone’s foot trapped under the edge of her thigh cast.
It was the best morning of her life.
Again.
“It’s time, honeybaes!” Kaori shouted as she sprang out of the middle of their shared bed, her hair still frizzy from sleep.
“Five more minutes.” Mora pulled the plush comforter over her head.
Muffin stretched an arm languidly out and wrapped it around Kaori’s shoulder. “Mmm, come back to bed with me while she sleeps.”
Mora smiled into the blankets and listened to the giggling pile of girl behind her.
It had been a brutally beautiful several days since she’d returned home. The pain in her shoulder still flared often, but it was mostly controlled. Her leg was the real bastard. It ached like hell no matter how many massages, pillows, spells, or whispered threats they gave it.
Today, she was going to have to bear it.
Today, she was going back to the palace.
She threw back the covers and rolled to her back to see Muffori having a sensual, playful tickle fight.
“Watching this is better than coffee,” Mora yawned.
Muffin paused, her finger tracing a line over Kaori’s hip bone. “No extracurriculars, Mo Mo!” She leaned over and pecked Mora on the forehead. “Soon.”
Mora chuckled. “No extracurriculars, but I’m about to break into the palace.”
Kaori pushed Muffin’s hand away and scrabbled back, putting her back to Mora. “You break into my palace all the time, Mommy. You’re really good at it!”
Mora leaned in to smell Kaori’s sweet scent and whispered softly. “Soon, little one.”
A rippling shiver shot down Kaori’s back and she leaned back into Mora, craning her neck around and planting a desperate kiss on her lips. “Mmmm. More, Mommy!”
A fire rippled through Mora and ignited things that she didn’t have time for yet. She took a final quick peck and sat up. “I gotta shit, so bad.”
“Hope everything comes out, well, Mommy!” Kaori giggled as she was yanked back under the covers.
Mora climbed out of bed and slogged her way to the bathroom. It took her a few extra minutes, but everything did, indeed, come out well. After she was done, she stood in front of the mirror longer than she meant to.
The girl looking back at her was a disaster. One arm gone. One leg braced. Bruises blooming in places she didn’t remember getting hit. Hair still flattened on one side from sleeping too hard between the only two people in the world who made her feel like she didn’t have to earn breath.
And somehow, she looked more like herself than she ever had in the palace.
That was the part that made her smile. Not the missing arm. Not the pain. Not the fact that every step today was going to feel like a personal insult from gravity.
The smile came because King Dong’s house had polished her until she shined wrong. Etokuso had let her crack open.
Now she was going back.
Not home.
Back.
“Ok, my little honeybaes!” Mora scuttled back into the room, where her girls were already dressed.
“Gotcha a Badass Body Bar, Mo Mo.” Muffin waved her homemade pre-workout bar playfully.
“You ready, Mommy?” Kaori bounced on her heels. “I’m so ready to kick king ass.”
“Remember, he’s not going to be there, Kay Kay.” Mora patted her head gently. “Unfortunately.”
“Ugh,” Kaori frowned. “Well, at least I’ll get to kick ass today.”
Mora leaned in and pressed her head against Kaori’s, and made room as Muffin pressed hers in as well. “I love you, Muffin Top. I love you, Minamoto Kaori.”
“I love you, Ineeda Mora Dong.” Muffin’s brilliance was only tempered by the depth of her heart. “I love you, Minamoto Kaori.”
“And I love you, Muffin Top.” Kaori squeed. “I love you, Ineeda Mora Dong.”
Muffin and Kaori wrapped Mora up in an embrace. “Let’s go!”
Mora opened a portal under them, and they fell. As soon as their heads cleared the portal, their feet hit solid stone. They were in a dark alleyway on the outskirts of Sunnydale. They released the embrace and skulked through the alley.
“Even though we’re going stealth,” Mora said. “We’re still gonna bleed.”
“Wouldn't have it any other way!” Muffin cheered.
“You know that topping Honeyhammer just isn’t going to happen, right?” Mora led them down the dark corridor, a green mist slowly rising from the ground.
“Majesty tops Mayhem!” Kaori giggled as pink sparkles swirled around, mixing with the green mist engulfing them as they strolled down the dark alley.
“And Mercy tops them both!” Muffin patted her on the head as a curtain of honey-gold swirled up and engulfed them all.
The colors swirled together for a brief moment, then went black.
A honeyed light illuminated the alleyway, revealing Muffin in her upgraded outfit. Under her smoky honey-gold cropped hoodie were pink fishnet stocking sleeves. The medical wrap around her wrists and hands was covered with tiny embroidered hearts. A layered asymmetrical skirt covered her biker shorts. Glowing green fishnets covered her legs and ended at a pair of chunky sneakers with glowing tread. Little sparkly adhesive bandages were stuck everywhere, on and off her wounds.
Muffin maintained the honey glow that shone from her, took a knee, and opened her arms wide. “Still warm!”
A burst of wild pink light exploded, showering over Glow, when Kaori appeared, jumping high over her head and landing in front of her, twirling with predatory glee in her upgraded fit. Her sleeveless black jacket was covered in reflective graffiti tags. Shredded pink leggings poked out from under her black mini cargo shorts. She wore split-toe parkour boots with pink luminous soles and fingerless gloves with clawed knuckle guards. She was covered in sports tape and her glitter eyeliner was already streaked from the sweat. Chains. Chains were everywhere, fastened to her and padded with pink, green, and gold cloth streamers.
Kaori spread herself out, crouching low and reaching a clawed hand forward. “Still wild!”
Then came a pulse of green.
Then another.
Then another, steady as a heartbeat, as Mora rose between them.
She wore an asymmetrical black velvet longcoat with green tartan lining. One sleeve was pinned up with glowing stitch sigils, and the other was covered in green fishnet, ending at her pristine royal glove. She wore a buckled black corset with green trim and her shattered crown necklace resting atop. And she wore heavy platform boots, modified for bracing support.
Mora stood tall behind Muffin, bringing her clenched hand to her heart. “Still burning.”
Muffin turned her light and hands up to the sky. “Glow.”
Kaori did a wild backflip, landing on Mora’s left side and thrusting her hand in the air. “Flash!”
Mora raised her hand, the green mist engulfing them all and fading to black just as she spoke. “Ember.”
For a long moment, it was just black.
“Shit,” Ember said from the dark. “I forgot the spell.”
“Uh, the reveal spell?” Glow asked.
“Ember!” Flash cried. “It’s prestidigitation, come on!”
“Oh. Yeah.” Ember rolled her eyes.
With a burst of neon green light, the three jumped to action.
“FOXFIRE!”
Flash moved first. She hit the rickety scaffolding at breakneck speed, claws sparking hot pink against wet iron as she bounded from crossbeam to crossbeam with wild, predatory delight. Ember followed right behind her, shadowing every expert step with her jaw clenched and her long black coat snapping in ghost-green trails.
Glow took three running steps, planted both glowing soles against the brick wall, and simply ran upward, honey-gold sparks spilling from her sneakers like fireflies shaken loose from a jar.
All three crested the roofline together. For one perfect second, they hung over Sunnydale in a spray of honey-gold, neon pink, and ghost-green sparks. Then they fell laughing into the rooftop shadows.
These weren’t the open, airy roof gardens of Etokuso. There were no communal tables, no strings of lanterns, no cozy little aunties yelling at people to eat more soup. These roofs were jagged, sloped, and mean. Gothic spires jutted up like teeth. Chimneys coughed green fog. Weather-worn angels stared blindly over streets that had forgotten how to be safe.
Flash loved it immediately.
“Oh, this place is ugly ugly,” she whispered, already scaling a steep cathedral roof on all fours.
“Focus, Flash,” Ember hissed, limping after her as quickly as she could. “Ugly buildings still have guards.”
“Then ugly guards can catch these pretty hands.”
Glow giggled behind them. “Inside voices, Flash.”
Flash reached the ridge, balanced on the narrow peak, and threw both arms out into the mist. “This is my inside voice!”
Ember followed, slower but steady, her hand brushing the roof tiles for balance. “Less turning me on. More getting in the palace.”
“You started it.”
Then she jumped.
She cleared the gap to the next roof, a full story down, leaving a hot pink arc glittering behind her in the dark. She landed with a tuck, rolled once, and came up in a crouch just as Glow touched down behind her in a soft burst of honey sparks.
Ember reached the edge and stopped.
The drop yawned beneath her, black and wet and glittering with distant torchlight. Her bad leg pulsed once, hard enough to blur the green sparks around her boot.
She swallowed.
Foxfire didn’t mean fearless.
It meant moving anyway.
Ember pushed off.
For half a breath, she flew clean, ghost-green fire streaming behind her pinned sleeve. Then the roof rushed up too fast. Her bad leg hit first. Pain exploded white through her body. Her roll broke ugly, collapsing into a hard face-plant against the shingles.
“Still burning,” Ember wheezed into the roof. “Just… at a disrespectful angle.”
Flash didn’t double back. She trusted the formation too much. Instead, she planted one foot on the parapet at the far side of the roof, threw herself backward over the next gap, and spun in midair, streamers snapping from the padded chains at her waist.
“Line!”
Her chain whipped across the rooftop in a pink-glitter blur.
Ember’s hand rose before her thoughts caught up. She caught the links just as Flash reached the end of the slack and snapped to a halt, suspended between buildings.
Glow was already moving. She sprinted past Ember, honey-gold sparks scattering underfoot, hit the parapet, and leaped. Her light cut through the fog as she caught Flash’s free hand in midair.
Glow’s momentum dragged Flash toward the far roof. Flash’s chain snapped taut.
Ember lurched upright, dragged into an agonizing sprint. Her leg screamed. Her shoulder burned. Green sparks spat wildly from every uneven step.
The chain pulled.
The honey-light held.
The pink trail snapped forward like a promise.
Ember hit the parapet with no space left for fear. She kicked off with her good leg and launched.
For one horrible second, there was only air.
Then Glow and Flash caught her together.
All three slammed into the opposite rooftop in a glittering tangle of velvet, chains, skirts, medical wrap, and breathless little squeaks.
Flash lifted her head first, pink sparks still popping from her hair. “We got this.”
Glow tightened both arms around Ember’s waist. “We got this.”
Ember exhaled shakily, letting green fire crawl back down her ribs. “We got this.”
Flash sprang upright again, already moving. “So, what’s rumpus mean, anyway?”
“A room used for games and recreation,” Ember said, pushing herself up with Glow’s help.
Flash bounded toward the castle wall, pink footprints flickering and fading behind her. “That sounds adorable.”
“It should be,” Ember said, limping into a run. “But that’s not what Tater Tot uses it for.”
Glow fell back half a step, tracking Ember’s balance with quiet precision. “Bad recreation?”
“Unearned recreation,” Ember corrected.
Flash hit the sheer castle wall and climbed, claws biting into stone. Each handprint left a hot pink glow that faded a second later, just enough for the others to follow. “That sounds illegal.”
“It is in any decent household,” Glow said.
Ember looked up at the ledge. “Punishable by loss of blanket privileges.”
Flash gasped from above. “Cruel.”
Glow passed Ember, turned, and pressed her back against the wall. She laced her fingers low, honey light gathering in her palms. “Step.”
Ember didn’t hesitate. She planted her boot in Glow’s hands.
Glow boosted.
Ember shot upward, green sparks spiraling around her coat. Flash caught her wrist from above and braced against the support beam. Glow jumped next, caught Ember’s ankle, climbed her like a ladder, then vaulted over Flash’s shoulder in a burst of honey-gold glitter.
“Going up!” Flash chirped. She hauled Ember over the ledge with one feral yank.
Ember came up too fast, stumbled straight into Glow’s waiting arms, and caught herself against her with a breathless little laugh.
A patrol passed beneath them. Three armored guards. One lantern. No one looked up.
Flash pressed one clawed finger to her lips. Glow’s eyes sparkled gold in the dark. Ember stared down at the guards, then across the impossible route still ahead.
“I hate stealth,” she whispered.
Flash grinned. Glow smiled.
Ember sighed. “I hate that this counts as foreplay.”
Flash was off, again running parallel to the perimeter of the castle grounds.
“Big scary tower shaft!” Flash chirped. “Finally, architecture for sluts.”
“Unnnn.” Ember clenched her core and bit her bottom lip. “Now I want more dick!”
“Damn, girl.” Glow nudged Ember forward. “This kinda greedy looks good on you.”
Ember swallowed hard, not having practiced this armless. She took three steps and leaned left into the wall, trying to gain enough momentum with her arm on the outside. She stepped up the wall, tracing over Flash’s pink with green. It wasn’t enough. She knew right away. The ground fell out from underneath her, hundreds of feet above the city below and her fingertips grazed Flash’s.
It felt like thousands of hours she was suspended in the air above certain death. Of course her girls had her, but that feeling of being absolutely helpless, absolutely safe…that’s what she’d always been missing. And she found it in two radiant, badass revolutionaries.
She sighed in complete contentment when Glow’s dimension door ripped open in front of her and she landed safely, but a little shaky on the balcony behind Flash. Glow made the catch and followed up to the balcony.
“Let’s do plan F!” Glow put a warming hand on Ember’s shoulder, passing a wave of tingly up her spine.
“No.” Ember stepped back and cracked her neck from side to side. Her eyes shifted to a hazy glowing green and smoke engulfed her outline. “Still burning!”
Ember blazed toward the next gap, speeding past Flash and easily clearing the first massive gap.
“Hey!” Flash coughed as she choked down her 5 Hour Energy. “That’s my job!”
Flash’s pink trails glimmered with Ember’s green only for a moment until the honey gold joined them. Ember took the next six wall runs with ease as they spiraled the outside of the tower, climbing higher until she came to a stop on the rumpus room balcony. Flash came next, followed by Glow, reaching the ornate balcony overlooking the ants below.
They didn’t move for a moment. They all stood in formation, taking a breath before entering.
“This is the view growing up in an ivory tower.” Ember kept her eyes up. “We’re nothing but ants to them.”
“And they’re everything to us.” Glow prepared and turned to the door. “Now let’s go free Whale-y!”
“Wait. Wait.” Flash stepped in front of Glow and booped her on the nose. “No. Bad girl. We pun better than that.”
Glow threw her hands up in mock shock. “Booped by the booper! Ok. I concede. It was bad.”
Flash grabbed Glow’s hoodie by the lapels and pulled her in for a quick, unexpected peck on the lips. “Whale you be my Palentine?”
The entire mission stopped.
“Really?” Ember pushed between them. “Whale done.”
They all looked at each other and giggled.
“This is it,” Ember said. “It’s on display in the middle of the room. In and out if we can.”
“That’s what she said!” Flash chuckled.
“Easy, girl.” Glow put a grounding hand on her shoulder.
Ember pushed through the doors. They slammed back and fell off the hinges. In the center of the room, right next to the Sperm-Whale, was something Ember was entirely not expecting.
“He said you would come.” A young woman with the same red hair and same last name stood.
“Princess Pompom!?” Flash gasped.
Glow’s hand instinctively found Ember’s arm. “We’re here.”
“How could you do this to us?” Princess Pompom said, gesturing at Ember. “He gave you everything and…this is what you did with it?”
“Yes.” Ember nodded. “I threw it all away. Every last thing he gave me.”
“Not everything.” Princess Pompom’s demeanor grew cold. “There’s one more thing he gave you that you still have. And, I plan to rectify that.”
Without another word, a blazing orange portal ripped open behind Princess Pompom.
“And if you kill me, then what?” Ember posited, unflinching in the face of whatever horror her sister had summoned from some off-brand hellscape. “You think he’s just going to stop? He killed Mom with his own hands, and when I’m gone, do you think all his vitriol will just vanish?”
Princess Pompom flinched. It was almost imperceptible, but the seed was planted. “Have fun…Sister.”
The blazing portal swallowed Princess Pompom whole—not taking her away, but dressing her in fire. Then it started to blaze so hot the tips of the flames turned blue and the radiating heat nearly singed Ember’s coat as she jumped back.
Ember turned to Glow and Flash, a manic look on her face. “She’s good. This won’t be easy.”
“Good,” Glow said, cracking her knuckles with a bright little smile. “I hate easy girls.”
The portal blazed to a tiny cinder hanging, glowing, and gaining power.
“Hey!” Flash said. “Transformation sequences are our thing!”
The portal did not explode.
It opened like a stage curtain.
A perfect vertical seam of white light split the air behind Princess Pompom, edged in obedience-blue flame and stitched with thin red sparks. It widened silently, revealing polished darkness beyond it, the smell of expensive perfume, hot iron, and something floral trying very hard to cover up blood.
Princess Pompom stepped backward into it without taking her eyes off Ember. The light folded around her. Not swallowing her. Dressing her.
Pale blue smoke spilled across the floor in a low, disciplined wave. When it cleared, she stood with her same red hair wound into perfect, tight curls. She wore a white cropped military-cheer jacket with red piping over a blue pleated skirt flashing red underskirt beneath each precise movement. Glossy white boots trailed up her legs, matching the polished white gloves. A tiny royal crest sat at the front of her choker, and from the chain around her neck hung a heart pendant with King Dong’s portrait inside.
She held two fluffy white pom-poms. They looked ridiculous. Then the strands flexed like steel wire.
She kicked one leg high, let it fall, and raised her hand with a perfect smile.
“Smile bright!”
Red fog fell over the blue.
A blonde girl stepped through next, her hair flowing in flawless, expensive waves. She wore a fitted white combat-ballroom dress with a blue sash across the chest and red ribbon corset lacing. Pearl earrings shaped like tiny crowns gleamed at her ears, and white ballet-style combat heels clicked against the marble as she spun a ribbon wand once, snapping the red streamer through the air with a sound like a ruler hitting knuckles.
Penelope.
She pulled out a stick of red lipstick with her dainty white-gloved hand and applied it with deadly precision.
“Stand straight!”
White fog billowed from the portal and swallowed the room.
The final girl strolled forward through it at an unhurried pace. White porcelain-like armor plates covered a blue-black bodice. A red waist bow hung from her like a blood ribbon. A glossy white mask was pushed up on her head, revealing black hair cut blunt and immaculate. Her long white gloves ended in red fingertips, and both hands held a pair of giant ceremonial scissors.
Paige.
She came to a stop at the front, between the three.
“Love Daddy.”
“Barf!” Flash turned and made a face.
They moved like they had practiced it since birth.
Because they had.
While Ember remembered watching.
Pompom banged her pom-poms together and threw both hands up. “Prim!”
Penelope spun, ribbon flashing around her body as she struck a perfect fighting pose. “Proper!”
Paige simply held a finger against her lips. “Perfect.”
The white, blue, and red swirled together and exploded in the shape of a perfect royal crest.
“Daddy’s Little Angels!”
Ember didn’t move. She stared blankly at the gleaming crest for one long, dead second.
“Fatty’s Wittle Strangels.”
Everyone stopped.
Flash couldn’t contain herself and burst into laughter. “Fatty’s Wittle Strangels!”
All eyes locked on Glow. Glow looked down at the Sperm-Whale sitting on its pedestal between them.
A tense silence took the room.
Foxfire moved first.
Flash blurred forward, hot-pink sparks shredding off her boots as she snatched the Sperm-Whale from the pedestal and tossed it backward without looking. Glow caught it clean against her chest.
Flash kept going.
Prim, Proper, and Perfect launched in perfect formation.
Flash met them head-on.
Glow moved a fraction of a second later, sprinting straight for the massive double window with the Sperm-Whale tucked tight under one arm. Honey-gold sparks scattered beneath her glowing soles as she jumped, caught the long drape curtain with her free hand, and tucked her chin.
Glass exploded around her.
Glow dropped through the shattered window in a glittering fall, riding the curtain as it tore loose from its rings. The heavy fabric ripped downward in a long, screaming strip, lowering her toward the balcony below in a perfect honey-lit arc.
Proper went after her. She vaulted clean over Flash’s slide, red ribbon snapping from her wand and catching the broken window frame. She swung through the shattered glass after Glow, white dress fluttering like a pageant ghost with a garrote.
Inside, Prim came left.
Perfect came right.
Flash dropped into a baseball slide between them, her chains whipping out in hot-pink blurs. One wrapped Prim’s ankle. The other cracked against Perfect’s scissors, knocking the blades wide for half a breath.
Half a breath was enough. Ember bolted straight for Flash.
They couldn’t stop moving.
Stopping was death here.
Ember hooked Flash by the belt and yanked her backward just as Prim’s pom-poms hardened into spiked white flails and smashed through the space where Flash’s ribs had been.
“Eeeeeep!” Flash grabbed awkwardly at the back of her shorts as Ember dragged her into motion. “Wedgie!”
“I’ll dig it out later!” Ember grabbed the door frame with her gloved hand and banked hard left. “Down the stairs!”
Flash twisted, still picking at the wedgie with one hand as Perfect’s scissors skimmed past her ear and carved a clean white scar through the wall ahead. “With your teeth?”
“Duh. How else?”
“Filth,” Prim snapped from behind them.
Glow’s voice rang up from outside. “Aww. Is Proper pussy lonely?”
Proper made a strangled sound from the window line. “Do not say that sentence near my name!”
Flash grinned. “Skill issue.”
Ember hit the spiral staircase so fast it was easier to run along the wall than touch the steps. Flash followed under her, pink chains dragging sparks from the railing. Prim and Perfect dropped behind them in perfect alternating rhythm: pom-flail, scissor-cut, pom-flail, scissor-cut.
Flash glanced back.
Prim was smiling.
Not angry. Not frantic.
Smiling.
Flash faced forward again. “I hate the red one.”
Ember hit the next wall-step. “She used to make the maids fart on kittens.”
Flash nearly missed the next step. “That’s a real sentence?”
“Palace childhoods are weird.”
Behind them, Prim’s smile sharpened. “They were royal kittens.”
Flash gagged. “I hate her more!”
They dropped three floors in a blur of green fire and pink sparks. Prim’s pom-flail smashed through the stair rail behind them. Perfect’s scissors clipped the edge of Ember’s coat, slicing loose a strip of green tartan lining that fluttered away into the shaft.
Ember caught the final banister post, spun around it, and launched herself through the lower archway. They barreled around the final curve and burst into the King’s personal library.
The room opened wide around them. A marble floor below, a second-story gallery above, shelves stacked high enough to make shadows of their own, and an enormous stained-glass window overlooking the lower balcony.
Ember and Flash hit the marble first.
Prim landed behind them half a heartbeat later.
Then the stained-glass window detonated inward.
Glow came through in a honey-gold streak with the Sperm-Whale clutched tight, both boots leading. She drove them directly into Prim’s cheek.
Prim flew sideways into a bookshelf.
Glow bounced out of the impact, landed on the first falling shelf, and ran upward along the disaster she’d made. The tumbling shelves carried her toward the second-story gallery like the library itself had become a staircase.
Proper swung in through the broken window after her, ribbon wand biting into the gallery rail. She landed light on the second story and gave chase, red streamer snapping for Glow’s ankles.
“Some things are meant to stay private!” Proper snapped.
Glow vaulted the next falling shelf, Sperm-Whale tucked under one arm. “Then stop watching!”
Below, Flash dropped to her knees and slid backward under a massive royal reading table, arching low to avoid Perfect’s scissor swipe. Her blonde hair and hot-pink streaks dragged sparks across the marble.
Her eyes shot up.
“Ooooh! You wore my pink panties!”
Ember cleared the tabletop above her in a ghost-green arc. “Mine were dirty!”
Glow crossed overhead on the falling shelves. “So were those!”
“Even better!” Ember landed running.
Perfect’s eyes flicked from Ember to Flash. “How can you defile yourself wearing that?”
Ember smiled. “It feels so good!”
“You’re sick,” Perfect snarled.
Flash shot out from under the table, delighted. “She is! So dope, right!?”
“Aww!” Ember squeed. “Someone’s being a good bottom!”
“Takes one to know one!” Flash giggled.
“Only with Glow!” Ember answered. “And guys!”
Prim landed lightly on the ruined tabletop, pom-poms spinning into spiked white stars. “Eww! You do that?”
Flash’s eyes lit up. “Bae gets banged like a broken screen door!”
Perfect opened her scissors. “Vile.”
The royal table split down the middle behind Foxfire, collapsing in two heavy slabs. Flash sprang over one half as it fell. Ember planted her boot on the other and kicked off, launching herself toward the far library door.
Above them, Glow reached the second-story gallery and sprinted along the rail, the Sperm-Whale tight to her ribs. Proper’s ribbons snapped after her, cutting little gold sparks out of the air wherever Glow had been half a breath before.
Perfect came through the wreckage behind Prim, scissors opening and closing with quiet, surgical clicks. She didn’t rush. She didn’t need to. Every time Foxfire crossed a path, Perfect cut away the safest route half a heartbeat after they left it.
A bookshelf support.
A table leg.
A hanging banner cord.
The room kept collapsing behind them in clean, obedient pieces.
“Stop improving the architecture!” Flash shouted.
Perfect’s scissors clipped shut on the edge of a marble pillar, sending a carved crown crashing into the floor behind Flash’s heels.
“Decluttered,” Perfect said.
“Deeply annoying!” Flash shot back.
Ember grabbed the far library doorframe with her gloved hand and swung herself through without slowing. The old passage beyond opened into the skybridge. The lower span stretched intact beneath the ruined upper roofline.
Above it, one floor up, glass exploded outward.
Glow burst through the upper window with the Sperm-Whale tucked under one arm, already running along the narrow upper ledge that paralleled the bridge below. Proper followed through the window line behind her, ribbon wand extended, white dress snapping in the wind.
Ember and Flash hit the lower skybridge at the same time. Behind them, Prim landed in the doorway. Perfect landed beside her, scissors dragging sparks across the stone.
The gap reached them all together. The lower bridge ran straight ahead. The upper roofline did not.
Glow kept running.
Ember saw the first step that didn’t exist yet.
“Whiplash!”
Flash’s eyes lit up. “Throw me your arm!”
“Only got the one!”
“Then make it slutty!”
Ember spun backward to an instant halt, thrusting her only arm out and biting her lip bloody. Flash didn’t stop. Her chain snapped around Ember’s wrist, cinched tight, and yanked.
Ember shot forward like a ghost-green comet, ripping past Flash at breakneck speed. Her gloved hand smacked Flash’s ass as she released the chain and came exactly under Glow’s impossible route.
“For good luck!” Ember giggled.
“It’s supposed to be the other way!” Flash shouted, staying low beneath her, already sprinting for the catch.
Glow’s first step hit empty air.
Ember planted on the left wall beneath her.
Glow’s boot found Ember’s.
One.
Ember twisted higher, green sparks spraying from her brace as she planted again across the wall. Glow’s next step found her.
Two.
Ember hit the ceiling, bad leg screaming. Glow crossed her third step without ever slowing.
Three.
Glow cleared the broken upper roofline and crashed through the far window in a burst of honey-gold sparks.
Ember ran out of body. Her leg buckled. Her shoulder flared. She tucked her knees tight to her chest, turning herself into a compact little ball of velvet, green fire, and terrible decisions.
Flash was already there. She caught Ember in both arms without slowing, staggered once under the impact, then slammed shoulder-first through the far lower door.
The door burst open.
Flash rolled with Ember still in her arms, twisted through the landing, and spun her sideways back onto her feet.
Ember hit the floor running.
Above them, Proper reached the broken roofline. Glow’s last honey-gold footprint faded in empty air. Proper’s lips curled. “Cheap trick.”
She snapped her ribbon toward the far ledge and leapt.
The ribbon caught.
The angle didn’t.
Proper’s swing went wrong immediately. Her ballet heel scraped the edge, her white skirt snapped upward in the wind, and her body slammed hard into the lower outer wall. She dropped out of sight with a sharp, furious scream.
“Proper!” Prim screamed from behind them.
“Leave her,” Perfect demanded. “Love Daddy.”
Prim flinched. Only once. Then her smile snapped back into place, bright and wrong.
Ember and Flash hit the next door together. Glow dropped from the upper level through an open service hatch and landed beside them as Flash threw the beam across the door.
For one perfect second, there was silence.
Then Prim hit the other side hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Flash leaned back against the beam, panting. “I’m hungry.”
“Me, too.”
Ember caught Flash by the collar and devoured her mouth.
One breath.
One grind of hips.
One strangled, delighted noise from Flash.
Glow pouted. “I always miss the fun!”
“Never for long.” Ember grabbed Glow’s hand, then Flash’s. “My room. East hall. Now.”
CRASH.
Perfect’s scissors punched through the door. Prim’s pom-flail smashed after them. The beam splintered.
Foxfire was already gone.
They sprinted down the east hall in a three-color streak, Ember leading them through turns she had not walked in years but still knew in her bones. Flash ran the wall beside her. Glow took the floor, one hand ready at Ember’s back, the Sperm-Whale tucked under her other arm.
Behind them, Prim and Perfect poured into the hall.
Proper did not.
Ember rounded the ascending spiral staircase and took it two steps at a time until the pain in her leg sharpened into something almost holy. At the top waited a single door.
Her door.
Ember hit it with her shoulder and burst through.
For half a heartbeat, she expected walls.
A bed.
The narrow balcony.
The dead air.
Instead, there was sky.
The entire outer wing had been ripped open to the bones. Her room was gone. In its place, a half-built performance platform hung from the side of the palace, wrapped in scaffolding dozens of stories high. White, blue, and red banners snapped in the wind. Dressing mirrors were bolted to exposed stone pillars. Practice rails lined the broken edges. Ribbon hooks dangled from fresh beams. Cheer platforms jutted over open air like little polished teeth.
A huge unfinished sign stretched across the scaffolding above them.
DADDY’S LITTLE ANGELS PAVILION.
Below it, the city glittered small and helpless.
Ants.
Ember stopped. Just for a breath.
Prim saw it.
“He finally made this place useful,” Prim said behind her, voice bright enough to cut. “You had walls. We have a stage.”
Flash’s chains tightened. Glow’s honey-light warmed behind Ember’s back.
Ember stepped forward. The scaffolding groaned beneath her boot.
“Then let’s perform.”
Perfect moved first. Her scissors clipped shut against a support rope. The nearest platform dropped three feet.
Foxfire went with it.
Flash laughed and turned the fall into a slide, one chain looping around a vertical pole. Glow grabbed a dangling ribbon hook and swung wide with the Sperm-Whale. Ember hit the slanted planks hard, rolled over her good shoulder, and came up running down the outside of the palace.
Prim followed from above, pom-poms spinning into spiked white stars. Perfect moved below, scissors cutting routes before Foxfire reached them. The scaffolding became a battlefield of falling boards, snapping ropes, glittering trails, and open sky.
Prim landed on a platform above them, curls snapping in the wind. “You let them drag you around like a pet.”
Flash hit the crossbeam on both feet and launched backward with a delighted squeal. “I know! They’re so good at it!”
Perfect cut through the next support. “Degrading.”
Glow swung under the dropping platform, landed on the far side, and looked back with a radiant smile. “Only when requested.”
Ember jumped after her. “And scheduled.”
Prim’s pom-flail caught the edge of Ember’s coat and yanked. Ember spun hard, slamming shoulder-first into a scaffold pole. Pain ripped through her ribs. Her leg buckled, but Glow’s hand caught her corset strap and hauled her upright.
“Nobody falls without permission,” Glow said.
Perfect’s head turned. “Permission is granted by the crown.”
Glow’s smile sharpened. “Not in my house.”
Perfect dropped beneath Ember, scissors open. She didn’t aim for Ember’s throat. She aimed for the boot landing on the next crossbeam. The blades closed around the platform edge an inch from Ember’s toes.
Ember stumbled, green sparks spraying wild from her sole.
Flash saw red.
Not metaphorically.
Fur burst along her forearm. Her pupils blew wide. Her chains snapped tight enough to scream.
“NOT! HER! FEET!” Flash roared, entirely too personally.
She hit Perfect like a feral pink comet, shoulder-first, driving her through a hanging rack of practice mirrors. Glass burst outward in a glittering cloud. Perfect slid back three platforms, porcelain armor shrieking against the rail.
Flash landed on all fours, teeth bared, one hand still clawing at the boards.
Glow, mid-swing above them, blinked. “That was specific.”
Ember caught herself on a scaffold pole, breathing hard. “Very loved, though.”
Perfect rose from the broken mirrors, one porcelain shoulder cracked, scissors still in hand. Glow threw the Sperm-Whale upward. Flash caught it mid-run, tucked it against her chest, and kept moving.
Glow climbed.
Not down.
Up.
She caught a hanging stage rope, planted one foot on a crossbeam, and launched herself toward a higher rigging platform. Perfect looked up a fraction too late. Glow jumped backward into open air. Her body arched in a perfect honey-gold curve, arms tucked in, eyes bright, smile feral.
“AFTERCARE BOMB!”
Glow came down back-first across Perfect’s shoulders. The impact drove Perfect through two scaffold levels. Wood exploded. Porcelain armor cracked. Perfect dropped out of sight in a shower of white sparks and splintered beams.
Glow bounced once, rolled, and landed on her knees on the next platform down, gasping but grinning.
Flash whooped from above. “Dom energy!”
Prim screamed and charged.
Not at Glow.
At Flash.
Flash had the Sperm-Whale tucked under one arm and no good route left. Prim’s pom-flails hammered the scaffolding around her, blasting apart the narrow walkway one white burst at a time.
Ember moved to intercept, but Perfect’s scissors flashed from below. She was still in the fight. One blade rose through the planks and sliced the platform between Ember and Flash. The gap opened instantly.
Prim overcommitted.
The platform under her shattered.
Her smile broke.
Prim fell beautifully for the first three seconds. One perfect twist. One pointed toe. One pom-pom flaring into a rescue star. Then the severed support spun away from her hand.
The routine had no next step.
Flash saw the safe route. She also saw Perfect’s scissors waiting in it. There was another way. Worse.
Flash took it.
She threw the Sperm-Whale hard toward Glow, then dove. Perfect’s scissors snapped shut across the path.
Flash went through them.
The blades caught her across the chest. Blood sprayed hot over white porcelain. Flash screamed, but she didn’t pull back. She hit Prim midair and wrapped both arms around her in a brutal, desperate hug.
For one weightless second, the two of them hung together above the city: pink sparks, white feathers, red blood, red curls, blonde hair with hot-pink streaks whipping wild in the fog.
Then Flash’s free hand snapped out. Her chain whipped around a scaffold beam. It caught. The line went taut.
Flash twisted her body around Prim’s, taking the worst of the swing as they arced violently back toward the structure. They smashed through a hanging white-blue-red banner, crashed through a side platform, and landed in a tangled, bloody pile on a lower deck.
The Sperm-Whale bounced once off a lower plank.
Glow dove and caught it against her chest before it could tumble into open air.
Prim stared at Flash from inches away, breathing hard, red curls wild for the first time. Flash’s chest bled through torn fabric in a long, clean, permanent line.
Prim’s lips trembled.
Flash grinned through blood. “Good girls don’t fall, right?”
Prim said nothing.
Flash winked. “Lucky for you, I’m terrible.”
Perfect climbed out of the wreckage below, one porcelain shoulder cracked, scissors still in hand. Glow stepped between her and Flash, honey-gold light flaring around her fists.
Perfect looked past Glow to Prim, still tangled on the lower platform.
“Late again.”
Prim went still.
Not from the fall.
From that.
Flash’s bloody grin faded. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Prim’s smile snapped back too fast. “Nothing.”
Perfect opened her scissors. Glow shifted, blocking her route to Flash. Ember moved for them. She almost made it.
Prim’s voice hit first.
“This is what you chose?” Prim climbed one platform higher, her smile bright and shaking. “Bleeding in scaffolding? Crawling around with harlots? Letting them touch what was royal?”
Ember’s jaw clenched. Flash tried to rise, but her knees failed. Glow lunged toward her, but Perfect’s scissors opened across the route, forcing Glow to stop or lose her throat.
Prim stepped across the platform above Ember, pom-poms loose at her sides. “He gave you luxury. Power. A place above everyone.”
Ember climbed down another level, each step worse than the last. “He gave me a cage with nice curtains.”
“He gave you a name.”
Ember stopped.
Only for half a breath.
Glow noticed. Flash noticed. Prim noticed. Perfect’s cracked porcelain shoulder shifted as she smiled for the first time.
Then the scaffolding beneath Ember shifted. Perfect had cut the rear support.
The platform tipped outward. Ember’s right hand clawed at a hanging rope, late and clumsy, because it was never the hand her body trusted first.
Prim’s pom-flail came down at the same time. Ember blocked with her gloved arm.
Her only arm.
The next beam swung toward her left side. Her body solved the problem the old way. The way it had solved it for most of her life. Her left side reached for the rail.
Nothing reached with it.
Ember fell.
She hit the edge of the next platform at the waist with brutal momentum. The board snapped down like a lever, flipping her sideways. She struck a lower deck shoulder-first, bounced through a white-blue-red banner, hit a scaffold rail hard enough to make the metal scream, and dropped again.
Green sparks sputtered out behind her in broken little flashes. She plummeted three more levels before one green-stitched support strap caught on a bent scaffold hook. The buckle screamed against her ribs.
Ember stopped falling. Her body swung once over open air, then stopped.
She hung there beneath the Angels’ Pavilion, her remaining arm dangling uselessly below her, one leg shaking, blood dripping from her lip into the fog.
Spent.
Above her, Prim stepped to the edge of the broken scaffold and looked down.
“You…left me here.” She paused for a moment, tucking the sob away. “With them. With him.”
Ember deflated. She offered nothing.
“Come home,” Prim choked. “He wants to forgive you.”
Ember tilted her head back and looked up at what once was her closest sister. “What did you tell me in the West Wing library on your twenty-third birthday?”
Prim froze, eyes wide. “I want out. So what. We all do, but we don’t just get to go like you.”
“Why not?”
The question hung right beside her in the open air.
Prim looked over her shoulder to see where Perfect was, then snapped back to her programming.
“Come willingly and these harlots will just get the dungeon.” She folded her arms over her chest.
Ember was silent. She thought about Glow. She thought about Flash. She thought of them together and raised her hand up.
Prim considered her for a long moment before reaching down for her hand. “Daddy will be so pleased!”
Just as Prim’s fingers reached hers, Ember curled her hand into a fist and extended her middle finger with the last ounce of strength she had.
Green light bloomed from her palm.
“EmBurst!”
Green fire engulfed her and burst outward violently, vaporizing the scaffold and construction around her. The power knocked her backward into the fog.
“Ember!”
Glow pushed off a falling pole, diving toward her.
Flash was already moving, snapping both arms wide and yanking the wing-panels sewn into her Foxfire suit fully open.
Prim dangled above open air, one glove slipping from a broken support. Glow saw her. Glow saw Ember falling.
For half a breath, she chose both.
She twisted midair and drove both glowing soles into Prim’s chest.
Not out.
In.
Prim slammed backward onto a lower platform with a furious gasp instead of dropping into the fog. Perfect crashed down beside her a second later, porcelain armor scraping hard across the planks.
Neither of them fell far enough to die.
Just far enough to be out of the chase.
Flash tucked her arms tight and dove, pink sparks tearing behind her as she gained on Ember’s limp fall. Glow rolled out of the kick, pushed off a broken beam, and dove after them both.
Flash looked right.
Glow was with her.
It took one excruciating second for Glow to wrap both arms around Ember’s limp waist.
Flash pointed toward the north wall.
Risky.
But love leads.
It would get them to the extraction point.
They shot toward the cathedral belltower with Ember sagging between them, the city blurring beneath their feet. The belfry opened ahead, narrow and mean, its stone columns packed tight enough to punish anyone who hesitated.
Flash didn’t hesitate. She threaded the gap sideways, boots scraping stone, then hit the outer wall running.
Glow followed one breath behind, Ember held tight against her chest.
Their sparks braided together across the cathedral face: pink, gold, and dying green.
They ran until momentum gave up.
Gravity caught them at the docks.
Foxfire crashed into a mountain of fish barrels hard enough to make the whole pier stink.
Flash popped her head up, smiling. “Can we do that again?”
A crowd of sailors started gathering around, but then a loud voice cut through the crowd.
“Back up!”
Four orcs pushed through the crowd, revealing their tuxedos.
“Come on, girls.” Sir Cumference and Sir Osus pulled them out of the fish while Sir Kitsitty and Sir Cumstance kept the barrier. “We’re going home.”