The recoil of the self destruction smashes into me and the already jagged metal carves slices all over my flesh. My ears are shredded from what’s left of my helmet blowing apart and loud ringing hits me. I crumple to the ground and fight to orient, desperate to keep moving and unsure if my last ditch move has even had an effect. I pump my Mana through myself, trying to add to the flood of Regeneration that my Power is giving me. Suddenly, I feel Soul Sparks form all around and I Reclaim them instantly and pump them into Constitution. As the warmth spreads through me and the changes to my body take hold, the Mana I’m saturating myself with flows with the changes and I can feel instinctively how to bolster the effect. It’s blunt and inefficient right now, but I pour everything into just making it through the next few seconds.

  I stagger and leap away as I sense more Grivoni and I get my arm up in time to block a heavy blow that slams me to the floor. I look up and, pain flaring all through me, I roll to avoid another blow and strike a hard kick to the lower leg of one of the remaining attackers hard enough to snap the filaments holding him to the metal of the floor and it sends him spinning away. More Soul Sparks form behind me and I Reclaim them and pump them into Constitution again even as two more Grivoni bear down on me. Newly knitted muscles and flesh screaming, I leap up to avoid the metal spikes that emerge from the floor and drive my fist up under one of their chins, snapping her neck back and I follow with a vicious leaping elbow to the head.

  From behind a Grivoni tackles me in the chaos and I use him as a shield with my superior Strength while I Reclaim more Soul Sparks from two more sources and pump them into Constitution. My Mana is exhausted, but the acceleration it’s provided and my newly improved healing rate helps me to stay in the fight as it drags on. The Grivoni on top of me tries to lock me in by attaching himself to the metal of the deck with filaments that stretch from his hands and feet, but I fix that by shoving him up off me and grabbing his head before he comes back down, then wrench it around more than 180 degrees and he goes limp. I Reclaim his Soul Sparks then roll, ripping the filaments out of the deck as I go, then add the Soul Sparks to Constitution. I’m hurting, but the increased Regeneration and some time is all I need.

  I stand, covered in blood and clothes ripped everywhere, no metal on me for a Grivoni to manipulate, and stare down the last four that are wounded from my crazy stunt and the humans they’ve been fighting. I can see those, humans past Grivoni who are now fixated on me, and they don’t look like soldiers, just brave people desperate to survive. The humans are still firing their weapons and my eyes go wide as one of them, no longer the focus of the Grivoni, raises a bazooka then fires it to end it in spectacular and overpowered fashion. I dive down and toward the edge of the hallway as it blows up, and blows the Grivoni apart. Shrapnel slices into my side, back, arm, and leg as my surroundings are filled with fire.

  Down the hallway, Dalib and the others are still there, where they first stopped and I passed them. I Reclaim the Soul Sparks from the Grivoni and dump them in Constitution again, desperate to get back to full health and functionality, and to stop the pain. As the flames and chaos die down I can hear the humans cheering and then a projectile rips into my thigh past my Damage Resistance to tear me open and shatter my femur. I scream and look up to see Bobby’s gun trained on me and he fires again. This time, my Perception still dialled up and my Agility only hampered by my injuries, I manage to shift position and the bullet hits me with a glancing blow to the shoulder. Blood and flesh fly as the bullet rips through me, bolstered by Bobby’s Power, and all I can do is make an animal grunt and push myself back amongst the Grivoni dead with my other leg. Wired and trapped, I glance down the hall down one side and see the humans I’ve rescued staying far away, and the betrayers I arrived with coming down the hall.

  My Mana ticks up and I pour it all into slightly accelerating my Regeneration. The pain is intense and Bobby moves over me in a flash, then grabs what’s left of my shirt with a snarl and fires directly into my chest. My lungs explode and I choke on my own blood as everything starts to go dark, but my Regeneration starts closing the wounds as soon as they open. From somewhere far off I feel more Soul Sparks and Reclaim them and push them all into Constitution.

  Above me Bobby places his gun to my forehead and I grab his arms, then wrench them to the side. Through my haze of pain I see his surprise at how strong I am and I release his arms then punch him right in the PowerSuited face while I struggle to breathe or move. It’s a good shot and Bobby flies across the hall to slam into the far wall despite his Rank advantage over me. All I can do is focus on healing for a moment as my lungs start to clear and work again. I’m just waiting for the flash of a sword as Dalib cuts my head off, but it’s Bobby who appears again, this time too far for me to reach. He stares deeply into my eyes and I can see his finger tighten on the trigger with my enhanced Perception. I tense to move, knowing it must be near the end.

  Instead, he pulls his gun up and I feel the cool rush of healing that I’ve felt once before outside of Carter Communications as his healing Power is added to my Regeneration. I feel like my mind is going to break, but I shove it aside and as my Mana ticks up I add it to my healing, inefficient as it is. Anything to shove the pain and suffering away. Bobby kneels down beside me and I tense for the end, but he plunges syringes for a Health Regeneration and a Healing potion into the thigh he didn’t break with his shot and stays there. Slowly, slowly, the pain clears as the bones of my leg grate and pull together to knit and my other injuries close over.

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  I don’t know how long I stay there, just fighting to direct every scrap of healing to the places that need it. Eventually I work up the courage to look at Bobby the betrayer. He’s waited until I’m with it and looking at him to say whatever he has to say, I can tell. He makes sure I’m able to hold my focus for more than a second or two before he speaks.

  “You’re clean, mate. I don’t give a shit what anyone says or what happens from here. Sorry you had to go through that, but we needed to know for humanity’s sake.”

  Relief washes through me that this might be the end of it and my name might be cleared, but I can only think of one thing to say.

  “Fuck you, Bobby.” It doesn’t seem to affect him much. I’m hardly threatening in this position.

  “Fair enough,” says Dalib. “We’ve still got a space station to clear and then a colony to rescue. You in?”

  I manage to sit up and then kneel and stand. All the different healing working together has cleared my head of pain and it seems unbelievable, but despite how I look I’m feeling like I can go on, and I know if I wait a couple minutes I’ll be feeling even better.

  “Two minutes,” I suggest, and Dalib nods. Bobby has left and is talking with the humans we’ve saved. I call up my Status to find out what’s actually happened to me.

  I’ll never actually know if the Soul Sparks I allocated to Constitution saved me or not, especially since Bobby was around, but it sure does seem like I was on my own and I’ll never regret allocating them.

  A couple minutes later Bobby returns with the humans. There are only about a dozen of them left, a group of people who got cut off from escape routes through just being unlucky. I wonder with my Luck if I would have experienced something different, but then I reflect on what I just went through, which doesn’t seem lucky. The Universe is fucked.

  “Aoife will take these ones back to the Birchcombe,” Bobby tells us, and she quickly grabs them all the same way she did to us with her Gravity Power and they fly off.

  Once she’s gone Bobby opens up his PowerSuit and steps out. Dalib eyes him with some interest.

  “We’ve still got a space station to clear and just to show I meant what I said, lightning can strike twice and you can use this if you want. I’ll expect it handed over before we finish.”

  I glance around at the fragments of Mark’s Talos armor and my swords, bent and useless.

  “Deal,” I agree. I never thought I’d get a chance to be in one of these again, and I’m not going to turn it down even though he just almost murdered me. “As long as I get to do all the fighting.”

  “Be my guest,” says Bobby, and Dalib gives me a grin.