Chương 36: Bk 1 Ch 33: Schism

I can't keep from grimacing slightly; that's a sentence no one ever wants to hear from their partner. I force myself not to jump to any conclusions. Alex has just been through something pretty traumatic, something even I'm still feeling more than a little disturbed by, and I'm sure it was much worse for her. Before anything else, I need to support her.

"Go head," I say, taking her hand.

"You know you can always tell me anything." She nods and sighs again, but takes a while to actually start talking, gathering her thoughts.

"... When I first asked to join the Sun Eaters, I thought I knew what I was getting into. But… hearing about it is real different from actually seeing it, doing it. That house… It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I think I'll probably have nightmares about it. And I was just… I wanted to make them pay. I've never felt that… righteous before, the way I did when I started beating that fucker. Honestly, I don't think even any of the drugs I've done with you can compare to that feeling.

But then, when it was over, and I looked at what I'd done to him… Suddenly, all I could think about was what the Alex from a year ago would've thought if she'd seen me right then. Not just killing someone, but beating someone to death when they're already tied up and defenseless, and enjoying it. And I know she - I - would've been horrified. Maybe I would've punched someone back then, maybe even killed someone in self defense if there was absolutely no other choice, but… Not like that."

"You've changed," I agree; there's no point in denying.

"But not all changes are bad. I'm not saying it was necessarily good, just that… You can decide how you feel about it now. It's alright to decide you were wrong before."

"Yeah, maybe. But… Tell me honestly, if the Gabby from a year ago could see where you are now, what would she think?" I don't really need to think about the answer at all.

"She'd be thrilled beyond words." Well, except for breaking up with Emily, but now seems like a bad time to bring that up.

"Exactly," says Alex.

"You were… You were made for this life. I think, if you'd never become a magical girl, you would've spent your entire life feeling like something was missing. But I wasn't made for this. I think I realized that, when you told me it'd always been easy for you. And the thing is… Just because I wasn't made for this, doesn't mean I couldn't adapt to. Even if it wasn't easy for me the first time, it's not hard to see how it could become easy. But… I'd lose something important along the way."

"I told you before, you don't need to be part of the Sun Eaters to be my girlfriend," I say quietly.

"I'll never force you to do something you don't want."

"That's kind of the thing," she says, shaking her head.

"I don't think you realize how much you change the people around you, without even necessarily meaning to. Like… Anja literally swore an oath of vengeance against you, pretty much, and now she's one of your best friends. Do you know how absurd that looks, from the outside? And I'm not even saying it's a bad thing, Anja and Elliot are both so much happier because they met you. It's… part of what makes you so special. You're like…" She laughs slightly.

"You're like a star, and we're all planets orbiting you. You pull us along with you just by being who you are. You make it so easy to want the same things you want, it's hard to even separate it from what I want. And you make it so easy to be your girlfriend, that… I'm scared if I do it any longer, I'm gonna forget how to be just Alex." It's rare for anyone to say anything that actually rattles me, but that does it.

I've always seen myself as helping other people discover what they want, helping them throw off the constraints they'd put on themselves. Have I really just been replacing what they want with what I want all along? I'm not a telepath, I can't actually force anyone to change their mind, but… Well, it's not like I'm unaware of all the ways I subtly or not-so-subtly push people, get them to consider things or try things they wouldn't have otherwise.

What if the reason why they end up liking those things isn't because they would have all along, but rather because I pushed them into it?

"... I'm sorry," is all I can say eventually.

"I didn't mean to."

"You don't have to apologize," says Alex, putting an arm around my shoulders and drawing me closer.

"Like I said, it's what makes you special. And… I don't regret any of it. Not even killing that piece of shit. This last year has been like… like living a fantasy, the kind of life I never would've thought I could live. I'm not ever going to forget it. But it's not my life, and it's time for me to go back. And… I think you need someone else, too. I was… I never could've been an equal to you, really. I don't know who could be, I'd say maybe another magical, except, well…"

"... I never saw you that way," I say after a moment.

"And… I'm really proud of you, for refusing to compromise on what you want. I just… wish I could've given it to you." I sniffle a couple of times. Alex pulls me closer, and then I'm sobbing into her shoulder. I'm really going to miss how comforting it feels to be held by her. It hurts, but in a bittersweet way, not like my soul is being ripped out. As much as I'll miss her, I can't imagine anything more beautiful than getting to watch her decide who she wants to be.

"... Thanks," I say eventually, once my tears stop.

"For being here. I think you changed me too, you know."

"Maybe a little," she allows.

"... Hey, Gabby. Will you promise me one thing?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Promise you'll never lose this part of yourself. The part of you that cares. Promise me you'll never let yourself become entirely Schwarzschild."

"I promise," I say, and I mean it.

"I'm glad." I'm quiet for a while, then snicker slightly.

"Although, it might help the lesson really stick if you spanked me one more time." Alex snorts.

"Nice try. You're gonna have to find someone else to punish you for being such a naughty girl, sorry." I laugh, then sniffle a few more times.

"... I don't want to get up, cause then it'll really be over."

"Maybe just a little longer," agrees Alex, idly stroking my hair. We stay like that for a while. Eventually, though, she sighs, and I know it's time. I force myself to stand, and she does as well.

"... Will you still come to the final meeting of the GSA?" she asks.

"... Yeah, alright."

"Good. I… I know you mostly only joined for me, but I hope you'll still give Will a bit of a hand next year, when he needs it."

"I'll see what what I can do," I say, nodding. I give her one more hug, squeezing tightly. Then she leaves. For a while, I just stare at the closed door. Then, I pick up my landline and call Cassie.

"Yo."

"Hey, it's Gabby."

"Oh, what's up?" she asks, clearly surprised to hear from me in this persona.

"... Alex broke up with me."

"Ah." She sighs.

"Icecream, or whiskey?"

"... Icecream, please."

"No problem. I'll head right over." She gets here in less than twenty minutes, and puts a carton of strawberry icecream straight into my hands. Honestly, I really don't deserve a best friend as good as her.

"So, uh, I don't need to, like, beat her up or anything, right?" she asks me.

"No, nothing like that," I say, laughing a little.

"It was… I think it ended on the best terms it could have."

"Alright, good. Cause after today, I'm pretty sure she'd absolutely flatten me." I laugh more.

"Try not to bring that up around her, okay?"

"Sure. I guess she wasn't cool with what happened, then?" I shake my head.

"Shame. She was an absolute fucking badass today. I was gonna suggest she become an enforcer." I don't respond for a little while.

"... Hey, Cassie. Do you… ever feel like I'm pushing you into things you don't really want to do?" Cassie snorts.

"Fuck no. Maybe all the drugs are messing with my memory, but I'm pretty sure I was the one pushing you to start a gang in the beginning."

"... Yeah, fair enough." She looks at me for a moment, then says, "Listen. If you'd never become a magical girl, I probably just would've ended up, like, joining the Syndicate or something anyway. And I guess that would've been fine, but I doubt I could've really climbed the ranks much at all, I just would've been a street-level dealer forever. What I've got now is so much better than that. So maybe it's not for everyone, so what? It's their choice, you're not forcing anyone to join.

Alex got in a little too deep, decided she couldn't handle it, and you let her leave. That's pretty goddamn generous as far as black masks go. So don't go and get all wishy-washy on me now. You've given me and a bunch of other people something we can actually be proud of belonging to." I consider that for a minute, then smile.

"Thanks. I needed to hear that."

"No problem. Just, you know, don't ask me to be your rebound, and we're cool."

"Offer's always open, any time you finally realize how much hotter girls are," I say, grinning.

"Only thing I need to do to see how hot girls are is look in the mirror," she says, smirking.

"Still prefer dick, though." I shake my head.

"No accounting for taste, I guess." She stays until we finish our icecream and makes sure I'm okay, then heads home. I go for a bit of a flight before bed, try really pushing my top speed for the first time in a while. I'm eventually forced to stop accelerating, not because I can't go any faster, but because the air is starting to feel less like air and more like lava, dense and hot enough to start being painful even to me.

I'm not quite at orbital reentry speeds yet, I'm not actually glowing, but I don't think I'm too far off. By the time I slow down, I'm already out over the Cascades, so I do a few lazy loops around some peaks just for fun. I should do some real traveling this summer, once I'm sure nothing's gonna blow up in my face back here. Maybe go to one of the big raves over in Europe, or even pick a fight with some Russian warlord.

See if it's really true that they borderline worship magical girls in Japan, try some coke straight from the fields down in South America. I'm gonna miss Alex for a while, but maybe she was right about me needing to try something new as well, keep broadening my own horizons. I still feel a bit morose at lunch the next day, when Alex doesn't sit with us for the first time since the very start of the year.

But then Leslie, Sarah's sister, comes up and gives Cassie a huge hug, whispering "Thank you" over and over again.

"Don't mention it," says Cassie, looking more abashed than I've ever seen her.

"Hey, you wanna sit with us?"

"Oh, um… Can I?" asks Leslie.

"Of course," says Anja.

"We don't bite."

"Unless you're into that," I add, grinning. Anja punches me in the shoulder.

"Um… Is it okay if I bring my friends over too?"

"Sure," says Cassie, shrugging.

"More the merrier." I breeze through my finals, probably not getting as high a score as I could have in some classes, but whatever. I'm certainly not gonna fail anything, or probably even get any C's. I do make sure to take my Calculus final seriously, and talk to the student councilor about signing up for Differential Equations at the University next year. On Monday of the last week of school, I keep my word and go to the final GSA meeting of the year. Alex smiles hesitantly when she sees me, and I smile back.

"Hey," I say.

"Been holding up alright?"

"Yeah, I have," she says, nodding.

"I got in touch with Berkeley, they're alright with letting me start in the fall after all."

"Congratulations," I say warmly.

"Have you made up your mind about what you're gonna study?"

"I think it's gonna be sociology. I would've loved getting paid to be out in nature, but it's not like I can't still go backpacking on my own, and… There's a lotta problems out there that need to be solved."

"There are," I agree.

"How about you?"

"I'm doing alright," I say, smiling.

"I… heard that girl Sarah is okay, she's recovering."

"Yeah. Anja told me. She… wanted to make sure I wasn't being too hard on myself."

"Oh," I say, slightly surprised.

"Good." I hang out for the rest of lunch, chatting briefly with Will about his plans for the club next year. I can't help but doubt he'll be able to do as good a job as Alex, but she also left him a strong foundation to work with. There's a lot more kids in the club now, actual LGBT kids, many of them drawn in thanks to Chimera's talk. I'm glad to see all her hard work throughout the year pay off. When lunch ends, I give Alex one final hug.

"Take care of yourself, okay? And don't forget to have fun," I tell her.

"You too, Gabby. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too." I sniffle a couple times, then leave, knowing I'll most likely never see her again. And then classes are over, and it's summer. I suddenly have more free time than I know what to do with; last summer I was living with Jess and Dave, but now I'm all on my own, and my tiny apartment isn't really a place I want to sit for hours on end. Fortunately, I have plenty of friends, both close and casual. It's rare that I can't find someone to hang out with.

I even end up hanging out with some members of the Sun Eaters out of costume a couple of times via Cassie, which is always amusing. Elliot's keeping his D&D sessions going, too, although Alex leaving is a bit awkward. Since we're apparently almost at the end of the adventure anyway, we decide to just have Emily take over playing her character, and she ends up nobly sacrificing herself during the final battle. I can't help but get a little choked up in spite of myself.

When he asks me if I'll keep playing the next adventure, I agree, and find I'm even looking forward to it a little. Afterwards, we once again go hang out in Elliot's backyard.

"I'm sorry about you and Alex," says Emily.

"... Thanks," I say.

"It's alright, though. There weren't any hard feelings or anything. She just… wanted different things." Emily nods.

"She was a Senior, right? So I guess she's going off to college next year?"

"Uh huh. Berkeley."

"Oh, good for her."

"Yeah, she's pretty happy about it. I think she'll do well." We're quiet for a minute, idly listening to Anja tell Elliot about some new band she's gotten into.

"... Do you think it's possible for two people to be happy together even if they don't want the same thing?" asks Emily eventually. I look at her for a moment, then sigh and look away.

"Well, I don't think anyone wants exactly the same thing as anyone else. The real question is whether both people can have what they want, or whether one person would have to give something up. And in that case… No. I don't think two people could be happy like that."

"Don't you have to give something up for any relationship, though? And not even just romance, friends and family, too. Time and energy, the risk of being hurt. Playing D&D cause they want to, when maybe you'd rather be doing something else." I snort and smile slightly.

"I think the sign of a strong relationship isn't that you don't give up anything, it's that you get back more."

"Maybe," I allow.

"But there are some things you can't give up without losing yourself, no matter how much you get back."

"... I suppose there are," she agrees quietly. I look back over at her, and find her looking at me. For a while, we stare at each other in silence. If I tried to kiss her right now, would she stop me? If she tried to kiss me right now, would I stop her? I'm not sure of the answer to either question. Ultimately, neither of us do anything except stare. I find it hard to get the conversation out of my head that night, as I'm lying in bed. I made my choice, almost a year ago now; I chose magic over Emily.

It's not something I can take back, or would take back even if I could. But she's changed since then, in some ways even more than I have. I'd told Alex once that Emily would never accept my identity as Schwarzschild, but that's not quite the whole truth. I'm not going to risk actually telling her, of course, but I feel almost certain that she wouldn't actually turn me in even if she knew, or at least not immediately. No, she'd want to try and redeem me herself. In the long run, it couldn't end any way but badly.

Maybe she'd finally accept that she couldn't change my mind, and turn me in to stop me from hurting anyone else. Maybe she would change her mind, and lose the thing that makes her who she is, like Alex was afraid of. Or maybe she'd even somehow succeed in changing my mind, and the same thing would happen to me. But in the meantime, I can't help but imagine how the tension would electrify our relationship like never before. The seed of Schwarzschild was already in me even before I became a magical girl.

She always knew who I was, and loved me anyway. How far would she go, to try and tame me? The thought makes me shiver, and sleep is a long time coming. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I wake to the sound of my phone, my work phone. A glance at the clock on the nightstand tells me it's just before 4. I rub my eyes and try to shake the lingering sleep off, then answer.

"Yes?" It's Sarge.

"Boss, thank fuck. We've got… I don't even know, everything's fucked. We need you down at the usual spot ASAP." I jerk up, sleep forgotten.

"I'm on my way." Scrambling out of bed, I throw on the first clothes I find, then transform immediately and leave out my balcony. I blast over to the community center at full speed, arriving in less than a minute. There's multiple cars out front, and another one arriving even now. Inside, I find over a dozen assorted members of the Sun Eaters, without much rhyme or reason; there's people from multiple cells, some associates, a couple of enforcers, even one of my lieutenants, Rick. I make a beeline for Sarge.

"Report." He lets out a little sigh of relief at my quick response.

"It's the cops, they suddenly went absolutely apeshit. They're arresting everyone they can find, even some people we didn't even think they knew about. Best we can tell, it started about two hours ago, I think a fair amount of our people got grabbed before they even knew anything was going down, not sure exactly how many. At least they don't seem to know about this place yet, but one of the safehouses got raided too, the one over on West 9th." My anxiety mounts, along with my confusion.

This sounds like the kind of operation the cops mount when they decide to take a gang down completely, but that makes no sense. The first step to taking down a magical gang is taking down the magical in charge; backing a black mask into a corner is a good way to get your police station turned into crater. Chimera's presence will offer them some protection, of course, but it's still a massive escalation for no obvious reason.

And unless they somehow got their hands on a whole lot more evidence than we thought they had, most of the people they've arrested will probably end up walking, it'll be almost impossible to bully any of them into plea deals as long as I'm still at large. It's all completely backwards from their usual methods.

"Any idea at all what triggered it?"

"None," says Sarge, shaking his head.

"Came out of fucking nowhere, no one's actually managed to talk to 'em without getting arrested. Rick says the cops just straight up kicked down his front door, he only managed to slip out the back cause he was already about to evac." Shit. Whatever's going on, it's serious.

"Have you let Mr. Sterling know yet?"

"Yeah. He should be on his way to the station, but it'll probably be a while before we hear anything back." I nod.

"We can't keep everyone here. Too much risk the police will notice the activity. Send people out to monitor the remaining safehouses, give them half an hour. If the police haven't shown by then, assume they're still secure and start moving people over, a few at a time. Spread them out as best you can. I'm going to head out and try to intercept as many of our people as I can, and hopefully find out what's going on."

"Understood," says Sarge, nodding firmly. He turns and starts barking out orders.

"You heard her! Tre, you go and have a look at the safehouse on Taylor Street. Hotsauce, you go to the one on 21st…" I don't catch the rest as I hurry out, immediately shooting up high into the air until I can see most of the city. The nice thing about cop cars is the lights are real bright, and it takes me only a couple of seconds to spot a group of them a mile or so further west and north. I shoot over, pausing briefly a couple hundred feet overhead to examine the situation.

The neighborhood is all houses, no apartments. I'm not sure who lives here, but there's three regular cop cars along with a big van, the kind they use for transporting multiple prisoners. The cops aren't moving with much urgency, so I'm guessing the van is already full. I hesitate for a moment, but things have clearly already escalated past the point where directly interfering with the cops will make them worse. Dropping down, I slice through the back doors of the van as I land, and immediately yank them open.

Inside, I find Zach, AJ, and Sean, all in handcuffs, along with a single cop. They're all still jerking with surprise when I yank the cop out of the van with a gravity field. I toss him on the front yard of the house, and knock over every other cop I can see for good measure, pinning them all to the ground. Surprised yelling and shouting erupts everywhere, including from inside the van.

"Holy sh- Oh, uh, hey Boss. Sure fucking glad to see you right now," says Zach. I gesture forwards.

"All of you out. We're leaving. Was anyone else here?"

"No, just us three," he says as they start clambering out of the van. I nod, then turn and approach the nearest pinned officer.

"You. What is this? Why are you targeting the Sun Eaters on this scale, and why now?" He glares defiantly and snorts.

"Don't act like you don't… fucking know already," he gasps out.

"If I knew, I wouldn't need to ask," I reply flatly.

"It's over, Schwarzschild," he says, shaking his head as much as he can.

"You crossed… the line. Just give it… up now. Fighting is only gonna… make it worse for you and your people." I consider pushing harder, but then AJ coughs behind me.

"Uh… They said something about us breaking the truce?"

"With Surf 'n Turf?" I ask, nonplussed.

"If someone did, it certainly wasn't on my orders." The pinned cop doesn't answer, just glaring silently. Chimera is probably already on the way; I might be able to get more out of her, but I don't understand the situation well enough to risk it. For all I know, they might've called in the rest of the Portland strike team. Instead, I turn back to my people.

"Handcuffs." They all turn, and I slice through all three chains. We can get the actual cuffs off later.

"Brace yourselves." Then I lift us all up into the air, releasing the pressure on the cops at the same time. They tolerate it fairly well, having flown with me before. I take them back to the community center and drop them off, telling them to check in with Sarge. Then I head out again. This time, I don't see any other obvious police lights. Instead, I head downtown, looking for cars headed towards the police station. After a couple of minutes, I spot a cop car with its lights and sirens off.

I descend low enough to peer in through the rear window and confirm there's people in back. Then, I lift the car off the ground, approach, and slice through the rear passenger door. Inside, I find a couple of Brian and Leah's dealers.

"Easy. I'm here to get you out," I say, ignoring the frantic yelling from the officers in front. They're obviously handcuffed as well, so I physically pull them out by the arm in zero gravity, freeing their hands while I'm at it. Then I stick my head back into the car.

"I don't know exactly what you think we did, but tell your superiors that they should consider very carefully before they escalate any further." I don't wait for a response, setting the car back down and dropping the two dealers off at the community center as well. I immediately head back out again, but it looks like the word's gone out that I'm responding. After ten minutes, I haven't found any more cop cars. At least that probably means they won't arrest anyone else for now.

I give it another few minutes, then head back to the community center. Even more people have arrived, and I'm a bit relieved to see Cassie and Tyler among them. Unfortunately, no one seems to have any new information on what's set the cops off. At least it looks like there really only was one safehouse compromised, so we start sending people out around ten minutes later. I patrol the surrounding area, making sure there aren't any cops to notice anything, checking back in regularly.

Everyone's on edge, but my presence seems to do a fair amount to reassure them. Close to 5, as the horizon is starting to lighten and we're sending out the last few people, I check in once more to find Mr. Sterling waiting for me. I approach him immediately, hoping that I'll finally get some answers.

"You've come from the station?" I ask.

"What's the situation?" He considers me carefully for a few seconds before answering.

"I need to ask you a question," he says.

"Did you kill Barracuda and Obsidian tonight?"

"What?" I ask, caught off-guard enough that I fail to hide my bewilderment.

"Of course not." He stares for another few seconds, then nods sharply.

"Good. I'd hoped not; such an incredibly stupid action would be very out of character for you. But the police are quite certain that you did."

"Why?"

"Because it was allegedly done using your favorite method."

"My favorite method?"

"Yes. According to the police, a car was dropped on their home at a very high speed shortly after midnight. And before you ask, I inquired as to their certainty that the victims were in fact Barracuda and Obsidian, and was informed that talismans had been found in the wreckage."

"What? That's…" I trail off before I can call it impossible; I guess I can't be a hundred percent sure that the cops were telling the truth, but I can't think of anything else which would explain their sudden rampage. So if it happened, then it clearly isn't impossible.

"Someone's trying to frame us," I conclude after a moment.

"Someone capable of mimicking my magic. That's not a very long list of suspects. The most likely culprits are the Syndicate double-crossing us… or the white masks themselves."

"I've never heard of ABRA engaging in that sort of false flag operation," says Mr. Sterling slowly.

"But that doesn't mean it's impossible, only that it's been very well hidden. However, I would say the Syndicate is somewhat more likely to be responsible. They certainly have reason to eliminate Barracuda and Obsidian, and if they've decided you're a liability after all, having the white masks eliminate you at the same time would be highly efficient. But we also can't rule out the possibility of an unknown third party."

I frown slightly; I never got a satisfactory explanation to the Ray/Troy situation, and he never reappeared. I'd mostly dismissed it as some sort of strange one-off.

"We can't, but why would some other major cartel come all the way to Franklin and risk starting a war with the Syndicate just to target us? It makes no sense. ABRA and the Syndicate both have a clear motive."

"I find myself at a loss as well," admits Mr. Sterling.

"You're sure you've never done anything which might have left someone powerful with a grudge?"

"Of this scale? Not a chance." The odds that some member of Surf 'n Turf, or even the Wildfire Boys, that I happened to kill was secretly related to some enormously powerful black mask somewhere else in the country are absurdly small. He nods.

"Still, we can't afford to make assumptions. Someone powerful is clearly targeting you. If it is ABRA themselves, any attempt to clear your name will prove extremely difficult. If it's the Syndicate, they'll go to great lengths to keep their involvement from coming to light. And an unknown third party with unknown motives will of course bring unknown complications."

"... We should get as many members of the Sun Eaters as possible out of Franklin until this is resolved," I say after a bit of thought. I'm thinking of Jess and David especially; they've been my liaisons to the Syndicate since Mark died, so if the Syndicate is responsible, they'll be at extreme risk.

"Especially the ones the cops still haven't identified, they'll be able to rent hotel rooms under their own names without drawing any notice."

"An extreme measure, but justified in this case, I would say," says Mr. Sterling.

"With your permission, I believe I'd like to do the same. There's little I can do for the arrested Sun Eaters so long as you're held responsible for breaking the truce." I hesitate, then say, "First, tell me who they have."

"Seventeen members in total," says Mr. Sterling.

"I have the list here. Fortunately, none of your lieutenants were among them."

"Good," I say, taking the piece of paper from him and glancing quickly over it. Six associates, nine full members, and two of my enforcers. That's far from ideal, but it's not as bad as it could be.

"You've talked to all of them?"

"I have. Most seem confused above anything else. I reassured them that we're working to resolve the situation, but it might be some time, and they should simply keep their mouths shut for now." I consider for a few seconds, then nod.

"Alright. You can leave town for a couple of days until we have a better idea of what we're facing, but don't go too far, and check in regularly. If this does stretch out, I'm going to need you to keep the arrested members from cracking."

"Of course, but let us hope it does not come to that, or you will need significantly more than one lawyer," says Mr. Sterling dryly. I let out a slight amused huff.

"Is there anything else I should know?"

"Not at present, I believe."

"Alright. Go ahead, then. But check in as soon as you've arrived."

"Very well. I appreciate it." He turns to leave, and I turn to Sarge.

"Spread the word. Anyone who's confident the police aren't aware of them should strongly consider taking a vacation. The gang will reimburse them afterwards, if necessary. Anyone known to the police should remain in a safehouse. I'll need all of our enforcers to stay as well, I may have work for you."

"Understood," he says, nodding.

"I'll get on it. You should go before it gets light out, I'll lock up here." I nod back.

"Contact me immediately if there are any further problems, or if you learn anything new."

"Yes, ma'am." I follow Mr. Sterling out and fly home, landing a ways away from my apartment to be safe since it's starting to get light out. Should I consider laying low somewhere as well? I think I should be fine for now; the white masks certainly would've started with me if they knew my identity, and my connection to the Sun Eaters in my civilian identity is extremely tenuous. Still, it might be best to pack some necessities, just to be safe.

There's obviously no going back to sleep at this point, so I just eat breakfast. I feel the need to be doing something, but I'm not sure what else I can do right now. Operating as Schwarzschild when it's light out will be incredibly risky with some unknown group of magicals presumably hunting for me, but I can't afford to be passive, either; I need to figure out who I'm facing as soon as possible. Could I try baiting them out? And if it's just Chimera who comes for me, would she be willing to listen to me?

I really can't see her as part of a conspiracy within ABRA, but that doesn't mean she'll give me the benefit of the doubt, either. For now, I just turn on the TV and tune in to the local news. It's just playing some prerecorded bit about a nearby state park right now, so I mute it until the actual news comes on at 7: 30. They don't keep me in suspense, jumping straight into coverage of my supposed murder of Barracuda and Obsidian.

I get my first actual look at the crime scene, apparently some small house on the far east end of town. There's not much left of it; it certainly does look like the aftermath of me dropping one of my pseudo-meteors. There's also an interview with the Chief of Police, who does the usual blustering. More concerning is the statement that ABRA has promised him "all necessary support," which isn't something he's said when I've made trouble previously.

There isn't a whole lot of real information aside from that, or at least none that I didn't already know. Concerned citizens wring their hands, the cops brag about how many of us they've already arrested, so-called experts explain how black masks always end up overstepping. They eventually run out of material to squeeze and move on to other subjects, so I mute it again. At least when I check in with Sarge and a few others, there haven't been any fresh disasters.

I'm glad to hear that Jess and Dave have already gotten out of dodge, heading for the coast, and they're not the only ones. I decide to wait a couple more hours, to give my people as much time as I can to get to safety. Then, I'll go looking for Chimera and see if I can get some answers. That all goes out the window when my phone rings, my home phone. I take a moment to get into the mindset of a girl on summer break without any particular worries, then answer with a cheerful, "Hello?"

"Gabby? Thank fuck, you have to help, I don't what to do, I tried to stop him, but-""Whoa, whoa, calm down. Is that you, Anja? What's wrong?"

"It's… It's Elliot. They arrested him."