NOTE: This may not be the final revision, published form may vary.

Twenty minutes of asphalt had vanished beneath the tires in less than five. Vex had pushed his old beast, coaxing a speed from it that defied its age and the city's infrastructure. The tires had shrieked in protest on every turn, a desperate, high-pitched wail that mirrored the scream trapped in my own throat. I had to admit, the man had a knack for bending the laws of physics, a talent that, much like his company, was both indispensable and utterly grating. He was a constant itch under my skin but today, he was just the person I needed, not to mention, the only one who could get me where I needed to be before time ran out.

"Pull over there," I commanded, pointing to a fresh scar on the city's face.

Vex angled his relic of a hotrod into the maw of a construction site. A mountain of churned earth, moist as a fresh grave, rose against the glare of the mid-morning sun.

The engine coughed then died. I pushed open the door, the groan of unoiled metal on metal was a fitting soundtrack to the scene that lay before us, a grim overture to the tragedy that had already unfolded. 

My eyes adjusted to the daylight and I scanned the tableau of devastation. It was a picture painted in shades of chaos. The cafe's awning, once a splash of defiant color, was torn like a forgotten flag, hanging in tatters, mocking the destruction below. The walls looked like a giant fist had simply decided to pummel it. My gaze darted and a desperate prayer formed unspoken on my lips, a silent plea against the hard facts of the scene. Mira, please be alive. Please.

Kiernan was closer to where I stood, a still shape against the pale concrete, his face turned towards the heavens as if in silent accusation, a question etched into his lifeless features that the city would never answer. A thin trickle of blood had snaked from beneath him. The life had gone out of him.

Ryne was further off, sprawled awkwardly, his breaths shallow, but at least he was breathing. A small mercy in a city devoid of them. Mira, my heart seized in my chest. She was near the cafe’s shattered facade.

The air near her shimmered, like heat haze on a summer road. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Lucien materialized, his form solidifying from nothingness, his expensive suit miraculously uncreased amidst what had happened. His eyes, the color of a winter sky just before a storm, locked onto mine, surprise, then a chilling recognition in their depths. Then they dropped, lingering on Kiernan’s lifeless form, a moment of grief crossing his features, gone as quickly as it appeared.

My hand found the cold steel of my iron. My thumb brushed the worn grip.

"I think now is not the time," Lucien's voice, laced with a tremor I hadn't heard before, a sign of vulnerability beneath the veneer of power. He gestured towards Mira, a subtle movement that made my fingers tighten even more around my gun. Then his hand swept towards his brother, a gesture of profound, unexpected sorrow that seemed almost out of place on such a man. "If you do not mind, I would like to say my farewells. A temporary truce?"

A stay of execution…it was a viper's offer, a poisoned chalice, but the sight of Mira, vulnerable and struggling twisted something in my gut. There was an undeniable grief in Lucien's eyes, a reflection of my own. I nodded, a curt, almost imperceptible dip of my head, my acquiescence a bitter pill to swallow. We moved like two wolves circling a kill. Eyes locked, never leaving the other, each movement scrutinized, our breath held. 

When Lucien reached Kienan, he knelt, not with the theatrical flourish that I expected of him, but with the quiet, devastating grace of a man mourning his own blood. His shoulders slumped, and for a moment, he was just a brother, not a conjurer of immense power. It was a gesture so profoundly… human. I knew that posture. It was the same way I was kneeling, beside Mira, the same desperate plea for connection in the face of overwhelming loss.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

Mira stared at me as if I were a mirage or a cruel trick of the light. Her gaze was clouded with shock, her face pale beneath the grime.

"No… you, it can't be. You are a trick… he playing with me." Her eyes shifted towards Lucien.

I glanced up, assessing Lucien, suspicion still burning within my eyes, even as he knelt in sorrow. That's when I saw Vex was walking up behind Lucien. My jaw nearly hit the ground. The one person who treated human emotion like a foreign language, who saw the world as a series of objects to be exploited, actually reached out and placed a hand on Lucien’s shoulder. It was a gesture so utterly out of character, so bizarre, that it momentarily eclipsed everything around me.

"He was a good man," Vex said, his voice surprisingly devoid of its usual bluster, a strange, almost tender sound. "And he will be missed." He spoke as if he and Kienan had shared late-morning coffees and swapped scholarly notes over dinners. "Sorry for your loss."

Then, without so much as a second glance at the grieving sorcerer, Vex pivoted, towards Ryne. He strode over, his gait full of swagger. I was still processing the absurdity of it all when he produced a glass vial from his pocket, pressing it beneath the detective’s nose. Ryne’s eyes snapped open, searching wildly, like a trapped animal. He gasped, a ragged breath and push himself away, trying to escape the pungent fumes.

"Whoa there, par'ner," Vex drawled, his voice now a thick and ridiculously exaggerated twang. "The cavalry has arrived. And we may have the need for a lawman after this shootout."

Mira’s gaze moved between Vex’s bizarre performance, Ryne’s frantic struggles, and my own bewildered face. Her hand, trembling slightly, reached up, her fingers brushed against my cheek. The contact brought me back.

"You are real," she said.

"And your beautiful," I murmured the old song and dance. "I couldn't stay away."

"Still as delirious as ever," she whispered, a slight smile forming at the corner of her mouth. "Yep, you definitely are my Malik."

Her soft lips met mine. It was a moment suspended in time, a fragile island of peace in the heart of a storm. It lasted a lifetime, yet not nearly long enough. Just as the world threatened to right itself, Ryne’s shout ripped through it all.

"Watch out."

Mira reacted with the speed of thought, her magic a second skin. A shimmering barrier, a wall of crackling energy, sprang into existence between us and the unseen threat. I had been reaching for my gun, my instincts screaming.

But it was too late. A concussive wave of force, caught me square. My iron was ripped from my grasp, sent skittering across the concrete, a useless piece of metal now.

A volcanic eruption of fury raged within me. But I tamped it down, forced it back into the dark corners of my soul where it belonged. There was no room for uncontrolled emotions. Not when Mira, and everyone else, depended on me. I staggered, finding my feet, my muscles screaming in protest, and took a few deliberate steps towards Lucien, my eyes narrowed, my jaw clenched, a promise of retribution in every rigid line of my body. 

"Mira," I said, a single directive laden with a thousand unspoken meanings. "Protect everyone."

She knew me to my core and understood what I meant. Her barrier expanded, enclosing Lucien and myself, sealing us off from the ruined cafe, from the city. 

This was it. Two heavyweights, stripped bare, duking it out in a ring of pure magic, a gladiatorial arena of will and power. There would be no pulled punches this time, no holding back. The truce was over. The gloves were off. The real fight had begun.

Lucien's face a mask of hate now, he knew the score and his eyes burned with a chilling intensity. He lashed out with a sheet of frozen water, sharp as razor blades, streaking towards me. It was a conjuration designed to shred me to ribbons, to flay the flesh from my bones. But before the icy shards could make contact, a faint, almost imperceptible pulse rippled from my coat. The frozen death melted, dissolving into harmless raindrops that pattered against the debris, a gentle, almost mocking sound. 

I probed with my magic, a small bit of my power, and felt a warding sigil, pulsating against Lucien's magic, a shield woven into my trench coat.

Vex, I thought, a grudging respect blooming in the pit of my stomach. If I make it out of this alive, I will have to thank him yet again. The bastard.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed as he noticed his conjuration was having no effect, the air around me shimmering with a faint, protective aura, a visible distortion of his power. He changed tack, his movements fluid. Lightning, thick as a man's arm, streaked towards me, a blinding white spear, its crackle echoing in the confined space. My eyes darted to my iron, lying just inside the barrier, a few feet away, still useless while the magics raged. However, I still edged towards it, call it a desperate gamble. The lightning, too, dissipated, its crackling energy dissolving into harmless sparks within a foot or two of me, a frustrated hiss against Vex's ward.

A sudden, invisible force slammed into me, knocking me off my feet. He had changed tactics again, abandoning the elements for something more primal, a pure concussive blast of power. The force pounded at me, a relentless, invisible hammer, I was a kettle drum, each blow rattling my teeth, threatening to turn my insides to jelly. I staggered against it, fighting for a foothold, for a breath, for a goddamn moment of clarity. With a guttural roar, a sound torn from the depths of my being, I let a burst of soul essence rip through the space between us, a desperate counter-attack. It hit him with the same concussive force he had sent my way, a shockwave that visibly rocked him back on his heels, a moment of surprise in his cold eyes.

Back and forth we pushed, two titans locked in a dance of destruction, each blow met with a counter, each surge of power repelled. I loosed a shard of dark energy his way, a jagged, malevolent spear of shadow, hoping to catch him off guard, to find a chink in his armor, a momentary weakness. He dodged, but instead of letting it pass, he caught it, twisting his hand, and sent it careening back at me, a dark boomerang of my own making, my own power turned against me. I cut the threads to that magic, severing its connection to me before it could reach, a desperate act of self-preservation, and saw him building up a force charge, a massive, crushing wave of power gathering in his hands, a storm brewing in his eyes. My mind raced, reaching out, desperately trying to assess the sigil on my coat. It wasn't holding. The protection was fading, the threads of its power unraveling.

In that same instant, Lucien shot towards me, a human projectile, the full, unbridled force of his magic a battering ram in front of him, his face a mask of savage determination. The impact was like being hit by a freight train, a crushing blow that stole my breath and emptied my lungs. I was slammed back against the barrier's invisible wall, the force of the collision rattling my teeth.

Before I could recover, Lucien’s fists, imbued with the same devastating power, began to pummel me. Each blow landed with the sickening thud of meat against bone. I got my arms up, an inadequate shield, but the more he moved, the more force came with each blow, a terrifying acceleration of power. A blur of motion, a whirlwind of fists, and I missed a block. The world spun. Stars, bright and blinding, exploded behind my eyes, a cruel fireworks display.

My mind, desperate, reaching out into the abyss of my own power, into the deepest, darkest corners of my being, conjured something I had never dared to try before, a forbidden art. My body tightened, muscles coiling, bones grinding, a terrible, agonizing transformation. For an instant I became stone. The shattering of bone was loud, a sickening crack that echoed within the dome. Lucien staggered back, his face contorted in agony, his hand a mangled mess of torn flesh and splintered bone.

Good, I thought, a small victory in a losing battle. Gives me some room to maneuver. I sent a lance of raw energy his way, a focused. He merely put up his good hand and the energy stopped, held suspended in the air as if caught in an invisible vise. His other hand began to glow, a sickly green light, and I could tell he was using some nature magic, drawing on the very earth beneath us to mend his hand. My eye caught my gun, lying on the ground, a last resort. I dove for it, a desperate lunge, my body screaming in protest.

My fingers closed around the grip, the cold steel against my skin. I came up, aiming, the world a blur of pain and adrenaline. At the same moment as I pulled the trigger, a jolt of pure electrical force slammed into me, a thousand volts of agony cascading throughout my body, jerking me to the ground, my muscles seizing. The gun lurched and a single, deafening report came forth.

It seemed like eternity before the bullet worked it's magic and the world took a deep breath before it let out a deafening roar that ripped through the air. The electricity coursing through me was gone. Mira’s barrier had collapsed, its shimmering fragments dissolving into the mid-morning air. Everyone outside of it had been thrown back, at least twenty feet or more, scattered like broken dolls across the debris-strewn sidewalk, their forms still, whether they were stunned or other I did not know. Even Lucien was lying prostrate on the dirt pile from the construction site, a crumpled heap.

I could feel it, a profound, undeniable absence, a vacuum where immense power had once resided. Whatever powers he possessed were gone, ripped from him by the force of the Vex's slug, leaving him as vulnerable as any mortal man. I strode over to him, my legs unsteady, my body aching, every muscle protesting. 

As I came into proximity, he stirred, a groan escaping his lips, he rolled over with a speed I did not expect, and swung something in my direction. A glint of metal. A goddamned shovel.

Where does this guy get off? I thought, a bitter laugh bubbling up in my throat, a cynical amusement.

I grabbed it in mid-swing and yanked it from his grasp. Turning it around, I pressed the dirty, sharp edge of it against his throat, the metal biting into his skin.

"Get it over with," he rasped, defiant even in defeat, his eyes blazing with a desperate, suicidal fire. "Kill me. You have taken everything anyway." He was daring me, challenging me to become the same monster he was.

I looked around, catching Ryne’s eyes. He was slowly, painfully, pushing himself up from the ground. With a quick gesture of my head, he started walking my way.

"That's not how we serve justice here in DuskWire," I said, a statement of principle in a city that often forgot them. I threw the shovel to the side, the clang of metal against concrete echoing in the sudden quiet, a final, definitive sound. "Ryne, cuff him."