Fly tried to scramble backward, but his body flickered, phasing between solid and ethereal. Null's strike passed through him, the void-hand emerging from his chest without touching anything vital.
"Interesting," Null mused. "Half in Reality, half in Veil. Chaos didn’t anticipate this."
It struck again, faster, and this time caught Fly's shoulder as he materialized.
Pain exploded through him, not just physical but something deeper, as if the wound tried to drain meaning from his thoughts.
Flash roared, launching himself at Null despite his own flickering state. His fist passed through the entity's head, but Flash adapted instantly, spinning to shield Fly as Null's next attack carved through the space where his brother had been.
"Ah, perfect. The key has taken the bait," Null observed with something like satisfaction. "Efficient."
Flash and Fly solidified, and the entity’s cold, killing thoughts were clear as it surged toward them.
Dagger's skin blazed with heat, steam rising from his sweat. Fire blazed from him, but Fly felt no heat, nothing except a barrier made of living flame. Null’s blade bounced off multiple spots. "Can't get a solid hit on something that isn't solid," he snarled as his attacks were hit-and-miss.
Across the room, Rupture raised its fractured hand toward North. Easy threw himself between them, taking the reality-tearing strike across his ribs. The wound simply...wasn't. Part of Easy ceased to exist for a moment before snapping back into being, leaving him gasping and whole but somehow diminished.
Where Twister’s swan song touched Easy, the wrongness faded. The missing pieces of reality reformed, wounds sealing as if they'd never existed.
"I can keep fixing this," Twister gasped between notes, his voice still distorted by his partially transformed throat. "But not forever."
Shark had found his feet, moving with predator instincts even as his skin shifted between human and something roughand gray. He circled behind Null, testing the entity's awareness. The air churned and turbulence disrupted the entity’s attacks.
Brawler's hands had fully shifted to massive white paws, his spine arched as pack instincts fought human reasoning. Beast materialized beside him, the dog's form flickering between physical and spectral, but his growl was pure menace.
“Do your job!” Null screamed.
Rupture turned his attention away from North. Pressure formed in Fly’s skull until it was almost unbearable. With an explosion of force, Shark and Dagger were blown away like flies.
"Pattern this, Gallagher," Null whispered, and suddenly it was everywhere at once, striking from multiple angles as reality bent around its attacks.
Fly flickered rapidly between states, each phase-shift saving him from annihilation by microseconds. But he was weakening. Each transition cost him energy he couldn't spare. Eventually, he would be solid and he would die.
A new horror bloomed in Fly's mind, slicing through his grief for Mei. This wasn't just about killing them. He looked at the shimmering, unstable air of the room, at the way his own hand seemed to fade in and out of existence. The walls were melting.
He looked toward the room’s exit where the edges solidified, sealing them in.This was a…bubble,he realized, the thought sharp and cold.This space is killing us.
He tried to shout a warning, but his voice was a hoarse croak. He caught Flash's eye, trying to project the knowledge, the pattern he'd just seen.We have to get out. We're being unmade.
* * *
Fly’s realizationhit Flash not as words, but as a spike of cold terror.
This place is killing us.
The transformations, the unreality, the shifting physics. The assassins were only part of it. Chaos had trapped them inside something designed to pull them apart.
“We’re in the Veil!” Flash barked, parrying a strike from Null that felt like it was draining warmth straight from his bones. “We have to get out!”
He reached for the golden thread, connecting them all. He needed formation. Coordination. A way out.
The glowing strands jerked violently in his grip, fraying and knotting at the same time. Twister’s healing agony poured through him, Easy’s hunting instincts snapping at the edges of his control, North digging for something solid beneath the unraveling world. The ties held, but barely.
Across the room, Rupture drove a reality-tearing fist toward North. Easy moved to intercept, but his coordination slipped for half a second. The strike grazed him and Easy cried out in horror, staring at his shifting hands and emerging paws like they belonged to someone else.
“Easy! Shake it off!” Flash roared, forcing his own will into the flow, feeling North already there, reinforcing it. His gaze flicked to the kid, an iron anchor. “You fucking officers always have to outdo us enlisted, don’t you, sir?” Flash growled. North’s faint smile was his only response. “It’s attacking the connection! Don’t let it in!”
North’s attention shifted as he navigated the collapsing floor, fighting to hold the ground steady beneath them. Fly’s weakened mind-voice broke through the noise.Null’s using fragmentation. The idea of us. The team. The brotherhood. Stupid fucker. He doesn’t know us.
