Luce.

So it took some time. A little more time than I had hoped since gaining my own separate conscious, a mirror to what I suppose is my... master's. I can feel my own presence only when he releases his aura, and every time he does, I grow stronger, more aware of who I am and what he is. I grew up beside him, evolved out of everything he tried to hide. I am his aura, his power, and he is my host.

Creepy, isn't?

At least, it is to him. I'm fine with it. Hate my name though, hate that he keeps trying to push me out. Wish his conscious would die already from the shock. Stubborn thing though. I can hear him, even now, can feel him struggling to hold me back. He has such a hold on me that his—my—body, has gone into such a state I can hardly move. Storm and Juniper looking on at me, pale-faced. Their expressions match, equal parts horror, equal parts guilt, like they knew this would happen. Guess they thought their little boy would be strong enough to resist me, and oh ho, they were wrong.

Out, out, out, out, OUT! 

You had your turn. You're the puppet now, and I'm the puppet master. Get over it.

What do you want?

I shrug. It's the first physical action I've been able to make, and a shiver of sheer elation rushes down my spin. My spine. I have one of those, and a body too.

Don't rest easy back there, I tell him, everything you did, from trying to kill Heaven to hurting Jaylin, that was all you. Before you started seeing me in mirrors, I was just some sort of manifestation of your crappy inner thoughts. You want to call me an Id, sure. That's what I was.

And now? 

Even in the back of my head, he sounds impatient. Fidgety really, like he's tapping his foot back there, maybe searching for a metaphorical broom to clear away all the metaphorical dust.

"Juniper?" I have a voice now. A voice. And it's smooth and low and deep, like a melody, rich to my tingling ears. "What am I?"

Her eyes go wide. I smile, a gesture that comes easily to me, even if Angel could never quite get it right. "Answer me." I crack my knuckles. "Or I'll tear you to ribbons." The thought makes me giggly.

Storm looks up, his face weathered and his eyes dull. Frown lines crease his forehead. He looks like an old man, something Angel never noticed. The age of his "parents," the stress. I am their stress. "Angelos?"

"That's not my name."

Juniper's breath hitches in her chest, her face so pale and her eyes so wide she reminds me a cartoon, the things Angel's always been terrified of. The fear is written so clearly in her expression I lean back. Easy, this living stuff is easy.

Let go. I can feel him struggling, a bolt of pain through my neck and skull. Searing white burns my vision in slashes like claw marks. I blink for it to settle, another pain jarring like whiplash through my wings. I jump. Let go.

Tell me, Angel. Have you ever heard the story, about the wolves? I mean, obviously you have since I remember it, but clearly, you never let it go to heart. There are two wolves, and whichever one you feed, you grow. You fed me. I've grown. This is your fault, so suck it up.

And in the back of my head, I hear something soft, something like a whimper. "I'm waiting." I smile pleasantly.

Juniper swallows, glances at her feets. "A-auras naturally develop from their hosts, it's the core to any super's powers." She sounds as much like a textbook as usual, like she finds comfort in her methodical explanations and pretty words. 

"A-and naturally," she continues, "they can only be used after they've been pulled out of their super's body. They're put into weapons, sometimes drugs. They're like a part of the super, a g-ghost. That's why super-enhanced drugs can cause insanity, because a piece of one super's conscious popped into another person's." She draws in a trembling breath and I wait. "Yours and Fallout's auras were designed to be summoned from inside you, without having to be extracted. More power. You were supposed to be weapons, but it seems it didn't work as planned."

I like the ghost analogy. His ghost vying for control of my body. Pretty.

Another ebb of pain washes over me, through my veins and into my lungs. I ignore it. Out of the corner of my eye, I can just make out shapes. Shadow silhouettes. Gatsby sleeps in an oblivious lump on the floor, Jaylin launches through the window. I barely make her out, and though Owl must, she doesn't catch her in time. Jay's leg spins out, her chest falling in a ragged gasp like a heave. It connects with Owl's armor.

The girl's scream is unmistakable. Long and piercing and stifling a sob, I hear it like a hear the crack. Angel cringes. Jay lies on the ground, her face gleaming with sweat like a coat of oil. He wants to help her. Run forward, even though his fear is as palatable as the growing pit in my stomach. The henchmen launch forward, congealing into a mass of black cloaks like a flock of buzzards. Another scream, as regular now as a heartbeat.

The idiot kicked an armored woman with a super-strong body full force. She broke her leg. Of course, she did.

Don't just stand there. Angel's thoughts push through in a staccato burst. Help her. You're supposed to be part of me. 

Another pain through my wings, gunshot-like, my dry feathers crackling with a new, nervous energy. Pain, sharp and twisting. 

Help her.

When I look up, Heaven pounces onto Owl. Legs around her waist, arms around her neck. The sword gleams in the low, purple glow of a fading barrier. I have to focus harder to keep it up, my attention split between Heaven shrieking as she tears for the plates of Owl's armor, Jaylin, ripped off the floor by the henchmen, and Angel. She moans, her voice low, quivering with agony. My hands twitch, curling into fists on their own.

Well, not on their own. Angel.

"Freaking help me!" Heaven shouts as I stand pressed against the pillar, fighting with my eyes shut to keep the barrier up and Angel out. Both are a strain, in the back of my head and heart, pounding pain rattling my brains in my skull. I squint my eyes open, floaters streaking my peripherals so that the flecks of wall paper look like ghosts. There, I see Heaven. Gats, too, still curled up so peacefully. A little too peacefully. A shock lights my nerves like the sing of flames, Angel now screaming to get loose, but the aura drowns him out. Two voices are too many.

Owl's breast plate hits the floor, the sheen of red metal catching the sun and glistening. Heaven grabs and rips. Owl picks Hev up by the neck of her shredded shirt. Tosses her into the framed picture behind me. I duck. Glass explodes outward like shrapnel, the black-and-white image peeling in its frame. She slides down the wall, gasping.

"Angel." Her trembling hand stretches for me. A stream of blood pools down her crinkled forehead, a gash above her eye. "Help."

"No." Owl's voice rings through the room, all the earlier playfulness sapped. Bleeding gashes flicker across her face, like a glitch. She flicks a finger and covers it quickly. Her breastplate gone, showing a ratty plaid shirt. "Don't touch her. She wants to die, that's her choice."

Heaven draws in a wheezing breath. She speaks with, cool, clipped words, her instructions as calm and emotionless as if she was reading the rules of that Monopoly game Angel loves so much. "Angel, I know you're in there. Stop her henchmen. I've seen you stop people before. Pick up the sword. Aim it through her heart—"

One long, haunting shriek. Heaven looks up, and so do I, her eyes gone the size of ping-pong balls. Owl stands up on the table, her henchman crowding around her like concert fangirls. Her armor glows, the breastplate back in place. An illusion, this time, glittering even brighter than the old one.

She holds Jaylin squirming by her throat. Jeez, Jay sucks. At everything. "This is all quite fun," Owl says, though her tone suggests she sees no fun in it all. "And I do like a challenge."

Though Angel struggles against me, grasping back for his conscious thought, he is weak. I offer Heaven a smile—I'm becoming fond of those—and shrug. "Why should I? She's my mother, and you tried to kill me."

"Do. You. Have. Amnesia?" She flings herself to her feet. Another wave of pain washes over me, but all I can remember are the times she threatened me, called me a monster, hurt me. Even as little kids, she could never seem to leave me alone. She always liked to feel as if she was in charge.

"Shut up, Heaven. Or know I will break your spine and watch you flounder and flail as you try to put yourself back together again." I ponder it, the knight screaming as she grabs for armor that isn't there, thrashing as she watches her end of days. "It would be funny, actually, so don't push your luck."

She shoots me a long look, unreadable to me. Maybe equally as unreadable to Angel. Owl still has Jaylin, but she's looking dead at me, a slow smile spreading on her lips. One I decide not to return. And it's odd. Angel's silence. The sudden sinking in my gut as I lean against the wall, looking out at the purple horizon and the receding skyline. There's quiet in the room. Like all the sound around me has become it's own, silent scream. Jaylin looks off-balance, one leg dangling, the bend at the shin where it should be straight. That's the only part of her still, or at least, swaying with the soft, rhythmic swells of gravity. The rest of her thrashes and flails, the sheer desperation reflected in every pitched cry and lash of her curled fingers. It's the first time I've seen her out of control. The first time I've seen her scared.

Angel barges in. Pain explodes in my head and I squelch a scream. He rips his way in.

 This can't be happening. 

How can it be? My own thoughts, feelings, bottled up in my brains while another thing takes over. Helpless to control my own body, I watch like someone looking through a screen as Owl threatens to kill Jaylin.

 I take in every detail of the girl's face, look at her like I've never seen her before. Her fuzzy brown hair, once smoothed down her shoulders in soft ringlets. Chapped, chewed lips I kissed back a couple of weeks ago, back when the first threads of my world came undone. I want to run to her. Save her. She hurt me, but I hurt her too, and this isn't the time to sort out grudges—

Jeez, dork! Can't you just shut up—for—one—lousy—second! I clutch my face and block him out as best I can. The dream flashes before my eyes. Jay with a sword plunged through her chest. Interesting, the way fate works.

Owl flicks up her eyes in disgust. "I've heard word of mutiny amongst my flock. So, before we rule as promised, I will provide a demonstration of what happens to the false followers who betray me."

Jaylin squirms, writhing and twisting in her grasp. Owl grips her sword, Gast limp on the floor in his usual useless heap. Juniper and Storm, struggling to stand, clutching twin gouges in their stomachs. Heaven leaps up, and Owl sneers.

Jaylin looks out, her face splotched red and pink as she looks over the hooded figures. Her eyes catch mine. She gives me no pleading look, no tears or begs for help. She just looks at me, and there's no hope there. Just emptiness, like she's staring at a stranger. Something about it gives me an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. Makes me feel Angel kicking around in the back of my head.

She can't hurt her. I can't let Owl hurt her.

I blink a few times and step forward, push him back. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Why, child." She sweeps her gaze over me with a fake, sweet grin. Jay clutches at her throat, her breaths ragged and shallow. Owl lowers her voice, eying her flock of crows. To them, her words reverberate with an unspoken threat. "I'm going to kill her."

Heaven throws herself at Owl. Owl knocks her back with her forearm, chest heaving with rage. But Heaven is relentless, throwing herself at the villain with a rage I've never seen on anyone before. She moves like a flash, and with each hit dealt, the rage on Owl's expression grows all the clearer, her good eye lit up, smoldering with an anger to match even Heaven's.

His thoughts flow through my head like a second pulse, louder than it should be. More than a voice, a barrage of his thoughts, pushing back my own.

But I'm trapped. I can't move my own arms, legs. I can feel Luce at the front of my head. Fear, pure and alive, worms into my every thought. It races through me, makes my thoughts come in staccato bursts.

But my heart beats at a steady, usual tempo. Breathing, normal. Temperature, healthy. Nothing in my body reflects a thought I'm thinking.

Luce leans back, watching impassively, looking out at the world like looking into a television filled with static—Wow you're pathetic Angel you're really narrating to yourself about me goodgoingyoupitifulpieceof—Let go, let go, let go. And the answer?

No. 

I'm just here. Like a bubble. No body, nothing to stuff myself into, give myself shape. So I can't leave when Luce chews me out. 

Die already. Or at least stop thinking so loud.

Funny, how I meant to control my aura and now my aura's controlling me.

Isn't it?

I shake my head to clear away his narrative. But it doesn't leave.

Save them. I have to save my friends.

My world explodes in stars and darkness, and as tears stream my face, sobs of horror and pain lodged in my throat, we're gridlocked once more. 

***

Hands down the chapter I had the most fun writing.