Amid the devastation ...

Betty punched the air and immediately realised how inappropriate that was. Too many people had died, but to know that Principle had arrived gave her hope that fewer casualties would arise. Her journalist's mind, however, had other ideas. She had already retrieved her cell phone, turning it the chaos around her and started taking pictures. A story was a story and she was right here, in the centre of it all, with one of the protagonists. Or an antagonist.

"No. No. No!" Sean pushed himself to his feet, unsteady, clutching his head. "He shouldn't be here!"

"What? It's over. Or as good as." Betty turned her phone skyward, trying to capture the battle high above the city. "It's Principle! If anyone can bring Phaross in, it's him."

"You don't understand!" The small man peered upward, teeth gritted. "I ... he knows Principle's weakness! One of them, at least. A weakness that Phaross can exploit to kill him."

He looked sincere. More than sincere. Sean Smith, alter-ego of the hero, Psycona, if she could call him that anymore, looked as serious as the destruction surrounding him. A weakness? In Principle? That sounded impossible. Principle had fought literal gods. He had fought, and won, against beings that could bend time, space and reality. He had come close to defeat, in the past, but he always prevailed. Always!

"What weakness?" She grabbed hold of Sean's jacket, spinning him around. So odd considering that he wasn't actually real. "What weakness!"

Sean looked as though he wanted to join the fight, but, if Betty could believe him, he had no powers. Not in this form. This illusory aspect of himself. As he was, right now, Sean was even less the hero than his actions, though, it seemed, unintended, had proven him. Less than Psycona. Less than Phaross. Less, even, than the humans around him.

He wasn't real. With her nascent powers, she touched at where his mind should be and found only emptiness. Even while fighting the greatest hero the world had ever known, Phaross continued to maintain the illusion of his human self. Or did he? Was the image of Sean Smith an intended action, or something else? Was the hero, Psycona, still in there, somewhere, fighting his evil counterpart even now?

"Principle is immune to most psychic attacks. Physically as invulnerable as anything. Mentally, one of the most secure minds in the universe. Magic affects him as much as anyone, but it doesn't make him any more vulnerable." Sean touched his head, where a line of blood trickled down his temple. Why would Phaross even show that? "But even someone with cells as dense and compact as Principle has gaps. It's the nature of fundamental particles. There's more space between the particles than there is actual matter and, due to that, there is a vulnerability, however slight."

"I don't think I like where this is going." Betty pulled Sean out of the street as FCFD arrived, sirens wailing. "How vulnerable?"

"I am ... he is telekinetic, among a number of other psychic powers." He slumped against a wall, hand continuing to touch the cut on his head, frowning at the blood. "All he needs to do is keep Principle occupied long enough to introduce, particle by particle, a blockage in Principle's heart."

"He's going to give Principle a heart attack?" Betty couldn't believe how mundane such a death would be. The great Principle, laid low by a damaged heart. "Then you have to do something."

"There's nothing I can do." He slid down the wall, cradling his head in his hands. "Principle is already dead."

-+-

High above the streets ...

He knew. He could tell with every one of his super-senses. The heartbeat was the same. The brain activity, though warped and disturbed, was the same. For good measure, he had also looked down to a cellular level, to the DNA. This was Zjahn Zjmit. Psycona. One of Earth's most stalwart defenders. Principle considered him a friend. An ally. Yet the man before him looked and acted nothing like the Psycona he knew.

"Zjahn! I know it's you." He paused, hovering in the air, his cape flapping around him. "Let's go somewhere. Just you and me. We'll talk. Just that. Talk. What do you say?"

Principle held out a hand. It was almost a universal symbol of trust, of offering friendship, of exposing a vulnerability in order to show no intended harm. This man before him, a different image to that Psycona usually showed, looked at that offered hand and Principle thought, maybe, just maybe, his friend remained inside.

Tony had always known what Psycona truly looked like. The illusions that Zjahn wrapped about him like a comforting blanket had never fooled him. He saw the lizard-like alien beneath the illusion all the time. He saw the scars from the battles that had prompted his journey to Earth, to request aid against the invaders that threatened his planet. Principle and his team, Bastion, and several other, unaffiliated, heroes had answered that call. A call that had come too late and it still ached in Principle's soul that he could not have done more. Could not have arrived faster.

That day, he had let Zjahn down. That entire planet. It was one of Principle's greatest failures and it had guided his actions ever since. Thus, he had to help Zjahn in this moment of crisis. He had a responsibility to bring this to an end before anyone else got hurt. Before Zjahn added to the guilt he would feel as deeply as the loss of his own people. Principle knew he would.

"I don't think so." The sneer upon the illusion of this 'Phaross' did not match the expression upon Zjahn's true form. "Let's get a little grounded, instead. We wouldn't want our beloved humans to miss a second of this."

With the weight of a mountain, Psycona ... Phaross' attack slammed into Principle. A psychic attack, but no less powerful. No less damaging. It sent Principle tumbling Earthward, his cape wrapping around him, tightening as he tried to arrest his fall, but Phaross had followed up that attack with another. Another invisible mountain of psychic power battered at Principle. Enough to send him crashing to the ground, creating a crater and a pressure wave that expanded outward like a massive explosion.

He hadn't felt a hit like that for a long time. Principle had always known Psycona only showed a fraction of his abilities, for whatever reason, but he never thought he could dish out hits as strong as that. It didn't matter that his time in the sub-dimension had weakened him. Even at full power, Psycona, Phaross, or Zjahn, would still have hit just as hard.

Even now, Principle struggled to clamber out of the crater. Water gushed into the air from cracked pipes as the wall of the crater crumbled beneath his fingers. He needed a second. Only a second. Enough to get his breath back after that attack. All around, he saw buildings listing, crumbling, falling like dominoes to the ground. People that needed saving. People dying. He could help them. He only needed a second. Just a second.

The illusion of an armoured boot fell upon his hand and Principle looked up to a grin upon the face of Phaross. It was Phaross, now. No part of Psycona, or Zjahn remained. The grin widened as, aided by psychic power, the boot began to grind against Principle's fingers.

"Finding it a little hard to breathe?" A short, hiccuping laugh followed that. "Well, we can't let you recover from that, can we?"

As Principle prepared to suffer the next attack, his thoughts turned to another place, another city, where someone he loved more than life itself awaited him. And, not only Leona, but his son. His son! He had never thought such a thing could happen, but, among all the danger, the hatred and the toxic world they had called home for a year, the sub-dimension had also given him the most precious gift. The ability to father a child. His son!

He hadn't even said goodbye.

-+-

Less than a block away ...

The woman almost ran across the rubble and made careful steps around the bodies, her eyes flickering away every time in order not to see the ruin that he had caused. Not directly, no, but this was all his fault. He had wanted greater recognition, a greater challenge, and he had unleashed a creature that could, with ease, do to this world what the invaders had done to his own. There was no irony there, only guilt. Guilt for what he had failed to do to save his world and guilt at what his other self now did to this.

Zjahn didn't know what she expected to achieve. She couldn't survive against Phaross, not even with these new abilities she had revealed to him. He had always felt she had dormant psychic powers, it was one of the things that made her less repulsive than most humans, but he had never expected those psychic abilities to manifest. And, though he could sense a great deal of power within her, now that she had revealed herself, she had not near the power to face him. Or, rather, to face Phaross.

If nothing else, his existence, in this form, not wavering or fading, independently thinking and acting, though he wondered how much free will, if any, he had, proved how powerful Phaross was. Unshackled from the weight of having to minimise his powers in order to not worry the humans. Zjahn had thought he had pushed his abilities in the past, but the sheer strength it took to fight Principle, while still maintaining this pathetic human shell, awed even himself.

"You are only placing yourself in danger, Betty Burns." He stumbled upon a loose piece of rubble. "You can do nothing of any consequence. You are only ..."

"Human?" Her head whipped around, standing at the crest of a mound of rubble, flames providing her with an aura of red and yellow wings. She looked magnificent. "Yeah. Well, I'm proud to be human. We're not perfect, in fact we're pretty messed up, but, sometimes, not often, we show just what it's possible for us to be."

She pointed behind him and Zjahn turned to see not only the emergency services picking through the rubble, but ordinary citizens. Men, women, even a couple of children, searching for survivors amid the rubble even as the ground shook ever more from the battle between Principle and Phaross. They still tried to help. Surrounded by dust, flames, cascading water and the ever-present danger of the two supers fighting. They worked to help each other.

"I ... I meant no offence." Of course he had. He meant nothing but offence. Their very existences offended him and he had often raged, silently, into the night that he had forced this responsibility upon himself. His penance. "Still, the fact remains that though you may have undetermined powers, you cannot hope to fight against him. Against me. I know my abilities and they dwarf yours."

"Who says I'm here to fight?" Amid the devastation, the pain and the death, the woman still managed to find within herself the ability to smile. "And you're going to help me."

Zjahn knew the entire endeavour was not only foolish, but dangerous. Not for him, obviously, as he did not truly exist, but for her. Strangely, he could not recall when he started caring whether this human lived or died, but he knew he did so now. He cared for her well-being and disliked that she now put herself in harm's way.

Yet, he couldn't help but admit that, even had he the entirety of his powers at his disposal, he doubted he could make her do anything she didn't want to do. Nor could he stop her now. He could only follow in her wake and hope that he could keep her safe, in whatever minimal fashion his current predicament would allow. He could not live with himself if any harm came to Betty Burns.