Ringing.

It started with ringing.

At first, my entire reality was a high-pitched, vibrating keen that hummed through my whole skull—through my very being. I had no other sensations, no other consciousness. Everything was just that shrill note dominating my awareness. It would've been easy to believe the universe was that sound, that it had never been anything else.

I think it was the coldness on my cheek that began to bring me back. It was the next sensation to challenge the assertion that the universe was nothing but a perception of high-pitched ringing.

Then the thought surfaced, swimming up from the clouded depths of a mind lost in sound and the neural signals of cold skin: How… how can my skin be cold? I'm in my suit.

And with that, the rest of my awareness began to bloom. Regretfully, it was the pain that crashed into me next—heat and ravaged flesh blooming across my senses, a diffuse agony radiating from my face and chest.

As quickly as the pain cascaded through me, other thoughts and sensory messages arrived hot on its heels.

The fight! The orb!

A flash of memory: an axe head swelling to obscure all else.

Pike Jaxwulf!

The searing whiteness of light entering my flickering eyes—too white, enough to make me wonder if I'd been blinded. Then the hazy focusing, the slow sharpening of snow all around me.

We were fighting in the snow…

Double vision—understandable, considering the shattering head wound I'd clearly suffered. But something was strange about it. My eyes reported differently. My left eye, above the cold cheek, stung and wept.

I raised a hand to my face and felt the gash. My fingers came away wet with dark, sticky blood. There was a rend in my armor—from above my left brow to just below my cheek. My left eye was peeking into the world without the enhancements of the suit. It was a miracle I still had a left eye at all.

I started to rise. Well—I started to try rising. My body was weak, my head swimming. I felt cold despite the armor. I tried to grip the earth beneath the thick snow, tried to find purchase, to push myself upright.

A strong hand pushed gently against my shoulder, easing me back down. I turned my head. Olaf crouched beside me, his bulk eclipsing the rest of the world. His helm was down, unbothered by the paralyzing cold. His face was solemn—but calm. I can't explain the power he had to imbue calm, but I felt the urgency begin to melt away as I met his eyes.

I started to croak, "Is everyone—"

He spoke over me, "We're all alive. You got the worst of it. I was going to use Healing Hands on you, but the bleeding slowed down on its own. It's a head wound. They always look worse than they are. I can still use it, but I only get it once a day, and I think it's better to save it in case something unexpected happens."

He smiled then—a funny, amused smirk. "Unless you tell me otherwise, boss."

I felt a smile tug at my own lips in spite of everything. But the reality was dawning on me like a boulder being dropped from a great height. We'd been beaten. I didn't need to look around to know it. Olaf's expression told me everything.

Pike Jaxwulf had downed me quickly. The rest had been overwhelmed. One of us was a low-level rookie.

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My stomach began to drop before I'd even realized why.

We'd lost.

The rich Flows of the orb, the next Griid-key—they were gone.

I tried to tie the thoughts together into what they really meant. The finality of it.

Tara's movement drew my eyes. She was approaching from beyond Olaf's planetary frame. She was limping, one leg dragging badly. Her helm was still up, shielding her from the crushing cold.

When she reached me, she knelt—her armored knee making the snow crunch deep beneath her weight. Then she let her helm peel back for a few moments as she spoke.

"It's okay, Ti. We got more out of this season than we ever could have hoped for. We had a great season—won more than has been won in decades. The city will be well for our efforts. This city will know more comforts than it has in a long time. And, Ti, it's just the beginning. This was your first season. You'll grow stronger. Olaf will grow stronger. With synergy, he'll grow so fast. We'll all grow. Next year can be different. It's madness to think we would ever get much further than this. Thoughts about Griid-crowns were pure insanity."

But the sadness that haunted her expression told me that it hadn't been insanity. She had been starting to believe we could do it. I knew I had been.

I thought of Chowwick. Had he died for this—for us to be eliminated so soon? Had he died just so we could secure one more Orb?

It didn't seem…

It seemed to cheapen his sacrifice. It seemed so hollow…

Enki's voice knocked around my skull suddenly. I told you there would be a reckoning. I warned you. See her sadness? You made that happen. If you'd played nice, you wouldn't be lying in the snow counting your blessings that your skull wasn't shattered.

I tried to focus on Tara and Olaf. I didn't want to hear the voice. But it couldn't be unheard. It wouldn't be ignored.

I don't have total control, kiddo, but I can nudge things around. You know the Griidlords out of Green Bay were hunting as well. They only had two members healthy enough to take the field. Imagine—you could have matched up against them instead of the demons from Pittsburgh. The Yinzers might have met another powerful team. They might have half-killed each other. If you'd met them later, your team strong and healthy after knocking out the battered suits from Green Bay… things might have been different. You'll probably spend a lot of time thinking about how things might have been different…

I scrunched my eyes shut at Enki's words, trying not to listen, trying not to think.

Tara must have seen my exposed eye close tightly, must have interpreted the expression as pain or shame or guilt. Her words came quickly, eager to soothe me.

"No, Ti. You need to focus on how far we came. We exploded every expectation—you exploded every expectation. By the Oracle, Ti, a few months ago you were a civilian in the arena… I can't believe—nobody can believe—how far you've come…"

She kept talking, kept praising and reassuring.

I couldn't hear her.

All I could feel, all I could think about, was the defeat. And the words of Enki piercing me.

It had been my choice to take Rosegold on. My choice to provoke the voice that haunted me. I had justified it to myself—trying to take advantage of the situation, to prevent her from hurting my team. But it had been an act of rebellion. It had been a statement. My way of showing the voice that I wouldn't be its creature. That there were limits to the will it could exert on me.

But now I lay in the snow.

I lay crushed and broken, needing days in my pod to recover. My team lay hurt and beaten. Our time in the Falling over for this year.

Chowwick still lay dead and lifeless, his time on this earth spent to keep us going for such a short further stretch.

The reality of it was hard to comprehend.

It was over.

Tara's words reached me again, her stream of consolations touching my ears for a moment.

"…and you've never had a chance to stop. It's been a whirlwind for you. You never even got to celebrate winning the suit, running off to Doge like you did. And then the training you put yourself through, fighting Fiends like they were going extinct and you wanted to get the last one. You'll have a chance to breathe now. There'll be parties. There'll be quiet times. Girls enchanted by the Sword of Boston…"

Something in me stirred at her words.

Something in me recognized that I needed some of what she was prescribing.

The bone-deep exhaustion of the last months started to ooze through me, competing with the pain for my attention. Neither won out completely. Instead, they conspired to make my body and mind a more consuming hell.

But her words were swiftly lost to me as Enki's voice returned. A voice undisguised in its animosity and fervor.

You understand now, what can happen, kiddo. We're partners. I've never—never—tried to fuck you over. I've square-dealed with you since the start. Done nothing but try to help you. Never lied. But you fucked with me. Now you can see what happens when you fuck with me.

Lying there, feeling what you're feeling, I hope you understand…

Don't ever fuck with me again.

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