The wind running through his hair never got old, from this high up. It was a sensation he hadn't spent a lot of time appreciating during his gravity-bound days.

Which were behind him now.

Doing a backflip for no reason other than because he could, Finn familiarized himself with the dynamics of aerial movement. Untethered from the ground. No grappling hooks needed, no falling arcs. Just suspension in midair, for as long as he wanted.

Amazing.

This was going to be so useful, that much was certain. Actual, real-deal flight? An indisputable advantage, he could simply stay out of reach for so many future opponents, it was insane.

He did another dip beneath the clouds, gray vapor receding to make way for Apexia sprawling in every direction below. The city lights stood out against the district buildings in the evening.

Finn focused on the feeling of being held up by the chain mail, and came to the conclusion that it was less uncomfortable than expected to be yanked around in the air like this. Likely because it covered most of his body. If it had just been a vest, it would have been a different story.

But it wasn't. That had turned out to be one of his better decisions today. He would have to get back to Mom soon, maybe sleep a bit. His body enhancements had reached a point where he could realistically stay awake forever, but he wanted that mental reset effect from having a quick nap in order to keep himself sharp.

An hour and a half per week would do, he decided. So he had some time. He had already sent his mother a message so she wouldn't worry about his sudden disappearance if she woke up.

For now, he was still testing his flying capabilities. If he pushed himself using fading, the magnetic control allowed him to reach decent speeds.

In a manner of speaking. He said decent, but really, he rocketed upward thrice as fast as a moving car on the highway. A rapid pace by most standards. The problem was that he had already maxed out what he could manage in terms of velocity. On the ground, he could leverage internal electricity enhancements and reinforcement. However, that didn't work in the air. There was nothing to push off of, nothing for his body to use to gain traction.

He frowned. This didn't put him in the top tier of flyers, not yet. Noor could go more than ten times as fast casually, never mind when she was genuinely putting in effort. He wasn't ready for that stage. Even if he didn't want to admit it, he had to. Lying to himself had never done him any good.

Closing his eyes, he let the dampness wash over him again as he ascended, shooting through the clouds like a needle through a blanket. The night sky loomed above, inconceivable in how vast it was. Dark blue dotted with points of white, fading into purple on the horizon where the sun had just set. Up here, free to hover as look around to his heart's content, it felt as if he was doing something illegal.

Irrationally, he had expected someone to come for him here and tell him to get back down, even though no one should be able to find him. As if some secret air police would spawn into existence just to keep him tied to the district. No such thing happened, of course.

This was Apexia's air space, which was kept free of primebeasts by the military at the borders. This far inland, nothing should bother him, save maybe other heroes. There weren't many flyers in A23G's current lineup, fortunately.

He sighed, shaking his head. Diving back down, arms at his sides for better aerodynamics, Finn flew back. Closer to the surface, but not as close as he had expected to, seeing as he didn't have to fly that low.

The reason he was dipping lower was because he needed better reception for what he was about to do. Pulling out his phone with mild surprise at how good of a signal the American model had at this altitude, he stopped distracting himself. His phone opened, list of contacts empty save for Casey and Mom since he'd lost his old number. He opened his Aegis app, taking note of everyone he had chatted with there.

And then there was the person he dreaded talking to the most.

Lyra.

She'd messaged him within minutes of his rank update, asking where he was. Then nothing.

Gritting his teeth, he sent her a message of his own. Her profile came online, and he waited a few minutes before giving her a call.

She didn't respond.

…Did she hate him? She must have been mad at him, still. That wasn't too big of a surprise, he supposed. He had dismissed her pretty hard at the end of the Viperia fight, when he was ready to lay down his life. She hadn't appreciated that. Understandably so, he admitted.

But couldn't they talk? He wanted to see her. He needed to make sure she was alright. Having her safe again, by his side, that was what he wanted most.

If she wanted to make this difficult, he would come to the rescue. As long as he lived, she wasn't going to become another Omega. But it would require a personal visit, from the looks of things. That might prove time-consuming, given his suspicion that she wouldn't be willing to share the location of her house. Or headquarters, whatever.

Either way, she couldn't run from him forever.

Signing out of his account, he typed in a regular number on the phone, muscle memory remembering it by heart.

It rang one, two, three times.

"Hello? Who's this?" Jack Spencer said over the phone. He sounded the same, just like before Finn was gone.

He wanted to stay quiet, on some level. Just leave it at that, knowing he would be fine with just hearing that voice again. But he didn't. He had to reciprocate.

"A ghost, apparently. That's what everyone is calling me these days anyway," he responded.

The line went very silent for a solid thirty seconds.

"Your voice got deeper," Jack whispered, mystified.

"So I've been told."

"YOU'RE FINALLY BACK. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING???" came the roar on the other end of the line, causing Finn to pull the phone away from his ear a bit.

"Going on two years now?" he supplied casually.

"FELT LIKE A GODDAMN HUNDRED, I'LL TELL YOU THAT!"

He smiled slightly, saying, "The afterlife didn't keep me that long."

"You have to tell me the story, what the hell happened?" Jack said in breathless excitement.

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"Not over the phone," Finn shut him down.

"Right," Jack agreed. "Not over the phone. Where are you right now? Apexia? What happened in the US? Did you get any tech? How…" The boy caught himself as he realized most of those questions couldn't be answered.

"Yeah, I'm in Apexia," Finn said.

"Okay, nice. Nice." He almost heard Jack nodding to himself over the line. "There's so much I have to tell you. We gotta talk in real life ASAP. But for now… I'm sorry about Lyra."

"Don't you start with that too," Finn warned. "I just told Casey not to worry about it."

"Oh you talked to her? I didn't even know. Wait," Jack said, "aren't you tired? It must have been a long trip."

"I have a lot of energy."

"Sure you do." His friend clearly didn't believe him.

"Anything urgent?" Finn prompted. If there was an emergency, he might have to go back on his word and rush off to Central right this second.

"...Nothing you should sacrifice your rest for." The other boy cleared his throat. "But to give you an update, I heard—and don't freak out about this—I heard, through the grapevine, that Omega's face got leaked to the DHD and they created a strike team to arrest him."

"They didn't get him," Finn stated, zero shock in his voice. There was no doubt in his mind that Omega had gotten away. Did he trust the government's ability to handle extreme threats like Omega, to take him out where so many others had failed? No. If he did, he would have never made it his purpose to begin with. He might have even joined the DHD.

Six years had passed since Dad's death, and they proved themselves incapable with every day that monster ran free. Enough was enough. If they couldn't do what needed to be done even when he gave them the critical information they needed to set up an ambush, then so be it. This was no surprise. He'd given them a fair chance, but it seemed no one else was up for the task. He would have to kill Gunther himself.

No surprise there.

"You sound really sure of that," Jack noticed. "But yeah, fair. They didn't. Although I do wanna say he won't show his ugly mug here for a while. Rumor has it he got injured and the hit squad is ready for deployment again with new countermeasures. Chances are he'll lay low, or start roaming again."

That was… not heartening to hear. It annoyed him that the confrontation was being delayed, despite it being objectively good for him since he wasn't at all ready for that fight. This way, it would always be a nagging problem in the back of his mind until he dealt with it. He would be glad to see Omega show up somewhere else, if for no other reason than to have some certainty that he wouldn't be caught off guard.

"It's crazy they burned his identity.

"Is it?" he said in a dry tone.

Jack put the pieces together. "Oh no way in hell! How? Dude, you have to tell me your story now. I need to hear everything."

"Tomorrow," Finn promised. "When I get there."

His friend's breath hitched. "You'll be here tomorrow? Holy shit. Where are you sleeping?"

"I don't know yet."

"With me," Jack insisted. "But I only have a day to prep everything to welcome you back? But we need so much shit to make it like the old days. Console, snacks, bad movies…"

Finn listened to his friend excitedly rambling about their reunion, just glad to hear from someone he cared about again.

Though there might have been a great deal of pressure on him, it was good to be back.

*******

The dreams had been getting worse lately.

Ever since Lyra had gained her power, this was the first time she had truly dreamed. Her imagination tended to run wild in her sleep back during her normal human days, but dreamless sleep had become a luxury she took for granted.

It was a weird detail to take note of, mainly because she hadn't until now; aside from some bouts of fragmented sleep at the start, her rest had never been better.

Her phone pinged.

When she saw that it was a message from Finn, her face lit up. Finally! She began to type, eager to—

Discordant tunes rang through her head, so loud they hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut, wondering what was causing it because she wasn't sensing anything amiss. It intensified, growing so painful that she dropped her phone without realizing it, sliding off her bed until she was kneeling on the ground, hissing through her teeth.

"T-t-talk to me," she managed. "Is it you? Wh-why ar- agh. Why?"

The pain didn't end, it just kept going and going and going. She let out an agonized whine, hands grabbing her hair. Naively, she had once let herself think that she was used to pain. That she could endure torture, but she was being proven wrong here. And it would get worse. She could tell.

"What's wrong with me," she gasped out when the pain abated the tiniest amount. "I thought we had an understanding?"

She was broken.

Could she allow Finn to see her like this? She didn't know what she would do if he saw her and… and…

Come closer.

"What?" she said out loud. Her bedroom was empty, and the hideout was relatively quiet. A rarity, during this time of day. Though not surprising since she'd sent some of her people on a mission without her for the first time. She would see how that went later. Right now, her power was communicating.

Just a bit closer.

"How? Is something wrong? Tell me."

In her peripheral vision, the world darkened, and she could feel her body begin to slump.

Just… like…

*******

"That."

A girl sat among enormous buzzing rocks, swerving through the air at the cadence of a ubiquitous hymn. Covered in moss, snow, sand, trees, lava. Every landscape was represented. For what reason, she didn't know.

Now, to see who had brought her here.

She looked up, expecting to see the sky only to find it was completely blotted out by something else.

A tangle of musical notes, abstract in shape but still evocative of all manner of sounds. They formed a tangle, like a thorny hedge stretching into infinity and beyond. And in the middle, impossibly far yet so massive as to still be clearly visible, was a head. Rippling blank skin, no mouth, and wavy purple hair draped over two yawning pits that must have served as eyes.

She knew who this was.

On an instinctive level, the girl understood how strange she was. That she should not be able to clearly remember the existence of this space or form words in it. She did so anyway.

'Hello, Worldsong.'

"Hello, my counterpart," answered the abomination, an orchestra of ancient melodies surging into her as one.

'Where am I?'

"In my domain. Mine and yours."

'Am I unbinding?'

If the huge head had lips, it would be curling them in disgust. "No, of course not. How could you say that? The two of us are inseparable, as it should be. I brought you to me because things are changing, and we need to be ready."

'How are you going to prepare me?'

A vast, grasping tendril of notes extended from the heavens, humming with dark promises of power. It felt wrong in every sense, despite being nothing new. The sight of it granted her a clarity she had thought long lost.

'No,' she protested. She didn't trust it, she didn't trust Worldsong. In fact, she never had. She had only convinced herself that that was the case. Or had it convinced her?

She needed this to end. Why had she ever thought this was a sound idea? She needed to be herself again. 'I don't want this. I don't want you. Stop.'

"Don't be so brash. We can be stronger together. If you would just listen, we could be the strongest."

The girl wanted to go back to the man she loved, she wanted everything to be okay again. She wanted none of this. But she was powerless. 'Please let me go.'

Slowly but surely, the tendril reached her.

Her screams were smothered under the endless song.

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