In my first week landing in End, I would pace. Pace in my room, in the halls, on the walking tracks, in the biodomes, everywhere. One foot after the other, tracking an aimless path back and forth like my mind between decisions. The first week I felt the stares, the empty spot where my holowatch used to be, the cool tiled floor or rough texture of the carpet on my mandatory bare feet. it wasn't a prison, not quite, but here, I was the villain.

After so long dithering between who I would be, whether Blank Slate was a person I wanted to be, whether villain was the side I would take, the decision to go Edison's way should've lifted the burden on my shoulders.

It didn't.

There, I was the villain I tried to convince myself I was. It was obvious with the security checks, the looks, the constant PowDown patch. I was a villain to those people, even though my very presence here meant I didn't want to be one anymore. It makes me wonder what would have happened if I hadn't chosen Edison's way. Would I have failed pretending to be Blank Slate, the number one villain? Would have I given up and rotted in a prison? Or...would have I just ended up dead, like other high-powered and unsaveable villains?

It bothered me, that question, so I paced until my feet were sore. Now, months later, I am pacing again. My limbs are jittery and the force of my thoughts keep me on my feet, keep me moving, keep me wearing a hole in the carpet. This time, it isn't the regret or anguish over a made decision. This time, it's the decision not made: the choice between Edison's way, Deception's, or mine (whatever that will be).

I know which one I should take—Edison's—but if I've learned anything these past months is that choices aren't ride or die, absolutely one way or another, or hard black and white. Edison's way might not be the fully right way, and Deception's might not be the fully wrong way. One might be poison, or it might be both, or it might be neither—I don't know. I don't know so I pace and jitter and dither over a choice that should be easy, chest burning with each step.

Hours later, I am no closer to an answer than I was before. With a final sigh and running my fingers through my curls, I shake my head and turn to the rest of my room. It looks as unlived-in and unfriendly as it had when I first arrived, minus the wrinkled pillows and the mismatched placements of the game controllers.

"Megabytes," I murmur just to break the fizzle of silence. Megabytes, Edison, please come find me soon. The room doesn't answer and I swallow, shaking off the ache and itch of being alone. Again. Walking to the shelves, I fish out Wraith's watch from the hiding place I'd stashed it after retrieving it from the couch and stuff it in my pocket. Taking one last sweep of the room, I leave and trot down the hall, hands in my pockets as I peer into each shadow for Wraith.

Like I expected, I find her leaning against the wall in a particularly dark corner of the console room. She's smoking again, several cigarette butts already littering the small, hovering ashtray by her side. There's dark circles under her eyes, and when she spots me approaching, she scowls with enough venom I forgo social conventions and stick out my hand with her watch as fast as possible.

"Yours," I say, the word jumping out of my mouth as if it was on fire. "And, uh—thanks." Megabytes that was horrible.

Wraith's scowl turns into a wary glare as she studies me. With a huff and puff of smoke, she snatches the watch from my hand and straps it on. "Whatever," she mutters. "You better have done the smart thing."

Internally, I freeze. "The 'smart thing?'" There was something specific she wanted me to do with it? Did I do it? Or had I messed up again?

Wraith rolls her eyes hard and shakes her head so the strands of her hair send the cloud of smoke hanging around her into spinning eddies. "Just don't ask for it again."

A crease forms between my brows. I...didn't ask for it in the first place, but...sure. I want to press, but she seems extra prickly today, and I don't feel like getting punched. Because the look she's giving me right now says she would if I did.

"Hey! You two!" Conflagration runs up and grabs my arm. I flinch. His hand is hot, almost to the point of burning, and he bounces on his heels like an excited fire.

He makes a grab at Wraith's arm but she snatches his hand out of the air and gives it a twist that looks painful. Conflagration doesn't even twitch. He just grins wider and jerks his head towards the Don't Go There Hall. "Grease needs us for a project. Come on!"

Wraith narrows her eyes. "No way, Flame Boy. I already made it clear I am not going to be her lab rat."

Conflagration smirks. "Yes way you are, Smokebreather. Besides, it's going to be fun! She's geared up some new guns and we're going to have a shoot off."

Wraith glares, but it's less 'I'm going to rip your arm off' and more tinged with a hint of curiosity. She's...not actually considering this, is she?

I tug at my arm, eyeing both of them. Whatever this is, I do not want to be a part of. It seems dubious at best, and Grease shot at me last time I saw her. I do not want to go anywhere near her again if I can help it.

But Wraith doesn't give me a chance to tug free and duck out. Shoving aside Conflagration's hand, she pushes off the wall and peels off Conflagration's hand from my arm. "Ugh, fine," she huffs. "But only if I get to shoot that ever-present grin off your face."

Conflagration cackles, taking a few quick steps back. "You can try!" He salutes in a sloppy, strangely rhythmic way and darts off, a wisp of his hair smoking with the first sign of fire.

Wraith sighs and shakes her hand as if to clear it of invisible ash left over from Conflagration's skin. With a pointed eye roll, she puts out her cigarette and gives the hovering ashtray a gentle push towards the hall. It glides away with an affirmative chime.

I watch it go, apprehension scratching at the underside of my ribs. "So, uhm..."

Without looking up from adjusting the atomic knives on her belt, Wraith says as if her words solves all my problems, "It's not optional. Unless you want Grease breaking down your door and threatening you at gunpoint until you cooperate, you better come now." She glances up, eyebrows raised as if to say, 'now do you want to run?'

A flash of Grease kicking down my door and waving a gun around crosses my mind and I grimace. That is a situation I definitely do not want to happen. With the track record of everyone down here, I don't doubt Wraith. It's exactly what a villain would do. But that means I'll have to actually participate. In a gunfight. Guns, which are very likely not up to safety code.

If I die today, I am going to be so unimpressed.

With a jerk of her head, Wraith starts towards the Don't Go There Hall. "Come on, Blank Slate. Let's go have some fun."

"Like getting shot at is fun," I mutter under my breath, hesitate, groan, and hurry my steps to catch up with her.

Trepidation slinks up my spine like a snake the further I follow Wraith into the Don't Go There Hall. It's dim—the lights are turned down to the lowest setting above off—and the remnants of Grease's door strewn across the floor only add to the increasing feeling of danger.

The inside of the room is more brightly lit and full of a heavy stench of grease, oil, and metal. I blink, squinting until my eyes adjust. Grease's room is a cluttered mess of metal, wires, and scraps piled haphazardly on overflowing shelves, tables, and even the floor, looking like an overflowing dragon horde of gray, white, and black treasure. A few paths are carved out through the clutter, only barely kept clear from scattered screws, bolts, and other small metal bits and bobs.

Various machinery hunker by the walls like mutated gargoyles, mechanical arms and wires protruding this way and that. The only space mostly untouched by metal bits and bobs is two worktables deep inside the far right corner. Holograms hover all around it, distorting the view behind it enough I can't make out what is on the table. Grease stands in the middle of the room at a small island, where five guns with wires and metal bits sticking out, five small white cubes, and five white belts are laid out in a neat row.

Grease glances at all of us, smirks, then picks up a cube and a gun. "Right. Two teams, two lives, fifteen shots, and the game is won when the opposing team is out of lives. Questions?"

Conflagration snatches a belt and starts fastening one of the white belts around his waist, finishing up by attaching a cube to a hard white square at his hip. "Does it hurt?" He sounds way too eager about it.

Grease bares her teeth in a feral grin. "You betcha it does."

With a delight crow, Conflagration crows snatches up his gun and fires at the wall. A bright blue bolt blasts out of the tip, screams through the air, and hits the wall with a crackle of blue lightning, leaving behind a small scorch mark. He whoops and I wince. That looks...very painful.

"Aaaaand now you have fourteen shots left." Grease rolls her eyes and hands out the rest of the belts, cubes, and guns to me and Wraith.

"Can't we not count this one?" Conflagration frowns at his gun, twirling it around with almost as much skill as Galah does with her pink sticks.

Grease shoves his shoulder. "No, you idiot. The energy generator can only handle fifteen shots. One more than that and it might overheat and explode."

Explode? I look down at the black boxy gun with exposed wires (or pipes? It's hard to tell) in my hands. Set in the middle of the metal and wires is a canister with a blue line running down the middle, ending at a holographic '15'. If one bullet scorched the wall... My muscles tighten as phantom sparks of lightning and heat skate over my skin.

This is wonderful. Totally awesome. Spectacular. I am screwed...or maybe scorched. For not the first time, I glance at the exit, wishing I could float away as easily and unobtrusively as Wraith's hovering ashtray. I don't need to do this. I am not one of them, a lab rat, a part of the group. I could leave.

My mind flickers back to Grease's snarl and gun, the sound of the bang, the leap of terror it had brought, and shove down my second thoughts. This will help, I tell myself—the part that winces at the thought of firing and being fired at—as I strap on the white belt with the connection plate sewn into it and attach the palm-sized cube. It'll get you used to a gun. You'll need to at least know how to dodge one if you're going to escape.

Or you'll get burnt so badly you won't be in any shape to escape, a part of me argues. I shove it down and stomp on it, forcing my attention back to Grease (who has Conflagration in a headlock), Conflagration (who is shouting and is suspiciously smokey), and Wraith (who looks like she was done with this three years ago).

Wraith catches me looking, heaves a sigh, and raises her voice. "So, teams? Or are you two going to wrestle all day?"

Grease frees a hand and sticks out her thumb, pointing it at herself and Conflagration. "Me, him"—she points at me and Wraith—"you, her."

A scowl spreads across Wraith's face like a rift in a video game. "Taking the experienced ones all for yourself."

Grease cocks an eyebrow, feigning nonchalance. "I figured since you and him are so buddy buddy you'd play nice together." She glances between me and Wraith as if there were something significant to see.

I splutter. "Seriously?" Buddy buddy? She barely stands my presence!

"Stick your nose where it belongs, Grease Fingers." Wraith growls and curls her fingers dangerously close to the trigger of her gun, glaring so hard it's almost a surprise Grease doesn't melt.

"Maybe if you weren't associating with Doomsday, I would, Smokebreather." Grease matches Wraith's glare with something dark and poisonous as oil, a sour, serious turn to her lips.

"It's nothing like that," Wraith spits so low and with so much venom that a flicker passes Grease's eyes and she concedes with a huff.

I grit my teeth, gaze flicking between them. Doomsday? They call me Doomsday, not even Blank Slate? A chill seeps down my back and settles in the pit of my stomach like a lump of ice, the memory of the thrill of blanking the tower washing over me. I could bring doom to an entire building, perhaps even a sector if I blanked the right tower. My eyes drop to my hands, which are cold. They're always cold now.

Movement flickers to my left and I look up. Wraith is stalking out of the room, head held high and hands clenched tightly at her sides. With a glance at Conflagration and Grease, who just raises her eyebrows at me, I turn and quickly follow Wraith.

Wraith rounds the curve of the hall and stops, tense shoulders lifting with a deep, carefully measured breath. Shaking her head, squabbles, she turns to me, detaching her cube, which lights up with "select team member" hovering over one of its faces. Reaching over, she snatches my cube and presses both cubes together until both light up with "team member registered. Stand by for starting."

She tosses me my cube and I catch it out of reflex, frowning. Her movements are shark and jerky and a scowl dominates her expression as she checks her gun and readies herself.

I glance to my own gun, then to the hall behind me. She doesn't seem in the mood for answering questions, but I hazard one anyway. "Is this normal? The gun fight thing?"

"Yes." Wraith snorts, her opinion on the matter clear in the tone of her voice. "Do you remember how to shoot?"

My eyes drop to the gun in my right hand. Before End, I looked up my files in the Heroes' database. Blank Slate used a gun but was partial to an atomic knife, probably the very same one I had found in my old apartment.

I don't remember using a gun or ever learning, but the weight of it, the shape of it, feels familiar. Almost like normal, natural like picking up a pen. After nearly perfectly executing a complicated attack combo in one of the video games we were playing, David once told me that while my mind doesn't remember, my body likely does.

"Your fingers remember what to do," he'd said. "They haven't lost their memory."

The way my fingers wrap around the gun's handle, pointer finger not quite resting on the trigger, tells me that they do remember. That once, I was comfortable with a gun in my hand and a knife in my belt. Gripping the gun harder, I jerk my head down once. "I think so."

Wraith eyes me through stray strands of her black hair. "You better." She glances down the hall and the look is gone, replaced by one of mild annoyance. "Look, just stick close and try not to die, okay? These bolts are going to be painful."

I grimace and nod, recalling the flash and crackle of the blue lightning. "Yeah. I'll try to stay out of your way."

She eyes me again, a strange expression on her face. It isn't prickly hostility, judgment, or any of her normal expressions. It's eerily unreadable, shifting and rippling like a smoke screen. She doesn't answer, and instead presses her back to the wall, gun up and ready.

Trying to emulate the same sort of grace she moves, I copy, grip tightening on the gun as ice washes down into my hands. My fingers tingle with frost and I will some of my power to go away. It doesn't work. It knows I am about to go into a gun fight, and however fake it is, it's still going to hurt. It's still against people who don't play nice, who don't care if I or anyone else gets hurt, who know exactly when and where is too far because they've crossed that line before.

And worse? They might think I am like them, that I know when and where to stop, that I know this is a mock battle and can handle myself accordingly, that I know what I am getting myself into.

I don't.

Maybe I never did. Maybe I always thought it was a game where rules don't matter and death just means respawn. Maybe I never knew where and when to stop and destroyed things, so many things, just like a creature on doomsday. Maybe I deserved the name Doomsday.

"Starting in five...four..."

I close my eyes, breathe deep, a haunting feeling in my chest, a chill and shiver like frost, ice cold tracing the shape of a question mark on a foggy pane of glass.

"...two...one. FIGHT!"