***ALEX***

I wish I could stop fighting.

I wish this were a moment when I could.

But in my life, convenience in the heat of battle has a way of failing to exist, and today's fight at Scoville headquarters is no exception.

Never mind that Jesus Himself has literally just died in my arms. How can someone just move on from that? No, don't ask me to go to Elliot for the answer.

Am I wrong, or is Josh glowing as I hold him? His brown skin turns a bright golden shade. For a moment, my heart stops - is he coming back? Please, please, please let him be-

No.

The glow fades away, and Josh remains still and lifeless.

"Alex? Hey, Alex, get up-WHOAHOLYSHITWHATTHEFUCK?"

I jump to my feet and see Gideon coming through the door, only to stop when he sees me. Gasping, one hand on his chest, he points at me with the other. "Fuck," he whispers. "Alex, what happened to you?"

"What are you talking..." My voice trails off as I reach out towards him and see my hand. It's blue as a berry.

He takes a picture of me, then turns his phone around so I can see it. "What?" I yelp. My entire face is blue like a Heavenly sunset. Lighter than my hand, but not a shade a person's skin should have. And worse, it looks like it's taken on a crystalline texture. Plus, my hair has changed too. It's white and thin, and longer than I remember. Then I see that same hair fluttering in front of my face. Swaying side to side like I'm swimming, except I'm on dry land, so it just looks surreal and computer-generated.

Gideon can't say anything but more F-bombs. In Spanish too. I stay rooted to the spot until he vents his shock, then he finally says something coherent, though even more terrifying. "This picture's not accurate anymore. You lightened up even more already. You're, like, all white now."

"How the hell...?" My whole body shakes. "I...is it because I tried to bring him back to life?"

"You what now?"

"I don't know!" I look from Gideon to Josh, hoping to see him glowing again, if not actually coming back to life. "I was...I was just...I thought if I-"

"What, prayed him back? How much good has that ever done for you?" He flinches as I take a step his way. "No, stop! Don't touch me!"

"I'm not gonna-"

"I'm sorry, but how can you still pray for anything? Knowing who's supposed to be hearing them?" He turns his head and rolls his eyes, directing a dirty look at the ceiling. "I know, I know, I'm a bloody atheist, but still. Your God can suck my ass and not complain when I inevitably shit in his mouth."

"I'm not arguing that."

"But just listen to me!" He might not want me to touch him, but he's getting pretty close to me now. Like he wants to reach up and slap some sense into me. "You can't just stop fighting, Alex! We're all fighting now! Every moment!"

"Some of us have fucking limits!"

"Don't go there! You never say that about yourself! Why start now?"

Rather than answer, I turn around and race down the hall, flying as fast as I can and ignoring the sound of Gideon trying to call me back. No doubt he'll soon be joined by other friends of ours, but what's most important to me now is actually listening to Gideon for a bit and not stopping fighting.

What would Josh have me do? My guess is he'd have me stop and take stock of my own mental health.

But I love him and I can't bear to let him go unavenged.

Sorry, Josh. I'll have to go against my imagination of your wishes.

The hallway leads me, again, to Kristoff Scoville's office. It's empty now, though. No Elliot, no AK. Not even the one I want to ice - I won't even call him a man; he's a fucking monster. And I know monsters. My own father still haunts my nightmares sometimes, more than I've ever told anyone. I don't care how much he felt he could justify his actions. He's unforgivable. I could be talking about Elijah, or Preston Holly, or Kristoff. All those vile pieces of shit that refuse to flush no matter how many times I push the handle.

Then I look through the window overseeing the facility below. On the other side of this enormous space, Kristoff Scoville scrambles to get away.

I jump through the window, keeping my wings folded just long enough to keep the small pieces of broken glass on the sides from cutting me. I can't, though, because there's just too much glass to avoid completely. My wings sting, but I can't pay too much attention to that now. I just have to fly on, ready to take Kristoff down, and not worry about how much blood I must be losing. Well, maybe not that much if I can still fly worth a damn. How long that'll last, that's another story, one I still need to finish.

One thing's for sure, Scoville's not above using his own people as shields. He literally throws people out of his way if he can reach them. Or if they're unlucky enough to be too close when he's blowing by. Which part of Australia is he from again? Tasmania? And no doubt he's one of those white Australians descended from British prisoners too, which would explain a lot. Like how cutthroat he is. It wouldn't explain his charisma, but who or what can explain that?

Let's answer that another time.

For now, I'm still chasing Scoville all the way across the lab, dodging more threats to the intactness of my wings' skin. The machines around here are still producing a bunch more machines, all supervised by lab techs with clipboards. Who may or may not be machines themselves, let's be honest. I'm not going to ask them to confirm their identity as biological, cybernetic, or other.

"Scoville!" I scream as I tear through the door through which I saw him disappear two seconds ago. "Show yourself!" On the other side of the door, there's a small break room, just like the one where we left Ahmad and Michael. This one has a bigger freezer, not the mini variety, and a whole mess of people's ice cream and other chilled foodstuffs all over the floor. Which inspires me to step next to the fridge and feel out the cooling coils inside the machine. Can I turn those up with my elemental? It's a long shot, but if it gets me to literally freeze Scoville out, it's worth it.

Or, even better, what if I trap him in there? Sculpted from my personal ice.

It's been so long since I've felt so murderous, and now I'm scared I might actually kill someone.

But my lizard brain refuses to take no for an answer. My id's idea will not be ignored.

I reach out with my elemental. The nearest sources of power to me are the melting ice packs, which almost made me slip coming in. But then I catch on to the coils on the back of the freezer. I must be able to interact with them now because I'm a little more high-powered. Once again, my rational brain screams bloody murder, begging me to stop.

Begging the ice leaking from my fingers and crystallizing all over the back of the freezer.

The lights overhead flicker dangerously, going out for long seconds at a time. Is that my doing? Or is that from someone else fighting Scoville's goons in another part of the building?

The door squeaks a bit as Scoville himself spills out. I turn around and see him revolving on the spot as well, staring me down. "What the fuck are you doing?" he asks. "You think this place is a rock concert?"

"No." I waft some of the mist rising around me his way. "But as you can see, I brought my own fog machine."

"Who the hell recruited you, pissant?" Scoville looks genuinely confused. "Elliot wouldn't have. Must've been his boy." He actually spits on the ground, right next to a pint of green tea-flavored Halo Top. "That one was always so holier-than-thou. Claimed to be Jesus and had all those tattoos? Not to mention he was a bloody queer-"

I throw an ice blade into his shoulder. "Say that again. I dare you."

"What, are you a homo too?" He tries to pull the blade out, but I've managed to throw it in so well, it's stuck.

"I've been known to have the occasional man-crush in my time. Ever heard of a guy named Chris Wood?"

"No, and one celebrity crush doesn't count." Not sure how he knows Chris Wood is famous if he claims not to know who he is, or maybe that's just him being a giant dick. "So what business do you have getting offended here? Besides, I'm not phobic. I do hire queers. All the time. Happens when I..." He pauses to try and get my blade out again, and I take the time to throw another one into his other shoulder. "When I set up shop in this foggy city of yours."

"If my brother were here, he'd help me kill you right now." My eye twitches, and I expect a tear to come out, but I'm so frozen that it doesn't happen. "Or my cousin."

"Yeah, speaking of your cousin, he did a bloodydamn whammy on me." Scoville tugs harder on both of my ice knives, his arms crossed in a mummy pose. "Why would Elliot see fit to take him over, of all people? That boy looks like he's nowhere near a natural strongman." He budges both knives just a fraction of an inch apiece, but doesn't pull either of them out. "Neither are you, come to think of it. You got muscle, true, but you're softer than the bottom of me ballsack."

I throw another ice blade, deliberately coming within a hair of his junk without actually hitting him. "Next one will see how soft that shit really is."

"It's soft, boy. I lotion up more regularly than even a jerkoff shitstain like you would know."

"You're right about one thing," I say. "I don't lotion up much when I jerk off. Soap for me. Unhealthy, I know, but..." Another blade forms in my hand, but I don't throw it. "I'm still used to not being the only boy in the house. Believe me, if my brother and I were going for the lotion all the time, it'd double my mom's budget and she'd eventually have banned it." Another tear threatens, and once again, it doesn't fall out of my eye. God damn, but that's actually starting to hurt. "What do you need to know about my sexual habits, though? What are you, my father?"

"I've heard about him, yeah. Elliot didn't like him either." Scoville finally pulls the second knife out of his left shoulder, and he takes at least a cup of dark blood with it too. Dark, almost indigo, probably from cold. How low is my ice temperature going? "Is that why you're going at me so hard, eh? I remind you of him or some shit?"

"Admit it," I whisper, tightening my grip on my newest knife. "You got into my old phone and you were watching me jerk off to my girl, weren't you?"

"Now you're gonna play the 'closet gay homophobe' card?" He tugs at the ice blade still stuck in his right shoulder, the one I got in first and deepest. "Some ally to the queers you are-"

"No, I'm playing the 'you're a goddamn motherfucking pervert for peeping a seventeen-year-old boy while he's naked and jerking off and cumming all over himself' card."

"Angel, save your vulgarity for someone who cares. And don't change the subject-"

I throw the knife off to the side, knowing I'm going to miss Scoville, and not caring. I want his eyes to track the knife and miss me while I teleport and get right into his face, then wrap my icy hands around his throat. He gurgles in surprise, his eyes going wide. Is he already petechially hemorraghing? If I were to look him more closely in the eye, I could find that he was.

"You done?" I growl at him. "'Cause I'm not." I tighten my grip, and now I see it, those blood vessels bursting in his eyes. I hope I'm not leaving fingerprints, or letting myself be caught on camera. That just won't do for my first murder.

Shit, what's getting into my head? I always thought the whole "Killer Frost is always psychotic" thing was bullshit manufactured for drama by the writers, but now that I'm letting my powers really cut loose, my morals are threatening to pay the price for real.

In the end, they only don't have to pay because Scoville manages to fight me off. It's like as I was strangling him, he briefly forgot that he had the size and experience advantages both. Now, with the ball fully in his court, he's using it to beat the frozen tar out of me. I barely have enough time to cough up a little more dark bluish blood each time he kicks me again. And again. And again. The bruises that must be forming on my internal organs right about now would be something to see. Not to mention the breaks feathering through each and every one of my ribs.

My strength ebbs, and soon I won't have enough adrenaline to take the edge off the pain.

But I still have enough fight in me to stop Scoville's kicks. A simple twist of my arm, positioning my fist underneath his boot, and then I send a short, sharp ice dagger through the middle of his sole. And, at that angle, it not only comes out through the top of his foot, but buries the tip in his ankle as well.

Scoville howls in agony, and I roll over, groaning myself from how much everything fucking hurts. "Shut up, you big Aussie baby!" I spit out what I hope is the last of the blood from my mouth. No missing teeth, so do I have some kind of internal bleeding rising up and out? From which organ? "It'll melt soon enough!" I tell him. "Melt, and then you'll lose more blood!"

His body heat works at that melting, the near-opaque ice blade turning transparent and running with increasingly dark pink drops from the foot he's holding up above his head. As for the rest of him, he's on his back, so he looks like he's ready to ride a recumbent bike.

I fix him with the worst glare I can give. "Why?" I ask. "Why'd you do it?"

He actually tries to pull the ice blade out of his foot and ankle, but this time it's so well embedded that it won't come out. "Do what?" he asks.

"Don't be stupid. What was your endgame in all this?" I sit up, clutching my ribs and gasping. "That truck crash? Hacking BART? All that other shit you've done in the last few days?" I gesture at the door through which we came into this room. "Josh?"

"That shit was collateral damage-"

"You're about to die!" I remind him. "You want me to spare your life? Tell me the truth!"

"You'd actually spare my life?"

Against my better judgment, I crawl closer to him, hoping he doesn't try to kick me away. "Talk."

"You don't even realize there's a bigger picture here." The ice is still melting, very slowly, but it's very thin now. Frantically, Scoville reaches for his belt to use as a tourniquet, but he can barely take it off while he's on his back. "All of that...it was just a test."

"Why am I not surprised?" I roll my eyes. "A test for what?"

Scoville unbuckles his belt, but he has to roll onto his left to start removing it. Which lowers his injured foot and allows it to bleed much more freely onto the floor. As his face grows paler, he labors for breath a little more with each passing second. "Had to test those...those damn...time meteorites."

"Come again?"

"We don't keep 'em here." He returns to lying on his other side to finish removing his belt, but it almost looks too late. "We keep 'em...in our facility in the Second. I think...your...brother's there...and..."

I hold out my hand and take Scoville's belt so I can tie the tourniquet myself. Then I cover his whole foot with ice, for good measure, before running out the door and flying back across the factory to his office.

Time meteorites. Did Gabe tell me about those in any of our recent dream shares? Maybe he would've told me in that club dream if we hadn't been separated by Mom waking me up. I'm scared this might be a sign that our souls aren't quite as entangled as they used to be. But then Fionna showed up in that last dream like normal, so I'm not entirely untangled yet.

This wouldn't be the first time we've dealt with time-related artifacts, either. The Black Mirror. It's supposed to have been made from this special obsidian or something, found only in one location in the Second 'Verse, but what if it's not? What if it's not volcanic, but space rocks? Or, possibly, volcanic rocks from space. Our planet, in any dimension or universe, isn't the only body with volcanic activity. Why not some asteroid way out in the belt? Doesn't even have to be this solar system's asteroid belt.

By the time I get back to Scoville's office, I see AK waiting for me. "You still Elliot?" I ask gruffly. "Or are you back to normal?"

"Still Elliot," he says, equally gruffly.

Not what I wanted to hear, but at least this means I can sort of ask him a question, one that's been bugging me for a while, but I haven't been able to ask since I've been so busy spiraling out of control. "You're not just in AK's body, are you?"

He doesn't even try to hide it. "You're very perceptive, kid. Yeah, I'm in both twins' bodies. Seeing through both their eyes in addition to my own." AK rubs his crinkling forehead. "In the unlikely event you ever become a god yourself, don't do that unless absolutely necessary. Triple vision is nothing to sneeze at."

"Pro tip noted," I say as I look back across the factory floor. No sign of Scoville, so he's probably just staying put and waiting for someone to come medevac him out of that tiny little break room. "Scoville said something about time meteorites. Has TJ seen any of those?"

"I have." AK's voice here doesn't quite sound like Elliot, but more like his own. Just a shade higher, though.

"TJ Grant?" I ask.

"How the hell did I get here?" he asks. "Where am I? And who are...wait a minute, you're Alex, right? Gabe talks about you a lot." He feels his face for a second. "I still feel the same. Shit, am I in my brother's body? What the hell? Where's my brother? Who's been taking over-"

"It's God," I say quickly to cut him off before he spirals as much as I do. Trust me, I know the signs. I hold out my hands in a calming gesture, but don't actually touch him until he approaches me and lets me take hold of his shoulders. "Listen, I don't have a lot of time. God brought you here to answer a question." I resist the urge to fake-gag at the thought of invoking God when he's been nothing but an ass in the short time I've known him. "I'm trying to stop the guy in charge of Peppermint-"

"So are we-"

"-and he said he's been doing some experiments with time meteorites. What can you tell me about those?"

"Not much," says TJ-through-AK. "It's our science guys that've been doing all the experiments, but that's why we're all here in Peppermint HQ. They took half our team and we're trying to get them back." He relaxes, and I let go of him. "As for the meteorites, half of them let you see into the past, and half of them let you see into the future."

"Is the Black Mirror made from these meteorites?" I ask. "Uh, do you know about-"

"It is," TJ says. "I think. See, it's like, black meteorites let you look into the past, and white ones let you look into the future."

"If they're all in the Second," I say, "tell Gabe to get them away from Peppermint. They're gonna fuck the timeline up if we let them."

"On it," TJ says. "As soon as-"

His voice cuts off, and Elliot's returns. "Got the information you needed?"

"Y-Yeah."

"Good. 'Cause now it's time for you to get out before I burn this place down."