Thirteen lowered himself into a stance just as Jocasta's shadow zipped past him. Her fist slammed into the agent's jaw, sending him toppling into his men. Alon flickered out of sight, tripping clueless people on his way out the door. Thirteen tapped into his comm, connecting to Ji-yeon's line. "Get out of there!" he yelled, ramming an agent against the wall when he tried to grab his shoulders.

He stumbled away and almost made it to the door when the line went static. "Ji-yeon? Are you there?" A curse filtered out of his lips. "Ji-yeon? Hey! Fucking answer me!"

The static continued. Shit.

He swept his leg underneath another agent, leaping over the fallen man as he tumbled down like a log. The hospital's corridor was dark, and with the agents' black suits, it'd be next to impossible spotting them. No matter. He pushed forward, calibrating the comms to broadcast across all available lines. "Ji-yeon's gone," he said. "Regroup to mobile base. Get outta here first."

No one confirmed. He didn't wait, anyway. If they heard it, they would show up outside the fence. If they didn't, only two choices were possible. Either they were killed or they were caught. It might have been the same thing.

Thirteen's side exploded in pain as he slammed into a corner jutting past the bend. He reached the end of the corridor? Which way was it now? Left. Where would that go? He patted his pockets and belt. The flashlight. He must have dropped it when he bolted out the room. Did Jocasta have it? Where was she? Damn it.

His boots rang across the dark hallway. If he rammed into a wall, it might have been his luck. He stuck close to the wall and felt along the uneven plaster. Electricity flashed behind him, latching onto his exposed arm and never letting go. He stumbled back just as a weighty force slammed into his gut. Air rushed out of his lips in a pained wheeze as he collapsed to the floor. His teeth ground against each other. He activated his ability, freezing whatever biological system he could find within its range. Made one move faster, the other slower. Two people. It wouldn't be that hard.

The pain in his gut strengthened, spreading towards his chest. His ability snaked out of its leash, vanishing into the inky void. What—

A different force gripped his limbs, and a sting blossomed on his neck as if an insect bit him. How did they...

Thirteen blinked. The darkness was gone, replaced by a harsh stream of light poking his eyeballs. His senses returned even when he couldn't remember the time he lost them. The hospital changed to a bland white room with a wide, hexagonal glass window overlooking nothing. The lines on the floor, three walls, and the ceiling made up grids, each segment glowing with inexplicable light.

His neck throbbed, as if someone had held on to it for an hour without letting go. He ran a hand against it, only to find out that not only he lay on his side as if he was thrown there while unconscious, metal cuffs tied his wrists together. He didn't need to be an instrumentation expert to know the cuffs were bad news. How to get out of this...

The lights from the other side of the glass blinked open, revealing an expansive suite backed with eerie blue and teal light. A neat array of soldiers dressed in Kevlars, black pants and shirts, and dark, steel-tipped boots greeted him from the far side. Some form of isolated counter ran across the room, stopping only a few meters off an alcove which could only be the exit.

He sauntered up and examined himself. His clothes from the recent hospital raid were still intact. Apart from the stinging spot on his neck, he was relatively unscathed. How about the others?

He rushed towards the windows, flattening himself against it. From his limited periphery, he spotted at least four other cells like his lining the wall opposite the sentries. Where in the world was this facility? Why did Primeva's database not include this in their asset declarations?

One explanation could be derived from that. Starting from the metal doors sliding back to reveal Jean Jacques Shaw II, himself, walking into the chamber. With a self-assured smirk and a slight limp aided by a diamond-tipped cane, Thirteen knew. This was the real man. In the flesh. What made him show his ass now?

"I should congratulate you, Thirteen," Shaw said, heading straight towards his cell. The billionaire seemed to forget other cells existed too. "You have climbed your way up my naughty list faster than any conglomerate rival does. There is just no end to your ingenuity, is there?"

Thirteen smirked. "Glad you noticed, old man," he said. "If you're containing us like this, I assume you're not ready to let us go. What's gotten you so soft? It can't have been my charm."

Shaw's jaw tightened. "Trust me, charm is the last thing you have, my dear," he said. From the other cells, Jocasta's snort and Ji-yeon's muttered agreement rang through. Alon and Kevan were the smarter ones, keeping quiet. "I keep you alive because I have to get you and your little friends back to the table. Make quick work with your little band of misfits, and soon, you'll be like one of these."

He gestured towards the sentries who stood by the wall in complete obedience. Some of those uniformed men had been in the hospital the day of the raid. Those men weren't the International Investigation whatever their name was. They were Shaw's people. Wasn't impersonating international units a major crime too? "We shouldn't let resources go to waste, after all," he said, turning back to Thirteen.

Thirteen watched the middle-aged man tuck a hand behind him and draw out a gun. Gold embellishments glinted against its muzzle and stock. The trigger could have fed an entire country with how shiny it was. "I thought you don't want us to die?" he prompted as Shaw pointed it towards Thirteen's glass window. "I never thought you'd go back on your word."

"It's all business, mon cher," Shaw said. "Believe me when I say it's such a shame. But...all things must come to an end. Those who cannot be used for what they are made for must be eliminated and made anew."

The tycoon tilted his head at the gun. "Beautiful, no?" he continued. "It's an elegant tool that is, by some misfortune, used for exacting justice. It would be an elegant justice, I hope."

"Justice should be the last thing out of that filthy mouth of yours," a new voice joined the fray. Heels clacked against the marble floor. Jaq's familiar blond hair peeled out of the shadows. On her hands...was a gun, albeit simple and unremarkable. She leveled her gaze at Shaw. "Father."

Shaw forgot Thirteen for a second, whirling towards her long-lost daughter as if she was some kind of ghost. Then, his features flattened into a passive glare. "Jacqueline," he said. "What are you doing here after eluding me all those years?"

"Must be nice, not knowing things for once," Jaq said, baring her teeth. Her grip on the gun tightened until her knuckles turned the same color as the walls to Thirteen's cell. "But you can't block my ability like you block theirs."

Thirteen knitted his eyebrows. What has that got to do with anything? Jaq continued talking. "You pride yourself with having control by clicking a few buttons on that console, but you can't control me. I show up when I want to, and I vanish when I feel like it. And now, I feel like I want to end you and your empire."

"But it's all for you," Shaw answered. "I did this so you can live a comfortable life and inherit a legacy that is to your favor. The world has thanked my father, and it will praise you once you're ready to take on what I will leave behind. This empire—you are the sole inheritor. Why would you want to sabotage that? Sabotage yourself?"

"I don't have plans of being a tyrant," Jaq replied. "What you and grandfather have done is madness. What you have done to me was horrifying. That is not the legacy I wish to inherit. A mortal playing god is the most disgraceful thing to be."

That was when she shifted her gun and fired. The sound was almost nonexistent behind the glass, but Thirteen followed the bullet's trajectory. It flew somewhere east, towards one of the cells. Thirteen banged a fist on the glass. It absorbed the shock and reflected the blow back to his skin. Oh, for a bullet to hit that—

A huge explosion rang across the room, characterized by a flurry of smoke and sparks drowning the blue from the walls. The sentries scrambled to positions, propping their batons up and activating their various abilities. But the one who walked out the broken glass window wasn't Jocasta. It was Ji-yeon. And just like in the Game, even if it was against a hundred people with abilities, she would win.

Thirteen stepped back from the window just as Ji-yeon's indoor hurricane swept sentries into a haze of black and blue. Everything was without sound to the point of it being hilarious. Jaq had dropped to the floor to avoid being swept with the current and crawled to the strange counter. Blue screens floated in the air upon her touch. She tapped a quick sequence of inverted buttons, and a series of stringent beeps rang across the cell. The panel slid aside, giving Thirteen purchase to the rest of the room. The control panel. It would be key to their escape here.

He stumbled out of the cell and stalked towards the panel. Shadows zipped towards him, and a dagger streaked across his cheek. He scrambled back, clutching his stinging skin. Dishari leveled her blade towards him. Oh, not good.

She lunged. Her speed had improved since the last time Thirteen saw her. The blade poised to skewer him even if he turned and ran. A flash of white hair swirled into the scene, followed by an extended boot. Jocasta's heel slammed against Dishari's wrist, forcing the latter to let go of her blade. "Go!" Jocasta yelled at Thirteen. "Get us out of here!"

That wasn't what he planned to do, but Jaq had given him plenty of hints how to do it that he might as well. He ducked, barely avoiding being knocked over with a flying soldier. Jaq lurched away from the panel just as a girl with dark-blue hair morphed out of a grown man. Slate. She was here too.

"Get away from her!" Thirteen yelled across the room, hoping to catch Jaq's attention. "She's dangerous."

Jaq dodged Slate's slashes with efficient moves. "I'll be fine," she said. "Go!"

Thirteen considered activating his ability and just forcing everyone to just...stop. Shaw's words nipped at the back of his head. Continue using his ability, and he'd drop dead the second time. Maybe it was just Shaw's psychological manipulation, but Thirteen couldn't refute the ebbing strength in his limbs and the tripling pain in his gut whenever his ability's warmth spread across his veins. Just his luck.

Ji-yeon shrieked, slamming the last of the sentries against the walls, the set of metal stairs winding up the walls of the room, and the air walkways weaving in and out of the upper floors. Alon was nowhere to be found again. Jocasta was still occupied with Dishari. With their abilities, their fight would be a drawn-out, bloody battle.

Thirteen's hands slapped the console's edge without any resistance. His eyes scanned the array of buttons and letters. He tapped across the keyboard and accessed the system's mainframe. Access Denied, it said, but he had broken enough Primeva cybersecurities to know what came next. He punched Jaq's emergency access cheat code, gaining him enough time to log into administrator access. He switched off all lock-out protocols and changed the security protocols. The doors. Shaw. Where was he?

A presence moved behind Thirteen. Shaw without his cane and his monocle stalked towards the open doors. Not so fast. Thirteen jammed a finger into a button. The metal doors slid shut, right in front of Shaw's face. The tycoon turned to the console. For a second, he wasn't the fearsome Corrector who messed up thousands, if not, millions of lives. He was just a terrified, old man.

Shaw raised his gun and pointed it at Thirteen. Again. This time, no glass window separated them. "Step away from the panel and give me back my soldiers," he said. "You will not take anything more from me, AR-16128."

"I'd like to see you try and make me," Thirteen replied. "Let me see what you are truly capable of, Corrector."

A deep groan ripped off Shaw's throat. As much as he hated to admit it, without an ability or being experimented on for bio-enhancement, he wasn't a match for the majority of the people in this room. Ji-yeon floated to the ground and promptly staggered to the nearest wall. She was spent, but her ability still has ways to go. The look she threw Shaw's way indicated he was next. Thirteen stepped out of the way.

Instead, Shaw bolted and trotted up the steps. Ji-yeon rushed up to meet him there, but the top of Shaw's cane popped up. He pointed it towards the girl and shot. Ji-yeon collided with the concentrated electric bolt like stone to a bird's wing. A brief explosion, followed by the smell of skin burning wafting in the air. Thirteen shut down all admin access to anything related to this room and the whole system. He peeled off after Shaw, boots racking the metal steps and later, the walkways. The diamond grates showed him a spotted perspective of what happened on the ground.

Kevan hauled Ji-yeon's unconscious form to the side. Some of the sentries stirred and came to. Slate had cornered Jaq and was poised to deliver the final blow. Alon was nowhere to be found, as expected. Thirteen had to finish this. Quickly.

"Shaw!" Thirteen yelled, his voice rippling across the room and the hollow tapestry of pipes and metal rods. He pumped his legs and knocked against the man's back. Together, they stumbled to the ground. A golden streak bled into Thirteen's periphery, and he swiped the gun from its holster. Shaw shrieked, his gelled hair coming off its style.

"Tell me—what are you going to do with that? Kill me?" Shaw hissed, swatting the gun away from Thirteen's hand with the butt of his cane. Thirteen rolled to scramble after it before it toppled off the walkway's edge, but a sharp weight jabbed into his shoulder. The tip of Shaw's cane dug against his shoulder. A little more force, and it would pierce through skin and flesh. "Society is not accepting of anyone different. It will surely never accept a murderer. I am saving you from such a fate, you know."

"That's the problem with you," Thirteen rasped, gripping the cane and struggling against it. Tears pricked his eyes with the pain becoming more unbearable. "You think you're saving the world, but you're only saving yourself."

Shaw's lips parted into a manic smile. "That is the best way to live, no?" he said. "How has trying to save others worked out for you? You can't even save yourself."

The force eased, but the cane whipped him across the face. Shaw reached down and gripped Thirteen's hair. The world swam when Shaw whirled his head against the metal rails, connecting them with a set of heavy tolls. A loafer buried itself in Thirteen's chest, sending him clattering backwards. He wheezed and writhed. Black spots danced in his vision, and ringing filled his ears. Not yet. He braced the walkway's floor in time for his fingers to brush the edges of Shaw's gun. He snatched it and pointed the muzzle towards an advancing Shaw.

"I don't save people," Thirteen said, hooking a finger against a trigger. "I help them survive."

He fired.