The sun was beginning to rise over the port of Snowchester, making the ocean glitter like gemstones embedded in the ground. Vermillion stands on the rooftop of a warehouse that smells like fish. He watches as the police swarm in and out of the building. The Wretched Wraith had been escorted off the scene half an hour ago. Kamikaze and Ender remained on the scene, talking to the officer in charge of witnesses. The other officers barely glanced at them as they brought out pieces of evidence from the warehouse. Vermillion shuddered when he saw one of them carrying a plastic bag with a bloodied icicle. He wasn't entirely sure the police had records of his blood, but they could easily determine that Vermillion had been there if they did. The only highlight was that they didn't have Tommy's blood.

Passerine is at his side, staring down with sharp eyes. The wind begins to pick up, not quite as cold as what it was earlier in the night, but still bitter enough to make Passerine's wings vibrate behind her in some attempt to keep themselves and her warm. She presses her hands to her mouth, breathing into the fabric of her gloves. Light gray smoke passes through the small gaps between her fingertips. She eventually places both her hands underneath her thighs. She looked up at Vermillion with a paling face, "How much longer are we gonna be in this fucking freezer?"

"I want to make sure Kamikaze and Ender are fine," Vermillion told her, but he knew that they would leave in the next few minutes even if the two heroes weren't done. Pain blossomed around his body, and he could feel the blood drying against his skin and clothes. He would definitely sleep the entire day away. Some part of him was glad that he no longer had a job to worry about, but the other part of him was saddened by that same thought. His relief did not ease his loneliness or remedy the fact that he missed his old coworkers. He missed feeling like he was a normal person doing average things. Everyone went to their jobs. Not many people fought crime during the night, and even less did it illegally because there was something irrevocably fucked up about them.

"You told me once that you didn't care about people. I'm starting to realize you meant to say you don't give two shits about me," Passerine grumbled, more annoyance in her tone than genuine anger. Vermillion flinched at her words, though. He shouldn't care about people. He shouldn't be waiting here for the two people he was going to have to say goodbye to yet again. It was going to break him. It was going to anger Kamikaze and upset Ender. Vermillion would be hurting himself and his former friends. But he was either too selfish or too foolish to walk away while he had a chance.

"I'll take every opportunity to make you suffer," Vermillion told her. Passerine pulled out one of her hands to hit him in the thigh. It didn't hurt him; it made him laugh into the breeze. She continued grumbling about him, calling him different cruel words and acquainting him with the nastiest parts of the dirtiest animals. Vermillion continued to laugh beneath his breath, hoping that it wasn't delirium infecting his brain.

Passerine cut herself off when they heard an approaching buzzing sound. A 'vwroop' sounded behind them. Kamikaze floated in the air right in front of them, and Ender stood on the roof right behind them. Vermillion raised an eyebrow at Kamikaze, tilting his head over his shoulder to look at Ender. "I can't help but feel a little claustrophobic."

"We brought first-aid kits!" Kamikaze cheered, uncaring how Vermillion felt. Ender smiled beneath his hood, and Vermillion rolled his eyes affectionately. Vermillion plopped down on the parapet of the rooftop beside Passerine. Ender sits on the other side of Passerine, facing her. He places the first-aid kit on his knee, opening the lid to pull out gauze and creams.

Kamikaze leaned on the parapet with his back to the neighboring warehouse. His legs stretched out onto the rooftop as he held up a rag. Vermillion held back his side as he placed his forearm in Kamikaze's awaiting hand. Kamikaze gently held Vermillion's forearm as he used the rag to clean the blood off of Vermillion's arm. Once that was done, Kamikaze moved to clean blood off of Vermillion's other arm and his legs. Vermillion bit his lip to keep himself from hissing. The pain seemed sharper now that Kamikaze was cleaning the wounds up. The one thing he didn't feel, however, was hesitance. Everything inside of him knew that Kamikaze could be trusted, and that single thought terrified Vermillion. Did Kamikaze have the same amount of trust in him? How was he supposed to tell the hero that the trust was misplaced?

Vermillion was drawn out of his thoughts by Ender and Kamikaze switching places. Ender settled down beside Vermillion. A thoughtful look crossed Ender's face before he took the initiative to take Vermillion's wounded limbs into his hands. Ender's tail, whether purposefully or instinctively, wrapped around Vermillion's leg, almost as if it was going to keep him place. Vermillion supposed that he was a flight risk. When things became too difficult, his first instinct was to run. He had been running for a lot of his life, really. His mother used to say that he went from crawling to running, skipping the middle step of walking.

Ender made a rumbling noise in his chest. Vermillion looked up from the puddle on the ground he had been staring at for the past moment without even realizing. Ender's eyebrows were brought together. He didn't look up from wrapping Vermillion's ankle, but there was something in his purple eyes that reminded Vermillion that the people around him could notice when he retreated into his mind. It was another form of running, Vermillion thought humorlessly.

"I'm fine, big man," Vermillion assured Ender. He was given another rumble in response, a noise that contained the emotion of disbelief. Vermillion huffed. He wondered absentmindedly when he had learned what each of Ender's unique noises meant. "I am fine. Just fucking exhausted."

"It was a tiring fight," Ender conceded. Vermillion nodded, glad that Ender was agreeing with him instead of arguing. Vermillion was tired of arguing. He didn't want to ruin what fragile truce he had come to with Ender and Kamikaze. He hoped they could part on amicable terms.

The sound of coughing filled the air. It was light, at first, and rather quiet. It grew louder and heavier the more it tore up the cougher's throat. It even sounded wet, something getting spluttered out with it. Vermillion looked over at Kamikaze and Passerine to see the former shoving his face into the crook of his elbow. Blood began to drip, sliding down his skin onto the ground. Vermillion grabbed Passerine's hood, pulling her off the parapet and away from Kamikaze. The hero stumbled off the parapet, struggling to bring breaths into his body as his coughing fit grew harsher. Ender reached for his partner, but Vermillion threw up his hand to stop him. Kamikaze tilted his head up towards them once the coughing ceased. His breaths sounded wet and croaky. Blood slipped out of his lips down his pale skin.

"What the fuck is that?" Passerine said, but her attention was not on Kamikaze. She was pointing at something on the opposite horizon. The sun began to shine over the districts, revealing a thick, scarlet red fog hanging above what seemed to be the Badlands district. Vermillion's eyes widened as he took a few steps towards the other edge of the rooftop, getting as close as he could to the fog without leaving the roof.

He turned around quickly, rushing towards Kamikaze. He leaned down in front of him, grabbing the hero's cheeks to lift his face up. Kamikaze was coughing weakly, and there was a small mushroom growing near his hairline. It was bright red in color with white dots across the surface. Although it shared similarities with the fly agaric mushroom, the dread growing in Vermillion's stomach alerted him to the fact that this was not a natural fungus.

"We have a big fucking problem," Vermillion gritted out, gently lowering Kamikaze onto his stomach. He placed a firm but not heavy hand on the hero's back, and Kamikaze was forced to cough. Blood continues to sputter out of his mouth, but the light traces of red and white dust in the blood tells Vermillion exactly what the problem is.

"I'll fucking say. Halo, Cait Sith, Adamus, and Rosa have all been reported as fucking traitors to the association. They apparently attacked the other heroes," Passerine said, holding up her communicator to Vermillion. His eyes narrow as he reads the message. Passerine, as the reporter Avicular, has access to many newsfeeds and even private information the association would not want reaching public ears. Her communicator was showing a report written by Anura and given the tagline by the association that the former heroes in the report were to be detained on sight.

"Shit. Fuck," Vermillion curses, looking back down at Kamikaze. He's stopped coughing, instead lying against the rooftop with slow breaths. Vermillion raised himself up, looking at the two of his companions. Passerine was furiously looking through her communicator, and Ender seemed at a loss for what to do in this situation. With his attention on them, the two of them soon met his eyes. "Remember how I said the Wretched Wraith wasn't working alone? Yeah, this is her fucking back-up. That's the Mooshroom Monstrosity's power. He releases spores that corrupt the mind or poison the body. Kamikaze's been poisoned, and the heroes you mentioned have been corrupted. They'll follow his will. And everyone is going to fucking die if we don't do something."

"What the fuck are we supposed to do then?" Passerine demanded, looking back at the fog in the distance. It was a dense cloud filled with water vapor and mushroom spores that floated off the Mooshroom Monstrosity's body. It would remain in the Badlands for a little while, but it wouldn't be long until the neighboring districts were affected by it.

"We have to cut off the power source. We either kill the Mooshroom Monstrosity or put power dampers on it. That would require going into the thick of the fog," Vermillion sighed. He rubbed his forehead before he looked up with a half-baked idea that could be a plan if he had half a dozen more half-baked ideas to pair with it. "Ender, you're going to have to take care of Kamikaze. You're going to have to strike a balance between making him puke and not dehydrating him. I trust you with him, though, so don't fucking let me down. Take him now."

Vermillion took a step aside. Ender rushed forward instantly, his hands hovering over Kamikaze's body before he decided to cradle Kamikaze against his chest. His tail wrapped around Kamikaze's waist. Ender straightened up with Kamikaze in his arms. Kamikaze looked half-conscious as he whimpered in pain. Ender stared down at him before looking up at Vermillion. "I'll do it. Be safe, Vermillion. We are going to talk soon."

Ender and Kamikaze disappeared in a flurry of purple particles, leaving Vermillion with yet another worry for the future. He couldn't dwell on those words, though, because he heard Passerine call from behind him. "Are we going now or what?"

"We aren't going anywhere. You will be corrupted or poisoned before we even reach the Badlands, let alone the center of that swarm. I'll be going. That stuff doesn't affect me," Vermillion informed her. He felt the thrum of power in his chest, something entirely separate from the whirling essence of the wind. He took a deep breath to hold that power back.

Passerine's face hardened. Her eyes told that she was recalling the conversation they had after they had defeated Johnny. Her face looked oddly similar when Vermillion gave her own condition to becoming his sidekick. She had hesitantly agreed that day, assuring him that she knew he was strong enough to overcome his instincts. He disagreed with her silently, and they left that particular conversation thread alone. They would probably have another discussion about it, most likely several in the course of their partnership. But Vermillion trusted that Passerine would put the good of the many and his own wishes above his life.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Passerine asked. Her face wasn't as rigid as it was before, but there were traces of stress and exhaustion in every feature. They had spent the past few days healing, and they practically sent themselves back to square one after this all-nighter. Vermillion knew that he would have to take a short nap before he officially headed into the fog unless he wanted to pass out halfway through his journey. A controlled sleep was better than unconsciousness.

"I need you to do everything you can to get people away from the Badlands. This is a fucking emergency," Vermillion told her firmly.

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I'm a fucking reporter for Logstedshire! I have no fucking power!" Passerine said, throwing her hands into the air with defiance in her bright eyes.

"You have something in your head, fucking use it," Vermillion told her. He knew how hard it was going to be for one person to evacuate several districts, but he also knew that if anyone had a chance at doing just that, it would be Passerine. She was stubborn and persuasive. She had connections that Vermillion didn't. "I made you my partner. Prove to me that you deserve that position."

"Fuck off. I'm the best Prime-damn sidekick you're ever going to get. I'll evacuate the distractions, you better fucking bet on that," Passerine said, her wings flaring as if to prove her point. She took a few steps forward, putting her hand on Vermillion's shoulder. "Be safe. Do what you have to do. Be smart about it. I know that's hard for you, but you have to try your best."

"You're a piece of shit. Go do what I told you to do," Vermillion said to her, throwing her hand off his shoulder. She laughed beneath her breath as she jumped off the rooftop, her wings spread out like a glider to help ease her to the ground. Vermillion turned his attention away from her, focusing on the cloud in the distance. This was going to be a long couple of days.