Vermillion grabbed hold of a thick rope crossing between two balconies. He pushed his feet off the railing to gain some momentum as he traveled down the length of the clothing line. He lifted his legs up before he dropped down onto a balcony from across the street. He wobbled along the railing, jumping off the side to land in an alleyway between two buildings. He rolled as he landed, popping up right before he slammed into a dumpster. He took a few steps back to put some distance between him and the spray-painted trash collector. He looked around the area he found himself in. It was a standard alleyway with dirty walls and a muddy ground. But, in the mud, there was a set of tracks purposefully made deeper. He followed them.

At the end of the alleyway, right before it deposited back into the street, a young woman was leaning against the corner. She was twisting a knife in her hand. Her sharp glare flickering to anyone who strayed a little too close. When he took a step towards her, she looked over at him. Her expression wavered, but she retained her easy composure. He gave her a half-wave. She didn't return it, instead she spoke, "You've taken so damn long. I already found your lady."

"I got mixed up in some shit. Suffice to say, the Corrupted Cauldron is no longer a problem. The only villain we have left is the Ender Heart," Vermillion told Beau. She was dressed in a black bodysuit with a light brown aviator jacket covering up her wings. She wore thick boots that could mask her talons for a short while. Her eyes were obscured by tinted goggles, the straps hanging loosely around her ponytail. Even with her new appearance, Vermillion could recognize her. It wasn't difficult since he knew what she looked like with and without a mask on, but he knew that other people would have some trouble with it.

"You didn't ask me to find the fucking Ender Heart, whatever the hell that is," Beau said with a glare. She was assuming Vermillion had sent her on a wild goose chase. He had not. Beau would never be able to find where the Ender Heart is, not on her own. The Ender Heart was a monster the scientists of the science facility managed to summon by using the essences of hybrids that were touched with a special property they called the void. The Ender Heart was a pink gemstone surrounded by a silver gyroscope. It managed to project a form that resembled an Endermen, a void Mob that spawned outside the walls, with some modifications. The Ender Heart killed everyone who came near it except for the Arch-Illager and anyone the boss deemed his ally. As a test, Tommy had once been sent in to see if the Ender Heart would kill him or allow him to live. As evidenced now, he was allowed to live and deemed a success. Vermillion doesn't know what became of the Ender Heart after the Arch-Illager defected, but he assumed that Clara was using the beast for her purposes. "You asked me to find-"

"I know who I asked you to fucking find. I'm not an idiot. The only way to find the Ender Heart is to find the Arch-Illager. And the only person who knows where to find him is her," Vermillion started with an eye roll. "Now, where is she?"

"You should have told me that at the beginning," Beau snapped angrily at him. Even as she spoke the words, she was pushing herself off the wall. Her knife slammed still into her palm. She tucked it away in a small scabbard hidden beneath her aviator jacket along her waist. She began to walk down the street. Vermillion followed behind her. He made sure to keep his eyes pinned on her swinging ponytail. It was common knowledge that people shouldn't meet eyes in the Ravine. All that led to was a fight or a persistent salesperson, usually drug dealers and the brothel workers. Vermillion didn't have time for that. They needed to get all of this done as fast as possible.

Beau swung into an alleyway that led directly to the wall. There were a couple of tents set up over here, most people huddling close to the wall to stay away from the filth of the rest of the Ravine. At the very end, cushioned between some random building and the wall was a small shack. It was made from wood, quickly falling apart and audibly creaking. The places where windows would have been were covered by thin curtains sealed shut with clips. The roof was dotted with blank spaces in the shingles. The porch steps were missing a few planks, and the railing devolved into a single beam at the end of the first step. It was a hobbled together place, but it was still standing. It seemed like it could function for a few more months, if not a couple of more years. The toolbox sitting on the porch implied that someone was fixing it up.

The woman standing at the door frame was the only person who would continually put in a Sisphyean effort to keep the cabin standing. She was a woman with sandy-colored skin and dark hair cut short to be at her shoulders. Her black eyes stared down at Vermillion and Beau with a cold look, made all the darker by the shadows falling over her from her tilted down head and the porch roof over her. She was wearing a brown dress that ended in torn scraps at her knees with a rope tied around her waist to keep the dress from looking too much like a block on her body. She had both of her hands lying at her sides, but her fingers twitched into fists the longer the silence stretched on. "So, you've finally decided to face me. Why not follow me a little longer, girl?"

If Beau was surprised about the woman knowing that she was following her, Beau made no inclination. She merely reached a hand for the hilt of her dagger as the mood soured into hostility. Vermillion took a step forward, placing one hand on Beau's shoulder and reaching the other to the woman as if that would stop her. "We aren't here to fight, okay? We need your help. We're looking for someone. You know him."

"I see. This is what this is all about," The woman said with her head tilting to the side as she assessed the situation presented before her. She took a controlled breath, her eyes closing. Vermillion's eyebrows furrowed together as the woman raised up one of her hands. She snapped her fingers, her index finger shooting out to point at the ground. Suddenly, the rough dirt beneath Vermillion and Beau began to shake. Vermillion grabbed Beau's arm, trying to keep them both upright. Something began to reach out from the dirt. It was a rudimentary but massive fist jutting from the ground, grappling around until it could pull the rest of its massive body out. Vermillion looked around to find that he was surrounded by two iron golems. He blinked with a certain amount of awe. It was said that people used to be able to create golems with ease, but the art has been lost once humanity centralized itself into the districts, much like potions and enchantments. It seemed that this woman had retained the ability. Either it was part of her powers, or she simply knew how to do it.

His awe was short-lived, however, as the golem raised both of its fists into the air. Beau grabbed Vermillion's shoulder, throwing him behind her. She raised her knife, using both of her hands to push away one of the golem's arms with the knife. When the golem's fists hit the ground, she pivoted her blade to stab the golem. Unfortunately, iron was not some fancy title. Her knife clinked as it hit the golem, but it didn't pierce anything. Noticing she didn't have much of a weapon, Beau grabbed the golem's shoulders to vault over it. When she landed, she glared at Vermillion from behind the golem. "Why can't anything ever be fucking easy with you?!"

"Welcome to my world!" Vermillion yelled back at her, dropping to his knees. He twisted around quickly, pushing off the ground with his fingers to launch himself between the other golem's legs as it slammed down its arms. Vermillion rolled across the ground, popping back up as the golem attacking him turned around to glare at him. The golem raised both of its arms up again, but as the twin beams of iron came hurtling down, Vermillion summoned the wind to push off against the beams. Vermillion threw his hands up, and the wind shot into the sky like a rocket. The force was enough to throw the golem's arms back up. As a creature without any intelligence to speak of, the golem wasn't able to regain its balance. It fumbled backward, crashing into the other golem. They both landed on the ground. Beau took off her aviator jacket and her boots. She threw them both at the woman standing on the porch, but she quickly stepped out of the way. Beau tossed her knife into the air before catching it. She was preparing to fight, but Vermillion knew they didn't have to.

"Wait! Wait! We aren't here for what you think we're here for, Yumi. We're looking for the Arch-Illager so that he can tell us where the Ender Heart is. I'm trying to kill all the council members of Apex... of Arch," Vermillion said. He lowered the collar of his outfit until it revealed a tattoo of a small labyrinth etched into his skin. No one would know what it meant except for members of the organization formerly named after its leader. Anyone else would think it was a form of rebellion from a young teenager, but it actually marked him as property.

Yumi snapped her fingers again. The iron golems burrowed into the ground again. Except for a few loose pebbles, there was no indication that they had been there. Yumi's expression hadn't brightened, but she was considering Vermillion and Beau in a new light. "You must be Theseus."

"I was. But I'm not anymore. Most people call me Vermillion," The vigilante shrugged. He buried that name a long time ago. The only person who called him that was the Blade, who had seen Vermillion's tattoo once and correctly guessed that it represented the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Vermillion had allowed the Blade to call him 'Theseus' because that hero called everyone by a name involving Greek Mythology. Vermillion hadn't minded being Theseus if the Blade was the one telling the story. No one associated with Arch or Apex was allowed to call him that, not even the good-natured Yumi.

"I know who you are. I've known who you are for a long time. Who do you think sent your information to those little sidekicks at the association?" Yumi asked with a slight grin lifting up the corner of her lips. Vermillion stalled. He didn't know that. He thought Rosa or UltraViolet had figured out who he was by spending way too much time studying all the footage on him. He didn't think that someone had enabled them to come across that information. Even if he had, he hadn't thought about Yumi in such a long time. He didn't even know her personally. She was just a woman from stories slipped from the intoxicated lips of the Arch-Illager.

"What the fuck?" Beau said out loud, summing up all of Vermillion's thoughts pretty well. Yumi's quarter-smile disappeared as she went into the house. She left the door open. Vermillion took this as a cue that he was being allowed entrance. He looked at Beau for a second. He wasn't sure how to explain to her that he would prefer if she wasn't there for this conversation. Although he trusted Beau to kill him if he lost control, there were some parts of his past he left purposefully vague. He wasn't ashamed, per se, but he had a lot of mixed feelings that he wasn't ready to navigate. Luckily, Beau said, "I'll stand watch out here. No one will interrupt your time with Yumi. Make sure you find out where the Arch-Illager is."

Vermillion nodded gratefully. He went inside the cabin, leaving Beau to guard the entrance. He closed the door behind him. The interior of the cabin wasn't much better than the outside. It was small enough that there were only two rooms. Vermillion was in the larger of the two rooms. There was a small table shoved in the corner with two chairs that didn't match each other or the table. The kitchenette was depressingly empty with wooden cupboards, a minifridge, and a toaster oven plugged into the wall. The living room had a sofa that was bursting at the seams with white fluff. Yumi was sitting on the ground, however, on a faded rug with another person. She was smiling gently at the person, holding both of their hands as she whispered to them.

Vermillion recognized the person on the floor. The Arch-Illager was shorter than he was in the past. His head was lopsided, wider than it was tall. He wasn't wearing any of royal regalia, instead trading it out for a brown gown much like the one Yumi was wearing. His eyes flickered to Vermillion before looking away sharply. He burrowed his head into Yumi's back as she turned to face Vermillion. The vigilante sucked in a tight breath. He wasn't expecting Yumi to be living with the Arch-Illager. Even though the former leader of Arch spoke highly of his old friend, he made it very clear that they had some sort of falling out resulting in Yumi hating him and him missing her. Had they made up when the Arch-Illager left his own organization?

"Vermillion, this is Archie. That's his real name, and he prefers to go by that these days," Yumi explained. Archie peeked around Yumi's shoulder to look at Vermillion. He kept looking, but he said nothing.

"Alright, then," Vermillion shrugged his shoulders. Who was he to judge when he had multiple names including ones he preferred to go by? "Can you ask him where the Ender Heart is?"

"Before we get into that, I have to tell you something," Yumi said, lifting her hand up to stop Vermillion from saying anything else. She looked back at Archie, and the Illager nodded his head at her. She returned her attention to Vermillion. "I don't know what you know, so I'll explain it all. When Archie was a child, he lived here in the Ravine. His parents were part of a gang, and when they died, Archie was accepted into that gang. We met around that time. I gave him snacks and vouched for him when people only saw him as a gang member. He... he did some bad things under the pressure of the gang, and our relationship soured. He eventually upset the gang, and he was exiled. They took him outside of the walls and left him. He eventually found that science facility. They took him in, but it was only as an experiment. They tried merging him with something called the Orb of Dominance. It's an artifact from an ancient society like Eyes of Ender and blaze rods. This Orb messed with Archie's mind until he became the Arch-Illager you knew. Archie formed Arch per the Orb's directions. When Archie found out that the Orb of Dominance was actually a way for the Ender Heart to speak into his mind, corrupting him with void madness, Archie was able to escape the clutches of the Orb. He shattered the Orb, but that didn't nullify the powers of the relic. Each shard was placed in the people you've fought so far. The Ender Heart even received a piece. I believe Clara was the one to put the shard in the council members of Arch for her purpose of reforming society for hybrids."

Vermillion blinked, processing the information as quickly as he could. He remembered the Arch-Illager carrying around a staff topped with some sort of sphere, but he thought that was a flair for the dramatics. He didn't consider that it meant anything. He wouldn't put it past Clara to put the shards in the council members, however. That was something he could accept easily.

"Alright, well, where's the Ender Heart?" Vermillion asked once he processed everything.

Yumi shook her head. "I won't tell you that. Not yet, anyway. I need you to prove to me that you are ready to face the Ender Heart... ready to face Clara. Both of them are highly manipulative, and they will corrupt your mind if you are not prepared. Your test will be to stop the current hybrids in the districts affected by Impulse. The Corrupted Cauldron might have stopped producing, but there are some vials still active in the area. You won't be alone, though. I heard that Nemesis, Blaze, and Ankh have come down to finish this mission. I would include your friend out there in that list, but I have another task for her. I need her to find something, so send her in while you go meet up with the heroes."

Vermillion closed his eyes, resisting the urge to cuss her out. Yumi was lucky he needed the information only she and Archie had. Vermillion walked out of the cabin. Beau looked at him, and he tilted his head inside. She gave him a questioning look as she slowly entered. Vermillion summoned the wind, leaping high into the air. He jumped so high that he could see parts of Logstedshire. This would be, he decided, his last interaction with heroes.