For the next minute, nobody moved. Not even the energetic sergeant said anything as if they too were waiting for any sign of movement from the relentless goddess.

They were still surprised when the newly fallen debris burst into the air once more, and a blood-curdling scream echoed through the empty streets.

"You've got to be kidding me," Hale grumbled.

Akira agreed, but she couldn't say as much. All she could do was fall to her hands and knees, her exhaustion hitting her as hard as Danya would have. The world swayed viciously around her, but Akira knew closing her eyes would only induce nausea. Instead, she focused on her sweat dripping from her head onto the gray ground beneath her and the sound of her own heavy, ragged breaths.

While Danya had returned, Akira's booster had run out.

"And that's why I don't need boosters," Hale said unsympathetically.

Akira raised her gaze just as Hale was raising her weapon towards Danya, and Akira grabbed Hale's ankle with most of her remaining energy.

"Wait," Akira gasped, then glanced at Danya.

If the woman was unhinged earlier, that was nothing compared to what she was now. While she had completely freed herself from the makeshift tomb, she didn't care about the people that put her there. Instead, all of her focus was set on destroying the remains of the rubble, as if crushing everything into pure dust would prevent it from burying her ever again.

As Danya leapt high into the air, soaring ten meters above the pile of debris before crashing down into it, Akira caught a glimpse of not just the rage on her face, but also the fear that hid behind it.

"You know we're next after she's done with her temper tantrum," Hale said. "I don't know why she's so important to you, but we can't keep this up for much longer. We have to switch to lethal shots now, before this gets any worse."

"Hate to say this, but I agree with the guardian," Sergeant Gupta said over the comms. "We had a good run, but she's too powerful. And very, very pissed off, in case that wasn't obvious."

"We have a shot," Beringer said. "On your order, Captain."

Akira hesitated. None of that felt right. Sure, Danya would probably kill her immediately and wouldn't be the least bit affected, but it was Akira's fault she was there in the first place. While the goddess's alternative was to be buried alive, at least she would be alive. At least she had a chance for survival.

Instead, she was running rampant across Base, causing chaos from within. Anyone that was hurt would be on Akira's conscience—that included Danya.

"Captain!" a familiar voice called out from behind them.

Akira spun around to see a frazzled Izzy stumbling over the rocky narrow street. His long white lab coat and vintage graphic T-shirt of some twenty-first-century cartoon was stained with black streaks and red splotches, and a thin trail of dried blood framed the right side of his face.

"You shouldn't be here!" Akira said as she struggled to her feet, knowing full well Izzy wouldn't listen. "And what happened to you? I thought she killed you!"

"Oh, she gave me nothing more than a minor concussion, probably," Izzy said, waving a hand frivolously in the air. "But that's not important. I have something that can stop her, but I need your help."

Akira sighed, but it only took her one glance at Danya repeatedly swinging a forklift's fork over her head and onto the concrete mountain to convince herself it was worth a shot.

"Fine," Akira said, turning back to Izzy. "What do we do?"

Izzy grinned, probably thrilled Akira didn't need much persuasion. "Could you keep her still long enough for me to get close to her?"

"Are you kidding?" Hale said, her gaze still focused on Danya as she picked up a concrete slab five times her size. "Are you not seeing this?"

"So..." Izzy trailed off, glancing between Hale and Akira. "Is that a no?"

"That's a hell no!" Hale snapped.

"Will it hurt her?" Akira asked.

"You can't seriously be concerned about that," Hale grumbled. "Or even be considering this kid's idea." She narrowed her eyes at the young scientist. "Are you even old enough to drive?"

"You don't need a license for science." Izzy turned to Akira. "It's more unpleasant than painful. Believe me, I know."

With that, Akira took a determined step towards the rampaging Danya. "Stay back and hold your fire."

"Cap, you can't be serious," Hale said. "She may have listened to reason before, but now? Look at her, she's crazy. She'll kill you, and she probably wouldn't even know it. She's not worth it."

But Akira didn't agree; she couldn't. Even though reason and logic screamed at her that Hale was right, Akira couldn't ignore the other part of her that whispered the age-old question: what if? If Akira could stop her now, and Izzy's plan worked, if they could convince Danya to join them and take down Verus Rex together, they could end the war. After fourteen long and painful years of death and suffering, what if this was finally their chance to start down the road to peace?

Sure, logic had saved Akira's life on more than one occasion. But this time, she wanted to hope.

"'Either we die now or die later,'" Akira said, echoing the words Izzy said mere days before. And when she turned to the scientist, his wide eyes hinted that he hadn't expected her response either. "I'll do what I can to get you the time you need, but you have to be ready. And don't get hurt."

"I'm surrounded by crazy people," Hale said as Izzy messily saluted Akira. "And I will kill her if she kills you. Your orders won't matter once you're dead, after all."

Akira grimaced. "Noted."

At first, Akira approached Danya slowly and silently, not wanting to startle her. But after halving the distance between them with Danya completely unaware of Akira's presence, Akira wasn't sure how to proceed. She assumed she wouldn't have to work for Danya's attention, and the fact that her haphazard plan was failing already wasn't a promising sign.

"Danya," Akira said in her normal speaking voice.

Coincidentally, Danya let out a roar of rage at the same time, completely drowning out Akira's meager attempt. She followed up by extracting a two by three-meter sheet of steel from the rubble and, after gripping its sides tightly, proceeded to jam it repeatedly into the ground like an oversized machete.

"Danya," Akira repeated, slightly louder, her voice wavering.

But Danya couldn't hear her over her own furious screams as she hacked away at the mountain, oblivious to how it sliced her palms under her relentless hold. Akira found herself staring in speechless horror, watching the steel curtain rise and fall as streams of dark red trickled down its dull silver hue.

Eventually, Danya's hands lifted with nothing between them, unable to hold on any longer. Only then did her screams stop, and she dropped to her knees, her scarlet arms hanging limply at her sides. There she remained, silent and still, her gaze staring blindly at the sheet of metal protruding from the ground like an opaque mirror.

At the sight, Akira felt a pang of guilt. Even if Izzy's mystery idea didn't hurt her physically, Danya clearly didn't take well to betrayal, and that was essentially what Akira intended on doing—assuming Akira would live to see it come to fruition.

But there was no turning back now, so Akira took another careful step towards Danya. That time, the slight sound of her movement made Danya's head turn; suddenly, Danya's silence shifted from sorrowful to tense. While Danya's eyes stared at the empty space to Akira's left, her ears pointed directly at Akira's feet and her nose twitched as if she could smell danger.

"Hi, Danya," Akira whispered. "It's me, Akira. If it's alright with you, can we just talk for a bit?"

As expected, Danya didn't answer, nor did she move in any way. Unfortunately, Akira couldn't stand there waiting forever, so she continued.

"I'm sorry about all of that," she said. "You have no reason to believe me, but I don't want to hurt you. I see now that you were only defending yourself, and I'm sorry I let it escalate this far."

Danya still didn't move. Akira took a deep breath and knelt down as well, keeping just over three meters between them.

"But I still stand by what I said earlier," Akira said. "I think we can help each other. You want to make...that man pay for betraying you. And we want to make him pay for all of his crimes against the world. What do you say? Do you think we can work together?"

Akira took care in avoiding any utterance of Verus Rex. She wasn't sure if the title would set Danya off, but she wasn't about to take any chances.

Thankfully, after a few seconds of silence, Danya spoke.

"I don't need your help," Danya said, her voice quiet and hoarse. "Just let me go, and I'll take care of him myself."

Out of context, Danya's current image said otherwise. She was entirely covered in gray dust and black grime, and her gunshot wounds on her arm and legs were caked with burnt flesh and dried blood. Her hands and arms were streaked with red, some of which smeared on her browning blouse.

But given enough time, she would probably heal, and Akira preferred if Danya couldn't kill her by then.

Off in the distance behind Danya, Akira spotted a hint of movement: Izzy was creeping in the background. He held what looked to be an abnormally large shotgun bulkier than his own torso, and his lanky limbs shook as he balanced the device on his hip and aimed the barrel towards Danya. Akira couldn't move out of the line of fire without being suspicious, and the best she could do was act natural while she accepted her fate.

"Maybe you're right," Akira quickly said, hoping her voice would mask the sounds of Izzy's worrisome plan. "But what if you're not? I'd like to be an optimist too, but if this war has taught me anything, it's to expect the worst and hope for the next best thing. You're the best chance the world has at stopping him, and if something goes wrong... Well, there probably won't be much of a world left after that. Are you willing to take that chance?"

Surprisingly, Danya looked to be seriously pondering her offer as she continued to stare off into space in silence. Until she blinked slowly once, then twice, before turning her head, her narrowed eyes meeting Akira's.

Danya's vision had returned.

Just as Danya lifted a knee, a sharp crack rang out, and a spray of a dozen small silver spheres flew at her from behind. The pellets pelted her body and stayed there, sticking to her torso, arms, and legs. Not a moment later, the sting of static hissed through the air; Danya's body seized up at the same time, and she released a choked groan before stiffly collapsing to the ground, motionless.

A familiar whooping cheer broke the shocked silence, and Akira looked up from Danya to see the senior Gupta celebrating alongside a surprisingly annoyed Izzy. It didn't take long to determine why: the sergeant was single-handedly waving around the oversized shotgun Izzy had struggled with earlier.

"Bullseye!" Gupta exclaimed in an exaggerated American accent, almost hitting Izzy with the gun during their excitement.

"You were supposed to evenly distribute the pellets throughout her body," Izzy muttered. He stormed up the mountain of rubble and threw his hands towards Danya's crumpled figure. "Look! None of her appendages have the same amount of pellets. How am I supposed to find anything useful with that many variables?"

Gupta scoffed, and cockily balanced the weapon on their shoulder as they followed Izzy. "It's a shotgun. I know a lot has changed in the past couple hundred years, but a shotgun's aim certainly hasn't."

"Don't you dare call it a shotgun!" Izzy snapped. "It is a powerful, state-of-the-art, high-tech stun gun that can, apparently, take a superhuman down and keep her down with one hit!"

"Hang on," Akira said, partially out of confusion and partially to deescalate the impending fistfight. "Your idea was...a stun gun?"

Izzy paused, his anger fading quickly from his face as he contemplated the question, then nodded. "Yep."

Akira narrowed her eyes. "To take down a potential human weapon and alleged goddess?"

"More like the typical theoretical superhuman as far as I'm concerned, but yeah."

For probably the fifth time in the past twelve hours, Izzy was majorly testing Akira's patience.

"Why couldn't you just give the gun to one of us to begin with?" Akira asked with a strained calm. "We had a huge opening when she wasn't paying attention to any of us. She was plenty distracted already."

"Because I didn't think it would actually work against her," Izzy said with a light chuckle. "And that would look really embarrassing for you, wouldn't it?"

Hale stepped in before Akira exploded with frustration.

"Are you sure she's down?" she asked, watching Danya warily from Akira's side. "The past few minutes were enough for me to believe otherwise."

"Oh, she's definitely down," Izzy said, pulling out his strange analog multimeter from the pocket inside of his lab coat. "See?"

Judging by the lack of replies he received, no one saw anything.

"Don't you see it?" Izzy grumbled, jamming a finger at one unmoving needle in particular. "That weird magnetic field she had earlier is completely gone! Vanished! Poof!"

"Care to explain to the people she's never tried to murder before?" the senior Gupta asked.

Izzy groaned. "Isn't it obvious? She has millions of highly advanced nanobots in her body! That's how she's so strong, and that's how she can heal! She's basically a cyborg!"

"Since when could nanobots do this much damage?" Hale muttered bitterly as she nudged a protruding rebar with her foot.

Akira frowned, her exhaustion clouding her mind. "So not only did the stun gun take her out, but it also disabled the nanobots in her body?"

"I mean, at least temporarily," Izzy said. "I'm sure they can reboot on their own, which is why the pellets continuously release a small amount of voltage to keep her down."

"No, that's not it," Akira said, still trying to figure out why none of this was sitting quite right with her. "After everything we've thrown at her for the past fifteen minutes...are you saying you disabled the one thing that was keeping her alive?"

"Oh..." Izzy paused, his gaze traveling to the sky as he thought. "Well, yeah, I guess."

Akira's shock delayed her action by a split second, and she cursed as she rushed to Danya's side. Surprisingly, Hale was right behind her, and together they turned the unconscious woman onto her back to examine the extent of the damage.

She looked worse than when she broke out from her tomb on Pali Uli. Under layers of grime, Danya's skin was almost as pale as it was the first time they met. The only exceptions were where huge red welts were scattered across her body like polka dots and the multiple gunshot wounds on her arm and leg, now profusely bleeding.

"Izzy, turn these things off, now," Akira ordered as she pressed her uniform sleeves against Danya's shoulder injury, briefly noting how Hale did the same with her other injuries. "Gupta, contact medical. Beringer, you're a medic? We need you down here."

"Here!" Beringer called from somewhere behind Akira, most likely having read the situation from afar.

Before Akira knew it, she was being forcefully lifted off of Danya's limp and lifeless body, her own hands covered in warm, sticky blood. At some point, dozens of uniformed soldiers had arrived and surrounded Danya, and it took Akira another moment to notice the various medical equipment they procured from their standard-issue backpacks.

She didn't know how long had passed, nor who was currently holding her upright and dragging her back by her shoulders. All she knew was that their biggest hope of ending the war was lying motionless on the ground in a growing puddle of red, the same red that dripped from Akira's fingertips. And there was nothing Akira could do to stop it.