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It starts with sirens.
Great air raid sirens, the kind that Marissa, Mars, has only heard on TV. The kind that must have played in Madison before they arrived, when She first landed on the city.
There’s never any question between them about if they’re going. There’s no way to move Noelle, not with this short notice, and she knows that Jess and Luke want to help people. Mars doesn’t know if she does too, not any more, not after everything, but she wants to keep her friends safe.
So they go. They leave Noelle and Jess’s sleeping body with Oliver and they go. Krouse as Trickster, in his top hat and ring master suit and domino mask. Luke as Ballistic, all tactical gear and sharp edges. Jess as a gargoyle, loping along beside them, with skin like stone and great big wings.
And Mars as Sundancer, her black and red costume as uncomfortable as ever, weighing her down.
It’s funny. She used to be a dancer, if you can believe that. Cheerful, friendly, someone that people liked to be around. She still tries to be that, every day, but it’s harder and harder. She can feel Earth Bet weighing her down, stress accumulating around her.
It’s hard.
The first thing that they did when they got to the city, when they got to any city, was to learn what would happen in an Endbringer attack. Where capes gathered, where civilians hid. Krouse claimed that it was so they would be prepared, but they all knew that it was in case She reappeared.
Mars likes to think that they would have gone to help even if it had been Her. She’s not sure.
But regardless of the hows and whys, they know where to go, and they head there quickly. The gathering location’s a building near the middle of town, close enough to the ocean for everyone to deploy quickly from it but not so close that big waves would bombard it.
It’s a six story building, obviously used as an office building for the rest of the year, with dark brown bricks and tinted windows. It sits alone on a grassy hill and for a moment, just a moment, Mars is reminded of where her dad used to work. Where her dad might still work.
The reminder of her old life hurts less than it used to.
As they approach, there’s a crack of displaced air, and another group of capes teleport in. They didn’t seem local but Krouse frowns underneath his mask at the sight. Were they from one of the cities they’d already visited? Not New York. Detroit? Mars can’t remember.
As they pass through the parking lot, giving a wide berth to the teleporters, another team arrives. Flying in, for most of the capes, with the rest carried by the fliers. The white suits and lack of masks set them apart from the rest of the capes around and the sight nudges Mars’ brain. New Wave, right? The hero team that didn’t really take off after one of their members was killed.
As they enter, one of the New Wave members—a tall man, in a white and yellow costume with a lightning bolt arcing across it—gives Mars a nod and she nods back.
She knows that there’s a good chance that one of them will die before the end of the day.
The meeting area is some sort of repurposed lobby with big windows overlooking the beach and three widescreen TVs monitoring the situation. The view is why the building was chosen, she supposes. In the middle of the lobby are rows and columns of folding chairs, enough for a small convention to all be seated.
Mars wonders if even half the chairs will be filled. Did people care enough about this city to come?
There’s a storm brewing out on the water, dark clouds roiling, a heavy curtain of rain pouring down. Soon, the rain will be over them, and then it’ll all be started.
“Are you okay?” Jess asks, quietly, her voice gravely like rocks and so very un-Jess-like, and Mars smiles at her friend.
“I’ll manage,” she says, kicking herself. She’s supposed to be the nice one. “How about you? Are you holding up?”
Jess nods. “This is one of my better forms,” she rumbles. “It’ll be pretty tanky and it doesn’t need to breathe.”
She keeps going, talking about why she picked the gargoyle, but Mars finds her attention wandering. It’s not intentional; normally, she can listen to Jess talk for hours on end. But now, she finds her mind slipping, and she locks eyes with one of the girls across the room—one of the kids from New Wave. Laserdream, she thinks. She’s got blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, with her blonde hair swooping low over the left side of her face.
It looks nice on her.
As a team, New Wave’s split up. The adults are clustered together, talking in low tones; the teenagers are talking with the Brockton Bay Wards. Laserdream’s in the middle, not sure if she’s old enough to be an adult, not sure if she’s still young enough to be a kid. Mars can relate.
Laserdream meets her gaze and Mars feels her face flush under her helmet. Not for the first time, Mars wishes that things had turned out differently. That she could have been a hero, that she wasn’t playing at being a villain, that she didn’t have this weight on her shoulders.
She wishes, more than anything, that she could have been with New Wave, or the Wards, or the Protectorate, standing there without any shame, talking to the heroes like she’s meant to be. An intense surge of envy, greater than anything she’s ever felt, bubbles up, and… and just as suddenly, it ebbs away.
She’s not up there with the heroes. Not her. Not Sundancer. That’s not how things worked out.
She looks away first; Laserdream turns back to her conversation with her cousins. More capes filter in. One of them is a girl in dark armor with yellow tinted lenses over her eyes and long dark hair. Mars spots her and studiously avoids eye contact.
For all that Skitter was a good ally, all that Mars can see is the blood on her hands after she carved out Lung’s eyes. With a goddamn knife. She scoots a little further away.
And it goes like that for a little longer until, finally, a man in bright blue and white steps up to the microphone at the front of the room and clears his throat. The room goes silent, instantly; when Legend gets ready to talk, everyone listens.
“We owe thanks to Dragon and Armsmaster for their early alert,” he says, his voice calm, no hint of fear at the idea of the upcoming battle. “We’ve had time to gather, and that means we have just a few more minutes to prepare and brief for Leviathan’s arrival, instead of jumping straight into the fray as we arrive.”
He kept going after that. He talked about the strategy, hard and soft targets, Leviathan’s powers, all of it.
And Mars… couldn’t care.
She already knew that she was disadvantaged, going into this fight. Water beats fire. She already knew that Leviathan was strong. She tunes back in as Legend describes the armbands, at least, and takes hers when it’s handed to her by a girl in bright green armor. Vista.
“Sundancer,” she says, her voice calm. She hates how calm.
One by one, Legend calls each group. Krouse goes with the Movers. Jess goes with Alexandria and the flying brutes. When Legend calls for long ranged attackers, Mars stands up, and so does Luke.
She was still standing up when someone shouts and forcefields spring up.
They’re not enough.
The wave slams into the building like a truck, rocking the building. The forcefields start to flicker and then they start to fail, water leaking around the edges and filling up the lobby. One of the television screens fall to the ground in a clatter of sparks. It’s barely noteworthy. There’s some groaning as the ceiling begins to sag and a naked woman—Narwhal?—reinforces it with some forcefields. It’s not enough.
“Strider! Get us out of here!” Legend shouts, his voice cutting through the chaos.
There’s a crack of displaced air and most of the room vanishes. Krouse, Jess, Luke—Strider takes them away.
Not Mars.
Just a little bit too far.
The ceiling gives way and more water rushes into the room, filling it even quicker. Mars can’t find which way is up, which way is out, where the nearest pocket of air is. She holds her breath as her helmet fills with murky water and her eyes sting. She holds her breath until her lungs burn and she sees black at the edges of her vision.
And then she lets go.
Her light dims. Another star snuffed out.
Mars drowns alone, her stars no help at the bottom of the sea.
That’s the end.
She opens her eyes in a vast void.
There’s nothing but darkness around her. The kind of darkness that makes you think there’s an infinity contained in it. Like space.
Mars likes space. She liked space. Past tense, now.
There’s little pockets of light in the darkness. Little stars in it, just like the ones that Mars makes. She watches as one of them goes out and she frowns.
That’s not good.
She hangs there, suspended in space, for a little while. Long enough to wonder what’s going on with her friends.
Didn’t she die?
And then she wakes up.
It starts with sirens.
Great air raid sirens, the kind that Mars has only ever heard once before.
The second time, Mars is distracted. There’s still no question about if they’re going. Jess and Luke still want to help people, and besides, there’s no way to move Noelle, not with this short notice. Mars still doesn’t know if she wants to, but no matter what, she wants to keep her friends safe.
So they go. They leave Noelle and Jess’s sleeping body with Oliver and they go. Krouse as Trickster, in his top hat and ring master suit and domino mask. Luke as Ballistic, all tactical gear and sharp edges. Jess as a gargoyle, loping along beside them, with skin like stone and great big wings.
And Mars as Sundancer, her black and red costume as uncomfortable as ever, and all she can feel is the phantom sensation of water filling her helmet.
They still know where to go. The first thing that they do when they visit a city is the Endbringer shelter, that’s what Mars tells herself, that’s why she can remember the feeling of the asphalt under her boots. That’s why this feels so familiar.
They walk quickly. The meeting spot is a six story building near the middle of town, dark brown bricks and tinted windows, sitting alone on a grassy hill. It’s close enough to the ocean for everyone to deploy quickly from it but not so close that the waves would bombard it.
She wonders why that statement feels viscerally wrong.
She wonders why she can see the building submerged in her mind.
As they approach, there’s a crack of displaced air, and another group of capes teleport in. They don’t seem local but Krouse frowns underneath his mask at the sight of them.
Mars still can’t remember where they’re from.
As they pass through the parking lot, giving that wide berth to the teleporters, New Wave flies in. They’re still wearing white suits and they have no masks, just like Mars remembers, and the sight nudges her brain.
It all feels so familiar to her. Like it was some bad dream.
That’s all it was, right?
She forgets to nod to the hero as they enter the lobby, too caught up in visions of the windows crashing in, of her lungs filling with water. Of dying.
The lobby gives her more deja vu. It’s got big windows overlooking the beach and rows upon rows of folding chairs, enough for a small convention of people.
Mars knows that just over half of the chairs will be filled.
There’s a storm brewing on the water, dark clouds roiling, a heavy curtain of rain pouring down. Mars stares out at it, willing for it to just turn around and leave them alone. It doesn’t move.
“Mars?” Jess asks, her voice like gravel, and with a start Mars realizes that her friend’s been trying to talk to her. “I said, are you okay?”
Mars smiles back at her under the helmet. She’s supposed to be the nice one. Why can’t she even manage that?
“I’ll manage,” she says, eventually. “How about you? Are you holding up?”
Jess nods. “This is one of my better forms,” she says. “It’ll be pretty tanky and it doesn’t need to breathe.”
Jess keeps going, again, and Mars lets her attention wander. Just like last time. She locks eyes with Laserdream, again, and this time the hero smiles at her.
Mars flushes under her helmet.
Again, she wishes that was a hero. She could go up and talk to the heroes, warn them, tell them about the wave that’s going to hit.
But that’s not her. That’s not Sundancer. That’s not how things worked out.
Mars looks away first. More capes filter in. Skitter comes in, and again, all Mars can see is a bloody knife and a man without any eyes to see from.
She scoots away.
It goes like that for a while, until Legend steps up to the front of the room. Immediately, everyone goes silent, hanging on his every word.
“We owe thanks to Dragon and Armsmaster for their early alert,” he says. The speech remains the same. She gives her name to the armband. She stands up when Legend calls for long ranged attackers.
She tries to stick closer to Luke when the wave hits. It doesn’t work.
The ceiling gives way and water fills the room. Mars can’t find which way is up, which way is out, how to live. She holds her breath until her lungs hurt and her helmet’s full of murky water and there’s black at the edges of her vision.
There’s a cape above her, swimming towards her, glowing with red light, reaching down to her. She recognizes that light. Laserdream. Mars reaches for her.
It’s too late.
Her light dims. Another star snuffed out.
Mars drowns, her stars no help at the bottom of the sea.
That’s the end.
She opens her eyes in the same dark void.
There’s nothing but darkness around her. Darkness, and little pockets of light, small stars that burn with the intensity of Mars’ suns.
Mars likes it. She likes space. Liked space.
Another one of the stars goes out and Mars frowns. It feels a little bit more cold.
It’s not very nice.
Mars hangs there, suspended in space, for a long time and no time. Long enough to wonder if her friends are okay.
And then she wakes up.
It starts with sirens.
Great air raid sirens, the kind that Mars has heard twice before.
This time, Mars understands what’s happening. She was on a competitive video game team, for god’s sake; she understands the basic principles behind a time loop.
She just doesn’t understand why her. Why now.
But whatever the answer is, it has to be tied up in Leviathan. That much is obvious.
And so, just like the last time, there’s no question about if they’re going to go. There’s no way to move Noelle, Jess and Luke want to go, and now so does Mars.
So they go. The same four as last time, the four members of the Travelers that get to do all their work. Krouse, Jess, Luke, and Mars. They bid goodbye to Oliver, leaving him with Noelle and Jess’s sleeping body, and they go to the same six-story building that Mars has drowned in twice.
Krouse leads the way. It feels natural, even though this is his first time going and Mars has been there twice. He’s always been their leader, quick to boss them around, quick to take charge, quick to grow up when Mars was ready to break.
That’s Krouse in a nutshell. Ready to grow up.
The crack of displaced air hits again as the cape teleports in the same group of heroes and just like last time, Krouse frowns under his mask. They’re still not familiar to Mars.
New Wave flies in and lands as they’re entering the building and this time, it’s Laserdream who holds the door open for them. Mars frowns a little at the sight and hesitates—hesitates just a little, while the rest of New Wave goes through. While Krouse and Luke go through.
Did something change? Is this the butterfly effect?
“I knew it,” Laserdream says, quietly. “You remember too, don’t you?”
Mars stiffens. It’s not just her, then.
But she doesn’t say anything to Laserdream, she just goes into the lobby, and she sits down in her chair and tries to avoid looking out the window at the growing storm.
“Are you okay?” Jess asks, quietly, and this time Mars hears her before she has to repeat herself.
“I’m hanging in there,” Mars says. “How about you?”
Just like the last time, Jess starts extolling the benefits of her gargoyle form, and just like last time, Mars finds herself zoning out. Her gaze stays clear of Laserdream, this time, and she doesn’t lock eyes with Skitter either.
But even despite that—she’s distracted. Distracted that they’re not alone, distracted that someone else remembers. Distracted through Legend’s speech.
Distracted when the wave hits.
Laserdream touches her fingers as she dives for her, this time, but it’s still too little too late, and the water’s already in her helmet.
Her light dims. Another star snuffed out.
Mars drowns, her stars no help at the bottom of the sea.
That’s the end.
She wakes up in the same void.
She takes in the inky blackness, the darkness around her, the tiny stars that fill it. They feel familiar, like part of her power. The part that only she gets to feel—the pleasant warmth that burns everyone else.
Mars wonders if that’s a metaphor for something.
Another star goes out.
It’s a little bit more cold.
Mars stays there for just long enough to wonder if this is all her fault. If this was something she did.
And then she wakes up.
It starts with sirens.
Great air raid sirens, the kind that have woken up Mars three times now.
They go to the six-story building. Mars remembers it.
This time, they move a little bit quicker, and Mars holds open the door for everyone. This time, when New Wave goes through, Mars grabs Laserdream’s arm.
“We need to talk,” she says, quietly.
Laserdream smiles at her, a brilliant thing, one that makes Mars smile unconsciously underneath her mask back at her out of nervousness. “I knew it!” she says.
They step away to the side—far enough that Jess and Krouse and Luke can see them, but not so close that they can hear them—and stand next to each other, face to face. There’s a pause, just long enough that they both open their mouth, and then they close it again.
“You go first,” Mars says.
Laserdream nods. “Okay,” she says, shaking herself out a little. “Okay. I’m just going to say it. We’re in a time loop.”
“Every time we die, we wake up as the sirens go off,” Mars adds.
Laserdream nods. “Was it when Leviathan…?”
“Flooded the building,” Mars finishes. “Yeah. It’s… it’s not fast.”
“I can normally last a little bit longer. Depends on if I can make it out of the building or if I stay back.”
Mars pauses for a second. Tastes the words. “Yeah, um,” she says. “I saw that you came back.”
“Yeah.”
They keep talking. They talk in hushed tones, comparing notes. They talk and Mars tries not to get distracted by the euphoria that she’s no longer alone in this loop. They get armbands and put them on with robotic motions, too focused on the person in front of them.
And then the waves hit and they’re just barely out of Strider’s reach.
“Hang on!” Laserdream shouts, grabbing onto Mars with one hand and blasting their way out of the building with the other. It’s a frantic flight, without any destination in mind, and they crash onto the street outside with scrapes and bruises as the armbands list out the names of those that weren’t so lucky.
Mars doesn’t pay attention to the names. She’s too busy staring up at Leviathan.
It’s bigger than she expected.
That’s the thought that sits in her head stupidly, like a piece of popcorn between her teeth.
But it’s there because she hasn’t gotten this far before.
Even silhouetted by the rain, she can see the Endbringer’s piercing green eyes flick back and forth as waves ebb and flow around him. It has the body of a swimmer, muscular but lean, and it sways back and forth with oversized limbs that look just a bit too long on him.
It’s the second most terrifying sight that Mars has ever seen.
Just after his sister.
“We need to move!” Laserdream shouts, trying to be heard over the pouring rain.
Mars tries to move but between the pouring rain and the Endbringer she just… can’t seem to make her legs work. With a grunt, Laserdream grabs her, and they take off into the air.
And then there’s the rush of wind behind her and Mars feels a sudden bloom of pain as her body hits the water. She feels warmth, warmth leaking from her, and she has a sudden moment of clarity as she realizes that it’s blood.
Iron Falcon down, CD-5, her armband reads out. Laserdream down, CD-5. Sundancer down, CD-5. Saurian down, CD-5.
The armband goes on. Mars tunes it out. She tries to move her legs but she can’t. She can’t feel them at all, actually.
That’s not good.
Laserdream coughs, weakly, and there’s red all over her. Blood all over her too.
Laserdream deceased, CD-5.
Mars feels like she should feel something about that. She doesn’t. Her head’s so heavy.
She rests it for just a second and her eyes slip closed.
Her light dims. Another star snuffed out.
Mars dies with someone, her stars no help in the pouring rain.
That’s the end.
The days start to fall into a pattern. They wake up to sirens. They go to the Endbringer fight. They die.
It starts to become comforting in its banality.
Every attempt they make, every perfect combination of powers they try and put together—it doesn’t work. It falls apart before they can get it working.
But they keep trying.
“Call me Crystal,” Laserdream says, unprompted, on the seventh loop.
It takes three more for Mars to remember to do that and five more because Mars tells her her name.
“Mars, huh?” Crystal asks, with that beaming smile of hers, the one that makes Mars’s face feel hot. “It suits you.”
The loops start to feel faster after that.
Despite their best efforts, the two of them never make it out. It’s always a combination of things; Leviathan targets them, they move into the creature’s path, or, sometimes, they make the choice to go again.
Those are always the worst loops. The first loop they both survived, the first loop that they made it to the end and watched Scion drive Leviathan off with beams of golden light, ended with all of New Wave dead. Crystal’s face was red and blotchy with tears streaming down her cheeks. Each casualty that her family took was like a fist to her gut.
The worst was her strangled cry when Shielder went down.
They didn’t need to say it when they decided together to try again. Mars couldn’t leave her alone to face the impossible weight of it all.
And if Crystal’s eyes were red and a bit puffy when they meet up at the building the next loop, well, Mars wasn’t going to say anything.
The void that Mars goes to every single time starts to get colder as more lights go out. The Triumvirate, alone or together, isn’t enough to take care of Leviathan. If they have too many people attack the Endbringer, if they’re too organized, it goes for them.
Crystal isn’t fast enough to outrun the creature’s water echo in a straight race. They learned that firsthand.
But they keep trying. They make plans. Noelle was the tactician of their Ransack team, and then Krouse was their leader, but Mars tries to step up. Crystal’s in charge of recruitment—she has that easygoing attitude, that familiarity with cape life, that people can’t help but respect. When she talks, people listen.
Mars listens.
And as long as Crystal’s trying, Mars keeps trying. She adjusts plans. She learns the powers of every single cape in the Bay just as quickly as Crystal learns their names. Mars puts teams together, small groups, ones that have powers that compliment each other but can sneak under Leviathan’s radar.
It never works. Its skin is too thick, its body too fast.
They’re running out of options.
It’s funny. Mars used to be a dancer, if you can believe that. Cheerful, friendly, someone that people liked to be around. She still tries to be that, every day, but it’s harder and harder. She doesn’t know how Crystal does it.
All she can feel is the weight of water, covering her, dragging her down.
How many stars does she have left?
“Why do you wear that helmet?” Crystal asks, one time.
They’re sitting on the edge of a building. It was a close loop, this time, but Luke went under a pretty big wave and didn’t come back. She thinks she heard Crystal’s dad go down at the same time.
It’s funny. The two of them didn’t even have a reason to be near each other during the fight.
Without any reason to keep going, Crystal grabbed Mars and the two of them perched on a building with a nice view of the sea. The rain’s still falling hard, sheets of water, but Mars can almost imagine what the ocean would look like from up here on a nicer day.
Mars shrugs. “It’s tinted,” she says. “My suns don’t really hurt my eyes, but, y’know. Better safe than sorry.”
Crystal nods, like she understands, and the two of them sit there in silence.
It’s a spur of the moment, but Mars seizes on the sudden desire to taste the fresh air and rips her helmet off, shaking her head to stop her hair from being caught in it.
“Mars?” Crystal asks, looking away. It’s polite of her.
Mars shrugs again. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I just… wanted to taste the air.”
It’s a lot cooler, outside of the helmet, and Mars can taste the salt on the air that defines so much of Brockton Bay. She can also smell her surroundings now, though, and for a moment she regrets the helmet coming off.
Crystal’s been silent this whole time and Mars glances over to see Crystal staring at her, looking gobsmacked.
“Crystal?” she asks.
The hero shakes her head and pats down her hair. “Hm? What’s up?”
“You got really quiet,” Mars says.
Crystal gives an awkward giggle. “Sorry, I just haven’t seen you without the helmet before.”
I know, Mars almost says, because she’s made a conscious effort to keep it on. Krouse drilled that into all of them—if they’re photographed, there’s a very real chance that the fact they’re from Earth Aleph might come out. They can’t risk that.
But right here, right now? Mars can’t find it in her to care.
It’s just Crystal.
“If I’m not fine taking it off in front of you, I’m not fine taking it off in front of anyone,” Mars jokes.
It’s the truth. There’s nobody in the world, not any more, that knows Mars better than Crystal. Not even Jess and that sends a jolt of sadness up Mars’s back.
For better or for worse, it’s like there’s only two of them in the world.
Mars and Crystal.
“I think I’m going to do something crazy,” Crystal announces, unprompted, after another moment.
Mars turns to her, meeting those brilliant blue eyes, and shrugs. “Okay,” she says, and the smile that Crystal shoots her in return sends a rush of heat up to her face.
And then Crystal puts her fingers over Mars’s hand and Mars has a sudden realization of Oh, that’s what you meant. There’s a moment where her brain tells her to stop, that this wasn’t the time, but by that point Crystal’s close enough that Mars has basically short circuited.
She hasn’t kissed a girl before. Or a guy, actually. Before Earth Bet, she was too focused on trying to make Ransack nationals and getting through High School for it to be any sort of concern.
After, well. Mars was too busy trying to stay alive.
But now, when Crystal’s hand cups her cheek, when their lips meet? It’s like every single star she’s ever made flares to life. Deep in her heart, in that space between life and death, she feels all of the stars that went dim reignite.
For the first time in a long time, she feels hope.
She also gets the feeling that she would quite like to do that again.
And as Scion’s beams split the heavens, as Leviathan retreats into the water, the two of them get ready to start one more time.
Mars doesn’t really know how to describe her relationship with Crystal.
How do you talk about your feelings when they’re the only one who will remember them tomorrow? How do you talk about your plans for the future, go on dates, do anything when it’s just the two of you in the world?
And yet. And yet.
Crystal’s everything that Mars isn’t, and Mars is everything that she isn’t, and somehow it works.
When Mars stumbles and falls, Crystal keeps the two of them going. She’s encouraging, she’s brilliant, she shines so brightly that Mars can’t help but listen.
And when Crystal starts to shut down, Mars tries to keep her going in her quiet way. Tries to remind her what’s waiting for them on the other side of all of it.
Because there has to be an end to it all, right? That’s how all the time loop stories go.
They just have to kill an Endbringer. No biggie.
Waking up every morning to the sound of sirens is tough. It’s the toughest thing that Mars has ever done. She falls into routines—making two cups of coffee as soon as the sirens go off, one for her and one for Luke, asking Jess what her dreams were like (she somehow manages to make up something just a little bit different every time), joking with Oliver like she’s going to be back after the Endbringer fight and everything will return to normal, stealing Krouse’s hat and hiding it somewhere.
Little routines that keep her sane.
Crystal has the same habits with her family; with Manpower, Lady Photon, and Shielder. Neil, Sarah, and Eric. And Carol, and Mark, and Vicky, and Amy. Mars almost feels like she knows them as well as her own family.
And she knows that Crystal knows enough about her friends, too; Krouse, Jess, Luke, Oliver, Noelle, even Cody. She knows about their Ransack team, about their friendship, about their disaster. Not the Simurgh, not that quite yet, but the rest of it. The important things.
And slowly, surely, they make progress when it comes to solving Leviathan. To killing an Endbringer.
It just takes time.
It ends with sirens.
Great air raid sirens, the kind that Mars has heard far too many times.
Mars doesn’t know how long it’s been since that first kiss, since that first fight, but she knows, deeply and truly, that she would’ve been broken long ago if Crystal wasn’t here.
But she is.
Mars feels like she could take on the world if Crystal asked her.
And so there’s never any questions between them if they’re going. There’s no way to move Noelle in time, and besides, Jess and Luke want to help people. Mars thinks she does too.
So they go. They leave Noelle and Jess’s sleeping body with Oliver and they go. Krouse as Trickster, in his top hat and ring master suit and domino mask. Luke as Ballistic, all tactical gear and sharp edges. Jess as a gargoyle, loping along beside them, with skin like stone and great big wings.
And Mars as Sundancer, her black and red costume feeling more comfortable than ever before.
They know where to go. Mars leads them, her boots tracing a path that she’s taken far, far too many times along the asphalt of the roads. She leads them up to the six story building with tinted windows and dark brown bricks that almost feels like a second home, the one that sits alone on a grassy hill.
As they approach it, a group of capes teleport in. She’s still not sure where they’re from but Krouse, as ever, frowns underneath his mask, and she lets him. She has other fish to fry.
As they make it to the door, New Wave swoops in, all white suits and smiles. A familiar shock of fear runs up Mars’s spine—the one that whispers to her that Crystal’s forgotten, that she’s alone in this loop—but the smile that Crystal gives her dispels it.
Thank god.
As they enter the building, Mars doesn’t pay attention to the rows and columns of folding chairs in the lobby, or the storm brewing over the ocean, or the roiling waves. All she’s focused on is stepping to the side and waving the rest of the Travelers on before Crystal runs up and gives her a hug.
It’s warm, comforting, and like coming home, just like every other hug from Crystal.
With a teasing smile, Crystal passes her a domino mask, one of the ones that her family keeps for new triggers, just in case, and Mars tosses aside her helmet. She hasn’t worn it in what feels like years for the actual fight.
The mask is always a different color and Mars swears that Crystal paints them that way just to be cute.
“Ready?” Crystal asks, and Mars sticks the mask on her face.
“Ready.”
The two plan in hushed tones as Legend starts on his speech, the one that they both memorized ages ago. It’s a good speech, mind, but Mars doesn’t really have the time for it. Eventually, one of the Wards hands them their armbands—Aegis, if Mars remembers right—and gives Crystal a puzzled look at Mars’s presence, but he doesn’t push any further.
“Laserdream,” Crystal says into her armband, completely ignoring Legend as he instructs them on how to use the armbands, and Mars does the same for hers.
“Sundancer.”
With that, they have just enough time to hear the first shouts of tidal wave from Bastion, and Mars takes precisely two steps to the right with Crystal, stepping just out of range of where Strider’s teleport will be.
As the tidal wave washes down the street, Crystal reaches down and grabs Mars around her waist. They wait fifteen seconds exactly, fifteen seconds of water filling the lobby, before taking off, crashing through the window just as Strider teleports the rest of the capes present with a deafening crack.
This is when they start getting to work.
They have a team, forged of desperation and last ditch plans. It’s a team that’s been built from iteration after iteration, failed loop after failed loop, until they finally reached this crew. The people that will kill Leviathan.
There’s Flechette. A Japanese-American girl, maybe a year or two from graduating the Wards. She almost didn’t come to the fight, she lives in New York, but she ended up signing up at the last minute.
There’s Panacea. Amy’s her real name, Crystal told Mars ages ago, but then again she already knew that. She’s their backup, their very own just-in-case. They can’t afford to trip this close to the finish line.
And then, finally, there’s Krouse. He still hasn’t given his name to Crystal, not in any of the loops, but Mars told her it, and it makes his eye twitch every time Crystal calls him Francis. According to Crystal, he deserves it.
Once the wave hits their building and they hear the armbands announce his position, they spring into action, just like the other times. Mars is in charge of grabbing Krouse—he’s always in the same spot, starting to grab injured capes and teleport them to the healers. Crystal grabs her cousin and they both meet up with Flechette, who’s still struggling to catch her breath.
They’ve done it a million times before.
On their way to Flechette, Mars makes Krouse help her grab a thick piece of rebar. It’s roughly the size of her body, it weighs exactly one hundred and seventy point three pounds, and she can’t carry it on her own. By the time they’ve reached Flechette, they’re both tired, but only physically, not mentally, and Crystal’s explained the situation to Flechette and Panacea in a way that only a hero can.
That’s the easy part done.
With that ready, Flechette begins using her power on the rebar, breathing heavily as it sinks in, and Mars takes the chance to check in.
“Ready?” she asks.
Crystal nods. “Always. You ready?”
“I am,” she says. She hasn’t ever had the chance to actually do her part, not yet, but Crystal said that she has a good feeling about today.
She has a good feeling about every day.
“All set,” Flechette announces, stepping away from the rebar as it hums with her power.
Crystal nods, picking up the rebar with a carefully applied forcefield and carrying it along with her. “Wish me luck?” she asks, turning to Mars.
Mars nods. “Good luck,” she says.
There’s half a second before a mischievous smile steals across Crystal’s face and she leans in to give Mars a peck on the lips. Mars blushes at the contact, as sudden as it is, and the group’s silent until there’s an incredulous shout.
“You’re GAY?!” Amy exclaims. That was new—they hadn’t kissed in front of her before. Huh.
“Yep,” Crystal says, nodding. “Is that a problem?”
She frowns.
“I didn’t take you to be homophobic, Amy,” she says.
“I- no- what?”
Mars clears her throat. “Go get ‘em,” she says, simply, and she squeezes Crystal’s shoulder.
“Of course,” she says, grabbing the rebar and shooting Mars one of her brilliant smiles, the kind that makes her face flush red.
And then she takes off into the sky.
Initially, they tried Alexandria, and Legend before her. They’re faster than Crystal, after all; it made more sense. But when someone only has one attempt, well, it falls apart.
Crystal gets unlimited retries.
Her speed’s been the limiting factor, though, and Mars crosses her fingers as Crystal begins her approach. Halfway through her approach, Leviathan twigs onto Crystal and swipes at her with a blisteringly fast claw; Crystal twists in midair, a flash of red and white, and manages to dodge the attack, and the next, and the next, until she’s right in Leviathan’s personal space and she lets the rebar go.
It’s a direct hit and it sinks into the Endbringer’s torso. Leviathan recoils at the pain, an alien reaction to the stimulus, and Crystal uses the opportunity to get the hell out of there.
With that done, though, it’s Krouse’s turn.
As Krouse explained it, it was kind of like flicking mental hands when he used his power. He had to select two objects of similar mass and just… push. The more there was a difference in mass, the longer it took to make that flick.
Mars weighs exactly one hundred and seventy point three pounds. It’s perfect.
With a twist of Krouse’s hands and a jerk of his fingers, Mars swaps places with the rebar, wedged deep inside Leviathan's body. A primal part of her is terrified, terrified she’s about to get crushed, killed, slaughtered, but Mars pushes that part of her away.
If she dies, she just gets to try again.
So she channels that fear, she holds out her hands, and sparks begin flickering between her fingers. They catch, after a moment, and turn into wisps of flame, and then that turns into a glowing orb that grows and grows as she makes a star.
A big one, bigger than she’s ever made before. Big enough to melt Endbringers.
Leviathan roars, bucking back and forth, as the heat starts to get to him.
She keeps going. It feels a little bit like pottery class, back on Earth Aleph, when she makes a sun. Molding hydrogen and oxygen together and pushing it until it lights up. With every fiber of her being, she pushes.
As the sun flares to life she sees Crystal’s smile in it. She closes her eyes with her own smile, painted on her face.
And she shines.
The worst part of any Endbringer attack is the clean up. Even if Mars’s sun vaporized the upper half of an Endbringer—and there’s still people clamoring to know how they did it, how they managed that pinpoint timing—there’s still flooding, and devastation, and death to deal with. Oh, and someone needs to figure out how to transport Levitathan’s bottom half.
As the official slayers of Leviathan, Crystal and Mars get a pass on all of that.
“So?” Mars asks, as the two of them sit on the edge of a building, that same building that they shared their first kiss on, so many years ago. “What now?”
Crystal smiles, looking out at the horizon. The rain’s finally gone and the clouds are parting. It’s like a new day is dawning.
It’s funny: after days and days of that nonstop rain that Leviathan brought, of cloudy skies and opaque storms, Mars had forgotten what kind of shade of blue the sky was. It was prettier than she remembered.
It’s also the same shade of blue as Crystal’s eyes.
Crystal shrugs, brushing back her hair and tucking it behind her ears. “I’m not sure,” she admits. “You’re still a villain, technically speaking, but taking out Leviathan gives you a lot of leeway with the Protectorate. You could probably join, if you want.”
Mars considers the idea for a second. Being a hero… well, it would be nice, even with her extenuating circumstances. They didn’t join because they were technically dimensional refugees, and they were Ziz bombs, but the heroes have resources to deal with that, right?
But there’s Noelle. And Krouse, and Oliver, and Luke, and Jess. It’s not just her choice.
“I’ll think about it,” Mars promises.
Crystal elbows her. “We won’t be able to hang out as much if you don’t give up your dastardly deeds,” she warns Mars.
Mars smiles. “You could just come join us,” she offers.
“I don’t think I could leave my family behind,” Crystal admits.
There’s a pause, just for a moment, and then Crystal shrugs. “This seems like a tomorrow problem,” she says, pulling Mars in close. “For now, I’m going to kiss my girlfriend, and we can burn that bridge when we come to it.”
Tomorrow problem. Girlfriend.
The words taste sweet on Mars’s lips, and so does Crystal, and she decides to put the rest of her worries in a box and deal with them later.
It’s funny. Mars used to be a dancer, if you can believe that.
She wonders how hard it would be to start again.