I held a gun to Cord’s head.

  “What are you doing here,” I asked.

  “I uh... I stepped away from. From the fight.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” I emphasized.

  “I didn’t know I’d run into you. Or that you would be here. Ok. The battle is already a foregone conclusion, and there is nothing for me to do to help or hurt things. “

  “They are still fighting then?”

  “For a little longer, but not that long. Two of them are dead, and the rest will be too. Expect the evolving superhuman.”

  “The villain.”

  “If you want to call him that. Sure. They all are a part of this. They destroyed several blocks already. Maybe they will get to a few more before the evolver decides to leave or start killing more of the regular people.”

  “Whatever,” I said callously. “You are right that he will continue to kill. Get out of here while you still can. I will be as well. Just get out of here.”

  Cord didn’t move. He stood there shifting.

  "I’m serious," I said, keeping my gun trained on him. "Go."

  He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. His gaze flickered between me and the wreckage in the distance, where the last echoes of the battle raged on. Flames licked the sky, and the sound of collapsing buildings punctuated the chaos. Every second we stood there felt like a countdown to something worse.

  "I..." he started, his voice low, almost pleading. "I just can’t leave them. Not like this."

  I narrowed my eyes. "You said it yourself—there’s nothing left to do. They’re all as good as dead, Cord. Don’t be a fool."

  His jaw tightened, and for a second, I thought he might challenge me. Instead, he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

  "You’re right," he muttered finally, his shoulders slumping. “I thought that maybe. Maybe you would be different.” He stepped back.

  "Cord," I said, quieter now, "get out while you can. This fight—it’s not ours to win."

  He nodded but didn’t move, still rooted to the spot, still staring at the destruction. There was something in his eyes, something I couldn’t quite place—regret, maybe? Or guilt? Whatever it was, I didn’t have time to pick it apart. My survival was at stake, and if Cord wasn’t going to save himself, I couldn’t drag him along.

  “But what if you could win?” he called out behind me. I paused my steps back to the warehouse. “Would you do it?”

  I took a step back. At this point, I knew he wasn’t going to try and fight me, so I lowered my weapon.

  I answered his question with a question. “What does it matter to you?”

  “You know what.” Cord shook his head. “Maybe it doesn’t. I guess I thought that. Maybe you would still want to be a hero. One still wandering this broken world. A hero to someone. To me. To the people would try and kill you. Hate you. You are superhuman.”

  “I think you are forgetting a part of that word. Human. Just like you. I, however, have more options while the world is falling apart. That’s because we aren’t really villains or heroes or whatever else people call us. We are super, yes. But we are human, too. A bit of good and bad. But we are burdened by powers that have caused this,” I gesticulated.

  “Then you don’t try anymore. At least you have the luxury of running, teleporting away to who knows where.”

  I stared at Cord, feeling something. What was left for me to give? I wasn’t anyone’s savior. I hadn’t been for a long time.

  Still, something in his voice—no, in his eyes—held me there.

  "You really think there's anything worth saving?" I asked, my voice softer than I intended.

  Cord hesitated. His eyes flickered with uncertainty, then resolve. "There’s always something. Maybe not the world we wanted, but... people. There are always people worth saving."

  Before I could say anything, the ground trembled. A deep, thunderous crack split the air, and we both turned toward the source.

  The battle had reached its climax.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The leader, bloodied and battered, stood defiantly in front of the villain. Her armor was torn, barely holding together, but she wasn’t backing down. Even from this distance, I could see the way her fists trembled, the exhaustion weighing her down. Yet there she was, throwing everything she had at him, even though it was clear she had nothing left to give.

  The villain—his hulking figure cast in the fiery light of the wreckage—seemed almost amused. He was stronger now, faster. His skin had shifted again, shimmering with an eerie metallic glow that reflected every attempt the heroes made to stop him. They had tried everything. Nothing worked. And now, they were barely hanging on.

  “Naomi," Cord’s voice was sharp, yanking me back to the moment. "If you don't step in now, they’re all dead. You know that, right?"

  My hands clenched into fists at my sides. "And what do you expect me to do?" I snapped.

  “Anything.”

  “I, unfortunately, know one thing that might stop him. This is going to suck.” I said while putting my mask back on. It wouldn’t protect me much, but that wasn’t the point. It just needed to take a good hit or two.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the familiar tug of my powers, the sensation of space and time folding in on itself as I prepared to teleport. The world around me faded, the sounds of battle and destruction growing distant, muffled.

  When I opened my eyes again, the villain was standing in front of me, standing away from me. I took another breath and engaged my power twice. I reached him and, at that moment, I reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and let the teleportation take us.

  I felt his fist crack my mask as I was thrown back. He had done so on instinct and turned around violently, starting to destroy my things. The couch was thrown against the wall, and the decorations shattered. I was coming to my senses as he approached.

  “Where are we?” he roared.

  Even with his back to me, I felt the raw power radiating from him, a reminder of just how absurdly overpowered he was. He’d grown stronger since the last time we clashed—evolved, they called it. His skin was now layered with a metallic sheen that glinted like steel, and his eyes had that feral edge of someone who had already crushed one too many lives.

  I teleported across the room. I needed to get him over to the operations room. I needed to make his life as uncomfortable as possible. The metal door creaked open, and I teleported in as I cracked it open. The villain’s hand was already on the door as I stepped closer to the controls. There was no big red off switch or anything quite like it. I did find one that would work.

  As I tightened my grip on the control panel, my heart pounded, and I forced myself to focus through the fog of exhaustion. My vision swam, my body aching from the brutal assault, but I had to hold out. Across the room, the villain's form seemed to swell, his skin now a strange metallic sheen that caught the glint of emergency lights. His eyes locked on me, and an unsettling grin spread across his face. He knew he had me cornered.

  I swallowed against the cold air that stung the back of my throat. The thin, Martian atmosphere was leaking in, biting my skin and numbing my fingers. I tried to ignore the sensation, but every breath felt weaker, and each pull of oxygen was like dragging myself through a blizzard. My mask had slowed the damage, but it wouldn’t last much longer.

  The villain took a step toward me, his movements slow, calculated. My fingers hovered over the last operational switch, and with a deep breath, I disabled the safety protocols. With a hiss, the final airlock disengaged, and a fresh blast of frigid Martian air flooded in. I felt my strength slipping away as my muscles struggled against the mounting chill.

  “Think you can trap me?” His voice was a rumble that echoed off the metal walls, searing with contempt. Before I could respond, he lunged.

  I jerked out of the way, barely. His fist collided with the wall where I’d been standing, the impact shaking the entire structure. I stumbled back, gasping as his fist left a dent the size of my head in the steel. My legs wobbled, my vision blurred, and the air felt thinner by the second.

  I blinked hard, forcing myself to stay focused. Every nerve in my body screamed as I drew on the last shreds of my power and teleported behind him. The world twisted for a second, and I reappeared, but the disorientation nearly made me collapse. My chest tightened with the lack of air, and I tried to steady myself as he turned, furious and unyielding.

  In the low light, I could see a smear of blood on my fingers, though I barely felt the cuts from broken glass and metal edges scattered across the floor. My breath came in shallow gasps as I struggled to keep moving. Each teleportation drained what little strength I had left, each dodge leaving me more exposed and slower. The cold didn’t help either. It was below freezing and felt like it. I was lucky that the wind wasn’t adding more cold with a wind chill.

  Another punch came crashing down, this time grazing my shoulder and sending white-hot pain through my arm. I bit down hard, trying not to scream, trying not to give him the satisfaction of seeing just how close I was to breaking. My shoulder was nearly useless now, the bone probably cracked.

  He laughed, the sound reverberating as he closed in, towering over me. “Is this all? After all the trouble you’ve caused, this is all you have?”

  I forced a smirk, though my lips were numb. “Still… standing, aren’t I?”

  He swung at me again, and I teleported at the last second, but only a few feet this time—I didn’t have the strength to go farther. I staggered, nearly falling to my knees as the thin air clawed at my lungs. My vision tunneled, my limbs felt like lead, and for a horrifying moment, I couldn’t remember which way was up.

  He advanced slowly, savoring my weakened state, my fear.

  Desperation clawed at me. I was on the verge of blacking out, every breath too shallow, my chest burning with each gasp. My mind raced through the options I had left—all of them bleak. I could hardly feel my fingers now, but with the last of my strength, I reached behind me, grabbing a sharp piece of shattered metal from the floor.

  As he approached, I forced myself to my feet, body screaming in protest, and held the jagged metal between us. His grin faltered, but only slightly, his eyes gleaming with twisted amusement.

  "Ready to give up yet?" His voice was smug and confident, knowing I had nothing left.

  "Never," I whispered, the word barely escaping my frozen lips. “You forget that I have already won. You’re never coming back.”

  As the last of my strength slipped away, I let the darkness pull me under, hoping it would be enough to keep him trapped in the cold, lifeless expanse of my ruined base.

  “This place will be your hell,” I said while trying to avoid the Martian air. My energy was slowing.

  With the last of my power, I teleported away. Anywhere but Mars.