The abomination lunged.

Its shadowed wings swept forward, creating a gust that sent banners tearing from the walls. Its barbed tail lashed like a whip, cracking the marble floor where Julian had stood a heartbeat before.

Julian was already moving.

[Boost].

His body blurred, sidestepping the tail’s arc, ducking under a clawed hand that could have crushed a tank. He rolled, came up behind the creature, and drove his black blade into its lower back.

The steel bit deep. Black ichor sprayed.

The abomination didn’t even seem to notice.

It twisted, its dozens of red eyes swiveling to track him, and backhanded him across the throne room. Julian crashed into a marble column, cracking it. He landed on his feet, blood on his lip, but his eyes never left Darwin.

"Emma. Fey. Zoe. Dori." Julian’s voice was calm despite the chaos. "Handle the monster. I’ll take Darwin."

Emma’s voice crackled through the communicator, already breathless. "Handle the boss, that thing is huge!"

"Then hit it harder."

Fey sighed audibly. "He’s not wrong."

The throne room’s eastern doors burst open.

Emma came first, flames wreathing her body like a living cloak. She took one look at the abomination and grinned—that wild, slightly unhinged grin that meant she was about to do something spectacular.

"Finally," she said. "Something big enough to hit without aiming."

She raised both hands.

[Pyrokinesis].

A jet of white-hot flame erupted from her palms, striking the abomination square in the chest. The creature staggered, its patchwork flesh blackening, bubbling. But the crimson crystal at its heart pulsed, and the flames seemed to be absorbed, drawn into the crystal’s hungry light.

"It’s eating my fire!" Emma snarled.

Fey stepped past her, blue hair whipping in the heat.

[Liquid].

From the throne room’s decorative fountains, from the pipes in the walls, from the very moisture in the air, liquid responded. Water, coolant, hydraulic fluid—all of it surged toward the abomination, wrapping around its legs, its arms, its wings.

The creature thrashed, but Fey’s grip held.

"Ice," Fey said.

The liquid froze. The abomination’s lower body was encased in a block of clear ice, anchoring it to the floor.

"Now, Emma!"

Emma didn’t hesitate. She compressed a fireball to the size of a marble, white-hot, dense as a star, and threw it at the creature’s head.

The explosion was deafening.

When the light faded, the abomination’s head was gone. A smoking stump of fused flesh and chitin remained.

Then the crimson crystal pulsed.

And the head grew back.

Emma’s grin faltered. "That’s not fair."

Zoe didn’t waste time with commentary. She shifted into her beast form and launched herself at the creature’s flank. Her claws raked across its side, tearing through skin and scale. Her jaws closed on one of its arms and bit down.

The arm came off.

But from the wound, a new arm grew. Faster this time. The regeneration accelerated.

Dori fired her pistol, again and again, aiming for the red eyes. Each shot found its mark. Each eye burst in a spray of vitreous fluid. But new eyes grew in their sockets, blinking, focusing.

"It’s adapting," Dori said, her voice trembling. "Every time we hurt it, it comes back stronger."

Carol stepped from the shadows.

Her red eyes gleamed. Her coat was gone, replaced by a fitted combat suit that showed every curve of her powerful body. In each hand, she held a jagged blade, black as obsidian, dripping with something that smoked where it touched the floor.

"Enough playing," Carol said.

She moved.

Not fast. Faster than fast. She crossed the distance to Emma in the space between heartbeats, her blades swinging.

Emma threw up a wall of flame. Carol’s blades passed through it, unharmed, the fire parting around them like water around stones. Emma barely dodged, the tip of a blade slicing across her cheek.

"Fey!" Emma shouted.

Fey redirected the liquid from the abomination’s legs, sending a wave toward Carol. Carol jumped, her body twisting in midair, avoiding the surge. She landed on the wave’s surface and ran across it, her feet somehow finding purchase on the liquid.

"She’s walking on water?" Dori’s eyes widened.

"She’s cheating," Emma corrected.

Zoe abandoned the abomination for a moment, lunging at Carol. The two clashed, claws against blades, fur against combat suit. Carol was faster than she had any right to be, her movements almost prescient, dodging Zoe’s strikes by millimeters and countering with brutal precision.

A blade sank into Zoe’s shoulder.

Zoe howled, shifted back to human form, and punched Carol in the face with her uninjured arm.

Carol’s head snapped back. She smiled.

"Good," Carol said. "Fight back. It’s boring when they just die."

She kicked Zoe in the chest, sending her crashing into Fey. The two women tumbled across the floor.

The abomination, freed from Fey’s ice, lunged toward them.

Emma stepped between.

"Hey," she said, flames dancing on her palms. "Eyes up here."

The abomination’s dozens of red eyes focused on her.

Emma smiled. "I’m about to do something stupid."

She raised her hands, and the fire came.

Not a jet. Not a wave. A sphere. A miniature sun, larger than the one she’d used at Xlomoph, larger than anything she’d ever attempted. The heat was unbearable. The marble floor beneath her feet cracked and melted. Her own skin blistered.

But she held it.

"EMMA!" Fey screamed.

Emma threw the sun.

The abomination didn’t dodge. It couldn’t. The sphere struck its chest, directly against the crimson crystal, and detonated.

Light swallowed everything.

When it faded, the abomination was on its knees. Its wings were gone. Its horns were shattered. Its body was a ruin of blackened flesh and exposed bone. The crimson crystal in its chest flickered, dimmed, nearly dark.

Carol stared at the creature, then at Emma.

"You little—"

A blade of shadow erupted from the floor beneath her feet.

Carol jumped, but not fast enough. The shadow blade grazed her leg, drawing blood. She landed awkwardly, her red eyes scanning for the attacker.

Julian was fifty meters away, locked in combat with Darwin. He hadn’t moved his hands. The shadow blade had been a parting gift, a reminder that even when he was busy, he was still watching.

Carol’s jaw tightened.

"Finish the creature," she snapped at the abomination. "I’ll handle the women."

The abomination’s crystal pulsed weakly. It began to rise, its regeneration struggling but continuing.

Fey pulled Zoe to her feet. Dori reloaded her pistol. Emma’s arms hung at her sides, trembling, smoking.

"One more time," Emma whispered. "I’ve got one more in me."

Fey glanced at her. "You’ll die."

"Probably." Emma’s grin returned, weaker but still there. "But I’ll take that thing with me."

Dori stepped forward. "No. You won’t. Because I won’t let you."

She raised her hands.

[Conceal].

But not on herself. On the abomination.

The creature’s dozens of red eyes went blind. It couldn’t see Emma. Couldn’t see Fey. Couldn’t see Zoe. It thrashed wildly, its claws swiping at empty air, its tail lashing at nothing.

"It’s disoriented," Dori said, sweat pouring down her face. "Now. Hit it now."

Emma didn’t waste the chance.

She ran forward, past the flailing claws, past the snapping tail, and pressed her palms against the abomination’s damaged chest. Against the flickering crimson crystal.

"Goodbye," Emma whispered.

The fire came from inside her. Not from her hands, but from her core, her soul, the very essence of her skill. It poured into the crystal, overloading it, filling it with more light than it could contain.

Carol’s eyes widened. "No!"

The crystal shattered.

The abomination screamed, a sound that was twelve voices at once, finally freed from their fusion, finally allowed to die. Its body collapsed, the patchwork flesh dissolving into ash, the wings crumbling, the horns snapping.

When it was over, nothing remained but a black stain on the marble floor.

Emma fell to her knees, gasping. Her skin was pale, her lips blue. But she was alive.

Fey caught her before she hit the ground.

"You idiot," Fey said quietly.

Emma smiled, barely conscious. "Told you I had one more."

Carol stood alone, her red eyes wide, her blades hanging at her sides. Her masterpiece was gone.

She looked across the throne room to where Julian and Darwin were still fighting.

Then she looked at the women who had destroyed her creation.

"You’ll pay for that," Carol said quietly.

Zoe stepped forward, blood still dripping from her shoulder. "Try us."

Carol raised her blades.

And the second round began.