Jody’s eyes fired off bolts before I had time to warn Dayton. Several shots hit, the red bolts striking his torso. Though I didn’t see a hole in Dayton’s suit, something must have made it through because he yelped.

In that moment, Rook punched him, throwing Dayton backward.

He did roll and come up on two feet, but something about the hesitancy in his movement told me that he was hurt.

Jody might have continued to fire bolts at Dayton, but he didn’t get the chance. As Dayton fell back from Rook’s blows, the Bloodspear pierced Jody’s back.

Jody slumped, face slipping down to the concrete floor, eyes wide open, but no longer glowing, jaw slack.

I knew what that felt like from back when I’d stabbed myself to save Amy. Dropping from above him, I knew that if I didn’t pull it out soon, he’d be gone forever.

The Bloodspear was always hungry, a little more so when its owner would die without taking life, but never fully sated.

I shouldn’t have bothered.

I wasn’t even a quarter of the way down when I noticed that Amy had become visible, but then she blurred, running at a speed I couldn’t even guess at. Avoiding metal rubble from Sean’s attack on the minions, running around workstations and cabinets that had been burned or tipped over during the fight, she made it to Jody.

The suit’s thermal sensors told me that Jody’s temperature had dipped as the spear sank into him, but stabilized as Amy pulled it out. The holes at the back of his legs had even begun to knit together.

The implant could do that. I’d used mine for it. I hoped he wasn’t choosing to replace flesh with more modifications than he already had. Either way, his eyes remained shut, and he wasn’t moving.

Rook recognized what would happen next before anyone but Amy.

Backing away from Dayton in a blur, he fired off a series of small missiles from a launcher attached to the remaining armor on his left forearm.

He didn’t fire them at Dayton either. He targeted Amy.

She, in turn, dodged them, blurring as she ran for him, the ruby glow of the gems in her armor leaving a trail behind her.

What happened after that, I only know because of footage from Amy’s comm and her ring. Rook and Amy both moved too quickly to follow.

Rook jumped sideways from Dayton, who still managed a punch to Rook’s gut. It didn’t hurt Rook, but as he landed, he stumbled. He didn’t fall, but the fractions of a second he took to stabilize himself were an eon in speedster time.

He’d jumped to the side, aiming in the direction of the door where the portal to the inside of Lee’s device (and presumably Magnus) was located.

The stumble meant that he wouldn’t make it.

By the time he stood on two feet and stepped in the direction of the portal, Amy stood between him and the door, spear in hand.

Knowing that she now ran faster than the spear flew, she never stopped running, charging straight at him.

Rook tried to dodge, but he had no chance. Amy’s first attempt to hit him left him with a red slash across his rocky, blue skin as if the skin were merely human flesh.

Rook’s helmet had fallen off by then. The blue skin made determining his age difficult; I pegged him as 50-ish. The wide-eyed expression of fear as he looked down, however, was ageless.

He lurched sideways, but not quickly enough. Amy shoved the Bloodspear into his chest, angled upward into his heart.

Everything moved too quickly for me to realize it at the time, but that was the exact moment when my implant detected a transmission from Rook’s implant that it labeled as a distress call.

I only knew it as the moment when everything shifted out from a blur into speeds I could see.

Amy lowered Rook’s body to the floor, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, her spear still in his chest. Walking forward, half-expecting an attack from wherever that distress call had activated, I caught his final, mumbled words through the Rocket suit’s sensors.

“I don’t even… know you… Why couldn’t it have… been… the Rocket?”

Then he slumped, some of the blue skin flaking off to reveal close-to-transparent pink skin underneath. I’d look up what he’d done to himself later, but in the moment, it struck me that Marcus might be disappointed that I’d gone through the entire fight without suggesting that Rook had turned into a budget Dr. Manhattan.

I shook my head. Whatever in Rook’s background had left him with the need to defeat me at the cost of part of his humanity could go to its death with him. I didn’t regret missing a chance to insult him for it.

Amy turned toward me, having pulled out the Bloodspear and leaning it against her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m barely even tired. The suit’s still rearranging and repairing, but I’m in as good shape as can be expected.”

She laughed. “You’re not even thinking about it. Several past Bloodmaidens wanted to make sure that you’re not bothered because I stole your kill.”

“What?” I thought about it. Given the warrior history of Amy’s ancestors, it made sense. “Oh. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he’s down.”

Amy threw up her hands, “Right. That’s what I told them, but some of us have a premodern perspective that worries about stealing a battle companion’s glory.”

Out of the corner of my eye,  Dayton did what I’d suspected he would. He’d run over to Jody, held his hand against the base of Jody’s neck, and closed his eyes.

My implant knew that in the moment where Dayton placed his hand against Jody’s neck, a sliver full of Xiniti implant nanotechnology had been injected into Jody’s body. With any luck, he’d wake up only as screwed up as he’d been before Rook got him.

Curious, I glanced toward the still floating ball of minions, suspecting we couldn’t do a thing for them, but wondering.

When my eyes reached it, I knew better than to hope. Not a one of the minions was moving. A replay from my implant showed that they’d stopped struggling the moment Rook died.

He’d used their implants to turn them into extensions of his own will and nothing more. I didn’t know what to do with that.

Turning my attention back to Amy, I asked, “What if I’d said I wasn’t okay with it?”

Amy frowned, “Weregild or, I don’t know, maybe an opportunity to fight an enemy that mattered to me? Or maybe I’d do you a favor? It all depends on how angry you were and the situation. Why? Because I know you’re not bothered.”

I shrugged, “Curiosity?”

Amy began saying, “Of course,” but pointed at my pouch, “Your rock’s getting angry.”

Even though I noticed that it had grown brighter, I barely paid attention. Energy washed over me, and not just any kind. I felt it through Artificer senses. It had the same burning energy Magnus had used to power up his task force when they’d come to take Jody.