The Shadowstone's tendril stretches toward Gwen like a purple finger reaching through water.
I don't think. The Digi-Gloves flare on my fists, the stored charge discharging in a single motion. My palm slams into the crystal. The impact travels up my arm and through my teeth. The stone shatters. Fragments scatter across the tunnel floor, their purple glow dying in fragments of dead light.
Gwen stumbles back. Her hand goes to her chest where the tendril almost touched.
"You okay?"
"Yeah." Her voice shakes. "Yeah, I'm okay."
The tunnel settles into silence. Killgrave lies on the ground in a heap of twisted limbs, moaning through bloodied lips. Small sounds. Pathetic sounds.
My hands crackle with leftover charge. Blue arcs jump between my fingers. I stare at the broken crystal on the concrete.
Nothing. I feel nothing.
Peter drops down from the ceiling, landing in a crouch. His mask is torn at the cheek. Gwen moves to him, and they stand together. Renamon pads over from the tunnel bend, fur singed at the shoulders. Taomon's golden aura has faded back into Kyubimon, then Renamon, the evolution spent.
Everyone is breathing. Everyone is battered.
Peter pulls off his mask. His face is pale underneath, eyes bloodshot. "It's over."
Gwen nods. Her shoulders drop two inches. "Yeah. It's over."
"It's not over."
They both look at me.
"I need to handle this part alone."
Peter's mouth opens. The protest is right there, forming behind his teeth. His hand comes up.
Gwen's fingers close around his arm. She holds his gaze for a long moment, then turns to me. Something passes between us. Understanding, maybe. Or permission.
"Let's go, Peter."
"But—"
"We should go."
Peter's jaw works. He stares at me for three seconds. "Don't do anything stupid."
Then he's gone, swinging up through a drainage grate with Gwen and Renamon following. Gwen looks back once, her silhouette framed against the streetlight above.
I don't meet her eyes.
The grate clangs shut. The tunnel goes quiet.
I pull out the Digivice. My thumb finds the Spirit Evolution sequence without looking.
"Spirit Evolution."
\[BEETLEMON\]
The armor plates lock into place across my body. Blue and yellow exoskeleton. The horn on my head crackles with electrical charge. My hands swell into oversized fists, humming with thunder.
I walk toward Killgrave.
He lifts his head. Our eyes meet.
There's nothing left in his face. No smugness. No calculation. No theatrical boredom. Just pain and the knowledge of what comes next.
A soft thump. Impmon drops from a rubble pile and lands beside me, grinning like a jackal.
"About time."
My fist connects with Killgrave's ribs.
The electrical charge is precise. I calibrated it in the half-second before impact. Every muscle in his torso seizes at once. His heart keeps beating. I made sure of that.
Killgrave screams.
Impmon's purple flames lick up Killgrave's arm. They burn wrong, these flames. Not hot like fire. Cold like nerve damage. They crawl under the skin and find every ending.
"That was for Jewel, you piece of garbage."
I hit him again. The second blow lands on his shoulder, dislocating it with a wet pop. The charge arcs through the joint.
And again. Ribs. Crunch. Charge.
Each blow placed. Each shock measured. The satisfaction sits warm in my chest, coiled behind my sternum like something living. Killgrave hurt Jessica. Killgrave made her hit those cops. Killgrave made her bow and spin and stand still while he circled her like livestock.
Killgrave broke her.
Now Killgrave is broken.
This is right. This is correct. This is what happens to people who—
Something catches the edge of my vision.
Gatomon.
She stands near the tunnel wall, motionless. Her blue eyes track every blow. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't look away. Her silence has weight. Not judgment.
Grief.
BlackGatomon stands beside her, arms crossed over her chest. Red eyes reflect Impmon's purple flames. She watches the way someone watches a fire burn itself out.
Both of them are right.
My fist stops mid-swing.
The electricity dissipates from my knuckles. The charge bleeds away into the damp air.
Killgrave gasps on the ground. Blood runs from his nose and his mouth, pooling on the concrete. His breathing comes in wet, ragged hitches.
Impmon looks up at me. The purple flames die in his palm.
"That's it?"
I don't answer.
Beetlemon steps back. The armor feels heavier than it did a minute ago.
Impmon shrugs. "Whatever, I'm done anyway."
He glances at me. No goodbye. No acknowledgment of the alliance we just fought under. No thanks for letting him get his licks in.
Impmon dissolves into pixels of dark light. Gone.
The tunnel feels larger without him.
I de-digivolve. The armor peels away, folding back into the Digivice. My own body underneath feels wrong. Smaller. Softer. My hands ache from the inside out, the bones humming with phantom charge.
I pull webbing from my belt. Peter's formula, the synthetic kind he shared with me last month. I wrap Killgrave's hands first, then his ankles, then his mouth. Three layers each. The webbing forms an airtight seal against his skin, neutralizing the pheromones at the source.
I grab him by the collar and drag him toward the tunnel exit. His heels scrape against the concrete. His moans are muffled behind the web-gag.
Gatomon falls in step beside me. Silent. Warm. Sad.
BlackGatomon takes my other side. Her silence is different. Comfortable. Changed.
The space between me and Gatomon is small. It is enormous.
The tunnel opens onto the dock area. Night air hits my face, cold and salt-tinged. S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles line the concrete. Agents move in coordinated patterns, securing the perimeter.
Black Widow stands beside an armored transport. Her mask is pushed up on her forehead. Her expression gives nothing away.
I stop ten feet away. I let Killgrave slump to the concrete.
"He's contained. The webbing neutralizes the pheromones. It'll hold for a few hours."
"Will he live?"
"Yeah."
She signals her agents. Two of them haul Killgrave up and drag him into the transport. The doors seal shut.
Black Widow looks at me. "We'll take it from here."
I nod. I turn away.
"Sloppy," BlackGatomon says. "Should've hit the ribs harder"
"Gatomon."
Her name comes out quiet. Just her name.
"I'm being practical."
I say nothing.
The warm stone in my chest is still there. Killgrave hurt Jessica. Killgrave is broken and contained.
It was worth it.
And Gatomon walks beside me, and the space between us says everything her silence won't.
I pull out the Digivice. My thumb taps the screen. The world folds around me, pixel by pixel, the Connect Jump swallowing the dock and the night and the cold air.
The last thing I see is the S.H.I.E.L.D. transport pulling away.
The empty concrete where Killgrave was lying.
***
Donate Power Stones to support this novel
Advance chapters in patreon.com/Najicablitz