Ezekiel is laughing manically as he grabs me and jostles me when he tosses me in the air like I’ve become a toy. I grin, simply because he looks so damn happy, and I don’t even mind that he’s now crushing me in a painful bear hug.

Kai rips me away, slapping a kiss on my lips before squeezing my ass. He grins when I bite down on his lip, and he pulls back just as Gage steals me away.

He starts carrying me away, glancing around, his smile so broad that it almost looks painful.

“You really do aim for the impossible,” he says, giving me a soft, grazing kiss.

Wrapping my arms around the back of his neck, I deepen the kiss.

He drops me to my feet when I feel something ripple over us.

“They’re releasing the cage door. We should be able to siphon out in a minute,” Jude says from beside me, his fingers brushing mine.

“Just so you know, you’re my current favorite,” I stage whisper to him.

His lips twitch, even as he rolls his eyes and tries not to grin. That grin does break across his face at last, and I swear it looks like it pisses him off.

Kai is suddenly at my ear, “I’ll give you multiple orgasms for as long as you can take them tonight.”

I pat Jude’s arm affectionately.

“Sorry. He made me an offer I can’t refuse,” I say very seriously, and then I turn to give Kai all my attention, as Jude snorts out a sound of amusement from behind me.

A prickle of awareness spreads up my spine, distracting me, as Kai holds me against his side. Gently freeing myself, I drift away from them, listening to them idly talk behind me, already plotting out a painting to commemorate this, because they’re vain that way.

The antiheroes just saved the world instead of destroying it because we like things the way they are and don’t want to risk personal extermination.

Keeps us from looking like the good guys when it’s worded that way.

Just in time too, because none of us had anything left to hit it with. The guys look as battered and exhausted as my bruised and weakened body feels. That took all we had and then some.

But my moment of feeling the win ebbs as that uncanny, sickening prickle spreads.

I study the seemingly harmless wasteland before me, staring at Jahl’s ashes and charred goo still raining from the sky.

For whatever reason, Mario Brother’s dada da dada da…da music starts playing in my head as flashbacks to beating Bowser play on a loop. Then a familiar, infuriating riddle from my journal pops into my head.

You’ll need answers to the puzzle you’ve laid. To seek such, refer to all things from your favorite decade.

The music continues playing, including the little death song when Mario dies, and the sound of the level being lost, just as another line from the journal creeps into my mind.

The final level always takes attempts in thrice. Move too fast or hesitate too long, and you always pay the boss man’s price.

Boss man’s price… Boss level….

“I really was a fucking lunatic,” I say on a sharp breath as I look up to the sky where the stars are slowly regathering.

“Seal it back and keep them out!” I shout heavenward.

The ground thunders under my feet as light flashes all around me, and my heart hammers in my chest when I look back, seeing the quad’s eyes widening as they try to leap toward me.

They crash into the transparent barrier, as the wind around me stirs violently, the ashes skittering and clanking across the ground like shards of broken glance.

I glance back, staring across the hundred feet of distance, seeing a shadow rising as all the ashes start piling on top of each other and spilling off, turning to liquid that sloshes and wiggles.

“Oh my damn,” I say on a broken whisper.

Barely able to hear their shouts over the relentless whirring of the wind, clattering glass, and sloshing liquid that’s all growing into hurricane’s roar, I look back at all of them.

I see the panicked look in their eyes as they pound the edge of the angelic barrier, heaven straining to keep us sealed inside, unable to let my horsemen in at this crucial moment.

Mario Brothers keeps playing, even as I see the second level of Bowser. Even though the third kill should be the hardest, I only ever struggled with the second one every time I played. The third seemed easy enough…

“If it’s not enough, I want you to seal them out.”

My conversation with Rafael starts playing in my head, as tears leak from my eyes. I can’t make the tears stop as I put my hand on the barrier, watching the guys as Gage and Jude try slicing through a cage not even that thing could break through.

“If I have to flip my trigger, and it’s not enough, you open the cage,” I told Rafael.

“Are you out of your mind? If you don’t kill him, he’ll—”

“If I flip my trigger, I’ll die and possibly shatter the cage anyways. The guys will then lose their shit, just as I did that day Lucifer tricked me into believing Ezekiel had been killed.”

I remember the look in Rafael’s eyes, as that stupid song plays on a loop, Mario prompting me to tackle the second level-up of the boss.

“If I don’t kill him, the secondary trigger surely will. Paca didn’t do all this for nothing. Maybe it’ll even be overkill, but better safe than sorry. Regardless, they’ll flip their switch, unable to stop themselves, because I know that sense of powerlessness, and they were born of Wrath’s love. Let them at least feel like they took out the thing I gave my life to weaken.”

It’s like I knew without knowing what had to be done.

As a tear escapes Ezekiel’s eyes, and Kai loses his shit, thrashing his body against the barrier like it’ll yield, I whisper, “I’m so sorry.”

Their lips move frantically, but the noise behind me drowns out any other sound, as Jahl continues to regather itself.

“Paca!” Kai shouts, his shout barely overriding the storm.

“No,” Jude yells so loud I manage to hear. “Don’t you fucking dare. Get us in there now!”

A single tear slides down my cheek, and I give him a tight smile. “Don’t be such a dick in the next life, Tin Man. I’m sure I’ll be back.”

Then my gaze flicks to the rest of them, seeing the terror and panic in all their eyes. “And don’t hold out so long on the next Ghost Girl. I never gave up my love for you, so I’ll find you, even if I don’t remember you,” I say as I turn around.

It’s almost impossible not to look back when I hear the pain and desperation in their shouts. Another tear burns against my cheek when I hear the rawness in their voices that devolves into frenzied begging.

“So this was really your plan all along and not just my backup plan, huh, Paca?” I ask as I choke back the emotions, steeling myself as I face the chaotic shadow that is still growing. “You really were a cruel bitch, but I guess I love them just as much as you fucking did.”

I take a few beats to click my heels together, but Dorothy is just one more agonizing disappointment from the movies. I suppose it’s for the best. This thing would be knocking on the door in no time.

“A little mood music would be nice!” I call up to the dove that’s hovering overhead, even as the crow sits perched and shakes its head.

Blaze of Glory by Jon Bon Jovi starts blaring overhead right at the chorus.

I let out a weary sigh. “You pick now to have a sense of humor? You know I hate irony!”

The music just gets louder, and I curse the angel who has the audacity to call me evil.

I take a few steps, staring over the amassing blubber.

“I think someone forgot to tell you my fucking name!” I call up to it.

My heart tears into four pieces, as I keep my eyes trained on the growing blob that is still being formed, all the pieces slowly melting to join it.

It’s so loud that it feels like I’m stuck in the middle of a vacuum tunnel as the wind whips my face with dust that feels more like razors.

Indulging in that one brief second where all I can hear is the sound of my heartbeat speeding up, as the selflessly selfish decision is made, I release one last breath of resignation, and I swallow down any lingering hesitation. Shaking out the last of my nerves, I watch the center that wobbles with a weakness.

This isn’t a video game. I just have to take him down so far that the third resurrection isn’t as powerful.

That’s why she put the secondary trigger in them. My backup plan was her finalized plan.

“Let’s hope we’re right,” I whisper to the ghost I’ll be joining soon.

Staring at the distance between me and final destination, I dig my feet in, stop thinking, and charge headfirst toward the belly of the beast, as the wind tries its damnedest to knock me off my feet.

My skin starts burning like acid is tearing me apart, slicing me through me and unleashing excruciating pain as I race faster, blocking out the violent lashes it continuously hits me with.

The center of it groans when I don’t stop, the sound vibrating and hitting like a hammer to my chest as I fight for every bit of progress.

A cry is ripped from my throat, when flames too hot for even me to bear, erupt across my arms and legs, burning inwardly. But I fight through it, even as tears are stripped from my eyes.

Just as I’m ten feet away, I summon all my strength, pulling it to my chest, trusting that intuition I left myself with once upon a lifetime ago.