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Rita Wayword, Spiral, still lived.

And she hated that.

Life had not been kind to Rita.

Falling in love with the wrong man at the wrong time left her stranded in a foreign universe, tortured and altered to serve as the right-hand woman of the leader of that world.

Then the Simurgh got her.

Anyone familiar with the Endbringers knows they don't really get magic.

They can see its effects, fight them, and are not blind to its potential to damage them. But it's a hiccup in their system, a weakness that the heroes of this world have used to keep them at bay.

It has been conclusively proven, time and time again, that heroes who draw their powers from technology, biology, or any combination thereof, are measurably less effective against Endbringers than heroes with equivalent powers in magic.

Superman has never landed a hit on Ziz.

Shazam has.

The Entities from which Shards and Endbringers originate are creatures of biology and science. They lacked the creativity and imagination to use magic. Older Cycles they had engaged in had not brought forth enough information to combat this natural flaw in their design.

While Earth was not the only planet in the universe to hold magic, certainly not the multi-verse, it was the first one to have enough people who used it as their source of power for it to pose a genuine threat to the Cycle.

The Simurgh had plans to change that, to gather knowledge, data, and experimental data on magic so it would stop ruining her plans.

Rita Wayword, Spiral, would have been the tool she used to remove her one weakness.

So the Endbringer pulled the six-armed mutant from Mojoworld to Madison, altering her cybernetic implants so that she could not act on her own. All the angelic-shaped being had to do was sever a slight connection between the brain and the automatic control unit of her implants. By measures of those physical controls, getting around her immunity from possession, she would follow the orders of anyone and everyone.

Trapped in the prison of her own mind, Rita could only watch, helpless for over a year, as her body did cruel, unspeakable acts. Not that she felt guilty over them, long gone mad as she was, even before the Simurgh pulled her through. Her helplessness just fuelled her rage and sadism.

The urge to lash out grew with each order she was forced to bend to, each new master she must serve.

Her only times of self-control were when the self-preservation modules would allow her to act against targets. In those brief instances of freedom, Rita relished the pain she inflicted on others, a tiny part of what was inflicted on her.

Through these control methods, the Simurgh could regulate her use of magic by using others as a medium. The Endbringer predicted an increase of 1/10619863 of a percent of increased efficiency of dealing with magic every time Spiral cast a spell.

Of course, that was not the extent of her plans regarding the six armed mutants, as she was still following the Prime Directive. Spiral had enormous magical potential, enough to be a Sorcerer Supreme candidate if adequately trained and motivated.

If she could use even a fraction of that potential, then there was a risk she could overthrow the Simurgh's plans, but at the same time, the more magic she used, the more data the Enbringer could aggregate.

The key was to release Spiral's shackles in such a way as to fulfill the Prime Directive at the same time as directing her to create more data with minimal risk.

During Ziz's next attack, Johannesburg, in the spring of 2019, she would release the Butcher from her dimensional prison, trapped there by the Scarlet Witch when the body-hopping villain had attempted to have Magneto kill them.

Filled with wroth, the villain would leave for the US, the last known location of the mutant father and daughter. While there, the Butcher would carve another swath of destruction through the west coast, dying twice and gathering further powers, even as their goals changed with different hosts.

Then, in a joint meeting with other PRT heads, one James Tagg would put forth the idea of 'trapping' the Butcher in the body of Spiral, held in their custody for over a year.

Unaware that Spiral was immune to possession.

Unaware that the process would 'free' Rita from the control of her implants thanks to one of the Butcher's powers healing the connection to the automatic control unit.

The shackles Mojo and the Simurgh had placed on Spiral would be lifted through the Butcher.

In two attacks, a total of forty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds, the Simurgh will have unleased a magician with enough power to qualify as the Sorcerer Supreme, who could teleport through dimensions, who held shards of all the other Butcher's powers, and one who suffered from intense psychosis at the hands of PRT and heroes due to their wariness of a Ziz bomb.

With so little effort, the Endbringer would gather all the data she needed on magic, satisfy her Prime Directive, and create one of the greatest threats the world had ever seen.

Unable to be killed due to fear of the Butcher moving to a new host.

Unable to be imprisoned, thanks to her powerful teleportation.

But the best-laid plans of mice and Endbringers oft go astray.

In all her predictions, the Simurgh did not, could not, see herself being 'Nom-ed' to death by a dragon the size of Great Britain.

Nor could she have predicted that Amanda Waller would send Spiral to the Island, where she would be killed by the Faerie Queen, who was still trapped in the Birdcage in the Endbringer's predictions.

If Ciara's power was Shard based, as it was in Worm, that would have been the end of Rita Wayword, able to pass on. Finally freed from the prison of her body and mind.

But that wasn't the end for poor Rita Wayword.

Glaistig Uaine's power might have started out the same as her counterparts, but it had attracted the attention of something... Blacker.

The Rot was not Shard-based.

And so Rita Wayword died, yet still lived, immune to the control of the Parlement of Decay thanks to her mutation.

The Simurgh's plan succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, as the shade of Rita Wayword, Spiral, screamed her pain, rage, and freedom.

Ready to lash out, to rain destruction on those who had done this to her, Rita tried to teleport to her once prison so she may exact her bloody vengeance on those who had confined and controlled her. From there, the rest of the PRT. Then Mojoworld. Then Longshot. Then everyone and everything else.

But she couldn't.

Spiral's magical senses reached out to her destination, grasping for the spatial/temporal coordinates of the cell she was so familiar with in a PRT containment facility.

But her senses found nothing.

Nothing but the smooth, glittering Jewel.

No longer controlled, yet still trapped, Rita screamed.

She screamed not because she was in pain or trying to intimidate anyone.

Spiral screamed for all the years she wanted to scream but could not.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

Sprial started to dance, screaming her undead throat raw as her hips gyrated and her arms waived maniacally in frenzied movement.

Deathstroke threw himself to the side.

Having spent weeks with the mutant, he knew any spell she cast that needed that much movement would be enormously powerful.

Even with his decisive actions, Slade Wilson would have died in those first few seconds if not for Solomon Grundy.

The shade of the great zombie launched itself at the dancing spell caster in an instant, obeying the unspoken command of the Avatar of the Black.

He was too late to stop the spell from being cast.

BOOOM!

The ship shattered as the explosion ripped through it with immense force. Metal shards measuring in feet flew with the speed of bullets, impaling dozens of black shades as the ship fractured and cracked from the shockwave.

The vessel rocked and buckled, sending the uninjured but coughing form of Gavel sliding off the edge and into the bay below.

The explosion's epicentre had been Spiral herself, perhaps in an attempt to finally end her eternal imprisonment and her un-life. She had not been spared the damage of heat and force. All that remained of her was a skeleton of charred flesh and blackened metal cybernetics.

Grundy, with a strength and durability that could rival Superman, had fared slightly better despite his close proximity. His massive body had blocked a large portion of the blast as he tried to stop the suicidal explosion, inadvertently saving Deathstroke.

Still, so close to the explosion, he took his own injuries. The front half of his body had faced the blast of heat and force. The top layer of his skin was flayed from his muscles, his internal organs boiled in his exposed chest, and all his ratty hair was gone, but he still stood on blackened legs.

"Why must you cry out, my Dancer?" Ciara asked gently as she stepped out from behind the chared form of her greatest warrior.

Already whisps of black energy were wafting from the remains of Grundy and the other shades damaged by the explosion. The boogeyman of the Super world approached the reconstituting body of Spiral and held her black skull in her hands as a mother would a child.

"Can you not see? I have freed you from the Oppressor's yoke," Ciara stroked the flaking cheek as it reformed, mercy and compassion in her gaze. "No more will you dance to his tune, to his bird's song. Cry not, my Dancer. You are no longer a prop on the stage, you are now an actor, and I am your voice. Cry not. Scream not. Let us laugh together."

Spiral's reformed hands gently fell upon the pair holding her cheeks.

"aaaaaa," Rita moaned pitifully, throat and lungs still reforming.

Then she paralyzed Glaistic Uaine.

"aaaahhhAAAAhhhaaAAAHHHHHHHH!" Spiral warbled, metal limbs digging and tearing into the flesh of the paralyzed woman holding her. She screamed as she tore chunk after chunk from her victim, each second increasing her volume as her body reformed.

Ciara did not scream.

She did not flinch or cry, and her eyes continued to gaze down with gentle affection at Spiral as the mutant tore her heart from her body.

Three of the black shades tackled Spiral away from her as a fourth laid its hand upon her and freed the Faerie Queen from her paralysis. Already her flesh had reformed.

"I understand," Ciara said softly, watching Spiral blast one shade to pieces even as she used a mixture of martial arts and her six arms to defend from the other two. "A newborn's cries. Your old life is over, and you celebrate your new one. I did the same when I threw off the yoke and bridle. Very well."

Her words were soft. Understanding. Full of compassion even as one of her shades had its head torn off.

"Let your fellow warriors provide you a stage for the first rehearsal of your new life, my Dancer."

A tide of black shades descended upon the mutant.

Rita continued to scream.

The shock of the water woke Slade up.

Despite being protected by Grundy's bulk and throwing himself away, being so close to such a large shockwave had discombobulated the mercenary enough that he had lost consciousness.

Only for a moment, though, as his body fell from the ship's deck into the bay's shallow water. The cold was enough to reinvigorate him and open his eyes, even as he choked on the salty cold water.

Fighting dizziness, Slade looked around as pieces of the ship rained down from above him, mixing the water with bubbles and silt and obscuring his vision even further as the weight of his equipment threatened to drown him.

Were it not for the bright light of the two moons, Slade would have been completely blind in the dark water.

Sploosh!

A massive piece of what was once one of the guns on the ship fell into the water, missing Slade by less than two feet but still dragging the man further down with the suction of displaced water. The mercenary swam frantically, dropping all his guns but keeping his sword as he desperately fought to rise to the surface for air.

A part of his mind, the part that was always calm and in control in any situation, noted that the ship would sink soon and drag him down if he didn't get clear. That same part told him he would not be able to keep swimming for long. Exhaustion would claim him if any sea-based monsters didn't.

Mastering any panic that might have doomed lesser men, Slade swam at an angle, away from the ship but closer to shore.

His head broke the surface for an instant, and Slade gratefully took in a lungful of air before diving down again.

His only hope for survival was to pass unnoticed by the Faerie Queen. Hopefully, she either thought him dead or was too busy with whatever was wrong with Spiral to care about someone she wouldn't even add to her army.

More debris continued to rain down in the ocean, but most of it fell behind the mercenary as he made his way as stealthily as possible toward the shore. Though he was forced to come up for air two more times, Slade made it to the beach and crawled upon the wet sand of the coast, panting for breath.

Looking around, Slade realized he wasn't far from the dock connecting to the sinking ship. The night air shook with the sounds of metal tearing, explosions detonating, and Spiral screaming as the mutant fought more and more of the Faerie Queen's shades.

Slade gave himself only five seconds of rest before climbing to his feet, only to almost fall again as his left leg seized up in pain.

Looking down, the bright blue light of Dark Moon glinted off a long piece of shrapnel in the meat of his left thigh.

As he looked southward along the coast for a second, the mercenary considered trying to leave anyway. It didn't look like it hit anything fatal, and he could tear his clothes to make a rough bandage. He didn't want to be close to Sprial or Glaistic Uaine for any longer than he had to.

But then his brain, his greatest tool, reasserted itself.

Slade might avoid the conflict between the two deranged women by leaving now, but he was now alone. With no backup, his only chance of survival was to avoid or outrun threats. Injured, his chances of reaching the ship with the portal were practically nil.

On the other hand, he had a very brief window of opportunity.

Deathstroke was not an indecisive man.

Without further pause, he limped away from the crashing surf and toward the remains of the Russian camp, the battle echoing behind him as he moved as fast as he could without aggravating his injury. Thanks to the squad's earlier inspection, it took comparatively little time to find a basic first aid kit in the wreckage of the camp.

With quick and practiced movements, Slade withdrew the shrapnel from his thigh. The jagged piece of ship hull was thrown away without care as he bandaged his leg, popped a few pain meds in his mouth, and quickly put together a sack full of everything he might need to survive on this accursed island in the coming weeks.

Once he had a safe place to set up, he would stitch up the wound, but this would have to do for now.

As he worked, Slade kept an eye on the battle, fearful that the Supers would take their bout to the shore. He caught glimpses of Spiral fighting off shades two or three at a time, the Faerie Queen watching patiently from Grundy's shoulders.

The entire medical and scavenging process took less than ten minutes, but it was enough time for the whole of the ship to be torn asunder, and the combatants started duelling on the few pieces of debris that still floated on the surface.

Through it all, Spiral kept screaming. Her voice rose and fell, depending on if she was injured, reforming, or casting spells, but she just wouldn't stop.

Thanks to Glaistic Uaine's power, she never would, Slade realized.

It was time to go.

With his bag over his shoulder, a pistol and a few mags he managed to scrounge at his hip, and his sword in hand, Slade Wilson set off south toward the ship he had arrived on.

With stealthy movements, only slightly hampered by the bulk of his supplies and injuries, Slade navigated along the coast's rocks in the moons' dark light, their jagged edges and bulging shadows hiding him better than the barren plain would have.

He was forty feet from the camp when he heard it.

"Ack, ack, bleurgh!"

Peeking out from a dip between two wave-washed rocks, Slade spied a prominent figure in the shadows.

Gavel looked wretched, his skin grey and sickly as he leaned sat with his back to a boulder, coughing and hacking seawater and blood as he leaned heavily on the RPG he had managed to keep a hold of in his unexpected swim.

Once more that night, Slade had a judgment call to make that could save or doom him.

Gavel, even sick and injured as he was, was a Super to be reckoned with. Even if he acted only as a meat shield or an extra pair of eyes, he would make the trip south safer.

Another deafening explosion rang out in the distance.

Slade made his decision as he quietly stepped away, leaving his erstwhile squadmate to whatever fate had in store for him.

Whatever benefit the Australian could provide was outweighed by the fact he would slow Deathstroke down. On top of that, he couldn't count on Sprial keeping the Faerie Queen occupied forever.

It was well known the deranged necromancer could sense Supers from miles away, and once she was finished with the six-armed woman, she'd come for Gavel.

It barely took another minute, even with Slade's slow and careful pace, to reach the boundary where the coastal rocks gave way to sand and then the trees of the forest.

The mercenary was about to dash for the protective obscurity of the woods when, once again, his careful observations and quick mind saved his life.

In the sand between the beach and the trees were four paw prints.

Small and cat-shaped, a regular person might have judged them to be simple tracks left by an animal that lived nearby.

Deathstroke was no regular person.

His mind saw those four imprints, noticed the lack of others on the sand and their distance from the grass and rocks, and his mind went into overdrive.

Cat prints.

Hookwolf.

Bayun.

Powersurge.

Slade's heartbeat pounded in his ears as a cold sweat ran down his back. Fear, cold and dreadful, filled him.

"I know you're there," he called out. Not loud, lest he attracts the attention of something or someone else on the island, but his voice was firm.

It betrayed none of the terror he was feeling.

There was no response, but Deathstroke didn't move his gaze from those four paw prints in the sand.

"It's no use pretending, Cat," he continued. He could see nothing. Hear nothing but the waves, Gavel's faint coughing, and the rumble of battling Supers.

Every second that passed increased the likelihood of his death.

But it was on the edge of death that one could find a chance to live.

A fifth paw print in the sand.

A sixth.

Between the sixth and the seventh, a chubby white and brown cat with tiny wings shimmered into view.

"Mrow," The Cat greeted as it plopped itself on the sand five feet in front of the mercenary. Its breath tinged with ice crystals in the night air as its feline gaze met Slade's. Its tail swished back and forth behind it.

"You've been following us, right?" Slade asked, already knowing the answer. His heartbeat was thunder in his ears. "You ate Killer Frost, didn't you? Just like you did Hookwolf and Powersurge. You eat Supers."

The Cat's cute little tongue ran across its lips.

Slade repressed a shudder.

"I'm not a Super," he said clearly. Another explosion rang out behind him, but he didn't flinch. The Cat's eyes left him instantly, tail swishing angrily as it glared at the battle before refocusing on the mercenary. "I'm just a regular human."

"Mrow," The Cat tilted its head in a display that would have been cute to anyone who didn't know what a monster it was.

"I know where one is," Slade continued, using everything he knew about hunting animals to escape this mess. "Injured. Sick. Helpless. Easy prey."

The mercenary had no idea if Gavel's invulnerability would protect him from this... thing, but he was more than willing to sell his former squadmate under the bus if it bought him time to run.

"Mrow," The Cat looked towards the rocks where Gavel lay, then back to Slade.

"I'll fight," the mercenary said, hand on his sword. "If I scream, he'll come help. And the Faerie Queen will come to look too." At the mention of the last, The Cat looked at the remains of the ship. Its fur stood on end as it let out a displeased hiss. Was it afraid? Or angry? Either way, it was conscious of the woman's danger. "Or you can let me go. You get an easy meal and don't have to deal with-"

"Deathstroke? Cough, cough, ah, hack. That you?" Gavel called out across the beach, and the mercenary froze.

The Cat looked at Deathstroke, amusement in its gaze as it stood once again.

Slade tensed as it casually walked toward him, swaying with a cat's swagger as it approached one tiny step at a time. Its soft paws made no sound on the sand.

His hand grasped his sword's hilt, ready to attack at the slightest movement. The Cat continued its casual, plodding pace. Its tubby belly jiggled with every movement as it walked up the world's greatest mercenary.

And past him, brushing against his legs as it did so.

Slade released his breath.

That brush had not been affection.

It had been a taunt.

The Cat could kill him at any point but chose not to. It could rub against him, and he could do nothing about it.

Slade was okay with that.

He had his pride, but he valued his life much more. In a world full of Supers, he had gotten to where he was today by swallowing his pride. People with power overlooked and underestimated those without it. Slade had killed some of the strongest Supers in the world because they underestimated him.

The Cat might look down on him, but it was Deathstroke, not any of the powerful Supers in his team, that would escape.

Slade wasted no time making a beeline for the forest.

"Wha? ARGH!" Gavel screamed behind him, but the mercenary continued on even as the hiss of an RPG going off rang out.

BOOM!

"AAHHHHHHHHH!"

For an instant, Gavel's screams of pain and fear drowned out Spirals.

Squelch.

Then there were no screams.

Deathstroke continued to make his way south toward freedom.

Sprial teleported away from a concussive blast of force, appearing ten feet above the Faerie Queen's head.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" She continued to scream even as she cast another spell, sinking the piece of ship the woman stood on with a localized gravity well.

Solomon Grundy simply held his summoner's body and hopped to a new platform. The shade of a Changer, shaped like a demented parody of a pterodactyl made of barbed wire, crashed into the six-armed mutant, sending them both falling. A Blaster released a torrent of lighting, frying them both.

"Let my voice guide you, my Dancer," Ciara said, sitting daintily in the Grundy's palms. "I know your pain. Your death whispered it to me. For long has the chain held tight to your neck. Before the Oppressor's bird's song, it was the Spineless Director. Before that, it was the chains of ignorance, of naivety. Your old life was naught but chains and pain."

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Spiral screamed as she reformed. The same electric Blaster unleashed another volley, but the mutant teleported behind the shade and paralyzed it with a touch.

Then she teleported behind another, this one a man wielding a long spear, and paralyzed him as well.

She didn't kill them, just paralyzing their movements before teleporting to a new victim. In twenty seconds, she managed to immobilize seven shades.

Then she touched a shade that caused her arm to melt into a bloody and meaty slurry. Then another arm fell. Then her body dissolved into a disgusting mush.

"My warriors, your new companions, are many and varied. The Parliaments must use all tools to overthrow the Oppressor's yoke. My army may be small, but it is strong."

By the time Spiral reformed, her paralysis victims had been freed by one of the other shades. The one that reset things to a prior state that had released Ciara earlier.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Sprial cried, ghostly blades forming in four of her hands as she tore through the shade that melted her. She had to replace three of the swords as they turned to a slurry.

Another shade tried to tackle her, a brute of some sort, but was cut down just as quickly before she teleported beside the shade that reset the others. Its head fell even as Spiral's spine was severed by a metallic arm.

"Your first dance is beautiful but pointless," Ciara continued to talk to the deranged mutant from her place of safety in Grundy's cupped hands. "Cease this rebellion and join us. With each day that passes, the Oppressor conscripts more to his army. He has almost reached the point of saturation. The final battle approaches. This island shall be our fortress, our utopia, our ark. Aid us in its defence and conquest. When the Parliaments convene, this Jeweled vessel will see us safely in the coming storm."

"AAAAAAHHHHH!"

Once more, Spiral tried to teleport close to the Faerie Queen, only to be batted aside by an errant swipe of Solomon Grundy's massive fist.

She flew, end over end, before crashing to the ground on the shore, her body carving a deep divot in the sand and dirt.

The small army of shades followed her, surrounding her pulverized body in a ring twenty feet wide.

"Let your screams quiet, my Dancer. Your throat grows hoarse," Ciara gently said as the shades parted for her and Grundy's massive form. "Pain will be a thing of the past. Let all of it fade to Black."

"aaaaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Spiral warbled, dragging herself with her three workings arms through the dirt toward the Faerie Queen as her legs bent back into place. "AAAAAAA-"

The scythe's blade separated her head from her neck in a clean swing.

"Can thou not hear her pleas for rest?"

Rita Wayword, Spiral, did not hear those words. Nor did she feel pain.

Since her capture, Spiral's mind had been filled with voices. The commands of Mojo, then the incessant song of a dead Endbringer and the whispers of the Parliament of Decay. They could not control her mind like her body, but they were always there. Always loud and incessant.

Not anymore.

For the first time in years, Spiral's mind was blissfully silent.

Rita was finally at peace.

Priscilla tightened her hands upon the shaft of her scythe.

"My Dancer?" The fey woman asked, her voice pained and in disbelief as it stared in horror at the dissolving corpse.

She fell from her giant's hand and walked to the fallen form. She cradled the head gently in her hands as if a lost child, even as it dissolved into strands of black dust. Whatever else, this woman cared about her 'warriors' in some twisted fashion.

Which made her deafness to their pleas all the more inexcusable to the Crossbreed.

Her Lifehunt had ensured the poor woman finally found the solace of death. It was taking all her self-control to not do the same for the shades that surrounded her.

This was not what death was supposed to be.

Some of these men and women might have been great criminals, vile fiends, or monsters in human form, but they did not deserve what was happening to them.

Death was the great equalizer.

A gentle embrace that accepted all without judgment.

This torturous existence, these cries of the damned, was wrong on a fundamental level to Priscilla. It reminded her too much of the Undead Curse and the Dark Sign.

Only she could now understand their plight thanks to her Element.

Priscilla had stayed her hand for days. She, too, had been curious about this necromancer's goal and watched her actions with curious disgust.

But the tortured cries of the woman had been too much for the gentle giantess.

Even now, surrounded by dozens of black shades and the woman Sir Bard was warry of, Priscilla did not regret her actions.

"What have you done?" The Faerie Queen asked, looking up at Priscilla with tears beading in her eyes. She was a third the Crossbreed's size, but Priscilla knew not to underestimate a woman that even Sir Bard was wary of. "My Dancer is beyond me, beyond the Black."

"She is beyond thought and pain," Priscilla said softly, her tone gentler than it had been. "Thine 'Black' is but an approximation of true death. A trap between the boundary. Neither Life nor Death."

"Life is a gateway to the Rot," Ciara said as if in a daze.

"A Black Rot instead of Scarlet," Priscilla asked, and the woman at her feet nodded. "I understand. The fault is not with thou but with thy masters. A power over Life bent to control the Dead. And thy victims suffer for it. Release them. I shall petition Sir Bard to allow thee to leave. This Island shall once more know peace with thy parting."

"Release them?" Glaistig Uaine asked, looking up at the Crossbreed with wide, fearful eyes. "My warriors and comrades in arms?"

"Thy slaves," Priscilla corrected gently but firmly. "Can thee not hear their wails? Let mine scythe bring them to rest. Should they wish to join thee after, I shall have no complaint, but it must be of their volition. Not the will of thy masters."

"I had not thought to lose a comrade before the final battle," Ciara said as she rose to her feet, Spiral's head still cradled gently in her arms as the last of it dissolved into nothing.

"Should thy companions wish to continue to aid thee after they know peace, I shall call forth their Spirit Ash for thee," Priscilla allowed. She didn't know what battle the woman was discussing but knew she could no longer look at these shades without tears prickling her eyes.

Her heart went out to them. Their mouths might be closed, but their soul's wails were deafening when she stood this close.

"I refuse!"

Priscilla's heart sank, and hands tightened once more upon her scythe.

She hated violence, even if she understood it was sometimes required.

"Why?" The Crossbreed didn't even try to keep the sadness from her voice.

Chapter end