The Broadcast Tower

They managed to slip into the ruins of an old broadcast tower just as the sun began to set, painting the smog-choked sky in bruised hues of purple and sickly orange.

The lobby of the tower was a cavern of shattered glass and rusted elevator banks. Ren dragged Jax into a defensible corner near the security stairwell, letting the exhausted Center slump against the concrete wall.

Jax was pale, shivering despite the heavy tactical gear. He kept touching the coagulant foam on his throat, a look of profound, devastating loss in his eyes. Without his voice, he wasn't Nova. He was just a boy bleeding out in the dark.

Ren paced in front of him, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

* Thump.*

The building vibrated.

Ren rushed to the shattered window. The Leviathan had tracked their blood trail. The massive, centipede-like beast was currently coiling its massive, obelisk-like body around the base of the broadcast tower. It was stalking them. Waiting for them to make a sound.

"It's outside," Ren whispered, his voice trembling. He walked back to Jax, sinking to his knees on the glass-strewn floor.

Night fully fell over the Resonance Wastes. The only light in the lobby came from the eerie, bioluminescent glow of the alien crystals spreading across the exterior walls.

Ren pulled his knees to his chest. The adrenaline was fading, leaving nothing but the crushing, suffocating weight of reality.

He was alone. He was the backup. He didn't have an offensive bone in his body. His entire magical repertoire consisted of putting up walls and hoping they didn't break. How was he supposed to protect them? How was he supposed to kill a Leviathan with a blue shield?

"We're going to die here," Ren whispered into the dark, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

The dark moment settled over him like a suffocating blanket. He thought about the barracks. The vanity mirrors. The years of training. They had sold their youth to agencies that had sold them to a military that viewed them as ammunition. They weren't heroes. They were just highly synchronized cannon fodder.

And now, without the Center to hide behind, Ren was exposed. He wasn't strong enough. His voice was too thin, his pitch too shaky. He had spent his whole life singing in someone else's shadow, and now that the shadow was gone, he was just going to burn.

A weak, trembling hand touched Ren’s knee.

Ren looked up.

Jax was looking at him. The arrogance was entirely gone, replaced by a raw, desperate vulnerability. Jax couldn't speak, but his eyes were screaming.

Jax weakly raised his hand. He tapped his index finger against the concrete floor.

* Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.*

Ren frowned, staring at Jax's bloody fingers.

* Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.*

It was a rhythm. A very specific, driving rhythm.

Ren’s breath caught in his throat. It was the drumbeat from "Neon Ascension." Their debut song. The song they had performed a hundred times as trainees before the world ended.

Jax tapped the beat again, looking directly into Ren’s eyes. Then, slowly, agonizingly, Jax raised a trembling hand and pointed a single finger directly at Ren’s chest.

He tapped his own chest, and shook his head. *Not me.* He pointed at Ren again, and nodded. *You.* Ren stared at him, the realization crashing over him like a tidal wave.

Jax wasn't tapping out a memory to comfort him. Jax was passing the baton. For four years, Jax had stood in the center, taking the pressure, taking the glory, and taking the hits. Now, broken and silenced, he was telling Ren to step out of the background.

He was telling Ren to take the Center.

"I can't," Ren whispered, tears welling in his eyes. "Jax, my voice doesn't work like yours. I can only make shields. I can't fight it."

Jax glared at him. A fierce, angry glare that pierced through the pain. He tapped the floor harder.

* Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.* The rhythm was insistent. It was a demand. It was the first time in their lives Jax was relying entirely on Ren, not as a shield, but as a sword.

* Thump.* The ceiling above them groaned. A massive, crystalline claw punched through the concrete of the second floor, raining debris down into the lobby. The Leviathan had found them.

The beast's eyeless, tuning-fork head peered down through the hole, its jaws grinding with a sound that made Ren’s teeth ache. It let out a deafening, discordant shriek that shattered the remaining glass in the lobby.

Ren looked at the monster. He looked at Jax, who was bleeding and defenseless on the floor, still tapping that relentless beat.

Ren’s fear didn't vanish. But it was suddenly eclipsed by an overwhelming, incandescent fury.

He was furious at the military for abandoning them. He was furious at the agency for making him feel small. He was furious at the monster trying to kill the only person in the world who truly understood the hell they had lived through.

Ren stood up.

He didn't adjust his posture to the rigid, military-approved stance for a defensive manifestation. He didn't think about his pitch. He didn't think about blending into the background.

He took a deep breath, pulling the air past his bruised ribs, down into the very bottom of his lungs.

He looked up at the Leviathan.

And Ren Hayes screamed.