Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On the one-year anniversary of Ena Salt’s imprisonment at Curden Cay, someone crashed a helicopter into the main yard.

Up until that point, it had been a fairly ordinary day for Ena. She hadn’t realised the significance of the day until Meredith, one of the relatively nicer guards, had mentioned it in passing on her way to breakfast. Life at the prison was like that - removed from outside factors, days had a way of blending into one another. For her, anyway - the prisoners in the testing branches seemed to have a much more exciting time and not in a good way, but Ena had never been forced to participate in more than a few perfunctory assessments before the array of lab coats had decided her ‘biodivergence’ wasn’t useful for their studies. 

Since then, she’d mostly just… continued, letting inertia carry her forward. There was a little variation in her days, depending on whether or not she had work detail, but there was no large events or breaks to mark the passage of time. She’d been teaching herself to code in the library, which had been difficult without a computer - her notebook full of Python or Javascript written out in pencil had gotten her more than a few strange looks and comments, and she had no idea if any of her scripts would actually run. It didn’t really matter, though - the main purpose was to give her something to do. If it got unsustainable, she’d just do something else, but the skills weren’t important. When was she going to use them, anyway?

She’d been in the yard when it happened, sitting on the one bench that had a good view of the ocean. The sun was burning bright, and they didn’t exactly hand out sunscreen, so there was a time limit, but for the moment, she was enjoying the wind on her skin, the smell of salt on the breeze. It was one of the few comforts she had, those days - she didn’t envy the salt Conduit over in the men’s block who apparently wasn’t allowed outside because of it. 

Ena didn’t know how Curden Cay compared to an ordinary prison, but there had been none of the drama she’d come to expect from movies and television. The prisoners mostly left each other alone, and the belligerence was usually directed at the DUP rather than each other. Some of them may have been actual criminals, but they all knew their imprisonment was unjust, and weren’t going to forget it any time soon.

The point was, the fears she’d had in the first few months of being jumped as soon as she closed her eyes were unfounded, and she closed her eyes, leaning back on her hands, feeling the burn of the sun on her skin, trying to soak up as much of the experience as she could before-

A faint buzzing noise in the distance interrupted her peace, and she jolted forward gracelessly, eyes snapping open.

A helicopter was approaching over the horizon, shockingly close to the ocean. That on its own wasn’t notable - Curden Cay had a helipad, and sometimes people were brought in that way from the transfer station rather than by boat. Ena had been one of them, in fact - she’d guessed that the staff had thought bringing her over water was too much of a security risk. 

What was odd was that she was currently facing out to sea - anything coming from the transfer station would be doing so from the opposite direction. This helicopter also didn’t seem like it was DUP-issue - rather than the bulky, dull grey military vehicles they used, this was bright blue, constructed small and light, and seemed to have someone hanging out one side of the cockpit. It almost looked like a news chopper, which was crazy - what would it be doing out over the sea, and so low, to boot? 

Unless it was stolen, she realised, and by that point, it was close enough for her to see that it was smoking heavily - damaged, presumably. More evidence for that theory, then. 

Ena could have said something. Pointed it out, made a fuss. 

But she wasn’t a bootlicker, so she just sat on her bench and watched as it grew closer, enjoying the breeze. 

She suspected it would be the last chance she’d get to do so for a while. 

Sure enough, a few moments later, an alarm began to blare out, painfully loud, and the yells of the guards quickly joined it. Ena hopped up off her bench, hurrying back towards the buildings - she had no interest in getting her restraints activated again. She’d only made it halfway, though, when the scream of the helicopter passed overhead, and beams of blinding light speared through the heads of every single guard in sight.

Ena froze in place as the helicopter banked around for another pass, a loud whoop audible even over the noise. The bodies toppled to the ground in an uneven chorus of thumps, and after a moment, low cheer started from the other prisoners.

It wasn’t that Ena held any particularly fond feelings towards their captors, but she couldn’t find the same joy. Something about the entire situation felt- off. Dangerous.

The helicopter was returning now, but there was a distant snap, and something in the vehicle exploded, sending it spiralling as the whoop from before turned into a scream.

The helicopter spun downwards and smashed into the centre of the courtyard, the impact sending clouds of dust pluming outwards. Ena ducked behind a gear rack to try and avoid it, but still ended up coated in the stuff and coughing heavily.

The roar of the engines cut off, the whipping of the blades quickly slowing, and quiet settled over the yard just as the dust began to dissipate. The helicopter looked like it had been through a war - the paint had been scraped away all over, the metal was dented, the glass was shattered, and smoke was leaping in copious amounts from the cockpit, to the point that nothing could be seen within. 

Then, all the smoke froze in place. Ena blinked, but her eyes weren’t deceiving her - it hung there, unaffected by the breeze, or by physics. Slowly, it started to reverse course, billowing back downwards and condensing-

-and suddenly, with what she could only describe as a visual snap, they formed the shape of a man.

Ena recognised him - they did still get TV, after all. And when you were the most infamous bioterrorist in the country, you got a lot of coverage.

“Hellllllooooooo, Curden Cay!” Delsin Rowe crowed, hopping out of the helicopter, a broad grin on your face. “So, so great to be here.”

Chapter Text

Ena very, very carefully did nothing. 

As Rowe planted his hands on hips and surveyed the scene around him, two other people clambered out of the helicopter to join him. She recognised them as well - Abigail Walker with the dyed hair, Eugene Sims with the hoodie pulled down over his eyes and lanky hair. The D.U.P.’s Most Wanted trio, even before Rowe had killed Augustine. There hadn’t been much on the news about them, in the six months since then, just the usual reports on the danger of ‘bioterrorists’. Evidently, they’d been making good use of the time.

“Ugh,” Walker said, face creasing up in a grimace. “Hate being back here.”

 Ena had seen her a few times, during her brief stint over in the testing branch - usually being dragged off to some new experiment, passing each other in the corridor. The other woman hadn’t looked happy, then, but looking at her now Ena could tell something fundamental inside Abigail Walker had snapped, turning sharp and jagged.

“Hey,” Rowe crooned, slipping an arm around her waist, “don’t stress! Would burning it to the ground and sticking some heads on pikes make you feel better?”

“Ew,” Walker laughed. “Gross, Delsin.”

Sims mumbled something, inaudible to Ena at the distance. Him, she’d never seen, but he had a reputation, and not a good one. She still remembered the few rounds she’d been forced to go with his demons - more than once, she’d woken up in a sweat after being impaled through the gut by one. 

Rowe rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna keep whining, Eugene, or are you gonna get on with it already?”

Again, Sims started to mutter, but this time Rowe cut him off by grabbing him by the collar and yanking him forward.

“I don’t care,” Rowe hissed, “about Heaven’s fucking Hellfire. I care about you doing what you’re goddamn told.” He released Sims, who went staggering back. “Clear?”

Shakily, Sims nodded, then held out his hands. His form become staticky, flickering at the edges. Then a pulse of red light shot outwards, strange glyphs trailing in its wake, and with unearthly shrieks, demons began tearing out of holes in the sky.

Ena clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from swearing. Seeing it on TV was one thing, but she’d forgotten how terrifying those beasts were up close, how real they seemed. 

Rowe cackled as the demons swirled above, raising his arms like it was him who’d summoned them and not Sims. “Fly, my pretties, fly!”

“You know she never actually said that in the movie, right?” Walker said with a smirk. 

“Wait, really?” Rowe asked, lowering his arms. She shook her head in confirmation. “Well, that’s a real kick in the dick. Way to take the fun out of it, babe.”

“I try.”

Sims spoke up, and Ena could actually hear him this time. “Do you… still want them to bring the Conduits? Or…?”

Oh, shit. Ena couldn’t move without exposing herself or she would have already run, but she desperately started searching around for something she could use as a distraction. Throw some of the exercise gear, maybe, or-

She’d waited too long. There was an unearthly screech behind her, and she spun around to find a demon standing over her, fangs bared. She scrambled backwards, heart pounding in her chest, but she ran straight into another one, who grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet. This much she remembered - there was no texture to the demons. They felt like cool plastic, no warmth or give as it dragged her across the courtyard.

“Oh ho ho! Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first guest!” The demon’s grip disappeared and Ena tumbled gracelessly to the ground, a shadow falling over her. “Gotta admit, I really appreciate you not making us wait!”

Ena spat the dirt from her mouth and looked up to find Rowe crouched in front of her, the cocky smirk on his face not reaching his eyes. She tried to push herself up off the ground, but something heavy landed on her back and slammed her back into the dirt.

“Ooh,” she heard Walker say, “feisty. You ready, babe?”

“I was born ready,” Rowe said, and Ena braced herself as a hand grabbed her by the neck-

-and nothing happened. 

“Ugh,” Rowe said with a scowl. “The cuffs, right.”

“I got it, don’t worry.” There was a burn of searing heat across both of Ena’s wrists, and then she could feel her power come flooding back as the cuffs fell away-

-only for her to black out an instant later as Rowe’s took hold.

Athena Salt is seven years old, and her brother is dying. Leukemia, a sudden onset that-

“Ugh, boring.”

Athena Salt is ten years old, and her parents are arguing again-

“Oh boo hoo, get in line.”

Athena Salt is fifteen years old, and her family is dying. 

“Finally, some drama.”

The Ray Field Plague is sweeping the nation, and despite their best efforts, both her parents have started letting out those hacking coughs, the ones that brought blood up with them. 

Athena is perfectly fine. As is her mother’s sister, who she is sent to live with. They sit together on her apartment’s couch every night, watching the news reports of the chaos in Empire City, of a giant Beast slowly tearing its way down the coast. It’s almost at New Marais now, although the government are being vague as to why it’s moving in that direction.

The next day, in the middle of math class, Athena blacks out. One moment she’s fine, the next, it feels like her entire body is on fire. The moment after that, she’s unconscious.

She comes to in a hospital, almost a month later, to find her parents standing tearfully over her bed, holding her hands. The plague has been cured - they’re both healthy. 

Her aunt, though, is dead.

The doctor describes it to them as mass cellular degradation - as if her body had turned on itself, cells tearing each other apart, her very DNA coming unstrung. 

Athena’s body, they tell her, attempted the same thing, but burned itself out before any serious damage could be done. Her parents say it’s a miracle.

Athena thinks about how her aunt would sometimes move things with her mind when no-one was looking, and silently doubts.

“Interesting, I guess. If you’re lame.”

Athena Salt is twenty-two years old, and a journalist is asking to interview her about her aunt. She isn’t sure why, the man is being very cagey, but eventually she decides that there can’t be much harm, and consents. She’s realised her aunt was a ‘bioterrorist’, she’s not stupid, but she’s already dead, so it’s not like they’re going to drag her off to jail.

He’s a D.U.P. plant, of course, and the day after speaking with him, she wakes up to find a heavily armed trooper standing over her bed, a smirking young woman with paper fluttering around her next to them. They-

“Wait, go back.”

-a smirking young woman with paper fluttering around her-

-a smirking young woman (East Asian, short black hair, sharp nose) fluttering around her-

“Ugh, useless. Why do I even bother?”

Then the memories ended, and Ena finally slipped into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Ena came to slowly, head pounding like she’d had too much to drink.

She groaned, attempting to open her eyes and immediately flinching back from the bright light. Her head was spinning, and one of her arms had gone numb - as she regained awareness of herself, she realised she was lying on top of it.

Her facilities began to return, and she hauled herself to her feet, shielding her eyes as they adjusted. She was still in the courtyard, but neither Rowe and his crew nor the demons were still present. It didn’t seem like much time had passed, the sun didn’t seem to have noticeably moved in the sky, but there was already a column of smoke rising up above the buildings, thick and black, flames flickering just out of view. 

Ena shook her head, trying to clear it. What… what just happened? Reliving her own memories like that had been disconcerting, and she was fairly certain that the voice she’d heard was Rowe. Had he seen them too? She’d thought his powers were something to do with smoke, not… whatever that was. 

She’d have to unpack it later - there weren’t any guards or demons there, but that didn’t mean it was safe to just stand around in the open. 

She started to jog towards the main entrance from the courtyard - the doors had been torn off their hinges, metal bent and scorched. Hopefully, she could make her way down to the dock, figure out some way to get her cuffs off, and then get-

Ena glanced down, and realised for the first time that she was still wearing a cuff. She hadn’t even noticed that it’d been put back on, she’d gotten so used to the slight weight on her wrists. Only one of them, though, which should mean…

Pausing just outside the door, she hesitated, then held up a hand in front of her face. She’d never used her powers before - hadn’t even known she had them before being dragged off to prison. They’d tried to change that, over at the testing branch, but a feigned lack of knowledge as to her element and a very real lack of prior usage had apparently fooled them.

 But some days, when there was heavy rain or fog out, she’d felt- something. Like a sound at the very edge of her hearing, but in another sense entirely that didn’t correspond to anything physical. 

Ena focused on that sensation, trying to recall it-

-and for the briefest moment, water swirled around her hand, perfectly clear and foaming like the crest of a wave. 

Then it was gone, and exhaustion swept over her again. The remaining cuff was beeping, lights flashing on the side, but it wasn’t enough on its own to truly stop her. 

“Okay,” Ena muttered to herself, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth despite her best efforts. “Okay. I could get used to this.”

She’d have to get the other cuff off, of course, and find something to drain - she knew that much, at least, from the idle chatter of the other prisoners. Shouldn’t be too hard, what with being on an island and all.

For now, though - escape. Ena wasn’t naive enough to think that her luck would hold out, and her little super soaker trick wasn’t going to do much against a guard, or one of those demons. She wasn’t… she’d been in fights once or twice. Boxed some, but more for the exercise than the ability. Her grandpa had been in a tank battalion in the Second World War, and he’d made sure his daughter and granddaughter knew how to throw a proper punch as well, but the times that had left Ena with a bloodied lip or a bruised eye hadn’t been that sort of fight. They’d been frantic, feral, scratching and biting and scrabbling in the dirt, blood and spit and mud. And this, this was something else entirely. Something closer to a comic book than reality, and while Ena felt pretty decent about her chances in a ring, she wasn’t particularly interested in shattering her hand against a guard’s riot armour or the scaly hide of one of those demons. 

A pipe was sticking out of the wall, having come loose from the next section when it had been torn through by a claw, and after a bit of maneuvering, she managed to work it free, testing its weight in her hands, giving it a few practice swings.

“Oh, what a hit!!” she pantomimed under her breath as she walked, doing her best announcer voice. “Salt’s already on the move, but it looks like- yes, ladies and gentlemen, you did just see that, the ball has left the stadium! That’s a home-run!”

As if prompted by thoughts of stadiums and garbage hotdogs, Ena’s stomach growled, and she realised that it was probably lunchtime by now, past it even.

First thing if I make it out, I’m finding the worst hotdogs money can buy and eating ten. 

Ena followed the trail of destruction through the winding corridors of the cell block, passing cell doors torn open, and the occasional smear of blood on the walls. A few bodies too, D.U.P. troopers impaled or tossed against walls, their armour and weapons already stripped from them. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, but Ena had trouble finding any sympathy for them. Play fascist games, win fascist prizes. 

Her luck lasted her almost all the way to the mess hall.

The sounds of fighting that had been on the edge of hearing ever since she’d woken up in the courtyard grew louder as she approached, echoing yells and screams and the crack of gunfire. 

Her first instinct was to head in a different direction, because she wasn’t stupid, but Curden Cay was a prison - there were a limited number of ways you could get anywhere, let alone the secure areas, and out of the two ways Ena could think of off the top of her head, going through the mess hall was significantly faster. 

“Okay, Ena,” she muttered to herself. “Last chance to turn around and stay in prison.”

When she phrased it like that, it wasn’t much of a choice after all.

The mess hall was an absolute warzone. The guards and troopers were on one side of the room behind a makeshift barricade, and demons flooded from the other end towards them. Guns and grenades tore through their ranks, but they were fast, strong, and could fly - Ena entered just in time to see one trooper get snatched up by a swooping demon and dropped from the ceiling with a scream. 

Which, if nothing else, was probably not great for morale. 

The exit she needed was directly opposite where she’d entered the room, which was good. She’d entered in the exact middle between the two groups, which was bad. She could crawl under the tables to the other side because they were bolted into the ground, which was good. They’d been torn out of the ground in a few places anyway, which was bad. 

Well, no going back now. She dropped to her hands and knees and started crawling, moving through the space underneath the tables, scuttling quickly across the gaps between one and the next. It seemed to be working - the sounds of fighting continued unabated and unaffected from both sides of the room - but after what seemed like forever but was probably a minute or two, she reached the first of the three missing tables and had to stop. 

Each table was about two yards long, so the space she had to cover was a little longer than that, accounting for the gaps. No way she could make it across without being spotted, or worse, hit. 

Unless…

She braced herself, and dashed forward.

The only way she could think to describe it was like pushing herself through herself - like she was folding and collapsing and being dragged along in the wake of that indescribable something-

-and then she was herself again, crouched in the exact same position underneath the next table. Exhaustion washed over her like a wave, and she braced herself against the ground until it passed. Her remaining cuff was blinking wildly, sparks flying off it - it was still hindering her, she was sure. Still, she had enough in her for the two needed to get her to the other side of the room.

As she emerged from the final dash, the room shook with a giant explosion, drowning out the rest of the sounds. Ena froze, then slowly peeked out from underneath the table.

The wall around the door that the demons had been flooding from had been destroyed, and they were swarming over the rubble now in much greater numbers than before. And, climbing through a hole that was still too small to fit through without bending over, was a giant armoured figure, gold and white streaked through with red and the figure of Eugene Sims in the middle.

“Nooope,” Ena muttered as she scrambled towards the door. “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, absolutely not.”

She slipped through the exit on her hands and knees, pulling it firmly closed behind her with a satisfyingly hefty ch-thunk. She hauled herself to her feet, using the pipe for support, and took a look around. She was in the kitchens, which looked like they’d been abandoned in a hurry - food still sat out on the benches and tools and pots were strewn about haphazardly. The exterior door was on the other side, and from there-

“Through here!” The clatter of boots rang out through the corridors as a squadron of guards arrived. “Spread out and search! We can’t let the mess hall get flanked!”

“Shit,” Ena swore, ducking down to hide behind one of the benches. They hadn’t spotted her yet, but they definitely would once they got closer. No way around, and going back would mean returning to the chaos of the mess hall, which was probably only getting worse now that Sims was there. 

Which meant she’d probably have to-

“Comin’ through!” 

The stage-whispered words came from behind her, and she turned just in time to see another prisoner drop into a messy slide that ended with their back up against the bench right next to Ena.

“Hey,” the other prisoner panted with a manic grin. “Come here often?” They were white, short and stocky with a mop of sandy curls that partially covered their eyes. It reminded Ena of the poodle her family had as a kid - their energy levels seemed to match as well. They’d slipped the top half of the bright orange prisoner’s jumpsuit off, tying the arms at the waist, to show off an impressive amount of muscle.

“...not really, no.” Ena flinched as another explosion went off in the distance. 

“Yeah, me neither,” the other prisoner admitted, not reacting to the blasts at all. They stuck out a hand. “Vin Harper.”

After a moment, Ena took it. “...Ena Salt.”

“Charmed,” Vin said with a wink. “So, Ena, I’ve been thinking this is a mighty fine time to be getting the hell out of dodge.”

“Agreed,” Ena said. “What-”

A bullet pinged off the concrete above them, and the yells of troopers grew louder as they were spotted.

“Chit-chat later,” Vin said with a grin. “Can you-” They glanced down, and saw the cuff still on Ena’s wrist. “Shit, awright.”

Ena held up her pipe. “Got this.”

Vin nodded. “Right. I’ll distract em, you get in there and start swingin'.” Then shadow swirled around them, and they dropped through it out of sight. 

Ena scrambled to her feet just in time to see them land in the midst of the squad of troopers, a wave of shadow shooting out from the point of impact and sending the troopers staggering. They grabbed the closest one and melted into shadows again, taking the unlucky trooper with them, but when they reappeared a few feet away, they were alone.

Ena took advantage of the confusion to dash closer, swinging her pipe two-handed into a trooper’s knee and grabbing them before they could fall - a smart decision, as seconds later, a few aborted gunshots sparked off of their body armour. Using them as a shield, she advanced forward, swinging her pipe more to ward off the other troopers than to actually inflict damage. They started to circle around her, but then Vin was back, bolts of inky darkness smacking into the helmets of two of the troopers with a surprising amount of noise, knocking them to the ground. They didn’t get up.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Ena shoved her captive at another guard, sending them both stumbling to the ground, and hit another in the chest with a two-handed swing. The few remaining guards were on the back foot now, and she laid into them with her pipe, knocking weapons out of hands and breaking bones. They got a few good blows on her in return, but they didn’t seem to hurt as much as they should, and she powered through the truncheons and fists until the remaining guards were laid out on the ground. 

Vin was dealing with the last of their group as well, but as they held a guard by the neck with one hand and blasted them in the face with the other, one of the downed guards managed to get their hands on a gun, lifting it to point at Vin.
“Look out!” Ena yelled, hand reaching for them. They turned, but Ena could tell it was going to be too slow-

-and a blast of water like a firehose ripped from her outstretched hand, smacking the guard’s head back into the ground before they could fire.

“...huh,” Vin said after a second, dropping their now-unconscious opponent to the ground. “Thanks for the save.”

“No problem.”

They both took a second to make sure the rest of the guards weren’t going to get back up again, breaking guns and, where necessary, a strategically-chosen bone or two. Ena didn’t want to kill anyone, but she wasn’t blind to what these people had been party to.

“So,” Vin said, sauntering over once they were done, “wanna blow this joint? Don’t know about you, but I ain’t particularly interested in joining up with the Brotherhood of Evil Conduits back there.”

“The… what?”

Vin tilted their head to the side, which just strengthened the dog comparison in Ena’s mind. “You didn’t hear Rowe’s whole speech? Join me or die and all that phooey?”

“...think I missed that one. I was out in the courtyard when they landed, and then Rowe did… something to me, knocked me out for a bit.”

Vin hissed through their teeth. “So he’s already got yours, then. Shit.”

“My…?”

They opened their mouth to reply, then, with a flare of neon light so bright that Ena almost went blind, they disappeared. 

Ena stumbled back, head snapping around to the other side of the room, where Vin was currently being dangled by the neck by Abigail Walker.

“Nice try, y’little shit,” Walker snapped.

“Who’re you callin’ little, short stuff?”

“You. Because you’re short.”

Vin considered that. “Point. Counterargument:” and they blew a raspberry in Walker’s face.

She growled, beginning to glow with neon light, and at the same time, shadows began to swirl around Vin.

“Go on ahead!” they yelled. “I got this-”

Shadow and neon both exploded at the same moment, and shadow won. When Ena could see again, both Vin and Walker had disappeared, along with a significant chunk of the wall.

Well, Ena mused ruefully, at least they gave me an exit. 

Chapter Text

Ena very nearly made it off the island.

After her encounter with Vin, she managed to make it most of the way to the security room unhindered. She ran into a guard or two, but her pipe made quick work of them. As she turned the last corner before the security room, however, there was already someone else there, standing over the limp forms of a few guards.

She was tall and lean, with warm tan skin and wavy black hair. An aquiline nose and sharp cheekbones made her a little too harsh to be called pretty, but with the cast of her jaw they added to make her closer to handsome than anything else. Her jumpsuit was open down to just above the waist, and the tank top underneath was torn and bloodstained, soaked through with sweat. 

There was an odd shimmer to the air around her. Ena thought it might have been heat haze for a moment, but then the light caught it in just the right way, and it resolved itself into a dozens of shards of glass, floating in the air around her, sharp ends all point towards Ena.

Ena glanced down at her pipe. "I think yours is bigger," she admitted ruefully. 

The corner of the other woman's mouth twitched upwards. “You going to be trouble?” she asked. Her English had a heavy South American accent to it, but her diction was precise and clear. 

“Not if you aren’t,” Ena replied, lowering her pipe slightly. “I just want to get out of here.”

After a moment, the woman nodded. “Very well.” She made a gesture, and the glass shards fell out of the air, clattering to the ground in a wave of surprisingly pleasant chimes. “If you are going for the boats, be wary. There is a crowd forming on outside.”

“Uh, thanks,” Ena said, as the woman started walking past her. “You’re… not?”

“No,” she answered with a slight flick of the wrist. The glass shards flowed back off the ground, streaming around Ena as they melted together into smooth streams, heading for the woman’s back. When they hit, they almost seemed to meld into her - Ena couldn’t quite track what was happening, what with it being transparent and all, but after just a moment or two, all the glass had disappeared into her. 

“Good luck,” she said over her shoulder.

“...you too, I guess. Ena watched her go, as she continued to gather glass all the while. 

“Don’t think her plan has a room for a plus one,” she muttered to herself as she entered the security centre.

More guards lay scattered about, and the missing glass in the computer monitors made the culprit fairly self-evident. None of the guards stirred even slightly when she stepped in, which Ena very carefully didn’t investigate further. None of her business what state they were in, she figured - it wasn’t like she was responsible. She just stepped over their still forms, carefully searching the room until she found what she was looking for: a small machine, with insets in the shape of two cuffs. 

Ena put her cuffed hand in one, and after a few moments fiddling, managed to boot the machine on. The screen, thankfully, didn’t seem to be made of glass, and after a few moments of fiddling, she found the switch she needed.

The cuff clicked, fell off, and just like that, she was free.

When she'd been taken initially, she hadn't even realised there was anything special about her. They'd slapped the power-nullifying cuffs on her almost immediately, and the few times she'd had them off, it had been in the uncomfortable void of the testing chambers, cut off from the rest of the world and from the true extent of her abilities. Now, though, for the first time, she was awake and unencumbered. 

She stared down at her hands in awe, watching the water and foam roll over her fingers, emerging and disappearing out of nothingness.

"No wonder they called us Conduits," she murmured to herself. She felt… connected. Like there was something flowing through her and back out into the world. She could sense the water all around her, flowing through the pipes in the walls and floor, and beyond that, the water of the bay, unfathomable massive. The latter felt somewhat dim and dull compared to the sharp clarity of the rest, and she could instantly tell that it was the salt. She wouldn't be able to draw on it like she would fresh water, but there was still something there.

Speaking of… She glanced up to the fire extinguisher on the ceiling, held up a hand and pulled.

The nozzle immediately came flying off, popped clear by the force of the water that surged out through it. It flowed to Ena’s hand, and the feeling of it on her skin released a tension she hadn’t even realised she’d been carrying until it was gone. She felt like she could… do some ridiculous shorthand for strong things. Lift a whale or something.

“Step one,” she said to herself, “get my groove back. Check. Step two, find a boat…”

Do I even need a boat?

“Step two, get down to the docks. In progress.”

She stuck Her pipe down the back of her shirt and through the strap of her bra, leaving enough sticking out to grab. It wasn’t the most comfortable - in fact, it was pretty fucking uncomfortable - but it’d make sure she didn’t drop it.

“Step three, don’t die."

She let out a slow breath.

"Still working on that.”

Steps two and three, as it turned out, were going to be trickier than she’d anticipated.

The road out of the main complex and down to the docks and processing centre switchbacked down a fairly steep hill, and was lined with extremely high fences. Extremely high electric fences, as Ena rather unpleasantly discovered when she attempted to dash through to the other side of one. 

The road itself seemed clear, apart from the wreckage of more than a few D.U.P. vehicles, but at the bottom, far enough away to be slightly indistinct, there was a giant wall made out of some kind of jagged, rough looking rock, tall and wide enough that she could barely see the docks behind it. She was fairly certain that she could propel herself over the fence and go directly down the hill, but 'fairly' didn't seem like enough when there were electric fences in play. It might attract the wrong kind of attention anyway, and so she trekked down the switchbacks. The devastation got more intense as she neared the bottom, as did a low, rumbling noise that she couldn't quite identify. 

Up close, it turned the wall didn't quite block off the road entirely - there was a small, narrow path at a diagonal, that tore straight through the fence on one side. Ena followed it around, the noise growing louder and louder, and cautiously poked her head out around the corner.

It took her a moment to register what she was seeing. A sea of orange and umber, a few familiar faces but mostly un-, all of them in the same standard-issue jumpsuit as her. 

It was the other prisoners. All of the other prisoners. And at the front, on a makeshift stage made of rubble, stood the three conduits responsible for the day’s events.

“This thing on?” Delsin Rowe said into a megaphone, grinning at the painfully-loud squeal of feedback. “Awesome. Helloooo, Curden Cay! Again. Now, some of you may have heard this little speech already, but be patient while we get everyone caught up, kay? Or my dearest darlingest Abigail here-” and he slung an arm around her shoulders, “will shoot you right between your pretty little eyes. Capische?”

If he’d been expecting a response, it didn’t prove forthcoming.

“Awesome,” he continued undeterred. “So, hey! I’m Delsin, you probably knew that already, and I’m a Conduit, just like you!”

Probably the speech Vin mentioned, the ‘join me or die’ one. 

Ena had no particular intention of doing either, but the only way out was through the crowd. The one saving grace was that there was nothing to distinguish her from the hundreds of others, so she slipped out and joined the back of the crowd, starting to manoeuvre her way forward without actually shoving anyone. 

"...but good news," Rowe was saying, "I killed her! No more Brooke Augustine!"

A cheer did go up at that, and Ena joined in only partly out of a desire to blend in. She didn't support Rowe, or murder in general, but she didn't have much sympathy for the woman who'd spent the last seven years locking up and experimenting on Conduits. Especially when Augustine had been one herself.

"You're welcome, you're welcome," Rowe said smugly. "So the D.U.P. is down one source of powers for their stormtroopers, and their Darth Vader, but they were just part of the problem." 

He grinned, vaguely reminiscent of a hyena. 

"So I got to thinking; why not kick 'em while they're down?"

Chapter Text

Ena had to give this to Rowe: he certainly had charisma. Not charm, he was the furthest thing from charming, but he was definitely captivating. He drew attention, and kept it. 

Considering that it kept most of the crowds’ eyes on him as Ena ducked and weaved her way to the front, she wasn’t about to complain.

Rowe was still going on, and Ena should probably have been paying more attention cause it kinda felt like a big deal, but trying to get through the throng of people was a pain, especially considering most of them were taller than her. She wasn’t even short! Was there some kind of special Conduit gene that made them all into Big Fuckoff Giants or something?

She reached the front at about the same time as Rowe said something that seemed kinda climactic, judging by the hush that followed it. Something about… joining him? 

Well, that’s probably not… great.

"On one condition," he continued, holding up a finger. "If you want in? You've gotta glurk."

Rowe's head whipped backwards, and an instant later, there was the distant crack of a sniper rifle.

"STAND DOWN!" an amplified voice boomed from above them, and Ena looked up to see a swarm of D.U.P. drones descending towards them. "WE HAVE BEEN AUTHORISED TO USE LETHAL FORCE, AND-"

A series of pinprick lasers tore through the swarm, detonating them in a rippling wave. 

Walker stepped up, and snatched the megaphone from Rowe. 

“You heard the speech,” she said curtly. She flicked her fingers, and another series of lasers shot out into the crowd. A moment later, there was a chorus of dull clangs as now-disabled cuffs fell to the ground. “You with us? Or,” she pointed at the swarm of D.U.P. rapidly emerging from behind the concrete walls, “are you with them?” 

Walker was just as effective an orator as Rowe, it turned out. A roar went up from the crowd, and dozens upon dozens of powers flared into life, a visual cacophony of colour and sound. 

Ena saw Rowe gesture, and Sims nodded, before two large demons swooped down and lifted him off the ground. That giant armour from before began to form around him again, and Ena would’ve scoffed at how ridiculous it was except that it was actually quite scary. 

"-well. Look who it is."

Ena looked back down, and realised too late that the crowd around her had dispersed, then looked up to see Rowe staring down at her. 

"Just had to get another taste of the D-Man, huh?" he crowed, spreading his arms.

Walker elbowed him in the side. 

"Aww, come on," he said to her (rather whinily, Ena though), "you know I'm just playin'."

He hopped down from the stage, Walker flickering to his side an instant later. 

"It's Ena, right?" He sauntered towards her, seeming utterly unconcerned by the battle raging behind them.

"That's what my friends call me," she replied cautiously. "So, please. Call me Salt."

Rowe grinned. "Ooh, feisty."

Ena couldn't help but shoot Walker a you can really do better look, which the other woman met with a sneer.

“Look, man,” Ena said, holding up her hands. “I just want to get off this island, okay? You mind yours and I’ll mind mine, and everything’s peachy.”

“Bzzt! Incorrect." He'd continued approaching, and Ena started to back up when he got close. After a few steps, though, her back hit something smooth and solid. 

She glanced back instinctively, to find another giant wall of what she could now tell was concrete.

When the hell did he-

"See," Rowe continued, sauntering closer. "I just need a quick handshake. Y’know, as a show of good faith, no biggie.

Ena remembered the last time he’d touched her - she wasn’t falling for that.

"Just had to get another taste, huh?" she echoed defiantly.

"Got it in one." He made finger-guns at her, which. Ew. "Plus I've got some new upgrades I'm dying to try out. So-"

"Babe," Walker cut in. "We've got other problems on. Can we just get this over with?"

A flicker of irritation appeared on Rowe's face, before it was quickly smoothed away.

"Of course. Ladies first,” he said, giving a mock-gallant gesture.

Walker began to glow, and Ena braced herself. “Too kind.”

She stepped forward, raising a prismatic hand, and then a blocky, freckled arm wrapped around her neck from behind.

“Round three, motherfucker!” Vin yelled, just before shadow swirled around the both of them.

Both Ena and Rowe stared at the now-empty space for a moment.

“Who. The fuck,” Rowe started, and then Ena blasted him in the face and ran away.

Definitely not bothering with a boat now. She pushed herself off the ground on waterspout, quickly gaining speed and height as it carried her towards the waters of the bay. Another wall shot up out of the ground in front of her, and she adjusted her course upwards, trying to make it over before it rose too high. She got close, but then something clipped her side, and she lost control of the waterspout and fell back to the ground.

It was a rough landing, but Ena knew full well that a regular human would’ve been splattered by it, so she wasn’t complaining. 

Rowe didn’t attack her immediately like she’d been expecting - as she looked up, she could see him finishing raising two more walls, sealing the both of them in a makeshift arena. He clearly wasn’t letting her go until he got what he wanted, whatever that was.

“Fine,” Ena muttered, clambering back to her feet. “You want a fight, buddy? Let’s fuckin’ fight.”

Prison was pretty boring.

Not the most controversial of statements, but true nevertheless. Ena had found ways to occupy herself, some of which may have included idle daydreaming about using her powers properly. She'd imagined lots of different scenarios, different opponents and situations, just to keep the boredom at bay.

But if she was being perfectly honest, the one thing she’d never imagined it being was… easy. She felt more alive, more present, than she ever had in her life. As if she’d… been at 80% opacity before, and someone had just turned it up to full. 

The concrete spiked upwards in a rolling wave out from Rowe, but Ena shot herself up and over it on a waterspout. Bolts of ash and smoke followed her arc, and where she couldn’t meet them with her own blasts, she instead used the recoil to move herself out of the way. She hit the ground, summoning a rolling wave to absorb her impact. The section between her and Rowe began to glow with diffused light, and boiled away before it reached him thanks to a prismatic laser that he quickly turned on Ena. The heat began to boil away her water before it even reached her, but to her surprise, it remained under her control, and as she launched herself away again, she sent it swirling around Rowe, obscuring him from view. It only lasted for a moment, before a streak of neon light came bursting out, crossing the distance between them in an instant-

-only for Rowe to suddenly reform out of it a few feet short of Ena, stumbling and confused.

“Not much neon in a prison, huh?” Ena said, and then clocked him in the face with her pipe. 

He went flying backwards, blood streaming from his nose, and Ena dashed after him, catching him in a geyser of boiling steam before he’d even hit the ground. 

Rowe screamed, equal parts pain and fury, and hellish wings burst out of the centre of the geyser, dispersing it. Glitches and static formed themselves into a flaming, demonic sword in his hands, and as he swung it, gigantic arrays of runes filled the air behind him, spewing out a rain of hellfire and burning stone. 

Another wave carried Ena back and out of the way of the first few, but the arrays turned to follow her, continuing the barrage. She was starting to run low on power, but she could sense some water nearby, flowing steadily. All she had to do was figure out how to access it…

“Well,” she muttered, “if I can do steam…” 

As the rolling assault of molten rock reached her, water began to swirl around her, faster and faster as she brought more and more into being, a landlocked whirlpool. Then, she flicked both hands upwards, and with a vicious crunch, large, jagged chunks of ice rose out of the water, forming a dome around her just in time to weather the storm.

When the devastation ended, the dome was chipped and cracked, steam rising from it and water pooling at the base, but nevertheless intact. 

Rowe dropped to the ground, the sword and runes disappearing. 

“Mistake,” he said, a little out of breath. The concrete flowed up in jagged shards around his legs, sinking in and being absorbed, and his posture straightened as he recovered. “Big mistake.” 

He jabbed a fist upwards, and with a chorus of strained, grinding shrieks, a concrete replica tore itself out of the ground, towering over the both of them. A gesture brought it crashing down on the dome, shattering it into a million pieces and smashing a crater into the ground below. 

Rowe grinned, and let the hand crumble away as he sauntered over. “And pop, goes the weasel.” 

The dust began to clear as he reached the edge of the crater and peered over the edge, and found Ena grinning up at him, holding the release valve to a thick pipe that had been exposed by his blow. 

“Hey,” she said, and tore the valve off entirely.

Water shot forth, knocking Rowe clean off his feet with pressurised build-up. Ena dashed through the stream, replenishing her reserves as she did, and reformed above the lip of the crater. The spray had created a pseudo-rain, showering down and dousing the fires that burned around the edge of their makeshift arena. Rowe was back on his feet in an instant, face twisted into an ugly, rage-filled grimace, but it quickly turned into one of alarm as Ena launched a spray of icicles at him. 

He poofed away in a burst of smoke and ash, but he was on the backfoot now, and Ena seized the advantage. Geysers of water tore forth from the air around her, freezing into jagged icebergs - a mirror of Rowe’s earlier move.

The other Conduit dodged the first few icebergs in clouds of smoke, then on holographic demon wings, until finally he was carrying himself on a cloud of spinning concrete, just barely managing to stay ahead. 

Ena grinned, and turned the sprays downwards, letting them remain as water this time. Rowe slowed, realising that she was no longer shooting at him, and had just enough time to look smug before she froze the thick layer of water she’d coated the concrete flooring in.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, unable to resist the urge to be just a little bit smug. “Did you need that?”

Rowe growled, dropping out of the air as a concrete piledriver formed around him, but Ena was faster. This time, when she came apart, it was into steam instead of water, and the single dash carried her all the way to Rowe, and she skidded to a stop right underneath him and froze. 

Which is to say, she encased Rowe and all his concrete in a pillar of ice the size of an 18-wheeler. If the process happened to involve the more figurative kind of freezing as well, then it was just a happy coincidence of semantics.

Ena relaxed her stance slowly, shaking out her arms and rolling her neck. She’d drained most of her reserves, leaving her feeling weak and lightheaded, like she was dehydrated or anemic. A few seconds standing in the heavy spray helped with that, and then she lifted herself up on another pillar of ice so that she was at eye-level with a furious Delsin Rowe.

An ordinary human being would have been killed almost instantly, of course, but neither of them was ordinary. Rowe may have been unable to move, but his eyes still tracked her as she placed a hand against the pillar and began melting through it with a jet of pressurised steam. She stopped before burning Rowe, of course.

“Fuck! You bitch.”

She stopped before seriously burning Rowe.

“So,” she said, “I’m going to leave now, which is what I was going to do anyway before you insisted on turning this into a dick-measuring contest. Good luck with your… whatever, I guess.” 

She hopped down from her pillar, letting it melt away as she did, and had made it three steps before she felt something, something inextricably wrong, and spun back around to find Rowe standing right behind her.

She had just enough time to process the foam and spray that rolled around his hands, to think wait, that’s-, and then one of said hands closed around her throat, and she was diving back down into that inky, abstract darkness again-

-and then she wasn’t anymore. 

Only a few seconds had passed, by her estimation, but they’d moved in that time - wind was whipping at her hair, and at Delsin’s jacket. It seemed like he was holding her off the ground with one hand around her neck, seemingly effortless, and then she looked down and realised that while she had been correct about him holding her off the ground, she’d been wrong about how far.

They were standing on top of one of the concrete walls, with Ena dangling above the water below. The water far, far below. 

Rowe’s expression was distant, brows furrowed in concentration, not shifting even slightly as she attempted to kick and claw at him. She couldn’t use her powers, didn’t want to think about that in the context of seeing Rowe using them, and because the universe hated her, her arms and legs couldn’t quite reach him. She could feel him rifling around in her memories, pulling things up to the surface and tossing them aside, and she was utterly unable to do anything about it. 

“Oh, I’m loving this,” he said with a crooked grin. “Can’t believe how much time I wasted before this.” 

It took Ena a second to realise that his mouth hadn’t moved along with the words. 

“Get out of my head!” she spat, gasping for breath.

“Just ooooone sec, and…” That same memory for before emerged, the young woman standing over her bed when the DUP squad had taken her away. “There we are!” Rowe said triumphantly. “Hello, Celia. What have you been up to…”

Other memories began bubbling up. Ena couldn’t find any connection between them at first, until she started noticing the same figure in the background of them. Only for a second, in passing or in the corner of her vision, but it was the same woman each time. The same girl, really - with a better look at her, it was pretty clear she couldn’t be older than eighteen. Ena hadn’t even realised she’d seen her after that night, but on at least five or six occasions, there she was, in the background or half-obscured in a crowd. 

“Well,” Rowe said, “it ain’t much, but better than nothing. Thanks a million for your help, Salt. Gonna need to pick those apart later.”

“Fuck you.”

“Only problem is,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, inspecting the nails on his free hand as Ena continued to struggle, “it’s gonna be pretty annoying if I have to keep grabbing you every time I want to check some details in those memories.”

He grinned.

“So, I think I’ll just take them instead.”

It felt like Ena’s head exploded. But in reverse. Imploded, maybe. It felt like her skull was trying to stab her brain to death, and her brain was giving as good as it got back. Her vision whited out for a moment, and when it passed, Rowe was rubbing at his forehead, grimacing. 

“We’ll work on that,” he muttered to himself. “See ya’ round, Salt.” 

He paused, then grinned. 

“Or, you know. Probably not.”

The iron grip around her throat disappeared, and by the time her pain-addled mind realised she was falling, it was too late. 

The last thing she saw was Rowe, rapidly growing smaller as he turned and walked away, disappearing behind the concrete’s edge.

Then she hit the water, and everything went black. 

Chapter Text

A cool touch to the forehead was the sensation that brought Ena back to consciousness, swimming up through the mire of her thoughts. 

“Hi,” she said huskily, leaning into the touch. She hadn’t quite reached full consciousness, but this was a familiar enough situation that she could do it on autopilot. “Sleep well?” 

She wasn’t usually clothed, though, that was new. And, actually, what had she been doing last night, cause it didn’t feel like-

“Oh- oh my god,” an unfamiliar voice squeaked, and the touch disappeared. 

Ena shot upright before she’d had time to process the reasons why, eyes snapping open. 

Almost immediately, a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she had to shut her eyes and grit her teeth until it passed. She felt awful - like the morning after she’d tried absinthe in high school, if she’d also done an extreme workout while drunk. Her head was foggy and muddled, her stomach actively rebelling against its living conditions, and basically every single muscle she had was currently trying to divorce her due to physical abuse. The lack of cottonmouth, though, indicated that she wasn’t hungover, and she groaned out loud as her brain started to catch up. She wasn’t waking up hungover after a random hookup, because she’d been in prison for the last year.

Except she wasn’t in prison now, she was on a couch in the living room of an unfamiliar apartment, with a strange woman staring up at her worriedly from the floor.

Skinnier than a rake and with about as many protruding angles, she looked a bit older than Ena, although the obvious wear lines on her face could have contributed to that effect. She was white, with dark brown hair shaved down to a fuzz, and a worn-in, outdoorsy sort of tan that contrasted oddly with her seeming frailness. The cream sweater she wore was extremely oversized, her hands hidden within the sleeves, and the hem at the bottom was extremely frayed compared to the rest of the garment. 

From what Ena could see of her eyes, they were large and watery, but it was hard to tell with the way that they refused to meet her own.

“Who are you?” Ena demanded, standing from the couch. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t in any danger, but she was tired and sore and discombobulated, and it all manifested in a tone that was probably harsher than the situation deserved.

“Claire,” the woman stammered out. “Claire Finch. I’m- I mean, I was part of the custodial staff at Curden Cay.”

Ena blinked once.

“...I guess that explains why you look familiar,” she said after a moment. “Okay, next question. Where the fuck am I, and how the fuck did I get here?” 

The vitriol immediately proved to be a mistake, as she was hit with another wave of dizziness, and as such her collapse back onto the couch was only partially intentional. 

“Also,” she added, much more quietly, “do you have any painkillers, please and thank you.”

“I don’t, no. I’m sorry.”

“Figures,” Ena grumbled, slouching back into the couch. “Where the fuck am I, and how the fuck did I get here, in a very quiet voice.”

To be fair, Finch didn’t seem to need much prompting to get that part. 

“My brother, he… our parents died when we were young, and he always made the decisions for us,” she explained quietly. “He got us jobs at Curden Cay, and I didn’t have any other options, and I can’t do interviews on my own, and I didn’t like what it was, I promise! But I didn’t really-”

“-have a choice, yeah,” Ena said. “I get that.”

Finch nodded frantically, relieved. 

“I was just getting off my shift when the attack happened. They boat us in and out through the docks, and there’s a small transfer base on this side of the city, about ten minutes walk from here. We were just getting through security when the helicopter crashed, and the guards herded us all into a small room and told us to wait there. Which we did, but… they didn’t come back. One of the other ladies took a quick look outside at one point, and when she said that prisoners were starting to show up, we decided that they probably weren’t coming back.”

“Good call,” Ena confirmed. “You just barely avoided some serious shit.”

Finch seemed cowed by that. “Anyway,” she continued hesitantly, “we ended up taking one of the boats and trying to get to the harbour, but then we realised that we’d been going for the transfer point, and we ended up getting into a… disagreement. Over whether to go there or not.”

“Based on the fact that you’re sitting here, I’m guessing you ended up going with ‘not’.”

“Yeah,” she said with a jerky little nod. “We, um, we just beached the boat a bit away and walked back into the city.”

“None of that explains how I ended up on your couch,” Ena pointed out.

“R-right,” Finch said, shying back slightly, and Ena suppressed a sigh. “Sorry, um. I was the last one off the boat, because I… hung around for a while after.”

Well, that was the most obvious lie Ena had ever heard, but judging by her demeanour so far, it was probably just that she’d hidden until the others were gone.

“I found you washed up on the beach nearby, just lying there. You- you weren’t breathing.” She delivered this information with as much gravitas as she was able to gather.

It wasn’t much.

I don’t need to breathe, huh? That’s… cool. Scary, but cool.

Ena held up one hand and waggled her fingers. “I’m pretty new to this whole Conduit business, but yeah, I’m pretty sure the old rules don’t exactly apply.” 

Finch nodded rapidly. “Of course, right. I assumed as much from the… uniform.” 

Ena glanced down, and realised she was no longer wearing her prison jumpsuit, just the tank-top she’d worn underneath and a pair of slightly-too-small basketball shorts. She envisioned Finch having to undress her with all her nervous awkwardness, and had to suppress a chuckle. 

“Not that I’m complaining or anything,” Ena said to Finch, “but why stick your neck out for a criminal? You hadn’t actually done anything wrong, up until then, unless you’re secretly also dealing smack, in which case, can you hook a girl up?” 

The look on Finch’s face was a sight to behold.

“Kidding,” she added with a laugh. “I only did smack once, and it wasn’t that great.”

“...are you also kidding about that part?” Finch asked nervously. Her eyes flashed down Ena’s tattoos, which, alright.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Seriously though, why’d you do it?”

Finch took a deep breath, and straightened her back, managing to meet Ena’s eyes for the first time. Hers were a washed-out pale green, closer to grey than anything. 

“It… It didn’t feel right, leaving you there.”

“So you do have a spine after all,” Ena said before she could stop herself, and immediately felt like the world’s biggest asshole as Finch wilted again. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was- uncalled for. Thank you for saving me - I’d probably have ended up back with the D.U.P. if you hadn’t. Maybe worse.”

“You’re welcome,” Finch said quietly, picking at her sweater. “It was the least I could do, after…”

“After…?” Ena prompted.

“I don’t know,” Finch said miserably. “Contributing to… that place, in any way.”

“...well, let’s just call it even, then.” Ena winced, rubbing at her throat. Her condition wasn’t improving, and her throat felt like she’d gargled soundpaper. “Sorry, just one minute,” she said, reaching for the large two-litre of water resting on the coffee table.

“Here,” Finch said, holding out a plastic cup, the reusable kind you would give to a child. “I got-”

Ena picked up the entire bottle and wordlessly drained it in one go, then tossed the bottle back to her.

“Or you could… d-do that,” Finch said slowly, her cheeks flushed. “Sure.”

Ena hopped to her feet, feeling revitalised but not quite back up to par. “Kitchen through there?” she asked, gesturing to the door on one side of the room.

“Uh, yes,” Finch said, scrambling to her feet, “but why are you-”

“Need to borrow your taps for a moment,” Ena said, striding over. “Promise not to ride your bill up too much.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Finch said, following her in. “I can’t afford this place on my own anyway. But are you sure you should be walking?”

“I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. No need to be so nervous and stuttery.” Ena cranked the cold tap on and stuck her hand under the paltry flow, letting out a relieved sigh as she absorbed it. 

“I’m not.”

Ena blinked. “What?”

“I’m not nervous-stuttering,” Finch repeated. “I just have a stutter.”

“Oh.” Ena bit her lip guiltily. “Well, I feel like a real asshole now.”

Finch shrugged. “It’s okay. I get that a lot.”

Smooth moves, Salt. Why don’t… 

Ena lost her train of thought as she heard the sound of water against metal. She looked back to her hand to find the water splashing off of it, and even when she actively tried to absorb more, she got nothing.

“What the fuck?” she muttered, removing her hand and lifting it to the light. It had worked for a second there, but she still felt like absolute crap, and couldn’t absorb any more. 

“What’s wrong?” Finch asked nervously.

“Not sure,” Ena said, sticking the other hand under the flow to no avail. “Shit! You stupid piece of crap power, why won’t you-”

She froze, realisation hitting her like a wave, then sagged. “That motherfucker,” she hissed.

“Who?”

“Rowe. That little smug-ass rat fink bitch, he stole my fucking powers!”

“...that’s possible?”

“Apparently!” She lifted a hand and clenched it into a fist, watching the foam and waves roll over it. Was it just her imagination, or did they look smaller than they had before. “Guess that explains why he came after me specifically the second time around.”

Finch frowned. “Why did he want your powers specifically?”

Ena shook her head. “Not my powers, my memories. He was really interested in one specific memory, the time I was…”

“Are you okay?” Finch asked after a second, but Ena waved her down, biting her thumb as she concentrated.

“He was really interested,” she muttered, “in my memory of… he wanted the memory where I was... he was looking for…” She trailed off, staring at the floor. “That motherfucker.”

“What?”

“He stole my fucking memories! And my powers! He stole my memories and my powers!”

“...that’s possible?”

“Apparent-fucking-ly.” Ena began to pace as she fumed. “I saw him use them just before he sucker-punched me, but I didn’t think-”

“You fought him?!” Finch squeaked.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Ena rubbed the back of her neck, and gave a bit of a rueful grin. “Kicked his ass, too. Until the whole suckerpunch thing, at least.”

“Wow,” Finch breathed. “You must be strong.”

“I was,” Ena grumbled. “Past tense. Now I’m just…” She turned around and gestured for Finch to move aside with the flicker of a wrist. Once she’d scurried out of the way, Ena took a deep breath, and tried to dash forward.

It worked. Sort of. She rematerialised halfway into the living room, accompanied by a shriek from Finch, but she immediately staggered, and had to brace herself on a chair. 

“What- what was that?”

“That,” Ena said, bent over double, “was pathetic. Fuck.”

“...was it?”

“Comparatively? You have no idea. Also, I want to throw up now.” She pursed her lips and forced it back down. “Okay, no, we’re good.”

She straightened up, and immediately gagged on the swell of bile that rose into her mouth.

“Mrgg-” she managed to swallow it back down, “oh god. I, uh, I think I might need just a little longer before I get out of your hair.”

“Maybe it would help if you ate?” Finch offered nervously. “Cause you haven’t in-”

She froze, cutting herself off just in time.

"How long," Ena asked slowly, “have I been asleep?"

"...three days?"

"Three days?!"

"Shh," Finch hissed, glancing around nervously. "I have neighbours!”

“Sorry.” Then, in a low whisper, “Three fucking days?!”

“...closer to four.”

“Jesus,” Ena muttered, rubbing her brow. “Rowe could be fucking anywhere by now.”

Finch averted her eyes awkwardly. “Not… really.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Finch gestured wordlessly over at the window, and the curtains covering it. She didn’t move, though, so Ena walked over and yanked the curtains open herself.

The curve of New Marais’s harbour stretched out in front of her, grimy but colourful and vibrant all the same. To the left, the bay was choppy and wild, sun glinting off the waves stirred up by a strong breeze. In the distance, just beyond the mouth, she could see Curden Cay, no longer smoking but still looking distinctly damaged even from a distance. 

And in between the two, she could see a veritable fleet of boats, D.U.P. and Navy and Coast Guard all mixed in together, creating a blockade around the island and bay. The source of the vague thumping she’d been tuning out became clear, too, as helicopters swooped overhead, various makes and models hovering and patrolling over the water and the city, in amongst swarms of drones that followed in their wakes.

Ena slowly shut the curtains again.

“Right,” she said weakly. “I see what you mean.”