Darkness. It was the one thing Vivainne had known for as long as she could remember, always hidden away in the shadows, only she couldn't hide now. The words rang in Vivainne's ears as Charles guided them into the tower, as inevitable as time itself.

Of course her mother had escaped. Believing that there was any way to stop her mother forever was a fool's hope.

Charles' arm tightened around her, helping her out of the elevator as Pip limped ahead of them, blood trailing behind her steps. Not only had her mother escaped, she'd apparently orchestrated a prison break, freeing what seemed like dozens, if not more, well known meta criminals. They were all over the city, rampaging and causing chaos, and somewhere in the midst of it was her mother.

Vivainne realized she was trembling as she reached out for Pip, her hand shaking. She curled in around herself, wrapping her arms in and pressing them tight to her sides.

"We're going to do everything we can to catch her," Charles said, keeping his voice low.

"How is this even possible?" she asked, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. She'd visited her mother once, and gone through multiple security points to ever get close. Aside from the prison being hidden, all powers inside the prison were supposed to be dampened. She'd felt those effects at work. It was as though her core had been put to sleep, there but unable to be stirred. How could her mother have broken through that?

"I don't know," Charles said. The words were strained, rage barely contained as he herded them up yet another flight of stairs. The tower was a ghost town, abandoned as all the heroes focused on keeping the city and surrounding areas safe. She knew that somewhere down below, there had to be a room absolutely frantic with activity as Dispatch fought to coordinate everything. "But there will be hell to pay when I find out."

Vivainne barely had time to mark the oddity of where they were going before Charles approached the sealed door, unlocking it with a signal. The Oracle was in full use, a holographic table in the center glowing bright with a map dotted with red lights. In kind, blue lights flooded the map, the heroes deployed to deal with certain threats. Nikolai and Janean stood over it, voices overlapping as they spoke to people who weren't in the room. Near the back of the room, another hero stood near the window, their back to the door, watching something. Smoke billowed out in the distance, and Vivainne could almost hear the screams.

"Why did you bring us here?" she asked.

"This is the safest place in the city, aside from the hero campus, and I won't risk disengaging the lockdown at the moment. You'll stay here until we decide it's safe." Charles turned his attention to Pip as he stepped away from Vivainne, pulling his mask from his pocket and lifting it to his face. It fit into place like a second skin, moving as he spoke. "I'll make sure someone comes up here to heal you."

"Don't worry about it," Pip said, grimacing as she pressed a hand into her side. With the dark clothes she was wearing, Vivainne couldn't make out anything more than a wet stain, until the blood stained her fingers. "It's not that bad."

Recompense left the room, the door to the New York Oracle sealing shut behind him. Vivainne stared after him for a moment, at the blank door barring the way between the Oracle and the rest of the tower, before turning around. With windows giving a 360 view of the city, there was no way for Vivainne to look that didn't land her eyes upon the damage being wrought by her mother, directly or indirectly as it was.

"Viv?"

Vivainne finished turning, gaze landing on Pip as she sunk down to the floor, crossing her legs beneath her as if she was preparing to meditate in power class.

"Join me?" Pip reached up a hand, a faint red stain on her fingers, though for the most part this one was unbloodied.

A faint, desperate laugh bubbled up from inside her as she accepted Pip's hand, sitting down on the floor beside her roommate and best friend. It was ridiculous. The world was ending, or so it felt, and Pip wanted to meditate.

"Cycle your core," Pip said softly, their fingers intertwining. "It's like working out. You don't want to do something intense, and nothing else. You'll cramp up, and risk injuring yourself next time, so instead you do gentle stretches. It can also help heal your wounds."

Helpless to do anything else, Vivainne nodded, letting her eyes close as she began to cycle her core. It stung at first, and she nearly stopped, running into its jagged edges. She'd pushed herself harder today than she ever had, and while she hadn't shattered her core like she'd worried, she had pushed far past her limits. The fractures were even more apparent, and at least in one spot, seemed to have grown.

She forced down a shaking breath, trying to ignore the spark of fear at the realization. Her core was still in one piece. One fracture spreading didn't put her in danger, not when she'd pushed herself so far beyond her usual limits, fighting for her life against that stone manipulator.

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"We should never have left the room," Vivainne whispered.

"Maybe not," Pip said. "But we stopped the Clayman from entering our campus. That's not nothing."

"Maybe."

How did he even know about the campus? Vivainne wondered, continuing to move her core gently. The hero program was far from a secret, but none of the campuses were openly known, at least not to the general public. No one should have known it was beneath the hero tower. It was always possible the Clayman had been trying to break into the hero tower, but why attempt that? And why from so far away?

He was coming for me, she thought, breath catching in her throat at the idea. She had no proof. The Clayman hadn't even spoken to them, hadn't said a word or made a sound. But it would make sense. If her mother had caused the prison break, of course she would send someone to retrieve her. To punish her for betraying her, or just to recover her research, Vivainne didn't know, but her mother had never acted like being imprisoned was final. And her mother had, somehow, known where she was going, leaving a dress for her the day before she was meant to leave for the program. It was still in a box somewhere, untouched except for the lab techs in the L.A. hero tower.

"Breathe," Pip murmured, her fingers tightening around Vivainne's, pressing the palm of her hand against the floor.

She forced a breath through her lungs, following Pip's instructions and matching her breathing to the girl beside her. A blanket fell over her soul, a comforting, overwhelming sea of power like stepping into the world's nicest ocean. Pip had so much power inside her, practically bursting at the seams; Vivainne's own power felt like a paltry sum.

Before she'd noticed, the ebb and flow of her own core had met Pip's, and she could sense the moment Pip noticed. She didn't pull back however, cycling their cores together as they sat, hands pressed together, waiting for what was supposed to be an incredible day to crawl to a close.

"They're not going to catch her," Vivainne said, the words faint. She doubted the heroes across the room could hear even if they were paying attention, not that it mattered.

"They are," Pip said, and the confidence in her voice was almost enough to make Vivainne believe her. Almost.

"They're not," Vivainne said, a quiet resignation coming alongside the words. She couldn't be terrified, not when Vora's escape felt inevitable as time itself. Her mother was not a stupid woman. She was prideful and vain, but she was also a genius, with a power that could render any superhero incapacitated for life. She should never have gotten captured, never gone to prison, not as easily as she had.

It had all been too simple, too smooth. Vora had gone for years undetected and untouched. Yes, Vivainne had brought her to the hero's attention, but she couldn't believe her mother had never accounted for that.

Was there something she wanted?

Something Vora couldn't access, as far outside of the system as she was?

Vivainne sighed, tipping her head back. She felt her power slip away from Pip's, surprised when she realized she was no longer in pain.

"Huh."

"Huh? What?" Pip stirred as she asked the question, and Vivainne opened her eyes to find Pip staring at her, markedly mundane eyes intense as they locked gazes.

"My core was hurting before we did that. Now it's not."

"Oh, really?" Pip blinking, lip curling at the corner in the way Vivainne had come to associate with a Pip deep in thought. "Maybe it's just from cycling our cores together?"

Vivainne shook her head. "I've done that before, and didn't have that effect. Though, my core wasn't hurt then either."

Pip hummed thoughtfully, fingers drumming against her side. "Well, I don't think I didn't anything. My power isn't like that."

"Maybe not." Vivainne shut her eyes again, though she could still feel Pip's stare. Her mind ticked, thinking through the idea. It was true that Pip's power shouldn't have done anything—glass creation was far from any ability to interact with power cores—but Vivainne wasn't going to discount any possibility. If they were going to uncover the secrets of power cores and how to fix them, they would need to look into any little thing that may be a clue.

"You're smiling?"

"I'm not," Vivainne said.

"Well, I'm staring at you, and I'm pretty sure you are," Pip said, matter-of-factly. "What are you thinking about?"

"The science behind power cores."

Pip made a noise, blowing air from between her lips. Not a whistle, something more flat, less impressed. "You genius types."

It was Vivainne's turn to scoff. "Hardly. I don't know the slightest thing about what I'm trying to look into."

"Maybe that makes it more impressive."

They fell silent once more, with Pip picking up where she left off when it came to cycling her core. Vivainne joined her after a while, though her mind was elsewhere, contemplating the issue of power cores as the hours passed by.

Eventually, the door to the Oracle opened, and a tired group of heroes walked in, Artemis, Athena, and Recompense among them. Artemis was piping mad, entering mid rant and continuing as she and her sister walked toward the two heroes commanding the tower. Charles split away from them, walking toward Pip and Viv as the two stirred from their silence.

Vivainne knew what Charles would say before he ever opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said, lowering himself onto one knee in front of her, level with her gaze. "We weren't able to find your mother. That doesn't mean we're going to stop looking, but—"

Vivainne cut him off with a sigh before he could continue. "I didn't think you would."

"We won't stop until we find her."

Vivainne nodded once. She believed him, she just worried about what would be waiting for them when they did eventually find her.

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