CHAPTER NINETEEN: INFERNO

Lung hit the casino floor like a meteor.

The impact rippled through the structure—floor tiles cracked, glass exploded outward, and plaster fell in sheets from the ceiling. Fire bled from him in waves, climbing hungrily along the walls, the curtains, and across furniture like they were made of oil. 

Taylor didn't blink. 

She stood there, breath tight in her throat, watching as the monster rose from the crater he’d made. Scales rippled across his arms and throat, thickening, hardening. Claws pushed free from fingers. His eyes glowed molten molten gold in a face that was becoming less and less human with every passing second. 

Her forcefield shimmered faintly—her only certainty in a situation that had just tilted hard out of her favor. There was no outside interference this time, so anything that approached her would slow. Would stop. She was untouchable.  

Lung’s gaze locked on her, snorting embers from his nostrils. “You,” he said, the word warped by his transformation. “The one with the barrier. You’re with the Undersiders?”

She didn’t answer.

Neither did he wait.

He lunged.

But Taylor was already moving.

At that moment, she made a snap decision

She’d used Blue before. She’d pulled objects. Pulled people. But what if she—

Pulled herself.

She didn’t think. Just acted.

She reached—called on Blue—and directed its field of attraction at a point just ahead of her.

Space itself folded. Her body moved.

Taylor shot sideways with a speed that defied her own reflexes, riding the force of her own pull. The world blurred for an instant, speed without buildup, and then she was behind Lung.

Her landing was clumsy. Her knees buckled slightly under the burst of velocity, but she wasn’t where she had been. And more importantly—

He wasn't fast enough to follow. Not yet. 

It worked.

Another burst of Blue pulled at a broken piece of scaffolding overhead, and it came crashing down behind him. Not enough to pin him. Just enough to halt his next step.

But Lung didn’t even stagger. 

He was bigger now, hunched slightly yet taller, more scales than skin. He growled, his tail whipping out, smashing tables, walls—anything nearby. The heat would have been unbearable now without her forcefield as the air was choked with smoke.

She dragged another metal structure toward him with a flick of her hand. He smashed it out of the air with one arm, but his head turned with the motion—just enough for her to sprint past him on the other side.

She aimed for the fire alarm next. Yanked it. Water burst from the ceiling, steam hissing as it hit Lung’s body, but he didn’t falter. If anything, he looked amused.

“Play all the tricks you want,” he snarled, voice more distorted now. “You’ll run out before I do.”

Taylor didn’t answer. She was already moving again, improvising faster than she could think.

She focused—Blue flaring around her heels now. Pulling herself forward, accelerating into a slide beneath his claws, the smell of liquefied metal and sweat thick in her nose.

Every pull of Blue became a dodge, every burst of movement another way to stay a step ahead. Her feet barely touched the floor as she whipped around the battlefield like a slingshot loosed again and again. She was improvising on the fly—applying what she knew in ways she’d never practiced, and committing fully to it once she realized it was working. 

Blue to pull debris. Blue to redirect momentum. Blue to pull herself.

Anything to keep Lung from gaining rhythm.

Because if he did—

That was a battle of attrition her dwindling stamina couldn't win.

He’d kill her. 

She darted past again—this time pulling Lung slightly sideways with a flick of her hand, throwing his balance off just enough to avoid a swipe that would have gutted her.

It was working.

But she knew this couldn’t last. 

She pulled a slot machine into his path. He barreled through it. She yanked another—nothing. He continued to grow, too fast, his entire body covered in scales now. His tail lashed out, colliding with a support pillar, and debris rained around them. The ceiling groaned.

He opened his mouth.

Fire.

She lunged left and yanked an already melted table in front of her like a makeshift shield, but it turned to slag instantly. Her forcefield caught the rest, heat curving around her in fractions of infinite space.

Not interested in staying still, she ducked beneath a tail swipe that would have shattered her ribs (had her forcefield not be active) and pushed hard with Blue—turning Lung’s own momentum against him. His foot slipped. He stumbled forward. Crashed into a collapsed roulette table.

She didn’t stop moving.

Blue snapped across the floor—pulling debris, collapsing light fixtures, upending tables. The casino became a zone of falling obstacles and misdirection. She didn’t need to overpower him.

She needed to control the battlefield.

But Lung shrugged off most of her attacks. regeneration was faster. His mass, growing, scales thickening. His tail lashed again. This time it struck hard enough to punch through a pillar that stood between them.

How long has it been already? Every moment she didn’t end this gave him more to work with.

He was learning how she moved.

She was losing ground.

Then end it.

Her hand trembled.

Red. The reversal of Blue. The counterpart. The repulsion to the pull.

It pulsed at the edge of her perception—behind her eyes, at the center of her chest. A pressure that wasn’t physical, but still threatened to rip her apart from the inside out. Raw and heavy with potential. 

She could feel it swelling, almost aching to unravel outward in a scream of force. 

She didn't know much about Lung apart from the fact that he had been able to take on the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate and visitors, he didn’t get tired, and his regeneration sped up as he escalated. So her best bet to end the fight was to absolutely overwhelm his healing. And to do that, she would have to aim for his head. But if she let it go now, if she unleashed it…

Lung wouldn’t get up again. 

He would be obliterated, reduced to little more than a stain and a memory.

Taylor’s hand curled tighter. Her knees locked. She could feel the power rising, practically begging to be set free.

One push.

One thought.

That was all it would take.

But—

No.

Not like this.

She gritted her teeth, jaw tight.

She had already taken one life. That memory still clawed at her in the quiet hours, still weighed on her despite what Keith and the videos she watched told her. She didn’t want to feel that again. Didn’t want another name added to the list of people she’d never meant to kill.

She didn’t want to be that kind of cape.

Didn’t want to be that kind of person.

The glow faded from her hands—not gone, but pulled back, sealed behind clenched fingers and held breath.

Instead of release, she pulled herself upward, fast and vertical. Another snap-use of Blue, aimed at the high railing above the floor.

Her boots hit the ceiling. She staggered, caught herself.

Below her, Lung howled.

Taylor stared down at him, panting, heart in her throat. Her hands trembled, but her mind was clear.

A part of her wondered if the sudden growth in control wasn’t just practice, but pressure. Conflict had a way of clarifying things, of stripping away hesitation until all that was left was instinct and power. 

After all, she was using space itself like a weapon, like armor, like an extension of her body.

Lung snarled and leapt for her.

Too close.

The phrase—like an extension of her body—rang in her mind, and a world of opportunity opened to her. 

Taylor’s hand snapped forward, palm open.

Her forcefield wasn't just a shield. It was more. 

At her command, it surged out as an active crushing presence, an unseen pressure collapsing down onto Lung like the hand of an unseen god.

He froze mid-air, his leap arrested. Muscles locked. Flame flickered violently as space itself refused to yield, the ground beneath him cracking under the redirected force.

Taylor’s breath hitched. She hadn’t known what would happen—but it made so much sense to her at that moment—and the result was undeniable.

Then he dropped.

A sound like a thunderclap shattered the air as he slammed into the ground, the casino floor exploding outward under the sheer force of denied motion.

She didn’t stop applying pressure, the flooring beneath him cratering deeper.

Lung strained, muscles bulging as he tried to rise. Bones groaned beneath his thickened hide, claws scraping uselessly against the ground. But there was nowhere to go.

He screamed, a sound of animalistic fury more than pain, but it was impotent. Flame turned wild and directionless, licking at walls, at ceiling beams—but the field expanded, tightening the space around him, sealing him and his fire away. 

At that moment, she was god. Refusing motion, refusing defiance.

And slowly, almost pitifully, he began to shrink.

The scales receded. The fire died. The monster peeled away, burned out by pressure he could not outgrow. Could not overcome. 

She didn’t speak. Didn’t gloat.

She just remained still on the ceiling, her hand extended, face pale with effort.

Until his scream faded into silence.

Then, she landed beside him in a crouch, almost collapsing to her knees as she finally released the field. Every nerve in her body screamed from overuse.

But she didn’t care.

Because she was still standing.

And Lung was not.