“I know kung fu.”

Quan-Ti, immortal, hesitates.

Behind Alex, Amadeus Faust steps out from nothing and opens his femoral arteries with a circular blade. In the cage, the Chosen Ones scream.

A snap of the cloak; the sorcerers vanish. Alex, on his elbows, crawls toward the lever that opens the door. His face is white-green, his blood an empty bucket. He gets a grip with one hand. Then the other.

His body pulls it down.

“I saw what I saw,” says Philip. “She was hurting them after they gave up. Not for practice, or to test herself. For fun.”

“I’m with Daniel,” says Tyler. “It’s not like she’s suddenly turned evil.”

“Did I mention she started smoking?”

“Oh shit she’s turned evil,” says Tyler.

“I used to smoke,” Toe scowls.

Everybody takes the tiniest hint of a step back from him.

“Jesus–”

“What are you guys talking about?” says Dylan, ambling up.

The silence hums, taut as a violin.

“Everyone liked it, nobody’s saying they didn’t like it,” says Tyler.

“IT WAS A 112-MINUTE STROBE-LIT CINEMATIC ORGASM,” Daniel announces to the parking lot. Behind them, someone whoops.

“Are you getting orgasms confused with epilepsy?” says Phillip.

“Are you not?”

“It was really, really a lot of fun,” says Tyler. “Particularly considering that nothing was at stake and the girls didn’t get enough screen time.”

“I just can’t believe they gave Toe’s part to Michael Cera,” says Dylan.

“I’m not Michael Cera!” says Toe. “I’m Michael Cera?”

Tyler whips around and reaches over, pulling himself along an invisible line; he’s up on his toes and his body moves like a slide rule. Behind him, the ninjas have caught some kind of synchronized seizure, arms curled up and jerking from side to side.

Tyler freezes. Ninjas arch in sudden paralysis. With a piercing cry, he reaches skyward, and lightning smashes down into him: the shockwave scatters their phalanx to the wind.

The Chosen Ones stare as he walks back toward them.

“What was that?” asks Toe.

“The Thriller dance what the HELL did it look like,” Tyler says.

Only Dylan still moves with their old pinwheeling grace, but if there’s joy in her movements then that joy is savage. She flickers, and blood blooms from the bodies of nameless men (her knuckles are smooth; red ribbons chase her knives). She’s fire and the means of walking amid fire. She is the temptation of revenge.