Sensing that they would soon lose this fight if they didn’t stop him, the remaining Renegades shifted their attention to Ace. It might have left them open to attacks from the Anarchists and Cragmoor prisoners, except they, too, seemed dazed by the quick turn of events. How swiftly their worldviews had been altered and tested in the space of only a few minutes.

First, Callum Treadwell, and now this.

On the field, Blacklight threw a blinding strobe into Ace Anarchy’s face. The villain instinctively ducked his head, putting the briefest pause on his assault on the arena.

It was enough time for the Captain to hurl his chromium pike. The weapon speared through the air, glinting in the spotlights still aimed at the stage.

Ace flew upward. The pike missed him by mere inches. He snarled at the Captain, and then with a wicked grin and a flick of his wrist, he lifted the chains that had held the Cragmoor prisoners off the ground and sent them flying at Blacklight.

One chain wrapped around Blacklight’s torso, locking his arms at his sides. Another chain swept around his head, gagging his mouth.

“No!” Adrian screamed, his voice mingling with a hundred others.

But it was not enough.

Ace flicked his fingers.

The chains yanked in opposite directions, snapping Blacklight’s neck.

Cold sweat dripped down the back of Adrian’s neck as the arena filled with screams. He heard his dad yelling—Evander!

Fury roared inside Adrian. He called the laser diode up on the forearm of his suit. Every part of him that had been filled with wonder when Callum had taken over the helmet was now filled with rage. White sparks flashed in his vision as his gauntlet began to glow.

He was not the only one spurred on by Blacklight’s murder. On the field, Tsunami released a guttural scream and sent a tidal wave crashing toward the villain, but Ace merely flicked his wrist and the entire platform on which he’d been shackled flipped onto its side, creating a barrier between him and the water. The wave broke and crashed away from him, flooding half of the arena. Ace’s fingers twitched, tossing the platform at Tsunami. She cried out and raised her arms to defend herself as the makeshift stage crashed on top of her, burying her beneath its weight.

In that moment, Ace roared with pain, one arm jerking back, but striking only air.

Adrian held his fist toward the villain, but hesitated. Ace spun, allowing Adrian to see a knife buried to the hilt in his back, near his left kidney. Adrian had not seen anyone throw it, which meant … the Dread Warden had just stabbed him.

Adrian gulped. He was so far away. An attempt to hit Ace would put his invisible dad at risk.

He didn’t have time to make the decision. From the stands on the opposite side of the field, Queen Bee screeched at the sight of the blood soaking into Ace Anarchy’s prison uniform. She threw her arms forward, and every wasp flew in Ace’s direction, searching for the invisible assailant. They found him easily, the black cloud of their thick, buzzing bodies forming the silhouette of the Dread Warden. Adrian heard his cry of pain. Simon flickered in and out of view a couple of times, before becoming fully visible as he collapsed to his knees, curled into a ball in an attempt to defend himself from the painful venom of the insects’ stings.

Adrian adjusted his aim and fired.

The concussion beam struck Queen Bee in the chest, probably the best shot he’d ever had from such a distance. She fell backward, landing awkwardly across a row of plastic chairs.

The swarm shifted away from the Dread Warden, flying back to protect their fallen queen.

But Ace was waiting. The knife had pulled itself from his back and as soon as the distance between him and the Dread Warden was clear, he sent the weapon straight for his enemy’s throat.

Another flutter of motion replaced the swarm of bees—golden butterflies, converging in front of the Dread Warden. Danna blocked the knife with her forearm, knocking it from the air.

“Nice try,” she hissed.

Ace cocked his head. “I remember you. Last we saw each other, I believe I had you trapped in a pillowcase.”

Whatever counterattacks either of them were planning were interrupted by a new volley of attacks aimed at Ace, drawing his attention away from Danna and the Dread Warden. No one dared attack him with more weapons, seeing how easily he deflected them and turned them on their own, and so he was pummeled instead by sandstorms, streams of acid rain, even deafening sound waves. Ace blocked what onslaught he could, using everything at his disposal to put a series of barriers around himself—chairs, doors, the podium, cinder blocks torn out of the walls, sheets of metal dragged down from the ceiling. Adrian himself sent a series of fireballs and concussion beams into the melee, but none of them made it through Ace’s defenses.

All the while, Ace’s eyes were shining, as if this were a game he’d come to miss.

Until a bolt of black smoke struck him directly in the face, sending Ace into a frenzy of coughs and wiping the grin away. Pride swelled inside Adrian. He was sure it had come from Oscar somewhere in the chaos.

Danna morphed again into the monarch swarm. The Dread Warden was on his feet, still visible, and trying to stumble out of the path of destruction, but his movements were jerky and he kept slipping on the uneven, muddy ground.

Adrian crouched and leaped, landing with a hard thump in the squelching mud. He ran the rest of the way toward his dad, skidding beside him as Simon stumbled and fell hard onto one knee. This close, Adrian could see the marks of dozens of stings he’d received on his face, hands, and throat, everywhere his uniform didn’t cover.Swelling splotches marked with raised white welts.

“Are you okay?” Adrian said.

Simon looked up at him, surprised. Seconds later, Hugh dropped down on Simon’s other side, breathing hard from his sprint. His steely eyes glanced at the Sentinel, but darted immediately to his husband, while the ground rumbled and walls cracked around them. “Simon, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“At least one of those hornets must have had Agent N,” said Simon. He seemed almost apologetic as he met Hugh’s gaze. “I’ve been neutralized.”

Hugh set his jaw, and Adrian knew that he’d been expecting this response.

The air left Adrian’s lungs. The Dread Warden—a member of the Council, an original Renegade—now a normal human, just like that.

“We need to get you out of here,” said Hugh, putting an arm around Simon. “Can you stand?”

Simon ignored the question and the offer of help. “Have you seen Adrian?”

Adrian flinched at the worry that passed between his fathers. As Hugh shook his head, Adrian had to bite his tongue to hold in the truth.

“We’ll find him,” said Hugh as he helped Simon to his feet. “He’s strong. He has to be fine.” He said it almost like a threat to the universe.

Adrian grimaced.

Simon nearly crumpled as soon as he put weight on his legs. “I’m okay,” he said, waving a hand at Hugh’s concern. “It’s just … my whole body feels like it’s burning up from the inside out. Whatever venom those wasps have—” He groaned.

“Here, let me take him,” said Adrian.

Hugh frowned.

“You need to stop Ace Anarchy,” Adrian added, knowing that he was lucky to not have drawn the villain’s attention so far. He remembered how Ace had easily taken control of the Sentinel’s armor in the catacombs, and that was without his helmet. If he tried to engage Ace Anarchy now, he would be more a liability than an asset.

Hugh’s expression eased just a fraction. “Thank you.”

“Don’t get killed,” Simon muttered.

Hugh almost smiled. “I’d like to see him try.” Then he was gone.

Only once they were alone did Simon sigh. “I wouldn’t.”

“He’ll be okay. Come on. Put your weight on me.”

Simon leaned into Adrian, and together they started for the nearest exit, a concrete tunnel leading toward the arena’s administration offices. Despite his pain and the distress of losing his powers, Simon kept looking around, squinting through the smoke and dust.

Adrian knew he was searching for him.

They were halfway to the tunnel when Simon tripped over the outstretched leg of a fallen prisoner—dead or unconscious, Adrian couldn’t tell. Simon grunted in pain as his shoulder bashed into the ground.

Adrian stooped beside him, trying to help him back up, while keeping one eye on the fight at the center of the field. The ground around Ace was littered with debris and fallen bodies. Many Renegades were seeking cover in the stands, but it was futile when Ace could so easily tear those seats apart. Captain Chromium reached his fallen pike.

Simon gripped Adrian’s forearms and pulled himself to his feet again, but they both stood, entranced and hopeful, as Captain Chromium began charging toward Ace Anarchy.

“Come on, Hugh,” Simon whispered.

Hugh picked up speed. Adrian gripped Simon’s elbow as he watched his dad close the distance to his longtime foe.

He was twenty feet away.

Ace’s back was turned. The attacks from the Renegades were less frequent as more and more were trapped beneath piles of rubble and furniture, but they hadn’t given up. Ace had pulled down so much of the arena’s roof that there was a wide hole above them, open to the cold, cloudy night sky. The edges of its domed shape were beginning to cave in without proper support, yet he continued to rip out chunks of sheet metal and I-beams, deflecting a bolt of electricity, blocking a stream of molten lava, sending a group of Renegades scattering for cover as he shot a volley of steel pipes after them.

Captain Chromium was twelve feet away. Ten. Eight—

A set of shackles reared up from the busted platform underfoot, latching on to the Captain’s ankles. He fell forward, sprawling across the ground. The pike speared into the dirt only a few feet away from where Ace stood.

“No!” Adrian and Simon yelled simultaneously. Simon made to move toward Hugh, but Adrian gripped his arm, holding him back.

As Ace Anarchy faced his archenemy, two more shackles lifted from the rubble and clamped around the Captain’s wrists, chaining them together.