Freya stormed backstage after her match, bumping shoulders with the technicians running the opposite direction to start the dismantling. Out of the corner of her eye she caught someone with a mic and camera waving at her, she tried to dodge but people carrying a large piece of equipment got in her way.

"Freya, can we just have a quick interview?" The girl with the microphone didn't give Freya a chance to reply though and the red light appeared on the camera. "Freya, how do you feel now you're number one contender for the new TCW Heavyweight Championship?"

"I don't care, excuse me." Freya tried to push past but the the interviewer stood in her way.

"What about how Izumi attacked you at the end of your match?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course, I am sure you're anxious to get to your friend Darkness who was attacked before his match."

Freya paused. "No, I'm going to find Loop. And then I'm going to beat several types of shit out of him for cheating." Freya gave the shocked woman a serene smile. "Anything else?"

The woman waved at the cameraman who turned off the camera. "You're not serious. Deng will suspend you like he did Dante."

"Then he should have suspended Loop. That cheating little bastard is going to find out that he messed with the wrong people." Freya turned away from the pair and walked quickly, skirting past the men scrubbing 'Loop' from the wall.

**

He sat in one corner of the small room. The lights weren't on, but that was okay. It was better without them anyway, they couldn't hurt his eye this way. He felt... he couldn't decide. He'd survived, which was more than Deng had given him. But whatever he'd found inside him to come out like that, well, it made him powerful. Someone had promised him he'd die, and he'd believed him.

He ran his finger tips over his neck, the scar tissue soft but not smooth, the ripples of flesh trying to cover the mess that had been made of it. What hadn't killed him had apparently made him stronger. He held out his hands and flexed his fingers. They were still covered in blood. Darkness's blood. He gave them a cautious sniff. And then the tip of his tongue touched the dried red liquid.

Almost immediately the contents of his stomach were on the floor, his throat burning. He shuddered and felt weak again. He stumbled to the sink and turned the hot tap on, plunging his hands in. He scrubbed, not worrying if the blood disappearing down the sink was his or Darkness's, as long as it was gone. He slumped against a wall, not turning the tap off, putting his head in his wet hands. He felt more like himself, although that did mean weaker. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, splashed his face and turned off the tap. He'd just beaten the longest reining World Champion in history. He was next in line. Just one more hurdle.

The first thing you need to know, is that we just watched. We followed her down the cold corridors, camera capturing every moment for the audience at home. We supported her, without speaking. She was a woman standing up for those she cared about. Every one of us, we would have done the same...or, at least that's what we tell ourselves, when we see our loved ones sleeping, when we wipe away their tears, when we hold them close, lose ourselves in their embrace, and vow it's a moment that'll never end.

It's what we tell ourselves when we watch the news. It's on every hour now, a stream of ever horror that can happen to someone, gathered from around the globe.

Yeah, we all want to be heroes.

I don't remember who was all in the crowd. I saw Tex, gave him a nod. There was a woman I recognized as having more talent than we knew what to do with, who handled our commercial tie-ins. She was afraid to stretch beyond, but she was there. One or two referees - I'm not sure if the one in training counts. Doesn't matter, they were throwing their jobs away for this.

I was throwing my job away for this. Try getting a job in security when you watch someone be broken apart, piece by piece, and you stand back and applaud it.

Because there was no question the boy was guilty. The writing was on the wall.

Banter - I think he wanted to be there, but you know how he is about these things. Guy sees into the souls of the bad guys so well, sometimes I think he forgets it's just a role. Like, he really is the bad guy when he takes the mic, and it's hard for him to let go of that...yeah, I know. Too many stories. Remind me to tell you a few of the better ones sometime....

So where was I?

Oh yeah, it was dark. Too hot, even though it was cold. Bodies crushed together, shit, we were just a mob, except...

We had a leader, and she was who we imagined ourselves being, as she kicked down the door...

****

The boy flinched at the sound, just a little. It was the only sign of movement.
No expression.

It was like he was a million miles away. Somewhere where only he could punish himself.

He smelled of vomit, blood, and despair.

"So. Not the celebration you imagined, is it?" Freya clenched and unclenched her fist. Thought about the weapon she didn't have. Could feel it's weight as she lifted it, crack!, broke his face in two. But that was somewhere else, so she instead took those empty hands, filled them with his shirt. She was vulnerable to a strike, but if he took the chance she'd accept the blow, and not ever let go off the limb offered until it could be folded in on itself at least three times.

She forced him to his feet. He didn't resist. One eye watching those watching him. One eye looking for someone who hadn't already convicted him. But it was her eyes she wanted him to see. She yanked his head by a fistful of his hair, and forced the boy to fall into the wilds of an emerald stare. "Whatever you're doing to yourself, whatever pain you feel inside, I want you to know that it's never going to be enough." His head hit the wall, he fell into the desk they'd provided, the corner of the wood hit him on the forehead, tore open the skin in an ugly streak from his eyebrow up past his bangs.

A spin on her feet, a twist of momentem as her boot carried into his stomach, and his body folded up around the impact. He was lifted off of the ground, flew three feet back, hit the bathroom door so hard that it seemed it would break. But it was good quality. It held. The hinges held as the force of her second kick crushed his ribs against his lungs. "Because you showed me how wrong I've been all this time. This isn't a competition to you, it's your validation as a human being. You're so dead inside that this is all you will ever have...and that just makes you one more face in the crowd."

She knelt on one knee. "You didn't need to be bitten to become a vampire."

His lips shivered. "..." His voice so quiet she couldn't hear. She waited. They had time. "Not me..."

"So Buffy hates you so much, that his last thought as he fell, was...'fuck you, fruit loop?' He wanted to get you so bad after letting you live ...and you have no idea how unlike him that is...that he would let someone do that to him, and just walk away?"

He flinched at the emphasis on the swear word, no surprise. Boys didn't like hearing their own words in her lips.

"Loop. You're not that important."

He couldn't look at her. "I didn't do it." He could not lie, even if it helped him.

"You're not going to convince me. Do you really want everyone to see you like this - "

"I didn't do it."

"Loop, I'm trying to give you a chance."

"I didn't do it."

"Don't make me regret - "

He had a sudden thought. "Smell me, I didn't do it!"

The fear from him was toxic, suffocating. The anger he tried to bury was a knife in the air. What she sensed was someone just inches away from an attack. Instinct took over, and her boot hit him between the legs. His scream was broken, a stain where she struck was spreading. The scent of blood was thick in the air.

Something inside her awoke.

To the audience watching her face seemed to darken, her eyes caught the light from the hallway. Her hand was on the boy's throat, she could feel his pulse, could feel herself strangling him.

And nobody moved to stop her.

She scented their fear. It was a calm fear. One of people who had made a difficult decision.

His eye, wide, unblinking, it could have been a doll's.

So easy to kill.

So easy to become the beast. Fall into the abyss.

Why not? They knew. They had to know. They would fall with her.

Something like a scream breaking out, because she wanted to go too far. Break that line.

Just like Darkness.

Just like Dante.

Just like Loop.

No. Because that would be her death. She wasn't that creature.

She threw him away, felt weak. "Someone call for an ambulance." She wanted to throw up. "Hurry!"

*****

We knew. We saw. Something was inside our heroes....

*****

The secretary. He knew her footsteps, knew by the pace that it meant bad news. She had moral difficulties with what they did, and he expected her would have to replace her soon. She left the insurance claims on his desk. Walked away.

He didn't hear the door, so he opened his eyes to study her.

"Sir...do you ever think about..?"

"Yes. It is my duty to keep my performers alive, despite their best efforts. They are what pays for all of this."

"Then don't you think it's time you gave something back?

"Take your things with you after you close for tonight. Your check will be mailed to you. Remember that the contract you signed prevents you from speaking to the media."

The door closed. He was left with his thoughts.

*****

We'd come so close...

Tex drank it away. He made newsprint when his car came within inches of taking out a mother and her child. He paid for rent that month, paid for her to see a doctor about the child's colic. He missed work for the next week.

Our new referee stayed. He added to his keychain, a cross, a star of David, and a metal plate that quoted the Quaran. He couldn't bring himself to add a Buddha. It just seemed disrespectful. Out of all of us, he handled it the best. "Whatever she's doing, I hope she keeps doing it. She's probably why these psychopaths never hurt us." His wife was less understanding when he confessed all that he had seen. She moved back in with her sister. She couldn't understand why we'd watched a boy nearly be killed. That's the trouble when you protect people too well. They forget to be afraid.

I didn't talk to him about it.

Or to the woman with too much talent.

Or to the cameraman, who swears we didn't see what we saw.

Or to the other security guys, hey, we kept their jobs after all. Especially not them. I think they were the only ones who didn't regret an instant of what we almost did.

Whatever we told ourselves, this much was true...we had seen a monster, just for a moment, and we had embraced her as being one of us. Just like that.

That ate at me longer than the fact that there were real monsters in the world.

Whatever her story was, it didn't matter, because she would have us backing her up, part of a silent conspiracy.

Whatever else you can say about our crime - it had transformed our terrified little mob, into a kind of family...our humanity, her humanity had won out.

And I guess for now, that's all the happy ending we deserve.


******

Epilogue: The poster went up for the show.

All the names were in place.

All the prices listed.

Only one thing seemed odd.

A gap left beneath the names in the main event.

Now that it had become a grudge match, special stipulations were to sure to follow...

They'd bustled him into the hospital room and started fixing him. Freya'd slunk in and seated herself in one corner as the nurses and doctors hurried to repair the damage she'd inflicted. There was blood, lots if it, but she was sure that it wasn't all his. It was a while before anyone realised she was there, they spoke to her, probably asking her to leave, but as she didn't understand she didn't budge. Eventually they stopped trying. Drips went up, even a bag of blood, and slowly the people in the room reduced in number until they were alone. Loop was still out of it. He'd been unconscious when the ambulance collected him, and whether they'd given him something to keep him down or he just hadn't recovered yet she didn't know.

The light outside faded and eventually the pair were left in darkness. Freya hated hospitals, the smell of death, sickness, disinfectants and bodily fluids filled the air making it hard to breath. She'd put off seeing actual friends when they were in because of it and here she was now waiting for who knows what to wake up and give her some answers.

She could see him in to the gloom, tucked up in the bed like a small child. Eventually he started to stir. His eyes lids flickered but only one opened. The pupil was pinprick small before dilating to human size. It surveyed the room before fixing on Freya. He froze like a rabbit in headlights.

"I'm sorry." Freya's voice broke the silence.

Loop snorted and winced from the pain it caused. "You're sorry?"

"Yes."

"You're a monster." It must have been the drugs, he didn't know where the words came from.

"Werewolves aren't monsters, humans commit atrocities werewolves couldn't even think of."

"I wasn't talking about werewolves, I meant you."

"And coming from whatever you are that's saying something."

"What do you mean?"

"It means you're no longer human. Look what you did to Darkness-"

"That wasn't me!" Loop interrupted.

"It was definitely you in the ring, even if you weren't the one that attacked him before. Something's changed, and you're going to have to learn to control it or be consumed by it."

"Is that why you came here? To teach me to control myself? Or was it to see what damage you'd done? To make sure you didn't kill me?"

Freya walked quietly over to the side of his bed. Regular Loop, old Loop, would have struck up the brave front but would have felt tiny inside. But as New Loop he felt something rising. He wasn't afraid, it was just another animal it could destroy if needed. He swallowed hard as he realised that thought was his own.

"I'm here for one thing, Loop," Freya said quietly. "I just want you to tell me, away from all the people and other distractions, that you didn't attack Darkness before your match."

"I. Didn't. Attack. Darkness."

Freya nodded. "Fine." She turned and walked back to the chair she'd been sat in all this time. She picked up her jacket before opening the room door.

"Is that it?" Loop demanded. "You spend God knows how long sitting here for that?"

Freya shrugged. "You didn't do it, so I plan to find whoever did and put them in the room next door."

**

It was a few days before the hospital let Loop out, but eventually he was walking down the corridor to the place he should probably now call home. It wasn't the most welcoming of places. It was more like living in dead men's shoes: it used to be Matt Strikmore's apartment and Loop didn't feel he had the personality to paper over the imprint Matt had left. The key stuck slightly as he put in the lock and it took a bit of wiggling to get the door open. A musty smell greeted him. He let the door shut behind him as he walked though the small room to open a window. He deeply breathed in the fresh evening air.

"You survived."

Loop turned around, his one eye searching the dark room. In one corner there was a figure he recognised.

"How..."

"How did you do it? You're the first." Knight stepped forward. A light from the complex's courtyard had formed a square on the floor, and Knight stepped into it. His features were even more grey, there was something soft about his face, not the nice kind, like peach skin, but squashy like an off mango. The skin didn't seem to be attached to the bone underneath.

Loop's stomach turned. Knight came closer, Loop could smell his foetid breath.

"You are my first." He smiled, canines visible over thinned lips. "You are part of a new order. We will change the world."