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He was protected from her gunfire with the armor—and especially thanks to the replacement helmet Death had gotten him—but that wasn’t what concerned him most, anyway.

Her arsenal of corrosives made it so he may as well not have even been wearing armor at all.

A splash of bog-theun toxin, and it would be over.

It would keep eating away at the protective material of his suit until either he stripped it and was left vulnerable, or it ate away into his flesh and kept going.

Neither was a particularly pleasant option.

He willed himself not to glance in Elliott’s direction—doing so would only draw attention to the fact that the other man wasn’t still behind cover, next to him.

Niko had to distract her. He had to keep her talking.

“So, why’d you kill your buddy?” he called out. “Fourier? Wasn’t he useful to you?”

“Oh, that Galapol microdick? He outgrew his little panties and decided he was going to cash in on Paycheck himself. So, I decided to remind him of his place. Which is face down. In the fucking dirt.”

“You know, I’ve always thought unregistered hunters were shitty wannabe hacks. You’re only continuing to prove my point.”

“Don’t care,” Bubblegum called back.

Niko took another couple of rapid shots. Maybe he’d get lucky and actually hit her, and Elliott wouldn’t have to worry about taking her by surprise. But she was too good, ducking back behind her own cover—another thick, white support pillar. She returned fire.

“What’s even the point of any of it? Money’s great and all, but it’ll only take you so far in life. If you have to trample and hurt everyone in your path to get it, it’s not worth it anymore.”

“I didn’t come here to get lectured by you,” Bubblegum said. “And I don’t care about your high ground moral bullshit.”

He could see Elliott now, creeping along in the background behind her, crouched and silent as a stalking cat.

His green eyes were intense, fiercely focused nowhere but on the back of her.

He’d already pulled the knife out. It glinted in the light as he gripped it tightly.

Just a few more feet, and he’d have her.

Niko let out a shaky breath. They had this. They could do this. He fired several more times on her, leaning heavily into making sure her attention was focused on him now and nowhere else. He could see her reaching for another grenade as she ducked behind cover.

It wasn’t enough.

“Where’s blondie?” she ground out, her own hunter’s instinct too infuriatingly good. A fresh surge of icy adrenaline spiked through Niko’s veins at her question. “It’s been a while.”

She turned on her heel just as Elliott sprung for her with the knife. It wasn’t the stealthy, clean cut to the neck he’d obviously intended for.

She fired point blank on him.

For a moment, Niko couldn’t breathe, the air caught in his chest as ice jolted through his body.

Then he realized that somehow, miraculously, Elliott’s brandished knife blade had caught and deflected the bullet instead as he’d plunged it toward her.

Even Elliott seemed briefly stunned, pausing for a beat to process before driving the dagger toward her face this time.

Niko would never question its luck again.

She dodged and swung out a heavy fist, connecting hard with his side. “I know your tricks by now, you little bitch.”

Elliott grunted and briefly folded into himself, but recovered admirably, grabbing her tightly and trying to get her into a bear hug not unlike Niko had pulled on him in their mock fight the day before. Bubblegum fought him hard, twisting fiercely in his grip.

Niko aimed on her but couldn’t fire—it was too risky with both of them fighting for their lives now. He could just as easily hit Elliott.

Shit.

She knocked the knife from Elliott’s hands. It clattered to the ground, bounced, then disappeared into the gaping chasm beside them that bog-theun corrosive continued eating away at. Its luck and good fortune had, it seemed, finally been exhausted.

Elliott was on his own for once, truly, no tricks left at his disposal now.

He had no tech, he had no weapons. He wrestled with her, trying to keep her in a tight grip against himself, but Bubblegum was determined.

She threw her weight around and bucked, making it difficult to hold her.

She got an arm free, and started driving her fist again and again into Elliott’s exposed side. He cried out in pain.

It drove Niko into a frenzy. He glanced at the doorway Elliott had exited through.

He’d have to circle around through several rooms while the house was beginning to collapse on top of them.

It would be too hazardous now, and take too long.

Elliott was struggling against her and as she dealt him damage, he was clearly beginning to lose.

Niko had a mere minute at this point—maybe even less.

He stared out at the ever-widening gap in the floor between them.

He could make it. Maybe. He could try to get to them.

He’d jumped farther distances back on Uula.

Probably. But those had been down instead of across .

And the widening gap before him only revealed to Niko what he didn’t want to acknowledge.

He couldn’t make it.

Elliott cried out again in agony as Bubblegum managed to get a good hit in now on his right eye, her fist connecting hard with the socket. Niko had to get there fast, one way or another.

At any cost.

Think , he willed himself. Fucking think!

The grappling hook. He hastily sheathed his rifle on his back, then grabbed it from his utility belt, looking upwards.

The structure of the mansion was already unsteady, the ceiling groaning and bowing down in a way Niko didn’t like.

His added weight to it might bring the whole thing down on top of them, ending this struggle swiftly and permanently for all three of them.

But he couldn’t afford to wait. He’d have to risk it.

He aimed it at an ominously swinging and shuddering chandelier that consisted of a downward spiral of glimmering crystals.

The thing wouldn’t hold him for long, and if Niko ended up falling through the widening hole below, he would be fucked six ways from Sunday.

And so would Elliott. He had to try it—Niko had no choice.

Not when it came to keeping the other man safe.

He released the hook. It latched onto the light fixture with a clank , a few of the delicate crystals falling into the growing pit below.

Then he took a few steps back and broke into a full run, launching himself off the edge as close as he could get before his boots made contact with bog-theun corrosive. He held on tight, heart in his throat.

The grappling cable held taut as Niko swung across the dark gap of floor.

Until it didn't.

He felt and heard the chandelier give way above him, the cable snaking into something horrifically slack in his hands.

Nononono. Oh fuck.

He’d barely built enough momentum to make it to the other side. But now the ceiling was going to collapse around them all. He’d brought an entire second story down on their heads. He’d just killed Elliott himself—

Niko missed his landing, and tumbled across the floor as an icy flush of adrenaline seized up his body.

Around them, the chandelier smashed against the edge of the hole, splintering into glinting shards.

It snapped off several floor tiles and broke the supporting planks beneath them.

Niko waited for the worst, waited to be buried under tons and tons of rubble—but it never came.

A glance upward showed the ceiling still held, though barely.

It didn’t look great, a sizable hole gaping straight up into the second floor where the chandelier had been.

The ceiling bowed in and creaked more than ever as the walls and house itself shifted around them, slowly eaten away from the inside out.

Deep cracks ran across it as a fine rain of plaster chunks and dust filled the room.

He wasted no time, scrambling up and sprinting towards Elliott. Bubblegum threw her weight backwards, tripping him up. Elliott went down, landing close—far too close—to the widening edge of the hole in the floor.

I’ve got you.

Niko slammed into her hard as she tried to recover, tackling her to the floor.

She scrambled and fought him too, her eyes wild with animalistic survival instinct.

He tried to give her the Larry Special, struggling to get a grip on her head to wrench her neck into a break, but she managed to get a leg and arm out from under him and pried his arm away from her.

Niko grasped for his rifle as he fought to keep her pinned down, finally unlatching it. He aimed it right for her face and fired.

It clicked, out of ammo.

“ Oh, fucking seriously?! ” Niko shouted.

“Get bent, you tin can asshole!” Bubblegum reached down now, and he could see she was attempting to get another explosive loose. Niko slammed the butt of his rifle down against her hand and heard the cracking of bone.

“Niko.” Elliott’s voice came from his right, weak and quiet. He was still down on the floor, struggling to gain purchase. “Here.”

He rolled a neon green grenade toward him—the very same corrosive she’d wielded against them. Elliott must have managed to nab it off her before she’d thrown him off balance.

This wasn’t going to be pretty. But it was going to be effective.

Niko grabbed up the grenade, nearly losing his grip entirely on Bubblegum in doing so, then ripped the pin out as he straddled her. He shoved the thing down against her face as he struggled to keep her held down, before calling out. “Elliott, get the fuck back!”

He had to time this right. Too soon, and she’d slip out and get too far away from it. Too late, and he’d get sprayed with it too.

Three.

Two.

One.

Niko let go, springing up off Bubblegum and hurtling towards the door.

Elliott was already halfway there, moving sluggishly and clutching his side.

Niko heard it go off behind them, followed by a watery scream that dissolved into something broken and awful that would haunt that cursed place in his brain for the rest of his days, alongside all the horrors of Honeybliss.

Niko didn’t dare to look back at her, but Elliott paused and stared.

The mansion gave another shuddering, ominous groan as though yearning to fill in the silence that terminated her dying sounds.

They had to go.

Now.

Niko scooped Elliott up off his feet and made a run for the Sonadora .

“I can walk,” he protested, but Niko ignored him.

Once they’d gotten inside the ship, he sat Elliott down on the edge of the bunk, then went to the first aid kit and pulled the whole thing from its latch on the wall.

When he turned back to Elliott, the other man was drawn into himself, head bowed, one arm wrapped around his side.

His breathing was ragged, full of quiet, sharp little gasps. It killed Niko to see.

Niko knelt before him. Elliott’s face was startling, the entire cornea of his right eye blood red where she’d struck him, a dark bruise already purpling the outside corner of it. He looked depressed and worn down, his anger turned to sorrow.

“Baby,” Niko murmured, breathless. He reached up and wiped gently at a small cut at the side of Elliott’s eye.

“Niko, we need to go,” Elliott said quietly. “We should get the ship into space, at least.”

He was right. The explosions, the estate slowly collapsing in on itself. It was undoubtedly going to draw attention. They’d be swarmed in minutes. “ Fuck, ” Niko hissed out. “In a— Just give me a minute.”

“Do we have a minute?”

“For you? Yeah. It’s stealthed anyway. So that buys us some time. Here.” Niko gently lifted Elliott’s shirt up. What he saw was harrowing—his right side was already painted with a dark, ruddy bruise that ran from hip to mid-rib.

Niko pried open a topical numbing wipe and gently touched it to Elliott’s side, before trailing it down the bruise. Elliott hissed in pain, his body stiffening, but otherwise he said nothing.

“I should have gotten there sooner,” Niko said.

“It’s not… really that bad,” Elliott said quietly. “It’s not even the worst I’ve ever been through.”

Niko paused, the implications of that sinking into the marrow of his bones. He wanted to do more than punch Johann Kestrel now. He wanted to throttle the life out of the man. The thought of him in his expensive new Honeybliss-bought suit drove Niko’s blood pressure spiking.

“Yeah, well, I’m going to make sure this never happens to you again,” Niko ground out.

“It’s okay, Niko.” He sounded tired. “You should have seen the other guy,” he mumbled, aiming, it seemed, for a bit of levity. “Or girl, I suppose, in this case.”

“Yeah, well, good fucking riddance. We won’t have to worry about her anymore.

” Niko gently cleaned and numbed Elliott’s injuries.

“I think we’re lucky in that most of these are fairly surface level wounds.

It’s going to hurt like a bitch for a while and you have some internal bruising, but I don’t think anything is seriously damaged inside. ”

He’d had to give himself a trial-by-fire crash course on basic first aid, simply due to the number of injuries he himself had often sustained in past years of hunting.

Elliott nodded.

“How’s your eye?”

“Blurry. Hurts. But otherwise, fine.”

“No blind spots in your vision? Blood?”

“No.”

Niko dabbed at the corner of his eye.

“I lost Repartee .”

“I know. We’ll figure something out. I can talk to D about getting another.”

“No. They’re custom modded. I have one remaining, but it’s the last. That one’s called Banter.”

That statement felt far more ominous than Niko wanted it to be. He paused, a chill creeping up his spine.

If a cat’s longevity was measured through its nine lives, Elliott’s was measured through his uniquely named guns.

“Yeah,” Niko said. They both fell silent, an awkward fissure hanging between them as Niko gently dabbed at his wounds. After a moment, something in Elliott’s expression shifted, a cool shadow coming over his features.

“You don’t need to do that anymore. I don’t want you to. I’m tired. I’d rather just go home.”

“Elliott, I—”

They were interrupted by a startling explosion that rocked the entire ship. Niko stood and glanced out the windshield to see open air and only one wall standing where Enva’ruu’s mansion had been just moments before.

As much as he hated it, Elliott was right.

It was time to go.