Lorna could feel the metal more clearly now—not in shapes, but in intent. The blades slicing the air, the studs on leather gloves, the buckles on boots—the shivering motion of each scrap of iron and steel as if the night breathed through them. At first, it was overwhelming. The alley had too much metal, too much motion, too much sound. But with John groaning behind her, one hand gripping his ribs, and Bob surrounded on all sides by men who showed no hesitation or decency in numbers, she didn't have the luxury of letting her nerves dictate her reach.
She focused on the weapons first—small, fast decisions—pulling a kunai an inch to the left just before it could catch Bob's neck, flicking a shuriken from its path to deflect against a dumpster instead of into Danny's thigh. She couldn't stop everything, not with her level of control, not yet. But she was beginning to feel the difference between resisting metal and commanding it. It moved smoother now, responding to her thoughts more than her gestures. But even as she danced mentally across half a dozen threats, her eyes always drifted back to one person—John.
She didn't call out to him. She knew he hated that in a fight, and truth be told, so did she. But she watched him—his stance, his breathing, the way he used the short metal pipe not like a weapon but like a tuning fork, finding weak points in the ninja formation and striking just enough to disrupt them before fading into another alley shadow.
He was doing better now, breathing steady despite the pain, feet grounded. But if he took another hit like the one from earlier, she wasn't sure he'd get back up again. Her eyes narrowed. No. That wouldn't happen. Not while she still stood.
A sharp whistle through the air dragged her attention to Bob's right side—another thrown knife arcing too close. She wrenched it away mid-flight, making it spin harmlessly into a wall. Her gloves sparked faintly as if responding to her emotional spikes. Everything in her was wired tight.
And in a blink, her mind flickered—not to the chaos around her, but to the first time she'd ever seen John.
It had been raining—hard, heavy, relentless. The alley behind Avalon hadn't yet been renovated and still stank of spoiled milk and soaked newspapers. She had curled into the back of a dumpster like a feral animal, cold to the bone, her thin hoodie soaked through, and her fingers trembling more from fear than chill. She'd stolen crackers from a street vendor's cart three blocks down and thought she'd gotten away clean, but the vendor's friend had chased her. He hadn't caught her, but it was close. Her shoes had holes. Her stomach had less. And then the back door had opened.
She thought it was over then. That she'd be screamed at, maybe worse. But instead, John had stepped out with a flashlight in one hand and a half-open bag of chips in the other. He didn't say anything. He just crouched, looked at her soaked form, and tossed the bag forward. "They're stale," he said. "But they're not moldy." She hadn't taken them right away. She didn't trust men, or light, or kindness. But when she didn't run, he just left the door ajar. "Come in if you want," he'd said. "Or don't. No one's going to grab you." The heat from the doorway had called to her more than the food.
That night, she'd sat near the boiler while he pretended not to notice her stealing glances. The next day, he gave her a toothbrush. The day after that, a cot in the third-floor room no one used. No questions. No charity speeches. Just space. Just warmth.
For the first time since her mother's death, someone treated her like she was meant to be somewhere.
Her mother had passed from a sickness that seemed to come out of nowhere—fatigue, coughing, then hospitalization. No insurance. No extended family. Just a slow dimming until Lorna was left alone, too young to understand that silence could become a living thing. She bounced between foster homes and facilities, never lasting more than a month before something… happened. A drawer flying open during a tantrum. A spoon trembling across the table.
They all said she was broken. Possessed. Cursed. None of them stayed. And the other kids? They bullied her with the kind of precision only children possess—unforgiving, clever, cruel. Her hair was weird. Her eyes were too intense. She gave people static shocks without touching them. She learned to stay quiet, keep her head down, and when that failed, run.
She had spent years running.
But here in Avalon, with John who quietly fixed broken chairs and Lorna who restocked shelves and cleaned behind the counters because it made her feel useful—here, she had stopped running.
She clenched her jaw and returned to the now.
A knife clattered behind her—she hadn't even noticed pulling it away from someone's hand. The metal felt lighter now, not like a tool she was pushing but like an extension of herself. Her eyes scanned the battlefield, catching a shimmer of gold as Danny struck another attacker with a glowing fist that cracked concrete on contact. The Iron Fist—she didn't understand the mysticism, but she recognized raw, unyielding power when she saw it. John was pushing a cluster of three enemies toward Bob now, forcing them to group and giving the older fighter a chance to regain his momentum. Bob, for all his age, moved with terrifying precision when not overwhelmed, the white shimmer of his tiger aura flickering brighter with every second.
Then she looked toward the real problem.
The Ninja.
He stood back still, untouched, unbothered, arms crossed, watching the chaos like an artist admiring his work. And around his neck, suspended by a chain of metal links thick enough to withstand a blade, hung the orange Tiger Medallion. It pulsed faintly. Not like Bob's, which seemed to roar with age and pain. No—this one pulsed like it was waiting. Waiting to be used.
A terrible idea struck her.
What if he could use it the same way Bob had? What if the orange medallion could channel the same roar, the same surge? What if he was biding his time to unleash something far worse?
Her hands began to tremble—not from fear, but from anticipation.
The chain.
It was metal.
She didn't have to fight him head-on. She didn't have to be a hero or a legend or a savior.
She just had to wait.
Wait for the moment he got close. Wait for when he reached for it. Wait for when he needed it.
And pull.
Pull it so hard it snapped from his throat.
Her breath slowed.
The metal around her glowed faintly.
She stepped back into the deeper shadows, eyes locked on The Ninja, her presence vanishing like a wraith behind the veil of noise and movement.
She didn't run anymore.
And she wasn't going to let him use that talisman.
Not while John was still standing.
Not while Avalon was still whole.
Not while her family—the first real family she had ever known—fought for their lives.