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Kostya was prescribed his first pair of glasses at age seven, after reading the chalkboard had grown impossible. The world as he had grown to know was full of blurry details, as if obscured by a fog.

But as he put the glasses on, Kostya realized that the world as it existed to him was not the true nature of the world at all. After gaining clarity of sight, he saw individual leaves on trees, words on street signs, defined letters on the board. It was a new and novel experience-- until Kostya remembered.

Once upon a time, he had been able to see clearly without any assistance at all.

Excalibur's presence reminded him very much of the same.

For a near-eternity, Kostya's thoughts had been tainted by someone (something) all too glad to use his weaknesses as a strength. To take hold of his hopeless fury and push against it, spurring him on. For months after the realization that it was not just him, Kostya questioned his every thought and motive. Was this his, or was it someone else's? Could he trust it? Was it worth it?

But then blue shards eased up his arm, and Kostya's vision snapped into focus.

Once upon a time-- not so long ago-- he had wanted this. What Merlin had to offer once over, twice. There was a hurt in him that had urged him to darkness, a wound that had been left to fester uncleaned and unhealed. Back then, Kostya would have done his duty and helped without question or denial.

But now, for the first time in months, he could see things as they were, unshaded by his fears. He could see the forest for the trees and revenge was no longer the most important factor in his decisions. Konstantin Radoslavovich Bashmet knew that he was more than the sum of his parts: more than his loyalty given unquestionably to questionable sources. More than his ability to say yes, more than his ability to ask how high.

Merlin did not create anything anew: he had merely taken advantage of the revenge in Kostya's head and heart, and then gave it to his hands.

They were covered in blood. He had yet to atone-- but it approached. Acceptance washed over him like a cooling balm: Kostya was, almost assuredly, going to die. If that death was inevitable, then he must perish for the cause.

The right cause, this time. The one that cared about more than just revenge, petty or otherwise. The one that worried about the needs of the many. The one that could help him protect, rather than destroy.

The one that knew that after Leona killed Melvin, Kostya was next, and then who else?

Kostya was capable of more than just ruin, and he had to show it. He could not right the wrongs done by his hands, but he could protect the greater good. He could protect his home, and do his part to case the advancements of the force that would lay siege to his home.

Kostya was running out of time: Lawr was moving towards the controls, Leona was raising the knife, murder written in every line of her body, and in the distance, the groaning of the collapsing Life Labs echoed as a warning.

His orders from Edith had been to prevent anyone from leaving.

His orders from Merlin had been to ensure that the portals were clear to be used.

His orders meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Kostya had to see the forest for the trees: what could he do to stop Merlin? Not just Leona: not just the act of one and the life of one. He was the last bastion of defense in this room, against Leona Tavish and all others that allied themselves with Merlin. That meant Dr. Stephen. The one who had been tasked to kill H. The clone that wore America's skin. There had to be more like himself, too: weak-willed hunters that had fallen sway to dark promises, seduced by the sweet bitterness that only revenge could quench.

Letting them off the island-- to go to his place of darkness and shadow, the place with a throne room hewn in obsidian, where gravity only existed enough to force the bend of a knee to serve...

It would tip the scales. But they were already tipping, weren't they? Merlin granted them power immense, and Kostya knew because he'd seen-felt-lived it himself. It was bleeding out of Leona right now in inky black rivulets and ichor, in the crystals on them both.

The calm remained as Kostya raised the barrel of his weapon to point at the portal controls. He wasn't strong enough to disable them entirely, but...

They had to be contained. They had to be captured. They had to be stopped here, rather than be allowed to meet up with the source of borrowed power.

He knew there wasn't enough time for all that he needed to do. Leona would come for him next.

Kostya fired, aiming to destabilize the portal.

"If you are needing to be safe," he said to Lawrence without looking at him, eyes fixed on Leona. Kostya brought Syntax to level with her, his heart pounding.

"Run now. I vill cover you."

Death loomed closer with every passing moment, but Kostya steeled himself. He would fight her, and any others aligned with revenge. Not to best them, or defeat them. Not to pay them back.

But to protect the home of so many lives he had failed to care about before. To protect a home, where he'd made one and so did so many others. To protect the idea of what America Jones wanted to build with so many others.

Kostya would stand the line. And protect.

hp 50
dmg 2
charge 2/3

It was what he asked for when Jan moved and he felt only a wave of cold relief that Jan was not coming in the way of the blade and keeping Rin from doing the same. He didn't need to see her fall upon him again to a strange weapon while he laid useless as ever in the ground.

Yet even while Kostya seemed to be there to help by attacking the woman, he also was keeping Jan from escaping and that was far more important than keeping the woman away. At least with her focus on him, she couldn't turn the dagger in Jan who she ordered killed. He knew Jan had to leave and as soon as he could. Leave and maybe if this island burned, never come back.

He could hear distant rumbling. Something was happening.

Groggy, he curled in and was kneeling when he was kicked again, sending him curling to one side, holding his ribs as he cried out into a groan as he took sharp breathes through clenched teeth. His shield had still been there but was gone in an instant and he pressed his brow to the floor as he rolled over. Glasses skewed, he could still hear Jan call and attack and knew he wasn't out of the woods. He had to keep her busy else she would kill Jan as easily as she would him. Saliva gone, he knelt again as he looked up at her and the blade.

The blade...

He was going to die but that blade could be a bigger problem for Jan or an assets to him.

With what little power he had, he threw his body at Leona to try and take the knife.

Kostya started as Lawr attacked him, not entirely surprised. He weathered the blow and pulled back, eyes snapping to the portal. It was doing as it was supposed to-- save for the trainee. A pang of guilt filtered in through the righteousness, and he turned to Leona and Melvin, their weapons broken, their bodies covered in crystals.

Lawrence was a concern, but Leona and Melvin were more so.

He couldn't drag them both from the room: not against the swirling pressure of the destabilizing portal, with a pull that grew more powerful with every passing moment. Kostya had done what he could to ensure that the followers of the revenge would not be able to escape through the portal-- and that act might have been in vain. He had no idea where the portal would take anyone that went through it, if anywhere survivable at all.

With a broken weapon, it was unlikely that either of them would survive if exposed to the elements for a prolonged period of time. But it was possible that Leona would be whisked away to the revenge stronghold...what he was trying to prevent in the first place.

Tick, tick, tick. No time to analyze. No time to debate the merits of his actions. Kostya closed his eyes and breathed, focusing on his desire to make Leona pay-- for her allegiances, for her enabling, for her descent-- and let it all go.

Lunging forwards, Kostya grabbed for Melvin, trying to take hold somewhere where crystals didn't touch. He hauled the hunter forward, with a single-minded goal: get through the door. He looked to Lawr, to see if his assistance was needed.

hp 44

He hadn't expected that just touching Leona would hard him, sent a tremor of seizing pain that made the stab wound to his side seem like a minor scrape. If he wasn't crying out and his mind wasn't siezed up into the hot vice of all nerves set alight with white fire, he might have been curious as to what this reaction was. He might have been curious about a lot of things, like he was suddently turning into blueberry rock candy, but instead he was gifted with being occupied with trying to scream before he felt something break.

He hadn't noticed through the pain how silent it had gotten, that one moment the screaming was loud with him and then realized he was now just one voice.

As he dropped to the ground, the heavy thud of his own weapon came with him. Cyrstal and a crackling gun.

Gasping for air, the lack of HER was flooded with agony and everything else became a distant island to where he was swimming in an ocean that wanted to consume him.

Saliva?

It was weak, a soft nudging, a motion in his mind.

She was there - just barely.

If it wasn't for Rin and Jan, he would have let it ages ago, but he worked and struggled to keep his eyes open, slowly feeling his body start to slide towards the portal without any ability now to crawl away. Looking at his hands, they were covered in the strange crystal. The vacuum took a trainee and he could only look on, hoping Jan could run away now. It was only with relief that he saw that the hunter grip the ground.

Looking about as he slowly wheezed, he saw that Leona, in black crystals, didn't have her knife. It was a drop of relief in the misery his body was shuddering in.

The world swam and he must have closed his eyes too long before he saw he was moving, looking at the back fo Kostya's jacket as he was being lifted and carried away. This didn't matter. He wanted the man to carry Jan, but looking up saw Jan was working his way out.

Bleeding still, shield gone, Saliva as broken as he was, he had very little he could offer Jan but his hopes that he stayed safe. "Jan........Rin............run...............be safe."

He could only hope the crystal woman and Kostya wouldn't harm Jan once the man was out of the lighthouse. Melvin knew that as he was, he couldn't do much else for him. He wanted to, he wanted with all his heart to stand up and take another blow if it should come to them, but he could only look at Jan and at his crystal hands, knowing his usefullness was used up and only wishing it could have gone on a little longer.

Lawr's words were poignant in a way he'd never know: if you had left well enough alone might as well have been the moral for the story that was his life. If only he had left well enough alone and lived a life all his own, and stayed out of the basement, and not fixated on revenge, and never uttered his name...

The he wouldn't be here at all.

But he was. Melvin's words had barely registered before the explosion shook the foundation of the lighthouse, and Kostya drew a pained face as he hauled Melvin further back from the blast radius with the arm not covered in crystals.

(This was lesson to learn, that he might in time: kindness given is not always regarded with care. It's best not to expect anything in return, lest you be disappointed.)

Despite the crumbling building, no debris flew towards Kostya and his charge. No, that was not quite correct: something in the air shimmered blue and ethereal, holding back the fallout of the portal sighing its last. With it came an agony both searing and bright, spreading outwards from the crook of his elbow, down to the tips of his fingers.

There was a debt to be repaid: a pound of flesh for services rendered. It was the least he could offer to protection, with how indebted he'd been to revenge.

Power of any sort always, always had a price. Kostya knew that now.

In entranced horror, he watched as a portion of his arm-- under Syntax's glowing surface, trapped in crystals both blue and black-- simply ceased to be.

"Chyort voz'mi," Kostya said, entire body shaking, Syntax disappearing to leave nothing behind where his forearm-- and then some-- should be.

The portal went still and with it came Melvin's anxieties that they would all be dragged into the portal to some horrible ends, either torn to bits and scattered across different areas or just simply lost in some transitional limbo without any destination.

There was a faint glimmer of calm that came with it, and he already pushed against Kostya with what little strength was left in his damaged body in order to get closer to Jan and see how he was doing.

Then things went, as they were prone to do here on the island, from bad to worst.

The portal shuddered and rumbled back to life and just as it kicked back, it exploded. The blast shattered Melvin's hearing, making him wince, and he was taken further away from the portal and, most importantly, Jan.

Without any abilities to keep Jan in his sights, he was left being the sack of potatoes he currently was as Kostya ran further from the lighthouse. Despite the pain in his body and now his ears, he watched with wide eyes as debris fell all around them but not upon them. The faint glimmer of blue, which Melvin was noticing was not only glowing around them but was also part of the rocks that now made him, kept them safe.

But what did that matter?

"JAN! RIN!!" He called out, crystal hands pressing against Kostya's back as he tried to drag his ragged body off the hunter and in the direction of the lighthouse. The man he loved was lost, out of sight, and all he could see was a lighthouse caving into itself, tons of crushing rubble falling where he had last seen the hunter.

Eyes wide in disbelief, he felt the deja vu of someone precious being taken from him in seconds right before his eyes while he was left unable to move and helpless to prevent it.

"NO! JAN!!! JJJJAAAAANNNN!!!" He had to get to the lighthouse. He had to find them!! That couldn't be it. That couldn't be the end of his second chance with Rin and his only chance with Jan.

It couldn't be it.


It couldn't be the end of it.


.....Melvin............ Saliva's weak voice came from the darkness of his mind, warm where all parts of him felt too raw for such a voice.

He knew what she was saying without all the words.


"NO! NO!" He shouted back to her.

They were there. They HAD to be there. Because if they weren't -


He pressed his eyes a moment, feeling his body shudder at what he had done. What he failed to do again and again. To protect Rin. To protect Jan. To help anyone he cared for.

To allow those he cared for to die when worthless parasites like him lived.