(Page 78)      "You know what's down there. The  Watchtower. The Fanatic. Uldren. The end." While her ghost is speaking, Shadow's mind is reeling. Turning outcomes over and over. "Justice... or revenge." "Justice," she responds shortly. Of course, revenge on the Fanatic. But for Uldren, she hopes justice. "Uldren deserves what's coming to him, but..." Shadow holds back a sigh. She can't help feeling as if she were betraying her ghost. After all, she hadn't even told him her plan. "Guardian: The "why" of what we're doing is as important as the "what". I don't know what you're thinking... but remember that." She glances at him swiftly, then looks back to her controls. His words make her think. Why was she doing this? Was it because she still felt something for her awoken brothers and sisters? Or that Variks had reached to a more sympathetic and understanding part of her heart? She knew Uldren was not the same... something was wrong. Her heart had softened for the prince, desperate for his sister to return. Variks had cared for him, and so should she. And why shouldn't she? Uldren and Mara were some of the only ones who had never called her a bug hugger; judged her for her interest in the eliksni. She closes her eyes, imagines how she would feel if she lost Variks. Pity swamps her. Variks had failed to help Uldren. But maybe she could. She could at least speak to him. She could try. But she'd have to get around both her ghost and Petra. And that would be no easy task. *** Fikrul is no Skolas, and Shadow revels in the thought of how easy it will be to kill him. She keeps her comms on, allowing Variks to hear every bullet, every crack of arc, every exploding grenade. "Tell me that killing my friends made you feel good," he hisses as she dodges away from him to handle his onslaught of scorn. "Tell me!" "Oh, it did!" she snarls, her fist colliding into yet another body, her light evaporating it into nothingness. Fikrul roars as she lights herself in arc, electric tendrils snaking along her limbs, coursing through her skin. She raises her staff to meet his own as he brings it down on her in an explosive crash of light. "I will pay any price... to be there when you die," he seethes, shoving her backward. Shadow regains her balance in time to remove herself from an eruption of flames. Tossing a fiery glare over her shoulder, she wipes out his scorn with an easy turn of her heel, waves of arc slicing through them.   She launches herself at Fikrul for a final time, knocking away his staff and piercing her own straight through his body with a blast of ether. While Fikrul roars, she chokes on clouds of tainted ether. Waving away the heavy gas, she glares down at the body of the Fanatic. "The scorn...are... forever..." "Sure looks like it." With a snap, the light leaves her body. She grabs her gun. "Good work." "Thank you." "I told you a staff comes in useful, yes?" Shadow would have smiled if not for her ghost interrupting. "We did it. Only one name left... Uldren Sov."