The night deepened, and the sky over Dead Wood turned a bruised shade of violet. Moonlight pierced through the smokey fog in fractured beams, filtering between the skeletons of dead buildings. Cullen and Daisy moved quietly through the rusted remains of an old tram station, flashlights off, relying on instinct and sound. Somewhere above, a sheet of rusted tin groaned in the wind like a warning.
"I hate this," Daisy muttered, her ears twitching at every creak. "This quiet. It is too much like the labs."
Cullen cast her a glance.
"He wants it quiet. Fear creeps in easier that way."
She did not answer right away. They stepped over shattered glass and twisted beams, heading toward what had once been a control tower. The metal here was blackened from old fires. The smell of scorched earth never left. As they walked, Daisy's voice broke the silence again. this time quieter, more hesitant.
"Can I ask you something?"
Cullen nodded.
"Course."
She stopped walking for a moment.
"How come you never looked at me weird… after I changed? After they turned me into this… thing?"
Cullen stopped too. He turned, facing her fully under a sliver of moonlight. Her coat shimmered faintly with residual static, and her golden eyes were full of something fragile and uncertain.
"I am not just 'Daisy' anymore to them. I am a project. A weapon," she added.
Cullen stepped forward, closing the space between them. He rested one gloved hand on her shoulder, his voice even and honest.
"Because you never stopped being Daisy. Not to me."
She blinked.
"You were smart before. Brave before. Kind before. That's still who you are, humanoid or not. You.are not a thing. You are my friend."
Daisy's ears flicked back slightly, not in fear, but emotion. "You really mean that?"
Cullen chuckled.
"Daisy, of course I mean it."
She smiled.
"Thank you."
"No need."
They both smiled, and then the smile died. A screech, like metal raking across bone, echoed down from the rooftops above. Then, the shadows moved. Cullen and Daisy turned just in time to see him. The Moth Man was back. Descending like a curtain of night, his wings stretched wide, silver threads glinting along the edges. His glowing eye lenses locked onto them, and this time he spoke, but not in words. In pulses of raw dread. Like a memory of being hunted.
"Love… weakness…" the voice rasped. "You cling to warmth, so I will show you the beauty of the cold."
"Run!" Cullen shouted, but the Moth Man was already there, crashing into them with a shockwave of psychic force.
Cullen slammed into a pillar, coughing as pain exploded across his ribs. Daisy back flipped through the air, landing on all fours. She skid through the dust, claws digging in, and then her eyes narrowed, pupils slitting.
"You really want to ruin that moment for us? Fine."
Her hands lit with electric arcs, and she thrust her palms forward. A wave of lightning exploded from her, striking the Moth Man square in the chest. The blast seared away part of his cloak, but it was like hitting smoke. The creature screamed, dissolving again into a flurry of shadowy moths. They swarmed Daisy instantly, diving at her face, her arms, trying to drag her into panic, but she gritted her teeth.
"Not again."
Electricity surged from her skin, burning the swarm away.
"Daisy, left!"
Cullen had recovered just in time to fire a round that nicked one of the Moth Man's true limbs as he reformed from the smoke. The bullet slowed him, barely. Cullen ran toward Daisy, sliding under a swipe of the Moth Man's claw and firing upward as he passed. Sparks rained down. The creature shrieked again, wings flaring, and unleashed a pulse of darkness that rippled the air like heat. It was not a blast, it was a memory, projected like a weapon. Daisy saw the lab. The cages. The surgeries. And her own reflection. Helpless. Screaming. Cullen saw the day his father died, Callidora eating his heart. Both froze.
Until Daisy screamed, fighting through it, and slammed both fists into the ground. Bolts of electricity exploded outward in a ring, shattering the hallucination. Cullen blinked rapidly, breathing hard, memories fading.
"You okay?" she called.
He nodded.
"I will be."
The Moth Man snarled. Its voice came again, closer this time, angrier, less poetic.
"You cannot survive forever. I will collect your fear."
Cullen gritted his teeth.
"Yeah? Let's test that theory."
He pulled a small light grenade, which he created in his father's lab when he and Daisy decided to make a plan, from his belt and tossed it high into the air.
"Close your eyes!"
Daisy obeyed. The grenade detonated in midair, exploding in a flash of radiant white light. The Moth Man screamed again, visibly recoiling, the light hurting him, burning away the darkness like acid.
Daisy opened her eyes.
"Cullen. Let's finish this."
Side by side, they rushed him. Cullen firing controlled bursts. Daisy flinging streaks of lightning from both hands. The Moth Man darted, struck, screamed, dissolved, but each time, they struck back harder. He finally let out a piercing, distorted screech and vanished, his form scattering into shadow again, racing up into the darkness. Silence returned.
Cullen wiped blood from his lip, his breathing ragged.
"He is not done, but now he knows we are not afraid."
Daisy stood beside him, lightning crackling along her fingers.
"Are we ready to kill him?"
"The way I see it… we have made him bleed," Cullen finished.
They stood under the broken sky of Dead Wood, hearts pounding, but united. And fearless.
Later, the scorched metal streets creaked beneath Cullen's boots as he and Daisy walked in silence, both still crackling with adrenaline. The shadows around them danced like nervous fingers, stretched long by the flickering lanterns that dotted Dead Wood's abandoned streets. Cullen reloaded his sidearm with steady hands. Daisy walked beside him, her ears perked, her hands still faintly glowing with leftover arcs of lightning.
"We hurt him," Cullen muttered, half to himself. "Next time, we finish it."
Daisy nodded but said nothing. Her eyes scanned every rooftop, every alley, every-
"Cullen!"
A desperate voice shattered the stillness. They turned as Ribolt came sprinting toward them from the shadows, his mechanical arm sparking and dragging a wrench behind him. His chest heaved, and his eyes were wide with panic.
"He is at my place!" Ribolt gasped. "The Moth Man, he is there! He has got Leo!"
Daisy's body locked.
"What?"
"He was fine one minute," Ribolt panted. "And then he just… he froze. Could not move. Said he saw a lab again, said he could hear them, said the voices. I ran to help him, but the shadows filled the house, and I knew it was too late!"
Cullen did not wait. He sprinted. Daisy was right behind him, wind and sparks trailing from her as she pushed faster, faster.
When they arrived, the house loomed ahead, its tin roof sagging under the weight of decades. Cullen kicked the door open. The lights inside flickered violently. Tools were scattered across the floor. A single lantern swung from the ceiling, casting chaotic shadows across the room. In the center, Leo. He was collapsed against the far wall, twitching, whispering incoherently. His eyes were wide, but unfocused, trapped in a memory. Standing above him, looming like death, was the Moth Man, his wings spread wide, his glowing lenses fixed on Leo's shaking form. He did not move to strike. He did not need to. He was absorbing, feeding.
"Look how far he has fallen," the Moth Man rasped. "The animal, stripped of pride. Buried beneath the voice of his creators."
"Get away from him!" Daisy roared, launching a bolt of electricity straight into the creature's chest.
The Moth Man flew back, crashing through the workbench, his cloak smoking. Cullen knelt beside Leo, grabbing his shoulders.
"Leo! Wake up, come on!"
But Leo just whispered, "They are gonna take me apart again… I can feel the blade, I can't move, I can't,"
Daisy dropped beside him, her breath catching.
"It is the lab," she whispered. "He is seeing what I saw too."
"Then pull him out," Cullen said. "You got through it once. Bring him back."
Daisy nodded slowly. She touched Leo's arm, then reached up and pressed her forehead gently to his. And then, she pulsed. Her electricity entered his brain to create another memory. A memory of her. Not broken in the cage. Not strapped to a table. But walking through the woods after they defeated Ilya and Callidora. Laughing. A flash of warmth, not pain. Leo flinched. The tremors in his hands slowed. He gasped.
"I.. I will always remember you…"
Daisy smiled through the sting in her eyes. He blinked. The lab faded from his mind. The machines faded, and he saw only her.
"Daisy…"
"You okay?"
Leo took a deep breath.
"Yeah. I am."
Behind them, a low hiss echoed as the Moth Man rose again, half-burnt but furious.
"You dare pull him from my grasp?"** he snarled.
Daisy turned toward him, her hands igniting with twin bolts of lightning.
Cullen chambered a fresh round beside her.
"You are done feeding tonight."
The Moth Man let out a distorted hiss as smoke began to pour from his body. His form unraveled, peeling apart into inky black mist, wings folding into vapor, limbs dissolving into shadow. Within seconds, he was gone, vanished into the stale air like a dark thought evaporating.
"Where did he go?" Daisy snapped, her fists crackling as she stood protectively in front of Leo, who still leaned weakly against the wall.
Cullen holstered one pistol and reached into his coat, pulling out another light grenade..
"Let's see him hide in this."
He tossed the grenade into the air, and then it burst with a blinding flash. A detonation of pure white light surged through the room like a thunderclap, illuminating every corner. For a second, just a second, the shadows screamed. From the ceiling, a twisting black shape dropped down, writhing and reforming into the gaunt figure of the Moth Man, light burning away the smoke clinging to his limbs.
"You think you can banish fear with light?" He hissed, voice broken, lenses flickering. "Fear lives in all things."
"You are not fear," Cullen growled, stepping forward, weapon raised. "You are just an insect."
The Moth Man lunged, his wings opened wide and with them came a howl of shadow. The air itself distorted, waves of invisible terror rippling from his core like sonar. The lights in Ribolt's house flickered violently. Glass cracked. The metal tools on the walls trembled. For a moment, Daisy clutched her head, staggering.
"Do not listen!" Cullen shouted.
The Moth Man's claws swept toward Cullen, but he ducked, rolled to the side, and fired a burst. The bullets ripped through smoke but struck something solid. The Moth Man snarled and vanished again, blinking into the far corner of the ceiling. Daisy recovered fast. She aimed both palms at the ceiling and let out a double arc of lightning that lit up the rafters. The Moth Man screeched as the bolts caught his wing, searing it, blackening the membrane. He dropped like a stone. Cullen met him mid-fall with a shoulder slam, knocking the wind from the creature's lungs. The Moth Man slashed with one hand, tearing Cullen's coat and drawing blood, but Cullen gritted his teeth, twisted around, and fired a point-blank round into his shoulder. The creature staggered.
"You hurt?" Daisy called, sliding across the floor beside him.
"Not enough," Cullen muttered. "But he is."
The Moth Man stood, hunched now, his once-graceful form smoldering, shuddering. His lenses flickered red. His suit was torn in half a dozen places. One wing hung limp.
"No, you cannot end me. You do not understand" he gasped. "Fear is not evil. It is the truth that I have to make everyone remember all the time and die by."
"No," Cullen replied coldly, leveling his pistol. "You are just afraid that without fear, you are nothing."
The Moth Man lunged, last, desperate. His claws extended, smoke trailing him like a tail. His wings beat hard, raising a whirlwind of soot and dust, but Cullen did not flinch. He waited.
"Daisy, now!" he shouted
Daisy raised her hands and blasted **a web of electricity at the creature's legs, rooting him to the floor with raw force. The Moth Man howled, twisted, but could not move. Cullen ran forward, pulled a small device from his belt, and jammed it into the Moth Man's chest. The device whirred, a cylindrical core began to glow bright blue. The Moth Man looked down.
"What… is that?"
"Your nightmare."
Cullen pulled the trigger. The device exploded in a focused blast of kinetic light, driving straight through the Moth Man's body. There was no scream. Just a hollow gasp… and then silence. The Moth Man's lenses dimmed. His body crumbled, not in flames or blood, but in falling scraps of black paper, fluttering down like autumn leaves, vanishing before they touched the floor. The room was still. The lights stopped flickering. The air felt… clearer. As if fear had left the building. Cullen holstered his pistol, wiping blood from his neck. He looked at Daisy, who stood catching her breath, hands still glowing faintly.
"You alright?"
She nodded.
"Yeah. You?"
"I am good." He paused. "You shocked him pretty hard."
"I did not do as much as you did. By the way, how did you make all these light stuff in a short time?"
"Let's just say I am fast."
They both managed a weak smile.
Behind them, Leo stirred.
"Did we win?"
Daisy turned, walked to him, and helped him upright.
"We did."
Cullen walked over and crouched beside them both. He placed a hand on Leo's shoulder.
"It is time to get you a new leg."
The door creaked open as Cullen, Daisy, and Leo stepped out into the street. For the first time since they had arrived in Dead Wood, the sky was not a blanket of gray. The heavy clouds had thinned, revealing streaks of soft blue through the mist. Sunlight spilled gently over the rooftops, golden and warm, catching the glint of rusted metal and broken glass. The air, once thick, now felt light, almost fresh, like the whole town had exhaled at last. The three of them paused at the doorstep. Leo limped slightly, leaning on Cullen's left shoulder and Daisy's right.
A few paces down the street, a shutter cracked open. A tired face peeked out. Farther ahead, an elderly woman with a mechanical hand stepped out of her doorway and looked to the sky with cautious awe. Then a child's laugh echoed through the metal alleyways. A dog barked. People began to emerge, slowly but surely, blinking at the sun like survivors of a long, bitter storm. Cullen watched them all. The laughter. The movement. The small signs of life returning to Dead Wood. His heart swelled.
"You see that?" he whispered to no one in particular.
Daisy followed his gaze and smiled.
"Yeah, it is.. beautiful in a way."
Cullen nodded. He turned his head and looked back toward the southern end of the city, where the road led into the hills, his father's lab, hidden underground beneath cracked stone and rusting fences. They began walking again, slowly. Behind them, Dead Wood stirred with new life, as though the soul of the city was waking up after a long nightmare, and Cullen felt lighter than he had in years.