Of course I can.

But when she tries to take the last few steps toward the Juice Man, she finds that her feet won't move.

I want to protect these people. It's a thought just foreign enough to startle her, just familiar enough to catch at her. She said that, a few minutes ago. She just...forgot. More thoughts build around that seed of memory, spreading, widening, until it's stable enough to think,

"Juice Man". Hell. To kill Kyle, you mean. Say his name!

Nico, the power and presence in her are flickering like faulty neon.

Brute force failed, negotiations never even got started. If he has a chance it'll be through timing. If he can push her away from her power, without killing her...

What must she be going through, right now? What sort of strain is her psyche under? Is she going to make it through, in any kind of recognizable form? Nico finds that he believes in her, and that he wants to believe in her. She's done something so extraordinary already. He hopes they can get this stupid conflict over with, someday, and he can ask her about it. Or failing that, that he can steal her Intellect Soul and just find out directly.

If I'd shown her the Tower, instead of that nobody cop, what would have happened?

If he does everything right, right now, maybe he'll get a chance to try it later. For now, eyes open, mind fluid.

This isn't Sophie versus her Friend. Both sides are using Her thought patterns, doing the kinds of things She understands. This is a whole new axis of dissociation. This is the girl who grew up versus the girl she was until two hours ago, the girl whose habits she apparently isn't done shedding yet. She just has to bludgeon these last few reflexes into submission, and then she can do things right.

Get out of my way!

Did she think, earlier, that she was managing her crushing-related urges? She takes it all back.

Stop trying to kill Kyle!

He's already dead!

We talked to him, how can you -

Think! Use our brain for something other than dithering, for once! We lost him three months ago, and we don't know any way at all to get him back. Yeah, he still talks when the alchemist lets him go but we don't know how to make that happen! He's just a shield for our enemy now, one he's relying on because he knows you, and knows you won't do what's necessary. But he doesn't know me yet! We have this chance, this one chance, to do something he won't expect! Against that you have, what, hope? Hope isn't a plan!

We haven't tried anything yet! I'm not saying never give up, I'm saying don't give up immediately!

We've been trying for hours, and look how it went! It's only luck, luck and my hard work, that we didn't get that poor old lady killed too. This is the best way for everybody, you're just too afraid to face it!

That isn't it. Don't try to lie to me. You don't want to protect anybody. You want to win.

Ugh was she always this annoying. How did her friends stand her?

Yes, I want to win! Duh! It's better than giving up! You were planning to spend the next year sneaking around and hiding from our parents, because you couldn't even imagine winning an argument with them. And maybe you couldn't, but I can! I won't back down, no matter what, and I'll win! You want that too!

But not at any cost! You're not thinking of what will happen to Kyle, or his sister, or Otso, or even us! You still can't say his name!

A sense of a mental scoff, of pure contempt. Fine. Kyle. All this fuss over a boy. It was a high school crush! I wasn't dreaming of getting married and having kids. I wasn't doodling "Sophie Merrill" in my notebooks. He was just my starter boyfriend!

Don't try to lie to me, she adds, as viciously as she can.

That framing is a little unfair, but:

You're right. He wasn't my soulmate or anything. Who meets their soulmate in high school anyway? He was a guy I liked, who liked me. Probably we'd date until he went off to college next spring, and then we'd lose touch. But so what?! Even if he were a stranger, he'd still have family and friends and people who cared about him!

Yeah, he does. So does everyone who died in this stupid storm.

There haven't -

Wind and lightning like that, in a county with this many trees? It's bad enough for peoples' houses, but what do you think happened at the trailer park? The alchemist killed more people than Kyle with just this one storm, and I don't think it was his first time, do you? Leaving him alive is idiotic! It's wrong! You know it's wrong!

What I know is, right now I'm not as scared of that as I am of you. You talk about caring for others, but you'd sacrifice them too. You talk about how you saved Jill but you'd sacrifice her in a second. You hurt Otso, just for standing up to you! I can't accept that this is who I am!

She should have known there'd be no point in talking. When was there ever? She has to get control of herself, by brute force if necessary.

Her other self, her old self, lived a life of stasis. Inaction. Hesitation. To chase her away, Sophie has to draw on the opposite forces: energy and action. What luck that she has a bottomless well of both ready to hand.

Yeah no let's do the exact opposite of that. Pull it back, draw it in. The power is great, in every sense, but isn't an end in itself. Fire expands and grows without limit but Sophie doesn't want to. She wants to burn like a car's engine burns, controlled and purposeful. Refined.

It won't be easy. The fire wants to expand, and in some ways so does she. But she didn't reach her peak, out there on the driveway, by pushing outward as hard as she could. The trick was to find an ideal that every part of her accepted. She wanted to be strong, she wanted to win, and she wanted to protect. She still does.

That thought lifts her up, and carries her into a battle she has no words for.

Her power is flickering is faster now, Nico, like the lightning you put into the sky.

To be fair, he had a lot of help with that.

Anyway, is this his moment? Should he try to bolt now, while she's distracted?

He's thinking not. He believes in her, and that means believing in her ability to get through this intact and chase him down afterward. If she won't go down on her own, he needs to stick around long enough to give her a push. He doesn't want to kill her, but he will if he has to, and he desperately needs her to stay down long enough for him to get to a car.

It seems doable. She isn't totally in control of what's happening, clearly. She's...channeling it, maybe, like a medium with a ghost. If he can break that connection, even briefly...