They drifted into a darkness with no up and no down.
The beacon shrank behind them until it looked like a child’s toy.
The city, the gods, and the clock all hung inside a thin shining skin.
“Okay,” the redhead said, trying to kick toward something solid.
“This is either outer space or a very judgmental dream.”
Her fire sputtered.
The dark-haired woman’s cape floated around her shoulders but would not obey gravity.
Cleo’s shields dimmed.
“No air.
No structure,” Cleo said.
“Magic can’t hold here.”
A sharp thought crossed her mind.
Instantly the nearest patch of darkness hardened into a pointed shard.
She snatched her hand away.
“Do not think sharp thoughts.
We’re basically floating inside a metaphor.”
“What are we supposed to think?” the redhead asked.
Cleo watched a tiny bubble slip from the seam.
It didn’t fall or rise.
It simply carried its own shape through the impossible place.
“Think balloonier.”
The dark-haired woman caught Cleo’s hand.
The redhead caught the other.
Fire, starlight, and rings of blue and gold circled their joined fingers, each force failing on its own and holding a little longer together.
“Wait,” the redhead said.
“What if we combine?”
“Sync magic,” Cleo said.
“Align orbitals.
Ignore everything physics ever said.”
They pulled the scattered lights into a single sphere.
It trembled, thin as soap film.
Beyond it the Deflation Fuse burned toward the world.
The gods wanted a reset.
The fuse wanted a tear.
Cleo thought of the lost world in the beacon’s memory and of everyone below who had no idea their afternoon was almost over.
“We are Balloonatics,” the redhead said, as if the name had been theirs from the start.
They hurled the sphere into the seam.
“You want reset?” Cleo shouted.
“We prefer remix!”
The dark-haired woman drew the torn edges of reality together.
The redhead fed the seam a wild burst of fire.
Cleo wrapped both in a bubble strong enough to carry the impossible pressure.
For one terrifying instant they were all inside the same bright, expanding thought.
“Sorry in advance,” Cleo muttered, “readers.”
Then came a sound like a thousand balloons popping at once.
The blast rolled through the beacon and across the city.
It didn’t erase the streets.
It put them back.
Buildings settled onto their foundations; the sky smoothed out; the helium bloom folded into one last harmless puff.
The three women landed in a tangle of capes, blue armor, and smoke.
Above them, the gods’ display changed.
RECALIBRATION ACCEPTED.
“That’ll teach them to underestimate bubblecraft,” Cleo said, pushing her glasses into place.
A distant voice rolled out of the beacon.
“UNTIL THE NEXT CYCLE, CARRY YOUR AIR WISELY.”
The redhead checked her sleeves for scorch marks.
“I guess I’m allergic to endings too.”
They looked over the city.
A single small balloon floated past, rising in an ordinary way.
For a moment, that seemed like the most miraculous thing any of them had seen.
Far above, unnoticed, a black balloon drifted into the restored sky.
TO BE RE-INFLATED