The training ground's lights had long since gone out. Only a ring of indicators around the console's edge remained lit, alternating red and green as though breathing. Ye Mo stood where he was, his clothes soaked through and clinging to his back. He neither moved nor spoke, only looked down at his left hand.
The pattern in his palm had stopped pulsing. It lay quietly beneath his skin, brightening and dimming with his heartbeat.
Emma Frost had not left either. She stood two steps diagonally behind him, her fingertips still resting lightly against her temple. Not to read his mind or probe anything-they simply stayed there, as though she had forgotten to lower them.
In that last minute, they had pulled off seven rounds of combination attacks without communicating once. Yet every strike had fit precisely into the gaps between the other's movements, like perfectly interlocking puzzle pieces.
"Just now, you..." Ye Mo finally spoke, his voice a little hoarse. "You weren't predicting my moves."
Emma Frost's fingers twitched.
"You were following me."
She chuckled. "But I wasn't in your head."
"That's what makes it impressive." Ye Mo turned to face her. "Before, we could coordinate because you knew what I was going to do. Now it's different. Now you feel me move, and you move."
Emma Frost did not answer. She took two steps forward to stand before him, her gaze settling on his left hand.
"I'm not sure how long this can last," she said. "What if, one day, you suddenly change your rhythm?"
Ye Mo raised his hand, palm up. The metallic pattern grew faintly hot, as though responding to her words.
"Now it listens to heartbeats too, not commands," he said. "Just like you. I don't need to know what you're thinking. As long as you're there, I know where you'll be."
The air went still for a second.
Then Emma Frost reached out and laid her hand over his left palm.
She used no powers and released no fluctuations of energy. It was simply contact, palm against palm, warmth passing between them.
She could feel the pattern pulsing, gradually drawing into step with her own pulse.
"The first thing Hellfire taught me was control." Her voice lowered. "Control your thoughts, control your emotions-even time your breathing to the second. Whoever loses control first loses."
Ye Mo did not interrupt her.
"But you taught me to let go," she said. "Not to give up, but to trust-even if I can't see your thoughts, I can still keep up with you."
Ye Mo looked into her eyes and suddenly smiled. "If you really trust me that much, next time I sneeze, that's the signal to attack."
"Then you'd better not catch a cold." Emma Frost withdrew her hand, but the corner of her mouth lifted.
A brief silence.
The distant indicators kept blinking, their beeps intermittent. Several dents marked the floor, left when the mechanical dogs exploded earlier. A heap of scrap metal lay in the corner-the remains of a drone he had punched straight through.
Neither of them bothered with any of it.
"I'm not afraid of dying," Emma Frost suddenly said.
Ye Mo looked up.
"I'm afraid of you carrying it all alone," she said. "You're always like this, pulling everything onto yourself. The system, the plans, the way we fight-you even have to shoulder failure yourself. I can feel it. Every time something goes wrong, your first reaction is 'I'll handle it,' not 'We'll do it together.'"
Ye Mo did not deny it.
"I'm not a tool." Emma Frost stared at him. "Or your backup plan. If you treat me like another system, then however well we coordinated just now, it was only one machine working with another."
Ye Mo was silent for a few seconds, then nodded.
"So we don't do it alone," he said. "Whether we have the system or not, whether we have powers or not, we can't let our rhythm break."
Emma Frost watched him without speaking for a long time.
Then she nodded gently. "As long as you're still breathing, I can keep up."
Ye Mo leaned against the console and slowly slid down to sit on the floor. He was so tired that his muscles were trembling. He tugged at the collar of his hoodie to let a little air in.
Emma Frost crouched down too, neither too close nor too far from him.
"Do you know what the hardest part is?" he asked.
"What?"
"It's not practicing new powers or learning to coordinate." He looked up at the ceiling. "It's trusting someone a little more than you trust yourself."
Emma Frost turned her head to look at him.
"I couldn't trust anyone before," he said. "On my first day after transmigrating here, a patrol nearly killed me for being a spy. Then I met Tony. I thought I could get myself a place to shelter, only to find he was wary of me too. Later, when I got the system, I thought I could rely on it to survive-but in my first real fight, the powers I'd fused nearly backfired on me."
He paused. "Until that day at the abandoned station in Congo, when you took that shot for me."
Emma Frost remembered.
It had been their first time truly fighting side by side. The enemy had used a high-frequency oscillation gun, specifically designed to break through mutants' defenses. She could have dodged, but she had not moved. She had switched straight into Diamond Form and taken the hit head-on.
"You could have dodged," Ye Mo said.
"But I didn't," Emma Frost said. "Because I knew you would follow up."
"See? That's what I mean." Ye Mo smiled. "You didn't calculate that I would save you. You trusted that I would."
"There's a difference?"
"Of course." He looked at her. "One is calculation. The other is trust. Calculations can be wrong. Trust can't."
Emma Frost said nothing, but her gaze softened a little.
"It'll get harder," she said. "Our enemies won't make basic mistakes anymore. They'll set traps, use hostages, force us to choose between two paths. When that happens, our rhythm might fall apart. Our signals might cut out."
"Then we find it again," Ye Mo said. "As long as we're still together, we can always catch up."
"What if we can't?"
"Then we crash into it," he said. "Crash our way into a new rhythm."
Emma Frost looked at him, then suddenly reached out and tapped his forehead.
"Did that hurt?"
"Hm?"
"I tapped you," she said. "You didn't react at all just now."
Ye Mo rubbed his forehead. "Too tired. Delayed nerve response."
"Then you're still not there yet." Emma Frost stood and looked down at him. "You've got a long way to go."
"All right." He tilted his head back and smiled. "Once I've recovered, let's go another round."
"No rush." Emma Frost turned toward the exit, speaking without stopping. "Wipe off your sweat first, or tomorrow your muscles will ache so badly you won't even be able to lift a finger."
Ye Mo stayed seated on the floor, watching her retreating figure.
"Hey," he suddenly called.
Emma Frost stopped.
"Next time I really do sneeze, charge."
"Then you'd better not catch a cold." Without looking back, she pushed open the door and left.
The instant the door closed, the console's indicators suddenly flashed.
A green dot of light blinked three times, then stopped.
Ye Mo looked down at his hand. The pattern in his palm grew hot again.
Not because of battle.
But because of what she had just said.
As long as you're still breathing, I can keep up.
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
By the time he opened them again, he had risen and walked to the console, his finger resting on the activation button.
The interference source was not on yet.
But he was ready.
The lighting was dim, and the air still smelled of scorching and sweat.
His finger hovered above the button without pressing it.
Instead, he waited.