I blinked into the bowl as the asphalt turned skating-rink smooth under a skin of dust. Hana’s threads stabbed outward, anchoring to nothing because he’d removed purchase. She slipped. I caught her with the gauntlet and jamd Fangpiercer sideways into the lip to give us a fake handhold.
"Thank you," she breathed—then flinched. "Ethan—your heart—"
"It’s doing art."
We scrambled up as the bowl tilted like a cruel spoon. The Lotus yanked to a lightpole. It tore. She hissed. The shawl snapped new lines faster than my eyes could count.
I set Anchor Recall and let go.
[ Anchor Recall — Engage ][ Jump — Anchor 1 ]
We popped back to the ledge. The bowl ate itself into a sinkhole. Bad architecture applauded as a building beyond us decided it wanted to be a ramp instead of an office block.
Raene: "Focus!"
She was already in the Warden’s face, her blade runes screaming red. She’d ditched caution and gone for tempo—slash, slide, slash. Each arc detonated a half-second late, a choreographed series of car-crash pops.
The Warden blocked two, ate one, and then stomped.
[ Faultline Cage — Targeted ][ Stone jaws: rise; ring diater: 9 m ]
Walls of curb and slab erupted around Raene in a tight circle and closed like a bear trap.
"NO—" I moved, but the world hit cooldown.
[ Lightning Transit — Chain Cooldown: 5 s ]
I was at with opinions for five seconds.
Raene didn’t drop the blade. The jaws slamd and t a do of heat—her flare setting air ablaze. Stone fried to orange glass instead of breaking in. She rode the flash like a surfer on a bad idea and kicked through the weakest tooth. She ca out smoking, grinning through blood.
"Is that all?"
The Warden sounded almost...pleased. "Noted."
Then he stopped talking to us and started talking to the district again.
The terraces shifted. Our turrets groaned. A pylon blew and did a brief imitation of sunrise. Orcs poured. Golems tore up asphalt and threw it like discus.
I had four seconds left to be a disappointnt.
Jax burned his knee and didn’t admit it. He waded into a knot of orcs, Grav-Edge pulling and snapping back like a rubber band at the end of the world. Every hit crumpled three bodies and bullied two more into waiting their turn to die.
"Left!" I yelled, uselessly.
"I SEE IT," he roared, which is Jax for "I love you too."
Hana: threads, threads, threads—barrier on a child, barrier on a bleeding guard, yank a corpse out from under a living man’s boots so he doesn’t trip, stitch a crack so a wall will wait a minute before deciding to be a door.
[ Absolute Regeneration Restored ][ Injuries recovered: lung contusion, rib stress ]
I breathed and the world got louder. Ti to pay the debt.
"Raene!" I yelled. "Give one clean angle!"
She cut left hard, baiting the Warden’s shield, then rolled through his hamr’s shadow like a woman who’d always wanted to live on the wrong side of physics. "Angle!"
There—under the shield rim, behind the left knee plate, the seam I’d tasted earlier. Fogbite was already stacked. Chill deep in the joint.
I didn’t jump. I ran. Two strides, three, a slide through glass and water, Darkharness flexing over my spine like a patient animal. Fangpiercer low, grip reversed.
Under. In. Twist.
[ Fangpiercer — Critical ][ Armor Penetration 30% ][ Hit Location: posterior knee (plate gap) ][ Result: Lock — movent restriction (local) ]
The Warden stumbled.
Not a fall. A realization. He transferred weight—but the ground refused to help, still slick from his bowl trick. He sank a centiter and had to pull to get it back.
"Now," Raene breathed like prayer, and lifted her sword with two hands.
Her blade sang red.
It ca down like a judge who doesn’t accept bribes.
The Warden caught it. Bare hand. Gauntlet? Stone beca glove where he needed it. Sparks scread. Heat spat.
He looked her in the eye from two feet away.
"Toy," he said.
He shoved.
She went flying.
I Transit-tackled her out of the killing arc without asking her opinion.
[ Lightning Transit — Jump 1/7 (Chain Reset) ][ Pulse: 2 m • Stun 0.25 s ][ Anchor 2 — On standby ]
We hit a wrecked cruiser, rolled, gasped, lived. She coughed once and spat blood. "Thanks."
"Don’t thank yet."
Because the Warden had decided now was the ti for show-and-tell.
He lifted the hamr and slamd the shield into the ground. The terraces locked. Lines of light ran through the district like soone had drawn a circuit with magma.
"Phase change," I muttered.
[ Domain Shift — Bastion Ascendant ][ Enemy defense 25% • Enemy regen 15% (plate cycle) ][ Player movent difficulty 20% unless anchored ]
"Stupid," I said. "Cheating rocks."
"Ethan." Hana. Calm and terrible. "We can’t keep the barricade up if he stays in Bastion. We bleed out."
"Suggestions?"
"Break the circuit. The lines."
Jax wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned like bar fights were cardio. "Say please."
"Please," Hana said, deadpan.
"Love you," he said, and charged the lines.
The Grav-Edge’s pull caught the current like a hook under a river. The light bent toward him, sputtered, cracked. He stepped in with overhand butcher hate and cut the street. The glow broke there, the terrace stuttered.
The Warden instantly re-drew it.
"Hold him," Raene said, and sprinted for the hamr. Not the man. The weapon.
He swung to et her; I pulsed his elbow.
[ Lightning Transit — Jump 2/7 ]
She slid under and kicked the hamr head at the pivot point. Her boot runes flared and the impact rang through the handle. For a heartbeat the head didn’t weigh right. The Warden slashed down anyway and the swing landed ugly, heavy on his own shield rim.
He grunted.
Raene barked, honest delight in it. "He can grunt!"
"Write it in your diary," I said, because I’m emotionally mature.
Golems hit our flank. Orcs piled Jax three-deep. The Lotus shrieked as it took a spear ant for a boy who still had soot on his cheeks. Hana cried out and didn’t fall because she doesn’t.
I needed an edge.
Inventory pinged.
[ Inventory — Recent: War-Choir Larynx (A) • Resonant Bone (A) • Molten Core Fragnt (Rare) • Choir Ink (B) ]
"Crafting," I said, out loud, which is my version of prayer.
I slamd down behind a snapped pylon, ripped the harness plate at my forearm open like a glove compartnt, and stuffed the larynx and bone together with the core shard between. Choir Ink went over the seam in two strokes and a curse.
"Ethan!" Hana, alard.
"Don’t breathe near ."
The harness drank the parts like they’d been waiting to be eaten.
[ Bonded Craft — Improvised Mod Acceptable ][ Result: Stormvein Insert (A) ][ Effect: Transit Pulse gains Shear (bleed through armor seams) • Adds weak silence cone (0.6 s) • Cooldown: 12 s ]
"Hello, cheat."
I stood, and the world had a better idea.
"Jax!" I yelled. "Cut his circuits again!"
"Say please," he said automatically, breathless.
"Please, now, hurry."
He laughed and obliged, Grav-Edge growling through two glowing seams. The terraces staggered. The Warden shifted weight to re-draw—
I blinked.
[ Lightning Transit — Jump 3/7 ][ Stormvein — Ard ]
The pulse hit his shield and went through it. A line of absence carved into air. The silence cone clipped his visor slit. The rune-chant laced through his plate skipped.
For a heartbeat he lost his song.
Fangpiercer t seam. Fogbite humd, happy.
[ Fangpiercer — Critical ][ Armor Penetration 30% ][ Result: Plate Cycle Interrupted (−15% regen window) ]
"NOW!" Raene scread.
We all went.
I hit the knee again, reverse grip, lock. Jax ripped a terrace seam to flood rubble under the Warden’s foot and stole his balance. Raene took the only shot in the world that mattered: the tiny triangle between shield, throat, and visor slit. Her blade didn’t fit. She made it fit.
The Warden recoiled. Not fear. Surprise.
"Catalogued," he said again, almost softly. "Potential."
Then he decided to kill properly.
He abandoned the hamr swing and threw the shield. Not at my face. Under .
Stone flowed. The shield grew a second edge mid-flight and hit the street where I would land. It wasn’t a block; it was a hinge. My foot hit the hinge; the hinge flipped; I went airborne in a way that left my stomach writing its will.
He t at the apex with the hamr. I felt the mont he committed the kill. The world got quiet around it, like even the city wanted to hear the impact.
"Ethan—" Hana.
"Don’t," I told her, and ard the last trick.
[ Anchor Recall — Manual ][ Jump — Anchor 2 ]
The hamr ate a Phantom . I blinked down and let the pulse clap his wrist from below.
[ Stormvein — Shear Proc ][ Silence: 0.6 s • Bleed: 4 s (seam) ]
He didn’t grunt this ti. He adjusted. That was worse.
He simply changed where the ground was, rotated the terrace, and set in a ditch I hadn’t noticed. I rolled, ca up, spitting dust and church glass.
[ Absolute Regeneration — Minor contusions recovered ]
"Raene!" I called, because my mouth was alive and my brain wanted to die. "We need him center. The pylons—"
She saw it too—the four dead towers around the crater’s heart, their coils blackened, their housings intact. Not our pylons. Gate pylons. Old, an, made to be friends with things I hate.
"Drive him," she said, and for once I didn’t argue with the plan I’d just had
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