Kie decided they needed a more strategic approach to taking down the Harbingers. The Commander granted him use of the empty room where they held their Friday sessions, but the five teens barely had time to examine the space before alarms began wailing and red lights started blinking overhead. The Commander’s face flickered onto the hologram, confirming their worst fear.

  The Commander’s earlier suggestion that they could return to normal life once the Harbingers were eliminated suddenly felt far off. Tee stood there, seconds away from her third encounter with those foes, and they still hadn’t managed to hurt a single Harbinger. Time seemed to rush faster than it had in her past experiences, but she told herself it would be over soon.

  She kept her summoning gloves on, thumbs outside her fists, ready to summon two swords into being in an instant. Unknown to her, every teammate had done the same. The white ground beneath their feet bled red as the space shifted, and a new location flashed before their eyes.

  “Why now?” a thousand deep voices intoned, and fear gripped them the moment they materialized.

  They didn’t even get a clear look at the endless white expanse before ear-piercing explosions detonated all around. In a blink, the pristine canvas became a furious inferno. The ground vanished beneath them, and they fell toward a bottomless sea of lava.

  How could everything turn to hell in a single second?

  It was unlucky timing for both sides. Sade was in the middle of deactivating the Sealed Bond that protected the fragment. The disruption was caused by the teens’ unexpected arrival which triggered the defense mechanism.

  The Harbingers realized they wouldn’t get the fragment that day and needed to retreat fast. Riven, the blackbird perched on Sade’s shoulder, launched into flight and opened a flat teleportation portal just inches from the lava. The Harbingers dove through its red, swirling center and vanished in the nick of time.

  Tee and her teammates were quick enough to initiate teleportation together, but they weren’t as fortunate. The Commander and Lieutenant had barely turned when a chorus of agonized moans filled their heads. They turned to find the five cadets collapsed where they had been moments before.

  Through rising steam, raw burns still hissed on their skin in places flesh had been consumed, leaving bone exposed. The agony was brief—after teleporting they fell into a deep sleep—but the memory remained vivid.

  They woke up in the infirmary.

  “What the hell was that?” Zod barked.

  “It felt more like hell,” Tee answered.

  Miko winced as if she could still feel the burns, even though her arms were unmarked.

  “This task to eliminate the Harbingers is slowly turning into a nightmare,” Saeda muttered, rising from her bed.

  “You can say that again,” Kie said. “That’s why we need a plan. Grab something light and meet back in the room so we can continue strategizing.”

  They nodded and left the infirmary on that mission.

  A flash of the trauma made Tee shut her eyes and grip the desk in front of her. She forced herself to think of the fancy leather boots and the cute black skirt she’d been wearing to push the terror away. Though her limbs had regrown since the infirmary, dwelling on the event made the pain resurface. She was impatient. She wanted it to end.

  She pulled herself together and looked up at the others seated behind small desks. Kie wasn’t there.

  “I still think we should wait until the team leader gets here,” Zod said, both legs propped on a desk. The careless expression on his face suggested he had either already forgotten their near-escape from hell or was desperately trying to.

  Tee took a breath and smiled. “No. We’re not waiting for him. I’ll brief him with our notes when he gets back.”

  When Kie arrived, the look on his face when he realized they’d drafted a bulletproof plan without him made her grin wider. She was about to let an evil laugh slip out when Zod’s voice cut in.

  “A talisman?” he asked, swinging his legs down and sitting up to face Saeda. “What if it has some Vergant magic defense like the barrier and can protect you from danger?”

  Saeda didn’t look away from the black diamond at her throat, the thing she’d snatched from the abandoned Vergant village and turned into a necklace. Miko barely participated. Tee swore that if she were the Commander, Miko would act like this meeting decided the rest of their lives.

  “Great idea, Zod,” Tee said, and typed the words into the hologram so they displayed for everyone.

  “We’ll let Saeda face the Harbingers alone next time and see how that piece of rock protects her. She wanted to die anyway, so let’s give her that right.”

  Saeda’s eyes flicked from the necklace to the hologram. “Is this where you call me suicidal or something?” she asked.

  Tee pivoted back to the task at hand. “I would if that would get you to actually think about strategy!”

  “Wow, calm down,” Zod said, folding his arms on the table. “Fine—let’s at least start.”

  “This is impossible,” Saeda said at last, letting the necklace hang from her neck. “How do we take Lilith down, let alone the whole Harbingers?”

  Tee shifted tactics. “Fine. Let’s start somewhere else. Share everything we know so far.”

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  She cleared the hologram and made the first bullet point.

  Lilith can spawn four-legged beasts with barbed tails and a snout that splits into four. Saeda added that the beasts grow larger the longer they live after she kills them. They must be destroyed quickly because fleeing only lets them expand.

  They still didn’t know what Sade could do. He was their sorcery practitioner, and all he ever seemed to do was sit and deactivate the Sealed Bond. He also acted mute, so asking him what he might be capable of next time was out of the question.

  “I’m pretty sure he can talk,” Tee said, remembering the times he had spoken to her. “He’s just pretending not to.”

  “He prefers telepathy. That doesn’t mean he’s dumb,” Zod corrected. “If I had a chatterbox like Legion on my team, I’d do the same.”

  Tee saw the irony and thought, If only he knew.

  “How about their swords?” Zod added.

  Both Lilith and Legion can form swords from solidifying black smoke, but Lilith has far greater control—she can manipulate them without touching them. That’s how she killed Zod and Lanse the first time they met, turning them into a porcupine. Telekinesis of some level was a safe assumption.

  “I can’t wait to get real powers,” Zod grumbled. “Pulling objects with my mind won’t cut it. I want to do real damage.”

  “Legion can release the bandaged one from himself,” Miko said quietly.

  They decided to list the demon-like bandaged figure as a separate member rather than an extension of Legion.

  “Add super-strength to Lilith’s profile,” Saeda said. “There’s no way she could punch through my spine in one blow without it.”

  Tee added super-strength for all Harbinger members—better safe than sorry. Miko suggested superspeed after describing how Legion matched her stride and almost outran her.

  They didn’t forget the bandaged one’s long, sharp arms and the fact that its blood burned. Zod reminded them to treat those traits as possible features for all Harbingers—until Tee interrupted.

  “Wait—didn’t Kie chop Legion’s hand off the first time?” she asked.

  “You mean before he regenerated it?” Zod replied. “Add invincibility to his list—”

  “Not what I meant,” Tee said. “If Legion’s blood touched Kie, he should know whether it burned.”

  They all agreed. “Put a reminder to ask him about it,” Zod said. “I don’t think we should be doing this without him…”

  Miko’s low voice cut in, “What if they have weaknesses?” All eyes turned to her. “Legion’s body may be indestructible, but what about the inside of his hood? That could be a weak spot.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Zod said. “But who’s brave enough to get that close with him looking right at you? You’d need to be super fast.”

  “What about that creepy four-eyed bird?” Saeda suggested. “It made that red vortex the Harbingers used to escape before. Imagine if we got rid of it—no more teleporting.”

  “What if that’s how they teleport, period?” Zod said, slamming his fist on the table with a grin. “Eliminate the bird and they lose their transport—bingo!”

  “But isn’t Sade a Vergant?” Miko asked. “Wouldn’t he still be able to teleport them?”

  Zod’s shoulders sagged and his smile faded.

  “Either way,” Tee said, drawing a circle around Riven’s name on the screen, “we’ll start with the bird. We’ll take them down one by one, beginning with this freak.”

  “But can’t it fly—” Miko began, but she fell silent as someone entered the room.

  “Great, now the whole gang’s here,” Zod muttered.

  Tee watched Kie pass by and forced a smile. “Good, you’re here. I didn’t mean to start without you. We just couldn’t wait.”

  Kie sat properly, hands folded on his desk. “No need to apologize. Sorry I’m late,” he said, then began reading the holographic notes like a diligent student. He pretended not to notice their stares. They didn’t need him to point out how much his scars had faded—he looked different.

  “I think your face masks must be working,” Zod whispered to Miko.

  “I don’t think it’s the face masks,” Miko said. “My scar’s fading too.”

  “These notes are only about the Harbingers’ abilities,” Kie observed.

  They blinked and looked away. Zod rubbed the back of his head. “We’re a bit stuck.”

  Kie leaned back, hand under his chin, and stared at the air. “We shouldn’t only note their abilities but everything—their behavior.” He leaned forward. “The Harbingers have a strategy. Sade deactivates the Sealed Bond while the others handle intruders. Disturb that flow and we can use the chaos to our advantage.”

  Tee folded her arms, skeptical. “Disturb Sade? Like what we did and got burnt to a crisp?”

  The memory made Saeda press a hand to his forehead. “Please, let’s never do that again,” he begged.

  They all understood that it was their presence that had triggered the fragment’s defense. Next time they’d suit up more slowly to avoid arriving too early.

  “But they’re not like us. They don’t heal after a nap,” Kie warned.

  Zod sighed. “I doubt that matters when they can regenerate limbs. Have you forgotten when you sliced Legion’s hand off? Instant healing—better than us.”

  Miko nodded. “And when I shredded the bandaged one, it was whole again the next time.”

  Tee remembered the question about Legion’s burning blood. “Kie, Zod wanted to know if his blood burns like the bandaged one’s.”

  “Me?” Zod said, annoyed at how Tee phrased it.

  “Yes—and it burns like hell,” Kie replied plainly.

  They were speechless that Kie had withheld that. Tee wasn’t about to scold him. She was guilty of secrets too. She simply added it to their list.

  “Let’s refocus on the bird,” Saeda said, recovering. “We agreed to eliminate it first, right?”

  Kie’s eyes landed on the circled name and he remembered something. “That’s it—the bird.” He put a finger to his lips. “Elder Caledor said its current state is a sort of afterlife after being damaged. Unlike Legion, maybe it can’t regenerate.”

  Tee nodded. “Okay—bird first. Now we need a plan.”

  “The fragment is what they want,” Kie said. “Like a Xenosapian after food. The MG offs trap monsters that way. We’ll use the fragment as bait to lure one Harbinger away, separate it from the pack, then strike together and overpower whichever unlucky victim we isolate. You all agreed—bird first?”

  Silence stretched until Kie’s red eyes found her, and the gentle smile she’d had slipped away.

  “Okay,” Tee said, and began jotting down his points. He had experience—he’d said he’d served years in the Mid-Guard—and she had too many questions about him that his reluctance only magnified.

  “See? This is why we should wait for Kie,” Zod said. “He’s our progress.”

  “There’s a problem,” Kie added. “We’ll need the fragment for it to work. We only know two ways so far. One, wait for Sade to deactivate the Sealed Bond so we can grab it, or two, disturb Sade and face whatever defense comes.”

  “And pray whatever shows up isn’t worse than what we just went through,” Saeda finished.

  “Are you sure those are the only ways?” Miko asked. “I don’t like either option.”

  “You’re not alone,” Zod said with a chuckle. He turned to Saeda. “Hey Saeda, how’s it going with learning to control that ability of yours?”

  Saeda understood what he was really asking. “If I’m going to get visions on how else to get fragments or get any visions at all, I need one in my hand. Physical contact seems to trigger visions.”

  “Then we’re gonna get you one,” Kie said.