People hardly moved until the next Starspawn hit the perimeter.
It slammed into the far corner of the mall and clawed at brick. Rail teams snapped back to life, four bursts punching its legs, then an Illuminated sprinted in and finished it in a single strike.
The circle around Dorian and Kesi broke apart like people were waking up from a shared nightmare.
Some didn’t look away from the bodies as they backed toward cover.
Medics ran in, pale and fast. They checked the woman who’d been folded against the truck. Nothing to do. They checked the boy. Same answer.
A tarp went over them. Not for dignity’s sake per se. Just a thin barrier between the living and what the day had taken.
Keller stared at the tarp, then at Dorian’s blades, then at the black scorch mark where the Wills collided.
“No one touched any more Remnants,” he said, voice flat. Loud enough for the whole lot. “Not for Illumination. Not for anything. Use your tongs and put them in bags only!”
A runner nodded, hands shaking, holding a pouch with a red stripe. He was thinking that what if he turned, or any of the Illuminated, were we ticking time bombs, or was this a unique case? He collected the remaining Remnants off the pavement without skin contact, like they were poisonous now.
Dorian swallowed. The wrong warmth still hummed under his skin. His stomach still turned.
Keller jerked his chin at him. “You alright?”
Dorian forced the words out, choking on them slightly. “I’m up.”
Kesi heard the tone more than the answer and filed it away. He turned outward, eyes locked on the perimeter.
“Wave’s still coming,” he said. “We can’t stay still.”
“Kesi’s right,” Keller snapped into the radio. “Everyone. Back to posts. Illuminated on the line. Rails watch the gaps. Civilians stay down. We ride this out until evening then keep moving toward the outpost.”
They went.
More streaks tore through the sky. More thuds. More Starspawn, coming in twos and threes sometimes, drawn in by the noise and souls.
Dorian and Kesi met them at the edge of the lot. The fights were short, but there were no words between them. Ash piled in drifts. Remnants bagged with trembling hands.
The line of soldiers to be Illuminated died without anyone needing to say why.
As evening dragged in, the wave should have been slowing.
It wasn’t. Perhaps the days spent clearing the area around their old camp made it seem like the waves weren’t as terrible as they are. Or maybe, they’re just getting worse.
Kesi felt it first, a pressure along the edge of his mind that didn’t match dumb Starspawn scatter. He snapped his head west.
Three shapes came down the boulevard so fast the distance barely mattered.
These hadn’t fallen this day. They couldn’t have.
They were big, bigger than standard Starspawn but not Fiends. Eight or nine feet, and wrong in a way that felt deliberate.
The center one ran upright, matte black. Metallic bone had grown out of its ribs and fused into a full cage over its chest, each bar sharpened. Extra vertebrae climbed its spine like a jagged saw. Thin seams of orange Will pulsed between them.
On the right, a hevy build with arms incased in solid black cylinders studded with torn spikes. Claws lengthened into hooked talons that scraped sparks off the road.
On the left, one stayed low in a runner’s crouch it somehow maintained at obscene speed. Legs stretched and knotted. Every step plowed divots out of asphalt. A ridgeline of plates ended in a blunt, reinforced skull meant to smash through everything.
Rail gunners fired by reflex.
The slugs didn’t land right. Shots bent at the last instant, curving away as the Kindled shoved Will into crude, dirty shields.
They didn’t slow.
Kesi burned thought acceleration.
The world stretched.
Three threats, three paths. The center would blow straight into the lot. The heavy would crush trucks and anyone in them. The low one was angling for a gap that led to a flatbed full of civilians.
There simply wasn’t enough time to warn anyone.
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He met the Low one before it reached the first row of vehicles, hit high and from the side, yellow Will flooding his legs and shoulders. He drove his whole body into that plated skull like a battering ram.
It felt like colliding with a train.
Plates along its neck cracked, but its momentum rolled through him. Kesi’s feet left the ground. He slammed onto a parked car hood hard enough to crater it, blew through the windshield, then hit the sedan behind with a crunch that rattled his teeth.
The Low Kindled staggered. It didn’t stop. It tore deep gouges in the road, caught itself, and kept driving for the flatbed.
Dorian took the Center one.
He intercepted it past the mouth of the lot, blades up. It lowed its rib-cage chest and tried to plow through a car.
Dorian cut for the neck.
Orange Will hardened around its throat and jaw. His blade bit into a plasma structure and lost momentum like it had hit thick gel. The Kindled drove forward anyway, and the hit shoved Dorian back in a straight line.
His boots carved grooves in the asphalt before he twisted aside and kept it from crashing through into the civilians behind.
On the right flank, the Heavy one barreled toward the outer trucks.
Three Illuminated moved into its path without waiting. One went high for the head, one for the knees, one tried to hook a shoulder and turn it.
The Heavy Kindled’s clubbed forearm smashed through the first soldier’s guard like thin glass. He flew into a stack of crates and disappeared under plastic shatter. The second took a glancing hit that still launched him. The third landed a solid strike to the neck, but Will ate the blow and the Kindled slammed him flat and kept going.
By the time Kesi hauled himself out of the broken windshield, yanking glass from his own neck, and he was surprised that his skin could still be pierced by mundane objects, but that just told him how hard he was sent flying, all three Kindled were inside the perimeter.
Cars and trucks screamed as they were treated like toys. People dove behind concrete barriers, covered kids with their bodies, and prayed into their sleeves.
Rail gun fire was useless.
Any plans died in the heads of those who tried to think through this situation.
If Dorian and Kesi didn’t break these three units fast, the camp would die around them.
Dorian felt it again as he struck the Center one.
His blade lost power the instant it touched the orange Will.
No weak point. No exposed area. Just Will wrapped around everything.
Fine.
He slid back, drew breath, and raised a hand.
Implosion.
Blue Will condensed and collapsed inward against the orange shield in front of the Kindled’s sternum. Orange and blue light fought, plasma dripping to the ground, and for a heartbeat the Kindled’s Will folded in on itself.
The shield flickered.
The armor creaked.
The Kindled stumbled half of a step.
Dorian took advantage of that half-step.
He drove his left blade under the rib-cage bars, into the weaker portion the Implosion punched open. Resistance shifted. Something vital gave.
The Kindled shrieked and swung blind, plated arm smashing into Dorian’s shoulder and spinning him away.
Dorian hit the ground, rolled, and came up in a crouch. Right arm was numb. Breath was ragged.
The orange Will shield tried to reform and close, but it wavered now. It bled light like a wound.
Across the lot, the Low Kindled lunged for the flatbed.
Kesi hit Thought Acceleration again and moved.
He didn’t go for the head this time. He went for the inside of its knee, the same spot, over and over.
The first impact cracked the Will. The second spread the fracture. Third hit before it could reroute its Will.
On the fifth hit, the orange Will at that point shattered and his axe sank into joint.
Bone cracked out loud.
The Low Kindled dumped all its speed into the pavement and skidded into a box truck instead of the flatbed. The truck shook. People screamed. It still hadn’t gotten to them.
On the right, the Heavy Kindled focused on whoever glowed brightest.
It turned on the Illuminated still standing and started swinging.
Kesi saw it and knew the cost.
Dorian was tied up. That left him.
He sprinted, yellow Will blazing, and appeared behind the Heavy one. He drove a swing into the base of its skull.
Will flexed and held.
He hit it again.
And again.
He dumped everything into speed, battering one point faster than the Kindled could redirect its focus. The Heavy one roared and swung back blindly, and Kesi was never where the swing landed. He kept coming back to that same patch.
On the seventh impact, the Will fractured.
On the eight, it broke.
His axe slammed into metallic armor. Something gave.
The Heavy Kindled staggered for the first time.
It turned fully on him.
That was the price.
“Come on,” Kesi breathed, steam coming out of his mouth as his body overheated, voice tight. “Look at me. Not them.”
Dorian shoved himself back into the center fight and saw his opening. The center Kindled’s shield was flickering where his earlier Implosion had gnawed at it.
He needed one more.
He raised his hand again.
Implosion.
Blue folded into orange. The shield around the head collapsed inward for a moment, jerking his neck sideways.
Dorian stepped into that moment and drove his saber-tooth blade through the gap, into the side of its skull.
The Kindled froze.
Then it crumbled to ash.
One down.
Two to go.
The Heavy one surged toward Kesi, Will flaring hard, trying to crush the only thing that could hurt it.
Kesi stepped into a swing and redirected everything into a single line of yellow Will through his forearms.
The club hit like a wrecking ball.
It threw him.
He rolled, came up on one knee tasting blood, the same arm dangling once more until he forced Will into the joint and locked it back into place. It was much more damaged now, but at least functional.
The Heavy Kindled pivoted again, Will thickening, leaning in its crude way.
Kesi burned Thought Acceleration and went low.
He hammered the same knee point. Hit, hit, hit, faster than the Kindled could shift power. It felt cheap doing the same move but it was the only thing he knew.
On the sixth hit, the joint buckled.
The Heavy Kindled dropped to a knee with a howl that made the whole lot feel smaller.
Dorian didn’t hesitate.
He sprinted, jumped, landed on its back, and slammed an Implosion onto the neck.
Will peeled away.
He drove one blade in. then the other, straight through where a spine should have been.
The Heavy Kindled collapsed and turned to ash.
Two down.
The Low one wasn’t finished.
It dragged its ruined leg, still trying to reach the flatbed. Will leaked in ragged bursts. Its eyes stayed locked on the cluster of souls.
“Dorian!” Kesi shouted.
Dorian ran.
Kesi hit it first, a kick to the jaw that knocked it off-line.
Dorian arrived an instant later and stopped playing careful.
He planted his feet, raised both blades, and drove them down through the skull and whatever passed for though. He pushed an Implosion through the strike itelf, and the shield inside-outed for half a second.
The Low Kindled slammed flat.
Slowly it ashed.
Silence hit the lot like a held breath finally released.
People cheered, then caught themselves, as if cheering would invite something worse.
