—Rei—

  The last threads of sunlight slipped beneath the horizon, leaving the world bruised and dim. What light remained came from the trench Rei had set ablaze—a jagged ribbon of fire carving the field in two. The flames roared and snapped, heat rolling outward in waves, but she could already feel their weakness. The tinder was thinning. The stacked wood was nearly spent. And her mana, however deep it ran, wasn’t enough to keep an inferno alive on will alone.

  Nothing burned forever.

  She exhaled slowly and turned from the fire to take stock of what remained.

  Pippy stood near the wall, small shoulders squared, spine straight in a way that felt practiced rather than natural. The girl’s red pigtails flickered in the firelight as she stared ahead, jaw set, eyes unblinking. Rei recognized the posture immediately. She’d seen that same posture a hundred times before, just dressed differently. In boardrooms. At networking events. In people who had memorized the same pop-motivation scripts and tried to wear confidence like armor. Meditation apps. Cold showers. Perfect posture. Early mornings. Supposedly the habits of CEOs and visionaries.

  Except none of the ones Rei knew did any of that.

  They were ruthless. Exhausted. Propped up by teams of very clever people who knew how to sell a story.

  The realization tugged at her mouth, almost drawing out a smirk, before she caught herself.

  Almost.

  Because for all the bravado, Pippy was impressive. Frighteningly so. There was power in her that hadn’t finished unfolding yet, potential still raw and unshaped. If this world didn’t break her first, she might surpass all of them. She was far too young to have endured what she already had, and yet she still carried hope like a stubborn ember.

  Rei envied that.

  She knew exactly when she herself had chosen to seal her heart shut, when hope had become a liability instead of a strength. She didn’t need to dig for the memory. It lived close to the surface, sharp as broken glass.

  She blinked once, hard, forcing the thought away.

  Her gaze slid to the man standing beside Pippy.

  Maku.

  Tall. Dark-haired. Remarkably calm for the circumstances. The puffer jacket looked absurd here, like a relic from a different world, but he wore it with an ease that made it feel intentional. There was something magnetic about him, an aura that didn’t command attention so much as assume it. Rei had seen this trait before in pop stars, strangely enough.

  Personality-wise, she still couldn’t place him.

  He wasn’t good. He wasn’t evil. His morality felt…misaligned. Local instead of global. Like he would burn a city to ash without hesitation if it meant sparing someone he cared about a single wound. Someone like Barrett, she thought.

  Still, there was something else about him, something unhinged she couldn’t quite place. A yearning for chaos.

  That made him the most dangerous one here.

  Rei swallowed.

  This world was insane. She knew she was a monster—she’d made peace with that long ago—but the people around her were monsters of entirely different breeds. Purpose-built, each in their own unsettling way.

  A shriek tore through the night, dragging her attention back to the battlefield.

  Behind the thinning curtain of flame, something vast shifted. A silhouette rose. It was too large, too deliberate. The firelight crawled over jagged legs and a massive, waiting form.

  The Queen.

  Rei bit down on her lip hard enough to taste blood.

  Damn that idiot for burning the rafts, she thought.

  “Listen up,” Maku said calmly, without turning to face her.

  Both Rei and Pippy looked toward him.

  “Let’s take this slow,” he continued, voice steady, analytical. “Test it. Eyes. Joints. Core. We don’t go all out until we find something that reacts.”

  Rei snorted softly. “What is this, more video game strategy?”

  He turned then, fixing her with an unamused stare. “As a matter of fact—it is.”

  Her jaw tightened.

  Of course. She was stuck with a gamer.

  “What of my men, my liege?” Wexel asked, dropping to one knee beside them, reverent even now.

  Maku smiled faintly, far too relaxed for someone about to face a nightmare. “Have them hold the wall. Keep the smaller ones off us.”

  Wexel bowed and hurried away, barking orders as villagers scrambled into position.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “If you get hurt, run back here!” Granny Ida called from farther behind the wall. “I’ll have you standing again before you hit the ground!”

  Maku lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

  Then he looked back to Rei. “When I give the signal, drop the fire all at once. Let the Queen step in. Then relight it—burn it out completely. Best case, it slows the reinforcements for a heartbeat.”

  Rei nodded slowly, eyes never leaving the towering shadow beyond the flames.

  A heartbeat was all they were likely to get.

  And it would have to be enough.

  —

  Rei watched as Maku stepped forward, planting his spear into the churned earth. With deliberate calm, he fed mana into it. Blue light bled outward from the haft, first as a faint glow, then as a living aura—ethereal waves spiraling near the base, humming with restrained force. The air around the weapon seemed to thrum, as if reality itself were being tuned to a different frequency.

  He glanced back over his shoulder at the younger girl.

  Pippy stood ready behind him, small hands clenched, eyes wide but steady.

  He smiled at her.

  Not the feral grin he wore before charging into something suicidal. This smile was different. It was easy, almost lazy.

  Some of the tension slipped from Pippy’s shoulders, just a fraction.

  Rei watched the exchange from the side, brow furrowing. This man refused to fit cleanly into any category she understood.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Aye aye, Mister Maku,” she replied, nodding with surprising firmness.

  He returned the nod once, looked to Rei, then lifted his hand.

  “Lights out in three…two…” His fingers folded down one by one. “One.”

  The trench went dark.

  The fire vanished all at once, plunging the field into sudden shadow.

  For a heartbeat, Rei thought Maku would advance cautiously.

  Instead, he launched.

  Mana flared beneath him as his disc ignited, Pippy’s magic snapping into place in the same instant. He became a streak of blue light, firing forward like a cannon shot. His spear was leveled, his body perfectly aligned, momentum howling around him. It was a brutal, decisive opening that was clean, aggressive, and unmistakably reminiscent of something Barrett had done.

  He hit the spider eye-first.

  The spear buried itself deep into one of the massive orbs with a wet, cracking impact. The creature shrieked, reeling back, ichor spraying as it thrashed.

  A solid opening.

  But not enough.

  Mandibles snapped toward him in a brutal counter, and Maku kicked off midair, twisting away just in time as the jaws clashed where his head had been. He flipped back, boots skimming earth as he landed.

  The spider surged forward, enraged.

  “Rei!” Maku shouted.

  “I’ve got it,” she snapped back, slamming her palms together with a loud clap.

  The trench roared back to life, fire surging upward in a violent arc. This time, she let it burn unchecked. Whatever fuel remained would have to be enough since she didn’t have the luxury of conserving it anymore.

  “Alright,” Maku called, voice sharp with focus, “Team Donovan—”

  “And Rei,” he amended a beat later.

  She rolled her eyes.

  He didn’t miss a beat. “—let’s work!”

  A familiar pressure washed past Rei, a distortion in the air that made her skin prickle.

  She turned just in time to see Pippy fully alight.

  The girl’s eyes burned gold now, luminous and unblinking. Rei didn’t fully understand the mechanics. Only the effects. Pippy’s domain unfolded around them like an invisible lattice, space itself becoming conductive. Inside it, motion obeyed different rules. Direction, velocity—maybe even fragments of the future—were laid bare.

  Within that space, Pippy could accelerate allies, drag enemies through molasses, even freeze moments in place.

  It was terrifying.

  And costly.

  Rei had seen the toll it took in the way Pippy’s breathing changed, blood dripped from her nose, and the faint tremor in her hands afterward. Maku had drilled restraint into her, taught her efficiency over brute force, but even so…this kind of power always demanded payment.

  Rei tore her gaze away and looked back to the battlefield.

  Maku was already on the spider again.

  He weaved between its legs at impossible speed, darting in and out of danger as if he could see each attack before it happened. His spear flashed, testing joints, eyes, softer seams. He was probing and measuring, looking for the weakness they could go all in on.

  Rei clenched her teeth.

  Not wanting to be left behind, she raised her hands and unleashed a volley of fire bullets. The blasts screamed across the distance, accelerating mid-flight—thanks to Pippy—and splashed harmlessly against the spider’s armor.

  No reaction. No damage.

  “Damn it,” she hissed.

  She had something stronger. Something much stronger.

  But it meant getting close.

  Uncomfortably close.

  Rei watched Maku dance through death and knew the truth immediately.

  If they were going to survive this, she was going to have to get her hands dirty.

  “I’m going in!” she shouted.

  Flame erupted from her fists, condensing into twin blades—[Flame Daggers]—each extending a foot past her knuckles, white-hot and crackling with heat dense enough to distort the air.

  This is ridiculous.

  She couldn’t quite believe she was about to stake her life on this—on them. Couldn’t believe she was trusting anyone enough to even try. A flicker of doubt slipped in uninvited: Would Granny heal her if it came to that? She’d said she wouldn’t, once. Had that changed? Had Rei, somehow, crossed an invisible line without realizing it. Had she become more a part of Team Donovan than she’d ever intended?

  She crushed the thought before it could take root.

  It didn’t matter. Either they brought down the Queen, or they all died here, eventually. There was no graceful exit for her—no mana disc, no clean escape. Maku had chosen to stay and fight. And if he could stand his ground, then turning back now would feel…small.

  Pathetic.

  A crooked smile tugged at her lips. Rei from a few weeks ago wouldn’t have cared. Wouldn’t have thought twice about cutting losses and walking away.

  Maybe that big idiot really did change me, she thought.

  She sprinted forward, heart pounding, trusting Maku to keep the monster’s focus.

  Trusting Pippy to give her a window.

  A massive leg came crashing down toward her.

  Rei barely had time to register it before—

  It stopped.

  Frozen midair.

  Rei blinked.

  She turned just enough to see Pippy behind her, blood streaming freely from the girl’s nose as her domain strained under the load.

  Rei didn’t hesitate.

  She exploded into motion, eating the last few meters in a blink, momentum carrying her straight into the monster’s reach. Her flaming daggers arced forward in a precise, vicious strike, aimed squarely at one of the mandibles.

  The blades hit.

  Fire screamed as the condensed inferno bit deep, slicing through chitin like a hot knife through butter. The mandible sheared away in a burst of heat and sparks, and the spider’s shriek tore through the clearing—raw, furious, almost shocked.

  It answered the pain instantly.

  The massive body slammed into her like a runaway train.

  The impact was brutal.

  Rei flew backward, fire scattering as she was hurled into the wall with bone-rattling force. The breath was ripped from her lungs as she hit, vision swimming, ears ringing.

  She slid down, dazed.

  They’d done some damage, but the fight was far from over.