Nestra’s heart skipped a beat. She charged, blade out, brain switched off from the fury. Her own gun wouldn’t go through Bard’s body armor. “Ah,” Bard said with a lazy drawl. “You were not supposed to—” Bard pivoted and shot. It went wide, mostly because Nestra’s thrown blade was planted in his shoulder. She made contact. Her feet caught the gun but Bard’s grip held. His hook got her in the chest just as she grabbed the handle of her sword. Most of the damage was blocked by her armor and yet the punch still winded her. His sidearm could pierce armor. No choice. She thrust and he failed to catch it on his vambrace. The blade dug in the same shoulder a second time, not deep. Deep enough. Bard screamed in pain when electricity coursed through it but most of it was caught by the armor, dissipating harmlessly on the floor. She struck his side arm and it broke. He stared in disbelief. She made for the kill. She was sent flying across the room. She felt him move to her side and pivoted to cut him but a sharp pain aborted the motion. Fingers like steel vises gripped her left shoulder. Her pauldron creaked from the pressure. “How did you get your dreg fingers on a mana blade?” Before she could respond, there was a gunshot. The gleam made to sigh with annoyance. Nestra knew why. He had a mana vest. However, his condescending gaze turned into a scowl of disbelief, then shock. He gasped painfully. A second shot forced him to take a step forward. Gorge’s gun clicked empty. He grinned, sweat covering his brow and pain clouding his eyes but his bastard smile still showed the triumph that came with a last ‘fuck you’. The gleam turned away from Nestra, rage distorting his features in a terrible rictus. Crackling energy coursed through his arm to deliver death. Nestra saw his back was hurt through the armor. He was distracted. Confused. He was still holding her, and she was still holding her blade. A detached part of her felt an intense feeling of satisfaction for having outsmarted such an arrogant hunter. The rest of her focused on the one thing she’d practiced for endlessly, spending thousands of hours repeating the motions until they became perfectly ingrained: that one necessary, perfect strike. Nestra pushed back her pain. Feet planted, strike with the whole body. The sharp blade caught the gleam in the side of the head and bit deep. He spasmed. He fell to his knees. Nestra waited until he was done falling with her blade overhead, ready. Up to down, two handed strike on the crown of his head. Her blade bit into bone with a pleasant crunch just as she was absolutely sure it would. He was dead before he hit the ground, sword still embedded. She knew he was dead. She felt him die. Her head swam. She collapsed against a nearby wall. There was a puddle of blood under her feet. That was a lot of blood. Shit, that was a lot of blood. “Ooooh that’s a lot of blood.” “Stabilize her, Riel dammit,” a man said. Nestra could see it coating the piece of metal in her torso. Mazingwe always said, save the brain, the heart, and enough blood to keep them working and I can fix anything else. But that was too much blood. Hands pushed hers away, gently laying her on the ground. Clotting spray on the wound, she thought. Her head swam a lot. Stib did not reply. Rude. There was someone else. There were two people. They’d just arrived. She didn’t see them arrive. One of them was the viridian eyes boy from earlier. The cop gleam. He wasn't doing too well but he was being held by another guy, this one in armor that looked like bone and long ivory dreads falling down his back. He had weird milky eyes. Her brain finally noticed the silver armband and the fact he was, in fact, holding the viridian guy like a beat up human shield. Was probably pretty bad but that was no longer her problem because she was down here and down here was pretty comfortable and she was not moving, not with all this blood under her. Fuck, that was a lot of blood. Stib sobbed. That was bad. Stib was a friend. Nestra patted her shoulder. That was a gesture of comfort and affection, pretty sure. She didn’t look comforted. Maybe Nestra just needed more practice. The new gleam’s eyes found the body of his ally. Nestra was pretty sure she was about to die when, suddenly, something very bright exploded behind her. The next moment, the gleam was gone. Nestra looked outside the window to see the new gleam locked in a duel with a form clad in crimson armor. Or at least she assumed the ever-shifting form of flesh and bone was the milk-eyed gleam. They were far too fast for her to follow. She recognized the red shape from her newsfeed. That was Hong Wang, the red king. A proper guild star. Someone touched her shoulder. It was the viridian guy, quickly healing from what she could see. He grabbed the piece of metal. “This is going to hurt.” Green mana expanded from his free hand. Nestra’s body gulped it down greedily, which caused the gleam to scowl but not to stop. A refreshing sensation spread as slowly and without more loss of blood, he extracted the foreign object. Nestra was left staring at a pink piece of flesh where her wound used to be. It felt very tender. “You didn't feel that?” viridian dude asked. “Am drugged to the fucking gills.” “Ah, I should have guessed. And now if you will excuse me, I must attend to your friend.” Nestra wanted to tell viridian that Gorge wasn’t her friend just as Stib was holding her hand very tightly. That was probably a bad thing. “The others?” Stib sobbed. Right. Coms were still down. Maybe it was the walker. Maybe it was the dead buzzer. She didn’t think it mattered. “Uh, I think Preach was stable when I left him. You, uh...” The drone operator left in a rush. “Might not want to see this,” Nestra finished telling a block of concrete. She was going to see… Ah fuck, this was going to be hard for her. Nestra felt a strange disconnect. She was both healed and weakened, really awake and also really out of her mind. Bard’s inexplicable betrayal stabbed her heart like a prop knife. It was there. She knew it was there. It just didn’t hurt, at least, not yet. Most of the squad was dead. It wasn’t her squad. They should still count as her people but somehow, they didn’t. It was as if a solid wall like an iceberg blocked the path between her sensations and herself, pushing away confusion and the craving that had been her constant companion for so long. It wasn’t the combat stims. They weren’t designed to do that. It was something insidious seeping under her skin and now it was doing something. Waking up? That made no sense. “Sorry, sir, I cannot heal that level of damage,” viridian told Gorge. “A polite gleam,” Gorge replied with a bitterness that edged on insanity. Nestra watched outside. Night was falling fast and now plumes of dark smoke rose to the heavens like monstrous pillars, carrying with them the stench of ash. Shapes flew around at great speeds while corpo gunships flew in low altitudes, disgorging armored goons on the fleeing gangers below. Hong Wang remained the master of the sky. He wasn’t fighting anymore. He was just there, talking and gesturing a few hundred meters away. Probably a promo shot.