The cone was as if hit by a sudden snap from the deepest depth of the arctic. After stopping like a freight train hitting an unbreakable wall, it tightened, its molecules squeezed together as it turned solid with the toothache-inducing sound of something changing state too fast, a subtle sound sharp enough to cut through the battlefield.
It was like it had been emptied out of something, life maybe, or molecular activity, the proponent of heat. The solid cone was squeezed into something denser than it had been earlier, almost turning into a stick, one so smooth that it seemed to have always been like that, as if the atoms that made it had been forced together, squeezed then fused into their new state.
Before the vapor of cold could waft off it, Lucas took a step forward to not have to pull his arm back, the movement allowing him to cock it back, then slammed the long sky-blue stick straight into the arms it had come out from.
