Kaldur landed in a heap but, remarkably, was still conscious and already pushing himself to his feet. The female Twin's leg slammed into his back, swatting him into the asphalt and shattering it.
I winced in sympathy but didn't move to save him. Lily was on me again, and I was down to three limbs, the last one already knitting back together with a pulse of Reverse Curse Energy.
Several razor-barbed tentacles speared out of her coat pockets as I leapt back, summoning Curse Piercer. The moment my feet touched the ground, a Simple Domain bloomed around me. My blade blurred—up, down, criss-cross—and a mass of shadowy tentacles shredded past me just as a massive fist slammed into my back. The impact hurled me into Lily's waiting hand.
Her Curse Energy flared, shifting in rhythm, and I felt it—whatever punch she was winding up could rip straight through my technique. I twisted, parried with a kick, and whipped a fist at her face. She blocked, pivoted, and drove me into the ground, crunching asphalt beneath me. Her follow-up swing came fast, but my Curse Energy-infused shotgun barked first. The blast hurled her back, staggering her. I fired again to no effect.
Something slammed into me before I could pull the trigger a third time. Claws dug into my flesh, lifting me skyward, before flinging me across the hangar like a ragdoll. I landed on my feet, my hand mostly healed, and found myself staring across the battlefield at Lily, her two siblings—and an approaching army of darkness.
Hundreds of shadow monsters filled the horizon: towering masked swordsmen, wolves, crows, falcons, serpents as thick as trucks, and swarms of insects.
But what froze me in place was the Special Grade among them.
It hung back, circled by a storm of buzzing, flapping wings.
A dragon.
My skin went white, my breath ripped out of me, and a laugh bubbled up, manic and hollow, as I glanced down at my shotgun.
Déjà vu hit hard. This was just like our last fight. Only this time, I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
"You know the League is coming?" I called out, echoing my last words from that night.
The boy Twin laughed. "He's got balls. I'll give him that."
"They won't make it through my barrier," the girl Twin said flatly. "No one enters or leaves unless they have Julius Spencer's Curse Energy, his DNA, and his exact energy signature. By the time the League arrives, it will already be over."
"I'd die before I joined your little Doomsday cult," I said, summoning my metal armor and tightening the straps. I left the helmet aside. I needed every sense sharp.
"She's not inviting you," the boy Twin sneered. "We're well past polite conversation."
"I suppose we are."
I launched forward without hesitation, charging straight at the impossible horde. Lily blinked in surprise at the sudden shift, and I took advantage, summoning my .50-cal sniper and pulling the trigger. The weapon thundered, the round tearing forward faster than I could track. It ripped through half the mass of numerous writhing tentacles that burst from her jacket, shredding it.
They cocooned Lily in a protective bubble.
The male Twin snorted a laugh while Lily's face darkened as the tentacles receded and I got a good look at what she now looked like after she'd recovered.
She'd done away with the prim clothing and pomp, settling for a tank stop which showed off her developed muscles. A massive octopus clung to her upper body, tentacles healing, writhing.
"Crush him," she commanded calmly.
The horizon blackened. A storm of shadow birds blotted out the sky, raining down like an arrow barrage. My legs pumped, Curse Energy propelling me like greased lightning. The first bird detonated on impact. My gut twisted. Every bird was a bomb.
I kept running.
The explosions turned the air into a storm of fire and shrapnel. I tanked the first few blasts before yanking out the heavy steel shield I'd commissioned and huddling behind it. When the detonations finally ebbed, the real attack came.
Blades. Six of them, converged on me.
I bent low, then lashed out, body uncoiling as Curse Piercer sliced in a wide arc. Curse Energy pulsed down the blade, tearing through two weapons and deflecting the rest and buying me space to breathe.
A simple domain rippled out, and I instantly added a vow to it.
My blade strikes anyone who moves within it.
It worked.
The first two First Grades fell in clean, decisive cuts. I parried the third and caught the fourth blade with my palm, but its strike broke my stance and shattered the speed boost my Domain granted. The fifth lunged for my face. I dipped, its blade carving a line down my back as I drove Curse Piercer through its gut.
Twisting, I unleashed a crescent slash with overdrive, splitting the third and fifth swordsman in half, but I'd bled most of my momentum when my blade clashed into the sword of the fourth swordsman.
We traded ten blows in a single breath before my kick crushed its knee, and a dagger found its eye.
I barely got my shield up in time as a tide of wolves slammed into me. The impact bowled me off my feet despite Inverse. I dropped the technique before it snapped completely.
Pain swarmed me—bites, cuts, impacts stacking in a blur of violence. With a flare of desperation, I hurled a bandolier of grenades, pins pulled, and conjured my heaviest shield. I ducked under it as the world erupted.
My head cracked against concrete. Vision doubled, ears popped. I funneled Curse Energy into my skull, healing it sluggishly.
A tentacle lashed around my ankle, squeezing until my breath came ragged, then yanked me into the air. The impact cratered the ground beneath me, and my body screamed. Inverse frayed at the seams.
The second slam broke it. The third and fourth left me mangled—hand shattered, ribs poking through skin, knee bent backward.
And still, I clung to lucidity as Lily pulled me close, holding me upside down.
At some point, I'd dismissed my shield. It'd become a secondary source of pain.
My vision fractured into ten. Still, through the haze, I summoned Reverse Curse Energy, forcing it through my battered frame.
"Damn, Lily," the male Twin—George—laughed. "Leave some for the rest of us."
"Not yet," Lily said coldly. The octopus on her body writhed, grotesque. Its tentacles seemed disproportionate to its head, reminding me of a video I saw on National Geographic of an Octopus slipping into a bottle.
"You're a sore loser," I slurred, blood on my lips. "You know that?"
George barked a laugh. "I said the same thing!"
"Don't fraternize with the enemy," his sister Gina snapped.
"After Artisan's done with him, he won't be," George rolled his eyes. "You can have fun with the damn mission, Gina. It's not the end of the world."
Their bickering blurred together. My focus slipped. My eyes landed on Aqualad, lying unconscious under Gina's boot.
A pang of regret cut through me, sharper than any blade.
I should've never left the cave.
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