The air still reeked of gunpowder and burnt flesh. Smoke drifted upward in lazy curls, settling into the hollow bones of the ruined street.
Sarah Lyons pulled her helmet fully off, tucking it beneath her arm. Blonde hair clung damp to her temples, sweat and soot streaking her face. She was breathing hard, but her eyes—clear, sharp, commanding—never wavered as they locked on the boy with the glowing revolvers.
He stood calm, shoulders rising and falling in a measured rhythm. His coat was singed at the edge, his knuckledusters dark with blood not his own. The revolvers hummed softly at his sides, their light pulsing back to steady crimson.
"Who the hell are you?" Sarah demanded, voice firm, clipped. Not suspicion so much as command—the tone of someone used to being answered.
Ash met her gaze, unflinching. "Drifter."
One of her squad muttered, "Kid moves like a ghost…" but quieted when Sarah raised a hand.
She stepped closer, scanning him, her rifle hanging loose but ready. "That wasn't luck back there. I've seen full-grown knights fold under a charge like that. You didn't blink."
Ash tilted his head slightly. "Didn't have time."
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth—something between amusement and approval. She studied him a beat longer, then nodded to herself.
"We're pushing deeper," she said. "Supplies for GNR. Mutants have been bleeding us dry for weeks. With what I just saw, I'd rather have you at my back than half the squires they send me. You up for that, Drifter?"
Ash holstered one revolver, the other still resting easy in his hand. His eyes flicked past her to the ruins, the smoke rising between collapsed towers. A battlefield waiting for them.
"Yeah," he said simply. "I'm in."
Sarah turned to her squad, voice snapping back to command. "You heard him. Form up. We're moving out."
The Pride shifted, falling into line. Sarah walked at their head, helmet clipped to her belt, the boy in the dust-stained coat pacing just behind her.
For the first time in the ruins, Sarah Lyons felt something other than attrition gnawing at her. She felt the ground tilt—subtle, but real. Like the tide had changed.