EKPOMA 9:40 PM
Tessy and David stepped out of the ruins.
The building groaned behind them, its walls cracked, its foundation compromised, its windows nothing but empty sockets. Dust still drifted from the collapsed sections, catching the faint light of the trapped moon above.
Scotto stood waiting for them.
His chest was marked with green light—David's handiwork, still glowing, still burning. His third eye was half-closed, the eclipse marking flickering. His sashes hung still. His massive frame was motionless.
But he was smiling.
"Couldn't leave if I wanted to," he said. His voice was calm. Almost amused. "Trapped. All of us. Until someone breaks the barrier from outside. Or until I'm exorcised."
He spread his arms wide.
"Either way. We're trapped together."
Tessy unzipped her jacket.
It fell to the ground, pooling around her bare feet. The silver tanktop underneath caught the dim light, and her chains—still attached to her joggers—jingled softly as she rolled her shoulders.
"David."
"Yeah?"
"Tag along. Keep attacking."
"And you?"
"I just need you to trust me."
She didn't look at him. Her eyes were fixed on Scotto.
David's green aura bloomed—steady, controlled, nothing like the flickering mess from an hour ago. He felt the Faith move through him like breath, like blood, like something that had always been there, waiting for him to stop fighting it.
"Ready."
Tessy grabbed him by the back of his uniform and threw him.
David flew across the clearing—not falling, not stumbling, launched. His green aura flared around his fist, and he drove it straight into Scotto's raised guard.
The impact was enormous.
Scotto's feet dug trenches in the earth as he skidded backward, his arms crossed, his dark mass barrier cracked but intact. He caught David's fist, held it, and looked up—
Tessy was already behind him.
Her fist—bare, unadorned, silver-light—slammed into his spine.
Scotto flew.
Not staggered. Not pushed. Flown. His massive body arced across the clearing, crashed through a parked car, and embedded itself in the far wall of a convenience store.
He stood up slowly, brushing glass from his shoulders.
"Genetic lottery," he said. His third eye pulsed. " You're simply... born different. You're blessed like me."
Tessy cracked her knuckles.
"You done analyzing me, or you wanna fight?"
"I can do both." Scotto replied
They clashed again.
Tessy was a blur—bare feet silent on the broken asphalt, chains jingling, fists finding angles that shouldn't exist. She didn't have David's green communion or Jonathan's crushing force or Praise's impossible precision. She had physics.
Her body was a weapon.
Every strike carried the perfect weight. Every dodge was millimeters from disaster. Every breath was timed to the split second.
Scotto matched her.
His dark mass constructs manifested faster now—barriers that appeared exactly where Tessy's fists were about to land, projectiles that curved around her guard, restraints that snapped at her ankles.
He was learning.
"You're faster than before," Tessy observed, ducking under a dark mass tendril.
"I'm always faster than before."
"And cockier."
"I'm always cockier than before."
"You don't even know what that means." She said.
She drove her knee into his stomach. He absorbed it, caught her leg, and threw her into a concrete pillar. She hit it, cracked it, and dropped into a roll, coming up with a piece of rebar in her hand.
"Creative," Scotto said.
"Desperate."
She threw the rebar. It wasn't Faith-enhanced—just sharp, just fast. Scotto dematerialized, let it pass through his shadow-form, and rematerialized behind her.
Tessy was already turning.
Her fist—silver light blazing—caught him in the throat.
David jumped in.
He'd been circling, watching, waiting for an opening. Now he had one. His green aura flared, and he slammed both fists into Scotto's side—not a Communion, just force, just Faith, just the culmination of every lesson he'd learned tonight.
Scotto grunted. His guard slipped.
Tessy hit him again. Then again. Then a third time, each strike landing on the same spot, cracking his dark mass armor.
"You're working together," Scotto said, blocking David's next punch. "Syncing. Your rhythms are matching."
"We're a team," David said.
"You clearly are not learning anymore ."
"Doesn't matter."
Scotto paused—just for a moment—and looked at David. Really looked.
"No," he said. "It doesn't."
He moved.
David couldn't keep up.
One moment Scotto was in front of him. The next, he was everywhere—behind Tessy, beside David, above them both, his fists raining down from impossible angles.
"Tessy—"
"I see him."
She was keeping up. Barely. Her body moved on instinct, blocking strikes that David couldn't even track, countering attacks that hadn't landed yet.
But Scotto was accelerating.
"You're slowing down," he observed, his voice coming from every direction at once.
"I'm not slowing down."
"Then I'm speeding up."
His third eye opened wider—just slightly, just enough. The eclipse marking spun.
"You said I was three days old. You're right. But do you know what happens on day four?"
Tessy didn't answer.
"I become more."
He disappeared.
Tessy spun, blocking a strike from nothing. Then another. Then another. Scotto was a blur—no, not a blur. A presence. He was there and not there, solid and shadow, moving at speeds that made the air scream.
"You can still track me," he said. "Impressive."
"I can still hit you, too."
She proved it—a wild haymaker that caught his chin and snapped his head back.
But he didn't fall.
"Your raw physical ability is remarkable," he said, wiping a trickle of dark fluid from his lip. "Genetic lottery, yes. But more than that. You've trained. For years. Decades. Your body remembers what your mind doesn't need to tell it."
He tilted his head.
"This talent... we're the same ilk."
Tessy's eyes narrowed.
"Don't lump me in with you."
"I wonder why."
" I'm not a phobia at the end of the day."
"I'm more than that now."
David saw his chance.
Scotto was focused on Tessy—fully, completely, his three eyes tracking her every move. His guard was low. His back was turned.
David grabbed a piece of rebar from the rubble and charged.
His green aura flared around the makeshift weapon, reinforcing it, strengthening it. He swung—not at Scotto's head, not at his chest, but at his legs. Sweep the knees. Bring him down.
Scotto didn't even look.
A dark mass barrier materialized behind him, catching the rebar and snapping it in half. David stumbled. Scotto turned, his three red eyes fixed on David's face.
"You tried that dust trick earlier," he said. "I learned. I always learn."
He backhanded David across the clearing.
David hit the ground hard, rolled, and didn't get up immediately. His green aura flickered—not from loss of control, but from pain. Real pain. His ribs were cracked. His shoulder was dislocated again.
"David!" Tessy moved to cover him.
Scotto's dark mass tendrils caught her ankles, her wrists, her throat. Not tight enough to kill. Just enough to hold.
"He's a liability," Scotto said. "Not on our level. Not of our ilk."
Tessy struggled against the restraints.
"Let him go."
"He's not worth killing. Not yet. But he's also not worth protecting." Scotto's third eye pulsed. "Heal yourself. Then we continue."
He released her.
Tessy fell to her knees, her chains jingling.
David watched her from across the clearing, his vision blurry, his breath shallow. She was hurt. She was bleeding. She was smiling.
"Hell No," she said.
"No?"
"I'm not healing myself." She stood up slowly, her silver aura flickering to life. "I'm ending this."
Silver
Her aura shifted.
Not green. Not blue. Not gold. Silver. The color of moonlight on water. The color of a blade before it falls.
A spinning orb formed in her palm—dense, compact, humming with contained force. It looked like a mini globe, but sharper. More focused. More faster. More final.
"Advanced Faith Manipulation," Scotto observed. "You're extremely fascinating."
"You know it's been fun," Tessy agreed.
She flash-stepped across the distance.
Scotto raised his guard—dark mass barriers, three layers thick, reinforced, ready.
Tessy's silver orb passed through them like they weren't there.
The impact cratered the earth.
Scotto flew—not through a wall, not through a building. Through the ground. The silver orb had driven him into the earth, carving a trench ten feet deep, twenty feet long.
He lay at the bottom, his chest cracked, his third eye closed, his sashes torn.
"He's not done," Tessy said, her silver aura already fading. "David. Get up."
David pushed himself to his feet.
His shoulder screamed. His ribs burned. But his green aura was steady.
"I'm up."
"Good. Because he's about to show us something new."
Scotto rose from the crater.
The darkness around him didn't just gather—it pulsed. Waves of shadow radiated outward, cracking the asphalt, dimming the trapped moonlight overhead. His third eye opened—fully, completely—and the eclipse marking spun so fast it blurred.
"Day four," he said, "comes early."
He moved.
Not faster—differently. The shadows themselves attacked—not constructs, not projectiles, but the absence of light given hunger. They reached for Tessy's ankles, David's throat, the injured Vanguards still inside the ruined building.
"He's controlling the environment now," Tessy said, dodging a shadow tendril. "Not just creating things. The darkness itself is his weapon."
David ducked under another tendril—barely.
"How do we fight that?"
"We don't." Tessy grabbed his arm. "We survive it."
Amaka's sniper rifle cracked.
The dark green bolt—Agnes's Sanctite weapon, now in Amaka's hands—cut through the darkness, seeking Scotto's core. It wasn't as precise as Agnes's shots. Wasn't as fast. But it was loud. A declaration. A distraction.
Scotto turned to face the new threat.
"The injured one," he said. "Still fighting."
"We're all still fighting," Amaka called back, chambering another round.
"Admirable. Futile. But admirable."
Scotto raised one hand.
The darkness around him condensed—not into a projectile, not into a barrier. Into a sphere. Compressed. Hungry. Growing.
"He replicated my technique … you've got to be kidding me," Tessy said. "David—MOVE—"
She pushed him aside.
The dark mass blast caught her left arm.
Not grazed. Not burned. Erased. From the elbow down, her arm was simply... gone. No blood. No stump. Just absence. The darkness had consumed her so completely that even the wound was dark.
Tessy didn't scream.
She fell to her knees, her silver aura flickering, her face pale but composed.
"TESSY—"
"I'm fine."
"Your ARM—"
"I said I'm fine."
Scotto walked toward them, his three eyes fixed on Tessy's wound.
"The boy is a liability," he said again. "Not on our level. Not of this ilk. Heal yourself. Then we continue."
Tessy looked up at him.
Her silver aura steadied.
"Hell No," she said.
"This again"
"I'm not healing myself."
She stood. One arm. Silver light. Chains jingling.
"And he's not a liability."
She stepped in front of David.
"He's my partner."