The Renegade outpost perched like a black wart on the sandstone cliffs of Aethelmar, its jagged towers spewing violet energy into the desert sky. The cult had made it a bastion of fear—and now, it would become a beacon of rebellion.
The wind howled as sand danced across the dunes, blurring outlines and distorting sound. But within the storm moved shadows with purpose, cloaked not just in stealth but in vengeance.
Tessara was the first to move.
She stepped into the open like a mirage, her eyes veiled in silver, her blind gaze unfocused yet piercing. Her crest pulsed faintly on her back below her left shoulder, feeding her illusions with radiant moonlight. She whispered a wordless prayer to Tsukuyomi, and the air shimmered.
Multiple versions of the group flickered into existence, dancing around the camp perimeter, phantoms that drifted through watchtowers, drawing arrow fire and shouts.
"Now," Maika hissed, dashing through the confusion.
Empowered by the Taiyo no Men and her burning Servant Crest on her back below her right shoulder, Maika became a blur of gold. Her form shimmered with sunfire, her daggers singing as they severed wind and flesh alike.
The sand beneath her feet barely shifted, her time dilation magic slowing enemy reactions to a crawl. One cultist raised a horn and never got to blow it.
"What... what are these things?! They're not real! I can't tell where to strike!"
Zera followed in a flash of blue light. Her blade struck like divine judgment, glowing with searing light that cracked armor and scattered the shadows that tried to cling to her. Her every step echoed with the discipline of a Knight Princess, her crest flaring on her chest like a sapphire flame.
"Formations! We are under attack!"
"They came from the storm! It's a trick!"
A horn finally blared, then cracked in half as Laverna descended from the cliffs above, her hair whipping in the wind like a storm given form.
She slammed into the ground, driving her jamadhars into the earth. Fire and ice exploded in twin arcs around her, forming a storm wall that split the center of the outpost in a roar of cracking stone and shrieking metal. Her Servant Crest, glowing just above her lower abdomen, pulsed as lightning raced along the edges of her ice, lacing the flames with violent arcs.
The sky above seemed to mimic her fury, clouds parting as a blood-orange glow lit up the battlefield.
"Who are these demons?!"
"They're tearing us apart! This isn't natural!"
Shin moved like a ghost through it all.
He appeared at Zera's flank, redirecting a blast of void energy with a flick of his wrist. The red lightning of his heritage burst from his palm and shattered the oncoming attack. Then he vanished again, reappearing near Tessara as a cultist lunged at her blind side.
With a single strike of his glowing katana, the enemy was cut in half, his body turning to dust before it hit the ground.
"Behind you," Shin whispered into Maika's ear, already gone before her grateful smirk surfaced.
He was the thread between them, stitching blind spots into strengths, their gaps into momentum. As the women shone in their power, he was the shadow that held the shape.
But Shin's versatility didn't end with his katana. From his orb, he summoned a pair of sai, intercepting a cultist charging toward Laverna. He spun low, disarming the man with a flick of his wrist before stabbing forward with precision and speed.
Another cultist attempted a high ambush from a tower walkway. Shin called forth a chain-sickle from his orb, its blade gleaming. He whipped it upward, wrapping it around the cultist's ankle and yanking hard. The man screamed as he was flung downward into the waiting frost field below.
Cultists swarmed the courtyard now, some firing bolts of corrupted energy, others wielding void-twisted weapons that cracked and fizzed with unstable magic.
"Protect the core!" one screamed. "The Ebon Crystal must not fall!"
"We're outmatched! Where is our magic? They're cutting through it!"
Shin appeared above him, descending like the wrath of the moon. This time, he wielded a gleaming odachi, its blade longer than a man's height. With a single horizontal slash, he cleaved through the cultist and sent shockwaves through the cobblestone, fracturing the earth beneath several others who scrambled away.
He swapped again mid-movement, summoning twin tonfa and intercepting two cultists who had breached the inner line. His strikes were rapid, disorienting, his movements an elegant blend of fluidity and devastation.
"Laverna! The east platform!"
"On it!"
She raced forward, vaulting over broken columns. Her feet skated across a thin trail of frost she conjured beneath her, launching her upward. Fire coiled around her jamadhars, which she threw into the supports of the platform. A thunderous explosion followed, and the structure crumbled, burying a dozen enemies.
"Fall back! FALL BACK!"
Zera danced through the wreckage, her blade slicing tendons and armor alike. She and Maika moved back to back, one light and grace, the other speed and fury. They formed a wheel of death in the narrow pass, fending off a surge of reinforcements from the rear tunnel.
Tessara stepped into the center of the outpost, lifting her arms skyward. Her illusions faded, replaced by a single, towering fox silhouette made of moonlight and wind. It roared silently, and the cultists faltered.
"What... what is that thing?!"
"Run! Run! The gods are angry!"
"Now!" Shin thrust his katana into the cracked ground near the Ebon Crystal altar. Lightning from his blade traced the fractures Laverna had made earlier, activating the network of symbols they had embedded during their approach.
"Fire it up!" he called.
Laverna and Zera converged, slamming their weapons into the earth. Fire and light surged into the symbols. Tessara's fox projection collapsed into the crystal like falling stardust.
A pulse of force exploded from the altar.
The sandstone buckled, the sky above fractured like shattered glass, and a final wave of cultists disintegrated in the blast. The entire top of the outpost cracked apart, stone falling into the surrounding canyon in massive, echoing booms.
Shin stood at the center of the smoking crater, breathing heavily, blade still humming.
The group gathered around him.
"That was beautiful," Maika panted.
"That was reckless," Zera muttered, but there was no bite to her words.
Tessara staggered but smiled. "And that was just one outpost."
Laverna turned to Shin, her eyes glowing with embers. "How did you know where all the blind spots were?"
Shin smiled faintly. "I see everything that matters."
Their crests pulsed in quiet resonance.
Foxfire had scorched the darkness tonight.
And it had only just begun.