“Rixha’s Embrace formation. Close the talons!”

  “They’re too fast!”

  “Grant your wings the power of the wind!”

  “Wing mother! The stormwing draws near!”

  “Then rend our enemy before it arrives!”

  Wing mother Qasana’s voice sounded shrill in Ayrie’s helmet.

  She had to be charitable.

  Qasana wasn’t much older than the rest of the wing.

  Though, Qasana hadn’t spoken of it, Ayrie would’ve wagered a week’s wage that the wing mother hadn’t even laid her first clutch.

  Necessity forced change and perhaps, unwise ones.

  Two lost so far against only three enemy.

  She couldn’t help but think her sisters would still be soaring with the wind under their wings had they not been reduced to such a small number.

  Instead, they lay in pieces upon the ugly gray roads of this alien world.

  “I will feel the updrafts of Falkite again,” she whispered.

  “Focus, sister!” Falrie snapped. “We must drive this kreblac to Kayata’s talons!”

  Her clutch sister let loose with a blast of magic from her breastplate gem that punched ugly gray stones at the Earthian’s boots.

  Their artifice offended her sensibilities.

  She saw no issue with machinery the less fortunate landfolk used to taste just a hint of the glorious freedom her wings and inherent magic provided. From massive airships to smaller aerochariots and the like, she could admire the ingenuity.

  But not these pale mockeries worn by the Earthians before her.

  It was as though they sought to be like her, which was ridiculous.

  They could never be like her, no matter how hard they tried with their unsightly straight, dead wings and obnoxiously loud engines.

  “Beware his burning light net, sisters!” Falrie said. “C’mon, Ayrie! Celevix! Get the wind behind you! The structures vanish up ahead. We can’t let him break out of our trap!”

  Celevix went left, so Ayrie went right.

  “Haste.” Ayrie cast the spell to zip ahead, briefly overtaking the fast flying Earthian. Only cheaters relied on artifice to such an extent that they would be nothing without. Would this man be anything without his winged armor? “Wind Wall.”

  She forced him to the left.

  “Razorfeather Barrage!” Celevix screamed, driving him from the right.

  Falrie groaned.

  Celevix of Dramlang’s Thirty-three Spires.

  Celevix the Young as she was known throughout the greater wing due to her age.

  Necessity had brought her to this world.

  The need to seize control of a Terminus World took precedence over all other considerations, including inexperience and low levels.

  Such was the will of their Gods, such was their duty to obey.

  For the glory of their Gods!

  For the glory of the multitudes under them!

  Regardless, Ayrie hoped that Celevix and the rest of the wing wouldn’t have cause to regret the Young already expending her best Skill.

  “Nice, sisters! Kayata is here!”

  The chirpy singsong voice of the eternally unflappable Kayata, she who loved new things beyond what was appropriate, stabbed from the communication gem in one ear.

  The flying Earthian somehow put on a burst of even more speed.

  Ah—

  She forgot about the engines in his boots.

  Reluctantly, she gave them credit for creating something so small, but with so much power.

  She’d never admit it, but she had wondered what it would be like to have them around her talons and on her back.

  Purely to augment her clearly superior natural flying abilities, of course.

  “You’re going to overshoot!” Falrie groaned.

  “Fear not! Kayata’s Magnetic Talons!”

  The flying Earthian’s flight suddenly rose from skimming the ground to angling toward Kayata’s outstretched talons.

  “Come, Earthian! Come and taste Kayata’s piercing talons! Not—”

  Ayrie joined Falrie's groans as Kayata actually stuck her tongue out.

  The last time Kayata had done that in the middle of a battle she had almost bitten straight through it.

  “Kayata’s Thunder Bomblets!”

  Tiny yellow stars fell from her wings into the path of the flying Earthian.

  He plowed through the explosions.

  “Poop!” Kayata snapped. “He’s not dead.”

  Ayrie heard the pout.

  “He lost his magic shield. I saw the light shatter like shards.”

  “Can’t he cast it again?” Celevix said.

  “Not likely, unless he’s a spellcaster. Remember that the scrolls say these flying Earthians rely most on their ugly winged armor for their magic and Skills. Any magic he may have on his own will be weak.”

  “Give chase, sisters!”

  Falrie’s voice sounded urgent for the Earthian headed to the dark, roiling clouds several thousand meters overhead and as much as they hated to admit it the flying Earthian was much faster than them on the climb.

  “Hurr—” Falrie fell silent as they heard the other half of their wing dying.

  “We have to help!”

  “On my wings, sisters. I’m using my Skills.”

  Ayrie flapped her wings, joining the other two in formation a little behind her clutch-sister.

  “Ready to tuck your wings?” Falrie glanced back. “Wing Art: I Carry My Sisters In My Wake.” She paused for a moment. “Speed of the Diving Blaze Falcon.”

  Thunder cracked thrice in quick succession and Ayrie saw naught but the wind rushing past her.

  If not for the enchantments in their helmet and armor the feathers in their wing arms and the flesh of their faces would’ve been peeled off. Their hollow bones, though much stronger than even the stoutest of landfolk, would have fractured under the strain.

  Even with all that it was only with her clutch-sister Skill that enabled such glorious flight speed.

  Two flying Earthians grew larger ahead of them and beyond their enemy?

  A dark shape loomed, growing larger with frightening speed.

  “The Earthian to the rear is our target without a shield. I believe the one flying vanguard is their wing mother,” Falrie said. “Does anyone see the third one?”

  “I see them!” Celevix chirped. “They are flying south, but slowly and without their engines. I think. At least, I don’t see the fire in their back or feet. Should I pursue? I mean, I think I can catch up.”

  “No. We can hunt that one down after we destroy these two.”

  “Falrie. The currents have carried the blood of our sisters to the stormwing. It hunts. Let it feast on our enemy.”

  “We shall ensure our enemies fall into its talons. Then we shall slay it. It will make a fine offering to the departing souls of our sisters.”

  …

  Red 5 glanced.

  “Harpies are hanging back. I don’t get it. They were hitting Mach 3. Did we know they could go that fast?”

  “Record it and put it out of your mind,” Red 1 said.

  “I guess they’re smarter than they look.”

  “They are thinking beings on our level. Better in the air on account of being born to it for who knows how many years.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m not underestimating them.”

  “Looks like they figured out my plan.”

  “Thunderbird’s getting awfully big in my HUD. Why don’t we climb? Harpies can’t reach our max altitude. Thunderbird can, but it might decide to go after easier prey. Skim the upper atmosphere and double back over every fucker up here. Then we pick up Red 2 and head back to base.”

  “That’s a good plan. Except for one issue. If the thunderbird thinks we might escape its reach it’ll turn this storm into a lightning hurricane.”

  Ah… the dreaded lightningcane.

  Red 5 had seen video of it.

  Trained flying inside it in the simulators.

  All of it was terrible and something he had dearly hoped to never experience.

  “We don’t have enough lightning sinks for that.”

  “Not to mention the wind shear.”

  “Forget the wind shear, just the winds…” Red 1 said with an almost sigh. “No, we’ll stick to the plan. We’ll confuse the thunderbird and give it and the harpies the slip when it starts lashing out blindly.”

  “Hopefully, they don’t carry around lightning sinks.”

  He wouldn’t bet points on it.

  Like, Red 1 had said, the harpies were born to the sky.

  They’d know better than anyone the potential environmental dangers and ways to mitigate them.

  “I expect they have spells, Skills and gear to deal with that. I’m counting on those not being enough to deal with that.”

  The dark-feathered bird was a black void in the rain.

  An absence rather than a concrete presence.

  Only revealed by the sheets of water moved out of the way by its bulk.

  Oh, yes, as it approached the rain grew angrier.

  The wind began to lash like a foul slaver’s whip.

  Red 5 shivered.

  The damn thing was a lot scarier in real life than in training, no matter how realistic that had been and to be clear a bit of pee had leaked out of him the first time he had to go up against one in the simulator.

  As always he was thankful for the undersuit that took care of that for him.

  The thunderbird was bigger than an old private passenger jet. It could hit supersonic speeds on dives or in bursts during level flight. Its black eyes crackled with lightning and it drag a raging storm behind it. Its deep cry echoed with greater power than the thunder.

  “Engaging,” Red 1 said.

  Red 5 swallowed a curse and followed his squadron leader into the giant’s beak.

  Wings swept back.

  Thruster pack and boots fired to their max.

  Power was good.

  No shields wasn’t good.

  “Watch the flash,” Red 1 said.

  The tell that a lightning strike was coming.

  “Incoming.”

  Yellow lighting arced out from the thunderbird.

  Red 1 popped a lightning sink from his pack.

  The monster could do a strike every second if it was so inclined.

  Red 5 popped his a split-second before the second strike.

  Magical lighting wasn’t always as fast as natural lightning, which was good. Magical lighting could be aimed and fired like a bullet, which wasn’t good.

  A third strike arced to Red 1’s second lightning sink.

  They alternated for each strike as the distance closed quickly.

  Less than ten seconds and the thunderbird almost filled Red 5’s HUD.

  Wingtip to wingtip.

  “Scissors.”

  Red 1 cut high, firing flares in the thunderbird’s face.

  Red 5 cut low and fired his Kynnro Sphere.

  Yellow and red filled the sky as he swept his wings all the way back and dived.

  Thunder cracked and lightning cried.

  The rain turned dark.

  “Good hit, Red 5. It flew right through it. Link up on its six. Let’s see what the harpies will do now that it’s headed straight to them.”

  The storm suddenly picked up.

  Wind speed and turbulence rose frighteningly quick.

  They crossed over from a tropical storm to a hurricane in what felt like an instant.

  Thunder boomed like automatic gun fire while lighting crackled like trees that suddenly decided to sprout all around them.

  Red 5 popped the last of his lightning sinks and watched it pull strikes away from him.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Something’s wrong,” Red 1 said. “My radar’s flickering, but it almost looks like the storm just doubled in size.”

  “I guess we made it angry.”

  “No. It was near maximum recorded size when we were flying toward it earlier.”

  “I guess we made it really angry.”

  Light flashed and Red 5’s HUD went dark.

  Lightning strike from above.

  To his right several meters away, Red 1 turned and fired everything he had straight up. Arm-mounted gun, chest-mounted spell gems and the last of his minimissiles.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! I’m not dying like this! Work damn you!”

  He couldn’t see well without his helmet’s systems.

  Only the flashes of fire and lightning illuminated the small, distant form of Red 1 and an immense shadow bearing down from above at what seemed like impossible speed.

  The boom scattered the curtains of rain.

  Red 1 vanished from sight just as Red 5’s suit came back to life.

  “Nonononono…”

  No life signs.

  “Red Leader! Do you copy?”

  A second thunderbird turned dinner plate-sized eyes on him.

  “Fuck you, big bird!”

  He fired his remaining spell gems one after another.

  Then his remaining minimissiles.

  The thunderbird beat its massive wings once and sent a wave of water crashing into him.

  Spin cycle.

  He had trained for that.

  Lightning cut through the water and arced across his suit.

  He shot out like a rocket, aiming for the edge of the atmosphere.

  The thunderbird went supersonic, hitting him with a fast-moving wall of air that knocked him out of control.

  Claws large enough to skewer him like a little insect grasped.

  He gave it a taste of his helmet lasers, draining the batteries to nothing and burning out the emitters in that split-second.

  Thank you, aimbot! he thought.

  The thunderbird shrieked its pain and outrage at the lose of a single talon.

  Hot blood splashed across Red 5.

  He took the moment to re-orient back the way they had come.

  No chance he could getaway from a thunderbird now that it was close.

  Thunderbirds only worked together against more powerful threats. Otherwise, they fought over prey like any other predators. Of course, he’d be screwed if these two were a mated pair.

  Better odds didn’t mean good odds.

  …

  Stormwings on every world were faster than them in all phases of flight. Climb, dive and level.

  They couldn’t out fly it long enough before their speed spells and Skills ran out.

  They could out maneuver it at close distance, getting and staying on its tail feathers assuming a relatively calm sky. No rain, no winds, no storm, no lightning. Even then they’d need to handle its ability to shoot and discharge the latter.

  “They blinded it…” Ayrie whispered.

  “Yes. Now it’s angry and headed for us,” Falrie growled. “Damn Earthians!”

  “It can still smell, hear and feel. Although, its sight is its most powerful sense,” Kayata said as she pulled a dull-colored cylinder from her small bag of holding with a mage hand. “Let’s stop flapping and soar for a bit, my sisters.” So said she hurled the canister as far as she could.

  It exploded with a loud bang and bright flash.

  Instantly, the blinded thunderbird turned and dived away from them.

  “We shall have to destroy the Earthians ourselves,” Falrie said.

  “Yay!” Celevix chirped. “I— I mean to avenge our sisters!”

  They followed Falrie and caught up just in time to watch a second stormwing dive out of the black sky and bite one of the flying Earthians in half.

  “Yay!”

  “Quiet!”

  “Sorry!”

  “Two is two too much!” Kayata trilled at her own joke.

  “Clutch-sister?” Ayrie locked eyes with Falrie, willing her to understand and see the sense in Kayata’s words.

  “Agreed,” Falrie replied after a long moment.

  It had been mere seconds, but the delay would prove disastrous.

  The lone flying Earthian put on a sudden burst of speed toward them with the stormwing in close pursuit.

  Yellow light flashed around them, turning rain into steam and illuminating the darkness for a moment.

  Time slowed as Ayrie instinctively activated a Skill to plunge her into a much heightened state of perceptions.

  The blinded stormwing had somehow found them again.

  It called to the storm, battering them with wind, rain and lightning.

  Ayrie fired a burst of razorfeathers from her wings toward the thunderbird.

  Then, the flying Earthian burst through the midst, buffeting and scattering them.

  The second stormwing screamed a bolt of lightning, whether it meant to hit the Earthian or Celevix, Ayrie didn’t know.

  Kayata swooped in front of their youngest sister at the last moment.

  Her shield broke, her armor and feathers scorched as she cried out.

  There was no more lighthearted joy in her voice.

  Celevix shrieked, flapping her wing arms desperately for altitude while firing her attack spell.

  Light arrows struck the stormwing like the rain.

  A single beat of massive wings hit them all with sudden turbulence.

  It had been difficult enough to fly in the stormy winds.

  Falrie swooped down on its massive back, firing spells, then raking her talons up toward the feathered crown of its head.

  “Behind you—” Falrie’s cry died at the same moment the blinded stormwing’s beak snapped down over Celevix.

  Ayrie averted her eyes, but not fast enough to see the youngest’s upper half vanish inside the stormwing’s beak.

  “Kayata isn’t dead yet! Although, she is close… Kayata will avenge the youngest and give you a chance! Fly away, sisters! Tell the others of our glorious ends! I’ll see you in the halls of the Gods! Ten beats in one!” Blackened and charred, but glowing like a star, Kayata burst upward with one mighty wing beat. “Wind Blades!” She cut at the stormwing’s beak, forcing it open so she could fly straight into the open maw.

  Light illuminated the dark-feathered throat for a second before a magical explosion tore it open.

  Kayata of Skytooth had overload her magic gems.

  But that shouldn’t have been enough to produce an explosion of that size and strength.

  Then, Ayrie remembered that one of the things Kayata enjoyed collecting from their Earthian allies was explosives devices. Her wing sister had a bag of holding devoted to the things.

  The stormwing plummeted.

  The storm weakened suddenly.

  As if only half as strong as it had been a moment earlier.

  Ayrie promised both Celevix and Kayata that their glories would be shared.

  “There! Mark Target!” Falrie shrieked. “Don’t let him escape! It cannot be for nothing! Do you understand, clutch-sister? Our sisters cannot have died for nothing!”

  Ayrie saw the red glow in the distance.

  Down toward the mountainous woodlands.

  Dark and foreboding in the night.

  “Then let’s go!”

  “I cannot. I must occupy this stormwing.”

  “Falrie—”

  “Go, Ayrie! I shall join you after both our triumphs.”

  “No. We shall win glory here. Together. Then we hunt the Earthian.”

  “I command you.”

  “We sit on the same branch within the wing.”

  “As your elder clutch-sister—”

  “By seconds!”

  “Nevertheless—” Falrie cursed as she flitted around the stormwing like a tiny sparrow to a giant eagle.

  Lighting flashed from its eyes, singeing feathers.

  Ayrie almost gave chase, but Falrie’s words held weight that wasn’t easily disobeyed even in such a dire situation.

  She reasoned that Falrie would— must do better without her to get in the way and cause worry.

  “I shall return with the Earthian’s head. Please do your best to escape the stormwing. If you don’t, I will be very mad at you.”

  She dived, following the red outline in the distance.

  …

  Red 5 slammed through the treetops, waking every woodland denizen within earshot.

  Angry chittering hit him from all directions.

  He unlocked his arm and thrust it forward, shredding a man-sized squirrel thing in his path with a burst of flechettes.

  Incoming fire warnings blared in his helmet while fireballs rained from above.

  At his speed he couldn’t maneuver much.

  The flight suit wasn’t as agile as a bird in tight quarters.

  It was made to fly in the open sky.

  He cut his thrusters and opened his wings relying on a tree to stop him.

  Armor, exoskeleton and suit’s systems kept him from breaking anything.

  He couldn’t see past the foliage, so he risked it all on a bet.

  Thrusters fired, shooting him back into the storm-drenched night.

  Target lock flashed in his HUD.

  A harpy flew in front of him. Her dark gray feathers couldn’t hide her from his system.

  She flipped as if she knew he was behind her and fired from the magic gem in her breastplate.

  Red 5 shot a cone of cold.

  The two spells canceled each other out.

  The harpy shrieked a Skill or spell— he didn’t know— that killed his HUD.

  A blast of wind knocked him back toward the treetops.

  Razorfeathers joined the rain drops.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he tried to jettison his chest-mounted gems with a cybernetic thought not realizing that his systems hadn’t rebooted. “Eject chest gems!”

  Their covering slid open and each gem popped out whether they still had a charge or not.

  He had a moment to see that several gems had finger-length razorfeathers embedded in them.

  The explosions knocked him all the way to the forest floor.

  The harpy swooped down to the mud with him with a shriek.

  Razorfeathers filled his armor and wings like porcupine quills.

  Searing pain across his body filled his vision with white.

  “Lock target! Fire minimissiles!”

  Did he have any left?

  The harpy cursed.

  Apparently, he had one.

  Smoke and fire engulfed her, but he saw the glowing flickers of a magic shield.

  “Everyone’s got a shield,” he grimaced.

  He rose then fell to one knee.

  “Shit!”

  A razorfeather stuck out of his shin.

  Which was bad.

  However, his suit was pumping him with healing gel to heal and take away much of the pain.

  So, that was good.

  He pulled the feather out, only slightly cutting his glove.

  A sudden crash came from behind him. Like a truck barreling through the brush.

  He didn’t want to be within clawing distance of something that huffed breaths like the throaty growl of an ancient V-8.

  Just imagining the size of the lungs that made the sound made him shiver.

  His HUD lit up.

  “Finally!”

  Red 5 engage his thrusters.

  He stayed above the tree tops, clung to the edges of a shallow canyon at the foot of the mountain, rising toward the top where drakes and wyverns nested.

  The harpy stuck to his six, flinging spells the whole while.

  At least she was out of razorfeathers.

  …

  Ayrie screamed.

  She almost had him!

  But, she let him slip through her talons!

  Fear of the hidden monsters in the forest had sent her flying when she should’ve finished him.

  Now, she struggled, using every last speed boosting spell and Skill she had left to keep on his non-existent tail feathers.

  The mountain peaks loomed above them.

  Scouting had warned about drakes and wyverns, but they believed those monsters weren’t likely to fly out from their nesting sites when a stormwing was nearby.

  The flying Earthian slowed.

  Perhaps, he was wary of the threats on the mountain.

  The light of his ugly engine flickered.

  Perhaps, she had damaged it.

  Regardless, it was she who needed to be wary.

  A full beat of her wings slowed and carried her higher.

  She didn’t fear the projectile spitter on his arm and she had destroyed the spell gems in his armor. She had enough shield energy left to deal with the former.

  Lightning flashed, striking down on the mountain top, sparking a brilliant explosion of orange.

  The light blinded her, spiking pain through large eyes adjusted for the darkness.

  The whistling of tiny birds in flight struck her magic shield.

  She flapped desperately for altitude and distance only for an impact on her right wing arm to send her blurred vision into sparkling lights like fireflies in the dusk.

  …

  Red 5 tumbled into the dark rain.

  His right wing had plowed right through the harpy’s.

  Metal beat bone this time.

  One would be surprised how often that wasn’t true.

  He’d bet big and won.

  She plunged into the forest, swallowed up by the ominous green.

  He stabilized his flight and followed her down.

  Time to end it quickly before monsters got to her.

  …

  Ayrie woke in the shadow of a twisted tree.

  Its branches seemed to be reaching for her like a wizened forest hag’s fingers.

  The rustling of undergrowth told her that its roots were definitely reaching for her.

  She rose and flapped, only to cry out and collapse.

  Her right wing arm had one extra bend.

  She had a healing spell, but it wasn’t a good one and would take time she didn’t have to make her flight capable. She had to set the bone and she didn’t think her mage hands were strong enough to do it.

  Perhaps, she could brace it against the ground or between the branches of a tree that wasn’t trying to eat her.

  She rose on unsteady talons, hopping over a slow moving root.

  “Not today, monster.”

  “Actually…”

  Projectiles tore through her uninjured wing arm.

  The flying Earthian stood in his blasphemous winged armor.

  “Thief of the sky!” she cursed and fired.

  Only for her armor gem to explode, knocking her closer to the monstrous tree.

  “I must’ve cracked your gem. Can’t flap your wings. Can’t shoot your feathers. Did I get it right, big bird?”

  “Then you’ve won. My sisters died for nothing.” She removed her helmet with her mage hands. Let him look upon her face and carry her contempt to the end of his days.

  There he stood.

  Arm spitter pointed.

  His helmet concealed his face.

  Some kind of breathing apparatus over his mouth and nose distorted his voice.

  Even his eyes remained inscrutable behind a dark, rectangular lens.

  He was less a being of flesh and blood like her and more akin to the Gods’ automatons.

  “Do you not have the honor to face me as yourself?”

  “What? Take my helmet off so you can shoot me in the face? No.” He laughed bitterly.

  “I expected no less from one that relied on dishonorable tricks to kill my sisters.”

  A high-pitched yipping sound shattered the rhythmic pounding of the rain on the leaves.

  …

  Red 5 drew his spellpistol and aimed it toward the sound.

  He trusted his HUD to tell him when the coyote-things got closer.

  The clock ticked and he had to make a decision quickly.

  Arm-mounted gun was locked on the harpy’s forehead.

  Some of the guys always joked about wanting a shot at some birdussy.

  Disgusting.

  However, her face was attractive.

  Angular like a raptor, but that didn’t detract.

  Neither did the light gray tint to her skin.

  Even the feathers on her head instead of hair sort of made the whole package work if one was a degenerate, which he wasn’t.

  The rules were simply.

  Don’t kill unnecessarily.

  Take prisoners if it was safe to do so.

  Red 1 and Red 13 were KIA.

  Because of the harpies.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  He couldn’t just shoot her.

  His helmet recorded everything and he couldn’t turn it off or tamper with it.

  They were serious about that sort of thing.

  Maybe he could just fly away and leave her.

  Say that he was going to take her prisoner, but got scared off by the forest monsters.

  They were getting closer.

  Her eyes were awfully big.

  Black pupils crowded out the whites so that only a tiny sliver remained visible at the corners.

  Sharp teeth peeked from thin lips.

  Yeah… only a bunch of degenerates would even think about messing around those things.

  He decided.

  “I’m taking you prisoner. Do not resist. Do not attack. Any hostile actions will be defended against. Cooperate and you will be treated with the respect you don’t deserve.”

  The harpy sputtered and snarled, hurling her people’s invectives at him.

  Something was lost in the translation system because he couldn’t quite picture doing what she told him to do.

  “Do I have your word?”

  She shrieked at him.

  “Or you can stay here and deal with—”

  A tentacled coyote yipped out of the undergrowth.

  He blasted it in its yawning tentacle face with a burst of magic missiles from his spell pistols.

  “Don’t try it.”

  The harpy made to lunge, but was stopped by his steady arm gun.

  “They hang out in packs. Like to rip prey apart with their face tentacles. Got these little suckers filled with circular teeth. Take shallow little circles out of you until you die of blood loss. You’ll be lucky to go into shock early. Or there’s the bears with the tapeworms out of… every orifice. I don’t know if its the worms or the bear in control. I guess that doesn’t matter. No that one won’t kill you. I guess you’d find out who’d be in control.”

  Time ran out.

  He switched his tiny spellpistol for a portal stone.

  “You killed my squadron. You don’t deserve this.”

  He threw the portal stone at her forehead harder than he needed.

  The impact activated its magic.

  She vanished with a faint ripple in reality.

  Red 5 rocketed into the raging storm and headed south toward Red 2’s last known location.