The slope looked chewed up.

Snow cut by steps. Craters from shockwaves. Golden dust drifting where bodies had fallen and turned to ash. Miners stumbled through the corridor they'd opened. Gravers came last, bleeding and stubborn. Nobody stopped. Nobody screamed. There wasn't time.

Even more came out of the trees.

Not smarter. Just meaner. Long arms, some with two, some with four… A few carried shapes like shields grown from forearms. One had springy, animal legs and moved like it had been born on ice.

"Left hinge" Raizen said. Calm. Tired enough. Sharp.

He didn't lead with orders after that. He led with speed.

A Nyx cut for a miner's spine. Raizen vanished and reappeared between them. One step, a short dash, a kick, and a slice you couldn't trace with a ruler. The miner lived, but the Nyx didn't. Golden ash lifted and blew away.

Another came from high right. Raizen hit a trunk, changed angle in the air, and crossed it twice before his boots landed. The Nyx tried to learn his line. Too slow. Copying is slower than deciding.

Hikari slid in on his flank. Quiet. Breath steady. Her staff turned and locked a blade with the clean click of habit. A thin ray jumped from the tip and drew a blue line through a plated elbow. Or at least, it tried to.

Her eyes were clear. Her cheeks were white with cold, and pink with something else. She stood like the fight had picked the wrong person.

"Two on your back" she said.

"Already have them" Raizen said, and he did.

On the right pocket, Arashi braced into the wind. His pistols hummed green. Clean pressure wrapped in light, firing hard and straight. He shot the simple ones where it counted. He shot the big ones where they were weak. But the weak spots were fewer and fewer. Still, a plated chest that laughed at his first tap didn't laugh after the third, not when he tried three overcharged shots.

Static clawed his ear. "what are - doin - coord - hold - on the - way" Alteea's voice, torn up and thin, trying to get through.

"Still trying, huh?" he muttered, and kept shooting.

Keahi held the midline like a gate that didn't open. Flame dancing on the edge again. The heat wasn't a show. It was a warning. She let the Nyxes come to her and paid them back with small, smart cuts. Elbow. Knee. Wrist. Each stroke left a red-orange seam that didn't close fast enough, and a trail of fire that couldn't catch up with the cut.

Her right-hand guard glowed faintly. She'd already burned too long. No one told her to stop.

A spring-leg Nyx bounded high and came down with both forearms flattened, like they tried to be miner hammers. Hikari stepped in and took one with the staff. The second hit Keahi's blade and slid off, trailing steam.

"Thank you" Keahi said, not looking.

"Just keep going" Hikari said.

"I am."

Up the slope, Esen and Ichiro kept their rhythm alive. Stone ribs, pillars and whatnot. Hard steps. Low walls. Esen bounced stair to stair, Rings on his fingers flashing, and shockwaves falling like heavy drums. He was bleeding through his wrap. But he didn't stop. Ichiro kept building under him. When Esen missed a foothold, a foothold appeared. When he needed a wall to push off, a wall grew.

"Above - three!" Ichiro called.

"Holy! So many? Where do they even come from??" Esen dropped a strong pulse into a carved trough, and it ran forward and broke three shapes at once. Two died. One kept crawling. Raizen ended it in passing.

Rust Room training had it's part, when it came to Hikari, Raizen, Keahi and Arashi

They moved when they were told, and when they weren't. They cut, killed, covered and didn't collapse. Most squads would've broken long ago. But they? They survived inside a metal box that low-key tried to kill them. This was familiar. The body remembered how to last. The mind got quiet.

The Nyxes adapted. They copied angles. They switched limbs from blunt to sharp mid-swing. They learned to hate Arashi's ricochets. They raised things that hardly could be called shields against Arashi and tried to mirror Hikari's footwork. A few learned fast enough to be a problem.

Raizen changed the rhythm every time they did.

A shield raised high. He hit low. A tail swung wide. He stepped into the base and cut where it was soft. A runner sprinted straight. He took its legs and let the rest fall. The slope kept trying to be a trap. He kept turning it into a map.

Hikari bought breaths in hard places. She drew a quick circle with the staff and let a dozen bright spears form above, then fall. Not a storm like before. Enough to pin two heavy bodies to the snow. The spears melted back to air a heartbeat later. She had already moved on. A small energy ball snapped off her staff and blew open a chest that thought it was safe. She didn't look at it. She was watching Lynea's back.

Lynea skated through the mess, violet rings spinning at her ankles, fragments snapping out and back in tight circles. She was only speeding up

Arashi's shoulder complained. He ignored it. He set the sights, breathed once, and made the shots you only make when you've missed it a thousand times in training. He banked a green pulse off a short ramp Ichiro lifted for him and took another Nyx down.

"Cooling?" Hikari asked, sliding past.

"Uh… Later" Arashi lied.

Keahi drove a heavy body back with three hot strokes and a short shoulder check that rattled both of them. A plated limb smashed down, missed her head by an inch, and hit her armor instead. Metal rang. Heat spat from the seam.

"You good?" Raizen asked as he crossed behind her.

"Always" she said, and grinned like a dare.

They just kept coming. Unusual amounts. Stronger every time. It was like…

Something else was sending them. It was like…

They were being tested by something.

A pair with shield-arms tried to box Raizen in. He dashed through a tree shadow, touched bark with the heel of his boot, and cut a clean X between them. The first one learned too late. The second reached for him and hit green instead - Arashi's shot shut its head off.

Esen's rings boomed again. The shockwaves hit a truck and folded any Nyx in half. Ichiro's walls took hits that should have crushed them. They cracked. He rebuilt. But every time, the next attack was less accurate, the walls were less durable.

Static tore the air. "Team Three - do not - stay - Van - five mi - ETA -" Alteea again. Sirens behind her.

But the Nyxes never got tired. All above fortitude five. All wrong for this many minutes in the world.

Hikari's breath fogged. She forced it to be steady. Her palms were hot and cold at once. She planted and sent five quick attacks in a row, each no wider than a finger, each doing strictly what had to be done.

Arashi overcharged. The pistols glowed brighter. Heat climbed the grips into his bones. He took the overpriced shot anyway. It punched through a shield-arm and clipped the soft joint behind it. The thing howled. He smiled without humor. "Got you" he said, to keep his hands from shaking.

Keahi's blade burned hotter. Not a blaze. But more than enough. Small flames kissed the edge with every cut. She stopped going for kills and started going for space. A wrist. A knee. Anything that could buy them time. "Move!" she called, and people moved.

Raizen carried the corners. A Graver fell. Raizen was there. A miner tripped. Raizen was there. A heavy blade came down toward Hikari's neck. Raizen was there. Quicker than anything else. He didn't look at her. He didn't need to. She was already past him, saving someone else.

He was tired. He didn't show it. He was bleeding. He didn't care.

Rust Room hours lived in his hands. The angles were clean. The footwork was fair. He didn't waste breath. He didn't waste motion. He didn't waste lives.

"Raizen - exact- coor - if you -" Alteea again, like a hand knocking on a locked door.

He didn't even bother with answering.

"Hold the line!" Keahi called, voice steady and hot. "One minute!"

It wasn't a real minute. Time acted like it was broken. It meant: don't fall. It meant: be the wall.

They were the wall.

Esen slipped and caught himself with a ring slap that cracked the air and almost broke his back. "Still hilarious" he gasped.

Arashi's shots turned narrow and cruel. No flourishes. No show. Just a list of necessary things that had to stop being alive.

Raizen took a breath that hurt and kept moving.

Then the air changed.

First, a low tremor. Not the mountain. Not the Nyxes. A sound with purpose. A thudding that rolled over the slope and pushed the snow flat in rings. Shadows crossed the cloud.

Engines.

Someone laughed. Someone shouted. No one looked down.

A quadcopter tore the gray open and dropped into view, rotors beating the air into sense. A second hovered behind it. A third roared in from the left. Ropes fell. Boots hit snow hard and clean. White cloaks. Heavy harness. The first figures moved like the ground was a thing that always listened to them.

More engines behind. A fast shadow cut lower, then jumped a ridge and came straight at them - no, above them - then something let go and fell like a thrown spear.

Keahi smiled, small and private. "Finally."

Alteea's voice punched through, clear for once, all steel. "Vanguards on site. Hold your line."

Raizen didn't look back.

He raised his blades.

The first Vanguard hit the slope. Then another. Division Two's second-years dropped from the quadcopter in a clean, practiced wave. A taller figure landed like a hammer in front of them, snow exploding around their boots.

The fight didn't stop.

It just changed.

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