“Override!” Laurent yelled back.
“First temperature lock module override confirmation,” the AI prompted.
Between his attempts to hit back or writhe out from beneath James, Laurent answered, “Confirm!”
A furious, screaming trance stole over James as his fist rained down upon the cracking remains of Laurent’s helmet.
“Second temperature lock module override confirmation.”
“Confirm! Override!” Laurent’s time was running out—little remained of his cracked visor to protect him from James’s fists and the ice that would follow.
“Final temperature lock module override confirmation.”
At that moment, it made sense to Liam—Laurent knew he wasn’t getting out of this match alive. His obsession with the Chevalier would manifest one last time in a violent supernova.
He’s willing to risk baking himself alive in that suit…
Laurent’s suit would burn through the entirety of its lucidium reserve in four hellish seconds—with all temperature locks overridden, the three of them would burn alive.
“Override!” Laurent screamed one final time. He pushed back against James, “You will know hell!”
“James, move!” Liam cried.
A plume of fire erupted around Laurent’s fists. The surrounding ice melted as Laurent summoned a whirling inferno. The fire exalt kicked James off and rolled aside to conjure a cascade of flames in his wake.
James stumbled back through the melting ice, pushed dangerously close to the bridge’s edge.
Liam raced through the steam in panic. He swirled the meteor hammer, gathering up all the force and momentum he could muster, and aimed for Laurent. The inferno engulfed the spiked orb, and the heat was enough to destabilize the weight and rhythm of Liam’s attack.
The chain bound to the orb melted and snapped. The meteor broke free and cut past Laurent. It rolled haphazardly through melting ice and sizzled through pools of ice runoff.
Laurent only laughed as he dodged the melting cords of metal that whipped around him. Liam’s ranged attacks would not cut it—he would have to get in and finish what James started if here was any chance of ending this battle.
James lunged for Laurent. The Eighth Pillar met the ice exalt with another wave of fire. That had been the last step of their dance.
Blinding heat burned away at James just long enough for Laurent to take the discarded meteor orb and pitch it into James’s chest like a massive medicine ball.
Liam had but a second to glimpse his brother toppling back over the railing and into the abyss of clouds below.
06 | Vengeance
Liam called out his brother’s name and deployed a lifeline of cords to try and stop his fall. The cords went taut around Liam’s arm as James took hold. Laurent tackled Liam before he could pull James back up to the bridge. Liam struggled against the fire exalt and kept a white-knuckled grip.
The weight on the cord shifted as James’s freefall became a face-first swing straight for the columns beneath the bridge. Liam breathed a sigh of relief when James’s fall broke with a cursed grunt. Just hearing confirmation of his brother’s survival was enough.
Laurent looped one arm under Liam’s chin and bore his knew down into Liam’s back with his full body weight. Despite Liam’s struggle, Laurent wrestled Liam into submission and his arm curled into a chokehold. Liam roared with his attempt to tear away from Laurent’s efforts to break his neck.
He could feel the fatigue in Laurent’s body. The Eighth Pillar was baking himself alive in his own sentisuit. Liam could feel it in the tiring of Laurent’s screams and the silence that followed his nonsensical ramblings about protecting the Chevalier.
“James, hurry up! I can’t hold him forever!”
“I’m climbing!” James answered.
Liam’s LCR depleted as the flames licked at the cords binding him to James. At that point in the fight, the only amalgamation of metal Liam could muster had a pathetically low melting point against Laurent’s unrestrained fire.
Even in that moment, wrestling under Laurent, Liam could only watch in horror as the cords softened and perspired small droplets of liquefied brass and lead. When fully exposed to the flames, the woven iron threads at the heart of each cord would melt and split.
Laurent’s sentisuit hummed and strained to keep the interior cooled against the inferno around them. Scorching heat leaked through the cracks in Laurent’s armor. That armor couldn’t possibly take much more abuse.
Liam elbowed Laurent and did his best to fight with one hand literally tangled up in a metal lifeline to his brother. Every motion was a blur of tangled limbs and brief glimpses of wild bloodlust in the Eighth Pillar’s eyes.
Liam’s luck ran out. His strangled arm, tangled in cords, was suddenly free of James’s weight. The dripping remnants of the cord whipped free as Liam’s stomach sank.
No—James!
The fire exalt laughed and pinned Liam again before he could attempt to catch his falling brother. Liam’s senses dulled and his head spun. He could hardly keep up with Laurent’s wrestling in the seconds that followed the snap of the cord. The realization that James had fallen hit Liam with numbing force.
A tidal wave of utter pain swallowed Liam. He could only sense the free-fall that consumed his brother in that moment.
Laurent’s hoarse laughter boomed as reality caved in on Liam.
The Eighth Pillar grabbed Liam by the back of the helmet and yanked his head back. Liam’s face then smashed into the ground with dizzying repetition. His visor had already taken damage in the blast of the alkali bomb. Now, those cracks split even deeper across his visor.
Liam’s body gave exhausted protest in his efforts to struggle back against Laurent. His limbs felt too damned heavy to move and his adrenaline surge dwindled into fatigue.
Every crash of his face into the ground knocked his head against the inside of his cracking visor. Sharp pieces of lucidium-plated polycarbonate cut into his skin as he squeezed his eyes shut and felt the inferno’s heat trickle in.
Warnings of compromised armor integrity chimed and fell on deaf ears. Liam conjured more cords from his waning lucidium reserves. All he had left were pathetic metals that could barely withstand the
