The hostile bearer came out of the half transformation angrier than before.
Elias's shot had damaged something, but not enough. The man's face sealed under warped armor, and the dark Ikona above him pressed both hands into the air like it was forcing a lid shut.
Marcus crawled away from the road center, one arm clamped across his ribs.
"That thing has a second battery," he said through gritted teeth.
"I noticed the unfairness in the arrangement."
Elias tried to step back and found the bus at his spine.
Dot's voice thinned. "I cannot hold another plate because the last pull took too much."
"Then we avoid needing another one."
"That is not enough of a plan, but it is where desperate plans usually begin."
The hostile bearer moved before Elias could answer.
Elias fired twice. The first shot cut sparks from shoulder armor. The second punched into the already damaged face. The man dropped to one knee, and for half a second Elias thought the fight had finally found a rule.
The armor broke open.
The man inside burst forward without it.
He was burned, bleeding, and fast. He swept Elias's legs before Elias could bring the pistol down again. The road hit his back. A hand closed around his throat and drove him harder into the concrete.
Air stopped.
The man's face hovered above his, stripped of armor on one side and twitching from whatever the Ikona had done to keep him moving.
"Your shard hides in old metal," the man said. "Mine says it will still taste the same."
Elias clawed at his wrist. The grip tightened.
A blade formed in the man's free hand, not steel, not bone, but something between. It angled toward Elias's chest.
Dot shouted his name from far away as blue light cut across the road.
The man's arm separated above the elbow.
He lurched backward, screaming. A boot struck him in the face and drove him into the side barrier hard enough to dent the panel.
Elara stood between him and Elias with a compact blade in one hand. The weapon's edge carried a tight blue line that made the air around it distort. Four soldiers moved in behind her, rifles up and spacing clean.
Elias rolled to his side and dragged air into his lungs. It hurt enough that he almost laughed.
Elara did not look down yet.
"Team Two, cover the wounded officer and candidates. Team Three, mark the hostile's exit routes. Nobody closes unless I call it."
Her soldiers moved, and only then did she glance at Elias.
"Can you speak without passing out?"
"Badly, because people keep asking me that."
Elara crouched beside him. "Then use short answers with useful facts."
He pushed himself against the bus, one hand on his throat.
"Hostile shard bearer with armor transformation and a dark Ikona above him. It feeds the armor and repairs damage. Plasma slows him, bullets hurt exposed gaps, and a head shot cracked the transformation without keeping him down."
Elara's visor turned toward the hostile, who was already rising with one arm gone and a new claw beginning to push from the stump.
"Did he name an affiliation for himself?"
"He wanted my shard and said the world would break free, which is all he volunteered."
Marcus coughed near the bus steps. "He also called us children after getting shot by half of us."
Elara gave Marcus a brief look. "Stay down and keep pressure on your ribs."
"Yes, Commander, I am staying down now."
Elias tried to find Dot. He could feel her, but faintly, tucked deep near the watch.
"Dot is not answering me right now," he said.
Elara's head turned a fraction. "You mean your Ikona, the one called Dot?"
He had not meant to say it out loud. Too late.
"Yes, she burned herself out helping me survive that thing."
Elara absorbed that faster than he liked.
"Then do not force another pull. Your bond may tear before your body does."
The hostile bearer laughed from the barrier. Blood ran down his side and steamed where blue blade energy had cauterized the stump.
"Another hidden one is standing there," he said to Elara. "How many did the cage keep for itself?"
Elara raised her blade.
"Enough to make your day worse."
A command voice came through her earpiece, loud enough for Elias to catch pieces.
Eliminate target. Recover body. Preserve shard if possible.
Elara's jaw tightened.
"Understood, command has been received and logged," she said, but the word carried no obedience Elias could trust.
She stepped forward, blade angled low.
The hostile bearer's dark Ikona unfolded behind him, bigger now, draining something from the air.
Elias stayed against the bus because standing was no longer an option.
For the first time since the roadblock began, he was not the person holding the line.