Darian was still beside Lyra when he saw it.
The distortion behind them deepened. The air warped inward, folding in on itself as if something was forcing its way through. Smoke spiraled into the widening tear.
Something pushed through.
A jagged, unnaturally bent limb emerged first, claws scraping marble as it pulled itself out. Another followed, then the rest of the creature tore through the air.
The creature landed hard.
It barely held a humanoid frame. Its stretched torso shifted as if undecided on a final shape. Its elongated, dog-like head sported densely layered, non-sensical teeth, while its skin flickered and reformed in constant adjustments.
And then it focused on Lyra.
Darian felt the shift before it moved. The intent locked in, sharp and immediate.
It lunged.
It compressed and snapped forward, driving straight toward her. Darian moved to intercept—but something else hit first.
Boro slammed into it from the side, horns leading the charge. The impact thundered, cracking the courtyard's marble and halting the monster's advance.
"Boro says get off her!" Boro roared.
The beast didn't stagger. Instead, it compressed. Seams folded inward with unnatural precision, limbs reforming into bladed extensions that coiled like a loaded spring.
Darian swallowed his dread. "Okay. Okay, fine."
An elongated limb snapped forward. Boro shifted, but the strike clipped his side. "Boro didn't even feel that! I'm fine!" Boro barked, though he winced, bracing himself.
Chaos engulfed the courtyard. Cadets and guards clashed with encroaching bounty hunters.
Nearby, a fallen Spero guard lay beside a standard-issue shock-blade. Darian slid into the rubble, wrenched the heavy blade free, and ignited it. The familiar vibration stung his raw palms, but it would have to do.
"Hold the inner perimeter!" someone screamed.
"Take it down!" Varus's voice cut through the din. "Focus the target! Coordinate your strikes!"
The creature moved with ruthless efficiency, shifting mid-stride. A cadet lunged, but the beast's arm reformed, striking from an impossible angle and sending him skidding away.
Darian intercepted the next strike. The impact rattled his bones and reopened the wounds in his hands. He forced his grip steady. "Don't freak out, don't freak out," he muttered.
Boro anchored the space beside him. "Boro's got this. Keep your head down, man."
"Just watch your own back," Darian shot back. "Don't let it past."
The Spero guards pressed the creature with electrified pikes, but it wasn't enough. A guard thrust his weapon; the creature's chest split into a serrated maw, snapping the pike and swatting the man aside.
"Pin it down!" a guard captain bellowed, right before a sweeping appendage slammed him into the wall. He slumped, groaning.
It adapted too fast—sharpening a claw to parry a sword, then thickening it into a hook to smash a barricade. It was learning.
"Cadets, get behind me! Move!" Halden screamed. Her hex-patterned shield flared to life just in time to catch a barrage of bone-spikes. The barrier shrieked under the kinetic stress. "It's eating the kinetic draw—I can't hold it!"
"Are you guys seriously getting rolled by a stray dog?" a bright voice called out.
Zeri dropped from the parapets with a blindingly confident smirk. "Embarrassing. Relax, I got it." With a flick of her wrists, two massive holographic blasters digitized beside her, charging with pink energy.
"Catch!"
She unleashed a torrent of energy beams, but the creature's flesh bubbled into a mirrored carapace. The beams refracted, scattering harmlessly.
Zeri's smirk twitched. "Okay, wow. Try-hard."
"Who cares? Boro's gonna break it! I'll smash it!" Boro roared. He charged through the refracted light and delivered a devastating uppercut.
The creature reeled, but its lower body instantly dissolved into a fluid mass, dispersing Boro's kinetic shockwave before whipping a tendril around his ankle and dragging him down.
"Big guy, move your ass!" Zeri yelled, laying down suppressing fire that the creature simply absorbed.
Safely tucked behind a fractured support pillar, Darian watched.
His hands throbbed from gripping his weapon in sheer terror. He wanted to run, but running meant getting targeted, and getting targeted meant dying.
He needed this thing dead. More importantly, he needed someone else to do it.
It had endless forms, but could only be one thing at a time. It needed a fraction of a second to change.
He looked at his squad. Zeri's smirk was slipping. Boro was coiling for a reckless leap. Halden was seconds away from releasing her absorbed kinetic energy to avoid being crushed.
Darian realized, his pulse pounding. "Gotta seize the opportunity."
They were about to attack at the exact same moment.
Darian saw an opportunity to save his own skin. He slipped back toward a severely cracked support pillar holding up tons of strained steel rigging. It was a perfect trap.
"Whatever, just die!" Zeri's voice cracked nervously, unleashing a wild sweep of rapid-fire plasma. The creature shrieked, forced to thin its armor to evade.
Seeing her move, Boro launched himself into the air, bringing both fists down like a meteor.
Caught being evasive, the creature panicked, frantically bulking its upper body into dense armor.
At that exact second, Halden's shield hit its limit. With a fierce cry, she thrust her hands forward, venting pent-up energy in a solid ram of light that slammed into the creature's chest.
The beast glitched.
It was trying to disperse against Zeri, heavy up top against Boro, and braced for a frontal assault all at once. Its forms overlapped hideously as its cells screamed in confusion.
"Owe you guys," Darian muttered.
Using his weapon as a lever, he threw his weight against the cracked pillar. It snapped. The courtyard's upper rigging gave way, sending a cascade of steel and stone crashing directly onto the glitching beast.
Dust exploded outward, blinding them all.
The creature shrieked—a sound of structural failure. It tried to shed its mass to escape, but the adaptations cascaded out of control. Armor formed and shattered.
Through the settling dust, Darian walked forward.
His knees felt like water, but he knew he had to finish it before it recovered. He forced a calm, predatory swagger, masking his terror as he checked for any sign it could still strike.
He found the chaotic, vibrating core where its flesh couldn't decide what to become.
Darian raised his weapon. He pitched his voice to project a calm, manufactured cool. "Yeah. Stay down."
He plunged the blade into the heart of the instability—not out of bravery, but a ruthless desire to survive.
An explosive shockwave of blue light erupted. The creature convulsed violently, its internal structure unraveling until the monstrous form dissolved into ash and lay completely still.
Silence rushed back into the courtyard.
Darian exhaled a ragged breath, disguising it as a weary sigh. He stood tall amidst the wreckage, making sure his silhouette looked stoic in the dust.
Behind him, Boro laughed in pure relief and collapsed. Zeri dismissed her blasters with an exhausted smile, and Halden lowered her glowing hands, looking at Darian with profound respect.
The guards looked at the scattered remains, then at the cadet who had ended it.
They saw a fearless hero. Darian just saw another day he didn't die.