Page 323 of Scarlet Wars
Our own Offensives hit back just as hard. Concussive blasts rattled the ground under my feet. Smoke burst into the air. Magic-laced sound disruptors cracked through the noise like thunder.
On my right, a pulse of power slammed into three Alliance magi and sent them flying. One of them didn’t get back up.
Somewhere to my left, a Radical tackled an Alliance Offensive mid-cast and drove him straight into the cobblestones. The sound of bone breaking cut through everything else, loud enough to make my stomach twist.
And suddenly everyone was screaming.
People were running. Falling. Bleeding.
There were no sides anymore. No clear battle lines. Only bodies colliding, magic colliding, everyone fighting the person right in front of them and hoping they were faster.
I ducked a bolt of flame that scorched the air above my head, my pulse hammering so hard it drowned out half the noise around me.
“James!” I shouted, turning mid-motion. “We need to push them into the split. If they stay coordinated, we’ll lose ground fast.”
“Working on it,”he shouted back, already in motion. I saw him across the platform, blood streaking down the side of his face, shouting orders, running faster than most people could think.
“Flank the east side.”
“Separate Coastal from Alliance.”
“Fracture the ring.Now.”
An Offensive came at me from the left. Coastal colors.
Quick, brutal, translation coiling around his fists like he thought that made him special. I barely managed to sidestepas he lunged, a compact blast clipping my ribs and sending me spinning into the cold stone.
Pain detonated, but I swallowed the scream.No time for that.
I twisted, drove my palm into the ground, and sent a shockwave of crimson energy ripping outward. It launched him off his feet and slammed him into the base of a stone column hard enough to make the structure complain.
Next.
Sisu this time: fast, quiet, and irritatingly graceful. Her sickle flashed silver as she swung. She was already mid-strike when I caught her wrist with both hands, yanked her off balance, and drove my knee into her gut.
She gasped.
I didn’t.
I slammed her into the ground and finished her with my Skindo.
My scarlet haze snapped tighter around me, like it was just as done with everyone’s bullshit as I was.
Across the battlefield, bodies moved like smoke: James, Caden, Cara, Radicals and Offensives colliding in bursts of light and blood, when another surge of light split the air, and then…Jacksonportaled in, boots slamming down hard on the cracked stone, eyes blazing with fury.
Sean spun as panic flashed across his face. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Jackson didn’t flinch. “You think I’m gonna sit this one out?”
“You’re not an Offensive!”
“So what?” Jackson snapped, already drawing his blade. “I can fight.”
Sean left his position and ran forward. “Jackson, this isn’t some street brawl, this is a war zone. You’re not trained for?—”
“Don’t youdaretalk to me about what I can’t handle.” Jackson straightened his back with raw defiance. “Ask Emma. She was there when the Radicals breached Cyclos’s Layers. She knows what I do when my Collective is under attack. SheknowsI don’t run.”
His eyes flicked to me, and I saw it. The determination. The desperate need not to be useless. I knew he was here because he couldn’t live with himself if hedidn’tcome.
