BOOM.
Lucas landed beside Noah and the alien coastline split under his boots, cracks running outward in every direction from the impact point, the stone giving way in a ring that kept expanding until it hit the water and the water jumped.
Valor was in his hand and the sound coming off it was wrong. Not the passive hum of a resting weapon. Something sustained and climbing, an hour of alien storm charge sitting in the blade with nowhere to go, the metal running so hot with stored energy that the air immediately around it distorted.
His eyes were full blue. No iris. No white. Just light.
He looked at Kruel across the crater.
Kruel looked back at him.
"Ahh," Kruel said. "There he is. The one with the lightning."
Lucas looked at Noah on one knee beside him, blood on his chin, the E.N.D armor running its cycles, forty minutes of damage sitting in his body and him still here anyway.
"Let's end this guy," Lucas said.
He threw Valor directly at Kruel.
