Noah closed the distance fast, Void Striders burning violet beneath him, sprinting flat out across the swamp floor while Rino sailed overhead on the tail end of his leap, still arcing down out of the sky toward the water beyond the treeline.
"Now!" Noah called, and tossed Hibanna up ahead of him, her trident already coming around in a wide slash aimed to catch Rino's flank on the way down.
It never landed.
Something shifted at the back of Rino's skull, a third eye splitting open beneath a ridge of bone nobody would have guessed was there, and the moment Hibanna's trident closed the last few feet, a slab of hard grey shell erupted from between his shoulder blades and swung into the strike's path.
The impact threw her sideways through open air, off her arc entirely, spinning.
"Shit—"
Noah changed direction mid-sprint, watching her fall, cutting the angle hard, and closed the gap just in time to catch her before she hit the ground wrong.
"You okay, Princess?"
