CALABAR — STREETS — SAME TIME
Praise ran.
The city blurred past her—abandoned cars, shuttered shops, streets cracked and stained with something that wasn't water. Behind her, bullets ricocheted off walls and pavement, filling the air with the high-pitched whine of fragments seeking flesh.
She didn't look back.
She couldn't.
A bullet grazed her shoulder. Another tore through the edge of her sleeve. The ricochets were worse—they came from angles she couldn't predict, bouncing off buildings ahead of her, behind her, above her.
Hoplos.
She'd read the briefing. A Phobia 30 years ago that was exorcised but this is not what was described as now he seemed like a hybrid between human and monster—unprecedented—. Guns growing from his body. Bullets that never missed. But the briefing hadn't prepared her for this.
She rounded a corner, slid behind a delivery truck, and pressed her back against the metal. Her chest heaved. Sweat dripped into her eyes.
Afterglow.
She had one active. The golden sphere floated somewhere behind her, showing her the battlefield in 50 meters of perfect 3D vision. She closed her eyes and saw.
David and Jonathan were blocks away. Alive. Moving. Fighting something—not Hoplos. Something else.
And Hoplos himself? He was advancing. Slow. Deliberate. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Guns grew from his shoulders, his arms, the back of his head. His skin was gunmetal grey—dark, metallic, cold. Spent shell casings were embedded in his arms and chest, clinking softly with every step. A shotgun crown surrounded his head, barrels pointing outward like a halo of pure firepower.
Where his mouth should have been, a dark muzzle. Smooth. Round. Smoking faintly.
He was terrifying.
Praise dismissed the Afterglow. Fired another bolt into the sky. The golden sphere bloomed again, repositioned, showed her everything.
She saw the bullets coming.
She ran.
"Solar Flare."
The bolt detonated between Praise and Hoplos—not to hurt him, to blind him. Golden light flooded the street. The ricochets stopped.
Praise moved.
She didn't run away. She ran toward the explosion, through the light, through the debris. Her foot connected with Hoplos's chest.
The impact sent him skidding backward. He caught himself, looked up, and saw Praise standing where he had been, one leg extended, her golden aura flickering around her.
"What are you?" she asked.
Hoplos tilted his head. The shotgun crown around his face rotated slightly, barrels tracking her movement.
"I'm the middle child," he said. His voice wasn't a voice. It was the distant crack of gunfire. The echo of spent casings hitting concrete. "The forgotten one."
Praise didn't understand.
She didn't need to.
Hoplos fired first.
Bullets erupted from his shoulders, his arms, the back of his head—a storm of lead and copper and hate. Praise didn't try to block. She moved.
Her fighting style was all legs. Years of training had taught her that her hands were for her crossbow, her feet were for everything else. She spun, kicked, pivoted—deflecting bullets with the soles of her shoes, using the walls to push off, to change direction mid-air, to stay moving.
Hoplos had no formal combat training. He didn't need it. His instincts were ancient, borrowed from the fear that birthed him. He swung his arm like a club, firing as he moved, using recoil to adjust his balance.
He wasn't a fighter.
He was a weapon.
Praise closed the distance. Her leg swept low—he jumped. Her knee rose—he blocked with a forearm, the gun there firing harmlessly into the sky. She twisted, drove her heel into his ribs.
He grunted. Grabbed her ankle.
"Got you."
His fist connected with her stomach.
The impact lifted her off the ground and sent her crashing through the window of a ground-floor shop. Glass shattered. She tumbled through shelves, came up coughing, bleeding.
Hoplos stepped through the broken window.
Praise wasn't there.
She had climbed. The ceiling. The rafters. She dropped onto his back, silent, her arms locking around his throat, her legs wrapping around his torso—pressing herself against him so there was no angle for his guns to fire without hitting himself.
"You can't shoot me here," she whispered.
He shot forward.
The recoil from his shoulder-mounted rifles launched both of them across the room. They crashed into the far wall—concrete cracked, dust exploded. Praise took the impact, her back breaking the fall, her arms still locked.
Hoplos grabbed her arm. Ripped it from his throat.
"I don't need to shoot you."
He threw her through the window.
Glass exploded around her. She tumbled across the hood of an abandoned car, hit the ground, rolled.
A shadow passed overhead.
Praise looked up.
She was beautiful.
Slender and athletic, with pale grey skin and faint fracture lines that pulsed orange with every heartbeat. Her face was striking—sharp cheekbones, full lips, eyes that burned with the deep orange of a dying fire. Black tactical pants. Cropped armored vest. A red light blinked steadily in her sternum.
She raised her hand.
"Three. Two. One."
A projectile shot from her palm—not a bullet, something else. Praise's hands came up. Golden light coalesced into a shield, barely formed, barely there.
The explosion hit.
The shield held. Praise flew backward, crashing through a wall, through another, coming to rest in the middle compartment of a collapsing building.
Hoplos stepped out of the rubble.
"Leave her alone."
Boom hovered in the air, her orange eyes glowing.
"I can't find the boys, brother. Let me play with yours."
"No."
"I'm going to report this to older brother."
"I don't care."
Boom pouted—a strange expression on a face that had just tried to kill someone. She turned and flew away, her orange light fading into the smoke.
Hoplos turned back to the building.
A golden bolt smashed into his chest.
He flew backward, crashing through the window he had just exited. Praise stood in the broken frame, her crossbow manifested, her arms steady.
"I'm not done with you."
He recovered fast.
Bullets erupted from his body—not aimed, sprayed. Praise dove behind a wall, felt concrete explode behind her. She ran. Jumped. Spun. Her acrobatics were elite—trained into her bones, polished by years of survival.
Hoplos followed. His bullets followed.
They entered a tunnel.
"Why would you make it easier to shoot you?" Hoplos asked. His voice echoed off the concrete walls.
Praise ran deeper.
Ok. This should be enough.
She stopped. Turned. Manifested her crossbow.
The bolt she charged wasn't standard. It was huge—dense with Faith, glowing like a second sun, filling the tunnel with golden light.
"Solar Flare."
The bolt didn't explode.
It consumed.
The tunnel became a river of gold. Hoplos was at the center of it, his body flailing, his guns firing blindly, his metal skin cracking under the pressure.
When the light faded, Hoplos was still standing.
Barely.
Praise dismissed her crossbow. Picked up a broken pole from the debris. Golden light flowed into it, imbuing it.
She ran back toward him.
Then Boom appeared again.
She didn't announce herself. She just flicked her hand. A projectile shot from her fingers—small, fast, invisible.
Praise sensed it. Raised a shield. The explosion knocked her sideways, sent her crashing into a wall. Her shoulder was bleeding now—seriously bleeding—the fabric torn, the skin beneath raw and wet.
"I told you to LEAVE!"
Hoplos raised his arm. Not at Praise. At Boom.
The bullet that left his hand was different—denser, darker, meaner. It struck Boom in the chest. She didn't bleed. She cracked.
"You didn't have to be mean," she said.
Then her body detonated into fragments—a decoy. She hadn't been there at all.
Hoplos lowered his arm. His breathing was heavy. His metal skin was dimming.
"I hate this human body," he muttered. "Why is it so weak?"
He turned.
Praise was standing across from him, leaning on her imbued pole, her face pale, her lips cracked. Sweat soaked her uniform. Her shoulder was still bleeding.
They were both exhausted.
"You're still here," he said.
"So are you."
He raised his hand. Fired.
The bullets were weaker now. Praise deflected them—not with her crossbow, with the pole. Each swing sent a bullet spinning away, harmless.
She walked toward him.
He fired faster. She deflected faster.
Ten precise bolts from her crossbow—manifested, fired, dismissed in the span of a heartbeat—curved around Hoplos. He dodged them. They flew past him, embedding themselves in the tunnel walls.
He raised his hand again.
Click.
Nothing.
He pulled the trigger. Click. Empty. Shells dropped from his arms, his shoulders, his head—clinking against the concrete, rolling away.
"You're empty," Praise said.
She dropped the pole and ran at him.
She spun.
Her leg rose—not fast, not slow, perfectly. The kick connected with Hoplos's jaw. His head snapped back. She landed, pivoted, kicked again. His chest. His ribs. His stomach.
He tried to block. Too slow.
She was in his space, too close for his guns to track, too fast for his instincts to catch.
He swung wildly. She ducked. He tried to grab her. She stepped through it, behind him.
"You're done."
She kicked the back of his knee. He fell.
"Not yet."
He raised his left hand. The pistol on his forearm—still loaded, still ready—fired into her leg.
Praise screamed.
The bullet tore through her calf. She stumbled, caught herself, held on. Her hand grabbed his collar.
"You forgot something."
She pushed him back.
The ten bolts she had fired earlier—the ones he had dodged—came back.
They hadn't missed. They had waited. Praise had guided them, curved them, sent them on a loop that would bring them home.
They struck Hoplos from every angle—back, chest, arms, head.
The force shattered his metal skin. Cracks spiderwebbed across his frame. His guns fell from his body, clattering to the ground.
He fell.
Praise stood over him, vomiting blood. Then vomiting a strange green liquid. Then nothing.
She collapsed.
SOMEWHERE ELSE
The Lord watched.
Sonia sat on a piece of rubble, swinging her legs, whistling softly.
Beside them, a figure towered—taller than both, massive shoulders, skin blackened and scarred. A missile nose cone formed the top of his skull. Countdown timers were embedded in his chest and arms, frozen at "00:01."
"Someone has killed my kid brother," Hero said. His voice was an air-raid siren. A Geiger counter crackling.
The Lord smiled.
Sonia kept whistling.