Fire exploded from Notori’s hands in a roaring arc, forcing one of the shadowed figures to bank sharply through the air. Lili didn’t waste the opening. Her black wings snapped downward, hurling her across the air in the opposite direction. One of the attackers gave chase. Its body dissolved into shadows before reforming only a few meters away. Darkness erupted from Lili’s fingertips, lashing toward the attacker. He twisted aside barely avoiding the strike.
Another presence slid into her awareness. It simply drifted through the air slowly toward her. A strange pressure occupied her mind.
“Why are you fighting us… sister? We never wanted to hurt you.” Lili’s wings faltered for a moment. “You don’t belong with them.”
Lili’s jaw clenched so hard pain shot through it. “Liar.” The word barely escaped her lips.
The figure continued drifting closer. “You’ve always been one of us.”
Another voice joined in, then another.
“Come home.”
Lili hurled herself further backward.
Notori saw the hesitation on her face. Here was no time to waste anymore.
He clenched his fists. Fire coiled around his forearms wider erupting skyward.
“Left!” he shouted.
Lili understood instantly.
One explosion cut off an escape route. Another forced two enemies higher into the air. A third sent another spiraling directly toward Lili.
One of the shadows lunged. Lili twisted beneath the strike and responded with a spear of darkness that punched straight through the attacker’s shoulder. But another was already waiting. Something crossed her side. Pain exploded through her ribs. Warm blood soaked the black fabric of her suit. She hissed.
Notori saw the crimson stain. “LILI!”
The fire surrounding him doubled in size, becoming a blazing storm that swallowed the sky in orange light. One attacker barely avoided being vaporized. Another was thrown backward by the shockwave.
Lili’s eyes widened. “No!”
She thrust both hands forward. Wall of shadows burst between them. Lili’s eyes widened. She didn’t knew why she did that, but it was already too late. The fire slammed into the darkness.
The shockwave shattered nearby windows inside the base. Both of them stared at each other in disbelief. If Lili wouldn’t have recalled her powers in time, the blast might have been much stronger.
“Again!” Luke’s voice roared through the earpiece.
Notori and Lili split apart once more. Lili lured, darting through the sky just beyond the reach of the enemies. Notori circled from the opposite side, driving the remaining attackers inward with small bursts of fire.
Notori’s flames were growing hotter. Her shadows were becoming heavier.
One mistake and the explosion would consume not only the enemy, but them as well.
And beneath the tension, the whispers returned, this time no longer patient:
“Let us in.”
“You’re ours.”
“You were never meant to fight alone.”
She staggered mid-air and then her red eyes snapped to Notori’s. He froze, because that look didn’t promise anything at all.
“Go full on my signal!” she said, wings slicing through the sky and smoke as she surged forward.
Notori shouted back instinctively, “Lili, you’ll burn!”
“Now, goddammit! TRUST ME!” Lili screamed back at him.
With a guttural growl torn from his throat, Notori thrust both arms forward with flames erupting at full power.
As the fire reached her, she vanished into her shadows. The explosion detonated soon after.
A pillar of fire and smoke swallowed the sky.
“Are you both alright?” Mike’s voice reached through the earpieces.
Notori’s breathing was ragged. His eyes scanned the surroundings while his hands trembled from dread. “No…” His voice was barely a whisper. “I think… I think I killed her…”
“She built herself back from nothing once,” Mike reminded. There was a crackle of static.“For now, I need all of you to return. We have a breach on the western side of the base. We will find her. But we won’t lose this place too.”
Notori stood frozen in the smoke with fire still curling around his fists. “Lili…” he whispered and stared into the darkness, but couldn’t see her.
A strangled sound clawed up his throat. When he landed, he dropped to his knees for a moment, fists slamming into the earth hard enough to split it. “I told her,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I told her…” He bowed his head, shoulders trembling while sweat streaked his jaw.
“We will find her. But we won’t lose this place too.” Notori remembered Mike’s words, clenched his fists tighter while fire slowly extinguished. After all she told him to trust her.
He rose slowly. “I’m heading back,” he said, voice steadier now.
***
The base lights flickered together with emergency sirens. Rafael moved though the corridor with sidearm gripped low. Mike walked beside him with a rifle slung tight to his shoulder. Eight soldiers followed.
They turned a corner, just past the reinforced doors of Sector 7, and three shadows bled into being in front of them. One launched forward straight toward Rafael. The soldiers raised their weapons but wouldn’t be fast enough.
A figure materialized from thin air. It took a moment for it to fully form into Lili. Wings flickered into being and lifted her forward. Her shadows cracked against the charging figure’s head. Force drove the corpse into the opposite wall, cratering the concrete.
Rafael stared, still frozen from the almost-impact. Lili stood over the crumbling remains of the attacker.
“Lili?” Mike’s voice broke the moment. “Notori reported you—”
“Not now, Mike.” Her tone was full of warning. Her gaze fixed on the remaining two shadows as she began to circle them.
Her hands flexed once, the air crackling faintly where her fingers brushed the cold-hungry fog rising off the attackers.
“Prepare the power suppressor,” she added. “We’ll need it soon.”
Mike hesitated only a second longer before nodding to the soldiers. “You heard her. Load suppressors.”
The two shadows twitched sensing something had shifted.
“Why are you fighting us, sister?” One of them asked.
“Don’t fight us! Join us!” Another gave something close to the order.
Lili gasped, but she stood her ground.
From behind the line of soldiers, Notori broke through in a blur, Luke right at his side. Notori’s hands were already glowing, but before he could unleash the fire, Luke extended his arm, and the blood in the nearest shadow twitched unnaturally under his command.
Lili used these seconds Luke gave her, slicing the second shadow clean through. It shattered with a hiss, dispersing into nothingness.
Mike and Rafael exchanged a glance wondering why she asked for a power suppressor.
Notori’s flames surged wider.
“Don’t!” Lili’s voice cracked out. “You’ll blow them up!”
“I will help!” Luke shouted, stepping forward, but the last shadow moved faster than anyone expected launching toward Luke. A soldier behind him panicked and pulled the trigger. The shot struck the shadow mid-leap. It twisted, limbs contorted and then he collapsed, leaving only an unconscious human lying in his place.
Lili’s breath caught. She looked at Notori, eyes wide but filled with something mournful and then she smiled. The shadows which surrounded her, disappeared.
“Use it on me,” Lili said. “Now!”
But no one moved yet.
Notori stared at her, the fire dimming in his palms. “Lili…” he murmured, taking half a step forward. “Don’t say that. You don’t need—”
“I do,” she snapped. Her voice cracked ever so slightly at the edges. “I need you to trust me before it’s too late.”
Mike’s jaw clenched. “You don’t even know what it might do to you. You’re barely holding yourself together as it is.”
“Exactly,” she breathed. “This voice and this pull I feel toward them is stronger. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to fight it.”
The others still hesitated.
Lili looked at Notori. Her eyes were already glassy. “Please,” she whispered, just for him. “Don’t make me beg.”
The fire in his hand fizzled out completely.
Mike lifted his arm. One of the soldiers beside him reached into the pack, trembling slightly as he handed Mike the suppressor round.
Lili closed her eyes, exhaled, and nodded once. Mike raised the suppressor and fired.
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