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Across the dome, the world was a blur of screaming and gunfire, concrete cracking beneath a rain of bullets and falling rubble. Amelia crouched behind the fractured stands, the pistol hot in her hand, smoke curling from the barrel as she fired over the railing. She could feel the sharp heat of gunpowder on her cheek, the sting of concrete dust blowing back at her with each shot. Beside her, Tobi was curled against the floor, hands covering his head as though that alone could shield him from the chaos swallowing the dome.
"Amelia! I need a gun!" His voice was strained and hoarse, panic cutting through the noise. His eyes were bloodshot, stinging from the fine grit hanging in the air. He blinked furiously, but it only made it worse. His vision burned.
Amelia squeezed off two more rounds, dropping a pair of cultists who had crept too close on the left flank. "I thought you always had one on you?! Isn't being over-cautious your thing?!"
"I thought it'd be bad luck to bring it into the dome!" Tobi's voice cracked, face scrunching up in pain as he tried to rub the burning grit from his eyes. "I'm… superstitious too."
"Fucking idiot!" Amelia snapped, ducking down as another volley chewed through the rail above their heads. She ejected the magazine and slammed a fresh one in without missing a beat.
"I can't see!" Tobi's voice rose higher. "Holy shit I can't see!"
Amelia leaned down and slapped him across the cheek, not hard enough to hurt but enough to shock him out of his spiral. She gripped the front of his thick jacket, shaking him once. "Get it together, Tobs. I need you out here."
"Ow!" he hissed, clutching his face.
She didn't have the patience to coddle him. Her eyes scanned the battlefield, taking in every piece of carnage and movement she could track. Bobo's massive frame clashed with the bandaged brute Aries across the dome. Mikey was down near the slab, shoulder to shoulder with Willie, Silvia, and Jasmine, fighting to hold back a wave of cultists. Ryosuke held the tunnel entrance, blade flashing through the gunfire, Marlene and Angelica behind him as civilians pressed in. And up above, about nine rows higher, Luce fired down from a higher vantage point, holding the line with a squad of Defector soldiers.
"Dammit," Amelia muttered under her breath. "I wish we didn't get separated from Luce… Okay, she should have a spare gun. Let's go to her, Tobs."
Tobi nodded, still rubbing his eyes. "F-fine… I c-can't s-see right now. Friggin dust. So l-lead the way."
"Stay behind me."
The moment she saw a brief opening, Amelia vaulted out from cover and sprinted up the cracked steps, Tobi gripping the back of her cropped jacket like a lifeline. The air was filled with gunfire echoing against the dome walls, every shot making his ears ring. Cultist soldiers closed in from above, but Amelia didn't slow down. She raised her pistol and dropped two more with clean, practiced precision.
Tobi stumbled after her, heart hammering against his ribs. "W-what the h-hell is happening?!" he shouted, his voice cracking as the sounds of death swallowed his words.
Three more cultists rushed down toward them—hoods drawn, jagged serrated daggers glinting under the harsh floodlights. Amelia raised her gun but heard the hollow click. Empty.
"Shit!" She flicked the useless weapon aside, blade already in her hand as she snarled, "Tobs, we gotta fight!"
"W-what?! Why—"
He blinked through the blur and saw the cultists clearly now, all three barreling toward them, blades out for blood. His chest tightened.
Amelia didn't wait. She lunged under the first swing, rolling low and fast. Her legs swept under the cultist's knees, sending him crashing down, and in the same fluid motion, she coiled her leg around his arm, twisted hard, and snapped it like dry wood. He screamed as she grabbed her knife and drove it deep into his throat—once, twice, three times—before rolling up to her feet, face streaked with blood and sweat.
The second cultist was already on Tobi. He swung wildly, dagger flashing, but Tobi's instincts took over. Years of tumbling and gymnastic reflexes kicked in where training didn't. He dropped back into a handspring, flipping away from the blade, his body moving on instinct more than clarity. When his feet hit the ground, he spun into a roundhouse kick that connected squarely with the cultist's wrist, sending the dagger flying.
The cultist lunged barehanded, roaring. Tobi screamed right back at him, raw and unfiltered, "Get away from me!" His foot shot out and connected with the man's groin. The cultist crumpled over, and Tobi kicked his face, the sound of bone crunching under his sneaker.
"Phew," he gasped between shaky breaths. "That was bad. R-really bad."
But something nagged at him. A cold realization.
'There were three of them. Three cultists. She took one. I took one. Where's the third?'
His stomach dropped. He looked up just in time to see a masked cultist rising behind Amelia, blade raised, eyes burning through the slits of his mask. "A… Amelia!" he shouted, his voice breaking.
She whipped around, but the blade was already in motion, arcing straight for her face. She had no time to dodge, no room to breathe. Fuck… I'm dead, she thought. No way I can—
And then the world shifted.
A blur of motion streaked through her vision, followed by the sound of shattering bone. A body—a dead Defector soldier, limp and bloodied—smashed into the cultist like a thrown battering ram, sending both crashing into the railing with a deafening crunch. The cultist's back bent unnaturally, bones cracking like kindling. He didn't move again.
Amelia's chest heaved. Tobi's eyes darted across the stands.
The soldier had been thrown. Not shoved. Not stumbled. Thrown. She didn't have to wonder for long.
"Dammit," a voice drawled from the shadows, smooth but edged with a twisted glee. "I didn't wanna kill that guy. He's on my team. Ahh, whatever. They fall so easy. The Grand Regent won't care."
Amelia and Tobi turned to face him.
A hooded figure stood a few rows up—one of the Zodiacs. His cloak was black trimmed with gold like the others, but unlike Capricornus or Aries, his robe was slashed and uneven. The sleeves were jaggedly cut off at the shoulders, the hem ending around his knees like it had been hacked apart on purpose. His forearms and calves were wrapped in old, dirt-stained bandages, his feet were bare. His hood hung down loosely behind his neck, revealing a face far too young to carry eyes that cruel. He looked to be Tobi and Amelia's age. Bronze skin glimmered under the dome's flickering lights, hazel eyes sharp and alive with amusement. His hair was a wild, golden mane—thick, long, and messy, spilling all the way down his back like an untamed flame.
In each hand he dragged a corpse—two Defector soldiers, their bodies twisted and bruised, bones shattered under the kind of force that only came from someone who enjoyed it. He let them drop with a dull thud, rolling his shoulders as if they'd just been warm-ups.
His voice came out raspy, almost playful, like a hyena laughing at its own joke. "Look at this broad," he said with a low whistle, locking eyes with Amelia. "You are gorgeous. What's your name? Mine's Leo."
They had ran into the worst person possible, a Zodiac.