The Thirteen Knight

Chapter 17: Green Lightning

The siren wasn't just a noise; it was a physical pressure that vibrated in my teeth.

Sector 7. Mass Incursion.

Most students were running toward the bunkers in the central keep, following the colored lines painted on the floor for evacuation drills. I was running the wrong way.

"Chase!" Sylvia’s voice called out behind me, faint over the screaming alarms. "Chase, stop! That’s the impact zone!"

I didn't stop. I didn't turn around. I ducked under a panicked group of first-years and sprinted toward the service stairwell.

I knew the layout of the Academy better than the architects did. While the mages took the main corridors, I kicked open a "Maintenance Only" door and slid down the railing of the spiral service stairs. I skipped the landings, jumping whole flights, my boots slamming against the metal grating.

My lungs burned. My legs felt like lead—the adrenaline crash from the arena fight was hitting me hard—but the panic was a better fuel.

Tal.

My roommate was a illusionist. A good one, for practical jokes and card tricks. But in a fight against demons? illusions were useless if the enemy could smell your fear.

I burst out of the service tunnel into the Sector 7 courtyard.

I skidded to a halt, the breath tearing out of my throat.

It was worse than the Wasp attack. Much worse.

The sky above the dorms was fractured. Purple cracks—Rifts—hung in the air like jagged wounds, bleeding shadow into the daylight. From the cracks, things were falling.

Imps. Dozens of them. Small, red-skinned wretched things with claws that could shred steel. And amidst them, heavier thuds shook the ground. Hellhounds. Massive beasts with obsidian skin and burning magma for eyes.

The courtyard was a war zone. Students were scattering, firing panic-stricken spells. Fireballs went wide; ice shards shattered against walls. The chaotic magic was doing more damage to the architecture than the demons were.

"Help! Someone!"

I scanned the chaos. The noise was deafening—screams, roars, and the wet tear of claws on stone.

There.

By the fountain in the center of the quad. A group of three students was backed against the stone water basin. Tal was in the middle.

He was trying. He had cast a Mirror Image spell, creating five copies of himself to confuse the pack of three Hellhounds circling them. But the hounds weren't relying on sight. They were sniffing the air.

One of the hounds lunged, snapping its jaws through a fake Tal. The illusion shimmered and vanished.

The hound growled, realizing the trick. It turned its burning eyes toward the real Tal, who was shaking so hard his wand was rattling in his hand.

I was fifty yards away. Too far to run. Too far to throw a wrench.

I looked around. To my left was a partially collapsed utility shed, crushed by falling debris. It was dark inside.

I didn't hesitate. I dove into the shadows of the shed, scrambling over broken cinder blocks.

"Do it," I hissed to myself.

My hands were shaking as I reached into my jacket. I pulled out the heavy lead case. My fingers fumbled with the latch.

Click.

The Apostate Drive hummed. It sensed the danger. It sensed the demons outside. It wanted out.

I rolled up my sleeve, exposing the black, dormant fibers of the bracer. I lined up the connector.

"Forgive me," I whispered.

I slammed the Drive into the socket.

CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

The pain was instantaneous. It wasn't the slow burn of the gym; it was a lightning strike. The fibers erupted, tearing through my jacket sleeve. They expanded, hardening, spiraling up my arm and over my shoulder.

My vision went red, then green. The world slowed down. The fear vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory arrogance. The hunger of the Apostate Knight roared in my mind, drowning out Chase Royce.

HUNT.

I didn't run out of the shed. I exploded out of it.

The concrete roof of the shed shattered as I launched myself into the air. I wasn't just a boy anymore. I was a weapon.

The Hellhound nearest to Tal crouched, ready to spring. Tal squeezed his eyes shut, raising his arms in a futile attempt to shield his face.

The hound leaped.

And I intercepted it in mid-air.

I hit the beast like a freight train. My armored hand clamped around its throat, the green energy lines on my gauntlet flaring brighter than the sun.

CRUNCH.

I didn't use a spell. I squeezed. The Hellhound’s neck snapped with the sound of a gunshot.

We crashed into the pavement, the dead beast limp in my grasp. The impact cracked the stone floor of the courtyard.

Silence rippled outward from the impact crater.

I stood up, tossing the carcass aside like a ragdoll. I stood between Tal and the pack. My left arm was a nightmare of black metal and green light, pulsing with a low, dangerous hum that vibrated in the chests of everyone nearby.

The remaining two Hellhounds hesitated. They were predators, but they recognized a bigger predator.

Tal opened his eyes. He looked up at me. His face went pale. He didn't see Chase. He saw a monster. A demon in human shape.

"W-what..." he stammered.

The hounds growled, their magma eyes narrowing. They decided to rush me together.

Big mistake.

I stepped forward. I didn't dodge. I didn't cast.

The first hound bit my arm. Its teeth shattered against the Apostate armor. I grabbed its jaw with my free hand—my human hand, reinforced by the passive energy field—and ripped it away, followed by a backhand from the armored gauntlet that sent the beast flying fifty feet into a brick wall. It didn't get up.

The second hound tried to flank me.

I spun, extending my armored fingers.

"Discharge."

The voice wasn't mine. It was synthesized, distorted, deep.

A bolt of green lightning erupted from my palm. It hit the hound point-blank, vaporizing its head instantly.

Three seconds. Three dead Hellhounds.

I turned back to the students. Tal was staring at the green glow of my visor—or rather, the energy masking my face.

"Go," the distorted voice commanded. "Bunkers. Now."

Tal scrambled up, grabbing the other two students. "Run! Go!"

They didn't argue. They bolted toward the keep.

I watched them go, the relief washing over me. He was safe.

But I wasn't.

"There! In the courtyard!"

I looked up. On the walkway above, a squad of Academy Enforcers had arrived. Teachers. Senior mages.

And leading them was Commander Vane.

She was staring right at me.

"Identify yourself!" she shouted, leveling a wand that looked more like a rifle.

I cursed under my helmet. If I fought them, I’d be labeled an enemy of the state. If I stayed, they’d capture me and unmask me.

I had to vanish.

"Secure the students!" Vane ordered. "Capture that entity! I want it alive!"

Bolts of binding magic—chains of light, nets of ice—rained down from the walkway.

I moved.

I activated the leg servos in the armor. With a burst of speed that cracked the pavement again, I sprinted toward the perimeter wall.

"Stop him!"

An ice wall erupted in front of me.

I didn't slow down. I punched it. The ice shattered into a million glittering diamonds. I vaulted through the debris, scrambled up the twenty-foot stone wall, and dropped down onto the other side, into the dense forest that surrounded the campus.

I ran until the sounds of the battle faded. I ran until the green light in my vision started to flicker, warning me of overheating.

I found a dense thicket of thorns and collapsed.

My hand clawed at the release latch on the bracer.

Click-hiss.

The Drive popped out.

The agony of detransformation hit me. The armor retracted, the fibers shrinking back into the skin, leaving my arm raw and smoking. I curled into a ball in the dirt, gasping for air, clutching the hot lead case to my chest.

I lay there for five minutes, waiting for my heart to stop trying to hammer its way out of my ribs.

I was alive. Tal was alive.

But Vane had seen the Knight. And worse, she had seen the Knight save students.

I wiped the sweat and grime from my face and stood up. I had to get back. I had to pretend I had been hiding in the woods, or terrified in a bunker.

I stuffed the Drive back into my inner pocket and zipped up my ruined jacket.

I limped back toward the dorms, taking a different route to look like I was coming from the library.

By the time I reached the perimeter of Sector 7, the battle was over. The Rifts had been sealed. The wounded were being tended to by medics.

I found Tal near the triage tent. He was wrapped in a shock blanket, drinking water from a paper cup.

"Tal!" I shouted, putting all the fake panic I could muster into my voice.

He looked up. His eyes were wide, haunted.

"Chase?" He dropped the cup. "Chase! You're okay!"

He ran over and hugged me. He was trembling.

"I thought you were in the room," I said, breathless. "I came as fast as I could."

"It was a nightmare," Tal whispered, pulling back. "Demons everywhere. And then..."

He lowered his voice, looking around to make sure no teachers were listening.

"Chase, you won't believe it. Something saved us."

"The teachers?" I asked.

"No," Tal shook his head vigorously. "A monster. A man in black armor with green lightning. He... he crushed a Hellhound with one hand. Just crushed it."

I feigned shock. "A demon fighting demons?"

"I don't know what it was," Tal said, shivering. "But it looked at me. It told us to run."

He looked at my jacket.

"Whoa, what happened to you?"

I looked down. My sleeve was shredded where the armor had expanded.

"Caught it on a fence running over here," I lied. "I took a shortcut through the woods."

Tal nodded, buying it. He was too shaken to analyze details.

"Attention students!"

The loudspeaker boomed. It was Headmaster Thorne’s voice, but it was tight with anger.

"All students report to the Great Hall immediately for headcount. Sector 7 is quarantined."

We joined the stream of students walking toward the Hall. The mood was grim. The Academy, the safest place in the kingdom, had been breached twice in one week.

As we shuffled through the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall, I felt eyes on me.

I looked up toward the staff balcony.

Commander Vane was there. She wasn't looking at the crowd. She was scanning faces.

She held something in her hand. A datapad. She was watching a replay.

I swallowed hard.

She had footage.

And I had just used a specific move—a left-handed grapple followed by a right-handed strike—that I had used in the arena against the Stone-Skin user just an hour ago.

If she connected the dots...

"Chase?" Tal nudged me. "You okay? You look like you're gonna be sick."

"Just... adrenaline," I muttered.

I gripped the hidden Drive against my ribs.

The war had started. And I was trapped right in the middle of it.