The Avatar of Rex Rexilion had been doing everything right.
It returned to the Silver Rest forty minutes before the alarm sounded. It announced its presence to Mara as she wrapped up the nightly closure of the common room.
"You’re back early from your night walk," Mara said, not looking up from the glasses she was stacking.
"Just the right amount of ti I needed."
"Hm." She set the last glass down. "There’s bread left if you want it."
"Alright, thanks."
"Do you want to do it tonight...?" Mara asked with a curious look.
"Maybe next ti."
The Avatar only spoke three sentences in the tone that Mara expected from Rex at that hour, then went upstairs.
When the alarm went off, it was already going back downstairs with the sa urgency that Rex would have shown and the sa calmness that was Rex’s trademark response to crises.
Lily stood outside the Silver Rest, her light barriers arranged to create a protective diater suitable for shielding against multiple angles. Beside her, Diana had her bow drawn, ticulously assessing the defensive lines with the sa precision she applied to every potential threat.
"Just as I thought I could get a good night’s rest... there’s an attack coming." Rex looked at them. "Where are they attacking?"
"They’re attacking the northeast corner," Diana said without turning. "There are three of them, and one of them is screening."
"I see it," the Avatar said.
Talyra ca through the door behind it, pulling her second bracer tight. "What are we dealing with?"
"From what it looks like... it’s a coordinated entry attempt from the undead," the Avatar said. "They started on the ward lines, not the doors."
Aisella stepped out last, her hands already moving through the first sequence of a containnt pattern. "Those undead again... it seems like they’re not satisfied enough after stealing the gauntlets from us."
Lily didn’t lower her barriers, but she turned her head slightly. "Rex, the one on the left broke formation! He’s trying to bait."
"I know."
"You’re not moving."
"Neither is he yet."
Diana drew back another half inch on her string, the adjustnt so small it was almost invisible. "If he takes one more step left, he loses the corner cover."
"Then we wait one more step," the Avatar said.
Talyra moved up beside the Avatar, close enough to speak without being overheard. "You want them inside the light radius or outside."
The Avatar considered this for exactly as long as Rex would have. "Outside."
"Lily, when he moves, drop the left barrier and redirect the energy forward! Don’t hold the shape."
"That wastes the formation," Lily said.
"It also gives Diana the angle."
A short silence.
Then Lily said, "Alright."
The five of them moved toward the nearest defensive line, aware that Rex Rexilion approached problems head-on and that those around them did the sa.
...
The battle in the market district’s second section was dense. The undead appeared in greater numbers than the Apostle gathering’s estimates had anticipated, spreading out rather than concentrating, which forced defenders into reactive positions more quickly than they could consolidate their response.
The Avatar navigated the situation as Rex did, employing telekinesis to control the mid-range threats while the won surrounding it addressed their specific ranges.
Diana’s arrows found the structural weakness in every undead construct she targeted, working with the knowledge she had built over weeks of fighting beside Rex and watching how his telekinesis read those weaknesses.
Lily’s barriers held two constructs simultaneously while she drove a third back with her light magic’s concentrated form. Talyra moved fast and decisively, her bow covering the longer sight lines that Diana’s attention couldn’t reach simultaneously, calling adjustnts to the group’s positioning with the field command voice she had developed over three days on the island.
Aisella worked triage at the edge of the defensive line, where three city guards had sustained wounds severe enough to remove them from the fight; she maintained her healer’s calm with a specific quality that ca from soone who had effortlessly located that state within themselves.
And then Talyra saw Nerith.
Across the intersection, through the gap between two burning market stalls, a young woman in green field clothes was surrounded by four undead constructs, and the nature magic she was using to hold them had the quality of a system being pushed past its comfortable operating range.
Vines that were thick enough to anchor the constructs were fraying at their root connections, and the wall of compressed wind she had maintained between herself and the largest construct was starting to lose its structural integrity at the edges.
"REX!" Talyra’s voice cut through the ambient chaos with the directness she used when ti was the actual constraint. "NERITH IS ON A PINCH!"
"Left side, through the stalls!"
The Avatar turned, looked around, and moved as fast as it could.
The telekinesis that caught the four undead constructs had the exact sa signature as Rex Rexilion’s full-potential output: it could manage multiple targets at once, apply force with molecular precision, and work as if the person who chose the technique for each target was doing it automatically.
One of the constructs hit the burning stall fra hard enough to break it apart. Two were thrown into the wall at the edge of the intersection in opposite directions.
The fourth, the big one pushing against Nerith’s wind barrier, was held in place by the sa force that Rex would use against sothing much heavier. It was stuck in mid-advance while Nerith’s system had a chance to lower its output.
Nerith stared at the Avatar.
And the Avatar stared back at her.
"Are you hurt?" it asked.
Nerith was breathing in a way that showed she had been working hard and was now getting back to normal. She still had her hands in the position of holding up the wind barrier, which was no longer needed, and it took her a mont to let them go.
"I’m..." she said, then stopped and said, "...fine."
"There are more coming from the north side," the Avatar said.
Its voice was like Rex’s calm voice during tense situations, which helped people around him think clearly. "Stay in this group for now. You’re better when you’re not around a lot of undead."
Nerith looked at it for a second longer than she needed to, as if she were trying to rember what soone looked like who she had only seen from a distance before.
"You’re looking different, Rex Rexilion..." she said. "But... thanks.
"Well, different in the sense of exhausted because I just want to sleep as soon as possible," the Avatar said, sarcasm lacing its tone. "You probably think that way because we haven’t had many conversations."
She nodded, a chanical gesture reminiscent of soone updating a model rather than completing a social exchange, and then she repositioned herself within the group.
[NERITH SYLVARUNE — DESIRE LEVEL: 0 → 18/100]
Rex signed up for it through the system link while he was across the city. The Avatar’s protective action worked just like a real protective action would have from soone with his behavior pattern.
It was a fresh beginning, earning eighteen points from a single rescue. Eighteen points provided ample opportunity to work with over the next two weeks.
’Nice job, my twin,’ Rex thought. ’You’ve perford well enough.’
The group continued to fend off the undead, which shifted direction every few minutes as Rex utilized the necromantic link to control the constructs. Nerith collaborated with them, employing her nature magic to address threats that Lily’s barriers weren’t covering.
In the first twenty minutes, Nerith appeared to be soone who had previously been isolated but was now integrating into the group, and her willingness to take action was evolving as a result.
The Avatar kept an eye on her from the corner of its mind, just like Rex did with everything he was planning, with the long-term view running underneath the short-term tactical managent.
Thereafter, the Foresight changed.
The Undead Bringer was moving through the western district with the calm violence of soone who hadn’t been slowed down by anything they had seen so far. They were going straight toward the western plaza, like a threat that had located its main target and wasn’t interested in any other fights.
The Avatar used Foresight to watch the trajectory and knew what it was seeing.
It didn’t move to stop it.
...
The western plaza of Aethelgard was a formal space with a wide-open stone floor and a fountain in the middle that had been running for as long as anyone in the city could rember.
At this hour, with the alarm sounding and the streets surrounding the plaza filled with undead, defenders, and the chaos of everything Rex had set in motion, the space was empty except for one person standing in the middle.
Apollo Brightsoul had picked the most open space, and Rex understood why as soon as he walked into the plaza’s western approach and saw it. The open ground let Apollo’s activation radius work without being blocked by structures.
It was a smart move, the kind of move soone makes when they know their own strengths and can set up the fight conditions around those strengths instead of their opponent’s.
Rex walked in and stopped about thirty ters away.
"I finally get to et you in person... Apollo Brightsoul." Rex crossed his arms, and his voice imitated soone with the help of his shapeshift so that he didn’t recognize it as Xavier’s.
"You... who are you?" Apollo clenched both his fists. "What you’ve done right now is none other than the demons’ work."
"That’s right. Allow to introduce myself..."
"...you may call The Undead Bringer."
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