3:122 on the 80th day of Winter

I was caked in sweat by the time I reached Aegis manor. The dimly lit street in front of the gates was thick with demon corpses. I slowed to a walk and took out a laser rod. The laser cannon would likely cut through several walls, even if I hit what I was aiming at, meaning that I needed to be careful using it in the city. Almost slipping in demon blood, I tried to make my way closer while looking around for any threats. Then I heard sounds of fighting from inside the manor so I hurried my pace. The gates had been crushed by something large and there were more demon bodies just inside. Beyond that was a pitched battle.

I entered the main hall to find Ingo's colossus fighting with a gigantic oralith whose back was flowing with red and black. Bodies of the fallen, both human and demon, littered the room. Crowded in the back were hundreds of people that had taken refuge here. Arin and Mistila were at the top of the grand staircase throwing spells. As I jogged in, the monstrous centipede coiled around Ingo and started to crush him. I fired my laser at its back while rushing forward. It ignored my attack and just kept crushing.

A worrying pop sound came from the golem followed by Ingo's scream. I hurried to draw a handful of grenades. I stepped around to the left to get a beater angle on its head and threw a half dozen explosive marbles at it. It shifted to block and the marbles only impacted its carapace. The detonations cracked the demon's armor but didn't seem to slow it down.

Then it reared up to face me. Fireballs and lasers struck its side, unable to distract it. Having no alternative I unslung the canon and took aim at the demon. Two things happened in a flash, I fired and the oralith lunged. It hit me like a subway train and smashed me through two doors into the kitchen. I blacked out for a moment before coming to my senses sprawled over the dish bins.

My vision was blurry as I pulled myself to my feet. I walked back towards the main hall with my other laser rod drawn but as I neared I could see it wasn't needed. The oralith was dead, its back a dull gray, though many of its limbs still twitched and writhed. Its decapitated head oozed blood onto the floor of the hall. I looked around and saw the mess they had made in their fight. Tables, chairs, and a few hundred cots reduced to kindling. Blood and burn marks were everywhere. I noticed that my laser cannon shot had actually severed one of the legs off of Ingo's colossus. Whoops.

I ran to see if he was hurt and fumbled looking for a latch to open it. There was a pop and hiss as the golem's cockpit opened from the inside. I was so relieved that I had made it in time. Looking down into his armor I could see he was hurt but still conscious.

"Help!" I yelled. "We need help over here!"

Ingo coughed up blood. I saw that there was a long spike of metal bent from the armor into his chest. I pulled on it.

"Damn, it's stuck." I said.

"Wait! Don't move it" yelled Fonsa from behind me. I didn't even notice she was here. She climbed onto the golem and reached down to grab Ingo's arm. Mistila and Arin moved forward to see if they could help. After a few seconds Fonsa opened her eyes.

"His lungs are filled with blood." she said. "I can't drain it!" Her eyes were tearing up. She was trying to keep from panicking but it clearly wasn't working. What could I do?

"Is it just this metal spike? Or is there other damage?" I asked.

"Just the spike." she said. "But if you pull it out he will die of blood loss."

I looked at her, then at Ingo. I think I could fix this, but I would need to use death magic. Moreover, it might cause him radiation sickness that Fonsa would need to heal. Ingo wasn't breathing and I knew I had no more time to think.

"Get back!" I yelled. "Everyone back!"

Arin gave me a surprised look but backed off. Mistila just stood there and Fonsa glared at me. Oh well, no time to waste. I reached into the armor and cupped my hands around the metal spike and Ingo's wound. Focus. Do not let any radiation spread. No neutrons, no protons or alpha particles, no electrons or gamma rays, nothing. I pulled apart the metal spike at the atomic level and simply reshaped it into a tube. Blood poured out of the tube as soon as it was open. Then Ingo gasped. My radiation detection necklace had flashed a deep red for just a moment when I cast my spell. Looking more closely at the wound it was clear that my sight could not penetrate living tissues very deeply. He had the same extremely thin molecular hair structure that I did, though it was much less dense. I could however look through the metal so I saw the largest burst blood vessels. I quickly zippered them together and bound the cells using my magic, killing any bacteria in the area for good measure.

"Done." I said, opening my eyes. Ingo was breathing now though not easily. Fonsa was looking at me with an expression of shock.

"How did you do that?" she asked in a whisper. "That was… I don't know what that was. But his lungs are clear." That's right, her magic gave her a body sense so she could see what I was doing.

"That's not important right now." I said. "You need to keep healing him."

She gave me a concerned look. I would have to watch Ingo closely. The book on rare magic types said that life mages could heal radiation sickness from death magic but I didn't know how much he was dosed with. I held my amulet and looked at it. It was calibrated to very low levels of dosage and it wasn't glowing at all. A solid red was supposed to be the level at which someone would have an elevated cancer risk within an hour of exposure. So, I guess he should be okay.

"Shouldn't we get him out of there?" asked Mistila.

"No, I need to work on him a while before he will be stable enough to move." said Fonsa.

"All respect Healer Aegis," said someone in the crowd. I turned and saw Hogarth from the general store down the street.

"I figured that with the front gates smashed we all need to move soon." he said. His wife Borghild was standing next to him with a worried expression. That brought my thoughts back to the situation with the wall. Nowhere in the city would be safe. I looked around at the crowd. These were our neighbors and most of them were in night clothes. There was Nana Brimstone, along with Dio, Mia, and Foldet who were all young kids. I needed to try and protect these people.

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"Wait a few measures at least. I need to check on something." I said.

I stood and walked over to the door to the kitchen. I heard the klacking sound of Arin's new foot following me but I couldn't spare her attention at the moment. I looked around the kitchen to try and see where the laser cannon landed after the oralith hit me. There it was, in a pile on the other side of the room. It had impacted the wall and been smashed into a million pieces. My blood ran hot and I slammed the countertop with my fist. Damn. Damn damn damn. The cannon was completely smashed and leaking oil. It was unfixable. I closed my eyes and leaned on the kitchen counter.

Enough. It was too much. I couldn't do this anymore. The city was lost. We were all going to die. Me, Arin, my family, all of Cinder. It was happening again. This time instead of nuclear war it was demons. My anger spiked and I wanted to let go. My magic thrummed wanting to be used. If everyone was going to die anyway then I may as well cut loose. I took several slow, deep breaths trying to regain some semblance of calm rational thought.

No, even the death worm only had a marginal impact on the fight. Maybe in the open field I could have made a difference. Maybe if I attacked their camp with death magic when they first got here. But they were within the walls now. I felt numb. I felt as powerless as I did before I awakened. Then Arin took my hand.

"Theod," she said. Her voice was sincere and calm. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"

I pulled my hand away and started pacing the room in frustration. "What's wrong? Everything is falling apart. That's what's wrong!" I said, gesturing at that broken cannon. "That was a weapon that could have turned the tide of this siege. At least I thought it could. Now look at it." Damn it. Now what? Maybe we needed to run. Gather as many people as we can and get out of the city while the demon army sacks it.

Arin looked for a moment like she was considering smacking some sense into me but seemed to think better of it. She used her cane to cross the room. Then she pulled a large bowl from the counter and knelt down to start picking up the pieces of the cannon. A measure passed in silence as she worked. It couldn't be fixed. It was too late. Then she stood up and walked back to me with shaky steps. She held out the bowl and I took it.

"Theod, things fall apart." she said. She waved her left leg a bit to make her point. "We need to rely on each other to make it right."

She was trying to be encouraging. I wanted to lash out at her for the false comparison. This wasn't like making her a prosthetic. We were all going to die as soon as the demon army got around to us. But that wasn't fair. I looked at the bowl full of parts. The laser crystals had actually held up, mostly. Maybe I could put them in something else? Then a thought struck me. It was an awful, dangerous idea but it just might work.

"You might have a point." I said slowly. As an engineer I try to think about problems as requirements and constraints. What do I have to accomplish? What resources are available? But I was working under a constraint that was only in my head. Magic had made me strong enough to fight demons. I kept thinking that if I could just get more power, make a deadly enough weapon, I could end the siege. But what if there were an easier way?

I walked back into the main hall and through the crowd to where I had dropped my other laser rod. Picking it up, I looked at it. My anger cooled and I started to really think. I looked over the bowl of broken cannon parts, reaching in to pick up one of the lasers I had built into it. Then I looked up at the crowd of people again.

"What is that look?" asked Arin. "You've come up with something, haven't you?"

I nodded. It was a crazy idea really. But to pull it off I would need to do something I was not comfortable with. Something I had avoided thus far by following people more experienced or of higher rank than myself.

"Hello." I said. My voice was too soft and muffled by my helmet so I took it off.

"Hello! I know many of you but for those who I haven't met, my name is Theod Aegis." I said. I was loud enough this time so everyone turned to face me. My heart raced as I tried to speak to the crowd.

"The northern bastion has been overrun. This is likely to be the final battle for the city." I said, putting as much of a grave edge to the words as I could. I probably sounded less grave and more desperate than I wanted. A murmur swept through the crowd as that sank in. I had to swallow back bile to get to the next part but I had to move forward.

"I need your help." I said. My voice broke so I said it again.

"I need your help." I said. "I hate to put this burden on your shoulders but there is no one else I can ask that could make it in time." I kind of trailed off at the end.

"But what can we do against demons!?" someone in the crowd asked.

I recognized the guy as the tough who had asked me for money during the demon paratrooper attack. Closing my hand around the laser, I focused. All I had to do was add a small button to the top to make it into a deadly laser pointer. When it was done I pointed it at the ceiling and fired. A loud snapping sound echoed through the hall as the laser cut into the stone. The people let out shocked gasps and shouts at the display. It wasn't quite as powerful as my rods were but it would kill demons just fine. Then I walked forward to the man who had called out.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Bode Miller, mage … sir." he said.

"Here, take this." I said. He took it reverently. I turned to the crowd and spoke up again.

"I have enough of these weapons for everyone in this room!" I yelled.

I thought back to how powerless I felt for so long and tried to speak from the heart.

"Any of you that want the power to fight, step forward and take it." I said, getting out more laser crystals and starting to add buttons to them. I met Arin's eyes and saw they were wide in surprise. Was this a good idea? No. This was a desperate gambit that would most likely get these people killed. But it was the only idea I had with any chance of survival. To my surprise, the first person to step forward was the mother I had seen with her young baby.

"I want the power to fight, Mage Aegis." she said.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Anke, sir. I work as a seamstress in the Avalanche manor next door." she said, giving a small bow.

I nodded and gave her a laser.

"I want the power to fight." said the man behind her and a chorus of shouts went out.

Arin helped people from a line, her glowing hair intimidating people to behave. The only hiccup was when a kid that couldn't have been older than thirteen came up to me. His serious expression looked far too old for his young face.

"Are your parents here?" I asked.

"No sir," he said "they didn't make it."

I was reminded that everyone here would be fighting for their homes and families. Or to avenge them.

"What is your name?" I asked. "Klaas, sir."

I handed over the laser, giving him a serious look of my own. It took twenty measures to pass out two hundred and seventy nine lasers to the group. I had another twenty one in a bag at my hip to pass out to any other survivors we ran into. I picked up the artificial core and moved to the open gate to address everyone.

"Your lasers have about thirty marks of charge. That means that after thirty marks of shooting they will start getting weaker. When that happens, come back to me and touch it to this ball for about three marks to recharge it." I explained.

“And please be careful.” I said. “Don't point them at anything or anyone that you don't intend to kill.”

I saw several people straighten up and point their lasers at the ground after my warning.

"Get ready. We leave in three measures." I said. People ran off to get supplies or better gear on.

Then Mistila came up to me.

"I have to stay here." she said. "Fonsa is going to focus on healing Ingo and someone is going to have to watch their back."

I glanced over and saw that Ingo had been pulled out of his armor and was lying on a cot someone had salvaged. Should I leave a group here to guard them? No, we would be clearing the whole district and she could handle anything that got past us.

"I understand." I said. "Be safe."