Chapter Text
The sky was falling.
Stars cut sharp, luminous arcs through the twilight, pouring over the horizon and leaving wounds in the black between them that spilled emptiness out and into the world. Those stars burned so bright, though. Bright enough to wipe away the dark, at least for a little while, and the brightest light of all was the one in the center; pink as the newborn dawn, bold as brass casings, and shiny as a queen’s crown jewel.
But they always fell. The dream always ended with the emptiness, and the falling stars, and with the star at the center burning bright enough to break a heart.
Jinx opened her eyes, blinking in the dim light of the evening as a breeze blew across her face. The sky yawned bright and blue above her, with only the faintest scatterings of wispy white clouds to disrupt it.
Something had woken her up. It wasn’t Kuro, he and Shiro were still snoozing on her chest. Something else had—
Bzz—bzz
Her phone vibrated against the sun-warmed concrete of the rooftop a few inches away from her head, and Jinx swatted at it a few times before getting a grip on it and bringing it around to her face. Twenty-plus messages in the group chat, several of them pinging her, had been missed. Jinx put the phone back down without unlocking it and went back to staring up at the sky as the cloudy fragments drifted lazily overhead.
“You could at least leave them on ‘read’ so they know you saw the message” A familiar shape—and a more familiar voice—settled in beside her, and Jinx groaned.
“Why?”
Lux covered a graceless, snorting laugh, then reached over, and tugged at Jinx’s tie which lay in a messy coil on her chest, causing Shiro to shift around, and Lux gave him a few gentle scratches on the head to lull him back to sleep.
“Because they’re your friends, too,” Lux said. “And also, why not just take your tie off if you're going to lay around like this? It’s all wrinkled!”
“Too much work,” Jinx grumbled.
Lux shook her head as she leaned over and began undoing the knot. “And you stained it again…see?” She tapped a black splotch on the fabric. “What even is this? Printer ink? How did you manage that?”
“Professor Dingerdonger—“
“—Heimerdinger—“
“—whatever, anyway, he needed me to print some stuff out and you know how digital stuff gets around me.”
Lux sighed and let go of the tie, shifted around, and then laid down beside her. “With how good you are with machines, I still don’t get how that works.”
“Toldja, Luxie, it’s not machines, it’s friggin’ computers. They hate me.” Jinx made a vague, waving gesture. “I’m lucky my phone doesn’t explode every time I unlock it.”
“Hm.”
“So who’s blowing up the group chat and why does it involve me?”
“Poppy wants to have a group training session,” Lux said. “She thinks we need practice—“
“—you mean she thinks I need practice.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Jinx blew a raspberry as she picked up Kuro off of her chest and tossed him up into the air. He spun around chaotically until he reached the apex of his rise and then dropped down into Jinx’s waiting hands so she could catch him and toss him up again like a basketball.
“Does she need to?”
Lux sighed again and Jinx tried to ignore the burr of irritation that settled under her skin at the sound. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know that she was the least disciplined member of the team. She’d never even wanted to be a member of the team. She was Jinx. Stands for Jinx.
Nobody had ever wanted to be on her team but Lux, and the truth was that Jinx only kept trying because Lux kept trying. Lux was the one who always had everyone else’s backs, so someone had to have hers. Janna sorta-kinda tried, but she also pushed Lux too hard, too. It wasn’t that Lux couldn’t do it. Lux could do anything she put her mind to. It had always been that way. But still, Janna needed to lighten up, and Lux never knew how to stand up for herself when it came to her ‘friends’. That was why Jinx tried despite not fitting in with any of the others. Despite the fact that her ‘friends’ were really just Lux’s friends who tolerated her. She was the outsider and she always had been. Always would be, too.
“It’s not a bad idea, though,” Lux continued, blissfully unaware of the storm happening in Jinx’s head. “It’s not like more practice hurts.”
“It hurts me,” Jinx said, forcing a smirk.
Lux’s grin was audible as she swatted Jinx’s arm and said, “Oh yeah? Sorry it’s cutting into your nap time, I’ll let Poppy know you need your beauty sleep.”
Sighing dramatically, Jinx caught Kuro and dropped her dizzy medium to the ground where he tottered around trying to regain his balance, then draped her arm over her forehead.
“You’re so cruel, Luxie! And to me, Jinx! Your oldest and truest friend! Your bosom buddy through the ordeals of life. Through the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—“
“—ha! I knew you were just pretending to sleep during that unit—!”
“—how will I ever trust again?!”
A glass bottle appeared hovering over Jinx’s face. “I brought you a honeydew ramune.”
“All’s forgiven.” Jinx snatched the glass and sat up before popping the plastic cap off and snapping the marble into it with a satisfying crack.
She slugged back a long swallow, and it was chilly and sweet, and Jinx smacked her lips loudly before lowering the bottle. The remaining half fizzed and she watched the bubbles pop for a moment before turning to Lux and holding it out.
“So where’s this dumb practice?”
Lux’s cheeks colored as she took the glass bottle, helping herself to a dainty sip.
“Centerpointe Park,” she said as she handed the bottle back.
“Could be worse,” Jinx replied. “How’d you find me, by the way?”
“We’ve known each other since we were five, Jinx, and you always end up as high up as you can find. Remember all the times you got stuck on your own roof?”
“I could get down.”
“The one time you jumped off, you broke your leg, so I don’t think that qualifies,” Lux said pointedly.
“But I got off the roof!” Jinx replied.
Lux shook her head as she stood up, and held out a hand. Jinx took it, gripping tight, and pulled herself up, and she held on for a few seconds longer than she needed to.
“No more broken legs now, though, huh?” Jinx asked as she threw her arms out wide.
“Jinx don’t you da—!”
“Race you to the park!” Jinx dropped off the side of the fifty-six-story skyscraper as she shouted, “Kuro, Shiro, sic’em!”
Her mediums exploded into motion and bolted after their owner, spiraling around one another like monochrome binary stars. Their light flared and sank into Jinx on her descent, and Lux leapt off after her with a long-suffering groan.
Jinx closed her eyes and relished the wind whipping across her face as the comfortable weights of her weapons formed in her hands and at her back. Her school uniform flowered out into a backless tunic with a petal-shaped skirt, and her long, flowing red hair drew back into a pair of ornate tails that flapped behind her like twin pennants in the wind.
“Mimi, sparkle!”
Lux snapped a hand out and her starlight rod flashed into existence as she fell with Jinx. She burned brighter and brighter. For everyone else, the power of the First Star always seemed to come from around them and sink in, but with Lux it was different.
At least, it looked different to Jinx.
It was like the light was spilling out of her. Lux’s uniform rippled and flowed as bright silk ribbons spilled out and around her, tying off at her chest, waist, and in her hair, and forming a pair of criminally adorable pink pigtails on either side of her head. Gold wings flared from her shoes and knee-high socks climbed up soft, pale legs to meet the flared hem of a pink skirt, and at her brow a gold and alabaster crown marked with the five-pointed insignia of the First Star swept her bangs from her eyes.
The moment her medium fused to her Jinx kicked out with both of her feet, forming a platform of starlight to bolt off from, sending her careening in a mostly-horizontal arc as she spun wildly around, laughing as she drew her magic out in crimson flashes of light. Gravity became less of a law and more like a vague suggestion as Jinx rocketed away from the skyscraper. Lux was on her heels, in moments; a corona of pink effervescing around her with a comet tail of pure white trailing behind her as she raced to catch up.
“C’mon, Luxie! You can do better than that!” Jinx crowed as she rolled into an aerial tumble, built up power at the balls of her feet, and then kicked out again against a conjured panel of force to give herself an extra boost.
Lux said something very unladylike as she copied the move perfectly and was suddenly neck-and-neck with Jinx.
“Maybe you need to do better!” Lux said smugly.
“Cheater!” Jinx jeered as she boosted a few inches ahead. “You just copied me!”
“I think the number of times I’ve let you copy off of me entitles me to that!” Lux called out as she boosted to catch up.
Below them, the city began to taper off and the park was suddenly in view, and Jinx laughed as she started to slow down and spun around onto her back, letting memory and her magic carry her the rest of the way. Lux mimicked the action—she really was a perfect mimic—and relaxed back on a pillow of air.
“Thank you for coming,” Lux said a bit more softly. “I know I don’t say it, but I really don’t think I could do this without you.”
“As if that were even an option!” Jinx retorted.
“It’s asking a lot though…of anyone,” Lux said as they reached the thickest part of the forest that was ideal for training out of sight and slowed.
Jinx shook her head as she righted herself, and flashed her most insouciant grin at her best friend and captain. “C’mon, Luxie,” she said, giving her a playful punch on the shoulder. “It’s us! You and me? We’re gonna be together forever!”
“Forever sounds nice,” Lux said with a laugh. “Now c’mon, Poppy’s probably getting impatient.”
“You say that like she has another setting.”
“Jinx…be nice.”
“Only for you, Luxie,” Jinx replied, still smiling.
The pair of them landed in the midst of the clearing, Lux with a delicately hop and Jinx with a more substantial impact. She was always like that, though, Lux mused. She could never do anything quietly when it could be done loudly, which was more a matter of principle than necessity.
It was endearing though, and more than that it was inspiring. Jinx lived loudly. She was bright, brash, and completely unashamed. As much of a wild card as Jinx could be in battle, if it weren’t for her Lux wasn’t sure she would be able to lead her squad of Star Guardians at all. She wasn’t sure she would have the courage. Seeing that courage in Jinx though…it helped.
“Finally!” Poppy's long, furry ears pinned back as she emerged from the tree-line where she’d been sitting. “We’ve been texting you for hours!”
“Bite me, short stack, it’s my day off,” Jinx shot back.
“Star Guardians don’t get days off,” Poppy replied flatly.
“Damn, really?” Jinx’s smirk widened. “We gotta get a union, do we at least get dental?”
Before Poppy could suffer a major coronary event, Lux stepped between them. “We’re here now, alright?” she said. “We can drill until nightfall, and then start our patrol, sound good?”
For a moment it looked like Poppy wanted to keep arguing, and if she did then Lux was positive that Jinx would, too. They were the two squeakiest gears in an otherwise well-oiled machine, and it didn’t help that Jinx loved antagonizing Poppy at every opportunity. Poppy, by contrast, had absolutely zero chill which made her…difficult, at times.
“Fine, whatever.” Poppy stepped back. “Hey, Lu! C’mon! We’re burning daylight!”
Behind her, Lulu was sitting in the shade of one of the trees sketching something in one of her many notebooks while Janna was sitting peacefully next to her. They were both very different studies in peaceful play; where Lulu was happily occupying herself with whatever was at hand, Janna always seemed to have a look on her face like she was contemplating existence.
“Lulu,” Janna said quietly, setting a hand on the yordle’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Huh?” Lulu looked up, then turned to look over at the rest of the Guardians. Her ears were pricked up and flicking about randomly as if listening for something, and after a moment they settled and she hopped up to her feet. “Oh! Everyone’s here!”
Janna rose beside her, all long, willowy limbs and ageless grace. Lux still didn’t know why the First Star chose her to be the captain over Janna, but Janna had never once complained.
If anything, she seemed relieved.
“Can we get started now?” Poppy asked dryly.
“I think so,” Lux replied with a small laugh. “Guardians, light up!”
“Neat.” Snapping out a hand, Poppy made a grasping motion and said, “Comin’ down!”
A bolt of blue light struck the ground beside her leaving a golden hammer decorated with pearlescent wings that glowed bright as the noonday sun embedded in the dirt. Poppy grabbed the handle and wrenched the weapon that was easily bigger than herself out of the earth and swung it about in punishing arcs, leaving streaks of light in the air. Those streaks wrapped around her chest, arms, and shoulders, and left behind thick plates of armor as they faded.
Lulu, by contrast, skipped up beside her fellow Guardian, giggling lightly, and threw her hands into the air. “Pix! PLAYTIME!”
Her furry little fae medium bobbed haphazardly around her, clinging to its small golden ball as it left glittering gold dust falling in its wake like confetti. The dust spun around Lulu in a vortex, rising up and about her legs, hips, chest, arms, and head, leaving behind a lightweight skirt and tunic, a twinkling star broach at her chest, and a shining tiara on her voluminous head of bright green hair, and ending with the appearance of long golden rod tipped with a sweeping heart.
“Zephyr,” Janna said, calmly extending her arm in a sweeping gesture in front of her. “Breathe.”
Janna’s vulpine familiar spiraled out from behind her carrying the wind in her wake. It wrapped around Janna like a lover’s arms, billowing and sweeping over her, dressing her in her pearl-white leggings and tunic that were edged in gold, and her skirt of royal purple which neatly matched her hair. Her long, gilded staff seemed to fold out of the dimming evening sunlight as she closed her fingers around the haft as she came to a weightless, floating stop.
“Alright, Lulu, you’re going to be practicing multitasking,” Lux said. “I want you to make as many as many illusory figures as you can. They don’t have to look like anything, just make most of them red and a few green, okay?”
Lulu made a dramatic salute and began dancing around the perimeter of the clearing with her staff raised and spilling light. Figures like featureless shades popped into existence, their otherwise eerie presence offset by the goofy faces that Lulu had them wearing.
“Jinx?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Jinx made her own haphazard salute. “What’ll it be Cap’n?”
“We’re not a naval vessel, Jinx,” Lux said. “But you’re going to be practicing firing discipline. Take down the red marks and only the red ones.”
“Aww…” Jinx stuck out her lip in a ridiculous pout. “But red’s my favorite color!”
“No it’s not,” Lux countered.
“You’re right!” Jinx’s frown vanished as she reached out to flick a lock of hair out from Lux’s eyes. “It’s pink!”
Sighing, Lux batted away Jinx’s hand with a laugh, ignoring the burn in her cheeks as she turned to Poppy. “You’ll be on defense. Lulu will make the red marks spit bolts of light, and your job is to keep me, Jinx, and Janna from getting hit.”
“On it,” Poppy said with a sharp nod as she pulled her round shield from her back.
“Janna?” Lux looked up to the eldest member of their team who was waiting patiently. “I’m going to be on target selection and shot-calling, so you’ll be fire and shield support, if Poppy gets overwhelmed, or I make a bad call, I trust you to make the right one.”
“A good leader knows her weaknesses,” Janna said with a faint smile. “And her soldiers’ strengths.”
“I ain’t a soldier,” Jinx replied loudly from behind Lux.
“I am,” Poppy said firmly.
“You’re like, a soldiette…at best.”
“Did you know your kneecaps are at the ideal height for the average yordle swinging a hammer?” Poppy said cheerfully. “Just a neat and completely irrelevant factoid.”
Jinx moved and Shiro moved with her, expanding into her starlight minigun, and pointed the weapon at Poppy. “Try it short stack.”
“Jinx, please,” Lux said weakly. “Can you not bicker with her for…for five seconds?”
The worst part was that this was a case of two people who would either end up best friends, or hate each other’s guts, and had unfortunately fallen on the latter end of the spectrum. Poppy was rigid and unyielding, but she was also literal and tended to ignore alternatives. Jinx was flexible and brilliant but treated little things like plans with whimsy at best and open disdain at worst.
The combination of those two personalities ended up with some…rather fraught team meetings and pre-battle huddles. At least they worked together in a fight well enough.
Mostly.
Lux opened her mouth to try and encourage them to make up, but, before she could, Jinx caught her by surprise by sighing, dismissing Shiro back to its fluffy floating body, and turning to Poppy.
“Fine, look, just…” she chewed her lip for a second, then made a dismissive wave. “Forget it, let’s just get to the drill practice or whatever, alright?”
Even Poppy looked surprised. Jinx didn’t usually just…stop like that. “Uh, yeah, okay,” she replied cautiously.
She shot a questioning look to Lux who could only shrug and shake her head. Was something wrong with Jinx? She’d seemed fine earlier but, then again, not even Lux could reliably tell what Jinx was thinking at any given point.
“Alright,” Lux said as Lulu finished conjuring up her illusory army. “Lulu, start shooting whenever you’re ready! Jinx, I’ll mark targets with gold stars, take them out first! Poppy, Janna, cover us!”
Finally, her team was moving with precision. Poppy took up position between Lux and Jinx, and Lulu’s army, holding her shield up and ready with her hammer out and low for balance. Jinx snapped Shiro back into her hands, spun up the starcoil at the heart of her weapon, poured magic into it, and grinned wide while Lux moved to her flank. Behind them both, Janna drifted, ready and waiting to provide her support.
It began with a hail of phantom shots that peppered the clearing with red darts. Poppy moved with diligent precision ignoring the ones that flew wide and keeping a solid angle of defense on the two behind her.
“Cluster at nine o’clock!” Lux called, sending a bolt of starlight at a thick group of the phantoms that were gearing up for another barrage.
Jinx snapped to the target without a word and disintegrated them under a flensing rain of magical shots. Her grouping was clean and sharp despite the usual inaccuracy of her weapon, and she kept on target and away from the green phantoms that had been near the cluster.
In fact, she was accurate to the point that it took Lux off-guard, and Poppy too if the muffled oath and sudden bloom of Janna’s wind-shield around her—soaking up her sudden lapse—was any suggestion.
“Next target, Luxie!” Jinx barked.
Lux frowned at Jinx’s suddenly sharp tone of voice but she shook it off and threw her next starbolt.
“Two o’clock high!” she called.
Another hail of starlight demolished another cluster of red phantoms while Poppy moved darted to and fro in front of them intercepting Lulu’s bolts of red light like a goalie.
Lux made another call, only to wince the moment it came out. Jinx’s next barrage cleared the group of three phantoms but there was another, nearer group of four that were charging up to open fire. That should have been the priority target! There was no way Jinx would be able to swap targets in time—!
A cyclonic blast of magically infused wind swept them apart, and Lux shot a grateful smile back at Janna who was doing her usual expert job. As she looked back, though, Lux saw something that put a twist in her guts.
Jinx wasn’t smiling.
Jinx was always smiling, especially when she was firing Shiro or Kuro. The expression she was wearing right then, though, was flat and almost angry; her brow was furrowed, her eyes were narrowed, and her normally full, cupid’s-bow lips were set into a hard line.
“Lux!” Poppy yelled. “Target!”
“Oh! R-Right!” Lux tried to push Jinx’s expression out of her mind as she turned and began calling out clusters again. It only sort of worked.
By all metrics (beyond her own hiccups) the practice drill was a resounding success. Jinx’s gunplay was never in doubt, but her collateral damage was occasionally…problematic. Not this time, though. This time, not a single green phantom was so much as nicked. Even Poppy had nothing to complain about.
“That was fantastic!” Lux said brightly. “Sorry for my…indecision early on, I’ll do better next time.”
“You’re still growing into your role,” Janna replied, laying a hand on her shoulder as she drifted to Lux’s side. “That’s the purpose of these drills, after all.”
“Even Jinx managed to put up a good showing,” Poppy said, which was the closest to a complimenting Jinx that Lux had ever heard her get, and she braced herself for a snide comment.
Silence answered, and as one Poppy and Lux both turned to Jinx who was looking over Shiro, poking at his belly here and there, examining him with a critical eye.
“Jinx?” Lux called softly.
“Hm?” Jinx looked up sharply. “Yeah?”
They locked eyes for several seconds, and Lux didn’t like what she saw there one bit. She couldn’t put a finger on exactly what she saw, really. Only that she didn’t like it.
“Girls,” Lux said softly without looking away. “Can I talk to Jinx alone for a minute?”
“Of course,” Janna replied before either of the others could respond, and moved to bustle the other two away towards the edge of the forest.
Once they were out of easy earshot, and before Lux could say a word, Jinx said, “What did I do wrong this time?”
Lux flinched. “What?” She wrapped her arms around herself at the cold edge of Jinx’s voice. “Why would you assume you did something wrong?”
“Maybe because the only time anyone wants to ‘talk to me alone’ it’s because I did something wrong?” Jinx said, making air quotes.
“No, you didn’t, you…you were great, in fact,” Lux said cautiously. “Actually, I just want to ask if…are you alright? You’re acting kind of strange.” That tension around her eyes was still there, and the tightness of her brow, too. It looked almost like— “You’ve got a migraine, don’t you?” Lux said suddenly.
“I’m fine,” Jinx said, a bit too quickly.
“No, you’re not!” Lux said, moving up to take her hand. “Why didn’t you just say that was why you were ignoring the texts?!”
“Because I didn’t have one then,” Jinx snapped, jerking her hand back. “I gave myself one doing Poppy’s stupid drill!”
Lux stepped back, her heart stinging with the rejection of Jinx refusing her touch. This wasn’t like her. There was something else, she could feel it. Something was eating at Jinx and she wasn’t saying anything about it.
“I thought schoolwork gave you migraines,” Lux said softy.
“Concentrating on stupid crap gives me migraines,” Jinx said testily. “It’s like…you ever tried to hold a snake that doesn’t wanna be held?” she asked suddenly. “You hold on tight, grip with both hands, but it’s just thrashing around and biting at your wrists and arms. That’s my brain anytime I try to concentrate on anything!”
She was in pain. Lux had to keep reminding herself that the reason Jinx was talking to her like that was that she was in pain.
“Does that happen every time we practice?” Lux asked quietly.
Jinx took a step back and rubbed awkwardly at her arm, then nodded. “More or less,” she said. “Just…my brain can’t stay in one place. I can force it, but…”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You know why,” Jinx said.
“No,” Lux said sharply. “I don’t!”
That was a lie. She knew. She knew because she knew Jinx. She knew what Poppy and the others didn’t—what she tried to tell them again and again. That Jinx wasn’t a slacker. That she wasn’t unreliable even if it looked that way sometimes. And yet Jinx had been criticized her entire life because she was, honestly, also kind of a mess. Poppy certainly didn’t make it any better. Even Janna was critical of her. Only Lulu seemed to not care but it was hard to say what exactly Lulu did care about sometimes.
Jinx laughed hollowly and shook her head.
“Right, yeah, look, Luxie, you and I both know that you’re the only one who wants me here, okay?” Jinx said.
Lux closed the distance, grabbed Jinx’s hand before she could pull away, and said, “That’s not true.”
Jinx rolled her eyes. “Oh please, like, Lulu’s the only other one who can stand me and she’s got more First-Star chatter between her ears than anything else! The day I croak will be the only day that short stack actually cracks a smile in my direction, and Janna always looks at me like I broke wind anytime I do anything.” She pulled her hand back again and crossed her arms belligerently over her chest. “Or am I wrong?”
All of it poured out with the weight of something that had been pressing down on Jinx for a while.
“It’s not like that,” Lux said. “It’s…Poppy gets out of line, you’re right, and I’ll talk to her, but Janna likes you! Lulu likes you!” she tried to pull Jinx closer, but Jinx held her ground, and that hurt. “I…I need you, Jinx.”
“I’m not cut out for this, Luxie,” Jinx said quietly. “The First Star made a mistake it picked me. It shoulda picked someone else…anyone else.”
“I don’t want anyone else,” Lux said wetly, fighting off the tears that were threatening. “I want my best friend.”
“Shoulda picked a better best friend, then.”
“LUX!”
Poppy’s shout broke through the moment like shattered glass, and Lux rounded on the approaching trio to demand why they had interrupted her. The question died on her lips as all three bolted from the forest in a hurry with Janna taking up the rear, sending billowing tornados of starlit wind behind her.
Behind them, a surging tide of skittering, three-eyed, chitinous alien insects the size of mastiffs were in hot pursuit. Their chitin was crusted with crystalline spurs and their clustered eyes glittered with malice as tore through the foliage. There were dozens of them!
“Shit, star spawn!” Jinx spat as Kuro darted down to her shoulder and expanded into a rocket launcher. “DUCK!”
Poppy, Lulu, and Janna dove forward as Jinx fired rocket after rocket into the advancing horde, and Lux followed up a moment later, getting her wits about her enough to send twisting orbs of starlight into the midst of them, slowing them briefly before they detonated, disintegrating the star spawn.
“Where did they come from?” Lux shouted as she fell back behind Jinx who had drawn up Shiro to lay down flensing covering fire to allow her three teammates to reach their line.
“No clue!” Poppy bit out. “One minute it was all quiet, and the next they were everywhere!”
“The stars are hiding, Lux!” Lulu cried as she fell back behind Janna. “Something is watching! And eye! It’s watching!”
“Neat, wanna make some actual sense now, Loopy?!” Jinx shouted over weaponsfire.
Poppy’s golden shield spun past them and slammed into a trio of starspawn that were skittering up from the flank before bouncing back to her arm as she took up position at Jinx’s left.
“At least she does her job!” Poppy snapped.
“Stop arguing! We’ve got bigger things to worry about!” Lux shouted.
“We need to find the Greater Spawn that’s calling them here,” Janna said as she floated up beside Lux while Poppy and Jinx kept the hordes at bay. “They’re not thinning, see, something is summoning reinforcements.” She gestured out towards the waves of spawn. Their sheer numbers were making her queasy. This was a much bigger incursion than they’d faced before.
“Do we have time to call Ahri’s team?” Lux asked hopefully.
Janna shook her head. “I’ve already sent them a message but the gate between stars will keep widening, calling more spawnlings and in greater numbers. We can’t wait for them. This is already too many.”
Nodding, Lux turned to the youngest member of her squad who was still shivering near Janna’s legs, and knelt down. “Lu, I know this is scary, and I can’t imagine what you’re seeing, but I need you to listen to the First Star and find the big one for us, okay?” She clasped Lulu’s smaller hands in her own. “Please, we need your help!”
For a moment, Lulu just stared up at her with those wide, childlike blue eyes. Then something in them hardened, and she nodded as she planted her feet and took in a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Of all them, Lulu’s connection to the First Star was the strongest. So much so that it was staggering. Her ability to move the magic of the stars was beyond even Janna who once commented that, Lulu may very well end up the most powerful star mage in the galaxy when she truly mastered her gift.
For the time being, though, Lux was relying on that same gift to clue them in as to where the Greater Spawn was hiding. Was it buried? A few liked to do that. Some of the more insidious ones disguised themselves as actual people. Other, larger ones, would masquerade as whole locations sometimes, although those ones were ponderous and sleepy, and usually ended up with a reputation for being haunted, but Centerpointe had always been clear, so it couldn’t be that!
“Watching…watching…” Lulu mumbled.
“ANYTIME NOW!” Jinx called out as she swapped back to Kuro to blow apart a particularly nasty cluster.
“Give her a minute!” Poppy countered.
“WE AIN’T GOT A MINUTE!”
“It’s watching…from above!” Lulu snapped her head up, and her eyes went wide as she pointed with her staff at an empty point in the sky. “It’s there!”
Lux stared up into the darkened sky and scowled.
“Out of phase?” she whispered. “No, it would have to phase in to gate in the spawnlings…the light!” The coin dropped and she brought up her staff and shouted, “It’s bending the light around it to make itself invisible!”
“Can ya unbend it?” Jinx shouted back.
“Sort of,” Lux said with a nervous laugh, then whispered to her staff. “I need your help here, Mimi…lend me your strength!”
Lux pulled up much power as she could and siphoned it into her medium, causing the tip of the rod to burn and pulse like the heart of a main-sequence star. Sweat beaded at her brow, and her whole body felt like it was cooking under the strain of focusing so much pure power. She needed every drop of it, though.
No more holding back.
“SHOW YOURSELF!” Lux bellowed as she snapped her arms wide and released all of the pent-up power in a single, focused beam of pure light.
It cut through the sky, leaving a sharp heat haze and the stink of ozone, and struck something solid. Whatever spell the Spawn was using to hide in plain sight shattered as tried to bend the overwhelming light of her spell and failed, and a moment later their target shimmered into existence.
“That…looks bad,” Jinx said casually.
“For once we agree,” Poppy replied with a wince.
Lux took a step back, looked to Janna, and asked, “What is that?”
It was huge; humanoid only in the broadest sweeps and looked like it had been carved from arterial red crystal by a sculptor who had been going for minimalism and stopped halfway through. There was a vague suggestion of a feminine form about it in the angular sweep of the chest and hips and the graceful slope of the neck, but that was where the likeness ended. Dark fire burned around it like grim regalia, and, despite its lack of eyes, Lux couldn’t shake the feeling that it was staring down at them with palpable malice.
“Impossible, they were all destroyed,” Janna whispered softly, her voice shaking in a way that Lux had never heard before from the normally serene elder Guardian.
“Janna, what am I looking at?!” Lux pleaded.
“A city-killer forged from one of the very first corrupted stars,” Janna replied with an icy shiver. “We called them…the Daughters of Algol.”