Ignition joins Lionheart

Leo hated that the plan was working.

That was the worst part. If Ignition had been useless, if the big bastard had gotten in the way, if he had stumbled through formations or made Alice panic or made Jolie flinch, Leo could have thrown the whole idea back in Alice’s face the second they got home. See? Stupid plan. Never bring me a walking disaster and call it strategy again. He had wanted that. Gods, he had been ready for that. He had walked into Fangspire with his jaw locked and lightning crawling under his skin, already angry that Alice had talked him into this in the first place. Well, talked was a generous word. Alice had done more than talk. She’d used that shy little mouth of hers and those grey, stubborn eyes and made the argument impossible to ignore. Not fair. Completely unfair. The girl looked like she was about to tell a tax collector to fuck off even when she was embarrassed enough to shake, and somehow that made it worse.

Now she walked behind him in her white and red healer gear, staff in both hands, red black hair falling around that resting bitch face of hers like she was bored by the entire dungeon. Leo knew better. Alice was probably screaming inside her own head every time the walls clicked or something moved in the dark, but from the outside she looked sharp, distant, annoyed. Like a tiny noble executioner dragged out of bed too early. It was funny. It was cute. It made him want to grab her chin and tell her to stop hiding behind that dead eyed look when every damn emotion she had still leaked out through her ears. It also made him want to protect her so badly his teeth hurt. Alice was new. Level five. Too curious for her own good, too brave in the stupidest possible way, and too ashamed of her own body for someone who had no reason to be. The first time he had seen her naked, he’d thought femboy, and yeah, that would have been fun. He was comfortable enough with himself to admit that much. Femboys were different. Not men in the way that mattered to him, not the kind of rough, gross bastards he’d never let near his bed or his girls. But Alice wasn’t that either. Alice was Alice. Soft where she was soft, hard where she was hard, born complicated and acting like that meant she had to apologize to the world. He hated that. He wanted to fix that. Maybe return the favor someday, if she stopped looking like she expected laughter every time someone noticed what she was.

Jolie moved just behind Alice, humming under her breath as if Fangspire wasn’t a murderous underground frontier full of traps, teeth, and bad decisions. His Jolie. His first girl. His oldest friend. The only person in the world who remembered him before Lionheart, before lightning, before he’d decided arrogance was better armor than fear. They had grown up together in the orphanage, two unwanted kids learning the shape of each other’s hunger. Jolie had cried easier back then. Leo had fought easier. Some bigger boy would take her food, and Leo would throw himself at him with both fists even if he knew he’d lose. He usually lost. Then he’d get up and do it again, because the alternative was watching Jolie learn that nobody was coming. They had run away together, half starved and furious, with a stolen blanket and one cracked sword between them. He had promised her he’d become someone strong enough that no one would ever take anything from them again.

He was still working on that.

A shape dropped from the ceiling.

Leo moved before thought, blade flashing upward, lightning snapping along the edge. The thing screamed as the strike cut through its chitinous underside, a tunnel crawler the size of a carriage, all hooked legs and pale eyes. It hit the ground twitching, legs scraping sparks from stone. Two more skittered out of cracks in the wall, drawn by the blood scent and the heat of living bodies. Leo grinned despite himself. Finally. Something he could hit. He lunged forward, boots sliding over damp stone, sword coming around in a hard arc that split the first crawler’s face open and sent blue white lightning crawling through its shell.

“Jolie, left! Alice, keep line of sight!” he barked.

“Got it!” Jolie sang back, too bright, but steady.

Alice answered with a quick nod, lips pressed flat, staff already glowing with that soft healer light. She did listen when it mattered. That was one thing Leo liked about her. She complained with her eyes, muttered under her breath, looked like she was mentally writing his obituary every time he opened his mouth, but when blades came out, she followed orders. Good girl. Smart girl.

Then Ignition threw one fireball.

Not a big one. That was what pissed Leo off. It wasn’t some grand spell, no chant, no dramatic windup, no stance wide enough to announce he was about to do something impressive. The bastard stood at the back of the formation like he was trying not to take up space in a tunnel that clearly wasn’t built for him, lifted one hand, and flicked his wrist. Fire rolled down the side passage in a tight orange sphere, struck the third crawler, and bloomed outward with a dull thud. Not an explosion. A contained burn. Clean. Efficient. The creature was ash before it finished screaming.

Leo’s grip tightened on his sword.

“Careful,” Ignition said, voice low.

Leo snapped his head back. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I meant the ceiling.”

The ceiling cracked.

Leo swore, grabbed Alice by the back of her collar, and yanked her clear just as a chunk of stone the size of a table slammed down where she’d been standing. Alice made a strangled noise, feet stumbling, staff nearly slipping from her hands. Jolie yelped and ducked behind him. Another crawler burst through the fresh hole, mandibles wide.

Leo drove his sword into its mouth and unloaded lightning straight down its throat.

The thing spasmed, cooked from the inside, and collapsed in a smoking heap.

For half a second, Leo felt better.

Then Ignition stepped forward and punched the tunnel.

Just punched it.

His fist hit empty air, and the air hit back with fire. A shockwave ripped down the corridor, a roaring orange line that flattened dust, shattered loose stone, and turned the skittering shapes deeper in the dark into a chorus of dying shrieks. Heat blew past Leo’s face hard enough to shove his hair back. The tunnel ahead glowed red, then dimmed, leaving nothing but smoke and little burning pieces sliding down the walls.

Ignition lowered his hand.

“That should clear the next bend,” he said.

Leo stared at the scorched corridor.

Jolie whispered, “Holy shit.”

Alice, because she had no survival instinct at all, muttered, “That was barely trying, wasn’t it?”

Ignition looked embarrassed. “A little.”

Leo wanted to punch him.

Not because Ignition had done anything wrong. That was the infuriating thing. The man stayed in the back like Leo told him. He didn’t grandstand. Didn’t bark orders. Didn’t flirt with the girls. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t make some big show of being stronger. He just was. Quietly. Casually. Like power was a coat he forgot he was wearing. Leo could handle arrogance. Arrogance had handles. You could grab it, shove it, challenge it, make it bleed. Ignition’s patience had no handles. He checked whether Alice was too close to smoke. He asked Jolie if her mana was steady. He gave Leo room to lead and somehow made that feel like pity even when it wasn’t.

“Don’t do that again unless I say,” Leo snapped.

Ignition nodded. “Understood.”

No argument. No challenge. No offended pride.

Asshole.

Leo turned sharply and started down the tunnel before anyone could see his face. Fangspire smelled the same as it had two years ago. Damp stone, old smoke, beast musk, iron, mushrooms, blood hiding under everything. He had been weaker then. Younger. Dumber. He’d come in with Jolie thinking guts and lightning were enough. They weren’t. Fangspire had taught him that fast. He still remembered the dark closing around them, Jolie bleeding, his sword arm shaking, goblin laughter echoing through tunnels he couldn’t map. He remembered Yamaba appearing like a ghost, pale green hair tangled, molten eyes hollow, voice flat as death when she told them to follow if they wanted to live. He had told the story later like he’d rescued her. Like Lionheart had swept in and dragged the tragic elf back to the surface.

Truth was uglier.

Yamaba had saved them first.

She’d known the tunnels. Known which goblin markings meant traps, which mushrooms screamed when stepped on, which smoke vents meant hobgoblin scouts. She had been half starved, sharp as broken glass, and still she had walked them out when Leo barely knew which way was up. He had brought her back, sure. He had given her a place. A party. A bed. A life where she could sit by a window and pretend she didn’t care about any of them. But if he was being honest in the part of himself he usually strangled, Yamaba had saved him just as much. Maybe more.

That was why he’d wanted her here.

Not like this. Not pregnant, stuck at home, He’d wanted to bring her back standing beside him, show her he wasn’t the idiot kid who needed her to drag him through the dark anymore. He wanted to walk through Fangspire with his sword bright and his girls safe behind him. Wanted her to see that she could be safe with him now. That he’d gotten stronger. That he could be the one between her and the nightmare this time.

Instead, he had Ignition at his back.

Fucking perfect.

Another pack of crawlers came at them near the next bend. Leo threw himself into them harder than he needed to. Lightning burst from his blade, blue white arcs cutting jagged lines through the dim tunnel. One crawler lunged at Jolie Leo caught it midair with a kick to the head and split it before it landed. Another scraped toward Alice, and he was there first, sword punching through its skull, sparks lighting the wet stone. He heard Alice’s breath hitch behind him. Heard Jolie laugh, bright and relieved.

“That’s our Leo!” Jolie called.

Damn right.

His chest warmed at that, stupidly. Childishly. He fed on it anyway. He’d always fed on it. Jolie believing in him had been the first holy thing in his life. Before classes. Before lightning. Before Lionheart. Her voice saying he could do it, even when he couldn’t, even when he was a scrawny orphan brat with bloody knuckles and no plan besides hit first and don’t cry. He wanted to be a hero because heroes were the people who arrived before girls like Jolie had to be scared. He wanted to be a hero because someone should have arrived for them. No one had. So he became loud enough to pretend that didn’t matter.

Then Ignition stepped around him and caught a crawler’s charge with one hand.

The beast slammed into his palm and stopped like it had hit a wall.

Ignition’s fingers closed around its face. Fire flashed once. The crawler dropped dead, smoke leaking from between its plates.

Leo’s jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

“Nice,” Alice said before she could stop herself.

Leo looked back at her.

“Tch.” Leo turned forward. “Don’t drool, rookie.”

Alice flushed. “I wasn’t.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I was thinking about how we’re alive.”

“Think quieter.”

Jolie giggled. Ignition looked like he wanted to apologize for being complimented.

Leo hated him.

Leo also, unfortunately, liked him a little.

Not liked. No. Absolutely not. Liked was too generous. He respected him. Barely. Against his will. Ignition was strong, but he didn’t swing that strength around like a club unless he had to. He watched the girls’ positions. Kept his heat controlled around them. Didn’t challenge Leo’s calls even when Leo could feel the man noticing better options. That was the part that needled deepest. Ignition could take command if he wanted. Probably should, by cold numbers. B rank, walking apocalypse. But he didn’t. He let Leo lead.

Because he was nice.

What kind of bullshit was that?

The tunnel opened into a wide cavern where pale roots hung from the ceiling like veins. Little mana crystals glowed between them, casting weak green light over old bones and the broken shells of things that had died here before. Leo lifted a fist, signaling a stop. Alice and Jolie halted immediately. Ignition stopped a pace behind them, too quiet for a man his size.

Leo scanned the cavern.

No movement. No obvious traps. No goblin chatter. Good.

“Break,” he said. “Two minutes. Drink. Check mana.”

Alice sagged with visible relief, then tried to pretend she hadn’t. Jolie slid an arm around her shoulders and leaned in, whispering something that made Alice’s blank face crack into a mortified scowl. Leo watched them from the corner of his eye. His girls. His healers. Jolie’s golden brightness and Alice’s sharp little stormcloud face. He loved Jolie like breathing. Alice was newer, stranger, but she fit. She fit into the apartment, into Jolie’s arms, into the space at Leo’s side where he hadn’t realized someone could stand. He liked the way she challenged him. Liked how she pretended not to like being claimed. Liked how her courage showed up in ugly little bursts, usually right after fear tried to swallow her whole.

He was going to make her strong.

He was going to make all of them strong.

That was the point.

Ignition stood near the cavern wall, arms folded, eyes on the tunnel they’d come from. Not relaxed. Never relaxed. There was something in him that didn’t rest, even when his face went still. Heat shimmered faintly at his shoulders, there and gone. He looked like a man built around a locked door with something huge breathing behind it.

Leo knew what that was like more than he wanted to.

He hated that too.

“You,” Leo said.

Ignition looked over. “Me?”

“No, the other giant fucking furnace skulking in my party. Yeah, you.”

Alice rubbed her forehead. Jolie bit her lip to hide a smile.

Ignition faced him fully. “What do you need?”

Leo hated that answer. Too respectful. Too useful. “If something big hits, you wait for my call. You don’t blow the tunnel apart unless I say so.”

Ignition nodded. “Alright.”

“And don’t hover over Alice.”

Alice made a noise. “He wasn’t ”

Leo pointed at her without looking. “Quiet.”

Ignition glanced at Alice, then back to Leo. “I was watching the rear.”

“Watch it farther away.”

“Understood.”

Leo stepped closer, lowering his voice. “And stop acting like you’re not stronger than me.”

Ignition’s expression changed. Just a little. Something tired moved behind his eyes. “I wasn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“I am stronger than you,” Ignition said.

Leo’s lightning sparked.

Ignition continued, calm and blunt. “Right now. In raw force. That is true. It does not make me better at leading them.”

Leo froze.

Ignition looked past him, toward Alice and Jolie. “They move when you speak. They trust your calls. Alice watches your shoulders before she casts. Jolie keeps rhythm with your steps. That is not something I can replace.”

Leo’s throat tightened in a way he immediately hated.

He clicked his tongue and looked away. “Don’t kiss my ass.”

“I’m not.”

“Sounds like it.”

Jolie lost it. She turned away, shoulders shaking. Alice slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes bright with the effort not to laugh.

Leo glared at all of them. “Shut up.”

Alice squeaked, “Nobody said anything.”

Leo snorted. “Exactly. Suspicious as hell.”

Jolie finally gave up trying to hide her laughter and leaned into Alice’s shoulder, shoulders shaking, blonde hair spilling forward. Alice looked like she wanted to die and stab him at the same time, which was becoming one of Leo’s favorite expressions on her. Ignition, annoyingly, had the decency to look away instead of laughing in her face. Leo clicked his tongue and shoved his sword back into its sheath hard enough to make the metal sing.

“Two minutes,” he said again, sharper. “Drink. Check mana. Then we move.”

Jolie’s laughter faded first. She pressed a hand against the Echo Charm at her throat, then glanced at Alice. Alice did the same, her fingers brushing the matching resonance focus like she already knew what Jolie was about to say and wished she didn’t. Leo saw the little flicker between them. The nerves. The embarrassment. The need. Their class was useful as hell, but Dice had a rotten sense of humor, and Mana Tether Healers didn’t recover like normal mages. They could sip mana potions, sure, if they wanted to burn coin and crawl along at a snail’s pace. Or they could use the method the system actually wanted them using. The humiliating one. The one that made Alice’s ears go red every time it came up and made Jolie light up like someone had handed her a holiday.

Leo looked down the tunnel, then back at the girls. No movement. No goblin chatter. Ignition stood far enough away to be useful without hovering, eyes on the dark corridor, heat banked low around him.

“Fine,” Leo muttered. “You two. With me.”

Alice blinked. “What?”

“Mana,” Leo said, already turning toward a narrow side alcove behind a curtain of hanging roots. “You’re both low.”

Jolie perked up immediately. “Oh.”

Alice’s face went red so fast Leo almost laughed. Almost. He wasn’t in the mood to laugh about it, not with Ignition standing ten paces away pretending not to understand exactly what was happening. Leo shot him a glare over his shoulder.

“You. Watch the passage.”

Ignition nodded once. “I will.”

“Don’t listen.”

“I will try not to.”

“Try harder asshole.”

“Yes.”

Too agreeable. Leo hated that too.

The alcove wasn’t much, just a bend in the stone where the roots grew thick enough to block most of the cavern light. It gave them privacy by dungeon standards, which meant anyone determined enough could probably hear everything if they tried, but Leo didn’t intend to take long. This wasn’t home. It wasn’t their bed. It wasn’t even a camp. It was Fangspire, and Fangspire punished idiots who forgot they were standing in another world’s throat.

Jolie slipped in after him without hesitation, already smiling, warm and trusting and his in a way that still made something old and hungry in his chest settle. Alice followed slower, staff hugged to her chest, face trying its hardest to stay blank. It didn’t work. Her throat bobbed when she swallowed. Her eyes kept flicking down, then away, then down again, like she was furious at herself for noticing anything. Leo caught her chin with two fingers before she could hide behind her hair.

“Relax, rookie.”

“I am relaxed.”

“You look like someone sentenced you to public speaking.”

“That’s because you keep looking at me.”

“I like looking at you.”

Her face somehow got redder.

There it was. That crack in the armor. Alice could stare down monsters with that flat glare of hers, but one honest compliment and she folded like cheap paper. Leo liked that too much. Probably more than he should. He liked knowing he could make her feel seen and cornered at the same time. Liked that she had chosen this class for him, even if she’d never admit it. She could have picked something safer. Cleaner. Less humiliating. But she had picked Jolie’s path. Picked the class that made her useful to him in the most intimate way Dice could design. It was hot. Embarrassingly hot, if Leo were the kind of man who got embarrassed about wanting things. He wasn’t.

Mostly.

Jolie dropped to her knees before Leo even finished checking the shadows.

That was Jolie. No hesitation. No shame. Just warm enthusiasm and a smile that made her look like she'd been waiting for this all day which, knowing her, she probably had. Her blonde hair spilled forward as she leaned in, and Leo felt her breath hot against his thigh through the leather of his pants.

"Jolie "

"Shh." She pressed a finger to her lips, eyes sparkling up at him. "Let me."

Her teeth found his zipper.

Leo's breath caught. He watched her work it down with her mouth alone, slow and deliberate, maintaining eye contact the entire time. The metal teeth parted with a soft rrrip sound that seemed too loud in the quiet alcove. Jolie's nose brushed against the growing bulge beneath the fabric, and she made a small, pleased sound in the back of her throat.

"Mmm." She nuzzled closer, pressing her face against the outline of his cock through his underwear. "There you are."

"Jolie, we don't have "

She inhaled deeply.

The sound was obscene. A long, slow breath in, her nose pressed right against the base of his shaft, her eyes fluttering half closed like she was savoring a particularly good meal. Her lips parted slightly. Her tongue darted out to wet them.

"You smell so good," she murmured. "You always smell so good after a fight. All that adrenaline and sweat and you." Another deep inhale. "Alice. Alice, come here. Come smell him."

Alice made a strangled noise behind them.

Leo glanced over his shoulder. She was pressed against the alcove wall, staff clutched to her chest like a shield, face so red it practically glowed in the dim light. Her eyes were fixed on Jolie's kneeling form with an expression caught somewhere between horror and desperate fascination.

"I I don't "

"Come on." Jolie reached back without looking, grabbed Alice's wrist, and tugged. "It's part of the class. You know it is. The closer we are to him, the faster we regenerate. And he smells amazing."

"That's not the system doesn't require us to to smell "

"No, but it helps." Jolie tugged again, harder. "Trust me. I've been doing this longer than you. Get down here."

Alice stumbled forward. Her knees hit the stone with a soft thud, putting her face level with Leo's crotch, and her breath caught audibly when she realized how close she was. Jolie still had the zipper between her teeth, still working it the last inch down, and Alice was right there, close enough that Leo could feel the warmth of her rapid breathing through his clothes.

"See?" Jolie finally freed the zipper and sat back on her heels, looking smug. "Isn't that better?"

Alice's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

No words came out.

Jolie leaned back in, pressing her nose against Leo's underwear, inhaling deeply. "Come on, Alice. Just try it. One little sniff."

"This is this is ridiculous "

"One sniff."

Alice's jaw tightened. Leo could see the war playing out across her face pride versus need, embarrassment versus the undeniable pull. The Echo Charm at her throat pulsed faintly, hungry for mana, and her reserves had to be scraping bottom after the last fight.

She leaned in.

Just barely. Just enough for her nose to brush against the fabric beside Jolie's. Her breath came out shaky, and when she inhaled

Her eyes went wide.

"Oh."

"Told you." Jolie's voice was warm with satisfaction. "Told you it was good."

Alice made a sound that wasn't quite a word. Her nose pressed closer, seeking more of the scent, and Leo watched her careful composure start to crack. Another inhale. Deeper this time. Her lips parted slightly, and he could see her pupils dilating, could see the flush spreading down her neck.

"The system the system links us," Alice whispered, like she was trying to justify it to herself. "Proximity helps. Physical contact accelerates mana transfer. This is just this is just "

"It's just you sniffing his cock like you want to eat it," Jolie said cheerfully. "Which you do. It's okay. I won't judge."

Alice's face achieved a new shade of red.

But she didn't pull back.

Instead, she pressed closer. Her nose nuzzled against the fabric, tracing the outline of Leo's shaft through his underwear, and the sound she made was quiet and desperate and nothing like the controlled healer she tried to be in front of the party. Jolie joined her, both of them pressed against him now, breathing him in, and Leo

Leo watched them with dark eyes and a growing ache.

They were beautiful like this. Both of them. Jolie with her eager warmth and knowing smile, Alice with her crumbling defenses and reluctant hunger. His girls. His healers. On their knees for him in a dungeon alcove, nuzzling his cock through his clothes, panting like they couldn't get enough.

Jolie's tongue darted out. Just a little lick, tasting him through the fabric.

Alice whimpered.

Then she did the same.

Two tongues pressed against his clothed shaft, tracing the outline of him, leaving wet spots on the dark fabric. Jolie worked up one side while Alice worked up the other, and they met at the head, their lips almost brushing through the thin barrier of his underwear. Alice's eyes were squeezed shut now. Her breathing was ragged. Her whole body trembled.

"Please," she whispered. The word seemed to escape without her permission. "Please "

Leo's patience snapped.

"Enough."

Both women froze.

"I said enough." His voice came out rougher than intended, thick with want. "You're not fucking dogs. Stop sniffing me like I'm some goddamn orc."

Jolie blinked up at him, mouth still pressed against his clothed cock. "But you smell "

"I don't care what I smell like." Leo hooked his thumbs into his waistband. "You want it? Fine. But you're going to do this properly."

He shoved his underwear down.

His cock sprang free, eight inches of thick, hard flesh slapping against Jolie's cheek with an audible thwack. She gasped surprise, delight, want all tangled together and Alice made a sound like she'd been punched.

"Fuck," Alice breathed, staring.

"That's the idea." Leo wrapped his hand around the base of his shaft and lifted it, letting them see the full length. Heavy. Veined. Already leaking pre cum from the tip. "Now. You want to worship something? Worship this."

He slapped it against Jolie's face.

She moaned.

"Open your mouth."

She did. Lips parting, tongue extending, ready and eager. Leo dragged the head of his cock across her extended tongue, smearing pre cum, then pulled back before she could close around him.

"Not yet." He turned to Alice. "Your turn."

Alice's eyes were huge. Her mouth was already open had been open since he'd pulled himself free and Leo could see her throat working as she swallowed nothing. Her staff had fallen from her grip at some point. Her hands were braced on her thighs, fingers digging into her own flesh.

He slapped his cock against her cheek.

The sound echoed in the small alcove. Alice flinched but didn't pull back. Her eyes squeezed shut, and when Leo dragged his shaft across her face, leaving a wet trail of pre cum from her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth, she whimpered.

"Pretty," Leo murmured. "Both of you. So fucking pretty."

He slapped her other cheek.

Then Jolie's face. Then Alice's again. Back and forth, marking them both with the weight and heat of him, watching their expressions shift from startled to dazed to something that looked a lot like grateful. Jolie was smiling now, leaning into the impacts, chasing his cock with her mouth every time it pulled away. Alice was trembling constantly, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, but her mouth kept falling open wider and wider, silently begging.

"Together," Leo said finally. "Both of you. Now."

They moved like they'd rehearsed it.

Jolie pressed against one side of his shaft. Alice mirrored her on the other. Their lips met around his cock not quite kissing, but close, so close, the heat of their mouths bleeding into him from both sides. Jolie's tongue flicked out first, tracing along the thick vein on her side. Alice hesitated half a second, then followed suit, her tongue brushing against the opposite vein with a touch so light Leo almost couldn't feel it.

Then Jolie moved up.

Her head tilted, lips and tongue trailing along the side of his shaft toward the head. Alice tracked with her on the other side, keeping pace, and when they reached the tip their mouths finally met properly pressed together around his cockhead, lips brushing, tongues tangling over the slit where pre cum kept leaking.

They kissed each other through his cock.

Leo's hips jerked involuntarily.

"Fuck "

Jolie hummed against him, pleased, and the vibration traveled straight down his shaft. Alice made a muffled sound that might have been his name. Their lips stayed locked, mouths working together, tongues swirling around the sensitive head while they kissed and licked and worshipped.

Then they started moving.

Down together, lips and tongues trailing the same path on opposite sides of his shaft. Their heads tilted at mirror angles, blonde and red hair tangling, faces pressed so close he could feel their breath mixing against his skin. When they reached the base, Jolie nuzzled against his balls while Alice licked a long stripe up the underside. Then they reversed, climbing back toward the tip, mouths meeting again around the head for another messy, cock filled kiss.

Over and over.

Up and down.

Working him with synchronized devotion that made his vision blur at the edges.

"Good girls," Leo managed. His hand found the back of Alice's head she whimpered as his fingers tangled in her dark hair. His other hand did the same to Jolie. "That's it. Just like that. Worship it."

They did.

Alice's earlier hesitation had vanished completely. She kissed and licked with the same desperate intensity as Jolie now, her tongue chasing every inch of his shaft, her lips leaving wet trails across his skin. When their mouths met around the head she kissed Jolie through him without shame, their tongues visible as they swirled and tangled, spit and pre cum making everything slick and obscene.

"Mmm " Jolie pulled back just far enough to speak, her lips brushing the head with each word. "He tastes so good, Alice. Doesn't he taste good?"

Alice's answer was to suck the tip into her mouth.

Leo groaned.

She shouldn't have been able to do that with Jolie right there, but Alice had angles, had enthusiasm, and she used both to swallow the first few inches while Jolie worked her tongue along what was left. The sight of it Alice's cheeks hollowing, Jolie's blonde head bobbing beside her, both of them focused entirely on his pleasure was almost too much.

"Fuck." Leo's grip tightened in their hair. "Fuck, you two are "

Alice pulled back with a gasp, spit connecting her lips to his cock in shining strings. Jolie immediately took her place, swallowing him deeper, and Alice Alice pressed her face against the base and inhaled again, nuzzling into his balls while Jolie's mouth worked the shaft.

"Thought I told you " Leo's voice caught as Jolie did something with her tongue that made his thoughts scatter. "Thought I told you to stop sniffing "

Alice looked up at him through her lashes. Her face was wet with spit and pre cum. Her eyes were huge and dark and nothing like the composed healer from an hour ago.

"Make me," she whispered.

Leo's hand tightened in her hair.

He pulled.

She came up gasping, mouth already open, and Leo fed her his cock without ceremony three inches, four, pushing past her resistance until he felt her throat flutter around the head. Her eyes went wide. Her hands flew up to grip his thighs. But she didn't pull back.

"You want to be bratty?" Leo held her there, watching tears leak from the corners of her eyes. "You want to make me do something? Fine. Take it."

He thrust.

Alice gagged. Her throat convulsed around him, tight and hot and perfect, and Leo didn't let up. He fucked her mouth with short, sharp strokes, feeling her gag reflex fight him, feeling her struggle and submit and struggle again. Jolie's hands found his thigh, steadying herself, and when Leo finally pulled back to let Alice breathe she immediately lunged forward to clean the spit and pre cum from his shaft with eager licks.

"God " Alice coughed, gasped, sucked in air. Her makeup had run. Her hair was a disaster. She looked absolutely wrecked.

She looked beautiful.

"Again," she whispered.

Leo's eyebrows rose.

"Please." The word cracked in the middle. "I can I can do better. Let me try again."

"Greedy," Leo murmured. But he was already guiding her back, already pressing the head of his cock against her lips. "Jolie. Help her."

"Yes, Leo." Jolie's voice was warm syrup. She shifted position, moving behind Alice, and her hands came up to cradle the other woman's jaw. "Relax, Alice. I've got you. Just relax and let him in."

Alice's mouth opened.

Leo pushed forward.

This time, with Jolie's hands steadying her, Alice took him deeper. The head of his cock pressed past her gag reflex, and she choked, but Jolie's fingers stroked her jaw soothingly, and after a moment the convulsions eased. Leo felt Alice's throat open around him, felt himself sink another inch, another, until her nose was nearly pressed against his pelvis.

"Fuck," Leo breathed. "Look at you. Taking it all the way."

Alice couldn't answer. She was too full of him to do anything but hold still and take it, throat working around his shaft, tears streaming down her face. Jolie pressed a kiss to her temple.

"Good girl," Jolie murmured. "Such a good girl for him."

Leo held there for a long moment, feeling Alice's throat flutter, watching Jolie's hands soothe and steady. Then he pulled back, all the way out, and Alice collapsed forward with a ragged gasp.

"Jolie. Your turn."

Jolie practically lunged for him, mouth open and hungry. She swallowed him in one smooth motion, no hesitation, no resistance, her throat opening around him like she'd been made for this. And maybe she had that class of hers came with perks Leo didn't fully understand, but zero gag reflex seemed to be one of them.

He fucked her throat while Alice watched, still gasping for breath. Then he switched, feeding his cock back to Alice while Jolie licked his balls. Then both of them again, their mouths meeting around him, tongues tangling, working him together with wet enthusiasm.

"Close," Leo finally grated out. His balls were tight, his whole body strung wire taut with pleasure. "Where do you want it?"

Jolie pulled back, lips shining. "Our faces. Please, Leo. Mark us."

Alice whimpered, pressing her face against his shaft.

Leo pulled out of their shared grip, wrapping his hand around his cock, stroking fast. Both women tilted their faces up, eyes closed, mouths open, waiting.

He came with a groan that echoed off the alcove walls.

The first rope hit Jolie across the bridge of her nose, splashing down onto her lips. The second caught Alice's cheek, trailing down toward her jaw. He kept stroking, kept coming, painting them both with thick white stripes until his balls finally emptied and he was left panting above them.

They looked up at him through the mess.

Jolie, smiling bright and satisfied, cum dripping from her chin.

Alice, dazed and marked, her careful composure absolutely destroyed.

"Good girls," Leo managed. "Both of you. Such good fucking girls."

Leo's hand found Alice's shoulder before she could finish wiping her face.

"Not done with you yet."

Alice blinked up at him, still dazed, cum glistening on her cheek and jaw. Her red hair was a disaster, tangled and matted with sweat and worse. Her careful composure had shattered somewhere in the last ten minutes and showed no signs of reassembling.

"What "

"Wall." Leo turned her bodily, guiding her toward the alcove's rough stone surface. "Bend over. Hands flat."

Alice's breath caught. "Leo, we don't have time "

"I decide what we have time for." His voice dropped, rough and commanding in a way that made her shiver visibly. "You wanted to be bratty earlier. Told me to make you. Remember?"

Her throat bobbed.

"This is me making you." He pressed between her shoulder blades, pushing her forward until her palms hit the cool stone. "Bend. Over."

Alice bent.

Her staff lay forgotten somewhere behind them. Her robes had ridden up during their earlier activities, bunched around her waist, leaving her legs bare from mid thigh down. Leo's hands found the hem and pushed it higher, exposing the simple cotton underwear beneath practical, unadorned, exactly what he'd expected from someone who treated lingerie like an unnecessary expense.

He hooked his fingers in the waistband.

"Leo " Alice's voice cracked.

He pulled the fabric aside, and there it was her cock, half hard and flushed pink, curving down between her thighs. Five inches, slender, no balls beneath it, just smooth skin leading back to her pussy.

Alice made a strangled sound.

"It's pretty." Leo wrapped his hand around it, felt it twitch and harden further in his grip. Alice's whole body jerked. "Cute little thing."

The word came out strangled. "fuck "

Leo stroked once, base to tip, feeling the soft skin slide beneath his fingers. Alice's hips bucked involuntarily, pressing back against nothing, seeking friction that wasn't there yet.

"Good." He released her, and she whimpered at the loss. "Jolie. Come here."

Jolie appeared at his elbow immediately, still smiling, still marked with his cum. "Yes, Leo?"

"Condom. Put it on me." He pulled himself free again already hard, hadn't really gone soft and gestured at his cock. "With your mouth."

Jolie's eyes lit up.

She fished a condom from somewhere in her gear she always had them, Leo had noticed, tucked into pockets and pouches like particularly optimistic emergency supplies and tore the wrapper with her teeth. The latex circle gleamed faintly in the dim light as she placed it against her lips.

Then she leaned forward and swallowed him.

The condom unrolled as she went, her mouth pushing it down his shaft inch by inch, her tongue pressing it flat against his skin. Leo watched her work, watched the practiced ease of it, and felt his cock throb against the tight latex embrace. By the time Jolie pulled back, the condom was seated perfectly, stretched taut over his full length.

"Good girl." Leo patted her cheek, smearing the cum still clinging there. "Now hold Alice's hips. Keep her steady."

"Yes, Leo."

Jolie moved behind Alice, her hands finding the curve of Alice's waist, steadying her against the wall. Alice was trembling visibly now, her breath coming in short gasps, her little cock fully hard and leaking against her thigh.

Leo positioned himself.

The head of his cock pressed against Alice's pussy, slick and hot despite her protests, her body betraying her even if her mouth wouldn't. He felt her tense. Felt Jolie's hands tighten on her hips.

"Relax," Leo murmured. "I've got you."

He pushed in.

Just the head at first. Slow. Careful. Alice made a sound like she'd been punched, her hands scraping against the stone, her back arching. She was tight tighter than Jolie, tighter than anyone Leo had been with in years and the squeeze around him was almost painful.

"Fuck " Alice's voice cracked. "Fuck, you're you're so "

"I know." Leo held still, letting her adjust, feeling her flutter and clench around just the first inch. "Breathe. Let me in."

Alice breathed.

Leo pushed deeper.

Another inch. Two. He felt resistance, worked through it gently, and Alice's trembling intensified with every fraction he claimed. Her cock was fully hard now, bobbing with each micro movement, a bead of pre cum welling at the tip.

"Jolie." Leo's voice came out strained. "Help her out."

"Gladly."

Jolie slid down Alice's body, positioning herself beneath the smaller woman, and her mouth found Alice's cock without hesitation. She swallowed it in one smooth motion all five inches disappearing between her lips and Alice wailed.

"OH "

Leo chose that moment to bottom out.

His hips pressed flush against Alice's ass, his full eight inches buried inside her, and the sound she made was inhuman. A scream that cracked into a sob that cracked into something that might have been his name. Her pussy clenched around him so hard it hurt, and Jolie moaned around the cock in her mouth, and Leo held perfectly still while Alice's world rearranged itself.

"There," he murmured. "All of me. How's it feel?"

Alice's answer was a garbled mess of syllables.

"That good, huh?" Leo pulled back slowly felt her clutch at him, trying to keep him inside and thrust forward again. Not hard. Not yet. Just a slow, steady stroke that made Alice's whole body rock. "Jolie. Keep sucking. Match my pace."

Jolie hummed acknowledgment, her head beginning to bob in time with Leo's movements.

He fucked Alice gently at first.

Long, slow strokes, letting her feel every inch of him, giving her time to adjust. Each thrust pushed her forward, which pushed her cock deeper into Jolie's throat, which made her clench around Leo, which made him thrust harder despite his intentions. A feedback loop of pleasure that built and built and built.

"More," Alice gasped. Her hands were clawing at the stone now, leaving pale scratches. "Please Leo more "

"You sure?"

"YES "

Leo's hips snapped forward.

The slap of flesh against flesh echoed through the alcove. Alice screamed a real scream this time, loud enough that Ignition probably heard it despite his best efforts not to and her pussy clenched so hard Leo saw stars.

He didn't stop.

He fucked her harder. Faster. Each thrust driving her forward into Jolie's waiting mouth, each impact making her cock slam against the back of Jolie's throat. Jolie took it without complaint, gagging slightly on the deeper strokes but never pulling away, her hands braced on Alice's trembling thighs.

"Look at you," Leo grunted, his rhythm building. "Such a good little slut."

Alice sobbed.

"Jolie's going to make you come." Leo's hand found Alice's hip, gripping hard enough to bruise. "You're going to come in her mouth while I'm inside you. Aren't you?"

"I I can't it's too "

"You can." He thrust harder, faster, brutal now. "You will. Come for me, Alice. Come for us."

Alice's whole body locked up.

Her back arched violently. Her pussy clamped down on Leo's cock like a vise. Her own cock, buried in Jolie's throat, pulsed visibly as she came rope after rope shooting down Jolie's throat, her entire frame shaking with the force of her orgasm.

Leo fucked her through it.

Didn't slow down. Didn't gentle. Just kept pounding into her clenching, spasming pussy while she screamed and Jolie swallowed and the alcove filled with the wet, obscene sounds of bodies colliding.

"Fuck " Leo felt his own orgasm building, that familiar tightening at the base of his spine. "Almost almost there "

He thrust once more, twice, three times, and then buried himself to the hilt and came.

The condom swelled.

He could feel it filling, stretching around the volume of his release, pressed tight against Alice's cervix. Rope after rope pumped into the thin latex barrier, and Leo groaned through gritted teeth as his balls emptied completely.

When he finally pulled out, the condom came with him distended, heavy, sloshing with everything he'd pumped into it.

Alice collapsed against the wall.

Her legs gave out entirely, and only Jolie's quick hands kept her from sliding to the floor. She was gasping, trembling, absolutely wrecked. Her cock had gone soft again, glistening with Jolie's spit.

Leo peeled off the condom carefully, holding it up to examine.

"Fuck," he muttered. "Look at that."

The latex bulged obscenely, straining thick white cum. It looked ready to burst.

"Jolie." Leo's voice was rough. "Open your mouth."

Jolie's eyes went wide with understanding and delight. She shifted out from under Alice, kneeling in front of Leo, and opened her mouth as wide as it would go. Tongue extended. Ready.

Leo placed the swollen condom on her tongue.

"Swallow it."

Jolie closed her mouth.

Leo watched her throat work once, twice and then her mouth opened again, empty. She showed him, tongue wagging, no trace of the condom remaining.

"Good girl." Leo patted her head. "Very good girl."

He turned back to Alice, who was staring at Jolie with an expression of horrified fascination.

"That could have been you," Leo said conversationally. "All that cum, shot straight into your womb. No condom." He tilted his head, considering. "How many kids do you think? Three? Four? You'd be so fucking pregnant, Alice. Swollen up like a balloon."

Alice made a sound like a dying animal.

"Maybe next time," Leo continued, tucking himself away. "If you're good. If you ask nicely."

He straightened his clothes, checked his sword, and nodded toward the alcove entrance.

"Let's move."

A sound rolled through the tunnel outside.

Not a crawler.

Voices.

Lots of them.

High, sharp, laughing, barking over each other in fast bursts. Feet slapped against stone. Metal clanged. Something wooden rattled like a cart or a shield wall dragged through a passage too narrow for it. Goblins. A lot of goblins. Not a scouting pair, not a trap crew, not some hungry little pack hoping to ambush stragglers. A warband.

Leo went still.

Jolie froze.

Alice’s eyes widened, panic slicing through the haze. “Is that ”

“Yeah,” Leo said.

His voice came out flat.

For one heartbeat no one moved. Then Leo shoved himself back into order, fast and angry, yanking his gear straight with hands that wanted to hit something. He was still worked up, still furious from being interrupted, still carrying that ugly twist of heat and frustration under his skin, and that only made the lightning answer faster. Blue white sparks crawled down his arms as he stepped out of the alcove, sword already half drawn.

Ignition looked toward him. “They heard the shockwave.”

Leo barked out a laugh.

It wasn’t funny. That was why he laughed.

“No shit, furnace.”

Ignition’s jaw tightened. “My fault.”

“Damn right.” Leo drew his sword fully. The blade flashed cold blue in the cavern gloom. “Good news is, you get to help clean it up.”

The first goblins spilled into the cavern like a green black tide.

Small bodies, wide eyes, huge ears, tails lashing behind them, teeth bared in snarls that turned their almost cute faces into masks of hunger and hate. They came in layers. Front line with hooked knives and jagged spears. Second line with slings and darts. Others crawling along the walls, clinging to roots, giggling as they marked targets and looked for ankles, throats, soft spots. There were too many to count at a glance. Too many for a clean formation. Too many for caution.

Good.

Leo stepped forward.

“Jolie. Alice. Backline. Stay together. Heal on my call. Ignition ”

“I know,” Ignition said.

Leo grinned without looking at him. “No, you don’t. But try not to bring the whole mountain down.”

Then he moved.

Lightning Step cracked through the cavern, and Leo vanished into blue white light. He reappeared in the front rank before the goblins had finished screaming. His sword came out of its sheath in the same motion, a quick draw flash that cut three throats in a line and painted the stone with sparks. He didn’t stop. Sheath. Step. Draw. A burst of lightning carried him forward, blade flickering from scabbard to strike faster than the goblins could track. Each draw tore open the air. Each cut landed with thunder behind it. He hit and vanished, hit and vanished, a storm wearing a human shape.

The goblins broke around him.

Then they surged harder.

Good.

Leo laughed again, wild now, the sound ripped out of him by the same place his lightning lived. A spear scraped across his pauldron. He caught the shaft under his arm, yanked the goblin forward, and drove his knee into its face hard enough to snap bone. A dart glanced off his collar. Another bit into his thigh. Poison, probably. He ignored it. His sword split a shield, then the arm behind it. He ducked under a hooked blade, shoulder checked the wielder into two of its friends, and discharged lightning through all three.

More came.

He drove deeper.

Somewhere behind him Jolie yelled his name. Not fear, not yet. Warning. Alice’s healer light flickered at the edge of his vision, gold and white, ready but not spent. He felt the Echo Charm resonance pulse through the air like a heartbeat. His girls were behind him. His girls were watching. So he could not stop. Could not slow. Could not let a single one of these little bastards get past him.

Goblins.

The smell hit him wrong.

Old smoke. Wet leather. Iron. Filth. Screams. Not these tunnels, not this cavern, but another night years ago when the world had gone red.

His father’s sword had been laughing.

Leo remembered that part clearer than the fire sometimes. The voice had been terrible, too deep and too bright at the same time, like a demon pretending to be a drinking buddy. It had loved jokes. Loved sarcasm. Loved calling Leo “little spark” and telling him his grip was bad every time he tried to lift it. Garet had always told the sword to stop bullying his son, and the sword would answer that bullying built character. Leo had loved it. Loved the stupid, awful thing like a big brother made of steel and bad advice.

His father had been his hero.

Garet had been strong in the way children think strength works, all broad shoulders and easy smiles and a blade that talked back. But he’d been kind too. Funny. The kind of man who could come home bleeding from a dungeon run, ruffle Leo’s hair, and make Jolie laugh by pretending the sword had done all the work while he stood around looking handsome. Their town had been small. Quiet. Nothing like Ikos. A few streets, a market, walls that had seemed huge when Leo was little and laughably thin when the dungeon broke.

Orcs and goblins had poured out like a nightmare.

Monsters burning roofs. Monsters dragging neighbors into the street. Monsters laughing while homes cracked open and smoke ate the sky. The adult part of Leo knew better now. Fangspire was a world. Orcs and goblins were people, cruel and kind and everything between.

Garet had stood in the street with that sword burning in his hands.

“Go!”

Leo had frozen.

“Leo!” His father’s voice had cracked like thunder.

He had run.

He hated that.

A goblin leapt for his face.

Leo caught it by the throat and slammed it into the wall so hard the stone cracked. Lightning blew through his fingers. The body dropped smoking at his feet. Another came low for his knee. He sheathed his sword, stepped into a burst of lightning, and drew through its spine before it knew he had moved. The blade sang. The air split. For a moment, he could almost hear the old sword laughing with him.

Would’ve loved this, Leo thought.

That damn sword would have been cackling its ugly voice through the whole slaughter, making jokes about short enemies and bad footwork, telling Leo to keep his wrist loose. It had belonged to Garet, but one day Leo was going to find it. He knew that like he knew his own name. Whatever ruin, vault, dungeon, or bastard collector had swallowed it after the break, it was still out there. It belonged with him now. Not because he deserved it. Because it was family, and family didn’t get left behind.

A hooked blade opened his cheek.

Leo grinned wider.

The goblin that cut him saw the smile and hesitated.

Bad choice.

Leo’s sword flashed up, then down, then back into its sheath. The goblin fell into pieces before the thunderclap finished echoing.

He went deeper than he should have. He knew it. He could feel the formation stretching behind him, could feel Jolie’s worry and Alice’s panic even without looking. But the warband kept coming, and every goblin he killed in front was one that didn’t reach his healers. One that didn’t reach Jolie. One that didn’t reach Alice. One that didn’t get to make another child run through smoke holding someone’s hand.

His thigh burned from the dart. His shoulder ached. Blood ran warm down his jaw. None of it mattered.

“Come on!” Leo roared, lightning bursting around him in a jagged halo. “Is that all?! You came running for noise and brought this weak shit?!”

The goblins answered with shrieks.

Then the left tunnel exploded.

Not from Leo.

A hobgoblin brute twice the size of the others came flying backward, limbs loose, chest caved in by a single punch. It hit the wall and folded around the impact. Ignition stepped through the smoke behind it, hands bare, face grim. No grin. No flourish. Just movement. A goblin lunged at his side he caught its wrist, twisted once, and threw it into three more hard enough to break all of them. Another stabbed for his ribs. The blade hit skin, sparked against heat, and warped. Ignition drove his fist into the attacker’s chest, and a burst of fire punched out behind it in a cone that cleared the tunnel mouth.

Effortless.

Bare hands.

No weapon, no armor, no lightning draw style, no performance. Just raw, horrible strength controlled down to clean lines of violence. He moved like a predator that had learned restraint and hated needing to use it. Each strike was short. Efficient. Final. Goblins hit him and vanished under his hands. He didn’t rage. Didn’t roar. Didn’t even look angry. He was slaughtering them like breathing.

Leo stared for half a second too long.

Then a goblin spear scraped his ribs and brought him back.

He cut the spearman in half with a snarl.

Of course it was Ignition’s fault. Of course the big bastard’s little shockwave had dragged half a goblin warband into their path. Of course he was now fixing the problem.

Leo started laughing.

It came out harsher this time. Wilder. Less funny. He looked over at Ignition across the battlefield, both of them separated by a churning mess of goblins, smoke, sparks, and bodies.

“You see this?!” Leo shouted.

Ignition crushed a goblin’s skull against the stone with one hand and looked over. “Yes.”

“This is your fault!”

Ignition caught a thrown axe, reversed it, and buried it in its owner’s throat. “Yes.”

“At least argue!”

“No.”

Leo laughed harder, lightning snapping from his teeth.

Gods, he hated him.

Gods, he was useful.

Another wave surged in between them, and Leo threw himself into it like a blade into meat. The world narrowed to thunder, steel, old fire, and the promise he’d made in ashes. Protect them. Protect them. Protect them. Be the hero. Be the bastard in front. Be loud enough that fear looked away first.

Behind him, Jolie screamed his name again, and this time it was fear.

Leo turned.

Too many goblins had slipped the right wall. Alice and Jolie were backing up, healer light flashing, staff raised, but neither of them was built for a swarm in close quarters. Alice’s resting bitch face had cracked completely now, panic bright in her eyes as she shoved Jolie behind her anyway. Stupid brave girl. Stupid good girl.

Leo vanished in lightning.

He hit the wall between the girls and the goblins like a thunderbolt.

His sword came out.

Everything in front of him died.

Leo came out of the Lightning Step already swinging, blade dragging a blue white arc through the packed knot of goblins before their screams even caught up with him. Small bodies scattered across the stone, some dropping clean, others tumbling back into the warband behind them and making the whole ugly tide stumble over itself. He didn’t give them time to recover. He sheathed his sword with a hard click, sparks crawling along the scabbard, then drew again in the same breath, the motion snapping forward like thunder. Another goblin fell. Then another. Then three more as he crossed the space between Alice and the wall, boots skidding through ash and blood, lightning popping across the wet floor.

The past kept bleeding into the present.

For half a breath, that was all Leo let himself be. Not leader. Not boyfriend. Not almost father. Not the loud bastard with a name stitched together out of pride and old promises. Just motion. Sword out, sword in, lightning cracking off the blade in jagged blue white lines as goblins came at him from the walls, the floor, the broken roots above. One dropped behind Alice with a hooked knife raised high, too quick for her to see while she was dragging Jolie back behind the half formed healing glow between them. Leo’s hand snapped to his pauldron before his brain finished catching up. One of the little throwing blades hidden under the armor slid into his palm, flat and black and sharp as a sliver of night. He flicked it with two fingers and shot a bolt of lightning after it, the blade turning into a streak of blue fire that punched through the goblin’s head before its knife came down. Alice flinched as the body hit the stone behind her, eyes wide, mouth open, and Leo bared his teeth at her in a grin. “Watch your back, rookie!” he shouted. She looked like she wanted to yell at him and thank him and throw up all at once. Good. Alive meant she could be pissed at him later.

Another goblin came low, trying to cut behind his knee, and Leo’s boot crushed its wrist before his sword took the rest of it. Alice’s healing light brushed his shoulder a second later, closing the shallow cut across his cheek and burning the poison out of his thigh with a sting that made his teeth clench. Sloppy. He was getting sloppy. He knew it, and still he kept moving forward, because the goblins kept coming, and every one of them had the wrong face and the right eyes. Too bright. Too hungry. Too familiar when firelight hit them wrong.

A goblin screamed as Ignition’s fist drove it through a cluster of its own kind, fire blooming from the impact in a hot orange pulse. For a second, the flash became roof fire. The sharp stink of burning fungus became burning thatch. The shrieking in Fangspire became the screaming from home, from that little nowhere town whose name Leo hated remembering. He saw his father standing in the street again, Garet’s hair streaked with soot, his sword alive in his hands and laughing. He saw his mother behind him, saw her dragged down in the chaos, He remembered her hand reaching. He remembered smoke eating her voice. He remembered blood on mud and ash falling soft as snow. He remembered her screams and then her moans.

He hated goblins.

He hated orcs.

He hated that the adult part of him knew better. He hated that Yamaba would have told him they had children, laws, families, jokes, songs, markets, all the shit people used to prove they were people and not nightmares. He hated that some goblin trader in Ikos probably sold shit honestly and went home to feed a kid. He hated that some orc adventurer probably held doors open and paid taxes and laughed with friends over cheap beer. He hated it because it didn’t change what he remembered. It didn’t unburn the town. It didn’t put his mother back together. It didn’t bring Garet home. It didn’t erase the way little Leo had run because his father told him to and survived because he obeyed, while everything behind him turned to blood and ashes.

He didn’t care.

Not right now.

Right now all he saw was green skin in firelight. Goblins under a red sky. Orcs smashing doors. His town screaming itself apart while roofs burned and smoke swallowed the stars. He remembered his mother’s voice cutting off. Remembered hands dragging people into alleys. Remembered Garet standing in the street with blood running down one side of his face and that awful magical sword laughing like the end of the world was the funniest joke it had ever heard. The past and present slid over each other until the cavern wasn’t a cavern anymore, it was the main road of a dead town, slick with blood and ash, and Leo was small again, too small, too scared, Jolie’s hand crushed in his as they ran because his father had told them to run.

A goblin dart came for his eye.

Leo tilted his head and let it pass close enough to cut a red line across his cheek.

Then he killed the thrower.

He didn’t even think about the movement. Sword half drawn, Lightning Step, shoulder low, slash across the ribs, twist, elbow into the next one’s throat, boot into a third’s knee, blade out fully, throat opened, sword back in sheath. The style wasn’t pretty. It was too sharp for battlefield hacking, too vicious for formal dueling, all bursts and pauses and sudden impossible acceleration. Leo had polished it into something better. Something faster. Something that turned every draw into a killing line and every step into a flash of blue white distance stolen from the world.

A goblin leapt at his back.

It hit something cold instead.

Ice erupted behind him in a jagged wall, thick and pale, blooming out of Jolie’s raised hands. The barrier slammed up between Alice and the flankers, catching three goblins mid charge and hurling them back with broken snarls. Frost crawled along the cavern floor in a fan, sealing one side passage under a glittering sheet. Jolie stood behind it with her teeth clenched, blonde hair whipping around her face, both palms pressed forward as the wall shuddered under the first impacts.

“Leo!” she shouted. “I can hold this side!”

“Then hold it!” Leo barked back without turning.

“I am!”

“Hold it harder!”

“You’re so romantic!”

Alice’s healing light flashed behind him, warm against his shoulder for half a breath before vanishing. A cut across his ribs sealed. The poison burn in his thigh dulled, not gone, but shoved far enough away that he could move. Jolie’s mana brushed his next, soft and cold, patching the bruising where a spear shaft had caught his hip. They weren’t pouring power into him constantly. They couldn’t. Not with goblins hitting the ice wall, not with darts still flying, not with Alice’s mana already scraping low after the interrupted recharge. But whenever he gave them even half a second, they used it. Gold and white. Rose and blue. His healers, working in the gaps between death.

Good girls.

A goblin crawled along the ceiling over Alice.

Leo saw it from the corner of his eye.

It had gone wide, using the roots and crystals, knife clenched in its teeth, tail flicking for balance. Alice didn’t see it. She was focused on his back, staff raised, face pale but steady, waiting for the next opening to heal him. Jolie was still holding the ice wall. Ignition was on the far side of the cavern with half the warband between them. Too far.

Leo’s left hand snapped under his pauldron.

The throwing blade came free between his fingers, a slim black sliver hidden in the armor joint for exactly this kind of dirty little problem. He spun once, not enough to break the fight, just enough to line the angle. Lightning crawled down his arm and wrapped the blade in a bright, screaming coil.

The goblin’s eyes widened.

Leo threw.

The knife became a bolt.

It punched through the goblin’s skull and carried it backward into the ceiling hard enough to crack the stone. For one ugly second the body hung there, pinned by lightning and metal, twitching in the blue light. Then the current burst, and it dropped smoking to the ground behind Alice.

Alice flinched and whipped around.

Leo was already facing forward again.

“Eyes up, rookie!”

“I didn’t even ”

“Yeah, that was the fucking problem!”

A spear came for his chest. He knocked it aside, grabbed the wielder by one huge ear, and drove his sword through its mouth.

The fighting pulled him deeper again. It always did. A path opened and he took it. A goblin backed away and he chased. A knot formed around a banner pole made of bone and stolen cloth, and Leo tore into it because banners meant leaders and leaders meant the swarm might finally break if he ripped out the right throat. His blade flashed through arms, through necks, through hafts of cheap spears. Lightning cracked against stone. Thunder rolled in the narrow cavern until every sound blurred into one long roar.

And through it all, his father’s sword kept talking in his memory.

Echoes. Fragments. That rough, amused, terrible voice.

Wrist loose, little spark. You’re chopping vegetables, not splitting mountains.

Leo snarled and cut cleaner.

There you go. See? Murder does improve with critique.

“Shut up,” Leo muttered.

A goblin shrieked at him. Leo cut it down.

He could see Garet in flashes. Blonde hair messy from smoke, red at the tips from firelight. Scales along his arms catching the glow of the burning town. That stupid half smile he wore even when things were bad because he thought fear needed to be mocked or it got too confident. His father had been funny. Kind. Strong. Not kind in the soft way people meant when they wanted harmless.

Leo hated that he ran.

He hated that he lived.

He hated that Jolie had sobbed into his shoulder in the ashes afterward while he stared at the place his house used to be and felt nothing because feeling anything would have killed him. Blood and ashes mixed in the mud. The town went quiet. No Garet. No mother. No sword. Just Leo and Jolie, two soot covered kids with nothing left but each other and the promise Leo made without saying it.

Never again.

Never again would he be too small.

Never again would he run while someone else stood.

Never again would goblins take what was his.

A roar of fire split the cavern.

Ignition crashed into Leo’s back, not hitting him, not stumbling, but arriving there like a second wall. A goblin slammed into Ignition’s chest and bounced off as if it had thrown itself at a furnace door. Ignition caught it by the face and drove it into the ground. Another came low he stamped once, and fire cracked outward through the stone in a short, controlled burst that took the legs out from under five more. No wasted movement. No show. No fury. He didn’t fight like Leo. He didn’t need speed or style.

Back to back.

Leo realized it a second after it happened.

Ignition was behind him, guarding the angle Leo had overextended into. Leo could feel the heat at his spine, could hear the thud of bare fists hitting bodies, could smell scorched goblin blood under the sharper bite of lightning. They moved without talking for several heartbeats. Leo cut left when Ignition struck right. Ignition caught anything that tried to slip behind Leo’s draw. Leo carved open the ones that tried to swarm Ignition’s legs. It should have been awkward. It should have pissed him off.

A goblin captain lunged between them with twin hooked blades, fast enough to be dangerous. Leo’s sword was halfway sheathed, wrong angle. Ignition’s fist was buried in another goblin’s chest, wrong timing. For half a second the captain had them.

Then Leo dropped low and Ignition shifted high.

Leo’s blade flashed out under the captain’s guard, cutting both knees. Ignition’s elbow came down like a falling pillar and shattered the thing’s skull before it hit the ground.

They both turned away at the same time, already fighting the next.

Leo barked a laugh. “Not bad, Embers!”

Ignition’s voice came from behind him, calm but edged with breath. “You either.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“You complimented me.”

“I insulted you affectionately.”

“That is worse.”

“Get used to it!”

Another wave hit them, smaller now, less certain. The warband was starting to understand. The healers were locked behind ice and light, harder to reach than expected. The blond swordsman was not slowing down. The furnace man was not breaking. Their numbers still mattered, but numbers had a shape, and the shape was beginning to bend around fear.

Leo felt it and grinned.

There. That was the difference between a swarm and a routed swarm. The tiny hesitation before they charged. The glance backward. The way a banner bearer lowered its pole without meaning to. He knew that moment. His father had taught him to see it.

When fear gets in, little spark, kick the door open.

Leo raised his sword.

Lightning crawled up the blade, then over his shoulders, then through the blood on his face. Ignition glanced back, eyes narrowing like he knew something stupid was coming.

“Leo,” he warned.

Leo laughed. “Relax. I’m not bringing the mountain down.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“Good.”

He sheathed the sword.

The whole cavern seemed to inhale.

Then Leo stepped.

Lightning Step didn’t take him ten feet this time. It carried him through the line. Through the banner. Through the center of the warband’s nerve. He drew as he moved, and the cut wasn’t one cut but a chain of them, every flash of steel leaving thunder behind. Blue white arcs jumped from blade to bone to armor to wet stone. Goblins screamed and fell away from the path he carved. The banner pole split. The goblin holding it dropped in two directions.

Leo appeared at the far side of the formation with his sword extended, breath steaming, grin wide enough to hurt.

For one heartbeat, the goblins stared.

Then they broke.

Some fled into side tunnels. Some threw down weapons. Some tried to climb the walls. Ignition moved to intercept the ones heading toward Alice and Jolie, not killing the runners who weren’t a threat, only crushing the ones still lunging with blades. Leo noticed that too. Hated noticing it. Hated that Ignition could be that controlled in the middle of this.

Leo couldn’t.

Not yet.

A goblin dropped its knife and scrambled backward on all fours, eyes huge, tail tucked tight.

Leo saw the fire again. Saw a door breaking. Saw his mother’s hand reaching and vanishing into smoke.

His sword lifted.

Then stopped.

The goblin was on its back in the ash, weapon gone, huge ears pinned flat, eyes wide. It was shaking. Not lunging. Not reaching. Not laughing. Just shaking. Leo’s grip tightened until the leather around his sword hilt creaked. His arm wanted to finish the motion. His body already knew the cut. Down through the throat, quick and clean, one less set of teeth in the dark. One less goblin crawling away to come back with friends. One less nightmare with a name he didn’t care to learn.

But Yamaba’s face slid into his mind.

Not the face she wore now, tired and pregnant. Older than that. Two years ago. Hollow eyed in Fangspire, pale green hair tangled, watching him rant about goblins by a campfire with an expression that wasn’t anger exactly. Pain, maybe. Or something close enough to make him shut his mouth. He’d never asked. She’d never told him. Maybe she had a goblin sibling somewhere. Maybe she’d been raised by one. Hell, maybe she had been one before the system twisted her into an elf, because Dice had made the whole world stupid enough that anything was possible. All Leo knew was that whenever he called goblins rats, monsters, filth, Yamaba looked like he had cut something she didn’t want him to see bleeding.

So the rants had stopped.

Mostly.

He hated goblins. That hadn’t changed. He hated orcs too. He hated the smell of them, the sound of them, the way old memories woke up when tusks and green skin moved in firelight. But he was trying. Badly. Loudly. In the ugliest way possible. Still trying. For Yamaba. For Jolie. For Alice. For whatever version of himself could stand in front of the dark without becoming part of it.

Leo lowered his sword.

“Run,” he snapped.

The goblin didn’t need to be told twice. It scrambled backward, then rolled to its feet and vanished down a side crack so narrow Leo would have had to turn sideways to follow. His fingers twitched around the hilt. Lightning crawled once along the blade and died.

Behind him, Ignition’s presence settled closer, warm.

“That was hard,” Ignition said.

Leo’s jaw tightened. “Shut up.”

“I know what it looks like when someone pulls back from rage.”

“I said shut up.”

Leo turned away before the bastard could see anything useful on his face. The cavern was a mess of bodies, melting ice, smoke, and goblin blood. Jolie’s wall had begun to slump into wet, gleaming chunks. Alice was leaning on her staff, trying very hard to look like she wasn’t shaking. Jolie kept one hand on Alice’s shoulder and the other lifted toward Leo, ready to heal him again if he gave her half a chance. He didn’t. Not yet.

“We’re moving,” Leo said. “Now.”

Alice blinked. “Already?”

“Blood draws predators. Goblins don’t carry loot worth picking over. Unless you want to dig through pouches full of teeth and bones.”

Jolie wrinkled her nose. “I vote no.”

Ignition looked toward the side tunnels. “More may come.”

“Yeah, because somebody punched loud enough to invite the neighborhood.”

Ignition nodded. “Yes.”

Leo stared at him. “Stop agreeing with me like that.”

“Would you prefer I lie?”

“I’d prefer you be less annoying.”

“I will try.”

“That’s agreeing again.”

Alice made a small sound behind her hand. Leo pointed at her without looking. “Don’t start, rookie.”

The walk out of the cavern was fast and ugly. They didn’t have Yamaba to read old marks or tell them which painted stones meant trap clans and which meant bad air, so Leo kept the pace cautious despite wanting to run the whole damn tunnel down. Ignition took rear guard without being asked, which pissed Leo off because it was the right call. Alice and Jolie stayed in the middle, close enough that their Echo Charms flashed in soft answering pulses whenever one stumbled or brushed the other.

The tunnels narrowed, widened, then opened into a village.

Or what had been one.

Leo stopped at the edge.

The goblin settlement lay dead in the hollow below, built into the cave walls with little houses carved from stone and root. Painted doors hung broken from their hinges. Bone charms dangled from snapped cords. A market stall had collapsed inward, spilling cracked clay bowls and dried mushrooms across the ground. Faded murals glowed weakly on the walls, blue and green spirals dimmed under soot. There were no children running between stalls. No cooking smoke. No chatter. Just silence and the sour smell of old violence.

Infighting, probably. Clan against clan. Goblins did that. Everyone in Fangspire did. Survival above all else.

Still, Leo’s chest tightened.

He saw his town again.

Not exactly. The shapes were wrong. The houses too small, the paint too bright, the ceiling too low. But ruin had a language of its own. Broken doorways. Scattered toys. A cooking pot overturned in ash. Places where people had been alive and then suddenly weren’t. Blood and ashes. Always blood and ashes.

Jolie’s voice softened behind him. “Leo?”

“I’m fine.”

“You always say that when you’re not.”

“Because I’m consistent.”

Alice stepped closer, staff tapping softly against stone. “This place was a home.”

Leo didn’t answer.

A flicker moved at the edge of his vision.

Too late.

The goblin he had spared stood on a ledge above a broken doorway, eyes no longer wide with fear. Its face had twisted into something sharp and hateful, one arm already whipping forward. A clay flask spun through the air, painted with yellow warning marks Leo only registered after it was already falling toward him.

Ignition moved first.

“Leo!”

A hand hit Leo’s shoulder and shoved him sideways hard enough to send him skidding across the stone. The flask missed him by a breath and shattered against Ignition’s chest instead.

The world went sweet.

A thick pink gold cloud burst outward, clinging to Ignition’s skin, throat, hair. The smell hit Leo even from several paces away and made his stomach turn honey, musk, flowers, heat, something rotten under the sweetness. He clamped a hand over his mouth and backed farther out of the cloud.

Ignition didn’t move.

For one second, he just stood there, smoke curling from his shoulders, eyes wide.

Then his body started to change.

Not fully. Not all at once. But the warning signs came fast. Heat snapped into the air around him. Ember lines flared along his arms and throat. His fingers curled, nails darkening into claws before he forced them back with a strangled sound. His shoulders hunched. His breathing turned rough, each exhale carrying sparks. Beneath his skin, something huge pressed against the shape of him and wanted out.

“Fuck,” Leo whispered.

Jolie paled. “Is that ”

Ignition staggered backward, one hand clamped over his own face like he could physically hold himself together. His eyes flicked toward them, bright with panic and humiliation. “Stay back.”

Leo stepped forward anyway. “Don’t you fucking wolf out on me.”

“I said stay back.” Ignition’s voice dropped, rougher, doubled by something underneath it. “I can’t ”

His spine bowed. Fire roared up his arms.

Then he turned and ran.

Ignition slammed through the door of one of the larger goblin homes carved into the cave wall, ducking under the low stone frame so hard his shoulder cracked the entrance. The door crashed shut behind him. A second later, heat pulsed from inside, bright orange through the cracks.

Leo was already moving.

Alice grabbed his arm.

He nearly rounded on her. “Let go.”

“No.”

“Rookie.”

“No, Leo.”

I’m not standing out here with my thumb up my ass.”

“You going in there will make it worse.”

His eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know that?”

Alice’s face was red. Jolie had the same look, though hers came with a grim kind of understanding that made Leo’s temper spike harder.

Alice swallowed. “If you go in there angry and aggressive, he’ll react to you like a threat.”

“I am a threat.”

“That is the problem.”

Behind the door, something heavy hit the wall. Stone cracked. Ignition made a sound that was almost human and almost not.

Leo yanked against Alice’s grip. “Move.”

Jolie stepped in front of him too.

That stopped him more than Alice’s hand did.

Jolie’s voice was soft, but not weak. “Leo. One of us needs to go in.”

Leo stared at her.

“What?”

“One of the healers,” Alice said quickly, eyes flicking toward Jolie, then away. “We can stabilize mana. Calm the transformation. You can’t.”

“I can hit him until he calms down.”

“That is not calming.”

“It works on some people.”

“Not here.”

Leo looked between them, frustration building hot enough to make the air pop. “

His head was still in the fight, still full of goblin blood and old ash and the need to kick that door open before the thing inside became a disaster.

“No,” he said.

The answer came out immediate.

Alice’s eyes lifted. “Leo”

“I said no.”

Inside the house, Ignition roared.

The door buckled outward, then held. Firelight flashed through the cracks. A claw scraped stone from the inside.

Jolie flinched but didn’t move away. “If nobody goes in, he turns. If he turns here, in this village, with us this close and our mana low, we might not stop him without hurting him.”

Leo’s jaw locked.

Alice added, quieter, “And he saved you.”

Leo looked at her.

She looked scared. Really scared. But she didn’t back down. Damn her. Damn that stupid brave face and the way she could barely hold her staff steady but still stood there telling him what he didn’t want to hear.

“I know that.”

“Then let us help him.”

Leo turned toward the door. Heat breathed through the frame. Ignition’s voice came through broken and strained, words barely words.

“Don’t… come in.”

Jolie’s fingers tightened around Leo’s wrist. “He’ll say that until he breaks.”

Alice nodded. “Someone has to go.”

Leo hated this.

Leader.

Boss.

Hero.

Choose.