The Five Evolution

『"Try to hold it in, but it just keeps bleeding out..."』

Amara took a step backward, hands raised in a gesture of peace as a group of civilians advanced toward her.

"We don’t want to hurt you!" she called.

A woman swung a baseball bat at her head and she ducked. A teenager immediately lunged from the side with a broken bottle. She slipped around him too.

None of them even seemed to hear her. Their faces were twisted with paranoia, fear, and rage.

Some were crying while they attacked. Others screamed accusations at people who weren’t even there. The crown wielder’s influence had turned an entire district into a nightmare.

Amara tapped her comm. "Hiro. Status?"

Static crackled. Then Hiro’s voice came through, strained from exertion. "I’m carrying Sophia out."

Amara’s expression tightened. "How bad?"

There was a brief pause. "Let’s just say she shouldn’t have been here."

Amara’s eyes narrowed. "I suspected something had occurred. For a second there, the Discord King lost his concentration. It was the only opening we had."

She exhaled. For a brief moment, the pressure hanging over the battlefield had vanished. It had only lasted a second, but it had happened. Which meant Sophia had reached him somehow.

"I’m carrying her back to base," Hiro said. "It was too soon for her to be back in the field. I’m not risking it."

"Understood," Amara replied with a forced smile as she dodged a wild swing from the nearest civilian. "We’ll hold them off."

The smile disappeared as another wave of civilians surged toward her. She dematerialized Angel’s Bane, the sword vanishing from her grip as she turned to face the mob.

A man rushed her carrying a metal pipe. Amara sidestepped and chopped him in the shoulder, and the strike dropped him instantly.

She rolled her shoulders, looked at the approaching mob, and sighed. "Okay, guys." The crowd continued charging. "You will have to forgive me." Then she exploded forward.

WHAM.

A punch dropped one civilian.

CRACK.

A second folded after a strike to the stomach.

A third swung a crowbar, and Amara ducked beneath it and delivered a clean uppercut that lifted him completely off the ground.

Bodies dropped around her as she moved through the crowd like a whirlwind. None of her strikes were lethal, not even close. But it was decisive.

Every strike was calculated to end a fight before it started. Another grabbed for her arm, and she spun, elbow connecting cleanly to his temple.

Behind her, Ethan was fighting an entirely different battle. Translucent blue barriers formed throughout the district as entire streets became funnels. Safe corridors. Escape routes.

The unaffected civilians ran through them while Ethan continuously shifted the walls into new positions. "Move! Move!" Ethan shouted.

Families stumbled through openings. Children cried. People screamed.

Meanwhile, the infected civilians slammed themselves against the barriers. Over. And over. And over.

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

One man smashed his forehead into the shield repeatedly. Another used a brick. A third simply threw himself at it with reckless abandon.

Blood began appearing across the glowing blue surface, and Ethan simply stared. "...great."

A woman smashed her face into the barrier again and blood sprayed so much that Ethan physically recoiled.

"How exactly are we supposed to help these people if they keep doing shit like that?" he asked.

"Working on it!" Raj charged past him. He scooped up three struggling civilians under one arm, and another two under the other. Then he carried them away kicking and screaming.

He piled them together in a cluster, then grabbed a nearby light pole as if it were wet clay. "This should keep you all from hurting yourselves."

With a grunt of effort, he twisted the metal around the group, binding them securely without crushing them. They were still angry and yelling, but no longer capable of hurting themselves.

"There!" Raj pointed proudly. "They’re safe."

One of them immediately tried headbutting another and Raj frowned. "...mostly safe."

Across the street, Amara drove her shoulder into another civilian and sent him tumbling into a pile of trash bags.

However, more kept coming. From every alley, every storefront, every intersection. There were simply too many.

She glanced over the battlefield. "Guys!" she knocked another attacker unconscious. "There are too many of them!"

***

Hiro kept running, Sophia cradled carefully in his arms. He monitored his speed, careful not to jostle someone who looked so fragile in his arms.

The sounds of chaos faded behind him as he put more distance between them and the battle.

Normally, he’d have been thrilled, grinning ear-to-ear that Amara had actually used the name "Discord King" he’d coined for the rogue Awakener.

Under normal circumstances, he’d never shut up about it. Today? He couldn’t care less. All he cared about was Sophia. Her breathing. Her pulse.

Whether she was conscious or getting worse. Whether he’d made the right call. Whether—

"Put me down."

Hiro nearly tripped. His gaze shifted downward and Sophia was staring up at him, barely awake.

"No."

"Said..." she winced. "Put me down."

"No," Hiro repeated.

"Hiro."

He didn’t slow. "Not a chance, Soph. Just hang in there."

Sophia groaned. "You are really fucking annoying."

"Funny." Hiro adjusted his grip and kept running. "Because that’s exactly what I was about to say about you."

"I said put me down, Josuke." The name she never used came out sharp, and Hiro felt her body tense in his arms. "Now."

Hiro skidded to a stop behind a delivery truck, looking back briefly. Several hundred blocks away, the team was drowning in affected civilians. Then he continued running.

"Hiro, I can take him down," Sophia tried again.

This time, Hiro’s steps faltered. "What are you saying?"

"When he mentally touched me earlier..." Sophia muttered, straining to keep her eyes open. "When the crown hit me, I got in his head too. And now there’s a backdoor."

"Back door?" Hiro asked, slowing down a bit.

"A connection. I can slip in." Her eyes opened, finding his. "So you can either put me down and let me try, or I can shut you down right here. Your choice."

Hiro stopped completely, staring at her. "You’re bluffing."

"Am I?" She grinned weakly. "You really wanna find out? Because I will absolutely hijack your nervous system and make you drop me. And then we’ll both feel stupid."

They stood frozen for three seconds that felt longer, then Hiro resumed running. "Do it then." He called her bluff.

"Please..."

The word came out different than everything before it, quieter, more vulnerable. She was no longer demanding but requesting. "Hiro, please. Trust me. I know what I’m doing."

It was the please that broke him. Not the threat, or the bravado, but that small word that cost her pride to say.

He skidded to a stop and set her down carefully, keeping his hands ready in case she collapsed. "So what now?"

She swayed for a moment, then steadied herself. Afterwards, she rolled one shoulder experimentally and winced.

"Okay," she said, more to herself than him. "Okay. This is gonna suck."

"What’s gonna suck? What are you—"

Sophia dropped into a meditative stance, legs crossing as she lowered herself to sit on the broken pavement. "Just trust me. Give me at least five minutes."

"Five minutes to do what?" Hiro asked.

Her helmet manifested, golden light surrounding her temple, and then she started to float.

Telekinesis lifted her body into the air, cross-legged and perfectly still, rising until she was three feet off the ground. Her eyes closed, and her breathing slowed.

"Sophia? You ok?"

But she was already gone, her consciousness diving into the Discord King’s mind like a diver plunging into dark water.