Toxic Tears

The air stank of rot.

Ray wrinkled his nose as they descended deeper into the dungeon, boots crunching over cracked bones and blackened stone.

Around him, the White Company marched in careful formation, their white-and-silver cloaks whispering against their armor — the emblem of shaking hands and Earth stitched proudly across their backs.

Thomas walked beside Ray, silver hair catching the torchlight, silver lightning crackling lazily from his fingertips.

They talked as they walked — easy, natural.
Like they'd known each other forever.

Maybe it was the magic.
Maybe it was the loneliness.
Maybe it was just that Ray finally found someone who didn't expect him to fail.

"You know," Thomas said, smirking,
"I thought Jackrabbits were supposed to be reckless little shits."

Ray chuckled — a dry, broken sound.

"Maybe I’m just the last idiot who forgot how to die."

Thomas barked a laugh, clapping him on the shoulder.

"You ever get tired of pretending you're a badass?"

Before Ray could answer —
the tunnel opened up into a massive cavern.

Lit with a sickly green light,
the walls oozed a black mist that smelled of acid and death.

The squad stepped cautiously forward.

Suddenly —
the entrance behind them caved in with a thunderous roar.

Dust and stone rained down, sealing them inside.

A shrill, cackling laugh echoed through the cavern.

From the center of the room, she appeared.
Naked.
Gaunt.

Hair split and hanging like rotten vines around a skeletal face.
White eyes burned like dying stars.

Around her neck, a chain —
and on it, the White-Eyed Totem, pulsing with sick energy.

Her skin wept acid in long, glistening rivulets.
Her teeth were too long.
Her fingers ended in gleaming, poison-dripping knives.

Ray felt his stomach turn.

Poison magic. Keep your distance. Ray thought.

Without missing a beat, Thomas barked:

"Spread out! Distance attacks only! She's poison!"

Silver lightning arced from his hands,
crashing into the floor at her feet.

The Guardian laughed —
a sound like knives scraping against bone —
and vanished.

Ray’s eyes snapped blue.
He slowed time, barely catching her flickering through the mist.

She reappeared —
claws outstretched —
right where two of the company knights were standing.

Ray yanked them sideways with a pulse of frozen time,
just as the Guardian's poisoned claws slashed through empty air.

The two knights stumbled back, panting — alive by inches.

Thomas launched another massive bolt at her,
blasting her into the far wall.

The Guardian shrieked —
then spun,
transforming her arms into spinning blades dripping black venom.

She lunged again.
A tsunami of wild, whirling death, soaked in poison.

Ray grabbed a shattered stone slab from the ground,
froze it and launched it into the air,
and hurled it into her path.

She sliced through it effortlessly,
but it staggered her momentum for half a second —
enough for three knights to score deep, hissing cuts into her flesh.

She screamed —
a wail that made the stone tremble.

Blades — dozens of them — erupted from her body,
flying in every direction.

Ray threw himself flat as the projectiles hissed over his head.

Screams echoed from the squad as several knights were hit —
acid eating through armor, burning into flesh.

Ray scrambled up,
healing with frantic flicks of his hand —
reversing time just enough to undo the poison's spread.

His breath heaved in his chest.
Too many wounds.
Too many angles.
The Guardian saw him.

Saw the one undoing her work.

She shrieked —
and charged.

Ray barely dodged, throwing himself sideways as a poisoned claw slashed the air where his head had been.

He felt the edge of a blade catch his arm —
felt the burn immediately.

He gritted his teeth and healed the wound mid-sprint.
She chased him relentlessly.

Around the cavern they spun —
Ray dodging, slowing time in bursts,
healing bleeding wounds between every frantic movement.

His battered sword floated beside him, jabbing to deflect blows —
but he was slowing down.

Another slash —
a wild, shrieking lunge —
and the sword shattered.

Steel rained down like dying stars.

Ray gasped, stumbling backward, chest heaving. Acid erupted from the guardians back like a volcano. He quickly took control of every sword fragment falling through the air, carefully catching the drops of acid with the shards, saving the white company.

Thomas watched from across the room,
lightning crackling wildly in his hands.

For a moment, he frowned —
realizing.

Ray hadn't just been standing back during the battle.
Ray had been directing it.
Saving them.
All of them.

Without fanfare.
Without thanks.

Thomas roared to his squad:

"Help him! NOW!"

Silver lightning split the cavern as Thomas unleashed everything he had,
firing bolt after bolt into the Guardian’s path,
forcing her back.

The knights rallied —
launching spells and arrows,
slashing with blades.

They bled, but they didn't fall.

Because Ray was still pulling their strings,
still slipping them out of death with second-slow nudges in time.

Twenty minutes of blood and terror.
Twenty minutes of poison burning the air.

And finally —
the Guardian faltered.

Ray saw it.
In slow motion.

The crack in her knee as she stumbled.
The sag of her poisoned blades.
The exhaustion creeping into her tear-streaked face.

Tears?
Why is she crying?
Why would an AI cry?

With a final, rattling gasp —
the Guardian fell forward.

Face planting into the stone.

Her body shimmered,
glowed —
and dissolved into mist.

Only the Totem remained.

Thomas knelt beside it, picking it up carefully.

The White-Eyed Totem pulsed once in his palm,
then went still.

Ray collapsed onto his knees, breathing raggedly.
Blood and sweat poured off him.
But he was smiling.
Broken and battered — but smiling.

Thomas strode over, offering a hand.
Ray took it without hesitation.
Thomas hauled him up, clapping him on the back.

"I'm glad the Republic has another," Ray rasped.

He smirked weakly.

"Try not to lose it this time, yeah?"

Thomas chuckled, silver lightning crackling across his shoulders.

"You should join us, Ray.
Quit this jackrabbit bullshit.
Join the White Company. We could use someone like you.
Fight for the Republic."

Ray didn't even blink.

"No."

His voice was soft.
Final.

"I can't join.
The Republic plays too many political games for my taste."

He looked away, toward the crumbled entrance, the endless dark beyond.

"I have to find these Totems."

His voice dropped.

"I have to fix my family."

Thomas was silent for a long moment.
Then he clapped Ray's shoulder again —
a gesture of understanding, not pity.

"Then we’ll meet again out there," Thomas said.

Grinning that same cocky, earned grin.

Ray nodded once.

And then —
without another word —
he turned, cloak whipping behind him,
and disappeared into the tunnels.

The White-Eyed Totem pulsed softly in Thomas' hand,
as if acknowledging the passing of something rare.

Something precious.

Something that might never come again.