Chapter 41 — You're Just a Puppet Wired Into Someone Else's Toy

Maya's grip on her staff goes white-knuckled, eyes widening behind her glasses as she processes the weapon in Reulog’s hands. "That—that can't be real," she breathes out, "The Aurora Lance? I thought only elite mercenaries and private armies had those! They cost more than entire villages!"  

 

Reulog grins at their stunned reaction—fingers already curling around the trigger as he raises it toward them. The barrel hums faintly with energy, an eerie aurora-like glow pulsing along its length.

 

"Private organizations?" he sneers, you think some rich bastards are gonna let us keep this toy if we don't put it to work? Now hold still—this’ll hurt... probably."

 

Maya's voice cracks slightly as she forces the question out—her grip on her staff so tight it trembles. "Wait, how are you even using that?!" she demands, "The Aurora Lance runs on cosmic energy! Only people with natural aurora affinity or—"

 

Reulog cuts her off with a harsh laugh, rolling his shoulders as he aims the weapon directly at them. The glow along its barrel flares brighter in response to his movement.

 

"You think I give a damn about 'affinity'?" he sneers, this thing was made for warriors who didn't have time for pretty little spells. They carved my core open and wired this straight into me."

 

A pulse of unnatural light surges through him as proof—the air around Reulog distorting like heat haze from an oven door left cracked open too long.

 

Maya's breath hitches as she watches the unnatural glow ripple through Reulog—her ears flattening against her skull in instinctive alarm. Beside her, Ace tenses like a coiled spring, katana already half-raised. 

 

"Core surgery?" Ace mutters under her breath, "That explains why he smells like burnt ozone."

 

Reulog ignores them both and flicks a switch on the weapon’s side—the hum of its internal mechanisms sharpening into something lethal. "Last chance to either run, surrender," he growls, or I start carving my name onto those breasts with this thing."

 

Maya sucks in a sharp breath—ears twitching as she glances from the weapon to her friend and back again. She looks torn between terror and determination, both of which are fighting a losing battle against disbelief.

 

"Core surgery is..." The words catch in her throat for a second, but she forces them out anyway, "It's a death sentence, right? That much cosmic energy pumping through someone should burn them out in minutes!"

 

Reulog's grin widens—almost proud of the horror on Maya's face as he flexes his free hand. Dark, veined cracks spiderweb across his skin where the weapon’s energy is visibly leaking out.

 

"Minutes?" he barks a laugh, "I've been running this damn thing for weeks. They carved me up good and wired it straight into my marrow."

 

Ace stiffens beside Maya at that revelation—her grip tightening around her katana in something between disgust and wariness. "...You're not a man anymore," she mutters under her breath, you're just a walking corpse with artillery."

 

Reulog’s laugh cuts off abruptly—his face twisting into something feral as the Aurora Lance whirs to life in his hands. The barrel flares a violent, aurora-blue, its lens-like rings spinning faster with each passing second.

 

"You wanna know how it works?" he snarls, "Fine. Screw that king for wanting you demi-humans alive. I'll deal with you all myself." Reulog's patience snaps. With a roar, he squeezes the trigger—and the Aurora Lance screams to life.

 

"DIE ALREADY!"

 

A torrent of raw auroral energy erupts from the barrel in a dazzling beam—its light shifting between blue and white like liquid starlight. The air itself distorts around it as it carves toward them, humming with enough power to vaporize flesh and unravel magic alike.

 

Trees near its path don’t burn—they simply cease existing in jagged outlines before collapsing inward on themselves.

 

A stray bandit who was too slow to dive for cover? His armor melts first,  skin boiling beneath before he even has time to scream.

 

Ace yanks Maya behind her by sheer reflex—her katana flashing up in a desperate attempt at deflection that sends half the beam skittering harmlessly into dirt instead the other half grazing Reulog's shoulder hard enough make him hiss. He staggers but doesn't fall.

 

Maya lets out a strangled gasp as the Aurora Lance's beam licks dangerously close—her fur singed at the tips where stray energy grazes her. Ace lands beside her in a crouch, katana still raised to deflect another incoming volley.

 

"That thing," Ace grits out between clenched teeth, "is cheating."

 

Maya's breath comes in short, sharp bursts as she clutches her staff—her fingers trembling slightly from the adrenaline. Her glasses are cracked at one corner, a thin line of smoke curling from the edge where auroral energy grazed too close. 

 

"Cheating?" she echoes weakly, "Ace, that's not just cheating—that’s like bringing a damn meteor to a knife fight!" 

 

Ace exhales through her nose—almost amused despite everything. Her eyes meet Maya's. "...Then stop acting like we're still fighting fair."

 

"But we can't fight that thing head-on! If I disrupt its energy source—if I cut off its resonance with Reulog's core..."

 

Ace barely has time to glance at her before another blast forces them to scatter further, her eyes narrowing. "...You planning something stupid?"

 

Despite her best efforts to sound calm, Maya's voice wavers as she ducks behind a nearby tree for cover. "I—I think I can do it," she gasps out, trying to ignore her trembling hands. "Reulog's core is the only thing keeping that thing functional. If I can overload that... the energy will feed back into the Lance and... well. Problem solved."

 

Ace shoots her an appraising look—somewhere between impressed and skeptical. "And you can do that?"

 

Maya swallows hard, her grip tightening on her staff as she nods. "I... I think so," she admits, "But it’ll take a second. And you’ll have to distract him—really badly—or the energy will just keep flowing."

 

Ace doesn’t hesitate. She straightens up, katana glinting in the eerie light of the Aurora Lance. "Fine," she growls, but if this backfires? You're running faster than your damn tail can wag."

 

Without waiting for a reply, Ace darts forward—deliberately putting herself in Reulog's line of fire with reckless precision, her movements taunting: 'Come on then'. Meanwhile, Maya starts muttering an incantation under breath—the air around them thickening with latent magical energy.

 

Ace's smirk sharpens as she darts in front of the beam—her katana flashing up to deflect another volley. The red glow of her aura surges violently around her, crackling with unstable plasma energy.

 

"Not just anyone can wield Aurora, she taunts, voice cutting through the hum of Reulog’s weapon, "but you? You’re not even a proper user—you're just a puppet wired into someone else's toy."  

 

Crimson lightning arcs off Ace's blade in jagged bursts—the air reeking like ozone and scorched earth as she forces him back step by reckless step. Her eyes burn brighter than ever. "Let me show you what real Auroral Energy looks like."

 

Reulog's face twists in pure, unfiltered rage as Ace's crimson lightning scorches the ground at his feet. His grip on the Aurora Lance trembles—not from fear, but from something far more dangerous: humiliation.

 

"Her Auroral Energy is red...?" For a moment Reulog looks in awe, as if he hasn't seen one before. After realizing he was lost in thought for a moment, he shook his head and yelled:

 

"YOU THINK YOUR PRETTY LIGHT SHOW SCARES ME?!" he roars back, "I've been running this damn weapon for weeks! My blood is FUEL to that thing!"  

 

A jagged crack splits down his left arm—blackened veins bulging where auroral energy leaks out uncontrolled. He doesn’t even seem to notice. "You want a real fight?" He jerks the rifle upward, then let’s see how you handle getting BLASTED APART BY A MAN WHO'S ALREADY DEAD."

 

The barrel flares with condensed starlight—charged and ready.

 

Ace moves like a shadow—her red lightning crackling in jagged arcs as she dodges the blast with impossible speed. The Aurora Lance's beam scorches empty air behind her, carving molten trenches into the earth.

 

Maya can feel a sharp thrill of triumph as Reulog refocuses on Ace—her friend keeping the bandit's attention with a display of raw speed and agility. 

 

"Come on," Ace taunts, "is that the best the big, bad bandit boss can do?!" 

 

She darts forward like a bolt of red lightning, blade flashing in blinding arcs as she keeps the bandit leader constantly on the back foot. It's a performance to buy Maya some time—the perfect opening to slip behind and make her move.

 

"Now, Maya!" Ace snarls over her shoulder—the perfect opening.  

 

Maya doesn't hesitate. She darts from cover in a blur of movement, staff spinning as she closes the distance on Reulog’s blind spot. Her fingers glow faintly orange with gathered energy. "Sorry about this," she mutters under her breath before slamming both hands against his back—right where his modified core pulses unnaturally beneath scarred flesh.

 

A split second later: white-hot light erupts from Reulog's chest cavity as Maya overloads it beyond capacity—the Aurora Lance shrieking in protest like a dying beast.

 

Then?

 

Reulog laughs—a wet, guttural sound as the overload ripples through him. Blackened veins bulge under his skin where Maya's Auroral Energy makes contact... and then stop.

 

"Did you really think," he rasps, turning his head just enough to glare at her with one bloodshot eye, "that some rabbit-assed mage could take me down with a party trick?"  

 

The Aurora Lance wails in protest for half a second longer—before Reulog’s grip on it tightens violently. The weapon shudders back to life, though its glow is now flickering erratically. His free hand clamps around Maya’s wrist like a vise. "Let me show you what happens when I get pissed."

 

Maya's eyes widen in horror as the Aurora Lance flickers back to life. The light plays like twisted shadows across her face as Reulog's grip tightens around both her wrist and staff. 

 

"That—that's not possible," she stammers, "I poured so much energy into your core... it should have overloaded or—or burned out completely! How is his thing still working?" A portion of her blonde hair has darkened, indicating a state of fatigue.

 

Reulog's grin widens—almost proud of her confusion as he yanks her closer, the Aurora Lance humming like a live wire against his shoulder. "Core overload? Cute."

 

He taps the rifle's grip with his free hand—the palm-print interface glowing faintly orange where Maya’s energy is still trapped inside it. "This thing doesn't just run on my core," he snarls, it siphons from every dumbass who tries to fight it. Your little spell?"

 

A burst of unstable light pulses through him—his scarred chest cavity flaring white-hot for half a second before settling back into eerie equilibrium. "...Now you're part of the fuel tank."

 

Maya gasps as she's shoved violently to the ground—her back colliding hard with the rocky earth. The staff clatters a few feet away, out of reach.

 

She struggles to sit up, head spinning from the force of the impact. Blood trickles from a fresh scratch on her chin—the skin around it already starting to turn an ugly purple-ish bruise.

 

Reulog follows her to the ground, towering over her like a nightmare made of jagged edges—the Aurora Lance humming ominously as he levels it at her head. "Any last words, bunny?"