Luck Stat Broken: Rise of the Khan-Chapter 45 - 42.2: The Vanguard’s Rest

The trek back down through the hollowed-out floors of the fallen skyscraper was silent, illuminated entirely by the rhythmic, sickly-sweet glow of bioluminescent flora that had overgrown the ancient corporate architecture.

​It wasn’t until they slipped through the narrow gap in the stone—navigating the staggered, overlapping rock-fold Allison had shaped from solid bedrock—that the debate started.

​"I’m just saying," Don said, wiping scalding coffee off his chin as they stepped onto the carpet of [Warlord’s Star-Moss] that bathed Deep Karakorum in a soft, ethereal violet and blue light. "A flying manta ray makes zero evolutionary sense. It doesn’t have lungs. How the hell was it swimming in the air?"

​"It wasn’t swimming in the air," Elias sighed, rubbing his temples like Don was giving him a migraine. "It’s a localized gravity fracture. The creature is displacing ambient mana the same way a fish displaces water."

​"It’s a flying pancake, Thorne. Just admit it’s weird."

​"I will admit that the architecture was structurally impossible," Elias countered. He dropped his heavy pack and sat down on a crushed supply crate, looking completely out of place in his high-end, albeit scuffed, corporate gear. He took a slow, reverent sip from his dented tin cup. "But I honestly do not care if the trees were growing upside down. This coffee is worth it."

​"It’s just bean water," Don teased, though he took another eager sip himself, shivering as the residual Warlord’s buff warmed his chest.

​Elias looked at him, his cybernetic blue eye whirring softly, catching the reflection of the glowing moss at his boots. "Do you know what synthetic corporate caffeine tastes like, Marksman? It tastes like battery acid and depression. It’s piped directly into the nutrient paste they feed the lower sectors. To get real, soil-grown coffee in the P.A.C.I.F.I.C. bunker, you’d have to be on the Board of Directors. It would cost a lifetime of premium rations, minimum, just to smell it."

​Will leaned back against the cool, fossilized stone wall, letting the heat of the epic-tier brew warm his hands. He glanced across the glassy, undisturbed surface of the Black Pool, which perfectly mirrored the thousands of glowing crystal formations studding the high cavern ceiling. On the far side, the ambient glow of the dormant Abyssal Forge mixed with the bioluminescence, illuminating the other half of their makeshift family—Allison, Helen, and Curtis were gathered near the cooking fires, a safe distance from the frontline fighters.

​But on this side of the water, the vanguard held court. The four of them—Will, Don, Elias, and Tyson—were gathered around a smooth obsidian slab. They had been back inside the sub-aquatic vault for twenty minutes, and the adrenaline of the salvage run was finally wearing off.

​Behind them, heavy boots clicked relentlessly against the stone. Pace. Turn. Pace.

​A faint, jagged red aura—pure, unadulterated Vanguard aggro—was practically leaking off Maddie’s skin, distorting the violet light of the Star-Moss around her shoulders.

​"Kid," Tyson grunted. The massive MMA fighter paused his knuckle-wrapping to glare over his shoulder. "Sit your ass down and disengage your skills before you pull something out of the deep water."

​Maddie stopped mid-stride, her dark eyes flashing. She was in a black tank top and combat pants, the heavy, deep purple plates of her [Abyssal Vanguard Carapace] completely stripped off, but she still carried the coiled, restless energy of a frontline fighter. "My threat-generation stats are redlining, Ty. If I stop moving, my skin is going to crawl right off my bones. I need Bram to finish the housing for my halberd."

​"Your central nervous system is redlining because you’re addicted to the combat spikes," the old cage fighter shot back. He didn’t even blink at the lethal glare she was giving him. He just kicked a stone stool out with his heavy boot, pointing a thick, tape-wrapped finger at it. "You have a passive twenty-five percent regeneration buff right now. Let your muscles actually use it before they snap like cheap guitar strings. Sit."

​Maddie glared at him. For a solid three seconds, it looked like the Warlord’s Vanguard was going to throw hands with the heavyweight. She shifted her weight, her jaw tight, completely unaccustomed to anyone except Will giving her a direct order.

​Then, she let out a heavy, frustrated sigh, kicked the stone stool upright, and sat down heavily.

​[Skill Deactivated: Vanguard’s Provocation]

​The jagged red aura slowly faded from her shoulders, letting the calm blue light of the cavern wash back over her.

​Don snorted into his coffee cup. Elias just shook his head, thoroughly amused at the domestic dispute playing out in front of him.

​Tyson finished tying off the thick kinetic-weave tape around his right hand and stood up, rolling his massive, scarred shoulders in his high-tech P.A.C.I.F.I.C. undersuit. He looked at Don. "You want to test out that new crossbow chassis, Marksman? I need to see if my knuckles are fully healed, and you need to work on your lateral footwork."

​"You’re bringing fists to a crossbow fight?" Don grinned, setting his cup down and grabbing his bone-plated weapon from the rock beside him. "Bold strategy, old man. Let’s go."

​The two of them walked off toward the sparring ring Allison had walled off earlier in the week, Elias trailing behind them to act as a highly critical referee.

​"Keep your center of gravity low, Don!" Elias called out as they walked. "If he gets his hands on you, he’s going to suplex you through the floor wards!"

​Will watched them go, a quiet smile on his face. He picked up his coffee and walked over to Maddie, nudging her heavy boot with his own. "You actually listened to him."

​Maddie didn’t look up. She just traced the rim of her tin cup with her thumb, her leg bouncing with residual kinetic energy. "Don’t get used to it."

​"I’m serious," Will said, sitting down on the crate next to her. "You’re the Vanguard. You don’t take orders from anyone in this camp but me. But he tells you to sit, and you sit."

​Maddie was quiet for a long moment. Across the cavern, the heavy, rhythmic clang of Bram’s hammer striking the anvil echoed over the black water. From the sparring ring, Don let out a surprised yelp as Tyson effortlessly slipped past a dry-fire and swept his legs out from under him.

​"He kept trying to give me his extra rations yesterday," Maddie murmured, her voice dropping so the guys across the cavern couldn’t hear. "Just casually leaving them near my gear. This morning, he asked if my boots were laced tight enough before we hit the upper floors. I almost punched him in the throat."

​Will laughed softly. "He’s just looking out for the frontline."

​"He lost his daughter, Will," Maddie said flatly.

​The laugh died in Will’s throat. He looked at her, surprised by the raw certainty in her voice. "Did he tell you that?"

​"Yeah," she said softly, finally looking up toward the sparring ring. Tyson was currently hauling Don back to his feet, clapping the younger guy on the shoulder and correcting his stance. "Two nights ago, during the graveyard shift. He was checking my armor joints, making sure the straps weren’t fraying. He just stopped, looked at the water, and told me. Said she died of cancer a year before the apocalypse even arrived. Said she would have been exactly my age."

​She took a slow sip of her coffee, her jaw tightening. "I’m twenty-two years old, Will. You’re twenty. I’ve killed Alphas. I’ve broken people in half. We run this entire Faction. But he looks at us and sees kids who shouldn’t have to be holding the line."

​Maddie set her cup down, resting her chin on her hand. "He asked me not to bring it up to the others. So I don’t. But he watches my back like I’m her. And if letting him play the overbearing, protective dad keeps his head straight and gives him a reason to fight... I’ll sit on the damn stool."

​Will looked at his Vanguard. Underneath the feral grin, the sarcasm, and the brutal combat stats, there was a fierce, protective empathy that anchored this entire team. She was willing to swallow her pride just to give a broken father a sense of purpose.

​"We make sure he survives this, Maddie," Will said softly, his Warlord Aura flaring with a faint, warm violet light that perfectly matched the moss beneath their boots. "All of them. We get Elias’s family out, and we make sure Tyson has a place in this world."

​Maddie’s dark eyes met his, the absolute certainty of the Vanguard burning in the ambient light. "Damn right we do."

​[Hidden Mechanic Updated: Faction Cohesion Increased.]

​Will smiled, dismissing the prompt. Before he could reply, a loud, terrifying CRUNCH echoed across the Black Pool, followed immediately by Helen shouting in utter exasperation.

​"Spit that out! Spit it out right now!"

​[System Alert: Familiar ’Ash’ is attempting to consume Faction Infrastructure (Abyssal Anvil).]

​Will let out a long breath, draining the last of his epic-tier coffee. "Sounds like the crafters are losing the war against the baby bird."

​Maddie snorted, finally relaxing her shoulders. "Good luck with that."

​Will stood up, brushing the dust off his jeans. "I’m going to go check on Ash before it eats Bram’s anvil."