The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Bastion Vorel came crashing through the street like a falling wall.

Austin Veyron raised his arms just in time. The commander’ struck through Root-Graft and sent him sprawling across the ruined market square. He slumped into a burned fountain and shards of stone fell from its base.

Vorel advanced with all four arms up, his pale armor glistening through smoke.

”You defy the Network Breaker,” he said. ”Then you defy victory.”

Austin Veyron spat out blood. ”I defy your definition.”

Vorel’ hooked standard pulsed atop the gatehouse. Collars on every civilian around him tightened.

”Now’s not the time!” Elena yelled from behind a cart.

”I know!” Austin yelled back. ”Austin Veyron’s fighting!”

Kaela and Orena had already charged up the stairs to the gatehouse roof. Tessa was darting through Cinder Gate’s remaining defenders, ushering people towards lower evacuation tunnels. Veyra stood beside the hollow glass train despite her injuries, commanding archers to target weak points in the standard.

”Break the third anchor beneath the banner,” she said. ”Break it and the squad loses the city grid.”

Rin climbed up the wall to reach the gatehouse roof.

Vorel swung again.

Austin Veyron dodged and slammed a root-covered fist into the commander’s knee. The armor cracked but held. Vorel grasped Austin Veyron by the throat and lifted him off the ground

[Consume commander core. Gain Network Breaker.]

The message burned through Austin Veyron’s vision.

His fingers brushed against Vorel’s core through the armor. If he consumed it every collar within Cinder Gate would disconnect instantly. If he accepted it he would gain control over the network line that was targeting Grand Meridian.

He would also condemn himself to whatever end the network wanted.

Vorel squeezed harder.

”You are weak,” Bastion Vorel said. ”Take it. You have already become one of us. You only fear chains when they are not in your grasp.”

Austin Veyron activated DEVOUR.

Vorel smirked.

Austin Veyron didn’t aim it at the core.

He devoured Vorel’s grip.

Contract force within Bastion Vorel’s fingers evaporated. His grip slackened. Austin Veyron fell onto his feet, planted both boots against the commander’s chest, and kicked out.

”You guessed wrong again,” Austin Veyron said.

Something heavy smashed into Vorel’s shoulder from above.

Rin had claimed one of the pale archers’ bows on the gatehouse roof. ”Honestly, he is ridiculously easy to shoot when he starts yelling at himself.”

The commander roared in pain and tossed a cart towards Rin. She rolled out of the way as Cinder Gate’s gatehouse roof fell around her.

Below Kaela reached the standard’s pole. She’d removed her mask and wrist augment while climbing stairs. The third anchor was a black crystal embedded within supporting stone beneath the banner. She braced her shattered spear against the ground.

A network guard stepped out of the shadows.

Tessa tackled him.

She wore nothing but a linen robe and held no special jurisdiction over him. She grabbed the guard’s wrist with both hands and twisted until he slammed his head against the wall behind him. Orena punched through with a spear strike that shattered his shoulder plate.

”You don’t have to fight them alone,” Orena said.

”I know,” Tessa said. ”I’m just still learning how to accept it.”

Kaela drove the spear through the third anchor.

The standard exploded. Collars across the square lit white.

Civilians screamed as claim threads wrapped around their necks thinned to visible black strands. Austin Veyron watched dozens of faces look up at him in terror. Each was connected to Bastion Vorel’s core by the same glowing thread.

He felt another prompt manifest in his palm.

[Consume commander core. Release all local claims.]

He hesitated.

”Don’t you understand?” Elena called up to him through the smoke.

”They’re not trying to control you, Austin Veyron.”

A woman in the crowd grit her teeth against her darkening collar. ”Tell us what to do.”

Austin Veyron wanted to kneel beside them. He wanted to speak to everyone he could see and tell them the order that would keep them safe.

Instead he yelled ”Find exits. Help people near you. Tear down the threads you can reach!”

The crowd rustled.

They did not scatter together. Not right away. But people started ripping darkened collars off each others’ throats. Fallen guards turned their weapons against the remaining claim squad. Cinder Gate defenders clustered around children and wounded civilians.

The network had broken them by convincing them there was no one else who could lead.

Bastion Vorel crashed through the dissipating crowd.

Austin Veyron met him in the middle of the square.

Their bodies collided with enough force to collapse the fountain. Bastion Vorel’s lower arms pinned Austin Veyron’s elbows to his side while his upper arms crushed Austin Veyron’s ribs. Every blow pushed claim directly into Austin Veyron’s body.

Try to force him into submission into its network.

Veyra called up from within the glass train. ”His core is visible behind his sternum plate. He’armor separates when he raises his right side!”

Rin dropped down off the roof and stabbed both knives into Vorel’s right shoulder. Bastion Vorel staggered back, clawing at the twin wounds.

Austin Veyron saw it.

The glow screamed inside his head.

He pushed his hand through the armor’s gap and gripped the roaring core tightly.

The commander went still.

Austin Veyron could take it. He could destroy the fight and earn Network Breaker.

He could not let his friends down not now.

Instead he probed around it, feeling along the command cable bound from the core out to every collar, every guard, every threaded deploy.

”Everybody!” Austin Veyron screamed. ”Break the things that chain you to what he says you are!”

Every throat in the square replied as one.

”I am not property.”

”I am not a debt.”

”I am not his soldier.”

Their combined strength did not unravel Bastion Vorel’s core. Together they snapped the cable which fed into it.

The commander screamed as the claim network recoiled away from him. Austin Veyron snipped the command cable free and devoured only that cable. Bastion Vorel’s core dimmed inside his armor, still trapped within.

Vorel collapsed to his knees.

Collars across Cinder Gate dimmed.

The city went silent.

And then the crumbling standard exploded into a spear of black light.

Light carved across the red sky like a flare.

Austin Veyron’s wrist mark burned brightly.

[GRAND MERIDIAN — PRIMARY CLAIM TARGET ACQUIRED.]

Elena was mouthing the text next to his shoulder.

She turned white as paper.

The network was still active. It had just stopped searching for someone to take it over.

Someone had given it her.

The glass train’s radio hissed to life before anyone could move to stop it.

”Elena?” Maelis’ voice crackled harshly through thick static. ”Austin Veyron? We are almost out of time. The root wall covering Grand Meridian is burning from within. The network chain did not take the gate. It found a purchase point in the foundations of Grand Meridian itself.”

Elena snatched the receiver from her neck. ”Casualties?”

”None yet,” Maelis replied. ”Seven’s AI is holding the outer perimeter but the chain has breached through old service routes. It keeps calling for Austin Veyron.”

Austin Veyron stared at the black flare fading out from Bastion Vorel’s ruined standard. He looked down at where the commander kneed in the dust beside him, limp and cut off from the claims that wrapped around him hours before. The citizens of Cinder Gate were free to make their own decisions again.

But Cinder Gate was still under attack. Their defenders were scattered and evacuation routes were still exposed.

Veyra stepped forward with one hand pressed against her wounded side. ”We can leave Cell behind. Orena knows these tunnels like the back of her hand. Cinder Gate’s defenders know this city.”

Tessa gave a curt salute. ”If they want to stay they can. They won’t need us around to defend it.”

Elena looked out at the crowd. Scores of them had already begun organizing cleanup efforts, triage stations, and patrol posts without orders. Knowing they would have to rebuild the city felt horrible.

Terrifying, even.

But wonderful.

”We can rebuild it,” Elena said.

Austin Veyron lifted Bastion Vorel’s discarded standard.

The black flare within pulsed still inside its shattered shaft.

”We have to,” Austin said. ”Then we take the train. Let Cinder Gate fight its own battles. Let’s take that claim at Grand Meridian.”

Behind him people started chanting, voices raised together in unison. Louder than any command signal ever could.

Ahead of him glass doors slid open to reveal the path home.