Shade was not happy about launching the attack during the day, but as Dusk had put it, they didn't have a choice.

Dusk's strategy wasn't anything genius, but it was sound. The daylight attack might just be the edge that they needed to pull this off. They were outnumberd, and attacking a Radiant during the day was tantamount to suicide. At least at night, they were careful how they used their Light. You could wear them down. In full sunlight, that restriction didn't apply.

It was terrifying to realise exactly what they were facing.

Shade had been given command of a small ground whose job was to take out the guards around the pens. They were some of the best fighters the Lightless had to offer, and it was Dusk's hope that the threat of their smaller number would be underestimated by the Radiants.

Shade fingered the hilt of his sword, finding comfort in the solidarity of the metal. Dusk's orders had also been to incapacitate or knock out the Radiants, that killing should be their final option, when it was them or the Radiant they faced. It was a point that, in the past, Shade had never been entirely convinced of, but had respected nonetheless. Now, looking through the trees at the Radiants around the Lightless in their crude pen of crystalite, it was all he could do to not imagine the violet haired ones as Leah.

He let go of a quiet sigh. Maybe he had gone soft.

It wasn't that he believed the fullbloods didn't have a right to live. Rather, it was a question of survival, because if they kept killing the Lightless with their experiments, that's what it came down to--them or us, and Shade had never been the self-sacrificing type, even after he'd apparently turned into a parasite infested monster in the eyes of the world.

Yet opinions could change. He knew they could. He just needed proof--some undeniable, non-cover-upable evidence that the Lightless weren't monsters, and that what the League was doing was wrong. The truly Shattered were a different case, but the distinction still had to be made.

"How much longer are we waiting?" asked one of Shade's ten-strong squad.

Shade looked to the trees to the south, on the other side of the Radiant encampment. Though most of the area was an open plain, his squad had managed to sneak around the other side, away from the obvious ambush side where the trees were thicker and the other group was waiting. "When the first group charges out of that brush, we wait until they have the Radiant's attention and go."

"I wasn't asking you," said the one who'd asked the question. "I don't know why Dusk's trusting you with a squad this crucial after you brought a Radiant into a safehouse."

Shade forced himself to breathe. He'd seen the glances they'd given eachother when he'd taken command the previous time, and this only confirmed his suspicions.

"Murk, wasn't it?" The sneer confirmed his memory. Shade continued, holding his stare. "Because Dusk knows I'm not a traitor. I may have made an error, but I have no intent to harm the Lightless."

"I don't know what you ever did to get Dusk's trust," muttered Ash. "You had your moments, but so did we all. What do you do when you aren't Shade, huh? What other life do you lead, or is it as the rest of us suspect, and you don't?"

Shade grit his teeth, keeping his anger in check. "I've sacrificed more than you could imagine, Ash."

"And yet, you're always on call when Dusk needs you," said Ash. "If you were inside the League, at some kind of important post, even in the city, you'd have difficulty doing that every so often. So, what? What do you do for us, other than swing your sword around with a slightly above average skill?"

"Ask Dusk," said Shade, turning away. "I'm not at liberty to discuss exactly what my outside duties are."

Ash laughed. "Knew it. He doesn't have any. I wonder if Dusk ever actually trusted him with outside duties at all?"

Shade closed his eyes, grip tightening on his sword. It wasn't worth it. He would not let Dusk down a second time in as many days. He would do his job, and he would prove his loyalty a thousand times over again, but he knew he was never going to have a clean slate again. Any respect he got was always going to be tainted by the streak of a traitor in their eyes.

"How about we get through this first, and then you can punch me or whatever it is you're leading up to later?" asked Shade.

"I'll remember that offer, Shade."

Shade nodded. "Fine. But I promise you, if you act on it before this rescue is over and put the other Lightless at risk, I'll knock you out myself." He caught a glint of metal from the bushes. "Get ready. It'll be soon."

"If you say so, Shade."

He ignored the comment, taking the last few minutes of peace to finalise the layout of the Radiant camp in his mind. Their clear-roof tents were lined up as expected, and with nothing new there, Shade turned his gaze on the target.

The captive Lightless were encircled in a crystalite wall over two metres high. It was thin, but with no weaknesses in the form or doors or gates, it was strong. If they'd have had more time, Dusk might have been able to get a hold of human tools for breaking crystalite, but with such short notice, that hadn't been an option. It wasn't a problem for the Radiants, who could simple harden Light into a staircase when they eventually started moving Lightless groups into the Displacer nets laid out nearby, but for anyone lacking that ability, it made life a little difficult.

If they couldn't find a way to make their own ladders, Shade was going to have to improvise. It was the one of the key reasons Dusk had put him on this team at all.

Shade's eyes flicked over the encampment, waiting, watching, studying--right up until the moment chaos erupted from the treeline opposite them.

The Lightless ran at the Radiant encampment with torches burning and weapons swinging and more than one questionable item being thrown into the air to explode. It was dramatic. It was attention-grabbing, and it was exactly what Shade's team needed.

"Let's go!" said Ash.

Shade held out a hand. "Give it a minute. Make sure all the Radiants are headed over there. They'll be looking for others."

The squad grumbled, but they listened. Already, Lightless from the attacking group were going down, dead or unconscious he didn't know, but Shade waited a full minute until most of the Radiant sentries were distracted. If his squad was successful, they'd overwhelm the Radiants with sheer numbers and be able to free everyone.

Shade lifted his sword. "Let's go!"

He let his feet fly, making a direct line towards the crystalite wall. There were still a few sentries, but they weren't looking at them. They were looking at the yelling and the flashy crystal's Light Shade had suggested they add. They were easy to take out as Shade came up from behind and rammed the hilt of his sword into their temples. They crumpled quickly in a heap, and Shade took a moment to grab them under the shoulders and lay them out flat.

Beside him, Murk sneered as he did the same to his unconscious sentry. "Look at that. Shade's following Dusk's instructions to the letter for once. Trying to win back favour?"

"Focus!" said Shade. "You three--start left and skirt the wall, ensure the rest of the sentries are out. You three, start the right. The rest of you, look for something we can get over this wall with!"

They got perhaps another thirty seconds of stealth before one of the yet to be taken out sentries noticed them. The alarm was sounded, and from their, their job got a whole lot more difficult.

A significant portion of the Radiant's force turned to deal with Shade's squad, flooding back through the tents he and three others were searching for something to scale the wall with. There was no time for laying these Radiants flat as he knocked them out methodically, using the seconds between each opponent to either dodge a blunt Light missile or search for some form of ladder.

At least both sides were playing by the same rules. The Radiants weren't trying to kill them either, and blood was spilled far and few between.

Even so, Shade knew a pointless exercise when he saw one. There were no ladders or other climbing apparatus here, which meant it was time to improvise.

"Back to the wall!" called Shade, ensuring all three of the Lightless with him were able to get out before backing off himself. "Fall back to plan B!"

A Radiant ran up to him, hardened Light blade in hand. Shade knocked it aside and pushed the Radiant back, avoiding the engagement in favour of sprinting back to the wall.

"So what is plan B?" asked a Lightless as they reached the wall Shade was examining. "Digging again?"

Shade crouched down, digging his fingers into the soft ground, trying to see how far down the wall went. He grimaced. "They learned from last time. We won't be able to dig under this again."

"So what, then?"

"Can't go over it, can't go under it," said Shade. Through gritted teeth, he sheathed his sword on his back. "Have to go through it."

He knew the look the Lightless would be giving him. "We don't have the human's crystal-tech tools--"

"Don't need them," said Shade. "Just keep the Radiants off me until I'm done."

"If you say so."

Shade took a deep breath.

This was going to hurt.

He stretched his arms out, fingers locked together, palms against the crystalite wall. The captive Lightless on the other side were staring at him. They didn't have much time. As much as he didn't fancy the idea of doing this, he didn't have a choice. He wouldn't let them down.

Everyone who knew what the term Lightless referred to in this day and age believed it to refer to the individual being stripped of Light. In fact, as Shade had discovered, that belief was wrong. It referred to the fact that, with enough mixed blood, Lightless could survive without Light.

It didn't mean they couldn't use Light.

Shade felt the Light in his heart like a hotrock embedded in his chest as he always did. He could feel it with his Radiant blood, that instinct that'd been second nature before he'd been trapped underground for three days and lost it. Or so he'd thought.

Three weeks later, when the Radiants had raided a hideout and Dusk had been trapped by a chunk of crystalite too heavy to move, that same instinct he'd thought he'd lost had driven Shade to reach for his Light--and to his surprise, find something still there. It didn't feel the same as before, but it was there, and he'd reached for it and grasped it and almost been knocked out by the sheer pain that washed over him.

Lightless might still be able to use Light, but by the sun's fire did it hurt to do it.

With his mind back in the present, Shade exhaled and went for it. He didn't have time to hesitate and dance around the coming pain. The Lightless needed him--now.

Shade curled his fingers and hardened the Light into a crude blade.

He almost lost it within a second of forming it. Blinding agony ripped through his skull, pulling on the tether of his sanity. White flashed across his eyes as he staggered back, focusing everything he had on the blade in his hand. He locked his legs so they'd hold him up, but even so, they almost gave out. Little by little, he lengthened the blade until it was long enough to reach through the wall.

Not trusting his blurred vision, Shade felt the blade with his other hand. It felt right, but what did he know? It was supposed to be the same thing the ancients used to carve their murals, but he only knew what Dusk had showed him in books. This wasn't the kind of thing you could practice without killing yourself in the process. It was a strategy for the do-or-die situations that seemed to ambush him far too frequently.

Shade gave himself a moment to catch his ragged breaths. The sounds of battle around him sounded like they were underwater, and it was a struggle to bring himself back to the surface. Five breaths. That's all he gave himself, before, still panting, he rammed the hardened Light blade into the crystalite wall.

It went through.

The phantom memory of pain lurking in his limbs, Shade dragged the blade down through the wall, carving it little by little. The Light inside his blade reacted with that inside the wall, allowing him to manipulate it, to separate it, every inch he gained costing him another stab inside his head. Tasting copper inside his mouth, it was all he could to do spit it out and drag the blade down again.

With one side of the arch carved, Shade removed the blade. He swayed on his feet without the anchor point to grip onto, catching himself on the wall with his free hand as the other deathgripped the Light blade. Without direct contact, it'd start fizzling out, and it wouldn't work.

Everything was underwater again as he looked up, trying to blink the tears aside. He felt detached, like the world around him wasn't real.

Then he saw the people on the other side of the wall rush over to him, their palms pressing against the crystalite, their voices urging him on, even as their eyes glanced at his Light blade with fear.

Reason number two why this wasn't a regular thing.

It gave Shade enough strength to lift the blade a second time and jam it into the top of the arch. He worked through the other side slower than the first. Fatigue was pulling on his muscles, making each stroke harder, every pull a little more tempting to sink into the ground and never get up.

The occasional clank of sword against sword with the occasional grunt as something made contact or someone fell over kept him grounded. He glanced over once to see seven of the Lightless from his squad in a semi-circle behind him, swinging their blades to keep the Radiants at bay and avoiding direct engagement. Despite the Radiant's advantage with Light, they weren't trying to kill them, and most of the Lightless they were facing had been part of this Radiant military. They knew enough Radiant strategies to avoid them.

When Shade was done with the second side of the arch and starting on the bottom, the back of his neck prickled.

Even his pain-induced stupor wasn't enough to kill the urge to look behind him. He knew this feeling. The crackling in his ears, the way the sunlight was bending strangely in waves, like it was being sucked into a void.

A Radiant was Shattering.

Shouting. Panic. The Shattering Radiant dropped their Hilt and clutched their head, their screams ripping through the sky. Their crystal patterns dulled first, the skin around them turning black and shiny. It happened so fast that no one could react, no one could stop it, only watch in abject horror as seconds passed and the Radiant's heart crystal fractured and exploded.

"They're infecting us!" screamed one of the Radiants as the Shattered straightened, backlit eyes opening. "They're going to--"

The Shattered roared and lunged for the nearest Radiant.

The words Shade had been dreading followed from the mouth of a Radiant with striking white hair. "Kill order granted! Kill the Lightless before they infect more of us!"

Ash turned to Shade. "Shade, whatever you're doing, hurry it--" He saw the blade of Light in Shade's hands. "You--"

He didn't get a chance to say more as a spear of Light impaled his upper arm, only missing his chest because he'd reached out to point. Ash roared in pain, clutching his arm and slicing his sword around.

Shade didn't see anything else. His Light blade was back in the wall, pulling through the final few inches, biting down on the insides of his cheeks to stifle the screams that wanted to rip up through his throat. His heart throbbed in his chest, and for a terrifying moment, he was reminded of how the Shattered's heart had exploded and wondered if he was somehow, impossibly, next.

It wasn't possible to Shatter if you'd already lost your Light once.

Was it?

Relief didn't cover the scope of his feelings as he cut through the final piece of crystalite wall. Shade barely scrambled out of the way before the captive Lightless threw themselves at the carved archway and knocked the piece loose.

Lightless flooded from the archway as Shade collapsed on the ground. He'd done it, but it'd cost him. His limbs were trembling, his strength in scraps around him. The Light blade was fizzling out beside him, slowly evaporating back into the air. He found himself clawing at his grey tunic, trying to get his heart into direct sunlight to ease the ache, but he barely had the strength for that.

Some of the escaping Lightless didn't immediately run for the hills or join in with the fight. Two of them, directed by a third, ran to where Shade sat on the ground and, with some effort, picked him up. With his arms looped over their shoulders and the third using Shade's sword to get them past the few Radiants that stood in his way, they carried him all the way back to the treeline.

"See if he'll walk," said the girl who had his sword.

The one on his left waved a hand in front of Shade's face. "He seems pretty out of it."

"Using Light as a Lightless will do that to do," said the girl. "But he's strong. The fact that he could use the Light at all proved that. I've seen a few Lightless Shatter from doing that."

"I don't think now is the time for your stories, Gale," said the third.

"Just because you don't believe them, doesn't mean they're stories," said the girl, Gale. "Hey, Lightless. Think you can get it together enough to run?"

Shade wiped the sweat off his face and nodded. Everything was still fuzzy, but with their help, he stayed on his feet. His limbs were shaking off the pain. Having part of his heart in sunlight helped re-energise his limbs.

Back at the Radiant encampment, Shade's heart sank as he realised the Lightless weren't winning.

No one was.

More Radiants had Shattered. He counted at least six black figures rampaging across the battlefield among the fallen bodies of Lightless and Radiants alike. If one side hadn't been garbed entirely in grey, he doubted they would have looked any different.

"Was that part of the plan?" asked the third. "Did you figure out how to Shatter the Radiants on command? Brutal, but... I guess I can understand if Dusk was desperate enough."

"No," said Shade. "Even if we had that power, Dusk wouldn't do that. There's no way."

"Well, something's setting them off," said the second. "This isn't uncommon when they fight Lightless for more than five minutes."

"Well, if Lightless can Shatter from using Light, why can't Radiants?" said Gale.

"Gale, I said--"

Shade cut them off. "We need to get out of here. Now."

"Huh?" said Gale. "We can spare a few minutes--"

Shade staggered the first few steps, grabbing Gale's wrist and dragging her further into the trees. He'd seen the group of white-haired Radiants among the others, and he knew what they were for. For all five of them to be here at once, it meant that they'd been set up. That this had been a trap.

"Slayers," said Shade when Gale didn't budge. "The League's Shattered Slayers. They're part of the League's council. I've only ever seen them in action once, but we can't beat them. Their mastery over Light--it's scary." Even as he spoke, two of them were heading towards where they were hiding, the other two to the trees opposite. The remaining one began taking care of the Shattered. "We need to run, now!"

This time, Gale and the other two listened. "Where's the escape route?"

Shade's steps were still unsteadier than he would have liked. "We'll work that out after they lose us!"

"You don't have one?!"

"We do," said Shade inbetween breaths. "We were going to wait it out in the ruins not far from here, but if we've been sold out, that'll be a death trap. We need to improvise."

The other three didn't argue after that.

 They kept running. Through tree and bush and undergrowth with that bright white glow of the slayer following them. Keeping up. Catching up.

Shade's hand closed around the shape of his one-man escape route tucked inside his pouch but couldn't bring himself to use it. He couldn't leave the other three who had lifted him off the ground and dragged him along behind, not if there was still something he could do.

But as the minutes ticked by and the white Light grew brighter, he became increasingly sure that the only thing he could do is get caught with them.

His mind raced with his feet as he used the final few minutes to see if he could come up with a plan in the minutes they had.

*+*+*+*

A/N - Long ass probably crappy chapter idk bleh. 

Wordcount: 55,667 [this will end when december starts dw]