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The Horsemen base, the next day, Weapon breaks/ Fear shield stops working
Jude remembered skeletal fingers, remembered a gentle touch that turned the world into too much static, remembered facing something horrifying –
Then it was a mission. Spearheaded by one of the division leads, twenty or so hunters had been pushed to infiltrate the Dusk, where all the horsemen seemed to be based, where they were coming from. Instead of staying at Deus – or trying to combat them one-on-one in the human world – the plan was to cut them off at the source, to put an end to the invasion.
He hadn’t exactly volunteered for the mission, but such was the truth of Jude’s existence. He was regularly pushed into tasks he wouldn’t otherwise have taken. He didn’t mind, because it was easier than thinking for himself. Jude allowed himself to be bossed around so that he didn’t have to make any decisions, to Xiang’s constant consternation, but it worked. Many of the best things in his life had happened on the insistence of others.
He never would have chosen to go to Deus on his own, after all. And there was nowhere he would rather be, now.
This time, though, the choice to follow was perhaps a mistake. Their entry into the Dusk was ill-fated. Despite reconnaissance, they stepped in just as the watch changed, came face to face with four angry horsemen, who called the alarm immediately. It summoned everyone within range, turning this from a quick and brutal assassination attempt, an effort to quietly pull this mess apart, to an all out battle.
He fought well. He took quite a few of them down, survived blows that drove the breath out of him and kept going. He didn’t hide, or back down. But in the end, there were too many of them, and he was ill-equipped for this kind of battle royale. He went down in a mass, shield slowly crumbling, and just turned his head to watch a booted foot come down on his wrist, smashing his weapon and the bone both with a single blow.
