By midday the city was no longer pretending.The first hours of fighting had still felt scattered, like a series of unfortunate incidents spreading through the district. People heard screams in one street, saw smoke in another, and convinced themselves it was still local trouble that would burn out by evening.That illusion collapsed when the scavengers started coming in waves.Frankie saw it happen from the roofline above the dye quarter. At first the creatures appeared in pairs and small clusters, crawling from broken grates or slipping out of abandoned buildings like vermin flushed from walls. Then more followed, and more after that, until the streets themselves seemed to be breathing them out.They were not wandering.They were moving toward people.Market roads filled with shouting as merchants abandoned stalls and dragged carts sideways to block alley entrances. Someone rang a temple bell again and again without rhythm, the sound echoing wildly across the district. Auxiliary patrols arrived from the central wards with shields raised, forming rough barricades across wider streets while civilians scrambled behind them.The city had crossed a line.It was fighting back.Frankie stood at the roof's edge watching the movement below. The warmth beneath her ribs had grown into a steady burn, as if the mark inside her already understood that the angels were no longer hiding."They're not even pretending now," Rafe said beside her.He crouched low with one hand resting on the ridge tiles, his eyes scanning the alleys below where another cluster of scavengers sprinted through the smoke of overturned cook fires.Marco stood slightly behind Frankie, his cane resting loosely against the ground while his shoulders remained relaxed in that deceptive way he had developed recently. Anyone who didn't know him would think he was calm.Frankie knew better.His stance was ready."They're pushing toward the wells," Luca said.He had climbed the roof a moment earlier and now stood with Red Oath resting across his shoulder. The spear's faint red veins pulsed gently in the daylight, like slow blood beneath metal.Frankie followed his gaze.The wells mattered.Water routes always mattered.If the creatures poisoned those or filled them with bodies, panic would spread faster than the fighting itself."Then we stop them there," Frankie said.She dropped from the roof before anyone could argue.The landing jarred her knees but she kept moving, sprinting across the lane toward the nearest street where shouting had grown louder. Marco landed behind her almost silently. Luca followed seconds later, the spear already in motion as he stepped into the first scavenger rushing from an overturned cart.The fight blurred quickly into chaos.Frankie never stayed in one place long enough for the street to settle. Every time a creature dropped another seemed to climb from somewhere else. Sometimes they came from sewer grates. Sometimes from doorways where frightened residents had locked themselves inside.More than once Frankie saw the creatures hesitate when they looked directly at her.Not fear.Recognition.She ignored it.Her blade moved constantly, short controlled strikes that ended fights quickly before anyone could see the strange precision of her strength. Marco stayed close, intercepting creatures that lunged from blind angles. When one slammed into him hard enough to dent a wall behind him he absorbed the force without flinching and crushed the thing's ribs with a single downward strike of the cane.Luca fought differently.Where Frankie was fast and Marco immovable, Luca moved through the streets like a storm front. Red Oath cut wide arcs that knocked creatures off their feet before finishing them with brutal efficiency. People began noticing."Spearman!" someone shouted.A group of civilians scrambled behind him while he drove two scavengers back into a narrow stairwell.Frankie heard the word spread once more from somewhere behind the barricade."Ghost!"She did not look back.More auxiliary soldiers arrived soon after. Their shields locked together across the main avenue while blessed fighters from the temple quarter moved among them, their weapons glowing faintly with consecrated light.The district had become a battlefield.And then the sky changed.The first sign was silence.Even the scavengers hesitated when the light dimmed across the rooftops.Frankie looked up.Two shapes descended through the clouds with the slow authority of falling stars. The air itself seemed to part around them as they dropped toward the city center.Wings spread wide enough to cast shadows across entire streets.Seraphs.A murmur spread through the soldiers below as they landed beyond the market square. One of the angels carried a spear formed from pale fire while the other's wings folded close around its back like blades waiting to unfold.Frankie felt the mark beneath her ribs flare painfully hot.Marco noticed the shift immediately."More coming," he said quietly.He was right.Two additional figures appeared high above the city, larger than the others and descending far more slowly.The moment they broke through the cloud layer the atmosphere changed completely.Even the Seraphs looked small beneath them.Arch Seraphs.The soldiers below began shouting orders while temple horns sounded from the central districts. Reinforcements poured through the streets behind them.Then another presence arrived.A golden streak crossed the sky and struck the market square hard enough to crack the stone.Hercules rose from the impact, massive shoulders rolling as he lifted his club and looked toward the descending angels with open irritation.A second figure stepped from the shadow of a collapsed temple arch nearby.Where Hercules radiated strength, the newcomer carried stillness like a cloak.Hades.Frankie did not move.None of them did.The fight below slowed as everyone realized the battle had grown far beyond street fighting.Hercules glanced upward and laughed once, a deep booming sound that carried across half the district."Well then," he said, raising his weapon toward the sky. "That explains the noise."One of the Arch Seraphs descended lower, wings beating slowly as it hovered above the square. The second remained higher, watching.For a moment neither side moved.Then the Seraph closest to the ground lunged forward.The battle between gods and angels began.Stone shattered under the first collision. A shockwave blasted through the surrounding streets, throwing soldiers and scavengers alike against walls.Frankie grabbed Sofia and pulled her behind the corner of a collapsed market stall while Marco and Luca held position in front of them.Above them Hercules met the first Arch Seraph head-on.The impact cracked the air.For several long seconds the rest of the battlefield could only watch the heavyweights fight.And Frankie understood something important.This war was no longer hidden.The city had seen the angels now.And the angels had seen the city fighting back.But somewhere in that chaos another part of the plan was still moving.Frankie felt it again.A tug beneath her ribs.Different from the battle above.Closer.Personal.She turned slowly toward Marco."Callista," she said.Marco's expression hardened immediately."She's not with us."Frankie nodded.And in that moment she knew exactly what had happened.While the city watched gods and Arch Seraphs tear apart the sky, the angels had taken something far more valuable.They had taken the one person in Novara Prime who could see their patterns.Frankie looked once more toward the massive battle unfolding in the square.Then she turned away."We're going to get her back," she said.And Marco already knew they would.
