Chapter 390: My Best Friend Was Not a Disposable Accessory

I hit the hanging cage panel before Rex fired, swinging its loose edge into the line between his weapon and Lukas. The shot punched through thin metal and struck the brake housing, throwing sparks across my friend’s sleeve.

Lukas dropped behind the housing while I fell onto the loading deck with a sharp pain along my wing. The panel hadn’t become a shield because I wished hard enough. It had spoiled Rex’s aim for one shot, and now its torn edge hung between us like an expensive apology.

Rex stepped sideways to find another angle. I dragged a low equipment trolley across the gap and followed it toward Lukas, staying behind its heavy drum instead of trusting the thin cart frame to stop a bullet.

[System: Drum first, mate. You’re not wearing the old invincible frying pan anymore, and I’d rather not explain that lesson through a hole in you.]

I remembered, which was why I had brought the industrial furniture.

The next shot struck the drum and rang against its thick wall. Lukas reached the fixed work-light controls beside the brake station and swung the nearest lamp bank toward Rex.

Bright light filled the narrow lane. It didn’t blind him through magic or cancel his rank, but it spoiled his view down the lane and made him turn his face away while finding his next shot.

That small interruption let us reach the protected side of the gantry column.

Lukas checked the red streak along my wing and asked whether I could still fly. I told him I could still move, which wasn’t quite the answer he wanted and was all I could honestly promise.

He tore a clean strip from the unused cloth in his pocket and pressed it against the edge while I kept watch around the support. The pressure hurt. Letting him do it anyway felt like a more useful kind of bravery than pretending the pain didn’t exist.

"If you told the girls I had been sensible about first aid, make it sound convincing."

"I would need a better actor than either of us," he said, securing the cloth before another impact shook the column.

Rex had picked up a fallen rail and was using it to clear the smaller cover between us. His marked pulls came when he had an angle, and his ordinary strength filled the time between them.

We kept moving around the column, taking the few seconds each obstacle bought instead of standing still to admire our friendship. Lukas loosened an empty cable reel and rolled it into the lane, forcing Rex to step over it while I checked the portal timer.

More than a minute remained. It felt like the skill had developed a personal grudge against urgency.

Lukas checked his arm where the shot had struck nearby. His sleeve had a scorched hole, but the skin beneath was intact. I stared at that small mercy for a second too long before he told me to keep watching Rex.

[System: Keep that spider breathing, mate. He still owed you petrol money, and chasing a debt through the afterlife sounded like paperwork.]

The counterweight station stood above us on the side platform, still connected to its main release cable. The maintenance diagram showed the backup behind the opposite column, and I could see the long safety pin securing its lever through an open service panel.

We had studied it when nobody was shooting. Now I understood why sensible people preferred learning things that way.

"The front cable released the brake, and the backup did the same from the other side. The pin needed to come out before the lever would move."

Lukas followed my gaze, then looked up at the suspended weight inside its guide frame. Twelve tons waited above the central lane, held by machinery built to lower it under control during maintenance.

"We’d need him beneath it, and we’d need you out before it came down."

"I was attached to that second part, although I expected him to complain about the first."

Rex reached the edge of the lighted lane and fired into the lamp housing. Glass broke above us, and one bank went dark while the second kept its harsh glare across the approach.

He called my name and told me I could still leave. Lukas would make a useful closing scene, and Rex would describe my escape as a tactical choice instead of cowardice.

The offer was so calmly made that I briefly pictured accepting it, simply to understand what kind of person he thought he was talking to.

Then Lukas shoved the crawler keys into my tendril while adjusting his grip on a tool, trusting me to hold them without a second thought.

Rex had misunderstood something basic. I could be selfish, cruel and a complete disaster without treating the people I loved as equipment I could trade up.

[System: Right, mate. We’re keeping the spider. Tell me where you need the next eight seconds, and we’ll make the smug cunt regret having a schedule.]

For once, he didn’t add a joke about the reward. I didn’t need one.

We moved toward the front release station, using the column and reel as cover. Lukas checked the fixed wheel while I drew Rex’s attention with a complaint about how much his rescue package had deteriorated since we arrived.

Rex followed far enough to see the cable running from our station toward the counterweight brake. His eyes lifted to the suspended mass, then returned to Lukas’s hands.

He understood the obvious version of the plan.

The rail in his free hand struck the exposed cable housing twice. The first blow bent it, and the second tore the line loose with a hard metallic snap.

The brake stayed locked, exactly as its safety system was meant to do when a control cable failed. Our quickest way to release it now hung useless beside the platform.

Rex kicked the broken cable aside and smiled through the remaining work light. He told me to choose which of us would die memorably, while Lukas looked past him toward the backup lever he hadn’t noticed.