Chapter 4: Cleanup Corps
“Waaah!” Lilith clutched her head and curled up on the room’s narrow, shabby cot, a hedgehog under a tossed quilt of dusk. The Little White Dragon should thank the cramped walls; she leapt blind, dove into the soft bedding, and escaped kissing the stone-cold wall like a face to a cliff.
The second tremor hit harder than the first, a mountain’s palm pressing down on a reed hut. Maybe the giant outside threw more weight, or this small room’s bones were already groaning.
When Lilith peeked out from the quilt, the shaking had stopped. The once-closed door gaped open, its lock blown like a cracked tooth. The Little White Dragon hurried over, checked the mangled latch, then shook her head with a sigh like wind through dry grass.
“This lock’s done for. Miss Sera, you got a spare?”
“A spare? Of course not. Why would I keep something like that?” Sera’s brows lifted; the Demon didn’t see why the White Dragon thought she’d stock locks like candy.
“All right. Then we say goodbye to this tiny shelter,” Lilith said, shrugging as if shedding a flimsy cloak. “With the lock gone, a stray breeze turns that door into a drum. A broken door won’t stop this kind of wind and sand.”
“Any place nearby to duck into?” She wrinkled her nose, feeling the dust bite like pepper. “Preferably close. I’d rather not get buried midair by flying grit.”
“Besides this house, the nearest is the Sector Two shelter,” Sera said, voice steady like a post in a storm. “But you’d need to cross a street. From here, that’s not happening. I’m the gate watcher. I can’t leave the iron door until the sandstorm ends. If the gate takes damage, I’m the first to report up the chain and call the Cleanup Corps to clear the mess.”
“Cleanup Corps?” Lilith had heard the name tossed around like a street rumor, never with a clean explanation.
“Think of them as police, but used for everything,” Sera said, as crisp as a bell in dust. “During a sandstorm, they handle piled drifts and the troubles brought by the Dust of Death. You’ll see them. Me talking won’t beat you seeing.”
“Got it.” The Little White Dragon made a note to go watch later. Not now. Now she rushed forward, hunting anything to brace the busted door, thoughts flitting like sparrows.
She stepped out—and froze. A bad omen pricked her skin like frost.
“What… is that?” Sera and Nidhogg followed Lilith’s finger. From a thumb-sized crack, tawny dust wrapped in red-brown grit oozed like slow sap. On the floor it gathered, rising into half a human silhouette, swaying to her stare like a puppet of dunes.
“Damn!” Sera’s composure shattered like thin glass. She sprinted back into the little room, snatched the phone, fingers pecking numbers faster than Lilith’s eyes could track. Her voice came out the most urgent Lilith had heard, a bell hammered in fog. “Cleanup Corps! Sector Two, east side, Gate B has a sand leak. Repeat, Sector Two, east side, Gate B, sand leak. No independent handling capacity. Requesting support!”
“You two, don’t just stand there. Move and take cover. Dust of Death is no small matter.” She beckoned Nidhogg and Lilith with both hands, urgency like a drum.
Lilith didn’t budge. Not out of bravado—her scales wouldn’t shrug off this—but because the sand already shaped itself into a full figure. It stood, human-sized, with a yellow sand blade in hand, dangerous as a baked shard.
“You sure hiding’s enough?” The sandman had been still, but her shift drew its knife. It stepped toward her, one grain at a time, tide edging in.
A prickle of wrong ran through the Little White Dragon. Light flared pink on her right hand; the Ancient Ark—no, the Elemental Ark now—split the air and flew out like a swan-curve of metal.
She didn’t wait. She pressed in, closed the gap, and cut with a clean motion, a crescent that sheared the sandman’s head like slicing a dune’s crest.
The headless sandman didn’t die. Of course it didn’t; sand-life doesn’t end with a missing piece. Worse, her cut helped it divide like a river into forks. Two smaller sandmen stood, blades like dry thorns, stepping closer, rhythm steady as a funeral drum.
“Damn it.” The Little White Dragon sprang back a step. The Astrolabe, snug as a bracelet on her wrist, spun and primed a spell. Ice burst in the tight room, a white blossom in a clay pot, freezing both sandmen into icy slush.
But the leak hadn’t stopped. That tiny hole kept spewing grit, a wound that wouldn’t scab. More grains mixed with rust-red dust, knitting into quick little sandlings. They seemed to know not to catch her magic head-on; they split like startled sparrows, circling to pen her in. Her spells would hit a slice, never the whole flock.
“Smart little pests. Too bad mages love targets that run circles.” The Little White Dragon stamped the floor. An ice-blue ring bloomed at her feet, a frost moon on stone. “Ice Prison!”
The sandlings froze where they stood, each a glass figurine caught mid-scamper. Lilith kicked one away; the solid block smacked the wall and didn’t crack, hard as river ice.
Just as she felt the rhythm of it, danger brushed her neck like a cold reed. She turned—and met a blade flying for her face.
A brass fist punched in from nowhere and smashed the blade to glittering shards.
“Sorry. I’m late.” A towering brass mech stepped into her shadow, beauty built from gears and sinew. Its polished plates threw back every stray glimmer, brighter than a lamp in dim air. Thick brass armor held a body close to five meters tall. It hissed a breath of white steam. A man’s voice carried from inside, steady as a captain in rain. “Cleanup Corps. I’m taking over this area.”
Lilith didn’t answer. She stood stunned, eyes wide like a child’s under festival lanterns.
“A Gundam?” the Little White Dragon blurted, jaw slack, awe bubbling like a spring.
