Solar Breaks Ash Again

Solar chose Ash like he was choosing where to leave a warning. Oskar was close enough to see the decision happen. Solar looked at him and made it personal before he made it violent, saying the kid was making the choice easy for him and dragging Oskar's mother into the taunt with the casual cruelty of someone who wanted the hit to land before the punch did. Then Solar hit Ash. Not once. Not cleanly. Not like a duel. He unloaded a flurry of super-speed strikes into a body that had already paid too much for this campaign. Ash had hurt him earlier with Hands of Harm and poison, but Solar had prepared for that too. He bragged about the antidote. He showed off the crude metal replacements at his feet like proof that survival had made him better instead of only stranger. Nick's dead. I'm alive. Evil wins always. The line was a weapon as much as the punches. Ash went down again. The damage was not only physical. Another brutal Solar beating pushed his exhaustion and permanent trauma deeper, worsening the mental wound already left by the Tallulah fight. The cost settled into instinct, steadiness, and presence: Wisdom and Charisma compromised until something on the level of a Wish could put him back together. Solar spat down at him and moved on. The party was left with the same impossible split they had been fighting all night: chase the enemy who could not be trusted to stay gone, or stop long enough to keep their own people from becoming casualties of pursuit.