“Hurry!” Rivia urged the others as soon as the buggy had come to a stop at the embassy entrance. “The clinic’s to the left. Don’t wait for me.”

  While the driver kept watch outside, Milla and the Hescuro student worked together to carry in the severely injured headmaster, with Garder forcing the Evirtide boy to follow them, keeping behind him with his blade out. He obeyed listlessly, seeming to be in a state of shock at this point.

  The building’s foyer was a mess, its grand staircase covered in rubble and the walkway to the east wing’s second floor partially collapsed. The embassy was running on its backup power, although the emergency lights could only just barely keep the place from pitch-blackness.

  “Hang on, Mr. Seseck,” Milla said and led the way, holding him by his upper back as he moaned in pain from within the blanket that cocooned him. “You’re going to be okay. I’m sure there are medical supplies here.”

  “This embassy was evacuated early and hasn’t seen any battles,” Rivia replied from the back. “I’m certain that you’re correct.”

  “I’m so sorry…” the Evirtide boy murmured to Garder.

  “I could run this sword straight through you in an instant,” he growled back, only loud enough for the boy to hear him.

  “Would… that make you feel better? I… I wouldn’t resist.”

  “Just shut up and keep walking. If he dies, you’re going to watch.”

  They quickly made it to the clinic, where Mr. Seseck was laid out on a gurney and Milla and Rivia began to search through the cabinets for burn treatment and gauze. The Evirtide student slid down to the floor and fell into his own world to try and drown out the sounds of agony.

  Garder looked at his former headmaster and processed his condition for several seconds, before forcing himself to turn away, knowing that he was only risking enraging himself again. Milla, possessing some field medical experience, was able to sedate Seseck, then disinfect, clean, and wrap him thoroughly with what was available in only three minutes.

  After listening to his breathing steady and his heart calm down, she was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief herself. She’d done all she could.

  “Are all pretorians so horrible?” the Hescuro student asked once the tension in the room settled. “I’ve heard stories about Trinqit, but…”

  “They’ve been picking some of the worst people Aurra has had to offer recently,” Milla replied. “What, um… What’s your name?”

  “Me? It’s Coda Suldrist. Lightning adept. I was training to become a teacher myself, though… Not much of a fighter… God damn it…” she breathed out and rubbed her eyes. “They killed so many people.”

  This remark only brought Garder closer to the edge again, and he pointed his sword at the other student threateningly once more and snarled, “He’d know something about all of that.”

  “Garder, please,” Rivia tried to calm him, and then turned towards the boy, huddled on the ground. “What’s your name, young man?”

  “W-why… You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

  “I’d much rather have you sent home. Now, please. Your school means a great matter to me, as does the one you attacked. I want to know about what’s happening there, the things they’ve made you do…”

  After taking some time to steady his breaths, the boy looked ready to answer, until he heard Seseck groan again. He hesitated.

  “Let’s take this conversation to the foyer,” Rivia advised. “Milla, he seems stable. At this point, all he can do is rest until we can move him.”

  With that assurance, they returned to the building’s largest chamber where it was a little brighter, and waited to hear what the student had to say.

  “I’m… Fiddé Grison,” he said after settling down onto one of the staircase’s steps. “I’m nobody, really. Just a junior in the academy. I want a simple job. Tailor, maybe. But Dad’s a big-time alchemagi duelist, and like my brothers, he wanted me to learn how to fight; to make some kind of family legacy out of it. I’m our only fire adept, but I can barely make a decent flame. Yet he forced me to join the combat training department…”

  “The school has… one of those?” Milla wondered. “M has been on such a lockdown, that I didn’t even know that.”

  “I heard rumors, but…” Rivia sighed. “But I only thought that the Guard was plucking the high-potential graduates right out of school.”

  “They do that, too,” Fiddé replied. “But the department itself was only made this year. It’s as bad as it sounds… It’s tough enough just to get into the academy, and now they’re training undergraduates to… to do things like this. Programming us to see the Angels as some threat to humanity.”

  “In my school’s defense, we’ve never done anything like that,” Coda said. “Seseck’s a pacifist. He doesn’t take sides, and believes all of this is happening just because we never listen to our opponents.”

  “Your school probably doesn’t have gladiatorial combat, either.”

  “Are… are you serious?” Milla asked him.

  “Yes. Headmaster Quinlin… He makes us watch the local higher-up alchemagists battle to the death with captured Angels and other rebels. They’re often hobbled and rarely stand a chance. Some students are openly rebelling, but it results in threats against their families.”

  Amid looks of shock and revulsion from the others, Rivia hung his head and muttered, “Quinlin… What happened to you?”

  “He supports the Guard. What do you expect?” Garder said. “They’re all the same. Blindly loyal, always letting themselves get dragged down further. It’s no surprise people like Phisa get put in charge.”

  “Renek might have been there to stop her,” Milla argued. “But you wouldn’t give him a chance to speak. Sometimes we have to give even our enemies the benefit of the doubt when they try to extend a hand.”

  “What difference would it have made? She and Lenox were already done with their massacre. He arrived too late to change anything. Chasing him off just lessened the risk of him stabbing us in the back.”

  “You really are Garder,” Coda said. “Some Guardsmen are terrified of you, speak of you like you’re a monster. And… maybe it’s just my nerves talking, but I can kind of agree with you. I wouldn’t have trusted Mr. Renek back then, either. Not when there was nothing left to stop.”

  “See, Milla?” Garder turned to her. “I can be right sometimes.”

  Another debate loomed, but the buggy driver shut it down when he suddenly burst through the doors and slammed them shut again.

  “The sky has eyes,” he told the others. “Guard patrols everywhere, some boats in the river, too. I can’t tell if they’re looking for us, but we may not be able to move until dawn breaks. I parked the car under some trees.”

  “Ah, great,” Garder groaned. “Now we’re stuck here.”

  “I can stay awake and guard the door, if anyone wants some rest,” the driver offered. “I know we need to get back to base before the assault in the morning. If they’re still around, we’ll just have to make a run for it.”

  “All right,” Rivia said. “We leave earlier if possible—one hour after the last patrol sighting. Our attack can’t be delayed because I’m not there.”

  “You… have a major assault planned?” Fiddé asked.

  “That’s right,” Garder replied. “Do you feel like passing that on? If there’s a working radio in here, you can try, but I’ll be on you like—”

  Fiddé spoke over him, “You don’t need to keep threatening me. Do whatever you have to, to drive the bastards out of your City. I’m done with the Guard. I’m never going back to Evirtide. Maybe not even home.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through so much,” Milla said empathetically. “This war will end one day. Stay strong until then. History will judge the actions of both sides.”

  Garder couldn’t fake any show of trust of the traumatized student.

  Milla, unable to simply shut her eyes, checked her watch again at three in the morning under the embassy’s moonlit windows. It was still Coda’s turn to be with Seseck. Rivia and Fiddé looked like they were getting some rest on the lounge chairs at both sides of the foyer, but Garder bided his time by needlessly patrolling the second floor, back and forth.

  Shortly after she closed the watch clasp, an almost timid knock on the door echoed through the large room. Milla immediately jolted up and drew her sword as Garder rushed down the stairs. There was another quiet knock; whoever was on the other side was trying to sound unintimidating.

  “Sir…?” the buggy driver asked Rivia as he approached, the twins flanking him. “Should I open the door? No way of telling who they are.”

  “Very slowly,” Rivia replied, and raised three fingers.

  The officer brought up his pistol with one hand and used his arm to push at the front door. He stopped when it was opened a crack, spoke to the person outside, and then turned to those behind him, ready to act.

  “Sir, it’s… Charles Renek. He’s alone.”

  “The hell…?” Garder murmured.

  “He says he needs to speak with you. And that it’s important.”

  Rivia looked at Garder, who shook his head, and Milla, who was still pondering the request herself. After taking a moment to think, Rivia signaled to Fiddé to leave the room for his own safety, just in case Renek was after him for any reason. The general then took a deep breath.

  “Let him in,” he said after Fiddé had fled into a hallway.

  Garder squeezed at his hilt and was ready to blow apart the entire front wall of the building, but did still place some trust in Rivia’s judgment. With modest hesitation of his own, the officer let in a pretorian.

  “Mr. Rivia. Nollands,” Charles said as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. “I’m not a threat. I’m requesting we revisit our parley.”

  “What’s this about?” Rivia asked him.

  “Before I get to that… I must share my condolences about what happened at the academy. Such an order would never have been given by Pristil. I was ordered to stop Ms. Camryde, but I was… delayed.”

  “Are you having difficulty keeping your house in order, then?”

  “Phisa was already on the brink, and the recent events certainly put her over. I don’t know what the senate was thinking when they approved of her appointment… There is an arrest warrant out for her, I assure you. She and Lenox will both face tribunal. As soon as someone can bring them in.”

  “You want us to help?” Garder snidely offered.

  “That… won’t be necessary. But, yes, I admit that Drides and his allies have not seen eye to eye with the rest of us for some time.”

  “Is that everything you wish to tell us?” Rivia questioned.

  “No…” Charles looked at the officer guarding the door, and then back to the general and the twins. Cautiously, he approached until only the three of them could hear him and revealed, “I’m the one that leaked information about City S and Drides’ attempt to steal a warhead to the Angels. This was done by approval from the queen herself.”

  “You expect us to believe that?” Garder exclaimed.

  “We have a common enemy in Drides. He may have won over much of the senate and council, but the queen, and Kae and myself, will never trust him. I can’t tell you everything we know about his possible ulterior motives, but when there’s been an opportunity to slow him down, we reached out to you. We know that there will be negotiations between us eventually. And when there’s a chance to work together before then…”

  “You’ve always sounded like a reasonable man to me,” Milla said before Garder could get out another disparaging remark. “Someone… I’d much rather be a friend to instead of enemy.”

  “If it were not for opposing sides during wartime,” Charles bemoaned. “Ms. Nolland, General Rivia. Could you lend me another moment of trust and come with me, to a room within this building?”

  “Won’t even bother to ask me, huh?” Garder muttered.

  “Can you blame me, after our previous encounter?”

  “It’s all right, Garder,” Rivia told him. “It would be better to have you standing guard here. We wouldn’t all want to be in the same place with a pretorian, now would we? Regardless of his intentions.”

  “I don’t waste time arguing,” he replied. “Just go and get whatever this is over with. But if you try to harm either of them, Pretorian…”

  “Yes, yes,” Charles huffed. “You’ll kill me in the worst way imaginable. The stories don’t scare me, Mr. Nolland. Neither do threats. Now, please, you two. We haven’t much time—there’s a narrow window.”

  Hesitant but curious about what would bring a pretorian to the embassy in the middle of the night, Milla followed Rivia as Charles led them to the building’s reinforced sub level, in good condition and also filled with the faint emergency lighting. Down a hall were a pair of heavy security doors that would seem to block any further progress, until Charles took out a brass key, inserted it into an electronic panel, and turned it.

  The doors unlocked and slid open a few inches, though without the full power, they couldn’t open all the way on their own. Charles stuck an arm into the available space and pushed them open himself. The lights in the next room came on automatically, revealing a simplistic chamber with little more than a red carpet, several chairs and wall lamps, and a painting of an 18th century Aurrian schooner in a stormy Tillethian sea.

  “What is this place?” Milla asked Charles.

  “A meeting room,” he answered and closed the door behind them. “Hold on. This still requires some setup… I hope the secondary generators for this room still work. Give me a minute.”

  He went to a terminal that was embedded in the wall, powered it on with a hand crank, and once it was booted up, began running system checks. Meanwhile, Milla approached the wall-sized mirror at one end of the room and noticed that it was covered in familiar geometric etchings.

  “Renek, is this…” She stopped when the lights past the glass came to life, revealing a nearly identical room on the other side of a special, reinforced barrier. “This is the same kind of glass that was in the old Red Caspianti citadel. Indestructible, alchemagi-blocking…”

  “Nearly,” Charles replied. “And absorbing is more appropriate.”

  “Then this is a meeting room” Rivia gathered. “I had no idea such places existed. Not that I’ve ever spent much time at an embassy.”

  “It was designed to allow two leaders… at odds with one another to meet in a safe, controlled environment,” Charles explained, and pointed to the door in the other room. “There’s a fibrocator station past there. I need a moment to establish a connection, and make sure it’s secure.”

  “Mr. Renek?” Milla turned to him. “Who are we meeting?”

  He only replied with, “Let’s just try to keep this cordial.”

  The room’s lights flickered and the speakers on the ceiling buzzed with electrical interference. Shortly thereafter, the visitors arrived, walking in through the door opposite the barrier one at a time.

  Irietté was first, followed by the much taller Cadius. Milla could hardly make herself believe it, but the appearance of those two all but guaranteed the identity of the final visitor. Even so, seeing Queen Pristil herself saunter in through the door elicited a surprised reaction from the two Angel officers in the chamber. They were expectedly speechless.

  As Cadius took up a protective and threatening stance by her side, Pristil looked over Rivia and Milla and opened the proceedings by calmly stating, “Ms. Nolland, General Rivia. We finally have a chance to meet.”

  Her voice had gone through the speakers. Rivia was unsure of where to aim his own, but something in the room seemed to catch his words and play them on the other side regardless of where he was facing.

  “I never thought we’d speak in person…” He paused and waited for the reaction from Pristil. “Am I right to assume that few others know of this? I’d think the security concerns alone would have made this untenable.”

  “You would be right, yes. If Ms. Luna, or anyone else in the senate found out… We must of course be brief. Our time is very limited.”

  “Then we will try to make good use of yours.”

  “I will begin by offering my sympathy for what has happened in N. It must be especially difficult and emotional for both of you.”

  “Phisa Camryde’s actions are mostly to blame,” Milla said, trying to remain candid. “She killed the governor, caused this chaos, attacked the academy…” She looked at Charles. “But you already know.”

  “Yes. She will face judgment for what she has done. However, even despite such tragedy, I must still request that your forces surrender the City immediately. As a gesture of good faith, we will sign onto a temporary ceasefire and allow the Angels to retreat. This is how we best minimize further suffering to the citizens that you once shared a home with.”

  “Queen,” Rivia spoke up, “I appreciate the proposal, but we haven’t run from a fight since H. And what the Guard has done to the people here will lend only ill will towards your re-occupation. They may prove to be more trouble to placate than your fight with us.”

  “The Angels can barely feed their own soldiers. Let us retake the City, so that we can immediately bring in relief aid. Leave the reconciliation to us. We’re well on the way to stabilizing E already.”

  “We won’t see eye to eye on this, Ms. Pristil. If your time is brief, I advise we move onto any matters on which we can reach an agreement.”

  “I had to try…” she said in resignation. She looked to Cadius, and then to Irietté—likely consulting with the two of them telepathically for a moment. “Ms. Nolland, Mr. Renek should have told you by now that he has provided information to the Angels in the past, when you had the chance to interfere with Drides’… personal plans.”

  “The S incursion and our attempted interception at the missile silo,” Milla replied. “Which, I’m sorry to say…” She looked for the words.

  Pristil looked to the floor solemnly. “Then it’s true. How many nuclear warheads did he manage to procure?”

  “One. Still too many.”

  Charles spoke from behind them, “The truth is, we told you about S because we had found out that William was attempting to hijack one of the synthid barges under the guise of high piracy. Larceny of that scale is unheard of in Aurra, but that was never going to stop his followers.”

  “Wait, did he succeed at that, too? Is that what happened to the other barge?” Milla fretted and turned towards Rivia. “General…”

  Rivia let out a grunt. “You’re saying that he has both an atomic weapon, and the means to… reproduce it at scale.”

  “We thought that between our two forces, we’d be able to stop him,” Charles said. “When he took it from your men, he had all of the ship’s beacons moved onto a fleet of smaller ships, which were scattered across the ocean. He shouldn’t have been able to locate all of them.”

  “We’ve yet to find the cargo vessel,” Pristil added. “Given its size, it shouldn’t be so difficult, and yet… You’ve managed to hide the one you took, as well. The situation is dire, but thank you for passing on the painful truth of what happened in Russia.” The queen looked ready to leave and gestured to Cadius. “We will find Drides. It’s no secret that his support from military leaders and politicians has made it increasingly difficult for us to act against him, but his loyalists will always put a spotlight on his trail.”

  “Queen,” Rivia spoke up and approached the barrier. “Are you aware of what’s happening in Evirtide? It’s as big a tragedy as Hescuro, and it’s ongoing. Please. Look into it and shut it down.”

  “I… am trying,” she told them earnestly. “It hasn’t been easy. M’s citizens are very supportive of the program and defend the school.”

  “The City’s always been of the old guard. Traditional,” Charles emphasized. “And it’s too entwined with the school itself. Stubborn pride.”

  “Then get the word out,” Rivia urged them. “Surely they can’t all support plucking children out of an academy to send off to war.”

  Pristil exhaled and bowed her head. “Unfortunately, I, too, may soon have to take drastic measures if it becomes apparent that this war will not end anytime soon. What happens to younger Aurrians will become the price we’ll all pay for allowing this fire to burn for so long.”

  “Queen… I hope you aren’t suggesting…”

  “I must return to the palace.” She turned to leave with her bodyguard and friend, who hadn’t spoken an audible word. “I hope we have the chance to meet again. And… do take good care of Rayna for me.”

  Rivia wanted to get another question in, but they left the room before he had the chance. Such an important meeting felt all too brief.

  “I need to shut this room down properly,” Charles said. “You can return to the foyer above; I’ll see myself out. As a gesture of good faith, we won’t pass on that you’re here. The patrols should depart within the hour. And thank you, General Rivia, for showing Pristil the respect so few seem to offer her. I do believe you’re a good man. It’s a shame we aren’t allies.”

  Keeping a watchful eye on him as they did so, Rivia and Milla left the chamber and began the long walk back down the hall and up the stairs.

  “You don’t think…” Milla collected her thoughts. “This wouldn’t just be some elaborate ruse, some way of threatening us with nuclear destruction if we don’t surrender ourselves to the Guard?”

  “Hm. I can see why’d you consider the possibility. But I could never see the queen coming up with such a strategy, or working with Will.”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t make the situation any less precarious. Focus on the assault… Just one thing at a time…” she murmured to herself as they returned to the foyer, where Garder looked at her—in an untrusting way.

  The night sky brightening into deep pre-dawn blues, the buggy finally returned to the Angel forward base nearly two hours later. Several guards escorted Rivia, the twins, and the two students across the grounds. Tabi, wide-awake, was with them and walked alongside Rivia to update him.

  “Damn disgraceful what the Guard did to the school,” she stated. “N’s people will never forgive them. We’ll move Seseck to the infirmary.”

  Rivia sighed, “I believe Lenox and Phisa were the only survivors on the attacking side. The boy with us, the one exception.”

  Tabi looked back at Fiddé and asked, “What do we do with him?”

  “We already decided that he can stay with Coda’s family—the Hescuro student,” Milla answered. “They just need a ride out.”

  “Where do they live?” Tabi questioned her.

  Skittishly, Coda answered, “Southern outskirts. Um, ma’am.”

  “We can spare some wheels. But you have to get out of here, now, before this war zone reignites. And General, our schedule got moved up. The Guard brought in the largest burden rairer I’ve ever seen. Our guess is that they plan to use it to scale the building, haul up a suppression tower.”

  “Did they just give up on getting inside?” Garder wondered.

  “Apparently so. N’s military might’ve repelled the Guard for this long, but if they clear off the roof, the enemy will get a clear path down from the top. And if suppression goes up, they’ll be massacred in minutes.”

  “When does Daschel think we should move?” Rivia asked Tabi.

  “A half-hour, at most. We’re almost done fueling up,” she said as they suddenly found themselves surrounded by soldiers running to their platoons or carrying materiel. “Menin,” she spoke into her headset, “are the airships in position? Pilots ready? What about the Mezik?”

  “Nearly there on everything,” Menin’s voice replied.

  “You brought in the Mezik?” Coda sounded surprised.

  Tabi looked back at her again. “Oh, so you’ve heard of her?”

  “The local Guardsmen peacekeepers pass around rumors all the time. If she’s actually seeing battle…” Coda gazed down at her tattered school robes. “You’ll take N for certain. Make them pay for this.”

  “They deserve whatever they get for Hescuro alone,” Garder said, and fell back to walk alongside Milla for a moment. “What happened back in the embassy? Or is it going to be a big secret?”

  “We met with a Guard… officer,” she answered with a straight face. “One last attempt to get the other side to back off.”

  “Huh. Not like them to even try to negotiate.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “It didn’t pan out,” she said with a heavy sigh, and watched as a squadron of attack chariots soared overhead, their engines loud and heavy.

  N’s main avenue, leading to Velkinson Bridge—the City’s largest— was bathed in oranges and blues. It was a clear, beautiful morning for Aurra, but the road was torn apart by craters and fissures, and covered with the rubble from the surrounding battle-scarred buildings.

  The steady reverberations rattled the loose, smaller debris as the rhythmic march of several thousand Angel soldiers grew near. Above them, at a safe distance from one another, were the dozen airships that kept watch over their legions, themselves escorted by the smaller fighters.

  Leading those on the ground, flanked by tanks, with Viktor on his horse and Tabi on her elemental wolf, was a heavily armored carrier. Inside, Rivia led the cautious charge forward, along with the twins, Osk, and Masayuki. Back at a heavily defended forward operating base, the five young commanders presided over and monitored the major push.

  Five blocks from the bridge, the counter attacks erupted all at once. Rockets and mortars flew into the sky and crashed back down, as Guardian rotorbirds and interceptors opened fire on any Angel above or below them.

  “This is going to slow us down,” Rivia said, watching multiple screens with exterior camera feed. “Viktor, can you ignite any rockets before they hit us? Tabi, be ready to throw your wolf at any Guardsmen that get too close, or entangle the APC with its vines to protect us.”

  “Got it, General,” her voice replied. “Crossbow is at the ready.”

  Viktor waited to project a wide plasma field above the forward officers until a barrage of rockets were headed their way—each of them exploding upon hitting the thin layer of super-heated air. Ahead, a rotorbird pulled in from a cross avenue, opened its side doors, and a machine gunner began to pelt the carrier with shells fortified enough to pass through the intense shield of flame. Tabi aimed her bow at the gunner, but knowing the heat would melt her bolt enough to send it off course, waited.

  The fire paradigm wouldn’t have to risk lowering his barrier for her, though—seconds after the rotorbird had appeared, Corus took out the gunner with a shot from a building nearly half a mile away.

  “I got you covered for another couple blocks,” he reported in. “Then I’ll need a few minutes to advance to another building. You good?”

  “Just fine,” Masayuki replied. “How are the kids?”

  “We’re all right back here. They’ll keep me alive.”

  “I sense a mass of troops moving in at the next intersection,” Temki warned them. “Watch out for an ambush.”

  A nearby tank fired before the rotorbird could fly off, blasting away its tail and causing it to spin out of control and slam into a building—just as a shot-down Guard chariot fell from the sky and crashed nearby.

  “They’re throwing everything at you,” Daschel’s voice came in. “You have a tidal wave of soldiers about to hit, and whatever’s not coming now will just be waiting for you on the other side of the river.”

  “We can’t stop,” Masayuki replied. “Tell me the plan to take out the Velkinson destroyer is still a go.”

  “Working on it. Logistical issues still being looked at.”

  “General,” the APC driver’s voice came through a speaker as they reached the intersection. “We have heavy foot soldiers closing in on our left and right. We can make it through, but those behind us—”

  “Slow down,” Rivia ordered. “We’ll have to take out as many of them as we can. Mr. Xin, can you man the lightning gun?”

  “Well…” He huffed. “It’s never been tried in combat before, but the burrow says it should work. Tank crews, provide cover.”

  Four friendly tanks picked up their speed and rolled up alongside the carrier, and once they reached the middle of the large intersection, over a hundred armored Guardsmen opened fire with heavy weaponry, the support alchemagists amongst them unleashing powerful spells as well.

  The tanks returned fire and soaked up projectiles, while Viktor’s plasma barrier was quickly overloaded and thinned out, rendering it useless. But with it down, Masayuki was free to use the alchemagi-weapon on top of the carrier—a Tesla coil-shaped cannon that amplified his lightning abilities. By grasping onto the crystal handle inside that fed it, he sent his spells straight through and launched powerful streams of electricity.

  Through a periscope, he watched as the initial burst of each bolt vaporized every Guardsman it touched, with the stream that followed electrocuting the others through their armor, knocking them to the ground. Angel infantry rushed in to assist, using the tanks as cover, but everyone was quickly becoming bogged down with the Guardsmen closing in.

  “We spotted a large rairer approaching with heavy escort,” the captain of the Blue Rosely reported. “About two klicks from Pisces.”

  “General, you’ve lost all forward momentum,” Menin said from the Red Tenor. “We can position our birds for an air strike on that cross avenue in three minutes.”

  “No, no—don’t risk the bombers and your escorts,” Rivia urged. “We can’t put them in danger until we’re across the river.” He then turned to Osk. “Colonel, how would our other secret weapon fare here?”

  He shook his head. “We should save it as a tank buster. It’s not effective enough against masses of foot soldiers.”

  “What secret weapon?” Garder wondered.

  “You’ll see it today, I’m certain,” Rivia said and got back on his radio. “All right, Mr. Holden. I’m calling your team in. Use position six.”

  After a moment, Xavier responded, “Position six, copy.”

  He looked at his team back at the forward base, ready to go. The burst of another small nova explosion reverberated from nearby, bringing down a gunship that had tried to perforate the tower in which the youth squad and Corus were holed up, from where they protected the back line.

  As Xavier’s borrowed demirriage developed under the morning light, he explained the situation, “The General’s carrier is being bogged down from two sides. We’re taking out as many of them as we can.”

  “What, just us?” Sieger replied. “I mean, I love a fight, but…”

  “The goal is more to create a distraction. We have to get our side moving again.” Xavier watched the nearby Mezik slowly take to the sky. “They’re counting on us. No pressure.”

  “If they get the suppression tower going, is it up to us again?” Izae asked as she checked her bow’s tension. “Sounds like a mess out there.”

  “If they get the suppression tower going, then we’d already be having bigger problems. We may be forced to retreat.”

  “Can’t have that,” Sieger said and stepped into the carriage, his twin shields and ax taking up half the space.

  “Okay…” Bryant breathed and joined him. “We got this.”

  Finx and Xavier went in, and he hit the translucent pedestal to warp them in at a memorized spot: the second floor of a tower overlooking the mass of Guardsmen, who had just destroyed one of the tanks on the APC’s right side. With a height advantage and an office that had already been fortified and provided extra munitions the night prior, the team of four dug in, ran the game plan, and prepared to attempt a risky diversion.

  “I don’t see any officers among them,” Bryant reported, looking down his rifle’s scope. “So, do we just shoot… whoever?”

  “Alchemagists first,” Xavier replied. “But leave a couple of them—if they turn their focus on us, Sieger can redirect a few spells.”

  Finx pulled an arrow out of her quiver and located her first target below, but the nearby gunfire, explosions, and powerful alchemagi was nearly deafening, forcing her to shout back, “You sure about this, sir?”

  “The rest of the Angels here are relying on us right now, Izae.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Sieger assured her. “Trust in the plan.”

  Xavier took his position behind some sandbags, raised his hand, and when he thought the time was right, signaled to open fire. Finx fed her arrows alchemagi, turning them into armor-piercing rock spires, as Bryant and Xavier took out several alchemagists in the troop mass. It took several seconds for the Guardsmen to realize they were being hit from behind, at which point dozens of them turned around and returned fire with their own rifles and ballistic weapons—the squad taking cover as they did so.

  In safety, they waited another moment until alchemagi spells began to tear into the office—vector beams and powerful fire and lightning attacks among them that threatened to take out the whole floor.

  Following some hearty breaths, Sieger put his ax out and they watched its remaining blade absorb stray alchemagic energy. It quickly reached its maximum capacity, glowing in a bright golden shine and vibrating tremendously, threatening to crack its crystal-infused metal.

  After another exhale of hot air, he used all his strength to hurl the ax down into the crowd below, immediately bringing up his twin shields that could take a beating against nearly everything Aurra threw at them.

  Palar’s old weapon twirled in the air before impacting the street in the center of the troops, where it generated a devastating eruption of energy and asphalt that sent over a hundred men into the air. Sieger, always the brawler, leapt onto the street below to continue the fight before the surviving Guardsmen could reorganize, with the other three covering him.

  “I think the ax might’ve cracked that time,” Finx commented.

  “If that’s the end of it, then it died well,” Bryant remarked.

  “Let’s make sure we don’t do the same just yet,” Xavier added.

  On the other side of the intersection, another surprise assault was already in progress on the second platoon of Guardsmen involved in the ambush. Guardfall’s berserkers, feared by both of the war’s belligerents, were tearing into the armored soldiers with their claws, maces, spears, broadswords, and other bludgeoning weapons; the group had never been known for subtlety or finesse in battle, their combat style purposefully calling back to the ancient days when barbarians struck fear into their enemies. The few alchemagists still in the group were unrefined, and only contributed the most basic of offensive spells.

  “Keep it up, boys!” Harken yelled out and pulled his claws from a now empty suit of armor. “Prell! You keeping count?”

  “Don’t bother with that anymore!” his second in command shouted back, while helping to further separate and brutalize the rear Guardsmen with his twin scimitars. “Can’t keep up with you, sir!”

  “You still have to try, on my behalf!”

  “Sir, airship incoming!” a one-armed veteran exclaimed, pointing to the sky with his pike. “Cannons are moving down!”

  “They will fire on their own men,” Prell told Harken.

  “Ah, hell,” Harken grumbled. “Take cover in the buildings—”

  Something blurred by in the air above, ripping into the airship’s cabin from the side. The crackling thunder of the Blue Rosely echoed through the steel and concrete canyon, and the vessel that could have killed many Guardfall followers burst into flames and drifted off course.

  Amid cheers, Harken sneered and told his troops before returning to combat, “Ha! Guess we’ll invite the Rosely’s captain to a drink tonight!”

  Their veins set ablaze by their leader’s determination, the last few dozen remnants of Guardfall continued another fight with vigor. On the other side of the battle, over the sea of Guardsmen that were growing desperate, the carrier holding Rivia was about ready to move again.

  “The enemy’s numbers should be down to something those behind us can manage,” Osk told Rivia, both of them still watching the vehicle’s monitors closely. “Colt, where are you?”

  “About to make the jump to Earth,” his voice answered. “Then we’re talking maybe another three minutes to get into position.”

  “And you’re sure the claw amplifier works?”

  “Did a test run a week ago, sir. I saw to their installation myself.”

  “Copy. We’ll get moving and do our part.”

  “Alpha Team, advance,” Rivia ordered the surrounding tank operators and armored soldiers. “Bravo and Charlie, move in and keep this intersection free of Guardsmen. Tabi and Viktor, stay here and assist, then rejoin us after we take out the destroyer. We can’t lose this road.”

  After several heavy lurches, the carrier reached a steady pace and began rolling again. Five tanks were still able to move right alongside it, although several were heavily damaged and on their last legs. Above them, an attempted enemy air strike on the position was denied after an Angel squadron took out the attackers, sending Guardian aircraft careening into buildings and adding to the dust, fire, debris, and smoke in the area.

  “Are you going to let me in on just how we’re going to cross the bridge?” Garder asked after a wing slammed into the street nearby.

  “The rolling armor alongside us are going to be decoys,” Osk explained. “We have to draw the Velkinson destroyer’s fire before the Mezik can come in. It is possible that ship could shoot her down.”

  “Thought she was supposed to be invincible,” Garder replied, while gunfire began to pelt the vehicle’s thick plating once more.

  “Maybe she used to be. Seven years of war changes things.”

  “The bridge is coming up,” the carrier driver reported. “The way looks clear—but we’re taking machine gun fire from the buildings.”

  “We have to get rid of as many of those nests as we can before Tabi and Viktor come through here,” Masayuki stated.

  “Can the tanks hit them?” Rivia asked the driver.

  “Negative, sir. The nests are too high up.”

  “We’ll have to risk some of our rotorbirds, then.” The general got back on his radio and ordered, “Air Cavalry, advance to Jacob Street.”

  “Sir,” the driver spoke up again, “they’re hitting the lightning gun.”

  “It’s not going to last. Mr. Xin, if we’re going to lose it anyway, see if there’s anything to take out first.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Masayuki said and looked into the periscope.

  He spotted one of the machine gun nests above and fed his energy through the cannon, but the lightning was merely absorbed by the building and then spread out across its exterior.

  “No effect, sir,” he said, right before electrical sparks rained down from the cannon’s amplifying power cells above him. “… And I think they just destroyed it. Nice while it lasted.”

  Osk assured them, “Don’t worry. This carrier can take a beating.”

  The Angel rotorbirds arrived, drawing the fire of the eight nests dug into the surrounding towers. Three were shot down before they could position, but the surviving five aircraft tore into the floors with their chain guns, taking out the soldiers posted inside—and detonating their caches of ammunition in the process. The tanks and APC then pressed on.

  “Mr. Huart,” Rivia spoke to Colt, “we’re nearing the bridge. The tanks are still moving. We can begin the countdown.”

  “Good,” his voice replied. “One minute, mark.”

  “Tank operators, set your cruise control now and abandon your vehicles. Take cover by the carrier until reinforcements arrive.”

  The APC slowed to a halt and the tanks rolled on ahead, their drivers and gunners slipping out through the rear hatches. A few blocks behind them, the Angel’s main frontline forces were mopping up, with the Guardsmen in full retreat. A full march across the bridge was now in reach.

  “All trans-dimensional systems look… um, nominal,” Simon said from the Mezik’s first officer’s seat. “Sounds like I’m operating a rocket.”

  “She’s pretty damn close to one,” Colt replied, after going through some final checks of his own. He got on the speaker system to ask the gun crew, “Are you ready down there? Looks like we’re doing this.”

  “Copy, Colt,” Pip replied. “We’re all set.”

  “What about you, Shin? Is it still holding a charge?”

  Down in the Mezik’s new missile bay, she was delicately energizing the alchemagic crystal held in place within the middle of the lone missile onboard the ship. At one end was a tungsten-tipped warhead able to pierce the armor on Guardian destroyers; at the other, a solid fuel booster. The weapon was currently one of a kind but ready for reproduction should it provide a positive result—and the Guard wasn’t aware of its existence, yet.

  “I don’t think I should pump anything else into it,” Shin replied into her radio, as she gazed at the caricature of Verim that someone had drawn on the warhead. “It’s glowing pretty damn brightly.”

  “All right, come back up and take your seat. Gun crew, one more time: no guarantee the thing will work, so do as much damage as you can.”

  Shin checked the missile clamps and closed the crystal chamber, before pulling herself up through the floor hatch to return to the cabin. Seconds before they reached a safe altitude, she entered the battery control room and got on the last of the ship’s four cannons; Pip and his cousins were on the other two. Elsewhere in the Mezik, eight flight engineers and operators kept it in the air and monitored the systems and surroundings.

  “Missiles incoming,” Simon reported to Colt, and looked out of the cockpit window to see five vapor trails in the distance.

  “They were never going to find all the SAM sites,” Colt acknowledged. “Hang on, everyone. Hard pull coming.”

  At full throttle, the Mezik climbed high into the atmosphere. The enemy stingers were coming in fast, sailing over the Angel airships that were armed with far more defenses against the missiles than the flagship. The lumbering giants’ crews fired on the rockets with their flak guns on the Mezik’s behalf, but were unable to land a hit as they blasted past them.

  “Ready, Simon?” Colt asked, his finger hovering over the switch that would fire out one of the Mezik’s two rounds of flares; their only deterrent against the stingers. “We’re almost at a proper altitude.”

  “Yeah—but we’re about to be hit.”

  “Nah, we’re good. You’ve been to Dublin before, right?”

  “Y-yes…” Simon said, his eyes on the deadly rockets right outside.

  “Go—hit it.”

  The ship amplified the power of the claws nestled in the Mezik’s nose cone, and in an instant, the dark blues of a sunset sky appeared in front of them. They passed through to Earth within a second, and the rift closed, sending the missiles careening away after having lost their target.

  Once the Mezik began to stall, Colt spun around, leveled out, and then pitched her down in the direction of the Ozarus. Below, the lights of Dublin appeared, its historical and modern buildings all bathed in orange. Simon wanted to take a moment to soak in the sight of an Earth city for the first time in seven years, but he had navigational responsibilities to perform. The River Liffey, which cut through Dublin, was quite close to its cousin on the other side; running just a few hundred feet to the south. For the strike to work, the Mezik’s positioning would have to be perfect.

  “Look at that…” Colt said after a breath, watching as a distant passenger jet went by. “You’d never know a war was sharing this space. Hey, Simon. You’ll get this right. Just tell me where to dive-bomb. We wouldn’t want to plant ourselves vertically inside the Pisces tower.”

  “Right…” Simon breathed in. “I need to concentrate.”

  Fordein watched from the bridge of his destroyer, his binoculars aimed at the Impaliad, one of his vessel’s two sister ships and the vessel guarding the Velkinson. He was pleased to watch four of its six main guns take aim at a number of tanks attempting to cross the bridge and promptly blast them to pieces, the cannons rattling the nearby tower windows—even shattering a few of them. He had heard about the Mezik lifting off and was wary of it, but felt confident and prepared to take it on, with all of the ships’ guns designed to aim straight up and target the aircraft if they needed to.

  On one side of the bridge he guarded were hundreds of Angel foot soldiers, taking cover behind or inside the nearest buildings. They wouldn’t dare come out and attempt to cross the river with his destroyer nearby. An officer known for his hubris, he felt like he was single-handedly holding back the enemy and about to secure N, once suppression was in place.

  “Targets destroyed,” the Impaliad’s captain reported.

  “Good,” Fordein replied. “Position two of your heavy guns back into the air. We can’t take any chances with the Mezik buzzing about.”

  “Even she wouldn’t stand a chance against us, sir.”

  As the ship’s main batteries angled back upward, a hole suddenly opened up about a mile above. Fordein was among the first to see it, and he didn’t need his binoculars to notice the oversized assault carrier that had just come through it and was plummeting downward head first.

  “Mezik sighted!” his bridge’s comms officer told the other Guard forces. “We need full anti-air suppression immediately!”

  “All gunners, lock on and fire!” Fordein ordered.

  More missiles took to the air, Guardian chariots moved in to intercept, and explosions of flak began to perforate the sky. But the Mezik was screaming down, too fast to hit. By the time the Impaliad’s cannons launched two shells upward that weren’t even close to impacting their attacker, it was far too late. The Guard’s nightmare, feared more than the pretorian-slaying Garder Nolland, opened fire at a thousand feet.

  It unleashed a storm of high-caliber slugs with deadly accuracy that chewed apart the deck of the Impaliad, destroying several cannons and the bridge—and that was before it fired a single, large missile from a bay on its belly. Guard intelligence had no idea the ship possessed such a weapon; it was supposed to only be able to drop small bombs from its underside.

  Fordein watched as the Mezik dramatically leveled out and then activated its demirriage engine a mere fifty feet above ground, disappearing in a flash as the displaced matter sucked in surrounding dust and smoke. The missile made impact a moment later, drilling through the top of the Impaliad and exploding somewhere under the water—the bilge, perhaps.

  That alone would have been enough to sink it, but the Angels were known to make spectacle of their brutal totality in combat. The initial smaller explosion was followed by a powerful release of lightning alchemagi that drained the ship of all its power. Bolts of arcing electricity spread across the hull, and the blue glow of ionizing radiation surrounding the vessel preceded the ignition of the ship’s munitions bay.

  The resulting explosion and complete destruction of the ship shocked the Guardsman on the bridge with Fordein, and formed a brief watery crater in the river while every nearby window was blown out. The commanding officer found himself surrounded by fear and panic before the Impaliad had fully gone down; from dread that they would soon be next.

  The cheers of the nearby Angels filtered into Fordein’s ears once the ringing diminished, and he knew he had a choice to make. He didn’t consider it for long—not with a second missile possibly coming down in seconds. He twisted a knob at his station to fire up the demirriage engine.

  “Castalian, warp back to N’s northern port on my mark,” Fordein instructed the other surviving captain. “We’ll protect the naval force there.”

  “Fordein!” Terront’s scolding voice erupted in his headset. “Did I just hear you right? This is no time to retreat and give up the Ozarus!”

  “We stand no chance against that ship. It’ll be back any minute.”

  “We’re in position and ready to counter it should they make a second attempt. You will hold position. Fordein? Do you copy? Damn it!”

  The admiral hesitated a moment more, but knew he wasn’t ready to lose another of his prized teleporting destroyers. Choosing not to dwell on the consequences of his actions, he triggered the engine.

  His ship, the Destiny, vanished in a flash of light, with the Castalian quickly following suit. The matter displacement, greater than the Mezik’s, generated sonic booms and twenty-foot waves as air and water rushed in to replace the tons of metal which had been sent a dozen miles north. Once the local atmosphere had settled, Angel forces stormed all three bridges.

  Watching through a telescope on the presiding Guardian super-airship Valiant, floating over the far end of the river, the vessel’s captain reported to General Terront, sitting near her, “They… did retreat, sir.”

  He angrily stabbed the bridge’s steel floor with his cane, huffed and grumbled, and rubbed his forehead. But Fordein’s actions did not come as a surprise. Terront fell back into his chair and weighed his remaining options.

  He muttered, “I assume the Angels are already advancing…”

  “Yes, sir. The rairer carrying the system is nearly at the Pisces.”

  “Then we only need to delay them a little longer… This carrier on the street you mentioned—the one you can’t seem to take out… Can you describe its, ah, behavior? Why has it proven so difficult to stop?”

  “It’s covered in heavy anti-alchemagi armor, and its passengers’ protective spells keep deflecting most of what we’ve thrown at it.”

  “Then we have to assume that it has at least one—likely more—of the Angels’ commanding officers inside. Maybe even Rivia himself. But we can’t direct all our remaining sources to taking it out and lose everything else… Ah. We still have a mobile hammer in that area, do we not?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “Good. Ms. Anneise,” he turned to her, watching and waiting patiently nearby, “it’s about time you make your way to the top of the tower, should Mr. Renek fail, and… the Angels make it that far. They lost their providence breaker. All that matters, is that we get our suppression.”

  “Very well, sir,” she replied and got ready to teleport her way over via the light coming through the bridge’s window.

  “I fear that this continent truly is on the brink,” Terront sighed.

  Two tanks in better condition pulled up to replace the carrier’s previous escorts as it crossed the bridge—but none of its occupants were granted a moment of rest. Within seconds of making it over the river, two rairer on either side of them jumped down from the bombed-out floors of the towers in which they had been lying in wait. The armored beasts’ bones absorbed the impact with the street, and they began shredding the escort tanks before their gunners had a chance to rotate the cannons.

  “General, we have to help them,” Milla exclaimed, watching on the monitors as the rairer’ sharp claws tore into the armor.

  “Rivia,” Osk said, looking at the commander for approval.

  The general nodded and ordered the driver to stop, the voices of the tank operators coming in on everyone’s headsets, very close to begging for help. Garder, prepared to assist Osk, readied his sword. He hadn’t expected that the colonel was ready to take the beasts on alone.

  Osk closed his eyes and concentrated. Garder instinctively looked at his fingers to see how powerful a spell he was conjuring, but he only had closed fists, and appeared to be meditating.

  “What’s he doing?” Garder whispered to Milla. “He can’t…”

  “He can,” she whispered back. “Just watch.”

  The four rairer stopped their attack when they felt the nearby rumbling and heard a strange concoction of moving metal and concrete crashing against itself, almost as if there were a localized earthquake.

  Aside from Osk, who remained in a trance-like state, everyone inside the carrier watched as a rocky serpent burst through one of the buildings. Emerging from a dust cloud, it bit into the armored neck of the closest rairer and began crushing the metal, causing the beast to shriek.

  The creature clawed at the serpent to try and get it off, and the other rairer turned their focus onto helping their pack mate.

  Garder studied the elemental. It was composed of urban rubble and warped metal, and once he saw its rebar mandibles, he understood that he was looking at a centipede. As it had formed in an urban setting, instead of natural sand or rock, it looked like it had raided a construction site.

  “Don’t wait to see how the fight ends,” Osk murmured without breaking his concentration. “It’s just so we can keep moving…”

  “Agreed,” Rivia replied. “Driver, escorts—pull ahead. The Angels and paradigms behind us will take care of whatever’s left.”

  “Understood,” their driver replied and hit the gas.

  The APC and the tanks managed to get away from the four-versus-one tussle, although Garder remain fascinated and kept his eye on the rear monitor. The rairer could grab onto the centipede and tear it apart with their claws, but it simply kept reforming from the material and wrapping itself around one of the beasts, snapping at them as the other three worked to rip it up once again. As intelligent as they were, they only saw the centipede as another big creature that could be killed with persistence.

  “Okay, so…” Garder muttered. “Anyone going to tell me how?”

  “The burrow’s been developing the alchemagi filter implants the pretorians are given,” Milla explained. “But we’ve basically had to reverse engineer them and tailor the things for each user. Osk has the first successful filter. He just had to go through fifty or so of them.”

  “… Painfully…” Osk added.

  “Impressive, nonetheless,” Rivia replied.

  “I can imagine a field full of elementals doing all the battling for us,” Garder said. “But I’m guessing that’s a bit too hopeful.”

  “We’re still working on one for Leovyn,” Osk exhaled and opened his eyes, after he was out of control range for his centipede.

  With the Angel forces farther back now busy taking down the rairer, the road that lead to Pisces tower looked clear. The building itself, only four blocks away, even seemed to be undefended. Rivia was suspicious by the time they had passed through another intersection and had gotten a quick look at either end of the other road, noticing they were also empty.

  He placed his hand against the hull of the carrier, felt the vibrations of nearby shelling, and asked the driver, “Contact the officers leading the platoons around us—find out where exactly they’re fighting.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied and began twisting his dashboard’s radio dial.

  “That couldn’t have been the last of the resistance,” Milla said.

  Masayuki nodded. “Agreed. We shouldn’t be covering ground this quickly. I can hear the aerial combat above still going on, but…”

  “Sir,” the driver spoke up. “I can’t contact them. The radio noise makes me think we’re being jammed.”

  “Is the Guard up to something?” Garder wondered.

  “No…” Rivia said after a moment of thought. “The military in the Pisces must be using their broadcast tower to saturate the nearby airwaves. We spoke to them this morning, but if they believe the Guard is closing in, they may be trying to slow them down in anyway possible.”

  “So they’re jamming everyone and hoping they can buy themselves some time. But that makes our rescue attempt more difficult.”

  “I don’t like that the Guard is giving us passage through here, either. Driver—slow to a crawl and be ready to reverse. We need to give the others time to catch up to us regardless.”

  He did as he was told, and the damaged tanks slowed down right alongside them. Garder began to shake a leg in anticipation, worried that the rairer meant to climb up the tower ahead would appear any moment.

  To their right was a wide brown mortar tower, most of its windows already blown out. Rivia kept his eyes on the building in particular, and by the time they were halfway across its length, he seemed to be fully expecting something to happen, as if a surprise attack would be launched from its floors. Garder was close to asking what he was waiting for, when there was a thunderous impact from somewhere inside the building’s lobby.

  “Full reverse!” Rivia ordered.

  The driver changed gears and hit the pedal. The building’s front side shattered apart around its doors, and as the fa?ade fell, the mobile hammer that had dug into its lobby was briefly revealed—before it disappeared behind a wall of falling debris and dust. The cracks spread in seconds, and the entire tower began to topple over as it broke apart.

  The carrier made it back to the previous intersection right before the skyscraper crumpled into a mound of destruction, making the road impassable and filling the avenue with a rolling brown cloud that soon enveloped the APC and blotted out the view from its monitors.

  “Damn…” Masayuki was the first to speak once they realized that the collapse was over with, and they had made it out of the street just in time. “They just tried to drop a building on our heads to stop us.”

  “We’re going to have to go around,” the driver said.

  “And wait for backup,” Milla added.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Garder exclaimed angrily and went for the door latch. “If they get suppression up, all of this was for nothing.”

  “I’m afraid I have to agree, General,” Osk replied. “I can get us through here. Even if we reach the tower before everyone else, consider our combined strength. It’s a risk, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

  Garder didn’t wait for Rivia to ruminate on the proposal. Milla’s opposition to the idea was clear on her face, but Garder nevertheless tore open the side door and stepped out. The dust cloud was sucked into the vehicle, but only for a moment before he blew it away with a wind spell.

  Once he was outside and standing on the street, he created a much more powerful version of the technique, generating gusts equal to that of a weak hurricane which blasted the expanding cloud away, towards the Pisces tower at the end of the avenue. He kept this up for a solid minute, until the remaining dust and hot smoke still puffing out of the debris pile was thin enough to see through—although the pile itself was a mountain of dangerous, broken rubble at least forty feet high.

  “This is a bad idea,” Milla said after she stepped out.

  “Tactically, yes,” Osk replied. “But there is still a chance we can stop that rairer before the others show up to help us. Hold on a second.”

  He closed his eyes and summoned his centipede again, forming out of the scrap metal and crushed mortar, and looking similar to the previous incarnation of the beast. He commanded it to dig a tunnel through the mess, and it got to work, burrowing straight through cleanly and efficiently, devouring the rubble by smashing it into fine particles.

  The centipede’s body became lifeless and broke apart once the tunnel was finished, and Garder wasted no time in approaching the entrance, deeming it safe enough despite some clear instability.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t do that,” Tabi shouted out from behind them.

  Everyone turned to see her and Viktor, both still on their animals.

  “Figured you could use some help,” Viktor said, dismounted, and gave his horse a pat on the side. “The other Angels are doing fine, securing the avenue. What’s the plan? Head to Pisces, hope for the best?”

  “We’ve done pretty well together in the past,” Masayuki said with a smirk. “The tunnel looks single-file, though.”

  “And untrustworthy. Despite Ms. Osk’s best efforts,” Tabi added and had her viny wolf charge ahead towards the debris mountain.

  It leapt and exploded into a twisting mass of tendrils, which latched onto the tunnel and rapidly grew, entwining themselves with rubble as they did so. In less than a minute, the long makeshift corridor was reinforced with vegetation, and the others looked less hesitant about going in.

  “Comms are down,” Osk said to the others. “If we go through there, we may be able to take down the big rairer, but there’s no telling how long we’ll be on our own. Are we all ready?”

  “We’re wasting time thinking about it,” Garder replied.

  “I’m confident in our combined strength,” Rivia assured everyone. “Just… be ready for anything. Come on. Let’s free N.”

  With Rivia leading, they headed through, the sounds of combat behind them diminishing as they did so. Viktor’s bulky armored body covered their backs, but space was tight, and the seven Angels made sure to watch their sides to avoid being scraped from hot broken metal and other protrusions. At the end, they emerged onto the next City block, just two intersections away from the large tower itself, barely visible in the dust.

  It looked like the remaining cloud was dissipating, so they spread out in defensive positions and waited until they had better visibility.

  “Garder,” Milla said and pushed down on his casting hand, “just let it thin out. We don’t want to make ourselves a target.”

  He grumbled and remained impatient, but did as he was asked. At some point, he and the others felt and heard something crawling on the debris behind them, but smoke was still rising from the pile and masking anything that could be there. At worst, there were a couple rairer sneaking up behind them; not enough of a threat to frighten him.

  Then, rather suddenly, what remained of the veil ahead of them parted—and revealed the defenses that had taken up position while they were traversing the tunnel. It was even worse than expected.

  Ahead of them, guarding the Pisces, were five schutz and half a dozen rairer of the ranged variety, ready to fire deadly spines. Among the formidable organic and metal beasts were over sixty heavy Guardsmen and the four rotorbirds hovering over them. And behind the group, on the building remains, were three armored rairer, ready to bite.

  “O… kay,” Tabi grunted and cracked her neck. “Could be worse.”

  “Damn it…” Garder said and squeezed his blade’s hilt tightly. “The building is right there. Can we really break through all this?”

  Rivia, three of his fingers up and ready to unleash either his most powerful or most defensive techniques, waited for the enemy to make their move. Ahead, he could just barely see Charles step out from the crowd of Guardsmen, in his own light set of armor.

  “We have a suppression system to install,” the pretorian shouted out to them. “Turn back now, and let us bring peace to N.”

  “It’s like he wasn’t just friendly with us hours ago…” Milla said with a sigh. “General? Colonel? What do we do?”

  “We have no choice,” Rivia replied. “We’ll fight our way through.”

  The twins, the paradigms, and two of the Angels’ leaders raised their weapons to signal they wouldn’t be turning back. Even at a distance, they could see Charles shake his head before he signaled to his men to repel the attackers. The nearby rairer clicked their tongues in anticipation.

  Then destruction rained down from the sky.