War of Drekis, Rearmed - Chapter 9: The Power That is Yet To Be

[Justin Law]

Chapter 9: The Power That Is Yet to Be

 

Segment 116: The Siege of Mid-Gate

In the distance, Deminite Gunners unleashed another fusillade of plasma bombardment, their energy bolts exploding and sending tremors that shook the towering, city-spanning wall to its very foundations. The walls – polished into a marble-smooth texture in the aftermath of the 2nd Age of Conflict, now bore numerous markings from repeated enemy bombardments – continued to stand tall in the face of the terrifying onslaught. Once built to quarantine the southern section of New Xaelis from The Fallen during the 2nd Age of Conflict and turned into a grand monument in the aftermath, the attack on New Xaelis has seen the Mid-Gate press-ganged into serving its original purpose.

“Just how much can this old wall take?” Tim muttered; without realising it the young Sentinel had been repeating that one sentence like a mantra, raising his volume just so that he could hear himself above the near-constant din of gunfire, the inhuman cries of the enemy, and the screams of their own wounded and dying. 

From her position on the ramparts, Raea stole a glance below to witness a volley of counterbattery fire from friendly units stationed in the north of New Xaelis. On top, static gun emplacements, sniper teams and mortar crews picked off light minions such as Reavers, Deminite Soldiers and Reptillions, while from behind the Mid-Gate, heavy howitzers and MLRS batteries sent artillery sailing over the Mid-Gate and arcing towards the distant horizon to counter the enemy’s Deminite Gunners. The Khazanians fought back with ruthless efficiency, and in the moment Raea felt that the Drekis legions could be worn down in a battle of attrition. 

Demonic thralls surged forward like a tidal wave, but the Khazanians’ return fire mowed them down like grass before most of them could even get near the base of the Mid-Gate. In the air, Valkyrie-class airships unleashed broadsides of missiles and heavy particle beams against heavies such as as Devonoxes and Tanker Beasts, while mechs, fighters and gunships engaged Bio-Fighters and Ptera-Deminites in aerial combat, serving as an aerial screen to keep the Drekis legion’s air power away from conducting air strikes on the Khazanians’ ground forces.

The former monument continued to stand tall in the face of near-constant bombardments – if there was a structure in Khazan capable of weathering the worst that the Drekis legions could throw it at, it would have to be one that was built to contain The Fallen at their zenith, when Quietus and the Brotherhood of Null scourged the face of Khazan with the powerful void legions under their command. From Raea’s perspective, it was a refreshing reversal of roles where the Drekis legions were the ones faltering under constant attrition, as their assaults to date had all the effectiveness of lobbing pebbles at a concrete wall.

Feeling confident of their odds, Raea placed an arm around Tim’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. The young redhead waited for Tim to look her in the eyes before retracting her suit's battle mask to let him gaze upon her hopeful smile. “Despite all the tremors running through the wall, the Mid-Gate stands tall. I think our odds are actually looking quite good at the moment. See? We’re gonna make it afterall,” she winked as she gave Tim another hearty pat on the back.

Tim nodded slowly, before allowing himself to smile, “Y-yeah… I guess things aren’t as bad as we initially projected.”

“It would seem that I might’ve been a tad too pessimistic in my forecast,” the lavender-haired aeromancers chimed in while a volley of plasma bolts hit the upper sections of the Mid-Gate, the explosions creating a thick pall of smoke that quickly shrouded the ramparts. But with a gentle wave of her hand, the young woman conjured a strong gust of wind that dispelled the smoke screen to clear the line of sight for the gunners and sharpshooters within the vicinity. “If we keep up the present trajectory, it could very well lead to a turning point. It brings me relief to see how things have gone – especially the fact that you, Mr. Shinestar, are alive and well.”

Raea ran her the fingers of her gauntleted hand through her hair before turning to the mysterious young woman with a perplexed expression, “Look miss, for everything you’ve for Tim, I thank you from the bottom of my heart… but isn’t it about time you started giving us some straight answers?”

“First off, you have my apologies for my elusiveness earlier – please understand that due to the urgency of the situation before, explanations were a luxury I could not afford; but now that the situation has stabilised, I can oblige you with answers,” the aeromancer nodded, before placing her hands together and bowing her head, “The name is Tiara, and what you need to know as of now is that I am on an assignment to ensure the survival of Timothy Shinestar.” Concluding the statement, Tiara lifted her right arm and gestured towards Tim.

The silver-haired Sentinel felt butterflies in his stomach as he saw Tiara point in his direction, reflexively taking a step back. Part of him wanted to think it was a mistake, that the aeromancer was really referring to someone else. But there was no denying that it was his name that she mentioned, and that her eyes were fixed on him. “What? Why me?” The young swordsman’s voice wavered with shock and disbelief, “Who would assign you to protect me?” None of it made sense to Tim – as far as he was concerned, he was just a city kid with dreams of becoming a renowned Sentinel; just who could have taken a special interest in him to the point that his safety had to be ensured above that of all others?

“Like, this isn’t to say I’m not grateful for all the help that you’ve provided so far,” Tim ran his fingers through his silver hair, trying to make sense of it all. “But I don’t understand what’s so special about me… I mean, there are many others here who are stronger than I am… braver than I am… and sacrificed even more than I have? Just who am I compared to them, to deserve special protection?”

“Tim, please… deep breaths and count, steady yourself,” Raea interjected as she placed her hands on her boyfriend’s shoulders and gave them a firm but gentle squeeze. As Tim steadied himself with deep breathing and counting, the redheaded Sentinel spoke for him, casting an apprehensive look at Tiara. “And one more thing, Tiara… who gave you this assignment?”

“Your concerns are understandable,” Tiara replied, her tone gentle but authoritative. “Truth be told, even I do not know your significance in the greater scheme of things – but Her Highness, Amanda Relissan of Axia has taken a special interest in Timothy Shinestar and assigned me to safeguard him. Her instructions were simple – to find Mr. Shinestar and escort him to Axia for an audience with Her Majesty.”

“A-Amanda… Relissan!?” Raea gasped, her eyes widening as she clapped a hand over her mouth in astonishment. “The queen of Axia? But-”

Before the redhead could utter one more word, an urgent transmission blared over the global comms channel. “Incoming bombardment, Mid-Gate sector 2A!”

“That’s our coordinates! Get down!” Raea exclaimed. As the group threw themselves onto the floor of the ramparts to lay prone, a high-powered energy bolt arced over the ramparts to narrowly miss where their heads were a moment ago before hitting a high-rise office tower several blocks away on their side of the Mid-Gate, blasting a massive hole through it. Groans and tremors echoed through the structurally-compromised skyscraper as it rocked back and forth before breaking apart, setting off a disastrous chain reaction as the upper levels collapsed in on the lower levels, and before long the entire building was a pile of rubble, the tremors from the skyscraper’s final moments palpable even to those standing on the Mid-Gate’s ramparts.

For a fleeting moment, Tim could only watch the destruction in stunned silence, before his gaze snapped back to the other side of the wall, glaring down at the hordes of Drekis minions that were massing at the foot of the wall. His reservations towards Tiara were buried in the weight of the moment, swallowed up by a surge of mixed emotions welling up within him like lava rising from a volcano’s magma chamber. He could not describe the exact feeling, but in his current mental state it felt like a combination of disgust, anger and grim resolve. As he fought to keep the emotions from exploding out of him, Tim became deaf to the world – he could see Tiara and Raea’s lips move, but their words failed to register in his brain.  

“Tim?” Raea’s voice dripped with concern as she gave Tim a gentle shake, the redhead immediately noticing the thousand-yard stare in her boyfriend’s eyes. Having known him for the better part of her life, the vacant look was a far cry from the usual carefree and good-natured character of the swordsman. It was as if witnessing that act of senseless violence had snapped something inside him, and in his current mental state Raea feared that the greatest danger her boyfriend could face right now was not the Drekis legions, but himself.

“Shinestar, please… look at me, you’re losing yourself,” Raea tried to reassure Tim, but a combination of the cacophony of battle drowning out her voice and Timothy’s own mental state meant that none of her words were reaching the young Sentinel. Locks of her hair flapped around like silk ribbons as several squadrons of mechs and fighter craft flew over the top of the Mid-Gate to conduct air strikes on the incoming enemy ground troops, carpet-bombing waves of Drekis minions. The ground shook as explosions bloomed like fiery flowers, sending the enemies’ remains flying into the air  before raining back down on their comrades, who pressed on their assault with a care for their own well-being.

“This… this is just so wrong…” Tim struggled to wrap his mind around what motivates the enemy – as if their insatiable appetite for violence against the innocent weren’t abominable in their own right, the total disregard towards even their own lives was what pushed the young Sentinel over the edge. He’d long been taught that wars were always fought between two factions who each believed themselves to be doing what was right – be it the Marauders in their anarchic pursuit of wealth and personal power above all else; or The Fallen’s quasi-religious belief that the only true path towards harmony was to return all of existence to the Primordial Void that predated the creation of the universe. But the Drekis legions were a whole other beast – they appear to have no higher purpose other than violence for the sake of violence, and they revelled in every moment of it.

“Just how could this kind of evil exist!?” Tim growled through clenched teeth; he was still trying to follow Raea’s advice to keep calm by taking deep, controlled breaths – but it clearly wasn’t working, and his attempt at steady breathing sounded more like animalistic pants as his grip tightened against the handle of his heirloom sword until his knuckles turned white. “I won’t let them have it their way! I’ll smite every last one of them!” the silver-haired Sentinel drew his weapon from its sheath, its blade flaring with that familiar turquoise glow even as Raea locked her arms around his waist in a vain attempt to hold him back.

“Mr. Shinestar, cease and desist from this madness at once!” In a rare display from Tiara, the acolyte’s composure showed signs of cracking as her voice took on an uncharacteristically stern note as she too joined Raea in restraining Tim as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him back in a joint effort with his girlfriend. The swordsman had gone almost feral at this point, his incoherent rants and shouts rising even above the din of gunfire.

Nearby, a Ptera-Deminite managed to slip past the anti-air defenses and swooped towards Uberman, only to have the cyborg pluck the pterosaur-like minion out of the air by seizing its throat in one hand, before chokeslamming it onto the floor and crushing its head with a single punch. The commotion caused by Timothy Shinestar did not evade the Sentinel leader’s notice, and seeing the young Sentinel’s distress made Uberman turn his attention to him, realising that he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

“Timothy Shinestar, look at me,” Uberman stepped forward, addressing Tim in a commanding voice as he pointed to a nearby elevator platform. “I need you to calm down; you don’t have to do this right now, head down from the ramparts to take a fiver if you have to – you don’t have to make this any harder on yourself than necessary.”

A pair of wild eyes locked onto Uberman’s optics. “Uberman sir, I tried to… I really did…” Tim hissed through tightly-clenched teeth as around him, mages and espers scrambled into action to put up barriers and force fields to block an incoming volley of ball lightning unleashed by a flock of Ptera-Deminites. “But I can’t just stand here while they unleash hell on Khazan… just think of all the people who died at the hands of these abominations!”

“Listen! Everyone here is facing the same ordeal,” Uberman raised his voice a notch as he placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Don’t think that this burden is yours to shoulder alone, or to act like you have to prove anything to anyone, do you understand?”

The young Sentinel tried to tear his gaze from the battle, but the approaching shrieks of another flock of Ptera-Deminites were already galvanising the Khazan Rangers into action as a squad of them took point on one of the bastions, turning their weapons from the ground towards the air. Autocannons on anti-air emplacements blazed, while Rangers fired DMRs and Ranger Repeaters into the air, sending the Ptera-Deminites’ mutilated remains plummeting towards the demon-infested streets below. A few of them managed to evade long enough to get one last shot off before being gunned down, and succeeded in catching several of the allied heroes’ mystic arts users by surprise.

One of them fell dead in an instant as the ball lightning blew a hole clean through his chest, another was electrocuted on the spot, collapsing to the floor with severe electrical burns and blood pouring from their facial orifices; still others suffered uncontrolled, agonising muscle spasms and toppled over the palisades to fall to their deaths, many stories below, while the lucky survivors writhed on the floor in agony with painful but survivable electric shocks.

“We have heroes in need of medical attention at sector 2A, stat!” Scout barked his orders over the comms as he sniped a Ptera-Deminite out of the air with his Ranger Repeater. “We also have an AA gun left unmanned due to a downed operator, I need fresh hands on that now!” Military medics and heroes with healing abilities arrived on the scene with haste and tended to wounded with diligence, while Khazan Rangers helped man the anti-air emplacements. Bands of civilian militia also stepped up to the plate, bringing MANPADS such as FIM-92 Stingers to bear against incoming Bio-Fighters and Ptera-Deminites. But diversion of manpower to sector 2A left parts of the ramparts momentarily unguarded, and as brief that window was, it was an opportunity that the enemy exploited without hesitation, pity or remorse.

Tanker Beasts rammed against the foot of the wall and transported Deminite Soldiers into combat – coordinated by Hive Guards and enhanced by their unholy auras, the pyrokinetic demons created flame constructs shaped like centipedes, snakes and spiders that crawled up the wall’s face to get at the soldiers and heroes on the ramparts. At the same time, the Tanker Beasts delivered concentrated fire from their plasma bio-cannons at specific sections of the wall’s top. As sturdy as the Mid-Gate was, the sheer amount of focused fire from the enemy was able to weaken its structure as sections of the ramparts were blown up, stranding certain units and cutting them off from reinforcements and resupplies.

Civilian militia counterattacked in squads, bringing NLAWs, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons into the fray. The Tanker Beast shook and growled as anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades left gaping holes in its carapace and disabled the energy bio-cannons on its back. With singleminded determination, the beetle-like biomechanoid attempted to scale the wall’s face, its mandibles open wide and ready to unleash a burning stream of bio-napalm on the ramparts. A plucky militiaman scored a lucky hit as he fired his Javelin and sent a missile right into its mouth before the Tanker Beast could open fire, blowing its head clean off.

Volunteers and professionals alike fought bravely, but the damage was already done as sections of the Mid-Gate had become structurally compromised. This led to a series of cascading failures as the enemy seized the opportunity to redirect their efforts towards these newly-created shatterpoints. At this point parts of the fortifications had degraded to the point that the ramparts simply collapsed under the weight of the heavy equipment positioned on top, sending unfortunate defenders plummeting to their doom as the floor gave way under their feet, while enormous chunks of debris rained down on personnel positioned on the Khazanians’ side of the Mid-Gate, crushing anyone unable to get out of the way in time. 

A KAF-issued helmet rolled to a stop near Tim’s feet, its faceplate spiderwebbed with cracks and splattered with blood, and the silver-haired swordsman felt another spike of adrenaline and cortisol run through his system as he wondered what grim fate had befallen the person who once wore it.

“That’s it! I’ve had ENOUGH of this!” Tim screamed, thrashing against Raea and Tiara with redoubled fervor. “Just let me at them! I know I can make a difference! With me and my sword, I’ll see to it that there will be no more deaths!” With a sudden rush of herculean strength, Tim broke free of the two women’s grip and charged towards the palisades, looking set to jump off the ramparts and throw himself into the thick of the Drekis hordes massing at the foot of the Mid-Gate. 

But before the young Sentinel could follow through on his decision, Uberman swiftly positioned himself between Tim and the edge of the ramparts. “Sorry,” that was all the cyborg said as he slammed his armoured forearm against the silver-haired youth’s chest. Uberman’s blow landed on his solar plexus with a solid thud, and a faint “oof” escaped Tim’s lips as the air was knocked right out of his lungs. Seconds later, his eyes went dull as he slumped forward against the Sentinel leader’s arm, draped limply like a discarded flag. “I hate to do this, but I’d hate myself even more if I did nothing and let you leap into the jaws of certain death,” the cyborg shook his head as the glow from his optics dimmed a notch behind his faceplate.

“Miss Tiara, am I right?” Uberman stepped over to the aeromancer, cradling an unconscious Tim in one arm while the hand on the other arm held the young Sentinel’s dropped sword, the turquoise glow long since faded away. “I couldn’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for Mr. Shinestar here… I’ve long harboured a bad feeling that something like this was bound to happen,” the cyborg looked down at the rookie. He’d seen his share of war and conflict to know that in the face of such horror, youthful idealism combined with inexperience were a recipe for disaster. If he could rewind the clock, Uberman would’ve seen to it that Tim's first SLJ assignment would be something with lower stakes, such as neighbourhood patrols or community outreach programs. But the pragmatic side of the cyborg knew that sheltering him from ugly realities will only stunt his growth as a Sentinel and prevent him from realising his true potential; and given the young man’s lofty aspirations, he’d be doing him a disservice. 

Uberman passed Tim into the waiting arms of Raea as the redhead hurried over to his side to check on her boyfriend, before handing Tim’s sword to Tiara for safekeeping. “Listen, I want you to bring him far away from here, to Axia,” the cyborg first addressed Tiara, before turning his attention to Raea next, “Raea, your orders are to accompany Tiara as she escorts Tim to Axia, and make sure to keep him from doing anything foolish when he comes to… but before you set off towards Axia, I want you three to first head northwest – we will rendezvous there.”

“Northwest of New Xaelis?” Raea wondered as she held the unconscious Timothy Shinestar in a bridal carry. “But why there? What’s so special about that region?”

Uberman’s attempt to answer the redhead’s question was interrupted by an urgent comms transmission from Scout, “Uberman sir, if you still have any orders to make, be sure to do so now. If not, I am going to have to take back direct command of this unit due to the urgency of our current situation.”

“Just two, colonel; see to it that evacuation of the civilians from New Xaelis continue without interruption, and secondly, ensure that there is a green corridor for our forces to pull out from the capital,” the Sentinel leader replied before firing his forearm cannons into the air at a passing Bio-Fighter.

“Very well,” Scout acknowledged. “At this point I don’t expect the Mid-Gate to hold; but it has done its job well – it should allow us to open a corridor for evacuation of the civilians and retreat of our forces. Col. Freebird, out.”

“To the northwest of New Xaelis, before the borders of Axia lie the Frozen Wastes,” Tiara chorused, her fingers fiddling with the handle of Tim’s heirloom sword. “Is there any reason you decided to regroup there?”

The Sentinel leader turned his optics to the northwest, as if to gaze at what lay beyond the horizon, “The Frozen Wastes is home to the second largest Khazan Armed Forces installation in New Xaelis, Fort WinterScar – head there first, and our forces will rendezvous with you there.”

“Roger that,” Raea nodded, her expression hardening with grim resolve as she reactivated her suit’s battle mask, the armour pieces snapping into place over her mouth and nose amidst the whine of her flight repulsors powering up as she held onto Tim with great care and took to the skies. In unison, Tiara conjured a vortex to lift herself into the air, riding on the winds to join Raea in flight.

Uberman watched as the two women quickly became distant specks and disappeared from view entirely, before turning his attention to an approaching Scout. The veteran Khazan Ranger’s injuries were light, but his face bore the weight of exhaustion and the stress of making many hard decisions over the course of a single battle.

“Was it the right thing to do?” The colonel wondered, checking the field dressing on his left arm to ensure that his wound remained properly bound. “I mean, what you did with Timothy back there…”

“That was not an easy decision, but I weighed it as ultimately in his best interests,” Uberman replied. “It was his choice to participate in this operation, and I couldn’t sway his mind even if I wanted to – but I can’t let such a promising hero die before his prime. I wish him all the best at this point, but there are still things left to do before we set off towards Fort WinterScar,” the cyborg turned his gaze back towards the southern side of New Xaelis – on the horizon, approaching from the direction of the Fields of Walshin, he was greeted by the sight of a familiar spectral green glow of a pillar of eldritch energy rising into the sky, and without anymore words being exchanged between Scout and Uberman, both of them knew that the Mid-Gate was about to sing its swan song.

 

Segment 117: Wrath of the Staredge

The sound of rushing wind filled the ears of Tanin, Vincentzo and Woose as Aigonis flew low, skimming close to the ground as he closed the distance in a heartbeat, spinning around to deliver a wide swing with his halberd. Woose and Vincentzo avoided decapitation by a whisker by rolling out of the way milliseconds before the Magister swung his weapon, while Tanin raised swung Chrysilium to parry Aigonis’ strike head on, sending a pulse of energy rippling through the air followed by a deafening clang as the shockwave of their clashing weapons stirred the ash on the ground.

For a few seconds, the Archon of Light and the Drekis Magister engaged in a blade-shoving match, metal screeching against metal as their blades scraped together. With a hiss, Aigonis gained the upper hand as he gave a forceful shove that sent Tanin skidding back by a few metres, before following up with a thrust from his halberd. The Archon turned his body sideways to avoid getting impaled, the tip of the polearm grazing past his torso by a fraction of an inch. Undeterred, the dragonkin-like Magister performed a half-spin to swing his weapon in a wide arc, but Tanin ducked under the sweeping slash before countering with a slash from Chrysilium, which Aigonis parried upon the shaft of his halberd.

The Magister’s serpentine tongue flicked around in his mouth as he countered by performing a ground sweep with his long tail, looking to trip up the Archon of Light, but Tanin jumped into the air to allow Aigonis’ tail to swish past, before raising his right leg towards his chest and performing a bird kick at the apex of his jump, the heel of his boot connecting squarely with Aigonis’ chest. The Magister gave a pained hiss as the talons of his feet dug into the ground as he skidded backwards, before thrusting his weapon into the ground to prop himself back up.

“I see the Archon of Light truly livesss up to hissss name… it’s no wonder Avalon had a hard time with you,” Aigonis remarked as he pulled his halberd out of the ground and gave the weapon a few twirls as his tail wagged side-to-side.

“Hey, have you forgotten about me?” Vincentzo interrupted the face-off between Aigonis and Tanin as the blonde archmage placed his hands together and thrust his palms forward – a spell circle materialised in front of Vincentzo’s and spewed forth seven bolts of condensed mana that flew erratically towards Aigonis. 

“Annoying gnat!” The Magister ducked to avoid the first two magic missiles, which flew overhead to explode against nearby heaps of rubble; another three magic missiles came for Aigonis, but the Magister leapt into the air at the last second to allow the projectiles to miss and explode against the ground. Spreading out his wings, Aigonis dived towards Vincentzo like a hawk, deflecting the last two magic missiles from the archmage’s volley before raising his halberd to deliver an overhead chop.

A fraction of a second before the Magister’s weapon connected with the crown of Vincentzo’s head, the archmage found himself brought to the ground as Woose came in with an abrupt tackle to Vincentzo’s waist, forcefully moving him out of the way of Aigonis’ attack.

The Magister’s weapon cleaved into the ground with such force that it made a noise akin to an explosion as clouds of dust and ash were sent flying into the air as Aigonis carved a fissure into the ground where Vincentzo once stood.

Before the dust cloud from Aigonis’ attack had even settled, a fireball flew through the smokescreen; the Magister gave what sounded like a surprised hiss as he raised his halberd in front of him to block the incoming spell. The fireball exploded like an incendiary bomb, but when the explosion cleared, the dragonkin-like Magister was standing in the middle of the blaze, largely unhurt save for a few stray tongues of flames lapping at his arms and legs – with a mighty flap of his wings, Aigonis created a gale that extinguished the flames on his body.

“That was a lucky ssssave by your comrade, Vincentzo,” Aigonis flapped his wings a few more times to extinguish the fire surrounding him before taking a step forward, pointing his weapon at Vincentzo and Woose. “I guessss that’s why they ssssay fortune favoursss the bold… except that there is no sssuch trope as fortune or fate in His Eminence’s narrative.”

‘Did he do all this with his eyes closed the whole time!?’ Vincentzo gasped as the realisation hit – Aigonis kept his eyes shut during the whole exchange. Which meant that he’d crossed blades with Tanin and defended himself against the archmage’s spells without relying on his sight! “Aigonis, is it? What kind of game are you playing, fighting with your eyes closed?”

“Who knowssss?” Aignois replied, as what appeared like a smirk crossed his reptilian features. “Maybe I gave up my sssight in ssservice to His Eminence… or maybe I just can’t ssstand to look at your face.” 

“Such insolence!” The blonde exclaimed, realising what the Magister was implying, “Are you insinuating that I am hideous!? You, calling me hideous while yourself sporting a face that not even a mother would love!?”

“By the Archons, don’t feed the troll!” Woose interjected, side-eyeing the archmage through the eye ports of his Tokusatsu mask. Even the normally happy-go-lucky martial artist found it frustrating that for all his vision and leadership capabilities, Vincentzo could fall for such a simple provocation.

“A what?” Vincentzo stared long and hard at Woose, “Don’t be daft, Woose! Does that creature look like a troll to you!?”

There was nothing Woose could do but sigh and facepalm at Vincentzo’s lack of understanding of internet jargon. Seconds later, the pink-clad pugilist got back into a serious mood – or as serious as he could – as pointed his index finger at Aigonis before stomping his right foot and entering a fighting stance, an aura of pink ki flaring around him and forming the word POWAAA!!! above his head. “No matter, if you won’t give a straight answer, then I’ll just have to beat it out of you with my POWAAA!!!-Style Kenpo!”

Before Aigonis could respond to Woose’s challenge, the Magister swiftly raised his halberd above his head a split-second before Tanin teleported above Aigonis’ head and dived down to deliver an overhead chop to the dragonkin-like creature – Chrysilium’s edge met the halberd’s shaft with a sharp clang, and the recoil of his weapon bouncing off left Tanin open long enough for Aigonis to throw his weight forward and deliver a shoulder barge to the swordsman, knocking him back.

“I believe you people have a phrassse for thisss… nice try, but no cigar,” The Magister remarked as he raised an index finger and wagged it slowly at the Archon of Light in an admonishing gesture, his serpentine tongue darting in and out of his mouth.

“To think you can block that kind of strike, you couldn’t have been tracking me by sight alone…” Tanin mused as he closed the gap. For several seconds, the two warriors’ blades met in a masterfully choreographed dance of steel – weaving, parrying, feinting – every move one made, the other telegraphed and countered with a timing that bordered on precognition. 

“...Impressive, I must say!” The Archon of Light gripped Chrysilium with both hands and brought his holy zweihander down, but Aigonis jumped back to avoid the bifurcating strike. Tanin’s blow struck the ground beneath with terrifying force, sending plumes of dust and debris into the air as Aigonis followed up his evasive manoeuvre with flaps of his wings that carried him into the air.

“Coming from the Archon of Light? That issss some high praissse,” The Magister snickered as he hovered in the air by flapping his wings, remaining well out of the Archon’s reach. “Ever sssince I heard from Jon Avalon about the ssstrength that you possess, I have been looking forward to thissss day where I can tessst your might.”

Tanin smirked as he twirled Chrysilium around before resting the sword on his shoulders while placing another hand on his hip, “Heh, nice to hear that I’m in such hot demand these days, but don’t you think there’s only one small problem here?”

“Oh?” Aigonis’ tongue flicked around as he cocked his head to one side.

“I don’t think you can do that if your plan is to flap around in place all day – unless you happen to have some kind of ranged attack option?” the devil-may-care smile never left the Archon of Light’s face as he took his free hand off his hip and beckoned at the airborne Aigonis.

A peal of raucous laughter escaped Aigonis’ throat in response. “Ha! And here I wassss wondering if you’d never assssk,” the Magister held up his right hand where he clutched his halberd. “You’re right that I lack ranged attack optionsss; but the Sssstaredge hassss a sssolution for that conundrum.” The weapon called the Staredge glowed and floated from Aigonis’ hands, and it began to disassemble and then reassemble itself before floating back into the Magister’s hand – seconds later, what he held was no longer a halberd, but a giant boomerang.

“By the Powers, did his weapon just… transform!?” Vincentzo gasped. But that was not all, the eagle-eyed archmage noticed the way one side of the boomerang gleamed, and came to the conclusion it wasn’t merely a large boomerang, but one that was equipped with a cutting edge as well. “So the Staredge can become any weapon you desire?”

Aigonis gave no answer to the blonde wizard as he threw the Staredge – now in boomerang form – at Tanin, unerringly tracking the Archon’s position despite not once opening his eyes. Tanin avoided the weapon by teleporting himself to the side, out of the Staredge’s flight path, but already the weapon was circling back towards the swordsman, who swiftly parried the Staredge with Chrysilium, sending the giant cutting boomerang flying into the distance, towards the Astra Canyon.

Aigonis said nothing and took action. His eyes still closed, he swung his arm and let the bladed boomerang fly. It spun through the air at such speeds that at once it appeared as a disk with edges of steel. Tanin teleported a few feet to the left as the spinning blade flew by, slicing its way through the ground before lifting once more into the air and smashing into the sides of the Canyon. But the Canyon proved to be weaker than the Starblade, which continued through the rock-solid walls as if it met no resistance at all and disappeared beyond the path of the Canyon pass.

“Now’s the opportunity! POWAAA!!!-kick!” Seeking to capitalise on Aigonis’ current unarmed state, Woose ascended multiple stories into the air with a single, mighty leap and launched himself foot-first at Aigonis like a missile, looking to plant a powerful flying kick between the Magister’s wings.

“No, Woose!” Tanin tried to shout a warning to the martial artist, realising it was a baiting tactic. The Archon’s warning came milliseconds later, as Aigonis spun around and seized Woose’s kicking leg by the ankle, dangling him upside down in front of his snout. 

“I thought I ssssmelled a rat… thought you could blindssside me, eh?” Aigonis chuckled as he held Woose up like a rag doll. “I mussst say though, you ssssmell different from the othersss-”

Woose didn’t wait for Aigonis to finish his monologue, as the martial artist tucked his other leg towards chest and shot his remaining foot towards the Magister, planting a solid kick to his chin. Aigonis’ head recoiled from the impact as he hissed in pain and anger, before spinning the pink-clad pugilist around twice and chucking him towards the ground, near where Tanin and Vincentzo stood.

The martial artist hit the rubble face-first with a crash, lying face-up in the middle of a small impact crater. Seconds later, Woose sat bolt upright like a certain pro-wrestler before wiping the dust off the lenses of his Tokusatsu mask’s eye ports as he rose onto his feet.

“That was far too impulsive of you, Woose!” Vincentzo chastised.

“Aw c’mon, he had no weapon in his hands!” Woose retorted, “I wasn’t about to let that opportunity slip!”

The duo was interrupted by an abrupt warning from Tanin, “Defensive manoeuvres, now!” A swooshing noise coming from behind the trio drew their attention to the Staredge that was circling back once more – in flagrant violation of physics, not only had Aigonis’ weapon not lost any momentum, it was flying at greater speed than when he first threw it! Tanin himself performed a quick teleport to reposition himself out of the boomerang’s path, while Woose threw himself at Vincentzo to move himself and the archmage out of harm’s way.

As the Staredge began its return flight to Aigonis’ waiting hands, it underwent another transformation – disassembling itself in mid-flight. By the time it was back in the Magister’s hands the weapon had reassembled itself into a new form. Aigonis Zekruel cackled as he wielded a sinister-looking scythe in his hands. “What will your next move be, Archon of Light?” the Magister punctuated his taunt by twirling the scythe around in his hands and performing a series of flourishes with it.

“I know you wanted to help, but you could’ve done so in a less uncouth manner!” Vincentzo grumbled as he picked himself up from the ground, patting the dust off his cloak and straightening his pants, before brushing stray bangs of hair out of his face.

“Please, get your priorities straight, we need to discuss strategy!” Tanin held up his right hand in a gesture for Vincentzo and Woose to stay silent and listen to him. “Haven’t you found it weird that Aigonis has kept his eyes closed the whole time?”

Vincentzo gave an exasperated sigh as he shot a glare at Aigonis, who at the moment hadn’t made any other moves as he continued to flap in place; the archmage grumbled through clenched teeth, “That was one thing that gnaws at me throughout our entire battle – if that was his idea of a provocation, it worked on me.”

The Archon of Light nodded with a grim expression, “Right, my initial assumption was that his senses of smell and hearing are sharpened to the point where he didn’t require sight to track his adversaries – but now that I think about it, his ability goes beyond just that. I think he can even feel displacements in the air like a motion sensor.” As far as Tanin was concerned, that felt like the most rational explanation for how his teleportation, which was a silent and instantaneous movement, could be telegraphed by the Magister.

“So basically, he had no use for his sight because if anything, they just provide unwanted sensory stimulation?” Woose chimed in, eliciting another nod from Tanin.

“Theories are fine and good, but a situation like this demands action,” Vincentzo stepped forward and gave his cape a swish to express his growing frustration.

“I have a plan! You two, follow closely behind!” Tanin lifted Chrysilium once more as he began levitating off the ground. “Vincentzo, keep your distance from the Magister and cover me with some spells; and Woose, stand by for further instructions!” With that, the Archon of Light shot forward like a bullet as he flew towards Aigonis at full speed, quickly closing the gap between the two of them.

“Yessss, come at me! Let’s battle to our heartsssss’ content!” Aigonis replied, baring his teeth in what looked like a grin as he raised his weapon, ready for a midair clash with Tanin.

 

Segment 118: Meeting in Morisato City

From the rear seat of his taxi transport, Michael Cortelloni wound down the passenger side window to take in the sights and sounds of the Cretalian capital of Morisato City. As soon as the esper did, wind rushed into the passenger cab through the open window, causing his dirty-blonde locks to sway as he watched the scenery transition from low-rise houses and rows of palm trees to high-rise commercial complexes and shopping malls as his transport left the residential suburbs behind and entered the downtown heart of Morisato City. 

Michael tipped his sunglasses down to watch the passing scenery; even here in the heart of downtown Morisato City, he could still catch a refreshing, albeit faint, tang of the sea breeze. During his short stay in Cretalia following his initial evacuation from Xaelon, the former mobster had heard plenty of rave reviews about Morisato City, with one online influencer bragging about how the majestic vista of Morisato City “brings a tear to the eye” of those who behold it for the first time. “Yeah… right; nothing but a bunch of hype,” he snorted before winding the window back up. The city was beautiful without a doubt, but as far as the esper was concerned, all the social media hype was a gross exaggeration of facts.

Even in the posh downtown of Morisato City, the Cretalian culture of nature coexisting alongside technology remains strong; amidst the high-class shopping malls, luxury hotels and prestigious business complexes, pockets of lush greenery could be seen all around, with gardens integrated into the courtyards, side parapets and rooftops of the buildings. Many of the buildings were constructed primarily of a locally-sourced rock that was rich in crystals, which made them glitter under the midday sun. As the downtown district of Morisato was built in hill country, many of the roads sported inclines and declines that made his ride bob up and down.

“You have arrived at your destination; Maniacal Heroes Morisato City Branch,” an electronically-synthesised female voice chimed as the taxi pulled up at the front porch of what looked like yet another commercial building – although a dead giveaway that it wasn’t a typical commerce or office block was a signboard next to the main entrance emblazoned with the logo of the Maniacal Heroes; a stylised initials M.H. inside a circle in the likeness of the Anarchy Symbol. “Please pay your fare before disembarking.”

With a grunt, the former Marauder fished out his wallet and held up his debit card. The droid in the driver seat scanned the card, before acknowledging the payment by playing a jingling tune. “Payment successful! Thank you for riding with Robo-GoGo, we look forward to providing you with more pleasant journeys in the future!” With the transaction completed, the passenger doors unlocked to allow Cortelloni to disembark, driving off shortly after the esper began making his way towards the main entrance of the building.

“Bah, should’ve rented a motorbike and driven here myself instead,” Michael monologued as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans as the glass panels of the automated doors slid open to grant him access to the central foyer. Never in a thousand years would the former Marauder think he would ever find himself stepping into a MH facility – even if as an institution the Maniacal Heroes have long piqued his curiosity. The Maniacals were a relatively young organisation compared to the Sentinels, but they had quickly made a name for themselves by striking fear into the heart of Khazan’s criminal underworld and daring raids against villainous organisations such as Marauders and The Fallen, yet they found little respect among more reputable hero institutions such as the SLJ.

In the eyes of the general public, the intentions of the Maniacal Heroes were often acknowledged as noble and righteous, but their methods were often deemed unconventional – unorthodox, even – in the eyes of the state, often toeing a fine line between what government institutions and mainstream media accepted as genuine heroism and brutal vigilantism.

‘Why’d you have to give your word so easily?’ There was a part of Michael that continued to chastise himself, for agreeing to shoulder a responsibility that he felt to be honestly above his paygrade. But whether he liked it or not, the former mobster knew there was no backing out from this – his own survival depended on it. Moreover, staying true to his word was something that the esper held sacred. He was never one to easily give his word on anything, but on the rare occasion he did, he would always deliver on his promises – or die trying. And he hated himself for it.

“Huh, I was expecting something a lot more grungy… this is not what I expected,” Michael mused as he stepped into a foyer that was elegantly designed and tastefully furnished, much to the esper’s surprise as the thick soles of his biker boots squeaked faintly against marble flooring that was meticulously buffed and waxed to a mirror-like shine; in the centre of the foyer was the Maniacal Heroes’ crest made from red and black mosaic tiles, while a sharply-dressed concierge in a suit and tie manned a polished granite-topped reception counter. The aesthetics of the place destroyed every preconception and stereotype Michael long held about the Maniacals. “Maniacal Heroes outpost? Looks more like a luxury hotel!” the ex-Marauder huffed as he examined a fountain where a Greco-Roman styled sculpture of Venus was pouring water out of a jug into a pool of water below her feet.

The esper was about to head deeper into the establishment when his gaze drifted to the adjacent lounge area; sitting on a sofa in front of a coffee table was none other than Shirai Natsumi, currently sporting a white blouse with a dark green pinafore skirt and white petticoat with black tights and brown low-rise boots and holding a cup of tea in her hands. There was no mistaking the pigtailed midnight-blue hair and the three Shikigami that accompanied the girl wherever she went. The three Shikigami – the slime, the bat and the weasel – were the first to become aware of Michael’s presence as they faced him in unison.

“Whoa, what the fuck?” Michael tipped his sunglasses down upon noticing that the Shikigami had noticed him, before taking the shades off and putting them away. Natsumi set down her beverage and rose from the chair to approach the former gangster, albeit with some nervousness that was evident in her stammering voice and reluctance to make eye contact.

“C-Cortelloni-san… w-welcome to the Morisato City b-branch of the M-Maniacal Heroes,” the little girl managed to find her words with some difficulty before muttering unintelligibly and bowing to Michael.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Michael tilted his head slightly to one side as he rested his hands inside his pockets. “Don’t look so scared, do I look like I bite?”

“D-don’t worry a-about me,” Natsumi chuckled awkwardly in a vain attempt to calm her nerves as she twisted her right pigtail, “T-that is more or less m-my default state, hehe…”

“Anyways, were you waiting at the foyer for me? Why?” the esper raised an eyebrow – from the way Natsumi wasted no time in coming over to greet him the moment she became aware of his presence, Michael was certain that she was expecting his arrival.

Natsumi twisted her skirt and gingerly nudged the green blob with the side of her left foot. Recognising it as a cue to give the girl a bit more personal space, the blob slid a couple feet away before Natsumi spoke, “Shinsuke-san wasn’t sure if you’d actually come here… and even if you did, he thought you might be reluctant to enter the Maniacal Heroes’ outpost… so he asked me to escort you in if you arrive.”

“Speak of the devil…” a familiar man’s voice made Natsumi snap her head in its direction.

“Shinsuke-san!” Natsumi exclaimed with palpable relief as the cryomancer descended from a flight of stairs leading to the mezzanine deck, adjusting his necktie and waistcoat as he did.

“Looks like you did come to Cretalia after all,” Shinsuke remarked as he came to a stop just beyond arm’s reach in front of Michael.

The esper snorted in response as a smirk slowly formed on his lips. “What? You doubted that I would?” Michael raised his arms and spread them out before doing a slow turnaround, “Well look, here I am. Thought I made it clear back in Araelgrad? It’s not like me to give my word on anything, but when I do… I always deliver, whether I like it or not.”

Shinsuke sighed as he ran his fingers through his light blue hair, “Point taken; as long as your belligerence is directed towards our mutual enemies, I believe everything will work out fine… what do you say about that, Natsumi-chan?”

Natsumi went wide-eyed as she stared at Shinsuke, blinking in confusion as she slowly raised her right hand and pointed at her chin with her index finger. Snapping out of the initial stupor, the little girl nodded, “R-right! Yes, I’m sure everything will work out!”

Two pairs of footsteps descending the stairs drew the trio’s attention back to the stairway leading to the mezzanine. “I think it’s time you meet some of the local Maniacal Heroes,” Yagami Shinsuke smiled as he rested his hands on his hips as two figures – a man and a woman – came down from the mezzanine to meet the trio of Michael, Shinsuke and Natsumi at the main foyer.

“You mean this circus duo?” Michael snorted as he gestured towards the pair of new arrivals with his thumb. They certainly didn’t look like the typical Khazanian superhero as far as the esper was concerned, but that was to be expected. The Maniacal Heroes were known to be unconventional by the standards of Khazan’s heroic institutions, and that often included their dress codes and aesthetic choices.

The male carried himself with a serious expression and stood about six feet, two inches with an athletic but not heavily muscular build, with arms covered in tattoos that Michael recognised as symbols from Norse paganism. His spiky black hair with prominent sideburns and a small soul patch appeared short at a first glance, but it was due to it being held up by a red bandana wrapped around his forehead – without it, it would’ve likely reached down to the nape of his neck. Dressed in a sleeveless black leather jacket with metal shoulder studs, stonewashed blue jeans and black biker boots, fingerless gloves, and a Rob Zombie T-shirt, the man looked more like a groupie from a heavy metal band than a superhero.

In a stark contrast to her partner, the female of the duo appeared far more jovial – she looked to be a young woman of no more than late teens to early twenties, with amethyst-irised eyes and matching long, ponytailed hair – but the most striking physical aspect of her that Michael noticed was her long, pointed ears that resembled those of an elf. Her wardrobe matched her jovial disposition, a pastel ensemble of a short white skirt that exposed generous swathes of her long, shapely legs, and a mauve short-sleeved polo T–shirt with a pair of blue-tinted sports shades resting on her head; to top off her ensemble, she even bore a tennis racket, carried around in a sports bag slung over her shoulder.

“Did he just call us a circus duo? Now that’s a new entry to our list of nicknames,” the male’s serious countenance softened into a smile as he stepped forward and stood by Shinsuke’s left. “The name’s Miles – Lexington Miles. But everyone just calls me Lex.” As the elflike woman stepped forward to stand by Shinsuke’s right, Lex gestured towards her, “And the lovely lady here is Lara Connors.”

Lara smiled as she waved at Natsumi and Michael, “Heya, nice meeting you! I would’ve preferred to introduce myself, but it looks like Lex had already done that bit for me!” 

Michael Cortelloni chuckled as he folded his arms, before leaning in to take a closer look at the two Maniacal Heroes with a shit-eating grin, “No code names huh? That’s unexpected for Maniacals – thought you two would have some kind of goofy, out-of-this-world codenames… something like Punkrock Man and Captain Wimbledon.”

“Pfft, so you think you’re a joker eh?” Lex rolled his eyes at Michael’s remark before leaning over to Shinsuke and resting an arm around his shoulder, “Hey Mr. Yagami, you’re spot-on about this guy, he’s just downright hilarious!”

“Laughter is the best medicine after all,” Cortelloni shrugged, “I’ll admit that my current dealings with the Maniacals are pretty limited… though in my Ragemaster days that would’ve been a different story.”

“Mr. Cortelloni, let’s just say that while there is indeed some truth behind the stereotype that Maniacal Heroes being a bunch of oddballs, the reality is that the degree of eccentricity varies with the individual,” Lara added before gesturing towards the concierge, a clean-cut man with short blonde hair dressed in pinstriped suit over a white shirt and yellow tie. “Take our concierge, Mr. Robinson for example – or as he prefers to be called on the field, The Londoner.”

Upon noticing that the group was talking about him, Mr. Robinson turned in their direction and bowed before resuming his duties. 

Michael Cortelloni rolled his eyes, “The normal among you… doesn't that make him the oddball among oddballs?”

At that, Lex and Lara burst out laughing – and the laughter spread to Natsumi and Shinsuke who also joined the Maniacal Heroes in chortling with their hands on their hips. Even Michael Cortelloni spent a few seconds chuckling before immediately going straight-faced. 

“Wait, is it really that funny?” The esper asked, which somehow had a chilling effect on the room as everyone quickly went silent.

“Anyway, with the formalities out of the way, it’s time to get down to official business,” Shinsuke chimed in before turning towards Lexington. “I trust arrangements for transport have been taken care of?” 

“Aye sir, you can thank Mr. Robinson for that,” Lex beamed as he gestured at the reception counter as the concierge hung up the phone before stepping out from behind the counter to approach the group.

“Mr. Miles, Ms. Connors, it pleases me to inform you that preparations for your private jet are completed on schedule,” Mr. Robinson said with a polite bow, his voice carrying that posh upper class Brit accent. “In the meantime, I have arranged for a transport to pick you up from here to send you to the airport – do be punctual, for the transport is due to arrive in ten minutes’ time if traffic conditions are optimal.” 

“Right, so what’s the latest news about the Drekis Empire around these parts?” Michael enquired as Mr. Robinson returned to the reception counter.

“Intel on the Drekis Empire’s operations around these parts are currently limited – what we do know as of now is that surveillance probes have detected Drekis legion movements in the Spellfire Desert, and their movement direction suggest that they’re headed for the Wizard Woodlands,” Shinsuke replied as he checked his phone, going through an intel map from the Khazan Armed Forces as they observe the movements of the Drekis legions using a combination of satellite imaging and real-time surveillance probes.

“That’s a long way off from any Cretalian population centre if memory serves,” Michael chorused. 

“That’s why matters pertaining to the Drekis Empire here are at present a secondary concern, our current operation is to assist Captain Khazan in light of new developments in the northern port city of Raisa,” the Sentinel cryomancer continued. 

Shirai Natsumi raised a hand before asking, her voice barely above a whisper, “N-new developments? In Raisa? But I heard nothing about Raisa on the way here…”

“Neither did I, to be fair,” Shinsuke explained as he slipped his phone back into his pocket, “But shortly after arriving in Morisato City, Trent-san called me, he described what happened at Raisa was a disturbing incident, but the call was rushed and he said that rather than explain over the phone he would prefer to have us be on site so that we have a clearer picture of what’s going on.”

“Now just hold up there, Ice Man,” Michael held up his hand in front of Shinsuke’s face. “Your story isn’t making any sense – Raisa is located all the way at Cretalia’s northern edge, but earlier you said the Drekis legions were far from any population centre… how could they attack Raisa when they’re all the way in the west, far from civilisation?”

“It is admittedly a perplexing development; we can’t rule out the possibility that this could be the act of Discordant Scions who have infiltrated the local populace long before the first Drekis legions made their move,” Shinsuke sighed as he rested his hands on his hips, continuing to speak after a short beat of silence as a luxurious-looking minibus pulled up outside the main entrance, at the porch driveway. “But from what little Captain Khazan shared, it apparently has no relation to the Drekis Empire, so help in investigating the matter is appreciated; so are you still in on this, Cortelloni-san?”

Michael rubbed his upper lip contemplatively, stroking the scruff of his thick five o’ clock shadow that was not quite a full beard and moustache yet, “Welp, I’ve already come this far… as the old saying goes – in for a penny, in for a pound,” the esper joined the rest of the group in heading outside to board the minibus. “But come to think of it, there’s a little extra you could’ve thrown in to further sweeten the deal. Like say, having the gorgeous Ms. Connors sit next to me during this ride? Yeah, I think that would do nicely.”

The esper felt a chill run down his spine as a hand gripped his shoulder from behind in a powerful grip that almost hurt. Slowly turning around, Michael found himself staring face to face with Lara, who was still smiling sweetly with her eyes closed – but there was a dark aura over her head and her tennis racket was out of its bag and held in her other hand. “Now there, Mr. Cortelloni, please don’t give me an excuse to use this on you,” the elven-looking woman remarked as she slowly opened her eyes and her smile turned into a dangerous-looking grin.

 

Segment 119: Xaelon’s Final Hour

Zegrin roared as he flapped his wings on the spot, making a slow descent before perching on the roof of a business tower in the southern sector of New Xaelis. From this elevated position, Jon “Darkenfire” Avalon had a bird’s eye view of the surrounding city, including the mighty Mid-Gate that separated the northern and southern sectors of New Xaelis. Countless Deminites threw themselves against its fortifications with unrelenting fury, scarring its once-polished surface. Despite the damages it had sustained, the Mid-Gate continued to stand tall, much to the Magister’s chagrin. He’d thought that taking New Xaelis was a foregone conclusion with the collapse of the Walshin Shield, yet the Khazanians continued to resist stubbornly. At the current rate he was burning through minions trying to breach the Mid-Gate, Jon wondered if the attrition losses besieging New Xaelis might exceed even those of the battle of Walshin.

“I wonder if Deimos can really take Cretalia on his own?” Jon mused as he watched the carnage continue to unfold from a distance. Part of Jon wanted to get this battle over and done with so that he could immediately set off for Cretalia to reconvene with Deimos’ forces, but given how fiercely the Khazanians were fighting back at every step of the way, another part of him wondered if he would even have enough minions left over to assist his fellow Magister in any meaningful capacity. Perhaps, if he recalled all Discordant Scions from every corner of Xaelon and dispatched them to Cretalia; but then that would leave the occupation force of Xaelon dangerously understaffed.

A Ptera-Deminite airlifted a Reptillion Alpha onto the rooftop; a more advanced variant of the Reptillion, the lizardman-like minion bore copper-red scales instead of green, with a skin frills around the sides of its head that gave it the appearance of a crown and a pair of long barbels trailing down its snout near each nostril that resembled a moustache. The Reptillion Alpha approached Jon and Zegrin, getting down on one knee and bowing its head as it addressed the Magister, “Ssssir Avalon, the enemy’s gate isss far sssturdier than we expected! On top of that, their mechssss and airssships are also inflicting sssevere losssses on our forcesss… we sssseek your guidance…”

Jon sighed, his voice slightly muffled behind his helm’s faceplate, “I expected no less from the Khazanians. Looks like I have no choice but to once more enter the fray myself… then they will learn true despair,” with a gentle nudge from Jon, Zegrin roared as he flapped with wings, taking off into air the once more as Jon began powering up his energy sword, the spectral green glow of its blade hissing and flaring as it grew more and more intense.

From the sky, Jon gazed upon the ramparts of the Mid-Gate below, where soldiers and heroes still held positions manning gun emplacements, firing at the enemy with small arms, or blasting away with various powers and spells. But among the numerous defenders, there was no mistaking the familiar sight of the Sentinel leader, Uberman. The cyborg stood tall, fighting off waves of Drekis minions while at the same time coordinating the defenders’ tactics and rallying morale. His undying persistence brought a chuckle to the Magister’s lips. “How long, Uberman? How long can you keep this up before you’re forced to abandon New Xaelis just like Xaelis before? At this rate, it will only be a matter of time before the only place left for you to run to will be Khazan City itself… and by then, there will be nowhere left in Khazan for you to run to. On that day, only one of us will walk away alive.”

“Hmm, looks like my Magister can’t help being himself, always seizing the initiative,” a woman’s voice reached Avalon’s ears – a smooth contralto that sounded as pleasing to the ear as honey to the tongue, but packing a hidden edge that warned of lurking danger.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Kalia, my faithful Harbinger,” Jon did not turn in the direction of the voice as a tall and voluptuous brunette floated next to his flying mount. The young-looking woman had silky, chestnut brown hair that reached down to her waist, her bangs framing her attractive face with delicate features and perfect symmetry and unblemished alabaster-like skin. But most striking of all were her eyes, which sported dichromatic irises of deep azure with a golden rim – and the fact that only clothing that adorned her body were several lengths of silk sashes of rich crimson and royal purple, a pair of which wrapped around her chest, and another pair which wrapped around her hips and crotch to form some kind of makeshift bikini – the remaining lengths of the silk sashes draped lazily around her shoulders and trailed down past her back and legs, giving her a silhouette that resembled that of a fox spirit when viewed from afar. 

“Have you come to tell me that the Einherjar have been mobilised?” The Magister wondered. While he did not turn his head to look at Kalia, the Harbinger could sense that Jon was side-eying her from behind his helm.

“No, my Magister,” Kalia purred in response as she lifted her hand; in response, one of her silk sashes floated over and hovered in front of her mouth to frame her eyes in a mysterious, alluring way as she batted her eyelids. “I thought you might need help in the battles to come, so I took the initiative.”

Jon Avalon chuckled as he pointed his energy sword in the direction of Mid-Gate, “Very well, I do believe this is where your talents will be needed. See, I have a hunch that once the Mid-Gate falls, the Khazanians are going to retreat from the city and head further north to rendezvous with reinforcements – the tides of war currently favour us, but I fear that in the event they receive reinforcements then all our effort taking the Xaelonian capital will be for naught. See to it that this does not happen! Thus, I want you to have the Hive Drones put to work, with haste.”

“Ooh… my, my,” the Harbinger murmured, lowering the sash to reveal her face in full, “You plan to construct a fortress in New Xaelis?”

Avalon nodded, “Yes, a fortress – but more importantly are the hives. After all, I can’t let my wife claim all the glory in Theneseia.”

“Good call, my Magister… this way our legion wouldn’t need to wait for reinforcements to come all the way from The Citadel to replenish combat losses,” the ends of Kalia’s sashes danced about with a mind of their own as the Harbinger stroked her chin with the back of her hand. “But don’t you think we need to do something about the enemy’s air power in the meantime? Those mechs and aircraft are quite the technological marvels to be able to chew up our forces like that, and who knows how many more are standing by in reserve behind the Mid-Gate?”

“Indeed, they have proven to be quite the thorn in my side,” Jon’s voice echoed from behind his faceplate as Zegrin began a controlled descent towards the street. “But Reliqiest said that he’d prepared me a surprise gift that will fix this problem, which is due to arrive anytime soon.”

“I see… I wouldn’t expect anything less from the great Reliqiest himself,” Kalia flashed a teasing smile as her bare feet touched down upon the ash-coated streets moments after Zegrin touched down. “It should please you to learn then, that you need not worry about enemy reinforcements, my Magister. Along the way, I crossed paths with another legion that was eastbound, led by none other than Shadow Wing; if Khazanian reinforcements are coming from the same direction, then they will inevitably cross paths with Magister Shadow Wing’s forces – there can only be one outcome to that encounter, the complete obliteration of the relief units inbound for New Xaelis!”

“About time Shadow Wing made his move,” Jon added as he got off from Zegrin’s saddle, the heels of his armoured boots making crunching noises against the rubble and glass shards that littered the asphalt. The dragon-like creature stirred and growled restlessly, but quickly calmed down when Jon reached up and patted him on the snout. “Zegrin, stay. Looks like the game is set – save for Relinqiest, all the Magisters have mobilised.”

The masses of assembled minions parted as Jon Avalon walked forward with purposeful, measured strides, energy sword in hand. “Crumble before me!” the Magister declared with conviction as he raised his sword high above his head, a colossal beam radiating from its energy blade, a blazing and flaring column of light that seemed to extend towards the heavens itself.

“Brace yourselves, boys,” Kalia giggled as she clapped her hands playfully. “It’s about to get real dusty here,” the Harbinger raised her arms over her face, and her silk sashes moved in response, snaking over her body and covering her face with a fraction of a second to spare as Jon unleashed a mega sword-beam that raced down the main street and carved it into a crevasse before exploding against the Mid-Gate, sending a roar that could be heard even beyond the city outskirts as a shockwave swept through the entire city, sending clouds of ash and debris into the air.

Kalia waited for the shockwaves to pass before the fabric shrouding her parted just enough for a single eye to peer through – the dust clouds had cleared just enough for the Harbinger to see that Jon’s attack had collapsed an entire section of the mighty wall, a breach large enough that the legion could pour through to reach the northern sectors of New Xaelis.

“That was such a stellar performance back there, my lord!” Kalia remarked as her protective shroud peeled back, the silk sashes trailing behind her as she strutted to the Magister’s side, her hips swaying gently with every step, giving her the confident grace of a model on the Paris catwalk.

Jon said nothing, the Magister appearing to rock awkwardly side to side before collapsing onto one knee. “Ugh!” Jon grunted as smoke rose from his body, the glow from his armour’s accents dimming as his helmet and faceplate dissolved away into tongues of green flame that quickly dissipated, followed by the rest of his armour returning to its regular state prior to his Darkenfire form. Jon clutched at his head with one hand while his other hand held fast onto the grip of his sword as he fought to steady himself. 

“Avalon! My Magister, are you alright?” Kalia wasted no time in bending down to put her arms around Jon in a bid to help him back onto his feet, but the Magister nudged her arms away.

“Your concern is unnecessary, Harbinger,” Jon replied as he placed both hands on the grip of his sword, using it to prop himself as he struggled back onto his feet. “My Darkenfire form was never meant to be sustained for this long, but I will be fine with some rest. In the meantime, remember your orders, Kalia!” the Magister gave Kalia a stern look as Zegrin came barreling over to his side.

Kalia watched as Jon mounted Zegrin’s saddle with great effort, bowing respectfully to her superior as he flew off on the dragon’s back, “Of course, my lord. Do take care of yourself and allow me to take over from here – I swear I will not disappoint!”

 

Segment 120: New Creations

In the depths of the Endless Caves, Relinqiest kept himself occupied by presiding over the work of the hives, walking past the massive towers of pulsating flesh supported on columns of umbricite. From them branched out tendrils that bore womb-like pods in which minions of varying breeds – from the diminutive Reavers to the lumbering Devonoxes underwent gestation. Every minute, new thralls were being spawned as these fleshy, translucent growths detached from the fleshy structures as the creature inside finished gestating.

On hitting the cave floor below, the gestation pods burst open in a shower of amniotic fluid and piercing cries as the thralls wake up to the world – regardless of type, no Drekis minion had a juvenile phase, each and every of them were fully-developed adults at the moment of their “birth” and ready to give its life in service to the Drekis Empire. The freshly-gestated minions were in turn herded by Discordant Scions and Phantom Sorcerers, some to the forges to be geared with DrekisTech arms and equipment, and others were sent to the warrens where they would be held until they could be assigned to one of the Magisters’ legions.

“It’s a shame the Khazanians don’t realise the futility of their struggles,” the dark wizard monologued as he rubbed his chin, stroking the hairs of his goatee as he wandered to the forges – it was here that the Drekis Empire’s DrekisTech was produced, ranging from the organitech arms and armour issued to Reptillions, Hunter-Killers and Demon Knights, to terrifying biomechanoids such as Tanker Beasts and Bio-Fighters. “No matter how many Deminites they kill, or how many biomechanoids they destroy on the battlefield, we can always replace them faster than the Khazanians can deplete them. If they can see what goes on in the hives and the forges, they will know despair!”

Relinqiest’s magical senses picked up a sudden spatial anomaly nearby, and the Magister turned in its direction to witness a Phantom Sorcerer warp itself in. The hooded apparition placed its hands together and bowed reverently before Relinqiest. “Let me guess, you are here to report on the results of my latest experiment,” the Magister smirked.

“Yes Magister, you are correct,” the Phantom Sorcerer replied in a hollow, echoing voice that was devoid of any emotion or inflection. “The mechs the Khazanians refer to as MARS, that we captured back in Xaelon; I believe it would please you to know that we have successfully reverse-engineered its characteristics and assimilated said qualities into the Drekis legions… we now have a new weapon on our hands, Lord Relinqiest!”

A low, icy laugh escaped from the Magister’s lips. “Close, but not quite,” Relinqiest held up his wizard staff as the crystal skull accessory topping it glowed with an ominous red light. “It’s not so much a whole new creation, but rather an upgrade to the capabilities of one of our existing weapons – a new Bio-Fighter variant, to be precise.”

“Indeed, and I believe the results of this experiment should please His Eminence,” the Phantom Sorcerer chorused. “Even before delivering my report to you, I have already dispatched the first batch of enhanced Bio-Fighters to test their capabilities.”

“You have done well then,” Relinqiest tapped on the floor with the butt of his staff, before addressing the Phantom Sorcerer with a sly grin. “But pray tell, where have you dispatched them to?”

Once more, the Phantom Sorcerer placed its hands together and bowed its head, “Magister, I had them dispatched to Xaelon, for I am certain that Lord Avalon will appreciate this gift of yours.”

Relinqiest cackled with a hand resting on his face, his peals of manic laughter echoing through the titanic cave chamber as a single gleaming eye peered through the gap between the Magister’s fingers, “Oh Avalon, should your campaign in Xaelon succeed – and I know it will – know that I, Relinqiest, played a part in it!”

 

Segment 121: The Fall of Mid-Gate

From the ramparts of the Mid-Gate, Telissa dived behind the palisades to take cover from volleys of particle beam fire from distant DrekisTech rifles. Others nearby weren’t as lucky as they failed to take cover in time, and several soldiers fell dead onto the floor with either missing heads or gaping holes burned clean through their torsos as enemy fire continued to chip away at the Khazanians’ numbers. The blonde quickly rose from cover to return fire at the enemy with her disruptor rifle, before returning to a low profile as she moved under cover to a different palisade.

At this point, the structural compromises sustained by the Mid-Gate were beginning to accumulate; some of the palisades had degraded to the point that they no longer provided ample cover, which left the Khazanians dangerously exposed to enemy fire. “The fortifications are taking too much damage, we’re too exposed to enemy fire here!” Scout’s voice rang with urgency over the comms.

“The Hunter-Killers are taking advantage of this fact, they’re the ones who are sniping your men from afar,” Telissa radioed back as she rose from cover to counter-snipe a Hunter-Killer before ducking back under cover once more.

“Are you able to track their locations then?” the colonel asked, “If we can pinpoint where those bastards are, my Rangers can counter-snipe them… or I can call in air strikes or artillery bombardments to flush them out!”

A volley of high-powered plasma bolts courtesy of the Deminite Gunners streaked through the sky, sailing well over the Mid-Gate’s ramparts; the enemy’s plasma artillery struck the Valkyrie-class airships defending the city’s airspace in unison with a salvo of organitech missiles from the Bio-Fighters. Not even the heavily-shielded and well-armoured juggernauts like the Valkyries could withstand the sheer volume of concentrated fire from the Drekis legions, and two of them began plummeting from the sky, trailing smoke and fire in their wake. 

One of them crashed in the middle of northern New Xaelis, levelling several city blocks in the process. Another plunged into the Mid-Gate itself, further weakening the defensive structure as an entire section of the wall collapsed, before the airship wreckage split in two and crashed back down onto the city below, as allied heroes, soldiers and civilian militia alike screamed in terror before meeting brutal ends; crushed under thousands of tons of falling rubble and burning hunks of twisted metal.

The scene of devastation did not escape Uberman’s attention even as the Sentinel leader coordinated the troops’ retreat. The cyborg felt the urge to throw himself back into the fray, to rejoin the fight – but he understood the importance of ensuring that the heroes and soldiers under his command could retreat from the doomed metropolis, regroup and fight back another day, and that he could not allow emotion to compromise such a critical mission.

“Go, join the others in evacuating,” Uberman briefly turned his attention to the young Maria Halesinger to usher her into a queue of civilians who were waiting to board a Behemoth-class land cruiser, marshalled by militia volunteers and Sentinels to ensure that everyone boarded the evacuation transports in a calm and orderly fashion.

The sight of a destroyed Valkyrie falling from the sky to plunge into the city sent the crowd of civilians into a panic, as some of them began shoving one another and attempting to climb over safety barriers in a hurry to get onto the transports; to prevent the situation from devolving into a full-blown riot, members of the militia stepped in with heavy-handed measures to enforce order. A militaman in multicam fatigues fired his Malyuk assault rifle into the air as he addressed the crowd firmly, “Hey, no shoving! There’s still plenty of room on board and we have several more transports waiting in line! Rest assured you are all getting out of here! Remember; women, children and handicapped first!”

Uberman first ensured that orderly evacuation of the civilians resumed before contacting Scout over the comms; from the ramparts, the colonel slung his Ranger Repeater behind his shoulders before picking up a quad-barrelled rocket launcher that resembled a M202A Flash. “Uberman here. Scout, how long do you think the Mid-Gate can hold?”

“Even my most generous estimates say we don’t have long,” came the colonel’s reply as he fired a rocket with an anti-personnel payload into the horde of Reavers and Reptillions that were scrabbling up the face of the wall. “If the forces on top of the ramparts are to get out alive, we will need air and artillery support to cover us while we descend the wall – and I’m not terribly optimistic that many of us here will be able to fall back before the wall collapses under our feet,” Scout found himself resigned to the grim possibility that a significant portion of the heroes and soldiers on the ramparts will have to become martyrs, to hold the line until the Mid-Gate literally cracks and crumbles under their feet. 

“Don’t give up, do what you can to make sure as many of our men descend from the ramparts; we’ll pull out through the designated retreat corridor, regroup with reinforcements at WinterScar and fight back!” Uberman’s voice crackled again over the comms as a Reaver managed to scale the wall and raise its head over the palisades. The colonel’s response was swift; he dropped the launcher onto the floor to draw his sidearm from its holster, firing three shots from his Mk.23 SOCOM point-blank into the Reaver’s face, sending the creature tumbling back down with half its head missing.

Telissa fired her grappling hook and towline into the wall of a nearby bastion and used it to swing over a collapsed section of the ramparts, before aiming her LR-2X into the sky to shoot down an attacking Ptera-Deminite before sprinting over to Scout’s side, “I hate to interrupt, but if you and Gramps have an exit plan up your sleeve now it’s a good time to execute it!”

“Look over there!” To drive her point home, the Seeker pointed in a distant district of the southern half of New Xaelis, where the buildings were already undergoing the process of being transmuted into towers of umbricite.

“This is Col. Freebird, get me eyes in the sky for the following coordinates!” Scout ordered over the global comms channel before viewing the camera feed from a dispatched surveillance drone on a PDA-like device strapped to his forearm. “By the Archons, the nerve of them… are they planning to construct a hive-fortress in the middle of battle!?” the veteran Ranger muttered in disbelief.

Telissa briefly retracted her battlesuit’s AR visor to show the grim look in her eyes, “Their Magister must’ve planned it all along and brought Hive Drones in his legion – they’re weak and fragile by Deminite standards, but they have the ability to transmute almost any inanimate matter into umbricite, it won’t be long before they have a functioning hive-fortress here in the ruins of New Xaelis.”

“Fuck,” Scout snatched the launcher back up to fire another rocket into the enemy hordes, while another Valkyrie-class airship above sustained critical damage and began falling from the skies – but the crew made a valiant last stand to steer the Valkyrie during its final moments to plunge into the enemy legion on the southern side of the city to take as many enemies with them in a final blaze of glory. “If they get a hive-fortress up and running to spawn Deminites here on the surface, I don’t know if we can retake New Xaelis even with the help of reinforcements!”

“I take it then it’s time to enact what you called… the SHTF Protocol?” Uberman chimed in over the comms, the Sentinel leader not knowing the exact meaning of the initials, only that during the briefings the day before it was their desperation plan should the entire combat operation go south. 

“Yes, shit has hit the fan,” Scout replied as he fired the remaining rockets in the launcher and threw it aside. Over the global comms, the order was issued for the units on the Mid-Gate’s ramparts to descend to the ground, one unit at a time as the Khazanians enacted a protocol of bounding overwatch where units still on the ramparts held the line for their brothers-in-arms to descend using the many access stairways and elevator platforms. 

The Khazan Rangers expedited the process by setting up grapnels and abseiling cords to allow soldiers to rappel down. The alliance of heroes from the SLJ, MH and freelancers also lent their abilities to the cause – cryomancers created giant spiral ice-slides, aeromancers created updrafts of air to allow for safe and controlled descents back to the ground, while mages and wizards achieved similar outcomes by conjuring pockets of microgravity to allow their allies to jump off the ramparts and gently float back down to the streets.

“V-Team, Sector 14C is cut off with stranded units!” Scout instructed over the comms as he pointed to a squad of soldiers stranded on a section of the ramparts where the surrounding structure had collapsed, leaving them on an isolated "island" with no way to safely descend to the surface. “Send me two Hymnopteras to those coordinates for extraction ops; no man gets left behind! ”

“What about you, Ms. Ravan? Shouldn’t you be making your descent at this point?” Scout inquired he glanced over to Telissa’s side, where the Seeker was still exchanging fire with Hunter-Killers; popping up from cover to shoot, and swiftly ducking back behind the palisades as the enemy returned fire. “You’d better not try to pull another stunt like that Shinestar lad.”

The only part of Telissa’s face still visible with her AR visor down was her mouth and chin, and the Seeker’s lips pursed into an expression of gritty determination, “I’ll leave when the wall itself is physically unable to stand… I’ve lost so much to those bastards already, and I intend on getting every ounce of payback out of them!”

The Mid-Gate shook down to its foundations as Jon Avalon’s mega sword-beam crashed into it. Telissa fought to stay on her feet as tremors ran through the ramparts and the floor beneath her feet began to spiderweb with cracks… and without warning, an entire segment of the ramparts gave way to send the blonde plummeting towards the ground, many stories below. “Telissa!” Scout’s own scream echoed Telissa’s as the colonel dived towards the ledge and tried to catch hold of Telissa’s hand, only to miss by an inch as the fingers of his cybernetic hand grasped futilely at thin air instead of a hand.

“No!” Scout exclaimed, only to breathe a sigh of relief in short order as Uberman rose into  the air with his right arm wrapped around Telissa’s waist

“You too, colonel,” the cyborg extended his left arm towards Scout. 

Scout nodded as he took hold of Uberman’s left hand, allowing the Sentinel leader to hoist him onto his right shoulder as he began a descent towards the streets below. “I really tire of this, of being constantly being pushed back and losing ground to the enemy, this does not weigh well on my conscience…” something in Uberman could only wonder if this was what Timothy had felt that drove him into his suicidal berserker rage.

“We do what we can, Gramps,” Telissa replied in a bitter voice as she watched Drekis minions and biomechanoids pour into the city’s northern sector through the breach carved into the Mid-Gate by Jon’s mega sword-beam. “It’s better to live and fight again another day, than to throw away your life in a futile last stand.”

The trio got onboard a waiting Behemoth, one that would take them along a designated retreat corridor out of New Xaelis. Uberman cast one final look at the Mid-Gate and sighed, a jet of steam venting from his armour’s cooling ports with a sharp hiss, “What a dark day for Khazan… but I swear that I will not allow this darkness to last much longer!”

 

Segment 122: Blazing Light

Aigonis hissed and flicked his tongue as a volley of magic missiles flew towards him, deflecting the shimmering projectiles of condensed mana using the blade of the Staredge in its scythe form. Defending himself from Vincentzo’s spell created the window of opportunity for Tanin to launch himself like a rocket at the Magister, swinging Chrysilium in a wide arc with a mighty yell as the blade of his divine zweihander slashed across Aigonis’ midsection. Instead of slicing through skin and flesh, the Archon’s weapon drew a shower of sparks against the Magister’s scales.

“Fool!” the Magister spat as he spun around and swatted Tanin across the face with his tail, sending the Archon flying backwards in the air. Tanin flipped around twice before coming into a stationary hover, but Aigonis was already in his face, bringing his scythe down.

Tanin raised Chrysilium just in time to block Aigonis’ slash, and for a few seconds the two weapons made screeching noises as their cutting edges ground against each other as the Magister tried to shove the blade of his scythe ever closer towards Tanin’s face, while the Archon of Light shoved back to keep Aigonis’ weapon at bay. “That’s a pretty sturdy armour skin you have there to be able to stand up to my Chrysilium,” Tanin kept his confident smirk even as his arms trembled under the strain of keeping Aigonis from burying the blade of his weapon into his skull. 

“I have you right where I wanted,” Aigonis snickered as his body radiated what appeared to be a dark purple aura.

Almost immediately, Tanin began to feel a constriction in his chest as well as a burning sensation to the exposed areas of his body. The swordsman’s instincts sensed danger, and without wasting a second, he drove the heel of his armoured boot into Aigonis’ midsection in a Spartan Kick before teleporting backwards, just as a cloud of dark purple gas erupted from the Magister’s skin.

Tanin coughed as he put a safe distance between himself and Aigonis, the tightness in his chest slowly lifting. Lifting one of his hands, the Archon noticed angry red rashes on where the skin was exposed accompanied by a lingering burning sensation. “Did you just bring chemical weapons to a sword fight? Isn’t that like a violation of the Geneva Convention or something?”

“A worthy opponent you are indeed, Tanin! As expected of the Archon of Light!” Aigonis laughed at Tanin’s statement – he had no idea what the ‘Geneva Convention’ is, but he understood the intent behind the Archon’s words. “How cute of you, you know better than any that this is not a simple toxin, it’s a demonic miasma! Impressive of you to have survived it!”

“Guess it must’ve disappointed you eh?” Tanin smirked in response, “Credit where it’s due, you’re a lot tougher than the typical Khazanian supervillain – still nothing I can’t handle though! If that miasma thing is your trump card though, I think you’d better learn to manage your expectations.” With that, the swordsman shot himself through the air once more, making a beeline towards Aigonis, Chrysilium held above his head and ready to be brought chopping down onto the Magister’s head. 

“A frontal asssssault, again? Sssurely the Archon of Light ought to be wisssser than that!” Aigonis hissed mockingly as he parried the chop with the Staredge and followed up with a riposte, swinging his scythe for Tanin’s neck, only to slice right through thin air as his weapon cleaved not flesh and blood, but an afterimage that soon faded into nothingness.

“Whoops! Where are you swinging at?” A familiar called out from behind Aigonis in a jovial tone.

The Magister’s senses registered sudden movement from his rear at the same time as he heard Tanin’s voice, and his battle-hardened instincts kicked in as Aigonis narrowly dodged a slash from Chrysilium; during the span of time it took for him to parry Tanin’s strike and counter, the Archon of Light had already teleported behind Aigonis. “No way!” The Magister responded by unleashing another burst of miasma from his skin, but Tanin was quick to once again teleport himself out of the attack’s radius.

“What’s the matter, lizard-breath? Had trouble keeping up?” Tanin taunted as Aigonis transformed his Staredge, the weapon disassembling before reassembling itself into a pair of crescent-shaped blades that resembled an oversized version of Chinese deer horn knives.

Without waiting for Aigonis’ clapbacks, Tanin shot forward in flight, looking like he was making another frontal charge at the Magister, only to perform a sudden teleport to cross the rest of the distance as he blinked out of existence halfway and blinked back in right before Aigonis’ face, swinging Chrysilium in a powerful overhead chop that Aigonis barely managed to parry by crossing his deer horn knives together. As the Archon’s weapon bounced off Aigonis’ guard, Tanin recovered and followed up with a pirouette into a crosscut that the Magister dodged.

What followed next in the air was an exchange of blows that resembled an encore of their earlier sword dance as the two fighters masterfully weaved, parried and ducked. But where the two appeared as equals during the initial exchanges, now Tanin was clearly the one controlling the tempo as Aigonis found himself on the back foot; his defenses lacked the perfect timing of their original exchange, much to the Magister’s growing frustration – either coming too early, which resulted in wasted movements that created openings for the Archon to exploit; or almost too late, which cost him opportunities to counter. Tanin was applying pressure at his own pace, while Aigonis was forced into a purely defensive position.

“RAAAAHH!” Aigonis hissed as he expelled another cloud of miasma, but the Archon of Light had already teleported out of its way. The Magister sensed movement coming from right above him, just as Tanin dived down with his sword raised. 

“And here’s a Captain Kirk special for you!” Tanin declared in a jubilant voice as he brought his hands down in a double-fisted clobber; except instead of bare fists, it was the pommel of Chrysilium that smashed squarely against Aigonis’ snout, knocking the dragonkin-like being out of the air and sending him plummeting towards the ground.

The Magister hissed as he hit the ground on his fours. Springing back onto his feet, Aigonis’ tongue lashed around in rage as Tanin dived down to execute another overhead chop with Chrysilium. Aigonis’ knees buckled as he blocked the devastating strike with his deer horn knives; the two weapons collided with earthshaking force that caused the very ground beneath the Magister’s feet to crater as a shockwave accompanied by a pulse of energy rippled outwards, forcing both Woose and Vincentzo to stumble back and throw their hands up over their faces.

“Hey ‘Centzo, check it out! Impressive, huh?” Woose remarked as he pointed at Tanin and Aigonis who’d taken their duel back to the ground, with the Archon of Light still dictating the tempo of their sword-dance while the Magister struggled to keep pace, “At this rate, I wonder if Tanin still needs our help?”

“I’d like to think not,” Vincentzo chorused, a smirk crossing his face as he gave his royal mantle a dramatic flip, causing the cape to billow out behind him. “But regardless of whether he needs our assistance or not, Vincentzo Maiinverno is never one to play the role of the idle onlooker!” A blue-white circle of arcane sigils manifested on the ground beneath the archmage’s feet as he raised his hands, arcs of electricity dancing between his fingers.

“Give it up, Aigonis,” Tanin remarked as he parried a flurry of strikes from Aigonis’ weapons with perfect timing, before riposting with a slash from Chrysilium that the Magister was barely able to roll away from. “You’re dancing to my rhythm now, and from the looks of it, you can barely keep up.”

“Sssavour your advantage while you ssstill can, Archon of Light,” Aigonis staggered from a glancing blow to his shoulder courtesy of the Archon of Light, as Chrysilium’s blade drew a shower of sparks. “You may be able to ssstand up to my miassssma far longer than most, but not even you can ssshrug it off indefinitely! Sooner or later, you will ssslow down once the miasssma takesss its toll.”

“Thanks for the pointer,” Tanin maintained his devil-may-care smile, but his eyebrows were now furrowed to convey determination as he parried and dodged his way past another flurry of attacks from Aigonis, “That just means it’s about time I stopped horsing around and end things quick!” The Archon of Light lifted one hand off Chrysilium’s grip to flick the tip of his nose with the thumb of his free hand.

Aigonis was so preoccupied with Tanin that he failed to notice Vincentzo casting a lightning spell at him, and before the Magister could react, twin forks of lightning zapped him in the back, between his wings. Aigonis staggered and growled in pain as arcs of electricity coursed through his body and several charred feathers fell off from his wings. “You ssshould’ve minded your own business, worm!” the Magister leapt into the air and flapped his wings as he set his sights on Vincentzo.

Like an eagle hunting a rabbit, Aigonis swooped from the sky towards Vincentzo at a dazzling speed, his movements registering as a blur to the unaided human eye, but Tanin teleported into the Magister’s flight path, intercepting Aigonis’ attack by slashing him diagonally across the chest with Chrysilium. 

“It’s a shame you backed off at the last split-second,” Tanin remarked as Aigonis pulled back with a gash running across his chest that dripped a black ichor. “Had you been a few milliseconds slower, I’d have cleaved you in twain.”

“You asssked me earlier if the miasssma is my trump card…” Aigonis hissed as he placed a clawed hand on his still-bleeding wound. “Well then, here’s the anssswer!” The reptilian Magister’s eyelids flashed open, revealing a pair of dichromatic eyes – irises of gold rimmed with deep ruby that gave off a pulsating sickly yellow light. The blood-red tattoos that marked his scaly white skin began to glow, as his body radiated miasma with greater intensity.

“Ah, I feel it now, that spark of divine authority,” Tanin remarked as he stretched his neck and shoulders, “I felt that too when I crossed swords with that Avalon fellow back in Xaelis.”

“That’s right,” Aigonis wagged his tail side to side as he flapped his wings to hover in place and deliver a monologue, “Even before being touched by our Archon, we were among the mightiessst championsss in the known universsse – and as His Magissster, He has invesssted a fragment of his own essence in me! Our sssacred covenant with the Eminent One givesss us abilitiesss that transsscend any mortal, giving us eternal youth and life everlasssting as well as freedom from the dictatesss of Time and Fate!”

Tanin chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head, “Yeah, that’s one dramatic monologue… fancy flexing your fragment of divinity in the face of someone with full divinity right here – but hey, at least now I know that once I take you out, a little piece of Drekis dies with you!”

“That would be wissshful thinking on your part,” Aignois replied as he tossed his oversized deer horn knives into the air; the Staredge changed form as it flipped around in the air, reassembling itself into a claymore. “Even if I were to die by your hand, the fragment of His Eminence’s essence will only return to Him, where he can anoint a new chosssen to replace me… not that I plan to let that happen!” With this statement, the Magister flew towards Tanin once more, his movements now faster and more aggressive!

A series of metallic clangs filled the air as the Magister and the Archon’s weapons clashed, with Vincentzo and Woose sprinting after the pair as their duel took them out of the ruins of Astra’s Crossing, to the canyon itself. The archmage and the pugilist stood near the edge of the canyon as the two fighters duked it out in the sky above, sending shockwaves rippling through the air whenever a power strike was blocked or parried.

“This is a rather disconcerting development,” Vincentzo saw that once again, the battle between Tanin and Aigonis appeared to be at parity. Moments ago, the dragonkin-like Magister was struggling to keep pace with the Archon, but after his powerup sequence Aigonis was once more telegraphing Tanin’s moves with uncanny timing and precision – there were even moments where the Magister was the one controlling the tempo as he scored a few close-calls on Tanin!

“What's going on?” Woose asked as he craned his head up to the sky, placing a hand above his brow to shade his eyes from the glare to get a clearer view. “That big lizard is regaining momentum! It’s as if he’d adapted to Tanin’s moves!”

“That… or continual exposure to that Magister’s miasma is starting to take a toll on Tanin!” the archmage chorused, recalling the Aigonis’ words from before – that the Archon of Light was more resistant than most, but not even he could stand up to it indefinitely. “More than ever, he needs our help!”

“Can’t you just sling a few spells his way then?” Woose inquired; true to Vincentzo’s deductions, the martial artist noticed that Tanin was turning his head away at intermittent intervals, as if to minimise exposure to Aigonis’ miasma – but in doing so, the swordsman was left wide open to attacks. That Tanin was even able to not only defend himself in his present situation but even maintain a nail-biting, back-and-forth exchange with the Magister was nothing short of miraculous and a testament to his capabilities as an Archon.

Vincentzo sighed audibly as he shrugged and hung his head, “I could, but it’s likely that any spell cast from this distance would be easily telegraphed by him. This calls for more unconventional tactics... like I’ll have to do something he’d never see coming!”

“Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking…” the pink-clad martial artist murmured as he looked up at Tanin and Aigonis’ aerial swordfight.

“Glad we’re on the same page here,” Vincentzo’s reply confirmed that he was indeed entertaining the same idea as Woose, “I’ll get right in his face to cast a spell, oh I’d wager that would be something he would never see coming!”

“I’ll give you a boost!” the martial artist exclaimed eagerly as he placed his hands together.

Vincentzo said nothing, but looked at Woose and nodded – the determined expression on the archmage’s face told the martial artist everything he needed to know. Vincentzo trusted Woose to know what he was doing. The archmage jumped and the instant his feet touched Woose’s hands, the martial artist boosted with all the strength he could muster, launching the archmage into the air as if he were performing a pass in a volleyball match.

‘Hang in there, Tanin!’ Vincentzo thought as the distance between himself and the midair duel between Tanin and Aigonis quickly shrank to the point that he could make out that the two had taken quite a beating at each other’s hands – the Magister had several gashes on his torso and limbs, while Tanin sported a bleeding right arm and a cut on his cheek below the right eye as well as bruises to his face.

Tanin ducked as Aigonis spun around to perform a spinning slash, aiming high in an attempt to take the Archon of Light’s head off. The claymore made a swishing noise as it sliced through thin air, passing through where Tanin’s neck had been a fraction of a second ago – but not without shearing off a few locks of hair in the process. The Archon’s eyes went wide as Aigonis transformed the Staredge mid-spin; no longer was it a claymore as he spun around, but now a mighty great maul that the Magister swung for Tanin’s chest with every intent to crush every bone in his body on impact.

The Archon of Light barely raised Chrysilium in time to block the strike, but the blow landed with such force that shockwaves rippled through the air as the two weapons met and Tanin was sent flying back a good many metres like a well-batted baseball. “Oof, thank goodness I blocked in time! Taking that head-on would’ve been nasty!” he remarked as he gave his arms a gentle shake and rolled his shoulders to relieve the aching joints and muscles.

“Sssso you’ve decided to meet your doom!” Aigonis hissed, revealing the reason he created distance between himself and Tanin as he spun around in midair to face Vincentzo who was being catapulted into the air towards the Magister courtesy of Woose. A cruel sneer crossed Aigonis’ reptilian features as he swung the Staredge in great maul form at the head of the incoming archmage.

Aigonis Zekruel let loose a snort of laughter as Vincentzo’s skull caved in with hardly any resistance; though the smug satisfaction would not last as the Magister immediately noticed that not a single drop of blood was spilled from his vicious assault, and the archmage turned into a glowing white silhouette that soon vanished. “A mirror image!” the Magister’s eyes widened.

“Feebleminded bumpkin! Did you think only Tanin knows teleportation tricks?” A familiar voice called out from above Aigonis. The reptilian Magister hissed angrily, his tongue flicking around as his head snapped upwards to witness the blonde-haired archmage diving at him from above, his hands already placed together as a glowing circle of arcane sigils manifested in front of them, while the Staredge disassembled itself on Aigonis’ mental command.

“Think again!” Vincentzo declared as he cast two successive fireball spells with a triumphant smirk, sending two basketball-sized spheres of pure incandescence at Aigonis while the Staredge began reassembling itself into a new form. For a split-second, the archmage could see nothing as his spell detonated against his opponent, and his field of vision was filled with nothing but yellow-white light from the fireballs’ explosion followed by a thick cloud of gray smoke. 

In the moment that followed, Aigonis burst forth from the smoke screen, flying upwards toward Vincentzo with the Staredge in a new form – this time a tower shield. “By the Archons! He blocked it-” The archmage’s exclamation of shock was cut off mid-sentence as a claw-tipped hand with scaly white skin seized him by the throat, silencing him mid-speech.

Aigonis held Vincentzo up by the throat, his hand clamped down in a vice grip. The Magister held Vincentzo closer to his face so that the two stared eye-to-eye. “That actually hurt dessspite blocking it! Not bad for a human!” True to his statement, Aigonis now bore burns on parts of his face and body.

Vincentzo would’ve sassed back if he could, but with the Magister still maintaining a chokehold on the archmage, the only thing Vincentzo could manage were a series of angry-sounding croaks and gurgles.

“No more gamessss, wizard! Time to die!” Aigonis tightened his grip in an attempt to snap Vincentzo’s neck; the fragile cervical vertebrae of a human neck would offer no resistance to the Magister’s superhuman strength – and it was thanks to Tanin’s assistance that saved Vincentzo from an untimely end.

With defiance and righteous indignation echoing in his voice, Tanin yelled a mighty war cry  as he flew towards Aigonis like a human missile, thrusting the tip of Chrysilium towards the centre of the Magister’s chest. Vincentzo was sent flying from Aigonis’ hand as Tanin’s divine zweihander impaled the reptilian Magister’s torso. But Tanin was far from done as he continued to fly forward with Aigonis skewered upon Chrysilium’s blade, tackling the Magister into the sides of Astra Canyon!

The entire cliff shook as Tanin drove Aigonis into the rockface with such speed and force that an entire section of the canyon wall collapsed, sending clouds of dust into the air and a rain of shattered rocks down into the canyon below. When the dust began to settle, Woose caught sight of Tanin with Aignois pinned to the canyon wall, Chrysilium driven through the Magister’s left shoulder.

“How unfortunate…” despite his grievous wound, Aigonis still found the energy to snark as he raised his intact arm in an attempt to pull Chrysilium out of his skewered shoulder. “...I think you were aiming for my heart.”

“Even so, it’s effectively over at this point, Aigonis,” Tanin replied in a solemn tone with the expression to match. The Archon of Light followed up by driving Chrysilium deeper still through Aigonis’ wounded shoulder to hammer in the point that he had the Magister dead to rights.

The injured Magister hissed in pain, before breaking into a sinister chuckle, “No, Tanin… you would’ve wished you stabbed me in the heart.”

“Well… rats,” Tanin muttered; as soon as Aigonis spoke his piece, the Archon of Light’s ears picked up the approaching roar of plasma jets – distant at first, but quickly drawing nearer and nearer. He didn’t need anyone to elaborate any further at this point, for there was no mistaking that noise; he’d failed to land a fatal blow on Aigonis, and his subordinates weren’t about to sit idle in the face of their Magister’s imminent end.

Tanin pulled Chrysilium out of his adversary’s shoulder and teleported away just in time to avoid a strafing run from a passing Bio-Fighter, unleashing a rapid volley of particle beams from its bio-energy cannons as it swooped over Astra Canyon. 

A second Bio-Fighter flew close behind, and with his remaining strength, Aigonis grabbed onto one of the larger spines lining its carapace to use as a handhold as he hitched a ride on the biomechanoid’s back as it whizzed past. In the span of time it took for the heroes to process the development, the reptilian Magister had fled from the scene, leaving nothing save for the fading roar of a passing sonic boom.

“That was awesome work back there!” Woose gave both Vincentzo and Tanin a hearty pat on their backs as the trio reunited with the martial artist at the edge of the canyon. “I’d never have thought I’d see a… what was that? Magister! Yeah! I never thought I’d see a Magister running scared like that!”

“Heh, what do you take me for?” Vincentzo smirked as he gave his blonde hair a triumphant flip, brushing the stray bangs away from his eyes before pointing towards the sky in the direction where Aigonis Zekruel fled, “With I, Vincentzo Maiinverno at the helm, there is always a first time for everything!” Whether it was escaping from a hostile realm populated with dangerous darkspawn, or becoming the leader of a nation that for decades had known nothing but lawlessness, the archmage’s vocabulary lacked the word “impossible” – though it was as much due to his arrogance and stubbornness as it was due to his capabilities. 

“That being said, none of that would’ve been possible without your invaluable assistance,” the archmage’s expression softened as he gazed upon Tanin and Woose. “I will see to it that you are rightfully commended for your service!”

“Jeez, thanks ‘Centzo! That’s mighty kind of you!” The martial artist jumped for joy before bowing before Vincentzo; to his bemusement, he found that Tanin did not share their jubilant mood as the Archon of Light continued to stare at the distant horizon with a grim expression.

“Why is the Archon of Light so dour even after our victory? We gave that Drekis Magister a good bloodying, did we not?” Vincentzo asked as the trio of heroes began heading towards the extraction zone where the royal archmage’s personal shuttle was meant to pick them up.

“We have no doubt scored a momentous victory here, yes,” Tanin’s reply came after a beat of silence, as if the Archon were carefully weighing his words. “But I have reservations as to whether that meant anything in the long run – first off, the enemy unit we wiped out was but a vanguard to Aigonis’ legion.” Tanin stared long and hard at the other side of the Astra Canyon, “The main body of his legion remains on the other side of the canyon, and they remain ready to march against Araelgrad itself.”

A worried expression flickered ever so briefly across Vincentzo’s face, before his confident smirk returned, “Knowing that dragonkin, I don’t think he’s going to lead that legion without first licking his wounds though.”

“That’s the concerning part,” The Archon’s expression turned a shade darker, “During our clash with Aigonis, he struck me as the sort who never lets go of a grudge… and he’s likely harbouring a mother of all grudges against us at this point. We might’ve bought Araelgrad time, but I have no reason to doubt that when he marches towards Araelgrad, he will be angrier, more bloodthirsty… and more motivated than ever.” From the Archon’s perspective, they have weathered one storm, only to have an ever bigger storm looming over the horizon. 

“There's nothing we can do now, save to keep a close eye on the movements of the Drekis legions on the other side of the Astra Canyon… one can hope that this buys us enough reprieve to shore up the defenses of Araelgrad and other cities within the Central Araelis region,” Vincentzo chorused as the group arrived at the designated extraction point, at what used to serve as a rest stop for long-haul truckers just past the outskirts of Astra’s Crossing. 

It didn’t take much waiting on the trio’s part before Vincentzo’s royal shuttle arrived, the airship’s repulsors creating a powerful downdraft of air that caused the nearby trees to sway as if caught in a strong wind – the smile never leaving the archmage’s face. “Y’know, ‘Centzo… it’s uncharacteristic of you to be in such a cheery mood for so long,” Woose remarked as the royal shuttle deployed its landing gear and touched down at an open field nearby.

“We should savour our wins while we can, Woose,” Vincentzo replied as the trio boarded the  royal shuttle, the airship raising its embarking ramp once the heroes were on board. “We put up an impressive show of force today, and this will make that dragonkin think twice before marching his legion towards Araelgrad! First things first, let us relay the news to the survivors of the West Matriarch City, that for now there will be no further bloodshed on their land!”

 

Segment 123: Ice Dragon

With a faint groan, Timothy Shinestar slowly regained his senses – the young man’s eyelids still felt heavy, and the grogginess made him think he’d just woken up from a drunken stupor. For a second, he thought everything was a dream – he’d been drinking on a night out in Khazan City. The whooshing of wind in his ears and the sensation of his hair being tousled, along with the whine of personal flight repulsors immediately snapped him back to reality.

The prior events in New Xaelis – the defensive assault at Walshin, and the ill-fated last stand at Mid-Gate, all of it flooded back into mind, right up to remembering the screams of the wounded and dying echoing all around him. With a scream, the silver-haired swordsman thrashed about, forgetting that he was still being carried in Raea’s arms.

“Ah, Tim! You’ve come to- wait, don’t!” For Raea, everything happened so fast; the whole time she’d been flying in the direction of Fort WinterScar alongside Tiara, and her boyfriend went from unconscious to kicking and bucking in a matter of seconds. Caught off-guard by the sudden turn of events, Raea dipped sharply in altitude, nearly dropping Tim. After a few seconds of struggling, Raea came to a stop and landed on the ground, the whine of her battlesuit’s flight repulsors fading into silence as Tiara too, landed nearby.

“Timothy, what do you think you’re doing?” Raea demanded, her voice sterner than what Tim was normally familiar with as she retracted her suit’s mask to look him in the eye with a troubled expression. “I had to carry you all the way to WinterScar, and the first thing you do upon regaining consciousness is to thrash around like a madman?”

“You were… carrying me?” Tim wondered, rubbing the back of his head before looking around, trying to take stock of his surroundings. By now, New Xaelis was no longer visible over the horizon, save for dark clouds of smoke in the sky caused by the innumerable fires that had consumed the city during the apocalyptic siege of Mid-Gate. “Wait, we were defending Mid-Gate, during the battle of New Xaelis… where’s Uberman and the others? What happened back there?”

“Now that you are awake, I believe this belongs to you,” Tiara took a moment to interrupt, as the aeromancer stepped forward to return Tim’s heirloom sword – scabbard and all – to the young Sentinel before stepping back, keeping a respectful distance between him and Raea, recognising that the two needed a moment between themselves.

“The siege of New Xaelis went poorly, and Uberman had to incapacitate you after you almost suffered an emotional breakdown on the Mid-Gate,” Raea explained, her voice growing increasingly agitated – more so than Tim had ever remembered, in fact. “I don’t know what got into you to pull a stunt like that,” the young redhead’s fists balled up.

“Stunt?” Tim murmured, tilting his head as he looked at Raea with a puzzled expression. “I’m sorry, but my memory is a jumble right now… what stunt?”

“Shinestar! Stop playing games with me!” Raea snapped as she lunged forward and seized Tim by the pauldrons of his Araelisian ceremonial armour, as a few shimmering drops of tears flew from her eyes – the redhead’s voice a potent cocktail of fear and anger. “You… you went berserk… you tried to leap off the ramparts at the enemy legion below! What were you thinking Tim!?” For a few seconds Raea was reduced to incoherent blubbering as she flailed at Tim with her arms, smacking him on the shoulders and chest. 

“For… for a moment I thought I was going to lose you!” Her fury spent, the redhead threw herself at Tim one more time, burying her face into his shoulder as she sobbed unashamedly. “We… we were losing the battle… but I believed we would get out of this alive… we’d get extracted. Then all of a sudden you started ranting and raving like a madman about not letting anymore people die! You’d have lost your life had Uberman not stepped in!”

“Wait, I did what?” Tim gasped, his eyes wide in shock. The young Sentinel dropped his heirloom sword as he looked at his hands, his fingers twitching and trembling involuntarily as his mind began to piece together the events that had transpired on the ramparts of the Mid-Gate during New Xaelis’ final moments.

“Ms. Shalhalla spoke the truth, Shinestar,” Tiara finally saw it fit for her to interject as she stepped forward – it was a tautological statement, it was clear as day to her that of all people Tim knew Raea was never one to lie to him, especially not on matters of such gravity. “But for the sake of our shared mission, you two need to compose yourselves,” the aeromancer placed a hand on Raea’s shoulder and another on Tim’s, “For what’s worth, Timothy is alive and well, and that’s a fact you should be thankful for.”

“That goes without saying,” Raea lifted her right hand and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, before placing her arms around Tim’s shoulders, “But you’d better promise me that you won’t do something like that ever again!”

“I understand… but you know me well enough that this is not something that  I’d normally do,” Tim replied as his hands reached around behind Raea to return her hug, patting the redhead warmly on the back.

“And that’s what is so disconcerting!” Raea replied after the two broke off, “I’d practically known you my entire life… and in that moment you were like a complete stranger to me!” She’d long known Tim could be impulsive at times, but never to a degree where he would consider throwing his life away in a suicide charge against the enemy.

“I… I wish I knew why I acted that way, but really… I don’t,” Tim hung his head with a sigh of resignation before bending down to pick up his dropped heirloom sword, “The stress of the situation weighed heavily on me, and then I must’ve snapped. It’s all coming back to me now, I remembered Uberman knocking me out.”

“You’d do well to thank the Sentinel leader when you meet him again – he saved you from yourself. You need to master your emotions, so that they can drive you forward without being led by them like a slave,” Tiara chorused, folding her arms over her chest.

“I know I can’t undo my mistakes, but for what I did back there… I’m sorry,” Tim’s voice wavered as contrition overcame him, his eyes glistening as tears of guilt began to form in their corners, only for Raea to reach out with a finger and gently wipe them away.

“Speaking of which, where is Uberman anyway? And where exactly are we?” The silver-haired swordsman inquired as he gradually regained his composure, studying his surroundings. Tim could tell that they were in some sort of tundra – as far as the eye could see, there were no trees, only scattered patches of dwarf shrubs, coarse grass and the occasional lichen-covered rock formation; and most telling of all, the air felt much colder compared to New Xaelis.

“We’re at the outer edges of the Frozen Wastes,” Tiara’s reply was straightforward as the acolyte of the Powers That Be looked towards the northwest.

“The battle of New Xaelis was going badly for us and our allies, so we pulled out of the capital on Uberman’s orders,” Raea added in a solemn tone. “He instructed us to head northwest towards Fort WinterScar in the Frozen Wastes to seek reinforcements.”

“Then why are we alone?” Tim wondered, realising it was just the three of them.

“The others should catch up in due time; Uberman had to hold the line a little longer to ensure the safe evacuation of the civilian population – we had to make an early retreat ahead of him in the wake of your outburst,” Tiara chimed in as she turned her gaze south in the direction of New Xaelis before turning back northwest “But enough talk – time is of the essence and we still have a lot ground to cover before Fort WinterScar is in sight.”

For nearly an hour, the trio continued to push northwest by air; the deeper they ventured into the Frozen Wastes, the colder their surroundings got as the sparse vegetation gradually transitioned into fields of snow and ice. Tim shivered as he rubbed his hands for warmth, his breath escaping his mouth in puffs of white fog, “So this is the Frozen Wastes huh? Didn’t know it could get this cold here.”

“It’ll only get colder from here,” Tiara remarked as she navigated the terrain with an unexpected swiftness, slowing down periodically to allow Raea and Tim to keep up, “Worry not however, I know this land like the back of my hand – once this ordeal is over, we can head for Axia. But first, we must reach Fort WinterScar with haste.”

True to the aeromancer’s words, the temperature continued to drop steadily as the trio headed deeper into the Frozen Wastes; despite the near-constant blizzard that severely hampered visibility, Tiara continued to navigate the terrain without any issue, although she found herself slowing down more frequently to allow Raea to catch up. 

“There’s something unusual about this blizzard,” Tim remarked, engaging the two women in some small talk to take his mind off the biting chill of his surroundings. He’d seen his share of snowstorms during winter seasons in Khazan City, but there was an unusual quality to the sound made by the blizzards in the Frozen Wastes that made it sound nothing like those encountered in Khazan City. “They sound like… the moaning of restless spirits.”

Raea shot a quick glance at Tim before replying, her voice modulated behind her battlesuit’s armoured mask, “The people in Xaelon have folktales that were told for generations, that the Frozen Wastes weren’t always the Frozen Wastes. Centuries ago, before New Xaelis became the capital of Xaelon, the Frozen Wastes were a fertile plain known as Western Walshin – all that changed when the Saramach Empire crossed the ocean from the dark continent of Denes’Takai.”

“Saramach… Denes’Takai…” Tim arched an eyebrow at the mention of the name, “Wait, you’re referring to that empire of undead, right?”

Raea nodded before continuing, “It was believed that it was a time when the Saramach were at the height of their power; their armies were made up of more than simple walking dead – they had dracoliches, elder vampires, death titans, and Archons know what leading their armies. To stop their invasion, the most powerful cryomancer in Khazanian history… an Archon whose name was long lost to time, sacrificed himself by transforming into the land’s genius loci, burying the undead armies beneath a massive glacier amidst a perpetual winter that lasts to this day. The unusual noises made during the blizzards, as the old stories go, are the anguished howls of the lords of undeath as they rage impotently inside their icy prison, trapped helplessly for all time.”

“Now those are some scary stories,” Tim commented with an uneasy chuckle.

“There’s got to be a reason why the locals avoid this place like the plague,” Raea chorused; while her face remained hidden from nose-down, Tim could tell the redhead was smiling due to the gentle upturn of her lower eyelids.

“Well, I can see why the Khazan Armed Forces would build a base here then,” Tim pulled his bandana over his mouth and nose to keep the snow out of his face. A combination of a harsh terrain and local superstitions certainly worked wonders in making Fort WinterScar inaccessible to many would-be intruders.

“Wait, what’s this!?” Minutes later, the mood took an abrupt turn as an alarm inside Raea’s suit began buzzing. The young redhead’s eyes widened as her suit’s onboard AI announced a system error over her comms headset.

“Warning, frosting exceeded system tolerances. Flight repulsor functions compromised!”

“You… you gotta be kidding me!” Raea exclaimed in disbelief as her battlesuit’s repulsors sputtered and flickered, causing her flight path to become wobbly and erratic, before failing on her altogether. “Hold on tight, Tim! We’re bracing for impact!” The power armoured Sentinel clutched Tim close to her as the two of them went into freefall, dipping sharply from the air.

“I got you!” Tiara’s response was swift as the winds moved on her cue, the aeromancer summoning a powerful updraft of air below the duo that acted like an air cushion, turning Raea’s freefall into a smooth, controlled glide towards the snow and ice below.

Raea and Tim grunted in unison as the two of them landed in the middle of a large snowdrift, ploughing a trench through the metres-thick snow before coming to a halt with Raea lying on her back, while Tim lay right next to her on his belly.

“Hey Tim, you okay there?” Raea asked in a concerned voice as she sat herself up and reached over to take hold of Tim’s hand, giving him a gentle shake. A few seconds later, the young swordman stirred as Raea rose to her feet before offering a hand to Tim to help him back up. 

“No injuries save for a bruised ego,” Tim grunted, shaking the snow off his head and clothes as he got up on his hands and knees before taking hold of Raea’s outstretched hand to allow the redhead to help him back onto his feet.

“What just happened?” Tiara enquired as she touched down on the snow moments later, walking over to Timothy and Raea’s side. There was no judgement in the aeromancer’s tone, only genuine confusion over the sudden turn of events.

“It’s the environment,” Raea grumbled as she ran a series of quick diagnostics on her battlesuit’s systems, as a holography projector on her armoured forearm projected several system readouts that the redhead scrolled through. “There’s a build-up of frost inside the nacelles of my suit’s flight repulsors that has exceeded their tolerances – it was never designed for such extreme climatic conditions.” As a military-grade battlesuit, Raea’s Mk.26 Centurion was designed to operate in a wide variety of inhospitable – even hostile – environs ranging from steamy peat swamp forests to frigid alpine cliffs, but the conditions of the Frozen Wastes proved to be a challenge even for its robust engineering.

“Well, talk about cursed land! Guess there’s a grain of truth to these old wives’ tales afterall,” Tim commented, trying to keep the mood light as they trudged forward through the snow with Tiara taking the lead.

“Seems like in order to keep my suit’s thermal regulators functioning at full capacity, the onboard AI diverted power from my flight repulsors… that explains the build-up of frost inside the nacelles,” Raea checked her suit’s systems one last time before shutting off the holography displays. “I don’t know if we’ll even make it to Fort WinterScar on foot, if at all.”

“It would be nice if we had a vehicle of some sort, no?” Tim wondered through chattering teeth. “I mean… didn’t Uberman say he would rendezvous with us at Fort WinterScar? Perhaps if we camp here… we can hitch a ride on one of the military transports when they pass through the area?”

Raea shook her head and folded her arms, “Timothy, Uberman has to make sure all civilians are evacuated from New Xaelis and coordinate the complete pull-out of all military and SLJ assets from the capital before he and his allies can head towards WinterScar – even I have no idea how long it will take. I hate to break this to you, but staying put here without any means to construct a shelter is a death sentence for us.” With the exception of Tiara, who as far as Raea could tell was completely unaffected by the terrain despite her meteorologically inappropriate attire – but for Raea and Timothy, there were clear limits to how much their battlesuit augmentations and superhuman physiology could endure.

“Vehicle, you say?” Tiara stopped in her tracks and turned around to face the two Sentinels, a contemplative expression on her face as she brushed the side bangs on the right side of her head. “I believe I have something that would make a fitting substitute for a vehicle… no, better than one in fact.”

Both Raea and Tim appeared confused at Tiara’s offer, as neither of them could understand what the aeromancer meant. “Anything you can do to help would be much appreciated, I guess,” Tim remarked, albeit with a sheepish tone, realising that Tiara had gone out of her way to help him more than he felt he deserved, “Though… I feel bad about this, like I’m a burden and all.”

“It’s all part of my duty, no troubles,” Tiara flashed an enchanting smile at the two Sentinels as she bowed, as though she were about to stage some kind of performance. The aeromancer looked up to the sky as she raised her right hand above her head, her coat rustling in the wind. To Tim and Raea’s surprise, the blizzard in their immediate vicinity stopped, leaving the trio standing in a calm zone akin to an eye of a storm.

The two Sentinels watched, mystified by Tiara’s actions – their answer came soon enough as the clouds above them parted and a beam of soft white light shone from the heavens above to illuminate the snow around them. “Is it just me, or is it still getting colder?” Tim wondered, rubbing his hands to keep them warm. 

“Consider this a preview of what awaits you within the heart of the Frozen Wastes,” the aeromancer commented as it began to snow around them. From the aperture in the clouds descended a figure that inspired both awe and dread in equal portions.

“Hey Tim, did you see what I’m seeing?” Raea gently nudged Tim with her elbow, her jaw going slack behind her mask as a creature with a long, serpentine body descended from the sky in a spiralling flight path. At a first glance, it resembled a dragon from Far Eastern myths, but instead of flesh and blood, the creature’s body was made from solid ice that glittered like crystal under the soft white light above them. 

“You’re not imagining things for sure,” Tim nodded his head vigourously as he too gawked at the descending wyrm. Its sheer size made it look menacing, but it radiated a gentle aura as it looked at them with an undeniable spark of intelligence in its eyes that felt similar to Tiara’s. “It’s an eastern dragon… but made of living ice? It’s beautiful…” mesmerised by the sight, the silver-haired Sentinel found it hard to tear his gaze from the creature. 

“There’s no denying its beauty, but just what is it anyway? More importantly, did you summon that dragon?” Raea glanced over to Tiara’s side as the ice dragon came to a stop in front of the aeromancer, its belly floating a metre above the surface. She’d known Khazan to be a place full of both wonders and horrors, but a magically-animated ice sculpture shaped like an eastern dragon was something that defied easy categorisation. She could only wonder if it was a construct of sorts, akin to a golem. Or perhaps some kind of elemental spirit under Tiara’s command.

Tim and Raea’s surprise continued to grow as Tiara leaned in towards the floating ice dragon and placed her arms around its neck, and as the aeromancer gave the creature a hug, she even placed her cheek against its snout and nuzzled gently like an owner bonding with a horse or dog. Several seconds later, Tiara stepped back to address the Sentinels, “Yes, I summoned him – meet Neva, and I hope he didn’t frighten you too badly.” With a smile, Tiara leaned to the side and gave Neva an affectionate pat on the snout. 

“Then is he like, your pet or something?” Raea wondered as she took a cautious step forward to examine Neva’s body up close with a combination of curiosity and trepidation. 

“Calling Neva a mere pet would be rather disrespectful to him,” Tiara giggled as she folded her arms, shaking her head gently, “He shares a bond with me that is deeper and more spiritual than any master-pet relationship… he is an extension of my being.”

“An extension of your being…” Tim drummed on his chin with the knuckles of his left hand, before shooting said hand upward above his head like a student trying to get the teacher’s attention in class. “I know! He’s your familiar, right?” 

“Well, now your answer is a lot closer to the mark than Raea’s, but familiar would be an oversimplification,” Tiara nodded before shooting a playful wink at Tim. The aeromancer reached forward and gently rubbed Neva’s chin like it were a cat receiving chin scritches; and the ice dragon returned the favour by leaning over and giving Tiara a gentle boop with the side of his head, “Let's just say that we are two distinct entities sharing the same soul.”

“I think we allowed ourselves to get sidetracked here,” Raea put her hands together to make a timeout gesture, steering the conversation from Tiara’s ice dragon back to the more pressing issue of getting to Fort WinterScar. “But does Neva have the solution to our vehicle problem?”

“With absolute certainty, yes,” Tiara responded eagerly as Neva crouched down on the snow, his uncoiled body easily stretching out at least seventy feet long from tail to snout. “While Neva wasn’t intended to act as a steed, transport is well within his capabilities. And believe me when I say this; he can navigate the Frozen Wastes with just as much ease as myself, if not more so.” 

“Well, riding an ice dragon in the middle of a raging blizzard doesn’t sound particularly comfortable,” Tim remarked with a nervous laugh as he inched closer towards Neva. 

“You have nothing to fear from Neva, with me around I will see to it that you two have a safe and smooth transit through the Frozen Wastes,” Tiara reassured as she gave Tim a nod that signalled for the young man to step forth and touch Neva if he so desired. 

Tim gulped, as if to swallow his doubts before leaning in and resting a hand on the side of Neva’s body. The swordsman gave an audible gasp as he felt the temperature difference – while Neva’s ice body was indeed cold, it was noticeably warmer relative to the Frozen Wastes’ blizzards. “He’s cold, but not as cold as the environment!”

“Well Tim, here’s our answer!” The battle mask covering Raea’s face could not hide the enthusiasm in her voice as the redhead’s eyes sparkled with hope as she pumped her fists and gave an excited hop. “I just need to turn up my suit’s thermal regulators as you stick close to me, and you should be relatively comfortable throughout the ride…” There was a short beat of silence as Raea twiddled her fingers, “Provided Neva’s okay with that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Tiara smiled as she waved her hand reassuringly, “Neva’s body is no ordinary ice, and a simple climate control system won’t cause him any harm.”

“Well, that's good to hear,” Tim remarked as he grabbed hold of Neva’s body to climb onto the ice dragon’s back. As the silver-haired swordsman mounted Neva, the section of his body underwent as subtle transformation as the dorsal spines lining Neva’s back flattened themselves out to form a saddle-like structure, while in the section immediately to the front, his dorsal spines grew longer and thicker to provide hand holds for Tim. 

While Tim grabbed onto the makeshift hand holds for stability, Raea clambered on behind her boyfriend, locking her arms around his waist while leaning in closer such that her torso pressed against Tim’s back, dialing up the output of her battlesuit’s thermal regulators to keep both herself and Tim warm.

“All comfortable there?” Tiara asked, dropping by to make final checks on the couple. Neither of them spoke a word, their only acknowledgement being a synchronised nod of their heads. That was the only cue Tiara needed for them to set out on their journey; with a faint growl, Neva took off from the ground, his body gently undulating as he flew through the raging blizzard. “Let's go, Neva. To Fort WinterScar!” the aeromancer remarked as she flew alongside Neva, holding onto one of the ice dragon’s horns as their journey continued. 

 

Segment 124: Fall Back

Uberman and his allies held the line in New Xaelis until the last of the Hermes-class transport airships took off with the evacuated civilians. With that, the all-clear signal was given for military and SLJ assets to begin pulling out from the city as battle-worn soldiers boarded armoured ground transports ranging from Armadillo-series APCs and Caracal-series IFVs, to the massive Behemoth-class land cruisers.

Even as the Drekis Empire’s demonic thralls poured through the breaches in the Mid-Gate like water gushing from a broken dam, the fighting men and women of the Khazan Armed Forces and their hero allies maintained their discipline, utilising bounding overwatch combined with sporadic strikes from what remaining artillery and air power they had to inflict as many losses upon the enemy as possible in a fighting retreat under the coordination of Uberman and Col. Freebird.

“151st Battalion, A-Company is under pressure – get them some elemancer or mage support, stat!” From the air, Uberman noticed that Deminite Soldiers were animating flames from the inferno that had engulfed the city, sending a host of elemental constructs shaped like burning skeletons and hellhounds towards an infantry company that was supposed to be providing cover for retreating units.

Soldiers and civilian militia alike ran at a full sprint down the deserted streets to avoid getting caught by the Deminites’ flame constructs, leaping onto the roofs and sides of vehicles to avoid getting swallowed by the conflagration. Other Drekis minions advanced closely behind the wall of animated flame constructs; Deminite Wolves’ eyes glowed with a baleful yellow light as they howled, amplifying the fears of any Khazanian caught in their area of effect – those who broke were either paralysed into inaction, or fired their weapons in blind panic without distinguishing between friend and foe.

As the Khazanians’ morale disintegrated, the Drekis legions grew bolder as Deminite Soldiers, Reavers and Reptillions broke into a full speed charge. Hunter-Killers dropped their stealth cloaks and took positions in the open to snipe at retreating personnel with impunity, knowing that no-one in their right mind would attempt to stand their ground to return fire. With no heavy weapon support, the Devonoxes stormed forward, making a break for military vehicles that were still waiting to pick up retreating troops.

Some of the vehicles weren’t so lucky as Devonoxes knocked them over and tore through their armoured hulls to make short work of their hapless crew and passengers. Others opened fire with what weapons were available – from pintle-mounted heavy machine guns and autolasers, to the troops on board opening fire with small arms through viewports and hatches, but they did little to slow down the single-minded bruisers.

The urban landscape of Northern New Xaelis eventually transitioned into outlying countryside, where a second contingent of KAF units loomed into view – this one mainly armoured battalions and mechanised squadrons. The ground itself shook as tanks and mechs unleashed their opening salvo, sending a rain of heavy ordnance that tore through the first wave of Devonoxes. These were the reserves of the New Xaelis division, strategically positioned to create a killzone for the Drekis legions that high command had foreseen would attempt to pursue and harry retreating units.

Lighter vehicles such as Caracal-series IFVs and K-M “Wolfhound” scout buggies also joined the fray, opening fire with turreted heavy machine guns, autocannons and pulsed plasma cannons to mow down lighter minions such as Reptillions and Deminite Soldiers.

From the command bridge of the Behemoth serving as the division’s command vehicle, Uberman kept close watch on the enemy from various drone feeds. “The Abdiel defense line seems to be holding… for now,” Uberman remarked, though the cyborg wondered for how long. High command’s initial prognosis upon losing the Mid-Gate was that in order to conserve what forces they had left, the Drekis legions would consolidate within New Xaelis’ city limits instead of harrying the retreating Khazanians. But if they’re going to start creating a hive-fortress to recoup their losses from the initial siege, the cyborg suspected that Jon had no reason to have his entire legion sit idle in what’s left of New Xaelis while he and his allies pulled out.

“Looks like I might be needed on the front line again,” The SLJ leader prepared to dismount from the Behemoth after some quick repairs to his armour and systems.

“We shouldn’t need to worry about this right?” The vehicle commander – a lieutenant colonel – remarked as he continued to monitor the drone feeds, all of which showed the Drekis legion reeling under a barrage of heavy firepower from the mechs and armoured vehicles in the Abdiel defense line, “They’ve accomplished their objective of taking New Xaelis, there’s no reason for them to waste their manpower like this.”

The comms officer – a lieutenant – added as she looked up from her communications terminal, “We only need to hold the line until our reinforcements from Khazan City arrive, then we can make a push back into New Xaelis!”

“You don’t know their commander like I do,” Uberman shook his head in response as the glow from his optics flickered slightly behind his T-slot faceplate. “Jon Avalon knows who are the ones coordinating the New Xaelis theatre; and he isn’t one to pass up an opportunity to take out two key figures in the Khazanian resistance effort! That being said, are there any further updates from the reinforcements coming from Khazan City?”

“Negative, sir,” The comms officer shook her head, her tone dismayed, “Our last correspondence with the reinforcements were a stream of navigational data from a fleet of Valkyrie-class airships that suggested they were about an hour away from New Xaelis at their present speed, but they’ve since gone dark, and haven’t responded over the comms.”

Uberman gave a frustrated sigh as he pounded his fist against a nearby wall, his optics glowing red. Given the state-of-the-art comms possessed by the Valkyries, to abruptly lose contact with not just one, but an entire fleet of them could mean nothing but trouble, and the cyborg was already suspecting that the worst had happened to their would-be reinforcements. Dejected but not completely out of hope, the Sentinel leader left the bridge of the Behemoth and soon found Scout, who was making up for the shortfall in medics by helping to tend to the wounds of an injured Khazan Ranger.

“Scout!” Uberman raised his voice to be heard above the hustle and bustle of their surroundings. “Scout! I need to have a word with you.”

The colonel put the finishing touches to the dressing on the Ranger’s wound before acknowledging Uberman – while Scout had seen non-stop frontline service since the beginning of military operations in Xaelis, the recent few weeks had been especially demanding on the veteran Khazan Ranger, and despite his best efforts to hide it, Uberman could see signs of both physical and mental exhaustion taking their toll on the colonel; his eyes – normally keen and hawklike – were dulled and listless, but the perceptive SLJ leader could tell that the dullness came not only from exhaustion and combat stress.

“Colonel… where’re the rest of your men?” Uberman noticed that none of the Rangers that Scout was currently with were the ones attached to the 34th Ground Battalion that he’d originally set out with.

“Gone…” Scout muttered as he stepped backwards and slumped onto a nearby cot, dropping his hands onto his lap in resignation. “The Connellys, they were among those tasked with holding the line during our initial retreat from Mid-Gate. Lost all contact with their Cougar,” the colonel popped open his water canteen and took a swig before staring back at Uberman with dull eyes. “Cpl. Tarin Jennay… she was wounded during the battle of Mid-Gate; she succumbed to her injuries.”

“They were all good men and women, and I am sorry for your loss,” Uberman replied as he bowed his head solemnly before placing his hands together to offer a silent prayer for the brave, departed souls. It felt so wrong, unfair even that they narrowly escaped the jaws of death during their operations in Leibrook and Cashar, only to lose their lives in the defense of New Xaelis.

“But back on topic, you said you wanted a word with me?” Scout capped his water canteen before setting it back into its holder on his armour’s carrying rig. 

“It’s about the reinforcements from Khazan City-” Uberman began, but before the cyborg could say another word more, Scout silenced him with a dismissive wave of a hand – the colonel had figured out from the SLJ leader’s tone of voice that the worst-case scenario had come to pass, and that there was no need to deliver something he already pieced together.

“Let me guess, they didn’t make it?” Scout’s frown deepened as he raised his hand, a gesture for Uberman to drop the subject of reinforcements, knowing that they wouldn’t be getting any. “Damn. My guess is that another legion of those devils must’ve intercepted the Valkyries during their transit and wiped them out – so, what would you reckon should be our next plan of action?”

“Fort WinterScar, colonel,” Uberman continued after a brief beat of silence, “I am going to need your help in contacting Fort WinterScar.”

“The base situated in the Heart of the Frozen Wastes… what of it?” Scout reached for an ammunition crate to replenish the magazines of .45 ACP for his sidearm.

“My plan is to set off towards Fort WinterScar,” the Sentinel leader replied as he activated a holography projector on his armour to display a map of the Frozen Wastes, “Our original plan was to hold the Abdiel defense line until reinforcements from Khazan City arrive so that we can mount a counteroffensive into New Xaelis, but since that plan has been scuppered, we’re going to need backup and resupplies from Fort WinterScar.”

“There’s a problem with that plan, Uberman,” Scout replied, now checking the tension in the bowstring of his Ranger Repeater.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the cyborg wondered, his optics flickering.

“There’s nobody stationed in Fort WinterScar – hasn’t been in over half a century,” The colonel paused his weapon maintenance to look up at Uberman.

“Alright, I’m not exactly the most up-to-date on the going-ons within the KAF’s organisation,” the news came as a shock to Uberman, who’d assumed that like any KAF base, Fort WinterScar would have units assigned there – but it was only now that he learned that WinterScar was not a typical Khazan Armed Forces installation, “But why is Fort WinterScar unstaffed?”

“Technically-speaking it’s not unstaffed; it’s just that the personnel stationed at WinterScar aren’t human,” Scout explained, resting his back against the wall as he folded his arms. “Fort WinterScar was built shortly after the end of the Age of Eternal Night, it was originally intended to serve as a monitoring outpost to keep track of the activities of the Saramach Empire – but after more than five centuries without any further incursions from the dark continent of Denes’Takai, the Central Government came to see Fort WinterScar as a redundancy.”

The colonel continued, “So the orders from above was to have it repurposed, not abandoned. About eight decades ago, the decision was made to stop stationing humans at WinterScar. In their place, the base was permanently staffed by droids who were tasked with maintaining the infrastructure, defending the base and taking stock of its inventory – but it’s impossible to communicate with WinterScar from outside because it’s been isolated from the KAF’s comms network.”

Uberman’s optics glowed bright from excitement and growing optimism behind his visor, “Droids, you say? If they are military models, shouldn’t they be combat-capable?”

Scout shook his head, and there was a short beat of silence before the colonel broke it, “They were combat droids at one point, but most of them have since been reprogrammed to serve in labour and security roles. They can be retrofitted to return to their original combat functions, but…”

“But?” Uberman queried during the silence.

“But like I said earlier, WinterScar is isolated from the KAF’s network – so there’s no way to reprogram the droids through a remote channel,” Scout continued, “You will need to run the application to reprogram them on-site, at WinterScar’s mainframe. And that’s assuming we even manage to get to WinterScar.”

“Well, here’s where I have good news then, colonel,” Uberman added.

“Right…” Scout nodded, lifting his right hand as he raised his index finger, recalling how Uberman had earlier instructed Raea and Tiara to take Timothy with them and set off towards Fort WinterScar while the battle of Mid-Gate was still raging. “There’s another problem… they’re too far away to reach by comms at this point.”

“I know,” Uberman nodded, “But as long as they get to Fort WinterScar ahead of us, we’ve got at least a shadow of a chance!” The SLJ leader felt a renewed surge of confidence; initially his decision to send Tim off with Raea and Tiara was made out of concern for the young Sentinel’s well-being, but in hindsight he’d ended up creating their ace in the hole. Slim as their chances were at this point, it was still better than zero!

Uberman prepared to exit the Behemoth to place himself back on the frontline, passing through a section of the land cruiser that was being used to hold remaining civilians who failed to make it onto the airships in time. As the doors to the Behemoth’s boarding bay opened, the cyborg thought he heard a voice call out to him, barely audible over the grinding of the door’s hydraulics. As the mechanisms went silent after the door fully opened, the cyborg heard the same voice calling him again, a girl’s voice – calling out from among the crowd of civilians packed inside.

A familiar-looking young woman with silver-gray hair tried to push her way past the sea of bodies to reach towards Uberman, and for a moment his optics met her teary eyes before someone in the crowd grew tired of Maria Halesinger’s constant pushing and jostling, and had no qualms about expressing his displeasure. 

“Hey girl, quit squirming about will you!? We’re already crammed like sardines in here!” A stout, bearded man in his 40’s yelled as he shoved Maria to the side when she tried to squeeze through the tiny space between him and an equally rotund woman of around his age to get to Uberman. Maria was sent crashing into another group of civilians who responded by angrily pushing her off their bodies. In no time at all, the crowd in the passenger hold grew increasingly irate and disorderly, grumbling, cursing each other out and blaming one or the other. 

“Enough!” Uberman intervened, his stern, authoritative voice echoing through the hold, “I will have order!” The crowd went silent the moment the Sentinel leader asserted himself, with some of them staring nervously at the floor with visible guilt. The crowd parted like curtains on a stage to allow young Maria to approach Uberman.

“I remember you. Maria Halesinger, am I right?” The cyborg’s tone softened considerably as he got down on one knee so that his gaze was on the same eye level as the silver-haired girl. “If I may ask, why the hurry to see me?” At such close proximity, Uberman noticed a pair of exquisitely-crafted gem earrings on Maria’s earlobes, barely visible behind her flowing, silk-like locks of silver-gray hair. 

“I… I didn’t have the chance to thank you just now, when you saved me on the streets,” Maria replied in a shaky voice as she reached out with a soft hand to pat Uberman on the back.

“Think nothing of it, miss; It’s my duty as a Sentinel,” Uberman nodded as his optics glowed a soft pink behind his faceplate; the cyborg reached forward to give Maria a reassuring pat on the head with his index and middle fingers, his hand large enough to grasp the entirety of the girl’s head, the gentleness of his touch a sharp contrast to the formidable design of his cyborg chassis. 

“Do not worry, I only ask that you endure this ordeal for just a bit longer,” Uberman rose back to his full height as he addressed Maria and the other civilians in a calm, reassuring tone. “Once we reach Fort Abdiel, there will be airships waiting to evacuate you straight to Khazan Prime where you will be safe. As for the Drekis problem, let me take care of it,” With that, Uberman disembarked from the Behemoth as the boarding ramp lifted back up behind him to close off the land cruiser’s entry bay. The Sentinel leader knew that his reassurances could not soothe young Maria Halesinger’s pain, but it was the only thing he could give her now. But for now, he would personally coordinate war efforts on the Abdiel Defense Line to keep the enemy at bay and buy them time. 

“Take care, and keep safe out there,” Maria whispered before melting back into the crowd, and unbeknownst to the Sentinel leader, where the silver-haired girl had a pair of earrings on earlier, now she wore only one. 

 

Segment 125: Dogged Pursuit

Another day was coming to a close as soon as it began as the final rays of the setting sun vanished beneath the horizon as twilight gave in to darkness. Jon Avalon stood on top of a skyscraper that had been transmuted into an umbricite spire with his faithful mount Zegrin perched by his side, overseeing the continued transformation of the ruins of New Xaelis into a surface hive-fortress, dubbed “Kaoscendo Xaelon”. All things considered, the Magister felt that the New Xaelis campaign had gone smoothly – both the battle of Walshin and the siege of Mid-Gate were considered decisive victories for the Drekis Empire, but he knew not to rest on his laurels yet until Khazan City itself is in Drekis’ hands.

As the hours passed, Jon found himself growing increasingly restless as Phantom Sorcerers and Discordant Scions came to him one after another to deliver situation updates on the battle that was raging outside New Xaelis – as the reports go, the Khazanians had established another defensive line outside of New Xaelis’ boundaries. “They must’ve fortified their positions outside New Xaelis thinking that reinforcements are coming from Khazan City so that they can attempt to retake their precious city,” the Magister said to no-one in particular as he sat down on a sinister-looking throne of umbricite, inlaid with jewels that radiated a ghostly green glow that matched the glowing accents on his battle armour.

“Too bad for them…” Kalia purred as she leaned against the armrest of Jon Avalon’s throne, her silk sashes writhing idly against the floor like a mass of snakes, “If only they knew what became of their much-anticipated reinforcements.”

“I have mixed feelings on this, Kalia,” Jon replied as he slouched in his throne, resting his chin against the back of his right hand as he glanced down at his Harbinger who was reclining in a sultry manner against the side of his throne, “For one, knowing Shadow Wing… he is likely going to start rambling about how I owe him one, and to claim credit over the fall of Xaelon. He’ll probably tell His Eminence how I couldn’t have done this without his help.” Still, there was no denying that Shadow Wing’s unexpected ambush on the Khazanians’ reinforcements were a great boon to his campaign. By hunkering down at the Abdiel defense line under the false hope of reinforcements that would never come, they presented him with a rare opportunity to take yet another shot at Uberman and Scout.

“Mhmm… thinking of that cyborg again, aren’t you?” Kalia remarked, batting her eyelids as a length of silk sash floated over the lower half of her face to obscure her nose and mouth in order to frame her eyes more alluringly. The Harbinger knew that her Magister’s desire to defeat Uberman was equal parts a practical objective and a personal vendetta.

“Yes, there can be only one reason I feel empty even after our resounding success at taking New Xaelis…” Jon replied as he rose from his throne, walking towards Zegrin’s roost. The dragonlike beast flapped his wings and growled, scratching the floor with his hindlegs’ talons to demonstrate his eagerness to once more fly his master into battle. “...For as long as Uberman lives, he remains a variable that poses a threat to our Archon’s plans. But more importantly, I loathe leaving loose ends.”

“Seeking closure then, my lord?” Kalia asked as she followed close behind the Magister, the soft padding of her bare feet against the umbricite floor echoing the solid thudding of Avalon’s armoured boots as her steps landed in perfect sync with his own. “Are you certain you don’t want to recuperate a bit longer, hmm? Just sit back and let me and Korruptus handle it.”

Jon glanced over his shoulder to fix a hard look at his Harbinger, his expression indicative of a man who was already locked in on his course of action and who could not be swayed from his path regardless of the good intentions of the ones trying to dissuade him, “You’re right that I am far from being at the top of my game right now. But having my faithful Apostle and Harbinger by my side more than makes up for that.”

“You flatter me, my lord,” Kalia giggled with a hand over her mouth.

Jon paid little attention to Kalia’s fawning; such was the character quirk of his Harbinger – she took great pride in her capabilities as a schemer and temptress in a way that evoked ancient stories of fox spirits and succubi. From her choice of dress, her speech patterns and her body language – Kalia carried herself with an effortless confidence and sensuality that pulled men into her orbit without even trying; yet at the same time undercut by a queenly aloofness that kept them at perpetual arm’s length. Nobody came closer unless she allowed it, and only on her own terms.

Avalon found Kalia’s efforts commendable – though part of him wondered if her attempts to get closer to him were an attempt to upstage his wife, and fellow Magister, Veronica Daemon. When it comes to being the “Witch Queen” of temptresses, Jon knew that even Kalia had to – however begrudgingly – admit that she was a distant second to Veronica in that department. She could try for a thousand years, but she’d never even come close.

“Truth be told, part of me wished that Shadow Wing’s legion hadn’t intercepted the Khazanians’ reinforcements,” Jon smirked as he closed his eyes contemplatively while patting Zegrin’s side, “As it is, it feels a little… anticlimactic. If this were to be Uberman’s last fight, I want to finish it with a grand crescendo.”

Kalia went giddy with laughter, “My lord, you sure love doing things the hard way, don’t you?” The Harbinger leaned as she spoke, taking hold of Jon’s arm in her soft hands.

“I am not like Shadow Wing,” Jon slowly and gently nudged Kalia’s hands off him before climbing into the saddle on Zegrin’s back, “Shadow Wing sees war as merely a set of objectives to be checked off, but for me? War is the crucible where legends are forged; it’s only with the right heat and pressure that the coal becomes a diamond.”

“The only thing you need to concern yourself with is carrying out your orders, Kalia,” Jon continued, his tone businesslike and to the point, “As for me, I shall do as I deem fit.”

“Guess that can’t be helped then, you’ve always enjoyed the thrill of a good hunt,” Kalia pouted as her silk drapes – which up till this point had been swaying in the air around her like banners – suddenly dropped onto the floor as the Harbinger put up a theatrical display of staged disappointment. “But wouldn’t you at least have a plan on when, how and where to strike?”

Jon Avalon smiled coldly at Kalia’s inquiry, “It’s not like me as well to enter a fight without a plan, and that’s where they come into the equation.”

The instant Jon spoke his piece, a roar echoed from the lower levels of the tower, quickly followed by the frightened yelps of Deminite Drones and scurrying of feet as the hive drones hurried to get out of the way of whoever – or whatever – was quickly ascending the spiral staircase running up the tower towards the Magister’s throne room.

“Mmm… what have we here?” Kalia purred playfully, her voice like silk gliding across polished marble as her dichromatic eyes glinted with piqued curiosity at the sight of a lion crashing into the throne room. It was far larger than any lion had the right to be, from nose to tail its massive body was almost as long as a city bus, and its eyes carried a spark of intelligence that made it clear this was no mere beast. The lion growled softly, before making its way towards where Zegrin was perched. 

“Gellan’s arrival only means one thing… the prey has taken the bait,” Jon remarked with a sinister smirk on his face as the lion now known as Gellan stood side by side with Zegrin, the two beasts of comparable size with each other. “Come now, Gellan; show me what she saw…”

Gellan purred softly as he leaned over to where Jon sat on Zegrin’s saddle; the Magister stroked the hairs on the giant lion’s mane before placing a gauntlet-clad hand on the crown of Gellan’s head as the two closed their eyes and bowed their heads as Jon emptied his mind to allow Gellan’s to connect.

A psychedelic swirl of random colours and noise poured into Avalon’s mind like a torrent of spilled paint before coalescing into coherent images and sound. The Magister saw the interior of what seemed to be a colossal armoured vehicle – no doubt from the Khazan Armed Forces. He watched the conversation between Uberman and Scout. Intermittent bursts of white noise prevented him from making out the full details of what was being discussed between the SLJ leader and the colonel, but he was able to make out something to the effect of heading to the Frozen Wastes and mustering forces near Fort WinterScar.

Jon let loose an icy chuckle as he took his hand off Gellan’s head, his eyes slowly opening as he looked up, “So they plan to head further northwest to get to Fort WinterScar… who’d thought the Khazanians have a military base right in the heart of the Frozen Wastes? Interesting… Seems like they learned reinforcements from Khazan City aren’t coming, and Fort WinterScar is their contingency plan.”

“So you’ve been using her eh? Ah well, such underhand methods always work the best,” Kalia chorused, glancing sideways at Jon through a pair of half-lidded eyes as she rested the back of her left hand under her chin. “Though if I were to offer my unsolicited opinion on this, it would be that I question the accuracy of her intel; none of the Discordant Scions I have contact with ever reported anything about additional reinforcements – and certainly not right within the Frozen Wastes. To the best of my knowledge, the Khazanians are on their own after Shadow Wing intercepted their reinforcements from Khazan City.”

“Although she is a mere Discordant Scion, her capabilities rival those of either an Apostle or Harbinger,” Jon replied, as he looked Gellan in the eye one more time. The giant lion nodded his head, as if to gesture to Jon to trust what he just saw, “She and Gellan possess a powerful psychic connection, and what she saw is also what Gellan saw. Therefore, I have every reason to believe that they are heading to WinterScar to seek new reinforcements. In that case, the game is set,” Jon raised his right hand into the air.

A ghostly green light centered around the Magister washed over the throne room, momentarily turning everything in their surroundings into black silhouettes on green as Jon summoned his energy sword, his signature weapon materialising in his right hand amidst flickering tongues of green spectral flames. Jon’s eyes squinted as he pointed his energy sword northwest, “Kalia, go contact Korruptus and meet me at the Frozen Wastes; Uberman and his allies will have to die before the next sundown.”

 

Segment 126: The Road to WinterScar

The blizzards grew more intense as Neva flew deeper and deeper into the Frozen Wastes; what felt particularly jarring to both Timothy and Raea was how sudden the transition had been – they started with temperate forests and meadows when they first left New Xaelis, and with only the slightest increase in latitude, the terrain shifted to barren tundra and then glaciers in unnaturally short order – a clear sign of the supernatural origins of the Frozen Wastes.

Tim felt Raea’s arms tighten around his waist as the redhead rested her cheek – albeit hidden behind her battlesuit’s mask – against his shoulder. “Are you feeling comfortable there, Tim?” Raea asked, “Or should I press myself more firmly against you so you can receive more heat from my suit?”

The young Sentinel’s pulse raced as his cheeks grew warm, his throat making a faint gulp as he glanced over his shoulder at Raea, his grip tightening on the makeshift handholds on Neva’s back. “You might break my spine if you hugged any tighter, I swear,” Tim chuckled sheepishly.

“You tease,” behind her mask, Raea playfully stuck her tongue out at Tim before giving him a gentle smack to the back of the head.

“Hey, you threw the first stone back there!” Tim protested jokingly, “A pot calling the kettle black much?”

“That is a woman’s right,” Raea ribbed back as she placed a finger under her right eye and flipped her lower eyelid at Tim.

Throughout the trip, Tiara kept one hand gripped firmly around one of Neva’s horns while keeping the other stretched out straight in front of her; using her prodigious mastery of aeromancy, Tiara parted the blizzard in front of the ice dragon wherever he flew, creating a pocket of calm around them that offered respite from the brutal wind chill. “How’s everything going for you two back there?” the lavender-haired maiden asked as she glanced over her shoulder to check on Raea and Tim. It was a rhetorical question, this much was evident from the smile on Tiara’s face that the duo’s antics had not gone unnoticed and her amusement towards the situation showed.

“It’s been a somewhat bumpy ride,” Tim chuckled as he gently scratched the back of his head with one hand, “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Raea said nothing, but responded with a nod followed by an “OK” gesture.

“Sorry about that, but it can’t be helped,” Tiara replied with an eyes-closed smile, “Neva was never meant to serve as a steed – but he’s the best transport option we have right now. We should be pretty close to WinterScar at this point.”

“Indeed we are,” Raea added, displaying a map of the locality on her suit’s holography projector; once we arrive at the foot of this extinct volcano, we are only about 2.4 clicks away from Fort WinterScar!”

“Ha, that’s a relief to know!” Tim chorused, with palpable triumph in his voice, “Even with your suit’s thermal regulators at full blast I’m still freezing here.”

“It could’ve been worse,” Tiara turned her focus back on the task at hand of keeping the blizzard at bay, “I created a pocket of calm around Neva to keep out the worst of the wind chill… that being said, what do you plan to do once you reach WinterScar? Because Archons know how long it will be before Uberman catches up to us? I feel that a more sensible course of action would be to head straight to Axia instead.”

“Look, I understand the importance of your assignment,” Raea interjected as she gave Tiara a hard look of someone who’s locked in, “But you should understand the importance of mine too – Sentinels never leave another behind, so I plan to get reinforcements for Uberman!”

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence as the two women looked each other dead in the eye, but after a few seconds Tiara broke the proverbial ice, “Last I remembered, I overheard them say that Uberman was expecting reinforcements from Khazan City – and besides, WinterScar is abandoned; I’ve passed by it several times and not once did I see a single soldier at its premises.”

“N-no soldiers!? Then have we come all the way here for nothing?” Tim gasped, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief as the colour drained out of his face.

“Not abandoned… restructured; still, I’m surprised you knew that,” Raea corrected Tiara, “I learned about WinterScar during my short stint in the KAF prior to being scouted by the Sentinels. You are correct that there are no human personnel staffing Fort WinterScar, but that’s because they have been replaced decades ago by a contingent of androids and other machine intelligences. Additionally, its logistics depot is well-stocked with ammo, armaments and supplies; not to mention the machine crew can be retrofitted to bring them back to full combat capability; they will provide invaluable backup for Uberman. Combined with the reinforcement from Khazan City, it might be enough to turn the tables!"

“If that’s your plan, you have my vote of confidence,” Tiara nodded with a knowing smile, “But here’s the deal – regardless of the outcome of the upcoming battle, you’re heading to Axia with me.”

The redhead returned Tiara’s nod, “If we survive this ordeal. But truth be told, I’m willing to go just about anywhere to get a bit of respite from this endless fighting.”

A cryptic smile crossed Tiara’s face, “I was actually talking to Timothy; but given how close you are to him, I suppose you’d be with him wherever he goes.”

“I… I swear you were talking to Raea just seconds ago with that whole vote of confidence thing, how did you suddenly jump from that to talking to me!?” Tim chimed in, his awkwardness showing on his face as he found himself having difficulty making direct eye contact with Tiara. “But y-yeah I’ll come to Axia once this is over… and I’m glad you’re gracious enough to allow Raea to make this trip with us; can’t say I’m at home with the idea of heading to a far-off state-kingdom with some lady I hardly know,” the young swordsman chuckled nervously. 

“Hmph,” Raea pouted behind her battlesuit’s mask as she cocked her head upwards to make an exaggerated high queen impression, “Even if she wouldn’t, I’d stick with you regardless, because there’s no way in Khazan that I’d let you go anywhere alone with another young woman!”

“That being said though,” Raea’s tone quickly turned more seriously, “Before, you told us Queen Relissan tasked you with escorting Tim to Axia for an audience with her, but we hardly knew anything about you… like, are you some kind of royal retainer to the queen? Or perhaps an agent from Axia’s intelligence services?”

“Neither,” Tiara’s answer was straightforward as she shook her head at Raea’s guesses, “My true allegiance lies with beings beyond the comprehension of most mortals in Khazan. They’ve gone by many titles over the ages, though I believe the most widely-used one in this current era is the Powers That Be. I am a disciple of the Powers That Be, and it was by their will that Queen Relissan scouted me out for this particular assignment.”

“A disciple… of the Powers That Be…” Tim muttered, staring blankly into the distance as he struggled to process the revelation, “I’ve heard stories about them… it’s speculated that the Archons of the Cosmic Precepts are connected to The Powers, and it’s not uncommon for both terms to be used interchangeably. I’ve also heard that while they rarely intervene directly in Khazan’s affairs, they act through a network of proxies. But I’ve always thought they were just that, myths.”

“There are some obscure texts in esoteric cults as well as online conspiracy theories about individuals from across the multiverse who have been touched in some way by the Powers That Be and placed on Khazan for some purpose or another, but this is the first time I’ve actually met one,” Raea chimed in.

Tiara laughed heartily at Tim and Raea’s statements, much to the duo’s surprise as they couldn’t understand why she found their theories amusing, “It’s complicated, really. Most of the things you’ve heard about the Powers That Be… one thing that’s universally true is that they exist, but any deep dives into their exact nature is more likely than not pure speculation; not even the proxies for the Powers That Be know their exact nature or the full extent of their plans.”

“This is way too big for me, with the way everything has been escalating,” Tim fidgeted nervously in place as his gaze moved back and forth between Raea at his back and Tiara at his front, “And I thought being able to fight alongside the Archon of Light was as big as it gets, but now this? You’re making me sound like I’m some kind of Chosen One.”

The aeromancer looked over her shoulder at Tim, “There has to be something extraordinary about you for Queen Relissan herself to pay such particular attention to you. I revealed my identity because you’d eventually find out anyway. Still, for me to be scouted out for this assignment by the Archon of Order herself… I too wonder if there are any connections between the Powers That Be and the Archons of the Cosmic Precepts.”

“Say… What!?” Both Tim and Raea exclaimed in unison. From what they knew about Axia, their queen Amanda Relissan was worshipped by the people as a cultural and spiritual figurehead who allegedly had connection to divine powers, but neither of them would’ve thought that she was a bona fide Archon of the Cosmic Precepts as well!

“I believe we are flying above the slopes of Mt. Aegis,” Tiara remarked, noticing the ground beneath Neva was sloping upwards.

Raea nodded as she projected a holographic map of the area, “Fort WinterScar is situated at its peak.” Through the blizzard, the trio could make out the top of a mountain, and the unmistakable silhouette of a perimeter wall and guard towers. The peak of Mount Aegis, an extinct basalt shield volcano, was within view, and nestled within its caldera was their destination – Fort WinterScar. 

True to Raea’s claim that WinterScar wasn’t abandoned, as Neva flew them closer they could make out the flashing red lights on communication masts that served as a warning for low-flying aircraft to keep clear, while automated sentry guns installed atop guard towers scanned their surroundings for intruders. 

“Yes! We’ve made it!” Raea exclaimed jubilantly as she threw her arms around Tim’s shoulders, gently rocking her boyfriend back and forth, “Fort WinterScar, here we come!” The redhead cheered as she pumped her right fist into the air. 

 

Segment 127: Demons of the Sky, The Revenge

That battle for New Xaelis continued to rage well beyond the fallen capital’s boundaries as the remnants of the Abdiel defense line made a fighting retreat behind Uberman’s splinter group, slowly creeping northwest towards the Frozen Wastes, alternating between half of the units making up the division opening fire on the advancing Drekis legion, while another half escorted Uberman’s unit. But fierce as the ground battle was, the sky was where the real battle took place.

Ground forces moved under the shadow of the Valkyrie-class battleships and Bahamut-class carriers; the Bahamuts dispatched squadrons of gunships, fighters and aerial mechs to provide close air support for the ground units below, while the Valkyries’ anti-air weapon batteries provided defense against the Drekis legions’ air power with with their batteries of anti-air weapons.

Ptera-Deminites and Bio-Fighters swooped down from the skies to perform strafing runs and dive bombs on the ground vehicles and soldiers, only to be intercepted by airborne mechs and Peregrine fighters who engaged them in dogfights, turning the skies above Xaelon into a lightshow of explosions, projectile tracers and energy beams.

An explosion near the Gemini sent tremors running through its frame as Capt. Kitazawa grimaced and braced for impact – the Hoplite’s shield absorbed the blast and shrapnel, but the energy of its shields were running dangerously low, and amidst the chaos and frenzy of so many dogfights raging around him he had no way of telling which enemy had struck at him, or if the Gemini was even the intended target.

Takuma pushed the flight thrusters of the Gemini to max acceleration, evading incoming salvos of particle beams and ball lightning with a series of dives, spins, and barrel rolls before firing his mech’s pulsed plasma rifle on full auto at a passing flock of Ptera-Deminites. Inside the cockpit, a missile lock alert flashed on his HUD; spinning around to face the incoming missiles, the Gemini spun up its shoulder-mounted vulcan gun to shoot down the enemy missiles, and this time he caught sight of his attacker – a Bio-Fighter that was in the middle of performing an evasive manoeuvre after launching a pair of missiles at him in a hit-and-run assault.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Takuma declared, as the Gemini locked onto the enemy biomechanoid in its optics; its silhouette highlighted by a bright green on the HUD. Repaying the enemy’s favour, the Gemini fired a missile from its shoulder-mounted launcher at the fleeing biomechanoid. “C’mon, c’mon! Hit!” the captain chanted under his breath as the missile caught up to the Bio-Fighter before exploding against its tail. Entire chunks of the Bio-Fighter’s carapace were torn off, the damaged biomechanoid spewing orange flames and black smoke where a powerful blue plasma jet once roared; it went into an uncontrolled spin as it plummeted towards the ground, but the oily black ichor was already oozing out of the Bio-Fighter’s wounds as it attempted to regenerate.

Not giving the enemy a chance to recuperate, the Gemini raised its pulse plasma rifle and unleashed a full auto fusillade into the damaged Bio-Fighter, blasting it into even smaller chunks that overwhelmed the biomechanoid’s regenerative capabilities. The pieces writhed and twitched in a futile attempt to pull themselves together before they went still for good, exhausting their vitality before they could recover from the damage. ‘This one’s for you, Dezzman,’ Takuma thought. Carl’s death on Walshin still haunted him, and while it was unlikely this was the specific Bio-Fighter that targeted the Fortune, Takuma still felt a sense of closure in its destruction, and felt that the rest of the 478th thought the same too.

During a brief lull in the fighting, the captain took the chance to assess the status of his allies. The 345th, 278th and 543rd Mechanised Squadrons had lost their team leaders and each were down to just 3-4 mechs. The captain hailed the pilots of the stricken units over the global comms, “Attention, this is Capt. Takuma Kitazawa of the 478th Mechanised Squadron – I will be coordinating tactics for the 345th, 278th and 543rd squadrons; surviving pilots will report to me, is that clear?” 

One after another, the surviving pilots from the aforementioned units acknowledged Takuma as “yes sir!” and “acknowledged!” statements poured in over the Gemini’s comms. The remaining mechs rallied around the Gemini, alongside Takuma’s own 478th Mechanised Squadron.

“Lt. Foster here, all units from 478th in position sir!” The voice of his second in-command Lt. Sara Foster buzzed over the comms. “Standing by and awaiting orders!”

“Good, I don’t want to lose another one of you,” Takuma radioed back to the Dragonflare, “Not a single one more, understand?”

“Yes sir!” The remaining pilots of the 478th responded in unison.

“Here goes, I want the 345th and 543rd to move out alongside my squad; 278th, your orders are to provide air defense for the airship Cendrillon,” there was quick beat of silence as below them, a KAF ground battalion was being pushed under a relentless barrage of long-range fire by Deminite Gunners and Tanker Beasts. “Our allies on the ground could use some close air support right now, so let’s get down there and dive bomb these fuckers to kingdom come, you hear me?” 

“Sir, yes sir!” The pilots replied in unison over the comms.

“Move out!” Leading over a dozen mechs behind him, the Gemini descended from the sky. Energy beams and explosive munitions rained from above as the mechs swooped over the heads of the Drekis legions, decimating columns of Tanker Beasts and Devonoxes. Circling around in the air, the mechs made a second pass to wipe out another column of heavy minions.

Lt. Cecelia Angelhart yelled a war cry as the Derringer flew forward at full speed towards a Tanker Beast, darting side to side to evade defensive plasma fire from its back-mounted bio-cannons. As her mech closed the gap, the lieutenant drove the bayonet of its ion pulse rifle between the Tanker Beast’s eyes. The beetle-like biomechanoid roared and threshed its head about in an attempt to shake the Derringer off, but Cecelia held on like a tick on a dog; as the Tanker Beast prepared to spew a point-blank stream of bio-napalm at the mech in a desperate attempt to dislodge its attacker, the lieutenant unleashed a charged buster shot from her ion pulse rifle into the biomechanoid’s face, blowing its head off. Her job done, Cecilia fired up the Derringer’s thrusters to send her mech into the air to rejoin formation with the rest of the 478th.

“Excellent work, everyone! The line continues to hold thanks to our efforts,” Capt. Kitazawa hailed over the comms, “But let’s not rest on our laurels just yet! We’re making another bombing run on the enemy, but this time we’re splitting up to strike them from both ends! Half of you will accompany me as Team A, and the rest of you follow Lt. Foster’s lead as Team B!”

Before the joint Mechanised Squadron could execute Takuma’s new attack plan, the captain found himself interrupted by an urgent comms from Cpl. Kurt Arlington, “Captain! I’m getting multiple enemy signatures on the Stormbringer’s radar!”

“What is it, corporal?” Takuma asked in response.

“Bio-Fighters, sir! Several squadrons of them!” As a Blazeon-class mech, the Stormbringer had some of the most sophisticated sensor and communications systems of present generation Khazanian mechs, allowing him to pick up enemy signatures before they registered on the radars of other mechs.

“Sgt. 1st Class Carla Tran here, I’m picking up dozens of Bio-Fighter signatures as well!” A pilot from the 543rd radioed in – the pilot of another Blazeon-class mech, like Kurt, she too picked up the arrival of a fresh wave of enemy biomechanoids ahead of the rest of her unit.

“Something’s off about these creatures!” Kurt warned, “The enemy silhouettes are confirmed to be Bio-Fighters, but their energy signatures don’t read like the Bio-Fighters we’ve encountered thus far… be on high alert!”

Takuma stifled a gasp of horror by the time the incoming Bio-Fighters registered on the Gemini’s sensors, “We’ve got at least five squadrons of those things, coming in fast from six o’clock!”

“One hundred and twenty confirmed targets, sir!” Sgt. Major Paul Graham reported from the Senki. 

Lt. Angelhart’s voice chimed in over the comms channel, “It’s just like what Kurt said – they look no different from Bio-Fighters, but their energy signatures don’t match our target data!”

“Just where the hell did they all come from?” Sgt. Matilda Cole wondered as she readied the Tristar’s weapons, steeling herself for what’s to come.

“Alright team, change of plans!” Capt. Kitazawa barked over the comms as his mech’s optics made visual contact with the incoming biomechanoids – at least there was some relief in knowing it was an enemy that they were all too familiar with at this point, but their sheer numbers weren’t making the fight any easier, “Priority targets will be the Bio-Fighters, keep them away from our airships at all costs!”

The mechs took evasive action as the Bio-Fighters unleashed their opening volley of particle beams from their bio-cannons, grazing the shields of the defending mechs. As the airborne biomechanoids streaked past, the mechs spun around to return fire with every available weapon system on the enemy’s tail, only to find their barrage halted by spheres of hard light cocooning the Bio-Fighters’ bodies that turned aside kinetic rounds and energy beams alike.

“Should’ve expected this outcome,” Staff Sgt. Park grumbled; being fresh to the fight, these Bio-Fighters’ shields were still at full power, allowing them to tank the first salvo of return fire from the mechs, “Brace yourselves, this is gonna get messy!”

“Nothing that some sustained fire can’t fix!” Capt. Kitazawa snorted as the Gemini fired its pulsed plasma on full auto at a passing Bio-Fighter’s tail, chipping away at it one bolt of plasma at a time. The Bio-Fighter circled back just as the captain depleted its shields, and the Gemini followed up by launching a missile at the Bio-Fighter that blew a gaping hole in its carapace and sent it plummeting from the sky. “I’m not finished with you!” Kitazawa declared as he sent his mech diving after the stricken biomechanoid, intent on finishing his enemy before it could finish regenerating.

The Gemini locked onto the Bio-Fighter and launched another missile that Takuma believed would be the coup de grace, but against the captain’s calculations, the enemy performed a sharp pitch and sudden acceleration that allowed it to avoid the missile at the last split-second before rocketing upwards into the air with a steep vertical climb as its healing factor began to kick in, zig-zagging in its flight path to avoid the Gemini’s plasma fire as Takuma climbed in pursuit and shot up on its tail. But it was too late, the Bio-Fighter had finished regenerating the damage it had taken, but that was only the beginning of Takuma’s horror.

It only took seconds, but in Takuma’s mind it passed like minutes as upon regenerating the Bio-Fighter began to under what appeared to be some sort of transformation sequence; oozing an oily black liquid as its appendages twisted and contorted and its carapace warped and morphed before the captain’s disbelieving eyes – when it was over, what he saw on the Gemini’s optics was no longer a crustacean-like analogue to a fighter jet, but something unmistakably humanoid in its morphology, even if it still bore the same chitinous exoskeleton and bio-energy emitting organs as before. It quickly dawned on Takuma as he recognised the silhouette of the transformed enemy – it was a Mobile Police MARS unit! Or rather, an organitech mockery of one.

“By the Archons…” Capt. Kitazwa muttered as cold sweat beaded on his brows, “What the hell are these things!” Could this be the reason the energy signature of these Bio-Fighters were different? It was a new variant of a familiar foe!

The organitech parody of a mech lifted its head and in that moment its compound eyes met the Gemini’s optics. Inside his cockpit, Takuma imagined the creature to be grinning mockingly at him as its mandibles twitched and rubbed together – the captain took that as a taunt and responded by roaring in anger as he opened fire with every weapon on the Gemini. In its new form, the creature was more agile than ever as it darted out of the way, making such tight turns that Takuma had difficulty tracking his adversary’s movements by sight.

A warning blip on the HUD warned him that the enemy had repositioned itself behind his mech. With a grunt, the captain spun the Gemini around just in time to witness the biomech lift its right arm and point an open palm at his Hoplite, the bio-energy emitter in the heel of its palm glowing blue-white.

Capt. Kitazawa knew what was coming as his unconscious reflexes kicked in ahead of his conscious thoughts. Acting on pure muscle memory and instinct, the captain brought the Gemini into a barrel roll to narrowly avoid a particle beam that grazed his mech’s hull – the shields absorbed the worst of the damage, but Kitazawa knew the Gemini’s shields had only so much juice left, and the next shot will most likely go right through it like a hot knife through butter.

“Son of a bitch!” Takuma cursed as he fired the Gemini’s pulsed plasma rifle on full auto, sweeping his weapon side-to-side, but the enemy’s speed and agility were out of this world as it zigzagged around to avoid the rapid fire pulses of plasma with seemingly no effort, and performed a series of dives, rolls and turns with a tightness that no normal human pilot could attempt without passing out from accelerational G-force.

In the cloudless sky, the rest of the Mechanised Squadrons witnessed the same thing as the new wave of Bio-Fighters initiated their transformations, their silhouettes shifting from arthropod to humanoid.

“Are you all seeing what I’m seeing here?” Matilda’s voice quaked with worry over the global comms channel.

“This is looking bad…” Paul added, with a noticeable stutter on his voice as the Sergeant Major could hardly believe his eyes.

“Enemy incoming! All units, be on full alert!” Capt. Kitazawa’s voice boomed over the comms as almost simultaneously, the transformed Bio-Fighters commenced their attack.

 

Segment 128: The Threat from the North

“I never expected this of you Maniacals, but you guys sure know how to live the life!” Despite his attempt to hide it, Michael Cortelloni was visibly impressed with the MH private jet that was flying them from Morisato City to Raisa. The ex-Marauder was currently in a section of the plane that housed a lounge area with a mini-bar, leather-bound sofas and lacquered wood panelling with polished brass fittings. Without asking for permission, Michael popped open the drink chiller to inspect its contents.

“Whoa, you even have this? This is good stuff!” the esper remarked as he took out a crystalline bottle filled with a richly-hued purple liquid that he recognised to be a top-grade Kyoho grape liqueur. Shutting the door of the fridge, Michael unstoppered the bottle to savour the scent of the drink within, before taking a quick sip to test its flavour, “Yes, this will do nicely.”

Michael left the lounge area and returned to the main cabin of the jet, where the rest of the group mostly sat in silence. It came as a surprise for the esper to know that the Morisato City chapter of the MH owned their private aircraft – a VTOL jet that was around the same size as a business jet, and also had the luxurious trappings of one. Opulently-furnished interiors with comfortable leather-bound seats with generous leg room and remote-operated recline adjusters and built-in electric massagers, a high-speed wi-fi for Internet access, and an entertainment media system with surround sound and 4K screen. It was like a 5-star hotel’s premium suite on wings. 

Lex and Lara sat side by side with each other on a couch-styled seat, with Lara in the middle of a power nap while Lex appeared to be listening to music on a pair of headphones while reading manga on an ebook reader. Yagami Shinsuke took a seat next to a window, seemingly engrossed with SLJ admin work on a laptop, while Shirai Natsumi sat opposite to the cryomancer, staring out of the window.

Michael strutted down the aisle and patted on the armrest of her seat with an audible thump that made the pigtailed girl nearly jump, right as the esper chugged a mouthful of liqueur and knelt down next to her so that the two of them were at the same eye level. “Heya kid, you look tense,” Michael grinned as he held up the bottle in front of Natsumi’s face and gave it a gentle shake to swirl the purple liquid inside, “How about you try a mouthful? It’ll calm your nerves.”

The young Shirai’s already fair face somehow turned a shade paler as she tried to avoid direct eye contact with the ex-Marauder before replying through chattering teeth, “Uh… no-no thank you.” The blue-haired girl held up her hands sheepishly and waved them at Cortelloni.

“Easy there, girl – tis but a joke! I don’t encourage minors to take up underage drinking!” Michael chuckled as he straightened himself up and took another sip from the bottle. “Like jeez, you guys are taking me way too seriously. Can’t an ex-Marauder act more jovial to lighten up the atmosphere? How boring it is for you fellows to be sitting here all stone-faced for the past hour.” 

“If you found it boring, you could’ve turned down the invitation and cashed out,” Shinsuke replied, closing his laptop and putting it away before folding his arms and closing his eyes as he adjusted his seat to recline backwards while raising the footrest.

“Are you gonna start that crap with me all over again?” Cortelloni plopped himself into a seat behind Yagami’s and crossed his legs, “I know why I’m here, and you know why I’m here – and if there’s anything that I’m unhappy about, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. Why don’t you tell that to your buddy Lex over there? Maybe he’ll be less of a hardass that way.”

Natsumi raised a tiny hand into the air, “I-if you don’t mind… I’ll excuse myself for a bit…” With that the pigtailed girl rose from her seat and made her way down the aisle towards the lounge section; her trio of Shikigami companions responded quickly by following their master out of the main cabin.

Michael shook his head and sighed as Natsumi disappeared from view, “Does that kid have to act like she’s seen the devil everytime she sees me? Just look at how jittery she is! And you expect her to be of any help in your mission?”

“Please excuse Shirai-chan, she’s the shy and flighty type, and ever since becoming master of the Shikigami that hasn’t helped her any,” Shinsuke replied, turning on the electric massager in his seat, “The only way anyone gets close to her is when she feels comfortable enough to engage them on her own terms.”

“I know that, but she’s a good deal more jumpy than usual,” Michael interjected before taking another sip of liqueur.

Shinsuke shook his head and sighed, “I don’t think she ever got over the beating you gave her back then.”

“Say what!?” Michael almost aspirated his drink as he rose from his seat and stared down at Shinsuke, “Listen up, brother – I’ve done many reprehensible things before, but child abuse sure as hell ain’t one of them! If you’re going to accuse me of things I never did, you’d better be prepared to-”

“The FPL, I was referring to the time you faced her during the last season of the Fantasy Powers League, during the undercards,” Shinsuke cut Michael off mid-sentence.

“Yeah, I do recall facing her back then in the FPL, but what of it?” Michael raised an eyebrow as he tilted his head to give a quizzical look at Shinsuke. The esper vaguely recalled facing Shirai Natsumi during one of the undercard matches, but had no memory of the exact details of how their encounter went.

“It was only last year when you faced her in an undercard match in the FPL; she was only ten back then,” the cryomancer continued, “Credit where it’s due you exercised a surprising degree of restraint during that match, but from her perspective you showed her no mercy.”

Michael Cortelloni sifted through his memory, trying to recall what went down during his last FPL run, but the esper found that he hadn’t bothered to remember most of the names of the contenders he’d faced nor the details of his FPL matches. The esper rolled his eyes and shrugged, “Well brother, trying to remember every name and face in the FPL is way too much effort on my part. But hey, even as young as she is she oughta know all fighters get the same treatment in a match.”

“It’s not like she chose to participate in the Fantasy Powers League,” Shinsuke remarked as he adjusted the intensity of the electric massager, “Natsumi grew up in the town of Hyakkai-machi, in a remote part of Khazan that is largely untouched by the conflicts between Khazan’s heroes and villains. Her childhood is simple and carefree – a rare luxury for many here. But one day she accidentally cast a spell that broke a sacred seal in her town’s ancient Shinto Shrine and summoned the three Shikigami.”

The cryomancer smiled and waved as Natsumi and her Shikigami companions returned from the lounge, and the pigtailed girl nodded and smiled before returning to sitting next to Shinsuke, “An old legend in Hyakkai-machi states that whoever breaks the sacred seal becomes the chosen hero of the town, destined for greatness. For her, this meant that she would have to leave Hyakkai-machi, explore the world and fulfill her destiny with her newfound powers. But know that she’s still young… both physically and at heart, and never wished for any of this. But as tough as it all has been for her, she’s already much stronger than when she first set out from her hometown.”

“Now that’s what I call a sob story, but that’s childhood for you,” Cortelloni shrugged, not appearing the least bit sympathetic despite learning of Natsumi’s backstory. “But well, compared to what life put me through when I was her age, hers is a walk in the park. And she’s like what, eleven now? She’ll get over it; there’s no reason for her to fear me – I’m no longer the Ragemaster you all knew and feared.”

“From what I recall, that FPL run of yours took place long after you’d left the Marauders and allegedly dropped the Ragemaster codename,” Shinsuke’s tone became a bit more stern. It was no secret that the cryomancer maintained a degree of skepticism over whether or not Michael Cortelloni had truly turned over a new leaf; he might’ve retired from active villainy, but his current actions gave Shinsuke little reason to believe he was truly reformed.

“And so?” Michael rolled his eyes and shrugged before leaning back in his seat, “It’s been a year since – and you of all people should know how much some people can change within a year. I’ll say this as many times as I have to; I’ve left the Ragemaster persona far behind me now. I’m done going around doing others’ dirty work, or anything that might draw unwanted attention to me for that matter!”

The ex-Marauder took another sip of liqueur as a devil-may-care smirk crossed his face, “I’m an island these days; I keep my nose out of other folks’ business, and they keep their noses out of mine. This arrangement worked fine, so I plan to keep it that way till the end of my days!” 

“Is that how you plan to live out your days then?” Shinsuke raised an eyebrow at Michael’s statement, “It sounds like a pretty lonely and pointless existence if you ask me.”

“Two things, brother. One, I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Michael finished the bottle's contents with one clean chug and set it down before wiping his lips with the back of his hand, “And two… how did the whole knight in shining armour thingy eventually work out for you? Who knows? Maybe you might still have your happy, carefree life if you were wiser at choosing your battles back then.”

The esper had unknowingly struck a sore point for Shinsuke as the cryomancer opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder to glare at him, his pale blue irises smouldering with disgust and a barely-contained anger. He knew what Michael was talking about – Shinsuke remembered the agonising details like it was yesterday. Of how he died in the line of duty that day, or so he thought.

Instead, he spent six months in cryostasis as Khazan City’s top medical experts painstakingly put his body back together. When he awoke from his cryogenic stasis, he was effectively reborn as a different person – possessing a completely different powerset and a new perspective on life and the world that estranged him from most of friends and family. “I don’t know how you learned about that part of my history, but that was only half the story…” Shinsuke’s voice remained calm, but those nearby could sense a pool of magma boiling beneath the sheen of ice.

“Uh… L-let’s not do this? W-we’re all on the s-same team, right?” Natsumi squeaked as she waved her hands nervously, sensing the escalating tension between the two men, and despite her own fears the pigtailed girl tried her best to defuse and de-escalate.

Fortunately for her, Lara Connors got the job done as she snapped awake from her nap after receiving a call from the pilot, the elf-eared girl hopping to her feet as she clapped twice. “Alright lads and ladettes, strap yourselves in!” Lara declared with excitement, “Air traffic control in Raisa has verified our credentials; and as we’re on official SLJ business they have given us special clearance to perform a drop-off. We should be reaching Raisa in fifteen minutes’ time!”

“I’m going to assist in the procedure,” Lex rose from his seat and made his way to the cockpit to assist the pilot with the special drop-off procedure. 

The MH jet began its descent, its altitude gently dipping until it emerged from the cloud cover. From the windows, the southern end of the port city of Raisa became visible, its bustling streets milling with traffic and pedestrians. At this hour of the day, most of the activity were from citizens knocking off from work. Further north lay the waterfront district, with a calm marina and pristine beaches, abuzz with foreign vacationers as well as locals unwinding after a hard day’s work – chilling at beachside bars, playing beach volleyball, swimming or canoeing in the calm waters, or simply getting a good tan in the sun.

Their jet passed over the high-rise buildings of downtown Raisa and headed north towards the coastal district, coming to a hover over a section of the beach that had been cleared for the MH aircraft to drop off the team. “Well, here we are,” Lexington’s voice buzzed over the intercom, “Sit tight as we make our landing.” Standard protocols would’ve dictated that they make a regular landing at the airport, but being a Maniacal Heroes aircraft that is confirmed to be on official business with the Sentinels allowed the city authorities to grant the group a special exemption from protocol.

As Lex initiated the landing, Lara could make out signs of a recent attack – not far from where they were touching down, a recreational wharf bore signs of violence. Several of the buildings lining it – mostly housing retail outlets and a nightclub – lay in ruins, sections of the boardwalk had collapsed into the sea below, and bloodstains were all over the place. “This is terrible… who could’ve been behind this?” she wondered while Lex initiated the jet’s thrust vectoring to allow it to make a slow vertical descent, as it deployed its landing gear. 

The MH jet landed on the sand with a soft thud, and Lex soon left the cockpit to join the rest of the team in disembarking. “No idea,” Lex remarked in a grim tone as shortly after the group got off, the plane rose into the air to make its way to Raisa’s airport. “It’s a horrific act of senseless violence, but it’s far too small in scale to be the work of the Drekis legions. If they’re attacking Raisa, they would’ve launched a citywide invasion instead of striking one recreational wharf with no strategic value.”

As the group arrived on the scene, the carnage became more evident as they caught sight of the bodies of the dead, including several police officers, presumably first responders to the incident. “They confronted the perpetrators, but lacked the means to stop them,” Cortelloni noted signs of a battle; the officers had fired their weapons – spent 9mm and 12-gauge casings littered the boardwalk; the source of said casings being three Gen6 Glock 17’s and a Mossberg 500. But whoever or whatever the attackers were, they were clearly too powerful to be stopped with conventional firepower.

The site was teeming with police officers and detectives, some of them combing the scene for evidence, while others were coordinating with forensics investigators to have the bodies removed from the scene and loaded onto vehicles to be transported to the coroner’s lab, and still others were answering press interviews. “Area’s off-limits to civilians, investigation in progress,” the group were halted in their tracks by a grumpy-looking hawk-eyed middle-aged man with a flattop haircut, dressed in a tan trench coat over a dark brown business suit – presumably a senior detective. To emphasise his point, the detective pointed to the black and yellow tapes cordoning off the boardwalk, marked with “Police Line: Do Not Cross” warnings.

“I’m Yagami Shinsuke of the SLJ; and these are my teammates,” Shinsuke replied calmly as he stepped forward, showing his Sentinels ID to the detective before gesturing to Lexington and the others.

“Sentinels, you say? My apologies then,” the detective’s expression softened as he stepped aside and bowed and then offered a handshake to Shinsuke. “Senior Inspector Ogawa Sho, Raisa Metropolitan Police, at your service. Captain Khazan did inform me that he was expecting backup from the Sentinels and Maniacal Heroes, so you must be his backup then.”

Shinsuke smiled and nodded as he shook hands with the inspector, “It’s my pleasure to help, inspector. Now if you don’t mind, could you lead us to Captain Khazan.”

“Hai, follow me please,” Sho gestured for Shinsuke and the others to follow as he led them down the boardwalk, towards the far end of the wharf that stretched out to sea.

Along the way, Shinsuke asked the inspector about their investigations, but Sho revealed that the results so far revealed little about the perpetrators or their motives. As far as the local police were concerned, the first reports of the incident came in at around 0336 hours when dispatch picked up an emergency call about a zombie attack at the wharf.

“Were there any eyewitnesses?” Shinsuke asked.

“There was only one – Angela Jacobs, university undergrad, aged 22,” Sho replied, glancing at a ruined building that looked to be once a nightclub, “She said she stepped outside to catch a breath of fresh air when she saw what she described as zombies going on a killing spree. Then she ran back in and locked herself in a bathroom stall… it was the only reason she even managed to stay alive and make a police report.”

“Is she available for questioning then?” Lex added.

The inspector shook his head and stuck his hands into his coat pockets, “Unfortunately no, Ms. Jacobs pretty much had a mental breakdown in the middle of her police report, and she’s been unresponsive since. She’s currently undergoing medical examination and psychiatric assessment under police protection.”

“What we do know is that two cars formed the first-response team – Sgt. Gary Jancyzk and Const. Kim Sang-Ook, as well as Cpl. James Monroe and Samantha Friedman,” Senior Insp. Ogawa continued, carefully stepping over a section of the boardwalk where the planks had broken and fallen into the waters below. “Dispatch logs indicated that they arrived at the scene of the incident at 0351 hours and established contact with the perpetrators at 0352 hours. The last bit of correspondence between the first response team and dispatch was that negotiations had no effect, and the go-ahead to use lethal force was given. Before the radio went dead, dispatch said they heard gunfire and frantic screams to send reinforcements.”

“Backup arrived on the scene at 0430 hours – three additional cars and a SWAT team van pulled up on the scene, but by then the attackers were gone,” the group walked past a SWAT team in the middle of being debriefed by their squad leader – the hasty nature of their mobilisation was evident as most of the officers weren’t even properly uniformed; they had just thrown plate carrier vests and tactical gear right over their civilian clothes, grabbed their weapons, and reported for duty.

“Here we are,” The group arrived at the far end of the recreational wharf, connected to a floating platform that housed a marina where the wealthier residents of Raisa kept their leisure yachts and private boats moored. And at the scene was Captain Khazan, standing over the most grisly find on the scene thus far. Twelve bodies lay mutilated to the point they were barely recognizable, arranged on the floating platform in a crude circle formation, and the victims’ blood were used as paint to make a series of lines and profane symbols to construct what looked like a ritual circle.

“Trent-san!” Shinsuke called out to Captain Khazan as the group approached the Sentinel, “This is truly gruesome… now I see why you insisted that I come down in person.”

Captain Khazan nodded, a grim expression on his face, “Yes, glad that you can make it. This has been a perplexing development – my initial suspicions were that it was somehow tied to the Drekis Empire. Even though the nearest Drekis legion is a long ways off from Raisa, there’s the possibility of a cell of Discordant Scions operating within the city.”

“Nah, this can’t be Discordant Scions,” Lex interjected, folding his arms across his chest, “Discordant Scions wouldn’t bother with a target that has no strategic value. This attack looked more like it was meant to send some kind of message, rather than to accomplish any strategic goals.”

“You have a point there,” Captain Khazan concurred, before pointing north towards the horizon where the sea met the sky, “Evidence we’ve gathered so far suggested that the attackers came from the sea – they must’ve landed at this marina before making their way down the wharf to conduct their attacks. So far, further investigations have only yielded more questions than answers.”

Natsumi tried her best to look away from the corpses, her feet shuffling nervously as she stuck close to Shinsuke’s side, and the cryomancer rested a gentle hand on her shoulder to reassure her. “You can close your eyes if you want,” Shinsuke smiled warmly before making his way to one of the bodies and knelt down beside it – there were no signs of burns or ballistic entry/exit wounds that would indicate either beam weaponry or kinetic firearms, but he could make out numerous lacerations and punctures.

“No directed energy weapons or modern firearms were used in these murders,” the SLJ cryomancer remarked, arching an eyebrow, “The wounds indicate extensive use of bladed and stabbing weapons such as swords and spears… some of the lacerations looked like they were inflicted by claws, and the puncture wounds on the neck of this body over here suggested being bitten by fangs.”

“It looks like they used bows and arrows too!” Natsumi squeaked as she pointed a shaky finger at one of the bodies, which had taken a pair of arrows to the chest.

“We know what weapons were used in the murder, the problem is that it doesn’t fit the MO of most of the villainous institutions we are familiar with,” Captain Khazan commented, “The attackers must’ve been a pretty large group – but they’re certainly not Marauders or The Fallen, and not the Drekis Empire either.”

Lara pulled an arrow out of a body and held it up, studying the design of the projectile, from its fletchings to the design of the arrowhead; her eyes narrowed as she came to a conclusion, “These are no ordinary arrows… they bear the taint of dark magic, and I believe the same goes for just about every weapon the attackers used.”

“Enchanted weapons certainly aren’t uncommon here in Khazan; but I don’t think there are any major organisations outside of The Fallen where such is standard issue for them,” Shinsuke chorused before glancing over to Michael Cortelloni, “Given your familiarity with Khazan’s criminal underworld, do you think there’s any criminal syndicate known for extensive use of dark sorcery?”

“Oh what would you do without me?” Michael smirked as he felt a fleeting sense of vindication over the Sentinel seeking out his knowledge. The ex-Marauder’s expression quickly turned serious before he continued, “As far as I know among Khazan’s major criminal syndicates, no. But there are some cults with close connections with the underworld who practice dark magic, but nothing like this… Wait! There is one, but…” Michael’s expression darkened as he stared down at the floor in silence.

“But what?” Lara turned in Michael’s direction.

Cortelloni stepped forward to examine the symbol on the platform; the bodies and blood markings formed an inverted pentagram, along with grotesque symbols and profane runes, “It’s a ritual killing.”

“That tracks, given the way the bodies were set up,” Shinsuke replied, “What do you make of it then?”

“The people used to make this circle were first taken alive,” Michael explained, pointing to the symbols within the circle, “They were marched to this spot, and then killed one after another in sequence and their blood used to make the markings… These symbols mark their number within said sequence.”

“Pray tell, where did you get this knowledge from?” Captain Khazan wondered; there was a palpable surprise in the Sentinel’s voice as he didn’t expect a former mob hitman to have such esoteric knowledge of the occult.

“It was back in my time with the Khazan Mafia when I had run-ins with a gang that called themselves the Selni Night-Slashers… though they’re really closer to a cult than your typical criminal cartel or tong,” Michael mused, brushing the scruff of his almost-beard, “Protection rackets, smuggling rings, money laundering? They’re into none of that stuff; instead they promoted mysticism and obsession with doomsday prophecies, funded by brainwashed converts who gladly offered them their wealth under the belief it would help them reach an ascended spiritual state.”

“They operated red rooms where they performed ritual mutilation, torture and murder while preaching the Second Coming of Saramach – and recorded footages of their rituals made their way onto the Dark Web as snuff films,” the former mobster continued, getting down on one knee to study  the symbols in greater detail, “They used regular implements to conduct their vile rituals, but there’s no mistaking these symbols and the way the bodies are arranged. They are consistent with the Selni Night-Slashers’ activities, and these are derived from ancient Saramach rituals… their leader was an obsessive collector of old tomes related to all things Saramach.”

“Where are they now then, and how does any of that tie in with what we’re investigating now?” Lara wondered.

“They’re irrelevant at this point, since they’re long dead,” Michael gave a nonchalant shrug, “Five years ago, their leader believed the Second Coming of Saramach was finally at hand… so he gathered his entire flock of the faithful where they all committed ritual suicide to welcome their so-called Messiah.”

“Saramach?” Shinsuke raised an eyebrow as he stared at Michael.

“You’ve probably heard of them,” Michael replied bluntly, “The empire of the undead, a cursed nation built on dark magic and the will of devils, hailing from the dark continent to the far north, Denes’Takai.”

“Hey, is this some kind of sick joke, Cortelloni?” Lexington interjected as he stepped forth to place a hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“Do I sound like I’m joking?” Michael sneered as he pawed Lex’s hand off his shoulder and pushed him back, “Granted, what I know of Saramach was from the books I found in the Night-Slashers’ hideout, but there is no mistaking the symbols and that ritual.”

Shinsuke stepped between the two men with his hands raised, “Now slow down a moment, what does this mean?”

Lex sighed with exasperation as he plucked the enchanted Saramach arrow from Lara’s hand, “If Mr. Cortelloni’s conjecture is correct, it means we might be expecting another incursion from Denes’Takai!” Lex took out his frustration on the cursed arrow, bending it in his hands to snap its shaft, but the dark sorcery that empowered the arrow made it uncannily durable, and it took an unexpected amount of exertion from him before it broke in two. 

“Great, just fucking great – two hostile armies to deal with!” Lexington snorted as he tossed the broken arrow away.

“I’ll confess that my knowledge of Saramach is regrettably limited,” Captain Khazan added as he stepped over to Lexington’s side. “So what’s this about the possibility of another attack from the Saramach Empire?”

Michael Cortelloni folded his arms and muttered something incoherent before he spoke, “What most people in the current day and age know about Saramach comes from ancient texts that are indistinguishable from history and myth.”

“He’s correct,” Lexington seconded, “In ancient times, Saramach was a feared enemy of Khazan Prime, but there hasn’t been any incursions from the dark continent for well over half a millennia… and with that, knowledge of Saramach faded into myth over time as more immediate, pressing threats such as Marauders, the League of the Mentally Unstable and The Fallen took centre stage.”

“It was about eight hundred years ago when the undead of Saramach declared war against the living, during a time known as the Age of Eternal Night – led by the Grand Necrarch Saramach Melfyre, they crossed the ocean from the north and landed in a region of Xaelon formerly known as West Walshin where they established a great fortress and used dark magic to blot out the sun, shrouding all of Khazan in perpetual night until the end of the conflict,” Lara chimed in, sharing what she and Lex knew about the Saramach Empire and its role in the ancient history of Khazan, “I’m not surprised that so few know about this… as Lex put it, Saramach’s long dormancy made them less and less relevant to Khazanian matters as time went by, so mainstream academics paid less and less attention to it until it faded from common knowledge altogether.”

“By the Archons…” Captain Khazan muttered as he held up a clenched fist to his chest as his gaze snapped towards the sky, as if hoping that the heavens themselves could provide an answer. Slowly, but reluctantly, the Captain looked at Michael Cortelloni and gave an understanding nod – as brutal as the ex-Marauder’s assessment of the situation was, Captain Khazan saw little reason to doubt him.

With a sigh, Captain Khazan ran his right hand through his hair, although his buzzcut made the hairs on his head rub against his hand like bristles on a toothbrush instead of rustling in his fingers, “Very well, then I shall report our findings to the SLJ leadership council at once. Based on current projections, the Drekis legion approaching Raisa is due to strike from the southwest from the Cispanaar Forest, while the Saramach Empire is going to strike from the north by sea. We’re going to have to adjust the current defense strategies for Raisa and divide our forces along two fronts… We must prepare for the worst.”

 

To Be Continued...

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