The ripples in the ground moved forwards out of the protective shell at an increasing rate. Jana smiled to herself, for she was showing her loyalty to the empress, may she live forever. Through the two narrow, foot-sized holes in the bottom of the metallic shell, she could feel the wonderful texture of the earth as it vibrated to her command. Nothing could stop the gates crumbling now. Nothing. Already she could feel through the earth that the gates were weakening. Her waves were gaining more and more space to move. She smiled.

Suddenly there was a massive surge of energy in the ground right beneath her feet. Jana had no idea what it was, not what it would do. She had never before felt anything like it. It was almost like her own surges, but [i]foreign[/i] somehow. it did not really make much sense. Less than a blink of an eye after she first felt it, she heard loud pinging noises of rocks striking the bottom of the hull. Just as she realized it had to be an enemy evoker, one of the untrained ones, the rocks started striking closer. She screamed in agony as one grazed her right leg. stuffing a bit of leather between her teeth, she forced herself to continue. Then without warning, she felt a strange blending of energy, just as a pair of rocks struck both her ankles at great velocity. through the narrow slits in the floor, she saw the horrifying image as her legs bent where they should not, bent back underneath the flooring. The inexplicable surge was accompanied by her purest scream of utter agony, for having both legs shattered and mangled like that was pain beyond words. The surge of energy, created by the enemy evoker, somehow merged with her own evocation. One final, massive wave shot out as she lost contact with the earth. It was greater than any she had ever created before. She knew instinctively that not even walls could stand against such. Her shell was thrown back by it, and as she lost consciousness, she wondered what it looked like from the outside.

~|~

Only a short time before this, a courier had arrived in Alessia’s appropriated building from the other side of the city claiming the Dread Omen was beginning to spread too far into the city. One of the perils of wielding her power in such an unknown area, it seemed, was that the boundaries of it would often shift irregularly, especially in areas that were both out of her sight and never before seen by her eyes. She attempted a correction, but rather than hope she could maintain it from where she was, Alessia decided to join the Processus and make use of the farseers talent. A birds view of the city would surely help her to maintain the area of the spell more easily, which was vital for the civilian population, even if it meant being in the presence of the Processus more than necessary.

She arrived just in time to see a close up view of the gate assault, witnessing the metal shell hiding a battle evoker rattle and shake violently before a huge wave moved through the ground directly ahead of it. The farseer brought the view higher as this happened, and Alessia witnessed the gate, sections of the adjoining walls and countless buildings behind them collapse in miniature, making for an eerie display when scarcely a moment later the colossal rumble of uncounted massive stones falling reached the assembled command force.

When the rumbling stopped, she released a breath she had not realised she had been holding. Extending from the point at which the evoker had sat, a huge fan of destruction had been carved into the city, and already the Kalesian soldiers were storming into the breach to take advantage of it. The Processus was barking orders, troop movements of all kinds, and from what Alessia could tell, none of them concerned with the civilians that were undoubtedly caught in the swathe of destruction - or the evoker who had not exited the metal shell after the wave. Alessia knew how their commander felt about Evokers, and anyone ranked lower than her in general, and could tell that the poor evoker would likely be sacrificed in the furtherance of efficiency. She may not have been able to issue any orders to help the Othean civilians in the rubble, but at least she could save the Evoker, or escort her to safety if she was simply hiding in the armoured shell while the battle raged.

She took one of the order couriers aside and gave him orders to forward to one of the reserve Kalbeast units, they were to reach the armoured shell as quickly as possible and drag it out of the immediate vicinity of the battle, ascertain the state of the evoker inside, and call for the battlefield surgeons if necessary. No faithful servant of the Empress, may she live forever, would needlessly die if Lady Alessia Rezalla-Rhidian had anything to say about it.