It was the beginning of summer. Libra had aligned perfectly with the closest star to from weather conditions of pleasant warmth across the major hemisphere. However, while summertime brought feelings of delight and surges of energy, it was also the busiest season for the soldiers of the United Defense Force. Spring had recently passed and with it the spirit reincarnation that happened every year during that time. This always caused a tremendous amount of Mordrem activity around the world over the summer, especially in the beginning of it. As such, the U.D.F. was eager to put the new recruits of the year to work. Selene and her friends belonged to a fresh batch of Guardians graduated from the prestigious Oakridge Military Academy. It had only been a week since the graduation party, a wild festivity not soon forgotten. And now they were stationed on the grand flagship of the U.D.F., a dreadnaught class called ‘Nautilus’ that orbited Libra’s atmosphere. There, the friends had been assigned their own tiny bunks in preparation for the assault on a city of Cetra called ‘Astral’. The city had been under siege by the Mordrem and devastating earthquakes for six hours. This was not unusual, but the sudden emergency of securing this particular city rose a bit of suspicion.

Selene strode along the metallic halls of the airship, which was teeming with life. Various personnel and soldiers were running around and gearing up for the assault. Pilots were strapped into the standard issue U.D.F. Mechs and subsequently directed to the dropships. As with most invasions of this caliber, the soldiers were calm and collected. The sheer numbers of the force inspired such states of mind. However, whenever anything of less grandeur was to confront the Mordrem infestation, the men were shaking in their boots and barely able to stand up straight. Such was not the case for Guardians. Selene rarely felt herself afraid any kind of threat. One could question whether or not this was due to her arrogance or due to the fact that she could, as a Guardian, punch through a wall without a scratch on her hand or take a bullet to the chest without dying. It was probably a bit of both. However, it did not mean that certain odds were not in Guardians’ favor. A single Guardian against a hundred Mordrem monsters was a certain defeat. But, that was Selene’s specialty; to inspire people with her indomitable will of force to face impossible odds.

The girl paused by the Skywalk to gaze upon the fleet accompanying the Nautilus. Such presence of readiness was required as some of the Mordrem spawns were capable of flight and the larger ground monstrosities capable of producing anti-air projectiles in the form of bio-plasm. The escorting combat ships also had the color patterns of the primary strike force of the U.D.F., as did the soldiers and Mechs inside the Nautilus. There were plenty of color schemes within the military to distinguish different specialized groups, but the primary army had a plain white on black. Guardians distinguished themselves by rarely wearing any U.D.F. issued armor. They either had their own armor or wore their regular clothing, as Selene did. “Ma’am,” a soldier by a control panel saluted. Selene simply gave him a subtle nod, and then she vanished into her thoughts again. She had come a long way from Tenebra to this moment. Not only had she spent thirteen years at the academy, but she had gotten to know the bravest Guardians to ever exist according to her. All of which she could proudly call her dear friends.

And then, suddenly, a butterfly was flapping about around Selene. She was slightly startled at first, but soon realized that it was nothing but a harmless insect. Aviation animals had by accident made it inside Nautilus before, mostly birds, but tiny creatures such as butterflies was a rare sight. “How did you get in here, little one,” Selene said and allowed the tiny one to land on one of her fingers. The moment and the insect itself reminded Selene of what one of her trainers at the academy had once said. He said that ‘what we do in life echoes in eternity.’ She thought about that statement for a second. “Whose eternity?—mine or someone else’s?” The girl mumbled to herself, as she let the butterfly away. “Did you say something?” The soldier beside her grunted slightly. “No, carry on,” Selene dispelled her own mesmerization.

…humpf… the ‘butterfly effect’…that cannot possibly be real… can it? ...superstitious nonsense… that’s what it is…

Selene flowed back into the heart of the dreadnaught, navigating herself through the maze of metallic tunnels and hallways. After a few minutes, the girl found and stumbled upon the bunk to which she had been assigned. It was a humble abode, but it had everything you needed: a bed and a bathroom. Dining and such was done in a mess hall close by. However, Selene was only on her way to acquire her weapon. The preparation alarms had sounded just moments earlier, urging all combat personnel to report to the hangar and the assigned dropship. The rest of Selene’s squad had their bunks in the same hallway as her. They were mere seconds apart. She briefly visited them all and gave her friends a heads up to gather by their dropship, 01RT-2 “Dan”, in the hangar. However, and unfortunately for the regular army, Selene and her squad was not on mission with the assault force. They were members of the U.D.F. Special Warfare and Reconnaissance Group, or WARG for short. Their mission was to retrieve sensitive and valuable information and assets in the city of Astral. Selene suspected that whatever they had to bring back was the reason why so much resources had been invested into this assault.



Selene was the first to arrive by the dropship at the hangar. However, the girl knew she would not have to wait long for the rest of her squad. An elderly Sergeant was waiting for them. He did not seem particularly pleased with being assigned baby-sitting duty. His mission was to amply secure the delivery of Selene’s squad to the target drop location. As such, there were five or so regular soldiers with him, and two fighter planes on standby in the air outside. The Sergeant was chewing tobacco and spat a hefty chuck of dirty saliva on the floor as Selene arrived. Her eyebrows tucked themselves together and she frowned at the repulsive act.

“Well, well, here comes the prima donnas of the U.D.F.—WARG. How come you people can never keep on schedule?!” The Sergeant mockingly looked at his wristwatch as he expressed his disapproval. “You’re half a minute late and where is the rest of your squad?!”

“The world has been like this for thirty years, Sergeant, and I’m sure another thirty seconds won’t make a difference,” Selene said, closely inspecting the soldiers nearby.

“I know! I was there when everything went to shit, long before you were born, little girl!” The Sergeant exclaimed.

“Well then, perhaps I should write to the administration and request your early retirement? I’m sure one of these young lads beside you would love to knock you off of your high horse,” Selene said, frowning.

“I’ll have you disciplined for insolence!” The Sergeant was ready to slap Selene before two of the soldiers grabbed him.

“Whatever…, just shut up and do your job,” Selene said and entered the dropship. “Tell my squad to meet me inside,” she shouted. The Sergeant was boiling red from anger at this point.

@DJAtomika@clericbeast@bluejay_gl@Archangel89@Free Faller@Sand@JJ Doe

It seemed as though every time Aurelia strode past a window, the room’s temperature soared sharply upwards. Harsh sunlight filtered through the windows, reflecting off the various polished metal objects arranged carefully (but not quite artfully, she decided, because this was the military, and such a brazen display of callow, easily-swayed individuality perpetuated by the common artist would have surely earned the individual in question a dishonorable discharge) throughout the hallway like some sort of bizarre, psychedelic light show. One that was possibly run by junkies that had died halfway through, most likely from the sheer intensity of the glare.

The side of Aurelia’s hand had been cupped to her brow, trying fruitlessly to shield her eyes from that god-awful light, for so long, she was afraid it was going to leave a mark. A big, ugly white line - well, all right, whiter than usual; was there a word for pale that surpassed alabaster? - carving across her forehead, branding her as a massive, unequivocal idiot. Thank the gods natural selection had already occurred in the form of a massive, batshit shitstorm of pandemonium that had, quite literally, obliterated a chunk of Libra, or else she might really have to worry.

That was . . . surprisingly morbid. And cruel. She tried to look miffed, really, she did, but she couldn’t quite get her eyebrows to do the thing other peoples’ did when they actually cared. Ah, well, c’est la vie? Emotional investment had never quite been her forte, particularly in the face of a tragedy. The memory of her darling Aunt Sylvie turning a particularly lovely shade of plum at Uncle Broderick’s funeral, during which Aurelia had sat, staring blankly at the pew in front of her the entire time, unwavering, eyes as dry as the crisp autumn air, never failed to set her lips quirking up into a satisfied, serene smirk. Then again, Uncle Broderick was also the reigning regent of reprehensible, erm, preferences, which was about seven sorts of disturbing, each in their own vile, twisted right. Though in his case, Aurelia mused, the beginnings of a repulsed grimace tugging at her features, furrowing her brow and twisting up her lips, I suppose “inc'est la vie” is a little more fitting.

A wave of disgust washed over her, and she shuddered under its weight. Finding his secret, “special” photo album had been quite the treat, much like peering underneath one’s bed and finding merely a dead bird instead of a rotting human corpse would be quite the treat. And they wonder why the company’s crumbling from the inside out! It’s rotten to the very core!

The click of her boots on the tile shifted in timbre and tone, shifting fluidly from the hollow, dull click of tile to the sharp, grating echo of polished metal. The patches of light swimming lazily across the surface of the gleaming iron floor widened, partitioned by wrought iron bars. It made the hallway a bit more tolerable to traverse, but not by much. It was a shame, really, such a massive corporation with so many accolades and attributes couldn’t afford to expend a bit more of their resources lavishing the airship with something a bit more tasteful, maybe something ornate, pretty on the eyes. And again I reiterate, c’est la vie. Perhaps it was to reinforce that whole pragmatism creed they loved so well? Or, perhaps it was so everyone inhabiting this place felt like an equal; that’s probably why all the common areas were so bland and nondescript. From what little Aurelia could glean from the rumor mill, the U.D.F prided itself on egalitarianism. From what the rumor mill had offered once their tongues had been loosened with a discreet exchange (it wasn’t bribery, it was a business transaction, so technically, there were no grounds for complaints), there seemed to be a bit of a deficit in funding - whether or not resulted from the sudden frenzy to finance the little expedition to Astral, well, that would cost extra. Unfortunately, living outside of the RMC meant she had to manage her assets carefully, and so she had, with great disappointment, declined.

Before her lay the hallway to which she and her fellow squad members (she would say best friends, but they were also her only friends, and mathematics had already long since designated them as her best, so she was just choosing not to acknowledge that sad, uncomfortable truth) were assigned.

The corners of her lips quirked into a small smile. This was it. This was the beginning of her first chapter. The tale she’d fought tooth and nail for the opportunity to pen alone, the truth she’d decided long ago only she would have the right to ascertain, the path she’d carve out with her bare hands or die trying.

All she had to do was reach for the door.

And reach she did, fingers curling gently around the cool, glossy metal. A shiver wracked her body, coursing through her veins in an adrenaline-fueld rush, and maybe it was the anticipation speaking, but she almost wanted to savor the moment. She shut her eyes, visions of a grandiose suite dancing in the forefront of her mind - would it be fully furnished, or would she have to spend the credits on her own amenities? How large would the bed be? A soft mattress was a necessity, and the U.D.F., despite its perceived frugalities, was surely lenient enough to allow a comfortable bed! Would it come pre-equipped with electronics?

Actually, never mind, she thought, once she’d wasted a few minutes reveling in the glory, throwing the door open with a dramatic flourish, because the last time she’d forced herself to wait for something she’d wanted, there was a headline in the Oakridge student paper the next day, reading 2 comatose, 14 wounded. (In retrospect, amping up the training room seven levels higher than her current hadn’t been the best idea, but it had also been thrilling, so the pros somewhat outweighed the cons.)

Her eyes snapped open, and her heart dropped just as fast. Her heart had exceeded all existing world records, blazing over the fastest runners on either Elysium and Libra, kicking them once in the head to ensure they wouldn’t overtake it, because what in the seven realms of fresh, frosty hell was this?

This wasn’t pragmatic. This wasn’t even utilitarian. This wouldn’t even be allowed to consider itself “rustic”. A bed. A desk, if you could even dare disgrace the very concept of academia by calling it that. A bathroom - tiny, no doubt, and it probably only had two dials for water temperature. This wasn’t even “bare-bones”! The damn thing looked as as if it’d spent the better part of a decade untouched, judging by the thick layer of dust blanketing the desk.

Hands curled into fists, and her eye started doing that twitchy thing it did when she was forced to confront the ways in which normal people lived. This wasn’t the military. This was her own, personal brand of hell, served hot out of the fucking oven. She still wasn’t sure if the screaming she heard was part of the metaphor or the sound of all her hopes and dreams shattering before her eyes.

Because situational irony was a flighty whore, and couldn’t resist teasing its favorite personal sandbag by proving that why yes, Aurelia, dear, it can always get worse, the alarm chose that moment to explode in a screeching whirlwind of wails.

“Oh, you harpy,” she snarled, although to whom, she wasn't sure, turning on her heel and stalking down the hallway, face drawn in a snarl so ferocious, so mutinous, so downright furious that some cannon-fodder manshield soldier she passed actually squealed as she stormed by.

----------

By the time she finally located Selene, having spent the better part of a minute ducking through throngs of people rushing about, Aurelia was all of three things:

1. Livid to the point where she was burning red from the hollow of her throat to the tips of her ears, rage painting itself across her face in broad, sweeping strokes.
2. Betrayed, dismayed, and all kinds of disappointed.
3. Itching for someone to fight, because she was now sufficiently armed and probably dangerous - the twinblade wasn't exactly a toy - so let’s see what her superiors would have to say when they had the end of a wickedly sharp blade scraping delicately against the soft flesh of their throats.

Selene appeared to be engaged in some sort of conversation with some older, distinguished sort of fellow, and neither of them looked particularly happy. Aurelia only managed to catch little snippets of the conversation, things such as “WARGs” and “prima-donnas” and something about horses, but she didn’t care about any of these things, because they weren’t important, and why yes, her sense of priorities was absolutely fine, thank you very much. But she didn't really have time to sit and contemplate what skills she may or may not need to refine quite heavily, because Selene was disappearing into some doorway, and Aurelia needed to have words with her, and she needed to have those words now.

“Selene!” she called, because that man and his petty little berating could wait, there was a serious problem at hand, and her integrity was at stake. “Why wasn’t I informed our quarters would be so pitiful? Is this a prank? Initiation, some kind of stupid attempt at hazing? Are they going to show us our actual rooms later? I can’t even fit all my stuff, for gods’ sakes! There’s - there isn’t any room! I thought it was supposed to be - it's not - this is just - ugh!” Gods, she couldn't even get the words out; her aggravation ran so deep it was actually inhibiting her little tirade. Her tone was gradually escalating, becoming noticeably more distraught with every word that tumbled rapid-fire from her lips, lips quivering with fury and heartbreak and all sorts of unpleasant things, and by the time she’d finished, it had risen about two octaves and was shaky and frail, having left its sense of rationality and steadiness somewhere on a mountain. Keeping herself from whining was a struggle in itself. “It’s an outrage, is what it is!”

Oh, situational irony was a bitch. A vindictive, malicious, truly sadistic bitch.

Down several floors below the Nautilus’s many-windowed Skywalk, in the dark, stifling recesses of the maintenance chambers, was a white-haired, muscular young woman, hard at work repairing the right elbow joint of her custom-built metal armor. She was just wrapping up an especially arduous sparring session with Ito yesterday when the plate fell off, revealing a damaged couter. Not having enough time to repair it before being rushed aboard the Nautilus, Wren had to wait until long after the welcoming briefings to begin.

“There,” she said to herself, satisfied. She raised her welding helmet, admiring her handiwork. The couter shined with renewed vigor as she bent and straightened it in her gloved hands; she attached it back onto the rest of her armor and began to suit up, knowing that their mission would soon begin.

Exiting the maintenance area, she climbed many steel steps up to the main floor and strode down the carpeted dormitory hallways. Wren had been so busy preparing her armor and materials that she had yet to even see her room.

Preoccupied, she had only barely heard the fleeting whispers just behind her.

“Is that her? The Blue Fire?” murmured one lanky, freshly-buzzcut soldier to his buddy.

“Yeah, I think so,” the other replied softly. “Liam told me she broke his shin at the graduation ceremony because he called her ‘butch’.”

“Sure, but Liam’s a dumbass,” the first one said, and his friend nodded admittingly.

Wren turned her head and stared straight at them, causing them both to start. Her Engulfer spirit eagerly presented itself; it lit up Wren’s normally golden eyes, turning each one into a blinding orange flame. The two soldiers squinted and shielded their eyes, both of them managing a quick salute and a “Sorry!” before running off in the opposite direction. She smirked to herself and continued walking.

She had only just made it to her dorm room and sat on the thin, dusty mattress when the emergency alarms went off with a deafening blare. In moments, Selene popped her long-haired, heavily-scarfed self in, informing her to meet up in the hangar at their assigned dropship.

“Finally!” Wren shouted, fist-pumping the air. In one swift movement, she leapt up, grabbed her baton, and violently swung open the dormitory door, crushing the metal handle as she did so. She practically sprinted down the open, sun-drenched Skywalk, the shadows of the window partitions recurrently veiling her in darkness. Looking to her left, she watched the accessory fleets soar downward in calculated formations toward the surface of Astral. This made her even more excited for the inevitable combat, and she grinned enthusiastically, foolishly, a child who has yet to know true war.

As she approached the hangar entrance, she saw from afar the grizzled Sergeant posted outside their dropship; Wren, bitterly, recognized him as an acquaintance of General Artemis, whom she openly despises. The Sergeant seemed to be in a rather irritable mood, or at least more irritable than normal; Wren flashed him a curt salute and a scowl before dropping herself in the dropship. He evidently recognized her as well and was about to yell something, a vein throbbing prominently on his temple, but she slammed the ship’s hatch in his face. She smirked, satisfied, and was immediately exposed to Aurelia’s bratty, insufferable shouts echoing inside the cramped aircraft. She peeked around the corner to see Selene being assaulted with Aurelia’s complaints.

”Well, well – looks like the princess has already arrived at her fated kingdom,” Wren said scathingly, the sarcasm dripping all over the floor as she approached the two of them. She mimed delicately placing a tiara on Aurelia’s head with a derisive laugh.

Meanwhile in Eric's earpiece...

To think that we've come so far in such a short amount of time. It astounds me. And yet, we now spend our vast resources on what? Waging war against an enemy that's on the surface. I can understand that it's threatening our brethren on the world below, but to spend this much? It's insane.

I walked slowly down the dormitory hallway. I knew I had a meeting with Selene and the rest of our squad, and time was of the essence, but that did not stop me from, well, stopping to admire the scenery from the window. The passing sun's rays streamed through the multitude of glass windows that adorned the metal walls, as much of a nuisance as they were of letting all that heat in, but the view was simply magnificent. Below, wreathed by clouds, Libra hung in space, spinning slowly in its own rotation as it slowly orbited around their sun, the light glistening off water bodies wherever they were underneath the clouds. His spectacles, with their light-sensitive lenses, blocked most of the glare, but it still forced a hand up to cover his eyes as he gazed upon their mission. Obviously not visible was the city of Astral, on the continent called Cetra. According to what I'd read, Cetra was apparently the center of activity on all of Libra, though that had waned steadily ever since my home, Elysium, had been built. Other than that, the books told me that the continent itself is, or rather was, a commercial and educational hub, as well as the center for all things book-ish and political. That too had lost its luster after Elysium, and now Cetra was nothing more than a holdout for refugees from the other outlying continents being ravaged by the Modrem, all while the U.D.F. did their merry thing and made the place safer.

Today I was dressed rather casually for such a deployment, though casual for me was dress smarts for everyone else; a simple waistcoat over a stark white cuffed dress shirt (of which I have more than several), a navy blue tie and slacks and shoes. Over that I had a combat vest, specially tailored for my own use; the harness and vest went straight over my torso, with rigging on the left side that held several magazines, custom made for Fayth of course, and the other side held more webbing and rigging that was more for comfort than anything else. Fayth herself was clasped tightly in my right hand, dangerously beautiful in the way the sunlight glanced and reflected off her stark, white edges and gloss black metal tubes and rings that made up her deadly assembly. For now, though, she was merely a cane, and with a tap tap tap I set off again. Now I really was in a bit of a hurry, seeing as how I'd wasted a good few moments gazing down at nature's beauty, but work was work. I made my way down the dormitory corridors and headed out towards the hangar, where I knew everyone else was waiting, or at least I hoped. For all I knew they could be dropping down into Libra's atmosphere without me, but then again, I knew that'd never happen. This whole place was so confusing anyway, I had no idea how these proper military types did their thing aboard one of these vessels. The corridors were cramp, it was hot when the ship came around sun side, the air smelled of stale conditioning and a faint burning from the massive engines that propelled these things through the void of space. Then there were the hot, stuffy uniforms that the soldiers had to wear, and regimentation and discipline and ugh, it made me shudder slightly thinking about it. But, yet again, I was from a military academy, and they'd drilled some sense (and regimentation and discipline can't forget that) into me, so although I was no stranger to the plight of the soldier, I sure as hell didn't want to be in that position again.

---

Apparently I missed the memo about the deployment cause the closer I got to the hangar, the more people I bumped into and shoved through. Alarms were blaring, lights were flashing and general mayhem reigned. At first I thought he'd blundered into the wrong area of the ship, but then the cramp ceiling space gave way to a huge expanse, bordered only by windows and huge blast doors that, no doubt, had force fields containing the artificial atmosphere on the outside of them. True enough, as one of the sets of doors opened, I spied the faint blue glow of the field in place as it admitted a dropship through but kept the inside of the massive vessel safe. The army was in full swing now, with troops loading up onto their dropships, pilots getting into their mechs, everything going eveywhere and general controlled mayhem. Within the chaos, I finally managed to spot Selene and Aurelia, and as I approached them, Wren showed up as well, clad in her signature set of light blue armour. Aurey was apparently in the midst of complaining about the living conditions, appalling as they were. I honestly didn't mind the simple bunks, but she did, and I caught the last bits of her usual whining as I drew closer. It made me smile, it did. We wouldn't be a team if not for things like this.

"...informed our quarters would be so pitiful? Is this a prank? Initiation, some kind of stupid attempt at hazing? Are they going to show us our actual rooms later? I can’t even fit all my stuff, for gods’ sakes! There’s - there isn’t any room! I thought it was supposed to be - it's not - this is just - ugh! It's an outrage, it's what it is!"

"Well, well – looks like the princess has already arrived at her fated kingdom!"

And there was Wren with her signature retort. The squad would never be the same without either of them bickering constantly. I sighed, shook my head, tapped my wireless earpiece to stop my music and then waded into the thick of things.

"Please, please, ladies! Wrong place, wrong time for these sorta things. We can sort out who's the princess later, for now, I think we're missing a few people. The three of you ladies, have you heard anything from Cass, Ito or Sage?"

Even before the alarm rang to rouse him from sleep Ito had already started his day with the warm up to his daily exercises, nothing major; two hundred push-ups, three hundred and fifty sit ups just enough to get his heart pumping. As the quiet alarm finally sounded at its designated time Ito stood up and took a moment to stare out of his window at the place of his birth. His squad’s assignment was to down to the planet’s surface and retrieve some sort of vital information in a Centra city, the content was of no consequence to him but it would finally give him a good test outside of the simulator to see how he truly fared against the world with his rifle. At the thought of his rifle, Ito turned back to his desk and eyed the beautiful piece of weaponry as it lay in a very precise mess. One could almost admire the precision with which performed its function even if Ito personally didn’t particularly enjoy the actual act of killing anything. As the clock turned to 4:45 Ito dressed himself and went through his daily prayers, yet another tradition instilled on him. The quite almost serene sound of a small bell resonated through the room as Ito silently mumbled his prayers to his ancestors, even his parents whom he despised with a passion. As he slowly fingered the prayer beads he did his best to release the stress and worry about the events of the upcoming day flow through and out of him. As with every other day, he was unsuccessful.



After his almost exhausting morning Ito made his way to the training area in the hopes to get in a quick work out into his extremely busy day. The hall was surprisingly busy for this time of morning, most likely due to the fact that there was a deployment soon and everyone was wanting to get in a workout before they were dropped into war. As Ito began going through his workout regimen he couldn’t help but ponder over the particular mission that was assigned to him and his squad after all he and his crew were considered a valuable military asset, so it would make more sense to send them out into the fray of combat instead of sending them on a drop and snatch. The building acid in his muscles alerted him that was spending too much time on the weight bench as he gently put the bar back into its position for the next person to use it. It suddenly dawned on Ito that he hadn’t actually remembered what he was lifting, taking a moment to look at the weights he had stacked on either end.

’295 lbs. Not bad…could be better though…’

As he walked over to the sparring simulator another interesting fact dawned on him, he was receiving stares and hushed comments from the others within the hall. While this is something that he had grown accustomed to, the fact that all this was coming from a military ship with supposed ‘professionals’ is what was truly irritating him. As a he was running through one of the many simulations that he put himself through Ito could feel the overwhelming stare of one person in particular. The overwhelming feeling of anger coming from the piercing stare was starting to unnerve him to the point that it was interrupting his work out, finally stopping the simulation and confronting the person directly.

”Can I help you soldier, or are you just staring for your own enjoyment?”

“Yeh actually I have a bit of a problem…ya see, we were actually waiting on the simulator before you so rudely ignored the proper procedures and jumped the line.”

”Well I apologize, if you would be so kind as to allow me to finish this particular session I will be out of your way in just a moment.”

That wasn’t what Ito was really wanting to say, but his station prevented him from actually saying the terrible things that was just boiling over in his mind.

“That’s just not going to cut it…I say that we take it from you now!”

”What’s your name soldier?”

“Not that it’s any of your business but it’s Nyles…Aaron Nyles.”

”Alright Aaron I have a proposition for you. How about me and you fight one on one? Winner gets to decide who gets to use the simulator…deal?

Aaron’s friends suddenly lost color and almost instantly took one step back, they apparently knew who and what Ito was, Aaron however, was not that lucky.

“Sounds good…it’ll only take a second to wipe the floor with you.”

As both boys took their fighting stances Ito was already calculating the fastest way to finish this fight. The boy was obviously arrogant and hot headed so he would most likely start with an all-out assault aiming for the easy knock out points, from his stance he wasn’t mixed martial artist so he would most likely be using the standard boxing style expecting Ito to be doing the same. The match was already over before Aaron threw his first haymaker. Quickly dodging the wild punch Ito drilled him hard in the solar plexus with a devastating cross right, instantly dropping the boy to his knees and groaning from lack of oxygen. The others stared at Ito expecting him to go into a frenzy much as their comrade would, but were surprised when Ito simply bowed and left the hall. Under his breath he muttered something like, ’Stupid fucking idiot’ in native Hong Desa. The smirk could be seen by all he passed back to his room.



The incident in the training hall had disrupted his entire schedule, causing Ito to go back to his room and pray for forgiveness from his ancestors for such a violent display, even though it was thrilling to put someone like Nyles in his place. As the appropriated time approached to meet with the rest of his crew Ito took a few moments to follow a ceremony meant when warriors would put on their armor for war, although it was meant for someone else to help him. The white and grey jacket felt sung as he pulled it over his head, the pants tightened as he strapped the various ammo packs and other essentials he would need. Anything else was placed carefully into a military designed backpack meant to contain supplies and other things. When everything else was in place Ito looked at his helmet, a simple red design with two black almost soulless looking eyes and two respirator holes to filter air through. The brilliant red (along with the theme of his entire suit) was meant to show to everyone that he was from Hong Desa on Libra, a thought which actually filled him with an odd sort of pride.

Placing the helmet on and grabbing the case which contained the Longbow, Ito marched towards the hangar which would hold the drop ship meant to deliver him and his friends to the planet’s surface. The echoes of his boots were lost to him as he kept a dead stare ahead of him. The soldiers he passed were all commenting on the vibrant colors he wore and instantly recognized him as a Guardian and move to let him pass. As he entered the hanger he noticed an older officer who seemed like he was having an aneurism fueled by anger,

’Yup…this is the right place’

Ito boarded the ship without even acknowledging the sergeants existence and moved to step inside. Once there Ito let out a sigh of relief as he saw his friends being the weird and strange people that they were. Aurelia and Wren seemed to be ready to kill each other while Eric and Selene stood back and watched, a better place to be when all hell broke loose. As he approached them both Ito gave a deep respectful bow and addressed them by the honorific titles,

”Hello <Most Honored Commander>, <Most Challenging Rival>. So…what have I missed. What exactly did Wren say or do to piss Aurelia off now?”

Selene adjusted herself into a comfortable sitting within the dropship. The ship itself was quite a complex invention. Its outer hull was clad in numerous auxiliary parts that could carry various land units for transportation. The capacity was based on weight, but it could easily convey two fully assembled Mechs at once. The inside was nothing more than a cargo hold purposed to contain as much equipment and personnel as possible. However, the one that had been commissioned for Selene and her squad was relatively empty, as they did not need much of anything for their mission. The only thing the dropship carried for them was the Rover, a rapid hover vehicle primarily used for scouting missions. Selene had just crossed her legs and covered herself with her scarf, covering most of her body for warmth. Certain bits and stray parts of it flowed slightly, the spirit within feeling itself moderately serene to express its existence. Selene’s blade was resting against the seat next to her, its edge connecting with the metallic floor of the ship.

She listened to Aurelia’s rant with a slight smirk on her lips. Marvelous it was, though, that intense display of Pride and Greed but of Passion for a better life. Selene was not a stranger to assumptions, demands of a certain standard to be obeyed, but hearing it from someone else was a refreshing reminder of her own fallacies. However, the presence of other friendly souls and that hectic existence outside prevented Selene from wallowing too much in her own musings. “There’s nothing to figure out Eric. Aura is the only princess here,” Selene said. The girl tilted her head slightly as she addressed Rosenfeld, the sarcastic tone intensifying with ever chosen syllable. “I’ll make sure that you get the Admiral’s private quarters next time. In fact, I will make sure that they expand and improve it according to your specifications,” Selene chuckled to herself, as she did to Wren's comment. However, she relieved herself of the much intended satire and spoke plainly. “Just relax, we’re on our way now and we won’t be coming back here again. Think about that poor soldier who has to take all of your stuff back to the academy. How do you think he feels? Pfft…,” Selene muttered.

…She can be such a whiny little bitch sometimes… but so can I… I’m not as bad as she is, though… or am I? Whatever… her bitchiness outshines mine, so I think I’m pretty safe…Hmm… but, what does that say about us being bitches together?... that must surely be a sight to remember… I can’t imagine how that store clerk felt that one time when we went shopping for that stuff… what was it again?...Whatever, it was something…and we almost had him fired by complaining about something he said to the supervisor… Hah, classic… he deserved it…

Selene shifted her attention to Eric and his inquiry, just as Ito made his presence known by being the better mannered of the lot. “Well, Ito is right here, and the other two firecrackers should be here shortly. That’s what all that commotion out there is for, to get everyone’s asses moving,” she said.

Sweet, delicious blueberry pancakes drowning in copious amounts of syrup; that’s all Cassie really wanted. She had waited very patiently in the chow hall line, holding her little plastic tray with anticipation, and shuffling through at an agonizingly slow pace. She had bonded with her fellow breakfast-seekers around her and had even gained an invitation to sit and eat with them. She had turned her charm on extra high so she could sweet talk the cook serving food into slapping an extra pancake on her plate. She had waded through the mass of soldiers swirling through the seating area to her table, protecting her treasured food as though the fate of Libra itself depended on it. All of this she did for glorious, perfect stack of flapjacks that now sat before her. Or almost perfect. The only thing left to do was to dump a few gallons of syrup on and enjoy.

But then… Sirens. So many sirens.

Cassie grimaced so hard that someone could have easily thought she’d popped an entire lemon in her mouth. The troop sitting next to her bumped her elbow as he jumped up from the table, immediately disregarding his own food he’d worked so hard to obtain. “C’mon Snowflake, it’s time to go fight a war!” The group of soldiers she’d befriended had bestowed that nickname on her. It made sense, seeing as she was in WARG, which therefore designated her as a ‘special little snowflake.’ She thought it was hilarious and it earned them the names Fodder, Sponge (As in bullet. A bullet sponge. He sponges up bullets.… Ah, nevermind), and Grunt from her; they had laughed seeing as all soldiers had at least some sense of morbid humor.

“But pancakes,” she countered even as she lifted herself from the table. She gave the plate a meaningful look, shrugged, said “Fuck it, I’ll take it to-go,” and then proceeded to down one of the tiny of cups of syrup like a shot. All but one of the pancakes were then unceremoniously shoved into the depths of one of the cargo pockets of the black combat pants she wore. The last she picked up and bit a chunk out of, planning to eat it on the way over.

The guys laughed and waved her along to follow them toward the dropships. “Oh, wait,” Cass said as she trotted up next to Sponge. “I have to grab my sword from my room. Just a little detour,” she added and took the lead as they dipped into one of the smaller corridors that would take them to where her team had been bunked. Luckily the other three had had some foresight and brought all their gear with them, so they’d only need one stop. But to be fair on that point, it was a lot easier for them to carry around a slung rifle than it was for her to lug a giant buster sword.

As they moved Cassie thought that she didn’t much enjoy the interior parts of the dreadnaught, as some of the less heavily populated areas could have some awfully small hallways, but at the same time being in the belly of the beast and surrounded by aircraft off all sorts was pretty awesome. Her eyes arched over the hallway they were currently traversing, some maintenance panels open along its length to reveal the inner workings of the Nautilus, and couldn’t help but wonder at the sheer complexity of mechanics that made the giant chunk of metal fly. So cool. Maybe after the mission she could get a tour of the engine rooms or something. Maybe get to touch one.

By the time Cassie had finished the dry pancake in her hand they’d reached the stretch of hallway her team was bunked in and she ducked into her room quickly to grab her weapon. Even with just the short time that they’d been on the ship, she’d somehow managed to make the space look like she’d let loose her wind spirit Tornado Blast on it; A duffel bag worth of stuff strewn haphazardly around the room. She hopped across the debris to her baby, switched the electromagnetic coils on and off to make sure the accelerator could rocket back and forth through the blades uninhibited, and then popped back into the hall.

“Damn, Snow,” Fodder exclaimed as they started moving again. He lightly touched one of the sword’s edges. It was sharp, really sharp if the tiniest of red lines welling up from his finger was any indication. “You compensating for something?” All she gave him was a sly smirk and a wink.

Once they reached one of the larger halls again, the little group had to speed up to a light jog just to keep with the flow of human traffic. Cassie found herself having to hold her sword at the most awkward angle behind her back and grip it by one of the spacers in the middle of the blades so she didn’t cut someone open on accident in all the hussle. The ship was in what Cass could only describe as a controlled, precise chaos. Nothing about what was going on around her looked organized, not even remotely, but still every single individual knew exactly what they needed to do and moved with profound purpose. Like bees. Lots of big, white and black clad bees. The UDF was a crazy thing.

It didn’t take them long to reach the where the “Dan” was waiting, and Cassie veered out of the human stream with her new buddies in tow, a big grin on her face. “This is me,” she said and indicated the dropship with a jerk of her head before offering her hand to Fodder, Sponge, and then Grunt. They all clasped hands in a strong, warrior handshake and then went to turn their separate ways.

“Hey!” Grunt yelled at her back, “Stay safe out there!”

Cassie waved a hand over her head but didn’t turn around, “Wouldn’t dream of it!” She heard their laughter taper off before being dissolved completely into the loud drone of noise that filled the loading area as she approached the vessel. A sergeant, who she could only assume was the crew chief, gave her the worst stink eye as she walked by but she decided to out blatantly ignore that fact. Instead she gave him the happy greeting of “Morning Sar’nt” before traipsing up the dropship’s cargo ramp to join the rest of her squad already waiting inside.

She couldn’t have said exactly what had transpired there before her arrival, but with a quick glance at each of her friends there she could make a pretty good guess. Aurelia’s face was redder than all of Hong Desa put together and pretty much everyone else had some sort of smirk going. That was really all she needed to know to figure out what she, herself, needed to do. So, without missing a beat, Cassie pulled a hunk of blueberry pancake from her pocket and held it out to the other girl. “You look like you could use some pancake,” she said sweetly, employed the most shit-eating grin she had in her arsenal, and shook her hand holding the aforementioned food a few times so that it flopped up and down a bit in what could be considered an enticing matter if one were a dog.

It did not take long before the pilot signaled for a hasty departure. The sound of Pulse Fire roared outside the thick plating of the Nautilus. The Dreadnaught had begun its bombardment of the wastelands around Astral to clear them of the Mordrem infestation. Such ruckus had caught the attention of hulking monsters capable of lobbing infectious bio-mass into the atmosphere and fast moving flyers that were particularly harmful would they enter the interiors of Nautilus. The U.D.F. Air Force was hard at work and yet again had the chance to show High Command what they were made of. Most pilots of the U.D.F. were highly revered, only second to Guardians, even the ones controlling massive Mechs. Their minds and bodies had to do so many different things simultaneously that it would make the lesser of kin tremble. A red light flickered and illuminated the inside of the dropship. It warned of the slowly closing cargo bay doors through which the squad had entered. The Sergeant and his men were the last to enter and buckle up. It was time to leave the safety of the Nautilus and the things above Libra. It was time to cast oneself into the depths of danger on a world once called ‘home’.

The drop to the surface was a bumpy ride. Even if they were tightly strapped into special chairs located along the walls of the ship, Selene and those of lighter frames still trembled in their seating. Of course, the highly armored U.D.F. soldiers accompanying the Sergeant barely moved where they sat, as their gear kept them in place. They were an interesting bunch, the typical testosterone-infused maniacs with feisty attitudes. They shouted and high-fived each other as the dropship tilted to near ninety degree angle, its nose pointing straight down. “Express elevator to Hell, going down!” One of the soldiers shouted, and the others laughed hysterically. Obviously, ‘protecting’ the drop of Selene’s squad was not their only mission. They were to join the primary assault once their secondary objective was completed. However, such was not the case for Selene and her friends. They had been strictly forbidden to join the primary effort, especially after retrieving the ‘sensitive assets & information,’ whatever it was.

As the dropship leveled out, the pilot announced forty-five seconds until target drop location. Selene and the others began to unbuckled and make ready for disembarking. The U.D.F. soldiers prepared the ‘Rover’ that would serve as the squad’s transportation from the dropship to the highly classified rally point. The hover machine was a custom modification, stripped of all tracking devices and other identifying features. This meant that they had to be careful with where they traveled with it, as they could be tagged as the enemy and blown to bits and pieces by artillery. “Listen up!” The Sergeant spoke, but getting the squad’s attention was much more difficult than one could imagine. They were, after all, a bunch of misfits and anarchists who did everything their own way, only ever slightly listening to their supposed commander. “Hey!” Selene shouted to get everyone locked on the Sergeant, whom grunted. “Thank you, Commander. We will drop you here,” The Sergeant pointed at a holographic map that was displayed on the wall around which everyone had gathered, “and from there, you will travel with the Rover until you reach the enclosed, classified rally point,” he continued and handed Selene an unmarked, sealed envelope. “Be advised, this is a black operation, and as such, you cannot receive any form of U.D.F. support should you need it,” the Sergeant concluded. Selene simply nodded to acknowledge the information. “God Speed Commander,” the Sergeant said and hit a button that opened the cargo bay doors.



The squad was dropped on the outskirts of Astral. It was a marshland devoid of any noticeable Mordrem activity, thus not bombarded by Nautilus. Most of the hostile activity emanated from the North, whereas marshland was located in the south. The friends were relatively silent during the short ride with the Rover. Or at least Selene sat in quietude and observed the surrounding environment. Things seemed too quiet for being a large scale assault. She could undoubtedly hear the commotion from the city nearby, Mordrem roars and gunfire, but the marshlands were suspiciously dormant. However, that suspicious proved to be factual. A massive slab of slime infested mud was suddenly flung at the vehicle, which came to a screeching halt and crashed into the shallow waters of the marsh. The abrupt stop propelled Selene and her friends forward in a chaotic manner. While some manage to gracefully land on their feet, Selene was not as lucky. The girl had sat at an angle that she could not recover from during mid-flight, thus found herself completely soaked in the pestilent waters. However, she was not hurt. As the force was softened by the muddy waters and weeds of the marsh, the friends managed to recover within the minute. “Is everyone alright?” Selene shouted.

In that moment, that which had caused the crash crawled over the wrecked Rover and revealed itself. It was a hideous creature with large, deadened eyes, razor sharp fins and fangs, and an illuminated antenna dangling from its forehead. It was also rather small, no taller than the average human person. It was obviously the result of the Mordrem disease, or what laymrn called the ‘Divine’ disease, as it came from the Heavens with the Calamity. The creature appeared to be some kind of deep sea fish, but how or why it had appeared on the surface was a mystery. It emitted a gurgling sound as it snarled at the friends, clearly indicating hostility. Not that any of that mattered to Selene. The creature had just wrecked their transportation, which meant that they had to trek through the marsh for the remainder of the distance. This realization did not sit well with Selene. “Is this a joke?” She snapped, and readied her weapon. “Kill that thing, we don’t have time for this!”

Suddenly, a pulsating red light filled the dropship interior, coating everyone inside in a fluorescent crimson. Leaving Aurelia fuming and haughty, as she so often is even without being teased mercilessly, Wren began to prepare her equipment, sitting in her designated seat and buckling the seatbelts across her torso. The belts jostled only slightly as the ship descended toward the surface of Libra, as Wren’s heavy armor pulled it tautly against her.

As the dropship tilted extremely toward the planet, hurtling down fast, Wren found her adrenaline aligning with those of the common soldiers of the U.D.F. with which they were seated; as they shouted and laughed enthusiastically, her own heart began to race as she imagined the potential combat and enemies they would face. She grinned maniacally and punched the shoulder of a nearby grunt. Though Wren knew that she and her squad would not be joining the main assault on the Mordrem, she figured their mission, stealth-based as it was, would inevitably involve those who would resolve to keep the information they were seeking safely in their possession. And any opposition to their mission meant war.

The ship started to slow itself and level with the ground, and everyone unbuckled themselves. Wren and her team gathered around the Sergeant as he presented a map showing the location of their objective. She was only barely paying attention; watching the other soldiers prepare their land Rover made her even more pumped for action. Her Electric Frenzy began to whir and zip around her excitedly. They all crowded into the Rover, and were instantly thrust down into the murky bogs of Astral.

After a few tense minutes of Wren’s lightning spirit zapping her fellow Guardians, a glob of mud splatted without warning against the side of the vehicle, causing it to rock and crash-land straight into the marshes. Wren barely managed to grab a hold of her seat, but she watched Selene fall out of the Rover and into the muck. Urgently, she jumped out, wanting to make sure she was all right; grabbing her by the forearm and helping her up, she looked back toward the vehicle and saw the disgusting, fish-like creature clambering over the top, its claws digging into the metal roof. Its sharply-fanged mouth foamed and spat, and its milky eyes swiveled dizzyingly.

Wren was absolutely elated, and swung back her baton in her clenched fist, extending it to its full length. Her Engulfer was nearly as eager as she was, and it lit up her eyes in glistening flames. Suddenly, the Lurker backed up a few inches from the group, squinting its bulbous eyes at Wren and shrieking. She found this behavior to be rather odd; though she figured this creature was blind, it seemed to be aware of the heat emanating from her.

Of course – it’s afraid of fire! Wren realized.

“Everyone!” she shouted, flames erupting from her baton in ribbons, “Let me handle this one...”

Sprinting and leaping up onto the vehicle, she pulled back her weapon and swung it hard at the Lurker; it crouched down, barely avoiding contact but being scorched by the fire, and opened it salivating maw. A giant ball of slime began to swirl in its yawning mouth, and it blasted out instantly. Wren, thinking quickly, ripped off a sheet of metal from the roof of the Rover and used it as an impromptu shield. She jumped up again for an aerial attack and slammed down onto the vile creature, piercing its right arm. Thick, black blood spat everywhere, and the Lurker wailed in agony. Wren wrenched her baton from the creature and raised it, ready to attack once more, but this time it had already formed another slimeball and shot it at her, drenching her in the foul ooze and knocking her off the Rover; she landed on her feet, wiped the ooze from her eyes, and prepared herself for another assault.

Seated within the dropship, Eric straightened his spectacles and tightened up his combat vest. He was already strapped and harnessed into his chair when the ship began its drop; he could hear and envision all the artillery fire from the ships above, covering their descent towards the surface of Libra. The journey itself wasn't eventful; bumpy sure, but that was expected during reentry into the planet's atmosphere. It sure was boring though, so he busied himself with Fayth. His quick inspection ran over everything; first the military-grade targeting computer in the octagonal center body, calibrated and synced with the UDF mainframe. Next, the main length, which included the barrel and the long magnetic tines that comprised the firing system, seated snugly within their housings inside the stark white rectangular plastic frame. He checked through each of Fayth's configurations, making sure the parts of the barrel assembly lengthened and folded back smoothly, while the tines themselves were properly powered in their various states. After that, he checked the sight assembly, making sure all the small lenses were not broken or scratched, since he kept them in tip top shape every day. The grip was alright and the butt stock was fully lubricated and ready for use. Everything good to go. Along with the ammunition in his pouches, he was one hundred percent ready to go.

The dropship leveled out and everyone breathed easy. The sergeant they were with began a briefing to which he paid full attention to, while the other soldiers busied themselves with preparing the Rover. Their mission was simple: a search and retrieval somewhere in this wasteland. They were to be dropped further ahead, then to proceed to the coordinates provided in the envelope Selene was given. With no more words, the team saddled up in the Rover and Eric followed them. He bade the soldiers farewell with a wave of his hand as they dropped and then the ship was a shrinking dot on the horizon. Their vehicle was a small craft, almost like a hovercraft, except this was powered by several small repulsors that were angled to give them forward momentum and stability, obviously controlled by a computer. Almost like a cruiser, in a way. He sat back and relaxed, enjoying what little scenery there was in the marsh. Nothing was going wrong, and that was good.

That was when Electric Frenzy decided to zap him. It made him yelp and start out of his chair slightly.

The cheeky little thing. He smiled and played with it a little, using Fayth's long end to prod it gently while it flitted here and there. Eric knew Shock resided within Fayth, and occasionally the grumpy old spirit would forgo his grumpiness to step out and keep the little ball of energy company. Today wasn't one of those days, sadly. He watched as the little yellow orb travelled up and down Fayth's barrel assembly, as if it were searching for Shock. Amusing. The little spirit was almost like a small pet animal in its simplicity. He enjoyed such moments like this. Made it seem like everything was normal.

That illusion was shattered when a glob of some came flying in out of nowhere and smacked their vehicle upside the front end, causing it to tip over forward and dig its nose into the water and mud. Eric held on tightly to his seat as it screeched to an almighty halt and came to rest in the murky water, the engines all but shot from the sudden immersion. They sparked and thrummed to a halt as he clambered out of his tilted seat and splashed down feet first into the muck. Not like he was a stranger to getting his shoes and pants wet; there was always the laundry and he always had replacements. As he righted himself he saw a fish beast rise from the water, no doubt the one that had pelted their craft and crashed it. Wren, as usual, charged in first, scoring a hit on the creature's arm, and she was splattered with goo and tossed backwards, taking the first hit, as usual. He deployed Fayth in her standard rifle config and took aim with a plan in mind.

"Fellows, I am going to freeze this thing in place. Then you can unleash whatever torments you have in store for it."

As he said this, a cold fog began to seep from the seams in his clothes and his hands began coating themselves in ice. Frost was making himself known and he was getting comfy within Fayth as he enchanted and froze the rounds within his magazine. Eric steadied his aim and racked the slide, feeling the first icy round slide right into the chamber, whereupon it was held tightly in place by the powerful magnet at the rear of the rifle. Its tines deployed from the from housing, the rectangular body turning horizontal as the long quad lengths of electromagnetised plas-steel extended from their housings. He took aim, set his finger on the pressure trigger on the grip, and squeezed. The trigger sent an impulse to the magnet holding the round in place, switching its polarity from attraction to repulsion, and that sent the steel bullet shooting straight down the short barrel, out into the powerful magnetic field created by the four tines, whereupon it was accelerated to almost ten times its original speed and erupted from Fayth in a small cloud of ice crystals. It slammed into the fish thing and tore right through its other shoulder, but not before spreading a large patch of ice over its shoulder and arm that rapidly spread down to its fingers and froze the limb solid. Another round loaded into the chamber, Eric aimed lower and squeezed the trigger again, and another high velocity round gouged itself a neat home in its knee, freezing that leg and the water it was immersed in completely solid. One more round punched into its other leg and it was firmly rooted in place, never to move unless it thawed.

In response, the thing gurgled and opened its mouth as it gathered more slime to hurl at him, but along with this another, clearer orb formed within the growing sphere of muck within its maw. What then shot forth was a torrent of gunge and muck, high enough in intensity to completely blow Eric off his feet and into the drink several feet behind him, whereupon he sputtered as he got back awkwardly onto his feet, everything of his now soaking wet and the most shocked expression on his face as he spat out a mouthful of marsh water.

"Disgusting, ugh! I might have to incinerate this set of clothes when we're done with the mission!"

First, there were the quips courtesy of Selene. Then, Ito and Eric had noticed the tension, and each of them had offered their own two cents.

But this? This was disgraceful.

Ducking out from underneath Wren and her stupid pantomiming of decorating Aurelia with an imaginary crown (like she was some kind of festive holiday tree! The nerve!), batting at Wren's hands in the process, Aurelia scowled. "Don't touch me, you insufferable brute!" she hissed, tone a curious mix of petulant and exasperated. Mostly annoyed, though. Very much annoyed.

Aurelia’s trigger finger was positively itching now, and the urge to limber up her twinblade and bludgeon someone to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp was absolutely maddening. Deep breaths, Aurelia. You’re a Rosenfeld. Act like it. Air hissed as it seethed out from between tightly clenched teeth, jaw rigid and nostrils flaring ever-so-slightly.

Princess. The word clung to her like a brand, swooping across the very fabric of her being in large, prominent arcs. She was vaguely aware of her face’s attempt to stage a revolt by contorting in a truly distasteful fashion. A lump formed in her throat, thick and solid and uncomfortably hot. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it before, caught in fleeting snippets from maids with gentle smiles and eyes like liquid fire, from the world’s true monsters - the kind that hid behind human flesh, wielding their smiles like knives and using their lies as the grindstone.

So why did it still sting?

Something cold coiled around her heart, something cold and dark and painful. Her insides simmered uncomfortably, but it wasn’t that intense, all-consuming rage from before. It was softer, somehow, more subdued, like it didn’t quite want to confess to existing but couldn’t quite allow itself to lurk in the locked, hidden recesses of Aurelia’s mind for much longer. (She supposed, somewhat wryly, that she couldn’t quite blame it; that would be a miserable existence, indeed. Far scarier a prospect than anyone really ought to contemplate.)

The cold thing twisted inside her chest, and her throat tightened, constricted by the ever-expanding lump, and she became increasingly aware of her current location’s biggest geological flaw: the lack of a dark, enormous hole in which to hide.

Still, Aurelia was a Rosenfeld, and Rosenfelds did not let a petty retort shock them into silence. “Oh, yes.” Her voice had long since transcended sweet and was swerving dangerously toward nauseatingly saccharine. “And the princess is the one who can order the executions, so, if I were you, I’d really try not to lose my head.”

That . . . was awful. That was the single worst pun ever to pollute this already disgusting atmosphere with its tainted presence. That was atrocious. Heinous. Sinful! And then I’ve got the gall to wonder why they target me like I’ve got a ring painted on my back.

She opened her mouth to add something else, possibly try to rectify this train wreck of a conversation before it decided to maximise the casualties by derailing any further, and then there was a hunk of something being shoved in front of her face. It almost resembled a sponge, fluffy-looking and porous, save for the sporadic outcrop of very small, very dark - were those blueberries? Was that a - ?

Aurelia very carefully, very slowly, very deliberately closed her mouth. She dropped her hands to her lap, upon which the compressed, collapsed form of her baby, her precious, if not a bit pretentiously-named Silverlight Twinblade rested. This emotion was different. It wasn’t like anger, which you could identify by the burn and the red and the sudden, scarily mutinous urge to strangle. This wasn’t like guilt or shame, all soft and chilly and hesitant and all-enveloping.

It was - she couldn’t classify it. It was very odd. Very, very, very unusual, and that was precisely why it made experiencing it so uncomfortable. All she knew was it felt exactly how those hideous Crocs shoes paired with athletic toe-socks and leg warmers looked.

“That’s…very kind of you, Cassie,” Aurelia answered mechanically, face going slack. She could almost see her own mind retreating, leaving basic cognitive functions to some kind of autopilot as it tried, desperately, to recoil from the horror. She started to say something else, some empty platitude, before her expression sharpened. It blinked through terror, muddled its way through confusion, and finally chose hunted as its hill to die on.

Then the airship jostled, and Aurelia’s head snapped against the back of her seat. It had clearly been designed for someone taller and broader in the shoulder, but for once, she wasn’t about to offer any complaint. The ship’s walls were lined with metal, and her diminutive stature was the only thing that’d prevented her from dashing her head against the wall and possibly caving it in.

(Providence had chosen, in a show of divine wisdom, to offer some sort of distraction as a form of intervention. There was the frighteningly real chance that, had the ship not chosen to accelerate during its drop to the surface, jostling Aurelia out of her fantasies of bloodshed, Selene would have had to make a very uncomfortable call to Gunter Rosenfeld, explaining why his daughter had been incarcerated for multiple charges of manslaughter.)

The Sergeant had also chosen that moment to deliver a hasty, makeshift debriefing, which Aurelia supposed was somewhat beneficial. At any rate, the lack of information divulged shed a bit of light on the type of mission this was supposed to be.

They were going in completely, utterly blind (unless Selene had some sort of auxiliary knowledge under her belt), and there was a high chance of death. Hadn’t that one soldier called this place hell? Besides, surely the U.D.F. wouldn’t refuse to provide aid unless they were banking on this batch of “assets” being compromised beyond extraction somewhere along the line. It was like how, upon learning of a cave-in at one of his more remote mines, Gunter refused to commence any of the numerous rescue procedures. It was a lost cause, he’d claimed, and not worth risking any more “lives” (by which he had meant credits, because he was a predictable bastard. The memory still left an acrid taste in Aurelia’s mouth, especially when she thought of the miners, terrified and huddled in the dark with little more than a handful of pickaxes for protection. You couldn’t easily kill yourself with a pickaxe, either, and the company rumor was that some of the bodies had been found mutilated and, in one disturbing case, partially digested.)

Or maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe it was just the product of her exasperated, overtaxed, exceedingly hyperactive imagination.

After the Sergeant's speech concluded, it was time to disembark. It was almost kind of funny, because he’d probably meant for his speech to inspire a sense of patriotism, or maybe some kind of battle-lust into his troops, but all Aurelia could think was this was what war was. Risking your life. Fighting even when you didn’t want to fight. An involuntary chill scuttled down Aurelia’s back, raising a trail of goosebumps in its wake, and her grip around the Silverlight Twinblade tensed. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that we avoid any open mine shafts,” she muttered under her breath, tone as bitter as it was caustic.

The Rover’s interior was quiet, which was, for this particular entourage of inanity, a rarity. Aurelia would normally even go so far as to call it a luxury, but, having spent the past few minutes ruminating on cannibalism and dark, eerie caves, she almost, sort of wished someone would speak up. Even to incite some kind of argument. She’d even tolerate a bit of teasing, just . . . eugh, she really needed to learn to rein in her imagination. Ah, well - at least it can’t get much worse, what with the whole budding existential crisi -

Aurelia really would have loved to finish that thought. In fact, the opportunity to complete one cohesive string of concerted thought would have brought tears to her eyes. She might even have crumpled to her knees, hands clasped in reverent adoration, a stream of awe-inspired praise flowing rapid-fire from her lips.

But, alas, she had an unreciprocated love for the ability to finish a damn sentence, and it was not meant to be. (She was pretty sure it had been outlined, written in the stars, and then bolded for extra emphasis, size 42 font.)

A massive ball of gunk splattered against the Rover in one mighty crash. Aurelia lurched forward, eyes wide and mouth ajar, and her seatbelt was a little loose - it was too big, meant for someone taller - and she was slipping and there was a hole in the fucking door, oh, god, something was out there and it was hostile and for some reason, flinging her arms around her twinblade and squeezing for dear life seemed like a really sound decision. The force of impact rocked the vehicle almost precariously, threatening to topple it, and it was only thanks to the Silverlight Twinblade impaling itself through the roof that Aurelia didn’t go careening out the hole in the side. (Later, she would discover Selene had filled comedy’s need for karmic retribution in the form of a ritual sacrifice to the marsh, thus sparing Aurelia a grisly (and grimy) fate. She’d have to thank Selene some time, honestly. One could only have so bad a day before things just became plain mean.)

“Shit!” Normally, she wasn’t one for profanities - she was a Rosenfeld, after all - but something had just lobbed a ball of its own muck at the Rover and nearly knocked her out the side. Coiled around her own personal instrument of destruction like a baby koala, face wan and distinctly ruffled, Aurelia’s fingers clutched the weapon’s shaft, knuckles squeezing tight enough to adopt a rather pasty hue. With how white she was normally, it was kind of a neat trick. One foot prodded tentatively at the Rover’s floor, the tip of her boot scuffing against the dull, mud-splattered metal.

The Silverlight Twinblade chose that moment to dislodge from the Rover’s ceiling, and gravity chose that moment to remind Aurelia that small mercies didn’t exist. The ground hurtled up to meet her, and she dropped like a sack of bricks, the padded heels of her boots barely absorbing the shock. She landed with a splash, submerged to the knee in cloudy, murky water, and - oh, gods, was that mud? On her new, dry-clean only pants?

Her fingers clenched. She gritted her teeth. Her lips drew back in a ferocious snarl, nose wrinkled in absolute disgust, and her eyes were narrowed something fierce as she regarded the culprit behind the accident. Cherry Bomb’s heat enveloped her twinblade in a shimmering orange glow. The surrounding air rippled from the heat in great, blurry waves, and an octet of flickering orange fireballs exploded into being.

Wren’s baton had wounded the thing, and Eric’s shot immobilized it, and there it was, all pathetic and foul and vulnerable.

Aurelia’s lips curved into a truly haughty sneer. “Disgusting,” she proclaimed, and, raising her arm as if she were about to begin conducting an orchestra, she flicked her wrist. The fireballs launched forward one by one, pelting the vile beast in rapid succession, each one targeting a different part of its body. Two to the head, one to the stomach, and the rest divided between its appendages. Had its limbs not been frozen in place, it most likely would have staggered.

Well, at least now she had both an excuse and a healthy outlet through which to vent her frustrations, right? Plus, it was self defense, so any actions performed as an act of retaliation were completely and undeniably justified.

Oh man, these dropships were awesome. Cassie twisted precariously in the five-point harness that strapped her down to the row of jumper seats bolted to the interior wall of the aircraft, hoping to get a good look out of the cockpit windows as they began their nose-dive to Libra’s surface. The mass of little butterflies that hid in her began fluttering to life all at once and lifted her stomach. They frenzied to churn all her stored adrenaline through her body faster and faster and the buzz of it thrummed through her every nerve-ending to make her light and giddy. She loved that feeling. Constantly strove for it, really. Everything was so much more keen, more real… more alive. The boundless energy that normally simmered beneath the thin layers of her skin, waiting for the opportunity to explode forth, began to boil.

She couldn’t help but grin, especially as the excitement from the others bounced around the ship, but still didn’t peel her glittering black eyes from the tiny slice of window she had snagged from her current angle. She watched as they blasted through the layers of the planet’s atmosphere quickly. She felt the steadily increasing jostle of metal as the ship muscled it’s way into the condensing air and Cassie’s excitement rode along beside it. Only when they had busted through the last layers of cloud cover did the 'Dan' finally lift its nose to decrease speed and Cassie took that as her cue to release the catch of her harness and stand up; riding the last few thousand feet down with only a hand on the wall to steady herself.

The drop came to a complete halt and Cassie pushed herself off the wall to head for their little transport craft. She grabbed up the nearest ratchet strap that secured it down to the floor of the ship and loosened it up enough so the troopers could unhook it from the other side. Helping was good, and she was glad to lend a hand, and hurrying up the start to their mission was even better.

"Hey!"

Cass threw her eyes towards Selene, and she had a no-nonsense look about her that made the other woman reluctantly join the group to hear the plan. Regardless of the fact that their Anatolia born friend rarely followed the things to begin with, calling what the sergeant had told them a “plan” was generous at best. Even by Cassie standards. Actually, to be fair it was pretty close to what she would have come up with had she been forced into the job. Essentially, go there and do a thing. She could probably handle that.

Cassie liked the marshes, she decided as she watched the landscape speed by from her position hanging halfway off the little cruiser. They weren’t all that pretty, exactly, and the smell was a little off with all the stagnant water around, but it was real. Not a synthetic, terra-formed sciencey land like Elysium had, but actual Libra. And not home either, exactly, but it was closer than she had been to it in a long time. Hell, if you added a little permafrost and some white, it’d look just like many parts of her home continent. All flat and brooding in its icy hibernation. She smiled into the rushing wind.

A heavy jolt from the opposite side of the craft launched her out of her musings, but luckily not off the side of the vehicle. She had instinctively flung her sword away from the impending crashing halt though, because flailing bodies around an unwieldy, stupidly sharp beast as hers was not the best thing to have. And because accidentally decapitating, de-limbing, gutting, or otherwise maiming her best friends was not very high up there on her list of ‘fun things to do.’ She’d really need to work out an appropriate sheath to house her uniquely constructed blades when they got back.

Two things became very apparent to Cassie then. One, she probably had too good of a throwing arm for her own good. And two, they were being attacked by a large fish… thing. Wren already had a head start on her and was running headlong at it, but now she had to get her sword back? Everyone else was going to kill the stupid beastie before she even got a single lick in. Lame. "Shit! Time out, guys! I wanna play too!"

She dashed, or at least slogged as fast as she could, towards the hilt of her weapon sticking resolutely out of the marsh waters. She didn’t dare try to Pull the thing to her. As simple as her two oldest spirits may have seemed to work at a quick glance, they were actually incredibly finicky, intricate things. There were a lot of factors that changed the velocity in which things moved to or away from her, and she had learned the hard way that her sword had a tendency to hurtle. She had also learned the hard way that trying to catch said hurtling sword was not the greatest. So she ran.

She grabbed the sword up and gave it a good flick to dislodge all the muck that had jammed between the spacers. Now, she thought, she was more than willing to use Pull. Immediately two little wisps of spirits appeared whirling complicatedly around her person, chasing each other but always maintaining a precise, equal distance between them. Always together, but opposites, Cassie suspected they were somehow spirit-twins.The one with the coppery sheen was Pull, and Push a bright silver.

Cass jumped straight up out of the water, getting herself at the proper angle, before rocketing herself back towards the fight via the metal of their transport. She’d stopped pulling nearly as quickly as she had started, but the strength of it gave her more than enough momentum to make the sixty or so yard horizontal leap. Guardian strength meant that she didn’t snap her legs as they impacted with the ship, and instead she used that energy to spring off the vehicle. A little change in trajectory had her flying towards their fishy enemy, who was currently enjoying a few fireballs courtesy of Aurelia, and she adjusted the grip ever so slightly on her sword in preparation for a swing.

A torrent of water from the Mordrem clipped her right side as she closed the distance between them, attempting to throw her off from her stationary target. And while it did send her into a far less graceful, spinning flight than what she had previously employed, Cassie still managed to orient herself enough to angle her sword so that she cut a deep line along its mushy side as she tumbled past.

Cassie’s descent into marsh waters was pretty spectacular, her speed making her skip on her ass a few times like a flat rock before coming to final, big splashing stop. She popped back up onto her feet immediately, grinning widely despite the slight dizziness she had from all the head over heels spinning and the fact that her pocket pancakes had undoubtedly been ruined from the swampy waters. Ah well. On the up side, she was now stood flanking their oozing friend; If he hadn’t decided to lay down and die yet, he was about to.

Oh such horrid muck! Selene cursed beneath her breath as she floundered to recover with the aid of blueish fire. The already loosely flowing garments soaked in pestilent waters now slobbered and slithered around her body. Luckily, the fierce and trusty soldiers of her squad had been quick to act. The confrontation with the vile creature proved to be a short-lived endeavor. Wren had scorched their adversary with her fiery spirits and golden baton, Eric had gracefully unleashed puncturing and frozen projectiles from his trusty companion, Aurelia had let loose a hellish barrage of infernal spheres upon the defiant, and Cassandra had touched the skies and returned with such force that brought the enemy to its knees. The horrid creature uttered multitude of disgusting gurgling sounds, as if attempting to speak, while hemorrhaging from various cuts and gashes.

Selene thrust her blade into the emptiness of the marsh to relieve it of mud and muck. She gathered enough strength of body to propel herself out of the murky waters and into the vicinity above. The spirit of enmity within her enormous scarf quickly sprung to life and embraced the girl in shadowy smoke, sprawling and spurring her forth. She emerged from that dark refuge with a fierce display of rage and hatred, meeting the vile creature with a gaping maw ready to devour. That spirit of brooding and jealousy made itself known by growing and sharpening Selene’s canines, ready to rip and rend through flesh and bone. Alas, none of her efforts came to pass. The creature unleashed a hail of teeth-like corals that slammed into Selene’s body akin the indomitable force imposed by a vessel upon dormant ice. Once again, Palamecia crashed into the pestilent waters of the marsh. And the horrid beast escaped into some manner of sinkhole further away.

This time, however, Selene’s shadowy spirits assisted her away from the muck. As her dilated pupils returned to their normal state and her canines retreated similarly, she damned the situation once again. “Damn it, how did not someone see that coming?!” She waved her arms violently about. “Now we have to walk through this cursed marsh all the way to God knows where… Fuck!” She shouted while attempting to open the soaked envelope containing the classified orders. From what she could comprehend from the message was that it contained coordinates, which required a Global Positioning System-device. Selene balled the piece of paper up and tossed it at Wren. “Get into the Rover wreck and salvage the damn GPS… fucking geniuses wrote down coordinates that we can’t read without it,” Selene muttered.

Later, as the friends trekked through the marsh, they could see and hear the ongoing assault on the city of Astral just beyond the marsh. Wren had been successful in her endeavors to retrieve the GPS, so they were on their way in the right direction, which was leading them to an access point to the city sewer system. As if they were not wet and stinky enough, they now had to probably crawl and flounder through waste. “Oh, this is just wonderful…,” Selene muttered once again. However, before she could burst into another rant about the incompetent nature of U.D.F. Intelligence, a frail woman emerged from the massive drainage pipe that flowed its content into the marsh. A number of people were following her closely in ragged clothing, along with children and whatever they could carry. They were obviously refugees escaping Astral through the sewer system. Selene nearly cut the woman’s head of as she readied her blade, but instantly back off. One could smell the fear in the air.

“It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you,” Selene said.
“Help us, please,” the woman pleaded, “there are more of us coming, but they are stuck behind a cave in. There was a large explosion above us and our group was separated. I also think that I heard Mordrem screech, but I cannot be sure,” she continued.
“Look, ma’am, we’re not here for the assault, we can’t help you,” Selene said. The woman then clenched onto Selene, who cautiously resisted.
“Please! My little boy is in there, he is just six years of age! He was born in this hell and I can’t leave him!” the woman cried.

Selene glanced at her friends who stood behind her, as an indication to weigh in on the matter. Helping the refugees would set them even further off course from their mission, and perhaps cause them to fail it altogether, but ignoring them could potentially have worse repercussions down the road both physically and mentally.

Wren barely had time to blink when her friends assaulted the Lurker with their Etro-given ferocity; the creature, near-dying, just managed to escape further damage from their hellish attacks, disappearing into the mud with a tiny squelch.

”Haha, run, coward! We—“ Wren was just about to compliment everyone’s teamwork when a crumpled piece of paper hit her square in the forehead. She caught it before it could drop into the marshy waters; she looked over at the perpetrator, who was giving her a particularly unpleasant look.

“Get into the Rover wreck and salvage the damn GPS… fucking geniuses wrote down coordinates that we can’t read without it,” Selene commanded her grumpily.

Wren had been friends with Selene long enough to know that she wasn’t in the mood for banter. She simply saluted her in a mocking fashion and ducked into the Rover, mumbling too quietly for her to hear, “No, that’s fine, no need to thank me.”

Looking down at the sizzling wreckage of the control panel, she found the GPS system fairly easily, but there was a problem – the screen cover had a giant crack from the rough touchdown running along its glass surface, so it was essentially unreadable. However, all of the location data seemed to be unscathed, and it found their position without fail.

”Well, I guess we don’t really need the cover…” she thought to herself. And with that, she pulled out her baton and, with the handle end, smashed the glass into a thousand pieces, which scattered everywhere on the dashboard. Satisfied with her improvisation, she tore out the wires of the GPS connecting it to the Rover and pulled it out from its metal sheath. It was functioning perfectly, and its heavy power brick assured that it would be able to work wirelessly for at least a couple of days.

***

Meanwhile, GPS in tow, the squad was on their way to the designated access point. It seemed they would have to traverse the sewer system in order to discreetly arrive at their destination. Though she wasn’t as prissy as Aurelia and Eric, Wren wasn’t exactly thrilled about this prospect. They were approaching a giant drainage pipe when, suddenly, a group of desperate-looking people clambered out of it. They were clad in old, dirty clothes, and seemed to have been traveling through the sewers for quite a while.

The refugees begged and pleaded to them for help; apparently, their group had been separated by a cave-in, and they needed to be reunited. Wren considered the problem carefully; while the idea of failing their mission filled her with dread and shame, she couldn’t ignore the possibility that the other half of the refugees would undoubtedly die if they were truly faced with Mordrem. She had gone this far without having to deal with the reality of war, loss, and sacrifice – she just couldn't weigh the options in her mind with the same resolve as those who have experienced Libra first-hand. But she knew that by refusing these refugees and continuing with the assignment, she would gain the respect of the higher-ups of the U.D.F. … and lose her self-respect. Wren decided that it just wasn’t worth it.

”Selene, we can’t just ignore them,” she said finally, dissipating the heavy silence in the air. ”If we worked together, we could probably carve a hole through the cave-in large enough for them to fit in without losing much time.”

"Oh blast it!"

Eric had tried to finish off the fish thing with a few more well aimed shots but it was simply too fast for him. It escaped before he could even reload to finish the job. Grumbling, he ejected the spent magazine and shoved it into one of his vest's pouches, pulled a fresh one from the same place and jammed it into Fayth. As Wren went for the GPS he took up position next to but just behind Selene, rifle at the ready. No telling what else lurked in the marsh.

---

An hour of trudging through mud and murky water later, the group finally came towards solid ground; a sewer entrance, most fittingly. As they approached there came a group of refugees, bedraggled and dirty, the poor folk looked like they'd just escaped the brunt of the fighting, but from their conversation with their leader, they had reason to be worried. A cave in? Modrem? Trapped people? The three together didn't make for a particularly good image. Eric frowned. Not an hour into their first mission and already the dilemma no soldier wanted to face. On the one hand, saving the refugees earned them the trust of the people but the ire of their employers, but on the other hand refusing to help them weighed heavily on the conscience. Morals or mission?

Morals or mission...

"Selene, we should help them. For all we know the same cave in could be blocking our route forward. If we can kill two birds with one stone, why don't we?"

He felt for these poor people. His first time actually seeing Librans on their home planet and it was in this sorry state? He wouldn't stand for it. These people needed hope badly, and if a ragtag bunch of misfit youths with weapons and spirits was all there was, then by jove he'd provide.

"Wren's right, Seley. We're armed with spirits to help us, we could be through that cave in quick as a whistle. It won't make us deviate from our mission."

Cassie waded after their fishy foe even as it was swallowed up into the murky waters of the marshlands. A few pot shots at its fleeing form from their designated marksman didn’t seem to have any effect on it, but Cassie wanted to make sure the thing wasn’t lying in wait just beneath the surface. A few good stabs with her buster sword into the waters where the thing had made its escape later, nothing decided to pop back up to the surface to say hello. “Quick little bugger,” she mumbled to herself with a shrug and began trudging back towards the group. She was going to count that as a kill for her. After all, she’d got the last hit on it, and in her book that totally counted.

She smiled despite Selene’s frustrated yelling. As far as Cassie could tell, nobody dying or being injured meant things had gone pretty damned good, if not having to endure a slightly anticlimactic ending to their battle. But she let their leader rant without so much as a witty quip. The other woman was very much the perfectionist, Cassie knew, and no amount of telling her that it was impossible to plan for something like a giant fish monster spitting slime at their transport would make her berate herself less. It’d probably just make it worse, really.

So instead she just planted her weapon into the ground and pulled her soaking shirt over her head and wrang it out several times before tucking it into her belt. There was nothing she could do about her drenched pants or soggy, water-logged boots, but at least she wouldn’t have to deal with that horribly clingy, wet sensation of her tee. She had a sports bra on anyway, so it’s not like it mattered; she ran around the gym in less all the time. And man, it was so much more comfortable.

The rest of their trip through the swampy lands was unfortunately uneventful. Cassie spent the first little bit amusing herself by throwing pieces of wet pancake from her pocket to the little fishes and critters they came across on their trek, and later swinging around her sword arbitrarily to keep her muscles warmed up and ready to fight.

Eventually a cityscape came into view, and with it the slight rumblings and flashes of UDF ships laying waste through barrages of artillery fire. She bet there was a lot more excitement going on within the confines of the city. And she was sure they would have been doing a lot more damage to the enemy’s ranks had their group been allowed to fight. Sponge, Grunt, and Fodder (not to mention thousands of other soldiers she hadn’t met) were out in Astral somewhere, fighting the Mordrem threat without Guardians to back them up. The piece of paper, or whatever it was they were fetching, had better be important. The fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword itched, and she realized that she had been gripping the thing so hard that her fingers had started to numb.

She switched her sword to the other hand and shook out the tingling as they approached the access point to the city sewer system. Cassie couldn’t say she was thrilled with the idea of running around pipes beneath the city. She didn’t know the size of a standard city sewage drainage system, but she doubted it was nearly as large as she would prefer. That is to say, large enough where she could swing her weapon freely without worry of hitting a wall. Cass was… well, she wasn’t proud to say that she claustrophobic. And it was stupid, and it didn’t make sense, but that’s just the way it was.

A full grown woman who ran headlong into anything you threw at her but couldn’t handle being a little cramped? Cassie snorted.

Then the group of refugees appeared, and her heart clenched at the woman’s plaintive cries for help. If there was a worse death than being trapped underground, surrounded by human waste, and being attacked by Mordrem Cass couldn’t think of it. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemies, let alone scared war refugees and little kids. Fuck. Every part of her screamed out to help them, except that one little seed of fear festering in the back of her mind. She was not accustomed to the feeling, and the way it made little worms wiggle around in her gut made her shift her weight uncomfortably.

Cassie exhaled deeply, steeling herself. “Well,” she said after Eric had his piece, thinking that she’d managed to make her voice sound more confident than she felt at the moment, “We can’t really call ourselves Guardians if we don’t protect people, can we? It’s kinda implied in the title.”

She wouldn’t let people suffer just because she was being a baby. Besides, sewers were made of metal, right? So she could use Push and Pull to make sure they didn’t all end up in some nightmarish, reeking tomb beneath the city. And surely Selene had some sort of plan to get them through it, because she always had a plan. They’d be fine. Super, even...