"I like fighting." Justice said plainly. "But I'm also the one who has to write reports and do paperwork." Justice paused carving the details on the bullet shark. "And I prefer not having to spend time trying to figure out what's true and what's bullshit."

Then came the topic of how they were to continue their road trip.

"We probably salvage a less damaged gasket from somewhere. Fix the fuel lines and injectors. Pray that none of the important bits were damaged."

---

Justice never actually slept in the RV. Instead, she had been sleeping in a chair adjacent.

She no longer wore the outfit of someone who just screamed "I'm in the military and this is my day off." Of course, her current outfit wasn't good. It was built from the scraps of middle of nowhere gift shop/gas station clothing. If anything, it screamed "I forgot to do my laundry and I'm wearing what I'm wearing." Graphic design t-shirt of some bizarrely local reference, hoodie that was a size too small with a local business' logo printed above the breast, stretchy pants without pockets, and a bulk-made cap of a different but equally local business.

Of course, Morden's attempt at secret communications wasn't as hidden as he would of liked. Unfortunately for him, Justice had honed senses and specialized in the covert. Doubly so, she was now walking towards him and Veld like a raging hellion. Fortunately for him, Valerie had already stepped in and put what she was about to say... very politely. Justice was about to obliterate this man for assuming in a direct report.

Fortunately for him, his chewing out would wait. But Morden could definitely see the veins in Justice's neck bulging.

When Silje gave descriptions of the mist, Justice just nodded in affirmation. She couldn't put it in a better way. The changes in mist felt gross, alien, and were rather indescribable.

"Sir." Justice said to conclude their little meeting. At the very least, she wouldn't have to write a direct report about this incident. That was the one silver lining.

"You're no fun." Gerard whinged back at Morden, "If you want to get specific about it, technically we're just academy graduates. We've only just received our unit deployments after all."

Besides, we're all armed. He quipped back over their communication spell.

To Veld, the Princess was quick to confirm Val's suspicions, though whether or not anyone believed her remained to be seen. "When we encountered the other ship, we thought it was firing cannons at us. Only when I was evacuating did I see that the projectiles being fired at us were actually boarding crew- in the form of these robots. The Palatine was a diplomatic vessel, any soldiers onboard were ceremonial, and kept to a maximum of a single platoon as our nations had agreed upon."

"I have a team on their way to the crash as we speak, they'll confirm whatever the case may be then. Luckily, the ship crashed in the ass-end of nowhere, so I don't think we have to worry too much about leaks for the moment." Veld grumbled. He didn't look surprised or concerned as Silje mentioned the abnormal mist and the precuring storm, or if he was, he managed his poker face well. "There's too little information and not enough hands on deck. For now, we work with what we have. Plan stays the same- deliver the Princess to Dunbarton. As far as spare resources with which to do so, I'm afraid I don't have the ability to get any directly to you at the moment. I can put together a package and find some non-regulars to drop it to you, I'll let you know when that's in the works. "

"I suppose I don't have a say in this..?" Collette sighed, to which Gerard offered a noncommittal shrug. "Even if you did, where would you go? You're alone in Rassvet. No phone, no money, nada."

"I suppose I should remind everyone," Veld chimed in, his eyes narrowing as he stared down each party member individually. "Vangar or not, the Princess is here as a diplomat, a noncombatant, and is to be treated as such. She is to be delivered to Dunbarton healthy and in one piece."

"Alright, any longer and we might start picking up some ears. Get it done. Veld out."

---

"Fun." Gerard grumbled sarcastically, as the party shifted to their truck. They were lucky. Much like Justice had said the night before, the damage to the truck could be fixed with some moderate salvaging of other vehicles. The truck wasn't particularly new or well maintained- and luckily for them, neither were junk heaps lying around the garage. The rest stop owner had been a bit obstinate about letting the party pull apart the nearby wrecks, but he also had no idea what kind of value to put on them. In the end, the Barghests got what they needed with minimal costs all around- though what cash they brought with them was quickly starting to drain. Repairing the engine did not however repair the rest of the truck body. The canvas canopy over the truck bed was riddled with holes from their previous encounter, and the chassis itself had enough scorch marks and dents that one might think it had been fighting on the frontlines.

"We might have better luck ditching the truck and picking up a more... civilian vehicle." Gerard mused, though they didn't exactly have the funds to buy a new vehicle outright, and nothing at the rest stop looked like it would function any better than the truck and fit all of them.

"What are the chances we get to Dunbarton unmolested?" Gerard said aloud, practically challenging the fates.

Right, there was that phenomenon with the Mist too, really, anything related to that unidentified airship felt eldritch in nature, like something that existed but shouldn't, as Silje aptly described in her own words. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take a genius to deduce that the answers wouldn't come easy, if they'd even come at all.

Justice's vexation of Morden's... 'tactlessness' was understandable, but it was nothing surprising coming from the overzealous WARDEN, the anti-Vangar propaganda might have been too successful on him. Should the day comes where it'd bite them in the ass, Valerie had mentally prepared for it, just as she had prepared for Silje going nuclear on them. To summarize, they'd cross the bridge when they get there.

After Collette vouched for Valerie's theory, the secret police's director gave them what essentially was their next assignment, it being an 'off the record' black ops was irrelevant, they had direct orders from someone quite up there in the chain of command. "Affirmative, Sir." She gave a subtle yet firm nod. No arguments there, everything Veld said made logical sense.

As the Nephilim wasn't quite knowledgeable at practical engineering, she simply assisted with manual labor and let the experts such as Kali deal with the actual fitting of what things into other things. Well, they did it, the vehicle definitely had seen better days but it was functional, and if push came to shove, Valerie could always do... that again, but for her sake, 'that' should always remain a last resort.

"If we can requisition a large family van, yeah, sure, but as things stand, the truck is still our best option." The shortest of the party's white-haired trio responded pragmatically, then she continued with that very same mindset, "Considering how hellbent that thing was on finishing off our royal diplomat for good? I wouldn't count on it."

Thankfully, the truck didn't require an engine rebuild--something that would have taken days if not weeks. Just some realignment and resealing. What tubes had exploded and bolts had been shorn across the rest of the truck were replaced. Additional parts that had given out were--with enough looking--swapped out with scrapyard equivalents.

What Justice had been doing while everyone was conversing was mudding up the burn marks, kicking out some dents, and patching the canvas cover. Of course, the patches were noticeable. But it was certainly less attention grabbing. She'd rather the truck look like it was damaged long ago rather than recently. If that were the case, someone uninterested in it would simply think of the vehicle as old surplus that found its way to a private buyer.

Though, that didn't mean she wasn't listening to the group.

"If that thing came back, it'd probably not care what we're driving barring a bigger, stronger airship." Justice said over the noise of her kicking out dents from the inside of the cab. "I'm more worried about the hicks. We have a bad track record with them already."

The final kick was significantly louder than the last few as her annoyance finally boiled over. The dent popped as it somewhat returned to its proper form, though the metal still had a warped outline where the dent once was.

"With our luck?" Justice replied to Gerard. She didn't elaborate further.

---

If someone in this group had taken some sort of issue with Morden's decision to treat the princess of Vangar like the credible risk she was, he didn't seem to notice. As far as he was concerned, she could draw on the mist at any time she wanted, and plant one of those glowing arrows in someone's backs when they weren't looking. Morden trusted that his group would to their jobs, and they could trust that he'd do his. Diplomat or not, he wasn't letting his guard down for any reason. Following Veld's leave, Morden walked off to help get the truck back into some semblance of a working condition. He gathered up junk and used his mistbegotten strength to bend things into just the right shape. He hauled the engine out and pieced the damaged, overexerted thing back together with little issue while holding it upright in one hand. He did, of course, have the common sense to do this out of sight, walking around the backside of the truck away from everyone else, but it was easy to fix even for someone who wasn't a proper engineer. While the whole thing didn't need to be rebuilt, Morden was the strong one, so he could just check things easily that way. It made little bits of damage that would take an hour to get to take a minute or two at most.

The strange ship that downed the Palatine was firmly in his thoughts, if the robots were from a third party, who else in the world would possibly oppose Vangar if not Rassvet? Morden's understanding of the was that Rassvet was the last line of defense. If the nation was conquered, then the war was over. Was it dissension in the ranks of the empire? Had someone else fought back and held them off?

"If we stay quiet, and stay moving, we should have no trouble getting there. If this ragged coffin we call a vehicle will stay intact that long," Morden commented as he manually lowered the engine back in and rigged it back up to the truck, after fixing what was damaged. "The noise we make from here on, the better."

Even Director Veld of all people wanted the princess treated with kid gloves, huh? Fine, Kalina would acquiesce. Not that she gave a damn, but orders were orders. Regardless, once she helped everyone patch the truck up as best they could, Kalina took the wheel once more, giving the engine a few brief revs to test it. Probably wouldn't give out on them anytime soon. Probably. Chassis was still a going concern, but as Gerard opined, there weren't any better options available at the moment.

"Pile in." Kalina grunted to the others. Once they'd all done so, she got them back on the road, not going quite as fast as she had been the previous day, but still enough to maintain a decent pace.

"Does it matter?" She pitched in to the conversation about their chances of making it to Dunbarton without further conflict. "We'll handle it. Besides, the closer we get to a city like Dunbarton, the better the chance that airship gets in the range of AA."

Kalina glanced up in the rear view mirror to where the princess was sitting, tactlessly barreling forward in the conversation.

"So, Princess. Any idea who wants you dead this badly? As I understand it, you're no one important in the line of succession."

"Have I ever mentioned that I love how optimistic we all are?" Gerard commented dryly as he floated a pen inside the truck cabin and hit the button to turn on the radio. The beat up truck began to roll its way out of the rest stop and back onto the road. By some miracle it was still functioning- and aside from a weird stutter every few minutes, the vehicle was as good as- well, not new, but as good as it was the day before. Where the day before they were driving through a mostly savannah like badlands, the Barghests now had a large expanse of forest on one side, and the remnants of the badlands and the petrified forest on the other.

The princess- while not necessarily chained up, was well under supervision, sitting in the middle of the group's formation in case she got any ideas of fleeing and making it on her own. Though, for her part, Collette seemed more than happy to stay in the relative safety of a squad of super-soldiers, even if they were technically enemy soldiers. She sat a bit rigidly on a shot out crate of MREs, her back against the back wall of the truck cabin, occasionally glancing out of one of the window flaps of the truck.

"There are few." Collette responded to Kalina, with a slight roll of her eyes at the not so subtle jab. "The Empire is a big place, but broadly speaking, most of our senate is split along three lines."

"The Imperialists, mostly nobility, career military, and industrialists are interested in the continued expansion of the empire- to what I would argue are unsustainable levels of growth and expansion. There are the Doves, myself and a not insignificant number of the landed merchants, corporations and younger nobility, who would prefer the Empire to achieve its needs through more peaceful venues. And lastly there are the Lay, made up of mostly middle class and laborers, who more or less want to keep the status quo. My father has final say on a lot of the Empire's proceedings and directives, whereas the senate mostly interprets his will, but they do still have significant influence over the Empire's decisionmaking."

More or less handwaving some of the complexities of a sprawling empire, Collette continued, "The Doves and the Lay are more or less in agreement that this war with Rassvet has done nothing but waste lives and resources that could've been better spent on our own people. The Imperialists are convinced that the Levistone that Rassvet sits on is a treasure trove worth committing those resources to.

"We had managed to impress upon the Emperor that a significant number of his people had no desire for this war, and that perhaps we could obtain what we needed through more peaceable means. Whether he believes it or not remains to be unseen, but he agreed for us to begin talks for a ceasefire at the very least."

Realizing that she had been going on at length for some time, Collette quickly shrugged and cut to the chase. "From Vangar, I suppose its possible that some of the more extreme from the Imperialist faction might think that the Empire would be better off with me dead." Collette's eyes lightly scanned the WARDENS in the truck. "From Rassvet, well I don't think there's exactly a shortage of people that wouldn't mind offing Vangar nobility."

"As much as I hate to interrupt this riveting discussion," Gerard chimed in, pulling his head back into the truck from having stuck it out the window to talk to the resident WARDEN sitting on top. "I think there's trouble ahead."

While the smoke could've been spotted from further, A small stream of acrid black smoke led to what appeared to be a large wreck a few miles down the road, a few hours into their journey. The wreck looked bad, the dirt and ground around it was torn up. An Etherium fuel truck- likely bound for the rest stop they had just left, and Sapple Springs after, laid rolled over across and blocking the road. Its side was crumpled like it had taken an impact and the engine smoked, and the tanker of Etherium fuel itself had fallen over and was currently emptying its contents onto the pavement and dirt around it, a sickly sweet smell already wafting into the air around it. The interior of the truck itself wasn't in view, but a hand, red with blood stuck out of the side window. Having run off the road and currently twisted its front around a tree was a family RV, its windshield was shattered but the rest of its chassis was in good shape.

With the road ahead blocked, the Barghests were more or less forced to a stop, the engine idling. as a few of them glanced out at what was ahead of them. "What the heck happened here?" Gerard asked aloud. "I see blood in the RV, no body though."

Once everything was prepared for, well, as much as they could given the lack of adequate resources, Valerie boarded into the truck along with the rest. She debated whether to sit shotgun just in case the vehicle needed another mist-fueled boost or at the back so she'd be in a better position to provide covering fire, in the end, she decided on the latter.

Brutally honest as Kalina was, she brought up a good point, though assuming Valerie's sacrificial pawn theory was true, then it'd be the answer. Why would they use one of their more important royals for this? Still, it was just an assumption, an unproven hypothesis. Regardless, she was curious what the 'victim' had to say about it herself.

The white-haired WARDEN listened to Collette's elaboration regarding the various internal factions within Vangar. Not that it surprised her as surely, not every single person affiliated with the empire was a bloodthirsty warmonger. So, this conflict was mostly due to the Imperialists, the megalomaniacal tyrants of the nation, and unfortunately, they were the ones holding most of the power. Now, if the princess was of the Doves... that 'scapegoat' conspiracy theory just became likelier.

"..." The Nephilim gave Morden a side-eye as Collette entertained the more... 'eager' Rassvetians wishing death upon her ilk. "It wouldn't surprise me if this whole thing was a set-up by your own people, Caroline." ...what? They were told to keep the princess' true identity on the down low.

It seemed the talk must end there as, of course, they soon encountered yet another roadblock, this time in a quite literal manner. "Sigh..." With a small sigh, the 2nd Class Vanguard hopped off their vehicle and approached the crash site.

She sniffed the air a few times, "Etherium..." then continued sweeping her purple gaze across the immediate area, "I'll check on the engine." With the squad informed, Valerie indeed walked over to driver side of the truck, then would force open the bloodied door with her superhuman strength.

Politically, Justice didn't care for the internals of an enemy nation. She could surmise that there were doves and hawks vying for control of foreign policy. If there wasn't, then the state of the war would either be over or intensified to absurdity.

An angered look washed over Justice's face. It would appear that they wouldn't get a moment's respite from shit happening. It was really just their luck.

As much as she wished that they could just drive through like an actual convoy, colliding into an overturned truck would not be a good plan. Even if they did manage to break through, driving through Etherium spillage sounded like a fun way to die horribly.

"Search for a way through." Justice gave a callous command that ignored the RV. She then turned towards the princess. "Keep your head down and stay out of sight."

Taking a deep breath, Justice began to sense the flow of the mist around them. The fuel made it difficult to parse what was ahead of them, but she would at least attempt to detect any ambush.

Kalina nodded along passively to the princess's explanation of Vangar internal politics, her eyes kept straight on the road. Convincing the Emperor to make overtures at peace was all well and good, but that implied Rassvet would even be willing to trade any amount of their most important strategic resource to a nation that had just been trying to conquer them. Money was one thing, but even if Rassvet mercantile interests were stupid enough to try, the military would sort that out in an instant.

She would have thought further on this, but the appearance up the road of a sudden wreck put a kibosh on that. Kalina frowned, parking the truck some distance away in case there were hostiles. The RV was of no concern. Stray fire could set the Etherium fuel tanker alight, probably taking the Barghests and hanger-on in the explosion if they were close enough.

She exited the truck, gunblade in hand as Justice gave her orders.

"Roger." Kalina nodded, checking the chamber of her weapon before stepping forward. Ideally, they'd try to drive around this whole mess. The truck could handle a bit of offroading, and surely the leaked fuel plus the tanker didn't cover every single bit of path they could drive through, right?

---

If Morden was being completely, brutally honest with himself, he did not give a fuck about the interpersonal politics of Vangar’s government. Doves this, Imperialists that- It didn’t matter if they argued until the Astral Mist evaporated into nothingness. While they debated on how to move forward, people were dying every day. The old saying that war is old men taking and young men dying rang true, so they could trade words in Vangarian tribunals all they wanted. It wasn’t Morden’s problem, nor his perogative to listen to such words. It was war.

The crash on the road, however, was a bit more impactful. Etherium was spilling out, and Morden was sensitive enough to the mist that he could tell it was getting bad. This entire road could be a crater any second, one errant spark here or there setting it all off. The others got out, and Morden took off in the other direction. Fifty paces backwards, since he didn’t want to risk anything weird happening. It might not have meant anything, but his magic was awfully mist-hungry.
He inhaled air, and exhaled raw magical power. The mist filled his skin and flesh with strength, the air crackled. And then, he walked back over to the wrecked truck.

Morden jogged back over and stepped around the pool of Etherium. His hands reached for the hitch between the truck and the container, and he snapped it off. He then gripped the steel walls of the tank, and exhumed a loud metal groan from it as he tried to push the thing upright. The damage might’ve been done, but he could stop the puddle from becoming a flood.

The wheels banged against the ground as he got the awkward shape to move. The Etherium sloshed around, but now it wasn’t going to spill further.

I’m moving the tanker. Watch your step, don’t get Etherium on you.

He walked around to the front end of the tanker, and lifted upwards with one hand. From there, it was as simple as dragging it like a wheelbarrow off of the road, out of the way of any vehicles coming and going.

"Guess I'm on princess duty- what?" Gerard chirped happily, as the princess shot him a frustrated glance, the WARDEN seemingly more than content to sit in the truck while the others did the- in some cases literal- heavy lifting. Gerard watched with mild disinterest as Morden quite easily snapped the hitch between the fallen truck and the fuel tank and began to drag it away, stopping most of the current spill- though some Etherium still leaked out of the a hole in the side. With almost a modicum of effort, Gerard grabbed one of the empty jerry cans from the side of the truck and pulled it open, floated the thing over to beneath the current leak, even as Morden dragged it away. "Might as well fill up- better in our tanks than on the ground."

Nearby the front of the truck itself, Valerie found that the engine was still functioning- and in fact still running, the low putter implying that the truck's tank itself still had Etherium fuel within it. The cab itself was a bit harder to access- at least for a normal human, the side of the vehicle was warped from the impact and steel frame of the door had folded halfway in on itself. The hinges were bent and twisted, but it was little difficulty for the smaller WARDEN to merely rip the door off its hinges. The truck lay on its side, and as Val peered down into the truck itself, she found the hand that stuck of the empty windshield attached to an arm and a torso, though said torso was missing one of its legs. Vicious marks around the wound suggested that it was a less than clean separation, more likely being ripped or torn off rather than cut. The owner's face held a terrified look, though his face was slack and eyes glazed over, half of his trachea missing. The body was still warm to the touch, though had obviously been cooling for a little while now.

The RV wasn't in much better shape as the other diminutive WARDEN checked it out. The side facing the road had some dents on it, the color of the metal scrapes matching that of the truck on the other side of the road. The side facing the treeline however had a huge dent in it, as if a Morden sized football player had tackled it. The inside at least proved to be a veritable treasure trove as Silje opened its top and stole a glance inside. She was looking into what must've been the RV's living area, its contents strewn about almost as if the RV had flown off the road or something. There were a few open packages of food and snacks, though there were also what appeared to be several packaged MREs laying about inside as well- the type that the military would eat while travelling. Perhaps because of the impact of the vehicle, Silje also noticed, a few drab green hardcases had been flung from presumably the trunk or other storage spaces, into center view as well, one of them cracked open to reveal the suppressed barrel of a combat rifle.

"Is someone out there?" A panicked, strained voice squeaked out from inside the darkness. It wasn't a typical Rassvetian accent, though it wasn't a Vangarian accent either, "I- I need help! My legs are pinned!" Though her senses weren't as keen as Justice's, Silje couldn't detect any manipulation of Mist from within the RV, so at the very least no one was currently preparing a from spell within.

As the fuel truck was cleared out of the way, Kalina's job became increasingly easier, sightlines were clear, and there were no obvious signs of life immediately around them. Ahead of her, perhaps a dozen meters ahead, she could see tire skid marks on the road, probably from where the two vehicles made impact before ending up where they were. More curiously, she could see that the ground and asphalt had been disturbed another few dozen meters ahead of that- though the side of the roads were hard to notice with all the debris, it was hard to miss the rather large hole torn through the asphalt.

Her perception opening up around them like an invisible dome, outside of her own squadmembers manipulating the mist to power their bodies or abilities, though trying to 'sense' through the puddle of Etherium fuel was like trying to look through fog- doable, but a pain. Justice found little disturbances in the mist around them- at least above ground. Below ground, Justice felt something small, nagging at the edges of her perception. The sense grew closer, alarmingly quickly, growing in size as it rapidly approached them. A second one appeared- from a different direction, followed by a third and fourth, one much larger than the others.

Kalina saw pavement warp and shift, a blur bursting out of the asphalt a moment later. Only natural reflex allowed Kali to narrowly avoid getting her head taken off as the mass slammed into the truck behind her. There was the sound of metal crunching against metal as the mass, slowed to a stop, circling around to face the WARDEN. Tanned, leathery hide protected by a carapace smooth like steel, a pair of beady eyes and a toothy maw stared at the young WARDEN before it dove back into the ground, powerful claws tearing open the asphalt as though it were as little more than mud and dirt. From the dirt along the road, a second bullet shark burst out of the ground, flying towards Val, standing over the truck cab, and beneath Morden's, the asphalt shifted as the maw of a shark roughly four times his size began to rapidly appear around his feet.

With each squad member investigating or handling a different part of the crash site, Gerard's psychic communication network once again proved not merely convenient, yet also invaluable.

So, Morden had cleared the roadblock, Silje was investigating the RV for any survivors (and valuables), Justice was keeping overwatch, Kalina remained behind the wheel, and Gerard handled 'fuel salvage', meanwhile, Valerie herself continued investigating the truck's engine after she forced her way in. What laid within wasn't a pretty sight, but she'd be a pathetic excuse of a WARDEN if she couldn't handle this much.

"Looks like a pretty nasty collision, rather recent, engine's still functional, but the driver didn't make it." Then, she noticed something peculiar about the cadaver, "Although, something's not adding up, the corpse's condition looks more like the aftermath of a predator attack, not a vehicular accident..."

Then as if on cue, something, multiple somethings closed in on them like prowling sharks-... no, @Landsharks.

"CONTACT!!"

Valerie exclaimed through the telepathic comms as her purple eyes bore witness to the subterranean predator bursting out of the ground, tooth-filled maw opened, ready to mutilate her just as it did to the driver.

In that very moment, each second felt like five as the Nephilim instinctively accessed her Astral Pocket, then reached inside to call upon her trusty partner, Haylel, all the while the rabid creature was pouncing upon her.

Quarter second... half second... a single second....

"Aaagh!"

The landshark narrowly won the race as it managed to clamp its jaws upon Valerie's right arm and shoulder. The white-haired WARDEN gritted her teeth as she was dragged along its momentum, and only thanks to her enhanced Aegis that her arm itself was left unscathed... for now. It definitely was in her best interest to remedy the situation sooner than later.

"Tch...!!" Even as her back slammed against the ground, right arm clamped, and half of her body pinned under the dirt-eating bastard, Valerie's eyes quickly scanned her immediate surroundings, then spotted a jagged piece of metal, probably detached from the truck; it was nothing more than scrap, not even worthy of being called a proper weapon...

Fortunately, the Nephilim had a knack for enabling things to punch above its weight.

Grabbing the thing with her free left hand, Valerie immediately covered the object in violet veins, turning what was essentially a piece of garbage into a well-honed combat knife, which she promptly used to puncture into the animal's beady right eye, then tugged, hard, creating a nasty gash wound and half-blinding it, but more importantly, hurt it enough so it promptly relaxed its jaws in reflex to distance itself from whatever was hurting it.

"Nngh...!" As soon as she was released, Valerie sat up, reached back into her Mist Pocket, then pulled out Haylel, the custom-made weapon reacting to her mist powers by humming and glowing, ready to vaporize her enemies. She managed to aim and fire a few quick energy shots, but the now one-eyed landshark evaded further harm by burrowing back into the ground. Even so, the WARDEN couldn't shake the feeling that it'd be back, good, she'd be ready next time.

"Squad! Status report!"

---

While he dragged the tanker away, the others were doing their own thing. The dead guy in the truck was accounted for, the scene was being investigated. It didn’t seem like anything critical would happen until the ground exploded. Landsharks sprang up and threatened to devour the squad, which was using the mist to communicate. Maybe that was why these things caught wind of them, Morden knew they were sensitive to the astral mist, after all. He could feel the ground beneath his feet start to rumble and crack, just in time for the jaws of one of the landsharks to snap shut around him.

For a brief moment, there was only darkness.

Val demanded an update over the channel, but Morden didn’t immediately react to it. He was too busy being thrashed about in the jaws of a landshark that was trying to bite down on its catch. But alas, his skin and flesh was infused with the mist, so all it could do was fumble. One of its sharp teeth snapped off between Morden’s fingers, and he plunged it into the roof of the beast’s mouth.

Anyone on the outside would watch it cough up blood, more and more as Morden sliced its mouth open. From there, it only got hideous.

The landshark’s blood spewed from its jaws as if it was vomiting chunks of gore. And then Morden’s fist and arm exploded through the skull, holding a bloody tooth the size of a dagger. Skin, flesh and bone parted, and he pried the thing’s bone away from itself to rip himself free.

The last thing the landshark could possibly do was scream, writhe and fall limp. Its head was torn to shreds from the inside out, and Morden crawled through the cavity where it’s brain should have been. He landed on his feet beside the dead animal, soaked in blood and viscera with his new trophy in hand.

One down, he relayed over the telepathic channel. Their toughness is only skin deep. Take advantage of this.

"!!!" Kalina exhaled in surprise as a quick duck took her to the ground, her reflexes being all that saved her from sudden decapitation by...ah. Target identified. Bullet sharks. Fast movement, bulletproof hides, and razor sharp claws. Terrible eyesight, but very good at sensing Mist usage.

She drew her gunblade, cartridges loaded. Beside her, Valerie and Morden were already engaging. The landshark charged. Kalina matched its head-on rush with one of her own. As she expected, it leapt off the ground in a lunge, and Kalina fell into a slide in response, her blade raised to tear through the creature's softer underbelly. The moment before her gunblade made contact, she pulled the trigger, and her sliding slash evisecerated the bullet shark as she passed underneath.

"Engaging." Kalina responded to Valerie over the telepathic comms, taking a brief note of Morden's observation. "Underbelly is vulnerable too. Gerard, is the package secure?"

The Third Class blurred in a flurry of movement, flipping atop a crashed vehicle for better line of sight. She remained crouched on its roof, trying to suss out where any more bullet sharks would be coming from.

"Use the Etherium spills to our advantage. They'll have more trouble sensing us while we're in proximity to the puddles."

Of course, Justice managed to feel something. Things always had to go wrong, didn't they? At the very least, she was ready. But for what? Things that were rapidly approaching underground? Really, that meant one thing.

"Four more under!" Justice called out to the others with authority.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Justice sprinted off of the truck bed. Everyone could feel it, even those who were only weakly attuned to sensing the mist. She was utterly radiant. For Silje, she was a blaze of rapidly changing waves of colour that reflected upon the ground and each other. Hundreds of patterns formed as the waves collided, dispersed, and merged.

As she soared through the air, there wasn't a moment of pause. She had already readied herself by she manifested a large two-handed axe above her. As she descended, Justice cleaved the axe towards the earth in a display of brutish might. Crack. The earth shattered. The truck shook. What the bullet shark had met was not a delectable morsel, but an axehead cleaving directly against its nose.

Bone crunched as sinew split. Carapace shattered while hide stretched. Her axe had not bisected the beast. It had internally dissected its skull and brain as it emerged. As it lay in the rubble-filled hole it created, there came more cracking. This time, it was louder. The earth shook. Knocking the back of the truck into the air with its force, a massive bullet shark emerged--far larger than the one that Justice had immediately buried.

It was as though a church bell rang as the mother shark collided with a barrier. The reverberations were deafening, only muted by Justice refusing to stand her ground. The collision sent Justice sliding away, the barrier being far too large for the massive beast to swallow.

She heard the words of the other Barghests. Weak underbellies. Weak insides. Simple enough. With a deep breath, Justice prepared as the mother shark prepared for another charge. The church bell rang again. This time, Justice stood her ground, her barrier instead meant to deflect the shark. With a razor thin margin of error, Justice leapt to the side of it as she dragged her axe alongside the beast's underbelly. A spray of gore and viscera covered her--an inordinate exsanguination. But it would appear size was important after. It was just a surface wound as the mother retreated back into the earth.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Came the twin voices of both Gerard and the Princess as they tumbled out of the back of the truck. Thank the gods for Justice and Silje's early warnings or Gerard wouldn't have been able to tell where the bullet sharks were until they were right on top of them. Though things weren't fairing much better for the support mage, bullet sharks traveled a lot faster than he did, and he'd barely gotten the half full Jerry can of fuel below his feet before he felt the ground rumble and a pair of jaws appeared beneath him.

Flimsy steel crumpled beneath the heavy jaws as Gerard scrambled out of the way, a roar muffled by a half gallon of Etherium fuel pouring down the beast's gullet. Shoving Gerard out of the way, the princess produced another one of her light arrows, though this time instead of firing it from a bow, instead threw it directly down the gut of the offending shark. There was a pained roar as the beast literally breathed fire, writhing as it was cooked from the inside out.

Another pair jumped out of the ground, and were subsequently batted away by Gerard's telekinesis, a heavy gauntlet smashing them left and right- though it did little more than make them angry. "This is probably why they suggest we carry bladed weapons with us too, huh?" He grumbled as a wave of magic sent the princess floating into the air, narrowly missing the jaws of one of the sharks. The pair seemed ready to continue their attack, but aburptly turned their heads and charged towards a new source of mist, Silje from atop the RV.

"H-hey! What's going on out there?" The trapped voice whined, "You gotta get me out of here before they come back!"

Perhaps his warnings were too late, as the ground below them rumble and shifted, the mother shark close to the surface as she burrowed beneath them, reappearing as a pair of jaws appeared below the RV and snapped shut. Not quite large enough to get to Silje through the RV, but enough to knock it a few feet into the air as it almost sundered the RV in half, heavy jaws attempting to crush and chew through the RV and Silje with it!

"Shit! Fuck! Help!" Came the piteous cries as the man fell out of the side of the broken RV, his legs no longer pinned, but seriously injured. He opened his mouth to say something more but was cut off as an olive drab crate slid out after him and smashed into his jaw, knocking him out clean. The crate clattered to the ground and cracked open, depositing half a dozen pistols, loaded magazines, a quartet of hand grenades, and a block of plastic explosives.

Undeterred by the metal vehicle frame, heavy jaws forged forward as the mother shark found its target and began to close its mouth, seeking to swallow Silje whole.