Xidona was the first to ask, “What makes you think that?”

  Garder stepped forward. “Think about it. The timing of the last two power surges probably wasn’t a coincidence. Chief, I’m guessing two surges have never happened that quickly. Am I right?”

  “Well, now that I think about it… They’re usually once a day.”

  “But then, the same day we and a pretorian arrive, we get two surges—one of them a pretty damn big one. I’d say it was the end result of an experiment involving the stolen Uluru portal tech, and Nish activated it now because he has eyes on us and knew he was out of time.”

  Simon exhaled and replied, “That’s quite an assumption. Wendell, was Nish really that much of a genius when you knew him?”

  He replied in his gruff voice, “I’m not aware of any of his projects outside of his work in surveillance through animal eyes, but…”

  “Ah, right. I remember your cat, Scud. Garder, you must be saying that Nish is tapped into W’s CCTV system and has been watching us.”

  “Yep,” Garder grunted.

  “Holy hell,” Xidona said angrily. “He just gets worse and worse. I feel out of my league here. What should I do next?”

  “Disable your surveillance system. Citywide. We’ll find Lenal and Nish without it. We saw where the pillar of light originated from—so that’s where we’ll look first. Chief, you can work with Xavier’s team from here and keep digging through records and City plans, help guide us.”

  “You want us to turn off our cameras?” the younger of Xidona’s officers replied. “Just hope there’s not a crime spree while they’re down.”

  Agreeing with her brother, Milla replied, “Garder’s on the right track. Xidona, what’s out there, where the light originated?”

  “There isn’t much that isn’t a wreck or big enough to house some kind of laboratory.” She thought for a moment. “But there is a sewer treatment facility, decommissioned twenty or so years ago.”

  “Ah, great,” Colt sighed. “A wonderful place to hide.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going,” Garder replied.

  Colt looked at Xidona. “Chief, I’ll need my bird back. I don’t think you have anything in your hangar that can get us there quickly and quietly.”

  “We may need a few flashlights as well,” Simon requested. “If we’re talking about a decommissioned City block, it’s probably pretty dark. I’m a solar and always carry around my own, so they’re for everyone else.”

  “All right,” the security chief consented. “I’ll place my trust in some of the Angels’ most capable soldiers. My men will assist you.”

  The officers assured their boss that they would, after which they escorted the away team to the Mezik L and had her passengers’ blades brought up. There was a stressful delay lasting nearly ten minutes as they waited for Garder’s team’s weapons to arrive from the City entrance.

  “So, this is the little Mezik…” Garder said as he, Wendell, and Verim studied the aircraft and Colt warmed up her engines. “Is she fast?”

  “Just as quick as her big sister,” Simon replied. “We shouldn’t have trouble catching up to Lenal, even with this wait.”

  From their spot on the landing pad, they looked back out at the place in the distance where the beam of light erupted earlier, past all of the many towers that were still waiting for their power to return.

  Wendell asked the others, “What if Nish did that because Lenal was already closing in? If Earth really is open again… What’s he planning?”

  “Wish we had a way to check,” Milla replied. “The Burrow’s kept its claws under lock and key for years. Never would’ve seen this coming.”

  “Still, that was some amazing deductive work, Garder,” Simon said.

  “Hm,” he mumbled. “If it turns out I was right, I guess.”

  “But do you think he needed the Uluru portal machinery to pull off a global change, or is he just trying to use it to go to the other side?”

  “Feeling homesick?”

  Simon looked a little despondent. “I mean, I gave up going home years ago. Or even just contacting my parents… Then I moved on, focused on my job in C. If I can go back now, well, I don’t really want to think about it yet. Chances are, they think I went missing in Africa. Probably had me declared dead some years ago.”

  Milla replied empathetically, “It won’t be easy going back.”

  “No. Might even be easier seeing this war end first.”

  Xidona walked out onto the platform with several guards from the City entrance, who were carrying the rest of their weapons.

  She offered some advice as Garder’s team armed themselves, “Be careful around Lenal. I understand that while he mostly takes the position of an officer barking orders from the back, I’ve heard his intellect and abilities as a mind adept are something to be feared.”

  “Pretorians don’t scare me,” Garder stated. “It’s just a title.”

  “Right… That isn’t surprising, coming from you. My radio channel is 463. We’ll be here to help you.”

  “We’ll rid your City of Lenal and Nish,” Milla assured her.

  “Perhaps there will be something we can do for you in return.”

  The team said their farewells to Xidona and boarded the Mezik L for their first mission together in years, none knowing quite what to expect.

  “Nish is sounding more and more dangerous all of a sudden,” Milla said from her seat up front as they took off, the small cabin now nearly full. “He seems to be capable of even more than cloning and turning animals into surveillance cameras. Wendell, you’re the only one here that knows anything about him. What kind of a scientist was he, exactly?”

  He answered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t learn too much about that side of the man. I could… maybe only say that he never struck me as a person out to make discoveries. Standard scientific theory didn’t seem to be something he, I might say, utilized. I had the impression that he already knew all the answers he sought, and may have only experimented… because he could.”

  “So, not an altruist. That’s already obvious.”

  “A jaded ancient, maybe?” Verim wondered. “Been around for a long time, good recall, no need for the scientific process anymore…”

  Wendell nodded. “Perhaps.”

  Colt slowed down and turned off the interior lights as everything went dark on the other side of the windows. The passengers looked out and after giving their eyes time to adjust, they could make out the shapes and edges of a derelict industrial site, just barely receiving light from W. Unlike every other City, as W had no sunsphere, its border wasn’t a perfect circle. Instead, it could have outer corners that were tucked away and partially hidden behind misshapen outcropping of rock.

  “Crap, I can’t make anything out,” Colt reported from the darkened cockpit. “I’m going to have to fire up the spotlight.”

  “You’ll give us away,” Simon worried.

  “Yeah. But if they can’t see the shape of our bird, at least they might just think we’re a non-threatening chariot.” Colt then contacted Xidona. “Chief, we just got to the old factories. Flying slow over the main road. About how far to the treatment plant? It’s dark out here.”

  Her voice replied, “You only have about a mile. Be careful, there might be some wreckage in your way.”

  “Yeah, I saw an entire smokestack leaning against a building. How did you properly vent this area? Back in the day, it must’ve… Brace!” he suddenly shouted and banked the aircraft sharply.

  With barely any time to react to whatever Colt had seen, the passengers only gave each other confused looks before they were hit hard.

  The Mezik L had clearly just taken severe damage, as parts could be heard breaking off, Colt couldn’t recover from a shallow dive, and warning lights and sounds filled the cockpit.

  “The hell was that?!” Rhys shouted.

  “Hold on!” Colt yelled back and fought with the controls. “Just… have to even out… This is bad!”

  As it was too dark to see outside, the passengers had no idea when they would hit the ground—and it only took seconds. The impact was worse than the first, but the aircraft held together, though it lost power. They skidded across broken road until the bird rammed into a pile of rubble and came to a sudden stop. Loose wires sparked and a veil of smoke filled the cabin, but the Mezik L was otherwise intact, its crew alive.

  “Damn it…” Colt said after a few coughs. “Holy hell. Ugh.”

  Her legs wobbling, Milla got up and muttered, “Colt… What just happened? Is everyone okay?”

  “Big ass rocket came from some rooftop… Probably would’a blown up a regular old chariot. Stay inside for a minute and check for injuries, we still have our armor. Let’s see if aux power still works…”

  “Did you see who shot it?” Simon wondered.

  Flicking switches, Colt replied, “No, but I’m guessing it was shoulder mounted. Guardsman, probably. Okay… most of our systems are still working. Just lost one of the engines. I can bring her into the burrow for repairs, so long as… Yeah, that figures. Great.”

  “Now what’s wrong?”

  “Demirriage engine is damaged. Or maybe, hopefully, just the wiring. Could be a lengthy repair. We’re stuck here for now.”

  “We’ll walk the rest of the way,” Garder said, grabbing his sword from the overhead bin. “If the Guard’s here, we don’t have any time.”

  “Maybe we could… just take a few moments to get back on our feet?” Rhys asked. “Take in the fact that we survived that?”

  “Stay here if you can’t keep up,” Garder told him. “The Guard just used their element of surprise. We need to advance before they reposition.”

  “He’s right,” Colt said, taking his pistol from a small compartment near the instrument panel. “We’re sitting ducks here, waiting to take more rockets to the face. You want to live, you be aggressively defensive.”

  Colt opened the door, though it only moved a few inches as the frame must have been deformed in the crash. Garder got it open with two slams from his side and was the first to jump down to the road. Everyone save for the pilot joined him, with Rhys going out last, reluctantly.

  “I’ll stay behind and protect the bird,” Colt said at the door. “Can’t let its tech fall into their hands and all that.”

  Milla showed concern. “And if you need to blow it up…”

  “Yeah, I might be inside when that happens. But, hey, if Earth is open again, I could go through Hold and try to get back to you… Right?”

  “Supposedly,” Verim told him.

  “Good enough,” Colt said and closed the door, with some effort.

  Garder, who had been keeping forward watch for any movement, reacted the instant he saw the flare from another rocket. It was fired a short distance away and traveled quickly, but he was able to get out a basic spell in time and hit it with a powerful air current, sending it into the side of a dead factory. The others readied their weapons and began working on their own spells to counterattack, but Garder was again fastest on the draw.

  Having briefly seen his target lit up by the rocket fire, he whipped up a level two air bomb in his palm and tossed it into the crumbling pillar barely supporting the corner of a factory’s metal roof. It exploded with the power of a compacted hurricane, and after several seconds the pillar broke apart, bringing with it part of the roof and sending the launcher-wielding attacker tumbling to the ground. Expecting retaliation, Garder then raised his right hand to maintain a barrier of swirling air around the party.

  Shots rang out from above and to their left and right, but Garder’s nearly invisible vortex knocked the bullets off course just enough; each shot barely missed, instead hitting the decayed asphalt around the group. As he maintained their protection, Milla assaulted one shooter with a mandala, and Wendell returned fire with his own rifle, using an alchemagi crystal round that exploded into a fireball. After the last shooter fired a second shot, Verim narrowed down their location and fired out a seed packet from his launcher, a modified flare gun and his favorite toy. He commanded them to sprout in midair, and an eruption of vines ensnared the rifleman, whose struggles to free himself could be heard in the otherwise quiet air.

  “Looks like they left a sharpshooter team behind,” Garder said, keeping up his barrier for safety. “Doesn’t seem anyone else is coming out to greet us. We should push forward, but… this damned darkness.”

  “We should’ve asked Xidona if she had any night-vision goggles,” Wendell said and reloaded his rifle. “Are little flashlights gonna cut it?”

  “Simon should have a solution,” Milla said, looking at him.

  He had been holding onto a rugged backpack that he always kept inside of the Mezik L. He opened it up to reveal a large portable lamp.

  “Don’t look directly at it,” he cautioned and wrapped a small remote control’s strap around his palm. “It gets bright.”

  As Simon swung his ‘weapon’ around his back, Garder asked, “Is that supposed to blind the enemy? How’s that work if it’s behind you?”

  “Don’t forget, Garder, I can bend light.”

  Simon squeezed the remote in his hand to turn on the light, and it sent a bright pillar far up into the cave, hitting its ceiling. Knowing he had just revealed their position, he quickly manipulated the light, curving it downwards, then around them into a diluted but wider form. He was able to create a dome of illumination about the width of a football field that, while dim, brightened up the area enough to see. It was a strange sight, with the lamp becoming a bright orb that seemingly cast nothing out.

  “Both of you keep maintaining these spells,” Wendell told Garder and Simon, “and we should be in pretty good shape.”

  “Hold on a sec,” Verim said and ran off on his own.

  He created a vine whip for himself and used it as a rope to ascend the side of the derelict factory, up to where the Guardsman with the ordnance was tangled up by plant life. With the strength Verim still possessed, he began to effortlessly carry him down with one arm.

  As the others watched, Rhys spoke up, “So, Simon, uh… Does that thing get hot? How long’s the battery last?”

  “Hm? Oh, the light? I helped the burrow make it. It’s made of LEDs; that means it doesn’t get very hot. Lasts about an hour per charge.”

  “Neat. I didn’t know you went on missions, though.”

  “Not many, no.” He then shouted out, “Verim, what are we doing with this guy, and is it worth the time?”

  Verim made it back to them, plopped down his capture, and after uncovering his mouth asked, “Which direction did Lenal go in?”

  “You really think I’m telling you anything?” the Guardsman spat back. “You just… You killed my entire squad. You can all go to hell.”

  “It was self-defense. You guys shot down the wrong bird.” He picked up his victim and turned him so he could see the downed aircraft. “Do you even know who you’re messing with here?”

  “Damn it. This has to be a joke… What are you all doing here?”

  “Better just tell us,” Garder said, gripping his sword’s hilt in a threatening manner. “If you have any desire to live.”

  “I don’t believe you. I know you never take prisoners.”

  “It’s your lucky day. With Milla here, I’m more inclined to show some mercy, even to Guard trash like you.”

  For the first time in five years, Garder heard his sister’s inner voice in his mind, “Is this really who you are now?”

  “Give me your worst!” the Guardsman yelled. “I’ll never talk.”

  “Nish is in the old treatment plant, isn’t he?” Milla asked him, with a little more empathy, and looked for any confirmation in his eyes.

  He glared at her. “He’s ours. His project belongs to the Guard. And if he doesn’t surrender the clones to us, we’ll take them by force.”

  “They’re not going to win you the war,” Rhys said, looking ready to kick him. “And even if they could, we’re here to free them.”

  “They’re property, weapons. We’ll soon have dozens of Escellés serving us, destroying the so-called ‘Angels’. You’ll all die.”

  “Are all Guardsmen like this?” Verim sighed.

  Milla continued, “You know much more than the Guard used to.”

  “We know your secrets. Hold’s Kingdom, Eden’s Burrow is a place under C, you have claws from that demon that can get you to Earth, what happens if you die there… We had to know to fight you on even ground.”

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  “You’re all just playing catch up,” Simon muttered.

  The young Guardsman then began to laugh as he went on, “She’s coming for you. There’s a new pretorian, and she’ll kill all of you.”

  Sick and tired of their conversation, Garder suddenly took out his sword with his left hand, and while keeping the vortex going with his right, cut down the captive with one wide and precise slash.

  “Garder!” Milla exclaimed.

  “What?” he replied coldly, sheathing his blade as the Guardsman turned into smoke. “He wasn’t being cooperative. Besides, what were we going to do, take him with us?”

  “It’s just… I didn’t think you’d become like… this.”

  “You must spend too much time cooped up in C, strategizing and looking at maps. Milla, if I’m remembering right, you’ve never had the ‘pleasure’ of serving in a war in any of your lifetimes, have you?”

  “Well… I… I came close, once, but no.”

  “This is what it’s always looked like. Let’s go, Simon.”

  Walking again, Milla continued, “It’s not as if I only work in some safe room. I’ve been out there, many times. I’m still capable in a fight.”

  “But not the frontlines. Not strike ops.”

  “Garder, Milla does work very hard,” Simon defended her.

  “I don’t doubt it. We all work hard, we’re all tired. But down here, on missions like these, you don’t take risks. You do what you have to.”

  “He’s been like this for a while, Milla,” Verim said quietly to her. “I know, he might frighten you, but… he’s still fiercely loyal to his friends.”

  She sighed, “I’ll have to try and get used to it. I don’t know what it’s like to be a veteran. I’ve been around, helping when I can, but they’re all just the kinds of assignments we were doing way back. Never felt like war.”

  “I’ve never asked him, but how many wars has Garder been in, on Earth? He doesn’t strike me as experienced, yet… still familiar.”

  “Three. Yeah, across three lifetimes… But briefly, each time. He’s had too many lives that were cut short.”

  “That might explain a few things.”

  Simon’s light uncovered a series of large industrial tanks on their left side, some of them broken and lying on the road, crushing the fencing and leaving a gaping hole for easy access to the facility.

  “Xavier,” Milla radioed him. “We’re at what appears to be an old synthid refinery. How far are we to the treatment plant?”

  He replied, “Okay, yeah. I’m looking at it on a map. If you can cut across it, you’ll be there in no time. Just don’t breathe in too much—could still be some toxic raw synthid dust floating around.”

  “Copy. Thanks.”

  “Simon, maybe shrink your light some?” Rhys said as they made their way over the toppled fence. “Getting worried about being seen.”

  Simon agreed and compacted his field to half its prior size, which brightened it and brought out more color and detail of the area. His left hand at his side, Garder expanded his vortex barrier so it reached the edge of the light. Milla watched this for a moment and realized something.

  “Did you change your casting hand?” she asked him.

  “Uh,” he breathed out. “Kind of. I changed my sword hand when I lost the eye, so it made sense to me to have one stone moved.”

  “So… you’re ambidextrous now.”

  “Yeah. Not a true lefty like you. And it makes it easier to cast two alignments at once. Do you, um… Do you use other alignments often?”

  “You mean the ones I shouldn’t be able tap into?”

  “The ones Caeden gave us… yeah.”

  “Then barely, really. I can’t make them very powerful. And vector tends to take care of enough situations for me.”

  “Sure. Slicing everything apart works for me, too.”

  “Garder, I understand why you’ve changed, but I do hope you aren’t going down a path you can’t return from.”

  “I just want this war to end, Milla. And I rationalize that the more Guardsmen I take down, the better I am at my job… the sooner it ends.”

  “But do you really have to lose a piece of yourself in the process?”

  As they reached the loading bay that once held large Aurrian cargo runners for synthid shipments, Garder looked at Milla and answered, “To be good at this, I think you have to. Don’t tell me you’re so innocent.”

  “I mean, I’ve put together operations that cost lives on both sides. I try to make myself feel every loss, even as an officer usually in safety.”

  “But, personally, you’ve done things you aren’t proud of, haven’t you? Do you still hesitate before you kill with a vector beam or your blade?”

  Before she could answer, Wendell, on point, stopped. As everyone else followed suit, he looked around and seemingly felt the air.

  “We’re being watched,” he said quietly.

  Guardsmen appeared on the roof of the refinery, on top of one of its tanks, ahead of them, behind them back near the broken fence, near the water tower to their right, and from behind an old cargo runner. There were maybe a hundred soldiers, most of them swordsmen, along with a few archers and riflemen. It didn’t seem possible that they had fallen into such a large trap so easily. The team took up defensive positions and kept still.

  “This isn’t right,” Milla said, keeping an eye on the ranged Guardsmen. “There’s no way Lenal came to W with this many soldiers.”

  “Look at their faces,” Wendell replied. “You see that? There are maybe a dozen unique profiles. The rest only have slight variations.”

  Rhys huffed, “Illusions, then…”

  “But not all of them.”

  The sixty or so enemies with swords rushed in, and Garder shrunk yet powered up his vortex to keep any real bullets or arrows from hitting them easily. Milla only had time to launch a single vector mandala before she was forced to use her sword to defend herself. Her lines passed through several enemies, but none of them fell. After another moment, bullets and arrowheads were hitting the ground around them, some only barely missing.

  “Don’t attack until you know which ones are real!” Wendell exclaimed. “Focus on defense. The fake ones will give themselves away if you just wait. Simon, see if a diffusion field does anything.”

  With Verim, Rhys, and the twins busy trying to make contact with the blades held by the flood of Guardsmen, Simon dropped his light and launched a diffusion dome, which had dull illumination. It was supposed to negate or at least weaken all alchemagi within its area, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Worse, it was now too dark to see more than a few feet, placing the team in further danger. But before he went back to bending the beam of light coming from his back, he noticed something peculiar.

  “Did you see that?” he asked and moved to the middle of the group where it was safer. “While it was darker, they all suddenly had on goggles… You did see that, right? But now the eyewear’s gone.”

  “It’s a mass hallucination being shot right into our heads,” Garder said, who was growing frustrated by all the feinted strikes that purposely missed him or pulled back at the last instant. “Our minds must be filling in the blanks. We have to wait for the real ones to show themselves—agh!”

  He had just taken a very real glancing blow to his leg, leaving a gash of crimson. He retaliated, but his sword only passed through an illusion which then vanished; his attacker had already blended back into the crowd.

  “We’ll die before they do that,” Verim said and took out at a seed pouch. “We need to break the illusion however we can.”

  “Lenal and his damn mind tricks…” Garder muttered.

  “I have some vines that’ll help us, but they need boosting,” Verim explained, giving the already cracked loading bay asphalt a bash with his sword’s broadside to expose the dirt underneath. “Garder, water. Simon, focus some light. Trust me, this’ll be worth it.”

  Verim opened his seed bag, poured the contents into the dirt, and worked them in with his foot, while the others were quickly losing ground to the illusions. Milla was able to decipher that a Guardsman wasn’t real just before an actual one hit her from behind. She felt the air moving behind her and heard the subtle sound of fabric, and instead of blocking a sword that wasn’t there, she moved her blade over her shoulder to deflect a potentially lethal blow. But by the time she turned to counterattack, her attacker had leapt back into his moving wall of funhouse mirrors. Wendell, not about to waste his precious ammunition on fakes, used his heavy and sturdy rifle to block a real sword strike, producing sparks in the process.

  “Hurry it up, Verim,” he shouted. “I’m about to toss some fire bombs to sort ‘em out, but we don’t want to be surrounded by flames.”

  “They’re sprouting,” Verim said, concentrating his alchemagi into the seeds. “Help them grow, you two.”

  Garder looked down at the pale, withering sprouts. He wasn’t impressed, but he trusted Verim. Willing to take a risk, he lowered his blade and with his left hand, forced any moisture in the cave air to condense into his now very small vortex. Once he could see the fine mist swirling in his barrier, he redirected and compacted the water into a fist-sized sphere, which he let drop into the dirt and the seeds it held. Simon then dimmed his light and maintained a small beam on the sprouts.

  Verim gave them one more surge of alchemagi, at which point they transformed through explosive growth. Their master commanded them to shoot out and expand around their feet, and they grew so quickly that they heated up and steamed as their internal fluid crackled

  “Plants don’t have a mind to trick…” Verim murmured.

  With flowers spouting as they expanded, the vines began to wrap around the legs of the Guardsmen who had the real, warm bodies they were engineered to seek out. All of the illusions copied their owners, panicking or swinging their blades to cut at the plant life. But as the green tendrils were not duplicated like the illusions, it soon became apparent in the mass of mirrored soldiers which ones were being wrapped up.

  Garder found the closest Guardsman who was in reach, struggling to free himself, and struck him down without hesitation. Milla saw that she had an enemy already in striking distance. Once he saw that she was aiming for him, he blocked her strike—after which she made a vector triangle and propelled it into his chest, just as Wendell took a man out with a clean shot.

  “Enough!” a commanding voice shouted ahead of them. “Gah. I should have known you wouldn’t fight fairly.”

  The illusion was released, revealing that there was still—yet only—three swordsmen left standing, all ensnared. The buffered count of the archers and riflemen was even more exaggerated, as there were only three each with their sights on the group. Their true uniform colors were black, white, and red, indicating that these were elite Guardsmen typically only assigned to work with pretorians. The trio that they had downed were likely only taken by surprise once their illusion was broken.

  “Shame, that usually overwhelms most Angel squads and suffices,” Lenal said, emerging from the darkness, his elegant blade in his right hand. “Now I’m just curious how you knew Nish was hiding in W…”

  Despite being appointed by Drides, Lenal was known to be the most gentlemanly of the pretorians, albeit also full of himself. His slate-colored uniform was expensive and regal, its high collar reaching his ears.

  “Not bad for illusions,” Rhys said. “But I noticed you don’t have any wizards in your escort group. Guessing you can’t create fake spells.”

  “Mm. Too much effort to do so. That doesn’t make my men any less skilled. Despite…” He looked at the three empty uniforms as the surviving swordsmen cut themselves free and stepped out of the vines. “Well. I didn’t want to waste time with a prolonged sword fight here, as I’m on a tight schedule. Your crash landing was quite an interruption.”

  “Nish is ours,” Milla assured Lenal. “How about a chance to back off, save the rest of your men? We don’t have to fight today.”

  “Captain Nolland, I have heard that you make that offer quite often, as if the Guard would step aside during a time of war. Our duty is to pacify and break the back of the Angels, yet you offer such farcical propositions.”

  “Can we get this over with?” Garder said with a groan.

  Lenal brought up his crystalline sword and pointed it at them, sending his mind-based alchemagi through it. Except for the hilt, it vibrated and then seemingly faded out of existence, save for an occasional flicker that briefly brought its sharpened edge into reality again.

  “Mr. Formel’s creations belong to us,” the pretorian stated, and moved his left hand behind his back. “You won’t be taking them.”

  Though he had been hoping to defeat his enemy from afar with his visual tricks, Lenal fearlessly leapt into battle. He moved gracefully, and as a mind adept, like Temki, he had a fast reaction time—to the point where it seemed like he could see a second or two into the future. He simply dodged or sidestepped most attempts against him, which helped keep his sword difficult to track as he barely used it to parry. He moved from one Angel to the next, keeping his moves unpredictable as his men watched.

  Still worried about the ranged Guardsmen, Garder kept his vortex going even as he created an ice shield for his left hand to use instead of his sword. He knocked away a few strikes when it was his turn to be attacked, but he was more focused on trying to understand what Lenal was trying to accomplish. The three nearby Guardsmen still surrounded them, but were holding back, as if waiting for something. And as time went on, Garder began to sense something else unusual about Lenal’s sword. His friends and sister were blocking or moving out of the way of his blade with a response that appeared to be more and more delayed every passing second.

  “What’s going on?” Garder asked them, keeping his shield up. “You’re all getting sloppy. Just watch his hilt if you can’t find the sword!”

  “This is going to sound strange,” Verim huffed as Lenal effortlessly avoided his claymore-sized blade again. “But it’s like I’m having trouble even perceiving his sword. Almost as if I forget he has it for a second.”

  “Same here,” Rhys added. “I keep having to remind myself.”

  Milla had gone unengaged for long enough to get a vector spell off, but Lenal easily got out of its way before the lines could pick up enough speed to hit him. Wendell fired a shot from his rifle, but the pretorian shielded himself with the sword they barely grasped. Garder was starting to feel it as well, even though he had maintained a sharp focus on Lenal’s movements, reading the newest combat forms he switched into.

  Simon, who had kept in the middle of the group and in relative safety, suddenly found himself the next target. He reacted just in time to take out his knife and fend off two sword strikes before Lenal moved on again, but he lost so much of his concentration on his light that the field dimmed and shrunk by half. The swordsmen standing by noticeably reached for their goggles, ready to put them back on if their enemy was suddenly bathed in darkness.

  Seeing that Simon was struggling to recover his focus and bring the light field back to full strength, Milla finally lost her patience and, instead of waiting any longer for an opening among Lenal’s unpredictable movements, she gripped her sword’s handle to activate its overdrive capability. A bright cyan glow filled the translucent blade, and after following Lenal for a moment, she used both hands and went for a mighty blow.

  Lenal saw the incoming heavy blow in time to swiftly move aside. And before Milla could recover, with her sword nearly planted in the ground, he suddenly brought his left hand out from behind his back, three fingers extended. They made light contact with Milla’s exposed arm for just a second before he moved on—and its devastating effect was immediate. It felt like the nerves in her arm shut down, and she dropped her sword. The powerful jolt then hit her legs, and she lost balance.

  “Milla!” Garder shouted. “What happened?”

  “I…” was all she managed to get out before she fell to her knees.

  Feeling herself shut down, she used her remaining strength to wave her sword around with her right arm, her only means of defense. As Verim watched her, he too received the tap from Lenal. He dropped his large blade almost immediately and fell to the ground, as his vines, which he still had a connection to, began to wither.

  “Don’t let him touch you!” Wendell exclaimed. “It’s a neural shock—we were so focused on his sword that—” he fell silent just after parrying Lenal’s blade with his gun, only to be jabbed in the side by fingers.

  “What the hell?” Rhys said angrily. “You son of a bitch!”

  Rhys swung his two knives at Lenal repeatedly, desperate to land a hit. Lenal simply moved backward and waited for an opening, which given that Rhys had fallen into a rage, would inevitably arrive. When the moment was right, Lenal swept his leg to knock Rhys to the ground, tapped him on the shoulder, and leapt away to safety before being slashed.

  “Simon, mental defenses!” Garder shouted at him as Rhys lost his ability to stand. “I can’t lose your light! You’ll have to resist!”

  “That won’t work,” Lenal scoffed.

  Repositioning himself to go after Garder next, Lenal watched Rhys fight back his collapse enough to bring his knives together, and then throw a Hail Mary straight at him. Lenal sidestepped, only to see the weapon plant itself into the chest of the swordsman that had been standing behind him.

  “Bah, damn it…” Lenal sighed, his subordinate gasping in surprise before falling to the ground. He turned to his remaining two men and told them, “This is why you wait until they’re comatose. See? Their desperation to stay cognizant is dangerous. Though, I suppose that was my fault.”

  After the pretorian looked at Garder and smiled, he furiously shouted back, “Get that hand anywhere near me, and you lose it!”

  Looking at the others trying to stay awake, Lenal asked him, “Mr. Nolland. What’s it like, to see your entire team, your friends, suffer?”

  “Shut the hell up…”

  “Constantly full of rage, aren’t you? Calm yourself… Calm.”

  He fired out a mind shock, and given that it was aimed at just one person, it was powerful enough to overwhelm Garder’s mental fortitude. He stumbled backwards, lost control of his vortex, and nearly dropped his sword. He was still able to recover, but not enough, by the time Lenal ran past him, brushing him with his fingers to shut him down.

  “Garder!” Simon shouted just before being touched as well.

  The light field reverted to a single beam immediately, which shot out straight ahead once Simon collapsed.

  “Damn it…” Garder groaned, falling to one knee and trying to hold himself up with his sword. “You’re… going to regret this.”

  The beam only emitted a dull glow around its bright center, making it dark enough to warrant night vision goggles. As the surviving Guardsmen covered their faces, Lenal approached and looked down at Garder.

  “I consider myself above finishing all of you off while you’re defenseless, and I’m in a hurry so I don’t want to wait here for that moment, either, so…” Lenal moved away from a sword swipe. “I’ll let these two put you out of your misery once you can no longer move.”

  “You’re… all… cowards,” Garder managed to say, without slurring his speech. “Fight like… real men…”

  “Oh, but Mr. Nolland, I did. I managed to hit all of you in a very legitimate manner. I’m sorry if I didn’t go down like Connarth. Or Levin, Sefis, Imsem, and Avenkapp. And all the other officers and soldiers the Angels have slaughtered. You’ve done enough killing, Mr. Nolland. Take a moment to rest before you die, recall their faces one last time. Goodbye.”

  Lenal gestured to his team, and his archers and riflemen left their perches to joined him. Once they disappeared into the darkness and their footsteps faded, all that remained in the air were some faint movements from those in the group that were still awake, if barely—and the two swordsmen, goggles on, waiting and making light commentary.

  “So, this is the scourge, eh? Not so tough now.”

  “Easy. Wait until he can’t move at all. Can’t be too careful.”

  “Don’t want to wait. These bastards deserve it. Four of us, man. They killed four of us like it was nothing. Not even proper training, right? What the hell gives them that right? Why are they so strong?”

  “I heard rumors, like the twins are… reborn apostles or something? You ever heard that? I mean, I know Milla used to be Queen Seriph, but that wouldn’t explain…”

  “Quiet. I think they’re about ready. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Yeah. Looks like they can’t even move their fingers.”

  “We get to be the ones, man,” one of them said as he readied his sword. “I can’t really believe Lenal didn’t even want the glory.”

  “You know how he is. He doesn’t really care about any of that.”

  “Think we’ll go places after this? Make a name for ourselves?”

  Unbeknownst to them, as they spoke of a mass execution so cordially, one of their potential victims stood up behind them, her shape in silhouette against Simon’s light. She opened her eyes, revealing a set of unmoving irises that had been overtaken by a dim golden glow. She tested her hands, stretched her fingers, and then went for her sword. Only once they heard the hum from its overdrive did the swordsmen turn around.

  “The hell?” the man closest to her exclaimed. “How is she…”

  Milla, or rather the trapped apostle living within her, let a surge of alchemagi be drawn into the sword, fully activating its offensive capability. Small vector triangles formed along its edge like teeth and ran along its edge, effectively turning the blade into a chainsaw, complete with a loud, threatening buzz. The swordsman stepped back and raised his blade.

  “Watch out, man!” his partner shouted. “Get away from her!”

  “But she shouldn’t even be…”

  The reawakened Milla brought her sword above her head before slamming it down onto the durable Guardian blade, given only to its elite soldiers. It held back the vector teeth—but only for a second. Watching in terror as she cut through his sword inch by inch, the defender was helpless and pushed down towards the floor.

  “Help!” he cried out. “Help me!”

  Right after his sword was cut in half, so was he, right down the middle. Only his bisected uniform actually made it to the asphalt.

  “H-holy…” the lone survivor stuttered and backed away in fear.

  He took a second to decide his next move, and knowing he likely couldn’t escape, he chose to at least do what was expected of him and take an Angel to Hold along the way. Trembling, he placed his sword’s tip at the back of Garder’s neck, and was about to push down…

  When Milla formed a large vector mandala twice as quickly as usual and propelled it just as fast. It sliced through the last swordsman at full strength, cutting him into ribbons. The smoke from his burning life force joined that of his colleague’s before it had dissipated.

  Alone and unaccustomed to being fully awake within Milla, her one half of Caeden looked around and remembered a way he could help those on the ground. He approached Rhys first, placed Milla’s hand on his forehead, and used a spell that would restart his mental processes.

  “Ah…” he heard a voice from behind through Milla’s ears.

  He turned around to see Garder up and awake, his one visible eye with the same golden glow. Having a little more experience being the one in control, Caeden-Garder was already walking around, and even able to exhibit some facial expressions, which he used to show frustration.

  “The kid did it again…” he said as he tended to Simon. “I’ve had to save him too many times. He’s damn reckless.”

  Caeden-Milla replied, flatly, “It looks like they all lost. Do you know what happened? They’re alive, but…”

  “Don’t you? A pretorian took them down.”

  “I don’t see through Milla. I spend my time sleeping, usually.”

  Garder’s Caeden moved onto Wendell. “She never calls on you?”

  “Not often. And I think… I prefer that she lives her own life, as much as possible. I think that you and I have diverged, greatly.”

  “Garder isn’t afraid of me. He relies on me.”

  “Do you ever sleep?”

  Refusing to answer, he only replied, “We’ve made a good team. We’ve accomplished great things. Neither one of us is the slave. We are destroying the Guard together, just as we both desire.”

  “I don’t think we’re the same person anymore…”

  “We were only ever half a person, in this manner of existence.”

  “I’m not sure that I want to meet you again. You’re holding onto that boy too tightly, and I sense that Milla sees that as well.”

  Caeden-Garder looked at the scraps and remains of the two men his counterpart had just taken down. “You clearly still hate the Guard.”

  “I had to protect them.”

  Once everyone was stirring and had begun to recover, the two Caedens started the process of returning the bodies to their owners—Garder’s half a little more reluctantly.

  He asked, “Does she know how we split our soul?”

  “No. I’ve never told her.”

  “Hm. You may not like it, but I do have a feeling we’ll see each other again. Take care of her. Let her know that if she ever needs you… Maybe something like this won’t happen a second time.”

  Everyone woke up at about the same moment, with the twins confused at first—it was like someone had repositioned them, as they both came to slumped against the fence of the loading bay.

  “Someone respond,” Garder heard Xavier’s voice on his radio. “Come on, guys. You’re making us nervous. Tell me where you are.”

  Trying to shake off what felt like a hangover, Garder fumbled his transponder, managed to hold down its button, and muttered back just barely coherently, “Ugh… Xavier? Uh… how long…?”

  “We haven’t heard from you in about twenty minutes. What happened? Did you run into Lenal?”

  “Y-yeah… Um. I think he got ahead of us.” He watched the others in the near total darkness as they tried to stand up again, Simon’s light beam darting about as he recovered. “Do you have a way… we can catch up?”

  “I think so. You sound terrible. What’d he do to you?”

  Garder tried to recall the events leading up to losing consciousness and looked at Milla, who looked back. As some of his friends thought aloud on how they were still alive, he came to realize the only possible answer to the question. He could always rely on Caeden to come through.