Spears stabbed down through broken steel. Sparks burst where Delta robots convulsed, their blue cores flickering out one by one. The soldiers of Deer Point shouted through the haze, trying to sound alive in a city already half-dead.
"Clear the street! Keep those civilians moving!"
"Watch your flank! More Deltas coming from the Royal line!"
Vehicles rumbled through the ruins, engines choking on ash. Soldiers escorted families into the transports, some carried children, others dragged wounded loved ones. The civilians didn't scream anymore. They were too used to death to waste breath on fear.
Hido pushed through the smoke, boots heavy with soot. His coat fluttered against the ember wind, and his saber hung loosely from his hip, still humming with static from the last kill.
Lera walked beside him, her armor scorched but her posture sharp as ever. Behind them, five soldiers hauled an old man toward a transport while two others wrestled a fallen Delta unit off the road.
"Zoner District's almost gone," one soldier muttered, wiping sweat and oil from his brow. "We've lost everything west of the riverline."
Hido nodded grimly. "That's fifty percent of the district."
He kicked a pile of robot scrap aside, sparks scattering. "Half exterminated. The Royal bastards finally got what they wanted."
LERA
Lera's eyes followed the smoke trail that curved north. "And the rest? The evac routes?"
"Eastern sector still standing," Hido said. "That's where most of the survivors are headed. We've got our transports crossing through the last open corridor, straight toward the bacteria zone."
"Hell of a choice," she muttered. "Marching our people next to those freaks."
"They won't engage us," Hido said. "The Elda Knights have them pinned in the center fields. If those Knights lose..."
He looked out across the horizon where faint green explosions pulsed like heartbeat lights. "Then the whole center of Deer Point rots by morning."
One of the younger soldiers, face streaked with ash, looked up. "So what's left of the island now, Commander?"
Hido exhaled, staring at the flames like he could see the map of Deer Point carved in them.
"The Zoners are dying in the west. The El Bacteria are festering in the center. The Elda Knights are fighting to reclaim that same ground. And the Royals?" His tone turned cold. "They're on their golden hill in the east, watching us burn."
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Lera nodded. "And the Animal tribes?"
He shook his head. "Cut off. No word from their forests. Doesn't matter right now."
The ground trembled under distant cannon fire. The map was no longer ink and borders, it was sound and blood. Every blast redrew the shape of the island.
"East gate's our lifeline," Hido said. "Once the transports reach it, we can regroup and strike back. The Royals want to cleanse the Zoners to claim the land, well, we'll see how they like it when the land fights back."
They reached a barricade made from overturned trucks. Soldiers stood in ragged lines, smoke blackening their armor. Hido hopped onto the hood of a car and surveyed the terrain like a general reading a battlefield map.
The chaos quieted as a new transport rolled up. Civilians were loaded inside, their faces hollow but alive.
Hido's gaze lingered on a mother carrying a child, soot-covered, shaking, but moving forward.
Lera caught his expression. "You okay?"
He nodded, then muttered, "Just thinking about Lanni."
"Lanni?"
"Yeah." His grin wavered somewhere between bashful and regretful. "She was mad at me last time we spoke. Said I didn't please her right."
Lera blinked. "Hido..."
"I watched a video," he said quickly, rubbing his neck. "Thought I knew what I was doing. But when it came to it, she wasn't happy."
For a moment, even amid war, the soldiers around them cracked up.
Lera tried to stifle her laugh but couldn't. "Hido, you idiot," she said, still chuckling. "Every woman's body is different. You can't copy technique, you have to ask, feel it out."
He shrugged. "Guess I'll take lessons after the war."
She smirked, wiping soot off her cheek. "You'll have time, if you survive. For now, focus on pleasing the people instead. Keep them alive."
He nodded, his grin fading back into command. "Right. Protect the living first. Worry about romance when the world stops bleeding."
They turned eastward, where the last line of transports vanished into the smoke.
The map of Deer Point was collapsing piece by piece, blue sparks of robots in the west, green corruption spreading in the center, gold lights pulsing like a curse on the horizon.
"Lera," Hido said quietly, "when this is over, we redraw this island ourselves."
She nodded. "No more golden kings. No more bacteria monsters. Just people."
Hido gripped his spear and stepped into the firestorm. "Then let's make sure there are still people left to draw it."
And with that, the commander of the Zoner Guard led his unit back into the ruins, where the map of Deer Point burned, bled, and refused to die.