“I understand why you’re angry,” Rivia told Garder, in the confines of his temporary office within an intact tower in City D. “And it wasn’t my intention to hide this information from anyone. It was only a question of morale, when best to reveal the truth of what happened to the ship.”

  “But you still refuse to let the news get out,” Garder replied lividly.

  “Think, Garder. It’s been two weeks since E fell. What few sources we still have in the City have gotten it through to us that the Guard is on the move. D could be put under siege again in a matter of days. What good would it do to tell everyone, when holding this City is our next priority?”

  Milla, the only other person in the office aside from Leovyn, sighed and left her spot against the wall. Their meeting with Rivia, which had taken up nearly an hour of his precious time, no doubt had to conclude shortly.

  “I’m sorry, General,” she apologized. “As passionately as he feels about this, I know he’s been told time and time again to show respect…”

  “It’s not just the shipments,” Garder continued. “As I said earlier, I’m also frustrated that we’re still putting forth this much effort just for this City, yet again. The stalemate has to break. How long was this war supposed to last, anyway? Were you serious when you said it would take generations? I’ve seen how that estimate is working out with the fighters. Once this news hits them, it will just get worse. People are losing their initiative. Retaking D isn’t enough to get it back. What happened to that bold action you once promised? We need to get boots on the ground past Onasia.”

  “Kid…” Leovyn huffed.

  “Mr. Nolland, I know I’ve lost your trust,” Rivia said calmly and gently placed his old hands on his desk. “But I hope to regain it sometime soon. I have listened and taken to heart everything you’ve said. But I agreed to this meeting for a secondary reason, and we must move on. Captain.”

  Milla stood at attention and listened attentively.

  Leovyn spoke first, “Milla, there’s been a sudden, and rather… inexplicable development, and we’ll have to act on it in within the next three hours. More specifically, we have a narrow window at sunset in X.”

  “X?” she questioned. “What’s… happening out there?”

  “This doesn’t have to do with you being there in a past life—we’ll have Corus bring you there but then come back on his own; I’m sure he’s got a better, more recent memory of it for the demirriage. We need you to put a small team together, and consider their birth Cities.”

  “There’s no easy way to share this information,” Rivia continued. “And it must be regarded as confidential. This comes from the same source that gave us the security codes for City S. We owe it our attention.”

  “We’ve been told that Drides will soon use his claws in northern X, somewhere just past the Russian-Mongolian border, and…” Leovyn inhaled deeply before relaying the rest. “He may attempt to assault a Russian missile silo. I know. This is rather… surreal, and troubling.”

  “Wait, like an ICBM silo?” Garder wondered. “Is he after a nuke?”

  “Nuclear weapons have never truly been developed in Aurra. This world has scant amounts of uranium, and its synthesized form is difficult to enrich, even just for reactors. That aside, the Guard was always hesitant to make such weapons, fearing what they’d do to a City in the wrong hands.”

  “You’re talking about hitting a sunsphere with a nuclear detonation,” Milla replied. “As much as they can withstand, theoretically they might not be able to survive a potent enough explosion.”

  “Is he doing this for some sick idea of his own?” Garder asked. “Or for the Guard itself, if they’re getting so desperate?”

  “It’s hard to imagine Pristil approving of a strike against even G or C… The collateral damage, and the reaction from, well, everyone…?”

  “Our source didn’t specify any motives,” Rivia said. “But would you really want such a man to have that manner of weapon in his hands?”

  “But put all of this aside for a moment, difficult as it may be,” Leovyn requested. “This is an unprecedented chance to kill him; to know in advance that he’ll be on Earth. That is why we’re timing this in a way in which you may be able to intercept Drides as he goes through, not just before or after, causing you to miss him. It may also be worth considering actually letting him get into the silo, underground, where he can’t easily escape into Aurra as there would be only rock on the other side.”

  “We have a chance to corner him…” Milla replied in thought. “I’m immune to his death gaze, and even if he takes out the rest of my team, if they’re from an Angel-held City, they’ll be safe and can come back… This really is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take him out.”

  “But it’d still be a dangerous operation,” Garder said. “I don’t like the sound of some fight taking place in a silo with a fueled rocket and gun-toting, angry Russian guards. Even if Hold’s Kingdom acts as a cushion.”

  “We need you to stay here, Garder,” Leovyn told him.

  “Hmph. I’m not exactly arguing, but I want to know why.”

  Rivia answered, “I don’t want to risk having you both end up in the hidden kingdom at the same time. In other words… I want at least one of you active in this City, alive. For all we know, this is a diversion or a trick and he may end up coming here instead. You two are still our best hope of fighting him, even if it’s only temporary in an Aurrian encounter.”

  “There’s also the environment to consider,” Leovyn added. “A confined missile silo, with little moving air, little water to work with…”

  “I get it,” Garder replied. “Milla has a shot at chopping him up with vector lines in such a place. Besides. You probably don’t think I’m in the right place at the moment, emotionally or mentally.”

  “That isn’t…”

  “You don’t need to lie to me. I wouldn’t send someone like me out to a sensitive place like that, either. Russian missile silos, atomic bombs…” He sighed and shrugged. “Makes me wonder where this war’s heading.”

  Leovyn turned his eyes back towards his daughter. “There are a couple other things, Milla. If you can’t kill him, try and at least destroy or separate him from his claws. With the ones stolen from Corus stuck to a frozen Nish, as far as we know, Drides currently carries the last pair in the Guard’s possession. It’s possible you could leave him stranded on Earth.”

  “Brilliant. Think of how many people he could kill there,” Garder commented. “Eventually maybe a bullet will find him, but still…”

  “He’d probably be more focused on survival, running, hiding. Even if he became a terror on Earth, at least he wouldn’t be here, commanding armies or continuing whatever shadow operation he has going on.”

  Rivia continued, “Our source also has a contact of sorts, an Earth agent, but we know nothing else about them, other than that they’ll be waiting for you. The instructions even mentioned a building and a floor in X to go through to Earth from.”

  Milla asked, “Has Corus been told any of this?”

  “Only that we need transport to X, which he agreed to, as long as he didn’t have to stay for more than a brief visit.”

  “Put together a small team and we’ll fill them in up here,” Leovyn concluded things. “I know how unbelievable this all sounds, but… there’s certainly a chance that this is really happening.”

  The twins were then dismissed and headed towards the elevator, both of them trying to process what they had just been told.

  “This shouldn’t take too long, whatever happens,” Milla said as they descended. “Hopefully I’ll be back in D before the Guard arrives.”

  “I don’t care what he’s trying to do. Just… kill the bastard, Milla.”

  Wary of the hatred stirring within him, she replied, “I will if I can.”

  Once the doors opened at the lobby level, they found that Yvell and her uncle Shiloh had been waiting for the lift. He still had something of a thousand-yard stare, and the shame he felt from abandoning so many of his men in E was known by the local officers. Without a word, he and his niece switched places with the Nollands and went up, likely for their own meeting with the supreme commander.

  “Mind telling me who you’re thinking about taking?” Garder asked Milla as they traversed the lobby towards the building entrance.

  “Shin and Xavier, since they’re from N in case the worst happens. Wendell as well; it’s not a problem if he has to revive himself in F.”

  “Wish you and Dad would stop talking like that… You’re going to be fine out there. Just focus on killing or crippling Drides. Don’t even think about a nuclear warhead being involved; the pressure will just get to you.”

  “That’s… actually kind of good advice. Garder, take care of yourself, okay? You’re really… starting to worry us.”

  “Stop talking like that, and you don’t need to worry. I’m still me.”

  She tried to work up the bravery to argue against his response, but as always, simply smiled and nodded instead.

  A demirriage appeared at the top of one of X’s many utilitarian residence towers, where it remained powered by a setting sun. Corus was the first to step out and feel the wind on his face, laced with an acrid dust. Surrounded by an acidic, unprotected inland sea to the southwest, the Majoris desert to the east, and barren, hilly wastes to the north, X was both the largest punishment City and one of the most isolated.

  “Damn… It’s barely changed…” Milla said as she left the carriage and went to the roof’s edge to look at the hundreds of nearly identical buildings, and the fog that permeated the streets far below. “I never wanted to come back here. And it’s still ruled by the Guard. We must be cautious.”

  “I once lived a few floors just below,” Corus explained. “Coming up here to watch the deep red sunsets was once the highlight of my days. It may be a Guard City, Milla, but I’ve heard that the Guardsmen here barely get any support. They haven’t even seen war yet, but they’re likely already lacking any enthusiasm to fight… I shouldn’t stick around regardless.”

  Wendell, Shin, and Xavier joined them, all of them unarmed, their weapons tucked away in storage disks. Milla checked her pocket watch; a standard issue Angel silver timekeeper as opposed to the one she had been given as an academy student, which she had left in Leovyn’s care.

  “We have to get to the northern outskirts and into Russia’s southern territory within forty minutes, assuming he’s on schedule. You said you could get us closer, right, Corus?”

  He took out a detached sniper rifle scope and looked through it with his remaining eye, towards the City’s ruined northern outskirts.

  “The sphere here is failing…” he reported. “We’ve got about two miles of outer City already rotting out in the haze. Let’s see… The old buildings out there are short. I think you just need to get on the second, maybe third floor of any of them to get through above ground on the other side if we read the Earth-Aurra topology maps right. Wait, what’s that…”

  The unaided eyes spotted it too, moving in the distance: a Guard shuttle had just left X’s protection and became quite noticeable once its own lantern’s glow took over and surrounded it. The aircraft swiftly settled down and disappeared amongst the urban ruins.

  Corus pocketed his scope and muttered, “They’re early. I saw where they landed; you should go through in the same area in ten minutes or so. Hate to say it, but it’s probably best to let him take care of some of the silo guards first, let him get inside where he’d be trapped with you.”

  “I hate this whole thing,” Shin grumbled. “I reached adulthood in Aurra long before nuclear weapons came around on Earth, but I’ve heard the stories of their power. Would he actually try to use one?”

  Milla answered, “Considering even a smaller warhead would be magnitudes more powerful than Lontonkon’s nova spell, that isn’t a question we should let ourselves worry too much about.”

  “Because we’re not going to let him have one?” Wendell asked.

  “That’s the idea. But even if we stop him, what if he keeps trying?”

  Xavier postulated, “Gotta figure if news of the attempt makes it out, silos all over the world will be on high alert for a weird guy in a cloak.”

  “This is Russia we’re talking about,” Wendell replied. “They’re going to do their best to keep whatever happens a secret.”

  After several minutes, Corus spoke up again with a, “Let’s go.”

  He took a good look at one of the buildings near the shuttle’s landing site and piloted the demirriage to its roof. Once they arrived within the haze, their buckled lanterns keeping them alive, he stepped out and took a careful peek off the side and saw the shuttle on the road below.

  “Three armed, waiting Guardsmen,” he reported. “This is it for me. If you get out alive, I’ll return to this spot in two hours for you.”

  “Thanks, Corus,” Milla replied and double-checked her claw bag. “It’s not too late to come with us. X doesn’t look as locked down as I thought it’d be. Help us on the mission, off yourself, see Hold’s castle…”

  “Tempting as suicide is at the moment, I’ll have to decline. I’m sure there’s security all around the hospital that delivered me by now. I’ve seen the bounty on my head following my escape from Z. It’s substantial.”

  “Maybe another time, then.”

  Corus departed, and quietly as to not alert the guards, Milla opened a horizontal tear to Earth on the roof to get a good look below. There was hilly, rocky terrain about sixty feet down.

  “I wouldn’t try jumping and landing with alchemagi,” Xavier whispered. “Too noisy, too visible. We need to get to a lower floor.”

  “Who’s that?” Wendell asked, seeing a light-haired figure camping near a boulder at the bottom of the hill, dimly lit on an overcast morning.

  “Maybe our contact?” Shin replied. “Come on, let’s move.”

  On Earth, that figure was a woman with nearly white blond side-cut hair, her breath visible in the Russian winter cold. She was heavily dressed in drab grays and browns, an Earthen bolt-action rifle on her back and several concealed daggers under her outermost jacket, as well as one at the back of each leather boot. She showed an intensity not unlike Shin’s.

  The moment she heard a sound nearby, she pulled out one of her daggers defensively and was ready to throw it within a second’s time. She turned and found the source, her serious expression briefly turning into astonishment as she saw a spatial tear open up in the cliffside and four Aurrians step out. They looked around, saw her, and watched as the leader of the group raised her hand as a greeting. They wore strange blue and gray uniforms; the Earthen agent assumed they were new Guard colors.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she got to her feet—revealing that she was on the taller side, matching Wendell’s height—and approached, giving her rifle strap a readjustment as she did so.

  “You had me worried you weren’t coming.”

  “You’re here for us, I assume?” Milla replied.

  “Da. The shooting just started,” she added, pointing to the top of the cliffs where a line of trees stood. “So… something’s going on.”

  “How much do you know?” Shin asked.

  “My superior didn’t go into detail when he contacted me on my radio reserved for Aurrian instructions. I live in a small shack fairly far from here, simple monitoring and reporting mostly… I kept up on it, even after all contact suddenly dropped off about seven years ago.”

  “The Earth-Aurra passageway closed and only just reopened.”

  “What? I had no idea… Then I truly was stranded. Chert. I need to be updated, but there’s no time now. We need to get after this maniac.”

  “Then let’s start working on this hill,” Xavier said. “But can you at least tell us your name and rank before we get started?”

  “That I can,” she said, and then in a surprise to everyone, she gave them a Guard salute. “Gretchen Heartzfel, Onasian Reservist.”

  Those who served the Angels looked at one another, exchanging quiet judgmental glances as they weighed how best to proceed.

  Above them, William Drides had just entered the bunker complex, leaving behind the bodies of the first guards that came out to stop him on the surface, several spent ammunition shells littering the ground.

  As he was uncertain of his mortality while on Earth, he had taken the rare precaution of donning a light suit of Aurrian armor, which slowed him considerably but offered him some protection against the spray of the submachine guns the professional Russian military was using against him.

  Unfamiliar with the language and annoyed by the alarms, Drides focused on his alchemagi instead of the shouts of the guards and their demands that he hit the floor. He had a shield formed with iron alchemagi, causing some of the bullets to ricochet into the surrounding metal barrier of the bunker. As guards rushed through the blast door and it closed behind them, Drides cut several down with vector beams, and their panic escalated.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “They don’t remember alchemagi…” he reminded himself as he slogged ahead like an armored tank. “They’ve no idea what I’m doing to them. Poor bastards… But there’s no other way. Persevere, Will.”

  He then took out another soldier by throwing away his shield and accelerating it, crushing him against the blast door and hitting the remaining guard’s leg, breaking it and sending him to the ground.

  Sweating and breathing heavily under his helmet, Drides stepped up to the sole survivor, on the ground with a just-emptied magazine. Everyone in the silo would soon be in Hold together, trying to understand what had just happened to them. Stories would be passed onto judges, perhaps Hold’s staff would begin some manner of inquiry. It might all add up to a nuisance he didn’t want to waste time dealing with. So, he had chosen to only rely on basic alignments, along with vector spells. He didn’t at all mind taking a small chance by framing Trinqit for the attack and sacrificing her to an investigation further down the line.

  He finished off the guard with a quick beam to the heart, and then began working on the blast door, prying it apart with his control over metal.

  Shortly after he had started to force it back open, he heard a rustle at his feet and looked down—to see the guard was still alive and reaching for his side arm. Drides blamed the stress of the situation for his messy aim. Even with a hole in his chest and a broken leg, the dedicated soldier was quick enough to get his pistol out and take aim at the intruder.

  Drides had no time or choice; he reacted by opening up his eye patch and blasting his death gaze right through his helmet’s visor. The guard’s arm and gun dropped, as his spirit was cut from his body.

  “Damn it…” he muttered and returned to his work on the door.

  After several minutes of effort, he managed to wrest it open.

  As he passed by the operators’ room, the two senior missile commanders on post rushed out and got several shots off with their own pistols, two of which glanced off of Drides’ armor. He dispatched them quickly without so much as committing their desperate faces to memory, tore open the remaining doors, and stepped onto the silo’s top gantry.

  Upon seeing the might of an intercontinental ballistic missile in person for the first time amid the swirling yellow alarm lights, he removed his helmet and let it drop to the metal grating. Having been born on Earth just several years before the Cold War ended, he had grown up well aware of the power of thermonuclear weaponry. Yet, Aurrians who had last left an atomic age or later Earth were still in the minority.

  “They’ll have no idea…” he murmured to himself. “Dad, Mom… if you could see me now. When we meet again, it will be in a new world.”

  “Mind adept,” Gretchen said, answering a question from her new, provisional partners as they walked quickly but warily through the forest and past several ‘restricted area’ signs. “I don’t do any mind tricks, but it can be useful for reading my foe’s movements.”

  “And you’re a rifleman in Aurra?” Wendell asked her.

  “Oh, not at all. I’m only an okay shot. Pikeman, actually. Just, not a very practical weapon on Earth if you need to defend yourself.”

  “Don’t see that class of weapon in use much anymore.”

  “No, but I’m damn elegant with it. Got mine tucked away in the disc. Ah, there—that’s the fence around the silo.”

  They stopped for a moment to survey the scene, and could hear the distant sound of an alarm. After several seconds, they also saw where the fence had been torn open, and fallen Russian guards.

  “Damn, he’s really going through with it…” Wendell grumbled. “Whatever he’s planning, the lid is still shut, and…” He felt the ground. “There isn’t any activity from the rocket.”

  “I really doubt he’d actually try to launch a missile, Wendell,” Milla replied. “Or even be capable. He must be trying to steal a warhead.”

  “You seem to know something about this individual,” Gretchen said. “I wasn’t even given a name. Who is he?”

  “Have you ever heard of William Drides?” Shin asked her.

  “No. Should I have?”

  Thankful that Gretchen wasn’t aware he was a pretorian, which would no doubt conflict her, Milla replied, “He’s extremely dangerous. You may be… surprised by the breadth of his powers.”

  “And whatever you do, don’t look in his eyes,” Shin added.

  “Hm? Why’s that?”

  “Guys, we gotta hurry,” Xavier interjected. “I’m sure Russia’s counter-terrorism forces, Spetsnaz, and God knows who else will be swarming over this area in minutes.”

  “Right. Of course.” Gretchen removed her rifle from its strap and made sure it was loaded. “Be careful. If anyone’s still alive in there, they’ll just assume we’re with this maniac. We’ll have to take them out, too.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Xavier said, also gripping his rifle. “This is a terrible situation overall. But we’re not the ones at fault.”

  Well aware of the danger and unprecedented situation they were heading into, they entered the silo grounds, Milla briefly investigating the people Drides had struck down on the way in.

  “They’ve all but cut apart with vector lines…” she observed.

  Gretchen fretted, “We’re dealing with a vector adept? Wonderful.”

  Shin replied, “Ah, well… She’s a vector as well, and as a lightning I can break his lines, if that eases your worry at all.” She then whispered to Milla, “What are we going to do about this? She’ll be expecting vector attacks, when he can actually hit us with anything…”

  “And if she knows we’re facing a pretorian apostle, she’ll either turn on us or not want to help us at all. What’s the better choice?”

  “I agree with the captain,” Xavier said. “If something happens to her, she goes to the kingdom, learns the truth, and maybe we gain an ally. Revealing anything else before then doesn’t serve us here.”

  “Hey, so, look…” Gretchen spoke up again once they stopped at the silo’s forced-open entrance and surveyed the bunker down the stairs ahead. “I’ll always serve the Guard faithfully, but I have to admit… I’m scared of what may happen to me if I die. I’m not ready to feel… nothing.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll work as a team—” Xavier was cut off by Shin.

  “You don’t disappear. Hold will take care of you and you’ll be reborn in your birth City. Only a few are privy to this fact.”

  “Is… that really true? Why would our superiors keep a secret like that from its Earth agents? Who… What division are you four with?”

  “We’ll talk later when we have time. Let’s move in.”

  Seeing the bodies of more Russian soldiers on the way, they entered the bunker and traversed a couple of rooms, eventually arriving at the longest tunnel-like chamber leading to the top of the silo itself. They stopped upon seeing the figure wearing Aurrian armor ahead, his helmet now on the floor. Xavier, Wendell, and Gretchen raised their rifles.

  Drides only briefly looked up from his work to see who had arrived, as most of his concentration was on the large warhead levitating in front of him, which he had been steadily disassembling with touchless iron manipulation, both of his palms spread open a few feet from the weapon.

  “Ms. Nolland,” he said as she placed an arm in front of Gretchen to keep her from getting too close. “How did you know to come here?”

  Another piece of metal left the side of the warhead, joining a pile of security mechanisms at his feet. He then began to raise the shroud off of the very tip of the rocket, exposing the five cone-shaped re-entry vehicles within, each of them tall and nearly matching his own height.

  “Are you going to explain this insanity to me?” Milla asked him and unsheathed her sword. “What do you plan on doing with those?”

  “Tell me who told you about all of this and maybe I’ll give you a small hint. And who’s your new friend?”

  “You’re not leaving this place, William…”

  He walked around the exposed nukes, more curious about their shape and composition than the group blocking his easy exit. They could see that he was sweating, maybe even the slightest bit shaken.

  “What’s with his eye-patch?” Gretchen whispered to Milla.

  “I’ve never handled a thing of such power…” Drides said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, waiting for Earth to reopen so I could risk my life acquiring one of these. My heart’s beating so quickly.”

  He then looked back at them in a way that Gretchen perceived as a threat, or perhaps was merely the trigger that let her fear of the moment take over. She fired a shot from her rifle, but the bullet was deflected by active, unseen control over metal and hit the side of the bunker.

  “Milla,” Wendell said quietly, “Destroy the bombs.”

  Before Drides could let out another glib remark, Milla said the spell words under her breath, created a small mandala, and propelled it towards the cluster of warheads, unconcerned what might happen if they were cut to pieces. But Drides, with the advantage of his innate alchemagi abilities even on Earth, was able to counter the lines in time with a grid of his own spanning the width of the tunnel. Once the two vector spells crashed into each other and screeched with energy, Drides electrified his defensive grid, destabilizing and breaking Milla’s lines entirely.

  “W-what the hell kind of spell was that…?” Gretchen mumbled.

  Not hesitating to attempt a follow-up attack, Wendell unleashed several rounds from his rifle—Xavier joining in after a few seconds—and then tossed his explosive bolas. Drides doubled his lines to tighten his grid, slicing slugs apart, and deflected whatever made it through with air bursts. The bolas detonated upon hitting the vector lines, forcing Drides to drop his defenses and instead use his fire control to divert the flames away.

  Shin looked ready to charge ahead, when Drides suddenly dimmed the lights on his half of the tunnel, cloaking himself in darkness. Shin instead launched a bolt of lightning at his position, but hit nothing.

  “What the hell?” Gretchen exclaimed, holstering her rifle to swap things up by filling the spaces between her fingers with daggers. “You didn’t say anything about this guy being a damn apostle. And he’s not even lifting a finger or saying words to cast spells!”

  “We told you that he’s dangerous,” Xavier replied.

  Trained to use alchemagi to help in low-visibility situations, Xavier cited a basic spell to condense the air into mist, which he used to look for the subtlest of air currents originating from the curtain of darkness, which would also pick up any form of elemental travel Drides might attempt.

  Having expected him to move into position for an attack, Xavier was surprised to see some mist moving into the darkness, as if it were bring pulled into a vacuum. He worried what might be happening past the veil.

  “Open fire!” Xavier ordered and became the first to do so.

  Wendell and Shin didn’t question it; they fired both bullets and lightning bolts into the darkness, despite lacking a target. Trusting Xavier’s intuition, Milla followed suit, activating her sword’s engine and using it to launch sharp blades of air, while Gretchen tossed seven of her eight daggers at different angles, hoping to catch something. Six of them hit the walls with pings and clanks—but one made the distinctive sound of hitting flesh.

  The darkness fell away, revealing the scene that had been hidden from them. Blast marks and air blade impacts surrounded Drides, who had turned the rocket’s nose cone into a flat, solid barrier that covered the front of the bomb cluster. The dagger lodged in his shoulder had just broken his concentration, and the cause of the mist movement became clear.

  Drides’ second elemental control effort, aside from the local light, had been focused into the other world. While in the dark, he had opened a tear with his claws, exposing the solid ground under Aurra’s surface, and then used earth control to push away and bend rock, forming a cavity already large enough to hold one of the re-entry vehicles.

  “Son of a…” Shin muttered. “That’s how he plans to move it…”

  Drides sighed, pocketed the claws, and plucked the dagger out of the back of his shoulder. He let it drop to the floor and turned to his foes.

  Shaking his head, he told them, “I didn’t want to bother with anymore killing today. This was all stressful enough on its own.”

  He tapped the storage disc at his side, bringing out his ancient Rotaliscen blade in a burst of golden light. Creating a moving shield of fire as he did so, Drides launched himself at the group, swinging his blade with great force. Wendell raised his rifle to block the attack. It cost him—his gun was cut in half, and he was slashed through his overcoat and chest—but Drides was left wide open for a brief moment. Wendell used his strength to grab onto the apostle’s wrist, pull him forward, and put him in a chokehold.

  “Milla, the bombs!” Wendell said as he put all his effort into keeping Drides immobilized.

  She formed a strong vector mandala that would be able to cut through them, but Wendell was bleeding out quickly and had already lost some of his stamina. Even with an arm around his neck, Drides was able to concentrate and hit his captor with several lateral vector lines of his own. Wendell groaned, fell back, and released his grip, after which Drides plunged his sword into him and in the same movement, swung it back around, filled it with electricity, and broke through Milla’s pattern before she could propel it, shattering the lines immediately.

  “Wendell!” Milla exclaimed as she watched him fall to the ground.

  She couldn’t react quickly enough to bring up her blade, and was certain nothing would stop Drides’ sword from slicing across her neck—but at the last instant, an unfamiliar silver halberd appeared over her left shoulder and caught the Rotaliscen. Milla backed away from danger to see Gretchen holding her weapon with both hands and a strong grip.

  “Do you even know who I am?” Drides asked as she fought against him. “You’ve wound up in something you don’t understand.”

  The two sparred for a moment, with Gretchen twirling her polearm gracefully and mightily to keep Drides back.

  “His eye!” Milla shouted. “Don’t look in his…”

  There was a crack of loud thunder, and everyone looked towards Shin, who had used her chance to dart over to the bombs and cleave one of them cleanly in half with a lightning-enhanced slash. With Drides facing away from him, Xavier used the chance to fire another slug, but the pretorian seemed immune or at least always ready to deflect projectiles, and it too was instead flung into the wall of the bunker.

  It was at this point that Milla realized how Drides must have incorporated mind alchemagi in battle, by using it to enhance his mental power, to think quickly, perhaps even predict every move or see in a sort of slow motion. He always reacted just in time, always had a solution to any attack, and could always strategize his way out of any combat situation.

  He really was simply infuriating to fight. And while she was on Earth and not at risk of truly losing her life, Milla had replaced her fear with growing rage, the kind that Garder had often given into over the past years.

  Before she could act on her impulses and at least try to unleash hell on Drides, he suddenly grabbed onto Gretchen’s halberd and yanked it towards him. She refused to let go, and was brought lethally close to his eye. Milla wanted to shout something, but she didn’t have the chance.

  As Shin powered up another lightning blade to cut more bombs, Drides’ eye patch opened and he separated Gretchen’s body and spirit.

  Her eyes widened in shock a moment before she went limp and fell backwards, her body turning to orange smoke before she hit the floor. Milla cried out in anger and charged forward, her blade above her—but Drides merely turned to face her and hit her with the same attack.

  Just as it had happened when she first experienced his eye seven years ago, she saw the crimson eclipse, felt herself drift away momentarily, and then be rescued and pulled back by Caeden—but she was left in great pain, worse than any migraine. In the moments that she was helpless, the apostle had launched Gretchen’s halberd, combining iron manipulation and an air blast to accelerate it to a great speed that not even Shin could dodge.

  Once Milla recovered and could see straight again, her eyes moved towards Shin, who had been impaled by the halberd’s pointed end and was pinned to the side of the bunker. Despite her pain, she was putting in all her effort to free herself, even as she coughed up blood and swore at Drides.

  “Milla…” Xavier said worryingly and helped her up. “What are we supposed to do, I…” He stopped when he heard a clank, and looked over to see that Wendell’s rifle had hit the floor, its owner also now gone. “Oh, God. I’m scared… I believe in Hold’s kingdom, but I’m still scared…”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Stand back.”

  Drides had returned to the warhead, where he was just out of range of Shin’s blade, which she swung helplessly at him. He ignored her, took out his claws again, and tried to recall the exact spot he had opened before.

  “You can’t…” Milla muttered, feeling her energy well up. “Those weapons don’t belong in Aurra. And neither do you.”

  “I’m not a monster, Ms. Nolland. I feel no contempt for any of you. But I have plans, dreams you could call them. I want to change our world, just as you do…” He then put the claws together at a specific point in space and began to rip into the fabric. “And I think my ideas are better.”

  Milla was well aware that he was only trying to trigger her, but she didn’t care if she took the bait. She activated her sword’s active motor and let it pull her alchemagi into the weapon. She created a large wireframe shell—a secondary blade around it, which tripled its length. She swung it hard at the warheads, which were just barely in reach. The vector lines cut into the bunker’s side, tearing into it and leaving behind molten edges.

  Without bothering to turn around, Drides created a cage around the bombs, again made up of his own lightning-enhanced vector patterns. Her blade’s atomic shell broke apart on impact, leaving the bombs intact. She then produced a thinner, less complex, but even longer vector shell, and this time aimed for Drides himself.

  He was able to instantly produce a single lightning-line to break her attack again. And he did it twice more, with perfect timing each instance.

  After witnessing Milla’s inability to cause any harm to either target, Shin became even angrier, and more desperate herself. She produced a weak bolt of lightning and directed it at the bombs, hoping that somehow, they might just explode or even detonate in some way. But the electricity only glanced off their coverings. With the little strength she had left, she redirected the flow of electrons over to Drides. They only lightly brushed across his armor before fading entirely.

  The pretorian opened his tear, revealing again the tunnel that he had been creating with alchemagi. It already looked big enough to hold one of the bombs. Seeing that she was out of time—and understanding that she would never land a hit on him with alchemagi—Milla changed her stance, breathed, and prepared to try and land a physical blow on him.

  She took her first running step forward. But suddenly stopped before she could pick up any speed, upon seeing Drides disappear into the air. She looked for him for just a moment and realized that he was traveling elementally, a split second before he coalesced again, right in front of her.

  “Remember this pain,” he muttered.

  Before she could try and strike him, he spun his blade around and sunk it into her upper right leg. She cried out in terrible agony and had to try her hardest to just keep herself from collapsing.

  He removed his sword, bringing a second round of anguish, and confident that he wouldn’t need it anymore, returned it to his storage disc.

  “Milla!” Xavier shouted and ran up to help.

  Drides traveled back to his previous spot, picked up the fallen claws, and resumed work on his tear and tunnel for a third time.

  “Damn it…” Milla grumbled, her heart beating thunderously. “No matter what, he can’t…”

  Shin finally managed to free herself, tossing the halberd away and dropping to the floor, where she could only crawl. Xavier turned his rifle back on Drides, but hesitated to fire, knowing he’d never hit him.

  He murmured, “What am I supposed to…”

  Breathing heavily and trying to shrug off the pain, Milla wrapped her right arm around Xavier’s shoulders, forced herself up, and told him, “Just keep me on my feet… I’m going to… Take care of it…”

  Xavier felt her squeeze his shoulder tightly, and looked over to see that her eyes were closed. A second later, she reopened them, and they had changed, becoming those of someone else’s that gazed ahead placidly.

  “Caeden?” Xavier murmured. “I’ve seen this before… in Garder.”

  The eyes looked at Shin for a moment to make sure that she had gotten to safety, after which Caeden-Milla created two golden-ratio vector rectangles. They grew and filled themselves up with more rectangles.

  She then thrust them forward, breaking the rectangles into their most basic forms. The outermost four lines shot forward, then the largest remaining rectangle grew in an instant and fired, and so on, one after the next, several times a second. They formed a blast ray of vector shapes, even more devastating than the Gatling-gun-conch-shell Trinqit could generate at her peak effort. The lines sizzled in the air, possibly nearly tearing apart the worldly fabric itself. They should have overwhelmed any defense imaginable, even Drides’ exotic lightning-vector shields.

  Only able to sustain the nearly-impossible technique for a few seconds, Milla fell back to her knees, caught her breath, let Caeden rest, and surveyed the damage. What remained of the warped metal shroud that had protected the bombs was spread over a few tiny pieces on the floor, the rest broken down into atoms. Beyond it were ribbons of uranium, the bombs also having met the same fate. Drides and his tear were nowhere to be seen.

  Xavier spoke after a moment, “Milla, I… I think you got him.”

  “All the bombs were destroyed…” Shin added once she reached them, though she was still unable to stand. “Is Drides… Is he…?”

  “Is that all you have, even with the half-apostle inside you?” his voice suddenly mocked them from somewhere. “I expected more, really.”

  They found him, or rather, only his face. He was melded into the bunker’s side, apparently having used elemental travel to hide himself in the metal wall and the concrete beyond it. They watched as he emerged, his body turning from a liquid steel back to flesh and fabric as he did so.

  “I think Jeryn would’ve been disappointed,” he added mockingly.

  Milla went for her sword, she too now feeling nothing but hatred for their nemesis. But she stopped when Xavier fell forward onto her.

  “A-ah, Milla…” He looked down at the metal spike that had pierced one of his lungs, formed out of the steel floor itself. “Hurts…”

  “Xavier! Damn it! I’m so sorry… I… I let all of you down.”

  “C-can’t… breathe…” He managed to wheeze after coughing up blood as she tried to keep him upright.

  Shin joined them, and Milla could now see the extent of her own grave injuries. The three watched as Drides walked over to where his tear had been, used the claws to reopen it once more, and then finish hollowing out the Aurrian tunnel on the other side, digging into the rock without moving a muscle. He turned his head to look at them, and controlled the nearby metal to pull up the last surviving bomb.

  Somehow, at some point just before Milla unleashed a vector storm, he had managed to move and hide it inside a narrow pit that he formed in the floor to shelter the weapon. Treating it with care, he levitated the warhead and gradually brought it to the tear.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Drides told them. “Now you’ll just have to spend your days worrying about what I aim to do with it, when I might use it. Go back to Aurra and fight your war. This has nothing to do with the squabble. Not that I expect you to believe anything I say.”

  “Don’t use it… Not in Aurra,” Milla tried to reason with him. “The war causes enough suffering. The death toll…”

  Her pleas did nothing to abate Drides’ ambition, and she had to watch as the weapon crossed the threshold and entered Aurra, where it waited for its new owner in a tunnel below the surface.

  “I should send you to whatever’s left of the Fragmented Dimension, to what used to be I if that’s what fills the space now,” Drides said. “But I know your friends would free you, in time. And I don’t think anyone in A will take such a claim seriously, should you bother to tell them.” He stepped inside the tear and into his tunnel, taking his claws with him. As it began to rapidly close, he took out a remote trigger and flipped a switch. “Take a minute to think on your failures, then run along back to N. Go home.”

  He tossed the remote back through just before the tear closed. After it had hit the floor, Milla understood what was about to happen. She looked through the silo door and saw an explosive attached to the top of the missile; probably one of many. Once they detonated, so would all of the highly explosive fuel inside the rocket.

  “Shin,” Milla said to her, “Try and save yourself. You’ve come and gone from Hold too many times already. Don’t waste another life on me.”

  She shook her head and replied, “I won’t leave you.”

  Xavier, who was able to free himself with Drides’ control on the metal spike now relinquished, stuttered as his body trembled, “I s-should’ve d-died a long time ago, when w-we first met…”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Shin tried to assure him. “Hold is just… just another world… We’ve been to so many others together already.”

  Milla then murmured to herself, “Mother…”

  She tightened her grip on her new sword, regretting that she still lacked the strength to take on William Drides.

  There was an incredibly bright, incredibly loud flash of light.