The sirens tore through the morning silence with a bone-chilling wail which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in particular. Their sound intertwined in a harrowing harmony with the screams coming from the neighboring buildings. Through the corridors of the barracks however, only the echoes of the marching Warden’s perfectly measured steps could be heard. Their faces radiated unfaltering menace which in and of itself would be enough to if not stop, at the very least slow down any incoming enemy.

Lietenant Aeris Tan was marching with them, but her gaze was dancing around, looking for an opportune moment to break away from the line.

Mere seconds after she started, some of the armoured glass panes along the corridor burst into a million pieces, followed closely by a sizzling fireball, which crashed with a loud hiss on the wall. And took the first few rows of Wardens with it, of course. “Son of a male d…”, was all her inner voice managed, before her worst fears came to life in the form of a cry from somewhere in front:

“Firestarters!”

No, no, no, Kriyan demons dammit! It’s not the firestarters! But the bomb was out of the bag, quite literally and Tan looked on with growing anxiety as her colleagues activated the fireproof shields built into their uniforms.

There was no time to waste. The momentary shock the Wardens suffered was fading away and the lieutenant managed to push the blue button on her uniform, just before her colleague turned to her to see if her fireshield was properly activated, as protocol dictated.

She got as quietly as she could to the gaping hole of molten metalline and betonite and instinctively crouched behind the debris to look outside. Over the last few days Tan had devoted herself entirely to finding out as much as possible about the attack the earth swine were planning to launch on Syfis and despite all the intel she already had, she felt an unpleasant tightening in her chest as she looked upon the fiery inferno, spreading before her eyes.

The air was heavy and unmoving and still somehow the rotten smell of sulfur had managed to infiltrate everything around her. There was barely any surface not yet spouting thick black smoke, highlighted by the red sparks of the flames below. Even the water in the numerous fountains was burning with an ugly hiss. A few of her water colleagues who had managed to get down there first were trying to put out the nearest fires - without much luck. The earth women had taken great care to perfect their explosives so that they would resemble as much as possible the living flame of the firestarters, which, upon contact with water, would “jump” and reform at a safe distance.

The water ladies weren’t going to be able to deal with it. At least not fast enough to stop the nasty moving fires from swallowing the better part of the capital. Tan jumped from behind her unnecessary cover as soon as the last of her colleagues filed past the debris on the floor towards the stairs. She didn’t need those.

She landed with a barely audible whisper of the wind a few mat’ri away from the spot where a handful of water Wardens were still desperately trying to chase down and suffocate the spark that was eagerly swallowing the grass around it, while at the same time expertly avoiding the beautiful mandala of coloured sand, surrounding one of the fountains. Tan made sure she had calculated the angle correctly and focused her gaze in the middle of the mandala. The sand erupted upwards as if some giant had massively sneezed on it and a million merciless, suffocating grains of sand fell atop the flame.

The Wardens around the fountain were still coughing and patting the dust off their uniforms while the lieutenant hastily left the scene, as quietly as she could. It had been quite a while since she’d had to pull a trick like that and her reflexes were somewhat rusty. She didn’t manage to cover her face fast enough and some of the sand had gotten into her nose and throat and was scratching rather nastily at them. She stopped for a moment behind the barracks and threw a glance at the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. The earthlings weren’t stupid - they knew full well that the last place some woman would look to when fire sparks are flying everywhere would be the sky.

The sky… Perhaps the Day star had risen an hour ago, but the smoke was so thick that not a single ray had managed to break through. Tan had participated in the last Great war, but even then the biggest horrors of the military effort bypassed the water capital as though Alaiah’s fortunes were watching over it. But perhaps they didn’t care anymore or perhaps the citizens should stop rationalizing lucky coincidences as divine intervention. She shook her head to chase away the nasty thoughts that threatened to overtake her and made for the city center. She had a good idea about where to start the search for the terrorists.