The woman with short, messy blue hair and a pretty boy face that glistened with sweat stabbed the training spear into the ground. Her sweat stained tight fitting singlet showed off her slightly built body and the hem of her cargo pants was stained with dirt. She raised her hand to the left in gesture and Luce tossed her a bottle of water from the sidelines.

Luce asked, “Have you seen the new movie?”

After taking a swig of water, she replied, “What movie?”

Luce walked up to her, taking in the surrounding indoor stadium with floodlights shining from the far corners of the field. Save for a maintenance worker fiddling with a panel on the far end of the track, everyone else had left.

Luce replied, “Jacques, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.”

“Relax, love.” She stepped forward and gave Luce a welcomed kiss. “I know the one. About crossing the Helm, right?”

“Yeah. What do you think of it?” Luce crossed her arms seriously.

“About the movie? I thought it was a little campy. Effects were pretty decent, but they could use a little more Eikly. That man can act.”

Luce raised a brow. “I'm talking about them walking The Path. Going across to Eltar. Leaving this sentient forsaken place.”

“Are you worried about not killing that Titan?”

“Yes!” Luce shouted back, pacing away from Jacques in frustration. She turned back on her feet. “It's treason, Jacques! I walked away in the middle of a fight! They could lock me up! Put me in front of a firing line!”

“Can I ask you why you did it? Or rather, didn't do it?”

“I don't know? What do you want me to say?” Luce was on the verge of screaming. “That I didn't have the guts to kill something that's alive? That I think all living things deserves a chance to try? I'm a coward? I'm a terrible soldier? What?”

Jacques nodded understandingly and walked up to the younger girl, placing two gentle hands on her shoulders for calm. “No one has ever been tried for being a conscientious objector and it's not going to happen to you.”

Luce took a deep breath, closing her eyes to take peace in the temporary darkness. She looked back up to Jacques and asked, “What if they do?”

A smile back. “Then we run. As far as we can. To somewhere where, hopefully, there won't be any wars.”

***

Lucinda Baerrinska woke to a cold breeze that floated through the edge of the town. Cirus, the lone of the Twin stars that was left in the sky for the winter was ported to set over the edge of the world in the west. In front of Luce, to the south, the ridges of the Titan Plains ended in a sheer drop, left-lined by the protruding treeline of the forest and stretched with roads of grass. The silhouettes of a marching line approached the town of Valent.

The bench she sat on was one of the many that lined the outskirts' fences of the town. The quaint but countryside gesture of openness almost overshadowed the events of the previous day, where hundreds of the town's citizens condemned Adelaide with violent prejudice, a prejudice Luce could not fully dissuade against.

Adelaide was a murderer, someone who had killed countless number of people over the years. Defending her actions were next to impossible. But 'next to' was Luce's argument. Adelaide fought against what she saw as an invading force against her home. The same argument used by every war that had ever been fought in the history of the world. What gave so many people before her the leeway to escape judgement but not her?

It was thin.

But Luce wanted to be right. Needed to.

“Luce?”

She looked up. The marching line had reached her and the group of Titan Rangers surrounded her bench. The one man who stood before her and in front of everyone else had the short greying-brown hair and rugged beard of those that had slept on the streets all their life. His gentle hazel eyes scanned her face and a beam of a smile formed from the rugged lips. Light wrinkles shaded his forehead. Before speaking, he pulled together the tattered coat he had worn throughout his life in an attempt to refine, covering up the loose greying singlet underneath.

“Hey you,” Joashden Stalewaver greeted. He continued to wear the same leathered cargo pants brought over from the bottom of the world, patched and age-worn as he liked the feel of the fabric.

“Hey yourself, old man,” Luce greeted with a smile.

“I'm not that old.”

“You are old.”

“That's no way to talk to your elders.”

“'Elder' is just another word for being old.”

He grinned, “It's good to see you again, Luce.”

She leaned in for a hug which he readily gave back.

A hume girl jumped out from behind his large back, exclaiming, “I'm here too!”

“Hello to you too, Misti.” Luce smiled to her as she left the embrace.

The tomboyish hume danced around Josh. Wearing a set of maroon cotton long-sleeved shirt and dirt stained shorts, she hopped and skipped her way back to the crowd of Titan Rangers, her brown hair blending in with the rebelliously and ruggedly dressed group, all of whom held the poise of survivors, holding in their hands varied weapons. From swords and shields to the rare rifle and nailguns.

Josh smiled back at the hume girl before turning back to Luce to ask, “Where's this Grandmaster Enhancer you wrote about?”

She gestured back into the town. “Trying to talk the mayor into lending us the aid of their militia.”

He nodded. “Okay. I'll go help him negotiate something. You brief the squad on what they'll be doing.” He gently patted her shoulder and strolled past.

“Hold on!” she turned back and called out to him. “I'm retired!”

Josh kept walking. “So am I!” he stated nonchalantly.

“That's because you're old!”

“I'm only fifty-four!” he shouted back finally as he entered the town.

Luce let out a sigh and turned back to the group. Made up of men and women; elves, humans and humes, the Titan Rangers were unlike any other major organizations in the world. A tightly knit community of people, they were more akin to a mercenary guild than any government or armies. Everyone held similar goals of protecting nature and life along with the preservation of the Titan species, hence, their name. The group consisted mostly of the remnants of the wood elves of Eltar and any hume that left the Antipods of Everwind, though humans made up a small percentage as well.

Luce wondered how long it had been since she was amongst so many of her trade.

She started by asking, “How did you all get here so fast?”

Misti answered, “I intercepted your message for The Holdings. Josh was already at The Yard, so I decided to make my way there and get a group ready to move.”

Luce asked, “I got lucky?” Misti smiled affirmatively and Luce let out another sigh.

They had been running too heavily on luck recently. Adelaide's miraculous rescue at Ra'Kalen and The Watcher's timely return to Valent. She wondered if that pool of good fortune would be running out soon.

A male elf from the crowd asked, “What's our move, leader?”

“I'm not your leader anymore,” Luce replied.

Impatient, Misti exclaimed, “Nobody cares! Just get your gear on!”

Luce rubbed a thumb against her temple where a headache was building. For some reason, she thought Adelaide and Misti would get on well, with their crass attitudes leading the way. With another sigh, she braced herself and stepped back into the familiarly uncomfortable shoes of a leader.

“The dark elves are readying for war with Everwind. We have a small infiltration group on their way to Ta'Galadul to stop the main forces,” she explained as thinly as she could the plans of The Watcher. “We on the other hand will have to deal with the vanguards. Two siege golems, courtesy from the Seracue Dominion.”

Misti dropped her playful persona, asking, “How did they get here?”

“The golems? That's a good question. But I'm afraid we'll have to find out after everything has settled.” She refocused her briefing back onto the plan. Her voice turned grim and her eyes scrunched as the fading light of the day glared off the snow covered fields of the plains. “The golems are currently being controlled by dark elf terramancers. However, once the main dark elf army have cut off, the golems will revert to their base instructions. Destroy Everwind. They'll barrel straight for their target and Valent is in their way.”

“We could set up a perimeter and buy time to set up holding spells,” Misti suggested. “Trap them between the forest edge and–!”

“No.” She was cut off by Luce. “We're going to redirect them around Valendra Forest and away from the town. We'll stop them outside the walls of Everwind.”

The Titan Rangers gave her questioning stares, eyebrows raised in surprise. Murmurs quickly flooded the ranks and many were asking, “Why not stop them here?”

Luce continued, “I know this is dangerous, and that this plan puts the lives of the people of Everwind at risk. But there is a greater reason for this, one which I cannot share with you, for your own safety.”

She was the trump card. From what Naider had reasoned, Light did not yet know of her involvements. As far as the Lord was concerned, she was a non-player. A neutral party. It had to be kept that way for the plan to work. A distraction party backed by some of the most destructive creatures of war a mere stone's throw away from the walls of the city without the fear of being stabbed in the back. All eyes would be on them, including those of Lord Light. The perfect distraction.

She emphasised again, “I can't tell you the hows and whys, but the fate of not just the people of The Forum, but that of a whole world, depends on the success of this mission.” She straightened her back and stood to height, her hand instinctively moving to touch her rifle for strength. “I have never, and will never, force anyone to follow. But know that I will never ask you to go somewhere where I'm not willing to go myself. I ask you now, my friends, will you walk with me?”