As Aziz followed Marie up, he scanned the land around the Heaven-cleaving Fortress. The God of Earth’s passing had left subtle but significant changes to the terrain; changes that only someone who had been staring out into the battlefield over long periods of time could detect.

The soil, for instance, didn’t cling onto the walls as strongly as before. The literal foundations of the Heaven-cleaving Fortress had been weakened, and some infantry troops were already hard at work shovelling even more soil around the tall walls. If the walls crumbled in the middle of a battle, things would get dicey within seconds, especially for the infantry troops.

Yet, none of the Knights or Lords had seen fit to expend a moment’s worth of power and attention to help those troops. It was as if they lived in a divided world or something.

“Say,” Aziz mumbled, “let’s get the kids to help them with the repairs later.”

“Repairs?” Marie asked.

“Over there.” Aziz pointed at the infantry troops milling around the walls of the fortress. “The First Aerial won’t take more than an hour, if we get everyone to chip in.”

The marshal turned to look at the small groups of soldiers bustling around the huge walls of the fortress, and stayed mum for a few seconds. “You don’t like that?”

“I don’t like the idea that people who can do these things in a second aren’t helping out. It’s the most efficient course of action, as well as…” Aziz shook his head. “It just makes me think of what we discussed earlier on. When I look at them, I can’t help but think that they’re effectively being coerced to do this.”

“Coerced…well, if the wall does go down, they’ll be the first ones at risk. Yes, that is quite a good way to coerce them,” Marie replied. “I suppose helping them would be good PR for the First Aerial too, right?”

“Yes. It would be.”

“We’ll do that when we come back, then.” Marie looked at the troops who were floating around Ark City and fell into deep thought. Aziz couldn’t blame her for doing so; the sight of Ark City’s aerial Squadrons were bringing up some rather sad memories. He hadn’t quite forgotten how they overwhelmed the First Aerial during training exercises.

Naturally, that included the kid who had all kinds of artefacts and an Engine, Nalus.

“You don’t look so good,” Marie observed.

“Just some rather bad memories of nearly dying, nothing big,” Aziz replied. “Usual soldier stuff.”

“Oh, okay. Stay strong.” Marie’s lips twitched twice. “Anyway, do you want to join me in greeting the others?”

“Come on, that’s no big deal to me,” Aziz replied. “Let’s go. We’re just wasting time standing around here. Might as well get this over and done with.”

Arriving at one of the many landing zones that Ark City had for fliers, the colonel caught sight of a familiar young man, who was currently besieged by three stern-looking elders.

Lieutenant Nalus…or, judging from the three familiar lines on his epaulette, Captain Nalus. Pricking up his ears, Aziz tried to eavesdrop on the conversation going on around him, and the ends of his mouth rose as what seemed to be a matchmaking attempt flowed into his ears.

For some reason, the people around Nalus were very interested in getting him hitched up, but since that was obviously a very inappropriate topic to bring up for a first meeting, the three old men were soon chased away by Warmaster Chamberlain. Stifling an urge to laugh at the embarrassed Nalus, Aziz followed Marie as she bobbed over to the military leaders of Ark City.

The colonel knew most of them by sight; he had interacted with them briefly when Ark City’s refugees escaped on twenty Locomotives.

Right, speaking of those Locomotives…where are they? Aziz looked around on reflex, but he failed to find any clue. For a few seconds, the clear blue skies seemed to be mocking him for his efforts, before Aziz tore his gaze back to the ongoing conversation between Marie and some officer he only recognised by sight.

“…hard on everyone, Lieutenant Winston.”

“There were some operational displays, but—” The lieutenant froze as Aziz approached, and his eyes narrowed. For some reason, the colonel could sense a great deal of hostility emanating off him, but that moment only lasted for three seconds, before a globe of energy smacked into his forehead.

Warmaster Chamberlain appeared on the scene a few seconds later. “What do you think you’re doing, kid? There’s lots of humans here!”

The lieutenant bowed his head. “M-my apologies, uh…”

“Colonel Aziz,” Aziz helpfully supplied. “No matter. I’ve seen reactions like this before, back in my time at Ark City.”

“Colonel, you were from Ark City?” Winston asked, his eyes widening slightly.

“So was Marie here,” Aziz added, a gentle smile on his face. “We’re all victims of the same atrocities here.”

“What…happened? If you were from Ark City…”

“We were ordered to the North for a covert mission,” Aziz explained. “And before we could make it back, Ark City had teleported away, leaving us behind. As a result, we decided to help out any resistance movements instead.”

“That’s all there is to it, really.”

Warmaster Chamberlain nodded. “I’ve heard about that too, yes. Still, missions by Ark Interior aren’t in my purview, so I suspect that re-establishing your identities — if you two so desire — is going to be a rather lengthy task. Who was the one who sent the two of you off?”

“Uh…” Aziz racked his brains. “It was a colonel, I think.”

“Colonel Manhattan?”

“Around there, I think.” Aziz rubbed his nose. “Around there. But we’re already high officials of a different nation, so I think our status is going to be a huge issue if you push the subject, Warmaster.”

“Is that so?” He shook his head. “What a shame.”

Aziz cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away.

“Right,” said Chamberlain, “the North’s Locomotives should be arriving tomorrow. It’s going to get real crowded real soon.”

“Tomorrow?”

Rock rumbled in the distance, puncturing the marshal’s words.

“Yes, marshal. Tomorrow.”