As the elevator ascended to the next level above them, Octavia’s gaze never wandered from Mackenzie’s dazed expression, her hand held tightly in her own as they approached their destination. She had run the calculations again and again in her head, her retinal display filled to bursting with hundreds of pinned medical articles and first-hand accounts. Logically she knew that Mackenzie would live through the wound; it was a through-and-through which had torn through her intestine and had missed her spine.

The nanosurgeon foam would be enough to keep her from septic shock, and in the worst case scenario the foam would seal the edges of the wound so the bleeding wouldn’t continue as the foam began to degrade. As long as she got Mackenzie back to the Scales of Justice within the day, there would be no long term damage. She had applied the right items and hadn’t wasted any time.

And yet she couldn’t shake the thought that she hadn’t done enough and that Mackenzie would die, and of course it would be her fault.

Octavia had never been so grateful to have her expression hidden.

“Ah, fuck!” Alex exclaimed in pain, drawing Octavia’s attention. Alex was sitting on the edge of one of the seats, her biological arm wrapped from wrist to shoulder in bandages that were already beginning to show signs of the blood underneath. Jace tightened the last strand of bandages as he clipped it together.

“Stop being a baby,” Jace grumbled as he finished. He looked Alex up and down for a moment before giving a nod and clapping her on the injured shoulder, immediately causing her to jump and cry out in pain, which Jace snorted at.

“Asshole,” Alex spat, slapping Jace’s chest with her metal hand before taking a look at her bandaged arm with a frown, “You know, I don’t think you needed to cover my shoulder too, this seems a bit excessive.”

“The roll was too long and I’m too lazy to cut it,” Jace remarked with a shrug as he stood up, maneuvering his way towards the front door. He paused next to Octavia, looking down at Mackenzie with a surprisingly concerned look.

“What?” Octavia asked flatly.

“Is she gonna to be okay?” Jace asked, the tone of concern giving Octavia pause.

She frowned and looked down at Mackenzie who’s eyes had since closed, resting on the floor for the moment as the medicine did its job. After a moment of staring she sighed and gave a small nod, “Yeah, I think so,” she agreed quietly.

Jace was silent for a moment, his expression solemn before he finally gave a small nod. He reached out and patted Octavia’s shoulder, then he scooted past them and made his way to the front of the bus where the Lieutenant was sitting.

“Guardian Tiberius,” B’roka began, leaning back to look at Octavia, “Do you need me to carry her?”

Octavia looked down at Mackenzie for a moment, considering her options. She shook her head after some contemplation, glancing back over at B’roka before she replied, “No thank you, sir. I’ll carry her myself.”

“Very well,” B’roka remarked with a nod, “Then you should do so - the elevator is slowing down.”

Octavia nodded in response and turned her attention down to Mackenzie, regarding her features as the human slept in a drug-induced haze. She gently set Mackenzie’s hand back down on her chest before she let go and slowly reached her hands underneath Mackenzie’s body. With a single deft movement she scooped her lover into her arms and stood up, shuffling one of her feet into a better stance as she slotted one arm under Mackenzie’s knee and the other around her shoulders.

As she stood up, Mackenzie groaned, her eyes fluttering softly. She slowly opened her eyes, taking in the sights around her as a brief look of confusion crossed her features. She shifted in Octavia’s arms, the movement producing another sound of pain as her expression twisted into one of discomfort. Mackenzie immediately looked down at her stomach, struggling in Octavia’s arms for a moment before she finally relaxed with a sigh, her eyes clearing slightly as they landed on Octavia’s face.

“Hey,” Mackenzie murmured with a weary smile, “I thought angels were supposed to have wings, not tails.”

Octavia couldn’t help the short scoff that escaped her, the grin tugging at her lips despite her own internal fear. She shook her head in amusement as she replied quietly, “Your angel doesn’t follow the norms.”

Mackenzie’s smile widened at the response and she shuffled in Octavia’s grip, letting her head fall until it rested firmly on Octavia’s shoulder, “Aren’t our roles supposed to be reversed here?”

“You can carry me in your arms when you get better,” Octavia reassured softly, leaning down to press her armored forehead against Mackenzie’s own sweat-slicked forehead in an affectionate display. Mackenzie closed her eyes at the touch and sighed contently, leaning into Octavia’s presence.

“I’d like that,” Mackenzie agreed quietly, tilting her head until she could rest comfortably against Octavia again. As she did, Octavia got a perfect view of the patch on the side of her head, confirming that the indicator light was still green. Despite the situation, a brief wave of relief washed through her as she confirmed the color of the light.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the elevator suddenly jerked to a stop, metallic sounds pinging throughout the elevator shaft as it came to a stop at the next floor. Loud bangs echoed on either side of the platform as enormous metal arms locked it into place, followed by the metallic grinding of the large shutters slowly raising to provide access to the next level.

“Minutemen, up top with me. Guardian Tiberius, follow us with Flight Officer O’laughlin,” B’roka instructed sharply as he turned towards the door. Gripping onto the ledge he pulled himself up and out of the bus, leaving hand-sized dents in the metal of the floor as he disappeared over the lip. Octavia could hear the loud bang of his stony feet against the metal grating of the elevator outside.

“Take your time, killer,” Jace shot over his shoulder with a smirk as he stepped up onto the driver’s seat and pushed himself out of the bus, climbing out to join the Lieutenant. Compared to the loud bang from B’roka’s weight, Octavia’s ears barely registered Jace’s landing.

Alex nodded towards Octavia without a word as she pushed open the remains of the back door, and with a little acrobatics she was able to push off of one of the guard rails with her foot to propel herself out of the bus. She landed heavily on the grating outside with a, “Fuck!” of pain or displeasure as she audibly stumbled and fell onto her face. The sound of her head impacting the grating was immediately followed by the sound of Jace’s uproarious laughter.

Octavia sighed quietly and looked back down at Mackenzie, offering a hidden smile through the haze of her visor, “You ready to get out of here?” she asked in a tender voice.

“Yeah,” Mackenzie agreed with a short nod, “Don’t worry too much about me - whatever this stuff is that you creamed me with is pretty awesome.”

“Don’t ever say it that way again,” Octavia remarked with a scoff, shaking her head in disbelief as Mackenzie’s lips cracked into a shit-eating grin as her mischievous pools of jade gazed up at her.

“I can’t help it,” Mackenzie admitted, laughing briefly before the motion caused her to suddenly stop and groan in pain, her grin contorting into a strange mix between humor and agony.

“That’s what you get,” Octavia teased as she began to carry Mackenzie through the bus towards the front door, keeping her grip tight on the human’s body as she navigated through the wreckage, “Stop making dumb jokes and you’ll stop hurting yourself.”

“Worth it,” Mackenzie replied, her face relaxing slightly as the pain faded enough for her to shoot Octavia a charismatic wink.

“All clear, Octavia!” Alex called out, interrupting their conversation as her voice carried through the open door.

“Hold on tight,” Octavia instructed Mackenzie as she tightened her own grip on the taller woman’s knees and shoulders. She turned herself and looked up at the doorway for a few moments, her retinal display filling with calculations and holographic trajectories before she finally settled on the one that would work best.

“Woah, don’t tell me you can just jump this,” Mackenzie remarked, her eyes going wide in awe despite the precarious nature of their situation.

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Octavia remarked playfully as she bent at the knees. Her second skeleton synched with the servo motors of her armor, and with a sudden lurch the pair were airborne. Mackenzie gasped and gripped on tight to Octavia as she was carried through the hole above them, only to land gently on the grate on the other side. She bent at the knees as they landed, absorbing the blow and cushioning Mackenzie before standing up straight once again to gaze down at the grinning human.

“Awesome,” Mackenzie whispered with wide eyes as she shifted in Octavia’s grip to lean more into her chest, keeping herself pressed against the smooth carapace.

Pride swelled in Octavia’s chest at Mackenzie’s praise, and without another word she began to stride forward, following after B’roka and the two humans as they made their way out of the elevator. Leading off of the roundabout around the express elevator bays, a double-wide street stretched out directly in front of them, washed in the harsh multicolor array of neon lights and pulsing strobes. Shadows blurred together under the harsh lighting, casting a multitude of shifting facsimiles beneath the multitude of people clustered on the sides of the street.

In the distance she could see the entrance to the outer layer of the city where the rain continued to pour, causing the neon to glitter off of the falling rain and create an eerie haze at the entrance of the tunnel. The blaze of a fire could be seen near the edge of the tunnel, the flickering light bleeding into the neon haze and the downpour of rain. The recognizable tail of a Longsword gunship protruded out of a building that was now little more than flaming ruins, the rain doing little to extinguish the blaze.

There were several alari civilians in the street, some standing by the blaze with their scrolls out as they took pictures and videos, while others noticed the approach of the Federation soldiers and immediately bolted through doors or down side passages. Even in the dizzying haze of neon and flashing lights, Octavia could distinctly recognize the forms of alari youth. The neon glinted off of their poreless skin, giving each a multicolored glow to match the neon shades of their hair and eyes. If it weren’t for their pointed ears, Octavia could almost mistake them for uncannily beautiful humans in the dizzying limelight.

On either side of the street ahead of them, several patios and decks had been erected out of the stonework in front of the buildings brandishing neon signs. Every single fenced-off area was packed to the brim with alari youth, dressed in fishnets and leather that left little to the imagination as they drank a variety of multicolored liquids, smoked from designer apparatuses, and otherwise flaunted their hedonism as they hollered in youthful vigor to the shadowy corners of the neon tunnel.

“Why the fuck are there civvies here?” Jace asked firmly as they cleared out of the elevator, making their way up the center of the street with guns leveled.

“Why aren’t the attendants stopping them?” Alex asked, twisting to the side as she watched a small group of young alari disappear down a passage as they held their scrolls up, taking pictures and video of the Federation team as they left.

“And what’s that music?” B’roka added, his grating tone one of curiosity as he led the way through the street towards the crash site.

True to his word, Octavia’s ears twitched as she realized that the background noise had changed. She had done her best to tune out the background noises when they had entered the building, but the noise had only increased in the new city level. The steady sounds of thumping and thrumming echoed through the stonework of the city, loud pitches and repetitive booms thundering so loudly in the streets that Octavia could feel them in her chest. Loud music played from several sources along the street, barely muffled by the thick masonwork facing the street.

“Octy, check this,” Vita remarked as she highlighted several of the neon signs in their vision. They were written in alarian, but the translation software was able to decipher them easily.

“Nightclubs, sir,” Octavia called out, “We’re on an entertainment level.”

“Shit,” Jace snapped, shaking his head, “Couldn’t have picked a worse place to crash.”

“Quiet, Minuteman Kelly. Focus on the task at hand,” B’roka instructed sharply, picking up the pace as he made his way down the street as fast as he could while keeping situational awareness.

“Watch your fire,” Alex added as she watched another cluster of alari teenagers rush past them in the opposite direction, only to disappear into one of the doors which slammed shut behind them, “Kids are out tonight.”

“I thought this place was on lockdown!” Jace complained as they made their way up the center of the street, staying as tightly together as possible as they eyed the clusters of alari on either side of them.

“Fucken Feds!” a woman cried out, followed by an echo of cheers from those who were drinking alongside her.

“Go home, Federation dogs!” a man exclaimed from the opposite side of the road, a resounding echo of laughter following the jeer.

“Alaria for the alari!” a male exclaimed as he slammed the palms of his hands onto the roof of one of the cars parked on the side of the road, the only thing between him and the Federation team being the vehicle itself. The sudden bang caused Octavia to jump slightly and whip her head around towards the source in surprise.

“Fuck the Feds! Taxman, go home!” a woman taunted as she rushed up next to the male and hurled a bottle towards the Federation soldiers as hard as she could. Octavia could easily sidestep the hurled bottle, but Jace wasn’t so lucky as the glass slammed into his shoulder and immediately burst apart into a spray of shrapnel.

“Ah, fuck!” Jace screamed as he instantly recoiled from the attack, raising his arm to protect his face as the glass cut into his shoulder and arm. Sharp pieces of glass stuck out of his muscle as small rivulets of crimson began to rush down his skin, staining the flesh and the white fabric of his shirt.

The street of alari instantly burst into a resounding wave of cheers and taunts as the youth began to clap and scream in jubilation at the assault. Several of the bolder youth began to hop the fences of their patios, making their way to the row of cars serving as the barrier between them and the Federation soldiers in the middle of the street. A new sound was added to the dizzying array of noise as the alari youth began to rhythmically bang on the roofs of the parked cars, creating a hauntingly primitive beat that carried with it the unbound aggression of the youths around them.

“Fucking fanatics!” Jace screamed as he lowered his arm, revealing small cuts on his cheek where bits of glass had impacted. He immediately raised his rifle, pointing it directly at the youth who had thrown the bottle at him.

“Jace!” Alex exclaimed, ducking across the formation in front of Octavia to grab the barrel of the rifle with her metal hand. She pushed the barrel up just in time for a single gunshot to explode outwards, reverberating within the confines of the temple city.

The street was instantly submerged within a chaotic tide of pandemonium as the alari youth began to run this way and that, some making their way back towards the safety of the buildings while even more rushed towards the car barrier to scream even more heatedly at the Federation soldiers. Taunts and jeers came louder and more forceful, some of the youthful screams even coming so loudly through Octavia’s helmet that she swore they were tearing their own vocal cords in protest. Voices shifted and changed as they screamed themselves hoarse and then raw, and then they continued to scream and bang their hands on the cars, their faces contorted into alien expressions of fury and outrage.

“Minuteman Kelly, control yourself!” B’roka snapped sharply over his shoulder.

“Those fucken knife-ears threw a bottle at me!” Jace defended, his gaze shifting from Alex to B’roka and back again as his arm continued to drip blood onto the pavement below.

“And I’m about to throw something else at you if you don’t shut the fuck up!” Alex exclaimed as she thrust his rifle downwards, fixing him with a glare, “They’re just kids!”

“Kids who’d rip us limb from limb and use our blood as lube in service of their fucking goddess,” Jace snapped back, his gaze shifting to the rabid alari youth on either side of them, “They’re fucking animals!”

“Quiet, both of you!” B’roka snapped, “Move it to the end of the street, double time! Don’t stop for anything!” he ordered sharply, pointing towards the edge of the street.

Jace and Alex both gave annoyed groans as they broke apart, but immediately rushed forward at the Lieutenant’s behest, rushing towards the end of the street where the firelight beckoned them. The sound of their boots against the pavement was drowned out by the deafening hollering of the alari on either side of them, the rhythmic banging against the cars blotting out every other sound until their ears could hear nothing but. Even Octavia’s helmet couldn’t filter out the deafening drone, the beat sinking in until she felt it in her very pulse.

Octavia took the opportunity to look over her shoulder, blinking in surprise at the sight. The street had filled out with people; her display lost count at over a hundred people, all with their scrolls out as they filmed and took pictures of the military team. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but some of the party-goers had worked up the nerve to pass the wall of cars and began filling up the street behind them as they continued to jeer and scream until their voices were painful to listen to. They had blocked the way back to the elevators and were watching them as they made their way towards the edge of the city, their fists raised in protest as they steadily marched up the street at a grinding pace.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Vita remarked sarcastically.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Mackenzie asked wearily as she turned her gaze up to Octavia with a concerned and curious expression.

“No idea,” Octavia admitted as she readjusted her grip on Mackenzie. With a burst of power to her legs she began sprinting off towards the crash site, easily keeping up with the group as she paced herself so as not to rush past them. She kept Mackenzie as still as possible in her grip, held tightly to her chest as the flaming building steadily grew larger in their field of view.

The rest of the journey lasted a minute as they passed more and more clusters of alari partigoers, who all either joined the amassing crowd near the city center or who ducked into alleys and buildings upon their approach. Like before no car was driving on the streets, instead left to park on the sides of the road, which served as a useful barrier between the Federation soldiers and the alari civilians.

As they approached the flaming building, the crowd of alari who were taking pictures of the event quickly dispersed, running in all directions and screaming something about running from the cops. Octavia’s translation software couldn’t decipher their yammering fast enough before they were out of ear shot, leaving her with a handful of partial phrases and scattered words.

Coming to a stop in front of the wreckage, they all took a moment to look back at the crowd which had grown exponentially since they had left the elevator, the street entirely impassable as the alari youth clustered together. Their voices added to the droning of the city and the beat of the music permeating the air, creating a deafening orchestra that Octavia had to focus on forcing out of her mind. Her helmet tuned the audio out, leaving the outside world beyond their group an indecipherable white noise.

“Longsword 771, Longsword 771, this is Flight Officer Kelro. We have you in our sights; the building across from the crash site towards the edge of the city,” Alex’s radio suddenly crackled to life, drawing all of their attention towards the mechanic.

Letting her rifle fall in its strap, Alex fished the radio out of her pocket and hastily brought it up to her mouth, “Roger, roger! Keep the door open for us,” she instructed before turning towards the building in question. It was a squat storefront with shuttered windows and the signs off, with no lights on inside to indicate that anyone was within.

“Sure this isn’t a trap?” Jace asked skeptically.

“Attendants shouldn’t have access to Federation secure channels,” B’roka remarked as he began to stride towards the storefront.

“Attendants also shouldn’t have access to anti-air missile launchers,” Jace retorted, making a displeased face as he followed along with his rifle raised.

Octavia rolled her eyes at the commentary and fell into pace behind them, turning her head to look down at Mackenzie with a worried look, “You okay?” she asked quietly.

“Never better,” Mackenzie replied reassuringly as she raised one hand into a thumbs-up, “I’ve got my angel here with me, I’m good to go.”

Octavia smiled at the response and leaned down, pressing her visor to the top of Mackenzie’s head as she made an exaggerated kissing sound. She raised her head up and strode after the group, hunching forwards over Mackenzie slightly to protect her from the rain as best as she could.

As they approached the storefront, the front door opened to reveal the scowling face of an adult alari whose bright purple eyes stood out even in the darkness. She scanned the faces of the team approaching them before they flickered down the street towards the amassed crowd, her expression somehow becoming even more bitter. Without a word she stepped aside, holding the door open for their approach.

B’roka strode inside, followed shortly by the rest of the crew who spread out by the windows to face the outside world with their rifles. Octavia followed them inside, retinal display adjusting to the darkness as her visor enhanced the image. There were two people she didn’t recognize within the building, one of them was the alari who had opened the door for them and the other was a human.

The alari was incredibly tall by alari averages, standing at over six feet tall with a surprising musculature. Her piercing purple eyes were visible even without the assistance of her visor’s enhanced imaging, but Octavia wouldn’t have been able to recognize the pixie-cut mop of hair on her head as purple without it. She wore the same dark blue Federation jumpsuit as Mackenzie, though hers was distinctly lacking any bloodstains or bullet holes.

The human, on the other hand, was shorter than everyone but Octavia and yet still somehow she felt as though the mystery woman held complete and utter command over the entire room. She wore a pressed black uniform that Octavia didn’t recognize, complete with an officer’s cap that covered short curly black hair and cast a shadow over dark purple eyes, bordering on grey. Her hands were covered by black leather gloves, and an incredibly exotic pistol hung from a holster at her hip.

“Flight Officer Kelro?” B’roka asked, his head turning towards the alari in the pilot’s jumpsuit.

“Good guess,” she replied sharply, “Merith Kelro, pilot of Longsword 1013. Ex-pilot now,” she added bitterly.

“And who are you?” Octavia added, nodding towards the mysterious human in black.

“Agent Remiel,” she snapped in a voice that projected nothing less than total authority, the tone causing the hairs to stand up at the back of Octavia’s neck, “Federation Intelligence Agency.”