It seemed like they wouldn’t. Like a swarm of locusts, the Airborne warriors disattached from the fortress, floating down to the ground. A giant pit formed as one Airborne after another slapped a talisman into the ground. The dirt shields formed by the talismans were wrenched out of the ground, and the Airborne battalion flew back into the air, their dirt dome protecting them from any possible strikes.

A skinny man with a potbelly stood up, above the branch walls. He started cackling at the Airborne.

“Hah, you little fools!” Selim guffawed. “From the very beginning, I-”

An arm circled grabbed his robe and pulled him back down. Seeing this, Solera wanted to laugh. Then, the images of the three dead controllers, and Merlot’s glasses swam back into his head.

His blood boiled, and his eyes grew dim with anger. These Airborne had come out of nowhere to rain down hell upon them! Qiao had been mercilessly shot, Cassady had been speared in one strike along with Ada, Pinot had been stabbed!

Solera’s expression further darkened when he thought of Pinot. How could she backstab him like that? How could Chip desert them? Solera thought of Chip’s cold, indifferent attitude, and cursed out loud. A part of him hoped Chip had died.

Not only Chip. Every single Airborne here had to die. Solera stared at the pyramid of chasers, then at the scattered remains of the Airborne controllers on the far side of the fortress. Now that he had seen the deaths of so many kids he had known, the deaths of Airborne no longer seemed so horrible to him.

Actually, Solera felt a cold sense of satisfaction when he looked at the pyramid of chasers. If every single Airborne here died as miserably as those controllers did, wouldn’t that only be justice?

Captain Peng stood up from the cover of the branch. Blood covered his face, but it didn’t seem to be his.

“You United Duchies trash had better flee before reinforcements come!” He shouted, a tinge of fury in his voice. “How many war crimes have you committed in the last hour? If each of you were burned alive, that would be considered a merciful death!”

Selim popped up, a red palm print on his cheek. “That’s right! My mosq-”

Captain Peng’s slap sent Selim out of view again. “A hundred and twenty four children, not a single one alive! The United Duchies and Eden has never warred since the founding of our two nations. We have done nothing to incite an attack of this magnitude and viciousness. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

There was no response from the aerial dome. Cursing, Peng began walking towards a nearby cannon, but a torrent of lightning instantly destroyed it.

Solera ground his teeth. He had been looking forward to seeing a cannon blasting into the dome, but clearly it was just wishful thinking.

Guinness tapped his shoulder. Solera turned around to look at Guinness, his face softening. Of all the people he had known here at the fortress, Guinness was the only one who had stuck with him. Had Guinness not fought to the end with him, Solera would definitely have died.

Guinness was a simple person, far better than Pinot and Chip.

Another finger tapped Solera’s shoulder. Clearing his mind, Solera turned his eyes to look in the direction Guinness was pointing. Solera’s face instantly drained of color.

From the east, yet another black cloud had appeared!

Solera frantically looked around for an avenue of escape. Eden was westwards, but to flee that way meant crossing the clearing! If they tried that, they would surely be seen by the Airborne looking through the cracks in their dome.

Solera eyed the approaching cloud again. The United Duchies border was thirty kilometers to the east. Between Fortress Hickory and there lay nothing but forest, and the military camp Chianti had gone to. Solera racked his brains in thought.

Could it be that the entire military camp had been destroyed? Up until now, Solera had only seen one plume of smoke rising in the distance, from before the Airborne had arrived. If the camp had been overrun, Fortress Hickory would have known of it easily; thirty kilometers was far, but not so far for an eyeball. But why did it take so long for Fortress Hickory to raise the alarm? The sky was sunny; they should’ve seen the Airborne coming from a hundred kilometers away!

Solera didn’t know the answer to these questions. But, like Chip had said, it was a gamble. The Airborne were, as their name implied, an aerial unit. Solera guessed that they had somehow gotten past the border guards without attracting too much attention. What this meant was, there were no enemy ground troops!

Solera’s lips formed into a hard, determined line. Chip was a jilting piece of shit, but he was right back when he had convinced Solera to run.

Solera could not put his life in the hands of others! He had to take it into his own hands!

Casting two hateful looks to the hovering dome and the oncoming cloud, Solera led Guinness to quietly run from building to building. At the very last building, a dilapidated shack that served as a storage room, Solera and Guinness stopped to hide. The faint rustling of wings sounded from above their heads as the Airborne passed.

After a few minutes, Solera cracked the door open. He could see the outline of a winged man hovering in front of the dome, a thousand Airborne at his back. He seemed to be speaking with Peng, or some other soldier from Eden.

Without any hesitation, Solera swung the door open. He and Guinness broke out in a mad dash for the treeline a hundred meters away. Nobody was paying any attention to them, and a hundred meters was not a particularly lengthy distance, but each step felt like it took an eternity.

After thirteen excruciating seconds, Solera slid under a bush. Four seconds later, Guinness joined him, his face red and his breathing uneven. Solera breathed a sigh of relief as he confirmed that nobody had seen them. Immediately, Solera dragged Guinness up and they began jogging further east. After perhaps a kilometer, they would start looping around back west, and just keep running.

A faint whistling sound behind Solera turned into a distant howling sound. Turning around, he could see something shocking.

A massive tornado had appeared in the air above Fortress Hickory. As he watched two more tornado funnels grew out of the first, slowly reaching for the fortress like tentacles.

Solera grimly turned around and continued running. This battle was just too out of his league. He had no intention of throwing his life away here!

Memories floated through his mind as he fled.

Qiao, who never spoke and obediently followed. He had followed Chip and Solera to his death.

Cesar, who “liked his mom.” His mother had lost a son.

Merlot, extolling the Halo that looked down indifferently from above. The Halo had not saved him.

Even Pinot, waving to him cheerily as she drew water from a well. Whatever she had done, wasn’t she, in the end, just a little child like Solera?

Tears trickled down Solera’s cheeks, and he made a vow to himself. One day, he would take revenge for everyone who could no longer do it for themselves!

With this rewrite, I want to make Solera's character consistent and 3D. Last time, he instantly started groping Chianti's breasts with his face after escaping from the most traumatic experience of his life. Rereading that, I realized how that made absolutely no sense.

Hopefully, this time it'll be different :3