The fireball flew true, but my shield easily intercepted it. With it out of the way, a flowed out of my hand. The liquified earth caught three of my five opponents, causing them to sink two feet into the ground as they struggled to resurface. I used three minutely powered aimed at their chests to mark them as 'out' without feeding the Skill enough mana to actually injure them.

A tingle on the back of my neck pushed me to fall into a roll to my left. An elf girl passed by the space I'd occupied like a buzzsaw, pinwheeling with blades of condensed air along her arms. Without waiting for permission, I planted my shield on the ground and used it as support to kick her in the chest. Now spinning out of her control, she slumped to the ground. The steady ripples coming from her downed body told me she wasn't preparing anything, so I turned back to the last remaining fighter.

He'd been keeping his distance, hoping to get an opening, but vibro gave me the advantage in melee range. Seeing that it wasn't going to present itself, Igor gave me a savage grin. The one armed orc rushed me down.

", !" I released two half powered Skills in the path of the orc, but the man displayed the main reason he was still allowed on the squads even missing an arm. Gouts of flame like thrusters sprouted from his shoulders to redirect around the attacks. The third spike I raised right as he dodged, he merely crashed through. A haze of smoke trailed him as he shook off the bits of rock and his eyes locked on mine.

A tiny wave of vertigo threatened to overcome me as I pivoted to put my shield between us. I squashed it. The force of vibro settled down around me and my focus pinned sight as the dominant sense. It was the trick I'd been working on over the last week in order to shortcut around my sixth sense’s sensitivities. Each motion still registered within my bubble of clarity, but it was hardly obtrusive when it let me see the direction forces were being transmitted. And right now, they are being transmitted by that punch to my face.

Since I'd never done it, and I wanted to test just how much improving my Strength had affected my sturdiness, I cast an empowered . The stone bloomed up from my pores to cover everything from my torso up except for my nostrils and eyeballs. Bracing my feet in a wide stance and flexing my back, I took the punch right on the forehead. The there fractured, but held.

The first thing I noticed was that it was the strongest physical hit I'd received since vibro came into my life. The second was that if I hadn't been suppressing vibro, I would have been thoroughly scrambled by the force of the impact dispersing through my body. The third was that when I braced properly to take a blow with my whole body, at least with the strength of a weakened Igor, I barely felt it.

The orc grunted as his fist came back bloody, at least two of his fingers bent the wrong way. Before he was able to use his thruster Skill to get back out range, I cracked my arm's shell and delivered a gut punch that doubled him over. As he was folding, I shoved my tower shield in his face and knocked him back to the ground. The heat from Force Dispersal barely tickled the fire attuned man, but the impact still carried a fair bit of weight with it, not to mention the rock-encased force of my punch to the abdomen.

"Halt!" Sarah called. A grave Ava and Samuel stood beside her. Even from their spot across the training area I could see Ava start to discuss something with Sarah and Samuel begin to manipulate his vines. Small bushes bloomed beside Igor and the air blade elf I'd kicked, dousing them in healing energy. Three smaller vines helped the trainees trapped in my by breaking up the soil around their legs.

I offered Igor my hand as soon as the had finished its work. "Good work."

The one-armed man huffed. "You were fighting us with one arm tied behind your back the whole time. "

Wow, an arm joke? Talk about dark humor. "It's not entirely true. I tapped out my mana pool fighting you guys. If I hadn't been able to trap all three of the others right at the beginning I would have been down to melee only."

"A melee where dealing damage to you is just as hard as at range. I will say, it felt good to go all out and not be worried about dying. Godfrey, Rommel and Sarah are often too busy for me to spar with them," Igor said, shrugging. "Not many people can take a punch from me anymore."

"Tell me about it," I said, brushing the crumbling rock off my hair.

"Show off," he said, huffing a small gout of flame through his nostrils.

"I wouldn't have gotten a chance to show off if not for you," I said, remembering what I'd hoped to do now months ago. "I've meant to thank you for that."

"Breaking your ribs? No problem. I don't think I'll get many more chances to do that anymore," Igor said, shooting me a tusk wide smile. "Don't mention it. If you hadn't gotten the other kids, we would have both been missing more than just a limb between us."

"Yeah, I'm sor--"

"Nope. None of that pity, crap. I got enough of that from my mom and my sister. Just make sure you are available so I can sock you in the jaw a few times during my next training slot and we'll call it even. Deal?" Igor reached out with his hand and we shook. The two of us shot the breeze for a few minutes as the trainees hobbled over to us.

We ran through the scenario verbally, commenting on what they could have done to change the tide of the fight. The lizardman and the dwarf in the group were particularly interested in learning how I was able to control my Skill so well, since they had similar Gifts. Igor praised the young elf for her initiative to get in there, and asked her to stop by his Wild Fist squad house for more hand-to-hand pointers. Hilda, the boisterous dwarf with the chipped tooth, was going to be off Lake Weir shift for the next week and she could spend some time with the youth. She practically squealed and the three trainees discussed how else they might use their Gifts in hushed voices.

When the Councilwoman of New Earth finally joined us, her expression was still grave. That has nothing to do with my combat readiness assessment. "What's up, Sarah?"

"Tec just got word that the Appendage attacked Wec," she said, her face set into an even deeper scowl than usual.

My whole body tensed as the image of the giant crow attacking Lake Weir ran through my mind. "Casualties?"

She shook her head. "None. Thankfully sending Arnold and that Stoneshaper to Lake Weir was the right call. The two of them improved on your shelter design to reinforce the buildings in the town against the bile bomb runs. Unfortunately, the town's food was completely smothered by that strange death aura. The healers have been running ragged dealing with the weird infections the creature left behind, but the next few days are going to be a close thing."

"What can we do?" I asked, stepping closer.

"Get ready," Ava said as she walked around Sarah's imposing orcish form. "Because you are cleared to fight."

A flame that had been lying dormant in my chest ignited. I wasn't sure if it was the fact that this was my third combat readiness assessment, or if it was the sudden jump in attacks by the Dreg, but I wasn't going to fight her on the decision. After almost two weeks of near constant nausea, I'd finally had my efforts recognized. Vibro wasn't completely under my control, but with people risking their lives on the frontline against the Dreg I wasn't going to wait to join until I was in optimal condition. At the very least, I could be the human meat shield.

---+---

The rest of the morning went by in a blur. The months of strife since first throwing off the chains of the Dreg had turned the people of Wildwood into well oiled machines of action. Samuel, Marie and two others who'd awakened Gifts worked to create and reinforce the handful of carts the Wild Guard had been using. Each was loaded up with food from the stores in town, Dylan and William relenting on their winter stock. They'd been hesitant to send so much, but Sarah went into the Council room then came back out ten minutes later with the approval. No one had seen the two older gentlemen since, but they were sure they were going to show up eventually...

Meanwhile, the rest of the town plugged away. Healers redoubled on the fields while the demons of the town worked the compost piles using a variety of decay, rot and caustic Gifts. After a field was cleared, Clara was actually called in to cast her Fire Augmented caustic cloud to clear away weeds and vegetation to nurture the next round of plants the Life Attuned were going to coax into bloom.

I watched the whole procession with a stunned expression. There wasn't even space in the Crafting Hall for me to attempt to contribute with last minute touches to a pair of Pendulum Force Cannons, or to a new round of shields that had Death instead of Fire Infusions at the base. The whole process was an exercise in anxiety personally, as I found myself as a courier for the stuff being loaded in the cart. Sarah took stock of all the Guards present, making sure that at least four remained to defend the town in addition to the Big Guns. Once those were selected, she had the rest of the squads line up on the bridge over Lake Sumter.

Occasionally I would catch glimpses of a shaggy mop of blonde hair on a lanky frame, but Sam was often gone as soon as I spotted him. He was simply in too much demand. Daniela actually arrived while the town was in a frenzy, bearing the same message in case the Entities had failed to communicate somehow. Her custom armor had burn patches and her curls were shorter than I remembered them, but her expression was as fierce as I'd ever seen her. My staring obviously alerted her and she almost seemed to jump when she saw me sitting almost casually on a log by the bridge. Blobby, being the slime that it was, waved an appendage in greeting. All I could do was hold my head in my hands.

Unfortunately, Daniela didn't approach me but at least she gave me a stiff nod of acknowledgement. It was something, and more than I could ask. Nevertheless, I stood and watched as lunch was passed out for all the Wild Guard assembled. A young boy, one I recognized as one of the most recent to awaken his Gift, placed the bowl of salad in my hands before skedaddling on a trail of fire. Nervous to go, but not wanting to be in the way or rushing, I ate my salad in relative peace. There was something about it that was spicy, but not in a burn-your-mouth kind of way. It sort of set you tingling, and I could see it wasn't just me as the squads shifted more in their spots.

"I'll make it brief!" Councilman Dylan spoke over the crowd. There he is! "Things are not going to look great when you get there. Most of you have been to Lake Weir since the first excursion. This is going to be worse. Your goal is to provide relief and to come home safe. The town of Wildwood cannot stand without its people, but neither can we stand by and let others suffer."

His flame hair rose higher with each word, a beacon that focused all of the Guard. Instead of closing out his speech, he stepped back and let Sarah take the fore. "For the future!"

"We Guard!" the squads responded, a cacophony of sound that shook the ground and lit the entire bridge with vibro. The stomps of feet that trailed were hard to follow as the Wild Guard marched towards the north. It wasn't a military grade procession, but everyone in the squads moved with practiced ease and remained clustered with their peers. Clara, Rommel and Godfrey took up the lead as they headed across the bridge. Lilly rode on top of one of the ox-pulled carts in the middle of the squad groups.

I hopped to my feet only to run into Sarah. With the thrum of footsteps, I hadn't even bothered to actually use my eyes to spot her as she came. Her ripples had been hidden, and I'd had my eyes closed to prevent vibro from leaving me a nauseous mess on the ground. "Oh, Sarah. Sorry, I didn't have Sam and Danny with me otherwise I would have lined up the Bunker Busters with the others."

She immediately waved it off, instead pulling a small wooden box from a satchel at her side. "Daniela is on her way already and Sam is going to meet you at the car-wall. I just wanted to make sure you got this before you left."

Inside the wooden box was one of the emblems I'd seen on the squad leaders. It mirrored the one on Sarah's own armor, except for one key difference: it was almost perfect. The edges of the metal still looked slightly uneven and there was a hint of rust in the emblems, but it was a league above what everyone else in the Wild Guard wore. The circle's six smaller emblems were stamped clearly: A sun, a flame, a stone, a moon, a raindrop and a swirl of wind. Sitting in the middle of that was the shield with one final addition.

"A... house?" I asked aloud as I held the handcrafted brooch up.

"No, rock brain," Sarah said, channeling her inner Daniela. "A bunker."

A smile quirked my face and for some reason, dust chose that moment to assault my eyes. Nevertheless, I met Sarah's eyes and nodded. "Never had jewelry before."

"Don't get used to it. Something has to remind people that you actually can differentiate your head from your rear," Sarah said, huffing and crossing her arms. Her voice lowered, and the light amusement was gone with the wind. "You bring them back, Ronan. Bring them back like you brought us back."

A tingle ran down my spine as I remembered our first encounter with the Big Guns. The clench of my mana tensed my whole body, so all I was able to manage was a nod and a vicious smile. Sarah let me and Blobby pull up the rear of the procession. Even from all the way across the bridge, where Sarah and the other members of Wildwood were no bigger than my thumb, I could feel the weight of responsibility settle across my shoulders. Their stares burned a hole through my back, seeking out their loved ones.

"Hmmm. Heavy is the head indeed," I said, recalling one particularly animated session of literature at the hands of Elias himself.