Aidan fought through the mists within his mind. But even as his internal self struggled against unseen chains, his body continued to fight. It was as if his mind was split in twain, with the true him only able to watch the false self pilot his body. He could see and feel everything, but his questioning thoughts were always pushed aside and overridden. Two Aidans were within his body, and the true self could only scream in defiance.

Plasma orbs circled around his body before careening towards the creatures. Revenants, if he identified them correctly. Monsters sourced from the Abyss, inhabiting corpses. He wasn’t sure if the corpses were real or simply materialised from the Chaos, and in most cases, it didn’t really matter. The Revenants, once their cores were destroyed, turned to dust.

Of the other four scouts, two were already injured. Their wounds had already begun to fester despite using healing talismans, and Recovery. Aidan would have sterilized the wounds with plasma, but he didn’t have the luxury to divert his focus. The Revenants were swarming them, and with their backs against a high wall, it was all they could do to survive.

The fuzz in his mind precluded him from escaping, as otherwise, the slow-moving creatures wouldn’t have been that difficult to run away from. The inner Aidan screamed in rage and terror, but the outer part of him coolly conjured more plasma and controlled it to melt through the rusty breastplates and destroy the cores.

He absently noted another group of humans, though from the looks of it, he wasn’t sure if they were allies or not. However, when one of them, a large man about as tall as he was, but with broader shoulders, used an Animus-laden spear to stab a Revenant right through its breastplate, he concluded that they were allies. Well, it wasn’t as if the Revenants would ignore other prey, so he coordinated his team’s efforts with the other group.

For the next several minutes, time passed in a blur of motion, plasma explosions, furious melee battles, and desperate defences. Aidan’s reserves steadily dropped, but his Animatech gauntlets allowed him to push farther than he could before. He kept several plasma orbs ready, using most to defend his teammates and aid the other group when he could.

There were more of them than he expected though, but that wasn’t much of an advantage, not when the Revenant numbers seemed endless. A bigger group only presented a bigger target and wouldn’t be as agile as a tightly-knit team.

He could spare some attention to watch, and what he saw impressed him. If he wasn’t mistaken, the other group was an eclectic mix of unawakened and awakened. What were they doing underground though?

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see even more Revenants coming towards them. As he feared, the greater number of people drew them. If nothing changed, they would be overrun.

“Hey!” He yelled to the man who’d led the charge earlier, “We have to move!”

“I know!” The other said, answering Aidan in fluid Verdanian, which meant the group was Imperial. “There’s more of these things everywhere! Where to go?!”

Aidan grimaced. He wanted to head out of the large cavern and into the smaller, and more defensible tunnels, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind did he feel it slip away. He clung to it desperately and worked his tongue to speak, “We… have to leave… this place!”

“Yeah, that’s obvious! But we can’t. Not just yet. We’re looking…!” the man stopped as one of the Revenants tackled him. A solidified hexagon of transparent force materialised next to his arm and slammed into the creature, diverting its path sideways, right into the spearpoint. Clad in intense blue light, the weapon penetrated into the Revenant’s core and it collapsed. “We’re looking for someone and she’s in this city.”

Aidan grunted as he felt his mind shift gears, “Then we need to go to a more defensible area! Back down this street is a cul-de-sac. We can make a better stand there.”

“Will it fit a hundred?”

“Barely.”

“Then let’s go! Sheamus, lead the way. Miss Saki, please check ahead!”

Another man, this one with a beard, pushed towards the road. Aidan frowned as no one seemed to respond to the second name the man called out, but he put that aside and jerked his head at the other four scouts, “Let’s go!” He yelled even as he melted three Revenants in the process. His small group merged with the bigger one, and all of them pushed towards the cul-de-sac.

Once he had some breathing room, he relaxed just enough to loosen his tightened muscles but jumped when someone behind him spoke.

“You look familiar,” the woman said.

Blonde, with corkscrew curls. Freckles across her nose and deep blue eyes. She looked unarmed, but then, she gestured towards a Revenant, and three crystalline shards formed at her fingertips and slammed into the creature. They shattered on its breastplate, but then, a strange thing happened. Frost coated the metal, but through the gaps, he saw bright yellow and orange light, and then, orange flames burst out of the gaps of its armour before the frost melted away. The Revenant collapsed. Not destroyed, as evidenced by how it still struggled to move, but it looked like its joints and whatever animated it from within had been damaged. Certainly easy pickings for the others of her team.

The woman returned her attention to him and introduced herself, “Gwendith Sharine. From Rumiga City.”

“Well met. Aidan Siofra Davar. A pleasure to meet your acquaintance despite these trying circumstances,” he answered as smoothly as he could.

Gwendith’s eyes widened and she said, “Davar? Do you know the Faron’s Crossing’s Davars?”

Aidan nodded. “We’re all one family, although we wander across many of the Empire’s planes.” Aidan grinned. He conjured up a ball of plasma and exploded it against a pair of Revenants. The superheated plasma clung to their breastplate and melted through after a couple of seconds, then the remaining heat melted their cores. “We’re a bit wider spread so we might not know everyone, but all Davars are related.” He tilted his head, cousin Yuriko was from this plane, but he didn’t remember which town she was from. He wasn’t sure if there was more than one Davar family here. “Do you mean Virgil Davar?”

Gwendith grinned. “Ah, related then. Yuriko Davar is the one I know…intimately.”

“Ah! What a coincidence!” Aidan exclaimed. “Cousin Yuriko, huh? We helped her get to Realmheart, and well, get back here, too.”

Gwendith nodded happily. “So you’re cousins? Hie hie, you certainly look like senior Kato.”

Aidan shrugged. “I haven’t met him yet.”

Despite the idle chatting, Aidan’s focus never left the incoming Revenants, but he started with what Gwendith said next. “She’s here, you know? Yuriko. She’s our leader, and we got separated when some of our number got captured by Femorants. These things…” she glared at the Revenants, “We encountered them outside Uaran City. Why are they here now?”

“Revenants? In a surface city? I don’t recall a Uaran City in Imperial Rumiga.”

“Ah, that’s one of the city-states of the Federation. They’re behind this war,” Gwendith said sourly.

“Oh. These things…” Aidan frowned as he tried to recall more about the Revenants, but soon realised that he should ask Aunt Layla instead. The only thing he remembered was that Revenants were no natural creatures, but they weren’t Chaos dwellers either. In fact, there was always a higher power behind it, and whatever that was, should be in the same plane. In other words, it was a hostile act. “Something else is dipping their toes in this muddy river.” He muttered. “Yuriko’s here? I can’t say I’m surprised. Cousin Yuri always seems to be in the centre of a mess every time we meet.” He concluded with a shudder.

“Ah, really?” Gwendith giggled, though she sent another trio of crystalline shards at another Revenant and knocked it down. Another warrior finished it off. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

Aidan just nodded but most of his attention was fixed on the Revenants. The other part of him, the one that was screaming against the mental influence…

Actually…that part was gone. His mind was no longer clouded…

He stopped cold and one of the unawakened bounced off his back.

“Ow!”

“Ah, sorry!” Aidan muttered.

“What’s wrong?” Gwendith asked.

“It’s gone.”

“What is?”

“The thing forcing us to stay here.” Aidan said quickly, “Hurry, we have to turn around and get out of this place!”

“Eh, but?” Gwendith gasped, “Wait, Heron!”

The big man with the spear, Heron, Aidan supposed, turned from the front and looked questioningly at Gwendith. Now that he had a better look, wasn’t Heron young? The little bit of hair around his lip and chin looked like a young man’s first attempt at a beard. His size and physique fooled Aidan’s senses. Were these people Yuriko’s peers?

“What is it?” Heron asked, “A bit busy here.” He stabbed at a Revenant, then swept another out of the way. Sheamus and another warrior finished off the fallen fiends.

“Yuri’s cousin here says we should leave the city instead.”

“Yuri’s cousin?” Heron couldn’t help but look back, and Aidan shouted a warning as the Revenant in front swung its chopping blade.

The weapon bounced off the transparent force shield and smacked Heron’s shoulder, but instead of cutting into his flesh, the metal simply bounced off. Wasn’t that thin blue light similar to Yuriko’s weird defences?

“Swarm fodder!” Heron flinched from the blow, but his counterstroke still knocked away the enemy.

“Something’s controlling our minds in the city centre, forcing us to stay.” Aidan said desperately, “We have to go before your people succumb!”

“Ah! Alright!” Gwendith agreed. “Where’s Saki?”

“Here.”

Another voice came out of thin air and it was all Aidan could do not to jump a pace up into the air. The woman materialised out of the shadows and the expression on her face was grim.

“I saw the young mistress. She is here, and she’s fighting more of this filth. There.” She pointed straight at the city centre, exactly where Aidan knew the influence came from. The bigger question for him was how he managed to throw it off.

“Yuri wouldn’t want the others exposed to such a battle,” Gwendith said firmly and Saki nodded. “Let’s retreat to safety while a few of us go to aid her.”

“Of course. I’ll go help Yuri!” Heron said immediately.

“I will, too,” Gwendith said. “Miss Saki?”

The tawny-haired woman with yellow eyes nodded. “Sheamus, too, and you, Mister Davar.”

“I…” Aidan hesitated and couldn’t help but shudder. He was a Knight, and from what he could tell of their Animus expression, neither Gwendith nor Heron were at the same level. Yet they decided to go into danger to help Yuriko. Why was he hesitating? Fear? Of being controlled again? But what broke him out of that control in the first place?

Like a bolt of lightning in his mind, he was enlightened. The Mishala Mien. It must be Yuriko’s effect, right? He knew that the Mien affected people’s minds, but was it able to preclude other influences, too? She was nearby, though he hadn’t seen her yet. But they were blood-related and connected. But why did it take having to know she was here for the Mien to defend him? Unless he was imagining the causation and it was something else?

Almost as if on cue, the central area, which had been a veritable mountain of stones and rubble, suddenly vanished. In its place was a huge beast that he immediately equated to an Avos. No other creature could grow to that size and give out that kind of presence. Even worse, he could see that something was fighting it, and it was losing.

“Go!” Aidan yelled to Farah Demane, one of the scouts. “Lead them out of here.”

Aidan took a deep breath. He was no coward and honour prompted him to come to his family’s aid. Besides, Riley and Aunt Layla were probably still in that mess.

However, he still hesitated. And nothing burned more than guilt and shame.