I stared at the device Okeria had given me from atop my hydra’s raised head as destruction rained down around me. My slashes took out the mortars before they could crush any of the people on my hydra’s back, or the small group that took up the rear. We hadn’t run into anything horrendously difficult in the fifteen minutes we’d been moving, but that itself was worrying.

{Okeria, you there?} I tried.

Fuzzy silence was my response. Not even a click to let me know he was still alive, or the sounds of a battle that I didn’t know the full intensity of. The source of the rumbling hadn’t shown itself while we were running, so it had to be fighting Okeria. Only five minutes to go. And I had no idea what I was going to do if he didn’t come back.

“S-sir. Sir!”

That voice was more than a little distressed, but not terrified. I snapped Okeria’s device to my leg and turned to Cyntherin, who was doing her best to keep up with my hydra. The other three weren’t doing quite as well–one of them looked like they were about to fall over, and the other two had steps heavier than lead.

“Get them on the hydra.” I commanded. “We can’t afford to slow down until we know we’re safe.”

Cyntherin snapped off a salute and hurried the other three onto my hydra’s back. I didn’t move from my perch, since I was already occupied with keeping an elongated hydra stable and all the attacks from people I couldn’t even scan with my helmet’s ability. Somehow, knowing that Scalovera had been arming the city for an attack was a reassuring thought. It meant he wasn’t a complete idiot, but that he also didn’t have enough pure power to absolutely crush us.

“Thank you, sir.” Cyntherin huffed as she pulled a gasping man onto the hydra. One who had instantly dropped his armor when he felt he didn’t need it any more. “Just keeping up with this beast was much more strenuous than I expected.”

Well, that’s what you get when you completely neglect your armor. Is what I wanted to say, but I just nodded and summoned four vials of healing water from my inventory. “Each of you gets one of these. Take them, then keep your armor on until we’re completely safe. I’m not letting any of you die to completely preventable causes.”

I tossed the bundle of vials to Cyntherin, who caught it as easily as I would’ve. She tilted her head and tapped a section of empty space, then recoiled at what I assumed was the water’s description.

“Sir…” She started.

I waved my hand to dismiss her concern. “They won’t hurt you, and I’ve got more where that came from. I need you in your best shape just in case Scalovera still has something to throw at us.”

Cyntheria still seemed unsure, but she handed out the vials anyway. Probably something to do with the fact that she was drinking her history, and all the memories of the people who came before her. Hell, I might’ve been reluctant too if I didn’t have Mortician as a living example.

My hydra sent a notification through my system, and I threw a slash at it. The strange mortar of metal and flame burst apart like a firework, rained down over the hydra’s back like gunfire, and the large chunks crashed to the ground a few feet away from the closest Staura. There were more than a few screams of pain, but that was why their armor was there.

Except for that one guy. Shit.

“Cyntheria, did everyone get their armor on?”

Silence. I clenched my teeth in frustration and spun around to a grisly scene–two men and one woman littered with holes and struggling for breath. The only positive was that the man who’d instantly taken off his armor wasn’t among the injured, and was now cradling himself as his armor worked to repair a few small dings on his helmet and shoulders.

“Fucking… put on your armor!” I barked and jumped down to stand next to Cyntheria, who was cradling the head of the one woman who’d been hit. I shoved her to the side and summoned another vial of water that I poured down the injured woman’s throat. “Put your goddamn armor on and don’t take it off until we aren’t under the looming threat of INSTANT DEATH.”

“But I…” She began to argue weakly, then summoned a boot to her right hand.

I stared blankly at the person who I was now certain never learned how to use their armor. The ones Cyntheria had chosen summoned their armor to their bodies without the need for an intermediary, but this? This was someone who never even experimented with what they could do.

Cyntheria glared at me through her helmet. She was one of the first people I’d met with a transparent visor, which was very convenient for not having to guess at her facial expressions.

“She’s a civilian, Sir.” She explained, as if that somehow excused utter uselessness with the system.

“Yes, and she’s terrible at using her system.” I said flatly. The other two weren’t doing much of a better job of it, but they’d taken less damage than the woman had. “You two, stop wasting your time. Listen up and follow along.”

The two men shared a look and reluctantly made the motions of opening their interface. I took that as a sign of understanding, even if it wasn’t.

“Go into your interface and find the screen where it shows what you have equipped. It’ll be the one with a full-body diagram of a simplified version of you.” I started, then looked down at the woman at my feet. “You too. Every second you have to put on your armor is one more second people have a chance to catch you off guard.”

I waited a grand total of fifteen seconds, then continued. “Once you’re there, you should see lines going from empty rectangles to places on your body. Those are your saved armor slots. When you mentally call for your armor as a whole, the system will take everything in there and instantly summon it to your body for a small battery cost. I don’t know how you don’t know this, but now you do. So do it.”

A murmur of discovery spread through the group as more people found out this basic-ass function of their interface. I sighed and shook my head as more shrapnel rained from the sky, but this time I shifted my weapon into a shield and completely sheltered all the Staura with my petal-scales. Impacts threatened to break their way through, but my oil absorbed enough of the energy to keep us safe.

Cyntherin stared up at the cover of petal-scales with wide eyes, as if she hadn’t just seen Okeria do the insanely destructive shit he’d done. Or.. maybe she hadn’t, actually. I had tried to get them to safety without them getting caught in the crossfire, and apparently I’d done a damn good job of it.

“I only have enough battery to hold this for fifteen minutes, and that might not be enough to get us to where we’re going. So I need everyone to keep their armor on at all times, and if you have any functions that can heal or protect people, use them.” I said and made my way back to my hydra-head perch.

The petal-scales parted around me like a blue-white curtain, and the murmurs of the Staura inside were cut off right after they’d started. I sighed and patted my hydra on the top of its head as I settled down–if I didn’t remind myself that these Staura were civilians, I’d end up disproportionately frustrated with them.

“And not just civilians–civilians who’re told it’s bad to wear your armor for some reason.” I muttered to myself. “There’s a piece of history I’m still missing here between the war and when Nia got sent to Walkalong. Maybe when this is over I’ll take a few days and really go through everything in her inheritance.”

Electricity crackled from the device on my leg. I breathed a sigh of relief and tossed it over to my hydra’s second head, then glanced away as Okeria teleported in a blinding blast of light.

“Well, that could’ve gone better.” He laughed heartily. His armor didn’t look like it had been hurt in the slightest, though. “Hey Sebastian, do ya remember when I died back when we fought the loneswarm? And ya let my functions do their thing?”

I stared blankly at Okeria for a moment before I shook my head and laughed. “You fucking died? Jesus christ, Okeria, who’d they send after you?”

“The entire cavalry, if ya can believe it.” Okeria leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. “The other three Dylan told ya about decided ta pay me a visit, and they didn’t have the decency ta call ahead. Took all I could muster just ta stay alive, since I ain’t built for one-on-many combat, and I couldn’t even take one of ‘em down with me.”

He opened his interface, pulled out a vial of the facility’s waters, and downed it in the blink of an eye. A shudder passed through his body, and then I heard it. Heard it, felt it, and lived it with every fibre of my being.

At first, it felt like standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. A sort of charged anticipation, where the worry of crashing lightning was nothing but a passing thought. But then the sensations grew. Every fiber of my being told me that I needed to move–to get as far away as possible. Panic rose from the center of my stomach and bubbled up into my throat. My hydra sped up so much that I felt Staura crash into the wall of petal-scales I’d sealed them with.

It fell from the cloudless sky. A single silver cylinder so perfectly visible as it crackled with divine potential. Scalovera’s mansion existed one moment. A massive column of lightning existed the next. Raw destructive force blared forth from the object in less than the blink of an eye, and the world was ripped asunder with sound and fury.

Then it was gone. The lightning and the mansion. All I could do was stare in slack-jawed awe at the absolute desolation that Okeria had wrought, and think of all the lives he’d just mercilessly ended. If anyone could survive that, it would be the important ones. But all the hired mercs, and the house staff, and anyone who’d just happened to be anywhere near the mansion at the time…

I gulped. “Okeria.”

“I know, Sebastian. It got worse. So, so much worse.” He said quietly, and with none of the joy or sarcasm I’d come to know him for. “For what it's worth, I didn’t kill any civvies. Ya got all the non-infected ones out somehow, which probably means one or more of ‘em is workin’ for Scalovera still. Everyone else, though… let’s just say this is the point we can’t turn back from.”

He twisted to look at me, and his body language finally spoke of a man who’d just started a violent revolution. “Thraiv just told me we’ve got three days. One way or another, this place is gonna be safe for my kids. Now, the question is if we’re gonna have ta scour it ta the ground ta get that done.”